"Nothing in it!" cried he triumphantly, after a moment's deliberation. "The evil is only in idea. Such is the boasted reason of mortals!" With that reflection, nevertheless, he was about to withdraw his feet from their voluntary dilemma, when the crazy stick suddenly gave way, and the partition fell back into its clasp. Doctor Riccabocca was fairly caught—"Facitis descensus—sed revocare gradum!" True, his hands were at liberty, but his legs were so long that, being thus fixed, they kept the hands from the rescue; and as Dr. Riccabocca's form was by no means supple, and the twin parts of the wood stuck together with that firmness of adhesion which things newly painted possess, so, after some vain twists and contortions, in which he succeeded at length (not without a stretch of the sinews that made them crack again) in finding the clasp and breaking his nails thereon, the victim of his own rash experiment resigned himself to his fate. Dr. Riccabocca was one of those men who never do things by halves. When I say he resigned himself, I mean not only Christian but philosophical resignation. The position was not quite so pleasant as, theoretically, he had deemed it; but he resolved to make himself as comfortable as he could. And first, as is natural in all troubles to men who have grown familiar with that odoriferous comforter which Sir Walter Raleigh is said first to have bestowed upon the Caucasian races, the Doctor made use of his hands to extract from his pocket his pipe, match-box, and tobacco-pouch. After a few whiffs he would have been quite reconciled to his situation, but for the discovery that the sun had shifted its place in the heavens, and was no longer shaded from his face by the elm-tree. The Doctor again looked round, and perceived that his red silk umbrella, which he had laid aside when he had seated himself by Lenny, was within arm's reach. Possessing himself of this treasure, he soon expanded its friendly folds. And thus doubly fortified within and without, under shade of the umbrella, and his pipe composedly between his lips, Dr. Riccabocca gazed on his own incarcerated legs, even with complacency.
"'He who can despise all things,'" said he, in one of his native proverbs, "'possesses all things'—if one despise freedom, one is free! This seat is as soft as a sofa! I am not sure," he resumed, soliloquizing, after a pause—"I am not sure that there is not something more witty than manly and philosophical in that national proverb of mine, which I quoted to thefanciullo, that there are no handsome prisons! Did not the son of that celebrated Frenchman, surnamedBras de Fer, write a book not only to prove that adversities are more necessary than prosperities, but that among all adversities a prison is the most pleasant and profitable?[32]But is not this condition of mine, voluntarily and experimentally incurred, a type of my life? Is it the first time that I have thrust myself into a hobble?—and if in a hobble of mine own choosing, why should I blame the gods?"
Upon this Dr. Riccabocca fell into a train of musing so remote from time and place, that in a few minutes he no more remembered that he was in the parish stocks, than a lover remembers that flesh is grass, a miser that mammon is perishable, a philosopher that wisdom is vanity.—Dr. Riccabocca was in the clouds.
The dullest dog that ever wrote a novel (and,entre nous, reader—but let it go no farther—we have a good many dogs among the fraternity that are not Munitos[33]) might have seen with half an eye that the Parson's discourse had produced a very genial and humanizing effect upon his audience. When all was over, and the congregation stood up to let Mr. Hazeldean and his family walk first down the aisle (for that was the custom at Hazeldean), moistened eyes glanced at the Squire's sunburned, manly face, with a kindness that bespoke revived memory of many a generous benefit and ready service. The head might be wrong now and then—the heart was in the right place after all. And the lady, leaning on his arm, came in for a large share of that gracious good feeling. True, she now and then gave a little offence when the cottages were not so clean as she fancied they ought to be—and poor folks don't like a liberty taken with their houses any more than the rich do; true, that she was not quite so popular with the women as the Squire was, for, if the husband went too often to the alehouse, she always laid the fault on the wife, and said, "No man would go out of doors for his comforts, if he had a smiling face and a clean hearth at his home;" whereas the Squire maintained the more gallantopinion, that "if Gill was a shrew, it was because Jack did not, as in duty bound, stop her mouth with a kiss." Still, notwithstanding these more obnoxious notions on her part, and a certain awe inspired by the stiff silk gown and the handsome aquiline nose, it was impossible, especially in the softened tempers of that Sunday afternoon, not to associate the honest, comely, beaming countenance of Mrs. Hazeldean with comfortable recollections of soups, jellies, and wine in sickness, loaves and blankets in winter, cheering words and ready visits in every little distress, and pretexts afforded by improvement in the grounds and gardens (improvements which, as the Squire, who preferred productive labor, justly complained, "would never finish") for little timely jobs of work to some veteran grandsire, who still liked to earn a penny, or some ruddy urchin in a family that "came too fast." Nor was Frank, as he walked a little behind, in the whitest of trousers and the stiffest of neckcloths—with a look of suppressed roguery in his bright hazel eye, that contrasted his assumed stateliness of mien—without his portion of the silent blessing. Not that he had done any thing yet to deserve it; but we all give youth so large a credit in the future. As for Miss Jemima, her trifling foibles only rose from too soft and feminine a susceptibility, too ivy-like a yearning for some masculine oak, whereon to entwine her tendrils; and so little confined to self was the natural lovingness of her disposition, that she had helped many a village lass to find a husband, by the bribe of a marriage gift from her own privy purse; notwithstanding the assurances with which she accompanied the marriage gift,—viz., that "the bridegroom would turn out like the rest of his ungrateful sex; but that it was a comfort to think that it would be all one in the approaching crash." So that she had her warm partisans, especially amongst the young; while the slim Captain, on whose arm she rested her forefinger, was at least a civilspoken gentleman, who had never done any harm, and who would doubtless do a deal of good if he belonged to the parish. Nay, even the fat footman, who came last with the family Prayer-book, had his due share in the general association of neighborly kindness between hall and hamlet. Few were there present to whom he had not extended the right-hand of fellowship, with a full horn of October in the clasp of it: and he was a Hazeldean man, too, born and bred, as two-thirds of the Squire's household (now letting themselves out from their large pew under the gallery) were.
On his part, too, you could see that the Squire was "moved withal," and a little humbled moreover. Instead of walking erect, and taking bow and courtesy as matter of course, and of no meaning, he hung his head somewhat, and there was a slight blush on his cheek; and as he glanced upward and round him—shyly, as it were—and his eye met those friendly looks, it returned them with an earnestness that had in it something touching as well as cordial—an eye that said, as well as eye could say, "I don't quite deserve it, I fear, neighbors; but I thank you for your good-will with my whole heart." And so readily was that glance of the eye understood, that I think, if that scene had taken place out of doors instead of in the church, there would have been an hurrah as the Squire passed out of sight.
Scarcely had Mr. Hazeldean got well out of the churchyard, ere Mr. Stirn was whispering in his ear. As Stirn whispered, the Squire's face grew long, and his color changed. The congregation, now flocking out of the church, exchanged looks with each other; that ominous conjunction between Squire and man chilled back all the effects of the Parson's sermon. The Squire struck his cane violently into the ground. "I would rather you had told me Black Bess had got the glanders. A young gentleman, coming to visit my son, struck and insulted in Hazeldean; a young gentleman—'sdeath, sir, a relation—his grandmother was a Hazeldean. I do believe Jemima's right, and the world's coming to an end! But Leonard Fairfield in the stocks! What will the Parson say? and after such a sermon! 'Rich man, respect the poor!' And the good widow, too; and poor Mark, who almost died in my arms. Stirn, you have a heart of stone! You confounded, lawless, merciless miscreant, who the deuce gave you the right to imprison man or boy in my parish of Hazeldean without trial, sentence, or warrant? Run and let the boy out before any one sees him: run, or I shall"—The Squire elevated his cane, and his eyes shot fire. Mr. Stirn did not run, but he walked off very fast. The Squire drew back a few paces, and again took his wife's arm. "Just wait a bit for the Parson, while I talk to the congregation. I want to stop 'em all, if I can, from going into the village; but how?"
Frank heard, and replied readily—
"Give 'em some beer, sir."
"Beer! on a Sunday! For shame, Frank!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean.
"Hold your tongue, Harry. Thank you Frank," said the Squire, and his brow grew as clear as the blue sky above him. I doubt if Riccabocca could have got him out of his dilemma with the same ease as Frank had done.
"Halt there, my men—lads and lasses too—there, halt a bit. Mrs. Fairfield, do you hear?—halt! I think his reverence has given us a capital sermon. Go up to the Great House all of you, and drink a glass to his health. Frank, go with them; and tell Spruce to tap one of the casks kept for the hay-makers. Harry, [this in whisper,] catch the Parson, and tell him to come to me instantly."
"My dear Hazeldean, what has happened? you are mad."
"Don't bother—do what I tell you."
"But where is the Parson to find you?"
"Where, gad zooks, Mrs. H.—at the stocks to be sure!"
Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his reverie by the sound of footsteps, was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he enjoyed exceedingly, and with all the malice of his natural humor, the astonishment and stupor manifested by Stirn, when that functionary beheld the extraordinary substitute which fate and philosophy had found for Lenny Fairfield. Instead of the weeping, crushed, broken-hearted captive whom he had reluctantly come to deliver, he stared, speechless and aghast, upon the grotesque but tranquil figure of the Doctor, enjoying his pipe and cooling himself under his umbrella, with asang-froidthat was truly appalling and diabolical. Indeed, considering that Stirn always suspected the Papisher of having had a hand in the whole of that black and midnight business, in which the stocks had been broken, bunged up, and consigned to perdition, and that the Papisher had the evil reputation of dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which the Lenny he had incarcerated was transformed into the Doctor he found, conjoined with the peculiarly strange, eldritch, and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dismay into the breast of the parochial tyrant. While to his first confused and stammered exclamations and interrogatories, Riccabocca replied with so tragic an air, such ominous shakes of the head, such mysterious, equivocating, long-worded sentences, that Stirn every moment felt more and more convinced that the boy had sold himself to the Powers of Darkness; and that he himself, prematurely, and in the flesh, stood face to face with the Arch-Enemy.
Mr. Stirn had not yet recovered his wonted intelligence, which, to do him justice, was usually prompt enough—when the Squire, followed hard by the Parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean's report of the Squire's urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale's ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the Squire, sharing Stirn's amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from the stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Doctor Riccabocca, under the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale, catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never before been known to display—except at the whist-table:—
"Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized—I am shocked at you. I can bear a great deal from you, sir, as I ought to do; but to ask my whole congregation, the moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle ale at the Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman's sermon had been a speech at a cattle-fair! I am ashamed of you, and of the parish! What on earth has come to you all?"
"That's the very question I wish to heaven I could answer," groaned the Squire, quite mildly and pathetically—"What on earth has come to us all? Ask Stirn:" (then bursting out) "Stirn, you infernal rascal, don't you hear?—what on earth has come to us all?"
"The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir," said Stirn, provoked out of all temper. "I does my duty, but I is but a mortal man, arter all."
"A mortal fiddlestick—where's Leonard Fairfield, I say?"
"Himknows best," answered Stirn, retreating mechanically, for safety's sake, behind the Parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though both the Squire and Parson had indeed recognized the Italian, they had merely supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered their heads that so respectable and dignified a man could by any possibility be an inmate, compelled or voluntary, of the parish stocks. No, not even though, as I before said, the Squire had seen, just under his nose, a very long pair of soles inserted in the apertures—that sight had only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied as it ought to have been with the trunk and face of Lenny Fairfield. Those soles seemed to him optical delusions, phantoms of the overheated brain; but now, catching hold of Stirn, while the Parson in equal astonishment caught hold of him—the Squire faltered out, "Well, this beats cock-fighting! The man's as mad as a March hare, and has taken Dr. Rickeybockey for little Lenny!"
"Perhaps," said the Doctor, breaking silence, with a bland smile, and attempting an inclination of the head as courteous as his position would permit—"perhaps, if it be quite the same to you, before you proceed to explanations,—you will just help me out of the stocks."
The Parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not repress a smile, as he approached his learned friend, and bent down for the purpose of extricating him.
"Lord love your reverence, you'd better not!" cried Mr. Stirn. "Don't be tempted—he only wants to get you into his claws. I would not go a-near him for all the—"
The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, who now, thanks to the Parson, had risen into his full height, and half a head taller than all present—even than the tall Squire—approached Mr. Stirn, with a gracious wave of the hand. Mr. Stirn retreated rapidly towards the hedge, amidst the brambles of which he plunged himself incontinently.
"I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn," said the Italian, lifting his hat with his characteristic politeness. "It is certainly a great honor: but you will know better one of these days, when the gentleman in question admits you to a personal interview in another and—a hotter world."
"But how on earth did you get into my new stocks?" asked the Squire, scratching his head.
"My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna."
"Did he, and what for?"
"To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Riccabocca.
The Squire burst out a-laughing.
"And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like. Well, I can't wonder—it is a very handsome pair of stocks," continued the Squire, with a loving look at the object of his praise. "Nobody need be ashamed of being seen in those stocks—I should not mind it myself."
"We had better move on," said the Parson dryly, "or we shall be having the whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the same predicament as that from which we have just extricated the Doctor. Now pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield? I can't understand a word of what has passed. You don't mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield (who was absent from church by the by) can have done any thing to get into disgrace?"
"Yes, he has though," cried the Squire. "Stirn, I say—Stirn." But Stirn had forced his way through the hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own powers of narrative at second-hand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he had to communicate: the assault upon Randal Leslie, and the prompt punishment inflicted by Stirn; his own indignation at the affront to his young kinsman, and his good-natured merciful desire to save the culprit from the addition of public humiliation.
The Parson, mollified towards the rude and hasty invention of the beer-drinking, took the Squire by the hand. "Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive me," he said repentantly; "I ought to have known at once that it was only some ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of decorum. But this is a sad story about Lenny, brawling and fighting on the Sabbath-day. So unlike him, too—I don't know what to make of it."
"Like or unlike," said the Squire, "it has been a gross insult to young Leslie; and looks all the worse because I and Audley are not just the best friends in the world. I can't think what it is," continued Mr. Hazeldean, musingly, "but it seems that there must be always some association of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine. There was I, son of his own mother—who might have been shot through the lungs, only the ball lodged in the shoulder—and now his wife's kinsman—my kinsman, too—grandmother of a Hazeldean—a hard-reading sober lad, as I am given to understand, can't set his foot into the quietest parish in the three kingdoms, but what the mildest boy that ever was seen—makes a rush at him like a mad bull. It isFatality!" cried the Squire solemnly.
"Ancient legend records similar instances of fatality in certain houses," observed Riccabocca. "There was the House of Pelops—and Polynices and Eteocles—the sons of Œdipus!"
"Pshaw," said the Parson; "but what's to be done?"
"Done?" said the Squire; "why, reparation must be made to young Leslie. And though I wished to spare Lenny, the young ruffian, a public disgrace—for your sake, Parson Dale, and Mrs. Fairfield's;—yet a good caning in private—"
"Stop, sir!" said Riccabocca mildly, "and hear me." The Italian then, with much feeling and considerable tact, pleaded the cause of his poor protégé, and explained how Lenny's error arose only from mistaken zeal for the Squire's service, and in the execution of the orders received from Mr. Stirn.
"That alters the matter," said the Squire, softened; "and all that is necessary now will be for him to make a proper apology to my kinsman."
"Yes, that is just," rejoined the Parson; "but I still don't learn how he got out of the stocks."
Riccabocca then resumed his tale; and, after confessing his own principal share in Lenny's escape, drew a moving picture of the boy's shame and honest mortification. "Let us march against Philip!" cried the Athenians when they heard Demosthenes—
"Let us go at once and comfort the child!" cried the Parson, before Riccabocca could finish.
With that benevolent intention, all three quickened their pace, and soon arrived at the widow's cottage. But Lenny had caught sight of their approach through the window; and not doubting that, in spite of Riccabocca's intercession, the Parson was come to upbraid, and the Squire to re-imprison, he darted out by the back way, got amongst the woods, and lay thereperduall the evening. Nay, it was not till after dark that his mother—who sat wringing her hands in the little kitchen and trying in vain to listen to the Parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the mother—heard a timid knock at the door and a nervous fumble at the latch. She started up, opened the door, and Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried his face, sobbing loud.
"No harm, my boy," said the Parson tenderly; "you have nothing to fear—all is explained and forgiven."
Lenny looked up, and the veins on his forehead were much swollen. "Sir," said he sturdily, "I don't want to be forgiven—I ain't done no wrong. And—I've been disgraced—and I won't go to school, never no more."
"Hush, Carry!" said the Parson to his wife, who, with the usual liveliness of her little temper, was about to expostulate. "Good night, Mrs. Fairfield. I shall come and talk to you to-morrow, Lenny; by that time you will think better of it."
The Parson then conducted his wife home, and went up to the Hall to report Lenny's safe return; for the Squire was very uneasy about him, and had even in person shared the search.As soon as he heard Lenny was safe—"Well," said the Squire, "let him go the first thing in the morning to Rood Hall, to ask Master Leslie's pardon, and all will be right and smooth again."
"A young villain!" cried Frank, with his cheeks the color of scarlet; "to strike a gentleman and an Etonian, who had just been to call onme! But I wonder Randal let him off so well—any other boy in the sixth form would have killed him!"
"Frank," said the Parson sternly, "if we all had our deserts, what should be done to him who not only lets the sun go down on his own wrath, but strives with uncharitable breath to fan the dying embers of another's?"
The clergyman here turned away from Frank, who bit his lip, and seemed abashed—while even his mother said not a word in his exculpation; for when the Parson did reprove in that stern tone, the majesty of the Hall stood awed before the rebuke of the Church. Catching Riccabocca's inquisitive eye, Mr. Dale drew aside the philosopher, and whispered to him his fears that it would be a very hard matter to induce Lenny to beg Randal Leslie's pardon, and that the proud stomach of the pattern-boy would not digest the stocks with as much ease as a long regimen of philosophy had enabled the sage to do. This conference Miss Jemima soon interrupted by a direct appeal to the Doctor respecting the number of years (even without any previous and more violent incident) that the world could possibly withstand its own wear and tear.
"Ma'am," said the Doctor, reluctantly summoned away to look at a passage in some prophetic periodical upon that interesting subject—"ma'am, it is very hard that you should make one remember the end of the world, since, in conversing with you, one's natural temptation is to forget its existence."
Miss Jemima blushed scarlet. Certainly that deceitful heartless compliment justified all her contempt for the male sex; and yet—such is human blindness—it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous and too confiding soul.
"He is about to propose," sighed Miss Jemima.
"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he drew on his nightcap, and stepped majestically into the four-posted bed, "I think we shall get that boy for the garden now!"
Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round the Hazeldean whirligig.
Hume, the historian, was a competitor with Burke for the professorship of logic in the University of Glasgow, made vacant by the appointment of Adam Smith to the chair of moral philosophy. The place was given to a Mr. Clow, who owes the perpetuation of his name thus long to the distinguished rivals whom he distanced, and the illustrious professor whom he succeeded.
FOOTNOTES:[30]Du Credit et des Banques, Paris, 1848.[31]Un des plus beaux ouvrages assurément qu'on ait publiés sur le credit.—Journal des Economistes.[32]"Entre tout, l'état d'une prison est le plus doux, et le plus profitable!"[33]Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Porson of a dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such dogs now-a-days.
[30]Du Credit et des Banques, Paris, 1848.
[30]Du Credit et des Banques, Paris, 1848.
[31]Un des plus beaux ouvrages assurément qu'on ait publiés sur le credit.—Journal des Economistes.
[31]Un des plus beaux ouvrages assurément qu'on ait publiés sur le credit.—Journal des Economistes.
[32]"Entre tout, l'état d'une prison est le plus doux, et le plus profitable!"
[32]"Entre tout, l'état d'une prison est le plus doux, et le plus profitable!"
[33]Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Porson of a dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such dogs now-a-days.
[33]Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Porson of a dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such dogs now-a-days.
Ere blasts from northern landsHad covered Italy with barren sands,Rome's Genius, smitten sore,Wail'd on the Danube, and was heard no more.Centuries twice seven had pastAnd crush'd Etruria rais'd her head at last.A mightier Power she saw,Poet and prophet, give three worlds the law.When Dante's strength aroseFraud met aghast the boldest of her foes;Religion, sick to death,Look'd doubtful up, and drew in pain her breath.Both to one grave are gone;Alters still smoke, still is the God unknown.Haste, whoso from aboveComest with purer fire and larger love,Quenchest the Stygian torch,And leadest from theGardenand thePorch,Where gales breathe fresh and free,And where a Grace is call'd a Charity,To Him, the God of peace,Who bids all discord in his household cease—Bids it, and bids again,But to the purple-vested speaks in vain.Crying, 'Can this be borne?'The consecrated wine-skins creak with scorn;While, leaving tumult there,To quiet idols young and old repair,In places where is lightTo lighten day—and dark to darken night.
Ere blasts from northern landsHad covered Italy with barren sands,Rome's Genius, smitten sore,Wail'd on the Danube, and was heard no more.Centuries twice seven had pastAnd crush'd Etruria rais'd her head at last.A mightier Power she saw,Poet and prophet, give three worlds the law.When Dante's strength aroseFraud met aghast the boldest of her foes;Religion, sick to death,Look'd doubtful up, and drew in pain her breath.Both to one grave are gone;Alters still smoke, still is the God unknown.Haste, whoso from aboveComest with purer fire and larger love,Quenchest the Stygian torch,And leadest from theGardenand thePorch,Where gales breathe fresh and free,And where a Grace is call'd a Charity,To Him, the God of peace,Who bids all discord in his household cease—Bids it, and bids again,But to the purple-vested speaks in vain.Crying, 'Can this be borne?'The consecrated wine-skins creak with scorn;While, leaving tumult there,To quiet idols young and old repair,In places where is lightTo lighten day—and dark to darken night.
I was passing from my office one day, to indulge myself with a walk, when a little hard-faced old man, with a black coat, broad-brimmed hat, velvet breeches, shoes and buckles, and gold-headed cane, stopped me, standing directly in my path. I looked at him. He looked at me. I crossed my hands before me patiently, forced my features into a civil smile, and waited the development of his intentions; not being distinctly certain, from his firm, determined expression, whether he was "a spirit of health or goblin damned," and whether his intents were "wicked or charitable"—that is, whether he came to discontinue or to subscribe, to pay a bill or present one, to offer a communication or a pistol, to shake me by the hand, or pull me by the nose. Editors now-a-days must always be on their guard. For my part, I am peaceable, and much attached to life, and should esteem it exceedingly disagreeable to be either shot, or horsewhipped. I am not built for action, but love to sail in quiet waters; cordially eschewing gales, waves, water-spouts, sea-serpents, earthquakes, tornadoes, and all such matters, both on sea and land. My antipathy to a horsewhip is an inheritance from boyhood. It carried me across Cæsar's bridge, and through Virgil and Horace. I am indebted to it for a tolerable understanding of grammar, arithmetic, geography, and other occult sciences. It enlightened me not a little upon many algebraic processes, which, to speak truth, presented, otherwise, but slender claims to my consideration. It disciplined me into a uniform propriety of manners, and instilled into my bosom early rudiments of wisdom, and principles of virtue. In my maturer years, the contingencies of life have thrust me rather abruptly, if not reluctantly, into the editorial fraternity(heaven bless them, I mean them no disrespect), and in the same candor which distinguishes my former acknowledgments, I confess that visions of this instrument have occasionally obtruded themselves somewhat forcibly upon my fancy, in the paroxysms of an article, dampening the glow of composition, and causing certain qualifying interlineations and prudent erasures, prompted by the representations of memory or the whispers of prudence. The reader must not fancy, from the form of my expression, that I have ever been horsewhipped. I have hitherto escaped, (for which Heaven be praised!) although my horizon has been darkened by many a cloudy threat, and thundering denunciation.
Nose-pulling is another disagreeable branch of the editorial business. To have any part of one pulled is annoying; but there is a dignity about the nose impatient even of observation or remark: while the act of taking hold of it with the thumb and finger is worse than murder, and can only be washed out with blood. Kicking, cuffing, being turned out of doors, being abused in the papers, &c., are bad, but these are mere minor considerations. Indeed, many of my brother editors rather pique themselves upon some of them, as a soldier does on the scars obtained in fighting the battles of his country; they fancy that, thereby, they are invested with claims upon their party, and suffer indefinite dreams of political eminence to be awakened in their bosoms. I have seen a fellow draw his hat fiercely down over his brow, and strut about, with insufferable importance, on the strength of having been thoroughly kicked by the enemy.
This is a long digression, but it passed rapidly through my mind as the little, hard-faced old gentleman stood before me, looking at me with a piercing glance, and a resolute air. At length, unlike a ghost, he spoke first.
"You are the editor?"—&c.
"A slight motion of acquiescence with my head, and an affirmative wave of my hand, a little leaning toward the majestic, announced to my unknown friend the accuracy of his conjecture."
The little old gentleman's face relaxed—he took off his broad-brimmed hat, and laid it down with his cane carefully on the table, then seized my hand and shook it heartily. People are so polite and friendly when about to ask a favor.
"My dear air," said he, "this is a pleasure I have long sought vainly. You must know, sir. I am the editor of a theatrical weekly—a neat thing in its way—here's the last number." He fumbled about in his pocket, and produced a red-covered pamphlet.
"I have been some time publishing it, and though it is admitted by all acquainted with its merits to be clearly the best thing of the kind ever started this side of the Atlantic, yet people do not seem to take much notice of it. Indeed, my friends tell me that the public are not fully aware of its existence. Pray let me be indebted to you for a notice. I wish to get fairly afloat. You see I have been too diffident about it. We modest fellows allow our inferiors to pass us often. I will leave this number with you. Pray, pray give it a good notice."
He placed in my hands the eleventh number of the "North American Thespian Magazine," devoted to the drama, and also to literature, science, history, and the arts. On reading over the prospectus, I found it vastly comprehensive, embracing pretty much every subject in the world. If so extensive a plan were decently filled up in the details, the "North American Thespian Magazine" was certainly worth the annual subscription money, which was only one dollar. I said so under my "literary notices" in the next impression of my journal; and, although I had not actually read the work, yet it sparkled so with asterisks, dashes, and notes of admiration, that it looked interesting. I added in my critique, that it was elegantly got up, that its typographical execution reflected credit on the publishers, that its failure would be a grievous reproach to the city, that its editor was a scholar, a writer, and a gentleman, and was favorably known to the literary circles by the eloquence, wit, and feeling of his former productions. What those productions were, I should have been rather puzzled to say, never having read, or even heard of them. This, however, was the cant criticism of the day, which is so exorbitant and unmeaning, and so universally cast in one mould, that I was in some tribulation, on reading over the article in print, to find that I had omitted the words, "native genius," which possesses a kind of common-law right to a place in all articles on American literary productions. Forth, however, it went to the world, and I experienced a philanthropic emotion in fancying how pleased the little, hard-faced old gentleman would be with these flattering encomiums on his "Thespian Magazine."
The very day my paper was out, as I was sitting "full fathom five" deep in an article on "The Advantages of Virtue" (an interesting theme, upon my views of which I rather flattered myself), I was startled by three knocks at the door, and my "Come in" exhibited to view the broad-brimmed hat of the hard-faced gentleman, with his breeches, buckles, gold-headed cane and all. He laid aside his hat and cane with the air of a man who has walked a great way, and means to rest himself a while. I was very busy. It was one of my inspired moments. Half of a brilliant idea was already committed to paper. There it lay—a fragment—a flower cut off in the bud—a mere outline—an embryo; and my imagination cooling like a piece of red-hot iron in the open air. I raised my eyes to the old gentleman, with a look of solemn silence, retaining my pen ready for action, with my little finger extended, and hinting, in every way,that I was "not i' the vein." I kept my lips closed. I dipped the pen in the inkstand several times, and held it hovering over the sheet. It would not do. The old gentleman was not to be driven off his ground by shakes of the pen, ink-drops, or little fingers. He fumbled about in his pockets, and drew forth the red-covered "North American Thespian Magazine," devoted to the drama, &c., number twelve. He wanted "agoodnotice." The last was rather general. I had not specified its peculiar claims upon the public. I hadcopiednothing. That sort of critique did no good. He begged me toreadthiscarefully—toanalyzeit—to give it acandidexamination. I was borne down by his emphatic manner; and being naturally of a civil deportment, as well as, at that particular moment, in an impatient, feverish hurry to get on with my treatise on the "Advantages of Virtue," which I felt now oozing out of my subsiding brain with an alarming rapidity, I promised to read, notice, investigate, analyze, to the uttermost extent of his wishes, or at least of my ability.
I could scarcely keep myself screwed down to common courtesy till the moment of his departure; a proceeding which he accomplished with a most commendable self-possession and deliberate politeness. When he was fairly gone, I poked my head out, and called my boy.
"Peter."
"Sir."
"Did you see that little old gentleman, Peter?"
"Yes, sir."
"Should you know him again, Peter?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, if he ever come here again, Peter, tell him I am not in."
"Yes, sir."
I reëntered my little study, and closed the door after me with a slam, which could only have been perceptible to those who knew my ordinary still and mild manner. There might have been also a slight accent in my way of turning the key, and (candor is a merit!) I could not repress a brief exclamation of displeasure at the little old gentleman with his magazine, who had broken in so provokingly upon my "essay on virtue." "Virtue or no virtue," thought I, "I wish him to the d——."
My room is on the ground-floor, and a window adjoining the street lets in upon me the light and air through a heavy crimson curtain, near which I sit and scribble. I was just enlarging upon the necessity of resignation, while the frown yet lingered on my brow, and was writing myself into a more calm and complacent mood, when—another knock at the door. As I opened it, I heard Peter's voice asserting sturdily that I had "gone out." Never dreaming of my old enemy, I betrayed too much of my person to withdraw, and I was recognized and pounced upon by the little old gentleman who had come back to inform me that he intended, as soon as the increase of his subscription would permit, to enlarge and improve the "North American Thespian Magazine," and to employ all the writers in town. "I intend also," said he, and he was in the act of again laying aside that everlasting hat and cane, when a cry of fire in the neighborhood, and the smell of the burning rafters attracted him into the street, where, as I feared, he escaped unhurt. In many respects fires are calamities; but I never saw a more forcible exemplification of Shakspeare's remark, "There is some spirit of good in things evil," than in the relief afforded me on the present occasion. I wrote, after that, with my door locked. This I knew was, from the confined air, prejudicial to my health; but what was dyspepsy or consumption to that little hard-faced old gentleman—to those breeches—to that broad-brimmed hat—to those buckles—to that gold-headed cane?
"Remember, Peter," said I, the second morning after the foregoing, "I have gone out."
"Where have you gone?" inquired Peter, with grave simplicity. "They always ask me where you have gone, sir. The little man with the hat was here last night, and wanted to go after you."
"Forbid it Heaven! I have gone to Albany, Peter, on business."
I can hear in my room pretty much what passes in the adjoining one, where visitors first enter from the street. I had scarcely got comfortably seated, in a rare mood for poetry, giving the last touches to a poem, which, whatever might be the merits of Byron and Moore, I did not think altogether indifferent, when I heard the little old gentleman's voice inquiring for me.
"Imustsee him; I have important business," it said.
"He has gone out," replied Peter, in an undertone, in which I could detect the consciousness that he was uttering a bouncer.
"But Imustsee him," said the voice.
"The scoundrel!" muttered I.
"He is not in town, sir," said Peter.
"I will not detain him a single minute. It is of the greatest importance. He would be very sorry,very, should he miss me."
I held my breath—there was a pause—I gave myself up for lost—when Peter replied firmly,
"He is in Albany, sir. Went off at five o'clock this morning."
"Be back soon?"
"Don't know."
"Where does he stay?"
"Don't know."
"I'll call tomorrow."
I heard his retreating footsteps, and inwardly resolved to give Peter a half-dollar, although he deserved to be horsewhipped for his readiness at deception. I laughed aloud triumphantly, and slapped my hand down upon my knee with the feelings of a fugitive debtor, who, hotly pursued by a sheriff's officer, escapes over the line into another county, andsnaps his fingers at Monsieur Bailiff. I was aroused from my merry mood of reverie by a touch on my shoulder. I turned suddenly. It was the hard-faced little old gentleman, peeping in from the street. His broad-brimmed hat and two-thirds of his face were just lifted above the window-sill. He was evidently standing on tiptoe; and the window being open, he had put aside the curtain, and was soliciting my attention with the end of his cane.
"Ah!" said he, "is it you? Well, Ithoughtit was you, though I wasn't sure. I won't interrupt you. Here are the proofs of number thirteen; you'll find something glorious in that—just the thing for you—don't forget me next week—good-bye. I'll see you again in a day or two."
I shall not cast a gloom over my readers by dwelling upon my feelings. Surely, surely, there are sympathetic bosoms among them. To them I appeal. I said nothing. Few could have detected any thing violent or extraordinary in my manner, as I took the proofs from the end of the little old gentleman's cane, and laid them calmly on the table. I did not write any more about "virtue" that morning. It was out of the question. Indeed, my mind scarcely recovered from the shock for several days.
When my nerves are in any way irritated, I find a walk in the woods a soothing and agreeable sedative. Accordingly, the next afternoon, I wound up the affairs of the day earlier than usual, and set out for a ramble through the groves and along the shore of Hoboken. I was soon on one of the abrupt acclivities, where, through the deep rich foliage of the intertwining branches, I overlooked the Hudson, the wide bay, and the superb, steepled city, stretching in a level line of magnificence upon the shining waters, softened with an overhanging canopy of thin haze. I gazed at the picture, and contemplated the rivalry of nature with art, striving which could most delight. As my eye moved from ship to ship, from island to island, and from shore to shore—now reposing on the distant blue, then revelling in the nearer luxuriance of the forest green, I heard a step in the grass, and a little ragged fellow came up and asked me if I was the editor of the ——. I was about replying to him affirmatively, when his words arrested my attention. "A little gentleman with a hat and cane," he said, "had been inquiring for the editor, &c., at the adjoining hotel, and had given him sixpence to run up into the woods and find him." I rushed precipitately, as I thought, into the thickest recesses of the wood. The path, however, being very circuitous, I suddenly came into it, and nearly ran against a person whom it needed no second glance to recognize, although his back was luckily toward me. The hat, the breeches, the cane, were enough. If not, part of a red-covered pamphlet, sticking out of the coat-pocket, was. "It must be number thirteen!" I exclaimed; and as the little old gentleman was sauntering north, I shaped my course with all possible celerity in a southerly direction.
In order to protect myself for the future, I took precautionary measures; and in addition to having myself denied, I kept the window down, and made my egress and ingress through a door round the corner, as Peter told me he had several times seen the little old gentleman, with a package in his hand, standing opposite the one through which we usually entered, and looking at the office wistfully.
By means of these arrangements, I succeeded in preserving my solitude inviolate, when, to my indignation, I received several letters from different parts of the country, written by my friends, and pressing upon me, at the solicitation of the little old gentleman, the propriety of giving the "Thespian Magazine" a good notice. I tore the letters, each one as I read them, into three pieces, and dropped them under the table. Business calling me, soon after, to Philadelphia, I stepped on board the steamboat, exhilarated with the idea that I was to have at least two or three weeks' respite. I reached the place of my destination about five o'clock in the afternoon. It was lovely weather. The water spread out like unrippled glass, and the sky was painted with a thousand varying shadows of crimson and gold. The boat touched the shore, and while I was watching the change of a lovely cloud, I heard the splash of a heavy body plunged into the water. A sudden sensation ran along the crowd, which rushed from all quarters towards the spot; the ladies shrieked and turned away their heads: and I perceived that a man had fallen from the deck, and was struggling in the tide, with only one hand held convulsively above the surface. Being a practised swimmer, I hesitated not a moment, but flung off my hat and coat, and sprang to his rescue. With some difficulty I succeeded in bearing him to a boat and dragging him from the stream. I had no sooner done so, than to my horror and astonishment I found I had saved the little hard-faced old gentleman. His snuff-colored breeches were dripping before me—his broad-brimmed hat floated on the current—but his cane (thank Heaven!) had sunk forever. He suffered no other ill consequences from the catastrophe than some injury to his garments and the loss of his cane. His gratitude for my exertions knew no bounds. He assured me of his conviction that the slight acquaintance previously existing between us would now be ripened into intimacy, and informed me of his intention to lodge at the same hotel with me. He had come to Philadelphia to see about a plate for his sixteenth number, which was to surpass all its predecessors, and of which he would let me have an early copy, that I mightnoticeit as it deserved.
"Never," said Southey, writing to his friend Bedford, "shall child of mine enter a school or a university. Perhaps I may not be able so well to instruct him in logic or languages, but I can at least preserve him from vice."
Innumerable biographies, innumerable traces of human life that is now life no longer, may be met with in every walk. One lovely day, now some time ago, we had been taking a walk in a part of England of which we had little knowledge, and we came up to the gate of what appeared to be a large hospital. It was covered with trees, and the beauty of summer was luxuriantly displayed. The grayheaded porter at the gate, a very communicative and happy old man, aged eighty-eight years, soon gave us a history of the institution. This hospital had been built by a man who was much renowned. He had been once a poor shopboy, but he wandered to London, was very industrious, and at length became one of the greatest merchants of the imperial city. He realized the visions of Whittington; for he was twice Lord Mayor, was exceedingly wealthy, was honored with the friendship of King William the Third, and was universally respected. Age coming on, he retired to his native place, built and endowed this hospital, became famous for his deeds of kindness and charity, always kept with reverence the day on which the Prince of Orange landed on English ground, and, full of years and honors, sunk into his long repose. The charitable institution was situated amid the most beautiful scenery. No place could be more fitting for the old men who sat basking in the sun to spend the quiet evening of their lives. This was the biography of the great city merchant. It was not written in many volumes; his good deeds were not ostentatiously displayed, and he now sleeps peacefully and well.
But this was not all. On returning through a magnificent park, as the sun was setting, the haymakers returning from their labor, and all nature breathing peace, and happiness, and love, our attention was attracted to an old oak tree. It was indeed very old. It had seen all its brethren of the park rise and fall, seasons had come and gone, generations had reposed beneath its branches, and now they were reposing under the shadow of the old church, the clock of which had just struck the hour of six. On examining the tree closely, we were astonished to find carved in immense letters, and in quaint language, the following words:—