Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852

Various

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852

ADVERTISEMENT

Harper's New Monthly Magazine closes its Fifth Semi-annual Volume with a circulation of more than One Hundred Thousand copies. The Publishers have spared neither labor nor expense to render it the most attractive Magazine of General Literature ever offered to the public; and they confidently present this Volume as evidence that their efforts to add to the value and interest of the work have kept pace with the increase of its circulation.

Special arrangements have been made, and will continue to be made, to render the next Volume still more worthy of public favor than its predecessor has been. The abundant facilities at the command of the Publishers insure an unlimited field for the choice and selection of material, while the ample space within the pages of the Magazine enables the Editors to present matter suited to every variety of taste and mood of the reading community. The Pictorial Illustrations will maintain the attractive and varied character by which they have been heretofore distinguished, while their number will be still farther increased.

In the general conduct and scope of the Magazine no change is contemplated. Each Number will contain as hitherto:

First.– Original Articles by popular American authors, illustrated, whenever the subject demands, by wood-cuts executed in the best style of the art.

Second.– Selections from the current literature of the day, whether in the form of articles from foreign periodicals or extracts from new books of special interest. This department will include such serial tales by the leading authors of the time, as may be deemed of peculiar interest; but these will not be suffered to interfere with a due degree of variety in the contents of the Magazine.

Third.– A Monthly Record, presenting an impartial condensed and classified history of the current events of the times.

Fourth.– An Editor's Table, devoted to the careful and elaborate discussion of the higher questions of principles and ethics.

Fifth.– An Editor's Easy Chair and Drawer, containing literary and general gossip, the chat of town and country, anecdotes and reminiscences, wit and humor, sentiment and pathos, and whatever, in general, belongs to an agreeable and entertaining miscellany.

Sixth.– Critical Notices of all the leading books of the day. These will present a fair and candid estimate of the character and value of the works continually brought before the public.

Seventh.– Literary Intelligence, concerning books, authors, art, and whatever is of special interest to cultivated readers.

Eighth.– Pictorial Comicalities, in which wit and humor will be addressed to the eye; and affectations, follies, and vice, chastised and corrected. The most scrupulous care will be exercised that in this department humor shall not pass into vulgarity, or satire degenerate into abuse.

Ninth.– The Fashions appropriate for the season, with notices of whatever novelties in material or design may make their appearance.

The Publishers here renew the expression of their thanks to the Press and the Public in general, for the favor which has been accorded to the New Monthly Magazine, and solicit such continuance of that favor as the merits of the successive Numbers may deserve.

AULD ROBIN GRAY

When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame,When a' the weary warld to quiet rest are gane;The woes of my heart fa' in showers frae my ee,Unken'd by my gudeman, who soundly sleeps by me.Young Jamie loo'd me weel, and sought me for his bride;But saving ae crown piece, he'd naething else beside,To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea;And the crown and the pound, O they were baith for me!Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day,My father brak his arm, our cow was stown away;My mother she fell sick – my Jamie was at sea —And Auld Robin Gray, oh! he came a-courting me.My father cou'dna work – my mother cou'dna spin;I toil'd day and night, but their bread I cou'dna win;Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and, wi' tears in his ee,Said, "Jenny, oh! for their sakes, will you marry me?"My heart it said na, and I looked for Jamie back;But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack:His ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee?Or, wherefore am I spar'd to cry out, Woe is me!My father argued sair – my mother didna speak,But she look'd in my face till my heart was like to break;They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea;And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.I hadna been his wife, a week but only four,When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door,I saw my Jamie's ghaist – I cou'dna think it he,Till he said, "I'm come hame, my love, to marry thee!"O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a';Ae kiss we took, nae mair – I bad him gang awa.I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee;For O, I am but young to cry out, Woe is me!I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin,I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin.But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be,For Auld Robin Gray, oh! he is sae kind to me,THE CONTINUATIONThe wintry days grew lang, my tears they were a' spent;May be it was despair I fancied was content.They said my cheek was wan; I cou'dna look to see —For, oh! the wee bit glass, my Jamie gaed it me.My father he was sad, my mother dull and wae;But that which griev'd me maist, it was Auld Robin Gray;Though ne'er a word he said, his cheek said mair than a',It wasted like a brae o'er which the torrents fa'.He gaed into his bed – nae physic wad he take;And oft he moan'd and said, "It's better for her sake."At length he look'd upon me, and call'd me his "ain dear,"And beckon'd round the neighbors, as if his hour drew near."I've wrong'd her sair," he said, "but ken't the truth o'er late;It's grief for that alone that hastens now my date;But a' is for the best, since death will shortly freeA young and faithful heart that was ill matched wi' me."I loo'd, and sought to win her for mony a lang day;I had her parents' favor, but still she said me nay;I knew na Jamie's luve; and oh! it's sair to tell —To force her to be mine, I steal'd her cow mysel!"O what cared I for Crummie! I thought of naught but thee,I thought it was the cow stood 'twixt my luve and me.While she maintain'd ye a' was you not heard to say,That you would never marry wi' Auld Robin Gray?"But sickness in the house, and hunger at the door,My bairn gied me her hand, although her heart was sore.I saw her heart was sore – why did I take her hand?That was a sinfu' deed! to blast a bonnie land."It was na very lang ere a' did come to light;For Jamie he came back, and Jenny's cheek grew white.My spouse's cheek grew white, but true she was to me;Jenny! I saw it a' – and oh, I'm glad to dee!"Is Jamie come?" he said, and Jamie by us stood —"Ye loo each other weel – oh, let me do some good!I gie you a', young man – my houses, cattle, kine,And the dear wife hersel, that ne'er should hae been mine."We kiss'd his clay-cold hands – a smile came o'er his face;"He's pardon'd," Jamie said, "before the throne o' grace.Oh, Jenny! see that smile – forgi'en I'm sure is he,Wha could withstand temptation when hoping to win thee?"The days at first were dowie; but what was sad and sair,While tears were in my ee, I kent mysel nae mair;For, oh! my heart was light as ony bird that flew,And, wae as a' thing was, it had a kindly hue.But sweeter shines the sun than e'er he shone before,For now I'm Jamie's wife, and what need I say more?We hae a wee bit bairn – the auld folks by the fire —And Jamie, oh! he loo's me up to my heart's desire.

THE SUMMER TOURIST. – SCENERY OF THE FRANCONIA MOUNTAINS, N.H

BY WILLIAM M'LEOD

The approach of summer will turn the thoughts and steps of thousands toward those sections of our wide country whose picturesque beauty makes them ample amends for comparative sterility of soil and poverty of population. New Hampshire, with due allowance for the exaggerations of patriotism, may well be styled the Switzerland of America; and, although they are inferior in magnificent sublimity to the regal Alps, few tourists through the Northern States would leave the White Mountains unvisited.

Though it forms part of this great chain, the inhabitants of the Franconia range, jealously claim for their hills a separate name, character, and interest, having no connection with the more eminent firm of Washington, Adams, and Co. Like the latter, the Franconians boast a chief to their clan —Mount Lafayette, a "Notch," and other important features of a distinct and complete establishment, which combine to make it no mean rival to the great Patriot Group. We propose, with pen and pencil, to make a brief excursion through these picturesque localities.

These remarkable scenes are chiefly comprised within the extraordinary defile, or "notch," formed by the Franconia Mountains for a distance of five miles. The northern and southern approaches to this singular pass, have their peculiar advantages. Coming from the south, the tourist, from a very great distance, sees the outlines of its grander features rising far above the beautiful valley he follows; but, perhaps, this long and constantly visible approach, interesting as it is, begets a familiarity that weakens the impression of their sublimity when he finally confronts their more palpable magnificence. Not so with the approach from the north, where the views being more abrupt, shifting, and at times wholly concealed, their effect is the more startling upon the traveler, brought suddenly before them. Thus, in approaching the Franconia Notch from Bethlehem, we shall find the slow ascent of the dull steep hill eastward of that village, to be an excellent preparative for the superb prospect that bursts upon our vision, on reaching its top. Across the Franconia Valley lying beneath us, we see the lofty summits, forming the "Notch," "swell from the vale," and receding in peaks of picturesque irregularity —

"like giants standTo sentinel enchanted land!"

There is no general view in the White Mountains equal to this distant prospect of the Franconia Notch, in respect to picturesque majesty of outline and massive breadth. Descending into the valley, our road suddenly turns eastward, and as we begin the opposite slow ascent to the Notch, the view before us assumes a finely-grouped concentrated character – losing that diffuseness so destructive of picturesqueness and point in the American landscape generally. This scene is attempted in the accompanying sketch, showing Mount Lafayette filling the centre of the view, the irregular peaks of the Notch on the right, while below, the eye is cheered with the snug farm-house by the road-side, and other rural accessories charmingly arranged for the artist's purpose.

Keeping the grander points of this fine prospect before us as we continue our ascent, every step reveals more distinctly the volcano-like crest and seamed bosom of Lafayette, than which not Washington himself, though five hundred feet taller, presents a form of more august character. Lafayette is not only distinguished over his fellows by his height, but also by the rocky bareness of his peaked summit, that descends with converging rows of ravines and hemlock-topped cliffs into an immense verdant basin presented toward us. In fine weather, the dry rocks of these ravines shine like bars of silver, and after heavy rains they glisten with the torrents disappearing into the vast shadowy basin below.

No tourist that has made this ascent to the Notch during the dog-days, can forget the grateful change of the hot, treeless road, for the shady coolness of the wooded avenue he enters at the top, and through whose green twilight his now recruited steeds drag him merrily for two miles to the Lafayette House at the entrance of the Notch. Just before reaching the hotel, we see through the fine birchen groves, skirting our avenue, Echo Lake, a small sheet of water of great depth and transparency, the mountainous sides of which clothed with an unbroken forest of dreary hemlock, deprive it of all beauty of setting, or of interest aside from its marvelously distinct echoes.

The Franconia Notch hardly deserves more than the name of a pass– even for its narrowest point near the Lafayette House, where it is about a quarter of a mile in width. It has no such jaws– projecting tusks, and other palpable signs of violent disrupture, as make the expressive title of "Notch" so fitly applied to its great rival in the White Mountains. Still its features are distinctive, and grandly unique, and though not so sublimely rugged as those of its rival, they are infinitely more picturesque, and this peculiar difference of character extends to all the scenery lying within the two rival regions. But the wonder and pride of the Franconia Notch is the "Old Man" of the Profile Mountain, that forms its western wall, and which, ascending on the north side with a gradual wooded slope, to a height of two thousand feet, abruptly terminates in a perpendicular rocky precipice, five hundred feet high, which in a bare "granite front" extends along the eastern face of the mountain for two miles. An exquisite sheet of water, in size and purity similar to Echo Lake, lies between the mountain and our road, from which through a clearing, we have an admirable view of the mountain, rising wave-like from its lake – its rich rolling groves, overtopped by a pinnacle of rock, like the comb of a breaking billow, and in the fantastic outlines of that granite crest, juts out as perfect an outline of an old man's head, as human hand itself could execute!

Every tourist through the White Mountains knows the propensity of the natives to increase the interest of their region, by pointing out all sorts of fancied zoological likenesses in their rocks and mountains – so that before he sees the "Old Man," he will be apt to rank him, in advance, with the facial pretensions he has already seen. But, no! this time the artist has made a hit, and the likeness is admirable. There is nothing vague, imperfect, or disproportioned about him. You are not forced to imagine a brow to the nose, or go in search of a chin to support the mouth. They are all there! – a bent, heavy brow, not stern, but earnest – a straight, sharp nose – lips thin and with the very weakness of extreme senility in their pinched-up lines – and a chin, long and massive, thrown forward with a certain air of obstinacy, that completes the character of the likeness!

The mass of rock forming this extraordinary profile is said to be eighty feet in height; is fifteen hundred feet above the lake, and about half a mile from a spectator in the road – from which point it appears to be at the top of the mountain though it is really five hundred feet below the summit. The "Old Man" does not change his countenance under the closest scrutiny of the spy-glass, constantly leveled at him by the starers "beneath his notice." Under such inspection the likeness loses none of its human character, though the cheeks of the veteran appear woefully cut-up and scarred. But it seems rude to peer thus impertinently into the wrinkles and "crow's-feet" of his grim visage that has faced, perhaps, centuries of sun and tempest. Nor is it advisable to take your first look at him when the sun lights up the chasms of his granite cheek, and the cavernous mystery of his bent brow. Go to him when in the solemn light of evening the mountain heaves up from the darkening lake its vast wave of luxuriant foliage – sit on one of those rocks by the road-side, and look, if you can, without awe, at the Granite Face hung against the luminous sky – human in its lineaments – supernatural in size and position – weird-like in its shadowy mystery, but its sharp outline wearing an expression of mortal sadness that gives it the most fascinating interest! If this singular profile has existed long enough, it must have been an object of veneration to the aborigines. Mr. Oakes, in his White Mountain Scenery, says it was first publicly made known to the whites only as far back as forty years ago. It is curious to observe the odd changes of the profile, as we advance or recede along the road. Now it resembles an old woman – now it flattens like a negro's face, and now its nose presents an "eagle-beak," like the Duke of Wellington's! A peculiar feature of beauty in the Profile Mountain is the rare luxuriance of its forest of birch and beech, with an occasional hemlock rising spire-like from its groves. The "Old Man" has a remarkable echo, with which (after a becoming deliberate pause) he will retort every appeal, grave, quizzical, and sentimental that may be shouted up to him by the gay idlers on the lake side.

On the opposite side of the Notch, and immediately overhanging the hotel, a tremendous cliff is separated from the crest of the mountain by a huge chasm, and with its numerous jagged and splintered rocks, seems every moment about to topple down. This is the famous Eagle Cliff– so called from a pair of eagles having made their habitation a few seasons since on its topmost crag; and a prouder eyry for that majestic bird can not be imagined. It is this noble cliff, with its adjacent craggy peaks, that furnishes that picturesque irregularity of outline we have already described as peculiar to the Franconia Notch, and which is visible for such a great distance to the traveler coming either from the north or south. The latter approach, however, furnishes the finest view of Eagle Cliff. When within a mile of it, its stupendous crags fill up the centre of the view above the road before us, and the luxuriant birches on either side form a graceful framework, whose light airy boughs contrast finely with the massive riven cliff they inclose. In the evening, when the sun's rays are withdrawn from the valley below, and the rosy light falls alone on its rocky crags, vividly relieved by the broad shadows of its chasm, Eagle Cliff forms indeed a worthy pendant to the "Old Man" over the way. The accompanying sketch is taken from this point in the road, to the left of which is seen a portion of the exquisite lake "sweetly slumbering" between these magnificent mountains.

But the glories of the Notch are not fully seen, unless the tourist visit it when that unrivaled colorist, Jack Frost, has lavished upon its foliage the hues of his gorgeous pallet – their tempered brilliancy glowing through the voluptuous haze of autumn! What a singular contrast the opposite sides of the Notch then present! Eagle Cliff allows no motley-dressed dandies to vegetate upon his stern crags – exclusively a mass of granite and sombre evergreens; and the hemlock-covered eastern wall into which he extends, has its funereal vestments only here and there slashed with stripes of bright yellow birches that mark the mountain torrents and land-slides. But Frost, the artist, has a fairer field for his brush on the opposite side, where the rich rolling groves of the Profile Mountain present a bravely variegated mantle descending from the very neck of the "Old Man," who, with grim visage, unmoved by so rare "a coat of many colors," seems as indisposed as ever to bend down that obstinate chin and take a look at himself and his finery in the lake lying like a mirror at his feet! And even after the glory of the leaf has passed, it is well worth a trip to see these peaks in their cloudy costume, when the wind howls through the defile with a force shaking the hemlock "moored in the rifted rock," but not silencing the muffled roar of the unseen mountain torrents. Nor as one of the attractions of a late season must be omitted the chance of seeing Lafayette peering with whitened head over his clansmen's shoulders, while perhaps the defile reposes in groves of bright and brilliant foliage. But in spite of splendid foliage, and fresh, bracing weather, but few tourists visit the Franconia Notch when in its heightened glory. The artist, the wood-cutter, and the partridge have it chiefly to themselves, and so "mine host" of the Lafayette House shuts up his best rooms, brings from one lake his oars, from the other his swivel, and that other echo-waking instrument – the long tin horn, now "hangs silent on the wall," until the hot weather of next summer brings the crowds of travelers who know not when to travel. This scant attendance of tourists during the finest season of the year may be attributed to a false impression that because this Notch is confessedly one of the coldest spots in America in winter, it must be disagreeably cold during the early autumn. This is a mistake; the weather there being quite as mild till the close of October as it is in the open lower country.

Proceeding southwardly through the Notch, we find its precipitous walls gradually recede and break up into gently-sloping summits, which, at the distance of five miles, terminate the defile, and debouch into a wide valley, whose great descent proves the great elevation of the defile we are now threading. For two miles we keep in view the Profile Mountain, whose eastern front resembles the Hudson River Palisades on a gigantic scale. Nothing can be more imposing than the front it presents – half of it a sheer precipice of bare granite, seamed, ribbed, and riven in every fantastic shape, resting on a sloping mass of broken rock, amid which flourish sturdy rows of evergreens, in spite of the showers of granite from the crumbling crags above – and which foretell the destruction that will inevitably overtake the lineaments of the "Old Man" long before "mighty oceans cease to roar." The annexed sketch will convey some idea of this stupendous front of the Profile Mountain, and also of the best general view of the Notch. which last, unfortunately, does not from any point present its features in sufficient concentration to do justice to their magnitude in detail.

We are now separated from the Profile Mountain by the Pemigewasset– a beautiful brook flowing from the lake at the feet of the "Old Man," whose tripping Indian name, though of unknown meaning, in sound, well describes its course of cascades, with which it follows us through the whole length of the defile – now dancing along our path, and now plunging again into the "listening woods," where it "singeth a quiet tune." Four miles from the Notch, it suddenly rushes out to the very edge of our road, and after foaming over several rocky ledges, collects its torn waters, and in a solid jet piercing a narrow fissure of granite, flings itself over into a deep pool, whose extraordinary shape and structure have constituted it the most charming curiosity of these mountains, under the name of The Basin. This singular pool is about twenty feet wide, and is inclosed in a circular basin of granite, one half of which rising to a height of fifteen feet, projects over the imprisoned waters. Undoubtedly the way in which the solid jet of the cascade strikes the side of the basin, giving a strong whirling motion to the pool, has gradually excavated the rock in its present regular, mason-like shape. Graceful birches bend over and embower this exquisite pool, that never fails to elicit bursts of delight from visitors first gazing upon its transparent water of the most brilliant emerald, shading off into an intense blue-black, where the cascade strikes its surface. Its greatest depth is about fifteen feet ordinarily, but nearly all the bed of the pool is distinctly visible through its indescribable emerald purity, although its surface is constantly agitated with tiny wavelets. Nature never fashioned such a darling nook as this exquisite Basin, in which Diana might have bathed, and issued purer from its transparent tide! The water escapes from the pool by another narrow fissure in the lower part of its granite rim, a projecting mass of which is said, by the ingenious Mr. Oakes, to resemble the half-immersed "leg of some Hydropathic Titan!" There are not wanting those who carry the fancied resemblance still further. At present the delicate beauty and graceful contour of the Basin are impaired and obscured somewhat by a clumsy foot-bridge flung across its curved margin, which, it is to be hoped, the next freshet will sweep away; and in anticipation of such wished-for fate to the unsightly and unnecessary structure, it is omitted in the annexed sketch.