52, BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 PS 1449.C65S2"""""">' '■'""'^ ^*^ mvfWiiUllSaiv^lf^^'^''*^, and othe 3 1924 021 994 243 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021994243 THE SAYINGS DU. BUSHWHACKER, OTHEE LEAENED MEN, FUED'C S. COZZENS. A.UTHOE OF " 6PAEE0WGEASS PAPEES," ETC. ET A.X,. 5V /t Entered acoordm^to Act of (DongresSjin.the year 186T, By PEED'o S. COZZENS, 111 the clerks office of the District Court of the Southern District of New Torlj. AOATUVMLAN ^PKESS. TO riEBT PHESITIENT (Eenturg (Elut), THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. PREFACE. I HAVE dedicated this little voluine of essays to Mr. Verplanck, not only because of Ms constant and kindly feelings, always expressed toward tlie Editor; not only because of the constant and kindly interest he has taken in the literary efforts of all younger American authors ; nor yet from mere admiration of his vast acquirements in all fields of knowledge ; nor from his extensive life- long labors for the public welfare, during which ^ PREFACE. patriotism and disinterestedness, far-reacMng wis- dom and patient modesty, have been his constant companions; nor yet because lie is one of the few left of the illustrious literary past; nor yet from the long tradition of his pure and 'spotless life, as befits the Christian gentle- man ; nor from any, or all of these, but simply because I felt that some affectionate tribute was due from me to him — my honored and venerable friend. The papers included in this volume are partly from the Wine Press, a monthly periodical, which I edited for seven years — until the breaking out of the civil war — with some new articles, and with various essays of the author, that have heretofore been printed on the sands of fugitive magazines and newspapers. Some of these shells and peb- PREFACE. 5 bles I have reclaimed ; the rest lie upon the beach unnoticed, and, happily, unknown. From the original articles contibuted to the Wine Press — ^independent of the author's own — I have selected some others to grace this little book. The articles, " Was Champagne known to the Ancients," and " Oxyporian Wines," are from the pen of Mr. Verplanck ; Mr. Paul Dinet, of Ay, Champagne, wrote " A French Breakfast," a composition of his own, but which, with an au- thor's license, he attributed to Brillat Savarin. Professor Walcott Gibbs, who has as exquisite a taste for true humor as any writer in the country, translated the " Hare and the He(%ehog," a story that will commend itself whenever you read it to the little people; aye, and sometimes to older folks, as I have experiencd. Mr. Chas. G. Leland, wrote Q PREFACE. the " Dainty Hints," to Epicurean Smokers ; Mr. Henry P. Leland contributed the sparkling sketch of " A German Wine Cellar;" and Col. Peter A. Porter, who lost his life at the battle of Cold Har- bor, in leading a charge at the head of his gal- lant regiment (the 8th New York Artillery), contributed the excellent imitation of Macauley's History of England. Those who knew him best will appreciate how much the Empire State has lost in losing him. The article " Does Queen Vic- toria S])eak English," and " Sitka," were written originally for the JVew York Ledger. By the courtesy of Mr. Bonner, I have included them in this volume. To General Wm. A. Hammond, late Surgeon General of the United States Army, I owe my thanks for his indefatigable perseverance in urg- PREFACE. 7 ing me to collect these papers. If they find any success with the public, thanks be to him who urged me to publish them, and took the greater task in preparing them for the press. Chestnut Cottage, July 20th, 1867. CONTENTS... „ I. A Talk About Tea 1 II. Journey Around a Tapioca Pudding 8 III. The Radiant Dinner Castor 13 IV. Cliocolate and Cocoa 20 V. Notables and Potables 24 VI. A Peep Into a Salad Bowl 39 VII. Madame FoUet 43 Vni. OldPhi-ases 48 IX. Ai-t 55 X. Accidental Resemblances 59 XL Sitka: Our New Acquisition 69 XII. Phrases and Filberts 73 XIII. Does Queen Victoria Speak English? 81 XIV. The Noses of Eminent Men ^. 102 XV. Up the Rhine 109 XVI. The Krst Oyster Eater 114 XVII. A Literaiy Curiosity 122 XVTII. The Race between the Hare and the Hedgehog 130 XIX. What is the cause of Thunder? 136 XX. A French Breakfast 140 XXI. Dainty Hints for Epicurean Smokers 143 XXII. Was Champagne Known to the Ancients ? 146 XXIII. German Wines anda Wine cellar 165 XXIV. A Christmas Piece , 174 XXV. Oxyporian Wines 186 THE SAYINGS OF DR. BUSHWHACKER, AND OTHER LEARNED MEN. E Calfe about ^ea. ^^|)IK," said oiu' learned friend, Dr. Bushwhacker, ^^^ "we are indebted to China for the foui' prin- cipal blessings we enjoy. Tea came from China, the compass came trom China, printing came from China, and gunpowder came from China — thank God ! China, sir, is an old coimtry, a very old country. There is one word, sir, we got from China, that is oftener in the mouths of American people than any other word in the language. It is cash, sir, cash ! That we derive from the Chinese. It is the name, sir, of the small brass coin they use, the coin with a square hole in the middle. And then look at om* FrankKn.; he drew the hghtning from 1 2 A TALK ABOUT TEA. the skies with his kite ; but who invented the kite, sir ? The long-tailed Chinaman, sir. Fraukhn had no inven- tion; he never would have invented a kite or a printing- press. But he could use them, sir, to the best possible advantage, sir; he had no genius, sir, but he had remark- able talent and industry. Then, sir, we get our umbrella from China; the first man that carried an umbrella, in London, in Queen Anne's reign, was followed by a mob. That is only one himdred and fifty years ago. We get the art of making porcelain from China. Our ladies must thank the Celestials for their tea-pots. Queen Elizabeth never saw a tea-pot in her life. In 1664, the East India Company bought two pounds two ounces of tea as a pres- ent for his majesty. King Charles the Second. In 1667, they imported one hiindred pounds of tea. Then, sir, rose the reign of scandal — Queen Scandal, sir ! Then, sir, rose the intolerable race of waspish spinsters who sting reputations and defame humanity over their dys- peptic cups. Then, sir, the astringent principle of the herb was communicated to the heart, and domestic troubles were brewed and fomented over the tea-table. Then, sir, the age of chivalry was over, and women grew acrid and bitter; then, sir, the first temperance society was founded, and high duties were laid upon wines, and in consequence they distilled whiskey instead, which made matters a great deal better, of course ; and all the abominations, all the difficulties of domestic life, all the curses of living in a country village ; the intolerant canvassing of character. A. TALK ABOUT TEA. 3 reputation, piety ; the nasty, mean, prying spirit; the uncharitable, defamatory, gossiping, tale bearing, whis-- pering, unwomanly, unchristianlike behavior of those who set themselves up for patterns over their vile ■deeoctions, sir, arose with the introduction of tea. Yes, sir ; when the wine-cup gave place to the tea-cup, then the dedl, sir, reached his culminating point. The ■curiosity of Eve was bad enough ; but, sir, when Eve's curiosity becomes sharpened by turgid tonics, and scan- dal is added to inquisitiveness, and inuendo supplies the place of truth, and an imperfect digestion is the pilot instead of chai-ity; then, sir, we must expect to see hu- man natiu'e vilified, and levity condemned, and good fellowship condemned, and all good men, from Wash- ington down, damned by Miss Tittle, and Miss Tattle, and the Widow Blackleg, and the whole host of tea- drinMng conspirators against social enjoyment." Here Dr. Bushwhacker gi-ew purple with eloquence and indig- nation. We ventured to remark that he had spoken of tea "as a blessing" at first. "Yes, sir," responded Dr. Bushwhacker, shaking his bushy head, "that reminds one of Doctor Pangloss. Yes, sir, it is a blessing, but like all other blessings it must be used iemperately, or else it is a curse! China, sir," continued the Doctor, dropping the oratorical, and taking up the historical, " China, sir, knows nothing of perspective, but she is gj-eat in pigments. Indian ink, sir, is Chinese, so are Ver- million and indigo ; the malleable properties of gold, sir. ■4 A TALK ABOUT TEA. were first discovered by this extraordinary people; we must thank them for our gold leatl Gold is not a pigment, but roast pig is, and Charles Lamb says the origin of roast pig is Chinese ; the beautiful fabric we call silk,, sir, came from the Flowery Nation, so did embroidery, so did the game of chess, so did fans. In fact, sir, it is difficult to say what we have not derived from the Chi- nese. Cotton, sir, is our great staple, but they wove and spun long staple and short staple, yellow cotton and white cotton before Columbus sailed out of the port of Palos in the Santa Maria." "But, Doctor, we want a word with you about tea. A little information, if you please." The Doctor ife one of om- old Knickerbockers. His big,, bushy head is as tamihar as the City Hall. He be- longs to the "God bless you my dear young friend" school ! He is as full of knowledge as an egg is full of meat. He knows more about China than the Emperor of the celestial people. "Tea, my young friend, is a plant that grows in China, Japan, and other parts of the world. There are two varieties. Thea nigra and Thea viridis — ^black tea and green tea. The same plant, sir, produces both kinds. Green tea is made by one kind of manipulation, black tea by another. That is all, sir. The shrub is raised from seeds like hazel nuts, planted in nurseries ; it is set out when about a foot high; lives for fifteen or twenty years, grows sometimes as tall as General Scott and A TALK ABOUT TEA. 5 fiometimes as small as Bill Seward. It is picked four times a year. The first picking is the best, when the leaves are covered with a whitish down. This is in April, the next is in May, the next in July, the last in August. One Chinaman can pick about thirteen pounds of leaves per day, for which he will receive sixty cash, or six cents. The green leaves are spread out on bamboo frames to dry a little, the yellow and old defective leaves are picked out, then they take up a handful of the leaves, cast them in a heated pan, get them warmed up, and squeeze out the superfluous juice ; this juice contains an acrid oil, so acrid as to irritate the hands of the workman. Good God ! think of that, sir, what stuff for the stomach. Then they dry them slightly in the sim, then eveiy separate leaf is rolled up into a little ball hke a shot, then they throw these green tea shot into a pan slightly heated, stirring them up so as to warm every part alike ; then they cool the tea, and the shot are picked out one by one, the best for the first or finest chop. Every httle ball picked over by hand. Then it is packed, sir. The young leaves make the 'Young Hyson,' the older and stronger leaves the 'Hyson,' the refuse goes by the name of ' Hyson Skin,' the 'Gunpowder' and 'Imperial' are teas roUed more care- fidly in roimder balls than the others. Most of these teas are colored for our market^eolored, sir, with a mixture of Prassian blue and gypsum ; no wonder John China- man calls us outside barbarians, when he knows we drink iialf ,a pound of gypsum and Prussian blue with every 6 A TALK ABOUT TEA. hundred pounds of green tea, and this tea is made to order ! Does honest John ever drink siich tea ? No, sir, he knows better than that if he does wear a tail." "And black tea, you say, is from the same plant. Doctor ?" "Yes, sir, Mr. Eobert Fortune brought specimens of the Ttiea nigra from the Bohea mountains and compared them with the Thea viridis, and the plants were identical. The black tea, sir, is prepared in a different manner from the other. The leaves are allowed to lie spread out on the bamboo trays for a considerable time ; then they are thrown up into the air by the workman, tossed about, beat, patted, until they become soft or flaccid, then tossed in heaps, allowed to lie until they begin to change color, then they are tossed in a tear-pan, roasted over a hotter Are, rolled, shaken out, exposed to the air again, turned over, partially dried, put in the pan a second time for five minutes or so, then rolled, tossed over, and tumbled again, then put into a sieve, put over the fire again, rolled aboiit, put over again, three or four times, then placed ir a basket, thickly packed together ; the Chuiaman makes a hole through the mass of leaves with his hand to give vent to the smoke and steam ; then over the fire they go, and remain there until they are perfectly dry — ^in fact, sir, until the fire dies out. Then picked, packed, and as- sorted for the market. Now, sir, here is the difference between black tea and green tea, the latter retains all its acrid properties, it produces jiervous irritability, .sleep- A TALK ABOUT TEA. 7 lessness, sir ; why, if you take a pinch of green tea and chew it, sir, you can sit and listen to Dr. -: 's sermon and keep wide awake sir — a thing impossible to do under any other circumstances. But black tea has much of this oil dried out of it, and therefore it is less injurious than the other ; less injurious, I say, not harmless by any means. Do you ever travel in the country ? Well, sir, there you will see the ravages of green tea, Prussian blue, and gypsum among the fairest portion of creation — women ! There, sir, you will see pinched-up, penm'ious, prying faces — ^faces made up of a complication of tine lines, as if all human sympathies had got into a tangle ; necks all wrinkles ; fingers, a beautiful exhibition of bones, ligaments, and tendons ; eyes, sharp, restless, in- quisitive ; shoulders, drooping ; bust, nowhere ; viscera, collapsed, and the muscular system, or the form divifie generally, in a state of dubiety ; yes, sir, and all this comes from the constant use of ' Thea viridis,'' sir, green tea, sir. Om* forefathers, sir, threw the tea overboard in Boston harbor ; if people knew what we of the faculty know, sir, they would do the same thing now, sir, vdth every chop that comes from the celestial empire." 11. Joutnes arountr a Capioca ipuirtring. iRi BushwhaCkek folded his napkin, drew it through the silver ring, laid it on the table, folded his arms, leaned back in his chair, by which we knew there was something at work in his knowledge-box. "My dear Madam," said he, with a Metamora shake ot the head, "there are a great many things to b'e said about that pudding." Now, such a remark at a season of the year when eggs are live for a shilhng, and not always fi-esh at that, is enough to discomfort any body. The Doctor perceiived it at once, and instantly added, " In a geograpAieal -pohxt of view, there are many things to be said about that pudding. My dear madam," he continued, "take tapi- oca itself; what is it, and where does it come from ?" Our eldest boy, just emerging from chickenhood, an- swered, " 85 Chambers street, two doors below the Irv- ing House." " True, my dear young friend," responded the Doctor, with a friendly pat on the head ; " true, but that is not what I mean. Where," he repeated, with a questioning look through his spectacles, and a Bushwhackian nod, " does tapioca come from ?" S JOURNEY ABOUND A TAPIOCA PUDDING. 9 "Rio de Janeiro and Para !" " Yes, sir ; from B,io de Janeiro in the southern, and Para in the northern part of the Brazils, do we get onr tapioca ; fi-om the roots of a plant called the Mandioca, botanically, the Jatrophxi Manihot, or, as they say, the Cassava. The roots are long and round, like a sweet potato ; generally a foot or more in length. Every joint of the plant will produce its roots like the cuttings of a grape-vine. The tubers are dug up from the ground, peeled, scraped, or grated, then put in long sacks of flex- ible rattan ; sacks, six feet long or more, and at the bot- tom of the sack they suspend a large stone, by which the flexible sides are contracted, and then out pours the cas- sava-juice in a pan placed below to receive it. This juice is poisonous, sir, highly poisonous, and very volatile. Then, my dear madam, it is macerated in water, and the residum, after the volatile part, the poison, is evaporated, is the innocuous favina, which looks like small crumbs of bread, and which we call tapioca. The best kind of tap- ioca comes from Rio, which is, I believe, about five thou- sand five hundred miles from New York ; so we must put down that as a Kttle more than one fifth of our voyage around the pudding." This made our eldest, open his eyes. "Eggs and milk," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, "are home productions; but sugar, refined sugar, is made partly of the moist. and sweet yellow sugar of Louisiana, partly of the hard and dry sugar of the West Indies ; I 10 JOURNEY AROUND A TAPIOCA PUDDING. will not go into the process "of refining sugar now, but I may observe here, that the sugar we get from Louisiana, if refined and made into a loaf, would be quite soft, with large loose crystals, while the Havana sugar, subjected to the same treatment, would make a white cone almost as compact and hard as granite. But we have made a trip to the Antilles for our sugar, and so you may add fifteen hundred miles more for the saccharine." " That is equal to nearly one-third of the circimifer- ence of the pudding we hve upon, Doctor." "Vanilla," continued the Doctor, "with which this pudding is so dehghtfuUy flavored, is the bean of a vine that grows wild in the multitudinous forests of Venezuela, New Granada, Guiana, and, in fact, throughout South America. The long pod, which looks like the scabbard of a sword, suggested the name to the Spaniards ; vagna, meaning scabbard, from which comes the diminutive, vanilla, or little scabbard — appropriate enough, as every one will aUow. These beans, which are worth here from six to twenty dollars a pound, could be as easily cultivat- ed as hops in that climate ; but the indolence of the peo- ple is so great, that not one Venezuelian has been found ■with sufficient enterprise to set out one acre of vanilla, which would yield him a small fortune every year. No, sir. The poor peons, or peasants, raise their garabanzas for daily use, but beyond that they never look. They plant their crops in the footsteps of their ancestors, and, if it had not been for their ancestors, they would proba- JOURNEY AKOUKD A TAPIOCA PUDDING. 11 bly have browsed on the wild grass of the llanos or plains. Ah ! there are a great many snch bobs hanging at the tail of some ancestral kite, even in this great city, my dear, learned friend." " True, Doctor, you are right there." " Well, sir, the vaniUa is gathered from the wild vines in the woods. Off goes the hidalgo, proud of his noble ancestry, and toils home under a back-load of the refuse beans from the trees, after the red monkey has had his pick of the best. A few reals pay him for the day's work, and then, hey for the cock-pit! There, Signor Ohbgie meets the Marquis de Shinplaster, or the Padre Coreorochi, and of course gets whistled out of his earn- ings with the first click of the gaffs. Then back he goes to his miserable hammock, and so ends his year's labor. That, sir, is the history of the flavoring, and you will have to allow a stretch across the Caribbea,n, say twenty- five hundred miles, for the vanilla." "We are getting pretty well around. Doctor." "Then we have sauce, here, wine-sauce; Teneriffe, I should say, by the flavor. ' from beneath the cliff Of sunny-sided Teneriffe, And ripened in the blink Of India's sun.' We must take four thousand miles at least for the wine, my leai-ned friend, and say nothing of the rest of the sauce." 12 JOUBNEY AKOUND A TAPIOCA PUDDING. "Except the nutmeg, Doctor." " Thank yon, my dear young friend, thank you. The nutmeg ! To the Spice Islands, in the Indian Ocean Ave are indebted for our nutmegs. Our old original Knicker- bockers, the web-footed Dutchmen, haive the monopoly of this trade. Every nutmeg has paid toll at the Hague before it yields its aroma to our graters. The Spice Islands ! The almost fabulous Moluccas, where neither com nor rice will grow ; where the only quadrupeds they have are the odorous goats that breathe the fragrant air, and the musky crocodiles that bathe in the high-seasoned waters. The Moluccas, ' the isle8 Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs.' There, sir ! Milton, sir. From Ternate and Tidore, and the rest of that marvellous cluster of islands, we get our nutmegs, our mace, and our cloves. Add twelve thou- sand miles at least to the circumference of the pudding for the nutmeg." " This is getting to be a pretty large pudding. Doctor." "Yes, sir. We have, traveled already twenty-live thousand five hundred miles around it, and now let us re-circumnavigate and come back by the way of Mexico, so that we can get a silver spoon, and penetrate into the interior." m. !,E begin to think there is •wisdom in Dr. Bush- whacker. "There are other things to study geography from, besides maps and globes," is one of his favorite maxims. "We begin to believe it, "Observe my learned friend," said he, "how the reflected sunshine from those cut bottles in the castor-stand, throws long plumes of Hght in every direction across the white dam- ask." We leaned forward, and saw the phenomenon pointed out by the index-finger of the Doctor, and as we knew something was coming from his pericranics, kept silent of course. "Well, "said he, inflating his lips until his face looked like that of a cast-iron caryatid, "well, my dear friend, every pencil ot.hght there is a point of the compass, and the contents of that castor come from places, as various as those diverging rays indicate. The nmstard is from England, the vinegar from France, Gliina fur- nishes the soy, Italy the oil, we have to ask the West Indies to contribute the red-pepper, and the East Indies to supply the black-pepper." We ventm-ed to remark that those facts we were not ignorant ofj by any means. "True, my dear learned friend," said the Doctor, with a sort of snort; "but God bless me! if one-half of the 13 14 THE BADIANT DINNER CASTOK. people in this city know it." "Mustard," continued Doctor Bushwhacker, not at all discoiniited, "comes from Durham, in the north of England — that is, the best quality. The other productions of this county do not amount to much, nor is it celebrated for any thing, except that here the Queen Philippa, wife of Eang Edward the Third, captured David Bruce, King of Scots, for which reason no Scotchman can eat Durham mustard except witi. tears in his eyes. We get our grindstones from this English county, my learned friend ; and when you sharpen yo\ir knife or your appetite hereafter, it will remind you of Durham. That long pencil of light from the next bottle points to France, where they make the best wine-vinegar we get. Just observe the difference between that sturdy, pot-bellied mustard-bottle, which represents John Bull, and this slender sharp, vinegar- cruet, which represents Johnny Crapeau; there is a national distinction sir, in cruets as well as men. The quantity of vinegar made in France is very great, the best comes from Bordeaux ; sometimes it is so strong that the Frenchmen call it ' vinaigre des trois dents,'' or vin- egar with three teeth ; but the finest flavored vinegar I ever met with came from Portugal, and for a salad, noth- ing could equal its delicate aroma. "Well, sir, then there is the red-pepper, the Cayenne ; that I presume is from Jamaica ?" We assented. ' ' The best and strongest kind is made partly of the bird pepper, and partly of the long-pod pepper of the West THE RADIAKT DINNEE CASTOR. 15 Indies. 'J^his is a very healthy condiment, sir; in the tropics it is indispensable ; there is a maxim there, sii-, that people who eat Cayenne pepper will live for ever. Like variety, it is the spice of life, sir, at the equator. Oui- own gardens, sii-, furnish capsicum, and in fact it grows in aE parts of the world ; but that from the West Indies is esteemed to be the best, and I think with jus- tice. Now, sir, the next pencil of light is reflected from thS Yellow Sea!" "The soy, Doctor?" " The soy, my learned friend; the best fish-sauce on the face of the globe. The soy, sir, or 'soya,' as the Japanese call it, is a species of bean, which would grow in this country as well as any other Chinese plant. Few Ohinamen eat anything without a mixture of this bean- jeUy in some shape or other. They scald and peel the beans, then add an equal quantity of wheat or barley, then the mess is allowed to ferment, then they add a little salt, sometimes tumeric for color, water is added also, in the proportion of three to one of the mass, and after a few months' repose the soy is pressed, strained, and ready for market. That, sir, is the history of that cruet, and •now we will pass on to the black pepper^" " A glass of wine first, Doctor, if you please." "Thank you, my dear friend; bless me, how dry I am." "Black pepper, ^z^e?' nigrum, is the berry of a vine that grows in Sumatra and Ceylon, but our principal 16 THE RADIANT DINNER CASTOR. supply of this commonest of condiments comes, from the Island of Java ; and we have to pay our web-footed Knickerbockers, across the water, a little toll upon that, as we do upon many other things of daily consumption. The pepper-vine is a very beautifal plant, with large, oval, polished leaves and showy white flowers, that would look beautiful if wound around the head of a bride." "No doubt. Doctor, but I think the less pepper about a bride the better." "Good, my learned friend; you are right; if I were to get married again, sir," continued the Doctor in a very hearty manner, "I should be a little afraid of the contact oi piper nigrum." "What is white pepper. Doctor?" "White pepper is the same, sir, as black pepper, only it is decorticated, that is, the black husk has been rubbed off. Now, sir, there is not much else interesting about pepper, except that the best probably comes from the kingdom of Bantam ; and the quantity, formerly export- ed from the seaport of that name in the Island of Java, amounted, sir, to ten thousand tons annually; a good seasonable supply of seasoning for the world, sir. Well, sir, we are also indebted to Bantam for a very small breed of fowls, the pecuKar use of which no philosopher has as yet been able to determine. Now, sir, we have finished the castor, I think ?" "There is one point ot light. Doctor, that indicates Italy; what of the oil ?" THE EADIATTT DINNER CASTOE. 17 "Ah! Lucca and Parma! Indeed, sir, I may say, France, Spain, and Italy ! 'Three kingdoms claim its birth; Both hemispheres iwoclaim its worth.' The olive, sir. I remember something from my school- boy days about that. It is from PKny's History of Na- ture, sir. (Liber. XV.) The oHve ia the western world was the companion, sir, as well as the symbol of peace. Two centuries after the foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to this useful plant. It was naturaKzed in those countries, sir, and at length carried into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients, that it required a certain degree of heat, and could not flourish in the neighborhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and experience. There, sir ! But the timid errors of the ancients are not more surprising than the timid errors of the moderns. The ohve tree should be as common here as it is in the old world, especially as it is the emblem of peace. My old friend, Dominick Lynch, sir, the wine-merchant, the only ^r-ea^ wine-merchant we fiver had, sir, imported the finest oil, sir, from Lucca, known even- to this day as ' Lynch's OH.' He it was who made Chateau Margaux and the Itahan opera, popular, sir, in this great metrop- oHs. Poor Uom! Well, sir, I suppose you know all about the olive tree ?" " On the contrary, very Httle." 2 18 THE RADIANT DINNER CASTOR. " Well, the oUve is as easily propagated as the wiUow. You must go boldly to work, however, and cut off a limb of the tree, as big as my arm, and plant that. No twig, sir. In three years it will bear ; in five years it will have a fuU crop ; in ten years it wiU be in perfection. If you plant a slip, it will take twenty years or more to mature. Its mode of bearing is biennial, and you can prune it every other year, and plant the cuttings. Longworth ought to take up the ohve, sir ; and he might have a wreath to put around his head, as he deserves. Well, my learned friend, when the olive is ripe — ^the fruit I mean — ^it is of a deep violet color. Those we get in bot- tles are plucked while they are green. The plnms are put between two circular mill-stones — the upper one con- vex, the lower one concave; the frait is thus crushed, and afterward put into a press, and the oil is extracted by means of a powerful lever. That is all, sir ; an oil-press is not a very handsome article to look at; but in the South, I think it would be serviceable at least; but- ter there is not always of the best quality in summer; and ohve oil would be a delightful substitute." "What of French and Spanish oil, Doctor?" ■ " Spanish oU is very good, sir. So is French ; we get little of the Itahan oil now. The oil of Aix, near Mar- seilles, is of superior quality ; but that does not come to our market. Lately I have used the oil of Bordeaux in place of the Itahan ; it is very fine. But speaking of olive oU, let me tell you an anecdote of my friend Godey, THE KApiANT DINNER CASTOR. 19 of Philadelphia, of tlie Ladies^ Book, sir, the best heart- ed man of that name in the world. WeU, sir, Godey had a new servant-girl ; I never knew any body that didn't have a new servant-girl ! WeU, sir, Godey had a dinner- party in early spring, when lettuce is a rarity, and of course he had lettuce. He is a capital hand at a salad, and so he dressed it. The guests ate it ; and — sir^-well, sir, I must hasten to the end of the story. Said Godey to the new giii next morning: ' What has become of that bottle of castor-oil I gave you to put away yesterday morning?' ' Sure,' said she, ^you said it vias castor-oU, and I put it in the castor.' 'WeU,' said Godey, '1 thought so.' " IV. (t])otolatt antr dtotoa. M|gl[ ow is it, Doctor," said we over our matutinal, ^^® but unusual cup of chocolate, " how is it that drinking chocolate produces a headache with many per- sons who can eat chocolate bon-bons by the quantity with impunity ! " " My learned friend, " said Dr. Bushwhacker, rousing up and shaking his mane, "I will tell yOu all' about it. Chocolate, or as the great Linnseus used to call it, ^T/ieo hromcU — food for the gods-^is a most peculiar preparation. It is made of tlie berries of the cacao, sir, a small tree indigenous to Soutli America. We misname the berries cocoa, because the jicaras, or native cups in which the cocoa was drunk by the Mexicans, were made of the small end of the cocoa-nut. The tree, sir, bears a beautiful rose-colored blossom, and that produces a long pod, resembling our cucumber ; in that pod we find the cacao imbedded — a multitude of oval pits, about the size of shelled almonds, and sm-rounded with a white acid pulp. Now, sir, this pulp produces a very refreshing drink in the tropics, called vino cacao, or cacao-wine, which is more esteemed there than the beverage we make from the berries." "But, Doctor, how about the headache?' 20 CHOCOLATE AND COCOA. 21 " Sii-," said the Doctor, "I am getting to that. Kyou take a pair of compasses, and put the right leg in the middle of the Madeira Eiver, one of the tributaries of the majestic Amazon, and extend the other to Caracas, then sweep it round in a circle, you wiU embrace within that the native land of the cacao. It grows, sir, from Vene- zuela to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, an extent of coun- try more beautiful, vaster, and of less importance than any other territoiy. on tlie habitable globe. Well, sir, this plant, which, from its oleaginous properties, seems suitable to supply the want of animal food, is expressly adapted for that country. ' He who has drank one cup,' says Fernando Cortez, ' can travel a whole day without any other food.' Now, sir, we must not beheve this al- together ; but the value of this Hquid nutriment for those who have to cross the Llanos of the north,, or the Pam- pas of the south, is not to be lightly estimated." "But the headache, Doctor?" "Chocolate," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, "is made of the cacao berries, shghtly roasted and triturated in water ; a certain degree of heat is necessary in its prepa- ration. The best we have comes from Caracas, it is of a liglit brown color, and quite expensive, sometimes two or three dollars a pound. The ordinary chocolate we import from France, Spain, Germany, and the West Indies, is a mixture of cacao with sago, rice, sugar, and other arti- cles, flavored with cinnamon or vanilla, the latter being deleterious on account of its effects upon the nervous sys- 32 CHOCOLATE ANB COCOA. tem. How much Caracas cacao is used here I do not know, but I presume Para furnishes our manufacturers with their principal supplies. The quantity of cacao that comes here in its native state is very great, compared with the manufactured article, the chocolate ; we import one hundred and seventy thousand dollars' worth of the one, against a Kttle over two thousand- dollars' worth ot the other." " But the headache, Doctor ? What is the reason that Hquid choco -" " Sir," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, drawing himself up with cast-iron dignity, " if I interrupted you as often as you interrupt me, that question would be answered some time after the allies take Sebastopol. Chocolate was introduced into Spain by Fernando Cortez ; to this day it is iu Spain what coffee is to France, or tea to England, the pet beverage of all classes of people who can afford it. It was introduced into England simultaneously with coffee, just before the restoration of King Charles the Second. Then it was prepared for the table by merely mixing it with hot water, no mUk, sir. Pope alludes to it in the Rape of the Lock. ' Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, his post neglects,' ' In fames of burning chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the sea that froths below.' The Spaniards, sir, do not use milk in preparing it, nor do the South Americans. By the way, thirty years ago, CHOCOLATE AND COCOA. 23 my friend, Col. Duane, of Philadelphia, published a book on Colombia, which is highly interesting ; so, too, you wUl find Zea's Colombia of the same period ; Pazo's Letters to Henry Clay, written in 1819 ; Depon's Voyages in the early part of this century ; and the still more interesting voyages of Don George Juan, and Don Antonio de Ulloa, in 1735. Then there is Hippisly's Narrative, Brown's Itinerary, and many other book's, my learned friend, that wiU tell you about the cacao. In that country, where meat is not abundant, a cup of chocolate supplies the necessary nutriment, and a breakfast of cacao and fruit, sir, is satisfying and delicious. Arbuthnot says it is rich, alimentary, and anodyne." " But the headache, Doctor ?" " In Spain," continued the Doctor, it is served up in beautiful cups of fiHagree work, made in the shape of tulips or mies, with leaves that fold over the top by touching a spring. These leaves are to protect it from the flies. The ladies are so fond of it that they have it sent after them to church ; this the bishops interdicted for a while, but that only made it more desirable." " But what are its peculiar properties, Doctor ?" "Tea, my learned friend," replied the Doctor, curtly, " inspires scandal and sentiment ; coflee excites the im- agination ; but chocolate, sir, is aphrodisiac !" V. Kotaftlcs antr ^otaiiles. SY dear leai-ned friend," said Dr. Busli- whacker, j)utting down his half-empty ffoblet of claret, " that is the finest wine I ever tasted. A man, sir, should go down on his knees when he drinks such wine ; it inspires me, sir, with humility and devo- tion. Six months' retirement and study, with a liberal allowance of claret like that would induce an epic poem,, sir!" " Retirement and study would do much. Doctor ; but as for the claret I have my doubts. France, with all her clarets, has no great poet." " Sir," replied Doctor Bushwhacker, " France has Cor- neille, Eacine, MoKere ! " "True." " La Fontaine, Voltaire, and Boileau." " True." " Jongleurs, Troubadours, Trouveres, Avithout number, sir!" "I know it." " Beranger, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and — ^what is the name of that barber-poet ?— ^ali ! Jasmin." 24 NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 25 "Yes, Jasmin." " And," continued the Doctor, " there was Du Bartas, sir, who wi'ote the 'Divine Week- and the 'Battle of Ivry,' sir!" " Yes, sir." " Claret," said Dr. Bushwhacker significantly. " Great thing for wit, Doctor !" '■' My dear learned friend, it is," replied the Doctor, emptying his goblet, and giving a triumphant snort, "and for poetry, too." " How is it, then, that with all her great poets, France has not produced a greait poem ?" " Sir," asked Dr. Bushwhacker, " did you ever read the CEdipe of Comeille ?" " No, sir." " Then I would advise you to read it, sir." "My learned friend," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, after an impressive pause, " I have a the&ry that certain wines produce certain effects upon the mind. I believe, sir, that if I were to come in upon a dinner-party about the time when conversation had become luminous and choral, I could easily tell whether Claret, Champagne, Sherry, Madeira, Bnrgundy, Port, or Punch, had been the prevailing potable. Yes, sir, and no doubt a skillful critic could determine, after a careful analysis of the sub- ject, upon what drink, sir, a poem was written. Yes, sir, or tell a claret couplet from a sherry couplet, sir, or dis- 26 NOTABLES AND POTABLES. tinguish the flavor of Port in one stanza, and Madeira in another, from internal evidence, sir." " Suppose, Doctor, the poet were a water-drinker ?" "My dear learned friend," replied the Doctor vehe- mently, " if you can find in the whole range of literature — and I will go farther than that — if you can find in the whole range of intelligence, either poet, statesman, orator, artist, hero, or divine, who was a water-drinker, and worth one (excuse me) curse ! then, sir, I wiU renounce the practice of my profession, and occupy my time in a water- cure establishment. On the contrary, look at the UItis- trious writers of all ages and nations, sir; look at Homer. There is no end to the juncketings in the Hiad, sir ; and the Greek heaven, sir, is pretty well supplied with every thing else but water, I beHeve. ' This did to laughter cheer White-wristed Juno, who now took a cup of him, and smiled, The sweet peace-making draught went round, and lame Ephaistns Nectar to all the other gods. A laughter never left, [filled Shook all the blessed deities, to see the lame so deft At the cup service. All that day, even till the sun went down, They banqueted.; and had such cheer as did their wishes crown.' " " "What was Homer's peculiar tipple. Doctor ?" " The wine of Chios, sir, undoubtedly. In this island, it is said, the first wines were made , by CEnopion, son of Bacchus ; and here, too, it is said Homer was born. I believe both, sir. From the island of Chios came the NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 27 first wine and the first epic, sir ; hand in hand they came into the world, and hand in hand they will go out of it, sir!" " The Romans, Doctor, were great wine-drinkers." " Yes, my learned friend. Falemian and Massic, sir, inspired Virgil and Horace, and the poets have made the wines immortal. Martial praises his native wine of Tarragonia, sir; he was an old sherry drinker. And had the Italian vine, sir, perished with the Roman Empire, I have my doubts whether Dante, Pulci, Tasso, Petrarch, Boiardo, and Ariosto would have been what they now are in the eyes of an admiring posterity. Yes, sir, and there is Redi, too ! Why, the whole of Italy is in his ^JSacco in Toscaiia.^ " " What wine do you suppose Shakspeare preferred. Doctor ?" " Sack ! my learned friend — dry Sherry or Canary, sir. All the poets of the Elizabethan age, sir, were sack-drink- ers — ^Ben Johnson,, Beamnont, Fletcher, Marlowe, Ra- leigh, Chapman, Spencer, Sydney — so, too, was Herrick, as he says : • ' Thy lies shall lack Grapes, before Heiiick leave Canarie Sack.' and the other writers of his time, sir — Carew, Wither, Cowley, Waller, Crashaw, Broome — ' All worldly care is Madness ; But Sack and good Chear Will, in spite of our fear, Inspire our Souls with Gladness.' 28 NOTABLES AND POTABLES. That was the burthen of a song in the time of the Kvtmp, sir! It was a 'Rump and dozen' in those days, my learned friend." " One writer of that period was an exception, Doctor." " What writer, sir ?" "Milton." " Died of the gout, sir — died of the gout, sir. Milton, my dear friend, died of the gout." " Cervantes was a Sherry-drinker, Doctor ?" "Of course, my learned friend. And, no doubt, the ' Val de Penas' of La Mancha was a favorite beverage with him. But, sir," continued Dr. Bushwhacker sud- denly, sitting upright and holding his head hke a poised avalanche, "by speaking of Cervantes, sir, you have put a keystone into the arch of my theory, sir. The Ehza- bethan era should be called the age of Sack, sir. Look at those two great writers, Shakspeare and Cervantes, each a transcendant genius, sir ; both living at tlie same time, sir ; both dying on the same day, sir— on the 23d of April, 1616." "Well, Doctor?" "And both drinking Sack, sir, or Sherry, constantly. ' If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations, and to addict themselves to Sack.' Shakspeare, sir ! King Henry Fourth, part second, act fourth, scene third, su-!" "How 'long did this golden age of Sack continue, Doctor ?" NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 29 "Until Charles the Second returned from France, and brought Claret into fashion. You can see the light, deli- cate, fanciful potable, sir, in the literatui*e of this period as plain as sunhght. Next came the age of Port, sir, in Queen Anne's reign." " Ah ! I remember, the Methuen treaty." "Yes, sir, the treaty of 1703. Port was encouraged by low duties, and lighter and better wines of other coun- tries interdicted by enormous imposts, and in consequence we have a new school of literature, sir. The imaginative, the nervous, the pathetic, the humorous, and the sublime departed with the age of Sack ; the gay, the witty, the amorous, and the fanciful, with the age of Claret ; and thie artificial, the critical, the satirical, and the common- place arose, sir, with the age of Port ! But bless my heart," said Doctor Bushwhacker, rising and looking at his watch, " I must look after, my patients. The next time we meet we will have a talk over modern wines and authors, and that will be more interesting, I dare say." Kotafiles anlr ^otai)les=(K(intiituetf. "The last discourse we had, my learned fiiend," said Dr. Bushwhacker, " was about wine and wisdom. What shall be the next ?" • • Pardon me, Doctor, we are not yet through with 30 NOTABLES AND POTABLES. that. We reached Port and Queen Anne; what followed after the age of Pope and Addison ?" "The prohibition of wine, sir," replied the Doctor, solemnly, "led to the substitution of spirits. You see how Hogarth, in his immortal pictures, shows its pro- gress in Gin Lane. Well, sir, if you wish to see how intimate are the relations between drinking and thinking, mark the host of clever literary vagabonds of this period. Genius in rags, sir ; genius with immortal thoughts in his brain and no crown to his hat ; Pegassus, with every thing but his wings, in the pawnbroker's shop. The long ex- hausting toil of literary occupation, which needs a natu- ral stimulant, such as wine, (for men of sedentary habits must have it, sir,) was relieved by stronger stimulants, because they were cheaper. And now, sir, mark the two great geniuses of the middle of the last century. Fielding and Smollett ; see the wonderful power of those writers, and observe the characteristic coarseness of their works, and what else is there to say ' to point a moral,' farther, than that Smollett, with a shattered constitution, went to Leghorn, to die there; and Fielding, with a shattered constitution, went to Lisbon, to die there. Fielding, at the age of 47, and Smollett at the age of 50, sir." " What would you infer from that. Doctor ?" " Sir," replied the Doctor, " I leave you to draw the inference. Now, sir, we come to another epoch. A period, sir, of great mental brilliancy, and I wish you to observe that fine wine drinking had again become fash- NOTABLES AND POTARLES. 31 ionable. Claret was monstrously expensive, but claret was the mode. Now, sir, we have Fox, and Pitt, and Sheri- dan, and Burke, and Chesterfield, and Garrick, and Sir Joshua Eeynolds, and Goldsmith. And among this bril- liant cluster there stands out conspicuous a remarkable figure. Not that he was greater than these, not that his genius was superior, nor his wisdom more profbvmd, yet still the most conspicuous figure ia the group was " "Dr. SamuelJohnson." "Dr. Jamuel Johnson," echoed Dr. Bushwhacker. " Did you ever know, sir, leaving out a few of our prom- inent hydrophobists, a man so eminent for invective, asperity, bitterness, insolence, dogmatic assumption, and gluttony, as the Ursa Major of English literature ? And, sir, he was a total abstinent. To use his own words: ' I now no more think of drinking wine than a horse does. The wine upon the table is no more for me than for the dog who is under the table.' But he could drink, sir, twenty-three cups of tea at poor Mrs. Thrale's table at a sitting, until four o'clock in the motning, sir, which may be set down as a fair sample of teetotal debauchery, my learned friend." "Dr. Johnson was a very good hearted man, I beHeve." "A good man, sir, a good man, sir. His charity, his candor, his tenderness, his attachment to his friends, his love of the poor, his rigid honesty, his piety, and his filial affection, were wonderful, sir, We all love this Samuel 32 NOTABLES AND POTABLES. Johnson. But, sir, there was also another character ; an irritable, uncouth, imperious, ill-tempered, gluttonous,, mde, prejudiced, intolerd,nt, violent, imsparingold cynic;, and this Samuel Johnson we do not love. Sir, human nature has scarcely formed a character so disproportion- ate. He was a great man, sir, and a great bear, sir." " I thought you said no wat&r drinker ever was a great man. Doctor?" "My learned friend," replied the Doctor, growing slightly purple, "Dr. Samuel Johnson was a tea drinker, and used to be a wine drinker! But hand me the Maderia, if you please, and a handful of filberts. At the next dinner we will talk of the writers of this century.. What is this wine ?" " Virginia Reserve, Doctor." ' ' Then we wiU drink it, sir ; Virginia is a noble State, and it is full of noble men — " " And women, Doctor." " God bless you, my dear friend — and women !" TSTotaftlfs antr ^otatles^ittontinuelf. "What do you think of whiskey-punch. Doctor, as a potable ?" "Bless my heart!" said the Doctor, shaking his bushy mane, "by all means ; I never refuse it." {Enter a tray, two lemons, hot water, a silver ^ugar howl, and the Islay.) NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 33 "Punch," said Doctor Bushwhacker, "was the chief inspire!' of the hearty, homely, natural, vigorous writers of this century. You see how the great Sir Walter used it, sir ; there is a touch of ' mountain dew' in his tenderest productions, sir; the Heart of Mid- Lothian could never have been written by a cold-water drinker — ^no, sir ; nor was it. I may even go a little farther back, to a more unfortunate child of genius — ^Burns, sir ! Rdbert of Ayrshire loved the barley hroo — ' not wisely, but too well ' — ^for himself ; he was improvident ; but then he made posterity rich. (A little more of the Islay ; thank you.") "Byron, Doctor?" "Drank gin ; that we know pretty well, I believe, my learned friend. There is a touch of juniper in all Bryon — a mixture of the bitter and the aromatic." "And Coleridge?" " Coleridge," said the Doctor, gravely, with a sort of emphatic spill of the hot fluid, " illustrates my theory in a remarkable manner, sir — Coleridge and De Quincey, both. What idea do you have of the Vision of Kubla Khan, and the Suspiria de Profimdis, taken together ? My learned friend, he begins to dream who is absorbed in the pages of either : the world, yea, the great globe itself, becomes intangible ; he is floating away, on a sea of ether, in space more illimitable than human thought could scan before ; his vision is dilated, yet undefined ; the procfession of time sweeps on, measured by centuries; 34 NOTABLES AND POTABLES. events accumulate with supernatural aggregation; the scenery by which he is surrounded has surpassed sublimi- ty itself, and he listens to the river that runs -through caverns, measureless to man. Down to a sunless sea.' "Well, Doctor?" "Opium, sir!" repHed the Doctor, with awful solem- nity. "What of Charles Lamb, Doctor?" "Lamb ? Dear Charles, has certainly lisped of hot gui and water in his inimitable letters," replied the Doctor, "or, as he would say, ' hot water, with a s-s-s-entiment of gin.' " " That sounds Lambish, Doctor." "My learned friend," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, "I know it ; I have got Charles Lamb by heart, sir. By the way, a new anecdote of Eha : he had a friend one night at No. 4 Inner Temple Lane ; negus was the potable of the evening, from tenderness to Mary's feelings, who sometimes shook her sisterly head at the 's-s-s-entiment' It seems a poor cUr dog had attracted the attention of the gentle-hearted Charles that day, and he had invited him in, fed liim, and tied him up slightly in the little yard back of the house. Charles was talking in his phosphro- resent way over the negus, when Mary interrupted him : Charles, that dog yelps so.' Elia flashed on. ' Charles, that dog—' 'What i-i-is it, Mary? Oh! the dog? NOTABLES AND POTABLES, 35 • He-lie-he-he's enjoying him-s-s-self. ' ' Enjoying himself, Charles ?' ' Ye-ye-yes — as well as he can with ' whine and water.' " " Capital story, Doctor. What of the Laureate?" "In reading Southey," replied Doctor Bushwhacker, "you feel the want of the rare old vinous smack pecu- liar to the writings of authors of eminence, sir. I may say the same, too, of Wordsworth. Both were tolerably abstinent ; but Southey had his wine-cellar at Greta Hall, and Wordsworth, in celebrating his first visit to the rooms once occupied by Milton at Christ College, was a little overcome, sir, by — a — Jiis visit, sir. Southey, in his personal character, manners, and habits, must have re- sembled our dear Henry Inman, sir." "AndHazHtt?" "Misanthropic, cynical, Hazlitt, sir, used to drink blaqk tea, sir, of the intensest strength. He is another illustration of my theory, sir." " And Keats ?" " Read Keats over, my learned friend ; and if you can imlatch the tendrils of the vine from any of his super- . exquisite poems, great or small, then sir, I will bury my lancet. What a delicate taste for wine he must have had ! " "And Shelley, Doctor?" "My dear friend," said the Doctor, rising, and upset- ting his tumbler, " Shelley never understood the human aspect of existence. I fear me he was not a wine-drinker. Suppose we say, or admit he was a solitary exception ? " "Do you know," said Dr. Bushwhacker, as he stretch- ed out his full glass to be touched, "how this custom originated? — this ringing of wlne-beUs or kissing of beakers, sir?" We replied in the negative. "Then, sir, I will tell you," replied the Doctor. "It was the invention of a learned French philosopher, to il- lustrate the five senses. The beautiful color of wine dehghts the eye — seeing, the dehcate boquet gratifies the nose — STnelling, the cool glass suggests a pleasure to the fingers— /eeZm^, and, sir, by di-inking it we gratify exquisitely — the taste. Now, sir, touch glasses for the finest chime in the world, that rings out good fellowship, sir, and we have the fifth sense — hearing.'''' " Quite a little poem, Doctor, in five lines." "Put it in verse, sir, put it inverse — I give you the idea." " Appr(^os^J)oii\.Or, I have a German song here, trans- lated by a fi-iend: Let me read it to you." {Editor reads.) "LOVE, SONG, AND WINE. Dear Feedeeicus: A. Walther writ this in 'quaint old sounding German.' It is done into English by your friend, Hugh Pynnsauret. NOTABLES AND POTABLES. 37 Through the gloom of this sad life of ours, Three glorious planets still shine, Serene from the azm'e of heaven, And men call them Love, Song, and Wine. In the dear voice of love all the passion Of a trusting and earnest heart lies ; And pleasure by love grows immortal, While sorrow faints, withers, and dies. Then wine gives a com'age to passion, Lispires the melodious art, And reddens the gold of the sunlight That streams o'er the May of the heart, But song is most noble of all these ; To mortals it adds the divine ; It thrills through our hearts like a passion, And glows through our senses like wine. Then quench all the rest of the planets, Bid the golden-rayed stars cease to shine ; We'll not miss them so long as God leaves us Those heart-stars of Love, Song, and Wine." "Excellent!" said the Doctor, shaking his bushy head. "By the way, what grand old songs those Rhine soi^ are ! And the vineyards of the Rliine are reflected in the songs as they are in the river. ' O ! the pride of the German. heart is this noble River ! and right it is ; for of the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so beauti- ftil as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. By 38 NOTAHLES AND POTABLES. heavens ! if I were a German, I would be proud of it, too ; and of the clustering grapes that hang about its temples, as it reels onwards through .yhieyards in a tri- umphal march, like Bacchus, crowned and drunken.' There, sir, what do you think of that ?" " Grand, Doctor, like the triimaphant chanting of an organ. Who wrote it ?" "Henry Wadsworth LongfeUow, sir '.Hyperion, sir. Read it over, and get it by heart." " The German writers all use the vnnes of Fatherland, Doctor." " Nearly all, from Martin Luther down. I say nearly all — Goethe was an exception. The courtly Goethe used to drink the fine Burgundies and Bordeaux of France. But Schiller, sii', was a Rhine-wine drinker. In fact his writing-table was always suppUed with the golden pota- ble of the Rhine. Now, sir, we see between these two men of eminent genius, two separate and distinguishing characteristics. Goethe was different from all other German poets — but Schiller was above all other German poets, including Goethe himself." VI. a ^eep into a Salatr-l3otDl. »Y dear, learned friend," said the Doctor, " a Bowl of Lettuce is the Venus of the dinner table ! It rises upon the sight cool, moist and beauti- ful, like that very imprudent lady coming out of the sea, sir ! And to complete the image, sir, neither should be dressed too much ! " When Dr. Bushwhacker had issued this observation, he drew himself up in a very portly manner, as if he felt called upon to defend himself as well as his image. Then, after a short pause, he broke — silence. " Zactuea, or lettuce, is one of the most common vege- tables in the world ; it has been known, sir, from time immemorial; it was as common, sir, on the tables of the ancients as it is now, and was eaten in the same way, sir, dressed with oil and vinegar. We get, sir, from Athenaeus some idea of the condiments used : not all of these contributed to make a salad, but it shows they had the materials : ' Dried grapes, and salt, and eke new wine Newly boiled down, and asatoetida, (pah !) And cheese, and thyme, and'sesame, (open sesame,) And nitre too, and cummin-seed. And sumach, honey, and majorum, 40 A PEEP INTO A SALAD BOWL. And herbs, and vinegar, and oil. And sauce of onions, mustard and capers mixed, And parsley, capers too, and eggs, And lime, and cardimums, and th' acid juice Whicli comes from the green fig-tree ; besides lard, And eggs and honey, and flour wrapped in fig-leaves, And all compounded in one savory force-meat.' They had pepper too. Ophelian says : ' Pepper from Lybya take, and frankincense.' So, sir, if you had dined with Aleibiades, no doubt he would have dressed a salad for you with Samian oil, and Sphettian vinegar, sir, pepper from Lybia, and salt from — ah— hm— " " Attica, doctor." " Attica, my learned friend ; thank you. Now, su-, there was one thing the ancients did with lettuce which we do not do. They boiled it, sir, and served it up like asparagus ; so, too, did they with cucumbers — a couple of indigestible dishes they were, no doubt. Lettuce, my dear friend, should have a quick growth, in the first place, to be good ; it should have a rich mould, sir, that it may spring up quickly, so as to be tender and crisp. Then, sir, it should be new^lucked, carried from the garden a few minutes before it is placed upon the table. I would suggest a parasol, sir, to keep the leaves cool until it reaches the shadow^ of within-doors. Then, sir, it must be washed — ^mind you — ice-water 1 Then place it upon the table — what Corinthian oi-nament more perfect and symmetrical. Now, sir, comes tlie importaiit part, the DEESSING. 'To dress a salad,' says the learned Petrus A PEEP INTO A SALAD BOWL. 41 Petronius, ' you must have a prodigal to furnish the oil, a counselor to dispense the salt, a miser to dole out the vinegar, and a madman to stir it.' Commit that to memory, my learned friend." "It is down, Doctor." {Tablets.) "Let me show yon," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, " how to dress a salad. Take a small spoonful of salt, thus: twice the quantity of mustard — 'Durham' — thus: incorporate : pour a slender stream of oil from the cruet, 80 : gently mix and increase the action by degrees," (head of hair in commotion, and face brilliant in color ;) " dear me ! it is very warm — now, sir, oil in abundance, so ; a dash of vinegar, very light, like the last touches of the artist ; and, sir, we have the dressing. Now, take up the lettuce by the stalk ! Break ofi' the leaves — leaf by leaf — shake off the water, replace it in the salad-bowl, pepper it slightly, pour on the dressing, and there you have it, su\" " Doctor, is that orthodox ?" " Sir," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, holding the boxwood spoon in one hand and the box-wood fork in the other ; " the eyes of thirty centuries are looking down upon me. I know that Frenchmen wiU sprinkle the lettuce with oil until it is thorougly saturated ; then, sir, a little pepper ; then, sir, salt or not, as it happens ; then, sir, vinaigre by the drop — all very well. Our people, sir, in the State of New Jersey, will dress it with salt, vinegar, and pep- per. — perfectly barbarous, my learned friend ; then comes 42 A PEEP INTO A SALAD BOWL. the elaborate Englishman ; and our Pennsylvania friend, the E.ev. Sidnej*' Smith, sir, gives us a recipe in verse, that shows how they do it there, and at the same time, exhibits the deplorable ignorance of that very peculiar people. I quote from memory, sir : ^wo large potatoes, passed thi'ough kitchen sieve Smoothness and softness to the salad give ; Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, Distrust the condiment that bites too soon, But deem it not, Lady of herbs, a fault To add a double quantity of salt. Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar procured from town ; True flavor needs it, and your poet begs The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs. Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, scarce suspected, animate the whole. Then lastly in the flavored compound toss One magic spoonful of anchovy sauce. O great and glorious ! O herbaceous treat ! 'T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat ; Back to the world he'd turn his weary soul, And plunge his fingers in the Salad Bowl !' Now, sir, I have tried that, and a compound more execra- ble is not to be thought of. No, sir ! Take some of my salad, and see if you do not dream afterwards of the Greek mythology." VII. iEatrame dToUet. bY dear friend," said the Doctor, holding his cup in the left hand thumb and forefinger, with the other three fingers stretched out over the rest of the table, "I never inhale the fragrance of cotfee without thinking of the old fashioned cofiee pot, or 'Madame Follet,' as dear Miss Bremer used to call it. Do you know, sir — and I suppose you know every thing — do you know, sir, there are a great many old fashioned people in the world ?" We replied, the fact was not to be disputed. "Old fashioned people, sir ; old fashioned in dress, in speech, in politeness, in ideas, in every thing. And, sir, not long since, I had occasion to visit two old ladies, sir ; I went down stairs to the basement dining room, sir, without ceremony, sir, and there I found the antiquated virgins over their coffee, sir ; and in the middle of the table there was the old fashioned tin coffee pot, sir, sconred as bright as sand could make it, with a great big superannuated spout, and a great broad backed handle,, sir, and a great big, broad bottom, sir, as broad, sir, as 44 MADAM FOLLETT, the top of the great bell crowned hat I used to wear when I went to visit them as a spruce young buck, in the year eighteen hundred and twenty, sir." Hei'e the Doc- tor's spectacles fairly glistened again. "Well, Doctor?" "Sir," replied Dr. Bushwhacker, "there was plenty of silver in the cupboard, plenty ; great pots, and coffee ui-ns of solid metal, sir, with massive handles to match ; but they were so old fashioned as to prefer the old, scoured, broad bottomed tin pot, sir, and with reason, too, sir." " Give us the reason, thereof. Doctor, if you please." "Well, sir, one of the sisters apologized for the coffee pot in a stiU, small sort of a voice, a little cracked and chipped by constant use, and said, the reason why they drank their coffee out of that pot was because it never seemed to taste so well out of any thing else" "Why not, Doctor?" "Why not? Easily enough explained, sir; we never make coffee in a silver urn, and when we pour it from the vessel in which it is made into another, we lose half the aroma, sir. Coffee is of most delicate and choice flavor, sir ; very few know how to make it or to use it. The proper way to. make good .coffee, sir, is to roast it care- fully in a cylinder over a charcoal fire. Until it is of a light brown color ; then the cyHnder should be taken off the fire and turned gently until the berries are thoroughly cooled. The best part of the aroma is dissipated, sir, by MADAM FOLLETT. 45 the abominable practice of tui-ning out the coffee in an open dish so soon as it is roasted. Why, sir, any body can see that the finest part of it escapes ; you can smell it, sir, in every crack and corner of the house. AVhen cooled, it should be put into a mortar and beat to powder. A cof- fee mill only cracks the grains, but a mortar pounds out the essential oil. Then, sir, put it into an old fashioned tin coffee pot, pour on the hot water, stand it over a fire, not too hot ; let it simmer gently. If your fire is too hot, it will burn the coffee and spoil it. Then, sir, take Madam Follett fresh from the fire, stand her on the table, and if you want an appreciative friend, send for me ! " "What kind of coffee is the best, Doctor ?" "Mocha, sir, from Arabia Fehx. The fii'st Mocha coffee that ever reached the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave direct, sir, came in a ship belonging to Captain Derby, of Salem, in the year 1801." " When was coffee first used in Europe, Doctor?" " That, my learned friend, is one of ' the two or three things to suggest conversation at the tea table,' as our friend WiUis has it. It is a matter of dispute, my learn- ed friend, and it will probably be settled after the com- mentators have agreed upon the proper way of speUing the name of Shakspeare, Shaksper, Shagsper, or what- ever you call him." " How early was coffee in use in the world?" " Sherbaddin, an Arab author, asserts that the first man who drank coffee was a certain Mufti, of Aden, who 46 MADAM FOLLETT. lived in the ninth century of the Hegira, about the year 1500, my learned friend. So says Dr. Doran. The pop- ular tradition is, that the superior of a Dervish commu- nity, observing the effects of coffee berries, when eaten by some goats, rendering them more lively and skittish than before, prescribed it for the brotherhood, in order to cure them of drowsiness and indolence. Dickens, in Household Words, gives a capital account of the old cof- fee houses of London. By the way, there is an account, also, in Table Traits. Here is the book. ' Lend me thine ears.' — Shagsper. 'The coffee houses of England take precedence of those of France, thoiigh the latter have more enduringly flourished. In 1652, a Greek, in the service of an Eng- lish Turkey merchant, opened a house in London. ' I have discovered his hand bill,' says Mr. Disraeli, 'in which, he sets forth the virtue of the coffee drink, first publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Eosee, of St. Michael's Alley, CornhiU, at the sign of his own head.' Mr. Peter Cunningham cites a MS. of Oldys' in his possession, in which some fuller details of much in- terest are given. Oldys says : ' The first use of coffee in England was known in 1657, when Mr. Daniel Edwards, a Turkey merchant, brought from Smyrna to London one Pasqua Rosee, a Ragusan youth, who prepared this drink for him every morning. But the novelty thereof drawing too much company to him, he allowed his said servant, with another of his son-in-law's, to sell it publicly ; and they set up the first coffee house in London, in St. Mi- chael's Alley, Cornhill. But they separating, Pasqua kept in the house ; and he who had been his partner ob- tained leave to pitch a tent, and sell the liquor, in St. MADAM FOLLETT. 47 Michael's cliurch yard.' , Aubrey, in his Anecdotes, states that the first vender of coft'ee in London was one Bow- man, coachman to a Tm*key merchant, named Hodges, who was the father-in-law of Edwards, and the partner of Pasqua, who got into difficulties, partly by his not be- ing a freeman, and who left the country. Bowman was not only patronized, but a magnificent contribution of one thousand sixpences was presented to him, where- with he made great improvements in his coffee house. Bowman took an apprentice, (Paynter,) who soon learnt the mystery, and in four years set up for himself. The coffee houses soon became numerous ; the principal were Farres', the Rainbow, at the Inner Temple Grate, and John's, in Fuller's Rents.' " There, sir ; aind now, my learned friend, I must pay a visit to that charming lady, Mrs. Potiphar, who is suf- fering severely with a neuralgia." vin. OK my part," said the Doctor, "I do not see how we could get along without them. The old phrases, the idioms, the apothegms of a people are the gold and silver coins of their language, bearing a pro- portionate value, as many hundred times, to the common stock of words, as these do to the copper currency. Sir, if you will get the 'Lessons on Proverbs,' by Richard Chenevix Trench, you will find you have a sub-treasury of wisdom, my learned friend." "Do you not think. Doctor, there is a coarseness in familiar proverbs that diminishes their value in polite society?" " No, sir, I do not think so," replied the Doctor vehe- mently. " To be sure, there may be, here and there one in which an allusion might oflfend a sensitive mind ; but, generally speaking, they are rather robust, instead of coarse, strong without being indelicate. Cervantes feUc- itously calls them ^Sentencias hrevas sacadas de la lum^a y discreta experiencw! — short sentences- drawn from long and wise experience. Common enough are they among OLD PHRASES. 49 uneducated people, but not the less valuable for that rea- son, sir ; proverbs may be called the literature of the illiterate — another mouthful of the Miunm, sir — thank you." "How do you like that wine, Doctor?" "Grand, sir; glorious, sir; 'Mumm's the word,' sir. If Shakspeare were living, sir, he would forswear sack, and say ' MurmrC — ' a jewel of a wine, sir — Jewel Mumm." "The phrase you have just used, Doctor, is a common one." " 'Mumm's the word ?' True, my learned friend. Dr. Johnson, that stupendous lexicographer, remarks of the word mumm, it may be observed that when it is pro- nounced it leaves the lips closed, thus," (hps in sculptured silence.) "How did the phrase originate. Doctor?" " That, sir, is a question I can not answer. There are phrases, sir, beyond the scope of records, written or printed, so old, sir, that, to use the words of our fiiend Blackstone, ' the memory of man runneth not to the con- trary' — they were always in use. Others we can trace at once to their originals ; such as, 'How we apples swim,' to a fable in -^sop ; or, ' To see ourselves as others see us,' to a poem of Burns; there are legions of phrases from the Bible, not one of which inculcates a sentiment not divine in its humanity ; there are scores from Shaks- peare, scores from Pope, scores from Yoxmg, some from 3 50 OLB PHRASES. Byron, from Milton, Cowper, Thomson, Campbell, Gold- smith, Spenser, Addison, Congreve, Prior, Sir PliUip Sidney, Gray, Collins, Cowley, onr own poets, sir — and Daniel Webster, su-, Halleck and Irving." " There is no fear of a language. Doctor, in which siich coin is current." "No, sir; nor of a people! But there are other phrases which, to the undiscipHned ear, seem coarse and vulgar, yet involving a story clever enough in itself to be preserved." "For instance?" "For instance, 'The gray mare is the better horse.' We know very well the hne is in Prior's Epilogue to Lucius ; but the story from which the phrase is derived is something like this: A gentleman, who had seen the world, one day gave his eldest son a span of horses, a chariot, and a basket of eggs. 'Do you,' said he to the boy, ' travel upon the high road until you come to the first house in which there is a married couple. If you ■find the husband is the master there, give him one of the horses. If, on the contrary, the. wife is the ruler, give her an egg. Return at once if you part with a horse, but do not come back so long as you keep both horses, and there is an egg remaining.' Away went tlie boy fall of his mission, and just beyond the borders of his father's estate lo ! a modest cottage. He ahghted from the char- iot and knocked at the door. The good wife opened it for him and ■ curtesiedi, 'Is your husband at home?' OLD PHRASES. 51 'No ;' but she would call him from the liay field. In he came, wiping his brows. The young man told them his errand. 'Why,' said the wife, bridling and rolling the corner of her apron, ' I always do as John wants me to do ; he is my master — an't you, John ?' To which John rephed, 'Yes.' ' Then,' said the boy, ' I am to give you a horse ; which wiU you take ?' ' I think,' said John, ' as how that bay gelding seems to be the one as would suit me the best.' 'If we have a choice, husband,' said the wife, '■I think the gray mare will suit us better.' 'No,' rephed Jolm, 'the bay for me; he is more square in front, and his legs are better.' ' Now, ' said the wife, ' I don't think so ; the gray mare is the better horse ; and I shall never be contented unless I get that one.' ' Well,' said John, ' if your mind is sot on it, I'll give up ; we'll take the gray mare.' ' Thank you, ' said the boy ; ' allow me to give you an egg from this basket ; it is a nice fresh one, and you can boil it hard or soft as your wife will permit.' The rest of the story you may imagine ; the young man came home with both horses, but not an egg remained in his basket." " That is a scandalous stoiy. Doctor." "True, my learned friend; but after we finish this Mumm, I wiU tell you another with a better moral." "Let us," said the Doctor, "take up the familiar, every day language — the language, sir, not of the draw- ing room, but of the street — the language, not of the beau, but of the b'hoy, sir, and dissect it." Here the Doctor rolled up his wristbands, and armed himself with a fruit- knife, in the most formidable maimer. "Let us," he continued, tapping the ringing rim of the finger-bowl, "dissect it, sir, and expose its muscles, ligaments, and tendons, its veins and its arteries, its viscera, its nerves and its ganglionic system, and sir, we will find that these old phrases are the very bones of the system, sir, the framework that sustains and supports all the rest. Yes, my learned friend,'- take even a tissue of slang, and you will find it full of marrow-bones !" "Among some people the range of ideas being limited " The range of ideas being limited," interrupted the Doctor, "the range of expression is necessarily limited also. Yet, you will see how readily, even with a small stock of words, the b'hoys make themselves understood. One word passes muster for many, by dint of inflection and gesture: a single phrase sir, will often convey a& many separate and opposite meanings, as a single string on Ole Bull's violin will express separate and opposite OLD PHRASES. 53 sentiments. Why, sir, the slang phrase, 'that's so,' is used to signify affirmation, confirmation, doubt, interro- gation, irony, triumph, and despair ; and a host besides of shades of sense relative to the subject in hand. ' You'd better believe it,' is sometimes a taunt, or a men- ace, as the case may be ; sometimes a, grave and weighty piece of advice ; and sometimes significant of its own opposite — that is, 'You had better no^ beheve it.' Now my learned friend, if we could only trace these phrases, and betimes we will, we would find them to be, not the property of this generation, but the original expres- sions of a people very much fore-shortened in language, some centuries behind the curtain of Shakspeare ; or else the result, the quotient, of some old story, from which every thing else had been subtracted." "Doctor, pardon me for interrupting you." "Willis," continued the Doctor, "did originate some phrases, sir, such as ' the upper ten thousand.' You see how it has been trimmed down to 'the upper ten,' and by and by it will be used to signify a class simply, with- out any reference to its previous purport. And in this connection the facile terminal '■dom,'' which so often has brought up the rear-guard of a sentence in the papers, is due to WiUis, who struck it out in 'japonicadom' — a most happy and felicitous phrase." •'Doctor, I would like " " Some authors write whole volumes without a catch- word " 54 OLD PHEASES. "To ask if you- " Others again press a score of them in a " "Can tell me " "Chapter. Well, sir?" " Whether you can tell me what was the origin of the phrase — ' a fish story ?," "Certainly," responded Dr. Bushwhacker; "every body knows that : An old Indian, who had been convert- ed by the missionaries, got along very well as far as "Jonah and the whale,' where he faltered a little, but finally passed over that, and went on. At last he reached the history of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, in the fiery furnace. 'Me no believe that,' said the Indian. 'But you must beheve it,' said the missionaries. The Indian dissented ; but the missionaries cleved to the point of faith at issue. At last, after a prolonged debate, in which the Indian distinguished himself by a display of natural eloquence, the old aboriginal wound up the string by saying, ' Now, I tell you, me no believe that ; and since you make me mad, me no believe too that fish story !" " That is the origin of the phrase, sir, and it is not only original but aboriginal." IX. art. BY learned frieud," said the Doctor, glaring at us through his critical specs, "I have seen both exhibitions, the British and the French. I was delighted sir, dwlighted with tlie French exliibition. The people of France, sir, are essentially an aesthetic people ; they strive to please you sir, and they succeed in pleasing you ; they rarely widen their callipers beyond the limits of decorum ; they kill their tragedy heroes in abattoirs behind the scenes, and never venture to intrude upon us those coarser emotions which are independent of taste and politeness ; so, sir, I visited the French exhibition with pleasure, and came away gratified. I do not remem- ber any single pictures except those of Rosa Bonheur, and they struck me, perhaps, because they reminded me of something I had seen in nature that was familiar ; but otherwise, I have only a general impressien, sir, of pleas- ure, of great pleasure. It was far different, sir, with the^ British exhibition. ' I was not pleased with it, sir, not pleased with it. I came away, sir, with my emotions ex- cited, and in a state of disagreement. You know my love, of Shakspeare, sir ! well, sir, I never felt such divine pity 56 ART for King Lear — such exquisite sympathy for Juhet (out of the book,) as I felt when I saw those pictures of F. Madox Brown, and Frederick Leighton. As for the huli^ of the rest, the modern school of British Art, it is ex- pressed forcibly in a Kne, so contemptuous, sir, that from my love of the aesthetic and the agreeable, I am ahnost alraid to quote it. But, sir, as an arbiter of matters of taste, I cannot refrain from saying of the modem school of British Art : that — • ^Exlreme exactness is tlie sublime of fools,' and, sir, you may try the measure by the spots on the sailor boy's breeches, or the twigs on any one of the pre- Raphaelite trees, and if you are not convinced of the truth of the above maxim, then try it on Buskin's own picture, ' Study of a block of Gneiss, Yalley of Cha- mouni, Switzerland, No. 155.' Buskin, sir, is a great writer, a great rhetorician ; his persuasive powers are wonderful, dazzling, hut not reliable, mr. Put a pen in his hand and Buskin can make his m^rk. Put a pallet on his thumb, and Buskin sinks into the lowest depths of Buskinism." "My dear Doctor!" "Yes, sir, into the lowest depths of Buskinism. His tre-foil, cinque-foil windows are very nice things in print, and we admire them; as well as his lichens, mosses, striae, and the oxide stains of his wonderful gneiss bould- ers ; but, sir, what is the use of having Buskin's meagre representation of a lichen covered, metalhc stained boulder ART. 5*7 from an obscure corner of the globe, in our parlor, when we can have the real article from the richest mineral kingdom on earth, just by rolling it in ?" "But there is the sentiment, Doctor." "The sentiment? My learned friend, if there is no sentiment in the original, what can you look for in the mere copy?" "But, Doctor, what do you think of Hohnan Hunt's light of the World?" ''An exquisite bit of art, a happy adaptation of the school to a single figure; lucky was it for him that he had no other figures in the background." "Why, Doctor?" "Because the school has no idea of atmosphere, sir — atmosphere, distance, perspective ! Look at the back- ground figures in his picture of St. Agnes' Eve ; the features, the expression of every face, painted as elabo- rately as if they were in the foreground. Is that the way nature exhibits her panorama? Sir, so far from features, or the expression of featjires, being recognizable at that distance, I can tell you that it would be difficult to say whether there were men or women, yes, bipeds or quad- , rupeds in that perspective." "Nevertheless, Doctor, you must admit that they are very beautiful works of art. Just think of the man who can paint such pictures. Is he not very much elevated by genius above his fellows ?" "Unquestionably he is, and when aU that is now 58 ART. claimed for him lias passed through the ordeal of detrac- tion, the pre-Eaphaelite, or post-Raphaelite painter, will' find a proper niche, when all the symbols of his art are, to quote Shakspeare : ' In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.' And, by the way, why not have a pre-Shakspearean school! Why not!" "Doctor, that is a capital idea." "My learned and dear friend, I was only in jest. A school ! My dear friend, you have never yet, and never will see a school of great men. Intellect of the first class is great — ^independent — single — alone ! It has no schol- astic limits, no pedantry, no peers. The moment art ceases to appeal to sympathies and emotions, and content^ itself with the bare representation of forms, it comes in competition with the photograph, and at once is beaten by the more elaborate delineation of the camera." "But, Doctor, you forget the symbols of the pre- Eaphaehte school!" "Symbols, symbols! and of a school? What! has this age of intelligence to be instructed by symbols of a school of painters ? If they are able to convey ideas by symbols, why do they write the names of their pictures in Saxon characters on the frames? Wliy not let the symbols explain the symbols ? They teach us what art is, by symbols! Faugh! If that is high art, let me, begin with the rudiments, and study it out — ^from the alphabet of a Chinese teacup." X. Eccittmtal ^tstmUmtt^. Ik. Bushwhacker came to us, to-day, in an old fash- ^ ioned, fiill circle blue Spanish cloak, a for cap, a carpet bag, and a small package of pemmican in his hand. He deposited these articles in the haU, shook the hand of my wife impressively, and caressed the children with warmth and tenderness. The Doctor is usually boisterous with children, but to-day he was subdued. Moreover, he gave each of them a keep-sake. To Bessy a stalactite from the grotto of Antiparos ; to Jjucj a little paper of sand from the Desert of Sahara ; Tom had a vial of water from the pool of Bethesda; and Jack a twig of ivy from Melrose Abbey. Even the baby was not forgotten, for he had brought it a Chinese rattle, that no doubt was contemporary with the age of Confucius ; and to my wife he presented a little book made of papy- iTis, inscribed with Coptic characters, which might have been decyphered had they not been obliterated by time. Then, putting his hand in his left vest pocket, he drew forth a present for me. It was his lancet, which, he assured me, had bled more respectable people than any other lancet in fashionable practice. "My learned fi-iend," said he, "you have no idea of the fees which 60 ACCIDENTAL EESBMBLANCES. have accumulated upon the point of this instrument. But the old practice, sir, the old, venerable, respectable practice is vanishing in these new fangled, latter-day lights of science. The good old days of calomel and tartar emetic have departed. The late Surgeon General broke down the time-consecrated faith in these specifics, and now, sir, we have to study the physical idiosyncracies of a patient before we prescribe, as diligently as lawyers do when working up a case in thoir profession. The good ■ old easy days are gone, sir — but I hear the dinner bell !" The Doctor was silent during the repast. But a bottle of "Old Wanderer, 1822," as bright as a topaz, drew him out. Poising the straw stem glass between his thumb and forefinger, and viewing the shining fluid with the eye of a connoisseur, he broke forth — "My learned friend, do you suppose that the science of chemistry has advanced so far that this wine could be imitated even by aLiebig?" " Certainly not Doctor. To any person of fine taste, aU imitations must pass for imitations. They no more resemble the original than " ' ' Imitations usually do. I know what you want to say, my learned friend. All plagiarisms are as inferior to originals, as copies of great pictures, or plaster casts of great sculptures, are inferior to the works which the pen- cil or the chisel, in the hands of a great master of his art, has accomplished. This is so well understood in the mere sensuous works of painters and sculptors that even ACCIDENTAL EESEMBLANC>:S. 61 the most accurate copy of a Raphael, or of a Leonard! di Vinci, is nothing worth comparing with the original. But how is it with literature, my learned friend ?" " I do not understand you. Doctor." " How is it with literature ? Do you - think that you can ever build up an American literature, if the chief merit of our native authors exists only by imitation ? Dr. Drake, sir, .Joseph Rodman Drake was an exam- ple. He was an original native poet, sir. Who has fol- lowed his example ? Not one." " That would be imitation Doctor." "No, sir. It would be emvlation. There is a nice distinction between the two phrases." "But what do you mean by plagiarisms Doctor?" " That is rather a harsh term to use. Suppose we call them 'accidental resemblances.' Now, your friend, Barrj' Gray, paid you a great compliment in accidentally resem- bling your style. My dear old friend, Washington Irv- ing, once said to me: ' Who is this, Barry Gray ? He has stolen from the Sparrowgra;ss Papers, the style of the author. Materials are everywhere, and are common prop- erty. But a new style is the author's own. Tell me the real name of Barry Gray, that I may know upon whom to pour the full measure of my contempt, for I' hate these literary pilferers.' " " Surely, Doctor, you know what stopped my pen at that time, and so spare me." " Suppose we take up HaUeck as an example," said the Doctor, sententiously. 62 ACCIDENTAL KESEMBLANCES. "Great heavens, Doctor! Halleck! I know that ' Fanny,' has been assumed by the critics to be an imita- tion of Don Juan, but, really, it was written before Don Juan was pubhshed. Lord Byron's story of Beppo sug- gested the metre, and HaUeck wrote ' Fanny' before Don Juan had crossed the Atlantic." " What do you think," said the Doctor, " of his eulogy on Bums ? 'And if despondency weigh down, Tliy spirits' fluttering pinions tlien, Despair — thy name is written on The roll of common men.' " , "WeU, Doctor?" " Shakspeare, sir ! Henry IV, Part I, Act III, Scene First, 'And all the courses of my life do show, I am not in the roll of common men.' " "Ah, Doctor! Halleck intended that to be a quotar tion." "Now, sir," continued the Doctor, "we have Henry (again) IV, Part I, Act IV, Scene First, as authority for another popular catch word — 'There is not such a word spoken of in Scotland, as this term fear.' And Bulwer in his Richelieu says— ' There is no such word as fail.' ACCIDENTAL EESEMBLANCES. 63 Do you not see the palpable resemblance of these two ? " " True, Doctor, but what shall be said of them except that they are " "Accidental resemblances! Now, here is another example, from Paul Eevere's Ride in Longfellow's Way- side Inn. ' Now Soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, I hear the tramp of his hoof as he rides.' But Tennyson had already written in his wonderful dra- matic poem of Man — ' Low on the sand, and loud on the stone, The last wheel echoes away.' What do you think of that?" "Ah, Doctor, you are rather hypercritical." " Do you think so ?" said the Doctor, shghtly redden- ing, for he does not like his opinions to be impugned. " What do you think of this from the Birds of Kil- lingworth, in the same volume ? ' And rivulets rejoicing, rush and leap, And wave their fluttering signals from the steep.' " "Well, Doctor, I never heard that before, and it is a beautiful image." " Beautiful ! indeed it is, if one had never before read Wordsworth's ode on the Intimations ot Immortality, where we have the same idea presented in a line, the 64 ACCIDENTAL KESEMBLANCES. rejoicing, the rush and leap of the waters, the signal note, the great concurrence of waters, in one blast, as it were — ' The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.' That, sir, is poetry, and the other is " " But surely. Doctor, you must admit- " That Longfellow's psahn of lite is- original. Arslonga vita brevis, is cleverly rendered. As for the rest of the stanza, though I will quote the whole of it Alt is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts though stoiit and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave.' I cannot quite subscribe to the originality of any part of it. In my copy of Cowley's Poems, (folio ' 1668,' page 13, of verses written on several occasions,) in his Ode upon Dr. Harvey, who had discovered the circulation of the blood " "And a great discovery it was. Doctor !" "A great discovery, sir! As great in medical science, as Galileo's discovery of the rotation of the earth, sir. In Cowley's tribute to Dr. Harvey, we find this expression of the poet — ^full of his subject, the new discovery — ^the circulation of the blood. ' the untaught heart began to beat The tuneful march to vital heat.' And here we see the idea of the march, of the musical ACCIDENTAL TJESEirBLAjSTCES. 65 instruments, of the band, of the drums beating, embodied in the lines of our Cambridge friend." " So then Cowley was the originator of that thought?" "No, sir. I did not say so. His lines had 'an acci- dental resemblance' to the lines of Dr. Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, who had before written in a poem called the Exequy, an ode dedicated to his deceased Avif% — ' Buthark ! my pulse like a soft drum Beats my approach, tells that I come, And slow, however, my marches be, I shall at last sit down by thee.' There, sir, what do you think of that ? " " Wliy,let us all thank God, Doctor, that such things have been modernized. Who the deuce could buy Cowley or Bishop King at thig time?" "Ah, my learned friend," said the Doctor, "I do not like your remarks. I have paid a great deal of attention to these works of original men, and I would like to con- serve them, apart and entire from the vulgar world." "Wliat good would that do. Doctor?" Dr. Bushwhacker paused. He was evidently moving upon a different plane from the ordinary motion of mor- tals. His love of uncut editions floated before his eyes. Finally he broke forth: " 'The blessings of Providence, like the dews of heaven, should fall alike upon the rich and the poor.? — Andrew 4 66 ACCIDENTAL RESEMBLANCES. Jackson. There, sir, you have an original quotation from one of the greatest Presidents we ever had." "No, Doctor, for in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which is one of the most comical books ever written, you will find on page 391, edition of 1836, printed for B. Blake, the folio vidng sentence: 'As the rain falls on both sorts, so are riches given to good and bad.' That is so near Jackson's motto, that the accidental resemblance is palpable. Of course General Jackson had read Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, my learned friend. What hadn't General Jackson read ?" '.iJSTow, Doctor, in regard to these matters, what do you think of Tennyson's ' Flowers of all hues, and lovelier through their names,' Introduced in the prologue tothe Princess ?" The Doctor paused.^ — " Tennyson is certainly an orig- inal poet." " But Milton in Book IV, verse 256, in Paradise Lost, as '■flowers of all hues.'' Do you think Tennyson stole from Milton ?" "No, that was an accidental resemblance !" "What do you think of Lord Byron ? — ' For where the spahi's hoof has trod, There verdure flies the bloody sod,' Compared with Dr. Fuller, in his Holy War, Chapter XXX. 'Grass springeth not where the gi-and signior setteth his foot.' " ACCIDENTAL EESEMBLANCES. f)7 "Ah," SEiid the Doctor, 'you are too inquisitive, and too hypercritical. ' Grass springeth not where the grand Turk setteth his foot,' and 'where the spahi's hoof has trod, there verdure flies the bloody sod,' is the same thought expressed in different ways. One is a common- place method of expressing a superstition common in the days of Fuller ; the other a highly imaginative poeti- cal paraphrase of Lord Byron." "But the thought was an accidental resemblance f eh, Doctor?" Dr. Bushwhacker, whose nut-pick had been busily em ployed during this colloquy, and who had tasted succes- sively the Sherry, the Old Port and the Wanderer of 1822, now laid down the httle steel implement, which, in his hand, looked very much hke a dentist's tooth filler, brushed the lint of the napkin off liis lap, and rose. "Tou ask me too much," he said. "You overburthen my mind with ridiculous questions, and expect me to find answers for all the quips and cranks of an erratic brain. Do you not know, sir, it is much easier to ask questions than to find answers for them ? Good bye, sir ; I wish you a very good day. My comphments to your good lady, who, I suppose, is asleep by this time. And a kiss for all the little ones, who, no doubt, are in the same happy condition. I am going, sir, to a country where tliere are no poets, nor philosophers, nor plagiarists, nor politicians. To-morrow I shall take a steamer for San Francisco, and from that place I shall go to our new 68 ACCIDENTAL EKS.EMBLANCES. Russian American Possessions, among the Polar Bears, and the beauties of Arctic vegetation. Farewell ! and perhaps you will never hear more of Dr. Bushwhacker, Note. — ^After the Doctor had departed I found on my desk the foUovdng paper, which I recognized as being in his hand writing. As a literary curiosity, I have thought it worth preserving. XL BY DR. BUSHWHACKEE. N the Americo-Russian archipelago there is^ an island called by the above name, on which is the capital city of New Archangel. It is situated off a belt of land, fringed with Russian Islands, about thirty miles wide, and three hundred and forty-five miles long ; which shuts off one-half of British America from the Pacific ; and north of that, the great peninsula, like a shoulder of mutton, tough, sinewy and fat with Arctic animal life, rolls up into the mighty fore-arm of Mount St. Elias, and rolls down in avalanches, eternal snow-storms, glaciers, fogs, and icy rivers to the Pacific on the west side and to the Arctic Sea on the north side. To the consumptive patient the land of- fers few attractions, but to those philosophers, whose lungs are strong enough to endure the fatigues of a lecture-room, she has an eloquence and beauty, diversified with two volcanoes, whose throats are in a perpetual blaze of excite- ment. What splendor there is in yonder Aurora Borealis, that for myriads of years has played upon these lakes, streams and mountain peaks ! How delicious nature is in her normal condition ! I think I hear one of the Strong Minded, say to her lovely companion in philosophy ! 'Ah, To SITKA : OTJE WEW ACQUISITION. Maria ! let us lay aside oiu- fans and our chignons, and put on snow shoes, and explore ! WiU you go with me from the heated atmosphere of social life into the calm sequest- ered retreats of Russian America ? Shall we build huts of blocks of ice, like the hardy Esquimaux, and wrap oiu'- selves in the drapery of a robe of sable skins or sea otters, worth $20, 000 at least, and despise the pomp of this world? You know, my dear, sables are very cheap there. Cath- erine of Russia had to get her sables by keeping up a very expensive mihtary establishment at Sitka. She was a very illustrious, strong-minded woman, to be sure; and her morals Were a little loose, and she poisoned her husband ; but what are those trifling enjoyments compared with carrying out a great idea ? It is not so cold as the eastern side of the continent. The isothermal lines cause a great moderation in the atmosphere there. Let us, establish a school there. There are 78,000 souls — if they have souls — of Calmucs, Creoles, native Indians, Kuriles, Aleutians, and Kodiaks, Kamschatkians and Esquimaux i;; and how pleasant it wiU be to teach them the rudiments!' By and by they can vote. Fly with me, dear Maria! Do you not long for the snow shoes that will carry yoit over those vast steppes to a superior intelligence? An in- telligence with nature, a communion with her visible forms, a relief from the world, and the sweet sympathy that we shall feel with the Aurora Borealis !' The reason why the Czar wishes to dispose of this fer- tile territory is because he cannot conquer the North SITKA : OUR NEW ACQUISITION. 71 Pole, that being the only Pole that has escaped his auto- cratic fist. It must be said, however, that it aftbrds us many fine harbors for our whalers after animal petroleum, , for heretofore we have had but one decent harbor on the Pacific coast, and that is San Francisco. Now we shall have plenty of them, if we ate lucky enough to find them in the fogs which are perpetual there. The principal inhabitants of this vast territory are mountains. There is not a tree that will risk its vege- able 1 ife by attempting to grow there ; the low lands are covered with moss instead of grass, and the best kind of Russian shred isinglass springs spontaneously from the crevices of the rocks. Of the amphibious animals, the green seal or moet is most valued there, being highly prized by the Japanese ; the Muscovy duck flies about in a very wild state in those high latitude's, while the double- headed eagle preys alike upon the russ and the walrus. Most of the artificial teeth in the United States are made Jfrom the tusks of this latter animal, so that in future we shall get om- teeth free of duty. The British having hereto- fore had an exclusive treaty with the Russian government to supply this place with food and ice-picks, no doubt this lucrative branch of commerce will fall into our hands. There is no doubt a vast quantity of gold hidden under the soil, as it has never made its appearance above the surface. It is proposed to get up a Russian Crushing Company to extract this valuable ore from the veins of Mt. St. Elias. Spruce trees not bigger than a wisp brooni 72 SITKA : OTJB NEW ACQUISITION. grow in some patches. These are valuable, as a beer is brewed from them, very usefiil as a remedy for the scurvy. The castle at New Archangel is very heavily gar- risoned with 50 Calmucs and Cossacks, mounts 24 brass- mounted breech-loaders, five seven-pounders, twelve horse-pistols, two mountain howitzers, one Governor, one Russian flag, two ensigns, and a fast team of Esquimaux dogs for flying artillery practice. The diplomatic cor- respondence with old Gowrowski, who is the governor of the fort, has not been published as yet, as he asserts the United States government cannot turn him out without the consent of the Senate. The vivid description of this en- chanting country by Campbell will no doubt recur to the reader. Speaking of the hardy sailor on that coast, he says : ' Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow, From wastes that slumber in eternal snow. And fraft, across the wave's tumultuous roar, The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.' " XII. ^Pt^ases anlr jFil*erts. mI T sometimes happens at the end of a dinner, when ^^ jokes and wahmts are cracked together, that the paternity of some trite quotation is put in question, and at once the wit of the whole company is set wool-gather- ing. The man who writes a single line, And hears it often quoted, Will in his life time surely shine, And be hereafter noted. If every printing office had a case filled with popular phrases arranged in the manner of types, it would save much manual labor, and the compositor would be sur- prised to find how often he had occasion to use them. For so inextricably are these "short sentences drawn from long experience" entangled in the meshes of language, that to ehminate them would be like drawing out of a carpet, the threads that form the pattern. A few of these phrases, usually found floating in the currents of ordinary conversation, will be sufficient to consider in a paper like this: if we were to include those embraced in literature and oratory, it would require foolscap enough to cover tlie sands of Egypt, and an inkstand as large as one of 74 PHRASES AND FILBEETS. the pyramids. Not being disposed to make such an in- vestment in stationery at present, we shall only play the Hterary chiifonier aad hook a few scraps from the heaps of talk we meet witl! every day. Mr. John Timmins, the broker, says of that stock, ' ' there is a wheel within a wheel, " without giving Paradise Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, and the Prophet Ezekiel credit for a phrase which may have saved him some thousands; and when he tells his boon companions at the club, that as for his wife, who is rather inchned to be extravagant, " he would deny her nothing" he does not say how much he owes to Samson Agonistes for the words he makes use of. When he reaches his house, Mrs. Timmins takes him to task "for coming home at such an hour of the night, in such a state ;" to. which he rephes, in a gay and festive manner: "My dear, 'To err is human — to forgive, divine,^ " from Pope's essay on criticism ; to which Mrs. T. answers in a snappish way, "Timmins, ' there is a medium in all things,'' " (from Horace). Mr. T., disliking the tone in which this quota- tion is delivered, '■'■snatches a fearful joy" (from the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"), by saying he does not intend, ia his house, to have " the grey mare prove the better horse," (from Prior's epilogue). This only '■'■ adds fuel to the flame," (from Milton's Samson), and Mrs. T. observes that if "t»e could only see oursdves as others see us," (from Burns), it would be better for some people ; that ever since he had joined that club " a change had come o'er the spirit of her dream," (from Byron); PHRASES AND TILBEETS. 75 that when, slie trusted her happiness to him she had '■'■leaned upon a broken reed" (from Young's Night Thoughts III, and Isaiah 36: 6), and winds up a long lecture with the reflection that '■'■ev^l communications cor- rupt good inanners," (from 1st Corinthians 15: 33). This last expression exasperates Mr. Timmins, and he asks Mrs. T., as he takes off hig suspenders, " to whom she alludes ?" Is.it to Perkins wlio had stood by him "in evil report and good report?" {26. Corinthians 6: 8). Is it to Rapley? " a man take him for all in all" (Hamlet, Act I, Scene Second), is " after his own heart" (Acts 13: ?2), and as for Badger, who had extended to him in the tight times of '36 and '37 '■'■the right hand of fellowship, (Galatians 2: 9), he was as honest a man as ever breathed ; and here Mr. Timmins, with one boot in his hand and the other in the boot-jack, eloquently adds, '■'■an honest man is the noblest work of God ! " (from Pope's Essay). He was proud of the friendship of such men, if she meant them. Mrs. T., not at all carried away by such a flood of author- ities, rather scornfully says, "O Timmins, '■what is friendship but a name T " (from Goldsmith's Hermit); at which Mr. T., who by this time is undressed, and '■'■as mad as a March hare, " (from the old English superstition), puts out the candle "m the twinkling of an eye" (1st Corintliians 15: 52), lies down as far as possible from the '■'■weaker vessel" (1st Epistle of Peter 2: 17), courts " tired Natures sweet restorer, balmy sleep .'" (Yoimg's Night Thoughts), and wakes next morning "a sadder and a wiser man," (in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner). 76 PHEA8ES AND FILBERTS. If we turn from the frescoed bed-chamber of Mrs. Timmins to the white-washed kitchen of Jim Skiver, the shoemaker, we find language not less elevated. Jim throws a leg of mutton upon the table and says: " There, Mary, I had ' to take' HobsbvH s choice,^ " although Jim had neither read the 509th Spectator, nor knew that Hobson's epitaph had been written by Milton. Jim, not ^'■having the fear of" Beaumont and Fletcher '■'■'before his eyes," (Romans 3: 18), says, if he can "catch that man wot gave Bni Baxter a black eye the day afore his weddin' he'll ' lamm ' him", (King and No King, Act V, Scene Third). To which Mary replies: "I thought somethin' would happin: ' the course of true love never did run smooth,^ " (Midsummers Night's Dream, Act I, Scene 1), and Jim responds, " That's so ; and they've put off the weddin' so often that it seems kind o' 'Aojoiw' agin? hope,'' " (Ro- mans 4: 18). Jim thinks after they've had a ^^ snack," (Pope and Dryden), they had better go see the Siamese Twins ; " twins tied by nature ; if tliey part, they die," (Young's Night Thoughts); puts on " « hat not much the worse for wear," (Jdhu Gilpin); '•'■dashes through thick and thin," (same authority and Hudibras), and after he has seen the Siamese, requests to see the '■'■IjUlipatian King" (from Gulliver's travels). How much language would be loft us if these estrays were returned to their lawful owners, is a question. How could we console the dying if we had to give iip to Gay's twenty-seventh Fable the phrase, '■'■■while there is life PHRASES AND FILBERTS. 77 therms hope f " and what could we say to the good in mis- fortune if we had to restore to Prior's Ode, " Yirtue is her own reward?" The shopkeeper who ends his long Ust of tancy articles with "and other articles too tedixms to mention" makes use of a sentence as old as the Latin language, and we would take the point from Byron's hit at Coleridge, if we were to replace in " Garrick's Epilogue on Leaving the Stage," " a fellow-feding makes us vjond- rous kind." So, too, must Goldsmith's Hermit lose "man wants but little here idow" if Young's Night Thought, IV, had its own property: and "all the jargon of the schools," from Burns' 1st epistle to J. Lapraik must be rendered up to Prior's "Ode on Exodus," which has a prior claim to it. Mr. Achitophel Scapegrace thinks the biggest stocklaolders in the Roaring River Canal Co. will have the best chance, as "all the big fish will eat up the little ones" (Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act II, Scene First), and Mr. Bombastes Linderwold talks of a "platform" in precisely the same sense as Cromwell did two hundred years, ago,, (Queries in Letter 97, Carlyle). It is in Crom- well's seventh letter that we find for the first time that apt conjunction, "d gentleman and a Christian" now somewhat threadbare from misuse, and if we want " mother-wit " ^Q must look for it in Spenser's Faerie Queen, Book IV., Canto X, verse 21. Every body has seen the man in Greek costume who sells soap by the ball but nobody but Mr. Leviticus Gaylord suggested, "that if another Greek should meet that Greek then would be 78 PHRASES AND FILBERTS. a tug of war," and he has authority for saying so in the Eival Queens, Act IV, Scene First. We have to go back to Thomas a Kempis for " man proposes hut Ood disposes ;" but '■'■what if thou withdraw and no friend takes note of thy departure f^ was written by a young man only eighteen years of age nearly fifty years ago.* If we want to look up " the solemn brood of care" we can find that, "and each one, as before, will chase his favorite phantom,," in Thanatopsis. There, too, we will see the hills "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," but "old as the hills" is older than the ^'■oldest inhabitant," and like him, has lost its parent. If we need " to point a moral and adorn a tale," ^e must get Dr. Johnson's "Vanity of Human Wishes," and "he that runs may read," in Cowper's " Tirocinium," and " he may run that readeth it," in Habakuk 2: 2. If any person wish to " consume the midnight oil," let him read Gay's Shepherd and Phi- losopher, and in Congreve's "Mourning Bride" he will find "musk hath charms to soothe a savage breast." "To be in the wrong box, " will occur to him who has dipped into th^ sixth book of "Fox's Martyrs," and Napoleon found " that from the siiblime to the ridiculous there is but one step," in Tom Paine's works translated and pub- lished in France, in 179L We take " buds of promise," from Young's "Last Day," " and men talk only to con- ceal their mind" from his "Love of Fame," although we attribute the thought to Talleyrand. "Good breadin(f * Biyant. PHRASES AND FILBERTS. 79 is the blossom of good sense," is not quite so familiar, but it is also in the " Love of Fame," from whence we get the original of what Matilda Jane Peabody beheves when she ties up her hair before the looking glass and says that "Louisa Perkins and Betsey Baker can't hold a candle to hery '■'■To hold their farthing candle to the sun" is in her mind, or its equivalent. "TFAo shall decide when doctors disagree f is a question we may well ask between the Allopathists and the HomcBpathists, and Pope puts it in his " Fourth Moral Essay." In " Lochiel's Warning " we find '■'■ coming events cast their shadows before." So Tim Taffeta thinks as he sees the shade deepen upon tlie brows of his creditor. So Ur. Senna thinks as he sees the premonitory symptoms of coming apoplexy in the fail round proportions of Alderman Broadbutton, and so thinks Peter Pipkin as the delicate adumbration is visible in Mrs. Pipkin's " natm-e's last best gift," (Paradise Lost, Book 5, line 19), who finds herself " as women wish to be who love their lords" (Douglass, Act I., Scene First), " not wisely, but too well." (Othello, Act V, Scene Last). It is impossible to see the Ravels on the tight-rope with- out thinking of " the light fantastic toe," and L' Allegro; and " thoughts that breath and words that bum," live in the magic atmosphere that surrounds the orator, as well as in " Gray's Progress of Poesy." To make a complete collection of these phrases would be the labor of a life ; so numerous are they, that if the door is once opened, tliey pour in "-^ thick as the leaves in Yalambrosa," (Para- 80 PHRASES AKD FILBERTS. disc Lost, Book I, line 303) ; and although the " labor of love'"' (Hebrews 6: 10), might entertain the scholar, yet if he were to cast these pearls before an undiscriminating multitude, after he "Aae? home the burden and heat of the day" (Mathew 20: 12), his only recompense would be that he had made every one as wise as himself, which the true scholar cannot abide. '■'■Brevity is the soul ofvnt" (Hamlet, Act II, §cene Second), and we must make our discourse '■'■fine by degrees and beautifully less," (Prior's Henry and Emma). These sentences — ' '■jewels, five words long that on the stretched forefinger of old Time sparkle forever" (Tennyson's Princess), are not to be scattered with too liberal a hand, and, therefore, we shall conclude with a quotation peculiarly appropriate: "Foesake not AN OLD FKIEND: WHEN WINE IS OLD, THOU SHALT DRINK WITH PLEASUKE." Eccl. 9: 10. Hoes dhnttn Victoria ^peaife IBngUsi) ? xn. »Y Mend John Common of Roscommon Bay, middle inlet, third house on the left hand side going up, where there is good anchorage for a yacht of several tons burden, propounded the above question one day, after a yawning stretch over the briny bay in a brisk breeze, followed by the usual dead calm, when in sight of home. "Does Queen Victoria speak English?" "Surely, John Common of Roscommon, she speaks her own QueerCs English, and that is the j)uresi language the Court of St. James has heard since the days of Edward the Confessor." John Common of Koscommon lazily puffed his cigar under the canvass canopy of the summer sail, knocked oft the ashes with the tip of his httle finger, drew a fresh whifi' of inspiration fi-om his little brown deity, and said, in a soft voice of rebuke: "I know very well that her Majesty is a pm*e, high- minded, pious, good woman ; but my inquiry related not 82 DOES QUEElSr VIOTOKIA SPEAK ENGLISH 1 to her morals, but to her laBguage ; to her vocabulary,,;, if you wiU, which is the vocabulary of the reahn ; the court language, the language of polite society ; — in fact, that arbitrary style of speaking which is commonly , known as the Queen's English, the mother tongue of British scholars, statesmen, and of the highly educated; classes of that country ; and that is what I meant. I have a theory of my own upon that subject," he continued, " and I merely asked the question of you in order that I might have an opportunity to answer it myself." "A theory! a theory !" cried out several voices from the cabin of the yacht, where the clinking of ice had been , heard for several minutes, and out came the party. John Littlejohn, and William Williamson, and Peter Peterson, and Sandy Sanderson, and several others. They arranged themselves on the seats under the shadow of the saUj cigars were handed around ; it was a dead calm on the bay, and so John Common of Roscommon began: "I have never yet heard an Englishman speak, who pretended to use the Queen's vernacular, without tracing in his language a vein of cockney running in it, like a gold thread through a velvet cloth. And this quite as plain and distinct among the highly educated, as among the rest of her Ma-jesty's subjects. "I maintain that custom does not sanction the misuse of the eighth letter, or as Rare Ben Johnson quotes it, ' the queen mother of consonants,' although it may excuse it. Certainly, when we consider the matter fairly,, we DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? ^3 must conclude that there is as much impropriety in sub- stituting for the beautiful Greek female name ' Helen' the modem English name of 'Ellen,' as there would be in calling ' Emma' 'Hemma,' which the Court of St. James will very speedily do, unless a stop is put to further in- novation. " In citing the name of ' Helen,' for so unquestionably the Hellenes pronounce it, I had a further object in view, and that was to follow up the stream of cockneyism to its classical fountain. The Greeks were probably the original cockneys — at least we can trace the spiritus asper and the spiritus lenis to them. There might have been still earl- ier cockneys, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that in the confusion of tongues at the destruction of the Tower of Babel, that the family of Hs might have first adopted the unsettled and wandering mode of life which they have led elsewhere, and are now leading in the English lan- guage ; but so far as that is conceBned, it is mere conjec- ture, and, therefore, very likely to mislead us in our course of inquiry after truth." Then he continued: " It is quite easy to foUow the current down after strik- ing the parent spring. In the time of Romulus and Eemus, no doubt the original Latin was a pure sonorous language, a little barbarous, to be sure, but stuck as full of H's as the cloves in old-fashioned boiled ham (and a rich dish that would be now, with the present tax on spices); but as the Eomans waxed opulent, gave up wars and patriotism, and 84 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? began to cultivate arts and lassitude, the introduction of schools prepared the way for the Greek accent ; it became the rage to imitate the style of Athens, as well in its ora^- tory as in its sculpture and in its architecture ; and when Cicero spoke in the affected and voluptuotis diction of Alcibiades, and Caesar fell at the foot of a marble image, then the decadence of Empire began. "The languages, of which the Latin was the primitive stem, such as the Italian, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the French, easily adopted the accent of Rome when Rome was in its decay. These modern languages cast off their H^s, and to this day the French Academy, the Spanish Academy, the Universities of Padua and of Parma have never been able to recall them. In the lan- guage of a Spanish lexicographer, 'H is not properly considered as a letter, but as a mere aspiration.' The Spanish Academy has also banished the hard sound of the h in chimico, chimera, chamelote, etc., by writing instead, quimico, quimera, camelote. So that the eighth letter is torn up root and branch, in the Kingdom of Isabella the Catholic, and the consequence is that they have a revolu- tion in Spain every six years. In a short time Cuba will be on a detached service. It is significant that the natives of the Siempre Fiel pronoimce ' Habana' with enough ejaculation of breath upon the first letter to blow a Span- ish fieet from its anchorage. "But to retiu-n to the Queen's English. Before the Norman Conquest England had a language of its own — DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 85 not Saxon altogether, but English! that great, pithy, thoughtful, bold, full-fraughted, mother tongue, which even now constitutes the substance and strength of the highest powers of intellectual expression ; not to be ex- celled in any language. I might almost say not to be 'matched by any foreign idiom. "I am speaking now of the pure English, that is spoken only by educated people in New York city and its immediate vicinity. "No person who wishes to attain a lofty style can safely depart fi-om the good old English idiom. It is to glowing eloquence and sparkling rhetoric, what a blacksmith's bellows is to a forge. • " This language, notwithstanding it was so splendidly celebrated by old Thomas Churchyard, (Tempus Henry "VH), had unfortunately been corrupted long before his time by the Normans. William Conqueror introduced a court cockney dialect, which had descended from the Greek cockneys to the Roman cockneys, from the Roman cockneys to every branch of the Latin family, and from the derivatory Norman French it spread through to White- chapel and Threadneedle streets, through Windsor and Buckingham Palaces, and from thence to the hearts and homes of an imitative people. Thus it was that the fam- ily of H's were banished from their own indigenous soil. " That is the history of it, or chronicle, or what you will. All that I wish to say is, that we can trace iliu Greek taint down to the present time. 86 DOES QUEEN VICTOKIA SPEAK ENGLISH? "Now, then, for examples. There is old Geoffrey Chaucer, (commonly known among the wooden spoons of Boston as Daniel Chaucer), he is full of defiled Eng- lish. In the Nonnes' Priest's Tale, we have '■hdbundanf for abundant ; * and for hexameter he uses this outrage- ous substitute: 'And they ben versified commonly Of six feet, which men clepen 'exametron. ' + .For Dante's 'UgoHno' he substitutes ^ Hugelin.^ % He even clips the French itself by striking an h off a French clock, and naming Horloge, ' orloge,''% and so through aU his works. Can subfierviency to the ruling powers farther go? " But every innovation has its reaction. The common people of England, in those early days, seeing that their beloved H's were being knocked oft" the household words,, like the noses from the Elgin marbles, revenged them- selves by clapping an H in front of every naked and exposed vowel. The consequence is that we have such words as '■liedgpJ for edge, 'AaZZ' for aU, ^hogshead' for oxhead, and the like. It would be too much of a task to cite aU the corruptions of a similar nature in the language. The mere mention of these will suggest swarms of others, familiar to every reader of ordinary books, to say nothing of philologists. • * Tyi-wMttEd. page 129. t Ibid, 127. t Ibid, 121. § Ibid, 128. DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 87 "Take the word 'hedge' for example. Originally it meant something. It meant an edge, a boundary of shrubs, indicating the hmit of the field or of the estate. We have it yet in ' box edgings,' which are partitions of garden beds, and meaning the same thing precisely. Shakspeare says, 'Upon the edge of yonder coppice,' etc., (Loves Labor Lost, IV, I). Now it has lost its sig- nificance in becoming a h'edge. " So with the word ' hear.'' We speak of hearing an argument. That would be considered as proper Queen's English, would it not ? But suppose any one should say that he had een ' Keying'' a street fight ? Would that not be a painful sound to ears polite ? And yet both words are derived from their original substantives, the ear and the eye, and the verb to '■hear' is as plain a cock- neyism as the verb to heye, when we come to think of it. Tou say an ' ear-witness' as well as an ' eye-witness,' do you not? K anybody should say an 'hear-witness,' what would you think of that? And yet it is no greater an impropriety than ' hear' is in the mouths of polite people. No one can for a moment doubt that according to the mechanism of the language, ' to ear^ a person is quite as proper a form of expression as ' to eye a person,' and that the H in ' hear' is an insupportable cockneyism. So with the superfluous ' H' in 'hall.' In old mansions in England, the maia apartments, the great audience chamber, the dining-room, the vast conservatory where the noble guests sat above the salt, where tlie pilgrim 88 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? warmed his rain-drenched, threadbare garments by the fire ; where the minstrel tuned his wretched harp, and every condition of life was represented, in this vast vault- ed chamber, the '•aula,^ the" airium, the all in all of the manorial and baronial residence, what right had an H to strike out the significance of the original word ? There is no doubt in this case at aU, For the ' Manor All,' the ' Town AU,' and so on in all the grand old English words, must be replaced. If you have a little, narrow strait be- tween your parlor and your side wall, call it an entry, if you will, but do not call it a h'all "So with the bii'd of wisdom, the owl. Everybody has heard her note who has Hved in the country. It is ' how, how, how, how, howl ! ' From this we get the name of this fowl of Minerva. The bird of night, in the new- born nakedness of early Enghsh, was undoubtedly the 'Howl.' We find it still in its diminutives, such as ' Howlet.' 'And keep her place as ^Howlet' does her tower.' In the Scotch vocabularies Houlet is the word, not owl. And, by the way, none of these French cockneyisms appear in either the Scottish or Irish dialects. I believe their idiomatic languages to be purer than the modern Enghsh. Shakspeare does not have any allusion to cock- neyism in his time, except when he shows his knowledge of the Greek language in his Athenian play, by putting in- to the mouth of Bottom the Weaver ''Ercles for Hercules. * Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene Second. DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 89 "But it is needless to multiply examples. Some vacancy should be left in the mind of the listener, which he can fill up himself at leisure. Let me say here, how- ever, that, save Chaucer, there are few writers of our earlier English who so Frenchify the mother tongue as he does. In Piers Ploughman * we have Jwm for them, and hire for their. In Kobert of Gloster f we find ' hit' used for ' it,' as it is in the Lord's Prayer of Eichard the Hermit, and so it is used to this day by some of the Eng- lish, even in writing. But generally the language of these old authors was pure, as , indeed it was from the time of Chaucer to the Restoration. After King Charles II came in, we had the French affectation introduced, as lively as it was in the days of William the Conqueror. "Now a few words more: there is the word 'hatchet,' the diminutive of axe, the original of which is eax, Saxon, (or asda, Latin). It should of course be atchet. So we have hatchment, a corruption of the heraldric word ^ achievement,' meanmg an armorial escutcheon; then there is the word ability, which, in the dictionaries of a century old, is spelled properly, '■hahility' or able — ■ hable' from the French ; arquebus, we say, instead of /uirquebiis, and artichoke instead of hartichoke, and the Uke. " Then, again, consider the number of words from which the H is omitted in pronunciation: 'onorable, 'um- * " »362," or Circa. t Tempus Richard II, 1174. 1208. 90 DOES QTJEEN VICTOBIA SPEAK EBT&LISH ? ble, 'umor, 'eir, 'ome, sweet 'ome, 'ow, 'onest, and the Kke. Then, again, such words as 'ostler for hostler, (from host or hostel), 'arbor for harbor, (a shelter). Oboe for haut bois, and so on, where the abuse is sanctioned by the dictionary makers. "You will commonly find, too, that weU-educated Englishmen (and women) say 'oo, for who, 'andiron for hand'iron, 'ow for how, and 'anging for hanging. They deny it, of course, and wUl, if they think they are watch- ed, pronounce these words properly, but they are sure to relapse as soon as they are left to themselves. If you were to ask Lord John Russell, who is esteemed to be as deep in erudition as he is in diplomacy, how to spell the letter H, he would, no doubt, spell it a-i-t>c-h, when in truth it should be, h-Ori-t-c-h, with a strong aspiration on the first letter," Chapter IL ** mots euem Vittoxia ^peafe lensUsf)?" )0 continue," said John Common of Roscom- mon. "To leave this class of impediments of speech behind, and go farther, we iind many defects in modern Enghsh, derived from the same parentage. For example — there is no W in the French alphabet. If you were to ask a Frenchman to pronounce the name of the first President of the United States, he would say " Vash- ington," or he might, by a strong mental eftbrt, get as near to it as Chmshington. Just as if you were to ask him the name of the second President, he would be obliged to reply " Hadams" and so forth. Now there is not one single word in the Enghsh language beginning with the letter V that is not derived from the French, the Spanish, the Italian, or some of the cognate branches of the Latin family of words. There is no V in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, none in the MoBSO-Gothic, from which two tongues we derive our mother tongue, none in the earlier editions of English authors ; take, for example, Grafton's or HoUinghead's Chronicles, or any other work of that 92 DOES QUEEN VICTOKIA SPEAK ENGLISH? period. Hence it is that we find such expressions in the modern British classics as: "Now, Shiny Villiam, give the gen'lem'n the ribbons," * " veil vot of it," t or "wo^'s the use of giving vay so long as you're 'appy ;" of which forms of expression numbers could be produced if one could give his mind, his time, and his attention to it. I do not mean to say that the substitution of the V for the W is common to the upper classes of Great Britain. Far from it; but I do mean to say that this innovation is creeping up, and will, by and by, beget a class of words foreign to the genius of the English tongue, just as the dropping of the H has produced such words as ostler and arbor. In confirmation of this, let me state that a distinguished traveler and philosopher, Mr. George Gibbs, of- Long Island, after a residence of a quarter of a century on the Northwest coast of this continent, has written a dictionary, of the Chinook jargon, or Trade Language of Oregon, pre- pared for the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C.,t in which he shows conclusively that the Chinook, the Nootkan, the Yakaina, the Cathlasco, (which is a cor- rupted form of the Watlala or Upper Chinook), the Toquat (which he spells Tokwaht), and the Nittinak lan- guages have been corrupted by the mis-pronunciation of the English of the Hudson's Bay Company. The conse- quence is, that there is' scarcely an H in its proper place * Pickwick Club, Ed. 1836, Vol. I, p. 95. t The Golden Farmer, a play, in three acts ; author unknown, ISSii. t Ed. 1863, 8vo. p. 44. DOES QUEEN VICTOKIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 93 in any of the dialects of the Northwestern tribes of the Pacific, and Ws are substituted for V's to such an extent, that in his dictionary not one word beginning with the latter consonant can be discovered. It is, however, a consolation to know that these are the most prominent innovations in those rich and beautiful occidental tongues. After cbmplaining that the Spanish and French vo^ageurs have left traces of their languages in the earher Chinook, he says : "It might have been expected, from the number of Sandwich Islanders introduced by the Hudson's Bay Company, that the Kanaka element would have found its way into the language, but their utterance is so foreign to an Indian ear, that not a word has been adopted." * If this be so, we can imagine what a highly respectable tone prevails in Kanaka society of Queen Emma. But to return. The substitution of the French "'F" for the Enghsh " W" led to the retaliatory process, by which every free born Enghshman makes all things hequal. Just in proportion to the cockneyism of the upper classes in the middle ages arose the defiant attitude of the cockneyism of the lower classes. The doubleyous began to crowd into the lower ten million vocabulary. "TFeal pie" took the place of the other word: " Even the tailors 'gan to brag, , And embroidered on tjieii' flag, 'AUT WiNOEEE AUT MoBI.' " t * Thackeray's Ballads, Ed. 1856, p. 121. t Qibbs' Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, Ed. 1863, p. viii, (Pre- face). 94 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK EKGLISH ? There was a stout battle between the starveling French V and the broad bottomed EngHsh W, and to this day it has continued. There is not a member of any English legation in any part of the world, at this present time, who dares to spell "Vaterloo" with a V. And this is in obedience to the dictates of the lower, and, I might almost say, the iUiterate classes ; for after aU, a mob has a great deal to do with fixing the expression as well as the meaning of words. Since I am so far committed to this subject, I must continue a little longer ; but let me say here, that if I tax the old nation from which we are derived, with speaking a very impure language, let me at least have the credit of doing so in a friendly spirit. Let us with one hand soothe the American Lexicographical Eagle, while with the other we smooth the bristling mane of the British Polyglot. In further confirmation of what I have already advanced, permit me to recall to every mind another phrase of the language of the realm, in order to prove that the queen speaks broken French. I do not mean to say that she does so intentionally, for surely no one can have a iigher regard for that good lady than I have. In fact, we arfe both of an age ; both born on the same day of the same month in the same ye^r, perhaps in the same hour, if degrees of longitude could be computed with accuracy, (of diiferent parentage, I admit). What I mean to say is, that she speaks imperfect English, both of herself and DOES QUEEN VICTOKxA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 95 through her ministers, through her parHaments, through her lords and her lord mayors, through her ladies and her laundresses, through her British museum, and her Billings- gate market. After all this explanation, -which might lead to a digression, let me return to the point that I intended to make when I said that the queen speaks broken French. Nothing is more striking to an American when he fii'st visits London than the constant misuse of the French "^" pronounced aw by the high school of cockneys. The lower classes of her majesty's subjects use the plain old fashioned Enghsh "^" as an expletive, as well as an offset to the other (a fashion, by the way, derived from the Greeks, for their language is full of expletives), in this manner — I was "a-going" or, I was " ar-thinldng," or, I was "a-'oping," or, I was " a-hironing," and so on through the whole family of verbs. Now this misuse of the vowel is so common to the common people, that to hear it from the Hps of any person is sujQScient to suggest that his education has been quite imperfect. This being so, is it quite fair that we should acquit Lord Brobdignag of a similar charge, when we hear him read from a master of style, thus: "They B&j-aw that it was aiw-Liston's firm behef, that he-aw was aw-great and neglected tragic ac- taw. They say-aw that ev-aw-ry one of us beheves, in his heart, or would like-aw to have others beheve, that he-aw is something which he is aw-not!" It is very true, as Dr. Samuel Johnson says in his little 96 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH? article on Orpiment, that " talk is elastic." But even talk he mis-spells, (for he means "talc," a mineral), neverthe- less we win accept the mistake as being truer than his definition in every way. Talk is elastic ! but what shall be said of the petrrfiers of the living words of our lan- guage ? What shall we, say, for example, of the abuses of Webster's Dictionary ? When an elastic language becomes a concretion of fossils — when its Hfe has gone out, and lexicographers have left nothing of it but its organic remains — what should be done with them ? To compel them to speak plain English would be impossible, for that they do not comprehend. What should be done with them ? Surely the Cadmus teeth they sow should rise up and reap them. I suppose, in time, that the good old EngUsh word "Beef-eater," as applied to those broad-backed warders of the Tower of London, will degenerate into '^'■Buffetier" (French), as now a revolution is being effected in a simi- lar word — and "ewr," which some writers claim as a Hindoo word, "iscAwn"* Blackstone, (a famous law writer of the last centmy), has endeavored to elevate the tone of the British bar by changing the honest old name" of "bum-bailey" in this wise: He says " that the special bailiffs are usually bound in a bond for the due execution of their office, and thence are called 'boimd-bailiffs,' * Dictionary of Caiit and Slang. London. Ed. 1860, p. 11. DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 97 which the common people have corrupted into a nvuch more hrnnely appellation, bum-hailey P * I cannot here avoid expressing my regret that a very creditable weekly paper in the British booksellers' interest in London should have its classical name corrupted into "a much more homely appellation." I mention this the more cheerfully from the fact that it has always abused American authors, and, therefore, when I say that I regret it, you wiU understand that it is an act of generosity on my part. I allude to the Athenoeum, which has never recovered from the pimishment that Bulwer inflicted upon it when he called it the "Ass-i-neum," a name by which it has been known to cultivated people in all parts of the world, from the days of Paul Clifford down to this tune. But these corruptions of the language we must frown down. Let us take a bold stand against other cockney- isms creeping into public use, such as "c«5" for cabriolet, . '■'■panti'' for pantaloons, ^^ canter" from the Canterbury pilgrimages at the good old-fashioned ambling pace, and the like ; for, if we do not, the age of progress will make the word "gentleman" a dead language, and only its cockney substitute, the ^'■gent" will be known in diction- aries and newspapers. A few more words and I shall wind up my squid. There is a slang phrase of Parisian-French, which I * Blackstone's Commentaries on tlie Laws of England. 4to. Ox- ford, 1766. Book I., Chap. IX., p. 346 98 DOES QUEEN VICTOBIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? cannot recall at this moment, that expresses a peeuliap way of shortening words, and running one into another, in use among the fashionable people of the continental metropoKs, so that it is very difficult for a novice to un- derstand their aristocratic argot. This shrinkage, this corrugation, this wrinkling up of words, so that a good long sentence which should be sonorous and expressive, becomes as shrivelled as a washer-^ woman's thumb, is beautifully implanted in the modem English. Go to the House of Lords and hear the debate between Lord Brobdignag and the Marquis of Lilliput ! Only by the skill of the practised reporter can that tongued and gi'ooved dialect be interpreted. I shall not give you a sentence by way of example, but only a few specimen bricks of this modem Babel. It is well known that in the glorious old EngHsh tongue every word carries a meaning with it ; a little history in its womb, such as those beautiful phrases "belly-timber," as applied to food, and "bread-basket," as applied to its receptacle. So the lord of thousands of broad acres in Meri'ie England — "Lovely in England's /atfoZess green." — Malleck — was called the Earl of "JBeavr-champs" from the Norman French, as m Scotland the name of Campbell is derived from an Itahan origin meaning the same thing, as Beau- champs, "Campo-bello." Just as the constellation in the Southern hemisphere called "Charles' Oak," recalls the DOES QUEEN VICTOEIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? 99 liistory of that royal and ragged refugee, in Boscobell, so a vast mimber of words in English once represented ideas. They were words with poetry and history locked up within them, like flies, in perpetual amber. The river "Alne" in Cumberland, the stream celebrated in many a border foray, has upon its banks the ancient town of Alneeester, and the "home of the Percy's high-born race," Alnwick Cattle. Should you inquire for either place, there is not a man in England who would understand you. Bvit just ask for Anster and Annick, and there is not a red-coated boot-brushing boy in the neighbjrhood of Temple Bar that cannot tell you where to find the train that will carry you to the residence of the Lord's of Northumberland. I remember once that I hired a post and pair to go down to Stratford-upon-Aron. A jaunty postilion in spotless, white dimity knee breeches, white top boots, silver-rimmed hat- band, and a whole carillon of bell buttons on his jacket, touched his hat as I stepped into the " shay." "Drive me round," said I, "by the way of Charlecote Hall!" for I wished to see the place where Shakspeare was tried for deer-stealing. That was a puzzler. The friendly landlord of the " Wai-wick Arms," the aged Pensioner of the Bear and Ragged Staff; the obsequious waiter; the radical tailor, who made red riding coats for fox-hunting squires and d d them in the bitterness of his sartorial soul ; the small boy that always followed a stranger as the mite- fly follows a cheese ; the parochial Beadle with his beU ; the blue eyes of the chambermaid, from an upper story 100 DOES QUEEN VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? of the Warwick Arms; all, in dire suspense, in that dewy morning, waited to hear the reply of the post-boy. There was no reply. Presently an underhostler, who had been hovering around the horses like a spiritual gad-fly, whose wings were horse-brush, and curry-comb, spoke out in a foggy voice: "P'raps the gemman means Chawcut?" Shade of Shakspeare ! And chawcut it was, as everybody understood it there. So it is that in this puckered-up -. English, — Warwick, itself a splendidly significant name, becomes Waric. The ipeauchamp Chapel is Beecham. Charlesbury has lost its ancient significance in Chawbree. Cholmondely is Chumlee. Berwick of old renown, '■'■royal Berwick's beach of sand, "is now Berric ; Candle- wick Street in London, is Canniek ; Gloucester is Gloster^ Smithfield is Smiffld, and Worcester — ^Wooster ! So, too, that word dear to every domestic tie, "housewife," is "Awssy^," subtle is '■'■suttle" and High Holburn, I-obum~ Can anybody doubt that the corruption of these goo(J old expressive English words into bastard French is not undermining the Queen's English ? And the mis-spelling of these and many other words will soon follow the mis-pronunciation, as, indeed, some do now — witness "Gloster!" I once hired an English hackman to take me from a once-celebrated hotel in New York to a once-celebrated Hudson river steamboat. It chanced that when we reached the wharf the boat was casting ofi", and the driver called out to me, "You 'ad better 'urry up, sir, or she'll be h'off, and you can pay me DOES QTJEEK VICTORIA SPEAK ENGLISH ? lOl the fare wlieii you get 'ome agin." So when I did get back again, and asked for my little account, he referred to his pocket remembrancer — "Mr. C, June 14th, 1842. in. 0. to e. w." "What does that mean?" "'Merican 'Otel to 'Endrick 'Udson, sir!" "And what," said little Tweedle, "are we to do. If we go to England, are we to fly in the face of every man there ? are we to insist upon our own pronunciation, and endeavor to find out famous locaKties by naming them in the language used in the Saxon Heptarchy ?" "Certainly," said John Common of Roscommon, "I would advise you to agitate this subject ; to call things by their right names in that benighted kingdom ; to inquu'e for places that nobody can tell you anything about, so that you can teach the ignorant natives what should be the names of their choicest, their dearest, their most cherished locahties. You can do this thing, for you have a genius for disturbing the old herring-bone foundations of ancient edifices. And I wiU give you all the glory of being the pioneer, if you choose to take this matter of reform of the tongue upon your own shoulders. I may adopt it also. But I shall not trumpet forth my claims upon the world until I find that you have succeeded. I think I feel a fresh breeze creeping up. Haul away on the jib halyards ! Let us see if we can't work up the creek. The champagne has been in the cooler over there for five hours now and the meats only go to the brander upon signal. So haul up the dinner signal ! Ah, here comes the breeze ! Up sails, and now to dinner." XIV. Efft Noses of Eminent Mtn. \]f all the quadrupeds, the elephant is, unquestion- ably, the most sagacious. And, although some have fondly imagined that his sagacity is wholly owing to his great bulk — just as we are apt to think wisdom is peculiar to the fat, or judgment to the thickset — ^yet, in justice to the elephant, we must not allow the world to repose upon so absurd and preposterous an error. If mere bulk were wisdom, what shall be said of the hippo- potamus ; of coroners, and aldermen ; of justices to the peace, the rhinoceros, and the commissioners of the Patent- oflSce; of prize-medal pigs, and Gen. — ? We see, at once, the fallacy of the popular belief, when we consider the very opposite relations existing between bulk and wis- dom, in the above examples. It is needless here to enter into an elaborate detail of the sympathetic attachments of the brain and the nose, extending through an iniinite ramiiication of nerves, arteries, ganglions, and tissues, nor of the power of the organ itself to express emotion ; to scorn, to sneer, to snivel, to afBrm, or deny ; to put itself intrusively where it is not wanted; to be arrogant, liaughty, conceited : to suffer indignities ; to be a sleeping-trumpet. THE NOSES OF EMINENT MEN. 103 and a moral, psalm-singing instrument in the conventicle. The relations between the brain and this organ, are, there- fore, neai-ly equivalent to those between a ship and its rudder — with the trifling difference, that we are guided by one, and led by the other. These facts being established, all that is required to be known further, is, whether the dimensions of a nose being given, it is possible to arrive at a fair estimate of the subsidiary mental power, if not, indeed, at a regular scale, such as Kepler has laid down with regard to the planetary system. To this we answer in the aflBrmative. Let us take the wisest of brutes as an instance. The height of the tallest elephant in the jun- gles of Africa is ten feet and a half, and the length of his proboscis, from the lower suture of the coronal bone {os frontis), to the tip, is exactly seven feet and an inch. Now, if we add to the height of the elephant his weight and circumference, we find the proportion of the organ to the sum total to be exactly 19 11-60 per centum. K we take, as an offset to this, the commonest and most familiar zoological example, viz., the proportions exist- ing between the weight, height, and bulk of the hippo- potamus, and the length of his nose, we find them ex- pressed in round numbers by the fractions 132-33900. And it is a curious scientific fact, that the mental capaci- ties of the two animals — I mean the power of mind — the " think" that is in them, when carefully measured, exhibit nearly the same figures. If, then, guided by these as- tonishing results, we take up any plethoric body of men — say the United States Congress, or the State Legislature, 104 THE NOSES OF EMINENT MEN. for instance — ^it is very easy to determine precisely their intellectual value, in a psychological point of view. The average of a board of aldermen, reduced to the scale of half an inch to the foot, exhibits so near an approxima- tion to the proportions of the lesser animal, that we might call them the " city hippopotami", and be accurate enough for ordinary purposes. On the other hand, if we attend a meeting of strong-minded women, we find a prodigious development of this feature. Strong-minded women have immense noses, with some flat hats and a variety of spec-; tacles. Jews, also, are singularly gifted ; but we make al- lowance of at least one-third for organs of this pattern, on account of the natural hook, from the eyebrows to the tip. We once had the honor of being intimate with one of the most profound scholars and thinkers in Holland, who was so long-nosed and near-sighted that he wiped out vdth his nose half of what he wrote with his pen — thereby show- ing a memorable instance of wisdom. The average length of a fully-developed, intellectual, male nose, is precisely two inches and a half from the indention be- tween the eyes to the extreme end of the cartilage. Washington's nose was 2 5-8 inches ; but the presidential average has, so far, been what we have stated above — ■ Jefferson, for example, representing the longs, and Fill- more the shorts. Wellington and Napoleon differ only the sixteenth of an inch, both being above the average ; Lord Brougham, who is an encyclopaedia of general in- formation, follows a feature three inches in length ! the average nose of the Century Club is 2 9-16 ; Thackeray's THE NOSES OF EMINENT MEN. 105 nose is 2 5-8 — ^precisely the lengtli of the nose of the "Father of his country ;" President Johnson's is 2 9-16 ; Irving's, 2 7-12; Bryant's, 2 6-11; Dickens's, 2 3-8 ; Du- rand's, 2 7-13 ; Gen. Scott's, 2 5-10 ; Longfellow's, 2 6-11 ; Cren. Sherman's 2 1-2 ; Macaulay's, 2 5-9 ; Farragut's, 2 3-4 ; Commodore Wise's, 1 7-12 ; Tennyson's, 2 4-7 ; Hoffinan's, 2 7-13 ; the average magazine nose of this city is 1 5-8 ; in Philadelphia, 1 7-8 ; McClellan's is 2 8-12 ; Vei-plancks', 2 5-8 ; Bayard Taylor's, 2 6-11 ; we shall have Fredrika Bremer's by next steamer; the nose of the Academy of Design, 2 5-9; Browning's, 2 5-9; Miss Mulock has a very respectable feature for a woman, being 2 1-4 ; Jean Ingelow, 2 1-8 ; Bonner's, 2 1-2 ; Seward's, nearly 3 inches, and our own a snub. In making our measurements, we have had the greatest difficulties to encounter, by reason of the foolish desire of many to be represented as measuring more than they are entitled to. But, as we know by experience how often scientific data are put aside as worthy of no credit, be- cause of a few trifling defects or errors, we have been guided only by our instruments. We know it is very hard to refuse a sixteenth of an inch, when it is asked by a friend, as a particular favor, but, nevertheless, our "re- flections" must be accurate and reliable, or else they will be justly condemned. In pursuance of our theory, we have engaged Mr. Pike, the eminent mathematical instrument maker, to construct for us a noseometer, of the greatest capacity, and will, from time to time, furnish our readers with the results of the observations taken therewith. XIV. {From the Bunkwm Flagstaff and Independent Echo^ Bunfeum iiEuscum. m|| UST opened, with 100,000 Curiosities, and perform-^ ance in Lecter Room ; among which may be fomid TWO LIVE BOAE CONSTRICTERS, Mail and Femail. also!! A STEIPED ALGEBRA, STUFT. BESIDES ! ! A PAIR OF SHUTTLE COCKS AlSnO ONE SHUTTLE HEN— aKve' THE SWORD WHICH GEN. WELLINGTON FIT WITH AT THE BATTEL OF WATERLOO ! whom is six feet long and broad in proportion. WITH ! ! ! A ENORMOUS RATTLETAIL SNAKE— a regular whopper ! bunkum museum. 107 and! THE TUSHES OF A HIPPOTENUSE ! Together with! A FINGAL TIGER: AND A SPOTTED LEPROSY! Besides THE GREAT MORAL SPECTACLE OF "MOUNT VESUVIUS." PART ONE. Seen opens. Distant Moon. View of Bey of Napels. A thin smoke rises. It is the Beginning of the Emotion ! The Napels follts begin to travel. Yaller fire, foUered by silent thunder. Awful consternation. Suthin rurrMes ! It is the Mounting preparin' to Expectorate! They call upon the Fire Department. Its no use! FHght of stool- pidgeons. A cloud of impenetrable smoke hang over the fated city, through witch the Naplers are seen maldn' tracks. Awful explosion of bulbs, kurbs, torniquets, pin weels, serpentiles, and terrapins! The Moulting Laver begins to squash out ! End of Part One. COMIC SONG. The Parochial Beedle Mr. Mullet. LIVE INJUN ON THE SLACK WIRE. Live Injun Mr. Mullet, OBLIGATIONS ON THE CORNUCOPIA, BY SIGNOR VERMICELLL Signor Vermicelli Mr. Mullet. 108 BUNKUM MUSEUM. In the course of the evening will be an exhibishim of Exileratin' Gas ! upon a Laffin Highena ! Laffin Highena Mr. Mullet. PAET TWO. Bey of Napels voluminated by Gondola Lites. The lava gushes down. Through the smoke is seen the city in a state of conflagration. The last family ! ^'■Whar is our parents f A red hot stone of eleving tuns weight falls onto 'em. The bearheaded father falls scentless before the statoo of the Virgin ! DenumongH The hole to conclude with a GRAND SHAKSPEARING PYEOLIGNEOUS DISPLAY OF FIREWUEX!! Maroon Bulbs, changing to a spiral weel, witch changes to the Star of our Union: after, to butiful p'ints of red lites ; to finish with busting into A BRILLIANT PERSPIRATION! During the performance a No. of Papular Airs will be performed on the Scotch Fiddle and Bag-pipes, by a real Highlander. Real Highlander Mr. Mullet Any boy making a muss, will be injected to once't. As the Museum is Temperance, no drinkin' aloud, but anyone will find the best of liekers in the Sloon below. XV. A LEAF PEOM A NEW BOOK. 3 HE clouds now began to break away — once more we see the distant peaks of the Sie- bengebii'ge and the castled crag of Drachenfels — a flush of warm sunlight illuminates the wet deck of the Schnel- fahrt ; the passengers peep out of the companion-way, and finally emerge boldly, to inhale the fresh air and in- spect the beauties of the Rhine. As for the Miller of Zurich, he had taken the shower as kindly as a duck, shaking the drops from his grey woolly coat, as they fell, and tossing off green glass after green glass of Liebfraun- milch, or Assmanshauser, from either bottle. Betimes his pretty wife joined us, and walked on tip-toe over the wet spots; the sun came out, hotter and hotter; the deck, the little tables, the wooden seats, began to smoke ; over- coats came off, shawls were laid aside ; plates oiled up with 110 UP THE KHINB. sweet grapes and monstrous pears, green glasses, and tall flasks of Ehine wine, were handed around to the ladles, and distributed on the tables ; and the red-cheeked Ger- man boy whose imitations of English had so amused us, shouted the captain's orders to the engineer below, in a more cheery voice — ' Slore ! iacJcor! forrorP " I had had an indistinct vision of a pair of whiskers at the far end of the breakfast table, brushed out d VAng- laue in parallel lines, as thin as a gilder's camel's hair brush. These whiskers now came up on deck, attached, to a very insignificant countenance, a check cap, and a woollen suit of purplish cloth, such as travellers from Angleterre enjoy scenery in. Across the right breast of this person, a narrow black strap of patent leather wound its way until it foimd a green leather satchel, just across his left hip ; while over his left breast, a similar strap again wound around him, and finally attached itself to a gigantic opera glass in a black leather case. AU these implements of travel, with little else to note, paced - solemnly up and down the now dry deck of the Schnel- fahrt. In the meantime, my glass, map, guide book, were all in action, castle following castle, Rolandseck, Eheineck, Andernach, and all the glorious panorama, roEing in view with every turn of the steamer. And chiefly I enjoyed the conversation of my MiUer of Zurich, whose plump forefinger anticipated the distant towers and battlements which he had seen so often, for so many times, in yeai'ly/ UP THE EHINE, 111 trips upon tlie river. Nor was I alone, for from every stand-point of the deck were fingers pointed, and glasses raised, at tlie glories of the castellated Rhine. Bnt in the midst of this excitement and enthusiasm, that purple traveller, with whiskers and straps, satchel and opera glass, walked up and down, unobservant of the scenery, miserable and melancholic, without a glance at,,the vineyards, or the mountains, or the castles. Then I knew that he was an Englishman, doing the Rhine. He walked up to om* table, where old Zurich and his pretty wife were seated before the grapes and the wine, where my shawl and satchel were flung — map spread, and guide-book open — and said, in that peculiar English voice which always suggests catarrh — " Going up the Rhine, sir ?" '■'■Rather" said I, drily, (for I hate bores). "Aw!" — ^now the reader must translate for himself — " Forst time ye' beene h'yar ?" " Yes," I answered, "is it your first visit also ?" "Aw — no! 'beene liea-r pu'foh ; sev-wal taimes. How fawr 'goin, sawr?" (Don't talk of Yankee inquisitive- ness). " To Mayence, and no further this evening." (Opera glass levelled directly at Ehrenbreitstein). " Gaw'ng to Hydl'bug ?" "I think so." "Hydl'bug's 'good bisness, do it up in 'couple of awhrs." 1]2 UP THE BHINE. Here old Zurich makes a remark, and says: " Military engineers build, that other military engineers may destroy." i Myself. — "Are those yellow lines against the hill masonry ? — parapets ?" Old Zurich. — "Fortified from top to bottom." "Gaw'ng to Italy?" chimes in the camel's hair whiskers. "No," (decidedly no). "Gaw'ng to Sowth 'f Fwance?" "Probably." "Wal, if 'r not gaw'n t' Italy, and you'r gaw'n to South 'f Fwance — gaw'n to Nim ?" " To Msmes f what for ?" " 'F yawr not gaw'n to Ehawm, it's good bisness to go to Nim — they've got a ring thar." "A ring ?" "Yas, 'ontyeknaw?" "A ring?" "Yas— saim's they got at Rhaome; good bisness that — do it up in tow hawrs ; early Christians, y' knaw, and wild beasts !" " Oh, you mean the Roman amphitheatre at Nismes — a sort of miniature Coliseum." "Yaas, Col's'm." " No, sir, I am not going to Nismes" — another look at Ehrenbreitstein and its shattered wall. "Never be'n i;p th' Rhine before," quoth whiskers. ■ TIP THE KHINE. 113 "No," — we are approacliing the banks of the "Blue Moselle." " Eh'nbreitstine's good bisness, and that sort o' thing — do't in about two hawi's!" "I do not intend to stop at Ehrenbreitstein, and, therefore, intend to make the best use of my time to see the general features of the fortress from .the river." "Aw— then y'd better stop at Cpblanz, and go t' Wis- bad'n, by th' rail." "What for?" "Why, the Rhine, you know, 's a tiresome bisness, and by goin' to Wisbawd'n from Coblanz, by land, you escape all that sort aw-thing." " But I do not wish to escape all this sort of thing — I want to see the Rhine." "Aw!" — ^with some expression of surprise. "Going to Switz'land ?" "Yes." " Y' got Moy for Switz'land?" ' ' Moy ? I beg your pardon." " Yes, Moy— Moy ; got Moy for Switz'land ?" "Moy — do you mean money ? I hope so." " Gad Gad, sir, no ! I say Moy." "Upon my word, I do not comprehend you." "Moy, sir, Moy!" rapping vehemently on the red cover of ray guide book that lay upon the table. "I say Moy for Switz'land." " Oh, you mean Hurray." ' ' Certainly, sir, didn't I say Moy ?" XVI. Effz dfirst (©gster=(l!Bater. )HE impenetrable veil of antiquity hangs over the antediluvian oyster, but the geological finger-post points to the testifying fossil. We might, in pursuing this subject, sail upon the broad pinions of conjecture into the remote, or flutter with lighter wings in the regions of fable, but it is unnecessary : the mysterious pages of Nature are ever opening freshly around us, and in her stony volumes, amid the calcareous strata, we be- hold the precious mollusc — the prim.eval bivalve, "rock-ribbed! and ancient as the sun." — Brtant. Yet, of its eiuiy history we know nothing. Etymol- ogy throws but little light upon the matter. In vain have we carried our researches into the vernacular of the maritime Phoenicians, or sought it amid the fragments of Chaldean and Assyrian lore. To no purpose have we analyzed the roots of the comprehensive Hebrew, or lost ourselves in the baffling labyrinths of the oriental San- scrit. The history of the ancient oyster is written in no language, except in the universal idiom of the secondary THE FIEST OYSTEE-EATER. 115 strata ! Nor is this surprising in a philosophical point of view. Setting aside the pre-Adamites, and taking Adam as the first name-giver, when we reflect that Adam lived IN-Iand, and therefore never saw the succulent periphery in its native miid, we may deduce this reasonable con- iclusion : viz., that as he never saw it, he probably never NAMED it — ^never ! — not even to his most intimate friends. Such being the case, we must seek for infojmation in a later and more enlightened age. And here let me take ■occasion to remark, that oysters and intelligence are nearer allied than many persons imagine. The relations between Physiology and Psychology are beginning to be better understood. A man might be scintillant with facetiousness over a plump " Shrewsbery," who would make a very sorry figure over a bowl of water-gruel. The gentle, indolent Brahmin, the ilHterate Laplander, the ferocious Libyan, the mercurial Frenchman, and the stolid (Ibeg your pardon), the stalwart Englishman, are not more various in their mental capacities than in their table aesthetics. And even in this cen,tury, we see that wit and oysters come in together with September, and wit and oysters go out together in May — a circumstance not without its weight, and peculiarly pertinent to the subject- matter. With this brief but not irrelevant digression, I will proceed. "We have " Ostreum" from the Latins, " Oester" irom the Saxons, ''Ausier" from the Teutons, " Ostra" from the Spaniards, and "^uitre" from the French — ^words evidently of common origin — threads spun 116 THE riKST OTSTEE-EATEE. from the same distaif ! And liere our archaeology narrows to a point, and this point is the pearl we are in search of: viz., the genesis of this most excellent fish. "Words evidently derived from a common origin." What origin ? Let ns examine the venerable page of his- tory. Where is the first mention made of oysters ? Hii- dibras says : ''the Emperor Caligula, Who triumphed o'er the British seas, Took crahs and ' otstbes' prisoners (mark that !) And lobsters, 'stead of cuirassiers ; Engaged his legions in fierce bustles, With periwinkles, prawns, and muscles, And led his troops with furious gallops. To charge whole regiments of scallops, Not, like their ancient way of war, To wait on his triumphal car. But when he went to dine or sup, More bravely ate his captives up ; Leaving all war by his example, Reduced — ^to vict'lingof a camp well." This is the first mention in the classics of oysters ; and we now approach the cynosure of our inquiry. From this we infer that oysters came originally from Britain. The word is unquestionably primitive. The broad open vowelly sound is, beyond a doubt, the primal, sponta- neous thought that found utterance when the soft, seductive mollusc first exposed its white bosom in its pearly shell to the enraptured gaze of aboriginal man ! Is there a question about it ? Does not every one know? THE FIEST OYSTEE-EATBE. 117 when he sees an oyster, that that is its name? And hence we reason that it originated in .Britain, was latinized by the Romans, replevined by the Saxons, corrupted by the Teutons, and finally barbecued by the French. Oh, philological ladder by which we mount upward, until we emerge beneath the clear vertical light of Truth! ! Methinks I see the Fiest Oystee-Eatee ! A brawny, naked savage, with his wild hair matted over his wild eyes, a zodiac of fiery stars tattooed across his muscular breast — unclad, unsandalled, hirsute and hungry • — he breaks through the underwoods that margin the beach, and stands alone upon the sea-shore, with nothing in one hand but his unsuccessful boar-spear, and nothing in the other but his fist. There he beholds a splendid panorama! The west all aglow; the conscious waves blushing as the warm sun sinks to their embraces ; the blue sea on his left ; the interminable forest on his right ; and the creamy sea-sand curving in dehcate tracery be- tween. A Picture and a Child of Nature ! Dehght- edly he plunges in the foam, and swims to the bald crown of a rock that uplifts itself above the waves. Seating himself he gazes upon the calm expanse beyond, and swings his legs against the moss that spins its filmy ten- drils in the brine. Suddenly he utters a cry ; springs up ; the blood streams from his foot. With barbarous fury he tears up masses of sea moss, and with it clustering families of testacea. Dashing them down upon the rock, he perceive3 a liquor exuding from the fragments ; he 118 THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. sees the white pulpy dehcate morsel half hidden in th& cracked shell, and instinctively reaching upward, his hand finds his mouth, and amidst a savage, triumphant deglutition, he murmurs — Oystee! ! Champing in his uncouth fashion bits of shell and sea-weed, with uncon- trollable pleasure he masters this mystery of a new sen- sation, and not until the gray veil of night is drawn over the distant waters, does he leave the rock, covered with the trophies of his victory. We date from this epoch the maritime history of England. Ere long, the reedy cabins of her aborigines clustered upon the banks of beautiful 'inlets., and over- spread her long lines of level beaches ; or penciled with delicate wreaths of smoke the savage aspect of her rocky coasts. The sword was beaten into the oyster-knife, and the spear into oyster rakes. Commerce spread her white wings along the shores of happy Albion, and man emerged at once into civilization from a nomadic state.. From this people arose the mighty nation of Ostrogoths ;. from the Ostraphagi of Ancient Britain came the custom of Ostracism — that is, sending political delinquents to that place where they can get no more oysters. There is a strange fatality attending aU discoverers.; Our Briton saw a mighty change come over his country — . a change beyond the reach of memory or speculation. — Neighboring tribes, formerly hostile, were now linked together in bonds of amity, A sylvan, warlike people had become a peaceful, piscivorous community ; and he THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. 119 himself, once the lowest of his race, was now elevated above the dreams of his ambition. He stood alone upon the sea-sh jre, looking toward the rock, which, years ago, had been his stepping-stone to power, and a desire to revisit it came over him. He stands now upon it. The season, the hour, the westerly sky, remind him of former times. He sits and meditates. Suddenly a flush of pleasure overspreads his countenance; for there just below the flood, he sees a gigantic bivalve — alone — ^with mouth agape, as if yawning with very weariness at the solitude in which it found itself. What I am about to describe may be untrue. But I believe it. I have heard of the waggish propensities of oysters. I have known them, from mere humor, to clap suddenly upon a rat's tail at night ; and, what with the squeaking and the clat- ter, we verily thought the devil had broken loose in the cellar. Moreover, I am told upon another occasion, when a demijohn of brandy had burst, a large " Blue- pointer " was found, lying in a little pool of liquor, just drunk enough to be careless of consequences — opening and shxitting his shells with a "devil-may-care" air, as if he didn't value anybody a brass farthing, but was go- ing to be as noisy as he possibly could. But to return. When our Briton saw the oyster in this defenseless attitude, he knelt down, and gradually reaching his arm toward it, he suddenly thrust his Angers in the aperture, and the oyster closed upon them with a spasmodic snap ! In vain the Briton tugged and roared ; 120 THE FIBST OTSTEK-EATEE. he might as well have tried to uproot the soKd rock as to move thM oyster ! In vain he called upon his heathen gods — Gog and Magog — elder than Woden and Thor ; and with huge, uncouth, druidical oaths consigned all shell-fish to Mdhogg, Hela, and the submarines. Bivalve held on with "a will." It was nuts for him certainly. Here was a great, lubberly, chuckle-headed fellow, the destroyer of his tribe, with his fingers in chancery, and the tide rising ! A fellow who had thought, like ancient Pistol, to make the world his oyster, and here was the oyster making a world of him. Strange mutation ! The poor Briton raised Ms eyes : there were the huts of his people,; he could even distinguish his own, with its slender spiral of smoke ; they were probably preparing a roast for him ; how he detested a roast ! Then a thought of his wife, his little ones awaiting him, tugged at his heart. The waters rose aromid him. He struggled, screamed in his anguish ; but the remorseless winds dis- persed the sounds, and ere the evening moon arose and flung her white radiance upon the placid waves, the last biUow had roUed over the Fiest Oystee-Eatee ! I pm-pose at some future time to show the relation ex- isting between wit and oysters. It is true that Chaucer (a poet of considerable promise in the Fourteenth Cen- tury) has alluded to the oyster in rather a disrespectful manner ; and the learned Du Bartas (following the elder Pliny) hath accused this modest bivalve of "being incon- tinent," a charge wholly without foundation, for there is THE FIEST OTSTEK-EATER. 121 not a more chaste and innocent fisli in the world. But the rest of our poets have redeemed it from foul aspersions in numberless passages, among which we find Shak- gpeare's happy allusion to " Rich honesty dwelling in a poob house." And no one now, I presume, will pretend to deny, that it hath been always held " Great in mouths of wisest censure ! " In addition to a chapter on wit and oysters, I also may make a short digression touching cockles and lobsters. XVII. E iLiterarg aturiositg.* bACAULAY in the Exordium to his History, propose^ to bring his narrative down " to a period within the memory of men still living." The phrase was doubt- less chosen for its ambiguity ; so as to include or to eay clude some notice of our Revolution. If the following extracts be genuine (and for their authenticity I do not vouch), they favor the former hypothesis. They purport to be sketches for a future volume : stone, rough hewn, for an edifice which, alas ! the master did not Hve to com- plete. HiSTOEICUS. Chaeactee of Washington. "The post of Commander-in-Chief of the insurgent armies was of vital importance. Tet, the man who, ol all men, was fitted to fill such a post adequately was at hand. The Congress knew it; and with a unanimity that rarely marked their proceedings, selected George Washington — a delegate from Virginia. The reader will naturally pause at the mention of a name which is re- garded with fond idolatry by a federation of great com- monwealths ; which History has admitted into the com- pany of founders of empire with Romiilus and Gustavus, ♦See Preface. A LITERARY OTJEIOSITY. 123 and into the roll of great captains with Hannibal and Frederic : and which is pronounced with equal veneration on the banks of the Thames and on the banks of the Ganges. Both the circumstances of his birth and the circumstances of his education had fitted him for the part he was called on to play. In his blood, of English origin, there was blended something of the fiery valor of the cavaliers of Rupert, with something of the resolute energy of the soldiers of Ohver. His form, in its matchless union of vigor and grace, had foiled the pencil of Stuart and the chisel of Chantiy. He had known the salutary discipHne of early toil. With his stipend of a guinea a day as a surveyor, he had acquired, in youth, the art of controlling himself. In manhood, by the exercise of patriarchal dominion over thous"ands of acres and hundreds of slaves, he had acquired the art of controlUng others. Equally fortunate had been his pubhc career. He had served in the armies of the Crown, and against the natives of the wilderness. He had thus learned something, both of des- ultory and of disciplined warfare. At a later day, and on a -wider theatre, his knowledge of the one enabled him to surprise the Hessians at Trenton ; and his knowledge of the other to entangle Cornwallis in the toils of York- town. "His courage was of the tmest temper. Stoic savages told with wonder how he alone was calm when the sol- diers of Braddock were slaughtered like sheep ; and Con- tinental veterans loved to narrate how his face shone with 124 A LITERARY CURIOSITY. heroic fire as he rallied the broken battalions at Mon- mouth, His intellect was solid and comprehensive. The natural ardor of his temperament was subdued by a judg- ment of singular accuracy and prudence. His unaffected' piety showed itself alike on public and on private occa- sions : when he drew his sword at Cambridge : when he sheathed it at Annapolis : when he knelt alone in the snowy solitudes of Valley Forge. "And, indeed, all the strength of his intellect, and all the resources of his character, were needed for the task he had undertaken. For he had undertaken to confront the finest infantry of Europe with an army of tradesmen and farmers — half clad, half fed, and wholly undisciphned. In the ranks, the spirit of patriotic ardor was but too often allied with the spirit of turbulent freedom. At the council board, there were officers to whom the precedence of a colleague was more galling than the tyranny of the common oppressor. He had to deal with deliberative bodies that acted when they should have debated, and with executive bodies that debated when they should have acted ; with an army that murmured at his activity, and with a government that blamed his inaction ; and he was forced to exhibit, to both government and army, at one time the reckless courage of Charles XII, and at another time the serene patience of Marlborough. '^Nor must his claims to civic wisdom be passed un- noticed. His style, founded, it is true, on the turgid mas- terpieces of that period, was accurate and comprehensive. A LITER AEY OUEIOSITT. 125 His talent for abstract speculation was not contemptible. He presided with commanding wisdom over that assemb- lage of wise and ingenious statesmen, who framed a system of government in imitation of a great system, in which the centrifugal force of the separate Common- wealths and the centripetal force of the Federal author- ity were balanced with consummate skill. Nor did he exhibit less wisdom when called on to put in motion the machine which he had helped to frame. He resisted the unjust rale of many men, as he had resisrted the unjust rule of one man ; and saw with prophetic eye the issues of that insane freedom that ended in the ' carmag- nole ' and the ' guillotine.' Nor was the calm splendor of his setting unworthy of the long day of glory. He beat his spear into a pruning hook ; and planted choice trees, and reared rare breeds of animals with the same con- scientious energy, with which he had ruled armies and governed cabinets. "And yet, the truth is that characters of such perfec- tion excite neither the just, sympathy nor the just admir- ation of the great mass of mankind. The very foibles of irregular greatness are a bond of sympathy and a source of interest. Most readers will turn away from a ruler who was never unjust, and from a general who never swore, to follow the amiable amours of Henry IV, or the picturesque passion of Hildebrand. So, also, do the defects of imperfect natures serve to render, by the force of contrast, their merits more striking. The eloquence 126 A LITEKAET CURIOSITY. of Tully stands out in flaming characters against the dark background of that timorous nature ; and the glance of Bacon, the philosopher, seems more comprehensive when we compare it with the glance of Bacon, the venal ]'-udge, lowered obliquely on a bribe. The mental eye is misled, as the physical eye is misled by the ruins of Palmyra or the Cathedral of Cologne. The imagination outstrips the reality, and bestows an unmerited grandeur on the restored temple and the completed church. But the harmonious adjustment of the mental and moral faculties of Wash- ington, prevent us, at the first glance, from duly estimate ing the extent of those faculties. We are like the traveller who stands for the first time in that splendid structure which the genius of Michael Angelo has reared for the Catholic hierarchy. He cannot at once justly esti- mate the length of that endless nave, or the expanse of that awful dome. And not until he discovers, by re- peated observation, that the baldaquin which covers the altar is as lofty as a palace, and that the cupids that flit about the door are as big as giants, will he feel assured that he treads the floor of the largest building on the earth." The Chakactee of Feanklin. " The new ambassador was Benjamin Franklin, one of' the foremost citizens of the young Republic, and one of the foremost citizens of the older republic of science. He was of humble origin. Both in Boston, the place of his A LITER AKT OUEIOSITY. 127 birth, and in Philadelphia, the place of his adoption, he had wrought at that art, 'preservative of all arts,' of which the followers, hke ships that bear spices and odors from the East, retain something of the precious cargoes they are employed to distribute. The clearness of his in- tellect was equalled by the clearness of his perceptions. Under the name of Poor Eichard, and through the hiunble medium of an 'Almanac,' he put forth a system of homely ethics, in which the virtues of temperance, probity and industry were explained and commended in aphorisms of ingenious terseness. Nor did he fail to practice what he preached. He was speedily honored with offices of trust, both from the Colonies and the Crown. And when differences, that sprang partly from criminal interference and partly from criminal neglect, arose between the two countries, he exerted himself strenuously, first to prevent, and then to remove those differences. The hour for reconciliation passed away : and he now stood up for war with the same placid courage with which he had stood out for peace. He was one of the Committee that drafted the great Declaration. He was now sent to represent the good cause at the Court of France, and at the bar of European opinion. An extra- ordinary reception awaited him. He was widely and justly known as an eminent man of science — as the Co- lumbus of electrical discovery. The French nation is, beyond all other nations, fond of striking effect and picturesque contrast. And nothing could be more stri- 128 A LITEEABY CURIOSITY, king or picturesque than the spectacle now presented. A Quaker diplomatist was about to appear in the most artificial of courts : a new Archimedes was to come from the land of the Natchez and the Mohawk : the legate of the latest republic was to recall the image of antique wisdom and of antique virture — of the Grecian Solon and the Roman Regulus. Haughty courtiers bent in emotion before him : brilUant beauties struggled for a kiss ; sculp- tors and painters pursued him with merciless assiduity ; the Academy rang with applause when Turgot's adulatory Latin described the sage as one ' who had wrested the thimder from heaven and the sceptre from tyrants:' and upon a ship of wai-, that was sent on its mission of death and destruction under the desperate Paul Jones, was bestowed; with pardonable inconsistency, the name of 'Poor Eichard.' " The chief glorjr of Franklin lies in this — ^that he was the greatest of the pupils of Bacon. And, indeed, ho was such a pupil as Bacon would have delighted to honor. To both pupil and master, philosophy was not the mystic goddess of Plato, or the impracticable vixen of the school- men. She was an angel of beneficence and a minister of mercy ; an Elizabeth Fry or Florence Nightingale. Her mission was to relieve hmuan Buffeiiag and to advance man's estate. Aad, in truth, Franldin's long and suc- cessful career was a triumphant application of these principles. No sooner had the electric spark ghded dowii the kite-string than the lightning-rod was invented for its A LITERARY CURIOSITY. 129 innocuous descent. The maxims of Poor Richard were devised not only for the household of the Quaker mechanic and the dealings of the Quaker tradesman, but for the government of States and the intereouse of na- tions. Even the barren tactics of chess were made to fornish lessons for the higher warfare of hfe. Nor did his philosophy fail to bear her fruits to the philosopher himself. The virtues of self-respect and self-reliance that walked by his side, when he entered Philadelphia with a loaf of bread under his arm, did not desert him when he listened, amid the frowns of hostile statesmen, to the pitiless sarcasm of Weddeburne ; nor when he stood, the centre of universal homage, in the brilliant court of Louis. "Zealous theologians have attacked the orthodoxy of his creed ; casuists have caviUed at the imperfection of his ethics. But he was doubtless a good man ; he was sm-ely a great man. And he richly deserves the title of ' the most useful of the children of men ' — a title which Franklin himself would have prized beyond aU the gifts of fortune nd all the laiirels of fame." xvn. i)fl8, on t^e ILittle J^eatij t)g 13uxtei)utre.* FROM THE LOW GEEMAiir OF SCHEODEE. >His story is a tough one to tell, youngsters, but a^a)' ^-i*^® i^- is ^^^ ^^ that ! for my grandfather, from whom I have it, used always to say, when he told it t "True must it be, my son, otherwise one could notteU it so at all!" And this is the way the story ran: 'Twas on a pleasant Sunday morning, toward harvest time, just as the buckwheat blossomed. The sun had gone brightly up into the heaven ; the morning wind swept warm over the stubble ; the larks sang in the air j the bees hummed in the buckwheat ; the good folk went in Simday gear to church, and all creatm-es were happy, and the hedgehog also. The hedgehog stood before his door with his arms folded, peeped out into the morning air, and chirruped a Httle song to himself, just as good and just as bad as a hedgehog i-s wont to sing on a pleasant Sunday morning. And as he was singing to himself, in a cheery httle voice, * See Preface. THE RACE BETWEEN, &iC. 131 all at once it came into his head he might just as well, while his wife was washing and dressing the children, take a little walk into the field to see how his turnips were standing. ISTow the turnips were close to his house, and he used to eat them with his family, so that he looked upon them as his own. No sooner said than done. The hedgehog shut the house-door to after him, and took his way to the field. He had not gone very far from the house, and was about to turn, just by the thorn bush which stands there before the field, near the turnip patch, when he met the hai'e, who had gone out on a similar business, namely, to look after his cabbages. When the hedgehog caught sight of the hare, he bid him a friendly "good morning!" But the hare, who, in his own way, was a mighty fine gentleman, and held his head very high, answered nothing to the hedgehog's greeting, but said to the hedgehog, putting on thereby a most scomfiil mien : " How happens it, then, that thou art strolling about here in the field so early in the morning ?" "I'm taking a walk," said the hedgehog. " Taking a walk ?" laughed the hare, " mothinks thou mightest use those legs of thine for better things." This answer vexed the hedgehog hugely, for he could stand almost anything, but his legs he did not like to have spoken about, because they were crooked by nature. ' "Thou thinkest, perhaps," said the hedgehog to the hare, "thou conld'st do more with thine own legs !" " That's what I do think," said the hare. 132 THE EACj: BETWEEN "That depends upon the trial," quoth the hedgehog. ' ' I bet that if we run a race together, I beat thee hollow ! " " That's quite laughable, thou with thy crooked legs," said the hare, "but I've nothing against it if thou art so bent upon it. What's the bet ?" "A golden louis d'or and a bottle of brandy '" said the hedgehog. "Done," said the hare, "fall in, and then it may come off at once." ' ' Nay, there's no such hurry, " said the hedgehog-, ' ' I'm still quite hungry ; I'll go home and get a bit of breakfast first ; within half an hour I'll be here again on the spot." With this the hedgehog went his way, for the hare was also content. On the way the hedgehog thought to himself: "The hare trusts to his long legs, but I'll fetch him for all that ; he's a fine gentleman to be sure, but still he's only a stupid fellow, and pay he shall !" Now when the hedgehog came to his house, he said to his wife: "Wife, dress thyself in my gear, quickly, thou must go \^ith me to the field." "What's all this about?" said his wife. " I've bet the hare a golden louis d'or and a bottle of brandy that I beat him in a race, aud thou must be by." "O my husband!" began the hedgehog's wife to cry, "art thou foolish ? hast thou then quite lost thine understanding ? How canst thou wish to run a race with the hare ?" THE HARE AND THE HEDGEHOG. 133 " Hold thy mouth, wife," said the hedgehog, "that's my business ; don't meddle with men's affairs. March ! dress thyself in my clothes, and then come along." What could the hedgehog's wife do ? She had to follow whether she would or no. When they were on the way together, the hedgehog said to his wife : "Now hsten to what I have to say. See'st thou, on the long acre yoflder wiU. w.e run our races. The hare runs in one furrow and I in another, and we begin to run from up there. Now thou hast nothing else to do than to take thy place here in the furrow, and when the hare comes up on the other side thou must caU out to him : "I'm here already!" With this they had reached the field; the hedgehog showed his wife her place and went up the furrow. When he got to the upper end the hare was already there. " Can we start?" said the hare. ' Yes, indeed ! " said the hedgehog. " To it then !" and with that each placed himself in his furrow, and the hare counted one, two, three ! and away he went hke a storm wind down the field. But the hedgehog ran about three steps, and then ducked down in the furrow and sat still. When the hare, on the full bound, came to the lower end of the field, the hedgehog's wife, called out to him. "I'm here already!" The hare started and wondered not a Httle ; he thought not otherwise than that it was the hedgehog himself that ran out to meet him ; for, as every 134 THE KACE BET WEEN one knows, the hedgehog's wife looks just like her hu&-' band. But the hare thought : there's something wrong about all this ! Another race ! At it again ! And away he went again like a storm wind, so that his ears lay flat on his head. But the hedgehog's wife staid quietly in her place. When the hare came to the upper end the hedge- hog called out to him, "I'm here already." But the hare, beside himself with rage, cried : "Another race ! at it again ! " "I'm quite willing," answered the hedgehog, "just as often as thou likest." So the hare ran thee and seventy times, and the hedge- hog held out to the very end with him. Every time the hare came either below or above, the hedgehog' or his wife said "I'm here already !" But the four and seventieth time the hare came no more to the end. In the middle of the field he fell to the earth and lay dead upon the spot. So the hedgehog took the louis d'or and the bottle of brandy he had won, called his wife out of the furrow, and both went home together : and if they have not died, they are living still. So happened it that on the Buxte- hude heath the hedgehog ran the hare to death, and since that time no hare has ever dreamed of running a race with a Buxtehude hedgehog. But the moral of this story is, iirst^ that no one, how- ever high and mighty he may think himself, shall let it THE HARE AND THE HEDaEHOQ. 135 happen to him to make merry over an hiunble man, even if he be a hedgehog ; and secondly, that it is advisable, when one marries, that he take a wife out of his own condition, and who looks just hke himself. He, therefore that is a hedgehog, must look to it that his wife is also a hedgehog ; and so forth. XVIII. fflsaijat 10 t\)z erause of STijuntrer? "First, let me talk witli this philosopher. What is the cause of thunder ?" — King Lear, Act III, Scene Fifth. SERIES of observations, and a single experiment,, would throw some Ught upon this important ques- tion. Take, for instance, a summer afternoon when the air is close and sultry, and the atmosphere rarefied, when respiration is laborious, and no wind stirring among the leaves. But, on the distant horizon, there are indications of vapor ; not rolling clouds, but thin exhalations from the earth, drawn up by the heat of the sun. Suddenly this humid veil is illuminated by flashes, and people call it heat lightning, summer lightning, sheet lightning. I wish particularly to direct attention to the fact, that this exhibition of electricity is not often accompanied with other phenomena peculiar to thunder storms. No rain follows the flash, nor is any report heard ; and, further- more, these illuminated vapors are always mwcA elevated. It is idle to say that on account of distance from the earth the report is not audible ; for few persons, famiUar with mountain heights, can fail to remember that some WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THUNDER? 137 time or other they were in the midst of such an atmos- phere, when the hghtning appeared to surround them, apparently witliin a few feet of them, flashing on every side, yet without rain or detonation. In this condition the atmosphere is said to be highly charged with electric- ity. But surely we cannot accept this as equivalent to the same meaning appUed to a Leyden jar, fresh from contact with the knob of the electric machine. Indeed, is not the contrary very possible ? Would not the data show that, in such a condition the atmosphere, instead of being highly charged, had not its usual percentage of electric stimulus? Experiments with the electrometer might prove this supposition to be correct, and, on the other hand, it might prove it to be incorrect. But one thing cannot be disproved nor denied — that air, highly rarefied by heat, and humid, is air, plus water ; and also that in this condition air is susceptible of being silently illuminated by electricity. This point being settled, we win proceed to the next — ^which is, "What is the cause of Thunder?" The learned, down to the latest moment of going to press, have advanced no farther than this, that " thunder is a noise produced by the explosion op lightning, or hy the passage of lightning from one cloud to another ! or fi'om a cloud to the ground." Whoever has read the cel- ebrated treatise of John Conrad Francis de Hatzfield upoii tho subject, will find a far more plausible theory advanced by that sagacious philosopher, and quite as 138 WHAT IS THE CAUSK OF THUNDER? amusing as the modern idea, that the sound of thunder is analogous to the snap produced by holding the knuckle of one's forefinger to the brass bulb of an electrical machine! — an explanation that has never satisfied any reasonable mind. Let us see if there be not a rational solution of the mystery. The phenomena of thunder storms are: first, heavy clouds ; then lightning ; then the report, and then a fall of rain ! Now, let us trace the consequence to its source. The rain is produced by two causes, either sud- den condensation of watery vapors or clouds, by colder temperature, or the formation of water by the action of the electric fluid. The first explains itself; the latter is linked with the subject of this paper. Let us, there- fore, confine ourselves to that rain only which follows the thunder. Rain water is composed of two elements, oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is a combustible gas, and oxygen supports combustion. A stream of pure hydrogen, ejected from a pipe into pure oxygen, bums brightly in perfect silence. But, mixed with oxygen, it explodes upon taking fire ; just as a young man, having his own fortune to make, goes quietly to work until he gets a partner with a tremendous capital. The relative aspects of silent lightning and noisy lightning may be compared by a simple apparatus sold at any chemists ; it is a tia lamp filled with inflammatory gas. So long as the gas is allowed to burn in sma;ll quantities it is taciturn, but, ex- posed to a larger mixture of oxygen, it goes oft" with a WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THUJTDEK? 139 loud report. This is a lamp that any spark of electricity can ignite. And then again the product of the flame is water! The union of hydrogen and oxygen is water. What meteoric phenomenon is so simple as this, that thunder is caused by the electric spark uniting with rare- fied air plus oxygen, and rarefied vapor plus hydrogen, detonating, recompounding, and forming rain ! XIX. a jTrenri) Breakfast.* LE Prince de Talleyrand gave a dejeuner d la i)'^ fourchette at which the illustrious Brillat Sa- varin was a guest. This great philosopher gives us the bill of fare, interspersed with his own reflections and directions, which I have translated for the edification of all gourmets. Yours, P. D. 1st. Guinea hen's eggs fried in quail's fat, spread with a coulis (gravy) of ecrevisse (a species of crawfish), very warm, each egg being a single morsel, and taken at a mouthful, after having been well turned in the coulis. Eat pianissimo. After each egg drink two fingers of old Madeira. This wine to be drunk with reflection. (JSecueUlement). 2d. Lake Trout with Montpeher butter, iced (butter made with aromatic herbs). E.oU each morsel nicely and perfectly in this high-flavored seasoning. Eat allegro. Drink two glasses of flne Sauterne or Latour Blanche. To be drunk contemplatively. * See Preface. A FRENCH BREAKFAST. 141 3d. Fillets of tlie breast of Grouse, with white truffles of Piemant — ^raw, in slices. Place each fillet between two layers of truffles, and let them soak well in gravy d la perigtieux, made of black truffles served apart. Eat forte, on account of the white truffles being raw. Drink two glasses of Chateau Margaux ; the beautiful flavor of this wine will be most apparent after drinking. 4th. Roasted Rail on a Crust, a Id Sardanapale ; the legs and side-bones to be eaten only ; the leg not to be cut in two ; take it between the thumb and fingers ; salt it lightly ; put the thigh part between the teeth and chew it aU, meat and bone. Eat largo and fortissimo, at the same time take a cut of the hot crust, prepared with a condiment of liver and brain of woodcock, goose liver of Strasbourg, marrow of red deer, and pounded anchovies, highly spiced. Drink two glasses of Clos Vougeot ; pour out this wine with emotion, and drink with a religious sentiment. 5th. Morilles (a species of large and exquisite mush- rooms), with fine herbs and essence of ham ; let these divine cryj)togamas melt in the mouth. Eat pianissimo. Drink a glass of Cote Rotie, or a glass of very old Johannesberger. No recommendation as to the way of drinking this wine (the Cote Rotie) ; it is commanding and self-imposing; as to the Johannesberger, treat it Uke a venerable patriarch. 142 A FRENCH BREAKFAST. 6th. Bouchees a la Duchesse, with pine-apple jelly. Eat amoroso. Drink two or three glasses of Champagne, Sillery Sec, Verzeney, non Mousseux (still) iced to snow. 7th. Brie Cheese, or Estanville (near Meaux). Drink one glass of Port. r Then, if you please, an excellent cigar (demi regaha, de Cabanas), after which one small glass of Ctira9ao, and a siesta, during which you will dream of the beauties of the dinner to come. Each course of such a breakfast must be served only at the time the cook is ready; the guest must wait, not the cook, so that the dishes may be presented in perfect order. XX. BaintB i^ints for 3Bpicurean gimoiters.* HOEVER has been in Havana must needs recol- lect the httle brazier, with its ball of white ashes, beneath which a live hard-wood coal, called a "caw(?efe," glows ah. day for the accommodation of smokers in every house. This we thought once a dainty device. But om- friend. Master Karl, has given us some new, delicate and fragrant suggestions: — "It is an established canon that the purest and most elevated tastes or flavors are unmixed — simple. I re- spectftilly submit that in smoking tobacco, this rule by no means holds good. And here I might cite the learned Winstruphiiis who in his 'Epigrammata,' puns so learnedly on Bac- chus and To-Bacco, and their mutual flavoring influence. This I spare you. Likewise the lucubrations of Schiop- jpixis Dunderhedius, who in speaking most horrifically, De odore fetida tobacci, distinctly analyzes it into two smells — one infernal, the other diabolical. This spared also, (by request). * See Preface. 144 DAINTY HINTS FOK " But I mean simply to say that a point may be given to a good cigar by lighting it from wood — not from the timber of a lucifer match, but trom a smoldering, smok- ing fragment of a log, either hickory, oak, or even pine. And note ye, good fellows aU, that the earlier in the season this is done, the more delicate is the gout; yea, this rule holds so far good, that on the first crisp even- ings in September, no musk-rose or violet that is — nay, no vitivert — nay, no ess bouquet — nay, no florimel, nay, no eau de cypre — ^nay, no hediosmya — nay, no daintily- ambered aqua colonicB or any Paradisaical sweets that be, can surpass the odorat of the first whiff of a wood- lighted cigar. "Yea, and more. If you smoke hght, and mild, and dry, preferring Latikea and Knaster to fine-cut, turnback and chopped cavendish, there is a class of perfumes — ' that I ween, which Piesse places as the third note in the gamut of good smells — a certain spicy oriental class, such as cascarrilla, or a faint admixture of santal, which perfumes the axe which lays it low, which in no wise de- tracts from piping joys. And I tell you in all truth, that Virginia leaf, with these sweet delights, and with sumach or kinni kinnick therein gently mingled, spreads around such a pastilled, ecclesiastical cathedi'al air, blended with dim souvenirs of the rue Breda, that he who smokes thereof is oftentimes in tone to sing the high song of King Solomon, or the lyrics of the Persian land, wherein love and devotion are so curiously en- EPICUREAN SMOKERS. 145 ■twined, that no sensation that is, can be compared thereto, unless it be the kissing of your sweetheart during sermon-time under the lee of a high-backed old- fashioned pew. " ' Ita dixit ille Rector Er wollt's nicht anders han, Vale semper bone Lector, Lug du und stoss dich dran Out Gesellist Binekman.' " 10 XXI. fflglas (»ri)ampasne mnoton to tijc annentg?"^ Nk-w Yoek, July 1st, 1867. fiHE author of the following two communications, written seven years ago, in now revising them, finds melancholy- thoughts taking the place of the gay and festive feelings in which they were originally composed. In those seven years of civil strife which brought sorrow to the hearts of thousands, whose loved ones, whose "beautiful and brave,'' fell in the battle-fleld, death did not spare some of the best and noblest of those who were sportively mentioned in these papers. Dr. Francis has passed away — Dr. Francis the jovial, the kind- hearted, the man of boundless curiosity and unening memory, of large and sound acquirements, the genuine and enthusiastic New Yorker, who has preserved the choicest memorials of the men of the , last generation in that city to which he himself so long gladdened and instructed. President Pelton, of Harvard University, is no more. New York, still mourns the death of one of her most eminent surgeons, Dr. John Watson. The memory of all men of professional excellence, however high it may have been, is proverbially brief. *' Feeble tradition is tlieir memory's guard." * Se3 Preface. 147 Thus the fame of the distinguished skUl of Watson must soon fade away, like that of Kissam, of Wright, of Post, and even within a few years that of Mott. But the memory of Dr. Watson will be preserved by his volume on "The Medical Profession in Ancient rimes," a book equally agreeable and impressive, very learned, yet very original. That memory will also be preserved and cherished among a hmited but very select class of students, in law, in medicine and in intellectual science, by his elaborate, acute and exhaustive printed opinions as a medical expert ; in the great, the genial, the liberal, the wise, the accomplished scholar, one of whose Homeric criticisms is specially combated in these papers, who is there described as a person of the highest scholarship, armed with the authority, and clothed with the dignity of Jupiter, he, too, was soon suddenly snatched away from the station he adorned, and the studies which he loved. To those honored names must I add that of Thackeray. He was one well known familiarly in our American cities, and there ai'e still hundreds who quote his criticisms on our " Big Bursts of Oysters," as well as on our old Maderia, so plentiful and so prized but twenty years ago, whilethe portraits of Col. Newcome, of Becky Sharpe, and many more, remain, life-like in the minds of thousands. But such recollections will touch and sadden only some few of my older readers. The passages relating to the lamented dead, have been therefore left unaltered, in the wish to give to such of any younger generation who may casually look into this book, a passing glance at the pursuits and opinions of some of the noted literary men among us iu 1860. , August 7, 1866. My DbaeCozzens: — I had hoped to spend my vacation in quiet idleness, with a rigorous and religious abstinence 148 WAS CHAMPAGNE from pen and ink. But I cannot refuse to comply with the request you urge so eloquently, placing your claim to my assistance not only on the ground of old friendship, but also as involving important objects, literary and sci- entific, as well as social and commercial ; all of them (to repeat your phrase and Bacon's), "coming home to the business and bosoms of men." You desire me to inform you, after careful examination of all the authorities, "whether the ancient Greeks or Romans, during the classic ages, were acquainted with champagne." In such an inquiiy, at once scientific and classical, it is all-important that the question should be stated with logical precision. Bacon himself has taught us that the judicious statement of the question {jorudens inierrogatio) is one half the way to scientific discovery. Now, I may safely presume that you do not mean to ask whether the territory of Champagne was known to the ancients. Any Freshman can tell you that the fair land on each side of the murmuring Marne, and up the vine- clad sides of the mountains, was part of ancient (xaul, known and subject to the Romans, and designated as part of diiferent provinces at different periods of the Eoman sway. On this point and all relating to it you can get what- ever information you desire from Cluveri us and D'Anville, or the Fathers of Trevoux. But this, I take it, you can- not mean, though it is the literal sense of yom* Tequest. KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 149 Nor, in my judgment, can you mean to ask, whether the Greeks and Eomans were acquainted with the wines of the growth of that part of old Gaul which, under the ancient regime of France, was called the province of Champagne. Of course the Roman colonists in Gaul knew and used the wines therein grown and made ; but from the account given by the elder Pliny, of the wines there produced, they bore little resemblance to the present wines of Champagne, whether mousseux cremant, or still. They are not named with any respect in Pliny's statement of the one hundred and ninety-five (195 ! ) sorts of wine which in his day were counted fit for the Roman market, of which only eighty kinds were admitted to be " wines of authority for good tables" — " quibus auctoritas foerit mensa," as he says, unless I misquote him. The art of wine-making was then in its very infancy in Gaul. Indeed, it was not until the days of the great and good Ingulphus, the Seventeenth mitred Abbot of Verzeney, who was also Dean of Rheims — (I give that great man the titles by which he was known in the last forty years of his hfe, although his most admirable and important inventions and improvements in the making and man- agement of wines were made whilst he was still only cure of Verzy on the mountains, and afterwards Arch- deacon of Ay, in the low country along the Marne)— I say, that it was not until the days of the aforesaid Ingul- phus (supradicti Eeverendissimi Ingulphi as the Mheirns Chronicle styles him), that the wines of Campagne at- 150 WAS CHAMPAGNE tracted the attention of Eoyalty. Soon after that they became the constant' accompaniments, de rigueur, of all "good men's feasts." I write, as you know, out of reach of my own library, as well as of that of our university, and must trust altogether to memory. Other- wise I coiild not resist the temptation of expatiating farther in the praise of this great benefactor of humanity. I will only add that the great Ingulphus of whom I speak, and to whom we all owe such Skuimpayable debt of grati- tude, was the one of the Eohan family, and must not be confounded with the three other very able and distin- guished men of the Latinized name of Ingulphus, or Ingulphius, (for the name is spelled both ways), who figuro in public affairs in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The great Ingulphus prosecuted his vinous experi- ments and effected his discoveries during the reign of the famous Philip Augustus ; or rather, Philip Augustus reigned in France during his time, which, by a very noteworthy coincidence, was the very period when, according to the best Irish antiquaries their Milesian forefathers discovered and perfected the manufacture of whisky, v^ky, or the water, as it was called in the ancient tongue of the Emerald Isle ; though in the cognate dialect of the Scotch Gaelic, it was known as uisgee. These epochs also corresponded' with the date when Magna Charta, the palladium of England's liberty, was wrung by the English from their reluctant monarch. No sound KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 151 philosopher can suppose that coincidences like these are -accidental. No, no: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy^" But, to return to your inquiry. Having, by the pro- •cess ol philosophical elimination, excluded much vague- ness and danger of error, I proceed to reduce your inquiry to the shape of the prudent interrogation, the logically ■exact questioning, of the school of Bacon and Newton. Tour inquiry, then, must be this. Did the ancients, in the high and palmy days of their eloquence, philosophy and poetry, either in Greece or Eome, or in both, know And use (and of course become fond of) any effervescent "wine or wines having the chemical qualities, as carbonic .acid gas, with the tartarous and saccharine constituents, the physiological and dietetic qnaMHeB,'. drama, bouquet, •etc., together with those other properties either belong- ing to. the science of the laboratory or to that of the table, "which have been so beauti&Uy stated by my good friend T)r. Miilder, Professor of Dietetic Chemistry in the University of Utrecht, in his "Chemistry of Wines," as being essential to the true wines of Champagne, whether .mousseux or demirnnousseux ? In this statement of the question, you see, I purposely ex- ^\iAQ\!a.Qvinnon-mousseux, or what is less philosophically expressed in English bythe name oi '•'■ still Champagne." This I do because in the vulgar and popular use, such wines 152 WAS CHAMPAGNE are not included under the term Champagne, although grown ,and made in that District, and some of them, as. Sillery, of the very highest merit, gastronomic and dietetic, convivial, social, and moral, and especially in those- qualities which the physiology of the table designates as. Oxyporian. Thus, I think that the preliminary question is clearlj settled with an Aristotelian precision, such as the learned gentlemen who discuss questions of Contagion and In- fection in academies and conventions would do well to imitate. I then proceed to the investigation itself. This- I am not ashamed to affirm that I do with perfect confi- dence in the successfal result; for I do it, not like my learned friends just mentioned. "Cseca regens filo vestljgia." Or, as it is translated in my new version of Virgil, (now on the press of Ticknor & Fields) — "With stumbling steps along the dubious maze, Tracing with half-seen thread the darksome ways." But with a bold and firm step, lifting high the blazing- torch of classic lore, which pours its floods of light forward in my path. The conclusion to which I come is simply that the Greek and Eoman gentlemen and scholars, in the high, and palmy state of their literature and art, had used and. enjoyed wines similar to the effervescent, foaming, spark- hng, or creaming wines of Champagne. KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 153 I have stated the precise question, and the conclusion to which my mind has logically arrived. It would be descending not a little from the dignity of learning to recapitulate any of the steps by which that conclusion was attained, and the various authorities on which it rests. It is a wise general rule never to give such reasons for yoiu* opinions. Let those who ask your opinion be satis- fied when they have got it. Yet, considering the great importance of the present inquiry, and the intense inter- est which it must excite, I will deviate from my ordinary practice. Before stating this evidence, it must be observed, once for all, that though I hold that a sparkling wine similar to our best Champagne was known to the ancients, it is quite as clear that such was not a common characteristic of their wines. The resemblance was oq^y of some of their choice vintages to those of our Champagnes. Other- wise, their wines were commonly still, strong, and often thick, hke om* "Essence Tokay." I do not care to trouble you with any learning on this head. It would be too large a dose for the present. On all similar questions as to Grecian habits and Greek learning, the best and most universal authority is Athenseus. He is the most delightful and instmctive author on mat- ters of the table in any language, being to Greek literature a Dr. Kitchener of a higher order, or rather his work is what Brillat-Savarin's ' ' Physiologie du Gout is in French ; 154 WAS CHAMPAGNE but it is of far more value than Savarin's, because, with equal sprightliness and familiar knowledge of the subject that he handles, his book is filled, crammed, stuffed, spiced, larded with choice extracts from munerous Greek poets and dramatists, whose other writings are all lost. I always make AthenaBus my summer travelling com- panion — in the original, of course ; and I prefer reading him in Schweighauser's last edition, partly because it -is the best, but chiefly because old Schweighauser was ex- ceedingly kind to me at Strasbourg, more years ago than I care to tell. But as I know that your Greek is exceed- ingly rusty, ycm may consult Athenseus with profi* and pleasure in Bolm's edition of Yonge's literal translation. I looked into it not long ago, and found that I could understand it nearly or quite as well as the original, which is more than I can say for most of the translations which our college |fds use for "ponies." Amongst an infinite number of delicious excerpts from Greek poets as popular in their day as Beranger is in our own, but of whom nothing remains to posterity but ^- quisite fragments, he quotes a long passage from Critias, who thus begins a poem which, by the way, is palpably the model of the well-known lines of Goethe, and of Byron who is thought to have borrowed from him. Yet as Byron knew much more Greek than he did German,,! have no doubt that both he and Goethe copied directly from the old Greek. Byron has it thus : " Know you the land of the cypress and myrtle ?" KNOWN TO ^'HE ANCIENTS? 155 Critias, addressing his native land of Sicily, says : " Hail to the land of the dim Proserpine ! There sparkles and foams the mirth-boding wine, With its froth, its fun and noise. Its folly, its wisdom, its joys — The folly of sages, the wisdom of boys." Does not the " sparkling and foaming," etc., clearly refer to some everif^scent, fi-othing wine ? Again, Athenaeus quotes various passages from Alexis, who seems to have been a Lesbian Tom Moore, for he luxuriates over "the rich and rosy wine" of the island of Lesbos, and thus addresses Bacchus on this wine : "Hail vine-crowued Bacchus, chief divine, Who from his sea-girt Lesbian lair Erst floated out the demon Care With sparkling, raby wine." Can there be any reasonable doubt that the "sparkling ruby wine," with its proper concomitant, "the floating out of old Care " from the place where he had long nestled in gloomy secm-ity^ all allude to a choice, eiferves- cing, red wine, precisely of the quality of an excellent vin rose numsseux de Ohampagne f Then gushes forth a torrent of quotations out of the inexhaustable memory of this philosopher of good suppers, from the poet Hermippus, who seems a cosmopolitan sort of a bard, and writes as if he were at home over all the known world. Complimenting other wines, for which he had unquestionably a right liberal and Catholic faith, 156 WAS CHAMPAGNE the poet after praising the "Thasian's mild perfume," bursts into admiration of " The bloom that mantles high O'er Homer's Chian cup." In every one of these beautiful fragments you perceive the mantling, jpettilant character of our best Champagne mousseux or demi-moussevx, and there are clear indications (in the original, at least) of the golden color of some of these sparkhng vintages, and the roseate tinge of others. By the way, there is another ancient usage of which. Athenseus has preserved the memory together with that, dozens of anthers where very names would have been swept into oblivion with their poems, their songs, ballads, their comedies which were once the charm of the civi- lized world had it not been for the inexhaustible memory of this most catholic of quot'ers. The fact liiay not be conclusive, but it is at least corroborative of the opinion I maintain. It is that the Greeks were accustomed to cool their wines even by snow, as they were not blest with our ice houses. What is this but an anticipation of the Vin de Champagne Frappe of our modern tables. ' I must content myself with only one more authority from this source. Athenseus himself, in his sober, prose speculations, says ( Lib. 1, § 59) of a certain wine; " Tliis kind is a wine which has a tendency to mount upward." Now, with all deference to my old friend Schweighauser (who quite overlooks the point), how can any of the above KKOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 157 passages be explained without understanding them to refer to wines resembling our sparkling Champagne ? If I thought that you could read Greek with any sort of facility, I should not have troubled you with the above imperfect but not unfaithful versions of these precious fragments. They are more faithful than those of Bohn's translation, if not more poetical: yet, like his, they are far from expressing the force and truth of the original. In reading aloud these exquisite fragments in their native .Greek, I hear the whizzing burst of the exploded cork, I see the foaming froth of the goblet, I scent the flowery perfxime of its delicate houquet. These and other authorities in Athenseus and the bright dramatists and poets whose gems the philosopher has pre- served in his sober prose, like pearls in amber, are quite sufficient for my argument as to the Greek. When I get home among my books, I am sure that I can fortify these authorities by many passages to the same effect, from Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemseus, Hippocrates and St. Ghrysostom. Yet there is one other authority not to be omitted in such a discussion. It is even that of old Homer himself. In some thirty or more passages he paints his gods or heroes gazing upon the angry sea, to which he gives the epithet aiw^, literally "wine-faced." The translators and commentators tell us that the compound word means "dark," or "ruddy," like the wine of that age. What stupidity! Is it not clear that it refers to the foam- 158 WAS CHAMPAGNE covered deep — ^that it paints the angry main with its whole surface instinct with life, and mantling and foam- ing like the best foaming wine of the times — probably like that "Chian wine," that the poetic fragments in Athenseus tells us was Homer's favorite brand. In brief, the only translation which can convey the force of the epithet to a modern is the " Champagne-hke deep" It is possible to describe more happily the "foam-faced sea," the ohoira. irovrov on which Achilles gazes, and calls forth his sea-bom mother, in the beginning of the Epic story. How admirably does this harmonize vdth the wild spirit of the hero, and the stormy tale of his wrath and his glory. It becomes nearly as flat as the leavings of yesterday's uncorked Champagne, if this glowing epithet is reduced to "dark," or "ruddy," or even to "claret-colored," — which last would be at least more poetical, though not more aeurate. Next, then, for the Romans. That a delicate vin mousseux petulant, a foaming and sparkling wine, was famihar to the tastes of the refined gentlemen of Rome in the time of Maecenas and his little senate of poets, and soldiers, and philosophers, we need no better proof than the testimony of Virgil himself, who graphically repre- sents the drinking of just such awine as that with which you oblige your friends at various prices, and under sundry brands but all choice and dear. I take first the Uteral mean- ing of Virgil's melodious verses, though I have long thought ' that those contained a deeper secondai-y and recondit© KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 159 sense, referring to the recherche repasts of Virgil's great friend and patron, Maecenas. It is in the close of the first book of the ^neid, in the recital of Dido's royal bonquet to the Trojan chief. Toward the end of the feast", Didb is described as ordering, and receiving, and filling with wine, the hereditary massive goblet of gold and gems, used by her progenitor Belus, and the long line of her ancestors, " Hie Kegina gravem gremmis auroque poposcit, Implevitque mero, pateram, quam Belus et omnes A Belo soliti "■ — • Then, after a pause of silence, she invokes Jove, the God of hospitable laws, to make that day auspicious alike to the wanderers of Troy and her own subjects exiles from Tyre. After inviting the favorable presence of Bacchus, the giver of mirth, and of the gracious Juno, next she pours on the table the liquid honors of Hbation (laticwm libavit honorem) ; and after touching tlie bowl with her hp, passes it on with gay chiding at his slowness, to her next neighbor Bitias. Whereupon, • " lUe impiger hausit Spumantem pateram, et ^leao se proluit a,\3io." -For the sake of being very accurate, I have given you an exact prose version of the preceding Hues, instead of my own ref ounding translation ; still, as I have already informed you, in the press of Ticknor & Fields. I proceed in the same way as to those last quoted. "He 160 WAS CHAMPAGNE (Bitias), no slouch at his glass — (none of the translators in any tongue, have given the sense of impiger with such precision), drained oif the foaming cup, and bathed himself in the overflowing gold." Here, again, so far as I can remember, no one of the translators or commenta- tors — I have examined all of them in my time, though not very lately — has given the full force of the '■'■jplenose proluit auro" for though it implies that this inexpert drinker drenched himself with the choice liquor contain- ed in the golden goblet, it also unquestionably means that he bathed his face in that vinous spray with which frothing Champagne often moistens or even bathes the face of the hasty and ill-mannered drinker. Good Abbe De Lille, better accustomed to the plea;sm'es of Champagne than the port-drinking English translators and the beer-loving German commentators, comes much nearer in his " S'abreuvant ^ longs traits du nectar ecumant." But you will see how much better even than this I shall do it in my translation, which, as I have announced at least twice before, is now in press. Here, then, I may triumphantly rest my argument. Yet I cannot refrain from adding what is probably known to very few scholars out of Italy. It is this ; Car- dinal Mai, whose services to learning have entitled him to the lasting gratitude of all scholars, discovered, eighteen months ago, among the hitherto unexplored treasures of the Vatican library, a manuscript, as yet KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS ? 161 unprinted, containing the -^neid with the notes of an anonymous old commentator or scholiast, evidently nearly contemporary with the poet, or at least of the very next generation to him, full of curious criticism and still more curious facts. This old scholiast, in his note on the very passage just under consideration, confirms a conjecture of my own, which I communicated in a paper of mine to the " London Classical Journal" some twelve years ago or more. He expressly says that this passage was meant to be understood in its literal sense by ordi- nary readers and by posterity, but that it also referred, in its interior or esoteric sense, to the habits of Maecenas at his festive board, where Horace, Pollio, Varrus and Virgil were in the habit of dining with him twice every week, not including his birthday parties and other high festivities. On these occasions those favorite guests were always treated with a certain foaming wine of the "Dido brand" — "vino effervescent, spumanteque, amp- horis notd Didonis signatis." He adds, also, that this wine was always supplied for the table of Maecenas from the wine-vaults of Sulpicius, " /Sulpieianis horreis," the same eminent wine-merchant whose stock is mentioned with great reverence by Hor- ace in one of his odes. As far as I can make out the topography of old Rome, Sulpicius had his chief commercial establishment in Curtius street, nearly opposite to the first city station of the gi-eat Appian Way, the Hudson River Railroad of 11 162 WAS CHAMPAGNE old Rome, a locatity not very unlike yours in your own city. I trust that you are now quite satisfied that the gentle- men of Greece and Rome were accustomed to quaff a generous and pure vin mousseaux, quite like, and in no way inferior to the best Champagne of our times. I trust, also, that you will have ambition and patriotism enough to make the resemblance between old imperial Rome and your commercial Rome still more perfect by arranging with your correspondents at Rheims or at Cin- cinnati to supply you with a DIDO brand of the very choicest quality. Recollect that it must not be non mous- ■seux or still, or even merely cremaut, but resembling as near as may be the Dido wine of antiquity, spumans, petulant, mousseux, sparkling, foaming, fragrant, and with the more important quahties of a delicate aroma and an unimpeachahle hoquet. Yours, very truly, . P. S. — ^Remember me to our friend Dr. Francis, and con- gratulate him for me, on the honor of the legal doctorate so worthily added last month to his medical dignity by his venerable and distinguished Alma Mater. She has anticipated our university in this grateful duty. Yet I trust that our governing powers will not neglect to add his name to the list of those eminent persons educated elsewhere, but crowned with our academic laurel, who figure in our tri-ennial catalogue. KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS? 163 By the way, why does not the doctor, in his capacity of the Herodotus of your local history, amongst the fossil remains of the last century which he has dishumed, make out to dig up some choice i-eminiscences (there must have been much material for such) of the long residence of Brileat-Savarin in New Yorlc between sixty and seventy years ago. I was exceedingly interested with the account of him related by Mr. - — in my visit to the Century Club, with you the last time I was in your city. That the immortal author of the great work on Transcendental Gastronomy should have hved for some years in New York, by scraping the violin in the humble and unscientific orchestra of the John street and Park Theati'es, under the rule of Dunlap or Price, and then emerged _ in Paris the most successful of authors, the gayest and of table philosophers, and, moreover, a Judge of the Court of Cassation, the highest tribunal of France, promoted to that high station by the discriminat- ing Napoleon, and continued by the Bourbons, is as whimsical and as surprising a vicissitude of fortune as any of the incidents in the life of Louis Philippe or of Louis Napoleon. I must unquestionably have seen him more than once in former days, at the Court of Cassation, seated by the side of his venerable chief, the Legitimist Premi&r President De Seze, and there affirming or re- versing the decisions of the com'ts below, involving millions of fi-ancs and the most thorny points of the Code. But I never could dream that amongst these dignified 164 WAS CHAMPAGNE KNOWN, &G. sages of the law, in their grave customary robes and ju- dicial caps d mortier, I saw the sprightly author of the "Physiology of Taste," who had erst for two or more years been first violin of the only theatre in viUage-like New York during the play-going days of your grand- father. XXIL German aSEines, anti a WLim (ttellar.* p the Rhine in the leafy month of June, one might go further and fare worse, especially with regard to wine. The fact is, it is a noble thing to find some good in one's surroundings. To pass serenely and quietly from Claret, Burgundy and Champagne to Schiedam Schnapps and thence to Johannesberger, Marcobrunner, Kiidesheimer, and even Piesporter, without a groan. To take a glass of Completer at Coire or allay thirst by Vin de Glacier, Yvorne, or St. Georges, through the land of snow-capped mountains and yodles ; thence de- scending to d'Asti, Barbera, Campidano di Lombardi, Canonao del Sardegna, Monte Fiascone, Orvietto and Lagrima Christi ; drinking Aguardiente, Sherry and Val de Penas in Spain, coming down to Bouza in Cairo or Mahayah in Morocco, pitching into Vodke or Kisslys- chtxhy in Eussia. Behold, quo ducit gula ! Perhaps, for euphony, it is the best way to sum up German wines under the headings Rhine wine. Moselle wine or the popular hock ; for what Anglo-Saxon head * See Preface. 166 GERMAN WINES, AND A can always recall even a few names like Augenscheimer, Assmannhaiiser, Affenthaler, Bacharach, Brauneberger, Biseheimer, Bessinglieimer, Bodenheiiner, Bechebaeher, Berncasther, Deidesheimer, Epsteiner, Euchariusberger, Geissenheimer, Graacher, Griienhauser, Hochheimer, Hinterhaus, Johannesberger, Liebfrauenmilch, Lauben- heimer, Liestener, Mittelheimer, Marcobrunner, Nier- steiner, Oppenheimer, Pitcher, Rudesheimer, Rauen- thaler, Schamet, Steinberger, Steinwein, Schiersteiher, Thiergartner, Walporger and Zeltingener? It is a popular fallacy to suppose good German wines are acid ; they are dry, fine flavored, and keep better than the five hundred year immortality of an oil paint- ing. As for the alcohol in them, by a careful analysis, Hochheimer showed only 14.37 per cent, of pure alcohol, while a very old sample, only marked 8.8, a lower figure ■ than almost any of the French wines. Johannesberger from the Schloss, is the king of Ger- man wines; twenty-five years ago, Mumm and Giesler of Cologne and Johannesberg, held the vintage of 1822 at the rate of $10 per gallon ; at compound interest it would now be worth about $60 per gallon ! This wine with Steinberger, Geissenheimer" and Hochheimer, have the most delicate flavor and aroma of all German wines. The warmest seasons insure the best vintages, so those ; of 1748, 1766, 1779, 1783, 1800, 1802 and 1811 were celebrated among the past generation as we now look to 1834, 1839, 1842 and 1846. Pure air and plenty of sun- WINE CELLAR. 167 light are the best guardians for vines, and those crowning the high lands yield wine of the best body, while those in the low lands are poorer, and the wine requires years to attain a really fine flavor. Next to Johannesberger comes Steinberger of the Duke of Nassau, the iron hand in a velvet glove, delicate as a zephyr, it has the strength of a hurricane; kiss the beauty, but don't arouse the virago. Hercules viraginem, vicit, but every one is not a " Dutchman ! " There is something very attractive in Liebfrauenmilch ; the best comes from Worms, it has a good body and should be drunk reflectively, this milk for babes. While Marcobrunner, Rudesheimer and Niersteiner are for arms and the sword song of Korner. Brauneberger ranks first among Moselle wines, and according to young Germany, there is not a headache in a hogshead of it ; certainly after two bottles of it, there was no kasenjammer next morning. The old story that Bacchus, when he' lived in the Father-land, having invited Jupiter down stairs to make a night of it on Brauneberger, so pleased the latter with this tipple, tbat he at once ordered all he could buy, on credit, for Olympus, to take the place of nectar, for a change ; may be true. When you go to Heidelburg, stop at the Black Eagle Hotel, and ask Herr Lehr, the landlord, for a bot- tle of Sparkling White Moselle ; drink it in the court- yard under the vine leaves, and to the sound of that fountain where the large trouts swim ! 168 GEEMAN WINES, AND A To look' forward for ten years to seeing a cellar and then have it turn out a " sell," is one of the agonies of travel. Possibly under other circumstances, Auerbach's cellar in Leipsic would have worn less the air of a shows shop, or less like Julius Caesar in peg-tops and a stove-pipe hat than I found it, but not even a 'bottle of Hoch- heimer — those paintings on the wall representing Faust's appearance and disappearance, and the old admonition of 1525: "Vive, bibe, obkegaee, memoe," etc. could bring up anything ideal — so I left. At Mayence I was more favored, and though the scene comes up through several glasses dimly, at least the attempt can be made to describe an old-fashioned cellar, where travelling Enghsh don't ask " for that table, ah, he bored the holes in, you know. Faust, I mean. Three wax stoppers, and all that sort of thing?" "Haven't got it, sir! " answers the kellner. " Then why the — don't you make one 1 " says despairing England. On the steamer from Coblentz, I formed the acquaint- ance of an officer, a lieutenant, who was just off duty from Ehrenbreitstein, and was on his way to Frankfort. Arriving after sunset, we determined to stay that night at Mayence, and go on next morning by railroad to Frankfort. After dinner at the hotel, we strolled out to look around town, and finally, as we crossed a narrow street, he proposed a bottle of Brauneberger in a cellar on the opposite side of the way, a quiet old nest, he WINE CELLAK. 169 said, where only old-fashioned and well-to-do Mayenzers were to be found. Down we went, and passing through an anteroom, where a fine specimen of a broad-shouldered middle-aged German was talking with a spectacled old gentleman with the air of a Professor, in a land where Professors are something; we were passing on to the next cellar, when the broad-shouldered landlord, bowing with great respect, saluted my companion with a string of titles as long as a roll of sausages. Upon which the Herr Professor, for such he was, lifted his hat politely to us, and, salutations over, we entered the next cellar attended by the landlord. " Altmayer," said the officer, turning to him, "a bottle of that Brauneberger." And duly and deliberately the portly wirth departed, soon returning with the Moselle Nectar and glasses. If Hasenclever has not visited that cellar, he has sketched its match in some quaint old German city, for there it was, an interior worth crossing three oceans to sit in and drink Moselle or Rhine wine. The low ceihng was spanned with groined arches, dusky with age, not dark, as the olla color of Murillo, but a light-brown coiFee-color, with a dash of Hght, borrowed from the lamp that hung in the centre of the cellar, and whose light just penetrated to the great butts lining the walls. The roand table at which we were seated was of oak, dark with age, and anything more beautiful in the way of the light that shone through oui- brimming glasses of Brauneberger, and was reflected on that dark 170 GEEMAW WINES, AND A oak, I have never seen. The wirth having returned to the ante-room, my companion, evidently pleased with the interest I took in the surroundings of the cellar, judi- ciously kept Silence until I had thoroughly viewed it all, sipping slowly the delicate wine, and wondering how all the sunlight got into the cellar at night. There was positively a thin golden cloud all around us, and such serene repose as a traveller who has been through a dozen galleries of paintings, innumerable churches, etc., all in one day, believes to be the height of pleasure, i. e., Kheyf ! " I am very glad we came here," said the lieutenant, "for I see you can appreciate what I have always thought one of the most picturesque wine cellars in this part of Germany. Have you noticed the grotesque carving on that door leading to the farther cellar?" Turning my head in the direction indicated, I noticed a pointed arch doorway, surrounded with the most beautifiil gothic tracery leaves, birds, monkeys, grapes, curious grinning heads, all cut in stone, while the oak panels of the door were rich in carved flowers and leaves. "The oak door," said the lieutenant, "is a modern addition of the wirth's, but the rest runs back to the 16th century." While I was still looking at the curious carving round the door, three or four middle-aged gen- tlemen, together with the spectacled Professor, entered the cellar, and after polite salutations, drew up to the table, and the wirth soon appeared with bottles and WINE CELTjAE. 171 glasses for the different private guests, for in such Kght , they all appeared and acted. Having a cigar case well stocked with a supply of Partagas jprimeras, it went the rounds, and the cigars were accepted after much urging on my part, for the idea is not German ; I had the satis- faction of reaping an amount of gratified expressions from each smoker that paid me for the sacrifice; for I had nursed the few I brought with mje from the States with great care. Conversation flowed on easily, and the second bottle of Brauneberger went the way of the first ; it was even better nectar than its leader. The light in the cellar appeared brighter and brighter, the golden cloud seemed filled with bees-wings humming, the great butts looming out of the mellow, light looked like brown Franciscans making merry over a bottle of samhuca. The spectacled Professor told a right good story two feet broiad, the other elderly gentlemen kept it up ! The lieutenant ordered a third bottle of Brauneberger, which . was better than its predecessors. Then there came in a wandering viohn-player, bhnd as a bat, and a very pretty girl with a guitar, who was not blind, as her bright eyes, shining on the handsome lieutenant, plainly told, and when she sung that pretty song of "Frau Nachtigal," it appeared to me, after the wine, that she accented those lines — " Wer du bist, der bin auch ich, I : Drum lass nach — zu lieben mich ' 172 GERMAN WINES, AND A and regarded the lieutenant in the adoring style, permit- ting, at some future time, any amount of poussinng, as the Germans have it. Then we ordered just one more bottle of Brauneberger, and the lieutenant, taking the guitar from the pretty girl, sung in a fine, baritone voice, " Soldatenleben "— " Kein besser Leben, 1st ouf difiser Welt zu denken " — and the old gentlemen joined in the "Valleri, vallera, valle-ra ! " chorus with hearty good will and kreutz fidelely / Several glasses of wine were bestowed on the blind violinigt, a collection made for the pretty girl, who assured the lieutenant her name was Aennchen von Tharau, which he doubted, insisting on it that Aennchen died in 1659, and lived in Himmel Strasse! But she gave us a parting song, prettily sung, and floated off into that golden cloud and hum of bees, and the old Francis- cans smiled away from the big butts, and the spectacled Professor bore us backward in his discourse to the days when men passed whole lives as we were now passing hours, and believed they were doing right, the illiterate heathen. "The Herr Professor will have us in Egyptian bond- age directly, unless we hurry away," said the lieutenant to me in a low voice ; so we arose, as arise men who bear away many bottles ; and kindly greetings and WINE CELLAR. 173 adieux bore us off to the wirth, who hoped to see us soon again, and bestowed all the titles on my companion that he had inherited and won ; and we sailed out into the moonht streets of Mayence, and down to the hotel by the arrowy Rhine, and slept the sleep of men who have drank good Brauneberger in a grand old cellar surrounded by refined and genial companions. Vale! XXIII. of garnered rhyme, from hidden stores of olden time, that since the language did begin, have welcomed merry Christmas in, and made the winter nights so long, fleet by on wings of wine and song ; for when the snow is on the roof, the house within is sorrow proof, if yule clog blazes on the hearth, and cups and hearts o'er-brim with mirth. Then bring the wassail to the board, with nuts and fruit — the winter's hoard ; and bid the children take oS shoe, to hang their stockings by the flue ; and let the clear and frosty sky, set out its brightest jewelry, to show old Santa Claus the road, so he may ease his gimcrack load. And with the coming of these times, we'll add some old and lusty rhymes, that suit the festive season well, and sound as sweet as Christmas beU. And here's a stave from rare old Ben, who wrote with most melodious pen : To the old, long life and treasure ; To the young, all health and pleasure ; To the fair, their face With eternal grace ; And the soul to be loved at leisure. A CHRISTMAS PIECE. l7o To the witty, all clear mirrors ; To the foolish, their dark errors ; To the loving sprite, A secure delight ; To the jealous, their own false tejTors. And here's from that Bricklayer'^ pate, a stave that's most appropriate ; for when the Christmas chimes begin, to eat and drink we count no sin ; as sexton at the rope doth pull, it cries, " Oh, bell ! bell ! bell-y-full !" Room ! room ! ma^ room for the Bouncing Belly, First father of sauce, and deviser of jelly ; Prirhe master of art, and the giver of wit, That found out the excellent engine the spit ; The plough and the flail, the mill and the hopper. The hutch and the boulter, the furnace and copper. The oven, the boven, the mawken, the peel. The hearth and the range, the dog and the wheel ; He, he first invented the hogshead and tun. The gimlet and vice, too, and taught them to I'un, And since with the funnel and hippocras bag, He has made of himself, that he now cries swag ! Now just bethink of castle gate, where humble mid- night mummers wait, to try if voices, one and all, can rouse the tipsy seneschal, to give them bread and beer and brawn, for tidings of the Christmas morn ; or bid each yelper clear his throat, with water of the castle moat ; for thus they used, by snow and torch, to rear their voices at the porch : 176 A CHRISTMAS PIECE. ■VfASSAlLEE's BONa. Wassail ! wassail ! all over the town, Our toast it is white, and our ale it is brown ; Our bowl is made of a maplin tree ; 'We be good fellows all ;— I drink to thee. Here's to our horse,* and to his right ear, God send our measter a happy new year ; A happy new year as e'er he did see, — With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee. Here's to our mare, and to her right eye, God send our mistress a good Christmas pie ; A good Christmas pie as e'er I did see, — With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee. Here's to our cow, and to her long tail, God send our measter us never may fail Of a cup of good beer : I pray you draw near, And our jolly wassail it's then you shall hear. Be here any maids ? I suppose here be some ; Sure they will not let young men stand on the cold stone ! Sing hey O. maids ! come trole back the pin, And the fairest maid in the house let us all in. Come, butler, come, bring us a bowl of the best ; I hope your soul in heaven will rest ; But if you do bring us a bowl of the small. Then down fall butler, and bowl and all. And here's a Christmas carol meant for children, and most excellent, and though the monk that wrote it was hung, yet still his verses may be sung. , * In this place, and in the first line of the following verse, the name of the horse is generally inserted by the singer; and " Filpail" is often substituted for " the cow" in a subsequent verse. A CHRISTMAS PIECE. 177 A OAEOL BY ROBERT SOUTHWELL. As I in a hoarie, winter's niglit Stood shivering in tlie snow, Surpriz'd I was with sudden lieat, Which made my, heart to glow ; And lifting up a fearefuU eye To view what fire was neere, A prettie babe, all burning bright, Did in the aire appeare ; Who, scorcMd with excessive heat. Such flouds of teares did shed. As though his flouds should quench his flames, Which with his teares were bred : Alas ! (quoth he) but newly borne, In flerie heats I frie, Yet none approach to warm their hearts, Or feele my fire, but I ; My faultlesse brest the furnace is. The fuell, wounding thomes : Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, The ashes, shames and scornes ; The fuell justice layeth on, And mercy blows the coales, The metalls in this furnace wrought, Are Men's defiled soules : For which, as now on fire I am, To work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath. To wash them in my blood. With this he vanisht out of sight. And swiftly shmnke away. And straight I called unto minde That it was Christmasse Day. And here's a song so pure and bright, it may be read . on Christmas night, unless the moon her light do lack, lor which consult the almanac : 12 178 A CHRISTMAS PIECE. A HYMN TO DIANA. Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair. State in wonted manner keep ; Hesperus entreats thy light. Goddess, excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade, Dare itself to interpose, Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear, when day did close : Bless us, then, with wished right, Groddess, excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal-shining quiver ; Give unto the flying hart, Space to breathe, how short soever ; Thou, that makest a day of night, Goddess, excellently bright. And here is sometMng quaint and tough, for such as have not had enough : a Christmas carol, that was done in 16 hundred twenty 1 : ANE SANG OF THE BIHTH OF CHRIST. With the tnne oiJiaw lula law. {Ang&lus, ut apinor, loquitur.) I come from Hevin to tell. The best Nowellis that ever befell : To yow thir Tythinges trew I bring, And I will of them say and sing. This Day to yow is borne ane Childe, Of Marie meik ane Virgine mylde, That blisset Barne bining and kynde Sail yow rejoyce baith Heart and Mynd. A CHRISTMAS PIECE. 179 My Saull and Lyfe stand up and see Quha lyes in ane Cribe and Tree, Quhat Babe is that so gude and faire ? It is Christ, God's Sonne and Aire. O God that made all Creature, How art thow becum so pure, That on the Hay and Stray will lye, Amang the Asses, Oxin, and Kye f O my deir Hert, zoung Jesus sweit. Prepare thy Creddil in my Spreit, And I sail rocke thee in my Hert, And never mair from thee depart. But I sail praise thee ever moir With Sangs sweit unto thy Gloir, The Knees of my Hert sail I how. And sing that richt Balulalow* And here are several hints to show, how Christmas oustoms first did grow, for as the hoiy fathers say, some Pagan tricks we Christians play, and prove that Ynle and Christmas box, are not precisely orthodox, for so we quote and understand, ANTIQUITIES FKOM PATHEE BEAND. In the Primitive Church, Christmas-Uay was always observed as the LorcCs-Day was, and was in like Man- * The Rev. Mr. Lamb, in his entertaining notes on the old poem on the Battle of Plodden Field, tells us that the nurse's lullaby song,' balow, (or " he balelow,") is literally French. " Hi has! la le loup! '■ that is, "hush! there's the wolf ! " 180 A CHRISTMAS PIECE. ner preceded by an Eve or Vigil. Hence it is that our Church hath ordered an Eve before it, which is observed by the Religious, as a Day of Preparation for that great Festival. Our Fore-Fathers, when the common Devotions of the Eve were over, and Night was come on, were wont to light up Candles of an uncommon Size, which were called Chnstmas-Candles, and to lay a Jj)g of Wood upon the fire, which they termed a Yule- Clog or Christmas-Block These were to Illuminate the House, and turn the Night into Day ; which Custom, in some Measure, is stiU kept up in the Northern Parts. The Apostles were the Light of the World ; and as our Saviour was frequently called Light, so was his Coming into the World signified, and pointed out by the Emblems of Light : " It was theUj" (says our Countryman Gregory) ' ' the longest Night in all the Tear ; and it was the midst of that, and yet there was Day where he was : For a glorious and betokening Light shined round about this Lloly Child. So says Tradition, and so the Masters describe the Night Piece of the Nativity." K this be called in Question, as being only Tradition, it is out of Dispute, that the Light which illuminated the Fields of Bethlehem^ and shone round about the Shepherds as they were watching their Flocks, was an Emblem of that Light, which was then come into the World. "What can be the Meaning," says venerable Bede, "that this Appar- tion of Angels was surrounded with that heavenly Light, A CHRISTMAS PIECE. 181 which is a Thing we never meet with in all the Old Testament ? For tho' Angels have appeared to Prophets and holy Men, yet we never read of their Appearing in such Glory and Splendor before. It must surely be, be- cause this Privilege was reserved for the Dignity of this Time. For when the true Light of the World, was born in the World, it was very proper that the Proclaimer of His Nativity, should appear in the Eyes of Men, in such an heavenly Light, as was before unseen in the World. And that supernatural Star, which was the Guide of the Eastern Magi, was a Figure of that Star, which was risen out of Jacob ; of that Light which shoiiid lighten the Gentiles." " God," says Bishop Taylor, " sent a miracu- lous Star, to invite and lead them to a new and more glorious Light, the Light of Grace and Glory." In Imitation of this, as Gregory tells us, the Church went on with the Ceremony : And hence it was, that for the three or four First Centuries, the whole Eastern Church called the I)ay, which they observed for our Saviour's Nativity, the Epiphany or Manifestation of the Light. And Cassian tells us, that it was a Custom in Egypt, handed down by Tradition, as soon as the Epiph- any, or Day of Light was over, &c. Hence also came that ancient Custom of the same Church, taken Notice of by St. Jerome, of Hghting up Candles at the Reading of the Gospel, even at Noon-Day; and that, not to drive away the Darkness, but to speak their Joy for the good Tidings of the Gospel, and be an Emblem of that Light, 182 A CHKISTMAS PIECE. which the Psalmist says, was a Ijimp uuto his JFeet and a Light unto his Paths. The Yule-Boiigh (or Bow), was a kind of Baby or little Image of Paste, which our Bakers used formerly to bake at this Season, and present to their Customers, in the same manner as the Chandlers gave Christmas Candles. They are called Yule-Cakes in the county of Durham. I find in the antient Calendar of the Romish Church, that at Eome, on the Vigil of the Nativity, Sweetmeats were presented to the Fathers in the Yatican, and that all Kinds of little Images (no doubt of Paste) were to be found at the Confectioners' Shops. There is the greatest Probability that we have had from Aence both our Yule-Poughs and Mince Pies, the latter of which are still in common Use at this Season. The Yule-Pough has perhaps been intended for an Im- age of the Child Jesus. It is now, if I mistake not, pretty generally laid aside, or at most retained only by Childi'en. J. Boemus Aubanus tells us, that in Franconia, on the three Thursday Nights preceding the Nativity of our Lord, it is customary for the Youth of both Sexes to go from House to House, knocking at the Poors, singing their Christmas Carrols, and wishing a happy new Year. They get in Return from the Houses they stop at, Pears, Apples, Nuts, and even Money. Little Troops of Boys and Girls still go about in this very Manner at Newcastle, some few Nights before, on A CHEISTMAS PIECE. 183 the Night of the Eve of this Day, and on that of the Day itself. The Magmena* is still preserved among them. They still conclude, too, with wishing "a merry Christ, mas, and a happy new Year" We are told in the Athenian Oracle, that the Christ- mas Box Money is derived from hence. The Romish Priests had Masses said for almost every Thing: If a sliip went out to the Indies, the Priests had a Box in her- under the Protection of some Saint : And for Masses, as their Cant was, to be said for them to that Saint, &c., the poor People must put in something into the Priests' Box, which is not to be opened till the Ship return. The Mass at that time was called Christmas ; the Box, Christmas Box, or Money gathered against that Time, that Masses might be made by the Priests to the Saints to forgive the people the Debaucheries ot that Time; and from this Servants had the Liberty to get Box Money, that they too might be enabled to pay the Priest for his Masses, knowing well the Truth of the Proverb : "Ko Penny, No Pater-noster." Another Custom observed at this Season, is the adorn- ing of Windows with Bay and Ldurel. It is but seldom observed in the North, but in the Southern-Parts it is very Common, particularly at our Universities ; where it is Customary to adorn, not only the Common Windows * Hagmena — i.e., Haginmeene, holy month. 184 A CHKISTMAS PIECE. of the Town, and of the Colleges, but also to bedeck the Chapels of the Colleges, ^MOa. Branches of Laurel. The Laurel was used among the ancient Eomans, as an Emblem of several Things, and in particular, of Peace, and Joy, and Victory. And I imagine, it has been used at this Season by Christians, as an Emblem of the same Things ; as an Emblem of Joy for the Victory gain'd over the Powers of Darkness, and of that Peace on Earth, that Goodr-wUl towards Men, which the Angels sung over the Fields of Bethlehem. ' It has been made use of by the Ifon Conformists, as an Argument againSt Ceremonies, that the second Council of Bracara, Can. 73, forbad Christians ''to deck their Houses with Bay leaves and Green Boughs." But the Council does not mean, that it was wrong in Christians to make use of these Things, but only " at the same Tims with the Pagans, when they observed and solemnized their Paganish Pastime and Worship. And of this Prohibition, they give this Reason in the same Canon ; Omnis hcec observatio paganismi est. All this kind of Custom doth hold of Paganism : Because the outward Practice of Heathenish Pites, perform'd jointly with the Pagans themselves, could not but imply a Consent in Pagan- ism." But at present, there is no hazard of any such Thing. It may be an Emblem of Joy to us, without confirming any, in the practice of Heathenism. The Tims, the Place, and the Reasons of the Ceremony, arc so widely A CHEISTMAS PIECE. 185 different, that, tlio' formerly, to have observed it, would unquestionably have been a Sin, it is now become harm- less, comely, and decent. So here we close our prose and rhyme, and end the Chrismas pantomime, with wishing health and happy cheer, to you through all the coming year, and pros- perous times in every State, for eighteen hundred siaty- eight. XXIV. !,E have received from our esteemed friend, and valued correspondent, whose paper on the champagne wines of the ancients excited so much sur- prise and curiosity in literary circles, another article upon kindred topics, which will no doubt prove even more interesting than the former one. Embracing, as it does, a wider range of inquiry, it exhibits more clearly than the other paper, unusual stores of scholarship, at once comprehensive, familiar, and accurate ; a vigorous and telling style — in itself a model of good English writing ; a curious and technical knowledge of wines in general, beyond that of any modern writer with whom we are familiar, an exact knowledge of chemistry, and a happy vein of humor, as original as it is genuine. It is not surprising that the authorship of the last paper should have been ascribed to several of the most profound scholars in the country. But we can safely predicate of this one that it will excite a still wider range of specula- tion as to the name of the writer, which, for the present, * See Preface. OXYPORIAN WINES. 187 we shall withhold until such time as we are permitted to print it, THE LETTER. , October 5, 1860. My dear Editor: ■ — ^I have been much amused in learning through the press, as well as from the more sprightly narra- tive of your private letter, that such and so very odd claims and conjectures had been made as to the authorship of my late hasty letter to you, in proof that the poets and gentlemen of old Greece and Rome drank as good champagne as we do. You know very well that the letter which you published was not originally meant for the pubKc, and the public have no right at all to inquire who the author may be ; nor, indeed, has the said imper- tinent public to inquire into the authorship of any anonymous article which harrris nobody, nor means to do so. I have not sought concealment in this matter, nor do I wish notoriety. If any one desires the credit of the communication, such as it is, he or she is quite wel- come to it until I find leisure to prepare for the press a collection of my Literary Miscellanies under my own name. I intend to embody in it an enlarged edition of this essay on the antiquity of champagne moussetix, with a regular chain of Greek and Latin authorities defending and proving all my positions. To this future collection of my ci'itical and philologi- cal writings I look forward with a just pride as a fit gift 188 OXYPORIAN WINES. to the few in our country who occupy their leisure, not with light and trifling literature, but on grave and solid studies (like the investigation of the Champagne ques- tion), and with the culture of high and recondite learning ; 01-, as this thought is admirably expressed by Petrarch, in one of his epistles, announcing to a learned friend the completion of one of his Latin prose works, in a pas- sage which I have selected for the niotto of my own CoUectanea: " Munus hocce prebeo, non iis qui levibus et ludicris nugis assueti sunt, sed lis quibus cordi est, gravis et severus bonarum literarum et doctrinse recon- dit83 cultus." You tell me that you have every day personal inquiries or written communications to the Wine Press, desiring information as to the meaning of the word Oxyporian, which I used as characterizing the effects of certain wines. It seems that the word is in neither of the rival American dictionaries, nor in any English one in present use. Of this I was not aware, but if it is not in their dictionaries, so much the worse for the learned lexi- cographers. It ought to have been there ; they have no excuse for omitting it. On the othei'' hand, you and I deserve all such honor as the hterary and scientific public can bestow, for restoring the word Oxyporian to the present generation. It is a good word, and one — as Corporal Bardolph phrases it — " of exceeding good com- mand." But I shall not imitate the gallant corporal in his style of definition and explanation : "Accommodated! OXYPORIAN WINES. 189 that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated ; or when a man is — ^being— whereby — he may be thought to be accommodated, which is an excellent thing." That is not my fashion. This word Oxypoeian is of great antiquity and high descent. It was first used by Hippo- crates, and from his medical use passed to that of the philosophers, thence into the Latin, and thence to the old EngUsh medical and philosophical writers down to Sydenham, since whose day it has not been used for near two centuries. It is fi'om the Greek O^uTioptoq and means simply that which is of speedy operation and as quick in passing off — first used as a substantive name of such a medicine, then as an adjective with a broader sense. I am sorry that it has gone out of fashion, for no other word can supply its place, either for scientific or literary use. The philosophy of the word, especially as applied to wines, is nowhere better illustrated than by one of the old lost poets in a fragment preserved by my favorite Athenseus. The Athenian dramatist, Philyllius thus describes the Oxyporian character and effects of certain wines : Take Thasian, Chian, Mendian wine, Lesbian old or new Biblyne, Differing all, but all divine — Straight to the brain all swift ascend, Drive out black thoughts, bright fancies lend, Glad the whole man — then pass away Nor make to-morrow mourn its yesterday. 190 OXYPOKIAN WINES. That last line cost me more labor than I have often bestowed upon a whole lecture, and thongh it is hyper- catelectic with redundant syllables, expressive enough, I think of the metre and feeling of the original, it has not done full justice to the crowded thought, the practical philosophy of the gay and wise old heathen. I never read Athenseus without renewed gratitude to kind Professor Sehweighausei% who first opened to me that treasure-house of the remains of ancient bards, " with whom (justly says a modern critic) perished so much beauty as the world will never see again." How fortunate it was that the old Greek philosophical diner- out was as much given to quotation as Montaigne, Jere- my Taylor or myself. As for the learned French-German or German-Frenchman, Schweighauser — the recollec- tions of my brief acquaintance with him rise in my mind like "a steam of rich distilled perfumes," fraught with the memory of refined classical criticism, and the flavor of the world-renowned culinary product of his own beloved city of Strasbourg, the pdte de foies gras. But I must not forget to call your attention to the very curious parallel between this fragment of an Athen- ian dramatic author and Falstafi^'s eulogy on the virtues of his favorite sherris-sack. " It hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, drives me forth all the foolish, dull and crudy vapors which overrun it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, fall of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes." "The second property of OXYPOEIAN WINES. 191 your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood, which before cold and settled left the hver white and cold, but the sherris-sack warms it " Yet why need I quote any more of what you and half your readers have by heart. Now there is not the slightest ground for attrib- uting this resemblance of thought and expression to imitation. No, (as I remarked in one of my lectures on the resemblances to be traced between Shakspeare and the Greek tragedies), the great ancients and this greater modern coincide in thought because they ahke draw their thoughts from truth and nature and the depths of man's heart. The comparison of the passage cited from Fal- staff and that of which I have above given my feeble version, affords ample evidence of this. They agree marvellously in describing the imm.ediate operation of the lighter Greek wines, resembling our best Bordeaux and champagne, and that of Falstaff's more powerful and grave sherry. In this they are equally true. But the Greek goes on to insist on the Oxyporian worth of his favoritie wines in gladdening the whole man " with mirth which after no repentance draws." Not so the great English poet. He, with a dietetic and physiological philosophy as profound and as accurate as was his insight into the affections and passions of man, passes over in profound silence this point on which the Greek bard dwells. This Shakspeare does, not from ignorance, but to lead the reader to infer from Falstaff's own infirmities, that such was not the after-operation of Falstaff's "inor- 192 OXYPORIAN WINES. dinate deal of sack "—that his drink was not Oxyporian — that did not pass away "like the baseless fabric of a vision " ( and, to use the words of the great bard in a sense which he might not immediately have intended, but which was, nevertheless, present to his vast intellect :) " Leave not a rack behind." The fat knight experienced to the end of his days the slow but sure operation of his profuse and potent beve- rages, in results from which the judicious drinker of the more delicate wines of modern France as well as of ancient Ionia is and was wholly exempt. But a truce to ideas of past ages. Let me come down to our own day, and give you a practical example of the use and value of this word Oxyporian, and the immense benefit which we have conferred upon our own country- men, in having thus followed the precept of Horace* and * Prof^et in fucem, spuiosa vocabula rerum, Qunc priscis memorata Catonibis ut que Cethegis, Nunc situs informis premit et deserta re Juitus. Horat. Bpist. L. ii, v. 116. so happily paraphrased and adapted to modern speech by Pope : " Command old words that long have slept to wake, Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake." Such a word was this same Oxyporian. Now mark its application. OXyPOBIAN WINES. 193 Suppose that by way of aiding and embellishing my Thanksgiving family festivities, yon present me with a basket or two of sparlding native wine prepared accord- ing to the recently improved method. Thereupon I send you a brief certificate thus worded : " I certify that I have tried (number of bottles left blank) of improved sparkling Catawba on self, family and friends, and find the same truly Oxyporian." These few words speak volumes — a whole encyclopedia in that one word Oxyporian. Even with my humble name thereto subscribed, what an efiFect would this pro- duce! But if in addition you could prevail on our mutual friend. Dr. Holmes, to concur with a similar attestation, how that effect would be multipUed a him- dred fold! The professor, upon the exhibition of a proper quantum of the last edition of our best brands, would, doubtless, in the Macbeth spirit of his late anni- versary discourse against chemicals and Galenicals, certify to this effect : "After repeated experiments of the wine to me exhib- ited by F.SI C, being native sparkling Catawba, with 'last improvements, I certify the same to be eminently Oxyporian. Take this quant, suffi. Repeat- the draught next day. 'Throw physic to the dogs." "O. W. H." I shall be much mistaken if such certificates, thus clear, strong, brief, inspiring public confidence and pub- lic thirst, would not at once compel our native cultivators to put hundreds of thousands of acres more into grape cul- 13 194 OXYPOEIAIir WINES. tivation, and oblige the sole agent in New York to hurry A. T. Stewart higher up Broadway, leaving that marble palace to .be converted into an Oxyporian Hall for the exclusive sale of Catawba and other Oxyporian liquids, domestic and foreign. The same experiments might with great propriety, and, doubtless, with equal success, be repeated upon Dr. Holmes and myself with the Dido brand of French champagne when it arrives. I have just said that I am determined not to enter at present into verbal controversy on the accuracy of my translations and citations on the great question of the champagne of antiquity. I leave all that till my pro- posed publication, which I trust will settle the question, even against the authority of Eustathius and Gladstone as to the word ohoira, though the one was a Greek arch- bishop eight hundred years ago, and the other is the present Chancellor of the Exchequer of the British Em- pire, and has just achieved the triumph of abolishing the duties on champagne and other wines of Fraijice. But I learn that two other arguments have been ad- vanced against my doctrine, both from distinguished quarters, and both founded, not upon the authority of scholiasts and lexicons, but upon the principles and reason- ing of the higher criticism. The first of these is advanced by President King, o f your New York Columbia College. His objection to my ' argument is briefly this : If either the Greeks or the OXYJ'OKIAN WINES. 195 Eoiiians had champagne, Horace must have taken his share, and luxm-iated in recounting its merits and glories. As Horace makes not even a distant allusion to any wine of this kind, no such can have been in use in his days. I have a great respect for President Bang's judgment, both in respect to champagne and to Horace ; and his argument is logical in form and plausible in reasoning. Still this must have been an ohiter dictuin of his (as the lawyers say), not a formal decision, such as he would have given on full argument and examination of the authorities. I think that I can convince the President of the error of his argument ; and considering the magnitude of the question, and the responsibilities of his position, I am confident that he has too much candor to persist in his error after duly weighing my reasoning. I object entirely to Horace's testimony — to his compe- tence — ^if he is oiFered as an expert in wine ; but if he is regarded as an ordinary witness to facts, then to the credibihty, weight, or value of his negative testimony. This objection arises from no general disrespect to his character or talent. I am far from agreeing with an accomplished professor of your city, whom I might ad- dress in the words of Horace, "Docte sermones utriusque linguas," as master ahke of the tongue of Shakspeare and of that of Schiller. I cannot agree with him in vilipending 196 OXTPOEIAN WINES. Horace — to use a word of Charles Fox's, wliicli I fancy has not bee^i used since his dajs. I was told lately,, at a literary party in Boston, by an eminent fellow-citizen of yours, that this accomplished New York professor had pronounced Horace to be "a mediocre old fogy." So do not I. ■ As a keen-sighted observer and describer of men and manners, fall of shrewd good sense and worldly -svisdom,. Horace has no rival ; and the unanswerable proof of it is that his thoughts and maxims, and even language, on such topics, have been incorporated into the thoughts, language, and best literature of aU modern nations. In pure poetry, his patriotic pride and ardent love of comitry often raise him to the noblest strains of lyric declamation. Above all, he has an unrivalled power of natural but con- densed expression, compressing whole pages of thought, or of description of nature, of form or of manner, intO' a short phrase or a brilliant word or two. On some other points I nearly agree with your professor, who is as polyglot in knowledgeas he is in languages. Horace's love-verses I hold very cheap. In these he is indeed graceful, courtly, airy, elegant ; but he has little passion and no tenderness. If he ever approaches to any sem- blance of either passion or affection, it is when he trans- lates or imitates the Greek, to which source late German critics have traced not a few of his minor lyric beauties, and made it probable that he owed more than can now be clearly ascertained. The other line, in which I hold OXYPOEIAK WINES. 197 him to be still more clmnsy and out of his element, is that which specially relates to onr present purpose. It is that ■which he often affects, and affects with Uttle success, the gaiety of the Bacchanalian songster. In nearly every one of his convivial odes he is as far as possible from the light gaiety or the broad jollity of such poets as Burns or Beranger, and a 'dozen Scotch and Irish songsters of far less name but of scarcely less merit. In his desperate attempts at jollity, his constant incentive to festivity — which seems to mean, with him, nothing but hard drink- ing — is the shortness of human life and the black prospect of death, so that his festive odes may be condensed into the thought of Captain Macheath, in the Beggar's Opera : " A man will die bolder with brandy." Much as in his "Moriture Delli," etc., he is inferior to the gay songsters of later times, he appears stiU worse when any of his scenes of conviviaHty are compared with those of Shakspeare, of Cervantes, or of Scott, with the feasts of Falstaff, of Sancho, or of Friar Tuck. If t compare Horace with these moderns, it is because the contrast is more ' striking from our familiarity with the latter. But the same thing might be shown to scholars by placing him by the side of Plutus, or of the remains of Greek comedy. The truth is, that Horace, with all his love of company, his shrewd observation of life, his keen perception of the ridiculous, was decidedly a melancholy man. I do not beheve that in his most 198 OXTPOEIAN WINE9. convivial hours, he ever rung out that hearty peal of laughter for which Walter Scott was celebrated ; nor was. Horace, in those solitay rambles of his about the shops, markets and by-places of Eome, which he so agreeably relates, ever seen smiHng and chuckling to himself, over his own thick-coming pleasant fancier, like your Halleck, when amusing himself in the same fashion in his frequent visits to Boston or New York. Yes, Horace was clearly as melancholy a man, when by himself, as Lord Byron was, and fipr the same reason, a stomach performing its functions badly, and stimulated in the one case by Falernian, in the other by strong gin and water. Horace himself, unconsiously, shows us the philosophy of aU this, in the account which he gives here and there of his own history. He had led a pretty hard, promis- cuous sort of a life in his early days of inglorious and disastrous mihtary rank. Afterward he got up in the world, and became the holder of a comfortable office, of more profit than honor; and then, by the favor, of his friends in power, became a well-to-do country gentleman. Next we find him sufiering the certain penalties of an early debauched and chronically debilitated stomach. He had weak eyes, and a deranged digestion, the first being the natural result of the other malady. He at times resorted to total abstinence and cold water, and became a great critic in good water, in which last partic- ular he showed his usual practical good sense. He was OXYPOKIAN WINES. 199 constantly running about, as lie tells us, from the plain fare of his Sabine farm to Rome, where he shared the luxurious table of Mecaenas. Thence he galloped off to Baise, the Newport of that day ; then from one mineral spring to another ; now dosing himself with chalybeate, now with sulphur water. But all this water regimen is interspersed with frohc after frolic in old Falernian. His love of Falernian flashes the whole truth upon us., What was this famed Falernian wine ? It was, unquestionably, a rich, high-flavored wine, but as unquestionably most highly brandied, decidedly fortified with an enormous proportion of alcohol, nearly bringing it up to the proof of our most approved old cognac. The commentators and compilers of antiquities do not let us into the secret of this same famed Falernian. But I speak "on the very best authority. It is that of Pliny the naturalist. In speaking of the strong Eoman wines, he says of the Falernian varieties, in a customary phrase of his, that there is no wine of higher authority, "Nee ulli in vino major aiictoritas." He then adds, that it was inflamma^ ble! and the only wine that was so: "Solo vinorum flamma accenditur." "It is the only kind from which flame can be kindled." The ancients had no more pre- cise test than this one, that of burning with a flame, to ascertain the proportion of alcohol in these liquors. They had nothing similar to the various beautiful modes of modem chemistry, to ascertain the alcoholic proportions of wine as the ebonlliscope of the French chemists, this 200 OXYPOKIAN WINES. halymetric method used by Fuchs and Zieri, and the ingenious aerometer of Tabaric, all which give such elegant precision to the alcoholic tables, digested and enlarged by our exact Dutch friend, Professor Mulder. But PKny's statement is enough to prove that the strength of Falemian did not arise from "combiiied alcohol' formed in the natural process of fermentation of the grape juice, but from added " uncombined alcohol " (as the chemists term it) produced by distillation. On this very question, I cannot refrain from quoting the opinion of Dr. Watson, of New York, in his most agreeable, learned and instructive work on " The Medical Profession in Ancient Times," a volume which, if it had been pub- lished in London, would have been reprinted in the United States, and had a circulation of thousands. Dr. Watson says thus : "I copy from the volume on my table which I have just read with much gratification to myselfj and the highest respect for the author's science and scholarship." After quoting Pliny, he says, "modern wines with only their natural supply of alcohols are not of strength equal to this. It is therefore reasonable to infer that the art of distillation must have been known to the vintners of antiquity. If so, it must have been confined to some fraternity and practised by them as one of their secret mysteries, for the purpose of fortifying their wines, and thus kept secret until alcohol was dis- covered anew by the alchemists of the middle ages." Sucli was Falernian, differing only from our Cognac OXYPOKIAN WINES. 201 brandy from having a full vinoiis body with a luscious fruity flavor. This exposition of the true character of Falernian at once explains and is confirmed by the fact that Horace often in his exhortations to the hardest drinking, speaks of some rules of mixing water with the Falernian, which no Greek or Roman author mentions as usual as to other wines, excepting only certain Greek wines of a similar potency. All the above stated considerations prove to my satis- faction (and I trust also to that of President King) that Horace, with all his matchless merits, was exactly in the state of certain of our mutual acquaintances, some of whom, men of the prairie or of the plantation, alternate between "total abstinence" and unquenchable thirst for Bourbon and Monongahela; others, again, habitues of city clubs and hotels, vibrate between soda or congress water, arid old Otard, or Geneva, more or less diluted with water ; generally less than more, and every day be- coming more and more less. Now to the inference from this statement of facts: Would you, Mr. President, or you, Mr. Editor, take the opinion or the evidence of any such, of oui* acquaintance, though we should receive it with all respect on any other point, political, commercial, or financial — upon any question touching champagne. You would not ? Neithei' do I accept Horace's testimony on the same subject. I learn that I have to meet another argument, levelled 202 OXYPORIAN WINES. at my Homeric interpretation, of the word commonly rendered "dark," which I hold to mean "champagne- faced," or covered with foam like champagne. This is from another dignitary of learmng, not of your city, whose high scholarship is everywhere admitted. He is armed with the authority and clothed with the dignity of Jupiter, yet I cannot say with the Italian chief, "Dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis." " The powers above I dread, and hostile Jove." No, even against Jupiter, I reply, " Thrice is he armed, who hath his quarrel just." and I am thrice armed in the cause of truth and of Homer. As in respect to Horace, so in this Homeric question, I defer for the present all mere verbal and lexicographi- cal disquisition. My future readers will have quite enough of it in my forthcoming volumes. But I willingly meet the great argument of my very learned and eminent critic, as it claims to rest upon broad, historical and critical grounds. He boldly maintains that Homer could not have known personally anything of champagne — even supposing that there was anything resembling it in his day— that throughout his two epics he never intimates in himself or in his heroes any taste or connoisseurship in wine, though he describes the drinking of a good deal of it, to which he gives various indiscriminating epithets, as "pleasant," OXYPORtAN WINES. 203 " sweet," " divine," "dark," or "red." Above all, it is asserted that he betrays the grossest ignorance on its use in making his venerable Nestor (who should have known better) mix grated cheese with his old Pramnian wine. Before entering on the wider field of discussion, I must briefly refute this last wholly unsound objection. It is easily and quickly done. Any reader who will carefully read the whole of the eleventh book of the Iliad, either in the original or in any tolerably faithftd translation — even in Pope's brilliant but commonly loose paraphrase — will see at once that this preparation of old wine, thick- ened with grated goat's milk cheese, and flour, which Nestor took with his wounded friend after their escape from battle, was clearly a medical prescription prepared under the professional direction of Machaon, who was surgeon-general of the Greek allied army, as well as commanding colonel of his own and his brother's contin- gent. Machaon had a flesh wound ; Nestor, a very old man, was prostrated by fatigue and fright. The word used is xbxswv, meaning a compound potion, and Pope with far more precision than is usual with him, renders it "the draught prescribed." I cannot help thinking that this happy version was suggested to the poet by his scholfrly medical friend Dr. Arbuthnot, to whom he and Swift often expressed their warm acknowl- edgments for services, medical, literary and social : " the kind Arbuthnot's aid, Wlio knows his art, but not his trade." 204 OXYPOKIAN WINES. Dr. Holmes may very probably sneer at the prescribed mixture, and I -will not pretend to defend it, for that is not in my line. But Machaon was a physician of great eminence in his day, and seems to have anticipated the doctrines of Brown or of Broussais, and to have been incKned to a bold practice in stimulants. As a surgeon, he stood at the very head of his profession. Besides, this was his prescription for himself, as well as for his friend ,- and when the physician thus shares with his pa- tient the risk or the benefit of his potion, even Dr. Holmes, heretic in medical faith as he is, will allow that the patient may venture boldly to swallow whatever may be ordered. I trust that Dr. Watson will discuss this whole question in the next edition of his Medical Pro- fession in Ancient Times. In the meanwhile, enough has been said to exonerate both Homer and the Pylian sage from the charge of heathenish ignorance in regard to wine. Indeed as to Nestor, even if the poet's jfrequent testi- monials in the Iliad to his wisdom and vast knowledge earned by old experience, are not enough to exempt him from any suspicion of gross ignorance in respect to good wine, he himself has given ample proof of his taste and judgment in such matters in the Oc^ssey. When the son of Ulysses, in that epic, visits Nestor at his home in Pylos, he finds the aged chief presiding at a grand sacri- fice and banquet. Before Nestor knows who his guest is he greets him kindly, and besides ordering for him and OXYPOEIAN WINES. 205 his friend a choice portion of the feast, gives them a goblet bumper of Malmsey Madeira. Here I must pause and explain, to prevent the barking of smaU critics. Homer calls the wine /isXis'^g — "honey- sweet " — ^which proves it to have been a luscious, sweet, fruity wine ; and all who are at all learned in the history of grape culture know that the Malmsey of Madeira is the product of a vine in, Madeira, originally imported from the district of Malvasia, in the Peloponesus, which lay within Nestor's own territory. From Malvasia came tiie Spanish and Portuguese name of the wine, Malvasio ; thence the old French Malvoisie, and thence Malmsey. Pardon this apparent pedantry ; the digression is forced upon me. Nestor gives his unknown guests, with all the rest of the crowd, plenty of new, pleasant and sweet Malmsey of his own growth ; but afterward, when he knew that the son of his old friend was his guest, he gives him a more select entertainment with his famUy : " Filling high the cups With wine delicious, which the butler-dame Who kept his stores, in its eleventh year, Now first did broach." In that compound of my own manufactiu'e, "Butler- dame," I have aimed at clearly defining the ofSce con- fided to confidential old ladies in well-regulated house- holds in Greece, like Nestor's. Homer in his original Greek expresses the office, here and in seven or eight other places by the female substantive Taju-ij. The En- 206 OXYPOEIAN WINES. glish and French translators all omit or slur it over, as ii it was not genteel to liave a female butler. The German translators, on the contrary, honestly use the resources of their noble language, as copious and flexible as the Greek, in its compounds, but give a rather broader sense, by die Tiaus-hof meisterin. But I vras not aware tiU after I had made my translation that the best Dutch translator, the illustrious Vondel, the Dryden of Holland, had formed a word of his own precisely parallel to my own, though more sonorous and musical, ' ' de schenchster- vrouw. But I must restrain myself on these tempting verbal digressions (as I have done in my classical quota- tions), lest I should incur the Shakspearean sarcasm, he "has been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps." Let us return to Nestor. Nestor never dreamed of giving his guests wine-whey, such as he had taken, according to prescription, nor does he offer them any grated cheese to mix with their new Malmsey, or their eleven years' old Pylian Particular. Then, as to Homer's personal opportunities of becom- ing practically familiar with the good wines of his times, is it possible that my erudite critic imagines Homer to have led a straggling beggar-like life, like an Italian organ-grinder? The great bard has himself described his own status and habitual life in the picture he gives of the blind bard Domodoius, and the respect with which he is received, and the luxury he shares in at the sump- tuous court of the good king Alconous. Like him. Ho- OXYPORIAN WINES. 207 mer himself passed from the table of one king, prince, potentate or laird to that of another, faring sumptuously every day, and thus becoming as familiar with the qualities of the several Chian, Lesbian, Thrasian, Pramnain and Pylian vintages, as our acquaintance Thackeray did with the ■ old Madeiras of Boston, Salem, Richmond and Charleston, or the choice Bourdeaux and Rhine wines of recherche tables in New York. I might quote an hundi'ed scattered lines in the Ihad to prove this. But why dwell upon minor points of evidence? "The greatest is be- hind." While Homer ascribes this good taste and knowledge of good wine to his wisest old man, has he not distinguished that hero, who is second only in rank 'to Achilles, by his taste and judgment in the same line? Do not the plot and the interest of the second great epic depend mainly upon this characteristic of its hero, and the just pride he feels in his good cellar ? Alas ! I ask these questions as if the answer was familiar to all who read Homer even in the translations of Pope or Cowper. Alas ! alas ! I do not know that a single critic, or annotator, has explained — any Greek in- structor or professor here or even in Germany has made his students familiar with this great feature of Homer's domestic epic, the Odyssey, and of its hero Ulysses. Nevertheless, the filial piety of Virgil's ^neas — the deep melancholy love of Tasso's Tancredi — the ' ' noble mind," "the courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword," of the accomphshed Hamlet are none of them 208 OXyPOEIAN WINES. so essential a part of these several characters and of their eventful stories, as are to the character and story of Ulysses, his taste and skill in wine, his judgment and its management and use, and the deep interest which he manifests in his own fine and carefully selected stock. In the very beginning of the Odyssey, before Ulysses himself appears on the scene, the poet, to make his reader acquainted with his hero's character, introduces him into the wine-room of the long-absent chief. It is quite worthy of remark that he is the only king or chief men- tioned in either great epic, except Nestor, who had a regular, well-ordered wine-room, or cellar. These few chiefs, I must remind my readers, are repeatedly desig- nated by the great poet, as the wisest of all the Greeks, * so adjudged by the common voice — Nestor, from his va- ried experience and the collected wisdom he had gathered during the few generations of men among whom he had lived. Ulysses, from his own native sagacity. No other Greeks compared with them either in general wisdom, or in judgment in the choice or pare of their wines. Another proof of the true nature of this "wine," as Homer dehcately calls it, is to be seen in the care with which the good priest kept it out of the way of all his servants, reserving it for the private drinking of himself and wife, of course in all moderation. " Of that pure drink, fit for the gods, no oue Of all his household, male or female knew, Save only he, his wife and butler-dame." OXYPORIAN \VtNEs. :.'()<) By the way, this priest of Apollo seems to have been a sort of prince-bishop, keeping a large establishment of men and women servants. Yet he, too, hke Newton and Ulysses, pnt his choice liquors and stores under the care of a butleress, or, as I have preferred to render it in a more Homeric phrase, and in the spirit of the Greek compound, a Butler-dame. Achilles, for instance, was a model of gentlemanly hospitality, carved beautitully, and gave his guests the best wine that force or money could get ; but he had no stock of it, and did not laiow how to manage it, if he had it. Not so the " milch-contriving " Ulysses. Before Ulysses enters upon the scene, his son, Telema- chus is described as preparing for a secret voyage in search of his long-absent father, and this aflFords Homer an opportunity to paint in anticipation, though indi- rectly, the most striking peculiarities, of his hero. His cellar, or wine-room (for it appears to have been above ground, though on the ground-floor), is superintended, like that of Nestor, by an aged female butler. I am not quite satisfied with any translator, and I render the Hues thus: " Down to a broad, high room, the youth descends, His father's store-room, where his treasures lay ; There stood against the wall, in order ranged, Casks of age-ripened wine, fit for the gods, The grape's pure juice, from every mixture free." The good young man, who had been well brought up 14 210 OXYPORIAN WINES. by his mother, according to his father's precepts and example, thus gave order touching the providing for his ship : " Fill up these demijohns ; draw off bright wine — Our best, next after that thou dost resei-ve Hapless Ulysses, still expecting home ; If, death escaping, he shall e'er return, Fill twelve, then fit them all with stoppers tight." I translate as literally as metre will permit, in honest, "English verse, without rhyme" (as Milton phrases it), in the hope of preserving, these minutely graphic touches of the great poet, who always narrates to the eye, and in turn displays "/a terribil via" the grand and terrible manner of Michael Angelo, or the grace, dignity and expression of Raphael, and then rivals the most pains- taking Dutch or Flemish painter in his careful details of the butchery, the barn-yard, the market, the kitchen or the wine cellar. I flatter myself that in spite of the obvious difficulty of such passages, I have, in the above and my other scraps of Homeric versions, succeeded in expressing some exquisite details which Pope's rhymes have polished into vague smoothness, and Cowper's more faithful, but too uniformly Miltonic, blank verse has failed to render. After this preliminary sketch of the "many planning" Ulysses, we find him everywhere taking his wine like a gentleman, never in any excess, but always with good taste, whether at the table of the magnificent king of OXTPOBIAN WINES. 211 Pharacia or at the humble iireside of the keeper of his own hogs. He avoids the snares of Circe by refusing to drink her brewed and drugged liquor. When he ex- plored the land of the Cyclops, he took with him a goat- skin of high proof brandy, given him by the priest of ApoUo, which he used only in case of accidents. I say "brandy;" for though Homer calls it wine, that must have been fi-om delicacy toward the reverend gentleman, for the poet expressly says that the worthy priest and his wife were wont : Whene'er they quaffed that dark, delicious juice, To slake each cup with twenty from the fount, Yet the slaked bowl sweet odor shed around, Divine, enticing. But ISlysses took none of this brandy himself, nor gave it to his men, but when he got into a scrape with the giant Cyclops, he dosed the huge cannibal with it quite raw, which soon made him tipsy (or, as the original ex- presses it with philosophical accuracy "came around his brain,") then puts him to sleep, when Ulysses puts out his great single eye, and escapes. When he reaches home incog:, he learns with indigna- tion the suit of the petty chiefs of Ithaca to his supposed widow, their wasteful depredations upon his goods and chattels, especially his cattle and hogs, and their insults to his only son ; but he does not explode in full wrath till he hears of the wasteful abuse of his wines — the olvov 212 OXYPORIAN WINES. 8iav(Ta-6fi€uov (as he says with the precision of a earefulwine merchant), his good wine "drawn off." This he de- nounces as the " unkindest cut of all." He successively recounts his wrongs from the suitors of his wife : " Their shameless acts, guests roughly drawn away, Through all the house gross Insults to the maids, Provision gormandized day after day : The wine drawn off, drunk up with monstrous waste. Enormous, without stint, or taste, or end." Od. XVI. I have not time nor space to note his other expressions of wrath on the same topic. It is, therefore, with admirable fitness that the poet makes Ulysses defer the hour of his final vengeance till he sees his palace filled with revelry, and the wine cup crowned with his own best vintages, lifted high and passed around by the insolent invaders of his home and his honor. Then it is, when the loudest and boldest of these revellers lifts to his head a huge two-handled goblet of choice Ithaca Reserve, that he who had long watched these scenes in suppressed wrath, and in the guise and garb of a beggar, now "throws oft' his patience and his rags together," rises from the mendicant into the monarch, and from his mighty bow showers around winged arrowy vengeance upon the wretches who had essayed to win the affections of his wife, who had plundered his possessions, who had wronged and insulted his darling only son, and who had swilled, without appreciating it, OXYPOKIAN WINES. 313 pipe after pipe of his much prized wine, all of it carefully selected, in splendid condition, and moet of it more than twenty years old. And this is the Homer who had no taste, judgment, feeling, or knowledge in wine ! But I have said more than enough on these topics. Those who wish to know still more on them must be con- tent to wait until the pubUcation of my "Lectures on Homeric Literature," unless, indeed, I should find time to comply with the urgent soKcitations of your great pub- lishers — the Appletons — and supply the article Ulysses for the American Cyclopsedia. I have done with all journalistic controversy. I have floored my adversaries, and may now say like Virgil's veteran pugilist : " Hie victor cestus artemque, repono ;" or, as I have rendered the line in my yet unpublished translation of Virgil : " Still Victor, Champion, now with pride My science and my gloves I lay aside." Very truly your iriend,