Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August, 1880

"Mr. Halleck told me that he had been solicited to write a life of his early and beloved friend Drake. 'But,' said he, 'I did not well see how I could grant such a request: I had no lever for my fulcrum. What could I say about one who had studied pharmacy, dissection, written a few poems, and then left the scene of action? I had no material, and a mere meaningless eulogy would have been out of the question.'

"In personal appearance Halleck was rather below the medium height and well built: in walking he had a rather slow and shuffling gait, as if something afflicted his feet; a florid, bland and pleasant countenance; a bright gray eye; was remarkably pleasant and courteous in conversation, and, as a natural consequence, much beloved by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. But to that brilliancy in conversation which some of his admirers have been pleased to attribute to him in my opinion he could lay no claim. His library was sold at auction in New York on the evening of October 12, 1868. If the collection disposed of on that occasion was really his library in full, it must be confessed it was a sorry affair and meagre in the extreme. In surveying the collection a judge of the value of such property would perhaps pronounce it worth from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty dollars. The books brought fabulous prices—at least ten times their value. The company was large, good-humored and just in the frame of mind to be a little more than liberal, doubtless stimulated to be so from a desire to possess a relic of the departed poet who had added fame to the literature of his country. The following are the names of a few of the books and the prices they brought: Nicholas Nickleby, with the author's autograph, $18; Bryant's little volume of poems entitled Thirty Poems, with the author's autograph, $11; Campbell's Poems, with Halleck's autograph, $8.50; Catalogue of the Strawberry Hill Collection, $16; Barnaby Rudge, presentation copy by the author to Halleck, $15; Coleridge's Poems, with a few notes by Halleck, $10; Fanny, a poem by Mr. Halleck, $10. The sum-total realized for his library was twelve hundred and fifty dollars."

Aaron Burr is the subject of some interesting reminiscences: "Shortly after I came to New York, Aaron Burr was pointed out to me as he was slowly wending his way up Broadway, between Chambers street and the old theatre, on the City Hall side. I frequently afterward met him in this and other streets. He was always an object of interest, inasmuch as he had become an historical character, somewhat notoriously so. I will attempt to describe his appearance, or rather how he appeared to me: He was small, thin and attenuated in form, perhaps a little over five feet in height, weight not much over a hundred pounds. He walked with a slow, measured and feeble step, stooping considerably, occasionally with both hands behind his back. He had a keen face and deep-set, dark eye, his hat set deep on his head, the back part sunk down to the collar of the coat and the back brim somewhat turned upward. He was dressed in threadbare black cloth, having the appearance of what is known as shabby genteel. His countenance wore a melancholy aspect, and his whole appearance betokened one dejected, forsaken, forgotten or cast aside, and conscious of his position. He was invariably alone when I saw him, except on a single occasion: that was on the sidewalk in Broadway fronting what is now the Astor House, where he was standing talking very familiarly with a young woman whom he held by one hand. His countenance on that occasion was cheerful, lighted up and bland—altogether different from what it appeared to me when I saw him alone and in conversation with himself. Burr must have been a very exact man in his business-affairs. His receipt-book came into my possession. I found there receipts for a load of wood, a carpenter's work for one day, a pair of boots, milk for a certain number of weeks, suit of clothes, besides numerous other small transactions that but few would think of taking a receipt for. The book was but a sorry, cheap affair, and could not have cost when new more than fifty cents."

Edwin Forrest is thus mentioned: "At the time when Forrest was earning his reputation on the boards of the Bowery Theatre I was connected with that institution, and of course had an opportunity of seeing him every night he performed. Mr. Forrest appeared to be possessed of the perfection of physical form, more especially conspicuous when arrayed in some peculiar costumes which tended to display it to the best advantage. He had a stentorian voice, and must have had lungs not less invulnerable than one of Homer's heroes. He had a fine masculine face and prepossessing countenance, much resembling many of the notable Greeks and Romans whose portraits have come down to our time, and a keen intellectual eye. His countenance at times assumed an air of hauteur which doubtless had become a habit, either from personating characters of this stamp or from a consciousness of his merited popularity. He left the impression on the beholder of one intoxicated with success and the repletion of human applause. He kept aloof from all around him, and condescended to no social intercourse with any one on the stage, and appeared to entertain a contempt for his audience.... He has now lost that mercurial, youthful appearance which was then so conspicuous, and which doubtless aided in laying the foundation of his widespread reputation. He was then straight as an arrow and elastic as a circus-rider, the very beau-ideal of physical perfection: now he bears the marks of decay, or rather, as is said of grain just before harvest, he has a ripe appearance. If he would consult his renown he would retire from the stage, and never set foot upon it again."

The fragments also contain notes on Bryant, Parton, Mrs. Siddons and several eminent divines and journalists. Of the latter class the fullest relate to James Gordon Bennett, founder of the Herald, and his coadjutor, William H. Attree. The following are extracts: "I remember entering the subterranean office of Mr. Bennett early in the career of the Herald and purchasing a single copy of the paper, for which I paid the sum of one cent only. On this occasion the proprietor, editor and vender was seated at his desk busily engaged in writing, and appeared to pay little or no attention to me as I entered. On making known my object in coming in, he requested me to put my money down on the counter and help myself to a paper: all this time he continued his writing operations. The office was a single oblong, underground room. Its furniture consisted of a counter, which also served as a desk, constructed from two flour-barrels, perhaps empty, standing apart from each other about four feet, with a single plank covering both; a chair, placed in the centre, upon which sat the editor busy at his vocation, with an inkstand by his right hand; on the end nearest the door were placed the papers for sale. I attribute the success of the Herald to a combination of circumstances—to the peculiar fitness of its editor for his position, to its cheapness, and its advertising patronage, which was considerable. In the fourth place, it early secured the assistance of William H. Attree, a man of uncommon abilities as a reporter and a concocter of pithy as well as ludicrous chapters greatly calculated to captivate many readers. In fact, this clever and talented assistant in some respects never had his match. He did not, as other reporters do, take down in short-hand what the speaker or reader said, but sat and heard the passing discourse like any other casual spectator: when over he would go home to his room, write out in full all that had been said on the occasion, and that entirely from memory. On a certain occasion I hinted to him my incredulity about his ability to report as he had frequently informed me. To put the matter beyond doubt, he requested me to accompany him to Clinton Hall to hear some literary magnate let off his intellectual steam. I accordingly accompanied him as per arrangement. We were seated together in the same pew. He placed his hands in his pockets and continued in that position during the delivery of the discourse, and when it was finished he remarked to me that I would not only find the substance of this harangue in the Herald the next day, but that I would find it word for word. On the following morning I procured the paper, and read the report of what I had heard the previous evening; and I must say I was struck with astonishment at its perfect accuracy. Before Mr. Attree's time reporting for the press in New York was a mere outline or sketch of what had been said or done, but he infused life and soul into this department of journalism. His reports were full, accurate, graphic; and, what is more, he frequently flattered the vanity of the speaker by making a much better speech for him than he possibly could for himself. Poor Attree died in 1849, and is entombed at Greenwood."

It is probable that other fragments of this work are in existence, and if so it is hoped that the publication of these will tend to their discovery.

C.B.T.CONCERNING NIGHT-NOISES

Many a time these summer nights am I startled out of my midnight sleep by a conversation like the following as two friends pause on the corner beneath my suburban window:

"Well, good-night."

"Good-night."

"Hold on a moment. I want to—"

"Oh yes. Rely on me. Do you think he will—"

"He promised."

"Oh, then he'll do it. Well, then, good—"

"Good-night, good-night."

"Wait an instant. But how shall I—"

" … Now you understand?"

"Oh yes. Good-night."

"Good-night."

"Good-night."

After these exclamations, uttered with piercing distinctness, have been exchanged, the belated revellers from some club or whist-party or an evening at the theatre in town terminate their sweet sorrow at parting by going their several ways to their different homes, where, no doubt, on retiring to rest they sink at once into blameless slumber, ignorant of the fact that for me they have murdered sleep.

I had gone to bed betimes, wornout with hard mental labor: I had hoped for a night's repose to recruit my energies for the morrow. This sleep I craved was no luxurious indulgence of pampered inclination, but my stock in trade—my bone, my sinew, my heart's courage, my mental inspiration, the immediate jewel of my soul.

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing:'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;But he that filches from me my NIGHT'S SLEEPRobs me of that which not enriches him,And makes me poor indeed.

But let me now repose again: tenderly entreated, softly courted, sleep may return. There are many specifics for bringing slumber to mutinous eyelids. Let me remember what they are.

First. To think of the wind blowing on a field of grain. Watch with your mind's eye the long wavy undulations, the golden sheen which takes the light. What a dreamy, exquisite rhythm! (Still, I don't sleep.)

Second. Repeat the multiplication-table backward, from twelve times down to twice. (Hopeless, the only result being to render my mathematical powers acutely, preternaturally awake, so that I begin to estimate the magnitude of my summer expenses.)

Third. Try to decide where to spend the August vacation. I am thinking of Lake George, the Saguenay, Sea Girt, the White Mountains, when all at once I begin to yield drowsily to the influence of long conversations about nothing which take possession of my mind—mere gibberish, strings of words without sense. Thank Heaven, I am off! I am actually going to sleep. Not yet!

Down the street comes a man with an accordion. He is playing "Annie Laurie." Every now and then he strikes a wrong note. Excruciating agony! Did he render it correctly it might blend with a romantic dream, but when he insists on flatting persistently, as for bonnie Annie Laurie he offers to lay him down and die, who is to bear it? And why does he not consummate the proffered sacrifice by dying at once? I would cheerfully bury him. He passes slowly, lingeringly, seeming to pause outside of my window, as if my casement enshrined that form like the snowdrift and that throat like the swan's. But, although he vanishes finally, the street has become alive. Two men pass in deeply-interesting conversation, one of them assuring the other that he has not done "a stroke's work" in two years. He is maudlin, of course. "A stroke's work"? And as if any man could expect to find work and to do it after keeping such hours as these!

And now comes "the whistler." I had been expecting him. He is to-night whistling airs from Pinafore. The Pirates, thank Heaven! furnishes him no airs. He whistles—let me confess, reluctant although I am to do it—he whistles to perfection. There is nothing experimental, nothing tentative, in his notes, which come clear, sharp, in perfect time and tune.

The clock strikes two. It is the voice of doom, for presently the 2.19 freight-train will thunder slowly through our end of the town. It renders my case utterly hopeless. One might as well expect to sleep in momentary expectation of the Juggernaut. I know its every sound: I can feel the bridge at– Junction, five miles away, tremble under it. I listen and wait, every nerve on edge. A mile and a half the other side of our station the engine will first snort, then begin a series of shrieks—shrieks suggestive of warning, imminent danger, supreme peril, the climax of a tragical catastrophe. For at least five minutes shall I be compelled to listen while the engineer—if it be a real living engine-man who impels this chorus of fiends—runs the full scale of his shrill tooting, perhaps deeming it essential to the safety of the town, which ought to be asleep, or to the dignity of his long, creeping train of coal- and freight-laden cars.

Even the Juggernaut passes: it is gone. I emerge, faint and wornout from the trial. Now that it is toward three o'clock, everybody except the policeman in bed, and no more trains to come until after five, one might suppose there was some chance for an interval of peace, of repose. I get up and walk about a little in order to feel, with the opportunity, the inclination for slumber. Yes, it will come....

Scarcely have I ventured to close my eyes again before there begins a chirp, a twitter, a general thrill of sound. All the birds are awake, and are soon in full chorus. Presently a flush of color will run around the horizon, and it will be dawn. The actual night has flown. I can hear Smith, our grocery-man around the corner, setting off into the country for his milk and eggs. Several marketcarts are abroad.... There goes an extra train, shrieking direly along the curve.

It is actually growing light. With the first gleam of day my excellent aunt—who embodies all my future expectations of wealth—sleeping in the next chamber, turns in her bed, yawns loudly and unreservedly, gets up and takes an observation, opening and closing her shutters with a bang. By breakfast-time my revered relation becomes a respectable and no longer a riotous member of society, but during the early morning hours her inventions for disturbing her neighbors are ingenious and diabolical.

By five o'clock the morning-trains begin, followed at half-past six by fifty factory-whistles. The children are awake and stirring. The housemaid is banging her utensils on piazza and in hallway: the cook is flirting with the milk-and butter-man at the back gate, and exclaiming "Oh Laws!" to some news or pleasantry of his. The licensed venders are abroad. There are all sorts of cries. It is less than an hour to breakfast. The night is lost: one foolish, intolerable noise has spoiled all.

L.W.TABARIN, THE FRENCH MERRY-ANDREW

The French word tabarin is almost obsolete, and its English synonym, merry-andrew, is not much in vogue, but as they are andronymics, to coin a word, embalming the memories of two famous charlatans, they possess an abiding interest apart from all question of their use or disuse.

Andrew Borde and Tabarin were both charlatans and both famous, but here all resemblance between them ceases. The former was a witty and eccentric quack, who travelled about from place to place and country to country selling drugs and practising medicine in fairs and marketplaces, where his glib tongue readily gathered crowds and earned him the nickname which has since passed current in English as a generic term for buffoons of all sorts and conditions. The tenth volume of the Extra Series of the Early English Text Society is wholly devoted to Borde, and well repays perusal, although probably few who read it will agree with Mr. Furnivall, the editor, that "any one who would make him more of a merry-andrew than anything else is a bigger fool than he would make Borde."

Tabarin, however, was a veritable and inimitable clown, and his name has figured in French literature both as a proper and a common noun almost from the day that he and his partner, Mondor, set up their booth on the Pont Neuf. They began their sale of ointments and liniments in Paris about the year 1618, attracting custom by their absurd dialogues in the vein of the circus-clown and ring-master of to-day. Occasionally they left the city to try their luck in the provinces, but during most of their career they were to be found on the bridge near the entrance to the Place Dauphine. Tabarin retired from the business about 1630, but his partner continued at the old stand with a new clown, who must have been either less witty or more obscene than Tabarin, for in 1634 Mondor was abated as a nuisance by the authorities.

Tabarin was blessed with a wife and daughter: his wife's name was Francisquine; his daughter married the celebrated buffoon Gaultier Garguille. The story goes that when he left Mondor he bought a small country-place near Paris, where he passed his latter days comfortably on his earnings. There are two traditions current as to the manner of his death: according to one, he was killed by some noblemen in a hunting quarrel; according to the other, he died from the effects of heavy drinking for a wager. He is said to have styled himself Tabarin because he usually appeared in a little tabard, called in Italian tabarrino, but his true name and his nationality are alike unknown.

Tabarin's pleasantries, as jotted down by members of his audiences, have been given to the world at divers times in various forms, and have latterly been collected and published in a body with those of his less successful rival Grattelard; but very few of them are suited to nineteenth-century taste, and most of them are gross to the last degree. Some of the presentable ones are here given, and may serve as specimens of his manner, though they will scarcely account for his reputation:

Tab. Who are the politest people in the world, master?

Mon. I've travelled in Spain, Italy and Germany, and I assure you that the French nation is by all odds the most courteous. They are the only people in the world that kiss and compliment, and above all take off hats.

Tab. Take off hats! If that's courtesy I don't want any of it.

Mon. Taking off hats, Tabarin, is an ancient custom originating among the Romans. It is done in token of good-will.

Tab. So you say taking off hats is the pink of politeness? Now, if that's so, do you want to know who I think are the politest people?

Mon. Yes: who?

Tab. Why, our Paris street-thieves, for they don't stop at taking off hats, but take cloaks off too.

Tab. Master, why don't they let women take orders?

Mon. Because the sex is frail, Tabarin, and not worthy to conduct the services of the Church, which are sacred mysteries.

Tab. Humbug! It's because they always will have the last word, so it wouldn't do to let them give the responses. Why, the services would never end.

By similar logic Tabarin demonstrates, among others, the following propositions:

An ass is a better linguist than his master, because he understands when he is spoken to, while his lingo is all lost upon the man.

A fiddler has the hardest lot of all mankind, because his life depends upon a bit of wood and a piece of cord, for all the world like a malefactor's.

Cut-purses are the most liberal of all men, for they not only empty their own purses, but those of other people.

If you put a miller, a tailor, a bailiff and an attorney in a bag, the first thing to come out will be a thief.

The most wonderful gardener and the most wonderful tree in the world are respectively Jack Ketch and the gallows tree, because when the hangman plants that unpleasant vegetable it bears fruit the same day.

If you see six birds on a tree, and shoot three, there will be none left, for of course the remaining three will fly away. This last jest is so trite to-day as to be absolutely threadbare.

Tabarin's wits were not exhausted by this kind of buffoonery. He issued comic proclamations and almanacs, and even produced short farces in which his wife performed with him. From one of these farces Molière is supposed to have borrowed the ideas for his sack-scene in the Fourberies de Scapin.

La Fontaine stole one of Grattelard's dialogues bodily, and converted it into the celebrated fable of The Acorn and the Pumpkin. Grattelard was contemporary with Tabarin, as remarked above: he and his partner, Désidério Descombes, sold quack medicines at the north end of the Pont Neuf. The dialogue in question follows, at least so much of it as is in point, and will serve as tailpiece to the specimens of Tabarin's wit:

Grat. I had a great discussion this morning with a philosopher, trying to prove to him that Nature often makes great mistakes.

D.D. No, no, Grattelard: everything that Nature does is done for the best.

Grat. Just wait now: let me tell you how I had to give in.

D.D. Well, how was it?

Grat. We were walking in the garden, and pretty soon we came across a tremendous pumpkin, as big as a Swiss drum. "There!" said I: "Nature has no better sense than to hang a great thing like that on such a slender vine that the least breeze can break it off."

D.D. Then you blamed Nature in the matter of the pumpkin?

Grat. Yes, for of course there ought to be some proportion inter sustinens et sustentum; but, by Heavens, I soon changed my mind, for just as I was passing under a great oak tree down fell an acorn and struck me on the nose. Of course I had to admit that Nature was right, after all, for if she had put a pumpkin up there I should have been in a pretty pickle.

D.D. Yes indeed, Grattelard: you would have cut a fine figure drinking out of a bottle with your nose in a sling.

Grat. By the Georgics of Virgil, 'twould be all up with spectacles for my old age.

Tabarin was the first of the series of clowns that enlivened the streets of Paris for two hundred years, or, at any rate, the first to attain celebrity: Bobèche in our own century was the last. He made a great noise in his day, but nothing keeps his memory green except the Bobèche of Offenbach's Barbe-Bleue. Tabarin, however, has a new lease of life in two of the handy little-volumes of the Bibliothèque Elzévirienne.

S.E.T.A LEGION OF DEVILS

"Everybody knows," said Beppo, my Roman model, "that the English are mad, signor. For has not the padre told me so? and does he not say that the fires of Purgatory burn within them? Else why do they roll about in a tub of water every morning, if not to cool their vitals? It is an insult to an Italian to wash him: we only wash dead bodies;" and Beppo draws his huge frame up to its full height, while his black eyes flash, and I mentally acknowledge him and his begrimed rags picturesque if filthy.

"Si, si, they are all mad," he continues, "and they keep horses and dogs as mad as themselves; and they ride out, dressed in the very color of the flames of Purgatory, to run screaming and shouting after poor foxes over the Campagna, notwithstanding the Holy Father has rigorously prohibited that sort of insanity, and has placed his gendarmerie purposely to stop it. But who can stop il diavolo e gli suoi angeli? Why, signor, if they want foxes, I myself, Beppo Donati, would catch them any number for a paul or two. But they are all mad, all mad. And the dogs, it is well known how they became possessed; for," lowering his voice and coming nearer me, "I myself saw the arch-fiend himself and his legions enter them bodily. I will tell the signor how it was.