TO A SPIRIT.

———

BY JAMES ALDRICH.

———

Not the effulgent lightOf that bright realm where live the blest departed,Nor the grave’s gloom, Oh! loved one, and true hearted,Can hide thee from thy sight.Thy sweet angelic smileBeams on my sleep. I see thee, hear thy voice,Thou say’st unto my fettered soul, “Rejoice!Wait but a little while.”Sometimes ’mid cloudlets bright,The sunset splendors of a summer’s day,An instant thou’lt appear, then pass awayFrom my entranced sight.Up in the blue heavens clearA never-setting star hast thou become,Pouring a silvery ray, from thy far home,Upon my pathway here.Where tears ne’er dim the eyes,Shall we not meet in some far blessed land?Shall we not walk together, hand in hand,In bowers of Paradise?My soul, though chained and pent,Sore of a future glorious career,In all its God-appointed labor here,Toils on in calm content.

Not the effulgent lightOf that bright realm where live the blest departed,Nor the grave’s gloom, Oh! loved one, and true hearted,Can hide thee from thy sight.

Not the effulgent light

Of that bright realm where live the blest departed,

Nor the grave’s gloom, Oh! loved one, and true hearted,

Can hide thee from thy sight.

Thy sweet angelic smileBeams on my sleep. I see thee, hear thy voice,Thou say’st unto my fettered soul, “Rejoice!Wait but a little while.”

Thy sweet angelic smile

Beams on my sleep. I see thee, hear thy voice,

Thou say’st unto my fettered soul, “Rejoice!

Wait but a little while.”

Sometimes ’mid cloudlets bright,The sunset splendors of a summer’s day,An instant thou’lt appear, then pass awayFrom my entranced sight.

Sometimes ’mid cloudlets bright,

The sunset splendors of a summer’s day,

An instant thou’lt appear, then pass away

From my entranced sight.

Up in the blue heavens clearA never-setting star hast thou become,Pouring a silvery ray, from thy far home,Upon my pathway here.

Up in the blue heavens clear

A never-setting star hast thou become,

Pouring a silvery ray, from thy far home,

Upon my pathway here.

Where tears ne’er dim the eyes,Shall we not meet in some far blessed land?Shall we not walk together, hand in hand,In bowers of Paradise?

Where tears ne’er dim the eyes,

Shall we not meet in some far blessed land?

Shall we not walk together, hand in hand,

In bowers of Paradise?

My soul, though chained and pent,Sore of a future glorious career,In all its God-appointed labor here,Toils on in calm content.

My soul, though chained and pent,

Sore of a future glorious career,

In all its God-appointed labor here,

Toils on in calm content.

ST. AGNES’ EVE.

A CHIT-CHAT ABOUT KEATS.

God bless you, Oliver, don’t think of such a thing!Ijoin the temperance society!—why, you old curmudgeon, would you murder me outright? Not that temperance societies haven’t done good—many a poor wife and weeping mother have they made happy—but, then, ever since I read Anacreon at college and shot buffalos at the Black Hills, I’ve had a fellow feeling for the good things of this life, especially for beef-steaks and port wine. I’m an Epicurean, sir—you needn’t talk to me of glory—I despise the whole cant about posthumous renown. The great end of life is happiness, and happiness is best secured by gratifying our physical as well as our intellectual nature. I go in, sir, for enjoying existence, and when I was in my prime, I flatter myself that few could beat me at a dinner or had a more delicate way of making love to the girls. But alas! we have fallen on troublous times. The wine of these days—I say it with tears in my eyes—isn’t the wine of my youth; and the girls—here’s a health to the sweet angels—have sadly deteriorated from what their grandmothers were.Eheu! Eheu!The world is getting upside down, and I shouldn’t wonder if an earthquake or epidemic or some other calamity should overtake us yet to fill up the catalogue of our ills.

I have just been reading Keats—shame on the wretches who tortured him to death! He is a practical argument, sir, for my creed. Genius he had unquestionably, yet he never enjoyed a happy hour. Why was this? Born in humble life, he thirsted for distinction, and trusting to his genius to achieve renown, found himself assailed by hostile critics, who dragged his private life before the public eye, and sneered at his poetry with the bitter scorn of fiends. He was naturally of a delicate constitution—of a proud and aspiring character; but of a modesty as shrinking as the sensitive plant; and when he found himself slighted, abused, maligned—when he saw that he was thrust back at every attempt to elevate himself, his delicate nature gave way, and he died of a broken heart, requesting that his epitaph might be, “Here lies one whose name was writ on water.” The world, since then, has done tardy justice to his genius—but this did not soothe his sorrows, nor will it reach him in his silent grave. What to him is posthumous renown?—what the tears of this generation or the plaudits of the next? Had he been less sensitive, had he thirsted less after glory, he might still have been living, with matured powers, extorting even from his enemies deserved commendation. But he fell in his youthful prime, an eaglet pierced before it had learnt to soar. I have shed tears over his grave at Rome—let us drink to his memory in solemn silence.

Keats would have made a giant had he lived, sir. Everything he wrote evinced high genius. Each successive poem he published displayed increased merit. His sonnets remind me of Milton—his shorter pieces breathe of Lycidas or Venus and Adonis. He had little artistical skill, but then what an exuberant fancy! Few men had a finer perception of the beautiful, the το καλον of poetry. He is one of the most Grecian—if I may use the expression—of our poets. Shelley, perhaps, was more deeply imbued with the Attic spirit, but then, although his heart was always right, his intellect was always wrong, and thus it happens that his poetry is often mystic, obscure, and even confused. Keats was not so. He had this freshness without its mysticism. He delighted in themes drawn from classic fountains, in allusions breathing of Thessaly and the gods. There was in many of his poems a voluptuousness approaching to effeminacy, reminding one of the Aphrodite in her own fragrant bowers. In others of his poems there was an Arcadian sweetness. What is finer than his ode to the Grecian Urn? Do you remember the opening?

“Thou still unravished bride of quietness!Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,Sylvan historian who canst thus expressA flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shapeOf deities, or mortals, or of both,In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy?”

“Thou still unravished bride of quietness!

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,

Sylvan historian who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities, or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy?”

Delicious, is it not? You seem to be in classic Greece itself, amid the groves of Academus, by the fountain of Castaly, beneath the god-encircled Olympus. You can hear the Dorian flutes, you can see the daughters of Ionia. There are the priest and his assistants leading the flower-decked heifer to the altar—lo! a group of bacchantes singing and dancing through the vale. And high up yonder is the snowy temple of Jove—a picture for the gods!

You shake your head—you have no taste for classic allusions. Egad! I remember, you are a devotee of the German literature, and admire nothing which is not of the romantic school, Well, well—have you ever read “The Eve of St. Agnes?” It is—let me tell you—the poem for which Keats will be loved, and you ought to walk barefooted a thousand miles, like an ancient pilgrim to Loretto, for having neglected to peruse this poem. It is not so fine as Hyperion, but then the latter is a fragment. It is as superior to Endymion as a star to a satellite. It pleases me more than Lamia or Isabella. It has the glow of a landscape seen through a rosy glass—it is warm and blushing, yet pure as a maiden in her first exceeding beauty. As Burgundy is to other wines, as a bride blushing to her lover’s side is to other virgins, so is “The Eve of St. Agnes” to other poems. What luxuriance of fancy, what scope of language, what graphic power it displays! It is a love story, and right witchingly told. How exquisite the description of Madeline, her moonlit chamber, her awakening from her dream, and the delicious intoxicating emotions which break on her when she learns that she loves and is beloved. Ah! sir, we are old now, but I never read this poem without thinking of the time when I first pressed my own Mary to my side, and felt her little warm heart beating against my own. Egad, I will just skip over “The Eve of St. Agnes,” to pass the time away while we finish this bottle.

The poem opens with a graphic picture of a winter’s night. Draw closer to the grate, for—by my ancestry!—it is a freezing theme. I will read.

“St. Agnes’ eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,And silent was the flock in woolly fold:Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he toldHis rosary, and while his frosted breath,Like pious incense from a censer old,Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.”

“St. Agnes’ eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.”

The poet then proceeds to describe a festive scene, amid which is one fair lady, whose heart had throbbed all day on love, she having heard old dames tell that maidens might, on St. Agnes’ eve, behold their lovers in dreams, if they observed certain mystic ceremonies. The lovely Madeline has resolved to follow the old legend, and she sighs, amid her suitors, for midnight to arrive. Then goes the story thus:

“Meantime, across the moors,Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fireFor Madeline. Beside the portal doors,Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and imploresAll saints to give him sight of Madeline,But for one moment in the tedious hours,That he might gaze and worship all unseen;Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been.”

“Meantime, across the moors,

Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire

For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,

Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores

All saints to give him sight of Madeline,

But for one moment in the tedious hours,

That he might gaze and worship all unseen;

Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been.”

In that vast mansion, amid all that gay party, young Porphyro has but one friend, an old beldame, for all the rest are athirst for his blood and that of his line. While watching thus, the beldame discovers him and beseeches him to fly. He refuses. In her garrulous entreaty she reveals to Porphyro that his mistress intends playing the conjurer to discover who shall be her lover. He eagerly makes a proposition, to which the old dame objects in horror, but after many protestations on his part and a rash declaration that otherwise he will reveal himself to his foes, she finally consents. And what was his proposition? Let the poet tell. It was

——“To lead him, in close secrecy,Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hideHim in a closet, of such privacyThat he might see her beauty unespied,And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,While legion’d fairies paced the coverlet,And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.”

——“To lead him, in close secrecy,

Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide

Him in a closet, of such privacy

That he might see her beauty unespied,

And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,

While legion’d fairies paced the coverlet,

And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.”

The old dame accordingly leads the lover, through many a dusky gallery, to the maiden’s chamber, and then, hurriedly hiding him in a closet, is feeling in the dark on the landing for the stair,

“When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,Rose, like a missioned spirit unaware:With silver taper’s light, and pious care,She turn’d, and down the aged gossip ledTo a safe level matting.”

“When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,

Rose, like a missioned spirit unaware:

With silver taper’s light, and pious care,

She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led

To a safe level matting.”

Ah! we have few Madelines now-a-days. I love her for that act, as I would love an only daughter. Well may the poet exultingly say after this⁠—

“Now prepare,Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayed and fled.”

“Now prepare,

Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;

She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayed and fled.”

The whole picture that follows is purity itself. We wish the wind would whistle less loudly without—there! it dies away as if in homage to this maiden soft. Shut your eyes and dream, while I read in whispers.

“Out went the taper as she hurried in;Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:She closed the door, she panted, all akinTo spirits of the air, and visions wide:No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!But to her heart, her heart was voluble,Paining with eloquence her balmy side;As though a tongueless nightingale should swellHer throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.A casement high and triple-arched there was,All garlanded with carven imageriesOf fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot grass,And diamonded with panes of quaint device,Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,As are the tiger moth’s deep damask’d wings.And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,A shielded ’scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon:Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,And on her silver cross soft amethyst,And on her hair a glory like a saint:She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degreesHer rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’dHer soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray,Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,As though a rose should shut, and be a rose again.”

“Out went the taper as she hurried in;

Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:

She closed the door, she panted, all akin

To spirits of the air, and visions wide:

No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!

But to her heart, her heart was voluble,

Paining with eloquence her balmy side;

As though a tongueless nightingale should swell

Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

A casement high and triple-arched there was,All garlanded with carven imageriesOf fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot grass,And diamonded with panes of quaint device,Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,As are the tiger moth’s deep damask’d wings.And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,A shielded ’scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.

A casement high and triple-arched there was,

All garlanded with carven imageries

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot grass,

And diamonded with panes of quaint device,

Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,

As are the tiger moth’s deep damask’d wings.

And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,

And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,

A shielded ’scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon:Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,And on her silver cross soft amethyst,And on her hair a glory like a saint:She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,

As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon:

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory like a saint:

She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,

Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:

She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degreesHer rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,

Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;

Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;

Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees

Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:

Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,

Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,

In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,

But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’dHer soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray,Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,As though a rose should shut, and be a rose again.”

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,

In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,

Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d

Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;

Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;

Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;

Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray,

Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,

As though a rose should shut, and be a rose again.”

And now, when the maiden is all asleep, her lover steals from his hiding place, and mixing a charm, kneels by her bedside, and while his warm unnerved arm sinks in her pillow, he whispers to her that he is her eremite, and beseeches her for sweet Agnes’ sake to open her eyes. But the maiden, lying there in her holy sleep, awakes not. At length he takes her lute, and kneeling by her ear, plays an ancient ditty. She utters a soft moan. He ceases—she pants quick—and suddenly her blue eyes open in affright, while her lover sinks again on his knees, pale as a sculptured statue. And Madeline awakening, and thinking that her blissful dream is over, begins to weep. At length she finds vent for her words, and are they not sweet as the complainings of a dove?

“Ah! Porphyro!” said she “but even nowThy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,Made tunable with every sweetest vow;And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:How changed thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!O leave me not in this eternal woe,For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go.”

“Ah! Porphyro!” said she “but even now

Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,

Made tunable with every sweetest vow;

And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:

How changed thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!

Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,

Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!

O leave me not in this eternal woe,

For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go.”

If you have ever been young, and heard, for the first time, the blushing confession of her you loved in doubt and danger, you can form some conception of the bewildering joy which seized Porphyro at this. Egad! sir, I would give ten years of my life—old as I am—to enjoy such rapture. But no tongue except that of the poet can even shadow forth his ecstacy. Ah! to be loved is bliss, but to be loved by a Madeline⁠—!

“Beyond a mortal man impassioned farAt these voluptuous accents, he arose,Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing starSeen ’mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;Into her dream he melted, as the roseBlendeth its odor with this violet,⁠—Solution sweet:”

“Beyond a mortal man impassioned far

At these voluptuous accents, he arose,

Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star

Seen ’mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;

Into her dream he melted, as the rose

Blendeth its odor with this violet,⁠—

Solution sweet:”

You can see the end of all this as well as I can, for though never has other mortal than Porphyro breathed the language of love into the ears of one like Madeline, yet we have all pleaded more than once in the ears of angels only one remove less beautiful. Shut your eyes, and fancy you see the lover kneeling by the bedside of that white-armed one, fragrant and pure as a lily in the overshadowed brook—lovelier than an Imogen, whose very breath perfumes the chamber. Hear her low complainings when she fancies that her lover is about to desert her. Are they not more musical than the zephyrs sighing through the moonlit pines? And then how soothing is Porphyro, and how delicately he allays her fears. Ah! the moon is down, and the chamber is in darkness—and there, as I live, the rain-drops are pattering against the casement. Now is thy time, bold Porphyro—St. Agnes will befriend thee—urge, urge that sweet lady, with all thy eloquence, to seize the chance and fly amid the confusion. We know how it will end! Love ever wins the day—and is not Madeline yet all blushing with her dream? And so—and so—hear the rest!

“She hurried at the words, beset with fears,For there were sleeping dragons all around,At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears⁠—Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found,⁠—In all the house was heard no human sound.A chain-dropp’d lamp was flickering by each door;The arras, rich with horsemen, hawk, and hound,Fluttered in the besieging wind’s uproar;And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide,Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,With a huge empty flagon by his side:The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:⁠—The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones;The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.And they are gone: ay, ages long agoThese lovers fled away into the storm.That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,And all his warrior-guests, with shade and formOf witch, and demon, and large coffin worm,Were long be-nightmared. Angela the oldDied palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.”

“She hurried at the words, beset with fears,

For there were sleeping dragons all around,

At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears⁠—

Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found,⁠—

In all the house was heard no human sound.

A chain-dropp’d lamp was flickering by each door;

The arras, rich with horsemen, hawk, and hound,

Fluttered in the besieging wind’s uproar;

And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide,Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,With a huge empty flagon by his side:The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:⁠—The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones;The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;

Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide,

Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,

With a huge empty flagon by his side:

The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,

But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:

By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:⁠—

The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones;

The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

And they are gone: ay, ages long agoThese lovers fled away into the storm.That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,And all his warrior-guests, with shade and formOf witch, and demon, and large coffin worm,Were long be-nightmared. Angela the oldDied palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.”

And they are gone: ay, ages long ago

These lovers fled away into the storm.

That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,

And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form

Of witch, and demon, and large coffin worm,

Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old

Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;

The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,

For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.”

Who, after that, will say that Keats was not a genius? But “Hyperion,” though less complete than this poem, evinces—let me tell you—even more of the “mens divinior.” “The Eve of St. Agnes” is warm, voluptuous, luxuriant, yet pure as a quiet pool with silver sand below—but “Hyperion” is bold, impassioned and colossal, Miltonic even in its grandeur, overpowering at times as a thunder-storm among the mountains. Would God that Keats had lived to finish it! With many faults, it evinces more genius than any poem since written in our language. Hear the speeches of the Titans!—read the description of Apollo!—drink in the intoxication of its less sublime but more beautiful passages! It often exhibits a redundant fancy—the style is at times affected, and the choice of words bad—the execution is careless, though less so than that of Endymion—and, above all, the plan of the poem, so far as it has been developed, bears an unhappy resemblance to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Yet it displays such extraordinary genius, that we will never forgive the Quarterly for having disheartened Keats from the completion of this poem. Ah! sir, what has the world lost?

I repeat it, I am an Epicurean. Fame!—immortality!—what are they? We wear out our lives for a bauble, and coin our souls away to purchase dross. We dig our own graves and call itGLORY. Away with such sophistry! Go over the melancholy list of unfortunate genius—White, Collins, Keats, Chatterton and the rest—and tell me what they reaped except thorns! Ah! sir, it melts my heart with pity—I must take a glass on it. But, I declare, the bottle’s out, and—by my halidome!—here is Oliver asleep.

J. S.

THE AFFAIR AT TATTLETOWN.

———

BY EPES SARGEANT.

———

It is very questionable whether the reader has ever heard a true and impartial account of the affair at Tattletown. So many exaggerated versions have been put forth—so many garbled and malicious reports in regard to it, have been propagated—that the world is likely to be either unduly prejudiced against one of the parties, or wholly in doubt as to the merits of both. It is with an emotion of pride, that I take up my pen with the consciousness of being able to throw light upon this interesting, but mysterious subject.

There have been many changes in Tattletown during the last twenty years. Of this fact I became assured the last summer, when, by the way of a parenthesis in a tour to the White Hills, I branched off from my prescribed route to visit the little village where I had spent so many pleasant days in boyhood. What a change! It used to be one of the quietest, greenest, most sequestered nooks in the world, with its single wide street, bordered by venerable elms, and its shady by-roads radiating in every direction, and dotted with white cottages embosomed in clouds of verdure.

And then its inn! its single, unpretending inn, with its simple flag-staff, its modest piazza, and its cool, clean parlor, with the vase of asparagus upon the freshly reddened hearth-stone! Its sleeping-rooms with their snow-white curtains and coverlets, and the rustling foliage against their windows—what a temptation it was to enter them of a warm summer afternoon! Now, forsooth, the respectable old tenement is replaced by a hotel. I beg pardon—ahouse, built after the style of the Parthenon, its sides painted very white, and its blinds very green. The bar-room is floored with tesselated squares of marble, and there is a white marble counter, behind which presides a spruce young man with long dark hair plastered over his right ear, and an emerald breast-pin on his shirt bosom. Nay, it is rumored that the landlord has serious designs of introducing a gong in the place of the good old-fashioned bell of our forefathers. What is the country coming to?

Within my remembrance, the people of Tattletown were the best natured, most industrious and contented people alive. Every evening in summer their patriarchs might be seen sitting in front of their woodbine-covered porches, smoking their pipes and talking over old times, while groups of ruddy, riotous children, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, danced to the strains of some village Paganini. Poor, deluded, miserable Tattletonians! What a sight was it for the philanthropist to grieve at! Little knew they, of the errors and vices of the social system! They had not read Miss Martineau’s tracts; knew nothing of Owenism, nothing of Grahamism, nothing of transcendentalism, nothing of Fourierism, nothing of Mormonism. The “Society for the promotion of every thing,” had not established a branch among them. They were benighted, uninitiated; contented to live as their fathers had lived before them; to pluck the rose and leave the thorn behind; to keep their linen and their consciences clean, and to remain at peace with all mankind.

Then the belles of the village—how beautiful they were! how artless! how adorned with every sylvan grace! Now they all seem to have lost the heritage of loveliness. They look didactic, sedentary and precocious. There is not the same bloom on the cheek—the same sparkle in the eye—the same ruby mischief on the lip. Instead of cultivating their music and their flower-gardens, working flags for the Tattletown “Guardians of Liberty,” and teaching the children their catechisms on Sundays, they are meddling with matters that they have not the means of comprehending, establishinganti-everythingsocieties, and fussing over phrenology and other newfangled heresies. Instead of a vase of freshly gathered flowers upon their shelves, you are now greeted by a vile plaster bust, with the skull phrenologically mapped out, and figured. I never encounter one of the odious things, without putting my fist in its face.

A religious revolution has, of course, been introduced among the other mutations. Instead of one well-filled church, where all the villagers may meet as members of one family, Tattletown can now boast of half a dozen sectarian societies, which are eternally at war with one another. Poor old Dr. Balmwell, who is still the meekest of God’s creatures, and whose annual salary would not equal the one night’s wages of a second-rate theatrical star, is denounced as a “haughty, over-fed prelate,” “the advocate of an established church,” and a “vile minion of the aristocracy.” Many a fair maiden is content to go with holes in her stockings, in order that she may contribute to the “society for the support of indigent young men intended for the ministry!”

“Dear smiling village! loveliest of the lawn!Thy joys are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn.”

“Dear smiling village! loveliest of the lawn!

Thy joys are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn.”

As for politics—but here I approach the subject which was uppermost in my mind at starting. All the world knows that there are, or rather used to be, two rival newspapers published at Tattletown, the editors of which manage to keep the poor people in a perpetual ferment. There is the Tattletown Independent American, edited by Mr. Snobb! and the TattletownFreeand Independent American, edited by Mr. Fobb. The former is the longer established of the two, and, as the public are well aware, is conservative in its tone. Fobb’s hebdomadal, on the contrary, is characterised by the spirit of innovation. If a doctrine be new, startling, incredible, abrupt, violating all preconceived notions and prejudices, it commends itself at once to Fobb’s acceptance. He will urge it with a boldness and pertinacity that confound the unthinking. To incur his opposition, it is only necessary that a principle should be old and well established. His morality would seem to resemble that of the tribe, with whom it is a custom to kill all their old men and women. Age is with him the worst of crimes, and the most penal. Novelty is the first of charms.

Strange as it may seem, Fobb has his devoted admirers and active supporters. As for Snobb, I am credibly informed, that, disgusted with the supineness of the Tattletonians, he had at one time resolved to relinquish the publication of the “Independent American,” when, unexpectedly, the field was invaded by Fobb with his “Free and Independent.” Then it was that the patriotism and disinterestedness of Snobb’s character shone conspicuous. He was, to use his own vigorous expression, determined to stand to his guns, and however great might be the pecuniary sacrifice, to remain in the village to combat the pernicious influence, which, “like the Bohon Upas,” I quote Snobb’s own words—“would spread poison and desolation among families and communities.” Snobb wound off his appeal, by calling upon all, who valued their liberty and their lives; who would save their country from intestine confusion and slaughter; who would keep unstained the altar of domestic felicity, and transmit unimpaired that glorious fabric of constitutional right, cemented by the blood of martyred ancestors—to rally round him and the Independent American. “Any person obtaining five subscribers,” said he in conclusion, “shall receive a sixth copy gratis.”

It is difficult to conceive of the degree of excitement produced in Tattletown by this fulmination, on the part of Snobb, and the subsequent establishment of the “Free and Independent American,” on the part of Fobb. Such a thing as neutrality could no longer exist. Great and vital principles were at stake; and from the squire to the tinman’s apprentice, it was necessary that every man should take one side or the other—should be either a Snobbite or a Fobbite. Both journals were benefited by this agitation. New subscribers poured in daily, and a fund was raised by the partisans of each establishment for the more effectual prosecution of the war. And what was the war about? To this day nobody can tell.

Personalities now began to be interchanged. Snobb gave Fobb the lie direct, and defied him to prove a statement which had appeared in the “Free and Independent,” accusing Snobb of highway robbery, arson and other little peccadilloes. Fobb treated Snobb’s defiance with an easy irony, which bewildered the good people of Tattletown, who began to think that Fobb must know a good deal more of Snobb than other people. The following answer appeared in the “Independent American:”

“We must apologise to our readers for again polluting our columns with an allusion to the reckless traducer, whose journal of yesterday came forth reeking with slanders against ourselves. It would be charitable, perhaps, to attribute to a diseased intellect, rather than a malicious temper, these ebullitions of mendacity, but the motive is too obviously bad. We can assure this poor creature, this beggarly reprobate and unwashed scribbler, that mere declamation is not proof, and that assertion carries no weight when unsustained by evidence. If he can keep sober long enough, let him reply to the question which we once more reiterate, ‘where are your proofs?’ ”

It was with intense anxiety that the citizens of Tattletown looked for the next number of the “Free and Independent.” Never before had Snobb been so severe, so savage. Fobb’s rejoinder excited public interest in the quarrel, to a painful degree. It was as follows:

“The guilty fugitive from justice, whom it is with shame we acknowledge as our contemporary, attempts to invalidate our charges by clamoring for proofs. We beg him to reflect a moment before he repeats his call. If he has sincerely striven to make reparation for past misdemeanors, by a life comparatively guiltless—if there be any hope or prospect of reformation in his case—most reluctantly would we be instrumental in re-consigning him to the States-prison or the gallows. Before, therefore, we come out with any statements, that shall be universally admitted as final and conclusive as to the character of this man, we will put a few questions which he will understand, however enigmatical they may be to others. Did Snobb ever make the acquaintance of Miss Amanda W——? Did he ever see a white crape scarf that used to belong to that ill-fated young lady? Does he remember the circumstance of an old pruning-knife being found beneath a cherry-tree? Has he still gotthat red silk hankerchief?”

I must leave it for some more graphic pen—to the author of “Jack Sheppard” or “Barnaby Rudge,” to depict the consternation and horror produced among the Tattletonians by this publication. Could it be that Tattletown harbored a murderer? What other interpretation could be put upon the diabolical insinuations in Fobb’s paper? For a week and more nothing was talked of but this article. At the post office—the tinman’s shop—the grocer’s—on the steps of the meeting-houses, no other topic was broached. With unprecedented eagerness the next number of Snobb’s paper was looked for and purchased. The only allusion it contained to Fobb’s ferocious attack was in these simple lines: “As we shall make the insinuations contained in the last number of the Tattletown Free and Independent the subject of a judicial investigation, it is quite unnecessary for us to bestow any farther notice upon the miserable calumniator, who is striving to get into notice by means of the attention he may provoke from ourselves.”

Tattletown was disappointed in this rejoinder, and began to entertain its suspicions as to the truth of Fobb’s intimations. The old women of the place began to shake their heads and look wise, when the subject was broached. “Theymustsay they always thought there was something wrong—something not altogethereasyabout Mr. Snobb. They hoped for the best, but therewerethings—however murder will out.” The fate of the injured “Amanda” was a topic of endless speculation among the more youthful of the feminine inhabitants; and there was a delightful mystery about the “white crape scarf,” which afforded an exhaustless pabulum for curiosity. Snobb must certainly clear up his character. He must explain the circumstances in regard to that “ill-fated young lady.” He must tell the public what became of “that red silk handkerchief.” Above all, he must satisfactorily account for the horrible fact of the old pruning-knife being found under the cherry-tree.

In the meantime Fobb declared that he was daily and hourly environed with the perils of assassination. He was obliged to go armed, to protect himself from the minions of the culprit Snobb. His fearless devotion to the cause of truth and justice had “sharpened daggers that were thirsting for his blood—but what was life compared with the proud satisfaction of having maintained the cause of the people,

‘Unmoved by flattery and unbribed by gain?’ ”

In the midst of the excitement produced by this war of words, Tattletown was electrified one fine morning in December, by the report, that Snobb and Fobb had gone over to the neighboring village of Bungville to settle their differences by mortal combat. Two spruce young men from New York had arrived in the stage-coach the night before, and put up at the Tattletown house.They had brought guns with them; and early that morning the two editors, similarly armed and equipped, had started off with the strangers in a wagon belonging to the latter, in the direction of the village already named. As these facts became currently known among the Tattletonians the sensation was prodigious. A meeting of the “select men” was instantly called, and a committee of five, consisting of Mr. Fuzz, the retired “squire of the village,” Mr. Rattle, the tinman, Mr. Ponder, the celebrated lecturer on matters and things in general, Mr. Rumble the auctioneer, and Mr. Blister the apothecary, were appointed to proceed on horseback to Bungville, and prevent if possible the duel—or, if that had transpired, to arrest the survivor and the seconds.

Headed by Mr. Fuzz, the cavalcade started off in gallant style, followed by the prayers and anxious entreaties of the gentler sex to prevent if possible the “effusion of blood.” Miss Celestina Scragg, the poetess of the village, and the author of the celebrated ode to that beautiful stream, the Squamkeog, came very near being thrown under the hoofs of the squire’s horse, as she appealed to Mr. Fuzz, and besought him to rescue Albert, as she tenderly designated Mr. Fobb, or “perish in the attempt.”

After riding hard for about an hour, the committee approached the Bungville house, where they determined to make their first inquiries as to the fate of the editors and their seconds. Mr. Buzz, the landlord, was a brisk, officious little man, who always knew before you spoke what you were going to say, and rarely listened to more than the two first words of any question you might put to him. He was, moreover, a little deaf, so that the habit of anticipation was, perhaps, as much a matter of necessity as of choice.

“Have we arrived too late?” asked Fuzz.

“Oh, by more than an hour. It is all over,” replied Buzz, who supposed that the inquiry had reference to the dinner hour.

“It is all over, gentlemen,” said Fuzz, in a magisterial tone, turning to his awe-stricken companions. “Has any one been killed or wounded?” continued he, addressing the landlord.

“Killed, indeed? I guess you would think so,” exclaimed Buzz. “They have shot one fine, plump fellow.”

“It is probably Snobb. He is the plump one,” said Fuzz, contracting his lips, and looking sternly round at the members of the committee. “Did he fall dead on the spot?” he rejoined.

“Dead as Julius Cæsar—I may say very dead,” replied Buzz.

“Serious business this, gentlemen,” said Fuzz, dilating with importance.

Here Mr. Rattle, the tinman, was seen to mount his horse and gallop off in the direction of Tattletown. He was determined to be the first to communicate the news of the catastrophe.

“There will be no need of your services, Mr. Blister,” said Fuzz, bestowing a patronizing glance upon the apothecary. “Have the seconds escaped, Mr. Buzz?”

“Yes, the second one escaped, but with a bullet in his neck. They tracked him a mile or two by his blood.”

“Dreadful!” muttered Mr. Blister. “So Fobb is wounded! I will just ride back and inform Miss Scragg of the fact. She will go into hysterics, and I shall get a job.” And so saying, the apothecary mounted his horse, and followed in Rattle’s track.

“What have you done with the killed, Mr. Buzz?”

“Oh, we have skinned him, and hung him up to dry, to be sure. One of the gentswouldhave a slice of him for dinner, but he found it rather tough eating I suspect; not quite equal to the ducks.”

“What!” exclaimed Fuzz, turning pale and starting back with horror. “Are they cannibals?”

“Yes, to be sure,” responded Buzz, who did not fully comprehend the question.

“Gentlemen, we must pursue the guilty fugitives,” said the squire. “What direction did they take, landlord? No equivocation, sir. The law will bear us out in adopting the most rigorous measures. Where are they?”

“Bless me, they are cosily seated at dinner in my little back parlor. I wouldn’t interrupt them now. It may make them mad.”

“Landlord! Lead us to them at once—at once, I say,” exclaimed Fuzz, turning very red about the gills.

“Well, squire, don’t talk so loud. I will show you the way, but mind that I say I shouldn’t wonder if they resented it.”

Buzz led the way through a long entry to a door, which he pointed out to the squire as communicating with the apartment where the “young gentlemen” were assembled. It needed not his words to convince Fuzz and his two remaining companions of this fact. A noise of uproarious mirth, mingled with the jingling of glasses, the clash of plates and the stamping of feet, plainly foretold the state of things within. Fuzz buttoned his coat, and tried to look undismayed.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “stand by me. Don’t flinch.”

He made a bold step forward, but as his palm approached the door-handle, an explosion of laughter, loud and long, made him recoil like a man who has barely saved himself from falling over a precipice. He looked at his associates, puffed out his cheeks, and seemed to be gathering energy for a renewed essay. Again he stopped suddenly, and assuming a look of unwonted sagacity, remarked that it was best to proceed gently and craftily about the business. Then motioning the bystanders to keep silence, he cautiously turned the handle of the door, and, opening it an inch or two, stealthily looked in upon the convivial party. It consisted of four nice young men. They were seated at a round table, which was plentifully covered with bottles, decanters, glasses, and the remains of a dessert. Two of the party were strangers to Fuzz, but the other two were, marvellous to behold, no other than Fobb and Snobb, not seamed with ghastly wounds, but quaffing champagne and clapping each other on the back with the affectionate familiarity of old friends.

At this spectacle, Fuzz was no less amazed than he would have been, had he seen one of the editors trussed, spitted and “done to a turn,” served up in a big dish on the table, while the other was flourishing his knife with the savory anticipation of making a meal of him. Cautiously shutting the door, Fuzz communicated the astounding fact to his brethren of the committee, and then reopening the door so that they might hear without seeing or being seen, they listened “with all their ears.”

“Yes, gentlemen,” said the voice of Fobb in tones of mock solemnity, “you behold in that abandoned individual, my unworthy brother Zeke Peabody, otherwise known as Simon Snobb—you behold in him, I repeat, the ruthless, unhung murderer of the unfortunate Amanda W——.”

Here a roar of obstreperous laughter, in which Snobb’s lungs seemed to crow like chanticleer, interrupted the speaker for a moment. He continued:

“If you ask me for proofs, consider for a moment the fact of the red silk handkerchief—the white crape scarf—the old pruning-knife that was found under the cherry-tree. If these circumstances be not enough to convict that cowering culprit—then pass along the champagne, and fill to my toast.”

“Fill to Fobb’s toast!” exclaimed three voices amid shouts of laughter.

“My toast,” said Fobb, “is one that cannot fail to be appreciated by this intelligent company. You, my dear Timms, will drink to it with a tear in your eye, for are you not the immortal inventor of the world-renowned Tricogrophpophphlogidion, that invaluable and never-to-be-sufficiently-commended preparation for the hair, by merely spreading which over a wig-block, you find there the next morning, a beautiful, curly wig, redundant and glossy? And you, O modest and retiring Jones, are not you the man that, by your grandfather’s celebrated pills, have rejuvenated suffering humanity? Have you not ‘floored consumption,’ and broken the back of dispepsia? Isn’t it a man’s own fault now if he is sick? Do not children cry for your incomparable lozenges? Are they not a blessing to mothers, and a curse to the doctors? Cannot a hand-cart-man, with your powerful ‘poor man’s plaster’ on his back, draw fifty times the weight that he could without it? Estimable, philanthropic Jones! Posterity will do you justice. And you, brother Zeke, in Tattletown known as Snobb, where shall we find an editor in the country who can fight windmills and make people think they are devouring despots with a better grace than yourself? My own accomplishments modesty forbids me to speak at length; but I flatter myself, that the story of Amanda W⁠—— and the pruning-knife—and my eloquent denunciations of the monster, Snobb—are not unworthy specimens of those talents which entitle me to rank myself in your fraternity, and to participate in the emotions, which the sentiment I am now about to offer is calculated to excite. I will give you, gentlemen:Vive la humbug!”

Hardly had the peals of laughter consequent upon this prolonged sally subsided, when Fuzz, who was holding on to the door by the handle, being pressed upon from behind by his own companions, and two or three bar-room loungers, whom the sound of speech-making had attracted to the spot, suddenly let the handle slip from his grasp, whereupon the whole body of eaves-droppers, preceded by the squire, were precipitated into the room, where the two editors and their friends were at their revels. Imagining it to be a hostile invasion, the four friends, whose tempers had been pretty well primed with champagne, immediately “squared off,” and showed their “science.”

Fuzz was greeted by Timms with what the latter was pleased to call “a settler in his bread-basket,” which had the effect of lifting him from his feet, and spinning him into a corner of the room with a most unmagisterial celerity. Mr. Ponder, the “celebrated lecturer on matters and things in general,” was attended to in the most prompt manner by Jones, who, as he technically expressed himself, “punished him by a dig in his dice-box,” meaning that his blow took effect somewhere in the region of his teeth. As for Rumble, the auctioneer, he was knocked down by a bottle in the hand of Snobb, like an old remnant of goods disposed of under his own hammer. The rest of the invaders met with due attention from Fobb, who broke two chairs over as many heads.

The battle was speedily fought and won. The committee sent by the select men of Tattletown returned home that night in melancholy disarray, and imprecating vengeance upon their assailants. There was an immediate demand in the village for brown paper and vinegar, court plaster and lint. It was long before Mr. Ponder could deliver another lecture at the new Lyceum, owing to the disfigurement of his countenance. As for Snobb and Fobb, who were in fact the originators of the whole mischief, they issued no more numbers of their sprightly papers. The “Independent,” and the “Free and Independent” were abruptly stopped. The two brother editors were never more seen in Tattletown. The last I heard of them, one was lecturing on Animal Magnetism, while the other accompanied him as a subject for his experiments. Their wonderful feats in clairvoyance have been so trumpeted by the country press, that it is unnecessary for me to allude to them more minutely.

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