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SOME PAGES FROM Ml ‘BOOK
THE STORY OF BEN BOLT.
Dr. Thomas Dunn English, Its Author,
Tells It.
(From the New York Sun.)
“Being properly clad for the weath
er —and for a Jerseyman—l was called
for by Bunner, who insisted upon my
wearing evening dress, and I made
the change much against my will, for
thus appareled 1 felt as if 1 were in
a straight jacket. But that is not my
only cause of offense against Bun
ner. He has dared here, and public
ly, to allude to that unfortunate early
indiscretion of mine, ‘Ben Bolt.’ ”
Then the speaker was compelled t»
pause, for the Abbots broke forth
with loud applause.
-This was a few evenings ago at
the Cloister club, or “the Cloister,”
as the members prefer to have it
called, and the speaker was Dr. Thom
as Dunn English, the poet, novelist,
dramatist, physician, lawyer and poli
tician. A most interesting figure,
merely to look at, as he stood talking
to his younger fellow craftsmen; but
interesting beyond anything most of
his listeners had ever heard when, as
he soon did, he told of people and
events in literature and the drama in
New York half a century ago. Dr.
English modestly confesses to seventy
five years, but his friend, Poet Bun
ner, claims five more for him, in spite
of the records of the University of
Pennsylvania, which put him in the
class of ’39. He seldom accepts invi
tations to dinners nowadays which
call him so far as Clinton place from
his Newark residence, but that must
be only from his love of quiet home
evenings, for the youngest Friar at the
table was no more alert than the doc
tor an hour after such youngsters as
Judge Howland (Yale ’54) had gone
home. Allowing him only what he
claims as to years, seventy-five, Dr.
English is an extremely young look
ing man. Although the white pre
dominates in his drooping moustache,
his fine, strong head is covered with
a mass of dark hair in which is only
a suggestion of gray, and he speaks
with the robustness of a young orator
And he had only finished a hard con
gress campaign! Really he looked as
if he were yet on the sunny side of
fifty.
The Abbots and Friars of the Clois
ter looked forward with unusual in
terest to the visit of a man of whom
it was published in the American Cy
clopedia twenty years ago: “He is
the author of more than twenty suc
cessful dramas;” “he is the author of
several novels,” he is the author of
‘Gallows-Goers,’ a rough but vigorous
poem of which hundreds of thousands
of copies were circulated,” he is this
and he is that, and has done this and
has done that, and yet who is known
to the world only as the author of
“Ben Bolt.”
It was that most delightful period in
the dinner hour when the dinner is be
ing enjoyed—having been eaten —and
the table bears only ash trays and cof
fee, when a comfortable, inviting si
lence inspires to monologue after the
rattle of general talk, that Dr. English
rose to talk to the “youngsters,” as
he called them, of the cloister. Presid
ing Abbot J. L. Ford had referred to
Dr. English and H. C. Bunner then
committed the offense with which the
doctor charged him, alluding to Ben
Bolt.
“An indiscretion committed more
than fifty years ago should not be
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
brought up against a man at such an
hour as this,” said the doctor. “Let
me tell about—well, say, about the
pop-gun tariff bills, for you know I
have a short session to serve yet in
congress.”
The Friars laughed him down and
called for “Ben Bolt.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “I thought
when I wrote
“ ‘And sweet Alice lies under the
stone.’
1 had done with her and her possible
sweetheart, ‘Ben Bolt,’ but it appears
not. I wrote those verses in 1843 at
the request of N. P. Willis, who, with
George P. Morris, had revived the
New York Mirror as the New Mirror.
Willis asked me for a sea song, and
I started one. But I stuck. Possibly
some of you youngsters may have had
that same experience when you have
set out to write something to order.”
The particular “youngster” the speaker
happened to be looking at as he said
this was William Dean Howells, and
the novelist laughed and nodded, as
if in assurance that even a traveler
from Altruria was sometimes stuck
when so unaltruistic as to write any
thing to order. “Then,” the doctor con
tinued, “I began on something else,
nearly finished it, patched on a piece of
the unfinished sea song and sent the
thing to Willis, telling him if it didn't
suit not to return it, but burn it. I did
not give it a title and signed only
my initials, I thought so little of it.
The editors were pleased with it and
published it with some prominence in
the New Mirror of September 25, 1843.
But it was not much of a sea song.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Doc
tor,” remarked Laurence Hutton, from
the opposite side of the table. “There
was at least one line of a sea song:
“ ‘Ben Bolt of the salt sea gale,’
and that out of thirty-two lines would
be considered pretty grod, if not quite
sufficient, from the standards of to
day.”
“This from Sir Oliver,” responded
the doctor, with a bow, “is compensa
tion for much that I have suffered be
cause of that song.
“Well, the lines became popular. It
was copied, without credit, in the En
glish papers where it was assumed to
be of British birth. After I saw it in
print it seemed to me that the song
would go well to music, and I spoke
to several composers about it, but they
all answered, ‘lt won’t sing.’ I thought
it would and took the matter into my
own hands by writing some music for
the words myself.”
This was the first intimation any one
at the Cloister table had that this doc
tor of many talents was a musician,
and Friar Waller, who teaches budding
geniuses how to compose in the con
servatory, vigorously blew the smoke
away from before him in order to have
a clearer view of the speaker.
“But my music did not become so
popular as that adapted from a Ger
man song by a young singer and actor
named Wilson Kneass, a son of a cele
brated actress of that time. He had an
opportunity to appear in a stage pro
duction if he could furnish a new and
popular song. A fellow player named
Hpnt, an Englishman, recited ‘Ben
Bolt,’ to Kneass, and suggested it as a
song. He had seen the words in an
English paper and remembered them,
Kneass adapted the music, as I have
said, and the song made an immense
hit, not only in this country, but in
England, where it was sung, parodied
‘answered’ and illustrated. It created
a furore in London and was, of course,
still supposed to be strictly British.
After several revivals I supposed until
recently that I had heard the last of
it, but now a gentleman named Du Ma
nner, whom I never harmed in my life,
revives it in ‘Trilby.’ ”
By the way, although Dr. English
did not tell this, nor much else that
might be considered flattering to him
about the history of “Ben Bolt,” Mr.
Du Maurier was not the first novelist
to make the song a theme in fiction.
In London, in 1877, a novel was pub
lished in which the singing of “Ben
Bolt,” was the incident which brought
about the happy climax of the story,
the reconciliation of the lovers.
“When I first went to congress, four
yars ago,” the doctor went on when
the Friars demanded more “Ben Bolt,”
“1 was duly reported in the papers as
the author of that song, and it brought
me many curious interviews. One
member introduced me to his wife
whose three Christian names were ‘Al
ice Ben Bolt,’ another assured me he
had been lulled to sleep in his cradle
by his mother singing ‘Ben Bolt,’ and
a third informed me when he intro
duced me to his wife that it was her
singing of ‘Ben Bolt,’ that won his
proposal of marriage. ‘I am sorry for
it,’ I answered —‘That I wrote it,’ I
added, for I seemed to be misunder
stood.”
During the hour, while talk was
yet general, something had been said
about the great profits of modern play
wrights, and Augustus Thomas, of “Al
abama” fame, had been alluded to.
“Profits were smaller but production
was larger in the forties and fifties
than with you, young gentlemen,” said
the doctor, turning to Mr. Thomas,
who sat near him. “I recall being very
well satisfied with the receipt of S6OO
for a play I wrote for Burton, and
which had a success in—let me see,
was it at Burton’s theatre?”
“Chambers street, 1848 to 1856,” sug
gested W. Curtis Gibson.
“Thank you; then it was at Palmer’s
opera house.”
"Leonard street, occupied by Mr.
Burton prior to his going to Cham
bers street,” Mr. Gibson said.
“Thank you again,” said the doctor,
beaming on his venerable Scotch con
temporary.
Then everybody sang the song and
here are the words:
Oh! don’t you remember sweet Alice,
Ben Bolt,
Sweet Alice whose hair was so
brown,
Who wept with delight when you
gave her a smile
And trembled with fear at your
frown?
In the old churchyard in the valley.
Ben Bolt,
In a corner obscure and alone,
They have fitted a slab of the granite
so gray
And sweet Alice lies under the stone.
Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt,
Which stood at the foot of the hill,
Together we’ve lain in the noonday
shade,
And listened to Appleton’s mill.
The mill wheel has fallen to pieces,
Ben Bolt,
The rafters have all tumbled in,
And a quiet that crawls round the
walls as you gaze
Has followed the olden din.
And don’t you remember the school,
Ben Bolt,
With the master so cruel and grim,
And the shaded nook and the running
brook,
Where the children went to swim?
Grass grows on the master's grave,
Ben Bolt;
The spring of the brook is dry.
And of all the boys who were school
mates then
There remains only you and I.
There is change in the things I loved,
Ben Bolt;
They have changed from the old to
the new
But 1 feel in the depths of my spirit
the truth —
There never was change in you.
Twelve months, twenty, have passed,
Ben Bolt,
Since first we were friends —yet 1
hail
Thy friendship a blessing, thy presence
a truth,
Ben Bolt of the salt sea gale.
HOHENLINDEN.
An Impressive Poem Inspired by the
Defeat of the Austrians by the
French in December, 1800.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) is one
of those writers who composed many
elaborate works, yet whose fame rests
wholly upon three or four short poems
which have become classic. Among
these is “Hohenlinden,” written im
mediately after the battle of that
name, fought on December 3, 1800,
between the French, under Moreau,
and the Archduke John, in command of
the Austrian army.
It was one of the most hotly con
tested battles of the Napoleonic wars,
and was decided by the valor of Mar
shal Ney, the' Austrians being routed
with a loss of twenty thousand men.
The battle made a profound impress
ion in England, and inspired Campbell
to dash off these stirring lines, which
in the speed of their composition and
their martial spirit remind one of Ten
nyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
By Thomas Campbell.
On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th’ untrodden snow;
And dark as winter was the flow
Os Iser, rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neighed,
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder
riven,
Then rushed the steed to battle driven
And louder than the bolts of heaven
Far flashed the red artillery.
But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden’s hills of stained snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Os Iser, rolling rapidly.
’Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulph’rous canopy.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave.
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet.
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier’s sepulcher.
PAGE THREE