UC-NRLF 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
 
I SBnrhq* 
 
THE DRACHENFELS 
 
 on ike RHINE, :ie s-u. 
 
A BUCKEYE ABROAD; 
 
 OR, 
 
 fflanimnga in Cttrnpt, anfo in tji* 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL S. COX. 
 
 " The Utopians imagine that HK, as all inventors of curious engines, has exposed to our 
 view, this great machine of the Universe, we being the only creatures capable of con 
 templating it" Sir TJionias More s Utopia. 
 
 NEW-YOKK: 
 P. PUTNAM, 155 BEOADWAY, 
 
 MD.CCC.LII. 
 
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, 
 
 BY GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New- York. 
 
 JOHN P. TROW, 
 
 printer anti .Strrcotsper, 
 
 49, ANN STHBET. 
 
(Li 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A BOOK of travels is no longer a book of marvels. There 
 remains but small portions of terra incognita. Asia and the 
 Americas are pouring in their tributes to the curiosity of this 
 locomotive age. Africa, even, in the page of Cummings and 
 others, peers from behind her veil of mystery, and the Arctics 
 are melting their frigid bonds, to flow in the channels of litera 
 ture. The only merit reserved for a volume of travels is, either 
 that the ground is untrodden, or that the mode of observation 
 is new and peculiar. The author can lay no claim to the for 
 mer. Something may be conceded to him, from the fact im 
 ported by the title A Buckeye Abroad. A native of the 
 west, and of that part, familiarly known as the Buckeye State, 
 may be supposed to look upon the scenes and mingle with 
 the throngs of the Old World with new and peculiar sensations, 
 which may find sympathy, if not with the general reader, at 
 least with readers in Ohio. Indeed it was such an interest at 
 home that called for the revision and the publication of these 
 passages of travel. They embrace a tour through France, Italy, 
 Germany, Belgium, Scotland, England and Ireland ; delightful 
 sojournings at Rome, Naples, Malta, Venice, Athens, Smyrna, 
 
 M30S111 
 
5 PREFACE. 
 
 Constantinople, Geneva, and amid the Alps ; and observations 
 along the Mediterranean, amidst the isles of Greece. 
 
 The pleasure of travelling was enhanced by companionship. 
 We numbered four in our company, two ladies and a gentle 
 man, Mr. Philo Buckingham, and myself just the number for 
 convenience and unity of movement, as well as for pleasure. 
 The time, too, was propitious. The year 1851 may be truly 
 called annus mirabilis, at least so far as travellers were-con- 
 cerned. The Great Exhibition that novel phaze of our civil 
 ization was enough to entitle the year to the honor, as o 
 special wonder. 
 
 Each observer is a type of a large class of observers, 
 mankind generally ; and it is not to be accounted egotistical 
 that the writer perpetually speaks of himself. Of neces 
 sity he must use his own senses and reason ; but through 
 these, others, especially if educated an4 governed by similar 
 influences, may perceive and reflect, by virtue of the common 
 vinculum, which binds mankind together. The impressions 
 herein recorded were mostly taken upon the spot, and the allu 
 sions, historical, classical, or otherwise, were not sought for, but 
 sprung out of the time and locality. Each lineament of each 
 form in Nature or Art, each custom and characteristic were 
 daguerreotyped, though somewhat rapidly, if not imperfectly, 
 from the original, as it appeared in itself and in its environ 
 ment. Well knowing the inferior rank in literature to which a 
 work of this kind is entitled, I reluctantly commit it to the 
 public, trusting that it may be read as it was written, more for 
 
 enjoyment than profit. 
 
 S. S. C. 
 
 ZANESVILLE, OHIO, Jan. 1, 1852. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 i. Over the Sea, and Hail to England, .... 9 
 
 n. The Commercial Metropolis and Rural Scenery, . . .22 
 m. The Brittle Wonder and a Royal Chase, . / . . 28 
 rv. An English Saturnalia, . . . V t . . . .42 
 
 v. The Commons, 51 
 
 vi. Under the Crystal and in the Park, 59 
 
 vn. Westminster and Dover, 71 
 
 vm. France, An Entry and an Exit, 76 
 
 DC The Home of Columbus, 95 
 
 x. Rome, Living and Dead, 104 
 
 XL Naples, Its Loveliness and Horror, 159 
 
 xn. Naples, Its Gayety and Desolation, 170 
 
 xm. Sicily and Malta, 185 
 
 xrv. Athens, The Eye of Greece, 193 
 
 xv. Home of Homer, 209 
 
 xvi.-r-The Heart of Mahometanism, 214 
 
 xvn. A Lady s Verdict upon the Orient, 224 
 
 xvm. The Turkish Body Politic in its Picturesque Dress, . . 241 
 
 xix. Oriental Luxury, and Classic Isles, 254 
 
 xx. The City of the Sea, 265 
 
 xxi. Lombardy, The Garden of the World, .... 275 
 
 XXIL Crossing the Alps, 287 
 
 xxra. Through the Te^te Noir to Mont Blanc, . . . .299 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 xxiv. The Ice-Sea, 305 
 
 xxv. In and around Geneva, 315 
 
 xxvi. Upon the Confines of Switzerland, 324 
 
 xxvu. Fatherland, 329 
 
 xxvm. Down the Rhine and over to "Waterloo, .... 339 
 
 xxix The French Capital, 347 
 
 YYY, London, in other phases, 361 
 
 xxxi. The Great Exhibition Revisited, 371 
 
 xxxn. Windsor Scenes and Sports, 378 
 
 xxxm. Avon, Shakspeare s Home 386 
 
 xxxrv. A glance at Ireland, 891 
 
 xxxv. Scotch Scenery and Genius, 398 
 
 XXXVL Crossing the Border, and the Old Abbeys, .... 407 
 xxxvn. English Husbandry, and the Beauty of Chatsworth, . . 423 
 xxxvin. The Buckeye for Home, . 434 
 
A BUCKEYE ABROAD. 
 
 (tor tjp $?a atii lail in fnglmifr* 
 
 " Hey boys ! she scuds away, and by my head I know, 
 We round the world are sailing now, 
 What dull men are those who tarry at home, 
 When abroad they might wantonly roam, 
 And gain such experience and spy too 
 Such countries and wonders as I do." 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 NO one can contemplate a long sea voyage to distant lands 
 without foreboding. To a native of the west, unaccustomed 
 to the ocean, and only glancing at its terrors, through a dim and 
 often distorted medium, a journey over its troublous bosom 
 is trebly fearful. Pluck up what courage he may, yet the heart 
 will quail when the hour approaches, in which to sever connec 
 tion with the stable earth. Upon this merry May morning, as 
 we are preparing to board our steamer, there is a sort of " fear 
 ful looking for" the terrors of the deep. This is entirely unne 
 cessary, at least for the first three hours. Yet I. would not be 
 deprived of this semi-melancholy and this semi-terror which 
 enshroud the mind before a long sea voyage. Madame de Stael 
 has remarked, very truthfully, that it is a great trial to leave 
 1* 
 
10 OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 
 
 one s country, when one must cross the sea. There is such so 
 lemnity in a pilgrimage, the first steps of which are on the 
 ocean. It seems as if a gulf were opening behind you, and your 
 return becoming impossible. How can it be otherwise to us 
 western folk, whose visions have been circumscribed by hills and 
 forests, rivers and plains ? The round " dim inane" of the ocean 
 horizon already, to the mind s eye, fills the imagination with 
 the terror which springs from vagueness. In such a stretch of 
 the sight, not only the eye, but thought even is lost. Sugges 
 tions, connate with those which the idea of death prompts, arise 
 in the soul. 
 
 And yet, for all these imaginary as well as real experiences 
 of ill, what a compensation has the traveller, in the anticipation 
 of standing upon the shores of the old world, with its scenes of 
 renowned enchantment and heroic deeds, with its very dust 
 golden with historic memory ! It is well to be shut out, as if by 
 a wall of brass, from old and familiar things, to enjoy such hal 
 lowed and hallowing scenes. 
 
 Severed from familiar objects by an abyss of water, more 
 formidable than brass, it will be mine to transcribe the observa 
 tions and thoughts which these scenes inspire. 
 
 The contrasts which a sea voyage present are not unworthy 
 of some note, especially as we have not the opportunity, as yet, 
 to tread in the path of antiquity to gather moss from its ru 
 ined monuments and crumbling towers to forget the ordinary 
 experiences of every-day life, and to wrap ourselves in the sha 
 dowy mantle of the past. 
 
 "We left the dock at Jersey City upon a fine day. The sun 
 shone mildly. A light breeze, which had not power to curl a 
 single snow-wreath, played in the harbor. All aboard. The 
 deck was thronged with passengers and their friends to bid 
 them " good tye." The boat is cleared of all save the passen 
 gers, and we move out, how proudly, from our mooring. The 
 crowd on the dock cheer us ; our guns answer with a quiver and 
 a report. Away we dash past the Battery and down the bay ! 
 
VER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. \ \ 
 
 A few tears from the ladies ; a few farewell wavings of handker 
 chiefs, and New-York begins to die away in the distance. The 
 Battery becomes an indistinct clump of foliage. The forest of 
 masts becomes pencilled so fine as to seem but one mark ; the 
 land soon fades into a blue sky, and we are afloat ! 
 
 For the first few hours the fresh air of the salt sea and the 
 novel situation, afford agreeable excitement. The frame qui 
 vers with a new-born delight. The soul sweeps the horizon 
 with a larger circuit and a bolder wing. The Old World al 
 ready looms up in the East, a glorious promise to the Eye of 
 Hope! 
 
 Soon we hail a vessel, and let off the pilot. The little boat 
 drops astern, amid the foam of our wake, and the steamer again 
 throbs on its way. We had not gone far before a singular 
 phenomena singular at least to our Buckeye eye appeared. 
 There was a something spouting salt water against the sky ! It 
 proved to be a whale a live Jonah-swallowing king of the 
 deep ! We lingered upon deck to watch the sun sink in splen 
 dor. The process of setting sail began, with the cheery songs 
 and cries of the sailors. A west wind is coming along to add 
 to our velocity and give exhilaration to our spirits. 
 
 Exhilaration? If you could only have seen your new- 
 fledged traveller, from that time forward up to the time when 
 he first seized this pen, you would have found him a perfect em 
 bodiment of inverted exhilaration. He began to experience all 
 the seven-fold horror of the sea. Oh! this rolling, rolling, 
 straining, creaking, pitching, and tossing! all day all night. 
 When will this voyage end ? He begins to count the hours, 
 and measures them by groans. Eating ? Horrible ! All that 
 he can do is to take down beef-tea, porridges and soups, and 
 such other watery aliment, only fit for the spectre of Melancholy. 
 Old Burton must have been upon the sea, when he wrote the 
 couplet : 
 
 "All other griefs to this are jolly, 
 Naught so damned as Melancholy." 
 
12 OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 
 
 " Have any thing to-day, Sir," Bays our excellent servant 
 
 John : " No !" is the unmannerly retort. Imprisonment in the 
 
 meanest county jail, on bread and water, with whippings hourly, 
 would be heaven to this. And then the idea of coming back. I 
 lay whole days thinking of it wondering if there could not be 
 found some short-cut over Bering s straits. No matter for bad 
 roads and cold weather, so it is mother earth give us EARTH, 
 Zealand or Greenland. Only let this heaving instability cease. 
 
 Washington Irving never said a truer, yet in some respects a 
 less true thing, than when he called the Ocean a blank page, 
 separating two worlds. It may be blank ; but like the pages 
 between the Old and New Testaments, it affords a resting-place 
 for the mind, wherein to contemplate the wonders and majesty 
 of the Creator. It affords, too, a space for the solemn records 
 of " Deaths," and sometimes of " Births," of which latter, our 
 good ship received an addition when three days out. But to 
 my thinking, this page is written all along significantly. I do 
 not mean to say that I have been gazing out into the ocean, 
 drinking in its roar and its sublimity; though I confess to 
 drinking, in certain peculiar moments, divers quantities of the 
 beverage it affords slightly warmed. To come home to our 
 subject, I have be.en a victim, by no means a solitary one, to 
 the god of the Trident. I will not say, that he has used me 
 peculiarly unkind ; for daily, since my body assumed its per 
 pendicularity, have I seen others coming from their berths, 
 pictures of Spencer s Image of Despair, or rather, resembling 
 rats emergent from holes into which young Nimrods had been 
 pouring warm water. For over a week has my poor system ex 
 perienced what never before it experienced, and (how I fear !) 
 may again experience. But this is a part of the royal game of 
 travel. It is this experience which is written in illuminated 
 characters all over Irving s blank page. 
 
 I would advise every one who thinks of crossing the sea, to 
 provide a cast-iron stomach ; or else procure some preparation, 
 by which that sensitive part of our organism may be rendered 
 
OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 13 
 
 ex tempore insensible. I am aware that there is, on land, some 
 strong prejudices against sea-travelling, on account of sea-sick 
 ness. I had some misgivings myself. They fell so far short, 
 however, of the reality, as to work great injustice to the power 
 of Old Neptune. 
 
 I would not undertake to tell precisely the treatment which 
 Dr. Atlantic prescribed. The day after I came aboard, I inad 
 vertently caught him assuming the office of ^Esculapius, taking 
 a diagnosis of my case, and pressing home the remedy with a 
 summariness not exceeded by the sharpest practice of another 
 learned profession. The unremitting vigilance and care of my 
 " big medicine-man" cannot, in my present state, be too highly 
 lauded. That he has suffered me to sleep a little, almost suf 
 fuses my eyes with gratitude. Dr. Sangrado prescribed a rem 
 edy for all diseases, so simple as to have become classical 
 blood-letting and warm water. Our Doctor disdains the for 
 mer. The latter, I am pleased to say, has been adopted in 
 these latitudes (with an addition of the saline), with good effect. 
 The fact that I am able to write on this eighth day out, is 
 evidence, 
 
 Clear as a fountain in July, 
 
 that a searching potency has been exercised, which places Medi 
 cine upon the topmost sparkle of the wave of science. 
 
 A person after emerging from the Hades of sea-sickness, is 
 for ever after a privileged community in himself. He has cer 
 tain irrepealable franchises, among which are freedom of speech, 
 I wish I could say " free soil." FREE SOIL ! I am a great free- 
 soiler, just now. G-ive me soil, that is all I ask, whether it be 
 the veriest rock upon which a lichen would starve, let it be sta 
 ble only still rocky, but not rocking. No one can appreciate 
 the merits of that much-abused party who has not been sea-sick. 
 You might as well attempt to master the Integral Calculus, 
 without a knowledge of algebra, or to read Shakspeare without 
 a knowledge of the alphabet. It is a sine qua non. Each par- 
 
!4 OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 
 
 ticular fibre in my body would quiver, if it were only placed 
 upon an immobile element upon free soil. 
 
 One thing I have learned within a week, and that is, fully 
 to understand the merits of Christopher Columbus and Captain 
 Cook. Even in my most pluckless condition, pale, haggard and 
 hirsute, I could have performed a genuflexion, with the ardor of 
 Carlyle himself, to these heroes of the sea. 
 
 I have wondered how any soul could feel grand or sublime 
 upon the ocean. Lord Jeffrey has demonstrated that beauty 
 and sublimity are subjective, not inherent to the objects seen, 
 but depending upon the mind of the person seeing. The laby 
 rinth of forms which emanate from the painter s pencil and distil 
 upon the canvass the freshness of Nature s Beauty, are first 
 pictured in his soul. The warm breath of enthusiasm passes 
 over the gross materials of earth, solves them into the refinement 
 of thought, and then the " imprisoned splendor of the soul" 
 bursts forth to beautify and bless. If, therefore, there is to be 
 found beauty or sublimity upon the ocean, the mental tentacula 
 must reach out and find it. But when they are paralyzed and 
 
 shrunken by this everlasting sea-sickness where is the sub-* , 
 
 I beg pardon. Eureka ! It is the sublimity Burke discovered 
 in Spencer s Cave of Error, the nauseate sublime ! Its mono 
 syllabic expression, is simply Ugh ! 
 
 On Sunday we passed amidst six icebergs. They were said 
 to be beautiful. No doubt. But if each iceberg had been as 
 radiant with gold and orange, green and violet, and prismatic 
 generally as Trinity church windows, with a Polar bear sur 
 mounting each glittering pinnacle, the scene could not have 
 aroused my sense of the beautiful. I did not even go on deck 
 to see them. The beautiful was drowned fathomlessly in the 
 ocean of .sea-sickness. 
 
 These British vessels run up north and over the Newfound 
 land banks. They thus save upwards of 300 miles. We have 
 passed very few vessels. It is not the route for sailing vessels. 
 During the rough time upon the banks, we ran by a little 
 
OVER TILE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 15 
 
 schooner, with no sails set, dancing away 1500 miles from either 
 hemisphere playing " hide and go seek" with the billows, as if 
 it were in very deed, the fairy gondola of Phedra which passed 
 on its way, unharmed, without oar, sail, or rudder. 
 
 We also passed the U. S. steamship Humboldt, upon our 
 fifth day out. It is her first trip. She had, however, only seven 
 pieces of canvas spread, while we had ten. Our American 
 ladies did not like the idea of having Uncle Sam thrown behind 
 in that way. I am free to confess that not a sentiment of 
 patriotism disturbed my sea-sick heart. I was helped on deck 
 for a view of this strange meeting of the steamers in mid-ocean. 
 We ran along side of her, only distant one half mile. We salut 
 ed with cannon, and she returned it gallantly. How finely she 
 dashed the waves from her black prow ! What a thing of life 
 is the proud, throbbing steamer, conscious of dignity, sinewed 
 with brass and iron, with a viewless power mocking human 
 might, beating in its iron heart ! This gigantic power has been 
 evoked into being, by the genius of this latter time, the distin 
 guishing feature of which, above all others, is expressed in 
 Wordsworth s lines : 
 
 An intellectual mastery exercised 
 
 O er the blind elements ; a purpose given, 
 A perseverance fed ; almost a SOUL 
 Imparted to brute matter. 
 
 I would not decry the British because we are her rivals in 
 this race of material progress. Let honor crown the Anglo- 
 Saxon of both continents. These petty irritabilities which have 
 sprung out of this oceanic rivalry, and which have even poisoned 
 the sociality of our voyage, are beneath the dignity and gener 
 osity of our countrymen. For safety and speed, for careful 
 management, good servants and skilful officers, the " Asia," at 
 least, cannot be rivalled. We shall try the American line on 
 our return, and may then express our preference. Until then, 
 
16 OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 
 
 God speed the noble steamers of both nations upon their mis 
 sions of interchange ! 
 
 My first nautical observation on deck was that of a little 
 bird " all alone, all alone," seemingly exhausted, yet still flying 
 in its own element. What a lesson does this aerial pilgrim teach 
 us. We who are continually passing the " flaming bounds" of 
 worldly wisdom, and striving for the unknown and unapproach 
 able mysteries of God and of the spirit world does it not teach 
 us to be content in our own sphere of knowledge ? How beau 
 tiful would be the song of that little chorister, 
 
 "Upon a bough high swaying in the wind," 
 
 in some sequestered nook, surrounded by leafy prospects and 
 smiling cultivation ! How like a hymn to its Creator would go 
 up its carol to the All Audient One ; yet, here it is, with fagged 
 wing and panting breath, contending with harsh, cold blasts, 
 just able to overtop the snowy spray of the mid-ocean ; deluded 
 from its greenwood home by the persuasive mysteries of the un 
 known ; a thing of song in a sea of chaos, soon to be whelmed 
 for ever. Is it not an epitome of man, when he breaks the golden 
 chords of that harmony which bind him to his God ? 
 
 As my strength increases, the sea grows on my esteem. The 
 warmer air detains me above, where the employment of the eye 
 gives relief and delight. The sailors are putting up their ropes 
 into snaky coils. The sound of dish-washing unromantically 
 mingles with the " profound eternal bass" of Ocean s roar. French 
 fops and English cockneys (we have a motley crew) puff the light 
 cigar vapor. It darts away to blend with the blue, that bends 
 above us like an unbroken canopy, embroidered with a few flee 
 cy clouds. What a circle the horizon describes in the clear air ! 
 I do not know whether it pleases most from its perfect geometry 
 or its bewildering extent. The waverings of the water are soft 
 ened by the distance. It seems as if GOD, as he sits upon the 
 circle of the heavens, had by his power carved out a vast liquid 
 gem, variant with lights and shades. The sea, as your eye ap- 
 
OVER TEL SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND \f 
 
 preaches the edge of the horizon, that mysterious and ever- 
 changing line bounding the visible sphere and dividing it from 
 the invisible, grows darker, until upon its rim, where it clasps 
 the sky, it is black ; the result of perspective, heightened by the 
 contrast between the dark water and the fair sky. 
 . What an infinity of angles the wind makes the sea make ! 
 Like the agitation of one overmastering thought upon the world 
 of mind. Each medium reflects it similarly, yet with a marked 
 difference. One, like a Bacon or a Newton, heaves it heavenward, 
 flashing it white and beautiful. Its very foam attests the 
 strength of the billow. Another receives the power, and with 
 docile humility, projects but a tiny drop it may be, but a drop 
 from the spray of the mightier wave. 
 
 The officers are accustomed every log, to drop a bucket, and 
 take the temperature of the water. This is reported, perhaps to 
 Greenwich 5 and there the immense repertory of isolated, mean 
 ingless facts is put into the crucible of generalization, and comes 
 out vital principles of navigation. So much for a bucket of salt 
 water, and the Baconian system of induction. 
 
 We are almost to Cape Clear, the southern point of Ireland. 
 I am a living witness that the account Tacitus gives of these 
 parts is an unmitigated fabrication. Thule, Ultima Thule, is 
 generally acknowledged to be Ireland, I believe. Tacitus says, 
 that the seas around Thule were a mass of sluggish stagnation, 
 hardly yielding to the stroke of the" oar, and never agitated by 
 winds and tempests. About as authentic and probable as Juve 
 nal s poetic account of the sun, which he affirms could be heard 
 hissing in the waters of the Herculean Gulf. 
 
 Audit Hercules stridentem gurgite solem. 
 
 All on the look-out for land ! Man at the mast-head and 
 officers with glasses ! The hour of enfranchisement draws nigh. 
 Wearied with gazing into the dim distance, I went below, to 
 return on deck at dark. Clambering up the taffrail I saw 
 
18 OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 
 
 horror of horrors ! within twenty-five yards of us, a huge black 
 rock, rising up in the gloom, like the back of Leviathan ! 
 I involuntarily dropped. We were in sight of land with a ven 
 geance. This rock is within a few miles of Cape Clear. The 
 light-houses showed that " sweet Ireland" (sweet indeed to the 
 longing eye), was on our left. The next morning confirmed our 
 locality. It found us pushing up the Channel between Wales 
 and Ireland, not far from Braichen Point. We moved in a 
 direct line to Holyhead. Away to the west, in dim, graceful 
 limning, float, cloudlike, the cerulean mountains of Ireland. 
 The low coast cannot be seen. "Heavy a port!" growls the 
 officer at the wheel-house. "Heavy a port!" echoes the mate 
 at the compass. "Heavy a port, Sir!" drawls out the man 
 from the tiller, and the deflection eastward continues. 
 
 I observed an oval line of a most ethereal fineness upon the 
 right. It grew, with our panting steamer s progress, into form, 
 grand and palpable, until Holyhead burst upon us. With a 
 glass we viewed the immense work begun by government here. 
 A harbor is being built for the Cunard and mail steamers. 
 Already it is connected with Liverpool by cars. As we hove 
 in sight, we ran up signals, which were carried to Liverpool 
 before us, as was indicated by the line of steam which began 
 to flow throughout the distant landscape. 
 
 We took a pilot aboard and received from him one newspaper, 
 which was cut into shreds and devoured by fourteen passengers 
 at once. The breath of the fresh landscape is around. Now I 
 can write like a native of this round earth ; for land is all about 
 us. The cliffs of Old England stand out in definite outline. 
 Light-houses and mansions attest the presence of a superior 
 civilization. How many thronging associations flit through the 
 mind, as I recall, that here, not in fancy s eye, but in reality, 
 stands the little isle of power the home of QLD COKE and 
 CROMWELL, of SPENCER and COWPER, of CHATHAM and CAN 
 NING, and all the host of glorious minds with whom so much of 
 life has been passed. Aye ; in very truth, my eye has greeted 
 
OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 19 
 
 the land of WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE and GUY FAWKES, JOHN 
 MILTON and TITUS GATES ; the ideal realm of JOHN FALSTAFF 
 and LITTLE NELL 5 the theatre of Roundheads and Cavaliers. 
 Yonder, verily, just over to my right, actually grew into life 
 that vigorous feudalism out of which rose the fabric of our 
 own common law. These remembrances come over me wildly 
 and strangely. Old England ! Yes ; God bless her ! With 
 fears in my eyes, I beseech Heaven s best benison upon her. I 
 forget her, as the land of ruth and wrong ; I remember her only 
 as the land of noble deeds and generous hearts. Her literature, 
 from Chaucer s first uncouth song to D Israeli s last sarcasm, 
 floats through the memory like a vivid power", transforming 
 every prejudice into praise, and even wrong into glory. 
 
 But I am ahead of my reckoning. I am not yet done with 
 the Ocean. Such an event as crossing the Atlantic by a back 
 woods Buckeye, deserves a fuller treatment. Of course, in this 
 gossiping of mine, you will not expect me to confine myself to 
 any system. I reproduce only hasty impressions hastily ; pre 
 tending to no insight, simply to sight; to no profundity in 
 reading character and discussing vital principles, simply to 
 superficial glances and occasional hearings. 
 
 Now that the horrors of sickness are over, the ocean presents 
 itself under another sky. I have spoken of our " volant home," 
 the noble steamship. Ours was not tested very strongly by 
 Neptune ; yet not a fear as to the result intruded itself into our 
 minds. It requires a good share of confidence in a vessel, to 
 step from the firm set earth upon its fragile planks, which are to 
 be upborne by so unstable an element. It instils a thrilling 
 awe, to feel yourself moving away to some mysterious realm, the 
 existence of which seems to hang only upon the prompture of 
 Faith. The divorce from the old and familiar has begun. Day 
 after day, you are 
 
 " Borne darkly, fearfully afar," 
 
 reaching no shore, and night after night, you hear, by your very 
 pillow, the 
 
20 OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 
 
 "Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, 
 Currents of the restless main." 
 
 Yet to know that the potent water-breath, we call steam, can 
 mate the Ocean in his wildest Saturnalia, gives all the joy of 
 security, while it does not rob us of the vague mystery. Let 
 the Sea King try his strongest, to crack our vessel s joints and 
 sinews cheerily sing the sailors, and merrily laugh and skip 
 about the boat the frolicksome children. No drifting at ttte 
 pleasure of the elements, with our vessel ; but a straight path 
 and a steady one. Vulcan, amid his coal smoke below, is the 
 controlling spirit ; and reeling Neptune drops his trident in the 
 
 fire. 
 
 Can it be that here indeed is the rock-ribbed coast of Eng 
 land ? Yes ; for the tokens are evident. The rocks are all fis 
 sured, and gray as the hoar-frost with salt. Irregular masses 
 seem to have been heaped ashore. No footing is found upon 
 which to stand. The rocks impress one strangely, not alone be 
 cause they form an outline of the isle of our ancestors, but (we 
 must own it) because that isle affords our poor physical frames 
 a steady foothold, and an uninterrupted appetite. How much 
 of the crockery ware is burned into this human "wessel of 
 wrath," along with the exquisite porcelain? 
 
 We are about to turn up the Mersey, and to leave our open 
 seaward for a narrower path. Perhaps from this point one may 
 fully appreciate the glories of the ocean ; for its roll no longer 
 disturbs the mind. CAMPBELL has embalmed in the splendor 
 of his verse, more of the beauty and sublimity of the sea, than 
 any other poet, BYRON not excepted. He loved to retire from 
 the bustle of London, Edinburgh, or Glasgow, and from the 
 height of St. Leonard s (on solid ground mind you !) listen to 
 its murmurs, which to him were dearer than all the applause of 
 the world. He found peacefulness in its din, and repose in its 
 restlessness. He looked out upon the depths, amid the storms, 
 and saw the lightning sink half way over the main, like a wea 
 ried bird too weak to sweep its space. He saw it in the calm, 
 
OVER THE SEA AND HAIL TO ENGLAND. 21 
 
 when the firmament of stars found in it a gorgeous mirror for 
 their Infinitude ! What a fine thought is that of his, which 
 calls the sky the mistress of the sea, giving from her brow his 
 moods, morning s milky white, noon s sapphire, and the saffron 
 glow of evening. So beautiful did it seem to his poetic eye, 
 that he wondered not that Love s own Queen was fabled to have 
 come from the bosom of the sea ! He likens it to creation s 
 common (a purely Anglo-Saxon metaphor), which no human 
 power can parcel or inclose. This idea is akin to that of 
 MADAME DE STAEL, which Byron engrafted upon his immortal 
 Apostrophe. " Man," she says, " may plough the earth, and cut 
 his way through mountains, or construct rivers into canals to 
 transport his merchandise, but if his fleets for a moment furrow 
 the ocean, its waves as instantly efface this slight mark of servi 
 tude, and it again appears as it was the first day of the creation." 
 Or, as Byron phrases it, 
 
 " Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, 
 Such as creation s dawn beheld, thou rollest now." 
 
 The figure, however, which pleases my taste most is that of 
 the mirror. It has been used by BAILEY, in his "Angel World," 
 to illustrate the most stupendous truth which the human mind 
 may entertain ; the mysterious combination of the Eternal 
 Father with the everlasting Son, the union of Infinite Justice 
 with all-gracious Love, 
 
 " The unseen likeness of the INEFFABLE ONE, 
 Each like the other, as the sky and sea, 
 Imbosoming the Infinite." 
 
 Material though the ocean be, it has a power to penetrate into 
 the mind s immaterial recesses, to inspire it with Beauty, and 
 elevate it with the emotions of Religion. 
 
 Have I written too much upon this theme 1 My Jeremiad 
 on sea-sickness required an antidote to do justice to the element 
 which has borne me over its bosom so safely. 
 
II. 
 
 Ctommial ^rtrnpnlis writ Ettml 
 
 "All that Nature did thy soil deny, 
 The growth was of thy fruitful Industry; 
 And all the proud and dreadful sea 
 A constant tribute paid to thee." 
 
 HERE we are upon substantial soil. Liverpool ! How lan 
 guidly the word melts in the mouth ! My partiality for 
 steamships and big ponds could not restrain the outbreak of 
 joy with which we pressed the solid land. The effects too of 
 our experience, though sad at first, haye resulted in a bound of 
 animal spirits almost inconsistent with sanity. 
 
 At the mouth of the Mersey we took a pilot aboard, and 
 with our " starboard, sir," " port, sir," and " steady, sir," we 
 reached Liverpool at 11 o clock, upon the night of the 17th of 
 May, 1851. It was some recompense for missing the green, 
 bright green banks of the Mersey, with its cottages and resi 
 dences, that we passed up amid a galaxy of many-colored lights, 
 which, reflected upon the water from Birkenhead on the one side, 
 and Liverpool on the other, almost transformed the scene into 
 one of fairyland. Our guns boomed ; mails were taken ; and 
 after the custom-house proceedings, by no means vexatious, we 
 were permitted to land. The first person that spoke to me was 
 a little imp, modelled after the exterior of Oliver Twist. A 
 police officer touched him with a baton. He was non est in a jiffy. 
 
 Our first impression of the population here was not very 
 favorable. True, we saw the fag-end of humanity in the shape 
 
TEE COMMERCIAL METROPOLIS. 23 
 
 of beggars and loafers at the landing. We had no sooner taken 
 up our march to our hotel, preferring to feel the delight of a 
 walk, after so long a ride on the billows, than a fellow who said 
 that he was a servant at the Waterloo, offered himself as our pilot. 
 I suspected him, but thought that we would use him, as it was 
 nearly two in the morning. We had not gone far before we 
 were saluted with, "Which hotel, sir which hotel?" 
 
 " Waterloo !" 
 
 " Sorry very sorry can t accommodate you, sir I m boots 
 at the Waterloo, sir all full, sir. Three ship-loads just arrived, 
 sir very sorry Victoria Hotel near by few minutes walk, sir 
 own sister of the Waterloo keeps it." 
 
 He had said too much. We marched on, heartily laughing 
 at " Boots !" Saint Somebody s church illuminated the hour of 
 two, and it was nearly daylight a phenomenon belonging to 
 this northern clime which considerably bewildered our Buckeye 
 experience. We found the Waterloo open, and the lady at the 
 door with her servants, ready to take down our names. I intro 
 duced our pilot as their servant. They, of course, disclaimed 
 his acquaintance. " You are a pretty specimen of human vera 
 city." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I am obliged to you, sir." 
 
 " But I suppose we ought to pay you for your guidance ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, please you, sir, you are very kind, sir." 
 
 I gave him a shilling, with a caution about lying, which he, 
 with a rub over his red nose, and a low bow, acknowledged. 
 
 We had scarcely appeared this morning at our window, when 
 that extreme of English civilization called " starvation" was seen 
 in the shape of a young urchin, whether boy or girl I could not 
 discern, for the dress consisted of only two rags. He stood bob 
 bing his head and whining, while I sketched him. His counter 
 feit presentment followed us, as soon as we left the hotel to take 
 a stroll ; and the little gipsey had the same monotone of grief. 
 He was joined by another ; and thus marshalled, we had to pass 
 the agony of some squares. It was not until a fretful threat to 
 
24 THE COMMERCIAL METROPOLIS 
 
 " cut his weazand," that he cut our company, which he did with 
 the remark, " they won t pay any more." 
 
 How comfortably every thing is conducted in these English 
 hotels. We have our own parlors, and our own meals. It looks 
 so cosey to see our own good company presiding at the tea-urn, 
 and dispensing the Johnsonian beverage. 
 
 Of course, the modes here strike us strangely. But as we 
 started out to admire all that is admirable, we must commend 
 the English mode of hotel keeping, with its private parlors and 
 private meals. 
 
 Every object, even the go-carts, strike a stranger queerly at 
 first. Omnibuses, with nobody inside, and crowded a-top, dash 
 past our windows. Cabs as big as our carriages, like a streak 
 of lightning, dash by with one horse. Horns musically quiver 
 in the fresh morning air. The tall dark houses and clean 
 white paves of Liverpool surround us, while on every side green 
 foliage and twittering birds betoken that love of rural life which 
 the English bring even into their cities. One thing in-doors is 
 noticeable. The sedulous zeal displayed in curtaining out 
 heaven s sun light. It would seem that, with the prodigality of 
 gloomy weather in this isle, as much of the light as possible 
 would be admitted, more especially as a heavy window tax is 
 assessed. But no such thing. Why? Is it a phase of that 
 habitual exclusiveness and love of domestic ease which form so 
 prominent a trait in the English character ? 
 
 We have viewed the city. Its Corinthian elegance of ar 
 chitecture, illustrated especially in the Exchange ; excellent po 
 lice ; above all, its magnificent docks, by which the shipping is 
 brought into the city and preserved afloat, notwithstanding the 
 
 tides bespeak for Liverpool the encomium of the traveller. 
 
 There are two provisos. The first, beggars, I have named. The 
 other is, the apparent sacrilegious treatment of the buried dead. 
 Would you believe it ? The pave to several of the first churches 
 here is over and upon the tombstones of the buried. The in 
 scriptions are being effaced by the feet of the passenger. Nurses 
 
AND RURAL SCENERY. 25 
 
 with children, men, women, and boys, indiscriminately, tread 
 over the ashes of the departed. 
 
 In our walk, we noticed Roscoe street a reminder that 
 Liverpool was the home of the Historian of the Medici. It re 
 called his splendid descriptions of that age, when Scholarship 
 and Art were beginning to burst the barriers of the dark ages, 
 to herald the new-born civilization which is ours to-day. It also 
 recalled living s elegant tribute to the merchant litterateur. 
 You remember how Irving first saw him, entering the Athe 
 naeum, with his venerable air a fine illustration of " a chance 
 production" disappointing the assiduities of Art, and working 
 out of the busy mart of traflic the glory and the genius of the 
 great Tuscan era, You remember, too, how nobly he bore the 
 loss of his books, and what a noble consolation he found in the 
 closing words of his sonnet, 
 
 " Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, 
 And kindred spirits meet to part no more." 
 
 The country lying adjacent to the great railway between 
 Liverpool and London, presents a perfect succession of rural 
 beauties : one sweet continuous garden, divided off into elegant 
 compartments, and dotted with residences of the most exquisite 
 taste. After passing out of the tunnel from Liverpool, which is 
 cut through the solid rock, and which we performed for a mile 
 and a quarter up an inclined plane, drawn by a stationary en 
 gine ; after we struck the daylight and the country, a bright 
 greenish green, so green as almost to be yellow, saluted our 
 eyes, albeit unused to any other than sea-green. The meadows 
 all along seemed indeed a carpet, into which were inwoven 
 snow-flakes of daisies, buttercups in profusion, and pansies large 
 and plentiful ! Yet the land here is naturally sterile, having a 
 reddish tinge, and as we approach nearer the great metropolis 
 it displays a chalk formation. We are at one moment moving 
 in sight of a beautiful tower upon the hill, surrounded with 
 walks and embowered in leafiness ; then past, a succession of 
 
26 THE COMMERCIAL METROPOLIS. 
 
 ivy-covered cottages, thatched with straw, and in themselves, 
 with their streams and parterres, forming a rural landscape. 
 The high gothic chimneys, and the very red of the bricks, give 
 to the towns along the way a very picturesque effect. Nature 
 seems like Cowper s rose, as if just washed in a shower; and so 
 bright, yellow almost, and many-shaded, is the green, that it 
 pleases the eye like an autumnal forest in Ohio. The churches 
 are all perfectly neat ; some, elegant gothic buildings. Now 
 and then, a still, hallowing sense of antiquity hovers around 
 these churches and their grave-yards, which we look for in vain 
 at home. How pleasing to see, peeping from their verdurous 
 coverts, these little minsters of heaven ! From these, notwith 
 standing the marriage of Church and State which cannot be 
 too much abominated have emanated those salutary influences 
 which are illustrated by the surrounding practical works. From 
 these chapels, honored by a LATIMER, a JEREMY TAYLOR, a 
 HOOKER and a BERKLEY, in the elder time, came forth the power 
 which has transformed the naturally poor soil of England into a 
 garden of cultivation. They have made the ever-sweet hedges, 
 and have constructed these roads, which seem like elegant wind 
 ing garden paths, extending as far as the eye can penetrate, like 
 lines of light in a vast panorama of verdure. 
 
 We did not observe in all this journey a single sign of 
 poverty. Comfort is impressed every where. In every village 
 and cottage, Plenty appeared rejoicing in her stewardship. In 
 the manufacturing districts through which we passed, the same 
 rural air of neat exactitude and repose was apparent. You could 
 only distinguish these districts by huge piles of coal near the 
 railroad, and the tall chimney stacks lifting themselves out of 
 the level against the sky, and topped with wavy streamers of 
 smoke, which in the distance reminded us of our Liberty poles 
 and flags. Each railway station is a pretty piece of architec 
 ture, with its elegant surrounding grounds. There does not 
 seem to be a thing neglected or out of place. As the car dashed 
 from point to point, our surprise was increased. Never through 
 
AND RURAL SCENERY. 27 
 
 our minds played the like. It resembled a fairy dream, in 
 which each scene seemed "picked out as an example for the 
 best." 
 
 But while lost in admiration, I have forgotten that the cars 
 have been ruralizing toward the valley of the " royal toward 
 Thames." Our outstretched necks have discerned its winding 
 mist already. Already is the eye peopled dim, with figures of 
 Westminster, the Tower, the Parliament Houses, and above all, 
 the Palace of Crystal ! 
 
 Sure enough here we are in the Depot ; and not yet out of 
 the country ; in London, but still it is rus in urbe. We are 
 flanked by terraced gardens and foliage. Robins and thrushes 
 make music, while we rumble to our stopping point. The 
 charms of the day cling like good genii to the last : as if de 
 termined to impress into our deepest hearts the adoration of 
 England s Bard of Olney, who attuned, years ago, our own spirit 
 as he sung of him, who looked abroad upon the varied fields, 
 the mountains, the valleys, and the resplendent views of Nature, 
 and by virtue of his filial confidence in the Creator of this de 
 lightful scenery, could call it all his own, with a propriety which 
 none could feel, but he who could 
 
 -"Lift to heaven an unpresumptuons eye, 
 
 And smiling say, My Father made it all. 
 
III. 
 
 |IB Uiittlt Pirate, ani a JUnal Cjjnst. 
 
 " A wilderness of building, sinking far 
 And self withdrawn, into a wondrous depth, 
 Far sinking into splendor without end." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 THE morning of the 21st of May found us in London, amid 
 its coaches, drays, dog-carts, phaetons, choked roads, its whirl 
 of wheels and its war of confused noises. Never was there such 
 a horse and vehicle-loving people as the English ; judging by tl 
 manifold and multiform vehicles which crowd and clog the tho 
 roughfares Not alone in Picadilly, the Fleet, Cheapside, and 
 the neighborhood of St. Paul s, where streets have recently been 
 cut through great blocks of houses to give passage to the throngs 
 but in the less compacted parts of the city, and just now in the 
 neighborhood of Hyde Park, near the Crystal Palace, is there t 
 be found involutions of wondrous perplexity, consisting of cal 
 and carriage, horse and footman, go-cart and poney ; but all 
 moving and winding with the precision of machinery, under the 
 
 unostentatious power of an efficient police. 
 
 Without that power, what a complexity would London b 
 
 a stranger? With it, access is made easy to every point worth 
 
 seeing. Our first venture abroad was toward the Crystal Palace. 
 
 Upon our way thither, we passed the famous Apsley House of 
 
 Wellington, and the great equestrian statue of the Iron Duke. 
 But the one great ornament ; the desire to view which. 
 
 prompted our journey hitherward, was the Crystal Palace. 
 
 Well our eyes have seen it. But how shall we reproduce i 
 
THE BRITTLE WONDER. 29 
 
 wonders for the eye of others ? Never since " Dardanian hands," 
 at the command of King Brutus, began this town of Londinum 
 has there been such a rare and glorious spectacle as that which 
 now glitters under the May sunshine in Hyde Park ! This is a 
 bold saying ; but the documents, in the shape of royal catalogues 
 and colored engravings, lie around my table, and they afford most 
 practical proof. Our verdict, by actual inspection, has also been 
 rendered, but not reduced to writing. This latter is most diffi 
 cult. I have been afraid to undertake to tell how my senses 
 have been raptured. After loitering amidst the manifold splen 
 dors and intricate complexities of this " industrious" world, the 
 mind has become benumbed, and refuses to officiate but tardily. 
 It seemeth as if a " star had burst within the brain," and that the 
 rockets and pyrotechnic beauties were still going off in the cham 
 bers of imagery. 
 
 Nathless I essay. The reader who undertakes to form an 
 idea of this crystal structure of wonders, from these feeble lim- 
 nings. might as well judge of the palace visually by one^ane of 
 glass, or of its contents by the India-rubber trowsers in Uncle 
 Sam s department. 
 
 When the palace burst upon our view, which it did as we 
 approached the transept on the southern side, all was intense 
 eagerness ; every hand went up, but not a word was said ! 
 
 There it stood the cynosure of industry ! How fragile, yet 
 how substantial ; so gorgeous in its colorings ; with the flags of 
 all nations playing in the breeze ; its guard of majestic trees 
 about it ; extending nearly nineteen hundred feet, and running 
 back one-fourth of that distance ; with its six thousand iron col 
 umns, painted blue, red and white, in grateful variety ; cover 
 ing nearly thirty acres in a magnificent park, and radiant and 
 glowing, yet transparent under the mellow shine of this May 
 morning ! Where under heaven was ever raised such a struc 
 ture of beauty and magnificence ? We have read of glittering 
 ice turrets among the Alps, with pillars pellucid, and " glorious 
 as the gates of heaven beneath the keen full moon." Imagina- 
 
30 TJIE BRITTLE WONDER, 
 
 tion has penetrated the earth with her fires and illuminated 
 grotto within grotto, embossed and fretted, and reflecting and re 
 fracting the light into manifold splendors. We remember the 
 famous ice-palace of the Russian Queen that Northern wonder 
 which Cowper illumined with his fancy, built without forest 
 or quarry, whose marble was the glassy wave, whose cement was 
 water, and which, when -lighted within, gleamed a clear transpa 
 rency. Somewhat thus, though far otherwise, gleamed this 
 structure of JOSEPH PAXTON this palace of Industry. 
 
 So stood the brittle prodigy, though smooth, 
 And slip ry the materials : yet fast bound, 
 Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within 
 That regal residence might well befit 
 For grandeur or for use. 
 
 Mirrors needed none 
 
 Where all was vitreus. 
 
 In the evanescent glory of the ice-palace, the poet saw an 
 undesigned severity in imagining the cold, yet glittering, the 
 durable, yet transient fabric of human grandeur and courtly 
 pride. How is it with this Crystal Palace, wherein is really 
 seen, not fantastically imaged, the fruits of human progress, re 
 sulting from the common labor of all men, springing from the 
 germs implanted within our common nature by our Creator, and 
 by Him, in his own good pleasure developed into forms as exquis 
 ite as they are beautiful ! Yonder, before our rapt vision, 
 stands no ice-frolic of haughty power ; but a glowing enshrine- 
 ment for the objects of mingled beauty and utility, which Thought 
 has produced in every clime. It is no pyramidal monument to 
 Pride, no classic temple for Beauty to linger under ; but a form 
 in which is sanctified the loveliness of that religion which would 
 cultivate the amenities of good will, peace and purity ! I de 
 voutly thank God, that He has permitted me to view this com 
 mon shrine among the nations this brittle, yet firm bond of 
 brotherhood, this crystal medium through which a better day 
 doth glimmer. 
 
AXD A ROYAL GHASE. 31 
 
 To have stood the half hour we were compelled to stand, 
 before the arched centre, awaiting the hour of admission, and to 
 have enjoyed the vision, were worth a pilgrimage around the 
 world, including several sea-voyages. 
 
 We pay and enter severally. Only one can enter at a time. 
 Our first step is marked down by a machine, which tells the 
 number who visit here daily. These numbers average from 
 thirty to fifty thousand. 
 
 It was no sinecure office to make an inventory of the immen 
 sity of the minutiae here collected. But no description, however 
 minute, can give the effect of the first view from the centre down 
 the four aisles. But before you reach that centre, you pass the 
 equestrian statue of Victoria, flanked by two pieces of statuary, 
 groups of Amazons, and Zephyr and Aurora. Then bursts 
 upon your view the far-famed glass fountain, under the dome, 
 flinging not only from its five tons of flint glass every hue of the 
 prism in a flood of beauty, but a graceful jet of water which 
 rivals the crystal in purity, as it curls in a smooth sheet and 
 branches into a myriad of lesser prisms. As you gaze on it, 
 surrounded by palm trees from Madagascar, and overshadowing 
 foliage with flowers, 
 
 The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes 
 Capricious, in which Fancy seeks in vain 
 The likeness of some object seen before. 
 
 Thus has British Art worked as if to mock at Nature. To 
 my eye, each radiant point of this fountain gleamed more gor 
 geously than the great diamond " Koh-i-Noor," or Mountain 
 of Light, which, as the Queen s contribution, and standing 
 near the fountain on the right, deserves high honor in the cata 
 logue. 
 
 We have you at the fountain. Before you. gush and bubble 
 two other fountains, interspersed with tropical plants and every 
 variety of flowers. Each one of these flower groups would re 
 ward an hour s view. 
 
32 THE BRITTLE WONDER. 
 
 But the eye, fond of the garish, espies above, the carpets of 
 the Orient and English oil cloths immense and beautiful, and 
 the hangings of a tall and superb pagoda richer far in color 
 ings, and much more varied in forms, than even the flowers of 
 Nature. Far down the hall flame gorgeous gallery hangings. 
 In the centre, on the right and left, are lifted above the other 
 objects, the combat of the horse and dragon, the Duke of Rut- 
 and, Godfrey de Bouillon, the Bavarian lion all in bronze or 
 laster, very much magnified, gigantic and imposing ! Do not 
 let your eye be distracted by the birds in the large glass cases, 
 though gorgeous and glittering. Do not stop to listen to the 
 live birds which are flying and twittering about the palace, and 
 amid the large trees at either end of the transept. Another 
 caution do not let your senses be ravished by the organ and 
 harps which, from the galleries, have broken forth into melody, 
 vibrating, strangely mild and sweet against and along the vitreus 
 corridors. But let the eye, like the gallant Knight of Courtesy, 
 Sir G-UYON, pass through the Bowers of Bliss, untempted by the 
 " silver sweet sound." Let it take in the lofty summer-house of 
 bronze, in which Appollo matchlessly stands, after sending his 
 arrow through the eagle above ; then, the fur trophy, the Ross 
 telescope, the marble pillars, the chemical monuments of alum, 
 spermaceti, Rochelle salts, tartrate of potash and soda, illustra 
 tions of Nature s geometry playing into utility ! Nay, go on ! 
 See the rich tracery, the superbness and elegance of that altar 
 screen of oak ; then the bird trophy, carved by machinery, with 
 deep under-cuttings. Passing by the Elizabethan fountains, 
 what strange array of glass is that beyond ? What lenticular 
 arrangements could produce half the effect? What is their 
 use ? They are model light-houses, revolving and breaking and 
 casting out the light, not for the view of beauty, but for the 
 glass and eye of the navigator amid the perils of the deep ! 
 
 Remember that we are passing over the heads of many objects 
 in the west half of the building and these, too, in the midst 
 of the aisle. I have not dared to look galleryward. Neither 
 
AMD A ROYAL CHASE. 33 
 
 dare we go, as yet, into the compartments of British industry, 
 which lie on either side in great alcoves. At the far west end, 
 duplicating the whole exhibition, is the largest mirror in the 
 world, 18 feet 8 inches by 10 feet! There are other mirrors 
 nearly as large, with frames, some gilt, carved into every sort 
 of beasts, birds, creeping thing, flower and vegetable ; to say 
 nothing of little Cupids and angels inhabiting the involutions 
 which in every part attest the consummation of art. 
 
 This end we have reached by slow procession, moving around 
 each department, itself a world s fair in itself, and decorated 
 with striking elegance. Here the cool atmosphere enters. No 
 oppressive sense from heat, or confined air, disturbs the uniform 
 comfort of the building. Although fifty thousand people are 
 within, yet there is no jostling, no disturbance. The police 
 with their blue coats, brass buttons and glazed hats, are dis 
 tributed, with a few red coats, around ; and these, without other 
 aid, keep the vast mass in order. The English mostly compose 
 the mass. A few Chinese, some negroes, French in plenty, and 
 some other foreigners I could not determine what part of the 
 world they came from were mingled with the mass. 
 
 The observations we have hitherto made have been confined 
 exclusively to her majesty s dominions. Neither have we devi 
 ated into the apartments, wherein the products of English in 
 dustry are systematically arranged. Systematically ; because 
 it was found, upon consideration, that the materials operated 
 on, and the results, could be comprehended in thirty classes. 
 Grouping, therefore, as to Great Britain, was regulated by the 
 character of the productions, while in the east half of the build 
 ing, and in the colonies, they are arranged according to their 
 districts. 
 
 We began our examination, and the best could be but slight, 
 by proceeding round the western end and down by the south 
 wall. Mineral productions and mining, and the agricultural 
 implements, we passed by hastily ; then came the splendid as 
 sortment of woven materials, London, Manchester, and Glas- 
 
34 THE BRITTLE WONDER, 
 
 gow, vieing with each other in this generous rivalry. Woollen 
 and mixed fabrics, and Irish flaxen fabrics, with a loom of ex 
 quisite construction ready to show how the fabrics are woven ; 
 these, in all their wondrous variety of figure and style, riveted 
 the attention of our ladies, while the gentlemen preferred seeing 
 the smooth and intricate machinery in the northeast of the 
 palace. Oldham and Manchester, with their cotton works, are 
 here reproduced with most pleasing effect. The great business 
 of England is, at a glance, observed in motion. 
 
 To depicture the furniture, some elaborately carved and gilt ; 
 .some formed of peculiar woods and arranged in perplexing uni 
 formity and variety ; to reproduce the papier mache tables and 
 ornaments, with their gorgeous hues and dazzling beauties ; to 
 write down no ! no ! It cannot be done. 
 
 In passing through one part of this department, we were 
 astonished to find the British Bible Society represented by one 
 hundred and fifty-eight copies of the Word of Light and Life, 
 each in a separate language. There they stood, all opened, with 
 their mysterious symbols, pervaded by the holiest of inspira 
 tion, cloven tongues of fire, yet dove-like as the Holy Ghost 
 which has baptized the zeal and energy of this noble Society, 
 preparatory to a new Pentecostal day. Each Bible had its 
 peculiarity of impress. The very characters indicated, as plainly 
 as the diverse features of the human face, those national drver 
 sities and antagonisms which can only be harmonized by the 
 spirit enshrined within these Bibles. To my mind, this peculiar 
 exhibition was the crowning trophy of English Industry and 
 Genius. The wood and metal trophies from Canada are massive 
 evidences of English empire over deep mines and great forests ; 
 the India room over the way, lined with gold cloth, filled with 
 the furniture of the sumptuous Orient and dazzling with jewels 
 from Lahore, in the midst whereof is lying, in humble subjec 
 tion, three strange-shaped diamond-and-gold crowns of Hindoo 
 Kings and other tributes from the proud sheiks of the land 
 which Alexander and Bonaparte could not comprehend in their 
 
AND A ROYAL CHASE. 35 
 
 conquests, however much they dreamed of the glory, is another 
 trophy of English potency in Central and Southern Asia, god 
 less and cruel though its exercise has been ; those Kangaroo 
 skins and coral beauties, jaspers and agates, copper and gold, 
 do they not tell of English rule over antipodal realms in the 
 mid-ocean ? English home-produce, from the circular comb for 
 carding wool up to yon splendid steam-ship enginery, from that 
 beer- barrel machine up to yon process for engraving on steel by 
 electricity, from the rudest implement of primitive husbandry 
 up to the highest refinement of modern science, all demonstrate 
 a power to dignify ornamental forms by use, and to raise merely 
 useful forms into beauty, which should be the great ambition of 
 Art ; but all this is powerless and puny beside the triumph 
 which radiates from those Bibles, with their lips of fire, this 
 moment regenerating the kingdoms of the earth, and pouring 
 abroad that light of life 
 
 ; which never was on land or sea. 
 
 England, say what we will, stands confessedly the Christian 
 realm. Her history, from the time at least of Elizabeth, is full 
 of her influence upon the policy of the world, in opening the 
 way for the gospel. True, her rapacity has been unbounded. 
 
 "Heav n, Earth and Ocean plundered of their sweets," 
 
 is well attested by this Exhibition. But if China was com 
 pelled to take opium, she had to take the Bible. If Turkey 
 looked to England for aid against the Russian domination, free 
 toleration to Christians was consequent. 
 
 With the increase of Anglo-Saxon power, there has been 
 spread, along with the practicalness of the age, a spirituality 
 more divine than the soul, with all its power, hath yet been 
 gifted to imagine. 
 
 There is one article in the furniture list which elicited a 
 spontaneous burst of admiration from us all, especially the 
 ladies, who have been used to seeing homely wooden cradles, 
 
3(3 THE BRITTLE WONDER, 
 
 if not sugar troughs. It is called the " Regia Cot," I believe, 
 and is thus described : 
 
 A cradle carved in Turkey boxwood, symbolizing the Union 
 of the Royal House of England with that of Saxe Coburg and 
 Gotha. One end exhibits in the centre the armorial bearings 
 of her Majesty, the Queen, surrounded by masses of foliage, 
 natural flowers and birds ; on the rocker beneath, is seen the 
 head of Night, represented as a beautiful sleeping female, 
 crowned with a garland of poppies, supported upon bats wings, 
 and surrounded by seven planets. 
 
 The other end, or the back of the head of the cradle, is de 
 voted to the arms of H. 11. H. Prince Albert ; the shield occu 
 pies the centre, and round it, among the arabesque foliage, the 
 six crests of the Prince are scattered, with the motto, u Treu und 
 Fest." Below, on the rocker, is discovered a head of " Somnus," 
 with closed eyes, and over the chin a wimple, which, on each 
 side, terminates in poppies. 
 
 In the interior of the head of the cradle, guardian angels are 
 introduced ; and above, the royal crown is imbedded in foliage. 
 The friezes, forming the most important part of the sides of the 
 body of the cradle, are composed of roses, poppies, conventional 
 foliage, butterflies and birds, while beneath them rise a variety 
 of pinks, studied from nature. The edges and the inside of the 
 rockers are enriched with the insignia of royalty and emblems 
 of repose. 
 
 Have done quick with this royal baby nest ! Quick ! There 
 is a crowd across the aisle among the paper articles. Sure 
 enough, there is a curious contrivance ! What ! An envelope 
 maker ! folding by one click of a machine an envelope, and pass 
 ing them out by hundreds. Only a little boy attending it. Now 
 that we are over, we may observe the sea-weed arrangements. 
 How snugly they lie in their little baskets ! Euclid illustrated 
 and illuminated ; a model of St. Paul s cut with a pen-knife, and 
 consisting of over 50,000 pieces. Nay, do not start ; there is an 
 article in Spain, at the other end of the palace, with three mil- 
 
AND A ROYAL CHASE. . 37 
 
 lions of pieces of inlaid wood ! Most elegant landscapes made in 
 this way upon the tables and other furniture, are common. 
 
 Here we are amid the models again. Castles overhung with 
 ivy, houses in the old style, complete within and without. E>en 
 Shakspeare s house is perfectly represented, and the room where 
 he was born,/ws as it was. Now we have the model of a tour 
 nament, now of Knox s house in Edinburgh, now of flower gar 
 dens in every variety, now of a scene upon the Danube, now the 
 projected pyramid, in which five millions of coffins may be pre 
 served ; now we are among the medals, needle-work, pianos, 
 porcelain, chandeliers, stained windows ; and now, do take breath 
 to look at the Shakspeare " Jubileum." Jubi what? Here is 
 dramatic unity for you ! Here we have the heart of the English 
 mind in all its windings and off-shoots. Hazlitt has said, " that 
 the drama is a root growing through its own age, out of the Past 
 into the Future." We have the Jubileum as one of its stray 
 blossoms. Upon it is represented every play of Shakspeare, 
 from old Sir John in the basket to Richard in his tent of ter 
 rible dreams. A strange medley ! 
 
 Before we leave this end of the building, which we do under 
 oriental umbrellas with long silver handles, it would be well, 
 simply to glance at those ox-horns eight feet from point to point, 
 from Good Hope ; those wild beast skins above, those sleighs 
 and furs from Canada, that Indian riding gear, jewelled saddles, 
 elephant accoutrements and some other trifles from the British 
 Colonies. 
 
 Arm in arm, let us quit this minute examination of articles 
 piece by piece, and proceed up the palace and around the gal 
 leries. We are anxious to see what the United States has con 
 tributed. Softly there. To tell the truth, we are rather a 
 negative quantity in this exhibition. Passing by the exhibition 
 of the European nations, we reach the end set apart for the 
 United States. 
 
 Plenty of room was allotted, and the most conspicuous. The 
 American eagle spreads herself" in the west end, over little 
 
38 THE BRITTLE WONDER. 
 
 or nothing. Punch could not help but catch at the idea. " No 
 eagle," he says, " asking of itself where it should dine, and hov 
 ering in space without a visible mouthful, could represent the 
 grandeur of contemplative solitude better than is shown by the 
 United States eagle in the firmament of Mr. Paxton s Crystal. 
 This is the more to be lamented, inasmuch as a very little con 
 sideration might have given us the American eagle, with the 
 treasures of America gathered below its hovering wings. Why 
 not have sent some choice specimens of slaves? We have the 
 Greek captive in dead stone why not the Virginian slave in 
 living ebony ?" 
 
 The satire is well pointed. We feel it abroad. The thing 
 above all others which I was proud to see in that palace the 
 nonpareil " Slave" of Powers, becomes the occasion of bye-word 
 and reproach. The most refined company in the palace were 
 gathered about this offspring of our Ohio sculptor, admiring in 
 silence. After passing through the heavy sculpture and gar 
 ish display of the world s art ; after the sense ached to faintness 
 with the violence of the colorings of luxury s trapping, it was a 
 sweet and cordial relief to stand before the matchless form of 
 the pure and simple Greek girl, mourning so deeply, yet so sub- 
 duedly, at her fettered destiny. And as we thought of the 
 genius of the sculptor, the lines of Shelley glided into the mind, 
 
 " It was for thee, yon kingless sphere has long 
 
 Swung blind in unascended majesty." 
 
 Aii iron safe is also here, so constructed, that no person but 
 the inventor can open it. It is the same owned by Hobbs, who 
 is called at home the great lock-king. At a meeting to-day of 
 Americans at Trivort s, I met the genius. He has put all the 
 lockmakers here to the blush, and beat Chubbs himself. By a 
 little instrument which he carries in his vest, he picked the best 
 lock of England in a few minutes. He stated that 10,000 for 
 feit could be raised by Englishmen alone, to put up against the 
 big diamond, provided they would give him a night to pick for 
 it, through any lock in England. 
 
AM) A ItOl AL CHASE. 39 
 
 Various excuses have been made for our country s defection 
 at this exhibition. Tardiness in the governments, distance from 
 the Exhibition, and bad arrangements here, have been offered 
 as excuses. We trust that it is not owing to a want of the ma 
 terials to exhibit. Had the last Ohio fair been culled a little, 
 it would have been a proud exhibition compared to this. One 
 item ; why was there not a model of the Burnet House n 
 standard hotel sent on here ? It would have been quite a speci 
 men even among the glorious architecture of the Past. And let 
 me delicately hint, that a real Burnet House would have been 
 an acceptable refuge to us Americans. 
 
 Let us ascend the galleries and take a farewell (for to-day) 
 of this " brittle wonder." From a seat near the transept, the 
 eye may gather in glorious unity the thousandfold spectacle. 
 Look up and down as far as the vision can distinctly reach, and 
 you will see but one moving river of humanity, flowing amid 
 margins of paintings, hangings, and architectural display; and 
 around isles of fountains, towers, statues, barges, and trophies of 
 every color and form ; and under a net-work of silver lucency, 
 seeming to be hung in air ! Music mingling with the hum-hum- 
 hum of the rustling, eager throng, and with the tinkling of the 
 fountains ; birds carolling in the trees before and behind you 
 temples and booths, flags, organs, and segments of churches not 
 severally (for you cannot find the prominent object where none 
 has its parallel), but all together strike your bedazzled view as a 
 
 " Glory beyond all Glory ever seen." 
 
 Can ye not believe in something transcendent, as the 
 effluence of this universal jubilee of Industry in its crystal 
 home ? Hear ye not prophetic harpings weaving their spell 
 of enchantment, while genius paints undying pictures of that 
 promised day, when " war shall cease and conquest be abjured," 
 when garlands from every clime shall be brought to deck the 
 Tree of Liberty ! 
 
40 THE BRITTLE WONDER, 
 
 The eye would fain close on the scene and commit it to the 
 more facile play of the imagination. To attempt to delineate 
 it, so that he who reads may see, is as vain as to attempt to 
 " paint chaos, make a portrait of Proteus, or to fix the figure 
 of the fleeting air." We must only attempt in our further ac 
 quaintance with its contents, to select isolated objects, with 
 their several utilities. 
 
 Our jaded spirits were revived by a little incident upon the 
 street, as we drove homeward. There is no particular harm in 
 an American getting a glimpse of a Queen ; as, happily, Queens 
 are such rare birds in our land. Let no harsh Republican mis 
 take the motive which prompted the exploit, which issued in 
 a full view of royalty. We left the Crystal Palace, about six 
 P. M. Our minds were completely wearied with the vision 
 of the glorious structure and its splendid contents the array 
 of diamonds and gold India riches, French elegance, German 
 ingenuity, and British all sorts. Pondering these things, yet 
 with eyes about us for the mirabile of the metropolis, we 
 drove down Green Park (these London parks, oh ! but they are 
 emerald gems in their rough setting of aristocratic mortar !) 
 and into famous Oxford street ; When lo ! a couple of out 
 riders dressed in red then a splendid open carriage (it was a 
 bright day), drawn by six horses with red riders, then (keep 
 cool !) two other riders with livery ; and then (steady sir !) 
 two other red fellows, with canes and on horseback, who looked 
 as savage as catamounts at a hack driver that did not give way 
 immediately. This unexpected array rather beclouded our 
 senses, already intoxicated with the sights of fountains, gold 
 cloths, pagodas, carpets, trees, Hindoo rooms, statuary, and 
 every thing else conceivable in the world. It was a theatrical 
 show in every deed a dashing splendor ! 
 
 What can it mean ? My head goes out inquiringly. I see 
 hats going off on both sides. Drivers give way. " I say driver 
 isn t that the Queen herself!" " It s ur zur." Hurrah ! " Then 
 drive after give chase extra shilling crack up all right ! 
 
AM) A ROYAL CHASE. 41 
 
 we re sovereigns ourselves, sir ; give us an equal chance to the 
 pave !" Away dashed royalty in her elegant coach ! away 
 dashed we, in an indifferent four-wheeled cab ! I noticed as 
 we passed a little fellow dressed in a silver-laced cap a hand 
 some little fellow, and quite a pretty little girl on the front 
 seat ; and behind, the Queen, an ordinarily dressed and tolerable 
 good-looking woman not unlike Mrs. A., Mrs. B., or Mrs. 
 C.j of our humble vicinage. 
 
 We sovereigns of America gained on her of England. The 
 outriders did not look savagely around at us ; but as we got 
 pretty close, to our utter amazement and mortification, the 
 Queen herself turned round, and gave us a good-natured look 
 and a full view. We had a hearty laugh at our good fortune, 
 and came home full of the Exhibition, and feeling quite royally. 
 
IV. 
 
 tt (gulislj 
 
 Away they go ! One retires to his country-house, and another is engaged at a horse 
 race ; and as to their country - 1" Junius 
 
 w 
 
 HO has not read Oliver Goldsmith s " Citizen of the 
 World ?" The remarks of his Chinese pilgrim in London 
 seem to be applicable to myself. He felt himself as a newly 
 created being, introduced into a new world in which, although 
 every object strikes with wonder and surprise, yet the imagina 
 tion is still unsated. Although the world has passed through 
 it in exhibition ; and London with her majestic architecture, 
 regal parks, and soul- thrilling historical associations has been 
 around and within, still imagination seems to be the only active 
 principle of the mind. The most trifling occurrence gives 
 pleasure until the gloss of novelty is worn away. When I have 
 ceased to wonder, I may possibly grow wise ; I may then call 
 the reasoning principle to my aid, and compare those objects 
 with each other, which were before examined without reflec 
 tion. 
 
 It is a beautiful May morning. Birds are singing. Their 
 shrill sweetness rises even above the " London cries." To me 
 it seems strange that the painters upon the building opposite, 
 do not start or tumble down, at the unearthly whoops, groans, 
 yells, and yawns below them, which announce the vender of 
 something. I could only distinguish one vegetable in the med 
 ley 7 Aws-pautr-goose!" If Bedlam were out a-Maying, it 
 
 would do justice to these cries to my novel hearing. 
 
 In these transcripts from the eye, I know that I am unable 
 
AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 43 
 
 to disseminate any useful principle, or afford any useful instruc 
 tion. Beautiful parks and lofty monuments pass so rapidly in 
 view, that my stare at them is almost vacant. The highest part 
 of our human nature is not exercised. There can be no commu 
 nion of soul with them as yet. We might gaze for ever and 
 gratify the pleasure-loving propensity, and return home no wiser 
 than we departed. But when one goes out into the English 
 country, as I did on Thursday to Epsom, on the great Derby 
 race day, the scenes of nature, with their hedges and vistas of 
 trees, their meadows and cottages, all assemble upon the thresh 
 old of the mind, and many very many, of these beauties enter 
 into the internal economy of ideas and sentiment, there fadelessly 
 to bloom there continually to awaken something correspondent 
 to their hue, form, and grandeur. I might reproduce these 
 descriptions ; but there is so much of human nature to com 
 mune with on this Derby day, that I forbear. Besides, as Dr. 
 Cheever has well said, mere descriptions, be the scenery ever so 
 grand, are cloying and tiresome. It is like living upon pound 
 cake and cream, or rather upon whip-syllabub. 
 
 A Derby day awakens more interest in London, than any 
 other day in the Calendar. Every vehicle, from the splendid 
 coach of Royalty and Dukery to the humble dog-cart and pony 
 phaeton of the mechanic and shopman, are in requisition. Five 
 thousand pounds is the stake, and millions more in the shape of 
 bets are in the scale. The " nobs" (as the nobility are famil 
 iarly called), with their four-in-hand coaches, are the prominent 
 actors in the day. They own most of the race-horses. 
 
 But we will start ourselves. Lunch being prepared, and a 
 vehicle entered, we hurry by the gorgeous array in Oxford and 
 Regent-streets, pass the parks, those green metropolitan lungs, 
 and give a hasty glance at the statue of Canning. Now Trafal 
 gar square appears, and the Nelson monument long detains the 
 lingering sight. It is the finest place in London for a monu 
 ment. The column and statue are 177 feet high. The statues 
 of the Georges III. and IV., are near, and serve to show off 
 
44 AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 
 
 this splendid monument to England s naval glory. The Na 
 tional Gallery is opposite ; but the Nelson pillar detracts from 
 every other object. Its bas-reliefs represent the famous battle 
 of Trafalgar. How the eye swims as it upward gazes at the 
 figure. A coil of rope relieves the pediment upon which he is 
 
 placed. 
 
 Up in the broad day s lustre doth it stand, 
 A column raised to dear and dazzling fame, 
 Mounting with pride the bosom of the land, 
 And stamping glory there with Nelson s name. 
 
 And yet methinks, that face lifted up so prominently in the 
 " bosom of the land" doth blush, if not in the broad day s lus 
 tre, yet at evening s reddening glow, when contemplation de 
 lights in pure thoughts and virtuous actions. Read Nelson s 
 private life. Doth not the sea through which he sailed become 
 incarnadine with shame ? 
 
 How much of debauchery and wretchedness has been caused 
 by the force of that splendid example which the monumental 
 structures of England have illustrated, can only be known in 
 that day, when the Judge of all shall winnow the purity of a 
 heart from the glory of a name, and leave the latter as chaff for 
 the fire. 
 
 Soon we came in sight of old Westminster. How streaked 
 and blackened with age look the old towers ! How the heart 
 swells with the vast proportions ! Tracery, towers, niches, sta 
 tues, frieze, and every other architectural appliance which ren 
 der the Gothic a wilderness of arching foliage, " star proof" in 
 its woven web of beauty, are here in profuse variety. And the 
 Abbey the most interesting place in England the urn of her 
 greatness the treasury of her genius the Conqueror of Time ; 
 does it not shut out all other objects? But we must reserve 
 our thoughts until we go within. 
 
 The Derby will start before we run over our 20 miles to 
 the turf. Now we dart down toward Vauxhall, and " Father 
 Thames" is emptying his pitcher beneath us. How many re- 
 
AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 45 
 
 flections seem cast in his waters. How splendid he seemed to 
 the imagination, before we looked down upon his familiar face. 
 The English poets had never seen our western streams the 
 magnificent Mississippi and the beautiful Ohio, else they would 
 not have extolled so highly the charms of this little river, 
 li rue, grandeur hath gathered many monuments of fame and 
 pride upon its banks, and Art hath created landscapes which 
 peep into its tide ;" but Nature was never less prodigal than in 
 her decoration of the Thames. 
 
 We saw St. James s palace beyond the Green Park, with the 
 royal arms floating in the sunshine, a sign of the presence of the 
 Queen. It was a scene thronging with recollections. There 
 once stood the hospital dedicated to St. James, for the reception 
 of the fourteen leprous maidens. What tales could those old 
 stones tell ! There Charles the First attended divine service, 
 before he walked through the Park to his scaffold at Whitehall. 
 In that very palace, MONK and Sir JOHN GRANVILLE planned the 
 Restoration. There, within our vision, 
 
 " through the towers, amidst his ring 
 
 Of Vans and Mynheers rode the Dutchman King, 
 And there did England s Goneril thrill to hear 
 The shouts that triumphed o er her crownless Lear." 
 
 Yonder, old HARRY the Eighth chuckled at the jokes of his 
 witty Chancellor, SIR THOMAS MORE, to say nothing of the vile 
 pranks of that pure " Defender of the Faith." There WALPOLE 
 practised his shameless venality, and BOLINGBROKE (Pope s 
 Maecenas) lounged up to see the queenly Anne. Now, amid the 
 whirl and stir, the present usurps the past, and St. James s be 
 comes the home of the little VICTORIA and her numerous family, 
 the sight of whom, as detailed in our last chapter, tickled our 
 democratic feelings. 
 
 Five bridges span the Thames, over one of which, Yauxhall, 
 we ride toward Epsom. Granite and iron make Vauxhall only 
 second to Waterloo bridge. From it we have a view, as yet a 
 little misty, of the most splendid architectural display in Great 
 
46 AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 
 
 Britain. I mean the new Houses of Parliament. They front 
 the Thames, and extend to the water s edge. It is ower true, as 
 one of England s poets has said, that the Thames does not re 
 semble any of those streams whose foam is amber, and whose 
 gravel, gold. Dirty-looking, even to the depth of filthiness, is 
 her appearance. Can she be the same crystal mirror in which 
 Eton and Windsor dress themselves every day in their Gothic 
 costumes ? Her " oozy bed " is no doubt full of argosies which 
 contain the riches of the Indies ; but there are some riches there 
 imbedded which are neither beautiful nor fragrant. The river 
 is washed out by the tide twice a day quite a consolation to 
 the nose-possessing and water-drinking community. 
 
 Now we are fairly over into Surrey. Vehicles are beginning 
 to close in. We are compelled to walk, and even to stand still. 
 Three abreast, yet packed close, and not within seventeen miles 
 of Epsom. Does it not beat every thing ? It is the English 
 Saturnalia. Every body is privileged to joke every body. Nobs 
 joke snobs; and donkey carts sauce Hansom cabs. Club 
 men in their coaches halloo to pretty boarding-school misses, 
 peeping over their green walls, which line the pike, who snicker 
 and chuckle. Old Johnny Bull, red with jollity, rides along, 
 " holding both his sides." Now and then a smash and curses 
 announce something serious. We ourselves had the honor of 
 being bumped by Lord Strathmore s carriage, and took the 
 license of the day to caution his Lordship. Toll-gates and 
 hiring taxes (?) are collected. Stopping and walking, we finally 
 pass through the last gate, and dash away over the furzy Downs. 
 
 The prospect from the Downs is magnificent. Far below, 
 and very distant, is seen the elements of English civilization 
 rail-cars puffing, roads lined with hedges ; farms laid out like 
 gardens, and gardens like paradises ; towers standing upon 
 high points, and, as we turn about, we see the stand and turf of 
 Epsom ! 
 
 Although we were a long time getting to Epsom, we are 
 glad to find the " Derby" is not run. Let us mount upon the 
 
AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 47 
 
 top of the vehicle and look around. For miles, right and left, 
 are the people. The best part of a million are here assembled ; 
 among them are the royal house of Prussia, with their cream- 
 colored team, as well as the poorest ragamuffin, just discharged 
 from Old Bailey, with his stick and crownless hat. The track is 
 upon a side-hill turf, and is in excellent order. It is a hundred 
 feet wide, but hardly distinguishable in the mingled mass of men. 
 Inhere is a little valley between us and the turf. A continuous 
 rise is used, which affords a fine prospect of the race. The stand 
 is on the other side, and its adjacent booth is perfectly black 
 with heads. All around it for acres is the same phenomena. 
 Now a bell rings. The police march up the track to clear it. 
 Every body is opening baskets. Wines and sodas pop ; sand 
 wiches and shrimps appear ; pies and birds are demolished, 
 amid cries of " water," " oranges," " who wants a card of the 
 races ? " Fiddling and horn-tooting all around, a fool dancing 
 in woman s clothes, with a red calash on his head, and a parasol, 
 mimicking fine ladies, while the fine ladies in lordly carriages 
 are looking on laughingly ; gipsies, wild in look and with eyes 
 dark and sinister, are roving about. See, they have that young 
 man ! " Tell your fortune, pretty gentleman? You will be for 
 tunate, oh, yes ! only leave a gipsy a sixpence, sir ; will be a 
 lucky one in the race, sir, " and with other like remarks, she 
 hangs on like a snapping turtle. All these scenes are transpiring, 
 while an enormous shout and laugh go up from the crowd along the 
 ropes. The police had cleared the track it is only a dog or 
 a loafer trying to run across, with a policeman after. Away 
 they go in a mimic race ! 
 
 The coast is clear. With a glass, you may see the many co 
 lored jockeys mounting. Now comes the preparatory galloping 
 to loosen the horses joints. Up they ride, and bets begin to run 
 by colors. All now is still. We cannot see the start. The cry 
 rises, " they re off!" The black heads in and around the stand 
 have become a sea of upturned faces. We hear the tramp of 
 horses on the distant turf. Horsemen ride over the hill to catch 
 
48 AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 
 
 the sight. Now the race-horses appear around the hill nearly all 
 together ; yet so far distant, that they seem to move slowly ; 
 soon they begin to be clearly distinguished. " Hurrah for the 
 blue-cap ! hurrah for the red ! black cap and pink ahead !" In 
 fine style they dash between the anxious heads. The tug is be 
 tween the black cap and pink, and blue. Thousands are staked 
 upon the result. The cry is, now for one now for the other ! 
 On they all " bicker and burn to gain the expected goal." In a 
 twinkling they dash home. The number is run up, and the wel 
 kin rings and re-rings with the shout of immense multitudes. 
 The track is soon broken over. The throng rushes toward the 
 stand. The Derby is done and won ! Millions have been lost 
 and gained. Freely pop the wine bottles of the victors ; merrily 
 ring their laughs ! Up rise thousands of carrier pigeons to an 
 nounce the result abroad ! 
 
 Now comes a scene which carries us back to the good old 
 days of Queen Bess such as Scott describes in his Kenilworth 
 the days of the tournaments. Rings are formed. Circus 
 sports are going on upon the turf; dancing girls are soon trans 
 muted by some magic from ordinary females ; magical gentle 
 men begin to throw up rings, butcher-knives, etc. ; music breaks 
 out from all sides ; gipsies burst anew from their tents ; and 
 h ar k ! " ansum and hinteresting presents for hinfants ! only a 
 penny ! ave one sir ?" " Ere s silver-tipped buttons for olding 
 coats together made out of coal !" " Sody-water ! Ginger- 
 beer-r-r !" and a hundred other cries. Beyond the turf, the 
 manly sports are going on, such as firing at targets, pitching at 
 points, and divers other things to me unknown. The turf was 
 cleared again another race the same excitement ; the air is 
 again filled with pigeons, who dart around for awhile uncertain 
 where to go ; then off with their news. 
 
 Again, we are upon the road homeward, amid the flowery 
 meadows, and the hedges or walls of ivy, and sometimes of 
 flowers. The trees look so trim and perfect. Each for itself 
 seems " dressed in living green." As well attempt to separate 
 
AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 49 
 
 color from the rainbow, or extension from matter, as Beauty 
 from these vistas made by the lines of elm, flowering chestnut 
 and birch, filled with their little winged singing people. The 
 leaves will grow in freshness, and the robins, thrushes, and 
 larks, like Jenny Lind, must, although they know not why be 
 " singing." 
 
 On our road to London, we find every body out to see the 
 " Derby " return. It sometimes comes home boozy. Long 
 arrays of Charity scholars in their uniforms, and boys from 
 school are out, under the charge of masters. Policemen are 
 stationed all along. Within five miles of London, the road is 
 lined ten or twenty deep. Punch and Judy, negro singers, 
 dancers, bag-pipers from Scotland, are mingled with the throng, 
 performing. Every body is privileged to say what comes upper 
 most. Although an entire stranger amid this crowd of myriads, 
 I drank several imaginary healths from off my seat, to gentle 
 men with mugs on the top of the walls ; exchanged spunk with 
 the spunky, laughs with the good-natured, words with the fami 
 liar, and altogether felt at home. Wit and humor followed us 
 through the large commons into the very city. We thought we 
 had left London at Epsom, but the million seemed to be waiting 
 for their horse-racing brethren to return. 
 
 The moral effect of these vast assemblages, patronized as 
 they are by royalty itself, (for the Queen has her stand,) it is not 
 for me to speak of. The Englishman prepares his "book of bets" 
 a year beforehand, and comes up yearly to offer his incense to his 
 favorite racer. We have in America very few of these sportive 
 gatherings. Some regard it as a great defect in our social 
 organism. Let such remember that the sun, which by its genial 
 heat promotes the growth of vegetation, produces also by its 
 heat the poisonous vapor. 
 
 We have lost a day from the Exhibition, but we were com 
 pensated by many insights into English manners and character, 
 which long months of ordinary residence could not give. We 
 saw a nation forgetful of itself, its dignity, its glory, and the 
 
5Q AN ENGLISH SATURNALIA. 
 
 "relict radiance of its past ages," besotting itself with the 
 enthusiasm of beast-racing, and the intoxication of gambling. 
 Can this be the England whose abbeys, monuments, and palace 
 of stone and crystal, rise so proudly in her metropolis ? Strange 
 and uncouth, sounds this revel of racing, amid these hallowec 
 localities, where Antiquity is a presence and a power; as strange 
 and as uncouth as would a vacant laugh or a squeaking f 
 amidst the diapason and Te Deum," which rolls and swel 
 along the fretted roof of the cathedral ! 
 
V. 
 
 " Yet who not listens with delighted smile 
 To the pure Saxon of that silver style." 
 
 NEW TIMON. 
 
 the kindness of our Minister. Mr. LAWRENCE, I 
 -L received a ticket for the House of Commons. By its 
 potency, I found myself at five last evening occupying (per 
 haps by mistake) a seat in the little lobby, connected with, 
 and reserved for the House of Lords. The galleries above were 
 pretty full, mostly of Americans ; for strangers from the Conti 
 nent seldom visit the Commons. My company was rather 
 more aristocratic than I had been accustomed to. However, 
 taking a stranger s privilege, I learned from my right-hand 
 man, whom I afterwards found out to be Lord LYNDHURST, the 
 late Lord High Chancellor, and from those in front, one of 
 whom was the Earl of Minto, late Ambassador to Rome, and 
 father-in-law of the Premier all I wanted to know as to the 
 rules and constitution of the House, repaying them in kind, by 
 answering their queries as to our legislative assemblies. Let 
 me here say, that however exclusive the English nobility seem 
 in the streets and in their houses, there is a perfect courtesy 
 and urbanity among those whom I here observed. There was 
 a full attendance of the Commons, and a large number of the 
 upper house present to hear the discussion on the Catholic bill. 
 The House is opposite Westminster Abbey. You reach the 
 Hall through long passages guarded by several porters. It 
 is not much larger than our Senate room in Columbus, rather 
 
THE COMMONS. 
 
 longer, not so wide. There is but one desk under the speaker s 
 chair, in which three wigged gentlemen sit scribbling. The 
 speaker is gowned and wigged. He is a large, red-faced, thick- 
 tongued, old Saxon, full of verbosity and consequence. He is 
 the only member who has his hat off. It strikes an American 
 strangely, to see the deliberative gravity of the greatest power 
 in Christendom, sitting ranged in seats, with their hats on. This 
 custom will, perhaps, account for the number of bald heads 
 among the English. You cannot see their eyes or faces except 
 when they arise to speak. At first blush one is apt to condemn 
 the assembly, as a convention of stupidity and carelessness. 
 Yet there is an agreeable surprise, in finding so much ease, and 
 compared to my previous fancy, so very little formality in the 
 arrangement and conduct of the House. 
 
 The preliminary business being over, a Quakerly dressed 
 man (you might know that it is BRIGHT, Cobden s free-trade, 
 right-hand man !) rises to complain of a trick of the. Secretary 
 of the Treasury, and is responded to by the Speaker. By his 
 gestures you may discern where and how parties are arranged. 
 On the left, upon the lowest bench, sits Lord John Russell, his 
 hat down over his head, as Punch caricatures him. Upon the 
 left-hand side and near, are the supporters of the Government. 
 Opposite you may see an intelligent-looking, black and curly- 
 haired, neatly dressed gentleman. That is D !SRAELI, the au 
 thor of " Tancred," and the conservative leader. Just above 
 him is Mr. WALPOLE. a rising man, who (as I was informed by 
 a noble Lord) would be the conservative Attorney General in 
 case of a change. This is the Tory, Protection, or Conservative 
 wing. At this end, near where I sit, are the Irish members, 
 most of them in opposition just now to the Government, on ac 
 count of the " ecclesiastical titles bill," which is the theme for 
 to-night s debate. Still, the Irish members do not act together 
 against the Government, as is indicated by the position of John 
 O Connell, that red-faced, good-natured, stumpy man just facing 
 the Speaker, on neither side. He is on the fence. You may 
 
THE COMMONS. 53 
 
 tell the Irish members by their faces, without hearing a word 
 of brogue. 
 
 My impression, when first looking upon this scene, was one 
 of deep disappointment. It is -cruel to have one s anticipations 
 crushed so suddenly, when there is crushed with them so much 
 of greatness, splendor, and ability, which have ever been asso 
 ciated in the mind with the English Parliament. I said to my- 
 se^f almost bitterly, " Is this the famous Parliament wherein 
 SIR EDWARD COKE, SELDEN, PRYNNE, HARRY VANE, PYM, 
 HAMPDEN, and OLD NOLL," battled the kingly prerogative of 
 the Tudor and the Stuart ; declaring by charters and bills of 
 right, Apologies and remonstrances, that there was no other 
 source of legislation or revenue, than this their own Commons, 
 one of the estates of the realm, whose laws could brook no dis 
 pensing from kingcraft? Is this stupid-looking, hat-wearing, 
 vociferating body, the same ordeal through which ST. JOHN, by 
 the persuasion of his eloquence, and the force of his invective, 
 and through which the young cornet PITT, by the command of 
 his eloquence entered the portals of power, to lose it by becom 
 ing respectively Bolingbroke and Chatham lords yet more 
 than peers of the upper house ? Is this the forum where ED 
 MUND BURKE displayed the riches of his lore and the glory of 
 his imagination where SHERIDAN electrified the house with his 
 wit ? where NORTH, the Palinurus of the State, slept through 
 the assaults of the best genius of England, leaving his haughty 
 solicitor and attorney to pilot his sleeping course and defend 
 his waking course 1 Is this the theatre where GEORGE CANNING, 
 whose statue I just passed in the twilight, starred his short 
 season of ministerial power where the younger PITT, by severe 
 and never-failing logic, held so long the rule of British politics 
 during its severest storms where Fox " graced the fervor " of 
 the hour, by winged words which bore the spirit of great deeds? 
 Can it be that in this assemblage there still lives a single 
 breath of the old vitality, which made, to my mind, the English 
 House of Commons the finest arena for intellectual tilting tho 
 
54 THE COMMONS. 
 
 world has witnessed, since Athens boasted her Agora with her 
 Pericles and Demosthenes ; or Rome her forum with her Tully 
 and Hortensius ? Is this the scene of WILKES and his agita 
 tion ? Was it here that the proud shade of JUNIUS hovered, to 
 collect the rays of that reason and indignation wherewith to 
 illumine the English constitution and consume its enemies? 
 It was here that my throbbing heart expected to find fulfilled 
 Burke s graceful idea of sovereignty, " modest splendor, unas 
 suming state, mild majesty, and sober pomp." 
 
 Scarcely had the debate on the Popery bill began, before all 
 these reflections were put to rout by a movement of the parlia 
 mentary appetite. There was a rush after supper. An Irish 
 member, Mr. REYNOLDS, formerly Lord Mayor of Dublin, hit 
 the incident off very happily. He arose, as Ireland generally 
 does, amid groans of " Oh !" He perceived that some Hon. 
 members were anxious to dine. A celebrated English poet had 
 said that " wretches hang that jurymen may dine." Now he 
 would not assert that some Hon. gentlemen would hang the 
 Pope " rather than eat their mutton cold," but he believed they 
 would not hesitate to make short work in passing a bill of pains 
 and penalties rather than incur that misfortune. (A laugh.) 
 
 I was however doomed to be disappointed. My first impres 
 sions proved erroneous. It was my good fortune to hear what 
 my informants denominated their " cleverest" men. 
 
 The rnotixm pending was that of TOM DUNCOMBE, as he is 
 familiarly known a Radical, and a genuine trump, besides be 
 ing a handsome, black-eyed, black-haired, graceful personage. 
 Mr. Duncombe had moved that the first clause of the bill, pun 
 ishing those who take titles under the Pope, be postponed until 
 the House should be in possession of the brief, rescript, or letters 
 apostolical, upon which the enacting clause was founded ; and 
 he proceeded to make what was called a decided hit, between 
 wind and water. 
 
 He poured hot shot right over the heads and into the eyes 
 of the ministers charging them with deserting the principles of 
 
THE COMMONS. 55 
 
 the Emancipation Act of 1829, and denouncing the Preamble to 
 the present bill compared with that of 1829, as miserable, wretch 
 ed, narrow-minded and pettifogging. The speech was directed 
 to the subject of the motion. He contended that mere public 
 notoriety, or " common clamor" (to use the Saxon) was not the 
 evidence for grave legislation. This speech called out the legal 
 advisers of the government, who played the game of stave-off 
 nicely. The Solicitor General is a tall, white-headed, good- 
 natured man, of imperfect enunciation. Indeed, I noticed that 
 very few of the speakers failed to stutter a good deal. D !SRA- 
 ELI was a perfect stammerer throughout. What he said was 
 pointed, but his manner was very indifferent. The most grace 
 ful elocution was that of Mr. WALPOLE, whose finely woven words 
 trilled musically upon the ear, as he tendered the conservative 
 force to the government, by which they are enabled to pass their 
 bill. But ROEBUCK is the Slasher of the Parliament. He does 
 not mince matters quite so much. Every other member has 
 his " right honorable and learned friend from so-and-so," over 
 twenty times in a ten minutes speech. Roebuck cuts to the 
 marrow every thrust. His under lip curls over in scorn ; but he 
 met more than his match in the tall, gray-whiskered, courtly, 
 precise and business-like Home Secretary, SIR GEORGE GREY. 
 He looked to me the ablest man in the Cabinet. Lord John 
 Russell made a short and very pointed speech, displaying both 
 tact and good nature. He always comes in to the help of his 
 adjutants when they are pushed to the wall, and leads them off. 
 The Premier of England, whom I had a good opportunity to see, 
 is a little man with a high forehead, bright eyes, and hair some 
 what minus, but straggling over his face. He sits perfectly 
 quiet, with his countenance under deep shadow, so that it is 
 impossible to tell whether the arrows strike home or not. 
 
 Let me not fail to commend the brevity and pith of the 
 English speakers. Up they start in a twinkling, the hat coming 
 off simultaneously. They preamble little, but shoot right at the 
 white ; reserve their antithetic brilliance for the conclusion, 
 
56 THE COMMONS. 
 
 which is hardly uttered, before the hat is on and they drop ! If 
 you should put a pistol ball through the heart, you could not 
 bring them down quicker. There is no loud bawling in speak 
 ing, save among the Irish. But the cheers, cries of " hear" 
 and at times the perfect Babelism of the House, is as comical as 
 it is novel to an American. Tittlebat Titmouse, when he imi 
 tated a menagerie, was accounted, for that purpose, an efficient 
 M. P. I can now understand the eloquence of Tittlebat s zoologi 
 cal demonstration. When his untimely groan caused a ministry, 
 in the full tide of power, to resign, he reached an eminence of 
 parliamentary celebrity wholly unprecedented ; because no one 
 but Tittlebat could ever have had the insensibility necessary to 
 the occasion. But the clamor is soon over. The member either 
 takes advantage of the cheers and interjections, or never heeds 
 them. 
 
 The Irish members seemed anxious to find out if government 
 intended to put the Popery bill in force in Ireland. The bill 
 is general, and includes Ireland. They could get no direct 
 response; although Mr. KEOGII, a witty and able speaker, 
 pressed them closely. 
 
 During the debate I was startled by a cry from one of the 
 wigs, of " strangers, withdraw !" Then, just as we were about 
 to leave, the cry was " order," and the first command withdrawn. 
 Directly on finishing the debate on Duncombe s motion, the 
 command was repeated. We all went into a lobby, while a 
 division of the House was called. It was a novel procedure. 
 As it was explained to me, the members all march out, then 
 march in ; while at two points their vote is registered. This 
 process lasted about a half an hour, the bell in the mean time 
 ringing in absentees. I undertook to commend our plan of 
 taking the ayes and noes ; but I believe that even our plan has 
 been improved by a Yankee. 
 
 During the discussion an odd procedure took place. A wig 
 and gown appeared at the door of the House, accompanied by a 
 lawyer. His queue trembled with conscious importance, as it, 
 
THE COMMONS. 57 
 
 moved up the aisle. Out jumped from a large chair, a little 
 man in black tights with a big sword ! Pretty soon, down 
 marched an officer with a large gilded instrument : 
 
 " May I be permitted to inquire, sir, if that that stick 
 yonder, is Cromwell s bauble the mace ? " 
 
 <: You re quite right, sir. It s the bauble ha ! ha ! You 
 Americans don t pay much respect to such legislative symbols !" 
 
 The man with the mace and sword marched the others up 
 to the Speaker, who mumbled over something. It was doubt 
 less a message from the upper house. I could see in it, though 
 disguised, the original of our own modus operandi. The "mace 
 was carefully laid out of sight, and I much edified. 
 
 From the vote given, one may see what the Parliament of 
 England is about. For some months past they have debated, 
 and for some months to come they will debate, a measure of 
 penalty, which a new rescript of the Pope may avoid ; and 
 which, when enacted, will serve as an excellent mode of perse 
 cuting into the Catholic Church a goodly number of Her Majes 
 ty s loyal subjects. It sounded strange to my ears, to hear the 
 old statutes of premunire, and other obsolete enactments of the 
 time of Richard II., quoted in this English Parliament and in 
 this nineteenth century, as precedents for present legislation 
 against Pio NONO PAPA ! Titus Gates is not dead yet. The 
 Premier lately declared his belief in a Popish plot to subvert 
 the liberties of the people ; and upon this belief, and a harmless 
 letter making Dr. Wiseman an ecclesiastical officer of an English 
 locality, is to be based a law of intolerance, which even James 
 II. would have been ashamed to sanction. When will England 
 learn the beautiful truths of free toleration ? When will she 
 leave accountability in spiritual matters to GOD alone ? When 
 will she learn the significance of the first Amendment to the 
 Constitution of the United States, in its application to human 
 societies of divers religions and sects : " Congress shall make 
 no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 
 the free exercise thereof." 
 
58 THE COMMONS. 
 
 But we would not judge her harshly from whom we have 
 received such rich legacies of political wisdom. Well we know 
 that the ecclesiastical polity of England has been growing for 
 ages, and intertwisting its fibres with her civil polity. To pull 
 it down, both must be uptorn. For that event England is not 
 yet prepared. Time is the innovator in England. With a Queen 
 so young and popular, and to whom we may almost apply the 
 adulatory poetry of Lord COKE (the only poetry he ever com 
 mitted,) to Queen Elizabeth, that, as the "rose is the queen 
 among flowers, and smelleth more sweetly when it is plucked 
 from the branch, so I may say and justify, that she, by just 
 desert, is the queen of queens, not only by royal descent, but by 
 roseal beauty also," with such a Queen the loyal spirit of Eng 
 land is blindly enamored. The disfranchised and tax-ridden 
 millions, and the poor, who also number by millions, must still 
 cry to Heaven for relief; for England s hat and hurrah will go 
 up for Victoria so long as she wields the sceptre. This loyalty 
 operates to stem reform. 
 
 Give England an unpopular head, such as she had in the 
 time of JUNIUS, and Truth and Justice will no longer become 
 hollow words to " make earth sick and Heaven weary," and reli 
 gious toleration may ingraft some of our own features upon the 
 Constitution of England. 
 
VI. 
 
 tljB Cqstel mtft in fyt $itrt 
 
 "The life of man is much beholden to the mechanical Arts; there being many things con 
 ducing to the ornament of religion, to ttie grace of civil discipline, and to the beautifying of 
 all human kind, produced out of their treasures. " Bacon, 
 
 4 FTER the rural racing jaunt of yesterday, we are again on our 
 .11- way to the Great Exhibition. We pass the barracks, around 
 which we see red-coats keeping sentinel. On the walls is writ 
 ten, in big letters of chalk, so that the wayfaring man, th ough a 
 fool, can read ; " You bloody Saxons ;" and directly under it ; 
 " No bloody popery ! " Thus do the chance scribblings of the 
 " vulgar " show the effervescence of the public mind. These two 
 signs upon the house of Force do they not state the question 
 which was debated the other night by England s best minds ? 
 Write that debate out, and boil it down, and it is still " bloody 
 Saxon " and " bloody Popery." 
 
 We should be, indeed, culpable, if before we reach the pa 
 lace, we failed to notice the elegant gates and delightful gardens 
 which adorn Hyde Park. This Park is 360 acres, or more, in 
 area. It has many gates. The most costly and beautiful is the 
 principal entrance. It cost over seventy thousand pounds alone. 
 It is of the most exquisite carving, and forms a fitting portal to 
 so spacious and inviting a spot. Nearly all of this part of Lon 
 don has been built within ten years. Lofty mansions, cities of 
 squares, crescents, terraces, noble streets and avenues, fine 
 churches and great gardens, are all about us. Lots of land 
 which, in the early part of the last century, brought $60 rent 
 per year, now bring $60,000. 
 
60 UNDER THE CRYSTAL, 
 
 But the Exhibition opens. We enter at the east entrance, 
 finding the United States at work fitting up its department. We 
 trust in the end our Union will make a fit and appropriate show. 
 The Times, in speaking of our meagre collection, makes -this re 
 mark : " They don t l whip all nature hollow, but they have sev 
 eral very interesting machines, and the useful character of their 
 display as a whole, forms a really striking contrast to the showy 
 attributes of the national industries developed around them." 
 It is true. There is not so much to catch the eye by the gairish 
 display of our contribution. While crowds surround the Queen 
 
 of Spain s crown and bracelets, with their jewelled splendors 
 
 while the Indian elephant-saddles have their hosts about them 
 while the French silver and porcelain tea-service, wrought into 
 every modification of beauty, catch the sight while the great 
 English carpet, woven by the fifty loyal ladies of London for 
 the Q*een, has its throng of admirers while the Tunissian 
 pack-saddles and brocade costumes, the Milan sculpture, the 
 Wurtemberg stuffed animals, the French tapestry, (oh ! how 
 magnificently regal !) each and all are cynosures for eager gazers, 
 our American collection boasts of the utile, non dulce. 
 
 I spoke of Hobbs, the lock king, in a former chapter. I met 
 him to-day, and he explained his lock, which is on exhibition. 
 It is a permutating lock. The key makes.the lock. The mod 
 ifications which may be made in it are only 1,307,654,358.000 ! 
 It would take a person more than a Methuselah s age to use 
 these mutations. He opened the lock and explained its intri 
 cate complexity. It is a wonder, and excites attention in the 
 United States department only next to the Greek Slave. 
 
 Upon this day we began to visit the nations in the east end 
 of the building, skipping Russia, whose articles are detained by 
 Baltic ice, and commencing with the German states under the 
 Zollverein. A fine piece of statuary representing the Bac 
 chantes, attracts our attention, while, as if firing at the tipsy 
 followers of the vine-god, is pointed a splendid gun, glittering 
 like a mirror. Next comes an exact imitation of the towers of 
 
AND IN THE PARK, Q 1 
 
 Heidelberg, complete to the smallest rock. We have a model 
 of Niagara Falls here, but it is a miserable one, affording no ade 
 quate idea of the extent of the fall. It is spread over some 
 miles, consequently the cataract looks puny enough. 
 
 Prussia has one of the most entrancing rooms in the palace. 
 It is lit with colored glass, all figured richly with recesses 
 around, wherein is arranged statuary, paintings, and porcelain 
 frames. We noticed a chess-board, costing $15,000, carved out 
 of silver, set with jewels, and each knight, king, queen, and 
 bishop, a perfect gem of carving in itself. 
 
 Prince Albert s birth-place, Rosenau Castle, in Saxe Coburg, 
 had its model a most bewitching piece. The German lasses 
 were waltzing upon the green sward, while a German holiday 
 had gathered its thousands about the castle. While seeing so 
 many fine representations of scenery, and knowing how muni 
 ficent nature has spread her beauties in my own American land? 
 could I help wishing for some of Cole s landscapes of Hudson or 
 Susquehanna scenery? Could I help wishing for a faithful 
 portrait of that nature which Bryant, in a sonnet to the painter, 
 reminds him before going to Europe, to bear uppermost in his 
 mind : 
 
 " Lone lakes, savannas where the bison roves, 
 Rocks rich with summer garlands, solemn streams : 
 Skies where the desert eagle wheels and screams, 
 Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves." 
 
 Instead of these, the observer meets with model towers and 
 ruins, churches, and opera houses, and even models of Swiss 
 scenery. How we longed to see the lofty originals of the latter. 
 
 I observed in a large glass case, a magnificent representa 
 tion of Alpine scenery, wherein at a glance was combined every 
 form of sublimity and terror, of loveliness and beauty. The 
 proximity is singular. Upland valleys of softest verdure repose 
 sweetly at the foot of the eternal glacier. Huge snowy peaks, 
 ready for an avalanche, frown over delicious spots of pastoral 
 
2 UNDER THE CRYSTAL, 
 
 quietude, while horrid gorges yawn with silence and desolation, 
 near the flowery marge of meadows. 
 
 Leipsic, with her books, Saxony, with her wool, and long 
 courts of velvets, cloths, and satins, must lead us out into the 
 nave again. Perhaps in the multiplicity of German infinity, 
 you may notice that button trophy, with 21,300 varieties glis 
 tening like a miniature universe under the clear light- 
 
 We are called to refreshments by the whispers of the tired 
 body. That finished, can you help stopping a moment to look 
 at those Indian ivory chairs, that couch of gold, that Eka, or 
 one-horse chariot ? Shall we not wonder at the Sancsrit liter 
 ature in Persia venture within that Turkish canopy of blue 
 with another tent within, filled with its long hangings of silver 
 laces ? 
 
 The Mosaic of Italy, is certainly one of the most wonderful 
 things in the Exhibition. Large centre-tables are thus form 
 ed, with landscapes and figures, whose perfection shames the 
 pencil. The Coliseum, Romulus and Remus, the Forum, and 
 other classic memories and scenes, are thus preserved in undying 
 freshness of beauty. I know there is no great utility in these 
 costly Mosaics ; but taking this branch of labor, at its lowest 
 value, as a mere source of pleasure from the love of imitation 
 or representation of agreeable objects, it nevertheless becomes 
 the remembrancer of scenes of thrilling interest. It is the ele 
 gant accomplishment, by which homes are embellished. It en 
 ters into the sisterhood of arts, bound by a common bond the 
 culture of the human, through the influence of the divine, which 
 ever dwelleth in the pure, the fair, and the beautiful ! 
 
 What object is that upon the point yonder, which requires 
 a glass to perceive it ? Ha ! ha ! Can it be ? A cherry-stone 
 with twenty-five portraits on one side, and St. George fighting 
 the dragon, sculptured on the other ! " Tis sure as any thing 
 most true." Look for yourself ! Italy has at least the palm 
 in microscopic beauty, although yon Herculean Godfrey, from 
 Brussels, in the nave, bears away the guerdon for muscular 
 might ! 
 
AND IN THE PARK. 63 
 
 We might fill pages thus depicting each object which in 
 itself perhaps was a study of years for the artist but to which 
 we do not give as many minutes. Passing by the statuary of 
 Hero and Leander, which the mournful music from the gallery 
 seems to render more sad, we enter the French tapestry room. 
 There is the French trophy ! That hanging, so dazzling in 
 color, so striking in design, at which the eye blenches cost 
 twenty-six men eight years labor. That is an object for an 
 industrious exhibition ! It is of course from Gobelins. 
 
 France is not alone la belle France. The finest collection 
 of philosophical and surgical instruments are hers. False legs 
 and arms, and every aid to injured humanity is hers. Not alone 
 does she excel in Lyons silks and laces, but in kitchen ranges 
 and physical sciences. Like her character is her exhibition of 
 industry. Confectionaries of rarest temptation sweeten near 
 " drums, guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, and thunder." Steam 
 engines revolve in beauty, whose polish almost emulates that of 
 her dazzling mirrors ! Wigs, in profusion, are within hearing 
 distance of harps, fiddles, flutes, and pianos. A very medley is 
 France, a serious comedy, a laughing tragedy. 
 
 We have done for to-day ; yet much of the Eastern entrance 
 and galleries are not glanced at. We go away stunned, as be 
 fore, at the immensity of this exposition of toil. Truly the 
 dwarf man, " behind his engine of steam, can remove mountains." 
 What a mine of meaning is there in the remarks of Lord Bacon, 
 which we have prefixed to this chapter ; yet even his compre 
 hension, which almost became prophecy, could not grasp such a 
 stupendous illustration of their truth as is here enshrined. What 
 an ingathering of the world s daily experience is here ! Even so 
 feeble a sketch as this will enable the intelligent reader to form 
 some idea of the wondrous world we live in. 
 
 Again, we visit the home of industry. It is Saturday, ard 
 ingress cannot be had until noon, by which time a great con 
 course has collected. A rush is made, during which examples 
 of English rudeness, especially toward the gentler sex, is so 
 
64 UNDER THE CRYSTAL, 
 
 common, as to excite the remark and contempt of every well- 
 bred stranger. 
 
 The palace is filled at once, as if from a hundred sluices, 
 with all kinds of people. Invalids, even, in their conveyances, 
 are drawn through the courts. Painters and drawers are perched 
 here and there, copying the articles and scenes. Policemen are 
 taking their stations. Red coats are brushing off the dust from 
 the articles. Paxton was at a loss for a cleaner to the building, 
 and invented, at great expense of time and money, a hundred- 
 housemaid-power-broom for - the purpose. He found, after the 
 first day s experience, that the long sweeping trains of the ladies 
 performed the office to a nicety. 
 
 I began to-day with France, on the southern side. Amid 
 the jewelry, which shone as " from a sky," we discerned some 
 clocks, fashioned curiously out of trees, in the branches of which 
 chirped, fluttered, and leaped from bough to bough a choir of 
 * birds. There were some pecking at beetles, others in the nest, 
 but all pervaded by a vivacity which, at first glance, made the 
 illusion perfect. 
 
 Here, too, we saw the rarest fruit-piece of porcelain painting 
 which ever delighted the vision. The grapes and other luscious 
 fruitage hung from a golden frame-work, while tulips and gar 
 lands of every flower seemed to hide an angel, of form so ethe 
 real, and with shading so softened, and light so mellowed, as to 
 enthral the fancy. Tapestry overhung all. Further down, and 
 into the nave, is a fine piece of statuary, representing Love sciz- 
 zoring off the claws of a lion; allegorizing the French sentiment: 
 
 Amour, Amour quand tu nous tien, 
 On pent bien dire Adieu Prudence. 
 
 Silver service, pictures raised, and interminable vistas of dry 
 goods, we fly from, to find refuge in the arms of Belgium, which 
 are spread just above the next department. Here are chimney 
 pieces, with carvings exquisite. Nests of little Cupids and 
 flower bas-reliefs surround us. On move we with the crowd. 
 
AND IN THE PARK. (55 
 
 until the Austrian statuary room receives us. What a sweet 
 piece is that nun, veiled with marble, and in very truth realizing 
 "Wordsworth s line, 
 
 breathless iu adoration. 
 
 The effect of a veil of marble, dimly showing the beautiful cast 
 of countenance, is indeed a triumph of the chisel. . 
 
 The machinery department has been slighted, My foolish 
 eye has been caught by gauds, as " larks by looking-glasses." 
 Imagine a vast vista of convolving, revolving, intertwisting, gy 
 rating, perpendicularizing, horizoritalizing, and whirlygigging 
 generally ; yet all playing as silently as polished steel, well 
 oiled, can go, and as gracefully as the stir 
 
 "Of a swan s neck among the bushes;" 
 
 and you have a glance at the engine-room with its contents. 
 Here* on our right is a new locomotive runnning by atmosphere ; 
 there is, also, an improved " feather" paddle-wheel, with two 
 shafts, one within the other, the inner one a screw ; the set of 
 paddles, as they rise out of the water, turning so as to find no 
 resistance, and presenting their edge to the air. Miniature en 
 gines of every form, are in motion,, and the machinery so bright 
 as to reflect, in itself, its own motion. A steam engine with a 
 moveable cylinder seemed a singular piece of adaptedness of 
 means to end. Needle machines were at work, washing and dry 
 ing machines, hydraulic pumps, machines for dressing stone, (from 
 Bosting !) diving-bells, already in the bottom of the mock sea, 
 and, last, printing-machines of many kinds, all in operation. 
 The "Illustrated News" is struck off at the rate of over 5,000 to 
 the hour. From four points the paper issues. The exhibition 
 is thus rapidly illustrating itself to the wide world. But to my 
 unpractised eye, the looms and mules and tne other machiiier 
 for weaving, are the most wonderful. Large laces and splendid 
 table-linen, costly cloths and cheap cottons, alike come forth 
 from the swift-flying shuttle, amid a maze of rotation, driving 
 
66 UNDER THE CRYSTAL. 
 
 i 
 
 and springing, the machinery performing every motion and 
 intricacy from which power is evolved and comforts multiplied. 
 This, amid the roar of water-falls, the buzz and hum, the click 
 and clatter, the throbbing, glittering and dancing of wheels, is all 
 dependent upon steam power, which is hidden from the eye. Is 
 there not here a magic beside which Aladdin was a dunce, and 
 the old enchanter, Merlin, a booby ? Hurrah ! for the age of 
 steam wonder ! Pyramids and Pantheons, Gothic buildings and 
 Babylon gates, should sink into oblivion beside this steam-cen 
 tury, with its palace of Industry. 
 
 The west end, in the gallery, to which, with the help of 
 fancy, you are transported, is now filled with prisms flung 
 by the colored glass between you and the setting sun. You 
 have passed royal couches, with Aurora and Somnus carved and 
 painted, all golden and glittering. You have passed intricate 
 mazes of food, seeds, woods, and fabrics, from Scotland and other 
 parts of Great Britain. You glance at the naval glory of Britain, 
 represented by her innumerable models, with the Battle of Tra 
 falgar to top the group. You observe that centrifugal machine, 
 illustrating the planetary motions completely. At last, relieved, 
 you stand upon the threshold of start not ! ^ is only the 
 organ, near which you are Unconsciously standing. It strikes 
 up, with four men to blow, and three to play. As I am a living 
 soul, its thundering sound made the yes, believe it, Rochester- 
 knocking credulity it made the UNIVERSE tremble ! ! I have 
 told some things which unsophisticated Buckeyes rarely see, 
 and can hardly imagine ; but I was not under oath then. Now 
 I am. I distinctly swear that I saw Jupiter quake amid his 
 satellites, Venus tremble in her sandals, and Mars in his boots, 
 Saturn shake in his ring, and the Sun itself start from his sphere, 
 
 as the flood of sound rolled out of the organ and upon the 
 
 orrery ! 
 
 While observing this phenomenon, which Herschel must 
 explain, the organist struck up Yankee Doodle ! My heart beat 
 hot and queer. I felt the Declaration of Independence and a 
 
AND 7iV THE PARK. 67 
 
 couple of Bunker Hills rising in my bosom. As such feelings 
 were inconsistent with this temple, dedicated to peace, and as I 
 was a delegate from Ohio to the World s Peace Convention, I 
 prudently retired out of the British domain and seated myself 
 again at the transept, to take a last look before going to the 
 Continent. 
 
 At the four corners there are crowds, looking down on 
 throngs beneath, moving in and out under canopies, and into the 
 courts. Opposite is a large glass chandelier, almost the coun 
 terpart of the fountain, which, with its sisters three, are making 
 melody by graceful water jets amid the palm and flower groves 
 below. The sight woos the thirst, and the hum almost sinks 
 one in a " swound," like a murmur of bees. White as ghosts, 
 the long lines of statuary guard the little apartments, with varied 
 hangings suspended from their roofs. Away down on either 
 hand is seen one living stream moving amid gorgeousness, and 
 under glancing sunlight. 
 
 How many hearts beat within those vital frames, the mechan 
 ism of which, comparable with nothing in this vast theatre of 
 ingenuity, is hidden from the eye ! How many immortal souls 
 are here intent on seeing seeing seeing ; forgetful of every 
 thought as to the wondrous mind-mechanism which evolved all 
 these wonders. " Ye fools and blind ! for whether is greater, 
 the gold, or the temple which sanctifieth the gold ?" The gold 
 must perish, the temple and its spirit survives. 
 
 Wrap those moving bodies in the silks of yon pagoda ; or 
 bury them amid the glitter of those Indian gold cloths, but they 
 will not stay. Those flowers may be renewed by the genial 
 breath of spring ; those bodies, of form so radiant, must lie in 
 " cold obstruction." Surround their tombs with the bronze and 
 stone which line the nave ; their memory is soon erased by the 
 footstep of time. Yet this undying mind is perpetual. It lives 
 through its creations. Nation to nation, man to man, hands 
 down the results of the vigilant life. Who can tell what 
 thoughts have been here developed to bless the race ? What 
 
68 UNDER THE CRYSTAL, 
 
 , 
 
 ideas of beauty suggested, what cordialities cultivated to deco 
 rate this world of tears ? 
 
 Behold below, a world s representatives interlacing them 
 selves. As Shakspeare has it : 
 
 " No man living 
 
 Can say this is my wife, there ; all are woven 
 So strangely in one piece." 
 
 Listen to the hum of speech ; look to the produce of thought. 
 Hear ye not therein the shuttle of kindness flying from heart to 
 heart, weaving its viewless warp and woof into one sublime fab 
 ric, many-hued as that tapestry, intricate as that mechanism ; a 
 fabric fit to be hung from the battlements of heaven, between 
 the sins of man and the majesty of God ! 
 
 The sun is sinking toward America. Its slanting radiance 
 kisses the concave crystal. The statues in the transept fling 
 long shadows down the nave. The thousand glitters of the glass 
 are reflected from jewels and glass within. What if all the minds 
 here represented by their results were gathered into a common 
 mental palace, so transparent that the most profound thought of 
 each and all could be perceived ; the astronomer sweeping the 
 sky with that telescope, down to the humble African who made 
 yon miserable human image ; the genius of the sculptor bodying 
 forth his exquisite ideal in stainless Parian, embracing the tiny 
 thoughtlet of him who mechanically turns a machine which 
 thinks for him ; could we not then approximate toward the idea 
 of an Omniscient Reason, in the largest sense of that term ? Yet 
 these all these are the varied product of His hand, modified 
 through the contaminated reason of man ! 
 
 With such reflections half saddening the spirit, and with a 
 curiosity to see the delightful environment of Hyde Park which 
 surrounds the palace, I am led to the open air, to be freshened 
 into new life by the side of a river of beauty the Serpentine, 
 set in emerald. A massive stone bridge arches it, over which 
 are passing crowds from the exhibition, horsemen practising in 
 
AMD IN THE PARK. 69 
 
 the park, and coaches drawn by blooded horses. Soldiers and 
 policemen are around here, as they are everywhere in London. 
 Before us spreads the stream, with its water-fowl, ducks and 
 swans. Sharp-pointed boats dart from under the bridge, and 
 skim away as gracefully as the water-fowl themselves. A few 
 sail boats shoot in and out, as if playing amid the splendid elms 
 which line the stream, and which in clumps all through this park 
 throw their shadows deep and inviting. Walks are distributed 
 about in negligent precision. Boys with water spaniels and 
 mimic ships are laughing away merry May hours in their pas 
 times. But these elms, how perfect each one appears ! It is 
 remarkable to one used to seeing nature in her unpruned, care 
 less dress, how much like leafy architecture a noble tree may be 
 made. 
 
 A perfect study for the Painter is each old elm, its long 
 branches intertwisted neatly and gracefully; its shadows and 
 lights conspicuous as those in a Gothic Minster ; bending over 
 to its sustaining mother, the earth, with a freight of foliage, and 
 bestowing upon her verdurous bosom a rich gift of shade. 
 
 Far off, before me, yet clear as if in reach, stands the Duke 
 Wellington in bronze, upon his lofty steed against the blue sky. 
 Here come some of his class a troop of soldiers in hats nearly 
 as big as themselves. The lofty towers of Apsley House, the 
 Duke s residence, are about his monument. Let the eye skim 
 around to the right, until it meets between the trees the glit 
 tering palace, full of its throbbing life and myriad illustrations 
 of life-results. At least tenscore of flags white, blue, red and 
 variegated, waver to the mild wind ; while the transept at both 
 ends is surmounted proudly with England s ensign 100 feet 
 above the concave ! The colors of the iron work are but dimly 
 seen from here, yet most gratefully do they task the eye. The 
 Park is speckled for miles with gayly-dressed women and sol 
 diers. Sheep, too, lazily lie about the lawns. Just behind yon 
 trees, shut in by a gate guarded by soldiers, are at least count, 
 500 carriages and their liveried attendants, awaiting the pleasure 
 
7n UNDER THE CRYSTAL. 
 
 " 
 
 of their masters and mistresses." Thank God," I mentally 
 ejaculated, ; I am no man s man." Could we not put these 
 tight-legged, gold-tipped, hat-laced, powder-headed, bow-scraping, 
 velvet-pawed footmen and drivers to a better account in Ohio ? 
 Make men out of them, albeit apparent manikins now ? They 
 do not know any better. If they could only feel what it is to have 
 a free heart beating beneath the meanest vesture but Pshaw ! 
 Velvet Paw must needs be Velvet Paw ; else England s aris 
 tocracy would have to wait on itself, a degradation which would 
 knock the underpinning out of one branch of the Constitution, 
 and perhaps out of another. Look from the ignoble growth of 
 men, to the noble growth of those old knotty, shaggy, twisted, 
 
 Elms Centuries of storms they have stood. They have been 
 
 like true men, gnarled into greatness ! 
 
 But we must be going homeward. Having bid farewell 
 to this glorious Park, those graceful swans, whom I have just 
 called to the bank and fed ; to the Crystal Palace, in which 
 a whole education has been mine, I strike for Victoria gate, 
 thence through Sussex to Hampstead road. The scenes, how 
 ever, in this English Park must remain written here forever. 
 Our only drawback is that no more of our friends are along, 
 to see the same beauties and enjoy the same delights which we 
 have, in this Park. Would that my descriptions could convey 
 one tenth of the satisfaction to my readers which I have felt 
 within its bound. 
 
VII. 
 
 riA Dnttft 
 
 " Traveller ! 
 
 Kemember these our famous -countrymen, 
 And quell all angry and injurious thoughts." 
 
 Southey. 
 
 are two spots to be visited before leaving England, 
 -L that deserve especial mention. They have often been de 
 scribed ; but every traveller observes them under peculiar cir 
 cumstances. Westminster Abbey and Dover Heights classic 
 in association ; do they not thrill to the inmost heart ? 
 
 On Sabbath we went to Church in Westminster. It was a 
 rare moment when we passed beneath that crumbling arch, 
 and entered that venerable pile. Black and streaked with age ; 
 with the tracery and sculpture corroded by time ; the very 
 image of venerableness and awe, Westminster Abbey stands 
 confessedly before the eye. the selectest spot of interest upon 
 English ground. We stood in the midst of the consecrated 
 fabric. aisle opening within aisle, niches around, and the sculp 
 tured forms erected near the tombs of the buried great, lifelike, 
 standing and reposing about us, and all richly painted with a 
 dim and mellow lustre from the lofty circular window before us. 
 The Abbey within is in the shape of a cross. From one branch 
 came the organ tones and the singing, responsive to the service 
 at the opposite end. All around were seen the trophies and 
 arms, the scrolls and images, with their Hebrew, Latin, and 
 English inscriptions. 
 
 We were compelled to stand during service. However much 
 I wanted to hear a specimen of English preaching, yet I could 
 
72 WESTMINSTER AND DOVER. 
 
 not tear my eyes from the inscriptions around. We stood near 
 the poets corner. I turned about, and the first name I saw was 
 GARRICK. There he stood, the English Roscius parting the 
 marble tapestry, revealing the bust of Shakspeare ; while below 
 him are female figures, one of Comedy, fitting on the sock ; the 
 other of Tragedy, with dishevelled hair. It was a fine piece of 
 sculpture ; but it could not detain the eye long. Next I saw 
 the name of CAMDEN ; then Sir GEOFFREY KNELLER ; then the 
 monument of MAJOR ANDRE ; then that erected by Massachu 
 setts Colony to GENERAL HOWE. From my position, I could not 
 see much of the poets corner, although standing near. But whose 
 monuments are those, heavy with dust, their images in repose, 
 apart from the ordinary tombs of knights and abbots ? These 
 are the royal line of England. 
 
 Service over, which was performed by a large, hearty minis 
 ter, who apparently enjoyed a fat living, and who preached about 
 making self-sacrifices and cross-bearing we leave. We are 
 permitted to pass out along the damp, cold tombs, beneath and 
 around us. Here lie abbots buried in the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries. The statue of Charles James Fox reposing, with 
 certain forms about him, is conspicuous. These forms are in 
 tended to be emblematic of his services in the cause of negro 
 emancipation. They represent negroes, with all the appurte 
 nances of curly hair, flat nose, large lips and low brows ; but 
 they are in white marble ! They kneel at the feet of Fox, rais 
 ing the whites of their eyes (done to the life) in thankfulness to 
 their benefactor. The taste, thus developed, is questionable. 
 Indeed, it almost confirmed an idea long pondered, that the 
 province of the chisel lies exclusively in the Ideal realm. The 
 pure forms of the stainless marble seem to require a spirituality, 
 such as speaks from the lip, and in the mien of the Apollo 
 Belvidere, or such as dwells in the gentle melancholy of the 
 Greek Slave. 
 
 The panting heart left the immense repertory of the glorious 
 dead, thrilled to its minutest fibre. The long corridors open 
 
WESTMINSTER AND DOVK1;. 
 
 73 
 
 before the eye. displaying monuments that defy the tooth of 
 Time, but in vain. Every where you see its crumbling, corrfc- 
 ing power. The very birds, as if in mockery of man, have built 
 nests in the streaked and dark walls, and sing amid decay. 
 
 When we return to England, Westminster shall be again 
 visited and fully described. Our route is now directly for Paris, 
 by way of Dover. Let the traveller remember to arrange his 
 time of leaving London, so as to come down to Dover by day, 
 and remain some hours before the boat departs for Calais, if he 
 would fix in everlasting freshness the incidents of " Lear," of 
 which the white, tall cliffs of Dover formed so prominent a part 
 of the tempestuous scene. 
 
 Before we were ready for it, our cars dashed into the bowels 
 of Shakspeare s Cliff, and, after rumbling awhile, darted out 
 again into the sweet May-shine. Behold ! the sea speckled with 
 vessels, and the dim whiteness of the French coast in the dis 
 tance. Again we turn ; and now that we are shut out from that 
 fine view, let us look upward. There indeed is the glory of 
 Kent, the place where good old G-lostcr is alleged to have stood. 
 Although we cannot stop our swift rushing car to say, " Here s 
 the place, stand still ! " yet we can truly realize Shakspeare s 
 description of the fearful, dizzy height ; so high that the crows 
 showed scarce so gross as beetles, and the sapphire-gatherer 
 seemed no bigger than his head. We saw persons on the cliff s 
 fearful edge (how fearful to poor, blind Grloster !) whose Lillipu 
 tian size brought back the poet s description most vividly. 
 
 Under the direction of our host of the " Gun," we travers 
 ed the ground where poor Tom was " a-cold," and where Cor 
 delia redeemed the woman-nature of the olden British time. 
 
 Dover lies under the frown of the blanched cliffs in a semi 
 circular form : her bay surrounded with boats, and the beach lined 
 with bathing wagons. The town is not large, but looks neat. 
 Long paved walks, made of a composition of coal, tar and sand, 
 (quite an idea !) are in front of the beach, along which seats 
 are ranged. The shore is yet faithful to the description of 
 4 
 
74 WESTMINSTER AND DOVER. 
 
 Shakspeare ; for I wandered along it, to verify that the mur- 
 dhiring surge on the unnumbered idle pebbles beats." And as 
 the surge rolls up its tribute of water and thunder, and recedes, 
 the tiny multitudinous pebbles rattle away most distinctly and 
 musically. It could not " be heard so high " as old Gloster 
 stood. 
 
 We went upon the cliff, between Dover Castle and Shak- 
 speare s cliff, by a tunnel and stairway. There are three stair 
 ways leading up to the fort on this hill, which could empty a 
 goodly number of men in case of invasion. Indeed, Dover 
 is perfectly prepared for that event. The Castle is the highest 
 point, and within the bosom of that cliff, are trap-doors, stair 
 ways, and divers other arrangements to decoy an enemy in, then 
 topple it over, or stifle it with poison. The face of this cliff 
 looks like a great prison ; its huge towers rising in the upper 
 air, and its iron-bound windows in harsh contrast with the white 
 beauty of the surface, which white beauty, is not unadorned 
 with yellow and white flowers, as well as with green foli 
 age. Little houses hang upon its sides like nests ; and talk 
 ing of nests reminds me of the birds. If there were no other 
 feature in the scenery of England than these feathered carollers, 
 it would entitle her to the appellation of merry England." 
 Where do they not sing? In the green lanes towards Epsom, 
 in the depots of the Liverpool railway, in old Cathedral towers, 
 in the Crystal Palace ; all 
 
 " O er royal London, in luxuriant May, 
 With lamps yet twinkling," 
 
 they sing their matin ; and here at our departing point, high 
 aloof upon the Castle cliff, ring their merry twitterings, without 
 the fear of big fort-cannon and gruff soldiers before their eyes. 
 The top of the cliff is a green plot finely laid out ; but the 
 fortifications lie higher. We ascended only to meet the chal 
 lenge of a soldier to " stand" which we laughingly did. " You 
 must obtain a pass." " But, my good sir, we are strangers." 
 
WESTMINSTER ANti DO VER. 75 
 
 " Must obey orders, sir." " Is your gun loaded ?" " No, sir." 
 " Then I think we may say what we please and scale the ram 
 parts." He turned out to be a good-natured fellow, and obeyed 
 orders like a machine, as all good soldiers are. We therefore 
 lost the best view. After gazing off towards the home of 
 Fenelon, Rousseau and Chauteaubriand, and trying to conjure 
 up Shakspeare amidst the old cliffs, albeit inhabited by unpo- 
 etical locomotives, we departed. 
 
 Dover is a point, in travel, to hang many a wild wonder 
 upon. But, most, it is the point upon which hinges the great 
 est tragedy of the greatest Dramatist. Here the foulest in- 
 grates that ever fleshed their teeth in the heart of paternal 
 kindness, received an embodiment ; and here, Cordelia, the 
 brightest spirit that ever shone in upon the dark depths of 
 Despair, received a local habitation and a name. Thank Eng 
 land s muse for linking such lessons with such localities ! 
 
 You may be sure, that the enjoyment of travelling has 
 begun, when we can take to our feet, and ramble amidst these 
 grassy mounds covered with May flowers, and look out into the 
 straits, and even catch in the sun s glancing, the white coast of 
 France ; when we can feel the fresh air blowing high and aloof 
 from the city s dust and smoke ; when we can find in the local 
 ities around, something which speaks of literary association 
 and the olden time. 
 
 The ride down was of a piece with all of the other travel 
 ling into the English country a rural prospect of rare beauty 
 from Surrey to Dover. Tunbridge furnished a fine old ivied 
 tower. Another loomed up near Dover strange old mile 
 stones down the road of time. 
 
 The hour is rung, and our little boat made " the fire fly" in 
 phosphorescent sparkles out of the straits. From certain recol 
 lections of salt water, I kept very mouse-like, until our vessel 
 was moored between the long line of piles at Calais. 
 
VIII. 
 
 ftmt. In 45titrt| ntft an 
 
 % 
 
 " Battle her chains 
 
 More musically now than when the hand 
 Of Brissot forged her fetters, or the crew 
 Of Herbert thundered out their blasphemies, 
 Or Danton talked of virtue ? " 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 TT was a moonlit midnight of the latter part of May, that 
 A found us landing at the pile-driven harbor of Calais. "We 
 walked into the Custom House of France, between cloaked and 
 curly grey-whiskered and mustachioed old soldiers, and amidst 
 cries from baggage-men, of " prenez garde, Monsieur !" Well, 
 the officer having examined my passports, and hastily inquired 
 after my family (very kind of him), most of whom (to wit, my 
 wife) were named in the passport, he signified, by some outland 
 ish gibberish, that I was free to roam in the new Republic. 
 
 We took the cars instanter. As soon as it became light, we 
 found ourselves in foreign parts indeed. The houses looked 
 small and old ; the ground was divided into little patches, and 
 there was wanting the neat air of English rural life. There 
 were few hedges. The " lay " of the country resembled our 
 prairies very much. The fruit trees were in bloom. The dress 
 of the peasants was generally blue short coats. They looked 
 quite picturesque in the early dawn. We observed many large 
 peat beds, and quantities of that essential to caloric piled about. 
 Wood seems to be a scarce article. The tall, straight. Lombardy 
 poplars bftgin to appear thick and fast. And now we see sol 
 diers, and priests, too. Next, windmills not a few. All these 
 
FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 77 
 
 impressed us strangely. The houses, with their earthenware 
 roofs and old walls, had an antique look, and these, with the 
 jabber of talk among the French, told us that we were pilgrims 
 indeed. 
 
 Not so when we reached Paris. Not having our tongue in 
 as yet, to the little French we knew so imperfectly, we were com 
 pelled to address ourselves to the railroad agents, who spoke 
 English. There we first began to realize the fact, and not the 
 form only, of French courtesy. As soon as we let the officers 
 know that we were Republicans from America, and not English, 
 how they hopped about to show us our baggage, and even accom 
 panied us to our hotel. Let American travellers in France not 
 forget, to dispossess the minds of those who have charge of them 
 or theirs, of the idea that they are British. You ought to see 
 a Paris cabman take off a gruff John Bull, with his churlish 
 crossness, and his shrug of discontent. 
 
 Not expecting to remain in Paris longer than was necessary 
 to prepare our passports for Italy, we took but small and imper 
 fect glimpses of the capital. But such as we took rewarded us 
 well. How proud the French are of their capital ! and they 
 have reason to be. Not of their long and dirty streets, with lit 
 tle or no pavements, of which a great part of the city consists ; 
 but of their Boulevards, the Luxembourg, the Champs Elysees, 
 the gardens of the Tuileries. and other spots which we visited. 
 
 We needed no guide. Our company being inside, I mount 
 ed the cab, and with a modicum of bad French began the duty 
 of guide and interpreter, as well as of learner and teacher. 
 The shrewd cabman could readily understand me. He drove us 
 to the famous Arch of Triumph, from which we took a view of 
 the city. The arch itself is worth a visit to Paris. It is erect 
 ed to honor Napoleon, his soldiers, and his victories. It is re 
 plete with carving, representing every variety of prowess by 
 arms, and every mode of its consequent glory. From such a 
 point I could not dwell upon detail. 
 
 Buy a medal, or give the old lady at the entrance a gratui- 
 
78 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 tous franc, and you may ascend the Arch. What a glorious pros 
 pect is here on every side ! You will, with the aid of Gallig- 
 nani s map, or with the aid of some Parisian, perceive the prin 
 cipal points of interest in the throbbing life of gayety and glory 
 below. In front are the Champs Elysees, with their fine walks, 
 seats and shades ; and throughout, are scattered stalls, booths, 
 and circuses, together with thousands of human beings. Indeed 
 it is no uncommon thing, of Sundays, to see at least two hun 
 dred thousand assembled in these retreats. That place of foun 
 tains before us, is the Place de la Concorde. You will rcognize 
 one of the fountains as the original of one in the French depart 
 ment of the Great Exhibition. Still in front are the gardens of the 
 Tuileries the Place du Carousal, with its fine arch, and the Louvre. 
 
 But we have not time even here for particulars. Let us walk 
 about the arch, to find how Paris looks generally, with its roads 
 leading back to Versailles and St. Germaine, its chateaux and 
 its forts. 
 
 Then again for the cab and a minute inspection of the Lux 
 embourg. There we confess that even Hyde Park is beaten. 
 Its long rows of statues, its elegant flower-plots, its terraces, 
 its splendid fountains, its urns, its delicious umbrageousness, its 
 glorious palace, and above all, its thrilling associations with the 
 great names of France, render it. thus far, the prominent object 
 in our travels. 
 
 But what shall we say of Notre Dame, whose superb archi 
 tecture calls for the best and loftiest sweep of the vision ? We 
 drive round to wonder at the work of man in rearing such a pile, 
 and at the work of Time in touching its stone with decay. We 
 enter. Hushed is the air ! " Peace, be still !" the spirit of the 
 place seemeth to say. One or two figures are in prayer at the 
 other end of the Cathedral ; all else seems a SPIRITUAL PRE 
 SENCE ! How high, how deep deep, is the air above ! Move 
 slowly and solemnly along, and gaze upon the master works of 
 sacred painting to your right and left, until you stand before 
 the altar! Then look upward. What a Tabernacle, Great 
 God! is this for THEE? 
 
FJ(AJfCJt,AJf ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 79 
 
 .* 
 
 In such a temple, the ALMIGHTY, if ever shrined visibly, 
 
 would appear ! What mellow splendors from the many-colored 
 windows meet each other midway under the dome, and shower 
 their united flood of rainbows on the scene below ! Here is a place 
 where His Presence may be felt, even to the renewing of life, 
 to the brightening of heavenly Hope, and to the antedating o. 
 celestial felicity. Would that we could here linger, until the 
 sacred atmosphere of the temple should purify our souls, and 
 create a new and holier essence for the cycles of eternity ! 
 
 We almost forget that human greatness, " only not divine," 
 was here enthroned, amid the pomp and circumstance of power, 
 in the person of Napoleon. What songs, what breathings from 
 yon old organ, what display of insignia and ceremonial obser 
 vances, what an array of military valor and pride, what crowds 
 of expectant spectators then made Notre Dame the shrine of 
 earthly ambition in its proudest worship ! 
 
 But we pass to another scene, where an ambition and a 
 greatness of another mould is celebrated. Not in loud murmurs. 
 Oh ! no the tombs beneath the Pantheon weep eternal silent 
 moisture over the remains of the truly great of France. " La 
 Patrie," hath remembered them by a most fitting, a most tear- 
 compelling, a most magnificent tribute. 
 
 Thus has France, while erecting her memorials to victory all 
 over her capital, not forgotten the immortalization of Thought, 
 which endlessly wings its way down to the latest generations, 
 through the works of her scholars and literary men ! No one can 
 fail to observe, even without visiting France, the intense feeling 
 constantly flowing out in honor of her great jnen. Persons, rather 
 than principles are reverenced. Immortalization of renowned 
 names has superseded the immortality of the soul. The latter 
 is almost an obsolete, if it ever were a prevalent idea. All 
 classes of the community unite in homage to the hero. The 
 very churches are built to honor humanity, not Divinity. The 
 names of the citizens who fell in July 1830, are engraved upon 
 splendid shafts ; but the principles which prompted the revolu- 
 
80 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 
 
 tion and which lie at the root of all popular sovereignly, were 
 as evanescent as last Sunday s gala. Dynasties may be over 
 turned, barricade-war be declared biennially, the vivas of the 
 people changed weekly ; yet the great citizens of France will 
 ever receive apotheosis. The seven millions who have in 
 December 1851, sustained the coup d etat of a BONAPARTE, have 
 been mostly moved by the name upon the bulletin. 
 
 However fickle the populace of this city may be, it is cer- 
 ain, that for all the revolutions of France, her Pantheon, to the 
 truly great, will remain as everlasting as their fame. " Art," 
 it has been well said, " is dependent on the tone of the public 
 mind, as the more delicate plants on atmosphere and weather." 
 It needs a general enthusiasm for beauty and sublimity, like 
 that in the time of the Medici, to call forth a host of great spi 
 rits. No less it needs the same enthusiasm to erect monu 
 ments to their memory. France has had her era of enthusiasm. 
 Indeed, it is an element which never subsides in her bosom. 
 We may well rely upon it to protect the monuments it has 
 reared. 
 
 Tired, but not sated with Parisian spectacles, we wended our 
 way to the hotel, there to experience a new mode of life, wherein 
 the cafe is united to the lodging-place, where the garcon plays 
 the part of the English John, and the fat fellow with a white 
 sugar-loaf cap, presides over cutlets and omelettes, the very 
 Zeus of Olympian cookery. You know French cookery is as 
 world-famous as Yankee notions. Did you ever hear it account- 
 de for? You did not? Here it is, from Sava.rin himself. 
 " When the Britons, Germans, Cimmerians, and Scythians broke 
 into France, they brought with them a large voracity, and sto 
 machs of no ordinary calibre. Hence Paris became an immense 
 refectory." Is not that a perfect sequitur ? At any rate, we 
 blessed those hungry heathen, and felt one more of the glories 
 of the French capital, with an intensity, quickened by exercise 
 and seasoned by novelty. 
 
 Every body has heard of a French diligence. To my ima- 
 
FRANCE. AX ENTRY AND AN EXIT. gl 
 
 gination, it always had a piratical cast of countenance. It 
 swelled up in my fancy as a huge, lumbering, lazy, wallowing, un 
 wieldy, rickety vehicle, requiring as many guards as passengers. 
 Either this impression was erroneous, or else vehicles have im 
 proved rapidly in France. Look at that huge mass in three 
 parts, with a loading that would do honor to a regiment of don 
 keys, or a patient road-wagon in Pennsylvania. It does at first 
 sight look gloomy enough, yet in every thing it seems comfort 
 able. Start off; and away we rattle, amid the hallooing of 
 boys, the gaze of women, with the crack of the whip, (how the 
 French do eternally snap their whips !) and the merry blast of 
 the horn. 
 
 Dr. Johnson thought that one of the greatest exhilarations of 
 life, was a start of a pleasant morning upon an English coach. 
 He might have enlarged the remark so as to comprehend his 
 French neighbors. Rattle-rattle amidst the narrow lanes of 
 the merry Parisians down one rue, up another, past this col 
 umn, near that image and at last we find the open air and a 
 splendid railway station. Soon our diligence is hoisted upon 
 the cars an odd-looking genius of steam ; and without change, 
 we are dashing by gardens with stone circular wells, surrounded 
 by flowers, and little tracts of laud cut up into smaller ones, all 
 smiling with cultivation. 
 
 Let me remark that the land here is owned or leased in little 
 tractlets ; which are subdivided into as many plots as will raise 
 wheat, barley, rye, oats, grass, and vetches (a red flowering grass 
 for horses, similar to our clover). They also sow tares, to cut 
 them up while green, for cattle. Their stock is all confined, so 
 that even fences are dispensed with. Prominent among the 
 divisions of the tractlets are the twisted grape vines, trimmed 
 closely, and just now tufted with verdure. The hills are staked 
 plentifully for their aid. Flax, mustard, and turnips, some of 
 them in flower, are also distributed. The price of ordinary 
 peasant labor, as I learned from our conductor, is only about 
 one franc at best (19 cents) per day; and when the laborers 
 4* 
 
82 FRASCE.-AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 broad themselves, upwards of five francs ; so that you may see 
 that provisions are as high as wages are low. 
 
 To any one used to the big, fenced fields of the West, these 
 little divisions of a tenth or twentieth of an acre, which appear 
 even to the summits of the highest hills, in oblong form, and 
 many-colored, present a strange appearance, and remind one of 
 the patchwork quilts made from calicoes or silks. 
 
 As we rattle through the beautiful valley of the Seine, va 
 riety adds to the natural loveliness of the landscapes. Wind 
 mills fan the air, and tall Lombardy poplars, with their tops 
 plumed like soldiers, stand in battalions, almost as plentifully 
 as the soldiers themselves. 
 
 From the first moment we touched France, at every point, 
 we have seen men in glazed caps, with their handles turned up, 
 indicating as a Western boy would express it, " Corn for sale ;" 
 with violent red pants and long surtouts ; profuse hair, over i 
 pinched, ochre countenance, with sensual, petty-larceny looking 
 eyes, and with little swords dangling to their sides, or muskets 
 on their shoulders. This is a republic too. God save the mark 
 Why even in the walled city of Avignon, with its forty thousand 
 inhabitants, there are eight thousand soldiers one-fifth of the 
 population. At Paris every turn shows a soldier. 
 Egalite et Fraternite," is inscribed upon all the monuments and 
 public property. The commentary is near by in the shape of a 
 bayonet. The Hotels of Ministers, and the Chamber of Depu 
 ties, as well as hospitals and barracks, have a parading mus 
 keteer before their doors. The gardens and walks are thronged 
 with military locusts. Why this spectacle, so strange to a 
 transatlantic republican ? It is because France fears herself; 
 because a strong government is needed to suppress internal re 
 volt, because a large class of her population must be vagabond, 
 and society is relieved by putting them under military subjec 
 tion ; and lastly, because Louis Napoleon would perpetuate his 
 power, and France must be ready for intervention in Italy, or in 
 other nations on the continent, Already great preparations are 
 
FltAXCKAN EKTRY AKD AA EXIT. 33 
 
 being made to send troops to Rome. Large numbers are leaving 
 Paris daily for that city, to suppress an expected revolt. They 
 will be needed at home, soon, no doubt. France has had a 
 taste of republicanism. She cannot remain as she is, so long as 
 her present laws remain. Since the law requiring three years 
 residence for the voter, disfranchised three millions of her 
 people ; since the law in harsh restraint of the press, requiring 
 editors to sign their articles, and holding them responsible for 
 every criticism upon the government ; and with 346,000 sol 
 diers, and 87,000 horses feeding at the public crib, how can she 
 be stable or free ? The alteration of the Constitution, by which 
 Louis Napoleon may be made Emperor, or (so called) President 
 for life, is the prominent political question. We hear it dis 
 cussed on boats and in cars.* 
 
 But we are ahead of our journey. The Lombardy poplars 
 were our theme. These seem to be the only wood here. They 
 are raised for the lumber. We saw persons with hand-saws at 
 work in this age of steam, and within fifty miles of Paris, 
 making boards out of them. The limbs are stripped, and out 
 of the bushes are made faggots, which are tied in bundles, and 
 used for firewood. 
 
 The women do the greatest part of the field labor. Our ob 
 servation of them may be summed up thus : the young are viva 
 ciously pretty, and the old are horribly ugly ; but both are 
 extremely polite and unexclusive in their communication. But 
 one should be chary of criticism upon the women of France, 
 among whom are numbered Joan of Arc, Madame de Stael, and 
 the little wife of the great Conde, who was fighting her hus 
 band s battles while he watered pinks in prison. 
 
 One feature of the landscape we should not omit. It is the 
 donkey, almost hid though he be, under the weight of harness. 
 Along he trudges, jingling his bell, and his little feet in strange 
 
 * The reader will remember that these pages were written in France, 
 before the coup d e tat. Political prognostics for a country, like France, is 
 at best but wild guessing. 
 
84 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 contrast with the heavy burden he bears. He called for more 
 sympathy than any other part of the population. COLERIDGE 
 must have travelled here when he wrote his plaintive ode to that 
 languid animal, and " meek child of misery." I can well under 
 stand how the poet s sensitive soul trickled with pity as he con 
 templated the young foal s prophetic fate, under the thousand 
 aches which patient merit from the unworthy takes ; but if \ 
 should live until the star of empire should set. I could never 
 understand how a poet even, as Coleridge did, could find in the 
 harsh, dissonant, prolonged, agonizing, choking, desperate bray 
 of the donkey, a spirit and a tone more musically sweet than 
 warbled melodies that soothe the aching heart to rest ! But 
 there is a second sight, I suppose, allowed to the poet, which 
 the profanum vulgus must not seek to attain. 
 
 Alternating between diligence, cars and steamboat, we 
 pursue our way. We left the cars at Tonnere, not far from 
 which city is a queer old ruined castle, one of the finest of the 
 middle ages ; passing Dijon, we reached Chalons, where we 
 took a long, narrow, low steamer, about as wide as one of our 
 canal boats, and twice as long. The Saone is a clear stream, 
 perhaps one hundred yards wide, and walled almost all along. 
 Its banks are green and low. The country, unlike other parts 
 of France, seems to be improving. The towns through which 
 we passed before we took the boat, are of stone, and rapidly 
 dilapidating. The streets are all well paved, however, and the 
 accommodations good. 
 
 It would have made you laugh to have peeped in upon us 
 while at supper in an old half-castle, half-stable, of an auberge, 
 in one of the towns before we reached Dijon. About twenty 
 French men and women, all jolly, sat around us Buckeyes. 
 Away they gibbered, and directly we became acquainted. Dif 
 ferent persons, who knew as little English as we did French, 
 undertook to speak for us ; and while the wine went round, and 
 the dishes were passed, laughing and joyance followed. Such a 
 glee we never saw ; we knew they were not laughing at us, for 
 
FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 35 
 
 the French never do this. Every attempt at French was tres 
 Hen. Every successful attempt at bad English by the French, 
 we received with " 6on, bon." They acknowledged we spoke 
 better French than they English, and with mutual gratulations 
 to the two great republics, we again resumed our way. That 
 scene can never be pictured. If you would illumine Babel with 
 a few gleams of sunshine, and set out in it a creaking board of 
 supper, you might allegorize it somewhat. We knew just enough 
 of French to make the perplexity efficiently comical for a good 
 farce. The stamp of an awkward man upon a gouty toe is not 
 half so comically embarrassing. The perfect understanding we 
 all had, when it came to the language of spoon, knife and fork, 
 heightened the scene. The French gesture, not alone with 
 fingers, hands and arms, but on this festal occasion eye 
 brows, eye, nose, mouth, whiskers, and head entire, were called 
 into use to give significance to the tongue. I do not wonder the 
 French boast of the first comic writer, Moliere. 
 
 What fine bridges span the Saone ! They are very low ; 
 but a tinkle of the bell lowers the pipe of the steamer, by hand, 
 and we dart between the piers, when it is raised by steam. The 
 freshly-ploughed hills on the right swell up, and smile to the 
 very clouds with the evidences of industry. How they will bleed 
 with the wine in October ! 
 
 We soon arrived at Macon, near which Lamartine was born, 
 and the scene of much of his " Confidences." The pensive 
 beauty of the surrounding scenery might well develop so melan 
 choly and tender a Muse as his. Half in shadow, and half in 
 sunlight, hung the long line of hills, sentinelled here and there 
 with the poplars, and all overarched by a soft, clear, blue firma 
 ment. Well might they infuse into his soul that intense feeling 
 of the lovely and ecstatic, which distinguishes Lamartine. 
 
 Soon we leave the stone quays of the wine-trading town of 
 Macon, where we were met by a host of women, with baskets of 
 edibles on long poles, who poked them under our noses from the 
 banks. A few hours more, and our boat is approaching the silk 
 
86 
 
 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 and velvet metropolis. You may know Lyons by the splendid 
 pallisades, upon which frown rare old legendary towers, round 
 and grim ; the rocks surmounted with elegant residences ; ter 
 races of green and flowers beautifying the gray and dark rocks ; 
 statues adorning arches and gateways, and every where the con 
 test of haggard, petrified Nature, embracing, but subdued by 
 the gentle influences of leafy groves and artistic monuments. 
 The isle Barbe here was once a favorite residence of Charle 
 magne, and is even yet a spot of rare beauty in the Saone. 
 
 Below in the river we pass a fleet of river craft, laden with 
 hay and straw. Bell ringing, military music and noise, usher 
 us into our pier. Lyons is throned among hills, and looks im 
 posing. 
 
 It is hard, after looking upon and describing such spectacles 
 as the Luxembourg, the Pantheon, N6tre Dame, and other places 
 in Paris, to find adequate admiration in language for other less 
 attractive scenes. There is a " joyful amazement" that entrances 
 the traveller, which is not dependent merely upon relative 
 beauty, but which belongs to the spirit. As he passes from no 
 vel enchantment to even a less enchanting attraction, that amaze 
 ment increases in intensity and refinement The eye becomes 
 able to see all beauty, the ear to hear inexhaustible harmony, 
 and " the senses to drink in the balmy and bracing air." 
 
 Just as the evening of Thursday was dying away, our dili 
 gence abruptly turned from its direction down the Saone, into a 
 valley of exquisite beauty, which yet lingers about my mind as 
 a dream of heaven. I thought at first it must be the far-famed 
 valley of Vaucluse, opening to us its world of witchery. But 
 no ; as we learned very soon, it was near Vienne, the ancient 
 capital of the Allobroges, a ville between Lyons and Avignon 
 
 Let us look around. Upland slopes rise one above the other, 
 high as the eye can see without pain, and cultivated to the very 
 summits with the vine. An infinity of stakes set for the vine 
 multiply before the eye ; while terraces relieve the rocks of their 
 barren appearance. Skirting our road are huge rocks upon 
 
FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 87 
 
 which cling yellow, purple and red flowers. Wild roses hang 
 over their edges, and form natural tapestry. The meadows be 
 low, are spangled with unromantic poppies ; but they look beautiful 
 in their wild, bright-red dress. A stream of water flows far be 
 low the meadows, making the air musical with its falls. Groves 
 of the Lombardy stand unconcerned about the hills ; while as 
 we advance, mulberry-trees, upon which boys are gathering 
 leaves, goats feeding upon the side-hills, and the little earthen 
 ware roofs of the vine-dressers, appear. 
 
 Now a factory for silk gives the idea of utility to the view, 
 and we meet crowds of pretty girls in caps, and with flowers, pass 
 ing and repassing, as well as boys with their fishing-poles, 
 returning home to Vienne. Far over beyond all this realm of 
 beauty, is a huge range of rocks, in which are carved houses. 
 Now splendid chateaus, with vineyards and flower-gardens, leap 
 as if by magic, from behind hills, in the very bosom of the val 
 ley. Soon we pass stone fountains, and all at once the " arrowy 
 Rhone" bursts upon the view, red and golden in the sunlight. 
 What strange old pillar is that we saw in one of the meadows of 
 the valley towering up seventy or eighty feet ? It cannot be 
 French, for it is too old. I learned that my surmise was cor 
 rect, that it was a Roman monument. Somehow or other the 
 French make their roads, so as to run near any monument 
 of beauty or of antiquity. In America, we scarcely deviate 
 from a graveyard for a railroad. As the sun went down, it 
 glanced through cloud-bars with a brilliancy that sparkled in the 
 glistening air. Surely we must be approaching a sunnier clime, 
 where Beauty reposes in the lap of a lovelier nature. 
 
 Scarcely had we reached Vienne, before the sound of music 
 and the appearance of a dance, down the street, about a half 
 square from the diligence-office, riveted the ear and eye. Young 
 men and maidens were moving " right and left," crossing over 
 and all around, embodiments of happy hilarity. But where 
 we stopped, there was found a contrast to this gay scene. A 
 crowd of beggars, consisting of cripples of all twists, shapes, 
 
88 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 some circular, one-legged, armless, and otherwise deformed, 
 crowded around us. A regular fight ensued, as to who should 
 obtain precedence to the diligence. What a commentary ! 
 It completely unveiled Charles Lamb s humorous sophistry 
 in his plea for beggars, wherein he demonstrates the unenvied 
 contentment of the beggar s lot, above all strifes, suits, fashions, 
 chances, bankruptcies and ills which fortunate flesh is heir to 
 the only absolute monarchs and independent citizens ! In 
 France, even beggary fights for its caste, as well as whines for 
 its sous. Yet there was bread (large circular rolls or loaves, 
 about three feet round, in the French style) hanging within reach, 
 at a baker s shop. 
 
 The silk-worm and the grape-cluster how simple in them 
 selves; yet how many millions in France depend upon them for 
 life. How strange, too, it was, to see those beggars in that beau 
 tiful valley, where one might imagine the fruition of Milton s idea 
 of a perpetual feast of nectared sweets. After having gathered 
 flowers by the hill-side, as souvenirs of this enchanted spot, we 
 courted the influence of the poppy, which by a curious lucus a 
 non luccndo seems to be the most plentiful flower in this 
 undecpjid land. 
 
 The next morning, our conductor gave me a seat by his side, 
 and with my little French, which is daily improving of neces 
 sity, I learned every thing of interest in yesterday s ride. What 
 strange appearance is that in the east, away off among and 
 above the dim hills ? Can it be solid earth, with clouds below 
 it ? " Alp montaigne" says our conductor. A long range of 
 the Alps followed us during our ride, at times white-topped with 
 snow. Soon we entered upon the valley of Vaucluse, so famous 
 in the songs of the Troubadour ; so famous as the locality of 
 the tombs and fountains of PETRARCH and LAURA ; so famous 
 for its beautiful heaven and unrivalled scenery ; and so famous 
 for its Roman ruins. But, above all, to my mind, it was the 
 home of PETRARCH. The Abbe de Lille touches the right 
 strain when he sings, 
 
FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 89 
 
 " Ces eaux, ce beau ciel, ce vallon enchanteuu 
 Moiiis que Petrarque et Laura interressoient mon coeur. 
 La voila done, desors-je, .oui, voila cette rive 
 Que Petrarque que charmoit de sa lyre plaintive." 
 
 We passed crosses at the road-side, bung with chaplets, pea 
 sants driving homeward the early harvesting of hay, and auberges 
 with their signs of holly over their hospitable doors. Soon the 
 old ruins begin to appear. I called all my poor French into 
 requisition. How it brings one out, this curiosity. The most 
 prominent ruin was called the Chateau de Mont Dragon. It 
 was a high, long palisade, built by Nature for a stronghold. 
 The walls ran up in solid masses 175 or 200 feet high, and upon 
 these the old Roman caution had built towers against the Allo- 
 broges. All around the hills were the ruins of the Roman. Here 
 the eagles of Caesar and Marius played with the wind. 
 
 After having passed the Chateau de Mont Dragon, which is 
 in Vaucluse, we glided between tiled houses and willows, which 
 line the road-side, until Orange gleamed in the sun. Here is a 
 grand amphitheatre of the Romans ; and the relict ruins of the 
 Princes of Orange, above it upon the hill. As we passed very 
 near, we had a good opportunity to see the outside of the amphi 
 theatre. Its concave was turned to the hill, consequently we could 
 not see its interior. It was not until we passed, and that my 
 neck had been stretched some feet out of the diligence, that I 
 caught a view of the seats. It is not broken and ruined, like 
 the Coliseum. Its semicircle is perfect, It looked the old 
 Roman in every stone. Here, doubtless, were the Gallic pri 
 soners of war sacrificed to grace a " Roman holiday." Many a 
 noble Allobrogian struggled in the ring with the wild beasts of 
 his native forests, and died amid the shouts of his victors. In 
 glancing at such and similar scenes, how often recurred to my 
 mind the verse : 
 
 " What tales, what morals of the Elder day, 
 If stones had language, could that pile convey." 
 
90 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 A poet has said that there are sermons in stones ; and verily, 
 that solemn, gloomy vestige of the mighty power of the olden 
 time, is more eloquent in its silence than a great many sermons 
 which I have heard. 
 
 A splendid arch appears! And now, as we approach it, 
 snakes, shields, battle-axes, and other figures, all in ruins, yet 
 sufficiently solid and distinct, while crumbling, to tell us that 
 Marius was here with his legions of Victory, and that this is 
 his memento of the battle with the Allobroges. But how much 
 brighter is the triumphal arch to Napoleon at Paris ! Caesar 
 himself pales before Napoleon s blood-red glory. But we have 
 more marvels in this valley of Beauty. Avignon, our dining- 
 place, appears, not by itself, but by its splendid representative, 
 the palace of the Bishop, whose lofty turrets and gray old towers, 
 massive and substantial, are lifted high above the surrounding 
 country. This view gives place to the high wall, not without a 
 certain rude ornament, and not untouched by Time, which with 
 its towers and deep moat surrounds this city of forty thousand 
 people. An old aqueduct crosses the Rhone here ; or rather has 
 crossed it once. Now it has broken down in the middle. Its 
 windows and arches look mournful and dreary beside the new, 
 prim, and saucy suspension bridge, which, just below it, leaps 
 the stream, as if the effort were of little consequence. Here, 
 too. we see a splendid depot, and locomotives puffing over the 
 iron rail. The old and new civilizations meet together. The 
 middle and later ages kiss each other. 
 
 You remember that there was an ancient tradition among 
 the Romans, that when their Capital was founded, the god Ter 
 minus refused to yield to Jupiter ; and hence, the boundaries 
 of Roman power never would recede. Vain and delusive pre 
 diction ! Had there been no other Jupiter to subdue their 
 Terminus, steam would have become the " Father of gods and 
 men." The thunder of Jove must have succumbed to the light 
 ning of Morse. Steamboats and locomotives would have driven 
 Terminus to his seven hills. In this interior city of France is 
 
FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 91 
 
 an epitome of the great past, and the greater present ; the one 
 splendid in decay, the other wonderful in its active energy. 
 Upon this energy hangs the future fate of Nations. Iron, not 
 gold, is the metal to be sought for, whose subtle power, alchemy 
 in its most potent form, under the spell of its old enchanters, 
 RAYMOND LILLY and ROGER BACON, could never rival. 
 
 Over hills and down dales, amid mulberry groves and silk 
 factories, and everlasting soldiers, we find the open country, and 
 with the speed of a locomotive we dash away in our diligence 
 towards this my present locale of Avignon, where at the Nation 
 al, late royal (?) Hotel, strawberries and cherries blush to be 
 seen in luscious prodigality. 
 
 Two things yet deserve mention. Before we reached Avig 
 non, the castle called the ruins of the Baron d Ardret appeared. 
 It towered upon high battlements, filled with port-holes. Art 
 had been aided by Nature to construct one of those illustrations 
 of strength, which, after repulsing many a gallant foe, has even 
 bid Time defiance. The legend connected with this castle, as I 
 gathered it from our conductor, is briefly, that the Baron whose 
 name it bears, upon the breaking out of the French revolution 
 in 1789, good-naturedly, no doubt, hurled four of his domestics 
 over these terrific heights. That places it conspicuously upon 
 my list of ruins. 
 
 We dashed under the arched gateways of Avignon and into 
 a courtyard ; and really the scene came over me like a romance 
 of the middle ages. We entered a fine hotel, kept in a sort of 
 old castle, yet fixed up most comfortably. All the houses here 
 have stone or marble floors, and although these do not coincide 
 altogether with our ideas of comfort, yet the romance of the 
 thing you know makes up. We wished for a longer repose 
 than two hours at this beautiful city ; but no ! down we dash to 
 wards Marseilles. What towns we passed what olive orchards, 
 what black and gray old rocks, what vineyards and terraces, be 
 fore our cars entered that three-mile tunnel, dark and damp, un 
 der the mountain, are all too common by this time to be partic- 
 
92 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 ularized. At last, through a mountain gorge appeared the Med 
 iterranean, with its bosom of blue, speckled with its sails of 
 white. A summer storm came up as we drew near our destina 
 tion, a storm of rain, sunshine and rainbows. I saw one column 
 of a beauteous bow coming out of an old tower, and gradually mov 
 ing into the Mediterranean. It arched us so completely that 
 we may truly say, that we entered this Queen city of the 
 Mediterranean, upon the last day of spring, under a bending 
 heaven of prisms ! As it cleared away, the air was filled with a 
 rich, interpenetrating lustre ; and the sun went down under a 
 golden canopy which only hangs in a southern sky. 
 
 Marseilles is a gay, godless, and not a very cleanly city ; 
 soldiers fill every part of it. Its promenades are fine. We 
 visited the Chateau of Flowers, which is the favorite resort on 
 Sundays, of the population. It was well named. Flowers of 
 every hue, beds laid off in every form, places for amusement 
 and exercise, lakes with boats and swans, hills, grottoes, a circus 
 and fountains, all unite to make it a place of pleasure, a favor 
 ite resort of the gay French. 
 
 We went upon a high point near the sea, overlooking the 
 city, to take a farewell of it, as well as a complete glance. We 
 were not disappointed in our view. But we met three odd, tur 
 baned human beings upon the lofty promenade, seated cross 
 legged, and smoking as composedly as Mahomet amid a heaven 
 of houris. I supposed they were Turks. They nodded. We 
 nodded. The chief had, strangely enough we thought, a very 
 long white beard (albeit a young man), a very fair complexion, 
 and very light eyes, which he twisted very remarkably. Find 
 ing I did not advance in conversation, he inquired in French 
 if we were not strangers, then if we were not English. Non 
 Non / rather emphatic. I asked him, in return, if he and his 
 compatriots resided in Marseilles ? Non, Non? Once more 
 delicate question to such a queer heathen, If he did not reside 
 in Turkey ! Moroc, Monsieur. Whew ! perhaps the Em 
 peror of Morocco himself. He gravely pulled out his snuft 
 
FRANCE. AN ENTRV AND AN EXIT. 93 
 
 box, and I. with a grand flourish (I hate snuff as bad as brandy), 
 took a tremendous pinch ; and with the most approved Oriental 
 sweep of the arm, applied it to my nose. Before the first ex 
 plosion took place, I was behind the bushes. Oh Ah Ghee 
 Whoo-o ! six times sonorously loud. The Emperor roared. 
 Our party roared ; and I described space, aided by gravity, 
 remarkably rapid. Snuff is a miserable practice. None but 
 heathens use it. 
 
 I must bid farewell to France. She has been a garden of 
 delight to me. Never was I so beholden to Nature and Art for 
 enjoyment. 
 
 I write amid the discussions of some six or eight white- 
 robed Capuchin monks, whose sweet Italian (Tuscan it is), 
 ravishes my ear. while it disturbs my pen. We are aboard of 
 the Sardinian steamer Languedoc, bound for Leghorn and 
 Naples. I cannot but look upon these strange monkish men 
 with a sort of reverence. Sacrificing the world and its pleas 
 ures, continually engaged in spiritual or mental exercise, they 
 do deserve the regard of every tolerant Christian. Whatever 
 of abuse may have been by them perpetrated and perpetuated, 
 I never can forget them as the preservators of the classics and 
 the regenerators of the Arts. The Benedictines first penetrat 
 ed the chilly north of Europe and christianized it. From 
 them sprung the infinite beauty of the Gothic architecture, and 
 the entrancing sweetness of Music. The Augustines built fine 
 Cathedrals, and attracted the untutored mind to the service of 
 the God of Mercy. The mendicant friars founded hospitals. 
 As architects, as glass painters, as mosaic workers, as chem 
 ists, as carvers in wood and metal, the Benedictines were the 
 first and almost only artists of the middle ages. St. Francis, 
 when he wooed and won his bride, Poverty, in his brown sack 
 and cowl, at the same time, gave the hue and tone to that mystic 
 school of painting and poetry, which has ever been the greatest 
 attraction to the loftiest genius. Giotto in painting, and Dante 
 in poetry, are they not offspring, noble enough to justify our 
 
94 FRANCE. AN ENTRY AND AN EXIT. 
 
 commendation 1 In all, these poor monks worked not for them 
 selves ; but for the glory of God ! 
 
 And now as they, with their clear dark eyes and lofty brows, 
 are retiring to their berths, my eyes follow them as strange 
 relics of an earlier day, lost to the active world and busy with 
 scenes of the past and of the future. Sleep on ! Ye have no 
 illiberal, harsh Protestantism following ye to your lonely pillows. 
 May God reward your zeal in his service, by the fruition of your 
 happiest hopes ! 
 
IX. 
 
 Inm? of 
 
 u Italia ! that thou wert in thy nakedness 
 Less lovely or more powerful, and could claim 
 Thy right, and awe the robbers back who press 
 To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress." 
 
 ETROTT. 
 
 I HAD scarcely written the word " Genoa," in my journal, 
 before the evening gun from the fort was fired, the report of 
 which startled a thousand echoes. Never did I hear such a fine 
 succession of iterated sounds. Of course we rushed to the win 
 dow ; but only saw the smoke rising and beclouding the young 
 crescent moon. The light-houses are gleaming around another 
 crescent which the harbor of Genoa forms, while including in it 
 the masts of a thousand ships. The long promenade of marble, 
 which forms the roof of the Porticato alia Pia zzo, whitens be 
 neath us, in the warm atmosphere ; and the sound of singing, of 
 merry bells and of voices rise, forming a rare medley of music. 
 
 Were I to select a word descriptive of this city, which is 
 called the " superb," I would select the above medley. Not 
 only is it a medley in its people, its palaces, and its poverty ; 
 but in its cathedrals, its cafes, and its scenery. As we approach 
 the city from the blue sea, which we did in the morning, it seemed 
 one compact mass of marble, cut out in semi-circular form for a 
 harbor. It lies upon a high hill-side, one street of palaces ris 
 ing above another, in close proximity. To all appearance, there 
 is not much to be seen here. But judge not too quickly. You 
 may find much, even in the little walk from the boat to the hotel, 
 to reward your observation. No doubt, you will be first caught 
 by the graceful and peculiar costume of the ladies. They are 
 exceedingly well dressed, and walk nearly as easily and as finely 
 
THE HOME OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 as our own American women. They wear a white veil, which 
 being confined with a silver pin in the back part of a fine head of 
 black hair, neatly braided, flows in the most elegant, wavy lines 
 imaginable. It is disposed in handsome folds over as hand 
 some dresses. If you would go down the Strada Nuova, as we 
 have to-day, the first idea would be " why, can this be real is 
 it not a general bridal-day ? How happy and spruce dance the 
 merry brides along this palace-street !" 
 
 The other part of the population do not dress peculiarly. 
 They have a harsh language, however, even though it be Ita 
 lian. Indeed, it is as different from the sweet Tuscan or Nea 
 politan, as I am from Hercules. The Sardinians cannot be un 
 derstood at Naples, any more than a Pottowattamie by a Flat- 
 head. 
 
 Upon entering our boat at Marseilles, where we spent a de 
 lightful day, we found three Americans, Mrs. Stephens, the au 
 thoress, and her company, with whom we formed a delightful 
 acquaintance. She has been travelling in Europe for more than 
 a year ; passing, by virtue of her talents and reputation, among 
 the best and noblest of Europe. And let it be remembered 
 too, that wherever she has been, she has not forgotten that she 
 was a plain-spoken American lady. The reader may remembei 
 the cavalier manner in which she treated the Queen of Greece. 
 who insulted our consul, by refusing to permit him to present 
 them. It was capital. She told us the story with great eclat ; 
 while we young embodiments of American grit and spunk, 
 cheered it most joyfully. 
 
 I had no idea that Genoa was of such consequence. She 
 has not lost her commercial power since the days of Columbus. 
 Others have excelled her that is all. One hundred and fifty 
 thousand people mostly depend on her commerce. She is the 
 outlet in the Mediterranean, for Switzerland, Lombardy, ami 
 Piedmont. Her silks, velvets, and damasks, to say nothing of 
 her filagree work in silver, which our ladies have been handling 
 to-day hi the famous Goldsmith-street, are prominent objects of 
 manufacture 
 
THE HOME OF COLUMBUS. 97 
 
 The first thing which strikes a foreigner here, is the narrow 
 ness of the streets. Indeed, there are very few over which you 
 cannot step from roof to roof. Carriages are rarely seen. Mules 
 are the only living objects visible, beside human beings. The 
 streets are not gloomy, however. They are lined with fine 
 houses, built when the maritime splendor of Genoa was at its 
 zenith. These houses are all called palaces. They have been such, 
 but from the poverty of the nobles, or from some other cause, they 
 have been leased out. I saw a blacksmith shop in the lower 
 story of one of them ; and little stores are not uncommon in 
 some of the largest class. These palaces looked worn and tired; 
 their painting spoiled, and not unlike a fine lady jaded after 
 some grand ball. The paintings on the marble walls are rub 
 bed and dim. The statues, almost all of them, have their noses 
 knocked off The fine stair cases, with their guardian marble 
 forms, look dirty and neglected. Yet Genoa is superb ; every 
 body says so. It would not do for us to say nay, to such a 
 community of affirmation. 
 
 I do not mean to say that there are not exceptions, though 
 few, to this untoward appearance of the palaces. Nor would I 
 thus depicture the inner appearance. Our visions to-day forbid. 
 There is an air of massiveness and stonencss about the edifices, 
 which is as striking as it is comfortless. This is as apparent in 
 the old as in the new part of the city. The best of the palaces 
 exhibit to the gazer moving past, a large hall, supported partly 
 on columns, leading to an alcove, or court, surrounded by ar 
 cades, the arches of which are supported upon columns. Flights 
 of marble steps lift themselves far up ; and above and beyond 
 is a great stair-case rising on each hand, and frequently further 
 beyond is a small garden, shaded by oranges, and sprinkled 
 with the spray and voiceful with the music of fountains. 
 
 We have not as yet visited the interior of any palace, though 
 we have of some of the churches. Our first visit was to the 
 Duomo, or Cathedral, built in the eleventh century. How dif 
 ferent are these churches in Italy, from Westminster or Ndtre 
 5 
 
gg THE HOME OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 Dame. These latter seem to be mouldering. Owing to the 
 softer material and a northern clime, they must of necessity 
 first yield. To all appearance, the Duomo is as young as ever. 
 It is of black and white marble, and is altogether out of shape. 
 Only one tower is built where the taste calls for two. Through 
 out the church there is illustrated the Genoese medley. The 
 aisles and naves are separated by fine Corinthian columns, con 
 nected by pointed arches of Gothic, and bearing a horizontal 
 entablature ; above which is an arcade supported by columns 
 and piers. The same black and white marble appears within. 
 
 We are allowed to go within the choir. The seats are finely 
 inlaid with musical instruments. A bronze Madonna and child, 
 by BIANCHI. decorates the altar. After examining the two 
 finest paintings (for in such a display of canvass and configura 
 tion one must select), we did not enter, and did not see the re 
 mains of John the Baptist, which are contained in the chapel 
 dedicated to him. The chapel is elegant enough, with its four 
 porphyry pillars, and a sarcophagus to contain the relics ; while 
 a splendid shrine of Gothic panels, tracery, and finicals of the 
 most exquisite kind, is inscribed with his history. 
 
 There are several apocryphal relics in this church, as in most 
 of the Italian churches. The prominent one is the Catino, a 
 vessel said to be a gift to Solomon by his ancient admirer she 
 of Sheba ; and also said to be the dish which held the paschal 
 lamb at the last supper ; and -also, to be the identical dish which 
 Joseph of Arimathea used to catch the blood from the bleeding 
 ide of our Saviour. This relic was never permitted to be seen. 
 Some sceptical Germans, however, got access to it. and discover 
 ed it to be, instead of a single emerald, as was told, a dish of 
 ordinary glass ! 
 
 But we cannot enumerate the items of interest, sacredly 
 hoarded up in these churches. One old relic which I could 
 swear to is a rescript in almost illegible Latin, to* Constantine 
 the Great, which is inlaid in the wall, and is no doubt coeval 
 with that monarch. 
 
THE HOME OF COLUMBUS. 99 
 
 We leave the Duomo with its niches, twisted columns and 
 mixed architecture, black and white marble, with not one idea 
 of unity and order. It has not the simplicity in variety, which 
 in the Gothic so charms the senses and awes the soul, by the 
 association with Infinity. The other churches are less medley, 
 but somewhat the same impression is left. On our first enter 
 ing the ungainly-looking church of Saint Sira, a perfect blaze of 
 painting and richness arrested our sight. It seemed thronged 
 with great masses of the pencil s populace. Angels and saints in 
 white marble relieved the eye below ; and after ranging up over 
 the frescoed vaults, the sight found relief in a huge dome, still 
 painted, but which opened to another dome, through which 
 seemed hastening up to heaven the winged aspirants to the 
 upper air, bearing through it a garlanded cross ! The concep 
 tion of this group, with its upward flight surrounded by forms 
 of beauty all too lovely for earth, was only rivalled by the ge 
 nius which executed it. Forty marble columns, and all the 
 apostles and prophets in marble, gave us the idea of profusion 
 without beauty, and maze without form. The associations con 
 nected with this church are the best part of it. Here in the 
 fifteenth century was BOCCANEGRA created the first Doge of 
 Genoa, amid cries of u vive il popolo" Here the eternal right 
 of popular supremacy was asserted and embodied in him, whose 
 fine form we just witnessed in the Ducal palace. The Genoese 
 treasure his memory. Indeed foreigners who think the Genoese 
 have no liberty, or resemble the other Italian cities, greatly err. 
 I do not wonder that in the beginning of the present year 
 (1852) Austria has made the insolent demand to have troops 
 stationed in the arsenals of Sardinia. Sardinia is a constitu 
 tional monarchy to be sure ; but her councils represent the 
 people and control the State. Books of the republican class 
 nre unrestrictedly circulated and sold here ; while at Naples all 
 books, from the Bible and Shakspeare down to the latest French 
 squib, are forbidden. Education in Genoa is a high object of 
 public interest. I asked a merchant to-day in Goldsmith street, 
 
100 THE HOME OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 how it happened that so many of the people spoke English. He 
 responded that the course of instruction in the public schools 
 was most thorough, including French, German and English. 
 It is getting to be a great mark of nobility on the continent to 
 speak English. We are in for that rank, finding it more easy 
 than French. Custom is mighty. 
 
 We visited the Ducal palace and the chamber of the grand 
 council. It is pillared and frescoed off finely ; while ranged 
 around, are the casts of statues which formerly stood in marble 
 in the same niches, but which during Bonaparte s time, were 
 thrown from their pedestals. The city has n<5t yet lost the tra 
 ces of the French. It was held by Massena for a long period, while 
 besieged even to the starvation point by the Austrians. 
 
 We also visited other churches in Genoa. They bear the 
 same general appearance as the Duomo ; a style resembling the 
 Arabian, or Saracenic commingled with the Gothic. In all, 
 there is the same blaze of fresco, which, owing to the peculiar 
 manner of the incorporation of the color with the lime in its wet 
 state, gives out a lustre more brilliant than oil. The columns 
 are of marble red, white, and spotted ; some of them spiral. 
 The Church of the Annunciation gleams with fretted gold. 
 We noticed there, a fine painting of St. Francis dreaming of his 
 Bride, Poverty, with the angels surrounding the slumberer. Al 
 so, a painting of the Last Supper. We could not begin to 
 describe or criticise the paintings. Our only mode is to fix 
 upon a few gems and study them. To run the eye over fine 
 paintings, as we must do, is but to tickle the optic nerve for a 
 moment. It leaves no impress upon the memory. After going 
 through the Church of Santa Maria which is unlike all others, 
 being purely white within and without ; after passing through 
 the Church of the Jesuits, wherein fresco and tracery, substance 
 and shadow, arc intermingled so as to be confounded ; after listen 
 ing to the monotone of the chanting Franciscans, seeing the 
 strange confessional with its penitent trembling at the ear-hole 
 of the Father ; after being shown about by sly Italian priests, 
 
 
TILE HOME OF COLUMBUS. 101 
 
 until seeing and hearing became a burden, we ascended the hills 
 and found, oh ! how grateful a relief, in the promenades and vil 
 las above the city. 
 
 Let me give you a single description. Uno disce omnia. A 
 long promenade hedged with telio, and winding about orange 
 groves and fountains, led us to a flight of steps. Having ascend 
 ed we were immediately in the midst of numerous fountains in 
 artificial grottoes. Above, are clinging to the rocks and bared 
 to the sight, the smooth twisted roots of the fig-trees. We as 
 cend at this vestibule of verdure, through arched grape vines, and 
 with the walls skirted with roses up up past terraces where 
 in are growing orange trees, full of golden fruitage, and exceed 
 ingly tempting to larceny. Here we stop upon a variegated 
 pebble pave, while before us rises a yellow and white marble 
 palace. Herein resides the poet and owner, the Marquis De 
 Najora, whom we are informed is not yet arisen from his slum 
 bers. Oh ! luxurious idler and dreamer. All this paradise 
 surrounds thee, but to woo thee to repose in that closed cham 
 ber. But it is of no use to moralize. Ethics must bend to 
 beauty ; subjectivity to objectivity. 
 
 All around the palace, amidst the foliage, are busts of the 
 celebrated Genoese, among whom " COLOMBO" claims my first re 
 gard. Around, too, are cool, large grottoes made of shells, mir 
 rors and spars. Other grottoes are frescoed upon the walls in 
 mockery of the cool originals near. Paths lead .through them 
 and up to a higher vantage ground. Can it be possible ? Must 
 there be a higher heaven yet ? Stay ! Here is a name that 
 rivets the attention, and there is a bust familiar as -an American 
 landscape. Under it is inscribed, 
 
 " ALL A MEMOEIA DI WASHINGTON." 
 
 Canova stands near. Below his bust is a billiard room. Farther 
 on is a seat, at least 300 feet above the city, from which we may 
 grasp Genoa in one glance. Near by upon another hill is a 
 
1 02 THE h OME OF COL UME US. 
 
 large fortification in. ruins, the result of the popular commotions 
 of 1848. Below are walks and trees of all kinds. The pepper-tree 
 near the japonica; alche trees embracing the cypress and olive, 
 lemons and figs ; the cerino full of berries, and the umbrageous 
 fraschino. Scattered among them are tall, rare Egyptian palms. 
 
 The fresh air comes up freighted with a rich burden of fra 
 grance. All around the bay are arranged the pyramidal roofs 
 of the superb city, varied by the towers and steeples of the 
 churches ; while the bay itself, fretted by a breeze ever so light, 
 emulates the cerulean of the sky, save in that deep ribbon of 
 blue which separates the rarer from the denser element. Up 
 rises with the sound of voices and bells, and mingled with the 
 song of birds (we mnst be faithful), the horrid, infernal music of 
 unhappy donkeydom ! 
 
 We had better seek another spot. If you are dainty about 
 treading on lizards, you may let me lead. Here, upon the 
 north-east, we have another view a full sweep of the valley 
 beyond Genoa. Yonder in that grove is the house where Byron 
 lived for two years. It might well awaken the poet s soul to 
 gaze up and down this valley of terraces and palaces. Beneath 
 us is the plash, almost roar of waters. It is the aqueduct, so 
 constructed as to empty its silver vein into a basin below, and 
 apparently out of a grove. Trembling in its spray are oranges. 
 Far above us even, rise other gardens and palaces, similar to 
 this ; and far above them are the eternal hills bare and comfort 
 less. Now we may descend among flower vases, gum-elastic 
 trees and roses, into the open street, to meet again the ever 
 lasting beggar of Italy. Whine away, poor human nature ! it 
 is your brother, made of the same mortal clay with yourself, 
 who holds that regal palace, adorned with art, and garnitured 
 by nature. False to the memory, and recreant to the hope of 
 Italy, he sleeps in ignoble ease, while the garden of Europe 
 holds within its enclosure a degraded, begging and outcast popu 
 lation, whose rulers are serfs to Austria, or puppets of France. 
 There are at least two thousand people now in the public 
 
THE HOME OF COLUMBUS. 103 
 
 poor-house of Genoa, and God only knows how many more ought 
 to be thus provided for. If beauty and art must flourish in 
 these palaces and gardens at such an expense of misery, let the 
 axe fall at the root of the poisonous tree, that its exhalations 
 may no longer taint the mild air of this heaven-kissed clime. Let 
 your marbles be overturned ; your Correggios and Guides be cut 
 into ribbons ; your frescos be whitewashed, and your soil of 
 beauty indurated for ever. 
 
 But this, we thank the Creator of the Beautiful, is not the 
 sacrifice required. He who made the fair so near akin to what 
 is good 5 who gives immortality to both by the same law of his 
 will, requires only the sacrifice of lustful power and absurd 
 pomp. 
 
 We spent the last few hours of to-day in passing through 
 some of the superb palaces, whose outside we yesterday saw. 
 The Salle palace is perhaps the richest in its collection of paint 
 ings, although it had no golden room like another we visited. 
 Vandykes, llubens, De Vincis, Paolis, Guidos, and others, line 
 the resplendent walls ; while the never-failing fresco and statue 
 meet you at every side-glance. One painting among them all 
 I now remember distinctly. It is here for ever engraved. It 
 is Tasso in the mad-house, at the foot of llubens, while Mon 
 taigne, the French philosopher, stands near. The expression of 
 the pale, woe-stricken poet, with his lofty sorrow and half maniac 
 glare, as he kneels to be released by his visitors, has the very 
 soul of Melancholy, not yet lost to Despair. It seemed to me, 
 that in this picture I beheld the fate of Italy. Images of poetic 
 grandeur surround her ; the Past beckons, and invites her to 
 search its repository for the influence of Example ; the Future 
 is lit up with hopes as beautiful as the angels which float upon 
 her painters canvass ; but the spell of Despair hovers near 
 where Melancholy is already^seated. Oh ! that the glorious 
 soul of Massini might be created under the " ribs of death," 
 which are even now visible beneath the rich vesture that nature 
 has bestowed upon Italy ! 
 
Enme, lining nni Jtaii. 
 
 "Hail to the great Asylum ! 
 Hail to the hill-tops seven ! 
 Hail to the firo which burns for aye! 
 And the shield which fell from heaven 1" 
 
 Macaulay a Lays. 
 
 I. LEGHORN TO ROME. 
 
 AFTER leaving Genoa, we resumed our career over the deep 
 blue of the Mediterranean and touched at .Leghorn, where 
 we left our good company, Mrs. Stephens. We delayed long 
 enough to see all that Leghorn could show, which is little more 
 than a statue with four ugly pirates chained a local monument, 
 representing an incident in the history of the city worthy of the 
 best Roman days. The son of a Doge was sent after a Corsair, 
 whose piratical adventures were the scourge of the sea. He 
 was victorious, and in the flush of success, hesitated not to break 
 the quarantine laws of Genoa, by entering port in disregard of 
 their provisions, the penalty of which was death. He suffered 
 the penalty. The Doge s justice did not yield to the paternal 
 yearning. The monument supported by four pirates attests at 
 once the valor of the victim and the impartial rigor of the law 
 and its executive. 
 
 We visited, pioneered by some whole-souled American offi 
 cers of the U. S. steamship Mississippi, which lies here, the 
 grave of TOBIAS SMOLLETT, the Novelist and Historian. It is a 
 simple pyramid in the Presbyterian burying ground, enclosed by 
 iron, around which flags and flowers grow, and snails crawl. 
 We then went aboard the noble steamer ; and truly we were 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 105 
 
 proud of our country and its foreign service. We were so fortu 
 nate as to visit the Mississippi, during a visit of the Commodore 
 (MORGAN), and were received most cordially by all. The ship 
 was about to proceed where no one knew but the Commodore 
 and Captain ; but it was generally thought that KOSSUTH and 
 his companions were the object of the voyage East ; and then 
 (how they gladdened at the thought !) for HOME ! 
 
 At Leghorn there is little to be seen. It is a large trading 
 port. There is here little of Art or Beauty. The city is of re 
 cent origin, having been founded in the fifteenth century. Fer 
 dinand the first, one of the Medici, encouraged Moors, Jews, 
 persecuted Catholics from England, and others to come to Leg 
 horn, where he granted them the equal privileges, which their 
 descendants now enjoy. Leghorn is a free port ; by which is 
 meant a port where the custom-house bleeds you freely ; even 
 charging heavily for the privilege of landing. 
 
 We met on board the Mississippi steamship, which was 
 lying here, POWERS, the sculptor ; and had the delight of his 
 acquaintance, with a promise of its continuance at Florence. 
 He had come down for the purpose of sending off his son to 
 West Point. He was carelessly dressed, and hid beneath a 
 " round-headed " felt, a rotund, pleasant face, and an intelligent, 
 large eye of rare brightness. 
 
 A lady companion not unknown in the literary world, whose 
 opinion is generally entitled to authority in matters of art, does 
 not (as do most Americans, and all Italians) rank POWERS as 
 the equal of many other American sculptors, and simply because 
 his chief work, the Slave, does not express the high-souled in 
 dignation and flashing scorn, or the exquisite distress which a 
 female, situated as the slave is supposed to be should exhibit. 
 In this criticism, the most beautiful and truthful principle is 
 disregarded, not alone in my humble judgment, but in that of 
 the best writer upon aesthetics known in the realm of criticism, 
 the German LESSING. In his " Laocoon," he seems to have had 
 in his eye, the very form of the Slave, with its noble simplicity 
 
106 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 and sublime patience under indignity, and to have answered just 
 the objection above made. " As the depth of the sea remains 
 forever quiet, however the surface may rage, so the expression 
 in the figure discovers in the midst of Passion a great and calm 
 soul." Is not this the attitude and expression of the Slave? 
 Where, in all the array of art in that Crystal Palace, can be 
 found such quiet grandeur, such nameless simplicity of distress ? 
 After the eye had palled with gazing on the gauds of the In 
 dies and the south of Europe, I invariably found the heart 
 (which has a reason of its own) impelling me toward the Slave ; 
 there to dwell in silence upon the beautiful result of that genius 
 which gleamed in the piercing eye of our American POWERS. 
 The idea of the sculptor is not, as the objector must erroneous 
 ly assume, to follow nature ; but his ideal projected from nature 
 into the plastic air of his imagination. The Slave, if it were 
 distorted with distress or wrought into an agony of indignation, 
 would lose its auricle of calm glory, which ever shines in the 
 subduing influence of the soul over the body. 
 
 We saw and passed the Isle of Elba, only notable for being the 
 prison of greatness ; and the morning of the 4th of June, found 
 us in Uie harbor of Civita Vecchia, surrounded by massive walls. 
 The place is distinguished for nothing except that it is the gate 
 to Rome. The vexations of the custom-house are not so ter 
 rific as is imagined. We have found gentlemen in the officers. 
 Let the traveller remember, especially if a lady, that the want 
 of baggage is the greatest relief. Our ladies absolutely left all 
 their trunks at Paris, and with a carpet bag apiece, have passed 
 easily all barriers, and penetrated into the Eternal City. 
 
 2. APPROACH TO ROME. 
 
 The road from Civita Vecchia, which we traversed by a dil 
 igence conducted by a bob-coated bandit of a postillion, lies 
 mostly along the sea. The country resembles Ohio in its roll 
 ing hills and wheat covered fields. Harvest time on all sides 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 107 
 
 made the country seein busy. The road was lined with great 
 loads of hay moving to Rome, drawn by beautiful cattle, with 
 long polished horns and distended nostril worthy to be sacri 
 ficed to Jupiter himself. We passed several old ruins, and 
 among the rest the Egyptian tumuli, at Monterone, which were 
 opened by the Duchess of Sermoneta, in 1838. They are now 
 closed again. Vases were found ornamented with the lotus, and 
 painted ostrich eggs were not wanting. We also passed the Cae- 
 ritis Amnis, rendered classical by Virgil, as well as other pla 
 ces of historic interest. The rich twilight of antiquity began 
 to gloom about the old towers and castles, which ever and anon 
 we perceived upon the sea-coast. Especially should be remem 
 bered, the polygonal walls of a Pelasgic temple, near the pictu 
 resque fortress of Santa Sevaia, which was once the head-quar 
 ters of the Tyrrhenian pirates. 
 
 As we approach Rome, these interesting relics increase. 
 The very dust which flies in our faces is without doubt as sacred 
 as it is unpleasant. For the distance of twenty miles before we 
 reached Rome, St. Peter s lofty dome hung its conspicuous archi 
 tecture in mid air ; and what was so strange, although we saw 
 it, as it were a half mile off, we did not approach seemingly 
 any nearer. Indeed we never suspected it to be the marvel of 
 Michael Angelo, until within a few miles of Rome, when the 
 certainty flashed upon us, that it must be St. Peter s. We had 
 thought it a church of some village near ; but the dome of the 
 " Pantheon hung in air " became more apparent, and by this 
 great demonstration, we were assured that it was Rome itself 
 we saw ! I doubt if there can be any feeling more tumultuous 
 and grand, than that which ushers Rome into the chambers of 
 the vision ! It was sunset as we approached the Cavalleggieri 
 gate ; and before we entered it the moon had assumed her mild 
 sway, casting over the palaces and vineyards which lined the 
 Aurelian way, her 
 
 " wide and tender light 
 
 Which softened down the hoar austerity 
 
!08 ROME, LIVING ASD DEAD. 
 
 Of ragged desolation, and filled 
 
 As t were anew, the gap of centuries ; 
 
 Leaving that beautiful which still was so, 
 
 And making that so, which was not, till the place 
 
 Became religion, and the heart ran over 
 
 "With worship of the great of old." 
 
 Can this be the fountain of Power, almost supernal ? Power, 
 secular in the past, which still rules our spirits " from its urns ;" 
 Power spiritual, in the Present, which gives the canon to more 
 than the half of Christendom ! 
 
 "We passed St. Peter s, with its colonnades, and its deep 
 shadows, swelling vast and beautiful in the silver sheen of the 
 moon. Driving down the piazza of St. Peter s, we recognized 
 the lofty and lonely Castle of St. Angelo, and in a twinkling 
 we were on its bridge, the old Pons Aelius, and the Tiber rolled 
 beneath ! We could not discern the color of the classic stream. 
 The statues upon the bridge looked grim and majestic ! This 
 is ROME ! Not the foster child of the she-wolf; for ancient 
 Rome lies at the extreme south. This is Rome of modern 
 days, whose apostolical rescripts have engaged the British parlia 
 ment for months. This is the powerless-powerful Pontificate, 
 whose thunders may be hushed by the French cannon the next 
 hour, but whose silent authority is ministered unto by thousands 
 of handmaid churches and millions of devotees, throughout the 
 world ! 
 
 After passing through some dirty, miserable streets, we 
 emerged into the region of palaces, darted down a dark avenue, 
 and drove under the old forum of Antoninus, upon whose high, 
 massive roof there is a building and a profusion of verdure, 
 and which is now used as a custom-house. While undergoing the 
 customary search, we observed the eleven Corinthian columns of 
 Greek marble. Some of the old architraves are preserved ; but 
 the bases and capitals are gone. 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 1Q9 
 
 3. FRENCH SOLDIERS. 
 
 The eternal city has so often been described, and its every 
 column numbered, that it would be gratuitous in me to attempt 
 any thing of the kind. 
 
 Thus far we had found our own way, without the aid of 
 swindling guides, but here they are necessary. Not only guides 
 in the human shape become essential, but Murray himself began 
 to compensate us for lugging him about. In the latter is found 
 every spot of classical association ; and to undertake, even upon 
 a small scale, to enumerate these, would be as foolish as it is 
 impossible. A few general views will suffice. These shall be 
 taken without pedantry and without color. 
 
 There is one object connected with Home that intrudes itself 
 at every step. It is the French soldier. The sound of brazen 
 martial music now reminds me of him. Pope Pius sleeps 
 sweetly, no doubt, under the everlasting marching, fifing and 
 tooting of the soldier. I understood that some time ago he 
 sent word to the French commandant, that the city was in good 
 order and quietude ; but France was as obtuse as an adder to 
 the hint. Why 1 ? Austria was pouring her soldiers into Tus 
 cany, and it was feared that Rome was their final destination. 
 The Pope and Cardinals, it is said, even second the efforts of 
 the Republicans in order that they may be free from the French 
 rule. There are now in this city over eight thousand French 
 soldiers, and ten thousand more are expected. They infest 
 galleries, churches, gates, villas and palaces. Rome seems 
 destined by the Almighty to answer for her past sins in the 
 triple exactions of a military, ecclesiastical and civil domination. 
 It was here that the nations of old, including ancient Gaul, lost 
 their liberty, and it is here the nations, including present Gaul, 
 now appear to enslave Rome herself. 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 4. THE CAPITOL VIEW. 
 
 Passing through long lines of soldiery, we direct our course 
 to Capitol Hill. From its tower, the general survey of the city 
 should first be made. It stands between the new or Ecclesias 
 tical Rome, and the old or Pagan Rome ; between the living 
 and the dead. This point is peculiarly appropriate and thrilling 
 for a first view. It was here that GIBBON sat, when he contem 
 plated the august relics of former glory ; and saw starting from 
 behind each fragmentary pillar or arch, the mysterious influence 
 of Deity, writing the history of the nations. It was here that 
 he first conceived the idea of writing the "decline and fall" of 
 that city, the closing scene of whose magnificent career he de 
 scribes as the " most awful in the annals of mankind." 
 
 At the base of the hill, on either side of the long flight of 
 steps which have often been ascended by kneeling friars, is a 
 fountain. The colossal Gemini are at the top of the flight, and a 
 colossal bronze of Aurelius, on horseback, in the centre. On 
 your left is the temple of Jupiter, which, like most of the ancient 
 ruins, is converted from Paganism to Christianity. You find 
 yourself, after many windings, in the tower. From the eastern 
 view, immediately below, is the Forum, the spot which was 
 once the heart of ancient Rome. The artist, upon the subse 
 quent page, gives some idea of its position and appearance. It 
 was here that Hortensius and Tully spoke, and winged words 
 flew to the hearts of thousands through the same blue atmosphere 
 which now surrounds these broken columns. Even yet, 
 
 "The immortal accents glow, 
 
 And still the eloquent air breathes, burns with Cicero! " 
 
 The temple of Vespasian, now only three columns ; the arch 
 of Septimus Severus, with its strange configurations; the temple 
 of Jupiter the Thunderer are seen; and further on, down 
 the Sacra Via, on every side are irregular piles of ruins ; tow- 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. \ \ \ 
 
 ering up sublimely among which, like a crown upon the hoary 
 head of antiquity, is the Coliseum. On the right, the eye is 
 absorbed by the immense ruins of the palace of the Caesars, 
 utterly misshapen and haggard, clothed with rank grass, and 
 opening by damp vaults underneath. It is not unworthy of the 
 description of Byron, who saw it covered with cypress and ivy 
 matted together ; with hillocks heaped upon what were cham 
 bers, with its arches and columns crushed into fragments, and 
 nothing left but the name "Imperial Mount" to tell how 
 human greatness can fall. 
 
 As we stood looking upon the scene below, the eye ever and 
 anon glancing toward the Tiber upon the right, and passing in 
 one sweep its valley of relics, we could repeat almost in mockery 
 the gratulations of Macaulay s lay, at the head of our chapter. 
 
 Mockery indeed, if we recur to the present. What a mise 
 rable set of people what " a rakehelly rout of ragged rascals" 
 are those below; some laying in the shadow of the Arch of Titus; 
 some pitching coppers near Constantino s Basilica; some digging 
 fishing-worms near the Appian Way ; others driving miserable 
 donkeys and ox-carts ; others working in the ruins for relics ; 
 and others making ropes upon that pathway where the spoils of 
 the cxtremest east and west were paraded, where legions of vic 
 torious braves marched under the potential eagle, where Sallust 
 and Livy, Virgil and Horace (jolly old Satirist !), Marcellus 
 and Cato, all walked and talked, and where the fluent sonorous 
 ness of the Latin rung upon the enchanted air and made Ora 
 tory immortal ! 
 
 The men of might rise from these gloomy vaults and pass 
 again beneath these crumbling arches and pillars an exceeding 
 great army. History gives up its dead, even in the midst of 
 temples desecrated by the smell of fish and the meanest of 
 offices. Theatres loom grandly, even though converted into 
 stables : and mausoleums and palaces rise far into the glistening 
 air, although Stefano has therein a blacksmith shop, or Michael 
 sells in them cabbages to poor Franciscans. What are all these 
 
112 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 sacrileges? Are we not in the proud capitol of that metropolis 
 of which Julian said " All the inhabitants of the (known) earth 
 belong to her ;" and of which Claudius could truly say, that she 
 was the fountain of all laws ? Was it not here that the North 
 ern conquerors of Rome placed supreme power in the hands of 
 a poor pastor, whose prerogative grew so glorious and powerful, 
 that Charlemagne ascended the steps of St. Peter s to acknow 
 ledge it ; and which seemed in outward splendor, as it was in 
 real power, the visible vicegerency of God upon earth? Can 
 we not discern, in the present abasement of that power, the hand 
 of Him who is the author of all history ; whose arm overturns 
 the proudest steeds of Pompey and the columns of Trajan, the 
 finest marbles of Aurelius and Augustus, and the most magnifi 
 cent arch of the greatest Caesar ? It is worth while to come 
 from the Western world, to see how GOD ALMIGHTY writes his 
 tory, in which nations come and go, as rainbows. Truly, Italy 
 is a conspicuous chapter in that momentous history ; but is it 
 all written ? Would that her people could obey the inspiration 
 of Massini : " Give to Italy your thought, your counsel, and 
 your blood. liaise it up great and beautiful, as foretold by your 
 great men. Let it be one, as the thought of GOD ! You are 
 twenty-four millions of men, endowed with active, splendid 
 faculties, with a tradition of glory the envy of the nations of 
 Europe. Your eyes are raised to the loveliest heaven, and 
 around you smiles the loveliest land of Europe. You are encir 
 cled by the Alps and the sea boundaries marked out by God, 
 for an army of giants. And you must be such, or nothing ! " 
 
 Shall it be nothing ? When such sentiments can be thus 
 uttered, is there no hope ? Is man here but the insect caught 
 in the unyielding amber of an infallible theocracy? Shall 
 Popery, the joint tool of France and Austria so long, and soon, 
 we trust, to be the tool of neither, for ever crush the energies of 
 myriads of human beings? We will not cease to hope for the 
 people. The reign of Injustice is not eternal it feeds upon its 
 own black heart. Dark though seems the prospect, we will 
 strike up the cheering song : 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. U3 
 
 " When wilt thou save the people ? 
 
 Oh God of mercy, when ? 
 Not kings and lords, but nations 
 
 Not thrones and crowns, but men ? 
 Shall crime breed crime for ever ? 
 
 Strength aiding still the strong 
 Is it thy will? Oh, Father! 
 No ! say the mountains ; No ! the skies ; 
 Man s clouded sun shall brightly rise, 
 And songs ascend, instead of sighs, 
 GOD SAVE THE PEOPLE ! " 
 
 5. OUR CONSUL AND THE VILLAS. 
 
 There is no keener delight while travelling abroad, than 
 that which follows a meeting of friends and Americans. Espe 
 cially is it the case, when these friends have opportunities of 
 unfolding the mysteries which perplex the sojourner. Our 
 Consuls have it in their power to endear themselves to their 
 fellow-countrymen, in a peculiar manner. Not that they all 
 do this ; by no means. As to our charge at Rome, Mr. CASS, 
 we cannot refrain from expressing publicly the gratitude of 
 our hearts, for the urbane and cordial manner with which he 
 has received and aided us. He is well beloved at Rome by all. 
 Even now at his house there is a young American from Geor 
 gia, who has returned from Syria with the fever, receiving the 
 last kind offices to the dying from our warm-hearted Consul. 
 The foreign officers of our government should all be such. I 
 regret to say that, at some points, some of these offices are 
 filled with^ foreign upstarts, who know just enough of English 
 to treat you cavalierly, and who, in comparison with our good 
 Consul at Rome, deserve no mention, unless it were a rebuke. 
 
 Mr. Cass has a fine gallery of paintings and sculpture. 
 During the troublous times of 1848, he alone, among the 
 foreign Consuls, remained. As money was scarce, and gems of 
 Art plenty, and every thing precarious, he had the opportunity 
 
114 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 of purchasing the works of the masters at the most insignificant 
 prices. He showed me a Guido, for which he paid five dollars, 
 and for which he could now obtain hundreds. Works Jhat he 
 gave hundreds for, would now be fortunes to him, were he dis 
 posed to sell. 
 
 Through his kindness we obtained access to two of the best 
 villas near Rome, that of the Borghese, and that of the Albani 
 family. 
 
 The Borghese was formerly the great promenade of Rome 
 Its park was even superior to Hyde ; superior because it was 
 every where adorned with statues of the finest mould. The 
 commission of defence against the French, thought proper to 
 upturn and destroy some of the finest parts of this villa ; but 
 the works of Art in the long galleries remain untouched. 
 These galleries are entailed and descend with accretions from 
 age to age in the same family. The park is but the wreck of. 
 what it was before the Revolution ; but even now it is a miracle 
 of a cool and beautiful retreat. One peculiarity of these villas 
 is, that in their walls are placed the old fragments and inscrip 
 tions which once adorned the ruins about the Capitol. They 
 are rare and weird in their potency over the mind ; lulling it 
 into a sense of the hallowed past, and making it contempo 
 rary with the great which they commemorate. 
 
 6. ITALIAN ART. 
 
 Every where in these villas is seen form ; here, minute 
 and graceful ; there, colossal and awful ; yonder, fragmentary 
 and mournful. But every where is form. Why (for the mind 
 must repose amid this continuous range of painting and statuary 
 to ponder general principles), why this idolatry of the Italian 
 
 mind, to form ? In itself, it is but the quality of a material 
 object. It cannot be destroyed, however, without destroying 
 
 .the individual subject to which it belongs. Matter, circum 
 scribed and limited, is form ; and to be beautiful it must wave 
 
HOME, LIVING AND DEAD. 115 
 
 or curve. To be beautiful in the highest spiritual sense, 
 there must emanate from that form the passions of life in all 
 their multiplied variety. The highest expression of passion 
 may be represented in the human countenance, and this ex 
 pression is beautiful in a threefold sense ; physically beautiful, 
 that is, independent of any expression of character ; beautiful 
 in the expression of some permanent and distinctive disposition; 
 and beautiful in the expression of some emotion which we love 
 or approve. The union of all produces that perfection of beau 
 ty, which to-day we have admired in the Curtius leaping into 
 the Gulf; in the Venus of Canova. for which Pauline Borghese, 
 the sister of Napoleon, sat : in the celebrated Apollo Sauroc- 
 tones of Praxiteles, considered by connoisseurs the most exqui 
 site bronze statue in the world, and in the ever young and 
 seraphic Antinous, crowned with lotus, which, next to the 
 Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere, is the most beautiful monu 
 ment of the Elder Art. This last gem, although it is over two 
 thousand years old. glances in its white radiance, as if just from 
 the hand of Grecian genius. These last two pieces are in the 
 Albani galleries, intermingled with a host of lesser beauties, 
 and surrounded with landscapes, urns, and marble pillars. In 
 viewing them, you tread over mosaic paves of delicate work 
 manship ; while above you, look down multiform beauties in 
 enduring fresco ! Out of the fine windows are leafy prospects 
 and embowering glades, down which the white forms of Numa, 
 Minos, Virginius, and Scipio, " move to your pausing eye." 
 Fountains playfully burst into the warm air, and tinkle softly 
 and melodiously. 
 
 We depart with a wondering, almost bewildered mind. How 
 many throbs, wild and great, have followed the million pencil- 
 touches and chisel-strokes, which have here imaged thought, to 
 vivify the future ! How many scenes of joy and sorrow has 
 genius embodied, not of the ideal only but of the real, " all 
 compact ;" for the ideal in its first prompture bounds from the 
 ovum of the real, not at once full-fledged, but with the elements 
 
116 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 of aerial life, to be cultivated by classic myth, historic deed, 
 and the " aims and triumphs of a hero s life." The material 
 leaps docile into the arena of beauty, under the idealizing power 
 of Art. The stony crypt of the gray past is penetrated, and 
 becomes a star-strewn vault where imagination may gaze into 
 the Infinite, and by gazing, learn to decorate life with forms of 
 dreamlike softness and heroic grandeur. 
 
 With what endless repetition does beauty enshrine herself 
 along these corridors of Art! Here all Homer is embodied; 
 there the .ZEneid ; and further on, the long line of Roman 
 Caesars shine upon their pedestals. As all the gods of all na 
 tions came to Rome and were absorbed in her Mythology, so 
 they were all represented with their various attributes, acting 
 in the sullen stone, and speaking from the dumb canvas. The 
 phase of Beauty here 
 
 " repeats itself for ever. 
 
 And, repeated, ever pleases." 
 
 There is one statue which stands in the loftiest niche of my 
 memory. We went to the Church of St. Peitro to see it. 11 
 is the MOSES of Michael Angelo ! It is colossal, and was intended 
 to form a part of the tomb of Julius II. Although it is not 
 surrounded as the artist expected, yet its commanding expres 
 sion and majestic mien make it more than Olympian. It is the 
 leader and lawgiver of Israel. He has seen the Ineffable One 
 upon Sinai ! How awful and sublime is that terrific front ! How 
 meanly and indifferently are all the other niches of the church 
 filled, beside this great work of the greatest of Artists ! The beard 
 and horns have rendered it obnoxious to criticism ; but they givt 
 the air of the demi-god to the majestic marble. It may be 
 that they are blemishes. There are spots even upon the sun. 
 
 Must Genius and Poverty ever go hand in hand ? In the lit 
 erary world it has ever been thus. In a national point of view 
 Italy illustrates it. It was through suffering, that the brightest 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 117 
 
 sons of earth were educated into the priesthood of power. The 
 same enthusiasm which worshipped the charms of the Virgin 
 soul the " Perfume of Paradise," yet lingers here about its old 
 haunts. It is seen upon the veriest ox-cart, whose figure-head 
 is a beauteous Madonna. It shone in the filagree and mosaic 
 of Italy at the World s Fair. It stares you in the face at every 
 corner, where prints and paintings are exposed. It is carried 
 upon the cane-heads of the merchant. It flows in the fleecy 
 veil of the lady. In fine, is not Italy happily likened to the 
 magic gift possessed by the girl of the fairy story, who dropped 
 pearls and diamonds at every opening of her mouth, to the sad 
 detriment and loss of her teeth, those homely but very needful 
 functions of speech and mastication ! 
 
 In these poor ideas about Art, I do not mean to be critical. 
 I have neither the disposition, nor the ability, to criticise the 
 great works, which are seen but to be admired without question. 
 Universal taste has stamped its signet upon them, as infallibly 
 as upon the Iliad or .ZEneid ; and though a thousand connois 
 seurs should " peep at them with the rounded hand," they 
 would still shine peerless in their perfections, and permanent in 
 their beauty. 
 
 7. COLISEUM AND ST. PETER S. 
 
 The finest contrast which Rome presents is the Coliseum, 
 and St. Peter s. The one is at the nadir, the other at the zenith ; 
 the one was dedicated to the destruction of that religion which 
 now is enshrined in the other. The one is the marvel of an 
 tiquity ; the other is the wonder of modern time. One was 
 used for the gratification of the meanest passions ; the other as 
 the temple of Him who taught Peace and practised Benignity. 
 Indeed the contrast might run on, until comprehended at last, 
 in this, that the one was the offspring of Pagan power ; and the 
 other the result of Christian power. 
 
 There are no two spots upon the round earth so full of inter 
 est It may, perhaps, be a matter of pleasure to my readers to 
 
llg ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 hear from one who has been surrounded by influences common 
 to both writer and reader, about these spots of celebrity, and the 
 emotions they awaken. 
 
 Before reaching the Coliseum you pass through a long line 
 of ruins, the columns of which are still standing, and out of the 
 crevices of which long tufts of grass and flowers grow. The 
 greatest part of the ruins is, however, fifteen feet below the 
 ordinary level ; and large excavations were made, in order to 
 reach the marble floors. Many of the columns only show the 
 capitals. This void has been filled simply by the crumbling 
 of the walls. In the ruins of the huge arches of Constantine s 
 Basilica, great fragments have fallen some two hundred feet 
 from the roof, and have been moved aside to accommodate the 
 goats and cows which herd there. 
 
 We entered the beautiful church of Santa Francesca, which 
 is built upon the temple of Venus, and examined the floor. It 
 is the same exquisite mosaic which was trod by the devotees of 
 the myrtle in the time of Roman luxury. 
 
 Our eyes take in the old sites of at least fifty temples and 
 theatres, as we look down the sacred way between the arches. 
 On the right hand is the palace of the Caesars, now owned by an 
 Englishman, Mr. Mills. (Oh! Caesar, where are your wounds 
 now, and where is your Mark Antony to preach their woe?) who 
 has torn down the little shops which once lined the way. Work 
 men are engaged in levelling the ground, and in breaking stone 
 about the Coliseum. Their song really enlivens the dread deso 
 lation of the scene. An old fountain called Meta Sudons is 
 near, wherein the gladiators were wont to refresh themselves 
 after the labors of the ring. It was an important appendage to 
 the Coliseum, that splendid pile of irregular, circular, columnal 
 ruins, which stand out the most perfect of the relics of Old Rome ! 
 The Coliseum is full of holes, out of which metals have been 
 extracted ; and its windows serve to relieve its dim arches with 
 wild and broken light. As we approach it, we pass the Appiau 
 Way, the only refreshing street in Rome. Its long vistas of 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. \ 1Q 
 
 trees betoken the march of improvement in that direction. We 
 approach the old structure. The warder unbolts the heavy 
 gate. We pass under the arches, past a strange fresco of Jeru 
 salem and Calvary, and enter the interior ; and lo ! tier on tier 
 of heavy stone, covered with green, patched with brick work, and 
 rising up into a huge oval, carved out from the clear vault of 
 heaven, a great sapphire irregularly round ! Birds are flying 
 about the old walls, fig-trees grow here and there ; a cross stands 
 in the middle of the arena, and fourteen statues of our Lord s 
 passion are placed around it. Deep, dark dungeons, in which 
 the early Christians, prisoners, and wild beasts were kept, glooni 
 about the place. 
 
 The amphitheatre is built principally of travertine. The 
 external elevation consists of four stories. The area was once 
 nearly sixty acres. There were four tiers of seats corresponding 
 with the external stories, and these would hold 87,000 specta 
 tors ! More than two-thirds of this immense building has been 
 taken down, and now forms part of the palaces of Popes and 
 Cardinals. The Coliseum was built by Vespasian in the year 
 A. D. 72. Nearly 400 years saw it the scene of barbaric spec 
 tacles. At its dedication, 5,000 wild beasts (heavens ! what a 
 howling there must have been !) were slain. St. Ignatius here 
 met the death of a Christian martyr ; and how many more suf 
 fered in this same den of devils, history amply records. It has 
 been used as a fortress, a woollen factory, then as a saltpetre 
 factory, and finally sanctified with the " Pon. Max" upon it, and 
 consecrated to the memory of the martyrs. 
 
 A stair-case led us up through the galleries to the summit. 
 The view from one of the " rents of ruin" is fine. The temple 
 of Nero, and a large garden of flowering pomegranates, almonds 
 and figs, fill up the foreground ; while the hills of Tivoli are spread 
 out under a delicate haze of blue in the distance. The splendid 
 Basilica of St. John Lateran lifts its fine proportions between. 
 In front, we look across the Tiber to the green hills of the Jani- 
 culum, where Oudinot and Garibaldi contested for the city, and 
 left the marks of the Vandal upon the beauty of Art. 
 
120 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 Byron describes the Coliseum as he saw it by moonlight, 
 and his description I read to our little company, from off a 
 broken seat of 
 
 "That nohle wreck in ruinous perfection." 
 
 We expect, if we can venture out under these delusive moon 
 lights, to enjoy the dark waving of the trees in the blue mid 
 night, and the shine of the stars through the rough old windows 
 and recall the touching pathos of that marble gladiator of the 
 Capitol, which personates the prisoner from the Danube, leaning 
 upon his hand in the bloody circus, while his dizzy brain reels 
 with the death dance, and he thinks of his hut upon his native 
 stream, and his Dacian wife and young barbarians at play ! The 
 shout of thousands rings again from side to side, in this vast 
 arena, as in fancy I see the gladiator sink beneath the blow 
 of the kingly beast. Rome had here her holiday ; what recked 
 the poor slave s life ? 
 
 Ah ! different far different is Rome now ! To-day I heard 
 before the assembled Cardinals and Pope, a dark-skinned Abys 
 siniana student of the Propaganda grow eloquent in classic 
 Latin, over the mercy and love of that Saviouj whose precepts 
 teach the equal right of all to live, and that for ever. 
 
 I am now called away to see the Coliseum by moonlight. 
 My heart bounds to behold the soft radiance of Dian flinging its 
 lustre of beauty amid the rough and broken shadows, and among 
 the enormous crevices and flaws. 
 
 We are returned. The dream is over. Dream ? How else 
 could float in the soft light of an Italian moon such a stupendous 
 miracle of beauty. How lonely in their loveliness the surround 
 ing ruins sleep in the mellow lustre ! 
 
 On our way, we stopped a while before the column and forum 
 of Trajan, to admire its rounded shaft, with its colossal figure 
 and its broken columns, standing like sentinels about the monu 
 ments of the Past. The arch of Severus, the temple of Jupiter 
 Stator, and the " nameless pillar with a buried base," stood si- 
 
HOME, LIVING AND DEAD. 121 
 
 lent as the tomb. What are they, but the tomb of buried 
 power ? Their gestures point backward to the abyss and rear 
 ward of time, to show what was, and what must be. The moon 
 breaks through the arches of Constantino s Basilica, and glistens 
 below upon the fragments which have fallen from the aperture. 
 Now we pass under the arch of Titus ; and the seven golden 
 candlesticks are lit by the soft luminousness, and reflect evi 
 dence strong as holy writ, of the identity of the arch as the 
 memorial of the conqueror of Jerusalem. Blot out all other 
 records, and leave these candlesticks and this moonlight, by 
 which they are made visible ; and the greatest prophecy of old 
 is proven by stone ! 
 
 And now the Coliseum stands confessed in her garment of 
 moonlight, the perfect ruin, the sublimest structure in the world! 
 How its round walls glisten ! Is it not perfect? Show flaw or 
 rent or breach now ? Doth not the clear shine, wall up, with its 
 crystal architecture, each crevice, each window, each rent? Is 
 not this material of richer lustre than even those rare gifts of 
 the Pasha of Egypt to the Pope the alabaster pilasters and 
 columns which to-day we saw at St. Paul s ? How full does the 
 night scoop out of the huge circle its arches of darkness ! Hun 
 dreds of these arches repeat the gloom around the vast circum 
 ference. The great area is chequered with irregular lights and 
 shades, playing among every form, and rising tall and dream 
 like, against a star-strewn and a moonlit heaven. 
 
 Within that circle, covering six acres, how much has been 
 enacted ; of sportive savagery and noble martyrdom, how much? 
 Can it be that but one-third of what was the Coliseum only re 
 mains in that vast pile ? Yes ; for we have passed to-night, 
 palace after palace, constructed out of its material 5 and we can 
 see that the outer arches have been peeled off (as it were) time 
 after time ; yet so much remains that the imagination reels un 
 der the vision. 
 
 We drove around, taking in, with some few hundred yards, 
 a small segment of the circle, when the glisten of a bayonet, 
 G 
 
12 2 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 with a challenge in French, { Stand /" reminded us that even 
 this pride of Rome was humiliated by the guard of foreign sol 
 diery. Once it was not so v Gods ! If the old Scipios. within 
 whose dark tombs we were to-day, could only " revisit the 
 glimpses of the moon" to-night, it would make their ghostly 
 teeth chatter with rage, to see their seven-hilled city under the 
 control of the descendants of those barbarians who formed part 
 of their triumphal marches, and who, perhaps, to grace a Roman 
 holiday, fought the beasts of that Coliseum which their de 
 scendants now guard. 
 
 We turned about. Finally we found admission to the build 
 ing. The walls loom up much higher than they seemed in day 
 light. They seemed now close against the sky. A white fleecy 
 mantle of cloud streams from the moon, and hangs over the jag 
 ged edges and outer rim of the theatre. The verdure is all 
 silvered ; and upon the north side, where the full radiance falls, 
 looks like thin mist. The arches, doorways and crannies, are 
 black upon that side, in bold contrast with the other, where 
 they are lighted up. The stars glimmer down aud overpeep 
 the horizon of stone innumerably ; spangling an awning of 
 blue, richer than ever was spread at the royal tournament of 
 old. A solitary bird startles the echo so melancholy, from 
 the darker side of the ring. This is the only sound heard amid 
 the desolation. Shouts no longer crack the "welkin ; the roar of 
 beasts no longer answers the greeting of the populace. Yet 
 through these old walls, the storms of nearly two thousand 
 years have whistled, and roared, and beat ; yet it stands, the 
 monument of Rome, and the everlasting testimony for that 
 Christianity, whose early apostles met Death and gained the 
 Victory in its inhospitable embrace. 
 
 We drove .home past a temple in front of which are great 
 piles of rocks. Among them, are water-gods, tritons, and horses 
 colossal, around and out of which gush, in every direction, 
 streams of water, falling, into beauteous basins, clear as the moon 
 light which flashes against it, and musical as the birds which 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 123 
 
 sing near its natural fountains among the hills of Tivoli. This 
 is the sweet " virgin " fountain. It takes its name from an an 
 cient story, which in bass-reliefs is told upon the lofty temple s 
 face. 
 
 Why have we nothing like this in America ? Why is Art so 
 slow ? It is because Time has been so brief with us. Nothing 
 can make an American abroad feel how much his country has to 
 do, as to see what strides others have made, who have been even 
 less favorably, placed. Ours is a struggle yet for the mate 
 rial the needful. The Ideal will succeed, as the rainbow doth 
 the sun and shower. We are following the true order of nature. 
 With our Keligion and Liberty we shall not have Coliseums, to 
 remind future nations of any departed barbaric glory. Nobler 
 temples will be dedicated to nobler purposes. 
 
 It remains for us to exhibit the contrast of the Coliseum, 
 St. Peter s ; and to recall the reflections which that celebrated 
 pile and the Vatican aroused. 
 
 Three visits to these spots have given me some familiarity 
 with them ; but it is not the familiarity which ceases to wonder, 
 much less that which creates contempt. Neither is it that pom 
 pous procession of religious association, moving down the corri 
 dors, the aisles, and through the wilderness of stone, called St. 
 Peter s, which excites so much admiration and wonder. It is the 
 untold magnificence of Art, which on every side bursts upon the 
 unaccustomed mind of an American. We have seen exhibitions 
 of art at every step throughout Rome. Sometimes in the chur 
 ches, it is in exceeding bad taste, and even disgusting. I do 
 not remember, however, to have seen any thing quite so bad as a 
 picture of the Last Supper, of which I have read, and which, I 
 believe, was found in a church in Mexico where the Cherubim 
 and Seraphim act as cooks and scullions ; one scouring a dish ; 
 another blowing a fire ; a third frying eggs ; while in the back 
 ground, with head and wings prominent, others are passing round 
 the edibles. But this specimen of Art will serve as a comment 
 on a great deal of the worst Art to bo found in "Roman churches 
 
124 ROME, LIVING- AND DEAD. 
 
 Its tendency is to unspiritualize every spiritual object to earth- 
 ify it, so to speak ; to make it sensuous and tangible. Even in 
 St. Peter s, where the boldest genius of his time, Michael An- 
 gelo, has represented GOD himself hurling the sun and earth 
 into existence this tendency is apparent. The culture of 
 humanity is the prime object of Art. Is this effect produced by 
 unsphering from the lofty temple of the soul those objects, which 
 to be rightly influential, must be spiritual, and by degrading 
 them to a niche in a human temple made with hands temporal 
 and not eternal ? 
 
 The approach to St. Peter s is imposing. A great circular 
 piazza opens before it, surrounded by three hundred and sixty 
 large columns, gracefully surmounted by an entablature, upon 
 which statues glisten in the sun. Stand upon the steps of the 
 Basilica. The great circle of columnal grandeur bends about 
 the high obelisk and the twin fountains. On either side, at right 
 angles with the church, are the vaulted pathways, leading to the 
 chapels. Upon the left rises the Vatican, with its intricate 
 complexity of palaces. The crows, high up among the carving of 
 the capitals, are rearing their young, and cawing like a company 
 of Frenchmen. The plash of fountains hushes into Sabbath si 
 lence the air around. The colossal figures of St. Peter and St. 
 Paul stand guardians of the place. Turning around the eight 
 huge columns which hide in their shadows other columns, lift 
 on high the mighty temple of Catholic Christendom. The jut 
 ting cornice and tracery gracefully hang under niches and over 
 windows, in and around which are figures with scrolls, sceptres 
 and crowns. Far out in front (for the eye leaps about as if a 
 strange spell were upon it) gleam white in the sun the angles and 
 curves of the fine walks. No verdure relieves the extensiveness 
 and massiveness of the view. Bass-reliefs, inscriptions, bells and 
 clocks, furnish lineaments for the church s countenance of stone. 
 As the eye ranges upward, covering the vast expanse of archi 
 tecture, we may well exclaim with Gibbon : " Here is tfie most 
 glorious structure that ever Jias been applied to tJie use of religion" 
 
ROME, LIVING- AND DEAD. 125 
 
 Upon this spot where we now tread, scarcely a century after 
 Christ, an oratory was erected by the Bishop of Rome, to honor 
 the place where St. Peter was interred. Here Constantine 
 worshipped the cross he saw in the heavens, and built the great 
 Basilica. Here f>ope after pope added adornment to adorn 
 ment, until the finishing genius of Michael Angelo completed the 
 structure, by crowning its sublimity with the ever-during beauty 
 of the Pantheon. What expense, what labor, what genius has 
 been here expended upon a few acres ! Indeed the expense of 
 the additions to the pile were so great extending over the 
 reigns of forty-three popes that the sale of indulgences was 
 resorted to for the purpose of meeting it. This resulted in the 
 Reformation. At the close of the 17th century the expense 
 amounted to $46,800,498 exclusive of the sacristy, models, 
 and mosaics, estimated at $900,000. 
 
 One is staggered which to wonder at the power that can levy 
 such contributions upon the labor of the world, or the genius 
 which transforms rough masses of rock, cragged logs and trees, 
 and even the mire on which we tread, into palaces, spires, tem 
 ples, and forms of every variety of beauty and sublimity ! 
 Aladdin s lamp was a wonderful instrument in its day. It 
 converted stones into gold, and carpeted the earth with velvet 
 for the tread of kings and queens. The human mind far ex 
 ceeds its magic power. At the bidding of Mind, this immense 
 structure stood unrivalled and alone, the towering grandeur of 
 all time; 
 
 ""Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 
 Since Zion s desolation, when that He 
 Forsook his former city, what could be 
 Of earthly structure in his honor piled 
 Of a su-blimer aspect. Majesty, 
 Power, glory, strength, and beauty, all are aisled 
 In this eternal ark of worship undefiled!" 
 
 When first I looked upon St. Peter s I confess to a keen 
 disappointment. Its size seemed flattened, and its dome insig- 
 
126 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 nificant compared to the fancy of it I had indulged. No doubt 
 the colossal size of the human forms about it, contributed to this 
 effect, by giving a false standard of measurement. Indeed, it is 
 so immense that the mind is bewildered in its huge details, and 
 loses the sense of the immense whole. Byron accounts for the 
 same impression, not by the lessening of the pile, but by the 
 expansion of the mind under the genius of the spot. The 
 church is about 806 feet long. The transepts from wall to wall 
 are 450 feet. The diameter of the cupola is 195 feet, being a 
 little larger than the Pantheon. The height of the cross upon 
 the cupola from the pave is 435 feet ! 
 
 But how can I paint with indigent ink the interior ? At 
 first sight, as I looked down the vaulted roofs and long nave, 
 and up its swelling dome, I felt no holy awe, such as hushed the 
 soul into stillness in Westminster and Notre Dame. The 
 statues of popes, the paintings of saints, the sacred canopies 
 and shrines, the presence of lesser form in its endless variety, 
 attracted the attention, and disturbed the aspiration of the soul 
 towards the Infinite. The Baldacchino, or grand canopy, cast 
 into spiral columns out of the bronze taken from the Pantheon, 
 and garlanded with gilded flowers and foliage, stands over the 
 grave of St. Peter. The eye swims as it gazes upon it. This 
 beautiful object breaks the awe-inspiring impression of the 
 dome under which it stands. Over one hundred lamps burn 
 around it, while below, is a shrine and the kneeling statue of 
 Pius VL, by Canova. The concave of the church is ornamented 
 with stuccoes and mosaics, while at the further end is the 
 apostolic .chair in bronze, lifted aloft under such a variety of 
 ornament as can only be seen, not pencilled. Among the va 
 rious statues is the monument to the Stuarts, by Canova. The 
 outcast Royalty of Britain is here entombed in more regal 
 state than Westminster could bestow. The gazer is informed, 
 by an inscription, that James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., 
 Kings of England, here repose ! Some one should forthwith 
 advise Macaulay of this large gap in his history. There is 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 127 
 
 certainly one chapter omitted, if this inscription be true. 
 Why will men for ever use the memorial of the dead as the 
 instrument of lies ? Shakspeare exaggerates but little when he 
 says, that there is 
 
 -" On every grave 
 
 A lying trophy : and as oft is dumb 
 
 "Where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb 
 
 Of honored bones indeed." 
 
 But we will let the exiles of England sleep. Their arro 
 gance no longer tramples upon the necks of our good Puritan 
 ancestors. Their monument rises beneath a dome as glorious 
 as the highest ambition of their God-anointed heads could 
 imagine. 
 
 By the kindness of Mr. Cass, we procured a ticket of ad 
 mission to the Grotte Vatican, the subterranean chapel, for our 
 ladies ; as ladies are excluded therefrom without a special per 
 mit from the Pope. This chapel is a part of the old Basilica, 
 which yet stands over the tombs of the early martyrs. The 
 original floor is still there, and there, too, is the tomb of St. 
 Peter. As we passed it, with our torches and our company of 
 priests, we observed before its secluded shrine a solitary monk, 
 saying mass. Our guide and the priests dropped in adoration, 
 while we stood involuntarily bowing before the strange spec 
 tacle. Around were the graves of the dead. The spectral 
 shadows upon the mosaics and bas-reliefs peopled the narrow 
 chambers ; while gloom seemed here to linger as if in her own 
 dark home. " Our breathing grew - short and our step fearful, 
 as we wandered amid this home of departed priesthood. At 
 last we emerged again into the nave of the church, with the pray 
 er that our last repose might not be in such a corridor of stone and 
 darkness; but under the pleasant light of heaven, amid the 
 beauty of nature, where birds might sing, and in the place 
 where affection should prompt and love to linger. 
 
 Having viewed the depth, we could not refrain from visit- 
 
128. HOME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 ing the height of St. Peter s. A broad paved spiral stair 
 case leads by gentle ascent to the roof of stone. One might 
 easily drive up with horses and carriage. The top would form, 
 also, a pleasant drive. On the walls are the names of the sover 
 eigns who have been up to the cupola a long list. This list 
 might be increased considerably, if the American sovereigns were 
 added. The roof seems to be a city in itself. Upon it are bel 
 fries, domes, houses, and other appendages of a city. Home 
 begins to grow small below. The head grows dizzy as the eye 
 dares to descend but we are not half up. The Pantheon 
 stands before us upon the roof, surmounted by the brass ball, 
 which seems some two feet in diameter, and into which it is 
 said sixteen people may be stowed. Through winding stairs, 
 by tugging and resting, and gazing out of the windows, we 
 reached the top of the dome ; and walked out into a balcony, 
 whose railing is invisible below, and into the open air some 
 400 feet above the city. Below us are the flowering orange trees 
 and gardens of the Pope ; far to the south-east, the Coliseum 
 and its brother-ruins fling their broken shadows to the earth ; 
 still further beyond, under an exquisite web of mist, lie in 
 quiet beauty the hills of Tusculum, Viterbo, Tivoli, and the 
 chain of Apennines. To the left, old Mount Soracte. of classic 
 memory, whitens its top in the sky. Monte Mario relieves its 
 baldness by a green summit, nearer to our view. Between in 
 dead long levels, the freshly-mown Campagna spreads its great 
 carpet about the seven hills, the dim blue fringe of which car 
 peting is none other than the Mediterranean, visible in a long 
 line upon the left. The birds chirrup among the fragrant gar 
 dens, and fountains endeavor to climb upward, only to curl 
 in beauty and murmur their music. The Tiber, seemingly a 
 little run, plays awhile amid the foliage, glances, winds here 
 and there amid the roofs below, and under the Angelo bridge, 
 and then darts away towards the horizon, to mingle its thread 
 of yellow in that fringe of blue. 
 
 Can we ascend higher ? Try that perpendicular iron ladder, 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 129 
 
 and follow it upward through that long narrow neck, and you 
 are in the ball itself! One of our ladies even dared it. The 
 atmosphere was a little tepid to be sure, owing to the proximity 
 of the ball to its solar companion. The echo of our voices 
 clinked so fearfully on its sounding metal, that yes it was 
 really fearful. The sense of being so high, worse than the 
 sight through the little chinks, made me feel more indescribably 
 queer and qualmy than ever I felt before. The trembling 
 knees almost refused the rapid descent, while pespiration drop 
 ped beads from the brow, like Oriental trees their " medicinal 
 gum." My second ascent in company was much more pleasant. 
 Our guide told us a good story of an obese Frenchman, who, 
 the other day, squeezed through the neck and found himself 
 puffing in the ringing ball. He illustrated the old Horatian 
 fable beautifully ; for he could not take the back-track. He 
 was too, " Oh, call it not fat oleaginous" to return. There 
 he remained between heaven and earth, half a day, all the 
 while dripping like a fountain, or like Falstaff, " larding the 
 lean earth," until the profuseness of the perspiration had some 
 what diminished the rotundity of his corporosity, when he de 
 scended from his oven, a sadder and a thinner man ! 
 
 On our return down, we saw the lamps with which St. 
 Peter s is illuminated on festal days. Boys are tied in strings 
 (like Wethersfield onions), and hung down in great garlands 
 along the lamp lines. Three hundred and eighty-two men are 
 also on hand to assist in the lighting. Every column, cornice, 
 and frieze, and all the details, even to the summit of the cross 
 above the ball, are to be lighted. In eight seconds, at a given 
 signal, 6,800 golden lights leap into being, and burn against the 
 gigantic architecture a firmament of fire ! 
 
 The sun dial, upon the roof, points to the hour of ten min 
 utes after thirteen ! which is our ten minues after nine. Another 
 singularity as to time in Rome is, that at noon a gun is fired, a 
 black ball rises over the college, and every bell rings the time. 
 It produces quite a startling effect on the stranger. 
 6* 
 
130 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 8. THE VATICAN. 
 
 Our visit to the Vatican occupied two days, and then it was 
 but a hurried glance at this great repertory of art. learning, 
 wealth, and power. We democrats from the land of home-bred 
 simplicity, and brick and mortar unadorned, were completely 
 confounded by the constant succession of splendors. Here 
 are the spoils of Time as well as its trophies, arranged amid 
 the museums and libraries, and long long galleries. Here 
 learning and taste have added building after building, so that 
 the appearance of the whole from St. Peter s cupola, is that of 
 a long parellelogram of stony fabrics, with squares between, 
 wherein are gardens of rare exotics in great urns, together with 
 fountains of clear water. Long arbors of boxwood, and high 
 impenetrable hedges of living green, spread around the palaces? 
 upon which we may look, as we stroll through the long corridors, 
 filled with busts, statues, sarcophagi, and old inscriptions in 
 serted in the walls. To compute the extent of these halls, 
 miles might be used. The number of apartments may give 
 some idea of its extent. It has eight grand stair cases, 200 
 smaller ones, 20 courts, and 4.422 apartments. 
 
 The wonders from Etrusca and Egypt form separate mu 
 seums, and speak an earlier civilization than that of the elder 
 Romans. In the cabinets, relieved by porticos, were the choice 
 statues of antiquity, some greatly mutilated. We had many 
 opportunities of applying the principle ex pede Hercitlcm." 
 Here were statues of every animal, as well as every variety of 
 men and divinities. 
 
 Separate and apart from all others stood the great group of 
 the Laocoon. The greatest offspring of the chisel stood before 
 us, in his torture dignifying pain, 
 
 " With an immortal s patience blending." 
 
 Oh ! what a clench was that old man s ; what expiring sadness 
 upon that young brow, and what speechless, anxious agony upon 
 
 , 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 131 
 
 that other ! For two thousand years that " long envenomed 
 chain of living links" has wound about the father and his sons, 
 awakening the deepest sympathy of the soul, while it illustrates 
 the power of the Rhodian sculptors over the passions of man. 
 
 What a contrast to this is the APOLLO BELVIDERE, which is 
 near. Light enshrined ;. every dignity personified ; Love dei 
 fied ; Beauty, Manliness, and G-enius, encased gracefully in the 
 white marble ; all that rivets admiration in the fair, or awakens 
 awe in the supernal, stand 
 
 "Starlike around \uitil they gather to a God!" 
 
 Raphael s " Transfiguration," which we afterwards saw, could 
 not compete for the guerdon beside these marble marvels of an 
 tiquity. The stone has no peer in the canvass, in the highest 
 heaven of art. 
 
 It would only weary, to tell our visions of beauty and 
 uniqueness, which every where gleamed from niche, ceiling, wall, 
 and floor ; throughout library, portico, museum, and cabinet. 
 Here were the maps of all Italy, worked in the wall. There, 
 the mosaic manufactory, where all the saints and popes are 
 starting a new race for immortality in the panels of St. Paul. 
 There, the richest tapestry of Gobelins, with the Bible illus 
 trated by a strange order of art. Every where the same im 
 pression is produced, of endless variety, in the mazes of which 
 the mind is almost lost, like a child amid a wilderness of foliage 
 and beauty. Yet out of all these endless varieties and " bro 
 therly dissimilitudes, arises the goodly and graceful symmetry," 
 that speaks the common reason and nature which we all wear 
 under God, our Maker. Through manifold phases and turnings 
 the mind ascends to that apex of generalization, where Unity 
 kisses heaven and is embathed in its pure light ; where the great 
 est as well as the least obey that common law, whose seat is 
 in the bosom of God. 
 
132 HOME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 9. THE POPE AT SERVICE. 
 
 Yet one may wander amidst all these magnificent results of 
 Art in the Vatican and St. Peter s, yet fail to catch the spirit 
 that breathes throughout them. The. actors in this splendid 
 theatre should be noted, as they move in full costume to fill 
 the swelling scene. This was our object upon the first Sunday 
 morning in Summer, as we drove toward the piazza of St. Peter s. 
 The Pope was to officiate in Sistine Chapel. Our ladies had 
 doffed the gaudy-ribboned bonnet and donned the simple black 
 veil. We had, according to the rule, put on dress-coats. The 
 crowd increases as we drive within the enclosure. Following 
 our guide along the straight corridors, and through files of the 
 Pope s Swiss guards, dressed in fantastic yellow and black, with 
 Turkish pants and long spears, we were ushered by soldiers 
 (one of whom valiantly siezed my cane and straw hat and bore 
 it away in triumph) into the chapel. The ladies we leave 
 seated, looking through great gilded bars, while we pass in 
 among Austrian soldiers, Franciscans in their brown robes, and 
 a goodly variety of other holy orders. 
 
 While waiting the entrance of His Holiness, the mind can 
 find delight in examining the "Last Judgment" of Angelo, 
 frescoed upon the wall of the Chapel. Every variety of Hope, 
 Doubt, Despair and Beatitude, beam upon us from the figures 
 upon the wall. Within a sacred enclosure, over which tip-toed 
 curiosity can barely peep, is a green-carpeted floor and tapestry 
 hangings, with an altar and a throne. Seats are arranged for 
 the Cardinals, who soon begin to pour in, dressed in great red 
 gowns and skull caps, attended by servants in purple. After 
 bows and crosses, the servants proceed to unroll the trains and 
 Beat the Cardinals A very hearty array of old Romans they 
 seem, with their arms under cover, their gray hair shining, their 
 lofty brows and intelligent faces bespeaking good living as well 
 study and reflection. Most of them kept up an inaudible prayer. 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 133 
 
 One fine, old, tremblingly fat gentleman seemed to be beyond 
 the age of piety, but his habitual prayerfulness still played upon 
 his lips. He reminded me of Chaucer s monk, who repeated all 
 his terms, 
 
 " That he had learned out of some decree, 
 No wonder was, he heard it all the day." 
 
 Directly, buff soldiers, with gilt helmets and drawn swords, 
 rush in to guard the door. I thought, at first, that there was a 
 sudden insurrection, knowing that in matters of power, as poor 
 Pius has learned, " there is but one step from the Capitol to the 
 Tarpeian Rock." But no the choir strike the high notes; the 
 doors beyond open, and " Voila !" the Vicegerent of God ap 
 pears in his tiara and cloth of gold ! Around him swarm minis 
 ters of every degree and shade of color. He kneels : the rustle 
 of red Cardinals shivers in the hallowed air, and all kneel. Then 
 he ascends to the throne a fine-looking, full-faced man, graceful 
 and dignified in his bearing. Power he seems to wear as a 
 familiar garment. How graciously he extends his hand to the 
 Cardinals, who severally leave their seats, attended by their 
 attendants in purple, carrying their trains. They, bowing, kiss 
 the hand, or, as I was informed, the diamond brilliant upon the 
 Pope s ring, as a token of reverence. An inferior order pros 
 trate themselves, and tip their labia at the shoe of His Holi 
 ness, upon which is a cross of silver. In the mean time, seraphic 
 music from the Pope s select choir ravishes the ear, while the 
 incense titilates the nose. Soon there arises in this chamber of 
 theatrical glitter, a plain, unquestioned African, and he utters 
 the sermon in facile Latinity, with graceful manner. His dark 
 hands gestured harmoniously with the rotund periods, and his 
 swart visage beamed with a high order of intelligence. He was 
 an Abyssinian. 
 
 What a commentary was here upon our American prejudices. 
 The head of the great Catholic Church, surrounded by the ripest 
 scholars of the age, listening to the eloquence of the despised 
 
134 ROME, LIVING- AND DEAD. 
 
 negro ; and thereby illustrating to the world the common bond 
 of brotherhood which binds the human race. I confess that, at 
 first, it seemed to me a sort of theatrical mummery, not being 
 familiar with such admixtures of society. But, on reflection, I 
 discerned in it the same influence which, during the dark ages, 
 conferred such inestimable blessings on mankind. History 
 records, that from the time when the barbarians overran the 
 Western Empire to the time of the revival of letters, the influ 
 ence of the Church of Rome had been generally favorable to 
 science, to civilization, and to good government. Why ? Because 
 her system held then, as it holds now, all distinctions of caste 
 as odious. She regards no man, bond or free, white or black, 
 as disqualified for the priesthood. This doctrine has, as Macau- 
 lay develops in his introductory chapter to his English lystory, 
 mitigated many of the worst evils of society ; for where race 
 tyrannized over race, or baron over villein, Catholicism came 
 between them, and created an aristocracy altogether independent 
 of race or feudalism, compelling even the hereditary master to 
 kneel before the spiritual tribunal of the hereditary bondman. 
 The childhood of Europe was passed under the guardianship of 
 priestly teachers ; who taught, as the scene in Sistine Chapel of 
 an Ethiop addressing the proud rulers of Catholic Christendom 
 teaches, that no distinction is regarded at Rome, save that which 
 divides the priest from the people. 
 
 The sermon of the Abyssinian, in beautiful print, was distrib 
 uted at the door. I bring one home as a trophy and as a sou 
 venir of a great truth which Americans are prone to deny or 
 contemn. 
 
 I had seen the successor of Hildebrand and the tenth Leo. 
 I had seen the head of that anti-Christ which Luther fought, 
 with so much rancor and heroism. I had seen the visible im 
 personal power, which in former times had made Henry the IV. 
 stand for days bare-headed under the blasts of an Apennine win 
 ter, praying admission to humble himself; which in the per 
 son of Alexander III., whose tomb we saw, placed its foot on 
 
LIVING AND DEAD. 135 
 
 the neck of the haughty Frederick, with the expression, " Super 
 aspidcm et basiliscum ambalabis." 
 
 Glitter and pomp greater than what I had seen, could not sur 
 round the human form. Homage such as could only be shown 
 to the representative of the SAVIOUR, was here exhibited ; but 
 one could not help feeling that the mighty heart of Popery as it 
 once throbbed, was not here. "Whether there be only one more 
 niche in St. Peter s for Pius Nono to fill, and thus end the long line 
 of tlie Holy Fathers, I did not observe ; but this I did feel, 
 that in Italy and in Europe, the people had become alive to the 
 compact of tyranny between the Church and State. To borrow 
 the biting sarcasm of a Westminster Reviewer of last Janu 
 ary ; : Even the most superstitious have had their faith terribly 
 shaken, and have seen the infallible successor of St. Peter igno- 
 miniously kicked out of his apostolic chair by his own children, 
 and ignominiously kicked back again by a French army. Heaven 
 had no thunder to hurl destruction at the impious republicans ; 
 and neither virgin nor saints were in the clouds arrayed *in 
 their best clothes to give honor to his return. His exit and his 
 restoration were both vulgar, and the poor old man is forcibly held 
 in his uncomfortable seat by his masters in Paris, Vienna, and St. 
 Petersburg, trembling every inch of him, lest the whole machine 
 should again be blown to shivers, and he himself be snuffed out 
 like a candle that is no longer wanted because daylight is come" 
 The weakness of the pontificate does not spring from any 
 peculiar corruption such as formerly severed the best part of 
 Germany and Switzerland from its influence. Children no longer 
 sing, as they did in Melancthon s time ; 
 
 Of all foul spots the world around, 
 The foulest spot in Rome is found." 
 
 That weakness springs from the increased light of the age. 
 The holy wicks only shone awful and potential in the dim twi 
 light of ignorance ; but then they were the only lights a mis 
 guided world possessed. Pius is well meaning enough. His 
 
136 ROME, LIVING- AND DEAD. 
 
 countenance bespeaks a quiet and tender heart. He lacks deci 
 sion of character. He fears to take a step that will end disas 
 trously to the people. Let me illustrate by an incident that 
 occurred the other day. Some French soldiers were stilettoed 
 a few nights since, apparently for smoking, which the Italians 
 detest. Some six Italians were arrested and condemned to 
 death. The Pope, as it was in his power, reprieved them. The 
 French Commandant sent Pope Pius word, that if he were 
 not permitted to execute the sentence he would resign and 
 go home ; thereby intimating that difficulty would follow. The 
 Pope timidly yielded ; and the six men, who are now in the Cas 
 tle of St. Angelo, are to be shot. 
 
 This state of things cannot last. Secret societies bound 
 together by sacred oaths, and resolved for republicanism, are 
 known to exist here. They comprehend the greatest part of the 
 people. Silence which seems as " harmless as the rose s breath 
 to a distant passenger" is the result of secrecy, and betokens, in 
 fact, the hushed breath of that liberty which, as Grattan has it, 
 will not die with the PROPHET, but survive him ! 
 
 What reflections ensue upon leaving these vestibules of Pow 
 er and Splendor? Do they humiliate the poor and humble 
 wanderer from the distant shores of the Western world ? Thank 
 God. No ! Under our own/ree sky, we have a temple of wor 
 ship, whose pillars stand upon no slavish foundation, and whose 
 dome was reared by no traffic in sin. Jewels we have, sown 
 every dawn upon the fertile earth, well worth whole satrapies of 
 power ; tapestry dyed in sunsets of gorgeous glory ; and forms 
 of freemen " lords of the lion heart and eagle eye" every one 
 a POPE, moving in individual independence accountable to God 
 alone ! And as we take a last look at the gorgeous interior of 
 St. Peter s Basilica at the vast fabric, with its vistas and aisles 
 opening on every side as high thoughts lift the soul upward to its 
 fount as the rich light streams in, through and upon dim reli 
 gious forms as we feel the blest effluence from God, half lost in 
 the contamination of man as the idea of Eternity grows upon 
 
HOME, LIVING AND DEAD. 137 
 
 the soul with the eye moving upward and upward within the 
 swelling dome ; still still, the home of the loved and the free 
 land of our birth is ever the prayer and the burden of the full 
 heart. 
 
 10. THE CARDINALS AND POLITICS. 
 
 It was a wonder to my unsophisticated mind how these Car 
 dinals here, were supported in their stately pomp. I wondered 
 no longer when I learned some of the secret springs which 
 political churchmen have the opportunity and the will to touch. 
 You may see their carriages rolling by, adorned with arms and 
 liveried servants. They live in sumptuous style in splendid 
 palaces. When elected, a salary of about four thousand dollars 
 is attached to their office, as well as the tribute of some foreign 
 Bishopric or ecclesiastical establishment. They are the sources 
 of power, and this affords them an immense revenue. With 
 very few exceptions they are said to be profligate and corrupt ; 
 and this they are, without the mitigation which the warm blood 
 of youth and ignorance might furnish. 
 
 The prominent cardinal is named, I believe, ANTONELLI. He 
 was formerly a Bandit, and condemned as such. Gregory XVI. 
 found in him, a shrewd, ingenious, gifted mind, and attached 
 him to his household. He rose rapidly in the priesthood, and 
 now exercises the controlling power in these States. The Pope 
 has more heart than sense. He is a kind, generous, tender 
 hearted old gentleman ; exceedingly fallible in judgment, and 
 weak in decision of purpose. He has qualities which fit him for 
 the head of a church, but not for the head of a troublesome civil 
 organization. He has been so keenly reproached for bringing 
 all the trouble of the Revolution, by his liberality, that he has 
 committed to others political matters, and now concerns himself 
 simply with the affairs of the church. If he could only dissever 
 the civil from the papal power, he would give Popery a tremen 
 dous influence which it now has not, throughout the world; 
 
138 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 especially in the United States, where the democratic principle 
 can brook no constraint from any other influence. 
 
 What I have said and shall say about the Catholic religion 
 at Home, has reference simply to its connection with the state ; 
 which unholy alliance, ever fraught with corruption to both, 
 whether at Geneva, at Canterbury, or in Rome, must be depre 
 cated by every American who is proud of his own Constitution 
 and who loves its liberal principles. 
 
 What I have said in relation to matters here, might well be 
 said by any intelligent American Catholic. God forbid that a 
 single blot of intolerance should blacken my poor pages. I 
 have studied with too nice a heed the human heart, and its rela 
 tions to man and to God, ever to color facts or aggravate preju 
 dice, where conscience is the arbiter of conduct, and God alone 
 its Judge. I have remarked, too, with pride, the greajb differ 
 ence between the Catholic religion at home and abroad. As 
 well accuse Protestantism of the absurdities of the Shakers, as 
 Catholicism of some of the absurdities I have seen practised 
 here in the churches. Churches ? Not so. Only one church, 
 that of St. Augustine, and called the church of the common 
 people, was the scene of what in America would be called, or 
 would seem, idolatry. We entered the church to see its singu 
 lar bedizenment. The pillars were hung with silver ornaments 
 as high up as you can see. The church was darkened ; only 
 lighted by candles, whose glare made it glitter like a hall of 
 flaming diamond. Some say the silver and jewels are bogus 
 and paste. Of that I am not able to speak. It would be no 
 marvel if they were all genuine. The prime object in the 
 church, is a large image of the Virgin, holding the Son. It 
 occupies a niche near the door. It is decked out in all the 
 beads, tinselry and gaudiness of an Oriental Indian Princess, 
 while the environment is one blaze of jewelled light. Neck, 
 arms and shoulders, are hung with necklaces and bracelets. 
 The figure of the child was quite encased in the glittering splen 
 dor. Lights burn before the altar continually. Around this 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 139 
 
 altar, are numbers bowing and crossing ; while every moment 
 some one passes up to the image, and wiping its silver foot, 
 kisses the toe once, sometimes twice, crosses, and retires to give 
 place to another. While we stood there, perhaps five minutes 
 at least, a dozen devotees performed this ceremony. The richly 
 dressed lady enters, and with lace handkerchief wipes the sacred 
 foot, kisses it, and is followed by a beggar in tatters, whose 
 sleeve and lip answer the same office. And yet, as we look 
 around and see the pious, upturned, happy faces of the worship 
 pers, seeming to be gladdened by the radiance of the Virgin, as 
 they repeat their Ave Marias ; as we remember that from child 
 hood these habitudes have been forming, and as we recall the 
 tremendous power of religious emotion, we cannot but sympa 
 thize with the devotee, who seeks the intercession of the sweet 
 Virgin to save from sin and woe. 
 
 Far otherwise is our regard toward the pampered Cardinal of 
 Rome, if I am to believe what comes to me upon the best authority. 
 Let me give you a fact. During the Revolution, our Charge 
 had access to many places which upon ordinary occasions were 
 barred. In one of these penetralias of power, he read, in Latin, 
 a law by which if any one, dying, signified to the attendant Car 
 dinal his wish to leave him his estate, all that was necessary 
 upon the death of the person, to obtain the estate, was for the 
 Cardinal to proceed to the Sistine Chapel and make oath to 
 the bequest, when all other wills were set aside, and the Swiss 
 Guards were ordered to put him in possession. The Cardinal, 
 at the dying hour, had the power to command all out of the 
 presence of the dying man. You may thus see what a handle 
 of iniquity is this statute. Well may it be kept close. " But is 
 it ever put in execution ?" Listen ! The head of one of the 
 oldest of the noble families of Rome, named Franjapanelli, was 
 about to die. His friend, the Cardinal (I cannot spell his name), 
 called to " see him oft 7 ," and administer the holy wafer. He 
 had before solemnly disposed of his immense property among 
 his children ; the greater share to his eldest son, who had mar- 
 
14 Q ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 ricd an American lady, and the rest of his estate satisfactorily 
 He died at night. The next morning the Swiss Guards put tin 
 Cardinal into the family palace, and into all the other posses 
 sions, and the family out upon the world penniless. This was 
 just before the Revolution. The eldest son became a Repub 
 lican and died in defence of the city. His widow is pressing 
 her suit in the ecclesiastical courts, but without hope. The 
 court is made up of Cardinals or Priests, who are without soul 
 or sympathy. Not having families, they know no tender ties of 
 father or husband. They sit in frigid iceberg dignity, in the 
 large marble palaces, and never warm except in the lust ot 
 power or profligacy. Yet the only tribunals of Rome are con 
 stituted of such. They have no record. They have not even 
 that respectable appendage of a Court, termed lawyers. Bribery 
 is their argument, and corruption the conclusion of their jus 
 tice. We may truly say, that to press a suit in that tribunal, 
 would be to appeal to sullen stones. Here, if any where on 
 earth, the " learned pate ducks to the golden fool." The English 
 chancery is beatitude to litigation in such a place. 
 
 I hope the Pope will create no Cardinals for America. It 
 was rumored that Bishop Hughes was to have a hat. The ill 
 success attending the Wiseman experiment in England will 
 prevent Papacy from creating any Cardinals in Protestant 
 countries. His Holiness, who seems to fancy our Charge here 
 sufficiently to consult with him, informed him that there was 
 no foundation for the rumor of an American Cardinal. Mr. 
 CASS rather advised him against the step; although he ex 
 plained how perfectly easy the matter would be received in our 
 tolerant country. 
 
 Mr. CASS trims his diplomatic sails very neatly, and has 
 run between Scylla and Charybdis without so much as a single 
 leak. While he explained to Mazzini and his friends the 
 operation of republican institutions, and loaned them our con 
 stitutions, he protected Cardinals and Priests in his house from 
 popular fury. He has been well repaid for the latter services 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 141 
 
 He showed us two Bibles which he received the day before yes 
 terday, one in manuscript, one thousand one hundred years old, 
 illuminated on parchment ! The other in print, being the first 
 edition of the Bible in 1440. The former was presented by a 
 monk from the convent of Mt. Sinai in Egypt, and the latter by 
 , priest from the monastery of Vallambrosa, near Florence. He 
 afforded protection to these priests during the siege. Poor fellows ! 
 He could not persuade them to sleep in his bed, but they would 
 sleep under it, in humiliation and fear. The first Bible is one 
 of the rarest things of the kind known. One of the capital letters 
 was under process of illumination it is said for a year. No one 
 but an old cloistered, patient monk, could have made it. The 
 Vatican boasts of but one more ancient than the above manu 
 script Bible. It is a Bible in the capitals of the sixth century ; 
 but it does not compare with this, as a specimen. The Secretary 
 of State offered $800 for it, to place it in the Vatican. 
 
 Priests meet us on every hand. Rome is thronged with 
 them. As I write long processions of monks in black and white 
 crape, and in brown robes, move under our window, chanting 
 for the dead body which they bear. Some rich man has died, 
 and left a paul a piece to these poor monks, to sing his soul out 
 of purgatory. 
 
 I passed upon the Corso one of a fraternity composed of the 
 noble and rich, completely hid in a rough sack, with two holes 
 in it for his eyes. He was on a mission of mercy, begging for 
 the poor and afflicted. It was one of the peculiar sights of the 
 Catholic metropolis. A procession of similar penitents, guarded 
 by soldiers with lighted candles, passed yesterday up to St. 
 Peter s. 
 
 A brisk correspondence has been lately going on between 
 the Papal and Austrian ministers, in relation to the troops of 
 Austria. Austria had quartered in the States of the Church 
 30.000 men at an expense of over $100.000 per month. The 
 Papal Secretary wrote to the Austrian, that at the present, cir 
 cumstances and the budget demanded a reduction of the troops 
 
142 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 to ten thousand. The Austrian replied, that the present pos 
 ture of affairs required the presence of all. The Secretary re 
 joined that the Papacy were the judges of that. The matter 
 has been left to the arbitrament of the French minister, who 
 will certainly side with the Papacy, and then look out for squalls 
 in the camps. Austria cannot yield her influence at Rome. 
 France is keenly jealous of hers ; and it is shrewdly suspected, 
 in more places than in England, that her policy is to colonize 
 Rome with French, and reduce the Eternal City to a dependency 
 upon herself. And so they play the game knocking Popery, 
 as boys do a ball at " two-hole cat," between them. I would 
 like to remain here a little longer to see the sweetness of this 
 union of Church and State in other phases. 
 
 Two cases illustrative of the nature of this government 
 have come under my eye. We found our Minister yesterday 
 in hot water over the case of a lady from America, who was 
 about to be imprisoned by the police, because her villainous 
 servant had run up bills which she would not pay. A servant 
 at the Hotel, Dominichino Pollano, who is a Piedrnontese and 
 speaks English, just received a passport to leave Rome in three 
 days why ? He was a Republican. We intend to annex 
 him to our company, and take him to a land of liberty. 
 
 How beautiful and benignant seems our own Constitution, 
 which holds aloft from the power of priest, whether in surplice 
 or white neckerchief, the Palladium of our liberty. We had 
 Lord Baltimore and Roger Williams, early in America, while 
 in Europe, contemporaneously, persecution wielded the sword 
 of the magistrate, and even gloried in indiscriminate massacre. 
 
 By the way, that reminds me of the settlement of a ques 
 tion, long mooted by the Protestant and Catholic reviews. 
 The former contended that the Pope had a coin struck in 
 honor of the massacre of St. Batholomew. It was denied 
 strenuously by humane Catholics. Last week, Mr. Cass found 
 at the Papal mint, one of the coins with symbols upon it, re 
 presenting the Destroying Angel vindicating God s church. 
 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 143 
 
 Far better were it, if such illustrations of human depravity 
 were always as rare as that long questionable coin. Even in 
 this little squib theological about a coin, we see the greatest 
 passions of mankind in the arena. One side is ready to be 
 lieve all wrong, the other all right. From opposite sides they 
 approach human nature ; 
 
 " And would have fought even to the death to attest 
 The quality of the metal which they saw." 
 
 Between all extremes, few look for truth in the middle ; yet 
 there it lies all golden in its neglected placer. Men move over 
 it for centuries, too proud to stoop down and winnow, with the 
 purity of reason, the rich ingot from the dirt and dross. 
 
 11. PALACE OF NERO AND THE CHURCH OF LATERAN. 
 
 The palace of Nero, which we first visited yesterday, lies 
 beyond the Coliseum, in the southern part of Rome, amidst the 
 arches of triumph, and the ruined aqueducts. We pass to it, 
 down that sacred way, which Horace was accustomed to walk, 
 meditans nugarum, he did not know what. We did not follow 
 his example. These scenes were not trifles to us; but stern 
 mementoes of fallen might. 
 
 The custodian, who is ever ready when a few pauls are to be 
 made, lighted his torches ; and we began to descend through 
 those chambers wherein dwelt the worst of men, and the most 
 brutal of Emperors. The rubbish and dust had been removed 
 from the damp cool vaults ; and by our torches we could discern 
 upon the faded walls the ancient paintings, and beneath our feet 
 splendid mosaics. Nero s " Corridor of Thought" was shown us, 
 where the fell monster was accustomed to aggravate his hellish 
 deeds by meditation. We were shown his old bath-rooms. 
 These were all filled up by Titus, who built a palace above 
 them. The caterpillars and lizards abounded in every point 
 where light could penetrate. Tt was in this place that the famous 
 statue of Laocoon was found. 
 
144 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 How strange is it, that all these ancient sites can be deter 
 mined with even more certainty than the corners and monuments 
 of our quarter sections. Not strange either, when I remember 
 that I saw to-day, at the Capitol, inserted in the walls of the 
 old Senate House, a great number of stone tablets, or plats of 
 the ancient city, which were dug up in a perfect state ; and by 
 means of which, one point being given, all may be determined. 
 
 The money of princes and nobles has been prodigally ex 
 pended in excavating and disinterring ; so that the floors of most 
 of the ancient temples have been reached, and something con 
 firmatory of their identity has been found. The Koman villas, 
 the palaces and the Vatican, abound in inscriptions and monu 
 ments dug from the various structures of antiquity. 
 
 We went to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, farther out to 
 the southeast. This is the oldest Christian church, and takes 
 precedence even of St. Peter s. Constantine founded it. It 
 contains some precious relics. It ought to, as it is over fifteen 
 hundred years old. While the monks were chanting under the 
 lighted candles, we looked at the colossal marble statues of the 
 Apostles ; were shown the same table upon which the last supper 
 was taken ; the stone upon which the four soldiers cast lots ; the 
 broken pillars of the temple ; the impression of the Saviour s 
 feet when he appeared to St. Peter, to warn him of his approach 
 ing death ; the well of the woman of Samaria, with some crosses (?) 
 on it ; the slab under which the Saviour stood to measure his 
 height ; and a hole in a board made by the miraculous fall of a 
 consecrated wafer, from the hand of one who doubted the real 
 presence ! " Can such things be. and overcome us like a summer 
 cloud, without our special wonder." I had the audacity, lawyer- 
 fashion, to cross-examine one of the monks as to the identity of 
 the relics. A seraphic smile of pity for my incredulity broke 
 over his Italian visage, as he assured me, that there was no 
 question as to the authenticity of these marvels. The vault of 
 this church is gilt with the first gold brought by Spain from 
 Peru, and gleams finely from the lofty ceiling. 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 145 
 
 After visiting the sacristy, we emerged again into the region 
 of ruins ; in which men in long gowns were sweating under loads 
 of hay, raising it aloft among the chambers of ancient power. 
 My risibles were excited by a strange-looking set of little trot 
 ters, over which was a load of hay, a man, and behind a boy. 
 The animal was the patient donkey ; about the size of a good 
 dog. He does most of the work here. I noticed that the wheat 
 harvest had already begun, although it is about the first of June, 
 and Rome is farther north than Ohio. 
 
 I never saw such a collection of lassitudinous mortality as 
 lay. about noon, under the shadow of the wine shops near the 
 Tiber. Some were prone and asleep upon the soft side of a 
 marble slab, with, very likely, an ancient pillar for a pillow. 
 Some hung their unshaven faces and uncut heads upon their 
 breasts pictures of the last Romans ! 
 
 12. THE CAPITOL AND THE TARPEIAN ROCK. 
 
 After examining various ruins, we again ascended Capitol 
 hill, through the forum ; and began our examination of the fine 
 collection of antiques, pictures, sculptures and frescoes. The 
 buildings on the Capitol piazza were designed by Michael An- 
 gelo. Like most of the present buildings, they are so built, as 
 to include a part of the old buildings, upon whose sites they are 
 erected. We first entered the senate-room of old Rome. The 
 temple of Jupiter stood here. Its pillars, however, are now to 
 be seen adorning numerous churches. The battle pieces illus 
 trating Roman history gleam from the wall. Laws, written 
 upon marble, and from which Rienzi demonstrated the ancient 
 popular rights of Roman citizens, are inlaid upon the walls of 
 the staircases. The busts of the Emperors and of the philoso 
 phers are separately congregated. Chambers are set apart in 
 good taste, for statues of particular classes, among which is the 
 splendid collection of Canova s busts. In one of the rooms we 
 found the famous bronze wolf, a monument of early art, which 
 has given rise to many learned disquisitions. It was found un- 
 
146 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 der the rubbish of the Capitol. Cicero and Virgil have rendered 
 it classic in Latin ; and Byron has given to its honor, one of his 
 rich stanzas, which I read to the old animal, charging her to 
 
 " Guard her immortal cubs, nor her fond charge forget" 
 
 Romulus and Remus are drawing from her kindness the milk of 
 conquest. One of her legs is torn by lightning, by which she 
 has been recognised as the thunder-stricken foster-mother of the 
 
 babes. 
 
 Paintings from the finest masters allure the eye, but 
 number renders it impossible to describe, or even to remember 
 them. The celebrated Hope, by Guido, is here. A fine copy 
 of it attracted our attention, and we succeeded in obtaining it. 
 Passing through the hall of bronzes, glancing at the colossal and 
 miniature forms of gods and heroes thick as autumnal leaves on 
 every side, we are at last ushered into the room of the " Dying 
 Gladiator." It is not alone immortalized by its perfections of 
 form, attitude and expression, but by the touching pathos of 
 Byron s description. It is a ivoundcd man, dying. This idea 
 is written in every lineament. No one can meditate upon the 
 image, without a feeling of melancholy, even tearful. The pos 
 ture is so graceful, yet so gently yielding to the languor of 
 Death, that all nature seems to have been invoked by the artist, 
 to give unity and expression to his idea. 
 
 " He leans upon his band his manly brow 
 Consents to Death, but conquers agony." 
 
 A nobler idea could not be more beautifully carved, 
 the highest attainment of that Art, which would give to Soul, 
 the supremacy over the marble as well as over pain itself! This 
 image is well associated in our minds with the grandeur of the 
 
 floliseum that glorious pile wherein gladiatorial strength and 
 
 Brutal cruelty met so fatally and so frequently, and where the 
 patience of heavenly martyrdom shone resplendent in the agony 
 of Death. 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. [47 
 
 Down through dirty streets, out of whose high windows 
 clothes are drying, we pass to the Tarpeian Rock ! An old wo 
 man, in a big straw hat, answers our bell. We pass into a garden 
 of flowers and fig-trees. Far down the yellow waters of the Ti 
 ber, not so large as our own Muskingum, wind under a slight 
 scarf of mist, while on the left, beyond those great piles of mas 
 sive ruins, known as the baths of Caracalla, and between them 
 and the blue, but dim hills of distant Frescati, sweeps the Cam- 
 pagna. We approach the precipice, " whence the Traitor s leap 
 cured all ambition." It was some seventy feet in height. It 
 consists of a mass of volcanic tufa. But it is greatly filled up 
 now. Beneath us are the crockery roofs of little houses. The 
 rocks, like most of the ruins, are terraced off and used for raising 
 vegetables. Where the great criminals of Rome received their 
 punishment, a few old women, with knitting needles at play, 
 guard a wooden door. We plucked a few flowers as souvenirs of 
 this remarkable locality. 
 
 13. GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND KEATS. 
 
 We should not forget our visit to the temple of Bacchus, 
 which was a preface to our tenth day s experience in Rome. 
 While looking at the strange wine-jugs and mosaics, we were 
 compelled to listen to the clucking of frightened chickens and 
 the gobble of unromantic turkeys. We saw where the Horatii 
 and Curatii fought, and we threaded the great halls of Cara- 
 calla s baths, in which large numbers of peasants were making 
 hay. amid ruined walls. Here SHELLEY used to wander and 
 clamber, while he composed his " Prometheus." That noble poem 
 was chiefly written upon what he called, from its magnitude, the 
 mountainous ruins of Caracalla, and among the flowery glades and 
 thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in 
 every winding labyrinth upon its immense platforms and dizzy 
 arches suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and 
 the effect of the vigorous awakening spring, and the new life with 
 
148 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 which it drenches the spirit even to intoxication, he says, were 
 the inspiration of the drama. 
 
 Alas for poor SHELLEY ! Rome was to. him the scene of a 
 sadder drama, in the last act of which, the drapery of the life he 
 so earnestly dedicated to Beauty, was dropped for ever. We vis 
 ited his burial-place in the old English grave-yard. We found 
 the " cors cordium" engraven with his name, and the verses which 
 symbolized his change " into something rich and strange," upon 
 a plain, flat, almost black marble slab. A few tall cypresses 
 wave above it, while near and almost covering it, is an old ruin 
 above the wall. The snails and caterpillars lazily crawl over the 
 memorial. Near it, is a proud monument to some Englishman, 
 killed in hunting over the Campagna. Around, are graceful 
 stones and elegant monuments to the unknown, as far eclipsing 
 the humble slab of SHELLEY, as his name does theirs. Chaplets 
 hang on theirs. None on his. No flowers decorate the spot, 
 where the heart of SHELLEY sleeps from its fitful throbbing. 
 The wind moans piteously in the funereal cypress above him. 
 Joy seems to hover over every other grave. Neat box-wood 
 hedges surround other stones. Even the great pyramid of Caius 
 Cestus upon the right, is decorated with green and flowers. 
 But the narrow home of SHELLEY S heart is bare and flowerless, 
 black and gloomy. Can it be that this apparent neglect springs 
 from prejudice against the young skeptic SHELLEY? Is the 
 grave of him who wrote " Queen Mab" to be slighted, and shall 
 no flower grow over that heart that sang the " hymn to intellect 
 ual beauty ?" Ye birds that charmed so sweetly the soul of 
 poetry in SHELLEY living, have ye no carols for his repose ? Yes, 
 yes before we can leave the spot, or brush the tear from the 
 eye, a blithe spirit, bird-shaped but 
 
 " Bird them never wert " 
 
 with the gush of melody such as SHELLEY S own sky-lark car 
 ried up to the gates of heaven from her dell of dew, began a 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 149 
 
 song of rare music from the heart of the cypress, relieved the 
 sombre gloom of his tomb and kindled rapture in the soul ! 
 
 Plucking a twig of cypress, we passed into the other grave 
 yard, where the body of JOHN KEATS lies. The yard is grassy, 
 surrounded by and surmounting old Roman streets. No trees 
 shade the small upright marble which tells so sadly of him. whose 
 name was not writ in water. A few poppies and yellow flowers, 
 emblematic of his " Sleep and Poesy," grew from the sunken 
 mould. A short inscription told of the bitterness of his critics 
 and the sensibility of his heart. But we feel that the fine Gre 
 cian soul of KEATS lingers not about this resting-place of his 
 mortal remains. Doth it not burn where SHELLEY saw it through 
 the inmost vale of heaven ? 
 
 " The soul of Adonais like a star 
 Beacons from the abode where the eternal are." 
 
 We leave the graves of SHELLEY and KEATS with a mournful 
 step. The place of their repose, amidst the relics of Roman 
 glory ; the similarity of their genius and destiny, and the com 
 panionship they bear in the neglect of their countrymen, make 
 their resting-place the most interesting tombs in the world. 
 Immortality more fadeless than marble, has placed their image 
 in its Pantheon of poetry ! 
 
 The church of St. Sebastian contains nothing in itself won 
 derful. We visited it for the subterranean catacombs, which ex 
 tend (incredible as it may seem), twenty miles around and be 
 neath Rome. A brown-clad, red-nosed, cross-eyed, Franciscan lit 
 our torches, and we descended with him into these receptacles 
 of the dead. After winding where the old thieves, of which 
 Cicero speaks, were accustomed to hide, and where the ancient 
 Christians also were concealed, we were at last relieved by day 
 light. I am not partial to such underground promenades, with 
 tallow candles and a sinister priest. Here was once the tombs 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul. We returned home past the per 
 fect little temple of Vesta, near the Tiber ; gazed into the light 
 
150 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 yellow stream, wondered at the self-regulating fishing-net, moved 
 by the water, a Yankee-Romanism ; passed through the region 
 of cobblers all at work out doors, and as queer a group as ever 
 I saw ; noted the babies, whose little heads peeped out of great 
 bundles of swaddling-cloths, looking like infantile live mummies, 
 under manifold wrappages ; turned our eyes on the numerous 
 shrines which lined the different ways ; mingled with priests in 
 black broad brims, and with French soldiers ; saw the famous 
 arch of Janus, over 2.500 years old, running 300 yards to the 
 Tiber, and full of crystal water from Egeria, which the poor 
 were carrying away for its virtue ; and with our mosaics, our 
 flowers, our memories and wonderments, we sought repose in the 
 hotel. 
 
 14. THE PAUL, AND THE PALACES. 
 
 The paul (a small piece of money equivalent to our dime) is 
 a potent agent in Rome. It has magic. Prince Arthur s horn 
 could hardly do more, as an " Open Sesame " to the portals of 
 beauty and antiquity here. What Spenser says of the horn, we 
 may as truly say, with little alteration, of the paul ; 
 
 " No gate so strong, no lock so firm and fast, 
 But with its jingling noise flew open quite or brast." 
 
 The palaces of the Pope and of the nobility, the churches, 
 the tombs, the baths, the villas and the temples, every thing in 
 Rome opens with the palm which clasps the paul. Whether it is 
 the dark rooms where Nero meditated his cruelty to Christians, 
 and Mecsenas his kindness to poets ; whether it is in the old 
 church of St. John Lateran, which Constantino founded, or the 
 temple of Bacchus, now adorned with an hundred paintings of 
 martyrs in misery ; whether the Tarpeian rock, at which the trai 
 tor trembled ; whether it is Saint Sebastian with its gloomy cat 
 acombs, or its neighbor, St. Paul, about to boast the most splen 
 did pillars of alabaster the world ever saw ; whether the grounds 
 
, LI V AVtf ANJJ DEAD. 151 
 
 where KEATS and SHELLEY lie in their silent homes, even at 
 the Capitol itself, where dignity in the person of the old Roman 
 Senators, more potent than arms, beat back the invading Goths, 
 in every place of pride, power and antiquity, the obliging 
 Italian, more courteous than the Frenchman, bows you an en 
 trance, and gracefully takes your pauls ! Saint Paul not 
 Saint Peter, should be the presiding saint of Rome. No one 
 can complain that his orisons are not answered with such inter 
 cession. Let it be said, to the eternal honor of the eternal city, 
 that among its characteristics is an eternal opening of galleries, 
 villas and palaces, and an eternal outlay of pauls therefor. 
 
 A few pauls opens for us the palace of the Caesars ! Shak- 
 speare, in the person of Hamlet if I remember rightly (I have 
 no pocket editions along), made imagination trace the noble dust 
 of Csesar stopping the bung-hole of a beer barrel. Shakspeare 
 did not see the reality of the Caesarean humility. We felt it, 
 as we trampled on the sacred dust of the imperial palaces, for 
 a paul apiece. We marched over the grounds on which Augus 
 tus built ; over the houses of Cicero, Hortensius, and Claudius, 
 which Tiberius increased, to which Nero added his golden house 
 and Titus his beautiful palace ; trampling amid the cypress and 
 rose walks, ilex, grape-vines and red flowering pomegranates, peas 
 and beans, and over arch reared on arch, and choked up vaults, 
 in which midnight keeps perpetual silence ; and around all which 
 creeping vines and yellow flowers cling, and all comprising 
 about a mile and a half in circuit for the which we paid two 
 pauls ! Royalty in ruins is cheap. Royalty in splendor will be 
 cheaper than that, in the "good time." This palace is on the 
 Palatine hill. The temple of Apollo was formerly connected 
 with it. A very singular Chinese house, built by Mr. Mills, 
 who " owns the fee " to the palace, is the prominent object above 
 the ruins. Among other places of interest we were shown by 
 our guide Stefano, the bath where Seneca bled to death. The 
 compartments of this palace are immense. Villas and gardens 
 spread out over them on every side : yet the position is promi- 
 
152 HOME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 nent even now. From almost any part one may range in vision 
 far to the south, from the Coliseum, the Campagna. the pyramid 
 of Cestius, the Sepulchre of Metella, even to the Albanian and 
 Tusculan hills. Below us far below, are the Farnese Gardens, 
 elegantly laid off. Under us, wherein were enacted scenes of 
 power, whose effect flashed from the Thames to the Danube, you 
 may find peasants in long coarse shirts, sweating under the hot 
 hay which they are lugging into the stables ! Fortune turns her 
 ever-shifting wheel. the king goes down, the peasant up ! 
 
 15. FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA. 
 
 How refreshingly different in fact and association is the 
 fountain of Egeria, which we visited shortly after. Through 
 freshly-mowed fields of hay, over gentle undulations, and under 
 cordial umbrage of orchard trees, we found our way into the vale 
 of Nurna s nymph. Turning around a hill, and passing down, 
 we stand pleased to hear the dripping and gushing of water. 
 Farther along, and we see under an overhanging hill of foliage 
 and flowers, the classic fountain. Its presiding goddess is broken, 
 but her reclining form is still visible. Stone paves surround 
 her, upon which the lucid lymph gushes and sprays. Of course 
 we drank the water. We would not show the least disrespect 
 to the spirit of Nature, which Numa quaffed in such glorious 
 goblets at the hands of the nymph, and from the influence of 
 which Koine received her first great impulse. The eternal 
 " rub-a-dub-WE" of the French soldiery reminds me, as I write, 
 for the hundredth time, that the people who stole the female 
 Sabines, and respected Numa, have most wretchedly deteriorated. 
 While in Egeria s pleasant vicinage, which brings Ohio to 
 mind at every step, we might describe Metella s tomb, so cele 
 brated by Byron s stanzas. You know how sweetly and touch- 
 ingly he puts the queries about her incognito as to character, 
 wondering who she was " the lady of the dead" whether she 
 died young in beauty, with the hectic light upon her cheek ; or 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 153 
 
 old surviving all her kindred ; and winding up with the unsat 
 isfactory conclusion 
 
 "Thus much alone we know Metella died, 
 The wealthiest Roman s wife. 
 Behold his love or pride!" 
 
 A conspicuous tomb, ivy-garlanded, 70 feet in diameter, solid 
 with walls 25 feet through it has stood stronger than the for 
 tresses of power, for nineteen centuries ! 
 
 16. THE PANTHEON. 
 
 You must pardon my omitting many lesser beauties, for the 
 Pantheon is the central orb around which all revolve, and by 
 which they all shine. But who is not familiar with the Pan 
 theon ? Eighteen centuries ago it was described with admira 
 tion. Fire, pillage, flood and rain have wasted their efforts in 
 vain. Its beauty seems destined to be a glory for ever. So 
 perfect are its proportions, that Pagan and Christian, Greek and 
 Vandal, alike found in it the spirit of beauty, which is common 
 to all God s creatures. Hence its singular preservation. It is 
 only 143 feet in diameter, and 143 feet high. The portico is 
 composed of sixteen columns of oriental granite, with capitals 
 and bases of Greek marble. Each column is about 50 feet high. 
 The great bronze doors speak of classic times. The interior of 
 the temple is a rotunda, supporting a dome one half of the 
 height, or 1\\ feet. Niches surround, which Michael Angelo 
 gracefully converted from places for Pagan deities into places 
 for saints and martyrs. Only one of the old pieces of statuary 
 remains an ancient Vestal, now bedizened with the frippery 
 of jewels, and answering as the presiding saint of a shrine, before 
 which numbers bow in silent adoration. The dome rises majes 
 tically, and is divided into square panels, originally covered with 
 bronze. Every thing in the shape of metal has been removed, 
 save the brass ring which supports the aperture above. The 
 effect of this rising dome, and the open space, is very imposing. 
 
15 4 ROUE, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 The clouds are seen floating over the miracle of architecture, like 
 fairy ships in a sea of azure. The eye and the dome swim with 
 them, dizzily entranced. The sunlight, spiritually thin and trans 
 parent, slants in beauty through the aperture, and down the swell 
 ing dome, illumining a shrine and a marble saint. Apollo seems 
 enamored of the place, and fills it with his presence. 
 
 The perfection of architecture is said to consist in the ability 
 of the columns to support the entablature ; just as that wall is 
 perfect which supports the roof. The idea of utility is connected 
 with that of beauty. Out of their marriage, in " sweet union 
 doubled," springs Harmony. This harmony breathes in the 
 Pantheon.. It extends from the portico to the smallest capital ; 
 from the largest niche to the nicest tracery ; from the swelling 
 dome to the majestic whole. It is the grace and charm of the 
 Pantheon. It is the fit tomb for Raphael, whose sublime genius 
 towered so finely to-day, as we gazed on his " Transfiguration." 
 His remains are under one of the shrines, before which a ghostly 
 father was saying mass. Annibal Carrachi also lies here in his 
 company. 
 
 One of the first things which attracted our wonder was, that 
 so large a temple seemingly, should be so small in fact. This is 
 designed. Madame de Stael says, that it proceeds from the 
 great space between the pillars, and from the air playing so 
 freely within, and still more from the absence of ornament, with 
 which St. Peter s is surcharged. This latter fact will account for 
 the seemingly small appearance of St. Peter s, compared to its 
 actual size. But in the Pantheon every concomitant is present, 
 to make it 
 
 " Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime, 
 Shrine of all saints and temple of all Gods 
 From Jove to Jesus spared and blessed by Time ; 
 Looking tranquillity ! " 
 
 Passing out of the Pantheon, you will find the step to the 
 ridiculous at its door, where an herb-market, a puppet-show, a 
 crowd around a fiddler, and a " natural panram," as our guide 
 
ST. PETER S, FROM THE JANICULUM. 
 
ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 155 
 
 termed it, are presented. The hurly-burly of old women, and 
 the chaffering of buyers of cherries, radishes, apricots, etc., rise 
 amid the plash of fountains. Rome is never without these latter 
 beauties. Here, aqueducts -are copious and clear. After enter 
 ing a palace or so among which is the Rospigliosi, where we 
 saw Guide s splendid fresco of Aurora being copied by several 
 artists we ascend, for a closing view, the Janiculum. 
 
 17. THE JANICULUM. 
 
 We pass by the prison wherein the Republicans are con 
 fined ; we pass across the Tiber, and through the region inhab 
 ited by those who call themselves the descendants of the old 
 Romans. I only saw one of them. He was over six feet with 
 out boots wore baggy, dirty linen pants, and a questionable 
 coat. His head gloried in a red cap. He moved a Roman 
 Ichabod Crane, the ghost of Famine, Campbell s last man, or 
 whatever else you please only do not call him an old Roman. 
 If you do, burn Tacitus and Plutarch. 
 
 We ascended into that part of the city where the French 
 and Italians fought. Men are engaged even yet in mending the 
 wall. We can see where it has been breached and patched. 
 The picture which follows but faintly delineates the scene. The 
 so-called palace of Garibaldi, as well as its adjacent buildings, 
 are in ruins. Marks of musket and cannon balls are plenty. 
 In the finest gallery of Rome the marble room of the Colonna 
 Palace we saw a cannon ball lying upon a white step, with the 
 marks of its ruin yet apparent in the broken marble. It had 
 entered one of the windows. Every where about Rome, espe 
 cially on the western side, are the marks of no ordinary, nay, of 
 a terrific struggle. We drove up to the fine fountain of the 
 Janiculum ; saw far, far down, the French cavalry practising, 
 the colonnades and Basilica of St. Peter s, the Vatican with its 
 rich gardens and palaces, and all around us that Campagna, 
 which seems (as has been beautifully said) to be wasted, as if 
 
156 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 the earth, fatigued by Glory, disdained to be productive. Pass 
 ing down, I observed a gravel mound by the road-side, with two 
 rough crosses of wood stuck on it. It was the grave of some 
 four hundred brave fellows, (God bless them, for the priests did 
 not, even refusing them decent burial.) who fell here, defending 
 the young liepublic from the invasion of perfidious foes, foes 
 who should have been friends. May the Avenger No ! Injus 
 tice, false and foul, is ever its own Avenger. The human heart 
 contains the whip of scorpions. Think you, no tears water that 
 little mound no curses are muttered over those rude crosses ! 
 
 18. FAREWELL TO ROME. 
 
 Before leaving Rome, we visited tne theatre. It is cheap 
 in price and poor in quality. The box, to the first, is only 
 fifteen cents. It looked odd, that theatre did, under the open 
 sky, with the seats of stone, and a few hundred lazily laughing 
 at a comedy which was only pantomime to us. We could see 
 that it was a love scene, anyhow. Love knows no language, you 
 know. For all that we could understand of what a big-whiskered 
 servant in a Duke s disguise was saying to a pretty Baroness, 
 enamored of his swaggering air, it might have been as well the 
 Kickapoo. 
 
 Time gallops fast amidst orange groves and picture galleries, 
 ruins and roses, Villas and Vaticans, music and mosaic. As 
 yet the confusion arising from the multiplicity of objects, all 
 intensely interesting, prevents me from giving prominence where 
 all is so beautiful and bewitching. I could as soon tell " which 
 nymph more neatly trips it before Apollo than the rest." 
 
 We are about to close our sojourn at Rome. Ten days were 
 never as full of incident to us. We have mingled in every 
 variety of life, have recognized our own kind in the smiles and 
 woes of the oppressed and beggared, have spared no effort to 
 renew the great scenes which were here enacted, and no pains 
 to learn the present state of things in this anomalous govern 
 ment. 
 
ROME, LIVING- AND DEAD. 157 
 
 These ruins and temples, relics of departed power, how 
 boldly do they contrast with the scenes recorded in our chapters 
 upon the World s Exhibition ! What new phases have been 
 produced by modern civilization ! What strange elements of 
 life are the offspring of Christianity ! 
 
 Now farewell to Rome. Upon this Sabbath night we leave 
 for Naples. Right sorry are we that we could not wait till 
 Wednesday, the time fixed by the Pope for our presentation to 
 him, on the kindly application of Mr. Cass. But no : already 
 we are in our vetturino, parting the crowds at St. Peter s Piazza, 
 and making toward the gate in time to be out before it should 
 close for the night. How finely Rome, and especially St. Peter s 
 looked at the setting of the sun, as we drove for the last time 
 over the bridge of St. Angelo. The castle towered up round and 
 grand against the sky, with its figure of St. Michael and his 
 drawn sword, standing out palpably beautiful. The Basilica of 
 St. Peter s, from which we parted with regret, looked gloomy, 
 with its long shadows and great colonnades ; but how coolly re 
 freshing was the relief furnished by the twin colossal sheafs of 
 water, bending over with their rich harvesting of spray. 
 
 We are on the highway. A moon of red and gold burst out 
 of Rome, to light us over the Campagna. Hushed and stilly 
 was the repose of Nature over these plains which once shook 
 with the tread of legions, and which was once adorned with the 
 splendid residences of the lords of the earth ! Now and then the 
 silence was broken by the encouraging cry of the teamsters, who 
 were moving toward Rome with their loads of hay. We drove 
 past old towers brightened into new life by the light. We looked 
 timidly out for some romantic rascal of a bandit ; but the Cam 
 pagna disdains such puny heroics, intoxicated with its olden 
 glory. As we passed each glen, or hill, I looked in vain for that 
 respectable personage, who has so long resided in the covers of 
 novels and in the brains of boarding-school misses. He was not 
 to be seen that deep-browed, whiskered bandit, with his blouse 
 and sash, his sugar-loaf hat all plumed, and pistoled belt, his fore 
 
158 ROME, LIVING AND DEAD. 
 
 foot planted firmly, and his profile painted dimly between the eye 
 and the sky not he. 
 
 Now we pass a man with a sharp ironed stick, pricking tar 
 dy oxen homeward now a diligence hurrying along, in muffled 
 mystery. We hear a low, mellow sound, much like music heard 
 in dreams. As we approach we see a new moon, " dipped, not 
 drowned," in the Mediterranean ; but broken into myriad lights 
 upon her mobile bosom. Soon we halt, to rest upon the shore of 
 the sea, and amidst ruins upon which the silver waves dash, and 
 over which they leap in filigree spray. Here romance may fill 
 her goblet and drain it in gladness. We do not need the bandit, 
 to complete the scene. A sweet voice from the auberge struck 
 up an Italian song, while I sat upon a ruin, writing at midnight, 
 by moonlight, in my journal ; our ladies all the while ecstatically 
 predisposed, and ready to fall in (love with) the Mediterranean 
 for joy ! 
 
 The next night we slept upon this same sea, right soundly, 
 in the midst of moon-lit waves, oblivious, while our steamer 
 was bearing us southward to the place where Beauty loves to 
 breathe in her own selectest home. 
 
XI. 
 
 ; its Jimtliira mift Inrrnr, 
 
 Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necesse est." 
 
 Virgil. 
 
 MY pen moves to the soft and silver purling of the waves 
 against this delicious shore. Our hotel is upon the Bay of 
 Naples only divided from its cerulean waters by a garden of 
 flowers walled in from the sea. and against which the gentle un 
 dulations sing their madrigals of sweetness. The eye wanders 
 over the " most beautiful bay in the world," now clothed in its 
 morning garment of transparent light ; while past our window 
 the sail-boats fly and the oars flash. Upon the right, there rises 
 gently from the bay, hills of fruitage. Naples swings about cir 
 cularly, and white as if newly washed. We begin to realize 
 that there is a lovelier nature in this sunny land. The breeze 
 comes gently warm and deliciously laden. The sparkle of the 
 waters has more diamond points. The horizon kisses the hea 
 ven with a warmer blush, and the heaven bends over with the 
 witchery of beauty. 
 
 In a land where the fruitage " drinks gold even from the 
 mid-winter air," it might be expected that nature would be richly 
 adorned in this middle .of June. The consummation of this 
 southern Italian scenery may find expression in the familiar 
 hymn, 
 
 " Here every prospect pleases, 
 And only man is vile." 
 
 "We woke up in the Bay of Naples ; that is, our boat was 
 therein. A band at the fort was laboring as hard as it could 
 with brass, to destroy the soft influences of the place by their 
 
160 NAPLES, ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 
 
 clangor. The jargon of boats assists the band. Naples lies 
 around us ; her domes swelling under the loftier hills, whose 
 trellised terraces bespeak the favorite home of Bacchus and Po 
 mona. White-dressed soldiers are apparent all about. The 
 isles of the bay sleep sweetly and smilingly under their Arachne 
 web of haze the favorite resorts of Lamartine ; Ischia, the home 
 of Graziella ; Procida and Caprae, the selectest spots wherein 
 Paul and Virginia might fully know the " unreserve of mingled 
 being," and where the brow of nature is imbound with the 
 golden rigol of love ! Vesuvius, twin-peaked, gracefully rises 
 from the bay, with her slight scarf of white smoke curling from 
 her top. Do you wonder that amid yon isles, set in the spark 
 ling azure, and amid such a sweet circuit of beauty, the genius of 
 the French poet, wild as that of Ossian, and tender and melan 
 choly as that of Rousseau, dropped pearls of rare loveliness ? 
 
 We are called ashore, and there, amid the police and custom 
 house officers, the lazaroni and hotel-runners, we feel that angels 
 do not people this beautiful land. Soon the lofty window of our 
 hotel becomes an observatory, high and aloof from all human 
 disturbance, where the eye and the mind, wearied as it has been 
 with the creations of art. can drink in the spirit of this incom 
 parable scenery. There are no harsh edges or determinate out 
 lines of things ; but all is blended into soft and mellow unison 
 a harmonious flow of beauty. The breeze breathes over the 
 bay in flickering shadows, as if a great spirit were moving upon 
 its face. Within this amphitheatre of rocks and groves, there 
 lies something deeper than mere imagery. It is the inner and 
 tranquil soul of beauty 
 
 " Deep bosomed in the still and quiet bay 
 The sea reflecting all that glowed above, 
 Till a new sky, softer, but not so gay, 
 
 Arcli d in its bosom, trembles like a dove." 
 
 But we might for ever dwell upon tliese features of beauty, 
 and still receive no lasting good, no joy other than that transient 
 
, ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR, 161 
 
 bound which pleasure brings. Nobler influences should ema 
 nate from such exquisite external forms. If we would feel the 
 : passion and the life of things," we must perceive God s excel 
 lency, love and purity, enshrined, all crystalline, in the water 
 as it rises in flowers of white and falters into music below, and 
 in the sky which bends over in its warm livery of lustre. That 
 soul which cannot here find new splendors in the grass, new 
 glories in the flower, richer tintings in the fruitage, love unut 
 terable in the landscape ; and which cannot rejoice with nature 
 in her wedding garment, and sing her epithalamium, must be 
 " dull as the lake that slumbers in the storm." Sensation here 
 becomes lulled, form is melted, the soul is transported, thought 
 even dies in enjoyment and the hymn of praise rises, without 
 effort, to the first Good, first Perfect, and first Fair. Is it won 
 derful that the ancient Roman senators and citizens here ex 
 pended untold wealth to make Baiae their summer resort ? Is 
 it strange that Virgil here sought entombment by the sweet 
 murmur of the limpid wave of Parthenope ? Is it curious that 
 Cicero here listened to the soft and sonorous lapse of the elo 
 quent sea, curling full and graceful as one of his own ore rotundo 
 periods ? Is it startling that the luxurious people of Pompeii 
 and Herculaneum lingered here under the very shadow of de 
 struction, spell-bound by the Siren of the shore ? 
 
 But stay ! had we a poet s pen, wherewithal to lose oneself 
 in labyrinths of sweet utterance, there would still remain that 
 " drainless shower" of beauty, which again I have just seen 
 flooding the heaven and the earth ; whose element is light, 
 whose music is the undertone of love, whose fragrance is the 
 stilly prayer of the humble heart, and whose aspiration is to 
 walk with white-handed Hope and pure-eyed Faith, in such soft. 
 rich radiance, where summer smiles ever in the gardens of God ! 
 One should have the golden flush of Landon s prose, and the 
 resources of Burke s imagery ; the Grecian loveliness of Keats, 
 and the fusing sensibility of Byron, all elevated by the devotion 
 of sweet Jeremy Taylor ; or their nearest combined approxima- 
 
 
162 NAPLES, ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROH. 
 
 tion in the intense feeling of the mild and lovely, which drops 
 from the pen of Lamartine, to utter the sentiment and soul of 
 this scenery of the south ! 
 
 Mr. Cass showed me a painting of Neapolitan scenery in his 
 gallery at Rome, which I pronounced an excellent Idealism of 
 some genius who had glimpses of celestial shores, where rose- 
 tinted waters make melody on gems and gold. " You had bet 
 ter wait, sir, until you see such a heaven and such water at 
 Naples, before you pronounce this ideal." So I have. I am 
 content to believe the painter has failed to do justice to the 
 original. I ordered, with his permission, a copy of the land 
 scape by the same painter, to take home to my friends, as the 
 evidence of my enthusiasm. " Oh ! what a goodly earth is 
 ours !" is the ready exclamation at each gaze from the window. 
 There is music here full and tender ; but like that in Hamlet s 
 flute, it cannot be brought out unless one knows the stops. 
 There is beauty in that bay, now glittering with pearl and ruby, 
 amethyst and emerald, turquoise and diamond ; but like those 
 gems in the enchanted cave, they must lie unseen, unless some 
 genius of magic would illumine my page with Aladdin s won 
 derful lamp. I neither know the flute, nor possess the lamp ; 
 still " sweet will be the dew of these memories, and pleasant the 
 balm of their recollection." 
 
 The singular contrast to this beauty towers up above the 
 bay, and holds within its molten heart the elements of Destruc 
 tion. God has implanted amid this garden the mountain of 
 Vesuvius, and opened to the view of the luxurious people the 
 ruins of buried cities. Truly is it said, the dwellers here live 
 upon the confines of paradise and hell fire ! We bear evidence 
 of both. Yesterday we visited Vesuvius and looked down its 
 crater and saw there ! 
 
 Before I tell you what I saw, my reader had better ascent* 
 with us. After engaging the good guide Antonia, and preparing 
 a basket of lunch, we drive around the shore, hugging the bay 
 as long as possible. Palaces alternate with shops ; fine vistas 
 
NAPLES, ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 163 
 
 of orange gardens through high portals, succeed to dirty houses, 
 at whose doors pigs and donkeys are tied. We pass the king s 
 palace, well guarded and frowning. He seldom conies forth, 
 poor prisoner ; for he is afraid of being shot. Well he may be. 
 We enter some fine piazzas with colonnades ; but " none to speak 
 of." after seeing St. Peter s at Rome. It is the hour of noon ; 
 and every body is sleeping, except the ever-laboring donkeys. 
 We observed at the great granary, the largest building in Na 
 ples, some hundreds of workmen, all lying prone upon the 
 stones, asleep a strange group ! Men in long brown woollen 
 caps, driving cows, oxen and donkeys, sometimes all in one team, 
 hold the reins asleep ; and we distinctly saw one strapping 
 fellow, ahold of his donkey s tail a common mode of guidance 
 here, walking along asleep. The rumbling of our carriage 
 disturbed Ks tiream of paradise, which consists of apricots and 
 maccarcmi. There is one portion of the population still awake, 
 that is, the beggars. Our carriage was thronged with them 
 when ne ptrpped ; and as we moved, they ran for hundreds of 
 yardo, holding up withered arms, opening diseased eyes, and 
 pifirg <;heir theatrical anguish most piteously Children, dressed 
 in no gaudy, unnatWcU way, play in the sun, in primitive, Eden 
 ptyle. The famous Neapolitan curriculo dashes along, loaded to 
 the top and bottom, with dozens, though seemingly no larger 
 than a go-cart. The picturesque costume of the people lends an 
 air of romance to the drive. The brass harness of the donkeys, 
 from whose backs it rises in queer shape some feet, flashes in 
 the sun. These same donkeys perform other important func 
 tions for the lazy people, some of which are represented by our 
 artist, in a happy style. It is no caricature either, as I can 
 verify. Long lines of fruit venders are ranged along the streets. 
 Still we drive and drive, occasionally looking upward, and find 
 ing Vesuvius just as near and just as distant in the clear air as 
 ever. The city seems a never-ending one. New-York is small 
 compared to it in length. Its population is more than half a 
 million, it being the third city in Europe. 
 
164 XAPLJS&fIT8 LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 
 
 At last we stop, after riding long miles. Our guide informs 
 us that we are over Ilerculaneum ! A door opens, torches are 
 lighted, and our company (eight Americans) descend. We pass 
 into the great theatre, which is only partially excavated. Un 
 like Pompeii, Herculaneum is buried deep, and is not so easily 
 displayed. The grand entrances to the theatre and niches be 
 tween (wherein a marble statue was found), the long circle of 
 corridors, the front of the stage, the place for the orchestra, the 
 circled seats of stone, were all in perfect preservation. An im 
 press of a mask or bust the features finely marked in the solid 
 lava above our heads, was seen by the aid of our torches. We 
 passed into some of the houses, which were excavated. The 
 old brick and mortar had withstood the besieging, burning lava, 
 nobly ; but the wood was charred. We were shown into the 
 garden where an old palace had been dug out. The floors were 
 finely tesselated, and the walls of yellow and red still revealed 
 their quaintly painted figures. The walls of the city, at whose 
 base the sea murmured as sweetly, as now to my ear it murmurs 
 against the wall of Naples, were pointed out. Far different 
 music it hissed and boiled, upon that fatal time, when the vic 
 torious molten elements of the mountain drove it inhospitably 
 away. Plucking a flower from one of the gardens of the ancient 
 city, which withered and fell, ere it could be pressed, we con 
 tinued our drive through Portici, and up the mountain. 
 
 Vesuvius really extends down to the sea ; but the ascent is 
 so gradual that it is almost imperceptible. One may, however, 
 trace the stream of lava and the stratum of scoriae by the richness 
 of the foliage and the sweetness of the bloom. For over an 
 hour we wound around, amid walls overhung with fruit-trees and 
 vines. Oranges, nectarines, apricots, big cherries, pomegranates 
 and figs, line our upward way. What genius of cultivation could 
 equal this mountain side in prodigality ? What peculiar element 
 of fructification dwells in this volcanic soil, and over this burn 
 ing crater ? My knowledge of botanical chemistry fails me in 
 these queries. The luscious fact, however, waters most tooth- 
 
NAPLES ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 155 
 
 somely in the mouth, as apricot, orange, and nectarine severally 
 are victimized. The red and gold of the nectarine, and the 
 melting glisten of its wounded side, wooing you to another 
 indentation, brought forcibly to my mind the beautiful saying 
 of WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR that the best results of human 
 thought spring from a clear head meditating over a burning 
 heart, just as the richest fruits spring out of the sides of a vol 
 cano over its hidden fire ! 
 
 We pass through a continuous succession of gardens, stopping 
 to buy from the peasants some fruit, meeting donkies laden 
 with their rich burdens, going down to the city under the guid 
 ance of boys, and women with baskets upon their heads, return 
 ing from the city, their fruit all sold. As we ascend higher by 
 the good road, the hard iron cinders begin their domain of deso 
 lation, interspersing their barrenness amidst the smiling culti 
 vation. As we followed the zigzag course, every now and then 
 a view would open, disclosing, on either side, gorge in gorge, 
 and chasm fearfully hid in chasm beneath. Two or three little 
 houses are set away up, some fifteen hundred feet above the sea, 
 perfectly unconscious of the slumbering Pandemonium beneath. 
 The ; Hermitage," our carriage destination, is still higher. 
 It marks the summit of vegetation. Above it, there grow no 
 more of the ever-blooming sweets of Nature. Near by, is a 
 little cottage, prettily ensconced in the side-hill, against whose 
 Gothic front, on which the Madonna is painted, the evening sun 
 begins to pour his horizontal beams. Chestnuts and mulberries 
 overhang the gorges around. We strike the level, and are in 
 the midst of the guides and horses, and in front of the antique- 
 looking " Hermitage." An awful and a strange scene is this, 
 verily. Such a devilish crew fit ministers unto such a curi 
 osity as this of Volcano-seeing ! The mountain is half-way 
 ascended, yet there it is above us. apparently just as high as 
 ever. Its laborious ascent is not yet begun. All is thus far a 
 world of pleasure. If Dr. CHEEVER were writing, he would 
 moralize this upward way into a Bunyan pilgrimage, or an 
 
166 NAPLES, ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 
 
 allegory of some kind. We have passed through a region, upon 
 which the Hours have pressed down to men the prodigality of 
 Heaven. Wanton Spring and fruitful Autumn lead us with 
 soft and downy steps so gradually upward, that we are rather 
 allured than led by the "goodly prospect." The "Hermitage" 
 marks the point where Paradise ends and fire begins to show its 
 effects. It is not so bad a place either. It furnishes us a lunch 
 of rare deliciousness and ponies of sure footing. After buying 
 our canes, and some boxes of Vesuvian relics, we mount a 
 gleeful company. We ride Indian file, over and amid cragged, 
 jagged, and ragged rocks the result of more recent eruptions. 
 Around and upward we wind going over the great crater (now 
 fireless) from whose heart Pompeii received its doom. So deep 
 and large was its discharge, that it divided the mountain, so as 
 to make it appear like two peaks. The right hand peak, which 
 is nearest to the sea, is the grand one, and that which we must 
 climb. A calcined world of desolation, with no murmur of 
 cascades, no music of pine-trees, awaits our step. The smoke 
 winds about its summit almost perpendicularly above us. Is 
 the ascent practicable ? Onward ! The guides whip the ponies 
 behind, steering them by their tails, and, with laugh and halloo 
 we find ourselves at the pedestrian point. There are three ladies 
 of our party, and they must mount the chairs. By the way, 
 now that the ladies are out shopping, let me pilfer from the 
 journal of one of them, her sensations upon the extraordinary, 
 perpendicular, and peculiar romance of the ride. I give it ver 
 batim : " Here, at the point of steepest ascent, were our palan 
 quins in waiting; and then began a chattering among the guides. 
 Some .one said that they were quarrelling and scrambling to get 
 the smallest lady. [The writer seemed to be a peculiar object of 
 care.) Simultaneously we were hoisted on the backs of our 
 bearers four poles sustaining the chair in which we sat. Swart- 
 looking fellows they were one at each pole. L led the 
 
 way in our horseback cavalcade, and now came my turn to 
 swing the veil of the foremost, when short-lived triumph ! one 
 
NAPLES, ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 167 
 
 of my poor fellows gave way, and I was obliged to see all the 
 others pass by. Still amid slipping rocks and sliding sand, they 
 tugged, the perspiration rolling off in big beads. It was labor 
 to us also, to see them, from our rocking, fearful, tremulous, 
 dancing chair, straining and puffing with our weight. It was 
 terrible to look below. The men seemed like little creeping 
 things away down in the distance. I did half glance at the sun 
 Betting in the sea, and the far-off city and country. But the 
 point of vision was too fearful to enjoy the spectacle. By dint 
 of occasional resting and changing, OUP guides brought us to 
 the top ; and then such piteous grimaces and chatterings for 
 
 money and drink ." But that is a scene to be enjoyed by 
 
 all. The men all walked. I seized the strap over the shoulder 
 of my guide, who, by the way, carried the provender, and took 
 the lead. Whether it was my light foot, or the persuasiveness 
 of the basket, I obtained the first sight at the yellow, sulphur 
 ous, smoking, abysmal pit ! 
 
 Our general guide, Antonia. was last to come up. Conse 
 quently we were at the mercy of the other guides appropriate 
 genii of the spot. Such a pack of imps of limbo ought only to 
 herd about the infernal hole. My man began whimpering and 
 hullabalooing most hideously, as he wiped the sweat from off his 
 black face. They were paid fully by Antonia, and thought to 
 make a speculation out of our gullability. " Je suis % fateege /" 
 " Me-monie !" " changez pour moi beef stek and maccaroni !" 
 " Oh ! donnez me sum, Signer." With bad French and worse 
 English, around the men and around the ladies, with twisted faces 
 and devilish horror depicted on them, they danced, gestured, 
 chattered and swore, until Antonia came up, who, by dint of 
 wilder^gestures and a greater noise, stopped them. I fixed my 
 man s volubility by repeating the Declaration of Independence. 
 T had hardly finished one of the grievances before he left me 
 "ith a curse deep and strong. It made one feel queerly, to be up 
 out of the worldj after sundown, amidst these paths of fire and 
 smoke, with only a good-sized cane, and with such a company, 
 
168 NAPLES ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 
 
 say twenty black-browed scoundrels to lead you within an inch 
 of certain death. However, it was a part of the play, and along 
 we trudged, over smoky ground and ashes, trembling and half 
 suffocated with the fumes of sulphur, until we stood upon the 
 brink of a visible hell. I hate swearing, but that is the only 
 expressive word. With handkerchiefs to the noses, and eyes 
 aghast, we looked down into the seething, smoking, blackened 
 abyss ! Here was the fountain itself of those molten streams 
 of fire which covered the face of earth for leagues, and buried 
 great cities ! Our guides ventured upon the sides of the chasm, 
 and rolling great rocks down, bid us list ! Up, up, UP comes 
 the cracking, sepulchral noise. " Sounding on its dim and 
 perilous way," it still rises apparently from miles below and 
 when it would seem that even sound, were it ever so deep, could 
 no longer be heard, the heart would burn fearfully to hear pro 
 longed the noise till it seemed to expire ; 
 
 " Yet from the Abyss is caught again, 
 And yet again recovered." 
 
 If one were not so horrified, fancy might picture the Devil 
 growling below in his deepest pits, as blow after blow of the 
 rock cracked upon his infidel head. As we looked down amidst 
 the curling vapor, and heard the hollow sound, and inhaled the 
 sulphurous smoke, and looked on either side at the immense 
 gorges now emptied of their fires, we felt that for the first time, 
 we were amid the perfection and sublimity of horror ! A few 
 steps either way, and it is certain destruction. The ground is 
 hot. You may turn over its smoking ashes with your cane. 
 The guide lit a torch at the fire. But even here, can we not 
 look upward into the deep, calm heaven, with its high and vault 
 ed boss of stars, interpenetrated with the relict lustre of the de 
 parted day ? Cannot we sec from this pinnacle of Dread, the 
 beauty of that great law of Being, which is quaintly described 
 by an old English Bard, as 
 
NAPLES, ITS LOVELINESS AND HORROR. 169 
 
 A great gold chain ylinked well, 
 
 Whose upper end to highest heaven was knitt, 
 
 And lower part did reach to lowest hell ! 
 
 And cannot imagination people the " deep amaze " of the 
 starry vault with its creations of angelic beauty, winnowing the 
 air around, and brooding over the orange groves and vineyards 
 below ; as well as the horrid mystery of Deepness and Death 
 into which we gaze, with those ghastly and horrid phantoms, 
 described by the Latin poet, whose tomb we are about to visit, 
 and whose verse we have prefixed to this chapter of contrasts. 
 
 With torches bright, and hearts relieved, we took giant 
 strides down the mountain at an angle of fifty degrees, and 
 from a height 4,000 feet above the bay. It was tall walking 
 that promenade. The space which absorbed an hour of ascent 
 was performed downward in ten minutes. Again with horse 
 and carriage, and moonlight, we descended into the city, whose 
 lights in crescent beauty twinkled far, far below, displaying her 
 as the bride of the Mediterranean recumbent and asleep, her 
 forehead gleaming with a coronet of gems. Soon we find as 
 sweet a sleep as ever laborer felt. One of the biggest pile- 
 drivers on the public improvements could not. have wedged a 
 dream into that solid sleep. I was sure in the morning, from 
 my eyelids, that Somnus himself had been sitting on them all 
 night. I would not perform the same operation for the reader ; 
 so I close for another theme. 
 
XII. 
 
 , 3t0 (0mjrttt unit Dilution. 
 
 Andire et videor pios 
 Errare per lucos, amaenae 
 Quos et aquae subeunt et aurae. 
 
 HORACE. 
 
 A WEEK S stay seems but a slight taste of this Paradise. 
 Nevertheless, the time of our visit has proved fortunate. 
 What we regretted to miss at Rome, and for which great pre 
 parations were making when we left, we have seen here. The 
 festal of Corpus Domini is always a great gala among Italians. 
 As we drove to Vesuvius on the first day of our arrival, our eye 
 was attracted, at every few squares of this illimitable city, by 
 high altars, resembling the pagodas we saw at the World s Exhibi 
 tion. They consist of rough framework, surrounded by cloth 
 of gold, gems and spangles, great stars and red tinselling. They 
 look like large political platforms, done up in gaudy dress. Pre 
 parations were being made to illuminate the city. Lanterns of 
 divers colors hung from garlands of green about the altars, 
 across streets and at every door. Artificial fountains there 
 were too, around which flowers were wreathed and paintings 
 placed. As we returned from Pompeii, which we visited day 
 before yesterday, we saw the illumination and the people. A 
 gush of hilarity seemed to run all through Naples. These 
 children of the sun, how they do revel in pleasure upon such 
 days as this ! They save throughout the year, to eat their 
 choicest maccaroni upon Corpus Domini. Crowds were collected 
 about the altars listening to music. Crowds about the eating 
 and lemonade stalls, singing and hallooing. Crowds lined the 
 way, laughing, as if Herculaneum were not beneath a corpse, 
 
NAPLES, ITS GAYET7 AND DESOLATION. Yl\ 
 
 nor Pompeii laid bare in desolation. Ha ! HA ! Ho ! in genu 
 ine fun a language which needs no dragoman to interpret 
 roared around, as lantern flashed against jewelled altar, and re 
 flected its brightness in the joyous mass. Curriculi loaded full 
 of picturesque people, drive by all jovial. Donkeys are piled 
 from head to tail with human nature, the children being in 
 baskets upon their backs, as the sketch represents them. We 
 descended from our carriage to mingle with the mass. On every 
 side is carelessness and mirth, and that without drunkenness. 
 Indeed, I have seen but one drunken man, and he was a sol 
 dier, since I left England ; and that although wine bleeds 
 fresh and free from every hill-side and mountain-top. Yester 
 day the procession came off. Priests by the hundreds officiated. 
 The host was elevated. The people were blessed from the 
 altars. All shops were closed. Naples was high in her festi 
 vity. The meanest lazzarone that ever begged or stole, joined 
 in the general joy, and forgot his condition in the glee. 
 
 In one of the churches, nuns were seen peeping through the 
 bars, and solemn priests marched around and amidst the crowd 
 ed aisle. By the way, let me tell you of a singular vegetable 
 phenomenon which our party saw in the cloistered court of the 
 church of St. Severino. It was a fig-tree of large size growing 
 out of the hollow of a great oak, and bearing three different 
 kinds of figs. Vegetable wonders, however, are as common 
 here as the leaves upon the sides of Vesuvius. During a drive 
 yesterday to the tomb of Virgil, we had a fine view of great 
 fields recovered from the sea, by the labor of peasants and the 
 money of the king, and which are covered with vineyards as far 
 as the eye can reach, and interspersed with white houses of rare 
 beauty. 
 
 Our visit to Pompeii will never be forgotten. Who can see 
 and forget those long streets deserted and dead ; those temples 
 broken and robbed of their gods ; those rooms with their red 
 and yellow paintings ; and those gardens with their fountains 
 and statues, their .mosaics and pillars all, all speaking the 
 
172 NAPLES-ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 
 
 great tragedy which primevally was here enacted. The forums 
 are standing just as they stood when the lake of fire was poured 
 upon the devoted city. The temples and their altarsstrange 
 illustrations of former worship stand side by side with the 
 baker shops and taverns. Barber shops and theatres, baths 
 and tombs, are here an unwritten history, a book of marvels, 
 which the fire of the mountain has bound with its clasps of 
 stone, to be pondered eighteen hundred years after by a wonder 
 ing world. 
 
 The ride to this city of fire lies along the shore of the bay. 
 The Apennines bound the vision upon the east ; and between 
 them and Naples lies the volcanic fountain. The city of 
 Pompeii is upon the other side of the mountain, occupying a 
 great plain. It was discovered in 1750 by peasants working in 
 a vineyard. About one-third of it is uncovered ; enough to 
 show that the arts of painting, sculpture and poetry nourished 
 greatly in the midst of as luxurious and wicked a people as ever 
 were permitted to fester under heaven. What I saw has never 
 been written, what I saw is evidence more than enough, even t& 
 a sense of disgust, of the deepest stains of sin, and the deepest 
 depths of degeneracy. Sodom and Gomorrah were no doubt 
 rank with iniquity. Pompeii, it seems to me, met with a similar 
 fate for similar profligacy and corruption. No one (unless it be 
 ladies, to whom such sights are not permitted) can go through 
 these streets, look at the signs, examine the paintings and 
 statues, without feeling that God took upon himself the ofl&ce 
 of Avenger, and used that mountain of lava as the instru 
 ment. 
 
 We entered upon our researches just outside the walls ot 
 Pompeii near some stables and tombs. The inscriptions tell, in 
 very plain Latin, the story of the dead. We examined wells, 
 the stones of which are worn with ropes, as if just. used yester 
 day. Similar appearances along the curbing of the city, in 
 dicate places for hitching horses. Ovens like our own, in which 
 bread was found rather well done, and which we saw to-day at 
 
NAPLES, ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 173 
 
 the Museum were scattered about. The stones for grinding 
 and working the dough were very curious. The different houses 
 are named from some statue or bust found in them, as the 
 house of Cicero, or of Sallust, or of Castor and Pollux. The 
 dining rooms, as well as all the other rooms, are painted in yel 
 low and red ; and adorned with every variety of figures, mostly 
 nude. Birds, fruits, and foliage in rare perfection ornament 
 the walls. The rooms are all small, and lack ventilation. In 
 nothing is our comfort so superior to the ancients as in this 
 essential to health. The houses are only one story, except that 
 of Diomede, which is two stories. The view on the subsequent 
 page represents one of the villas near an ancient temple whose 
 pillars yet stand. The different places of business can be told 
 by some object found in them ; as for instance, a large money 
 chest indicates the banking house ; a figure in the wall (Cupid 
 mending shoes), a shoer.aker; the chair, a barber shop, and so 
 on. The Pantheon with its twelve gods was found in fine 
 order, surrounded by its forum ; while the Temple of Isis, with 
 the altar for the sacrifice and even the hole for the blood, with 
 its Egyptian symbols, and the skeleton of the priest, stands out 
 prominent in the midst of the rums. This last place has a pecu 
 liar interest. In it were found skeletons of priests, who had 
 been dining when overtaken by the eruption. Bones of fowls 
 and fish, remains of eggs, bread and wine, and a garland of 
 flowers were found. Another skeleton leaned against the wall, 
 with the axe of sacrifice in his hands ; and still another had 
 escaped, carrying 360 coins of silver in a cloth, but was over 
 whelmed near the Tragic theatre. 
 
 We lunched in a fine old dining-room, assisted by our guides, 
 who liked amazingly to drink the health of us Americans in the 
 Falernian. A jolly old soul was our guide. He was continually 
 twitting us in broken French, about our love of the " anteek." 
 I tried to carry off some trophies, but his vigilance prevented 
 me. He presented me with a big bug. and tried to catch a liz 
 ard for my pocket, remarking that they were "anteeks." Every 
 
174 NAPLES, ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 
 
 thing was exceedingly antique to him. The very flowers and 
 orange-peels took the hue of antiquity. He introduced me to 
 an old gray-haired, one-eyed soldier, at the gate of the theatre 
 near the house of Diomede, as the brother of Diomede " an 
 anteek." The old soldier chuckled most funnily at the old 
 joke. 
 
 We visited the amphitheatre, which you may remember was 
 filled at the time of the great eruption, that buried the city, in 
 August A. D. 79. Few skeletons were found in it. It is supposed 
 that most of the inhabitants, including those in the theatres, 
 escaped. Twenty thousand could find egress from the amphi 
 theatre in two minutes and a half ; and no wonder, with such a 
 number of corridors and doors. There are 97 places of inlet. 
 It seeems to me that the amphitheatre, of all other places, would 
 receive the first warning. Open at the top the fiery glare of 
 the visible peak of Vesuvius would flash in upon the gladiatorial 
 scene, while the rumble of the earth beneath would drown the 
 loudest roar of the beasts in their subterranean dens, and star 
 tle the people from their spell of pleasure. There were about 
 300 skeletons found in Pompeii. Those of the soldiers in the 
 barracks, and of seventeen persons, in a country-house whither 
 they had fled for refuge, as well as the skeleton of the mother 
 with her child in arms, are preserved in the studii of the Muse 
 um. As we walked upon the top of the amphitheatre, the sun 
 of Italy was sinking in pink, orange and purple. That most 
 beautiful of all skies seemed deep and full of the mellow lustre, 
 weaving its witchery over ruin and mountain. 
 
 We visited another theatre. It was the favorite of the poets. 
 It seemed as perfect as if but yesternight, 
 
 " The cothurns trod majestic 
 
 Down the deep Iambic lines, 
 And the rolling nnapestic 
 
 Curled like vapor over shrines." 
 
 Indeed every point of Pompeii speaks of the cultivation of 
 dramatic poetry. Paintings of masks and of actors are abun- 
 
NAPLES, ITS G A YET Y AND DESOLATION. 175 
 
 dant. But had Pompeii one poet, whose imagination as it 
 revelled in the paintings, statues and groves, the theatres and 
 forums, the isles of the beautiful bay and the rock-bound villas 
 of the Apennines ever dreamed of the great Drama, whose 
 2^erson(K were the elements, and whose unity was as unbroken 
 as its destiny was terrific ? Bulwer has lifted the curtain, and 
 displayed the scenes of that drama. Has his vivid imagination 
 even, done justice to the awful whelming which God poured upon 
 this seat of art and luxury ? 
 
 The soft twilight breeze creeps gently over the worn and 
 desolated streets. A trembling and a fear rustles past on its 
 wing, as we gaze upward to the dread mount whose hidden fires 
 may again play the same tragedy upon unconscious Naples, now 
 decked in her festal robes and illuminated with golden lights. 
 
 While endeavoring to make out an inscription before the 
 stage of the theatre, we were startled at a wild actor, who leaped 
 from behind the scenes, and held us in comic wonder for some 
 ten minutes, by some fragments of a comic play. His contor 
 tions of face, and his gyrations in the dance, added grotesqueness 
 to the scene. It seems that our guide Antonia had slipped him 
 in front to surprise and regale us. I never heard such a fiddling 
 twang to a human voice before. He rung its changes oddly 
 enough as oddly as Punch himself. He played a mimic flute 
 with a stick ; and at the conclusion jumped into the chorus, with 
 as much gusto as ever the Grecian chorus did under the spell of 
 "^schylus. He danced it daintily, until a jerk of the body and 
 a doff of the cap, which adroitly caught the expected coin 
 ended this specimen of the " antique." 
 
 As a lawyer I visited the tribunal, where our respectable 
 fraternity if any such were permitted in so wicked a place 
 were wont to congregate. The seat of the judges was upon a 
 forum, immediately over the prison cells, from whose gloom the 
 prisoners could hear their own doom. An arrangement of the 
 kind should commend itself to our civilized communities. It 
 would save our courts much time in sending for, and remanding 
 prisoners. 
 
176 NAPLES-ITU GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 
 
 As we wend our way homeward, a heavy cloud, betokening 
 rain, enshrouds the apex of Vesuvius. All other parts of the 
 horizon are clear and starry. A silence " deep as that between 
 the trumpet summons and the judgment" sleeps in awe above. 
 The very obscurity of the fount of fire, deepens the gloom and 
 awe. It reminds us of the words of Festus ; Obscurity hath 
 many a sacred use. The sacred use of Vesuvius, I as firmly 
 believe, as I believe in God s retribution, has been to punish 
 godless profligacy. Is its use. wholly set aside? Time may 
 tell. 
 
 As we ride along under the illuminated garlands and altars, 
 we perceive little shell fountains almost invisible in the foliage, 
 out of which water is spouted of a sudden, on a crowd of laugh 
 ing, mischievous rogues, assembled around the railings. Light- 
 hearted Naples what cares she for yon familiar fountain of 
 fire? 
 
 We visited yesterday the tomb of Virgil. Driving down 
 the shore on the western side of the city, we see the tomb above 
 us upon the solid rock, overlooking the bay. To reach it we 
 must take a longer drive. We enter a tunnel, some half a mile 
 long, called the grotto of Posilipo, said to have been made 
 originally by the devil. It bears other marks, however, those 
 of wheel-hubs, all along the sides ; the grotto having been cut 
 down time after time to its present level. It is lighted finely. 
 Two carriages can drive abreast in it, and its height is at least 100 
 feet. With jolly cracks of the whip we dash by the gala people, 
 returning to the city. The grotto rings with their merriment. 
 Soon we are in the country, having passed under the rocky ridge 
 which divides the city from the suburban villas. Altars of red 
 and gold arch the streets. Chestnut venders sing their nuts ; 
 soldiers are drinking and gaming; dark-browed citizens are 
 rolling balls on the paves ; boys are driving goats into the city 
 the hemp is rotting in the sun by the road side after the Ken 
 tucky style ; all these objects pass rapidly by, to be absorbed 
 in the fine view which opens upon the shore. We stand near 
 
NAPLES, ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 177 
 
 another grotto cut by Lucullus, the wealthy Roman, in order to 
 get to Baise with more facility Baise, that ancient city dimly 
 seen down the bay near the bridge of Caligula, beyond the 
 volcanic hills of Flageria. The isles of the bay float in the dis 
 tance, miles away ; yet apparently very near. So clear is the 
 air that Caprse, which is twenty-four miles from the mainland, 
 seems not two miles from our point. The same illusion every 
 where deceives the vision. 
 
 Can it be true that, upon those islands, which seem picked 
 out for ensamples of the beautiful, the harshest rigors of ty 
 ranny are exacted ? Can it be, that under this cloudless heaven, 
 and surrounded by this delightful bay, there is at this moment, 
 carried on the blackest system of political persecution and cruelty 
 ever practised by despotic arrogance ? It is lamentably true, as 
 Mr. Gladstone, in his able pamphlet to Lord Aberdeen, re 
 vealed, that at least 26,000 political prisoners, suspected or con 
 victed of liberal views, or of favoring the revolution of 1848. are 
 chained with felons, and drudge day after day upon those isles, and 
 in the surrounding prisons, without the hope of a hearing, or a 
 chance of mitigation. 
 
 This is not mere conjecture, nor rumor started by uneasy 
 Republicans. The police registers themselves, show the number 
 of political prisoners from May, 1848, to September, 1851. We 
 append a table, which cannot record, however, the tortures and 
 cruelties incident to their imprisonment. It speaks with no 
 common voice, of the system of political persecution of the King 
 of Naples. 
 
 These are the round numbers (under the actual figure), be 
 cause an exact quotation might subject many Government officials 
 to serious annoyance. 
 
 NUMBER OF NEAPOLITAN POLITICAL PRISONERS, FROM MAY, 1848, TO 
 SEPTEMBER, 1851. 
 
 Condemned to the Ergastola, ..... 36 
 
 Condemned in irons to the Bagni, .... 1,000 
 
 Condemned in irons to the Bagni, but not yet removed from prison, 300 
 
178 NAPLES, ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 
 
 Banished to the islands after trial, . : -1 7 . -^ 800 
 
 Banished to the islands without trial, including the soldiers sent by 
 
 royal authority to the camp of Charles Albert, . . .., .., 6,000 
 Accused, who have been, or still are, in prison, from May, 1848, to 
 
 September, 1851, not included in the above, . A 15,000 
 
 Total, . -. . . . 23,136 
 
 Supposed number of exiles, .... 3,000 
 
 Hiding from the police, . . . ... . 150 
 
 Exiled from their native towns, but still in the kingdom, 350 
 
 3,500 
 
 Total number of victims of the Neapolitan Constitution, 26,636 
 
 And it must not be forgotten, that this list does not include 
 any, from that wretched class called lazzaroni, but mostly the 
 respectable and moneyed class, who have intelligence to know, 
 and the will to endeavor to obtain freedom. The lazzaroni were 
 the hired instruments of the Bourbon, who instigated them to acts 
 of pillage, murder, rape and arson, against those, and the families 
 of those, who favored Constitutional Reform. Even yet these 
 fiends are the chief support of the throne. The quarter where 
 they live is cabled the King s quarter. Well, like master, like 
 man. We hope for a reckoning with both. 
 
 The best, the noblest, the brightest spirits of southern Italy, 
 are included in the above statistics, and thus expiate what in 
 the eye of Ferdinand II. is a horrid crime, viz., their belief in 
 popular sovereignty. The wretched King can promise solemnly 
 a Constitution to his people, and can deliberately perjure him 
 self; and conservatives are ever ready to laud his love of order, 
 and his legitimate right. But a citizen dare not whisper to his 
 own wife hardly his hope of a better day, without being loaded 
 with irons, chained to thieves, and sent off to one of these island 
 prisons. The governments of the civilized world should, in the 
 name of our common GOD and Humanity, protest with a vigor 
 far different from mere diplomatic correspondence, against this 
 wholesale abuse of power. Perhaps it would not be entirely 
 according to international law. But is not that law progressive ? 
 
NAPLES, ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 179 
 
 Does it not spring from the universal reason of men, as well as 
 from universal custom ? and where is the reason why enlightened 
 nations should not demand the observance of humane codes ? It 
 is even alleged that the tortures ^of the rack are resorted to by 
 the government of Naples, to discover the liberalists, and their 
 designs. It makes the flesh creep to think what infamous per 
 fidy and cruelty are known to have been here committed by the 
 myrmidons of Power. Well; let the first overt act be done 
 toward an Englishman or an American that is all ! People will 
 then know how deep that moat is around the palace, and how 
 fraternal that dear cousin of Austria is toward his ally of 
 Naples. 
 
 Does it not seem as if Providence had ordained the inhu 
 manity of man to be an offset against the charms of nature in 
 this clime ? But let not these things deter us from our search 
 after the tomb of Virgil. 
 
 Driving around the bay to complete our circuit, we pass by 
 the sweetest little nooks, hid in the coverts and inlets of the 
 bay, the little terraces, gardens and fine houses of which are 
 concealed, almost, amid rocks. Above and below, for hundreds 
 of feet, is the leafy and stony architecture, natural and artificial. 
 Luxury still is seated upon this lovely shore. Boats are plying, 
 crowded with men and women, from the city to the booths and 
 cafes, which line its marge. A long winding walk, up up. 
 amidst groves of nectarine and figs, brings us to the tomb of 
 Virgil. On the right is the promontory of Misenum, near which 
 Palinurus fell into the sea. Farther to the right is the ever 
 beauteous Ischia and Procida. The ancient seats of Lucullus, 
 Hortensius and Marius. are not far off. In this classic vicinage 
 lies the prince of Latin poets. The inscription found here indi 
 cates, without doubt, the sacred spot. " Mantua me gcniut, 
 Calabra rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope, cecina jmscua, ritra 
 duces." This inscription we copied from the stone within the 
 tomb, which bends over the dust of the poet. Flowers bloom 
 prodigally around. The unceasing echo of the vehicles through 
 
180 NAPLES ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 
 
 the grotto disturbs the stillness, not the beauty of the spot. 
 Fancy, ranging wide for similes, likened the murmuring echo to 
 the solemn sounding of the great epic of the bard down the long 
 corridors of Time. The voiceful sea celebrates, in music more 
 harmonious than his own hexameters, the undying fame of the 
 Mantuan poet. How strange for us, from the farthest Occident, 
 to come hither looking for the mere monument of genius ! Is it 
 not true, that 
 
 "Pilgrims come from climes where they have known 
 
 The name of him who now is but a name ; 
 And wasting homage o er a sullen stone, 
 
 Spread his by him unheard, unheeded -fame" 
 
 God has written all over our hearts this love of the resting- 
 places of the great and gifted, who have inspired us by their 
 heroic lives, or charmed us by their " tongue of subtle flame." 
 An old writer has transmitted to us the same sentiment of vene 
 ration, for which we in turn revere him "Movcmur enim nescio 
 quo pacto, tocis ipsis in quibus eorum, quos diligemus, aut 
 admiramur adsunt vestigia. 1 Nothing makes an American 
 feel how much his country must achieve, as to tread in these 
 footsteps of Antiquity, and ponder the inscriptions over the 
 tombs of genius and heroism. Nothing makes him feel how 
 much his country has achieved, as to see the operations of this 
 present government, where every principle of civil right and 
 common decency are sunk in the intoxication of irresponsible 
 power. 
 
 A visit to the Museum here is a part of the performance in 
 travel. We found it full of the relics of the buried cities, con 
 sisting of every variety of personal ornament, cooking utensils, 
 pictures, statues, and architecture. The famous Farnese Bull, 
 and the surrounding group in marble, are here. Next to the 
 Laocoon, it is the most complex achievement of the chisel. Of 
 the paintings, churches, promenades ; of our visit to the opera 
 at San Carlos, the largest theatre in Europe ; of the drive we 
 
NAPLES, ITS GATETT AND DESOLATION. 181 
 
 had down the Riviera di Chiaja, amidst the beauty and fashion 
 of Naples,. more splendid than Regent-street or the Boulevards ; 
 of our visit to the cemetery, whose beautiful buildings and 
 grounds are the admiration of all visitors ; of the drive to the 
 very home of the old Siren upon the banks of the Bay, fit 
 allegory of the paradisiacal beauty and infernal horror which 
 dwell about us ; of all these and more, are they not written 
 upon the fleshly tablet, to be perused more at leisure ? 
 
 This afternoon of Sabbath, the festival of St. Louis of France 
 was celebrated in great parade and pomp. Long processions 
 of priests, in white robes and with wax tapers, were flanked 
 by long lines of soldiers, in which marched singing boys and 
 girls bearing flower wreaths much larger than themselves. Some 
 were dressed up as knights of the chivalric times ; some in glit 
 tering costumes of other eras. Carriages, too, in long procession, 
 in which were the tlite of the city, brought up the line. As 
 they marched down into the promenade, although it was the 
 Sabbath, at least five hundred guns were fired. The promenade 
 was crowded with the gay Neapolitans, all eager to see and hear. 
 As the host moved by, under its golden canopy, attended by 
 priests, or as the image of St. Louis moved along, borne aloft 
 by priests, every hat was off and obeisance was made with hum 
 ble reverence. This struck us queerly 5 but we are prepared for 
 any thing. The perfect uniformity in the Catholic Church here 
 is wonderful. Every one is a member, and pays, at least, out 
 ward respect to its ordinances. 
 
 The promenade displayed a more tastefully dressed people 
 than London or Paris can show. The gentlemen here dress per 
 fectly. Naples can show both extremes, the best-looking and the 
 worst-looking people in the world. Our first impression was cast 
 from the features of the lazzaroni, whose indescribable appear 
 ance is as world-wide in its notoriety as the crater of Vesuvius. 
 
 We have met many Americans at every point of our journey. 
 They are more numerous abroad this year, than the travellers of 
 all other nations put together. I was told by a reverend gentle- 
 
182 NAPLES ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 
 
 man who had been to Palestine, that the Arabs were a little 
 jealous of the Yankees. They feared the Yankees were going 
 to " annex" the Holy Land. And certainly the reasons they 
 give for it are ostensible, if not solid. They say that America 
 has been sending a national expedition (Lieut. Lynch s) to 
 survey the Dead Sea that we follow up our government 
 project, with droves of our countrymen, each one of which is as 
 curious and inquiring after every thing, as if it were already his 
 own. Well ; who knows what our destiny may be? Palestine 
 may in the course of time have its representative in the Con 
 gress of the United States of America and Asia ; for 
 
 " Westward the star of empire takes its way." 
 
 And if that star will not set, but keep moving, I do not see that 
 we can help taking China, and so on. 
 
 Oh ! for a month s annexation of Naples to our Union, that 
 we might strike off the fetters from the thousands of Republican 
 prisoners, who are enslaved in sight of their beautiful city, and 
 that we might purge this Paradise of its serpents in human form, 
 which have preyed long enough upon the anguish of the noble 
 and patriotic. 
 
 As I write, the sound of military music mingles with the 
 soft rolling of the waters ; while every now and then a discharge 
 of musketry announces that some procession and celebration is 
 going on. We observe upon the piazza, and now entering the 
 promenade, a long congregation of white priests, carrying some 
 thing aloft, the host perhaps, while the people are kneeling 
 around. What strange devotion we meet with here. We were 
 shown in the Cathedral, forty silver images of the saints, large 
 as life, to say nothing of mines of silver in shrines, flowers and 
 sacred instruments. The churches do not equal those of Genoa, 
 much less those of Rome. There is not the same Art displayed. 
 
 A week has flown here, in this other Eden, upon golden 
 wing. It seems but a day or so, since we landed upon this 
 shore of love and beauty. Within that time how many images 
 
NAPLES ITS GAYETY AND DESOLATION. 183 
 
 of rare and exquisite form, aye, and of rare and exquisite 
 horror, have been painted on the memory ! Some of these have 
 been transcribed. Yet the prospect still enchants, and here I 
 would fain linger and write about each novel phase of beauty, 
 which is revealed under this kindlier sky and around this bay 
 of loveliness. Here is the perfection of external Nature, where 
 the sun, which is the glorious source of all our joys, warms 
 the soil into the most fragrant and richly-colored flowers and 
 delicious fruits, and developes a landscape that is only equalled 
 by the water scene which goldenly glows under the " blazing 
 Deity." The very silence is enamored of the soft plash upon 
 the shore, as it now invades so sweetly the ear, and locks in her 
 cell, her own " spirit ditties of no-tone." The isles of the bay 
 loom up amidst the sea, like isles of the blest. Every thing 
 seems to exist, to ornament a temple of Love and Purity. 
 Surely we can exclaim with the simple-hearted Miranda in the 
 Tempest. 
 
 " There s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. 
 
 If the ill spirit have so fair an house, 
 
 Good things will strive to dwell in it." 
 
 But look at the dwellers here the miserable, swart, ragged, 
 haggard lazzaroni ; look at the spectacle of soldiers all about ; 
 see that great fort surrounded by a deep moat in the midst of 
 the city, for the sovereign to protect himself from his own peo 
 ple ; and above all, look, as I have, deep down in the great abyss 
 of Vesuvius, walk over its smoking ashes and burning marl, 
 inhale its sulphur breath, and tremble amid its horror ; and 
 you will find that Providence has " mingled the cup." The gold 
 is not without alloy, the sun has its spots, the luscious fruitage 
 hath a canker at the heart ; in fine, Naples, the home of the 
 Homerian Siren, the seat of ancient Roman luxury, the resort 
 of the gay and pleasure-loving from every clime, the spot chosen 
 by Virgil for his repose ; the land favored by the presence and 
 described by the pen of Lamartine, Naples has its Vesuvius, 
 its Herculaneum buried beneath the indurated lava, and its 
 
184 NAPLES,-ITS QAYETT AND DESOLATION 
 
 desolated Pompeii under volcanic ashes, partly laid bare in its 
 garments of woe ! 
 
 All these spots we have visited, alternating from para 
 disiacal beauty to unutterable terror. We have seen the ex 
 humed relics of these cities in the great Museum, studied their 
 domestic history in the familiar household utensils and personal 
 ornaments, their pictures and statues. And, as if in mockery 
 of these warnings, we have listened to the sweet voices of the 
 " children of this azure sheen " swelling in mellow music and 
 falling in tremulous cadence, in the opera ; have seen them 
 decked for the gala day, with their altars and fountains decorat 
 ed as none but the Neapolitans can ornament them, and min 
 gled with them in their joy under the very shadow of that 
 fearful mountain, and over the very lava, under which lies stiff, 
 and rock-bound, the city of Herculaneum. 
 
 Of all the places I have yet seen, upon which Nature has 
 been lavish to prodigality, Naples seems the primal one. The 
 sense aches with the continual beauty of all around. "" In 
 sweet madness " the mind is robbed of itself, and in still ecstasy 
 it delights in the ineffable grace, music and loveliness which 
 curls, sings and moves in the water, and is reflected in the bend 
 ing blue above and the leafy landscape around. 
 
XIII. 
 
 Hrih unit Jfinlta. 
 
 " He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed 
 The saints as fervently on bended knees 
 As ever shaven cenobite." 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 FROM the sunny land of the military priesthood of St. John 
 my present greeting hails. Its unique and peculiar history 
 lends a charm which would not otherwise belong to these dazzling 
 streets and motley palaces. 
 
 We left Naples on Monday, the 23d of June, and were a 
 long time in losing sight of the bay of Beauty. All that is 
 magical in the combination of light and shade has been daguer- 
 reotyped by the mild sunshine upon our memory fadelessly 
 there pictured. We took our passage upon a French man-of-war. 
 All went below to sleep ; I alone remained above to obtain a 
 nearer view of the Isle of Caprae, which, from Naples had slept 
 so tremulously lovely amid her sheen of cerulean setting. We 
 passed between the isle and Point Campanelli, leaving Sorrenta 
 and Castel a Mare behind. The top of Vesuvius, with her flag 
 of smoke, darted behind the point. The farewell view of evanish 
 ing Naples, becomes more and more enchanting by distance, 
 which robes its sky and water in azure hue. Caprae looked 
 bleak and rocky. On the seaward side, I saw an arch formed 
 by rocks in the sea, under which undulations of light and water 
 flashed in rivalry of beauty. The Apennines range closely to 
 the shore indeed, their rocky barriers here shut in the sea. 
 Huge palisades rising 3000 feet or more, broken into promontory, 
 gorge, bay and inlet, guard the coast. The rocks were- mantled 
 
185 SICILY AND MALTA. 
 
 with a sort of yellow lichen. Here and there smiled spots of 
 cultivation. We gradually diverged from these shores, leaving 
 the Gulf of Salerno behind us, until we passed Point Palinurus, 
 whereabouts we watched a round and golden sun roll down his 
 disk into the waves. The waves were lit into blazing splendor 
 by his fire. A long line of dazzling, flashing radiance, swam 
 upon the horizon, under a canopy of cloud impurpled and red, 
 with long illumined cords and tassels dripping with sunlight 
 down to the water s edge. The spray made by the steamer was 
 as royally purple as the stole of the imperial Caesar. Soon the 
 last tint of gold was softened into a rich mellow lustre of orange. 
 Evening sobered down gradually into night. The flickering 
 shadows of the air played between the eye and the distant hori 
 zon. A sunset upon the Mediterranean is it not an object to be 
 seen with rapture ? What pen can distil its beauty into expres 
 sion, or enthrall, by words, the tranquil spirit of the scene ? 
 
 Yesterday morn I hurried on deck to see Stromboli with his 
 column of fire, and ^Etna with his pillar of smoke and his top of 
 snow. The last was just observable above the highlands of the 
 northeast part of Sicily. We had passed the gulfs which form 
 the instep of the boot of Italy, in the night, and were now in the 
 gulf of Grioja, approaching the veritable Scylla and the undoubted 
 Charybdis ! The land and water, too, of classic memories, begin 
 to appear as we draw near to Hellas and her Ionian isles. Scylla 
 is a high rock, twelve miles from Massena. Here the dogs of 
 Homer and Virgil barked in the caverns where the waves rolled 
 around the fabulous monster. We did not, owing to the state 
 of the tide, see any peculiar commotion, nor hear any peculiar 
 sounds. The waves glistened blue and bright as ever they did 
 to the eye of .ZEneas. The sailors had just washed the decks, 
 and were busy burnishing the metallic portions. The whistle 
 of the boatswain and the bustle of the sailors, the cries of the 
 officers to the pilots, and the additional man at the wheel, be 
 tokened that more than ordinary precaution is still necessary, 
 even with steam, to pass this point of classic terror. Our boat 
 
 
SICILY AND MALTA. 187 
 
 moves on ; but no opening appears. All is rock-bound, save a 
 sand bank, near a fort. This soon opens and displays the channel 
 of Massena, which divides the toe of Italy s boot from the north 
 east of Sicily. It seems as if some convulsion of nature had 
 torn this channel from the rocky range of the Apennines, leaving 
 the twin of horrors on either side to guard the shores. Massena 
 is in sight, and Charybdis with her slight whirl of waters, some 
 600 feet from Massena, on the Sicilian side, attracts the eye. 
 It is not a very great thing, although it plays such a " bloody 
 bones" part in the hexameter. Hell-gate, at Long Island, is 
 altogether more horrific. Indeed, since the Genoese sailor struck 
 out into the vexed Atlantic, putting to shame the Argonautic 
 and the Ulyssean expeditions, these old haunts of monsters look 
 like foolishness, especially from a steam boat. 
 
 The head point of Sicily is a sandy beach, upon which are 
 windowless houses, in a deserted fishing town. Massena is quite 
 a pretty place, half hid under the shade of the rough, uneven 
 mountains, orange-covered, yet bleak-looking, overtopping and 
 surrounding the city. 
 
 We pass under the guns of the fort, and are surrounded with 
 a motley crew in boats. Degenerate Sicilians ! Ye who were 
 once giants, and with your tread shook this volcanic (?) isle ; ye 
 who were once Cyclops, and with single eye glared, and with 
 heavy arm forged Jove s thunderbolts in the depths of the fires 
 of jEtna, Oh ! how have your glories been dimmed, since they 
 shone in the imagination of the bard of Scio ! 
 
 At breakfast we were desserted with green almonds, yellow 
 apricots, cherries, ripe pears and fresh figs. The latter had a 
 mawkish sweet taste, a little like our paw-paws, which they re 
 semble in form and color. We begin to feel in the South. In 
 deed, we are in Homer s " isle of the sun." 
 
 What vicissitudes, physical and historical, has not Sicily un 
 derwent ! Her first inhabitants were from Spain. She was sub 
 sequently held by Saracens, Turks, Spaniards. Austrians and 
 French. The Bourbon house was replaced upon the throne in 
 
188 SICILY AND MALTA. 
 
 1820. The Revolution of 1848 extended here. The marks of 
 it, in the ruined forts, are still visible. Successful for some 
 months, and separated from Naples, she was again, however, re 
 duced to the vassalage of Ferdinand II., the prince who now 
 adorns the throne of Naples. 
 
 After breakfast, we went on deck, when, looking astern, I 
 observed our steamer on fire! The sails were ablaze ! I hardly 
 knew, in my excitement, what to halloo, so I told an English 
 friend near, whose ready French proved very serviceable. The 
 sailors soon leaped amidst the rigging, tore the sails, and with 
 water quenched the fire. This little incident leads me to re 
 mark upon the extraordinary safety of the boats here, compared 
 with those at home. Human life is valued here much more than 
 human liberty. Why cannot America at least learn a lesson in 
 this regard from Europe ? 
 
 In some respects we could well interchange some of our own 
 manners and institutions for such knowledge. Let me exem 
 plify. Our bankers at Naples, correspondents of Barings, over 
 paid us $160 in gold, while paying 125 ! Such a mistake at 
 home would soon dismiss the officer. But the truth is, the Ital 
 ians are utterly unfit for business Two hours will hardly an 
 swer for them to do what our brokers would do in ten minutes. 
 Their bank at Naples was away up in the steeple of a church, 
 not so high, quite, as Vesuvius. It was a trial to wait upon 
 such business men. They are so absorbed by pleasure in the 
 luxurious noiv : that providence seems wholly severed from their 
 habits. Irresponsible, and careless even of their souls salvation, 
 they yield themselves to the gayety of the day, and commit 
 their future, here and hereafter, into the hands of chance, or 
 what is worse, of the priests, whose ready absolution is a perfect 
 salve for every wound. The genius of the West, and of the rug 
 ged North, seems to them a wild Quixotic adventure, to end in 
 pain and trouble. " Heart within," they have not, only as it 
 vibrates to the music of the festival, and the garlanding of flow 
 ers. " God o er head," what or where is He, save that He is 
 
SICILY AND MALTA. 189 
 
 enshrined in the visible images which are borne in the joyous 
 procession ? He breathes not in the beauteous landscape, nor 
 liquid depths, for them. His name, is but a name to be re 
 peated in the prayer, and to be pulselessly dead at the heart. 
 
 Before we leave Italy, let me generalize yet further. How 
 apparent to a student of the elder civilization does it differ 
 from our own civilization ! The old wholly absorbed the indi 
 vidual in the State. The new releases the individual from the 
 State, in every country, except Italy, where the State is so inti 
 mately inwoven with religion. There, religion enmeshes the 
 individual, and binds his energies. It absorbs the most sturdy 
 and active in its priesthood, and hands them over to the State 
 as curious specimens of free agents, to be again restricted and 
 bound. The old civilization withdrew men from the home-in 
 fluence to the temple, the forum, and the camp. The very con 
 struction of the domestic residences in Pompeii demonstrates 
 how weak was the domestic tie. No such words as comfort or 
 home are known in the Grecian or Roman Lexicon. The oppo 
 site is the case with most countries at the present day. The 
 domestic influence in Germany, England and America, has in 
 formed the soul of the State. But in Italy the same out-door 
 tendency pours its feeble rays of happiness, and sheds its glitter 
 of gala pleasure. The priest stands between husband and wife, 
 parent and child ; the little orifice of the confessional becomes 
 the medium of confidence ; and even that confidence hangs by as 
 brittle a thread as did the sword of Damocles. The State, as 
 sisted by the Church, yet binds down the energies of the mass 
 of Italy. The artists of Naples are honored by the King, for 
 representing by the pencil and chisel, Religion shielding and 
 supporting Ferdinand, while Justice smiles serenely upon the 
 royal miscreant, who is represented as triumphantly trampling 
 Constitutionalism under his feet. May we not hope that the 
 people will yet burst irrepressibly their iron encasement, and 
 stand forth throbbing in the liberty of individual independence ! 
 
 Naples is yet hopelessly bound. The King has his moat- 
 
190 SICILY AND MALTA. 
 
 surrounded forts, his trained bands, and his kind Austrian 
 friends. These seem to be invincible ; but another Massaniella 
 may arise even from the humble fishermen who drag the beauti 
 ful bay, and with a surer stroke decapitate the head of kingcraft 
 in Naples. The government encourages pleasure and priestly 
 rule ; and thus renders the popular mind oblivious of all inhe 
 rent dignity and right. 
 
 We passed to-day some spots sacred to the memory of the 
 early Christians. "Paul after having been shipwrecked" in the 
 ship from Alexandria (see Acts, chapter 28), upon the shore of 
 Miletus, the present Malta, landed at Syracuse, and " tarried 
 there three days," and from thence " he fetched a compass, and 
 came to Rhegium," which place we passed to-day. It was along 
 these blue waves, and under the same warm sunlight, that the 
 great Apostle followed his noble appeal unto Caesar, even to the 
 eternal city itself ! But more thrilling still, I now write to you 
 from the very isle of his shipwreck, and the very place where his 
 eloquent tongue bade the inhuman sailors stay their hands : 
 " Except these men abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved !" and 
 he thus protected the four prisoners from death at the hands of 
 their custodians ; the very spot where the viper fell innocuous 
 into the fire, and where the simple barbariaus proclaimed him 
 in very deed a Deity ! 
 
 Some doubts have arisen as to the identity of Malta with 
 the Miletus of the Acts ; but the place where " the two seas 
 come together," can be no other. Controversy has settled upon 
 Malta. 
 
 Before we left Sicily, the sun went down over distant ^Etna. 
 Cape Mirro de Porci was left behind in a haze of splendor. 
 Shakspeare has given to Syracuse, which floats in yonder dim 
 light, a local habitation for his muse, and mathematicians hail 
 it as the home of Archimedes. 
 
 This morning we woke up in the rock-ribbed, trebly fortified 
 harbor of Malta. The English flag a relief to one s eyes 
 floated above us. The land of the Hospitaller and the Grand 
 
SICIL Y AND HAL TA. 191 
 
 Master was around us. This island was given to the Knights by 
 Charles V. after they had been driven out of Palestine. From 
 the fifteenth century to the time of Napoleon, the Grand Masters 
 ruled here, midway between the Christian and Moslem world. 
 "We have spent the day partly in looking at the strange tombs 
 of the Knights of St. John and the Cathedral of that name. 
 Yesterday was his festal day. The Cathedral was carpeted over 
 with the orange leaves which hid the rich Mosaics. The great 
 tapestries in which shines the life of the Saint, hung splendidly 
 from the frescoed arches. We passed into the Armory, all 
 around which the old knights, devoid of their bodies, stiff in 
 their armor, seem to keep guard. Curious relics were there 
 flags and trophies won from Saracen by Knight, and ordnance 
 of antique mould. The keys of Jerusalem hung rusty by the 
 side of those of Acre and Rhodes. 
 
 This city was taken by Napoleon on his route to Egypt, 
 and the reign of the Grand Masters ceased. By voluntary 
 annexation (a precedent for Texas) the isle was placed under 
 British sway. But the quaint influence of the priestly soldier 
 yet clings to each palace and church, giving strange and 
 attractive features to each object around us. The order of the 
 Knights was composed of persons from different European na 
 tions, distributed according to language. Their portraits in 
 the Armory denote decision and devotion ; and their arms and 
 armor bespeak, by dents and weight, a stalwart and doughty 
 Knighthood. Here the last rays of the orb of chivalry lingered 
 about the gown of the churchman, long after that orb had dis 
 appeared from the horizon. Here the hardest siege of modern 
 history was sustained by the French, who in 1799, after two 
 years resistance, capitulated to Lord Nelson. 
 
 The isle is barren and dry, occasionally siroccoed by south 
 west winds. Every class and every nation is here to be found ; 
 a varied assemblage ; 
 
 " Long-haired Sclavonian skipper with the red 
 And scanty cap which ill protects his head; 
 
192 SICILY AND MALTA. 
 
 White-kilted Suliot, gay and gilded Greek, 
 
 Grave, turbancd Turk, and Moor of swarthy cheek. 
 
 We cannot throw off the influence of Malta so readily. We 
 saw so much at the famous refuge of the Knights, so much 
 illustrative of the early struggles of the Crusaders to regain 
 and to keep Palestine, so much illustrative of the exterminating 
 wars between the Knights of St. John and the Templars, as 
 well as between Christian and Turk, that it would take a long 
 scroll to write it. 
 
 This isle of Malta seems to be well governed by the British, 
 but it is a nest of beggary. Such a group of beggars never be 
 set poor humanity, as clung to us when we emerged from our 
 hotel. I had to beat them off with my Vesuvius club, so impu 
 dently daring were they to our ladies as well as to ourselves. 
 Before we left Malta harbor, a band of four fiddlers, smoking 
 cigars, twanged all around our boat for coppers. Although the 
 mate gave them a few splashes with the wheel occasionally to 
 keep them off, and although his " Sacr-r-r-es " rolled deep and 
 long, still they rowed and fiddled, and fiddled and rowed, until 
 our noble steamer drowned their harmony in its noise, as it 
 moved out amid the eight forts of this invincible harbor. The 
 involutions of these stony fabrics are wondrous. They were 
 framed by the Grand Masters, one after the other, each trying 
 to excel his predecessor, in giving strength to this last resort 
 of chivalry against the Moslem foe. The open sea is angry and 
 rough. Ten ships float in the offing, looking spectral and 
 shadowy against the evening sky. They form the English fleet, 
 which is hourly expected at Malta. 
 
 The pitching of the vessel admonishes me to cease record 
 ing, and to retire below. 
 
 Farewell to Malta ! Athens ATHENS the home of the 
 spiritually Beautiful is our promise, and thitherward we shall 
 be wending, even though unconscious, in sleep. 
 
 
XIV. 
 
 " " tip (gp nf torn," 
 
 . " TRUTHS serene 
 
 Made visible in Beauty, that shall glow 
 In everlasting freshness ; unapproached 
 By mortal passion ; pure amidst the blood 
 And dust of Conquest ; never waxing old, 
 But on the stream of time, from age to age 
 Casting bright images of heavenly youth, 
 To make the world less mournful." 
 
 Talfourd 1 * Athenian Captive. 
 
 THE heart throbbed wildly as the vessel approached the shores 
 of Attica. Far different is its throbbing from that caused 
 by the distant view of Rome. One was the citadel of power, 
 physical and temporal, even in its grandest exhibition. The 
 other is the citadel of power, intellectual and immortal. The 
 shores of Greece as they frown upon the sea, are instinct with 
 a genius which men will ever venerate. The general aspect of 
 the shores of Attica is that of extreme barrenness and asperity, 
 unrelieved by a single tree, and rarely by a shrub. There are 
 no level lawns or beautiful groves, with which poetry would in 
 vest the land of Homer and Plato. Cicero said truly of yon 
 island far to our northward, and of its ruler Ulysses, that he 
 loved Ithaca " non quia larga^ sed quia sua" He might have 
 extended the generalization so as to have included every Gre 
 cian ; and have added, " they loved not their country because it 
 had any attractive scenery, but simply because it was Greece." 
 What Homer in his Odyssey says of Ithaca, may be truly said 
 of all the Grecian coast. It is horrid with cliffs, with little or 
 no herbage, allowing scarcely a mouthful to the mountain goat 
 9 
 
194 A MIENS, " THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 Greece is almost sea-surrounded. A small isthmus attaches 
 Morea to the main land. How could such a barren soil become 
 so great ? Why do we gaze with such earnestness upon yon lit 
 tle neck of rocky earth between Mount Cithaeron and Cape Su- 
 nium 1 Why do we wander with rapture under the plane-trees, 
 where Plato taught, or lean entranced against the Pentelic pil 
 lars of the Parthenon ? Why do we listen to the subtleties of 
 Zeno from the portico ? What surrounds each statue with an 
 auriole of light ; what covers each mountain with a glory like a 
 God ? Why do nations meet here to mourn over ruins, and grow 
 eloquent over dust ? Why are millions spent here in excavating 
 the works of the dead past ? Why has an archaeological soci 
 ety exhumed the fragmentary pillars of the temples of old? 
 Greece was the thinking head and beating heart of the world ; 
 the first and brightest link in the genealogy of genius. The 
 human mind here received its first great impulse, and it has ever 
 since measured its advancement by the influence of literary men 
 deeply read in the lore of Greece. The influence of letters over 
 every other influence, is attested by every page of the world s 
 annals ; but the annals of Greece are a complete unity of evi 
 dence, every line of which is instinct with a salutary influence. 
 
 Can we help wondering that such a barren soil should have 
 been so productive of great thoughts ? Let it be remembered 
 that the very difficulty to be contended with, " like a skilful 
 wrestler, strengthened the nerves," and made the Spartans and 
 Athenians, what they will ever remain, the soul of Antiquity. 
 
 We passed, at evening, the famous island of Cytheria, now 
 called Cerigo. Dark clouds, with long fringes, floated grace 
 fully over Sparta. The hills arc dark, and not ungracefully 
 pencilled against the western sky. which glows in gold, here and 
 there dimmed by wavy cloudlets. The purple light plays upon 
 the foam of our gallant ship How does the spirit recur to the 
 past, and with that active race who lived upon yon shore, people 
 the sky and earth and sea, with shapes of dreamlike beauty and 
 austere dignity ! Even there upon that bleak island, which is 
 
ATHENS," THE EYE OF GREECE." 195 
 
 now used as the Botany Bay of Ionia, it is fabled that the beau 
 tiful goddess of love had her favorite resort. There where 
 Helen, the " source of all the woe of Troy," was born, the ge 
 nius of Greece imagined it saw the winged messengers of the 
 goddess float in the purple light of love ; and here, amidst this 
 cerulean sea, it saw the goddess herself arise the conqueror of 
 conquerors the charm of Mars and the companion of Jove ! 
 
 As night closes over the land of Lycurgus, it seems to lie 
 solemn and severe in thoughtfulness. No gayety or delight, 
 such as hovered around Naples, is present to break the spell. 
 With what longing does the mind once accustomed to ponder 
 the thoughts that breathed and burned in the classic pages of 
 j^Eschylus and Thucydides linger about those silent hills the 
 home of song and philosophy. 
 
 Saturday morning found us at the Pireus. Its houses looked 
 low and quite oriental. The stone as well as the sandy soil, 
 was white and dazzling the roofs are red. The most pic 
 turesque part of the view is the people in their peculiar cos 
 tume. We had a fine chance to study them. They thronged 
 about our boat, before it had fairly stopped, in their little boats, 
 eager for the drachmas. Dressed in their long red caps, with 
 long purple tassels ; a finely -wrought waistcoat, of red or blue, 
 very dark, over a white boddice ; and a flowing skirt around the 
 body, snow-white and sashed ; together with elegant, tasselled 
 leggings ; they formed a sculpturesque and picturesque group ! 
 Some of the meaner kind were dressed in big baggy pants, 
 which draggled in the dirt, and looked any thing but classical. 
 
 A great contest was approaching, or was going on, as to who 
 should be No. 1, in the forthcoming spoil of passengers. All 
 were huddled around our gangway, when splash ! went the 
 wheel of the steamboat ; and away went wet trowsers, and at 
 high tide, darted all the boats into the bay. Then came the 
 tug of Greek with Greek, to get to the place of fortune again. 
 A second splash ! At last, an old Frenchman, with Madame and 
 child, descend for a boat. A rush of boats takes place, and 
 
196 ATHENS, " THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 there follows a scene so novel in boating, to an American, that 
 we transcribe it as a specimen of the manners of the descend 
 ants of Epaminondas and Pericles. Boat No. 1 catches Ma 
 dame as she descends, the picture of the " unprotected female" 
 in Punch. While politely seating her, No. 2 seizes the old 
 man, and drags him into his boat he just escaping a cold bath. 
 No. 1 runs up for the baggage, which Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 have 
 seized, amidst terrific jabberings ; and which they seem deter 
 mined to divide piecemeal. Madame discovers her isolated 
 state, and reaching out her arms frantically, screams, " Papa !" 
 " Papa !" as no one but a Frenchwoman can. The young scion 
 adds his treble. The guns from the Greek man-of-war thunder 
 ing a reception to the French admiral, who had just left the 
 other side of our boat for his ship, join the chorus. Amid this 
 noise and the smoke, the din of Grecian conflict continues. No. 
 2 quickly joins his boat, and Madame and child tumble over 
 into it. No. 1 returns to find his prey minus, discovers the tri 
 umph of No. 2, and makes a lurch at him for the robbery. 
 They clinch, and over they roll, perfectly unconscious of the 
 fickle elements below ; still, they somehow manage to keep in 
 the boats. No. 3 rushes to the rescue ; knocks off Madame s 
 hat ; while the disapproving scion pummels him with his little 
 fists. Madame screams. Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, &c., rush to the 
 melee, with oars, boat-hooks, and boots in air. The Laocoon 
 was never so involuted as the twisting folds of these lithe Gre 
 cians. All is confusion. We stand above, laughing at the sin 
 gular scene, while its objects, the passengers, crawl off into boat 
 No. 9, and escape to the shore. Our officers are kicking at the 
 heads of the Grecians as they approach within range. At 
 last, our mate suggests the old expedient, and buckets of cold 
 water are plenteously rained in upon the fighting mass. The 
 Greek man-of-war sends a boat of sailors to aid the hydropathic 
 expedient ; and in peace we are permitted to land upon the 
 shores of Greece. 
 
 These Greeks bear the reputation of lying, cheating rascals. 
 
 . 
 
ATHENS," THE EYE OF GREECE." 197 
 
 At every chance they take advantage of each other, as well as 
 of strangers. They have a good share of enterprise. Those 
 who come from the islands are especially sharp and active. But 
 moral sensibility seems utterly imbruted among them. The 
 same race who introduced by fraud the horse into Troy, the 
 same who pretended to leave Troy, and hid in that little isle of 
 Tenedos, which we are approaching, the same nation whose 
 faith was a-proverb for inconstancy, still people Attica. There 
 is little to attract in the first glance at Greece. Every thing 
 looks arid and dry. Ham they have not had for the three sum 
 mer months. The olives are the only trees, and they look dusty 
 and parched. Some few years ago the snow laid nearly a whole 
 day upon the ground about Athens, and killed the oranges and 
 vines, while it withered the olive considerably. 
 
 We learned at the Pireus that it would be impossible to go 
 to Joppa before the middle or last of July, as the Austrian 
 steamer does not leave till then. Consequently we shall have 
 to omit our Jerusalem trip, and be satisfied with a visit to the 
 Capital of the Ottoman. 
 
 The kind and urbane missionary at the Pireus, Mr. Buel 
 of the Baptist denomination, received us most cordially. We 
 had a letter to him from our Consul at Malta. Mr. Buel offered 
 to guide us among the ruins of Athens, which offer was readily 
 accepted. A better guide never traveller rejoiced in. He is 
 indeed a scholar and a Christian gentleman, and his life abroad 
 is not without incident, which marks him as a man of earnest 
 will and heroic devotion in the cause of liberty and gospel 
 truth. 
 
 Our country has reason to be proud of its missionaries here. 
 Dr. King and Mr. Hill are the missionaries at Athens; the 
 former is of the American Board, and the latter, I believe, is an 
 Episcopalian. Dr. King, as well as Mr. Buel, has been sub 
 jected to litigation and trouble, on account of the jealousy and 
 intolerance of the Greek monks. These missionaries are the 
 representatives of free discussion, guarantied by the Greek Con- 
 
198 ATHENS," THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 stitution, but little known in its practical significance.* When 
 pressed too hard by those in power, they have one argument 
 which never fails them. It is an appeal to the "stripes and 
 stars." The other Sunday, some of the monks of the Greek 
 Church, wishing to embroil Dr. King in a difficulty, repaired to 
 his church, in company with a mob of students from the Univer 
 sity, apparently for the purpose of discussion. The Doctor had 
 a full house. After proceeding in his sermon, he was -interrupted 
 by a monk, who wished to propound certain queries, the object 
 of which was to draw out from Dr. King some expressions invid 
 ious to the Greek Church. The Doctor told him, that if he 
 would come the next day he would answer him, as he did not 
 desire a discussion at that time. But they would not be put off. 
 Fierce gestures and threatenings followed, and they began to 
 advance upon the Doctor. A few days before, a tin box with a 
 flag containing quite a number of stripes, and more stars, had 
 arrived at Athens for our Consul, and in his absence it was left 
 with Dr. King, Consul ad interim. The Doctor s servant qui 
 etly slipped up stairs in the midst of the row, and while the 
 students were advancing on the Doctor, returned with the flag, 
 and spread it out from the pulpit ! Hurrah ! but you should 
 have seen those scions of the heroes and demi-gods slink, like 
 whipped sheep-dogs, out of the house. Not a word more, not a 
 gesture, but a quiet sneak away from the republican flag, told 
 
 * Since my return to America, I have seen it stated that Dr. King had 
 been arrested for an alleged reviling of the Greek religion ; that the Court 
 below had found him guilty, but that the case had been removed to a higher 
 tribunal. The final hearing was had on the 18th of December, 1851, when 
 Mr. Pilikas, one of Dr. King s lawyers, and prytannis, or president of the 
 University, maintained, in an able speech, that controversy was not reviling 
 the Greek religion; and when he took occasion to pay several handsome 
 compliments to America, as the home of free thought and free speech. If 
 Dr. King should succeed, of which there is small hope, owing to the corrup 
 tion of the Court and the influence of the Government, it will be a triumph 
 of civil and religious liberty worthy of that city where Socrates taught and 
 Plato reasoned, 
 
ATHENS^-" TliE EYE OF UllEECE." 199 
 
 more of the influence of true liberty than Greece has felt for 
 many a long year. The ancient Greeks used to imagine a Hes 
 perian clime, beyond the pillars of Hercules, near the setting 
 sun; and Plato organized an imaginary commonwealth, where 
 human passion played harmoniously and subordinately for the 
 public weal, without jar or rupture. Out of such a clime, and 
 from such a republic, an influence emanated as ideal as it was 
 potent upon the soul of the plastic Grecian. May we not hope 
 that an analagous influence, as real as it is potent, shall emanate 
 from our own Hesperus, to mould anew the dynasties of corrupt 
 power in this eastern world ? 
 
 When I left home I did not dream of going farther east 
 than Rome. To be permitted to see the source of all that is 
 beautiful in Art, glorious in Poetry, profound in Philosophy, 
 and powerful in Eloquence, was a joy too great for my limited 
 hope. But I have stood upon the Acropolis ! Although I 
 had been utterly oblivious of all my voyaging hither, yet I 
 could have told immediately, that Attic elegance, even in its 
 ruins, environed me, and that this was indeed the marvel of 
 Taste, the adornment of Pericles, and the eye of Greece. 
 
 Five miles through the plain, once covered with the homes 
 of Athenians, now denuded of all save a few olive orchards and 
 vineyards, bring us to the city from the Pireus. Formerly, the 
 Pireus formed a part of Athens. A walled street connected 
 them. A chariot course was upon these walls. You may re 
 member that Socrates used to go down to the Pireus, to talk 
 with the unsophisticated whom he met there, and from whom 
 he learned many of those familiar figures of speech which con 
 vey so aptly great truths. Few ruins line the way. The Par 
 thenon upon the Acropolis first catches the eye, and detains it 
 to the last. Mr. Buel informed me that from his house in the 
 Pireus, he could count its pillars, so clear is the glisten of the 
 Pentelic marble in this transparent air. Far above the city 
 looms up the Acropolis. From it, as from the elevated centre 
 of a charmed circle, the eye may sweep the most soul-stirring 
 
200 ATHENS," THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 scenery of the world, unless we except the yiew from the Mount 
 of Olives. 
 
 I had been led, by hearing an Englishman expressing his 
 disgust of Athens and its relics, to expect but a meagre view of 
 these hallowed scenes. Perhaps I owe the intense interest I 
 took in these associations and localities, to the intelligent and 
 communicative missionary who accompanied us. 
 
 In ascending the Acropolis, we first stop at the temple of 
 Theseus. It was built 465 B. c. Its parts are perfect still. 
 The roof is modern. An earthquake has shaken it, doubtless, 
 for the different portions of the pillars have been disturbed from 
 their original base. Thirty-four beautiful Doric columns attest 
 the grace and elegance of this style of architecture. On the 
 eastern facade all the ten metopes are occupied with bass-reliefs, 
 representing the labors of Hercules f whose friendship for Theseus 
 is thus shown. The relics of the demi-god, Theseus, were brought 
 here from the isle of Skyros, and interred. 
 
 The Theseum is but a stepping-stone, by which to ascend to 
 greater beauties and more hallowed localities. What means 
 this large area, braced around by immense hewn stones, so im 
 mense that it seems impossible that human might could have 
 brought them here ? Sixteen by ten feet in size, these stones 
 range around the Pynx, so called from their pressing the earth 
 upward. Above, as it were in the most commanding point of 
 the vicinity, is a solid, flinty rock, carved into a platform, with 
 seats for different officers and the orators. We can hear from 
 ?the farthest point of the Bema the ordinary conversation 
 K)f our French friends, who have anticipated our ascent to 
 this massive throne of the Grecian demus the throne of Oratory 
 and Statesmanship. The Bema is turned from the sea to the 
 inland. Formerly it was upon the summit of the hill, but so 
 potent and thrilling were the allusions of the orators, as well as 
 their gestures as they pointed out the naval scenes of triumph, 
 that the thirty tyrants removed it further down. But it still 
 Commands a view of the Acropolis ; and that view furnished 
 
ATHENS "THE EYE OF GREECE." 201 
 
 Demostenes with one of his finest allusions to the gods, who 
 were ranged in statues above him upon the right, in his famous 
 oration upon the crown. 
 
 We stand upon the solid platform, where Demosthenes, JRs- 
 chines, and their compatriots, harangued the people. An area 
 of 12,000 yards is about us. There is no doubt of the identity 
 of this place, however problematical other places may be. There 
 are two spots renowned, the one in sacred, and the other in pro 
 fane history, as to the particular identity of which, there cannot 
 linger a possible shade of doubt. One is Jacob s well the 
 scene of the memorable conference between our Saviour and the 
 Samaritan woman. It is dug in the solid rock. You may be 
 sure when you stand over Jacob s well, that you are at least 
 within a few feet of the spot where Jesus stood. The place of 
 the Holy Sepulchre, of the crucifixion, of the ascension, and of 
 the transfiguration, are all in darkness or doubt. About Jacob s 
 well, Mahomedan, Jew. Christian, and Infidel, all agree. Not 
 less certain is the spot marked as the Grecian Bema. When 
 you stand there, you may be certain that you stand just where 
 Demosthenes stood, when he hurled his torrent of indignation 
 upon his opponents, and shook, by his words of thunder, Artax- 
 erxes throne. From no spot in the world has emanated such 
 winged words, freighted with so warm an enthusiasm, and so 
 cogent a logic. It stirred the soul, to stand on this throne of 
 oratory to image forth the scene of that memorable day when 
 j^Eschines the polished actor of the theatre and the glosing 
 courtier of the people, met the Prince of Orators in the question 
 about the crown, and was forever whelmed in the popular cle 
 ment over which he had so often skimmed, volubly and grace 
 fully. From that fountain sprung the mighty flood of speech, 
 which through ages has rolled on as it began, in a channel ever 
 full. never overflowing. Well did it merit the eulogium of 
 Brougham, who loved himself to quaff of its inspiring influence, 
 " whether it rushed in a torrent of allusion, or moved along in a 
 majestic expo sition of enlarged principle, or descended hoarse 
 9* 
 
202 ATHENS" THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 and headlong in overwhelming invective, or glided melodious in 
 narrative and description, or spread itself out shining in illustra 
 tion its course is ever onward, ever entire ; never scattered, 
 never stagnant never sluggish." Oh ! for one tone one living 
 breath of the old oratory from this, its early altar ! Oh ! for 
 one of those vehement anathemas against Philip, which have 
 spread the fame of Grecian oratory through the long centuries 
 and over wide seas and continents ; or even for one of his infe 
 rior harangues in favor of lihodian liberty, or upon the Classes, 
 on the Halonesus, or for the regulation of the State ; each and 
 all, compressed with energy and relevant with cogency ; ever 
 pervaded by prayerful devotion to the gods and to his native 
 city ! But we have no echo here of the mighty voice. Greece 
 is pulseless, and no tone could arouse her now. With the great, 
 Past filling the charmed air, we can but stand and wonder in 
 silence ! 
 
 Let us ascend that other hill of solid limestone yet nearer 
 the Acropolis. The path upward is rough and uneven from the 
 Bema ; although when Paul ascended it, to gratify the Athenian 
 love of novelty, he doubtless surmounted Mars Hill from the 
 other side, where, worn by rain, yet still visible, are steps cut in 
 the solid limestone. I sought my pocket Testament, for here 
 was the spot of sacred oratory. 
 
 Boys were flying kites from its summit. Donkeys and sheep 
 were lying lazily around its base. Burs and thistles hang to 
 each spot where vegetation may eke out its scanty subsistence. 
 A tall, flinty cliff rises beyond the city of Athens, which is 
 gathered into a small space below. The long olive plains spread 
 out beneath the eye even to the sea. A column stands on a 
 hill upon the right, still higher than Mars, erected to Philopopus 
 in the first century. Before us is the Acropolis the invincible 
 and the beautiful whose store of relics, with their tasteful de 
 corations, " empearl the starless ages" of the world. But here, 
 upon this spot, first broke upon the world of philosophy, that 
 light which alone enunciates the principle of life and immor- 
 
ATHENS," THE EYE OF GREECE." 203 
 
 tality ; that gospel which cast into the shade all the logomachies 
 of the schools and the discoveries of science, which reduces into 
 nothingness even that beautiful system of unity and the highest 
 improvement of reason, which PLATO, walking beneath those 
 green olives upon the left, and in the mellifluousness of his di 
 vine tongue, eliminated, unassisted by Revelation. What are 
 they all, compared to the annunciation of Paul from Mars Hill, 
 when he declared to the men of Athens, the unknown God, and 
 that this God made the world and all things therein, seeing 
 that He is Lm~d of Heaven and earth, dwelling not in TEMPLES 
 made with hands ! To feel the force of this declaration, one 
 must stand where Paul stood, and read it in view of the tem 
 ples, gorgeous and glistening, springing rounded to columns" 
 from each mound and hill, and especially from that lofty hill to 
 which he doubtless pointed, as he referred crowned by the 
 most splendid architectural triumph of all time ! An illustra 
 tion thus forcible and striking, could not have fallen upon dull 
 ears. It had its fruit, for we read that Dionysius, the Areopa- 
 gite, was converted. 
 
 There are traces of a church to St. Dionysius, below the north 
 east corner of the Areopagus, erected to commemorate his con 
 version. Upon the level of the hill, above the steps spoken of, 
 at the southeast angle of the hill, is a bench, excavated in lime 
 stone, forming three sides of a quadrangle. It faces the south. 
 The Areopagus sat here, it is said. Dark, dread, tribunal ; in 
 its nightly sittings, uninfluenced by mercy, and hard as its ada 
 mantine seats to the approach of clemency ! 
 
 The Parthenon rises majestically from its solid basis. Al 
 though the Venetian has been upon that basis and built his un 
 gainly towers ; although the bombs of the Turk, fragments of 
 which we saw, have shattered many a beautiful capital and 
 column ; although a magazine here exploded, tearing out the 
 fine sides of this incomparable structure, yet there it stands 
 the glory of the city, and the pride of the sea. The Acro 
 polis itself is 150 feet above the level of the plain. Upon 
 
204 ATHENS" THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 this is the Temple. In the temple was once the tall statue 
 of Minerva, whose tall spear, tipped with a flag, was the first 
 object which met the returning sailor, as he weathered Cape 
 Sunium. The great plain of the old city spread around. Alas ! 
 but a plain compared with that Athens which triumphed . at 
 Marathon, Salamis, and Platea. But the eye may yet trace the 
 boundaries of the Academy and the Lyceum ; whose systems, false 
 in many respects, detained, by their intellectual spell, the ad 
 vancing mind of the world for fifteen centuries. The bed of the 
 Illissus ha ! ha ! what a river for an American to look at ! 
 The Sciota compared to it, is as the Mississippi to the Sciota. 
 The classic stream is but a little dry run, shrunk into nothing, 
 and hardly traceable. The Cephissus, which we crossed in 
 coming to Athens from Pireus, is little larger, but rejoices in a 
 sprinkle of water. Upon the west is the sea, with Salamis bay 
 and isle. The Athenians could easily have seen from this point 
 the battle of Salamis, where Themistocles covered himself with 
 such glory as Grecians alone knew how to bestow. His tomb 
 still looks down, in lonely grandeur, upon the scene of his tri 
 umph. 
 
 In an opposite direction rise, in serene and dim beauty, the 
 hill Colonos, and the Pentelic mountains, both kno_wn in the 
 muse of Sophocles. The stadium, the space over which the 
 charioteers burned to gain the goal, is spread out between us and 
 the distant hills. The theatre of Bacchus, in which the drama of 
 Greece was displayed with its furies, demi-gods, and gods lies 
 below, marked by a few columns. Other monuments, erected 
 by the Romans, Hadrian s amphitheatre, and such like, are in a 
 better state of preservation. 
 
 The temple of Jupiter Olympus detains the eye longer. It 
 was completed by a Roman emperor. Sixteen Corinthian col 
 umns yet remain to tell its superiority. Sixty feet high they 
 tower ; while anciently they performed the circuit of 2,300 feet. 
 The whole length of the building was 354 feet, and the number 
 of columns was 120. Now as \ look at its remains, the eye finds its 
 
ATHENS 11 THE EYE OF GJtEECE." 205 
 
 area covered by great stacks of wheat, in the process of thresh 
 ing. Men are superintending. This process was peculiar. Im 
 agine three cultivators, or corn harrows, with teeth turned back 
 ward ; these chained together, and a man on each ; drawn by 
 horses trampling the straw, while men were engaged in stirring it 
 up, and you have a very unscientific description of the threshing 
 process. Women were riding the horses, and stirring the straw, 
 assisting the work. A motley group that, in the temple of Ju- 
 pittv ! Why so much straw here? It is a ridiculous law, that 
 every farmer shall bring his wheat or grain into one point fixed 
 by the officer, there to be threshed in his presence, so that gov 
 ernment may take its toll ! American farmers ! how would 
 you like that ? Jupiter Olympus ! would you not upset such a 
 government in a jiflfy ? 
 
 A Spartan band were playing most execrably under the lofty 
 columns of Jupiter s temple. They had come as far as possible 
 out of Athens, in order that they might not be heard. There 
 is more harmony for the eye than the ear upon the Acropolis. 
 The former has not yet been exhausted. The statues, fragments 
 of tracery and inscriptions are gathered here. In each, even 
 though broken and defaced, one may see that excellent device 
 and wonderous slight, which formed so much to gratify the love 
 of beauty. Many a lady at home admires an edging, or inter 
 jects in wonder over a figure in a fabric, whose fine original peeps 
 out of the broken Pentelic upon the Acropolis. Many a grace 
 has been stolen by genius from these rude fragments, which 
 now shines in fresh habilaments of stone in the villas of Italy 
 and the homes of England. All the great eras of history are dis 
 tinguished by some enthusiastic sentiment as a universal princi 
 ple of action. That period of Grecian glory when the distin 
 guishing sentiment was most prominent was that of Pericles ; 
 and that sentiment was an intense love of the beautiful, not alone 
 in form, but in idea. If a fane of alabaster rose gracefully un 
 der the enchanting sky, amid its groves of myrtles and olives, 
 waving under the gentle breeze, there was also an answering 
 
206 ATHENS" THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 soul of beauty dilating under its shadows, at the vision of truth 
 serene, spreading graces forth, and visible in their beauty. 
 
 PLATO all radiant and divine ; what soul, unassisted by 
 direct intercourse with its Maker, ever dared a bolder flight 
 than his, toward that Christianity which God incarnate came to 
 teach ! Did he not dedicate his youth at the feet of Socrates, 
 and his old age in yonder grove, the first fruits and the latter 
 growth, to the upbuilding of the fairest fabric which human 
 Reason ever reared in honor of its Maker ? Where is the rule 
 of life, the sentiment of affection, the profound thought, which 
 he has not touched and adorned 1 Did he not probe the deepest 
 truth in Nature, when he said : " Let us declare the cause which 
 led the Supreme Ordainer to produce and compose the Universe. 
 He was good ; and he who is good has no kind of envy. Ex 
 empt from envy, he- wished that all things should be as much 
 as possible like himself. All things are for the sake of the good, 
 and it is the cause of every thing beautiful." In one thing 
 only did he fail. He gave no authoritative rule of duty, for he 
 was not commissioned from on high. Oh ! if his seraphic soul 
 could have seen that glory which beamed in the mild star of 
 Bethlehem, and could have listened to the eloquent Apostle 
 from Mars Hill, as he dissipated the mists of all the schools, by 
 declaring that " He gave to all, life and breath and all things," 
 and that " in Him we live and move and have our being," what 
 rapture would not his great mind have felt, what humility would 
 have graced the seer of Academus ! 
 
 Such reflections, and such like, have made our visit to Athens 
 one of deepest interest. It is not the modern city not the 
 temples of Victory, of the Winds, of Bacchus, or of Jupiter 
 
 even, it is not the prison cut in the rock, and pointed out to us 
 
 as the abode of Socrates in his last hours, it is not the foun 
 tains and caves, not any external form of Nature or Art, which 
 gives to Greece its never-dying spell of enchantment. Athens 
 lies calmly beautiful to the mental eye, as the old haunt of 
 Wisdom, Poetry, Oratory, Art, and Heroism. The eye seeks 
 
ATHENS," THE EYE OF GREECE." 207 
 
 in vain for the " warrior s weapon and the sophist s stole ;" the 
 Grecian phalanx no longer moves to the eye, and the Orators no 
 longer spell-bind the people from the Berna ; but it is enough 
 that here was once 
 
 "The dome of Thought the palace of the soul!" 
 
 After examining the singular construction of the Parthenon, 
 in which there is not a single straight line strange though it 
 seem after measuring with the eye that singular adaptation, 
 by which part is made to lean upon and support part, thus ren 
 dering a part equal in strength to the whole, after sweeping the 
 horizon again and again, and standing upon that " lofty mountain 
 thought" which rises out of the City of Minerva, we felt the 
 spirit stretch into a view, so full of life, and splendor, and joy, 
 that its transcript seems as impossible as its reality was sublime. 
 One should stand upon the Acropolis, before boasting of having 
 seen aught or felt aught elsewhere on this round globe. 
 
 But I must descend. Our guide, the kind missionary, invites 
 us to his house. While awaiting the hospitable tea, the sun 
 sinks in gold below Salamis, and gentle airs are wafted over the 
 Pireus. A. Grecian tea it was dainty and elegant. With the 
 tea is taken delicate preserves made from the split leaves from 
 the heart of the rose, and with the water, a sweet transparent 
 paste called rahatlikum, common in the Orient. But most we 
 delight to remember the kindly grace and the genuine goodness 
 of Mr. Buel. who saw us safely upon our boat, and regretfully left 
 us to our eastern path. Had we remained longer with him, he 
 promised us the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Black, Byron s " Maid 
 of Athens," and the daughter of Marco Bozzaris (pronounced 
 Botezarris), who are his neighbors, and frequently spend their 
 evenings with him. The former is now a respectable matron of 
 a large family. The latter is no longer connected with the 
 Queen s Court. 
 
 Athens in itself has nothing striking in its appearance. It 
 contains 23.000 people, but seems no larger than one of our or 
 dinary county .seats. It lies in a triangular shape. I do not 
 
208 ATHENS" THE EYE OF GREECE." 
 
 see how they can pack so much humanity in it. But its streets 
 are narrow. Men need no more house room here, however, than 
 will serve as their couch. The shops are scanty and small. 
 The baking is done at public ovens, on the associated Fourier 
 principle. There are plenty of carriages at Athens, and cheap ; 
 but the roads are poor, the streets are dirty, and illy- 
 paved and crooked. The foot-walks are about two feet wide. 
 The people are a sad mixture of respectable and miserable ; the 
 latter predominating. They are mostly idlers ; busying them 
 selves as formerly, in "hearing and telling some new thing." 
 Education is progressing. Many fine buildings for that pur 
 pose are being erected. The palace and its gardens stand out 
 conspicuously in the treeless, sandy plain, upon the edge of the 
 city. Water from the wells is constantly pumped by diligent 
 donkeys, to irrigate the thirsty soil. The people depend on the 
 goat for their milk and butter. Beef is an unknown luxury. 
 Hymethus still yields her honeyed wealth, according to Byron. 
 Perhaps it is a poetic license. There are no women apparent. 
 It was daylight when we went through. They only appear, star- 
 like, by night. These domestic items must now close. One 
 should not judge too hastily of such things ; but to our hasty 
 glance, Athens modern is to Athens ancient as the poorest 
 fragment of an old statue is to the bright and symmetrical 
 mould of a Phidias. 
 
 The next morning found us darting around Cape Sunium, 
 upon whose rocky steep the white columns of the temple of 
 Minerva shine, and from which they look upon the sea. This 
 temple was erected here to remind the voyager of the Goddess 
 of Athens, at the very gate of Attica. 
 
 I think, with Lamartine, that a tomb or temple fills the 
 mind with holier thoughts and purer associations, when located, 
 as is the tomb of Themistocles or the temple of Pallas, upon a 
 lone and rocky promontory, " afar from the city s troublous 
 cries," drawn in the clear air against the beautifully blue 
 horizon, and rising instinct with Nature into closer communion 
 with heaven. 
 
XV. 
 
 nf 
 
 "Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 
 That deep brow d HOMER ruled as his demesne." 
 
 Keats. 
 
 WE are now on board the fine French steamer Egyptus, dodg 
 ing. by the cunning of steam, the isles of Greece, which rise 
 in these blue waters on all sides. We are playing between Ther- 
 mia, named from its warm springs, and Zea, with Journa, the 
 old Roman place of banishment, ahead. It will take nice navi 
 gation to extricate us from the complexity of these islands. But 
 it is thrilling to career amidst these homes of ancient genius. 
 They seem to have been compensated, for the bleakness and 
 barreness of their scenery, by the growth of men in the elder day. 
 We shall, before long, see the isles where Homer and Sappho 
 lived and sung, and where God appeared in rapt vision to the 
 soul of John, the seer of Patinos, and opened to him those 
 Revelations of Wonder, Glory, and Mystery, which form the 
 Omega of the living word. 
 
 It is verging toward midnight. I have just been on deck. 
 The gallant steamer is shooting past the isle of Homer the 
 loveliest of the Archipelego the most fruitful and picturesque 
 of the isles of Greece the celebrated Scio. It is called the 
 Paradise of the Levant; and well deserves the name for its 
 extraordinary fertility, and beautiful foliage and scenery. This 
 isle is under the dominion of the Ottoman, and the revenues it 
 affords are dedicated to the support of the mother of Abd-ul- 
 Mejid, the present Sultan, who lives in magnificence upon l8e 
 banks of the Bosphorus. It is in strange contrast with the 
 
210 HOME OF HOMER. 
 
 
 
 other isles of Greece ; which rise in rocky eminences and broken 
 promontories from the sea. True, it suffered much in the Greek 
 revolution. But its vineyards, its olives, its citrons and its 
 mastic groves, then cut down, are again bespreading the island. 
 The other isles afford but scanty homes for the goat. Man 
 scarcely plants his foot upon the different spots we have passed 
 to-day, but upon Scio he has revelled amidst the prodigality of 
 Nature. The mastic is the chief object of cultivation. It is 
 the product of the Lentisk shrub, which covers the hill slopes, 
 and which, when cut, drops the liquid mastic. This is hardened, 
 refined, and exported for the use of the Turkish ladies. But 
 why speak of all this 1 ? Is not this the isle of Homer? Of all 
 the claims to the honor of his birthplace Scio has preferred the 
 best. Beside, she is rich in other names. Ion the tragic poet, 
 Theocritus the sophist, and Theopompus.the historian, all hailed 
 from this isle. But why distinguish Scio amidst such a frater 
 nity of isles, all rich in the associations of classical antiquity, 
 
 " Where grew the arts of war and peace ; 
 
 Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung. 
 The Scian and the Teian Muse. 
 
 The hero s harp, the lover s lute, 
 Have found the fame your shores refuse ; 
 
 Their place of birth alone is mute 
 To sounds which echo further west 
 
 Than your sire s islands of the blest." 
 
 Never did bard sing more truly. Our boat is full of Greeks. 
 I have just walked amidst them sleeping upon the deck, utterly 
 unconscious that they are passing the native spot of him. whose 
 song has rung the name of Greece through two thousand years, 
 and from continent to continent. The stars look down calmly 
 and full of sparkle from their unclouded vault. The dark isle 
 riiMS majestically upward, amidst their fretted fires. The 
 Orient, with its deep and infinite splendors, fills the mind of the 
 gazer, as he looks upward and eastward along that star-strewn 
 
HONE OF HOMER. 211 
 
 path. Yonder, not far from the early home of Homer, is the 
 ancient Troy, around whose walls the scenes of Epic glory took 
 place, with deities for actors and witnesses, which the Bard has 
 reduced into numbers as enduring as his own name. Fit vantage 
 ground was Scio, whence the young poet might view the scene of 
 his own future triumphs in Poesy ; fit school wherein to nurture 
 that imagination which dared no flight it did not attain. Per 
 haps from that round point of rock tufted with yellow verdure, 
 just opposite our vessel, "he beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey, 
 rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.** There, might have 
 been kindled the first spark of that genius which outlives the 
 triumphs of all Conquerors. 
 
 Thanks to thee, Old Shore ! Thou who wert the parent of 
 art, and gave that Homer to time, which time has given to our 
 modern world ! These isles while they furnished rocks and hills, 
 bays and mountains, as the haunts of his muse ; yon rocky shore 
 which we have left behind us, while it furnished the cloud-capped 
 Olympus towering upward amid fraternal mounts, for his heroes 
 and gods, also cherished his minstrelsy. Athens received his 
 Epos ; her philosophers criticised it, in unity and part ; her 
 orators quoted it ; her Olympic games echoed its song ; her drama 
 was moulded by it ; her sculptors formed its images and her 
 architects enshrined them in Parthenons and Theseums. Rome 
 gave to him apotheosis, before which power bowed in wonder, 
 love and awe. Alexandria hid his works in hieroglyphs, but at 
 last redeemed the ancient fame of Egypt by transmitting them 
 to us in their present form. What would painting have been 
 without the Venus and Diana ; sculpture without the Apollo 
 and Jove ; or art without the Iliad ? Legislation, too, while it 
 cherished his works, found in them the spirit of its best enact 
 ments. The literature of the world owes to them its Virgil, 
 Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Milton, Wieland, Klopstock, its Henriade 
 and Auraucana ! 
 
 We are apt to look upon Homer, only as a singer, whose 
 songs have no practical bearing upon the world. To the philo- 
 
212 HOME OF HOMER. 
 
 sophical historian, they have deeper significance. True, their 
 first effect was the introduction of other songs, and, in time, a 
 superior literature in Greece. But this literature proved the 
 salvation of even Christendom. If the classics were the bulwarks 
 around the city of God, laid by the ancients through their own 
 history, is not Homer the strongest tower of defence upon that 
 bulwark ? The study of Platonism and of the ethics of the rival 
 school of Aristotle, burned in the cloisters of the dark ages, 
 when even Christian truth was almost gone out. The destruc 
 tion of Byzantium scattered the Grecian literature. The key 
 to the New Testament thus found its way into Florence under 
 the Medici, and into Wittenberg under the elector, until Protest 
 antism had her lion-hearted Luther. Catholicism her sarcastic 
 Erasmus, and the world its mild Melancthon and fervent Fenelon. 
 England had her Duns Scotus. whose scholastic learning was ex- 
 haustless, and who gathered around him thirty thousand students 
 at Oxford, where he taught them the logic of Aristotle, with a 
 power which drew forth the encomium, " had the genius of Aris 
 totle been unknown, that of Scotus could have supplied his place." 
 And it was the ethics of Aristotle, thus taught, which brightened 
 the mind of Wyckliffe, and gave to England her first translation 
 of the Bible, and the reformation. To this Bible and this refor 
 mation America owes her present proud position. They unlocked 
 the prisons of power. They unloosed the disfranchised people. 
 The individual was rescued from the congealed hierarchy. The 
 liberties of speech ; body; property and conscience were enunci 
 ated ; and to Homer in the last analysis belongs a great part of 
 the glory ! Ah ! if the shade of Homer could see (we trust his 
 shade is better off than the original corpus] this steamer of ours, 
 with its poetry of motion, parting the waves more fleetly than 
 his most arrowy pinnace, and working more fearfully powerful 
 than his most potent engine against the Trojan wall ; if he could 
 see this phase of a new civilization, his visions of Olympus and 
 dreams of Divinities, would vanish before the solid workmanship 
 of his own brother man. 
 
HOME OF HOMER. 213 
 
 What avails this pondering ? Onward we move ; the French 
 flag waves in the wind ; the black guns, like sleeping lions, lie 
 about the deck ; the huge pipe emits its clouds of smoke ; the 
 illuminated compass directs the silent helmsmen ; the place of 
 Homer s birth is mute and silent under the shadow of night ; a 
 Small " echo further west" than even the blest isles, remembers 
 the blind old bard in his fugitive pencillings; and we dart 
 away to new scenes and other shores. 
 
XVI. 
 
 nf 
 
 " His eye looked o er the dark, blue water 
 
 That swiftly glides and gently swells 
 Between the winding Dardanelles. 11 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 WE have seen the Orient, if not Jerusalem. Smyrna, where 
 one of the seven churches was located, and the point whence 
 fruit is exported and where the camels bring the resources of 
 Syria to market, was seen and enjoyed. Its figs and chibouques; 
 its dirt and its dignity; its dogs and donkeys; its dreariness and 
 picturesqueness, were all seen and felt in one day s stay ; and 
 our vessel turned her prow toward Constantinople, where Orient 
 alism swells in complete luxuriousness under the dominion of 
 the dervishes and the Sultan. "VVe entered the Dardanelles about 
 evening, having passed the isle of Mitylene, or Lesbos, (Sappho s 
 birthplace), and having had a glimpse of the great mountain 
 of Athos, rising out of the sea beyond the isle of Lemnos. The 
 Dardanelles is generally as wide as the Mississippi, with a 
 strong current toward the Mediterranean from the sea of Mar 
 mora. The land is fine, rolling and cultivated ; and here and 
 there we meet with enterprising and beautiful villages on the 
 Asiatic and European sides of the straits. Our boat stopped 
 some two hours at the city of Dardanelles, where there are 
 numerous castles, as outposts of defence to Constantinople. 
 The castles are supposed to be the ancient sites of Abydos and 
 Sestos. A strip of stony shore, projecting between two high 
 cliffs, furnished the European extremity of Xerxes bridge, by 
 which he crossed from Asia to the invasion of Greece. This 
 part of the Dardanelles is also celebrated as the point where 
 
THE HEART OF MAHOMETANISM. 215 
 
 Alexander s army, under Parmenio, crossed from Europe to 
 Asia. Here, too, the Ottoman first began his inroad upon 
 Europe, in the fourteenth century, under Sulieman. Here 
 " Leander swam the Hellespont " to visit his Hero, and Lore! 
 Byron did the same in one hour and ten minutes, and wrote 
 poetry to herald the feat to posterity. 
 
 Before leaving the Dardanelles, I made a singular acquaint 
 ance. It was none other than that of a Bey. He observed me 
 examining a map of Constantinople, and politely undertook 
 some explanations. As I could not understand Turkish nor ho 
 English, we had a pleasant time of it very, until I got a book 
 which contained words of both tongues, when we amused each 
 other by reciprocating the pronunciation of words. He had a 
 large number of servants, and sat on his fine mat, smoking his 
 chibouque, the ashes of which were emptied and the tobacco sup- 
 lied by a servant, from time to time. The tube of the pipe con 
 descended to rest some feet from his mouth in a shining pan. 
 The Turk always carries a comboloio, or rosary of beads, to 
 assist conversation. What assistance these black beads, which 
 travel over the henna-stained fingers of the lady and the eifemi- 
 nate hand of the gentleman of the Orient, render in the inter 
 change of sentiment, those may understand who feel nonplussed 
 in conversation, without the aid of a watch-key in their hands 
 or a cane head in their mouths. The Spanish lady resorts to a 
 similar inspiration, by the unfolding of her fan and a coquettish 
 snap as she closes it. The Turk, however, converses but little. 
 He prefers a passive occupation. His favorite pastime is back 
 gammon, a board of which our Bey carried along. It is a great 
 game with the luxurious idlers of the Capital, who stake large 
 sums on their success. He was particularly sharp in it, as one 
 of our ladies can testify, with whom he played. I have not seen 
 as fine a gentleman since coming among the Turks. We gave 
 him an invitation to America. He said he would call on us at 
 our Hotel. Would like to have him bring a dozen or so of the 
 Mrs. Beys along. 
 
216 THE HEART OF MAIIOMETAN1SM. 
 
 We found, on approaching Constantinople, many active busi 
 ness places, and we were surprised to see furnaces with tall 
 chimneys, smoking in earnest. These elements of progress were 
 soon left behind, however. Forts and walls begin to indicate 
 that we were passing out of the sea of Marmora into the Bos- 
 phorus. We ran between the city of Scutari, in Asia, and Con 
 stantinople, on the European side, and turned around the point 
 into the river called the Golden Horn, which divides the city 
 proper from Para the place for the Franks, Ambassadors, and 
 Hotels. Our first view of this magnificent panorama was a dis 
 appointment. We had heard and read much of the view of this 
 famous city, with its towers and domes, beaming and golden. A 
 fog hid the city at first. Before we rounded the point, dis 
 appointment began to be dissipated with the mist. The expand 
 ing splendors opened. The minarets pointed upward, the 
 cupolas swelled brightly amidst rising eminences of buildings 
 stretching along the hill slopes, and unfolding brilliant involu 
 tions, as we rounded the point where the Seraglio rose, like a 
 dream, out of the clear waters, and where Saint Sophia, the 
 graceful Queen of a thousand beauteous mosques, gathered her 
 cluster of minarets and domes. I have seen the vision, since, 
 and know it to be real. Enchantment held her fairy wand be 
 fore my eye at the first glance, and in the joyful amazement, I 
 could not observe, only wonder fearful that the dream would 
 be dissolved, like magic views. 
 
 The green foliage of the cypress, interspersed as it always is 
 in the Moslem cities, adds to the charm. The mirror of the 
 Bosphorus, ranged around with the unique palaces of the 
 pashas, and the marble, yet airy seraglio, together with royal 
 abodes of gorgeousness, reflects three large and distinct cities, 
 each enormous, and each divided by its own silver waters sleep 
 ing at its feet. One half of the magic ring is set within the 
 hills of Asia, and the other half within those of Europe. Far 
 beyond Scutari is spread the long range of Olympus, glistening 
 under the warm sun, with snow, and hanging like pure clouds 
 of white in the deep sky. 
 
THE HEART OF MAHOMETANISM. 217 
 
 A finer harbor could not be conceived. The Bosphorus flows 
 between two promontories, separating the Stamboul from Para, 
 Galata, and Tophane. The largest man-of-war can here float ; 
 while around, over a space which can accommodate 1,200 sail of 
 the line, eighty thousand little boats, called caiques, and resem 
 bling the canoe somewhat in its sharp point and feathery levity, 
 dart with graceful facility. These are the hackney coaches and 
 cabs which play over the silver limpid streets of this wondrous 
 city of cities. These boats are called by the natives kcrlongist, 
 or swallow-boats, and are formed of the thin planks of beech 
 wood. They are always dry and neat, and carved within and 
 without. It is dainty work to ride in them, as they are as liable 
 as a canoe to upset. Cushions upon the bottom, in Eastern 
 style, is the mode. It is a delicious, cool ride, after threading 
 the mazes of the dirty streets of the city, as we have had abun 
 dant cause to remember. You may fancy what these cities are, 
 in one grand view; which requires 80,000 boats around the 
 quays. 
 
 It would be unjust to expect a description of this city. Our 
 stay in it must be limited to a few days ; and these will be filled 
 with laborious sight-seeing. I must leave much to your imagin 
 ation, and use the suggestive style. No place can have more 
 attractions just now for the traveller, than this half-way point 
 between two extremes of civilization. Society is in the transi 
 tion state. The old prejudices of the Moslem are giving way 
 slowly before the progress of the age. Here, where Mahomet 
 holds imperious sway, and where the Sovereign revels like a 
 Sardanapalus in the most gorgeous palaces, and rejoices in his 
 wives by the hundred ; here, where the intolerant Mussulman 
 prays five times daily, and holds his Rarnazan with more than 
 Puritan rigidity here there is a leaven working which is des 
 tined to leaven the whole lump of that strange mixture of heaven 
 and earth, goodness and badness, which emanates from the Koran 
 and fills all Moslemdom. 
 
 No city has had wilder vicissitudes of fortune than this ; and 
 10 
 
218 THE HEART OF MA1IOMETAN1SM. 
 
 withstood them all. The sieges it has undergone triumphantly 
 number twenty-four ! It has been taken six times ! Alcibiades, 
 Severus, Constantine, Dandolo, 1 Paleologos and Mahomet II.. 
 severally succeeded in entering its harbors and gates. These 
 clear waters and swelling hills ; those lofty heights of snow, and 
 yon " golden horn" of plenty have they not looked alike, more 
 tolerant than its several tenants, upon the Grecian Commander 
 and the Roman Emperor ; the Persian Chosroes and Arabian 
 Califs : Venetian Doges and French Counts ; Bulgarian Krales 
 and Avarian Chakars, Sclavonian Despots, and last and longest, 
 Ottoman Sultans. And when Bonaparte s prophecy shall find 
 fulfilment, and Europe shall become Cossack, may not Saint 
 Sophia again rejoice in its old Greek worship, and that glittering 
 Seraglio, with its golden towers, echo the iron tread of the 
 Czar! 
 
 But this is a little too fast. Europe must play " teeter -tawter" 
 over the balance of power for many a year yet, until some new 
 Napoleon shall arise to upset all balances, or the people, the true 
 Napoleons of the Empire, can assert their popular sovereignties, 
 and bring government to its proper sphere, as the protector of 
 the mass, and not the pamperer of the pride of a few. 
 
 The romance of Constantinople dies as soon as you begin to 
 thread its dirty, splashy, bad paved, narrow, doggy, donkeyfied, 
 carriageless, up-and-down streets. There is not a back alley in 
 New York, which is not better than the best street here ; and 
 the comparison is an insult to the city. In going along, you 
 cannot look at any thing, for fear of having your head cracked 
 against the burden of some donkey, or the load of some broad- 
 shouldered carrier ; or for fear of treading upon one of the many 
 thousand brindle dogs, who act the part of scavengers by day, 
 and play that of howling dervishes by night. If dodging those 
 ;nid the innumerous criers with heads full of dainties and fruits ; 
 it missing the red-capped and brown-robed Jew; the long curly 
 black-hatted Persian; the wily Armenian, and the turbaned. 
 Turk ; if you are not run over by that mounted Pasha, attended 
 
THE HEART OF MAHOMETANISM. 219 
 
 by his slave on foot ; if you do not run over those clumsy look 
 ing women in yellow boots and blue mantles, with head envel 
 oped (save eyes) in white crape being both black and white, 
 Turkish ladies and their Nubian slaves ; if perchance you avoid 
 that solitary gold-figured vehicle drawn by one horse, and called 
 a carriage, which comes thundering along, attracting as much 
 attention as a menagerie in High-street, Columbus ; if unsplashed 
 and with sane mind, amidst the heathenish howls and cries, and 
 with -sane body, amidst the opposing currents of the barbarous 
 thoroughfares, you reach your hotel, you may draw a breath as 
 long and free as mine at the end of this longitudinous sentence. 
 Our time, while here, has been occupied in driving about the 
 city and environs in the carriage of our kind vice-consul, Mr. 
 Dainese, an Italian by birth, and a noble-hearted liberal. Mr. 
 Marsh is absent. Every possible attention, however, that we 
 could require has been shown us. We were furnished by him 
 with a firman and government officer, wherewith to visit the 
 mosques, and in company with Jews, French and English, started 
 out boldly. It was a little doubtful whether we could obtain 
 admission or not, as it is now what is called Ramazan time with 
 the Mahometans. This is a sacred time, which lasts for thirty 
 days, during which all good ]Mussulmen are not allowed to eat, 
 drink, smoke or snuff all day. They sleep mostly during the day, 
 and at night begin the work of smoking and feasting. The 
 mosques are filled day and night. It is Lent, and wretchedly 
 do they look who keep it. It is a little doubtful whether it is 
 kept strictly. Were it kept, you would see more miserable 
 sights upon the Bosphorus, where the poor Moslems row all day, 
 earning their bread by the sweat of their brow. At night the 
 coffee-houses are crowded with Turks, who wait not to eat, be 
 fore they take the chibouque, and puff away clouds of incense to 
 the prophet. 
 
 Well, as I said, we started for the mosques. But first we 
 were taken across the stream to the famous Seraglio. There 
 we had to draw boots, or put on sacred sheep-skin slippers over 
 
220 THE HEART OF MAHOMETANISM. 
 
 them. A ridiculous plight we figured, slipping along the marble 
 floors, wending our way through apartment after apartment, under 
 roofs of fretted gold and many-shaped glass. Fountains, with 
 golden fishes gliding in their basins, cooled the rooms. Elegant 
 tracery and ornaments : ottomans of rarest richness ; places for 
 coifee, for smoking, for repose ; a view of the Bosphorus and of 
 verdurous gardens full of fragrance and flowers everywhere told 
 us of the dreamy Orient, and that here was the very select home 
 of indolence, ease, luxury and Eunuchs ! We went into the 
 harem ; but the birds ^had flown across into Asia, where they 
 were caged in one of the other (he has dozens) palaces of the 
 Sultan. The wicker was there still ; and the long gallery was 
 hung with landscapes of every scene and clime a gift to the 
 harem by Rescind Pasha. Here the Sultanas took their airings 
 and peeped out into the free world. Poor prisoners in golden 
 chains ! Flowers bloom at your very windows, but ye cannot 
 pluck them. Heaven arches how lovingly above you \ but ye 
 are the thoughtless slaves of the grossest sensuality, cribbed and 
 cabined in these walls no longer children of nature as God 
 made ye ! 
 
 Finally we came into splendid flower and fruit gardens 
 tastefully arbored and arched with the green architecture, in 
 multiform beauty, on every side. The walls were tapestried and 
 festooned with flowers and running shrubs. The Turks, more 
 kind than the Italians, freely permitted us to carry away bouquets. 
 We learned that the associations connected with the Seraglio, 
 have not rendered it a favorite resort of the present Sultan ; for 
 it was here in the time of his father, that the Janizaries com 
 mitted their acts of cruelty, which the lofty walls of the Seraglio 
 were not strong enough to check. But no such associations dis 
 turbed our enjoyment. The fragrance of the mind will ever 
 arise as each impression of these scenes of oriental and regal 
 enchantment is renewed by memory. 
 
 After visiting the armory, we went to the Mosque of St. 
 Sophia the most splendid fabric (except St. Peter s) in the 
 
THE HEART OF MAHOMETANISM. 221 
 
 world. While we stood in expectancy of admission, with our 
 slippers in hand, we were astonished at the appearance of a Nu 
 bian slave, with a whip or cane, and possessed with a devil, a 
 shade or so blacker than himself. He was in an agony of inspi 
 ration sent by the priests to drive the infidels away, and well 
 he performed the office the black rascal ! As our guide trans 
 lated it freely to me, he told the firman and the prime minister s 
 officer, that it was Ramazan ; that he should go to h 1 ; that 
 he brought the Giaours here (meaning us well-behaved Chris 
 tians), and if he did not leave, some terrible imprecation would 
 fall on his head. He accompanied his words with blows from 
 the cane over the firman s shoulders, who bowed and scraped, 
 saying his " salaam cffendi" (thanks, gentleman !) ; and not daring 
 to drop the Nubian, for fear of the priests, five hundred of whom 
 would have rushed out to help their slave. Quite a mob of 
 Moslems had collected. We left rather incontinently. To 
 morrow, early, we try it again, I trust with better success. 
 
 It is our national birthday. Although we are now at the 
 extremest point of our journey, and nearly 7,500 miles from our 
 beloved land, yet the memory of its glad patriotism, bursting 
 from millions of hearts in unison with our own, brings us closely 
 home again. I will not devote my chapter to any raptures or 
 gratulations over my native land. These would, however, come 
 deeper and fuller from the heart of the pilgrim, than from the 
 home-citizen. Our nation has so much to thank God for, that 
 none but a traveller can feelingly and fully raise the orison. 
 
 We kept the 4th of July, by looking at the Sultan. We 
 rowed across the Bosphorus, and were rejoiced to find ourselves 
 in time to see him returning out of the mosque. He is obliged 
 to show himself to the people every Friday, and always at fires, 
 if the alarm does not cease within a certain time. To-day he 
 was mounted on a splendid white charger, caparisoned in gold, 
 and rode very languidly, yet not without the grace which betrays 
 the Saracenic origin, between his files of soldiers and subjects. 
 We were permitted by the officers to stand even before some 
 
222 THE HEART OF MAHOMETANISM. 
 
 pashas, as we were travellers ; and saw him very well. His ap 
 pearance is prepossessing. He has an unshorn face, rather pale, 
 with mild, dark, and very small eyes. A sort of indolent dreami 
 ness played about his lips and in his eye, indicating his character, 
 which is that of a mild, kind-hearted prince, careless of politics 
 and given up to pleasure. He devotes only some three hours 
 a day to the affairs of his empire, and the rest of his time to 
 his religious devotions, to the supervision of his palaces, which 
 in modern European style are rising on the banks of the Bospho- 
 rus, to the society of his brother, mother and son, and no doubt 
 a considerable time to the gallantries and attentions incumbent 
 upon him as the head of a harem of four hundred ladies, into 
 which no male is ever allowed to intrude, except the eunuchs, 
 who number about seventy. 
 
 The Sultan is well beloved by the people, whose interests 
 his government has favored. His manners are said to be unas 
 suming and plain, and his disposition frank and amiable. He 
 is not too good natured, however, to discriminate, for he always 
 selects men of skill and science for the rewards and honors of 
 the kingdom. His age is twenty-nine. A long life of useful 
 ness may yet be his. His health was formerly precarious ; and 
 even now he appears effeminate and weak. He reminded me of 
 the portraits I saw of Charles the Second of England. The dis 
 tinguished part which Turkey has taken lately in the politics of 
 Europe, has been owing to the ability and foresight of Rescind 
 Pasha, the Prime Minister. 
 
 An Englishman remarked at our table, that "he always took 
 off his hat to crowned heads, and that he must do it when the 
 
 Sultan appeared." Oh ! Spooneydom and Flunkeydom ! as 
 
 Carlyle would say are ye not dead yet ? Did ye not die, poor 
 wooden heads ! when England turned off her vagabond Stuarts 
 to spout to the winds their divinojure? No. I saw your em 
 bodiment to-day doff his beaver to the " crowned head ;" and 
 poor dunderbrain ! he thought it was right loyal and good of 
 him. I took off my poor straw hat, too ; but it was on compul- 
 
THE HEART OF MAHOMETANISM. 223 
 
 sion. Like Pickwick at the training. I was between two files of 
 soldiers with fixed bayonets, and received admonition which I 
 heeded, until I happened to think it was the 4th of July ! and 
 then I covered my republican pate, instanter. 
 
 It was quite antique and interesting to see the Sultan s train, 
 led by a eunuch, whose lips would weigh less than ten pounds, 
 (including teeth) and jetty dark, with a splendid robe and golden 
 sword. Bringing up the rear came the petitioners, with their 
 petitions in hand, following the Sultan to the palace, there to 
 deliver them. It reminded me of what I had read of Oriental 
 ism, in its regal phases. It was one of those ancient customs, 
 which the progressive spirit of the time has not eradicated. 
 The changes which have been wrought in the Ottoman Empire 
 and in the East generally, since Napoleon directed the genius of 
 his Power hitherward, have been momentous. His enterprise 
 was of little practical utility at the time ; but it opened the 
 richest portions of the earth to the eyes of the French, Russian, 
 and English ; and by their respective cupidity the Turkish 
 power has been rendered less liable to aggression from either, 
 and more formidable to all. Beside, steam has carried com 
 merce to its primeval marts where Tyre and Sidon once 
 flourished, and over these sacred spots where rove the Arab 
 hordes. The reactionary influence of the west of Europe upon 
 the East, rendered imperative by the possessions of England in 
 India, of Russia in Circassia, and France in northern Africa, and 
 by which the Oriental nations will be constantly aroused to im 
 provement, is already evident in the augmentation of trade at 
 Alexandria, Smyrna, in the Bosphorus, and in the Red Sea, and 
 in the constant communication of travellers with the inhabitants 
 of these most interesting countries. May we not hope that the 
 new elements of our age, entering into the social organizations of 
 the East, shall give again to this land that conspicuous greatness 
 which GOD allotted to it when our world was young ! 
 
XVII. 
 
 JZxtofs Urrbirt trpnn tjjj (Dritnt 
 
 Charm d magic casements, opening on the foam, 
 Of perilous seas in faery lands." 
 
 T)AINTERS have been known to confess that in copying one 
 of Rembrandt s portraits, whose peculiarity is the darkness 
 of the face silvered over with delicate lights, hundreds of the 
 most exquisite lineaments were taken off, and still the likeness 
 was not caught. The microscope was applied ; and lo ! another 
 and yet another " gloomy light much like a shade" appeared, 
 which being transferred to the copy, the expression came at once. 
 So I think it is, in men s observation upon manners and things 
 in travelling. We cannot reproduce the original as it gleams 
 upon the eye. Hundreds of minute features may be transcribed, 
 but the original still lies in its chiara obscura like a Rembrandt, 
 until you apply a woman s microscopic eye to the object, when 
 the lineaments come forth, and the expression is happily trans 
 ferred. Men lack that circumstantialness which women possess, 
 and by which the latter picture with fidelity, if they do not color 
 as highly. In our visit to the East, I have relied upon a lady- 
 companion to apply the microscope, while my pen has been en 
 gaged in roving around from hill to hill and from sea to sea, from 
 isle to isle and from shore to shore. The particularity of the 
 description of the Seraglio, as well as of the visit to the Sweet 
 Waters, will form a complement to my poor chapter, and complete 
 its unity. Need I apologize for departing from the ordinary 
 routine of book-making, by inserting the impressions of another ? 
 Will not the ladies at least give their sex a hearing ? It is rare 
 
A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 225 
 
 that a Buckeye daughter rambles amidst the camel-crowded 
 streets of the mosque-adorned cities of the East ; and her pen- 
 cillings in familiar style ; well well, they must speak for them 
 selves, which they do, as follows : 
 
 Could I convey to the reader on paper a conversation which 
 occurred this morning, it might somewhat account for this ven 
 turous chapter. I may, at least, confess thus much, that it is 
 somewhat " on compulsion, Hal." My pages may, or may not, 
 contain that which is novel ; if not, they at least will be a novel 
 ty, journeying so far to greet you. Can it be possible that such 
 a distance lies between us and our homes ? We have seen so 
 much, and yet have hastened hither with such incredible speed, 
 that Time and Space have alike been annihilated. 
 
 The reader has, I think, been advised of our wanderings, so 
 long as we were within the precincts of the European world. 
 Shall it be my pleasure, now, to chat awhile of the Orient ? We 
 found the first touches of Orientalism in Greece but it did 
 not strike us so peculiarly as it has since, in cities farther east. 
 Greece we visited for its ruins, and were amply repaid in the 
 view from the Acropolis alone, with its surrounding Forum and 
 Mars Hill, the temples and battle-scenes, and the whole spirit of 
 the scenery which beams with delicacy, refinement and taste. I 
 cannot leave Greece, however, without remembering the parting 
 meal which -we took with our kind friend jMr. Buel, the Baptist 
 Missionary. After the fatigues of the day at Athens, we re 
 turned to his house at the Pireus, which, as well as the repast, 
 impressed us so kindly and peculiarly, that I would fain remem 
 ber them both in expression and thought ; both were so Grecian, 
 and yet so home-like. The house is a fine two-story one. with 
 an entrance into a vestibule a stairway on either side, leading 
 to a common landing, half way up, which ends in a stairway turn 
 ing to the centre of the room above. Folding doors open into 
 a room large and airy, with walls and ceiling fitted up after the 
 manner of those at Pompeii. A double window opens out upon 
 a balcony ; from which we viewed a charming sunset, all golden 
 10* 
 
%2Q ^ LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 
 
 and radiant in beauty over the bay of Salamis, as well as the 
 form of a lion couchant, cut out of the mountain against the dis 
 tant sky. A bedroom opened on one side and a studio on the 
 other ; both having doors to the stairway. The three rooms 
 consequently possessed a front view of one of the finest water 
 scenes we have seen, always excepting Naples ; and that scene 
 rendered doubly and thrillingly attractive, as the place where 
 Themistocles triumphed and Greece was saved. 
 
 Mr. Buel had been distributing the ten commandments du 
 ring a festival of the Greek church, and was thus the innocent 
 cause of a mob at Corfu ; and though he was under the pro 
 tection of the authorities, yet the influence of the priests was so 
 great that he was obliged to leave the island at short notice for 
 Malta ; from thence he came to Smyrna, and then to the Pi- 
 reus ; where he has been for the last six years subjected to 
 much annoyance and vexation in various lawsuits connected with 
 his mode of teaching and proclaiming Christianity in Greece. 
 He is now firmly and successfully established in his post. 
 
 "At dark, the servant called us to tea, where I had the honor 
 of presiding, as Mrs. B. had been for some time, and was still 
 absent in America, upon a visit. It was a charming, neat little 
 table, and I shall remember it particularly, being desirous of 
 emulating its simple elegance when ivc shall go to housekeep 
 ing. It pleased another. Tea, toast, bread and butter ; a 
 white acidified cream-dish, flavored and slightly resembling our 
 Dutch cheese ; the expressed quintessence of the heart of roses 
 (a kind of eastern sweets.) and delicious sponge-cake ; What 
 could have been more daintily delectable ? Keats, in his " Eve 
 of St. Agnes," hints at a similar regalia of viands. We enjoyed 
 it finely as I fully demonstrated by my long delay thereat. But 
 tea is past, and we retire to the drawing-room, where in pleas 
 ant converse we hold the approaching night hours as in a spell 
 until it is time to be aboard. Mr. Buel escorted us thither. 
 It was a pleasant sea-row ; for the lightning s vivid flash 
 lighted up sky and water with a strange glow ; and the circling 
 
A LADTS VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 227 
 
 brilliants of lights that shone on the Pireus made earth rival 
 heaven in its stellar splendor. But there was no rain with the 
 lightning flash. Indeed, that would have been too much of a 
 luxury. We have scarcely felt a shower since we left home, 
 save the one of the arching prisms, beneath which we glided out 
 of that dark and cavernous tunnel and into the gay city of 
 Marseilles ! 
 
 We reached our ship rather an unpleasant change from so 
 home-like a visit (how heartily tired I had become of the boat), 
 although the officers greeted us with the kindly courtesy so 
 peculiar to the French. How provoking not to know more fully 
 their language. One half of the pleasure is thus lost through 
 want of knowledge, that is, the travelling part, for, when sta 
 tionary, we can occupy ourselves sufficiently in sight-seeing. 
 
 The monotony of the voyage, however, was somewhat broken 
 by the numerous isles, some vine-clad and olive-colored, but 
 mostly rocky and bleak, which are known as the Archipelago, 
 and celebrated as the birthplaces and homes of the most gifted 
 minds of ancient Greece. We awoke on the morning of the 
 30th of June in the harbor of Smyrna, Asia Minor. This is 
 the point from which travellers start to see the seven churches 
 of Asia, of which that at Smyrna is one. It lies along a slope 
 of the hill-side. On the right hand is a large grove of cypress, 
 pointing out the Moslem Cemetery. The roofs are brown, 
 from amidst which ascend the tall minarets and round domes of 
 the mosques. The large castle sweeps, from the high hill above, 
 the circular view. Deep shadows checker with warm sunlight 
 the coast far around. From the green bay which curls all over 
 with white-caps, the city lifts itself up, a dreamy, picturesque 
 vision of truly Asiatic scenery ! What a quaint old Orientalism 
 it is! 
 
 We were early on shore, and went directly to a hotel ; but, 
 how unfortunate ! they refused to give us breakfast until nine 
 o clock. This was not to be endured for a moment ; and, as the 
 ladies declared their willingness to . resort to a cafe, we shook 
 
228 -4 LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 
 
 the dust off of our feet in a truly oriental style, and left with 
 marked indignation ! We had, by some queer turn of luck, been 
 thrown into the way of an odd specimen for a guide, a tall, 
 gaunt Jew, bad-featured and bearded. His soiled garments and 
 coarse brown Abrahamic tunic, gave him any thing but the ap 
 pearance of a desirable cicerone to the ignorant and respectable 
 stranger. 
 
 But a fine cafe soon brought us relief, in its large and airy 
 proportions, its delightful water-view, and, what came more 
 especially home to us, its substantial edibles. Chibouques and 
 Hobble-gobbles (Turkish pipes) were plenteous. The bubbling 
 water, curling smoke, and the indolent air of the smokers, indi 
 cated the luxurious East. As there was little to be seen here 
 but the bazaars, it was only desirable to while away the time 
 before the ship s departure ; so bidding Abraham onward, we 
 followed in close Indian file. The streets are quite narrow, and 
 we could not do otherwise, considering the opposing stream of 
 people to be met, and the single files of mules, camels, donkeys 
 and horses, all to look out for. We threaded street and alley, 
 turned corners innumerable, and finally entered upon the Ba 
 zaars. These are the marts of trade. They are low-roofed 
 houses with projecting roofs, touching in the centre and forming 
 a completely shaded arch. The little rooms on either side are 
 some ten feet square. These furnish every thing that fancy 
 can desire, from the richest Persian silks and cloth of gold to 
 the veriest trifle or toy of a European city. 
 
 We stopped to purchase some Otto of Roses, and before we 
 finished, we had collected quite a motley group around us ; and 
 what was worse, it did not leave us. Two of the group we had 
 noticed at the boat ; but all of them tarried where we tarried, 
 and by skilful manoeuvring contrived to reach each spot which we 
 reached at the same time. Their aim was to forestall us in our 
 purchases, adding twenty per cent, to the prices, or make the 
 
 piastres out of us. Poor S ! it did not agree with his ideas 
 
 at all this numerous train and he wielded his Vesuvius club 
 
A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 229 
 
 with a still fiercer demonstration. As for P , he seemed 
 
 quite at ease, and considered it as adding to our importance, 
 this truly oriental train. They might be taken for the train of 
 some Grandee or Nabob ! 
 
 As for Abraham, we tortured him incessantly with orders to 
 send them back ; and he, poor fellow, seeing our suspicions were 
 already aroused, did his best, but in vain. One moment coming 
 out upon a square, one old fellow would be seen quietly quaffing 
 a draught from the fountain, no doubt out of breath with run 
 ning round the corner, another would pop out here, another 
 there, and so on, as if we possessed the ring of Aladdin upon 
 which these genii waited. The Vesuvius club was no cause of 
 fear. But it was becoming almost unendurable. " Good-bye," 
 says S to one, " we can dispense with your farther com 
 pany." " Oh ! oh ! never mind, I m walking for pastime," was 
 the provoking answer, as he swung his beads carelessly over his 
 arm, and with most perverse air dogged on after us. Finally, 
 
 oh ! crowning thought, S bethinks him of the Janizary, 
 
 and intimates that he will call one. Whereupon they quickly 
 cried out, " Oh yes, we go, we go, give us four piastres." " No, 
 you rascals, not one ;" and away they vanished, as if Aladdin 
 had lost his ring. 
 
 We passed a mosque, and on tiptoe took a peep within. It 
 was quite plain and had a high gallery bounded by an iron rail 
 ing. The gallery was to be occupied by the ladies. The ceil 
 ing was covered with innumerable suspended chains, to which 
 were attached (they do say) any quantity of ostrich eggs and 
 horse-tails, as well as lamps. We only saw the latter. A far 
 ther glimpse within, at the open door, showed us a floor covered 
 with matting, nothing more. We were not permitted to enter 
 unless the shoes were taken off, which was quite too much trou 
 ble. We saw the Turks perform their ablutions at the fountain 
 in front. The fountain looked quaint enough surrounded by 
 the stooping figures, with red turbans ; each with his hands un 
 der the little water-spouts. When this ceremony is over, they 
 
230 * LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 
 
 enter the porch of the church,, slip easily out of their shoes, and 
 walk quietly within. 
 
 There were few ladies out during the daytime, and these 
 few were shopping. They were enveloped in their mantles. 
 A white piece of cloth covers the head like a nun s veil, from 
 which drooped a black gauze covering. Nose and eyes were thus 
 concealed from the gazer, but they themselves could see very 
 easily. The white upper piece was connected with a white 
 piece below, which hid the chin and lower part of the face. 
 I had imagined that the concealment of the beauty of the 
 Turkish ladies might be quite desirable in their own country. 
 In some way I had been led to make the mistake, that a 
 veil always hides . something beautiful. The idea of mystery 
 plays in the imagination and lends enchantment to every thing 
 dim and forbidden. But when I came to see black Nubian 
 damsels, darker than night, so dark that ebony might reflect a 
 lily pallor beside them, veiled in the same way, I could but 
 laugh outright. I wonder what possessed them to adopt that 
 custom. And then the clumsy yellow boots that they manage 
 to slide over the ground in; one can imagine nothing more 
 cumbersome than their appearance. Indeed, the whole figure 
 looks to us very ungainly and ungraceful. I have just read in 
 some late papers, kindly handed to us by our consul, of the in 
 novations at home in relation to ladies dress, and of the intro 
 duction of these foreign costumes, among which the Turkish is 
 mentioned. I should hope the latter will not be adopted ; at 
 least such as we have seen worn in the street. The costume 
 for the house may be preferable. We have seen none in the 
 street such as are spoken of in the American papers. Perhaps 
 what is generally known in America as the Turkish dress, with 
 the full pantaloons and jacket, is the Persian properly. If any 
 innovation should be made on present fashions, and there is 
 room for improvement, the Persian, somewhat contracted, would 
 recommend itself for taste and comfort. 
 
 We passed on to the Caravansary bridge, supposing it to be 
 
A LADY^S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 231 
 
 some grand sight, as our anxious Abraham seemed to think we 
 must certainly see it. We found merely a stone bridge over a 
 small yellow stream ; but the cafes that lined the shore were a 
 charming retreat for the weary or pleasure-seeking of the city. 
 Jewish children huddled about us, to stare. We gave them 
 some delicacies, whereat they were much pleased, kissing their 
 little hands in token of thankfulness. Women negligent in at 
 tire, with hair dishevelled, were to be met with, unveiled. But 
 these were Jewish. We sat beneath the shade of some noble 
 old sycamores. These trees furnish grateful shade to the sun- 
 oppressed pilgrims of the East. They seem placed here by 
 Providence for this very beneficent end. The tall cypresses 
 opposite kept their guardian watch over the white-turbaned 
 tombs beneath. The cemetery was full literally full of grave 
 stones. Those for married men are capped with a turban cut in 
 the white marble. A virgin s tomb bore a simple rose branch. I 
 never saw the cypress attain to such a height, or so numerous as 
 in these cemeteries ; but soon I learned that, at the death of a 
 dear friend or relative, it was formerly the custom to plant a 
 cypress at the head of the grave ; but which "custom of late has 
 fallen into disuse. Our guide proposed to ascend Castle Hill, 
 but we declined, from fatigue, satisfied with the pleasant place 
 we had already found. 
 
 These grounds are the nightly resort of all Smyrna. The 
 ladies never make their appearance until after dinner at seven 
 or eight o clock (our evening), and then they are always dressed 
 richly and gorgeously. They laugh, dance, sing, eat ices, and 
 return to their homes at one, two, and three in the morning. 
 Thus changing night into day, they become pale and sallow, in 
 fact lose all freshness of color, and become any thing but the 
 beauties we have always been taught to consider them. Sun 
 days are their especial gala days. 
 
 How indolent these Orientals are ! They si in front of 
 their shops, smoke and take it easy. Their walk is very indo 
 lent. Indeed, it is said, that the only time that they are ever 
 
232 A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 
 
 known to quicken their pace is in bearing a corpse to its grave, 
 when they hurry fast enough. They believe that the agony 
 commences as soon as death takes place, and this only ceases 
 the moment when the body has been consigned to its final 
 home. Singular belief ! 
 
 Now and then an Arab would come sweeping by. The fierce 
 look, turbaned head, wild roving air, and brace of pistols, betray 
 the nation. They looked like the veriest banditti. Perhaps 
 they were ; for we have been told that there are many around 
 Smyrna, and that they even venture into the town, through 
 which they pass unmolested and untouched. Their spies are 
 innumerable. * They know every ship that lands, and every 
 stranger that tarries. Murders and robberies are committed 
 nightly, without and within the city. It is quite unsafe to ven 
 ture on any of the excursions around the country. Only a few 
 days ago two young sportsmen were out, and both were captured. 
 The robbers sent one back with a message to the father of the 
 other, that if a hundred pounds ransom were forthcoming for 
 his son, he might be restored to him. If the next day passed 
 without the ransom being received, one arm should be sent to 
 his father ; the second day, the second arm ; and so on, quarter 
 by quarter, until the money was paid. They keep advised of 
 the wealth of each citizen, so as always to fall within bounds 
 when naming the ransom. The soldiers are regular Falstaifians 
 in character. Their European dress, which they are obliged to 
 adopt, has quite unfitted them for anything like a display of 
 courage. Six were sent for two robbers, and came back, after a 
 skirmish, without them. What bravery? What a city, and 
 what protectors ? The troops number over a thousand, but 
 should they leave the city in search of the robbers, they are not 
 sure of those they leave behind the population is so mixed. 
 
 Donkeys with huge burdens, camels with huger ones, and 
 man a complete beast of burden, were sights that continually 
 met our eyes. Large stones were carried on the backs of 
 men, who almost bent double under their weight. Will it be 
 
A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 233 
 
 believed when I say, that our Vice Consul at Constantinople 
 saw one of these carriers bear over one thousand pounds on his 
 back over two hundred yards ? 
 
 Since arriving at Constantinople, so many sights of an East 
 ern cast have met my eye, that they have become almost too 
 familiar to be depicted. Novelty always lends her aid in tran 
 scription. Constantinople presents a rich panorama, with its 
 towers, domes, and minarets, as we glide up the Bosphorus into 
 the noble harbor. But the beauty all lies in the distance ; for 
 when once the city is entered, the charm evanishes. The streets, 
 bazaars, and throngs of strange costumes, are similar to those I 
 have described at Smyrna. 
 
 But they tell me that there is one place where I shall not 
 meet with disappointment. The Seraglio needs no distance to 
 lend it enchantment. I had read Irving s Grenada and Al- 
 hambra, and pictured to myself, in imagination, the fountains 
 and halls, minarets and groves, the varied and Oriental luxu- 
 riousness of that Moorish palace ; and when they told me. that 
 I might see in the Seraglio its resemblance, my heart bounded 
 at the idea even of a partial fulfilment of that longing desire to 
 see the original. 
 
 This far-famed palace occupies the spot of the ancient city 
 of Byzantium, on the extreme eastern point of the promontory 
 extending towards Asia, and forming the entrance to the Bos 
 phorus. It is triangularly shaped, and nearly three miles in 
 circumference. The palace has nothing to boast of in its out 
 side appearance. The interior is a singular clustering of houses 
 without order, which have been added from time to time at the 
 caprice of the Sultanas. 
 
 Our party of twenty-five, English, French, Jews and Ameri 
 cans, sought the nearest point to the waters of the Golden 
 Horn, entered a caique, and crossed over to the Seraglio. We 
 were detained for some time at the Cafe on the opposite shore, 
 waiting for the firman. Then, with the officers, we entered 
 upon our tour of inspection. The lower story consisted of a 
 
234 A LADFS VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 
 
 long hall, paved with tesselated gravel stones, and of servants 
 rooms surrounding and opening into it. At the far end was the 
 stairway, upon reaching which we were obliged to glide into 
 slippers. Such a slipping time as there was too ! Imagine it 
 a lady s delicate slipper encased in the size furnished for a gen 
 tleman s boot. First one shoe and then another was left be 
 hind, in our vain efforts at this novel style of walking. Our 
 guide was in constant requisition, bringing up the truants, who 
 were obliged to resume their places again, to undergo the same 
 penance. We reached the sacred precincts above, and made 
 our entrance. That was a fine noble hall into which we were 
 ushered, although it had a covering of matting on the floor. It 
 at once completely initiated us into the whole mystery of Ori 
 ental luxuriousness. 
 
 I can but group the Seraglio, for it was one series of elegant 
 apartments ; marble basins, bagnios and gushing fountains. 
 These gorgeous halls, the chaste cool baths and their attached 
 rooms of reclining after bath-taking formed a complete scene 
 of deliciousness. They were somewhat similar to each other, 
 with their ceilings of fretted gold paintings of richest tracery, 
 walls of landscapes, rounded and arched recesses overlooking 
 the sea, windows with rich tapestry hangings, gilded clocks and 
 miniature temples ornamenting the side places divans and 
 chairs of crimson figured damask, and gold cloths and the 
 coverings of white linen in which these latter were encased, giv 
 ing a summery air to the whole, all combined, made the Se 
 raglio too enrapturing, entrancing, and unreal, almost to be con 
 ceived of a place for reveries and dreams only, the halls of 
 poesy and sleep. 
 
 The floor and walls of the baths were of white marble, and 
 the light from above entered through a honey-comb of white 
 ceiling. Spigots turned the water out, which fell into white 
 marble shells, or bath-basins ranged in perfect neatness. We 
 walked down the long airy corridors where the ladies of the 
 harem promenade and exercise. One side of the longest corri- 
 
A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 235 
 
 dor was latticed with delicate net-work, through which the Oda 
 lisques could peep into gardens of every kind of fruit and flower ; 
 the other side being adorned with numerous paintings and 
 engravings, representing every scene in nature to which they 
 were denied. 
 
 The tea-room was a most delicious, cool retreat, close to the 
 water s edge ; and being a story or more below the others, it 
 seemed half grotto-like. A fountain played in the centre, build 
 ing its silvery dome with flakes of purple and ruby fire, glitter 
 ing in the colors of the morning. Its basin, square and quite 
 shallow, was fixed in the marble floor, in the midst of which 
 swam shoals of golden fishes. A hundred pipes when playing ? 
 send the water and spray high up to the ceiling. Side fountains 
 there were too, in which the water first plashing up to the height 
 of the head, falls over into a marble shell. This, as it fills, runs 
 over into its counterpart below, and so on successively like the 
 little step water-falls we saw at Pompeii. At one end stood a 
 triangular-shaped pyramid of honey-comb work. This also was 
 a fountain, the water of which issued from innumerable honey 
 comb orifices. It was quite unique and quaint. But the rounded 
 recess on the sea side was the favorite spot where the luxurious 
 Ottoman and his Sultanas sat or reclined at their coffee-sipping. 
 Was there ever so enchanting, so cool a grotto ? The refresh 
 ing sea breeze, the balmy air of the playing fountains, the soft 
 music of their dashing, trembling, spraying waters, the wavy 
 plash of the Bosphorus without, against the walls, and the hum 
 of the distant city borne across the Golden Horn, the plying 
 caiques with their arrowy points, darting by in graceful rapidity, 
 the noble steamer and more lofty prow of the huge man-of-war 
 cutting and parting the clear sea ; in fine, the noble harbor of 
 Constantinople with its busy mart, and the hills that rise in 
 mellow distance above ; all this as well the scene without as 
 the scene within, glorious Nature and luxurious Art, the spell 
 of delight, the dream of enchantment ; who can picture ? not 
 
236 ^ L ADZ S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 
 
 we ; and only those can feel it, who are there embathed in its 
 enjoyments. 
 
 I wish I could peep in upon its occupants at some even tide, 
 when the sun through leaves and lattice checkers in shadow the 
 marble floor, to see if content and happiness dwell within, to 
 see how far such a life is fraught with pleasure and true content. 
 They say the Sultanas are gay and happy. They have every 
 thing to make them so, educated as they are only in their own 
 Eastern customs. The Circassian beauty knows no higher desire 
 or ambition than to become the Nourmahal " Light of the 
 Hare .n," to some Moslem chief. She possesses a charm for the 
 senses. It is enough to make her the chosen one. Of course 
 such an one, though beauteous as one of the Houri, can know 
 nothing of that ideal delight of the soul which rises superior to 
 the sense, or that longing for liberty which we should have under 
 similar circumstances. Dr. J oimson, in his Rasselas, has repre 
 sented this longing to be free, even though bound by golden 
 chains in splendid palaces. 
 
 The gardens of the Seraglio are luxuriant in tree and shrub. 
 The tall cypress waves ever green and fresh. The vine clings 
 to the wall, and hides its bare face with the green tendril and 
 leaf. Tender-eyed gazelles peep out of leafy coverts, while 
 arches and pyramids of green bend and rise in every vista. A 
 mimic lake occupies the centre, within which there is an island, 
 and rustic bridges gracefully span the reach. The walks are of 
 shells (some of which we gathered), margined with flowers of 
 every kind, of which the Turks arc not quite so selfish as the 
 Europeans. Orange bowers are pendent with golden fruitage, 
 and fragrance fills the air. These proclaim a perfection in the 
 garniture of Nature, not as if it were imported or exotic, but as 
 if it were at home in its own charming bower. But I cannot 
 particularize farther ; suffice it to say, 
 
 " No greener garden ever was known 
 Within the bounds of an earthly king." 
 
A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 337 
 
 The Armory, which we next visited, is one immense repository 
 of arms. Multiplied stacks of long guns, short guns and pistols, 
 were arranged in regular figures of squares and pyramids. Here 
 was the ancient mail-clad knight, with his jointed armor and 
 the long spear which the lancer poised mid air, before sending 
 it to the heart. Here, too, was the sabre and kettle-drum. The 
 room containing the keys to the different towns and cities own 
 ing the sway of the Sultan, was quite apart. The keys were 
 gold and silver mounted, and were neatly arranged in a case. 
 The key of Jerusalem, and that of Mecca, shone conspicuously. 
 These keys in the armory finely symbolize the power of the 
 Moslem, as it sweeps over the Orient, entering each city s portal, 
 and controlling the wild Arabs of the desert. 
 
 The Sultan Mahmoud s tomb was a gorgeous affair, and pe 
 culiar as the home of the royal dead. Here it was necessary to 
 go through the same formula of exchanging shoes, although the 
 floor was covered with matting. The tomb is in the centre of 
 the temple, surrounded by those of two sisters and three daugh 
 ters. Each tomb is made in a sort of square pyramidical form, 
 with a railing of most beautiful inlaid pearl-wood. Velvet 
 cloths and elegant cashmere shawls were flung over these. Huge 
 massive silver candelabras, and massive tapers of wax, stand at 
 the head and foot of each, connected by a silver chain to the 
 pillared corners. Over the taper was an extinguisher, figuring 
 Death ! The book-stands of inlaid white pearl, holding the 
 richly bound Koran, and glistening in the sunlight, stood open 
 near each tomb, with the gold embroidered cloth thrown lightly 
 over them. This pearl work gave a brilliancy to the tomb more 
 than I ever imagined could be displayed even by Oriental re 
 gality. 
 
 But our most charming visit, and the only ride we indulged 
 in, was to the " Sweet waters of Europe." Our Consul s kind 
 invitation had been accepted to ride thither in his carriage. The 
 streets are horribly paved. A corduroy road at home would 
 have been far preferable. Out of curiosity, I inquired the length 
 
238 A LADY 8 VERDICT UPON THE 
 
 of time a carriage would last here ; the answer was two years. 
 At the edge of the city we came upon the Sultan s favorite drive, 
 which, consequently, is an open road, and as finely graded as any 
 in England. We passed the writing school, the Polytechnic 
 Institute, and the Barracks. The soldiers seem to have the 
 most elegant residences, save the Sultan s palaces, and the villas. 
 A long steep hill descended, led us into the valley, which is some 
 two miles in length. The waters of this vale are quite sweet. 
 The view is called finer than that of the sweet waters of Asia, 
 on the Asiatic side. The road winds with the stream, and be 
 neath the shade of numerous groves of sycamores, with a leaf 
 like our oak, and elms, with leaves, looking like our maples. 
 These groves are filled of a festal Friday, and upon every even 
 ing, when music and gayety prevail ; but now in Ramazan, it 
 was lone and deserted. No voice is heard, save that of the harsh 
 croaking frog. ^ 
 
 In this delightsome vale the Sultan has one of his summer 
 residences ; but we saw only the exterior. A marble Kiosk 
 (summer-house) is just at the base of a dashing waterfall. The 
 water plays all around it, while a bridge spans the stream below. 
 The stream gradually widens, until it forms the Golden Horn, 
 flowing through and dividing the city. As we ascended the hill, 
 leaving the vale behind us, we came upon the Jews burying 
 ground, which is a sea of white stones, all plain, and lying flat or 
 standing up, with not a tree or shrub to relieve the barenness of 
 the spot. Our Consul remarked, that it was strange the Jews cared 
 so little for the adornment of their cemeteries, and he wondered 
 why it should be so. One of our party assigned as the reason, 
 their strange belief, that the body did not rise where buried, but 
 walked in agony underground to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, 
 where it was judged ; hence no associations of life and beauty 
 clustered around the burial spot, and hence no adornment. 
 When, Oh! shall I speak it? Yankeeism to the last, anotlu-r 
 suggests, "..what a capital speculation it would be to run from 
 this spot, an underground railroad." Truly there would be no 
 
A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 239 
 
 lack of passengers, judging by the infinity of stones, and the 
 natural desire to finish so unpleasant a journey ! 
 
 An old Greek priest came trotting by with great gravity, but 
 as* soon as he had passed us, spurred his horse into a wild gallop, 
 How funny it looked a priest playing mad John Gilpin over 
 the grave-yard of the Jew, his full black robe and flying veil 
 dancing at right angles before the wind. 
 
 As we neared the city, the sunlight played upon the win 
 dows in flames of living fire no wonder when the houses are 
 almost all windows. 
 
 How out of place a Cemetery would appear to us. as a resort 
 for pleasure and promenade, a place for eating, drinking, smok 
 ing, and musical performances. But so it is here, where Fatal 
 ism buries her dead without a tear, and the mourner, bowing to 
 the blow, strokes his beard and ejaculates, " God is great /" 
 " God is great -;" and^etires stoically to his ordinary pursuits. 
 Chairs and tombstones furnish the seats, and the cypress tree 
 the canopy, for these evening and midnight carousals, which are 
 even more frequent during the Ramazan. We reached the Ho 
 tel at nine o clock, two hours after the customary dinner time 
 here. 
 
 Passing by our delightful sail over the Bosphorus, past villas 
 and palaces our lucky sight of Mahomet Ali, the Pasha of 
 Egypt of the prophet of Mecca with his strange, solemn coun 
 tenance, and more than all, of the Sultan himself a gorgeous 
 Oriental pageantry : passing by the rich and ever-variant scenes 
 of the streets, the busy bazaars and prayerful mosques, I may 
 not forget to mention one most especial peculiarity of this city, 
 and that is its dogs. They lie at every turn in mosque and 
 market, in door and out, in the path of man and beast, and only 
 answer to the tapping boot, trampling donkey, or nudging cane, 
 by a squeak or growl. They are incorrigible, never moving for 
 man or beast. They belong to no one ; but each has hispartic- 
 ular home-quarter, where he lives a pauper on the public who 
 hold him sacred. 
 
240 A LADY S VERDICT UPON THE ORIENT. 
 
 But I think we have almost exhausted the city. As we pass 
 out of the Golden Horn into the Bosphorus, we make our Sa 
 laam to the Orient. Farewell, old city ! with your spires^and 
 domes glittering in the setting sun ! It will be long ere we see 
 thee again, for the pathway hither is over troublous seas, troub 
 lous for a man even, how much more troublous for one of the 
 other sex. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 (Tnrkisjr 95nto[ ^nlitir in its ^i 
 
 " Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle, 
 Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime ?" 
 
 ** Bride of Abydos. 
 
 WOULD that I had the magic bow of the Scythian Abaris 
 to give it a twang, and that I could ride on the arrow with 
 telegraphic velocity to our western clime, there to see what 
 chances and changes have occurred since we left. We have not 
 heard from home for two months. I suppose that Ohio has a 
 new constitution adopted by this time. Constitutions how 
 different they are here from those in the States. Even Turkey 
 has a constitution, adopted in 1840, by which certain rights are 
 guarantied to all Armenian and Jew, Christian as well as Turk. 
 But like the other constitutions of Europe, it is just so much 
 parchment, to be " dispensed" with by the government, just when 
 it pleases. The popular spirit must constitute .the last anal 
 ysis of the State the elemental organic law. In the fire of the 
 popular heart, lies the warm and the only healthy glow of the 
 body politic. If this be extinguished or smothered, constitutions 
 are but paper nothings. Now the constitution of Turkey was 
 a voluntary renunciation of absolute power by the Sultan, for 
 the purpose of reform and the happiness of all. It was called 
 the Hatti Sherif of Gulkenah, or imperial charter. It was 
 named after a kiosk called Gulkenah, the Runnymede of the 
 Turkish Magna Charta, where, in presence of the principal Pashas 
 and the diplomatic corps, Rescind Pasha read the constitution. 
 It was drawn up by Rescind, who is the Grand Vizier. It miti 
 gates many of the old punishments of the Turk, and thus con- 
 11 
 
242 THE TURKISH BODY POLITIC 
 
 forms to the humane spirit of the Sultan, who has never been 
 known to sanction an act of cruelty. It establishes boards and 
 councils in the capital and principal towns, whose ordinances 
 are. however, subject to the supervision of the Porte. It gives 
 the privilege to the Armenian, Jew, and Christian, to sue and 
 give testimony, and receive equal justice in the courts. But the 
 Turkish kadis and muftis interpret justice and receive testi 
 mony just as they did before the constitution ; judging all things 
 by the Koran, and regarding all but Mussulmans as dogs and 
 Giaours. The constitution is, in this respect, a complete dead 
 letter. The blackest Nubian slave who believes in Mahomet 
 can give testimony, but the most respectable Christian is not 
 heard. The Ulemats of the law are permitted to plead and in 
 terpret the law as they please, which they do on paper, not orally 5 
 subject to the old contingency of being pounded to death in a 
 mortar if they displease the government. 
 
 The Salique law is in full force in Turkey. Neither sons 
 nor daughters under a certain age are raised to the throne, nor 
 can a daughter transmit to a male offspring any claims to the 
 succession. The brothers of the Sultan first succeed according 
 to their age. The only brother of the present Sultan is kept 
 close in the palace, and is seldom permitted to be seen. One of 
 the tombs we saw was that of a Sultan. His brothers, murdered 
 by him, to the number of nineteen, slumbered around him. The 
 object of their death was to avoid the law. so as to transmit the 
 crown lineally to the Sultan s son. When the brothers fail, the 
 son succeeds ; hence the anxiety of Sultans about their brothers. 
 The present Sultan, Abd-ul-Mejid has a son about ten years of 
 age, of whom he is very fond, and to whom he is giving a fine 
 education. He will succeed to the throne if the brother should 
 happen to die. 
 
 The wives of the Sultan at present number thirteen. This 
 does not include the harem, but only the Kadines, who alone 
 have the privilege of producing an heir to the throne. They are 
 chosen from the Odalisques, or females of the imperial harem. 
 
7/V ITS PICTURESQUE DRESS. 243 
 
 There is no marriage ceremony performed, and the Sultan may 
 divorce the marriage when he pleases. When the Sultan dies, 
 the Kadines go into solitary retirement, still supported by the 
 State. They never marry. The mother of the Sultan is more 
 fortunate ; she lives in a splendid palace, and is treated like the 
 Queen Dowager of England. We saw the palace of the mother 
 of the present Sultan at the head of the harbor a splendid pile ! 
 She derives a large revenue from some of the isles of the empire. 
 
 The inheritance of property is regulated by laws dissimilar 
 from that which regulates the succession to the throne. There 
 are two kinds of property -free and mortgage. The first is 
 transmitted to the children, male and female, share and share 
 alike. The mortgage property becomes absolute in the mosque 
 (to which alone mortgage is permitted) upon the death of the 
 mortgagor. If a person wishes to borrow five thousand piastres, 
 he goes to his mosque, and during life pays a small interest of 
 about one-half per cent. ; the condition of defeasance being, that 
 the property, which must be worth double the amount loaned, 
 shall become absolute in the mosque on the death of the bor 
 rower. The mosques do not accumulate, but immediately sell 
 and reloan. In the time of the plague, the mosques make money 
 in round numbers. This financial ecclesiastical feature will ac 
 count for the number and the influence of the mosques in Con 
 stantinople. No wonder so many minarets glitter in the sun, 
 and so many domes swell under the cloudless sky of the east, 
 amidst the mean, dirty, wooden houses that line the filthy streets. 
 No wonder the city gleams so grandly in the distance, and re 
 poses so tranquilly beauteous, far off I 
 
 The influence of the Moslem priests is paramount to all law. 
 There is no connection between the Church and State, for they 
 are one. The religion of the people is the State. The Koran 
 is the real Constitution. Every rule of private and public con 
 duct is drawn from its page. Greater devotion to a religion could 
 not be had. Prayer with the Turks is universal ; and they do 
 not seek the intervention of priests to commune with Allah. It 
 
244 THE TURKISH BODY POLITIC 
 
 is as common at night as in the day, at the feast as in Ramazan, 
 in the field as in the chamber, in the mosque as in the cemetery. 
 Last eve, at the fifth hour, the Moslems upon the steamer which 
 is now bearing us westward, all bowed to the East, and simul 
 taneously repeated their prayers, and performed their motions. 
 At nightfall, the audible song went up from the deck, where 
 cross-legged they sat ; after which they enjoyed the pipe and 
 their food, after the total abstinence of the day. The season of 
 Ramazan is kept alike at every place. 
 
 We have two Pashas aboard, with whom I have been con 
 versing in my usual manner by signs and a dictionary. Pleas 
 ant, dignified, and communicative, dressed in their ermine cloaks 
 and red caps, and perfect gentlemen in all respects, except 
 Christianity, they assume no airs, even over their own servants. 
 Their salutation is tenderly symbolic of good will. They kiss 
 the hand, touch the heart and forehead, and make a slight obeis 
 ance. They seem thus to unite the respect of the mind with 
 the warmth of their hearts. They have the reputation of being 
 honest, hospitable and truthful ; and that is more than is said of 
 the Greek and Armenian Christians, who live among them, and 
 who excuse these characteristics by saying, " Oh ! thoir religion 
 commands these things." Beautiful Christians ! The Turks 
 drink no spirituous liquor, which accounts for their moral and 
 physical health, as well as for the scarcity of beggars, and the 
 absence of cripples. Opium is not used generally. Tobacco is 
 as common as the turban or fez cap. A Turk without his chi 
 bouque, would be like a man without a nose. It is a part of 
 himself, not to be severed. He gives it prominence above every 
 thing, except the Koran above the feast, the bath, and the tur 
 ban. 
 
 I think that the slavery of Turkey is not properly understood 
 in America. I have taken some pains to learn about these so 
 cial customs, and must acknowledge my obligation to our vice- 
 consul, Mr. Daniese. who has furnished me with the information. 
 The slave markets of Constantinople have drawn forth a great 
 
IN ITS PICTURESQUE DRESS. 245 
 
 deal of sympathy, from the ladies especially. The idea of white 
 women, almost naked, being sold in the public markets, has ex 
 cited much horror. This is all superfluous. To be sure, slavery 
 is bad enough in its best form. But the slave of the Turk is 
 not the slave of the planter, by a good deal. Here, it signifies 
 a person purchased to be the adopted son or daughter of the 
 owner. The market for white slaves is alone open to Turks, 
 who purchase two classes of persons ; one for wives, the other for 
 servants. The former are sent by the best families of Georgia 
 and Circassia to the Commissioner, who takes . are that no insult 
 of the slightest nature is offered. They are glad to go. All is 
 voluntary. The females have the absolute right to refuse to be 
 sold to any one whom they dislike. Ladies in America some 
 times do not have as much accorded to them. Once bought, 
 they become the wife of the Mussulman, just as fully as Miss 
 Jones united to Mr. Smith, by Esq. Johnson, becomes Mrs. 
 Smith. The law fixes their dowry ; and if their husbands mis 
 use them, it gives them redress in alimony and divorce. The 
 alimony allowed is their whole dowry. The property in the 
 servant-slaves inheres to the wife, and not to the husband. He 
 is bound to protect them through life, and provide for their 
 maintenance. But when there are several wives what then ? 
 I imagine that there are very few who have more than one wife. 
 Our acquaintance, the good Bey, only had one, as he said ; per 
 haps he meant only one to whom he gave his heart. When the 
 wives are many, the same rule as to dower and maintenance ob 
 tains. There is one redeeming feature in Turkish slavery, and 
 that is. that the mother becomes free on the birth of a child, 
 who is also free. There is no hereditary slavery. 
 
 The male slaves have every chance to rise in the world, be 
 cause they rise with their masters. Merit and mind rise above 
 the institution. The son-in-law of the late Sultan. Halil Pasha, 
 was once the slave of Khrosref Pasha, himself once a Georgian 
 slave. The mother of the present Sultan a fine portly lady, 
 living in luxury in her palace, was once a Circassian slave, sold 
 
246 THE TURKISH BODY POLITIC 
 
 for a price to Mahmoud II., the father of the present Emperor 
 and is now the honored source of much of the power of the Sub 
 lime Porte. It is the religion which softens the harshness of 
 the institution, and makes it a shadow. A day in Constantinople 
 will convince the most unobserving that the Moslem faith recog 
 nizes no invidious distinction between the faithful. Indeed, the 
 finest-looking man I saw was a dark but lofty-browed man, who. 
 perhaps, was once a slave, but is now a chief prophet or priest 
 of all Mahometanism. He presides at Mecca. I saw him un 
 der these circumstances. After leaving the gorgeous and splen 
 did tomb of Mahmoud, the last Sultan, and while wondering at 
 the perpetual freshness of grief which seemed to hover about the 
 dead, caused by the rich shawls and mother-of-pearl work, as 
 well as by the beautiful mosque around and over the tomb, and 
 while admiring that appropriate symbol of the great wax candles, 
 covered by the extinguisher, at the head of the tomb, we were 
 disturbed and startled by the cries and bustle of the street. The 
 soldiers were drawn up the band played the citizens rushed 
 to see, and the word was " The Sultan, lol he cometh over the 
 Golden Horn!" 
 
 We waited in the shadow of a shop, and soon the officers and 
 Pashas rode along on their fine steeds, which were led by slaves 
 on foot ; next came an awe-inspiring man, dressed in a long 
 sweeping green robe exquisitely wrought, and upon his broad 
 and high brow he wore the finest turban of white, embound in 
 red. He looked grave in his long and solemn face. He seemed 
 a man of sorrow, and his face was thin and indented with grief. 
 A great calm, dark eye looked out from beneath his heavy intel 
 lectual forehead. If Mahomet resembled this, his successor, I 
 j would no longer wonder at the spell of Islamism by which he 
 thralled the East. You forget his gorgeous apparel and his 
 dark countenance, in the great mind which speaks from the 
 face. He sits upon his fine Arab horse, a picture to " witch 
 the world," not as Hotspur did " in wondrous horsemanship." 
 but by the priestly sanctity and intellectual composure of his 
 
IN ITS PICTURESQUE DRESS. 247 
 
 appearance. If Carlyle could see him. he would perform a 
 genuflexion of hero-worship in his praise, as he has already in 
 praise of his predecessor. 
 
 His mien and grace forcibly remind me of that wonderful 
 race, who combining in their characters, as in their language, 
 the Tartar, Persian and Arabic elements, ruled the deserts, 
 spread over the East, conquered the isles of the Mediterranean, 
 and under the dominion of Sultan and Caliph, began new dynas 
 ties in the world. Religious fervor and strong arms, what is 
 able to resist their power ? what ; save the stronger arm of 
 God? 
 
 Following him, was a riderless barb, dressed in cloth of gold. 
 No Sultan to-day. The crowds laugh at the disappointment, 
 but I was well satisfied with seeing the prophet of Mecca. His 
 portrait is daguerreotyped in my mind. 
 
 The Armenians form an important part of the population in 
 Turkey. Forty thousand alone are to be found in Smyrna, and 
 eighty thousand in Constantinople. They have become, by dint 
 of enterprise and shrewdness, the brokers and bankers of the 
 realm. They are the second estate. The Custom House and 
 the taxes have been sold to them by the government for a num 
 ber of years. The former was sold for fifty thousand pounds 
 sterling. This is a novel way of raising funds. What is com 
 mendable about the matter is, that no extortion is resorted to. 
 We found no unpleasant searching at the custom house. 
 
 These Armenians where came they from ? what are they ? 
 I was led to make the same inquiry ; for in passing through the 
 bazaars, my curiosity was excited by the singular black-eyed 
 race who sat upon the couches and mats, ministering so dexter 
 ously to the buyers, pictures of lazy activity and patient enter 
 prise ! They excel the Jews in trading ; and in singularity of 
 custom and adhesiveness to their religion they resemble them. 
 They are more easily distinguished from their turbaned neigh 
 bors than from the Jews. Perhaps they are one of the lost 
 tribes. 
 
248 THE TURKISH BODY POLITIC 
 
 The country of Armenia was situated in Asia, south of 
 Georgia, somewhere in the vicinity of the garden of Eden. In 
 the seventeenth century, it was laid waste by Shah Abbas, and 
 its people distributed over the Turkish Empire and its adjacent 
 countries, to the number of two millions. Many of them are in 
 Hungary and Poland. Their religion is a sort of Christianity, 
 with smoke enough about its altar to determine that some of the 
 true fire is present. Eutychuswas the founder of their peculiar 
 creed, which was condemned as heresy in the fifth century. 
 Their creed is not unlike that of the Greek church, but like near 
 relations when they do differ, they hate each other cordially. 
 Fifteen thousand acknowledge the Pope of Rome. The others 
 are under the spiritual supervision of three patriarchs in Asia. 
 Their monasteries, fasts, and superstitions resemble the Greek 
 more than the Roman church. Their language is as hard to 
 understand as the mysteries of the Cabala or the Rosicrucians. 
 Few of themselves understand or speak it. They have a kind 
 of Knacker, made up of French and Italian, which they use. 
 You may perceive their cemetery, by the absence of the cypress, 
 which is allowed to none but Moslems. Their tree is the tere 
 binth or turpentine tree. Their idea of the future state of the 
 soul is peculiar. They hold that it passes to a place of conscious 
 ness, where it is, however, quiescent, joyless and painless. 
 Prayers are offered to deliver it from this purgatory of indiffer 
 ence. They would not have this deathless soul impaired in its 
 immortal nature, but restored to its full and active energy. 
 
 How orderly those Mussulmans on deck perform their devo 
 tions. The cry of the leader just called me away to see the 
 ceremony. While he sang, the others were discussing, as I 
 judged by their gestures and laughing, the intricate question, 
 "what direction is Mecca." Their shoes are all off. Their 
 beards are washed. Their sleeves are rolled up. The leader 
 has a white handkerchief over his head. The others all have on 
 the red fez cap. They commence mumbling. The leader says 
 something they bend ; something else they bend lower with 
 
IN ITS PICTURESQE DRESS. 249 
 
 hands up, something still their heads touch the deck. This 
 process was repeated with closed eyes and devout faces, three 
 times towards Mecca ; when they performed " eyes right" and 
 " eyes left," like a company of infantry in three sections, then 
 arose, shook their mats, lit their pipes, and put on their shoes. 
 A very simple and striking devotion. 
 
 I would like to have seen it upon a grander scale in Saint 
 Sophia s mosque. I wrote of our abortive attempt to see the 
 mosques, when a Nubian slave with his rattan drove our com 
 pany away, although we had in it two English captains, one 
 French navy captain, a French diplomatist, a German noble, an 
 oaf of a Jew. and four Americans ! We could not give it up ; 
 so, procuring our firman, we took an earlier start while the 
 Moslems, under the effects of the night s revel after Ramazan 
 fast, should be asleep. Our firman cautiously brought us 
 around to an entrance less public. A cross-eyed Turk in priestly 
 stole and endless turban opened the door. We put on our slip 
 pers, and winding up and around a long, dark gallery, found 
 ourselves in the lofty hall of the great Mahomet. In every 
 thing else but its size, we were disappointed, and with St. 
 Peter s in our mind, even that lost its potency. The lofty col 
 umns of every species of granite, marble and porphyry, support 
 a large gallery ; while the dome is in the form of an ellipse. 
 The circular dome is within this, and swells fearfully high and 
 sublime. But where is the rich mosaic fresco of Genoa and 
 Rome ? Where are the forms of marble majesty and the breath 
 ing beauty of the canvass? Where is the soul of art and the 
 genius of Italy ? The eye swims restlessly about in unpeopled 
 ether, with no graceful angel or bearded saint to buoy it upward 
 into the celestial realm. Four large, bird looking, black colored, 
 six winged, headless mosaic nondescripts, said to be angels, 
 bespread their pinions at either corner of the dome. 
 
 It is said that the Persians seldom paint forms, fearful lest 
 they will be required in the day of judgment to find souls for 
 their creations, which it is very difficult to do. The artist will, 
 11* 
 
250 THE TURKISH BODY POLITIC 
 
 on this principle, be condemned eternally for these creations 
 These outre representations are intended for seraphim, who 
 were companions of Mahomet Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and 
 Israel. Near them are four large circular green signs, with 
 Turkish calligraphy in golden letters, nearly as long as the 
 name of the writer who has there displayed his genius. The 
 name is Bitchiakdschisade Mustafa Techelebi ! Phoebus, what 
 a sounding for your trump ! Nothing else strikes the beholder 
 as very peculiar, unless it be a few fountains a fine floor cover 
 ed with ordinary matting ; an altar turned towards Mecca 5 two 
 flags from the pulpit, representing the triumph of Moslemism 
 over Judaism and Christianity ; some priests going about at 
 tending to the lamps, which are hung all around from strings 
 alternating with ostrich eggs, flowers and tinsel, and which, when 
 lighted, glimmer like cressets, and reflect bearded and tailed 
 lights like comets. The lamps are curved-shaped ; and when 
 lit, as they are every night during this Ramazan season, seem 
 like little fairy shallops floating in a sea of lustre, and among 
 miniature starry islands. There is not so much gorgeousness 
 as one would expect, after seeing what the Turk can display in 
 the seraglio and palace. The shape of this temple is the Greek 
 cross, and its dimensions are 200 feet by 275. The centre of 
 the dome is 180 feet above the ground. Its vicissitudes have 
 been remarkable, and its once glorious but now tarnished splen 
 dors lend a charm to it which apparently it has not. It is 1,500 
 years old was dedicated to the divine wisdom, in the time of 
 Constantine. It has been burned several times and rebuilt. 
 Baalbec with its pillars of the temple of the Sun, Ephesus with 
 its green columns of the temple of Diana, the temple of Pallas 
 at Athens, of the Moon at Heliopolis, of Apollo at Delos, of 
 Cybele at Cyzicus, of Isis and Osiris from Egypt, as well as the 
 green, blue, black, white and parti-colored marbles of the world, are 
 here represented in the 107 columns which support this splendid 
 structure ! This would amply repay us for the visit, were there 
 no other points of interest. Tradition and history represent Saint 
 
IN ITS PICTURESQUE DRESS. 251 
 
 Sophia as having had angels for architects, and as the most re 
 markable temple of ancient Christendom. In it Chrysostoin 
 spoke with his lips of gold. Up to the time when Mahomet 
 with his Osmans rode victoriously into the city, and even into 
 this temple, and dismounting, leaped upon the altar exclaiming, 
 There is no GOD but GOD, and MAHOMET is his prophet /" up 
 to the time when Sophia held her bloody carnival in these great 
 walls, and while learning had here her chosen throne, this tem 
 ple shone resplendent in Mosaic and gold, purple and marbles, 
 with its silver doves and carved images, as the Church of the East 
 and the glory of Christendom. It was only the other day when 
 repairing some of the walls, that rich mosaics superior to any 
 at Rome, were discovered beneath the plaster, representing 
 saints and martyrs. The sultan ordered them (sensible soul !) 
 to be covered again, not knowing but that they might come in 
 play in some future age. It is a current belief among the 
 Turks, that their authority will end in a century ; and being 
 Fatalists, it might prove a true prophecy ; although, my firm 
 belief is, that the Ottoman power is stronger now than it has 
 been for half a century. The Mahometans have two or three 
 miraculous objects in the church. One is a shining stone, 
 said to be an onyx, which absorbs light, and when shone upon 
 shines with intense glitter. Another is a sweating column, that 
 emits a dampness, which is a panacea superior to Brandreth or 
 the Life Bitters. 
 
 But most, Sophia will be remembered as the first home of 
 the Christian : for the poet has truly sung that in 
 
 " Sophia s far-famed dome, 
 There first the faith in triumph was led home, 
 Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign, 
 And melody and flowers." 
 
 We saw places where the cross had been removed, and where 
 images had been defaced. The crescent shone superior, however; 
 
252 THE TURKISH BODY POLITIC 
 
 and from what we have observed in Constantinople generally, 
 there is no present prospect of a wane of this symbol. The 
 Sultan is building new palaces, the priests have their old powers, 
 the Faith seems as firm, and the heart of the city throbs as 
 warmly as ever. If these be indices of all Islamism, the Cross 
 is not making much headway toward that Millennial point which 
 we are assured it must attain even in these strong holds of the 
 prophet. 
 
 The population of Constantinople is over GOO.OOO souls; and 
 how many are in the surrounding cities I do not know. It is 
 curious to see the unusual phases this population presents, not the 
 least curious among which is that of a class called scribes, who 
 sit cross-legged at their stands, and write letters and petitions 
 for the people. The time is reckoned as at Rome, from sun 
 down. The graveyards are the public promenades, where joy 
 meets joy in gratulation. The muffled faces of the women, the 
 odd costume of the men, the sacredness of the public dogs, the 
 howling and dancing of the dervishes a singular piece of inad- 
 capery the easy air, grace, dignity and gorgeous apparel of the 
 Pashas and Beys contrasted with the heavy-loaded, half bent and 
 head-shaved carriers, are to be met with at every corner. But 
 above all, is the unutterably grand panorama of the cities which 
 form the margin of the Bosphorus, inclosed in walls which 
 gleam as they wind over the distant hills belted in from the 
 waves of Marmora by a deep blue band, and the harbor inter 
 spersed with the heavy steamers and men-of-war, and light 
 canoes by the thousand and all this flooded by a sunlight, in 
 which the orange and the acanthus bloom as no exotics, and the 
 cypress points upward in rivalry of the gilded minarets and 
 gleaming crescents, and where the transparent water repeats the 
 enchanting scene, and waving, breaks it into myriad forms of 
 glancing splendor. We left these scenes at sunset, and as we 
 moved out of the harbor amidst schools of sportive porpoises and 
 flocks of gulls (called condemned souls), soon bade the lovely 
 scenes at distance farewell. " The sun of life will set" ere we 
 
m ITS PICTURESQUE DRESS. 253 
 
 forget thy luxurious people and gorgeous palaces, oh, Byzan 
 tium ! Already to the memory thou risest like a vision of the 
 night or a reverie of the evening, which painter never illus 
 trated, and which Poetry alone has inwoven in 
 
 " Dreams of many-colored light> 
 Of golden towers and phantoms fair." 
 
XIX. 
 
 (Owntal jCrarti imfo Cimit 
 
 " Slow sinks more lovely ere his race be run, 
 Along Morea s hills, the setting sun, 
 Not as in Northern climes, obscurely bright, 
 But one unclouded blaze of living light" 
 
 . Byron. 
 
 AFTER leaving the Dardanelles, we stopped again at Smyrna, 
 where I took a Turkish bath, the seventh heaven of Orien 
 talism. It is grateful enough for the traveller whose lungs have 
 been shivered almost by the northern airs, or smothered by office 
 confinement, just to breathe this delicious atmosphere under 
 this rainless and cloudless sky. It is holy repose to the mind, 
 vexed at home with business and pestered with care, only to 
 look out through the calm eye upon these seas of beauteous 
 blue (so blue that there is no expression for it), sleeping so calm 
 ly and tranquilly under a canopy of purple lustre, to watch the 
 gloaming rise and die away along these coasts of Morea, and to 
 recall in " clear dream and solemn vision," the mighty intellects 
 who of old peopled these shores of Greece. Oh ! it was deli 
 cious to float amidst the isles, upon this morning, around the 
 promontory of Sunium, past the temple of Pallas upon its rocky 
 crest, or amid the waves which wash Navarino ; and which at a 
 later day than that upon which they kissed the victorious prows 
 of Themistocles at Salamis, bore the united fleets of Russia, 
 England, and France, in array against the fleets of the Bospho- 
 rus and of Alexandria, and when in signal defeat the Turk was 
 compelled to yield to Greece her dear-bought freedom. In fine. 
 there is a delight which only belongs to dream-land and the Le 
 vant which we have experienced throughout these waters, where 
 
ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 255 
 
 Beauty loves to linger, and where crusading heroism roamed 
 wliilome ; but after all, the apex of sensuous delight , the ulti 
 mate gratification of all the senses at once, lies in a Turkish 
 bath. It laps the world of sense in a new Elysium. 
 
 The process consists simply of bath-rooms of heated air, in 
 which, after becoming an embodied ooziness through perspiration, 
 your attendant gently washes you in warm water, rubbing through 
 many courses, including soaping and hair-glove processes ( as 
 many as a French table d hote), all the old Adam of clay out of 
 you, leaving the original porcelain ; when swathed in warm linen ? 
 turbaned and chibouqued, you are put away amidst pillowey otto 
 mans to " sleep perchance to dream ;" and in that dream to be 
 transported, in wavy motion, to new climes of softer skies and 
 lovelier tintings, of mellower music and balmier fragrance. But 
 I wish I had leisure to tell you my dream as I sat all envelop 
 ed amidst a company of easy Greeks and luxurious Turks, in 
 the baths of Smyrna. Two hours long it lasted. An Ameri 
 can never experiences at home such an indijferentism to all sub 
 lunary things. He never loses his earnest consciousness of what 
 he is where he is what he is born for. But this is a pecu 
 liarity of Orientalism. Such an abominable waste of time would 
 never do in America. One s clients would go off in a huffy, and 
 business would disappear completely. But one should not come 
 to Turkey, unless he does as the Turks do, in some respects. 
 
 I never knew what it meant to " eat like a Turk," before I 
 saw these Islam people in Ramazan time, when after fasting all 
 day, at the sound of the sundown gun, they turn in with pipe 
 and knife, and eat and smoke " till daylight does appear," when 
 the gun calls a halt. If we Christians were one-tenth as ob 
 servant of our religion as these benighted Mussulmans, one could 
 reasonably speak of the Millennium. Mahometanism is an un 
 ceasing prayer. The very atmosphere of the East seems fitted 
 for this most holy, solemn, and devout exercise. If Moslemism 
 be untrue (and why should I write it conditionally) ? what a 
 
256 ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 
 
 condemnation awaits this Eastern world ; not for its sins, but 
 for its devotion ! 
 
 But I have bid farewell to the Turks. The last one left us" 
 at Smyrna. Our deck jabbers with Greeks yet ; who talk con 
 tinually, ever moving their beads, rapidly or slowly according 
 to the ardor of their heart and the interest of their theine. The 
 presence of a Franciscan so frequently seen in Italy betokens our 
 westward course. The Austrian steamer, the best boat we have 
 yet had, dashes on as I write. Already she has passed the gulf 
 of Navarino ; and Zante just begins to look like a thin gauzy 
 web in the distance. We shall run between that isle and the 
 main land, when look out for Mount Olympus ! By Jove ! I 
 will be on deck then, and if this visual orb cannot discern the 
 gods upon its snowy top, I will resurrect the shade of Old Ho 
 mer, and people imagination with the " powers imperial." 
 
 And now (enrapturing thought !) we sail the same watery 
 way he sailed. His gods drank nectar upon that cloudy height. 
 His Ulysses sought his home along these very shores, and we 
 shall harbor in the same inlets which his crafty sagacity select 
 ed. Ithaca will meet our eye to-day, the most Homeric spot 
 existing except Troy, and Leucadia s pale cliffs will shine to the 
 eye as ever it has shone in classic light. 
 
 Our English captains have kindly invited us to break our 
 fast ashore with them in their barracks to-morrow at Corfu, 
 where we shall regret to part with them. Corfu is the ancient 
 Corcyra, where Athenian greatness met a signal check. All 
 around us throngs, without system or order, the spirit of the 
 past. Botzarris sleeps where he fell upon the mainland near 
 Missolonghi, where, too, Byron " chose his ground and took his 
 rest," after his feverish, unhappy, yet not ungenerous life. 
 What a land for the poet to die in ? A land where each star 
 in the lofty vault was a Deity, where each mount had its Oread, 
 each river its Naiad, each fountain its Nymph, each woody copse 
 its Dryad, and every scene its guardian angel ! A land where 
 no superstitious fear prevailed, such as the dark forests of the 
 
ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 957 
 
 North engendered ; but where the rapture of Hope lit up the soul, 
 until it saw in the trembling of the orange-tree, and the beauty 
 <jf its bloom, in the spray of the cascade and the prism which 
 arched it, a living presence of grace ? A land, where harmony 
 of thought and energy of action were equally illustrated, in the 
 stirring representations of the drama, gliding from the masked 
 actor with all the music of measured rhythm and a tuneful 
 tongue ; equally illustrated by the faithful eye and obedient 
 hand of the artist, as his spirit caught a precision in delineation, 
 which vanished imperceptibly into proportion, until there lived 
 upon the rival canvas of Protogenes and Apelles, the charm 
 ing creations of the ideal. A land where science and truth, 
 even, yielded to the spirit of beauty ; where stars and suns 
 were compelled to move in harmony with a preconceived theory, 
 in the unbroken circle, and not in the unharmonious ellipse ; 
 where the perfection of the standard would not allow the idea 
 of beauty to be analyzed ; although in its analysis the mind, 
 like Newton, should separate its beam, clear, white, straight and 
 dazzling, into the seven hues of the rainbow. Was it not a land 
 for a poet to die in ? Was it not a land wherein Byron, with 
 his irrepressible poetic sensibility, should breathe his last wild 
 note for the liberty of his adopted country ? 
 
 We passed the ancient Arcadia within the hour. Although 
 its coast has not so much of the beetling, craggy aspect as other 
 parts of the Morea, yet in vain I looked for the green sward 
 or vista of leafage, with Pan playing his lute upon the gnarled 
 roots of the woodland. No pastoral repose softly swelled to 
 the rising hill. The bleakness and harshness of the shore, 
 spoke of the people who now indolently and sinfully draw out 
 an ignoble existence, where once rural life joyed in her favor 
 ite haunt. 
 
 Yet we trust Greece has flung out the " banner with the 
 strange device, EXCELSIOR." Twenty years ago, Athens had 
 not a house. Now it numbers 20,000 people. Missions and 
 schools, colleges and archaeological societies, are exhuming the 
 
258 ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 
 
 ancient spirit. The zeal of the intelligent Greeks for their an 
 cient literature is intense. In their schools are found little 
 bright urchins, bearing the names of Leonidas, Aspasia, De : 
 mosthenes, and Miltiades. 
 
 The Morea can support five millions of people ; yet there is 
 not 900 ; 000 within its borders, and among these not a farmer 
 worth $1000. The government is poor, and it is as mean as 
 poor. Greece is rich ; how rich in its inheritance of greatness 
 and in its future promise ! It lacks the moral stamina which 
 alone conserve the public weal, and which would send back to 
 Bavaria the contemptible Otho and his truckling parasites, 
 and scorn the influence of Russia, which even in this sunny 
 clime is exercised to chill popular aspiration. 
 
 Well, we have arrived at Zante. As a sample of the Ionian 
 isles, it is worth some notice. A rocky line, perpendicular and 
 rough, forms the coast. A little art has been expended in 
 making the harbor. On these heights are white houses irregu 
 larly distributed, which form a town. As our steamer rounds to, 
 eager and crowded boats rush out of their coverts. Their steamers 
 never land. They drop anchor, and the exit and entry are per 
 formed by little boats manned by jabbering Greeks. The scene 
 which takes place at the gangway when these boats approach, is 
 indescribable. Never did Hubbub hold a more Babel-revelry. 
 The Greeks crawl up by chains and ropes, and though kicked off, 
 manage to fall into a boat and again mount up. The water swarms 
 with them to-day. An unusual number of Zanteotes, say 150, 
 are going up to Corfu to attend a festival. These fetes number 
 about 160 per annum, excluding Sunday, which is the biggest 
 jollification of all. The Roman church has a goodly number of 
 sacred days ; but the Greek church overtops it. Why so many ? 
 Where can they find time ? Bless you ! Do you inquire after 
 seeing these strutting dandies on deck, and those ladies dressed 
 out and shivering with vanity like a pea-fowl on a chimney-top? 
 They look and swell as if they were severally Presidents and 
 Queens of these isles. But their fortune is on their back. Nice 
 
ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 259 
 
 patent-leather boots, fur-lined coats and jewelry, adorn the men, 
 and embroidered silk and satin, with enormous flounces, apparel 
 the women ; but if you go into their houses, you see nothing 
 absolutely nothing. They live on gayety and olives. They dance 
 all the time except in olive season, when a few have been seen to 
 dig the ground. 
 
 Now as I write we leave the isle, and the olive trees, ever 
 green, embowering each mound and hill-slope, tell of the only 
 riches (except the currant, which grows spontaneously) these 
 idlers possess. The Olive requires little cultivation, and less 
 soil. It grows almost upon the bare rocks, interweaving its roots 
 like ivy ; the trees thus supporting each other. There is no 
 water, no manure, to assist them. They grow on the principle 
 that Sam Weller s horse went on ; he was too poor to pull, but 
 once start the cart, and the shafts would keep him up and going 
 while the impulse continued. 
 
 The Zanteotes, I said, were a pattern of the present Greeks, 
 not alone in their gayety, but in their mendacity and cunning. 
 They play the rascal as a matter of course ; and have no respect 
 for a man who does not. They live on little, are never in want, 
 and keep their fetes more to gratify their love of ease than any 
 religious sentiment. What is singular too, is, that they have 
 not changed, these islanders, since Homer s time. The Pagan 
 has given way to the Christian( ?) worship. That is all. Their 
 moral character and pursuits, or rather lack of character and 
 pursuits, are the same. The only pursuit they follow with per 
 severance is the dance, and it is the same miserable dance which 
 frolicked under the olive shade when Ulysses came back and 
 gave the natives a grand fandango. Their music is an old reed 
 or pipe, precisely the same used by Pan, and a kind of a monot 
 onous " turn ! turn ! turn !" made on a goat-skin spread over a 
 wooden bowl. A slow drawling dance follows a slow drawling 
 piping and thrumming ; yet more than balf the year these idlers 
 thus pass the time. Well, the currant will grow and the olive 
 will ripen, and the Zanteotes will enjoy life merrily behind their 
 cliifs and peaks. 
 
260 ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLE&. 
 
 I learn from one of our English captains that he was Com 
 mandant of Ithaca, whose twin peaks lie oft* to the right, just as 
 they aid when Grecian song was young and Penelope watched 
 (a pattern of a good wife, especially in her knitting !) for the 
 coining of her lord. He informs me that there are many monu 
 ments there, Ulysses castle and Arethusa s fountain, for in 
 stance, which bespeak its primitive greatness. Ccphalonia we 
 now approach. The only distinguishing point in that isle is, 
 that the inhabitants do not allow their ladies ever to be seen. 
 Our boat at last runs between Cephalonia or Samos (" Dash 
 down that cup of Samian wine." Byron} and Ithaca. A curious 
 phenomenon is seen upon the former. The water of the sea 
 flows into the land in currents or rivulets, which descend and 
 are lost in the bowels of the earth. Grist-mills have been erected 
 on them. They pay, too. Ithaca has the form of the figure 8, 
 and is in the middle about a half mile wide. It is just as it was 
 in Ulysses time, devoid of any level lawn. Captain Lowry 
 informs me that there is not one hundred square feet of level. 
 Well might the Chief Ulysses refuse the present of horses offered 
 him by the Persian monarch, for neither mead nor plain can 
 supply the horse with food or indulge his speed. 
 
 The sun had gone down when we entered the straits between 
 these two isles. The dark mountains hung over in deep shadow, 
 which the moon relieved by silvering their tops and revealing 
 the old ruins of the Castle of Ulysses, as well as the sight of the 
 old city, whence came the twenty-four suitors of Penelope. Only 
 one little white house gleams oat of the shadows below. Above 
 are the famous sarcophagi, populous with human bones. The 
 clear water shines with phosphorescent sparkle and mildei 
 moonlight, as we dart out into the open sea, with our prow 
 toward Corfu. The coasts of Albania glide low and dim in the 
 far-off East. The heavy breakers begin to tell upon my sensi 
 bilities, and I retire to w,ake up in the harbor of Corfu. 
 
 The Ionian islands have an organization which externally 
 resembles somewhat our own federation. The states are, to 
 
ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 261 
 
 be sure, under British influence and protection. Ionia was 
 ceded to England by the treaty of Paris in 1815, and was 
 thus rescued from the domination of Russia. The internal 
 organization is regulated by a Parliament, consisting of a High 
 Commissioner, a Senate, and a Legislative Assembly. The 
 Commissioner, like our President, has a veto and is the execu 
 tive, having under his control the police and foreign relations. 
 He is represented by a President in each island, who stands in 
 the relation of our Governors to our States. The Senate is 
 elective. The four larger isles, Corfu, Zante, Cephalonia and 
 St. Maura, send one member each. The lower house is elective, 
 and consists of forty members, and meets every second year. 
 These isles of the Adriatic are prospering under this form of 
 government. The care of Great Britain is tutelage to their 
 inexperience. The Gh ecia tnendax is as common here as in 
 other parts of Attica, unfitting, by its corrupt influence, the 
 people from exercising in its purity the suffrages of honest free 
 men. Indeed, in Greece itself, where universal suffrage obtains, 
 the government never fails to triumph, by means of false boxes 
 for ballots and other fraudulent contrivances. Hence the Rus 
 sian party is always dominant. The Liberal party must first 
 reform the morals of the mass, so that they can feel an outrage 
 upon their rights, and then they may be able to vindicate them. 
 Shade of Demosthenes ! If you could only fulminate over 
 Greece, and awake the consciences of your degenerate country 
 men, then Hope, winged like the image of Victory on the Acro 
 polis, might visit each sacred haunt to revivify the glories of 
 the past. 
 
 At Zante, there are three forts very strong and extensive. 
 Several regiments are stationed here, to which belong our two 
 Captain-companions. They were of our party, when the Nubian 
 slave rattanned our firman, and drove us away from the mosque 
 of St. Sophia, in Constantinople. Our ignoble retreat before a 
 negro was a bond of sympathy which has united us ever since. 
 The retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon was nothing to 
 
262 ORIENTAL LUXURY AMD CLASSIC ISLES. 
 
 ours. What was worse, we could not " knock the negro down," 
 without danger of instant death in a Moslem mob. 
 
 Our captains sent their pleasure-boat for us, and escorted us 
 around the forts, barracks, and esplanade, which make Corfu at 
 once as formidable as it is beautiful. The isles of olive sur 
 rounding the harbor break the roughness of the sea, and give to 
 the prospect a lake-appearance encircled by lofty hills. The 
 coasts of Albania shut in the circle with their gateways of rock. 
 The regiment of the Captains is the immortal 47th, celebrated 
 by Harry Lorrequer, and was formerly that of General Wolfe. 
 They stormed the heights of Abraham, and (what was better) 
 were prisoners in Boston during the Revolution. The same plate 
 and other appendages of the regiment have descended to the 
 present " Mess." The Mess is a quasi incorporation, and holds 
 some thousands of pounds worth of interesting relics. We shall 
 never forget the cordial civility of these officers of the 47th. 
 May they always be victorious, except when Uncle Sam is their 
 enemy ! Their courtesy did not end in showing us the Lord 
 High Commissioner s palace, or the splendid intrenchments and 
 forts. We found on our return a basket of fruitage, which could 
 not have grown in any other isle than this, which rejoiced in the 
 ancient gardens of Alcinous. Oranges large enough for cante- 
 lopes, bright and golden, with the green leaves and twigs still 
 about them. Plums, purple outside, and sanguine within ; cher 
 ries black as they were glossy ; citrons losing their green in the 
 silvery yellow ; apples whose scarlet would put to blush our best 
 horticulture, and mellow as the plums ; apricots plump in their 
 mealy lusciousness ; figs fresh, and bursting their seams to show 
 the glistening white and red that wooed the tooth ; and by no 
 means last or least, large peaches, emulating the color while 
 rivalling the size of our red-cheeked melekatoons (spell it better 
 if you can !) all these on the first of July, and after we have 
 exhausted the grape season of Smyrna. I would not omit the 
 almonds, pears, and melons, so common I forgot them. The na 
 tives here, the year round, live on fruits and wine ; and keep 
 
ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 263 
 
 good health the mean time. Our health is by no means so bad, 
 but that the above basket will vanish before we ; tread water" 
 in the limpid streets of Venice. 
 
 Before our steamer began to pant away from Corfu, our kind 
 friends sailed by, on their way to Albania, boar-shooting ; and 
 stopped to say "good-bye." The last word of the gallant Cap 
 tain Lowry, an Irishman by the way, was : " Mrs. C , now 
 
 don t forget to go to Killarney !" and as his boat careered away, 
 there was borne on the breeze the words " No more Mahome 
 tan niggers ! ha ! ha ! ha !" 
 
 How kindly and warmly the words of friendship and courtesy 
 fall upon the ear of the pilgrim. Not more musically sweet 
 murmurs the fountain which shakes its loosened silver in the 
 sun, than the voice of a kindred spirit, in a far-off country be 
 yond the sea. To hear a warm-hearted Englishman quote Long 
 fellow with pride, and repeat Chatham s eloquent appeal for 
 America with enthusiasm, were enough to banish squint suspi 
 cion, and bid us hail him as our elder brother, had we no sub 
 stantial evidence of genuine hospitality. If every English 
 captain is as near like Sir Calidore in courtesy as Captain 
 Fordyce or Lowry of the 47th, the army of England is nobly 
 officered. 
 
 A fine veil of gossamer begins to invest the receding isles. 
 We leave them in their unclouded canopy. But our memory of 
 them sweet is the balm which preserves it, as a sacred relic in 
 life s pilgrimage. We leave them with tearful regret, clad as of 
 yore in their azure vesture. Thus have they ever been ; what 
 Homer saw of them, they seemed to Byron ; what Anacreon be 
 held in them, Shelley rejoiced to see. What Creation s dawn 
 beheld, this day we see enriched by the spoils of time and 
 the associations of renown. Sleep on bright isles of Greece ! 
 Eternal summer gilds your sea ; and ye sleep so tranquil under 
 a sky 
 
 "So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, 
 That God is to be seen in Heaven." 
 
264 ORIENTAL LUXURY AND CLASSIC ISLES. 
 
 We expected by this time to have been within thy gates, 
 Jerusalem. But we learned at Athens that no steamer 
 left for Joppa until the 25th of July. Too late that ; for the 
 Syrian sun has already all the heat, without the pleasure of a 
 Turkish bath. To have been within ten days of the city which 
 sits solitary the fulfilment of all prophecy; to have sailed 
 within three days of the excellency and glory of the cedars of 
 Lebanon ; and not to have seen them, will it not be forever a 
 drawback upon our retrospect ? But suppose we had been in 
 Zion, and surmounted Olivet, where David and a Greater than 
 David went up sorrowfully ; how could we have left Palestine 
 without visiting the most beautiful of all cities Damascus. 
 Could we have had the continency of Mahomet and turned away 
 from it as he did, saying, one Paradise is all that is allotted to 
 man. I will take mine in the other world ! We fear not. But 
 regrets are useless. Our face is set as a flint, no longer Z ion- 
 ward. The Adriatic is ploughed by our keel. As we turn 
 homeward, the heart throbs more warmly ; and when we are 
 again in our native valley, we shall dwell in much content there, 
 grateful to God if He shall permit us yet a few more years with 
 our friends, and a resting spot at last amid our own Muskinguin 
 hills. 
 
XX. 
 
 (City nf tju 
 
 Una Italum regina, altae pulcherrimae Eomae, 
 .^Emula, qu;e terris, quae douiinaris aquis. 
 O decus ! lux Ausonire ! 
 
 WE are in Venice. For more than a week we have been tossing 
 on the waters of the Mediterranean, straining in every 
 plank to reach this point of the Adriatic. The isles have passed 
 like unrealities before the mind ; the East, with its many-shaped 
 and colored costumes and scenery, has come and gone, leaving 
 but its memory in dreamy outline floating in the soul. The 
 unreality has not yet ceased 5 for we are again in the midst of 
 wonders, not the least among which is the watery street that 
 plays against our door, and the grotesque and unique architec 
 ture which is overlooked by the tower of St. Mark s. 
 
 Yesterday (Sunday) we arrived at Trieste, the only Austrian 
 port of any consequence. It is remarkably clean, and hand 
 somely built, at the head of the Adriatic. The streets are finely 
 paved, and the promenades, green and enticing, lie along the 
 harbor in grateful umbrage. It reminded us of New- York, ex 
 cept that each street was a Broadway in the regularity of the 
 tall stone houses and solid paves. We drove about the city. 
 On every side are groups and crowds of people in their Sunday 
 best, laughing and listening to the music. The cafes are all 
 thronged with eaters of ices and drinkers of wine. Our ride 
 extended down between the two lofty hills, within whose scoop 
 the city lies. "We found a splendid cafe upon the side hill, with 
 walks under oak groves winding up to the summit, and all 
 
266 THE CITY OF THE SEA - 
 
 crowded with people listening to music, and partaking of refresh- 
 ment. We joined the throng much against our puritan princi 
 ples. Waltzing whirled around in the houses of the poorer 
 people as we passed. Sunday seemed absolutely sunk in the 
 general joyousness. A few Ilussian soldiers reminded us of the 
 union of Austria with her kindly ally, while numbers of the 
 white-dressed soldiers of Austria spoke of the iron coercion 
 which keeps down the spirit of the masses in the Lombardo- 
 Venetian province of the Hapsburgs. And yet why speak of 
 their spirit, poor, contemptible, despot-fawning crowds ; are 
 they not enslaved by the very music and gayety which their 
 masters have provided for them ? And is it not the same sly 
 expedient which now blows through brass, and beats on sheep 
 skin in the piazza of St. Mark s, followed by eager thousands, 
 totally absorbed in the pursuit ? There are other chains than 
 those of iron. Ignoble ease and oblivious gayety are worse than 
 prisons of stone, and manacles of iron. They indicate a subjec 
 tion of mind, and a meanness of spirit, wholly incompatible with 
 the generous impulses and noble aims of freemen. 
 
 A heavy fort overlooks Trieste, from one of the hills rather 
 ominous. Similar forts were near Genoa and Rome, when the 
 first of 1848 dawned. But they now lie in ruins the expres 
 sion of aroused popular indignation. Fine villas, embowered in 
 green trees, and surrounded with vines and fruits, line the slopes 
 of the hills around Trieste. Our star-spangled flag floats from 
 two noble ships in port the Independence and the Mississippi. 
 They look a little saucy here, after Webster s letter. I wonder 
 what business they have ! They seem to say, " Just hang a spy, 
 Sir Buzzard, an thou darest ; but if you do, we will blow you 
 
 to " I beg pardon it is Sunday. One is apt to forget 
 
 peace principles while abroad. The guns were firing, the music 
 braying, and people hallooing, at a great rate. How could ono 
 think it was the Sabbath day ? 
 
 There are daily steamers to Venice, small though they be. 
 Indeed, owing to the wash of the Alpine rivers, which here 
 
THE CITY OF THE SEA. 267 
 
 empty, the Adriatic is not more than twelve fathoms deep, in 
 and around these, her northern shores ; hence these small boats. 
 In coming into Venice, we had to sound with a long pole, as we 
 wound between the piles driven to show the channel in the 
 Lagoon. The sea is completely broken for eighty miles along 
 the coast, by numerous isles, as well as by the noble rampart 
 erected on the Lido di Palestrina, whose marble appearance and 
 solid material unites beauty with utility, and forms a public 
 monument not excelled by the Pireus, the mole of Ancona, or 
 by any other similar work in the world. Venice itself is built 
 upon seventy-two isles, in which piles are driven for the houses. 
 Hence, such a city can sleep in comparative peace amidst the 
 waters ; though gondolas have been known to attend mass in 
 St. Mark s ! The mail from Alexandria and India is not carried 
 by Venice, but by Trieste, in consequence of the shallowness of 
 the waters. 
 
 For an hour before we reached Venice, the city was an 
 nounced through its elegant cupolas and towers, rising out of 
 the sea, The country around was flat, but now and then a silver 
 thread of snow would glisten out of the Tyrol beyond, which 
 rose under cloud-vestments, lofty and sublime. A few sail of 
 colored canvas, peculiar to these shores, float by us. We pass 
 around green isles, whereon are palaces. Orange groves and 
 marble steps kiss the water s edge, and gondolas floating 
 hearses begin to appear, but not trim and graceful, as the 
 caiques of the Bosphorus. Sea-weed, as Rogers describes it, 
 clings to the marble palaces. How variant is the verdure of 
 the trees, ranging from the deep green of the cypress to the 
 pale, yellowish green of the flowering locust. The Venetian 
 Gothic, so nearly resembling the Byzantine style, rears its 
 swelling domes from the sea. Soon watery alleys and streets 
 begin to open, and little spanning bridges bend darkling far 
 down the perspective. A few more dashes of the steamer, and 
 we drop anchor in front of the Ducal Palace, at the mouth of 
 the Grand Canal, and in view of the twin pillars, on one of 
 
268 THE CITY OF THE SEA - 
 
 which the authentic winged lion starts back with open mouth 
 and snarling teeth ; and upon the other, St. Theodore standing 
 upon the crocodile, and, with an auriole around his brow, sheds 
 his influence upon the magnificent temple of St. Mark, the fine 
 Piazza, and this unique " City of the Sea." We do not long 
 remain gazing at the unusual spectacle. A gondola plays the 
 part of an omnibus, and drives us around to a hotel. We pull 
 up at a by-door, ring a bell, and are welcomed at Doniella s. 
 We found there five sovereigns the Elector of Saxony and four 
 Americans ! 
 
 Being expeditious travellers, we immediately set about our 
 work of sight-seeing. It is not easy labor by any means, and 
 the best part of the pleasure lies in the review, during the ex 
 pected hours of the winter fireside. 
 
 We found ourselves upon the Square of St. Mark. The 
 grim and gloomy prison, connected by the Bridge of Sighs with 
 the Ducal Palace a place to freeze the soul with horror, is 
 passed before we reach the lesser piazza, in front of which our 
 boat landed. The Venetian tower, brother to the ungainly- 
 looking sentinel which clings to the Acropolis at Athens (where 
 it is entirely out of place), springs out of the piazza some 300 or 
 400 feet high. A solemn and sweet bell rings in deep bass the 
 hour of five. We gaze at the strange old vicissitudinous lion, 
 which has so long presided over the destiny of the Venetian, 
 and which some years ago paid a visit to Paris, exciting as much 
 curiosity there as veneration here. This lion is the representa 
 tive of St. Mark, the patron of the city. The king of beasts 
 has been associated with that Evangelist, because the lion seen 
 by Ezekiel in his mystic vision is supposed to be the prototype 
 of St. Mark. 
 
 Around the corner to the left is the great Piazza. The 
 columns of the cafe, covered with hangings, and the arcade of 
 jewellers opposite, with the white marble palace, built by Napo 
 leon at the west, and the Church of St. Mark at the east, form 
 a large hollow square, wherein the joy-loving, mustering, trading, 
 curious and devout citizens of Venice are wont to congregate* 
 
THE CITY OF THE SEA. 269 
 
 St. Mark s, statued and niched, with its four bronze horses 
 and lion, all glittering with mosaic and gilt, surmounted by its 
 fine cupolas and pretty little domes above (how I like those 
 domelets !), has a finer ground of vantage to display its sin 
 gular style of beauty than any church, except St. Peter s, that 
 we have seen. The first object after gazing above at the mo 
 saics, in which St. Mark and his tomb play a prominent part, 
 is the red lozenge stone, whereon the reconciliation between Pope 
 Alexander III. and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa took 
 place, and where the former placed his foot upon the prostrate 
 head of the latter, adding contempt to the abasement by saying,. 
 " Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder." Oh ! impo 
 tent foolery ! Where are ye now, Alexander and Frederick ? 
 If ye are in Heaven, (?) little children are greater there than 
 ye both ! 
 
 The church within is dark. Golden mosaics give general 
 tone to its appearance. Marbles of every kind, precious stones, 
 among which I saw an agate six inches in diameter in the form 
 of a dome, pillars from ^ St. Sophia, which this church is said to 
 resemble in its primitive adornments, transparent alabaster and 
 exquisite jasper, meet the eye above, around, and below. In 
 deed, we tread upon the finest mosaic paves we have yet seen. 
 The oozy foundation has broken the level, as well as many of 
 the stones. While St. Mark s was in process of erection, each 
 vessel was bound, upon every voyage, to bring home some piece 
 of marble or precious stone to form a part of the structure. This 
 will account for their abundant variety. To speak plainly, the 
 church is made up of the results of petty larcenies in time of peace 
 and under color of war. Even the body of St. Mark was stolen 
 from Alexandria by some u wily Venetian," and is entombed in 
 the centre of the church. The church is in the form of a Greek 
 cross. There is not the freshness and brilliancy of St. Peter s 
 in St. Mark s, but there is a greatness and antiquity about it 
 which impresses it more solemnly on the mind. Massive doors, 
 old inscriptions, bass-reliefs, fluted and spiral pillars, outre sculp- 
 
270 THE CITY OF THE SEA. 
 
 tures, together with a fine sacristy, constitute the inner adorn 
 ment, over which the reflective golden light from the mosaics is 
 poured in a dim, religious flood. But the outside is the most 
 peculiar affair in Venice. Indeed, there is nothing like it any 
 where. The four horses were brought, in the earlier eras, from 
 the Hippodrome of Constantinople, and have played important 
 parts upon numerous triumphal arches in Borne and Paris. 
 Examine the entrance particularly. Prophets and Evangelists, 
 allegorical figures of the months and of all trades, mystical fig 
 ures of beasts and birds, many of them reminding you of " the 
 half horse, half man, and the rest snapping-turtle," crockets and 
 finials filled with statues, give the effect of a Gothic cathedral, 
 intermingled with which is an Oriental style ; and this combi 
 nation has given to St. Mark s its sui generis character. 
 
 Was my reader at Cincinnati during the great rise of the 
 Ohio, in the winter of 1848? Does he remember how the 
 streets in the neighborhood of Lower Market looked in their 
 watery garb ? Just so, with a difference in the color of the 
 water and the kind of houses, looked Venice when we caught 
 its first impression between sun-down and moon-rise as we rowed 
 up the grand canal to the Rialto. The impression of a flooded 
 city, flattened houses, with desertion and desolation, could not 
 be removed ; although lamps gleamed at the door-ways, and 
 marble steps were washed conveniently by the wave. Soon 
 lights began to flicker and glance upon the gondola and bridge, 
 which the water gave back with added brilliancy. "We listened 
 in vain for the songs of Tasso, sung under the rising moon by 
 gondoliers. in vain for serenading lovers with eyes upturned to 
 the balconies, where we did see many a fair Desdeuiona ; in vain 
 for the Tobarro of the men and the Zeudale of the women, 
 those national dresses of Venice in her proud days of indepen 
 dence. Austrian rule has robbed the home of Cassio and of 
 honest lago of that romance which has been associated with 
 Venice, in the stage representation of Othello. The gondoliers 
 near the Rialto made as much noise as the kind people who 
 
THE CITY OF THE SEA. 271 
 
 rapped up Brabantio to tell him that his daughter had ran off 
 with the jealous blackamoor. 
 
 In default of foreign romance, we started a little of the 
 "Buckeye some domestic songs from our gondola, and right 
 sweetly sounded the voices of the songstresses, vibrating upon 
 the silent water among the palaces of the merchant Kings. 
 Their song echoed the scene ; 
 
 " Tis midnight hour, the moou shines bright ; 
 The dew-drops blaze beneath her rays ; 
 The twinkling stars their trembling light 
 Like Beauty s eyes display." 
 
 An hour upon the Piazza listening to other music, and en 
 joying the ices, and again we are housed for the night. 
 
 We had hardly been housed, before our sovereign cousin of 
 Saxony, dressed in stately style, with a naming retinue, departed 
 to attend an evening party, to which we could not go, owing to 
 excessive fatigue. Had we known, however, the rich treat which 
 was afforded him, we certainly should have joined his train. 
 Large gondolas of singers were arranged to precede him ; an 
 hundred gondolas followed, each moving to the music with muf 
 fled oar ; lights glanced around from window and balcony. Boat 
 answered boat in Venetian song, and all joined the chorus. 
 When they reached the Rialto, a great blue light flashed forth, 
 which displayed the whole scene, while the singers arranged 
 under the swelling arch of the bridge made the welkin tremble 
 with the freight of melody. 
 
 In some respects I am disappointed in Venice. I expected, 
 or rather wished, to find it the Venice of the Doges. It is not 
 so large as I expected. We have just returned from the sum 
 mit of the great tower in the Piazza. It affords a fine view of 
 the surrounding country, but not of the city. The city must be 
 seen from the canals. The churches are distinguished by their 
 domes and cupolas, from which there rolls up music from the 
 sweetest toned bells we have yet heard. The isles and the 
 
272 THE CITY OF THE SEA. 
 
 royal garden near St. Mark s are the only green spots to break 
 the sameness of the crockery tiles. The city seems like one 
 isle out of the tower, from which the canals are unseen, connect 
 ed with the main land by the bridge of the railroad (three miles 
 long), leading to Milan. The hills of the west range up along 
 the horizon, beyond which sleeps Ferrara. Odd looking chim 
 neys, made apparently to catch rain, open their mouths in des 
 perate yawns, while under and around them, upon the flat roofs, 
 are frequently seen tables, chairs, and flowers, where resort at 
 evening this air-loving people. The Adriatic is dotted with 
 piles and gondolas, as well as with isles. To-day it is cloudy 
 and gloomy. The breeze comes keen with driplets of rain. We 
 take a glance at a few of the leaning towers of oozy Venice, and 
 descend to visit the Ducal Palace. 
 
 The lion s mouth sans the mouth is at its old orifice of 
 accusation. We enter superb stair-cases, passing the spot where 
 Doge Marino Faliero was crowned and hanged ; and after 
 looking until the eye aches at pictures of Venetians fighting 
 Turks, and Doges being received and blessed by Popes, we find 
 ourselves in the Great Council Chamber. It is a noble hall. 
 At one end is a picture of Paradise, the largest oil painting in 
 the world, being 85 by 35 feet. The room is 176 feet long and 
 185 broad, and is used as a library. How I love to enter a 
 silent, solemn library, filled with the embound essence of the 
 past, concentrated in words that live an immortality rather 
 than a life. Here, in this palace, lives have been strangled 
 under the decree of the infernal Council of Ten; here the 
 best blood of Venice was spilt at the beck of the cruel Decem 
 vir ; but in these alcoves the best compensation for blood is 
 treasured up for a life beyond life. 3 How calmly, now, do these 
 spirits rest in their bindings of white. Not more peacefully 
 rests their dust in the cerements of the grave. 
 
 " Here all the rage of controversy ends 
 And rival zealots rest like bosom friends : 
 Socinians here with Calvinists abide, 
 
THE CITY OF THE SEA. 273 
 
 And thin partitions angry chiefs divide ; 
 
 Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet, 
 And Bellarmine has rest at Lnther s feet." 
 
 If these sectarian controversialists sleep not here, I am sure 
 TASSO has repose in the bowers of his own muse, and DANTE 
 feels no pang of exile in these hospitable shelves All around 
 are the forms of the Doges looking down upon their ancient 
 hall. Only one portrait is wanting. A black curtain hangs 
 over the place where Marino the infamous might have been. 
 
 The Venetian style of painting is admirable in more re 
 spects than having definitiveness of outline and clearness of 
 expression, without which, whatever connoisseurs may say, paint 
 ing is irksome to the eye, if not perplexing to the mind. Some 
 persons make a merit of admiring paintings because they are 
 dim and indefinite. The darker the outline, the more gloomy 
 the figures and the greater the visual effort to see what the 
 artist may have designed, the more excellent, in their eye, is 
 the painting. To all such, we would simply say, " look to the 
 Transfiguration of Eaphael the mightiest effort of the pencil ; 
 and if you can find in it any dim, dark uncertainty, clinging 
 about the forms or the idea which they embody, then hang your 
 galleries full of blackish landscapes and shady forms, and call 
 them beautiful." How much more admirable in this regard is 
 the painting of Venice than the school of Naples ! But hurry 
 is the word ! The Council of Ten no longer close their myste 
 rious door. The Council of Three have lost their guard. We 
 enter each. Aye ! even the deep, dark dungeons where the 
 political prisoner received the rack, and the massive doors which 
 lead to the Bridge of Sighs opens, and with spectral lamp 
 light we view each den of horror, and gaze out of those bars 
 where the sad prisoners looked last at the clear moonlight 
 which was reflected from the Adriatic ! The instruments of 
 fiendish torture were in the Arsenal. We only saw its ex 
 terior. 
 
 How these sights speak of the cruel past ! What a pro- 
 
274 THE CITY OF THE SEA. 
 
 grjess has man made even here, where Austria holds the key, 
 since the golden days when the marriage ring was cast into the 
 Adriatic ! What a change could be marked upon that large 
 globe in the library, where America in the sixteenth century is 
 drawn in doubtful limning beyond the sea, and upon which I 
 remarked the Florida Indians only as inhabiting the* United 
 States ! Navigation has improved since the era when the Ve 
 netian ran to Crete and Byzantium, or planted the golden ball 
 upon her mast as the symbol of her commercial glory. 
 
 In one respect the Venetians may boast. They have no dust 
 to blind the eye of the passenger. Their streets are well wa 
 tered. Another item is, that you hear no clatter of carriages 
 or drays. No common council is troubled to death about pav 
 ing the way. But as an offset, it must be confessed that pile- 
 driving is troublesome, although bathing is handy. Water for 
 drinking is carried about upon the shoulders by women and 
 sold. It is drawn from the wells of bronze in the Ducal Piazza, 
 into which it is poured for filtration after being boated into 
 the city. 
 
 With dirt and sea-weed as her foundation, Venice has arisen 
 from the sea, a city of might, and of wonderful duration in the 
 course of time. For thirteen centuries, she continued indepen 
 dent and potent, unattacked by the scourges of the North, who 
 overran the beautiful plains of Lombardy ; and during that time 
 extended her sway over great nations, from the Pireus whose 
 lions yet adorn her harbor to Constantinople, where her towers 
 yet bespeak her conquests ! 
 
XXI. 
 
 nf 
 
 " Every tree, well from his fellow grew, 
 With branches broad, laden with leaves new, 
 That sprangen out against the sunny sheen." 
 
 Beaumont & Fletcher. 
 
 THE Austrian power is by no means to be contemned. One 
 need not sojourn long even in Italy to ascertain that. This 
 garden spot of the world, stretching from the Apennines and the 
 Po to the Alps, has been sadly divided since our ancestral 
 relatives, the Long Beards or Lombards, held it ; and rejoiced 
 to hold it under Queen Theolinda and the Iron Crown. A con 
 siderable portion of proud old Lombardy, including the Queen 
 of the Adriatic, now owns the Austrian yoke. The treaty of 
 Vienna, in 1814, which fixed, temporarily, the destiny of the 
 Bonapartes (for the world is not yet done with them), also fixed 
 in Austria all its former possessions, including Venice, which 
 she had not before the revolutionary war. These possessions 
 were erected into a distinct kingdom from that of Austria pro 
 per, and are known as the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom. There 
 are two governments, Venice with 2,168,553 inhabitants, and 
 Milan with some five thousand more than Venice. 
 
 These plains of Lombardy have ever been the theatre of 
 ravages and wars. Long before Marengo, Lodi, and Arcoli were 
 fought by Bonaparte, these fertile plains had attracted the eye 
 of the savage Teutons, as they looked down through the Alpine 
 passes. The best part of Italy, described by Virgil as the 
 ubere glebae et potens armis, the land of the mulberry and the 
 worm, the vine and the olive the realm of beautiful lakes mir- 
 
276 LOMBARD Y, THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 roring lofty mountains, the instructress of Christendom during 
 the middle ages, in civil law and medicine, no.w wears the badge 
 of the Austrian, from the Northern to the Maritime Alps, 
 stretching from the frontiers of Piedmont, where the Austrian 
 in white uniform demanded our passports before we launched 
 upon Maggiore, to the city of watery streets, which the reader 
 has skimmed in my last chapter. 
 
 You may remember, that while at our hotel in Rome, one of 
 the servants being a Republican, received a notice from Richard 
 Roe, the government in possession, to quit the premises within 
 a given time ; and that we proposed to annex him to our confed 
 eracy. Well he met us, as agreed, in Venice, and by his know 
 ledge of Italian, solved for us many difficulties. He bears the 
 swelling and artistic name of Dominichino Pollano, and loves 
 priests as do the other Republicans of 1848. 
 
 The Elector of Saxony, whom we shall ever respect as the 
 successor to the great and good defender of Luther, was deter 
 mined not to be left behind by us. We found him at the rail 
 road station with his Queen, in the royal train, about to puff 
 homeward. He seems always to beat us. We were behind him 
 at the Venetian tower yesterday morn. We liked his homely and 
 matter-of-fact air, but his aide-de-camp Oh ! mercy of me ! 
 
 " He had so tricked himself with Art, 
 That of himself he was least part." 
 
 The Queen sat in her golden chair in the car, as it whizzed 
 by the long stretched necks of prying Venetians, who seemed to 
 snuff with eagerness the air of royalty. We were soon in full 
 chase over the three-mile bridge, then out of the marshy land into 
 the garden of gardens. On either side mulberries, festooned with 
 and joined together by vines pendant with embryo clusters 
 made vistas of exceeding loveliness. The trees were linked hand 
 and hand by their green tendrils and branches, and as our cars 
 dashed by, they danced jubilantly and gracefully. All nature 
 was inwoven in one verdant texture ; the ploughed fields, off of 
 
LOMBARDY,THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 277 
 
 which the first crop had been taken, and which were now sowed 
 for the second, of millet, lay between the linked arbors, alternat 
 ing with the yellow and green fields. Southern Italy was luxu 
 riant, but scorched and dusty ; England was rural with comfort 
 and beauty ; France was clad in vineyards from the base of its 
 swelling hills to their summits, but here, here, is the verdur 
 ous heart of Nature, irrigated by Alpine showers and torrents, 
 and throbbing with vegetable life to its minutest fibre. But 
 why so many mulberries ? Ah ! do you ask, after looking into 
 those halls, where roll a thousand reels, upon whose circuit the 
 silken tomb of the worm is wound in glossy tenuity under the 
 property of easiness which dwells in the fingers of the Italian 
 women ? And do you boast, Ohioan, that your State in a half 
 century holds nearly two millions of souls supported by a vigor 
 ous agriculture ? Listen to the story of progress in this Aus 
 trian dependency, in spite of exactions and insecurity, and be 
 ready to confess that the man of industry and energy is not alone 
 an American nor a Republican. 
 
 The white mulberry is a dwarfish thickly-leaved tree, and is 
 the source of Lombard wealth. In thirty years, the production 
 of silk from the fibre of this tree, and the spinning-worm feeding 
 from it, has grown from a small value to the enormous sum of 
 $50.000.000. In 1800, the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom did 
 not exceed 1,800,000 Ibs. of silk. In the dry and hilly parts of 
 the country, the worm works to the best advantage ; but through 
 out the whole of the kingdom, there is an activity in this branch, 
 which furnishes to the people every comfort and convenience. 
 Especially around Padua and Verona, to which our car is rapidly 
 drawing near, is the silk culture prolific. 
 
 We had barely time to glance at Padua, renowned as the seat 
 of the University, and of the Duomo of Michael Angelo. If I 
 remember aright, it was from this queenly city of Padua that 
 there came the second Daniel to judge the case of the merchant 
 of Venice, and she did judge it right learnedly for a timid fe 
 male. Vincenza, on a lofty hill, all beautified in leanness, forti- 
 
278 LOMBARDY, THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 fied and romantic, was soon lost to the eye, which wandered far 
 over to the right, above the mountains of Tyrol, which in their 
 coverings of cloud peeped out in a shower of rain. The hills 
 toward Ferrara glistened in green. A slight breeze turned up 
 the silvered willow leaves white to the view, while they rustled. 
 Through the shower we looked very hard for the obelisk, and 
 not in vain, which marks the desperate battle of Arcoli, fought 
 upon a spot between the cities of Vincenza and Verona, upon 
 the banks of the Adigo. Here Napoleon gave the best evidence 
 on record of personal daring ; here he was torn from his guards 
 leading the forlorn hope, surrounded in the midst of the swamps, 
 and protected only by the single arms of his aids, when the thril 
 ling cry of " Save the General /" rang down the ranks of the dis 
 heartened French, and rallied them to victory ! Here Lannes 
 was wounded ; and here the child of destiny himself received 
 some of the first intuitions of the great calling which eventuated 
 in his becoming the head of the empire. We entered Verona 
 after dark, so that I could not see Shakspeare s " two gentlemen." 
 Neither could I imagine any place in the dusky shade so com 
 pletely romantic as the balcony of Juliet, nor observe any wall 
 so provokingly high as to try the vigorous assault of the fond 
 Romeo. 
 
 The cars stop here. Diligence is our next vehicle; and the 
 morning found it tumbling into the famous city where the Cheva 
 lier Bayard displayed so much courage and gallantry, I mean 
 Brescia. "We passed Lake Garda in the night. I have an indis 
 tinct notion of seeing a moon floating in a lucent wave, as we 
 rattled along the margin of the lake, through a stony little town 
 called Lugano. My consciousness was sufficiently restored to 
 try a breakfast at Brescia. 
 
 Italy is no rank garden run to seed, or unweeded. Tidy and 
 trim is each grape-vine and mulberry grove. At every turn we 
 see women serving the reel and handling the cocoon, digging the 
 ground and pruning the vines. Old fashioned, overshot wheels 
 turn the machinery, and the same torrent which turns them, 
 
LOMBARD Y, THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 279 
 
 gives drink to the soil. The harvest was mostly in. A few 
 gleaners were in the fields. The rivers along our way were all 
 walled against the Alpine floods. Men were flailing like a band 
 of Taluses, at the wheat, with women in high hats assisting the 
 operation. A Yankee thrashing machine would scare these tor 
 rents to their sources. Shrines were plenty along the way, con 
 taining rude pictures of the Madonna or some favorite Saint, 
 hung with flowers. Heavy loaded two-wheeled wagons having 
 wine casks upon the top, and a human underneath in a hammock, 
 swinging amid dust and sound asleep at the horses heels, and 
 rocks hanging fore or aft as ballast below to equalize the load 
 were drawn by five horses tandem, and not without the ever 
 lasting bell which must always jingle upon the highway. No 
 beggars trot after us. The cars again receive us at Treviglio. 
 
 The arrangement at the station is even beautiful. You are 
 introduced into an elegant room, awaiting your time to start. 
 A bell taps ! You start. " Nay " says Bominichino ; " that 
 is for baggage." Another tap ! " That is the first class, for 
 fools and princes." Yet another ! " Second class," and we find 
 our door opened, and, without noise or confusion, are placed in 
 our right seat. In a twinkling we were off for Milan between 
 rows of locusts, which provokingly shut out the view, while they 
 gave to our ride, umbrageousness. 
 
 We left Lodi and its gory honor on our south, crossed the 
 Adra, and were soon knocking at the Posta gate of Milan, one 
 of the most beautiful cities of the world. Our drive to the hotel 
 is under a promenade, which constitutes the circumference of 
 the city, and measures twelve miles ! Travellers have rarely 
 described Milan as it really is, in all the splendor of its views, 
 and the greatness of its extent. Standing, as it does, between 
 the gorgeous palaces of nature upon the North, and the temples 
 of art and luxury upon the South, and sweeping, as its tributary, 
 the blossom and fragrance of Italia s garden, Milan should not 
 alone be spoken of for its Duomo and its Arena, its Arch and 
 its " Last Supper," by De Vinci ; but for its regal magnificence 
 
280 LOMBARDYiTUE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and commanding prospects. Lofty houses, elegant court-yards 
 and fine paves, are not wanting to make an unbroken perspec 
 tive of grandeur in the streets. But hold ! miracle of wonder ! 
 what is that tall spire, sculptured and entablatured, rising from 
 forth the sea of stone, " how silently," in its delicate and laby 
 rinthine magic of art ! Is it the phantasm of a dream, or the 
 grotesque illusion of the clouds ? The white statues, as you ap 
 proach, people the slender pinnacles, and stand within the marble 
 niches. This unparalleled Duomo has been likened to a river 
 of marble shot into the air to a height of 500 feet, and then 
 suddenly petrified while falling ! Surely it must have arisen 
 like an exhalation " to the sound of dulcet symphonies and voices 
 sweet ;" for it seems of the very air airy in its frozen poetry. 
 
 We did not long tarry without. We entered its dark, high 
 nave, branching like monster trees of some other world ; and 
 uplifted by octagon circular columns, so high, that they seem 
 toppling to the upraised eye. The finest stained glass windows, 
 perhaps, in the world, beautify the darksome aisles. The even 
 ing light slowly plays through every colored form of saint and 
 prophet, flower and tracery. 
 
 While we stand spell-bound, the janitor, who spoke bad 
 English, came up and politely offered to show us the top. After 
 dropping a few sous for the church at the portal, we wound up a 
 spiral inclined plane, and within the magic marble mountain. 
 We are soon amid the mazes above. Solid as earth, it seems a 
 fairy city of towers. One hundred and fifty-five pinnacles point 
 upward ; nearly 7,000 statues glance in the light, while niches 
 stand waiting for 3,000 more ! Fifteen thousand different 
 points are lifted from the roofs for there are more roofs than 
 one, as we find by ascending staircase on staircase. Below us. 
 on the last roof, is the Botanic Garden! What! is Italy so 
 prodigal of its verdure, that the Cathedral s top should bud and 
 blow like the hanging gardens of Old Assyria ? It is only the 
 marble which has sought, through genius and taste, manifold 
 forms in the pointed spires. Fifteen thousand buds, flowers and 
 

LOMBARDYTHE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 281 
 
 fruits, each different, bloom perennially amid the upper air, and 
 that without irrigation or pruning. 
 
 This immense pile, an imperfect idea of which may be 
 gathered from the engraving, has been centuries in completing. 
 Napoleon, whose mind was ever ready to build monuments to 
 art and himself, added an immense addition. Architects have 
 discussed the minutest points of this Duomo in lines of solid 
 quarto. Nearly thirty hundred millions of francs have been ex 
 pended upon it. An edifice as large as Grace Church, New-York, 
 is upon its top as plainly as the Pantheon is upon St. Peter s. 
 
 The view from it, is incomparably fine. The eye may float 
 over the scenery of Italy, and revel in its fairest bowers, discern 
 the cities around for forty miles, and to the north see those 
 everlasting Alps, which lock up the gateways of Europe. The 
 beautiful hills of Como and Maggiore, surrounding the magic 
 mirrors in which they are reflected ; the Saint Gothard ; farther 
 west, the Simplon, through whose defiles we expect to pass ; the 
 Monte Rosa, white and radiant, except at sunset, when it illus 
 trates its name in the sweetest of hues ; Mount Cenis, to the 
 direct west ; and further around, the line of the Apennines ; 
 and to the southeast, the sweeping vale of the Po, with Cre- 
 moni and Crema all can be viewed from this lofty spot ! What 
 a resplendent, magnificent, glorious creation is ours ! How 
 full of beauty and sublimity ! Would that our distant friends 
 could behold these splendid Alpine temples upon the north, 
 from this marble observatory, and the great pleasure-grounds 
 which lie around their feet in such luxuriance of vegetable life ! 
 
 What are those scaffoldings, observable as we descend, erected 
 far up to the topmost rose of the pinnacle ? We are informed 
 by the custodian, that ten men are constantly employed upon 
 these scaffolds in cleaning the building, and that it takes them 
 just twelve years to complete the circuit outside. 
 
 Can it be that the Great Father of all is pleased with such 
 stately structures, erected for His worship ? Does He delight 
 rather in the marbles of Italy, than the rude churches of our 
 
282 LOMBARDY^THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 land ? Profitless inquisition ; for the temple of His love is the 
 upright heart and pure ; and where that bows whether under 
 swelling dome or homely altar whether under the light of 
 staindd splendors, or under the white radiance of an open sky, 
 His presence appears more glorious than all else beside in 
 heaven, or in earth ! 
 
 We did not leave Milan without a drive around the city. 
 The Milaners were still to be seen in their shops, with ribbons 
 flaunting at the windows, and waxen images within, (horrible 
 caricatures !) just the same as when their taste gave name to 
 the large class who now wear the badge of MUaner. We visit 
 ed the arch of Peace, with her chariot and six horses upon the 
 top, commenced by Napoleon, as an arch of Victory ; and the 
 great arena, where mimic naval battles were fought before 
 Napoleon, and (the ring being changed into a more solid 
 element by secret outlets) gladiatorial combats followed. From 
 the front of the arena is seen the grand Piazza d Armi, where 
 Bonaparte, after his uninterrupted successes upon those gar 
 den spots, against the hosts of Austria, reviewed his Italian 
 armies; and here, too, is seen the castle which has now 10,000 
 Austrians in it, and the Forum, around which walks are ranged 
 in splendid style. 
 
 One cannot but mark, throughout Italy, that suppressed 
 veneration for the memory of Napoleon, which speaks more of a 
 future, than any other element. The old soldier who showed us 
 the Arena, seemed full to the brim with admiration ; but he ex 
 pressed it in the eye and gesture, rather than with the tongue. 
 
 There is no unity of place regarded in the chapters of the 
 Traveller, such as the drama demands, so that I have liberty to 
 leap from the Duomo upon the boldest wing, into the clear air, 
 and alight upon the bosom of the lake of Como. Above me is 
 a circular range of living green, speckled with white palaces. 
 Between the two gateways, wherein the Madonna is enshrined, 
 small red steamers ply and cleave the placid waters. An old 
 castle with broken towers, speaks eloquently of a feudal time 
 
LOMBARDY,THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 283 
 
 from a forum of rock. Boats with fagots, manned by women, are 
 putting into port, while a regiment of females are on their knees 
 washing clothes upon the stony brink. The air below is clear ; 
 but the green mountains have lost their tops in a cloud. Music 
 floats across the lake from the Austrian fort, and every thing of 
 beauty is here to fill the eye. 
 
 How tastefully has Nature decorated this valley of Como 
 with landscapes of every variety of soft and sweet enchantment. 
 Groves of myrtle and golden fruitage reflected in the glassy 
 water, form terraces of green upon perpendicular strata. Como 
 city seems sunk to the lake s level, in its setting of emerald, 
 while out of the tower of the city there merrily rings the chime. 
 By rowing, we reach a point, from which is visible the extreme 
 of a perspective of hill after hill, dotted with shrines of wondrous 
 charm, erratic granite blocks, (who knows whence they came ?) 
 and white villas. Houses cut in the solid rock appear high and 
 aloof from the habitations of men. Truly, the genius of Bulwer 
 was choice and rare, to a sense of deliciousness, when he made 
 Claude Melnotte paint in fancy for the proud Pauline, the 
 " Lady of Lyons," his palace of alabaster, and groves, of myrtle 
 amid these hills and this lake of Como ! 
 
 Our ride to Como had been through a branch of the same 
 picture gallery, of which Monza, the ancient capital of Lombardy, 
 was the chief view, and where are the relics of Queen Theolinda 
 and the Lombard crown of iron once worn by Charles V., and 
 placed by no priestly hand on the brow of Napoleon. 
 
 A showery rain followed us across to Maggiore ; but it only 
 served to spread a transparent mist, like the veil we saw over 
 the face of a marble nun in Rome, adorning a beauty it could 
 not conceal. 
 
 We slept upon the shore of Maggiore at the base of a high 
 dark mountain, unconscious until we were upon the lake, of its 
 lofty presence. Levano was the town to which we were bound. 
 Before we reached it, the jagged rocks, indicating our proximity 
 to the Alps, gloomed terrifically black, as if about to be thunder- 
 
284 LOifBA&DYiTBB GARDEN OF THE WOULD. 
 
 riven. Far above them a cloud hung its white linings to the 
 eye, which curled and smoked as if out of the black mountain, 
 like a furnace of Inferno. I had never before seen such sub 
 limity of gloom and wildness. If these are but the shadows of 
 the Alpine feet, what is the lofty head ? 
 
 We are leaving the Paradise of Italy and entering the rough 
 and broken land of Switzerland. The pass toward the Simplon 
 was clear, an index, said our boatmen, of good weather. Lakes 
 of white clouds wave between great mountain heights. Although 
 we cannot see distinctly the lofty genii who guard the Simplon, 
 yet we have before us still the magic of Beauty. The Borromean 
 isles, owned by the Count Borromea, float in the crystal of Mag- 
 giore. Compelled to leave Milan with other noble families, on 
 account of the Revolution. of 1848, when he hoped to unite Italy 
 in one grand union under Charles Albert, he has sought refuge 
 in his Bella Isola. This isle looks out of the Piedmont into 
 the Austrian line, near the shore, where an Austrian steamboat 
 with three soldiers marks the extremity of her Italian power. 
 
 We persuaded our boatmen to make a deflection from the di 
 rect line, so as to run around these isles. The first one is a 
 bower of trees, a quarter of a mile through ; birds sing in it ; an 
 ivy-clad house appears, then a vista, showing a fine residence be 
 yond. Flowers adorn the rocks which run up in strata, at an 
 angle of 45 degrees from the clear water. But there is no one 
 stirring at this early hour. Bella next appears, and well deserv 
 ing the name. As we approach, a large white palace appears on 
 the right, while on the left we pass a yellow octagonal tower, 
 whose counterpart is on the other side. Between them rises 
 a pyramid of green terraces, decked with urns of flowers, and 
 surrounded with hundreds of figures of man and horse. Stone 
 railings protect the rocky barriers of the isle. Arched grottoes, 
 with every variety of tropical flowers and fruits growing in them, 
 appear, and fill the air with a delicious aroma. Ten terraces 
 there are, placed upon the slaty rock, warmed beneath by 
 fires in winter, to protect these tropical flowers from the frost, 
 
LOMBARDY,TtfE GARDEN OF THE WORLD. 285 
 
 which even in summer glistens from the tops of the mountains 
 beyond. Magnolias in full bloom find sweet multiplication in 
 the wave over which they hang. The soil upon which these rare 
 flowers grow, is renewed every year by fresh imports from Italy. 
 At the extreme end of the isle, there live about two hundred 
 * eople, whose residences add nothing to the romance of the spot. 
 \ We pass the Fisher s isle, out of which the chapel bell 
 ounds ; in front is the mount whose sides have been wounded 
 to build St. Paul s at Rome. The Ticino river empties the 
 lake into the Mediterranean, with its freight of marble. The 
 water of the lake is a clear green, answering to the emerald hills. 
 The clouds part as we approach the shore, disclosing dark 
 masses of mother Earth, like Mahomet s coffin suspended in mid 
 air. The mist comes down on the bosom of the lake, as we land. 
 Happily we have seen its beauties, and escaped its unpleasant 
 ness. 
 
 Under shadows of dark mountains, leading gradually up to 
 the Alps from. Italy ; along immense quarries of marble ; across 
 torrents whose madness has torn away the bridges of the Sim- 
 plon road ; yet ever tending upward, we reach and rest at 
 Domo d Ossolo the villa at the foot of the Simplon. 
 
 How gradually have we passed from the soft loveliness of 
 Lombardy to the grandeur of Maggiore, and now to the rugged 
 sublimity of the Alps. Doth not Nature, in these scenes of 
 beauty and grandeur, speak warmly and closely to the heart of 
 man ? Doth she not " astonish him with her magnitude, appall 
 him with her darkness, cheer him with her splendor and soothe 
 him with her harmony ?" GOD gave us faculties to enjoy these 
 His mountains and flowers, torrents and tendrils, fields of verdure 
 and of snow, lakes of crystal surrounding emerald and rocky 
 islands. Let the heart, then, bound upward to His, as it swells 
 in emotion at each passing glory ! 
 
 If you will look with me at the raised globe I told you of 
 in the Exhibition, you will observe a general elevation in the 
 north of Italy, indented by torrent beds and peaked with snow 
 
286 LOMBARDY,THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD 
 
 points. Upon Lake Maggiore there frowns a ridge of mountains, 
 stretching from St. Gothard, in the south-east of Switzerland, 
 following the Rhone to the Simplon, bending at Mount Rosa, 
 (what a hinge is Rosa !) to run due west where Mount Cervin 
 frowns St. Bernard opens, and Blanc " every inch a king " 
 rules ever with his superior crown of snow, upon his sunless 
 throne of rocks. The Maritime Alps, under the command of 
 Mount Cenis a brave subject of Blanc turn south-westward, 
 and march toward France, where we saw their white plumes 
 and rough spears, as we journeyed to Marseilles ; and then nearly 
 right about, down the coast of Italy, where they meet with a 
 heavy fire from Vesuvius and Etna ; tearing them asunder at 
 the Straits of Messina, which thus ends their career. 
 
 But we have now to do with but one of the great gaps which 
 sportive nature has made in the chain the Simplon which we 
 reserve for another chapter. 
 
XXII. 
 
 tossing tjjB 
 
 "In the mountains he doth feel his faith, 
 All things responsive to the writing there 
 Breathed immortality - -. 
 There littleness is not The least of things 
 Seemed Infinite." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 FROM the highly cultivated and sun-warmed plains of Italy 
 to these Alpine peaks, snow-covered and wind-beaten, what 
 a change ? How sudden ! Can it be real ? Yes ; for the 
 sough of the wind around this old stone auberge, and the chilly 
 air without, are palpable proofs even on this 18th of July, that 
 we are upon the summit of the Simplon, where winter lives 
 under the open sky. Besides, 
 
 "Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals, 
 And their faint crackling o er our silence creeps 
 Like whispers of the household gods - 
 
 Two days ago and these fiery appendages would have been 
 as superfluous as painting the lily, smoothing ice, or describing 
 to one who had seen and felt them, the scenery and sensations 
 which have followed our pathway up up some seven thousand 
 feet above ordinary humanity and the sea-level. So much has 
 been written of these passes through the Alps ; so much that 
 speaks to the eye, to the ear, to all the senses ; so much has 
 been told in every variety of style, by every variety of person, 
 that I despair of uttering any thing that can convey, even par 
 tially, an adequate idea of their sublimities. 
 
288 CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 These Alpine scenes are not to be lightly passed. The 
 impression they produce is not a theme for flimsy rapture or 
 minute analysis. They seem born of the GREAT GOD, and 
 within their august temples His presence becomes omnipotence, 
 and His worship holy and awful ! 
 
 The Simplon road is named after the snow-topped mount 
 just above our hospice. It is the crowning peak of the pass. 
 Over the pass the road is forty-five miles. It took six years to 
 complete it, although 30.000 men were at work. It has 611 
 bridges, in addition to miles of solid masonry. It is twenty -five 
 or thirty feet wide. The road was built by Bonaparte, and is 
 one among the many monuments, other than warlike, by which 
 his name will be heralded to posterity. The road begins prop 
 erly at Milan and ends at Geneva. It is magnificent in its 
 construction, and stupendous in its triumphs over the rugged- 
 ness and sinuosity of nature in her wildest and loftiest freaks. 
 Where does not this road wind and venture 1 Over what fear- 
 inspiring chasms ; between what deep and terrific gorges : along 
 what jutting and blackened granite, ever winding up through 
 clouds, through cascades, among flowery meadows, along pine 
 forests, until surmounting the jagged difficulties of the way. it 
 leaves vegetation, yea. even the hardy lichen below, and descends 
 with marble pathway, ever guarded at intervals with granite 
 posts, into the valley of the Rhone ! 
 
 Leaving behind us the lovely beauty of Lake Como ; and 
 the grandeur of her queenly sister Maggiore. we hurry by post 
 to Domo D Ossolo, the prominent place at the foot of the Sim 
 plon. Before reaching it. we had to cross by ferry, several wild 
 torrents, where bridges had once been. Upon one of these 
 ferries, there was a beautiful specimen of a chanticleer, with tiny 
 bells in his gills and his comb ; who, before we reached the 
 opposite shore, rung his bells, crowed joyously, flapped his wings, 
 and cleared the space between boat and shore. Perhaps that 
 was his custom. I did not inquire. Our courier, Dominichino, 
 was here at home, and rattled off his native Piedmontese idiom, 
 
VROSXISG THE ALPS. 289 
 
 with as much satisfaction to the host and postillions as to himself. 
 The Piedmontese dislike the Austrians exceedingly, and take 
 every occasion to show their contempt. Our republican courier 
 was not behind in the national aversion. His passport arranged 
 for Geneva, we began the ascent. 
 
 The vale of Domo D Ossolo was soon spread out beneath, in 
 its verdurous luxuriance, with mulberries and myrtles, figs and 
 trellised vines, interspersed with lovely lawns. Suddenly we 
 pass a bridge, and behold"! in a hollow and awful abyss below, 
 the torrent thundering in white spray over rocks deep down in 
 the creviced mountain ! Far up and around we again overlook 
 the chasm and bridge. "We turn to bid farewell to Italy, before 
 we trace to its mountain source this Alpine torrent. By it. we 
 are enabled to surmount the fastnesses ; for its waters have torn 
 out this Simplon pass. The bells of the city, ringing clearly, 
 echoed from mountain to mountain, silverly. sweetly undulating 
 in rare music, until they fill the ear with harmony. Blending 
 the meanwhile therewith, was the angry undertone of the tor 
 rent Douvernia. making its way insanely and violently into its 
 bolder-strewn bed of the vale : while far up and on every side, 
 the slopes and perpendicular sides were vivacious with cascades 
 fretting and shining, but ever singing. We have had rain for 
 several days, so that the mountains all the way up hither were 
 voiceful and nimble with fleecy waterfalls and bouncing cataracts. 
 Out of cloud and out of chasm, skipping in gleeful bound, dash 
 ing into worn holes, and leaping upward in recoiling grace, to 
 fall back hundreds of feet .sliding from mountain summit adown 
 smooth marble paths, making thus exquisite lace-work, many- 
 figured, wide and flowing, and white as milk, clear as air and 
 musical as flutes these fountain spirits seem to give life and 
 activity to the massive, immovable, shattered, blackened, heaven- 
 reaching, thunder-riven Alps. We were regretting, during our 
 way from Como. that the rain cloud was constantly over us ; 
 but after the sun had chased it away this morning, and we found 
 its result in such entrancing and soul-like sounds, 
 13 
 
290 CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 So sweet we know not we are listening to them, 
 
 the regret was absorbed in the pervading joyousness and har 
 mony. 
 
 I have been thus particular in my mention of these fountains 
 and cascades, because they are so life-like. They peopled the 
 solitudes. They laughed and glittered as they hung to the 
 beetling crags, and sung in harmony with the greater torrent, 
 along whose bewildering way we have, been winding for so many 
 hours. 
 
 To be sure, houses and people have not been wanting. Hon 
 est-looking masons were repairing the road ; women with pro 
 tuberances from their necks plainly telling of the goitre, 
 beggar-boys with no hands, Piedmontese soldiers demanding 
 passports, postillions in glazed hats with silver band, in red- 
 collared coats with bobby tails to them, peasant girls washing 
 clothes in the torrent, and now and then, a white-dressed chamois 
 hunter, looking like a speck of snow against the sides of the 
 cliffs, and firing away at Alpine venison in embryo, with what 
 success we could not see, these were the living people whom 
 we met and saw. Farther down, the peasants were gathering 
 in the golden grain from the pleasant vales between the frowning 
 mounts; and farther up, they were discernible, clipping the 
 harvest of grass even upon apparently inaccessible rocks, and 
 attending the cattle. But Nature, not man and his puny works, 
 is the great object of our view. How insignificant look the 
 habitations of men here. Pigeon-boxes they seem, far up the 
 perilous slopes. Nay, what are the grandest exhibitions of 
 human art compared to that immense mountain which we passed 
 just before we entered the first Gallery. Saint Sophia, the 
 Duomo of Milan, St. Mark s, Notre Dame, St. Peter s how 
 minute, atomic, delicate, are ye all, compared to that one 
 - moveless pillar of a mountain s weight." Cathedrals may be 
 sliced off from its sides, temples taken from its tops ; but its 
 majestic disproportionate proportions, many-shaped minarets 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS. 291 
 
 and domes, its coliseums and temples, its every-shaped struc 
 tures peaking heavenward, still remain the same for ever. 
 
 The mountain stream, whose valley forms the important 
 Simplon, destroyed eight miles of the road in 1839. Every 
 bridge of stone was swept away. Avalanches of stones, some 
 huge enough to form islands, upon many of which are now cul 
 tivated gardens, and into many of which men have carved habi 
 tations, line the bed of the stream. They are scoured white 
 and neat by the crystal cold water. Snow-drifts, under which 
 arches are made by the torrents, lie in the bed of the stream, 
 unmelted, and rivalling the frisky cascades in their pallid hue. 
 Galleries are made at points along the road, under which we 
 pass to emerge upon fearful heights above the stream, under 
 other imminent craggy heights, jutting far over our heads. 
 
 The gallery of Gondo, and its surrounding scenery, I would 
 select as a specimen of the majesty, terror, beauty, vivacity, 
 awfulness, sublimity and glory of this celebrated pass. Artists 
 have painted it upon the canvas, engineers have discussed it in 
 mathematical equations, poets have sung of its manifold scenes 
 and their correspondent emotions. Dare I intrude my vagrant 
 pen in such goodly company ? Just from the sublime spectacle, 
 with the noise of its cascades still murmuring in my ear, and 
 the glisten of its sun-bright snows yet dazzling the eye, my 
 description may have the merit of freshness, if not any wonder 
 ful fidelity to the ineffable original. 
 
 The Gorge of Gondo is some fifteen miles from Domo D Os- 
 solo, just above a miserable village of the name of Gondo. The 
 torrent Douveria furnishes a narrow but artificial bank for the 
 road, which, winding under the smooth and almost treeless sides 
 of the mountain, enters the gallery. The cut is 596 feet through 
 the solid granite mountain. The granite was so hard, and the 
 access so difficult, that it required the incessant labor of more 
 than one hundred men, in gangs of eight, relieving each other, 
 day and night, to pierce it through in eighteen months ! And 
 those side-galleries, looking out upon the deep-seething " hell of 
 
292 CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 waters," far, deeply far, below how think ye they were cut ? 
 The miners were suspended from the summit of the mountain 
 by ropes, until they carved out a standing-place, when, simulta 
 neously with the other miners, they formed these everlasting 
 windows over the gorge. Opposite one of the windows can be 
 read the inscription that tells of the energy which set. this im 
 mense work in operation " ^ERE ITALO 1805 : NAP. IMP." 
 
 Close to this yawning cavern, on the right, there leaps out 
 of a fissure which splits the mountain, and in which huge rocks, 
 shattered and dark, lie in careless sublimity, the torrent of Fras- 
 cinnone ; less loud and hoarse in its brawling than the noisy 
 Douveria, into which it empties, after splashing, spraying and 
 fighting under us, hundreds of feet below the slender bridge 
 leading into the gallery. The Douveria itself, across which one 
 may leap at this point, is pressed into a narrow bed by the per 
 pendicular rocks. It boils in mad, pallid fury, at its stony 
 imprisonment ; and at last bounds upward, and dashing into a 
 cavern it has made, finds further vent in indignant eloquence, 
 amidst a gigantic auditory of boulders, who line its current and 
 cheer its impetuosity. The twin snow-peaks beyond and above 
 the gallery, seen between the perpendicular walls, seem to sleep 
 in quiet majesty, unmoved and frigid spectators of the scene. 
 No wonder they are unmoved, for they are at least five thousand 
 feet above the angry roar of the blended cataracts. The savage, 
 grim horror which bristles up in the deep gloom of the abyss, is 
 only equalled by the precipitous slate walls which, as high up as 
 the eye can see, overhang the road. The torrent is squeezed 
 into the narrow chasm, the road into the narrow gorge, which 
 seeks the gallery in relief. Scarcely any vegetation, not even 
 the pine, clings to the sides. A little grass here and there peeps 
 out of a crevice. The black figures on the rock are written over 
 by millions of white specks, and imagination could easily find 
 forms grotesque to image forth these gigantic drawings. Shat 
 tered fragments, loosened from the mountains, are piled all 
 along, where a foothold may be had. The blue sky, with a 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS. 293 
 
 fleecy cloud floating partly over it, like a flag from the peak, is 
 seen up through the gorge. The old road, which once passed 
 here on the other side, is barely discernible by the terraced 
 stones lining the almost perpendicular side. It is wholly covered 
 now. Amid this roar of waters, arid this immensity, solitude, 
 barrenness, and immovableness of granite masses, the little 
 arched bridge for the road still spans the gorge ; and there still 
 winds upward the Simplon. with its marble way. The work of 
 Man thus arises superior to the elements in their most terrific 
 form. Yet these masses produce a stronger impression on the 
 mind, than Man, with his infinitude of comprehension ! In the 
 whirl and buzz, the tinsel and superficialities of life, we forget 
 that Man is a nobler substance than the mountains, and more 
 eternal even than they ! Their eternity is but the fiction of the 
 brain ; the eternity of the soul is a truth of God ! Yet, in these 
 mountains, one may best learn this truth ; and, learning, ascend 
 in view of its snow-white radiance, " seeking ever a higher 
 object." Here best is taught that reverence which the Holy 
 Word demands, and which Wordsworth, in the verses prefixed 
 to this chapter, so feelingly embodies. 
 
 I could not refrain from repeating the solemn significance of 
 the Bard of Rydal Mount, who was himself accustomed, like 
 the eagle, to leave the impurpled hills of his own Cumberland, 
 and among the mountains renew at evening his proud communi 
 cation with the sun. I could not refrain, when gathering the 
 little Alpine flowers, so beautifully delicate in petal and exquisite 
 in aroma, so nicely stemmed and richly tinted from pondering 
 how these least of things seemed infinite. Najr, it is not mere 
 poetry. Take your microscope and examine that world of germ 
 and flower which, analogous to the out-budding constellations, is 
 obeying the eternal order of growth ; and say, is there not an 
 infinity in the tender petal of blue, bedropt with gold and specked 
 with a love-light, growing under the mountain s shade 1 Come 
 home to severe science, and you may learn, that the slightest 
 alteration in the force of gravity which pervades the universe, 
 
294 CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 would alter the position of that blue Alpine flower, peeping be 
 tween its rock-ribbed home up to its kindred azure. An earth, 
 greater or smaller, denser or rarer in the least, would require a 
 change in the structure and strength of the stalks of every flower. 
 There is something curious in considering the whole mass of the 
 earth from pole to pole, from the centre to the circumference, as 
 employed in keeping that blue flower bedropt with gold in its 
 wild position, and the one most suitable to its vegetable health. 
 If science thus demonstrates the infinitude of the relations of 
 these tiny flowers, is there not a deep significance in the poetry 
 of Wordsworth, that " littleness is not, the least of things seems 
 infinite ?" The highest poetry and the severest science will ever 
 harmonize. Induction can never exhaust Castalia s fountain. 
 Bacon was akin to Calliope, and Newton enjoyed her deepest 
 confidence. Whewell and Wordsworth both agree, that in the 
 humblest flower of the vale there is an infinity reposing as se 
 renely as in the evolving nebulae of the creation s bound ! How I 
 love, with such thoughts, to gather these little azure infinities. 
 The meadows along the gushing streams are covered by them. 
 They modestly peep up, almost with a shiver at the Lapland 
 tops of the mountains. They seem like a dream of spring smil 
 ing around the icy features of winter. They contest the palm 
 of beauty with the sliding and spraying cascades, which sporting 
 around the chamois home and eagle s nest, leap fearless out of 
 cloud-land upon rock-land. But did the latter lose their vivacious 
 loveliness, or the former their tender beauty, because of their 
 frequent occurrence in our upward path ? Ask the bird of song 
 if her throat loses, its sweetness upon that fairy isle of Maggiore, 
 we passed yesterday, although her song is ever the same ? Ask 
 the cloud which reflects the dyes of evening over the Morea, if 
 its glory is lost in the soul, because the same glow is continually 
 around about us in splendid sun-settings ? 
 
 We walk most of the way up, gathering strawberries as we 
 walk. The cold air rushes down the valley as we near the hos 
 pice. Winter rules here. Hearken ! how the wind howls, and 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS. 295 
 
 the windows rattle ! Seven thousand feet up in the earth s at 
 mosphere, and yet so many other peaks above us ! Why, I 
 almost tremble for our earth s orbit. In wheeling around upon 
 its soft axle, our pensile orb is in danger, with such tall protube 
 rances into the sky. Thank Heaven ! There are Andes, Him- 
 malehs and Alleghanies to balance the wheels, and make our 
 earth dance to the tune of gravity, after the most precise method. 
 
 Ah ! it was good to get to the Inn. It was better to feel the 
 cheer of the fire. It was best to tickle the eager palate with 
 mountain trout and chamois venison. The earth earthy will at 
 times predominate. Cascades and lofty peaks were obliterated 
 for a time, to play and pinnacle again in this poor page. All 
 alone I sit at my table. My companions are recruiting them 
 selves by sleep for the morrow, when we shall run down in three 
 hours to Leuk, thence to Martigny and the Blanc. Seven hours 
 is occupied in the ascent to this half-way spot. 
 
 The stars glisten in the windy air so fitfully bright ; so 
 cold yet lustrous. Never was I so near them before ; never 
 perhaps shall I be so near again ; yet with all the sublimity of 
 these mountains, the rolling clusters of constellations eclipse 
 them all, even as Mont Blanc eclipses an Indian mound of our 
 own valley. The bell of a convent near sounds wildly strange 
 at this hour upon this height. The ghostly white mountains 
 above gleam fearfully. A strange shudder comes over me, at 
 the awful immensity of barrenness around. Truly has Byron 
 written of these palaces of nature, pinnacled in clouds, throning 
 eternity in their icy halls, and speeding on their mission of 
 destruction the thunderbolt of snow : 
 
 u All that expands the spirit, yet appalls, 
 Gather around their summits as to show, 
 How Earth may soar to Heaven, yet leave vain man below." 
 
 How bracing is this upper air. Five hours of rest here is 
 ^uivalcnt to ten in southern Italy. Midnight closed my last 
 paragraph on the summit of the Simplon. A few hours of sleep, 
 
296 CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 and we started on foot, ahead of the diligence, over the regions 
 of uninhabited desolation. It seemed as if a great lake had 
 once been upon this mountain, whose sides yet loom up in rug 
 ged grandeur. We passed the old and new Hospices erected 
 for the safety of travellers bid the monks " bon jour," bought 
 mountain agates from the younkers on the mount, were over 
 taken by the rumbling vehicle, and at the word " monte !" we are 
 in the coupe, rattling down the precipitous descent, overlooking 
 valleys where the distant kine jingle their bells, and where the 
 little chalfits are espied in the profound distance ; and rushing 
 through galleries of safety, serving at once as a bridge for water 
 falls which roar over and under us and then plunge sheer into 
 the air, and at the same time as a guard from the avalanches, 
 whose scarring tracks are deeply trenched in the mountain sides. 
 These galleries are cut in the solid rock, but drip with water or 
 glitter with icicles like a grotto with stalactites. The pines are 
 perpetually appearing wherever a moss fibre can crawl ; and flow 
 ers but I have said enough of them. Nature repeats her glo 
 ries, but in every place how differently. At Boresa, where we 
 stopped, the carol of the bird began to announce the vernal re 
 gion. The outside, or rather the top of the diligence became 
 my seat, as we ran down into the valley of the Rhone. It was 
 a fearful seat at first. There were so many and such short 
 curves, shaped like the letter S in the road, that at times I seem 
 ed about to be dashed with the diligence over precipices 2000 feet 
 below, where torrents roared and rocks bristled. Around every 
 point the downward serpentine of the road wound, cut out of the 
 sides of the mountain, and absolutely suspended in the air. 
 But what cared the driver for these glorious scenes or dangerous 
 abysses ? Halloo on, old glazed cap ! " Hee ! Hee ! Yee-youp ! 
 Brabone ! " and snap ! would go the lash at the lazy leader ! 
 For miles we wended downward, almost encircling Mount Eglise, 
 whose five-and-twenty peaks, all joined in one Gothic spire, 
 towered above the great snow-fields around, and pierced, as with 
 a wedge; a dense cloud which seemed enamored of its untrod 
 den pinnacles. 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS. 297 
 
 The vale of Brieg will long be remembered for its variety of 
 rural beauty. It receives us as we run down the mountains. A 
 magnificent vale it is, extending down the Simplon side of the 
 mountains across the Rhone, whose whitish green waters rush 
 over a bed enamelled with clean boulders, as far as the eye 
 can see, and midway up the Bernese Alps. The drive down its 
 valley was one of our finest. The way was a duplicate of sub 
 limity Vallais frowning upon one side with her angry moun 
 tain brows, glistening with Rosa and Moro ; while Berne looked 
 out gloomily from the Gemmi gorge at Leuk, so famous for its 
 baths, and the immense perpendicularity of its mountain scenery. 
 
 Sion we reached before sunset. Its feudal towers rising be 
 fore the city, revived the stories of barons bold and ladies fair ; 
 while in the city we found the warlike people crowding around a 
 case of assault and battery, with two soldiers holding a man 
 with a bloody nose, whom two loud-talking Sionians were pum 
 melling under the soldiers eyes. The shadow of the rural 
 mountains kissed midway in the valley at sundown, and unitedly 
 followed us into Martigny. 
 
 The fields ajong this part of the valley are mostly worked by 
 women, coarse, robust, and gawky. Nearly every peasant woman 
 has the swelling at the throat, known as the goitre, so often re 
 ferred to by travellers. It is the same disgusting execrescence 
 which Juvenal refers to in the line 
 
 " Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus." 
 
 The swelling is of the thyroid gland or the parts adjoining, 
 which grows with the growth of the person, until, as in some 
 cases, which we saw, it becomes a huge bag, covering the 
 breast, and rendering the person unable to walk under the bur 
 den. Various discussions as to its cause, have not as yet re 
 sulted in a remedy for the effect. The best sense of the medi 
 cal profession has settled down upon the idea, that it is caused 
 by a sort of malaria, owing to the confined air of the valleys, in 
 the marshy places. Bad as it is, the women seem to care little 
 13* 
 
298 CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 for it. It is not nearly so disgusting as cretinism, which, from 
 similar causes, prostrates the mind and deforms the body. How 
 sad, that in such sublime and wonderful scenery, where physical 
 Nature displays her utmost magnificence, poor human nature 
 should be degraded and ruined by such a mysterious dispensa 
 tion. Thank God for our own Ohio plains and undulations ! 
 where, if the ague does sometimes abound, it does not deform 
 the body and shatter the mind ! But one can hardly wonder 
 either at the dispensation, when it is considered to what a 
 height these barriers rise above the low valleys. Disease will 
 creep in, where the pure air of heaven cannot enter. Why ! in 
 one of the cantons near the Lauterbrimnen, which we passed, there 
 lived, unknown by all their neighbors, a tribe of the most primi 
 tive heathens, until the twelfth century, when they were dis 
 covered by some daring cragsman, and-converted to Christianity 
 by the good Bishop of Constance ! Could there be found a 
 stronger illustration of the depths of these valleys, into and out of 
 which even human curiosity failed to find its way ? 
 
XXIII. 
 
 nir in B 
 
 " Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains, 
 
 They crowned him long ago, 
 On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, 
 With his diadem of snow." 
 
 Byron s Manfred. 
 
 SUNDAY morning we awoke in Martigny. The chimes near 
 our windows were playing I verily believe a waltz. It 
 sounded so spirited and jocund. We are in the Catholic canton 
 of Vallais. and of course every body goes to church. The women 
 in tidy little hats surrounded with a broad silvered ribbon, and 
 with prayer-book modestly folded in white handkerchief; with 
 their high waists but I am encroaching upon forbidden ground ! 
 It is enough, that their " bon jour, monsieur" every where given 
 smilingly and sweetly, to say nothing of their Sunday best 
 attire won our admiration. The smallest urchin made his 
 obeisance to the stranger, and the oldest inhabitant removed his 
 hat and bent his silvered head in respectful salutation. How 
 pleasant to meet these kind-hearted Republicans. God bless 
 these descendants of Tell ! The English, especially Murray, in 
 his guide-book, have maligned the Swiss, most infamously. 
 There is more true manhood and breeding in these simple-heart 
 ed people, than could be expressed out of all England, if she lay 
 under the Alps for a century. Go to ! Roast beef, go to ! 
 Hurrah for your Queen and spend your gold ; but let unosten 
 tatious simplicity live unlibelled in its happy valley. 
 
 A novel mode of travel awaited us at Martigny. Mont 
 Blanc must be seen from Chamouni, and the Tete Noirmust be 
 
300 THROUGH THE TETE NOIR 
 
 passed. Twenty miles inaccessible to the carriage, and traver- 
 sible only by the mule, or upon foot, must be overcome. Our 
 ladies are ready upon the sure-footed animals, and one mule is 
 reserved for three of the other sex, wherewith to ride and tie. 
 A Sabbath day s journey to the greatest temple in the universe, 
 with Coleridge s hymn for our melody, and the roaring torrents 
 for our diapason ; who so Puritanic as to object to such an ex 
 cursion ? Well, we have a goodly calvacade up the mountain. 
 Thirteen mules besides our own join us, and on we go, only 
 stopping at the cool fountain or to fill our basket with straw 
 berries. The way up was among pleasant apple orchards, and 
 harvest fields. We had no dangers to encounter, or gorges to 
 tremble at ; until we turned abruptly into the Tete Noir, or 
 Black Head ! Our mules then began to measure their steps 
 cautiously, though they were evidently so familiar with the path 
 as not to " snort suspicion." 
 
 The passes in the Alps have their grades of sublimity, terror, 
 and beauty. The Simplon combines, in the greatest degree, all 
 these qualities. The Splugen and the Gemmi have more of ter 
 ror. The Tete Noir is deservedly celebrated, as well for its 
 wildness, as for being the path to Mont Blanc. Within its 
 savage gorges, the torrent thunders as if from lowest depths 
 opening to devour. Dr. Cheever considered it a concentration, 
 though somewhat in miniature, of the grand features of the Sim 
 plon, but at the same time rich and beautiful beyond description. 
 I could not do better than to compress its scenery into the pic 
 ture which he furnishes. " Abrupt precipices frowning at each 
 other across the way like black thunder clouds, about to meet ; 
 enormous crags overhanging you so far, that you tremble to pass 
 under them ; savage cliffs looking down upon you, and watching 
 you on the other side, as if waiting to see the mountain fall 
 upon you ; a torrent thundering beneath you, masses of the 
 richest verdure flung in wild drapery over the gorge ; galleries 
 hewn in the rock, by which you pass the angular perpendicular 
 cliffs, as in rocky hammocks swung in air ; villages suspended 
 
TO MONT BLANC. 301 
 
 above you, and looking sometimes as if floating in the clouds ; 
 snowy mountain ridges far above these ; clusters of chalets al 
 most as far below you, with the tinkling of bells, the hum of 
 voices, and the war of the torrent, fitfully sweeping up to you on 
 the wind ; these are the combinations presented you in the Tete 
 Noir." The picture is not exaggerated, nor unfaithful, save that 
 we found but one gallery in the pass. 
 
 After passing a rude cross erected upon a fearful part of the 
 road, to commemorate a young German who lost his life there 
 in a storm by the falling of a pine, you perceive the " head," black 
 and bushy with pines, rising out of the brown, twisted, craggy 
 rocks. Turning toward Chaniouni, and looking across the vale, 
 not far from the Auberge, there appears a mount, less perpen 
 dicular, but higher than the " Tete," and a valley deeper ! I 
 counted seven silver cascades playing from its top, separating 
 and uniting, bursting into spray, and floating in the air, then 
 joining in a torrent. I could liken the scene to none other than 
 a parliament or a congress of cascades, whose speeches were all 
 to one point the glory of the pass. One like an oily-tongued 
 persuader, glides smoothly down the rock without splash or 
 spray, and gains his end just as surely as the showy declaimer 
 who raves and stamps, and tears a passion to tatters. Another 
 spreads out his oratory in fine threads, every interruption fret 
 ting him into new points of grace and beauty, but uniting at the 
 base in a torrent full and free, while his cogent neighbor, with 
 continuity and unbrokenness of column, falls with all his force 
 in one master apothegm upon the thread of his theme ; and so 
 they speak from their lofty tribune, illustrating their eloquence 
 with flowers of sweetness, and rocks of truth. A villa of an 
 hundred chalets listens demurely to their debate, and the torrent 
 below unanimously carries the question down the vale with a 
 glad shout of triumph. Well, metaphor will run mad in such a 
 scene ; so do not criticise my consistency. I wrote it on the 
 spot, and give it as I wrote ; interrupted now and then by the 
 rapture of a lady-companion, who was filling her basket with 
 
302 THROUGH THE TETE NOIR 
 
 flowers, and the shout of a gentleman, who had found high up in 
 the rocks a Chamois nest (?) made of moss. 
 
 But why wreak one s thoughts upon expression, where there 
 is so much to paint, and where words are not mountains, nor 
 cascades, nor even the pictures of them ? The monster back of 
 that rock, breaking the vale in twain, but smiling in its shaggy 
 grandeur with gardens along its sides, and lashed everlastingly 
 by a torrent, at which it also smiles where is the palette of wordy 
 colors to paint that? Soon, through a perspective of snowy 
 mounts, Mont Blanc, monarch of them all, lifts on high his 
 blanched head. The view at first disappointed me. We were 
 ourselves so high, that his 16,000 feet dwindled to half of that. 
 The azure sky was unclouded, and the vast Gothic granite 
 needles that pierce it around the monarch, were well defined and 
 sharp. Far ahead of our party, I ran down through the Rouge 
 and Verd mounts, leaving the Col de Balme behind down- 
 down down DOWN past cattle feeding in the shadows which 
 were creeping up the mountains on the east, and at last into the 
 vale of Chamouni, with its lofty line of sublimities on either 
 side. I knew the Arve the bold brawler from the clouds and 
 ice peaks, born amid thunder and storm, hastening by the 
 humble cots from steep to steep, 
 
 "Till mingling with the mighty Rhone 
 It rests beneath Geneva s walls." 
 
 The Mer de Glace, and its outlet, the Glacier de Bois, hung 
 over the vale under the everlasting pinnacles, threatening in 
 aspect, while out of its hollow ice halls, rolled the " five wild 
 torrents fiercely glad," which join to form the Aveiron. The 
 vale lies north and south. The evening sun has left the valley, 
 but lingers in a faint pink upon the great ice and snow fields of 
 the monarch s head. The village of Chamouni, a pretty place 
 enough, seems but a handful in these immensities of matter. 
 Long after the shadows of night hung darkling over its roofs, 
 the white light played on the top of the mountains. Perpetual 
 
 
TO MONT BLANC. 303 
 
 layers of eternal whiteness, untracked and untainted by mortal 
 tread, catch the last, and will gleam with the first light of 
 heaven. The mind becomes oppressed with an overpowering 
 sense of sublimity. There is the Hierarchy of Nature minister 
 ing between heaven and earth, in long white robes flowing down 
 the enormous ravines, with a solemn silence which rebukes the 
 noisy torrents at its feet, and the roar of the wavy pines midway 
 up its sides. Dread ambassador ! what a ministration between 
 the Finite and Infinite is thine ! Pomp of earthly kings ! how 
 puerile and tame is your magnificence ! 
 
 It is only a mighty mind like that of Coleridge, that could 
 grasp and give expression to the spirit of this vale. I have 
 read that he never visited this spot. It cannot be true. His 
 hymn is the true worship of his lofty soul, uplifted through 
 tears into this sublime serenity. 
 
 Raptures and exclamations are impotent and tame ; the only 
 style which befits the solemn significance of the scene at Cha- 
 mouni, is that of the prophet who, wrapped in his mantle, bowed 
 to the still small voice in awe. 
 
 As I write now, the peaks and falls, glaciers and gorges, 
 which surround me, have become familiar in name and position ; 
 but the spirit of the scene who can exhaust ? Who can analyze 
 its glories ? Other travellers have essayed to do it as well be 
 neath its shadow as upon the distant points of view. It is only 
 to be felt by being seen. As I gazed upon it, while the day was 
 departing, the lofty wish of the poet, seemed full of new mean 
 ing, when he prayed that he might grow more bright from com 
 merce with the sun, at the approach of all involving night. 
 And forgetful of the dear ones at home, remembered ever 
 upon all other occasions, the wish started to the light, that 
 here, beneath these hoar, high peaks of God s own majesty, we 
 would love to live, and live to love, and at last sleep in the all 
 involving night of death, among the blossoms and flowers of 
 this lovely vale. 
 
 I would like to take you up one more ascent the Montan- 
 
304 THROUGH THE TETE KOIR. 
 
 vert, which we ascended by mules, and from which the best view 
 is to be had of the great granite peaks, and from which you 
 may descend upon the Mer de Glace. Two hours and a half 
 brought us to the Pavilion a toilsome, rocky way, but ren 
 dered pleasant by the cool milk and and rich strawberries which 
 the bright-eyed girls of the mountain offer us, at different points 
 in the ascent. After a rest and a dish of strawberries, we de 
 scended upon the most wonderful phenomena of the Alps, the 
 glacier. This glacier is the largest in the world, it being forty- 
 five miles long, and in some places three wide. It was over a 
 mile wide at the point where we were upon its moving mass. 
 Rumble ! crash ! crack ! boom ! went the ice, as a huge granite 
 rock in the midst tumbled into the cavernous profound. Hoarse 
 and sepulchral, sharp and ear-piercing is the sound. Dare we 
 venture upon the living sea, peaked, hollow, roaring, trickling 
 with water, quivering with life, and bursting its icy fetters ? 
 Before we venture, let us take one view of the magnificent spec 
 tacle, embosomed beneath in the vale, which is surroundtd by 
 the mounts and snow-peaks ; pass not slightly over the minute 
 beauties which are painted in the plain, with their coverlets of 
 verdurous squares, triangular harvest-fields of yellow, mingled 
 with the freshly plowed ground, lying between the belt of trees 
 fringing the Arve and Aveiron, which, like two white ribbons 
 inwrought with silver, dart with bright points of flashing, until 
 they mingle to rave ceaselessly at the base of Blanc. These 
 spots of rural beauty depend upon the melting glacier which 
 feeds perpetual streams of irrigation. Do you ask why God 
 hath placed the glacier here ? Seek an answer in the well-filled 
 granary and happy faces of the peasantry. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 " He has seen the hoar 
 
 Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc, both far and near, 
 And in Chamouni heard the thunder-hills of fear. 
 
 COULD you elevate your mental telescope sowewhat loftily, 
 and turn it hitherward, you would perceive the Author in a 
 situation at once extraordinary and peculiar. I do not know, 
 but that my position is high enough to obviate the intervention 
 of the thick rotundity of the world, and the considerable dis 
 tance between Ohio and Chamouni. I sit upon a granite boulder, 
 in a sea of ice, called the Mer de Glace. My prospect in front 
 is the great cathedral pinnacle of Dru ; the point of Verdi, 
 the highest of the needles, is in the rear ; that of Bouchard is 
 on the left, and on the right is the grand Horach, hid in snow ; 
 next to it is Charmoz, partly snow-covered. These points en 
 viron the glacier-bed with their spiry, rocky, snowy needles, 
 rising out of the frigid green sea, jagged, terrific, and sublime ! 
 We seize our Alpenstock, shod with iron, and under the lead 
 of our excellent guides, who take charge of the ladies, we enter 
 upon the icy bed even to its midst, and look down into some of 
 the wildest gorges of the glacier, which shine with beautiful 
 greenish blue. These gorges are deep and hollow. Within 
 them the torrent s voice roars madly. Our guides threw large 
 rocks into the chasm, and we stood breathless, listening to the 
 reverberations beneath. Great granite rocks are upon the ice 
 bergs, and as the glacier moves, now and then they tumble into 
 the gorges with thundering echo. The sound of the torrent 
 
306 THE ICE-SEA. 
 
 and the progress of the immense mass make the place one of 
 thrilling interest. Upon the opposite shore, under the peaks, 
 there rise green pine forests, out of a sea of frost ; and over 
 head, there float white clouds, like celestial navies sailing from 
 point to point in the upper air. Surely this is the perfection of 
 wild and gloomy desolation overpowering and strange as a 
 nether and an upper world, united in wild phantasy. 
 
 " What a dear little flower I have found just here upon the 
 edge of the glacier ; a little pink moss, or star-flower. Only 
 look at it !" breaks in a musical treble near by. 
 
 " Don t interrupt me, Madame ; I am catching a likeness of 
 Desolation himself in his own home ?" 
 
 No wonder the Aveiron roars with such a perpetuity of 
 music and continuity of stream, fed by such an interminable 
 waste of ever trickling, but never melted ice. No wonder that 
 the 
 
 " Rose d Alp ?" inquires the same treble, upon the brink of 
 the ice-sea, where its owner is plucking flowerets of most deli 
 cate hue and form. 
 
 " Oui, Madame," says the good guide ; " il commence a 
 fleurir." 
 
 " What s that mean, Dominichino ? What kind of a flower 
 does the guide call it ?" 
 
 : It is not a flower yet, Madame. It s a begging to come 
 out." Quite a poetical idea ! 
 
 " Ah ! a bud yes, yes. How exquisite !" 
 
 See those other immense glaciers, high and away up the sea, 
 miles off, branching out of the Mer, and each having its own 
 great sluices. Hark ! far up in their dreary profundities, the 
 armies of ice are cannonading with sharp and thundering din ! 
 
 " Come ! come !" They are hallooing to us from above ! 
 " Let us go to the Englishman s rock !" 
 
 I cannot resist such persuasiveness ; so picking up my ink 
 horn and journal, and wondering how the poor fellow felt who 
 fell into one of the icy gulfs and came out below in the torrent, 
 
THE ICE-bEA. 307 
 
 I left, to see the now broken granite rocks, under whose shelter 
 Pococke and Windham, the first English adventurers into this 
 valley in 1741, slept; and which has since then been moving 
 down the ravine, " sloping amain," at the rate of one foot per 
 day, sweeping an immense moraine of granite and earth along. 
 
 There is so much of the terrific and the peculiar connected 
 with this Alpine phenomenon, that much scientific observation 
 has been given to it. The deductions of scientific men are as 
 remarkable as they are interesting, in relation to the origin, 
 movement, former existence and effect of glaciers. The best 
 information I can obtain is the following. It contains the eclec 
 ticism of the subject : 
 
 The summit of Mont Blanc, when its fused granitic mass 
 rose up from the bowels of the earth, was for some time as bare 
 as are the wasted peaks of the Aiguilles which surround it. 
 The heat gradually subsided, an immense quantity of snow be 
 gan to fall, as it now does, on the elevated rocks and valleys. 
 In the highest regions, where rain is unknown, evaporation, pro 
 ceeding from the extreme dryness of the atmosphere, causes 
 these flakes to descend in particles somewhat resembling hail, 
 whose loose dry grains, heaped on each other, are incoherent and 
 form what is termed the neve. A great part of this is swept down 
 on the lower stages of the mountain by those impetuous currents 
 of air which almost constantly reign at great heights, at other 
 times snow containing some portion of moisture is whirled up 
 across the summit from the lower and warmer regions ; during 
 summer the solar rays, not having yet lost their calorific inten 
 sity by descent through the atmosphere, act with extraordinary 
 force, avalanches are detached, and the moisture caused by the 
 direct action of the heat on the exterior, as well as that arising 
 from clouds which at times envelope the summit, is speedily ab 
 sorbed by the remainder of the porous mass. To this succeeds 
 nightly congelation and expansion, so that the neve descending 
 gradually from this, combined with other causes, in the same 
 manner as the low glacier, forms the reservoir of those vast ice 
 
308 THE ICE-SEA. 
 
 streams which glide into the upper valleys of the Alps. Suc 
 cessive falls of snow, their thaws and congelations, are therefore 
 the undoubted origin of the first glaciers. 
 
 Their movement is very differently explained. De Saussure 
 attributes it to gravitation, which is improbable, because, if pres 
 sure at ergo were the sole cause, the entire body would slide 
 down into the plains with gradually accelerated velocity. De 
 Charpentier and Agassiz are partisans of the dilatation theory, 
 supposing that daily thaw, constantly succeeded in the whole 
 body by night frosts and expansion, causes the forward motion. 
 This is refuted by the ascertained fact that congelation does 
 not every where and always take place throughout the glacier, 
 for the cold, except at its edges and thinner parts, penetrates 
 no farther than into the earth when covered by a mantle of 
 snow. Nocturnal cold merely suffices to dry up the streamlets 
 at the exterior during summer, and the constant wasting of the 
 glacier during that season proves that frost does not then ex 
 ercise a dilating effect. While the prolonged winter season 
 continues, it of course reaches a greater depth, but if entirely 
 dependent on alternate thaw and frost the whole body would 
 then freeze hard and not move at all. 
 
 Whoever examines the composition of the glacier will rea 
 dily perceive it to be an eminently fragile body composed of a 
 porous and plastic ice, different from that which forms on the 
 surface of lakes and rivers. The manner in which it moulds 
 and adapts itself to every bend and corner of a rocky valley 
 proves its ductility. It is in short a semi-solid or viscous com 
 position, urged downwards by its own weight and a mutual 
 pressure of its coherent parts. The mass is detached from its 
 bed of rock by the subterranean heat of the globe, the infiltra 
 tion of rain-water, and of the moisture produced by exterior 
 thaw. Being the outlet of the winter world it is fed in the upper 
 regions by dilatation of the neve, the descent of avalanches, and 
 by snow swept down on it from the summits. 
 
 Thus urged onwards, the daily waste below is replaced by 
 
THE ICE- SEA. 309 
 
 daily descent from above. Crevasses proceed from forcible 
 separations caused by inequalities of the rock, its occasional 
 swells, or abrupt descents, over which the viscous or half rigid 
 mass strains forward. When an obstacle occurs, the glacier 
 becomes transversely rent, its lower portion is separated, and 
 proceeds, the fissure gradually enlarging, until closed up by pres 
 sure behind or accumulation of ice debris, to form afresh if the 
 cause is renewed. Though the identical ice of which they, or 
 the deep gully holes often seen on the glacier are composed, may, 
 after a lapse of time, have advanced some hundred feet, the rents 
 and fissures will always be found at the same spot like the eddies 
 and deep pools in particular parts of a stream. Local confor 
 mations mould the ice ; its centre advances more rapidly than 
 the sides which it drags along ; its upper surface more than the 
 under one ; the lower end more than the source or reservoir. 
 The velocity is checked by cold but augmented by sunshine, 
 thaw, or rain. The forward movement, through perpetual night 
 and day, is irregular, and much greater in spring than summer, 
 in summer than in autumn and winter. During the hot season 
 the glacier wastes away in all its parts ; during winter it is ex 
 panded upwards by frost and agglomeration to its former level, 
 and, the progress being retarded, all its parts crowd together. 
 
 The abrasion of the diamond and the force of the lever give 
 to the glacier an immense power. Hence the stupendous rocks 
 found in places where no other agency could have borne them. 
 Evidences are numerous in the vale of Chamouni, of this very 
 glacier having torn away great portions of the mountain, and 
 filled the vale to the height of five hundred feet or more. 
 Indeed, when we consider the effect of this silent, slow, but 
 resistless messenger from above, the fact that it overthrows or 
 surmounts almost every opposition, and that a very slight de 
 pression of the present temperature of the earth would cause its 
 increase ad infinitum, we must admit that such a mighty instru 
 ment may prove, in the hands of Providence, an agent more 
 destructive of our globe than fire or water, since no effort can 
 arrest, no obstacle prevent or divert its awful progress. 
 
310 THE ICE-SEA. 
 
 Ascending the Pavilion, we may discuss over a little Alp of 
 strawberries, blanched with sugar, which quickly disappears under 
 the keenness of the appetite the science of this immense sea, 
 more at leisure. While eating, however, I opened the register, 
 and found that Montanvert had proved a Parnassus to some 
 genius incognitos, who poured forth his sentiment right happily 
 in the following 
 
 SONG OF THE MER DE GLACE. 
 
 "There ne er was seen, on earth I ween, 
 
 A fairer sun than shone 
 On our Alpine pass of the Mer de Glace 
 This fourteenth day of June. 
 
 " Our feet have pressed the snowy crest 
 
 Of these wild waves deep and strange, 
 On whose strength of rock, writes the whirlwind s shock 
 Scarce the shadow of a change. 
 
 " And the mountains to-day, as they have alway 
 
 Since time began to be, 
 With reverend head guard the royal bed 
 Of that sleeping silver sea. 
 
 " And while ages fail, they ll tell the tale 
 To years Time s laurels winning, 
 Of ages that sleep in the awful deep 
 Beyond the great Beginning. " 
 
 " Truly," says an annotation, " we forgot it was July 
 
 Which, remembered in time, 
 Would have spoiled the rhyme. " 
 
 Other bards celebrate their drizzling days in Jeremiads and 
 dripping lines, but there was no piece which struck me as worthy 
 of a transcript, except the above. 
 
 We descended rapidly the great highway my mule, like a 
 gallant soldier, ever preferring the post of danger, and always 
 provokingly hanging his ears over the most awful chasms, and 
 
 
THE ICE- SEA. 31 1 
 
 eating grass just where one feared to be toppled headlong into 
 the awful gorges. But it is great, to be high and aloof from the 
 world and its vexations. For a lawyer to be 7.000 feet high, it 
 is almost Paradise. No judge, jury or sheriff; no special plead 
 ing or demurring (save that of the mule) away up here. Chitty 
 has no Precedent for the Dru ; and Tidd, in all his " Practice." 
 never drew so complex, yet so simple, a declaration as Mont 
 Blanc draws against the serene azure. Never was I so near the 
 great high Chancery, where all things are tested by the con 
 science, and not by the letter merely. 
 
 We bade adieu to Mont Blanc on Tuesday, to see his radiant 
 face again from St. Martin s bridge, upon the road to Geneva, 
 where it was said that one of the finest views could be had of 
 him and his chain. St. Martin s is twelve miles from Mont 
 Blanc. As you look up the valley of the furious Arve, there 
 arises the Mount Foreclaze, covered with pines and pasturage ; 
 over these, the needles point around the Mer de Glace, and 
 mingling with them, are the snow tops, consisting of great fields, 
 which centuries have been piling, and which branch down the 
 ravines in moving glaciers. The black pines gloom along the 
 twelve mile perspective. It has been raining ; the clouds are 
 heavy, and hang around the mounts in variegated and wild 
 gloominess. A great terraced point, swelling upward in culti 
 vation, is upon our right, across the vale, while a stupendous 
 castellated temple is upon our left. The birds sing, and the 
 Arve roars. The mighty spirit of the spectacle glides along the 
 walled ridges, and enters the soul, bedewing it with thanks and 
 mute ecstasy. Nature has many thoughts encased within, and 
 flowing from, these rocky mounts, to be pondered with profit and 
 delight. The reader who has not had the advantage of realizing 
 the beauty and immensity of an Alpine scene, should at least 
 turn back to our frontispiece, in which the talented artist, Hin- 
 shelwood, of New- York, has re-pictured to our memory the 
 sublime view of Mont Blanc from St. Martin s bridge. The 
 engraving is from a drawing upon the spot, and faithfully fol- 
 
312 WE ICE-SEA. 
 
 lows the hand of the great original. With such a pictured 
 view, further description would be supererogation. The road to 
 Geneva is alive with cascades of every variety of beauty ; and it 
 towers up with castellated mountains, into whose hearts large 
 grottoes open. The fountain of Palerines, where there is a re 
 coil in a parabolic curve of sixty feet, cannot be forgotten. 
 
 We passed, on going around a mountain, the exquisite cas 
 cade of Chede. The first jet is round and full, falling upon a 
 rocky terrace, midway, where it divides into two other cascades, 
 forming the shape of a heart, leaving a black rock within its sil 
 ver setting. I cannot convey by language, nor by comparison, 
 any adequate idea of the beauty of these cascades. We find 
 them leaping like spirits from heaven out of clouds upon ever 
 lasting rocks, and detaining the eye with their grace, and the 
 ear with their melody. 
 
 The cascade Nant d Arpenaz was a joy for ever. Leav 
 ing our char, and bidding our courier and driver await, we 
 wended our way over the meadows to its base. I leaped 
 from rock to rock, until I sat under its spray, upon a boul 
 der, my feet dangling amid flowers of loveliest blue. If you 
 can imagine one of our ordinary Buckeye hills, say two hun 
 dred feet high, suddenly monstered into one of a thousand 
 feet ; one side perpendicular, with rocks standing on a horizontal 
 basis ; the middle point arching in great curved strata, and the 
 other side an immense castellated mountain, which, unlike the 
 other mounts, seemed serene amidst the primeval fire which once 
 wildly interfused and intertwisted the granite ledges, you may 
 have a faint idea of the mountain source of this cascade. All 
 along are the results of the elder fires, scathing, melting, tear 
 ing, convulsing the mighty ribs of earth, and pitching them in 
 defiance of heaven at its very portal ; but this great castle- 
 mount seems rather to have grown, so close and systematic is its 
 gigantic masonry. Out of its arched granite heart there bursts a 
 volume of whitest water, written full of beauteous characters, 
 illuminated with prisms, fleecy as a nun s veil in the air, and 
 
THE ICE-SEA. 313 
 
 buoyed up like powdery snow-flakes ! So long is it in falling, that 
 its points shoot out and burst like little rockets or miniature 
 comets, with a nucleus and a streamer ; or rather like the whit 
 est steam puffs, curling and evanishing. The column, before it 
 falls, bespreads itself wide and thin, but gathers into point be 
 low, where in a torrent it plays among rocks down the distance 
 of thirty feet, then leaps in full column into a seething basin of 
 hollow profundity, which roars and boils furiously. 
 
 The mind cannot find imagery for so beautiful an object, 
 dashing out of so swelling an arch in so wild a spot. One 
 likened it to a plume ; another to a white pennon, floating 
 feathery ; another to Love, smiling in Hope and singing on the 
 bosom of Might. Cheever likens it, or a similar fountain, to 
 the fall of Divine grace into the Christian heart. Liken it to 
 what you will, its serene undertone sung, and will ever sing to 
 the soul of Memory a radiant living thing amidst terrific im- 
 movableness. I leaped from rock to rock, plucked some flowers 
 at its feet, felt its music thrill the heart, and was soon off again 
 amidst the castles in the air, real and palpable, which line this 
 Genevan road. 
 
 In the town of Bonneville, we saw a monument to a prince 
 Carlo Felici, erected to his memory, because he dammed the 
 town (the old sinner !) to protect it against the torrent Arve 
 which rushes along the valley. 
 
 With what trembling anxiety we approached Geneva, those 
 only can tell who have been pilgrims for two months or more, 
 without a word from home. At Geneva were our letters. The 
 scenes grew less attractive as we neared the rural city. What 
 chances and changes there had been among loved ones, we almost 
 feared to know. We hoped, oh ! how earnestly, that all were well 
 and living as we left them. Can they be all well and living? Vain 
 inquiry ! Is not such a mournful blindness a part of that kind 
 Providence, which is ever training the soul to rely upon the 
 Almighty Word ? Is it not a part of the lesson which GOD 
 gives, to the weak and inconstant in faith ? 
 14 
 
314 THE ICE-SEA. 
 
 With hearts painfully tremulous, we broke the seals, to find, 
 alas ! that one household near to us, was deprived of its happy 
 children that one hearth was no longer vocal with the merry 
 twattling and play of the meek-eyed little ones. May God mer 
 cifully guard the living, is the prayer we waft from this home 
 of Calvin, to our own dear Ohio ! 
 
XXY. 
 
 9tt miii rtrotitA 
 
 "The Ehone by Leman s waters washed, 
 
 Where mingled, yet separate, appears 
 The river from the lake, all bluely dashed 
 Through the serene and placid glassy deep." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 is so much impressed, almost simultaneously, upon 
 -L the mind in these mountain regions, that it staggers under 
 the confused mass, in the very intoxication of bewilderment. 
 One should have a subtle and pliant pen to picture, imperfectly 
 even, these vicissitudes of sublimity and beauty upon lake and 
 river, hill and mountain. At one time, you are called to view 
 a place so desolate and wild, that you would think it was created 
 for the last of human mould. Again you slide down almost in 
 sensibly into the loveliest pastures, by the most beautiful brooks, 
 surrounded by the home-endearing chalets, the fragrance of new 
 mown hay, and flowers of every hue. Again you shudder under 
 imminent craggy heights, to gaze at which almost takes away 
 your breath ; to emerge upon a shore like that of Leman, whose 
 pure water under the sun-ray, gleams like a bluish gem set in 
 emerald, and sparkles with a light more diamond-like than even 
 the bay at Naples, while its shelving green lawns, or vine-terraced 
 margins, rise under an atmosphere of beauty where love loved to 
 linger, and yet lingers in the pages of Rousseau, and the poetry 
 of Byron. You have heard of Mont Blanc being seen sixty miles 
 from the spot where he rears his high head, and being reflected 
 in clear placid Leman lake near Geneva s walls at that distance : 
 have you not ? Were you now at my window at this hour of 
 
316 IN AND ABOUND GENEVA. 
 
 sunrise, you might well wonder, start and adore, at the revela 
 tion of splendors, dazzling and soul-entrancing, playing against 
 the immovable masses of snow and ice which gild the sides and 
 glitter in the crown of Blanc. Could my Buckeye reader look 
 westward from Zanesville, and see an elevation of 16.000 feet, 
 surrounded by others a few thousand less, through a perspective 
 of mountains snow-blanched and pine-clad, robed everlastingly, 
 and all so solemn, so still, so sublime rising out of Columbus, 
 and glaring down plainly to the eye; he would wonder, if this 
 be our common world would he not 1 
 
 But too much of the descriptive wearies. You would prefer 
 to hear of these republican cantons ; how they sustain the lone 
 banner (for France can hardly be called republican as yet), 
 amidst the serried and surrounding ranks of absolutism. We 
 Americans are apt to think Switzerland a place of little conse 
 quenceso deeply hid in the mountains that she cannot permeate 
 Europe with any influence. We think of her as under a great 
 shadow, cast out from communication with the < rest of mankind. 
 Only enter Geneva, ride up the Lake Leman, whose banks are 
 bedecked with homes of simple elegance, and through Yaud and 
 Berne, whose fields are alive with the results of industry, and 
 there will be found a civilization ripe and advanced, by no means 
 circumscribed to the chalet of the peasant, or the hut of the cow 
 herd. Wherever government assures man that he may enjoy 
 the fruits of his labor, as it does here, where every one is indus 
 trious, comfort, arid even elegance, will reign. How different 
 are the people here from those in the south or middle of Italy. 
 Here industry toils for ever, yet in perfect contentment. There 
 is not the ostentatious gayety which dances under the festal gar 
 lands or surrounds the bedizened altars of the streets of Naples ; 
 but there is a quiet, substantial air of happiness, such as Gold 
 smith pictured in his < Traveller, when, from one of these moun 
 tain summits, he surveyed mankind in search of the true philo 
 sophy of life. Whether it be the tidy peasant girl in her white 
 bodice, partly hid in dark velvet, knitting at dusk in the door 
 
IN AND AROUND GENEVA. 317 
 
 of the cottage ; whether it be the elderly dame who rears her 
 top-knot of black gauze in the form of a cap of Elizabethan style, 
 bidding you, with a smile, good-day ; whether you are saluted in 
 French or German, by Catholic or Protestant, whether by the 
 cordial inn-keeper or the obliging vetturino-driver, there is the 
 same blandness of manner and kindness of spirit manifested and 
 felt. 
 
 It would repay us but little to travel without seeing some 
 thing besides material prospects. It is well to see the spirit of 
 the people, in their every-day life and conversation. More 
 glorious than snow-clad mounts, more harmonious than cascades, 
 rises the soul of a people, informed with the true feeling of con 
 tentment, and conscious of their individual independence. This 
 is our impression of the Swiss. When we. saw inscribed over 
 the quaint portal which led us into the confederation hall at 
 Geneva, " The children of Tell shall ever be blessed !" when we 
 saw the simple and unostentatious places for the meeting of the 
 people and for the deposit of their suffrages ; when we saw in 
 their manly air the idea of personal liberty, embodied and ex 
 pressed ; when we looked upon the cultivated landscape, and 
 into the busy workshops, then we felt that we were not in 
 a land which is under the dominion of irresponsible powers, 
 but breathing the air of republicans, who have an account with 
 God. truth, and their country ; and we felt too that there was a 
 strange remissness on the part of the American Republic, in 
 not providing an ambassador to this mountain sisterhood of 
 states, whose presence and countenance should shine as an en 
 couragement and a hope to the people amid the surrounding 
 tyrannies. But when we listened to the lofty spirituality of 
 D Aubigne, the Homer to Luther, who was the Achilles of the 
 Reformation ; when we walked with him along the grassy marge 
 of the placid lake, where he resides, and saw in his soul the re 
 flection of the mountain thoughts which towered above the 
 ordinary level of life s experience : when we caught the deep 
 meaning which beamed from his expressive eye, as he talked ot 
 
 
318 IN AND AROUND GENEVA. 
 
 the Church and State, of the relations of the former to the lat 
 ter, and of the abuses which spring from their union ; when he 
 spoke of Truth as superior to Protestantism, we felt that there 
 was yet in Switzerland a something more excellent than all the 
 hierarchies of the South and East, and even grander than the 
 republicanism of the mass. I wondered not that Switzerland 
 was a republic, and that from her emanated such powerful 
 spiritual influences. Here, where John Knox lived, after being 
 banished by a Stuart ; here, where the Regicides, or many of 
 them, lived after the Restoration ; here, where our Puritanism 
 imbibed its austere spirit of personal accountability, there lives 
 in as noble forms as when Farel preached. (Ecolampadius rea 
 soned, or Calvin and Zwingle taught and ruled, the genuine 
 spirit which ever protests against absorbing the individual in 
 the State or in the hierarchy. Dr. Malan, and Merle D Au- 
 bigne are the truest embodiment of this spirit living ; and that 
 too without the intolerance which stained the name of Calvin, 
 or the love of secular power which now weakens the Protestant 
 Church as at present connected with the State in Geneva. 
 
 It seemed as if we were coming home when we started for 
 Geneva. Here were our letters, and here were some friends to 
 whom I had the kindest introductory letters from a classmate, 
 who had sought in Geneva the fountain-head of Calvinism, and while 
 quaffing its waters, had plucked an Alpine flower (a daughter of 
 the celebrated Dr. Malan), and had borne it to America, where I 
 saw him with his brid<, full happy, at New Brunswick. To them 
 we were indebted for so cordial a greeting from the venerable 
 Doctor and his talented family. 
 
 Dr. Malan is one of the leaders of Protestantism in Europe, 
 which has always found its front and lead in Geneva, I would 
 refer the curious reader to Dr. Cheever for an animated and 
 glowing eulogy upon his amiable character. It is not over 
 wrought. How kind is his mien, with his bright eye and elastic 
 step (though he is eighty), and flowing white hair. He seems 
 like one of the Evangelists returned to earth. Since 1810, he 
 has been a noble soldier amid the most trying crosses. 
 
IN AND AROUND GENEVA. 319 
 
 But most I enjoyed my visit to Dr. Merle D Aubigne, author 
 of the History of the Reformation. His residence is upon the 
 shores of clear placid Leman, which wooed Byron to leave 
 life s troubled waters for a purer spring in vain. Our con 
 versation was prolonged for more than an hour, walking (as is 
 the hospitable custom here) under the shade-trees which line 
 the water of the blue lake. He is like Dr. Wayland in feature, 
 in energy of speech, and in character. There is such a pure 
 spirituality in his presence, such a light of intelligence beaming 
 in his black eye, under his long eye-brow, such a persuasiveness 
 in his pure, though not perfectly pronounced English, that I 
 listened with thrilling delight to his earnest conversation, as if 
 it were an hour to be embalmed for ever. In speaking of the 
 East, and the God-forsaken aspect of the old and favorite land 
 of Deity, he changed his mournful tone into one of living energy 
 as he said, " But the Spirit of Almighty God knows no locality ! 
 For well saith Luther, (how he loves to quote the hero of his 
 history,) they who do not cherish the seed when it is sown in 
 their midst, it must must die out. God ordains it !" Re 
 gretfully I left these choice men of the Protestant world, to 
 feel, if not to see, their shadowy contrast at Ferney, where we 
 visited the house, tomb, and old elm tree of Voltaire. We 
 walked down the green arbor of beech (it is nearly 300 yards 
 long), where the Infidel shrivelled and sneered, as he dictated 
 his godless sentiments to his secretary. The arbor commands 
 the view of Mont Blanc and his range. The house is being re 
 paired, arid the relics of Voltaire removed. The church he 
 erected over his tomb, is now a carriage house ! 
 
 How infinite in its influence is the intellectual power 
 which clustered in former times around Lake Leman. Not alone 
 that infernal satanic sneer which lived on the lip and flashed in 
 the antitheses of the arch infidel of Ferney ; not alone the attract 
 ive sentimentality and social principles which were the seed of 
 the French Revolution, and which filled the novels and imprint 
 ed the Social contract of Rousseau, whose home, where he lived 
 
320 IN AND AROUND GENEVA. 
 
 with Madame De Warens at the head of the lake /iear Vevay, 
 we saw ; not alone the learned and philosophic influence of Gib 
 bon, who, amid the green bowers which shade the city of Lau 
 sanne, and along the delicious margin of the lake, turned over 
 pages of Latin which none but the schoolmen of the middle ages 
 had read, in order to write the decline of the Roman power, and 
 to array his immense stores against the holiest of Religions ; 
 not alone, these elements of Revolution, Godliness, and Anarchy ; 
 but, thank God ! the elements of construction and inspiration, 
 more lasting than tomes of learning, more beautiful than senti 
 ment, all invincible to satire, were here mirrored in thy crystal 
 waters, Oh Leman, even as Mont Blanc, with his summit of 
 purity high reaching into heaven, is there reflected. Here was 
 nursed and cultured that Puritanism, which was the chief cause 
 of the American Revolution. Here that Protestantism grew 
 which shook the Vatican ; and here still, with Malan, Gaussen 
 and D Aubigne, grows the spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers, which, 
 purer than that of Calvin, seeks to sever the State from the 
 Church, and will never be ensanguined with the blood of a Ser- 
 vetus. Whole nations, constitutions, and revolutions, had their 
 germs planted by the intellects who studied, wrote, and lived 
 upon these beautiful shores. 
 
 We saw the house of John Calvin in Geneva, which (strange 
 mutation !) now overlooks the theatre, which he so despised, and 
 an ice-cream saloon, which in defiance of his sumptuary laws 
 rises under his window. If the Genevese have not the stern re 
 ligion of their ancestors, yet, as Dr. Malan remarked, God is 
 shaking the sieve, and pearls are appearing, not mere Protestants, 
 but true men. 
 
 Madame de Stiiel at Coppet found a congenial place, and 
 even yet it speaks of the taste and elegance of the author of 
 Corinne. We walked down its leafy promenades by its bub 
 bling brooks, around its time-honored Chateau, and even around 
 the chapel where beside her father, the ill starred Minister, M. 
 Neckar, her dust reposes. What a magnificent woman was she ! 
 
IN AND ABOUND GENEVA. 321 
 
 What a cotemporary of Napoleon ! The widow of Baron de 
 Stael, one of her descendants, lives in the Chateau. She was in 
 Paris, and the building was in process of repair. 
 
 Geneva and its beautiful environs constitute a complete rural 
 city. Owing to its rurality, it scarcely seems circumscribed, as 
 far up as the Castle of Chillon, out of whose gloomy prison 
 Byron evoked such a genius of poetry, or bounded by the Jura 
 upon the one side answering the Alps on the other. 
 
 "While at Geneva, we drove to pay a visit to the junction of 
 the Arve and Rhone, which Dr. Cheever vaunts upon the 
 tallest stilts of his style. It was a very great disappointment. 
 The furious Arve, which we had heard in the depths of the 
 gorges, and which roared at the base of Blanc, timidly creeps 
 along without mingling with the Rhone, which is a different 
 river from that which empties its mud into Leman, in this, that 
 it darts away clear and blue. It is an entire misnomer to call 
 this the Rhone. How can any one discover the muddy moun 
 tain elf in the aerial sylph which glides through Lake Leman. 
 It is owing to the presence of iodine, as Sir Humphrey Davy 
 thought, that Leman is indebted for its poetical azure so trans 
 parently beautiful. Our ride up the Lake was in a little steam 
 boat, which stopped at each village upon the banks. Mountain 
 scenes still hung in the distant air, almost forgotten amidst the 
 profusion of beauty which Art, the handmaiden of Nature, has 
 strewn along the shore. Como has a half wild and rocky beauty ; 
 Maggiore is still wilder, answering as a preface to the Alps ; 
 Leman has all the softness and finish of loveliness. She is 
 Beauty adorned, and wearing the adornment with a natural 
 ness that Rousseau knew how to paint, and Byron, even in his 
 roughest temper, to feel. 
 
 At the head of the Lake, near Vevay, the great St. Bernard 
 shone in his cloud and snow garments, with a noble mien and a 
 halo encircling his brow, bespeaking the first in command under 
 Blanc ! He rules the plains of Italy, as well as those of Swit 
 zerland, when the Monarch retires within his pavilion of clouds. 
 14* 
 
322 IN AND AROUND GENEVA. 
 
 A curious bass-relief is that upon the Cathedral at Fribourg, 
 which represents St. Peter and the Devil winnowing mankind 
 from their several thrones. The latter personage also appears 
 with a hog s head and a big basket on his back, chock full of 
 sinners, whom he is turning into a seething caldron, stirred up 
 by imps, and into a crocodile s mouth, opening wide. Again 
 there is a pair of scales held up, with souls in it, and an imp 
 hanging to one side, to make it kick the beam in favor of perdi 
 tion. Surely John Bunyan has a rival in allegory in this artist. 
 Rough in execution, it may be ; but more expression than I can 
 tell. Yet not more curious than the clock we saw to-day at 
 Berne. Who would not have laughed to have seen us, with a 
 dozen other travellers, German students, soldiers, English and 
 French, waiting, with a pain in the neck, to see it strike ? Well, 
 the hour came. Up rises a rooster, flaps his wings, Cock-a- 
 doodle-doo-oo-oo ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! roar the astonished idlers. 
 Out rush a company of bears, (the national brute of Berne ; they 
 keep several hundred at public expense 5 we saw their dens;) 
 some on horseback, some with swords, all looking most quizzical 
 and grotesque ; when pause then an odd gentleman in knight 
 ly armor, a ghost of the middle ages, beats the hour in the 
 tower above, while an old fellow who sits above the bears, opens 
 his mouth and nods his head, as the stroke falls, and gradually 
 turns over an hour-glass in his hands. Surely we are coming 
 into Germany now. Indeed, the yaw and nein begin to an 
 nounce the fact, had we no curious horologues to tell it. 
 
 None but a German, although a Swiss, could like a bear. 
 Why ? If the reader cannot tell, read on ! Every where, on 
 the coins, at the fountains, upon the crackers and gingerbread, 
 stuffed in the Museum, and alive climbing trees and in their 
 dens at Berne, is Bruin, the pet of the people and the glory of 
 art. The French carried off some two hundred bears to Pans, 
 and put them in the Jardin des Plantes, in 1798; but they 
 were demanded back with as much ceremony by Berne, as were 
 franchises by other nations. 
 
IN AND ABOUND GENEVA. 323 
 
 We may be said to have fairly entered German Switzerland, 
 when we cross the great bridge at Fribourg. This bridge, by 
 the way, deserves a notice. It spans the Saarine river, which 
 runs into the Rhine below Schaffhausen. It is a wire-suspen 
 sion, and has the longest single curve of any in the world, not 
 even excepting Menai, near Liverpool. Mcnai is 580 feet long, 
 130 feet high ; that of Fribourg is 941 feet long and 180 feet 
 high. It commands a magnificent prospect ; though we did not, 
 on account of the drizzle, see much more than the beautiful vale. 
 
 We feared that we should leave Switzerland without a view 
 of the Bernese Alps, with their Jungfrau and Wetterhorn, their 
 Lauterbriinnen, and Grindenwald. But no ! Scarcely had we 
 left Berne, when a few minutes of sunshine cleared the sky, so 
 as to permit us a farewell to this magnificent range, the scene of 
 Manfred and William Tell; the glittering snow-peaks whose 
 evening liues shine like the gates of heaven to which they ever 
 lastingly aspire. This view from a terrace near Berne, is its 
 greatest charm. Although celebrated as the capital of the 
 Cantons, whose Diet is now in session ; although curious for its 
 bears, and, like other Swiss towns, for its fountains ; although 
 celebrated for its fine streets with paves, roofed above for foot- 
 passengers ; yet nothing attracts the stranger so much as the 
 distant Alps, with their robes of white and peaks of terror ! 
 
 At all times fortunate, we enjoyed the vision. It well suffices 
 for a closing view of these capital characters of the Creator 
 these unambiguous footsteps of the Deity written so clearly 
 and boldly over these cantons of freedom. May the latter ever 
 be as free from the footsteps of the despot, as Tell would have 
 had them, and as the Alps themselves, in their lofty state of 
 individual yet linked independence ; and may they be as per 
 manent, too, as those Alps upon their sunless pillars deep in 
 earth ! 
 
XXVI. 
 
 ifnm tljB (Cnnfira nf luiitjrrlnnir. 
 
 "Farewell, with thy glad dwellers, green vales among the rocks!" 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 FTPON the evening of the 28th of July, the most ancient and 
 walled city of Soleure, received us at its great gate, in 
 feudal style, and regaled us with strawberries and cream foun 
 tains that murmur, and promenades that please. As I write at 
 e midnight hour, the sweetest of fountains, twins in melody 
 in beauty, burst near my window beneath the reverend 
 forms of Moses smiting the rock, and Gideon wringing the 
 fleece, sculptured in superb style, and guarding the steps which 
 lead up to the Corinthian Cathedral before our hotel. 
 
 We visited the interior of the Cathedral. Noiselessly we 
 walked under its white and chaste canopy of carved stone, and 
 amid its silent worshippers. Nought was heard to break the 
 religious stillness, save the whisper of the confessing and the 
 suppressed bass of the priest in the gloomy confessional The 
 radiant images of the Virgin and of the Saviour beamed with mild 
 love from the walls, and led our hearts away from the fastnesses 
 and sublimities of nature, with which they had become so 
 familiar, into the serener atmosphere of affection. The loved 
 ones at home smiled so tearfully and happily, that, entranced in 
 thoughts of them, we soon saw with the mental eye, only their 
 invisible forms. After all, there are no forms we see while 
 abroad, so enrapturing to behold as those which rise impurpled 
 m love s own light, at the heart s warm bidding. Sculpture hath 
 no such grace, painting no such warmth as that which moves 
 
UPON THE CONFINES OF SWITZERLAND. 325 
 
 and glows around the hearth-stone. "We may visit the home 
 where Calvin lived and died, as we did in Geneva, and claim 
 him as a kindred spirit ; we may see, as we did a few hours 
 since, the house where Kosciusko lived, while an exile from the 
 land he so loved, and revere his memory as connate with that 
 of our own "Washington ; we may glow, while contemplating 
 their excellencies, with kindred sparks ; but at last, the mild 
 and heavenly eye of a Madonna, from the minster-wall, will 
 recall a mother s tenderness and care, and awaken the filial fear 
 and love ; while tearfully will go up the orison to Him who can 
 guard, that he will protect from harm and woe, those to whom 
 we are bound by the closest ties of earth. 
 
 Since writing the foregoing, we have traversed the remaining 
 portion of Switzerland which lies between Soleure and Basle. 
 This morning, we arrived at the latter place and found it like 
 Soleure, well walled, with pepper-box towers around, and 
 protcullises and the other paraphernalia of a free city of the 
 middle ages, which it once was. Indeed it has not lost its cha 
 racter. This is the ancient city which furnished such convenient 
 refuge to French Protestants, when to be one was to be burned. 
 Farel, Anemand, Esch, Touissaint and their friends, here estab 
 lished the first general Evangelical Society. Hither fled those 
 refugees of Lyons and Grenoble, which the good Margaret 
 Valois, sister to Francis I., attempted in vain to shield. It was 
 here that Luther s works and the Scriptures were first published 
 in French, and here was the first Bible and Tract Society estab 
 lished. We had heard that so religiously strict were the 
 descendants of these French refugees and of their protectors, 
 that we could not obtain ingress within the walls, if the people 
 were attending service. But we had not arrived within a half 
 mile of the gate, before we saw a crowd of over two hundred 
 collected around a circus, under the tent of which, a dozen 
 hobby horses were flying around, mounted by youngsters with 
 steels picking off rings as they passed a spot, to the great diver 
 sion of the elders. "We had just left Soleure when the chimes 
 
326 UPON THE CONFINES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 were ringing the people to church, and a sawmill was cutting 
 timber under the belfry s shadow ; we had seen the stores all 
 open there, and the peasants cutting their grain and working as 
 usual all along the road ; but we were not prepared for such 
 impiety at Basle. Shade of Erasmus ! where is your " praise of 
 folly ?" Your coterie of brilliants no longer shines around your 
 witty board. Myconnis, Amberbach, Glarean astute scholars 
 and cordial spirits where are they now ? Have they no voice, 
 to sting with satire the degeneracy of these Basle-folk ? Alas ! 
 Erasmus lies in the old Cathedral, with the ungainly picture of 
 St. George on horseback piercing the dragon as its frontispiece ; 
 and the noisy city rumbles by, unconscious of the Sabbath, intent 
 on pleasure, and unwounded by the satire of the scholar. 
 
 We were down to see the Rhine. It was our first glance at 
 this magician. I will not speak of him yet. The righteous 
 people of ancient Basle were not on its bridge ; and you cannot 
 even truthfully repeat Longfellow s stanza, 
 
 " There sat one day in quiet, 
 
 By an ale-house on the Rhine, 
 Four hale and hearty fellows, 
 And drank the precious wine." 
 
 The fellows and the wine are not wanting ; but the quiet 
 ah ! one must go farther away from French neighborhood and 
 into phlegmatic North-Germany, to find that at least on a 
 Sunday. Every body is out pitching quoits, rolling nine-pins, 
 drinking wine, listening to music at cafes, and playing the noisy 
 Diabolus generally. 
 
 In Switzerland, our mode of travel has been performed by 
 means of vetturino a hired carriage, for which we have 
 a special contract, and which we can control as we please. 
 Through a country sparkling with cascades and frowning with 
 mountains, this ad libitum mode of conveyance is as convenient 
 as it is pleasant. The roads every where are of the best 
 quality, being in direct contrast with the roads at home, where, 
 
 
UPON THE CONFINES OF SWITZERLAND. 327 
 
 in wet weather, off of the turnpikes, ruts and mud prevail. 
 Indeed, all the roads are elegantly McAdamized. The hotels, 
 too, are of the most accommodating kind. At many of them we 
 find some one who can speak English, and at all of them some 
 one who can speak French. A little French to begin a tour 
 with, is a great deal. The image of the rolling snowball was 
 never more applicable than to the study of French by travelling : 
 a basis is necessary to start with. It was humorous to see 
 four Swiss citizens of Berne in our car going to Heidelberg, 
 trying to practise the little English they were and had been 
 studying. We were the target, and such fires as they made. 
 The awkward squad, tipsy with the worst " old rye," never 
 popped at a mark with such abominable inexactitude. We hope 
 they will do better before they reach London, whither they are 
 bound for the exhibition. We hope, too, that our primary 
 efforts at French were not so convulsive to the hearer. 
 
 A goodly number from Germany and Switzerland, are en 
 route for London. The exhibition will attract more the next 
 month than it has during any other. Prints of it are in every 
 window of every print-shop in all the places we pass through, 
 gazed at with open-eyed wonder, by idlers. It is a constant topic 
 of conversation. It is the theme of every inquiry. No one was 
 so curious as the little lass, of bright eye and dimpled cheek, 
 who waited on us at the summit of the Simplon pass. She had 
 helped to make, as she told me, the mammoth cheese ; and was 
 extremely anxious to know if I had not noticed it in the palace. 
 I told her, nay ; but added that I would look it up on my re 
 turn. A cheese from the milk of cows that eat the grass which 
 grows on mounts snow-topped, and 8,000 feet above the flags of 
 the glass palace, is a cheese that is not to be passed by indif 
 ferently. To some purpose the glacier melts to irrigate the 
 valley to some purpose doth the grass grow upon the heights 
 of the Alps to some purpose the cow-bell tinkles at evening in 
 the vale. Cheese is one of the greatest of the products of 
 Switzerland ; and every nicety and care is taken to bring its 
 
328 UPON THE CONFINES OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 manufacture to a high state of perfection. Among the most 
 noticeable objects in a Swiss and German landscape, is the cot 
 tage, under whose ample straw roof, both the peasant and the 
 kine are closely housed. As much care is taken of the cheese- 
 producers as of the cheese-eaters. The proximity of the stable 
 and house would not be agreeable to very refined olfactories. 
 
 It is interesting to move around these homes of the Reform 
 ers, to feel the struggle they felt, to recall the risk they ran, and 
 to glory in their triumphs. Our way northward, will be amidst 
 such scenes. And yet while possessed of a diiferent faith, and 
 belonging to a country where Protestantism preponderates, we 
 should not forget that all-embracing toleration, which our Con 
 stitution embodies and our national spirit fosters. We have 
 seen the rude images of the Saviour hanging to the cross, along 
 the Valley of the Rhone ; have seen in Malta the priest sitting 
 at the church door under the sign " Plenaria Indulgenzia ;" have 
 seen the Roman people kissing the silver toe of the Madonna ; 
 and while shrinking from these modes of devotion so alien to 
 our own education and faith, we know that GOD who seeth the 
 heart is their judge, and HE only. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 * Here I stand, I cannot otherwise. God help me ! Amen !" 
 
 Luther before the Diet of Worms. 
 
 "DETWEEN Basle and Heidelberg, which we ran on a rail- 
 ) road, at a cheap rate too, the country is well cultivated. 
 Ploughed grounds, harvest fields, gardens of cabbages, and vines 
 without measure, line the way. We begin to enter the region 
 of castles. We stopped long enough at the capital of Baden, 
 Carlsruhe, to admire the beautiful palace of the Grand Duke, in 
 the centre of the city, from which all the streets run as the 
 radii of a circle. The valley of the Rhine is wide and level 
 until it reaches Heidelberg, where two mountains rather small 
 specimens after being in Chamouni part to receive a respecta 
 ble city, which, beginning in the plain, runs up between them 
 along the Rhone. Heidelberg has associations not a few. Long 
 fellow, in his Hyperion, has inwoven with the old castle which 
 so majestically overlooks the enchanting scenery, some of the 
 most pleasing sentiments ; while the mediaeval and reformatory 
 ages march around its University halls and invincible ramparts, 
 with banners of heroic and classic device. Here a chapter of 
 the Augustine order met in 1518, which Luther attended, tra 
 velling from Wittenberg afoot, drinking in the scenery, disput 
 ing with Miger, and spreading abroad his bold and then heretical 
 doctrines. Here his timid co-reformer, the gentle Philip Me- 
 lancthon, studied before he began his labors. But most is Hei 
 delberg interesting for the castle. We have seen none like it. 
 in associations, in beauty, in situation, in environment. We 
 rode down the valley, before we began to ascend its heights, 
 
330 FATHERLAND. 
 
 and stopped at an enchanting spring called Wolf briinnen, where 
 an enchantress called Jetta, the Cassandra of the Palatinate, 
 was torn in pieces by a wolf. A girl amused us by throwing min 
 nows to fish of larger fry, who dashed about in the clear waters, 
 where they are kept as pets. The speckled trout took my fancy, 
 as they darted out of the shadow into the sunlight, snapped a 
 little fellow-fish, turned a flip-flap, and evanished. But this 
 wolfy place is small game, compared to the old red walls, with 
 their carved armed knights filling the niches, and the heavy 
 battlements surrounding the gardens, wherein the Electors Pa 
 latine once luxuriated. The castle is a perfect specimen of the 
 middle-age architecture, strong with its portcullis, and beautiful 
 in its archways and lawns. Statues of the family of the Elec 
 tors are around. But the most interesting part is the English 
 palace, built for Elizabeth, granddaughter of Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, who married the Elector Frederick V. He built the 
 noble arch of triumph which may be discerned among the shad 
 ows of the trees, entwined with heavy hangings of ivy, to cele 
 brate the nuptials. It leads to a garden which was tastefully 
 arranged for her pleasure. The reader of Mrs. Jameson will 
 remember Elizabeth for a Stuart of the deepest dye, as proud 
 and as arrogant as her degradation was beggarly and severe. A 
 thick growth of glistening ivy clusters around each old wall, and 
 enwraps with its trunk the stones of the ruins, as with bands of 
 iron. The view of the country, of the Kaiser s Stuhl, of the 
 three towers of Manheim down the vale, and of the tree-clad 
 hills toward the Oberland, is bewitching under the red glow of 
 the sinking sun. More especially is it fine after the dim eclipse 
 which the orb has been suffering during the afternoon, and 
 which we, with others at our hotel, through smoked glass, and in 
 tubs of water, have curiously observed. 
 
 The height of the tower is near 1.500 feet. We passed 
 through the prison, into the chapel, out upon the terraces of 
 btone which overlook the vale, and afford a view of the magnifi 
 cent front with its traceries of fruit and foliage, its statues and 
 
FATHERLAND. 331 
 
 antique heads. The front rises in three portions, each capped 
 with a statue. 
 
 I should not forget the wine casks of the cellar, the largest 
 of which contains 800 hogsheads ! It is 36 feet long and 24 
 feet high. When it is filled, the lads and lasses have a dance 
 upon the platform on top. With so much wine under one s 
 heels, one ought to trip it with wonderful vivacity, if not with 
 grace. The cask is a wonder, only exceeding by a few feet its 
 younger sister in the room hard by. 
 
 I have too much to write, and too little time to say it, to 
 dwell long even in Heidelberg, with its students, its views, and 
 its history. As a curious relic of the era, when Germany was 
 united to the empire, and when the Palatinate had a large voice 
 in the choice ; of an era when chivalry poised its lance and 
 lived in feudal towers, it stands unrivalled. An edifice, rival 
 ling the castle in elegance, now stands in the city of Heidel 
 berg, but it is a vulgar railroad station ; and although its 
 gardens display fine taste, its columns rise in harmony, and its 
 rooms are decorated finer than ever was lady s bower in the feu 
 dal day yet the soft twilight of antiquity is not on them. The 
 coal smoke of the locomotive is not a very choice medium of 
 beauty. A day and a half exhausted Heidelberg, and we were 
 soon pushing onward through Darmstadt, a city situated among 
 hills, studded with castles, where Charlemagne and his barons 
 held their court. 
 
 The vine and tobacco ; (oh ! Fatherland, what oblivion dwells 
 in these your staples !) peasant women harvesting wheat with 
 small knives, and men cutting grass with scythes that gave no 
 bend to the body ; with alternation of green and golden fields, 
 adorned with no stake or rider, indeed no fence at all these in 
 fast succession are passed, until the Maine, with Frankfort upon 
 it, and a bridge leading over it, appeared. 
 
 This is a city that looks business-like. No lazy lazza- 
 roni or sleepy Italians here. Bustle and industry indicate the 
 old free town. Fine streets and houses indicate the presence of 
 
332 FA THE R LAND. 
 
 the Bankers and Ambassadors of Germany. We were not long 
 in being hotelled, nor in seeking the curious. We found the 
 latter in the Library, upon the Maine bank, a splendid structure 
 containing twenty thousand books, together with the portraits of 
 Luther, and his most excellent wife Katharine. The latter was 
 so modest, and nun-like, so devout and simple-hearted in her 
 appearance, compared to the gruff and harsh reformer, that we 
 could not wonder at the docility of the latter under her gentle 
 tuition, and the tender lamb-like letters he used to write her, 
 when off from home, talking of indulgences and reformation. In 
 the same glass case is shown his shoes and rough ones too. 
 The poorest American (if he has any) has a better pair than had 
 the learned Doctor Martin. Not particularly fond of the beau 
 tiful material, but of the beautiful spiritual, was the brave old 
 heart. His writings would indicate that, if his shoes had no 
 meaning. We saw here his autograph, and two letters written 
 by him, by the side of a letter of Melancthon, and one of Na 
 poleon. 
 
 What momentous results have emanated from the bold action 
 of the poor miner s son of Eisleben the humble Augustine 
 Friar Martin ! With the world against him, empires threaten 
 ing to devour him. the thunders of the Vatican aimed at his 
 destruction, he remained firm and invincible. We have placed 
 his bold declaration at the head of our chapter on Germany ; 
 because he is the most German man in history. He had all the 
 virtues and faults of the German nature. Dreamy in his mys 
 ticism, he was still an actor in the most severe trials of life. A 
 fine scholar, he nevertheless was eminently social. His social 
 disposition is one of the most beautiful traits in his character. 
 It is said of him, that though he could scold like a fish-wife, he 
 could be soft as a tender maiden ; sometimes as wild as the storm 
 that uproots the oak, and then as gentle as the zephyr that dal 
 lies with the violet. Nowhere is his kindly disposition so mani 
 fest as in his epistles to his good wife Katharine, while absent 
 from home. I cannot refrain from referring to these, while gaz- 
 
FATHERLAND. 333 
 
 ing upon the portraits of the happy twain in the Library. One 
 of his letters, and perhaps the one we saw, is addressed " to my 
 Gracious Lady, Katharine Luther, of Bora and Zulsdorf, near 
 Wittenberg; my Sweetheart. Grace arid Peace, my dear maid 
 and wife ! Your grace shall know we are here, God be praised ! 
 
 fresh and sound ; eat like Bohemians ; yet not to excess guzzle 
 
 like Germans yet not much ; but are joyful." Another is ad 
 dressed, " To the rich Lady at Zulsdorf, Lady Katharin Luther- 
 m bodily resident at Wittenberg, and mentally wandering at 
 Zulsdorf, my beloved, for her own hands." Another still in 
 reply to an anxious letter of his wife s ; " To the deeply learned 
 
 Katharin Lutherin, my Gracious Housewife at Wittenberg 
 
 Doctoress Self-Martyress, my Gracious Lady for her hands and 
 feet. Grace and Peace in the Lord, dear Kate ! Do thou read 
 John and the little catechism. For thou must needs care before 
 thy God, just as if he were not Almighty and could not create ten 
 Doctor Martins, if the single old one were to drown in the Soale, 
 or the Ovenhole, or Wolfs Vogelhierd. ]^eave me in peace with 
 thy anxiety. I have a better guardian than thou and all the 
 angels are. Therefore be in peace ! Amen !" 
 
 What a rough disguise is here for the most tender affection. 
 The man of logic and fierce debate is seen playing with the 
 heart-strings of home, and tinting with the rose the sober reali 
 ties of his life and its mission ; and who shall say that the Great 
 Reformer does not appear more lovely in his life on account of 
 this tenderness and affection ? How demurely sweet his good 
 nun-wife seems in the portrait, beside her fond yet rugged hus 
 band-Doctor. The first is dressed with a nun s veil in close 
 folds enveloping her head ; a dark fur mantle investing her per 
 son, except the open front, which is adorned with a white lace 
 habit ; ruffles encirling her neck ; which together with the mantle 
 are caught and fastened by cord and tassels, while her delicate 
 little hands are meekly folded across her lap ; and her whole ap 
 pearance is in contrast with the burly Reformer, in his monkish 
 hat and gown. These portraits are the only authentic ones 
 known to exist, and in consequence are prized pricelessly. 
 
334 FATHERLAND. 
 
 The statue of Goethe, who lived and died here, which is seen 
 in the vestibule to the library, is by Marchesi, and is so com 
 manding in the intellectual sphere within which it sits like Jove 
 enthroned amid the circle of Olympus, that it enthrals the be 
 holder at the first glance. It is of Carrara marble. A larger 
 image of the great poet is placed among the trees of a promenade, 
 and is of bronze. It represents him as holding the wreath of 
 literary fame, and dressed in the modern costume which appears 
 oeneath the ancient flowing toga. The bass-reliefs below are 
 emblematic and appropriate. Well may Frankfort place promi 
 nently before her citizens the form of the great man of modern 
 Germany. The intellectual power which commands your admi 
 ration, from the marble features.of Goethe, is immense. ^ The 
 many-sided man of the world, knowing, restless, subtle, omitting 
 no means or avenue to the human heart ; at once sarcastic and 
 facetious, thrilling and tender, wild and sublime, Goethe, has 
 embodied in language a spirit and an essence which has for ever 
 imprinted its influence upon literature. Whether he seeks to 
 exhibit all that is most terrific and demoniac in nature by the 
 creation of Mephistophiles ; or whether, like the demon, he as 
 sumes every phase of human nature, he is still the peerless in 
 tellect, the mental apex, having sixty millions of Germans for 
 its base. 
 
 Busts of Goethe are to be seen in the shop windows, and re 
 presentations of his genius are at every square. There is a fine 
 emblem of his poetic inspiration in the library, where the poet 
 is represented on the winged horse soaring above Olympus, 
 sweeping the regions of the unknown, and visiting world after 
 world by the might of his genius. Another statue, prized very 
 much by the people of Frankfort, is that which illustrates the 
 beautiful myth of Ariadne. It represents her at the culmina 
 ting point of her history, when deserted by Theseus. Theseus 
 was sent, with other Athenian prisoners, to be devoured by the 
 centaur, in the midst of the labyrinth of Minos. He was enabled, 
 by the aid of Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, to get into and 
 
FATHERLAND. 335 
 
 out of the labyrinth by a thread ; and promised, for his release, 
 to wed and carry off the nymph as his bride. He wedded ; then 
 deserted her while she was sleeping. Bacchus became enamored 
 of her, in the loveliness of her woe, and made her immortal. 
 The statue represents her after she has been wedded to immor 
 tality in the person of the God of the Vineyard. She is seated 
 upon the leopard of Bacchus, with proud and beautiful mien, 
 conscious of the celestial ichor which now bounds in her veins ! 
 This statue is exhibited by its owner, Mr. Bethingen, at his 
 princely residence, amidst a number of inferior marbles and 
 casts. 
 
 But above all the results of German art, and incomparably 
 superior to any painting we have yet seen in Europe (always 
 excepting the Transfiguration), is the painting at the Museum 
 by Lessing, known as " Huss before the Council of Constance." 
 The ill-fated, but true-souled reformer, is represented amidst a 
 group of sensual cardinals, priests and curious lookers on, some 
 jeering, others intent upon his words of new life, others astounded 
 at his boldness ; but all yielding in effect to the superior air of 
 Huss. who stands unappalled, with one hand upon his heart, the 
 other upon the Word, and with the majesty and earnestness of a 
 deep-seated persuasion, invincible as the soul itself to the threat- 
 enings of man, and lofty in the full consciousness of its immortal 
 nature ! 
 
 Huss was a light that beamed so brightly in the surrounding 
 gloom, that it could not long remain. He leaped at once to the 
 grandest truths. He did not, like Luther even, dally with old 
 errors long after he had received new truths. When driven out 
 of Prague into Bohemia, what said he ? "I am no dreamer, but 
 of this I am certain, that the image of Christ only will never 
 be effaced. I, awakening from the dead, will leap with great 
 joy." The artist has not made him a man of dreams, but of 
 massive, wakeful mind, with pale high brow, a deep and mild, 
 yet heavenly beaming eye, and sustained with the conscia rccti 
 of a lofty spiritual independence. There is a species of abstrac- 
 
330 FATHERLAND. 
 
 tion in the countenance that speaks of the mould of the man ; 
 and an air of superiority in his very humility, that almost awes 
 you. as if it were a presence and a power. And is not the 
 highest reach of art owing to the presence of powerful thought, 
 seeking communion through the eye and mind with the death 
 less essence within ? Does not Huss, from the canvas, tell us 
 of trial, study, patience, opprobrium, and as the crown glory, 
 if not here, then hereafter ? 
 
 His mournful history is a painful commentary upon the per 
 jury of royal and ecclesiastical power, which had given him a 
 solemn and written assurance of protection, and broke their 
 promise, in order to rejoice around the crackling flames that 
 consumed the body, but could not harm the soul of one of the 
 noblest martyrs of Christendom. 
 
 The Cathedral in Frankfort has no merit as a structure. 
 One of the Emperors reposes in it ; and some fifty of them were 
 therein crowned. We sat in the old chair in which their august 
 majesties used to sit, but found no particular virtue in the ope 
 ration. The Homer, or town-house, should never be omitted, 
 especially by one who is fond of tracing back to. its source in the 
 German forests, the origin of that race which broke down the 
 Roman power, united France, Germany, and Italy under one 
 great head, penetrated Britain with its Saxon arm, and is fast 
 rescuing the wilds of the western world from the dominion of 
 Nature, and of the Spaniard. What an energy, a will, a steady 
 unbroken perseverance burned in the old German tribes ! You 
 will find them all knit into the stalwart frames and proudly- 
 rough bearing of Charlemagne and his successors, as they look 
 down from their panels in the old Banqueting Hall of the 
 town-house. The costumes are preserved, and underneath are 
 the mottoes of each, in Latin, which speak much of justice and 
 rectitude, but every where of boldness and decision in maintain 
 ing their right. 
 
 These portraits are by Lessing, Bendemann, and other emi 
 nent artists of Germany. The Hall is in the shape of a rhoin- 
 
FATHERLAND. 337 
 
 bold, and is the place where the Emperors were waited upon by 
 the kings and princes at the festivities. We went into the Elec 
 tion Chamber, where the senate of Frankfort now meets, and 
 where of old the electors met to choose the Emperor. The 
 honor of Emperor was long monopolized by the house of Haps- 
 burg, now the ruling house of Austria. One among the many 
 blessings which Napoleon conferred upon Europe, was the 
 breaking up of this German Empire, with its hosts of Princes, 
 Dukes, and Kings. There is now in the German mind an in 
 tense longing for a reunion, but not under the old rulers. The 
 tie which so long gave unity to Germany grew weaker with 
 time, in proportion as Prussia and Austria grew powerful and 
 jealous of each other. Frederick the Great first suggested the 
 idea of a separate union of Prussia with the other German 
 States, except Austria. Ever since, Prussia has endeavored to 
 render the policy of Austria impotent. Fear of Napoleon al 
 layed for a time the hatred of Austria- and Prussia ; but in 1 792 
 Prussia, by the treaty of Basle, secured for itself peace, while 
 Austria was left to rejoice in such equivocal blessings as Maren- 
 go, Austerlitz, and Hohenlinden furnished. Prussia grew strong ; 
 Austria poor. In 1815, when Bonaparte fell, a German confed 
 eration, with Austria and Prussia for its head, and four free 
 towns, of which Frankfort was one, at the other extremity, was 
 formed, and regulated by a Diet which here assembled. It soon 
 became the puppet of Austria and Russia. The fevers of 1848 
 disturbed somewhat this one-sided amicable game of princes ; 
 and a crisis was produced which called for constitutions and a 
 union of the sixty millions of Germans under one great Nation 
 ality, with Liberty as its soul ! But you know how things then 
 eventuated. The King of Prussia might have made himself the 
 Saviour of Germany ; but the golden time culminated and set ; 
 and Liberty still remained a dream of the Universities a play 
 mate of the ocean waves and wild winds, with no practical home 
 in this splendid land. Weak, eccentric and reckless, showing at 
 times excellent pluck, and again humiliating himself between 
 15 
 
338 FATHERLAND. 
 
 Russia and Austria Frederick William, the King of Prussia, 
 consented to be virtually crushed at Warsaw in the Schleswig 
 difficulty, and at a time, too, when the people of Prussia were 
 aroused with the finest spirit, and when absolutism again trem 
 bled for its power. Shall Germany ever reduce her ideal liberty 
 to practical suffrages and legislatures, without this everlasting 
 military and royal pageantry? We trust that their good day 
 will da"wn. How many Germans in America now pray for the 
 same benison on their Fatherland ? 
 
 Before leaving Frankfort, I should not forget the visit we 
 made to Luther s house, which, with the portrait and the in 
 scription, still remain over the doorway, near the town-house, 
 and but a few steps from the two fountains, which, upon ancient 
 coronation days, when the empire was at its zenith, ran with 
 white and red wine for the populace. Neither should I forget 
 the scarlet cloth at the Homer, which, upon the same day of re 
 joicing, the Emperor walked upon to the Cathedral, and which 
 the people had the privilege of cutting off, piece by piece, as he 
 passed, to the sad jeopardy of a royal pair ofheels. 
 
 We leave Frankfort for the North in the morning. Our 
 purchases of glass and pictures, our view of the city, with its odd 
 houses, its scaly tiles, its mirrors before the windows reflecting 
 the street in the room, its fine railroad stations, and its hearty, 
 industrious, good-natured people, is finished, and we are off for 
 Mayence, to take a boat for the Rhine beauties and Cologne. 
 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 Bnttra tjp Ejjfo, mift nrrnss tn IJtotelnn, 
 
 " He through the armed files 
 
 Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse 
 The whole battalion views ; their order due ; 
 Their numbers last he sums. And now his heart 
 Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength, 
 Glories." Milton. 
 
 A S we shake hands at Frankfort, let us not imitate those old 
 -tL gentlemen we saw at the station, who embracing, kiss each 
 other three or four times upon each cheek with all the enthu 
 siastic smack of a girl just from her boarding-school. Let us 
 not disturb either that life-and-death parting between the dra 
 goon and his lady love, perhaps his wife, whose chubby cheeks 
 hang in close proximity to an abyss of hair upon his upper and 
 nether facial department. But in true American style, blow 
 your whistle, not the horn as here, and under the supervision 
 of one conductor, not six to a train as here, dash over the track 
 to Mayence, at which we must most curiously look, and why ? 
 Because it was the home of the proud old electors ? Pshaw ! We 
 are tired of such antiques. Nor of the luxurious canons either, 
 who here, amid enormous revenues, returned to the Pope the 
 ungracious and impudent answer, when reproved by him for 
 their worldly habits, that they had more wine than was needed 
 for mass, and not enough to turn their mills. No, no, for wines 
 and vines are becoming common, very; but because it was the 
 home of two great minds Walpoden, who liberated trade from 
 the duties which each robber in his feudal castle exacted from 
 the merchant, by his active efforts in forming the Rhenish, after 
 
340 DOWN THE RHINE, 
 
 wards the Hanseatic league; and Gutemberg the discoverer 
 of printing the Dermiurgus of the world, the true leveller of 
 man. The people of Mayence have erected a statue to the lat 
 ter, and in this age, when unfettered traffic is becoming appre 
 ciated, a suitable monument to the former might not be inappro 
 priate. 
 
 It rained as we passed through Mayence, so that we barely 
 got a glimpse of its towers before we were ushered into a Rhine 
 steamer, and were plowing its yellow waters with arrowy ra 
 pidity. 
 
 Now, if you expect a panorama of the Rhine from my pen, 
 you are doomed to be disappointed agreeably ; for I will not 
 inflict a description. You should have seen our party alive 
 literally and emphatically, to this Rhine scenery. What makes 
 it so attractive ? Ah ! there I am at a loss. It is not altogether 
 the strange towns walled to the water s edge, and leading out 
 to the river under old archways in ruin, with their quaintly paint 
 ed houses ; it is not altogether the shelving lawns and the har 
 vest and green fields ; not altogether the tall, terraced vineyards 
 rising from the river among rocks to the altitude of fifteen hun 
 dred feet ; although all these are beautiful indeed. It is not alto 
 gether the changing prospect ahead, by which the river widens 
 into a magic lake seemingly without outlet, and crowned upon 
 its margin with castles of the middle ages, which jut out, and 
 point upward amid crags that seem hung in air, and twisted in 
 every shape ; it is not altogether the dim old traditions which 
 haunt these spots, some purple with wild loves, others red with 
 bloody hate, others black with devilish deeds ; it is not alogether 
 the nunneries, the palaces of kings and emperors, the green isles, 
 and bridges of boats, nor the Gothic churches hid beneath the 
 shadow of these Rhenish strongholds ; it is not the dance of Bac 
 chus. Ceres, and Pomona, from hill to hill ; not the magic echo 
 which is repeated fifteen times from the gun and horn of the 
 shore ; not the romantic prance of the steeds of the soldiers 
 wending their way along the little road of the banks ; not the 
 
 
AND ACROSS TO WATERLOO. 34 j 
 
 spot where Blucher s army hailed the Rhine after they had drank 
 themselves drunk with the blood of the retreating French at 
 Waterloo ; not the " two brothers," rival crags the seven sis 
 ters, rocks once maidens ; not the great rafts of the Rhine ; not 
 yon prison of torture, which betokens our approach to Coblentz 
 out of whose lofty but gloomy turrets the scream of agony 
 upon the rack once burst upon the frighted air ; not that range 
 of towers embosomed in green, rising upon an eminent crag that 
 hangs above the Rhine, in whose ancient halls the royal house 
 of Prussia recently received Victoria ; not Coblentz itself, the 
 Rhenish Gibraltar, with the Drachenfels, and the other six moun 
 tains, whose battlements no iron shower could ever quell ; not 
 even the classic isle near Weissenthum, where the French cross 
 ed in 1797, and where Caesar, as every school-boy well remem 
 bers, crossed upon his famous bridge, pictures of which Anthon 
 has introduced into his edition to gratify the youthful curiosity, 
 unsatisfied with the knotty text ; not the < banks of the blue Mo- 
 zelle , nor the rickety old ruin called the Devil s House ; not all 
 these severally, but all these collectively, form a complete scene, 
 where romance struggles with industry, where beauty rises up 
 into grandeur, and where a heritage of legendary lore floats 
 around and above them all in strange, dreamy lustre. There is 
 one spot nearly opposite the Drachenfels, around which romance 
 has woven an entrancing story, as simple as it is touching. The 
 artist has represented it in the beautiful vignette upon our title 
 page. From the picture, the relative position of mountain, crags, 
 river, isle, nunnery, and road may be seen ; and thus the eye may 
 aid the imagination in grouping a scene whose physical charm 
 is enhanced by a legend, which, for the honor of our kind, we 
 hope is not altogether the offspring of fiction. The spot is con 
 secrated to the memory of a brave knight, Roland, who built 
 upon the lofty crown of the mountain a tower which overlooks 
 an isle to which his lady love retired. Bulwer thus tells the 
 legend : Roland goes to the wars. A false report of his death 
 reaches his betrothed. She retires to the convent in the isle of 
 
342 DOWN THE RHINE, 
 
 Nunnenworth, which yet exists as the vignette represents it, and 
 takes the irrevocable veil. Roland returns home, flushed with 
 glory and hope, to find that the very fidelity of his betrothed 
 had placed an eternal barrier between them. He built the castle 
 that bears his name, and which overlooks the monastery, and 
 dwelt there till his death ; happy in the power, at least to gaze, 
 even to the last, upon the walls which held the treasure he had 
 lost. 
 
 There is a mournful tenderness about the legend, which the 
 scene seems to reflect. Indeed, the whole margin of the Rhine 
 is instinct with a mournful influence, which the spirit in vain 
 strives to repel. 
 
 The romance of the Rhine ends before you reach Cologne ; 
 and when you reach that city Oh ! spirit of Coleridge what 
 a mire ! what a hole ! We reached there in a drizzle, and left 
 in a drizzle, not very favorable circumstances under which to 
 view a town, celebrated in the finest transcendental muse for 
 its filth. The city looked well from the river, but when once in 
 the streets, there was nothing but sloppiness, dirtiness, and mud- 
 diness, intolerable ; splashed by boys, drays and horses, draggled 
 by women s dresses, and odorous with every imaginable scent, 
 prime and distinguishable among which is the eau de Cologne ! 
 Oh ! ye nymphs of Mud, and muses of Dirt ! I distinctly call 
 upon you to blot out from my mind the memory of Cologne. If a 
 man wishes to insult me, let him revive that memory by putting 
 a bottle of the eau under my nose if he dares ! 
 
 The city has a heritage of Roman renown. Many old mon 
 uments remain of the former rulers, and, until within a recent 
 period, the better sort were in the habit of calling themselves 
 patricians, as descended from the Roman families. Napoleon 
 disturbed these little fooleries, among a good many others. The 
 unfinished Cathedral looms up from a great distance, as we dash 
 away towards Aix-la-Chapelle brilliant contrast of Cologne 
 which we reach by cars over a dead-level land, covered with 
 Nature s richest gold-dust, viz., the golden wheat. Neat as wax- 
 
AND ACROSS TO WATERLOO. 343 
 
 work, elegant and white, are the streets of this city. It is one 
 of the magnificent bathing establishments of which Germany 
 boasts. In some respects it should not boast. Curiosity led 
 us to see its famous gambling-hell known as the Redoute. It 
 was lit up in royal style. When we went in, a brilliant assem 
 blage were in the conversation-room, listening to a concert of 
 Italian music. In other rooms, the tinkling of the Napoleons 
 and thalers resounded, while the deep silence was broken by the 
 singsong tone of the bankers at the rouge-et-noir and roulette 
 tables of the other rooms. We enter. There are loungers on 
 elegant sofas. Lamps, shaded with green, light up an elegant 
 table, at which a respectable gray head presides, and around 
 which the assistants and betters are ranged. As the une, trois, 
 cinque, turn up successfully or otherwise, the little rakes busily 
 push around the gold, silver, and notes. Occasional betters 
 stand up ; the regulars are seated, with knit brows and trem 
 bling hands pricking their memoranda, in vain attempting to 
 head the bank, which, however Fortune may smile, must ulti 
 mately, by a surety as demonstrable as Euclid, increase its 
 revenues so much per cent. Ladies, finely dressed, were there, 
 playing with more sang-froid than the men. One Yankee might 
 be discerned, with a flush of good luck upon his cheek, and the 
 marks of verdancy in his actions, the observed of all observers. 
 He had begun with a thaler ; was lucky, doubled each time he 
 won ] and thus regaining all he lost, he continued to add to his 
 store, until it became so cumbrous that he was obliged to, and 
 did, in the flurry of excitement, occasionally use his hat as a 
 reservoir. .Some one observed, in a whisper, that he must soon 
 stake his hat ; but, shrewd to the last, he quit with a hat-full 
 enough to pay his way to a land where such gigantic splendors 
 of Satan are not licensed by government nor patronized by the 
 rich. 
 
 One cannot leave such a place without the reflection that 
 here is a deeper sin than that which tinkles upon the ear and 
 glitters upon the retina. To see so much money pass from hand 
 
344 DOWN THE RHINE, 
 
 to hand, grasped by the trembling fingers of age and the eager 
 
 sweep of youth, or gathered into the coffers of the bankers, to 
 
 know that this is the representative of labor, wrung out of the 
 soil and the husbandmen of Khenish Prussia, l must give us 
 pause. Comes it from the great estates of the German nobles, 
 who flock here to the baths ? Is it bled by the patient vine 
 dresser from the terraced hills of the Rhine ? It matters not ; 
 whoever thus squanders, does man suffering man and aveng 
 ing God, disservice and great wrong. 
 
 What a condemnation of this frivolity frowns from the old 
 Cathedral and the town-house of Aix, where Charlemagne and 
 the emperors once trod, with no soft and downy step, seeking 
 pleasure. 
 
 We visited the Cathedral. Although heartily tired of 
 seeing so many churches, we coiild not leave Aix without a 
 sight of the bones of Charlemagne, which are kept here in great 
 state, with many other relics such as the sponge which held 
 the vinegar at the crucifixion, the cord that bound our Saviour s 
 hands, and portions of the Cross. In the Hotel de Ville, where 
 Charlemagne resided, we saw the portraits of Napoleon and 
 Josephine. They stand beside that of the great founder of the 
 early empire. 
 
 In leaving Aix, you pass through a country once the abode 
 of the Flemings, and even yet full of an enterprising manufac 
 turing people, who worthily fill the places of those early pioneers 
 to whom England owes her great manufacturing prosperity. 
 Tall chimneys and glowing forges announce the appearance of 
 the towns ; wheat-fields divided off by roads shaded with trees 
 like those of Lombardy, in long vistas and pastures filled with 
 cattle not confined by fences attest a splendid agricultural 
 country. 
 
 Was it Liege, or some other Belgium city, where the out 
 raged people pitched seventeen of their magistrates out of the 
 town-hall windows ; for which they were banished the realm ? 
 They found refuge in England, and formed no unimportant 
 
AND ACROSS TO WATERLOO. 345 
 
 link in the chain of her material progress. Liege was once a 
 free city, and acted a daring part in the earlier eras. Occa 
 sionally, an old castle would leap up from the level, as we 
 wound along the valley toward Brussels. The villages looked 
 oddly enough in their dresses of pure white, with red roofs. We 
 soon enter upon the fighting ground of Europe, where Marl- 
 borough, Wellington, and Napoleon led their armies, and where 
 many a brave soldier fell under the iron sleet. 
 
 Busy Brussels neat Brussels beautiful Brussels, why is 
 it that I cannot dissociate your fine promenades and elegant 
 residences from that field of blood ? Land of la^es, Paris in 
 miniature place of palaces, splendid Brussels, did ye not 
 tremble at the roar of battle, when Europe hung in the balance, 
 and Destiny for ever deserted her child? 
 
 No one can visit Brussels without seeing Waterloo ; no one 
 can see Waterloo without returning with the impression of awe 
 and wonder at the almost superhuman ability and strategy of the 
 vanquished. True, we read on our way the English accounts 
 of the battle, the despatches of Wellington, and of that bloody 
 miscreant, Blucher ; true, we know that Wellington, at least 
 when the Prussian appeared through the woods on the left, 
 pressed on to victory; true, that the English infantry, like 
 dogged brutes that fear not death, stood solid at Hougoumont 
 and La Haute Sainte, although Jerome Bonaparte stormed the 
 former tremendously with twelve thousand men ; and although 
 attack after attack was made in quick succession, of which the 
 broken walls and burned chateau yet give evidence ; true, that 
 the fiercest charge of the old guard, even when victorious, was 
 rendered innoxious by the cool audacity of Wellington ; yet, not 
 withstanding all, the impression remains, that the genius of man 
 and the brunt of the fighting was with the French. The field 
 of the dead one-third of the allied army thereon lying, pro 
 claimed the dreadful thunderbolt which Napoleon hurled upon 
 that 18th of June. We visited each point, and saw the whole 
 from the monument of the Belgian lion. There is nothing 
 15* 
 
346 DOWN THE RHINE, AND ACROSS TO WATERLOO. 
 
 striking in the field itself. A crescent valley, with two hills, 
 each occupied by the foe, within cannon range ; the English 
 having all the natural advantages, the French doing all the 
 marching and manoeuvring these are the features of the bloody 
 field. The traveller treads curiously over spots where Victory 
 waved her ensign, and Death reaped his sanguine harvest ; where 
 the hope of conquest glowed in the heart while life s last ebbing 
 sands were running. The wheat grows finely now where thou 
 sands fell and mouldered ; the flax, whose elegant warp and 
 woof wrought into Brussels lace will adorn the lady in her par 
 lor, springs out of the ground fructified by the blood of the 
 brave. After the battle, the richest crops were taken from the 
 fields ; and nature even yet struggles on silently to redeem her 
 self from the stains of a mighty murder by the kindest processes 
 of vegetable growth. Man may struggle with his brother, and 
 lie down upon his gory bed, and he may call it glorious ; but 
 God wipes away the evidences of such glory by the waving of 
 beautiful plains. " Les hommes agitent, but Dieu les mene," 
 says Bossuet. " Men agitate, but God rules." Never was there 
 a bolder instrument of Providence than Napoleon. His history 
 is written all over Europe. All the pages of English vitupera 
 tion, from the most puerile penny-a-liner to the rankest old tory 
 or gravest historian, cannot eradicate or tarnish the proud evi 
 dences of Napoleon s greatness. At Naples, in the roads and 
 buildings ; at Venice, in the improvements he there made ; at 
 Milan, where we were shown what Napoleon did ; at Lisbon, 
 where he turned out some eleven hundred lazy priests to clean 
 the filthy city ; along the Rhine, where he broke up nunneries 
 by the hundred ; in Paris, where I now write almost under the 
 shadow of his splendid monuments, are the ineffaceable proofs 
 of his utilitarian and exhaustless mind, as it projected works for 
 the good of the people, and it must be confessed, for the glory 
 of himself. His shadow, not himself, now rules here ; yet his 
 shadow is more powerful this day in France, than the sunlight 
 of her brightest spirits. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 44 France, the staple of new modes, 
 "Where garbs and miens are current goods, 
 Prescribes new garnitures and fashions, 
 And how to drink and how to eat 
 No out-of-fashion wine or meat, 
 And to demonstrate with sufficient reason, 
 What ribands, all the year, are in or out of season." 
 
 Butler. 
 
 TWO months ago we left this city, to go, we knew not cer 
 tainly whither, to return, Providence permitting, hither. 
 We have completed the round, from Brussels we ran over by 
 cars to this centre of civilization and gayety, poodle dogs and 
 grind organs, Boulevards and promenades, cafes and operas, 
 military displays and Sunday fetes, every thing to divest the 
 mind of gravity and invest it with the illusory, the transient and 
 the mobile. 
 
 After having arrived here with such expeditious good luck, 
 we felt like laying upon our oars and floating down the stream 
 of Parisian life, without effort, amidst its ever-following margin 
 of gayeties. Youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm, we 
 have floated between promenades and gardens, flowers and tem 
 ples, colors and melodies, every object that excites the eye, 
 ravishes the ear, and enfolds the senses in delight. This is 
 surface work. It looks pretty and its novelty pleases. Beneath 
 the surface of this gay world there lies moral filth and gross 
 debasement. Content to fret the surface, we have not stirred 
 the depths of the mysteries of Paris. 
 
 The Lord Mayor of London and his train have been here 
 
348 TnE FRENCH CAPITAL. 
 
 the past week, feasted guests at the Hotel de Ville, invited 
 visitors to Versailles upon Sunday, attendants upon splendid 
 operatic performances, and wondering gazers at the sham battle 
 in the Champ de Mars, on the 6th of August. The Circuses 
 have brushed up their horses and added new features to their 
 bills ; the promenades have been newly trimmed and the palaces 
 neatly swept ; the manufactories of Gobelins tapestry, and 
 Sevres porcelain, have been freely opened, and a general entente 
 cordiale has been celebrated between the " perfidious Albion- 
 ites," and the testy Gauls, in which the Juries of the World s 
 Exhibition have taken part. In fine, Paris, always a fete to the 
 stranger, especially to a Buckeye, has been in a perfect tip-top 
 gala ever since the Lord Mayor arrived. 
 
 1. THE GREAT SHAM BATTLE. 
 
 "We have followed in the wake of the fete, seeing the ebulli 
 tion and hearing the bubbling. A loud noise it made at the 
 sham fight in the Field of Mars. Fortunately when we drove 
 up to the field, we met the Commissary of the Police, who 
 readily granted us, as strangers and Americans, a pass through 
 the guards at the streets leading to the barriers. He eten ex 
 tended to us the courtesy of giving us a whiskered dragoon with 
 a big hat, the specific gravity of which was very disproportionate 
 to its bulk, by whom we were led through the crowd, and ob 
 tained a place high and aloof, commanding a view of the field. 
 
 The fight commenced with a thunder of artillery ; then vol 
 leys of musketry ; then parties dashed across the bridge and the 
 fighting became close and severe, very, about our point. 
 Soon the whole army, except the reserves, were in action. The 
 artillery roared, the flame flashed amid rolling volumes of 
 smoke, the bayonets glittered through it splendidly, the cavalry 
 hi long columns, with ensigns flying, charged hollow squares, 
 after the party on one side had driven back the assailants, and 
 had in their turn become the assailants. It was a magnificent 
 
THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 349 
 
 sight to see the long winding trains of horsemen, forming into 
 line and dashing off in glittering style through the cloud of dust 
 they had raised ; then, meeting a volley of cannon and guns, 
 wheel about and take their old position. During the cavalry 
 evolutions, the excitement of the crowd became intense. People 
 below us in the street, were hiring fellows to let them have the 
 use of their shoulders. Lemonade-men ceased their cries. 
 Water-women held their breath ; some of the Parisian " b hoys," 
 or blouses, had obtained boards and were scaling the terraces 
 upon which the crowd, who had paid most liberally for them, were 
 intently enjoying the spectacle. A real fight ensued ; illustrat 
 ing, in a twinkling, by the interest it created, how much more 
 exciting is an atom of earnestness than an army of sham. 
 
 Stationed upon a fine terrace, overlooking the spot, we were 
 in the midst of the roar, the smoke, the din, and the innocency 
 of the battle. Eighty thousand elegantly-dressed soldiers, glit 
 tering in the sun, marching in infantry, wheeling and curveting 
 in cavalry, manoeuvring with artillery, retreating, advancing, 
 detouring, running, thro wing bridges over the Seine, carry ing forts, 
 defending walls, in solid columns, in open order, in hollow 
 squares, in videttes, in every imaginable figure and form known 
 to the Art of Death, by powder and steel, with trumpets sound 
 ing, cannons flashing and thundering, musketry rolling, and pen 
 nons waving ; all working out upon uneven ground, and finally 
 upon the beautiful field of Mars, the problem of the day, and 
 that, too, without any other catastrophe than a dragoon hors de 
 combat, is a sight that stirs the spirit, while it does not disturb 
 the ordinary flow of human sympathy. The idea of the battle 
 was this : a hostile force from Passy and the Bois de Bologne, 
 which was behind us, move on to take the Ecole Militaire, a 
 strong fortress, having the Seine in front. The heights of Chail- 
 lot was the spot where the contest waged hottest, where the most 
 powder was spilt. As the smoke rolled away toward the right, 
 the assailants were seen to have encompassed by their cavalry 
 the infantry, to have silenced by their cannon the opposing ar- 
 
350 THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 
 
 tillery ; and to have occupied in beautiful array the field of 
 Mars ! Such enthusiasm, such a turn out, never could be found 
 in any place but Paris. At least five hundred thousand people 
 were on the grounds and heights, on the houses, columns, arches, 
 woodpiles, and chimneys. The trees which lined the field of 
 battle were full above, and under them was a long mass pf peo 
 ple, stretching out at least a mile on either side. As the battle 
 progressed, the barriers were removed, and the people rushed 
 through in living floods to the scene. The fortress was at last 
 taken ; the troops filed off before Louis Napoleon and the Lord 
 Mayor, the crowd broke through the barriers and inundated the 
 Champs Elysees, where in great packed acres they stood await 
 ing the appearance of the President. He appeared under escort 
 of the National Guard, when vivas long and loud went up to 
 Napoleon ! The blouses, as well as the better-dressed citizens, 
 joined in the universal hurrah ! Universal ? Ah ! there were 
 a few brave fellows, who shouted " Viva la Republique !" I tell 
 you that this great nation is not republican yet, save in name. 
 There is no principle pervading the masses. Their enthusiasm 
 is purely personal. There is no simplicity, nor love of inde-. 
 pendence in their movements. Parade, glitter, pomp, and hero- 
 worship, is the idea of Parisian society. The government which 
 can furnish the greatest quantity of gayety and glitter, in a given 
 time, will be, at least for a time, the pet of the people. The re 
 volution in manners must precede all other salutary revolutions. 
 
 2. SABBATH AT VERSAILLES. 
 
 Yesterday was Sunday here. I will avouch to its being the 
 Sunday of the Calendar ; but not our good old quiet Sunday. 
 It was a Paris Sunday, with a few extras. Of course, you would 
 not expect us to be so Puritanic as not to see a Parisian Sun 
 day. You might as well attempt to go to Naples without seeing 
 Vesuvius, Aix-la-Chapelle without seeing a gambling-hell, or 
 
THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 351 
 
 Venice without seeing the prisons of the Council of Ten. We 
 heard there was service at Versailles Parisian service so we 
 struck for that point. There were some sixty or seventy thou 
 sand bent in the same direction. As it was the first Sunday in 
 the month, all the fountains were to play, and, as the fete was 
 in progress, the Lord Mayor of London and the Exhibition 
 Commissioners were to be there. A railroad dashed us past the 
 far-famed palace and park of St. Cloud, into the town of Ver 
 sailles. The town is of little account, though in the time of 
 Louis XIV., when Royalty revelled so splendidly, it contained 
 100,000 people one third of which number, only, are there at 
 present. The grounds, with their green galleries and beautiful 
 fountains, their innumerable statues, elegant orangery, intermi 
 nable walks and flower-gardens, and the palaces, these make 
 Versailles the great resort of the pleasure- loving and the curious. 
 Of course, you would not expect, nor could I ever give, such 
 a detailed description of Versailles as would reproduce it to the 
 mind s eye. After seeing it, one should make his will. It caps 
 the Seraglio, beats Hyde Park ; the Luxembourg in Paris is 
 tame beside it ; the Brussels promenade is fine, and so is that 
 of Naples ; but where, in all our views, have we seen any thing 
 comparable to Versailles ? Whether it is the magnificent Place 
 d Armes, rivalling St. Peter s Piazza, guarded by the martial 
 valor of France in the colossal statues of Conde, Turenne, and 
 others, and all commanded by the majestic equestrian statue of 
 Louis XIV., which is much more striking than that of Marcus 
 Aurelius in the Capitol at Rome ; whether it is the great and 
 little Trianon, palaces famed in the history of the Queens of 
 France, with their magnificent prospects of lawn and wood, 
 water-sheets and water-jets, ranges of statuary, gardens of flow 
 ers and marble basins ; whether it is the galleries of paintings 
 shaming the Vatican in the richness and taste of their decora 
 tion (indeed Napoleon as King of Italy was as free in his appro 
 priation of Italian art, as railroads are of real estate in Ohio), 
 and illustrating in marble the scientific, literary and martial 
 
352 THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 
 
 genius of the nation, and upon extensive canvas that military 
 glory before which monarchs paled and the world trembled ; 
 wherever you go, whatever point of view you take, from palace 
 window or upon the marble stairway, you are lost in the variety 
 of objects, each one a chief in itself, but all arranged for one 
 brilliant stroke of the vision over an expanse of area utterly 
 inconceivable before by our unsophisticated mind. Addison 
 has said, that the sight continues longest in service, affording 
 for a longer time pleasure and delight, through its inlet to the 
 soul, than any of the other senses. We found it true at Ver 
 sailles. Without fatigue or cessation, it ranged from hall to 
 hall ; running through centuries, from Charlemagne and Pepin, 
 down to Louis Philippe and Charles X., and in the mean time 
 taking in all the splendid efforts of art from the reign of Louis 
 XIV. and of the Empire. David s pictures of the Coronation 
 of Napoleon, and of Napoleon giving the Eagles to the Army, 
 fulfilled every anticipation concerning them ; but the chapel, the 
 frescoes, the landscape-paintings in which battle-scenes are intro 
 duced, the wonderful effect of all these in developing, sustain 
 ing, and giving enthusiasm to French, purely French nationality, 
 I had not before any adequate conception of. 
 
 It would require but a glance at the painting of the wounded 
 Marshal Lannes, with Napoleon by his side, or of Austerlitz 
 with the figure of Bonaparte proudly eminent, to give esprit to 
 the army of France, such as of old it possessed under its almost 
 deified General. 
 
 This palace of Versailles was formerly a hunting-lodge for 
 one of the earlier kings. Additions after additions were made, 
 millions being expended in their construction, until the Revolu 
 tion, after which it sunk into decay. Napoleon preferred to live 
 at St. Germain or St. Cloud. He said that it would take forty 
 millions of francs to put Versailles in repair. Louis Philippe 
 had it in excellent order. 
 
 Our ladies were curious to see the Trianon, and especially 
 the little Swiss cottage erected by order of Marie Antoinette; 
 
THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 353 
 
 but as I attempted to go by the soldier a laughing, good- 
 natured fellow, who marched under the signs " Propriete na- 
 tionale," and " Liberte, Egalite et Fraternite" he called out for 
 a pass, which I had not provided, and I could effect no frater 
 nization with him, by which to gain my end. 
 
 We saw a great crowd looking at the golden royal coach of 
 Charles X., which is considerably laughed at just now. It may 
 roll through these arbors and green lanes yet, with a Bourbon 
 in it ; who knows ? But hurrah ! here is a rush ! what a crowd 
 of Johnny Bulls ; and there they go, after a fine-looking white- 
 haired gentleman in very black, who is being led around into 
 the orangery by the Prefect of the Seine. The English run 
 after, like mad, women and men, fat and lean mostly fat. 
 Aha ! now they are stopped. A French soldier, with ribbons 
 on his coat, has run a rope across, and the soldiers are trying to 
 guard the pass. In vain, fat Aldermen s fat wives, perspiring 
 like the frogs in yonder fountain of Latona, dodge under, clam 
 ber over, escape outstretched arms, and caper away like kittens, 
 after the Lord Mayor. At last the heft (to Yankee it) of the 
 crowd is stopped. The rest present tickets, and talk JEZenglish 
 quite /^uselessly. The pageant has faded. And so has it been 
 all day a chase of English Aldermen, and their consorts, after 
 the Mayor, who is hurried along by the Prefect at a good trot. 
 It was a scene for Punch. 
 
 We returned home to see Paris by night, in the Champs 
 Elysees, Boulevards, Luxembourg, and at the Cafes, where 
 concerts, circuses, and amusements of every variety, keep a com 
 pany of two hundred thousand, if not more, constantly on the 
 qui vive. One does not know what that phrase means, until 
 they see the sights here on Sunday. If there be any churches 
 here, what were they built for ? The question has been answered 
 in a former chapter ; they are but mausoleums over the buried 
 great, or theatres for the display of festal and regal magnificence. 
 They were built for man, not God. 
 
354 THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 
 
 3. PERE LA CHAISE. 
 
 One of the most attractive places of resort in the environs of 
 Paris is the Pere La Chaise cemetery. There is a peculiarity 
 in the tombs, and a beautiful custom connected with them, well 
 worthy of mention and imitation. The cemetery lies to the 
 northeast of the city. 
 
 We passed along the magnificent quays of the Seine, crossed 
 the bridge, and stopped before the monument erected upon the 
 spot where the Bastile of the old regime stood. It is built to 
 the memory of those citizens who fell on the memorable three 
 days of July, 1830, which dethroned the elder Bourbons, and 
 made Louis Philippe " citizen king." The monument is ele 
 gantly surmounted with a gilded image of Victory winged, stand 
 ing with one foot on tip-toe upon a globe, about 250 feet high. 
 The image is exceedingly aerial and graceful. It is about the 
 height of the majestic column to Napoleon in the Place Ven- 
 dome. The latter is modelled after that of Trajan at Rome, 
 and moulded wholly out of the cannon and other metallic 
 trophies taken in battle by the Emperor. 
 
 Through streets lined with marble stores, and shops where 
 funereal wreaths are made, we pass up to the cemetery. Mourn 
 ers stop to buy the wreaths of yellow and white. They are very 
 touching, and expressive of kindly sympathy. Little images, 
 too, of persons kneeling or mourning are bought, and all are 
 placed upon the tombs, either within upon shrines, or without 
 under little covers, to keep them from rain or sun. Almost 
 every tomb was thus remembered. Very few were without some 
 token. Many had flowers growing around and about them, most 
 tastefully arranged. How good how mindful are the French ! 
 was the exclamation, as we passeM amid these emblems of life 
 and decay. The tombs of La Place, of Volney, La Fontaine, 
 and of David, the great painter, are here. Most eagerly we 
 sought for the tomb of Heloise and Abelard, so renowned in 
 
THE FRENCH CAPITAL. . 355 
 
 song and story. They flourished in the twelfth century, and 
 were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in learn 
 ing and beauty ; but for nothing were they so famous, as for 
 their unfortunate passion. After a long course of calamities, 
 they retired each to a separate convent, and consecrated the 
 remainder of their days to religion. Buried in life thus in di 
 vided graves, they were united in death in the same tomb ; not, 
 however, long to rest together, for ecclesiastical power followed 
 their dust, and separated it, as it had their lives. But after 
 many vicissitudes, they lie side by side, as is beautifully indi 
 cated by the sculptured images under the little Gothic temple 
 which affection has reared. Wreaths there were not a few, upon 
 their tomb, touching tributes to that constancy and attach 
 ment which their lives, death and entombment, typified so beau 
 tifully. White roses grow plentifully within the inclosure, 
 chaste symbols of a love which death has not quenched, but only 
 purified. We plucked one rose as a souvenir of the spot, and, if 
 any cemetery may be thus called, of this pleasant abode of the 
 departed. 
 
 The Pere la Chaise, affords a fine view of Paris, which we 
 were enjoying as the bell began to ring, and the watch of the 
 cemetery began to cry the hour of departure from the different 
 points. Taking a dish of berries and ices at a cafe (every body 
 here lives at a cafe), our party went to the hotel, and I to the 
 Theatre Comique, to see Paris in another phase and hear a funny 
 opera. 
 
 Let not the lawyer who visits Paris fail to drive down to the 
 Palais Justice, and observe the working of the courts. I spent 
 very profitably a most interesting day in listening to the judges 
 and lawyers. The latter are the most intelligent and best-look 
 ing gentlemen I have seen in Europe. I know that remark is 
 superfluous. Dressed in their black gowns, and black caps shaped 
 like the segment of a sugar loaf, they move about from court 
 to court with their briefs in hand, unincumbered with loads 
 of authorities and ever ready to meet their cases. I heard 
 
356 THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 
 
 a case tried by jury, and noticed many little improvements upon 
 our present mode of practice. Their custom of questioning the 
 accused shortens the trial, and it seems not at all inconsistent 
 with fairness. The repartee even between prisoner and accuser, 
 and prisoner and judge, while it excites from its dramatic cha 
 racter, generally shows where the blame or crime lies. Soldiers 
 are always on hand to preserve order and protect the doors. It 
 was a sufficient password to say that I was a stranger, in order to 
 obtain admittance. There are some eight or ten judges in each 
 of the courts. A good feature is, that the lawyers have a grand 
 consultation every Saturday, when the poor may obtain gratuitous 
 advice. 
 
 4. PARISIAN MEDLEY. 
 
 Now I know that it is not the province of a transient travel 
 ler, to venture too far in generalizations upon national character 
 and prospects. He is liable to make himself ridiculous. I only 
 speak of what I have been informed. I have hardly seen enough 
 foi a respectable induction upon any subject. The proper sub 
 ject of a traveller s pen is the superficial. Of that, what an 
 area has my eye covered ! what multiform objects has it em 
 braced ! Can I enumerate ! The Hotel des Invalides, where 
 the veterans upon wooden legs and crutches line the fine walks, 
 cultivate their little flower plots, and talk of Napoleon, whose 
 remains are entombed within the chapel, where wave two hundred 
 ensigns trophies of his valor from the Pyramids to the Snows ; 
 the Louvre, that noble repertory of art, surpassing any of the 
 gallerie^of Italy being, in fact, the choice selection from them 
 all where Ilubens and Vandyke vie with Raphael and Caracci 
 for the palm of genius, where Salvator Rosa and Claude, the one 
 in bold outline, the other in mellow lustre, reproduce nature in 
 her loveliest aspect, where the holiest of beings beams benignly 
 from the wall on the canvas of Murillo, and where the German 
 Bacchanals drink beer with such a jollity, that the canvas fairly 
 
THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 357 
 
 laughs ; the Tuileries with its palace, where Louis Philippe once 
 lived with his family, still preserved (with some few marks of 
 popular fury) as it was in 1848, when Grirardin recommended 
 the abdication, which ended in an airing on horseback ; and its 
 gardens, which are only rivalled in tasteful walks, manifold 
 flower-beds, beautiful fountains, and luxuriant orangeries by the 
 Luxembourg, where the taste of the Medici family is still pre 
 served, notwithstanding Louis Blanc held socialist meetings there, 
 and notwithstanding soldiers have rendezvoused in the gilded 
 rooms ; the museum of artillery, where the arms of France, from 
 the invasion of Gaul down to the last, revolution, are displayed, 
 including the armor of Joan of Arc, and the delicate festoonery 
 of the entrance hall, in the shape of the iron chain which the 
 Turks used at the siege of Vienna, to construct a ponton bridge 
 over the Danube ; the Jardin des Plantes, where the roar of the 
 beasts does not in the least disturb the silent putting forth of 
 the fragrant flowers ; where the cedar of Lebanon grows within 
 sight of the anaconda s den ; where the delicate tamarind tree 
 and flowering magnolia are arranged in the same home with the 
 gazelle and rhinoceros ; where geology and botany have their 
 halls, and the most disgusting lizard and snake their hiding- 
 place ; where all is scientifically arranged, and within whose centre 
 is a bower and a summer-house overlooking the whole, and afford 
 ing a splendid view of Paris ; and above all embracing a Sab 
 bath evening, with its concerts in the open air, its crowded cafes, 
 its immense promenades, a living and moving -mass of blouses 
 and monsieurs, fine ladies and mademoiselles in neat caps, the 
 amusements, Punch and Judy, cross-bow firing at plasters, bil 
 liards, wooden-horse riding, circuses performing, music playing, 
 cat and dog entertainments, children with little balloons, amidst 
 glancing lights and spraying fountains, gardens of the rarest 
 flowers, and shadows of arched trees, mingled with the everlast 
 ing jabber and gay laugh of the French ; which latter is not the 
 least wonderful phase of this city of wonders. But why enume 
 rate, where there is so much to be seen ? There is indeed " but 
 
358 THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 
 
 one Paris." The world of science, politics, and of luxury, has 
 here its heart. Its throbs are great, and penetrate the remotest 
 part of Europe, aye, even extending world-wide. 
 
 Yet one cannot but feel that the jaw of destruction opens 
 wide to ingulf this city. A few centuries more, and the curious 
 traveller may wander along the ruined quays of the Seine, now 
 adorned with so many bridges and walls, noting the piles where 
 once stood the Hotel de Ville, from which Lamartine held the 
 populace enchained by the beauty of his diction and the spell of 
 his noble thoughts ; or wondering at the brass column to Napo 
 leon, eternal as his fame, towering up amidst decay ; or at the 
 despoiled gardens and palaces of this pleasure-maddened city. 
 If the godlessness of a people is any indication of a future, 
 imagination may revel in the ruins of the future Paris. May it 
 not conceive yon Place de la Concorde, now glittering with 
 lights, musical with fountains, and crowded with pe ople, where 
 Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were beheaded, as waving 
 with the ripe corn, or chaotic in ruins, like the palace of the 
 Caesars ? Or may we not rather hope that France, springing 
 from the mire of moral degradation, shall rise in the newness of 
 a civilization, in which republican simplicity shall walk hand in 
 hand with Christian truth ? 
 
 We yesterday visited the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau, in 
 the basement of the Pantheon. France venerates, at present, 
 too highly their splendid intellects, to permit her to dissociate 
 the effect of their genius from their glaring vices. On the tomb 
 of Voltaire is the following : " II combattit les athees et les 
 fanatiques, inspira la tolerance et reclama les droits de 1 homme 
 centre la servitude de la feodalite." I thought the commentary 
 of our refugee-republican-Roman courier most excellent. In his 
 tolerable English he said, after reading it : " France built this 
 Pantheon to her grand hommes, who "wrote for liberty, and she 
 go to Rome to kill Liberty;" and with a shrug of the shoulders, 
 he turned away to read the inscription on Rousseau s tomb : 
 " Here reposes the man of nature and of truth ;" not knowing 
 
THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 359 
 
 how significant of French fate was the sentiment thus graven 
 upon the toinb of a man whose life gave the lie to all his beau 
 tiful raptures on truth and virtue. 
 
 . The same thing is discernible now, in the public men of 
 France. They talk political abstractions in pert, pithy, pretty, 
 curt sentences ; but when they undertake to do Humph ! 
 Dominichino would shrug his shoulders again. France needs 
 ome such men as Lafayette content to be useful, rather than 
 splendid ; practical, instead of brilliant. 
 
 5. LAFAYETTE S TOMB. 
 
 "We thought that we could not do better upon our second 
 Sabbath, especially in Paris, than to visit Lafayette s grave. It 
 is sought after by few, and these, I am proud to say, are Ameri 
 cans. The coachman could not find the street, without some 
 difficulty. A long ride up the Faubourg de St. Antoine, brought 
 us to the Rue de Picpus, upon the outskirts of the city. A 
 convent, now occupied by the " Sisters of Charity," and an old 
 chapel of Doric, surround the tomb of Lafayette. We walked 
 through long arbors of grapes and flowers, amid the tidy-looking 
 elderly dames all dressed in their white dresses and whiter 
 bonnets, until we turned into a narrow, treeless cemetery, where 
 among the Montmorencies, Rosambos, and other noble families 
 of France, reposes the friend of America and of Washington. 
 A large slab covers the grave of himself and wife ; and near by 
 are the remains of George Washington Lafayette, his son, who 
 died in 1849. The victims of the reign of terror lie around 
 them. A few wreaths decorate the bare tomb. A deep and 
 solemn quiet, in strange contrast to the ever-rushing tide of the 
 streets, reigned within this sacred home. I loved this spot. It 
 reminded me of our own simple American graveyards. No 
 mark of nobility, no heraldic armor, was engraved upon the 
 tomb. No old soldiers are here to guard it ; no lofty column 
 rises to the memory of the good and genial Lafayette. But he 
 
360 THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 
 
 has a monument more durable than brass. It is in the heart of 
 America. As time lapses, we should cherish more deeply, and 
 care with nicer heed for, those revolutionary soldiers and patriots, 
 who worked out so excellent a constitution, through so much 
 difficulty and danger. 
 
 We have no long line of kings to emblazon in splendor the 
 historic page, or palaces full of their pictures and trophies ; we 
 have no dim old cathedrals, hallowed with the footsteps of 
 mighty cardinals and priests, and almost groaning with their 
 weight of marble honors ; we have no battles to boast of so 
 scourging and bloody as Borodino and Austerlitz; but we have a 
 history rich in spiritual independence, and eventuating in a 
 government, which Lord Brougham has truly called, the highest 
 refinement in civil polity which the world has ever seen. We 
 have in our historic annals the name of at least the purest, if 
 not the greatest of Frenchmen Lafayette ! His remains sleep 
 quietly, sequestered among the kindly sisters of charity. No 
 revolution will exhume them, as were exhumed the proud kings 
 at St. Denis. Respect, if not enthusiasm, and never obloquy, 
 will attend his memory. Americans will always delight to 
 leave the din of the great city, to search out and honor his 
 simple tomb. 
 
XXX. 
 
 , in ntjjrc 
 
 " These struggling tides of life that seem 
 In wayward, aimless course to tend, 
 Are eddies of the mighty stream 
 That rolls to its appointed end." 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 WELL, it came over one right goodly, to reach a spot where 
 one does not have to call our old homely Saxon words by 
 such outre and unaccustomed terms. To say breakfast, instead 
 of " dejeune. monsieur ;" to say " how much ?" instead of that 
 everlasting "combien?" to feel that you are understood and 
 heeded without acting it out like a player, was indeed a relief. 
 
 On our ride up to London from Dover, the English country 
 did not look so attractive as when we saw it in the beginning of 
 June, all fresh and green in its primal garniture. Perhaps the 
 scenes which Italy and the Alpine valleys had pencilled and 
 laid away in memory s portfolio, detracted from the rural beau 
 ty ; perhaps the fields bared of their grain, and wanting that 
 rich, golden yellow which interlaced the fertile vales of the 
 Rhone and of the Aar. have contributed to disparage the aspect 
 of the country ; and perhaps, our eyes have been sated with na 
 tural views. No matter, London London has lost nothing of 
 its attractions by our continental tour. 
 
 There is a kind of incredulity attaching itself to all the as 
 sociations of ancient renown and power, which cling around 
 the places we have visited upon the continent. We cannot 
 more than half believe that the Doges of Venice ruled with 
 such splendor and power; that Athens was the theatre of 
 16 
 
362 LONDON IN OTHER PHASES. 
 
 such mighty deeds and noble thoughts ; that Monza was the 
 glittering capital of ancient Lombardy, with its kings and 
 queens ; that the Mediterranean was the scene of crusading 
 thousands led by knightly prowess ; that Charlemagne ruled 
 along the Rhine with such pomp of empire, enacting deeds of 
 high emprise, all these and other relations of places to history, 
 enter like shadows into the temple of faith, and, like shadows, 
 soon depart. But when it comes to England when it comes to 
 London, with her bridges and her Whitehalls, her palaces and 
 her Tower, her historic incidents enter, with a stern, substan 
 tial, ringing step upon the portal, and challenge every form of 
 doubt or overcome all incredulity. When to-day we entered the 
 Tower, the dark and bloody history of England was turned over 
 rapidly and tangibly by the wizard of the past, as each object 
 aroused its familiar and undoubted chronicle. 
 
 The gateways we found crowded. Presently we purchased 
 our tickets for the armory and jewel room. Then we were com 
 pelled to wait until the warder had collected a goodly number, 
 when off we marched with him to inspect and wonder. These 
 warders are numerous. They are dressed in their ancient cos 
 tume the same as that worn in the reign of Henry VII. It 
 consists of a cap ribboned off gaudily, and a coat in the form 
 of a blouse, gilded all over, with a crown on the breast and back 
 boldly emblazoned. They are appointed from the army on ac 
 count of their good character. The warder assigned us was a 
 fine old Johnny Bull, who had a peculiar fondness for Ameri 
 cans. He lugged me out of the crowd at every turn, to display 
 what he considered as much our history as England s. He said 
 that he had no doubt that some of our ancestors had walked 
 around these places. I hoped that they had not been too familiar 
 with some parts of the premises. It made one feel quite antique 
 to be guided about these old palaces and prisons by so odd a 
 looking personage as our warder. Had it not been for the aspi 
 rate and the want of it in the wrong places, I could easily have 
 transported our cockney warder at least into the age of Harry the 
 
LONDON, IN OTHER PHASES. 353 
 
 Eighth, or have placed him in charge of one of the Fairy 
 Queen s castles. 
 
 Many persons wonder why England suffers the Tower to 
 stand. Its darkness and gloom, to say nothing of its history, 
 are in such bold contrast with the fine structures and elevated 
 civilization of the present day, that it seems strange that it has 
 not suffered the fate of the Bastile. Hallam has perhaps given 
 the best image of the Tower as well as the best reason for its 
 preservation, when he says, that it seems like a captive tyrant, 
 reserved to grace the triumph of a glorious republic, and that it 
 should teach us (Britons) to reflect in thankfulness, how highly 
 we have been elevated in virtue and happiness above our forefa 
 thers. Truly there is a lesson to be learned from its old stones, 
 its murderous blocks, its manifold modifications of force, its soli 
 tary cells, its chivalric armors, and its costly regalias a lesson 
 of humility and of dependency upon an arm greater than that 
 of flesh ; the lesson taught by the text cut in the prison room 
 occupied by Sir Walter Raleigh, which I read to-day " Be 
 faithful unto the deth : and I wil give the a croivne of life / 
 
 The Tower dates from the Conqueror. Although some parts 
 of it look new and lack gloom, yet there are others which have 
 that streaked and blackened appearance which the oldest stone 
 in northern climes always presents. We surveyed the interior ; 
 noted with interest the prison of the seven bishops, whose trial 
 Macaulay graphically depicts, and upon whose acquittal, such a 
 momentous change occurred in the British dynasty and consti 
 tution ; looked curiously at the famous stone and mortar known 
 as the White tower, which, performed a star part in the drama 
 of the great charter and King John, and which so many of the 
 Plantagenets used as a palace and a prison 5 and more curiously 
 still, and not without a shudder, at the Bloody Tower, which 
 tradition and Shakspeare have rendered so horrible, as the scene 
 of the suffocation of the young princes, nephews of the Duke of 
 Gloster, Richard III. There is, however, considerable doubt 
 as to the authenticity of the relation, which makes that part 
 
364 LONDON, IN OTHER PHASES. 
 
 of the old pile so horrible. The underground compartments 
 we did not see. It was enough to mark the Traitor s gate, 
 with its portcullis, ready even yet to gnash its grim teeth upon 
 the victim as he enters from the Thames, under the stone arch, 
 and up the fatal steps ; enough, to recall the great and good 
 who have here suffered for popular freedom and religious faith. 
 We passed some time in gazing at the kings and celebrated 
 men of England, clad in their own identical armor, and 
 mounted upon horseback. They were tastefully arranged in 
 what is called the Horse Gallery. The most conspicuous among 
 them all was the gross form of that rough brute, Henry VIII., 
 and the despicably mean-looking visage of James II. Cromwell 
 Villiers, Stafford, and others whose names are a part of English 
 history, were there. Above each king was arranged in stars, 
 the peculiar arms of the period. 
 
 We enjoyed the visit to the Regalia room, where the crown 
 jewels and crowns are kept. They are worth the enormous sum 
 of fifteen millions of dollars nearly equal to Ohio s state debt ! 
 The warder well remarked, that we would, in our country, hardly 
 keep so much wealth idle. I told him, that we would apply it, 
 perhaps, toward paying off the national debt, especially, if it 
 amounted to eight hundred millions. 
 
 We were shown the block upon which Lady Jane Grey, Es 
 sex, and Raleigh suffered, as well as some horrible implements 
 of torture. The latter were marked, " captured from the Span 
 ish." I supposed that they were perfectly at home in the Tower, 
 if we may rely upon history. Besides, what kind of a war trophy 
 would be one of these engines of misery ? What general would 
 wish his triumph graced by such an instrument ? 
 
 The crowning interest which belongs to the Tower, is, that it 
 has been the prison of those who dared to assert the rights of 
 Englishmen, who stood up. in the face of arrogant kings, to pro 
 claim that the people alone had the divine right to control their 
 own destiny. These brave spirits never suffered the house of 
 Tudor or of Stuart to repose for a moment upon a couch of 
 
LONDON, IN OTHER PHASES. 365 
 
 roses. Such men as Peter Wentworth in Elizabeth s time, and 
 Coke and Selden in the time of James I., were the true fore 
 runners of the Pyms. Hanipdens, and Fiennes of a later day. 
 They verified the French couplet, 
 
 Le roi d Angleterre 
 Est le roi d Enfer. 
 
 ; The King of England is the king of hell." And although the 
 Tower with its torments awaited them, still, like their transat 
 lantic descendants upon similar great issues, they knew, and 
 dared to maintain their privileges against the royal prerogative. 
 One cannot have an adequate idea of the immensity of the 
 brick and mortar, known as London, without going up into some 
 lofty point, such as the cupola of St. Paul s. Under the smoky 
 obscurity there lies far far around as the eye can see, one con 
 tinuous, compact mass of buildings, interpersed with handsome 
 spires, and divided by the Thames upon which is seen, darting 
 from pier to pier, the little steamers which ply from Chelsea to 
 Greenwich. Paris is easily bounded, Constantinople you may 
 take in at one large view, Naples lies along the bay, and in the 
 clear air may be comprehended at a glance ; but London, and 
 
 " The villas with which London stands begirt 
 Like a swarth Indian, with his belt of beads," 
 
 forms its own horizon of houses, while whole cities lie beyond. 
 From St. Paul s, whence we viewed the city, the beautiful parks 
 were scarcely discernible ; the new houses of Parliament and 
 Westminster arose conspicuously, and the streets about St. 
 Paul s, sent up their incessant hum and rattle. 
 
 We have visited the Tunnel of the Thames a bazaar under 
 a river that is all. Indeed there are few sights worth a visit, 
 which we have not seen. A promiscuous world is London, 
 with its Zoological Gardens, where we saw the hippopotamus, 
 " wallowing, unwieldy," and an orang-outang that looked more 
 
366 LONDON IN OTHER PHASES. 
 
 like a human being than some negroes I wot of; with its Northum 
 berland House, where the lion of Percy faces the form of Nelson 
 upon his column at Trafalgar Square ; with its Kew Gardens, 
 where the tamarind-tree and the bread-plant thrive beside the 
 broad-leaved palm and the flowering magnolia, and where every 
 vegetable production, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop 
 upon the wall, grows and creeps ; with its ever polite policemen, 
 its saucy cabmen, its jostling crowds in which rudeness is taken 
 for manliness ; with its great Brewery how can I forget that, 
 after the difficulty we had in attaining an insight belonging to 
 Barclay & Perkins, generally known in America as the place 
 of Haynau s disgrace, but better known as the reservoir of one- 
 fourth of the ale and stout of the kingdom. We went through 
 the establishment entire. I wondered somewhat at the wine 
 cask of Heidelberg ; but found here, one hundred and seventy- 
 two larger beer kegs, each one of which holds not less than two 
 thousand barrels, and the larger ones, three thousand five hundred. 
 The other operations are on a similar extensive scale. Exeter 
 Hall preaches temperance in vain, against such a monster. 
 BULL must ave is hale. 
 
 The English are a credulous people. They will believe 
 almost any thing of Americans. "We took tea with a very re 
 spectable family the other day, and were amused to find how 
 much of prejudice and misconception we could remove with 
 ease. They believed that we all drank gin-slings and " Tom 
 and Jerry ;" that we were every day or so regaled with lynch-law, 
 and that " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," were very 
 precarious franchises, especially in the west of America. A 
 red-headed doctor, who attended me a while, gave as a reason 
 for not going to America the following, after his peculiar style : 
 " Suppose a man s robbed, by a red-headed rascal ; people mad 
 see my hair get a rope nearest tree I swing d ye see ?" 
 
 The manuscripts of Bacon, Pope, Newton and others, at the 
 Museum, we looked at long and curiously. The original Magna 
 Charta is preserved there. The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, 
 
LONDON, IN OTHEE PHASES. 367 
 
 is also there, in the handwriting of Tasso. There too are the 
 relics of Nineveh, sent home by Layard, the indefatigable- 
 English gold has been potent in drawing together such a fine 
 collection. 
 
 You have heard of GOG, the Roman soldier, and MAGOG, the 
 Ancient Briton, who preside over Guildhall, and have in their 
 keeping the ancient municipality. Well, we saw the old genii, 
 sure enough. Quaint and odd painted in divers colors, and 
 looking very grandly foolish, stuck up in their corners, they 
 constitute one of the sights of London, never to be omitted. As 
 soon omit seeing the Bronze Wolf at the Roman Capitol, or the 
 bears at Berne. 
 
 Rain and sunshine alternate here every other hour. The air 
 is thus kept delightfully cool. The nights are beginning to 
 grow cold. Indeed, we have had plain indications of the approach 
 ing fall. Driving through St. James s Park, we noticed the 
 maples already shedding their leaves, and bestrewing the walks. 
 Royal parks and American woods own a kindred nature, and 
 together obey the great law of decay and growth. By analogy 
 we would conclude that the same great law comprehends the 
 royal occupants of St. James and the humblest tenant of our 
 log cabins, a simple truth which will bear pondering with 
 profit. Death knows no distinction or rank. God knows none, 
 save that which distinguishes the pure in heart from the vile. 
 
 What a home for crime and vice is London ! To the travel 
 ler this does not appear so readily. A few hours observation 
 in the Mayor s court revealed more than I could have learned 
 by going about the streets for a year. During those few hours, 
 a crowd of tattered, miserable beings were lodging their com 
 plaints, or being tried for petty crimes. Police officers were 
 bringing in offenders of high and low degree. They have 
 curious and rapid modes of justice here. Immediately below 
 the court-room are the prisons, which consist of little wicker 
 cages. A trap-door opens, and after the manner of Banquo s 
 ghost, there arises from below, the prisoner. By his side is the 
 
368 LONDON, IN OTHER PHASES. 
 
 policeman. The attorney for the city states the charge. The 
 judge requests the policeman to give evidence. He thus pro 
 pels : " I found three and a half pounds of tobacco hid upon the 
 prisoner s person, after I had asked him if he had any contra 
 band goods, and after he had denied having any. There is a 
 duty of nine shillings and threepence per pound, your honor." 
 
 Judge. " What have you got to say to this ?" 
 
 Prisoner. " Please your honor, I gave three shillings for 
 it, to send it down to my friends at Ramsgate." 
 
 Judge. " Why did you conceal it ?" 
 
 Prisoner Mum. 
 
 Judge. " You are sentenced to fourteen days imprison 
 ment, or to pay a fine of twenty shillings." 
 
 The trap door opens ; exit prisoner, saying, " I gave my last 
 shilling for the tobacco ; I can t pay the fine, zur." 
 
 I would have liked exceedingly to have had the privilege of 
 visiting the courts of Westminster, but they will not be in ses 
 sion till November. The Old Bailey must repay in part for the 
 disappointment. 
 
 I visited the Old Bailey to see that famous criminal- 
 mill grind out a batch of offenders. My friend, the City Soli 
 citor, was on hand at the indictment office, preparing his 
 indictments for the Grand Jury ; but he found time to give me 
 a prominent place from which to observe the operations. In the 
 first court, they were arraigning the newly indicted, which was 
 done in droves, classified according to their crimes. The other 
 court was more interesting. It moved like clockwork. The 
 court-rooms are not so fine as those of the Palais Justice ; and 
 I missed the beautiful painting of the Saviour upon the cross, 
 which always hangs over the heads of the French judges. 
 Neither does the judge demean himself so attentively and 
 sympathetically. I did not look for much sympathy in the Old 
 Bailey. I would as soon have looked for pearls in a pudding- 
 stone. The lawyers sat on circular benches, in whitish curly 
 wigs, and gowns. I had no idea that so respectable a profes- 
 
LONDON, IN OTHER PHASES. 359 
 
 sion could be dressed up so as to look so assinine. Of course 
 they are used to the absurdity ; but is it always to continue ? 
 Now it does not look so ridiculous to see the officer of the court 
 in a great blue cloak-dress, fringed with furs, and the crier (I 
 believe it was) with his sword dangling about a pair of spindle- 
 shanks, dressed in tights, while his head was queued and rib 
 boned in gala style ; for these officers " have no discretion ;" 
 they are executive machines. Lawyers are supposed to be 
 thinking men, not fantastic harlequins. But there I sat, almost 
 choking because I could not laugh, at the grave and gay wigs 
 (some looked in the face to be not more than twenty-one years 
 of age) which surrounded me. A gentleman thief was on trial 
 for stealing a box of silver. He was standing in the dock, 
 counterfeiting a tremble, and using a handkerchief to brush 
 away imaginary tears. An old wig (I have no respect for men 
 who place themselves in such a guise) was trying his best to 
 bamboozle a jury that seemed utterly indifferent to every thing. 
 If you remember a sketch of the jury that tried Bardell vs. 
 Pickwick, by Cruikshank, you will have an idea of this jury. 
 Pretty soon the old wig, after having disposed of each tittle of 
 testimony, calling it nothing, multiplied them together, and 
 produced nothing against his client, and sat down to his infi 
 nite satisfaction. 
 
 " My lord," the judge, summed up in a few words : the jury 
 leaned over the bench, and without going out (they never go out 
 in the Old Bailey), returned a verdict of guilty, almost as soon 
 as I can write this sentence ; the judge immediately sentenced 
 the prisoner to ten year s transportation. The prisoner asked if 
 he could be permitted to use spectacles. A voice (female) from 
 the gallery, " My lord, he s blind." " Silence ! " growls an offi 
 cer. That was all the attention shown to the request. Previous 
 to sentence, two policemen swear to the prisoner as one of the 
 "swell-mob" (genteelly dressed thieves), which did not mitigate 
 the sentence. And so they go on. I suppose an ordinary case 
 is tried in ten minutes, on which a man s whole life and reputa- 
 
370 LONDON, IN OTHER PHASES. 
 
 tion is staked. The court has no more soul than a threshing ma 
 chine, and the bar no more sympathy than is in their wigs. 
 
 What a relief a contrast, to turn from this harsh home of 
 justice, to the silent homes of the great, who are buried in the 
 Poet s Corner of Westminster. With what fear and awe are 
 we inspired, as we pass over the graves where Campbell and 
 Sheridan sleep, to see the monument of Shakspeare so gentle, 
 so meek, so graceful, as he stands upon it, with a scroll of his 
 own verses about the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces 
 of human greatness, that fade, how unlike his own name, and 
 leave not a rack behind ! 
 
 All about him are names familiar to us as those of our own 
 family, Howe, Addison, Goldsmith, (" poor Goldy ! ") Southey, 
 Dryden, " rare Ben," and rarer Samuel Johnson ; but why name 
 them ? Is not this the repository of England s most precious 
 dust ? What a spirit speaks from the urns of these princes and 
 kings of song ! How silently, through the mighty medium of 
 type, does it bear on its pinion the elements of beauty, humor, 
 truth and goodness, to make the world purer and holier ! How 
 kindly does it bear down to future ages and to the extremest 
 parts of the earth, the riches of our noble Anglo-Saxon language ! 
 And even now, in the polished poetry of Longfellow, and the 
 graceful prose of Irving, is verified, but not to its splendid ful 
 filment, the prophetic rapture of an old English bard, Daniels, 
 as he speaks of that language which these mouldering forms 
 spoke and wrote : 
 
 " And who in time knows whither he may vent 
 The treasures of our tongue ? To what strange shores 
 This gain of our best glory shall be sent 
 T enrich unknowing nations with our stores ? 
 What worlds in th yet unformed Occident 
 May come refined with th accents which are ours." 
 
XXXI. 
 
 
 
 {JB tot (gijiititimi Jtemsibft. 
 
 " I would rather believe all the fables of the Talmud, the Legend and the Alcoran, than 
 that this universal frame is without MIND !" 
 
 Lord Bacon. 
 
 IT is utterly impossible for me even to essay any further ex 
 pression about the Exhibition, which will in the least degree 
 reflect its great and little wonders. As I entered it again, the 
 same bright and glittering array and the same multiform variety 
 marched before me in sections, regiments and battalions, com 
 pletely capturing my senses and depriving my pen of its ordinary 
 volubility. I entered with the intention of studying closely 
 certain branches, say that of agricultural implements (having an 
 intelligent farmer friend, Mr. Buckingham, along), but the short 
 ness of my stay here and the immensity of the objects to be 
 studied, admonished me not to undertake so hopeless a work. 
 Upon each entrance to the different departments, I have found 
 some new modification of a familiar thing, some new principle of 
 mechanics, and some additional beauty in Art. The most use 
 ful things that I have seen have been the most beautifully 
 finished ; and in this, is confirmed a very pleasant truth. Even 
 the locomotive which is marked with a ribbon around its pipe, 
 and a card of the prize medal, is a piece of exquisite beauty, 
 dazzling as a mirror in its steel and brass, and carved into grace 
 at every point where ornament may give grace without detract 
 ing from strength. Is it not ever thus in the mental world ? 
 Are the sterling and strong metals of thought, any worse for 
 being wrought into rich and elegant figures ? Ask Milton, or 
 
372 TEE GREAT EXHIBITION REVISITED. 
 
 Dante, or Bacon, or Shakspeare ? The rich colorings of the 
 papier mache, or the exquisitely wrought mosaics of the circular 
 tables, lose none of their elegant proportions, because they are 
 colored. But the most refined beauty is not that of form or 
 color. It lies in the object of the thing judged, and the adapta 
 tion to attain thaj object. The closer and more facile that 
 relation, the more beautiful will be the instrument. A churn, 
 simple and unostentatious, worked by a little hand-wheel, but 
 partaking of three motions, rotary, horizontal and perpendicular, 
 combining at once several forces, including atmospheric pressure, 
 and making butter in five minutes with ease, was an object of 
 intrinsic beauty, to be looked at with as much pleasure as any 
 of those splendid silver-wrought ornaments. 
 
 A steam plough may be mentioned in the same category. 
 Behind the locomotive are the rotary ploughs. The resistance 
 of the earth they meet with, propels the machine, as the steam 
 boat is propelled by the resistance of the water to the wheel. 
 Of course, such an instrument would be entirely useless in the 
 greatest part of Ohio, where stumps and roots are yet plenty, and 
 where the land is not so light and level, as it is in the greater 
 part of England. 
 
 I went through the agricultural implement department, 
 examined what I could, and always left, wondering at the 
 simplicity and the immense labor-saving property of the instru 
 ment studied. 
 
 But there is nothing superior to McCormick s reaping 
 machine. I had seen it tried before in Muskingum ; knew its 
 peculiarities, and was not astonished that the discerning com 
 missioners awarded McCormick the great prize medal. He 
 bears his honor meekly ; says that it will sell much better here 
 than in America; because, 1st, it will save more labor here, 
 since five men sickle in one day what one man in America would 
 cradle in the same time ; and 2d, because the ground is more 
 even, and better fitted for its operation. The wages here are 
 less by about a half ; so that that will make a difference. The 
 
THE GEE AT EXHIBITION REVISITED. 373 
 
 reaper has had a good trial and a successful one. Never was 
 the God-given genius of invention better used, than in furnish 
 ing for man such, beautiful appliances for the farm. It helps to 
 wipe away the elder curse. It dries the sweating brow of the 
 harvest-man, in the moment of golden fruition, when haste, 
 anxiety, care, and more than ordinary labor are called into 
 requisition to save his grain. If America has not been repre 
 sented in the exhibition by the flaunting silks, embroideries, 
 paintings, glass and marbles which other nations so vauntingly 
 display, she has much to show of the solid, substantial, and use 
 ful. Her objects will bear study and scrutiny. It cannot be 
 expected of her, that she should send over cloths of gold, like 
 India and Tunis, nor coronets of diamonds, like Russia. She 
 is young in the finer arts. 
 
 " A Satyr that comes staring from the woods, 
 Cannot at first speak like an orator." 
 
 But it can speak some rough, shaggy, natural truths, whose 
 virtue lies not in the husk but in the kernel, and which, when 
 examined, will show that activity of mind toward beneficent 
 ends, which is the highest reach of all arts. 
 
 America has had her own absolutely necessary work to do 
 since she whipped her mother. She has been at home doing it, 
 like a good housewife. She has not been gadding about, peeping 
 into this keyhole, and stealing into that corner, in order to 
 enrich her industrial designs. She has been 
 
 " struggling with the oak 
 
 In search of bread and home, has learned to rive 
 
 Its stubborn boughs, till limbs, once lightly strung, 
 
 Might mate in cordage with its infant stems." 
 
 And, as in the young Hercules the astrologers read the lines 
 of after-strength, so in the lineaments of America may now be 
 read those of Empire. God has written them, in great moun- 
 14* 
 
374 THE GREAT EXHIBITION REVISITED. 
 
 tains, rivers, lakes, men and energies, all over the face of the 
 Union. 
 
 It seemed to me as if I could read them, in epitome, in the 
 bust of Webster, which since I was last here has been added, 
 with good taste, to the American department. Spirit of Phi 
 dias ! would you not take it for a loftier god than your own 
 Jove 1 How massive the brow, how full of .will are the lines 
 around the mouth how commanding, all ! An American, not 
 a partisan, is Webster abroad. There was some sting, but great 
 truth, in the remark, that Webster was the greatest animal and 
 the greatest man in America. His brain, even in its contour of 
 marble, tell both. 
 
 By his side is a lifelike model of Oliver Twist, from Ame 
 rica. It is much looked at. I stood by, watching alternately 
 the little wo-begone victim of a peculiar state or crust of English 
 society, in his tatters and troubles, and the sympathetic old 
 women who came up to see and remark upon little Oliver. 
 " What a pity, to be sure ! I suppose he has a history, poor 
 boy !" He has, old lady, and perhaps part of it has been under 
 your own nose. " I wonder if he is not some rich man s son, 
 strayed off or stolen by the gipsies ?" and with such-like commen 
 taries upon the image of him whose history is far more familiar 
 in America than in England, they pass unreflectingly By. 
 
 I examined with great care the Chinese rooms. They re 
 ward the care. Specimens of rare jars and paintings, together 
 with most elaborate ivory carvings, do the Chinese justice, I 
 trust. They are a large nation, and should be well represented. 
 Besides, they have begun to fight and bestir themselves lately; 
 and, who knows but that the Celestial feet may, under destiny, 
 be leading silently towards the temple of the Union, for that 
 annexation which their friends across the Pacific enjoy ? Some 
 of their maxims, which are blazoned boldly in their rooms, 
 bespoke for them a worldly wisdom worthy of annexation and 
 Poor Richard. For instance : 
 
 " 1. Let every man sweep the snow from before his own 
 
THE GREAT EXHIBITION REVISITED. 375 
 
 door, and not busy himself about the frost on his neighbor s 
 tiles." Confucius ! how that hits some men ! 
 
 " 2. The ripest fruit will not fall into your mouth." Frank 
 lin ! how that meets your approval ! 
 
 " 3. Dig a well before you are thirsty." The Spartan s bre 
 vity, and Solomon s wisdom ! 
 
 " 4. Water does not remain on mountains, nor vengeance in 
 a great mind." A lofty thought gushing down a mountain 
 mind ! 
 
 In going through the Exhibition, there attaches to many 
 departments an added interest, because we have seen the natives 
 at home in their workshops, attaining the results here so mag 
 nificently alluring. At Brussels, for instance, we saw the Flem 
 ish girls making their fingers fly, as they leaned over the pillow 
 upon their laps, with the pattern pricked into black paper, tacked 
 to the pillow, and the paper full of pins, around and across which 
 they were passing, with rapid skill, the numerous little linen 
 spools of thread, to form the elegant figures and delicate tracery 
 of the richest laces. At Gobelins we saw the tapestries slowly 
 evolving from the massive loom. At Rome, we saw the mosaics 
 grow into beauty and life under the patient hand of the artist. 
 At Genoa, we beheld the filigree-goldsmiths educing forms of 
 light grace out of the silver. At every turn we see objects that 
 we have seen in bazaars for sale, and forms and figures whose 
 prime originals dwell in everlasting freshness upon the marbles 
 of the Acropolis or the walls of Pompeii. 
 
 But in seeing all here in one vast repertory, we possess the 
 pleasure of comparison, which is the greatest provocative to 
 remembrance, and the greatest hindrance to intolerance ; for 
 where there is so much to be seen and studied, spurs to memory 
 are needed, and intolerance has been as virulent, at times, in 
 art and science, as in politics and religion. The great object of 
 this exhibition has been to break down the contracted barriers 
 of intolerance and nationality, so that industry may fraternize 
 and the people be elevated. England will receive an immense 
 
376 THE GREAT EXHIBITION REVISITED. 
 
 pecuniary benefit from the Exhibition, no doubt ; but this was 
 not the primary intention. * Her artists and artisans will glean 
 much from these displays wherewith to enrich her future. This 
 was one of the professed objects of the Palace, but not its high 
 est. The highest object was the cultivation of international 
 good-will. The people of Europe cannot lose by this. The 
 despots may. Foreign wars have been often used by tyrants to 
 inflame national prejudices, so as to repress the better feelings 
 of independence and liberty. The foreigners who visit England 
 must go home with new ideas of their own about civic wants 
 and oppressions. And although there is nothing in war I do 
 not detest, yet when begun by a people against old, irresponsible, 
 hereditary powers, the heart would desire its bloody continuance 
 until every symbol, form, and official instrument of power were 
 exterminated, root and branch. I pray God that such a war 
 may come. It is the only way steel and powder the only 
 way of unloosing the gripe of the Austrian and Russian, and I 
 may add of the French, upon the liberties of Europe. Peace- 
 societies may preach and sing psalms till doomsday ; but the 
 arch-scoundrel of Naples and the petty princes of Germany will 
 laugh and hold on. International wars may Heaven avert, and 
 turn the bayonet and cannon against the palaces, castles, and 
 forts, built by robbing tyrants to intimidate, so as better to 
 prey upon, their own people. 
 
 They talk of turning the Crystal Palace into a Winter Gar 
 den. The plan is disapproved of by many, but approved of by 
 more. Its image has become so familiar that it can be illy 
 spared. It has been infinitely reproduced. Boys cry it in the 
 streets: " Ere s the Crystal Palace on a medal, or on a breast-pin, 
 or on a card, Aonly a penny ave one, sir?" All the print-shops 
 show it, in every size and color and mode of art. It has had a 
 long season, and meanwhile it has taught many a severe, many 
 a delightful lesson. This one truth it teaches above all others, 
 that the effluence of Deity the subtle mind of man has powers 
 of insight and apprehension that can never cease to mould its 
 
THE GREAT EXHIBITION REVISITED. 377 
 
 images and produce its results. Immortality must be the goal 
 of such creative power, and shall not that immortality find repose 
 at last in His presence, who delighted in the works of His own 
 hands, when he saw that they were good, and whose Palace, from 
 everlasting to everlasting more crystalline than light, is eternal 
 in the heavens ! 
 
XXXIi. 
 
 rrars mift 
 
 " There is an old tale goes, that Herne, the Hunter, 
 Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, 
 Doth all the winter time, in still midnight 
 "Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns." 
 
 Shdkspeare. 
 
 I MUCH prefer the railroad route up the valley of the Thames, 
 past Richmond to Windsor, to any other ride in the environs 
 of London. A whole day must be given to it at the least. Cars 
 leave Waterloo bridge station almost hourly, and before you 
 are aware of it, you are ushered, by the unpoetical steam-car, 
 through Windsor Forest, where Herne the Hunter took his 
 round, and where the fairies danced in the jocund moonlight to 
 plague Falstaff for his sins. 
 
 The railroad station is under the shadow of the Castle ; which 
 is a congregation of towers and buildings of stone somewhat an 
 cient some of them even dating back to Caesar, but fitted up 
 with every comfort for the residence of the Queen, who delights, 
 it is said, to retire here. 
 
 We easily obtained admission to the halls and reception 
 rooms of the Castle. The portraits of the Stuarts, especially of 
 the unfortunate Charles I., and his family, by Vandyke, are 
 fine artistic pieces, more admirable than their power-besotted 
 originals. The line of heavy Dutchmen (always excepting the 
 bright and manly form of William III.), who followed the 
 Stuarts, hung upon the walls of the splendid dining halls. Ele 
 gance, taste, and richness, beyond comparison with any thing ex 
 cept Versailles, are displayed throughout the apartments. The 
 
WINDSOR SCENES AND SPORTS. 379 
 
 object of all, the Queen herself, had just left Windsor for the 
 Isle of Wight, where the yatching season is opening. 
 
 We rode up in the cars, with the India-rubber man to the 
 Queen. He was visiting the riding-school to line the riding-rings 
 with India-rubber. " Why ?" do you ask ? As an Englishman 
 would say " Don t you zee, Hif an orse kicks and makes a 
 sound, he. kicks again. Hif he kicks hindia-rubber, don t you 
 zee, he makes no sound. He don t kick again. The orses are 
 spirited and high kept. They never kick twice at hindia-rubber. 
 Don t you zee, zur ?" The transcendentalism of the above, I 
 would love to enlarge upon. The Queen and her childrefl prac 
 tise daily in the riding-rings at Windsor, and extend their drives 
 through the adjacent parks. 
 
 From the towers or from the terrace there is one of the 
 grandest views in England. Twelve counties can be seen. Eton, 
 in neat Gothic, and white compared to the buildings of the me- 
 troplis, the nursery of the greatest and best of England, lies im 
 mediately below. Slough, where Gray is buried, and the church 
 yard in which he composed his elegy, are plainly discernible. 
 There is intervening and every where filling up the view, the 
 greenest, goodliest English landscapes we have yet admired. 
 The Royal relatives, including the Queen s mother, whose wealth 
 has been unsparingly bestowed to decorate these vales and hills, 
 reside in the precincts of Windsor. 
 
 But what immense area is that, stretching over 6,000 
 acres, measuring a circuit of 48 miles, interspersed with the lime, 
 chestnut, beech, holly, fir, and oak ? None other than the Wind 
 sor Forest, upon whose domain we intrenched when we entered 
 the tower below. Look down the green lane, miles long, known 
 as Queen Anne s walk, and terminated by a colossal statue of 
 George III., with its triple roads, and you will see a part of 
 our magnificent drive to the Virginia Waters. These waters 
 lie on the other side of the forest ; consequently we shall have a 
 ride through the fairy-haunted greenwood. 
 
 But before we go, let us give a few thoughts to that dim elder 
 
380 WINDSOR SCENES AND SPORTS. 
 
 day, which arose with Chaucer, and beamed upon these leafy 
 walks and gray battlements. It was here that our Helicon s 
 first stream gushed in its own native and rugged simplicity. 
 Irving visited here in the genial month of May, when the birds 
 twittered musically in the groves, and wrote his sketch of the 
 Royal poet James I. of Scotland who was imprisoned for 
 many years of his youth, by Henry IV. in the castle. While 
 a prisoner, he fell in love with one of the maidens of the court, 
 and poured forth his plaint like a caged nightingale. But 
 his song is but a tiny voice in that grand choral harmony of 
 Englisk bards, whose leader, Chaucer, trod these very paths, and 
 attuned his lyre under these gnarled oaks. Well has Campbell 
 sung of Windsor and Chaucer : 
 
 " Should thy bowers in ivied ruin rot, 
 There s one, thine inmate once, whose strain renowned 
 Would interdict thy name to be forgot. 
 
 He led the way 
 
 To welcome the long after-coming beam 
 
 Of Spenser s light and Shakspeare a perfect day!" 
 
 To read the quaint old bard, somewhat grimly smiling, as it 
 were, through a rusty visor, to catch the genuine humor and 
 
 natural poetry of his soul, as he tells his tales of Canterbury, to 
 
 do this, without visiting Windsor, is a rare joy ; but to re-read 
 Chaucer, after having seen his haunts. well, wait till the bright 
 fire snaps in the winter evening, when we have our gown and slip 
 pers on, with the wind whistling bleakly ; methinks, then, these 
 scenes of to-day will help to open the chambers of fancy, light 
 the flame of imagination, and bid the Old Muse sing with heart 
 iest song. 
 
 These grounds of Windsor were the favorite residences of 
 the Georges kings of England. How much time, care and 
 money has been bestowed by them in introducing Virginia Water 
 into the park ! It was formed when the Duke of Cumberland, 
 the hero of Culloden, resided in the large red maze of building, 
 
WINDSOR SCENES AND SPORTS. 381 
 
 wherein the hounds of Prince Albert were baying deep-mouthed 
 when we passed : and it is the largest artificial piece of water in 
 the realm. The streams of the neighborhood are collected into 
 a basin, which is adorned and margined in its winding pictu 
 resqueness with leafy copses, and a velvet sward. Our grassplots 
 do not give one the idea at all of that velvety, spongy smooth 
 ness which I mean, when I speak of the English lawn. A dark 
 glen or ravine receives the water after it falls in a cascade 
 of some twenty feet. Around are by-paths, inviting the foot to 
 wander at pleasure, through every variety of shade. The trees 
 are none of them so high as our best forest trees, but they have 
 the tough old venerableness that Chaucer loved, and the neat 
 trim of architectural beauty. Where clusters of them occur ? 
 they are arranged so as to form one top, with happy effect. Deer 
 in great herds crop the grass or sleep under the shade. But 
 their timidity has been long lost. The approach of the stranger 
 excites no attention no quivering nostril, wild glance or swift 
 bound into the covert. Six thousand deer people the park, to 
 say nothing of other game plenty as blackberries, kept for 
 Prince Albert s peculiar pastime. 
 
 It was one of the finest walks conceivable to leave the car 
 riage and stray along Virginia Water. A man-of-war, -flaunt 
 ing the flags of all nations, lay upon its tranquil bosom a 
 present to the late Queen Adelaide. Lovers were sauntering 
 most lovingly, and as Yellowplush would say, Oh ! ow appily, 
 along the sward. Swans were swimming along the verdant mar 
 gin. A little distance from the bank we found the Grecian 
 temple in ruins ; an excellent imitation of the temple of Jupiter 
 at Athens. Shelley loved to meditate amidst these witching spots, 
 and perhaps here drank in the spirit of that Beauty which in 
 formed his Muse. He resided in the little village of Bishops- 
 gate near by, itself surrounded by every allurement of rural 
 loveliness. 
 
 The royal Conservatory is in the midst of the forest, still 
 kept in royal style, affording a resting-place for the Queen when 
 
382 WINDSOR SCENES AND SPORTS. 
 
 she airs in these woods. Prince Albert has a farm of 500 acres 
 in the midst. It looked as neat as a model. The hay was put 
 up as smoothly as if it were to remain for ever. The stock con 
 sisted of a large variety. I should venture out of my sphere if 
 I undertook to tell about farms and their appendages. Silence 
 is discretion. There is a horticultural phenomenon in the for* 
 est at the Belvidere worth naming. It consists of one grape 
 vine, off of which was gathered last year over twenty-three hun 
 dred pounds of grapes.. But under cover. Oh! bless you if 
 Apollo had not had a glass medium he could not have hit, 
 with his quiver of beams, old Bacchus so plump in the eye, 
 not in England at any rate. 
 
 One may ride 101 miles in this park over the most beautiful 
 road, and surrounded by the most grateful prospect. Yet of the 
 6000 acres here, only 500 answers God s law. Five thousand 
 five hundred acres will have a poor account to render in their 
 day of judgment. It will not do then to say, " Poetry and 
 beauty required of us our service and our shades. Royalty 
 wished to press our smooth velvet sward, excluded from the 
 vulgar gaze. Aristocrats delighted to drive down our green 
 lanes in fine coaches with arms on them, to indulge flimsy rap 
 tures upon the scenes they could not comprehend in their deeper 
 significance. Fairies had their favorite resorts upon 
 
 " The bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 
 
 Where cowslips and the nodding violet grows, 
 Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 
 With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine, 
 Where slept Titania." 
 
 Inquisition will be made for the English poor, and the inquiry 
 will be, Why were these, His own image, famished, while a few 
 in His eye no better, are suffered to lord it over such an 
 immense area of bread-growing soil, in search of an antidote to 
 ennui? I believe with Emerson, in the idea of compensation, 
 and would carry it somewhat into the after-life. 
 
WINDSOR SCENES AND SPORTS. 383 
 
 The Merry "Wives of Windsor, as Shakspeare draws their 
 characters, were never great favorites of mine. I should not 
 put them down as patterns of domestic sobriety, nor of delicate 
 refinement. They would have been unfaithful to the idea of the 
 comedy, had they been so. They would, according to my ob 
 servation, have belied their locality, had they been otherwise. 
 The day we visited Windsor happened (how fortunate !) to be 
 the anniversary revel of the Bachelors of Windsor. Of course, 
 I had a fine chance to see the merry wives. Indeed, I did not 
 see a soul that was not a little cracked with the glee of the day, 
 except those who had been stupefied with too much " sack." 
 
 I looked into, it may have been, the Garter Inn, to see where 
 Sir Jack drank sack, and Dame Quickly gossiped ; but I only 
 saw a crowd of revellers dancing to a fiddle ; the young fellows 
 with long clay pipes in their mouths, shuffling the sandy floor, 
 with red-cheeked, flaxen-haired country damsels. 
 
 The revel was established many years ago, by a rich lady, 
 who bequeathed a sum of money and the ground, in the very 
 midst of the town, for the sports. These consist of the old Eng 
 lish games, and they are conducted on the old principles. When 
 we went on the ground, some such scene as the following was 
 presented. About twenty thousand people were standing in and 
 around the side hills, overlooking the rings, stage and booths. 
 The folk in our vicinage were holding mugs of ale and stout, 
 with a noisy hilarity as gross as that of the ugliest villein in the 
 time of the Conqueror. Soldiers and policemen were numerously 
 interspersed. 
 
 Flaxen heads were uncovered in dishevelled riot. The " mer 
 ry wives" are by no means idle or unconcerned. "They were 
 moving among the crowd, enjoying the rude brutality of the 
 hour. The stage was the great object of interest. Two flaxen 
 heads upon it were woolling each other, and trying to trip. A 
 shout announced the result in a fall. Another shout announced 
 a tumble of both off the stage. Again they are at it ; the tall 
 one, who is a Northumberland man (says our driver, who knows 
 
384 WINDSOR SCENES AND SPOUTS. 
 
 the peculiarities of skill), gives the lesser one a jerk, which flings 
 his coat over his head, and while blinded, he gives him the 
 soundest fall, amid shouts of merriment. In the mean while, 
 wooden horses, circular boats, and other riding establishments, 
 in the shape of overshot wheels, are gyrating. Dancing, and 
 Punch and Judy, with other entertainments, enliven the booths. 
 Chimney-sweeps are climbing the three greased poles near the 
 stage, in vain the oily lubricity of the poles is too much for 
 them ; and amid derisive cries, they slide down. At last one 
 skilful fellow attained the top, and the noise became deafening. 
 Next came the game of whipping the ball out of the hole. A 
 half dozen are blindfolded. They have long whips with sharp 
 crackers. When the ball came out, the signal was given by an 
 officer, when the blindfolded began most severely to whip each 
 other. Ha ! ha ! HAW ! in hearty great guftaws, rung from side 
 to side. The damsels, all crimson, left their partners in the 
 rustic dance, and rushed out to see. The mugs were dropped 
 the stupid, beer-besotted fellows in white overshirts, open 
 their eyes. " Gad ! Tommy 1 ow the little one catches it ! 
 Don t they lay it on right soundly, man? Hoorah !" This 
 brutal game of the ball is repeated. It seemed to be one of the 
 most approved sports. We had been too late to see the cricket, 
 and other matches. But we saw enough to know that it was 
 rightly named the Windsor revel. 
 
 The corporation of Windsor, to their honor, have tried every 
 means in their power, which included a strong litigation, to get 
 rid of this revel. They have tried to build roads over the place. 
 They are gradually encroaching on the spot. But the Bachelors, 
 who belong to a most ancient order, take great pride in these 
 sports, and have resisted successfully every encroachment upon 
 their prescriptive rights. Besides, the Queen gives ten pounds 
 for it, and her mother a considerable sum. 
 
 In passing out of Windsor, we drove by a magnificent equi 
 page, with liveried servants, within which was seated a maiden 
 lady named Miss Harvey Bonnell, the owner of a large estate 
 
WINDSOR SCENES AND SPOUTS. 385 
 
 in the vicinage, with an annual income of $150,000. She was 
 dressed in the style of Queen Anne, consisting of a great white 
 ruff, and a black hat with black ostrich plumes, which waved 
 finely as she bowed to us from her carriage. The lady from 
 whom she inherited the immense estate wore the same costume, 
 and her devisors had the same habit. We would commend the 
 style to the attention of our countrywomen, as we understand 
 that novel modes of dress are in quest among them. The repu 
 tation of Miss Bonnell is that of a sane, charitable, noble lady. 
 She is a peculiarity worth notice. Her residence is beauti 
 fully situated amidst her elegant grounds, and is a peer even 
 among the royal abodes. 
 
 But we must hasten to London ; congratulating ourselves on 
 having seen so much of the present and the past, and on our way 
 drawing conclusions not at all unfavorable to the decency, good 
 sense and humanity of the American yeomanry, compared to the 
 " revellers" of Windsor. 
 
 
XXXIII 
 
 " What needs my Shakspeare for his honor d boiies ? 
 The labor of an age in piled stones ; 
 Or that his hallowed relics should be hid 
 Under a starry-pointing pyramid ? 
 
 Thou our fancy, of itself bereaving, 
 
 Dost make us marlle with too much conceiving ; 
 And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, 
 That kings for sue]-* a tomb would wish to die 
 
 Milton s Sonnet. 
 
 sai 
 
 MORE than a week had we been at London, studying it from 
 the little boats which fret the Thames ; from the top of 
 the omnibuses that meander through its winding streets ; from 
 St. Paul s cupola ; from amid its gardens and parks, its palaces 
 and courts of justice ; endeavoring to see every phase of that 
 stirring life called London, and of that strangely industrious 
 and perseveringly active race from which we derive our habits, 
 our laws, and ourselves. Of all the people I have yet seen, if I 
 had to have an ancestry (which is exceedingly uncomfortable 
 sometimes to some people, especially if it happens to run back 
 into a shoemaker or a tailor), I would prefer our own Anglo- 
 Saxon stock. It is a shaggy old oak, rough, intertwisted and 
 I stubborn ; but it spreads a large and gracious umbrage, and is 
 destined to spread still, a larger and a better shade. The 
 French are too much like their own tall, military-looking, top- 
 plumed poplars, constantly bending to the lightest breeze of 
 fickleness, and only affording slim lumber with the best of 
 
 sawing. 
 
 One thing noticeable among the English is, that they cart 
 
HOME. 387 
 
 more for their physical frames than their descendants in 
 America. We are worn-out, when they are fully matured. 
 Climate has much to do with this, but habit more. An English 
 man hardly ever dies. I went down into Hampshire to look 
 after the estate of an old gentleman, whose friends in America 
 thought that he ought to have been dead long ago. On making 
 inquiry, everybody knew him, be had lived so long, and asked 
 me, in return, if he was not the " great cricketer." That is the 
 secret. Manly exercise and constant care had rendered his old 
 age as vigorous as a man in our country would hardly be at 
 forty-five. 
 
 We bid London good-bye yesterday morning, and are here 
 in Shakspeare s home, by thy willowy marge Oh ! Avon ! 
 Running to Coventry, famous for some of FalstafPs military 
 operations, if I remember rightly, we left the main trunk 
 of the railway and glided into Kenilworth, whose castle 
 Scott has saved from ruin by his incomparable novel ; then to 
 Warwick, where the old earls of that name, the " King Makers," 
 in the earliest eras of English history, resided, and where an 
 earl of the same title now lives. We stopped to see its exte 
 rior ; and taking a fly, ran over a fine road commanding an ex 
 cellent view of the rolling fields of Avon vale. The harvesting 
 was almost over. Poor women were gleaning the fields, and 
 farmers and their men were getting in their wheat. The Avon 
 is not much larger than one of our creeks. Its banks are low 
 and shaded with willows, which mark its course as it winds 
 through the green meadows, until it passes through Stratford. 
 
 Our first visit was to the house where Shakspeare was born ; 
 a rude, half-cottage, upon one of the principal streets of the 
 town, easily discernible by its unique and aged appearance. It 
 bears an antique sign " THE IMMORTAL SHAKSPEARE WAS 
 
 BORN IN THIS HOUSE." 
 
 A tidy old lady, who takes care of it for the Shakspearean 
 Society, to whom it belongs, welcomed us ; and showed us the 
 room where the immortal Bard first caught the light and breath 
 
388 AVON, SHAKSPEARE* S HOME. 
 
 of life. It is a little room with low ceiling, all scribbled over, 
 black with names, among which is the autograph of Schiller. 
 The name of Walter Scott is also shown, cut by himself upon 
 the glass window. 
 
 Not a descendant of the Bard remains. It was enough to 
 have had such offspring as Macbeth, Lear and Othello. His 
 dust reposes in a church of the town, which we reached under a 
 canopy of green trees. The original bust in stones said to have 
 been taken from the Bard himself, is there. There is no ques 
 tion about its being a likeness, not a fancy-piece. It was origi 
 nally colored and painted, so as to resemble Shakspeare ; but 
 Malone, the commentator, had it painted over white, for which 
 meddlesome work he has been greatly censured, and to have 
 punished whom Charles Lamb longed to have been a contempo 
 raneous justice of the peace in Warwickshire. Underneath an 
 old slab lies the body, which has never been removed ; mankind 
 kindly heeding the spirit of the inscription, composed by the 
 poet himself; 
 
 " GOOD FRIEND FOE. JESUS SAKE FORBEAR 
 To DIG THE DUST INCLOSED HEARE, 
 BLEST BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES 
 AND CURST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES." 
 
 His family reside in their narrow homes near him. His daughter 
 Susannah, has this quaint inscription upon her slab : 
 
 "Witty above her sexe, but that s not all 
 
 Wise to Salvation was good Mistris Hall, 
 Something of Shakspeare was in that, but this 
 
 Wholy of him with whom she s now in blisse. 
 Then, passenger hu st ne er a tear, 
 
 To weep with her that wept with all ? 
 That wept, yet set herself to cheer 
 
 Them up with comforts cordiall, 
 
 Her love shall live, her mercy spread, 
 
 When thou ha st ne er a teare to shed. 
 
A VON SHAKSPEAR&S HOME. 339 
 
 Right touching and gentle is it not ? 
 
 But we must leave these sacred precincts, to wander forth 
 into the green lanes where the youthful poet wandered, and 
 where he developed that faculty divine, by which he swept 
 the realm of song with an all-potent sceptre. Through pleasant 
 ways by thatched cottages, along hill-sides and down vales, we 
 reached the spot where Shakspeare s young heart thrilled and 
 trembled many a time and oft ; for near that cottage by the road 
 side, where the peas and corn now grow within the hedge, he 
 was wont to see his Anne Hatheway. Within lived old John 
 Hatheway, whose beautiful daughter the poet espoused. Imagi 
 nation could run wild in picturing scenes hereabout, with 
 Shakspeare for the hero ; but most, it loves in this rural spot 
 to paint him as the gentle Shakspeare, 
 
 " Fancy s child 
 
 Warbling his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 Nine miles from Warwick are these localities which are so 
 rich in memory. Over a lovely landscape winds the large and 
 shaded road a landscape, ever fringed with green hedges and 
 yellow with the abundant harvest. The people of this region I 
 liked. They seerned affable and gentle, compared to the ordi 
 nary rude and rough people to be met with around London and 
 Windsor. An Englishman generally acts as if he thought it 
 extremely feminine to move out of the road or show a civility. 
 Ladies are to him, apparently, objects upon which he may 
 exhibit his characteristic rudeness. Of course there are excep 
 tions to this ; but we have found them rare. In Italy or 
 France we have never known an incivility. But here, from the 
 porters of public places, the drivers of omnibuses, and from 
 the officers of the railroads, we have received a nameless gruff- 
 ness, which may be accounted manliness, but which is certainly 
 ill-breeding and gross impudence. The policemen are conspicu 
 ous exceptions. From them one may learn every direction, with 
 the utmost blandness and good nature. In Turkey, in Greece, 
 
390 AVON,SIIAKSPEAR&S HOME. 
 
 in Italy and France, and especially in Switzerland, we have 
 found our guides and waiters always pervious to good humor, 
 and exceedingly apt at joking and pleasant conversation ever 
 ready to understand and join heartily in a laugh. Not so in 
 England. There is a sort of pseudo-dignity which renders each 
 good-humored sympathy as much feared as poison. Sam Wel- 
 lers are rarce aves. Honest, credulous, pompous Pickwicks are 
 common. They are ever ready to receive with implicitness 
 the most improbable story, if it is out of their sphere, which 
 consists of an experience in English breakfasts and dinners, and 
 reading the Times. Far better informed about England is our 
 population, than the population of England about America. 
 The ordinary people want to know if we have telegraphs and 
 railroads ; and when informed of their extent in our country, 
 receive the information with the amazement and the implicit 
 reliance which a revelation from Heaven would engender. 
 Several times we have been the object of special wonder beca.use 
 we spoke English like one of themselves, and because we were 
 white ! 
 
 It is no uncommon subject of merriment among Americans, 
 that even well-educated Englishmen have frequently asked the 
 most unsophisticated questions in relation to our society, its 
 language and customs. 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 51 (giant* flt 
 
 * The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit." 
 
 Addison. 
 
 IT would be ungracious in the extreme to suffer the fatigues 
 of a voyage from America, and return without a glimpse, at 
 least, of Ireland. We have devoted, therefore, the last ten 
 days of our stay to a circuit which includes Dublin and Belfast, 
 and extends into Scotland. 
 
 We awoke at Kingstown, Ireland, this morning, the 24th of 
 August. Hurriedly dressing, we rushed out of the boat, for 
 the Dublin cars. It was raining. Not being perfectly awake, 
 I did not perceive the state of the weather, until some broth of 
 a boy, with a carriage, shouted, Sure, and is it the likes of you 
 that will let your leddies walk in the rain? while another, a 
 porter, suggested to my companion : An it s you that s so well 
 dressed, that you will not carry your own portmanteau? I felt 
 sure that I was in Ireland. 
 
 Dublin town is remarkable for nothing, unless it be a fine 
 park, wide straight streets, an elegant custom-house, brick 
 houses, and a monument or so. The shoeless women and tatter 
 ed children to be seen in the streets bespeak the truth, that Ire 
 land is indeed wedded to poverty. A great many persons from 
 too much zeal in Protestantism, attribute all the misery of Ire 
 land to her peculiar religion. The mischief lies deeper, in the 
 tenure of the soil. No one can travel through the Catholic coun 
 tries which we have seen, especially those in Switzerland, and con 
 clude that Catholicism, in and of itself, tends to produce pover 
 ty, or that it is not favorable, when left free and pure, uncon- 
 
392 A GLANCE AT IRELAND. 
 
 nected with politics, to the growth of manliness and virtue. 
 A more generous and a nobler people never lived than some of 
 those Alpine Catholics. The same may be said of some parts 
 of Germany. At Heidelberg, we found the pleasing anomaly 
 of Catholic and Protestant simultaneously worshipping in the 
 same church. The people there seem pervaded with the gentle 
 tolerance of Melancthon, who was educated at Heidelberg Uni 
 versity. What a shame it is. that the people of Ireland are not 
 permitted to enjoy their own religion with the same freedom 
 with which the Protestants of England enjoy theirs. 
 
 Catholicism is as much the religion of the Irish people as 
 Protestantism is that of England. For years its enjoyment, 
 under such officers and in such modes as they might see fit, has 
 been guaranteed. Even the English Lord-lieutenant has ad 
 dressed the Catholic primates, by the titles which they have here 
 assumed, and has sent soldiers to guard their assemblies from 
 disturbance ; when, all at once, on the pretext afforded by Car 
 dinal Wiseman s case, these titles are declared illegal/as well in 
 Ireland as in England ; and penalties enacted against those 
 who wear them, as if they were in a horrible conspiracy against 
 the majesty of Victoria. How magnanimous this, most truly ! 
 What if the Roman cardinals be corrupt, as no doubt they are ; 
 what if English Protestant worship be hardly tolerated at 
 Rome ; what if the good-hearted Pope issues his rescript ? Is 
 there any danger herein to the English hierarchy ? and if there 
 were, shall the Irish clergy be placed under ban and penalty 
 therefor, especially after so long an encouragement ? Into what 
 dilemmas and absurdities will not a nation run, that does not 
 strictly adhere to the most unlimited toleration, or that connects 
 its civil with its religious establishment. A great meeting of 
 Irish clergymen and people, has lately been held. There is but 
 one spirit breathing throughout their proceedings, united re 
 sistance to this unexampled aggression. England could not 
 render Ireland more ungovernable by any other act than that 
 of the last session about the ecclesiastical titles, for it strikes 
 
A GLANCE AT IRELAND. 393 
 
 at her religion the most sensitive part of every society. Let 
 resistance, strong and steadfast, be made ; and let the American 
 people, Catholic and Protestant, sympathize in a movement, 
 whose object is to resist the most miserable intolerance that has 
 disgraced the English statute-book since the time when Dissen 
 ters and Catholics alike, were at the mercy of Jeffries, and when 
 conformity to the established church, was a principle and a 
 practice, at once repugnant to reason and humanity. 
 
 The Church of England can gain nothing, but must lose much, 
 by its coercive measures towards the Catholics. Persecution 
 will do its old work, by creating devotees around the altars of 
 the persecuted. 
 
 It is Sunday in Dublin. They call it a " walking Sunday," 
 because there are no festivities or glees on hand, but every one 
 walks about soberly and decently ; a prelude to the uproariousness 
 of the coming Fair week. To-morrow the grand fair begins at 
 Donnybrook, a little streamlet, upon whose banks the Irish 
 gather in crowds, to spend and lose all they have, in gaming, 
 drinking and dancing. We took a car, an outside one, and vis 
 ited the spot, in company with Mr. Mowatt, a friend in Dublin, 
 whose humor was as amusing as his attentions were kind. The 
 car is peculiar in itself, and peculiar to, as well as common in, 
 Dublin. It is a sulky, with low wheels, and seats directly over 
 the wheels. The passengers ride sideways, their feet resting 
 outside the wheels on a footboard, and the driver sits aloft upon 
 a seat in front, full of wit, which, like his whip, is constantly on 
 the crack. Six can ride on the outside. It is like an omnibus 
 on two wheels, with all the top off. and the seats back to back 
 very light, and a convenient observatory of men and manners in 
 the streets. We arrived at Donnybrook, and found many thou 
 sands gathered in the green fields, looking at the erection of the 
 booths, preparatory for the morrow. Already the houses and 
 taverns about were full of revellers. Scotch whiskey, bagpipes 
 and fiddling, were going, in conjunction with pattering feet upon 
 sanded floors. Pipes and apples, toys and cakes, were being 
 
394 A GLANCE AT IRELAND. 
 
 vended by witty rogues. But every thing was decent, and in 
 order. The " bating the police with shillelaghs," and the bloody 
 noses, do not become dramatic, until the fair is fairly opened. 
 Then look out ! 
 
 Passing fine houses, and through airy streets, enjoying the 
 humorous repartees of our driver, we drove by Nelson s column, 
 and penetrated the Park. It is an extremely large area, full of 
 deer and game, and specially kept for the recreation of the Lord- 
 lieutenant. A fine monument to Wellington, not unlike that of 
 Bunker Hill, is in the midst, overlooking the hills of green upon 
 the south, and the city with its river Anne Liffey (named after 
 a King s daughter who was drowned in it whilome), over whose 
 waters are numerous handsome bridges, connecting the city. 
 Nelson and Wellington ! England s proudest boast ; the hero of 
 the sea, and the hero of the land. Why should they be so con 
 spicuously honored by Ireland ? Why ? Because they remem 
 bered England s glory, and not Irish ruth ? The Duke has been 
 indeed " iron," so far as Ireland claimed his sympathy. He has 
 none of the impetuous open-heartedness which ever marks the 
 true son of Erin. 
 
 To-day we have experienced very cold weather. It may be 
 accounted for here in this wise. It is the 24th of August, St. 
 Bartholomew s day. The Irish have a maxim, 
 
 "St. Bartholomew 
 Brings the cold dew." 
 
 Upon this day he puts a stone into the waters, which turns 
 the river-water all cold, and the well-water all warm ; and this 
 continues until St. Patrick s day, 17th of March, when that 
 clever old saint turns the stone, and renders the wells cold, and 
 the rivers warm. How many scientific disquisitions and me 
 teorological observations are saved by such a simple tradition ! 
 
 There are two extensive poor-houses here, with over ten 
 thousand in each ; and yet the beggars of Dublin are as thick 
 as leaves at Vallarnbrosa. The country looks finely, the harvests 
 
A GLANCE AT IRELAND, 395 
 
 are heavy, and the large park, eight miles around, seems to smile 
 derisively at the poverty of the people. Land owners live in 
 England, and their agents remain here to rob both them and the 
 tenants. Here is the capital defect of the social system. It 
 needs an axe at the root. 
 
 We took but a glance of Northern Ireland, and this portion 
 of the isle is almost a Paradise, compared to the southern por 
 tion, where starvation ever cowers and shivers. And yet no part 
 of any land that we have seen, reveals so much destitution, rags 
 and beggary, as the north of Ireland. Of Belfast I can but say, 
 that no American city of the same size presents so much activity 
 and commercial life ; while, at the same time, it is laid out with 
 an elegance which betokens foresight and grace. Belfast is the 
 seat of the linen manufacture. The fields in and around it were 
 snow white with linen blanching in the sun ; while the country 
 between Drogheda and Belfast waved with the flax, some of 
 which was in process of pulling. But the towns between Dublin 
 and Belfast, including Drogheda what a picture of poverty did 
 they present ! The women, in tatters, hung around our vehicle, 
 and when it drove off, boys by the dozen ran after us, turning 
 somersets, and using every insinuation which native Irish wit 
 could suggest, to obtain alms. " Will you ! ivill you ! gentle- 
 mon, throw me a ha penny?" and with other exclamations, they 
 followed until the ha penny was thrown, when a young Irish 
 melee occurred in a scramble for the copper, which generally 
 issued in some bloody noses, that required additional coppers to 
 stanch. It was no better, if bread was thrown. A company of 
 famished wolves could not dart with more singleness, or less 
 ferocity of purpose, after the bread. And yet in this depth of 
 poverty the gleams of an invincible humor flashed from the 
 laughing lips of the little starveling imps ; as it were, gleams of 
 sunshine in bright cheerful bars, irradiating a dungeon s dark 
 ness. 
 
 How kindly is that Providence distributed, which thus 
 lightens the fetters of circumstance. Who knows what genius 
 
396 A ^LANCE AT lit EL AND. 
 
 lives, waiting development, in these elfish urchins, that emit such 
 sparkles of fun, as they run after the traveller for the penny ? 
 The atmosphere of gross earthliness encircles and taints the 
 clear beams of that soul which God has created with such subtle 
 yet latent apprehension. It is solid truth, that there are hidden 
 energies under the clouds of ignorance. This is the seminal 
 principle of our educational systems the germ of that hopeful 
 ness, from which the stability of the future, as well as the pro 
 gressiveness of the race, spring. Would that these young bios 
 soming energies, only blooming to be nipped by " the eager air" 
 of poverty and crime, could be early transplanted to a more 
 genial soil ! 
 
 The country looks as if already deserted by its working 
 people. Houses are empty, fields look neglected, and hedges 
 are untrimmed. True, there is a heavy harvest ; but it is gather 
 ed by hands that work slowly, and that lack the impulse which 
 proprietorship and enjoyment ever bestow. We understood that 
 those who were gathering the crop of wheat, and of flax, received 
 but a ha penny per day ! To be sure they were found but a 
 cent a day for harvest hands ! Some index of the prevailing 
 destitution may be found in the signs so common, " Licensed 
 to sell spirits," and the crowd of idlers which such signs always 
 collect. This may, in part, account for the mud-houses, where 
 filth and poverty are the presiding Penates. But where are the 
 gilded flies that fatten on this corruption? Where are the 
 landlords who dole out their ha pennies per diem to these images 
 of Grod, for the use of their muscles and energies ? Oh ! living 
 in England most sumptuously. They heed not the shriek of 
 penury for bread. They affect to believe that no faces are sal 
 low, that no sunken eyes peer out of their tenant mud-houses. 
 The curses of the destitute muttered in secret, give them a sul 
 len joy, that their lot is not like that of the ungovernable, un- 
 tractable, and whiskey-drinking Irish. 
 
 Even Belfast, so beautiful and prosperous, is not wanting 
 
A GLANCE AT IRELAND. 397 
 
 in illustrations of Irish destitution. They crowd around the 
 hotels, and besiege the landings. The heart grows sad and 
 heavy to see so much of the same wretchedness. Would to God 
 that some relief could be discerned for Ireland ! England will 
 only learn how to treat her, when she finds the green isle de 
 populated by emigration. 
 
XXA , . . 
 
 Irntrlj Irmrq utifr 
 
 " Eear high thy bleak majestic bills, 
 
 Thy sheltered valleys proudly spread, 
 And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills, 
 And wave thy heaths with blossoms red." 
 
 Roscoe. 
 
 HOW different is Scotland in its social appearance from im 
 poverished Ireland ! We hear the same peculiar intonations 
 of voice, called the brogue, and this, with the peat beds, is about 
 all that resembles Ireland. You may remember, however, that 
 the north of Ireland was originally settled by the Scotch. This 
 will account for the similarity of brogue. 
 
 We left Belfast at sundown, and arrived at Ayr, not very far 
 from the mouth of bonnie Doon, by sunrise. Here, where Burns 
 used to walk and sing, we met the first genuine Scotchmen on 
 their native heaths, and heard the musical cadences of 
 
 "That tongue which Godlike heroes spoke, 
 
 Which Oram, Ullin, Ossian, sung; 
 The tongue which spurned the Roman yoke, 
 When thraldom o er the world was flung." 
 
 But since we landed at Ayr, we have heard it in the Highlands, 
 where Sandy spoke the unquestioned Gaelic drawn from an un- 
 defiled well, and where scawns and oaten-meal cakes were eaten, 
 and the descendants of the clans prided themselves upon their 
 brave ancestry. 
 
 Our ride to Glasgow by rail from Ayr upon a rainy morning, 
 was without incident. The great commercial metropolis of Scot- 
 
SCOTCH SCENERY AND GENIUS. 399 
 
 land, I had almost said of Great Britain, for it is the third city 
 of the realm, has a noble history, as well as numerous points of 
 local interest. The reader of Scotch history and literature 
 will need no refreshing, as to the scenes here enacted, when the 
 Covenant was a matter of life and death ; or when Bailie Nichol 
 Jarvie here lived and gossipped. The Clyde has formed many 
 associations with the minds of the gifted in its ebbing and flow 
 ing ; and none stronger than that with the poet Campbell, who 
 was born at Glasgow ; and who, after a long absence from his 
 native stream and city, found the nineteenth century at work, 
 with its coal and iron elements, destroying much of the poetry 
 of the spot. He found it improved as we in America would 
 say ; and lamented in verse, 
 
 " That it no more through pastoral scenes should glide, 
 My Wallace s own stream, and once romantic Clyde." 
 
 On going up the Clyde, we found it full of craft. Iron steam 
 ers were plying up and down its muddy waters. Thousands 
 of workmen were repairing and building other iron steam 
 ers. The clink of hammers resounded on every side. Energy 
 never lags or slackens here. No wonder, with such calls as the 
 world makes for Scotch iron and Scotch machinery. 
 
 Material prosperity walks abreast with charity and education 
 in Glasgow. You may see this, without examining statistics, in 
 the bright benevolent faces which pass you on the pave. My 
 time will not permit me to speak of the monuments, edifices and 
 institutions of this city. I would love to do so, for there is a 
 close similitude between the American and Scotch character in all 
 its developments, which is worthy of a Plutarch s parallel. The 
 " perfervidum ingenium Scotorum " or, as the French term it, 
 " Fier comme Ecossais" by which they manage to accumulate 
 to " get along " in the world, is so peculiarly Yankee, as to have 
 attracted the attention of writers and travellers very frequently. 
 There is no stupidity or slowness in a Scotchman s look or move 
 ment. Besides, the Scotch have the logic the intellect of 
 
400 SCOTCH SCENERY AND GENIUS. 
 
 Great Britain, that is, the superior mind, the commanding 
 mind of the island. Edinburgh has ruled for a half century 
 from her throne of rocks, the realms of politics, taste, and phi 
 losophy, with a potency that Bonaparte feared, even though it 
 was exercised by paper pellets of the brain. And does she 
 not deserve the epithet of modern Athens ? Is she not the " eye 
 of Great Britain ? Was it not by a son of Caledonia, that the 
 great, vital and universal principles of political economy receiv 
 ed enunciation, an enunciation which time has not bettered 
 only confirmed ? Is this not the home of Hume, Browne, Stuart, 
 Scott, and Chalmers ? But why dwell on these elements of 
 greatness. 
 
 Farewell to the sooty exhalations of Glasgow the mud 
 boats of the Clyde the monuments of Scott and Sir John 
 Moore, and the Necropolis. Ho ! for the Highlands ! where the 
 air of romance weaves its spell of enchantment, where nature 
 paints the heather and makes musical the rill, where the Lochs 
 reflect the Bens, and the old bare-headed Bens are peopled with 
 cloud shadows and clouds themselves ; where the clansmen once 
 fought in the close defiles, and the misty heroes of Ossian came 
 and went like the unresting shadows which lie in bright un 
 certainty, upon the moving lake. 
 
 How had I longed to see Lomond and Katrine, with their 
 isles and glens, their mountains and moors ! Leaving Glasgow 
 in the steamer in the afternoon, we reach Dumbarton, whose 
 rock at the junction of the Leven and Clyde rises to the height 
 of nearly 600 feet, measuring a mile in circumference at its 
 base, terminating in two sharp points, studded with houses and 
 battlements. Here, in one of the towers of Wallace s seat 
 was the prison of that warrior, after his base betrayal by Sir 
 John Monteith. A goodly number of heroic adventures, among 
 which is the taking of the castle at its most formidable point, 
 are connected with Dumbarton. A Captain Crawford, during 
 one of those relentless wars which desolated Scotland in Queen 
 Mary s time, contrived by scaling ladders to reach the summit 
 
SCOTCH SCENERY AND GENIUS. 401 
 
 of the crags ; and was proceeding with the men to enter the 
 battlements, when one of them, while climbing, was struck with 
 apoplexy, probably induced by excessive terror. He could nei 
 ther go up nor down. To have slain him would have been cruel; 
 besides, his fall would have created alarm. What was to be 
 done ? Invincible to the last, Crawford tied him to the ladder, 
 then turned it over, and with his men gained the summit, by 
 mounting the other side from that to which the apoplectic soldier 
 was tied, slew the sentinel, and accomplished one of the most 
 daring feats ever achieved, even in this wild Scottish warfare. 
 
 The town of Dumbarton has nothing in itself worthy of 
 notice. The old ruin upon the opposite side of the Clyde is the 
 Castle of Cardross, where Robert Bruce (whose crown we saw 
 to-day in the Castle of Edinburgh) breathed his last. But if we 
 should undertake to tell of all the renowned castles and battle 
 fields we have seen, during the last few days, a volume would be 
 necessary to contain them. 
 
 Let us at once take cars, and hurry up to Balloch, where the 
 little steamer is awaiting us. The rain will hardly permit us 
 five minutes at a time upon the deck. Clouds, dark and lower 
 ing, roll over the highlands, and are succeeded by sunshine. 
 Rainbows and mountain-tops, the purple heather of the isles 
 and hills, the baldness of old Ben Lomond, his head silvered 
 witli a cloud, sunlit and beautiful, the darkish waters of the 
 lake, vexed arid whitened, together with an original, sui generis 
 wildness, that only belongs to Scottish scenery, made up a 
 view, our admiration for which could not be dampened by any 
 rain nor enlivened by any sunshine. 
 
 The lake is full of green, rocky isles. Indeed, Lomond sig 
 nifies " many-isled." As we approach our destination, Inverns- 
 naid, the loch grows more narrow, until it seems lost among 
 mountains of mist. While going along, gazing upon islet and 
 shore, ever and anon turning to see the reverend form of Ben 
 Lomond, we should not forget that the fierce clan of the Mac 
 Grregors were once here, in their pride and power ; that it was 
 
402 SCOTCH SCENERY AND GENIUS. 
 
 while rowing down this loch, that the song for the gathering of 
 the clan was sung : 
 
 " The moon s on the lake, and the mist s on the brae, 
 And the clan has a name that is nameless by day, 
 Then gather, gather, gather, Gregalich!" 
 
 It is pleasant, too, to think, as we step on shore at Inverns- 
 naid, that Wordsworth has been here before us, and that his 
 Muse, ever seeking the covert beauties and sympathies of nature, 
 had rendered classic the spot and cascade by his exquisite poem 
 called " The Highland Girl." We rested all night near the 
 cascade, within sight and hearing of its wild foaming and music. 
 From the top of the mountain, over which we go toward Katrine, 
 it rushes, with many interpositions of rock and tree, bristling 
 and white, until it plunges, sheer and broken, out of a clump of 
 pines into a boiling basin, where it hisses and steams until it 
 finds placidity in the Loch Lomond below. It was right grand 
 to clamber up from crag to crag, leaping from rock to rock, and 
 at last finding solid foothold under the flashing, foaming mass, 
 and near the trembling, spraying abyss, to sit beneath the 
 sweat of great agony wrung from out this Highland Phlege- 
 thon that swayed in the wind which roared madly up the glen 
 and amid the brae. True, it was not Niagara ; nor are Lomond, 
 Ben Ledi, Ben Ann, and their associates, like the Alps. They 
 are but an abridged edition of them, with many of the finest 
 figures and loftiest sentiments omitted ; yet how much is here 
 for the finest capacity to grasp and mould into mirrors " radiant 
 with fair images." Wonder not that Fingal, and those children 
 of "the mist, waked by Ossian, here had their local habitation. 
 Wonder not that Scott has inwoven such a rich and weird web 
 of romance around 
 
 All the fairy crowds 
 Of islands that together lie 
 
 As quietly as spots of sky 
 Among the evening clouds. 
 
SCOTCH SCENERY AND GENIUS. 4Q3 
 
 "Well have the people of Edinburgh erected the Gothic monu 
 ment to Scott rising so solidly, yet so lightly, in such fair pro 
 portions, looming so loftily in the shadow of their Acropolis ! 
 Well have they honored Burns too, whose heart and soul sung 
 a song for Scotia s sake, and whose genius has rendered more 
 immortal than the Alps the mountains of Caledonia. Scott and 
 Burns ! noble duumvirate ! They have monuments not alone 
 in Edinburgh, but every peak and castled crag form monuments 
 to their undying fame ! 
 
 Why what is that wild Loch Katrine, with its green gem 
 called Ellen s Isle its Rob Roy s prison ; its Rhoderick Dhu s 
 watchtower, and its Ben Venue ; its groves vocal with the 
 music of birds ; its hundred white mountain streams, its bleached 
 sand silvered by the wash of the clear wave ; its wild goats climb 
 ing where no other feet, save those of the bird, can venture ; its 
 clumps of wood and ample fields, and, near by, its Trossachs, so 
 wildly beautiful ; what is all this without the creative genius 
 which has peopled the isle, the moor, the mountain and the glen 
 with the Lady of the Lake, the Douglass, the merry roaming 
 King Fitz James, and the wild Roderick ! 
 
 We found a tiny steamer ready to ply toward the Trossachs, 
 and there we found an open carriage and an understanding driver, 
 who talked queerly in the Gaelic, as he gave us the legend which 
 clung to each spot to beautify and embalm. 
 
 A few hours ride and we were in sight of Stirling Castle. 
 The superior attraction of this brave old rocky seat of power, 
 drowns the associations of the Highlands. We cannot stop to 
 paint the scene where Roderick and Fitz James fought, nor 
 where the latter lost his gallant gray ; for we are surmounting 
 at Stirling the very seat of James V. himself; around which the 
 sports and games of the olden time were enacted. We enter the 
 halls of the kings look at each old memento, not forgetting the 
 big tarpaulin-looking hat worn by Cromwell. I am no hero- 
 worshipper, but there are some peculiarities which Old Noll had 
 that tickle my fancy, if they do not engage my worship, such as 
 
404 SCOTCH SCENERY AND GENIUS. 
 
 praying with a lot of solemn Scotchmen from six in the after 
 noon till three in the morning, in order to lull suspicion, and 
 create the impression that he was quite godly. 
 
 The view from Stirling Castle is magnificent, only surpassed 
 in Scotland by the view we enjoyed to-day from the Castle of 
 Edinburgh. Below are the garden spots once laid out by the 
 mother of Queen Mary, and to the north is a small castle, where* 
 so many executions took place, and where the death axe sounded 
 so frequently. 
 
 Not far, is the scene of one of Sir William Wallace s most 
 splendid engagements, where he disputed the passage of the 
 Forth by the English army under Cressingham. The High 
 lands stretch with a bold sweep upon the distant horizon. From 
 Stirling towers, where often the spectator of many a bloody fray 
 stood poised betwixt hope and fear, we took our final view of 
 those homes of song and story, those Highlands, where the mist 
 seems continually to hover, and the hardy heather seems ever to 
 bloom. 
 
 The railroad whirls us past many a scene renowned, prime 
 among which is that famous field of Bannockburn, where Bruce 
 won the day against more than double his number. 
 
 We have spent two days in Edinburgh, never ceasing to ad 
 mire its architectural elegance, both in church and mansion, in 
 castle and monument. But most is the city to be remembered 
 for its Acropolis that feature which makes it akin to Athens. 
 The view from it is inspiriting and noble, expanding the soul, and 
 almost fitting it with wings " wherewith to scorn the earth." 
 But wherever we go. whether to Scott s monument, to the Old 
 Parliament House, to St. Giles, where Knox talked gospel, where 
 llcgent Stuart lies, and Napier the author of the Logarithms re 
 poses, and where the Covenant was signed, to Calton Hill, where 
 monuments and a fragmentary temple mark it prominently ; 
 whether to the old Tolbooth or down Canonsgate ; in oldj-own or 
 new; whether we enter the old room where Queen Mary slept, in the 
 castle, or look at the palace of Holyrood. the talk and the cry 
 
SCOTCH SCENERY AND GENIUS. 405 
 
 is " the Queen ! the Queen ! !" and sure enough, at three o clock 
 all Edinburgh, and the adjacent country had assembled near the 
 ancient Holyrood, and under the shadow and upon the green 
 sides of Salisbury crags, to see Victoria and her handsome hus 
 band. We mingled with the mass, saw the royal folk (plainly 
 dressed people, and really human), and can avouch that no osten 
 tation was displayed by royalty on this occasion. The Queen 
 wore a very ordinary bonnet, without ribbons, shading a reddish 
 ordinary countenance ; while Prince Albert looked like a sensi 
 ble, good-natured, honest German gentleman, as he undoubtedly 
 is. Had we no other evidence of the latter fact, we might find it 
 in the model house which he invented and caused to be erected 
 near the Exhibition Palace, for the purpose of showing how com 
 fortably the poor might be provided for, with little expense. 
 
 There was great excitement in the city. The Provost was 
 knighted by a tap on the shoulder from the little Regina ; 
 Holyrood smoked and gleamed with life , the people were in 
 groups about it ; the railroad cars stood crowned and garlanded 
 near ; for the Queen was there in that old home of power, about 
 to leave and Loyalty stood without, ready to hurrah and throw 
 up its hat ! 
 
 From Edinburgh our course was over the Border ; not omit 
 ting, by the way, a visit to Melrose Abbey, the delicate beauty 
 of whose ruins, Poetry has for ever enshrined ; to Dryburgh Ab 
 bey, the place of sepulture of Sir Walter Scott, and rich in an 
 old Druidical umbrage and in its ivied hangings; to Abbotsford, 
 the repository of the Antiquary s curiosities, and the home of 
 the Author of Waverly ; to Fountain Abbey, in North England, 
 an immense ruin in the noble park of Earl Grey, with all 
 the relics of the monastic age still clustering about tower and 
 transept, nave and prison, kitchen and cloister ; and not omitting 
 either the castles, gray and black, which frowned in early days 
 defiant at each other across the Border, now in the decrepitude 
 of age, Hut, like old soldiers, still vaunting their wounds and 
 
406 SCOTCH SCENERY ANJ) GENIUS. 
 
 strength even in decay. Such visits were not made, be it ever 
 remembered, without crossing thy stream, rushing, romantic 
 Tweed ! nor without admiring the select diversity of pastoral 
 beauty, majestic hills, arching bridges, splendid palaces, and the 
 wizard enchantment which dwell in thy sweet valley, Teviot- 
 dale! 
 
XXXVI. 
 
 (Crnssittg tlje 96nrtor, irai tjp <0fir S 
 
 ; Within the quiet of the convent cell, 
 The well-fed inmates pattered prayer, and slept, 
 And sinned, and liked their penance well." 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 THIS last day of summer has met us with a most delightful 
 sunshine in this capital of North England, the ancient city 
 of York. It comes, too, upon the holy day, when the air is 
 hushed. A quietude of unaccustomed delight seems showered 
 upon field and grove, minster and wall, as the sunlight glances 
 upon the earth. The cool air, which has so long followed us 
 through Scotland, and down to this city, gently gives way before 
 the warming radiance. The influence woos one from the fire 
 side. 
 
 Through manifold turnings, the ancient walls of the city are 
 gained, and easily ascended. How exhilarating is the Sabbath- 
 morning walk along the gray battlements ! Spring hath come 
 again in seeming. The birds in the apple-trees below are almost 
 as numerous as the fruitage, and twitter with so transporting a 
 melody, that Silence herself seemeth to listen. It is indeed a 
 1 merry, merry sunshine. The green hedges glisten with the 
 freshening morning. The lowing of the kine, ever and anon, is 
 borne toward the walls from the country beyond ; while, as I 
 turn, the city appears to rest solemnly and still as the gray walls 
 themselves. Chimney-stacks no longer stream with smoke. 
 Their week-day work is done. They join the spires in their 
 
 
408 CROSSING THE BORDER 
 
 silent gesture upward. The Minster that old York Minster, 
 so celebrated in annals, and so glorious in structure stands out 
 prominently in the glistening air, with its lofty tower of solid 
 masonry, companioned by two other towers, with spiry turrets 
 crowned, high above the Gothic arches and niches which grace 
 the body of the immense pile. The eye glances at many an old 
 and humble church, with stained windows and blackened stone, 
 half hid in the green copses and red-tiled houses which, inter 
 mingling, give the city a rural aspect. The slate roofs here and 
 there may be seen by the dazzling glance of the sun upon them, 
 which, upon this last summer day, makes all nature shimmer in 
 the grateful sheen. The chimes begin their morning hymn, in 
 undating the glittering landscape with viewless waves of sound. 
 
 This is a scene that awakens many a memory which the 
 English classics have implanted by their faithful delineations of 
 English town and country. Cowper and Thomson are beneath 
 my eye in their placid, bright, original features. How blessed 
 is that country which can boast so glorious a landscape so 
 green, so goodly, so pleasing, that the harp of Orpheus is not 
 more charming ! How doubly blessed is that country whose 
 native genius hath painted, in undying language, the quiet 
 beauty and cheerful spirit that brood over field and city, dale 
 and hill ! 
 
 There is a similar pensive beauty clinging to the country 
 throughout the North of England and the South of Scotland 
 and which may be called the Border that pleases, and en 
 genders a deep devotional spirit while it pleases. Was it not 
 this peculiarity which led to the erection of such piles as Mel- 
 rose Abbey, Dryburgh Abbey, and Fountain Abbey ? But of 
 these by and by, when we take the reader over the border. 
 
 The tramp of many feet upon the pavements indicates the 
 church-going crowd. We have been too long absent from wor 
 ship not to wish for an hour s communion in the house of God. 
 A stranger need not inquire the way to York Minster ; for it is 
 its own great guide to its own great temple. It cannot be sur- 
 
 . 
 
Ay I) THE OLD ABBEYS. 409 
 
 veyed with as much effect from any other point as from the 
 large green upon the north. Buildings surround it upon the 
 other sides, which forbid a view commensurate with its extent 
 and grandeur. Its form is that of a cross ; and its appearance, 
 except in a small portion, is rather new, compared with other 
 minsters of England. 
 
 We spent some time under an ivy shade, upon a seat of 
 stone, busying the eye in climbing from point to point, and un 
 ravelling the Gothic complexity which binds the whole. If you 
 take it apart, you may form numerous large churches and chapels, 
 each one a marvel; each one having its Gothic arches and 
 niches, with windows whose dull colors from the outside inade 
 quately foretell the resplendent beauties which are revealed 
 within. Flowers and leaves, obdurate to frost, bedeck each 
 pinnacle ; while spire after spire rise around like a petrified 
 forest. Festoons of stone, richly carved, grace the different 
 arches, while in the niches stand the forms of prophet and 
 saint. Quaint, grim, and humorous heads are protruded at 
 different points. Together, the immense structure constitutes a 
 maze, in which the sight may wander and in grateful variety be 
 lost. 
 
 There can be no question but that the Gothic sprung from 
 the green alleys and branching trunks which beautify nature. 
 If we go within, and note the lofty vault, with its intertwisted 
 and adorning branches and foliage, the idea of a forest of giant 
 trees interlaced, cannot be repressed. But as we enter, other 
 thoughts are ours. The organ swells in grand symphony, filling 
 the large temple with a harmonious complexity of music, which 
 well befits such a Gothic pile. Service has begun. The choir 
 is full of worshippers. The chanting floats mildly " upon the 
 easy bosom of the air." The bishop enters the chancel with two 
 other ecclesiastics, preceded by an usher bearing a silver rod. I 
 am a novice in these ceremonies, having been reared in " Dis 
 sent," and cannot call things by their right names. But that 
 does not prevent an appreciation of the beautiful service in 
 
 
410 CROSSING THE BORDER, 
 
 choice English, which issues from the lips of the venerable 
 prelate, and finds reponse in the choir, from the lips of a score of 
 youths in white dresses, whose tenor voices, under some master- 
 tone, rise and fall sweetly in unison with the organ s swell and 
 cadence. Near by, the unresting eye discovers a saintly and 
 martial company, wholly unmoved by this discourse of praise. 
 In stony immovableness they repose upon, and kneel over their 
 own graves these abbots and bishops in strange uncouth dress, 
 and those soldiers and knights invested with mail and uniform. 
 The light, colored by the stained glass, irradiates their fixed 
 features, fills the air with its purple hue, rests against the huge 
 pillars, and tips the canopies of carved wood which overhang so 
 fitly the Gothic seats. 
 
 I noticed here, as at Westminster, that much of the old 
 manner and form is preserved. The ceremony which we heard 
 and saw at Rome was here translated into English, and pruned 
 of many of its formulas ; but to us it appeared ceremony still. 
 The tendency at present in the English church is decidedly 
 toward the formal, and, consequently, from the spiritual. The 
 good Archbishop of Canterbury has given notice to many of 
 those who minister under his charge, that he will summon them 
 into his court, unless they cease certain practices not " set 
 down" in the Book of Common Prayer : to wit, lighting candles 
 at the altar, turning from the congregation, chanting certain 
 parts of the service, et ccetcra. Well, let the prelates fix the 
 forms of their church as best they may. We simple-worshipping 
 Puritans can only hope that in the form they will ever enshrine, 
 as they have often enshrined, the sincere spirit ; and that we 
 may never be ashamed of our plain service and plain meeting 
 houses, wherein the GREAT OBJECT of all worship is as accessi 
 ble as in Gothic minsters or Italian basilicas. Nay, have we 
 not what our ancestry had, and what all mankind in common 
 have, that temple which no human art can adorn, where no ex- 
 clusiveness reigns, and where no intercessor intervenes between 
 GOD and the soul except the SAVIOR? Have we not the temple 
 
 
AND THE OLD ABBEYS. 411 
 
 of Nature ? " What a structure is it ; and what a glorious 
 adorning is put upon it, to touch the springs of imagination and 
 feeling, and to excite the principles of devotion ! What painted 
 or gilded dome is like that arch of blue that swells above us ! 
 What blaze of clustered lamps, or even burning tapers, is like 
 the lamp of day hung in the heavens, or the silent and mysteri 
 ous lights that burn for ever in the far-off depths of the evening 
 sky ! And what are the splendid curtains with which the 
 churches of Rome are clothed for festal occasions, to the gor 
 geous clouds that float around the pavilion of morning or the 
 tabernacle of the setting sun ! And what mighty pavement of 
 tessellated marble can compare with the green valleys, the 
 enamelled plains, the whole variegated, broad and boundless 
 pavement of this world s surface, on which the mighty congrega 
 tion of the children of men are standing ! What, too, are altars 
 reared by human hands, compared with the everlasting moun 
 tains those altars in the temple of nature ; and what incense 
 ever arose from human altars like the bright and beautiful 
 mountain mists that float around ttiose eternal heights, and then 
 rise above them and are dissolved into the pure and transparent 
 ether, like the fast-fading shadows of human imperfection, losing 
 themselves in the splendor of heaven ! And what voice ever spoke 
 from human altar like the voice of the thunder from its cloudy 
 tabernacle on those sublime heights of the creation ! And 
 what anthem or paean ever rolled from organ or orchestra, or 
 from the voice of a countless multitude, like the dread and 
 deafening roar of ocean, with all its " swelling multitude of 
 waves !" 
 
 For the last few days we have been visiting the ruins of 
 other temples, those made with human hands, in the middle 
 ages. We have been admiring the elegance of art, as it sprung 
 frjm the hands of the old freemasons, and the spots where 
 burned the singular devotion of those early scholars and monks 
 whose power evoked such beautiful structures. We look at 
 them more curiously than at the great temple of Nature. Why 1 
 
CROSSING- THE BORDER, 
 
 Because human, fraternal sympathies draw us thither. We 
 feel that hearts once beat to impulses kindred with our own, 
 within those cloisters, where now the tenacious ivy clings ; that 
 the intellects of the patient schoolmen here pondered the classic 
 tomes their hands preserved, and delved into dialectics more 
 abstruse than any we now have, and formed systems of phi 
 losophy as wonderful as they were fruitless ; and that here, 
 hospitality once gathered the wayfarers around its ample board 
 in the old abbey, where now the velvet grassplot grows, and the 
 traveller wanders. It is these kindred sympathies which 
 make Melrose, Dryburgh and Fountain Abbeys, such pleasing 
 resorts for the traveller. May I not herein weave an episode of 
 our pilgrimage to these ancient shrines ? 
 
 Edinburgh was in a tremor of excitement the morning we 
 left for Melrose. A crowd as great as that which gathered the 
 evening before to greet the Queen, now hung darkling about the 
 gates of Holyrood, impatient to see her Majesty enter the 
 crowned and garlanded car, which was awaiting her appearance 
 as we leisurely moved by in" our own unostentatious conveyance. 
 Arthur s Seat and Salisbury Crags soon shut out the classic 
 city of the North. The tall castle and ever-beauteous monu 
 ment to Scott have fixed Edinburgh in our mind as deeply as the 
 Acropolis and the Theseum have fixed Athens. Around them 
 arise the many-storied dwellings and black old churches which 
 give a peculiar air of antiquity to Old Town, and the neatly- 
 pillared fabrics which adorn the vicinage of Queen-street and 
 Crescent-place in New Town. 
 
 Thirty-seven miles from these spots, in the fertile valley of 
 the Tweed, where nature is so richly diversified with pastoral 
 slope and majestic hill, we found the finest specimen of Gothic 
 architecture ever reared to the honor of man or the service of 
 GOD in Great Britain. Its peculiarity consists not in its size. 
 nor its stone, nor its form ; but more especially in the perfec 
 tion of its minute ornaments every where profusely carved, and 
 its elegant proportions on every sides till traceable. Its form 
 
AND THE OLD ABBEYS. 413 
 
 was that of the Latin cross, with a square tower in the centre. 
 The choir and the transept yet remain. Our guide led us into 
 them, and up between the masonry, by narrow stairways, upon 
 the walls. The west gable is in ruin. Over the richly-moulded 
 Gothic portal in the south transept is a magnificent window, 
 the great attraction of Melrose. It is twenty -four feet by 
 sixteen, divided by four bars, which interlace at the top in 
 various curves. The stone-work of the window is as perfect as 
 when the colored light first beamed in upon the vocal choir. 
 Nine nicnes are above this window, and two on each buttress, 
 for images of CHRIST and His apostles. Various images yet 
 remain in their places. Sculptured forms of plant and animal 
 adorn pedestal, canopy, and buttress. The leafy tracery is yet 
 to be seen, so delicate and light that straws may pierce, and just 
 pierce, their minute orifices. The eastern window is particularly 
 beautiful, and has been the theme of Sir Walter Scott s poetry. 
 He recommends the visitor to see it when the oriel, the corbeils, 
 grotesque and grim, and the pillars, like bundles of lances bound 
 with garlands, are all silvered with the mild moonlight. We 
 can well imagine that, under so magic an enchantment, when 
 the silver light edges the imagery, giving the semblance of 
 ebony and ivory to the delicately-wrought material, Melrose 
 would enchain the beholder, as it were some fairy creation, and 
 would justify the verse of Sir Walter. 
 
 "Thou wouldst have thought some fairy s hand 
 Twixt poplars straight the osier wand 
 In many a freakish knot had twined ; 
 Then framed a spell when the work was done, 
 And changed the willow wreaths to stone." 
 
 Many of the Douglas family, as well as other noted persons 
 in Scotch annals, including Alexander II., are buried in this 
 abbey. The heart of Bruce lies beneath a broken stone. Doug 
 las tried unsuccessfully to bear it to the Holy Land. It reposes 
 in more congenial soil. Around it the grass and alders grow, 
 
 " 
 
414 CROSSING THE BOEDER, 
 
 and plentiful hangings of ivy climb. Around it there repose, in 
 the graveyard, generation after generation of those who have 
 named the name of Bruce with thrilling pride ; and nearer, 
 within the abbey, lie numerous abbots and monks who once 
 ruled, and, if tradition be true, revelled right jollily, in these 
 sacred walls. We walked about the ruins over the mounds 
 a silent company. We felt, in truth, that " never, was scene so 
 sad, so fair." Scott has breathed the immortality of his poetry 
 upon the scene, and has given it added interest by weaving the 
 " Lay of the Last Minstrel" around it. Could we do better, 
 after seeing Melrose, than to visit the home of him, whose pen 
 had imparted so much interest to the old abbey, and indeed to 
 almost every spot which we have visited in Scotland ? 
 
 I wish that I could forget one thing about Abbotsford. and 
 only remember what we saw, and not what we heard. From 
 Melrose we drove through hedged lanes and turnpike gates, 
 until we reached the portal of Abbotsford. - We met there a 
 party of Americans who had been waiting some time for entrance. 
 Under their direction, and being advised that it was proper, we 
 took a path leading down to the stream, and enjoyed the view 
 of the houses, which, taken together, and with as much unity as 
 they oji muster, constitute Sir Walter s seat. They have no 
 particular style or comeliness ; but they have a fine prospect of 
 water and hill, mead and wood. A grassy lawn spreads its 
 green carpet between the stream and house. Additions are 
 being built, which cannot adorn the house more, nor add a single 
 leaf to its volume of associations. 
 
 We returned to the portal just in time to see a queer old 
 , English housewife dancing along, with a crowd after her, and 
 scolding with a virago s tongue. She unlocked the gate. Now 
 came our turn : " So, so ! you re the party that have been 
 wandering over the grounds, where you ve no business none at 
 all !" I did not like to spoil our visit, so kept my teeth clench 
 ed, and my tongue in prison ; and we all marched in like 
 whipped and naughty children, smothering revenge enough to 
 
AND THE OLD ABBEYS. 415 
 
 have cannibalized the old Xaiitippe, and sauce enough for the 
 meal. With a consequential, snappish air, and a lachrymose 
 sniffle, (rare combination !) she led us into a hall, or armory, 
 where, amidst the tasteful arrangement of guns, pistols and 
 swords, many of them once carried by kings and Highland 
 chieftains (including Rob Roy), were hung, as primary in 
 interest, the iron keys of the Tolbooth, which the reader of the 
 Heart of Mid-Lothian need not be reminded, once turned the 
 lock on deluded Effie Deans. A glass case contained the last 
 suit of clothes worn by Sir Walter. Presents from Byron, 
 among which was a silver urn of rare workmanship, containing 
 some human bones from Athens, were distributed around among 
 the canes, hatchets and other instruments which the novelist 
 had used. We were ushered into his study ; saw the old arm 
 chair in which he received the airy servitors of his brain ; his 
 books and furniture, all just as they were when he died. A 
 good-natured Louisianian asked if he might sit in the chair. 
 
 No, sir noh ! never have heard such presumption before 
 never ! 
 
 1 Oh ! but it couldn t hurt it, and it would be quite a pleas 
 ure to remember. 
 
 The old lady flushed, while she replied : I don t admire 
 such taste as yours, sir. We hold that chair too sacr*ed for any 
 one to sit in. This way, sir. Oblige me by not delaying, you 
 Miss ! If I allowed every body to sit in it, it would soon be 
 dirty and ragged. Pass on, sir. 
 
 And so, with tantalizing haste and unwomanly pertness, she 
 posted us from room to room, until all the sanctity of the place 
 began to ooze out in vexation, whicji finally found relief in the 
 humorous. Would not Sir Walter himself chuckle to see such 
 a specimen showing off his mementoes ? 
 
 The library gave us most satisfaction. The portraits of the 
 family hung around. Sir Walter s picture did not impress me 
 so peculiarly as the statue in Edinburgh, in the Gothic monu 
 ment. Neither has it the intellectual vigor which speaks from 
 
416 MOUSING THE BORDER, 
 
 the maVble bust by Chantrey, which is in the library. A bay- 
 window and recess hung with crimson damask, occupied the side 
 of the room next to the stream. The window opened to one of 
 the finest views of nature that ever inspired an author. Before 
 the fire-place a dog was quietly snugged in the deep wool of the 
 rug, which gave a peculiarly Scott-air to the chamber. Sir 
 Walter was always accompanied by his dog, and is eo repre 
 sented in his portraits. His famous dog cut in stone stands 
 before the outer door, under the shadow of the stag-antlers. 
 
 We would not dwell too much upon the minute ; but such 
 an arrangement as we saw at Abbotsford is worth a study. It 
 indicates a chaste and superlative refinement, and connects the 
 idea of literary ease with worldly comfort so deliciously, that 
 we would fain have lingered, but for : The door s open, sir ; 
 don t you see ? from Mrs. Xantippe. Taking one glance at the 
 portrait of Lockhart, another at the odd sketches, illustrating 
 Sir Walter s characters, which hung on the wall, and still an 
 other, despite Mrs. Xantippe, at a sketch of Queen Elizabeth 
 dancing in full costume, frills, ruffs, high head-dress (all in ad 
 mirable caricature), which was a pet of Sir Walter s, and is an. 
 unique and striking crotchet from the brain of Art, I left the 
 library to enter into another room, in which time only was 
 allowed to see Napoleon s pistols, which I wickedly wished might 
 spontaneously go off at Mrs. Xantippe. 
 
 One of the party ventured to inquire something about the 
 family who reside at Abbotsford (a gentleman who married his 
 granddaughter I forget his name lives there), when our 
 splenetic madam put a clapper on his interrogation by saying: 
 1 It s not very polite, sir, to ask such questions when the people 
 are in the house. They might hear you. I wish nothing ot 
 the kind mentioned. There s the court : a sixpence each. Come ! 
 no loitering ! 
 
 And thus we passed by the rare collection of curiosities 
 which the antiquary had gathered. A glance at the shield 
 spoken of in Waverley ; a stride past the writing-desk presented 
 
AND THE OLD ABBEYS. 417 
 
 by George IV. ; a retina confused, and a tympanum fretted 
 with the petulance of the guide ; a few maledictions on the 
 shameful and disgusting manner in which so much that could 
 inspire respect for the memory of the wonderful Wizard of the 
 North is displayed ; and we are en route for a more delightful 
 and a holier spot the burial-place of the great bard and novel 
 ist at Dryburgh Abbey. 
 
 Ettrick and Yarrow, made known far and wide as the 
 English tongue travels, by the songs of Hogg and the sonnets 
 of Wordsworth, lie contiguous with their wild hills, and are 
 plainly seen from Abbotsford. Before we reach Dryburgh, the 
 Tweed, which is here a trout stream, swift and clear, must be 
 crossed. As we rowed over, we observed an odd anchor in the 
 midst of the stream, staying by its human grip a skiff, in which 
 a nobleman who owned the fishery was standing, swishing his 
 pole and letting out his gossamer line after the most approved 
 custom of Izaak Walton, and totally unconscious of the shiver 
 ing servant, nearly up to his arms in the cold water, who moved 
 the boat at the pleasure of his lord. But did not that servant 
 watch anxiously for glorious nibbles or sundown ? 
 
 The abbey at Dryburgh is hid in a wood, and is approached 
 through an orchard. It is very ancient, having been founded 
 during the reign of David I., by the Lord of Lauderdale. The 
 spot was once a worship-grove of the Druids. Lying near the 
 border, it has been subject to the harshest vicissitudes of border 
 war. Its ruins are very extensive. It has one charm which 
 no other ruin possesses : a large star-window perfectly pre 
 served, high up in a wall which is entirely clad in ivy, and 
 leaving only this gem of stone and sky, like a sapphire brooch, 
 clasping the glistening drapery of green investing the ruin, all 
 too beautiful for the corrosion of Time. 
 
 On the twenty-sixth of September, 1832, a solemn proces 
 sion moved over this eminently beautiful spot, and under these 
 verdurous arches, bearing the remains of the greatest of the 
 name which appears so frequently upon the grave-stones of the 
 
418 CROSSING THE BORDER, 
 
 abbey. Mourning no common loss, they heavily carry the bier 
 down the grassy aisle of St. Mary ; and soon, with holy rite 
 and sad hearts, the body of WALTER SCOTT is committed to the 
 earth to mingle with the common mould, surrounded by his 
 ancestry and the ancient proprietors of the abbey. But Mar- 
 mion, Waverley, Ivanhoe and Old Mortality were not interred 
 in Dryburgh upon that day. They form a part of the deathless 
 spirit and creative mind of him who shed at once so much lustre 
 upon his country s legends and history, and so much benignity 
 upon mankind. We gathered a twig of ivy near his tomb, and 
 added one more link to the chain of kindred thoughts, which 
 already contains the resting-places of Shelley, Keats, Virgil, and 
 the kings and princes of song who rule from the urns of West 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 The ruins of Dryburgh are fast decaying. But the granite 
 slab which covers the remains of Sir Walter looks fresh and 
 new. On either side are his wife and only son, and the tombs 
 of all three are inclosed in an iron railing. They are ivy-clad, 
 and deeply embowered in a shade which is worthy of its Druid- 
 ical dedication in the olden time. 
 
 Dryburgh was the refuge of Edward II., after his unsuccess 
 ful invasion of Scotland. The vault once haunted by the 
 familiar spirit known as Fatlips, that attended the female wan 
 derer who once sought refuge here, is still shown. She had 
 made a vow that she never would see the light of day until her 
 lover returned. She only left her vault by night to procure the 
 means of subsistence. A statue of Wallace occupies a prominent 
 spot in the wood above the abbey. As we cross the stream 
 again, the fine monument on the battle-field of Penuelheugh 
 appears, whichj like the triple-topped mountain cleft by the 
 wizard Michael Scott, follows us far toward Kelso. Our ride 
 down sweet Teviotdale during the setting of the sun (and a lus 
 trous setting it was, gorgeous in cloud-gold !) was by many 
 ancient seats of power and pleasure, and over many spots rich 
 in legendary lore and historic interest. The meagre remnant 
 
AND THE OLD ABBEYS. 419 
 
 of Roxburgh castle, upon a commanding hill near the road, 
 overlooked the romantic river. A holly tree near, still marks 
 the spot where James II. was killed, while besieging the castle. 
 The Duke of Roxburgh resides in the splendid palace of Fleurs. 
 a stately specimen of the Tudor style, which rises from a sloping 
 lawn that runs up from the opposite bank of the stream, not far 
 from where the Teviot mingles with the Tweed. 
 
 Castles and abbeys become common before we reach Ber 
 wick, and even after we leave it for Newcastle, upon the coaly 
 Tyne. Between Newcastle and Thirsk, amid the country of 
 coal-pits, an apparition strange, yet beautiful, appeared upon a 
 distant hill. It was a Grecian temple, not far from Aycliffe. 
 How finely its rounded columns and proportionate entablature 
 rested against the sky ! An extended ride still kept its classic 
 elegance in view ; and it will be a long, long time before the 
 vision of that temple will fade from our memory of northern 
 England. That temple in the smoky landscape became a re 
 minder of the classic lands. It was like what was it like ? A 
 jewel in an Ethiop s ear ; an hexameter from Virgil in the dry 
 black-letter of an old law tome. 
 
 We have unavoidably omitted much of the descriptive be 
 longing to the valley of the Tweed, which cultivated hills and 
 dimpled lawns, great bridges and time-gnarled forests, combine 
 to diversify and grace. The railroad hurries us to Ripon, 
 through a country where monuments to England s material 
 greatness arise in the form of tall chimneys, and locomotives 
 dash, with a white scarf floating behind, almost at every point 
 of the compass. We frequently counted six or eight playing 
 over the land at once. What will not iron and coal do for 
 a little island 1 ? Our object in coming to Ripon was to see 
 the most extensive abbey-ruin in Great Britain. It is upon 
 the property of Earl Grey, and accessible to strangers. It is 
 like those I have described, but with a difference. It is ap 
 proached through an extensive park, in which profuse art has 
 adorned nature, by changing her trees into vaulted aisles, her 
 
420 CROSSING THE BORDER, 
 
 waters into swan-peopled lakes, and her lawns into spreads of 
 loveliest verdure. Statues are seen ranged through vistas. 
 Laurel banks, neatly trimmed, line the paths. Water-falls 
 murmur in the quiet air. Soon the extensive ruins are seen, of 
 course ivy-garlanded, with towers of immense size and altitude, 
 and arches under ground, between which the stream sullenly 
 complains. Dungeons with iron fastenings are visible, not far 
 from the long range of cloisters where the monks studied and 
 walked. It requires no heavy draft on the imagination, to 
 ovoke from the tombs over which we tread, the forms of those 
 monkish clerks and copyists, whose enthusiastic zeal led to such 
 manual dexterity, that the art of printing has not been able, 
 with all its refinement, to excel their manuscripts. The ancient 
 Bibles which were shown to us in Rome, and the snowy vellum 
 missals in the British Museum, illustrated with gold, blue, and 
 carmine, with their shining black letters, each one able to bear 
 a microscopic scrutiny, speak of a quietude -and seriousness 
 which must have reigned in these walls where so much study 
 and care were given. The forms of the Venerable Bede, of 
 Friar Bacon, Theodore of Canterbury, and others who loved to 
 reproduce and pore over the select and precious gems of the 
 monkish library, rise with solemn air, and read us lessons of 
 patience and perseverance which our age. with its acquisitiveness 
 and hurry cannot teach. 
 
 Why is it that all religions have had a system of asceti 
 cism ? Is it consistent with the ordination of God, that His 
 ministers should be set apart from the world, which they ought 
 to teach? Yet. Mahometanism had, and has even yet, its 
 Soofies and Dervishes, from the Mediterranean to the Ganges ; 
 the Jews had their Essenes, who lived in the desert and held 
 their property in common, and their Therapeuts, who sought 
 happiness in solitary contemplation of the Divine essence ; the 
 religions of the East, Boodhisrn and Braminism, have had their 
 monastic orders, their Yooges and Fakirs ; the Pythagoreans in 
 Greece, imitating the sects of Egypt, from which they learned 
 
AND THE OLD ABBEYS. 421 
 
 their mysteries,. dwelt apart from the haunts of men ; and Catho 
 licism has had its monasticism, under various names and forms, 
 Anchorets, Cenobites, Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians, 
 Mendicants ; and these had tteir subdivisions. It must be con 
 fessed that much good has emanated from these recluses. Giant 
 minds have been nursed in the solitary cell. Civilization in its 
 intellectual and industrious phases, received advancement from 
 these holy orders ; and even yet, if there be a spot where the 
 light cannot be kept burning in the fitful gusts of human pas 
 sion and ignorance, these sequestered homes of thought and 
 piety might be of service. But in this century, when light has 
 gone forth among the nations, no one can praise a fugitive and 
 cloistered virtue, that shuns the dust and heat of active life. 
 
 Other parts of Fountain Abbey bear evidence of other em 
 ployments besides the intellectual and devotional. The great 
 chimneys and fireplaces, yet showing marks of the culinary calo 
 ric, are to be seen ; while near by, upon a portal stone, are carved 
 the arms of the abbey, which are three horseshoes emblems of 
 good luck, and talismanic to keep the witches away. The nave 
 and transept were very extensive, and finely preserved. But 
 every where the hand of sacrilegious decay is at work, despoil 
 ing window and niche of figure and strength ; while time has 
 sown his grass-seed gently over the tessellated floor, which now 
 yields to the traveller s tread, as he passes through this great 
 home of the monkish multitude, and in fancy re-peoples it with 
 singing choir and praying priests, all ruled by the baronial abbot 
 and his men-at-arms. 
 
 By Knaresborough, and the Dropping Well, we seek this 
 capital of Yorkshire, and have spent our Sabbath in enjoying 
 its repose and pencilling our journeyings. We are ready once 
 more to gather our robes about us, and trudge on to other 
 scenes. But the three abbeys, and Abbotsford, must ever be 
 our landmarks by which to tell the high tide of our pleasure 
 and our progress through the Borders. 
 
 What is the influence which remains, now that our eyes have 
 
422 CROSSING THE BORDER. 
 
 feasted upon ruin and landscape, and our minds have recalled 
 the associations with which they are fraught ? Now that the 
 pleasure-loving and curious propensity has been gratified, what 
 permanent good has been ingrafted upon the immortal soul, 
 by thus moving amid the beauties of nature and of art, under 
 the twilight of antiquity ? Are these objects but the chance 
 scribblings and frolicksome creations of the dead past, meaning 
 less and indifferent in this present time ? Is there no lesson of 
 beauty to be learned from a perception and a study of these 
 Gothic piles, in the witchery of their ruins ? Comes there no 
 admonition to patience and devotion, as we recall from their 
 graves the form of monk and friar, and think how, day after 
 day, and night after night, they fought within the cloister the 
 logomachies of Aristotle, under the command of Scotus or 
 Aquinas ? Oh, yes ! Here, in these homes of the studious 
 and learned, there burned altars to truth and goodness, although 
 their fires were dim and sepulchral. When all else was ignor 
 ance profound, with vestal vigilance the light was kept bright, 
 until it burst into the full radiance of a better civilization. When 
 baronial insolence ruled its serfs with iron sway, and ran riot in 
 the worst passions of our sinful nature, there was found in these 
 abbeys a refuge, where peace and good-will hedged the innocent 
 round about with protection, and where the religion of Jesus 
 kindled its hope of celestial beatitude, high and aloof from the 
 troubles and turmoils of the world. 
 
XXXVII. 
 
 1Dnshantot[ ; rmft tjp 33nmttf nf (Cjiatsninrtjj. 
 
 " Each one contends, with all her might and main, 
 Each day a higher verdant crown to gain." 
 
 Cow LEY S Poem on Plants. 
 
 THIS northern part of England, around York, is checkered 
 with railroads so completely, that it is impossible to look 
 out upon the landscape without seeing the swift-rushing car. 
 From Newburg to Sheffield, at all angles, obtuse, acute, and 
 right, these vehicles are every moment darting, freighted with 
 coal and coke, iron and humanity. The country after night 
 seems alive with fires from furnaces and coke-ovens ; while by 
 day, deep, dark holes, into which the mild sunbeam hath not 
 power to pierce, and into which only the lightning could dart 
 illumination, open on every side like entrances to Hades, out of 
 which machinery is shelling coal by the ton. And yet here, as 
 in every arable part of Great Britain that we have seen, Agri 
 culture seems to gather as rich a harvest, and to take as nice a 
 heed in the cultivation of the soil, as in other less manufacturing 
 districts. Tbe harvest-time was just at its middle point. Two 
 months later than in Ohio, they gather their wheat. It is mostly 
 done by Irish, who come up from Liverpool, and even across 
 the Channel, thus to reap their little harvest of shillings. We 
 saw them at York, these laborers, packed by twenties and fifties, 
 into unventilated cars (used for cattle on ordinary occasions), 
 all somewhat intoxicated, all armed with scythe and sickle, but 
 so closely packed, that in the biggest hullabaloo imaginable, they 
 could hardly use their gougers, much less their instruments of 
 
424 ENGLISH HUSBANDRY, 
 
 husbandry. One poor fellow was, by some fatality, placed in 
 our car. He had his bundle, his sickle, and the never-failing 
 resource of an Irishman, his pipe. He told me that he received 
 from eight to ten shillings an acre, and " that it took him four 
 days to cut an acre, and right heavy crops they were too." When 
 assured that an American swung a cradle to the tune of five 
 acres a day, he took a long whiff, and opened his eyes, while his 
 mouth, too, opened to exclaim in consternation, " that he would 
 like to see one of them (is it creedles ye call thim?) at work." 
 He thought that if a company of Americans should come over 
 here, with their " creedles," that they would make a good har 
 vest of shillings, a t ten per acre. In very deed, it would pay 
 almost as well as working in a Sacramento digging. Ten dollars 
 a day and found ; what do our farmers think of that ? They 
 would not, however, wonder at it, if they could go into an Eng 
 lish harvest-field, and observe the women and men lazily gather 
 ing the straws and cutting them by handfulls ! Why, an ox 
 with any thing like a tongue could clip a field about as soon as 
 one of these sickles. No wonder McCormick s reaper created 
 such delightful surprise among farmers here, where even the 
 cradle was unknown. No wonder that he has made an arrange 
 ment, by which $25,000 for the first year is guarantied to him 
 for the privilege of selling five hundred of his reapers, with a 
 proportionate increase on an increased number sold. No won 
 der the London Times claimed the Reaper as an equivalent to 
 Protection. 
 
 But one thing must be said in commendation of the English 
 farming. There is a completeness and cleanliness in the way a 
 field is attended to, whether pasture, woodland or wheat field, that 
 leaves nothing to be done. Ruth would have found scanty 
 gleanings in the wake of an English husbandman. So with re 
 gard to the hay-stack and the straw-stack. They are all laid 
 up with the precision of architecture, and nicely thatched. Not 
 a straw is out of place. The wheat is stacked upon frames some 
 feet above the ground, so as to preserve the grain from mice 
 
AND THE BEAUTY OF C&AT8WO&TH. 425 
 
 Nothing is wasted. The manure is cared for as sedulously as if 
 it were wheat. Yet with all this nicety and completeness of 
 cultivation, Ohio flour can be seen, (I can tell its brand as the 
 face of an old friend), at any hour, unloading at Liverpool, swing 
 ing upward to its high-storied wareroom. or being waggoned 
 through the streets for the depot, there to be distributed among 
 these very districts where the fields are heavy with a better 
 than placer gold. 
 
 An English farmer generally rents of the landed proprietor. 
 The latter is called a gentleman in England, the farmer is not. 
 Gentility is here dependent on the relation of the person to the 
 Earth, whether it be as freeholder, or leaseholder. These proprie 
 tors number only thirty thousand in all England. The rent 
 paid is from five to ten dollars per acre, according to the quality 
 of the soil. In addition, there is the tithe and poor-rate. The 
 farmer is not allowed to cultivate in wheat each year, more than 
 a third or a quarter of the land rented ; because the soil must 
 be kept up ; and to this end, there must be a rotation of crops. 
 The first crop taken after the ground is manured, consists of some 
 root, as the beet or turnip ; and is called the hoed crop. After 
 this, comes barley, oats, and beans ; and then the wheat. Al 
 most every thing raised is fed to stock (of which a farm is rarely 
 without), except the wheat and barley. In the case of a graz 
 ing farm, this rotation would not apply. When a part of it is 
 sown in grass, it is suffered to remain in pasture for three years, 
 more or less, which supersedes artificial manuring. Our farmers 
 cannot realize, without an inspection of English farming, the 
 immense outlay of expenditure, and the capital required to carry 
 on a farm here. The manures are the largest item. They are 
 mostly manufactured near London. Bone dust is a principal 
 article. It is nothing unusual to put upon one acre twenty-five 
 dollars worth of manure. The amount of capital actually re 
 quired to carry on a farm cannot fall short of fifty dollars an 
 acre, by which I mean the expense of stock, implements, manure, 
 and labor required to keep the land in good cultivable con- 
 
426 ENGLISH HUSBANDRY, 
 
 dition. A farmer with one thousand acres, must be worth fifty 
 thousand dollars, in order to carry on his farm as it is here car 
 ried on. 
 
 Whatever may be the expense attending agriculture in Eng 
 land compared to America, there is one regard in which Eng 
 land may claim the palm of excellence. It is in the tasteful and 
 even elegant mode in which the fields, parks, and gardens are 
 arranged and displayed. God never intended that man should 
 for ever sweat over the furrow and in the harvest field, to obtain 
 his daily bread. By creating the beauty of flowers which ena 
 mel the meads, the trees which waver in the wind and give 
 oharm to the landscape, the waters which plash in fountains and 
 circle in eddies, the varieties of hill and dale, rocky eminences 
 and green lawns ; by bending over all this regalia of Nature, 
 His Empyrean of azure, does He not teach, that there is an in 
 ner spirit which is not gratified, and cannot be satisfied merely 
 with utilities; but which looks out inquiringly through the 
 senses, for the objects of admiration and love ? Life would be 
 an uneasy and desperate thraldom, unless Beauty enfranchised 
 its activities, and led it along its own primrose path of dalli 
 ance. 
 
 How little do we in America, especially in Ohio, think of 
 these sentiments practically ! How rarely do we find around our 
 log-cabins and country residences any thing to attract, except 
 its genial hospitality ! Yet how much does prodigal nature lay 
 at the feet of our people, which, with little pruning and care, 
 would displace the few flag-stones, the wood-pile, the mud-pud 
 dle and cow-resort before the threshold, and array our residences 
 in fragrant vines, surround them with trees and flowers native to 
 our woods, and make home sweeter and dearer by these minis 
 trations to Beauty ! Would the young man just out of his teens 
 be looking after a quarter section in Illinois and Iowa, if the 
 roof-tree of home thus blossomed ? In England it is otherwise. 
 Time hath here left legacy after legacy of garniture to each cot 
 
AND THE BEAUTY OF CHATSWORTH. 437 
 
 tage and hall. Her people prize the boon, and transmit to pos 
 terity the landscape, with new features of loveliness. 
 
 The highest refinement of rural beauty in England, and even, 
 it was said, in the world, was to be found at Chatsworth, the 
 prime country-seat, among seven others, .belonging to the Duke 
 of Devonshire. To have left England without having seen 
 Chatsworth, would have argued us insensible to the voice of un 
 disputed rumor, which located the modern Paradise over, the 
 moors beyond Sheffield, whither upon yesterday we were bound. 
 It was our last sight in the Old World, and anticipation made 
 it the culminating point of our voyaging. The reputation of 
 the Duke s manager, who is none other than Paxton, the de 
 signer of the Crystal Palace, added a zest to anticipation : while 
 the leisure of a complete day was dedicated to its fruition. 
 
 Sheffield has little to attract. Its smoky factories almost 
 darkened our hopefulness as we drove down its streets. But in 
 the beautiful environs we found compensation for the coaly 
 effluence. Chatsworth was 17 miles from Sheffield, and the 
 luxury of an open carriage enabled us to enjoy the intervening 
 scenes. We drove by the residence of the cutlers, among which 
 was that of Rogers, the King Cutler, whose steel is as famous 
 as that of Damascus. In the valley were distributed different 
 manufactories for cutlery, which, before fit for the market, un 
 dergoes various processes in different establishments, from the 
 smelting of the metal up to its grinding, tempering, and pol 
 ishing. 
 
 As we approached Chatsworth, the view became enchanting. 
 The moors appeared in the hazy distance covered and colored 
 with the purple heather, or ling, as it is called in England, 
 which gives the aspect of a blooming garden to these wastes. 
 We had not expected to see such extensive wastes near the 
 great marts of Sheffield and Manchester, in a county more 
 densely populated than any other part of the island. But so it 
 was. Why ? The Duke of Rutland owned the range for hunt 
 ing. The Duke of Devonshire yonder heath for the same. 
 
428 ENGLISH HUSBANDRY, 
 
 Grouse hide under the ferns, and feed upon the blossom of the 
 heather. The land is let by the thousand acres, at $250 for 
 that area for hunting, besides which the lessee has a large outlay 
 for preserving the game. We saw lazy fellows sitting near the 
 bars preserving the game from the poachers, and we .saw, too, 
 1 chaps with their phaeton in the road, innocently looking over 
 the walls, while a man with setters was starting up the game, 
 which the chap from the road would as innocently fire at as it 
 rose. This is what is called, taking it on the sly. Grouse 
 were rising on all sides. Huntsmen were on the distant hills. 
 The smoke and flash were visible otherwise all was desolate. 
 Bleak rocks, scattered about like those at Vesuvius, but unlike 
 them adorned with ferns and ling, are upon the summit of the 
 moor, which looks over a vast range of country, taking in 
 Chatsworth, with its palace and park, where we soon arrived. 
 
 We went first to the kitchen gardens, and found ingress. 
 Long ranges of walls and hot-houses, as far as the eye could 
 reach, met our view, with neat grass and flower-plots between. 
 A machine was at work, used by the hand, which clipped the 
 grass while it rolled it smoothly and carried the clippings along. 
 I wondered no more at the velvet elegance of the English lawn. 
 On the larger lawns, we saw larger machines drawn by horses, 
 which performed the same function. We entered the principal 
 hot-house, where tropical plants flowered in every hue of the 
 chromatic scale, and in every form which an Infinite Creator 
 moulds. The Paxonian hung its rich pink pendants beside the 
 large straw-colored alamander which crept upon the ceiling, over 
 beds of exotics perfumed to a sense of faintness. In another 
 green-house, water-lilies alone were kept in a mimic lake, which 
 was not suffered to stagnate ; for little water-wheels fretted it 
 continually. Lilies, did I say ? There was but one lily, called 
 the Victoria Regia, from which twenty large leaves, as round 
 as my shield, and five feet in diameter, were spread upon the 
 surface. These leaves seemed like green tables, supported, for 
 all that I could see, by water-nymphs. A large lily was in 
 
AND THE BEAUTY OF CHATSWORTH. 429 
 
 flower : while another, ghostly pale, was bursting its verdant 
 cerements. I always loved the lily ; so pure, so stainless, so 
 emblematic of innocence. It is a quaint myth, which accounts 
 for its origin. Jupiter, in order to make Hercules immortal, 
 clapped him to the breast of Juno, when she was asleep. The 
 young embodiment of Strength drew so hard that, too great 
 a gush of milk coming down, some slipped upon the sky, 
 which made the Galaxy, or Milky Way, and out of some which 
 fell upon the earth, rose the lily. A queenly origin hath the 
 proud white flower ! The Regia of Chatsworth does no discredit 
 to its celestial lineage. A curious flower, called the stanopia, 
 which grows out below instead of above the root, was. in full 
 bloom. Tall futia in red. great cup and pitcher flowers ; indeed, 
 every style of vegetable beauty, in hues which the sea-shell can 
 never rival, warmed into life in the heated air. 
 
 Without, the arrangement was simple in its elegance. Each 
 class of flowers had its own plot. The kith and kin all lived 
 neighborly, and smiled happily as they bent to each other or 
 looked up into the sky. The walls were warmed with subterra 
 nean flues, and clad with peach and apricot, flatly trimmed against 
 them. The pine -apples were growing under glass, finer than I 
 ever saw them at home. The grapes, purple and white, larger 
 than no matter ; it is too toothsomely luscious to talk about, 
 as it was too tempting to the larcenously inclined fingers. 
 What Elia says of roast pig (oh ! reader, forgive the savory illu 
 sion in this unnatural connection), may I not say of those clus 
 ters, that they produced a premonitory moistening or overflow 
 ing of the nether lip, and the idea of tasting them created a de 
 light if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, that a tender-con- 
 wienced person would do well to pause. We paused. 
 
 We walk out again to hear the bees hum from flower to 
 flower, and see them at work in their straw hives. Large beds 
 of vegetables of the largest development are ranged near. This 
 smacked of the kitchen ; all else might well become seraglios 
 and palaces. 
 
430 ENGLISH HUSBANDR } , 
 
 As we move through the great gate, we are conducted into 
 the palace, which is a superb structure, topped with figures and 
 urns, and rich in bass-reliefs and carvings. We pass through 
 halls of paintings by masters, through apartments where were 
 the coronation chairs of England s royalty, through rooms where 
 the presents of the Emperor Nicholas to the Duke were arranged, 
 and through others, where the greatest collection of sketchings 
 in the world is exhibited. From the windows, in each of which 
 there is but one pane, we have prospects of the hills and woods ; 
 of the Derwent water, in which hundreds of Durhams are wading 
 or ruminating ; of the Park, where sheep and deer together nip 
 the herbage ; of sheets of water, glancing under the sun, re 
 minding us of the water-views down the leafy avenues of Ver 
 sailles, and of fountain-jets, playing out of manifold forms of 
 Triton and God. Not another fabric is to be seen on the pre 
 mises not one. Nothing, upon the whole sixteen hundred acres, 
 appears to mar the complete diversity of rural loveliness. There 
 is no point which has not contributed its portion to the manifest 
 unity of Beauty, which embraces so much variety in its magic 
 zone. 
 
 The hall of statuary has not a fragment nor a blotch. Every 
 piece is a gem. The pure Parian glistens in tasteful array and 
 graceful form. A door opens, and a conservatory, with elegant 
 and costly vases, filled with oranges and flowers, is presented ; 
 out of which, as from an enchanter s realm, we walk upon paths 
 of pulverized spar, shining like diamonds, and surrounded by 
 lawns spongy to the foot and as neatly trimmed as tapestry. 
 Here another guide meets us, and leading us by pillars vine-clad, 
 by temples copied from classic models, and by statuary, guard 
 ing the old trees under whose shade they stand, gives us -a 
 vantage ground from which to see the glory of Chatsworth. 
 See ! Far up in a woody mountain, from natural springs, whose 
 supply is exhaustless. there leaps the live water-falls ; so high 
 and distant, you may not hear their music. These gather to a 
 head and fall over a temple s dome, from which they leap, but 
 
AND THE BEAUTY OF CHATS WOE TIL 431 
 
 to rebound into fountains, where they are bespread in veils of 
 fleecy whiteness, and hasten down a succession of steps, some 
 three hundred yards long and fifteen feet wide. As we reclined 
 on the soft turf, at the foot of these steps, the guide let on a full 
 volume of water, which leaped, gushed and sprung, danced, sang 
 and glittered, until at our feet it disappeared under ground, to 
 emerge, perhaps at lower points in other capacities. How much 
 has motion to do with the loveliness of a landscape ! 
 
 Passing under copses of shaggy-trunked trees, which we did 
 very leisurely, we are invited to enter cool, rocky retreats, arti 
 ficially arranged, and not without their fern and heather. Here 
 the genius of Paxton is seen, in those huge masses of rock which 
 apparently block up our path, but yield to a gentle push as they 
 swing upon their pivots. Rocking stones of immense weight are 
 around, mobile to a child s strength. Among the roots of pine 
 trees and out of rocky fissures, little rills played, and laughed 
 as they ran around stones and through moss, as if at the theatri 
 cal imposition which the artificial was acting for our admiration. 
 Birds hopped and chirruped as unconsciously as if Nature and 
 not Paxton had given them their bowers. But the cunning 
 carollers, we did not see any of them alight on a certain tree, 
 which deceived my perception, if it could not their instinct. A 
 New Haven gentleman a wag, by the way wished me just to 
 examine its bark ; it was so very odd. I was going up for that 
 purpose, when I observed the tree bleeding water-drops ; and 
 before I could look again, to be sure it was no phantasy, every 
 point and pore of twig and branch spurted its. jet, and the turf 
 under my feet became suddenly alive with subtle fountains ! Of 
 course, I retired. Of course. I was food for merriment. Of 
 course, invidious remarks, comparing my verdancy with the 
 curious vegetable production, were made. Of course, I had to 
 join the roar of laughter. New Haven had procured the guide 
 to say the Open Sesame to a rock, behind which he touched a 
 spring, whose magic proved my discomfiture and his fun. 
 
 It was by this rocky path that we went to see the Crystal 
 
432 ENGLISH HUSBANDRY, 
 
 Palace, not the one at London, but its progenitor, the original, 
 built by Paxton, and from which he designed the great Exhibi 
 tion Palace. This looked crystalline ; it had no painted col 
 umns, by scores and hundreds, and no drapery ; but a concave 
 without these, of clearest glass, so arranged as scarcely to show 
 the sash, and all strong. Terraces, hedges, and flowers surround 
 it ; while, in the lake near, a fountain plays two hundred and 
 eighty feet high ! We entered, and saw the same beautiful 
 arrangement which distinguishes the transept of the Great 
 Palace ; large palms and blooming creepers, flowers of every 
 clime, dressed in their gala colors, and rocks streaming with 
 tendrils ! Some idea of its extent may be had, when it is con 
 sidered that there are in the building seven miles of six-inch 
 heated piping. 
 
 Is it strange that such magnificence exists where there are 
 one hundred and twenty-seven gardeners alone engaged ? Or, 
 with such an immense revenue as belongs to the duke, and with 
 such a manager as Paxton ? Before leaving the domain, you 
 may survey it from a tower, so erected as to comprehend all its 
 beauty. There is no smoke to obscure the view. It is all carried 
 off to a great distance, by underground flues. The very coal 
 used by so many hot-houses, is conveyed by a subterranean rail 
 way. The farming arrangements and the village without the 
 domain, are a complement to what I have faintly pictured. 
 The village is the model of England. All the cottages were 
 either Gothic or Swiss of stone, exact and elegant, with grass 
 and flower-plots. Surrounding church and school-house were 
 linden-trees, trimmed neatly and inwoven as one, meeting and 
 arching. Could there be scandal, or gossip, or backbiting, or 
 aught but harmony in such a paragon of a town? Sir Thomas 
 Moore, in the picture he has drawn of the towns of Utopia, so 
 precise and perfect, might have given grace to the drawing, had 
 a Chatsworth been contemporaneous with his time. 
 
 The owner of all this paradise is a bachelor. Hold ! Not 
 so fast, ladies ! A confirmed bachelor, a bachelor bound hand 
 
AND THE BEAUTY OF CHATSWORTH. 433 
 
 and foot ! Some difficulty as to the title of the duke was started ; 
 which was hushed by an arrangement between the contending 
 families. The duke agreed to live and die unmarried ; so that 
 Lord Mortington, the claimant, should be his heir. The duke 
 is old and infirm. He is liberal in the use which he makes of his 
 wealth. His fruitage and venison load the tables of his friends ; 
 and he has freely opened to the public these grounds and this 
 palace, where, in its consummate perfection, the luxury of the 
 East and the arts of Italy vie with the tasteful elegance of France 
 and the natural beauties of Switzerland and Scotland ; and where 
 all combine to render Chatsworth one of the most attractive spots 
 for the traveller in Great Britain, if not in Europe. 
 
 Such spots are needed, to show man from what a beautiful 
 estate he has fallen. If immense fortunes must be entailed, let 
 them thus be transformed into the poetry and music of nature, 
 that they may allay or divert the passions and perturbations of 
 our sinful state. Sir William Temple says , that human life is 
 at the best and greatest but like a froward child, that must be 
 played with and humored a little to keep it quiet, till it falls 
 asleep, and then the care is over. Then why not please it with 
 such charms as Chatsworth displays, until it reposes on the 
 bosom of its mother earth ? It was our last may not I say 
 greatest pleasure, in this land of our ancestors. It will not be 
 forgotten, until we repose in that sleep that knows no waking. 
 Will it then? Not if a thing of beauty be a joy forever. 
 
 From Sheffield, through Manchester, a huge, compact, black 
 and busy city we have returned to Liverpool, where all the 
 day we have been reading letters from home thinking of home, 
 and what is better, packing for home, whither we will be soon 
 going. 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 \i aJnrknp far Inmt 
 
 " Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, 
 
 On the shifting, 
 Currents of the restless heart; 
 Till at length in books recorded, 
 
 They like hoarded 
 Household words, no more depart" 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 IT was with unwonted alacrity that we packed our luggage, and 
 called our last cab on transatlantic shores. By noon of the 
 3d of September, we were down upon the Mersey s brink, await 
 ing the return of the tender, which was to bear us to the vessePs 
 side. Nearly two hundred Americans were with us upon that 
 tender, and they now float with us as I write. We did not feel 
 much reluctance in leaving England. With our faces turned 
 westward, where could our hearts be, but westward in our own 
 blessed home ! The perils of the great sea are forgotten ; or 
 what is worse, its disagreeableness is joyfully encountered ; for 
 through all, we see smiling the faces of those who wait to wel 
 come our return. Liverpool is not noted ; its superb custom 
 house and miles of docks receive no encomium. When the heart 
 bounds so warmly, the eye is blind to external things. The 
 Mersey s green banks scarcely are thought of; for there comes 
 the greeting of friend with friend. Old companions in voyaging 
 shake hands, laugh, and talk over scenes that they have viewed 
 since separation, and of their gladness in anticipating their re 
 turn to America. A few there were who were leaving dear friends 
 in England. The wave of the handkerchief from steamer and 
 
THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 435 
 
 shore, the hancL-kissing, the tear-dropping, the stifled sobbing ; 
 did they not bring to mind our own parting, when the Asia cleft 
 the waves of New- York harbor? 
 
 The mails were aboard, the guns fired, the cheers given and 
 answered ; and the noble " Pacific" bore away with as hopeful a 
 cargo of humanity as ever trod a steamer s deck, hopeful in 
 that sense which antedates the joy of the future with large and 
 generous impulses. 
 
 Our first two days out were pleasant in the extreme. I be 
 gan to think myself quite a sailor. True, the channel was not 
 rough ; but then there were two days gone, and not a sign of 
 mine ancient enemy. Not even his advanced guard was visible. 
 I began to tread the deck proudly looked people in the face, 
 as if I were an old salt perfectly accustomed to nautical ex 
 periences. Complacency sat serenely on my front like Halcyon 
 on the wave. Besides, was not the Pacific a larger boat, with 
 less rocking and rolling than the Asia? Bravely I marched 
 down to dinner ; called the waiter with a confidence which solid 
 earth might have inspired ; had no misgivings but that travelling 
 had indurated the system ; in fine, conducted myself as if I were 
 already a triumphant champion over the insidious foe. The 
 sequel is plain. Pride fell with the Son of the Morning ; why 
 not with fallible humanity ? I felt, rather than saw my enemy 
 approach. He came upon a tall wave, with a white ensign, and 
 a sparkling lance. His first blow was aimed at the very point 
 of the system, where the Ancients seated course. If the citadel 
 itself was beseiged. where were the outposts ? Not without a 
 struggle did I yield. With Sir Jack, I may now say. that had 
 I known he was so cunning o fence, I would have seen him d d, 
 ere I had fought him. I marched the deck with determination, 
 pursed up my lip, perked up my eyebrows, and assumed that 
 serio-careless air which seemed to say : tis a little disturbance 
 of the animal economy soon be right good ship rather like 
 the sea it s so bracing ahem ! But it would not do. I walked 
 stoutly j did not look at any other object than the wheel-house, 
 
436 THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 
 
 made imaginary speeches to evanescent juries, tried every ab 
 straction and even my best expedient, viz., hummed " Scot s wha 
 ha, and whistled that air, known in Buckeyedom, as the big 
 muster tune, to whose inspiring music the corn-stalk militia of 
 the Miami, Sciota, and Muskingum valleys were wont to march 
 in disorganized and timeless array, in the good old days when 
 training was the duty of Ohio s citizenry. All would not do. 
 A large billow gave the vessel a lurch and a twist, I changed 
 my tune, struck my colors, and with more precipitation than 
 grace, retired below. In the piteous strain of an old bard, let 
 me ask, 
 
 "Was ever mortal wight in such a woeful case?" 
 
 Ask me not to renew the infandum dolorem of the six sub 
 sequent days, during which without intermission we have had 
 tempestuous weather. How the winds raved, the boat snapped 
 and creaked, the waters roared and the rains came ; these are a 
 part of the malignant triumphings of my enemy, which I would 
 fain forget. Yesterday the fog enveloped us ; but the sun soon 
 shone through, the Newfoundland banks were near ; the sea was 
 calm ; and it was said by a few tough old fellows without stom 
 ach or sympathy, who had been on deck for eight days, that we 
 had stopped on the banks to wood, when there mysteriously ap 
 peared on deck over 150 strange passengers ! 
 * Ours is a staireh steamer. She has braved the continuous 
 storms nobly. True we have lost about a day on account of the 
 weather ; but on our worst day we ran two hundred and thirty 
 miles, and in a good sea we can run three hundred and thirty. 
 I will not undertake to compare her with the Cunard steamers ; 
 comparisons are odious ; but for elegant saloons, comfortable 
 berths, an excellent table and speed, the Pacific has no superior, 
 if any equal. She has made the four best trips ever made over 
 the Ocean, except the one great great trip of the Baltic, which 
 Capt. Nye will not suffer long to eclipse his fame. 
 
THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 437 
 
 American superiority in yatching, whatever may be said of 
 steaming, was fully illustrated last month at Cowes, by the saucy 
 little America, who ran away with all the prizes, while she upset 
 the English idea of naval superiority in a manner which was 
 only equalled, let me in justice say, by the manly courtesy and 
 civility of the English gentlemen who afforded her so fair an 
 opportunity of beating all their aristocratic craft. We were 
 constantly congratulated In England, on the America s success. 
 It did much to relieve the barren aspect of our part of the 
 Great Exhibition ; for at one swoop, it threw down all the mo 
 dels of naval architecture which adorned the west end of the 
 British department. 
 
 The line of coast, which begins to grow plainer, indicates 
 that we are in sight of our own continent. It does not strike 
 us as our own country. Bare, bleak and uninhabited, it pre 
 sents its cheerless, rocky edge of slanting strata, to the pitiless 
 peltings of the sea. Shoals of black fish darken the water, and 
 the spouting of whales in the horizon present more attractions 
 than this inhospitable shore of Newfoundland. 
 
 But that shore tells me that we shall soon be home, and 
 leads me to review, before I conclude these sketches. I confess 
 that there has been a pleasure imparted, if not to others at least 
 to myself, in recording this pilgrimage and currente calamo, gos 
 siping about its incidents. There is now to my mind new 
 meaning in Wordsworth s verse : f .^ 
 
 " Minds that have nothing to confer, 
 Find little to perceive." 
 
 It is a truth, though a paradox in mental philosophy, that by 
 sharing your spiritual spoil, you add to it | for you instil the 
 prompture which moves to acquisition. These fugitive pages 
 have been a constant prompture, a pleasant spur to observation. 
 There was opportunity for conference with friends and kindred 
 minds, and I looked with closer perception for the best subjects 
 of communion. 
 
438 THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME 
 
 In this delightful employment, over five months have been 
 passed. What a season of ineffable enjoyment has it been ! 
 What a life a novel life has been compressed into these months ! 
 What sacrifices could adequately measure the rich ingathering 
 of their experience. A business temporarily left ; the results 
 of three years of professional labor expended in a summer ; not 
 alone for my own gratification, but for that of a companion, who 
 will life-long share it; the aggravations of homelessness en 
 countered upon steamboat, at hotel, in coach and car, contention 
 with strange languages, disagreeableness upon the sea and the 
 hazards of travel, the deprivation from worship at home and 
 at church, the absence of friends and relations whose life is 
 bound up with our own ; all these are the sacrifices we have made, 
 not the least among which is that constant call for cash, which 
 the bag Peter Schlemil sold his shadow for, could hardly supply. 
 What have we in return ? Memories, eternal as our nature. Of 
 what ? Ruins which are histories ; temples which are chroni 
 cles ; seas and shores where Crusader and Corsair, Christian 
 and Infidel, fought and gloried ; the silence of deserted and ex 
 humed cities, and of desolate solitudes in the mountain passes 
 and heights ; the magnificence of Art in her present phases, 
 and as she appears in the vestiges of Antiquity ; the recondite 
 springs of the world s activity, developing forms of every use 
 and variety, enshrined in the Palace of Industry ; the splendid 
 seats of Power^he fields of blood and valor ; and the beautiful 
 and unadorned scenes of nature ; all instinct with their past pa 
 geantry, or with the busy energies of our own day. Upon the 
 hot pavements of the Southern city, in the narrow streets of the 
 Eastern, through the shady promenades of the gay capitals of 
 Europe, over the mountain and moor, the lake and river, we 
 have sought out the evidences of buried civilization, and wit 
 nessed the results of the living. We have stood by the tombs 
 of the great and the gifted, whose names were a terror or an 
 honor to their kind ; have witnessed the ceremonies and devo 
 tions of different religions in their splendid structures, and have 
 
THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 439 
 
 lingered around localities which the warm breath of enthusiasm, 
 like that of spring, hath bid to blossom with the flower and per 
 fume of Poetry. Who says that the earth is cold and pulseless ? 
 Let him take the pilgrim staff, and trace upon its surface its 
 letters, legible with the stories of human Passion and Love. 
 Within its rocky bosom there throbs the heart of Humanity ? 
 and every pulsation plays its part in that economy of Providence, 
 which is the key to all revolutions, and to all philosophy, which 
 reconciles every contradiction in morals and physics, and is the 
 fulfilment of every prophecy. 
 
 What new significance will we find in the poetry, the romance, 
 the philosophy and history of the world ! What rivets for recol 
 lection have been forged by these journeyings ! What lessons 
 have we conned of the relations of man to man in society ! How 
 flimsy and meaningless seem the distinctions of wealth, which 
 some draw even in America, when we reflect upon the riches 
 that we have seen adorning nature by art, calling every luxury 
 upon the sumptuous board, and every decoration around the 
 tomb of the departed ! How much more do we love to contem 
 plate man, as man, undisguised by the frippery of rank, and 
 ennobled by his native dignity ! As, in passing, we have realized 
 the existence of place after place, and object after object, of 
 which we had read, and which slept in the twilight of uncertain 
 ty, a deeper confidence in human veracity has been inspired, and 
 a firmer faith in the Invisible and Eternal established ! 
 
 And yet travelling has its drawbacks in social cultivation. 
 Where so much want and beggary is seen, and which not even 
 Fortunatus, with his purse, could relieve, the heart is apt to 
 grow callous to misery. Oh ! it is not in the broad gairish sunshine 
 of the world that the gentler affections flourish best, but in the 
 security and seclusion of home. The sweetest and tenderest 
 flowers are the offspring of the shade. Under the domestic roof, 
 the primal duties are best observed. From the window of home 
 they are seen " to shine aloft like stars." 
 
 Some people estimate the attraction of an object by the dis- 
 
440 THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 
 
 tance from which it may draw the beholder (a truth in science, 
 if not in travelling), without regard to its intrinsic merit. So 
 do not I. In this age of steam locomotion, in which even so 
 unsophisticated a traveller as the writer has travelled over four 
 teen thousand miles in five months, the fashion is becoming stale 
 of judging beauty by its latitude, or sublimity by its longitude. 
 As well judge of the sublimity of Niagara by its furlongs from 
 Columbus, or the glory of Waterloo by its acres. We have 
 endeavored to detect the natural and artificial beauty, or recall 
 the classic allusion and historic association of the locality, and 
 thus present it for your eye. We were the more inclined to 
 observe this rule, from some excellent strictures of an Edinburgh 
 Reviewer, which we perused last spring. He said, that the 
 tourist just returned from Switzerland, looked down with a su 
 perior air on the visitor of the Rhine ; that he who had reached 
 Rome was subdued into silence before him who had scaled Ve 
 suvius ; while the few who had actually seen the East, were 
 marked men, and excited a kind of envy among the holiday herd 
 of wanderers whom their presence reduced to insignificance. He 
 Bays well, that there is no real distinction in having measured 
 thousands of miles, pent up with mobs of fellow creatures in 
 steamers and inns; for the smartest young Oxonian scarcely 
 ventures, in mixed society, to open his budget of stories about 
 the new hotel at Constantinople, or the old guide to Jerusalem, 
 when the odds are, that some one of the company is fresh from 
 California, or the trans-Himalayan regions. The importance 
 attached to long journeys merely is thus dying away. 
 
 If I should ever open my little budget too vauntingly, let 
 some friend remind me of an acquaintance I made going into 
 Smyrna. He was a Greek, and the only model of the age of 
 Pericles I had seen a very Alcibiades in the elegance of his 
 person, and the accomplishment of his manners. He was a black- 
 eyed, black-haired gentleman, with a face hirsute, yet beaming 
 with intelligence. He had been educated in some Italian Uni 
 versity, and was a thorough scholar, especially in the classic 
 
THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 441 
 
 Greek. He had left his parents fourteen years before, for his 
 travels, and was just returning. He spoke French like a Paris 
 ian, German very well, Russian well, English tolerably, and also 
 the Turkish and his vernacular Greek. He was not illy versed 
 in the language of the Arab, and some others of the Asiatic 
 tribes. 
 
 No wonder that he was such an encyclopedias linguist. He 
 had travelled from Asia, through Italy, France, Germany, Eng 
 land, and into Russia, where, having engaged in Caucasian and 
 Siberian expeditions, he was led into Asia again. He had tra 
 versed the most inaccessible parts of Caucasia and Georgia, had 
 roved among the Tartars, and exchanged hyperboles with the 
 Persian. The most inhospitable races in the world, as well as 
 the most difficult places to enter, may be found in the mountains 
 of Asia ; yet these races he had lived with, and these difficulties 
 surmounted. He had not travelled without an object. With a 
 pocket edition of Xenophon, he had followed that martial scholar 
 in his retreat with the " ten thousand ;" and had verified the 
 account given, parasang by parasang, and object after object. 
 He had gone with Jason to Colchis a perilous journey even 
 yet (although Colonel Doniphan s march during the Mexican 
 war is far more wonderful than either Xenophon s or Jason s 
 adventure), in search of the Argonautic fleece of gold. With 
 perils among snows and deserts, from poniards, starvation and 
 war, he had at last reached his home, where he proposed remain 
 ing, in order to reduce his experience to writing, and publish it 
 in French at Paris. But I doubt if such a nomad remain long 
 in Smyrna. His eye was already wandering over the ruins of 
 Central America and Peru, which he wished to see, in order to 
 verify some favorite hypotheses in relation to the Asiatic and 
 American races. I gave him a list of American books which 
 treat upon the subject. These will but fan the sparks into a 
 blaze ; in which he wHl go off, perhaps in search of the Hesper- 
 ides, or Isles of the Blest, beyond the setting sun, of which his 
 favorite Grecian poets so rapturously sing. 
 
442 THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 
 
 With such an adventurer yet alive on the earth, would it not 
 be wise to be chary of displaying one s limited travelling expe 
 rience, and to adopt the best, as well as the true touchstone, 
 which ever tests the objects seen by their intrinsic, and not by 
 any adventitious merit. 
 
 By this touchstone I would desire to test my native country ; 
 and would call upon the census returns, just taken, for my facts 
 and figures. By the same touchstone, I would desire to test my 
 native Buckeye State. She has not a long line of heraldry- 
 renowned in war, and great in council ; but she has yet in her 
 midst many of her own pioneers honest, hardy and true who 
 have seen her grow in a half century from a wilderness, support 
 ing a few Indians by its game, into a State with nearly two mil 
 lions of free people, and outgrowing her old constitution, and 
 within that time forced by the expansive spirit, and the in 
 creased prosperity of her people, to adopt a new organic law ! 
 She has not ruins and temples, basilicas and minsters ; but she 
 has great cities rising in the might of sleepless energy ; and all 
 the product of a few years. Well may the philosopher and 
 economist wonder at the results attained by the Republic of the 
 New World. Her progress, her civilization, her polity, her 
 comforts and amenities of life, and her prosperity, have no paral 
 lel in the history of nations. Those who are in her midst are 
 not conscious of this supremacy. From the shores of the Old 
 World one can gaze at the United States, with a full appreciation 
 of its truth, and return to its bosom to mingle with her masses, 
 with a citizen s pride, that no display of royalty, or glitter of 
 rank, no monuments of past glory or evidences of present power, 
 from the Bosphorus to the Thames, can mortify or humble. If 
 more of our young men could see the nations of the Old World, 
 as to whose enfranchisement from galling tyrannies the heart 
 almost ceases to hope ; if they could breathe the stifled air. 
 which must not hear a whisper of liberalism ; and then contem 
 plate our own free country, rising in the greatness of her strength 
 and instinct with the prompting of Destiny ; would there not be 
 
THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 443 
 
 instilled into the heart a warmer love and purer devotion to 
 their own native land ? 
 
 The " Buckeye abroad," will soon be a Buckeye at HOME. 
 The kindly air is blowing from the sweet South. The fogs 
 are left upon the banks. The sun shines pleasantly. Boston is 
 on our west. To-morrow morning, and we are in New- York ! 
 But within the last few days, time has not hung so heavily. 
 We have on board a songstress, Miss Hayes and troupe, going 
 to New- York to rival Jenny Lind. Yesterday a concert came 
 off for the benefit of the gallant tars and firehien, who brought 
 us safely out of the gales. Nearly two hundred dollars were 
 raised ; Miss Hayes warbled and Braham sang, with a potency 
 that calmed the sea ; and it was said, drew shoals of fish after 
 our steamer, which, considering that we were in the midst of the 
 great fisheries, was not so remarkable a phenomenon. As to our 
 dinner speeches, our hurrahs, our cheerful inventions to pass 
 time ; as to these minor matters, I need not now speak. Par 
 don me, that occasionally I have indulged in the light, where 
 there is so much of the serious to be written about. I fear to 
 attempt the profound ; lest it turn into the heavy, which even 
 the inspiration of the old world, with its thronging multitude of 
 interests, could not relieve. But my readers will do me the 
 justice to gay, that where Antiquity was present as a power, and 
 God was visible in the grandeur of his works, I have not in 
 dulged in the frivolous. There is one part of the tourist s re 
 cord, which has not regaled my readers. Have I made mouths 
 over meals, called on the reader to condole with my boiled egg 
 or pudding, or to swear at Boots while I stood in stocking feet 
 bawling in bad French? Have I dilated upon the want of 
 water in my pitcher, or grumbled like John Bull at the in 
 famous charges of landlords ? Content to eat what I could, and 
 surprised to find the world so much more honest than it has 
 credit for I have endeavored to realize my childhood s dream 
 and boyhood s wonder, by finding in the scenes of the Old 
 World an enchantment and a Presence, which in the repose of 
 home. Memory will unwillingly let die. 
 
444 THE BUCKEYE FOR HOME. 
 
 The cry is that Rhode Island is in sight ! Oh ! but that 
 sounds like home ! Little Rhody ; in whose University so 
 many months were passed conning over scenes which the last 
 summer has realized next to Ohio, she seems my own native 
 State. May not the pilgrim now conclude his wanderings, in the 
 language of Sir John Mandeville, that veracious and quaint old 
 traveller, whose marvels he read in the old halls upon that shore : 
 * I have passed manye landes and manye yles and contrees, and 
 cherched (found) manye fulle straunge places, and have ben in 
 manye fulle gode honourable companye. Now I am comen home 
 to reste. And thus have I recorded the tyme passed. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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