Part 12
If you have observed that other old man, so nimble and busy, with his spectacles thrown back on his forehead, and looking in every direction around him with his large fish-like eyes, you have remarked that he runs incessantly from bench to bench, finding something to whisper in every one's ear; and have doubtless taken him for one of the ushers of the House, for he has on the same dress that they are accustomed to wear—a black French coat, and a wig-bag of black _taffeta_. That is Lord Shaftesbury, a descendant of the celebrated earl of that name, one of the first essayists in the English language; a writer whose works are distinguished equally for the classical character of their style, and the wit and spirit that characterize them. The merits of the present Earl of Shaftesbury are not of the same exalted species; he is an active and industrious man. When toryism was in power (for he is a strong tory) he managed to secure the profitable office of president of the committees, and in that situation he exhibited all the patient and practical intelligence which the office demanded. He is also one of the vice-speakers of the House, and occasionally he exhibits his little black person on the red woolsack; but as he is only allowed to figure in that situation in his ordinary, unimposing costume, the honor is a rare one; it is only in the last extremity that he enjoys it, when there is no other possible speaker. An English Chamber does not consider that it is presided over with sufficient dignity, or even legally, unless it be by a wig and gown.
Thanks to St. George, we are now beyond the crowd of tories, and have doubled the second angle of the bar; returning towards the throne, passing by the benches on the left, we find ourselves among the whigs, who will not delay very much our progress, for the ranks are not very close on this side. Alas! how many vacancies. A glance at some of these generous, solitary peers, and our tour will be ended: we shall then have finished our long voyage around the Chamber.
The Earl of Radnor is one of the small number of disinterested whigs, who advocate reform for itself, and not as a means of securing themselves a seat at the feast of power; he discharges his duties as a liberal peer, actively, conscientiously, and with that rectitude and firmness which you would anticipate from his erect, nervous, and inflexible bearing. He is not a very flowery speaker; but it is necessary to listen to him when he rises; he has the tone of hardy and vigorous honesty, which constrains the attention of an audience.
With more diffidence and timidity in his manner of speaking, the same virtues of sincere and free devotion to public liberty, distinguish the Marquis of Clanricarde. There is about this young nobleman a sort of mental grace, which veils the deformity of his features; his flat nose, sunken eyes, and cadaverous complexion, do not disgust you; you have never seen extreme ugliness so becoming; it is a death's head, smiling and perfectly agreeable. The Parisian world is sufficiently well acquainted with the Marquis of Clanricarde. Thanks to the caustic wit of his lady, the daughter of Canning, who amused herself the last year with so much cruelty, at the expense of its _bourgeois_, pedantic, and quasi-legitimate aristocracy.
We are now entering the head quarters of the little army of whigs. In the rear is Lord Plunket, a member of the administration, though without a seat in the cabinet. Truly, Ireland, of which he is Chancellor, has more than one cause of bitter complaint against her unnatural child. The ungrateful wretch! he betrayed his country to provide for himself and family; he preferred fortune to renown; and paid his own honor for the honors with which he has clothed himself! But Cobbett and the patriot Irish have chastised him rudely enough. Ireland is like all other mothers; she opens {643} her arms to all her misled children that are disposed to return to her bosom.
Then let there be full pardon for the wealthy old lawyer; let his faults be forgotten, since he recalls his honorable youth, and once more volunteers in the service of the holy cause. The assistance of such an intellect as that of Plunket is not to be despised; age has not obscured in the least the matchless clearness of his powerful reason; there is not a dark corner in the most obscure question that he does not exhibit as clear as noonday; and it is not only by this power of lucid argument that he is distinguished. Weak and good natured, and crippled by the gout, as he appears, forced, whenever he rises to speak, to support himself with one hand on his cane, he has that fierce and sturdy determination which enables him to throw in the face of toryism all its humiliating truths, and is never disconcerted by even the most violent interruptions: his irony wounds and overwhelms the more that it is always concealed under an air of the most country-like simplicity.
At the extremity of this bench, which touches that of the ministers, you have recognized Lord Brougham; he is the very living caricature of whom the printshops in the Strand have shown you so many portraits. Observe his long face, his long legs, his long arms, the whole incoherent mass of his person. The expression of his countenance has something ferocious about it; there is certainly in this brain a small grain of madness; his small piercing eyes sparkle from the bottom of their sockets; a convulsive motion opens and shuts incessantly his enormous mouth; you would be alarmed did not the good nature of that thick, cocked-up nose, reassure you.
Do not be alarmed that the learned lord starts and appears so violently agitated—he is on a gridiron; he is tortured, because others are speaking, and he is constrained to be silent. To speak is to do an injury to Lord Brougham.
But the speaker is now seated; Lord Brougham has leapt from his seat; he is on his feet; he has regained the floor; he retains it, and will not easily part with it; he has declared that he has but two words to say; if you have any business to attend to, go about it; at the end of two hours you may return, you will find him in the midst of his argument. It is much to be regretted that long experience of the bar and the parliament have not moderated a mind of this temper. He has just uttered a most cutting sarcasm—observe how he dulls its effect by reiterating and expanding it. He has perfectly established the impregnable strength of an argument; he proceeds to overthrow it himself, that he may build up others upon its ruins; it is thus his indiscretion injures the best cause and deforms his ablest discourses. Like an imprudent æronaut, he bursts his balloon and falls with it to the earth, in consequence of having filled it too full. We who are hearers, like well enough to be convinced by an argument, or to smile at a piece of irony; but we can comprehend an allusion. We are mortified at having every thing explained so elaborately. The more you persist in it, the more weary we become. Your obstinacy in doubting our intelligence—wounds and vexes us.
This excess of pedantry is the principal defect in the oratory of Lord Brougham. He has been well called the school-master. I do not deny his extraordinary gifts as a learned debater, always caustic and indefatigable; but these extravagant discourses are out of all proportion, above all in the House of Lords, which treats all questions in a summary way, and in some degree after the fashion of the drawing room. It is a great want of tact not to suit oneself to one's audience. The manner of Henry Brougham was much more suitable to the House of Commons, where discussions are more full, and where one is less prepared to come to an early conclusion; he still retains the lawyer. He has never been able to throw off the violent and comic gestures of the gown, storming and thundering, in reciting a date or a section of a law. Without doubt his harangues fatigue him as much as they do those who listen to him; he does not spare himself, bawling and gesticulating without any regard to his own person; he bends and twists himself like a posture master; he dances and leaps with his words; he perspires and grows heated, but he leaves the hearer cold; his is not the eloquence which inflames the blood.
I would censure Lord Brougham more severely as a writer than as a speaker; for Lord Brougham is also a writer, and a good deal too much of one. The melancholy activity which distinguishes him, pushes him on incessantly to fill the reviews with his economical, political, scientific, historical, and theological essays, and to heap up pamphlet on pamphlet; if his writings were characterized by a finished style or new ideas, the evil would not be half so great; there is, however, eternally the same excessive flood of words; and on paper, where they cannot evaporate, it becomes even more intolerable. Though on his own part it has not been an interested speculation, I cannot pardon him for having been the father of that leprous, cheap literature, which, pretending to diffuse useful knowledge, has only displayed false opinions, ignorance, and bad writing. In France, where this disastrous invention has been so quickly perfected, there is good cause to curse in all sincerity its author. It is not his fault however, that the French have permitted their worthless laborers to infect, as they have done, all their literary field, with these tares which threaten to choke the promising harvest of their young poetry.
Let us examine Lord Brougham as a politician. Here we find him still more imperfect. I acquit him of the charge of having offered his support to the conservatives, on the condition of their securing him his chancellorship; this is a calumny of his enemies. I wish he had never had any thing to do with toryism. It is not his fault however, that he has not again become a whig officer. It is said that it is the whigs who object to his joining their ministry, and who have refused him the seals. Experience has proved that he is less dangerous as an enemy than as a friend. He is neither tory nor whig; nor is he a radical; he is however at present among the radicals. He is of no party, if it be not his own, the party of Lord Brougham.
The case of Lord Brougham ought to afford a salutary example to M. Dupin, his friend. There are many curious analogies between these two celebrated lawyers; they resemble each other strikingly in their countenances, in their fortune, in their inconsistencies, and in their extravagancies. M. Dupin does not preside more soberly over the Chamber of Deputies, than Lord Brougham did over that of the Lords. He is also a {644} lawyer who fills the speaker's chair, and speaks himself much more willingly than he accords the permission to another. I grant you that his eloquence is of better metal, more powerful, more solid, more triumphant; that his blows are heavier and more mortal; but should he ever succeed in reaching the power after which he aspires, I doubt if his temperament will allow him to sustain himself half the time that the petulance of our ci-devant chancellor remained seated on the woolsack.
IANTHE.
BY MORNA.
Oh! if to die in life's young hours, Ere childhood's buds are burst to flowers; While Hope still soars on tireless wing, Where skies are bright with changeless Spring; Ere Sorrow's tear has dimm'd the eye, That late with rapture's glance was swelling; Or Grief has sent the bursting sigh In silence to its lonely dwelling: Oh! if to part with this world only, Where all is cold, and bleak, and lonely— To welcome in those happier spheres, The loved and lost of parted years; If this give pain, or waken sadness, Oh! who can tell the more than madness Circling thro' life the hearts that bear The chains that wounded spirits wear— To live, and yet to feel thro' life The aching wish, the ceaseless strife— The yearnings of a bleeding breast, To sink within the grave to rest; To smile, when every smile must wear The hue and coldness of despair; To weep, or only strive in vain To waken tears, that ne'er again Shall cool the fever of that eye, Whose fountains are forever dry: When joys are gone, and hope has fled, And friends are changed, and love is dead, And we are doomed alone to wait, And struggle with a bitter fate— Left like some lone and towering rock, To brave the ocean's battling shock, 'Till broken by some mightier wave, That bears it to a lonely grave. My early years, how coldly bright The memory of their parted light Falls round the heart, whose cords are broken, Or, only strung to suffering's power, When struck in grief's o'erwhelming hour, Give back to sorrow's touch a token. My sire, alas! they say he died When in the flower of manhood's pride: I stood beside that parent's bier, And wondered why the big bright tear Was coursing down my mother's cheek; She took my hand, but could not speak— I kiss'd her then, and sadly smiled, Nor felt I was an orphan child. My Mother! how the thoughts of years, With all their smiles, and all their tears, Rush with the memory of her name Upon me—and I seem the same Bright, careless child she looked upon, And joyed to call her fair-haired son:— Oh, I remember well the time She led me to our favorite bower; It was in Spring's sweet, sunny prime, And just at sunset's dying hour, When woods, and hills, and waters seem Wrapt in some soft, mysterious dream— When birds are still, and folded flowers Their dark green lids are peering through, Waiting the coming evening hours, Within each bright cup to renew The wasted wealth of morning dew— When spirit voices seem to sigh In every breeze that wanders by— And thoughts grow hushed in that calm hour, Beneath its soft, subduing power. She knelt, and breathed to heaven a prayer, “That God would guard that orphan there”— Then turned, and with a faltering tone, She took my hand within her own, And said, “I ne'er should find another To love me as she loved me then”— And I could only say, “my Mother!” And fall upon her neck again, And bathe it with my burning tears— The bleeding heart's most precious rain— That I had hoarded there for years, And hoped to never shed again; Nor knew, alas! how soon the heart, When all its early ties are parted, Will link it to some kindred heart— That wounded bird and broken-hearted Are soonest won, and cling the longest To those who seek their ruined wealth.
* * * * *
She died, and then, alas! I thought My cup of suffering was o'erfraught— No voice to cheer, when sorrow's power Assailed me in her darkest hour— No lip to smile, when hope was bright, No eye to glad me with its light— No heart to meet my throbbing heart— No prayer to lift my thoughts above, When murmuring tears were forced to start— No Father's care!—no Mother's love!
Ye, that have known in life's young spring, The fondness of a Mother's love, Oh guard it, 'tis an holy thing, A priceless treasure from above! And when, on life's tempestuous sea, Thy shatter'd bark by storm is driven, 'Twill be a beacon-light to thee, A guiding star, by memory given, To lead thy wandering thoughts to Heaven.
The Spring renews the leafless tree, And Time may check the bosom's grief— And thus it wrought a change on me, But oh! mine hour of Spring was brief.
They are who tell us, “love's a flower, {645} That only blooms in cloudless skies— That gaily thrives in pleasure's bower, But touched by sorrow, droops and dies.” Not so was ours! we never loved 'Till suffering had our spirits proved, And then there seemed a strange communion, Sinking our souls in deathless union: Such power hath love to render dear The hearts that grief hath made so near, That we had loved each other less, Save for our very loneliness.
Her gentler spirit was not formed To war with stern misfortune's storm, And soon we felt, that day by day She yielded to a slow decay, Wearing unseen her life away. And yet so sweet the smile that played On lips that ne'er a sigh betrayed— So calm the light that lingering slept In eyes that ne'er for pain had wept, We could not grieve, but only pray, That when that light should pass away, The faint, sad smile might linger yet, And vainly teach us to forget.
She died! I know not when or where— I never knew—for silent there I stood, unconscious, strange and wild, In all save thought and tears, a child; For sorrow's channels then were sealed, Or flowed too deep to be revealed.
I stood beside her grass-grown grave, And saw the boughs above it wave; And then I felt that I was changed— That reason, late so far estranged, Had won me from my spirit's madness, To settled grief and silent sadness: I placed bright flowers above her grave, And nursed them with my warmest tears, And for my grief a balm they gave, The memory of departed years.
Ianthe! o'er thine early tomb The Summer's winds are gently blowing, And fair white flowers, the first to bloom, Around thy narrow home are growing; And o'er it twines the changeless myrtle, Fit emblem of thy spirit's love! And near it mourns the gentle turtle, And I, how like to that lone dove! While every leaf, and flower, and tree Is fraught with memory of thee.
And oh! if true, who tell us death Can never quench its purer fires— That not with life's last faltering breath, The soul's immortal love expires; If heart meets kindred heart above, Shall we not greet each other there? Say, was not ours a deathless love? Too deep, too strong for life to bear! Then let us hope to meet again, Ere long, in guiltless transport there, With bliss for all the grief and pain We here on earth were doomed to share, And love on, through unending years, Uncheck'd by time, unchang'd by tears.
A TOUR TO THE ISTHMUS:
_Filled in from the Pencillings of an English Artist_.
BY A YANKEE DAUBER.
Painting is welcome;— The painting is almost the natural man; For since dishonor traffics with man's nature, He is but outside. These pencilled figures are Even such as they give out.
_Timon of Athens_.
III.
Chagres—The Castle—Mine Host—No English and no Spanish for two—Mule Riding—A Fit-out for Panama—Up in the World—The Stone Ladder—A Yarn.
It is now some weeks since I opened my note book, and I confess the cause to be pure idleness alone. However, my pencil meanwhile has not lain dormant, as my portfolio will convince you. After all, _cui bono?_ Why should a fellow be expected to write a journal on shipboard? The record of one day upon a voyage is the record of all others. This day we see “a booby,” (an animal not rare, you will say, on shore) the next, perhaps, a turtle, and on the next we may be amused with a short skirmish between a whale and a sword-fish, or a more deadly one between contending shoals of hostile sharks: then we see “Cape Fly-away,” and after that we see——nothing!
Our voyage to Chagres, instead of five days, was extended to fifteen. The pilots live on board, and make a point of lying out for a wind or a tide, until they have laid in sustenance enough to last them while another ship shall demand their services, and then convoy their patient victims into port. But we got in at last, and were thankful.
The scenery here is surpassingly lovely, rich beyond any description of which my pen or pencil is capable. I found great delight in being once more on land, after my tedious passage—for I profess, without a blush, to be a determined land-lubber, you are aware—and began to look about me with as much greenness as a country boy on his first visit to the Metropolis. With the exception of the old Gothic castles of my own country, that at Chagres is the finest I have ever seen. It occupies a great space of ground, and is remarkable for its strong and massive walls, reaching to a great height, and commanding the whole town as well as the river and coast. The prospect from this castle's walls is full of the richest and most varied beauty.
Finding that our vessel was likely to be detained for some days at Chagres, I determined to cross the Isthmus, and visit Panama. Owing to the want of industry, or rather to the most consummate laziness, which is a characteristic of the natives, I was three whole days endeavoring to engage any one to carry me up the river. The consequence was that, the river, in the mean time, having risen prodigiously, I was four days and a half, including of course the four nights, on a route of about forty or fifty miles! During this time I went on shore {646} at night, sleeping on the ground with a billet of wood for my pillow, and disturbed in my slumbers by droves of pigs, which as they rooted up the soil around me, paid no sort of attention to my convenience. Occasionally a horse would browse down to my couch, and reach his long neck over me as I lay, to nibble a cornhusk or a yam on the other side of my pillow—and as to the cows, they were perpetually snuffing at me. I say nothing, though I felt much, of the musquitoes!
With what delight did I behold the landing place, which, after my rough journey, was pointed out to me by my conductor. They who are accustomed to travel in Europe and America, can have no idea of it. Here I hastened to present my letters to Signor P——, a gentleman who was to be my host while I staid. Our conversation was rather limited, as you may readily conceive, when I mention that he could not speak a word of my language, nor I a syllable of his, which was Castillaña—(they never say ‘_Spanish_’ there.) But the language of actions is often more eloquent than that of words—at least so thought I, when my host ordered a comfortable repast to be placed before me, consisting of fricasseed fowl, and Vermicelli soup, with a magnum of generous claret. This was certainly a delightful exchange for my five days fast upon half boiled rice and plaintains, as were my soft pillow and quiet apartment a great improvement upon my nocturnal accommodations while on the route.