READINGS IN ART.

All men have a rational soul and moral perfectibility; it is these qualities which make the poorest peasant sacred and valued by me. Moral perfectibility is our destiny, and here are opened up to the historian a boundless field and a rich harvest.—Forster.

This paper is abridged from “German, Flemish and Dutch Paintings,” by H. J. Wilmot Buxton, M.A., and Edward J. Poynter, R.A.

Art in Germany and the Netherlands may be considered as beginning about the middle of the fourteenth century. There is, however, no name of importance in the German school of artists until the time of Albrecht Dürer. Before him painters had shown little or no originality in their work. They had followed the Byzantine models largely, and had been influenced by the servile and narrow influences of the middle ages. With the new intellectual and spiritual life which sprang up in the fifteenth century, artistic life awoke in Germany. Dürer was the first and greatest master of the school. He was born in Nuremberg on the 21st of May, 1471.

His father was a Hungarian, who settled in Nuremberg as a goldsmith. Albrecht Dürer was taught his father’s trade, but fortunately his talent for art was observed, and he was sent, in 1484, a boy of thirteen years, to Schongauer. In 1486 he was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut for three years. From the studio of his master, Albrecht Dürer passed, in the year 1490, to a new world—he traveled; and in those “wander-years,” which lasted till 1494, he was doubtless laying in stores of learning for the after-time; but unfortunately we know nothing of those years, except that he had a glimpse of Venice, the first sight of the Italian paradise which, in his case, though seen again, never made him unfaithful to the art of his fatherland. In 1494, Albrecht Dürer returned to Nuremberg, and married Agnes Frey, the daughter of a singer. He received two hundred florins with his wife for her dowry, and it has been said that with her he found more than two thousand unhappy days. In 1506, Dürer again traveled to Italy, and found a warm welcome from the painters at Venice, a city which he now beheld for the second time. Doubtless he learned much from the works which he saw, and the criticism which he heard, but, fortunately for his country, he could go to Italy without becoming a copyist. Giovanni Bellini paid him especial honor, and Dürer tells us that he considered Bellini “the best painter of them all.”

Between the years 1507 and 1520, Dürer produced many of his most famous works. In 1509, he bought a house for himself in the Zisselgasse, at Nuremberg. In 1515 Raphael sent a sketch from his own pencil to his great brother, who has been well styled the “Raphael of Germany.” The sketch is in red chalk, and is preserved in the collection of the Archduke Charles, at Vienna. In 1520 we find Dürer appointed court-painter to the emperor, Charles V., a position which he had already held under Maximilian. His own countrymen seem to have been niggardly in their reward of genius, for the court-painter had only a salary of one hundred florins a year, and painted portraits for a florin (about twenty English pence). In the same year Dürer, accompanied by his wife, visited the Netherlands, and at Antwerp, then the most important town of the Low Countries, both he and his wife were entertained at a grand supper; the master has recorded in his journal his pleasure at the honor bestowed upon him. At Ghent and Bruges all were delighted to show their respect for his genius. At Brussels, Dürer was summoned to the court of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, to whom he presented several engravings. Either through jealous intrigues, or from some other cause, his court favor was of short duration. In Brussels he painted several portraits which were never paid for, and for a time he was in straitened circumstances. Just at this time, however, Christian II., king of Denmark, became acquainted with him, and having shown every mark of honor to the painter, sat to him for his portrait. Soon afterward he returned to Germany.

Once more at home in his beloved Nuremberg, Dürer wrote to remind the Town Council that whilst the people of Venice and Antwerp had offered him liberal sums to dwell among them, his own city had not given him five hundred florins for thirty years of work. But we must pass to the end. Whether the health of Albrecht Dürer had been injured by home cares and the tongue of Agnes Frey, we know not, though many passages in his letters and journal seem to point to this fact. He died on the 6th of April, 1528, and was buried in the cemetery of St. John, at Nuremberg.

Most of Dürer’s works are to be found in Germany. In the Louvre there are only three or four drawings. The Museum of Madrid possesses several of his paintings—a “Crucifixion” (1513), showing the maturity of his genius, two “Allegories” of the same type as the “Dance of Death,” so favorite a subject at this period, and a “Portrait of Himself,” bearing the date 1496. At Munich we may trace, in a series of seventeen pictures, the dawn, the noonday, and the evening of Albrecht Dürer’s art. The “Portrait of his Father,” 1497, is one of his earliest works. His father was then seventy years old. The color is warm and harmonious. The masterpiece of Dürer’s art is the painting of the four apostles—“St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Mark.” This wonderful work is clearly the production of his later years; it bears no date, but the absence of the hardness, which Michael Wolgemut’s workshop had imparted to his early style, is gone, and the whole work shows the influence of his travels and unflagging study. It is usually assigned to the year 1526. The picture has been supposed to represent the “Four Temperaments,” but there is no satisfactory proof that Dürer intended this.

Vienna possesses some of the finest specimens of his art. In the legend of “The Ten Thousand Martyrs,” who were slain by the Persian king Shahpour II., Dürer has described on a panel of about a foot square every conceivable kind of torture. These horrors are witnessed by two figures which represent the painter himself, and his friend Pirkheimer.

The “Adoration of the Trinity” is one of the most famous of Dürer’s works. It is a vast allegorical picture, representing the Christian Religion.

Of his wood-cuts the best known are the “Apocalypse,” 1498; the “Life of the Virgin,” 1511; and the “History of Christ’s Passion.” Of his copper-plate engravings, “St. Hubert,” “St. Jerome,” and “The Knight, Death, and the Devil,” bearing the date 1513, in which we see what Kugler calls “the most important work which the fantastic spirit of German art has ever produced.” The weird, the terrible, and the grotesque look forth from this picture like the forms of some horrible nightmare. Another famous engraving, called “Melancholy,” is full of mystic poetry; it bears the date 1514. To these may be added a series of sixteen drawings in pen and ink on gray paper, heightened with white, representing “Christ’s Passion,” which he never engraved. They are in his best style, and among the finest of his works.

Contemporary with Dürer lived another great artist, Hans Holbein. He was born at Augsburg, in 1497. Comparing him with Albrecht Dürer, Kugler says that “as respects grandeur and depth of feeling, and richness of his invention and conception in the field of ecclesiastical art, he stands below the great Nuremberg painter. Though not unaffected by the fantastic element which prevailed in the Middle Ages, Holbein shows it in his own way.” What we know of Holbein’s life must be told briefly. He was painting independently, and for profit, when only fifteen. He was only twenty when he left Augsburg and went to Bâle. There he painted his earliest known works, which still remain there. In 1519, after a visit to Lucerne, we find him a member of the Guild of Painters at Bâle, and years later he was painting frescoes for the walls of the Rathaus—frescoes which have yielded to damp and decay, and of which fragments only remain. These are in the Museum of Bâle, as well as eight scenes from “The Passion,” which belong to the same date. Doubtless Holbein had gone to Bâle poor, and in search of any remunerative work. It is said that he and his brother Ambrose visited that city with the hope of finding employment in illustrating books, an art for which Bâle was famous. Hans Holbein was destined, however, to find a new home and new patrons. In 1526, Holbein went to England. The house of Sir Thomas More, in Chelsea, received him, and there he worked as an honored guest—painting portraits of the ill-fated Chancelor and his family. Of other portraits painted at this time that of “Sir Bryan Tuke,” treasurer of the king’s chamber, now in the collection of the Duke of Westminster, and that of “Archbishop Warham,” in the Louvre, are famous specimens. Having returned to Bâle for a season, hard times forced Holbein to seek work once more in England. This was in 1532, when he was taken into the service of Henry VIII., a position not without its dangers. He was appointed court-painter at a salary of thirty-four pounds a year, with rooms in the palace. The amount of this not very magnificent stipend is proved from an entry in a book at the Chamberlain’s office, which, under the date of 1538, contains these words: “Payd to Hans Holbein, Paynter, a quarter due at Lady Day last, £8 10s.9d.”

Holbein was employed to celebrate the marriage of Anne Boleyn by painting two pictures in tempera in the Banqueting Hall of the Easterlings, at the Steelyard. He chose the favorite subjects for such works, “The Triumph of Riches,” and “The Triumph of Poverty.” The pictures probably perished in the Great Fire of London. In 1538, Holbein was engaged on a very delicate mission, considering the matrimonial peculiarities of his royal master. He was sent to Brussels to paint the “Portrait of Christina,” widow of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, whom Henry would have made his queen, had she been willing. Soon after, having refused an earnest invitation from Bâle to return there, Holbein painted an aspirant to the royal hand, Anne of Cleves. Perhaps the painter flattered the lady; at all events the original was so distasteful to the king that he burst into a fit of rage which cost Thomas Cromwell his head. Holbein continued his work as a portrait painter, and has left us many memorials of the Tudor Court. He died in 1543, of the plague, but nothing is known of his burial place. Some time before his death we hear of him as a resident in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, in the city.

The fame of this great master rests almost entirely upon his power as a portrait painter. In the collection of drawings at Windsor, mostly executed in red chalk and Indian ink, we are introduced to the chief personages who lived in and around the splendid court in the troublous times of the second Tudor.

After the death of Dürer and Holbein the German school did not long hold its supremacy. Its decline was rapid, and not until the present century was there a re-awakening. Johann Friedrich Overbeck, the chief of the revivalists of German art, was born at Lübeck, in 1789. When about eighteen years of age he went to Vienna, to study painting in the academy of that city. The ideas on art which he had carried with him were so entirely new and so little agreeable to the professors of the academy, that they met with but small approval. On the other hand, there were several among his fellow-pupils who gladly followed his lead; and in 1810, Overbeck, accompanied by a small band of youthful artists, went to Rome, where he established the school which was afterward to become so famous.

Overbeck, who was professor of painting in the Academy of St. Luke, a foreign member of the French Institute, and a member of all the German academies, died at Rome in 1869, at the advanced age of eighty years. He painted both in fresco and in oil. Of his productions in fresco, the most noteworthy are a “Vision of St. Francis” in Santa Maria degli Angeli, at Assisi, and five scenes from Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered,”in the villa of the Marchese Massimo, in Rome. Of his oil paintings, the best are the “Triumph of Religion in the Arts,” in the Städel Institute at Frankfort; “Christ on the Mount of Olives,” at Hamburg; the “Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem,” painted in 1816 for the Marien Kirche, at Lübeck; and a “Descent from the Cross,” at Lübeck. Overbeck also executed a number of small drawings. Of these we may mention forty designs of the “Life of Christ,” and many other Biblical subjects.

In the Netherlands, we find before the seventeenth century, two schools of art; that of Bruges, whose most famous painters were the brothers Van Eyck, and that of Antwerp, whose founder, Matsys, did some fine work. It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, that art in the Netherlands attained its full strength and life. The artist to whom the revival was due was Peter Paul Rubens. He was born on the day of the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul—the 29th of June, 1577, at Siegen, in Westphalia. His father was a physician, who being suspected of Protestant proclivities, had been forced to flee from his native town of Antwerp, and was subsequently imprisoned, not without cause, by William of Orange, whose side he had joined. When Peter Paul was a year old, his parents removed to Cologne, where they remained for nine years, and then on the death of her husband, the mother of Rubens returned with her child to Antwerp. Young Rubens was sent to a Jesuit school, doubtless in proof of his mother’s soundness in the faith of Rome, and studied art. Fortunately for the world, Rubens possessed too original a genius to be much influenced by his masters. He visited Italy in 1600, where the coloring of the Venetians exercised a great influence upon the young painter, and we may consider Paolo Veronese as the source of inspiration from which Rubens derived the richness of his tints. In 1601 we find Rubens in the service of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, an enthusiastic patron of art, and two years later he was sent to Philip III. of Spain, on an “artistic commission,” some secret mission, perhaps, but certainly as the bearer of costly presents. On his return from Spain he passed some time in Mantua, Rome, and Genoa; thedramatic powerof his pictures he derived probably from Michelangelo, as he had learned richness of coloring from Veronese, and we can trace the influence of Giulio Romano, whose works he must have studied at Mantua.

Rubens settled in Antwerp, and married in 1609 his first wife, Isabella Brandt. Always popular, and always successful, Rubens founded a school of painting in Antwerp, which was soon crowded with pupils. His life, however, was destined to be full of action and movement. In 1620 he went to Paris at the invitation of Marie de Medicis, then living in the Luxembourg Palace. The work which the widowed queen proposed to Rubens was to decorate two galleries, the one with scenes from her own history, the other with pictures from the life of Henri IV.

In 1626 Rubens visited Holland, saw the principal painters of that country, and lost his wife in the same year. The picture of the two sons of this marriage is in the Lichtenstein Gallery, in Vienna. In 1627 Rubens was employed in diplomatic service at the Hague, and in the next year he was ambassador to Philip IV. of Spain, from the Infanta Isabella, widow of the archduke Albert. In 1629 we find the painter still acting as a diplomatist, and this time to the Court of England. The courtly manner, handsome person, and versatile genius of Rubens made him a favorite at Whitehall.

On his return to Antwerp in 1630, he married his second wife, Helena Fourment, a girl of sixteen, belonging to one of the richest families in the city. She served him many times as a model for his pictures. The great master died in 1640, wealthy, honored, and famous, not only in his own city, but in many another. He was buried in the Church of St. Jacques at Antwerp.

In speaking briefly of the chief works of Rubens, we come first to the “Descent from the Cross,” in Antwerp Cathedral. We find in this wonderful work perfect unity, and a nobler conception and more finished execution than usual. Of the coloring it is needless to speak. But even here in this masterpiece we notice the absence of spirituality. The dead Christ is an unidealized study, magnificently painted and drawn, but unredeemed by any divinity of form, or pathos of expression in the head, so that we discover no foregleam of the Resurrection; it is a dead body, no more. Among the eighteen pictures by Rubens in the Antwerp Museum, is a “Last Communion of St. Francis,” which has a great reputation, but suffers from the ignoble type of St. Francis’s head. It was painted in 1619.

In the Gallery at Munich we find ninety-five paintings by this master, illustrating all his styles. The masterpiece is the “Last Judgment.” Passing to Vienna, we find in the Lichtenstein Gallery the portraits of Rubens’s “Two Sons,” and a long series of pictures illustrating the “History of Decius.” In the Belvedere is a magnificent portrait of his second wife, “Helena Fourment.” In the Louvre we find forty-two paintings by Rubens. The greater number of these belong to the series illustrating “The Life of Marie de Medicis.” At Madrid in the Museo del Rey is a “Glorified Virgin,” a truly wonderful work. Turning to Russia, we find in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg some fine works by this master; especially deserving of notice is the “Feast in the House of Simon.” Coming home to England we find this great master again largely represented. The “History of Ixion on the Cloud” is in the gallery of the Duke of Westminster; and “Diana and her Nymphs surprised by Satyrs,” painted for Charles I. in 1629. Blenheim contains many great works by Rubens.

The greatest of the pupils of Rubens, the son of a merchant of good standing, was born at Antwerp, in 1599. At ten years of age he was studying art under Van Balen, and was registered in the Guild as his pupil; from him he proceeded to the studio of Rubens. His wonderful precocity enabled Van Dyck to become a master in the Guild of Antwerp painters when only nineteen. In 1620 he was engaged as an assistant by Rubens, and in the following year he was in England employed by James I. This royal service soon ended, and in 1623 Van Dyck went to Italy; in Venice he copied many of Titian’s works, and spent some time in Rome, and a much longer time at Genoa. Wherever he went he was busy with brush and canvas, and in Genoa he painted many of his best pictures. From 1626 to 1632 Van Dyck was in Antwerp, diligently working at some of his greatest pictures, historical subjects and portraits. In the Cassel Gallery there are fourteen of his portraits, among which that of the “Syndic Meerstraten” is one of the most characteristic of his art at this period. At the close of these six years of Antwerp work a new world opened to him. His first visit to England seems to have been unfruitful, but in 1632 he became one of the court painters of Charles I. Success and honor now crowned the new works of Van Dyck. He received a salary of £200 a year as principal painter to the Stuart court, and was knighted by the king. Nothing succeeds like success, and we find Van Dyck sought after by the nobility and gentry of England, and at once installed as a fashionable portrait painter.

Later, after his return to Flanders, in 1640, with his wife, a lady of the Scottish house of Ruthven, he went to Paris, hoping to obtain from Louis XIII. the commission to adorn with paintings the largest saloon in the Louvre, but here he was doomed to disappointment, as the work had been given to Poussin. Van Dyck returned to England, and found that he had fallen, like his patron, Charles I., “on evil tongues and evil days.” The Civil War had commenced. There was no time now for pipe or tabor, for painting of pictures or curling of lovelocks, and whilst trumpets were sounding to boot and saddle, and dark days were coming for England, Van Dyck died in Blackfriars, on the 9th of December, in 1641, and wasburied hard by the tomb of John of Gaunt, in old St. Paul’s.

Possessed of less power of invention than his great master, Van Dyck shows in his pictures thatfeelingwhich is wanting in the works of Rubens. It is infinitely more pleasant to gaze on a crucifixion, or some other sacred subject, from the pencil of Van Dyck, than to examine the more brilliant but soulless treatment of similar works by his master. As a portrait painter Van Dyck occupies with Titian and Velasquez the first place. In fertility and production he was equal to Rubens, if we remember that his artistic life was very brief, and that he died at the age of forty-two. He lacked the inexhaustible invention which distinguishes his teacher, and generally confined himself to painting a “Dead Christ” or a “Mater Dolorosa.” Of Van Dyck’s sacred subjects we may mention the “Taking of Jesus in Gethsemane” (Museum of Madrid), “Christ on the Cross” (Munich Gallery), the “Vision of the Blessed Hermann Joseph” (Vienna), the famous “Madonna with the Partridges” (St. Petersburg), and the “Dead Christ,” mourned by the Virgin, and adored by angels, in the Louvre.

Portraits by Van Dyck are scattered widely throughout the galleries of Europe, and his best are probably in the private galleries of England. In all his portraits there is that air of refinement and taste which rightly earned for Van Dyck the name which the Italians gave him,Pittore Cavalieresco.

Contemporaneous with the Flemish school of which Rubens and Van Dyck were the masters, was the Dutch school, of which the great name was Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn. Few persons have suffered more from their biographers than the painters of the Dutch school, and none of them more than Rembrandt. The writings of Van Mander, and the too active imagination of Houbraken, have misrepresented these artists in every possible way. Thus Rembrandt has been described as the son of a miller, one whose first ideas of light and shadow were gained among his father’s flour sacks in the old mill at the Rhine. He has been described as a spendthrift reveler at taverns, and as marrying a peasant girl. All this is fiction. The facts are briefly these: Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1607, in the house of his father, Hermann Gerritszoon Van Rijn, a substantial burgess, the owner of several houses, and possessing a large share in a mill on the Weddesteeg at Leyden. Educated at the Latin school at Leyden, and intended for the study of the law, Rembrandt’s early skill as an artist determined his father to allow him to follow his own taste.

But it was not from these nor from any master that Rembrandt learnt to paint. Nature was his model, and he was his own teacher. In 1630 he produced one of his earliest oil paintings, the “Portrait of an Old Man,” and at this time he settled as a painter in Amsterdam. He devoted himself to the teaching of his pupils more than to the cultivation of the wealthy, but instead of being the associate of drunken boors, as some have described him, he was the friend of the Burgomaster Six, of Jeremias de Decker the poet, and many other persons of good position. In 1632 Rembrandt produced his famous picture, “The Lesson in Anatomy;” about that time he was established in Sint Antonie Breedstraat; in the next year he married Saskia van Ulenburch, the daughter of the Burgomaster of Leeuwarden, whose face he loved to paint best after that of his old mother. We may see Saskia’s portrait in the famous picture, “Rembrandt with his wife on his knee,” in the Dresden Gallery; and a “Portrait of Saskia” alone is in the Cassel Gallery.

In the year 1640 Rembrandt painted a portrait, long known under the misnomer of “The Frame-maker.” It is usually called “Le Doreur,” and it is said that the artist painted the portrait in payment for some picture frames; but is in reality a portrait of Dorer, a friend of Rembrandt. The year 1642 saw Rembrandt’s masterpiece, the so-called “Night-watch.” Saskia died in the same year, and the four children of the marriage all died early, Titus, the younger son, who promised to follow in his father’s steps, not surviving him. Rembrandt was twice married after Saskia’s death. The latter years of the great master’s life were clouded by misfortune. Probably owing to the stagnation of trade in Amsterdam, Rembrandt grew poorer and poorer, and in 1656 was insolvent. His goods and many pictures were sold by auction in 1658, and realized less than 5,000 guilders. Still he worked bravely on. His last known pictures are dated 1668. On the 8th of October, 1669, Rembrandt died, and was buried in the Wester Kerk.

Rembrandt was the typical painter of the Dutch School; his treatment is distinctly Protestant and naturalistic. Yet he was an idealist in his way, and as “The King of Shadows,” as he has been called, he brought forth from the dark recesses of nature, effects which become, under his pencil, poems upon canvas. Rembrandt loved to paint pictures warmed by a clear, though limited light, which dawns through masses of shadow, and this gives much of that air of mystery so noticeable in his works. In most of his pictures painted before 1633, there is more daylight and less shadow, and the work is more studied and delicate.

In the National Gallery we find two portraits of Rembrandt, one representing him at the age of thirty-two, another when an old man. In the same collection is the “Woman taken in Adultery” (1644), and the “Adoration of the Shepherds” (1646), both superb in arrangement and execution. Germany and Russia are almost as rich as Holland in the number of Rembrandt’s pictures which they possess. The “Descent from the Cross,” in the Munich Gallery, is a specimen of the sacred subjects of this master. He interprets the Bible from the Protestant and realistic standpoint, and though the coloring of the pictures is marvelous, the grotesque features and Walloon dress of the personages represented make it hard to recognize the actors in the gospel story. Many of his Scripture characters were doubtless painted from the models afforded him in the Jews’ quarter of Amsterdam, where he resided. The magnificent panoramic landscape belonging to Lord Overstone, and the famous picture of “The Mill” against a sunset sky, are signal examples of his poetic power, and his etchings show us this peculiarity of his genius, even more than his oil paintings. Of these etchings, which range over every class of subject, religious, historical, landscape and portrait, there is a fine collection in the British Museum; and they should be studied in order to understand the immense range of his superb genius. The “Ecce Homo,” to say nothing of the splendor, the light and shade, and richness of execution, has never been surpassed for dramatic expression; and we forgive the commonness of form and type in the expression of touching pathos in the figure of the Savior; nor would it be possible to express with greater intensity the terrible raging of the crowd, the ignobly servile and cruel supplications of the priests, or the anxious desire to please on the part of Pilate. The celebrated plate “Christ Healing the Sick,” exhibits in the highest perfection his mastery of chiaroscuro, and the marvelous delicacies of gradation which he introduced into his more finished work.

The number of Rembrandt’s pictures in Holland, although it includes his three greatest, is remarkably small—indeed, they may be counted on the fingers; and lately, by the sale of the Van Loon collection, the Dutch have lost two more of his finest works in the portraits of the “Burgomaster Six” and “His Wife.” But his works abound in the other great galleries of Europe.

There is really in nature such a thing as high life. A life of health, of sound morality, of disinterested intellectual activity, of freedom from petty cares is higher than a life of disease and vice, and stupidity and sordid anxiety. I maintain that it is right and wise in a nation to set before itself the highest attainable ideal of human life as the existence of a complete gentleman.—Hamerton.

“Among the writers who have done much to refine and elevate American literature, Thomas Bailey Aldrich should have the brightest place of one who has wrought equally well in prose and poetry. Among his early efforts ‘Baby Bell’ will longest hold its place in poetry.”—Henry James, Jr.

It is the vision of a gentle, tender spirit, and many eyes unused to tears will grow moist over the delicate lines. We have not room for the whole.

Have you not heard the poets tell,How came the dainty Baby BellInto this world of ours?The gates of heaven were left ajar;With folded hands and dreamy eyes,Wandering out of Paradise,She saw this planet, like a star,Hung in the glistening depths of even—Its bridges, running to and fro,O’er which the white-winged angels go,Bearing the holy dead to heaven.She touched a bridge of flowers—those feet,So light they did not bend the bellsOf the celestial asphodels.They fell like dew upon the flowers;Then all the air grew strangely sweet!And thus came dainty Baby BellInto this world of ours.…O, Baby, dainty Baby Bell,How fair she grew from day to day!What woman-nature filled her eyes;What poetry within them lay!Those deep and tender twilight eyes,So full of meaning, pure and bright,As if she yet stood in the light,Of those oped gates of Paradise.And so we loved her more and more;Ah, never in our hearts beforeWas love so lovely born;We felt we had a link betweenThis real world and that unseen—The land beyond the morn.And for the love of those dear eyes,For love of her whom God led forth(The mother’s being ceased on earthWhen Baby came from Paradise),For love of Him who smote our lives,And woke the chords of joy and pain,We said, Dear Christ! our hearts bent downLike violets after rain.…It came upon us by degrees,We saw its shadow ere it fell—The knowledge that our God had sentHis messenger for Baby Bell.We shuddered with unlanguaged pain,And all our hopes were changed to fears,And all our thoughts ran into tearsLike sunshine into rain.We cried aloud in our belief,“O, smite us gently, gently, God!Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,And perfect grow through grief.”Ah, how we loved her, God can tell;Her heart was folded deep in ours;Our hearts are broken, Baby Bell!At last he came, the messenger,The messenger from unseen lands;And what did dainty Baby Bell?She only crossed her little hands,She only looked more meek and fair;We parted back her silken hair,We wove the roses round her brow—White buds, the summer’s drifted snow—Wrapt her from head to foot in flowersAnd thus went dainty Baby BellOut of this world of ours.

Have you not heard the poets tell,

How came the dainty Baby Bell

Into this world of ours?

The gates of heaven were left ajar;

With folded hands and dreamy eyes,

Wandering out of Paradise,

She saw this planet, like a star,

Hung in the glistening depths of even—

Its bridges, running to and fro,

O’er which the white-winged angels go,

Bearing the holy dead to heaven.

She touched a bridge of flowers—those feet,

So light they did not bend the bells

Of the celestial asphodels.

They fell like dew upon the flowers;

Then all the air grew strangely sweet!

And thus came dainty Baby Bell

Into this world of ours.

…

O, Baby, dainty Baby Bell,How fair she grew from day to day!What woman-nature filled her eyes;What poetry within them lay!Those deep and tender twilight eyes,So full of meaning, pure and bright,As if she yet stood in the light,Of those oped gates of Paradise.And so we loved her more and more;Ah, never in our hearts beforeWas love so lovely born;We felt we had a link betweenThis real world and that unseen—The land beyond the morn.And for the love of those dear eyes,For love of her whom God led forth(The mother’s being ceased on earthWhen Baby came from Paradise),For love of Him who smote our lives,And woke the chords of joy and pain,We said, Dear Christ! our hearts bent downLike violets after rain.

O, Baby, dainty Baby Bell,

How fair she grew from day to day!

What woman-nature filled her eyes;

What poetry within them lay!

Those deep and tender twilight eyes,

So full of meaning, pure and bright,

As if she yet stood in the light,

Of those oped gates of Paradise.

And so we loved her more and more;

Ah, never in our hearts before

Was love so lovely born;

We felt we had a link between

This real world and that unseen—

The land beyond the morn.

And for the love of those dear eyes,

For love of her whom God led forth

(The mother’s being ceased on earth

When Baby came from Paradise),

For love of Him who smote our lives,

And woke the chords of joy and pain,

We said, Dear Christ! our hearts bent down

Like violets after rain.

…

It came upon us by degrees,We saw its shadow ere it fell—The knowledge that our God had sentHis messenger for Baby Bell.We shuddered with unlanguaged pain,And all our hopes were changed to fears,And all our thoughts ran into tearsLike sunshine into rain.We cried aloud in our belief,“O, smite us gently, gently, God!Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,And perfect grow through grief.”Ah, how we loved her, God can tell;Her heart was folded deep in ours;Our hearts are broken, Baby Bell!

It came upon us by degrees,

We saw its shadow ere it fell—

The knowledge that our God had sent

His messenger for Baby Bell.

We shuddered with unlanguaged pain,

And all our hopes were changed to fears,

And all our thoughts ran into tears

Like sunshine into rain.

We cried aloud in our belief,

“O, smite us gently, gently, God!

Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,

And perfect grow through grief.”

Ah, how we loved her, God can tell;

Her heart was folded deep in ours;

Our hearts are broken, Baby Bell!

At last he came, the messenger,The messenger from unseen lands;And what did dainty Baby Bell?She only crossed her little hands,She only looked more meek and fair;We parted back her silken hair,We wove the roses round her brow—White buds, the summer’s drifted snow—Wrapt her from head to foot in flowersAnd thus went dainty Baby BellOut of this world of ours.

At last he came, the messenger,

The messenger from unseen lands;

And what did dainty Baby Bell?

She only crossed her little hands,

She only looked more meek and fair;

We parted back her silken hair,

We wove the roses round her brow—

White buds, the summer’s drifted snow—

Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers

And thus went dainty Baby Bell

Out of this world of ours.

Some of Aldrich’s descriptions of oriental scenery are richer in color and more luxurious, but he is more at home and more captivating with familiar themes drawn from every day life. We are charmed with such simple pictures as

We knew it would rain, for all the mornA spirit on slender ropes of mistWas lowering its golden buckets downInto the vapory amethystOf marshes and swamps and dismal fens,Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,Dipping the jewels out of the sea,To sprinkle them over the land in showers.We knew it would rain, for the poplars showedThe white of their leaves, the amber grainShrunk in the wind—and the lightning nowIs tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

We knew it would rain, for all the mornA spirit on slender ropes of mistWas lowering its golden buckets downInto the vapory amethyst

We knew it would rain, for all the morn

A spirit on slender ropes of mist

Was lowering its golden buckets down

Into the vapory amethyst

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens,Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,Dipping the jewels out of the sea,To sprinkle them over the land in showers.

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens,

Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,

Dipping the jewels out of the sea,

To sprinkle them over the land in showers.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showedThe white of their leaves, the amber grainShrunk in the wind—and the lightning nowIs tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed

The white of their leaves, the amber grain

Shrunk in the wind—and the lightning now

Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate. Not far from the city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure. The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we breathed was an elixir of immortality.

Through a luxuriated olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings, situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley, if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in the rocks, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the rocks was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and cut apart by grooves chiseled between them. I visited four or five tombs, each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without sculptures of any kind. There were fragments of sarcophagi in some of them. On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry, evidently worked for marble, as the blocks have been cut out from below, leaving a large overhanging mass, part of which has broken off and fallen down.The opening of the quarry made a striking picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.

From the long hill beyond the tombs, we took our last view of Jerusalem, far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at leaving Jerusalem, and cheerfully took the rough road northward over the stony hills. There were few habitations in sight, yet the hillsides were cultivated, wherever it was possible for anything to grow. After four hours’ ride we reached El Bireh, a little village on a hill, with the ruins of a convent and a large Khan. The place takes its name from a fountain of excellent water, beside which we found our tents already pitched. The night was calm and cool, and the full moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.

We rose long before sunrise and rode off in the brilliant morning—the sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El Bireh, the husbandmen were already at their plows, and the village boys were on their way to the uncultured parts of the hills with their flocks of sheep and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting landscape opened upon us.

The village of Zebroud crowned a hill which rose opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning toward it on all sides were covered with orchards of fig trees, and either rustling with wheat or cleanly plowed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich. The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even where heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive trees were planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen more thorough and patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning air the very hills laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape beamed with the signs of gladness on its countenance.

The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road. Over hills laden with the olive, fig and vine, we passed to Aian el Haramiyeh, or the fountain of the robbers. Here there are tombs cut in the rock on both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we descend to a large, bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat, and opening eastward toward the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the Shechem of the Old and Sychar of the New Testament) is four hours through a winding dell of the richest harvest land. On the way, we first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount Hermon, distant at least eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching Nablous, I stopped to drink at a fountain of clear sweet water, beside a square pile of masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we were told, was the tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied the Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near Shechem.

There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests not on Christian, but on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot, render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should have been preserved from generation to generation to the present time.

Leaving the tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west and entered the narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The former is a steep, barren peak, clothed with terraces of cactus, standing on the northern side of the pass. Mount Gerizim is cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a mountain of blessing, compared with its neighbors. Through an orchard of grand old olive trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming picture, with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The bottom of the valley resembles some old garden run to waste.

Her home is by the sea, and she gives us some vivid glimpses of ocean scenes. Occasionally a joyous phrase is delicately presented, but the prevailing tone of her verse, on whatever subject, is in the minor. Perhaps “Beethoven” shows most imagination and insight, as well as felicity of expression.

If God speaks anywhere, in any voice,To us his creatures, surely here and nowWe hear him, while the great chords seem to bowOur heads, and all the symphony’s breathless noiseBreaks over us, with challenge to our souls!Beethoven’s music! From the mountain peaksThe strong, divine, compelling thunder rolls;And “Come up higher, come!” the words it speaks,“Out of your darkened valleys of despair;Behold, I lift you upon mighty wingsInto Hope’s living, reconciling air!Breathe, and forget your life’s perpetual stings—Dream, folded on the breast of Patience sweet,Some pulse of pitying love for you may beat!”

If God speaks anywhere, in any voice,

To us his creatures, surely here and now

We hear him, while the great chords seem to bow

Our heads, and all the symphony’s breathless noise

Breaks over us, with challenge to our souls!

Beethoven’s music! From the mountain peaks

The strong, divine, compelling thunder rolls;

And “Come up higher, come!” the words it speaks,

“Out of your darkened valleys of despair;

Behold, I lift you upon mighty wings

Into Hope’s living, reconciling air!

Breathe, and forget your life’s perpetual stings—

Dream, folded on the breast of Patience sweet,

Some pulse of pitying love for you may beat!”

Fain would I hold my lamp of life aloftLike yonder tower built high above the reef;Steadfast, though tempests rave or winds blow soft,Clear, though the sky dissolve in tears of grief.For darkness passes; storms shall not abide,A little patience and the fog is past.After the sorrow of the ebbing tideThe singing flood returns in joy at last.The night is long and pain weighs heavily;But God will hold His world above despair.Look to the east, where up the lucid skyThe morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair!

Fain would I hold my lamp of life aloftLike yonder tower built high above the reef;Steadfast, though tempests rave or winds blow soft,Clear, though the sky dissolve in tears of grief.

Fain would I hold my lamp of life aloft

Like yonder tower built high above the reef;

Steadfast, though tempests rave or winds blow soft,

Clear, though the sky dissolve in tears of grief.

For darkness passes; storms shall not abide,A little patience and the fog is past.After the sorrow of the ebbing tideThe singing flood returns in joy at last.

For darkness passes; storms shall not abide,

A little patience and the fog is past.

After the sorrow of the ebbing tide

The singing flood returns in joy at last.

The night is long and pain weighs heavily;But God will hold His world above despair.Look to the east, where up the lucid skyThe morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair!

The night is long and pain weighs heavily;

But God will hold His world above despair.

Look to the east, where up the lucid sky

The morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair!

Across the narrow beach we flit,One little sandpiper and I;And fast I gather, bit by bit,The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.The wild waves reach their hands for it,The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,As up and down the beach we flit—One little sandpiper and I.Above our heads the sullen cloudsScud black and swift across the sky,Like silent ghosts in misty shroudsStand out the white light-houses high.Almost as far as eye can reachI see the close-reefed vessels fly,As fast we flit along the beach—One little sandpiper and I.I watch him as he skims along,Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;He starts not at my fitful song,Or flash of fluttering drapery;He has no thought of any wrong,He scans me with a fearless eye.Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,The little sandpiper and I.Comrade, where wilt thou be to-nightWhen the loosed storm breaks furiously?My driftwood fire will burn so bright!To what warm shelter canst thou fly?I do not fear for thee, though wrothThe tempest rushes through the sky;For are we not God’s children both,Thou, little sandpiper and I?

Across the narrow beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I;

And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.

The wild waves reach their hands for it,

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,

As up and down the beach we flit—

One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen cloudsScud black and swift across the sky,Like silent ghosts in misty shroudsStand out the white light-houses high.Almost as far as eye can reachI see the close-reefed vessels fly,As fast we flit along the beach—One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud black and swift across the sky,

Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds

Stand out the white light-houses high.

Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,

As fast we flit along the beach—

One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;He starts not at my fitful song,Or flash of fluttering drapery;He has no thought of any wrong,He scans me with a fearless eye.Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,The little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,

Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;

He starts not at my fitful song,

Or flash of fluttering drapery;

He has no thought of any wrong,

He scans me with a fearless eye.

Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,

The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-nightWhen the loosed storm breaks furiously?My driftwood fire will burn so bright!To what warm shelter canst thou fly?I do not fear for thee, though wrothThe tempest rushes through the sky;For are we not God’s children both,Thou, little sandpiper and I?

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night

When the loosed storm breaks furiously?

My driftwood fire will burn so bright!

To what warm shelter canst thou fly?

I do not fear for thee, though wroth

The tempest rushes through the sky;

For are we not God’s children both,

Thou, little sandpiper and I?

Before the middle of the eighteenth century the current of events in the American colonies became rapid and impetuous. Many obstacles were met, but the swollen stream rushed on, leaping over, or dashing aside the barriers that seemed to accelerate, rather than hinder the progress.

But a crisis was at hand, and the danger grew apparent.

England and France, rival nations, and often in conflict, both had extensive possessions in this country, and their rights were in dispute. The English occupied the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, and their colonies were well established. As yet all their important settlements were east of the Allegheny Mountains, though they claimed, as their right by discovery, all the land westward to the Pacific.

Meanwhile, the French had made important inland settlements, occupying principally the valley of the St. Lawrence and some of its tributaries. They had built Quebec and Montreal, more than 500 miles from the gulf, with other towns of importance; had fortified themselves at different points along the great chain of lakes, from Ontario to Superior; had penetrated the wilderness of western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, fixing their stations and building forts on all the more important tributaries of the Mississippi, with the evident and avowed intention of connecting their St. Lawrence and Canadian possessions with the great western valley; and, through the large rivers that drain it, find their way to the sea. They would thus confine the English to the Atlantic States, and found their empire in the West. Comparatively little intercourse as there was between the East and West, these designs were well understood, and the resolute purpose to thwart them was at once avowed. The nations beyond the Atlantic were nominally at peace, but not friendly, and neither disposed to yield to the claims of the other. France, dominated by Roman Catholics, and England, the leading Protestant nation of Europe, had nurtured hatred and jealousies that might any day precipitate a conflict of arms, and the theater of the strife would be in their colonial possessions.

But before war was declared the colonists themselves became involved in actual hostilities. The English had adjusted their difficulties, and, confederate by articles of agreement and a strong national feeling, refused to be restrained by the mountain barriers. Two settlements were begun west of the Alleghenies, one on the Youghiogheny, and one in some part of western Virginia. Their relations with the Indians were friendly, and trade with them was profitable. The French, who had taken possession of the valley of the Ohio, and were doing their utmost to secure the influence of the Indians in all the region between the river and the lakes, protested against the encroachment of the English, and warned the Governor of Pennsylvania to restrain his subjects from entering territory claimed by the King of France. Of course no attention was paid to the warning other than appeared in preparations for the conflict that now seemed inevitable. The “Ohio Company,” composed of Virginians, continued to explore and survey the country. The natives protested against the French occupying their country, and the tribes prepared for an armed resistance. The Virginia charter included the whole country north to Lake Erie, and Governor Dinwiddy thought best, before hostilities were begun, to draw up a remonstrance, setting forth in order, the nature and extent of the English claim to the valley of the Ohio, and warning the French against any further attempt to occupy it. It was necessary that this paper, whatever danger and hardship it might require, should be carried to the French General St. Pierre, who was stationed at Erie, as commander of their forces in the West. The journey, that could be performed only on foot, would be through a vast, unbroken wilderness, and would require more than ordinary endurance, as well as undaunted courage. George Washington, then a young surveyor, was sent for from his home on the Potomac, and duly commissioned to carry the document. He set out on the last day of October, with four attendants and an interpreter. The route was through the mountains to the head waters of the Youghiogheny, thence down the stream to the site of Pittsburgh, which was noted as an important point, and the key to the situation in the valley of the Ohio. Thence the course was twenty miles down the river, and across to Venango (Franklin), and thence, by way of Meadville, to Fort Le Bœuf, on the head waters of French Creek, fourteen miles from Erie, where he met the General, who had come over in person to superintend the fortifications.

The officer received him with courtesy, but declined to discuss any questions of national rights. “His superior, the Governor of Canada, owned the country from the lakes to the Ohio; and being instructed to drive every Englishman from the territory, he would do it.” A respectful but decided reply was sent to Dinwiddy, and Washington was dismissed, to find his way back to Virginia.

It was by this time midwinter, and the perils of the long journey were increased by swollen rivers that had to be crossed on the treacherous ice, or on rafts constructed of logs and poles cut for the purpose. Of the incidents of that first great public service by the “Father of his Country,” but few authentic records are found, and we only know that it was performed with fidelity, and that the fuller information gathered respecting the strength of the French forces, and their preparations for descending the Allegheny with their large fleet of boats and canoes, in the spring, thoroughly aroused the Virginians to the importance of holding the point at the confluence of the great rivers forming the Ohio. In March, and before it was possible for the French to come down the Allegheny, a rude stockade was built; but there was not force enough to hold it. As the fleet came sweeping down the river, and resistance was found impossible, the little band at the head of the Ohio surrendered, and was allowed to withdraw from the stockade, which the enemy at once entered, and where they laid the foundations of Fort Du Quesne. Remonstrance and negotiations having failed, the alternative of war was promptly accepted, and Washington having been made Colonel, was commissioned to take the fort, “to kill or repel all who interfered with the English settlements in the disputed territory.” His regiment of Virginia soldiers, in the month of April, encountered difficulties and hardships in their westward march that made progress slow.

The roads were well nigh impassable, the streams were bridgeless, and drenching rains fell on the tentless soldiers. Before reaching the Ohio, Washington learned that the enemy were on the march to attack him, and immediately built a stockade that he called Fort Necessity. He advanced cautiously, with some heavy skirmishing, in which a number of the enemy were killed, and some prisoners were taken. But the promised reinforcements not arriving, he fell back to his little fort, and was scarcely within the rude enclosure when he was surrounded. The enemy in force gained an eminence, from which they could fire into the fort, while they were partly concealed. For hours, the gallant little band, encouraged by the calm, resolute bearing of their colonel, vigorously returned the fire. Thirty of the company were killed, and others wounded, when they were allowed to withdraw, taking all their stores and equipage. The retreat was orderly, but the enterprise was abandoned.

The valley of the Ohio and the whole country to the lakes was left in the power of the French, who were also strengthening their works at Crown Point and Fort Niagara.

As yet there had been no declaration of war by England or France, and the ministers of the two countries kept assuring each other of peaceful intentions, though the hostility of their dependencies in America could not be ignored. Louis XV., to help keep the peace, sent an army of three thousand soldiersto Canada, and the British government ordered General Braddock, with two regiments, to America, to protect their frontier settlements. Early in the spring of 1755 this force reached the Chesapeake, and in April Braddock held a council with all the Governors, at Alexandria. As there had been no formal declaration of war they would not invade Canada, but repel the French from the northern and western frontier. Vigorous and concerted measures, however, were to be employed. Governor Lawrence was to settle and guard the boundaries of Nova Scotia. Johnson, of New York, with his militia and a force of Mohawks, hired for the purpose, was to capture the French post at Crown Point, while Shirley, of Massachusetts, was to drive the enemy from their fortress at Niagara; and Braddock himself as commander-in-chief, with the main body of the regulars, was to subdue Fort Du Quesne. It was a magnificent program, but easier to plan than to execute; and those so full of confidence were to encounter some sad reverses.

Braddock’s army numbered about 2,000, nearly all veterans who had served in the wars of Europe. There were few provincial troops; two companies led by Gates, of New York, and Washington, joining the army at Fort Cumberland, was placed on Braddock’s staff as aid-de-camp. The movement was necessarily slow. Over a narrow and exceedingly rough road the slender column stretched out for some four miles. Braddock was a brave, resolute general, acquainted with his army, but ignorant of the country and the forces he would have to meet.

Franklin and others had suggested that it would be wise to move cautiously. But he scouted the idea that the assault of untutored savages that might be encountered before reaching the fort he proposed to capture, could make any impression on his regulars. When Washington, understanding the modes of Indian warfare, suggested the possibility of an ambuscade, the General was furious, and indignantly refused to be advised by an inferior. They had advanced without any noteworthy casualty till within about seven miles of the fort, and no enemy yet appeared. Confident of speedy success, Braddock, at the head of twelve hundred chosen troops, pressed on more rapidly, Colonel Gage, leading a detachment of three hundred men, in the advance. The road was but twelve feet wide, the country uneven and thickly wooded; a hill on the one hand and a dry ravine on the other, the whole region covered with a thick undergrowth. A few scouts were thrown forward, but the situation gave no opportunity for the feeble flanking parties to act. Suddenly there was a sharp, rapid fire of musketry heard in the front. The scouts were killed or driven in. The advance forces were thrown back in confusion, leaving their cannon in the hands of the enemy, who were found to be an unexpectedly strong force of both French and Indians. The peril of the situation was at once apparent, and, suffering much from their concealed foe, Gage’s men wavered and became confusedly mixed in thickest underbrush with a regiment that Braddock pushed forward to support them. The confusion grew almost to a panic, the men firing constantly, with but little effect, in the direction of the concealed enemy, while their well directed volleys, from under the cover of rocks and trees, told with terrible effect on the English crowded together in the narrow roadway. The rash, but brave General rushed to the front, and with impetuous courage rallied his men to charge on the foe. But it was impossible. They, panic-stricken, were huddled together like sheep, or fled in disorder to the rear. The army routed, his aids and officers mostly killed or wounded, and the forest strewn with dead or disabled soldiers, the General, after having five horses shot under him, fell mortally wounded. To Washington, who came to his aid, the fallen hero said: “What shall we do now, Colonel?” “Retreat, sir, retreat!” This was ordered, and the dying General carried from the scene of carnage. Washington, with the Virginians that remained alive, covered the hasty retreat of the ruined army. Nearly everything was lost. The artillery, baggage, provisions and private papers of the officers were left on the field. Braddock died the fourth day, and was buried by the roadside, a mile west of Fort Necessity, where Dunbar had been left, an officer with neither capacity nor courage. When the fugitives, who had not been pursued far from the battleground, reached, his camp, the panic was communicated; he destroyed the remaining artillery, baggage and army stores, to the value of a hundred thousand pounds sterling, and joined in a most precipitate retreat to Fort Cumberland, and thence, in a thoroughly demoralized condition, to Philadelphia. Thus, the main army, of which much was expected, was in a few days practically destroyed, and nothing more was attempted that year.

The work of subduing the French in Nova Scotia, assigned by Braddock and the Governors to Lawrence, assisted by the English fleet under Colonel Monckton, was done with dispatch and unparalleled cruelty.

The province had been ceded to the English in the treaty of 1713, and, remaining under the dominion of Great Britain, was ruled by English officers, though the inhabitants were largely French.

The French forts near the New Brunswick line being taken after but feeble resistance, the English were masters of the whole country east of the St. Croix; and, pretending to fear an insurrection on the part of the Nova Scotians, or Acadians, adopted measures with them that have always and everywhere met with the most unqualified condemnation. The French in the province outnumbered the English three to one, and had their pleasant homes in that oldest settlement of their people on the continent. They were ruthlessly torn from their homes and the graves of their kindred, driven at the point of the bayonet, forced on ship-board, and more than three thousand of them, half-starved and destitute, were scattered here and there among English colonists, from whom but little kindness and less of fellowship could be expected. The guilty agents in the infamous transaction, as cowardly as it was inhuman, made themselves the scorn of mankind.

In about the only quarter where the British army had that year any success, what followed the victory was so shocking to the feelings of humanity, and met with such universal condemnation, that even the guilty perpetrators of the deed would have blotted the record if they could.

The campaign planned for Shirley, who with his Indian allies was to take Fort Niagara, was about as utter a failure as that of Braddock. The fort had no great strength, and was not well garrisoned; but it was a month before he reached Oswego, where his provincials were to assemble. Four weeks were spent in getting his boats ready. A storm caused farther delay, and after the storm the wind was in the contrary direction. Then another storm caused delay. Sickness prevailed in camp, and by the first of October Shirley declared the lake too dangerous for navigation. The Indians deserted his standard. The fact was that while on the march, news of Braddock’s defeat reached him, and, as they had expected to meet at Niagara, he feared to go there, thinking the same fate might await him. So he marched homeward, without striking a blow.

Johnson, who was to attack the enemy at Crown Point, had better success, though the objective point was not reached, and his was a dear-bought victory. His movements were all anticipated, and the portion of his army led by Williams, ambushed and cut to pieces. Several hundred Englishmen fell. The French still held Crown Point, and had seized and fortified Ticonderoga.

That was a year of disasters to the English, and so was the next. The Indians, doubtless influenced by the unsuccessful campaign of the English, and perhaps instigated by French emissaries, had killed more than 1,000 people.

In May, 1756, after two years of actual hostilities, war was declared. The English, chagrined with the reverses of the past year, and in danger of losing all the territory west of the Alleghenies, after much debate in Parliament, decided to placeall the military forces sent to America under one command. A large army was equipped, and Lord Loudon placed in command. He proved unfit for the position, and another year passed with great losses and little or nothing gained. The French, led by competent, determined men, were everywhere successful, and wasted the British forces with repeated assaults, capturing or destroying a large part of the armament, till the English had not a single fort or hamlet remaining in the valley of the St. Lawrence. And every cabin where English was spoken was swept out of the valley of the Ohio. At the end of the year France seemed to be in secure possession of twenty times as much territory in America as her British rival.

Her colonial possessions endangered, and the flag of the country in disgrace, the ministers were forced to resign, and the great commoner, William Pitt, became Prime Minister. The dilatory, imbecile Loudon, was deposed, and Abercrombie put in his place, with Lord Howe next in rank. The gallant Wolfe led a brigade. The campaign for the summer was well arranged and prosecuted with energy. In May Amhurst, at the head of ten thousand men, reached Halifax. A few days after the fleet was in Gabarus Bay, and Wolfe landed his division without serious loss, though under fire from the enemy’s batteries. The French dismantled their guns and retreated. The siege of Louisburg was pressed with great vigor. Four French vessels, one a seventy-four-gun ship, were fired by the English boats, and burned in the harbor. The town and fortress became a ruin. Resistance was hopeless, and Louisburg capitulated. The garrison, with the marines, in all six thousand men, became prisoners of war, and were sent to England. Cape Breton and Prince Edward’s Island were surrendered to Great Britain.

In another quarter, however, there was not long after only partial success, followed by severe disaster. General Abercrombie, with 15,000 men, reached Lake George, and embarked for Ticonderoga. His equipment was in all respects thorough. Proceeding to the northern extremity of the lake, they landed safely on the western shore. But the difficulty of going farther compelled them to leave the heavy artillery behind, Lord Howe leading the advance in person. Before reaching the fort, in a sharp skirmish with the pickets, that brave officer was killed. The French were overwhelmed, but the soldiers of Howe, smitten with grief, began to retreat. Abercrombie was in the rear with the main army, but the soul of the expedition was gone. Two days after a determined effort was made to take the fort by assault. The defences proved much stronger than was expected, and the assailing parties were again and again repulsed with great loss. The unavailing efforts were continued for four hours, and then they withdrew, having lost in killed and wounded nearly two thousand men. Probably in no other battle on the continent did the English have so many men engaged, or suffer such terrible loss. Abandoning this enterprise as hopeless, the army was withdrawn to Fort George, at the other extremity of the lake. Thence Colonel Bradstreet was sent with three thousand men, mostly provincials, against Fort Frontenac, at the present site of Kingston, at the outlet of Ontario. He embarked his command at Oswego, and landed within a mile of the fort. This fortress, of great importance, was at the time but feebly garrisoned, and after two days’ siege capitulated. Forty-six cannon, nine vessels of war, and a vast quantity of military stores were the fruit of this victory. It compensated the English for all their losses at Ticonderoga, except for the men who were there sacrificed. It was a crushing defeat for the French, who became disheartened. Their crops had failed, and with almost a famine in the land, it became so difficult to subsist the army that the people clamored for peace. “Peace, peace; no matter with what boundaries,” was the message sent by the brave Montcalm to the French ministry.

The outlook in Canada and along the lakes was not encouraging, and Forbes, with nine thousand men from Philadelphia, undertook the reduction of Fort Du Quesne, and the expulsion of the French from the valley of the Ohio.

Washington was again in command of the Virginians, Armstrong led the Pennsylvanians. An advance section, under Major Grant, more eager than wise, was attacked by the enemy in ambush, and lost heavily. The main column came on slowly, cutting roads and bridging streams, but in such force that, as they drew near, those in the fort became alarmed, burned their works, and with what they could carry, floated down the river. Those eager for the assault, and to avenge injuries received in former attempts, marched, unopposed, over the ruins, and unfurled their flag over that gateway of the West, calling it, in honor of the great British minister, whose energetic measures gave confidence to the army and hope to the colonists—Pittsburgh.

Marked progress was made during the summer and fall campaign, and Parliament voted twelve million pounds sterling for carrying on the war. The colonial magistrates exerted themselves to the utmost, and by the spring of 1759 the whole effective force of the English was near fifty thousand, while the entire French army was less than eight thousand.

The conquest of Canada was not at first contemplated, but it had become evident that the rival nations could not live in peace, with such slight natural barriers between them, and so Canada must be conquered and made a British province. With that object in view, the campaigns for the year were planned.

Prideaux proceeded against Niagara, for the relief of which the French collected all their available forces from Detroit, Erie, Le Bœuf and Venango. Prideaux was accidentally killed on the 15th, and Sir William Johnson, on whom the command devolved, so disposed his forces as to intercept the approaching French, and a bloody battle was fought in which they were completely routed; the fort soon after capitulated.

Amhurst was victorious on Lake Champlain, and proceeded through Lake George, to attack and take Ticonderoga, from which, after feeble resistance, the enemy withdrew to Crown Point, and the whole region, mapped out for his operations, was recovered, with but little loss on his part.

The French were now sadly crippled everywhere, except in the valley of the St. Lawrence, and it remained for General Wolfe to achieve the final victory. As soon as the river was navigable in the spring he proceeded with a force of eight thousand men, and a fleet of forty-four vessels. He arrived on the 27th of June at the Isle of Orleans, four miles below Quebec, and began his operations vigorously. His camp was located on the upper end of the island, and the fleet gave him immediate command of the river. On the night of the 29th General Monckton was sent to plant a battery on Point Levi, opposite the city, and was successful.

The lower town was soon reduced to ruins, and the upper much injured, but the fortress seemed unharmed. The French knowing that the city could not be stormed from the river side, had constructed three defences, reaching five miles from the Montmorenci to the St. Charles, and in these entrenchments the brave Montcalm, with ten or twelve thousand soldiers, awaited the movement of his assailants. Anxious for battle, though there were serious difficulties in the way of approaching the foe, it was decided to risk an engagement by fording the Montmorenci when the tide ran out. The attempt was made without success, and with the loss of nearly five hundred men. Disappointments, fatigue and exposure threw the English general into a fever that held him prisoner in the tent for some days; and when convalescent he proposed another assault on the lines of defence, but was in that overruled, and it was determined, if possible, to gain possession of the Plains of Abraham in the rear of the city, without passing the fortifications. After thorough examination a place, afterward called Wolfe’s Cove, was found, where it was thought possible to make the ascent. On the night appointed, everything beingin readiness, the English entered their transports, quietly dropped down to the place, and with almost superhuman exertions ascended to the plain, and the morning revealed them to the greatly astonished defenders of the city, drawn up in battle array.

When Montcalm learned the fact so unexpected, he said: “They are now on the weak side of this unfortunate city, and we must crush them before noon.” With great haste he withdrew his army from the trenches and threw them between the English and the city. The battle began with an hour’s cannonade, and then the attempt to turn the English flank, but he was driven back. The weakened ranks of the French wavered. Wolfe led his charge in person, and was shot thrice, and survived but a short time. Learning from an attendant that the enemy fled, he gave directions for securing the fruits of the battle, and declared he was happy thus to die. Montcalm also fell early in the battle, mortally wounded, and when told by his surgeon that the end was near, said: “It is well—then I shall not live to see Quebec surrendered.” The surrender took place a few days after, and the last resistance was offered by the French at Montreal, but it was hopeless and of short continuance. The remnants of their beaten armies collected there, to the number of ten thousand, were surrendered to General Amhurst, and all the French possessions in America were ceded to the English. Liberal terms were granted, the rights of conscience respected, and the ecclesiastical institutions and property of the Catholics respected and protected.

[End of Required Reading for May.]

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