The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844

The last ten miles of our ride that night were passed over in a very headlong manner: we stopped only once, as we heard the cry of some hounds on the south side, and then on again, keeping our horses just within their speed, till at the worst place on the road, we gave up the reins and let them go. In less than two hours from Picolata, we snuffed the salt air again; and reaching the open country, walked our horses leisurely into St. Augustine.

As we entered the city my companion left me; and as I drew rein on the square, I noticed that the schooner was still at the dock, and all about the city was quiet and undisturbed. The storm had gone by, its skirts hanging on the eastern horizon, and forming a back-ground to the light of the light-house, while the city and bay were bright in the starlight; and if stars shine any brighter in the small hours, they were doing their best then. All looked pleasant and quite at home, even to the sentry at the corner; and there was nothing, you would say, to make one sad; but as I turned the corner I drew a breath of such yawning profundity that the old dog at the Florida House started up and growled impromptu. That dog had held a stout nigger all night in the yard, not long before; but fortunately he knew me, and after smelling, to make sure that all was right, he followed me into an out-house, when I rolled Bob out of a cradle, and giving a general order in a low voice for a warm bath in the morning, found my quarters and went to bed.

At sunrise the next morning I was half awake, grasping at the skirts of a pleasant dream, when Bob came in, blew about the room for awhile, and cried out ‘Massa, did you order um wom bath?’ ‘No; clear out! Eh? warm bath? Yes; warm bath, to be sure.’ And Bob went out, and came in directly with two wenches and a warm bath. ‘How’s the wind Bob?’ ‘De wind?’ ‘Yes; where’s the wind’ ‘Dun know, Sah.’ ‘Well, go out in the balcony and see where it comes from.’ Bob shouted through the open window, ‘De wind come from de Souf.’

I made but one spring, and the blacks vanished. Going below, I found the house in commotion. The schooner was to sail at nine o’clock, and the signal would be the report of a two-pounder which the captain carried on his quarter-deck. At eight o’clock I had been all over town from the fort to the powder house; looked in at the church, where were some fifteen or twenty kneeling, silent and devotional; and was seated at breakfast, when we heard the captain’s gun, an hour before the time. ‘My God!’ said I, ‘I can’t go without seeing Mrs. J– and kind Mrs. G–; and then there’s the pretty Di. Vernon!’ (I had bade them good-by a dozen times.) I rushed into the street, and seeing half-a-dozen ladies not far off, gave them a touch-and-go shake; rushed up a wrong street, then back again, and finally came out on the square and saw the little schooner’s sails bellied out full; passengers waving their handkerchiefs, and the people all around crying out to me to hurry, or I should lose my chance. But I didn’t hurry. The idea of hurry, after we had waited six weeks! That captain too, had he been asleep all this time, and just awaked? No; I did not hurry, but walked leisurely across the square, looking over my shoulder occasionally to see if – was any where in sight, for she had promised to be at the dock; and passing over the long wharf in the same stubborn way, I stepped on board the schooner with a stiffer upper lip than I ever remember to have had in that climate. The moment that my feet touched the deck, the ropes slipped and away flew the schooner; but in all this ‘heat, haste and hunger,’ from a half-swallowed breakfast, and consignments of pacquets and kind wishes that were left behind, the sentiment of my last look was burnt to a cinder.

THOUGHTS FROM BULWER

BY MRS. M. T. W. CHANDLERIIt cannot be that earth was given for our abiding place,Or that for nought we’re darkly doomed the storms of life to face;It cannot be our being’s cast from ’neath the ocean waveOf vast Eternity, to sink again within its grave.Else tell me why the aspiring thoughts, the glorious hopes of man,Which spring up from his ‘heart of hearts,’ brook not earth’s narrow span;Oh! tell me why unsatisfied forever here they roam,And seem to claim in higher spheres a refuge and a home.IIWhy is it that the rainbow and the tints of evening cloudsDispel the mists in which the world our spirits still enshrouds?The chord they strike!—oh, tell me not that it can be of earth—The golden heart-string that they touch is not of mortal birth:The very buds and blossoms, and the balmy summer air,Awake within us shadows vague of things more bright and fair;’Tis almost like remembrance—oh! would that I could tellThe meaning of that hidden charm my spirit knows so well!IIIA simple tone can rouse it; a smile, or even a sighCan make the ghost-like shadows flit before my dreaming eye;’Tis one of life’s deep mysteries; in vain we seek to traceThe hidden spell’s dark origin that chains our feeble race:But, oh! may we not fancy, may we not sweetly think,’Tis between us and another world a dim mysterious link?May we not hope that secret chord from God to man was given,To shadow forth within his soul pure images of heaven?IVThe very stars which pierce the veil far o’er this world of sin,And seem to give faint visions of a paradise within,In all their hallowed loveliness, their vague and mystic lore,Oh! do they not seem beckoning to a purer, holier shore?And tell me why the well-loved eyes which here upon us beamGleam radiantly o’er our path, then vanish like a dream;My Mother! oh! my Mother! shall they find belief in me,Who tell me there’s no happy land where I shall meet with thee?VI know there is a heaven which is peopled not with shades,Where the buds and flowers ne’er wither, and the rainbow never fades:Where the mourners cease from mourning, and in smiles of joy are drest,Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest:Oh! there is gladness in the thought; ’tis deep, deep joy to meTo feel that those I love so well I there again shall see;To know that though around them now my very heart-strings twine,They’ll be forever with me there—forever more be mine!

SONNET: TO THE OLD YEAR

Good-by, Old Year! we wait to greet the New,    And hope within its circling hours to see    More of content and less of misery.Yet, haply, all life’s toilsome journey through,No happier scenes than thine will meet our view;    If so, we humbly bow to Heaven’s decree,With hearts, though wounded, still as firm and true    As when we first knelt to the Deity.Many will weep, Old Year! while thou dost lay    Thine aged head within the voiceless tomb.We weep, yet on the clouds of grief doth play    The bow of promise, lighting up their gloom.Not so with many hearts that crushed and bleeding lie,Whose only thought of gladness is like thee to die! Brooklyn, Dec., 1843. Hans Von Spiegel.

THE MAIL ROBBER

NUMBER SIX

LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM HIS ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT

Sir: My friends abroad complain that my last letter reached them in small type, most pernicious to English eyes, and half hidden among the rubbish of your editorial remarks, literary notices, and chit-chat with your million butterfly correspondents. Unless I am better served in future, I shall be compelled to transfer my patronage to the post-office, dangerous as it is, and liable to the occasional interference of American citizens. I have conferred with an attorney, who tells me that there is just ground for an action for breach of trust, in the unfaithful performance of the duty you have undertaken. It remains with yourself to avert any such consequence, by attending more strictly in future to the proper conveyance of my correspondence.

During the last week I have received a note from the gentleman who stole the letters. This I enclose to you; and as I do not know where to address him, I will simply reply to him, through the Magazine, that although I have the highest respect for his talents, I would see him several miles on his way to the devil, before I would comply with his polite request.

Truly yours, etc.,—– –.THE MAIL ROBBER’S NOTE

My Dear Friend: You will be surprised that I have found out your address, and indeed it required some sagacity. But now that I have, you will pardon me for broaching a matter in which we are mutually concerned. You must be aware how horribly I have been used by the Editor of the Knickerbocker, and all through the share I have unfortunately had in your troublesome correspondence. He still persists in refusing to pay me a proper remuneration for my services, for which hitherto, I am sorry to say, I have received only insult and vexation. I have been advised by my lawyer to institute a suit at law against the miscreant, and matters are now in progress toward that desirable result.

In the mean time I have thought proper to apply to your sense of justice for a partial compensation of the trouble you have caused me. My character has been assailed, my tranquillity disturbed, and my valuable time taken up, without a penny of remuneration. Now, Sir, if you think fit to transmit to the address of ‘M. R.,’ through the post-office, a hundred dollars ($100), I will overlook what is past, and resign solely to yourself what interest I possess in your epistolary intercourse through the pages of that infamous Magazine. With sentiments of esteem,

Yours, as before,M. R.

‘So shaken as we are, so wan with care,’ we begin to wish that we had never undertaken the publication of these letters. Between two impending law-suits how shall we muster courage to keep on the even tenor of our way? Even our staunch friend, the anonymous Public, torments us with frequent accusatory epistles, charging us with dulness, impiety, and irreverence for American institutions. All these we must lay on the back of our Englishman, whose compatriots we confess are apt to assume a latitude of style hardly tolerated among us. In the mean time, gentle Public, respected Cockney, and worthy Mail-Robber, we cry you mercy all round!

Ed. Knickerbocker.

LETTER SIXTH

TO CHARLES KEMBLE, ESQUIRE, LONDONGood Cassio, Charles, Mercutio, Benedick,(Of all your names I scarce know which to pick,)Colossal relic of the nobler timeWhen great John Philip trod the scene sublime;Ay, true Colossus, for like that which strodeFrom shore to shore, while seas beneath him flowed,You seem to stand between two generations,High o’er the tide of Time and its mutations;Be not alarmed; this comes not from a dun,Nor any scheming, transatlantic Bunn,Tempting with golden hopes your waning years,Like ‘certain stars shot madly from their spheres,’Like Mathews or old Dowton, to exposeThe shank all shrunken from its youthful hose;So boldly read, howe’er it make you sigh,Nor manager nor creditor am I;Yet in some sort you are indeed my debtor,And owe me for my pains at least a letter.Not long ago, conversing at the ClubWhich Londoners with ‘Garrick’s’ title dub,We both confessed, and each with equal grief,That poor Melpomene was past relief;So many symptoms of her dotage showsThis nineteenth century of steam and prose.Nor in herself, said you, entirely liesTh’ incurable complaint whereof she dies;’Tis not alone that play-wrights are too poorFor gods or men or columns to endure;4Nor that all players in a mould are cast,Every new Roscius aping still the last;Nor yet that Taste’s too delicate excessDemands perfection and despises less;But mere indifference, that worst disease,From bard and actor take all power to please.How strive to please? when all their friends that were,To empty benches empty sounds prefer;And seek, like bees attracted by a gong,The fairy-land of tip-toe and of song;Whether a voice of more than earthly strainBe newly sent by Danube or the Seine,Or some aërial, thistle-downy thingFloat from La Scala on a zephyr’s wing.Say, might a Siddons, conjured from the tomb,Again the scene of her renown illume?Could her high art, (ay, even at half price,)The crowd from ‘La Sonnambula’ entice?No; dance and song, the Drama’s deadly plagues,Rubini’s notes, and Ellsler’s heav’nly legs,Would nightly still bring amateurs in flocks,To watch the bravos of the royal box.While thus, between our filberts and our wine,We mourned with sighs your mistress’s decline,You half indulged the fond imagination,That what seemed death was but her emigration.Perhaps, quoth you, and ’twas a bold ‘perhaps,’Ere many years of exile shall elapse,The wand’ring maid may find in foreign landsMore loving hearts and hospitable hands.Perchance her feet, with furry buskins graced,May shuddering walk the cold Canadian waste,And rest contented with a bleak reposeIn shrubless climes of never-thawing snows.Yes, in those woods that gird the northern lakes,Pathless as yet, and wild with shaggy brakes,Or in the rank savannahs of the south,Or sea-like prairies near Missouri’s mouth,Fate may conduct her to some sacred spot,Where to resume her sceptre and to—squat.Some happier settlement and simpler race,Where, though her worship lack its ancient grace,New days may dawn, like those of royal Bess,And every stream a Stratford shall possess;Where, though in marshes resonant with frogs,And rudely housed in temples built of logs,The nymph, regenerate in her classic robe,May see revived the ‘Fortune’ and the ‘Globe.’Such was the dream your fancy dared to mouldOf what yourself had witnessed here of old;When with your twins—your Fanny and your fame—Among our cousins of the west you came;But you mistook a momentary fashionFor a deep-seated and enduring passion:Now to your own a friend’s experience add,And judge what grounds your glorious vision had.Beyond that Cape which mortals christen Cod,Where drifted sand-heaps choke the scanty sod,Round the rough shore a crooked city clings,Sworn foe to queens, it seems, as well as kings.On three steep hills it soars, as Rome on seven,To claim a near relationship with heaven.Fit home for saints! the very name it bearsA kind of sacred origin declares;Ta’en, as I find by hunting records o’er,From one Botolfo, canonized of yore,5Whom bards have left nor epitaph nor verse on,Though in his day, sans doubt, a decent person:This town, in olden times of stake and flame,A famous nest of Puritans became;Sad, rigid souls, who hated as they oughtThe carnal arms wherewith the Devil fought;Dancing and dicing, music, and whate’erSpreads for humanity the hell-born snare.Stage-plays especially their hearts abhorred,Holding the Muses hateful to the Lord,Save when old Sternhold and his brother bardOped their hoarse throats and strained an anthem hard.From that angelic race of perfect men,(Sure seraphs never trod the world ’till then,)Descends the race to whom the sway is givenOf the world’s morals by confiding Heaven.These of each virtue know the market price,And shrewdly count the cost of every vice;So, to their prudent adage faithful still,Are honest more from policy than will.As if with heaven a bargain they had madeTo practise goodness and to be well paid.They too, devoutly as their fathers did,Sin, sack, and sugar equally forbid;Holding each hour unpardonably spentWhich on the ledger leaves no monument;While oft they read, with small but pious wit,Th’ inscription o’er the play-house portals writ,In a bad sense—‘The entrance to the Pit.’Among this godly tribe it was my fateTo view a triumph they enjoyed of late,Which, lest the chroniclers who come hereafterOmit, and cheat our children of their laughter,I, a Daguerre-like sketcher of the time,Will faintly shadow as I can in rhyme.Once these Botolphians, when their boards you trod,Received you almost as a demi-god;Rushed to the teeming rows in frantic swarms,And rained applauses not in showers but storms.But should you now their fickle welcome ask,Faint shouts would greet the veteran of the mask;And ah! what anguish would it be to searchFor your old play-house in a bastard church!To find the dome wherein your hour you strutted,Altered and maimed and circumcised and gutted;Become in truth, all metaphor to drop,A mongrel thing—half chapel and half shop.Long had the augur and the priest foretoldThe sad reverse they doomed it to behold;Long had the school-boy, as he passed it by,And maiden viewed it with presaging eye;Oft had the wealthy deacon with a frownGlared on the pile he longed to batter down,And reckoned oft, with sanctimonious air,What rents ’twould fetch if purified with prayer;6While through the green-room whispered rumors went,That heaven and earth were on its ruin bent.Too just a fear! The vision long foreseenHas come at last; behold the fallen queen!The queen of passion, stripped of all her pride,Discrowned, indignant from her temple glide.With draggling robe, slip-shod, her buskin loose,She flies a barren people’s cold abuse;Summons her sister, who forbears to smile,And leaves to rats the desecrated pile,Which dogs and nags already had begun,Unless by blows and hunger driv’n, to shun:For well-bred curs and steeds genteel contemnA stage which Taste had sunk too low for them;Whereon the town had seen, without remorse,A herd of bisons and a hairless horse!Behind the two chief mourners of the bandA sad procession followed, hand in hand;Heroes un-heroed, most unknightly knights,Wand-broken fairies, disenchanted sprites;Dukes no more ducal, even on the bill,Milk-livered murd’rers too ill-fed to kill;Mild-looking demons that a babe might daunt,Witches and ghosts most naturally gaunt;Lovers made pale by keener pangs than love’s,Unspangled princesses with greasy gloves;Wits very witless—grave comedians mute,And silent sons of violin and flute.After these down-look’d leaders of the show,Who creep like Trajan’s Dacians, wan and slow,Comes a long train of underlings that bearImperial robes that kings no more may wear;With truncheons, helmets, thunder-bolts and casksOf snow and lightning—bucklers, foils and masks.As tow’rd the steep of Capitolian JoveWhen chiefs victorious through the rabble strove,With all their conquests in their trophies told,And every battle mark’d with plundered gold;When the whole glory of the war rolled by,And gaping Rome seemed all one mighty eye,Behind the living captives came the dead,Poor noseless gods, and some without a head,With pictures, ivory images and plumes,And priceless tapestry from palace-looms;Ev’n such, although Night’s alchymy no moreThe crinkling tinsel turns to precious ore,Appears the pomp of this discarded race,As heaped with spoil they quit their ancient place,Bearing their Lares with them as they go—Two dusty statues and a bust or so;With mail which once a Harry Fifth had on,Triumphal cars with all the triumph gone;Goblets of tin mixed up with Yorick’s bones,Bags made of togas—barrows formed of thrones,Whereon the majesty of Denmark sat;Fie! Juliet’s petticoats in Wolsey’s hat!Swords hacked at Bosworth, fasces, guns and spearsRusted with blood before, and now with tears.Enough of this: kind prompter, touch the bell!Children of mirth and midnight, fare ye well!The vision melts away, the motley crowdIs veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud;Like his dissolving pageantry they fade,The vap’ry stuff whereof our dreams are made;No more malignant winter to beguile,Nor start the virgin’s tear, the judge’s smile;Save when some annalist, like me, recallsThe ancient fame of those degraded walls;Or till an age less hateful to the MuseTo their old shape restore the anxious pews.T. W. P.

LETTER FROM JAMES JESSAMINE

TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER

Sir: It has not been until after much reflection on my own part, and I must say, very civil encouragement on that of my friend Mr. John Waters, whose acquaintance I have chanced upon some months back, that I have determined to venture, either in the form of an advértisement extra, or possibly by your very polite admission of this self-introductory letter into your fashionable pages, to submit to the view of the more refined and intellectual part of the society of the Atlantic cities and particularly to that of New York, the peculiar claim that I conceive myself to possess upon their consideration and regard.

I have been hitherto deterred from taking this decisive step, as well by the very disturbed and almost turbulent state, which, since my arrival in this country, appears to have characterized its monetary concerns—alas! my dear Sir, those horrid yet necessary evils and grievances of life!—as by some expectations I had cause to entertain soon after I set foot upon your hospitable shores, of the immediate death of a maiden aunt in Cornwall, upon which incident, and her continued celibacy, depend very much all my present reversionary hopes.

The health of the old lady being however at my latest intelligence unexpectedly reinstated; the cotton crops coming forward as I understand to good markets, and the wonderful discovery having been made of converting western pork into sallad oil; the Tories being put down, and the banks having entered into what some time ago seemed the paulo post futurum of specie payments; I desire to share in the general tide of prosperity; I launch myself upon it at its flood, discard all reserve, and shall descend at once without farther preface into the midst of what I have to say.

I came out then some time ago ostensibly to kill a trout or two in some of your delicious streams; and indeed I may without presumption say en passant that few professors of the Rod excel me either in the niceties of my throw, the cool self-possession with which I take my fish, or the indomitable perseverance and perfect tact with which I drown and then land him with a single hair. I say ostensibly, for I have now no desire to conceal from you the ulterior objects that I had in view of either making a book to replenish my purse, or of establishing myself for life in this your rising land of freedom and big crops.

I have had ‘good luck to your fishing’ sung to me more than once by most sweet voices, and have realized it to my heart’s content in the way of trout; but this is all. Since I arrived in America there have been no less than three travelling historians upon the ground, with whose energy of conception, art of fabrication, facility of combination, capacity of bitterness and established name, I could not enter the lists. And as for matrimonial projects, foreigners seem to me to have no longer any hope of success in consequence of the entire pre-occupation of this walk of life by a regularly drilled and educated corps of young Americans, bred up avowedly with no other pursuit; who talk, think, dream of nothing else than fortune by marriage; and with a shrewdness and intelligence of calculation that entirely distance the foreigner, (but which seem wonderfully after the nuptials to forsake them in stocks of another description,) know at a glance the value, expectations, hopes, and dependencies of each young marriageable lady even before she comes out; so that instead of being able to accomplish a purpose of this kind, I find it quite as much as I can do to avoid falling in love beyond repeal with the refinement, gentleness, grace, and untold sweetness that distinguish the portionless beauties of New-York.

Indeed this class to which I have adverted of licensed fortune-hunters is so numerous; the fortunes themselves except to the initiated are so uncertain; and the entire want of that most useful profession, les courtiers de mariage, is so grievous to all incidental visitors, that I have often thought how admirable the arrangement would be, if the young ladies were at once to adopt as a fashionable decoration some tasteful head ornament, on which should be inscribed, in distinct but graceful characters, some one of such legends as the following, which should indicate the incontestible possessions of the wearer:

$30,000 State of New-York Fives.

My face is my fortune.

$200,000 Indiana State Bonds.

2 lots on Broadway, 4 in the Bowery and 1 on Union-Square.

Nothing but truth, discretion, intelligence and grace.

$60,000 Alabama Sterling Bonds.

The Tongues, and what you see.

$27,000 on indefeasible Bond and Mortgage.

A House and Shop in Maiden-Lane with fixtures, and a careful tenant at 1400 a year on lease three years unexpired.

Musick—four pianos done up since this time last year.

30,000 Pine trees and three saw-mills in Saint Lawrence county: N. B., well situated!

A large Manufacturing Establishment with unbounded Water-privileges, in Ulster.

Life and Trust—40 shares daily recovering.

The young gentlemen might wear appended to the third button-hole of the left breast, epigrammatical notices of ‘THE EXPECTATIONS’ in which they so generally abound, as follows: