Springing upon the backs of the captured animals, the Comanches galloped to the shore. Scarcely had they entered the canoe, astern of which the horses were made to swim, when the bullets and arrows of the pursuing foe whistled around them.
"Will my son promise the Miko to be a good father to the Oconees?" said the old chief in a hollow voice, as they pulled out of range of the fire.
"A father and a brother," answered the Comanche. "But why does my father ask? He will dwell long and happily with his children."
"Will El Sol swear it by the Great Spirit?" repeated the old man, earnestly, but in a fainter voice.
"He will," replied the young chief.
"Will he swear to bury Tokeah and his father's bones in the grave of the warriors of the Comanches?"
"He will," said El Sol.
"So shall the white men not scoff at his ashes nor at those of his father," groaned the Miko. "But it is the will of the Great Spirit that Tokeah should not see the hunting-grounds of the Comanches; he is doomed to die in the land of the palefaces."
A rattling in his throat interrupted the old man; he murmured a few broken words in the ears of his Oconees, who broke out into a wild howl of lamentation. Still clasping to his breast the coffin containing his father's bones, he sank back in the boat in the agonies of death. El Sol raised him in his arms, but life had already fled. A bullet had struck him between the shoulders, and inflicted a mortal wound. In silent grief the young chief threw himself upon the corpse, and long after the boat had reached the opposite shore, he lay there, unmindful of all but his sorrow. Roused at length by the whispers of his companions, to a sense of the danger of longer delay, he laid the body across a horse, and himself mounting the same animal, took the road to the village of the Pawnees. There, upon the following day, to the wild and mournful music of the death-song, the little party made its sorrowful entrance.
At this point the narrative ceases. We turn the page, expecting at least another chapter, or some notice of Rosa's restoration to her father, and subsequent marriage with Hodges, which the previous portion of the novel certainly led us to anticipate. But our author, with his usual eccentric disregard of the established routine of romance writers, contents himself with a postscript, consisting of an advertisement extracted from the Opelousas county paper, and dated March 1816, announcing the marriage of the amiable and accomplished Miss Mary Copeland, daughter of the Honourable John Copeland, of James county, to Mr James Hodges, formerly of H.B.M. Navy, and now of Hodges' Seat in the same state. The reader is left to complete the denouement for himself, if he so pleases, and to conjecture that Rosa's father, a Mexican grandee, takes back his daughter to her native country, and that the incipient attachment between her and the young Englishman is mutually forgotten.
We here finally conclude our extracts from the already published work of our German American friend—extracts comprising, as we believe, the cream of the twenty volumes, or thereabouts, which he has given to the world. The incognito behind which this clever and original writer has so long shrouded himself, is at length abandoned; and to a new edition of his works, now in course of publication, stands prefixed the name of Charles Sealsfield.
By Colonel Lord Howden, K.St.F., K.C.S.
"Ac sane, quod difficilimum, et prælio strenuus erat et bonus in consilio; quorum alterum ex providentiâ timorem, alterum ex audaciâ temeritatem, adferre plerumque solet. In Jugurthâ tantus dolus, tantaque peritia locorum et militiæ erat, ut absens aut præsens perniciosior esset in incerto haberetur."—Sallust.
"Ac sane, quod difficilimum, et prælio strenuus erat et bonus in consilio; quorum alterum ex providentiâ timorem, alterum ex audaciâ temeritatem, adferre plerumque solet. In Jugurthâ tantus dolus, tantaque peritia locorum et militiæ erat, ut absens aut præsens perniciosior esset in incerto haberetur."—Sallust.
Thesiege of Bilbao was undertaken against the will, and strongly expressed counsel of Zumalacarregui. He was not only aware of the risk of the enterprise, with the insufficient means at his disposal for attempting it, but he had other plans. His plans, however, were undervalued, and his counsels were slighted, at the court of the Pretender. The little empty politicians there, were dazzled by the idea of possessing an important town, not deeming it their business to calculate the means by which it was to be obtained; the incompetent military advisers who directed from afar, thought that this bold attempt, proceeding from them, would contrast in bright relief with the hitherto wary and waiting policy of the commander-in-chief; and the wish, not an unnatural one, of the wandering prince, to find himself for once in comfortable quarters, was not the least among the motives which decided the operation. Though at this moment the Christino army was in a state of great discouragement from a long series of advantages that had been gained by the Carlists, the funds of the latter were entirely exhausted; and the idea of a forced loan upon the rich inhabitants of Bilbao was too seducing to be coldly examined by those little acquainted with the real difficulties of the war. Zumalacarregui wished to attack Victoria, and, profiting by the prestige of his late successes, to throw himself on the fertile and virgin ground of the Castiles. This was doubtlessly the right course, but the project was overruled.
Independently of what thus gave rise to these ambitious aspirations, there was a personal feeling which had long been busy, either in attempting new and unexpected combinations on the part of the Camarilla, or in mutilating or rendering ineffectual those that had been imagined by Zumalacarregui. There was no passion, bold or mean, no jealousy, no intrigues, vegetating ever so rankly or rifely in the oldest and largest court of Europe, which did not flourish in that of Don Carlos.
There was not a Christino general more disliked by the hangers-on of Don Carlos than Zumalacarregui. They feared him, they respected him, but they hated him.
When the Pretender first made his appearance in Navarre, Zumalacarregui was in his favourite retreat of the Amescuas. He was far from insensible to the advantage which the presence of the chief actor in the drama might produce, if his personal bearing should be such as to create an enthusiasm for his cause, and if those who accompanied him should bring each his personal contingent of enlightened advice and honest activity. But with all these hopes, Zumalacarregui was not without his fears; his sagacity foresaw what his experience soon confirmed, that the royal chief was worse than a nullity, and that the royal suite were actively in the way. Lord Bacon says, "it is the solecism of princes to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the means." Dr Carlos was always commanding the end, while his general was left to find the means as best he could. A large portion of his small army was absorbed in protecting the prince, and could rarely be counted on in a combined movement; and the non-combatants, under every denomination of title and rank, drew more rations for their consumption than would have sufficed for the support of a large body of soldiers.
Zumalacarregui, personally, was never very enthusiastic in the cause. It is true that his feelings had always had a tendency to absolutism, or rather he entertained the conviction that a strong government was necessary to the happiness of Spain, and that the greater the unity of that government, the greater was its chance of stability, and its power of favourable action; but when he left Pamplona to put himself at the head of the insurgent Navarrese, he was influenced far more by piqueagainst the existing state of things, than by enthusiasm for the new one which he sought to establish. He had been treated both brutally and unjustly by Quesada, at that time inspector of infantry; and, with his active spirit, a condemnation to inactivity was the severest sentence that could be passed upon him. Rest to his unquiet bosom was a hell from which he was determined to emerge; and, confident in his powers, he seized the first opportunity which enabled him to bring them into action.
The meeting between Zumalacarregui and the prince was respectful, but not warm; the first was unaccustomed to have any feelings, the second was unaccustomed to conceal those he had. The new importation had brought no new ideas, no plans, no accession of science; above all,no money; at least no more than was to be applied to its own wants. Don Carlos was evidently under the constraint that a strong mind imposes on a weak one. He saw that the servant was the master, as much in commanding intellect as in actual power. They were both uncomfortable; Zumalacarregui neither flattered the prince, nor his chances of success; he laid before him his difficulties, almost insuperable in his own opinion—for let it be known as a fact,that he always in his heart despaired of the ultimate upshot of the war. In conversational phrase, he had made himself thoroughly disagreeable; for he had spoken calmly, coldly, truly—and the hopes of an immediate march to Madrid had been rudely shaken. Zumalacarregui left the prince's headquarters with a discouragement and a contempt which he was at no pains to conceal. From that moment he was an object, often of admiration, but never of affection; and it was evident that the effort to esteem him was too painful to ensure a continuance of confidence.
Among those who consider Zumalacarregui solely as the able chief of a devoted army, putting aside all the circumstances of political partisanship, there can be little difference of opinion, if that opinion be fairly formed and honestly given. By those who remark upon the comparatively small number of his troops, and the relatively confined scale of his operations, and who therefore refuse him the name of a great general, it must be remembered, that if this principle of applying reputation be pushed further in its expression—if military praise and appreciation are to be awarded strictly according to the size of the theatre and the magnitude of the numbers, and not according to the spirit which moves over the one, and directs the others—by such geometrical logic, our own great hero would be deemed immeasurably inferior to the French emperor.
Zumalacarregui possessed great courage, but he made no show of it. It would have been more brilliant if he had had more vanity; and the exposure of his person was always subservient to some object of utility. He had a comprehensive view of military movements, but he never forgot the peculiar nature of his warfare; and he never ambitiously allowed himself to be carried away by plans or manœuvres beyond the exigencies of his position. As an administrator in forming reserves, in procuring supplies, in discovering resources, in bringing raw battalions to a state of rough efficiency in the shortest possible time, he was unrivalled; yet his mind was not cramped by detail, and when he descended to minute matters, it was because they were really important. He was severe and inflexible, even taciturn and morose; yet he was extremely loved by his troops. At the time that he was commander-in-chief, commissary-general and treasurer, and that all the sums of money, raised or sent, passed through his hands without a check or a receipt, there never was a breath raised against the purity of his moral character. These certainly are the elements out of which great generals are made; and it is not irrational to think that, under other circumstances, the same man, this Navarrese Guerrillero, far superior as such to the brave but improvident Mina, or the active but dull Jauregui, might have expanded into a European hero, and have left a less perishable name.
When the siege of Bilbao was decided on, Zumalacarregui threw his objections to the winds, and set about it with his constitutional ardour. He arrived before it with fourteen battalions, and a miserable battering-train, composed of two twelve-pounders, one six-pounder, two brass four-pounders,two howitzers and a mortar, and with a great penury of corresponding ammunition. The town was garrisoned by a force of four thousand men, well armed, without counting the national guard, and was protected by forty pieces of artillery, mostly of large calibre, mounted on different forts thrown up in favourable positions. But what was of chief advantage to the besieged, and what almost rendered success hopeless, was the free communication from without kept up by French and English vessels of war stationed in the Nervion, a river that runs alongside the town, and joins the sea at some seven or eight miles' distance.
Zumalacarregui fixed his headquarters at a spot called Puente Nuevo, in a small straggling village, just at this side of the town of Bilbao, and under one of its most fashionable and frequented walks. Eraso had begun the investiture of the place a few days previously, and both these chiefs lodged in a small inn named the Three Sisters. Puente Nuevo was completely commanded by an eminence called the Morro, just outside the gates of Bilbao; but the garrison, either from motives of prudence or others, gave the Carlists no inconvenience from that point.
At a short distance to the right of the Durango road, and on a height immediately over the town of Bilbao, is a church, called Our Lady of Begoña; and not far from it is a house, which, from its comparative size and solidity, and from its commanding view of the country around, goes by the name of the Palace. On the second day of the siege, two serious misfortunes befell the besiegers: eighty of the best muskets they possessed were piled in the portico of the church of Begoña, and were all entirely destroyed by a grenade that took them horizontally, killing the two sentinels that were mounting guard over them. The same evening the two largest of the guns, already half-worn out, burst from continued firing, just as something like an impression appeared on the spot it was proposed to breach.
Don Carlos, during this time, was at Durango, a distance of five or six hours. Zumalacarregui, seeing the hopelessness of the operation, and, above all, the discouragement of the men, sent an express to the prince to say, "that he would be obliged infallibly to raise the siege and retire, unless some means were immediately taken to raise the drooping spirits of his army; that they were without clothes, without food, and almost without ammunition; that it was absolutely necessary that a sum of money should be procured and sent to him, which would enable him to pay the troops a part of what was due to them; and that then, as the means of prolonging a siege was out of the question, he would endeavour to carry out his majesty's wishes, and try to take the place by assault."
Cruz-Mayor, the lead of the Camarilla, loved to humiliate Zumalacarregui, and no answer was returned to this letter; but Zumalacarregui was not idle, nor did he allow inaction to dispirit still more the minds of his men. He even attempted an assault, which failed, with the loss of all those who were ordered on this service. Unfortunately for the attacking column, lots were drawn for the troops that were to compose it; and they fell upon a regiment of Navarrese, entirely ignorant of the localities, who, getting confused in cross-paths and lanes at the foot of the walls, were cut off to a man. It was thought that the result of this attack might have been otherwise had it been undertaken by the Biscayan companies, who knew every inch of the ground. The hour, too, was ill judged, for it was at the beginning of nightfall, when it was just dark enough to embarrass those who were attempting the assault, without being sufficiently so to induce the inhabitants and national guards to retire from the walls.
On the 15th June 1835, Zumalacarregui proceeded to the palace of Begoña, not far from the church of the same name, as the best spot for observing the repairs made, and the additional means of defence raised by the enemy during the night. He passed through the middle room on the first story, and, throwing open the window, went out on the iron balcony overlooking the town. The balls were flying so thick and fast that he desired all those who accompanied him to remain within; but, notwithstanding their supplications, he himself remained leaning on the railing of the balcony, his knees nearlytouching the ground. The telescope which he used, showing the marksmen in the enemy's works that he was probably a personage of importance, occasioned a general discharge from the nearest battery. It was now exactly eight o'clock in the morning, and a ball from this discharge struck Zumalacarregui in the upper and anterior part of the right leg, on the inner side, about two inches below the knee. From the position in which he was struck, the ball took a downwards direction, and, as no part of the intricate machinery of the knee was injured, there was every reason to suppose that no serious consequences could ensue.
Either from the extreme pain of the wound, or the shock given to the nervous system, Zumalacarregui fainted. His secretary, Zaratiegui, and the rest of his staff, picked him up in a state of insensibility, and placed him on a chair. The surgeon, Grediaga, a man of considerable acquirements, who was then practising in the sacristy of the church of Begoña, which had been converted into an hospital, was immediately sent for, as well as a young English surgeon of the name of Burgess, belonging to a small body of cavalry called the "Holy Squadron," or the "Squadron of Legitimacy."
This young man, a person of great respectability, and well informed in his profession, has been since as grossly as ridiculously accused of having been bought by the English government to hasten the end of Zumalacarregui, if ever his services enabled him to do so; and it is still said, and believed by many, that the death of the general was owing to poison put into the bandages with which Mr Burgess first dressed the wound. In a country like Spain, where there is much ignorance and deep prejudice, it does not suffice to laugh to scorn accusations of any sort: it is better to meet them seriously, and disprove them by a fact.Mr Burgess never dressed Zumalacarregui's leg at all.He spoke no Spanish, and while he was endeavouring to make himself understood and to learn what had happened, Grediaga arrived and put on the first application.
On being asked whither he should be carried, Zumalacarregui immediately said to Cegama, a town three days' journey off, situated in a solitary neighbourhood, and entirely unprovided with any thing like comfort, medicines, or professional assistance. The surprise of all was manifest, but the general was too accustomed to be obeyed not to be so in this instance. He was placed upon an old sofa from which the legs were sawed, and which was carried by eight guides of Navarre, with twenty-four others as a reserve. Neither he nor the chief of his staff and secretary, Zaratiegui, had a single peseta in their pockets, and he received from Mendigana, the paymaster-general, twenty ounces of gold, as a part of the pay that was due to him.
The reason which induced Zumalacarregui to go to Cegama, was indeed a strange one, and a fatal one. It was one he never expressed, but which prompted this revelation from the very instant that he received his wound. There lived in this district a quack of the very lowest capacity, of the name of Petriquillo—a man entirely unimbued with the slightest tincture of medical science, but whose chance cures of gunshot wounds during the time of the Army of the Faith in 1822, had astonished and taken possession of the mind of Zumalacarregui. He even refused to allow the ball to be extracted at a moment when the operation presented no danger, and his only anxiety was to put himself into the hands of this ignorant adventurer.
When the party arrived at Durango, Don Carlos sent word that he would next morning pay a visit to his wounded chief; the frame of mind of the latter may be collected from an exclamation he made on the road, heard by all, and commented on by many—"Truly this is a happy day for the court of the king!"
As announced, Don Carlos came, and the following remarkable conversation took place:—"Well, Thomas, how could'st thou do so foolish a thing as to get wounded?" (The Spanish royal family always use the second person singular.) "Sir, I exposed myself, because it was my duty to do so—besides, I have lived long enough,and I am firmly convinced that we shall all have to die in your majesty's service." "Well, but where do'st thou intend going?" "To Cegama, sir." "No, don't go there, it is a long way off: stay here, I'll have thee taken careof." "Sir, I have said I would go to Cegama, and to Cegama will I go: your majesty knows me well enough to be convinced that what I say, I do." "Oh yes! Thomas, that is certain—well, go with God, and take care of thyself."
After this interview, Zumalacarregui instantly set off, as if it was a relief to him to get out of the atmosphere of the court. Between Durango and Bergara he was met by the quack Petriquillo and the cura Zabala. Besides the above-mentioned Grediaga, Don Carlos had desired two other nominal physicians, Gelos and Voloqui, to accompany the general; but these two men were, in fact, as ignorant, and as rash, and as opinionated as Petriquillo himself. Petriquillo took off the dressing from the wound; he made two men rub the patient for four hours from the hip to the ankle, with an unctuous substance known only to himself. He then put on a bandage dipped in some medicament of his own composition. Zumalacarregui suffered extremely during the night.
Next morning a violent fever manifested itself. Mr Burgess, frightened at this treatment, returned to Bilbao, and Zumalacarregui continued his journey, arriving at Cegama on the evening of the 17th.
The surgeon Grediaga still continued, not his services, but his useless advice. As the fever increased, he recommended quiet, diet, and blood-letting. Petriquillo objected to venesection or leeches; he administered food in large quantities, to support the general's strength, and kept the room full of company to keep up the general's spirits.
Five days passed in this way with this treatment, or rather absence of treatment, only diversified by various attempts to extract the ball, though the leg, by the progress of the fever, and the continued application of the knife and probe, was swollen to twice its size, and was in a state of the highest exacerbation.
In the middle of the night of the 23d, a great idea struck Gelos and Petriquillo, the former was sleeping in the same room with Grediaga, and, fearful lest the latter should prevent its accomplishment, rose stealthily at one o'clock in the morning, proceeded with Petriquillo to the room of the general, and they there togetherdidextract the ball.
At daylight, the joy in the house was extreme; the ball was passed through the hands of every inhabitant in Cegama, and was then dispatched in a box to Don Carlos. Petriquillo and Gelos announced, that in fifteen days the general would be at the head of his army before Bilbao.
At six o'clock, Zumalacarregui began to complain of insupportable thirst, and of pains all through the body; shortly afterwards, general shiverings came on, with convulsions at times. During an interval between these, he received the last consolations of religion; for though far from being a bigot, or even a devotee, Zumalacarregui respected, and practised reverentially, the religion of his country. At eleven o'clock in the morning of the 24th of June 1835, he expired.
On examining the body, it was found that two cuts had been made completely through the calf of the leg in order to get at the ball: Their length was about three inches, and their depth was as great as it could be; for they reached the bone. The whole of the integuments had been divided by Petriquillo, and the sheets of the bed were one mass of blood.
About three hours before the general's death, Petriquillo, unseen, went into the stable, saddled his mule, and departed.
As the dead chief never possessed the uniform of a general, his body was laid out in borrowed garments belonging to the attorney of the place. It was dressed in a black coat and black pantaloons, with a white waistcoat, and over the shoulder was put the riband of the fifth class of St Ferdinand, without the star, for he never had one. Zumalacarregui had troubled himself little about external decorations; and his ordinary dress, a black sheep-skin jacket, red overalls, and a flat scarlet boyna, or cap of the country, which he thought sufficiently good for his body when living, was deemed unworthy of him when he became dust. It was an apt type of what had preceded, and what was to follow: the rude neglected warrior during life—the Duke, theKing's friend, the grandee of Spain after death.
One word about the cruelty of Zumalacarregui. Hewascruel, and what is about to be said is a reason, but itis not put forth as either an excuse or a justification. His cruelty proceeded from no innate or idiosyncratic ferocity. In a less cruel atmosphere he would have breathed a milder spirit. There is an indifference to life in all Spaniards, which, on one side, prompts great deeds, and, on the other, readily ripens into inhumanity. They care little about their own lives, and speedily learn to care still less about the lives of others. In this melancholy warfare there was cruelty on all sides; and, from the execution of Santos Ladron, there followed a series of bloody atonements, each producing each, which strewed the highways with as many bodies as had fallen in the field.
Though the temptation of straying into any thing like a biography has been studiously avoided, there is one anecdote so curious, and not only so explanatory of what has just been said, but so illustrative of the character of both the man and the country, that it will hardly be deemed out of place.
A young grandee of Spain, the Count of Via-Manuel, had been taken prisoner. Zumalacarregui was anxious to save his life, though the circumstance of his rank seemed to make his death the more certain, as being a fitter expiation for many executions which had lately taken place on the Christino side. Zumalacarregui addressed a letter to Rodil, the commander-in-chief of that army, saying that he was anxious to exchange his prisoner for a subaltern officer, and some soldiers that had been lately seized sick in a farm-house, and that he awaited the answer. The distance between the armies was short, and, some hours after, Via-Manuel requested permission to see the general and learn his fate. Zumalacarregui received him in the room when he was just going to dinner, and, in that oriental style so interwoven in the whole web of Spanish customs, offered him a part of the repast that was before him. In ordinary times, this is but a courteous form, and it is rarely accepted; but Via-Manuel, thinking perhaps of the Arab's salt in this Moorish compliment, accepted the invitation, and sat down at the table. They eat, and at the end of dinner an orderly entered and gave a letter to the general. It was from Rodil, and contained only these words—"The rebels were shot this morning." Zumalacarregui, without saying a word, handed the paper to Via-Manuel, rose from table, and went out of the room. The unfortunate count was that night placed, according to custom, in the chapel of the village, and was shot next morning.
This happened in Lecumberri, which was entered shortly afterwards by the troops of the Queen. On leaving it the following day, two Carlist officers were pinioned and shot through the back, on the very spot where Via-Manuel fell. Such was the frightful mode of reciprocal expiation carried on on both sides; but the writer of this notice has, at least, among those painful recollections, the consolation of reflecting, that in this, as in other instances more fortunate, he did all in his power to save the victims.
This little sketch has swelled beyond its intended bulk, but when those who love Spain have passed the Pyrenees, it is difficult not to linger there, even on paper. Amid dangers and difficulties, and even the horrors of civil war, Spain has an attraction which it would be as difficult to explain to those who do not feel it, as to describe the sound of a trumpet to a deaf man. To those who have passed their early years there, Spain is like the shining decoration in a play, which still continues haunting the slumbers of the child that has seen one for the first time.
After the death of Zumalacarregui, Don Carlos took command of the army, with Moreno for chief of his staff, but the latter exercised all real authority. The Pretender was utterly deficient of every thing like military talent, and from the day of Zumalacarregui's death, his cause was not only hopeless, but felt to be so by the queen's party, who shortly regained the large portion of occupied territory which they had recently lost.
Zumalacarregui, from the 1st May 1835 to the 11th of June of that year, had made upwards of three thousand soldiers and a hundred officers prisoners. He left for all inheritance to his wife and daughters something less than forty pounds and four horses.
Wesuspect that in this railway age poetry is at a greater discount than ever. The reason is obvious. Not only the public, who are the readers, but even the poets themselves, have been largely infected by the current mania of speculation. Had the possession of capital been requisite for a participation in any of the thousand defunct schemes which have caused so unprecedented an emigration to the breezy shores of Boulogne, our poetical friends might have claimed for their vocation the credit of a rare morality. But unfortunately, the national gaming-table was open to men of every class. Peer and peasant, count and costermonger, millionaire and bankrupt, were alike entitled to figure as allottees, or even as committee-men, for the simple subscription of their signatures; and amidst the rush and squeeze of the crowd, who thronged towards the portal of Plutus, we were less surprised than pained to observe some of the most venerated votaries of Apollo. We shall not affect to disguise the purpose for which we were there ourselves. But much may be permitted to the prosaic writer which is forbidden to the canonized bard. Ours is a pen of all work—equally ready to concoct a prospectus, or to expose a literary charlatan. We are intensely fond of lucre, and expect, some day or another, to be in possession of the moiety of a plum. We have therefore no vain scruples regarding the sanctity of our calling, but carry our genius like a hooded falcon upon our wrist, ready to let it fly at any manner of game which may arise. We, however, deny in absolute terms the right of a poet to any such general license. He has no business whatever to trespass one foot beyond the limits his own domain. He ought to be thoroughly ignorant of the existence of bulls and bears, stags and ducks, and the rest of the zoology of the Exchange. Consols should be to him a mystery more impenetrable than the Sibylline verses, and the state of the stocks as unaccountable as the policy of Sir Robert Peel. The mischief, however, is done, and we fear it is irremediable. The example of the Poet-Laureate may indeed serve as a kind of excuse for the minor professors of the art. His well-known attempt tobearthe Kendal and Windermere line, by a series of ferocious sonnets, is still fresh in the memory of the public, and we trust the veteran has, long ere this, realized a handsome profit. We ourselves made a little money out of the Perth and Inverness, by means of an indignant tirade against the desecration of the Pass of Killiecrankie; and we should, to a certainty, have made more, had not the Parliamentary Committee been weak enough to believe us, and, in consequence, to reject the bill. Yet it may be long before the literary market can recover its healthy tone—ere sonnets once more resume their ancient ascendency, and circulate from hand to hand in the character of intellectual scrip.
We suspect that very few of the poets backed out of the scrape in time. Their sanguine and enthusiastic temperament led them to hold, at all risks and hazards; and they did not, as a body, take warning from the symptoms of a declining market. An amiable friend of ours who belongs to the Young England party, and who has issued a couple of duodecimos in laudation of Bishop Bonner, found himself at the period of the crash in possession of two thousand Caithness and Land's End scrip, utterly unsaleable at any discount, though a fortnight before they were quoted at fifteen premium. He meditates, as we areinformed, a speedy retirement to the penal solitudes of La Trappe, as there now seems to be little hope that Louis Philippe will provide a proper refuge for chivalrous misfortune by resuscitating the Order of Malta. The weaver-poet of Camlachie has gone into the Gazette in consequence of an unfortunate speculation in Caledonians. His lyre is as silent as his shuttle; and we fear that in his hours of despondency he is becoming by far too much addicted to drink. A clever young dramatist confessed to us some time ago that he found himself utterly "goosed;" and the last hope of the school of Byron has been forced to deny himself the luxury of inverted collars, as his uncompromising laundress peremptorily refused to accept of payment in characteristic Cemetery shares.
In the gross, this state of things seems deplorable enough; and yet, when we analyse it, there is still some room for comfort. Never, since we first had the honour of wielding the critical lash—for the Crutch is a sacred instrument—in the broad amphitheatre of letters, do we recollect a year less fertile in the product of verse than the present. Our young friends are not possessed with the same supreme and sublime contempt of gold which formed so disinterested a feature of the poets of the by-gone age. They have become corrupted by the manufacturing and utilitarian tenets of the day; and—we shudder to record it—divers of them are violent free-traders. They have all fallen into the snare of the man Broker; and at the very outset of life, in the heyday and spring of their existence, they can count both sides of a shilling with the acuteness of a born Pennsylvanian. Hence it is, we presume, that they have attained to a knowledge of the fact—long ago notorious among the Trade—that poetry will not pay. They look upon genius through the glasses of Adam Smith, weigh the probability of an adequate demand before they venture on the production of a supply, and cut short the inchoate canto upon principles of Political Economy. In a few years, we fear, poetry will be no longer extant, save for the commercial purposes of the advertisements of Messrs Moses and Hyam; unless, indeed, some Welsh or Highland railway company should take the matter up, and double their dividends by bribing a first-rate poet to produce anotherLady of the Lake. Hence the sparseness of our library table, which renders our old vocation comparatively a sinecure, and leaves us, without the necessity of immolation, to the undisturbed enjoyment of our chair.
We might indeed, were we savagely inclined, discover some Volscians worth our fluttering in the ranks of Young England, or the more sombre group of poetical Oxonian divines. But we look with a kindly eye upon the eccentricities of the one school, and we listen to the drowsy strains of the other with no more active demonstration of disapproval than a yawn. We have high hope of George Sydney Smythe, Lord John Manners, and others, who have already produced some things of evident promise—not mere beaten tinsel, such as the resuscitated Cockneys are again beginning to vend in the literary market—but verses of true and genuine originality. Could we but ensure them against the vitiating effects of politics, it were a light hazard to predict for either of the above gentlemen a far higher reputation than has been achieved by the united efforts of the whole canorous crew which constituted the Melbourne administration. We must indeed except Mr Macaulay, a better poet than a politician, but—the brilliant ballad-writer being removed—what soul could have been contented to fatten upon the spongy lyrics of a Spring Rice, or the intolerable tragedies of a Russell! What food to sweeten the tedium of a solitary imprisonment for life!
As for the Oxford school, we fairly confess that its votaries are beyond our comprehension. Amiable they are, no doubt, although ascetic in principle; but they are likewise insufferably tedious. We have attempted at various times, and during different states of the barometer, to make ourselves master of the compositions of Mr Williams and his principal followers. We failed. After skimming over a page or two of mellifluous blank verse, we began to experience a strange sensation, as if a bee werehumming through the room. At each evolution of the imaginary insect, our eyes felt heavier and heavier. We made a strong effort to rally ourselves at the description of a crystalline stream, meandering, as we rather think, somewhere through the confines of Paradise; but the hue of the water gradually changed. It became dark and treacly, purled with a somniferous sound, as though the channel had been filled with living laudanum; and in three minutes more we were unconscious of the existence of the income-tax, and as relieved from the load of worldly cares as though we had joined company with the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
Surely we have a right to expect something better from Oxford than this. The old nurse of learning must bestir herself once more, forswear morphia, and teach her pupils to strike a manlier chord, else men will cease to believe in the ancient magic of her name. What we want is, power, energy, pathos—not mere vapid sentiment, so diligently distilled that scarce a flavour of the original material is left to enable us to discover its origin. If poetry be a copy or a reflex of life, let it show out lifelike and true; if it be the representation of a dream, at all events let us have the vision, as in the mirror of Agrippa, well defined, though around its edges rest the clouds of impenetrable mystery. Above all things, let us have meaning, not vague allegorical phrases—power if not passion—sense if not sublimity. If the classics cannot teach us these, let us go back to the earlier ballads, and see how our fathers wrote without the aid of metaphysical jargon.
Our present purpose is to deal with Scottish writers, and fortunately we have material at hand. Last month we were in London, engaged in divers matters connected with the state of the nation and our own private emolument, which latter pursuit we as seldom as possible neglect. The cares of a railway witness, in which capacity we had the honour to act, are but few. A bountiful table was spread for us, not in the wilderness, but in an excellent hotel in St James's; breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper, followed one another with praiseworthy regularity; the matutinal soda-water was only succeeded by the iced hock and champagne of the vespers, and a beneficent Fairy of seventeen stone, in the guise of a Writer to Her Majesty's Signet, was courteous enough not only to defray the whole of the attending expenses, but to furnish us with certain sums of gold, which we disseminated at our own proper pleasure. In return for the attentions of our legal Barmecide, we submitted to ensconce ourselves for a couple of days in a hot room somewhere about the Cloisters, in the course of which sederunt we held an animated conversation with several gentlemen in wigs, for the edification—as we were given to understand—of five other gentlemen in hats, who sat yawning behind a green table. We take this opportunity of tendering our acknowledgments to the eminent and raucous Queen's Counsel who was kind enough to conduct our cross-examination, and who so delicately insinuated his doubts as to the veracity and candour of our replies. As his knowledge of the localities about Braemar—the district then under question—was about equal to his cognizance of the natural history of Kamschatka, we felt the compliment deeply; and should we ever have the pleasure of encountering our beetle-browed acquaintance during a vacation ramble on the skirts of Schehallion, we pledge ourselves that he shall carry back with him to Lincoln's Inn some lasting tokens of our regard. In the mean time we sincerely hope he has recovered from that distressing fit of huskiness which rendered his immediate vicinity by no means a seat of comfort to his solicitor.
As a matter of course, we relieved the monotony of our duties by divers modes of relaxation. Greenwich—in the glory of its whitebait, its undeniable Thames flounders, its dear little ducklings enshrined in their asparagus nest, and its flagons, wherein the cider cup shows sparklingly through the light blueBorage—was not unfrequented by us in the course of the sultry afternoon. At Richmond, likewise, we battened sybaritically; and more than once essayed to resuscitate our appetite, and awake within us the dormant sense of poetry, by a stroll along the breezy heath of Hampstead,preparatory to a dive into the Saracen, where, doubtless, in the days of yore, Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Hazlitt used to make wild work among the eggs and spinach. Our attendance at the theatres, however, was a matter of rarity. We have no fancy to undergo martyrdom by means of a slow stewing, when the sole palm we can win, in exchange for the sudorific pangs, is the enjoyment of some such shabby-genteel comedy asThe Beggar on Horseback, or a travestie like that of theBirdsof Aristophanes, the only peculiarity of which is its utter want of meaning. As a general rule, we prefer the spectacles on the Surrey side, to those exhibited in the Metropolitan or Westminster districts. There, the nautical drama still flourishes in its pristine force. The old British tar, in ringlets, pumps, and oil-skin castor, still hitches up his trousers with appropriate oath; revolves the unfailing bolus of pigtail in his cheek—swims to shore across a tempestuous sea of canvass, with a pistol in each hand and a cutlass in his teeth, from the wreck of the foundering frigate—and sets foot once more on the British soil, just in time to deliver Pretty Poll of Portsmouth, his affianced bride, (who has a passion for short petticoats and crimson stockings,) from the persecutions of that bebuttoned pirate with the whiskers, who carries more pistols in his girdle than the scalps of an Indian chief, and whose fall, after a terrific combat with basket-hilts and shower of fiery sparkles, brings down the curtain at the close of the third act amidst roars of unmitigated joy. Also we delight to see, at never-failing Astley's, the revived glories of British prowess—Wellington, in the midst of his staff, smiling benignantly upon the facetious pleasantries of a Fitzroy Somerset—Sergeant M'Craw of the Forty-Second, delighting theéliteof Brussels by his performance of the reel of Tullochgorum at the Duchess of Richmond's ball—the charge of the Scots Greys—the single combat between Marshal Ney and the infuriated Life-guardsman Shaw—and the final retreat of Napoleon amidst a volley of Roman candles, and the flames of an arseniated Hougomont. Nor is our gratification less to discern, after the subsiding of the shower of saw-dust so gracefully scattered by that groom in the doeskin integuments, the stately form of Widdicomb, cased in martial apparel, advancing towards the centre of the wing, and commanding—with imperious gestures, and some slight flagellation in return for dubious compliment—the double-jointed clown to assist the Signora Cavalcanti to her seat upon the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, as she vaults to her feet upon the breadth of the yielding saddle! With what inimitable grace does she whirl these tiny banners around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the sword exercise! How coyly does she dispose her garments and floating drapery to hide the too maddening symmetry of her limbs! Gods!—She is transformed all at once into an Amazon—the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson—her full voluptuous lip is more compressed and firm—the deep passion of the huntress sparkles in her lustrous eye! Widdicomb becomes excited—he moves with quicker step around the periphery of his central circle—incessant is the smacking of his whip—not this time directed against Mr Merryman, who at his ease is enjoying a swim upon the saw-dust—and lo! the grooms rush in, six bars are elevated in a trice, and over them all bounds the volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until, with airy somersets, she has passed twice through the purgatory of the blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a Sabine into the arms of the herculean Master, who—a second Romulus—bears away his lovely burden to the stables, amidst such a whirlwind of applause as Kemble might have been proud to earn!
"So," in the language of Tennyson—
"So we triumph'd, ere our passion sweeping through us left us dry,Left us with the palsied heart, and left us with the jaundiced eye."
"Dryness," however, according to our creed and practice, is not altogether unappeasable, and by the help of Barclay, Perkins, and Company, we succeeded in mitigating its rage. Butwe confess to the other miseries of the palsied heart and jaundiced eye, so soon as we were informed by the above-mentioned scribe, that our bill had been thrown out upon committee, and that, if we tarried longer in London, it must be upon our own proper charges. We had been so used for the last twelve months to voyage, and to subsist at the expense of joint-stock companies—so habituated to dine with provisional committees, and to hold sweet supper consultations in the society of salaried surveyors—that a reference to our private resources appeared a matter of serious hardship. However, there was no help for it. Some mean and unreasonable share-holders were already growling about a return of some portion of the deposits, and even, to the infinite disgust of the directors, hinted at a taxation of accounts. The murmurs of these slaves of Mammon broke up our little Eden. The Irish egg-merchant, who had been fed for three weeks upon turtle to induce him to give testimony touching the importation of eerocks—the tollman from Strathspey, who nightly meandered to the Coal-hole, in company with the intoxicated distiller—the three clerks who did the dirty work of the committee-room, and were therefore, with wise precaution, stinted in their allowance of beer—the northern bailie, who stuck strenuously to toddy, and the maritime provost, who affected the vintage of the Rhine—the raw uncouth surveyor from Dingwall, who, guiltless of straps, and rejoicing in a superfluity of rig-and-fur over a pair of monstrous brogues, displayed his native symmetry every afternoon in Regent Street, and reciprocated the gaze of the wondering milliners with a coarse guffaw, and the exhibition of his enormous teeth;—All these worthies vanished from the house in a single day, like spirits at the crowing of the cock, and returned to their native hills in a state of comparative demoralization. For our own part, we packed our portmanteau in gloomy silence, and meditated a speedy retreat to the distant solitudes of Loch Awe.
We were eating, as we thought, our last muffin, when our eye was accidentally caught by an advertisement in theTimes, purporting that a new play was to be immediately produced at the Princess's theatre, and that its title wasThe King of the Commons. A spasm of delight shot through us. We were aware, some time before, that a dear friend, and distinguished fellow-labourer of ours, whose contributions have always been of sweetest savour in the nostrils of fastidious Christopher, had turned his attention to dramatic poetry, and was resolved, for once at least, to launch an experimental shallop upon the stage. Nor did we doubt that this was the enunciation of his attempt. We divined it at once from the subject, so akin to his genius and deep national feelings—we knew the fervour of his love to Scotland, and his earnest desire to illustrate some page of her varied annals—and we resolved accordingly to postpone our departure, and be present at the success or discomfiture of our bold and adventurous brother.
The first night of a new play is always attended with some agreeable excitement. If the author is a known man upon the boards—a veteran of some six comedies, all of which have found their way into the provinces, and are usually selected by the leading Star on the occasion of his or her benefit—the general audiences are desirous to ascertain whether his new effort is equal in point of merit to the rest. The critics, most of whom have failed in their own proper persons, are by no means indisposed to detect the occurrence of blemishes—friends hope that it may succeed, and unsuccessful rivals devoutly trust it may be damned. If the author is unknown, and if no very flagrant efforts have been made to pre-puff his performance, he has at all events the chance of an impartial hearing. Let the play go on smoothly to the middle; let no very glaring absurdities appear; let the actors really exert themselves, and display any thing like interest or talent in their business, and young Sophocles is generally sure of a favourable verdict. Our dear friends, the public, are always well disposed towards a winning man. One cheer elicits another, and applause, once commenced, goes on at a multiplied ratio. No doubt, the case may be reversed, and the sound of a solitary catcall from the pit awake the slumbering serpents, and become the signal for universal sibilation.
The danger is, that an unknown author, unpuffed, may be ruined for want of an audience. We have no great faith in the panacea of free tickets, issued by the lessee for the simple purpose of getting up a house. The worth of a production is usually estimated by its current value, and we doubt if a favourable bias can be produced in the minds of any, by means of gratuitous pasteboard. Puffing, again, often defeats its own object. It creates doubt in the anticipations of some, jealousy in those of others and is also apt to create aprestigewhich the result may not justify. When we are told, on the authority of newspaper paragraphs, thatBianca Franconi, or the Seven Bloody Poignards of Parma, is to take the town by storm,—that nothing equal to it in merit has been produced since the days of Shakspeare,—that the critic who had the privilege of attending the first rehearsal, emerged from the theatre with his blood in a state of congelation, owing to the sepulchral tones and vehement gestures of Mr Charles Kean, who represents the part of Giacomo degli Assassinazioni, the Demon Host of the Abruzzi;—when we listen to this preliminary flourish of trumpets, we are apt to screw our imaginations a peg too high, and may chance to derive less rapture than we had anticipated from the many scenes of murder which garnish thedénouementof the drama.
A greater virtue than fidelity is not in the celestial catalogue. We should at all times be ready to accompany a friend, either in a triumphal ovation or in a melancholy march to the scaffold,—to place the laurel on his head, or the funereal handkerchief in his hand. It was an exuberance of this feeling which determined us to be present at the first representation ofThe King of the Commons; and being firmly convinced of the truth of the adage, that there is safety in a multitude of councillors, we sent round the fiery cross to such of our fellow-contributors as were then in London, requesting them to favour us with their company to an early dinner at the Parthenon, as a proper preliminary to the more serious business of the evening.
Some half-dozen of the younger hands responded punctually to our call. They came dropping in in high glee, with a rather mischievous expression of countenance, as though they anticipated fun; nor had they been five minutes in the room, before we discovered, to our unspeakable consternation, that every man was furnished, either with a catcall or a railway whistle! Here was a proper business! We knew very well that the articles which our dramatic friend contributes to Maga, have found more favour in the eyes of the public than the lucubrations of all the rest of us put together, and yet we had been foolish enough to assume, that, after the manner of the brethren, we had been convoking a literary Lodge. In fact, we had made no allowance for that indescribable delight which prompts you irresistibly, and without thought of succour, to cram your horse at the ditch into which, six seconds before, the friend of your bosom has been pitched from the back of his runaway mare, and wherein he is now lying with his head fixed inextricably in the mud, and his legs demonstrating in the air a series of spasmodic mathematical propositions. Not that, in the slightest degree, the dispositions of the lads were evil. If the play turned out well, we knew that they would be found cheering with the most uproarious, and probably raving for the next week about the merits of their fortunate compeer;—but if, on the contrary, it should happen that our brother had overestimated his powers, little doubt existed in our mind, that each contributor would exert himself on his peculiar instrument as vigorously as Herr Kœnig, on the cornet-à-piston, nor seek to excuse himself afterwards on any more elaborate plea, than the right of every Briton to participate in a popular amusement.
The dinner went off well. We were, however, cautious to confine each man to his solitary pint, lest their spirits should prove too exuberant at the moment of the rising of the curtain. Coffee over, we wended our way to the theatre, where we arrived just in time to hear the expiring crash of the overture. The first glimpse of the well-filled house assured us that there was no fear of the play falling still-bornfor want of an adequate audience. Boxes, pit, and gallery were equally crammed. We took our seat in the midst of the band of catcallers and whistlemen, and proceeded to the inspection of the bill as diligently as though it were an exponent of the piece. It must be confessed that our friend has not been very fortunate in the selection of his names. Early associations with the neighbourhood of Mid-Calder, a region abounding in cacophonous localities, seem to have led him a little astray. Adam Weir, Portioner in Laichmont, is a name which may be found figuring in theCloud of Witnesses, or in that very silly book, Mr Simpson'sTraditions of the Covenanters. It might sound admirably in a tale of the "hill-folk," but we totally repudiate and deny the propriety of enrolling Sir Adam Weir of Laichmont in the list of King James's Bannerets. Buckie of Drumshorlan likewise, though he may turn out on further acquaintance to be a fellow of infinite fancy, appears to us in print theeidolonof a Bathgate carter. Madeleine we acknowledge to be a pretty name, but it loses its effect in conjunction with a curt patronymic. However, these are minor matters. It may be allowable to us, who drew our first trout from the Linnhouse Water, to notice them, but English ears may not be so fastidious. Tomkins, to the Chinese, is probably a name as terrible in sound as Wellington.
But see!—the curtain rises, and displays an interior in Holyrood. James White—you are a lucky fellow! That mechanist is worth his weight in gold; for, what with stained windows and draperies and pilasters, he has contrived to transform our old gloomy palace, where solemnity sits guardian at the portal, into as gay a habitation as ever was decked out for a southern potentate. Francesco and Bernardo—that is, Buckie and Mungo Small—have some preliminary talk, for which we care not; when suddenly the folding-doors fly open, and enter James the Fifth of Scotland, surrounded by his nobles.
Unquestionably the greatest of living British actors, Macready, has never wanted honours. This night he has them to the full, if deafening applause can testify the public goodwill; and of a truth he deserves them all, and more, were it but for that king-like bearing. There is no mock majesty in his aspect. Admirably has he appreciated the chivalrous character of James, who in many points seems to have borne a strong resemblance to the English Richard—as gallant and fearless, as hasty and bountiful—more trusting perhaps, but yet not more deceived. There is now a cloud on the royal brow. Some of the nobles have delayed, upon various pretexts, to send their vassals to the general muster on the Borough Muir, preparatory to an inroad upon England, and James cannot urge them on. Somerville and some others, who have no mind for the war, are pleading their excuse, greatly to the indignation of the King, who considers the honour of Scotland more bound up with the enterprise than his own.