'More rare, I fear, than it should be; and you and I, madam, who are Yankees, and have 'worked for a living,' surely cannot despise the negroes because they are compelled to work for theirs.'

'Oh! no, sir! not by any means! But you must excuse me; the carriage is waiting to take me to church;' and, rising, she bowed herself stiffly out of the door.

'Ah, you hit her there!' exclaimed Joe, springing to his feet in great glee, and striding to the window. 'See here, Mr. Kirke! See what a turnout the Yankee 'schulemarm' has worried out of father!'

'My son, you must not speak so; she is your mother!' said Preston.

'No, I'm d—d if she is! Call her anything but that, father; that's an—'he checked himself; but I thought he would have added—'insult to my dead mother!'

Preston made no reply.

Looking out of the window, I saw Mrs. Preston being handed into a magnificent barouche by one of the black gentry she so much despised. Another one in gaudy gold livery sat on the box, and a mounted outrider, also bound up in gold braid, stood behind the carriage.

'There's a two-thousand-dollar turnout, and two fifteen-hundred-dollar niggers, to tote a woman who ought to go afoot. It's a poor investment, I swear,' said Joe, turning away from the window.

Preston made no reply; but I laughingly remarked:

'Come, Joe, she isn't your wife. Let your father spend his money as he pleases; he can afford it.'

'He can't afford it; that woman is running him to the devil at a two-forty gait. You have more influence with him than any one, Mr. Kirke—do try to stop it!'

The young man spoke in a decided but regretful tone, and his manner showed more respect to his father than his words implied. Unwilling to interfere in such an affair, I said nothing; but Preston, in a moment, remarked:

'It is true, Kirke! Her extravagance has ruined my credit at home, and forced me to use Joe's indorsements; besides, I have had to borrow ten thousand dollars of him to keep my head above water.'

[Mr. James Preston—the Squire's uncle—had died the year before, and the young man had succeeded to his large property and business.]

I was thunderstruck; but, before I could reply, Joe said:

'I don't care a rush for the money. Father can have every dollar I've got; but I do want to see him rid of that woman. I've been here sick for two months, and I've seen the whole. She is worrying the very life out of him. She's made him an old man at forty.'

It was true. His face was lean and haggard, and his hair already thickly streaked with white.

Preston rose, and, walking the room, said:

'But what am I to do? You yourself, Joe, would not have all this made public. You've as much pride about it as I have.'

'I've not a bit of pride about it, father; and it's public now. Everybody knows it, and everybody says you ought to cut her adrift.'

'What had I better do? Tell me, my friend,' said Preston, still walking the room.

'I cannot advise, you, Preston. An outsider should express no opinion on such matters.'

In a moment Preston said:

'Well, Joe, no more of this now. I'll do what is right, however much it may wound my pride.'

The conversation turned to other subjects, till Mrs. Preston's return from church, shortly after which dinner was announced. The lady presided at the table with as much ease and grace as if she had been born to the position; and in her charming conversation, I almost forgot the revelations of the morning. The rest of the day I spent with Joe and Frank, strolling over the plantation and mingling among the negroes, who, freed from work, were enjoying themselves in a very 'miscellaneous manner.' Preston remained at the house with Selma.

CHAPTER XVII.

It was nearly dark when we returned to the mansion. Looking in at the parlor, and not finding his father there, Joe led the way at once to the library. The door was ajar, and, as we entered the passage way, loud voices were issuing from it.

'I tell you, Mr. Preston, I am mistress of this plantation. He shall NOT go!'

'Pardon me, madam, he shall, and to-night,' returned a mild but decided voice, which I recognized as Preston's. Being unwilling to overhear more, I turned away, but Joe caught me by the arm, exclaiming:

'If you are my father's friend, go in. If you don't, he will back down; he has done so forty times.'

Preston was a man of more than ordinary firmness, but his wife had the stronger will. She seemed possessed of a sort of magnetic power, which enabled her to control others almost arbitrarily.

Reluctantly I followed the young man into the room. Preston was seated before the fire; and Selma, with her arm around his neck, was standing near him. Mulock, better clad than when I witnessed his purchase by the 'fast' young planter, and wearing a sullen, dogged expression, was leaning against the centre table; and Mrs. Preston, gesticulating wildly, and her face glowing with mingled rage and defiance, stood within a few feet of her husband. Not heeding our entrance, she exclaimed:

'I will have my way. If you send him off, I will never darken your doors again.'

'That is as you please, madam,' replied Preston. 'Mr. Kirke and Frank, pray be seated.'

Stung by her husband's coolness, the lady turned fiercely upon Joe, and, shaking her clenched hand in his face, cried out:

'This is your work. I will teach you better than to meddle with my affairs.'

* * * * *

'Madam, you act well,' said the young man, taking a step toward the door. 'Pray come out to the quarters; poor as they are, every negro will give a bit to see you play.'

In uncontrollable rage, she struck him a smart blow in the face, and rushed from the room.

When she had gone, Preston turned to Mulock:

'Now go. The amount due you I shall retain to offset, in part, what you have tempted the negroes to steal. You can come here once a week—on Sunday—to see Phylly; but if you have any more dealings with the hands, I will prosecute you on the instant.'

Mulock rose, put on his slouched hat, and, a dull fire burning in his cold, snake-like eyes, slowly said:

'Wall, Squire, I'll gwo, but 'counts 'tween you an' me ain't settled yit.'

As he went, Selma leaned forward, and, kissing Preston's cheek, said;

'O father! I'm so glad you didn't speak harshly to her.'

Preston put his arm about her, and replied:

'You helped me, my child. I should be a better, happier man, if you were with me.'

'And I will be, father; I won't go away any more.'

'But Frank?' said Preston, again kissing her.

'Oh, you know we're not to be married for a good while yet. I'll stay with you till then, father.'

'Ah! there she goes,' said Joe, looking out at the window, which commanded a view of the porte cochere; 'she can't get to Newbern till ten, but the night air won't hurt her.'

'Then she makes Newbern her home now?'

'Yes, she spends the winters there; she came here only yesterday.'

CHAPTER XVIII.

Ally and Rosey were to be married[3] in the little church, and, directly after supper, we all went to the wedding. The seats had been removed from the centre of the building, for, though duly consecrated to the use of the saints, the sinners were to exercise their heels in it after the ceremony was over. At its farther extremity, the carpenter's bench of which I have spoken, elongated at both ends, and covered with a white table cloth, was piled high with eatables; indicating that a time of 'great refreshment' was at hand. The bounteous supply of ham, chicken, wild duck, roast pig, fish, hoecake, wheat bread, tea, coffee, milk, and pumpkin and sweet-potato pies under which the bench groaned, showed that some liberal hand had catered for the occasion.

Black Joe, dressed in his 'Sunday best,' was seated on the rustic settee at the back of the desk, and Phyllis and Dinah occupied chairs inside the low railing, which faced the pulpit. Phyllis looked careworn and sad, but Ally's mother was as radiant as a brass kettle in a blaze of light wood. She wore a white dress, stiffly starched and expanded by immense hoops, and a crimped nightcap, whose broad border flapped about like the wings of a crowing rooster; and she looked, for all the world, like a black ghost in a winding sheet, escaped from below, and bound on a 'good time generally.' Two 'shining lights,' on either side of the pulpit, held aloft blazing torches of pine, which illuminated the sea of grinning darkness, and sent up a smoke like that arising from the pit which is said to be bottomless. About a hundred darkies were present; and the number of glossy coats, fancy turbans, gaudy bonnets, red shawls, and flaming dresses, which the light disclosed, was amazing. The poor worm that grubbed in the earth, had appeared ('for that occasion only') as a butterfly; and Lazarus, rid of his rags, had come forth dressed like a Broadway dandy.

Any person of sensitive olfactories would have halted in the doorway; but I elbowed through the woolly gathering, and followed Frank and Selma to the family pew. Tittering, laughing, and flaunting their red and yellow kerchiefs, the black people were enjoying themselves amazingly, when 'Dar dey comes,' 'Dar'm de happy pussons,' went round the assemblage, and the bride and groom, attended by two sable couples, entered the building. After some ludicrous mistakes, they got 'into position' in front of the railing, and Black Joe took a stand before them.

Rosey was dressed in white, with a neat fillet of pink and blue ribbon about her head; and Ally wore a black frock coat, with white vest, and white cotton gloves. One of the groomsmen—a rustic beau from a neighboring plantation—wore an immensely long-tailed blue coat with brass buttons, a flaming red waistcoat, yellow woollen mittens, and a neckerchief that looked like a secession flag hugging a lamp-post. Both of these gentry had hats of stove-pipe pattern, very tall, and with narrow brims; and—they wore them during the ceremony.

'Silence in de meetin',' cried Joe.

The boisterous sea of black wool subsided to a dead calm. Those not already standing rose, and Joe commenced reading the marriage service of the Episcopal Church.

The parties immediately interested appeared to have conned their lessons well; for they made all the responses with great propriety; but some of the congregation seemed less familiar with the service. When Joe repeated the words, 'If any man kin show cause why dese folks should not be lawfully jined togedder, leff him now speak, or else foreber hole his peace,' Dinah turned to the audience, and cried out:

'Yas, jess leff him come out wid it now. I'd like ter see de man dat's got onyting agin it.'

No one appeared to have 'onyting agin it,' and Joe proceeded to read the words: 'I require and charge you, if either of you know any impediment,' etc. In the midst of it a voice called out:

'Dar ain't no 'pedimen', Boss Joe; I knows dat. Gwo on, sar!' 'Dat's so, brudder,' said another voice. 'Dat's de Lord's trufh,' echoed a third. 'Doan't be 'sturbin' de meetin'; de young folks want de 'splicin' done,' cried a fourth; and 'Amen,' shouted a dozen.

'Shet up, all on you,' yelled Joe, turning on them with an imperious gesture; 'ef you hain't no more manners dan dat, clar out.'

Silence soon ensued, and Joe went on without interruption to the place where the minister asks the bride-groom: 'Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?' Then Dinah, unable to contain herself longer, joyfully exclaimed:

'Ob course he will—ony youn' feller'd be glad to hab har.'

[Never having gone through the ceremony herself, the poor woman could not be expected to know what was appropriate to the occasion.]

No further interruption occurred, and soon the happy couple were 'bone of one bone, and flesh of one flesh.' The assemblage still standing, Joe then turned to Ally and Rosey, and, with a manner so solemn and impressive that he seemed altogether a different person from the merry darky who had entered so heartily into the 'high ole heel scrapin'' of the morning; he spoke somewhat as follows:

'My chil'ren, love one anoder; bar wid one anoder; be faithful to one anoder. You hab started on a long journey; many rough places am in de road; many trubbles will spring up by de wayside; but gwo on hand an' hand togedder; love one anoder; an' no matter what come onter you, you will be happy—fur love will sweeten ebery sorrer, lighten ebery load, make de sun shine in eben de bery cloudiest wedder. I knows it will, my chil'ren, 'case I'se been ober de groun'. Ole Aggy an' I hab trabbled de road. Hand in hand we hab gone ober de rocks; fru de mud; in de hot, burnin' sand; ben out togedder in the cole, an' de rain, an' de storm, fur nigh onter forty yar, but we hab clung to one anoder; we hab loved one anoder; and fru eberyting, in de bery darkest days, de sun ob joy an' peace hab broke fru de clouds, an' sent him blessed rays down inter our hearts. We started jess like two young saplin's you's seed a growin' side by side in de woods. At fust we seemed way 'part, fur de brambles, an' de tick bushes, an' de ugly forns—dem war our bad ways—war atween us; but love, like de sun, shone down on us, and we grow'd. We grow'd till our heads got above de bushes; till dis little branch an' dat little branch—dem war our holy feelin's—put out toward one anoder, an' we come closer an' closer togedder. And dough we'm old trees now, an' sometime de wind blow, an' de storm rage fru de tops, and freaten to tear off de limbs, an' to pull up de bery roots, we'm growin' closer an' closer, an' nearer an' nearer togedder ebery day. And soon de old tops will meet; soon de ole branches, all cobered ober wid de gray moss, will twine round one anoder; soon de two ole trunks will come togedder and grow inter one foreber—grow inter one up dar in de sky, whar de wind neber'll blow, whar de storm neber'll beat; whar we shill blossom an' bar fruit to de glory ob de Lord, an' in His heabenly kingdom foreber!

'Yas, my chil'ren, you hab started on a long journey, an' nuffin' will git you fru it but love. Nuttin' will hole you up, nuffin' will keep you faithful to one anoder, nuffin' will make you bar wid one anoder, but love. None ob us kin lib widout it; but married folks want it most ob all. Dey need it more dan de bread dey eat, de water dey drink, or de air dey breafe. De worle couldn't gwo on widout it. De bery sun would gwo out in de heabens but fur dat! An' shill I tell you why? You hab heerd massa Robert talk 'bout de great law dat make de apple fall from de tree, de rock sink in de water; dat bines our feet to de round 'arth so we don't drop off as it gwo fru de air; dat holes de sun an' de stars in dar 'pointed places, so dat, day after day, an' yar after yar, dough dey'm trabblin' fasser dan de lightnin' eber went, dey'm right whar dey should be. He call it 'traction, an' all de great men call it so; but dat ain't de name! It am LOVE. It am GOD, fur GOD am love, an' love am GOD, an' love bines de whole creashun togedder! An' shill I tell you how it do it? Does you see dis hand? how I open de fingers; how I shet'm up; how I rise de whole arm? Does you see dis foot, dat I does wid jess de same? Does you see dis whole body, how I make it, in a twinklin', do jess what I like? Now what am it dat make my hand move, an' my whole 'body turn round so sudden, dat I'se only to say: 'Do it,' an' it'm done? Why, it am ME. It'm me, dat libs up yere in de brain, an' sends my will fru ebery part—fru ebery siner, an' ebery muscle, an' ebery little jint, an' make'm all do jess what I like. Now man am made in de image of GOD, an' dis pore, weak ole body am a small pattern ob de whole creashun. Eberyting go on jess as it do. Eberyting am held togedder, an' moved 'bout, jess as it am—but it'm GOD dat move it, not me! He libs up dar in de sky—which am His brain—wid de stars fur His hands, de planets fur His feet, an' de whole univarse fur His body; an' He sends His will—which am love—fru ebery part ob de whole, an' moves it 'bout, an' make it do jess as He likes. So you see, it am my will sent fru ebery muscle, an' ebery little siner, dat moves my body; so it am His will sent fru what de'stronomers an' de poets call de heabenly ether, dat moves His body—which am de 'arth, an' de sun, an' de stars, an' you an' me, an' ebery libin' ting in all creashun! His will move 'em all; AN' HIS WILL AM LOVE! An' don't you see dat you can't do widout His love? Dat it am de bery breaf ob life? Dat, ef it war tooken 'way from you, fur jess one moment, you'd drop down, an' die, an' neber come to life agin—no, not in dis worle, nor in any oder worle? It am so, my chil'ren; an' de more you hab ob dat love, de happier you'll be; de more you'll love one ander; de easier you'll gwo fru you' life—de more joyfuller you'll meet you' deafh—de happier you'll be all fru de long, long ages dat'm comin' in de great Yereafter! Den, O my chil'ren! Love God, Love one anoder! You can't be happy widout you love GOD, an' you can't love Him widout you love one anoder!'

When Joe had concluded, he saluted the bride in a manner that many another sooty gentleman present would have been glad to imitate, and then took a stand at the head of the supper table. An immense tureen, filled with steaming oysters, was soon brought in and placed before him, and looking up, he said grace, in which he thanked Him who feedeth the ravens for putting it into his master's heart to feed His other black creatures, the darkies present on that occasion. He asked for his master many a happy 'Chrismus down yere,' and an eternal 'Chrismus in heaben,' and he added: 'An' knowin' dat dou hatest long prayers, an' long faces, an' dose folks dat gwo 'bout grumblin', as ef dy happy 'arth war nuffin' but a graveyard; may we enjoy dis feast an' dis day as dy true chil'ren—de chil'ren ob a good Fader, who am all joy an' all gladness—an' while we'm eatin' an' drinkin' an' dancin', may we make merry in our hearts to Thee. Amen.'

When he concluded, Preston stepped to his side, and taking the big ladle from his hand, said:

'Stand aside, Joe, you have done work enough for to-night;' and turning to 'we white folks' in the family pew, he added: 'If any man among you would be master, let him now be the servant of all. Let him try his hand at the waiter business, and see if he can't throw these shady people into the shade.'

Selma, Frank, 'massa Joe,' and I went forward, and tying the negroes' aprons about our waists, took appropriate places around the table.

'Now all of you find seats,' cried Preston; and amid a hurricane of giggling and merry laughter, the black people seated themselves on the floor, on the platform, and on the row of benches ranged along the walls. Preston proceeded to fill up the bowls with the savory stew, and we dispensed the eatables among them, and for half an hour I witnessed as much enjoyment as often falls to the lot of black sinners in this 'vale of tears.'

'Now, ef dis doan't beat all,' exclaimed old Dinah, as I handed her a huge chunk of gingerbread; 'ef 'ou ain't right smart at waitin', massa Kirke, I'd like ter know it.'

'Keep dark, ole 'ooman,' shouted Black Joe; 'doan't you say nuffin' 'bout dat, or de traders'll be a hole ob him. He'd sell fur a right likely hand, shore.'

'I woan't do nuffin' but keep dark, Boss Joe,' rejoined Dinah, grinning till her face opened from ear to ear. 'I'll hab 'ou know, sar, dat none but white ladies paints!'

'Good fur you, ole lady,' cried the preacher. 'After dat you'll gib me de pleasure ob your hand in de fuss dance.'

'Ob course, I will, mister Joe; an' ef 'ou'm tired ob de ole 'ooman, I'll gib 'ou my han' in anoder dance.'

'No, you woan't, I doan't gwo fur second marridges,' rejoined Joe, looking slyly at Preston; 'dey ain't made in heaben.'

'No more' dey ain't,' said the old woman, heaving a long sigh, and also looking at Preston.

'You ain't a gwine to leff dese folks dance in de church, am you, Boss Joe?' asked a prim, demure-looking darky, in a black suit, with a white neckerchief and stiff shirt collar; probably some neighboring preacher.

'I reckon so,' replied Joe, dryly.

'An' I reckons so, too, mister I scare-you-out (Iscariot),' cried the old negress. 'Ain't de planets de Lord's feet, an' doant dey dance! I reckons we ain't no better dan de Lord is; an' ef He mobes him feet, 'ou'd better mobe 'our'n. We b'lieve in sarvin' HIM wid our han's an' our feet, too; we does, mister I-scare-you-out.'

She did scare him out, for the 'pious gemman' left suddenly.

When about all of the eatables had found their way down the cavernous—and ravenous—throats of the darkies, Boss Joe rose and called out:

'Yere, you massa Joe, you pull off you' apern, an' take de big fiddle—I'm 'gaged fur de fuss dance.'

Young Preston seated himself on the platform, and several sable gentlemen with banjoes and fiddles took places beside him.

'Now all you men folks s'lect you' pardners,' cried the preacher, taking Dinah by the hand, and leading her out to the middle of the floor.

They all paired off, the fiddles broke into a merry tune, and soon the little church, which had so often echoed with the groans of the saints, shook with the heels of the sinners. When the first dance was over, Boss Joe again called out:

'Now, massa Joe, strike up de waltz—Dinah an' I am gwine to show dese folks some highfalutin dancin'.'

The waltz struck up, and off they whirled; Dinah went into it as if she were working for pay, and as Joe held her closely in his arms, her wide hoops expanded till she looked like a topsail schooner scudding under bare poles.

As Joe was wiping the perspiration from his face, at the end of the waltz, an old negro entered, and whispered something in his ear. Joe's countenance fell in an instant, and, without saying a word, he left the room.

'Massa Joe,' relinquishing the big fiddle, then took the floor with Rosey, and gave the audience a genuine breakdown. His heels bobbed around like balls at a cricket match, and Rosey's petticoats fluttered about like the contents of a clothes line caught out in a hurricane. A better-looking couple were never seen in a ball room.

'He's a natural born darky,' said his father, laughing; 'he takes to dancing as a duck takes to water.'

A general dance followed. In the midst of it the old negro who had called Joe out, again came in, and making his way to where Preston and I were standing, said, in a low tone:

'Massa Robert, Ole Jack am dyin'; will 'ou come?'

'Dying!' exclaimed Preston. 'Yes, I'll be there at once. Kirke, you remember the old man—come with me.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This was the conjuror's bag of the Africans. It is called 'waiter,' or 'kunger,' by the Southern blacks, and is supposed to have the power to charm away evil spirits, and to do all manner of miraculously good things for its wearer. Those that I have seen are harmless little affairs, consisting only of small pieces of rags sewed up in coarse muslin.]

[Footnote 2: The name of the African god.]

[Footnote 3: Usually there is no marriage performed at the union of slaves. They simply agree, tacitly or otherwise, to live together till death or their master parts them.]



THE CAPTAIN OF '63 TO HIS MEN.

Come to the field, boys, come! Come at the call of the stirring drum— Come, boys, come! Yonder's the foe to our country's fame, Waiting to blot out her very name— Where is the man that would see her shame? Come, boys, come!

Form, my brave men, form! Stand in good order to 'meet the storm'— Form, men, form! Sacred to us is our native land! Shrivelled for aye be each traitor hand Lifted to shatter so bright a band— Form, men, form!

Charge, my soldiers, charge! From the steep hill to the river's marge, Charge! charge! charge! Think of our wives and mothers dear; Think of the hopes that have led us here; Think of the hearts that will give us cheer— Charge, boys, charge!

Die with me, boys, die! There's a place for all in yon bannered sky, If we die, boys, die! Think of the names that are shining bright, Written in letters of living light! Rather than give up the sacred Right, Let's die, boys, die!



THE VISION OF THE MONK GABRIEL.

'Tis the soft twilight. 'Round the shining fender, Two at my feet and one upon my knee, Dreamy-eyed Elsie, bright-lipped Isabel, And thou, my golden-headed Raphael, My fairy, small and slender, Listen to what befel Monk Gabriel, In the old ages ripe with mystery— Listen, my darlings, to the legend tender.

A bearded man, with grave, but gentle look— His silence sweet with sounds With which the simple-hearted Spring abounds: Lowing of cattle from the abbey grounds, Chirping of insect, and the building rook, Mingled like murmurs of a dreaming shell; Quaint tracery of bird and branch and brook Flitting across the pages of his book, Until the very words a freshness took— Deep in his cell, Sate the Monk Gabriel.

In his book he read The words the Master to His dear ones said: 'A little while and ye Shall see, Shall gaze on Me; A little while, again, Ye shall not see Me then.' A little while! The monk looked up—a smile Making his visage brilliant, liquid-eyed: 'O Thou, who gracious art Unto the poor of heart, O Blessed Christ!' he cried, 'Great is the misery Of mine iniquity; But would I now might see, Might feast on Thee!' The blood, with sudden start, Nigh rent his veins apart— (O condescension of the Crucified!) In all the brilliancy Of His Humanity, The Christ stood by his side!

Pure as the early lily was His skin, His cheek out blushed the rose, His lips, the glows Of autumn sunset on eternal snows: And His deep eyes within, Such nameless beauties, wondrous glories dwelt, The monk in speechless adoration knelt. In each fair hand, in each fair foot, there shone The peerless stars He took from Calvary: Around His brows, in tenderest lucency, The thorn-marks lingered, like the flush of dawn; And from the opening in His side there rilled A light, so dazzling, that the room was filled With heaven: and transfigured in his place, His very breathing stilled, The friar held his robe before his face, And heard the angels singing! 'Twas but a moment—then, upon the spell Of this sweet Presence, lo! a something broke: A something, trembling, in the belfry woke, A shower of metal music flinging O'er wold and moat, o'er park and lake and fell, And, through the open windows of the cell, In silver chimes came ringing.

It was the bell Calling Monk Gabriel Unto his daily task, To feed the paupers at the abbey gate. No respite did he ask, Nor for a second summons idly wait; But rose up, saying in his humble way: 'Fain would I stay, O Lord! and feast alway Upon the honeyed sweetness of Thy beauty— But 'tis Thy will, not mine, I must obey; Help me to do my duty!' The while the Vision smiled, The monk went forth, light-hearted as a child.

An hour thence, his duty nobly done, Back to his cell he came. Unasked, unsought, lo! his reward was won! Rafters and walls and floor were yet aflame With all the matchless glory of that Sun, And in the centre stood the Blessed One— (Praised be His Holy Name!) Who, for our sakes, our crosses made His own. And bore our weight of shame! Down on the threshold fell Monk Gabriel, His forehead pressed upon the floor of clay; And, while in deep humility he lay, Tears raining from his happy eyes away, 'Whence is this favor, Lord?' he strove to say. The Vision only said, Lifting its shining head: 'If thou hadst staid, O son! I must have fled!'

PHILADELPHIA



THE CENTURY OF INVENTIONS.

CONTAINING A FEW COMMENTS ON THE WORK OF THAT NAME, PUBLISHED BY THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER, IN 1663.

There is nothing which the world dreads so much as an unpitying truth. The history of ideas is that of men trying to persuade themselves that special miracles of amiability are ever being worked, from the cradle to the grave, in their favor. Of the tremendous inconsistency and destructiveness which such miracles imply, they take no heed. The most unpalatable fact in physics is that of the Struggle for Life.

Ideas once born may never die, but it is worth noting how many men must die ere their ideas can live. The Indo-Germanic race has always been blessed with many of those self-cursed martyrs, the Anticipators, or the men who have outstripped their age. Like the advance guard of the summer swallows, they have generally died by frosts and lived in fables.

Germany is very proud of her Berchthold Schwartz, and in her pride has made a proverb declaring that his invention was the proof of supreme wisdom. When they describe a fool, they say there that he did not discover gunpowder. But 'the first handful of gunpowder' did not, as Carlyle claims, drive Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling. Long before Schwartz, lived Bacon; and a century or so before Bacon, there were in existence Norman-Latin recipes, says Palsgrave—who had seen them—ad faciendum le crake, for making firecrackers—at least, for making gunpowder which would crack merrily when fired. Stained glass windows, according to the cheap and easy explanations of those who used to send us to natural scenery for every origin in architecture, were suggested by beholding the winter sunset lines of the sky through the bare gothic-window tracery of a leafless forest. Recent research finds the stained window in the antique burning East, where no studies were made by frost or forest light—nay, the leaves carved by tradition-loving Gothic Free Masons in churches often keep a peculiar Eastern form.

I am not, however, lecturing of Lost Arts in the strain which sings 'there is nothing new under the sun,' and which in a chilling manner benumbs the faith in progress by shaking with a grin before the wearied inventor some skeleton puppet of buried ages, which resembles his great thought as a hut resembles a palace. On the contrary, I find in this strange frequency of anticipation among Indo-Germanic races, and in its premature failures, a vast proof of inventive vitality and of promise of great rising truths into all future ages. 'Steam power is nothing new,' say the advocates of the genius of the past. Hero of Alexandria invented a steam toy—as he who can read his Spiritalia published by the Jesuits in 1693 may learn for himself. But the power now roaring and whizzing all over the world, and which would build every pyramid and every monument of Egypt now extant in twenty-four hours, is no toy. When I think of this, there is no ingenious trifle for amusement which does not inspire a droll awe. Possibly those walking dolls now performing their weary pilgrimages on level glass-pane floors in Broadway windows—gravely lifting those enormous gilded boots, which remind me of Miss Kilmansegg and Queen Berta a grands pies, in one—have a good reason for their dignity of gait. For may they not be golden-footed and solemn, like her who rose from the waves of old to prophesy to her son?—and if she was silver-footed, it makes no difference, for so are some of the autoperiper—nay, that word finishes me, and I go no further. Such a block of Greek would bring even a German sentence down with a crash to a verbless conclusion. What I would have said was, that it may be that these dolls are heralds of greater dolls yet to come, which shall be wound up to fetch and carry, to sew on buttons—nay, it is even possible (in the wildest of dreams) that they may be made to boil potatoes properly. And I have been told that a recent improvement in boys' rocking horses, by means of which a trotting motion is given to the legs of those docile animals, has suggested to a mechanic of this city the construction of a very good automatic steed, whose only fault is slowness. May I suggest that a very great improvement indeed may yet be made on that horse, and that the two-forty of a coming generation may be the result, not of oats and hay, but of steel springs and cylinders? The first wooden horse burnt Troy—what will the last do?

I have been reminded of the strange tendency in man—but more especially of the Indo-Germanic or Aryan man—to anticipate by invention the wants of an age, sometimes centuries beforehand—by turning over that very curious work, the 'Century of Inventions,' by the Marquis of Worcester, in which, as in the commonplace book of an author, one may find jotted down many an undeveloped idea of great promise. In this connection we may be allowed to borrow somewhat from a biography by Charles F. Partington, published in 1825.

Edward Lord Herbert, the sixth earl and second Marquis of Worcester, was born at Ragland near Monmouth; and his family, long distinguished for the most devoted loyalty, possessed the largest landed estate of any then attached to the British court. What this was in those times is set forth by the fact that in 1628 the father of the marquis had a revenue of upward of twenty thousand pounds. In 1642, the year in which his son was created marquis, the young heir raised, supported, and commanded an army of 1,500 foot and near 500 horse soldiers.

He had a stormy life before him, this young marquis, with many more scenes, adventures, and changes than are to be found in Woodstock and Peveril of the Peak. How he fought well, recapturing Monmouth among other things from the Puritan General Massey, how he was appointed, in consequence of his daring cavaliering raids, by Charles II to negotiate with the Irish Catholics; how the king often visited him at Ragland, is all a fine story, well worth reading. We can get glimpses of that REGAL life—as Mr. Partington admiringly small-caps his climax, from the 'list of the Ragland household' with the earl's order of dining—castle gates closed at eleven o'clock in the morning, the entry of the earl with a grand escort, 'the retiral of the steward'—the advance of 'the Comptroller, Mr. Holland, attended by his staff'—'as did the sewer, the daily waiters, and many gentlemen's sons, with estates from two to seven hundred pounds a year, who were bred up in the castle, and my lady's gentlemen of the chamber.' Therein, too, we see the rattling of trenchers, and hear the gurgling of bottles, at the first table, of the noble family, and such stray nobility as came there; at the second table, of knights and honorables—at the second 'first table' in the hall of 'Sir Ralph Blackstone, Steward; the Comptroller, the Master of the Horse, the Master of the Fish Ponds, my Lord Herbert's Preceptor,' and such gentlemen as were under degree of a knight—these all being 'plentifully served with wine.' Of the second table there is no note of much wine, but it still had 'hot meats from my Lord's table,' and at it sat the Sewer with gentlemen waiters and pages to the number of twenty-four—and even now we are not yet come to the vulgar. For at the third table sat my Lord's Chief Auditor, his Purveyor of the Castle, Keeper of the Records—Ushers of the Hall—Clerk—Closet Keeper—Master of the Armory—and below these divers Masters of the Hounds—Twelve Master Grooms of the Stables, Master Falconer—Keepers of the Red Deer Park—and below these yet one hundred and fifty 'footmen, grooms, and other menial servants.'

Bright gleams vanish—the stately dinner parties grow dim, Masters of Horses and Hounds go to battle, the plate is melted down, and all is sad and sere. The young lord is sent by King Charles abroad, and Parliamentary Fairfax comes thundering at the gate, where admittance is refused by the venerable old marquis. Fairfax besieges boldly and is gallantly attacked by repeated sallies. I had rather the Puritans, with whom all my head goes, and with it half my heart, had behaved better than they did on this occasion. For after the venerable old marquis had fought nobly and surrendered on honorable terms, I am sorry to say he was most dishonorably treated, the conditions of capitulation being disgracefully violated, and the old marquis put in close prison, where he soon died in his eighty-fifth year.—Well, well—there was abundance of such false faith and dark villany on both sides ere the war was over. Be it remembered that these same nobles had kept the honor too closely to themselves, and ridiculed it out of life quite too sharply in the 'base mechanicals' to fairly expect mastery in gentility from them. And in these same Partingtonian Biographies, I am often inclined to suspect that the lions do some of their own carving.

Puritans sequestered and smashed the estate right and left—lead sold for six thousand pounds, woods cut down and sold for one hundred thousand more. 'Pity!' do you say? Reader mine, there is enough land in parks at this present day in broad England to feed that wretched one eighth of her population who are now buried at public expense. That dis-parking business was at any rate not badly done.

Little more is seen of the young lord through the war. In 1654 he is at King Charles's court in France—is sent to London to procure supplies of money for the king—is caught and Towered, where he rests for several years, sorrowfully poor, if we may judge from a letter to Colonel Copley, in which he declares that 'I am forced to begge, if you could possible, eyther to helpe me with tenne pownds to this bearer, or to make vse of the coache and to goe to Mr. Clerke, and if he could this daye helpe me to fifty pownds then to paye yourself the five pownds I owe you out of them.' A melancholy letter, after all that glittering Arthur's-court splendor of first, second, and third tables of nobility, Masters of Robes and Records—a letter in which there seems some trace of getting money by 'projects' and 'bubbles'—whether of doing little bills or by Notable Inventions, I will not say. Prison does not, it is true, last forever, but its doors open on a scene of baseness blacker than that which brought the brave old marquis with sorrow to his grave. The tale is told in a paragraph:

'On the king's restoration, the Marquis of Worcester was one of the first to congratulate his Majesty on the happy event, though the situation of the unfortunate nobleman was little bettered by the change; indeed it appeared but as the signal for new persecutions, as one of the earliest public acts of the ungrateful monarch may be characterized as an insidious attempt to set aside the claims of his earliest and best friend.'

'Put not thy trust in princes.' To contrast this treatment of poor Worcester with the fervent written promises of the ungrateful 'C. R.' or Carolus Rex, might have shook the faith of Dr. Johnson in his beloved 'merry monarch.' The earlier letters of the king to the marquis, when something was expected of the 'gallant cavalier,' and the latter had 'money to lend,' are painfully amusing:

OXFORD, Feb. 12. * * 'I am sensible of the dangers yu will undergo, and ye greate trouble and expences you must be at, not being able to assist yu who have already spente aboue a Million of Crowns in my Service, neither can I saye more then I well remembr to have spoke and written to you that allready words could not expresse your merits nor my gratitude: and that next to my wife and children I was most bound to take care of you, whereof I have besides others, particularly assured yor Cosin Biron as a person deare unto you. * * And rest assured, if God should crosse me wth your miscarrying I will treate your Sonne as myne owne, and that yw labour for a deare friende as well as a thankfull Master when tyme shall afforde meanes to acknowledge how much I am

'Yor most assured real constant and thankfull friend 'CHARLES R.'



There are other letters from Charles R., very little to his credit as regards the keeping of promises, and likewise several strange papers of the Worcester people, showing that they had their clouds and humors, like other families. Of our marquis—the reader will readily pardon me all that I have digressed to say of his early history—it must suffice to tell that, after the Restoration, he appears as a poor inventor, and that on the 3d April, 1663, a bill was brought into Parliament for granting to him and his successors the whole of the profits that might arise from the use of a water-raising engine, described in the last article in the 'Century' of Inventions. The 'Century' itself had been presented to the king and commons some months previously. This invention, coupled with its penultimate and antepenultimate ninety-ninth and ninety-eighth inventions, may indeed be justly considered as the wonder of the 'Century,' since, when united with the sixty-eighth, they appear, in Partington's opinion, to suggest all the data essential for the construction of a modern steam engine. The injustice which he encountered during life, seems to have followed Worcester for two centuries after death; for Lord Orford declares that the bill granting the marquis such advantages as his invention might give birth to, was passed on a simple affirmation of the discovery that he (the marquis) had made. 'His lordship's want of candour in this statement will be apparent when it is known that there were no less than seven meetings of committees on the subject, composed of some of the most learned men in the house, who, after considerable amendments, finally passed it on the 12 May.'

It is touching to see the absolute, extreme, life-giving faith in the merit of his invention which inspired the marquis—and in this strange faith, like a prophecy, even more than in his invention itself, considering the way in which he probably came by it, do we recognize that Genius which rises here and there in the past history of the Aryan races, and that so all-sidedly and confidingly as to seem miraculous. I confess that when I look closely and deeply into the knowledge of Dante and Lionardo da Vinci, of Fiar Bacon, and the Cavalier Marquis of Worcester, an awe comes over me. All of them seem to have been so great, some of their order so unearthly great; and they held the keys to so many mysteries, and to doors of science which were not unlocked for long centuries after their death; and there was in all of them such a strange sympathy and knowledge with the other great men as yet unborn, who were to come after them, and for whom they seem to have labored, and to whom they talked with the confidence of friends. I never pause before a certain passage in Dante's 'Inferno,' without the feelings of one standing before a great prophet—some marvellous earthly ancient of days, who foresaw all to come:

'Di la fosti cotanto quant'io scesi: Quando mi volsi, tu possasti 'l punto Alqual si troggon d'ogni parte i pasi.'

'Thou wast on the other side so long as I Descended; when I turned thou didst o'erpass That point to which from every part is dragged All heavy unbalance!'

It was well thought by Monti that, had this passage been noted by Newton, it might have given him a better hint than the falling apple. Perhaps it did, for Newton was no poet, and it is the poetic, associative-minded men of genius who have always preceded the greatest, strictly scientific minds, and far surpassed the latter in the comprehensiveness of their views. Bear with me, ye men of Induction, for I believe in the coming age, at whose threshold we even now stand, when ye and the poets shall be one.

The Marquis of Worcester was not like the indifferentist philosopher, so well set forth by Charles Woodruff Shields in his Philosophia Ultima,[4] as one who would not invade, but only ignore the province of revelation, regarding its mysteries as matters entirely too vague to be taken into the slightest account in his exact science. For our good Lord Herbert thought Heaven had a great deal to do with his inventions, as is proved by his 'ejaculatory and extemporary Thanksgiving Prayer, when first with his corporeal eyes he did see finished a perfect trial of his Water-commanding Engine, delightful and useful to whomsoever hath in recommendation either knowledge, profit, or pleasure.' And—never mind the delay, reader—we will even look at that prayer, in which this world and the next blend so strangely;

'Oh! infinitely omnipotent GOD! whose mercies are fathomless, and whose knowledge is immense and inexhaustible; next to my creation and redemption I render thee most humble thanks from the very bottom of my heart and bowels, for thy vouchsafing me (the meanest in understanding) an insight in soe great a secret of nature, beneficent to all mankind, as this my water-commanding engine. Suffer me not to be puffed up, O Lord, by the knowing of it, and many more rare and unheard off, yea, unparalleled inventions, tryals, and experiments. But humble my haughty heart, by the true knowledge of myne owne ignorant, weake, and unworthy nature; proane to all euill. O most merciful Father my creator, most compassionatting Sonne my redeemers, and Holyest of Spiritts the sanctifier, three diuine persons and one God, grant me a further concurring grace with fortitude to take hould of thy goodnesse, to the end that whatever I doe, unanimously and courageously to serve my king and country, to disabuse, rectifie, and convert my undeserved yet wilfully incredulous enemyes, to reimburse thankfully my creditors, to reimmunerate my benefactors, to reinhearten my distressed family, and with complacence to gratifie my suffering and confiding friends, may, voyde of vanity or selfe ends, be only directed to thy honour and glory everlastingly. Amen!'

How this great invention faded and was forgotten till the days of Watt and Fulton, is hardly worth surmising. It had been born and died long before. Was it not in 1514 that Blasco de Garay set a steamboat afloat on the Tagus? Sometimes, as in the case of John Fitch, it seems to have grown spontaneously from the instinctive impulse to create, as Fichte calls art. I have seen old men, who had known Fitch: their account of his severely won improvements, and more recently his 'Life,' make me believe that he owed nothing to precedent. But the marquis, I am sorry to say, notwithstanding his prayer and his bold claim to originality, cannot come off with so clear a record, so far as invention is concerned. He certainly gave a good, plausible account of the discovery, or it was given for him, and this went current for many years in books of inventions. It was said that the marquis, while confined in the Tower of London, was preparing some food in his apartment, and the cover of the vessel, having been closely fitted, was, by the expansion of the steam, suddenly forced off and driven up the chimney. 'This circumstance, attracting his attention, led him to a train of thought, which terminated in the completion of his 'water-commanding engine.''

E ben trovato. Unfortunately, within a few years, and since Partington published the 'Century of Invention,' there was unearthed from the gossiping letters of a gay French court-belle, who little dreamed what ill service she was doing her gallant, and what good service to history, a chance bit of trifling, as she probably deemed it, which sends the marquis's story exploding up the chimney after the lid of his apocryphal kettle. It seems that when the marquis was in France, he, in accordance with the elegant and refined custom which prevailed there and in England, as the reader may gather from Boswell's 'Johnson'—went with this lady to visit the madmen confined in the public prison.

I have already digressed so widely in this article, that a sin more or less, of the kind, need not be noted too severely. Reader, if you are one of those who think that mankind do not progress in heart, what think you of this pretty custom of the last century, according to which gentlemen and ladies of the highest rank, 'persons of quality,' made up parties to visit public madhouses, which, by the way, were common shows, at one penny entrance fee, and where the young gentlemen poked the mad people with sticks, and pelted them, shook their chains, and jeered them, till they foamed and raved, and the young misses giggled and gave pretty screams, and cried, 'Oh, fie!' and 'lor!' and then the visitors all laughed together? Then Miss ——, a little bolder, hissed at the lunatics herself, and poked them with a stick—and then there was a fresh storm of tears and howls and blasphemy and obscenity; and the keepers, rushing in with heavy cudgels, beat the 'patients' right and left like cattle—and it was all 'so horrible!' Bad, think you? These were the ladies and gentlemen of the old school—the Grandisons and Chesterfields and their dames. At the present day there are still vulgar people who haunt insane asylums and prisons, and scenes of domestic affliction and courts, for the sake of gratifying a gross love of excitement, which they disguise to themselves under various ingenious pretences. But the tendency of the age is to discourage such meddling and prying into the mysteries and miseries of humanity. It is low, it is mean, and the better nurtured and higher minded leave it to boors—be they of Peoria or the Fifth avenue.

Well, our marquis, then the first gentleman in Great Britain, one of 'the barons of England who fought for the crown,' when in France as particular friend of His Majesty Charles II, went one day on such a party of pleasure, and somewhat annoyed his pretty companion by persisting in listening to the drivelling talk of a madman—one Solomon de Caus—who, while he rattled his chains, talked of a great invention he had made, whereby chariots were to go by steam, and weights be raised, and all manner of brave work be effected, at small cost or labor to man. And the marquis talked to the madman, and the lady laughed, and the chains rattled, and the straw rustled, and—well, it has been made the subject of a very good picture—which you, reader, may have seen, either in original or engraving.

I will not pretend to say how far what is known of the life of this French inventor is reconcilable with this story of the madhouse. It is certain that Solomon de Caus, a French engineer, architect, and author, died about 1635, that he was born probably at Dieppe, and devoted himself to mathematics. The marquis might have met him in a better place than a bedlam, since in 1612 De Caus went to London, where he was attached to the Prince of Wales, and afterward to Charles I. From 1614 to 1620 he lived in Heidelberg at the court of the Elector Frederic V, and returned to France in 1624, where he received the title of royal engineer and architect. More than this, he wrote books on mechanics, in one of which, Les Raysons des Forces Mouvantes, he speaks of the expansion and condensation of steam in a manner which has been supposed to suggest the alternate action of the piston, the principle of the steam engine, and, finally, 'the great discovery' of and to the Marquis of Worcester. How far all this may be supposed to contradict the lady's story, I will not say. Certain it is, that many a man who has done quite as well in worldly honors, has, after all, come to misery and madness through unfortunately making an invention.

Inventors have, on the whole, a little easier time of it in these days—and yet not so very much easier, as the reader who has chanced, like myself, to study law in an office where there are many 'patent cases,' will bear witness. Eighteen hundred years ago, the inventor was crucified—lest his malleable glass should injure Ephesian or other silversmiths. During the middle ages, they burnt him alive. In the times of Worcester he seldom escaped prison, for to be a 'projector' was a charge which greatly aggravated that of treason; while in France, where they managed these things better, according to the views of the day, they simply cast him into a dungen among madmen. In America in the nineteenth century he has indeed occasionally better luck, and yet in most cases not so much better as most think. For, apart from the fact that he must generally sell his invention to richer men endowed with business faculty, who get nearly all the profits, and, not unfrequently, by clapping their names to the project, all the credit, he must also wage a weary, heart-breaking legal war on infringers of patents and other thieves; so that by the time his time has expired, he has seldom much to show for his brain-work.[5] 'Serves him right, he has no business capacity,' cry the multitude. We need not look far for examples. I am not sure that Eli Whitney, when he fell with his cotton gin among the thieves of the South, did not fare quite as badly and suffer quite as much as Solomon de Caus. For to be clapped fair and square into a dungeon is at all events a plain martyrdom, with which one can grapple philosophically or go mad a discretion, while to be only half honored and nine-tenths plundered, dragged meanwhile through courts and newspapers, may be better or worse, according to one's measure. After all, the good old Roman plan of putting a man to death for inventing malleable glass had its advantages—it was at least more merciful from a Christian point of view, and would, at the present day, save a vast amount of yards of Patent Law red tape.

Artis et Naturae proles, 'the offspring of Nature and of Art.' Such is the motto with which the Marquis of Worcester prefaced his 'Century of the Names and Scantlings of such inventions as he could in the year 1663 call to mind,' and which he presented to Government in the bold hope that by their purchase or other disposition he might even out-go the six or seven hundred thousand pounds already sacrificed for the king, as he asserts, but rather meaning, I imagine, that he might get some portion of it back again. Let no one laugh at the character of many of these 'Scantlings.' Science was young then; thaumaturgy, or the working of mere wonders, was still the elder sister of art; astrology might be found in every street; alchemists still labored in lonely towers all over England; and witches were still burned to the glory of GOD. The 'Mathematicall Magick, or the Wonders that may be performed by Mechanicall Geometry'—now by chance open before me—by Bishop Wilkins, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, with its disquisitions on 'Perpetuall Motion,' 'Volant Automata,' and 'Perpetuall Lamps,' passed for sound sense, and with it passed much occult nonsense of a darker dye. Manners and morals were as yet badly organized. Gambling was a daily amusement with all the gentry, and its imitators; for the Revolution, though it had very promptly driven out of England the very little merriment and cheerfulness which the Reformation had spared, had by no means taken away vice, and to cheat at cards was a part of all play in the best society—which it had not been in the olden time. Political plots were still rife, and cipher alphabets, signals by knots and signs, deadly secret weapons, and devices to escape prison were in daily demand, just as patent apple-parers and ice-cream freezers are at the present day. The marquis, who had lived well through his times, knew what would be popular, and, though a man of honor as times went, and a pious Christian, never dreamed that he did not play his part as a good citizen in supplying such grotesque wants.

First among his Inventions is one which, revived in modern times, meets the eye of every one daily on the face of every letter. As he designed it, it was, however, very elaborate, embracing 'several sorts of seals, some showing by screws, others by gauges, fastening or unfastening all the marks at once: others by additional points and imaginary places, proportionable to ordinary escutcheons and seals at arms, each way palpably and punctually setting down (yet private from all others but the owner, and by his assent) the day of the month, the day of the week, the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the names of the witnesses, and the individual place where anything was sealed, though in ten thousand several places, together with the very number of lines contained in a contract, whereby falsification may be discovered and manifestly proved.' Upon these seals, too, one could keep accounts of receipts and disbursements, from one farthing to millions, and, finally, as a climax to their mystery, by their means any letter, 'though written but in English, may be read and understood in eight several languages, and in English itself, to clear contrary and different sense, unknown to any but the correspondent, and not to be read or understood by him neither, if opened before it arrive unto him.'

It is believed that the secret of these seals is simply this: a number of movable metallic circles are made to slide within each other, on one common centre, the whole being enclosed in an outer frame. Within these circles may be placed either movable types, or letters and figures may be engraved on the circles themselves, and these, according to a key, of which the corresponding parties must possess a duplicate. To fully understand the secret of the composition of a sentence 'in eight several languages,' we must have recourse to invention No. 32 of the 'Century,' teaching 'how to compose an universal character, methodical and easily to be written, yet intelligible in any language .... distinguishing the verbs from the nouns, the numbers, tenses, and cases, as properly expressed in their own language as it was written in English.' Such a system was composed by the Bishop Wilkins already referred to; Bacon had busied himself with a 'pasigraphy' long before; Leibnitz, Dalgaru, Frischius, Athanasius Kircher, Pere Besnier, and some twenty others have done the same. The most practical solution of the problem seems to have been that of John Joachim Becher, who in 1661 published a Latin folio, which, apart from its main subject, is valuable from its observations on grammar, and on the affinities existing between seven of the ancient and modern tongues. With this he gives a Latin dictionary, in which every word corresponds with one or more Arabic numerals. 'Every word is assumed as distinctive, or denoting the same word in all languages; and consequently nothing more is required than to compose a dictionary for each, similar to that which he has given for the Latin.' Certain determinate numbers being given for the declensions and conjugations, and the cases, moods, tenses, and persons, the whole grammar becomes extremely easy of acquisition. Let us suppose that a Frenchman wishes to write to a German: La guerre est un grand mal—'War is a great evil.' He seeks in his index guerre, and finds 13. The verb etre, 'to be,' is 33. Grand, or 'great,' is 67; and mal, or 'evil,' is 68. The sentence then reads:

13. 33. 67. 68.

The sentence might be understood by these four numbers, but the author perfects it. Guerre, or 'war,' is the nominative case, and is appropriately designated by the Arabic numeral 1. The third person, singular, present tense, of the indicative mood of a verb, is characterized by 15. Grand and mal being each in the nominative case, also require the figure 1. He will therefore write:

13. 1 33. 15 67. 1 68.1

—the numbers being separated by a vertical dash, to avoid confusion. The German, inverting the process, turns to hisdictionary, and finds Der Krieg ist ein grosses Uebel.

If the world were to be persuaded to adopt these dictionaries, and with them some uniform oral system of counting, such as might be learned in a day, who shall say in what conversation might result! Fancy an orator counting '83.1—10.16—225.2'—interrupted by enthusiastic cries of '2.30' and '11.45!' Fancy a lover breathing his tender passion in '837.25—29.1,' and extracting a reluctant '12' from his adored. Fancy a drunken Delaware Democrat—a SAULSBURY—flourishing a revolver, and gurgling out '54.40' to the Sergeant-at-Arms in particular, and decency in general, as a proof of his fitness to be regarded as a mate for his Southern colleagues. Fancy Brignoli singing '1.2.3,' as he reminds us by his good singing and wooden acting of a nightingale imprisoned in a pump—

Or fancy the appearance of a page of Shakspeare or Homer thus metamorphosed.

'He lisped in numbers for, the numbers came.'

It is something to the marquis's credit that he evidently, to judge from the sixth article of his 'Century,' had discovered the telegraph, an invention not much used in Europe until the commencement of the French Revolution. It had indeed been understood in a rude form by the ancients. 'Polybius describes a method of communication which was invented by Cleoxenus, which answered both by day and night,' but that of Worcester's is thought to have been far superior to anything known before his time. The following paragraphs all indicate inventions greatly in advance of his age:

'No. IX.—An engine portable in one's pocket, which may be carried and fastened in the inside of the greatest ship, tanquam aliud agens, and at any appointed minute, though a week after, either of day or night, it shall irrecoverably sink that ship.'

A bombshell filled with gunpowder, a gunlock, and a small clock, have been suggested as forming the components of this invention. I am satisfied however, that several very dangerous detonating powders were well known to the alchemists; and the condensed pocket size of the machine described, would evidently require some such preparation.

'No. X.—A way from a mile off to dive and fasten a like engine to any ship so as it may punctually work the same effect either for time or execution.'

Precisely the same experiment has within a week of the time at which I am now writing, been made at Washington, as it was by Mr. Fulton half a century ago with his Torpedo-harpoon. If the marquis contemplated simply human agency as the aid to apply his portable powder-machine, it must be admitted that he had at least contemplated a more effective diving bell than any known to modern times. Submarine transit was indeed a subject to which he had devoted special study.

'No. XI.—How to prevent and safeguard any ship from such an attempt by day or night.

'No. XII.—A way to make a ship not possible to be sunk, though shot at an hundred times between wood and water by cannon, and should she lose a whole plank, yet, in half an hour's time, should be made to sail as fit as before.'

It is thought that a great number of airtight compartments was the secret here hinted at; but the spirit of positive confidence with which the marquis speaks, and the great number of successful shots which he defies, seems to hint at something like the Ericsson Monitor of these days. Not without interest is the following:

'No. XIII—How to make such false decks as in a moment should kill and take prisoners as many as should board the ship, without blowing the real decks up, or destroying them from being reducible; and in a quarter of an hour's time should recover their former shape, and to be made fit for any employment, without discovering the secret.'

The words italicized set forth the startling marvel of the whole. It is said that a false deck of thick plank may be easily blown into the air, when a number of small iron boxes, open at the top, and filled with gunpowder, are placed beneath. How this could be done and yet kept secret is indeed a wonder, and we must therefore conjecture that the marquis had some other device in his mind. Certain it is, that the idea of converting vessels into traps of destruction, or of so defending them as to destroy assailants after boarding the decks, has not been very extensively developed.

'No. XVI.—How to make a sea castle or a fortification cannon proof, capable of a thousand men, yet sailable at pleasure to defend a passage, or in an hour's time to divide itself into three ships, as fit and trimmed to sail as before; and even whilst it is a fort or castle, they shall be unanimously steered, and effectually be driven by an indifferent strong wind.'

It is to be regretted that Parliamentary or other inducements were not employed to obtain from the marquis, at least the publication of his views as regards making vessels cannon proof. From the general character of his inventions, and from comparison of them, it appears he had full faith in cannon-proof floating batteries as a means of defence, and, we may consequently and justly infer, as superior to the latter. Among his inventions there are but two in reference to 'fortifications,' and both of these are after a manner a transfer of the floating battery to land, or an application of the principle of mobile defences. These are as follows:

'No. XXIX.—A portable fortification, able to contain five hundred fighting men, and yet, in six hours' time, may be set up and made cannon proof, upon the side of a river or pass, with cannon mounted upon it, and as complete as a regular fortification, with halfmoons and counterscarps.

'No. XXX.—A way in one night's time to raise a bulwark, twenty or thirty foot high, cannon proof, and cannon mounted upon it; with men to overlook, command, and batter a town, for though it (the bulwark) contain but four pieces, they shall be able to discharge two hundred bullets each hour.'

There can be but little question, from all I have cited, that the Marquis of Worcester was singularly in advance of his age as regarded the great principles of warfare. We have found him thus far, in all probability, acquainted with the construction of permutable seals, and indeed of the grand principle of permutation applied to technology in several respects (vide "Century" Nos. III, IV, V,) of the telegraph, of sinking vessels by torpedoes, and, finally, of floating batteries and cannon-proof vessels. In No. 30, we have, however, a hint that the marquis had studied the principles of revolving firearms, when he speaks of four cannon discharging two hundred bullets each hour. That he had, theoretically, at least, anticipated Colt, appears from

'No. LVIII.—How to make a pistol discharge a dozen times with one loading, and without so much as once new priming requisite, or to change it out of one hand into the other, or stop one's horse.'

I call attention to the words which I have italicized. It is well known that the mere principle of revolving barrels in firearms was already old, even when Worcester wrote. I have seen guns of the kind over three hundred years old, and they are not uncommon in foreign museums. But it would appear that the marquis was acquainted with the principle of the self-cocking pistol. How else could he propose to discharge a gun a dozen times, without changing it from one hand to another? And this, I believe, was not known before his day. But how this could have been conveniently carried out, without some application of detonating powders in place of flint, steel, and gunpowder, I do not understand. That he was very probably familiar with the application of such chemical detonating agents has already been suggested. In another number, he suggests the application of this principle to 'carbines.' So in No. LXII, he proposes 'a way for a harquebuss, a crock, or ship musket, six upon a carriage, shooting with such expedition as, without danger, one may charge, level, and discharge them sixty times in a minute of an hour, two or three together.' To which he adds the following:

'No. LXIV.—A seventh, tried and approved before the late king (of ever blessed memory), and an hundred lords and commons, in a cannon of eight inches and half a quarter, to shoot bullets of sixty-four pounds weight, and twenty-four pounds of powder, twenty times in six minutes; so clear from danger, that after all were discharged, a pound of butter did not melt, being laid upon the cannon britch, nor the green oil discoloured that was first anointed and used between the barrel thereof, and the engine having never in it, nor within six foot, but one charge at a time.'

Several improvements of this kind are suggested in the 'Century,' which evidently involve different principles from that of the modern revolver, in reference to which difference we are informed in a 'note by the author,' that 'when I first gave my thoughts to make guns shoot often, I thought there had been but one only exquisite way inventible; yet, by several trials, and much charge, I have perfectly tried all of these.'

I cannot venture in a single article to exhaust the suggestions in the Century, and must refer my reader to the volume himself, assuring him that he will there find many curious hints, several of which have, since its publication, been very practically realized. It is worth noting, however, that the author seems to have fully anticipated a very remarkable modern invention, in declaring that 'a woman even may with her delicate hand, vary the ways of coming to open a lock ten millions of times, beyond the knowledge of the smith that made it, or of me who invented it.' From this, as I have already suggested, it appears that he had, far in advance of his age, mastered a very great principle in mechanics; and as he appears to have understood, in theory at least, several others, it is no more than justice to rank him far above those mere charlatans of science, and hunters for marvels by means of isolated observation and experiment, with whom many would place him. That the 'Century' contains much which would be very discreditable to any man of science at the present day, is very true. Perpetual motion, perfect aerostation, devices for idle tricks and mere thaumaturgy, appear in company with schemes to take unfair advantages at card playing, and for the construction of false dice boxes—of which latter it is indignantly observed by honest Partington, that, there are few who profess the science of cheating at cards or dice, or to be encouragers of those who do; and it may fairly be conceded that there are not two periods in our regal annals, in which this detestable meanness had become fashionable enough to sanction a nobleman in inscribing to a king and his parliament a method by which it might be advantageously effected! We may, however, believe that a second period has at the present dawned over England, not much inferior as regards 'detestable meanness,' to that of Charles the Second. A recent transaction has shown that noblemen and their friends in the year 1862, are not above ascertaining from Johnson's Dictionary, the obsolete spelling of a word, such as rain-deer, betting a hundred pounds with an American as to its true orthography, and agreeing with him to abide by Johnson's authority; a piece of swindling quite as detestable in its meanness as the using of loaded dice. Neither can I see that the conduct of a majority of the British people, in fomenting Abolition for many years, and then giving her aid and countenance to our Southern rebels, on the flimsy, and, at best, brazenly selfish plea of the Morrill Tariff, is less detestable or less mean. We may regret to see a vice in individuals tolerated in high places; but when the blackest inconsistency, and the most contemptible avarice are elevated by a Christian nation into principles of conduct toward another nation struggling to free the oppressed, we may well doubt whether another period has not approached in England, over which the future historiographer may not sigh as deeply as over that of Charles the Second.

I attach no serious value to the efforts of the Marquis of Worcester, save as illustrating the principle with which I prefaced this article: that according to the mental peculiarities of the most vigorous of races—the Indo-Germanic above others—there is a tendency in certain active minds to generalize and draw practical conclusions, not unfrequently centuries in advance of the wants of their age. The partial and premature forcing of these principles into practice, is sometimes quoted in after years as derogatory to the merit due to modern inventors, and as illustrating to a degree never contemplated by him who uttered it, the maxim that there's 'nothing new under the sun.' Nothing? Why, everything is new under the sun when it first assumes fit time and place. Were this not true, we might as well return to 'Nature's Centenary of Inventions,' as set forth by a pleasant pen in Household Words:

'Before the first clumsy sail was hoisted by a savage hand, the little Portuguese man-of-war, that frailest and most graceful nautilus boat, had skimmed over the seas with all its feathery sails set in the pleasant breeze; and before the great British Admiralty marked its anchors with the Broad Arrow, mussels and pinna had been accustomed to anchor themselves by flukes to the full as effective as the iron one in the Government dockyards. The duck used oars before we did; and rudders were known by every fish with a tail, countless ages before human pilots handled tillers; the floats on the fishermen's nets were pre-figured in the bladders on the sea weed; the glowworm and firefly held up their light-houses before pharas or beacon-tower guided the wanderer among men; and, as long before Phipps brought over the diving bell to this country as the creation, spiders were making and using airpumps to descend into the deep. Our bones were moved by tendons and muscles long before chains and cords were made to pull heavy weights from place to place. Nay, until quite lately—leaving these discoveries to themselves—we took no heed of the pattern set us in the backbone, with the arching ribs springing from it, to construct the large cylinder which we often see now attaching all the rest of a set of works. This has been a very modern discovery; but, prior even to the first man, Nature had cast such a cylinder in every ribbed and vertebrate animal she had made. The cord of plaited iron, too, now used to drag machinery up inclined planes, was typified in the backbone of the eels and snakes in Eden; tubular bridges and hollow columns had been in use since the first bird with hollow bones flew through the wood, or the first reed waved in the wind. Strange that the principle of the Menai Straits' railway bridge, and of the iron pillars in the Crystal Palace, existed is the Arkite dove, and in the bulrushes that grew round the cradle of Moses! Our railway tunnels are wonderful works of science, but the mole tunnelled with its foot, and the pholas with one end of its shell, before our navvies handled pick or spade upon the heights of the iron roads: worms were prior to gimlets, ant-lions were the first funnel makers, a beaver showed men how to make the milldams, and the pendulous nests of certain birds swung gently in the air before the keen wit of even the most loving mother laid her nursling in a rocking cradle. The carpenter of olden time lost many useful hours in studying how to make the ball-and-socket joint which he bore about with him in his own hips and shoulders; the universal joint, which filled all men with wonder when first discovered, he had in his wrist; in the jaws of all flesh-eating animals his huge one-hinge joint; in the graminivora and herbivora the joint of free motion; for grinding millstones were set up in our molars and in the gizzards of birds before the Egyptian women ground their corn between two stones; and the crushing teeth of the hyena make the best models we know of for hammers to break stones on the road. The tongue of certain shell fish—of the limpet, for instance—is full of siliceous spines which serve as rasp and drill; and knives and scissors were carried about in the mandibles and beaks of primeval bees and parrots.

Yes, they were all there—and if the undeveloped germ may be taken for the great fruit-bearing tree, there is nothing new under the sun, labor and effort are of no avail, and it is not worth while for man to live threescore years and ten, since a much less time would suffice to show his utter worthlessness. But the bee and the wild bird, the pearly nautilus driving before the fresh breeze, and the reed waving in the wind, should teach us a higher lesson. They teach us that life is beautiful and to be enjoyed, that infinite laws and infinite ingenuity were not displayed to be called idle and vain, and that, as the insect works according to his instinct, man should labor, from the dictates of reason, with heart and soul to do his best to turn to higher advantage the innumerable advantages afforded him.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Philosophia Ultima, CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1861.]

[Footnote 5: One of the greatest inventors of this or of any age, and one whom the world regards as 'successful,' is said to have advised an ingenious friend, never in any case or under any circumstances to take out a patent for an invention. He 'had been through the mill,' and knew what it cost.]



THE LADY AND HER SLAVE.

A Tale.

LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO MY SISTERS IN THE SOUTH.

'Nor private grief nor malice holds my pen, I owe but kindness to my fellow men. And, South or North, wherever hearts of prayer Their woes and weakness to our Father bear, Wherever fruits of Christian love are found In holy lives, to me is holy ground.'

—WHITTIER.

My young mistress! frown not on me! come! my heart is beating low! Softly raise the quilt—my babe! Ah, smile on her ere I go!

Yes, the smile comes warm as sunshine, and it falls on my sick heart As if Heaven were shining through it, and new hopes within me start.

Your clear eyes shine blue upon me through the clouds of sunny curls, Sadder now, but still as kindly, as when we were little girls.

Your poor slave and you, fair mistress, were born in the same hour, As if God himself had marked me from my birth to be your dower.

Oft have I laid my dusky hand upon your neck of snow, To see it sparkle through the jet—how long that seems ago!

So long! before young master came to woo Virginia's daughter, And tempt her to the cotton fields on Mississippi's water.

I could not leave you, mistress, so I followed to the swamp, Where fevers fire the burning blood and the long moss hangs damp.

I left poor Sam, he loved me well, but you were my heart's god; My mother's tears fell hot and fast—I followed where you trod.

Sin and sorrow fell upon me! and soon you felt it shame To have lost Amy near you, and you blushed to hear her name.

Reared near virgin purity, you could not understand How I could break from virtue's laws, and form a lawless band.

Then you questioned kindly, sternly,—but you could not make me tell; I would not wring your trusting heart with tales scarce fit for hell!

You deemed me hardened, sunk in vice; I choked down every moan, Turned from your breast the poisoned dart to bury in my own.

Driven from your presence, mistress, in agony and shame I bore a wretched infant—she must never know her name!

How I crawled around your windows when your joyous boy was born, To hear your voice, to catch a glimpse,—the sun rose fair that morn.

Ah! not mine to hold your darling! not mine to soothe his cries When the stern death-angel seized him and bore him to the skies!

Then judgment came—the fever fell—young master gasped for breath— God's hand was on him—vain were prayers,—how still he lay in death!

I heard you shriek—I rushed within—I held you in my arms That frenzied night when sudden woe had wrought its worst of harms.

When reason dawned on you again, sweet pity stirred within, You heard my cough, my labored breath, and saw me ghastly, thin.

Then you took my hand so kindly, gazing on my faded face: 'Speak, and tell me truly, Amy, how you fell in such disgrace.'

If he had lived, sweet mistress, I had borne it to the grave; I would not mar your happiness, child, self or race to save.

Say! must I speak of one you loved now sleeping 'neath the sod? Your 'yes' is bitter; but we owe the naked truth to God!

The truth to God, for guiltless you must stand before His face, Nor wrong my pallid baby, nor scorn my suffering race.

Am I too bold? Death equals all—my heart beats faint and low; Turn not away, sweet mistress, hear the truth before I go!

Gaze upon my shivering baby, scan the little pallid face, Mark the forehead, eyes of azure—Ha! you do the likeness trace!

Nay, start not in horror from me! Oh, it was no fault of mine; I would have died a thousand deaths ere wronged a thought of thine.

He came at midnight to my hut—abhorrent to my sense— Force—threats of shame—foul violence—a slave has no defence!

Wronged—soiled—and outraged—sick at heart—what right had I to feel? He deemed his chattel honored,—God! how brain and senses reel!

We're women, though our hair is crisped, and though our skin be black: Men, ask your virgin daughters what's the maiden's deadliest rack!

I scorned myself! I hated him! but felt a living goad Writhe and crawl beneath my bosom—shameful burden! sinful load!

Sick and faint, I loathed my master, loathed his inant, loathed my life Till its flame burned dim within me, choked by shame, rage, hate, and strife.

Better feelings woke within me when the helpless girl was born; Mother's love poured wild upon her: how love conquers rage and scorn!

But my tortured heart was broken, and a slave girl ought to die When a tyrant master wrongs her, and she dreads her mistress' eye:

Dreads one she loves may read in her, in spite of silence deep, That which would blight all happiness, and pale the rosy cheek:

Dreads that a wife may shuddering read a husband's naked heart— Humbled and crushed by treachery, may into madness start.

But Amy dies: she has forgiven—forgive with her the wrong! Smile on the helpless baby—make her truthful, pure, and strong.

Let her wait upon you, mistress; twine your ringlets golden still; Take her back to old Virginia, to the homestead by the hill.

My heart clings to you with wild love—wherefore I scarce dare whisper— Forgive—I am your father's child! pity your ruined sister!

The hot white blood in my baby's veins, though mixed with duskier flow, Will make her wretched if a slave; let her in freedom go!

Oh make her free, sweet mistress, that such a fate as mine Blanch not her cheek with agony, nor blast her ere her prime!

You smile—I need no promise; angel-like to me you seem; Will you open heaven for me? bring the seraphs? how I dream!

I go to God. He made me. All His children, black and white, Will meet in heaven if pure and true, clad in the eternal Light.

I die—God bless you, mistress!'... Sigh, and gasp—then all is o'er! And the lady kneels beside a corpse upon the cabin floor.

Her thoughts are busy with the past, with love in falsehood spoken, While her dusky sister's faithful heart had in silent anguish broken.

She takes the cold hand in her own: 'Poor Amy, can it be That thou wert of a race accursed, unworthy to be free?

Man's falsehood! God! Thy right hand rests upon the dusky brow; Thou starr'st it round with virtues brighter than our boasted snow!

I have learned a bitter lesson; to my slave I've been to school; God has humbled me, but chastened; I will keep His Golden Rule.

Slaves and chattels! God forgive us! they are men and women—Thine! If Christ may dwell within them, shall I dare to call them mine?

No woman must be outraged, nor owned by man, if we Would hold our sanctity intact—all women must be free.

Sacred from every touch profane, yes, holy things and pure; A wrong to one is wrong to all; we must the weak secure.

United we must strike the shame; if known aright our power, Slavery and crime would perish: Sisters, peal their final hour!

Mothers, maidens, wives, no longer aid your dusky sisters' shame! Strike for our common womanhood, uphold our spotless fame!

Its majesty is in your hands, trail it not in the dust, Nor keep your shrinking slaves as prey for lovers', husbands' lust!

All womanhood is holy! it shall not be profaned! Our sanctity is threatened: Men! it shall not thus be stained!

Break up your harems! free our slaves! we will not share your shame! O mothers of the living, chaste must be life's sacred flame!

Fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands, their chains must be untwined! Touch not the ark where purity in woman's form is shrined!

Poor Amy! love has conquered! the veil is raised, I see Sister spirits 'neath the dusky hue; thy people shall go free!'

The lady rose with high resolve upon her pale sad face; And moved among the slave girls, the angel of their race.

Angel of freedom, charity, she breathes, and fetters melt, And the holy might of Purity in Southern heart is felt.

Ah! the stars upon our banner, driven apart and dimmed with blood, Might again in glory cluster through a perfect womanhood!



FOR AND AGAINST.

When his father called Fred Fontevrault, then a boy of fifteen, into his sick chamber, and made him subscribe to the whimsical conditions of the will, the female gendarmerie, so well versed in my affairs, declared that my husband had wretchedly repented his early marriage, and resolving his son should walk into fate with eyes unbandaged, forbade his alliance before the age of twenty-six. Though Mr. Fontevrault was fifty and I sixteen when I married him, he was not unhappy. He occupied himself in looking after his money, and making a collection of mosaics. We never had any matrimonial disturbances. I think they are vulgar. Any woman can do as she pleases without a remonstrant word, provided she has mind enough. It is the brainless women who scold. But scolds do not rule.

Fred was unreasonably fond of his father, and assented to his wishes without demur, even when the great Fontevrault estates hung on his fidelity to a useless oath. Then he died, and I settled into the blank stupidity of my widowhood. I, who had known no master but my own sweet will, now found myself in a hundred ways restricted. I was ruled through Fred. He must graduate at Harvard; the great establishment, splendid but tedious, must be maintained. So our residence in Boston was necessitated. I shut myself up in the legitimate manner, and—mourned of course. If it had not been for novels, worsted work, and my beauty, I should have gaped myself out of existence the first year. What nonsense it is to say the prime of a woman's loveliness passes before the thirties! For, look at me, am I old or faded? Would you believe that Fred, so tall and splendidly developed, was my son? From me he took his wealth of nature, for Mr. Fontevrault was one of those dried, wrinkled old men, women like me often marry; not because of the settlements only, but because of the foil. My figure was moulded like the Venus they copied in the colder marble from Pauline. Shoulders and arms, delicious in their curves, shining with a rosy fairness. A creamy skin, with a faint coralline tinge in the cheeks. The forehead is too low, some say; and yet artists have praised its bend, and the Greek line of the nose; not intellectual, but womanly, you know. Hair of a bright brown, feeling like floss silk. Eyes, I believe, few people ever fairly saw. Men are bewitched by them, women cannot understand their charm. Perhaps you have seen Wilson's portrait of me, the one with the grayish green background; you notice that the eyes were turned from the spectator, and half shaded by white lid and gilded lash. He could not catch the flitting spark that made them mine, and refused to paint them at all. My son promises to be as perfect in his way as I in mine. Just now a student, he is too Raphael-angel-like to suit me; but the very fellow to bewilder girls and set the boarding schools crazy. Luckily he is bound against inthralment.

By and by the house grew so lonely that I was fain to send for Leonora to make durance less vile. It was positively refreshing to hear her voice sing through the solemn old hall. Very warm was the welcome she received from both Fred and me. He had often said she was the only woman he could talk to without suppressing a yawn. It was ungallant of him, but I could sympathize with the sentiment. Women usually weary me. I told Leonora she must make up her mind to stay with me, as long as she remained unmarried.

Fred, holding her hand, laughingly made her promise never to take a husband without his consent. While I passed on, he drew her back; the mirror above the door framed a picture prettier than I liked to see.

'There is but one man I will authorize you to marry,' said my son.

Then it suddenly flashed on my mind that Fred was of the age of Scott's heroes, and would be sure to fall in love with a woman older than himself. The love did not matter so much, but marriage would be an absurdity. I expected to have a daughter-in-law some day or other; but it was never to be Leonora. In a hundred ways she had resisted me, and overcome me. I was as resolutely opposed to her, as if she had been my enemy. She was a connection of the family, independent, yet in some sort alone in the world. If it had been conferring a favor on her, to ask her to stay with me, be sure I never would have uttered a persuasive word. But it was asking her to leave gay society, and the incense of admiration, to bury herself in a dull house. Then she was 'ornamental;' I liked to see her about; she was satirical, and pleased me by a little spicy abuse. They called her handsome. She was too small, I think, too slight, perhaps; and then her complexion was almost swarthy. But her hair was fine, her eyes large and brilliant, and her mouth mobile and sweet. The face was nothing to me; but her companionship was enlivening.