UC-NRLF E75 DTD SWALLOWS ON SWALLOWS ON THE WING GARDEN SPRINGS OF DELIGHT; WILL DE GKASSE. " Tho more thy glories strike my eyes The humbler I shall lio ;" For it is prido that only prevents happiness ,- " Thus while I sink my joys shaiM'lpe > ' Immeasurably high." NEW YORK : PUBLISHED BY MICHAEL DOOLADY, No. 448 BROOME STREET. 1866. Entered according to Act of Congress in tho year 1865, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of tho United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. The title of this bouquet of summer recreation, under the name of " SWALLOWS ON THE WING," may suggest to some minds reminiscences of that charming piece of music known under the name of " When the Swallows Homeward Fly," one of Schubert's most charming songs. To others it may seem typical of the flight of those summer guests who skim o'er the watering-places of the north, and, not unlike Gideon's followers, lap the waters only to slake their thirst while in the pursuit of those transitory pleasures which a hot summer compels us all to seek. The additional term of " Garden-Springs of Delight " may hint at the cur- sory character of mere pleasure-seekers, v;ho hop from spring to spring, passing over the real delights which arc contained in the inner light of natural beauty, but do not stop to consider that our strength lies often in sitting still, after the old Italian proverb, Quida non movere. ** The rolling stone gathers no moss," and a hop, skip, and jump, after the manner of boys playing at hop-scotch, is no less typical of the leap-frog processions of those rapid travelers who race from Lund's End to the Falls of Niagara, or from Penobscot to Milwaukic, as if life and death depended on the measure of their velocity. The habit is so general that it has become contagious. It is the fashion, and that is the end of it. Nature now has no further use than to supply artificial waterfalls for those natural. Gardens are turned into illustrations for the beauties cf the fall bonnets ; cataracts arc delicately converted into rats and mice, which lie dormant under the liair : and all nature is swallowed up in a fcariul distortion of ihv 910001 principles, not unliko the Duke of Bridge water's Treatise, in he proclaimed " that rivers were made to feed canaV Thus it hap- pens that swallows become gulls, beauties are turned in f o beaux, and all the springs of life so twisted out of shape that our carriages ought to be dragged, for we are all going too repidily downhill. Finally, it comes to this, that the grave sw.dlow.s us all. While time is on the wing, we are all passing through garden -springs of delight, if we did but know it. The elastic spring of " her little feet beneath her petticoat, like little mice, run in and out, as if they feared the light," and the steel spring of Brooks' handsome boots, which Adam's offspring de- light to display every day on Broadway, is but an offset to show off the flaunting wings and plumage of birds-of-paradise and pheasant, which adorn the head-dresses of all the she-swallows that flit along our streets. Notwithstanding which we have to swallow them whole, and are ingulfed in such a maelstrom of delight that we men cannot possi- bly escape from their influence, even should we use our swallow ooat- tails as rudders to weather out their storms. God bless and preserve all the women, Bui allow a few rights for their men 1 Adiou I REMINISCENCES V QF, 3TOW& A. SKETCH OF .A. SUMMER TRIP THROUGH VERMONT. BOOK WHEN a man in a boat rows one way and looks another, he is not unlike certain people who go into the Cv untry on a pleasure excursion for the avowed purpose of enjoying themselves, or improving their health, dur- ing a period of one, two, or three months, according to their fancy. What a strange result often succeeds their aspirations alter these various ends ! How often have the many fond imaginations of travelers or sojourners throughout the country been thrust aside, and led them to misgivings, as to whether the original design of each individual had been carried out to the full extent of their programme ! Mr. and Mrs. Plumpkins intended, perhaps, to save board ; for, when you move in May from the city, it is just as economical to board in the country for six months as to keep a hotel for your negro servants in the metropolis, just as the English go to Bologne for economy's sake Jamaway and family, with thrco small children and one at the breast, find: it best to pass away the heated term of tho yoa*,- arrd enjoy their pastime, near the marble quarries of Vermont. JoncS t'uicT .family, having sent their carriages and teams ahead with Jenkins, their coachman, may choose Saratoga as the best place to do their snmmerings at this presont rowdy and shoddy resort of fashion and extravagance. What cares Publican Franks whether the elite longer frequent his caravansera or not, so long as Bill Longdraft comes to inhabit his rooms, and is willing to stable his four-in-hand in his barns, and open his six bottles of champagne a day at the table d'hote ? Such, however, is life at Saratoga now ; and the place where the world, the flesh, and the devil go is the spot where our saints like best to study out the warnings of the preachers ; where all are so well exhibiting the everchanging contrast between the lights and shadows of life. Whichever watering-resort is sought, by whomsoever, and among whomsoever, it matters not ; the same things always happen, " that people do not do the thing they first pretended to when they left their homes for to do." All seem to be trying their utmost to make themselves as miserable as pos- sible during the hot weather ; and, instead of going up the mountains to reside there during the interval of their absence, they remain under the porches of an inn, always complaining- about the heat, or frying their complexions in the sun, and getting pretty well roasted out in the Hi r in a hot valley, quite snugty ensconced between the adjacent hills, so that they get so well baked by the time they are i r ;ady to go home that you would think that they had been all tho time basted with flour, put in a Dutch tin roaster, and had boon so well cooked that they would keep well preserved all through the winter, so very well had they been done brown. " Verily, this is stepping out of the frying-pan into the fire." For instance, we quote the present game of croquet, so furiously engaged in by the ladies, with an occasional beau for a partner, for the men were so scarce this sum- mer iu these regions that they could not be had for love or money, even by advertisement, excepting a few super- annuated old bachelors, who boasted they had passed seventeen years successively at Sharon, Saratoga, and White Mountains. What a wonder that the waters and the snows from the mountains had not completely washed them out of the way ! But notwithstanding all this, travel is a mixed matter, and all of us being but passen- gers in this wilderness of life, like the whole fabric of these human bodies, it has its warp and woof of contra- diction, folly, and delight. A little health is the gain, a little pain sometimes in the heart ; the gain is flirta- tion, poetry, song, festivity ; and heart-burn from sorry victuals and bad cooking ; and amid all the crowds that are hurrying back and forth through the mazy intervals of valleys, water-courses, and waterfalls, life is not unlike a rapid stream which is swiftly flowing and wending its course toward the broad ocean of eternity. Ever and anon the dream is broken by accident, and sad catastrophes mingle among the course of our sum- mer experience ; for example, one fair damsel has a fall and breaks an ankle on Mount Monadnock's slippery side, and is carried down the hilly path, straddlec a-pig-back, held up by her attendant gallants, tlu - 8 only and a novel mode of constructing 1 a stretcher for the broken limb. Another youthful girl is accidently shot by a pistol carelessly handled by her lover, at Con- way, New Hampshire. Two fair beauties from Gotham are thrown out of a buggy, the harness having broken, and themselves saved from a pitch over the precipice, but are rescued from destruction by the strong arm of the gallant Miles, a soldier of civic fame in Brattle" boro'. Not far oif a sad murder is committed in a barn at Williston, by some returning stray soldiers of fortune. A barrel of gol4 was the prize which satan held out to tempt their avarice ; but there was retribution in the sacrifice of this victim, for covetousness had early seized the brain of this greedy woman, who had boasted that she would never be satisfied until she had got her barrel of gold ; she was killed in the same barn where the money had been hidden for years, and long before her secret had been disclosed, as it was heard by a wily listener. It was just the devil breathing the poison in the woman's ear, as in the old time of Adam. Again we are shocked by rumors of certain moral falls, and sad catastrophes breathe through the air of far- off Gotham. The sulphurous taints of Sodom and Gomorarrah reach our ears through the channels of the daily press, while non-residents are startled by the iniquities of Jenkins and the constructive gold forgeries of poor young Ketchum. As for ourselves, our peace of mind was too valuable, and no newspaper was suf- fered to disturb the entire period appointed for our fixed episode for rest and repose. " No news being good news," as saith the proverb, why bother about things which do not concern you ? as for bad news, it flies quick 9 enough. But to return to the course of travel, let us go back, as one is often compelled when starting horses on the race-course. At our departure from New York, in July, wo took the Daniel Drew (not having first stopped to enquire how much she drew). We had first been interrupted by a policeman ordering our baggage-wager off the dock (city ordinance requiring all private carts should be licensed) ; it was thought best to apologize and pocket the affront, and we promised that in futuie the family name should be properly and fully painted both on our cart and on cur' donkey. We had a very pleasant sail as far as Albany, and nothing further occurred to interrupt the journey until a baggage-man, purporting to be the regularly appointed expressman ibr the Drew, seized hold of our escort just as we were about landing at the steamboat wharf, and, taking the list of our several pieces of baggage, gave us his address on a card, having the number of tho checks which he had placed on each of the trunks ; these we retained, and without further anxiety, having been assured by this factor that we need not be at all concerned about its delivery at the cars, we took an omnibus, and started in great haste, in order to take the train which was about to start for Saratoga from the depot Lear the Delavan House .(for there was just five minutes time to be spared in this hurry). We had been reas- sured that the luggage would follow by the next train, which was to leave at 7, P. M. it was now 5, P. M., and that we would find it all safe at Saratoga. On our arrival at the Clarendon Hotel, kept by one of the Lelands, we secured rooms for the ladies, but 1* 10 ufter inquiring after the trunks, none were forthcoming What a predicament for a party of ladies to be left in ! They might as well have been left without waterfalls, crinoline, or money-bags. In traveling dress it was very difficult to present ourselves in the society of 1he parlors of the various hotels, but one could peep in at the windows and recognize a few acquaintances, who were busily chatting and gossiping inside, and very much engaged in discussing the characters of the hop, at which they were expected to enjoy themselves a great deal, as it was to be the last ball of the season. The pleasure of looking in through the windows, while other people were enjoying themselves in dancing and having a good time generally, is not unlike that which Dickens tells of, where a boy is supposed to view an operation through the front glass of an apothecary's shop window while the surgeon is cutting off a man's leg in the back room, out of sight; or like that peculiar burst of indignation which falls from a near-sighted per- son, who drops his spectacles, and is stopped, stone blind, in the middle of the crisis of a very stirring novel which he had been engaged in reading. In short, there was nothing in it, as Matthews observed after he had walked up Vesuvius and looked down the crater, " There was nothing in it after all." The fun, like the fiery lava, was all outside, so there was nothing for the Fudge party to do but to retire to the hotel, and go to bed that night to dream of the lost trunks which were expected to arrive the next day. On the next morning search for the baggage was resumed. No trunks were found even after having dis- patched a telegraph and a special messenger. So, after 11 having attend* if the races, our party started by an ex- press train named for that occasion the race-train. We arrived late in the afternoon back at Albany, and ther j found all our V 4 baggage snugly ensconced in the freight depot in cfc--Me of the baggage-master, where it had been held for safe keeping, and for the express purpose of getting aj. extra quarter of a dollar for every piece of impedmuntum owned by each member of our party. Make a note of this, and chalk it down as " Swindle No. 1." Stick a pin here. The next beautiful experience that occurred to the Fudges was in our dealings with the agent of that new arrangement which has been started recently, at an office near Stanwix Hail, in a rear building, which is denominated " The Troy and Boston Railroad : the eld and reliable all-rail route." Here you take your tick- ets through, and as our party were bound for Manchester, in order to visit the Equinox Mountains, we were ticketed through to that point by one Mr. Craven, agent, by name; the baggage was properly marked, and the two ladies' money-bags were checked as one piece j this was ex- pressly so directed by said agQafc, and performed under the eye of their escort and ia presence of the hotel por- ters. This piece of caution having been secured, our party started by the Qity railroad cars, and, having passed over the bridge, were ferried across the Hudson to the city of Tray opposite. It were well to describo the little ferry-boat which plies between this point and Troy. Imagine a very respectable large-sized washtub to which paddles have been attached, and that an. incon- ceivably small cabin-like shed had cohered over $ large tea-kettle which keeps puffing away under a high pressure of steam with the furiousness of an enraged 12 porpoise, and that the whole machine went sputtering through the water with a velocity and a bluster quite disproportionate to the size of. the machine, and you will have but a poor idea of the little sea-monster which plows through the water, near these Trojan banks, on the Hudson, and which has no simile to express its peculiar features, not even in those little black steam- tugs which ply on the Thames, between Westminister and Waterloo bridge, in London. We had no sooner landed in Troy, and taken our seats in the cars on the Troy side of the river, when we dis- covered that one of the small bags of the party had been cut away by one of the light-fingered gentlemen who frequent the depots of every city, and like birds of prey follow after the trunks of travelers. N. B. We are happy to say that, after several telegraphs and sun- dry strong epistolary notes, savoring of & smack of the 'egal profession, the lost small bag was duly forwarded to the owner thereof at Boston. We do, in justice to r he agent's efforts, thank Mr. Craven for its expedition *o our friend's address on Chestnut street. 13 BOOK SECOND. MANCHESTER VILLAGE, VERMONT. Whatever other people may say of the delightful cli- mate of the STREET of Manchester, in Vermont, for such is the title by which non-resident and tmvn folks in the vicinity designate this plot of habitation, we found it one of the hottest plains in Vermont, situated in an interval (for valleys are so entitled in this region). It is embraced within the two ranges of hills which hem it in ; the Green Mountains on the easterly side, and the Equinox Mountain on the westerly slope. Why don't people call things by their proper names ? Were it not for the numerous marble quarries, yielding their pro- duct of calcareous chalk or blocks of white marble, derived from them after they have been wedged out of their strata, there is scarcely a range of elevation in the State of Vermont, excepting Mount Mansfield, near the village of Stowe, which is truly worthy of the name of "a mountain." Truth demands that they should be always called what they were first named, " The Green Hills of Vermont" Ver being a contrac- tion of verdi which ancient conglomerate settled down into such a green mixture of gray wacke, gneiss, granite, hornblende, and into cold marble, so shocked its baro- faced neighbor, old Mountain Equinox, that nature filled its interior with a basis of slate in sheer opposition, which could* not possibly be construed into anything 14 like green, even should any strolling artist designate it green among his pencilings in slate-pencil. In fact, old Equinox was so jealous of its own mountainous characteristic that it denied having any connection with the Green Hills, and, taking refuge among the spurs of the Adirondack chain, positively refused to permit any of the Vermonters to quarry out its veins, but sent to Wales for Welshmen to substantiate its own con. sciousness of superior rank as a respectable mountain. Notwithstanding this little digression, which served to while away our stay at this point, we can say that they keep a very fair table at the hotel on the Street, and our hostess, Mrs. Orvis, did everything to make our visit agreeable to our party. The rides about the place are quite numerous and pretty, and can all be done after dinner ; the most charming are those which run along in sight of, and on the borders of, Batten kill, the most notable stream ever distinguishable among these hills, which once had plenty of trout in its waters, but now has been too often trolled out by the thousands of fisher- men who frequent this country village. During the summer the guests of the hotel are privileged, how- ever, to try their skill and fish on the Orvis artificial pond, near by, provided their product is placed in the larder of the hotel. On the whole, this is a good place to kill time in, and to escape from the corrupt influences of the city ; or, as the Italians say, one's " mlliagiatura" might as well be passed at Manchester as elsewhere, on the principle that ice is better kept when covered up with a blanket than by any other means, and provided that your inn is well kept, house room, swept nicely, and your Boniface a good fellow ; warm-natured people 15 mJffht as well be Bottled down near these quarry store of white marble, and cool off under the shadow of these hills, on the same principle that one looks on snow to dream of Caucasus. The ascent to Equinox M ountain was attempted by a couple of our guests on horseback, but, as we are not in the habit of telling more of those travelers' tales than the truth permits, we will only say th: t we did not get up to the summit, but stopped short at the ruins of an old block-house, that might as well have been called a log-cabin, for sheltering parties, and having plucked a fir-tree from its bed among the rocks (which still, as planted by us, is to be seen at the house of the Rev. Dr. W 1 an old preceptor of one of our party a memento of our failure, but a monument for a future visit), we left the summit behind us, thus saving us several hundred yards of hard climbing ; and stretched before us is that sweet perspective of distance which lends enchantment to the view. Rapidly descending the sides of the mountain, we arrived back at the hotel, having gathered for our compensation the following reflections : That we did not see the view which might have beeu sighted if the hot misty sky had nofc prevented us ; that all we did see was a fine view of the valleys down below, which were sprinkled with numerous farm- houses, presenting an appearance of landscape which resembled mere patches of bed-quilts, such as are worked into the varied party-colors of a country bod- quilt or a rag carpet ; and the best part of the journey up was repaid by those glimpses of scenery which are seen as you ascend and look through the openings in the forests, whence you obtain such pictures, along the 16 running- line of the hills, the aspects of the distant mountains, the rapid lifelike, rocky, rilly streams, and the far-off villages, which present to the beholder such sketches of landscape and patches of beauty, into minglings of shadows and light, cloud phantoms and sunshine, as convey to the artist those emotions that form his ideas for studies, to be finished up and furnish- ed to the life at home in his studio. Apart from these there is naught worthy of notice except an occasional pleasant conversation with an old friend, seen in a new aspect, the forming of new acquaintances, and a few happy comparisons and criticisms with the artist along- side of you. It is not worth while saying anything of the fancy ball which we did not sec, and if we had we might have been tempted to say some foolish things about the follies of the fair, and the fantasies of one graceful lady who advertised Sterling's ambrosia in a more extensive manner than had ever been before ; but of the rest " the least said the soonest mended." There is a pretty little Episcopal church at Factory village, many very intelligent people in the place, many warm, earnest hearts beating with all those ardent feelings that dwell eternally in the human breast ; and wo enjoyed our time spent there for Sabbath rest with b3nefit to our souls, and listening to the sound of Church bells, beyond the stars heard the soul's Wood The land of spices something understood ; And in prayer, the Church's banquet angel's age ; The soul in paraphrase ; the heart in pilgrimage. The Christian's plummet, sounding heaven and earth, God's breath in man returning to his birth. GEORGE HERBERT. 17 While there one of our party left for an excursion to Lake Memphramagog. It was a hurried journey, occu- pying three or four days, one of which was spent on oui return o.t Bellows Falls, of which place more will be said anon. It will be observed in travel that " they who know least about a place are the first to deter you from going to see it," and that there are a hundred different opinions about every point which is to be visited, and every place to stop at on your road. One says, " Don't go to Stowe, it's so stupid ;" others say, "Don't go to Bellows Falls, they'll run you down on the Falls; 7 ' another says, " Don't go to Brattleboro', there is no water-cure there now," and so on ad injinitum. Our best advice is to go in spite of all that other people say. There are always some kind people who are ready to say, as they did to Eothen, "Don't go to Cairo, there were two men of the same name as yourself who died there of the plague." " Don't go to Spain," was said to another party, "the banditti will murder you." In spite of which we did go, and had a very pleasant time in both places. The chances in travel are those of the sailor with the cannon ball. Two balls don't often go through the same hole, and the old fable sums up the whole mat- ter in a nutshell : "If you want to dance, you must pay the fiddler ; " and again, " It is not proper in any case for an old man to carry the donkey on his shoulders when he has sor.s who have broad backs." Now that the railroad is finished up to the shore, it was found best to go to Lake Memphramagog this sum- mer, leaving Bellows Falls for another time. Mr. S , of Baltimore, joined me in this excursion, and in spite of all thai wa.s told us about the horrid hotel at White 18 River Junction, we pushed on northward by way of the Patumpsic and Connecticut Railroad.* You pass several places of interest on the way to the lake. At Wells river you may take the railroad as far a s.Littleton, in the direction of the White Mountains, and further on, getting out, you may stage it from Brucc's Station, where one will find it will repay a digression by a trip to Lake Willoughby, which is so wild and dark. Most picturesque and gloomy are the high walls which hem in the contour of this sheet of water ; a scene for a romance might be well founded from a spot which presents so bold and fearful an aspect to. the vision of an imaginative traveler. And further on as you proceed, there is a little lake at about seven miles from the greater Magog, where the walls of a bold limestone formation frown over the scene, and the lofty parapets of stone present a fine aspect to the beholder as he is riding by. While approaching the end of our trip we were again warned by some fellow-traveller not to take the little boat which plies from the lake shore to wPs Head. " It was an old canal-boat placed on wheels," said a returning volunteer, whose evidence proved of very little value on examination, for he had not been near the spot for a number of years ; " and doubtless," replied the elder of our party, " all the people who have been steaming on this boat since the first of July were drowned, without benefit of clergy." It was the old * This hotel during the war had been the resort of all the bounty- jumpcrs, and of course they left a very bad reputation behind them. I5ut we were batchelors ; we could stand it for one night. We would not advise parties with ladies to stop over here. We found the beds were clean, and the bedrooms well furnisheJ. 10 story of the old man, his sons, and donkey. Don't carry it. We were bound to go. "Let us bo drowned to- gether," replied my friend ; and we did start by this steam-tug, shortly after dining at the hotel, which is capitally kept, not inferior to any other at which wo had stopped during the summer. To Owl's Head we went, in spite of all ominous predictions to the contrary and found the smallest conceivable sized boat in the world was to carry about thirty people as far as this little mountain, which seemed from the wharf about seven miles distant. While you are on the way you cross the domains of her British Majesty the Queen, and while the captain was obliged to hand the ship's manifest to one of her officers, we surveyed the proportions of the custom-house, which was constructed of pine boards. Surely the Queen is not very handsomely represented by the buildings, which here stand for the dignity and powers of the kingdom of England, for the receipt of her revenue at this point. While those on the boat were whiling away an hour at the base of Owl's Head, we had an opportunity of rowing a farmer across the lake, and thereby had a fine view of the Smugglers' Cave, and were favored with a grand panoramic view of the whole lake. Memphramogog is one of the finest sheets of water in America, and when Canada is annexed to the United States it will be more beautiful still. But at present still waters run deep, and wu must abide our time. . BOOK THIRD. The passage back from the foot of Owl's Head Moun- tain was attended with no other incident than that of stopping a few minutes in order to procure some of the famous muscalongue trout which are caught on the lake. They are peculiar to these waters, but are rarely taken except by the most expert fishermen. We returned, by the Patumpsic and Connecticut Railroad via St. Jolmsbury and Windsor, to Bellows Falls, to spend Sunday at the latter place, where I met one of iny ac- quaintances of the New York bar, who fvas on his way to the lake; and on the Sabbath evening, after tea, we agreed to climb up the hills in front of the Island House, where we viewed together the sun as.it descended behind the horizon. The lansdcape here exhibited is not to be sur- passed by any other point on the Connecticut river, and not less appreciable from the summits of admiration in which it was regarded by my companion, who was here enjoying his vacation. With what pleasure we observed together, the glories of the scene before us, resting awhile at various stages in the ascent ; in fact, lying down on the grass at intervals, and at one spot admired one of the most beautiful sugar-maple trees that ever spread its arms to ornament tho face of nature. Many glimpses of beauty appeared through several openings in the distance, and at every stand-point a- new aspect of the rich landscape spread before us. How majestically 21 the Connecticut wound its ribboned veins through the rich lawns of green valleys that husbanded the richly cultivated plains, and how sweetly and luxuriously swelled the rounded forms of the rolling mounds of furrowed land, more lovely than even the blushes of the declining sunset gilding the mountains, but not to be compared to the full, heaving, throbbing swells of the bosom of a beautiful woman. The whole scene recalled those sweet lines of Dr. Watts : " How fine has the day been, how bright was the sun, How lovely and joyful the course that he run ; But now the fair traveler comes to the west, His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best ; He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest, And foretells a bright rising again ; And gives a sure hope, at the end of his days, Of rising in brighter array.' 1 Let us back out of such sentimentalism, and change from mountain to the sea. It is a long day's ride by railroad from Manchester, Vermont, over the mountains, by the way of Keene and Boston, to Rye Beach, in New Hampshire. The new hotel at Rye Beach is nicely kept and well appointed. Fashion has claimed its halls, and the usual summer delights are to be enjoyed there, not, perhaps, always in the sea, nor in the hotel, save in the society of pleasant people ; for, after all, this sought pleasure is purchased through a thousand perturbations of heart, and amid all the throbs of active human life the most miserable of all beings is the mere woman of the world.. We enjoyed one thing only in and about this place called Rye, and that was a sail in Philbrick's yacht, from the harbor, near the Atlantic House, to the old Boar's Head, where in my boyhood I had fished for bright cod and dark tautog, and shot plovers in the neighboring- marshes. There is pleasure on the boundless sea, and its throbbing waters filled me with glorious emotions. The heart leaps in response to the music of its summer waves ; all is sublime in the upheavings of the bound- less ocean. Return now, and chassez across to the regions of Wa- tcrbury, and back to Stowe, through Concord, in New Hampshire. Passing by Epping, we were detained by the crowd hurrying away from the Methodist camp- meeting. The cars were full of singing men and women, arid all was cheerful as the marriage-bell until we landed at Concord. Next morning, by way of White River Junction and the Vermont Central, we reached Waterbury, about 4, P. M. ; there taking the old- fashioned coach, with six-in-hand, we started off for Stowe. After the first four miles, the swelling lines of hills show the approach of the more remote and loftier mountains. All the way along the line of the railroad small hillocks appear, like young children, denoting a promise of a larger growth in youth and manhood. This is continuously true until you reach Mount Mans- field, the highest point in Vermont. We landed at the Mount Mansfield Hotel at 7 o'clock, P. M., which is kept by a Company, the presiding genius of which is a counselor-at-law, one Bingham, and Bowman, his attorney, in fact. All professions, there- fore, may find themselves at home here, where one is well kept, and boarded very cheap ; for people have a con- science in the town of Stowe, as we found by our own experience experientia doc^t, such is the wisdom of the sage Solomou, often learned by hard knocks and rough railroad travel. Now we are in it for a fortnight, let us settle down into a systematic review of the pleasures and pastimes, recreations and delights, to be enjoyed at Stowe. Many years ago one Huntirigton and a party of artists were strolling among the mountains of Vermont in search of the picturesque, and equally as ready to draw a sketch as to take a fish out of the many trout streams which abound in the vicinity of Stowe. (Trout are very scarce there now, and can only be caught with the lure of a silver hook.) But amid the wilds and unopened paths of these mountains, some- how or other, these wanderers had lost their way, and when by chance they afterward discovered it, it was but' to bivouac in the nearest farm-house, where they stowed their luggage, and thence yclept this name of Stowe. In order to give a good idea of the many ways in which to beguile your time at this place, begin with the rides, which are the Notch ; up Mount Mansfield to Morristown Falls, and its rapids, resembling somewhat Trenton (embracing, that is, Hyde Park) ; Glen Palls view ; the lake on Elmore Mountain ; the drive to Nebraska, over the Notch, and back ; the excursion round Mansfield, and back by way of Cambridge, home ; the Bingham waterfall, recently opened, and several delightful points to be visited, even if one varies the excursion by a trip over " Hogback " to Watertown, and thence to Montpelier. Air, open-air exercise, out in the sunshine, or, even on the hottest day, riding on horse- back, walks afoot, walkings in company, moonlight 24 excursions, and its romantic attendants, poetry and song, constitute the means of recreation, and are the proper ways by whbh to establish your health. Don't be afraid of the sun ; light, air, and freedom in the use of your arms and legs, unrestricted by tight clothing, are as essential to mankind or women as they arc to the birds, animals, and flowers. Healthy people go hero to enjoy the real blessings of health ; sickly people can be nursed better at home, they are not improved by rough- ing it and dissipation, be the spot Stowe, Saratoga, or any one of the summer watering-resorts. Do not stick in the hotel, in the hot atmosphere of gossip, scandal, and peevish complaint ; the worst of victuals are good enough for splenetic temperaments, and there are hos- pitals for diseased minds and disordered bodies. But go out, enjoy everything with a freshness of apprecia- tion, and play at croquet, even with the hot sun blazing over your head, and never mind people who arc always grumbling about the hot weather, which, if not firmly resisted, will entirely prevent you from ever get- ting out of the hotel, and deprive you of very many pleasant excursions. On the whole, many are the delights of Stowe. All the praises that we have heard in its favor prior to our visit fell short of the reality of our enjoyment of the treasures of beauty. What can exceed the grandeur of the Notch? the Smuggler's Notch as it is called ; the light ascension on Barton's Kock, which crowns the end of this valley of green, where the ribbed rocks are gar- landed with rich verdure up to the summit of their ele- vated bulwarks, and where, at every point of your enraptured vision, are spread bouquets of moss-covered 25 boulders, which are scattered at intervals as you ap- proach toward the fountain of the cool spring- of ice- water that issues out of its hidden chamber in the rocks. What more sublime than the heights of Old Mansfield's Nose, where the winds blow with the force of a hurri- cane, and the wild fir-trees bend their forms in homage to its majesty ? The valleys lay open their beauties and fill us with admiration and delight. " We praise Thee, God ; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord," was the burst of our enthusiasm as we looked down on the plains below, where the vales, of gardens and fields, were fertilized by the channels of the running streams, and, standing thick with corn, make the hills rejoice on every side. Nothing can be more pleasing or invigorat- ing than such prospects to those who relish the simple beauties of nature. We could speak of the pleasant domestic society of this admirable resort ; of the many pleasant people who really do enjoy their visit to this spot, and find that it has been good for them to have been there. The society of the parlors was more like that of the home circle, and they met together here as friends, to have a good time together. Many of the guests had been there since June ; some from Boston spend the whole summer, and gather around themselves all their relatives, who are drawn hither by the amenities of this newly discovered Utopia. We could speak of the very pleasant walks we had together ; of the Sabbath eve- ning spent on Sunsefc Hill, just back of the hotel ; of the sweet music which poured from the throats of that happy band of sweet singers who sat on the rock, as the last rays of the sun, lingering still as if reluctant to depart, and of the reminiscence of the Saviour, whose love to 2 26 Mary and Martha led Him to call us all His friends, and who delighted to seek the mountain-top for prayer and meditation ; and, repeatedly, emotions of the highest, gratitude arose in the midst of this group of innocent girls, as we viewed the glories of departing day. Again, we find pleasure in the recital of the gold- hunting party, who were so cleverly grouped in the gay scenes of the gold-washers, by the photographer of Stowe, than whom few are more successful even in Gotham. There were also at the hotels several very good, and some distinguished, artists, among whom was the excel- lent President of our own Academy of Design. We will say nothing of one true lover of his art, so quiet in the study of all the natural beauties about the town and vdcinity of Stowe, a proper " Jtuss in urbe" doubtless well considered and truly appreciated alongside of his companion of the easel, one Hogsdon, whose " wine needs no bush" to herald his fame. But of the singing women and graceful beauties of the parlor it becomes us not to over-praise them. Their charms are better sounded by the poets, and we leave our theme to the muse who wrote those beautiful verses which were sung by a quartette of sweet voices under the windows of the hotel it midnight, after the return of the party of excursionists who had left that morning at half-past four for St. Albans We all appreciated the sound of music at night, and one may best understand how well we were entertained by the gushing utterance of this band of nightingales, when you are reminded by those trilling notes of a bugle on Hie lake, when the moonlight is shining at the zenith of ts splendor, and the solemn quiet and calm of nature s summed up in " an audible silence." 27 BUMMER DAYS AT STOWE. i. Come, comrades, join your voices In song before we go ; The forest aisles will echoes ring, And bear the strains below. As over us the moments pass, The moments lightly flow, We'll sing, with praise of summer days, Of summer days in Stowe. ii. 'Neath the shadows of the mountains, Where the red man drew his bow, We'll gather round the social board, And naught but pleasure know. And when with reminiscences Our hearts are all aglow, We'll sing, with praiso of summer days, Of summer days in Stowe. HI. Had this been Adam's Paradise Six thousand years ago, No tempter e'er had entered in To fill the world with woe. Eve would have sung her vesper hymn In cadence sweet and low, As we sing now of summer days, Of summer days in Stowe. IV. Now, on the threshold of the night, Sol, lingering, bids us go, And leave the homes of fairies bright Unvexed by foot of foe. But let no chilling touch of time, While wandering to and fro, Danish the thought of summer days, Of summer days in Stowe. 28 BOOK FOURTH. CONTINUATION OF STOWE. On the last evening we spent at Stowe, it was laie Saturday afternoon ; we had one of the finest showers of the season ; people had been praying for rain several Sundays back, and the crops were suffering for lack of moisture ; the blessing came at last, and thanksgiving, of course, followed from all the thirsty farmers. We notice this shower particularly for the reason that a large number of the guests had been caught out in the storm, some on horseback, some in buggies, others on buck-boards a new way of riding on a spring cart, whereby a plank constitutes the seat, and a buffalo robe the saddle others in carriages, and not a few on foot. They most all had a good ducking and came home dripping wet, more like drowned rats than the elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen who had started out to ride. We were fortunate in having escaped this deluge, having been warned not to attempt any outside exercise, first by the appearance of the sky, and secondly by a good-natured hostler, who would not let us depart from the hotel, although we had en- gaged a team. But we had our compensation in going up on top of the hotel, and there remaining half an hour under the shelter of the belvedere, in the company of several ladies ; we enjoyed the glorious prospects which wore there presented by various changes in the sky dur- ng the progress of the shower, and observed the numerous 29 storm clouds in the lights and shades, which were shift- ing continually around the horizon ; and vivid flashes as of lightning displayed tho rich green belts of the bend- ing willows waving over both banks of the Onion river, which, like a girdle of evergreen bushes, could bo disco v- ered at this point of view, as it wended its serpent-like folds throughout its whole superficial range in the per- spective of the valley before your vision ; added to this was a border of the numerous mountains which fringes the plains of Stowe, where, at one point of sight, werl to be seen Mount Mansfield, Sterling Mountain, and the old bald face, El more Mount, the Saddle Back,. Hog- back Hills, and other lofty elevations, forming a delight- ful picture, and perfecting one of the most gorgeous panoramas to be found in the whole extent of the Green Mountains. On Tuesday morning we took our leave of Stowe, and stopping at Montpelier, which is one of the most interesting places in Vermont visited by us. The State house is not excelled in the elegance of its structure *by any other building erected for government purposes in the United States, and only surpassed in beauty by the massive proportions of the capitol at Washington. Tm< same architect designed both edifices. The former has been planted firmly on a rock, for its foundation was hewn out of the stony hill in its rear, upon which pei manent location may it stand as long as the duration oi our own noble Constitution Esto Perpetuo ! Into the interior I was conducted by the amiable and Honorable Judge Noyes, who told us that he had once been a member of the Sonate and of the Assembly in 'his State, and very courteously pointed out to us tlu 80 seat which he once occupied as a representative of his constituents in Vermont. While in another portion of ;he upper hall, he showed us a beautifully painted por- ;rait of the Honorable Judge Williams, who had once jeen the Chief-Justice of the State, and that this depic- :ion of their ablest lawyer had been presented by the nienLers of the Vermont bar. In every portion of the country we found it very pleasant to find this honorable profession very ably represented ; and in spite of the contumely with which many of us are treated, we believe it still worthy of the respect of all fair-minded citizens. The character of the solidarity of the Green-mountain State is well sustained by the many specimens of marble which are kept in the cabinet of mineralogy, which is to be seen in the last chamber in the north side of the lower hall. No less than one hundred and fifty varieties of the various quarries are there collected, and some of the samples arc as beautiful and firm as any that have been imported to this country from Italy. They have also placed under one of the cases a very perfect specimen of the skeleton of an antediluvian whale, which was dug out of the marl formation in one of the neighboring counties. In the afternoon we took a long drive clown the side of the Onion river, and returning, after having visited the cemetery, took a northerly direction, and followed the river road up as far as the village of Little Barry, where, in a fine build- ing, a very fair boarding-school for young ladies ia kept. Thence passing over the hill road, we turned back in the direction of home, and leaving West Mont- pelier village, a short distance in view from our right, : we were driven through a very romantic and pictur 31 esque road, lately engineered alongside of the banks of the largest branch of the Onion, where the pathway at times seemed very hazardous, passing as it did sc closely along the bank of the stream. At these points it seemed very wild and rapid, and flowing swiftly rushed over the rocks in the way, and breaking at inter vals, dashed into several very pretty cascades anc waterfalls. It is out of the waters of this branch of the river, in the shoals, when the water is low, that the celebrated Mont- pelier pearls are taken, and which can be had there at the New York market value, and not a fraction lower. Mr. Mead, the jeweler, to the contrary, and his Yankee notions notwithstanding. Why repeat any further the course of our travel after- ward, when we had left Montpelier and were on our way home by way of White Kiver Junction and the Vermont Central and Connecticut River Railroad, and so on, by way of Bellows Falls to Brattleboro', where we stopped for a fortnight's rest at this beautiful and romantically situated town ? Stowe has its beauties, Manchester its ; the green pasture lands of Greenfield no less claim attention from the artist and the poet ; but of all the places for a poor mortaPs sojourn for the summer (now that its water-cure establishments have ceased, " let ducks take to water, for 'tis their nature to") BraUleboro* is our delight ; that's the spot for us, and Apfelbaum, our hotel keeper, named Appletree in English, that social German, is the host for us, whose house, called the 11 Lawrence House," keeps itself on the German plan, and has a sort of laissez-aller in its own where everybody 32 doc3S as he pleases, Und of course is pleased with himself and with everybody else, for vanity is defined by the poet as " the sweet reflection of one's own sweet self into the self-same image of another's mind." This Emil Apfelbaum kept a very sloppy house. When the rattling stage-coach landed us at the front door, we were ushered in with our trunks, that is to say, we carried our own trunks on our proper persons, but how the trunks ever got off the stage and were landed in our rooms is still a mystery to ourselves. Shortly after, we sought to find a book wherein to register our names ; presently a tall slim man, slipshod, and in rather shabby deshabille walked through the entry, and saluted us, or rather we hailed him, saying, " Do you keep this hotel ?" to which he answered, "Ya I" We replied : "You'll find us the very best friends in the world, and we'll be treated as if you had known us all your life." On going up stairs the uncarpeted floor, wearing the last stages of con- sumption, struck our attention; passing along the entry, an apparition floated beyond the gallery by the stairs ; this turned out to be the amiable Irish housekeeper of the establishment, a dumpy, rosy-faced, and fair, fat, and forty young woman, who attended to things gen- erally. We were led into certain small and narrow little alcoves, misnamed bedrooms. We looked out of the win- dows of the gallery into the court-yard beneath; a shabby basin for a fountain, with no water in it, stood in the mid- dle of the court-yard ; beyond was a veranda overlooking a stone wall, pitched two hundred feet above the river, ,,hat river was nowhere in sight, and the whole prospect vas gloomy, arid foreboded nothing of good omen, /hambermaids were rushing around ; no water was to be 33 had for washing 1 ; towels were very scarce, arid very poor at that. Wo remained in these wretched cabins numbered, respectively, Nos. 61 and G3, and rested that night to dream only about our boots standing before the church door, and of a Dutch angel playing an impossi- ble tune on the organ near the south transept. We couldn't stand such another night's roosting on the upper branches of this man's appletrees, and on the morrow moved down stairs, where we remained, and beating up recruits at the breakfast table, got hold ot the waiter-girls and partook of a scanty meal, after which we looked around at our position, and commenced form- ing a circle of acquaintances to bolster up our misfor- tunes. Not many days elapsed before we were feeling more at home, and in the society of several friends, sr,me of whom we had met at Stowe, we managed to spend a very delightful time at this notable village, the last and best, as far as the enjoyment was concerned, and the ultima thule of our summer trip. How can we describe the beauties of the vicinity of Brattlcboro? how well portray the rich verdure of its scenery ? What a sweet prospect yields to your admiration of that beau- tiful bend in the valley of the Connecticut, which is presented to your vision as you look out from the grave- yard, or the cemetery, which affords such pleasant walks on a Sunday evening ! And then the rides about the town. That to West Brattleboro', where the girls ex- hibited their bloomer costumes in their exercises on Friday afternoon ; and of course the young gentlemen go there to admire their calisthenic drill in short bloomers. What beauties line the shores as you driv fc ' ind ball. The second, beauty had a form like Venus, In height the Medici, figure lithe and light ; Well versed in poetry and every art amcenous, And with a spirit which yields us all delight. The third, brunette, a connoisseur and good, Gifted in drawing from the life and cast Has a sweet friend who boasts of Indian blood; Both, in their studio, glory in the past. Despite the difference in their various style, Their very contrasts lead to happy unity ; Thus beauty, use, and taste beguile Their hours, well spent in love and holy unity. The dual Miree are here Earth's witnesses of Heaven, The double manifest of the blessed Trinity: Faith, Hope, and Charity, with Love, are leaven God, and His Son, and Holy Spirit, are Divinity. MOKA.L. The happy dual of the married state is perfect Love And not less blessed when the heart is single ; The Spirit, water, and the blood are shadows from above, And where Christ's Spirit dwells, heaven and earth commingle. 42 THE TOMB OF THE MARTYRS. AT W ALLABO UT. What hallowed associations are connected with the (sound of martyrdom I The heart of the patriot, the lover of his country, the true American, the honest man, and the sincere Christian, swells with emotions too deep for utterance. Great thoughts of heart arise in the bosom of all brave men, and noble women weep over the memories of the sacred dead : " Dulce et decore est pro patria mori." Adjoining the United States Navy Yard in Brooklyn city, in Jackson street, may be seen, in a dilapidated condition, the tomb of the martyrs who died in dungeons arid pestilential prison-ships, in and about the city of New York, during the seven years of our Revolutionary What a disgrace to their living descendants, that the oniy monument that was ever erected to their memory should be suffered to remain in the sad and sorry plight u which it appears to-day ! It is high time that Brooklyn should wake up to $> proper sense of their neglect of these departed worthies, and take the matter in hand, and rear a monument in some conspicuous spot, worthy of themselves, and which the children of future generations might visit, in order to keep alive and fresh their pride and honor for such 43 patriotic exemplars. It would be a grand idea to mingle the bones of these heroes of the Revolution with those of the illustrious dead who have lately fought, bled, and died in our recent conflict against this last dsvilish Rebellion. Where rests your sense of shame, ye incor-' porators of Kings ? Why have these ashes of your patriotic ancestors to be sanctified only by the colonists of New England ; and why should the sapient wisdom of New Connecticut be called upon alone to place a statue over the buried martyrs in their vault and mouldering coffins at the purlieus of Wallabout ? Why leave it to old Benjamin Romaine solely, as a monnment to his undying love and patriotism, and utter detestation of English impudence, to devise his body to the lot, in which these patriots have to inherit only their own bones, or to crown his pure devotion in a coronet of glory, which only exhibits thereon dark shadows in a strong contrast to the grim indifference of these Moabites of Long Island ? Let the government lay hold of this matter, and sink their disgrace in a noble tribute to the memory of these glorious ancestors of our Independence ! If they fail to do their duty, let us of Manhattan shame our neighbors on the other side of the East river into the doing of the correct thing in the present necessity. If these fail, let the spirit of the old Constitution itself, " that undying and perpetual charter of human rights, and of our duties to God and man/' rise up like the bones of Elisha, which stood Tip on their feet at the indignant outrage of that band of wandering invaders, who, while casting only a very c-J-mmon man's corpse into the sepulchre of this venerable saint and prophet of old, plead that the dry fcones of these modern vandals might shake in frightful 44 apprehension of that irrepressible disgrace and con- tumely with which posterity will visit them for their shameful neglect, and their remissful memories of the past heroes of the Revolution, when it comes their turn to be buried in vaults, and their ashes to be blown to the winds in a tempest of tornadoos and tea-table talk and reproach. Verily, the ashes of those dead patriots are the embryo of the resurrection of our country ; and we cannot better consecrate the ground where these martyrs of the dust are buried so well as by raising altars in the present on which the living may offer such a savor of sweet incense as shall yield that consolation and comfort of holy sacrifice, of thanksgiving, glory, and praise, to heal the broken hearts of the widows and the orphans, whose sorrows and wounds would be only freshly opened, but for the recollection that the heroes of the Revolution, and the honorable dead, brought forth upon this continent a new nation, which was conceived for the enjoyment of a greater liberty for all mankind, which shall survive the wreck of empire and the fall ol kings, and shall endure only so long as we who are alive shall honor their memories within the land which the Lord our God has given us: It is but meet that we dedicate a portion of our soil as the final resting-place of those who gave their lives that this nation might live forever. " Requiescant in pace" Let us fi n ^p the measure of their devotion. Amen. 45 I hope I have not lost thoo, Mary, I'm only thrust one side. I had no prurient fantasy To sue thee as my hride. 'Twas a spirit that misled me, As thou knelt in silent prayer, That an angel had descended Through the dim, religious air. I was thinking of that Mary "Whom Jesus loved as friend, When sister Martha was so gary, And wouldn't stay to mend. Thy dreamy gaze involved me, As I was passing down the aisle, And its magic so dissolved me, That it made St. Cle smile. On a raining Sunday morning, As I sauntered in to prayers, A messenger in sackcloth, mourning, Whispered slily in my ears : ""Would you like to know Miss Leameyf - "Faith," says I, "I dinna care," It rather made me dreamy With my usual debonaire. Then reflecting on the matter ; For she looked so very sweet; How the deuce was I to get at her, And contrive how we might meet. 46 Thus tempted with heard praises Of her arts and skill in look For you know I love the Graces I discharged at her a book ; That was penned by Mistress Adams, Not she for poor Adam's ail, The father of all those little damms That have made our race so pale Which, projected at my lassie, The subject of these verses, Came back like coach, with glasses, Which follows solemn hearses. I'm right sorry for the authoress, I thought only for her good Case did not suit the doctorcss ; She needed better food. But spring ca*"^ on with its verdure, With its shiviing coat of green, And Astarte sent some flowers, The rarest to be seen. And the patient had recovered From the offerings and the book, But relapses were discovered, And of a serious turn partook. 'Twas an admiration offering only ; What's the harm in such a thing? When the subject is a lady, And cat may look at king. MORAL : " Drink water out of your own cisterns and running water out of your own wells." " Cast thy bread upon the waters, and it shall return to thee after un^oy days." 47 Friend, hast them ever been at Bloomingdale ? And ridden in the Stages which ran in time of Moore, And split your side in such a boisterous gale, That you did cry, because you could laugh no more. Now, since that, from the days of Lutz & Doll to this, Have Babies filled the Baskets held by simple Nurses ; There's been no change towards bettering human bliss, Although one Churchill runs the Stage o'er hillside or by Churches. E'er first appeared Baby, a Basket foretold its ominous presence ; Only to type the Cradle by which it was to be rocked asleep, And when Mam Dobson weighed the little dear omnipotence, 'Twas but the balance of the first stage from which it was to peep. And ever since times of Adam, when Baby took his ticket of Leave, There's been no respite from the various modes of travel, The Man or Woman, Boy or Girl, have had no sure reprieve, Whether the road they cabbed o'er was dirt road, sand, or gravel. The History of Manhattan hath a page so ample, that no book Of Travel ever shook the sides of any passenger through life, As the encounters in that horrible stage, we fellow sufferers took, Where v r e were fumbled, jumbled, tumbled, as if 'twere in battle strife. Now we all remember Father Hardinge, with his huge cravat so high, Through which he shook his horse-laugh until he made us snicker ; And how Jane Tompson grumbled, as the children set up their cry, The rumbling wagon groaned more shaky, and the clouds of dust grew thicker. 'Tis ever thus from childhood's hour, all our lives we are dragged along, E'en from the day the infant left the arms of puling nurse, Up to the day when old age sighs and weeps o'er days long gone, Until the last s id hour when " M^rs est, Omnibus" changes into Hearse. 48 A A lady and a lassie and a lad, On a smiling July day, Stepped out of the cars into Central Park, There happily to spend the day. It was the first time in his life That the lad had seen the Ramble, For he was led there like a little sheep, That had only just learned to gamhol. And ever as from little things a lesson we may learn, And from a small spark a great big fire may rise, So it often seems that as troubled heart may burn, Should mortal from sepulchral earth be lifted to the skios. Now we will change the age of him we called the lad, For men are but children first, but babes in later days, And speaking boldly say 'twas a young man, be gad ! Who was the first sad subject of these sorry lays. It matters not even if a Red Rose of Lancaster Went with our party, she of maturer age, As if one Pollox strayed away with Castor, 'Twas all the worse for this little gentle page. Nor makes it better that a white Rose of York. So sweetly smiled upon this youth forlorn, For what's a smelling-bottle without its cork, Or what avails a valley without ripened corn t Secundo, we will change the nature of our metre The day itself was changeable, as all fine weather is To ask the Muse to try a new gasometer, To let our gas off with a double whiz. 49 On a bright summer morning in the middle of July, the day As I was passing o'er the road, 'twas the 20th of July. The sun was flirting with the clouds like hide-and-seek in play, "When whom did I chance to meet but the idol of my eye. Twas very naughty of me, as you may well suppose, That such a man of business should be stopping b* the way, To cull a sweet white lily that was nestled n^ar a Rc*3, Or to spend an hour by the fountain as it was dallying ia its play. The little golden diamonds that it scattered in the ligH Spread in starry shadows as it sparkled to the sun, A!id my happy thoughts like violets bursting the night Of nursing mother earth, so inspired me I could not ran. We know the golden hours which were running like a stream, Though spent in sweet communion would ne'er return again But th A^ountain and the flowers were weaving a sweet theme, Had been painted by the angels on Nature's wide domain. It was of a stolen flower, that was pitcher-like in form, As it floated from its pendant, very like an ear-ring, That out yould have hardly thought of any harm, Or that there was aught of wrong in such a little thing. But there ever was in stolen fruit a deal of mischief lurking, Even as where, in old Romaint, a maiden was stolen away From her ralher's castellated halls, when gallant knight went burkmg And casting but a cloak around her, in his bark sped through the spray. There never was since time of Eve, when Adam was away, But some de'il was there, to whisper slylj in tho ear There's something good in stealing, not, but there's ';he cbvtf to pay* And no han that any ill will happen then to fcur. 3 50 Now what shall bo said when in another older say ing You read that one cannot teach an old dog new tricks, For even the elder lady pulled a sprig of jessamine, laying Not far from where a party sat on a bench of rustic sticks. "'Twas ever thus, from childhood's hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay ; I never loved a tree or flower, But 'twas the first to fade away. "TOM MOOBE." Another poet, not so well read in verse, Doth now conclude this model prosaidy By, never do write from railroad car, nor disperse Your thoughts from office calls even for a lady. MORAL. Old Benjamin Franklin, so wise in his days, Was given to verses, but never to lays 'Twero a pity the moderns don't mind what he says, If they did, 'twould be surely more to their praise. Take care of the shop, and the shop will care for you ; Always button your coat, and fasten your shoes, And then some fair lady will seek for a friend Who'll be true with her lover to life's bitter end. 61 COLONEL O'BRIAN; OR, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. BY ONE WHO KNEW HIM. Seize upon truth where'er 'tis found ; Among your friends, among your foes, On Christian or on heathen ground ; The flower 's divine where'er it grows ; Refuse the prickle and assume the rose. Fitz O'Brian, of Irish descent, was a soldier of for- tune, who, during the wars on the Spanish main, was engaged by the South Americans in waging war against tne rebels of that country. Noble, generous, and brave, with a courage as indomitable as the lion, without fear and without reproach, he endeared himself to our coun- trymen, because he was a patriot and a true friend of all inclined to universal liberty. He led the armies of the noble republics of that south- ern land or continent, overcame the enemies of the gov- ernment, and after a successful campaign, which ended in putting all the revolutionists to flight, laid down his arms to settle down in glorious peace. The government would have covered him with all the honors due to such braves, and they did indeed invest him with those paltry trinkets of gilt medals, and the flaming insignia of titles covered him with an embla- zonry of gold lace, but could not hide his merit or his 52 virtues. He refused all compensation for his services, and spent all his patrimony of English gold freely as water, or as his own caprices'suited. He was a gallant, bold, reckless, and chivalrous man. Like Don Quixote, he fought for the love of it. The gayest of soldiers, a true-hearted, rollicking, rioting, frolicking Irishman, and as true to his honor as the dial to the sun. I knew him well. I loved his hearty, free, rough-and- ready manner. There was a sparkle in his eyes and sunshine in his laughter. He displayed his fun at all times, and was as eccentric as he was bold, and gifted as he was gay. Among his prospects, for he was somewhat of a specu- lative character, was his interest in a valuable silvci mine, hid in the heart of the Andes, or it matters not where say some part of Peru. This he offered to a friend for tho privilege of working it, simply on the con- dition that he should pay all his debts, amounting to only about $15,000, a mere trifle, and a cheap bargain for a mine which has yielded over $5,000,000 per an- num. The only risk attending the purchase would be, per- haps, the loss of the man's head who attempted to de- velop its treasures, and the fact that there needed a great deal of pumping before the water could be drawn out, which had been overflowing the adits for a number of years back. The history of this mine was rather singular. One Zalmanezer, a clever old Indian, had once been tne owner of this property. It had been a gift from tno empire for the many valuable services he had performed, but it was taken from him by one of those peculiar coups 53 d'etats so common to despots, and concealed under the name of diplomatic tact, which sometimes compensates their most faithful servants by cutting off their heads. Tie influence of this aboriginal was so great among his native subjects that the government became jealous of him, and after having first baited him with the offer of a fee simple of this his paramount estate of inheritance, accused him of tampering with the privities of royalty and the king's domains ; and although he proffered a thousand dollars a day whilst he waited his answer to an appeal to the parent government of Spain, they refused his bail against the act by dishonorable and treacherous conduct on their part at home, who conclud- ed that the best mode of getting rid of the popularity of this subject was to cut off his head, and thus control the entire right of possession. Thus ever republics show their ingratitude. This is a solemn proverb and a warning, and, like the farmer and his goose, they killed the bird in order to get her eggs. To remedy the short-sightedness exhibited in this picture of ingratitude, the companions of the Indian and his bosom friends, grateful and reminiscent of his many friendly acts among the neighbors, very ingeniously con- trived to pull out the plugs that had stopped the little streams usually gushing out of the cavities in all mines through the crevices, and obstructing the proper work- ing of the laborers, and thus letting in a flood of water, burst the sources of the neighboring lake, and thereby destroyed the schemes of the avaricious governor of Peru, and thus placed a barrier to all future attempts to get this silver. Thus Providence interrupts the course of human monsters, and by a certain retribution puts a 54 stop to the evil as the beginning complot. Truly, u man proposes, but God disposes." " Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord. The poor Indian has become a constellation of silver in heaven by way of compen- sation. But to return to our friend the Colonel. He had vari- ous talents beside those of soldiering and gallant offices. Not unskillful was he in the magic art of legerdemain, and he often, among his circle of friends at the old " stone arm-chair" where he had built an adobe palace, showed them his tricks of sleight-of-hand, which he had learned, while a youth, at " Donnybrook Fair." Here at this altar of festive repose he drank many a bumper, and amid the sparkle of the wine and the brighter flashes of his wit our rollicking, frolicking, and happy Hibernian became green as the lizards of the Old Erin Island whilst he rejoice din his cups. This art was learned when he was poor, at home, and went to the fair to sharpen his wits for something to spend, like Curran, his countryman, to whistle away the hunger. Thus he lived, and after hav- ing frolicked and feasted, fought and played, he returned to the old country after having fought an arrant English officer, who had squinted too hard at one of his friend's sweethearts on board a man-of-war, in the offing, near llio Janeiro. The last we hear of him was after his* return to Ire- land, where he had expected to end his days. And in a racy letter to one of his early friends on the main he writes : " We have been up to the Lakes of Killarney, and it was nothing but swimming and hunting, hock and Champagne." OLD RELICS OF '76. THE BUSTY CANNON BALL, TUB PINCERS AND THE KEY, DUO TIP A? MCGO WAN'S PASS, AT HARLEM. Hast thou ever been at Deacon's, He who lives on Harlem Lane, The host that strengthens weak ones, And gives them physic for their pain ? For preamble to my story, 'tis well for us to explain, There are physics for the body, and also for the soul ; There are pills that very complex are, and others very plain, Some taken in a roll of bread, and sometimes in a bowl. There are tricks in every calling, but certes, none in ours, For the doctors, as well as lawers, must all a living make, Scarce would we except the Clergy, who so well exert their powers, For other people's ailings, and metaphysics take. There are Canon's in the Church, and nippers in the shop, As well as keys of skeleton shape, which rusty safes unlock, But the wonders of that magic key, which is taken in a drop. Hath a power which overshadows human reason in the shock. Fain would we run a tilt against the force of human reason, Fight the Doctors of Divinity, or Medicine, or Law, Lest some orator from pulpit, or smart counselor, in treason, Might upset us by his logic, and crack us in the jaw. What boots this rhodomontade, that's so very far from point ? If the same were too protracted, 'twould take us off our track From the place from which we started, and put all out of joint, So 'tis best to turn our Pegasus, and lead him a little back. 56 There was a dreadful sound of cannons when the Spirit of Seventy-six Roused the patriots of Long Island, to arrest that bloody band Of Hessians and Red-coats, with their frightful bayonets fixed, Who had landed on our native soil, from their poor old foreign land. The heart of every patriot was fired, to a man, And the women even started to lend a helping hand, As the horrid foe advanced up the narrow pass McGowan, And the thundering boom of English guns sounded wildly o'er the strand. 'Twas just where our noble WASHINGTON, well mounted on his steed, Dashed down upon these rebels, to check their fierce advance, And our gallant little army, raised up in time of need, Sent these rascals to the Devil in a very hasty dance. It was in sight of Harlem heights, quite near the Magazine, Which still is sighted where Central Park is walled in, And these relics of our story were taken from their screen, Where they had long been buried deep, some fifteen feet within. Twas very natural for the Deacon, who dwells at Avenue Six, To be careful of these relics from that famous battle line, And to furnish up these heavings from landslide in a new fix, To keep alive our Father's memory, and for auld lang syne. 'Tis not true, as Deacon's daughters are exhibited to fame, With all the sons of ministers, as of a very streaky kind, But the conversion is quite proper, by all our men of name, That our ancestors were gallant men, and never found behind. Oft as we read in ancient history, that Herodotus was blind To the sacred deeds of heroes, who had freely shed their blood; But to modern it is left to speak a word more kind For all our gallant heroes, and of the buried dead, nothing else but good. 57 4 And as we viewed these solemn relics at the inn at Harlem Lane, The cannon ball so rusty, and the key and nippers square, It struck us most profoundly, that the hostlers at that fane Must have shod enormous horses, or that iron was very rare. And the further we reflected, as we stopped to drink within, That the successor of these ancients were not so far ahead Of the worthies of last century, in their fondness for poor gin, Although the Dutch of our days drink lager by the hogshead. MORAL. Now the substance of our present poem hath its finale in a verse, That we are actors all in tragedy, and comedy, and crime, And that our men and women, from the cradle to the hearse, Are but types of the poor Prodigal, but notNazarites of time. 3* 58 A P8A&BK " There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God -Psalm xlvi., 4. Thus sang the Psalmist in the olden time, To whom God lent grace to put his verse in rhyme; When poet sanctified for praise and song, Gave glory to their Lord, the whole day long. And as the birds sing at the morning hours, Raising sweet melodies aloft with all their powers, So did the son of Jesse lift his voice in praise, And tuned his harp's string for eternal lays. So not unlike the river, whose streams make glad The cities by whose walls the rapid current gleams, And prospects furnish for those golden dreams "Wherein the poets raved and Troubadours grew sad. Walking by side of flowing streams, the fishes gamboling t delight, And gayly sporting, appear to disappear as in a dream, And green twigs bending, bow to their ruling might, While drooping willows bend in homage to the stream. What are the rivers flowing but the means of grace God's living image stamped on Nature's pleasing face ; The blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit seem The only life upon the bosom of the silent stream. 59 The lovely prospects which, by faith, are throwing Their shadows from the substance of angelic forms, Signs are of springs, those welling fountains showing The great eternal source of vernal morns. The traffic which the soul herself doth carry on, Is but the business of the far-off main, And all the merchandise that is brought thereon Is but the harvesting of the golden grain. Product of silver, and all alloy of gold refined, Which by the Cross is purified and cleared, Do but engrave the imago of the workman's mind, And stamp reflections from His likeness reared. And where no water was, in dry and barren field, What happiness burst forth from out the hidden sand, And gushing springs from grassy meadows yield Gardens well watered by Jehovah's hand. What rich supplies where all other resource fails, And all have access to the God of grace ; How free tho franchise from old Satan's jails, When found security in the Saviour's face. These are the means which satisfy the soul Our Saviour's blood, the living bread from heaven, The Spirit's influence, the body's just control, The Gospels freely spread, that holy leaven. Which from the incense of our hearts are sent Up t j the courts of heaven, in humble sacrifice, And lift our souls upward in meek ascent, Where love shall wipe all tears from mortal eyes. 60 Then will the Cross be softened, and head be fit for crown, Here crucified in sorrow, there will true joy be found, When Jacob's ladder will once more be lifted down, And heaven found here, where all is holy ground. And if such sweetness here be dropM in earthly streams, Where sins are pardoned, if by faith our eyes we raise, What must that fountain be in those blessed realms, Where saints and angels draw their bliss from praise ; Where God himself shall see us face to face, And Jesus stamps His heirship with His seal of love ; Where happy seraphs, clad in white, their robes of grace, Shall tune their harps, and sing aloud, above. Then, brothers, help us refresh our thirst for glory, Seek for thy Saviour, full of grace and truth, Trust Him with all thy heart, believe this simple story, And keep such childlike faith as that of gentle Ruth. 61 TRIADS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT. There were three brothers, in the old times of Rome, Who from their mother's fireside were sent to travel ; And o'er the earth were strongly bent to roam, While all the rest of us were forced to stay at home and grabble. As all men are naturally savage in their nature, And from the earth spring forth by human birth, 'Tis not so strange that every mortal creature Should, before death, be taxed to eat his peck of earth. And as in every soil there is always found some gravel, And mother-earth is burthened for her share; For all creation groaneth under heavy travail, No wonder that her bowels should be opened with a plow- share. And as men grown up collect themselves in rabbles, There's some confusion happens in selection of fit wives ; Thus, out of mixed ideals, oft spring up family quarrels, While how to find a proper helpmate is the puzzle of their lives. So when the Sabines settled in the neighborhood of Rome, They were living very quietly until Romulus appeared ; He who killed his brother Remus for running of his wall down. 'Twas but the wolf in nature, under whose nursing he was > reared. Thus ever speaks all history, that tells of sorry fight, That the weak one against the mighty had not a right at all, That a light antagonist had no counting on his weight, And in the conqueror's victory the only glory is in his fall. 02 And as in every evil that has happened under the sun. There's a woman at the bottom of the gravamen of trouble, Who coolly views these matters as a pretty piece of fun, And weighs the issue of the combat as a child would blow ? bubble. Thus, when the Romans became tired of a lonely single life, They pitched into the Sabines, in a kind of mixed raid, And each shouldering a burthen in the shape of a young wife, Left behind, by way of comforter, only the handle of the blade But as to every human grief, there's a way for consolation, For the Sabine fathers ever entertained his country's good a heart, In that there might some good arise from this queer miscegena- tion, And that it were better to live together than to live and figh; apart. So another case of satisfaction took place in similar cause, When the Horatii and Curatii got into a shameful scrape, And the women rushed in to rescue in the midst of their angry jaws, And thus saved these ancient pugilists a vast expense for crape. This is but a clear illustration of that diplomatic dress Which covers up the skeleton that is said to be hid in every house. When a woman, with her tact and subtle, sly address, Slips in between the combatants, to make it still as a mouse Aboshnow to ancient history, and all these valorous Three, We moderns have progressed beyond, and war's now turne( to peace, And we are pleased to tell another talo in this land now clear am 1 free, Of a certain happy triple band, whose friendship brings me 63 These are living on a quiet street, where the corner never meets, Where are passages and alleyways, not far from Freres acros* the way, But no passenger intrudes here, and no sister sly leer greets Nor salutation from a stranger, by, " Sir, are you going to the play?" But this union of brothers whom I am bound to call my friends Having such a charming sweet variety of little airs and graces. That all the banterings of repartee and sharp difference of ends Would not change a single feature of their noble, handsome faces. Talk of parts and cultivation, the Romans and the Greeks Could not hold a candle for the varied lights that shine Through the windows of their intellects which every wisdon seeks, To illuminate the windows of this crazy bark of mine. The first, he, of Paganini, took a notion to procure All the old Cremonas he could get from every southern se? remote, And once listen as he soundeth his Barbiton so sure, You'd thought that all Eolia had sent his winds afloat. That even Melebeus to hisTityrus couldn't warble songs so fire That even the sweet nightingale singing out her songs at night In the vales of Valambrosa, where the herbs are sure to cure, And woods are filled with fragrance that yields the soui delight. With a brother not so gifted, but remarkable in mind and cul- tivation, Who would not exchange his native home for any foreigh place, In any court ol Europe, surely not for France, that very funn} nation, Where Americans are sadly noted for their fondness of grimace. 64 There still remains another scion of this family of R inaine, Whose ancestry from Scottish chiefs had an offshoot very old They were canny as old cavaliers of the brightest days of Spain, Who were clever at the short-sword and habergeon, and bold, A.S the lions of Castile or the braves of Salamanca, And bright as the sun at Port-del-Sol near by the rough Sierras bold, Which frown in all that keenest cold, over the vales of poor La Mancha, Where the old hidalgoes gossip, and merchandise is sold. The last, he was a counselor-at-law, and of that very clever wit, Which could rightly guide the ship of State through many a blowing storm, Who, as to his churchmansbip, was the equal of Dewitt, So gifted was he in canon lore, and every rubric form. Thus with music and with chivalry, and every other grace united. These brothers were like preux Bayards in this very pleasant family, Blessed with the virtues of their parents, who were so good and holy plighted ; For had their lives been fully read, 'twould seem like ancient homily. Such as when one finds in the archives of the old convents samples, Where illuminated missals decked in every form of fruits and flowers, Rinoming entwiixed 'mid angels in a marginal of beautiful example? Just as the holy monks passed all their lives in prayer and happy hours. 65 1STEWTOWN, BUT NOT NEWTONIAN. "A SERIOUS TALE." It is an old proverb that " when rogues fall out, honest men get their rights." Lord Bacon very quaintly has remarked, in that clever style of philosophy which formed the origin of the inductive school, that " be is the best man who does the best thing to be done in the times in which he is living." But modern philosophers have rather reversed the practical teachings of induction, and being led astray by certain foolish schemes of their own invention, and governed always by that supreme autocracy of self, which brooks no rival and courts no counsel, having once departed from that great charter of all human rights, " By the sweat of your brow you shall earn your bread," very fanatically getting something on the brain, make fearful leaps into gulfs that know no bottom, and, like ships without ballast, flounder into a perplexity of difficulties and danger, as horrible as the maelstrom, and as deep as the grave. Such have always been swal- lowed up by their own vanity, and have gone to the very bottom of the oozy deep. Hardly any of those philosophers who planted the Utopia of Newtown ever sat down to consider that all Chateaux en Espagne have been ever built upon blad- ders and balloons, typically illustrating those genera of animated nature denominated as looms and balloons. But we pass over such infirmities of the human species, 66 and proceed at once to the moral, which will close up this chapter in our annals of Foolishness. A forlorn maiden who had once lost a husband, thrown apon the world for a support to be derived from those "fiends whom she had known during the lifetime of he:- octtcr half, in the depth of her grief and sorrow fled into the wilderness of misfortune to conceal her meditations and her misery ; alas I she found with the poet that 1 ' When, lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds, alas ! that men betray, What grief can soothe her melancholy, What tears can wash her grief away ?" Guilty in the sense of having swallowed a gilded pill, she found out too late that it was but a poisoned chalice. We have no particular enmity against any class of lunatics. Many have been confined as such who were merely simpletons. A more dangerous class have been left out of the mad-house to prey upon the world at large, who, having no feelings for humanity as the sad, earnest, but weak creations of a beneficent Providence, draw large drafts on their imagination for their facts ; and by their own blindness, curtailed of the first ele- mentary properties of good sense, like the fox in the fable, with his tail cut off, wish to draw the rest of man- kind into the fashion of wearing no tails at all. We mourn not the tales of that celebrated authoress, " whose talcs were so severely lashed by the critics that they continue still to be read to this day." The friends of the community atNewtown have, ever since the bursting of their bubble, been so red from a sorry sense of shame 67 that they never like to hear of their follies in the past, when they were garrisoned in that charnel-house of dis- eased brains, and were fed on mash marrow, which they dipped out with a general spoon. How like spoonies they have since felt at the least reminder of such ephemeral fantasies ; and how like jackanapes they have since appeared to each other when thinking of the tales of their common washtubs, along- side of the machinery bread knives, common potatoes, fixings, and philosophical pea-pod shellings, with lunati- cal rhapsodies over the large tin basin ? Verily the gods with hyperion curls and ambrosial locks seemed again to have left Olympus, and Pan him- self ruled over sheep and shepherdesses in these Arca- dian groves. How sweet the potatoes tasted under the soothing melody'of fostering music ! How did the groves re- sound with the nasal blasts of Arcadian jackasses ! Italian nightingales were but blackbirds or crows to these. The very pillars in their temple in the groves were fragrant with soft incense, and delicious perfumes breathed through the openings of the porticoes. The savory smell of common mortals' dinners was too Hiber- nian for these new lights of the world. Humanitarian- ism shut up its nose at the very mention of broad acres and the practical cultivation of the soil. Farming was to be carried on by simple speculations on the theory of development, and pork and beans were to be exorcised into winds from old Boreas, and vegeta- tion was to sprout by spontaneous combustion into the esthetical elements of a supernatural philosophy and 68 superhuman contrivances for dispensing with the use of labor. Children were to be raised by the easy process of in- oculating them with those blocks of beauties that were presented to their gloating visions. Photographic reflections of sunlight were to paint the beauty of all existences into the very soul of the embryo infant. The parent was to conceive only to beget a perfect child, and all the natural devil which might have been transmitted to the child by some unfortunate ancestor was to be driven out by the bare depiction of a winged seraph planted on the branches of a blossoming peach-tree. Humanity was thus buried in the apocalypse of earth, and all nature was shrouded for a cataplasm of entomb- ment, so gorgeous, so brilliant, glorious, and inviting that perfection was to be established as a mere matter of course, and the beatitudes were to bloom in the bosom of godliness, and repose there in a symposium of Apol- lonic forms and sympathetic graces, where all the gardens were to breathe of the otto of roses, and the sky of the soul was to be that interior life of virtue which was too delicate to be bruised, and not unlike the atnlosphere preponderating man not felt by these puling pollywogs and modern Abderites. The disciples of old Zoroaster were far behind these modern sky-scrapers, who were for sweeping the moon before they had purchased a ladder to reach it ; and not unlike those philosophers, of like wisdom, these were building fountains where there was no water to fill them, and statues raised so high in tho air that the images could hardly be seen by the skylark Such men as these want no Sunday to rest in ; wiser 69 than Providence, they often forget to procure any pro- vender to fill their hollow bodies, Having gas-light in their heads, they carry lanterns inside of earthen pitch- ers, which, being struck with implements, like spiritual violins, give out uncertain sounds, and yield no harmo- nies, but very sorry groanings. Like voltaic batteries, constructed of copper and zinc, they have a large share of brass, and are dead to any sensibilities for communi- cations to human intelligences. They build up mansions in the overland to inhabit them, as they sink in the northern seas, and their reflections, like the flashes of the aurora, are as evanescent as the bubbles from the bottom of a river, and luminously flashing and lurid as the phosphorescent emissions from rotten punk. Such people, not unlike empty vessels when struck, always sound the loudest. GARDENS OF DELIGHT. 4i While within my garden roving, And my senses all are fed, Eising from these loved attractions, I'm to nobler subjects led. Other gardens Here, in musing, oft I tread. "In the Church, the Saviour's garden, Trees and plants and flowers I see; Guarded, watered, trained, and cherished, Blooming immortality ; All, Calvary! All derived alone from thee. " But, above all gardens precious, See the heavenly Paradise ; There the Tree of Life is bearing ; There the springs of glory rise : And the richness Every want supplies. 44 There the foot no thorn e'er pierces ; There the heart ne'er heaves a sigh ; There in white we walk with Jesus, All our loved connections by. And to reach it 'Tis a privilege to die." FINIS, INDEX. PAGE. Title 1 Preface 3 Book First : Stowe 5 Book Second : Manchester Village . . 13 Church Bells Herbert 10 Book Third : Owl's Head Mountain 20 Summer Days at Stowe 27 Book Fourth : Continuation of Stowe 28 Brattleboro' and Vicinity 32 Foreign Imputations 37 Poetry : A Welcome To the Soldiers 39 Flowers in a Glass Vase 40 Dual Triad of Sisters 41 Tomb of the Martyrs, at Wallabout 42 Poetry : A Refrain 45 Bloomingdale Stage Memories 47 A Ramble in July., 48 Colonel O'Brian Soldier of Fortune 61 Poetry : Old Belies of '76 55 A Psalm of Life 58 Triads of the Past and Present 61 Newtown, but not Newtonian 65 ?ootry : Gardens of Delight 70 SING SING, OR ]?msoisr LI Ugly indorsements of the puzzle and perplexity of society, hateful fruits of a tree whose roots trip us in every court and alley, baleful apples of Hesperus, guarded by a dragon with leather spectacles over his hundred eyes, are our prisons, for how many among us really know anything of them? Gradgrind has statis- tics, plenty of them ; he is learned in police reports, posted in the matter of contracts. Easy people in general are put off by the dictionary. Careless people visit them very much as they would a menagerie, with- out so much as a guess at this world as sad, as silent, as intimately interwoven with all our living and doing, and almost as unknown as the kingdom of lost spirits. But try now a little to conceive what this life really is a life that commences with a rattling of bolts and jarring of heavy iron doors, a going over of registers, and a shuffling tramp along the stony wards of men and women going to their work ; rules differing somewhat in the various institutions, associations allowed in some, solitary meals arid work required in others, but everywhere life parceled, measured out ; women stitch- ing in silence, men moving about amidst creaking, grinding, clicking, hammering, all manner of uncouth machine noises, impressive as statues, forlorn as Eblis, but all working with a horrible automaton-like indus- try ; wax-like neatness (for government is the best of housekeepers), system, precision, order, vigilance everywhere. This is the surface ice. Kid-glove finger-tip philan- thropy is powerless to break it. Far-off preaching from the heights of our virtue is too cool to melt it. To 74 know anything 1 of these Hecla hearts, there must be an actual going down among the publicans and sinners. We must at least allow these felons the common ground of our humanity ; must picture to ourselves this humanity in most instances possessed of a childhood without hope or memory of tenderness, without knowledge of the name of God, much less Ris nature, with no teacher but instinct, no incentive but want, arriving at maturity with no resources but those of sin, no creed but that of the devil ; those who have fallen from at least an out- ward respectability, pressed down with shame, mad- dened with regret and anxiety, and filled with horror at the vile companionship into which they are thrown. Such are the flock of black sheep whom we must either lead or drive. Let them alone we cannot, it being one of the pleasant peculiarities of sin that, if we do not find it out, it will us, coming up into our very bed-chambers with the impudence of the frogs of Egypt. Decision between the two systems (leading 1 and driving) seems easy, if success bo admitted as a test of merit, yet on no subject is there louder or more unsatis- factory debate. It is fiercely argued : "You must whip and starve your menagerie into submission. Put down the rebellious beasts as Alder- man Cute did young mothers and suicides, and keep them down." It is keenly contended in reply: "If, after you have chained and whipped your tiger for the given term of years, he still shows no leaning to the lamb persuasion, might it not be wiser to let loose a menagerie of the four-footed striped gentry than one striped biped, lower in degradation, blacker in purpose, harder in heart than when the relentless gates. first closed upon him ? " Meanwhile an officer twenty-three years in the service, in an interesting work (Life in Sing Sing), offers a little of the much needed light on the different theories, and their operation. Solitary confinement without labor had been tried at Auburn, with such success that, out of eighty convicts thus immured, five died, one went raving rnad, one poor To soul watched his time and dashed himself over the gallery, and government was fain to let loose the rest in all haste lest it should be found guilty of murder within the year. In 1839 an uneasy public conscience spoke out in the report of a Prison Committee, a radical document, boldly affirming " that convicts were influenced by hopes and fears, capable of reflection and judgment, moved to anger by stripes, governed, like the rest of mankind, by their mental faculties." This Jacobin of a Committee takes exception to punishments of eighty or a hundred lashes, inflicted by an instrument which multiplies every stroke by six for small offenses. One thousand lashes in three weeks for a maniac con- vict, were pronounced too many. Moral burying alive, by prohibition of all letters, visitation of friends, and con- versation, except religious, worked strangely ill. The prisoners ran away by dozens, preferring the risk of being shot by the guards, to a death served out in inch pieces. Contrary fellows, these convicts 1 behaving inde- cently well under the milder regime, following that fanatical report. Absolutely liking to read ; liking their Sabbath-schools and the visits and letters of their friends; not rising in rebellion, as was prophesied, when they saw their warden by the bedside of their sick and dying; but one attempt at escape in all those golden years ; no insurrections ; order and honesty vouched for in the reports as on the increase practical and convincing proofs these of the determined perversity of the convict mind I It is refreshing to come to the times when political changes in 1843 raised up new inspectors "Pharaohs which knew not Joseph, 77 "second Daniels come to judgment,' 1 discoursing after this wise : To talk of the power of moral suasion in a community of felons is to talk nonsense. The tiger in his cage may lawn and seem to be subdued, but open his prison door and he is again the tiger of the jungle. To prate about the sub- duing power of kindness and sympathy is worse than preposterous." Away went Sunday-school, library, all. The hounds 7G were to be whipped into submission. The new keepers were men with their eye-teeth cut, and nonsense would not go down with them ; and the convicts, speedily seeing this, settled down into quietness arid submission of course ! Such submission as Netherlands yielded Spain, such quietude as that of Italy, such content- ment as has anything possessed of a soul not equal parts milk and water under rank injustice (for injus- tice can be done even a convict), only here it was not virtue, dauntless against tyranny, but evil against evil, devil against devil, and so the conflict lost nobility, and was simply bloody. Serving out a sentence of fifteen years at that time was one Jim, a fellow who had been captured only after desperate resistance, an excellent specimen of the tiger referred to in the report of 1843 ; an indomitable animal that would not down for flogging, heading every " upstir" arid "break out," till the keepers hit on the simple expedient of punishing Jim for every offense committed in his shop. Denial was not listened to ; explanation followed by an increase of punishment. The entrance of several armed keepers grew to be at last a? =an unknown quantity of lashes for Jim. Then this tiger bethought himself to do what any other poor hunted creature would, stand at bay. One day he turned on his tormentors, seized a bar of red-hot iron from his forge, dashed in among them, careless of loaded canes and whizzing bullets, knocked down one, half killed another, sent a third scampering for his life, yielded only to overpowering numbers, went to the whipping-post, of course, was tortured till he could bear no more, thrown aside with the threat of another hundred lashes as soon as his back could bear it, and so on in infernal series. Bleeding, fainting, hopeless, God and man seemingly as cold to him as the stones of his cell, the chaplain found him. Jim's explanation was simple. "Death from a bullet, I thought, was better than slow torture by the cat. I had done nothing wrong ; I was frantic. I had rather die than live," he whispered faintly. 77 Meantime the Committee on Punishments were dis- satisfied. The reported number of lashes during 1 these three months of terror was enormous, discipline not- withstanding down at the heel and out at elbows, escapes provokingly numerous, and all this blessv d dissatisfaction was light for Jim and others like him. He was allowed an examination, proved innocent, on the whole a decent sort of tiger, as tigers go. In less than a year this desperate ringleader, this incorrigible convict, had the sole charge of making and repairing all the iron bolts used in the Branch Croton Aque- duct, a shop some sixty yards from the prison, and a piece of land allowed him as a garden on the score of merit, and in 1851 he received a pardon, based on the recommendation of the prison authorities. Damaging a case like that in its tendencies to such reports as that of 1843 ! in conjunction with others simi- lar, making people ask if, after all, these convicts were not very much as other men are. The officer on night duty, making his rounds, hour after hour, in the grim barred wards, can tell of such sighs and groans, such tears, such restless pacing up and down, as might make you believe there were hearts beating under those striped jackets. One man is beset with fears for his family : " Oh, sir, I have had such a dream about them ! For God's sake, try and find out something about them!' 7 that sounds human ; another is groaning over his guilt ; a third is sure of pardon if his case were but known ; and talking of pardons, one of the merciful ones who remember " the sighing of the prisoner " had once the happiness to carry five pardons to those gloomy walls. Oh! such eyes of entreaty, of hope, of despair, as were turned upon him ! I think it would take us several years of stone everywhere and white- washed perspective fully to understand their woeful depths. Among those who flocked about him was an Irishman, a good-natured, broad-shouldered blockhead, who had blundered his way into prison, in spite of the best efforts of his employer, the agent of the Prison Association, and 78 the court itself, to keep him out. He was foremost, his great frame trembling with excitement. " And is it me pardon that you've brought, your honor? 7 ' "Well, Peter, Pm sorry, but the fact is, the Governor hesitated about granting" so many pardons ; however, don't be discouraged. Your case is under consideration. You will get it in a month or so." " Oh ! your honor, a month ? " " Well, well, you are sure to get it, you know; it will be sent down." '* But, if your honor had only brought it your own self." " I know it is hard. I should like to see you out of this myself, and if you would be sensible I don't know we might get it in a couple of weeks ; but you would be childish over it, I know you would." " Not I, your honor ; don't ye see Pm calm intirely ? " " If I only thought so ; I am sorry for you, Peter. Who knows ? we might get it sooner say three or four days; and if ycu'll be a man about it, I've half a mind to say I'll stay and wait with you till it comes." " Your honor ! your honor ! sure I don't know what's come over me, but I can't help misdoubting that ye've got it in your pocket." " And if I had, now, you wouldn't be childish ?" " Divil a bit, your honor ! I'd first say, God bless your honor ! not a word more." " Well, then, here is your pardon, Peter." Peter had promised not to be childish, but not a word was said of women, so he fainted, like one, dead away, and there was no small stir to bring him to. This done at last : " How is this, Peter ? I thought you was to be a man." " I I another time, Mr. B.," and he breaks out sob- bing. Lingering doubts still assailed him. He was scarcely yet sure of the blessed news, till he stood on the top of the hill, looking down at the stone walls blinking with their narrow slits of windows, as if they had gone blind, and off at the free river and the purple hills, and all 79 over these last Freedom was written in such plain hand that its thought at last found lodgment in his bewil- dered brain, and thrilled him with an ecstasy ; and, jumping almost his own height from the ground, and shouting, " Fm free, Mr. B., Fm free," ho started off on a keen run that never once slackened till he reached the depot. A vehement, ill-regulated Irishman, but exceed- ingly humane, and it is comfortable to add that he has retained to the present day in +hc service and the confi- dence of his old employers. Many such prisoners are tnere ; much foothold is there for an earnest humanity, not an inch of soil for the growth of a sentimental interest. The flashy hero- ine of the sensation story lays aside her velvet dress, and binds hats and wears hickory like the rest. The interesting villain walks to dinner with his hands on the shoulder of some pickpocket or cut-throat. There are green spots in this stony desert. There is a nursery where you may sec such fair little faces as you kiss every night in the crib at home ; there are cells gay with pictures and all manner of rainbow ingenuities, showing that some of woman's best traits are not yet crushed out ; yet you have always a sense of an orderly night-mare strong upon you, and the oppression, and the instinctive desire to get out, and the growing horror of but one hour, might and should tell what is the weigh- ing down of years in that gloomy place. Now, again, the convicts have their library, the let- ter-writing, and the visits of their friends, but Sabbath- schools are discontinued, because convicts are forbidden to act as teachers, and none others could be obtained. The reason for such prohibition seems difficult to comprehend. When the old-fashioned snake-heads did not work, we tried the T rail, -and if Ossa on Pelion of blankets, and yule fires did not answer with small pox, we tried fresh air and thin coverings ; but here we have beings who, following the reversed laws of evil, near the beast and the savage the higher their degree in wickedness, and we go on treating them as beasts by way of making them men. The world bullied and 80 suspected, and gathered tip its skirts as they passed, and so will we, taking them up where society chopped them, at the prison gates. We will never say to our- selves, This is the old system that has worked badly, let us try a new one ! What if we could induce this sullen beast to think himself a man, arid believe that we believe him so ? The Committee of 1839 declared that " convicts were governed, like the rest of mankind, by their mental faculties." Rest of mankind, decent, civilized, virtuous mankind, which binds you most effectually Argus-eyed surveillance or entire confi- dence ? Why, it is Heaven's own magic ; it has made giants for the nonce out of moral pigmies, brought great deeds out of small souls. If you are insensible to it, you are behind the convicts, for, on the word of a servant of Christ, so arc not they. The teachers selected were necessarily from among the controlling spirits, who influenced their weaker brethren by means of a public opinion, as potent there as inside of prison walls. Not one of these teachers are registered a second time ; not one that did not throw his influence in the scale of good ; not one found, by any breach of trust, forfeiting so rare and sweet a treasure. These be facts, but lest they should be taken, and the causes left, as Utopian (dread word), I will prove thorn of the same family by Napoleon Buonaparte. That little great man gave most responsible offices to most darigeious men to keep them quiet. Call him Utopian, not me ! Let us not forget either the serious objection taken on the part of tried and faithful officers, both English and American, to the contract system, a subject, by the the by, to be approached with gingerly caution, lor a self-supporting prison economy is the philosopher's stone after which political economists are ever groping. Gradgrind could no further g*o, this once achieved it is a thing sacred. What shall be done, then, to the iconoclast, who not only refuses to bow down before the golden image, but even lifts profane hands against it ? What can happen, but, entangled in a labyrinth of red tape, to be devoured by a Minotaur of precedent, or to . 81 be cast into a very furnace of indignation ; and yet this Moloch gorges, the Kecording Angel only knows how many, men, and women's chances for improvement, hopes of a better life ; forces the less hardened of the convicts into damaging contact with the oldest ; inter- feres at every turn with every possible plan for their bettering ; and yet every true, and pure, and just sentiment asserts that prisons are sanitary measures, not speculations ; and if philanthropy is too tame, and reform too dangerous a name to conjure with, self interest pleads lest the incendiary's torch should fire our hearths, the assassin's knife be at our throat ; that the forty-one thousand and odd arrests that took place last year in the city of New York alone may not swell till we are swamped in a second deluge of evil, smothered with the spreading malaria of sin ; and not much more worthy than this pitiful economy, of the magnanimity of a great nation, does it seem to hang the Damocles sword of our political changes over the prisoner's scanty feast. If capacity and fitness, not political creed, are the necessary qualifications of a prison officer, why should the system that has been tried and works well be exchanged for at least inex- perience and its consequent blunders ? " A man who is cruel," says one, " should enter prison only as a convict ;" and another, " a man has a right to be com- mon-place in the great desert, but at the head of an army, or of a gaol to be common-place is an iniquity and leads to crime," arid there is no warrant that the right man in the right place shall not be exchanged for the cruel or common-place man. Surely the government has offices enough within its gift, without the prisoner's ewe lamb. Surely it behooves that outward Chris- tianity, and public sentiment that are in reality the prison-keepers to look well to these things, lest at the last they should have to offer their Saviour only the equivocation of Cain : " Am I my brother's keeper 7' WYNKOOP & HALLENBECK, NO. 113 PULTON STREET, SHORT NOTICE, NEATEST STYLE, THE LOWEST CASH PRICES. CLOTH! rv <^. MANUFACTURERS OF, AKD DEALERS IN, MEN'S, BOYS', AND CHILDREN'S Nos. 398, 400, and 402 Bowery, Hew York. This establishment is situated nearly opposite the Seventh Regiment Armory, being a little over one block south of the Bible House, and directly at the junction of the Third and Fourth avenues, and comprises THREE FIVE-STORY BUILDINGS devoted exclusively to the manufacture of and sale of SUPERIOR- GARMENTS FOR MEN, BOYS, AND CHILDREN, AT WHOLE- SALE, RETAIL, OR TO ORDER. f Most literal discount off erred to the trade FOR CASH, A REMEDY FOR CHOLERA. DETROIT, MICH., Dec. 13, 1865. BROTHER In view of the approach of the cholera season I send you for the 0. F. a receipt for cholera syrup, which I have used as a family medicine, for all diseases of the bowels, for over twenty years, and in past cholera seasons, with good effect ; 2 oz. Tincture of Myrrh, " " Capsicum, " Essence of Peppermint, J " " Cinnamon, 1 gill best Brandy. In an attack of the cholera I should give from a tablespoon to half a wine-glass in half a teacup of hot water. Soak the feet in hot water with some Cayenne pepper in it, and apply a mustard plaster to the stomach ; or what is better (if it can be obtained), steeped smart-weed put on the stomach as hot as it can be borne. The dose can be repeated in from half an hour to an hour, according to the nature of the attack. It warms and invigorates the whole system, and in eight cases out of ten, if taken in time, no further medical attendance will be required. Though I would not advise a perfect reliance on this prescrip- tion, yet I would use it in the absence of a physician, as a means of checking and giving relief, and if not needed when he comes, so much the better. Taken in doses of from one to three tea- spoonfuls in half a cupful of hot water (and repeated according to circumstances), it is a sovereign remedy for all diseases of the bowels, and no family testing it will ever be without it. Fraternally, yours, J O. MELICK. 393G 910001 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY