The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860

But, whatever may have been the magnitude and interest of domestic affairs, the enterprising vigilance of our journalists was far from overlooking prominent occurrences on the other side of the water, and the news by all the recent arrivals, dating from three to six months later from Europe, was carefully, if at times somewhat briefly, recapitulated. In this manner our ancestors heard of the brilliant campaigns of Prince George, the Duke of Cumberland, and Marshal de Noailles, during the War of the Austrian Succession,—of the battle of Dettingen in June, 1743,—of the declaration of war between the kings of France and England in March, 1744; and, above all, of the great Scotch Rebellion of 1745. Here was stirring news, indeed, for the citizens of Boston, and for all British subjects, wherever they might be. The suspense in which loyal New England was plunged, as to whether "great George our King and the Protestant succession" were to succumb before the Pretender and his Jesuitical followers, was happily terminated by intelligence of the decisive battle of Culloden, the tidings of which victory, gained on the 16th of April, 1746, appear in the number for July. Public joy and curiosity demanded full particulars of the glorious news, and a copy of the official narrative of the battle, dated "Inverness, April 18th," is served out to the hungry quidnuncs of Boston, in the columns of our Magazine, as had been done three months before to consumers equally rapacious in the London coffeehouses. With commendable humanity, the loss of the insurgent army is put at "two thousand,"—although "the Rebels by their own Accounts make the Loss greater by 2000 than we have stated it." In the fatal list appears the name of "Cameron of Lochiel," destined, through the favor of the Muse, to an immortality which is denied to equally intrepid and unfortunate compatriots. The terms of the surrender upon parole of certain French and Scotch officers at Inverness,—the return of the ordnance and stores captured,—names of the killed and wounded officers of the rebel army,—various congratulatory addresses,—an extract from a letter from Edinburgh, concerning the battle,—an account of the subsequent movement of the forces,—various anecdotes of the Duke of Cumberland, during the engagement,—etc., are given with much parade and circumstance. The loyalty of the citizens is evidenced by the following "local item," under date of "Boston, Thursday, 3d":—"Upon the Confirmation of the joyful News of the Defeat of the Rebels in Scotland, and of the Life and Health of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, on Wednesday, the 2d inst., at Noon, the Guns at Castle William and the Batteries of the Town were fired, as were those on Board the Massachusetts Frigate, etc., and in the Evening we had Illuminations and other Tokens of Joy and Satisfaction." There are also curious biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Earl of Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and others, among those engaged in this ill-judged attempt, who expiated their treason on the scaffold, from which interesting extracts might be made. The following seems a very original device for the recovery of freedom,—one, we think, which, to most readers of the present day even, will truly appear a "new" and "extraordinary Invention":—

"Carlisle, Sept. 27, 1746.

"The Method taken by the Rebels here under Sentence of Death to make their Escape is quite new, and reckoned a most extraordinary Invention, as by no other Instrument than a Case-Knife, a Drinking-Glass and a Silk Handkerchief, seven of them in one Night had sawn off their Irons, thus:—They laid the Silk Handkerchief single, over the Mouth of the Glass, but stretched it as much as it would bear, and tied it hard at the Bottom of the Glass; then they struck the Edge of the Knife on the Mouth of the Glass, (thus covered with the Handkerchief to prevent Noise,) till it became a Saw, with which they cut their Irons till it was Blunt, and then had Recourse to the Mouth of the Glass again to renew the Teeth of the Saw; and so completed their Design by Degrees. This being done in the Dead of Night, and many of them at Work together, the little Noise they made was overheard by the Centinels; who informed their Officers of it, they quietly doubled their Guard, and gave the Rebels no Disturbance till Morning, when it was discovered that several of them were loose, and that others had been trying the same Trick. 'Tis remarkable that a Knife will not cut a Handkerchief when struck upon it in this Manner."

About one-eighth part of the first volume of the Magazine is occupied with reports of Parliamentary debates, entitled, "Journal of the Proceedings and Debates of a Political Club of young Noblemen and Gentlemen established some time ago in London." They seem to be copied, with little, if any alteration, from the columns of the "London Magazine," and are introduced to an American public with this mildly ironical preface:—"We shall give our Readers in our next a List of the British Parliament. And as it is now render'd unsafe to entertain the Publick with any Accounts of their Proceedings or Debates, we shall give them in their Stead, in some of our subsequent Magazines, Extracts from the Journals of a Learned and Political Club of young Noblemen and Gentlemen established some time ago in London. Which will in every Respect answer the same Intentions."

The scientific world was all astir just then with new-found marvels of Electricity,—an interest which was of course much augmented in this country by the ingenious experiments and speculations of the printer-philosopher. In the volume for the year 1745 is "An Historical Account of the wonderful Discoveries made in Germany, etc., concerning Electricity," in the course of which the writer says, (speaking of the experiments of a Mr. Gray,) "He also discovered another surprising Property of electric Virtue, which is that the approach of a Tube of electrified Glass communicates to a hempen or silken Cord an electric Force which is conveyed along the Cord to the Length of 886 feet, at which amazing Distance it will impregnate a Ball of Ivory with the same Virtue as the Tube from which it was derived." So true is it, that things are great and small solely by comparison: the lapse of something over a century has gradually stretched this "amazing distance" to many hundreds of miles, and now the circumference of the globe is the only limit which we feel willing to set to its extension.

At page 691 of the previous volume we have an "Extract from a Pamphlet lately published at Philadelphia intitled 'An Account of the New Invented Pennsylvanian Fire Places.'" This was probably from the pen of Franklin, who expatiates as follows on the advantages derivable from these fireplaces, which are still occasionally to be met with, and known as "Franklin Stoves":—"By the Help of this saving Invention our Wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our Posterity may warm themselves at a moderate Rate, without being oblig'd to fetch their Fuel over the Atlantick; as, if Pit-Coal should not be here discovered, (which is an Uncertainty,) they must necessarily do."

That a taste for the beauties of Nature was extant at the epoch of which we treat may be inferred from the statement of a writer who commences "An Essay in Praise of the Morning" as follows:—"I have the good Fortune to be so pleasantly lodg'd as to have a Prospect of a neighboring Grove, where the Eye receives the most delicious Refreshment from the lively Verdure of the Greens, and the wild Regularity by which the Scene shifts off and disparts itself into a beautiful Chequer."

The ever interesting and disputed topics of dress and diet come in for an occasional discussion. The following is a characteristic specimen of the satirical vein of the British essayist school, though we have been unable to ascertain, by reference to the "Spectator," "Tatler," "Rambler," "Guardian," etc., the immediate source whence it was taken. It reads as follows:—"History of Female Dress. The sprightly Gauls set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War. Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its Extension, and the Duke of Marlboro' having about the same Time beat the French, the Gallic Ladies dropt their Pretensions, and left the British Misstresses of the Field; the Tokens whereof are worn in Triumph to this Day, having outlasted the Colors in Westminster Hall, and almost that great General's Glory."

To a similar source must probably be referred an article in the same volume, entitled, "Of Diet in General, and of the bad Effects of Tea-Drinking." The genuine conservative flavor of the extract is deliciously apparent, while its wholesale denunciations are drawn but little, if at all, stronger than those which may even yet be occasionally met with. "If we compare the Nature of Tea with the Nature of English Diet, no one can think it a proper Vegetable for us. It has no Parts fit to be assimilated to our Bodies; its essential Salt does not hold Moisture enough to be joined to the Body of an Animal; its Oyl is but very little, and that of the opiate kind, and therefore it is so far from being nutritive, that it irritates and frets the Nerves and Fibres, exciting the expulsive Faculty, so that the Body may be lessened and weakened, but it cannot increase and be strengthened by it. We see this by common Experience; the first Time persons drink it, if they are full grown, it generally gives them a Pain at the Stomach, Dejection of Spirits, Cold Sweats, Palpitation at the Heart, Trembling, Fearfulness; taking away the Sense of Fulness though presently after Meals, and causing a hypochondriac, gnawing Appetite. These symptoms are very little inferiour to what the most poisonous Vegetables we have in England would occasion when dried and used in the same manner.

"These ill Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if they do the Child dies of the Gripes; In short, it gives an effeminate, weakly Turn to the People in general."

Another humorous philosopher, who is benevolently anxious that his fellow-creatures may not be taken in by the rustic meteorologists, satirically furnishes a number of infallible tests to determine the approach of a severe season. He entitles his contribution to meteorological science,—"Jonathan Weatherwise's Prognostications. As it is not likely that I have a long Time to act on the Stage of this Life, for what with Head-Aches, hard Labour, Storms and broken Spectacles I feel my Blood chilling, and Time, that greedy Tyrant, devouring my whole Constitution," etc.,—an exordium which is certainly well adapted to excite our sympathy for Jonathan, even if it fail to inspire confidence in his "Prognostications," and leave us a little in the dark as to the necessary connection between "broken spectacles" and the "chilling of the blood." The criteria he gives us are truly Ingenious and surprising; but though the greater part would prove novel, we believe, to the present generation, we can here quote but one. He tells us, that, when a boy, he "swore revenge on the Grey Squirrel," in consequence of a petted animal of this species having "bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"—a resolution which proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling, and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible."

The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer the golden age than the present) remarks,—"Dubious and uncertain is the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations."

Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7 [1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report comprises sentences.

The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said, of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses, epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however, occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"—a translation of which is given at page 166, prefaced thus:—"As the Original of the following Piece is very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in giving the Ode in extenso; nor do we think any would thank us for transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the vulgar Papists."

THE LITTLE CREED

Little Creed can I need,Kneel before our Lady's Knee,Candle light, Candle burn,Our Lady pray'd to her dear SonThat we might all to Heaven come;Little Creed, Amen!

THE WHITE PATER NOSTER

White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother,What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves.What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys.Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates,And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother:White Pater Noster, Amen!

We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop Man." The following are the concluding verses:—

"But, above all, thou grand Catholicon,Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd,Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind!When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'dWith Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror direBefore us stalks with dreadful Majesty,Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy;To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle TouchConsigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts."

Evidently the production of a philosopher and an economist of time: for who else would have thought of shaving before going to bed, instead of at the matutinal toilet?

In less than five years from the date of its first number, (1743,) "The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle" had ceased to exist, and in the year 1757 appeared "The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies." This was published by Mr. William Bradford in Philadelphia, under the auspices of "a Society of Gentlemen," who declare themselves to be "veritatis cultores, fraudis inimici," but who probably found themselves unequal to the difficulties of such a position, the Magazine having expired just one year after its birth. It was followed by "The New England Magazine," (1758,) "The American Magazine," (1769,) "The Royal American Magazine," (1774,) "The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum," (1775,) "The Columbian Magazine," (1786,) "The Worcester Magazine," (the same year,) "The American Museum," (1787,) "The Massachusetts Magazine," (1789,) "The New-York Magazine," (1790,) "The Rural Magazine & Vermont Repository," (1796,) "The Missionary Magazine," (same year,)—and others. The premature mortality characteristic of some of our own magazine-literature was, even at this early period, painfully apparent: none of the publications we have named survived their twelfth year, most of them lived less than half that period. A great diversity in the style and quality of their contents, as well as in external appearance, is, of course, observable, and it somewhat requires the eye of faith to see within their rusty and faded covers the germ of that gigantic literary plant which, in this year of Grace, 1860, counts in the city of Boston alone nearly one hundred and fifty periodical publications, (about one-third being legitimate magazines,) perhaps as many more in the other New England cities and towns, and a progeny of unknown, but very considerable extent, throughout the Union.

Apart even from their value to the historiographer and the antiquary, few relics of the past are more suggestive or interesting than the old magazine or newspaper. The houses, furniture, plate, clothing, and decorations of the generations which have preceded us possess their intrinsic value, and serve also to link by a thousand associations the mysterious past with the actual and living present; but the old periodical brings back to us, beside all this, the bodily presence, the words, the actions, and even the very thoughts of the people of a former age. It is, in mercantile phrase, a book of original entry, showing us the transactions of the time in the light in which they were regarded by the parties engaged in them, and reflecting the state of public sentiment on innumerable topics,—moral, religious, political, philosophic, military, and scientific. Its mistakes of fact or induction are honest and palpable ones, easily corrected by contemporaneous data or subsequent discoveries, and not often posted into the ledger of history without detection. The learned and patient labors of the savant or the scholar are not expected of the pamphleteer or the periodical writer of the last century, or of the present; he does but blaze the pathway of the pains-taking engineer who is to follow him, happy enough, if he succeed in satisfying immediate and daily demands, and in capturing the kind of game spoken of by Mr. Pope in that part of his manual where he instructs us to

"shoot folly as it flies,And catch the manners living as they rise."

Among us, however, the magazine-writer, as he existed in the last century, has left few, if any, representatives. He is fading silently away into a forgotten antiquity; his works are not on the publishers' counters,—they linger only among the dust and cobwebs of old libraries, listlessly thumbed by the exploring reader or occasionally consulted by the curious antiquary. His place is occupied by those who, in the multiplication of books, the diffusion of information, and the general alteration of public taste, manners, and habits, though revolving in a similar orbit, move in quite another plane,—who have found in the pages of the periodical a theatre of special activity, a way to the entertainment and instruction of the many; and though much of what is thus produced may bear, as we have hinted, a character more or less ephemeral, we are sometimes presented also with the earlier blossoms and the fresher odors of a rich and perennial growth of genius, everywhere known and acknowledged in the realms of belles-lettres, philosophy, and science, crowded here as in a nursery, to be soon transplanted to other and more permanent abodes.

COME SI CHIAMA?

OR A LEAF FROM THE CENSUS OF 1850

The first question asked of a "new boy" at school is, "What's your name?" In this year of Grace the eighth decennial census is to be taken, asking that same question of all new comers into the great public school where towns and cities are educated. It will hardly be effected with that marvellous perfection of organization by which Great Britain was made to stand still for a moment and be statistically photographed. For with consummate skill was planned that all-embracing machinery, so that at one and the same moment all over the United Kingdom the recording pen was catching every man's status and setting it down. The tramp on the dusty highway, the clerk in the counting-house, the sportsman upon the moor, the preacher in his pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he were irrevocably written down "an ass."