Never was there a distinguished man whose greatness could sustain the test of minute domestic inspection better than our Doctor. Strong in a single-hearted humility, a perfect unconsciousness of self, an honest and sincere absorption in high and holy themes and objects, there was in him what we so seldom see,—a perfect logic of life; his minutest deeds were the true results of his sublimest principles. His whole nature, moral, physical, and intellectual, was simple, pure, and cleanly. He was temperate as an anchorite in all matters of living,—avoiding, from a healthy instinct, all those intoxicating stimuli then common among the clergy. In his early youth, indeed, he had formed an attachment to the almost universal clerical pipe,—but, observing a delicate woman once nauseated by coming into the atmosphere which he and his brethren had polluted, he set himself gravely to reflect that that which could so offend a woman must needs be uncomely and unworthy a Christian man; wherefore he laid his pipe on the mantelpiece, and never afterwards resumed the indulgence.
In all his relations with womanhood he was delicate and reverential, forming his manners by that old precept, "The elder women entreat as mothers, the younger as sisters,"—which rule, short and simple as it is, is nevertheless the most perfect résumé, of all true gentlemanliness. Then, as for person, the Doctor was not handsome, to be sure; but he was what sometimes serves with woman better,—majestic and manly, and, when animated by thought and feeling, having even a commanding grandeur of mien. Add to all this, that our valiant hero is now on the straight road to bring him into that situation most likely to engage the warm partisanship of a true woman,—namely, that of a man unjustly abused for right-doing,—and one may see that it is ten to one our Mary may fall in love with him yet, before she knows it.
If it were not for this mysterious selfness-and-sameness which makes this wild, wandering, uncanonical sailor, James Marvyn, so intimate and internal,—if his thread were not knit up with the thread of her life,—were it not for the old habit of feeling for him, thinking for him, praying for him, hoping for him, fearing for him, which—woe is us!—is the unfortunate habit of womankind,—if it were not for that fatal something which neither judgment, nor wishes, nor reason, nor common sense shows any great skill in unravelling,—we are quite sure that Mary would be in love with the Doctor within the next six months; as it is, we leave you all to infer from your own heart and consciousness what his chances are.
A new sort of scene is about to open on our heroine, and we shall show her to you, for an evening at least, in new associations, and with a different background from that homely and rural one in which she has fluttered as a white dove amid leafy and congenial surroundings.
As we have before intimated, Newport presented a résumé of many different phases of society, all brought upon a social level by the then universally admitted principle of equality.
There were scattered about in the settlement lordly mansions, whose owners rolled in emblazoned carriages, and whose wide halls were the scenes of a showy and almost princely hospitality. By her husband's side, Mrs. Katy Scudder was allied to one of these families of wealthy planters, and often recognized the connection with a quiet undertone of satisfaction, as a dignified and self-respecting woman should. She liked, once in a while, quietly to let people know, that, although they lived in the plain little cottage and made no pretensions, yet they had good blood in their veins,—that Mr. Scudder's mother was a Wilcox, and that the Wilcoxes were, she supposed, as high as anybody,—generally ending the remark with the observation, that "all these things, to be sure, were matters of small consequence, since at last it would be of far more importance to have been a true Christian than to have been connected with the highest families of the land."
Nevertheless, Mrs. Scudder was not a little pleased to have in her possession a card of invitation to a splendid wedding-party that was going to be given, on Friday, at the Wilcox Manor. She thought it a very becoming mark of respect to the deceased Mr. Scudder that his widow and daughter should be brought to mind,—so becoming and praiseworthy, in fact, that, "though an old woman," as she said, with a complacent straightening of her tall, lithe figure, she really thought she must make an effort to go.
Accordingly, early one morning, after all domestic duties had been fulfilled, and the clock, loudly ticking through the empty rooms, told that all needful bustle had died down to silence, Mrs. Katy, Mary, and Miss Prissy Diamond, the dressmaker, might have been observed sitting in solemn senate around the camphor-wood trunk, before spoken of, and which exhaled vague foreign and Indian perfumes of silk and sandal-wood.
You may have heard of dignitaries, my good reader,—but, I assure you, you know very little of a situation of trust or importance compared to that of the dress-maker in a small New England town.
What important interests does she hold in her hands! How is she besieged, courted, deferred to! Three months beforehand, all her days and nights are spoken for; and the simple statement, that only on that day you can have Miss Clippers, is of itself an apology for any omission of attention elsewhere,—it strikes home at once to the deepest consciousness of every woman, married or single. How thoughtfully is everything arranged, weeks beforehand, for the golden, important season when Miss Clippers can come! On that day, there is to be no extra sweeping, dusting, cleaning, cooking, no visiting, no receiving, no reading or writing, but all with one heart and soul are to wait upon her, intent to forward the great work which she graciously affords a day's leisure to direct. Seated in her chair of state, with her well-worn cushion bristling with pins and needles at her side, her ready roll of patterns and her scissors, she hears, judges, and decides ex cathedrâ on the possible or not possible, in that important art on which depends the right presentation of the floral part of Nature's great horticultural show. She alone is competent to say whether there is any available remedy for the stained breadth in Jane's dress,—whether the fatal spot by any magical hocus-pocus can be cut out from the fulness, or turned up and smothered from view in the gathers, or concealed by some new fashion of trimming falling with generous appropriateness exactly across the fatal weak point. She can tell you whether that remnant of velvet will make you a basque,—whether Mamma's old silk can reappear in juvenile grace for Miss Lucy. What marvels follow her, wherever she goes! What wonderful results does she contrive from the most unlikely materials, as everybody after her departure wonders to see old things become so much better than new!
Among the most influential and happy of her class was Miss Prissy Diamond,—a little, dapper, doll-like body, quick in her motions and nimble in her tongue, whose delicate complexion, flaxen curls, merry flow of spirits, and ready abundance of gayety, song, and story, apart from her professional accomplishments, made her a welcome guest in every family in the neighborhood. Miss Prissy laughingly boasted being past forty, sure that the avowal would always draw down on her quite a storm of compliments, on the freshness of her sweet-pea complexion and the brightness of her merry blue eyes. She was well pleased to hear dawning girls wondering why with so many advantages she had never married. At such remarks, Miss Prissy always laughed loudly, and declared that she had always had such a string of engagements with the women that she never found half an hour to listen to what any man living would say to her, supposing she could stop to hear him. "Besides, if I were to get married, nobody else could," she would say. "What would become of all the wedding-clothes for everybody else?" But sometimes, when Miss Prissy felt extremely gracious, she would draw out of her little chest just the faintest tip-end of a sigh, and tell some young lady, in a confidential undertone, that one of these days she would tell her something,—and then there would come a wink of her blue eyes and a fluttering of the pink ribbons in her cap quite stimulating to youthful inquisitiveness, though we have never been able to learn by any of our antiquarian researches that the expectations thus excited were ever gratified.
In her professional prowess she felt a pardonable pride. What feats could she relate of wonderful dresses got out of impossibly small patterns of silk! what marvels of silks turned that could not be told from new! what reclaimings of waists that other dress-makers had hopelessly spoiled! Had not Mrs. General Wilcox once been obliged to call in her aid on a dress sent to her from Paris? and did not Miss Prissy work three days and nights on that dress, and make every stitch of that trimming over with her own hands, before it was fit to be seen? And when Mrs. Governor Dexter's best silver-gray brocade was spoiled by Miss Pimlico, and there wasn't another scrap to pattern it with, didn't she make a new waist out of the cape and piece one of the sleeves twenty-nine times, and yet nobody would ever have known that there was a joining in it?
In fact, though Miss Prissy enjoyed the fair average plain-sailing of her work, she might be said to revel in difficulties. A full pattern with trimming, all ample and ready, awoke a moderate enjoyment; but the resurrection of anything half-worn or imperfectly made, the brilliant success, when, after turning, twisting, piecing, contriving, and, by unheard-of inventions of trimming, a dress faded and defaced was restored to more than pristine splendor,—that was a triumph worth enjoying.
It was true, Miss Prissy, like most of her nomadic compeers, was a little given to gossip; but, after all, it was innocent gossip,—not a bit of malice in it; it was only all the particulars about Mrs. Thus-and-So's wardrobe,—all the statistics of Mrs. That-and-T'other's china-closet,—all the minute items of Miss Simpkins's wedding-clothes, —and how her mother cried, the morning of the wedding, and said that she didn't know anything how she could spare Louisa Jane, only that Edward was such a good boy that she felt she could love him like an own son,—and what a providence it seemed that the very ring that was put into the bride-loaf was one that he gave her when he first went to sea, when she wouldn't be engaged to him because she thought she loved Thomas Strickland better, but that was only because she hadn't found him out, you know,—and so forth, and so forth. Sometimes, too, her narrations assumed a solemn cast, and brought to mind the hush of funerals, and told of words spoken in faint whispers, when hands were clasped for the last time,—and of utterances crushed out from hearts, when the hammer of a great sorrow strikes out sparks of the divine, even from common stone; and there would be real tears in the little blue eyes, and the pink bows would flutter tremulously, like the last three leaves on a bare scarlet maple in autumn. In fact, dear reader, gossip, like romance, has its noble side to it. How can you love your neighbor as yourself and not feel a little curiosity as to how he fares, what he wears, where he goes, and how he takes the great life tragi-comedy at which you and he are both more than spectators? Show me a person who lives in a country-village absolutely without curiosity or interest on these subjects, and I will show you a cold, fat oyster, to whom the tide-mud of propriety is the whole of existence.
As one of our esteemed collaborators in the ATLANTIC remarks,—"A dull town, where there is neither theatre nor circus nor opera, must have some excitement, and the real tragedy and comedy of life must come in place of the second-hand. Hence the noted gossiping propensities of country-places, which, so long as they are not poisoned by envy or ill-will, have a respectable and picturesque side to them,—an undoubted leave to be, as probably has almost everything, which obstinately and always insists on being, except sin!"
As it is, it must be confessed that the arrival of Miss Prissy in a family was much like the setting up of a domestic show-case, through which you could look into all the families in the neighborhood, and see the never-ending drama of life,—births, marriages, deaths,—joy of new-made mothers, whose babes weighed just eight pounds and three-quarters, and had hair that would part with a comb,—and tears of Rachels who wept for their children, and would not be comforted because they were not. Was there a tragedy, a mystery, in all Newport, whose secret closet had not been unlocked by Miss Prissy? She thought not; and you always wondered, with an uncertain curiosity, what those things might be over which she gravely shook her head, declaring, with such a look,—"Oh, if you only could know!"—and ending with a general sigh and lamentation, like the confidential chorus of a Greek tragedy.
We have been thus minute in sketching Miss Prissy's portrait, because we rather like her. She has great power, we admit; and were she a sour-faced, angular, energetic body, with a heart whose secretions had all become acrid by disappointment and dyspepsia, she might be a fearful gnome, against whose family-visitations one ought to watch and pray. As it was, she came into the house rather like one of those breezy days of spring, which burst all the blossoms, set all the doors and windows open, make the hens cackle and the turtles peep,—filling a solemn Puritan dwelling with as much bustle and chatter as if a box of martins were setting up housekeeping in it.
Let us now introduce you to the sanctuary of Mrs. Scudder's own private bedroom, where the committee of exigencies, with Miss Prissy at their head, are seated in solemn session around the camphor-wood trunk.
"Dress, you know, is of some importance, after all," said Mrs. Scudder, in that apologetic way in which sensible people generally acknowledge a secret leaning towards anything so very mundane. While the good lady spoke, she was reverentially unpinning and shaking out of their fragrant folds creamy crape shawls of rich Chinese embroidery,—India muslin, scarfs, and aprons; and already her hands were undoing the pins of a silvery damask linen in which was wrapped her own wedding-dress. "I have always told Mary," she continued, "that, though our hearts ought not to be set on these things, yet they had their importance."
"Certainly, certainly, Ma'am," chimed in Miss Prissy. "I was saying to Miss General Wilcox, the other day, I didn't see how we could 'consider the lilies of the field,' without seeing the importance of looking pretty. I've got a flower-de-luce in my garden now, from one of the new roots that old Major Seaforth brought over from France, which is just the most beautiful thing you ever did see; and I was thinking, as I looked at it to-day, that, if women's dresses only grew on 'em as handsome and well-fitting as that, why, there wouldn't be any need of me; but as it is, why, we must think, if we want to look well. Now peach-trees, I s'pose, might bear just as good peaches without the pink blows, but then who would want 'em to? Miss Deacon Twitchel, when I was up there the other day, kept kind o' sighin' 'cause Cerintha Ann is getting a new pink silk made up, 'cause she said it was such a dying world it didn't seem right to call off our attention: but I told her it wasn't any pinker than the apple-blossoms; and what with robins and blue-birds and one thing or another, the Lord is always calling off our attention; and I think we ought to observe the Lord's works and take a lesson from 'em."
"Yes, you are quite right," said Mrs. Scudder, rising and shaking out a splendid white brocade, on which bunches of moss-roses were looped to bunches of violets by graceful fillets of blue ribbons. "This was my wedding-dress," she said.
Little Miss Prissy sprang up and clapped her hands in an ecstasy.
"Well, now, Miss Scudder, really!—did I ever see anything more beautiful? It really goes beyond anything I ever saw. I don't think, in all the brocades I ever made up, I ever saw so pretty a pattern as this."
"Mr. Scudder chose it for me, himself, at the silk-factory in Lyons," said Mrs. Scudder, with pardonable pride, "and I want it tried on to Mary."
"Really, Miss Scudder, this ought to be kept for her wedding-dress," said Miss Prissy, as she delightedly bustled about the congenial task. "I was up to Miss Marvyn's, a-working, last week," she said, as she threw the dress over Mary's head, "and she said that James expected to make his fortune in that voyage, and come home and settle down."
Mary's fair head emerged from the rustling folds of the brocade, her cheeks crimson as one of the moss-roses,—while her mother's face assumed a severe gravity, as she remarked that she believed James had been much pleased with Jane Spencer, and that, for her part, she should be very glad, when he came home, if he could marry such a steady, sensible girl, and settle down to a useful, Christian life.
"Ah, yes,—just so,—a very excellent idea, certainly," said Miss Prissy. "It wants a little taken in here on the shoulders, and a little under the arms. The biases are all right; the sleeves will want altering, Miss Scudder. I hope you will have a hot iron ready for pressing."
Mrs. Scudder rose immediately, to see the command obeyed; and as her back was turned, Miss Prissy went on in a low tone,—
"Now, I, for my part, don't think there's a word of truth in that story about James Marvyn and Jane Spencer; for I was down there at work one day when he called, and I know there couldn't have been anything between them,—besides, Miss Spencer, her mother, told me there wasn't.—There, Miss Scudder, you see that is a good fit. It's astonishing how near it comes to fitting, just as it was. I didn't think Mary was so near what you were, when you were a girl, Miss Scudder. The other day, when I was up to General Wilcox's, the General he was in the room when I was a-trying on Miss Wilcox's cherry velvet, and she was asking couldn't I come this week for her, and I mentioned I was coming to Miss Scudder, and the General says he,—'I used to know her when she was a girl. I tell you, she was one of the handsomest girls in Newport, by George!' says he. And says I,—'General, you ought to see her daughter.' And the General,—you know his jolly way,—he laughed, and says he,—'If she is as handsome as her mother was, I don't want to see her,' says he. 'I tell you, wife,' says he, 'I but just missed falling in love with Katy Stephens.'"
"I could have told her more than that," said Mrs. Scudder, with a flash of her old coquette girlhood for a moment lighting her eyes and straightening her lithe form. "I guess, if I should show a letter he wrote me once——But what am I talking about?" she said, suddenly stiffening back into a sensible woman. "Miss Prissy, do you think it will be necessary to cut it off at the bottom? It seems a pity to cut such rich silk."
"So it does, I declare. Well, I believe it will do to turn it up."
"I depend on you to put it a little into modern fashion, you know," said
Mrs. Scudder. "It is many a year, you know, since it was made."
"Oh, never you fear! You leave all that to me," said Miss Prissy. "Now, there never was anything so lucky as, that, just before all these wedding-dresses had to be fixed, I got a letter from my sister Martha, that works for all the first families of Boston. And Martha she is really unusually privileged, because she works for Miss Cranch, and Miss Cranch gets letters from Miss Adams,—you know Mr. Adams is Ambassador now at the Court of St. James, and Miss Adams writes home all the particulars about the court-dresses; and Martha she heard one of the letters read, and she told Miss Cranch that she would give the best five-pound-note she had, if she could just copy that description to send to Prissy. Well, Miss Cranch let her do it, and I've got a copy of the letter here in my work-pocket. I read it up to Miss General Wilcox's, and to Major Seaforth's, and I'll read it to you."
Mrs. Katy Scudder was a born subject of a crown, and, though now a republican matron, had not outlived the reverence, from childhood implanted, for the high and stately doings of courts, lords, ladies, queens, and princesses, and therefore it was not without some awe that she saw Miss Prissy produce from her little black work-bag the well-worn epistle.
"Here it is," said Miss Prissy, at last. "I only copied out the parts about being presented at Court. She says:—
"'One is obliged here to attend the circles of the Queen, which are held once a fortnight; and what renders it very expensive is, that you cannot go twice in the same dress, and a court-dress you cannot make use of elsewhere. I directed my mantua-maker to let my dress be elegant, but plain as I could possibly appear with decency. Accordingly, it is white lutestring, covered and full-trimmed with white crape, festooned with lilac ribbon and mock point-lace, over a hoop of enormous size. There is only a narrow train, about three yards in length to the gown-waist, which is put into a ribbon on the left side,—the Queen only having her train borne. Ruffled cuffs for married ladies,—treble lace ruffles, a very dress cap with long lace lappets, two white plumes, and a blonde lace handkerchief. This is my rigging.'"
Miss Prissy here stopped to adjust her spectacles. Her audience expressed a breathless interest.
"You see," she said, "I used to know her when she was Nabby Smith. She was Parson Smith's daughter, at Weymouth, and as handsome a girl as ever I wanted to see,—just as graceful as a sweet-brier bush. I don't believe any of those English ladies looked one bit better than she did. She was always a master-hand at writing. Everything she writes about, she puts it right before you. You feel as if you'd been there. Now, here she goes on to tell about her daughter's dress. She says:—
"'My head is dressed for St. James's, and in my opinion looks very tasty. Whilst my daughter is undergoing the same operation, I set myself down composedly to write you a few lines. Well, methinks I hear Betsey and Lucy say, "What is cousin's dress?" White, my dear girls, like your aunt's, only differently trimmed and ornamented,—her train being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with white ribbon; the petticoat, which is the most showy part of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves, white crape drawn over the silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half-way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle,—a little stuck between,—a kind of hat-cap with three large feathers and a bunch of flowers,—a wreath of flowers on the hair.'"
Miss Prissy concluded this relishing description with a little smack of the lips, such as people sometimes give when reading things that are particularly to their taste.
"Now, I was a-thinking," she added, "that it would be an excellent way to trim Mary's sleeves,—three rows of lace, with a sprig to each row."
All this while, our Mary, with her white short-gown and blue stuff-petticoat, her shining pale brown hair and serious large blue eyes, sat innocently looking first at her mother, then at Miss Prissy, and then at the finery.
We do not claim for her any superhuman exemption from girlish feelings. She was innocently dazzled with the vision of courtly halls and princely splendors, and thought Mrs. Adams's descriptions almost a perfect realization of things she had read in "Sir Charles Grandison." If her mother thought it right and proper she should be dressed and made fine, she was glad of it; only there came a heavy, leaden feeling in her little heart, which she did not understand, but we who know womankind will translate for you: it was, that a certain pair of dark eyes would not see her after she was dressed; and so, after all, what was the use of looking pretty?
"I wonder what James would think," passed through her head; for Mary had never changed a ribbon, or altered the braid of her hair, or pinned a flower in her bosom, that she had not quickly seen the effect of the change mirrored in those dark eyes. It was a pity, of course, now she had found out that she ought not to think about him, that so many thought-strings were twisted round him.
So while Miss Prissy turned over her papers, and read out of others extracts about Lord Caermarthen and Sir Clement Cotterel Dormer and the Princess Royal and Princess Augusta, in black and silver, with a silver netting upon the coat, and a head stuck full of diamond pins,—and Lady Salisbury and Lady Talbot and the Duchess of Devonshire, and scarlet satin sacks and diamonds and ostrich-plumes, and the King's kissing Mrs. Adams,—little Mary's blue eyes grew larger and larger, seeing far off on the salt green sea, and her ears heard only the ripple and murmur of those waters that earned her heart away,—till, by-and-by, Miss Prissy gave her a smart little tap, which awakened her to the fact that she was wanted again to try on the dress which Miss Prissy's nimble fingers had basted.
So passed the day,—Miss Prissy busily chattering, clipping, basting,—Mary patiently trying on to an unheard-of extent,—and Mrs. Scudder's neat room whipped into a perfect froth and foam of gauze, lace, artificial flowers, linings, and other aids, accessories, and abetments.
At dinner, the Doctor, who had been all the morning studying out his Treatise on the Millennium, discoursed tranquilly as usual, innocently ignorant of the unusual cares which were distracting the minds of his listeners. What should he know of dress-makers, good soul? Encouraged by the respectful silence of his auditors, he calmly expanded and soliloquized on his favorite topic, the last golden age of Time, the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb, when the purified Earth, like a repentant Psyche, shall be restored to the long-lost favor of a celestial Bridegroom, and glorified saints and angels shall walk familiarly as wedding-guests among men.
"Sakes alive!" said little Miss Prissy, after dinner, "did I ever hear any one go on like that blessed man?—such a spiritual mind! Oh, Miss Scudder, how you are privileged in having him here! I do really think it is a shame such a blessed man a'n't thought more of. Why, I could just sit and hear him talk all day. Miss Scudder, I wish sometimes you'd just let me make a ruffled shirt for him, and do it all up myself, and put a stitch in the hem that I learned from my sister Martha, who learned it from a French young lady who was educated in a convent;—nuns, you know, poor things, can do some things right; and I think I never saw such hemstitching as they do there;—and I should like to hemstitch the Doctor's ruffles; he is so spiritually-minded, it really makes me love him. Why, hearing him talk put me in mind of a real beautiful song of Mr. Watts,—I don't know as I could remember the tune."
And Miss Prissy, whose musical talent was one of her special fortes, tuned her voice, a little cracked and quavering, and sang, with a vigorous accent on each accented syllable,—
"From the third heaven, where God resides,
That holy, happy place,
The New Jerusalem comes down,
Adorned with shining grace.
"Attending angels shout for joy,
And the bright armies sing,—
'Mortals! behold the sacred seat
Of your descending King!'"
"Take care, Miss Scudder!—that silk must be cut exactly on the bias"; and Miss Prissy, hastily finishing her last quaver, caught the silk and the scissors out of Mrs. Scudder's hand, and fell down at once from the Millennium into a discourse on her own particular way of covering piping-cord.
So we go, dear reader,—so long as we have a body and a soul. Two worlds must mingle,—the great and the little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out, like the grotesque carvings on a Gothic shrine;—only, did we know it rightly, nothing is trivial; since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes all things sacred. Have not ribbons, cast-off flowers, soiled bits of gauze, trivial, trashy fragments of millinery, sometimes had an awful meaning, a deadly power, when they belonged to one who should wear them no more, and whose beautiful form, frail and crushed as they, is a hidden and a vanished thing for all time? For so sacred and individual is a human being, that, of all the million-peopled earth, no one form ever restores another. The mould of each mortal type is broken at the grave; and never, never, though you look through all the faces on earth, shall the exact form you mourn ever meet your eyes again! You are living your daily life among trifles that one death-stroke may make relics. One false step, one luckless accident, an obstacle on the track of a train, the tangling of the cord in shifting a sail, and the penknife, the pen, the papers, the trivial articles of dress and clothing, which to-day you toss idly and jestingly from hand to hand, may become dread memorials of that awful tragedy whose deep abyss ever underlies our common life.
Well, let us proceed to tell how the eventful evening drew on,—how Mary, by Miss Prissy's care, stood at last in a long-waisted gown flowered with rose-buds and violets, opening in front to display a white satin skirt trimmed with lace and flowers,—how her little feet were put into high-heeled shoes, and a little jaunty cap with a wreath of moss-rose-buds was fastened over her shining hair,—and how Miss Prissy, delighted, turned her round and round, and then declared that she must go and get the Doctor to look at her. She knew he must be a man of taste, he talked so beautifully about the Millennium; and so, bursting into his study, she actually chattered him back into the visible world, and, leading the blushing Mary to the door, asked him, point-blank, if he ever saw anything prettier.
The Doctor, being now wide awake, gravely gave his mind to the subject, and, after some consideration, said, gravely, "No,—he didn't think he ever did." For the Doctor was not a man of compliment, and had a habit of always thinking, before he spoke, whether what he was going to say was exactly true; and having lived some time in the family of President Edwards, renowned for beautiful daughters, he naturally thought them over.
The Doctor looked innocent and helpless, while Miss Prissy, having got him now quite into her power, went on volubly to expatiate on the difficulties overcome in adapting the ancient wedding-dress to its present modern fit. He told her that it was very nice,—said, "Yes, Ma'am," at proper places,—and, being a very obliging man, looked at whatever he was directed to, with round, blank eyes; but ended all with a long gaze on the laughing, blushing face, that, half in shame and half in perplexed mirth, appeared and disappeared as Miss Prissy in her warmth turned her round and showed her.
"Now, don't she look beautiful?" Miss Prissy reiterated for the twentieth time, as Mary left the room.
The Doctor, looking after her musingly, said to himself,—"'The king's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold; she shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework.'"
"Now, did I ever?" said Miss Prissy, rushing out. "How that good man does turn everything! I believe you couldn't get anything, that he wouldn't find a text right out of the Bible about it. I mean to get the linen for that shirt this very week, with the Miss Wilcox's money; they always pay well, those Wilcoxes,—and I've worked for them, off and on, sixteen days and a quarter. To be sure, Miss Scudder, there's no real need of my doing it, for I must say you keep him looking like a pink,—but only I feel as if I must do something for such a good man."
The good Doctor was brushed up for the evening with zealous care and energy; and if he did not look like a pink, it was certainly no fault of his hostess.
Well, we cannot reproduce in detail the faded glories of that entertainment, nor relate how the Wilcox Manor and gardens were illuminated,—how the bride wore a veil of real point-lace,—how carriages rolled and grated on the gravel works, and negro servants, in white kid gloves, handed out ladies in velvet and satin.
To Mary's inexperienced eye it seemed like an enchanted dream,—a realization of all she had dreamed of grand and high society. She had her little triumph of an evening; for everybody asked who that beautiful girl was, and more than one gallant of the old Newport first families felt himself adorned and distinguished to walk with her on his arm. Busy, officious dowagers repeated to Mrs. Scudder the applauding whispers that followed her wherever she went.
"Really, Mrs. Scudder," said gallant old General Wilcox, "where have you kept such a beauty all this time? It's a sin and a shame to hide such a light under a bushel."
And Mrs. Scudder, though, of course, like you and me, sensible reader, properly apprised of the perishable nature of such fleeting honors, was, like us, too, but a mortal, and smiled condescendingly on the follies of the scene.
The house was divided by a wide hall opening by doors, the front one upon the street, the back into a large garden, the broad central walk of which, edged on each side with high clipped hedges of box, now resplendent with colored lamps, seemed to continue the prospect in a brilliant vista.
The old-fashioned garden was lighted in every part, and the company dispersed themselves about it in picturesque groups.
We have the image in our mind of Mary as she stood with her little hat and wreath of rose-buds, her fluttering ribbons and rich brocade, as it were a picture framed in the door-way, with her back to the illuminated garden, and her calm, innocent face regarding with a pleased wonder the unaccustomed gayeties within.
Her dress, which, under Miss Prissy's forming hand, had been made to assume that appearance of style and fashion which more particularly characterized the mode of those times, formed a singular, but not unpleasing, contrast to the sort of dewy freshness of air and mien which was characteristic of her style of beauty. It seemed so to represent a being who was in the world, yet not of it,—who, though living habitually in a higher region of thought and feeling, was artlessly curious, and innocently pleased with a fresh experience in an altogether untried sphere. The feeling of being in a circle to which she did not belong, where her presence was in a manner an accident, and where she felt none of the responsibilities which come from being a component part of a society, gave to her a quiet, disengaged air, which produced all the effect of the perfect ease of high breeding.
While she stands there, there comes out of the door of the bridal reception-room a gentleman with a stylishly-dressed lady on either arm, with whom he seems wholly absorbed. He is of middle height, peculiarly graceful in form and moulding, with that indescribable air of high breeding which marks the polished man of the world. His beautifully-formed head, delicate profile, fascinating sweetness of smile, and, above all, an eye which seemed to have an almost mesmeric power of attraction, were traits which distinguished one of the most celebrated men of the time, and one whose peculiar history yet lives not only in our national records, but in the private annals of many an American family.
"Good Heavens!" he said, suddenly pausing in conversation, as his eye accidentally fell upon Mary. "Who is that lovely creature?"
"Oh, that," said Mrs. Wilcox,—"why, that is Mary Scudder. Her father was a family connection of the General's. The family are in rather modest circumstances, but highly respectable."
After a few moments more of ordinary chit-chat, in which from time to time he darted upon her glances of rapid and piercing observation, the gentleman might have been observed to disembarrass himself of one of the ladies on his arm, by passing her with a compliment and a bow to another gallant, and, after a few moments more, he spoke something to Mrs. Wilcox, in a low voice, and with that gentle air of deferential sweetness which always made everybody well satisfied to do his will. The consequence was, that in a few moments Mary was startled from her calm speculations by the voice of Mrs. Wilcox, saying at her elbow, in a formal tone,—
"Miss Scudder, I have the honor to present to your acquaintance Colonel
Burr, of the United States Senate."
(To be continued.)
Speed on, speed on, good master!
The camp lies far away;—
We must cross the haunted valley
Before the close of day.
How the snow-blight came upon me
I will tell you as we go,—
The blight of the shadow hunter
Who walks the midnight snow.
To the cold December heaven
Came the pale moon and the stars,
As the yellow sun was sinking
Behind the purple bars.
The snow was deeply drifted
Upon the ridges drear
That lay for miles between me
And the camp for which we steer.
'Twas silent on the hill-side,
And by the solemn wood
No sound of life or motion
To break the solitude,
Save the wailing of the moose-bird
With a plaintive note and low,
And the skating of the red leaf
Upon the frozen snow.
And said I,—"Though dark is falling,
And far the camp must be,
Yet my heart it would be lightsome,
If I had but company."
And then I sang and shouted,
Keeping measure, as I sped,
To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe
As it sprang beneath my tread.
Nor far into the valley
Had I dipped upon my way,
When a dusky figure joined me,
In a capuchon of gray,
Bending upon the snow-shoes
With a long and limber stride;
And I hailed the dusky stranger,
As we travelled side by side.
But no token of communion
Gave he by word or look,
And the fear-chill fell upon me
At the crossing of the brook.
For I saw by the sickly moonlight,
As I followed, bending low,
That the walking of the stranger
Left no foot-marks on the snow.
Then the fear-chill gathered o'er me,
Like a shroud around me cast,
As I sank upon the snow-drift
Where the shadow hunter passed.
And the otter-trappers found me,
Before the break of day,
With my dark hair blanched and whitened
As the snow in which I lay.
But they spoke not, as they raised me;
For they knew that in the night
I had seen the shadow hunter,
And had withered in his blight.
Sancta Maria speed us!
The sun is falling low,—
Before us lies the Valley
Of the Walker of the Snow!
A New History of the Conquest of Mexico. In which Las Casas' Denunciations of the Popular Historians of that War are fully vindicated. By ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, Counsellor at Law; Author of "Mexico and its Religion," etc., Philadelphia: James Challen & Son. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co.
According to the well-authenticated legend of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, the Saint, as he lay upon the grid-iron, conscious that he had been sufficiently done on one side, begged the cooks, if it were a matter of indifference to them, to turn him on the other. Common humanity demanded compliance with so reasonable a request. We fancy that we hear Mr. Wilson, preferring a similar petition; and we hope we are too good-natured to be insensible to the appeal. We cannot, at this moment, indeed, think of him otherwise than good-naturedly. With many things in his book we have been highly pleased. The number, the novelty, and the variety of his blunders have given us a very favorable impression of his ingenuity, and have afforded us constant entertainment in what we feared was to be a drudgery and a task. We had intended to cull some of these beauties for the amusement of our readers and the personal gratification of Mr. Wilson himself. But, as children, gathering shells on the sea-shore, resign, one after another, the treasures which they have collected, and grasp at newer, and, therefore, more pleasing specimens, which are abandoned in their turn, so we, finding our stores accumulate beyond our means of transportation, and tantalized by a richness that made the task of selection an impossible one, have been forced to relinquish the prize and come away with empty hands. If there be, in the compass of what the author calls "these volumes,"—though to us, perhaps from inability to distinguish between unity and duality, his work appears to be comprised in a single tome,—a sentence decently constructed, a foreign name correctly spelt, a punctuation-mark rightly placed, a fact clearly and accurately stated, or an argument that is not capable of an easy reduction to the absurd, we have not been so unfortunate as to discover it. Mr. Wilson is a man who, to use Carlyle's favorite expression, has "swallowed all formulas." The principles that have generally been held to govern the use of language appear to him mere arbitrary rules, invented by the "sevenfold censorship" and the Spanish Inquisition, for the purpose of preventing the free communication of ideas. All such trammels he rejects; and, accordingly, we have to thank him, so far as mere style is concerned, for an uninterrupted flow of pleasure in the perusal of his book, adorned as it is with "graces" that are very far indeed "beyond the reach of Art."
We come now to those important questions which Mr. Wilson was not, indeed, the first to agitate, but which he has awakened from their profound slumbers in the bosom of the Hon. Lewis Cass and the pages of the "North American Review." We are not to be tempted into writing another "New History of the Conquest of Mexico"; but we shall endeavor to state with clearness those points on which the world has had the temerity to differ from the "high authorities" we have named. It has been, then, commonly asserted, and is, we fear, by the great mass of our readers still superstitiously believed, that, at the time of the discovery of this continent, there existed, in certain portions of it, nations not wholly barbarous, and yet not civilized, according to our notions of that term,—nations which had regular governments and systems of polity, many correct notions in regard to morals, and some acquaintance with Art and with the refinements of life,—but which were yet, in a great measure, ignorant of the true principles of science, little skilled in mechanics, and addicted to the practice of idolatrous rites. This assertion would seem to have some primâ-facie evidence in its favor. The regions in which these nations are said to have existed lie within the tropics; and it is a well-established principle, that a genial climate, a fertile soil, the consequent facilities for obtaining a subsistence, and the stimulus thus given to the increase of population, are the first elements of an advance from a savage to a civilized state, of the abandonment of rude freedom and nomadic habits, and of the development of a regular social system. This principle is clearly set forth and elaborately illustrated by Mr. Buckle; and we the more readily refer to this author, because he stands high in the esteem of Mr. Wilson, who, in order to prove his own especial fitness for historical composition, and the incompetence of all who have preceded him in the attempt, refers to a passage in Buckle, containing an enumeration of the qualifications which he considers indispensable for the historian. This enumeration includes all the attainments that have ever been in the common possession of the human family. Mr. Buckle remarks, with indisputable truth, that one historian has lacked some of these qualifications, another historian has lacked others of them. Mr. Wilson states that "each and every writer" who has preceded him has lacked them all. Mr. Buckle, by implication, excepts one person, as uniting in himself all the qualifications he demands. Mr. Wilson thinks he is the exception; but we are quite sure that the exception intended by the author was—Henry Thomas Buckle.
In the Old World, civilization, as all admit, had its origin in tropical regions. Across the whole extent of the Eastern Continent, races are found inhabiting the warmer latitudes, which are now, or formerly were, in what is popularly called a semi-civilized condition. No one, we believe, has ever been foolish enough to account for this fact by supposing that a single people or tribe, having attained some degree of culture, had diffused the germs of knowledge over so large a portion of the globe. Chinese civilization differs almost as much from that of Hindostan as from that of England or of France. The Assyrian civilization was indigenous on the borders of the Euphrates, and the Egyptian on the borders of the Nile. What is remarkable in these and in all the other cases that might be cited is, that in those regions civilization never reached the high point which it has attained in other parts of the world, less favored at the outset; that it exhibited a grotesque union of refined ideas and strangely artificial institutions, with customs, manners, and creeds that seem to the European mind abhorrent and ridiculous; and that, the internal impulse with which it started having been exhausted, it either remained stationary, without further development, or sank into decay, or fell before the hostile attacks of races that had never yielded to its influence. Now the civilization which is described as having once existed in America exhibits these general characteristics, while it has, like each of the others, its own peculiar traits. If the discoverers had made a different report, we might have been led to suppose that some such state of things as we have described had previously existed, but had perished before their arrival.
Mr. Wilson, however, does not reason in this manner. He has found, from his own observation,—the only source of knowledge, if such it can be called, on which he is willing to place much reliance,—that the Ojibways and Iroquois are savages, and he rightly argues that their ancestors must have been savages. From these premises, without any process of reasoning, he leaps at once to the conclusion, that in no part of America could the aboriginal inhabitants ever have lived in any other than a savage state. Hence he tells us, that, in all statements regarding them, everything "must be rejected that is inconsistent with well-established Indian traits." The ancient Mexican empire was, according to his showing, nothing more than one of those confederacies of tribes with which the reader of early New England history is perfectly familiar. The far-famed city of Mexico was "an Indian village of the first class,"—such, we may hope, as that which the author saw on his visit to the Massasaugus, where, to his immense astonishment, he found the people "clothed, and in their right minds." The Aztecs, he argues, could not have built temples, for the Iroquois do not build temples. The Aztecs could not have been idolaters or offered up human sacrifices, for the Iroquois are not idolaters and do not offer up human sacrifices. The Aztecs could not have been addicted to cannibalism, for the Iroquois never eat human flesh, unless driven to it by hunger. This is what Mr. Wilson means by the "American standpoint"; and those who adopt his views may consider the whole question settled without any debate.
But there are some slight difficulties to be overcome, before we can embrace these views. Putting human testimony aside, there are witnesses of the past that still give their evidence to the fact, that parts of this continent were once inhabited by races who had other pursuits besides hunting and fishing, and whose ideas and manners differed widely from those of the "red men" of the North. Ruined cities, defaced temples, broken statues,—relics such as on the Eastern Continent, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the shores of the Ganges, mark the sites of fallen empires and extinct civilizations,—relics such as we should have expected, from a priori reasoning, to meet with in the corresponding latitudes of the New World,—lie scattered through their whole extent, proclaiming themselves the works of men who lived in settled communities and under regular forms of government, who had some knowledge of architecture and some rude notions of the beautiful and the sublime, who had strong feelings and vivid conceptions in regard to the agency of supernal powers in the control of human affairs, but who clothed their conceptions in uncouth forms, and worshipped their deities with absurd and debasing rites. Some of these remains being known to Mr. Wilson, on the evidence of the only pair of eyes in the universe which, in his estimation, have the faculty of seeing, he cannot treat them, according to his usual method in such cases, as fabrications of Spanish priests and lying chroniclers. How, then, does he account for them? He unfolds a theory on the subject, which he has stolen from the "monkish chroniclers" whom he treats with so much contempt, and which has long ago been exploded and set aside. He tells us, that these relics have no connection with the history of the American Aborigines,—that they have a different origin and a far greater antiquity,—that they are proofs, not to be gainsaid, of the discovery of this continent, at a very early date, by Phoenician adventurers, and of the establishment, in the regions where they are found, of Phoenician colonies. These ruins, he tells us, were Phoenician temples, these statues are the representations of Phoenician gods. In the comparison of facts by which he endeavors to support this theory, we have been surprised to find him admitting the testimony of other explorers. But they are, it seems, reluctant witnesses. Their inferences from the facts which they have themselves collected are directly opposite to his. "Proving our case," he says, "by such testimony, we have admitted their statement of fact, only rejecting their conclusions." Their proper business, it would appear, was to amass the materials which our author alone was competent to use. He encountered, indeed, a solitary difficulty; but this, in the most astonishing manner, has been removed. "Thus far," he writes, "had we carried the argument, but had here been compelled to stop, for want of further evidence; and the very stereotype plate that at first occupied this page, expressed our regrets that we were not able more completely to identify the Palenque statue as Hercules. At our publishers', however, the eyes of that distinguished Orientalist, the Rev. Mr. Osborn, chanced to fall upon a proof of the American goddess in the fourth note to this chapter, which he at once recognized as Astarte, represented according to an antique pattern. Her head-dress, he insisted, was in the ancient form of the mural crown, without the crescent, the prototype of that worn by Diana of the Ephesians, and so too, he insisted, was her necklace of 'two rows.'" Thus the chain of evidence was complete, and, for once, Mr. Wilson derived assistance from eyes not placed in his own head.
But, whatever distinguished Orientalists may say, undistinguished Occidentalists may be pardoned for inquiring when it was that this stream of Phoenician emigration flowed to the American shores, in what manner such an enormous body of colonists as the hypothesis necessarily supposes were conveyed hither, and what has become of their descendants. With an uncommon indulgence to our weakness of faith, Mr. Wilson condescends to meet these obvious questions. The time he cannot exactly fix; but it was "thousands of years ago,"—"before the time of Moses." To the query in regard to the means of conveyance, he answers, that at that remote period sailing ships were in common use,—as is proved by representations of them found in Egyptian tombs,—although they were afterwards superseded by galleys propelled by oars alone. The reason assigned by Mr. Wilson for this change makes a valuable addition to the stores of Biblical commentary. "The Greeks," he says, "appear to have been selected from their imitative powers, to perpetuate such of the arts and civilization of the elder world, as were to be preserved from that decree of extermination, pronounced by the Almighty against its nations. Commerce had been the chief cause of the total demoralization of antiquity, and of this, they were permitted to preserve only a boat navigation." Coeval with the decline of commerce and the extermination of sailing ships was the cessation of this Phoenician emigration to America. The colonists, having no longer any communication with the mother country, soon dwindled away and perished, in accordance with a well-known law of Nature. "Extinction is the doom of every immigrant population in an uncongenial climate (habitat) when migration ceases to keep up and renew the original stock." The same fate is impending over us. "In our own country various causes have been assigned for the recognized delicacy, which is steadily advancing in what may be called the pure American. The growing smallness of the hands and feet, the shortening of the jawbones, the diminution in the number of the teeth and their rapid decay, are matters of daily comment." In like manner, the Caucasian race is melting away in the colonies of Great Britain, in South Africa, Australia, and the West Indies. "In these uniform consequences the most obtuse cannot fail to recognise the operation of a universal law, whose primary effects are to diminish migration, and whose ultimate results are the extinction of the exotic population." We suppose none of our readers are obtuse enough not to be aware of the gradual shortening of their jawbones, a phenomenon especially noticeable in members of Congress and popular lecturers. As for the diminution in the number of our teeth, and their rapid decay, we need, alas! no Wilson to remind us of these melancholy facts.
What we may call the physical evidence in favor of the Aztec civilization having been thus disposed of by Mr. Wilson, we come now to his treatment of the written and traditional testimony, the accounts that have been handed down to us of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and of the condition of the country at the time when that conquest was made. Mr. Wilson opens his "Chapter Preliminary" with the statement, that, "in this work, the standard Spanish authorities have been followed as long as they followed the truth." This declaration excited, we confess, painful misgivings in our mind; for, if Mr. Wilson was already in possession of the truth, independently of historical research,—whether by communications from the spirits of the Conquistadores, or by any other of the easy and popular methods of solving obscure problems,—what need was there of his consulting the standard authorities at all? But we were somewhat cheered, when, a little farther on, we found him stating, that the writer who enters into these discussions must "con musty folios innumerable"; that "it will not do to denounce in general terms the venerable precedents [?] so constantly quoted by our annalists," but that "their defects and their errors must be shown in detail." For it does appear to us, that, if a great historical question is to be opened,—if a series of extraordinary events, hitherto believed by the world to have really happened, are to be denounced as fabulous,—if numerous writers, whose statements and relations have been regarded in the main as worthy of credit, are now to be rejected as liars and impostors,—it is indispensable that the works containing these relations should be carefully examined, that the statements should be compared and subjected to the severest scrutiny, and that the refutation should proceed, step by step, inch by inch, over the whole field of debate. Has Mr. Wilson taken this course? Has he met with clear and resolute argument the accounts which he denounces as "fabrications"? Has he diligently and carefully examined the "standard Spanish authorities"? Has he "conned musty folios innumerable"? Has he read all the works in question? Has he ever seen them?
We may divide these works into three classes,—not with reference to their different degrees of merit and importance, but as regards their accessibility and the relative ease with which they may be consulted. The first class comprises two or three works which have been translated into English; and these translations may be procured with facility and read by any one who has some acquaintance with the English language, though not acquainted with any other. In the second class we may place a considerable number of works which have been published indeed, but only in the original Spanish, or, in a few instances, in French or Italian translations. Some of them are rare, and difficult to meet with; others may be found in several of our best libraries. The third class embraces relations and documents which have never been translated, which have never been published, of which the originals repose in the Spanish archives at Simancas or the Escorial, or in private collections, jealously guarded, in Mexico or Madrid, and of which the only copies known to exist in this country are in the collection formed, with so much trouble and at so great cost, by Mr. Prescott. Now the writings which come under our first category Mr. Wilson has both seen and read,—to what purpose and with what profit we shall hereafter show. The publications comprised in the second class we feel very confident he has never read. The manuscripts, which come under the last head, we are morally certain he has never seen. That he has not seen them is capable of the strongest proof, short of absolute demonstration. That he had no acquaintance with Mr. Prescott's collection is a matter within our personal knowledge. Had he been in a position to obtain copies for himself, and had he availed himself of that circumstance, he would not have failed to proclaim the fact in his loudest and shrillest tones. Nor does he pretend that he has ever visited Spain, and had access to the originals. Indeed, we do not think he would have ventured upon such a step. He tells us, that, "besides the reasons already given for distrusting the correctness of Spanish statements, there is another, more secret in character, but not less potent than all combined—fear of incurring the displeasure of that tribunal which punished unbelief with fire, torture, and confiscation." If Mr. Wilson, as his language implies, stands in fear of "fire, torture, and confiscation," and if this is his most potent reason for distrusting the correctness of Spanish statements, we can readily understand why he should have chosen to remain on his native soil and write the history of the Conquest of Mexico from "the American stand-point." Lastly, Mr. Wilson makes no allusions to matter contained in the manuscripts which had not been reproduced in the pages of Prescott. He is careful, indeed, to tell us very little of the contents of these works; but he talks about them with the most gratifying candor, and in his choicest phraseology. He informs us, that "Sarmiento's History of the Peruvian Incas altogether surpasses that of Dr. Johnson's Rasselas and the Happy Valley." The history of Dr. Johnson's "Rasselas" is related, we believe, by Boswell. The great moralist composed his beautiful and philosophical, but somewhat gloomy romance, in the evenings of a single week, in order to obtain the means of defraying the expenses of his mother's funeral. The story is a touching one; but Mr. Wilson's comparison is so inapt, that we cannot help suspecting him of having had in his mind, not the history of Johnson's "Rasselas," but Johnson's history of Rasselas. We think it rather hard, that, having, in general, such a limited amount of meaning to express, Mr. Wilson should have followed the maxim of Talleyrand, and employed language chiefly as a means of concealing his thoughts.
Mr. Wilson nowhere asserts, in so many words, that he has had access to manuscript authorities. His mode of speaking of them, however, implies as much, and he evidently intends that this inference should be drawn by his readers. In a printed note, addressed to his publishers, disclaiming any intention of "assailing the memory of the dead,"—a disclaimer which was not needed to suggest the reason why his book, loaded with typographical blunders, was hurried through the press,[A]—he "insists on the lawyer's privilege of sifting the evidence—a labor which Mr. Prescott was incapable of performing, from a physical infirmity"; and he undertakes to prove that Mr. Prescott's "books and manuscripts were not reliable authorities." Now even "the lawyer's privilege" does not extend to sifting evidence which he has never heard; and if Mr. Prescott was "incapable, from a physical infirmity," of properly scrutinizing his authorities, it was the more necessary that Mr. Wilson, with his own wonderful eyes, should undertake the task. There is one manuscript which he might be supposed to have had a strong desire to examine. His book professes to be a vindication of "Las Casas' denunciations of the popular historians" of the Conquest. The work of Las Casas, supposed to contain these denunciations, is his History of the Indies. Mr. Wilson acknowledges that he has never seen this work; it has, he says, "been wholly suppressed"; and he is terribly severe on the censorship and the Inquisition for having been guilty of this suppression. But the only suppression in the case is, that the book has never been printed. The original manuscript may be consulted at Madrid. A copy of the most important parts of it is in Mr. Prescott's collection. Mr. Wilson might have seen that copy, had he expressed the wish. He did not, however, give himself this trouble; and we think he was right. The truth is, that, of all the Spanish historians of the Conquest of Mexico, Las Casas is the one who has indulged most largely in hyperbole. Writing, with little personal knowledge, in support of a theory which required him to magnify the ruin accomplished by the Conquistadores, he has exaggerated the population of the Mexican empire, the number and size of its towns, and the evidences of its civilization. It was on this very account that Navarrete, who examined the work with a view to its publication, came to the decision not to print it. We have little doubt as to the propriety of that decision; and Mr. Wilson, we think, also did well in sticking to Cass and "suppressing" Las Casas.[B]
[Footnote A: Author, compositor, and proof-reader were evidently engaged in a "stampede,"—the (Printer's) Devil having strict orders to make seizure of the hindmost. Part of a Spanish poem, borrowed, without acknowledgment, from Prescott, seems to have gone to "pie" on the imposing-stone, and been suffered to remain in that state.]
[Footnote B: Mr. Wilson would have been less unfortunate, if he could have "suppressed" the work of Mr. Gallatin to which he has the effrontery to refer as an authority for his ridiculous assertion, that the "so-called picture-writing" of the Aztecs was a Spanish invention. As Mr. Gallatin's essay is within the reach of any of our readers who may be inclined to consult it, we shall content ourselves with a single remark on the subject. That learned writer, who had made a real and thorough study of the Mexican civilization, (having obtained from Mr. Prescott the books necessary for the purpose,) was so far from denying that hieroglyphical painting was practised by the Aztecs, or that authentic copies, and even actual specimens of it, have been preserved, that he himself constructed a Mexican chronology which has no other foundation than these same picture-writings. There is one remark in Mr. Gallatin's work on which Mr. Wilson would have done wisely to ponder. It is this:—"The conquest of Mexico is an important event in the history of man. Mr. Prescott has exhausted the subject."]
Our reason for believing that Mr. Wilson has never read the works, relating to his subject, which have been published only in the original Spanish or in translations into other foreign languages, is a very simple one. He produces no evidence that he has ever read them. Some of them he does not even mention. From none of them does he glean a single fact that was not ready to his hand in the pages of Prescott. Except in two or three instances, where he filches a reference from the citations made by the latter historian, he brings forward no statement contained in any of these books, either to support his own positions or to refute theirs. Why did he take from Prescott—to whom on this occasion he confesses his indebtedness—the facts in relation to the early life of Cortés, (we would he had borrowed the language as well as the matter!) if he had himself the means of consulting the works from which Prescott's account was derived? But it is unnecessary to pursue the argument; Mr. Wilson acknowledges that he knows nothing of the works in question. "For our purpose," he writes, "the standard histories of the conquest might as well be blank paper." We believe him; but had his purpose been, not "to denounce in general terms the venerable precedents so constantly quoted by our annalists, but to show their defects and their errors in detail," he would hardly have used them, as he has done, as mere wadding for the great gun which he was loading, and which has exploded with such terrible effect. His objection to the "standard histories" is, that their authors were Spaniards, ecclesiastics, royal historiographers,—that they wrote under the eye of the Inquisition and the censorship. Like objections would apply to the whole field of Spanish history. The reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles the Fifth, and Philip the Second must, therefore, be as fabulous as the conquests of Mexico and Peru. Accordingly, Mr. Wilson, when he wishes to study the history of Spain, declines to have recourse to Spanish writers. He goes to writers of other countries, and has a very natural preference for such as speak the English tongue. Besides that valuable work known among mortals as the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," but usually cited by Mr. Wilson, in an off-hand and familiar way, as "Britannica," he draws much upon a treasure of his own discovery, "a ponderous folio" of the seventeenth century, written in English by one Grimshaw, and containing a full and veritable history of Spain from the earliest epochs. He makes much of Grimshaw, styling him "our chronicler." He pats the volume fondly, and calls it "my old folio,"—just as Mr. Collier pats and fondles his celebrated old folio. To judge from some specimens which Mr. Wilson gives us, the venerable Grimshaw cannot have the merit of being very easy of comprehension. Here is an extract, just as we find it:—"About the year 756, at which time there were great troops of Turks beginne to disperse themselves over all Armenia, the which did overrunne and spoil the Sarrazin's country." And here is another:—"Over common, then, in Spain, and elsewhere, which nevertheless chastise the world in such sort, but that this sinne is at this day more in use than ever it was, to the dishonor of our God, contempt of his laws, and confusion of all good order." Apparently, Mr. Wilson, besides writing in a singular style himself, is the cause of singularities in the writings of other men. What is more worthy of note is the credulity with which he swallows the fabulous inventions of the "monkish chroniclers" when set before him in English earthenware. We would undertake, for a very trifling consideration, to furnish him with the Spanish originals of the stories of "Hispan" and "Hercules," and all the other absurdities with which his old folio has supplied him. From what source does he imagine them to have been derived? Does he think they belong to the stock of traditions in possession of the Anglo-Saxon race,—that Grimshaw got them from Bagshaw, and Bagshaw from Bradshaw?
Our argument in regard to Mr. Wilson's ignorance of most of the "standard authorities" will be strengthened by a review of the works which he actually has used,—or, to speak more correctly, misused,—and an examination of his reasons for selecting them. They are two in number. He can hardly be said to overrate the importance of one of these works,—the celebrated Letters of Cortes. For the events of the Conquest, and the first impressions made upon the minds of the discoverers by the aspect of the country, we could have no evidence of equal value with the dispatches written by the great adventurer from the field of his enterprises and during the course of the operations. Mr. Wilson does not, however, consult the original letters. His strong prejudice against everything Spanish would not allow him to do so. He has studied them through the medium of a translation; and the reason he assigns for his preference of this version is, that "it is better than the original." We have no doubt that it is better for Mr. Wilson's "purpose"; indeed, we fear, that, had it not been for the labors of the translator, Mr. George Folsom, the letters of Cortes would, like "most of the standard histories," have been regarded by Mr. Wilson as "no better than so much blank paper." Lockhart, by translating the chronicle of Bernal Diaz, has saved it from similar condemnation,—but only that it might incur a still more terrible fate. Mr. Wilson's theory in regard to the origin and character of this work is no less subtile than startling. According to the common belief, Bernal Diaz was a soldier in the army of Cortés, accompanied him throughout his campaigns, and, at a late period of his life, composed a narrative of the memorable events in which he had participated as an actor or an eye-witness. Writers who knew him in his old age have left us descriptions of his appearance and character. Mr. Wilson, however, holds that he never existed. The chronicle which bears the name is, according to him, a work of fiction, written by some Spanish De Foe, who had read the common narratives of the conquest of Mexico, but who had no personal knowledge of the scene in which his story is laid. What first excited Mr. Wilson's suspicions was the charming simplicity and apparent truthfulness which, in common with all readers of Bernal Diaz, he has found to be the distinguishing characteristics of the narrative. "A striking feature," he tells us, "in Spanish literature, is the plausibility with which it has carried a fictitious narrative through its most minute details, completely captivating the uninitiated. If its supporters were not permitted to write truth, they succeeded in getting up a most excellent imitation. In Bernal Diaz the alleged individual affairs of private soldiers are so artfully interwoven with the general history as to give the effect of truth to the whole. There being no fear of contradiction, this practice of inventing familiar details could be indulged in to any extent, while the beauty and simplicity of such a style fixes at once the doubting."
"Ah! si Molière avait connu l'autre!"—
Oh that Fielding had known Mr. Wilson! Partridge, a mere unsophisticated booby, thought simplicity the characteristic of Nature, and therefore out of place in Art. Mr. Wilson, a transcendental Partridge, thinks simplicity the characteristic of Art, and therefore out of place in Nature. He is more than ordinarily severe on Mr. Prescott for not having detected in Bernal Diaz these "striking marks of the counterfeit instead of the common soldier." "We differ," he says, "decidedly from Mr. Prescott." The difference seems to be, that Prescott regarded the appearance of truthfulness in the narrative of Bernal Diaz as primâ facie evidence of its truthfulness, while Mr. Wilson regards the same appearance as the most complete evidence of its untruthfulness.
But we have been anxious to discover some more definite and substantial grounds for Mr. Wilson's hypothesis. In a couple of closely-printed pages, devoted to the subject, he asks himself, again and again, the questions,—"Who, then, was Bernal Diaz?"—"Who, then, wrote the history of Bernal Diaz?" Failing to extract any reply from the singular individual to whom these queries are addressed, he winds up with the solemn and emphatic declaration, "On the evidence hereafter to be presented, we have with much deliberation concluded to denounce Bernal Diaz as a myth." For the evidence here promised we have searched with a patience of investigation which, if applied to the problem of perpetual motion or squaring the circle, could not, we humbly think, have been wholly unproductive; and these are the results. "The author of 'Bernal Diaz' says the march to Jalapa was accomplished in one day;—a proof that he never saw the country…. Cortez makes the ascent the work of three days, and says he did not reach Sienchimalen until the fourth day." The main discrepancy here is Mr. Wilson's own handiwork, as he has confounded the "Sienchimalen" of Cortés with Jalapa, instead of identifying it with the "Socochima" of Bernal Diaz. But so far as there is any real discrepancy, it may be sufficient to remark, in explanation of it, that Bernal Diaz professes to have written many years after the events which he narrates, and at a distance from the scene, while the letters of Cortés were written in the country, and while the events were taking place. On another occasion, Bernal Diaz represents the Tlascalans as complaining that they could "get no cotton for their clothing." "If this writer," says Mr. Wilson, "had really been acquainted with the tribes of the table-land, he must have known that the fibres of the maguey were, among them, substitutes for that article, and are even now used at the city of Mexico in the manufacture of some fine fabrics." We do not see how Bernal Diaz could be expected to know that the fibres of the maguey are now used in Mexican manufactures; neither can we comprehend how his statement, that the Tlascalans had no cotton, is at variance with Mr. Wilson's assertion, that they used the maguey as a substitute. We can imagine, however, that an old soldier, writing for the "uninitiated," might prefer to speak of cotton, for which he had a Spanish word, rather than enter into explanations in regard to an Indian substitute for cotton, resembling it in appearance; while it is not easy to believe, on Mr. Wilson's bare assertion, that an article in common use throughout the Valley of Mexico was wholly unknown to the inhabitants of the table-land.