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pcuotet* to Citcraturc, Science, anb ‘Art, tl)e oons of temperance, ©bb ixllocnslpp, ittasonrn, nnb ©cncral Sntdliiyctue.
VOLUME I.
s Ei,E; ig T e: m 5? o £ wx?.
= TH£ DEATH OF RICHARD HENRY WILDE.
BT A. F. MEEK.
The harp that sang “ the Summer Rose,”
[ n strains so sweetly and so well,
That, soft as clews at evening’s close,
The pure and liquid numbers fell,
t j lUS lied and shattered ! now no more
j t g silvery chords their music pour ;
lhit crushed by an untimely blow,
lloth Harp and flower in dust lie low !
The bard! —alas, I knew him well!
V noble, generous, gentle heart,
Which as his brave hand struck the shell,
Poured feelings through the veins of Art
What radiant beauty ’round his lyre !
pure as his loved Italian fire !
jle caught the sweetest beams of rhyme, —
Ti ie Tasso of our Western clime!
Kor this alone ; a loftier power,
That shone in halls of High Decree,
And swayed the feelings of the hour,
As summer winds, the rippled sea, —
Bright eloquence ! to him was given,
The spark, the Prophet drew from Heaven!
It touched his lips with patriot flame,
And shed a halo ’round his name !
As late 1 saw, I see him now !
His stalwart form, his graceful mien,
His long, white locks, his smiling brow,
His eyes benignant and serene!
How pleasant ’round the social hearth,
When listening to his tones of mirth !
What lessons of the good and true,
The brave, the beautiful, he drew !
Drop down thy willows, Southern land!
Thy bard, thine orator is dead,
He sleeps where broad magnolias stand,
With “ Summer roses” o’er his head!
The lordly River, sweeping by,
Curves ’round his grave, with solemn sigh,
\nt], from yon twinkling orange stem,
The “ Mock-Bird ” pours his requiem!
Bard of the South ! —the “ Summer Rose ”
Mar perish with the “ Autumn leaf,”
The “footprints left on Tampa’s” shores
May vanish with a date ns brief:
But thine shall be the “life” of fame,
No winter winds can wreck thy name ;
And future minstrels shall rehearse
Thy virtues, in memorial verse!
SI&SSf fllli.
AUNT HANNAH.
“There is something 1 want you to tell me aunt,”
said Eliza Herbert, a girl of fourteen, and she
drew a stool close to her aunt’s feet, and leaned
her head in her lap so that a whole cloud of nut
brown curls fell over her black silk apron.
“What is it?” said her aunt, passing her
hand caressingly over the fair forehead upraised
to hers.
“lam almost afraid to ask,” said Eliza, “but
I want you to tell me why you, who are so good
ind so handsome, and so accomplished and pleas
iiur, were never married ? ”
A slight tlush was for a moment perceptible on
Aunt Hannah’s cheek, which might have been oc
casioned by Eliza’s compliment to her beauties
and good qualities, or the consciousness of the
ridicule which a certain class attached to the ap
pellation of old maid. It might too have been
caused by a blending of all these, or by certain
memories which the question called up. She re
mained silent for a few moments, and then said,
“ 1 will tell you Eliza—l never had an offer
that exactly suited me.’
“ w strange ! ” said Eliza, “ when you are so
easy to please, and are so keen sighted to every
hnly s virtues, and so blind to their faults ! Now
there is Aunt Margaret, who is not half as pretty
as you are, married one of the best, the hand
somest and the most noble-looking men in the
orld. Come, aunt, do tell me all about it, for 1
am tiredot my piano, my worsted-work and my
hook.”
M\ hie has been a very quiet, uneventful
oa A a unt Hannah, “and would, lam
> mj -ke a. dull story ; but I will tell ymu about
S °™ e ( car fiends of mine, if that will do.”
yes,” said Eliza, “that will be the next
honr Ul '*V° faring about yourself. There, I
difference,” 1 COmill S 5 but tbat need make no
i^ ailts me to tell her a story, sister,”
cl, -,. ) miah > as Mrs. Herbert took her ac
hot! f llll in' lt 1 10 Preside ; “ and i have prom
()j(j 101 about some old friends. It is an
m,' 01 ’ t 0 3’ ou j so you can prompt me if I make
man Y mistakes.”
“ Certainly.”
ll nc °j m ) r friends,” said Aunt Hannah,
,y la -ff call Isabel, was the youngest of a
} le ct ol daughters. Her form was slight,
callo ? rnp exion deli cate,and she might have been
sisto • J lUcrest^n g rather than handsome. Her
L tto l i V ‘f 0 ’ two years older, some people called
Tp lookln g’ though
i n 11 bett ® r looking? ” said Mrs. Herbert, breaking
tenvn ° n 1Gr ’ ** ske was the most beautiful girl in
li > )tt beauty was her least charm.”
“I believe you exaggerate a little sister,” said
Aunt Hannah. “ When Isabel was sixteen and
Kate eighteen, one Leonard Frankland, a young
merchant, came to reside in the place. He soon
became intimate with their brother, who used of
ten to invite him home to take tea or spend the
evening. He was—that is, most persons thought
him singularly handsome, and that his manners
were peculiarly attractive. It was not long be
fore it began to be whispered in the family, and
among their more intimate acquaintances, that he
was partial to Kate. Kate was not so blind as
not to perceive it herself, and but for one thing it
would have made her the happiest girl that ever
lived. She from the first had seen that Isabel,
though unconscious of it herself, had given her
heart to the fascinating Frankland ; so she made
up he r mind to sacrifice her own happiness for
the sake of this dear sister. It was very hard
for poor Kate ; but she had more confidence in
her own strength, both moral and physical than
she had in Isabel’s ; she felt that she would be
able to rise from the blow, and ultimately to have
the power of being tranquil and even happy. —
But Isabel, so frail and so delicate, she knew that
it would kill her to see the chosen of her heart
forever lost to her.”
“ But if Leonard Frankland liked Kate best,”
said Eliza, “ then there must have been a double
sacrifice.”
“ He liked her best at first,” said Aunt Hannah,
“} T et there was a gentleness, a loss of self-reli
ance in the character of Isabel, that needed only
to be discovered by such a person as Leonard
Frankland to excite an interest which might soon
ripen into love. I believe, indeed that it is not
uncommon for men who are remarkable for spirit
and energy, to be better pleased with those whose
more prominent traits are softness and delicacy,
rather than those similar to their own.
“ Kate affected, more independence and vivac
ity than would have been natural to her, even
had her heart been at ease ; and she soon found
that it began to have the effect she desired. Such
unrestrained exuberance of spirits offended the
taste of Frankland, and he often turned from the
brilliant and sparkling Kate to contempla!e the
serene loveliness of Isabel. If he could only have
seen the anguish that lay concealed beneath the
mask of smiles which she constantly wore—if he
had known how difficult it sometimes was for her
to prevent the gay notes of some lively song, as
she appearrd carelessly to warble them, from
breaking into the moans of agony —but he neither
saw nor knew—he never knew, so well did she
act her part, that he was never otherwise than
perfectly indifferent to her.”
“ And did Isabel know ? ” said Eliza.
“ Never —it would have poisoned all her happi
ness, for she was tenderlv attached to her sister.”
“ I am glad that she did not,” said Eliza ; “il
would have been so selfish and ungenerous in
her if she had, to have received Leonard Frank
land’s attentions.”
“ Kate did not miscalculate her own strength ;
and when one evening Isabel folded her arms
around her, and told her that she was the affi
anced bride of Leonard Frankland, she felt calm
and satisfied. How indeed could she feel other
wise, when she knew that had she herself been
Frankland’s bride, she must have turned from the
altar to stand beside a sister’s grave ? “ How,”
thought she, “ could I ever have looked on my
wedding robe without imagining it to be stained
with the drops wrung from a broken heart ? ”
“ And were Frankland and Isabel happy,”
said Eliza, “ after they were married ? ”
“ Yes, as happy as it is possible to be in a life
where we can drink of no cup that is not dashed
with gall, and wear no flower that does not con
ceal either worm or the thorn.
“ Are they still living aunt ? ”
“ Yes, and surrounded by a group of lovely
and happy children.”
“I hope that dear Kate was married to some
body that she liked a great deal better than she
ever did Leonard Frankland.”
“ That would have been impossible —so she
never married.”
“ What! did such a lively, handsome girl as
Kate, without a bit of starch in her, live an old
maid ? ”
u And what could she find to do to make her
time pass pleasantly ? ”
u What docs your Aunt Hannah find to do .
said her mother.
“ Oh ! Aunt Hannah is different irom othei
s i n ole ladies. If she had been married 1 don’t
know what I should have done, for if I have a
new dress to make she always assists me ; it any
music or drawing perplexes me, she knows how
to put me right ; and if I am sick she nurses
me. And then, } T ou know, that when }ou ant
father want to go on a journey, she always keepb
house for you, so that, you never feel uneasy about
the children while you are absent. It was the
luckiest thing in the world for us, and Aunt Mar-.
SAVANNAH, GA„ THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1849.
garet Waldron too, that Aunt Hannah remained
single.”
“ Then you are glad that your aunt never mar
ried ? ” said Mrs. Herbert.
“ I am sure I have reasons to be,” replied
Eliza, “and so have you—haven’t you, aunt?”
“ Yes, reasons to be glad and thankful too.”
“ I knew so, for there is no other station in the
world that you would be so happy to yourself, or
make others so happy.”
“It is not the station that has made } f our aunt
so happy,” said Mrs. Herbert; “but because she
early found out the true secret of happiness.”
“And what is the secret, mother ? ”
“ In whatever situation you are in, to be there
with content.”
“ I would give almost anything to see Kate and
her sister, and Leonard Frankland. I don't be
lieve he was so handsome a man as uncle Wal
dron is—was he, aunt?”
“ Yes, lie was handsomer than your Uncle Wal
dron is now ; for Leonard Frankland was then in
his prime.”
“ I wish you would tell me who Kate really
was,” said Eliza. .
Her mother smiled and looked significantly
toward Aunt Hannah.
Eliza sprang up from the stool at her aunt’s
feet, and threw her arms round her neck.
“ Why, how stupid I was not to guess it was
you all the time ! ” said she, “ I might have
known that there was not another person in the
world beside dear Aunt Hannah who would have
acted so nobly and generously as Kate. And
now I know too that Leonard Frankland and Isa
bel were Uncle and Aunt Waldron.
(From the Literary World.)
NEGRO MINSTRELSY.
“Progress of the age” is nowadays the topic in
enabling editors, orators, satirists, and schoolboys
to drown various ideas in ink and spread them
on paper to dry. From steam down to the sewing
machine (not to pass over railroads or the magnetic
telegraph in a slighting manner,) all the novelties
and phases of the age are put into rhetorical har
ness in this connection and galloped through the
land. We don’t know whether negro Minstrelsy
be entitled to go down to posterity noticed under
favor of the catalogue of progress; } T et are we
disposed to book it for a short journey.
There are yet living many of the members of
the old Park Pit, whose mouth muscles (our med
cal glossary is stolen since the Cholera set in) con
vulsively twitch at remembrance of the electric
effect produced upon them on a benefit night by
the volunteer appearance of Jim Crow Rice, who
“ turned about and wheeled about” in so horrid a
manner thatfvhe respectable bass-vial of the res
pectable ocliestra broke all its strings (blood ves
sels to all intents and purposes) in an attempt to
groan a double G. Men had three or four times
before this, perhaps oftener, blackened their faces
and sung negro songs upon theatrical boards at
sundry places in and about the St. Giles of Goth
am, and dignity had got wind of the thing through
the medium of handbills and placards; but here
was the thing itself and on the Park boards!—
One would have thought that
.Tim Crow was a monster ol’ such hideous mien
As to be dreaded needed only to be seen ,
yet in accordance with some such curious fancy
as would make the lovely Desdemona in the Dus
seldrof Exhibition enamored of the cottonplanting
negro before her Othello, the people began to
show a decided predilection for “colored melody,”
and Negro Minstrelsy soon rallied about itself a
large and thriving family. Zip Coon and Jim
along Josey were strong boys, but died early. —
They were not missed. The void their untimely
decease occasioned was supplied by hundreds of
others who sprung from the print shops and mu
sic counters of the land, like the armed men of old,
and in the same manner often materially interfer
ed with each others peaceable existence.
Negro minitrelsy was soon studied as an art. Its
professors made a trade of it and formed partner
ships. They serenaded on Irish principles, the
serenades coming and going for their dose instead
of the serenades bringing it to them. It even
traveled to England, and made the Queen clap
her delicate hands in appreeiatien of the molody
of “ De ole jaw bone,” or weep in commiseration
of the sufferings of “ Lucy Neal ” and the hungry
trials of the venerable “ Dan Tucker.” It did
what the census takers never could have accom
plished, in furnishing the available quantity of
banjo-players and hone-crackers in this sovereign
republic. It founded an Odd Fellow Lodge of
melody throughout the land. The whistle of a
few bars in “ (Join ober de mountain,” was a Ma
sonic pass-word to the Western emigrant. The
Portland boy who a week-day night, had learned
from Durnbolton’s band in the meeting-house near
his homestead, did not feel as among strangers
when traversing a western prairie, a forlorn emi
grant, he halted by log-huts and heard negro
melodies quavered by the tongue of a wood chop
per.
Negro minstrelsy very soon afier its birth bc
came harmonious in prosaics. It formed press
gangs to force into service all the con umd rums
latent in the head pf scratching youth, or floating
through an atmosphere already heavy with truant
jokes of Brother Jonathan. From a press ganr
tyrant it became a generous merchant, and re
warded fun with varieties of silver goblets after
most honorable public proposals. It stopped not
at originality. It did not disdain parody. It be
came dramatic.
Fr-m ‘vfug n great* tourist it settled down into
residence. It invaded a ball which bad been
solemnly set apart for purposes of education ; ami
has lived there for more than a year. It under
mined the New York Society Library. It alterna
ted at the Tabernacle with the eloquence of di
vines and the potential baton of M. Maretzek. It,
drove Macready by the magic wave of a legal
agreement, from the lecture room of the Stuvves
ant Institute. It settled under the classic drape
ries oi the Apollo Saloon, a place so long dear to
Gothamites as being sacred to Terpsichore and
St. Celia. It struck down the angry wave of
fashion’s wand and laid itself to slumber upon
grand pianos in luxurous drawing-rooms.
The worshipers of Yon Weber, Kossini, Auber,
Belini, and Donizetti, became nervous. Musical
doctors trembled like Noah Webster when he first
heard of Phonography. Negro minstrelsy was
spoiling the public ear ; vitiating the public taste.
If you asked
What was this great commotion
The country through ?
Pat came the answer:—
It is the ball a rolling on
For Dumbolton and Christy too.
And with them we’ll lead the van.
But soon, like the weathercock which on an
April day has spun to all points of the compass,
and finally settles itself due SW., negro minstrelsy
lost its fascinating and variable novelty and re
turned to its original haunts ; there to convulse
the b’hoys and their sempstress sweethearts with
bones and statue dances, burlesque operas, and
parodies (humorous to the death) of airs which
issued from the windows of exclusive parvenus.
It became mere music for the million, because,
like Scrooge’s darkness, it was cheap ; and be
cause, too, it was a most piquant dessert to come
in after the common potatoes of everyday life.
Like all other music, “ colored melody” most
certainly has its school, and its harmonies their
appropriate classification. If we were called
upon to designate any particular character it pos
ssessed, we should give it that of sarcasm. With
all his pathos, with all his humor, with all his af
fectation of unsophistication, with all his frank
sincerity, your grinning negro minstrel is cruelly
sarcastic, and cuts and slashes his best heroes and
heroines with cool discrimination. That is an
other reason why his music has settled down as
the favored of the million. The latter love sar
casm. Do you doubt it?—visit the Five Points
—hang round the dog fights ; inquire the cause of
the applause which shakes the very rafters of the
Chatham, when the thin gentleman in the pink
cravat points at the lady in blue flounces and
shows bis white teeth to the angry old ’un in the
plethoric waistcoat who officiates as uncle in taking
care of affection’s pledge; analyse a hoarding
school fisticuff; and you will discover how truth
ful we are in this instance.
As “ music for the million ” negro minstrelsy is
harmless enjoyment. It has little of refined taste
in music to vitiate. It is satisfactory to its peculiar
votaries, and prevents indigestion from peanuts,
(since who ever heard of shell breaking interfer
ing with the banjo or the uproarious cuffee chorus !)
and thus it would be impolitic as well as selfish to
gainsay its virtues or advantages. But using the
critic’s privilege of publicly expressing a private
opinion, we say with King Alfourite, in Blanche’s
clever burlettaof “ Fortunio,” alter die great court
song: —
“ This may be music for tlio million ; burly burling,
We will not hear it for a million sterling.”
Sub-Rosa. —This compound word is olten used
in writing and conversation as significant ol seciesv.
It is said that its derivation is as follows : anciently
the Greeks consecrated the rose to Hippocrates,
the genius of silence. And either the rose or its
representation was placed upon the ceilingof their
dining rooms, implying that whatever was done
therein should be kept from public knowledge.—
It was done sub-rosa, or under the rose.
The Power of Reflection. —The most extraordi
nary thing in Gin Palaces, notwithstanding the
profusion of every known and unknown ornament,
is the absence of mirrors. This may be accoun
ted for by the fact that publicans are well aware
that, if a drunkard could only see himself, he.
would immediately turn away in horror from the
glass. — Punch
NUMBER 20,