Part 8

'I tell you what it is, neighbor, I believe they lie about him faster than Eclipse can run.'

The President is truly a republican. He is often heard to express the loftiest sentiments of patriotism in his family circle, when he can have no purpose of popularity in view, but merely the wish to give utterance to his feelings. A visiter at the White House remembers well on one occasion, being then the only guest, when the Rhode Island difficulties were in their midst, when some one laughingly asked him, 'how he would like to be a King?' The reply was: 'I am afraid, in spite of my democracy, that I should say what the king of Prussia said to Doctor Franklin, that were he in the Doctor's situation he would be a republican too; but being born a king, he was determined to support king-craft.'

The President, who was gazing out of the window, and as it was thought not at all attending to the idle talk, turned quickly round and said with animation:

'I would rather settle the Rhode Island question upon the true principles of the constitution, establish a just treaty with Great Britain, and give my administration an honorable place in the history of the republic, than win and wear the most princely crown in christendom.'

The jokes between Mr. WISE and the President are often very amusing. Mr. Wise is the devoted friend of the President. The representative from Virginia drives a little one-horse carriage, and one day the President observed to him:

'Wise, that carriage of yours looks like a candle-box on wheels; why don't you get a more genteel one?'

'Why, Mr. President, it is a much more genteel one than yours. You keep four horses, which you don't drive more than once a month; and when you do, you hitch them to a second-hand carriage.'

'Why, Wise, how did you find that out?'

'Find it out? Didn't you drive it about for a month, with the coat of arms of Mr. PAULDING, late Secretary of the Navy upon it?'

'What of that? Is not Paulding the real Simon Pure of the democracy?'

'Democracy blazoning its coat of arms!' replied Wise. 'I was really glad one day when I stopped at the carriage-maker's to get my truly republican vehicle mended, to see the ex-secretary's carriage there, and a workman employed erasing the coat of arms; making a plain pannel for your excellency.'

'Well,' replied the President, 'I claim to be descended from Wat Tyler, the blacksmith, and I had better have a good stout arm grasping an uplifted hammer, blazoned on my pannel; don't you think so? It would be a real democratic knock-down to Paulding's heraldry.'

Speaking of the President's carriage, reminds me of an anecdote of his coachman, Burrell. Somebody asked Burrell which he liked best, Virginia or Washington?

'Virginia,' replied Burrell. 'I think there are more gentlemen in Virginia, Sir, than there are about Congress. In Virginia, Sir, if a gentleman wanted to abuse the President, he wouldn't come right by his carriage, where I, his coachman, am sitting, to talk it out so as I can hear it. I, Sir, I've waited on him ever since he was first married; I ought to know what kind of a man he is; and the way they lie about him makes me so savage sometimes, that I feel as if I'd like to have some on 'em tied to a tree, and have fair play at 'em with this horse-whip.'

This anecdote is enough to show what kind of a master the President is.

When Pettrick the sculptor was stabbed by some midnight assassin, as soon as the President heard of it he hurried to his studio, where the deed was perpetrated, and not only ordered him to be provided for, but saw him attended to himself.

One Sunday just after dinner, there were several loud ringings of the front door bell, when the President, who had left a gentleman alone in the dining-room, returned and said: 'They have it through the city that I have been shot!'

'With paper bullets of the brain, I suppose they mean, Mr. President,' said the guest.

'No,' replied the President, 'with leaden bullets from a pistol. Come, walk out on the portico, and smoke your cigar.'

The President with his guest walked out on the portico, whither soon came thronging a crowd of the President's friends, who, hearing the report through the city, had hastened to the White House to learn if there was any truth in the story.

There was no truth whatever in it; but every body present was struck with the President's indifference to the report, and the absence of all curiosity on his part as to how it originated. He only remarked: 'If I am shot at, gentlemen, it will be more in malice than in madness;' and apologizing, by saying that daily confinement required that he should take exercise, he rode away in his carriage unattended.

As a husband and a father, President Tyler is a model for any man; and particularly for public men, who too often neglect their families. For a very long time the lady of the President was in feeble health, which terminated in her death last summer. It was a beautiful moral spectacle to see the President, amidst all the cares and perplexities of his exalted station, beset by so many detractors, so devotedly watchful of Mrs. Tyler's declining condition. In the midst of the veto days, when engaged in the most animated political conversation, if Mrs. Tyler chanced to be in the room, the President's eye every minute wandered to her, in affectionate regard; and when she left the room upon the arm of her son or daughter, he would watch her anxiously and in silence till she withdrew, and would often remain in melancholy thoughtfulness for minutes afterward, forgetful of the conversation and those around him.

In bringing up his family, Mr. Tyler has been fortunate. His daughters, except the youngest, Alice, who is at school, are happily married, and his sons who are grown, Mr. Robert and Mr. John Tyler, are gentlemen of honor, manliness, and intellect; and Tazwell, his youngest son, is a lad of promise. Miss Elizabeth Tyler, who is now Mrs. Waller, and living with her husband in Virginia, was much admired in her bellehood when in the White House. Her unpretending and gentle manners inspired with admiration all who approached her.

'Well,' exclaimed a fashionably ambitious young lady one day to a gentleman who was attending her on a visit to Miss Tyler, 'if I were Miss Tyler, I'd blaze my bellehood out as long as my father was President, and make the most devoted lover in christendom bide my beck in the crowd.'

The fair Virginian had no such ambition, and thereby proved herself worthy of the manly heart that has won her.

Mr. ROBERT TYLER, the eldest son of the President, is a young man of brilliant genius. As a poet, in high-wrought and vivid imagery, he resembles Shelley, whose likeness he personally resembles; and as an orator, there is not a speaker of his years in our country who has made a greater impression than he made in two extemporaneous efforts before the Irish Association. Bold, eloquent, and manly, he dashes into his subject with his whole soul, while comprehensiveness, energy, and point characterize every thing he says.

Certain persons, forgetting the decencies of life, have abused and calumniated Mr. Robert Tyler in the most gross and libellous manner. It is therefore due to him to say, that a kinder son, a more devoted husband and father, or a firmer friend, those who know him have never known. Magnanimous and chivalrous, he throws no veil over either his actions or opinions; and his frank and high bearing wins the regard of all those who come in personal contact with him, however much they may have been before prejudiced against him.

The lady of Mr. Robert Tyler does the honors of the White House. She is the grand-daughter of the late Major Fairlie, of New-York, a soldier of the revolution, and a distinguished citizen, who was well known to many of the oldest inhabitants of that city. Her mother was a celebrated belle, whom our present minister to Spain, Washington Irving, remembers vividly as his friend, and one of the most brilliant women of the day; a fair and witty and most worthy lady, who might well have inspired the author of the 'Sketch Book' with those exalted perceptions of female character which glow so brilliantly in his portraits of the sex.

Mr. COOPER, the celebrated tragedian, married this lady, and Mrs. Tyler is their eldest daughter. Three years since Miss Cooper married Mr. Robert Tyler. Dickens says when he visited the White House, that Mrs. Tyler 'acted as the lady of the mansion, and a very interesting, graceful, and accomplished lady too.'

The just perception of Dickens understood at once the character of Mrs. Tyler. She does the duties of the White House with a graceful naturalness that is remarked by every one, and she combines with a keen perception of character, an acute sense of the ridiculous and a ready wit, the most feminine gentleness of manner and deportment; qualities which are rarely found in combination. Mrs. Tyler is devoted to her children, and she dresses them as plainly as if they were dwellers on a retired estate in Virginia. Her own attire is simple, and she never departs from this simplicity except when state occasions demand some little ornament. The greatest sense of propriety marks her whole deportment in every relation of life.

Mrs. Robert Tyler is now on a visit to a married sister in Alabama; for another beautiful trait of her character is her devotion to her sisters and brother. The only inmates of the White House at present (May first) are the President with his three sons, and Mrs. Jones, his eldest daughter. Mrs. Semple, the President's second daughter, is living in Virginia, and is a lady of great beauty, and in the bloom of health.

The fine features of Mrs. Jones are wan with long illness. She never leaves her room except on some balmy day, to take a short ride. The President always accompanies her, supporting her in his arms to and from her chamber to the carriage, with a tenderness as gentle and as watchful as her own to her babe. The President, unlike some distinguished statesmen of other as well as of our times, is remarkable for his high estimate of female character. He receives the lady visiters of the White House with a deference and respect which has been much noticed, and which is not the manner of a worldling and a courtier, compliment and hollowness, but the impulse of a lofty and holy sentiment. When a lad at school, he prepared as a theme for declamation an essay upon female education, in which the boy expressed those opinions which have ever since been entertained by the man.

The President is a man of the strongest sympathies. There is not a human being about him, from his servants to his children, of whose feelings he is not regardful, and in whose welfare he does not feel a daily and living interest. If the day be cool, he will ask his coachman why he has not his overcoat. If his servant happens not to be cheerful, he will ask him, in the kindest manner, what's the matter with him. And the complaint, if the servant have one, is made without the least hesitation, and with the certainty that he will meet at the President's hands both sympathy and justice. In his intercourse with his servants he is always kind, and frequently jocular, for he is a great lover of a harmless jest.

A few weeks since, the Irishmen of the Capitol waited on the President in a body, and through Mr. Hobson, their orator, expressed their gratitude for the interest he had taken in them, and their profound respect for his character, to which the President made a most eloquent reply.

It was amusing to watch the interest which the President's servants, all of whom belong to him, except Wilkins, the butler of the establishment, and his son, felt in his speech. They modestly took their station by the door, to listen to their master's reply, for they are devotedly attached to him.

'Short,' asked a gentleman, of one of these humble listeners, 'how did you like the President's speech?'

'I always likes the President's speeches, Sir, but I don't think this one of his happiest efforts. I prefers him, Sir, before a jury. He can beat any man in Virginia, before a jury,' was the reply.

The President's love for Virginia is truly worthy of a mother, whose 'jewels are her children.' He delights in telling anecdotes of his early days, in Virginia; and he always has the most cordial greeting for his old Virginia friends, however humble they may be, when they call to see him. How is such and such a one? he will inquire, from the humblest laborer on a farm, up to the highest dignitary of the State.

President Tyler is a man of very unsuspicious nature, and there is no morbidity of feeling in him. He is always cheerful and natural. In the midst of great difficulties of state, when the Cabinet have held protracted meetings, and when, doubtless, there were differences of opinion among them; when the Secretary of State, with his beetling brows and cavernous eyes, passed by alone, absorbed in his own thoughts; when Mr. Spencer's quick step lost some of its elasticity, and the frank and firm Kentuckian, at the head of the Post Office Department, wore an anxious look; and the Attorney-General forgot, for a moment, his courteous salutation to a friendly passer-by; when that true statesman of the old Virginia school, Judge Upshur, seemed involved in what those who have not the mind to comprehend him, call 'abstractions;' and when Mr. Forward looked as if the cares of the Church, as well as those of the Treasury were resting on his shoulders; the President would pass from their midst to his family circle, assembled for dinner, greet most cordially, and apparently without a care, whatever person might chance to be their guest, and mix in the cheerful chat around him, as if he had no thought but the wish to promote it.

The President is a statesman with no secret opinions. He speaks out plainly whatever he thinks; and he listens respectfully, nay, kindly, to the adverse opinions of others, without the least spirit of dictation.

He is not the least of a formalist. If he has a guest, whom he asks to take a glass of wine with him, he will himself search for the keys of the side-board, if the servant happens to be absent, produce the decanters and glasses himself, and tell some pleasant story the while. When he talks of men, he speaks of their worth, and seldom of their wealth. With his purse he is too open, and too often he bestows more than his means warrant, upon some needy applicant, for whom he can find no office, or whom he may think unfitted for one.

For the President his family have the most unbounded love. The only restraint they know, is what they think he would not approve; and their familiar talk among themselves is never checked, in the least, by his entrance; it is, on the contrary, promoted.

These little personal traits of President Tyler and his family, which might be easily extended into a volume, are offered to the readers of the KNICKERBOCKER as being not without interest, since they illustrate the private character of the Chief Magistrate of our great Republic, and with the assurance that they are strictly true.

F.

A CONTRASTED PICTURE.

FROM 'PASSION ODE,' AN UNPUBLISHED POEM BY J. RHEYN PIKSOHN

I.

IT was a glorious day When, on the winding way That led to Salem's towers and temple high, From the assembled throng Loud burst the choral song: 'Hosanna in the highest!' rang the cry; While shouting thousands lined the road, And boughs of palm before triumphant JESUS strowed.

II.

'Tis morning: and again The mighty crowds of men Tread Salem's streets and throng her towers high; Their many-voiced roar Swells louder than before, But 'crucify him!' is the savage cry; The furious curse the welkin tore, 'His blood be on us and our children ever more!'

III.

In vain false Pilate stands; No washing of the hands Clears from the heart the tinct of innocent blood. The crowd, with cruel care, Load his shoulders bare, Like Isaac's, with the sacrificial wood: And the red lash, with many a blow, Scourges his faltering steps along the road of wo.

IV.

Nor stripes, nor mockery, Nor heaped-up agony, Can wring from infinite Love one vengeful word: While suffering JESUS stands Amidst your pagan bands, And ye laugh round, ye cruel hearts abhorred, Hear the LORD'S dying prayer for you: 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!'

V.

Through the city doors The shouting tumult pours, And up the steep of Calvary they wind; Golgotha! on thee They plant the accursed tree; No pity can the God of pity find. Pierced were the hands that gave them bread. And fast 'the beauteous feet that brought good tidings' bled!

THE MAIL ROBBER.

NUMBER TWO.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'KNICKERBOCKER.'

'SIR: At a prayer-meeting held in the house of a friend of mine, in Bleecker-street, one of our most respectable and talented financiers, and who was connected with myself in the late Post-office transaction, of which I have favored you with a development, I was thunder-struck at being shown the last number of your somewhat amusing but reckless Magazine.

'My friend is a subscriber of yours, and was of course greatly agitated and offended at the unexpected and astounding disclosure of the private affair which you have so unwarrantably dished up for the public. As was very natural, he charged me with the authorship of that communication; and as a man of conscientious principle and high moral sense, I was of course unable to deny it. By this time the other gentlemen, our colleagues in said Post-office business, one of whom is in Bangor, the other in Texas, have probably seen the article in question; and you will perceive that I am thus made, through your violation of the sanctity of correspondence, to stand with them in the odious light of an informer.

'Sir, I supposed that your common perception of what is due to the ordinary courtesies of epistolary intercourse rendered it unnecessary for me to desire you not to publish any thing of a personal nature. What is to become of our '_areas_ and _focus_,' of our altars and fires? what is to become of the bonds of social faith, the cherished sentiments of domestic communion, the implicit confidence between man and man, if delicate matters of peculiar and single interest are thus to be blurted by an unreflecting conductor of a journal into the face of all mankind and half New-York? To use the emphatic expression of the western settler, who returned from hunting to find his house and family rifled, (rifled in both senses,) and the walls of his cabin plastered with the brains of his wife and children, it is 'a little too ridiculous.'

'The mischief, however, is done, and is past recall. The least you can do is to make what pecuniary compensation you consider due to my outraged sensibilities. Your Magazine is reputed to be profitable, and for the pile of correspondence which I have placed at your disposal the remuneration ought to be generous. I am no judge of poetry, but the quality of the article which I have sent you I have several times heard spoken of as _first-rate_.

'If you will enclose a draft through the post to the address of 'A. B. C. D. E. F.,' a portion of the fund shall go to soothe the lacerated feelings of my friend in Bleecker-street, and the rest shall be devoted to charitable purposes, or to the temperance cause.

'I had intended to write more fully upon this very vexatious subject, but as the ladies are waiting for me to attend a revival at the Tabernacle this evening, you must allow me to subscribe myself,

'Yours, truly mortified, ---- ----.'

* * * * *

FEARLESS in the discharge of our duties to the public, as an 'able editor,' we have no hesitation in following the example of all able editors, and give to our readers whatever we think will be considered as a fair part of their money's worth. It is very odd that our sensitive correspondent, so keenly alive to the sufferings of his friend, the talented but lacerated financier of Bleecker-street, does not see that the same sympathy which he insists upon would equally apply to the persons abroad, whose letters he has 'so unwarrantably' made public. This, however, is in the true spirit of the age, which is so remarkably obtuse to that proverbial fact in natural history, that the same sauce which suits the female gander is equally adapted to the male goose.

LETTER SECOND.

TO THOMAS CARLYLE, ESQUIRE, LONDON.

HEREWITH a box, a fragrant casket, goes, Of that loved herb which best in Cuba grows; You had my promise, Thomas, you remember, In Fraser's shop, one morning last November, Of, now and then, a letter from the land Which cocknies write of ere they understand. Pick then the choicest of the weeds I send, (The Custom House will give them to my friend,) There having paid the duties that accrue, Permit me thus to pay mine own to you.

And oh! how difficult each London wight Finds the more Christian duty--_not_ to write; For John is reckoned taciturn and shy, Slow of address and sullen in reply; Bacchus or Ceres, burgundy or ale, To rouse his fancies are of no avail; But would you force the fellow's mettle forth, And of his genius know the pith and worth, In vain you ply him with inspiring drink, Give him a bottle, not of beer, but _ink_: However tongue-tied, asinine, or dull, A quill ay proves a cork-screw to his skull. Hence this poor land so scribbled o'er has been, 'Tis like a window in some country inn, Where every dolt has chronicled his folly, His fit of belly-ache or melancholy; With memorandums of his mutton oft, And how his bed was hard, his butter soft; How some John Thompson, on a rainy day, Found nought to eat, but very much to pay, And how said Thompson wished himself away.

Ye reverend gods, who guard the household flame, Lares, Penates, whatsoe'er your name, What dire subversion of your sway divine Lets loose all cockneydom to tempt the brine? Why from the counter and the club-room so Flock the spruce trader and the Bond-street beau? Why should the lordling[A] and the Marquis come? And many a snug possessor of a plum, Quitting his burrow on the 'Ampstead road, With wife and trunks be flying all abroad? Is it in rivers and in rocks to find Some new sensation for a barren mind? To mark how Albion's little nook has grown To kiss the limits of the roasted zone? From kindred manners, doctrines, men, and sects To learn a lesson of their own defects? Or with rapt eye on cataracts to look? No, their sole passion is--to spawn a book. From the cold Caspian to the Volga thus The sturgeons pour pell-mell--a mighty muss![B] Eager with annual industry to strow The slimy bottom with whole heaps of roe; Scarce less I say the multitudinous fry Each season brings to keep a diary; Which oft, to give my simile more truth, Proves 'caviare' to the general tooth.