“——For even in the tranquilest climesLight breezeswillruffle the flowers sometimes.”
“——For even in the tranquilest climesLight breezeswillruffle the flowers sometimes.”
“——For even in the tranquilest climesLight breezeswillruffle the flowers sometimes.”
“——For even in the tranquilest climes
Light breezeswillruffle the flowers sometimes.”
Nor everlasting speeches made, with continual asseverations and solemn appeals to the by-standers and the public; as if the question of life and death were a game of chess for the amusement not only of those who are engaged in it, but for all who may happen to be near and looking on at the time.
And I would have the dignity of the profession upheld by courtesy and gravity and self-possession—by varied learning—by the utmost forbearance—by very short speeches—by the greatest regard for truth, and by unquestionable conscientiousness under all circumstances.
Were this done, the Bar would be sifted and purged and purified to some purpose. Nineteen twentieths of the rabble rout who mistake themselves, and are mistaken by others for lawyers, would vanish from the face of the earth—and the profession would then be not only respectable, but worth following; though, in my judgment, lawyers would still be the last among us to be intrusted with a disproportionate share of Legislative or Executive power; though, from the nature of things they would be likely to monopolize the whole Judiciary power.
That our leading Advocates will not relish this doctrine, I know. In theory, they may approve—but in practice, when they and their interest, and their professional pride are once engaged, they will never yield. Always taking it for granted that their client tells the truth—in proportion to the fee; and always determined to prevail, if they can, right or wrong, their reformation will depend, not upon themselves, but upon others—upon the People at large; for whenever the People say that a professional acquaintance with law shall be a disqualification for the business of law-making, and no great recommendation for office, then will the lawyers of our country begin to mind their own business, and cease to be mere politicians, clamoring, open-mouthed, for office all their lives long.
And here, lest I may forget them in the proper place, allow me to illustrate the disposition of the People to see fair play, by two or three—Joe Millers, which I never lose an opportunity of telling under this head. They show that my brethren of the bar sometimes get their “come ups” where they least expect it—and very much to the satisfaction of the multitude.
It is told of Jere. Mason, and of some forty others at home and abroad, that on being assigned for counsel to a sad wretch whose case he found to be hopeless, he went to his cell, and after hearing his story, became satisfied that the poor fellow would swing for it, if tried; and so, seeing a sort of window open, high up and far above the prisoner’s reach if unhelped, he suggested to him that there was a beautiful prospect to be seen from that window—perhaps “the high-road to England,” which the amiable Dr. Johnson said was the finest prospect a Scotchman ever sees—and then, seeing the prisoner’s eyes begin to sparkle, he offered himself as a sort of ladder or look out, and standing with his back to the wall, and letting the man climb over him, he never looked up till it was too late, and the man had disappeared—whereupon he returned to the court-room, and on being questioned, acknowledged that he had given the fellow the best advice he could—which advice must be a secret from everybody, since it was the privilege, not of the counsel, but of the client.
All this, you see, was according to law, if not in fact, at least in principle. A Lawyer might do this—and escape scot-free, as if it were only a good joke: while a brother of the prisoner, or a father, might have been sent to the scaffold.
Another, for the truth of which IbelieveI may vouch, because I had it, I think, from the lawyer himself, may serve to show that such faithfulness to clients may sometimes meet with an appropriate reward. A member of the Down East bar was called upon to save a man charged with passing a large amount of counterfeit money. After a long and severely contested trial, our “learned, eloquent, and ingenious” brother got him clear—chiefly by dint of protestation, coupled with a personal knowledge of the jury. On being discharged, the accused tipped him a wink in passing out, and our learned brother followed him to the lobby. There they stopped—the liberated man overwhelmed with thankfulness, and speechless with emotion; being a father, perhaps, with a large family, or a man of hitherto irreproachable character, who never knew how much he was to be pitied till he heard the speech of his lawyer. Unable to speak—he seized his hand—slipped something into it—and turned away, with a word or two, almost inaudible, about the inadequacy of the acknowledgment, and disappeared forever. Whereupon, our eloquent, able, and most ingenious friend, who was a little shy of opening the parcel in the presence of a bystander, withdrew to another part of the house, and ascertained—perfectly to his own satisfaction, he would have you believe—that he had been paid in the same sort of money which he had been laboring all day to show that the accused never had any thing to do with. And now, on the whole—was not this a capital joke?—a just retribution, and exceedingly well calculated to make a lawyer insist upon being paid before-hand, whatever might be the “contingent fee” afterward.
Once more—for I do not like being misrepresented in the newspapers upon this particular point—being sensitive perhaps about Joe Miller; and, for that reason, always acknowledging my indebtedness to him and to his fellow-laborers, the newspaper people, who never tell a story without spoiling it, or making it look strange: there is a story told in England, upon which a play has been founded, to this effect. A lawyer was called to see a man charged with sheep-stealing. After a brief consultation, he saw clearly that, upon the evidence before him, there was no possibility of escape. And then, too—probably—the wretch was very poor, being only a sheep-stealer, and not a murderer, nor forger, nor house-breaker, nor highwayman, and of course, would have to be satisfied with poor counsel. Whereupon the learned gentleman thought proper to ask him if he had ever been deranged.
“Deranged?”
“Flighty—you understand?”
“Oh—yes—to be sure: all my family on my father’s side have been veryflighty—very.”
“That’ll do, my friend; that’s enough. You are charged with stealing sheep—you know.”
The fellow began to roll his eyes and look savage.
“When you are called upon to plead—you know what that is?”
“To be sure I do.”
“Well, then, just plead to the indictment by sayingbaa-aa!”
So said—so done. The prisoner was arraigned. The indictment was read over to him very slowly as he sat with his head on one side, looking as sheepish as possible. And when they had got through, and he was called upon to sayguiltyornot guilty, he answered, by sayingbaa-aa!
The court being rather astonished, interfered, and told him what he was required to do; but still he answered nothing butbaa! Read over the indictment again, said the judge, and read it very slowly. The clerk obeyed, and when he had got through, and was again required to sayguiltyornot guilty, he answered, as before, nothing butbaa-aa-aa!
A jury was then impanneled to see if he stood mute “by the visitation of God.” After looking at his tongue—and his eyes—and feeling his pulse, they returned a verdict in the affirmative. The man was forthwith discharged; and the lawyer followed him out, and touching him on the elbow, held out his hand—baa-aa-aa!—baa-aa-aa!said the sheep-stealer—and vanished.
But enough on this point. If I were to write a book, I should not be able to do more than I have done already, so far as the legal and professional doings of my beloved brethren are concerned.
It remains now, that I should say something very briefly, of the disastrous consequences flowing from their political power.
In the first place, it lures all our young men—the silliest as well as the cleverest—who desire to live without work, and to be provided for at the public charge, to betake themselves to the law. It is not only the high-road—but the only high-road to political power. No other profession has a chance with that of the law; and everybody knows it and feels it when broad awake and thinking, instead of dozing. Hence the profession is over-crowded, over-burthened—overwhelmed—and literally dwarfed into comparative nothingness, apart from political power; having not a tittle of the social power it would be fairly entitled to if it were not so adulterated and diluted.
In the second place, we have that national reproach—the instability of our legislation—the perpetual change, that no sober-minded business-man is ever able to foresee or provide against.
And this I aver to be the natural, the inevitable consequence of having for our legislators, men who have a direct personal interest in multiplying or changing our laws, and in making them unintelligible to others.
Let us take one of our young attorneys, and follow him up, year by year, and step by step, to the Halls of Congress, and see how he gets there, and what he is bound to do—for he can do nothing else—after he gets there.
In the first place, it should be borne in mind, that the lawyers we send to our legislative bodies, are not often the able, nor even the ablest of their class—I speak of them as lawyers only, and not as Orators, or Statesmen, or Scholars. They cannot afford to serve the people for the day wages that your stripling, or blockhead of an attorney, who lives only from hand to mouth, would snap at. He who can have a hundred dollars for a speech, will never make speeches at two or three dollars a-day, in our State Legislatures, nor be satisfied with eight dollars a-day in Congress.
And these youngsters of the bar, these third and fourth-rate lawyers, who are held to be good enough for legislators, because they cannot support themselves by their profession, how are they trained for that business?
You first hear of them in bar-rooms and bowling-alleys; then at ward-caucuses; and then at all sorts of gatherings where they may be allowed to try themselves and their hearers; and then at conventions or town-meetings: and then, after being defeated half a dozen times, perhaps, till it is acknowledged that if they are not elected, they are ruined forever, they get pushed, head-foremost, into the State Legislature.
And once there, what shall they do?—how shall they manage to become notorious—or distinguished? They must contrive to be talked about in the newspapers; to be heartily abused by somebody, that they may heartily be praised by somebody else belonging to another perish. Their names at least will be mentioned, and grow more and more familiar every day to the public ear, until they become a sort of household words; or it may be a rallying cry, by the simple force of repetition, like proverbs, or slang-phrases. “Why do you take every opportunity of calling yourself anhonestman?” said a neighbor to another of doubtful reputation. “Why, bless your simple heart,” was the reply, “don’t you see that I am laying a foundation for what is called public opinion; and that after a few years, when my character is fairly established, the origin of the belief will be forgotten.” So with your newspaper characters. Idols of the day—at the end of a few months, at most, they are dust and ashes; and the people begin to wonder at themselves that they should ever have been made such fools of.
But how shall they manage to be talked about in the newspapers, and most gloriously abused? There is only one way. They must make speeches—if they cannot make speeches, they may as well give up the ghost, and be gathered to their fathers; for most assuredly, (whatever may be their worth, or strength, or talents, in every other way,) if they cannot make speeches, not a man of them will ever be remembered—long enough to be forgotten. And they must make long speeches—the longer the better; and frequent speeches—the more frequent the better; and be their own correspondents and report themselves for the newspapers, with tart replies and eloquent outbreaks, and happy illustrations, never uttered, nor dreamt of till the unpremeditated battle was over, like some that were made by Demosthenes himself, years after the occasion had passed by, and there was nobody alive to contradict him; or like the celebrated oration of Cicero against Cataline.
But they cannot make speeches about nothing at all—at least such is my present opinion—it may be qualified hereafter, and I am well aware that common experience would appear to be against me, and that much may be said upon both sides, as well as upon neither side, in such a question. They must have something to work with—and to talk about: something, too, which is likely to make a noise out of doors; to set people together by the ears; to astonish them, and to give them a good excuse for fretting, and scolding, and worrying. In other words, they must introduce a new law—the more absurd the better—or attack an old law, the older the better; and seek to modify it, or to change or repeal it.
And what is the result? Just this; that every Legislative Hall in the land, from the least to the greatest, from the lowest to the highest, becomes a debating-school; and the business of the whole Country is postponed, month after month, and year after year, to the very last days of the session, and then hurried through—just a little too late, wherever the national honor is deeply concerned, as in the case of French spoliations, and other honest debts owed by the Government to the People—with a precipitation so hazardous and shameful, that much of the little time left in future sessions must be employed in correcting the blunders of the past: and all for what?—merely that the Lawyers may be heard month after month, and have long speeches that were never delivered, or when delivered, not heard, reported piecemeal, and paragraph by paragraph, in perhaps two or three thousand newspapers—that are forgotten before the next sun goes down, and literally “perish in the using.”
Nor does the mischief stop here. The whole business of the country is hung up—and sessions protracted for months—and millions upon millions wasted year after year, of the people’s money, upon what, after all, are nothing more—and there could not well be any thing less—than electioneering speeches.
And then just look at the character of our legislation. Was there ever any thing to be compared with it, for instability, for uncertainty, for inadequacy, for superabundance, and for what my Lord Coke would call a “tending to infiniteness!” I acknowledge, with pride, that our Revised Statutes, all circumstances taken into consideration, are often quite remarkable for the common sense of their language, and for clearness—wherever common sense and clearness were possible under the established rules of interpretation. But generally speaking, what is it? “Unstable as water—thou shall not excel!” is written upon the great body of our statute law, year after year, and generation after generation.
And what are the consequences? Nations are “perplexed by fear of change.” Better stick to a bad law, than keep changing a good. The clock that stands still (to borrow a happy illustration) is sure to be right twice every twenty-four hours; while that which is always going, may always be wrong.
Let us apply this. We are now waiting and hoping for a change of the tariff: and the more general and confident the expectation of a change among business-men, whatever that change may be—up or down—higher or lower—the more certainly will it put a stop, or greatly embarrass for a time, the whole business of the country. And why? If it be generally believed that the tariff is to be lowered, the dealers everywhere begin to run off their stocks, to offer longer credits and better terms; and however unwilling, shrewd cautious men may be about over-purchasing with such a prospect before them, there will be found others, commercial gamblers, or trading adventurers, who always profit by such occasions to go ahead of their fellows; for what they gain is their own, and what they lose, is their creditors’. And universal overtrading is the consequence here—and stoppages there—till the mischief corrects itself or dies out. Business no longer flows in its accustomed channels. It has fallen into the hands of comparative stock-jobbers and lottery-dealers: and a general bankruptcy often follows.
But suppose the tariff about to be raised—and the belief to be universal. The ultimate consequences are the same, so far as the regular business of the country is concerned. Manufacturers and jobbers hold back; they refuse to sell on six months—they shorten the period of credit—and require acceptances in town—as being, on the whole, better than to demand higher rates in advance of old customers. Purchasers may be eager—but what can they do. They are obliged to wait—and live on from hand to mouth—till the question has been settled. And so with every other great leading law, affecting any great commercial, farming, or manufacturing interest of the country. The legislation of a land is a type of itself. How can our other great institutions be safe and lasting if our legislation be unstable?
That our legislation is unstable and changing and fluctuating, who will deny? What great system of national policy have we ever pursued steadily beyond the terms of two or three of our political chief-magistrates—a paragraph at most, in the long History of the World?
And how should it be otherwise? Lawyers with us are Conveyancers and Notaries and Special-Pleaders: and Conveyancers and Notaries and Special-Pleaders over sea are always, and in our country, almost always paid by the page; and a certain number of words, you know, constitute a page at law. Again—so sure is it that a lawyer shall not only be heard, but paid for his “much speaking,” that I do believe people are often better satisfied to lose a case with a long speech, than to gain it by a short one. This may appear somewhat startling; but let us see if, on the whole, it be not substantially true and no paradox.
A man goes to consult a lawyer—you see how careful I am to distinguish between the two—and states his case. The lawyer hears him patiently through—having already touched the fee—and tells him, without opening a book, or lifting his spectacles, or moving from his chair, that the question lies in a nut-shell; and that if his view of the law should be sustained by the court, of which he cannot be sure, it may be settled easily and at once. Well—the case in due time goes up. The jury are empanneled; a great speech is brewing on the opposite side; you can hear the whiz of preparation in the very breathing of the Adversary; but up rises our friend—by the supposition a very clear-headed, able and honest lawyer—and so states the principle of law upon which he depends, that the court rules in his favor, no speeches are made, and the jury are discharged. And now comes the tug of war. The client begs a moment of the lawyer’s time, and asks what’s to pay: “Fifty dollars.” “Fifty dollars!—why, sir—pulling out his watch—you were not more than—” The lawyer bows, and on turning away with a stately air, as of one who truly respects himself, and will not suffer the dignity of the profession to be trifled with nor tarnished, is stopped by—“I beg your pardon, squire—there’s the money. Good morning.” And off goes the client, who has gained the cause, to complain of the lawyer for extravagance or extortion; saying that “the case was plain as a pike-staff—any body might have managed it—could have done it himself and without help—nothing but a word or two for the court—never opened his mouth to the jury—and then, whew! what do you think he had the conscience to charge? why,fifty dollars!—would you believe it! Very well—much good may the fifty dollars do him; it is the last he’ll ever see of my money, I promise you.”
And now let me suppose that, instead of going to the last mentioned,honestlawyer, he had gone to some other. He is heard, to be sure, but with visible impatience: he is continually interrupted and questioned and cross-questioned, by the half hour. The learned gentleman has a very large snuff-box on the table before him—two or three very large portfolios, and at least a wheelbarrow load of papers tied with red tape. He takes off his spectacles and snuffs, and wipes them with his glove and snuffs, and replaces them and snuffs; now he lifts them and looks under them, and now he lowers them and looks over them steadfast and solemn, though troubled and perplexed, with his mouth screwed up, and making faces at his client all the time: he shakes his head and jumps up, and takes a pinch, and then shakes his head and sits down, and takes another pinch: with a huge pile of authorities before him, and ever so many lying open, and having secured a retainer, at last he tells his client to call on the morrow at 11¼ o’clockprecisely. The client, awe-struck at the vastness of that legal erudition he has been favored with a few glimpses of, steals away on tip-toe, rubbing his hands with delight and astonishment, and talking to himself perhaps all the way down stairs and into the street. After three or four consultations the case comes on for trial. The Adversary goes at the jury head-first, with a speech varying from two hours to two days. Of course, it will require from two hours to two days to answer it—and every thing must be answered, you know, whether it has to do with the question or not—as in the passage between Tristram Bulges and John Randolph, about the buzzard, or bald-eagle, I forget which; for after all, there is no great difference between them, as I have heretofore found to my cost; or as in that between Webster and Hayne about poor Banquo’s ghost, in the Senate chamber. And now, having insulted the witnesses, and the court, and the opposite counsel, and tired the jury by an everlasting speech, when they were already more than half asleep; or by arguing questions of law and fact wholly supposititious, for the benefit of his younger brethren and the by-standers—the case goes to the jury, under the charge of the court perhaps, and is lost. But who cares?—not the client; for when told that he has a hundred dollars to pay, instead of fifty as before, he calls it dog-cheap, and insists upon paying more, and why? Becausethatlawyer had made the case his own—and he goes about saying, “Didn’t he give it to ’em!—bench, bar and jury!—didn’t he acknowledge they were all a set of nincompoops!—and didn’t he lather my adversary and my adversary’s counsel, and all his witnesses, little and big, and especially the women and children, beautifully!—handsomely!—and isn’t he the man, therefore, not only for my money, but for the money of all my acquaintances who may ever want a zealous andfaithfullawyer to manage their business for them!”
This, though sufficiently absurd, I acknowledge, is nevertheless true: and happens continually at the bar. I do not say that in terms a client would prefer a long speech to a verdict; I only say that such is the fact, although he may not always know it himself, in many a troublesome case. And so with litigants generally; having once entered the “sacred precincts” of a law-temple, and breathed the fiery atmosphere, and had their names called over in a crowded court-room, and thereby having become famous in their own little neighborhoods, and in the judgment of their friends and witnesses, people of large experience and authority, how are they ever afterward to forego the pleasure? If they win the first throw, of course they can afford to throw again: if they lose, they must throw again, the blockheads! to get back what they have lost, when, like other gamblers, they promise to stop.
Can it be wondered after all this, that words are multiplied in our laws, from sheer habit, as well as from a sort of professional pride, until a mere English reader, however familiar with the spoken language and with the best writers of the language, both at home and abroad, such as Bacon and Bolingbroke and Hooker and Swift, or Edwards, or Channing, or the writers of the Federalist, or Franklin, and half a hundred more I might mention, would be unable to make head or tail of one paragraph in three; and few men of business would be willing to hazard any considerable investment upon his own understanding or interpretation of any passage in any new law.
Talk of the dead languages! The deadest of all the languages I know, or ever heard of, is the language of the law! Ask our friend, the learned blacksmith, and I will abide by the answer. Nobody, not trained to the business of interpretation—as a dragoman—or lawyer, would ever think of trying to understand a new law without help. And even with help—it is a plague and a mystery till the true meaning has been settled—settled!—by adjudication: that is, by others in authority, the priesthood and the patriarchs, who, under the name of judges, are paid for all the thinking, as lawyers are paid for all the talking to no purpose, permitted at law: for, be it known to all whom it may concern, that is, to all the non-lawyers of our land, that no private interpretationof lawis of any authorityat law: nor is the right of private judgment recognized or allowed or tolerated or endured in courts of justice! You must believe at your peril. You must teach as you are taught; and grow to the opinions or moulds about you as a cucumber grows to a bottle; for such is the law, and with most of the profession, all the law, to say nothing of the Gospel; for that, perhaps, would be out of place here.
And now, inasmuch as almost every word of importance in our language has more than one meaning, it follows, that in proportion as you multiply words in a law, or in a legal instrument, you multiply the meanings, and the chances of mistake, and of course, I may as well say it, of litigation: and the mere habit of multiplying words as conveyancers and special-pleaders and speech-makers, being not only a professional habit, as every body knows, but characteristic of the profession, it may be, and often is, continued from habit, long and long after it may cease to appear advantageous or profitable; as in the business of legislation, or in dealing with a jury, where the lawyer is not paid by the page, but by the day or the trick. And why? Perhaps my friend Joe may be permitted to answer. A tailor, while cutting a coat for himself, was seen to slip a fragment of the cloth into his cabbage-drawer. Amazed at such a procedure, a new apprentice took the liberty of asking why he did it. “To keep my hand in,” was the answer.
Just so is it with the lawyer. He would use more words than are either necessary or safe, merely to keep his hand in, if for no other reason. Just compare a contract entered into between shipping-merchants for the sale of a cargo, or between other men of business, railroad contractors, or stock-dealers, involving the outlay of millions, perhaps, with a deed of trust drawn by a thoroughbred conveyancer, or with articles of co-partnership by any thing alive in the shape of an attorney-at-law, if you wish to see the difference between the language of lawyers, and men of business and common sense.
By this, I would not be understood to say that some lawyers are never needed for putting the language and meaning of parties into shape; nor that “I. O. U.” would be a model for a charter-party, or a church settlement; for I acknowledge that the chief business of the world cannot be carried onsafelywithout lawyers. I only say, that we have too many of them; and that they are encouraged to intermeddle more than is good for themselves, or us, with every sort of business and branch of theLex mercatoria, and theLex non scripta.
Another reason why the people are not allowed to have the laws of their own Country in their own language, but in that of the learned few—like the Bible for the Roman Catholics—notwithstanding the ridiculous parade of publishing all the laws in thousands of our newspapers in a year—a better hoax, and a better joke by far than the celebrated bequest of a guinea, toward paying off the national debt of our mother country—that mother of Nations, so cleverly represented by Victoria, just now—is, that we maynotbe able to judge for ourselves; and that nolawshall be of any private interpretation; for if it did, the people would soon be independent of most lawyers; and then, what would become of the superannuated, and the helpless, the fledglings, and the understrappers? They would have to rely for support in their old age upon the interpretation of themselves, and of their own cramped penmanship, instead of the legislative enactments.
But, say certain of my brethren, the law, after all, is a great science, and the profession worthy of profound respect. It is over-crowded to be sure; and some, it must be acknowledged, do not succeed at the bar, and after trying it for a while are obliged to leave it, or starve. Granted—but what does that prove? Can those who do not succeed be greater blockheads, or greater knaves than many others that do? And may it not be just possible, if they, who do not succeed in the profession are otherwise distinguished, that they had too much self-respect, or conscientiousness, or what may be calledhonesty? Thus much by way of a protestanda—or the “exclusion of a conclusion,” according to my Lord Coke.
And now, with all seriousness, what more shall be said? I have shown: 1.—That my brethren of the bar enjoy a very dangerous and altogether very disproportionate power as the law-makers, the law interpreters, and the law enforcers. 2.—That however honest they may beby nature; and however honest in all the other relations of life; and that they are so, I acknowledge with pleasure; yet, as Lawyers, they have a code of morals peculiar to themselves, making it their duty to league with knaves, and cheats, and murderers, and house-breakers, and to furnish them with aid and comfort,for pay; in other words, fora share in their profits, and thisdutyis of such a nature as to lead them continually astray, to blind their reasoning powers, to darken their consciences, until they are incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, or right and wrong in the defense of their clients; and that under pretense of beingfaithfulto them, they become after a while too unfaithful to everybody else, even to themselves, and to their Maker; and thatthereforethey are not trustworthy as legislators. 3.—That in consequence of their position as the holders of political power, too large a portion of our young men—our intellectual strength and hope, is diverted into that particular profession, to the injury of every other, and especially to the business, and laboring, or productive professions. 4.—That another evil is our superabundant legislation—the instability of that legislation—the prodigious cost of so many debating societies maintained at the public charge, under pretence of law-making all over the land; whereby the public business of the whole country is delayed, month after month, and year after year; and sometimes never done—or if done at all, is done at last in such a hurry, and after such a slovenly fashion, that when the law-makers are called together again, a large portion of the little time they are enabled to set apart from electioneering, is spent in patching up and explaining the laws of a previous session; here, by taking a piece off the bottom and sewing it on the top, as the Irishman lengthens his blanket; and there, by taking out a piece of the same, to patch a hole with: and thattherefore, notwithstanding a multitude of glorious exceptions to be found, year after year, in the senate chambers and representative chambers of our country, Lawyers are never tobe trusted in the making of laws; and that, if it were not for the simple fact that, as judges, they are the only authorized expounders of the law, they ought not to be trusted even with the wording of a statute.
And now, what more? We are all ambitious—lawyers above all the rest of the world in this country. Not one but labors—if we may believe his mother and sister, or his betrothed—not one “but labors with the nightmare meanings of Ambition’s breast”—not one who does not feel—
“How hard it is to climbThe steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!”
“How hard it is to climbThe steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!”
“How hard it is to climbThe steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!”
“How hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!”
and therefore it is, that the whole country is groaning under their oppression—over-burthened with law—and taxed, and trapped, and crushed, and trampled on by lawyers.
But, if instead of this unhealthy ambition—this boyish uneasiness and appetite for notoriety, which three times out of four will be satisfied with the title of esquire, there should arise the unconquerable spirit of one created for dominion, with the holy instincts of a reformer, and anxious from the first hour of his revealed strength, to be the friend of the Fatherless and the Widow, of the Wronged and the Suffering—the champion of the poor and the helpless—the refuge of the hunted and betrayed upon earth—let him devote himself to the study and practice of the law, and of nothing but the law, in its vast and magnificent comprehensiveness; let him consecrate himself with prayer, and praise, and thanksgiving and sacrifice—let him go up to the temple with humility and reverence, and godly fear; and let him take possession “of the purple robe and diadem of gold,” as of right, and though his life may be a continual warfare, and he may die in the harness at last, and upon the battle-field, as Pinkney and Emmett, and others have died before him—for
“He, who ascends to mountain-tops shall findThe loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow,Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blowContending tempests on his naked head.”
“He, who ascends to mountain-tops shall findThe loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow,Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blowContending tempests on his naked head.”
“He, who ascends to mountain-tops shall findThe loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow,Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blowContending tempests on his naked head.”
“He, who ascends to mountain-tops shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head.”
Yet will he die the death of the righteous, and never be forgotten: and whole communities will pass by his grave, generation after generation, saying to one another as if speaking of a personal friend, “that although he was a great man, and a great lawyer, and perhaps a statesman, he was a good neighbor, and a good citizen, a good husband and a good father; andthereforea good Christian, doing justly, walking humbly, and loving mercy to the last.”
And would not such a death, my dear G——, be worth living for? And such a reputation worth dying for?
ELPHOLEN. A FRAGMENT.
———
BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.
———
Where many cedars shade Igondo’s shelf,Like towering Dukes of Edom crowned with plumes;Where seven rivers to an awful gulfFall, with much foam, from Himalaya’s flooms;And where, from Baal-Phaxi’s caverned rooms,Through ice-arched galleries pours tumultuous Ulf,Are built across a swarthy savage glen,The gates which bar the land of Elpholen.Above all mountains, clouds, and smoking isles,From one huge base three stately hills arise;A wall extends from them a thousand miles,Steep and unbroken, builded to the skies,Higher than even the gray-winged condor flies;And compasseth, with rocks and snowy pilesA table land, both wide and wonderful,And only by that gated pass accessible—Crossing a frightful plain which the sun scorches,Which plain is full of chasms and trap-dykes,Scoriæ, cinders, and dry river gorges,With timber petrified, basaltic spikes,And lava-ponds, with hard, black, stony surgesWe reached the shaded pass below the peaks,And paused to hear the roar of plunging Ulf,And the seven rivers, far within the gulf.Up that defile, with fear and silent wonder,We rode;our horses seemed but two small mice.The rivers in the gulf gave forthlargethunder,And rocks, above the clouds, fell, bounding thrice,With uproar, from the grim cliffs, cracked asunder.Aloft, like Anakim, with helms of iceThe mountains raised their huge Plutonic shoulders,Clothed in Titanic mail of ore and boulders.Three Prophets of grand stature and bald browsSat by the gates.They were much older thanThe river Nile.One of deep eyes aroseAnd said: “Speak unto us what manner of manThou art, O, hero; if of some fierce clanHyperborean, or of pagan Huns?”He of the icebergs spoke with rhetoric fitIn words and figures following, to wit;. . . . . .The Prophet said, “Here shalt thou rest this nightWhile the sun sleeps in hollow Erebus;And as the hours pass on in silent flightAll known philosophy will we discuss.But thou, O wizard Etheuòlymus,To Himmalaya’s broken pinnacleFly with this young esquire, that he may seeAll kingdoms on the continent that be.”Then, with the wizard in a flying mist,I rose along the sides of that steep cone:’Twas like an iron trunk of girdle vast;The moon’s full globe upon all cities shone;Tyre, by the waters; glimmering Ascalon;The City of the Magians, girt with fire;And in the East we saw those mountain rangesWhich separate the Nile from sacred Ganges.Alas! all earthly things have been revisedEven Learning’s careful patron and Protector,The Inquisition, is disorganized.The world is round, and has a Radius Vector;There’s not a ghost on duty, nor a spectre;Sinbad is dead, and almost any loaferCan go, in steamers, round Cape Horn to Ophir.Then, on the blackness of the Night’s deep chasm,The anchored earth lay, floating, like a floor:—Beneath, the shadow and the veiled phantasmTheir local habitation had of yore;But each veiled shadow, and each dreadful phasmRose with the night, above the western shore—When, through the void, all flame and ruddy goldThe Day-god’s cavalcade, descending, rolled.Without the continent, old Ocean’s torrentExtended to the earth’s remotest verge:Both jovial Tritons, and the Powers abhorrent,Were seized of provinces upon the surge;And from Arcturus to the Southern gorgeBlack tempests bearing old Eolus’ warrantPatrolled the seas in search of ships or steamersBreaking the closes of the ocean emirs.Through the dense night, archangels of strong wing,From heaven roving, saw the earth’s vast plane—The kingdoms of the Pole, all glimmering—The twisted rivers, and the enfolding main—The shining gulfs which dent the Indian chain,And smiled to see the hollow planets swingAbove that dim abyss within whose coreWere hooked the world’s deep sunken anchors four.Large breakers tumbling on the Arabian shoals,With wooded regions by the Caucasian gaps—The town of Ebony, the land of Gholes,(Which are omitted in the modern maps)—All these I saw; and hills with misty caps,Where dwell the Glactophagi—blameless souls:The wizard spoke—I was with awe oppressed:The words like ghosts rose from his sounding chest—“These mountains I have watched a thousand years;And Ihave writ one thousand solemn books:Who reads them shall be wise!Hell’s fiercest PeersHave oft essayed to burst these bolted rocks;And, under Baal-Phaxi’s deepest blocks,Mines they have digged, and loaded, and exploded.Yea, Mogophur, the Lord of Babylon,Came with his captains and a countless rabble on—“Of spearmen, chariots, and Tartarian riders,Whose faces were the likeness of a flame,And elephants crept through the pass like spiders,And the whole College of Magicians came,Who caused sharp earthquakes and much whizzing flameBy means of diagrams, and long dividers,And thus exclaimed each iron-harnessed savage,‘The unseen land of Elpholen we’ll ravage.’“I did but ope one solemn book, and say:‘O, ye Hydraulic Goblins of the mountains,At once your tunnels, pumps, and flooms let play;And loose old Himmalah’s rock-bound fountains.’Then rivers of cold foam and spouting spray,And cataracts which broke the cliffs away,Burst from the mountains’ inner reservoirs.’Twas very good to see those watery DruidsDestroy that haughty host, with roaring fluids!”. . . . . .But now, those noisy trumpeters, the Hours,Blew the reveillé through the camps of morn:Now storm-girt Taurus raised his icy horn,Like blazing silver, o’er the mists and showers;And sunlight struck the unclouded mountain towers,Which ranged the circuit of that snowy wall:We then rode down a chasm from the gates,And entered Elpholen’s enchanted states.To a wild amphitheatre we rode,Begirt with precipices. From an astoundingCavern in the mountain-side, there flowedA river deep and broad; but the surroundingDark hollows echoed not a single sounding;For silently it moved—we only heardAt times the plunging of some dull cascadeFar up the tunnel, like a cannonade.Full many other rivers cross those lands,Some, from the eternal snows come pouring;Some, roll around the chasms, in foaming bends;Some, through the hills, a ragged highway boring,Rush to the valleys, with an angry roaring,And hurry onward to the ocean sands;But many a cataract and runlet tricklesDown from the glaciers, making huge icicles.We moved along by wooded peaks and crags,Carvéd with images and hieroglyphs,Ruffling their scales and quills like golden flags,And, pawing their odd cubs, the hippogriffsRolled in their nests, upon the shady cliffs;And in the glens, both bears and royal stags,With lazy lions, goats, and yawning leopardsLike cattle lay, and children were their shepherds.Along through ancient forests, vast, and slumbrous,Roes, of the mountain, grazed beside the springs,And often rose some bird of plumage cumbrousUnto the branches, folding his wide wings.There, too, were tombs of certain wizard-kings—Antediluvians of visage sombrous—And holy men, before their moss-grown crypts,Studied in awful Syriac manuscripts.Beyond, there dwelleth an immortal folk,About a stream, which to a lake enlarges:Pine hills curve greenly round, and groves of oak,Sometimes they rested on the river marges,Sometimes they plowed the lake in hollow barges,And sometimes, on the altars madesweetsmoke,Some painted pictures in their pleasant tents,And many played on all stringed instruments.But some rode up unto the gorgeous cloudsAround the necks of monstrous eagles clinging.The people which do there have their abodesWelcoméd them with flags, and wild bell-ringing;With musical cannon from th’ embrasures flingingPuffs of white vapor, bombs, and rattling grape:—The Goblin-populace of Cloud-land weCould well behold:—Ah, they a brisk folk be!And caravans continually crossed the plains.Camels and elephants innumerable—With carriages, and pigmy oxen trains,And scampering knights, in armor of black shell,Lords, bearded patriarchs, and gay rabble,And baggage-wagons full of chattering dames,And mounted archers, shooting slender arrows,Wound slowly round the curving river narrows.But some came down the rivers on broad rafts;With shells, and bells, and crooked bugles, wakingNumberless echoes on the rocks. The shaftsOf the forests stood, like champions unquaking,Though many clamors, the old silence breaking,Startled the musing Hermits. Now aroseThe stars, and moon, and all the hosts of night:We stood above a plain upon a height.Three noble rivers, in the moonlight shining,Sparkled from three defiles in East, and West,And North—in silence to a blue gulf winding,Which, by the distant mountains, lay at rest;And there a city with a massive crestOf turrets, overlooked that rock-bound sheet.The rivers round it, in broad girdles pressed;Bridges there were, and groves, and gardens meet;And in the bay lay moored an idle fleet.Unto that city did all people flow:In the deep plain we saw their circular camps,Like islands of an archipelago;And as we looked,a belt of fiery lampsWas wound around the crowning citadel;Whereat each watching pilgrim said: “Full wellI know, that now within yon distant dellThe Lord of blessed Elpholen doth dwell.“To him we will present our offeringOf fruits, and herds, and many precious ores,Which rivers from the mountain-summits bring:—Upon the gulf’s cool strand, and shady shoresOur ancient games we will perform long hours:Then we will go again to our dear tribes,And to our cattle in the pleasant meadows,And dappled deer browsing in mountain shadows.”That night we camped upon the sandy margentOf an unknown sea; and when, behind sharp peaks,The moon retired in her skiff of argent,Then certain meteors filled the sky with streaks,And diving, from the zenith-ridge divergent,Through the purple heavens fell in flakes,Which, as they struck the water, lost their light,And grew a portion of its night.Meanwhile we saw a corps of sentry ghosts,Standing erect the farthest Eastern shore on,And many thousand stars, above those coasts,Flashed like the Arabic of a fiery Koran;Then those great captains of the heavenly hosts,Orion, Sirius, and Aldebóran,On the dark field of Heaven took their stations;And calmly wheeled the close-ranked constellations.No outposts of the Morn marked the approachOf the Hœlios’ chariot; no gleams, or tingesUpon the tent of Darkness dared encroach;But sudden brilliance pierced its dusky fringes;Wide swung the Morning’s gates upon their hinges;Those burning horses, and that flaming coachSprang out upon the ocean, through the gateway:Night struck her tattered tent, and vanished straightway.
Where many cedars shade Igondo’s shelf,Like towering Dukes of Edom crowned with plumes;Where seven rivers to an awful gulfFall, with much foam, from Himalaya’s flooms;And where, from Baal-Phaxi’s caverned rooms,Through ice-arched galleries pours tumultuous Ulf,Are built across a swarthy savage glen,The gates which bar the land of Elpholen.Above all mountains, clouds, and smoking isles,From one huge base three stately hills arise;A wall extends from them a thousand miles,Steep and unbroken, builded to the skies,Higher than even the gray-winged condor flies;And compasseth, with rocks and snowy pilesA table land, both wide and wonderful,And only by that gated pass accessible—Crossing a frightful plain which the sun scorches,Which plain is full of chasms and trap-dykes,Scoriæ, cinders, and dry river gorges,With timber petrified, basaltic spikes,And lava-ponds, with hard, black, stony surgesWe reached the shaded pass below the peaks,And paused to hear the roar of plunging Ulf,And the seven rivers, far within the gulf.Up that defile, with fear and silent wonder,We rode;our horses seemed but two small mice.The rivers in the gulf gave forthlargethunder,And rocks, above the clouds, fell, bounding thrice,With uproar, from the grim cliffs, cracked asunder.Aloft, like Anakim, with helms of iceThe mountains raised their huge Plutonic shoulders,Clothed in Titanic mail of ore and boulders.Three Prophets of grand stature and bald browsSat by the gates.They were much older thanThe river Nile.One of deep eyes aroseAnd said: “Speak unto us what manner of manThou art, O, hero; if of some fierce clanHyperborean, or of pagan Huns?”He of the icebergs spoke with rhetoric fitIn words and figures following, to wit;. . . . . .The Prophet said, “Here shalt thou rest this nightWhile the sun sleeps in hollow Erebus;And as the hours pass on in silent flightAll known philosophy will we discuss.But thou, O wizard Etheuòlymus,To Himmalaya’s broken pinnacleFly with this young esquire, that he may seeAll kingdoms on the continent that be.”Then, with the wizard in a flying mist,I rose along the sides of that steep cone:’Twas like an iron trunk of girdle vast;The moon’s full globe upon all cities shone;Tyre, by the waters; glimmering Ascalon;The City of the Magians, girt with fire;And in the East we saw those mountain rangesWhich separate the Nile from sacred Ganges.Alas! all earthly things have been revisedEven Learning’s careful patron and Protector,The Inquisition, is disorganized.The world is round, and has a Radius Vector;There’s not a ghost on duty, nor a spectre;Sinbad is dead, and almost any loaferCan go, in steamers, round Cape Horn to Ophir.Then, on the blackness of the Night’s deep chasm,The anchored earth lay, floating, like a floor:—Beneath, the shadow and the veiled phantasmTheir local habitation had of yore;But each veiled shadow, and each dreadful phasmRose with the night, above the western shore—When, through the void, all flame and ruddy goldThe Day-god’s cavalcade, descending, rolled.Without the continent, old Ocean’s torrentExtended to the earth’s remotest verge:Both jovial Tritons, and the Powers abhorrent,Were seized of provinces upon the surge;And from Arcturus to the Southern gorgeBlack tempests bearing old Eolus’ warrantPatrolled the seas in search of ships or steamersBreaking the closes of the ocean emirs.Through the dense night, archangels of strong wing,From heaven roving, saw the earth’s vast plane—The kingdoms of the Pole, all glimmering—The twisted rivers, and the enfolding main—The shining gulfs which dent the Indian chain,And smiled to see the hollow planets swingAbove that dim abyss within whose coreWere hooked the world’s deep sunken anchors four.Large breakers tumbling on the Arabian shoals,With wooded regions by the Caucasian gaps—The town of Ebony, the land of Gholes,(Which are omitted in the modern maps)—All these I saw; and hills with misty caps,Where dwell the Glactophagi—blameless souls:The wizard spoke—I was with awe oppressed:The words like ghosts rose from his sounding chest—“These mountains I have watched a thousand years;And Ihave writ one thousand solemn books:Who reads them shall be wise!Hell’s fiercest PeersHave oft essayed to burst these bolted rocks;And, under Baal-Phaxi’s deepest blocks,Mines they have digged, and loaded, and exploded.Yea, Mogophur, the Lord of Babylon,Came with his captains and a countless rabble on—“Of spearmen, chariots, and Tartarian riders,Whose faces were the likeness of a flame,And elephants crept through the pass like spiders,And the whole College of Magicians came,Who caused sharp earthquakes and much whizzing flameBy means of diagrams, and long dividers,And thus exclaimed each iron-harnessed savage,‘The unseen land of Elpholen we’ll ravage.’“I did but ope one solemn book, and say:‘O, ye Hydraulic Goblins of the mountains,At once your tunnels, pumps, and flooms let play;And loose old Himmalah’s rock-bound fountains.’Then rivers of cold foam and spouting spray,And cataracts which broke the cliffs away,Burst from the mountains’ inner reservoirs.’Twas very good to see those watery DruidsDestroy that haughty host, with roaring fluids!”. . . . . .But now, those noisy trumpeters, the Hours,Blew the reveillé through the camps of morn:Now storm-girt Taurus raised his icy horn,Like blazing silver, o’er the mists and showers;And sunlight struck the unclouded mountain towers,Which ranged the circuit of that snowy wall:We then rode down a chasm from the gates,And entered Elpholen’s enchanted states.To a wild amphitheatre we rode,Begirt with precipices. From an astoundingCavern in the mountain-side, there flowedA river deep and broad; but the surroundingDark hollows echoed not a single sounding;For silently it moved—we only heardAt times the plunging of some dull cascadeFar up the tunnel, like a cannonade.Full many other rivers cross those lands,Some, from the eternal snows come pouring;Some, roll around the chasms, in foaming bends;Some, through the hills, a ragged highway boring,Rush to the valleys, with an angry roaring,And hurry onward to the ocean sands;But many a cataract and runlet tricklesDown from the glaciers, making huge icicles.We moved along by wooded peaks and crags,Carvéd with images and hieroglyphs,Ruffling their scales and quills like golden flags,And, pawing their odd cubs, the hippogriffsRolled in their nests, upon the shady cliffs;And in the glens, both bears and royal stags,With lazy lions, goats, and yawning leopardsLike cattle lay, and children were their shepherds.Along through ancient forests, vast, and slumbrous,Roes, of the mountain, grazed beside the springs,And often rose some bird of plumage cumbrousUnto the branches, folding his wide wings.There, too, were tombs of certain wizard-kings—Antediluvians of visage sombrous—And holy men, before their moss-grown crypts,Studied in awful Syriac manuscripts.Beyond, there dwelleth an immortal folk,About a stream, which to a lake enlarges:Pine hills curve greenly round, and groves of oak,Sometimes they rested on the river marges,Sometimes they plowed the lake in hollow barges,And sometimes, on the altars madesweetsmoke,Some painted pictures in their pleasant tents,And many played on all stringed instruments.But some rode up unto the gorgeous cloudsAround the necks of monstrous eagles clinging.The people which do there have their abodesWelcoméd them with flags, and wild bell-ringing;With musical cannon from th’ embrasures flingingPuffs of white vapor, bombs, and rattling grape:—The Goblin-populace of Cloud-land weCould well behold:—Ah, they a brisk folk be!And caravans continually crossed the plains.Camels and elephants innumerable—With carriages, and pigmy oxen trains,And scampering knights, in armor of black shell,Lords, bearded patriarchs, and gay rabble,And baggage-wagons full of chattering dames,And mounted archers, shooting slender arrows,Wound slowly round the curving river narrows.But some came down the rivers on broad rafts;With shells, and bells, and crooked bugles, wakingNumberless echoes on the rocks. The shaftsOf the forests stood, like champions unquaking,Though many clamors, the old silence breaking,Startled the musing Hermits. Now aroseThe stars, and moon, and all the hosts of night:We stood above a plain upon a height.Three noble rivers, in the moonlight shining,Sparkled from three defiles in East, and West,And North—in silence to a blue gulf winding,Which, by the distant mountains, lay at rest;And there a city with a massive crestOf turrets, overlooked that rock-bound sheet.The rivers round it, in broad girdles pressed;Bridges there were, and groves, and gardens meet;And in the bay lay moored an idle fleet.Unto that city did all people flow:In the deep plain we saw their circular camps,Like islands of an archipelago;And as we looked,a belt of fiery lampsWas wound around the crowning citadel;Whereat each watching pilgrim said: “Full wellI know, that now within yon distant dellThe Lord of blessed Elpholen doth dwell.“To him we will present our offeringOf fruits, and herds, and many precious ores,Which rivers from the mountain-summits bring:—Upon the gulf’s cool strand, and shady shoresOur ancient games we will perform long hours:Then we will go again to our dear tribes,And to our cattle in the pleasant meadows,And dappled deer browsing in mountain shadows.”That night we camped upon the sandy margentOf an unknown sea; and when, behind sharp peaks,The moon retired in her skiff of argent,Then certain meteors filled the sky with streaks,And diving, from the zenith-ridge divergent,Through the purple heavens fell in flakes,Which, as they struck the water, lost their light,And grew a portion of its night.Meanwhile we saw a corps of sentry ghosts,Standing erect the farthest Eastern shore on,And many thousand stars, above those coasts,Flashed like the Arabic of a fiery Koran;Then those great captains of the heavenly hosts,Orion, Sirius, and Aldebóran,On the dark field of Heaven took their stations;And calmly wheeled the close-ranked constellations.No outposts of the Morn marked the approachOf the Hœlios’ chariot; no gleams, or tingesUpon the tent of Darkness dared encroach;But sudden brilliance pierced its dusky fringes;Wide swung the Morning’s gates upon their hinges;Those burning horses, and that flaming coachSprang out upon the ocean, through the gateway:Night struck her tattered tent, and vanished straightway.
Where many cedars shade Igondo’s shelf,Like towering Dukes of Edom crowned with plumes;Where seven rivers to an awful gulfFall, with much foam, from Himalaya’s flooms;And where, from Baal-Phaxi’s caverned rooms,Through ice-arched galleries pours tumultuous Ulf,Are built across a swarthy savage glen,The gates which bar the land of Elpholen.
Where many cedars shade Igondo’s shelf,
Like towering Dukes of Edom crowned with plumes;
Where seven rivers to an awful gulf
Fall, with much foam, from Himalaya’s flooms;
And where, from Baal-Phaxi’s caverned rooms,
Through ice-arched galleries pours tumultuous Ulf,
Are built across a swarthy savage glen,
The gates which bar the land of Elpholen.
Above all mountains, clouds, and smoking isles,From one huge base three stately hills arise;A wall extends from them a thousand miles,Steep and unbroken, builded to the skies,Higher than even the gray-winged condor flies;And compasseth, with rocks and snowy pilesA table land, both wide and wonderful,And only by that gated pass accessible—
Above all mountains, clouds, and smoking isles,
From one huge base three stately hills arise;
A wall extends from them a thousand miles,
Steep and unbroken, builded to the skies,
Higher than even the gray-winged condor flies;
And compasseth, with rocks and snowy piles
A table land, both wide and wonderful,
And only by that gated pass accessible—
Crossing a frightful plain which the sun scorches,Which plain is full of chasms and trap-dykes,Scoriæ, cinders, and dry river gorges,With timber petrified, basaltic spikes,And lava-ponds, with hard, black, stony surgesWe reached the shaded pass below the peaks,And paused to hear the roar of plunging Ulf,And the seven rivers, far within the gulf.
Crossing a frightful plain which the sun scorches,
Which plain is full of chasms and trap-dykes,
Scoriæ, cinders, and dry river gorges,
With timber petrified, basaltic spikes,
And lava-ponds, with hard, black, stony surges
We reached the shaded pass below the peaks,
And paused to hear the roar of plunging Ulf,
And the seven rivers, far within the gulf.
Up that defile, with fear and silent wonder,We rode;our horses seemed but two small mice.The rivers in the gulf gave forthlargethunder,And rocks, above the clouds, fell, bounding thrice,With uproar, from the grim cliffs, cracked asunder.Aloft, like Anakim, with helms of iceThe mountains raised their huge Plutonic shoulders,Clothed in Titanic mail of ore and boulders.
Up that defile, with fear and silent wonder,
We rode;our horses seemed but two small mice.
The rivers in the gulf gave forthlargethunder,
And rocks, above the clouds, fell, bounding thrice,
With uproar, from the grim cliffs, cracked asunder.
Aloft, like Anakim, with helms of ice
The mountains raised their huge Plutonic shoulders,
Clothed in Titanic mail of ore and boulders.
Three Prophets of grand stature and bald browsSat by the gates.They were much older thanThe river Nile.One of deep eyes aroseAnd said: “Speak unto us what manner of manThou art, O, hero; if of some fierce clanHyperborean, or of pagan Huns?”He of the icebergs spoke with rhetoric fitIn words and figures following, to wit;. . . . . .The Prophet said, “Here shalt thou rest this nightWhile the sun sleeps in hollow Erebus;And as the hours pass on in silent flightAll known philosophy will we discuss.But thou, O wizard Etheuòlymus,To Himmalaya’s broken pinnacleFly with this young esquire, that he may seeAll kingdoms on the continent that be.”
Three Prophets of grand stature and bald brows
Sat by the gates.They were much older than
The river Nile.One of deep eyes arose
And said: “Speak unto us what manner of man
Thou art, O, hero; if of some fierce clan
Hyperborean, or of pagan Huns?”
He of the icebergs spoke with rhetoric fit
In words and figures following, to wit;
. . . . . .
The Prophet said, “Here shalt thou rest this night
While the sun sleeps in hollow Erebus;
And as the hours pass on in silent flight
All known philosophy will we discuss.
But thou, O wizard Etheuòlymus,
To Himmalaya’s broken pinnacle
Fly with this young esquire, that he may see
All kingdoms on the continent that be.”
Then, with the wizard in a flying mist,I rose along the sides of that steep cone:’Twas like an iron trunk of girdle vast;The moon’s full globe upon all cities shone;Tyre, by the waters; glimmering Ascalon;The City of the Magians, girt with fire;And in the East we saw those mountain rangesWhich separate the Nile from sacred Ganges.
Then, with the wizard in a flying mist,
I rose along the sides of that steep cone:
’Twas like an iron trunk of girdle vast;
The moon’s full globe upon all cities shone;
Tyre, by the waters; glimmering Ascalon;
The City of the Magians, girt with fire;
And in the East we saw those mountain ranges
Which separate the Nile from sacred Ganges.
Alas! all earthly things have been revisedEven Learning’s careful patron and Protector,The Inquisition, is disorganized.The world is round, and has a Radius Vector;There’s not a ghost on duty, nor a spectre;Sinbad is dead, and almost any loaferCan go, in steamers, round Cape Horn to Ophir.
Alas! all earthly things have been revised
Even Learning’s careful patron and Protector,
The Inquisition, is disorganized.
The world is round, and has a Radius Vector;
There’s not a ghost on duty, nor a spectre;
Sinbad is dead, and almost any loafer
Can go, in steamers, round Cape Horn to Ophir.
Then, on the blackness of the Night’s deep chasm,The anchored earth lay, floating, like a floor:—Beneath, the shadow and the veiled phantasmTheir local habitation had of yore;But each veiled shadow, and each dreadful phasmRose with the night, above the western shore—When, through the void, all flame and ruddy goldThe Day-god’s cavalcade, descending, rolled.
Then, on the blackness of the Night’s deep chasm,
The anchored earth lay, floating, like a floor:—
Beneath, the shadow and the veiled phantasm
Their local habitation had of yore;
But each veiled shadow, and each dreadful phasm
Rose with the night, above the western shore—
When, through the void, all flame and ruddy gold
The Day-god’s cavalcade, descending, rolled.
Without the continent, old Ocean’s torrentExtended to the earth’s remotest verge:Both jovial Tritons, and the Powers abhorrent,Were seized of provinces upon the surge;And from Arcturus to the Southern gorgeBlack tempests bearing old Eolus’ warrantPatrolled the seas in search of ships or steamersBreaking the closes of the ocean emirs.
Without the continent, old Ocean’s torrent
Extended to the earth’s remotest verge:
Both jovial Tritons, and the Powers abhorrent,
Were seized of provinces upon the surge;
And from Arcturus to the Southern gorge
Black tempests bearing old Eolus’ warrant
Patrolled the seas in search of ships or steamers
Breaking the closes of the ocean emirs.
Through the dense night, archangels of strong wing,From heaven roving, saw the earth’s vast plane—The kingdoms of the Pole, all glimmering—The twisted rivers, and the enfolding main—The shining gulfs which dent the Indian chain,And smiled to see the hollow planets swingAbove that dim abyss within whose coreWere hooked the world’s deep sunken anchors four.
Through the dense night, archangels of strong wing,
From heaven roving, saw the earth’s vast plane—
The kingdoms of the Pole, all glimmering—
The twisted rivers, and the enfolding main—
The shining gulfs which dent the Indian chain,
And smiled to see the hollow planets swing
Above that dim abyss within whose core
Were hooked the world’s deep sunken anchors four.
Large breakers tumbling on the Arabian shoals,With wooded regions by the Caucasian gaps—The town of Ebony, the land of Gholes,(Which are omitted in the modern maps)—All these I saw; and hills with misty caps,Where dwell the Glactophagi—blameless souls:The wizard spoke—I was with awe oppressed:The words like ghosts rose from his sounding chest—
Large breakers tumbling on the Arabian shoals,
With wooded regions by the Caucasian gaps—
The town of Ebony, the land of Gholes,
(Which are omitted in the modern maps)—
All these I saw; and hills with misty caps,
Where dwell the Glactophagi—blameless souls:
The wizard spoke—I was with awe oppressed:
The words like ghosts rose from his sounding chest—
“These mountains I have watched a thousand years;And Ihave writ one thousand solemn books:Who reads them shall be wise!Hell’s fiercest PeersHave oft essayed to burst these bolted rocks;And, under Baal-Phaxi’s deepest blocks,Mines they have digged, and loaded, and exploded.Yea, Mogophur, the Lord of Babylon,Came with his captains and a countless rabble on—
“These mountains I have watched a thousand years;
And Ihave writ one thousand solemn books:
Who reads them shall be wise!Hell’s fiercest Peers
Have oft essayed to burst these bolted rocks;
And, under Baal-Phaxi’s deepest blocks,
Mines they have digged, and loaded, and exploded.
Yea, Mogophur, the Lord of Babylon,
Came with his captains and a countless rabble on—
“Of spearmen, chariots, and Tartarian riders,Whose faces were the likeness of a flame,And elephants crept through the pass like spiders,And the whole College of Magicians came,Who caused sharp earthquakes and much whizzing flameBy means of diagrams, and long dividers,And thus exclaimed each iron-harnessed savage,‘The unseen land of Elpholen we’ll ravage.’
“Of spearmen, chariots, and Tartarian riders,
Whose faces were the likeness of a flame,
And elephants crept through the pass like spiders,
And the whole College of Magicians came,
Who caused sharp earthquakes and much whizzing flame
By means of diagrams, and long dividers,
And thus exclaimed each iron-harnessed savage,
‘The unseen land of Elpholen we’ll ravage.’
“I did but ope one solemn book, and say:‘O, ye Hydraulic Goblins of the mountains,At once your tunnels, pumps, and flooms let play;And loose old Himmalah’s rock-bound fountains.’Then rivers of cold foam and spouting spray,And cataracts which broke the cliffs away,Burst from the mountains’ inner reservoirs.’Twas very good to see those watery DruidsDestroy that haughty host, with roaring fluids!”. . . . . .But now, those noisy trumpeters, the Hours,Blew the reveillé through the camps of morn:Now storm-girt Taurus raised his icy horn,Like blazing silver, o’er the mists and showers;And sunlight struck the unclouded mountain towers,Which ranged the circuit of that snowy wall:We then rode down a chasm from the gates,And entered Elpholen’s enchanted states.
“I did but ope one solemn book, and say:
‘O, ye Hydraulic Goblins of the mountains,
At once your tunnels, pumps, and flooms let play;
And loose old Himmalah’s rock-bound fountains.’
Then rivers of cold foam and spouting spray,
And cataracts which broke the cliffs away,
Burst from the mountains’ inner reservoirs.
’Twas very good to see those watery Druids
Destroy that haughty host, with roaring fluids!”
. . . . . .
But now, those noisy trumpeters, the Hours,
Blew the reveillé through the camps of morn:
Now storm-girt Taurus raised his icy horn,
Like blazing silver, o’er the mists and showers;
And sunlight struck the unclouded mountain towers,
Which ranged the circuit of that snowy wall:
We then rode down a chasm from the gates,
And entered Elpholen’s enchanted states.
To a wild amphitheatre we rode,Begirt with precipices. From an astoundingCavern in the mountain-side, there flowedA river deep and broad; but the surroundingDark hollows echoed not a single sounding;For silently it moved—we only heardAt times the plunging of some dull cascadeFar up the tunnel, like a cannonade.
To a wild amphitheatre we rode,
Begirt with precipices. From an astounding
Cavern in the mountain-side, there flowed
A river deep and broad; but the surrounding
Dark hollows echoed not a single sounding;
For silently it moved—we only heard
At times the plunging of some dull cascade
Far up the tunnel, like a cannonade.
Full many other rivers cross those lands,Some, from the eternal snows come pouring;Some, roll around the chasms, in foaming bends;Some, through the hills, a ragged highway boring,Rush to the valleys, with an angry roaring,And hurry onward to the ocean sands;But many a cataract and runlet tricklesDown from the glaciers, making huge icicles.
Full many other rivers cross those lands,
Some, from the eternal snows come pouring;
Some, roll around the chasms, in foaming bends;
Some, through the hills, a ragged highway boring,
Rush to the valleys, with an angry roaring,
And hurry onward to the ocean sands;
But many a cataract and runlet trickles
Down from the glaciers, making huge icicles.
We moved along by wooded peaks and crags,Carvéd with images and hieroglyphs,Ruffling their scales and quills like golden flags,And, pawing their odd cubs, the hippogriffsRolled in their nests, upon the shady cliffs;And in the glens, both bears and royal stags,With lazy lions, goats, and yawning leopardsLike cattle lay, and children were their shepherds.
We moved along by wooded peaks and crags,
Carvéd with images and hieroglyphs,
Ruffling their scales and quills like golden flags,
And, pawing their odd cubs, the hippogriffs
Rolled in their nests, upon the shady cliffs;
And in the glens, both bears and royal stags,
With lazy lions, goats, and yawning leopards
Like cattle lay, and children were their shepherds.
Along through ancient forests, vast, and slumbrous,Roes, of the mountain, grazed beside the springs,And often rose some bird of plumage cumbrousUnto the branches, folding his wide wings.There, too, were tombs of certain wizard-kings—Antediluvians of visage sombrous—And holy men, before their moss-grown crypts,Studied in awful Syriac manuscripts.
Along through ancient forests, vast, and slumbrous,
Roes, of the mountain, grazed beside the springs,
And often rose some bird of plumage cumbrous
Unto the branches, folding his wide wings.
There, too, were tombs of certain wizard-kings—
Antediluvians of visage sombrous—
And holy men, before their moss-grown crypts,
Studied in awful Syriac manuscripts.
Beyond, there dwelleth an immortal folk,About a stream, which to a lake enlarges:Pine hills curve greenly round, and groves of oak,Sometimes they rested on the river marges,Sometimes they plowed the lake in hollow barges,And sometimes, on the altars madesweetsmoke,Some painted pictures in their pleasant tents,And many played on all stringed instruments.
Beyond, there dwelleth an immortal folk,
About a stream, which to a lake enlarges:
Pine hills curve greenly round, and groves of oak,
Sometimes they rested on the river marges,
Sometimes they plowed the lake in hollow barges,
And sometimes, on the altars madesweetsmoke,
Some painted pictures in their pleasant tents,
And many played on all stringed instruments.
But some rode up unto the gorgeous cloudsAround the necks of monstrous eagles clinging.The people which do there have their abodesWelcoméd them with flags, and wild bell-ringing;With musical cannon from th’ embrasures flingingPuffs of white vapor, bombs, and rattling grape:—The Goblin-populace of Cloud-land weCould well behold:—Ah, they a brisk folk be!
But some rode up unto the gorgeous clouds
Around the necks of monstrous eagles clinging.
The people which do there have their abodes
Welcoméd them with flags, and wild bell-ringing;
With musical cannon from th’ embrasures flinging
Puffs of white vapor, bombs, and rattling grape:—
The Goblin-populace of Cloud-land we
Could well behold:—Ah, they a brisk folk be!
And caravans continually crossed the plains.Camels and elephants innumerable—With carriages, and pigmy oxen trains,And scampering knights, in armor of black shell,Lords, bearded patriarchs, and gay rabble,And baggage-wagons full of chattering dames,And mounted archers, shooting slender arrows,Wound slowly round the curving river narrows.
And caravans continually crossed the plains.
Camels and elephants innumerable—
With carriages, and pigmy oxen trains,
And scampering knights, in armor of black shell,
Lords, bearded patriarchs, and gay rabble,
And baggage-wagons full of chattering dames,
And mounted archers, shooting slender arrows,
Wound slowly round the curving river narrows.
But some came down the rivers on broad rafts;With shells, and bells, and crooked bugles, wakingNumberless echoes on the rocks. The shaftsOf the forests stood, like champions unquaking,Though many clamors, the old silence breaking,Startled the musing Hermits. Now aroseThe stars, and moon, and all the hosts of night:We stood above a plain upon a height.
But some came down the rivers on broad rafts;
With shells, and bells, and crooked bugles, waking
Numberless echoes on the rocks. The shafts
Of the forests stood, like champions unquaking,
Though many clamors, the old silence breaking,
Startled the musing Hermits. Now arose
The stars, and moon, and all the hosts of night:
We stood above a plain upon a height.
Three noble rivers, in the moonlight shining,Sparkled from three defiles in East, and West,And North—in silence to a blue gulf winding,Which, by the distant mountains, lay at rest;And there a city with a massive crestOf turrets, overlooked that rock-bound sheet.The rivers round it, in broad girdles pressed;Bridges there were, and groves, and gardens meet;And in the bay lay moored an idle fleet.
Three noble rivers, in the moonlight shining,
Sparkled from three defiles in East, and West,
And North—in silence to a blue gulf winding,
Which, by the distant mountains, lay at rest;
And there a city with a massive crest
Of turrets, overlooked that rock-bound sheet.
The rivers round it, in broad girdles pressed;
Bridges there were, and groves, and gardens meet;
And in the bay lay moored an idle fleet.
Unto that city did all people flow:In the deep plain we saw their circular camps,Like islands of an archipelago;And as we looked,a belt of fiery lampsWas wound around the crowning citadel;Whereat each watching pilgrim said: “Full wellI know, that now within yon distant dellThe Lord of blessed Elpholen doth dwell.
Unto that city did all people flow:
In the deep plain we saw their circular camps,
Like islands of an archipelago;
And as we looked,a belt of fiery lamps
Was wound around the crowning citadel;
Whereat each watching pilgrim said: “Full well
I know, that now within yon distant dell
The Lord of blessed Elpholen doth dwell.
“To him we will present our offeringOf fruits, and herds, and many precious ores,Which rivers from the mountain-summits bring:—Upon the gulf’s cool strand, and shady shoresOur ancient games we will perform long hours:Then we will go again to our dear tribes,And to our cattle in the pleasant meadows,And dappled deer browsing in mountain shadows.”
“To him we will present our offering
Of fruits, and herds, and many precious ores,
Which rivers from the mountain-summits bring:—
Upon the gulf’s cool strand, and shady shores
Our ancient games we will perform long hours:
Then we will go again to our dear tribes,
And to our cattle in the pleasant meadows,
And dappled deer browsing in mountain shadows.”
That night we camped upon the sandy margentOf an unknown sea; and when, behind sharp peaks,The moon retired in her skiff of argent,Then certain meteors filled the sky with streaks,And diving, from the zenith-ridge divergent,Through the purple heavens fell in flakes,Which, as they struck the water, lost their light,And grew a portion of its night.
That night we camped upon the sandy margent
Of an unknown sea; and when, behind sharp peaks,
The moon retired in her skiff of argent,
Then certain meteors filled the sky with streaks,
And diving, from the zenith-ridge divergent,
Through the purple heavens fell in flakes,
Which, as they struck the water, lost their light,
And grew a portion of its night.
Meanwhile we saw a corps of sentry ghosts,Standing erect the farthest Eastern shore on,And many thousand stars, above those coasts,Flashed like the Arabic of a fiery Koran;Then those great captains of the heavenly hosts,Orion, Sirius, and Aldebóran,On the dark field of Heaven took their stations;And calmly wheeled the close-ranked constellations.
Meanwhile we saw a corps of sentry ghosts,
Standing erect the farthest Eastern shore on,
And many thousand stars, above those coasts,
Flashed like the Arabic of a fiery Koran;
Then those great captains of the heavenly hosts,
Orion, Sirius, and Aldebóran,
On the dark field of Heaven took their stations;
And calmly wheeled the close-ranked constellations.
No outposts of the Morn marked the approachOf the Hœlios’ chariot; no gleams, or tingesUpon the tent of Darkness dared encroach;But sudden brilliance pierced its dusky fringes;Wide swung the Morning’s gates upon their hinges;Those burning horses, and that flaming coachSprang out upon the ocean, through the gateway:Night struck her tattered tent, and vanished straightway.
No outposts of the Morn marked the approach
Of the Hœlios’ chariot; no gleams, or tinges
Upon the tent of Darkness dared encroach;
But sudden brilliance pierced its dusky fringes;
Wide swung the Morning’s gates upon their hinges;
Those burning horses, and that flaming coach
Sprang out upon the ocean, through the gateway:
Night struck her tattered tent, and vanished straightway.