Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844

"Humbug!" growled a score of backwoodsmen, some of whom began to close round the Yankee, as if to make sure of him and his worthless wares.

"Boe! Boe!" howled Sambo, who had been quite forgotten during this scene.

"You still here, you black devil!" cried the pedlar, turning fiercely round upon the negro. "Am I to be deafened by your cussed croakin'? Don't mind him, ladies and gentlemen – pay no attention to him. Who cares about a nigger? He only cries out for his amusement. It's all his tricks and cunnin'; he'd like to git some more of my sarve on his black hide! He won't have any, tho'! Be off with ye, you stinkin' nigger!"

"Stinkin' nigga! Massa Yankee say stinkin' nigga!" yelled Sambo, showing all his white teeth in an ecstasy of anger. "Matto stinkin' nigga now," screamed he as he sprang suddenly to his feet, to the infinite delight of the backwoodsmen, and began capering and hopping about, and grinning like a mad ape. "Matto stinkin' nigga now; one hour 'go him dearie Matto, and good Matto, and Massa Yankee promise four picaillee33 if Matto let dam heavy chest wid stinkin' serve fall on him foot and shoulder. Boe! Boe! Massa Yankee no good man; bad Massa, Massa Yankee!"

And so it was and turned out to be. The rogue of a Yankee had made a sort of bargain with Sambo, and arranged a scheme by which to draw the attention of the passengers in a natural manner to the famous Palmyra salve. Seldom or never had the risible nerves of the burly backwoodsmen on board the Ploughboy steamer, been so enormously tickled as by the discovery of this Yankee trick. The laughter was deafening, really earsplitting; and was only brought to something like an end by the appearance of the captain, who came with a petition from the lady passengers, to the effect that the Yankee should not be too hardly dealt with for his ingenious attempt to transfer his fellow-citizens' dollars into his own pocket. Thereupon Badgers and Buckeyes, Wolverines and Redhorses, abated their hilarity; and it was comical to see how these rough tenants of the western forests proceeded, with all the gravity of backwoods etiquette, to respond to the humanity of the ladies. In the first place a deputation was chosen, consisting of two individuals, who were charged to assure the ladies of the universal willingness to treat the Yankee as tenderly as might be consistent with the nature of his transgression; secondly, a commission was appointed for the examination of the spurious wares. The articles that had been bought were produced one after the other, their quality and value investigated, and then they were either condemned and thrown overboard, or their sale was confirmed. The tea and coffee pots were almost, without exception, pronounced worthless; for although well enough calculated for a long voyage on the Mississippi, they could never have been meant to hold boiling Mississippi water. The wonderful Palmyra salve proved to be neither more nor less than a compound of hog's lard and gunpowder, with the juice of tobacco and walnut leaves – a mixture that might perhaps have been useful for the destruction of vermin, but the efficacy of which as an antidote to freckles and lockjaw was at least problematical. The teapots, the ointment, and some spices, amongst which wooden nutmegs cut an important figure, were duly consigned to the keeping of the Mississippi kelpies; while the dollars that had been paid for them were retransferred from the pockets of the Yankee to those of the credulous purchasers. Finally, Mr Bundle himself, in consideration of the truly republican stoicism with which he witnessed the execution of the judgment pronounced on his wares, was invited with much ceremony to regale himself with a "go-the-whole-hog-cocktail," an honour which he accepted and replied to in a set speech, at the conclusion of which he enquired whether the honourable society by whose sentence he had been deprived of the larger portion of his merchandise, could not recommend him to a schoolmaster's place in one of their respectable settlements. I almost wondered that he did not treat us to a Methodist sermon as a preparation for our slumbers. He seemed the right man to do it. He exactly answered to the description given of the Yankees by Halleck, in his Connecticut: —

– "Apostates, who are meddlingWith merchandise, pounds, shillings, pence, and peddling,Or wandering through southern climates teachingThe A, B, C, from Webster's spelling-book;Gallant and godly, making love and preaching,And gaining by what they call hook and crook,And what the moralists call overreaching,A decent living. The Virginians lookUpon them with as favourable eyesAs Gabriel on the devil in Paradise."

There was a deafening "Hurrah for the honourable Mistress Howard!" as the party of backwoodsmen walked off towards the gentlemen's cabin; and then things became quieter. I had invited the bears to drink a glass to Mrs Howard's health, and had told the steward to put down to my account the slings and cocktails they might consume. Mrs Dobleton, whose husband is secretary to a temperance society, pulled a wry face or two at what she doubtless thought an encouragement to vice; but for my part I have no such scruples. It always gives me pleasure to find myself thrown by chance among these rough and wild, but upright and energetic sons of the wilderness – these pioneers of the west, who pass their lives in converting tangled thickets and endless forests into fields and pastures, for the benefit of generations yet unborn. Truly, dear Louise, a few dollars spent amongst these worthy fellows are not thrown away, if they serve to form one, the smallest, link of the chain of good-will and good fellowship that does and ought to bind us to our fellow-citizens.

WESTMINSTER-HALL AND THE WORKS OF ART,

(On a Free Admission Day.)By B. SimmonsIBy slow degrees, like rain-fraught breeze rising in time of dearth,Whispers of Wisdom, far and wide, are muttering o'er the earth;And lo! rough Reason's breath, that wafts strong human health to all,Has blown aside the gates where Pride dozed in her feudal hall.IIStout Carter, drop that loutish look, nor hesitate before —Eyeing thy frock and clouted shoes – yon dark enormous door;'Tis ten to one thy trampled sires their ravaged granges gaveTo spread the Wood from whence was hew'd that oaken architrave.34IIITake now thy turn. We'll on and in, nor need the pealing tromp(Once wont the lordlings thronging here to usher to the pomp)To kindle our dull phantasies for yon triumphal showThat lights the roof so high aloof with the whiteness of its glow.IVRed William, couldst thou heave aside the marble of the tomb,And look abroad from Winchester's song-consecrated gloom,35A keener smart than Tyrrel's dart would pierce thy soul to seeIn thy vast courts the Vileinage and peasants treading free.VOh, righteous retribution! Ye Shades of those who hereStood up in bonds before the slaves of sceptred fraud and fear!Unswerving Somers! – More! – even thou, dark Somerset,36 who fellIn pride of place condignly, yet who loved the Commons well —VIAnd Ye who with undaunted hearts, immortal mitred Few!For Truth's dear sake, the Tyrant foil'd to whom ye still were true —37Rejoice! Who knows what scatter'd thoughts of yours were buried seeds,Slow-springing for th' oppress'd and poor, and ripen'd now to deeds?VIIHa, ha! 'twould make a death's-head laugh to see how the cross-bones —The black judicial formula devised by bloody thrones —The Axe's edge this way, now that, borne before murder'd men,Who died for aiding their true Liege on mountain and in glen,38VIIIAre swept like pois'nous spiders' webs for ever from the scene,Where in their place come crowding now the mighty and the mean;The Peer walks by the Peasant's side,39 to see if grace and artCan touch a bosom clad in frieze, can brighten Labour's heart.IXO! ye who doubt presumptuously that feeling, taste, are givenTo all for culture, free as flowers, by an impartial heaven,Look through this quiet rabble here – doth it not shame to-dayMore polish'd mobs to whom we owe our annual squeeze in May?XMark that poor Maiden, to her Sire interpreting the taleThere pictured of the Loved and Left,40 until her cheek grows pale: —Yon crippled Dwarf that sculptured Youth41 eyeing with glances dim,Wondering will he, in higher worlds, be tall and straight like him; —XIHow well they group with yonder pale but fire-eyed Artisan,Who just has stopp'd to bid his boys those noble features scanThat sadden us for Wilkie! See! he tells them now the storyOf that once humble lad, and how he won his marble glory.XIINot all alone thou weep'st in stone, poor Lady, o'er thy Chief,42That huge-limb'd Porter, spell-struck there, stands sharer in thy grief.Pert Cynic, scorn not his amaze; all savage as he seems,What graceful shapes henceforward may whiten his heart in dreams!XIIIA long adieu, dark Years! to you, of war on field and flood,Battle afar, and mimic war at hone to train our blood —The ruffian Ring – the goaded Bull – the Lottery's gates of sin —The all to nurse the outward brute, and starve the soul within!XIVHere lives and breathes around us proof that those all-evil timesAre fled with their decrepit thoughts, their slaughter, and their crimes;Long stood this Hall the type of all could Man's grim bonds increase —Henceforth be it his Vestibule to hope, and light, and peace! August, 1844

LINES ON THE LANDING OF HIS MAJESTY KING LOUIS PHILIPPE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1844

By B. SimmonsIHo! Wardens of the Coast look forthUpon your Channel seas —The night is melting in the north,There's tumult on the breeze;Now sinking far, now rolling outIn proud triumphal swell,That mingled burst of shot and shoutYour fathers knew so well,What time to England's inmost plainThe beacon-fires proclaim'dThat, like descending hurricane,Grim Blake, that Mastiff of the Main,Beside your shores had once againThe Flemish lion tamed!43War wakes not now that tumult loud,Ye Wardens of the Coast,Though looming large, through dawn's dim cloud,Like an invading hostThe Barks of France are bearing down,One crowd of sails, while highAbove the misty morning's frownTheir streamers light the sky.Up! – greet for once the Tricolor,For once the lilied flag!Forth with gay barge and gilded oar,While fast the volley'd salvoes roarFrom batteried line, and echoing shore,And gun-engirdled crag!Forth – greet with ardent hearts and eyes,The Guest those galleys bring;In Wisdom's walks the more than Wise —'Mid Kings the more than King!No nobler visitant e'er soughtThe Mighty's white-cliff'd isle,Where Alfred ruled, where Bacon thought,Where Avon's waters smile:Hail to the tempest-vexed Man!Hail to the Sovereign-Sage!A wearier pilgrimage who ranThan the immortal Ithacan,Since first his great career began,Ulysses of our age!A more than regal welcome give,Ye thousands crowding round;Shout for the once lorn Fugitive,Whose soul no solace foundSave in that Self-reliance – matchFor adverse worlds, alone —Which cheer'd the Tutor's humble thatch,Nor left him on the throne.The Wanderer Muller's sails they furl —The Wave-encounterer, who,When Freedom leagued with Crime to hurlUp earth's foundations, from the whirlWhere vortex'd Empires raged, the pearlOf matchless Prudence drew.VShout for the Husband and the Sire,Whose children, train'd to truth,Repaid in feeling, grace, and fire,The lessons taught their youth.Recall his grief when bent aboveHis rose-zoned daughter's clay,Beside whose marble, lifeless, Love,And Art, and Genius lay.44And his be homage still more dread,From our mute spirits won,For tears of heart-wrung anguish shed,When with that gray "discrownèd head,"On foot he follow'd to the deadHis gallant, princely son.VIShout for the Hero and the KingIn soul serene – alike,If suppliant States the sceptre bring,Or banded traitors strike!Oh, if at times a thrall too strongRound Freedom's form be laid,Where Faction works by wrath and wrongHis pardon be display'd.Be his this praise – unspoil'd by powerHis course benignly ran,A Monarch, mindful of the hourHe felt misfortune's wintry shower,A Man, from hall to peasant's bower,The common friend of Man.VIIAgain the ramparts' loosen'd loadOf thunder rends the air!Peal on – such pomp is fitly show'd —He lands no stranger there.Hear from his lips your language graveIn earnest accents fall —The memories of the home ye gaveHe hastens to recall —'Mid flash of spears and fiery thrillOf trumpets speed him forth,The Master-Mind your Shakspeare stillHad loved to draw – that to its willShapes Fate and Chance with potent skill —The Numa of the North.VIIIWindsor! henceforth a loftier spellInvests thy storied walls —The Bards of future years shall tellThat first within thy hallsImperial Truth and Mercy met,And in that hallow'd hourGave earth the hope that Peace shall yetBe dear to Kings as Power.When France clasp'd England's hand of oldThere memory marks the waneOf iron times, the bad and bold;45Oh, may our Second Field of GoldA portent still more fair unfoldOf Wisdom's widening reign!

LAMARTINE

It is remarkable, that although England is the country in the world which has sent forth the greatest number of ardent and intrepid travellers to explore the distant parts of the earth, yet it can by no means furnish an array of writers of travels which will bear a comparison with those whom France can boast. In skilful navigation, daring adventure, and heroic perseverance, indeed, the country of Cook and Davis, of Bruce and Park, of Mackenzie and Buckingham, of Burckhardt and Byron, of Parry and Franklin, may well claim the pre-eminence of all others in the world. An Englishman first circumnavigated the globe; an Englishman alone has seen the fountains of the Nile; and, five years after the ardent spirit of Columbus had led his fearful crews across the Atlantic, Sebastian Cabot discovered the shores of Newfoundland, and planted the British standard in the regions destined to be peopled with the overflowing multitudes of the Anglo-Saxon race.

But if we come to the literary works which have followed these ardent and energetic efforts, and which are destined to perpetuate their memory to future times – the interesting discoveries which have so much extended our knowledge and enlarged our resources – the contemplation is by no means to an inhabitant of these islands equally satisfactory. The British traveller is essentially a man of energy and action, but rarely of contemplation or eloquence. He is seldom possessed of the scientific acquirements requisite to turn to the best account the vast stores of new and original information which are placed within his reach. He often observes and collects facts; but it is as a practical man, or for professional purposes, rather than as a philosopher. The genius of the Anglo-Saxon race – bold, sagacious, and enterprising, rather than contemplative and scientific – nowhere appears more strongly than in the accounts of the numerous and intrepid travellers whom they are continually sending forth into every part of the earth. We admire their vigour, we are moved by their hardships, we are enriched by their discoveries; but if we turn to our libraries for works to convey to future ages an adequate and interesting account of these fascinating adventures, we shall, in general, experience nothing but disappointment. Few of them are written with the practised hand, the graphic eye, necessary to convey vivid pictures to future times; and though numerous and valuable books of travels, as works of reference, load the shelves of our libraries, there are surprisingly few which are fitted, from the interest and vivacity of the style in which they are written, to possess permanent attractions for mankind.

One great cause of this remarkable peculiarity is without doubt to be found in the widely different education of the students in our universities, and our practical men. In the former, classical attainments are in literature the chief, if not exclusive, objects of ambition; and in consequence, the young aspirants for fame who issue from these learned retreats, have their minds filled with the charms and associations of antiquity, to the almost entire exclusion of objects of present interest and importance. The vigorous practical men, again, who are propelled by the enterprise and exertions of our commercial towns, are sagacious and valuable observers; but they have seldom the cultivated minds, pictorial eye, or powers of description, requisite to convey vivid or interesting impressions to others. Thus our scholars give us little more than treatises on inscriptions, and disquisitions on the sites of ancient towns; while the accounts of our practical men are chiefly occupied with commercial enquiries, or subjects connected with trade and navigation. The cultivated and enlightened traveller, whose mind is alike open to the charm of ancient story and the interest of modern achievement – who is classical without being pedantic, graphic and yet faithful, enthusiastic and yet accurate, discursive and at the same time imaginative, is almost unknown amongst us. It will continue to be so as long as education in our universities is exclusively devoted to Greek and Latin verses or the higher mathematics; and in academies to book-keeping and the rule of three; while so broad and sullen a line as heretofore is drawn between the studies of our scholars and the pursuits of our practical citizens. To travel to good purpose, requires a mind stored with much and varied information, in science, statistics, geography, literature, history, and poetry. To describe what the traveller has seen, requires, in addition to this, the eye of a painter, the soul of a poet, and the hand of a practised composer. Probably it will be deemed no easy matter to find such a combination in any country or in any age; and most certainly the system of education, neither at our learned universities nor our commercial academies, is fitted to produce it.

It is from inattention to the vast store of previous information requisite to make an accomplished traveller, and still more a writer of interesting travels, that failures in this branch of literature are so glaring and so frequent. In other departments of knowledge, a certain degree of information is felt to be requisite before a man can presume to write a book. He cannot produce a treatise on mathematics without knowing at least Euclid, nor a work on history without having read Hume, nor on political economy without having acquired a smattering of Adam Smith. But in regard to travels, no previous information is thought to be requisite. If the person who sets out on a tour has only money in his pocket, and health to get to his journey's end, he is deemed sufficiently qualified to come out with his two or three post octavos. If he is an Honourable, or known at Almack's, so much the better; that will ensure the sale of the first edition. If he can do nothing else, he can at least tell the dishes which he got to dinner at the inns, and the hotels where comfortable beds are to be found. This valuable information, interspersed with a few descriptions of scenes, copied from guide-books, and anecdotes picked up at tables-d'hôte or on board steamboats, constitute the stock in trade of many an adventurer who embarks in the speculation of paying by publication the expenses of his travels. We have no individuals in view in these remarks; we speak of things in general, as they are, or rather have been; for we believe these ephemeral travels, like other ephemerals, have had their day, and are fast dying out. The market has become so glutted with them that they are, in a great many instances, unsaleable.

The classical travellers of England, from Addison to Eustace and Clarke, constitute an important and valuable body of writers in this branch of literature, infinitely superior to the fashionable tours which rise up and disappear like bubbles on the surface of society. It is impossible to read these elegant productions without feeling the mind overspread with the charm which arises from the exquisite remains and heart-stirring associations with which they are filled. But their interest is almost exclusively classical; they are invaluable to the accomplished scholar, but they speak in an unknown tongue to the great mass of men. They see nature only through the medium of antiquity: beautiful in their allusion to Greek or Roman remains, eloquent in the descriptions of scenes alluded to in the classical writers, they have dwelt little on the simple scenes of the unhistoric world. To the great moral and social questions which now agitate society, and so strongly move the hearts of the great body of men, they are entire strangers. Their works are the elegant companions of the scholar or the antiquary, not the heart-stirring friends of the cottage or the fireside.

Inferior to Britain in the energy and achievements of the travellers whom she has sent forth, and beyond measure beneath her in the amount of the addition she has made to geographical science, France is yet greatly superior, at least of late years, in the literary and scientific attainments of the wanderers whose works have been given to the world. Four among these stand pre-eminent, whose works, in very different styles, are at the head of European literature in this interesting department – Humboldt, Chateaubriand, Michaud, and Lamartine. Their styles are so various, and the impression produced by reading them so distinct, that it is difficult to believe that they have arisen in the same nation and age of the world.

Humboldt is, in many respects, and perhaps upon the whole, at the head of the list; and to his profound and varied works we hope to be able to devote a future paper. He unites, in a degree that perhaps has never before been witnessed, the most various qualities, and which, from the opposite characters of mind which they require, are rarely found in unison. A profound philosopher, an accurate observer of nature, an unwearied statist, he is at the same time an eloquent writer, an incomparable describer, and an ardent friend of social improvement. Science owes to his indefatigable industry many of her most valuable acquisitions; geography, to his intrepid perseverance, many of its most important discoveries; the arts, to his poetic eye and fervid eloquence, many of their brightest pictures. He unites the austere grandeur of the exact sciences to the bewitching charm of the fine arts. It is this very combination which prevents his works from being generally popular. The riches of his knowledge, the magnitude of his contributions to scientific discovery, the fervour of his descriptions of nature, alternately awaken our admiration and excite our surprise; but they oppress the mind. To be rightly apprehended, they require a reader in some degree familiar with all these subjects; and how many of these are to be met with? The man who takes an interest in his scientific observations will seldom be transported by his pictures of scenery; the social observer, who extracts the rich collection of facts which he has accumulated regarding the people whom he visited, will be indifferent to his geographical discoveries. There are few Humboldts either in the reading or thinking world.

Chateaubriand is a traveller of a wholly different character – he lived entirely in antiquity. But it is not the antiquity of Greece and Rome which has alone fixed his regards, as it has done those of Clarke and Eustace – it is the recollections of chivalry, the devout spirit of the pilgrim, which chiefly warmed his ardent imagination. He is universally allowed by Frenchmen of all parties to be their first writer; and it may be conceived what brilliant works an author of such powers, and eminently gifted both with the soul of a poet and the eye of a painter, must have produced in describing the historic scenes to which his pilgrimages extended. He went to Greece and the Holy Land with a mind devout rather than enlightened, credulous rather than inquisitive. Thirsting for strong emotions, he would be satisfied; teeming with the recollections and visions of the past, he traversed the places hallowed by his early affections with the fondness of a lover who returns to the home of his bliss, of a mature man who revisits the scenes of his infancy. He cared not to enquire what was true or what was legendary in these time-hallowed traditions; he gladly accepted them as they stood, and studiously averted all enquiry into the foundation on which they rested. He wandered over the Peloponnesus or Judea with the fond ardour of an English scholar who seeks in the Palatine Mount the traces of Virgil's enchanting description of the hut of Evander, and rejects as sacrilege every attempt to shake his faith.