GF cAmerican Literature 1800-1860 7 THE FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL LITERATURE PFWASHINGTON IRVING 373 1es » Washington Irving ~ 185 W yim the possible exception of Benjamm Franklm, Washington Irving was the first American to achieve real hterary fame on both sides of the Atlantic; also he was probably the first American to enjoy adequate income from literary work He was one of the chief shapers and builders of our national literature. The best of his books are still widely read and enjoyed today. ‘The youngest child in a large New York family, he had little formal educa- tion, none at the collegiate level He studied law in desultory fashion for some years, “reading” as was the eustom of the time in the offices of established lawyers, but giving mueh more serious attention to the business of being a young man about town—laneing and theater-going, dmg and talking with congenial groups of friends—and to writme He was only nineteen when his brother Peter began publishing m the newspaper he edited a series of Washington’s juvenile essays in the Spectator vein, over the signature “Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.” ‘When he was twenty-three, Washmgton Irving finally gamed admission. to the bar, but the event was completely overshadowed m his personal interest by a project which matured just two months Jater—the launching of the satirical magazine Salmagundi on Jan. 24, 1807 It wax a joint enterprise of Washington and his brother Wilham Irving, and their friend James Kirke Paulding, whose sister William had married Current fashions and fashionable people, plays and actors, periodicals and editors, pohticians and militia officers, were sharply and saueily satirized m the pocket-size numbers This not un- worthy prototype of today’s Yew Yorker was a great success in the already cosmopolitan city of 68,000, The sophistieated and the intellectuals bought it, discussed it, speculated as to the identities thinly concealed im such “profiles” as those of Ichabod Fungus, Timothy (iblet, and Dr Chmstopher Costive. ‘The young editors (or their publisher) soon tired of Salmagunds, but within its twenty varied and experimental numbers Washington Irving had measured his talent, and had struck out the field of his further development. Barely two years luter—on Dec. 6, 1809—appeared A History of New York, by “Diedrich Knickerbocker"—Irving’s first important work and the foundation of his later success and fame ‘Washington Irving’s first book sold amazmgly well. It was condemned in certain quarters as an irreverent caricature of the founding fathers; but there is much more sound history in the book than its primary purpose of entertain- ment would suggest. Irving had done no little real research, and presented a clearer and more complete account of New York’s colonial history—in spite of emphasis on burlesque clements—than had previously appeared. More874 WASHINGTON IRVING largely responsible for the immediate popularity of A History of New York was the considerable element of satire directed toward contemporary figures and affairs, Irving was a fashionable New Yorker in politics as in other things— a Federalist, though never a violent partisan. Jefferson and the Democrats were targets of “Knickerbocker’s” pen. The sketch of the New Amsterdam governor “William the Testy” is a satirical portrait of Jefferson in physiognomy, dress, personal interests and habits, and publie policies. Ten years clapsed before the pubheation of Irving’s next book. In the interval he had read widely, especially in the private library of his friend Henry Brevoort; had edited for two years one of the short-lived magazines of the period, the Analectic of Philadelphia, writing for it memorable essays demanding greater justice in the national attitude toward the Indians; had worked for his brothers’ importing firm, at first only desultorily, Inter earnestly and gallantly in the period of economie disorder following the War of 1812. It was the failure of this business, with resulting loss of ineome to himself and his brothers’ need for help, which brought the easy-gomg Irving to the writing of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published serially in 1819-20 and immediately successful in both England and America. A new Irving appeared in The Sketch Book—a writer not only more mature, more sure in his eraft, but different in his essential purpose. The focus of his work had shifted, in those ten years, from satire to sentiment, It is precisely this change in Irving which gives him peculiar interest to the literary historian. Salmagundi and A History of New York belonged to the 18th century in spirit, in method, and in purpose. The Sketch Book belonged to the 19th. Irving had become Romantic. Few books of the Romantic period are so readable today as Irving's Sketch Book, It is good reading straight through; the universal fame of such school book favorites as “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” should not be permitted to obscure its other widely varied delights. Irving included in it the temperate but forceful easays in defense of the American Indian which he had written for the Analectic, “Traits of Indian Character” and “Philip of Pokanoket”; these are conmstent with the general Romantic attitude toward primitive peoples, but unmistakably personal and genuine in feeling Similarly American in details and Romantic in souree and attitude are the stories of the Hudson Valley which have done most to make the Sketch Book immortal. But more than half its material is British—a cordial sharing of Irving’s experience in visiting Westminster Abbey and Stratford-on-Avon, of Englich Christmas festivities and village stories, In “English Writers on America” he expressed his regret at “the literary animosity daily growing up between England and Ameries,” and st onee announced and exemplified his determination to combat it. That determination he put into effect in Bracebridge Hall, published inWASHINGTON IRVING 875 1822. More unified than Irving’s other books of this period, this idyllic record of experience in a rural England untouched by industrial revolution and social conflict is still pleasant reading. “I had always a great facility at receiving pleasurable impressions,” Irving testified in an “Autobiogrephical Fragment” which is the most revealing document of his life. This characteristic is peculiarly evident to the reader of The Sketch Book and Bracebridge Hall. For most of the materials of Tales of a Traveller (1824) Irving went to Germany. But the best things in it were results of returns to American folk materialy—notably one of Irving’s finest short stories, “The Devil and Tom Walker.” The remaining 33 years of Irving’s long life were divided between Europe and America, between diplomatic service and arduous and productive literary labor. There were three years in Spam, 1826-29, and two in England, 1830-31; a triumphal return to America and an extensive tour m the South and West in 1832 ; then ten years in New York. Irving returned to Spain in 1842 as American Minister, remaming for three years, Back m America once more, he resumed his residence at “Sunnyside.” a comfortable country home at Tarrytown-on-the- Hudson, and remamed there, exeept for a period of research at Washington, until his death m 1859, None of the books of these later years hold for modern readers the appeal of Irving’s earlier work From his residence and study in Spain eame The Alhambra (1832), u readable volume of descriptive sketehes and traditional tales, and four works m Spanish history From his western expedition he drew the material of A Tour on the Prairies (1835) and the mspiration for Astoria (1836) and Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837) Wolfert's Roost (1855) is the best of three volumes of later gleanmgs from Sketch Book fields Of his four biographies, the five-volume Life of Washington (1855-59) was the con- suming and trumphant labor of Irving's last years, Though there is much good reading m the many pages of these later books, much of lively narrative and colorful detail, Irving's permanent place m our literature is secured pri- marily by the Sketch Book and his other earlier work. “It is with delight we share the world with you.” So wrote one of his older brothers to young Washington Irving in 1804. The words express the experience of millions of readers through five generations, There is little depth in Irving’s work, either intellectual or emotional, little outright power or striking beauty. Yet one need look no further for an explanation of its durable appeal than to the personality it reveals. Irving was a man of lively and kindly curiosity about a multitude of things, sensitive and generous, unfailingly sincere, both a regionalist and a cosmopolitan. Not only his brothers, but literally hundreds of friends through his long life, found it a delight to share the world with him, And so does the reader even today, in the writing which is s0 warm and full an expression of a very likable man.876 WASHINGTON IRVING [S. T, Williams’ The Life of Washington Irving, 2 vols. (New York, 1934) is the standard biography. H. A. Pochmann’s Irving (New York, 1984) in the American Wniters Series and Van Wyck Brooks’ The World of Washington Irving (New York, 1934) provide good critical material. The authorized biog- raphy is Pierre M Irving’s The Life and Letters of Washington Irving (Now York, 1862-63) The text of the selections from A History of New York has been abridged from that of the first edition, 1809, as reprinted in Diedrich Knickerbocker’s A History of New Yorh, edited by Stanley Williams and Tremaine MeDowell, American Authors series, 1927. The text of the other selections is that of The Works of Washington Irving, Spuyten Duyvil edition, 1881 Most of Irving’s notes have been omitted ] From A HISTORY OF NEW YORK {1809} How te Forr Gozp Hoop Was Faar- yuLty Beteacverey—How tHe Re- ownen Wovrex Fait, Ixto 4 Prorouxp Dovrr, axv How He Firauy Evar- onaTED, BY THIS time my readers must fully per- ceive whet an arduous task I have under- taken—collecting and collating, with pain- ful mmuteness, the chromeles of past times, whose events almost defy the powers of research—raking m a hittle kind of Her- culancum of hustory, which had Iain nearly for ages buried under tho rubbish of years, and almost totally forgotten—ralang up the hmbs and fragments of disjointed facts, and endeasourng to put them serupulously together, 90 05 to restore them to their or- aginal form and connexion—now lugging forth the character of an almost forgot ten hero, hke a mutilated statue—now de- aphermg a half-defaeed insersption, and now lighting upon a moulderng manu- senpt, which, after painfal study, searce repays the trouble of perusal. Tn such ease, bow much hay the reader to depend upon the honour and probity of ins author, lest, lke a eunmng anti- quanan, he either impose upon him some spurious fabrication of his own, for a precious rele from antiquty—or clw dress up the dismembered fragment with such false trappings, that it 1s seareely pos- sible to distinguish the truth from the fletion with which st 18 enveloped. This 1 a grievance which I have more than onee had to lament, im the course of my weari- some researches among the works of my fellow-nstorians, who have strangely dis- guised and distorted the facts reepeeting this country; and partieularly respecting the great province of New Netherlands, ay will be perceived by any who will take th trouble to compare ther romantic effu- stuns, tricked out in the meretrictous gauds of fable, with thus exeellent little hnstory— universally to be renowned for its sovere sumpheity and unerning truth. T have had more vexations of the kind to encounter, m those parts of my lustory wluch treat of the transactons on the eastern border, than in any other, in con- requenee of the troops of histomians who have mfested those quarters, and have ‘shewn the honest people of New Nederlandt ho more im their works. Among the rest, Mr, Benjamin Trumbull’ arrogantly de- clares, that “the Dutch were always mere intruders.” Now to this J shall make no other reply than to proceed in the steady narration of my lustory, whieh will eontain + Clergyman and historian (1735-1820), native and life-long rewdent of Conneetieut, author of A General History of the Umted Alades of Arsene, 9 vols, (Boston, 1765-A HISTORY OF NEW YORK not only proofs that the Dutch had clear title and possession in the far valleys of the Connectiont, and that they were wrong- fully dispossessed thereof—but likewise, that they havo been scandalously mal- tronted ever since by the musrepresenta- tions of the erafty Instonans of New Eng- land. And in this I shall be gmded by a spirit of truth and umpartulty, and a regard to my immortal fame—for 1 would not wittingly dishonour my work by a single falsehood, msrepresentation, or prey- udiee, though it should gan our fore- fathers the whole country of New Eng- land. It was at an carly period of the prov- ance, and previowy to the arrival of the renowned Wouter, that the cabinet of Nieuw Nederlandts purchased the lands about the Connectivut, and established, for ther superintendence and protection, a fortified post on the banksy of the mver, which was called Fort Goed Hoop, and was situated hard by the present far aty of Hartford. The command of this important post, together vith the rank, title, and appointment of commissary, were given mn charge to the gullant Jacobus Van Curlet, or, as some historians will have it, Van Curhy—a most donghty soldier, of that Stomachful class ot which we have such numbers on parade days—who are famous for eating all they kal, He was of a very voldierhke appearance, and would have boon an eveveding tall man had his legx been in proportion to lux body, but the Intter being long, and the former uncom- monly short, it gave him the uncouth ap- pearance of a tall man’s body mounted up- on a hittle man's legs, He made up for this turnspit construction of body by throwing hus legs to such an extent when he marched, that you would have sworn he had on the identaeal sevon-league boots of the far-famed Jack the mant-Laller; and 90 astonishingly Ingh did he tread, on any great mihtary oceasion, that hus soldiers were oftimes alarmed, lest the little man should trample humself under- foot, 817 But notwithstanding the erection of this fort, and the appointment of ths ugly little man of war as @ commander, the intrepid Yankees continued those daring jnterlopings, which T have hinted at m my last chapter; and taking advantage of the character which the cabinet of Wouter Van Twiller soon acquired, for profound and phlegmatie tranguillity—did audaciously in- vade the terntories of the Niouw Neder- Inndts, and squat themselves down within the very jurisdiction of Fort Goed Hoop. On beholding this outrage, tho long- bodied Van Curlet proceaded as became a prompt and vahant officer, He smmediately protested against these unwarrantable en- eroachments, in Low Dutch, by way of anspirmg more terror, and forthwith de- spatched a copy of the protest to the gover- nor at New Amsterdam, together with a Jong and bitter account of the aggres- sions of the enemy This done, he ordered Ins men, one and all, to be of good cheer— shut the gate of the fort, smoked three Pipe, went fo bed, and awaited the result with a resolute and intrepid tranguilhty that greatly anmated his adherents, and no doubt struck sore dismay and affright into the hearts of the enemy ‘Now it came to pass, that about this tume the renowned Wouter Van Twaller, full of years and honowr, and council dinners, had reached that period of life and faculty which, aveording to the great Gulhver, en- titles a man to admission into the ancient order of Struldbruges, He employed his time im smoking ny Turkish pipe, amid an assembly of sages equally enlightened and nently as venerable as himself, and who, for their silence, thetr gravity, their wisdom, and their canfious averseness to commg to any conclusion in business, are only to be equalled by certain profound corporations which I have known in my time, Upon reading the protest of the gallant Jacobus Van Curlet, therefore, his excclleney fell straightway into one of the deepest doubts that ever he was known to encounter; his capacious head gradually drooped on his chest, he closed his eyes,378 and inclined his ear to one side, as if listening with great attention to the dis- cussion that was going on in his belly; which all who knew him declared to be the huge court-house or council chamber of his thoughts; forming to his head what the ‘House of Representatives does to the Sen- ate. An articulate sound, very much resem- bling @ snore, occasionally escaped him— but the nature of this mternal cogitation was never known, as he never opened his lips on the subject to man, woman, or child. In the meantime, the protest of Van Curlet lay quietly on the table, where it served to hight the pipes of the venerable sages assembled in council; and in the great, smoke which they raised, the gallant Ja- eobus, his protest, and his mighty Fort Goed Hoop, were soon as completely be- clouded and forgotten as 1s a question of, emergency swallowed up im the speeches and resolution of a modern session of Con- gress, ‘There are certain emergencies when your profound legislators and sage deliberative councils are mghtily in the way of a na- tion; and when en ounce of hare-brained decision 18 worth a pound of sage doubt ‘and cautious discussion. Such, at least, was the case at present; for while the renowned Wouter Van Twiller was daily batthng with his doubts, and ius resolu- tion growing weaker and weaker in the contest, the enemy pushed farther and fur- ther into hus terntones, and assumed a most formidable appearance im the neighbour- hood of Fort Gocd Hoop. Here they founded the mighty town of Piguag, or, a8 it has snce been called, Weathersfield, a Place which, 1f we may credit the assertion of that worthy histonan, Jobn Josselyn, Gent,2 “hath been infamous by reason of the witches therm.” And so daring did these men of Piquag become, that they extended those plantations of onions, for which their town 1s illustrious, under the very noses of the garrison of Fort Goed ‘Hoop—insomuch that the honest Duteh- men conld not look toward that quarter without tears in their eyes. WASHINGTON IRVING This crying injustice was regarded with proper indignation by the gallant Jacobus ‘Van Curlet, He absolutely trembled with tho amanng violenco of his choler, and the exacerbations of his valour; which seemed to be the more turbulent in thxr workings, from the length of the body in which they were agitated, He forthwith proceeded to strengthen hus redoubts, heighten his broastworks, decpen Ins fosse, and forty hus postion with a double row of abattis; after which valiant precautions, he with unexampled intrepidity despatched « fresh courier with tremendous accounts of hus perilous situation. Never did the modern hero, who unmortaluzod himself at the second Sabme war, show greater valour im the art of letter writing, or distinguish lumself more glonously upon paper, than the herore Van Carlet, The courier chosen to bear these alarm- ing despatches was a fat, otlv little man, as being least liable to be worn out, or to loge leather on the journey, and to msure lus speed, he was mounted on the fleetest waggon horse in the garrison, remarkable for his length of hmb, largeness of bone, and hardness of trot, and so tall, thet the Iittle messenger was obliged to chmb on ins back by means of his tail and erupper. Such extraordinary speed did he make, that he arnved at Fort Amsterdam in httle eas than a month, though the distance was fall two hundred pipes, or about a hun- dred and twenty mules. The extraordinary appearance of this portentous stranger would have thrown the whole town of New Amsterdam into a quandary, had the good people troubled themsclves about any thing more than their domestic affairs, With an appearance of great hurry and business, and smoking a short travelling pipe, he proceeded on a long swing trot through the muddy lanes of the metropolis, demolishing whole batches of dirt pies, which the little Duteh ? Author of New England Rarities (Lon- don, 1672) and Two Voyages to New Eng- land (London, 1674).THE REIGN OF WILLIAM THE TESTY children were makmg in the road; and for which kind of pastry the children of this city have ever been famous, On arriving at the governor's house, he climbed down from his stood in great trepidation; roused the gray-hended door-keeper, old Skaats, who, like hus lineal descendant and faith- ful representative, the venerable crier of our court, was nodding at his post—rattled at the door of the council chamber, and startled the members as they were donmg over a plan for establishing a public market, ‘At that very moment a gentle grunt, or rather a decp-drawn snore, was heard from the chair of the governor; a whiff of smoke was at the same mstant observed to escape from his hps, and a slight cloud to ascend from the bowl of his prpe. The coanell of course supposed him engaged in deep sleep for the good of the commumty, and, accordmg to enstom an alll such cases established, every man bawled out silence, in order to maintain tranquillity, when, of a sudden, the door flew open, and the ttle couner straddled into the apartment, cased to the mddle im a pur of Hessan boots, which le had got into for the sake of ospedition, In hus might hand he held forth the ommous despatches, and with lus lett he grasped firmly the waistband of Jus galhgaskins, which had unfortunately xaven way, 1m the exertion of descending from hi» horse. He stumped resolutely up to the governor, and with more hurry than perspremty, dehvered his message. But for- tunately his all tidings came too late to ruffle the tranquihty of this most tranquil of rulers, His venerable excellency had just breathed and smoked tus Iast—his lungs and hus prpe having been exhausted to- gether, and his peaceful soul, as Dan Homer would have smd, having ecaped m the Inst whiff that curled from ins to- bacco pipe. In a word, the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, alias Walter the Doubter, who had so often slumbered with his contemporanes, now slept with his fathers, and Wilhelmus Kieft governed in his stead. 379 Containing THE CHRONICLES OF THE Reign oy Winuiam rae Tasty HE WAS a brisk, waspush, little old gen- tleman, who had dried and wilted away, partly through the natural process of years, and partly from being parched and burnt up by his flery soul; which blazed like a vehement rush light im his bosom, con- stantly inciting hun to most valorous broils, altercahons and misadventures, I have heard it observed by a profound and pinl- ovophieal judge of buman nature, that 1f a woman waxes fat as she grows old, the tenure of her life is very precarious, but if haply she wilts, she ves forever—such likewise was the ease with Wilham the Testy, who grew tougher in proportion as he dred, He was some such a httle duteh- man as we may now and then see, stamp- ing bnskly about the streets of our city, in a broad skirted coat, with buttons nearly as large as the slueld of Ajax, which makes such a figure m Dan Homer, an old fashioned cocked hat stuck on the back of jus head, and a cane as high as hus chm, His visage was broad, but his features sharp, his nose turned up with a mont petulant curl, lus cheeks, like the region of Terra del Fuego, were scorched into a dusky red—doubtless m consequenes of the neighborhood of two fieree little grey eyes, through which lus tornd soul beamed as fervently, as a tropical sun blazing through ‘8 pur of burning glasses. The corners of Ins mouth were curiously modeled into a land of fret work, not a little resembling the wrinkled proboseis of an irntable pag dog—in a word he was one of the most postive, restless, ugly little men, that ever put lumself in a passion about noth- ang... No sooner had this bustling little man been blown by # whiff of fortune into the seat of government, than he called together jus council and delivered a very animated speech on the affairs of the province. As everybody knows what a glorious oppor:380 tumty @ governor, a prosident, or oven an emperor has, of drubbing his enemies in hi speeches, messages and bulletins, where ho hes the talk all on his own side, they may be sure the high mettled Wilham Kieft did not suffer so favorable an occa- sion to eseape lnm, of ovineing that gallan- try of tongue, common to all able legisla- The couneil remained for some time silent, after he had finshed, whether struck dumb with admuration at the brilancy of his project, or put to sleep by the length of his harangue, the history of the times doth not mention, Suffice it to say, they st length gavo a universal grunt of nequi- esconce, ... Governor Kieft having thus vented his indignation, felt greatly relieved adjourned the council sne die—put on his cocked hat and corduroy small clothes, and mounting a tall raw boned charger, trotted out to his country seat, which was situated in a sweet, sequestered swamp, now called Dutch street, but more com monly known by the name of Dog's ‘Misery. . Now at happened that at ths time there sojourned in New Amsterdam one Anthony Van Corlear, a jolly fat Dutch trumpeter, of a ploasant burley visage—famous for his long wind and Ins huge whiskers, and who as the story goes, could twang so potently upon Ins instrument, as to pro- duee an effect upon all within hearmg, a» though ten thousand bag-pipes were sing- ing most lustaly 1’ the nose, Him did the allustrious Kieft pick out a» the man of all the world, most fitted to be the cham- pion of New Amsterdam, and to garnson its fort; making little doubt but that Ins instrument would be as effectual and offen- sivo in war as was that of the Paladin Astolpho,? or the more elassie horn of Alesto.t It would have done one’s heart good to have seen the governor snapping his fingers and fidgeting with delight, while his sturdy trumpeter strutted up and down the ramparts, fearlessly twanging his trumpet in the face of the whole world, like @ thrice valorous editor daringly in- WASHINGTON IRVING sulting all the principalities and powers— on the other side of tho Atlantic, Nor was he content with thus strongly garnsoning the fort, but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength by furnishing it with a formidable battery of Quaker guns—rearing a stupendous flagstaff in the centre which overtopped the whole city —and moreover by building a great wind- mill on one of the bastions. Thus last to be sure, was somewhat of a novelty in the art of fortification, but as 1 have already observed William Kieft was notonous for innovations and exporiments, and tradi- tions do affirm that he wa» much given to mechameal inventions—constructing pat- ent smoke-jacks—earts that went before the horses, and especially creetng wind mills, for which machines he had acquired a smgular predilection an ins native town of Saardam All these scientifie vagaries of the little governor were ened up with ecstasy by his adherents as proofs of lus umversal genms—but there were not wanting ill- natured grumblers who ruled at him as employing ns mind m frivolous pursuits, and devoting that time to smoke-sacks and windmills, which should have been cecupied an the more important concerns of the province. Nay they even went so far as to hint onee or tyrico, that ns head was turned by Ins expenments, and that he really thought to mannge his government, as he did hiy mills—by mere wind!—such is the ilhberality and slander to which your enlightened rulers are ever subject. The great defect of Wilhelmus Kiett’s pohey was, that though no man could be more ready to stand forth nm an hour of emergeney, yet he was so intent upon guarding the national pocket, that he suf- fered the enemy to break its head—in other words, whatever precaution for pub- hie safely he adopted, he was Ao intent upon rendering it cheap, that he invariably A character in the Charlemagne ro- mances, who possessed a horn which, when sounded, brought terror to hearers, * One of the three Erinnyes or Furies,ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA rendored it meffectual. All this was a re- mote consequence of his profound educa- tion at the Hague—where having acquired a smattering of knowledge, he was ever after a great conner of indexes, continually dipping into books, without ever studying to the bottom of any subject, so that he had the scum of all Jonds of authors fermenting im his peneramum, In some of these title page researches he unluckily stumbled over a grand pobtical cabahstte word, which, with hix customary facility he ammediately incorporated into Ins great seheme of government, to the irretrevable injury and delusion of the honest province of Nienw Nederlandts, and the ternal ms- leading, of all expernnental rulers... . Not to keep my reader m any suspense, the word wlich had so wonderfully arrested the attention of Wilham the Testy and which in German characters, had a partie- ularly black and ominous aspect, on bemg fairly translated into the Enghsh is no other than economy—a talsmame term, which by constant ase and frequent men- tion, has eensed to be formidable m our eyes, but winch hay as ternble poteney a8 any m the arcana of necromancy. When pronounced im a national assem- ly at hax an immediate effect m closing the hearts, beclouding the intellects, drawing the purse stings and buttonmg the breeches pockets of all philosophic legu latory. Nor are its effets on the eye less wondertul, It produces a contraction of the retina, an obseunty of the ervstalline lens, a visexdity ot the vitreous and an inspiration of the aqueous humours, an induration of the tumea selerotica and a convexity of tho cornea, msomuch that tho organ of vision lows its strength and perspiemty, and the unfortunate patient hecomes myopex or m plan Enghsh, pur- bund; percetwing only the amount of im- mediate expense without bemg able to look further, and regard at m comexion with the ultimate object to be effected. “So that,” to quote the words of the cloquent Burke, “a briar at hus nose is of greater magnitude than an oak at five hundred 381 yards distance.” Such are its instantaneous operations, and the results are still more astonishing. By its magie influence sev- enty-fours shrink into frigates—frigates ito sloops, and sloops into gunboats, As the defeneeless flect of Eneas, at the com- mand of the protecting Venus, changed mto sea nymphs and protected itself by dning,* 40 the mighty navy of America, by the cabalistie word economy, dwindles into small craft, and shelters ateelf in a mull-pond! ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA [1820 (1819)] “Methinks [sce an my mind a_ noble and puissant uation, rousing herself hike a strong man after sleep, and shakmg ber invinable locks, methinks T see her #8 an cagle, mowing her mighty youth, and kan- dling her undavled eyes at the’ full md- day beam ”—Milton on the Liberty of the Press.) IT IS with feclngs of deep regret that I observe the hterary anmosity daily grow- me up between England and Amenca. Great cunosity bas been awakened of late with respect to the United States, and the London press has teemed with volumes of fiavely through the Repubhe. but they seom intended to diffuse error rather than knowledge, and so successful have they been, that, notwithstanding the constant intercourse between the nations, there 18 no people coneermng whom the great mass ot the British public have less pure anfor- mation, or entertain more numerous prey- nates, Fnghsh travellers are the best and the wort m the world. Where no motives of pide or terest intervene, none can equal them for profound and philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphical de- seriptions of external objects, but whea either the interest or reputation of their reference to Virgil’s Aeneid. 1 Areopagitiea: A Defence of Unlicensed Printong.‘own country comes in collision with that of another, they go to the opposite extreme, and forget ther usual probity and candor, in the indulgence of splenetic remark, aud an illiberal spint of ridicule. ‘Honee, their travels aro more honest and aceurate, the more remote the country de- soribed. I would place 1mpheit eonfdence in an Englshman’s desersptions of the re- gions beyond the cataracts of the Nile, of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the intenor of India; or of any other traet which other travellers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of ther fancies. But I would cantiously receive hus account of his immediate neighbors, and of those nations with which he 1s in habits of most frequent intercourse, However I might be disposed to trust ius probity, I dare not trust hus preyudiees, Tt hes also been the particular lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philo- sophical spirit and cultivated minds have been sent from England to ranseck the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous na- tions, with wach she ean have no perma- nent intercourse of profit or pleasure; it has been left to the broken-down trades- man, the scheming adventurer, the wander- ing mechamie, the Manchester and Burm- angham agent, to be her oracles respecting America, From such sources she is content to reooive her information respecting country in a singular state of moral and physieal development, country in which ‘one of the greatest political exporiments 1 the history of the world 1s now performing; and which presents the most profound and ‘momentous studies to the statesman and the philosopher? That such men should give prejudicial accounts of Amenca ia not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contem- plation are too vast and clevated for ther capscities, The national character is yet in a state of fermentation; it may have its ‘frothmess and sediment, but ita ingredients are sound and wholesome; it bes alrondy WASHINGTON IRVING given proofs of powerful and gencrous qualities; and the whole promises to settle down into something substantially excel- ent, But the causes which are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily andheations of admrable properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers; who are only affected by the hittle aspenties inadent to its presont situation, They are capable of judging only of the surface of thgs, of those matters which come in contact with ther private interests and personal gratifieations. They nust some of the snug convemences and petty comforts whieh belong to an old, nghly-flinshed, and over-populous state of society; where the ranks of useful labor are crowded, and many carn 0 painful and servile subsistenco by studying the very caprices of appetite and self-indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are all-important in the estima- tion of narrow minds, which either do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more than counterbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused blessings. They may, perhaps, have been disap- pomted i some unreasonable expectation of sudden gan, They may have pictured Amentea to themselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and the natives were lacking in sagacity, and where they were to become strangely and suddenly neh, in some unforeseen but ensy manner. ‘Tho same weakness of mind that indulges absurd expectations produces petulance in disappointment. Such persons become em- bittered against the country on finding that there, as everywhere else, 8 man must sow before he can reap; must win wealth by industry and talent, and must contend with the common difficulties of nature and the shrewdness of an intelhgent and enter- prising people, Perhaps, through mistaken or ill-directed hospitahty, or from the prompt disposition *Channing and Hart's Guide to theENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERIOA to cheer and countenance the stranger prevalent among my countrymen, they may have been treated with unwonted respect am America; and, having been accustomed all their lives to conader themselves below the surface of good society, and brought up in a servile feeling of mferionty, they be- ome arrogant on the common boon of civility; they attribute to the lowliness of others them own elevation; and underrate society whore there are no artificial dis- tinetions, and where, by any chance, such mdividuals as themselves can nise to con- sequence. ‘One would suppose, however, that infor- mation coming from such sourees, on a subject where the truth is so desirable, would be received with caution by the cen- som of the press, that the motives of these men, ther veracity, ther opportumties of inquiry and observation, and their capa- caties for judging eorreetly, would be nig- orously serutimzed before their evidence was admitted, m such sweeping extent, agaunst a kindred nation, The very reverse, howover, is the caso, and it furnishes a stnkang instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance with which Enghsh erties will examine the ered- ibibty of the traveller who publishes an account of some distant and comparatively ummportant country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the deseniptions of a run; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy 1m these contributions of merely curious knowledge: while they will recewwe, with eagerness and unhentnting faith, the gross musrepresentations of coarse and obscure ‘writers, coneermng a country with which their own 1s placed in the most important and deheate relations. Nay, they will even make these apocryphal volumes text-books, on whieh to enlarge, with a zeal and an abihty worthy of a more generous cause. T ghall not, however, dwell on this irk- somo and hackneyed topie; nor should I have adverted to at, but for the undue interest apparently take in it by my coun- trymen, and certain injurious effects which 988 I apprehend it might produce upon the national feeling. We attach too much con- sequenee to these attacks, They cannot do ‘us any essential injury. The tissue of mis- representations attempted to be woven round us are like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. Our country con- tinually outgrows them. One falsehood aft- er another falls off of itself. We have but to hive on, and every day we live a whole volume of refutabon. All the wniters of England united, if we could for a moment suppose their great minds stooping to so unworthy » combina- tion, could not conceal our rapidly-growing importance and matchless prosperity. They could not conceal that these are owing, not merely to physical and local, but also to moral causes—to the political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, the prev- alence of sound moral and religious prin- caples, which give foree and sustained en- ergy to the character of a people; and which, in fact, have been the acknowledged and wonderful supporters of ther own national power and glory. But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of England? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the contumely she has endeavored to cast upon usf It 1 not in the opimon of England alone that honor hives and reputation has ats bemg. The world at large is the arbiter ot & nation’s fame; with its thousand eyes at witnesses a nation’s deeds, and from their collective testimony is national glory or national disgrace established, For ourselves, therefore, it 18 compara- tively of but little importance whether England does us justice or not; it is, per- haps, of far more importance to herself. ‘She 15 mstillng anger and resentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. If in Ameries, as some of her writers are laboring to convince her, she is hereafter to find an invidious rival and a gigautie foc, she may thank those very writers for having provoked rivalship and urritated hostility. Every one knows the384 pervading influence of hterature at the present day, and how much the opimons and passions of mankind are under its control. The mere contests of the sword are temporary; their wounds are but in tho flesh, and it 1s the pride of the generous to forgive and forget them, but the slanders of the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle longest in the noblest spints; they dwell ever present m the mand, and render it morbidly sensitive to the most tnfling col- hon, It 1s but seldom that any one overt ‘act produces hostilities between two na- tions; there exists, most commonly, a pre- ‘vious jealousy and ill-will, a predispoution to take offence. Trace these to their cause, and how often will they be found to ongi- nate in the mseluevous effusions of mer- cenary writers, who, secure in their closets, and for ignommous bread, conevet and carenlate the venom that 1s to inflame the generous and the brave, T am not laying too much stress upon this point; for it applies most emphatieally to our particular ease, Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America, for the umt- versal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader ‘There 13 nothing pubhshed in England on the sub- ject of our country that docs not eirculate through every part of at. There 1s not a calumny dropped from an Enghsh pen, nor an unworthy sareasm uttered by an Eng- hah statesman, that dors not go to bight good-will, and add to the mass of latent resentment. Possessing, then, as England does, the fountain-head whenee the htera- ture of the language flows, how completely as it in ber power, and how truly 1s it her duty, to make st the medium of amable and magnammous feelng—a stream where the two nations might meet together and drink im peace and kindness, Should she, however, persist in turning it to waters of bitterness, the time may come when she may repent her folly. The present frend- ship of Ameri¢a may be of but little mo- ment to hor; but the future destinies of that country ‘do not admit of a doubt; WASHINGTON IRVING over those of England there lower some shadows of uncertainty. Should, then, « day of gloom arnve—should those reversex overtake her, from wluch the proudest em- pires have not been exempt—she may look back with regret at her infatuation, in repalsing from her wide a nation she mght have grappled to her bosom, and thus de- stroying her only chance for real friend- ship beyond the boundancs of her own dommons. There 18 a general impression in Eng- land, that the people of the United States are mimeal to the parent country, Tt 1s one of the errors which have been diligently propagated by deugming writers, Thero 18, doubtless, conudernble political hostility, and a general soreness at the liberahty of the Enghsh press, but, generally speaking, the prepowessions of the people are strongly nm favor of England. Indeed, at one time they amounted, in many parts of the Umon, to an absurd degree of bigotry. ‘The bare name of Englishman was a past port to the confidence and hospitality of every family, and too offen gave @ tran- sient curreney to the worthless and the ungrateful. Throughout the country there was something of enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feclng of tendernesy and veneration, as the land of our forefathers —the august repository of the monuments and antiquities of our race—the birthplace and mauwleum of the sages and heroes of our paternal history, After our own coun- try, there was none m whose glory we more dehghted—none whose guod opinion we were more anxious to posseax—none toward which our hearts yearned with such throbbings of warm consanguinity, Even during the late war, whenever there wax the least opportunity for kind fechngs to spring forth, 1t was the dehght of the gen- crous spints of our country to show thet, in the midst of hostities, they still kept ahve the sparks of future friendship. Is all ts to be at an end? Ix this *The War of 1812-14.ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA golden band of kindred sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken forever? Perhaps it is for the hest—it may dispel an illusion which might have kept us im mental vawalage; which mght have inter- fered oeeasionally with our true interests, and prevented the growth of proper na- tional pride. But it » hard to give up the kandred tie! and there are fechngs dearer than interest—closer to the heart than pride—that will wll make us cast back a Jook of regret as we wander farther and farther from the paternal roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel the affections of the child, Short-nghted and mjudieious, however, ‘as the conduct of England may be in this system of aspersion, recrimination on our part would be equally ill-judged I speak not of a prompt and spirited vindication of our country, nor the keenest castigation of her slanderers—but | allude to a dis- position to retahate in kind, to retort sar- cas and inspire prejudice, which seems to be spreading widely among our wnters, Let us guard parteularly agmnst such a. temper, for it would double the evil, an- stoad of rediesang the wrong. Nothing as so easy and inviting as the retort of abuse and sarensm, but it is a paltry and an unprofitable contest It as the alternative of a morbid mind, fretted ito petulanee, rather than warmed into mdignation, 1£ Englund 1» willing to permut the mean yeal- ousies of trade, or the rancorous anumosi- tes of polities, to depraye the integrity of her prevs, and poson the toantam of pub- he opiuon, let us beware of her example. She may deem it her interest to diffuse error and engender antipathy, for the pur- pose of checking emigration, we have no purpose ot the kind to serve. Neither have We any spint of national jealousy to grat- ify; tor as yet, in all our rvalslups with England, we are the mang and the gammg party. There can be no ond to answer, therefore, but the gratification of resent- ment—a mere spint of retaliation; and even that 1s impotent, Our retorts are never republished in England, they fall 385 short, therefore, of thar aim; but they foster » querulous and peevish temper among our writers; they sour the sweet flow of our early hterature, and sow thorns ‘and brambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they circulate through our own country, and, as far as they have effect, excite virulent national prejudices. This last 18 the evil most especially to be dep- recatod. Governed, as we are, entirely by public opimon, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the punty of the public mind, Knowledge 18 power, and trath 1 knowledge; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagate, a prejudiee, wilfully saps the foundation of his country’s strength. The members of a republic, above all other men, should be candid and dispas- sionate. They are, individually, portions of the sovereign mind and sovereign will, and should be enabled to come to all questions of national concern with ealm and unbi- aved jadxments From the pecular nature of our relatious with England, we must have more frequent questions of a difficult and deheate character with her, than with any other nation, questions that affect the most acute and excitable feelings; and as, in the adjustment of these, our national measures must ultimately be determined by popular sentiment, we cannot be too anx- tously attentive to purify at from all latent passion or prepossession. ‘Opemng, tov, as we do, an asylum for strangers from every portion of the earth, we should reeene all with impartiality. It should be our pride to exhibit an example of one nation, at least, destitute of national antipathies, and exercising, not merely the overt acts of hospitakty, but those more rare and noble courteies which spring from liberality of opimon, What have we to do with national prej- udices? They are the inveterate disoases of old countries, contracted m rude and ig- norant ages, when nations knew but little of each other, and looked beyond their own boundaries with distrust and hosthty. We, on the contrary, have sprung into national existence in an enlightened and plulosophio386 age, when the different parts of the hab- table world, and the vanous branches of ‘the human famly, have been indefatigably studied and made known to each other; and we forego the advantages of our birth, af we do not shake off the national prej- udices, as we would the local superstitions, of the old world But above all let us not be influenced by any angry feelmgs, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what 1s really ex- collent and anuable 1m the Enghsh charac- ter, We are a young people, noessarily an imtative one, and must take our exam- ples and models, in a great degree, from the existing nations of Europe. There 1 no country more worthy of our study than England, The spirit of her constitution 1s most analogous to ours, The manners of her people—their intellectual activity, ther freedom of opinion, ther habits of think- ang on those subjects which concern the dearest interests and most sacred charities of pvate hfe—are all congewal to the Amenean character, and, in fact, are all ménnseally excellent, for it 1s in the moral feehng of the people that the deep foundations of British prospenty are lad, and however the superstructure may be timeworn or overrun by abuses, there must be sometiang volid m the basis, admrable im the materials, and stable in the structure of an edifice thut so long has towered un- shaken amidst the tompests of the world, Let it be the pride of our writers, there- fore, diwarding all fechngs of untahon, and disdamng to retaliate the allberalty of British authors, to speak of the Eng- lish nahon without proyudice, and with deternmed candor. While they rebuke the indisermnating bigotry with which some of our countrymen admre and umitate everything Enghsh, mercly because it 1s Enghsh, let them frankly point out what 1s really worthy of approbation. We may thus place England before us as e perpet- ual volume of referenec, wherein are To- corded sound deductions from ages of experience; and winle we avoid the errors and absurdities which may have cropt into WASHINGTON IRVING the page, we may draw thence golden maxims of practical wisdom, wherewith to strengthen and to ombelhsh our nstional character. PHILIP OF PUKANOKET Aw Ixpay Manor {1820 (1813)} As monumental bronze unchanged lis look ‘A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook, Tram’d trom lis tree-rock'd cradle to lus bier The fieree extremes of good and ill to brook, Impassive—fearing but the shame of feat A store ot the woods—a man without # toar.—Campbell IT IS to be regretted that those early wnters who treated of the discovery and settlement of America have not given us more partwular and candid accounts of the remarkable characters that flourmhed m savage hfe, The seanty ancedotes which have reached us are full of pecuharity and interest, they furmsh uy with nearer glimpse of human nature, and show what Man 15 in a comparatively prinmutive state and what he owes to enalization, There 19 something of the charm of dieovery mn hghtng upon these wild and unexplored tracts of human nature. m watnessing, us xt were, the native growth of moral sent ment, and pereciving thowe generous aud romant quahties which have been artiti- cially cultivated by somety vegetating in spontaneous hardihood and rade maguiti- cence In civilized Life, where the happiness, and mdeed almost the existenes, of man depends so much upon the opmuon of iy fellow-men, he 1s constantly acting a stud- ied part, The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refinod away or soft- ened down by the levelling influence of what 18 termed good-breading, and he pruc- tises so many petty deceptions and affevts so many generous sentiments for the pur: PHILIP OF POKANOKET poses of populanty that it is difflenlt to distinguish his real from his artfleis! char- acter, The Indian, on the contrary, free from the restraints and refinements of polished life, and in a great degree a soli- tary and independent bemg, obeys the impuleos of hs melination or the dictates of hus judgment, and thus the attnbutes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly great and stinking Sonety as hike a lawn, where every roughness 1 smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the ege is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface, he, however, who would stndy Nature an its wildness and vanety must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, mnst stem the torrent, and dare the preeipice Thewe reflections arose on casually look- ing through a volune of carly colomal history wherein are recorded, with great bitterness, the outrages of the Indians and thei? wars with the sciflers of New Eng- Jand, It 1s pamtul to perceive, even from these partial narratives, how the footsteps of eivilization may be traced in the blood of the aborigines: how casily the colonists were moved to hostility by the Inst of conquest; how merciless and exterminating was their warfare. The unagnation shrinks at the iden how many intellectual begs wore hunted from the earth, how many brave and noble hearts, of Nature's ster- ing eomnage, were broken down and tram- pled in the dust. Buch was the fate of Philip of Po- kanoket, an Indian warnor whose name was once a terror throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was the most distin- guished of a number of contemporary aachems who reigned over the Pequods, the Narragansetts, the Wampanoags, and the other castern tribes at the time of the first settlement of New England; a band of native untanght heroes who made the most generous struggle of which human nature capable, fighting to the Inst gasp in the cause of their country, without a hope of victory or ® thought of renown. Worthy of an age of poetry and fit subjects for 887 local story and romantic fletion, they have left searcely any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk like gigantic shadows in the dim twilight of tradition. When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth set- tlers ure called by their descendants, first took refuge on the shores of the New World from the religious perseeutions of the Old, their situation was to the last degree gloomy and disheartening. Few m number, and that number rapidly perish- mg away through sickness and hardships, surrounded by a howhng wilderness and savnge tribes, expoved to the ngors of an almost arctic winter and the vieussitudes of an ever-dufting chmate, ther minds were filled with dolefnl torebodings, and noth- ing preserved them from smking into de- spondeney but the strong exeitement of rehgious enthusiasm In tins forlorn situa- tion they were visited by Masasoit, chief sagamore of the Wampanoage, a powerful nef who reigned over a great extent of country. Instead of takmg advantage of the scanty number of the strangers and expelling them trom Ins terntones, into winch they had intruded, he seemed at once to concerve for them a gencrous friendship, and cxtended toward, them the mites of primitive hospitality He caine carly m the spring to their settlement of New Plym- outh, attended by a mere handful of fol lowers, entered into a solemn league of peace and amity, sold them ® portion of the soil, and promsed to sceure for them the good-will of his savage alles. Whatever may be sud of Indian perfidy, 1t 1s certamn that the integrity and good faith of Mas- sasoit have never been ampeached. He con- tinued a firm and magnammous frend of the white men, suffermg them to extend their possessions and to strengthen them- selves in the land, and betraying no jeal- ousy of ther inerensmg power and pros- penity. Shortly before his death he came ‘once more to New Plymouth with his son Alexander, for the purpose of renewing the covenant of peace and of securing it to his posterity, At this conference he endeavored to pro-388 tect the religion of hus forefathers from the encroaching zeal of the mssionaries, and stipulated that no further attempt should be made to draw off hus people from their ancient faith; but, finding the Enghsl obstinately opposed to any such condition, he mildly relinquished the demand. Al- most the last act of his life was to bring his two sons, Alexander and Phihp (as they had been named by the English), to the residence of a principal settler, recom- mending mutual kindness and confidence, and entreating that the same love and amity which bad emsted between the white men and himself mght be continued after- wards with Ins children, The good old sachem died in peace, and was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow came upon Ins tbe; lus children remamed be- lund to experience the mgratitude of white men. His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded lum. He was of 2 quick and impetuous temper, and proudly tenacious of hs hered- itary nghts and digmty. The intruave poliey and dietatonal conduct of the stran- gers excited us indignation, and he beheld with uneasiness ther exterminating wars vath the neighboring tribes. He was doomed soon to ineur therr hostility, beng accused of plotting with the Narragansetts to iso agaist the English and drive them from the land. It 1s impossible to say whether ‘thus accusation was warranted by facts or was grounded on mere suspicions. It 18 evident, however, by the violent and over- bearmg measures of the settlers that they had by this tame begun to feel conscious of the rapid imerease of ther power, and to grow harsh and ineonsderate in ther treat- ment of the naves They despatched an farmed foree to saze upon Alexander and to bring Inm before their courts, He was traced to lus woodland haunts, and sur- prised at a huntimg-house where he was Yeposng with a band of Ins followers, ‘unarmed, after the toils of the chase. The suddenness of his arrest and the outrage offered to his sovereign dignity so preyed upon the irasable feelings of this proud WASHINGTON IRVING . savage as to throw him mto a raging fever. ‘He was permitted to return home on eon- dition of sending his son as a pledge for Ins reappearance; but the blow be hed received was fatal, and before he reached Ins home he fell a victim to the agonios of @ wounded spirit, The successor of Alexander was Meta- comet, or King Pluhp, as he was called by the settlers on account of his lofty spynt and ambitious temper. These, together with hus well-known energy and enterprise, had rendered um an object of great jealousy and apprehension, and he was accused of having always cherished a secrot and am- placable hostility towards the whites, Such may very probably and very naturally have been the case, He consdered them as orig- anally but mere intruders into the eountry, who had presumed upon indulgence and were estending an influence bancful to savage life. He saw the whole race of his countrymen meltmg before them from the face of the earth, then termtones shpping from ther hands, and their tribes becom- ing feeble, scattered, and dependent. It may be said that the so was ongmnally pur- chased by the settlers, but who does not know the nature of Indian purchases in the early periods of colorzation? The Euro- peans always made thifiy bargains through their superior adroitness 1 trafile, and they ganed vast accessions of terntory by easily-provoked hoshlities An uneult- vated savage 18 never a mee inquirer into the refinements of law by which an mjury may be gradually and legally infleted. Leading facts are all by which he judges; and it was enough for Philip to know that before the intrusion of the Europeans his countrymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were becommg vagabonds in the land of thewr fathers But whatever may have been hus foolings of general hostility and his particular in- dignation at the troatment of his brother, he suppressed them for the present, re- newed the contract with the settlers, and remded peaceably for many years at Po- Kanoket, or, as it was ealled by the English,PHILIP OF' POKANOKET ‘Mount Hope,! the ancient seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspreions, however, which were at first but vague and indefimte, began to acquire form and substance, and he was at length charged with attempting to instigate the various eastern tribes to rise at onee, and ‘by @ simultaneous effort to throw off the yoke of thar oppressors. It is difficult at thus distant penod to as- mgn the proper credit due to these early accusations against the Indians, Thero was # proneness to suspicion and an aptness to acts of violence on the part of the whites that gave weight and importance to every idle tale, Informers abounded where tale- bearing met with countenance and reward, and the sword was readily unsheathed when its success was cortain and it carved out empire, Tho only positive evidence on record against Plihp i the accusation of one Sausaman, 1 renegade Indian, whose nat- ural cunnmg hud been quickened by a partial education which he had received among the settlers He changed lus faith and ins allegianee two or three times with a facility that evinced the looseness of hus prinaaples, He hnd acted for some time as Phibp's confidentsal socretary and coun- sellor, and had enjoyed ins bounty and protection Findmg, however, that the clouds of adversity were gathering round lus patron, he ubandoned hus service and went over to the whutes, and im order to gam ther favor charged Ins former bene- factor with plotting against ther safety. A rigorous investigation took place. Piuhp and several of Ins subjects submutted to be exammed, but nothmg was proved against them. The settlers, however, had now gone too far to retract. they had previously de- termined that Php was a dangerous neighbor, they had pubhely evineed ther distrust, and iad done enough to msure hus hostility; according, therefore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these cases, hus de- struction had become necowary to their seeurty. Sausaman, the treacherous in- former, was shortly afterwards found dead ma pond, having fallen a victim to the vengeance of his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom was s friend and counsellor of Philip, were apprehended and tried, and on the testimony of one very questionable witness were condemned and executed as murderers, This treatment of his subjects and ig- nomimous punishment of his friend out- raged the pride and exasperated the pas- sions of Phihp. The bolt which had fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the gathering storm, and he determined to trust Inmself no longer m the power of the white men. The fate of his insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled in his nund; and he had a further warning in the trageal story of Miantonimo, a great sachem of the Narragansetts, who, after manfully facing his accusers before a tri- bunal of the colomsts, exeulpating himself from a charge of conspiracy and receiving assurances of amity, had been perfidiously despatched at their mstgation. Phikp therefore gathered hus fighting-men about hum, persuaded all strangers that he eould to jom his cause, sent the women and eluldren to the Narragansetts for safety, and wherever he appeared was continually surrounded by armed warnors, When the two parties were thus in = state of distrust and imitation, the loast spark was sufficient to set them in a flame. The Indians, having weapons in their hands, grew mischievous and committed various petty depredations. In one of their maraudings a warnor was fired on and kalled by a settler. This was the signal for open hostilities; the Indians pressed to re- venge the death of their comrade, and the alarm of war resounded through the Plym- onth eolony. In the early chromeles of these dark and melancholy times we meet with many in- dieations of the diseased state of the public nund, The gloom of religious abstraction and the wildness of their situation among trackless forests and savage tribes had ‘New Bristol, Rhode Island,—Irving’s note,390 Aisposed the colonists to superstitious fan- cies, and had filled thar umaginations with the frightful chimeras of witeheraft and spectrology. They were much given also to a beef m omens. The troubles with Philip and his Indians were preceded, we aro told, by a vanety of those awful warnings whieh forerun great and puble calambes, The perteet form of an Indian bow ap- peared in the aur at New Plymouth, which was looked upon by the imhabitants as a “prodigious apparition.” At Hadley, North- ampton, and other towns mm ther neigh- borhood “was heard the report of a great piece of ordnance, with a shaking of the earth and a considerable echo.” * Others were alarmed on a still sunsiuny mornmg by the diseharge of guns and muskets, bullets seemed to whistle past them, and the nowe of drums resounded in the arr, seeming to pass away to the westward, others fancied that they heard the galloping of horses over their heads, and certain monstrous births which took place about the tume filled the superstitions in some towns with doleful forcbodmgs Many of these por- tentous sights and sounds may be asenbed to natural phenomena—to the northern Lights which occur vividly in those lati- tudes, the meteors which explode in the mr, the casual rushng of a blast through the top branches of the forest, the crash of fallen trees or disrupted rocks, and to those other uncouth sounds and echoes which will sometimes strike the ear #0 strangely amidst the profound stillness of woodland sohtudes. These may have star- fled some melancholy imaginations, may have been exaggerated by the love for the marvellous, and listened to with that avid- ity with which we devour whatover is foarful and mysterious. The universal cur- Teney of these superstitious fancies and the grave record made of them by one of the learned men of the day are strongly char- ueteristic of the times . ‘Tho nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often distingushos the warfare between evilmed men and sav- ages On the part of the whites 1 was con- WASHINGTON IRVING ducted with superior skill and success, ‘but with a wastefulness of the blood and a disregard of the natural rights of their ‘antagomsts; on the part of the Indians it was waged with the desperation of men fearless of death, and who had nothng to expect from peace but humiliation, de- pendenes, and decay. ‘The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy clergyman of the tune, who dwells with horror and indignation on every hostile act of the Indians, however justifiable, wiulst he mentions with ap- plause the most sangmnary atrocities of the whates, Plukp 1s reviled as a murderer and a trator, without consdermg that ho was # true-born prince gallantly fighting at the head of lus subjects to avenge the wrongs of his family, to retrieve the totter- ing power of lus lune, and to delver tus native land from the oppression of usurp- ang strangers, The project of a wide and samultaneous revolt, 1f such had really heen formed, was worthy of a capacious mnd, and had at not been prematwely discovered might have been overwhelming in its consequen- ces. The war that actually broke out was but a war of detail, a mete succession of casual exploits and unconnected enter- prises, Still, it sets forth the military genus and darmg prowess of Pluhp, and wherever, in the preyudieed and passionate narrations that have been given of it, we can arnve at simple facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a fertihty of expedients, a contempt of sufformg and hardship, and an unconquerable resolution that command our sympathy and applause. Dniven from lis paternal domams at Mount Hope, he thew lumself into the depths of those vast and trackless forests that slarted the sottlements and were al- most nnpervioun to anytiang but a wild beast or an Indian, Here he gathered to- ether lus forces, like the storm aecumulat ing its stores of misehtef in the bosom of ?The Rev. Inereaye Mather's histo Irving's note,PHILIP OF POKANOKET the thundercloud, and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havoc and dismay into the uil- Tages. There were now and then indications of these impending ravages that filled the minds of the colomsts with awe and appre- hension, The report of a distant gun would perhaps be heard {rom the solitary wood- land, where there was known to be no white man; the cattle which had been wandering in the woods wonld sometumes return home wounded, or an Indian or two would be seen lurkmg about the skirts of the forests and suddenly disappeanng, as the lightning will sometimes be seen play- img silently about the edge of the cloud that 18 brewing up the tempest, Though sometimes pursued and even sur- rounded by the settlers, yet Pinlip as often eseaped almost miraculously from ther toils, and, plungmg into the wilderness, would be lost to all search or mqury until he again emerged at some far distant quarter, Inving the country desolate, Among his strongholds were the srent swamps or morasses which extend in some parts of New England, composed of loose hogs of deep black mud, perplexed with thickets, brambles, Tank weeds, the shat- tered and mouldering trunks of tallen trees, overshadowed by Iugubrious hentluchs, ‘The uncertain footing and the tangled maves of these shaggy wilds rendered them ulmost umpraeticable to the white man, though the Indian vould thread therr labyrinths with the agihty of a deer Into ane of these, the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Phihp onee driven with a band of lis followers, ‘Tho English did not dare to pursue him, fearmg to venture into these dark and frightful recesses, where they meht perish an fens and miry pits or be shot down by lurking foes, They therefore smvested the entrance to the Neck, and began to build a fort with the thougt of starving out the foe; but Piuhp and his warriors wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea in the dead of night, leaving the women and eluldren behind, and eveaped away to the westward, kindling the flames of war 391 among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Yipmuck country and threatening the col- ‘ony of Connectient. In this way Philip became a theme of umversal apprehension, The mystery in which he was enveloped exaggerated his real terrors, He was an evil that walked in darkness, whose coming none could fore- see and against which none knew when to be on the alert. The whole country abounded with rumors and alarms, Philip seemed almost possensed of ubiquity, for m whatever part of the widely-extended fron- tier an irruption from the forest took place, Phihp was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions also were cir- culated concerning hun, He was seid to deal in necromancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witeh or prophetess, whom he consulted and who assisted nm by her charms and ineantations, This, indeed, was frequently the case with Indian chefs, either through their own creduhty or to act upon that of ther followers: and the infinenee of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition lias been fully evdenced im recent anstances of savage warfare, At the time that Phikp effected his eseape from Poeasset lus fortunes were m. a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned by repeated fights and he had lost almost the whole of hus resources, In this time of adversity he found a faithful friend m Canonchet, chief sachem of all the Narmgansetts He was the son and heir of Miantommo, the creat sachem who, a8 alrendy mentioned, after an honorable a¢- quittal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfid- tons instigations of the settlers, “He was the her,” says the old chromeler, “of all jus father's pride and insolence, as well a8 of lus mahee towards the Enghsh;” be certainly was the heir of lus insults and angunes and the legitimate avenger of ius murder. Though he had forborne to take an active part in this hope- less war, yet he received Philip and his broken forees with open arms and gave392 them the most generous countenance and support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the Englsh, and it was deter- mined to strike a signal blow that should anvolvo both the snehiems in one common ruin, A great force wan therefore gathored together from Massachnsctts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, and was sent into the Narragansett country in the depth of win- ter, when the swamps, being frozon and leafless, could be traversed with compara- tive faciity and would no longer afford dark and impenetrable fastnesses to the Indians, Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had eonveyed the greater part of his stores, together with the old, the mfirm, the women and children of hus tnbe, to a strong fortress, where he and Plulip had Likewise drawn up the flower of ther foreos, Thus fortress, deemed by the In- chans impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of sland of five or six acres m the mast of a swamp; xt was constructed with a degree of judgment and slall vastly superior to what 1s usually dis- played nm Indian fortification, and indica- fave of the martial genius of these two chieftains. Guided by a renegado Indien, the Eng- hish penetrated, through December snows, to this stronghold and eame upon the gar- ison by surprise, The fight was flerce and tumultuous, The assulants were ropulsed im their first attack, and several of ther bravest officers were shot down m the act of storming the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater sue- ceas. A lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven from one post to another. They disputed ther ground inch by inch, fighting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces, and after a long and bloody battle, Plip and Ca- nonchet, with a bandfol of surnving war- iors, retreated from tho fort and took refuge in the thickets of the surrounding forest, The vietors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was soon in @ blaze; WASHINGTON IRVING many of the old men, the women, and the children perished in the flames. This last outrage overeame even the stoicism of the savage. The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rago and despair utterod by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destruction of ther dwellings and heard the agomzing eres of ther wives and offspring. “Tho burning of the wig- wams,” says a contemporary wnter, “the shrieks and cries of the women and chl- dren, and the yolhng of the warriors, exiubited a most hornble and affecting seene, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers.” The same writer cautiously adds, “They were in much doubt then, and after- wards seriously mquired, whether burning their enomies alive could be eonautent with humanity, and the benevolent pnn- ciples of the gospel.” * The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet 1s worthy of particular men- tion: the last aceno of his Ife 1» one of the noblest mstances on record of Indian mag- nanimity Broken down in his power and resourees by this mgnal defeat, yet faithful to hus ally and to the hapless eause which he had espoused, he rejected all overtures of peace offered on condition of betraying Piup and his followers, aud declared that “ho would fight 1 out to the Iast man, rather than become a servant to the Eng- sh.” Eas home beng destroyed, Ins coun- try harassed and laid waste by the in- cursions of the eonqucrors, he was obhged to wander away to the banks of the Con- neetieut, where he forned a rallying-pomt to the whole body of westom Indians and Iaid waste several of the Enghish settle- ments Karly m the spring he departed on a hazardous expedition, with only thirty chosen men, to penetrate to Searonck, in the vamty of Mount Hope, and to procure seed corn to plant for the sustenance of lus troops, Thus little band of adventurers * MB. of the Rev. W. Ruggles.—Irving’s note.PHILIP OF POKANOKET had passed safely through the Pequod country, and were in the contre of the Narragansott, resting at some wigwams near Pautucket River, when an alarm was given of an approaching enemy. Having but seven men by him at the tme, Canon- chet despatched two of them to the top of a neighboring hill to bring amtellgence of the foe. Pame-struck by the appearance of a troop of Enghsh and Indians rapidly ad- vaneing, they fled in breathless terror past ther chieftain, without stopping to inform lum of the danger. Canonchet sent another ‘scout, who did the same. Ho then sent two more, one of whom, hurrying back in confusion and affright, told hum that the whole British army was at hand. Canonehet saw there was no choice but immediate fhght. He attempted to escape round the lull, but was perenived and hotly pursued by the hostile Indians and a few of the Aicetest of the English, Finding the swiftest pursucr close upon his hecls, he threw off, first Ins blanket, then hus silver-laced coat and belt of peag, by which bis enemes knew him to be Canonehet, and redoubled the eagerness of pursuit. At length, im dashing through the river, lus foot shpped upon a stone, and he fell s0 doop as to wet hus gun. This accident 50 struck him with despair that, as he after- wards confessed, “us heart and Ins bowels turned within him, and he beeame hke # rotten stick, vord of strength.” To such a degree was he unnerved that, being seized by a Pequod Indian with a short distance of tho mver, he made no resistance, though a man of great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on bemg made prisoner the whole pride of his spint arose withn him, and from that moment we find, in the ancedotes given by lus enemies, nothing but repeated flashes of clevated and prnce-hke herowm Being questioned by one of the Enghsi who fitst came up with him, and who had not at- tained his twenty-second year, the prond- hearted warrior, looking with lofty con- tempt upon hus youthful countenance, re- plied, “You are « child—you cannot under- stand matters of war; let your brother or your chef come: him wall I answer.” Though repeated offors were made to lum of hs hfe on condition of submitting with us nation to the English, yet he rejected them with disdain, and refused to send any proposals of the kind to the great body of hus subjects, saying that he knew none of them would comply. Being reproached with hus breach of faith towards the whites, lus boast that he would not dehver up 8 Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wampanoeg’s nail, and his threat that he would burn the English alive in therr houses, he dwdamed to justify hum- solf, baughtily answormg that others were as forward for the war as himself, and “he desured to hear no more thereof.” So noble and unshaken # spirit, so trae a fidelity to his cause and his fnend, might have touched the feelings of the generous and the brave, but Canonchet was an Indian, a bemg towards whom war had no courtesy, humanity no law, rehgion no compassion he was condemned to die, The last words of his that are recorded are worthy the greatness of his soul. When sentenee of death was passed upon hum, he observed “that he hiked st well, for he should die before his heart was soft or he had spoken anything unworthy of himself.” His enemes gave lum the death of a soldier, for he was shot at Stonmgham by three young sachems of ius own rank. The detcat at the Narragansett fortress and the death of Canonehet were fatal biows to the fortunes of Kmg Php. He made an meffectual attempt to raise a head of war by stirrmg up the Mohawks to take arms, but, though possessed of the native talents of @ statesman, lus arts were coun- teracted by the superior arts of his en- lightened enemies, and the terror of thar warlike skall began to subdue the resolution of the neighboring tribes, The unfortunate cueftam saw himself daily stripped of power, and hus ranks rapidly thmnng around him, Some were suborned by the whites; others fell victims to hunger and398 fatigue and to the frequent attacks by which they were harassed. His stores were all captured; his chosen friends were swept away from before his eyes; his uncle was shot down by hus side; his sister was ear- ried into captivity, and im one of his narrow eveapes he was compelled to leave his beloved wife and only son to the mercy of the enemy. “His ruin,” says the histonan, “bemg thus gradually earned on, his misery was not prevented, but augmented thereby, bemg himself made scquannted with the sense and experimental fechng of the captivity of Ius children, loss of friends, slaughter of his subyeets, bereavement of all family relations, and being stripped of all outward comforts before his own life should be token away.” To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, hus own followers began to plot against hus hfe, that by sacrflaing hum they mght purchase dishonorable safety. Through treachery a number of his faithful ad- herents, the subjects of Wetamoc, an In- dian princess of Pocasset, a near kins- woman and confederate of Plulip, were betrayed ito the hands of the enemy. ‘Wetamoe was among them at the time, and attempted to make her eseape by crossing a neighboring river; either exhausted by swimming or starved with cold and hunger, she was found dead and naked near the water-side. But persecution ceased not at the grave. Even death, the refuge of the wretched, where the wicked commonly cease from troubling, was no protection to this outeast female, whose great enme was affectionate fidehty to her kinsman and her friend, Her corpse was the objeet of unmanly and dastardly vengeance, the head was severed from the body and set upon a pole, and was thus exposed at Taunton to the view of her captive sub- ects, They immediately recogmuzed the features of ther unfortunate queen, and ‘were to affected at this barbarous spectacle that we are told they broke forth into the “most hornd and diabolical lamentations.” However Philip had borne up agamst the complicated miseries and misfortunes WASHINGTON IRVING that surrounded hum, the treachery of hus followers seemed to wring his heart and Teduee him to despondency. It is said that “he never rejoiced afterwards, nor hed success in any of his dengns.” The spring of hope was broken—the ardor of enter- prise was extinguished; he looked around, and sll was danger and darkness; thero was no eye to pity nor any arm that eould bring deliverance. With a scanty band of followers, who still remamed true to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy Philip wandered hack to the viemty of Mount Hope, the ancient dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked about like a spectre among the seones of former power and prosperity, now bereft of home, of family, and of friend, There needs no better picture of hus destitute and piteous situation than that turmshed by the homely pen of the chron- acler, who 1s unwanly enlisting the feelings of the reader in favor of the hapless war- nor whom he reviles. “Plulip,” he says, “dike a savage wild beast, having been hunted by the Englah forees through the woods above a hundred miles backward and forward, at Inst was driven to lus own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired, with a few of Ins best inends, ito a swamp, which proved but a prison to keep jum fast till the mewengers of death came by divine permmsuon to execute vengrance upon hum.” ‘ven in thas lest refuge of desperation and despa a sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We picture him to our- selves sented among ins care-worn follow- ers, brooding in silenee over his blasted fortunes, and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness and drearmess of his lurking-place, Defeated, but not dismayed —crushed to the earth, but not humiliated —he seemed to grow more haughty be- neath disaster, and to experience a fierve satisfaction in dramning the last dregs of bntterness, Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds ise above it. The very iden of submission awakened the fury of Philip, and he smote to death one of hus followers who proposedTHE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER an expedient of pence, The brother of the victim made his eseape, and m revenge betrayed the retreat of hin chieftain. A hody of white men and Indians were im- modiately despatched to the swamp where Phitip lay crowhed, glarng with fury and despnir, Before he was awaro of their approach they had begun to surround him, Ine hittle while he saw five of his trustiest followers Imd dead at hus feet; all reust- ance was van; he rushed forth from Ins covert, and made a headlong attempt to eseape, but was shot through the heart by a renegado Indian of his own nation. Such 1 the seanty story of the brave but unfortunate King Philp, persecuted while living, slandered and dishonored when dead. 1, however, we consider even the preyudierd ancedotes furmshed us by his enemies, We may pereerse in them traces of amiable and lofty character sufficient to awaken sympathy for his fate and respect for hus memory. We find that amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of constant warfare he was alivo to the softer fechngs of connubial love and pa- ternal tenderness and to the gencrous sen- timent of friendsiup. The captisity of his “beloved wife and only son” are mentioned with exultation as causing Jum poignant misery, the death of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new blow on his senmbilities, but the treachery and desertion of many of lus followers, m. whose affections he had confided, 1s sad to have deswlated Ins heart and to have bereaved him of all further comfort. He was @ patnot attached to Ins native soil— 8 prince true to lus subjects and indignant ‘of their wrongs—a soldier daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every vanety of bodily suffer- ang, and ready to pensh im the eause he had espoused, Proud of heart and with an untamable love of natural liberty, he pre- forred to enjoy it among the beasts of the forests or in the dismal and famished recesses of swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty spirit to submission and live dependent and despised in the 895 ense and luxury.of the settlements. With herote qualities and bold achievements that would have graced a ewilized warrior, and have rendered him the theme of the poet and the ustorian, he lived a wanderer and & fugitive in his native land, and went down, like a lonely bark foundering amd darkness and tempest, without a pitying eye to weep his fall or a friendly hand to record lus struggle. THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER [1824] A FEW miles from Boston in Massachn- setts, there 18 a deep inlet, winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and termmatmg m a thekly- wooded swamp or morass On one mde of this inlet 1s @ beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land mises abruptly from the water's edge mto a hugh mdge, on which grow a fow seattered oaks of great age and unmense size, Under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stones, there was a great amount of treasure bmied by Kidd the pirate The inlet al- lowed a facihty to bring the money m a hoat sceretly and at night to the very foot of the hull; the clevation of the place permitted a good lookout to be kept that no one was at hand, while the remarkable ‘trees formed good Iandmarks by which the place naght easily be found agam The old stories add, moreover, that the devil pre- sided at the lndmg of the money, and took it under hus guardanshap, but tins, it is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particulaily when it has been ill-gotten Be that as it may, Kidd never returned to recover lus wealth; being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there hanged for a pirate. About the year 1727, just at the time that carthquakes were prevalent in New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there hved near this place a meagre, muscrly fellow, of the name of Tom Walker. He had » wife as396 miserly as humself: they were so musorly that they even conspired to cheat cach other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on, sho nd away; a hen could not eackle but she was on the alort to secure the new-lmd og Her husband was con- tinually prying about to detect her socret hoards, and many and flerco were the confiets that took place about what ought to have been common property. They lived ma forlorn-looking house that stood alone, and hed an air of starvation. A few strag- gling savin-trees, emblems of sterility, grow near it, no smoke ever curled from its chimney, no traveller stopped at its door. A misorable horse, whose nbs were as articulate as the bam of a gridiron, stalked about a field, where a thin earpet ‘of moss, searecly covering the ragged beds of pudding-stone, tantahzed and balked ius hunger, and sometimes he would lean his head over the fence, lock piteously at the passer-by, and seem to petition deliv- erance from this land of famme, The house and its mmates had alto- gether a bad name, Tom’s wife was a tall termagant, fleree of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice was often heard m wordy warfare with her husband; and hs faco sometimes showed signs that their confhiets were not confined to words. No one ventured, however, to interfere be- twoen them. The loncly wayfarer shrunk withn humself at the hornd clamor and clapper-clawing, eyed the den of discord askanco; and hurned on hus way, rejorang, af a bachelor, in Ins celibacy. One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighborhood, he took what he considered a short cut home- ward, through the swamp. Like most short outs, it was an all-chosen route. The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made 1t dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the naghbor- hood. It was full of pits and quagmres, partly covered with weeds and moses, where the green gurtace often betrayed the traveller into a gulf of bleck, smothering WASHINGTON IRVING mud. there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bull- frog, and the water-sake; where the tranks of pmes and hemlocks lay helf- drowned, half-rotting, looking like alli- gators sleepmg in the mire. Tom had long been picking his way eautionsly through tis treacherous forest; steppmg from tuft to tuft of rushes and aoots, which afforded preeanous footholds among deep sloughs, or pacing carefully, hike cat, along the prostrate trunks of trecs; startled now and then by the sudden screaming of the bittern, or the quacking of a wild duck msmg on the wing from some solitary pool At length he arrived at a firm piece of ground, which ran out luke a peninsula into the deep, bosom of the swamp It had been one of the strong- holds of the Indians during ther wars with the first colonists. Here they had thrown up a land of fort, which they had looked upon as almost impregnable, and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and children Nothing remamed of the old ‘Indian fort but a fow embankments, grad- ually sinking to the level of the surround- mg earth, and ulready overgrown in part by oaks and other forest troos, the foliage of which formed s contrast to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp. Tt was late in the dusk of evening when Tom Walker reached the old fort, and he paused there awhile to rest himself, Any one but he would have felt unwilling to Inger m this lonely, melancholy placo, for the common people hed a bad opinion of at, from the stories handed down from the tame of the Indian wars; when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here, and made sacrifices to the evil spirit. Tom Walker, however, was not » man to be troubled with any fears of the kind. He reposed himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen hemlock, listening to the boding ery of the treetond, and delv- ing with hus walking-staff into a mound of black mould at his fect. As he turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff struck ‘against something hard. He raked it out ofTHE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER the vegetable mould, and lo! e cloven skull, with an Indian tomahawk buned deep m it, lay before hum. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since tus deathblow had been given, It was & droary memento of the fleree struggle that had taken place in this last foothold of the Indian warriors. “Humph™ sad Tom Walker, as he gave it a kick to shake the dirt from st. “Let that skull alone™ sed a gruff vorce. Tom hfted up hs eyes, and beheld a great black man seated directly opponte lum, on the stump of a tree. He was ex- ceedingly surprised, having neither heard nor seen any one approach, and he was still more perplexed on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that the stranger was neither negro nor Indian, It as true he was dressed in a rade half- Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round Ins body, but hns face was neither black nor copper-color, but swarthy amd dingy, and begrimed with soot, as if he had been aceustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shoek of coarse black har, thut stood out from Ins head 1m all directions, and bore an axe on his shoulder. He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pur of great red eyes, “What are you domg on my grounds?” smd the black man, with a hoarse growling voice, “Your grounds" said Tom, with a sucer, “no more your grounds than mune, they belong to Dereon Peabody.” “Deacon Peabody be d—d,” smd the stranger, “as I flatter myself he will be, af he does not look more to his own sins and less to those of his nahbors. Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody 1s fanng.” Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair and flouruhing without, but rotten at the core, and saw that 1t had ‘been nearly hewn through, so that the first lugh wind was hkely to blow xt down. On the bark of the tree was scored the name 397 of Deacon Peabody, an eminent man, who had waxed wealthy by dnving shrewd bargains with the Indians, He now looked around, and found most of the tall marked with the name of some great man of the colony, and all more or less seored by the axe The one on which he had been seated, and which had evidently yust been hewn down, bore the name of Crownn- shield, and he recollected a mighty neh man of that name, who made a vulgar display of wealth, which 1 was whispered he had acquired by buceaneenng. “He's just ready for burmng!” sad the Diack man, with a grow! of trumph, “You see I am hkely to have a good stock of firewood for winter” “But what ght have you,” sad Tom, “to cut down Deacon Peabody's timber?” “The mght of a prior claim,” sad the other, “Thus woodland belonged to me long before one of your winte-faed race put foot upon the soil.” “And pray, who are you, if 1 may be so bold?” said Tom. “Oh, 1 go by variouy names 1 am the wild huntsman im some countnes; the black mmner 1n others In this neighborhood T am known by the name of the black woodsman. 1 am he to whom the red men consecrated ths spot, and in honor of, whom they now and then roasted a white mai, by Wa} of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red mien have been exterminated by yon white savages, 1 amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptist, 1 am the great patron and prompter of slave-dealers, and the grand-master of the Salem witches.” “The upshot of all whch a8, that, xf I mistake not,” sud Tom, sturdily, “you are he commonly called Old Scratch.” “The same, at your serviec!” replied the Diack man, with @ half ervil nod, Such was the openmg of this internew, according to the old story; though it has almost too familar an air to be credited. ‘One would think that to meet with such » sngular personage, im ths wild, lonely place, would have shaken any man’s nerves;898 but Tom was a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant wifo, that he did not fear the devil. "Yt is sad that after ths commencement they had a long and earnest conversation together, as Tom returned homeward. The black man told lum of great sums of money buried by Kidd the pirate, under the oak- trees on the high mdge, not far from the morass, All these were under his com- mand, and protected by Ins power, so that none could find them but such as propi- trated lus favor. These he offered to place within Tom Walker's reach, having con- ceived an especial kindness for him; but they were to be had only on certain conditions. What these conditions were may be easily surmved, though Tom never dis- closed them pubhely ‘They must have been very hard, for he required tume to thmk of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles when money wa» m view When they had reached the edge of the swamp, the stranger paused “What proof have I that all you have been telling me 1s true?” said Tom “There's my signature,” smd the black man, pressing bis finger on ‘Tom’s forehead. So saying, he turned off among the thickets of the swamp, and seemed, a8 Tom sad, to go down, down, down, into the earth, until nothing but lus head and shoulders could be seen, and so on, until he totally disappeared, ‘When Tom reached home, he found the black print of a finger burnt, as at wore, anto hus forehead, whieh nothing could ob- Iiterate. The first news ins wife had to tell hm was the sudden death of Absalom Crown- imsueld, the rich buceancer. It was an- nounced in the papers, with the usual flour- ish, that “A great man had fallen an Aasrael.” ‘Tom recollected the troe which his black Amend had just hewn down, and which was aeady for bumung, “Let the frecbooter roast,” sad Tom, “who cares!" He uow felt convinced that all be had heurd and soon was no allusion, WASHINGTON IRVING ‘He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence; but as this was an uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was awakened at the mention of Iudden gold, and she urged her husband to comply with the black man’s terms, and ‘secure what would make them wealthy for hfe. However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the Devil, he was deter- mined not to do s0 to oblige his wife, so he fiatly refused, out of the mere spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter were the quarrels they had on the subject; but the more she talked, the more revolute was ‘Tom not to be damned to please her. At length she determined to dnve the bargam on her own account, and if she succeeded, to keep all the gain to herself. Pang of the same fearless temper as her husband, she set off for the old Indian fort towards the close of a summer's day. She was many hours absent, When she came back, she was reserved and sullen in her rephes. She spoke something of a black man, whom she had met about twilight hewmng at the root of a tall tree, He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms she was to go agam with a pro- pitiatory offermg, but what it was she forebore to say. The next evcnmg she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily laden, Tom waited and waited for her, but m vain, midmght came, but sho did not make ber ‘appearance: morning, noon, mght returned, but still she did not come, Tom now grew uneary for her safety, espeaally as he found she had carried off m her apron the silver tea-pot and spoons, and every portable article of valuc. Another night clapsed, another mormmg came; but no wife, In @ word, she was never heard of more. ‘What was her real fate nobody knows, mm conrequence of 40 many pretending to hnow. It 1 one of those facts wiieh have become confounded by a vanety of his torus, Some asserted that sho lost ber way among the tangled mazes of the swamp, and sank into some pit or slough; others,THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER more uncharitable, hinted that she had cloped with the household booty, and made off to some other provinee; while others surmined that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quagmire, on the top of which her hat was found lying. In con- firmation of this, it was said a great black man, with an axe on his shoulder, was seen Inte that very evemng coming out of the awamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check apron, with an ar of surly trumph, The most current and probable story, however, observes, that Tom Walker grow so anxious about the fate of lis wife and Ins property, that he set out at length to seek them both at the Indian fort During a long summer's afternoon he searched about the gloomy place, but uo wife was to be seen. He called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. ‘The hittern alone responded to hns voree, as he flew sereammg by or the bull-frog croaked dolefully from a neighbormg pool, At length, st 28 said, gust im the brown hour of twilight, when the owls began to hoot, and the bats to fht about, Ins attention was attracted by the of carnon erows hovering about a evpresstree He looked up, and beheld a bundle tied ma cheek upron, and hanging im the branches of the tree, with a great vulture perched hard ay if keeping watch upon it He leaped with joy; for he recognized lus wife's apron, and supposed it to conten the household valuables. “Let us get hold of the property,” sad consolingly to Inmsclf, “and we will endeavor to do without the woman.” ‘As he serambled up the tree, the vulture sproad its wide wings, and sailed off, sereaming, mto the deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized the checked apron, but, woeful sight" found nothing but a heart and hver tied up im it! Such, according to this most authentic old story, was all that was to be found of Tom’s wife. She had probably attempted to deal with the black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but though a female scold 1s generally con- 399 sidered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had the wore of it. She must have died game, however; for it 19 said Tom noteed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped abont the tree, and found handfuls of hair, that looked as at they had been plucked from the coarse black shock of the woodman. Tom knew Ins wife's prowess. by expenence. He shrugged Ins shoulders, as he looked at the signs of a fierce clapper-clawing. “Egad, said he to humsclf, “Old Serateh must have fa tough time of at!” Tom consoled lumself for the loss of hus property, with the loss of his wife, for he was x man of fortitude, He even felt some- thmng hhe gratitude towards the black wood- man, who, he conadered, had done hun a. Adnoss. He sought, therefore, to cultivate a farther acquaintanee with hum, but for some time without success, the old black- legs played shy, for whatever people may thmk, he as not always to be had for ealhng tor. he knows how to play his cards when Pretty sure of lus game, At length, it is sad, when delay had whetted Tom's eagerness to the qmek, and prepared lum to agree to anything rather than not gam the promised treasure, he met the black man one evenmg m his usual woodman's drew, with lus axe on Ins shoulder, sanntenng along the swamp, and humming a tune, He affected to recive Tom's advances with great imdifference, made brief rephes, and went on humming jus tune, By degrees, however, Tom brought hum to business, and they began to haggle about the terms on which the former was to have the pirates treayure, There was one eon- dition whick necd not be mentioned, beng generally understood m all eases where the devil grants favors; but there were others about which, though of less importance, he was mmflexibly obstmate. He insisted that ‘the money found through his means should be employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffie: that 18 to say, that he should fit out a slave-smp, This, however, Tom400 resolutely refused: he was bad enough in all conscience; but the devil humself could not tempt him to turn slave-trader. Finding Tom so squeamish on this pomt, he did not mast upon it, but proposed, instead, that he should turn usurer, the devil bemg extremely aunous for the m- crease of usurers, looking upon them as his pecuhar people. To this no objections were made, for it was just to Tom’s taste. “You shall open a broker's shop im Bos- ton next month,” said the black man, “PIL do it to-morrow, 1f you wish,” sad Tom Walker. “You shall lend money at two per cent a month” “Egad, I'l charge four” replied Tom Walker. “You shall extort bonds, foreclose mort- gages, drive the merchants to bankrupt- — “71 dnve them to the d——,” ened Tom Walker. “You are the usurer for my money!” seid black-egs with dehght “When will you want the rhino?” “Thus very mght.” “Done” said the devil. “Done” sad Tom Walker—So they shook hands and struck a bargain, ‘A few days time saw Tom Walker seated behind Ins desk im a countung-house im Boston, hs reputation for a ready-moneyed man, who would lend money out for a good con- sderation, soon spread abroad. Everybody remembers the time of Governor Bel- cher, when money was particularly scarce. It was a time of paper credit The country had been deluged with government bills, the famous Land Bank had been established; there had been a rage for speculating; the people had run mad with schemes for new settlements; for building cities m the wil- derneas; land-yobhers went about with maps of grants, and townships, and Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but which overy- hody was ready to purchase. In a word, the great speculating fever which breaks out WASHINGTON IRVING . every now and then in the country, had raged to an alarming degree, and everybody was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing. As usual the fever had sub- sided, the dream had gone off, and the imagiuary fortunes with it, the patents were left i doleful plight, and the whole country resounded with the consequent ery of “hard times,” At ths propitious time of pubhe dis- tress did Tom Walker set up as usurer m Boston. His door was soon thronged by customers. The needy and adventurous; the gambhng speculator, the dreammng land- jobber, the thrittless tradesman; the mer- chant with cracked eredit, in short, every- one driven to raise money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices, hurried to Tom Walker. Thus Tom was the umversal friend of the needy, and acted hke a “friend m need”; that 1s to say, he always oxacted good pay and good security, In proportion to the distress of the appheant was the Inghness of Ins terms He accumulated bonds and mortgages, gradually squeezed ins customers closer and closer* and sent them at length, dry as a sponge, from his door. In this way he made money hand over hand, became a rich and mighty man, and exalted Ins cocked hat upon ’Change. He built Jumself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation, but left the greater part of it unfimshed and unfurmshed, out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fulness of his vamglory, though ho nearly starved the horses which drew it; and as the ungreased wheels groaned and serecehed on the axle-trees, yon would have thought you heard the souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing. As Tom waxed old, howover, ho grew thoughtful, Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next. He thought with regret on the bargain he had made with his black friend, and set ins wita to work to cheat hum out of the conditions, He be- came, therofore, all of a suddon, a violentTHE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER cbureh-goor. He prayed loudly and stron- uously, as if heaven were to bo taken by force of lungs. Indood, one mght always toll when he had sinned most dunng the week, by the clamor of ht» Sunday devotion, ‘The quiet Christians who had boen modestly and steadfastly travelling Zonward, were struck with self-reproach at seeing them- selves so suddenly ontstripped an their ea- reer by ths new-made convert. ‘Tom was as ngid in religious ae in money matters, hie was a slern supervisor and censurer of his neighbors, and soemed to think every sin entered up to their account became a credit, on hus own ade of the page. Ie even talked of the expediency of reviving the perseen- tion of Quakers and Anabaptuts, In a word, Tom's zeal became as notorious as Ins riches, Still, an spite of all this strenuous at- tention to forms, Tom had a lurking dread that the devil, alter all, would have Ins due. That he might not be taken unawares, therefore, at 15 said he always carried a small Bible im Ins cont-pocket He had also a great folio Bible on Ins counting- house desk, aud would frequently be found reading it when people called on business, fon such occasions le would lay his green spectacles in the book, to mark the place, wlule he turned round to drive some usurious bargain. Some say that Tom grew a little erack- brained 1 lus old days, and that, fancying jus end approaching, he had Ins horse new shod, saddled and bridled, and buried with Ins fect uppermost, because he supposed that at the last day the world would be turned upside down, in which case he should find Ius horse standing ready for mounting, and he was dotermned at the worst to gve lus old fend a ran for at. Thus, however, 1s probably a mere old wivos’ fable. If he really did take such a precaution, 1 was totally superfluous; at least 20 says the authentic old legond ; which closes lus story in the following manner. One hot summer afternoon in the dog- daya, just as a terrible black thunder-gust was commg up, Tom sat in his counting- 401 house, in his white Iinen cap and Indu silk mormng-gown, He was on the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would complete tho rain of an unlucky land-speculator tor whom he had professed the grealest fuendslup, The poor land- gobber begged lum to grant a few mouths’ indulgence, Tom had grown testy and ir- nitated, and refused another day. “My family will be 1uimed, and brought upon the parish,” smd the land-jobber. “Chanty begms at home,” replied Tom; “I must take care of myself m these hard tames.”" “You have made so much money out of me," smd the speculator. Tom lost his patience and Ins piety. “The devil take me,” said he, “if I have made a farthing?” ‘Just then there were three loud knocks ut the street-door, He stepped out to sce who was there. A black man was holding a black horse, which neighed and stamped with impatience, “Tom, you're come for,” said the black fellow, gruffly. Tom shrank back, but too late. He had left hus little Bible at the bottom of his coat-pocket, and his big Bible on the desk buried under the mort- gage he was about to foreclose: never was sinner taken more unawares, The black man whisked him hke a ella into the snddle, gave the horse the lash, and away he galloped, with Tom on his back, m the midst of the thunder-storm. The clerks stuck ther pens belund thor ears, and stared after lim from the windows, Away went Tom Walker, dastung down the stroots, ins white cap bobbing up and down; his momng-gown fluttormg in the wind, and Ins steed striking fire out of the pavement at every bound. When the clerks turned to look for the black man, he had disappoared. Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mortgage. A countryman, who lived on the border of the swamp, roported that in the height of the thunder-gust he had heard a great clattering of hoofs and howling along the road, and running to the window402 ‘caught sight of @ figure, such as I have deseribed, on a horse that galloped hke mad across the fields, over the hulls, and down into the black hemlock swamp towards the old Indin fort; and that Shortly after a thunder-bolt falling in that direction seemed to sot the whole forest in a blaze, ‘The good people of Boston shook ther heads and shrugged ther shoulders, but had been so much accustomed to witches ‘and goblins, and tricks of the devil, in all kinds of shapes, from the first. settle- ment of the colony, that they were not so much horror-struck as might have heen ox- pected. Trustees were appointed to take charge of Tom’s effects There was nothing, however, to admmister. On searclung his coffers, all his bonds and mortgages were found reduced to cinders In place of gold and silver, us iron chest was filed with chaps and shavings. two skeletons lay in hus stable mstend of ns half-starved horses, and the very next day lus great house took fire and was burnt to the ground. Such was the end of Tom Walker and lus ill-gotten wealth Let all gmping money- brokers lay this story to heart ‘The truth of at 18 not to be doubted The very hole under the oak-trees, whence he dug Kidd's money, 15 to be seen to tins day. and the neighboring swamp and old Indian fort are often haunted m stormy mghts by a figure on horseback, in mormng-gown and white eap, which 1» doubtless the troubled spit of the usurer. In fact, the story has resolved atselt into a proverb, and is the ongwn of that popular saying, s0 prevalent throughout New England, of “The Del and Tom Walker.” From A TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES [1835] A Secrer Expeprrion ON THE following morning we were rejoined by the rangers who had remained WASHINGTON IRVING at the last encampment, to sock for the stray horses. They had tracked them for a considerable distance through bush and brake, and across streams, until they found them cropping the herbage on the edge of a prairie. Their heads were in the direction of the fort, and they were evidently grazing therr way homeward, heedless of the un- bounded freedom of the prairies so sud- denly laid open to them, About noon the woather held up, and I observed @ mysterious consultation going on between our half-breeds and Tonish;? it ended in a request that we would dispense with the services of the latter for a few hours, and permit him to join ns com- rades na grand foray, We objected that ‘Tomsh was too much disabled by aches and pains for such an undertaking, but he was wild with eagerness for the mysterious en- terpnse, and, when permussion was given him, seemed to forget all ns ailments an an instant. In a short time the tre were equipped and on horseback, with mfles on their shoulders smd handkerelnefs twisted round thewr heads, evidently hound for a grand seamper. As they passed by the different lodges of the camp, the vanglonous little Frenchman could not help boasting to the night and left of the great things he was about to acheve, though the taciturn Beatte,? who rode an advance, would every now and then cheek lus horse, and look back at hum with an ar of stern rebuke. It was hard, however, to make the loquacious Tomsh play “Indian.” Several of the hunters, likewuse, sallied forth, and the pnme old woodman, Ryan, camo back carly in the afternoon, with am- ple sporl, having kalied a buck and two fat does I drow near to a group of rangers that had gathered round ium as be stood by the spoil, and found they were dis- cussing the ments of a stratogem some- fumes used in deor hunting. This consists in imitating, with a small instrument called +A hunter of Trving’s party. 2 Captain of Trving’s party,A TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES a bleat, the ery of the fawn, 20 as to lure the doe within reach of the rifle. There are bleats of various kinds, suited to calm or windy weather, and to the age of the fayn, The poor animal, deluded by them, an its anxiety about its young, will some- tumes advance close up to the hunter. “I once bleated a doe,” said a young hunter, “nntal it came withm twenty yards of me and presented a sure mark. I levelled my rifle three times, but had not the heart to shoot, for the poor doe luuked yo wistfully, that 1 ina manner made my heart yearn T thought of ny own mother, and of how anxious she used to be about me when 1 was a child, so to put an end to the matter, I gave a halloo, and started the doe out of nifle-shot in a moment” “And yon did ght,” cried honest old Ryan, “For my part, I never could bring myself to bleating deer. I've been with hunters who had bleats, and have made them throw them away. It's a rascally trek to take advantage of a mother's love Jor her young.” Toward evenmg our three worthies re- turned from their mysterious forey The tongue of Tomsh gave notice of ther approach long before they eame in sight. for he was voeiferating at the top of his lungs, and rousing the attention of the whole camp ‘The lagging gait and reching flank» of the horses, gave evidence of hard riding, and, on nearer approach, we toud them hung round with meat like a butcher's shambles. In fact, they had been scouring an immense prairie that extended beyond the forest, and which was covered with herds of buffalo. Of this prairie, and the animals upon it, Beatte had roeeived mtelhgence a few days before, in his con- \ersation with the Osages, but had kept the information a secret from the rangers, that he and his comrades might have the first dash at the gamo. They had contented ‘themsolves with killing four; though, 1f Tonish might be bebeved, they might have slain them by scores. ‘These tidings, and the buffalo meat bronght home in evidence, spread exulta- 408 tion through the camp, and every one looked forward with joy to a buffalo hunt on the prairies. Tonish was again the oracle of the camp, and held forth by the hour to a knot of listeners, crouched round the fire, with their shoulders up to their cars, He was now more boastful than ever of his shill as @ marksman, All hus want of sucess in the carly part of our march be attnbuted to beng “out of Inck,” if not “spell-bound:” aud finding nmself listened to with apparent credulity, gave an an- stance of the kind, which he declared had happened to himself, but which was evi- dently a tale picked up among Ins rela- tions, the Osages. According to this account, when about fourteen yeurs of age, as he was one day hunting, he saw a white decr come ont from a ravine. Crawlng near to get a shot, he beheld another and another come forth, until there were seven, all as white as snow Having crept sufficiently near, he singled one out and fired, but without ef- fect, The deer remamed unfnghtened. He Jonded and fired again and msved, Thus he continued firmg and mssing until all lus ammunition was expended, and the deer remained without a wound. He re- turned home despairing of his skill as a marksman, but was consoled by an old Osage hunter. These white deer, sad he, have a charmed hfe, and ean only be kalled by bullets of a particular kind The old Indian cast several balls for ‘Tonish, but would not suffer hum to be present on the occasion, nor inform him of the ingredients and mystic ceremonials. Provided with these balls, Tonish again vet out in quest of the white deer, and succeeded in finding them, He tried at first with ordmary balls, but mssed as before, A magie ball, however, immediately brought a fine buch to the ground, Whereupon the rest of the herd immediately disappeared and were never seen again October 29t—The mommg opened gloomy and lowering; but toward aght o'clock the sun struggled forth and lighted up the forest, and the notes of tho bugle404 gavo signal to prepare for marching. Now began @ scone of bustle, and clamor, and gayety. Some were scampering and brewl- ing after their horses, some were nding in bare-backed, and driving in the horses of ther comrades. Some were stripping the poles of the wet blankets that had served for shelters, others packing up with all posable dispatch, and loading the baggage horses as they arrived, while others were crackmg off ther damp nifles and chargmg them afresh. to be ready for the sport. About ten o'clock, we began our march. I loitered im the rear of the troop as it forded the turbid brook, and defiled through the labynnths of the forest, I always felt disposed to lnger until the last straggler disappeared among the trees and the distant note of the bugle died upon the ear, that I mght behold the wilderness relapsing into silence and solitude. In the present mstanee, the deserted scene of our late busthng eneampment had a forlorn and desolate appearance, The surrounding forest had been in many places trampled into a quagmire. Trees felled and partly hewn in pieces, and scattered in hugo frag- ments; teut-poles stmpped of ther cover- ing; smouldering fires, with great morsels of roasted venison and buffalo meat, stand- ing in wooden spits before them, hacked and slashed by the knives of hungry hunt- ers; while around were strewed the hndes, the horns, the antlers, and bones of buf- faloes and deor, with uncooked joints, and unplucked turkeys, left behmd with that reckless improvidenee and wastofulness whieh young hunters are apt to mdulge when in a neighborhood where game abounds. In the meantime a score or two of turkey-buszards, or vultures, were al- ready on the wing, wheclmg ther mag- mificent fhght ngh in the air, and pre- paring for a descent upon the camp as soon as it should be abandoned, Amusements In THE CauP On returning to the camp we found it a seene of the greatest hilanty Some of WASHINGTON IRVING the rangers were shovung at a mark, others were leaping, wrestling, and play- img at prison bars They were mostly young men, on their first expedition, in ugh health and vigor, and buoyant with antisipations; and T ean eonecive nothing more likely to set the youthful blood into 8 flow, than a wild wood hfe of the kind, and tho range of @ magnificent wilderness, abounding with gamo and frutful of ad- venture. We send our youth abroad to grow luxunons and effemmate in Europe; it appears to me, that a previous tour on the praines would be more hkely to pro- duce that manhness, simpheity, and self- dependence, most in unison with our polit- teal institutions, While the young men were engaged in these boisterous amusements, a graver set, composed of the Captain, the Doctor, and othor sages and loaders of the eamp, were seated or stretched out on the grass, round a frontier map, holding a consultation about our position, and the course we were to parsue. . Before sunset, we were summoned by Little Tomsh to a sumptnons repast. Blan- kets had been spread on the ground near to the fire, upon which we took our seats, A large dish, or bowl, made from the root of a maple tree, and which we had pur- chased at the Indian village, was placed on the ground before us, and into it were emptied the contents of one of the camp kettles, conssting of a wild turkey hashed, together with slices of bacon and lumps of dough. Beside it was placed another bowl of sumlar ware, contamng an ample supply of fritters, After we had discussed the hash, two wooden spits, on which the ribs of a fat buck were broihng before the fire, were removed and planted im tho ground before us, with a triumphant air, by hittle Tomsh Having no dishes, we had to proceed in hunter's style, cutting off stups and shees with our hunting knives, and dipping them i salt and pepper. To do justice to Tonish’s cookery, however, and to tho keon sauce of the prairies, never have I tasted vonison so delicions. WithA TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES all this, our bevorage was coffee, boiled in a camp kettle, sweetened with brown sugar, and drunk out of tin cups: and such was the style of our banqueting throughout this expedition, whenever provisions were plenty, and as long as flour and coffeo and sugar held out. As the twahght thickened into mght, the sentinels were marched forth to their sta- tions around the camp; an indispensable precaution in a country infested by In- dhans. The encampment now presented a picturesque appearance Camp fires were blazing and smouldering here and there among the trcos, with groups of rangers round them, some seated or lying on the ground, others standing im the ruddy glare of the flames, or in shadowy reef. At some of the fires there was much boisterous mirth, where penis of laughter were mm- gled with loud mbald jokes and uneouth exclamations; for the group was evidently a raw, undisciplined band, levied among the wild youngsters of the frontier, who had enlisted, some for the sake of roving adventure, and some for the purpose of getting a knowledge of the country. Many of them were the neighbors of their officers, and aceustomed to regard them with the famihanty of equals and companions. None of them had any iden of the restraint and decorum of a camp, or ambition to acquire a name for exactness in a profes- sion in which they had no intention of continuing. ‘While this borterous merriment pre- vailed at some of the fires, there suddenly rose a strain of nasal melody from another, at whieh @ choir of “vorahsts” were umt- ing ther voices im @ most lugubrious psalm tune, This was led by one of the heuten- ants; # tall, spare man, who wo were in- formed had officiated as schoolmaster, sing- ang-master, and occasionally ns Mcthodist preacher, in one of the villages of the frontier. The chant rose solemnly and sadly in the night mx, and remnded me of the description of simlar canticles in the camps of the Covenanters; and, indoed, the strange medley of figures and faces 405 and uncouth garbs, eongreguied together in our troop, would not have disgraced the banners of Praise-God Barebones.’ In one of the intervals of this nasal psalmody, an amateur owl, as if in com- petition, began his dreary hooting. Tmme- chately thee was a ery throughout the camp of “Charley's owl! Charley's owl!” It seems this “obseure bird" had visited the camp every mght, and had been fired at by one of the sentinels, a half-witted lad, named Charley, who, on bemg called up for firing when on duty, excused Inm- self by saymg, that he understood owls made uncommonly good soup. One of the voung rangers minucked the ery of this ned of wrdom, who, with a simpheity little consonant with his ebar- acter, came hovering within sight, and alghted on the naked branch of a tree, lt up by the blaze of our fire The young Count immediately seized us fowhng-piece, took fatal sum, and in a twinkling the poor bird of ill omen came fluttering to the ground Charley was now called upon to make and cut bi» dish of owl-soup, but aeclined, as he had not shot the bird. In the course of the evenng, I pad a visit to the Captain's fire, It was composed of huge trunks of trees, and of sufficient magnitude to roast a buffalo whole. Here were a number of the prime hunters and leaders of the camp, somo sitting, some standing, and others lymg on skins or blankets before the fire, telling old frontier stories about hunting and Indian warfare. ‘As the mght advanced, we perceived above the trees to the west, a ruddy glow flushing up the sky. “That must be a prairic set on fire by the Osage hunters,” said the Captain, “Tt 18 at the Red Fork,” sad Beate, regarding the sky, “It seems but three mules distant, yet 1t perhaps is twenty.” About half past eight o'clock, a beautiful pale hight gradually sprang up in the east, *A Baptist preacher and member of Cromwell's “Little Parhament” of 1653. His actual name was Prausegod Barbon, or Barebone,406 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ‘a precursor of the rising moon. Drawing tree was my bed, with a pair of saidle- off from the Captain's lodge, I now pre- bags for # pillow. Wrapping myself in pared for the night’s repose. I had deter- blankets, I stretched myself on this hunt- rmned to abandon the shelter of the tent, er’s coueh, and soon fell into a sound and and heneeforth to bivonne like the rang- sweet sleep, from which I did not awake ers. A bear-skin spread at the foot of a until the bugle sounded at daybreak. 14» William Cullen Bryant ~ 1s ‘HEN in 1817 the still youthful North American Review published “Than- atopsis,” the editor was told that he had been imposed on: “no one on. this side of the Atlantie,” the eritie insisted, “is capable of writing such verses.” The skeptic—R. H. Dana the elder—was soon to learn that Wilham Cullen Bryant had written “Thanatopsis” not only on this side of the Atlantic, but at the age of sixteen—that he had published his first book at fourteen! Seventy fruitful years separated that juvenile volume—an imitative political satire called The Embargo—and Bryant’s last communication to the American people, a few weeks before his death, an address on the unveiling of the statue of the Italian patriot Mazzini. The image of Bryant which is most familiar is that of the bearded patriarch of Ictters, full of years and honors, but it was a quiet, earnest boy in his teens and twenties, an ardent reader and walker, studying and practising law in rural villages, fighting his inward way to religious and pohtical liberalism, who wrote the first genuine poetry of the new national hterature His early achievement was due in no small measure to the home in which he grew up, and especially to the extraordinarily sympathetic and helpful in- terest of his father. Dr Peter Bryant, widely known and loved as a physician and respected as a legislator, was a lover of books and a man of liberal sym- pathies in political and religious matters. He guided his son's reading and encouraged his writing. But the battles the young writer had to fight were personal ones They marked his passage from a naive federalism to a democratic faith that made him a supporter of Andrew Jackson, and in later years one of the founders of the Republican party and one of the earliest and staunchest adherents of Abraham Lincoln in the East; and from a narrow Calvinism to Umitarianism and to even broader religious sympathies. He spent one year at Williams College, but most of his study was private —first in preparation for college, later in reading law. He earned a living for ten years as a lawyer—and as town clerk, justice of the peace, and hog reeve—in small towns of the hill country of western Massachusctts. Here he met and married Frances Farmer, “fairest of the rural maids,” matured his knowledge and love of the out-of-doors in many walking trips, and wroteTHANATOPSIS 407 steadily. He experimented unsuccessfully with fiction, But his criticism early showed extraordinary breadth of understanding and sureness of judgment; and his poetry, influenced at first by Thomson, Cowper and Southey, then by Byron and Wordsworth, soon beeame consistently Ameriean, and his own, While others were still only talking about a national literature, Bryant was making it. At thirty he left rural Massachusetts for New York City, and the law for journalism. Four years later, as editur-m-cluef and part owner of the New York Evening Post, he assumed responssbilities which he was to discharge with high distinction for almost fifty years Bryant was one of the greatest and most consistent liberal editors m the history of American journalism. He was alive to the issues of his time, forthright im his championship of labor and his denunetation of slavery Frequent visits to his brothers who were pioneers in Illinois kept him in touch with the development of the West, He mauntasned standards of journalistic dignity, courage, and good taste in a time when these qualities were rare m American newspapers Bryant continued to write and publish throughout his hfe, a verse trans- lation of Homer was a major achievement of his later years. But most of his work which has greatest vitality had been completed before he moved to New York, and all of his best fills only a slender volume That best wears well It is free from obscurity either accidental or designed, trom pretentiousness, from falschood of any kind—completely integrated, simple because it is sure. It is restrained but not timid, quiet but not dull. The range of experience, both mward and outward, presented in Bryant's poetry is not wide, but it is widely accessible to readers of varymg ages. backgrounds, and special tastes, In his expression of this experience Bryant challenged successfully the diffi- culties of the most exacting traditional poctie forms: Wilham Ellery Leonard considers him, “with Poe, America’s finest artist m verse” But the greatest virtue of his work is its integrity, its truth of form and phrase as personal utterance. [Biographical and critical studies of Bryant are those by John Bigelow (Boston, 1890) and W A. Bradley (New York, 1905) A good introduetion iy Tremaine McDowell’s Bryant (New York, 1935) in the American Wniters Series. The authorized biography is Parke (odwin’s Life of Bryant, 2 vols. (New York, 1883) The text used m the selections is that of the eolleeted edition, edited by Parke (iodwin (New York, 1884) } THANATOPSIS Sho has a voice of gladness, and a smile {1821 (1817)] And eloquence of beauty, and she ghdes 6 Into his darker musings, with a mild TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds And healing sympathy, that steals away Communjon with her yiuble forms, she Their sharpness, ere he 1s aware. When spoaku thoughts A various language; for his gayer hours Of the last bitter hour come hke a blight408 Ovor thy spirit, and sad images 10 Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, ‘Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;— Go forth, under the open sky, and het ‘To Nature's teaches, while from all ‘around— 16 Earth and her waters, and the depths of a Comes a still voice,— Yet a fow days, and theo The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, ‘Whore thy pale form was lad, with many tears, 20 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist ‘Thy wmage, Karth, that nourished thee, shall clam ‘Thy growth, to be resolved to carth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendermg up Thine mdhvidual being, shalt thou go 25 To mx for over with the clemonts, To be a brother to the insonsible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swan ‘Turns with lus share, and treads upon. ‘The oak Shall send ns roots abroad, and pieree thy mould. 30 ‘Yet not to thie eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Conch more magnificent. Thou shalt he down With patnarehs of the infant world—with Kings, ‘The powerful of the carth—the wise, the 00d, 35 Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre, The hills Rock-nbbed and ancient as the san,—the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; ‘The vonerable woods—nvers that move 40 In majesty, and the complaining brooks WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ‘That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Occan’s gray and melancholy waste,— ‘Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man, The golden sun, 45 The plancts, all the mnfimte host of heaven, Are shmmg on the sad abodes of death, Through the still Inpse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings 50 Of morning, pierce the Barean wilderness? Or lose thyself n the continous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save hus own dashings—yet the dead are there* And mulhons im those soltudes, since first BS The fhght of years began, have lad them down Tn their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In alence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe 60 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh ‘When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and cach one as before will chase Hhs favorite phantom, yet all these shall leave Ther mrth and their employments, and shall come 65 And mako their bed with thee As the long tran, Of ages gliden away, the sons of men, ‘The youth im hfe’s fresh spring, and he who goes In the full strength of yoars, matron and mad, ‘The speechless babe, and the gray-hended man— 70 TAs originally printed in the North Amercan Keowee, the pom began hore. *North African desert region.TO A WATERFOWL Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow thom. So hve, that when thy summons comes to yom ‘The mnumernble caravan, which moves To that mystenous realm, where each shall take 75 Ehs chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at mht, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained ‘aud soothed By un unfaltermg trust, approach thy grave, Lake one who wraps the drapery of has eouch 80 About nn, and hes down to pleasant dreams TO A WATERFOWL? [1821 (1818)) Whither, mast falling dew, ‘Winle glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, throngh ther rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy sohtary way? Vunly the fowler's eye 5 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seck'st thon the plashy brmk Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 10 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ovenn-mde? There 1s a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless eoast— The dosert and slhmitable aur— 15 Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmos- phere, Yot stoop not, weary, to the weloome land, Though the dark night 1s near, 20 409 ‘And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thon find a summer home, and rest, And seream among thy fellows; reods shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest, Thou'rt gono, the abyss of heaven 25 Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thon bast faven, And shall not soon depart, Ho who, from zone to zone, Gmdes through the boundless sky thy eer- tam flight, 30 In the long way that 1 must tread alone, Will lend my steps anght, “OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MalDs” [1832 (1820)] Oh faurest of the rural maids! Thy birth was in the forest shades; Green boughs, and ghmpses of the ‘Were all that met thy infant eye. Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, 5 Wore ever in the sylan wild, And all the beauty of the place 1s. m thy heart and on thy face. The twihght of the trees and rocks Is m the hght shade of thy locke; 10 Thy step 1m» as the wind, that weaves Its playful way among the leaves, ‘Thme eyes are springs, mm whose serene And silent waters heaven 18 seen; , ‘Their lashes are the herbs that look 15 On their young figures m the brook, ‘The forest depths, by foot unpressed, Are not more sinless than thy breast; The holy pence that fills the ar Of those calm solitudes, is there. 20 2 For the cireumstances under which this poem was written, see Parko Godwin’s Life of Bryant (New York, 1883), vol. 1, pp 143-44,410 TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN [1832 (1829)] Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own bine, That openest when the quiet light Succeeds the keen and frosty might. Thou comest not when violets lean 5 O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, Or columbines, m purple dressed, Nod o'er the ground-bird’> Indden nest. ‘Thou waatest late and com't alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, 10 And frosts and shortenmg days portend ‘The aged year 1 near his end. ‘Then doth thy sweet and quict eve Look through its fringes to the shy, Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall 16 A flower from its eerulean wall. 1 would that thus, when I shall see ‘The hone of death draw neat to me, Hope, blossommg within my heart, May look to heaven ay I depart. 20 MIDSUMMER, [1832 (1826) A power 1s on the earth and im the air From which the wtal spit shrinks afraid, And shelters lum, in nooks of deepest shade, From the hot steam and from the fiery glare, Look forth upon the earth—her thousand plants 5 Are amtien, even the dark sun-loving maize Fints in the field beneath the torrid blaze; The herd beude the shaded fountmn pants; For hfe 18 driven from all the Iandseape brown; WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den, 10 The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town; ‘Asif the Day of Fire had dawned, and sent Its deadly breath into the firmament, THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES [1836 (1834)] ‘Ay, tins is froedom!—thene pure skies Were never stained with village smoke: The fragrant wind, that through them flies, Is breathed from wastes by plough un- broke Here, with my rifle and my steed, 5 And her who lett the world for me, I plant me, where the red deor feed In the green devert—and am free. No barriers in the bloomy grass; 10 Wherever breeze ot heaven inay blow, Or heam of heaven may glance, T pass. In pastures, measnreless as ar, The bison 1s my noble game, The hounding elk, whose antlers tenr 15 The branches, falls before my num Mine are the mver-fowl that scream From the long stmpe of waving sedge, The bear that marks my weapon’s gleam, Hides vamly m the forest's edge. 20 In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; The brinded catamount, that hes High m the boughs to watch Ing prey, Even im the act of springing, dies With what free growth the elm and plane w Fling their huge arms across my way, Grey, old, and cumbered with a train Of ines, as huge, and old, and gray! Free stray the Iueid streams, and find No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; 30 ‘Free spring the flowers that scent tho wind Where never seythe has swept the glades,THE DEATH OF LINCOLN Alone the Fire, when froatwinds sero ‘The heavy herbage of the ground, Gathers his annual harvest here, 35 With roaring like the battle’s sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plam, ‘And smoke-streams gushing up the sky . I meet the flames with flames agmn, ‘And at my door they cower and die, 40 Here, trom dim woods, the aged past Speak» solemnly ; and [ behold The boundless future a the vast And lonely river, seaward rolled. Who feeds its founts with ram and dew? 45 Who moves, | ask, ts ghding mas, And trams the bordering vines, whone bine Bright clusters tempt me as 1 pass? Broad aie these streams—my steed obeys, Plunges, aud bears me through the fide. 50 Wade are thee woods—I tread the maze Of giunt stems, uor ask a guide, T hunt tall day's last ghminer dies O'er woody yale and grassy height, And kind the vowe and glad the eyes, 55 That welcome my return at meht, THE BATTLE-FIELD [1842 (1837)] Once tus soit turL, this rivulet'y sands, Wore trampled by a hurrying crowd, And fiery hearts and armad lands ‘ountered 1m the battle-cloud, Ah! never shall the land forget 5 How gushed the life-blood of her brave— Gushed, warm with hope and courage yot Upon the sml they fought to save Now all as calm and fresh and still. Alone the chirp of fitting bird, 10 And talk of cluldren ou the lull, And bell of wandenng lane, aro heard. ‘No solemn host goes trailing by The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain, 41 ‘Men start not at the battle cry, wb Oh, be it never heard again! Soon rested thove who fought; but thou, ‘Who munglest m the harder strife For truths which men recewve uot now, Thy warfare only ends with hie, 20 A frvendless warfare! hngenng long Through weary day and weary year, A wild and many-weapoued throng ‘Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear, Yot nerve thy spinit to the proof, a5 And blench not at thy chosen lot. ‘The tumd guod may stand aloof, ‘The sage may trown—yet famt thou not, Nor heed the shaft too surely east, The foul and using bolt of seorn; 30 For with thy side shall dwell, at last, The victory of endurance born. Truth, crushed to earth, shall rive agam; ‘Th’ ctemal years of God are hers; But Enor, wounded, writhes in pain, 35 And dies among his worshippers, ‘Yea, though thou he upon the dust, When they who helped thee flee m fear, Die full of hope and manly trust, Lake those who fell m battle here, 40 Another hand thy sword shall wield, Another hand the standard wave, Till trom the trumpet's mouth 1» pealed The blast of triumph o'er thy grave, THE DEATH OF LINCOLN (1865) Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, Gentle and merertul and just! Who, m the tear of God, ddst bear ‘The sword of power, a nation’s trast! In sorrow by thy bier we stand, 5 Aimid the awe that hushes all, And speak the anguish of a land That shook with horror at thy fall.412 ‘Thy task is done; the bond are free: ‘We bear thee to an honored grave, 10 ‘Whose proudest monument shall be ‘The broken fetters of the slave. Pure was thy life, its bloody close Hath placed thee with the sons of hght, Among the noble host of those 15 ‘Who perished in the cause of Right, From AN ESSAY ON AMERICAN POETRY [1884 (1818)] OF THE poetry of the United States different opimions have been entertained, and preyndieo on the one side and partiality on the other have equally prevented a just and rational estimate of 1ts morits. Abroad our literature has fallen under unmerited contumely, from those who were but slen- derly acquainted with the subject on which they professed to decide; and at home st must be confessed that the swaggering and pompous pretensions of many have doue not a hittle to provoke and excuse the ridi- cule of foreigners. Either of these extremes exerts an injurious influence on the cause of letters i our country. To encourage exertion and embolden ment to come for- ward, it 15 necessary that they should be acknowledged and rewarded. Few men have the confidence to solat what 18 wan- tonly withheld, or the courage to tread a path which presents no prospect but the melancholy wrecks of those who have gone before them, National gratitude, national pnde—every lugh and generous feeling that attaches us to the land of our birth, or that exalts our characters as individuals— ash of us that we should foster the mfant terature of our country, and that genius and mdustry, employing ther cfforts to hasten ats perfection, should receive from our hands that celebrity winch reflects as much honor on the nation which confers it as on those to whom it 1s extended. On the other hand, it is not necessary for these purposes—it 18 even detrimental WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT —to bestow on mediocrity the praise due to excellence, and still more so is the at- tempt to persuade ourselves and others into an admiration of the faults of favorite wnters. We make but a contemptuble figure in the eyes of the world, and set ourselves up as objects of pity to our postenty, when we affect to rank the poets of our own country with those mghty masters of song who have flourished in Greece, Italy, and Britain. Such extravagant admiration may spring from a praiseworthy and pn- triotie motive, but it seems to us that it defeats 1ts own objeet of encouraging our Iterature, by seducing those who would aspire to the favor of the public mto an imitation of umperfeet models, and Ieadmg them to rely too much on the partiahty of thar countrymen to overlook ther de- Aeeneies, Were our rowards bestowed only ‘on what 1s antrinsically meritorious, merit alone would have any apology for appear- ing before the pubhe. The portical adven- turer should be taught that it 1s only the production of genius, taste, and dihgence that ean find favor at the bar of enters, that Ins writmgs are not to be applauded merely because they are wntten by an American, and are not deadedly bad, and that he must produce some mare satisfac- tory evidence of his elm to celebrity than ‘an extract from the parish register To show Inm what we expect of hum, 1t 18 as necessary to point out the faults of hiv predecessors as to commend their exeel- lences, He must be taught as well what to avoid as what to imitate, This 1s the only way of diffusmg and preserving a pure taste, both among those who read and those who wnite, and, m our opimon, the only way of affordmg ment a proper and ef- fectual encouragement, . . . With respect to the style of poetry pre- vailing at the present day i our country, pprehend that it will be found, in too man} instances, tinged with a sickly and affected umtation of the pecuar manner of some of the late popular poets of Eng- land, We speak not of a disposition to emulate whetevor 14 beautiful and oxcel-THE RIGHT OF WORKMEN TO STRIKE Jent in thew writings, still less would we be understood as intending to censure that sort of imitation which, explonng all the treasures of English poetry, calle from all a diction that shall form a natural and becoming dress for the conceptions of the writer—ths 1 a course of preparation which every one ought to go throngh be- fore he appears before the publie—but. we desire to set a mark on that servile habit of copying which adopts the vocabu- lary of some favonte author, and apes the fashion of his sentences, and cramps and forces the ideas anto # shape which they would not naturally have taken, and of which the only recommendation 1, not that it 1s most elegant or most stnkng, but that at bears some resemblance to the man- ner of him who 1 proposed as a model ‘Ths way of writing has an air of poverty and meanness, 1t seems to indieate a pau- city of roadmg as well ns a perversion of taste, it might almost lend us to suspect that the writer had but one or two exam- ples of poetical composition m his hands, and was afrmd of expressing Iumself, ex- cept according to some formula wlich they might contam, and it ever bas been, and ever will be, the resort of those who are sensible that their works need some facti- tious recommendation to give them even a temporary populanty, On the whole, there scems to be more good taste among those who read than those who write poetry n our country... We know of no mstance im which great poetical merit has come forward, and, find- ing its claims unallowed, been obliged to rebire to the shade from which 1t emerged Whenever splendid talents of this deserip- tion shall appear, we believe that thore will be found a disposition to eneourage and reward thom, The fondness for hterature ig fast mereasing, and, 1f this were not the case, the patrons of literature have multi- plied, of course, and will continue to multi- ply, with the mere growth of our popula- tion, The best popular Enghsh works of the day are often reprinted here—they aro dispersed all over the Union—they are 413 found in everybody's hands—they are made the subject of everybody's conversation. ‘What should hinder our native works, if equal in mérit, from meeting an equally favorable reeeptiont . . . THE RIGHT OF WORKMEN TO STRIKE* [1884 (1836)] SENTENCE was passed on Saturday on the twenty “men who had determmed not to work” The pumshment selected, on due consideration, by the judge, was that off- cers appointed for the purpose should im- mediately demand from each of the delin- quents a sim of money which was named mm the sentence of the court, The amount demanded would not have fallen short of the savings of many years. Either the offenders had not parted with these savings, or ther brother workmen raised the ran- som money for them on the spot The fine ‘was paid over as required All 1s now well; justice has been satisfied But if the ex- penses of their families had antietpated the Jaw, and Jeft nothing m their hands, or if frends liad not been ready to buy the freedom of their comrades, they would have been sent to prison, and there they would have staid, until thewr wives and children, besides carmng their own bread, had saved enough to redeem the captives from ther cells, Such has been ther punishment. What was their offence? They had commit ted the rime of nnanmously declnng to go to work at the wages offered to them by their masters. They had smd to one an- other, “Let us come out from the meanness and musery of our caste. Let us begin to do what every order more privileged and more honoured 1s doing everyday. By the means wiieh we beheve to be the best let 1 Indicted under the spiracy, 21 journeyman am the New York Court of Oyer and ‘Termmner, and convieted and heavily fined, in June, 1836. This editonel appeared in the New York Evening Post, June 13, 1896,414 us raise ourselves and our families above the humbleness of our condition, We may ‘be wrong, but we cannot help believing that we might do much if we were trae brothers to each other, and would resolve not to sell the only thing which is our own, the canning of our hands, for less than it as worth” What other things thoy may have done 1s nothing to the purpose. it was for this they were condemned, it as for this they are to endure the penalty of the lew, ‘We call upon a candid and goncrous community to mark that the pumshment inflicted upon these twenty “men who had determuned not to work” is not directed against the offenee of conspinng to pre- vent others by forve from worlang at low wages, but expressly agamst the offence of settlng by pre-coneert the compensation winch they thought they were entitled to obtain, It is certamly superfiuous to repeat, that this journal would be the very last to oppose a law levelled at any attempt to molest the labourer who chooses to work for less than the prices settled by the union, We have said, and to cut off cavil, we say it now again, that a conspiracy to deter, by threats of violence, a fellow work- man from arranging ins own terms with lus employers, 18 a conspiracy to commit a felony—a conspiracy which, beng @ crime against hiberty, we should be the first to condemn—a conspiracy which no strike should, for its own sake, countenance for a moment—a conspiracy already pumshable by the statute, and far easier to reach than the one of which “the twenty” stood ac- cused; but a conspiracy, we must add, that has not a single feature in common with the base and barbarous prohibition under which the offenders were indicted and con- demnod. They were condemned because they had determined not to work for the wages that were offered them! Can any thing be imaged more abhorrent to evory senti- ment of generosity or justice, then the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poorf If WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT this is not SLAVERY, we have forgotten ats definition, Strike the geht of associat! ing for the sale of Inbour from the privi- leges of a freeman, and you may as well at once bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil. If it be not in the colour of his skin, and m the poor franchise of naming Ins own terms in a contract for his work, what advantage has the Iabourer of the north over the bondman of the south? Punish by human laws a “determmnation not to work,” make it penal by any other penalty than sdleness anfliets, and it mat ters little whether the task-masters be one or many, an individual or an order, the hateful scheme of slavery will have gained 1 foothold m the land And then the mean- ness of this law, which visits with ats malice those who cling to xt for protection, and shelters with all ity fonees those who fare raised above its threats A late solicite- tion for its aid nganst employers, is treated with denson and contempt, but the moment the “masters” mvoked its in- tervention, xt came down from its high place with most indecent haste, and has now discharged its fury upon the naked heads of wretches so forlorn, that ther worst faults multiply ther titles to a hb- erty which they must learn to win from hveler sensibilities than the barren benev- olenee of Wealth, or the tardy magna- mumity of Power. SENSITIVENESS TO FORFIGN OPINION? [1884 (1839)] COOPER'S last work, “Home as Found,” has been flereoly attacked, in more than one quarter, for its supposed tend- ency to convey to the people of other countries a bad iden of our national char- acter. Without staying to examine whether all Mr. Cooper's ammadversions on Ameri- can manners are perfectly just, we seize + This editorial appeared the New York Evening Post, Jan, 11, 1839,JAMES FENIMORE COOPER {he occasion to protest against this excese- ivg sonsibility ~to the opinion of other nations. It 1s no matter what they thnk of us, We constitute a community largo enough to form a great moral tribunal for the trial of any question which may arise among ourselves, There 18 no oceason for this perpetual appeal to the opimions of Europe, We are competent to apply the rules of night and wrong boldly and firmly, without asaug im what hght the supenor judgment of the Old World may regard our decisions, It has boon said of Amoneans that they are yamglorious, boastful, tond of talk- ing of the greatness and the advantages of ther country, und of the excellence ot ther national character, They have this forble im common with other nations, but they have auother habit which shows that, with all ther nafonal vamty, they are not s0 confident of their own greatness, or of their own capacity to estimate it properly, as ther boasts would amply. They are perpetually asking, What do they think of ux an Europe? How are we regarded abroad? if a foreiguer publishes an ae- count of hus travels in thnx couitry, we are instantly on the alert to know what notion of our charneter he has commumeated to Ins countrymen, st an Amenean author publishes a book, we are cager to know how at 1 aecened abroad, that we may know hon to judge it ounclves, So far hay this humor been carried that we have seen an extinct, from a third- or fourth. rate eritical work im England, condemung 415 some American work, copied into all our newspapers one after another, as if it determined the character of the work be youd appeal or question. For our part, we admire and honot a fearless acensor of the faults of so thin- slanned a nation as ours, always suppos- ing hun to be sineere and well-intentioned. ‘He may be certain that where he has sowed animadveraon he will reap an sbundant harvest of ccnsure and obloquy. He will have one consolation, however, that if his book be witten with ability it will be read, that the attacks which are made upon it will draw it to the pubbe atton- tion, and that st may thus do good even to thove who recaleitrate most violently against at. If every man who wntes a book, instead of askang Inmvel{ the question what good at will do at home, were first held to m- quire what notions xt conveys of Amen- caus to persons abroad, we should pull the smens out of our literature, There is much want of free-speaking ns things stand at present, but this rule will abolish it alto- gether It is bad enough to staud m fear of public opimon at home, but, 1f we are to supetadd the fear of pubhe opmon abroad, we submit to a double despotism Greut reformers, preachers of righteous- ness, eminent satirists in different ages of the workl-—did they, before entering on the work they were appomted to do, ask what other nations mght thmk of thew countrymen if they gave utterance to the voice of salutary reproof? xe9 ~ James Fenimore Cooper ~ 1851 'T IS casy to make fun of Cooper. of his stilted style, of his preposterous feminine characters, or “females,” as he called them, Mark Twain, in his “Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses,” held Cooper up to merciless ridicule; ‘Thackeray's “The Stars and Stripes” and Bret Harte’s “Muck-a-Muck” are uproarious Cooper parodies, But the reader who assumes that his Jaughter has taken Cooper's measure is sclf-deecived. There is a solid core of merit in almost416 JAMES FENIMOBE COOPER every one of Cooper's fifty books. To find it one must achieve a certain im- munity to, or tolerance of, his faults: his formal, pedantic sentence structure and his frequently trite and colorless vocabulary; his inveterate contentiousness and didacticism; hig repeated subservience to the conventions of the bad romantic novel. For most readers of today this tolerance is not easy to attain; but it is worth the effort. Once we can read Cooper without pain, we can read him with very real pleasure and profit, finding him amusing, entertaining, informative, even stim- ulating. In his pages our American world of the past, in all its diversity, becomes more picturesquely alive than in those of any other early American writer. ‘We assemble a gallery of notable and memorable characters, sharply individ. ualized and pungently real, We encounter many passages of external action hard to equal in any fiction We experience also the clash of 1deas, tenaciously held and vigorously set forth—ideas we may find repugnant in some instances, though candor may compel us to admit, on due reflection, that they are ideas which have great vitality today. And behind all this we come to know Cooper the man, one of the most highly individual and deeply mteresting human beings in our literary history. Much of the substance of Cooper's fiction came directly from hs own life. The son of the wealthiest and most mfluential man of a frontier com- munity im western New York, he had an adventurous boyhood, two stormy years at Yale, and a brief career as a naval officer before he married and settled mto the hfe of a country squire Hhs first novel was a poor imitation of the eurrently popular British fiction of aristoeratie society, but m the second he found himself as a writer There is some justification for datmg the begmmmng of our national Literature from the publication of The Spy m 1821 Mere was broad, just, and essentially realistic treatment of events of the Revolutionary ‘War; here native American materials were used in fiction with unmistakable authority for the first time. The book was an immediate success, and at thirty- two Cooper found himself suddenly the most popular writer in America. Promptly Cooper wrote again, choosing the western New York frontier of his boyhood as the new source of material In The Pioneers (1823) he first sketched the character of Natty Bumppo-Hawkeye-Leatherstocking, his greatest character and a real contribution to American mythology. Less vigorous in action than its predecessor or immediate successors, The Pioneers, as social history, is one of the most substantial of all Cooper's novels, A third time Cooper dipped into his own past, this time into his experience at sea. The Pilot (1824) is the first great American sea story: strong in action, accurate in technical detail, weak as Cooper almost always is im its “heroie” and highborn characters, but fine in its delineation of Long Tom Coffin, the lonely pilot, and of the life at sea, In The Last of the Mohicans (1826) he greatly strengthened the dramatic figure of the man of the wilderness, and also in his trio of IndianJAMES FENIMORE COOPER 417 charaeters—Uncas, Chingachgook and Magua—he made his second major eon- tribution to the world-pieture of the American past. ‘When in 1881 Cooper completed his first decade as a writer he had pro- dueed ten books, nine of them novels, eight of these American historical ro- manees. By 1840 he was to write and publish fourteen books, but not one of them an American historical romanee. In 1826 Cooper had taken his family to Paris, to give his young daughters the educational and social opportunities which he thought appropriate; he remamed abroad for more than seven years, gaining perspective on both Europe and America and deriving pleasure and stimulus from association with Scott—who was generously kind—and other writers. Cooper found his romances immensely popular in England and on the continent. Only gradually did he come to realize how far were his foreign readers from interpretmg these books properly and understanding contem- porary America In these years British and European travelers m steady pro- cession were crossing the Atlantic and returning to publish books about Amer- ea. To Cooper all these hooks were madequate and most of them unfair. Some of the British accounts were particularly vicious, and American writers were beginning to reply in kind. Cooper was too good an American not to use his prommence and influence, and the advantage of his European residence and popularity, m this hterary war He published in 1828 a descriptive and inter- pretative account of his native land under the title Notions of the Amerwans, giving it the form of a series of personal letters from a cultured European traveler to the fellow members of a cosmopolitan and distinguished geographical society. Though avowedly limited in scope to the parts of the country Cooper knew at first hand, the book 1s serupulously accurate m details, broud and just in gencral observation, and acute m analysis But the foreign readers of Cooper were not much impressed They preferred to believe n the picture of America in the Leatherstockmg Tales—a wilderness peopled by hunters and Indians— which confirmed their prejudiees American readers, on the other hand, actively resented the udverse criticisms which Cooper's sense of truth had led him to include. Before Cooper returned from Europe in 1832 he had written three his- torical novels with European settings, The Bravo (1831), Tho Heidonmauer (1882), and Tho Headsnfan (1833), demgned, he declared, to reveal to American readers the inferiority of European social standards and attitudes by tracing their development. Refusing to be so edified, his American public aceused him of deserting native materials, One attack in particular moved Cooper to reply, and he found himself involved in a quarrel with his own countrymen—a quarrel which deepened with the years and affected almost all his later work. Its immediate fruits were two ventures into polemics in which Cooper stated his position and defined his political philosophy, A Letter to His Countrymen (1884) and The American Democrat (1838); and The Monikins (1835), a satire418 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER which was much indebted to Swift’s Gulliver's Travels and in which the brash materialism and shallow optimism of the 1830's in both America and England were caustically arraigned. Though brilliant in parts, the satire is heavy-handed and much too longwinded. The experiment of The Montkins having failed—the book brought only jeers and abuse—Cooper tried another: a fictional portrayal of contemporary American hfe with a serious critical purpose. The point of view he used (again drawing on his own experience) was that of an American returning with his family to his native land after some years abroad. Social criticism is subordmated to the excitement of a sea voyage in Homeward Bound (1888), but it is the chief mgredient of Home as Found (1838), which, for all its clumsiness and crudities, presents a caustic indictment of practices and attitudes in American society and polities conflicting with the principles Cooper laid down m the same year in The American Democrat. During the decade he somehow found time to put together five volumes of accounts of his European travels, and to write his admrable and unduly neglected History of the Navy of the United States of America. From these years of constant controversy and almost ineredible pro- duetiveness Cooper entered upon the third decade—plus two years—which would round out his career. From 1840 to his death in 1851 he wrote a series of biographies of naval officers and one of a common sailor, a play, and thirteen long novels. It is not surprising that in such a bulk of work there is much that is poor. What is surprising 1s that Cooper could turn from the pressures and irritations of the late 1830's to complete the Leatherstocking series with two of his best novels, The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). These books have qualities of freshness and tenderness totally absent from the work which immediately preceded them. Satanstoe (1845), the first of a trilogy which justifies landlords against anti-rent propaganda and includes The Chain- bearer (1845) and The Redskins (1846), 18 also one of the best novels in all Cooper's work, perhaps the most rewarding of his books to the reader of today. In this story, written at fifty-six, Cooper achieved a mellowness both in style and in characterization which he had never attained before, nor would reach again; and the book 1s excellent as social history of colonial New York. Other notable novels of Cooper’s last decade are Wyandotté (1848), which contains some of his best portrayal of Indian character, and Te Oak Openings (1848), the fruit of a trip to the western frontier of Michigan in 1847. His last novel, Ways of the Hour (1850), has a certam limited interest es an attack on the jury system, and perhaps more as an ancestral example of the modern murder mystery. The aging Cooper, playing chess with his wife in quiet evenings, long since alienated from almost all his friends and from much of his once enthusiastic Popular following, is a somewhat pathetic figure. In the years following his death Bryant and others justly acknowledged his service to American letters.NOTIONS OF THE AMERICANS 49 But for two generations his reputation rested almost solely upon his romances of forest and sea, and only in recent years has his social criticism been fairly appraised. Today he is increasingly appreciated as a writer of lasting interest and value to the reader who will take the trouble to know him well. [R. E. Spiller’s Fentmore Cooper, Critic of His Times (New York, 1931) and H, W. Boynton’s James Fenimore Cooper (New York, 1931) are the best biographies. Good introductions are to be found m Spiller's Cooper in the American Writers Series, in Yvor Winters’ Maule’s Curse (Norfolk, Conn, 1988), and in George Snell’s The Shapers of American Fiction (New York, 1947). The text of the selections from Notions of the Americans is that of the edition of 1828. Titles have been supplied by the present editors, and the text has been shghtly abridged. The text of the selections from The American Democrat is that of the edition of 1888, The text of the selections from the novels is that of the collected edition, New York, 1859.61] From NOTIONS OF THE AMERICANS [1828] ‘Tae American SCENE ‘TO Sir Edward Waller, Bart: Onee for all, dear Waller, I wish you to understand that—a few peaceable and half-civihzed remains of tnbes, that have been permitted to reclaim small portions of land, excepted—an inhabitant of New- York 18 actually as far removed from a savage as an inbabitant of London. The former has to traverse many hundred leagues of termtory to enjoy even the sight of an Indian, in a tolerably wild condition, and the latter may obtain a sumiar gratification at about the same ex- pense of time and distance, by crossing the ocean to Labrador. A few degraded descendants of the ancient warhke pos- sessors of this country are indeed seen wandering among the settlements, but the Indian must now be chiefly sought west of the Mismssippi, to be found in any of us savage grandeur. Cases do oceur, beyond a doubt, in which Inckless individuals are induced to make their settlement in some unpropitious spot where the current of emigration cbsti- nately refuses to run, These subjects of an unfortunate speculation are left to strug- gle for years in @ condition between rude aavihzation, and one approachmg to that of the hunter, or to abandon their posses- sions, and to seck a happier seetion of the country. Nine times in ten, the latter course 1s adopted But when ths tide of emgra- tion has sct steadily towards any favoured point for a reasonable time, at 1s absurd to seek for any vestige of a barbarous hfe among the people The emgrants carry with them (I now speak of those parts of the country 1 have scon) the wants, the habits, and the mstitutions, of an ad- vanced state of society. The shop of the artisan 1s reared sumultaneously with the rude dwelling of the farmer. The trunks of trees, piled on cach other, serve for both for a few years, and then suecoed dwellings of wood, in a taste, magnitude, and comfort, thet are utterly unknown to men of sumilar means in any other quarter of the world, which it has yet been my lot to vist. The ttle school-houso is shortly erected at some convement point, and a tavern, a store, (the American term for a shop of all sales,) with a few tenements oecupied by mechanies, soon indicate the spot for a church, and the site of the future village, From fifty or a hundred420 of these centres of exertion, spread swarms that ins fow years shall convert mazes of dark forests into populous, wealthy, and industrious counties. Tho manufactures of Europe, of the Indies, and of China, aro seen exposed for sale, by the side of the coarse products of the country; and the same individual who vends the axe to fell the adjoining forest, ean lay before your eyes a very tolerable speumen of Lyons ‘silk, of Enghsh broadcloth, of Nankans, of teas, of coffees, or indeed of moxt of the more common luxunes of life. The number ‘and quality of the latter inercase with the growth of the establishment; and it 18 not too much to say, that an Amencan village store, in a thnving part of the country, where the settlements are of twenty years’ standing, can commonly supply as good an assortment of the manufactures of Europe, as a collection of shops in any European country town; and, i the general nature of thei stock be considered, embracing, a8 at does, some of the products of all countmes, one ninch greater. As to wild beasts, savages, ote, ete, ete. they have no existence im these re- gons, A solitary bear, or panther, or even a wolf, wandering near the flocks of a country twenty years old, has an effect like that produced by an invasion In the earlier days of the sottlement, xt 16 0 task to chase the ravenous beasts irom the neighbourhood A price 1s offerod for ther heads, and for a ume a mutnal destruction against the flocks on one side, and the beasts on the other, 18 the eonsequenee, In ‘& year or two, this task 1s reduced to an occasional duty. In a fow more, xt 18 sought as an amusement: and ere tho twenty years expire, the appearance of a wolf among the American farms 1s far less common than on the most ancient plains of certein parts of France, Every man has his rifle or his musket, and every man not only knows how, but he 1s fond of using them against such foes. Thus, you sec, though wild beasts may be permitted, lke Raphael’s Seraphim, to encircle your pic- tures of American'manners in fant rchef, JAMES FENIMORE COOPER they must rarely indeed be permitted to enter into the achon of the piece; more especially 2f the scene be laid in any of the settled portions of the threo Statos that form the subject of ths letter. We made part of this excursion in the puble stages, part with hired horses, and part in steamboats, It 14 impossible to enter on a desemption of the surface of the country we saw, for 1 ineluded moun- tains, valleys, and vast plains, intermingled an such a manner ax to render the task wearsome. We had gone about fifty mules west of Albany, when my companion de- sired the vehicle to stop, and invited me to mount a gentle aseont on foot. On reaching the summat, he turned and pomted to a view which reembled nono J had ever before witnessed. We were travelling along the termination of a range of mountains, which, running north and south, fell gracetully away, in the former direetion, into what 1s called the valley of the Mohawk, before they gradually rose again on the other side of that river, The descent and the ascent were very simular, the intervening country lying m broken and uregolar terraces, whieh often had the appearance of fertile valleys, before the rich bottoms of the mver are gamed Our precise position was on the very brow of one of the most projecting spurs of this broken range, and it admitted of an uninterrupted prospect to the north- cast, and to the north-west, of the falling country in our front, and of the msing hulls opposite, that could not have been contained m a erenmference of much less than two hundred miles The view was limited to what lay mm advance of @ line drawn nearly enst and west, the adjacent mountains presenting obstacles to our vi- sion, farther south, It was completely an American scene, embracing all thet ad- muxture of civilization, and of the forest, of the works of man, and of the reign of nature, that one can so casly imagine to belong to this country. ‘Thero was perhaps an equal distnbation of ficld and forest. The latter term is not,NOTIONS OF THE AMERICANS however, the best, since it was a constant ‘snotession of open land and of ‘wood, in Proportions which, without boing exactly, were surprinngly equal. You have stood upon a height, and looked down upon a fertile French plain, over which agriculture hhas been conducted on a scalo a little larger then common, You may remember the divisions formed by tho hues of the ‘grains of the vineyards, and of the grasses, which give to the whole an sir so chequered ‘and remarkable, Now, by extending the view to the size I have named, and en- larging these chequered spots to a corre- sponding scale, you get a tolerably necu- rate adea of what I would dexenbe, The dark green shadows are produced Ly the johage of a wood, reverved, perhaps, for the use of half a dozen farms, and lymg in @ body, (some comnion objection to culture influencing that number of propnie- tors to seleet adjacent ground for thar reservations) and the fields of golden yellow, or of vanous shades and hues, are produeed by the open fields, The distance dumnushes the objets to the eye, and brings the several parts so much m union, a8 to lond to the whole the vanegated aspect of the sort of plan gust mentioned. The natural river which divides this glori- ous panorama in nearly two cqual parts, with it arbfeal rival! and the sweet meadows that border its banks, were con- cealed beneath the brow of the last pre- capitous descent, But countless farmhouses, with ther eapacions out-buildings, dotted the fields, like mdieated spots on a erowd- ed map. From those m the near view, rose the hight vapoury summer smoke. The fields were alive with herds, and with numberless and nearly mmpereeptible white atoms, which, but for thee motion, it would not have been easy to amagine flocks. In the distance, though these more minute objects were lost, habitations, barns, and pyramids of hay and of grain, could be distinguished, until the power of vision failed. Immediately at our fect, at the distance of a fow miles, lay a wide, rich terrace, mtersected with roads, that were 424 bordered, as usual, by scattered farm build- ings, surrounded by their granaries and barns. Near its centre, a cluster of buildings assumed the air of a hamlet. From among these roofs, rose the spire of a country church, 1 was told that = multitude of villages lay with the mits of the view; but as they were generally placed near some stream, for the advantage of its water-power, the unoven formation of the land hid them from our sight, Tho eye overlooked even the cities of Albany and ‘Troy, and rested, m that direction, on some of the lesser spurs of the mountains of Vermout. As I looked upon this seene, 1 felt xt only wanted the rveullections of monu- ments of antiquity to give it the deepest interest, The opuuon might have eseaped my hips, amd the eapressions of a sin- cere delight. My compamion gently touched an arm, and directed my attention from the view to himself He was standing at my elbow with an open map of the country am his hand. As he met my oye, he gravely sad, “You complam ot the absenco of association to give ats seeret, and perhaps greatest charm which such a sight 1s capa- ble of mspirng. You complam unyustly, The moral fechng with whieh » man of sentiment and Imowledge looks upon the plams of your hemaplere, 18 connected with Ins recollections, here xt should be mingled with Iny hopes, The same effort ot the mind 15 a» equal to the one as to the other. Examme ths map. You see our position, and you know the space that lies between us and the sea. Now look westward, and observe how many degrees of longi- tude, what broad reaches of terntory must bo passed before you gan the bmuts of our ostablishments, and the consequent reign of abundanee and enabzaton.” Here he dropped the map; and I fanaed he even spoke with solemnity, as he continued —“Count —," he smd, “you see that I ‘The great Canal, 360 miles in length. {Cooper's note, The Ene Canal, juning the Hudson River and Lake Krie, It was completed in 1825.)am a man of middle age: listen to what even my short memory extends. Along the river which lies hid in the deep valley before us, the Isbours of man have ensted for more than a century. There are one or two shallow streams near us, along which the enterprise of tho settlers early directed iteelf. A few mules to the west, we shall enter a little valley, where a handfull of refugees from Ireland took up ther abodes some eighty years ago; and there are other mnsulated spots, where solitary individuals trusted to the savage, and raised thoir ample dwellings before the war of the revolution. But that httle plain, at our feet, could have fed, and clothed, and harboured all who were then seattered, not only over the parts of the country I have shown you here, but,” sweeping lus hand along the map, across states and terntories larger than those governed by most of the European monarehs, “all of white colour, who then mbabited these wide regions too. I remember this country, Sir, as it existed m my childhood, and at 18 vain to say, it 1s a land without recollec- tions, Draw a lne from this spot, north and south, and all of avilization that you shall see for a thousand miles west, is what man hes done sinee my mfancy. You exelude, by this boundary, far more than you gam in tho meagre exceptions. That view before you 1s but a fae-smle of a thousand others I know not what honest pleasure 1 to be found in recollection, that cannot be excited by a knowledge of these facts, These are retrospects of the past, whieh, brief and fambar as they are, lead the mnd msensibly to cheerful ant- capations, which may ponetrate into a fu~ tunity as dim and as faneiful as any fic- tions the warmest imaginations can con- ceive of the past. But the speculator on moral things can enjoy a satisfachon here, that he who wanders over the plans of Greece will seek in vain, Tho pleasure of the Intter, if he bo wise and good, is unavoidably tinged with melancholy re- grets; while here all that reason allows may be hoped for in behalf of man, Every JAMES FENIMORE COOPER one in medicerity of circumstances has enjoyed some of that interest which is attendant on the advancement of those obyecta on which he has fastened a portion of hus affections, Tt may be the moral or physical mprovement of his ebild,—the embellishment of a garden, a paddock, a park, or of the conveniences of some town; but, depend on it, there is no pleas- ure connected with any imterest of this cheracter, that 15 commensurate with that ‘we enjoy, who have seen the burth, infancy, and youth, and who are now about to become spectators of the matunty, of a whole country. We live in the excitement of a rapid and constantly progresnve con- dition, The impetus of society is imparted to all its members and we advance because we are not accustomed to stand still. Even the sagacious and enterpnsing New-Eng- landman, gets an additional impulse im such a living current; the descendant of the Hollander 1s fast losmg lus phlegm; and men of all nations, hereditary habits and opimons, receive an onward impulse by the constant infinence of such a com- munion, I have stood upon ths identical nll, and seen nme tenths of its smling prospect darkened by the shadows of the forest. You observe what 1t 18 to-day. He who comes a century hence, may hear the dm of a aty ming from that very plam, or find ln» faculties confused by the num- ber and complexity of its works of art.” Ausnican Lireparume TO the Abbate Giromachi: You ask me to write freely on the sub- joct of the bterature and the arts of the ‘United States, The subjects are so meagre as to rouder it ® task that would require io small portion of the talents necessary to figure in @ather, in order to ronder them of interest. Still, as the request has come in so urgent a form, I shall endeavor to oblige you... . As respects authorship, there is not much to be said. Compared to the books that areNOTIONS OF THE AMERICANS printed and road, those of native ongin are driven to their wits for broad, The United States are the first nation that possessed institutions, and, of course, distinctive opinions of 1ts own, that was ever depend- ent on a foreign people for its literature. Spoeking the samo language as the Eng- igh, and Jong an the habit of ampoyting their books from the mother country, the revolution effected no mediate change in the nature of thew studies, or mental amusements, Tho works were re-printed, at is true, for the purposes of economy, but they still continued Hnghsh. Had the latter nation used this powerful engine with tolerable address, 1 thmk they would have secured such en ally in this country as would have rendered their own dechne not only more secure, but 2s illustrious as had been thar nse. There are many theories entertamed as to the effect produced im tus country by the falschoods and jealous calummes which have been undemably ut- tered in the mother country, by moans of the press, concerning her republican de- seendant, It 1s my own opmion that, hke all other mdiculous absurdities, they have defeated themselves, and that they are now more laughed at and derided, even here, than resonted. By all that I ean learn, twenty years ago, the Amencans were, perhaps, far too much disposed to receive the opimons and to adopt the prejudices of ther relatives; whereas, I think st 1 very apparent that they are now beginning to receive thom with singular distrust. It 18 not worth our winle to enter further into thas subject, except as xt has had, or 1s likely to have, an influence on the national literature. It 1s quite obvious, that, 90 far as taste and forms alone are concerned, the htera- ture of England and that of America must be fashioned after the same models, The anthors, previously to the revolution, are common property, and 1t 18 quite idle to aay thnt the American has not just as good a nght to clam Milton, and Shakspesre, and all the old masters of language, for his countrymen, as an Englishman. The Americans having continued to cultivate, and to cultivate extensively, an neqnaint- anco with the wniters of the mother coun- try, since the separation, 1t 18 evident they must have kept paco with the trifing changes of the day. The only pecuharity that can, or onght to be expected in their Literature, 1s that which 18 connected with the promulgation of their distinetive politi eel opinions. ‘They have not been remiss an this duty, as any one may see, who chooses to examine their books, But we will devote a few minutes to a more minute account of the actual condition of Amenean htera- tore... . The hterature of the United States has, indeed, two powerful obstacles to conquer before (to use a mereantle expression) it ean ever enter the markets of its own country on terms of perfect equality with that of England. Sohtary and individual works of genius may, mdeed, be oceasion- ally brought to ght, under the umpulses of the high foclng which has conceived them, but, I fear, a good, wholesome, prof- itable and continued pecumary support, is the applause that talent most craves. The fact, that an American publisher can get an Enghsh work without money, must, for a few years longer, (unloss legislative pro- tection shall be extended to thar own authors,) have a tendency to repress a national literature. No man will pay a writer for an epic, a tragedy, @ sonnet, & lustory, or a romance, when he can get a work of equal ment for nothing. I have conversed with those who are conversant on the subject, and, I confess, I have been. astomshed at the information they im- parted. A capital American publisher has as- sured me that there are not a dozen writers, in this country, whose works he should feel confidence in pubbshing at all, while he reprints hundreds of English books without the least heutation, This prefer- enee is by no means so much owing to any424 difference in merit, as to the fact that, whon the price of the onginal author is to be ‘added to the umform hasard which ac- companies all hterary speculations, the isk becomes too great. The genorul taste of the reading world in this country is hotter than that of England. The fact is both proved and explained by the ciream- stance that thousands of works that are printed and read m the mother country, are not printed and read here. The pub- hisher on this side of the Atlantic has the advantage of seeing the reviews of every book he wishes to print, and, what 18 of far more importance, he knows, with the exeoption of books that he 1s sure of sell- ing, by means of a name, the deemion of the Enghsh erties before he makes Ins choice. Nine tames in ten, populanty, which 18 all he looks for, 18 a sufficient test of general ment. Thus, while you find every English work of character, or notoriety, on the shelves of an Amencan book-store, you may ask in van for most of the trash that 18 80 grecdily devoured im the circulating Librantes of the mother country, and which would be just as eagerly devoured here, had not a better taste bon created by a compelled abstinence. That taste must now be overcome before such works could be sold at all, ‘When I say that books are not rejected here, from any want of talent in the writ- ers, perhaps I ought to explain. I wish to express something a litle different, Talent ia sure of too many avenues to wealth and honours, in Ameriea, to seck, unnecessarily, ‘an unknown and hazardous path. It 1s bet- ter pad in the ordinary pursuits of life, than xt would be hikely to be pad by an adventure in winch an oxtraordmary and slalful, because practisod, foragm competi- tion is certain, Perhaps Iugh talent does not often make the trial with the Amenean Dookseller, but it 15 precisely for the reason I have named. ‘The second obstacle against which Amer- ean literature has to contend, 1s in the poverty of materials, There is scarcely an ore which contributes to the wealth of the JAMES FENIMORE COOPER author, that 1s found, hore, in veins as nish as m Europe, There are no annals for the Imstonian; no follies (beyond the most vulgar and commonplace) for the satirist; no manners for the dramatist; no obscure fictious for the writer of romaneo; no gross and hardy offences against decorum for the morabst; nor any of the rich artificial auxihanies of poctry. The weakest hand can extract # spark from the fint, but it would baffle tho strength of a gant to attempt kandlmg @ flame with a pudding- stone. 1 very well know there are theorists who assume that the society and institu- tions of ths country are, or ought to be, particularly fevourable to novelties and vanety. But the experience of one month, im these States, 15 suffiaent to show any observant man the falsity of their pom- tuon, The effect of a promtsenous assem- blage any where, 1s to create a standard of deportment; and great liberty permits every one to aim at its attamuent, I have never seen a nation so much ahke in my hfe, as the people of the United States, and what 1 more, they are not only luke each other, but they are remarkably like that which common senso tells them they ought to resemble. No doubt, traits of charactor that are a ttle pecuhiar, without, however, being either very poctcal, or very rich, are to be found 1 remote dis- triets, but they are rare, and not always happy exeeptious. In short, 1t 18 not poasi- ble to conceive a state of society in which more of the attmbutes of plan good sense, or fewer of the artifiaal absurdities of hie, are to be found, than here. There is n0 costume for the peasant, (there is scarcely & peasant at all,) no wig for the judge, no baton for the general, no dindem for the clucf magistrate. The darkost ages of their justory are illuminated by the ght of truth; the utmost efforts of ther chivalry are limited by the laws of God; and even the deeds of thei sages and heroes are to be sung m a language that would differ but Little from a version of the ten com- mandments, However useful and respect- able all this may be in actual life, it indi-THE AMERICAN DEMOCRAT tates but ono direction to the man of ening... . ‘Notwithstanding the overwhelming influ- enve of British publeations, and all the difficulties’ I have named, original books are gettmg to be numerous in tho Umited States. The impulses of talent and intelh- genoe aro beanng down a thousand obstu- cles. I think the now works will inerease mpidly, and that they are destined to produee a powerful infacnee on the world, We will pursue this subject another tume. —Adien. From THE AMERICAN [1838] Ax Anisrovrat ap A Deatocrat DEMOCRAT WE LIVE in an age, when the words anstocrat and democrat me mnch used, without regard to the real sigmfieations An anatocrat 1s one of & few, who porsess, the politieal power of n country, a demo- erat, one of the many The words are alvo properly apphed to those who entertain notions favorable to anstocrutical, or dem- oeratical forms of governn ‘Such per- sons are not, necessarily, erther aristociats, or democrats in fact, but merely so im opinion, Thus a member of a democratieal government may have an aristocratieal bing, and txe veraa. To call a man who hay the habits and opinions of x gentleman, an anstocrat, from that fact alone, 15 an abuse of terms, and betrays ignorance ot the tre prin- ciples of government, as well a» of the world, It must he an equivocal freedom, ander which every one 14 not the master of his own imnoeent acts and associations. and he 1 a sneaking democrat, mdeed, who Will gubmmt to be dictated to, in those habits over which nather law nor morality assumes a night of control, Some men fancy that a democrat can only be one who seek the level, soc, mental and moral, of the majority, a rule thet would at once exclude all men of refinemont, education and taste from the 425 class, ‘Those persons aro enemes of de- moeracy, as they at once render it umprac- freable. They are usually great stieklers for thar own associations and habits, too, though unable to comprehend any of a nature thet are superior They are, in truth, anstocrats m prmaple, though as- suming a contrary pretension, the ground work of all their feelngs and arguments being self Such 1s not the intention of hberty, whose am is to leave every man to be the master of hus own acts; deayimg hereditary honors, it 18 trae, as unjust and unneecssury, but uot denying the inev- atable consequenves of ewvilzation, The law of God 1s the only rule of eon- duet, m this, as in other matters, Hach man should do as he would be done by. Were the question put to the greatest advocate of indisenminate assoemtion, whether he would submit to have his company and habity dictated to hum, he would be one of the first to resist the tyranny, for they, who ae the most ngid an mamntanng ther own claims, in such matters, are usu- ally the loudest m decrying those whom they faney to be better off than them- solvcn, Indeed, st may be taken as a rule im social intercourse, that he who 1s the most apt to question the pretensions of others, as the most conscious of the doubtful posi- tion he himself oveuptes, thus establishing the very clams he affects to deuy, by let tang his jealousy of at be seen, Mamers, education and refinement, are positive things, and they bring with them innocent, tastes which are productive of high enjoy- ments; and it 1s as unjust to deny thar possessors ther indulgence, as it would bo to insist on the less fortunate’s passing the time they would rather devote to ath- Tete amusements, m hstemng to operas for which they have no relish, sang an a language they do not understand All that demoeracy means, 1s as equal a partiapation in rights as 18 practicable; and to pretend that socal equahty is a condition of popular institutions, 1s to aswume that the latter are destructive of aavilization, for, ax nothing is more solf-426 ovident than the impossibility of raising all men to the highest standard of tastes and refinement, the alternative would be to reduce the entire community to the low- ext, The whole embarrasament on this point exists in the diffienlty of making men comprehend qualities they do not them- selves possess, We can all perceive the aifference between ouredves and our feriors, but when xt comes to a question of the difference between us and our superiors, we fail to appreciate merits of which we have no proper conceptions. In face of this obvious difficulty, there is the safe and just governing rule, already men- tioned, or that of permitting every one to be the undisturbed judge of his own habits and associations, so long as they are mno- cont, and do not impair the nghts of others to be equally judges for themselves. It follows, that social intercourse must regulate itself, mdependently of anstitn- tions, with the exception that the latter, while they withhold no natural, bestow no factitious advantages beyond those which are inseparable from the rights of property, and general civilization, In a democracy, men are Just as free to aim at the Inghest attanable places in somety, as to obtain the largest fortunes, and it would be clearly unworthy of all noble sentiment to say, that the grovelling competition for money shall alone be free, while that wheh enlists all the hberal aequirements and elevated sentunents of the race, 1m demed the democrat, Such an avowal would be at once a declaration of the mferionty of the system, sinee nothing but ignoranee and vulgarity could be sts fruits, Tho democratie gentleman must differ in many essential particulars, from the aris- toeratical gentleman, though in their ordi- nary habits and tastes they ere virtually identical. Therr prmerples vary; and, to a slight degroe, their deportment aveordingly. ‘The democrat, recognizing the right of all to participate in power, will be more hb- eral in his general sentiments, a quality of superionty in itself: but, in conceding JAMES FENIMORE COOPER this much to his fellow man, he will prondly maintain his own independenes of vulgar domination, as indispensable to his personal habits, The same principles and manliness that would induce hint to depose 2 royal despot, would induce him to resist a vulgar tyrant, There is no more capital, though more ‘common error, than to suppose him an anstocrat who maintains Ins independence of habits; for democracy asserts the con- trol of the majonty, only in matters of law, and not in matters of custom. The very object of the institution 1s the ut- most practicable personal liberty, and to affirm the contrary, woald be sacriflang the end to tho means, ‘An anstoerat, therefore, 1s merely one who forhfies his excluave privileges by Positive instrtutions, and a democrat, one who 1m» willing to admit of a froe competi- tion, in all thmgs. To say, however, that the last supposes this competition will lead to nothing, is an assumption that means are employed without any reference to an ond. He 1s the purest democrat who best maintains lus nghts, and no nights can be dearer to a man of eulbvation, than ex- emptions from unseasonable myaaons on his time, by the coacve-umnded and ig- norant. Ow American EQuauiry THE EQUALITY of the United States aw no more absolute than that of any other country. There may be less mequality in thi» nation than in most others, but in- equality exists, and, in some respects, with stronger features than it 1s usual to meet with in the rest of ehristendom. The rights of property being an in- dispensable condition of civileation, and ats quiet possession everywhere guaranteed, equality of condition is rendered imposai- ble, One man must labor, while another may live luxuriously on his means; one has lewure and opportunity to cultivate his tastes, to increaso his information, and to reflue his habits, while another is com-