Chapter 2

"You shall see the '_Dead men's feast_,'" said Logan. I followed him in silence, till we reached the southern bank of the Ohio, not far from his own residence. The tribe was seated in a beautiful and secluded _prairie_, that just afforded a vista of the river through the cypress swamp between. A number of men and women seemed busily engaged in the decoration of others with belts, beads, and brilliant-coloured garments; and these latter seemed passive or asleep. Logan laid down the load he carried in his blanket, and unwrapped the burden that had so long attracted my attention. "'Tis my grandsire!" said he: "he has only been two years buried:--I have brought him far. Aid me to cleanse the brave old limbs and skull from these worms, that his spirit may rejoice over the feast with his red children. Haste! my father yonder is painted and dressed already."

* * * * *

Before I quitted Kentucky, I made a point of visiting the celebrated and immense nitre caverns or catacombs of the limestone region. Here I found the mummies of the pigmy race that once inhabited the gigantic valley of the Mississippi, adorned with strings of shell-wampum and turkeys' feathers--seated in death like the ancient Naso-menes, grinning at me with their long _inhuman_ fore-teeth--and came out as wise as I went in.

* * * * *

"O," said the captain, "a burial in Canada is no trifle in winter. Just before you arrived, our drummer died, and we mustered spades, picks, and shovels, to dig a grave for him; but the ground was one rock every where, and after trying twenty places we found--that we had spoiled our tools. It took the armourer next day to steel them all. The third day we got down four inches and a half, in the softest soil we could find; but it would only grind up pinch by pinch. The fourth day the armourer was at work again. The fifth day the whole company turned out in a rage with the ground, and having got under the frost in some degree, sunk the grave full nine inches more. This night another soldier, a corporal, died; and his comrades were almost dead with disappointment and vexation. The bodies would keep in the frost very well; but we had not a spare room in the barrack, and their comrades wanted to get them out of the way of a wedding. Well, sir, the sixth day I divided the garrison in two, and set them at separate graves; but, unluckily, they drank to keep up their spirits in the battle with the frost, and fought about the corporal's right of priority, and the freezing point of brandy. Worst of all, they forgot to cover the new picked surfaces with straw and blankets, so that when they came in the morning the points of attack were as invulnerable as ever. In despair they buried both in one grave--the corporal undermost--without further efforts to attain a decent depth. As to six feet, it was quite unfathomable. They heaped all the stones they could loosen over the bodies, and the chaplain read prayers at last, after a 'week's preparation' and suspense, 'snow to snow, and ice to ice.' That night a herd of wolves came prowling by, and carried the corporal and drummer along with them. The fifer--an Irish rascal--was laughing heartily the whole week; and it was he set up the corporal's claim to the deep grave, to have his joke out. When all was over, the sergeant reported him to me, for bragging 'that he could have buried them six feet deep himself in two hours, and have covered them up so _nately_ after, that the devil couldn't stick a tooth in them; but he had kept the secret to be revenged of the corporal, who had 'listed him one day,' and of the drummer who had 'flogged him.' 'Please your honour,' said he, when called before me, 'I was _sartain_ you wished to find work for us this _cowld_ weather, and it wouldn't become _me_ to say what your honour knew as well as myself--that a rousing fire would soften any frost; and sure, only I know you compassionated the poor starving wolves, I'd have thrown a few buckets of water through the grave-stones, and clinched 'em as tight as the bars of Newgate.'"

The fertilizing properties of an individual in the _chemical_ stage of his existence, seem only to have been fully recognised since the memorable battle of Waterloo; the fields of which now annually wave with luxuriant corn-crops, unequalled in the annals of "the old prize-fighting ground of Flanders." I have no doubt, however, that the cerealia of _La Belle Alliance_ would have been much more nutritive if the top-dressing which the plain received during the three days of June, 1815, had not been robbed of its stamina by London dentists, who carried off the soldiers' teeth in hogsheads; and by Yorkshire bone-grubbers, who freighted several transports with the skeletons of regiments of troopers, as well as troop-horses, to be ground to dust in Kingston-upon-Hull, and drilled with turnip seed in the chalky districts of the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire. The corn of Waterloo is thus cheated of its phosphate of lime; but the spirits of Cyrus the Great and Numa the Wise, who had a fair knowledge of the fructifying capabilities of the "human form divine," must rejoice in beholding how effectually the fertilizing dust pushes the young Globes, Swedes, and Tankards into their rough leaves, that bid defiance to that voracious "Yorkshire bite" _the turnip fly_.

* * * * *

BIRTH SONG.

ANGEL OF WELCOME.

Hail, new-waked atom of the Eternal Whole, Young voyager upon Time's rapid river! Hail to thee, Human Soul, Hail, and for ever!

CHORUS OF CHERUBIM.

A life has just begun! A life has just begun! Another soul has won The glorious spark of being! Pilgrim of life all hail! He who at first called forth, From nothingness the earth; Who piled the mighty hills, and dug the sea, Who gave the stars to gem Night like a diadem, Thou little child, made thee! Young creature of the earth, Fair as its flowers, though brought in sorrow forth, Hail, all hail.

ANGEL OF WELCOME.

The Heavens themselves shall vanish as a scroll; The solid Earth dissolve; the Sun grow pale, But thou, oh Human Soul, Shalt be immortal. Hail!

CHORUS OF CHERUBIM.

A life has just begun! A life has just begun! Another soul has won The glorious spark of being! Oh young immortal, hail! He before whom are dim Seraph and cherubim; Who gave the archangels strength and majesty, Who sits upon Heaven's throne, The Everlasting One, Oh blessed child, made thee! Fair creature of the earth, Heir of immortal life, though mortal in thy birth, Hail, all hail.

DIRGE OF DEATH.

ANGEL OF DEPARTURE.

Shrink not, oh Human Spirit, The Everlasting Arm is strong to save. Look up--look up, frail nature, put thy trust In Him who went down mourning to the dust, And overcame the grave.

CHORUS OF MINISTERING SPIRITS.

'Tis nearly done, Life's work is nearly done, Watching and weariness and strife. One little struggle more, One pang and it is o'er, Then farewell life. Farewell, farewell, farewell. Kind friends, 'tis nearly past, Come, come and look your last. Sweet children, gather near, And that last blessing hear,-- See how he loved you, who departeth now. And, with thy trembling step, and pallid brow, Oh most beloved one Whose breast he leant upon, Come, faithful unto death, And take his latest breath. Farewell--farewell--farewell.

ANGEL OF DEPARTURE.

Hail, disenthralled spirit; Thou that the wine-press of the field hast trod: On, blest Immortal, on, through boundless space, And stand with thy Redeemer face to face, And bow before thy God.

CHORUS OF MINISTERING SPIRITS.

'Tis done--'tis done; Life's weary work is done; Now the glad spirit leaves the clay, And treads with winged ease The bright acclivities Of Heaven's crystalline way; Joy to thee, Blessed one. Lift up, lift up thine eyes, Yonder is Paradise; And this fair shining band Are spirits of thy land; And these, that throng to meet thee, are thy kin, Who have awaited thee, redeemed from sin. Bright spirit, thou art blest. This city's name is Rest; Here sin and sorrow cease, And thou hast won its peace, Joy to thee, Blessed One.

_New Monthly Magazine_.

* * * * *

NOTES OF A READER.

BONINGTON.

Mr. Allan Cunningham has completed his fifth volume of the _Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_. It contains Jameson, Ramsey, Romney, Runciman, Copley, Mortimer, Raeburn, Hoppner, Owen, Harlow, and Bonington; all sketched in the author's most felicitous style. The memoir of Bonington is of peculiar interest, since all our readers must recollect the premature death of that promising artist. Mr. Cunningham observes of his last days:

"I know not whether Bonington was at all aware in these days that a visible decay had come upon him, and that in the regretful opinion of many he was a man marked out for an early grave: whatever he might feel or surmise, he said nothing, but continued to employ his pencil with all the ardour of the most flourishing health. He rose early and studied late; nor did he allow any piece to go hastily from his hand. The French, who are quick in discerning and generous in acknowledging merit, not only applauded his works from the outset, but watched his progress and improvement, and eagerly compared the marine paintings of the young Englishman with the standard works of the artists of their own country. M. Gros, who, it seems, had for some unrecorded reason closed his _atelier_ against him, was so touched by his fine works, that he ere long recalled him with commendations; and, in the presence of his pupils, said, he considered it an honour to have him in his studio. A more moderate style of rapture was to be expected from his own countrymen; nevertheless, cold as English approbation of talent may seem, his works were welcomed here as few works of art have been welcomed. His extreme modesty was somewhat against his success: he was fearful of being thought presuming and forward; and has been known to shrink from introductions to men of rank and talent, from a doubt of his own deservings. A letter to me from Mrs. Forster, a lady distinguished by her own talent as well as from being the daughter of Banks the sculptor, contains the following passage:--'When Bonington visited England, in 1827, I gave him a letter of introduction to Sir Thomas Lawrence, but he returned to Paris without having delivered it. On my inquiring why he had not waited on the President, he replied,--"I don't think myself worthy of being introduced to him yet, but after another year of hard study I may be more deserving of the honour." The following spring he went to London with his pictures; those which brought him such well merited fame. He carried a letter from me to Sir Thomas, which he presented, and was received into his friendship; but, alas! it was of short duration; for the great success of his works, the almost numberless orders which he received for pictures and drawings, together with unremitting study, brought on a brain fever, from which he recovered only to sink in a rapid decline.' All other accounts concur with that of Mrs. Forster, in attributing his illness to the accumulation of pressing commissions: he viewed the amount with nervous dismay; he became deeply affected; his appetite failed; his looks denoted anguish of body and mind; a quick and overmastering consumption left him strength scarcely sufficient to bring him to London, where he arrived about the middle of September, 1828. The conclusion of his career was thus related to Mrs. Forster by Sir Thomas Lawrence:--'Your sad presage has been too fatally verified; the last duties have just been paid to the lamented Mr. Bonington. Except in the case of Mr. Harlow, I have never known, in my own time, the early death of talent so promising, and so rapidly and obviously improving. If I may judge from the later direction of his studies, and from remembrance of a morning's conversation, his mind seemed expanding in every way, and ripening into full maturity of taste and elevated judgment, with that generous ambition which makes confinement to lesser departments in the art painfully irksome and annoying.

"But the fair guerdon when we hope to find Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life'"

Having not quite finished his 27th year, he died calmly on the 23rd of September, 1828, and was interred in the vault of St. James's Church, Pentonville, in the presence of Lawrence, and Howard, and Robson, and the Rev. J.T. Judkin,--himself a skilful painter--an ardent admirer and steadfast friend.

"Bonington was tall, well, and even to appearance, strongly formed. 'His countenance,' says the French biographer, 'was truly English; and we loved him for his melancholy air, which became him more than smiles.' The memory of his person will soon wear away; but it will fare otherwise with his fame. He lived long enough to assert his title to a high place amongst English landscape-painters, and had produced works which bid fair to be ranked permanently with the foremost. They are not numerous, but for that very reason they will, perhaps, be the more prized. A series of engravings amounting to some four and twenty, has been published by Carpenter, from pictures of this artist, some in his own possession, some in the galleries of the Marquess of Lansdown, the Duke of Bedford, and other patrons of art. The best of these are the landscapes; and of the landscapes, the worthiest are of mingled sea and land--pieces distinguished by great picturesque beauty, and singular grace of execution. His practice was to sketch in the outline and general character, and then make accurate studies of the local light-and-shade, and colour. His handling was delicate and true, and his colouring clear and harmonious. It cannot, however, be denied, that he wants vigour and breadth; that his more poetic scenes are too light and slim; and his express copies from nature too literal and real. He was a softer sort of Gainsborough, with more than his grace, and with not a little of his taste for scattering happy and characteristic groups among landscape scenes--but, it must be added, with only a far-off approach, to the strength of that great master. That, had his life been prolonged, he would have risen to very high distinction, cannot be doubted. It was his generous dream, we are told, to acquire a competency by painting commissions, and then dedicate his time and pencil to historical compositions,--a dream which many artists have dreamed; but his works have little of the epic in them. Nature gave him good advice, when she directed his steps to the surf-beat shore, and bade him paint the swelling tide, the busy boats, fishermen drying their nets, and the sea-eagle looking from the rock upon his wide and, to him, fruitful dominion."

* * * * *

MISS KEMBLE'S TRAGEDY.

FRANCIS I.

I passed him with his train, The gathering crowd thronging and clamouring Around him, stunning him with benedictions, And stifling him with love and fumes of garlic; He, with the air he knows so well to don, With cap in hand, and his thick chestnut hair Fann'd from his forehead, bowing to his saddle, Smiling and nodding, cursing at them too For hindering his progress--while his eye, His eagle eye, well versed in such discernment, Roved through the crowd; and ever lighted where Some pretty ancle, clad in woollen hose, Peeped from beneath a short round petticoat, Or where some wealthy burgher's buxom dame, Decked out in all her high-day splendour, stood Showing her gossips the gold chain, which lay Cradled upon a bosom, whiter far Than the pure lawn that kerchieft it.

A BEAUTY.

Had a limner's hand Traced such a heavenly brow, and such a lip, I would have sworn the knave had dreamt it all In some fair vision of some fairer world. See how she stands, all shrined in loveliness; Her white hands clasped; her clustering locks thrown back From her high forehead; and in those bright eyes Tears! radiant emanations! drops of light! That fall from those surpassing orbs as though The starry eyes of heaven wept silver dew.

A BETROTHED LOVER'S FAREWELL.

Ay; but ere I go, perchance for ever, lady, Unto the land, whose dismal tales of battles, Where thousands strew'd the earth, have christen'd it The Frenchman's grave; I'd speak of such a theme As chimes with this sad hour, more fitly than Its name gives promise. There's a love, which born In early days, lives on through silent years, Nor ever shines, but in the hour of sorrow, When it shows brightest: like the trembling light Of a pale sunbeam, breaking o'er the face Of the wild waters in their hour of warfare. Thus much forgive; and trust, in such an hour, I had not said e'en this, but for the hope That when the voice of victory is heard From the fair Tuscan valleys, in its swell Should mournful dirges mingle for the dead, And I be one of those who are at rest, You may chance recollect this word, and say, That day, upon the bloody field, there fell One who had loved thee long, and loved thee well.

A MONK'S CURSE.

Hear me, thou hard of heart: They who go forth to battle, are led on With sprightly trumpets and shrill clam'rous clarions! The drum doth roll its double notes along, Echoing the horses' tramp; and the sweet fife Runs through the yielding air in dulcet measure, That makes the heart leap in its case of steel; Thou--shalt be knell'd unto thy death by bells, Pond'rous and brazen-tongued, whose sullen toll Shall cleave thine aching brain, and on thy soul Fall with a leaden weight: the muffled drum Shall mutter round thy path like distant thunder: 'Stead of the war-cry, and wild battle roar,-- That swells upon the tide of victory, And seems unto the conqueror's eager ear Triumphant harmony of glorious discords: There shall be voices cry, Foul shame on thee; And the infuriate populace shall clamour To heaven for lightnings on thy rebel head.

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THE COSMOPOLITE.

SUPERSTITIONS, FABLES, &c. RELATIVE TO ANIMALS.

(_For the Mirror_.)

A superstition prevails both in England and Scotland (Qu. Are Wales and Ireland excepted?) that _Goats_ are never to be seen for twenty-four hours together, owing to their paying Satan a visit once during that period, to have their beards combed; indeed, since the classical representations of Pan and the satyrs, from whose semi-brutal figures we derive our own superstitious idea of the form of the evil one, goats, rams, and pongos have shared with serpents and cats the obloquy of being in a manner his animal symbols. The offensive smell of this animal is thus accounted for by the natives of South Guinea:--

Having requested a female deity to allow them to use an aromatic ointment which she used, the enraged goddess rubbed them with one of a very different description, and the smell of this has been ever since retained by the descendants of the presumptuous offenders.

We may here remark, that of late years some doubts have arisen, and not without foundation, respecting the wholesomeness of goats' milk, hitherto believed to be, in many respects, superior even to that of the cow. The goat was much venerated by the ancient Egyptians, and never sacrificed, because Pan was represented with the legs and feet of that animal, but the Greeks destroyed it on account of its cropping the vines.

Few animals have been the cause, perhaps, of so many superstitions as the common domestic _Cat_; most of them are too well known here to require repetition, but the still prevalent, popular prejudice that this creature sucks the breath of sleepers, especially children, and thereby kills them, has been signally refuted by modern naturalists, who observe, that even if it were capable of drawing a person's breath thus, the construction of its mouth renders it impossible to impede the respiration of the slumberer through mouth and nostrils at the same time; this vulgar superstition probably arose from cats liking to lie warm, and nestling consequently in beds, cribs, and cradles. To dream of cats is considered unlucky, denoting treachery and quarrels on the part of friends. Cats, from no apparent cause, seeming shy, agitated, and traversing the house uttering cries, as if alarmed, is believed to forbode sudden and causeless strife between the members of the families with whom they reside. That the breath of these animals is poisonous, that they can play with serpents and remain uninjured, whilst their fur communicates the infection of the venom of those reptiles, that they lend themselves readily to infernal agents and purposes, that certain portions of their bodies possess magical properties and were efficacious in the preparation of charmed potions, and that they are partly supernatural creatures, endowed with a power of bringing good or evil fortune upon their possessors, with other facts just as credible, was once devoutly believed by the illiterate, as it is partially at this very day.[1]

_Dogs_ are generally supposed to possess the faculty of beholding spirits when they are invisible to mortals, and of foretelling death by lamentable howls. It is lucky to be followed by a strange dog. The Welch believe in the apparition of certain spirits under the form of hunting dogs, which they call dogs of the sky (cwn wybir, or cwn aunwy:) they indicate the death of a relation or friend of the person to whom they appear, but though generally accompanied by fire, are innocuous. The tradition of the Spectre Hound of Peel Castle (Isle of Man) or _Manthe Doog_, is well known. The religious superstition of Mahommedans lead them to consider the dog as an unclean animal; but the dog of the Seven Sleepers, according to a tale in the Koran, is, say the faithful, the only animal admitted into heaven. A more sweet and soothing creed is held by "the untutored Indian," who believes that the faithful companion of his laborious mortal career will accompany him into the everlasting regions; and, indeed, the idea that animals possess actually an inferior soul, and that, maltreated as they are on earth, they too have their appropriate heaven, has by many been considered a speculation less superstitious than truly philosophical.

The miraculous circumstance of Balaam's _Ass_ being empowered to behold that startling apparition which his rider's eyes were holden so that he could not see, may have originated the superstition that animals behold spirits when they are invisible to man. _Horses_, from frequently starting at no apparent cause, have thus been placed amongst the seers. In the Highlands it is deemed lucky to meet a horse; but, according to Virgil, the sight of one of these animals was ominous of war, the reason for which may be found in a horse being as a martial animal dedicated to the god of war. The Persians, Armenians, and other ancient nations sacrificed horses to the sun. Tacitus says the Suevi maintained white horses in the several woods at the public charge, to draw omens from them; and there are to this day vestiges in England of some superstition relative to white horses, and of supposed Danish origin.

The _Hyaena_ has been the subject of strange fables: its neck was supposed to be jointless, consisting but of one bone, and considered of great efficacy in magical preparations; and the Arabs to this day, when they kill this fierce animal, bury its head, lest it should be made the element of some charm against them. It was believed to possess the power of changing its sex annually; to be able to fascinate shepherds by its eyes and render them motionless, and its cognomen, "_Laughing_" is, of course, derived from the idea of its being able to imitate the human voice.