v. 85:

Sed tibi dimidio constrictus cammarus ovo Ponitur, exigua feralis cæna patella.

The _silicernium_ or _cæna funebris_ was a very different, and more solid affair. At first blush--to use a common and sensible expression--there seems no respectable keeping, between the art of burying the dead, and that of feasting the living. Depositing those, whom we love, in their graves, is certainly the very last relish for an appetite. Something of this was undoubtedly done, of old, under the promptings of Epicurean philosophy--upon the _dum vivimus vivamus_ principle--and, in that spirit which teaches the soldier, when he turns from the grave, to change the mournful, for the merry strain. The desire of equalling or excelling others, in the magnificence of funereal parade, has ever been a powerful motive. The eyes of others destroy us, said Franklin, and not our own. Grief for the departed, and sympathy with the bereaved, were not deemed sufficient, to insure an imposing parade. Games and festivals were therefore provided, for the people. Among other attractions, masses of uncooked meat were bestowed upon all comers. This was the _visceratio_ of the Romans. This word seems to have a different import; _viscera_, however, signifies all beneath the skin, as may be seen by consulting Serv. in Virg., Æn. i., 211. Suetonius Cæs. 39, and Cicero de Officiis ii. 16, refer to this practice. It was by no means very common, but frequently adopted by those, who could afford the expense, and were desirous of the display.

Marcus Flavius had committed an infamous crime. He was popular, and the ædiles of the people had fixed a day for his absolution. Under pretence of celebrating his mother's funeral, he gave a _visceratio_ to the people: Populo visceratio data, a M. Flavio, in funere matris. Erant, qui, per speciem honorandæ parentis, meritam mercedem populo solutam interpretarentur; quod eum, die dicta ab ædilibus, crimine stupratæ matris familæ absolvisset. Liv. viii. 22. A note upon this passage, in Lemaire's edition, fully explains the nature of this practice.

This was a very different affair from the _silicernium_, or feast for the friends, after the funeral. Upon such occasions, the Falernian flowed, and boars were roasted whole. The reader, by opening his Livy, xxxix. 46, will find an account of the funeral of P. Licinius: a _visceratio_ was given to the people; one hundred and twenty gladiators fought in the arena; the funeral games lasted three days; and then followed a splendid entertainment. On that occasion, a tempest drove the company into the forum; this occurred, in the year U. C. 569. Through all time, the practice has prevailed, more or less, of providing entertainments, for those, who gather on such occasions. In villages, especially, and within my own recollection, the funeral has been delayed, to enable distant friends to arrive in season; and the interval has been employed, in the preparation of creature comforts, not only for such as attended, and observed the ceremonial of an hour, but for such, as came to the bereaved, like the comforters of the man of Uz, "every one from his place, and sat down with him, seven days and seven nights." Animal provision must surely be required, to sustain such protracted lamentation.

In the age, when Shakspeare wrote, and for several ages before and after, "baked meats," at funerals, were very common. So far, from contenting themselves with the preparation of some simple aliment, for such as were an hungered, the appetites of all were solicited, by a parade of the rarest liquors and the choicest viands. Tables were spread, in the most ample manner, and the transition was immediate from the tomb to the festal board. The _requiescat in pace_ was scarcely uttered, before the blessing was craved, on the baked meats. It matters little, from what period of history we select our illustrations of this truth. Suppose we take our examples from the reign, preceding that, in which Shakspeare was born; comprehend some other incidents in our collection; and rely, for our authority, on good old John Strype, who was himself born in 1643. There is no higher authority. I will present a few specimens from his Ecclesiastical Memorials: "1557, May 5. Was the Lady Chamberlain buried. At the mass preached Dr. Chadsey. A great dole of money given at the church, and after, a great dinner. May 29, was buried Mrs. Gates; after mass a great dinner. June 7, began a stage play at the Grey Friars of the passion of Christ. June 10.--This day Sir John, a chantry priest, hung himself with his own girdle. The same day was the storehouse in Portsmouth burnt, much beer and victual destroyed. A judgment, perhaps, for burning so many innocent persons. June 29.--This same day was the second year's mind (i. e. yearly _obit_) of good master Lewyn, ironmonger; at his dirge were all the livery. After, they retired to the widow's place, where they had a cake and wine; and besides the parish, all comers treated." Aug. 3.--After giving a long account of the funeral of Ann of Cleves, Strype adds, "and so they went in order to dinner." After reciting the particulars of the King of Denmark's funeral, in London, Aug. 18, 1557, he adds: "After the dirge, all the heralds and all the Lords went into the Bishop of London's place, and drank. The next day was the morrow-mass, and a goodly sermon preached, and after, to my Lord of London's to dinner."

The account of the funeral of Thomas Halley is entitled to be presented entire: "On the 24th of this month, August, Mr. Thomas Halley, clarentieux, king-at-arms, was buried, in St. Giles's parish, without Cripplegate, with coat, armor, and pennon of arms, and scutcheons of his arms, and two white branches, twelve staff torches, and four great tapers, and a crown. And, after dirge, the heralds repaired unto Greenhill, the waxchandler, a man of note (being waxchandler to Cardinal Pole) living hard by; where they had spice-bread and cheese, and wine, great plenty. The morrow-mass was also celebrated, and sermon preached; and after followed a great dinner, whereat were all the heralds, together with the parishioners. There was a supper also, as well as a dinner." After a long account of the funeral of the Countess of Arundel, Oct. 5, 1557, follow the customary words--"and, after, all departed to my Lord's place to dinner." "Nov. 12, Mr. Maynard, merchant, was buried; and after, the company departed to his house, at Poplar, to a great dinner." "Oct. 19, died the Lord Bray; and so he went by water to Chelsea to be buried, &c. &c. Many priests and clerks attended. They all came back to this Lord's place, at Blackfriars, to dinner." At the funeral of Richard Capet, Feb. 1, "All return to dinner." "On the 16th, Mr. Pynohe, fishmonger, and a brother of Jesus, was buried. All being performed at the church, the company retired to his house to drink." On the 24th, "a great dinner," after the funeral of Sir George Bowers. This testimony is inexhaustible. After the funeral of Lady White, March 2, Strype says "there was as great a dinner as had been seen." I will close with two examples. "Aug. 3, 1588. The Lady Rowlet was buried; and after mass, the company retreated to the place to dinner, which was plentifully furnished with venison, fresh salmon, fresh sturgeon, and many other fine dishes. On the 12th, died Mr. Machyl, alderman and clothesworker." After a sermon by a grey friar, "the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and all the mourners and ladies went to dinner, which was very splendid, lacking no good meat, both flesh and fish, and an hundred marchpanes."

It is certain, that all this appears to us now to have been in very bad taste; and it is not easy to comprehend the principle, which conducted to the perpetration of such sensual absurdities; unless we suppose it to have been the design of all concerned, to felicitate the heir, upon his coming to possession; the widow, upon the fruition of an ample dower and abundant leisure; or the widower, upon the recovery of his liberty. This is not the only occasion, upon which man's features are required, from the extreme suddenness of the change, to undergo a process of moral distortion, amounting to grimace. Thus, grief, for the death of one monarch, is rudely expressed, by turbulent joy at the succession of another. Suffer me to conclude, in the words of father Strype--"The same day queen Mary deceased, in the morning between 11 and 12, the Lady Elizabeth was proclaimed queen: in the afternoon all the churches in London rang their bells; and at night were bonfires made, and tables set in the streets, and the people did eat, and drink, and make merry."

No. XXVI.

Among the dead--the mighty dead--there is one, in regard to whom, our national dealings may be fairly set forth, in the words of Desdemona--

In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: She wish'd she had not heard it.

Forty-nine years have passed, since the interment of George Washington. Forty-nine years ago, "the joint committee," says Chief Justice Marshall, "which had been appointed to devise the mode, by which the nation should express its feelings, on this melancholy occasion, reported" a series of resolutions, among which was the following: "That a marble monument be erected, by the United States, at the city of Washington, and that the family of General Washington be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it; and that the monument be so designed, as to commemorate the great events of his military and political life." To the letter, transmitting the resolutions to Mrs. Washington, she replied, as follows: "Taught by the great example, which I have so long had before me, never to oppose my private wishes to the public will, I must consent to the request made by Congress, which you have had the goodness to transmit to me; and, in doing this, I need not, I cannot, say what a sacrifice of individual feeling I make, to a sense of public duty."

All this is very fine. The nation requested permission to remove the remains--Mrs. Washington consented--but that monument! The remains have slumbered quietly, where they first were interred, for nine and forty years--and the monument is like Rachel's first born--it is not! There is something better in prospect. Such, however, is the record thus far. It is very true he needs no monument. No immortal can say more justly, from his elevated sphere, to every inhabitant of this vast empire, _si monumentum quæris, circumspice_!

This fact, however, so far from taking the tithe of a hair from the balance of this account, illustrates the national delinquency. It may be matter of amusing speculation, to contrast the zeal, which prevails, especially in England, in relation to the most trifling memorials of Shakspeare, and the popular indifference, in regard to certain relics, known to have been the property of Washington, and to have been personally used by him.

All are familiar with the recent excitement, on the subject of Shakspeare's house--that mulberry tree--a hair of him, for memory.

Washington's library has lately been sold, for just about the price of four shares in one of the cotton mills at Lowell. A few years since, the cabinet of medals, struck at different times, in honor of the Father of his country, and which had become the property of one of his representatives, was sold by him, for five hundred dollars, and purchased by an individual citizen of Massachusetts. There are some things, seemingly so vast--so very--very national--that one can scarcely believe it possible for any private cabinet to contain them gracefully.

Soon after the destruction of the Bastile, July 14, 1789, La Fayette sent its massive key to Washington--his political father--as the first fruits of those principles of liberty, which were then supposed to be bourgeoning forth, in a _free_ French soil. This colossal key was suspended, in the front entry, at Mount Vernon. A short time ago, an aged friend, residing in a neighboring town, and once intimate in the family of Washington, told me he had often seen that famous key, in its well known position. This also became the property of Washington's representatives. A few years since, I saw it stated, in the public journals, that, among other effects, this key of the Bastile was sold at auction, and purchased for seventy-five cents, by a gentleman, who had the good taste to return it to some member of the family.

Eminent men, as they arise, are occasionally compared to Washington. Points of resemblance, now and then, may assuredly be found; but there never breathed a man, whose mental and moral properties combined, could endure a rigid comparison with his. Whoever attempts to run this parallel, between him and any other, will readily acknowledge the truth of the proverb, _nullum simile quatuor pedibus currit_. Select the example from the present, or the past, from our own or from other lands, and inquire, to which of them all would Erskine, so chary of his praise, so slow of faith in his fellow, have applied those memorable words, inscribed, in the presentation copy of his work, transmitted to Washington--_You, sir, are the only individual, for whom I ever felt an awful reverence_. Of whom else would Lord Brougham have pronounced this remarkable passage--"It will be the duty of the historian and the sage, in all ages, to omit no occasion of commemorating this illustrious man; and, until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress, which our race has made in wisdom and virtue, be derived, from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington."

I have not yet met with any gentleman of our calling, who is not decidedly in favor of the election of General Taylor, or who would not gratuitously attend, in a professional way, upon Messieurs Cass and Van Buren. We perceive a resemblance between the first president and the present candidate, in their willingness to draw long bills on posterity for fame, in preference to numerous drafts, at sight, without grace, for daily applause. But we behold, in Washington, the image and superscription, not of Cæsar, but of a peerless mortal--of one, created, verily, a little lower than the angels--

"A combination, and a form, indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man."

No men have done more to bedim the reputation of Washington, than Jefferson and Randolph. Verily they have their reward. In no portion of our country has the memory of that great man been more universally cherished and beloved, than in New England. A sentiment, not only of reverence for his character, but of affection for his person, was very general, in this quarter; and manifested itself, in a remarkable manner, upon the occasion of his death. Nothing could have been more unexpected, than the announcement of that event, in Boston. I will close this article, with a simple illustration of the popular feeling, when the sad tidings arrived. At the close of that year, 1799--I was a small boy then--I was returning from a ride on horseback, to Dorchester Point--there was no bridge, and it was quite a journey. As I approached the town, I was very much surprised, at the tolling of the bells. Upon reaching home, I saw my old father, at an unusual hour for him, the busiest man alive, to be at home, sitting alone in our parlor, with his bandanna before his eyes. I ran towards him, with the thoughtless gayety of youth, and asked what the bells were tolling for. He withdrew the handkerchief from his face--the tears were rolling down his fine old features--"Go away child," said he, "don't disturb me; do you not know, that Washington is dead?"

The reader has surmised, that the worthy old man had sipped at the fountain of executive patronage. Not at all. He had never seen Washington, and never held an office civil or military, saving under Hancock's commission, as justice of the peace, which was accounted a very pretty compliment, in those days. No. He was nothing but an American, and he shed those American tears, upon the death of one, whose character and conduct had filled his heart with sentiments of pride, and love, and "awful reverence."

No. XXVII.

I am rather inclined to suspect, that man is a selfish animal. A few days ago, I administered a merited rebuke to a group of young sextons, who had gathered together, after a funeral, and were seated upon a barrow bier, before an unclosed tomb. They had been discussing the subject of capital punishment, and were opposed to it unanimously. They frankly admitted, that they were not influenced, by any consideration of humanity, but looked simply to the fact, that, as the bodies of executed criminals went, commonly, to the surgeons, every execution deprived us of a job. One observed, that Boston was dreadfully healthy--another remarked, that homoeopathy had proved a considerable help to us. Several compliments were paid to Thompson, Brandreth, and Mrs. Kidder. But they appeared to anticipate emolument from no source, so certainly, as from the approaching cholera.

I was greatly shocked, and expressed my opinion very freely. I reminded them of the primitive dignity of the sacristan's office. I should deeply regret, to see our calling reduced to the level of a mere trade, with its tariff--shrouds all rising--coffins looking up! We have a fair share of funerals, and the members of our profession have no just cause for complaint. Steam has helped us prodigiously. It has been said, that, comparing the amount of steam travel with the amount of ante-steam travel, i. e., the present with the past, the relative amount of deaths, from accident, is about the same. Suppose it to be so; the cheapness and facility of locomotion, at present, stimulate a much larger number to move--there is a vast increase of frivolous and pleasure travel--cars are filled with women, crates with bandboxes, and death is to be averaged over the integer--I therefore repeat, that steam has helped our profession. If steam had been known, in ancient Rome, it would have been reckoned a deity, whose diet, like the sacrifice of Juggernaut, would have been flesh and blood.

There is a very natural sensibility, on the part of steamboat and railroad proprietors, to the announcement of disasters, by steam. There is a wonderful eagerness to persuade the public to contemplate these catastrophes, with the larger end of the telescope toward the eye. This also is a great help to our profession. There is really no lack of business, and it is quite abominable, for thoughtless young sextons to pray for the advent of the cholera.

We dwell in a region of the earth, seldom touched by this besom of destruction. Pestilence and famine have rarely come nigh unto us. It would be impious to envy the denizens of milder climes.

"With gold and gems if Chilian mountains glow, If bleak and barren Scotia's hills arise; There plague and poison, lust and rapine grow, Here peaceful are the vales and pure the skies."

I thank heaven, I was not an undertaker, in London, in 1665, when there were scarcely enough of the living to bury the dead. When I used to wrap myself up, in the pages of Robinson Crusoe, how little I suspected, that Daniel Defoe was the writer of some twenty volumes beside. His inimitable history of the plague, of 1665, is admirable reading, for the members of our craft.

At irregular periods, plague, yellow fever, sweating sickness, and cholera have visited the earth, with terrible effect. Let us take a cursory view of these awful visitations. A. D. 78, 10,000 perished daily at Rome. The plague returned there A. D. 167. Terrible plague in Britain A. D. 430. A dreadful plague spread over Europe, Asia and Africa, A. D. 558, and continued, for several years. 200,000 died of the plague in Constantinople, A. D. 746. This plague raged for three years, and extended to Calabria, Sicily and Greece. William of Malmsbury states, that A. D. 772, an epidemic disease carried off 34,000 in Chichester, England. 40,000 died of pestilence in Scotland, A. D. 954. Hollingshed gives an account of a terrible plague among cattle, A. D. 1111, and in Ireland A. D. 1204. In this year a general plague raged in Europe. In London 200 persons were buried daily, in the Charterhouse yard. A dreadful mortality prevailed in London and Paris, A. D. 1362 and '7. Great pestilence in Ireland A. D. 1383. Endemic destroyed 30,000 in London A. D. 1407. Great numbers died of plague in Ireland, following famine, A. D. 1466. Dublin was severely visited with plague A. D. 1470. Rapin and Salmon give an account of the plague at Oxford, A. D. 1471, and throughout England A. D. 1478.

The sweating sickness, _sudor Anglicus_, first appeared, in England, in 1483, in the army of Henry VII., on his landing at Milfordhaven. A year or two after, it travelled to London, and remained there, with intermissions, for forty years. It then passed over to the continent, and overran Holland, Germany, Flanders, France, Denmark, and Norway. It continued in those countries, from 1525 to 1530; it then returned to England; and was last known there, in 1551. It was a malignant fever, accompanied with very great thirst, delirium, and excessive sweat. Dr. Caius called it "a contagious, pestilential fever of one day, prevailing with a mighty slaughter, as tremendous as the plague of Athens." Dr. Willis says, "Its malignity was so extreme, that as soon as it entered a city, it made a daily attack, on five or six hundred persons, of whom scarcely one in a hundred recovered." Strype says, "The plague of sweat this summer, 1551, was very severe, and carried away multitudes of people, rich and poor, especially in London, where, in one day, July 10th, died an hundred people, and the next, one hundred and twenty. From the 8th of this month to the 19th, there died in London, of this sweat, 872."

Stowe says that, in the 9th year of Henry VII., 1517, half the population, in the capital towns of England, died of the sweating sickness: and that it proved fatal, in three hours. In the year 1500, Stowe also says, that the plague was so terrible in London, that Henry VII. and his court went over to Calais. The plague prevailed in England and Ireland, in 1603, and in London 30,000 persons died. In 1611, 200,000 died of pestilence, in Constantinople; 35,000 persons died of an epidemic in London, in 1625. In 1632 a general mortality prevailed in France; 60,000 died in Lyons. The plague was brought from Sardinia to Naples, in 1656, and 400,000 of the Neapolitans died, in six months. In the great plague of London, of 1665, described by De Foe, 68,596 persons died. In 1720, 60,000 perished of the plague at Marseilles.

An account is given, by the Abbe Mariti, of one of the most awful plagues ever known, which prevailed in Syria, in 1760. In Persia, 80,000 inhabitants of Bassorah, died of the plague, in 1773. In 1792, the plague destroyed 800,000 persons in Egypt. In 1799, 247,000 died of the plague at Fez; and in Barbary, 3000 daily, for several days. In 1804 and '5, an immense number were destroyed, by the plague, in Gibraltar. At the same place, in 1828, many were swept away, by an epidemic fever, scarce distinguishable from the plague. Verily the vocation of an undertaker is anything but a sinecure! But, in such terrible emergencies, as were hourly occurring, during the prevalence of the great plague of London, such an operator as Pontraci would have cast aside all thoughts of shrouds and coffins. In one single night 4000 died. The hearses were common dead carts; and the continued cry, _bring out your dead_, rang through every heart. Defoe rates the victims of the plague of 1665, at 100,000.

At present, we have a deeper interest in the pestilence of modern times, though by some accounted of great antiquity. The Indian or Asiatic cholera traversed the north, east and south of Europe, and the countries of Asia, and, in two years, prostrated 900,000 victims. It subsequently appeared in England, at Sunderland, Oct. 26, 1831; in Scotland, at Edinburgh, Feb. 6, 1832; in Ireland, at Dublin, March 3, 1832. The mortality was great, but much less than upon the continent. Between March and August, 1832, 18,000 died of cholera, in Paris. In July and August, 1837, it reappeared in Rome, the Two Sicilies, Genoa, Berlin, and some other cities. Its ravages, in this country, were far less notable, than in many others. It is very wise to cast about us, and determine what we will do, if it should come again, and it is very likely to take us in its progress. But let us not forget, that it will most easily approach us, through our fears; and probably, in no disease, are fear and grief more fatal _avant couriers_, than in affections of the abdominal viscera.

I am half inclined to the opinion of a charming old lady of my acquaintance, who, after listening to a learned discussion, as to the seat of the soul--the fountain of sensibility,--and whether or not it was seated in the conarion--the pineal gland--gave her decided opinion, that it was seated in the bowels.

No. XXVIII.

The dead speak from their coffins--from their very graves--and verily the heart of the true mourner hath ears to hear. Gloves and rings are the valedictories of the dead--their _vales_, or parting tokens, received by the mourners, at the hand of some surviving friend. This appropriated word, _vale_, as almost every one knows, is the leave-taking expression of the mourners; and, when anglicised, and used in the plural number, as one syllable, signifies those _vales_ or vails, tokens, in various forms, from shillings to crown pieces, bestowed by parting visitors, on domestics, from the head waiter to the scullion. They are intended as leave tokens. Every servant, in the families of the nobility, from the highest to the lowest, expects a _vale_, not in the classical sense of Menalcas--_Longum, formose, vale, vale_, but in lawful money, intelligible coin. This practice had become so oppressive to visitors, in the early part of the reign of George III., that Sir Jonas Hanway, remarkable, among other things, for his controversy with Dr. Johnson, on the subject of tea drinking, wrote and published eight letters to the Duke of Newcastle, against the custom of giving vails, in which he relates some very amusing anecdotes. Mr. Hanway, being quietly reproached, by a friend, in high station, for not accepting his invitations to dinner, more frequently, frankly replied, "Indeed, my Lord, I cannot afford it." He recites the manner of leaving a gentleman's house, where he had dined; the servants, as usual, flocked around him--"your great coat, Sir Jonas"--a shilling--"your hat, sir:" a shilling--"stick, sir:" a shilling--"umbrella, sir:" a shilling--"sir, your gloves"--"well, keep the gloves, they are not worth the shilling." A remarkable example of the insolence of a pampered menial was related to Mr. Hanway, by Sir Timothy Waldo. He had dined with the Duke of Newcastle: as he was departing, and handing over his coin to the train of servants, that lined the hall, he put a crown into the hand of the chief cook, who returned it, saying, "I never take silver, sir." "Indeed"--Sir Timothy replied, returning the piece to his pocket, "I never give gold."

Sir Jonas was an excellent man; and, whatever objections he may have had to the practice of giving extravagant vails to servants, I think he would have little or nothing to say, against the practice of giving such vails, as the dead may be supposed, vicariously, to bestow upon the living, in the form of rings and gloves. The dead, it must be conceded, seem not so much disposed to give vails, at present, as they were, one hundred years ago. In such dispensations, in the olden time, the good man, the clergyman, was seldom forgotten. Gloves and rings were showered down, upon the Lord's anointed, at weddings, christenings, and funerals. When a child, I was very much puzzled, upon two points; first, what became of all the old moons, and, secondly, what the minister did with his gloves and rings. If he had had the hands of Briareus, he could not have worn them all.

An interesting little volume is now lying upon my table, which explains the mystery, not at all, in relation to the moons, but most happily, in respect to rings and gloves. It is the Astronomical Diary or Almanac of Nathaniel Ames, Boston, New England, printed by J. Draper, for the booksellers, 1748. This little book is interleaved; and the blank leaves are written over, in the hand-writing of good old Andrew Eliot, who, April 14, 1742, was ordained pastor of the new North Church, in Boston, as colleague with Mr. Webb, where, possessing very little of the locomotive or migratory spirit of the moderns, this excellent man remained, till his death, Sept. 13, 1778. If gall and wormwood are essential to the perfection of Christian theology, Dr. Eliot was singularly deficient, as a teacher of religion. His sermons were very full of practical godliness, and singularly free from brimstone and fire. He was elected President of Harvard University, but his attachment to his people caused him to decline the appointment. After this passing tribute, let us return to the little Almanac of 1748. On the inside of the marble cover the first entry commences thus: "Gloves, 1748, January." The gloves, received by Dr. Eliot, are set against particular names, and under every month, in the year. Certain names are marked with asterisks, doubtless denoting, that the parties were dead, or _stelligeri_, after the fashion of the College catalogue; and thus the good doctor discriminated, between funerals, and weddings and christenings. Although a goodly number of rings are enrolled, together with the gloves, yet a page is devoted to rings, exclusively, in the middle of the book. This is not arranged, under months, but years; and commences, in 1741, the year before he was ordained, as colleague with Mr. Webb. At the bottom of the record, the good man states how many pairs were kid; how many were lambswool; and how many were long or women's gloves, intended, of course, for the parson's lady.

These rings and gloves were sold, by the worthy doctor, with the exception of such, as were distributed, in his own household, not a small one, for he left eleven children. A prejudice might have prevailed, an hundred years ago, against dead men's gloves, similar to that, recorded in the proverb, against dead men's shoes; certain it is, these gloves did not meet with a very ready market. It appears by the record, in the doctor's own hand, that Mrs. Avis was entrusted with fifteen pairs of women's and three dozen of men's; and returned, unsold, eight pairs of women's, and one dozen and ten pairs of men's. A dozen pairs of men's were committed to Mrs. Langstaff; half a dozen women's to Mr. Langdon, and seventeen pairs to Captain Millens. What a glove and ring market the dear Doctor's study must have been. In thirty-two years, he appears to have received two thousand nine hundred and forty pairs of gloves, at funerals, weddings, and baptisms. Of these he sold to the amount of fourteen hundred and forty one pounds, eighteen shillings, and one penny, old tenor, equal to about six hundred and forty dollars. He also sold a goodly number of his rings. From all this, the conclusion is irresistible, that this truly good man and faithful minister must have been, if I may use the common expression, hand and glove with his parishioners. The little volume before me contains the record of other matters, highly interesting, doubtless, in their day but of precious little moment, at the present hour. Of what importance can it be, I beg leave to inquire, for any one to know, on what precise day, one hundred years ago, the worthy pastor borrowed a box of candles of Deacon Langdon, or a loaf of sugar of his own father, or ten shillings, old tenor, of Deacon Grant! Who, of the present generation, cares, on what day, one hundred years ago, he repaid those three pounds to Deacon Barrett! Of what consequence to any living mortal can it be, that, on the thirteenth day of April, one hundred years ago, Betty Bouvè came to live at the manse, as a maid! It is past. The last of that box of candles has burnt down into the socket, long ago. That sugar has dissolved, and lost its sweetness. And Betty Bouvè! The places that knew her know her no more. Her sweeping days are over; for time, with its irresistible broom, hath swept her from the face of the earth, and given her the grave for a dustpan.

The good old man himself has been called to the account of his stewardship. "It was a pleasant day," saith Father Gannett, on the fly-leaf of his almanac, "Sept. 15, 1778, when near four hundred couples and thirty-two carriages followed the remains of Dr. Andrew Eliot from his house, before the south side of his meeting-house, into Fore Street, up Cross Street, through Black Horse Lane, to Corpse Hill." I adopt Mr. Gannett's orthography, though rather less accurate than applicable.

No. XXIX.

The true value of an enlightened conscience may be duly estimated by him, who has enjoyed the luxury of travelling in the dark, with the assistance of a lantern, without a candle. A man, who has a very strong sense of duty, and very little common sense, is apt to be a very troublesome fellow; for he is likely to unite the stupidity of an ass with the obstinacy of a mule. Yet such there are; and, however inconvenient, individually, the evil is immeasurably increased, when they become gregarious, and form a party, for any purpose whatever. Such conscience parties have existed, in every age and nation. A few individuals, of higher intelligence, dissatisfied with their civil, political, military, religious, or literary importance, and fatally bent upon distinction, are necessary to elevate some enormous green cheese high in the firmament, and persuade their followers, that it is neither more nor less than the moon, at full. Herod was the great director of that conscience party, that believed it to be their bounden duty, to murder all the little children in Judea, under a certain age. The terrible sacrifice, on St. Bartholomew's eve, was conducted by a conscience party. The burnings and starvings, in bloody Mary's reign, were planned and executed, by a conscience party. In no country has conscience been so very rampant, as in Ireland, from the days of Heremon and King Olam Fodla, to the present hour. Almost every reader is aware how conscientiously Archbishop Sharp was murdered, in presence of his daughter, in Scotland.

The widows of Hindostan, when they attempt to escape from the funeral pile, on which their late husbands are burning, are driven back into the flames, by a conscience party. It is well known, that certain inhabitants of India deposit their aged and decrepit parents, upon the very margin of the river, that the rising waters may bear them away. This is not the act of a few individuals; but the common practice, clearly indicating the existence of a conscience party, who undoubtedly believe they are acting, in a most filial and dutiful manner, and doing the very best thing in the world, for all parties. Infanticide is tolerated in China. Very little account is made of female babies there. This has been doubted and denied. Doubt and denial are of no use. There is a conscience party there, who believe it to be their duty to their male babies, to drown the females, unless they are pretty, and then they have a chance for life, in being sold for concubines. Among the numerous and best modern authorities, on this point, is Gutzlaff, whose voyages, along the coast of China, were published, in London, 1834. "At the beach of Amoy," says he, "we were shocked, at the spectacle of a pretty, new-born babe, which, shortly before, had been killed. We asked some of the bystanders what this meant; they answered with indifference, 'it is only a girl.'" On page 174, Gutzlaff remarks, "It is a general custom among them to drown a large proportion of their new-born female children. This unnatural crime is so common, that it is perpetrated, without any feeling, and even in a laughing mood; and, to ask a man of distinction, whether he has daughters, is a mark of great rudeness." Earle, in his narrative of New Zealand, London, 1832, states that the practice existed there.

The insurrection of Shays, in this Commonwealth, in 1787, was a matter of conscience, beyond all doubt. He and many of his associates believed themselves a conscience party. After General Lincoln had suppressed the rebellion, great lenity was shown to the prisoners--not an individual was executed--and Shays, who died in 1825, at the age of 85, was even pensioned, in his old age, for his prior services in the revolution.

The revolt of the Pennsylvania line, in 1781, was, I admit, less an affair of the conscience, than of the stomach and bowels; for the poor fellows were nearly starved to death. The insurrection under Fries, commonly called the whiskey rebellion, in Western Pennsylvania, in 1792, was a different affair. A conscience party resolved to drink nothing but untaxed whiskey--they conscientiously believed the flavor to be utterly ruined, by the excise. It is certain, that, when General Washington moved against the rebels, there was conscience enough, among them, to make cowards of them all, for they scattered, in all directions.

A conscience party existed, in the early settlement of our country, when our pious ancestors, having fled to the howling wilderness, that they might enjoy liberty of thought, on religious subjects, began to hang the poor Quakers, for the glory of God.

Never before had there been such a conscience party in Massachusetts, as from 1689 to 1693. It was then Cotton Mather exclaimed from the pulpit, that witchcraft was the "most nefandous high treason against the Majesty on high." It was then, that he satisfied himself, by repeated trials, that devils were skilled in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. It was then, that they hanged old women, for riding on broomsticks through the air; a mode of conveyance, which Lord Mansfield declared, long after, to be perfectly lawful, for all who preferred that mode of equitation.

A conscience party has recently appeared, in this country, which it is not easy to describe. Every other party seems to have contributed to its formation. It is a sort of political mosaic, made up of tag, rag, and bobtail. Some of the prominent members of this party were whigs, but yesterday; and yet they have put forth all their energies, to elect, as president, a man, whom they and all other whigs have hitherto opposed, and denounced, and who, it was manifest, from the beginning, could not possibly be elected. This man has been accounted, by the whigs, a political charlatan; and all that he has done, to obtain the support of this conscience party, such of them at least, as were once whigs, is to avow certain sentiments, on the subject of slavery, the very contrary of those, which he has hitherto maintained, most openly and zealously. No grave and reflecting whig puts any more confidence, in the promises of this political spin-button, than he would put, in the words of Nicholas Machiavelli. Nor could this candidate do more to check the progress of slavery, than every honest whig believes will be done, by the candidate of their party, who certainly resembles Washington, in three particulars; he is himself a slaveholder--he is an honest man--and he wears the same political phylactery, "_I will be the president of the people, not of a party_."

In consideration of the limit of power, neither of these candidates can do more than the other, for the object in view, if they were equally honest, which nobody dreams of, unless he dreams in Sleepy Hollow. If there had been an anti-cholera party, Van Buren might have commanded suffrages, as sensibly, by pledging himself to do all in his power, to prevent its extension. The remaining candidate, it is agreed, would, if elected, have turned the hopes, one and all, of both whig and conscience parties topsy-turvy. His election, it is clear, was made more probable, by every vote, given by a whig to that candidate, whose election was clearly impossible. These irregular whigs, have, therefore, spent their ammunition, as profitably, as the old covenanter spent his, who fired a horse pistol against the walls of Sterling Castle. Such is the conscience party.

When I refer to the universal consent of the whigs, during the former canvass for Martin Van Buren, that he was, politically, the very devil incarnate; and, in making a selection of those, who were the loudest, and longest, and the most vehement of his antagonists, find them to be the very leaders of the present movement, in his favor; I am reminded of Peter Pindar's pleasant story of the chambermaid and the spider; and, not having my copy of Peter at hand, I will endeavor to relate the tale in prose, as well as I am able.

A chambermaid, in going her rounds, observed an enormous spider, black and bloated, so far from his hole of refuge, that, lifting her broom, she exclaimed, "Now, you ugly brute, I have you! You are such a sly, cunning knave, and have such a happy non-committal way with you, that I never have been able to catch you before; for, the moment I raised my broom, you were out of sight, forsooth, and perfectly safe, in that Kinderhook of a hole of yours--but, now prepare yourself, for your hour has come." The spider turned every one of his eight eyes down upon the chambermaid, and, extending his two forelegs in a beseeching manner, calmly replied, "Strike, peerless maid, but hear me! I have given you infinite trouble, and have been a very bad fellow, I admit. Crafty and cruel, I have been an unmitigated oppressor of flies, and all inferior insects. I have sucked their blood, and lived upon their marrow. But now my conscience has awakened, and I am in favor of letting flies go free. It is not in quest of flies, that I am here, sweet maid; (and then he seemed perfectly convulsed;) I am changed at heart, and become a new spider. Pardon me for speaking the truth; my only object, in being here, is, from this elevated spot, to survey your incomparable charms." The chambermaid lowered her broom; and gently said, as she walked away, "Well, a spider is not such a horrid creature, after all."

I may be thought, in these remarks, to have offended against the dictum--_ne sutor ultra crepidam_. Surely I am not guilty--my dealings are with _the dead_. Perhaps I am mistaken. The conscience party may not be dead, but cataleptic--destined to rise again--to fall more feebly than before.

No. XXX.

Funerals, in the earlier days of Rome, must have been very showy affairs. They were torch-light processions, by night. You will gather some information, on this subject, by consulting a note of Servius, on Virg. Æn. xi. 143. Cicero, de legibus, ii. 26, says, that Demetrius ordered nocturnal funerals, to check the taste for extravagance, in these matters: "Iste igitur sumptum minuit, non solum poena, sed etiam tempore; ante lucem enim jussit efferri." A more ancient law, of similar import, will be found recited, in the oration of Demosthenes, against Macartatus, viii., 82, Dove's London ed. Orat. Attici. _Funes_ or _funiculi_ were small ropes or cords, covered with wax or tallow; such were the torches, used on such occasions; hence the word _funus_ or funeral. A confirmation of this may be found in the note of Servius, Æn. i. 727. In a later age, funerals were celebrated in the forenoon.

There were some things done, at ancient funerals, which would be accounted very extraordinary at the present day. What should we say to a stuffed effigy of the defunct, composed entirely of cinnamon, and paraded in the procession! Plutarch says; "Such was the quantity of spices brought in by the women, at Sylla's funeral, that, exclusive of those carried in two hundred and ten great baskets, a figure of Sylla at full length, and of a lictor besides, was made entirely of cinnamon, and the choicest frankincense."

At the head of Roman funerals, came the _tibicines_, pipers, and trumpeters, immediately following the _designator_, or undertaker, and the lictors, dressed in black. Next came the "præficæ, quæ dabant cæteris modum plangendi." These were women hired to mourn, and sing the funeral song, who are popularly termed _howlers_. To this practice Horace alludes, in his Art of Poetry:

Ut, qui conducti plorant in funere, dicunt, Et faciunt prope plura dolentibus ex animo--

which Francis well translates:

As hirelings, paid for the funereal tear, Outweep the sorrows of a friend sincere.

I once witnessed an exhibition of this kind, in one of the West India Islands. A planter's funeral occurred, at Christianstadt, the west end of Santa Cruz. After the corpse had been lowered into the grave, a wild ululation arose, from the mouths of some hundred slaves, who had followed from the plantation--"Oh, what good massa he was--good, dear, old massa gone--no poor slave eber hab such kind massa--no more any such good, kind massa come agin." I noticed one hard-favored fellow, who made a terrible noise, and upon whose features, as he turned the whites of his big eyes up toward heaven, there was a sinister, and, now and then, rather a comical expression, and who, when called to assist in filling up, appeared to throw on the earth, as if he did it from the heart.

After the work was done, I called him aside. "You have lost an excellent master," said I. The fellow looked warily round, and, perceiving that he was not overheard, replied, in an undertone--"No massa, he bad mule--big old villain--me glad the debble got him." Having thus relieved himself of his feelings, he hastened to join the gang, and I soon saw him, as they filed off, on their way back to the plantation, throwing his brawny arms aloft, and joining in the cry--"Oh, what kind, good massa he was!" Upon inquiry, I learned, that this planter was a very bad mule indeed, a merciless old taskmaster.

Not more than ten flute players were allowed, at a funeral, by the Twelve Tables. The flutes and trumpets were large and of lugubrious tones; thus Ovid, Fast. vi. 660: Cantabat moestis tibia funeribus; and Am. ii. 66: Pro longa resonent carmina vestra tuba.

Nothing appears more incomprehensible, in connection with this subject, than the employment of players and buffoons, by the ancients, at their funerals. This practice is referred to, by Suetonius, in his Life of Tiberius, sec. 57. We are told by Dyonisius, vii. 72, that these Ludii, Histriones, and Scurræ danced and sang. One of this class of performers was a professed mimic, and was styled _Archimimus_. Strange as such a proceeding may appear to us, it was his business, to imitate the voice, manner, and gestures of the defunct; he supported the dead man's character, and repeated his words and sayings. In the Life of Vespasian, sec. 19, Suetonius thus describes the proceeding: In funere, Favor, archimimus, personam ejus ferens, imitansque, ut est mos, facta ac dicta vivi, etc. This Favor must have been a comical fellow, and is as free with the dead, as Killigrew, Charles the Second's jester, was, with the living; as the reader will perceive, if he will refer to the passage in Suetonius: for the fellow openly cracks his jokes, on the absurd expense of the funeral. This, we should suppose, was no subject for joking, if we may believe the statement of Pliny, xxxiii. 47, that one C. Cæcillius Claudius, a private citizen, left rather more than nine thousand pounds sterling, by his will, for his funeral expenses.

After the archimimus, came the freemen of the deceased, _pileati_; that is, wearing their caps of liberty. Men, not unfrequently, as a last act, to swell their funeral train, freed their slaves. Before the corpse, were carried the images of the defunct and of his ancestors, but not of such, as had been found guilty of any heinous crime. Thus Tacitus, ii. 32, relates, that the image of Libo was not permitted to accompany the obsequies of any of his posterity.

The origin of the common practice of marching at military funerals, with arms reversed, is of high antiquity. Thus Virgil xi. 93, at the funeral of Pallas--_versis Arcades armis_: and upon another occasion, _versi fasces_ occur in Tacitus iii. 2, referring to the lictors.

In our cities and large towns, the corpse is commonly borne to the grave, in a hearse, or on the shoulders of paid bearers. Originally it was otherwise. The office of supporting the body to the grave was supposed to belong, of right, and duty, to relatives and friends; or, in the case of eminent persons, to public functionaries. Thus, in Tacitus, iii. 2, we find the expression, _tribunorum centurionumque humeris cineres portabantur_: and, upon the death of Augustus, Tac. i. 8, it was carried by acclamation, as we moderns say, _corpus ad rogum humeris senatorum ferendum_.

The conduct of both sexes, at funerals, was, in some respects, rather ridiculous, in those days. Virgil says of King Latinus, when he lost his wife,

--------it, scissa veste, Latinus, Canitiem immundo perfusam pulvere turpans;

which means, in plain English, that the old monarch went about, with his coat torn, defiling his white hair with filthy dust.

Cicero, in his Tusculan Questions, iii. 26, is entirely of this opinion: detestabilia genera lugendi, pædores, muliebres lacerationes genarum, pectoris, feminum, capitis percussiones--detestable kinds of mourning, covering the body with filth, women tearing their cheeks, bosoms, and limbs, and knocking their heads. Tibullus, in the concluding lines of his charming elegy to Delia, the first of his first book, though he evidently derives much happiness, from the conviction, that she will mourn for him, and weep over his funeral pile, implores her to spare her lovely cheeks and flowing hair. No classical reader will censure me, for transcribing this very fine passage:

Te spectem, suprema mihi quum venerit hora, Te teneam moriens, deficiente manu. Flebis et arsuro positum me, Delia, lecto. Tristibus et lacrymis oscula mixta dabis. Flebis; non tua sunt duro præcordia ferro, Vincta, nec in tenero stat tibi corde silex. Illo non juvenis poterit de funere quisquam Lumina, non virgo, sicca referre domum. Tu manes ne læde meos: sed parce solutis Crinibus, et teneris, Delia, parce genis.

The _suttee_, or sacrifice of the widows of Hindostan, on the funeral pile of their husbands, was not more a matter of course, than the laceration of the hair and cheeks, among Roman women. It was undoubtedly accounted disreputable, for a widow to appear in public, after the recent funeral of her husband, with locks unpulled and cheeks unscratched. To such extremity had this absurd practice proceeded, that the fifth law of the tenth of the Twelve Tables, to which reference has been made, in a former number, was enacted to prevent it--_mulieres genas ne radunto_.

No discreet matron perpetrates any such absurdity, in modern times. The hair and cheeks of the departed have, occasionally, given evidence of considerable laceration, from some cause unknown; but neither the law of the Tables, nor the pathos of a Tibullus is commonly required, to prevent a Christian widow, from laying violent hands, upon her cheeks or her hair.

No. XXXI.

The cholera seems to be forgotten--but without reason--for the yellowest and most malignant of all yellow fevers is down upon us, proving fatal to the peace of many families, and sweeping away our citizens, by hundreds. The distemper appears to have originated in California, and to have been brought hither, in letters from Governor Mason and others. It is deeply to be deplored, that these letters, which are producing all this mischief, had not been subjected to the process of smoking and sprinkling with vinegar; for the disease is highly contagious. This fever differs entirely from the _febris flava_--the _typhus icteroides_ of _Sauvages_. The symptoms are somewhat peculiar. The pulse is quick and fluttering--the head hot--the patient neglects his business, bolts his food, and wanders about--sometimes apparently delirious, and, during the paroxysms, calls furiously for a pickaxe and a tin pan. But the most certain indication, that the disease has entered into the system, is, not that the patient himself becomes yellow, but that everything, upon which he turns his eyes, assumes the yellow appearance of gold. The nature of this distemper will, however, be much better understood, by the presentation of a few cases of actual occurrence.

I. Jeduthan Smink--a carpenter, having a wife and two children, residing at No. 9 Loafer's Lane. This is a strongly marked case. Mr. Smink, who is about five and twenty years of age, has always entertained the opinion, that work did him harm, and that drink did him good--labors--the only way in which he will labor--under the delusion, that all is gold that glistens--packed up his warming pan and brass kettle, to send them to the mint.

II. Laban Larkin, a farmer--caught the fever of a barber, while being shaved--persuaded that the unusual yellowness of his squashes and carrots can only be accounted for, by the presence of gold dust--turned a field of winter rye topsy turvy, in search of it--believes finally, in the sliding qualities of subterraneous treasure--thinks his gold has slipped over into his neighbor's field of winter rye--offers to dig it all up, at the halves--excited and abusive, because his neighbor declines the offer--told him he was a superannuated ass, and behind the times.

III. Molly Murphy resides, when at home, which is seldom, in Shelaly Court, near the corner, easily found by any one, who will follow his nose; has a husband and one child, a dutiful boy, who vends matches and penny papers, on week days, and steals, on Sundays, for the support of the family. Molly can read; has read what Gov. Mason writes about pigs rooting up gold, by mistake, for groundnuts--her brain much disturbed--has an impression, that gold may be found almost anywhere--with a tin pan, and no other assistance but her son, Tooley Murphy, she has actually dug over and washed a pile of filth, in front of her dwelling, which the city scavengers have never been able materially to diminish--urges her husband to be "aff wid the family for Killyfarny, where the very wheelbarries is made out of goold." Dreams of nothing but gold dust, and firmly believes it to be the very dust we shall all return to--while asleep, seized her husband by the ears, and could scarcely be sufficiently awakened, to comprehend that she had not captured the golden calf.

Let us be grave. I shall not inquire, if Bishop Archelaus was right in the opinion, that the original golden calf was made, not by the Israelites, but by Egyptians, who were the companions of their flight; nor if the modern idol be a descendant in the right line. It is somewhat likely, that the golden calf of 1848, will grow up to be a terrible bull, for some of the adventurers.

That there is gold in California, no one doubts. Governor Mason's standard of quantity is rather alarming--there is gold enough, says he, in the country, drained by the Sacramento and Joaquin rivers, and more than enough, "_to pay the cost of the present war with Mexico, a hundred times over_." This is encouraging, and may lead us to look upon the prospect of another, with more complacency; though the whole of this treasure will not buy back a single slaughtered victim--not one husband to the widow--nor one parent to an orphan child--nor one stay and staff, the joy and the pride of her life, to the lone mother. _N'importe_--we have gold and glory! "The people," says Mr. Mason, "before engaged in cultivating their small patches of ground, and guarding their herds of cattle and horses, have all gone to the mines. Laborers of every trade have left their work benches, and tradesmen their shops. Sailors desert their ships, as fast as they arrive on the coast."

There is a marvellous fascination in all this, no doubt; and as fast and as far as the knowledge radiates, thousands upon thousands will be rushing to the spot. The shilling here, however, which procures a given amount of meat, fire and clothes, is equal to the sum, whatever it may be, which, there procures the same amount and quality. Loafers and the lovers of ease and indolence, who are tobacco chewers, to a man, are desirous of flying to this El Dorado. Let them have a care: an ounce of gold dust, valued at $12 there, though worth $18 here, is said to have been paid, for a plug of tobacco. A traveller in Caffraria, having paid five cowries, (shells, the money of the country) for some article, complained, that forty were demanded, for a like article, in a village, not far off; and inquired if the article was scarce; "no," was the reply, "but cowries are very plenty."

Our adventurers intend to remain, perhaps, only till they obtain a competency. Even that is not the work of a day; and will be longer, or shorter, in the ratio of the consumption of means, for daily support, during the operation. There will, doubtless, be some difference also, as to the meaning of the word competency. An intelligent merchant, of this city, once defined it to mean a little more, in every individual's opinion, than he hath. Like the lock of hay, which Miss Edgeworth says is attached to the extremity of the pole, and which is ever just so far in advance of the hungry horses, in an Irish jaunting car, so competency seems to be forever leading us onward, yet is never fairly within our grasp.

John Graunt, of whom a good account may be found in Bayle, says, that, if the art of making gold were known, and put extensively in practice, it would raise the value of silver. Of course it would, and of everything else, so far as the quantity of gold, given in exchange for any article, is the representative of value. As gold becomes plenty, it will be employed for other uses, sauce-pans perhaps, as well as for the increase of the circulating medium. The amount of gold, which has passed through the British mint, from the accession of Elizabeth, 1558, to 1840, is, according to Professor Farraday, 3,353,561 pounds weight troy; and nearly one half of this was coined during the reign of George III.

Gold is a good thing, in charitable fingers; but it too frequently constructs for itself a chancel in our hearts. It then becomes the golden calf, and man an idolater. How dearly we get to love the chink and the glitter of our gold! How much like death it does seem, to go off 'change, before the last watch!

Three score years and ten, devoted to the turning of pennies! How many of us, after we have had our three warnings, still hobble up and down, day after day, infinitely more anxious about pennies, than we were, fifty years ago, about pounds! An angel, the spirit, for example, of Michael de Montaigne, perched upon the City Hall--the eastern end of the ridge pole--must be tempted to laugh heartily. Without any angelic pretensions, I have done so myself, when, upon certain emergencies, the kegs, boxes, and bags of gold and silver, hand-carted and hand borne, have gone from bank to bank, backward and forward, often, in a morning, like the slipper, in the _jeu de pantoufle_! What an interest is upon the faces of the crowd, who gaze upon the very kegs and boxes; feasting upon the bald idea--the unprofitable consciousness--that gold and silver are within; and reminding one of old George Herbert's lines,--

"Wise men with pity do behold Fools worship mules, that carry gold."

"Verily," saith an ancient writer, "traffickers and the getters of gain, upon the mart, are like unto pismires, each struggling to bear off the largest mouthful."

I am glad to see that the moderns are collecting the remains of good old George Herbert, and giving them an elegant _surtout_. His address to money is a jewel, and none the worse for its antique setting:

"Money! Thou bane of bliss, and source of wo! Whence com'st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine? I know thy parentage is base and low; Man found thee, poor and dirty, in a mine.

"Surely thou didst so little contribute To this great kingdom, which thou now hast got, That he was fain, when thou wert destitute, To dig thee out of thy dark cave and grot.

"Then, forcing thee by fire, he made thee bright; Nay, thou hast got the face of man, for we Have, with our stamp and seal, transferred our right; Thou art the man, and we but dross to thee!

"Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich, And, while he digs out thee, falls in the ditch."

The mere selfish getters of gain, who dispense it not, are, _civiliter et humaniter mortui_--dead as a door nail--dead dogs in the manger! I come not to bury them, at present; but, if possible, to awaken some of them with my penny trumpet; otherwise they may die in good earnest in their sins; their last breath giving evidence of their ruling passion--muttering not the _tête d'armée_ of Napoleon, but the last words of that accomplished Israelite, who caused his gold to be counted out, before his failing eyes--_per shent_.

No. XXXII.

_Making mourning_, as an abstract phrase, is about as intelligible, as _making fish_. These arbitrary modes of expression have ever been well enough understood, nevertheless, by those employed in the respective operations. _Making mourning_, in ancient times, was assigned to that class of hired women, termed _præficæ_, to whom I have had occasion to refer. They are thus described, by Stephans--adhiberi solebant funeri, mercede conductæ, ut flerent, et fortia facta laudarent--they were called to funerals, and paid, to shed tears, and relate the famous actions of the defunct. Doubtless, by practice, and continual exercise of the will over the lachrymary organs, they acquired the power of forcing mechanical tears. We have a specimen of this power, in the case of Miss Sophy Streatfield, so often referred to, by Madame D'Arblay, in her account of those happy days at Mrs. Thrale's. _Making mourning_, in modern times, is, with a few touching exceptions, confined to that important class, the dress-makers.

The time allowed, for mourning, was determined, by the laws of Numa. Plutarch informs us, that no mourning was allowed, for a child, that died under three years, and for all others, a month, for every year it had lived, but never to exceed ten, which was the longest term, allowed for any mourning. We often meet with the term, _luctus annus_, the year of mourning; but the year of Romulus contained but ten months; and, though Numa added two, to the calendar, the term of mourning remained unchanged. The howlers, or wailing women, were employed also in Greece, and in Judea. Thus in Jeremiah ix. 17, _call for the mourning women, &c., and let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, &c._

By the laws of Numa, widows were required to mourn ten months or during the year of Romulus. Thus Ovid, Fast. i. 35:

Per totidem menses a funere conjugis uxor Sustinet in vidua tristia signa domo.

Numa was rather severe upon widows. The _tristia signa_, spoken of by Ovid, were sufficiently mournful. According to Kirchmaun de Fun. iv. 11, they were not to stir abroad in public--to abstain entirely from all entertainments--to lay aside every kind of ornament--to dress in black--and not even to kindle a fire, in their houses. Not content with stinting and freezing these poor, lone creatures, to death, Numa forbade them to repeat the matrimonial experiment, for ten months. Indeed, it was accounted infamous, for a widow to marry, within that period. As though he were resolved to add insult to injury, he, according to Plutarch, permitted those to violate this law, who would make up their minds, to sacrifice a cow with calf. This unnatural sacrifice was intended, by Numa, to frighten the widows. Doubtless, in many instances, the legislative bugbear was effectual; but it is quite probable there were some courageous women, in those days, as there are, at present, who would have slaughtered a whole drove, rather than yield the tender point.

The Jews expressed their grief, for the death of their near friends, by weeping, and crying aloud, beating their breasts, rending their clothes, tearing their flesh, pulling their hair, and starving themselves. They neither dressed, nor made their beds, nor washed, nor saw visitors, nor shaved, nor cut their nails, and made their toilets with sackcloth and ashes. The mourning of the Jews lasted commonly seven days, and never more than thirty--quite long enough, we should think, for such an exhibition of filth and folly. The Greeks also did much of all this--they covered themselves with dust and dirt, and rolled in the mire, and beat their breasts, and tore their faces.

The color of the mourning garb, among the Romans, was originally black--from the time of Domitian, white. At present, the color of the mourning dress, in Europe is black--in China white--in Turkey blue or violet--in Egypt yellow--in Ethiopia brown. There have come down to us two admirable letters from Seneca, 63, and 99, on the subject of lamentation for the dead; the first to Lucilius, after the death of his friend, Flaccus--the second to Lucilius, communicating the letter Seneca had written to Murullus, on the death of his son. These letters must be read, _cum grano salis_, on account of the stoical philosophy of the writer. He admits the propriety of decent sorrow, but is opposed to violent and unmeasured lamentations--_nec sicci sint occuli, amisso amico, nec fluant_--shed tears, if you have lost your friend, but do not cry your eyes out--_lacrimandum est, non plorandum_--let there be weeping, but not wailing. He cites, for the advantage of Lucilius, the counsel of Ulysses to Achilles, whose grief, for the death of Patroclus, had become inordinate, to give one whole day to his sorrow, and have done with it. He considers it not honorable, for men, to exhibit their grief, beyond the term of two or three days. Such, upon the authority of Tacitus De Mor. Germ. 27, was the practice of the ancient Germans. Funerum nulla ambitio: ... struem rogi nec vestibus, nec odoribus, cumulant: ... lamenta ac lacrimas cito, dolorem et tristitiam tarde, ponunt; feminis lugere honestum est; viris meminisse: there was no pride of funereal parade; they heaped no garments, no odors, upon the pile; they speedily laid aside their tears and laments; not so their grief and sorrow. It was becoming, for _women_ to mourn; for _men_ to cherish in their memories.

In his letter to Lucilius, Seneca enters upon an investigation, as to the real origin of all this apparent sorrow, so freely and generally manifested, for the dead; and his sober conviction breaks forth, in the words--Nemo tristis sibi est. O infelicem stultitiam! est aliqua et doloris ambitio! No one mourns for himself alone. Oh miserable folly! There is ambition, even in our sorrow! This passage recalls Martial's epigram, 34, De Gellia:

Amissum non flet, quum sola est Gellia, patrem; Si quis adest, jussæ prosiliunt lacrymæ. Non dolet hic, quisquis landari, Gellia, quærit; Ille dolet vere, qui sine teste dolet.

Arthur Murphy, in his edition of Dr. Johnson's works, ascribes to that great man the following extraordinary lines:

If the man, who turnips cries, Cry not, when his father dies, 'Tis a proof, that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.

Under the doctor's sanction, for a bagatelle, I may offer a translation of Martial's epigram:

When no living soul is nigh, Gellia's filial grief is dry; Call, some morning, and I'll warrant Gellia'l shed a perfect torrent. Tears unforc'd true sorrow draws: Gellia weeps for mere applause.

It is our fortune to witness not a little of this, in our line. We are compelled to drop in, at odd, disjointed moments, when the not altogether disagreeable occupations of the survivors contrast, rather oddly, to be sure, with the graver duties to the dead. A rich widow, like Dr. Johnson's _protègè_, in his letter to Chesterfield, is commonly overburdened with help. It is quite surprising, to observe the solicitude about her health, and how very fervent the hope of her neighbors becomes, that she may not have taken cold. The most prominent personages, after the widow and the next of kin, are the coffin-maker and the dress-maker--both are solicitous of making an excellent fit. Those, who, like myself, have had long practice in families, are often admitted to familiar interviews with the chief mourners, which are likely to take place, in the midst of dress-makers and artists of all sorts. How many acres of black crape I have witnessed, in half a century! "Mr. Abner--good Mr. Abner," said Mrs. ----, "dear Mr. Abner," said she, "I shall not forget your kindness--how pleasant it is, on these occasions, to see a face one knows. You buried my first husband--I thought there was nothing like that: and you buried my second husband--and, oh dear me, I thought there was nothing like that--and now, oh dear, dear me, you are going to bury my third! How I am supported, it is hard to tell--but the widow's God will carry me through this, and other trials, for aught I know--Miss Buddikin, don't you think that dress should be fuller behind?" "Oh dear ma'am, your fine shape, you know," said Miss Buddikin. "There now, Miss Buddikin, at any other time I dare say I should be pleased with your flattery, but grief has brought down my flesh and spirits terribly. Good morning, dear Mr. Abner--remember there will be no postponement, on account of the weather."

No. XXXIII.

I am sad. It is my duty to record an event of deep and universal interest. On Sunday night, precisely as the clock of the Old South Church struck the very first stroke of twelve, departed this life, of no particular malady, but from a sort of constitutional decay, to which the family has ever been periodically liable, and at the same age, at which his ancestors have died, for many generations, A. Millesimus Octingentesimus Quadragesimus Octavus.

It has been a custom in France, and in other countries, to send printed invitations to friends and relatives, inviting them to funerals. I have heard of a thriving widow--_la veuve Berthier_--who added a short postscript--_Madame Berthier will be happy to furnish soap and candles, at the old stand, as heretofore_. I trust I shall not be deemed guilty of a like indiscretion, if I add, for general information, that the business will be conducted hereafter, in the name of A. M. O. Q. Nonus.

I did intend to be facetious, but, for the soul of me, I cannot. It is enough for me to know that the old year is dead and gone, and that the hopes and fears of millions are now lying in its capacious grave. Between the old year and the new, the space is so incalculably narrow, that, if those ancient philosophers were in the right, who contended, that an angel could not live in a vacuum, no angel, in the flesh, or out of it, could possibly get between the two: the partition is thin as tissue paper--thin as that between wit and madness, which is so exceedingly thin, as to be often undistinguishable, leaving us in doubt, on which side our neighbors may be found,--when at home.

I see, clearly, in the close of another year, another milestone, upon Time's highway, from chaos to eternity. Is it not wise, and natural, and profitable, for the pilgrim to pause, and mark his lessening way? He cannot possibly know the precise number of milestones, that lie between the present and his journey's end; but he may sometimes shrewdly guess from the number he has passed already. There is precious little certainty, however, in the very best of man's arithmetic, on a subject like this: for, at every milestone, from the very first, and at countless intermediate points, he will observe innumerable tablets, recording the fact, that myriads of travellers have stopped here and there, not for the want of willingness to go forward, but for the want of breath--not for the night, to be awakened at the morning watch, by the attentive host, or the railway whistle,--but for a long, long while, to be summoned, at last, by the piercing notes of a clarion, loud and clear, which, as the bow of Ulysses could be bent only by the master's hand, can be raised, only by the lips and the lungs of an archangel.

Well, Quadragesimus Octavus hath gone to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets--a motley group it is, that band of melancholy followers! Upon this, as upon all other occasions of the same sort, true tears, from the very well-spring of the heart, fall, together with showers of hypocritical salt water. Little children, who must ever refer their orphanage to the year that is past, are in the van; and with them, a few widowers and widows, who have not been married quite long enough, to be reconciled to their bereavement. There are others, who also have been divorced from their partners by death, and who submit, with admirable grace; and wear their weeds--of the very best make and fashion, by the way--with infinite propriety.

It is quite amazing to see the great number of mourners, who, though, doubtless, natives, have a very Israelitish expression, and wear phylacteries, upon which are written three or four words whose import is intelligible, only to the initiated, but which, being interpreted, signify--_three per cent. a month_. None seem to wear an expression of more heartfelt sorrow, for the departure of Quadragesimus Octavus, during whose existence, being less greedy of honors than of gain, they were singularly favored, converting the necessities of other men into an abundance of bread and butter, for themselves.

In the melancholy train, we behold a goodly number of maiden ladies, dressed in yellow, which is the mourning color of the Egyptians, and some of these disconsolate damsels are really beginning to acquire the mummy complexion: it happened that, as the old year expired, they were just turned of thirty.

There are others, who have sufficient reason to mourn, and whose numerous writings have brought them into serious trouble. Their works, commencing with a favorite expression--_for value received I promise to pay_, owing to something rather pointed in the phraseology, were liable to be severely criticised, so soon as the old year expired.

The lovers of parade, and show, and water celebrations, and torch-light processions, trumpeting and piping merrymakings, and huzzaings, the brayings of stump orators, and the intolerable noise and farrago of electioneering; the laudings and vituperatings of Taylor, Cass, and Van Buren; the ferocious lyings and vilifyings of partisans, politically drunk or crazy--the lovers of all or any of these things are one and all, attendants at the funeral of Quadragesimus Octavus.

The good old year is gone--and, in the words of a celebrated clergyman, to a bereaved mother, who would not be comforted, but wailed the louder, the more he pressed upon her the duty of submission--"_what do you propose to do about it?_" I cannot answer for you, my gentle reader, but I am ready to answer for myself. As an old sexton, I believe it to be my duty to pay immediate attention to the very significant command--whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest. If good old Samuel had been an undertaker, he could not have said, more confidently than I do, at this moment, whose corpse have I taken, or whose shroud have I taken, or whom have I defrauded, or whom have I buried east for west, or wrong end foremost? Of what surgeon have I received a fee, for a skeleton, to blind mine eyes withal? I have neither the head nor the heart for mystical theology. I believe in the doctrine of election, as established by the constitution and laws of the United States, and of the States respectively, so far as regards the President, Vice President, and all town, county and state officers: and I respect the Egyptians, for one trait, recorded of them, by an eminent historian, who states, that those, who worship an ape, never quarrel with those, who worship an ox. A very fine verse, the thirteenth of the last chapter of Ecclesiastes--"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."

Let us try, during the year, upon whose threshold we are now standing, to do as much good, and as little harm, as possible. I respectfully recommend to all old men and women, who are as grey and grizzly as I am, to make themselves as agreeable as they can; and remember, that old age is proverbially peevish and exacting. In the presence of children, do not forget the wise sayings of Parson Primrose, who candidly confessed, when solicited to join in some childish pastime, that he complied, for he was tired of being always wise. Pray allow all you can for the vivacity and waywardness of youth. Nine young ladies, in ten, may find a clever fit, in Pope's shrewd line--

"Brisk as a flea, and ignorant as dirt."

All, that can be said about it, lies in a filbert shell, _ita lex scripta est, ita rerum natura_. You will not mend the matter, by scowling and growling, from morning to night. Can you not remember, that you yourself, when a boy, were saluted now and then, with the title of "proper plague"--"devil's bird"--or "little Pickle?" I can. Some years ago, my very worthy friend, the Rev. John S. C. Abbott, did me the kindness to give me one of his excellent works, the Path of Peace. The preface contains a very short and clever incident, of whose applicability, you can judge for yourself.

"Mother," said a little boy, "I do not wish to go to Heaven."

"And why not, my son?"

"Why, grandfather will be there, will he not?"

"Yes, my son, I hope he will."

"Well, as soon as he sees us, he will come, scolding along, and say, 'Whew, whew, whew! what are these boys here for?' I am sure I do not wish to go to Heaven, if grandfather is to be there."

This is a short tale of a grandfather, but it is a very significant story, for its length; and calculated, I fear, for many meridians.

Well, here we are, in the very midst of bells and bonfires, screaming for joy, in honor of the new year, with our spandy new weepers on, for the old one.

No. XXXIV.

Viewed in every possible relation, the most melancholy and distressing funerals, of which I have any knowledge, were a series of interments, which occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, not very many years ago, and of which, in 1840, I received, while sojourning there, a particular account, from an inhabitant of that hospitable city. These funerals were among the blacks; and, as there was no epidemic at the time, their frequency, at length, attracted observation. Every day or two, the colored population were seen, bearing, apparently, one of their number to the place, appointed for all living. Suspicion was, at last, awakened--a post mortem examination was resolved on--the graves, which proved to be uncommonly shallow, were opened--the coffins lifted out, and examined--and found to be filled, not with corpses, but with muskets, swords, pistols, pikes, knives, hatchets, and such other weapons, as might be necessary, for the perfection of a deadly work, which had been long projected, and was then not far from its consummation.

These, I say, were the most melancholy funerals, of which I have any knowledge. This was burying the hatchet, in a novel sense. In 1840, the tumult of mind, resulting from immediate apprehension, had, in a great degree, subsided; yet a rigorous system of espionage continued, in full operation--the spirit of vigilance was still on tiptoe--the arsenal was in excellent working order, and capable, at any moment, of turning its iron shower, in every direction--the separate gathering of the blacks, for religious worship, had been, and still was, prohibited; for it was believed, that the little tabernacle, in which, before this alarming discovery, the colored people were in the habit of assembling, had been used, in some sort, for the purpose of holding insurrectionary conclaves; perhaps for the purpose also of muttering prayers, between their teeth, to the bondman's God, to give him strength to break his fetters.

At the time, to which I refer, the slaves, who attended religious services, on the Sabbath, entered the same temples with their masters, who paid their vows, on cushions, while many of the slaves worshipped, squatting in the aisles. At this time, slaves, _ex cautela_, were forbidden, under penalty of imprisonment and the lash, from being present at any conflagration. Under a like penalty, they were commanded to retire instantly, upon the very first stroke of the curfew bell, to their homes and cabins. At every quarter of an hour, through the whole night, the cry of _all's well_ was sent forth by the armed sentinel, from the top of St. Michael's tower. Such was the state of things, in 1840, in the city of Charleston.

Melancholy as were these funerals, the undertakers were quite as ingenious, as those cunning Greeks, who contrived the Trojan horse, _divinâ Palladis arte_. Melancholy and ominous funerals were they--for they were incidents of slavery, the CURSE COLOSSAL--that huge, unsightly cicatrice, upon the very face of our heritage. Well may we say to the most favored nation of the earth, in Paul's proud words,--_would to God ye were not only almost, but altogether such as we are, saving these bonds_.

After taking a mental and moral _coup d'oeil_ of these matters, I remember that I lay long, upon my pillow, not consigning my Southern friends and brethren, votively, to the devil; but thanking God, for that blessed suggestion, which led good, old Massachusetts, and the other states of the North, to abolish slavery, within their own domains.

Slavery is a curse, not only to the long-suffering slave, but to the mortified master. This chivalry of the South--what is it? Every man of the South, or the North, who comes to the blessed conclusion, that, while others own _jackasses_, _horses_, _and horned cattle_, he actually _owns men_--what a thought!--will soon become filled with this very chivalry. It is the lordly consciousness of dominion over one's fellow-man--a sort of Satrap-like feeling of power--a sentiment extremely oriental, which begets that important and consequential air of superiority, that marks the Southern man and the Southern boy,--Mr. Calhoun, diving, like one of Pope's heroes, after first principles, and fetching up, for a fact, the pleasant fancy, that _man is not born of a woman_--or the young, travelling gentleman, full of "Suth Cralina," who comes hither, to sojourn awhile, and carries in every look, that almost incomprehensible mixture of pride and sensitiveness, which is equally repulsive and ridiculous.

The bitterness of sectional feeling is a necessary incident of slavery. Civil and servile wars are among its terrible contingencies. Slavery cannot endure in our land, though the end be not yet. I had rather the cholera should spread, than this moral scourge, over our new domains--not, upon my honor, because the former would be a help to our profession, but because a dead is more bearable, than a living curse.

Of all the sciolists, who have offered their services, to remedy this evil, the conscience party is the most remarkable. A self-consecrated party, with their phlogistic system, would deal with the whole South, which, on this topic, is a perfect hornet's nest already, precisely as an intelligent farmer, in Vermont, dealt with a hornet's nest, under the eaves of his dwelling--he applied the actual cautery; his practice was successful--he destroyed the nest, and with it his entire mansion. There are men, of this party, to whom the constitution and laws of the Union are objects of infinite contempt; who despise the Bible; who would overthrow the civil magistrate; and unfrock the clergy. But there are many others, who abjure such doctrines--a species of conscience comeouters--who intend, after they have unkennelled the whirlwind, to appoint a committee of three, from every county, to hold it by the tail, _ne quid detrimenti respublica caperet_. These are to be selected from the most careful and judicious, who, when the firebrand is thrown into the barrel of gunpowder, will have a care, that not more than a moderate quantity shall be ignited.

The constitution is a contract, made by our fathers, and binding on their children. Who shall presume to say that contract is void, for want of consideration, or because the subject is _malum in se_? Who shall decide the question of _nudum pactum_ or not? Not one of the parties, nor two, nor any number, short of the whole, can annul this solemn contract; nor can a decision of the question of constitutionality come from any other tribunal, than the Supreme Judicial Court of the United States.

Lord Mansfield's celebrated dictum--_fiat justitia, ruat Cælum_, has been often absurdly applied, and in connection with this very question of slavery and its removal. _Justitia_ is a broad word, and refers not solely to the rights of the slave, but to those of the freeman. The proposition of the full-bottomed abolitionist--immediate emancipation, or dissolution of the Union, and civil and servile war to boot, if it must be so--is fit to be taught, only to the tenants of a madhouse. But there is a spirit abroad, whose tendency cannot be mistaken. Slavery is becoming daily more and more odious, in the east, in the west, in the north, ay, and in the south. Individually, many slaveholders are becoming less attached to their _property_. There may be too much even of _this good thing_. Slavery would continue longer, in the present slave states, if it were extended to the new territories; for it would be rendered more bearable in the former, by the power of sloughing off the redundancy, on profitable terms. The spirit of emancipation is striding over the main land, walking upon the waters, and planting its foot, upon one dark island after another. _Let us hope_--better to do that, than mischief. Let us rejoice, that, as the Scotch say, _there is a God aboon a'_--better to do that, than spit upon our Bibles, and scoff at law and order. It is always better to stand still, than move rudely and rashly, in the dark. Such was the decided opinion of my old friend and fellow-sexton, Grossman, when he fell, head first, into an unclosed tomb, and broke his enormous nose.

No. XXXV.

In looking up a topic, for my dealings with the dead, this afternoon, I can think of nothing more interesting, at the present time, than _Lot's wife and the Dead Sea_. I consider Lieutenant Lynch the most fortunate of modern discoverers. He has discovered the long lost lady of Lot--the veritable pillar of salt! There are some incredulous persons, I am aware, who are of opinion, that the account of this discovery should be received, _cum grano salis_; but my own mind is entirely made up. I should have been better pleased, I admit, if he had verified the suggestion, which led to the discovery, by bringing home a leg, or an arm. Possibly, it may be thought proper to send a Government vessel, for the entire pillar, to ornament the Rotunda at Washington. The identification of Lot's wife is rendered exceedingly simple, by the fact, that seventeen of her fingers, and not less than fourteen of her toes, broken off from time to time, by the faithful, as relics, are exhibited in various churches and monasteries.

Models of these, in plaster, could readily be obtained, I presume; and an application of their fractured parts to the salt corpse, discovered by Lieutenant Lynch, would settle the question, in the manner, employed to test the authenticity of ancient indentures. Besides, every one knows, that salt is a self preserver, and lasting in its character, especially the Attic. The very elements of preservation abound in the Dead Sea, and the region round about. Its very name establishes the fact--_Asphaltites_--so called from the immense quantity of _asphaltum_ or bitumen, with which it abounds. This is called _Jews' Pitch_, and was used of old, for embalming; and the corpse of Mrs. Lot, after the salt had thoroughly penetrated, rolled up, as it probably was found by Lieutenant Lynch, in a winding sheet of bitumen, which readily envelopes everything it touches, would last forever. This pitch is often sold by the druggists, under the name of mummy.

In Judea, with the territory of Moab, on the East, and the wilderness of Judah, on the West, and having the lands of Reuben and Edom, or Idumea, on the North and South, lies that sheet of mysterious and unfrequented water, which has been called the East Sea--the Salt Sea--the Sea of the Desert--the Sea of the Plain--the Sea of Sodom--and, more commonly, the Dead Sea. To this I beg leave to add another title, the Legendary lake, or Humbug water. More marvel has been marked, learned, and inwardly digested, by Christians, on the subject of this sheet of water, than the broad ocean has ever supplied, to stir the landman's heart. Its dimensions, in the first place, have been set down, with remarkable discrepancy. Pliny, lib. v. 15, says, Longitudine excedit centum M. passuum, latitudine maxima xxv., implet, minima sex, making the length one hundred miles, and the breadth, from twenty-five miles, to six. Josephus estimates its length at five hundred and eighty furlongs, from the mouth of the Jordan, to the town of Segor, at the opposite end; and its greatest breadth one hundred and fifty furlongs. The Rev. Dr. William Jenks, of whose learning and labors a sexton of the old school may be permitted to speak, with great respect, sets down the length, in his New Gazetteer of the Bible, appended to his Explanatory Bible Atlas, of 1847, at thirty-nine miles, and its greatest breadth at nine. Carne, in his Letters from the East, says the length is sixty miles, and the breadth from eight to ten. Stephens states the length to be thirty miles, in his Incidents of Travel.

The origin of this lake was ascribed to the submersion of the valley of Siddim, where the cities stood, which were destroyed, in the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah. This tremendous gallimaufry or hotch potch, produced, as some suppose, an intolerable stench, and impregnated the waters with salt, sulphur, and bitumen.

Pliny, in the passage quoted above,--observes--Nullum corpus animalium recipit--no animal can live in it. Speaking of these waters, Dr. Jenks remarks--"no animals exist in them." On the other hand, Dr. Pococke, on the authority of a monk, tells us, that fish have been caught in the Dead Sea. _Per contra_ again, Mr. Volney affirms, that it contains neither animal nor vegetable life. M. Chateaubriand, on the other hand, who visited the Dead Sea, in 1807, remarks--"About midnight, I heard a noise upon the lake, and was told by the Bethlehemites, who accompanied me, that it proceeded from legions of small fish, which come out, and leap upon the shore." The monks of St. Saba assured Dr. Shaw, as he states in his travels, that they had seen fish caught there.

In the passage quoted from Pliny, he says--Tauri camelique fluitant. Inde fama nihil in eo mergi--bulls and camels float upon this lake: hence the notion, that nothing will sink in it. It is true, that the water of the Dead Sea is specifically heavier than any other, owing to the great quantity of salt, sulphur, and bitumen; but Dr. Pococke found not the slightest difficulty, in swimming and diving in the lake. Sir Thomas Browne, treating of this, in his Pseudodoxia, vol. iii., p. 341, London, 1835, observes--"As for the story, men deliver it variously. Some, I fear too largely, as Pliny, who affirmeth that bricks will swim therein. Mandevil goeth further, that iron swimmeth and feathers sink." "But," continueth Sir Thomas, "Andrew Thevet, in his Cosmography, doth ocularly overthrow it, for he affirmeth he saw an ass with his saddle cast therein and drowned."

Another legend is equally absurd, that birds, attempting to fly over the lake, fall, stifled by its horrible vapors. "It is very common," says Volney, "to see swallows skimming its surface, and dipping for the water, necessary to build their nests." Mr. Stephens, in his Incidents of Travel, vol. ii. chap. 15, gives an interesting account of the Dead Sea, and says--"I saw a flock of gulls floating quietly on its bosom."

It has been roundly asserted, that, in very clear weather, the ruins of the cities, destroyed by the conflagration, are visible beneath the waters. Josephus soberly avers, that a smoke constantly arose from the lake, whose waters changed their color three times daily.

The waters of Jordan and of the brooks Kishon, Jabbok, and Arnon, flow into the Dead Sea, yet produce no perceptible rise of its surface. The influx from these mountain streams is considerable. Hence another legend, to account for this mystery--a subterraneous communication with the Mediterranean--which would surely make the matter worse, for Dr. Jenks and other writers state, that "the waters lie in a deep caldron, many hundred feet _below_ the Mediterranean." Evaporation, which is said to be very great, explains the mystery entirely. At the rising of the sun, dense fogs cover the lake.

Chateaubriand says--"The first thing I did, on alighting, was to walk into the lake, up to my knees, and taste the water. I found it impossible to keep it in my mouth. It far exceeds that of the sea, in saltness, and produces, upon the lips, the effect of a strong solution of alum. Before my boots were completely dry, they were covered with salt; our clothes, our hats, our hands were, in less than three hours, impregnated with this mineral." "The origin of this mineral," says Volney, "is easy to be discovered, for, on the southwest shore, are mines of fossil salt. They are situated, in the sides of the mountains, which extend along the border; and, for time immemorial, have supplied the neighboring Arabs, and even the city of Jerusalem."

"Whoever," says Mr. Carne, in his Letters from the East, "has seen the Dead Sea, will have its aspect impressed upon his memory. It is, in truth, a gloomy and fearful spectacle. The precipices, in general, descend abruptly to the lake, and, on account of their height, it is seldom agitated by the winds. Its shores are not visited, by any footstep, save that of the wild Arab, and he holds it in superstitious dread. On some parts of the rocks, there is a thick, sulphureous incrustation, and, in their steep descents, there are several deep caverns, where the benighted Bedouin sometimes finds a home. The sadness of the grave was on it and around it, and the silence also. However vivid the feelings are, on arriving on its shores, they subside, after a time, into languor and uneasiness; and you long, if it were possible, to see a tempest wake on its bosom, to give sound and life to the scene."

"If we adopt," says Chateaubriand, "the idea of Professor Michaelis, and the learned Busching, in his memoir on the Dead Sea, physics may be admitted, to explain the catastrophe of the guilty cities, without offence to religion. Sodom was built upon a mine of bitumen, as we know from the testimony of Moses and Josephus, who speak concerning wells of bitumen, in the valley of Siddim. Lightning kindled the combustible mass, and the cities sank in the subterranean conflagration." In Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii., article Lot, it is stated, that the Mahometans have added many circumstances to his history. They assert, that the angel Gabriel pried up the devoted cities so near to Heaven, that the angels actually heard the sound of the trumpets and horns, and even the yelping of puppies, in Sodom and Gomorrah: and that Gabriel then let the whole concern go with a terrible crash. Upon this, Calmet remarks,--"Romantic as this account appears, it preserves traces of an earthquake and a volcano, which were, in all probability, the _natural secondary cause_ of the overthrow of Sodom, and of the formation of the Dead Sea." Lot's wife in my next.

No. XXXVI.

The conversion of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt has given rise to as much learned discussion, as the question, so zealously agitated, between Barcephas and others, whether the forbidden fruit were an _apple_ or a _fig_. _But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt._ Gen. xix. 26. Very little account seems to have been made of this matter, at the time. The whole story, and without note or comment, is told in these fifteen words. It would have seemed friendly, and natural, and proper, for Abraham to have said a few words of comfort to Lot, on this sudden and singular bereavement; but, instead of this, we are told, in the following verse, that Abraham got up, next morning, and looked, very philosophically, at the smoke, which went up from the cities of the plain, like the smoke of a furnace. This neglect of Lot's wife is, too frequently, a wife's lot. Some of the learned have been sorely perplexed, to understand, why this unfortunate lady has not long since melted away, under the influence of the rains; for a considerable quantity of water has fallen, since the destruction of Sodom. But they seem to forget, that there is no measure of limitation, for a miracle; and that the salt might have been purposely designed, like _caoutchouc_, to resist the action of water. The departure from Sodom was sudden, to be sure; but the lady was clothed, in some sort, doubtless; yet nothing has been said, by travellers, about her drapery, and whether that also was converted into salt, or cast off, by the mere energy of the miracle, is unknown.

This pillar of salt Josephus says he has seen; and, though he does not name the time, it is of little consequence, as, in such a matter, we can well afford to throw in a century or two; but it must have been between A. D. 37, and a point, not long after the 13th year of Domitian. Such being the term of the existence of Josephus, as nearly as can be ascertained. The cities of the plain were destroyed, according to Calmet's reckoning, 1893 years before Christ; therefore, _the pillar_, which Josephus saw, must have then been standing more than nineteen centuries. These are the words of Josephus: "_But Lot's wife, continually turning back, to view the city, as she went from it, and being too nicely inquisitive what would become of it, although God had forbidden her so to do, was changed into a pillar of salt, for I have seen it, and it remains at this day_." Antiq., vol. i. p. 32, Whiston's translation, Lond. 1825. The editor, in a note states, that Clement of Rome, a cotemporary of Josephus, also saw it, and that Irenæus saw it, in the next century. Mr. Whiston prudently declines being responsible for the statements of modern travellers, who say they have seen it. And what did they see?--a pillar of salt. This is quite probable. Volney remarks, "At intervals we met with misshapen blocks, which prejudiced eyes mistake for mutilated statues, and which pass, with ignorant and superstitious pilgrims, for monuments of the adventure of Lot's wife; though it is nowhere said that she was metamorphosed into stone, like Niobe, but into salt, which must have melted the ensuing winter." Volney forgets, that the salt itself was miraculous, and, doubtless, water proof.

Mr. Stephens, in his Incidents of Travel, though he gives a description of the Dead Sea, in whose waters he bathed, says not a syllable of Lot's wife, or the pillar of salt.

Some of the learned have opined, that Lot's wife, like Pliny, during the eruption of Vesuvius, was overwhelmed, by the burning and flying masses of sulphur and bitumen; this is suggested, under the article, Lot's Wife, in Calmet. "Some travellers in Palestine," says he, "relate that Lot's wife was shown to them, i. e. the rock, into which she was metamorphosed. But what renders their testimony very suspicious is, that they do not agree, about the place, where it stands; some saying westward, others eastward, some northward, others southward of the Dead Sea; others in the midst of the waters; others in Zoar; others at a great distance from the city." In 1582, Prince Nicholas Radziville took a vast deal of pains to discover this remarkable pillar of salt, but all his inquiries were fruitless. Dr. Adam Clarke suggests, that Lot's wife, by lingering in the plain, may have been struck dead with lightning, and enveloped in the bituminous and sulphureous matter, that descended. He refers to a number of stories, that have been told, and among them, that this pillar possessed a miraculous, reproductive energy, whereby the fingers and toes of the unfortunate lady were regenerated, instanter, as fast as they were broken off, by the hands of pilgrims. Irenæus, one of the fathers, asserts, that this pillar of salt was _actually alive in his time_! Some of those fathers, I am grieved to say it, were insufferable story-tellers. This tale is also told, by the author of a poem, _De Sodoma_, appended to the life of Tertullian. Some learned men understand the Hebrew to mean simply, that "_she became fixed in the salsuginous soil_"--anglice, _stuck in the mud_. If this be the real meaning of the passage, it must have been some other lady, that was seen by Josephus, Clement, Irenæus, and Lieut. Lynch.

Sir Thomas Browne, credulous though he was, had, probably, no great confidence in the _literal_ construction of the passage in Genesis. In vol. iii. page 327, of his works, London, 1835, he says--"We will not question the metamorphosis of Lot's wife, or whether she were transformed into a real statue of salt; though some conceive that expression metaphorical, and no more thereby than a lasting and durable column, according to the nature of salt, which admitteth no corruption." This is evidently the opinion of Dr. Adam Clarke. In other words, God, by her destruction, while her husband and daughters were saved, made her a _pillar or lasting memorial_ to the disobedient. In this sense a pillar of _salt_ means neither more nor less than an _everlasting memorial_. Salt is the symbol of perpetuity; thus Numbers xviii. 19. _It is a covenant of salt forever_: and 2 Chron. xvii. 5, the kingdom is given to David and his sons forever, _by a covenant of salt_. If this be the true construction, those four gentlemen, to whom I have referred, have been entirely misled, in supposing that any one of those masses of salt, which Volney says may be mistaken, for the remains of mutilated statues, has ever, at any period of the world, been the object of Lot's devotion, or the partner of his joys and sorrows.

In vol. ii. page 212, of his Incidents of Travel, New York, 1848, Mr. Stephens, referring to an account, received by him, respecting what he supposed to be an island in the Dead Sea, writes thus--"_It comes from one who ought to know, from the only man, who ever made the tour of that sea, and lived to tell of it_." If Mr. Stephens will look at Chateaubriand's Travels, and his fine description of the Dead Sea, he will find there the following passage: "_No person has yet made the tour of it but Daniel, abbot of St. Saba. Nau has preserved in his travels the narrative of that recluse. From his account we learn_," &c.

"The celebrated lake," says Chateaubriand, "which occupies the site of Sodom, is called in Scripture the Dead or Salt Sea." Not so: it is no where called the Dead Sea, in the sacred writings. By the Turks, it is called Ula Deguisi, and by the Arabs, Bahar Loth and Almotanah.

It is quite desirable for travellers to be well apprized of all, that is previously known, in regard to the field of their peregrination. Goldsmith once projected a plan of visiting the East, for the purpose of bringing to England such inventions and models, as might be useful. Johnson laughed at the idea, and denounced Goldsmith, as entirely incompetent, from his ignorance of what already existed--"he will bring home a wheelbarrow," said Johnson, "and think he had made a great addition to our stock." Mr. Stephens has preserved a respectable silence, on the subject of Lot's wife.

The island, which is above referred to, turned out, like Sancho's in Barrataria, to be an optical illusion. The Maltese sailor, who said he had rowed about the lake with his employer, a Mr. Costigan, who died on its shores, was disposed, after fingering his fee, to enlarge and improve his former narrative. Mr. Stephens does not give the date of Costigan's visit to the Dead Sea. He, however, furnishes a linear map of its form. This also is drawn by the Maltese sailor, from memory. All that can be said of it is, that it corresponds with other plans, in one particular,--the Jordan enters the sea, at its northern extremity. Probably, no very accurate plan is to be found, such have been the impediments in the way of any deliberate examination--unless Lieutenant Lynch has succeeded in the work. The figure of the Dead Sea, in the Atlas of Lucas, has no resemblance to the figure, in the late Bible Atlas by Dr. Jenks.

No. XXXVII.

Dr. Johnson said, if an atheist came into his house, he would lock up his spoons. I have always distrusted a sexton, who did not cherish a sentiment of profound and cordial affection, for his bell. It did my heart good, when a boy, to mark the proud satisfaction, with which Lutton, the sexton of the Old Brick, used to ring for fire. I have no confidence in a fellow, who can toll his bell, for a funeral, and listen to its deep, and solemn vibrations, without a gentle subduing of the spirit. I never had a great affection for Clafflin, the sexton of Berry Street Church; but I always respected the deep feeling of indignation he manifested, if anybody meddled with his bellrope.

Bells were treated more honorably in the olden time, and ringing was an art--an accomplishment--then. Holden tells us some fine stories of the societies of ringers. In his youth, Sir Matthew Hale was a member of one of those societies. In 1687, Nell Gwinne--and it may be lawful to take the devil's water, as Dr. Worcester said, to turn the Lord's mill--Nell Gwinne left the ringers of the church bells of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, where there is a peal of twelve, a sum of money, for a weekly entertainment. I never shall get the chime of the North Church bells out of my ears--I hope I never shall--more than half an hundred years ago, my mother used to open the window, of a Christmas eve, that we might hear their music!

In the olden time, bells were baptized--_rantized_ I presume--and wore _posies_ on their collars. They were first cast in England, in the reign of Edmund I., and the first tunable set, or peal, for Croyland Abbey, was cast A. D. 960. Weever tells us, in his Funeral Monuments, that, in 1501, the bells of the Priory of Little Dunmow, in Essex, were baptized, by the names of St. Michael, St. John, Virgin Mary, &c. As late as 1816, the great bell of Notre Dame, in Paris, was baptized, by the name of the Duke of Angouleme. Bells were supposed to be invested with extraordinary powers. They were employed, not only to call the congregation together, to give notice of conflagrations, civil commotions, and the approach of an enemy, and to ring forth the merry holiday peal--but to quell tempests, pacify the restless dead, and arrest the very lightning. Bells often bore inscriptions like these:

Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, conjugo clerum, Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro.

Funera plango; Fulgura frango; Sabbata pango; Excito lentos; Dissipo ventos; Paco cruentos.

The _passing bell_ was the bell, which announced to the people, according to Mabillon, that a spirit was taking its flight, or _passing away_, and demanding their prayers. Bells were also used to frighten away evil spirits, that were supposed to be on the watch, for their customers. The learned Durandus affirms, that all sorts of devils have a terror of bells. This, of course, can only be true of bells, that have been received into the flock, that is, baptized. Such was the Popish belief, and that the very devil, himself, cared not a fig, for an unbaptized bell. De Worde, in his Golden Legend, sayeth "it is said the evill spirytes that ben in the regyon of the ayre doubte moche, when they here the belles rongen, and this is the cause why the belles ben rongen, whan it thondreth, and when grate tempests and outrages of wether happen, to the ende that the feinds and wycked spirytes should be abashed and flee, and cease of the movinge of tempests."

Compared with the big bells of the earth--ours--the very largest--are cowbells, at best. The great bell of St. Paul's weighs 8400 pounds--a small affair; Great Tom of Lincoln, 9894--Great Tom of Oxford, 17,000. This is precisely the weight of the bell of the Palazzo, at Florence;--St. Peter's at Rome, 18,607--the great bell at Erfurth, 28,224--St. Joan's bell, at Moscow, 127,836--the bell of the Kremlin, 443,772. The last is the marvel of travellers, and its metal, at a low estimate, is valued at £66,565. During the fusion of this bell, considerable quantities of gold and silver were cast in, the pious contribution of the people. This enormous mass has never been suspended.

There was a bell--_parvis componere magna_--a very little bell indeed--very--a perfect _tintinabulum_. It made a most ridiculous noise. An account of this bell may be found, in a pamphlet, entitled Historical Notices, &c., of the New North Religious Society, in the town of Boston, 1822. It weighed, says the writer, "_between three and four hundred_." Twelve or thirteen hundred such bells, therefore, would just about counterpoise the bell of the Kremlin. "Its tone," says the writer, "_was unpleasant_." The preposterous clatter of this bell was, nevertheless, the gathering cry of the worshippers, at the New North Church, for the term of eighty-three years, from 1719 to 1802, when it was purchased by the town of Charlton, in the county of Worcester; probably to frighten the _evyll spirytes_, in the shape of wolves and foxes, abounding there, that would be likely to _doubte moche_, when this bell was _ben rongen_. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth is a proverb--not to criticise the tone of a gift bell may be another. This bell, which a stout South Down wether might almost have carried off, was the gift of _Mr. John Frizzell_, a merchant of Boston, to the New North Church, _on the island of North Boston_, as all that portion of the town was then called, lying North of Mill Creek. On the principle which gave the title of Bell the Cat to the famous Archibald, Frizzell should have borne the name of Bell the Church. Let it pass: Frizzell and his little bell are both translated. The tongue of the former is still; that of the latter still waggeth, I believe, in the town of Charlton.

The authenticity of the statements in the pamphlet to which I have referred, admits not of a doubt. The name of its highly respectable author, though not upon the title-page, appears in the certificate of copyright; and, in the range of my limited reading, I have met with nothing, more curious and grotesque, than his account of the installation of the Rev. Peter Thacher, over the New North Church, Jan. 27, 1720. Upon no less respectable evidence, would I have believed, that our amiable ancestors could have acted so much like _evil spirytes_, upon such an occasion. I have not elbow room for the farce entire--one or two touches must suffice. After agreeing upon a mode of choosing a colleague, for the Rev. Mr. Webb, and pitching upon Mr. Thacher, a quarrel arose, among the people. The council met, on the day of installation, at the house of the Rev. Mr. Webb, at the corner of North Bennet and Salem Streets. The aggrieved assembled, at the house of Thomas Lee, in Bennet Street, next to the Universal meeting-house. A knowledge of these points is necessary, for a correct understanding of the subsequent strategy. If the Council attempted to go to the New North Church, through the street, in the usual way, they must necessarily pass Lee's house. The aggrieved waited on the Council, by a committee, requesting them not to proceed with the installation of Mr. Thacher; and assuring them, that, if they persisted, force would be used, to prevent their occupation of the church.

Instead, therefore, of proceeding through the street, the Rev. Mr. Webb led the Council, by his back gate, through Love Lane, and a little alley, leading to the meeting-house, and thus got possession of the pulpit. Thus, by a knowledge of by-ways, so important in the _petite guerre_, the worthy clergyman outwitted the malcontents. A mob, to whom an installation, in such sort, was highly acceptable, had already gathered. The party at Lee's house, being apprised of the ruse, and perceiving they were _in danger of the council_, flew to the rescue. They rushed into the church; vociferously forbade the proceedings, and were "_indecent_," says the writer, "_almost beyond credibility_." "However incredible," continues the narrator, "it is a fact, that some of the most unruly did sprinkle a liquor, which shall be nameless, from the galleries, upon the people below." The wife of Josiah Langdon used to tell, with great asperity, of her being a sufferer by it. This good lady retained her resentment to old age--the filthy creatures entirely spoiled a new velvet hood, which she had made for the occasion, and she could not wear it again.

In the midst of this uproar, Mr. Thacher was installed. "The malcontents," says the writer, "went off in a bad humor. They proceeded to the gathering of another church. In the plenitude of their zeal, they first thought of denominating it the _Revenge_ Church of Christ; but they thought better of it, and called it the New Brick Church. However, the first name was retained, for many years, among the common people. Their zeal was great, indeed, and descended to puerility. They placed the figure of a cock, as a vane, upon the steeple, out of derision of Mr. Thacher, whose Christian name was Peter. Taking advantage of a wind, which turned the head of the cock towards the New North Meeting-house, when it was placed upon the spindle, a merry fellow straddled over it, and crowed three times, to complete the ceremony." The solemn, if not the sublime, and the ridiculous, seem, not unfrequently, to have met together at ordinations, in the olden time. "I could mention an ordination," says the Rev. Leonard Woods, of Andover, in a letter, written and published, a few years since, "that took place about twenty years ago, at which I, myself, was ashamed and grieved, to see two aged ministers literally drunk; and a third indecently excited with strong drink. These disgusting and appalling facts I should wish might be concealed. But they were made public, by the guilty persons; and I have thought it just and proper to mention them, in order to show how much we owe to a compassionate God, for the great deliverance he has wrought." Legitimate occasion for a Te Deum this, most certainly.

No. XXXVIII.

The _præficæ_, or mourning women, were not confined to Greece, Rome, and Judea. In 1810, Colonel Keatinge published the history of his travels. His account of Moorish funerals, is, probably, the best on record. The dead are dressed in their best attire. The ears, nostrils, and eyelids are filled with costly spices. Virgins are ornamented with bracelets, on their wrists and ankles. The body is enfolded in sanctified linen. If a male, a turban is placed at the head of the coffin; if a female, a large bouquet. Before a virgin is buried, the _loo loo loo_ is sung, by hired women, that she may have the benefit of the wedding song. "When a person," says Mr. Keatinge, "is thought to be dying, he is immediately surrounded by his friends, who begin to scream, in the most hideous manner, to convince him that there is no more hope, and that he is already reckoned among the dead."

Premature burial is said to be very common, among the Moors. For this, Mr. Keatinge accounts, in this manner: "As, according to their religion, they cannot think the departed happy, till they are under ground, they are washed instantly, while yet warm; and the greatest consolation the sick man's friends can have, is to see him smile, while this operation is performing; not supposing such an appearance to be a convulsion, occasioned by washing and exposing the unfortunate person to the cold air, before life has taken its final departure."

When a death occurs, the relations immediately set up the _wooliah woo_; or death scream. This cry is caught up, from house to house, and hundreds of women are instantly gathered to the spot. They come to scream and mourn with the bereaved. This species of condolence is very happily described by Colonel Keatinge, page 92. "They," the howlers, "take her," the mother, widow or daughter, "in their arms, lay her head on their shoulders, and scream without intermission for several minutes, till the afflicted object, stunned with the constant howling and a repetition of her misfortune, sinks senseless on the floor. They likewise hire a number of women, who make this horrid noise round the bier, over which they scratch their faces, to such a degree, that they appear to have been bled with a lancet. These women are hired at burials, weddings and feasts. Their voices are heard at the distance of half a mile. It is the custom of those, who can afford it, to give, on the evening of the day the corpse is buried, a quantity of hot-dressed victuals to the poor. This, they call "the supper of the grave."

Dr. E. D. Clarke observes, in his Travels in Egypt, Lond., 1817, that he recognized, among the Egyptians, the same notes, and the repetition of the same syllables, in their funeral cries, that had become familiar to his ear, on like occasions, among the Russians and the Irish.

Dr. Martin, in his account of the Tonga Islands, in the South Pacific, compiled from Mariner's papers, in his narrative of the funeral of a chief, states, that the women mourned over the corpse, through the whole night, sitting as near as possible, singing their dismal death song, and beating their breasts and faces.

The desire, to magnify one's apostleship, is, doubtless, at the bottom of all extravagant demonstrations of sorrow, at funerals, in the form of screaming, howling, yelling, personal laceration, and disfigurement. In the highly interesting account of the missionary enterprise, upon which the Duff was employed, in 1796, it was stated, that, at the funeral of a chief of Tongataboo, the people of both sexes continued, during two days, to mangle and hack themselves, in a shocking manner;--some thrust spears, through their thighs, arms, and cheeks; others beat their heads, till the blood gushed forth in streams; one man, having oiled his hair, set it on fire, and ran about the area, with his head in a blaze. This was a burning shame, beyond all doubt. I never forget old Tasman's bowl, when I think of this island. Tasman discovered Tongataboo, in 1643. At parting, he gave the chief a wooden bowl. Cook found this bowl, on the island, one hundred and thirty years afterwards. It had been used as a divining bowl, to ascertain the guilt or innocence of persons, charged with crimes. When the chief was absent, at some other of the Friendly Islands, the bowl was considered as his representative, and honored accordingly. Captain Cook presented the reigning chief with a pewter platter, and the bowl became immediately _functus officio_, the platter taking its place, for the purposes of divination.

In 1818, Captain Tuckey published the account of his expedition, to explore the Zaire, or Congo river. He describes a funeral, at Embomma, the chief mart, on that river. In returning to their vessel, after a visit to the chief, Chenoo, the party observed a hut, in which the corpse of a female was deposited, dressed as when alive. On the inside were four women howling lustily, to whom two men, outside, responded; the concert closely resembling the yell, at an Irish funeral. Captain Tuckey should not have spoken so thoughtlessly of the _keena_, the funeral cry of the wild Irish, the most unearthly sound, that ever came from the agonized lungs of mortal. For the most perfect description of this peculiar scream, this inimitable hella-baloo, the reader may turn to Mrs. Hall's incomparable account of an Irish funeral. In close connection with this incident, Captain Tuckey, p. 115, remarks, that, in passing through the burying ground, at Embomma, they saw two graves, recently prepared, of monstrous size, being not less than nine feet by five.

This he explains as follows:--"Simmons (a native, returned from England to his native country) requested a piece of cloth to envelop his aunt, who had been dead seven years, and was to be buried in two months. The manner of preserving corpses, for so long a time, is by enveloping them in the cloth of the country, or in European cotton. The wrappers are successively multiplied, as they can be procured by the relations of the deceased, or according to the rank of the person; in the case of a rich and very great man, the bulk being only limited, by the power of conveyance to the grave." When the Spaniards entered the Province of Popayan, they found a similar practice there, with this difference, that the corpse was partially roasted, before it was enveloped. When a chief dies, among the Caribs of Guyana, his wives, the whole flock of them, watch the corpse for thirty days, to keep off the flies,--a task which becomes daily more burdensome, as the attraction becomes greater. At the expiration of thirty days, it is buried, and one of the ladies, probably the best beloved, with it.

Some of the Orinoco tribes were in the practice of tying a rope to the corpse, and sinking it in the river; in twenty-four hours, it was picked clean to the bones, by the fishes, and the skeleton became a very convenient and tidy memorial. This is decidedly preferable to the mode, adopted by the Parsees. Their sacred books enjoin them not to pollute _earth_, _water_, or _fire_, with their dead. They therefore feel authorized to pollute the air. They bury not; but place the corpses at a distance, and leave them to their fate. It was the opinion of Menu, that the body was a tenement, scarcely worth inhabiting; "a mansion," says he, "with bones for beams and rafters,--nerves and tendons for cords; muscles and blood for mortar; skin for its outward covering; a mansion, infested by age and sorrow, the seat of many maladies, harassed with pains, haunted with darkness, and utterly incapable of standing long--such a mansion let the vital soul, its tenant, always quit cheerfully."

This contempt for the tabernacle--the carcass--the outer man--strangely contrasts with that deep regard for it, evinced by the Egyptians, and such of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, as were in the practice of embalming. When that extraordinary man, Sir Thomas Browne, exclaimed, in his Hydriotaphia, "who knows the fate of his bones or how oft he shall be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?" he, doubtless, was thinking of Egyptian mummies, transported to Europe, forming a part of the materia medica, and being actually swallowed as physic. A writer, in the London Quarterly, vol. 21, p. 363, states, that, when the old traveller, John Sanderson, returned to England, six hundred pounds of mummies were brought home, for the Turkey Company. I am aware, that it has been denied, by some, that the Egyptian mummies were broken up, and sent to Europe, for medicinal uses. By them it is asserted, that what the druggists have been supplied with is the flesh of executed criminals, or such others, as the Jews can obtain, filled with bitumen, aloes and other things, and baked, till the juices are exhaled, and the embalming matter has fitted the body for transportation. The Lord deliver us from such "_doctors' stuff_" as this.

No. XXXIX.

_Non sumito, nisi vocatus_: let no man presume to be an undertaker, unless he have a _vocation_--unless he be _called_. If these are not the words of Puddifant, to whom I shall presently refer, I have no other conjecture to offer. Though, when a boy, I had a sort of hankering after dead men's bones, as I have already related, I never felt myself truly called to be a sexton, until June, 1799. It was in that month and year, that Governor Sumner was buried. The parade was very great, not only because he had been a Governor, but because he had been a very good man. All the sextons were on duty, but Lutton, as we called him--his real name was Lemuel Ludden. He was the sexton of the Old Brick, where my parents had worshipped, under dear parson Clarke, who died, the year before. He had the cleverest way, that man ever had, of winning little boys' hearts--he really seemed to have the key to their little souls. Lutton was sick--he was not able to officiate, on that memorable day; and no recently appointed ensign ever felt such a privation more keenly, on the very day of battle. He was a whole-souled sexton, that Lutton. He, most obligingly, took me into the Old Brick Church, where Joy's buildings now stand, to see the show. There was a half-crazy simpleton, whom it was difficult to prevent from capering before the corpse--a perfect Davie Gelatly. An awkward boy, whose name was Reuben Rankin, came from Salem, with a small cart-load of pies, which his mother had baked, and sent to Boston, hoping for a ready sale, upon the occasion of such an assemblage there. Like Grouchy, at Waterloo, he lost his _tète_; followed the procession, through every street; and returned to Salem, with all his wares.

It was, while contemplating the high satisfaction, beaming forth, upon the features of the chief undertaker, that I first felt my _vocation_. I ventured, timidly, to ask old Lutton, if he thought I had talents for the office. He said, he thought I might succeed, clapped me on the shoulder, and gave me a smile of encouragement, which I never shall forget, till my poor old arm can wield a spade no more, and the sod, which I have so frequently turned upon others, shall be turned upon me.

Old Grossman said, in my hearing, the following morning, that it had been the proudest day of his life. It is very pardonable, for an undertaker, on such occasions, to imagine himself the observed of all observers. This fancy is, by no means, confined to undertakers. Chief mourners of both sexes are very liable to the same impression. An over-estimate of one's own importance is pretty universal, especially in a republic. I never did go the length of believing the tale, related, by Peter, in his letter to his kinsfolk, who says he knew a Scotch weaver, who sat upon his stoop, and read the Edinburgh Review, till he actually thought he wrote it. I see nothing to smile at, in any man's belief, that he is the object of public attention, on occasions of parade and pageantry. It rather indicates the deep interest of the individual--a solemn sense of responsibility. At the late water celebration, I noticed many examples of this species of personal enthusiasm. The drivers of the Oak Hall and Sarsaparilla expresses were no mean illustrations; and when three cheers were given to the elephant, near the Museum, in Tremont Street, I was pleased to see several of the officials, and one, at least, of the water commissioners, touch their hats, and smile most graciously, in return.

Puddifant, to whom I have alluded, officiated as sexton, at the funeral of Charles I. What a broad field, for painful contemplation, lies here! It is a curious fact, that, while preparations were being made, for depositing the body of King Charles in St. George's Chapel, at Windsor, a common foot soldier is supposed to have stolen a bone from the coffin of Henry VIII., for the purpose of making a knife-handle. This account is so curious, that I give it entire from Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, folio edit. vol. ii., p. 703. "Those gentlemen, therefore, Herbert and Mildmay, thinking fit to submit, and leave the choice of the place of burial to those great persons, (the Duke of Richmond, Marquis of Hertford, and Earl of Lindsey) they, in like manner, viewed the tomb house and the choir; and one of the Lords, beating gently upon the pavement with his staff, perceived a hollow sound; and, thereupon ordering the stones to be removed, they discovered a descent into a vault, where two coffins were laid, near one another, the one very large, of an antique form, and the other little. These they supposed to be the bodies of Henry VIII., and his third wife, Queen Jane Seymour, as indeed they were. The velvet palls, that covered their coffins, seemed fresh, though they had lain there, above one hundred years. The Lords agreeing, that the King's body should be in the same vault interred, being about the middle of the choir, over against the eleventh stall, upon the sovereign's side, they gave orders to have the King's name, and year he died, cut in lead; which, whilst the workmen were about, the Lords went out, and gave Puddifant, the sexton, order to lock the chapel door, and not suffer any to stay therein, till further notice."

"The sexton did his best to clear the chapel; nevertheless, Isaac, the sexton's man, said that a foot soldier had hid himself so as he was not discovered; and, being greedy of prey, crept into the vault, and cut so much of the velvet pall, that covered the great body, as he judged would hardly be missed, and wimbled a hole through the said coffin that was largest, probably fancying that there was something well worth his adventure. The sexton, at his opening the door, espied the sacrilegious person; who, being searched, a bone was found about him, with which he said he would haft a knife. The girdle or circumscription of capital letters of lead put upon the King's coffin had only these words--King Charles, 1648." This statement perfectly agrees with Sir Henry Halford's account of the examination, April 1, 1813, in presence of the Prince Regent.

Cromwell had a splendid funeral: good old John Evelyn saw it all, and describes it in his diary--the waxen effigy, lying in royal robes, upon a velvet bed of state, with crown, sceptre and globe--in less than two years suspended with a rope round the neck, from a window at Whitehall. Evelyn says, the "funeral was the joyfullest ever seen: none cried but the dogs, which the soldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went." Some have said that Cromwell's body was privately buried, by his own request, in the field of Naseby: others, that it was sunk in the Thames, to prevent insult. It was not so. When, upon the restoration, it was decided, to reverse the popular sentiment, Oliver's body was sought, in the middle aisle of Henry VII's chapel, and there it was found. A thin case of lead lay upon the breast, containing a copper plate, finely gilt, and thus inscribed--Oliverius, Protector reipublicæ Angliæ, Scotiæ, et Hiberniæ, natus 25 April, 1599--inauguratus 16 Decembris 1653--mortuus 3 Septembris ann--1658. Hic situs est. This plate, in 1773, was in possession of the Hon George Hobart of Nocton in Lincolnshire. By a vote of the House of Commons, Cromwell's and Ireton's bodies were taken up, Jan. 26, 1660--and, on the Monday night following, they were drawn, on two carts, to the Red Lion Inn, Holborn, where they remained all night; and, with Bradshaw's, which was not exhumed, till the day after, conveyed, on sledges, to Tyburn, and hanged on the gallows, till sunset. They were then beheaded--the trunks were buried in a hole, near the gallows, and their heads set on poles, on the top of Westminster Hall, where Cromwell's long remained.

The treatment of Oliver's character has been in perfect keeping, with the treatment of his carcass. The extremes of censure and of praise have been showered upon his name. He has been canonized, and cursed. The most judicious writers have expressed their views of his character, in well-balanced phrases. Cardinal Mazarin styled him _a fortunate mad-man_; and, by Father Orleans, he was called a _judicious villain_. The opinion of impartial men will probably vary very little from that of Clarendon, through all time: he says of Cromwell--"he was one of those men, _quos vituperare ne inimici quidem possunt, nisi ut simul laudent_;" and again, vol. vii. 301, Oxford ed. 1826: "In a word, as he was guilty of many crimes, against which damnation is denounced, and for which hell-fire is prepared, so he had some good qualities, which have caused the memory of some men, in all ages, to be celebrated; and he will be looked upon by posterity as _a brave wicked man_." Oliver had the nerve to do what most men could not: he went to look upon the corpse of the beheaded king--opened the coffin with his own hand--and put his finger to the neck, where it had been severed. _He could not then doubt that Charles was dead._

At the same time, when the authorized absurdities were perpetrated upon Oliver's body, every effort was ineffectually made to discover that of King Charles, for the purpose of paying to it the highest honors. This occurred at the time of the restoration, or about ten years after the death of Charles I. In 1813, i. e. one hundred and sixty-five years after that event, the body was accidentally discovered. To this fact, and to the examination by Sir Henry Halford, President of the Royal College of Physicians, I shall refer in my next.

No. XL.

The passage, quoted in my last, from the Athenæ Oxonienses, shows plainly, that Charles I. was buried in 1648, in the same vault with the bodies of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour; and this statement is perfectly sustained, by the remarkable discovery in 1813, which proves Lord Clarendon to have been mistaken in his account, Hist. Reb., Oxford ed., vol. vi. p. 243. The Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Hertford, and the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey, who had been of the bed chamber, and had obtained leave, to perform the last duty to the decollated king, went into the church, at Windsor, to seek a place for the interment, and were greatly perplexed, by the mutilations and changes there--"At last," says Clarendon, "there was a fellow of the town, who undertook to tell them the place, where he said there was a vault, in which King Harry, the Eighth, and Queen Jane Seymour were interred. As near that place, as could conveniently be, they caused the grave to be made. There the king's body was laid, without any words, or other ceremonies, than the tears and sighs of the few beholders. Upon the coffin was a plate of silver fixed with these words only: 'King Charles, 1648.' When the coffin was put in, the black velvet pall, that had covered it, was thrown over it, and then the earth thrown in." _Such, clearly, could not have been the facts._

Lord Clarendon then proceeds to speak of the impossibility of finding the body ten years after, when it was the wish of Charles II. to place it, with all honor, in the chapel of Henry VII., in Westminster Abbey. For this he accounts, by stating, that most of those present, at the _interment_, were dead or dispersed, at the restoration; and the memories of the remaining few had become so confused, that they could not designate the spot; and, after opening the ground, in several places, without success, they gave the matter up. Now there can be no doubt, that the body was placed in the vault, where it was found, in 1813, and that no _interment_ took place, in the proper sense of that word. Had Richmond, Hertford, Southampton, or Lindsey been alive, or at hand, the _vault itself_, and not a spot _near the vault_, would, doubtless, have been indicated, as the resting place of King Charles. Wood, in the Athenæ Oxonienses, states, that the royal corpse was "well coffined, and all afterwards wrapped up in lead and covered with a new velvet pall." All this perfectly agrees with the account, given by Sir Henry Halford, and certified by the Prince Regent, in 1813.

Sir Henry Halford states, that George the Fourth had built a mausoleum, at Windsor; and, while constructing a passage, under the choir of St. George's Chapel, an opening was unintentionally made into the vault of Henry VIII., through which, the workmen saw, not only those two coffins, which were supposed to contain the bodies of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, but a third, covered with a black pall. Mr. Herbert's account, quoted in my last number, from the Athenæ, left little doubt, that this was the coffin of Charles I.; notwithstanding the statements of Lord Clarendon, that the body was interred _near_ the vault. An examination was made, April 1, 1813, in the presence of George IV., then Prince Regent, the Duke of Cumberland, Count Munster, the Dean of Windsor, Benjamin Charles Stevenson, Esq., and Sir Henry Halford; of which the latter published an account. London, 1831. This account is exceedingly interesting. "On removing the pall, a plain leaden coffin, with no appearance of ever having been enclosed in wood, and bearing an inscription, KING CHARLES, 1648, in large legible characters, on a scroll of lead encircling it, immediately presented itself to view.

"A square opening was then made, in the upper part of the lid, of such dimensions, as to admit a clear insight into its contents. These were an internal wooden coffin, very much decayed, and the body carefully wrapped up in cere-cloth, into the folds of which a quantity of unctuous or greasy matter, mixed with resin, as it seemed, had been melted, so as to exclude, as effectually as possible, the external air. The coffin was completely full; and from the tenacity of the cere-cloth, great difficulty was experienced, in detaching it successfully from the parts, which it enveloped. Wherever the unctuous matter had insinuated itself, the separation of the cere-cloth was easy; and when it came off, a correct impression of the features, to which it had been applied, was observed in the unctuous substance. At length the whole face was disengaged from its covering. The complexion of the skin of it was dark and discolored. The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance; the cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the first moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished, almost immediately; and the pointed beard, so characteristic of the period of the reign of King Charles, was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained; and the left ear, in consequence of the interposition of the unctuous matter, between it and the cere-cloth, was found entire.

"It was difficult, at this moment, to withhold a declaration, that, notwithstanding its disfigurement, the countenance did bear a strong resemblance to the coins, the busts, and especially to the pictures of King Charles I., by Vandyke, by which it had been made familiar to us. It is true, that the minds of the spectators of this interesting sight were well prepared to receive this impression; but it is also certain, that such a facility of belief had been occasioned, by the simplicity and truth of Mr. Herbert's narrative, every part of which had been confirmed by the investigation, so far as it had advanced; and it will not be denied, that the shape of the face, the forehead, an eye, and the beard, are the most important features, by which resemblance is determined.

"When the head had been entirely disengaged from the attachments, which confined it, it was found to be loose, and without any difficulty was taken up and held to view. It was quite wet, and gave a greenish and red tinge to paper and to linen, which touched it. The back part of the scalp was entirely perfect, and had a remarkably fresh appearance; the pores of the skin being more distinct, as they usually are, when soaked in moisture; and the tendons and ligaments of the neck were of considerable substance and firmness. The hair was thick, at the back part of the head, and in appearance, nearly black. A portion of it, which has since been cleansed and dried, is of a beautiful dark brown color. That of the beard was of a redder brown. On the back part of the head it was not more than an inch in length, and had probably been cut so short, for the convenience of the executioner, or perhaps, by the piety of friends, soon after death, in order to furnish memorials of the unhappy king."

"On holding up the head to examine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the neck had evidently retracted themselves considerably; and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut through its substance transversely, leaving the surfaces of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even, an appearance, which could have been produced only by a heavy blow, inflicted with a very sharp instrument, and which furnished the last proof wanting to identify King Charles, the First. After this examination of the head, which served every purpose in view, and without examining the body below the neck, it was immediately restored to its situation, the coffin was soldered up again, and the vault closed."

"Neither of the other coffins had any inscription upon them. The larger one, supposed, on good grounds, to contain the remains of Henry VIII., measured six feet ten inches in length, and had been enclosed in an elm one, of two inches in thickness; but this was decayed, and lay in small fragments. The leaden coffin appeared to have been beaten in by violence about the middle, and a considerable opening in that part of it, exposed a mere skeleton of the king. Some beard remained upon the chin, but there was nothing to discriminate the personage contained in it."

This is, certainly, a very interesting account. Some beard still remained upon the chin of Henry VIII., says Sir Henry Halford. Henry VIII. died Jan. 28, 1547. He had been dead, therefore, April 1, 1813, the day of the examination, two hundred and sixty-six years. The larger coffin measured six feet ten inches. Sir Henry means top measure. We always allow seven feet lid, or thereabouts, for a six feet corpse. Henry, in his History, vol. xi. p. 369, Lond. 1814, says that King Henry VIII. was tall. Strype, in Appendix A., vol. vi. p. 267, Ecc. Mem., London, 1816, devotes twenty-four octavo pages to an account of the funeral of Henry VIII., with all its singular details; and, at the last, he says--"Then was the vault uncovered, under the said corpse; and the corpse let down therein by the vice, with help of sixteen tal yeomen of the guard, appointed to the same." "Then, when the mold was brought in, at the word, pulverem pulveri et cinerem cineri, first the Lord Great Master, and after the Lord Chamberlain and al others in order, with heavy and dolorous lamentation brake their staves in shivers upon their heads and cast them after the corps into the pit. And then the gentlemen ushers, in like manner brake their rods, and threw them into the vault with exceeding sorrow and heaviness, not without grievous sighs and tears, not only of them, but of many others, as well of the meaner sort, as of the nobility, very piteous and sorrowful to behold."

No. XLI.

My attention was arrested, a day or two since, by a memorial, referred to, in the Atlas, from the owner of the land, famous, in revolutionary history, as the birth-place of LIBERTY TREE; and, especially, by a suggestion, which quadrates entirely with my notions of the fitness of things. If I were a demi-millionaire, I should delight to raise a monument, upon that consecrated spot--it should be a simple colossal shaft, of Massachusetts granite, surmounted with the cap of liberty. I would not inscribe one syllable upon it--but, if any grey-headed _Boston boy_--born here, within the limits of the old peninsula--should be moved, by the spirit, to write below--

Hæc olim meminisse juvabit--

I should not deem that act any interference with my original purpose.

What days and nights those were! 1765! then, the man, who has now passed on to ninety-four, was the boy of ten! How perfectly the tablet of memory retains those impressions, made, by the pressure of great events, when the wax was soft and warm!

It is quite common, with the present generation, at least, to connect the origin of LIBERTY TREE with 1775-6. This is an error. It became celebrated, ten years earlier, during the disturbances in Boston, on account of the Stamp Act, which passed March 22, 1765, and was to be in force, on the first of November following. Intelligence arrived, that Andrew Oliver, Secretary of the Province, was to be distributor of stamps.

There was a cluster or grove of beautiful elms, in HANOVER SQUARE--such was the name, then given to the corner of Orange, now part of Washington Street, and Auchmuty's Lane, now Essex Street. Opposite the southwesterly corner of Frog Lane, now Boylston Street, where the market-house now stands, there was an old house, with manifold gables, and two massive chimneys, and, in the yard, in front of it, there stood a large, spreading elm. This was LIBERTY TREE. Its first designation was on this wise. During the night of August 13, 1765, some of the SONS OF LIBERTY, as they styled themselves, assuming the appellation bestowed on them in the House of Commons, by Col. Barre, in a moment of splendid but unpremeditated eloquence, hung, upon that tree, an effigy of Mr. Oliver, and a boot, with a figure of the devil peeping out, and holding the stamp act in his hand; this boot was intended as a practical pun--wretched enough--upon the name of Lord Bute. In the morning of the 14th, a great crowd collected to the spot. Some of the neighbors attempted to take the effigy down. The _Sons of Liberty_ gave them a forcible hint, and they desisted. The Lieutenant Governor, as Chief Justice, directed the sheriff to take it down: he reconnoitred the ground, and reported that it could not be done, without peril of life.

Business was suspended, about town. After dark, the effigy was borne, by the mob, to a building, which was supposed to have been erected, as a stamp-office. This they destroyed, and, bearing the fragments to Fort Hill, where Mr. Oliver lived, they made a bonfire, and burnt the effigy before his door. They next drove him and his family from his house, broke the windows and fences, and stoned the Lieutenant Governor and Sheriff, when they came to parley--all this, upon the night of August 14, 1765. On the 26th, they destroyed the house of Mr. Story, register-deputy of the Admiralty, and burnt the books and records of the court. They then served the house of Mr. Hollowell, Contractor of the Customs, in a similar manner, plundering and carrying away money and chattels. They next proceeded to the residence of the Lieutenant Governor, and destroyed every article not easily transported, doing irreparable mischief, by the destruction of many valuable manuscripts. The next day, a town meeting was held, and the citizens expressed their _detestation of the riots_--and, afterwards manifested their silent sympathy with the mob, by punishing nobody.

Nov. 1, 1765, the day, when the stamp act came into force, the bells were muffled and tolled; the shipping displayed their colors, at half mast; the stamp act was printed, with a death's head, in the place of the stamp, and cried about the streets, under the name of the FOLLY OF ENGLAND, AND THE RUIN OF AMERICA. A new political journal appeared, having for its emblem, or political phylactery, a serpent, cut into pieces, each piece bearing the initials of a colony, with the ominous motto--JOIN OR DIE. More effigies were hung, upon "_the large old elm_," as Gordon terms it--LIBERTY TREE. They were then cut down, and escorted over town. They were brought back, and hung up again; taken down again; escorted to the Neck, by an immense concourse; hanged upon the gallows tree; taken down once more; and torn into innumerable fragments. Three cheers were then given, and, upon a request to that effect, every man went quietly home; and a night of unusual stillness ensued.

Hearing that Mr. Oliver intended to resume his office, he was required, through the newspaper, by an anonymous writer, to acknowledge, or deny, the truth of that report. His answer proving unsatisfactory, he received a requisition, Nov. 16th, to appear "_tomorrow, under_ LIBERTY TREE, _to make a public resignation_." Two thousand persons gathered then, beneath that TREE--not the rabble, but the selectmen, the merchants, and chief inhabitants. Mr. Oliver requested, that the meeting might be held, in the town house; but the SONS OF LIBERTY seemed resolved, that he should be _treed_--no place, under the canopy of Heaven, would answer, but LIBERTY TREE. Mr. Oliver came; subscribed an ample declaration; and made oath to it, before Richard Dana, J. P. This exactitude and circumspection, on the part of the people, was not a work of supererogation: Andrew Oliver was a most amiable man, in private, but a most lubricious hypocrite, in public life; as appears by his famous letters, sent home by Dr. Franklin, in 1772. After his declaration under the TREE, he made a short speech, expressive of his "_utter detestation of the stamp act_." What a spectacle was there and then! The best and the boldest were there. Samuel Adams and John--Jerry Gridley, Samuel Sewall, and John Hancock, _et id genus omne_ were in Boston then, and the busiest men alive: their absence would have been marked--they must have been there. What an act of daring, thus to defy the monarch and his vicegerents! I paused, this very day, and gazed upon the spot, and put the steam upon my imagination, to conjure, into life and action, that little band of sterling patriots, gathered around; and that noble elm in their midst:--

"In medio ramos annosaque brachia pandit Ulmus opaca, ingens."

Thenceforward, the SONS OF LIBERTY seem to have taken the TREE, under their special protection. On Valentine's day, 1776, they assembled, and passed a vote, that _it should be pruned after the best manner_. It is well, certainly, now and then, to lop off some rank, disorderly shoots of licentiousness, that will sometimes appear, upon LIBERTY TREE. It was pruned, accordingly, by a party of volunteer carpenters, under the direction of a gentleman of skill and judgment, in such matters.

News of the repeal of the stamp act arrived in Boston, May 16, 1766. The bells rang merrily--and the cannon were unlimbered, around LIBERTY TREE, and bellowed for joy. The TREE, so skilfully pruned, in February, must have presented a beautiful appearance, bourgeoning forth, in the middle of May! The nineteenth of May was appointed, for a merrymaking. At one, in the morning, the bell of the Hollis Street Church, says a zealous writer of that day, "_began to ring_"--_sua sponte_, no doubt. The slumbers of the pastor, Dr. Byles, were disturbed, of course, for he was a tory, though a very pleasant tory, after all. Christ Church replied, with its royal peal, from the North, and _God save the king_, rang pleasantly again, in colonial ears. The universal joy was expressed, in all those unphilosophical ways, enumerated by Pope,

With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss and thunder.

LIBERTY TREE was hung with various colors. Fireworks and illuminations succeeded. Gov. Hancock treated the people with "_a pipe of Madeira_;" and the SONS OF LIBERTY raised a pyramid, upon the Common, with two hundred and eighty lamps. At twelve o'clock--midnight--a drum, upon the Common, beat the _tattoo_; and men, women, and children retired to their homes, in the most perfect order: verily, a soberness had come over the spirit of their dreams, and method into their madness. On the evening of the twentieth of May, it was resolved to have a festival of lanterns.

The inhabitants vied with each other; and, about dusk, they were seen streaming, from all quarters, to HANOVER SQUARE, every man and boy with his lamp or lantern. In a brief space, LIBERTY TREE was converted into a brilliant constellation. Like the sparkling waters, during the burning of Ucalegon's palace, described by Homer, the boughs, the branches, the veriest twigs of this popular idol

--------"were bright, With splendors not their own, and shone with sparkling light."

It appears, by the journals of that day, from which most of these particulars are gathered, that our fathers--what inimitable, top-gallant fellows they were!--took a pleasant fancy into their heads, that these lamps would shed a brighter lustre, if the poor debtors, in jail, could join in the general joy, under LIBERTY TREE. Accordingly they made up a purse and paid the debts of them all! There was a general jail delivery of the poor debtors, for very joy. Well: a Boston boy, of the old school, was a noble animal--how easily held by the heart-strings!--with how much difficulty, by the head or the tail!

An antiquarian friend, to whom I am already under sundry obligations, has obligingly loaned me an interesting document, in connection with the subject of LIBERTY TREE; under whose shade I propose to linger a little longer.

No. XLII.

March 22, 1765. George III. and his ministers took it into their heads to sow the wind; and, in an almost inconceivably short time, they reaped the whirlwind. They scattered dragons' teeth, and there came up armed men. They planted the stamp act, in the Colonial soil, and there sprang into life, mature and full of vigor, the LIBERTY TREE, like Minerva, fully developed, and in perfect armor, from the brain of Jupiter. Whoever would find a clear, succinct, and impartial account of the effect of the stamp act, upon the people of New England, may resort to Dodsley's Annual Register, page 49, of that memorable year. "The sun of liberty has set," wrote Franklin home, "but you must light up the candles of industry and economy."

The life of that act of oppression was short and stormy. March 18, 1766, its miserable requiem was sung in Parliament--"an event," says the Annual Register, of that year, page 46, "that caused more universal joy, throughout the British dominions, than, perhaps, any other, that can be remembered." How such a viper ever found its way into the cradle of liberty is quite a marvel--certain it is, the genius of freedom, with the power of Hercules, speedily strangled it there.

In America, and, especially, in Boston, the joy, as I have already stated, was very great; and some there were, beyond all doubt, who were delighted, to find an apology, for going back to monarchical usages. Even liberty may be, sometimes, irksome, at first, to him, who has long lived a slave; and it is no small grievance, I dare say, to such, to be deprived of the luxury of calling some one, Lord and Master, after the flesh. However monstrous, and even ridiculous, the idea of a king may seem to us, republicans, born in this wonderfully bracing atmosphere--there are some, who have a strong taste for _booing_ and genuflection, and the doffing of beavers, and throwing up of "greasy caps," and rending their throats, for very ecstacy, when the royal coach is coming along, bearing the heir apparent, in diapers. This taste, I suppose, like that for olives, must be acquired; it cannot be natural.

May 19, and 20, 1766, the face of the town of Boston was dressed in smiles--a broad grin rather, from ear to ear, from Winnisimmet to Roxbury. Nothing was talked of but "_a grateful people_," and "_the darling monarch_"--which amounts to this--the "_darling monarch_" had graciously desisted, from grinding their faces any longer, simply because he was convinced, that the "_grateful people_" would kick the grindstone over, and peradventure the grinder, should the "_darling_" attempt to give it another turn.

Under LIBERTY TREE, there was erected, during the rejoicings, an obelisk with four sides. An engraving of those four sides was made at the time, and is now, doubtless, very rare. A copy, loaned me by the friend, to whom I referred, in my last number, is lying before me. I present it, _verbatim, literatim, et punctuatim_.

It is thirteen and an half inches long, and nine and an half wide. On top are these words--"A VIEW of the OBELISK erected under LIBERTY TREE in BOSTON on the Rejoicings for the Repeal of the ---- Stamp Act 1766." At the bottom--"To every Lover of LIBERTY this Plate is humbly dedicated by her true born SONS in BOSTON, New England." The plate presents, apparently, four obelisks, which are, in reality, the four sides of one. Every side, above the base, is divided horizontally, and nearly equally, into three parts. The superior division of each contains four heads, many of which may be readily recognized, and all of which have indicating letters. The middle division of each contains ten decasyllabic lines. The inferior division of each contains a sketch, of rude execution, and rather more patriotic, than tasteful, in the design. The principal portraits are of George III.; Queen Charlotte; Marquis of Rockingham; Duke of York; Gen. Conway; Lord Townshend; Colonel Barré; W. Pitt; Lord Dartmouth; Charles Townshend; Lord George Sackville; John Wilkes; Alderman Beckford; Lord Camden; &c. The first side is subscribed thus: "_America in distress, apprehending the total loss of_ LIBERTY;" and is inscribed thus:

Oh thou, whom next to Heaven we most revere Fair LIBERTY! thou lovely Goddess hear! Have we not woo'd thee, won thee, held thee long, Lain in thy Lap and melted on thy tongue. Thro' Deaths and Dangers rugged paths pursu'd And led thee smiling to this SOLITUDE, Hid thee within our hearts' most golden cell And brav'd the Powers of Earth and Powers of Hell, GODDESS! we cannot part, thou must not fly, Be SLAVES! we dare to scorn it, dare to die.

Beneath is the sketch--America recumbent and dejected, in the form of an Indian chief, under a pine tree, the angel of Liberty hovering over; the Prime minister advancing with a chain, followed by one of the bishops, and others, Bute clearly designated by his Scotch plaid, and gaiters; over head, flying towards the Indian, with the stamp act in his right claw, is the Devil; of whom it is manifest our patriotic sires had a very clever conception.

The second side is subscribed thus: "_She implores the aid of her patrons_;" and is inscribed thus:

While clanking chains and curses shall salute Thine Ears remorseless G----le, and thine O B----e, To you blest PATRIOTS, we our cause submit, Illustrious CAMPDEN, Britain's Guardian, PITT. Recede not, frown not, rather let us be Deprived of being than of LIBERTY, Let fraud or malice blacken all our crimes, No disaffection stains these peaceful climes. Oh save us, shield us from impending woes, The foes of Britain only are our foes.

Beneath is the sketch--America, on one knee, pointing over her shoulder towards a retreating group, composed, as the chain and the plaid inform us, of the Prime Minister Bute, and company, upon whose heads a thunder cloud is bursting. At the same time America--the Indian, as before--supplicates the aid of others, whose leader is being crowned, by Fame, with a laurel wreath. The enormous nose--a great help to identification--marks the Earl of Chatham; Camden may be known by his wig; and Barré by his military air.

The third side is subscribed thus: "_She endures the Conflict, for a short Season_" and is inscribed thus:

Boast foul Oppression, boast thy transient Reign, While honest FREEDOM struggles with her Chain, But know the Sons of Virtue, hardy, brave, Disclaim to lose thro' mean Dispair to save; Arrowed in Thunder awfull they appear, With proud Deliverance stalking in their Rear, While Tyrant Foes their pallid Fears betray, Shrink from their Arms, and give their Vengeance way. See in the unequal War OPPRESSORS fall, The hate, contempt, and endless Curse of all.

Beneath is the sketch--THE TREE OF LIBERTY, with an eagle feeding its young, in the topmost branches, and an angel advancing with an ægis.

The fourth side is subscribed thus: "_And has her_ LIBERTY _restored by the Royal hand of_ GEORGE _the Third_;" and is inscribed thus:

Our FAITH approv'd, our LIBERTY restor'd, Our Hearts bend grateful to our sov'reign Lord; Hail darling Monarch! by this act endear'd, Our firm affections are thy best reward-- Sh'd Britain's self against herself divide, And hostile Armies frown on either side; Sh'd hosts rebellious shake our Brunswick's Throne, And as they dar'd thy Parent dare the Son. To this Asylum stretch thine happy Wing, And we'll contend who best shall love our KING.

Beneath is the sketch--George the Third, in armor, resembling a Dutch widow, in a long-short, introducing America to the goddess of liberty, who are, apparently, just commencing the Polka--at the bottom of the engraving are the words--_Paul Revere Sculp._ Our ancestors dealt rather in fact than fiction--they were no poets.

Gordon refers to LIBERTY TREE, i. 175.

The fame of LIBERTY TREE spread far beyond its branches. Not long before it was cut down, by the British soldiers, during the winter of 1775-6, an English gentleman, Philip Billes, residing at Backway, near Cambridge, England, died, seized of a considerable fortune, which he bequeathed to two gentlemen, not relatives, on condition, that they would faithfully execute a provision, set forth in his will, namely, that his body should be buried, under the shadow of LIBERTY TREE, in Boston, New England. This curious statement was published in England, June 3, 1774, and may be found in the Boston Evening Gazette, first page, Aug. 22, 1774, printed by Thomas & John Fleet, sign of the Heart and Crown, Cornhill.

No. XLIII.

Josiah Carter died, at the close of December, 1774. Never was there a happier occasion, for citing the _Quis desiderio_, &c., and I would cite that fine ode, were it not worn threadbare, like an old coverlet, by having been, immemorially, thrown over all manner of corpses, from the cobbler's to the king's.

If good old Dr. Charles Chauncy were within hearing, I would, indeed, apply to him a portion of its noble passages:

Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit, Nulli flebilior quam tibi----.

For good Josiah many wept, I fancy; But none more fluently than Dr. Chauncy.

Josiah Carter was sexton of the Old Brick. He died, in the prime of life--fifty only--a martyr to his profession--conscientious to a fault--standing all alone in the cold vault, after the last mourner had retired, and knocking gently upon the coffin lid, seeking for some little sign of animation, and begging the corpse, for Heaven's sake, if it were alive, to say so, in good English.

Carter was one of your real _integer vitæ_ men. It is said of him, that he never actually lost his self-government, but once, in his life.

He was finishing a grave, in the Granary yard, and had come out of the pit, and was looking at his work, when a young, surgical sprig came up, and, with something of a mysterious air, shadowed forth a proposition, the substance of which was, that Carter should sell him the corpse--cover it lightly--and aid in removing it, by night. In an instant, Carter jerked the little chirurgeon into the grave--it was a deep one--and began to fill up, with all his might. The screams of the little fellow drew quite a number to the spot, and he was speedily rescued. When interrogated, years afterwards, as to his real intentions, at the time, Carter always became solemnized; and said he considered the preservation of that young doctor--a particular Providence.

Carter had a strong aversion to unburying--so have I--especially a hatchet. I have a rooted hatred of slavery; and I hope our friends, on the sunny side of Mason's and Dixon's line, will not censure me, for digging up the graves of the past, and exposing unsightly relics, while I solicit the world's attention to the following literary _bijoux_.

To be sold, a young negro fellow, fit for country or other business.--Will be sold to the highest bidder, a very good gold watch, a negro boy, &c.--Cheap, for cash, a negro man, and woman, and two children.--A very likely negro wench, about 16 years of age.--A likely negro woman, about 30, cheap for cash.--A likely negro boy, about 13.--Sold only for want of employ, a healthy, tractable negro girl, about 18 years of age.--To be sold, for want of employ, a strong, hearty negro fellow, about 25 years of age.--Ran away, a negro, named Dick, a well-looking, well-shaped fellow, right negro, little on the yellow, &c.--A likely negro woman, about 33 years old, remarkable for honesty and good temper.--Grant Webster has for sale new and second hand chaises, rum, wines, and male and female negroes.--At auction, a negro woman that is used to most sorts of house business.--A likely, healthy negro man, a good cook, and can drive a carriage.--Ran away, a negro man, named Prince, a tall, straight fellow; he is about 33 years old, talks pretty good English; his design was to get off in some vessel, so as to go to England, under the notion, if he could get there, he should be free, &c.--Ten dollars reward: ran away, negro Primus, five feet ten inches high, long limbs, very long finger nails, &c.--To be sold, for no fault, a negro man, of good temper.--A valuable negro man.--Ran away, my negro, Cromarte, commonly called Crum, &c., &c.; whoever will return said runaway to me, or secure him in some public jail, &c.--The cash will be given for a negro boy of good temper.--A fine negro male child, to be given away.--To be sold, a Spanish Indian woman, about 21 years old, also a negro child, about two years old. To be sold, a strong, hearty negro girl, and her son, about a week old.--Ran away, my negro man, Samson; when he speaks has a leering look under his eyes; whoever will return him, or secure him in any of the jails, shall receive ten dollars reward. For sale, a likely negro man; has had the smallpox.--A likely negro boy, large for his age, about 13.--To be sold, very reasonably, a likely negro woman, about 33 or '4 years of age.--To be sold or hired, for a number of years, a strong, healthy, honest, negro girl, about 16 years of age.

Ah, my dear, indignant reader, I marvel not, that you are grieved and shocked, that man should dare, directly under the eye of God, to offer his fellow for sale, as he would offer a side of mutton, or a slaughtered hog--that he should offer to sell him, from head to heel, liver and lights, and lungs, and heart, and bone, and muscle, and presume to convey over, to the buyer, the very will of the poor black man, for years, and for aye; so that the miserable creature should never draw in one single breath of freedom, but breathe the breath of a slave forever and ever. This is very damnable indeed--very. You read the advertisements, which I have paraded before you, with a sentiment of disgust towards the men of the South--_nimium ne crede colori_. These are northern negroes! these are northern advertisements!

--------Mutato nomine, de te Fabula narratur--------.

Every one of these slaves was owned in Boston: every one of these advertisements was published in the Boston Gazette, and the two last on December 10, 1781. They are taken from one only of the public journals, and are a very Flemish sample of the whole cloth, which may be examined by him, who has leisure to turn over the several papers, then published here.

There is one, however, so awfully ridiculous, when we consider the profession of the deceased owner, and the place of sale, and which, in these connections, presents such an example of _sacra, commixta profanis_, that I must give the advertisement without defalcation. John Moorhead, the first minister of Bury, afterwards Berry Street Church, died Dec. 2, 1773. About a year after, his effects were sold, and the following advertisement appears, in the Boston Gazette, Jan. 2, 1775: "To be sold by Public Auction, on Thursday next, at ten o'clock in the Forenoon, all the Household Furniture, belonging to the Estate of the Rev. Mr. John Moorhead, deceased, consisting of Tables, Chairs, Looking Glasses, Feather Beds, Bedsteads and Bedding, Pewter, Brass, sundry Pieces of Plate, &c., &c. A valuable collection of Books--Also a likely Negro Lad--The sale to be at the House in Auchmuty's Lane, South End, not far from Liberty Tree."--Moses and the Prophets! _A human being to be sold as a_ SLAVE, _not far from_ LIBERTY TREE, in 1775!

Let me be clearly comprehended. Two wrongs cannot, like two negatives, neutralize each other. It is true, there was slavery in Massachusetts, and probably more of it, than is supposed to have existed, by many of the present generation. Free negroes were not numerous, in Boston, in those years. In the Boston Gazette of Jan. 2, 1775, it is stated, that 547 whites and 52 blacks were buried in the town in 1774; and 533 whites and 62 blacks in 1773. Such was the proportion then.

The energy of our northern constitution has exorcised the evil spirit of slavery. Common sense and the grace of God put it into the minds and hearts of our fathers, when the accursed _Bohun Upas_ was a sapling, to pull it up, by the roots. It follows not, therefore, that the people of the South are entitled to be treated by us, their brethren, like _outside barbarians_, because they do not cast it out from their midst, as promptly, and as easily, now that it has stricken down its roots into the bowels of the earth, and become a colossus, and overshadowed the land. Slavery, being the abomination that it is, in the abstract, and in the relative, we may well regret, that it ever defiled our peninsula; especially that a slave market, for the sale of one slave only, ever existed, "_not far from Liberty Tree_." In sober truth, we are not quite justified, for railing at the South, as we have done. The sins of our dear, old fathers are still so comparatively recent, in regard to slavery, that I am absolutely afraid to fire canister and grape, among the group of offenders, lest I should disturb the ashes of my ancestors. Neither may we forget, that we, of the North, consented, aided and abetted, constitutionally, in the confirmation of slavery. Some of the most furious of the abolitionists, in this fair city, are _descendants in the right line, from Boston slaveholders_--their fathers did not recognize the sinfulness of holding slaves!

The people of the South are entitled to civility, from the people of the North, because they are citizens of one common country; and, if there is one village, town, or city of these United States, that, more than any and all others, is under solemn obligations to cherish a sentiment of grateful and affectionate respect for the South, it is the city of Boston. I propose to refresh the reader's recollection, in my next.

No. XLIV.

_Delenda est Carthago--abolendum est servitium._--No doubt of it; slavery must be buried--decently, however. I cannot endure rudeness and violence, at a funeral. John Cades, in Charter Street, lost his place, in 1789, for letting old Goody Smith go by the run. The _naufragium_ of Erasmus, was nothing at all, compared with that of the old lady's coffin. Our Southern confederates are entitled to _civility_, because they are men and brethren; and they are entitled to _kindness and courtesy from us, of Boston_, because we owe them a debt of gratitude, which it would be shameful to forget. Since we, of the North, have presumed to be _undertakers_ upon this occasion, let us do the thing "_decenter et ornate_." Besides, our friends of the South are notoriously testy and hot-headed: they are, geographically, children of the sun. John Smith's description of the Massachusetts Indians, in 1614, Richmond ed., ii. 194, is truly applicable to the Southern people, "_very kind, but, in their fury, no less valiant_."

I am no more inclined to uphold the South, in the continued practice of a moral wrong, because they gave us bread when we were hungry, as they certainly did, than was Sir Matthew Hale, to decide favorably for the suitor, who sent him the fat buck. _Nullum simile quatuor pedibus currit_--the South, when they bestowed their kindness upon us, during the operation of the _Boston Port Bill_, had no possible favor to ask, in return.

This famous Port Bill, which operated like _guano_ upon LIBERTY TREE, and caused it to send forth a multitude of new and vigorous shoots, was an act of revenge and coercion, passed March 31, 1774, by the British Parliament.

No government was ever so _penny wise_ and _pound foolish_, as that of Great Britain, in 1773-'4. They actually sacrificed thirteen fine, flourishing colonies for _three pence_! In 1773 the East India Company, suffering from the bad effects of the smuggling trade, in the colonies, all taxation having been withdrawn, by Great Britain, excepting on tea, proposed, for the purpose of quieting the strife, to sell their tea, free of all duties, in the Colonies, and that sixpence a pound should be retained by the Government, on exportation. But the Government insisted upon _three pence_ worth of dignity; in other words, for the honor of the Crown, they resolved, that the colonists _should pay three pence_ a pound, import duty. This was a very poor bargain--a _crown_ for _three pence_! Well; I have no room for detail--the tea came; some of it went back again; and the balance was tossed into the sea. It was not suffered to be landed, at Philadelphia and New York. Seventeen chests, brought to New York, on private account, says Gordon, vol. i. page 333, were thrown overboard, Nov. 18, 1773, and combustibles were prepared to burn the ships, if they came up from the Hook. Dec. 16, 1773, three hundred and twenty-four chests of tea were broken open, on board the ships, in Boston, and their contents thrown into the salt water, by a "number of persons," says Gordon, vol. i. page 341, "chiefly masters of vessels and shipbuilders from the north end of the town," dressed as Indians.

In consequence of this, the _Port Bill_ was passed. The object of this bill was to beggar--commercially to neutralize or nullify--the town of Boston, by shutting the port, and cutting off all import and export, by sea, until full compensation should be made, for the tea destroyed, and to the officers of the revenue, and others, who had suffered, by the riots, in the years 1773 and 1774. Such was the _Port Bill_, whose destructive operation was directed, upon the port of Boston alone, under a fatal misunderstanding of the British government, in relation to the real unanimity of the American people.

It is no easy matter, to describe the effect of this act of folly and injustice. The whole country seemed to be affected, with a sort of political _neuralgia_; and the attack upon Boston, like a wound upon some principal nerve, convulsed the whole fabric. The colonies resembled a band of brothers--"born for affliction:" a blow was no sooner aimed at one, than the remaining twelve rushed to the rescue, each one interposing an ægis. In no part of the country, were there more dignified, or more touching, or more substantial testimonies of sympathy manifested, for the people of Boston, than in the Southern States; and especially in Virginia, Maryland, and both the Carolinas.

The _Port Bill_ came into force, June 1, 1774. The Marylanders of Annapolis, on the 25th of May preceding, assembled, and resolved, that Boston was "_suffering in the common cause of America_." On the 30th, the magistrates, and other inhabitants of Queen Anne's County resolved, in full meeting, that they would "_make known, as speedily as possible, their sentiments to their distressed brethren of Boston, and that they looked upon the cause of Boston to be the common cause of America_." The House of Burgesses, in Virginia, appointed the day, when the Boston Port Bill came into operation, as a day of fasting and prayer, throughout the ancient dominion. A published letter, from Kent County, Maryland, dated June 7, 1774, says--"The people of Boston need not be afraid of being starved into compliance; if they will only give a short notice, they may make their town the granary of America."

June 24, 1774.--Twenty-four days after the Port Bill went into operation, a public meeting was held at Charleston, S. C. The moving spirits were the Trapiers and the Elliots, the Horries and the Clarksons, the Gadsdens and the Pinkneys of that day; and resolutions were passed, full of brotherly love and sympathy, for the inhabitants of Boston.

"Baltimore, July 16th, 1774.--A vessel hath sailed from the Eastern Shore of this Province, with a cargo of provisions as a free gift to our besieged brethren of Boston. The inhabitants of all the counties of Virginia and Maryland are subscribing, with great liberality, for the relief of the distressed towns of Boston and Charlestown. The inhabitants of Alexandria, we hear, in a few hours, subscribed £350, for that noble purpose. Subscriptions are opened in this town, for the support and animation of Boston, under their present great conflict, for the common freedom of us all. A vessel is now loading with provisions, as a testimony of the affection of this people towards their persecuted brethren."

"Salem, Aug. 23, 1774.--Yesterday arrived at Marblehead, Capt. Perkins, from Baltimore, with 3000 bushels of corn, 20 barrels of rye meal, and 21 barrels of bread, for the benefit of the poor of Boston, and with 1000 bushels of corn from Annapolis, for the same benevolent purpose."

"New York, Aug. 15, 1774.--Saturday last, Capt. Dickerson arrived here, and brought 376 barrels of rye from South Carolina, to be sold, and proceeds remitted to Boston, a present to the sufferers; a still larger cargo is to be shipped for the like benevolent purpose."

"Newport, R. I.--Capt. Bull, from Wilmington, North Carolina, arrived here last Tuesday, with a load of provisions for the poor of Boston; to sail again for Salem."

These testimonies of a kind and brotherly spirit, came from all quarters of the country. These illustrations might be multiplied to any extent. I pass by the manifestations of the most cordial sympathy from other colonies, and the contributions from the towns and villages around us--my business lies, at present with the South--and my object is to remind some of the more rampant and furious of my abolition friends, who are of yesterday, that the people of the South, however hasty they may be, living under the sun's fiercer rays, and however excited, when a Northern man, however respectable, comes to take up his quarters in their midst, and gather evidence against them, under their very noses--are not precisely _outside barbarians_.

Let the work of abolition go forward, in a dignified and decent spirit. Let us argue; and, so far as we rightfully may, let us legislate. Let us bring the whole world's sympathy up to the work of emancipation. But, let us not revile and vituperate those, who are, to all intents and purposes, our brethren, as certainly as if they lived just over the Roxbury line, instead of Mason's and Dixon's. Such harsh and unmitigated scoffing and abuse, as we too often witness, are equally ungracious, ungentlemanly, and ungrateful.

There is something strangely grotesque, to be sure, in the idea of calling a state, in which there are more slaves than freemen, the _land of liberty_. Our Massachusetts ancestors had a very good _theoretical_ conception of its inconsistency and absurdity, as early as 1773; when the first glimmerings of independence began to come over the spirit of their dreams. In that year, the Massachusetts negroes caught the liberty fever, and presented a petition to have their fetters knocked off. May 17, 1773, the inhabitants of Pembroke addressed a respectfully suggestive letter to their representative in the General Court, John Turner; the last paragraph of which is well worthy of republication. The entire letter may be found in the Boston Gazette of June 14, 1773--"We think the negro petition reasonable--agreeable to natural justice and the precepts of the Gospel; and therefore advise that, in concurrence with the other worthy members of the assembly, you endeavor to find a way, in which they may be freed from slavery, without wrong to their present masters, or injury to themselves--and that a total abolition of slavery may in due time take place. Then we trust we may with humble confidence, look up to the Great Arbiter of Heaven and earth, expecting that he will in his own due time, look upon our affliction, and in the way of his Providence, deliver us from the insults, the grievances, and impositions we so justly complain of." This, as the reader will remember, had reference to slavery in Massachusetts.

No. XLV.

In 1823, and in the month of May, something, in my line, caused me to visit the first ex-President Adams, at the old mansion in Quincy. By some persons, he was accounted a cold man; and his son, John Quincy, even a colder man: yet neither was cold, unless in the sense, in which Mount Hecla is cold--belted in everlasting ice, though liable, occasionally, to violent eruptions of a fiery character.

As I was taking my leave, being about to remove into a distant State, my daughter, between five and six years old, stepped timidly towards Mr. Adams, and placing her little hand upon his, and looking upon his venerable features, said to him--"_Sir, you are so old, and I am going away so far, that I do not think I shall ever see you again--will you let me kiss you before I go?_" His brow was suddenly overcast--the spirit became gently solemnized--"_Certainly, my child_" said he, "_if you desire to kiss a very old man, whom it is quite likely you will never see again_."--He bowed his aged form, and the child, rising on tiptoe, impressed a kiss upon his brow. I would give a great deal more than I can afford, for a fair sketch of that old man's face, as he resumed his position--I see it now, with the eye of a Swedenborgian. His features were slightly flushed, but not discomposed at all; tears filled his eyes; and, if one word must suffice to express all that I saw, that word is _benevolence_--that same benevolence, which taught him, on the day of his death, July 4, 1826, when asked if he knew what day it was, to exclaim--"_Yes, it is the glorious Fourth of July--God bless it--God bless you all_."

At the time of the little occurrence, which I have related, Mr. Adams was eighty-eight years old. I ventured to say, that I wished we could give him the years of Methuselah--to which he replied, with a faint smile,--"_My friend, you could not wish me a greater curse_."--As we wax older and grayer, this expression, which, in the common phrase, is _Greek_ to the young and uninitiated, becomes sufficiently translated into every man's vernacular. Mr. Adams was born October 19, 1735, and had therefore attained his ninety-first year, when he died.

Nothing like the highest ancient standard of longevity is attained, in modern times. Nine hundred, sixty, and nine years, is certainly a long life-time. When baby Lamech was born, his father was a young fellow of one hundred and eighty-seven. Weary work it must have been, waiting so long, for one's inheritance!

The records of modern longevity will appear, nevertheless, somewhat surprising, to those, who have given but little attention to the subject. The celebrated Albert De Haller, and there can be no higher authority, enumerated eleven hundred and eleven cases of individuals, who had lived from 100 to 169. His classification is as follows:--

1000 from 100 to 110 60 " 110 to 120 29 " 120 to 130 15 " 130 to 140 6 " 140 to 150 1 of 169.

The oldest was Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, who died in 1670. Thomas Parr, of Wilmington, in Shropshire, died in 1635, aged 152. He was a poor yeoman, and married his first wife, when he was in his 88th year, or, as some say, his 80th, and had two children. He was brought to Court, by the Earl of Arundel, in the reign of Charles I., and died, as it was supposed, in consequence of change of diet. His body was examined by Dr. Harvey, who thought he might have lived much longer, had he adhered to his simple habits. Being rudely asked, before the King, what more he had done, in his long life, than other old men, he replied--"_At the age of 105, I did penance in Alderbury Church, for an illegitimate child_." When he was 120, he married a second wife, by whom he had a child. Sharon Turner, in his Sacred History of the World, vol. iii. ch. 23, says, in a note, that Parr's son (by the second wife, the issue by the first died early) lived to the age of 113--his grandson to that of 109--his great-grandson to that of 124; and two other grandsons, who died in 1761 and 1763, to that of 127.

Parr's was a much longer life than Reuben's, Judah's, Issachar's, Abner's, Simeon's, Dan's, Zebulon's, Levi's, or Naphthali's. Dr. Harvey's account of the post mortem examination is extremely interesting. The quaint lines of Taylor, the water poet, as he was styled, I cannot omit:--

"Good wholesome labor was his exercise, Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise; In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day, And to his team he whistled time away: The cock his night-clock, and till day was done, His watch and chief sundial was the sun. He was of old Pythagoras' opinion, That green cheese was most wholesome with an onion; Coarse meslin bread, and for his daily swig, Milk, buttermilk, and water, whey and whig. Sometimes metheglin, and by fortune happy, He sometimes sipp'd a cup of ale most nappy, Cider or perry, when he did repair T'a Whitsun ale, wake, wedding or a fair; Or, when in Christmas time he was a guest At his good landlord's house, among the rest. Else he had very little time to waste, Or at the alehouse huff-cap ale to taste. His physic was good butter, which the soil Of Salop yields, more sweet than candy oil. And garlic he esteemed, above the rate Of Venice treacle or best Mithridate. He entertained no gout, no ache he felt, The air was good and temperate, where he dwelt; While mavises and sweet-tongued nightingales Did sing him roundelays and madrigals. Thus, living within bounds of nature's laws Of his long, lasting life may be some cause. From head to heel, his body had all over A quickset, thickset, nat'ral, hairy cover."

Isaac lived to the age of 180, or five years longer than his father Abraham. I now propose to enter one or more well-known old stagers, of modern times, who will beat Isaac, by five lengths. Mr. Easton, of Salisbury, England, a respectable bookseller, and quoted, as good authority by Turner, prepared a more extensive list than Haller, of persons, who had died aged from 100 to 185. His work was entitled _Human Longevity_--1600 of his cases occurred, within the British Isles, and 1687 between the years 1706 and 1799. He sets down three between 170 and 185, giving their names and other particulars.

Mr. Whitehurst's tables contain several cases, not in Mr. Easton's work, from 134 years to 148. Some twenty other cases are stated, by Turner, from 130 to 150. I refer, historically, to the case of Jonathan Hartop, not because of the very great age he attained, but for other reasons of interest: "1791.--Died, Jonathan Hartop, aged one hundred and thirty-eight, of the village of Aldborough, Yorkshire. He could read to the last, without spectacles, and play at cribbage, with the most perfect recollection. He remembered Charles II., and once travelled to London, with the facetious Killegrew. He ate but little; his only beverage was milk. He had been married five times. Mr. Hartop lent Milton fifty pounds, which the bard returned, with honor, though not without much difficulty. Mr. Hartop would have declined receiving it; but the pride of the poet was equal to his genius, and he sent the money with an angry letter, which was found, among the curious possessions of that venerable old man."

On the 4th of July, 1846, I visited Dr. Ezra Green, at his residence, in Dover, N. H. He showed me a couple of letters, which he had received, a short time before, from Daniel Webster and Thomas H. Benton, congratulating him, on having completed his one hundredth year, on the 17th of the preceding June, the anniversary of the battle of Bunker's Hill, and remarked, that those gentlemen had not regarded the difference, between the old style and the new. He told me, that in 1777, he had been a surgeon, in the Ranger, with John Paul Jones. Upon my taking out my glasses, to read a passage in a pamphlet, to which he called my attention, he told me he had never used spectacles, nor felt the need of any such assistance, in reading. Dr. Green died, in 1847.

He graduated, at Harvard, in 1765. At the time of his death, every other member of his own class, numbering fifty-four, was dead.

Previously to 1765, two thousand and seventy-five individuals are named, upon the catalogue. They were all dead at the time of his decease, though he died so recently, as 1847. Yet, from the year, when he graduated, to 1786, a period of twenty years, of seven hundred and seventy-three graduates, fifteen only appear, upon the catalogue of 1848, without the fatal star. One of the fifteen, Harrison Gray Otis, has recently died, leaving three survivors only, in his class of 1783, Asa Andrews, J. S. Boies, and Jonathan Ewins. Another of the fifteen has also recently died, being the oldest graduate, Judge Timothy Farrar, of the class of 1767. The oldest living graduate of Harvard is James Lovell, of the class of 1776.

I send my communication to the press, as speedily as possible, lest he also should be off, before I can publish.

No. XLVI.

A few days ago, I saw, in the hands of the artist, Mr. Alvan Clarke, a sketch, nearly completed, from Stuart's painting of John Adams, in his very old age. This sketch is to be engraved, as an accompaniment of the works of Mr. Adams, about to be published, by Little & Brown. I scarcely know what to say of this sketch of Mr. Adams. His fine old face, such as it was in the flesh, and at the very last of his long and illustrious career, is fixed in my memory--rivetted there--as firmly as his name is bolted, upon the loftiest column of our national history. Never have I seen a more perfect fac simile of man, without the aid of relief--it is the resurrection and the life. If I am at a loss what to say of the sketch, I am still farther at fault, what to say of the artist. Like some of those heavenly bodies, whose contemplation occupies no little portion of his time, it is not always the easiest thing in the world, to know in what part of his orbit he may be found; if I desire to obtain a portrait, or a miniature, or a sketch, he can scarcely devote his time to it, he is so very busy, in contriving some new improvement, for his already celebrated rifle; or if it is a patent muzzled rifle that I want, he is quite likely to be occupied, in the manufacture of a telescope. Be all these matters as they may, I can vouch for it, after years of experience, Alvan Clarke is a very clever fellow, _Anglice et Americanice_; and this sketch of Mr. Adams does him honor, as an artist.

It was in the year 1822, I believe, that a young lady sent me her album, with a request, that I, of all people in the world, would occupy one of its pages. Well, I felt, that after all, it was quite in my line, for I had always looked upon a young lady's album, as a kind of cemetery, for the burial of anybody's bantlings, and I began to read the inscriptions, upon such as reposed in this place, appointed for the still-born. I was a little startled, I confess, at my first glance, upon the autograph of the late Bishop Griswold, appended to some very respectable verses. My attention was next drawn to some lines, over the name of Daniel Webster, _manu propria_. I forget them now, but I remember, that the American Eagle was invoked for the occasion, and flapped its wings, through one or more of the stanzas. Next came an article in strong, sensible prose, from John Adams, written by an amanuensis, but signed with his own hand. Such a hand--the "_manu deficiente_" of Tibullus. The letters, formed by the failing, trembling fingers, resembled the forked lightning. A solemnizing and impressive autograph it was: and, under the impulse of the moment, I had the audacity to spoil three pages of this consecrated album, by appending to this venerable name the following lines:--

High over Alps, in Dauphine, There lies a lonely spot, So wild, that ages rolled away, And man had claimed it not: For ages there, the tiger's yell Bay'd the hoarse torrent as it fell.

Amid the dark, sequestered glade, No more the brute shall roam; For man, unsocial man, hath made That wilderness his home: And convent bell, with notes forlorn, Is heard, at midnight, eve, and morn.

For now, amid the Grand Chartreuse, Carthusian monks reside; Whose lives are passed, from man recluse, In scourging human pride; In matins, vespers, aves, creeds, With crosses, masses, prayers, and beads.

When hither men of curious mood, Or pilgrims, bend their way, To view this Alpine solitude, Or, heav'nward bent, to pray, Saint Bruno's monks their album bring, Inscrib'd by poet, priest, and king.

Since pilgrim first, with holy tears, Inscrib'd the tablet fair, On time's dark flood, some thousand years, Have pass'd like billows there. What countless names its pages blot, By country, kindred, long forgot!

Here chaste conceits and thoughts divine Unclaim'd, and nameless, stand; Which, like the Grecian's waving line, Betray some master's hand. And here Saint Bruno's monks display, With pride, the classic lines of Gray.

While pilgrim ponders o'er the name, He feels his bosom glow; And counts it nothing less than fame, To write his own below. So, in this Album, fain would I, Beneath a name, that cannot die.

Thrice happy book! no tablet bears A nobler name than thine; Still followed by a nation's pray'rs, Through ling'ring life's decline. The wav'ring stylus scarce obey'd The hand, that once an empire sway'd!

Not thus, among the patriot band, That name enroll'd we see-- No falt'ring tongue, no trembling hand Proclaim'd an empire free!-- Lady, retrace those lines, and tell, If, in thy heart, no sadness dwell?

And, in those fainting, struggling lines, Oh, see'st thou naught sublime! No tott'ring pile, that half inclines! No mighty wreck of time! Sighs not thy gentle heart to save The sage, the patriot, from the grave!

If thus, oh then recall that sigh, Unholy 'tis, and vain; For saints and sages never die, But sleep, to rise again. Life is a lengthened day, at best, And in the grave tir'd trav'llers rest;

Till, with his trump, to wake the dead, Th' appointed angel flies; Then Heav'n's bright album shall be spread, And all who sleep, shall rise; The blest to Zion's Hill repair, And write their names immortal there.

I had as much pleasure, in composing these lines, as I ever had, in composing the limbs or the features of a corpse; and now that they are fairly laid out, the reader may bury them in oblivion, as soon as he pleases. The lines of Gray, referred to, in the sixth stanza, may be found in the collections of his works, and were written in the album of the Chartreuse, in 1741.

My recollections of John Adams, are very perfect, and preëminently pleasant. I knew nothing of him personally, of course, in the days of his power. I had nothing to ask at his hands, but the permission to sit and listen. How vast and how various his learning!--"Qui sermo! quæ præcepta! quanta notitia antiquitatis!... Omnia memoria tenebat, non domestica solum, sed etiam externa bella: cujus sermone ita tum cupide fruebar, quasi jam divinarem id, quod evenit, illo extincto, fore, unde discerem, neminem." Surpassingly delightful were the outpourings, till some thoughtless wight, by an ill-timed allusion, opened the fountain of bitter waters--then, history, literature, the arts, all were buried _in gurgite vasto_, giving place to Jefferson's injustice, the Mazzei letters, and Callender's prospect before us--_quantum mutatus ab illo_!

How forcibly the dead are quickened, upon the retina of memory, by the exhibition of some well known and personally associated article--the little hat of Napoleon--the mantle of Cæsar--"_you all do know this mantle_!" I have just now drawn, from my treasury, an autograph of John Adams, bearing date, Jan. 31, 1824, and a lock of strong hair, cut from his venerable brow, the day before. In October of that year, he was eighty-nine years of age; and that lock of hair is a dark iron gray. I have also taken from its casket a silver pen, and small portable inkstand attached, which also were his. The contemplation of these things--I came honestly by them--seems almost to raise that venerable form before me. I can almost hear him repeat those memorable words--"THE UNION IS OUR ROCK OF SAFETY AS WELL AS OUR PLEDGE OF GRANDEUR."

No. XLVII.

I am rather surprised, to find how little is known, among the rising generation, about slavery, in the Old Bay State. One might delve for a twelve month, and not gather together the half of all, that is condensed, in Dr. Belknap's replies to Judge Tucker's inquiries, Mass. H. C., iv. 191.

I never was a sexton in the Berry Street Church, but I knew Dr. Jeremy Belknap well, in 1797, when he lived on the southeasterly side of Lincoln Street, near Essex. He died the following year. His garden was overrun with spiders. I had a great veneration for the doctor--he gave me a copy of his Foresters--and, to repay a small part of the debt, I was proceeding, one summer morning, with a strong arm, to demolish the spiders, when he pleasantly called to me to desist, saying, that he preferred them to the flies.

Slavery was here--negro slavery--at a very early day. Josselyn speaks of three slaves, in the family of Maverick, on Noddle's Island, Oct. 2, 1639, M. H. C., xxiii. 231. These were probably brought directly from Africa. In 1645, the General Court of Massachusetts ordered Mr. Williams, at Pascataqua, over which Massachusetts exercised jurisdiction, to send the negro he had of Captain Smith, to them, that he might be sent home; as Smith had confessed, that the negroes he brought were stolen from Guinea. Ibid. iv. 195. In the same year, a law was passed, against the traffic in slaves, those excepted, who were taken in war, or cast into servitude, for crime. Ibid.

The slave trade was carried on, in Massachusetts, to a very small extent. "In 1703," says Dr. Belknap, "a duty of £4 was laid on every negro imported." He adds--"By the inquiries which I have made of our oldest merchants, now living, I cannot find that more than three ships in a year, belonging to this port, were ever employed in the African trade. The rum distilled here, was the mainspring of this traffic. Very few whole cargoes ever came to this port. One gentleman says he remembers two or three. I remember one, between thirty and forty years ago, which consisted almost wholly of children. At Rhode Island the rum distillery and the African trade were prosecuted to a greater extent than in Boston; and I believe no other seaport, in Massachusetts, had any concern in the slave business." Ibid. 196. Dr. Belknap drew up his answers to Judge Tucker's inquiries, April 21, 1795: "_between thirty and forty years ago_," therefore, was between 1755 and 1765. Dr. Belknap remembered the arrival in Boston of a "_whole cargo_" of slaves, "_almost wholly children_," between the years 1755 and 1765! If we have ever had an accurate and careful narrator of matters of fact, in New England, that man was Jeremy Belknap. The last of these years, 1765, was the memorable year of the Stamp Act, and LIBERTY TREE! Let us hope the arrival was nearer to 1755.

"About the time of the Stamp Act," says Dr. Belknap, "this trade began to decline, and, in 1788, it was prohibited by law. This could not have been done previous to the Revolution, as the governors sent hither from England, it is said, were instructed not to consent to any acts made for that purpose." Ibid. 197. In 1767, a bill was brought into the House of Representatives, "to prevent the unnatural and unwarrantable custom of enslaving mankind, and the importation of slaves into the Province:" but it came to nothing. "Had it passed both houses in any form whatever," says Dr. B., ibid. page 202, "Gov. Bernard would not have consented to it." One scarcely knows which most to admire, the fury against the South, of gentlemen, whose ancestors imported cargoes of slaves, or bought and sold them, at retail, or the righteous indignation of Great Britain, who instructed her colonial governors, to veto every attempt of the Massachusetts Legislature, to abolish the traffic in human flesh. A disposition existed, at an earlier period, to abolish the brutal traffic. In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Freeman from Timothy Pickering, which may found in M. H. C., xviii. 183, he refers to the following transcript, from the records of the Selectmen of Boston: "1701, May 26. The Representatives are desired to promote the encouraging the bringing of white servants, and to put a period to negroes being slaves."

"A few only of our merchants," says Dr. B., M. H. C., iv. 197, "were engaged in this traffic. It was never supported by popular opinion. A degree of infamy was attached to the characters of those, who were employed in it. Several of them, in their last hours, bitterly lamented their concern in it." Chief Justice Samuel Sewall wrote a pamphlet against it. Many, says Dr. B., who were wholly opposed to the traffic, would yet buy a slave, when brought here, on the ground that it was better for him to be brought up in a Christian land! For this, Abraham and the patriarchs were vouched in, of course, as supporters.

Our winters were unfavorable to unacclimated negroes; white laborers were therefore preferred to black. "_Negro children_," says Dr. B., ibid. 200, "_were reckoned an incumbrance in a family; and, when weaned, were given away like puppies. They have been publicly advertised in the newspapers, to be given away_."

In answer to the question, how slavery had been abolished in Massachusetts? Dr. Belknap answered--"_by public opinion_." He considers, that slavery came to an end, in our Commonwealth, in 1783. After 1781, there were, certainly, very few, who had the brass to offer negroes, for sale, openly, in the newspapers of Boston. Public opinion, as Dr. Belknap says, was accomplishing this work: and every calm, impartial person may opine for himself, how patiently we of the North should have endured, at that time, even a modicum of the galling abuse, of which such a _profluvium_ is daily administered, to the people of the South. It seems to me, that such rough treatment would have been more likely to addle, than to hatch the ovum of public opinion in 1783.

Dr. Belknap's account, ibid. 203, is very clear. He says--"The present constitution of Massachusetts was established in 1780. The first article of the declaration of rights asserts that '_all men are born free and equal_.' This was inserted, not merely as a moral or political truth, but with a particular view to establish the liberation of the negroes, on a general principle; and so it was understood, by the people at large; but some doubted whether this were sufficient. Many of the blacks, taking advantage of the _public opinion_, and of this general assertion, in the bill of rights, asked their freedom and obtained it. Others took it without leave. Some of the aged and infirm thought it most prudent to continue in the families, where they had been well used, and experience has proved that they acted right. In 1781, at the court in Worcester County, an indictment was found against a white man for assaulting, beating, and imprisoning a black. He was tried at the Supreme Judicial Court, in 1783. His defence was that the black was his slave, and that the beating, &c., was the necessary restraint and correction of the master. This was answered by citing the aforesaid clause in the declaration of rights. The Judge and Jury were of opinion that he had no right to beat or imprison the negro. He was found guilty and fined forty shillings. This decision was a mortal wound to slavery in Massachusetts."

The reader will perceive, that a distinction was maintained, between the _slave trade_, eo nomine, and the _holding of slaves_, inseparably connected as it was, with the incidents of sale and transfer from man to man, in towns and villages. He, who was engaged in the _trade_, so called, was supposed _per se_ or _per alium_ to _steal_ the slaves; but, contrary to the proverb, the _receiver_ was, in this case, not accounted so bad as the _thief_! The prohibition of the _traffic_, in 1788, grew out of public indignation, produced by the act of one Avery, from Connecticut, who decoyed three black men on board his vessel, under pretence of employing them; and while they were at work below, proceeded to sea, having previously cleared for Martinico. The knowledge of this outrage produced a great sensation. Gov. Hancock, and M. L'Etombe, the French Consul, wrote in favor of the kidnapped negroes, to all the West India Islands. A petition was presented to the Legislature, from the members of the association of the Boston Clergy; another from the blacks; and one, at that very time, from the Quakers, was lying on the table, for an act against equipping and insuring vessels, engaged in the traffic, and against kidnappers. Such an act was passed March 26, 1788.

The poor negroes, carried off by that arch villain, Avery, were offered for sale, in the island of St. Bartholomew. They told their story publicly--_magna est veritas_--the Governor heard and believed it--the sale was forbidden. An inhabitant of the island--a Mr. ATHERTON, of blessed memory--became their protector, and gave bonds for their good behavior, for six months. Letters, confirming their story, arrived. They were sent on their way home rejoicing, and arrived in Boston, on the following 29th day of July.

In 1763, according to Dr. Belknap, ibid. 198, there was 1 black to every 45 whites in Massachusetts; in 1776, 1 to every 65; in 1784, 1 to every 80. The whole number, in the latter year, 4377 blacks, 354,133 whites.

It appears, by a census, taken by order of Government, in the last month of 1754, and the first month of 1755, that there were then in the Province of Massachusetts Bay 2717 negro slaves of and over 16 years of age. Of these, 989 belonged to Boston. This table may be found in M. H. C., xiii. 95.

No. XLVIII.

Of all sorts of affectation the affectation of happiness is the most universal. How many, whose domestic relations are full of trouble, are, abroad, apparently, the happiest of mortals. How many, after laying down the severest sumptuary laws, for their domestics, on the subject of _sugar_ and _butter_, go forth, in all their personal finery, to inquire the prices of articles, which they have no means to purchase, and return, comforted by the assurance, that they have the reputation of fashion and wealth, with those, at least, who have, so deferentially, displayed their diamonds and pearls!

Who would not be thought wealthy, and wise, and witty, if he could!

Happiness is every man's _cynosure_, when he embarks upon the ocean of life. No man would willingly be thought so very unskilful, as that ill-starred Palinurus, who made the shores of Norway, on a voyage to the coast of Africa. Whether wealth, or fame, or fashion, or pleasure be the principal object of pursuit, no one is willing to be accounted a disappointed man, after the application of his best energies, for years. The man of wealth--the man of ambition, for example, are desirous of being accounted happy. It would certainly be exceedingly annoying to both, to be convinced, that they were believed, by mankind, to be otherwise. Their condition is rendered tolerable, only by the conviction, that thousands suppose them happy, and covet their condition accordingly. There is something particularly agreeable, in being envied, of course. Now, it is the common law of man's nature--a law, that executes itself--that _possession makes him poor_ as Horace says, Sat. i. 1, 1.

--------"Nemo, quam sibi sortem, Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit illi, Contentus vivat."--------

All experience has demonstrated, that happiness is not to be bought, and that what there is of it, in this present life, is a home-made article, which every one produces for himself, in the workshop of his own bosom. It no more consists, in the accumulation of wealth, than in snuffing up the east wind. The poor believe the rich to be happy--they become rich, and find they were mistaken. But they keep the secret, and affect to be happy, nevertheless.

Seneca looked upon the devotion of time and talent to the acquirement of money, beyond the measure of a man's reasonable wants, with profound contempt. He called such, as gave themselves up to the unvarying pursuit of wealth, _short lived_; meaning that the hours and years, so employed, were carved out of the estate of a man's life, and utterly thrown away. There is a fine passage, in ch. 17, of Seneca's book, _De Brevitate Vitæ_.

"Misserrimam ergo necesse est, non tantum brevissimam, vitam eorum esse, qui magno parant labore, quod majore possideant: operose assequuntur quæ volunt, anxii tenent quæ assecuti sunt. Nulla interim nunquam amplius redituri temporis est ratio"--It is clear, therefore, that the life must be very miserable, and very brief, of those, who get their gains with great labor, and hold on to their gettings with greater--who obtain the object of their wishes, with much difficulty, and are everlastingly anxious for the safe keeping of their treasures. They seem to have no true estimate of those hours, thus wasted, which never can return.

In one of his admirable letters to Lucilius, the eightieth, on the subject of poverty, he says--"Si vis scire quam nihil in illa mali sit, compara inter se pauperum et divitum vultus. Sæpius pauper et fidelius ridet; nulla sollicitudo in alto est; etiamsi qua incidit cura, velut nubes levis transit Horum, qui felices vocantur, hilaritas ficta est, au gravis et suppurata tristitia; eo quidem gravior, quia interdum non licet palam esse miseros, sed inter ærumnas, cor ipsum exedentes, necesse est agere felicem"--If you wish to know, that there is no evil therein, compare the faces of the rich and the poor. The poor man laughs much oftener, and more heartily. There is no wearying solicitude pressing upon his inmost soul, and when care comes, it passes away, like a thin cloud. But the hilarity of these rich men, who are called happy, is affected, or a deep-seated and rankling anxiety, the more oppressive, because it never would answer for them to appear as miserable, as they are, being constrained to appear happy, in the midst of harassing cares, gnawing at their vitals.

If Seneca had been on 'Change, daily, during the last half year, and watched the countenances of our wealthy money-lenders, he could not have portrayed the picture with a more masterly pencil. The rate of usury has, of course, a relation to the hazard encountered, and that hazard is ever uppermost in the mind of the usurer: and it is extremely doubtful, if the hope, however sanguine, of realizing two per cent. a month, is always sufficient, to quiet those fears, which will occasionally arise, of losing the principal and interest together.

I never buried an old usurer, without a conviction, as I looked upon his hard, corrugated features, that, if he could carry nothing else with him, he certainly carried upon his checkered brow the very phylactery of his calling. We may talk about money, as an article of commerce, till we are tired--we may weary the legislature, by our importunity, into a repeal of the existing laws against usury--we may cudgel our brains, to stretch the mantle of the law over our operations, and make it appear _a regular business transaction_--it is a case, in which no refinement of the culinary art will ever be able to disguise, or neutralize, the odor of the opossum--there ever was--there is--there ever will be, I am afraid, a certain touch of moral _nastiness_ about it, which no casuistical chemistry will ever be able entirely to remove.

Doubtless, there are men, who take something more, during a period of scarcity, than legal interest, and who are very worthy men withal. There are others, who are descendants, in the right line, from the horse-leech of biblical history--who take all they can get. Now, there is but one category: _they are all usurers_; and those, who are respectable, impart of their respectability to such, as have little or none; and give a confidence to those, who would be treated with contempt, for their merciless gripings, were they not banded together, with men of character, in the same occupation, as usurers. Those, who take seven or eight per cent. per annum, and those who take _one per cent. a day_, and such things have been, are not easily distinguished; but the question, who come within the category, as usurers, is a thing more readily comprehended. All are such, who exceed the law.

_Usurer_, originally, was not a term of reproach; for _interest_ and _usury_ meant one and the same thing. The earlier statutes against usury, in England, were directed chiefly against the Jews--whose lineal descendants are still in our midst. Usury was forbidden, by act of Parliament, in 1341. The rate then taken by the Jews, was enormous. In 1545, 37 Henry VIII., the rate established was ten per cent. This statute was confirmed by 13 Eliz. 1570. Reduced to eight per cent., 21 James I. 1623, when the word _interest_ was first employed, instead of _usury_. Again reduced, by Cromwell, 1650, to six per cent. Confirmed by Charles II. 1660. Reduced to five per cent., 5 Anne, 1714.

There are not two words about it; extortion and usury harden the heart; soil the reputation; and diminish the quantum of happiness, by lowering the standard of self-respect. That unconscionable griper, whose god is Mammon, and who fattens upon misery, as surely as the vulture upon carrion, stalking up and down like a commercial buzzard, tearing away the substance of his miserable victim, by piecemeal--_two per cent. a month_--can he be happy! However much like a human being he may have looked, in his youth, the workings of his mercenary soul have told too truly upon his iron features, until that visage would form an appropriate figure-head for the portal of 'Change alley, or the Inquisition.

--------"Is your name Shylock? Shylock is my name."

To how many, in this age of _anxious inquirers_, may we hold up this picture, and propound this interrogatory!

God is just, though Mahomet be not his prophet. Instead of exclaiming, that God's ways are past finding out, let us go doggedly to work, and study them a little. Some of them, I humbly confess, appear sufficiently intelligible, with common sense for an expositor. Does not the All-wise contriver say, in language not to be mistaken, to such as worship, at the shrines of avarice and sensuality--you have chosen idols, and your punishment shall consist, in part, in the ridicule and contempt, which the worship of these idols brings upon your old age. You--the victim of intemperance--shall continue, with your bloated lips, to worship--not a stone image--but a stone jug; and grasping your idol with your trembling fingers, literally stagger into the grave! And you, though last, not least, of all vermicular things, whose whole time and intellectual powers are devoted to no higher object than making money--shall still crawl along, heaping up treasure, day after day--day after day--to die at last, not knowing who shall come after you, a wise man or a fool!

"Constant at Church and 'Change; his gains were sure, His givings rare, save farthings to the poor! The Dev'l was piq'd such saintship to behold, And long'd to tempt him, like good Job of old; But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts, by making rich, not making poor."

No. XLIX.

Self-conceit and vanity are very pardonable offences, till, stimulated by flattery, or aggravated by indulgence, they assume the offensive forms of arrogance and insolence. If we should drive, from the circle of our friends, all, who are occasionally guilty of such petty misdemeanors, we should restrict ourselves to the solitude of Selkirk. There are some worthy men, with whom this little infirmity is an intermittent, alternating, like fever and ague, between self-conceit and self-abasement. Like some estimable people, of both sexes, who, at one moment, proclaim themselves the chief of sinners, and the next, are in admirable working condition, as the spiritual guides and instructors of all mankind; these persons, under the influence of the wind, or the weather, or the world's smiles, or its frowns, or the state of their digestive organs, indicate, by their air and carriage, today, a feeling, far on the sunny side of self-complacency, and of deep humility, tomorrow.

William Boodle has been dead, some twenty years. He was my school-fellow. I would have undertaken anything, for Boodle, while living, but I could not undertake for him, when dead. The idea of burying Billy Boodle, my playmate from the cradle--we were put into breeches, the very same day--with whom I had passed, simultaneously, through all the epocha--rattles--drums--go-carts--kites--tops--bats--skates--the idea of shovelling the cold earth upon him, was too much. I would have buried the Governor and Council, with the greatest pleasure, but Billy Boodle--I couldn't. So I changed works, that day, with one of our craft, who comprehended my feelings perfectly.

I never shall forget my sensations, the first time he called me _Mr. Wycherly_. We had ever been on terms of the greatest intimacy, and had never known any other words of designation, than Abner and Bill. I was very much amazed; and he seemed a little confused, himself, when I laughed in his face, and asked him what the devil he meant by it. But he grew daily more formal in his manners, and more particular in his dress. His voice became changed--he began to use longer words--assumed an unusual wave of the hand, and a particular movement of the head, when speaking--and, while talking, on the most common-place topics, he had a way, quite new with him, of bringing down the fore-finger of his right hand, frequently and forcibly, upon the ball of the uplifted thumb of the left. He was a leather-breeches maker; and I caught him, upon two or three occasions, spouting in his shop, all by himself, before a small looking-glass. He once made a pair of buckskins, for old General Heath--they did not fit--the General returned them, and Boodle said he would have them _taken into a new draft_--I thought he was a little deranged: "taken where?" said the old General. Boodle colored, and corrected himself, saying he would have them _let out_. He had two turns of this strange behavior, in one year, during which, he was rather neglectful of his business, pompous in his family, and talked to his wife, who was a plain, notable woman, of nothing but first principles, and political economy. In the intervals between these attacks, he was perfectly himself again, and it was Abner and Bill, as in former days.

I have often smiled, at my own dullness, in not sooner apprehending the solution of this little enigma. Boodle was a member of the Legislature; and the fits were upon him, during the sessions. No man, probably, was ever more thoroughly confounded, than my old friend, when, it having been deemed expedient to compliment the leather-breeches interest, the committee requested him to permit his name to be put upon the list of candidates, as one of the representatives of the city of Boston, in the General Court. He could not think of it--the committee averred the utter impossibility of doing without him--he was ignorant of the duties--they could be learned in half a day--he was without education--the very thing, a self-taught man! He consented.

How much more easily we are persuaded to be great men, than to be Christians! There is but a step from conscious insignificancy to the loftiest pretension. Boodle was elected, and awoke the next morning, less surprised by the event, than at the extraordinary fact, that his talents had been overlooked, so long. He spoiled three good skins that day, from sheer absence of mind.

However disposed we may be to laugh at the airs of men, who so entirely misapprehend themselves and their constituents, our laughter should be tempered with charity. They are not honestly told, that they are wanted, only as makeweights--to keep in file--to follow, _en suite_--to register an edict: and their vanity is pardonable, in the ratio of that ignorance of themselves, which leads them to rely, so implicitly, upon the testimony of others.

Comparative mensuration is a very popular process, and a very comforting process, for all, who have made small progress in self-knowledge; and this category comprehends all, but a very small minority. There are a few, I doubt not, who think humbly of themselves; but there are very few, indeed, who cannot perceive, in themselves, or their possessions, some one or more points of imaginary superiority, over their fellows. This is an inexpensive mode of enjoying one's self, and I cannot see the wisdom, or the wit, of disturbing the self-complacency of any one, upon such an occasion, unless the delusion is of vital importance to somebody. What, if your neighbor prefers his Dutch domicil, with its overhanging gable, to your classic chateau--or sees more to admire, in his broad-faced squab of a wife, than in your faultless Helen--or vaunts the superiority of his short-legged cob, over your famous blood horse! Let him. Such things should be passed, with great forbearance, were it only for the innocent amusement they afford us. So far, however, is this from the ordinary mode of treating them, that I am compelled to believe vanity is often more apt, than criminality, to excite our irritable principle, and stimulate the spirit of resentment.

I have known some worthy men, generous and humane, whose very gait has rendered them exceedingly unpopular. I once heard a pious and reverend clergyman say, of one of his very best parishioners, but whose unfortunate air of hauteur was rather remarkable, that, with all his excellent qualities, "it would do the flesh good to give him a kick."

From a thousand illustrations, which are all around us, I will select one only. The anecdote, which I am about to relate, may be told without any apprehension of giving offence; as the parties have been dead, some thirty years. A worthy clergyman, residing in a neighboring state, grew old; and the parish, who entertained the most cordial respect and affection, for this venerable soldier of the cross, resolved to give him a colleague. After due inquiry, and a _quantum sufficit_ of preaching on probation, they decided on giving a call to Parson Brocklebank. He was a little, red, round man, with a spherical head, a Brougham nose, and a gait, the like of which had never been seen, in that parish, before. It had not attracted particular notice, until after he was settled. To be sure, an aged single lady, of the parish, was heard to say, that she saw something of it, at the ordination, when Parson Brocklebank stepped forward, to receive the right hand of fellowship. Suffice it to say, for the reader's particular edification, that it was indescribable. It became the village talk, and is thought to have had an injurious influence, in retarding a revival, which seemed to be commencing, just before the period of the ordination. However lowly in spirit, the new minister may have been, all who ever beheld him move, were satisfied, at a glance, that he had a most exalted opinion of himself. And yet he was an excellent man.

This unfortunate trick of jerking out the hips, and those rotundities of flesh connected therewith, however it might have originated in "curs'd pride, that busy sin," had become, with Parson Brocklebank, an unchangeable habit. We often see it in a slight degree, but, as it existed in his particular case, it was a thing not known among men. I think I have seen it among women. Dr. Johnson would have called it a fundamental undulation, elaborated by the ostentatious workings of a pompous spirit. Whatever it was, it was fatal to the peace and prosperity of that parish. Every one talked of it. The young laughed at it; the old mourned over it; the middle aged were vexed by it; boys and girls were whipped, for imitating it; children were forbidden to look at it, for fear of their catching it; the very dogs were said to have barked at it.

The parish began to dissolve, _sine die_. The deacons waited upon their old clergyman, Father Paybody, and the following colloquy ensued:

"We're in a bad way, Father Paybody; and, if folks keep going off so, we don't see how we shall be able to pay the salaries.--Dismiss me: I am of little use now.--No, no, Father Paybody, while there's a potato in this parish, we'll share it together. We call'd for advice. Ever since Parson Brocklebank was settled, the parish has been going to pieces: what is the cause of it?--The shrewd old man shook his head, and smiled.--Parson Brocklebank is a good man, Father Paybody.--Excellent.--Sound doctrine.--Very.--Amazing ready at short notice.--Very.--Great at clearing a knotty passage.--Very.--We think him a very pious Christian.--Very.--In the parochial relation he is very acceptable.--Very.--I hear he has a winning way, and always has candy or gingerbread in his pockets, for the children, which helps the word greatly, with the little ones.--Well, nearly half our people are dissatisfied, and have left, or will leave soon. What is the cause of it, Father Paybody?--I will tell you: it's owing to no other cause under the sun, than that wriggle of Brother Brocklebank's behind."

No. L.

I sincerely hope, that Daniel H. Pearson, now in prison, under suspicion of having murdered his wife and twin daughters, at Wilmington, in this Commonwealth, in the month of April last, may be proved to be an innocent man. For, should he be convicted, he will certainly be sentenced to be hung; and it is quite probable, that Governor Briggs, and his iron-hearted Council may do, as they recently did, in the case of poor Washington Goode, a most unfortunate man, who, unhappily, committed a most infernal murder, of which, after an impartial trial, he was duly convicted. Will it be believed, in this age of improved contrivances, moral and physical, that the Governor and Council of our Commonwealth have actually refused, to rush between the sentence and the execution, and save this egregious scoundrel from the gallows! They have solemnly decided, not to interfere with the operation of that ancient law of this Commonwealth, which decrees, that he, who kills his fellow man, with malice prepense, shall be hanged, by the neck, till he is dead!

It really seems to me, that the time has arrived when Massachusetts should be governed, by some compassionate person, who will prove himself, upon such unpleasant occasions, the murderer's friend. I am not unapprized of the fact, that there is a strong opposition to these opinions, among the wisest and best men in the community; and that, irrespectively of the operation of the _lex talionis_ upon the murderer, his death is accounted necessary, _in terrorem_, for the rest of mankind; as Cicero has said--"_ut poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniat_"--that the punishment may reach the few, and fear the many. But Cicero was a heathen. There are also some individuals, having very little of that contempt for old wives' tales, which characterizes those profound thinkers, our interesting fellow-citizens of the Liberty Party, and who still venture, in these enlightened days, to cite the word of God--WHOSO SHEDDETH MAN'S BLOOD, BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED. In the present condition of society, when there are so very few of us, who do not feel, that we are wise above what is written, this precept, delivered by God Almighty, to Noah, appears exceedingly preposterous, greatly resembling some of those _blue laws_, which were in operation, in the olden time, in a sister state. What was Noah to Jeremy Bentham! Although I am pained to confess the shortcomings of Jeremy; for, though he did much to meliorate the severity of the British penal code, he went not, by any means, to those happy lengths, which we approve, in shielding the unfortunate murderer from the halter.

There was a very amiable, old gentleman in England, who lived, through the times of Charles I., both Cromwells, and Charles II. He was reputed so wise, and learned, and just, and pious, that his judgment was highly prized, by all men. He was esteemed the greatest lawyer and the most upright, in all England; so much so, that, in 1671, he was created Lord Chief Justice of the realm. I desire to reason impartially, upon this subject, and therefore admit, that this great and good man, Sir Matthew Hale, believed death to be a very just punishment, for certain crimes, inferior to murder. Although Sir Matthew's crude notions are rapidly going out of fashion, it is but fair, to transcribe his words--"When offences grow enormous, frequent, and dangerous to a kingdom or state, destructive or highly pernicious to civil societies, and to the great insecurity and danger of the kingdom or its inhabitants, severe punishment and even death itself is necessary to be annexed to laws, in many cases, by the prudence of lawgivers." In all candor, we must admit, that Sir Matthew Hale was notoriously the very reverse of a sanguinary Judge. But Sir Matthew's days were the days of small things. We cannot sufficiently bless the Great Disposer of human affairs, for raising up the foolish, as He has done, in these latter days, and in such great numbers withal, to confound the wise. It is now no longer necessary, as of old, to pursue a particular course of study, to qualify mankind, for the work of legislation, or the practice of law, or physic, or the exposition of the more subtle points of religion, or ethics, or political economy.

This truly is an age of intuition. He, who learns, or half learns, one profession, is, instanter, competent to perform the duties of all. It is a heavenly stream of universal light and power, somewhat analogous to the miraculous gift of tongues. Nothing, in this connection, is more remarkable, than the rapid turgescence of every man's confidence, in his own abilities, upon the slightest encouragement, from his neighbor. There has been scarcely a blacksmith in New England, since the remarkable and merited success of Elihu Burritt, who, if you ask his opinion of the efficacy of pennyroyal for the stomach-ache, will not, with your permission, of course, prescribe for any acute or chronic complaint, with which you are afflicted. Tailors, in full measure, nine to a man, will readily solve you a point of theology, which would have been fearfully approached, by Tillotston or Horne. And, upon this solemn subject of capital punishment, there is scarcely a man-midwife in the land, who is not ready, with his instruments, to deliver the community of all their scruples at once.

This, certainly, is a blessed condition of things, for which we cannot be sufficiently thankful.

That we may do abundant justice to our opponents, I propose to offer, in this place, a quotation from the Edinburgh Review, vol. 86, p. 216. The article is entitled--"_What is to be done with our criminals?_" The passage runs thus--"Another circumstance, which renders legislation on this subject peculiarly difficult, is the lamentably perverted sentimentality, which is extensively diffusing itself among the people, and which may soon render it problematical, whether any penal code, really calculated to answer its objects, can be devised; a sentimentality, which weeps over the criminal, and has no tears to spare for the miseries he has caused--which transforms the felon into an object of interest and sympathy, and forgets the innocent sufferers from his cruelty or perfidy. So far as pity for the criminal is consistent with a more comprehensive compassion for those he has wronged, and is limited by the necessity of obtaining them redress and providing for the safety of society--so far as it prompts to a desire to see the statute-book cleared of every needless severity, and that no punishments shall be inflicted for punishment's sake it is laudable.

"But we must, with regret, profess our belief, that it has often far transcended these limits; and has exhibited itself in forms and modes, which, if permitted to dictate the tone of our criminal legislation, would tend to the rapid increase of crime. The people in question belong to a class, always numerous, who are led by the imagination, and not by their reason--by emotion rather than reflection. They see the felon in chains, and they are dissolved in commiseration; they do not stop to realize all the miseries, which have at last made _him_ miserable--perhaps, in the present apathy of his conscience, much less miserable than many of those whom he has injured."

This is from an article, ably written, of some fifty-eight pages, published in 1847. I give it a place here, lest I should be suspected of suppressing all arguments, on the other side.

The idea of hanging a murderer, by form of law, instead of placing him for a few years, in some _anxious seat_, the treadmill or the state prison, where he might be converted perhaps--cutting him off, in the midst of his days, without time allowed for repentance, is a terrible thing. I am perfectly aware, that it will be replied--this is the very thing which he did for his wretched victim.

We are told, that the highest penalty known to the law is demanded. _All that a man hath will he give for his life_; and we are opposed, in our humane endeavors, by the scriptural edict referred to already. It is averred to be an all-important object in capital punishment, to operate upon the fears of others, _ut metus_, as we said before, _ad omnes perveniat_, which would be less likely to be the case, if the halter were abolished. It is true, that, while there is life, there is hope--hope of pardon; hope even of a natural and less horrible death; a fond, fearful hope of cutting the keeper's throat, and escaping from thraldom! How truly the poor murderer deserves our compassion!

What a revolting spectacle this hanging is! Here, however, I confess, the answer is complete--nobody, but the functionaries, is suffered to see it. It is much less of an entertainment, than it was, in the days of George Selwyn, who was in the habit of feeing the keeper of Newgate, for due notice of every execution, and a reservation of the best seat, nearest the gallows. It has been said, that hanging has become more unpopular, since it ceased to be a public amusement. It may be so--I rather doubt it.

In former times, there were very few inexpensive public amusements, in Boston, beside the Thursday lectures; and a hanging has always been highly attractive, in town and country. I well remember, not very many years ago, while riding into the city, in my chaise, having been compelled to halt, and remain at rest, for twenty minutes, in Washington, near Pleasant Street, while the immense mass of men, women and children rushed by, on their way to the execution of an Irishman, which took place at the gallows, near the grave-yard, on the Neck. The prisoner was in an open barouche, dressed in a blue coat and gilt buttons, white waistcoat, drab breeches, and white top boots, and his hair was powdered. He was accompanied by Mr. Larrassy, the Catholic priest, and the physician of the prison.

During the afternoon of July 30, 1794, on the morning of which day the great fire occurred in Boston, three pirates, brought home in irons, on board the brig Betsey, Captain Saunders, belonging to Daniel Sargent, were hung on the Common; and three governors, sitting in their chairs, would not have drawn half the concourse, then and there assembled.

No. LI.

"Thy Clarence he is dead that stabb'd my Edward; And the beholders of this tragic play Untimely smothered in their dusky graves."

There were no humane and gentle spirits, in those days of old, to speak soft words of comfort in the ears of murderers and midnight assassins. Poor fellows! after they had let out the last drop of blood, in the hearts of their innocent victims, and reduced wives to widowhood, and children to orphanage--after the parricide had plunged the dagger in his father's heart--after the husband had murdered her, whom he had sworn, under the eye of God, to love and to cherish--after the wife, with the assistance of her paramour, had stealthily administered the poisonous draught to her confiding husband--they were respectively indicted--arraigned--publicly and deliberately tried--abundantly defended--and, when duly convicted at last, they were hanged, forsooth, by their necks, till they were dead!

Merciful God! where were the Marys and the Marthas! Was there no political lawyer, in those days, whom the desire of personal aggrandizement could induce to befriend the poor, afflicted cut-throat, by which parade of philanthropy he might ride into notice, as the patriot of the Anti-capital-punishment party! Was there no tender-hearted doctor, whose leisure hours, neither few nor far between, might have been devoted to the blessed work of relieving the murderer, from the gallows, and himself, from the excruciating misery of nothing to do!

Truly we live in a tragi-comical world. During the late trial of John Brown, the other day, for the murder of Miss Coventry, at Tolland, in regard to which the jury could not agree, a requisition arrived from the Governor of New York, for the prisoner, to answer, for the murder of Mrs. Hammond.--Dr. V. P. Coolidge, who murdered Matthews, at Waterville, committed suicide in prison, a few days since.--A precocious boy, eight years old, has, this month, chopped off the head of his sleeping father, with an axe, in the town of Lisle, N. Y.--Matthew Wood is to be hung in New York, June 22, for the murder of his wife.--Alexander Jones is to be hung, in the same State, on the same day, for arson.--Goode is to be hung here, in a few days.--On the 27th day of the last month, a man, named Newkirk, near Louisville, Kentucky, shot and killed his mother, near one hundred years of age.--On the third day of the present month, Mr. Carroll, near Philadelphia, murdered his lady, by choking and pitching her down stairs.--J. M. Riley is to be hung, June 5, for the murder of W. Willis, in Independence, Tennessee.--Vintner is under sentence of death, for murdering Mrs. Cooper, in Baltimore.--Elder Enos G. Dudley is to be hung, in New Hampshire, May 23, for the murder of his wife.--The wife of John Freedly, of Philadelphia, is now in jail, for helping her husband, to murder his first wife.--Pearson is now in prison, under charge of murdering his wife and twin daughters, at Wilmington, in this Commonwealth, in April last.--Mrs. McAndrew has been convicted of murder, for killing her sister-in-law, in Madison, Mississippi.--Elisha N. Baldwin is to be hung, June 5, for the murder of his brother-in-law, Victor Matthews, at St. Louis.--The girl, Blaisdell, is to be hung, in New Hampshire, Aug. 30, for poisoning a little boy, two and a half years old. She was on trial for this act only. She had previously poisoned the child's grandmother, her friend and protectress, and subsequently attempted to poison both its parents. This "_misguided young lady_" was engaged to be married, and wanting cash, for an outfit, had forged the note of the child's father, for four hundred dollars.

Of Wood's case I know little more, than that he murdered his wife. Surely he is to be pitied, poor fellow. The case of Elder Enos is deeply interesting. This worthy Elder took his partner out, to give her a sleigh-ride, in life and health, and brought home her lifeless body. She had knocked her head against a tree--such, indeed, was the opinion, expressed by Elder Enos. He was also of opinion that it was not good for an Elder to be alone, for one minute; and he exhibited rather too much haste, perhaps, in taking to himself another partner. The jury were unanimously of opinion, that Elder Enos was mistaken, and that Mrs. Dudley came to her death, by the hands of Elder Enos himself. The Elder and the jury differed in opinion; and therefore, forsooth, Elder Enos must be hanged by the neck till he is dead! How much better to change this punishment, for perpetual imprisonment--and that, after a few years of good behavior, upon a petition, subscribed by hundreds, who care not the value of a sixpence, whether Elder Enos is in the State Prison, or out of it, for a pardon. Then the church will again be blessed with his services, as a ruling Elder; and the present Mrs. Dudley may herself be favored with a sleigh-ride, at some future day.

The case of the "_misguided_" Miss Blaisdell is truly affecting. It is quite inconceivable how the people of New Hampshire can have the heart to hang such an interesting creature by the neck, till she is dead. I am of opinion, that the remarks, with which Judge Eastman prefaced his sentence, must have hurt Miss Blaisdell's feelings. It seems that she only made use of the little innocent, as æronauts employ a pet balloon, to try the wind. She wished to ascertain, if her poison was first proof, before she tried it, upon the parents. Although it had worked to perfection, upon the old lady, Miss Blaisdell, who appears to have acted with consummate prudence, was not quite satisfied of its efficacy, upon more vigorous constitutions. It is quite surprising, that Judge Eastman should have talked so unkindly to Miss Blaisdell, in open court--"_An experiment is to be made; the efficiency of your poison is to be tried; and the helpless innocent boy is selected. He is left in your care, with all the confidence of a mother. He plays at your feet, he prattles at your side. You take him up, and give him the fatal morphia; and, when you see him sicken and dizzy, and stretching out his little arms to his mother, and trying to walk, your heart relents not. May God soften it._" What sort of a Judge is this, to harrow up the delicate feelings of "_a misguided young lady_" after this fashion!

It has been proposed, by a medical gentleman, whose philanthropy has assumed the appearance of a violent eruption, breaking out in every direction, that, if this abominable punishment, this destruction of life, which God Almighty has prescribed, in the case of murder, must continue to be inflicted, the "_misguided young ladies_" and "_unfortunate men_," who commit that crime, shall be executed under the influence of ether. This may be considered the happiest suggestion of the age. A tract may be expected from the pen of this gentleman, ere long, entitled "Crumbs of comfort for Cut-throats, or Hanging made easy." Jeremy Bentham gave his body to be dissected, for the good of mankind. Oh, that this worthy doctor, who has struck out this happy thought of hanging, under the influence of ether, would _verify the suggestion_!

There are some individuals, who had rather be hanged, than talked to, in such an unfeeling manner, as Judge Eastman talked to the unfortunate and misguided Miss Blaisdell: it has therefore been decided to improve, upon the suggestion of hanging murderers, under the influence of ether; and we propose to apply for an act, authorizing the sponge to be applied to the nostrils of the condemned, by the clerk _ex officio_, during the time, when the judge is pronouncing the sentence. The time of the murderer is short, and there are many little comforts, and even delicacies, which would greatly tend to soften the rigor of his imprisonment. We have it, upon the testimony of more than one experienced keeper of Newgate, that, with some few exceptions, the appetite of the misguided, who are about to be hanged, is remarkably good.

I fully comprehend the objections, which will be made to the use of ether, and granting such other little indulgences, to those, who are about to be sentenced, or are already condemned to be hanged. The Ciceronian argument,--_ut metus ad omnes perveniat_, will be neutralized. How many, it will be said, are now upon the earth, without God in this world, without the least particle of religious sensibility, disappointed men, desperate, degraded, men of utterly broken hopes, broken hearts, and broken fortunes, to whom nothing would be more acceptable, than an easy transition from this wide-awake world of pain and sadness to that region of negative happiness, which they anticipate, in their fancied state of endless oblivion beyond. They may be, nevertheless, disturbed, in some small degree, _in articulo_, by that indestructible doubt, which hangs over the mind, even the mind of the most sceptical, and deepens and darkens as death draws near,--SUPPOSE THERE SHOULD BE A GOD!--what then! They are therefore unwilling to cut their own throats, however willing to cut the throats of other people. But, if the State will take the responsibility, and furnish the ether, there are not a few, who would very complacently embrace the opportunity.

That fear, which it is desirable to keep before the eyes of all men, say our opponents, is surely not the fear of the easiest of all imaginable deaths--the fear of meeting, not the King of terrors, but the very thing, which all men pray for, a placid exit from a world of care--a welcome spirit--an _etherial_ deliverer. On the contrary, we wish, say they, to hold up to the world the fear of a terrible, as well as a shameful death: and we desire to give a certainty to this fear, which we cannot do, while the frequent exercise of the power of commutation and of pardon teaches that portion of our race, which is fatally bent upon mischief, that the gibbet is nothing but a bugbear; and that, let them commit as many murders, as they will, there is not one chance, in fifty, of their coming to the gallows, at last.

It is not easy to answer this argument, upon the spur of the moment; and it has been referred to a committee of our society, with instructions to prepare a reply, in season for the next execution.

We have the satisfaction of knowing, that no efforts have been spared by us, to save Washington Goode, one of the most interesting of murderers, from the gallows. We have endeavored to get up an excitement in the community, by posting placards, in numerous places--"A MAN TO BE HANGED!" By this we intended to put an execution upon the footing of a puppet-show or play, and thereby to excite the public indignation. But, most unfortunately, there is too much common sense among the people of Boston, and too little enthusiasm altogether, for the successful advancement of our philanthropic views. However, importunity, if we faint not, will certainly prevail. The right of petition is ours. Let us follow, in the steps of Amy Darden and William Vans. The Legislature, at their last session, indefinitely postponed the consideration of the subject of the abolition of capital punishment. The Legislature is made of flesh and blood, and must finally give way, as a matter of course.

It cannot be denied, that gentlemen make use, occasionally, of strange arguments, while opposing our efforts, in favor of those _misguided_ persons, who _unfortunately_ commit rape, treason, arson, murder, &c. A few years since, when a bill was before our House of Representatives, for the abolition of capital punishment, in the case of rape, while it was proposed to retain it in the case of highway robbery--"Let us go home, Mr. Speaker," exclaimed an audacious orator, "and tell our wives and our daughters, that we set a higher value upon our purses, than upon the security of their persons, from brutal violation."

No. LII.

To my anonymous correspondent who inquires, through the medium of the post-office, in what respect my "dealings with extortioners" can fairly be entitled "_dealings with the dead_," I reply, because they are _alive_ unto sin, and _dead_ unto righteousness.

In Lord Bacon's Life of Henry VII., London edition of 1824, vol. v. 51, the Lord Chancellor Morton says to the Parliament--"His Grace prays you to take into consideration matters of trade, as also the manufactures of the kingdom, and to repress the bastard and barren employment of moneys to usury and unlawful exchanges, that they may be, as their natural use is, turned upon commerce, and lawful, and royal trading." Henry VIII. came to the throne, in 1509, and the rate of interest was fixed, in 1545, the 37th of that king's reign; and that rate was ten per cent. per annum. Before that time, no Christian was allowed to take interest for money; and the Jews had the matter of usury, all to themselves. It was shown, before Parliament, that, in 1260, two shillings was the rate, demanded and given, for the loan of twenty shillings for one week; and Stowe states, that the people were so highly excited against the Jews, on account of their extortion, as to massacre seven hundred of them, in London, in 1262. In 1274, a law was passed, compelling every Jew, lending money on interest, to wear a plate on his breast, signifying, that he was an usurer, or to quit the realm. What an exhibition we should have, in State Street, and the alleys, if this edict should be revived, against those, whose uncircumcision would avail them nothing, to disprove their Levitical propinquity.

In 1277, two hundred and sixty-seven Jews were hung, in London, for clipping the coin. Their usurious practices, at last, so highly exasperated the nation, that, according to Rapin, Lond., 1757, vol. iii. 246, 15,000 were banished the realm, in 1290. They had obtained great privileges from King Edward; but, says Rapin, "lost all these advantages, by not curbing their insatiable greediness of enriching themselves, by unlawful means, as usury, &c." I find Sir Edward Coke denies the fact of their banishment. His version is this: "They were not banished, but their usury was banished, by the statute, enacted in this parliament, and that was the cause they banished themselves into foreign countries, where they might live by their usury; and because they were odious to the nation, that they might pass out of the realm in safety, they made a petition to the king, that a certain day might be prefixed for them to depart the realm, that they might have the king's writ to his sheriffs, for their safe conduct." 2d Institute, 507. Hume, nevertheless, Oxford ed., ii. 210, reaffirms the statement of Rapin.

Hume says, ibid., the practice of usury was afterwards carried on, "by the English themselves upon their fellow-citizens, or by the Lombards and other foreigners;" and he adds--"It is very much to be questioned, whether the dealings of these new usurers were equally open and unexceptionable with the old." Perhaps it may be questioned, whether the community would not fare better, at the present day, if some of the circumcised could be imported hither, from the Jews' Quarter, in Istampol. The following remark of Hume, on the same page, is of importance to the political economist:--"But as the canon law, seconded by the municipal, permitted no Christian to take interest, all transactions of this kind must, after the banishment of the Jews, have become more secret and clandestine, and the lender, of consequence, be paid both for the use of his money, _and for the infamy and danger, which he incurred by lending it_." This is not from Aristotle, nor one of the school divines, but from David Hume, whose liberality is sufficiently notorious.

The English usurers, in those days, were more excusable, because they were not permitted to take _any interest whatever_, for the loan of money, while money lenders here have not the same excuse for being usurers, as they may lawfully take six per cent. per annum, or one per cent. above the legal rate of Great Britain, as established in 1714, the 13th of Queen Anne, and which has remained unaltered, to the present day.

I have heard of a fellow, who, upon being asked, after conviction of larceny, if he did not regret his conduct, replied, with an air of great sincerity, that he certainly did--for, instead of stealing a few pieces of gold, as he had done, he might easily have stolen enough, to bribe the court and jury. The Jews were wiser in their day and generation--they never suffered themselves to be placed in a predicament, which might cause them to suffer from any such regret. For many years, there subsisted a delightful understanding, between them and Edward I. Longshanks. Longshanks granted them many and various indulgencies; by his permission, they even had a synagogue in London. On their part, they were willing to relieve the necessities of Longshanks. In short, Longshanks was, vicariously, and upon the principle, that _qui facit per alium facit per se_, the very Apollyon of all usurers. He countenanced the extortion of the Jews, and shared the spoils. Sir Edward Coke, in his Second Institute, 506, states that, in seven years, covering portions of the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., the Crown had four hundred and twenty thousand pounds, fifteen shillings, and four pence from the Jews.

After treating of the advantages and disadvantages of taking interest, on money loans, and arriving at the sensible conclusion, that it is impossible for society to get along without them, Lord Bacon remarks, ii. 354--"Let usury (the term for interest in those days) in general be reduced to five in the hundred, and let the rate be proclaimed to be free and current: and let the State shut itself out to take any penalty for the same. This will preserve borrowing from any stop or dryness. This will ease infinite borrowers in the country, &c." Lord Bacon was therefore in favor of an universal rate of interest, established by law. Of usury, in the opprobrious sense of the word, the taking of excessive and unlawful interest, this great man speaks in his tract on Riches, ii. 340, in no very complimentary terms--"Usury is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst, as that whereby a man doth eat his bread, in _sudore vultus alieni_," by the sweat of another's brow.

I have heard it said of a rural governor of Massachusetts, now sleeping with his fathers, that, although addicted to the practice of virtual usury, he scrupulously abstained from lending money, at any rate, beyond six per cent. It became a by-word, in his district, however, when a farmer became straitened for a little money, and was inquiring among his neighbors--_that it was quite likely his excellency might have a yoke of cattle, that he did not care to winter over_! The cattle were sold at a high price to the needy man, who sold them forthwith, at auction, or otherwise, for a small one, giving the worthy governor his note in payment, and a mortgage on his farm, if required. The note was payable in six months, or a year, with "lawful interest."

This moral manoeuvre appears to have been of ancient origin. There is the draught of a law for the punishment of it, in Lord Bacon's works, iv. 285. The preamble runs thus--"Whereas it is an usual practice, to the undoing and overthrowing of many young gentlemen and others, that where men are in necessity, and desire to borrow money, they are answered, that money cannot be had, but that they may have commodities sold unto them, upon credit, whereof they may make money, as they can: in which course it ever comes to pass, not only that such commodities are bought at extreme high rates, and sold again far under foot, at a double loss; but also that the party which is to borrow, is wrapt in bonds and counter bonds; so that upon a little money, which he receiveth, he is subject to penalties and suits of great value." Then follows the statute, taking away legal remedy, and punishing the broker or procurer with six months' imprisonment, and the pillory.

It has been commonly understood, that, before the act of 37th Henry VIII., though Christians were forbidden to take any interest for money, the Jews were not restrained; yet Lord Chief Baron Hale, Hard. 420, says that Jewish usury was forbidden, at common law, being forty per cent. and upwards, per annum, but no other. Lea, C. J., Palm. 292, says, that the usury, condemned at common law, was the "_biting usury_" of the Jews. To comprehend this expression, it must be understood, that, among the Jews, of old, there were two Hebrew words, signifying _usury_, _terebit_, which meant simply _increase_, and _Neshec_, which meant _devouring_ or _biting usury_. Of this distinction, an account may be found in Calmet, vol. iii. Fragment 46.

When the statute of James I. was passed, in 1623, reducing the rate from ten to eight per cent., Orde says, in his Law of Usury, p. 5, that the Bishops "would not, at first, agree to it, for the sole reason, that there was no clause that disgraced usury, as in former statutes; and then the clause at the end of that statute was added, for their satisfaction." Usury was punished more severely in France, than in England. For the first offence, the usurer "was punished by a public and ignominious acknowledgment of his offence, and was banished. His second offence was capital, and he was hanged." Coke's 3d Institute, 152.

No. LIII.

Our society, whose object is nothing less than the entire and unqualified abolition of capital punishment, have derived the greatest advantage, from an ample recognition of the rights of women--not only by a free participation of counsel with the softer sex, after the example of certain other societies, the value of whose services can never be understood, by the present generation; but by assigning equally to both sexes, all offices of honor and trust. We have adhered to this principle, with the most perfect impartiality, in the composition of our committees. Thus, our committee, for visiting the condemned, consists of the Rev. Mr. Puzzlepot, and the five Miss Frizzles--the committee on public excitement, prior to an execution, consists of Dr. Omnibus, Squire Farrago, Mrs. Pickett, and her daughters, the Misses Patience and Hopestill Pickett. In like proportion, all our committees are constructed.

We think proper, in this public manner, to express our warmest acknowledgments to Mrs. Negoose, Madam Moody, and Squire Bodkin, for their able report, on the iniquity of presumptive or circumstantial evidence. The notes, appended to this report, are invaluable--their authorship cannot be mistaken--every individual, acquainted with the peculiar style of the gifted author, will recognize the powerful hand of the justly celebrated Mrs. Folsom.

This committee are of opinion, that, under the show or pretence of punishing murder, our legal tribunals are constantly committing it. They _presume_, forsooth, that is, they guess, that the prisoner is guilty, and therefore take the awful responsibility of hanging him by the neck, till he is dead! This, says Mrs. Negoose, is _presumption_ with a vengeance.

The committee refer to the statement of Sir Matthew Hale, as cited by Blackstone, iv. 358-9, that he had known two cases, in which, after the accused had been hung for murder, the individuals, supposed to have been murdered, had re-appeared, in full life. Upon this, the committee reason, with irresistible force and acumen. How many judges, say they, there have been, since the world began, we know not. _Two cases_, in which innocent persons were executed, on presumptive or circumstantial evidence, are proved to have occurred, within the knowledge of _one judge_. It is reasonable, say the committee, to conclude that, at a moderate calculation, _three cases_ more, remaining undiscovered, occurred within the jurisdiction of that _one judge_. Now, we have nothing to do, but to ascertain the number of judges, who have ever existed, and then multiply that number by _five_; and thus, say the committee, "by the unerring force of figures, which cannot lie, we have the sanguinary result." "Talk not of ermine," exclaims Mrs. Negoose, the chairwoman of the committee, in a gush of scorching eloquence, "these blood-stained judges, gory with the blood of the innocents, let them be stripped of their ermine, and robed with the skins of wild cats and hyenas."

It has excited the highest indignation in the society, that Sir Matthew Hale, who has ever borne the name of a humane and upright judge, should have continued to decide questions, involving life, upon circumstantial evidence, after the cases, referred to above, had come to his knowledge, and in the very same manner, that he had been accustomed to decide them, in earlier times. Mrs. Moody openly expresses her opinion, that he was no better than he should be; and Squire Bodkin only wishes, that he could have had half an hour's conversation with Sir Matthew. The only effect, produced upon the mind of Sir Matthew Hale, by these painful discoveries, seems to have been to call forth an expression of opinion, that circumstantial evidence should be received with caution; and that, in trials for murder and manslaughter, no person should ever be convicted, till the body of the individual, alleged to have been killed, had been discovered.

An opinion, often repeated, as having been expressed by Chief Justice Dana, after the conviction of Fairbanks, for the murder of Miss Fales, at Dedham, in 1801, has frequently been a topic of conversation, among the members of our society, and Mrs. Negoose is satisfied, that if Chief Justice Dana expressed any such opinion, he must have been out of his head. Fairbanks was convicted and hung, on circumstantial evidence entirely. The concatenation, or linking together, of circumstances, in that remarkable case, was very extraordinary.

The sympathy for Fairbanks was very great, and began to exhibit itself, almost as soon, as the spirit had fled from the body of his victim. After his condemnation, his zealous admirers, for such they seemed to be, assisted him successfully, to break jail. He was retaken, on the borders of Lake Champlain; and, as the jail in Boston was of better proof, than the jail in Dedham, he was committed to the former. The genealogy of Fairbanks was shrouded in a sort of mystery. Ladies, of respectable standing, visited him, in his cell, and one, in particular, of some literary celebrity, in our days of small things, was supposed to have supplied him with a knife, of rather expensive workmanship, for the purpose of self-destruction. This knife was found upon his person, after her visits. There was no positive proof, to establish the guilt of Jason Fairbanks--not a tittle. Yet a merciless jury found him guilty, by a process, which our society considers mere _guess work_,--and after the execution, Judge Dana is reported to have said, that he believed Fairbanks murdered Miss Fales, more certainly, from the circumstantial evidence, produced at the trial, than if he had had the testimony of his own eyesight, at a short distance, in a dusky day. What sort of a Judge is this? cried Mrs. Negoose--sure enough, exclaimed Madam Moody.

I have no objection to give our opponents all the advantage, which they can possibly derive from a full and fair exposition of their arguments. When a witness, for example, swears, directly and unhesitatingly, that he saw the prisoner inflict a wound, with a deadly weapon, upon another person--that he saw that other person instantly fall, and die shortly after, this is _positive evidence of something_. Yet the act may be murder, or it may be manslaughter, or it may be justifiable homicide. Murder consists of three parts, the malice prepense, the blow inflicted or means employed, and the death ensuing, within a time prescribed by law. There can be no _murder_, if either of these parts be absent. Now, it is contended, by such as deem it lawful and right to hang the unfortunate, misguided, upon circumstantial evidence, that, however _positive_ the evidence may be, upon the two latter points--the act done and the death ensuing--it is necessary, from the nature of things, in every case to depend on _circumstantial_ evidence, to prove the malice prepense.

One or more of the senses enable the witness to swear positively to either of the two latter points. But the malice prepense must be _inferred_, from words, deeds, and _circumstances_. Upon this Dr. Omnibus sensibly observes, that this very fact proves the impropriety of hanging upon all occasions: and Mrs. Negoose remarks, that she is of the same opinion, on the authority of that ancient dictum, the authorship of which seems to be equally ascribed to Solomon and Sancho Panza--that "_circumstances_ alter cases."

It is really surprising, that so grave and sensible a man, as Mr. Simon Greenleaf, should have made the remark, which appears on page 74, vol. i., of his Treatise on Evidence,--"_In both cases_ (civil and criminal) _a verdict may well be founded on circumstances alone; and these often lead to a conclusion far more satisfactory than direct evidence may produce_." Mr. Greenleaf refers, for illustration of this opinion, to the case of Bodine, N. Y. Legal Observer, vol. iv. p. 89, et seq. Lawyer Bodkin's work on evidence will, doubtless, correct this error.

Let us reason impartially. Compunction, in a dying hour, we cannot deny it, has established the fact, that innocent persons have been hung, now and then, upon _positive_ evidence, the false witness confessing himself the murderer, _in articulo mortis_. Well, says Madam Moody, here is fresh proof of the great sinfulness of hanging.--To be sure.--But let our opponents have fair play. A. is found dead, evidently stabbed.--B. is seized upon suspicion.--C. heard B. declare he would have the heart's blood of A.--D. saw B. with a knife in his hand, ten minutes before the murder.--E. finds a knife bloody, near the place of the murder.--F. recognizes the knife as his own, and by him lent to B. just before the time of the murder.--G. says the size of the wound is precisely the size of the knife.--H. says, that, when he arrested B. his hand and shirt-sleeve were bloody.--I. says he heard B. say, just after the murder, "I've got my revenge." In the case supposed, C. D. E. F. G. H. and I. swear _positively_, each one to a particular fact. Here are seven witnesses. Here then is a chain of evidence, whereof each witness furnishes a single link. It is the opinion of Peake, Chitty, Starkie, Greenleaf, and all other writers, on the law of evidence, that this chain is often as strong or stronger, than it would be, were it fabricated by one man only. I will not deny, that Dr. Omnibus and Mrs. Negoose think differently.

An extraordinary example of circumstantial evidence, in a capital case, was related by Lord Eldon. A man was on trial for murder. The evidence against him, which was wholly circumstantial, was so very insufficient, that the prisoner, confident of acquittal, assumed an air of easy nonchalance. The officer, who had arrested the prisoner, and conducted the customary search, had exhibited, in court, the articles, found upon his person, at the time of his capture--a few articles of little value, and, among them, a fragment of a newspaper. The surgeon, who examined the body of the victim after death, produced the ball, which he had extracted from the wound, precisely as he found it. Enveloped in a wrapper of some sort, and with the blood dried upon it, it presented an almost unintelligible mass.

A basin of warm water was brought into court--the mass was softened--the wrapper carefully detached--it was the fragment of a newspaper, and fitted like the counterpart of an indenture to the fragment, taken by the officer from the prisoner's person. He was hung. Dear me! says Mrs. Negoose, what a pity!

I regret to learn from the late London papers, that Mr. Horace Twiss is recently dead. No one, I am confident, will fail to join in this feeling of regret, who has enjoyed, as I have done, the perusal of his truly delightful work, "The Public and Private Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon."

No. LIV.

A pleasant anecdote is related by Nichols, of Dean Swift, who, when his servant apologized for not cleaning his boots, on a journey, because they would soon be dirty again, directed him to get the horses in readiness immediately: and, upon the fellow's remonstrance, that he had not eaten his breakfast, replied, that it was of little consequence, as he would soon be hungry again.

The American Irish are, undoubtedly, a very sweet people, when they are thoroughly washed; but they rarely think of washing themselves or their children--they are so soon dirty again. Hydrophobia is an Irish epidemic; and there are also some of the Native American Party, I fear, who have not been into water, since the Declaration of Independence.

When Peter Fagan applied to me, a few days since, to read for him a letter, from his cousin, Eyley Murphy, of Ballyconnel, in the county of Cavan, he was so insufferably filthy, that I gave him a quarter of a dollar, to be spent in sacrificing to the graces, that is, in taking a warm bath. While he was absent, I examined the letter; and found it to be a very interesting account of the execution of Fagan's fourth cousin, Rory Mullowny, for murder. As I thought its publication might be of importance here, at this time, I obtained Mr. Fagan's permission to place it before the community. I was, at first, disposed to correct the spelling, and give it rather more of an English complexion, but have, upon the whole, decided to publish it, as it is. Fagan tells me, that Eyley Murphy was the daughter of the hedge school-master, at Ballyconnel. The letter is written in a fair hand, and directed, "For Misther Pether Fagan, these--Boston, Capital of Amerriky."

Ballyconnel, Cavan, March 19, 1849.--Fagan dear, bad news and thrue for ye it is; Rory Mullowny, your own blood cousin o' the forth remove, by the mither's side, was pit up yestreen for the murther o' Tooley O'Shane, and there was niver a felly o' all that's been hung in Ballyconnel, with sich respictable attindance. The widdy Magee pit the divle into both the poor fellies, no more nor a waak arter the birril o' her forth husband, and so she kipt a flarting wid the one and the tither, till she flarted um out o' the warld this away.

Poor Rory--what a swaat boy he was--jist sax foot and fore inches in his brogans--och, my God! it's myself that wush'd I'd bin pit up along wid im. But he's claan gane now; whin we was childer togither how we used to gather the pirriwincles by the brook, and chase the fire-flaughts in the pasture o' a June evening--och my God--Pether--Pether--but there's no use waaping anyhow, so I'll be telling ye the shtory.

Poor Mullowny was found guilty o' what they call sircumstanshul ividunce. A spaach it was he made whin the cussid sherry was pittin im up, and he swore he died more innisent o' the crime nor the mither o' God, and he called God to witness what he sed. Himself it was that was rather hasty onyhow, in makin a confission to father Brian Bogle o' this very murther, and some other small mathers, a rape or too, may be, and sich like.

But the socyety that's agin pittin a body up--God bliss their sowls--they perswaded im to spaak at the gallows, and till the paaple how it was, and they rit im a spaach, in wich he toult 'em a body's last wull was the only wull that was gud in the law, and sure it was a poor body's last words and dyin spaach that was gud anunder the tree. And whin he had dun, the cursed divelsbird o' a sherry, wid a hart as coult as bog mud, swung im off in a minnit. It was himsilf was spaakin; and I jist pit my apurn to my face to wipe aff the saut wather, whin I heerd a shreek and a howl, louder and wilder nor ten thousand keenas at a birril, whin I lookd up and saw poor, daar Mullowny a swingin in the air. The like o' that yersilf niver saad, Pether Fagan, nor the mither that brot ye into this world o' care and confushon. The wimmin scraamed loud enuff to friten the little childer claan away in Ballymahon. The min swung their shillalies owr their heds. Father Brian Bogle was crossing himself, and a stone hurld by Jimmy Fitzgerald at the infarnal sherry, knocked father Bogle's taath down his throte. By the same token ye see, they was pit in for im the dee afore at considerable cost. Father Brian fell back, head foremost, ye see, on top o' Molly Mahoney's little bit table o' refrishments, and twas the wark o' a minnit.

Molly, who jist afore was wall to do in the warld, was a brukken marchant, immadiately, all claan gane; tumblers o' whiskey, cakes, custards, and cookies was all knocked in the shape o' bit o'chalk; and all the pennies she had took since bick o'dee--for more nor ten thousan was on the spot to see poor Rory pit up afore dee--was scattered and clutched up, by hunders o' little childher that was playing prop and chuck farding anunder the gallus. A jug o' buthermilk was capsized ower the widdy Magee's bran new dress, that was made for the hanging precesely, and ruinated it pretty considerably intirely. It was not myself that pittied the hussy--she to be there, as naar to the gallus as she could squaze hersel, and the very cause o' the dith o' poor Rory, and Tooley O'Shane into the bargin.

Och, Fagan, niver ye see was the likes o' it in Ballyconnel afore. Whin the sherry was for cuttin the alter and littin the corps o' poor, daar Mullowny down into the shell, that was all riddy below, the Mullownys swore they would have the body, for a riglar birrill, and a wake, and a keena, ye see--and the O'Shanes swore it should go to the risirictioners, to be made into a menotomy. Then for it, it was--sich a cursin and swaring and howling--sich a swingin o' shillalies, sich a crackin o' pates, sich callin upon Jasus and the blissid mither, sich a scramin o' wimmin and childer, niver was herd afore in county Cavan. The sherry he gat on Molly Mahoney's little table to read the ryot act, and whin he opunt his mouth Phelim Macfarland flung a rottun egg atwaan his taath preceesly, and brot im to a spaady conclushon.

Poor Rory's vinrable oult mither was carried aff and murthered in the side o' the hid, wid a stone mint for the sherry, o' which she recovered diricly. They tried to kaap her quiet in her shanty, but she took on so gravous, that they let her attind the pittin up--poor ould sowl--she sed she had attinded the last moments o' her good man, and both her childer, Patrick and Pether, whin they wur pit up the same way, and it was not the like o' her to hart poor daar Rory's faalings onyhow.

Dolly Macabe was saved by a myrrikle, ye see. She took out wid her her siven childer, leading little Phelim by the hand, wid her babe at the brist, and hersilf in a familiar way into the bargin. She was knocked ower and trampled under the faat o' the fellies as was yellin and fitin, and stunted out o' her raason intirely. Only jist think o' it, Fagan daar, when she kim too, not one o' the childher was hart in the laast, nor Dolly naather; and the first thing she asked wos, whose was the two swaat babes, lyin together, and they toult her they war her own. Ye see, Patrick O'Shane and some more trod upon Dolly Macabe and hastened matters a leetle, and she was delivered o' twins, widout knowin anything about it. They gied her a glass o' whiskey, and O'Flaherty, the baker, pit the swaat babes in his brid cart, and Dolly, who priffird walking, wint home as well as could be expected. All the Macabes have ixcillint constitushons, and make no moor o' sich thrifles, than nothing at all.

But its for tellin the petiklars I'm writin. As I toult ye, twas about the widdy Magee. Rory toult more nor fifty, for a waak afore, that he'd have Tooley's hart's blood. When Tooley was found, it was ston ded he was, and his hed was bate all to paces, and Rory was o' tap o' im houltin im by the throte, wid a shillaly nigh by, covered wid blud, and the blood was rinnin out o' his eyes, and nose, and aars. Lawyer McGammon definded Rory, the poor unfortunit crathur, and he frankly admitted, that it was onlocky for him to be found jist that away, but he toult the jewry, that as he hoped for salvashun, Rory was an innysunt man, and he belaaved the foreman as guilty nor he. He brot half Ballyconnel to prove that Tooley was liable to blaad fraly at the nose, and was apt to have a rush o' blood to the hed, and he compared Rory to the good Summeritan, and sed he was there by the marest axidunt in the warld, and was tryin to stop the flow o' blud by houltin Tooley by the throte.

As to the bloody shillaly, McGammon brot more nor twenty witnesses, and ivery one a Mullowny, to sware it was more like Tooley's own shillaly nor two paas in a pud; and then he had three lunatic doctors, they call'd em, to prove that the O'Shane's were o' the silf-distructive persuashun. As to what Rory had sed about havin Tooley's hart's blud, lawyer McGammon provd that it was a common mode o' spakin in Ballyconnel and all owr the contree, among frinds and neybors, and thin he hinted, in a dillikit wey, that all the Mullownys wuld be after sayin that virry same thing o' the jewry, if thay brot Rory to the gallus by thair vardic, and that he was guilty o' nothin but circumstanshul ividunce. But the jewry brot in the poor felly guilty o' murther, and its all owr wid poor Rory.

It's no more I can rite--Your sister Betty Macnamarra has nine fine boys, at thraa births it is. From yours ever till the dee,

EYLEY MURPHY.

No impartial reader of Miss Eyley Murphy's letter will hesitate to pronounce Rory Mullowny an unfortunate man, and his case another example of the abominable practice of hanging innocent persons, upon circumstantial evidence.

No. LV.

Poor Eli--as the old man was familiarly called by the Boston sextons of his time. He was a prime hand, at the shortest notice, in his better days. He has been long dead--died by inches--his memory first. For a year or more before his death, he was troubled with some strange hallucinations, of rather a professional character--among them, an impression, that he had committed a terrible sin, in putting so many respectable people under ground, who had never done him any harm. He said to me, more than once, while attempting to dissipate this film from his mental vision--"Abner, take my advice, and give up this wicked business, or you'll be served so yourself, one of these days." I was, upon one occasion, going over one of our farms, with the old man--the Granary burying-ground--and he flew into a terrible passion, because no grave had been dug for old Master Lovell--the father. We tried to remind him, that Master Lovell, many years before, in 1776, had turned tory, and gone off with the British army; but poor old Eli was past conviction. He took his last favorite walk, among the graves on Copp's Hill, one morning in May--he there met a very worthy man, whom he was so fully persuaded he had buried, twenty years before, that he hobbled home, in the greatest trepidation, took to his bed, and never left it, but to verify his own suggestion, that we are all to be finally buried. During his last, brief illness, his mental wanderings were very manifest:--"Poor man--poor man"--he would mutter to himself--"I'm sure I buried him--deep grave, very--estate's been settled--his sons--very fast young men, took possession--gone long ago--poor weeping widow--married twice since--what a time there'll be--oh Lord forgive me, I'll never bury another." He was eighty-two then, and used to say he longed to die, and get among his old friends, for all, that he had known, were dead and gone.

A feeling, somewhat akin to this, is apt to gather about us, and grow stronger, as we march farther forward on our way, the numbers of our companions gradually lessening, as we go. Our ranks close up--those, with whom we stood, shoulder to shoulder, are cut down by the great leveller--and their places are filled by others. As we grow older, and the friends and companions of our earlier days are removed, we have a desire to do the next best thing--we cannot supply their places--but there are individuals--worthy people withal--whose faces have been familiar to our eyes, for fifty or sixty years--we have passed them, daily, or weekly--we chance to meet, no matter where--the ice is broken, by a mutual agreement, that it is very hot, or that it is very cold--very wet, or very dry--an allusion follows to the great number of years we have known each other, by name, and this results, frequently, in a relation, which, if it be not entitled to the sacred name of friendship, is not to be despised by those, who are deep in the valley:--out of such materials, an old craft, near the termination of its voyage, may rig up a respectable jury-mast, at least, and sail on comfortably, to the haven where it would be.

The old standard merchants, who transacted business, on the Long Wharf, Boston Pier, when I was a boy--are dead--_stelligeri_--almost every one of them; and, if all, that I have known and heard of them, were fairly told, it would make a very readable volume, highly honorable to many of their number, and calculated to operate, as a stimulus, upon the profession, in every age.

One little narrative spreads itself before my memory, at this moment, which I received from the only surviving son of the individual, to whom it especially refers. A merchant, very extensively engaged in commerce, and located upon the Long Wharf, died February 18, 1806, at the age of 75, intestate. His eldest son administered upon the estate. This old gentleman used pleasantly to say, that, for many years, he had fed a very large number of the Catholics, on the shores of the Mediterranean, during Lent, referring to his very extensive connection with the fishing business. In his day, he was certainly well known; and, to the present time, is well remembered, by some of the "_old ones down along shore_," from the Gurnet's Nose to Race Point. Among his papers, a package, of very considerable size, was found, after his death, carefully tied up, and labelled as follows: "_Notes, due-bills, and accounts against sundry persons, down along shore. Some of these may be got by suit or severe dunning. But the people are poor: most of them have had fishermen's luck. My children will do as they think best. Perhaps they will think with me, that it is best to burn this package entire._"

"About a month," said my informant, "after our father died, the sons met together, and, after some general remarks, our elder brother, the administrator, produced this package, of whose existence we were already apprized; read the superscription; and asked what course should be taken, in regard to it. Another brother, a few years younger than the eldest, a man of strong, impulsive temperament, unable, at the moment, to express his feeling, by words, while he brushed the tears from his eyes with one hand, by a spasmodic jerk of the other, towards the fireplace, indicated his wish to have the package put into the flames. It was suggested, by another of our number, that it might be well, first, to make a list of the debtors' names, and of the dates, and amounts, that we might be enabled, as the intended discharge was for all, to inform such as might offer payment, that their debts were forgiven. On the following day, we again assembled--the list had been prepared--and all the notes, due-bills, and accounts, whose amount, including interest, exceeded thirty-two thousand dollars, were committed to the flames."

"It was about four months after our father's death," continued my informant, "in the month of June, that, as I was sitting in my eldest brother's counting-room, waiting for an opportunity to speak with him, there came in a hard-favored, little, old man, who looked as if time and rough weather had been to windward of him, for seventy years. He asked if my brother was not the executor. He replied, that he was administrator, as our father died intestate. 'Well,' said the stranger, 'I've come up from the Cape, to pay a debt I owed the old gentleman.' My brother," continued my informant, "requested him to take a seat, being, at the moment, engaged with other persons, at the desk."

"The old man sat down, and, putting on his glasses, drew out a very ancient, leather pocket-book, and began to count over his money. When he had done--and there was quite a parcel of bank notes--as he sat, waiting his turn, slowly twisting his thumbs, with his old gray, meditative eyes upon the floor, he sighed; and I knew the money, as the phrase runs, _came hard_--and secretly wished the old man's name might be found, upon the forgiven list. My brother was soon at leisure, and asked him the common questions--his name, &c. The original debt was four hundred and forty dollars--it had stood a long time, and, with the interest, amounted to a sum, between seven and eight hundred. My brother went to his desk, and, after examining the forgiven list attentively, a sudden smile lighted up his countenance, and told me the truth, at a glance--the old man's name was there! My brother quietly took a chair, by his side, and a conversation ensued, between them, which I never shall forget.--'Your note is outlawed,' said my brother; 'it was dated twelve years ago, payable in two years; there is no witness, and no interest has ever been paid; you are not bound to pay this note, we cannot recover the amount.' 'Sir,' said the old man, 'I wish to pay it. It is the only heavy debt I have in the world. It may be outlawed here, but I have no child, and my old woman and I hope we have made our peace with God, and wish to do so with man. I should like to pay it'--and he laid his bank notes before my brother, requesting him to count them over. 'I cannot take this money,' said my brother. The old man became alarmed. 'I have cast simple interest, for twelve years and a little over,' said the old man. 'I will pay you compound interest, if you say so. The debt ought to have been paid, long ago, but your father, sir, was very indulgent--he knew I'd been unlucky, and told me not to worry about it.'

"My brother then set the whole matter plainly before him, and, taking the bank bills, returned them to the pocket book, telling him, that, although our father left no formal will, he had recommended to his children, to destroy certain notes, due-bills, and other evidences of debt, and release those, who might be legally bound to pay them. For a moment the worthy old man appeared to be stupefied. After he had collected himself, and wiped a few tears from his eyes, he stated, that, from the time he had heard of our father's death, he had raked, and scraped, and pinched and spared, to get the money together, for the payment of this debt.--'About ten days ago,' said he, 'I had made up the sum, within twenty dollars. My wife knew how much the payment of this debt lay upon my spirits, and advised me to sell a cow, and make up the difference, and get the heavy burden off my spirits. I did so--and now, what will my old woman say! I must get back to the Cape, and tell her this good news. She'll probably say over the very words she said, when she put her hand on my shoulder as we parted--_I have never yet seen the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed begging bread_.' After a hearty shake of the hand, and a blessing upon our old father's memory, he went upon his way rejoicing.

"After a short silence--taking his pencil and making a cast--'there,' said my brother, 'your part of the amount would be so much--contrive a plan to convey to me your share of the pleasure, derived from this operation, and the money is at your service.'"

Such is the simple tale, which I have told, as it was told to me.

No. LVI.

"_Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in Heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do, in the synagogues, and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly._"

This ancient word--_alms_--according to its derivative import, comprehends not only those _oboli_, which are given to the wandering poor, but all bestowments, great and small, in the blessed cause of charity.

In the present age, how limited the number, whose moral courage and self-denial enable them to do their alms in secret, and without sounding a trumpet, as the hypocrites do! How many, impatient of delay, prefer an immediate reward--_to have glory of men_--rather than a long draft, upon far futurity, though God himself be the paymaster!

The ability, to plan a magnificent, prospective charity, to provide the means for its consummation, to preserve inviolate the secret of this high and holy purpose, except from some confidential friend perhaps, until the noble and pure-minded benefactor himself is beyond the reach of all human praise--this is indeed a celestial and a rare accomplishment.

My thoughts have been drawn hitherward, by the public announcement of certain testamentary donations of the late Theodore Lyman--ten thousand dollars to the Horticultural Society--ten thousand dollars to the Farm School--and fifty thousand dollars to the Reform School at Westborough. The public have been long in doubt, who was the secret patron of that excellent establishment, upon which he had previously bestowed two and twenty thousand dollars.--While we readily admit, that, in these unostentatious and posthumous benefactions, there is every claim upon the grateful respect of the community--while we delight to cherish a sentiment of reverence, for the memory of a good man, who would not suffer the sound of his munificence to go forth, till he had descended to that grave, where there is no device, nor work, and where his ears must be closed forever to the world's applause--still there are some, who, doubtless, will marvel at these magnificent, noiseless, and posthumous appropriations. With a very small portion of the amounts, bestowed upon these institutions, what glory might have been had of men, aye, and in his own life time! By distributing the aggregate into comparatively petty sums--by the exercise of rather more than ordinary vigilance and cunning, in the selection of fitting opportunities, what a reputation Mr. Lyman might have obtained! He would not only have been preceded, by the sound of a trumpet, but every penny paper would have readily converted itself into a penny trumpet, to spread the fame of his showy benefactions. His name would have been in every mouth--aye, and on every omnibus and engine. Add to all this a very small amount--a few hundred dollars, devoted to the procurement of plaster casts of himself, to be skilfully distributed, and verily he would have had his reward.

The Hon. Theodore Lyman is dead, and, today, my grateful and respectful dealings are with his memory. The practical benevolence of this gentleman has been well known to me, for years. There are quiet, unobtrusive charities, which are not likely to figure, in the daily journals, or to be known by any person, but the parties. For such as these I have occasionally solicited Mr. Lyman, and never in vain. On the other hand, there are individuals, whose names are forever before the public, in connection with some work, to be seen of men; but whose gold and silver, unless they are likely to glitter, _in transitu_, before the eye of the community, are parted with, reluctantly, if at all.

This great public benefactor, upon the present occasion, seems to have said, in the gentle, unobtrusive whisperings of his noble spirit--"A portion of that, which God has permitted me to gather, I believe it is my bounden duty to return, into the treasury of the Lord. This will I do. The secret shall remain, while I live, between God, who gives me this willing heart, and myself. And, when the world shall, at last, become unavoidably apprized of the fact, I shall have taken sanctuary in the grave, where the fulsome applause of the multitude can never reach me."

Between such apostolic charity as this, and certain flashy munificence, whose authors seem to be forever drawing drafts, at sight, and always _without grace_, upon the public, for fresh laudation--more votes of thanks--additional resolutions of all sorts of societies--and a more copious supply of vapid editorial adulation--between these, I say, there is all that real difference which exists, between the "gem of purest ray serene," and the wretched Bristol imitation--between the flower that blooms and sends abroad its perfume in secret, and that corruption whose veritable character can never be concealed; and I may be suffered to say, as truly as Jock Jabos of his professional relations, that one of my calling may be supposed to know something of corruption, by this time.

----"My ear is pained, My soul is sick with every day's report"

of _ad captandum_ benefactions. Today, that generous benefactor, Mr. Pipkin, endows some village Lyceum, which is destined forever to glory in the euphonious name of Pipkin. Tomorrow our illustrious fellow-citizen, Mr. Snooks, presents a bell to some village church, and, the very next week, we are told, that the bell was cracked, while ringing peals in honor of the munificent Snooks. Even the Tonsons, whose ubiquity is a proverb, and whose inordinate relish for all sorts of notoriety surpasses their powers of munificence, are always in, for a pen'worth of this species of titillating snuff, at small cost.

The Hon. Theodore Lyman was born in Boston, in 1792. His father was Theodore Lyman, a shrewd, enterprising, and eminently successful merchant of this city. His mother's maiden name was Lydia Williams. She was a sister of Samuel Williams, the celebrated London Banker. The subject of this brief notice received his preparatory education, at Phillips Exeter Academy, under the charge of the venerable Dr. Abbott. He entered Harvard University in 1806, and took his degrees in the usual course.

In 1812, Mr. Lyman went to England, upon a visit to his maternal uncle, Mr. Williams, and, during his absence, travelled on the continent, with Mr. Edward Everett, visiting Greece, Palestine, &c., and remaining abroad, until 1816. He was in Paris, when the allied armies entered that city. Of this event he subsequently published an account, in a work, very pleasantly written, entitled _Three Weeks in Paris_.

In 1820, or very near that period, Mr. Lyman married Miss Mary Henderson of New York, a lady of rare personal beauty and accomplishments, who died in 1836. The issue of this marriage were three daughters and a son, Julia, Mary, Cora and Theodore. The two last survive. The elder children, Julia and Mary, in language of beautiful significancy, have "gone before."

Mr. Lyman published an octavo volume, on Italy, and compiled two useful volumes, on the Diplomacy of the United States with Foreign Nations. In 1834 and 1835, Mr. Lyman was Mayor of the City of Boston. He brought to that office the manners of a refined and polished gentleman; the independence of a man of spirit and of honor; a true regard for justice and the rights of all men; a lofty contempt for all time-serving policy; talents of a highly respectable order; a mind well stored and well balanced; and a cordial desire, exemplified in his own personal and domestic relations, and by his encouraging word and open hand, of promoting the best interests of the great temperance reform.

To the duties of this office, in which there is something less of glory than of toil, he devoted himself, during those two years, with great personal sacrifice and privation to those, whom he loved most. The period of his mayoralty was, by no means, a period of calm repose. Those years were scored, by the spirit of misrule, with deep, dark lines of infamy. Those years are memorable for the Vandal outrage upon the Ursuline Convent, and the Garrison riot; in which, a portion of the people of Boston demonstrated the terrible truth, that they were not to be outdone in fury, even by the most furious abolitionist, who ever converted his stylus into a harpoon, and his inkhorn into a vial of wrath.

Mr. Lyman, even in comparatively early life, filled the offices of a Brigadier and Major General of our Militia; and was in our Legislative Councils.

The temperament of Mr. Lyman was peculiar. Frigid, and even formal, before the world, he was one of the most warm-hearted men, among the noiseless paths of charity, and in the closer relations of life. I have sometimes marvelled, where he bestowed his keen sensibility, while going through the rough and wearying detail of official duty. In the spring of 1840 we met accidentally, at the South--in the city of Charleston. He was ill. His mind was ill at ease. He seemed to me, at that time, a practical illustration of the truth, that it is not good for man to be alone. Yet he had been long stricken then, in his domestic relation. His chief anxiety seemed to be about the health of his little boy. He told me, that he lingered there on his account. I never knew a more devoted father.

A gentleman, well-known to the community, by his untiring practical benevolence, to whom I applied for information, has sent me a reply, from which I must be permitted to extract one passage, for the benefit of the world--"I have known much of his benevolent acts, having been the frequent almoner of his bounty, with the injunction, '_Keep it to yourself_.' He often called, and spent one or two hours, to converse on temperance, and the poor, and would spend a long winter evening in my office, to learn of me what my situation enabled me to communicate, and always left a check for $50 or $100, to give to the Howard, or some other society. In the severe winter weather, I remarked that he would say, '_This weather makes one feel for the poor_.' He often sent his man with provisions to the houses of the destitute, and had a heart to feel for others' woe."

He has gone! But the memory of this good man shall never go! It shall be embalmed in the grateful tears of the reformed, from age to age. Thousands, now unborn, shall be snatched, like brands from the burning, through the agency of this heavenly charity; and, as they turn from the walls of this noble institution, in a moral sense, regenerate, they shall bless the name of their noble benefactor; and thus raise and perpetuate, to the memory of THEODORE LYMAN, the _monumentum ære perennius_.

No. LVII.

It is scarcely credible, for what peccadilloes, life was forfeited, by the laws of England, within the memory of men, now living. One hundred and sixty offences, which may be committed by man, have been declared, by different acts of parliament, to be felony, without benefit of clergy; that is, punishable with death. It is truly wonderful, that, in the eighteenth century, it should have been a capital offence, in England, to break down the mound of a fish pond--to cut down a cherry tree in an orchard--or to be seen, for one month, in the company of those, who called themselves Egyptians.

We constantly refer to the laws of Draco, the Archon of Athens, as a code of unequalled cruelty; under whose operation, crimes of the highest order, and the most trifling offences, were punished, with equal severity. Draco punished murder with death, and he punished idleness with death. The laws of England punished murder with death, and they punished theft, over the value of twelve pence, with death. What is the necessity of going back to the time of Draco, 624 years before Christ, for examples of inhuman, and absurdly inconsistent legislation?

The Marquis of Beccaria, in his treatise, _De Delitti e Delle Pene_, seems to have awakened legislators from a trance, in 1764, by propounding the simple inquiry--_Ought not punishments to be proportioned to crimes, and how shall that proportion be established?_ A matter, so apparently simple, seems not to have been thought of before.

Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir James Mackintosh, and Sir Robert Peel are entitled to great praise, for their efforts to soften and humanize the criminal code of Great Britain.

The distinction, between grand and petty larceny, was not abolished, until 1827, when, by the act 7th and 8th Geo. IV. chap. 29, theft was made punishable by transportation, or imprisonment and whipping. By this statute, robbery from the person, burglary, stealing in a dwelling-house to the value of £5, stealing cattle, and sheep-stealing are made punishable with death. So that the punishment was, even then, the same, for murdering a man, and stealing a sheep, or £5 from a dwelling-house. Death, by this statute, was also the punishment for arson, for setting fire to coal mines, and ships; and for riotously demolishing buildings or machinery.

In the following year, 1828, by the act 9th Geo. IV. ch. 31, death is made the punishment, for murder, maliciously shooting, cutting and maiming, administering poison, attempting to drown, suffocate, &c., and for rape and sodomy. By this act, more than fifty statutes, relative to offences against the person, are repealed.

The act 11th Geo. IV. and 1st Will. IV. ch. 66, passed in 1830, abolishes capital punishment, in all cases of forgery, excepting forgery of the royal seals, exchequer bills, bank notes, wills, bills of exchange, promissory notes, or money orders, transfers of stock, and powers of attorney. Death remained the penalty for all these forgeries, in 1830, and, for all other forgeries, transportation and imprisonment.

Two years after, in 1832, another step was taken. By 2d Will. IV. ch. 34, capital punishment was abolished, and transportation and imprisonment substituted, for all offences, relative to the coin. This was a prodigious stride.

This gave us a great hope, that misguided murderers might finally be suffered to live in security, at least, from the halter: for no object had been of greater moment with the British nation, than the coin of the realm, and the death penalty had often been exacted from those, who had dared to clip or counterfeit that sacred representative of majesty. The principle is well established, that men, who fly from one extreme, _in contraria currunt_. We trusted, therefore, that extremely lenient legislation would supervene, upon its very opposite.

We had great confidence in a system of "indefatigable teasing," as Butler calls it. In the same year, 1832, by 2d and 3d Will. IV. ch. 62, capital punishment was abolished, in cases of stealing from a dwelling-house to the value of £5, and sheep-stealing; and by the same act, ch. 123, capital punishment was abolished, in all cases of forgery, excepting in the cases of wills, and powers of attorney for stock.

In 1833, by 3d and 4th Will. IV. ch. 44, capital punishment was abolished in case of dwelling-house robbery; repealing so much of the larceny act of 1827.

Our good friends in England next thought it expedient to divest the process of hanging, of all its postmortuary terrors. I have heard of condemned persons, who expressed a greater horror, at the thought of being dissected, than of being hanged. It was deemed proper, therefore, to relieve the unfortunates, on this tender point. Accordingly, in 1834, by 4th Will. IV. ch. 26, dissecting murderers, and hanging them, in chains, were abolished.

It had been the law of England, that all persons returning, _sua sponte_, after transportation, should be hanged. But experience has shown how deep is the affection, which convicts bear to their former haunts, their native land. It is a perfect _nostalgia_. This law was therefore repealed, in 1834, by 4th and 5th Will. IV. ch. 67.

In 1835, by 5th and 6th Will. IV. ch. 33, sundry felonies, never before deemed bailable offences, were made so, notwithstanding the parties confessed themselves guilty.

Sacrilege and letter-stealing had long been capital offences in England. In the same year, they were no longer punished with death.

We had great hopes from Victoria. In 1837, 1 Vic. ch. 23, she began, by abolishing the pillory entirely;--and ch. 84, capital punishment is abolished, in all cases of forgery;--ch. 85, capital punishment is inflicted, for administering poison, or doing bodily injury with intent to mutilate; but other acts, with intent to murder, or maim, or disfigure, are punished with different degrees of transportation and imprisonment.--Ch. 86 takes away capital punishment, in burglary, unless accompanied with violence.--Ch. 87 takes away capital punishment, in case of robbery, unless attended with cutting or wounding. Ch. 88 leaves the punishment of death, transportation or imprisonment, to the discretion of the court, in case of piracy, where murder is attempted. Ch. 89 varies the laws of arson, making arson a capital offence, in regard to a dwelling-house, _any person being therein_.--Ch. 91 abolishes capital punishment in cases of riotous assemblies, seducing from allegiance, and certain offences against the revenue laws.

It is rather surprising, that there is such a general prejudice throughout the world, in favor of putting murderers to death. The Bible is an awful stumbling block, in this respect. We are also reminded that Solon, when he abolished the code of Draco, retained the punishment of death, in the case of murder. I have never thought much of Solon, since I became acquainted with this weak point in his character.

A writer in the Edinburgh Review, vol. 86, p. 217, speaking of death as the punishment for murder, observes--"The intense desire which now actuates a portion of the community, to get rid of capital punishment even for murder, may be taken as an indication of this excessive sensibility. The propriety of that punishment in the given case, would certainly appear to be distinctly sanctioned by that book, to which its opponents professedly appeal--by reason--and by the all but universal practice of nations. It is the only certain guarantee which society can have for the security of its members." Here we have it again--"that book"--the Bible. It cannot be denied that the Bible, or Solon, or Sir Matthew Hale, or somebody else, is everlastingly in the way of this and other modern, philanthropic movements. What was Solon, in comparison with David Crockett--we are sure we are right, and why should we not go ahead?

For my own part, I have never been able to perceive the wisdom of attempting to conceal any of our prospective movements. Indeed, our future course must be sufficiently apparent, at a glance. When we have _agitated_, until capital punishment is abolished, and we have had a commemorative celebration, with emblematical banners, and an hundred guns on the Common, nothing will be further from our thoughts, than a dissolution, sine die. One of our chief arguments in favor of abolishing capital punishment, is the greater hardship of a life-long imprisonment. Availing of this argument, we shall be able to show, that we have placed these unfortunates, in a worse condition than before. A petition will be presented to the Governor and Council, from five thousand unhappy murderers, ravishers, house-burners, burglars and highway robbers--such we think will be the number, in a few years--representing their miserable condition, and respectfully requesting to be hanged, under the influence of ether or otherwise, as to the Governor and Council may seem fit. We shall then _agitate_ anew, and endeavor, through public meetings and the press, to exhibit the barbarity of refusing their humble request.

This, we well enough know, will not be granted; and the only escape from the dilemma, will be to suffer them, to go at large, upon their parole of honor. It will not, of course, be expected, that this parole will be received from any, who cannot produce a certificate, under the hand of the warden, that they have committed no murder, rape, arson, burglary, or highway robbery, during the period of their confinement in the State Prison.

No. LVIII.

The late Archbishop of Bordeaux, when Bishop of Boston, Dr. Cheverus, told me, that he had very little influence with his people, in regard to their extravagance at funerals. It is very hard to persuade them to abate the tithe of a hair, in the cost of a _birril_.

This post-mortuary profligacy, this pride of death, is confined to no age or nation of the world. It has prevailed, ever since chaos was licked into shape, and throughout all Heathendom and Christendom, begetting a childish and preposterous competition, who should bear off the corpses of their relations, most showily, and cause them to rot, most expensively.

This amazing folly has often required, and received, the sumptuary curb of legislation. I have briefly referred, in a former number, to the restraining edicts of the law-givers of Greece, and the laws of the Twelve Tables at Rome.

Even here, and among the earlier records of our own country, evidences are not wanting, that the attention of our worthy ancestors had been attracted to the subject of funereal extravagance. At a meeting, held in Faneuil Hall, October 28, 1767, at which the Hon. James Otis was the Moderator, the following resolution was passed: "_And we further agree strictly to adhere to the late regulations respecting funerals, and will not use any gloves but what are manufactured here, nor procure any new garments, upon such occasions, but what shall be absolutely necessary_." This resolution was passed, _inter alia similia_, with reference to the Stamp Act of 1765, and as part of the system of non-importation.

There is probably no place like England--no city like London, for funereal parade and extravagance. The Church, to use the fox-hunting phrase, must be _in at the death_; and how truly would a simple funeral, without pageantry, in some sort--a cold, unceremonious burial, without mutes, and streamers, and feathers--without bell, book, or candle--flout and scandalize the gorgeous Church of England! The Church and the State are connected, so intimately and indissolubly connected, that he, who dies in the arms of Mother Church, must permit that particular old lady, in the matter of his funeral, to indulge her ruling passion, for costly forms and ceremonies.

It is more than forty years, since, with infinite delight, I first read that effusion--outpouring--splendid little eruption, if you like--of Walter Scott's, called Llewellyn. Apart from all context, a single stanza is to my present purpose; I give it from memory, where it has clung, for forty years:

When a prince to the fate of a peasant has yielded, The tapestry waves dark, round the dim lighted pall, With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, And pages stand mute in the canopied hall. Through the vault, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming, In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming, Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

In all this, the nobility ape royalty, the gentry the nobility, the commonalty the gentry: and there is no estate so low, as not, in this particular, to account the death of a near relative a perfect justification of extravagance.

There is scarcely one in a thousand, I believe, who has any just idea of the amount, annually lavished upon funerals, in Great Britain; or of the extraordinary fact, that joint stock burial companies exist there, and declare excellent dividends.

In 1843, at the request of her Majesty's principal Secretary of State, for the Home Department, Edwin Chadwick, Esquire, drew up "a report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment, in towns."

Mr. Chadwick states, that, _upon a moderate calculation, the sum annually expended in funeral expenses, in England and Wales, is five millions of pounds sterling_, and that four of these millions may be justly set down as expended on the mere fopperies of death.

Evelyn says, that his mother requested his father, on her death bed, to bestow upon the poor, whatever he had designed, for the expenses of her funeral.

Speaking of this abominable misapplication of money, a writer, in the London Quarterly Review, vol. 73, p. 466, exclaims--"To what does it go? To silk scarfs and brass nails--feathers for the horses--kid gloves and gin for the mutes--white satin and black cloth for the worms. And whom does it benefit? Not those, whose unfeigned sorrow makes them callous, at the moment, to its show, and almost to its mockery--not the cold spectator, who sees its dull magnificence give the lie to the preacher's equality of death--but the lowest of all hypocrites, the hired mourner, &c." It is calculated by Mr. Chadwick, that £60 to £100 are necessary to bury an upper tradesman--£250 for a gentleman--£500 to £1500 for a nobleman.

High profits were obtained, by the joint stock burial companies in England, in 1843. The sale of graves in one cemetery was at the rate of £17,000 per acre, and a calculation, made for another, gave £45,375 per acre, not including fees for monuments, &c. One company, says Mr. Chadwick, has set forth an estimate, that seven acres, at the rate of ten coffins, in one grave, would accommodate 1,335,000--one million three hundred and thirty-five thousand--paupers. The following interrogatory was put, and repeated by members of the Parliamentary Committee, to the witnesses: "_Do you think there would be any objection to burying bodies with a certain quantity of quick lime, sufficient to destroy the coffin and the whole thing in a given time?_"

In 1843, Mr. J. C. Loudon published, in London, his work on the Managing of Cemeteries and the Improvement of Churchyards. The cool, philosophic style, in which Mr. Loudon handles this interesting subject, is rather remarkable. On page 50, he expatiates, as follows: "_This temporary cemetery may be merely a field, rented on a twenty-one years' lease, of such an extent, as to be filled with graves in fourteen years. At the end of seven years more it may revert to the landlord, and be cultivated, planted, or laid down in grass, or in any manner that may be thought proper. Nor does there appear to us any objection to union workhouses having a portion of their garden ground used as a cemetery, to be restored to cultivation, after a sufficient time had elapsed._"

This certainly is doing the utilitarian thing, with a vengeance. Quite a novel rotation of crops--cabbages following corpses. My long experience assures me, that the rapidity of decomposition depends, upon certain qualities in the subject and in the soil. Skeletons are sometimes found, in tolerably perfect condition, after an inhumation of two hundred years. Perhaps Mr. Loudon, in his eager festination for a crop, may have determined to bury in quicklime. Paupers and quicklime would make a capital compost, and scarcely require a top-dressing, of any kind, for years. What beets! what carrots, for the cockney market! Notwithstanding the quicklime, I should rather fear an occasional envelopment of some _unlucky_ relic, in the guise of a _lucky_ bone--a grinder, perhaps. And, when these vegetables shall again have been converted into animals, and these animals shall have served their day and generation, they shall again be converted into cabbages and carrots, as all their predecessors were. Well, this Mr. Loudon is a practical fellow; and his metastasis is admirable. Here are thousands of miserable wretches--_nullorum fiilii_, many of them--they have contributed scarcely anything to the common weal, while living; now let us put them in the way, with the assistance of a little quicklime, of doing something for their fellow-beings, after they are dead. The pauper squashes and cabbages must have been at a premium, in Leadenhall Market. Imagination is clearly worth something. After all my reason can accord, in the way of respect, for these utilitarian notions, I solemnly protest against marrowfats, cultivated in Mr. Loudon's pauper hotbeds. No doubt they would be larger, and the flavor richer and more peculiar--nevertheless, Mr. Loudon must excuse me--I say I protest. He gives an alternative permission, to lay down his mixture of dead bodies and quicklime to grass, or for the pasture of cows. Even then the milk would have a suspicious flavor, or _post-mortem_ smell, I apprehend; it would be the same thing, by second intention, as the surgeons say.

The explanation of Mr. Loudon's monstrous proposition can be found nowhere, but in his concentrated interest in agriculture, to which he would have the living and the dead alike contribute. When contemplating the corpse of a portly pauper, he seems to think of nothing, but the readiest mode of converting it into cabbages.

I have heard of a cutaneous fellow, who had an irresistible fancy, for skinning animals--it had become a passion. Nothing came amiss to him. He sought with avidity, for every four-footed and creeping thing, that died within five miles of his dwelling, for the pleasure of skinning it. The insides of his apartments were covered with the expanded skins, not only of beasts and the lesser vermin, but of birds, serpents and fishes. His house was an exuvial museum. He had a little son, a mere child, who assisted his father, on these occasions, in a small way. He had the misfortune to lose his grandmother--a fine old lady--and the following brief colloquy occurred, between the father and the child, the day before she was buried: "I say, father." "What, Peter?" "When are you going to skin Granny?"

No. LIX.

Last Sabbath morning, I read Cicero's _Dialogus de Amicitia_--simple Latinity, and very short--27 sections only. It seemed like enjoying the company of an old friend. It is now just forty-seven years, since I first read it, at Exeter. I marvel at Montaigne, for not thinking highly of it--but find some little motive, in the fact, that he had written a tract upon the subject, himself, which may be found, in his first volume, page 215, London, 1811, and which can no more be compared to the _Dialogus_, than--to use George Colman's expression--a mummy to Hyperion.

The Dialogus de Amicitia, of a Sabbath morning! Aye, my reverend, orthodox brother. Not having, in my system, one pulse of sympathy for disorganization, and liberty parties, I reverence the holy Sabbath, as much as you do yourself; and, to prevent the _Dialogus_ from hurting me, I read one sermon before, and another immediately after--Jeremy Taylor's _Apples of Sodom_; and Fléchier's _Sur La Correction Fraternelle_--such sermons, as, in the concoction, would, perhaps, be very likely to burst your mental boiler, and which would not suit the appetites of many, modern congregations, who have ruined their powers of inwardly digesting such strong meat, by dieting upon theological _fricandises faites avec du sucre_.

And you was not at meeting then! Right again, my dear brother. I am deaf as a haddock; though Sir Thomas Browne has annihilated this favorite standard of comparison, by assuring us, that a haddock has as good ears, as any other fish in the sea. Mine, however, are quite unscriptural--ears not to hear. My ear is all in my eye.

Roscius boasted of his power to convey his meaning, by mute gesticulation. Our modern clergy have so little of this gift, that, with my impracticable ears, it is all dumb show for me. Now and then, when the wind is fair, I catch a word or two; and no cross-readings were ever more grotesque and comical, than my cross-hearings. I am convinced, that I do not always have the worst of it. When, in reply to an old lady, who once asked me how I liked the preacher, I told her I heard not a syllable--what a mercy! she exclaimed. But consider the example! True, there is something in that. Try the experiment--stop the _meatus auditorius_ with beeswax, and try it, for half a dozen Sabbaths, even with the knowledge, that you can remove the impediment at will, which I cannot!

After I had finished the _Dialogus_, I found myself successfully engaged, in the process of mental exhumation:--up they came, one after another, the playmates of my childhood, with their tee-totums and merry-andrews--the companions of my boyhood, with their tops, kites, and marbles--the friends and associates of my youth, with their skates, bats, and fowling pieces. It is really quite pleasant to gather a party, upon such short notice, and with so little effort; and without the trouble of providing wine and sweetmeats. Upon the very threshold of manhood, how they scatter and disperse! There is a passage of the Dialogus--the tenth section--which is so true to life, at the present hour, that one can scarcely realize it was written, before the birth of Christ:--"Ille (Scipio) quidem nihil dificilius esse dicebat, quam amicitiam usque ad extremum vitæ permanere. Nam vel ut non idem expediret utrique, incidere sæpe; vel ut de republica non idem sentirent; mutari etiam mores hominum sæpe dicebat, alias adversis rebus, alias ætate ingravescente. Atque earum rerum exemplum ex similitudine capiebat incuentis ætatis, quod summi puerorum amores sæpe una cum prætexta ponerentur; sin autem ad adolescentiam perduxissent, dirimi tamen interdum contentione, vel uxoriæ conditionis, vel commodi allicujus, quod idem adipisci uterque non posset. Quod si qui longius in amicitia provecti essent, tamen sæpe labefactari, si in honoris contentionem incidissent: pestem esse nullam amicitiis, quam in plerisque pecuniæ cupiditatem, in optimis quibusque honoris certamen et gloriæ: ex quo inimicitias maximas sæpe inter amicissimos extitisse." Lord Rochester said, that nothing was ever benefited, by translation, but a bishop. This, nevertheless, I believe, is a fair translation of the passage--

He (Scipio) said, that nothing was more difficult, than for friendship to continue to the very end of life: either because its continuance was found to be inexpedient for one of the parties, or on account of political differences.

He remarked, that men's humors were apt to be affected, sometimes, by adverse fortune, and at others, by the heavy listlessness of age. He drew an example of these things, from a similar condition in youth--the most vehement attachments, among boys, were commonly laid aside with the prætexta, or at the age of maturity; or, if continued beyond that period, they were occasionally interrupted, by some contention about the state or condition of the wife, or the possessions or advantages of somebody, which the other party was unable to equal. Indeed, if some there were, whose friendship was drawn along to a later period, it was very apt to be weakened, if they became rivals, in the path of fame. The greatest bane of friendship, among the mass, was the love of money, and among some, of the better sort, the thirst for glory; by which the bitterest hatred had been generated, between those, who had been the greatest friends.

Unless it be orthodoxy, nothing has been so variously defined, as _friendship_. A man who stands by, and sees another murdered, in a duel, is his _friend_. Mutual endorsers are _friends_. Partisans are the _friends_ of the candidate. Those gentlemen, who give their time and talents to eat and drink up some wealthy fool, who would pass for an Amphytrion, and laugh at the fellow's simplicity, behind his back, are his _friends_. The patrons of players and buffoons, signors and signorinas, are their _friends_. The venders of Havana cigars and Bologna sausages inform their _friends_ and patrons, that they have recently received a fresh supply. Marat was the _friend_ of the people. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were the _friends_ of Job; and he told them rather uncivilly, I think, that they were miserable comforters. Matthew speaks of a _friend_ of publicans and sinners.

Monsieur Megret, who, as Voltaire relates, the instant Charles XII. was killed, exclaimed--_Voila la piece finie, allons souper_--see, the play is over, let us go to supper, was the king's _friend_. William the First, like other kings, had many _friends_, who, the moment he died, ran away, and literally left the dead to bury the dead; of which a curious account may be found, in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. page 160, London, 1809. Friendship flourishes, at Christmas and New Year, for every one, we are told, in the book of Proverbs, is a _friend_ to him that giveth gifts. There seems to be no end to this enumeration of _friends_. The name is legion, to say nothing of the whole society of _Friends_. What then could Aristotle have meant, when he exclaimed, as Diogenes Laertius says he did, lib. v. sec. 21, _My friends, there is no such thing as a friend_? Menander is stated by Plutarch, in his tract, on Brotherly Love, cap. 3, to have proclaimed that man happy, who had found even _the shadow of a friend_?

It would be hard to describe the friend, whom Aristotle and Menander had in mind. Cicero has employed twenty-seven sections, and given us an imperfect definition after all. Such a friend comes not, within any one of the categories I have named.

_Friends_, in the common acceptation of that word, may be readily lost and won. The direction, ascribed to Rochefoucault, seems less revolting, when applied to such _friends_ as these--_to treat all one's friends, as if, one day, they might be foes, and all one's foes, as if, one day, they might be friend_. This cold-blooded axiom is Rochefoucault's, only by adoption. Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, lib. ii. cap. 13, and Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Bias, lib. i. sec. 7, ascribe something like this saying to him. Cicero, in the sixteenth section of the _Dialogus de Amicitia_, after referring to the opinion--"_ita amare oportere, ut si aliquando esset ossurus_," and stating Scipio's abhorrence of the sentiment, expresses his belief, that it never proceeded from so good and wise a man, as Bias. Aulus Gellius, lib. i. cap. 3, imputes to Chilon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, substantially, the same sentiment--"_Love him, as if you were one day to hate him, and hate him, as if you were one day to love him_." Poor Rochefoucault, who had sins enough to answer for, is as unjustly held to be author of this infernal sentiment, as was Dr. Guillotin of the instrument, that bears his ill-fated name.

Boccacio was in the right--_there is a skeleton in every house_. We have, all of us, our crosses to carry; and should strive to bear them as gracefully, as comports with the infirmity of human nature; and among the most severe is the loss of an old friend. Aristotle was mistaken--there is such a thing as a friend. Some fifty years ago, I began to have a friend--our professions and pursuits were similar. For some fifty years, we have cherished a feeling of mutual affection and respect; and, now that we have retired from the active exercise of our craft, we daily meet together, and, like a brace of veteran grasshoppers, chirp over days bygone. I believe I never asked of my friend an unreasonable or unseemly thing. God knows he never did of me. Thus we have obeyed Cicero's first law of friendship--_Hæc igitur prima lex in amicitia sanciatur, ut neque rogemus res turpes, nec faciamus, rogati_.

We are most happily adapted to each other. I have always taken pleasure in regurgitating, from the fourth stomach of the mind, some tale or anecdote, and chewing over the cud of pleasant fancy. No man ever had a friend with a more willing ear, or a shorter memory. But for this, which I have always accounted a Providence, my stock would have been exhausted, long ago. After lying fallow, for two or three months, every tale is as good as new.

God bless my friend, and compensate the shortness of his memory, by giving him length of days, and every good thing, in this and a better world.

No. LX.

Much has been said and written, of late, here and elsewhere, on the subject of _intra mural_ interment--burial within the _walls_ or _confines_ of cities. This term, though commonly employed by British writers, is wholly inapplicable, in all those rural cities, which have recently sprung up among us, and in which there are still many broad acres of meadow and pasture, plough-land and forest. In these almost nominal cities, the question must be, in relation to the propriety of burying the dead, not within the confines, but in the more densely peopled portions--in the very midst of the living.

I have an opinion, firmly fixed, and long cherished, upon this important subject; and, considering myself, professionally, an expert, in these matters, I shall devote the present article to their consideration.

There is no doubt, that a cemetery, from its improper location, or the mass of putrefying material, which the madness, or folly, or avarice of its proprietors has accumulated there, or from the indecent and almost superficial deposition of half-buried corpses, may become, like the burden of our sins--_intolerable_. It is not less certain, that it may become a _public nuisance_--not merely in the _popular_ sense--but _legally_, and, as such, indictable at common law. Neither can there be any doubt, that the city authorities, without a resort to the process of indictment, and as conservators of the public health, have full power, to prevent all future interments in that cemetery. This is true of a cemetery in the suburbs--_a fortiori_, of a cemetery in the city.

At the present day, it may seem astonishing to many, that any doubt ever prevailed, in the minds of respectable members of the medical faculty, as to the unhealthy influences of the effluvia, arising from _animal_ corruption. Orfila, Parant Duchâtelet, and other Frenchmen, of high professional reputation, have maintained, that such effluvia are perfectly innocuous. It seems to be almost universally agreed, at the present day, to reject such extraordinary doctrines entirely; although it is admitted, by the highest authorities, that the exhalations from _vegetable_ corruption are the more pernicious of the two.

So far as the decision of this question concerns the remedy, by legal process, it is of no absolute importance. The popular impression, that exhalations, of any kind, cannot constitute a _public nuisance_, in the technical import of those words, unless those exhalations are injurious to health, is erroneous. Lord Mansfield held this not to be necessary; and that it was enough, if the air were so affected, as to be breathed by the public, with less comfort and pleasure, than before.

Interment, beyond the confines of the city, was enjoined, some eighteen hundred years ago. It was decreed in Rome, by the twelve tables--_hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito_.

A writer, in the London Quarterly Review, vol. 73, p. 446, has written, very ably, on this interesting topic. He supplies some facts of importance, connected with the history of interment. A. D. 381.--The Theodosian code forbade all interment within the walls of the city, and even ordered, that all the bodies and monuments, already placed there, should be carried out.

A. D. 529.--The first clause was confirmed by Justinian. A. D. 563.--The Council of Brague decreed, that no dead body should be buried, within the circle of the city walls.

A. D. 586.--The Council of Auxerre decreed, that no one should be buried in their temples. A. D. 827.--Charlemagne decreed, that no person should be buried in a church. A. D. 1076.--The Council of Winchester decreed, that no person should be buried in the churches. A. D. 1552.--Latimer, on Saint Luke vii. ii., says, "the citizens of Nain had their burying places without the city; and I do marvel, that London, being so great a city, hath not a burial place without," &c. A. D. 1565.--Charles Borromeo, the good bishop of Milan, ordered the return to the ancient custom of suburban cemeteries.

Sir Matthew Hale used to say, "churches were made for the living, not for the dead." The learned Anthony Rivet observed--"I wish this custom, which covetousness and superstition first brought in, were abolished; and that the ancient custom were revived to have burying places, in the free and open fields, without the gates of cities." In 1832, fifteen Archbishops, Bishops, and others, ecclesiastical commissioners, in London, recommended the abolition of all burials in churches.

At great expense, the City Government of Roxbury have judiciously selected a spot, eminently beautiful, and remote from the peopled portion of the city, for the burial of the dead. The great argument--the manifest motive--was _a just regard for the health of their constituents_. If the present nuisance should continue much longer, and grow much greater, may not the question be respectfully asked, with some little pertinency, _what has become of that just regard?_

Surely there is no lack of power. In 1832, the government of Boston said to the town of Roxbury, not in the language of David to Moab--thou shalt be "_my wash pot_"--but thou shalt be the receptacle of our offal--of all, that is filthy, and corruptible, within our borders. The City Government of Boston went extensively then into the carrion and garbage business, and furnished the provant for a legion of hogs, the property of an influential citizen of Roxbury. This awful hoggery was located on the road, now called East Street. The carrion carts of the metropolis of New England, _eundo, redeundo, et manendo_, dropping filth and fatness, as they went, became an abominable nuisance; and, as Commodore Trunnion beat up to church, on his wedding day, so every citizen, as soon as he discovered one of these aromatic vehicles, drawn by six or eight horses, tossing up their heads, and snorting sympathetically, was obliged to close-haul his nose, and struggle for the weather gage.

Then again, the proprietor of this colossal hog-sty, with his burnery of bones, and other fragrant contrivances, created a stench, unknown among men, since the bituminous conflagration of the cities of the plain--Sodom and Gomorrah; and which terrible stench, in the language of Sternhold & Hopkins, "_came flying all abroad_." In the keeping of the varying wind, this "_arria cattiva_," like that from a graveyard, surcharged with half-buried corpses, visited, from day to day, every dwelling, and nauseated every man, woman, and child in the village. Four town meetings were held, upon this subject. Roxbury calmly remonstrated,--Boston doggedly persisted; and, at last, patience having had its perfect work, the carrion carts, while attempting to enter Roxbury, were met, by the yeomanry, on the line, and driven back to Boston. Chief Justice Shaw having refused an application for an _injunction_, the complaint was brought before the grand jury of Norfolk. Bills were found, against the owner of the hogs, and the city of Boston. My learned and amiable friend, the late John Pickering, then the City Solicitor, defended them both, with great ability; and the present Judge Merrick, then County Attorney, opposed the whole swinish concern, with the spirit of an Israelite, and the power of a Rabbi. The owner of the hogs and the city of Boston were both duly convicted, and, entering into a written obligation to sin no more, in this wise, the indictment was held over them, for a reasonable period, until they had given satisfactory evidence of their sincerity.

In the testimony of Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, which was published, at the time, after sustaining the prosecutors amply, in their allegation, in respect to the deleterious effect of the nuisance, he remarks--"_The Creator has established, in the sense of smelling, a sentinel, to descry distant danger of life. The alarm, sounded through this organ, seldom passes unheeded, with impunity._"

Dr. John C. Warren and sixteen other respectable physicians concurred in this opinion.

No. LXI.

How long--oh Lord--how long will thy peculiar people disregard the simple, unmistakable teachings of common sense, and the admonitions of their own, proper noses, and bury the dead, in the very midst of the living!--Above all, how long will they continue to perpetrate that hideous folly of burying the dead, in tombs! What a childish effort, to keep the worm at bay--to stave off corruption, yet a little while--to procrastinate the payment of nature's debt, at maturity--DUST THOU ART AND UNTO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN!--For what? That the poor, senseless tabernacle may have a few more months or years, to rot in--that friends and relatives may, from time to time, be enabled, upon every re-opening of the tomb, to gratify their morbid curiosity, and see how the worms are getting on--that, whenever the tomb is unbarred, for another and another tenant, as it may often happen, at the time, when corruption is doing its utmost--its rankest work--the foul quintessence--the reeking, deleterious gases may rush back upon the living world; and, blending with ten thousand kindred stenches, in a densely peopled city, promote the mighty work of pestilence and death.

Who does not sympathize with Cowper!

Oh for a lodge, in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where the atrocious smells of docks, and sewers, Eruptive gas, and rank distillery May never reach me more. My lungs are pain'd, My nose is sick, with this eternal stench Of corpse and carrion, with which earth is fill'd.

I am not unmindful, that, in a former number of these Dealings with the Dead, I have passed over these burial-grounds, and partially exhibited the interior of these tombs already. But there really seems to be a great awakening, upon this subject, at the present moment, at home and abroad; and I rejoice, that it is so.

I am aware, that, within the bounds of old, peninsular Boston, no inhumations--_burials in graves_--are permitted. This is well.--_Burials in tombs_ are still allowed.--Why? This mode of burial is much more offensive. In _grave burial_, the gases percolate gradually; and a considerable portion may be reasonably supposed to be neutralized, _in transitu_. This is unquestionably the case, unless the grave is kept open, or opened, six times, or more, on the speculation principle, for the reception of new customers. In _tomb burial_, it is otherwise. The tomb is opened for new comers, and sometimes, most inopportunely, and the horrible smell fills the atmosphere, and compels the neighboring inhabitants, to close their windows and doors.

As, with some persons, this may seem to require authentication, without leading the reader to every offensive graveyard in this city, I will take a single, and a sufficient example--I will take the oldest graveyard in the Commonwealth, and the most central, in the city of Boston. I refer to Isaac Johnson's lot, where, in 1630, his bones were laid--the Chapel burying-ground. The Savings Bank building bounds upon that cemetery. The rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society are over the Bank.

The stench, produced, by burials in the tombs, in that yard, during the summer of 1849, has compelled the Librarian to close his windows. _Tomb burial_, in this yard, has not been limited to deceased proprietors, and their relatives; it has, in some instances, been a matter of traffic. I have been struck with the present arrangement of the gravestones, in this yard. Some ingenious person has removed them all, from their original positions, and actually planted them, "_all of a row_," like the four and twenty fiddlers--or rather, in four straight rows, near the four sides of the graveyard. This is a queerer metamorphosis, than any I ever read of. Ovid has nothing to compare with it. There they are, every one, with its "_Here lies_," &c., compelled to stand forever, a monument of falsehood.

Of all the pranks, ever perpetrated in a graveyard, this, surely, is the most amusing. In defiance of the _lex loci_, which rightfully enjoins solemnity of demeanor, in such a place--and of all my reverence for Isaac Johnson, and those illustrious men, who slumber there, I was actually seized with a fit of uncontrollable laughter; and came to the conclusion, that this sacrilegious transposition must have been the work of Punch, or Puck, or some Lord of misrule. As I proceeded to read the inscriptions, my merriment increased, for the gravestones seemed to be conferring together, upon the subject of these extraordinary changes, which had befallen them; and repeating over to one another--"_As you are now, so once was I_." As it happened, in the case of Major Pitcairn, should any person desire to remove the ashes of his ancestor, these misplaced gravestones would surely lead to the awakening of the wrong passenger; and some venerable old lady, who died in her bed, may be transported to England, and buried under arms, for a major of infantry, who died in battle.

Why continue to bury in tombs? _Surely the sufferance on the part of the City Government, does not arise, from a respect for vested rights!!!_ If the City Government has power to close the offensive cellars in Broad Street, and elsewhere, being private property, because they are accounted injurious to public health, why may they not close the tombs, being private property, for the very same reason? Considerations of public health are paramount. When, upon an application from a number of the liquor-sellers, wholesale and retail, in this city, Chancellor Kent gave his opinion, adverse to their hearts' desire, that the license laws were _constitutional_, he alluded, analogically, to the power of the Commonwealth, to pass sanatory laws. If the municipal power were deemed inadequate, legislation would give all the power required. For it would, indeed, be monstrous, having settled the fact, that the public health suffered, from burial in tombs, to suppose it a remediless evil.

The slaughter-houses and tanneries, which once existed, in Kilby Street and Dock Square, would not be tolerated now. Originally, they were not nuisances. Population gathered around them--their precedency availed them nothing--they became nuisances, by the force of circumstances. The tombs, in the churchyard, were not nuisances, when population was sparse--though they are so now. But the fact I have stated will increase the evil, from day to day: there can be no more burials, in graves, within the city proper--people will die--and, as we have not the taste nor courage to burn--they must be buried--where? In the tombs--which, as I have stated, is the most offensive and mischievous mode of burial. I have already alluded to some instances of traffic, connected with certain tombs, in the Chapel yard. If some plan be not adopted, a new line of business will spring up, in which the members of my profession will figure, to some extent: many of the present owners of tombs will sell out, and move their dead to Mount Auburn, or Forest Hills; and the city tombs will be crammed with as many corpses, as they can hold, by their speculating proprietors. Rather than this, it would have been better to continue the old mode of earth burial. The remedy is plain--the fields are before you--_carry out_ "your dead!"

A famous preacher of eternal torment, and who always, in addition to the sulphurous complexion of his discourses throughout, devoted three or four pages, at the close, exclusively to brimstone and fire; is said, upon a special occasion, to have produced a prodigious effect, upon the more devoted of his intensely agitated flock, by causing the sexton, when he heard the preacher scream BRIMSTONE, at the top of his lungs, to throw two or three rolls, into the furnace below, whose fumes speedily ascended into the church.

This anecdote came instantly to my recollection, some twenty years ago, one Sabbath morning, while attending the services in St. Paul's church, in this city. The rector was absent, and a very worthy clergyman supplied his place. In the course of his sermon, he repeated, in a very solemn tone, pointing downward with his finger, in the direction of the tombs below, those memorable words of Job--_If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister._ Almost immediately--the coincidence was wonderful--I was oppressed by a most offensive stench, which certainly seemed to be _germain_ to the subject. It became more and more powerful. It seemed to me, and I call myself a pretty good judge, to be posthumous, decidedly. I certainly believed it proceeded from the charnel house below. My eyes turned right and left, to see how my neighbors were impressed. The females bowed their heads, and used their handkerchiefs--the males were evidently aware of it; but, with a slight compression of their noses, kept their eyes fixed upon the preacher. Two medical gentlemen, then present, and yet living, pronounced it to be _the worm and corruption_, and connected it with the burial of a particular individual, not long before.

The case was carefully investigated, by the wardens and others; who were perfectly satisfied, that this horrible effluvium was, very probably, produced, by the burning of a heretic, in the form of a church mouse, that had taken up his quarters, in the pipe or flue, and was thus converted into an unsavory _pastille_.

No. LXII.

Draco, I think, would have been perfectly satisfied with some portions of the primitive, colonial and town legislation of Massachusetts. Hutchinson, i. 436, quotes the following decree--"Captain Stone, for abusing Mr. Ludlow, and calling him _Justass_, is fined an hundred pounds, and prohibited coming within the patent, without the Governor's leave, upon pain of death."

Hazard, Hist. Coll. i. 630, has preserved a law against the Quakers, published in Boston, by beat of drum. It bears date Oct. 14th, 1656. The preamble is couched, in rather strong language--"Whereas there is a cursed sect of heretics lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called Quakers, who take upon them to be immediately sent of God," &c. The statute inflicts a fine of £100 upon any person, who brings one of them into any harbor, creek, or cove, compels him to carry such Quaker away--the Quaker to be put in the house of correction, and severely whipped; no person to speak to him. £5 penalty, for importing, dispersing, or concealing any book, containing their "devilish opinions;" 40 shillings for maintaining such opinions. £4 for persisting. House of correction and banishment, for still persisting.

The poor Quakers gave our intolerant ancestors complete vexation. Hazard,