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[For the Southern Field and Fireside. 1
VITA EST NIHIL SINE FAMA.
Fame and ambition ! Dreamer, count the o*-t-
Ere in the desert life's clear springs are lost
Like a vast ice-berg on its northern throne.
Calm, proud and frozen, mateless and alooe
Mast be the soul which nurses those wild dreams.
Wierd shadows floating orer misty streams 1
One picture from the past—the radiant bloom
Os twelre bright springs has faded in the iamb.
Since that lair even, clear and April nursed—
Ah, was it ominous J It was the first!
Wearily drooped the sunset's purple plumes,
O'er hill and valley, palaces and tombs;
Soft stole its gold-mists through the orange trees,.
Whose perfumed clusters trembled in the breeze;
And the sweet south-wind passing o'er a brow.
All amber-shadowed, listened to a vow.
To carve upon the rugged cliffs ot Time
A memory Titanic and sublime!
A vow remembered but, in later years,
With maledictions, wild and burning tears.
Years have passed onward—soft the starlight falls
Through broken shafts, in Tadmor's ruined halls,
On a pale wanderer. Wrecked that proud young heart?
As day by day it felt Its youth depart.
If laorel leaves were gleaming, soft and fair.
In the thick clusters of his amber hair,
' With all his glory, happiness unwon.
He sits beneath the temple of the Sun,
While scorn and bitterness alone unroll
Their corsair banners In his writhing soul!
Laura Lobcixer.
, [For the Southern Field and Fireside]
THE WHITTINGTON CLUB.
No.' 2.
(Scene, as before, the Library of Frank Whit
tington.)
Whittington. —The work upon Mountain Scen
ery, of which I spoke at our last meeting, is en
titled, “ I7t« White Hills df New Hampshire;
Their Legends, Landscape and Poetry
It is superbly published, by Messrs. Crosby tfc
Nichols, of Boston, and certainly few books is
sued from the American press have more richly
deserved to be invested with all the splendors of
typography. Its author is a distinguished Uni
tarian preacher, whose fame has not, as yet,
reached, the South, but who has made himself
favorably known to all the Northern public by
several able productions, of which the present is
probably the ablest.
The Rev. Thomas Starr King is a man of del
icate, fertile imagination, earnest in tempera
ment, a scholar of varied learning, and almost,
if not quite, a poet, in his sincere and passion
ate appreciation of Nature.
The object of his present volume is to direct
attention to ihe noble landscapes that lio along
the routes by which the White Mountains are
approached by tourists, “ to help persons appre
ciate landscape more adequately,” and to asso
ciate with the principal scenes poetical passages,
which illustrate either the permanent character
of the views, or some peculiar aspect in which
the author of the book has seen them.
The work is, in reality, o prose poem, which
describes, with a charming union of faithfulness
and fancy, the characteristics, under every con
ceivable mood of atmosphere, of one among the
grandest mountain regions in the world. While
it is professedly littlo more than a collection
“ made for mountain tourists, such as sea-side
visitors may command in ‘ the ThaUatta' of Mr.
Higginson," it is truly as far superior to any
mere guide-book as a performance “compact”
of tasto and imagination must necessarily be.
Mr King, onHon-oJ tts he evidently is, with
• some of the best faculties of both poet and
painter, has succeeded in reproducing, with ex
traordinary vividness, what is most sublime and
beautiful in the country he endeavors to depict.
The majority of writers, whose design it is to
“ paint some natural scene with words," are vague,
diffuse, and unsatisfactory, because of the very
feoblenesa of the impression originally made
upon their minds. Their raphsodies are assumed,
their admiration is conventional, and the result
invariably shows how impossible it is for those
who possess no true sympathy with Nature and
her marvels, to deceive even the most superfi
cial of readers.
The great merit of Mr. King's volume is its
sincerity, its ever-present enthusiasm. The at
mosphere of the “Hflls” appears to have given
him that “champaigny feeling” df which the
poet Holmes (more recently “ the Autocrat,")
so eloquently discourses. He beholds every
thing through a luminous, exhilirating air; the
mountain breezes bring with them messages of
happy augury, and in the towering peaks which
pierce the heaven, he recognizes the material
types of a glorious spiritual aspiration. His
book is a scries of photographs of the hundred
varying phases of which mountain scenery is so
susceptible. He is as glowing and picturesque
as Ruskin, rising fully to the dignity of his sub
ject, and bearing the reader swiftly along with
him by the force of his irresistible and conta
gious fervor. The quoted poetry with which
the work brims over, seems to burst from the
author’s heart as if it were his own—as if) under
the influence of some exalting passion, he im
provised his thought in Bong I There is a lyri
cal gush and a rhythmic balance and harmony
in the prose passages, also, which give to them
somewhat of tho cadenco and sweetness of
verse, admirably adapted, not only to the topic,
but to tho character of Mr. King’s intellect,
which is sensuous, warm, singularly alive to the
gorgeousuess of color, and impassioned, even in
its philosophies. He is equally rapid and felic
itous in his descriptions. For example, alluding
to the landscape which spreads beneath the
traveler’s eye from the summit of Mount Lafay
ette, he says:
“ The valleys of tho Connecticut and Merri
mac are spread west, and south-west, and south.
With what pomp of color are their growing har
vests inlaid upon the floor of New England 1
Hero we see one of Nature’s great water-colors 1
She does not work in oil. Every tint of the
flowers, all the gradations of leaf-verdure, every
stain on the rocks, every shadow that drifts
along a mountain slope in response to a floating
cloud, the vivid shreds of silver gossamer that
loiter along the bosom of a ridge after a shower,
the luxuriant chords of sunset gorgeousness,
the sublime arches of dishevelled light, all are
Nature’s temptation and challenge to the intel
lect and cunning of the artist, to mimic the
splendor with which, by water and sunbeams,
she adorns the world.
“When we can see them from the proper
height, and in their relations, common facts
wear a ravishing beauty. It is so in the
realms of science, when we mount to a grand
generalization; it is so, when we merely rise
in space, and see the common fields and farms
reduced to patches of color on the earth’s
robe.
There is no. house on the summit of La
fayette, and therefore, we cannot hide a moment
from whatever grandeur or livliness the day
supplies.
XKS SOVXKSBBf SS&LA JUS® SXXUBSXSK.
See vonder little cloud, that borne aloft ' _
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away
Oyer tho ruckv |>eaks! It seems to me
The body of it; Catharine borne by angels. .
“It is the precursor of others that roll out of
the north-west to wrap the peaks in cold gray
mist for a few moments. But it is only that
they may be torn away again, and that we may
be surprised by the contrast of their ashy gloom
with the new created world that soon spreads
over and beneath us.
Its floor* of flashing light,
Its east and azure dome.
Its fertile,golden islands,
Floating on a silver sea.
“Yes, it is the semblance of a vaguely-tinted
ocean that is produced by the obscure and ten
der colors that stretch over hundreds of square
miles to the horizon. What a privilege it would
be to be removed far enough iuto space to ob
serve the motion without losing the color of tho
globe; to see the morning break upon the
Himalayas and the Andes, with violet and gold;
to watch the creeping of spring over the North
ern latitudes, and
Summers, like blushes, sweep the face of earth.
“This is the privilege with which the great
German poet endows his angels. He makes
them sing in the opening hymn of “ Faust”—
And fleetly, thought surpassing.
The earths's green pomp is spinning round fleetly.
Where Paradise alternates sweetly,
With might terriffio and profound.
“ Surely no man ever earned his sight-seeing.
It is reward enough for an angel to be able
simply to read the geography of this globe,
through its delicate sapphire-tiuted vesture, as
it rolls noiselessly to bathe its checkered lands
in light.
The sight gives angels strength, tho’ greater
Than angel's utmost thought sublime;
And all thy wondrous works, Creator!
Are glorious as in Eden's prime."
This is, by no means, the most striking pas
sage in Mr. King’s book, and yet it is both elo
quent and true.
Nothing can be more difficult than any at
tempt to convey to a person sitting quietly at
home, an adequate conception of the complex
features of a landscape, which, like that of the
mountains, undergoes so many surprising trans
formations of light and shade, graduated to ev
ery degree of passing tint, and displayed in
countless combining or dissolving forms of tho
elements. To accomplish this, an author must
possess a remarkable union of the painter's quick
perception of details, and the poet’s power of so
fusing them together into a warm, harmonious
whole, through the action of the imagination—
that the reader is made unconsciously to change
places with the writer, or rather, the observer.
He loses sight of the narrow walls about him,
to stand under the great arches of Heaven, to
breathe its free air, to drink in the glories of
earth and sky as rapturously as if the geenes
to which the glamour of genius has transport
ed him, were actually outspread beneath his
feet, and revealed to his mortal eye.
The mountain tourist, Mr. King tells us, must
be patient. He illustrates his meaning thus:
“ Where persons have not a margin of a few
days, they may lose the whole object of their
journey. It sometimes happens that no more
than a few hours for sight-seeing are drawn
out of the week. Day after day may turn out
a blank. Perhaps there is rain, or vapors arc
heavily folded over the great ridges; or there
is incessant sunshine, without any clouds to give
relief to tho eyes, and expression to the hills;
or a slaty and chilly sky spreads a mournful
monotony over scenes that you want to see
transfigured by the
Mysteries of color daily laid
By the sun in light and shade.
“ And then, a week may bo given, in which,
to those who can stay in North Conway, or
Gorham, every day will be a prize. South wind,
north wind, and west wind, will come by turns
and do tbeir best.
It may blow North, it still is warm,
Or South, it still is clear,
Or East, it smells like a clover farm,
Or West, no thunder fear t
“Varying with each hour, the visitor will have
tho full range of summer views, the Anthology
of a season’s art, gathered into a portion of a
single week. The mountains seem to overhaul
their meteorlogical wardrobe. They will array
themselves by rapid turns, in their purples and
violets and mode colors, their cloaks of azure,
and caps of gold, their laces, velvets, and iris
scarfsl
“Then will come a day sacred to great clouds.
How majestically they will sail through the azure,
perplexing the eyes with their double beauty,—
the blazing fleece which moves and melts in the
upper Blue, and the fantastic photographs which
. they leave upon the hills below, often draping a
mountain in a leopard skin of spotted light and
gloom!
“Or, perhaps, the South wind fills the air with
dusty gold, and makes each segment of a dis
trict that was prosaic enough a week before,
seem a sweet fraction of Italy! Possibly, it
tries its hand at mists! Then, what mischief
and frolic! Itbrindles the mountain sides with
them. Or, it stretches them across their length,
as though it mennt to weave all the vapors
which the air could supply, into a narrow and
interminable web of fog. Now again, it twines
the mists around their necks, then it smothers
the peaks with them, and soon tears them apart
to let the grim heads look out; and before long,
in more serious mood, it bids them stream up
and off, like incense from mighty altars ! ”
These quotations are quite enough to confirm
my opinion of Mr. King's pictorial povver. Ido
not see how they could be surpassed, as faith
ful, graphic, and complete descriptions of a kind
of scenery wliich most profess to admire, but
few have been educated duly to appreciate.
Bishop. —l cannot share your enthusiasm
about this book. You have compared Mr. Ring
to Ruskin, of whom, I take it, he is simply an
Imitator, a clever Imitator perhaps—but—hard
ly more. He appears to be enamored of his
subject, and yet, observe how frequently his
fervor degenerates into affectation I Even his
poetical quotations, (the best portion of the book)
are, sometimes, in bad taste. What can be
thought, for example of his re-producing that
far-fetched conceit, (I care not how illustrious the
author of it may be) which professes to descry in
a very commonplace collection of clouds, “ tho
images of St. Catharine borne by Angels I”
Whittington. —l see no force or justice in your
objections. There is neither affectation nor ser
vility in the style of this book. Moreover, the
discretion exhibited in the quality of the poeti
cal citations, cannot be disproved by the in
stance of one or two inapplicable lines, among
so many hundred verses!
Bishop. —Well! after all, ’tis a matter of
taste!
Whittington. —The convenient maxim ever re
sorted to by those who are averse to thorough
discussion, or, who feel but slight confidence in
the strength of their cause; of all the absurd
dogmas, received with unquestioning confidence
by the many, the saying u de gustibus nonest dis
putandum," strikes mens the most untenable.
Bishop. —Your reasons!
Whittington. —They are obvious enough! If
■ there be no “ disputing about tastes,” then, it
follows, that every human being, the ignorant
j and the learned, the wise and the unwise, the
man who has faithfully cultivated his artistic
perceptions, and the man who has no artistic
perceptions to cultivate, —all stand upon precise
ly the same level! If; therefore, I happen to
be in company with a clown, who informs me
' that, after a careful examination, he came to the ,
conclusion that Raphael’s “ Madonna ” is a daub
; and the “ Transfiguration ” an absurd failure, I
may say to him, “My dear sir, I think you are
mistaken, these pictures appear to mo, as they
have appeared to the world for centuries, admi
rable, marvellous; but—but —I dare not affirm J
with any positiveness that you are wrong; 1 there
is, after all, ‘no disputing about tastes!'—and
again, the same intelligent personage tells me
that ‘ London Assurance ’ is a finer play than
1 Hamlet;’ I must bow with a hesitating demur,
look as Polonius did when he pronounced the
cloud * a weazel,’ or by his faith, ‘very like a
camel or a whale,’ and thus the matter is satis
factorily disposed of. Meanwhile, our learned
gentleman departs with a profound conviction of
his own acuteness, and a notion that he may set
up his lawless “ taste " on any and every topic,
against the hardearnedf knowledge,thecandid and
thoughtful views of the ablest critics and phil
osophers 1! He is indubitably right, “ there is
no disputing about tastes 1” Bravo for Anarchy!
welcome to ** Chaos and old Night.”
Bishop —Pshaw! you needn’t have taken the
trouble to punish a mere hasty “ lapse of the
tongue” by such an elaborate “ reductio ad ab
surdum." But if you have a weakness, Whit
tington, I think it is a weakness for display—at
your friend’s expense, too! Tis abominable 1
After such cruel treatment, I must fall back up
on the Punch, a staunch reserve that never fails
one, blessed be Ba?chus 1 Apropos of the jolly
God, did you ever see an antique goblet of
mine, “ presented,” as Claude Melnotte says in
Bulwer’s melodrama. “ by the Doge of Venice,
or the Duke of something, to my great, great
grandfather,” whom I strongly suspect to have
been a myth like Bacchus himself? But at all
events, the goblet is substantial enough, and
I’ve determined, Whittington, if ever a festive
occasion of especial importance, such as—a-hem 1
—a christening, or a feast in honor of your be
ing selected Alderman, should take place in this
house, I’ll give you the precious piece of silver,
“to be held by you and your heirs in fee sim
ple forever!” That’s what I call heaping coals
of fire on your head, after the manner in which
you reviled me just now. Ho doesn't deserve
it, Mrs. Whittington, does he ?
Mrs. Whittington. —By no means, Mr. Bishop!
Your charity is truly affecting!
Whittington. —A wrong expression, my love!
affected , you mean. He's a mass of affectations,
altogether.
[A ring at the bell is heard , and enter a servant
hearing a card.]
Whittington —(examining it) —“Angel 3 and
ministers of grace, defend us!” Harry, the days
of persecution ara at hand! Prepare yourself,
my poor friend; Huston has returned, and is
even now at the door. Shall we admit him?
' Bishop. —Certaitdy; we are rather dull at
i present, and Huston is
; [Enter suddenly a small gentleman, jauntihj
i dressed, bowing and gesticulating extravagantly.]
i Mr. Huston. —Delighted to see you, my dear
i friends! delighted! Mrs. Whittington, how
charming you look! Is’t possible you have
l staid here during she summer?
i Mrs. Whittington. —Quite possible, sir!
. Mr. Huston. —Well,-that’s heroic! and you a
comparative stranger, too! There’s my wife,
who says, two weeks of this infernal climate,
(beg pardon, ma'am,) after the first of July
• would kill her.
, Mrs. Whittington.—Why, I thought your
i wife was a native, Mr. Huston.
Mr. Huston. —So she is, ma’am, but we’ve
been accustomed to visit the North and Europe
for six or seven years every season, and that
makes a vast difference, you know. Besides,
my dear madam, ( confidentially,) Mrs. Hnston is
; alarmingly delicate; she does'nt look so, because
she weighs (I weigh her myself, ma’am, every
l Sunday morning,) about a hundred and eighty
six pounds, and her complexion is deceptive;
yet, you wouldn’t believe how nervous she is,
and how she takes on at the mere mention of a
malaria. And then, Mrs. Whittington, the
1 children! how could I consent as a human pa
rent, responsible to society and my own heart,
to expose those innocent things to the chances
of destruction!
Mrs. Whittington. —l suppose you intend to
' removo from C ; your children will live else
' where ?”
Mr. Huston. —Remove from C ? Bless yo^
ma’am, the very thought overcomes me I
Who never to himself hath sa <l,
• This is my own, my native land,
And—”
Oh! w*iatam I doing? excuse me! I’m so fond
' of the Muse, especially Byron's.
Bishop. —Buti Mr. nuston, you’ve said noth
ing of your recent tour. Have you not been
spending some time in Europe ?
[Mr. Iluston looks vacantly around the library,
without answering ; at length, in a dreamy voice] —
Mr. Huston. —l wouldn’t have believed it!
On'.nes. —Believed what, sir ?
Mr. Huston. —Your study, Mr. Whittington,
confounds me; ’tis the sac-simile, I swear it is,
(your pardon again, madame!) of roy excellent
friend, Charles Dickens’s. When I had the hon
or of seeing that great man last, he carried mo
into his studio, his sanctum sanctorum, and read
to me ever so many chapters of his “ Two Ci
ties,” in manuscript, gentlemen,—in manuscript.
Bishop. —lndeed, you were in luck on that oc
casion, and how did you like them, Mr. Huston?
Mr. Huston. —Thrilling, sir, enchanting! 'Twas
a w-a-i-1 of the French Revolution; I can tell
you, my hair stood on end, and I wept, Mrs.
Whittington, I wept!
Bishop. —What was it about? where is the
scene laid—who ore the characters?
Mr. Huston. —Well! the scene isn’t definite;
it shifts from place to place; I remember there’s
a-fellow named Carton, who gets his head cut
off to save some other folks, and there’s a Ben
edick, (Shakspeare, Mr. Whittington, ha! ha!)
whose wife is constantly tormenting him by—
by—
Bishop. — Flopping.*
Mr. Huston. —Sure enough! but how did you
some to know this, sir?
Bishop. —The American publishers sent me
the proof sheets of the novel, a day or two ago,
and I have read the whole of it.
Mr. Huston. —And wasn’t I right in calling it
charming ?
Bishop. —Beyond doubt! it is a work of ex
traordinary powei> and I confess I envy you the
privilege of having heard Dickens read it to you
alone in the privacy of his library. What a fa
vorite you must be of his!
Mr. Huston. —l can’t say we were exactly
alone j I’m very intimate with Dickens’s man of
business—we two were together at the time,
* Noth. —For the comprehension of this rather enig
matical word, the reader 19 referred to the novel itself.
and there were three or four other gents pres
ent.
Bishop. —Can you recall their names
Mr. Huston. —Yates, I think, was*one of'em;
(he had had a sort of blowout with Thackeray,
they told me), and a young chap named Hood,
the son of some English poet or other!
Bishop —Ah! I comprehend! In speaking of
The Two Ctties” as a thrilling novel, you
have, Mr. Huston, employed the very word
which properly designates its peculiar charm
and power. In all sincerity, I look upon it as
its author’s chef d'oeuvre. The central idea (I
will not call it the moral) of the tale is as old as
J humanity, but it never has, it never can lose its
august significance. It is evolved from the in
herent reverence with which we must all regard
the "principle of unselfish sacrifice. The true
hero of the story is Sydney Carlton, in the de
velopment of whose remarkable nature and des
tiny Dickens has exhibited, in their fullest force,
powers, not only of profound pathos, but of tho
keenest psychological insight This man is, at
first, presented to us os a hopeless debauchee—
the sudden influence of a noble passion for one
whom he can never expect to gain, whilst stim
ulating his remorse, (which is the more terrible,
because he feels that he has gone too far—that
he cannot retrace his steps,) stimulates, also,
through subtle processes of a redeeming spir
itual grace, the long-latent forces of an original
ly pure and beautiful character. Then we have
the mournful but sublime spectacle presented of
a ruined body, the very existence of which de
pends upon unnatural indulgences, struggling
with an imperial wiU, and a soul which seems to
rise towards virtue and the light, as the wretch
ed body sinks, day by day, towards darkness
and the sepulchre! The period depicted is one
of stern activities. All society is unsettled.
Law. Order, Religion, Civilization, are trembling
in the balances. In France the executioner has
grown weary of the task. But still the tumbrils
roll along the streets, and multitudes of
“ tigers,” in human shape (the “ monkey” ele
ment of the national character, as Yoltairc des
cribed it, wholly eradicated now) are howling
for blood, blood. The atmosphero itself seems
red with the hues of slaughter, and hell, with
its furies, has been let loose on earth. Owing
to a strange, but not improbable combination
of circumstances, Sydney Carlton’s friends—the
woman he loves, (secretly and purely,) together
with her husband, the scion of an ancient French
family—are placed in the most imminent peril.
Fate has drawn them all to Paris. The hus
band is tried before the Republican tribunal as
an aristocrat. At first, he is acquitted; but the
strength of private malice causes him again to be
arraigned, and his doom of death is pronounced
fiercely, determinatelv, almost by acclamation.
The miserable wife surrenders hope. But at
this crisis of despair and agony, Sydney Carton,
who has followed the family to Paris, by the ex
ertion of means the most novel, and yot perfectly
simple and comprehensible, succeeds in rescu
ing the prisoner by the voluntary forfeit of his
own life. I shall not enter into details, calcu
lated to destroy, partially, your interest in the
book. But I cannot refrain from confessing
that when I perused the final chapter of this
most touching narrative, when, with a painful
sens? of the reality of the scene, I accompanied
the hero, (the martyr let us call him,) in the
cold morning air, and through the jeering mob,
to the scaffold, I was more deeply moved than
I ever remember to have been —at least, by
“ the sorrows of fiction”— - since, while a boy, I
read of the Master of Ravenswood “ melting,
as into thin air,” beneath the treacherous quick
sands of “the Kelpie’s How,” and'poor old Bald
erstone placing in his bosom, with a mute de
spair, the “large sable feather detached from
his master’s plume.”
Mr. Huston, (who has been fidgetty and nervous
for several minutes past.) Admirably told, my
sir, and very pathetic; but if you’ll per
mit me to change the subject, I should like to
show you some precious relics I’ve just brought
home from Italy.
(Mr. Huston pulls out of his pocket a box, full of
musty and half-defaced coins.) Look at these,
gentlemen; wonderful, arn’t they? I let my
friend, Mr. Dickens, get a glimpse of them, and
bless you, he wouldn’t rest until he had shown
them, in his turn, to a great London Antiquary
—I forget his name—and what do you think the
Antiquary said ? It will astonish you, but truth,
as the old proverb has it, truth is stranger than
fiction: He said, that beyond the shadew of
a doubt, they were Etruscan coins of a fabulous
antiquity, (his very language, gentlemen, I took
it down in my note-book on the spot,) that no
one could estimate properly their value.—
But the strangest partis to come. One of the
pieces he subjected to some sort of chemical ex
periment, and it turned out to be the sac-simile
of an English penny. Ton my word ’tis true!
You ought to nave seen the Antiquary’s face;
ho turned red and bluo with delight, and
proved to us before he had done, that these
coins, simple as you see them here,
had confirmed a long, doubtful theory of his own.
He said, in his opinion, (I didn’t let a word es
cape, and I’ve memorized ’em all since) —that
“epochs of the world repeated themselves; that
instead of tho human race having existed for
only six thousand years, it has existed for as
many millions; that anterior to tradition, civili
zation (improperly styled modern) had reached
to the same, and even to a greater degree of
perfection than is witnessed now—that in that
remote period, a country analogous in every res
pect to the Great Britain of to-day, flourished
in the plenitudes of art, science, and liberty.
This stupendous fact, he added, accounts for
the likeness between your coin and the present
English penny. When 1 pronounced it to be
Etruscan, I was greatly in error. How it got to
Italy, and—more marvellous still—how it has
been recovered after the lapse of immemorial
ages, I am unable to divine.
Whittington. —Good heavens ! what an extra
ordinary theory! How lucid! how august!
Mr. Huston. —l flattered myself I would sur
prise you a little, and now, (carefully and osten
tatiously replacing the box of coins in his coat
pocket,) and now, my good friends, I must take
my leave. The business season has arrived,
you know, and I am a fearfully laborious man !
Never passed an idle hour since I was born!
Good evening, Mrs. Whittington! good evening,
gentlemen!” [Exit Mr. Huston, flourishing his
handkerchief, and smiling with an air of triumph.]
Whittington. —l wonder what Huston would
think if he knew I had twice as many of those
coins as he has ? Look! ( opening a cabinet
drawer,) they are even filthier than his, and
therefore more ancient, f bought them from an
old beggar—one of those atrocious lazzaroni of
Naples—knowing all the time he was cheating
me, but the poor devil seemed so utterly miser
able I really couldn't help submitting to his ras
cality !
Mrs. Whittington. But are they English
pennies, disguised in that way ? •
Whittington. —Some of them are. Your coun
trymen, my dear wife, are often liberal of their
small change, when they visit the continent,
and the beggars have an ingenious mode of
changing a modern piece of money into a sped
| men of the currency of ancient Rome, of Egypt,
even of Persia, if required. Os course, °they
| can only impose upon the ignorant: but, unluck
i the ignorant, among modern tourists, out
! number vastly the more learned and intelligent.
And now, suppose we adjourn. Sophie looks
worn out: and no wonder! He's a terribly
exhausting visitor, that dapper little neighbor
of ours! p. H. 11.
m ■ • ■ i
[From the Edinburgh Review.]
MACAULAY OK BOOK-PUFFING.
The puffing of books is now so shamefully
and so successfully practised, that it is the duty
of all who are anxious for the purity of the .na
tional taste, or for the honor of the literary
character, to join in discountenancing it. Devices
which in the lowest trades are considered as
disreputable, are adopted without scruple, and
improved upon with a despicable, ingenuity, by
people engaged in a pursuit which never' was
and never will be considered as a mere trade,
by any man of honor and virtue.
We expect some reserve, some decent pride
in our hatter and our bootmaker. But no arti
fice by which notoriety can be obtained, is
thought too abject for a man of letters.
It is amusing to think over the history of
most of the publications which have had a run
during the last few years. The publisher is
often the publisher of some periodical work. In
this work the first flourish of trumpets is sound
ed. The peal is then reechoed, by all other pe
riodical works over which the publisher or the
author, or the author’s coterie, may have any
influence. The newspapers are for a fortnight
filled with puffs of all the various kinds which
Sheridan recounted,—direct, oblique, and collu
sive. Sometimes the praise is laid on thick for
simple-minded people. ‘Pathetic,’ ‘Sublime,’
‘Splendid,’ ‘Graceful, brilliant wit,’ ‘Exqnsite
humor,’ and other phrases equally flattering, fall
in a shower as thick and as sweet as the sugar
plums at a Roman carnival. Sometimes greater
art is used. A sinecure has been offered to the
author if he would “ suppress his work, or sof
ten down a few of the incomparable portraits."
Sometimes it is thought expedient that the puffer
should put on a grave face and utter his pane
gyric in the form of admonition! “ Such attacks
on private character cannot be too much con
demned. Even the exuberant wit of our author,
and the irresistible power of his withering sar
casm, are no excuses for that utter disregard
which he manifests for the feelings of others.”
“ We cannot but wonder that a writer of such
transcendent talents, a writer who is evidently
no stranger to the kindly charities and sensibili
ties of our nature, should show so little tender
ness to the foibles of noble and distinguished
individuals, with whom, it is clear, from every
page of his work, he n.ust have been constantly
mingling in society.” These are but tame and
feeble imitations of paragraphs with which the
daily papers are filled, whenever an attorney's
clerk or an apothecary's assistant undertakes to
tell the public, in bad English and worse
French, how people tie their neck-cloths, and
eat their dinners in Grosvenor Square. How
any man who has the least self-respect, the least
regard for his own personal dignity, can conde
scend to persecute the public with this rag-fair
importunity, we do not understand. Extreme
poverty may, indeed, in some degree, be an ex
cuse for employing these shifts, as it may be an
excuse for stealing a leg of mutton. But we
really think that a man of spirit and delicacy
would quite as soon satisfy his wants in the one
way as in the other.
It is no excuse for an author that the praises
of journalists are procured by the money or in
fluence of the publisher, and not by his own. It
is his business to prevent others doing what
must degrade them. It is for his honor as a
gentleman, and if he is really a man of talent it
will eventually bo for his honor and interest as
a writer, that his works should come before the
public, recommended by their own merits alone,
and should be discussed with perfect freedom.
If his objects be really such as he may qwn
without shame, he will find that they will, in
tho long run, be better attained by suffering the
voice of criticism to be fairly heard. At present,
we too often see a writer attempting to obtain
literary fame ns Shakspeare’s usurper obtained
sovereignty. The publisher plays Buckingham
to the author’s Richard. Some few creatures of
the conspiracy are dexterously disposed here
and there in a crowd. It is the business of these
hirelings to throw up their caps, and clap their
hands, and utter their vivas. The rabble at
first stare and wonder, and at last join in shout
ing for shouting's sake; and tluiß a crown is
placed on the head which has no right to it, by
the hurrahs of a few servile dependents.
At present, however contemptible a poem or
a novel may be, there is not the least difficulty
in procuring favorable notices of it from all sorts
of publications, daily weekly, and monthly. In
the meantime, little or nothing is said on the
other side. The author and the publisher are
interested in crying up tho book. Nobody has
any very strong interest in crying it down.
Those who are best fitted to guide the public
opinion, think it beneath them to expose mere
nonsense, and camfort themselves by reflecting
that such popularity cannot last. This con
temptuous lenity has been carried too far. It is
perfectly true that reputations which have been
forced into an unnatural bloom, fade almost as
soon as they have expanded; nor have we any
apprehensions that puffing will over raise any
scribbler to the rank of a classic.
It is, indeed, amusing t§ turn over some late
volumes of periodical works, and to see many
‘immortal productions,’ how many ‘profound
views of human nature,’ and ‘exquisite delinea
tions of fashionable mannors,’ and ‘vernal, and
sunny, and refreshing thoughts,’ and ‘high
imaginings,’ and ‘young breathings,’ and ‘ em
bodyings,’and‘pinings,’ and ‘minglings with
tho beauty of the universe,’ and ‘harmonies
which dissolve the soul in a sense of
loveliness and divinity,’ the world has contrived
to forget. Some of the well-puffed novels of the
last, hold the pastry of the present year; and
others, now extolled in language almost too
high-flown for the merits of Don Quixote, will*
line the trunks of the year to come.
But though wo have no apprehensions that
puffing will ever confer permanent reputation
on the undeserving, we still think its influence
most pernicious.
Men of real merit will, if they persevere, at
last reach the station to which they are entitled,
and intruders will be ejected with contempt and
derision. But it is no small evil that the aven
ues of fame should be blocked up by a swarm
of noisy, pushing, elbowing pretenders, who,
though they will not ultimately be able to make
good their own entrance, hinder, in the mean
time, those who liave a right to enter. Some
men of talents, accordingly turn away in dejec
tion from pursuits in which success appears to
bear no proportion to desert.
There are few who have sufficient confidence
in their own powers, and sufficient elevation of
mind, to wait with secure and contemptuous
patience, while dunce after dunce presses before
them. Those who will not stoop to the base
ness of the modern fashion, are too often dis-