In the autumn of 1854 I set out with my family for a short tour in Italy. In all my wanderings I had never visited this famous country; and as I was not likely ever to have another opportunity, I felt it to be a kind of duty to avail myself of a few unappropriated weeks to accomplish this object. After visiting Florence, Rome, and Naples, we returned to Paris. Tarrying there for a short time, for the purpose of seeing the International Exhibitionof 1855, we finally left Europe in October, and in the next month found a new home in New York.
I have now come to my farewell. Leave-takings are in general somewhat melancholy, and it is best to make them as brief as possible. Mine shall consist of a single train of thought, and that suggestive of cheerful rather than mournful feelings. Like a traveller approaching the end of his journey, I naturally cast a look backward, and surveying the monuments which rise up in the distance, seek to estimate the nature and tendency of the march of events which I have witnessed, and in which I have participated.
One general remark appears to me applicable to the half century over which my observation has extended; which is, that everywhere there has been improvement. I know of no department of human knowledge, no sphere of human inquiry, no race of men, no region of the earth, where there has been retrogression. On the whole, the age has been alike fruitful in discovery, and in the practical, beneficial results of discovery. Science has advanced with giant strides; and it is the distinguishing characteristic of modern science that it is not the mere toy of the philosopher, nor the hidden mystery of the laboratory, but the hard-working servant of the manufactory, the workshop, and the kitchen.
On every hand are the evidences of improvement. What advances have been made in agriculture; in the analysis of soils, the preparation of manures, the improvement of implements, from the spade to the steam-reaper; in the manufacture of textile fabrics by the inventions of Jacquard and others in weaving, and innumerable devices in spinning; in the working of iron—cutting, melting,moulding, rolling, shaping it like dough, whereby it is applied to a thousand new uses; in commerce and navigation, by improved models of ships, improved chronometers, barometers, and quadrants—in chain-pumps and wheel-rudders; in printing, by the use of the steam-press, throwing off a hundred thousand impressions instead of two thousand in a day; in microscopes, which have revealed new worlds in the infinity of littleness, as well as in telescopes, which have unfolded immeasurable depths of space before hidden from the view. How has travelling been changed, from jolting along at the rate of six miles an hour over rough roads in a stage-coach, to putting one's self comfortably to bed in a steamboat and going fifteen miles an hour; or sitting down in a railway-carriage to read a novel, and before you have finished it to find yourself two hundred miles away!
And in the moral world, the last fifty years appear to me to have shown an improvement, if not as marked, yet as certain and positive, as in the material world. Everywhere, as I believe, the standard of humanity is more elevated than before. If in some things, with the increase of wealth and luxury, we have degenerated, on the whole there has been an immense advance, as well in technical morals as in those large humanities which aim at the good of all mankind.
In looking at the political condition of our country, there are no doubt threatening clouds in the sky and mutterings of ominous thunders in the distance. I have, however, known such things before; I have seen the country shaken to its centre by the fierce collision of parties, and the open assaults of the spirit of disunion. But these dangers passed away. Within my memory,the states of the Union have been doubled in number, and the territory of the Union has been trebled in extent. This I have seen; and as such has been the fact, so may be, and so I trust will be, the future. Farewell!
THE DEATH OF PETER PARLEY.
From the London Welcome Guest.
Friend of my youth! Delightful instructor of my early days! Thou kindly soul, who labored so patiently to expand my unopened mind, and inspire it with a becoming interest in the world in which it had but lately awakened! Benevolent traveller, who led my innocence gently by the hand through all the countries of the earth, and chatted intelligibly with me of their strangely varying customs, their wonderful histories, their diverse climates, and productions, and capacities! Thou that, in the first budding of my young ideas, pointed out to me the glories of the starry night, and the marvels of the vasty deep; that couldst sympathize with my untaught childhood, and adapt thy immeasurable learning to its little wants, and powers, and likings, and intertwine thy omniscient narrative with absorbing adventures that enthralled its whole soul, and thrilled its wondering bosom, and upraised the hairs that as yet but thinly covered its tender pate! May my right hand forget its cunning, thou large-hearted benefactor, if I permit thee to pass away into Hades all unheralded! That stingy paragraph in a print that is read to-day and handed into oblivion to-morrow, is no meed worthy of thee, Peter Parley.Thou meritest a more bounteous memorial. Thy name is known far and wide; and countless eyes, as they read in these pages that thou hast entered the Land of Shadows, shall be dimmed with grateful recollection.
If it may be allowed a copy of theWelcome Guestto journey beyond the postal arrangements of this world, and to meet the disembodied eyes of the other one, I wish that the concession may be made to this current number, and that it may be placed in Peter Parley's hands, as he sits in honor amid his new fellows. Then shall his gentle shade rejoice to know that we, his children, who used to gather around his knees, so to say, when he was still in the flesh, many long years since, are not ungrateful for his care of us, but cherish a most fond remembrance of it!
It was but last May the hand that had written so pleasantly and so usefully grew chill, and the pen fell from its unnerved grasp. No fresh travels of Peter Parley shall we have reported to us. Whatever his journeyings may not be—however weirdly novel, and thrilling, and strange—we cannot hope for any record of them. No sojourner in that land has ever yet returned to give us his account of it. No pencillings by the way, no fine descriptions of landscape or people, no notes of its ways and manners, ever reach us from the other side of the dividing river. So Peter Parley will observe and record for us never again.
Which of Peter Parley's numerous writings did you give the preference to, my reader? There was a capital story about a sailor boy in theTales of the Sea, if you remember. To me that young Crusoe endeared the whole volume. I confess the facts with which every page wasstored have escaped me somewhat; but oh! how well I recollect the sailor boy!
Do you remember that picture which served as the frontispiece of theTales of the Stars? There was old Peter himself, with a crowd of us—his curly-headed darlings—all round him. The stars, if my memory serves me, are shining with unwonted brightness upon the interesting group, and upon a celestial globe which occupies the left side of the scene. If my memory serves me, I say; but ay me! the lapse of many years has much impaired it, I fear, and the vision I call before me of that primeval period, is somewhat a broken and fragmentary one.
I cannot stay to mention all the members of the library with which Peter Parley and our governess, acting with a sweet consent, supplied us. There were some pleasant passages in theTales of Animals. I still vividly remember the panther and the lion, which appeared upon that stage. I cannot say why I remember them above all others, any more than I can say why many things connected with my early youth have remained in my memory, whilst a thousand other incidents of equal importance have vanished utterly from it. All I know is, that I especially remember the panther and the lion in Mr. Parley's famous zoological work.
But, in my opinion, Peter Parley's most triumphant effusion—hischef d'œuvre—the work on which his fame will undoubtedly rest in the judgment of an admiring posterity of infants—thene plus ultraof his great powers, in which the astonishing grace of his style reaches its highest perfection, and his knowledge is surpassed only by the facility and the kindliness with which he imparts it—his crowning effort is—need I name it?Shall I not be accused of penning truisms? Of course I mean hisTravels through Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.
Let that be a red-lettered day in my calendar when I entered upon those travels. Blessed be the dear maternal hand that gave them to me! Once more, standing byherside—the kind hand the while, I doubt not, smoothing my roughened locks, the gentle tongue patiently helping my tardy utterance—I spell out the opening chapters. Gather round me now, O pleasant company, into which I was then introduced. Be seated again at thy round table, O Parley! with those delightful guests around thee, and let me listen to thy wonderful stories. Be present with me, ye shades. If, O Pluto! thou hast them in thy keeping, I pray thee to grant them a brief furlough, that I may know them once more.
Come, O Jenkins! bravest of men; come in that pea-green jacket, in which thou presentest thyself to the astonished Parley at the end of the travels in Europe. 'Tis a bleak night, and Parley, resting by his blazing fire from all his Continental labors, thinks, good soul! of his absent friends, and of course of thee, Jenkins. Presently a knock is heard at the door, and Parley, answering it—he kept no lounging John Thomases in his unostentatious establishment—beholds a pea-green jacket. Enters the jacket, and shakes itself. Wonders the simple Parley, not having the remotest idea, you know, who this intruding garment is. Can it be?—yes of course, it is—Jenkins. Is not that a granddenouement? I say the recognition of Orestes by Electra, in the Greek play, so much bragged about by the Scholiasts and that lot, is not fit to hold a candle to it, to speak metaphorically. Is it not Jenkins that I see in Asia, defending himself stoutly,in the midst of an arid plain, against a mounted Arab? The child of the desert is urging his barb straight upon the brave fellow. Hard by may be seen a small fire of sticks, which our hungry but injudicious friend has kindled, with a view to cooking him a mutton chop, or some such dainty. My wishes are for thy welfare, Jenkins! My blessings on thy valor, incomparable man!
That is Leo, I think, that I see in such a heartrending condition on board, or rather on the boards of yonder wreck, while the omnipresent genius of Peter Parley is being tossed in wave-blankets some little way off. Yes, I know him; thatisLeo. Parley, the chivalrous Parley, saves his life upon that occasion, and earns his lasting gratitude. I doubt whether Leo's character will bear investigation; he comes to great grief in the end. But I like him for his grateful services to his deliverer; and I like him for the mysterious air there is about him, and for his thrilling adventures. He wanders all over the world in a black mantle, nobody knows why; at least I do not, and have no desire to know. I suppose he found a secret satisfaction in roaming everywhere inside that cloak, and that is enough for me. There are three pictures in the whole work that I feel an intense interest in; and one has to do with Leo. It is when he escapes from that prison built into the lake; just as the prisoner of Chillon would have been overjoyed to escape, had he had the knack and vigor of our hero. The particular scene of the act which the delightful artist (what washisname? which are his pictures in the National Gallery?) has been good enough to delineate, is our Jack Shepherd holding on to his prison-window by the only remaining bar. Of course he is accompanied by the cloak, which the breezes of the night are swelling into a globular form.Some dozen feet below the cloak, sparkles in the moonlight the water, into which the fugitive proposes to drop, as soon as the artist has done with him. 'Tis a dismal prospect for thee, Leo. May the daughters of the lake bear up thy chin! I have a fond belief that he is not to be drowned at present. We are only in Asia now, and we shall want him many a time yet in the other two quarters.
Who is that sailor I see crouching on that bank? Above his head is a most truculent-looking tiger; below him is an infuriated crocodile. Do you talk to me of dramatic effect, Aristarchus, in those tomes you are always maudling over? I defy you and your tribe, sirrah, to produce me a situation so breath-stopping, so blood-chilling, so every way effective, as the opening scene of Asia. That is a good hit in the Winter's Tale, by a play-wright called Shakspeare, when "exit Antigonus, pursued by a bear." But can it be compared—I appeal to all unprejudiced infants—with that first chapter of our Second Expedition? Was ever a mortal in so dire an extremity? Scylla and Charybdis, to my mind, are a joke to it. But Parley rescues him, and without any of yourDei ex machina; though, if there ever was a knot that seemed to require a Deity's fingers for its unravelling, this surely was it. Of course, he rescues him; for it is not Parley's way, whatever other people may do, to hurl his valiant souls prematurely into Hades, and make them a prey to dogs and vultures.
I have said that there were three pictures in the Travels that especially entranced me, and I have mentioned one of them. Now for the other two. The first represents the famous Parley himself, the English Herodotus, playing with a spider in that unwholesome dungeon at Tripoli.Poor Parley! He had his little troubles now and then. There can be no doubt that he is in a tremendous scrape at this time. But his genial temper is unruffled; he makes friends at once with his tiny fellow-tenant, and I dare say is, even now, meditating some Tales of Insects for your and my benefit. He reminds me rather of Goldsmith, making observations for his History of the Earth and Animated Nature. There is the same innocence, the same benignity, the same childish look of innocence about him. I have no doubt the spider is become much attached to him. I lisp out my good wishes for thee, thou even-minded captive. I place my small palm upon thy unkempt head, and bless thee. We are not kept long in suspense about him. A night soon arrives when Leo's cloak insinuates itself into his cell, and a voice is heard in its folds saying, "Follow me," and Parley follows, even as St. Peter followed the angel, and they reach a wharf, and fire a pistol, and a boat pulls in to the shore, and they embark in it, and Parley is once more a free man, and addresses himself afresh to his travels.
My last wood-cut portrays this indefatigable wanderer a second time oppressed by the hard fates. He is in America this time, and by some misfortune (a great good fortune to me and to you, my young brethren and sisters of the nursery) has been made the prey of an Indian tribe.Me miserum!The savages have tied him to a tree. There are those hands that have guided that immortal pen through Europe, Asia, and Africa, corded stringently to atriste lignumin America! There he stands, denuded of his raiment, and with a writhing expression all over him; for the sportive innocents of the tribe are amusing their leisure hours by shooting their youthful arrows at him. Yes; they are making a targetof poor P. P. O! my fellow-students, think what this great heart suffers for us! During all that agony he is gathering information for our benefit, is writing for us another incomparable chapter, is taking stock of yonder wigwams.
But the page is growing indistinct before me, and I hear voices saluting me from the nursery, not as a child, but as a veteran. Can it be? No; impossible! And Peter Parley and his brave company recede mournfully to their land, wherever it is, and my hair is a trifle grey, or that mirror lies.
Farewell, my good Peter. Fare ye well, my stout Jenkins, my mysterious Leo, and all ye other fine fellows. I rejoice to have met you once more, and to have spent a pleasant hour with you, and talked over our old companionship.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:[1]I recollect, as an after-thought, one exception. There was a hatter who supplied the town; but he generally made hats to order, and usually in exchange for the skins of foxes, rabbits, muskrats, and other chance peltry. I frequently purchased my powder and shot from the proceeds of skins which I sold him.[2]The American quail is a species of partridge, in size between the European quail and partridge. Thepartridgeof New England is thepheasantof the South, and theruffed grouseof the naturalists.
[1]I recollect, as an after-thought, one exception. There was a hatter who supplied the town; but he generally made hats to order, and usually in exchange for the skins of foxes, rabbits, muskrats, and other chance peltry. I frequently purchased my powder and shot from the proceeds of skins which I sold him.
[1]I recollect, as an after-thought, one exception. There was a hatter who supplied the town; but he generally made hats to order, and usually in exchange for the skins of foxes, rabbits, muskrats, and other chance peltry. I frequently purchased my powder and shot from the proceeds of skins which I sold him.
[2]The American quail is a species of partridge, in size between the European quail and partridge. Thepartridgeof New England is thepheasantof the South, and theruffed grouseof the naturalists.
[2]The American quail is a species of partridge, in size between the European quail and partridge. Thepartridgeof New England is thepheasantof the South, and theruffed grouseof the naturalists.
Transcriber's NoteObvious typographical errors have been repaired.
Transcriber's Note
Obvious typographical errors have been repaired.