Part 16

The year Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, Its shadow on each heart. In its swift course It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, And they are not. It laid its pallid hand Upon the strong man, and the haughty form Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er The battle plain, where sword, and spear, and shield Flashed in the light of midday--and the strength Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, Green from the soil of carnage, waves above The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, It heralded its millions to their home In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time!-- Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! what power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity? On, still on He presses and forever. The proud bird, The condor of the Andes, that can soar Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave The fury of the Northern hurricane And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wings at nightfall and sinks down To rest upon his mountain crag--but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink, Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise, Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, Startling the nations; and the very stars, Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away, To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time, Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, To sit and muse, like other conquerors, Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

PARAGRAPHS.

(_From Prenticeana._)

A pin has as much head as a good many authors, and a good deal more point.

The Turkish men hold that women have no souls, and prove by their treatment of them that they have none themselves.

A writer in the "American Agriculturist" insists that farmers ought to learn to make better fences. Why not establish a fencing-school for their benefit?

The thumb is a useful member, but, because you have one, you needn't necessarily try to keep your neighbors under it.

The greatest truths are the simplest; the greatest man and women are sometimes so, too.

A New Orleans poet calls the Mississippi the most eloquent of rivers. It ought to be eloquent; it has a dozen mouths.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] By permission of Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati.

EDWARD COATE PINKNEY.

~1802=1828.~

EDWARD COATE[13] PINKNEY was the son of the distinguished orator and statesman, William Pinkney, of Maryland, and was born in London while his father was minister to England. After attending the College of Baltimore, he entered the Navy at fourteen years of age and spent much of his time of service in the Mediterranean. On his father's death, 1822, he returned to Baltimore and engaged in the practice of law, at the same time making some reputation by his poems. "A Health" and "Picture Song" are considered his best--their beauty makes us mourn his early death. At the time he was numbered one of the "five greatest poets of the country." On his return from a journey to Mexico, taken for his health, he was elected, in 1826, professor of Belles-lettres in the University of Maryland, formerly called the College of Baltimore.

WORKS.

Poems: Rodolph, a Fragment, and other Poems.

A HEALTH.

I fill this cup to one made up Of loveliness alone; A woman of her gentle sex The seeming paragon; To whom the better elements And kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air, 'Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own, Like those of morning birds, And something more than melody Dwells ever in her words; The coinage of her heart are they, And from her lips each flows As one may see the burdened bee Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her, The measures of her hours; Her feelings have the fragrancy, The freshness of young flowers; And lovely passions, changing oft, So fill her, she appears The image of themselves by turns,-- The idol of past years.

Of her bright face, one glance will trace A picture on the brain, And of her voice in echoing hearts A sound must long remain; But memory such as mine of her So very much endears, When death is nigh my latest sigh Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up Of loveliness alone, A woman, of her gentle sex The seeming paragon-- Her health! and would on earth there stood Some more of such a frame, That life might be all poetry, And weariness a name.

SONG.

We break the glass, whose sacred wine, To some beloved health we drain, Lest future pledges, less divine, Should e'er the hallowed toy profane: And thus I broke a heart that poured Its tide of feelings out for thee, In draughts, by after times deplored, Yet dear to memory.

But still the old empassioned ways And habits of my mind remain, And still unhappy light displays Thine image chambered in my brain; And still it looks as when the hours Went by like flights of living birds, Or that soft chain of spoken flowers And airy gems, thy words.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] Mr. Charles Weathers Bump, Ph. D. (Johns-Hopkins), says this name should be _Coote_, as it so stands in the register of Pinkney's baptism, which he has seen.

CHARLES ÉTIENNE ARTHUR GAYARRÉ.

~1805=----.~

CHARLES ÉTIENNE ARTHUR GAYARRÉ, descended from a family which was among the early settlers of Louisiana, was born in New Orleans. He was educated at the College of New Orleans, studied law in Philadelphia, and served in the State Legislature. In 1835, he was elected to the United States Senate, but ill-health prevented his taking the seat, and he spent the eight succeeding years in Europe. He was afterwards Secretary of State of Louisiana, and in the seven years of his service he did much to promote an interest in letters and history, and to establish the State Library on a firm basis.

He sided with his State in secession, and in 1863 recommended the emancipation and arming of the slaves. Since the war, he has spent his time in literary work, and has written both in English and French, gaining a distinguished place especially as a historian.

WORKS.

Histoire de la Louisiane. Romance of the History of Louisiana. Louisiana: Colonial History. Louisiana, as a French Colony. History of the Spanish Dominion in Louisiana. History of Louisiana, to 1861. Phillip II. of Spain. Fernando de Lemos. Aubert Dubayet. School for Politics, [drama]. Dr. Bluff, comedy in 2 Acts. Addresses.

Judge Gayarré has been an able and tireless worker in the history and literature of his native state. His works are admirable, full of life and color, although his style is lacking in terseness and strength. "He has indicated in the first volume of his 'History of Louisiana' what might be done by a gifted fiction-writer with the picturesque legends and traditions therein heaped together in luxuriant confusion. One feels while reading, that the writer has been hampered here and there by the temptation to be a romancer rather than remain a historian, and one does not experience any surprise at this in view of the profusion of startling and strange incidents."--Maurice Thompson.

LOUISIANA IN 1750-1770.

(_From History of Louisiana, French Domination._)

It was in this year, 1751, that two ships, which were transporting two hundred regulars to Louisiana, stopped at Hispaniola. The Jesuits of that island obtained permission to put on board of those ships, and to send to the Jesuits of Louisiana, some sugar canes, and some negroes who were used to the cultivation of this plant. The canes were put under ground, according to the directions given, on the plantation of the reverend fathers, which was immediately above Canal street, on a portion of the space now occupied by the Second Municipality of the city of New Orleans. But it seems that the experiment proved abortive, and it was only in 1796 that the cultivation of the cane, and the manufacturing of sugar, was successfully introduced in Louisiana, and demonstrated to be practicable. It was then that this precious reed was really naturalized in the colony, and began to be a source of ever-growing wealth, [owing to the enterprise of Jean Étienne de Boré].

On board of the same ships, there came sixty girls, who were transported to Louisiana at the expense of the King. It was the last emigration of the kind. These girls were married to such soldiers as had distinguished themselves for their good conduct, and who, in consideration of their marriage, were discharged from service. Concessions of land were made to each happy pair, with one cow and its calf, one cock and five hens, one gun, one axe, and one spade. During the first three years of their settlement, they were to receive rations of provisions, and a small quantity of powder, shot, grains and seeds of all sorts.

Such is the humble origin of many of our most respectable and wealthy families, and well may they be proud of a social position, which is due to the honest industry and hereditary virtues of several generations. Whilst some of patrician extraction, crushed under the weight of vices, or made inert by sloth, or labor-contemning pride, and degenerating from pure gold into vile dross, have been swept away, and have sunk into the dregs and sewers of the commonwealth. Thus in Louisiana, the high and the low, although the country has never suffered from any political or civil convulsions, seem to have, in the course of one century, frequently exchanged with one another their respective positions, much to the philosopher's edification. . .

On the 23rd of September, the intendant Commissary, Michel de la Rouvillière, made a favorable report on the state of agriculture in Louisiana. "The cultivation of the wax tree," says he, "has succeeded admirably. Mr. Dubreuil, alone, has made six thousand pounds of wax. Others have obtained as handsome results, in proportion to their forces; some went to the seashore, where the wax tree grows wild, in order to use it in its natural state. It is the only luminary used here by the inhabitants, and it is exported to other parts of America and to France. We stand in need of tillers of the ground, and of negroes. The colony prospers rapidly from its own impulse, and requires only gentle stimulation. In the last three years, forty-five brick houses were erected in New Orleans, and several fine new plantations were established." . . . .

The administration of the Marquis of Vaudreuil was long and fondly remembered in Louisiana, as an epoch of unusual brilliancy, but which was followed up by corresponding gloom. His administration, if small things may be compared with great ones, was for Louisiana, with regard to splendor, luxury, military display, and expenses of every kind, what the reign of Louis XIV. had been for France. He was a man of patrician birth and high breeding, who liked to live in a manner worthy of his rank. Remarkable for his personal graces and comeliness, for the dignity of his bearing and the fascination of his address, he was fond of pomp, show, and pleasure; surrounded by a host of brilliant officers, of whom he was the idol, he loved to keep up a miniature court, in distant imitation of that of Versailles; and long after he had departed, old people were fond of talking of the exquisitely refined manners, of the magnificent balls, of the splendidly uniformed troops, of the high-born young officers, and of the many other unparalleled things they had seen in the days of the _Great Marquis_.

. . . . . . .

The inventories made of the property of the twelve gentlemen, whom the decree of the Spanish tribunal had convicted of rebellion, afford interesting proofs of the Spartan simplicity which existed in the colony. Thus the furniture of the bed-room of Madam Villeré, who was the wife of one of the most distinguished citizens of Louisiana, and the grand-daughter of De Lachaise, who came to the colony in 1723 as ordaining commissary, was described as consisting of a cypress bedstead, three feet wide by six in length, with a mattress of corn shucks and one of feathers on the top, a bolster of corn shucks, and a coarse cotton counterpane or quilt, manufactured probably by the lady herself, or by her servants; six chairs of cypress wood, with straw bottoms; some candlesticks with common wax, the candles made in the country, &c., &c.

The rest of the house was not more splendidly furnished, and the house itself, as described in the inventory, must have looked very much like one of those modest and unpainted little wood structures which are, to this day, to be seen in many parts of the banks of the river Mississippi, and in the Attakapas and Opelousas parishes. They are the tenements of our small planters who own only a few slaves, and they retain the appellation of _Maisons d'Acadiens, or Acadian houses_.

Villeré's plantation, situated at the German coast, was not large, and the whole of his slaves, of both sexes and of all ages, did not exceed thirty-two. His friends and brother conspirators, who were among the first gentlemen in the land, did not live with more ostentation. All the sequestrated property being sold, it was found that, after having distributed among the widows and other creditors what they were entitled to, and after paying the costs of the trial and inventories, the royal treasury had little or nothing to receive. . . . . .

There were but humble dwellings in Louisiana in 1769, and he who would have judged of their tenants from their outward appearance would have thought that they were occupied by mere peasants, but had he passed their thresholds he would have been amazed at being welcomed with such manners as were habitual in the most polished court of Europe, and entertained by men and women wearing with the utmost ease and grace the elegant and rich costume of the reign of Louis XV. There, the powdered head, the silk and gold flowered coat, the lace and frills, the red-heeled shoe, the steel handled sword, the silver knee buckles, the high and courteous bearing of the gentleman, the hoop petticoat, the brocaded gown, the rich head dress, the stately bow, the slightly rouged cheeks, the artificially graceful deportment, and the aristocratic features of the lady, formed a strange contrast with the roughness of surrounding objects. It struck one with as much astonishment as if diamonds had been found capriciously set by some unknown hand in one of the wild trees of the forest, or it reminded the imagination of those fairy tales in which a princess is found asleep in a solitude, where none but beasts of prey were expected to roam.

THE TREE OF THE DEAD.

(_From History of Louisiana._)

In a lot situated at the corner of Orleans and Dauphine streets, in the city of New Orleans, there is a tree which nobody looks at without curiosity and without wondering how it came there. For a long time it was the only one of its kind known in the state, and from its isolated position it has always been cursed with sterility. It reminds one of the warm climes of Africa or Asia, and wears the aspect of a stranger of distinction driven from his native country. Indeed with its sharp and thin foliage, sighing mournfully under the blast of one of our November northern winds, it looks as sorrowful as an exile. Its enormous trunk is nothing but an agglomeration of knots and bumps, which each passing year seems to have deposited there as a mark of age, and as a protection against the blows of time and of the world.

Inquire for its origin, and every one will tell you that it has stood there from time immemorial. A sort of vague but impressive mystery is attached to it, and it is as superstitiously respected as one of the old oaks of Dodona. Bold would be the axe that would strike the first blow at that foreign patriarch; and if it were prostrated to the ground by a profane hand, what native of the city would not mourn over its fall, and brand the act as an unnatural and criminal deed? So, long live the date-tree of Orleans street--that time-honored descendant of Asiatic ancestors!

In the beginning of 1727, a French vessel of war landed at New Orleans a man of haughty mien, who wore the Turkish dress, and whose whole attendance was a single servant. He was received by the governor with the highest distinction, and was conducted by him to a small but comfortable house with a pretty garden, then existing at the corner of Orleans and Dauphine streets, and which, from the circumstance of its being so distant from other dwellings, might have been called a rural retreat, although situated in the limits of the city. There the stranger, who was understood to be a prisoner of state, lived in the greatest seclusion; and although neither he nor his attendant could be guilty of indiscretion, because none understood their language, and although Governor Périer severely rebuked the slightest inquiry, yet it seemed to be the settled conviction in Louisiana, that the mysterious stranger was a brother of the Sultan, or some great personage of the Ottoman empire, who had fled from the anger of the vicegerent of Mohammed, and who had taken refuge in France.

The Sultan had peremptorily demanded the fugitive, and the French government, thinking it derogatory to its dignity to comply with that request, but at the same time not wishing to expose its friendly relations with the Moslem monarch, and perhaps desiring for political purposes, to keep in hostage the important guest it had in its hands, had recourse to the expedient of answering that he had fled to Louisiana, which was so distant a country, that it might be looked upon as the grave, where, as it was suggested, the fugitive might be suffered to wait in peace for actual death, without danger or offence to the Sultan. Whether this story be true or not is now a manner of so little consequence that it would not repay the trouble of a strict historical investigation.

The year 1727 was drawing to its close, when on a dark stormy night the howling and barking of the numerous dogs in the streets of New Orleans were observed to be fiercer than usual, and some of that class of individuals who pretend to know everything, declared that by the vivid flashes of the lightning, they had seen swiftly and stealthily gliding toward the residence of the _unknown_ a body of men who wore the scowling appearance of malefactors and ministers of blood. There afterwards came also a report that a piratical-looking Turkish vessel had been hovering a few days previous in the bay of Barataria. Be it as it may, on the next morning the house of the stranger was deserted. There were no traces of mortal struggle to be seen; but in the garden the earth had been dug, and _there_ was the unmistakable indication of a recent grave.

Soon, however, all doubts were removed by the finding of an inscription in Arabic characters, engraved on a marble tablet, which was subsequently sent to France. It ran thus: "The justice of heaven is satisfied, and the date-tree shall grow on the traitor's tomb. The sublime Emperor of the faithful, the supporter of the faith, the omnipotent master and Sultan of the world, has redeemed his vow. God is great, and Mohammed is his prophet. Allah!" Some time after this event, a foreign-looking tree was seen to peep out of the spot where a corpse must have been deposited in that stormy night, when the rage of the elements yielded to the pitiless fury of man, and it thus explained in some degree this part of the inscription, "the date-tree shall grow on the traitor's grave."

Who was he, or what had he done, who had provoked such relentless and far-seeking revenge? Ask Nemesis,--or, at that hour when evil spirits are allowed to roam over the earth and magical invocations are made, go and interrogate the tree of the dead.

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.

~1806=1873.~

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY, the "Pathfinder of the Sea," was born in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, reared in Tennessee, and entered the Navy in 1825, rising to be lieutenant in 1837. In 1839 he met with an accident which lamed him for life, and he thenceforward spent his time in study and investigation of naval subjects. Under the pen-name of "Harry Bluff," he wrote some essays for the "Southern Literary Messenger," which produced great reforms in the Navy and led to the establishment of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

In 1842 he was appointed superintendent of the Hydrographical Office, and in 1844, of the National Observatory, at Washington, the latter position including the former. The observations of winds, currents, and storms, which he caused to be made during nine years, are embodied in his "Wind and Current Charts;" and the system thus begun was adopted by all European countries and has proven of immense benefit both to commerce and science.

To him and to Lieutenant John M. Brooke, afterwards Com. Brooke, C. S. N., belongs the credit of deep-sea soundings; and to him we owe the suggestion of the submarine telegraphic cable across the Atlantic. (_See below, letter to Secretary of the Navy._) Cyrus W. Field said, at a dinner given in 1858 to celebrate the first cable message across the Atlantic,--"Maury furnished the brains, England gave the money, and I did the work."

His "Physical Geography of the Sea" has been translated into all the languages of Europe, and caused Humboldt to say that Maury had founded a new science. His researches and scientific labors gained him honors and medals from all scientific societies. His "Navigation" and "Geographies" are in popular use in our schools. His style is irresistibly attractive, being clear, strong, elegant, and indicative of truth in the man behind it.

He entered the Confederate service in 1861, and was employed at first at Richmond and later as naval agent in Europe. When Lee surrendered, he was in the West Indies on his way to put in use against Federal vessels in Southern ports a method of arranging torpedo mines which he had invented.

He then went to Mexico (1865) and took a position in the Cabinet of the Emperor Maximilian; but the revolution there (1866) terminated his relations with that government. After two years in England, he returned to Virginia and in 1868 became professor of Physics in the Virginia Military Institute. At this time the University of Cambridge conferred upon him the degree of LL. D., and the Emperor of the French invited him to Paris as superintendent of the Imperial Observatory.