My Unknown Chum Part 7

"He is most rich who stops at competence, Not labours on till the worn heart grows sere, Who, wealth attained, upon some loftier aim Fixes his gaze, and never turns it backward."

"Give me neither poverty nor riches," has been my prayer through life, as it was that of the ancient sage; and it has always been my opinion that a man who owns even a single acre of land within a convenient distance of State Street or of the Astor House, is just as well off as if he were rich. My pet.i.tion has been answered: but it must be confessed that when I mouse in the book shops, or turn over the rich portfolios of the print dealers, I feel that I am poor indeed. I do not envy him who can adorn the walls of his dwelling with the masterpieces of ancient or modern art on their original canvas; but I do crave those faithful reproductions which we owe to the engravers skill, and which come so near my grasp as to aggravate my covetousness, and make me speak most disrespectfully of my unelastic purse.

Few people have spent any considerable time abroad without being for a season in straitened circ.u.mstances. A mistake may have been made in reckoning up ones cash, or a bill may be longer than was expected, or ones banker may temporarily suspend payment; and suddenly he who never knew a moments anxiety about his pecuniary affairs finds himself wondering how he can pay for his lodgings, and where his next days beefsteak is coming from. It was my good fortune once to undergo such a trial in Paris. I say good fortunefor, unpleasant as it was at the time, it was one of the most precious experiences of my life. I do not think that a true, manly character can be formed without placing the subject in the position of a s.h.i.+ps helm, when she is in danger of getting aback; to speak less technically, he must (once in his life, at least) be _hard up_.

I was younger in those days than I am now, and was living for a time in the gay capital of France. My lodgings were in one of those quiet streets that lead to the _Place Ventadour_, in which the Italian Opera House stands. My room was about twelve feet square, was handsomely furnished, and decorated with a large mirror, and a polished oaken floor that rivalled the mirror in brilliancy. Its window commanded an un.o.bstructed view of a court-yard about the size of the room itself; but, as I was pretty high up (on the second floor coming down) my light was good, and I could not complain. As I write, it seems as if I could hear the old _concierge_ blacking boots and shoes away down at the bottom of that well of a court-yard, enlivening his toil with an occasional s.n.a.t.c.h from some old song, and now and then calling out to his young wife within the house, with a clear voice, "Marie!"the accent of the final syllable being prolonged in a preternatural manner. And then out of the same depths came a melodious response from Maries blithesome voice, that made me stop shaving to enjoy ita voice that seemed in perfect harmony with the cool breath and bright sky of that sunny spring morning. Marie was a representative woman of her cla.s.s. I do not believe that she could have been placed in any honest position, however high, that she would not have adorned. Her simplicity and good nature conciliated the good will of every one who addressed her, and I have known her quiet, lady-like dignity to inspire even some loud and boastful Americans, who called on me, with a momentary sentiment of respect. They appeared almost like gentlemen for two or three minutes after speaking with her. Upon my honour, sir, it was worth considerably more than I paid for my room to have the privilege of living under the same roof with such a cheery sunbeamto see her seated daily at the window of the _conciergerie_ with a snow-white cap on her head and a pleasant smile on her face; to interrupt her sewing, with an inquiry whether any letters had come for me, and be charmed with her alacrity in handing me the expected note, and the key of _numero dix-huit_. Her nightly _Bon soir, Msieur_, was like a benediction from a guardian angel; her vivacious _Bon jour_ was an augury of an untroubled day; it would have made the darkest, foggiest November afternoon seem as bright, and fresh, and exhilarating as a morning in June. These are trifles, I know, but it is of trifles such as these that the true happiness of life is made up. Great joys, like great griefs, do not possess the soul so completely as we think, as Wellington victorious, or Napoleon defeated, at Waterloo, would have discovered, if, in that great hour, they had been visited with a twinge of neuralgia in the head, or a gnawing dyspepsia.

The influenza, or _grippe_, as the French call it, is not a pleasant thing under any circ.u.mstances; but I think of a four days attack, during which Marie attended to my wants, as a period of unmixed pleasure. She seemed to hover about my sick bed, she moved so gently, and her voice (to use the words of my former cherished friend, S. T.

Coleridge,) was like

"a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune."

"Was it that Monsieur would be able to drink a little tea, or would it please him to taste some cool lemonade?" _Hlas!_ Monsieur was too _malade_ for that; but the kind attentions of that estimable little woman were more refres.h.i.+ng than a Baltic Sea of the beverage that cheers but does not inebriate, or all the aid that the lemon groves of Italy could afford. Maries politeness was the genuine article, and came right from her pure, kind heart. It was as far removed from that despicable obsequiousness which pa.s.ses current with so many for politeness, as old-fas.h.i.+oned Christian charity is from modern philanthropy.

Butpardon my garrulityI am forgetting my story. In a moment of kindly forgetfulness I lent a considerable portion of my available funds to a friend who was short, and who was obliged to return to America, _via_ England. I was in weekly expectation of a draft from home that would place me once more upon my financial legs. One, two, three weeks pa.s.sed away, and the letters from America were distributed every Tuesday morning, but there was none for me. It gave me a kind of faint sensation when the clerk at the bankers gave me the disappointing answer, and I went into the reading-room of the establishment to read the new American papers, and to speculate upon the cause of the unremitting neglect of my friends at home. I shall never forget my feelings when, in the third week of my impecuniosity, I found my exchequer reduced to the small sum of eight francs. I saw the truth of Shakespeares words describing the "consumption of the purse" as an incurable disease. I had many acquaintances and a few friends in Paris, but I determined not to borrow if it could possibly be avoided. Five days would elapse before another American mail arrived, and I resolved that my remaining eight francs should carry me through to the eventful Tuesday, which I felt sure would bring the longed-for succor. I found a little dingy shop, in a narrow street behind the Church of St. Roch, where I could get a breakfast, consisting of a bowl of very good coffee and piece of bread (I asked for the end of the loaf) for six sous. My dinners I managed to bring down to the sum of twelve sous, by choosing obscure localities for the obtaining of that repast, and confining myself to those simple and nutritious viands which possessed the merit attributed to the veal pie by Samuel Weller, being "werry fillin at the price." Sometimes I went to bed early, to avoid the inconveniences of a light dinner. One day I dined with a friend at his lodgings, but I did not enjoy his hospitality; I felt guilty, as if I had sacrificed friends.h.i.+p to save my dwindling purse. The coa.r.s.est bread and the most suspicious beef of the Latin Quarter would have been more delicious to me under such circ.u.mstances than the best ragout of the Boulevards or the Palais Royal.

Of course, this state of things weighed heavily upon my spirits. I heard Marie tell her husband that Monsieur lAnglais was _bien triste_. I avoided the friends with whom I had been used to meet, and (remembering what a sublime thing it is to suffer and be strong) sternly resolved not to borrow till I found myself completely gravelled. It grieved me to be obliged to pa.s.s the old blind man who played the flageolet on the _Pont des Arts_ without dropping a copper into his tin box; but the severest blow was the being compelled to put off my obliging washerwoman and her reasonable bill. The time pa.s.sed away quickly, however. The _Louvre_, with its treasures of art, was a blessed asylum for me. It cost me nothing, and I was there free from the importunities of distress which I could not relieve. In the halls of the great public librarynow the _Bibliothque Impriale_I found myself at home. Among the studious throng that occupied its vast reading rooms, I was as independent as if my name had been Rothschild, or the treasures of the Bank of France had been at my command. The master spirits with whom I there communed do not ask what their votaries carry in their pockets. There is no property-test for admission to the privileges of their companions.h.i.+p. I felt the equality which prevails in the republic of letters. I knew that my left hand neighbour was not, in that quiet place, superior to me on account of his glossy coat and golden-headed cane, and that I was no better than the reader at my right hand because he wore a blouse. I jingled my two or three remaining francs in my pocket, and thought how useless money was, when the lack of it was no bar to entrance into the hallowed presence of

"Those dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule Our spirits from their urns."

I shall not soon forget the intense satisfaction with which I read in the regulations of the library a strict prohibition against offering any fees or gratuities whatever to its blue-coated officials.

At last the expected Tuesday morning came. My funds had received an unlooked-for diminution by receiving a letter from my friend whose wants had led me into difficulty. He was just embarking at Liverpoolhoped that my remittance had arrived in due seasonpromised to send me a draft as soon as he reached New Yorkenvied my happiness at remaining in Parisand left me to pay the postage on his valediction. It would be difficult for any disinterested person to conceive how dear the thoughtless writer of that letter was to me in that unfortunate hour.

Then, too, I was obliged to lay out six of those cherished copper coins for a ride in an omnibus, as I was caught in a shower over in the vicinity of St. Sulpice, and could not afford to take the risk of a rheumatic attack by getting wet. I well remember the cool, business-like air with which that relentless _conducteur_ pocketed those specimens of the French currency that were so precious in my sight. Yet, in spite of these serious and unexpected drains upon my finances, I had four sous left after paying for my breakfast on that memorable morning. I felt uncommonly cheerful at the prospect of being relieved from my troubles, and stopped several minutes after finis.h.i.+ng my coffee, and conversed with the tidy shopwoman with a fluency that astonished both of us. I really regretted for the moment that I was so soon to be placed in funds, and should no longer enjoy her kindly services. I chuckled audibly to myself as I pursued my way to the bankers, to think what an immense joke it would be for some skilful Charley Bates or Artful Dodger to try to pick my pocket just then. An ancient heathen expecting an answer from the oracle of Delphos, a modern candidate for office awaiting the count of the vote, never felt more oppressed with the importance of the result than I did when I entered the banking-house. My delight at having a letter from America put into my hands could only be equalled by my dismay when I opened it, and found, instead of the draft, a request from a casual acquaintance who had heard that I might possibly return home through England, and who, if I did, would be under great obligations if I would take the trouble to procure and carry home for him an English magpie and a genuine King Charles spaniel!

I did not stop to read the papers that morning. As I was leaving the establishment, I met its chief partner, to whom I could not help expressing my disappointment. He was one of your hard-faced, high-cheek-boned Yankees, with a great deal of speculation in his eyes.

I should as soon have thought of attempting the cultivation of figs and dates at Franconia as of trying to get a small loan from _him_. So I pushed on into those busy streets whose liveliness seemed to mock my pitiable condition. I had come to it at last. I had got to borrow. A physician, who now stands high among the faculty in Boston, was then residing in Paris, and, as I had been on familiar terms with him, I determined to have recourse to him. He occupied two rooms in the fifth story of a house in the Rue St. Honor. His apartments were more remarkable for their snugness than for the extent of accommodation they afforded. A snuff-taking friend once offered to present the doctor with one of his silk handkerchiefs to carpet that parlour with. But the doctors heart was not to be measured by the size of his rooms, and I knew that he would be a friend in need. The _concierge_ told me that the doctor had not gone out, and, in obedience to the instructions of that functionary, I mounted the long staircase and _frapped_ at the door of that estimable disciple of Galen. It was not my usual thrice-repeated stroke upon the door; it was a timid and uncertain knockthe knock of a borrower. The doctor said that he had been rather short himself for a week or two, but that he should undoubtedly find a letter in the General Post that morning that would place him in a condition to give me a lift.

This was said in a manner that put me entirely at my ease, and made me feel that by accepting his loan I should be conferring an inestimable favour upon him. As we walked towards the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, I amused him with the story of the preceding weeks adventures. He laughed heartily, and after a few minutes I joined with him, though I must say that the events, as they occurred, did not particularly impress me as subjects for very hilarious mirth. The doctor inquired at the _poste restante_ in vain. His friends had been as remiss as mine, and we had both got to wait another week. The doctor was not an habitually profane man, but as we came through the court-yard of the post office, he expressed his anxiety as to what the devil we should do. He examined his purse, and found that his available a.s.sets amounted to a trifle more than nineteen francs. He looked as troubled as he had before looked gay.

I generously offered him my four remaining coppers, and told him that I would stand by him as long as he had a centime in his pocket. Such an exhibition of magnanimity could not be made in vain. We stopped in front of the church of Our Lady of Victories, and took the heroic resolve to club our funds and go through the week of expectation together. And we did it. I wish that s.p.a.ce would allow of my describing the achievements of that week. Medical books were cast aside for the study of domestic economy. I do not believe that a similar sum of money ever went so far before, even in Paris. We found a place in a narrow street, near the Odeon, where fried potatoes were sold very cheap; we bought our bread by the loaf, as it was cheaperthe loaves being so long that the doctor said that he understood, when he first saw them, why bread was called the staff of life. We resorted to all sorts of expedients to make a franc buy as much as possible of the necessaries of life. We frequented with great a.s.siduity all places of public amus.e.m.e.nt where there was no fee for admission. The public galleries, the libraries, the puppet shows in the Champs Elyses, were often honoured with our presence. We made a joke of our necessities, and carried it through to the end. The next Tuesday morning found us, after breakfasting, on our way to the post office, with a franc left in our united treasury. I had begun to give up all hopes of our ever getting a letter from home, and insisted upon the doctors trying his luck first. He was successful, but the severest part of the joke came when he found that his letter (contrary to all precedent) was not postpaid. The polite official at the window must have thirty-two sous for it, and we had but twenty. Our laughter showed him the whole state of the case, and we left him greatly amused at our promises to return soon, and get the desirable prize. My application at the bankers was successful, too, and before noon we were both prepared to laugh a siege to scorn. I paid the rosy-cheeked washerwoman, bought Marie a neat crucifix to hang up in the place of a very rude one in her _conciergerie_, out of sheer good humour; and that evening the doctor and I laughed over the recollections of the week and a good dinner in a quiet restaurant in the Palais Royal.

THE OLD CORNER

The human heart loves corners. The very word "corner" is suggestive of snugness and cosy comfort, and he who has no liking for them is something more or less than mortal. I have seen people whose ideas of comfort were singularly crude and imperfect; who thought that it consisted in keeping a habitation painfully clean, and in having every book or paper that might give token of the place being the dwelling of a human being, carefully out of sight. We have great cause for thankfulness that such people are not common, (for a little wholesome negligence is by no means an unpleasant thing,) so that we can say that mankind generally likes to snuggify itself, and is therefore fond of a corner. This natural fondness is manifested by the child with his playthings and infantile sports, in one of which, at least, the attractions of corners for the feline race are brought strongly before his inquisitive mind. And how is this liking strengthened and built up as the child increases in secular knowledge, and learns in the course of his poetical and historical researches all about the personal history of Master John Horner, whose sedentary habits and manducation of festive pastry are famous wherever the language of Shakespeare and Milton is spoken!

This love of nooks and corners is especially observable in those who are obliged to live in style and splendour. Many a n.o.ble English family has been glad to escape from the bondage of its rank, and has found more real comfort in the confinement of a Parisian _entresol_ than amid the gloomy grandeur of its London home. Those who are condemned to dwell in palaces bear witness to this natural love of snugness, by choosing some quiet sunny corner in their marble halls, and making it as comfortable as if it were a cosy cottage. Napoleon and Eugenie delight to escape from the magnificence of the Tuileries to that quiet and homelike refuge for people who are burdened with imperial dignity, amid the thick foliage and green alleys of St. Cloud. Even in that mighty maze, the Vatican, the rooms inhabited by the Sovereign Pontiff are remarkably comfortable and unpalatial, and prove the advantages of smallness and simplicity over gilding and grandeur, for the ordinary purposes of life.

An American gentleman once called on the great and good Cardinal Cheverus, and while talking with him of his old friends in America, said that the contrast between the Cardinals position in the episcopal palace of Bordeaux and in his former humble residence when he was Bishop of Boston, was a very striking one. The humble and pious prelate smiled, and taking his visitor by the arm, led him from the stately hall in which they were conversing, into a narrow room furnished in a style of austere simplicity: "The palace," said he, "which you have seen and admired is the residence of the Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux; but this little chamber is where John Cheverus _lives_."

Literary men and statesmen have always coveted the repose of a corner where they might be undisturbed by the wranglings of the world.

Twickenham, and Lausanne, and Ferney, and Rydal Mount have become as shrines to which the lover of books would fain make pilgrimages. Have we not a Sunnyside and an Idlewild even in this new land of ours! Cicero, in spite of his high opinion of Marcus Tullius, and his thirst for popular applause, often grew tired of urban life, and was glad to forsake the _Senatus populusque Roma.n.u.s_ for the quiet of his snug villa in a corner of the hill country overlooking Frascati. And did not our own Tully love to fling aside the burden of his power, and find his Tusculum on the old South Sh.o.r.e? In the Senate Chamber or the Department of State you might see the Defender of the Const.i.tution, but it was at Marshfield that Webster really lived. Horace loved good company and the entertainment of his wealthy patrons and friends, but he loved snugness and quiet even more. In one of his odes he apostrophizes his friend Septimius, and describes to him the delight he takes in the repose of his Tiburtine retreat from the bustle of the metropolis, saying that of all places in the world that corner is the most smiling and grateful to him:

Ille terrarum mihi prter omnes Angulus ridet.

If we look into our hearts, I think we shall most of us find that we have a clinging attachment to some favourite corner, as well as Mr.

Horatius Flaccus. There is at least one corner in the city of Boston, which has many pleasant a.s.sociations for the lover of literature.

Allusion was made a few days since, in an evening paper, to the well-known fact that the old building at the corner of Was.h.i.+ngton and School Streets was built in 1713, and is therefore older by seventeen years than the Old South Church. That little paragraph reminded me of some pa.s.sages in the history of that ancient edifice related to me by an ancestor of mine, for whom the place had an almost romantic charm.

The old building (my grandfather used to tell me) was originally a dwelling-house. It had the high wainscots, the broad staircases, the carved cornices, and all the other blessed old peculiarities of the age in which it was built, which we irreverently have improved away. One hundred years ago the old corner was considered rather an aristocratic place of residence. It was slightly suburban in its position, for the town of Boston had an affection for Copps Hill, and the inhabitants cl.u.s.tered about that sacred eminence as if the southern parts of their territory were a quicksand. Trees were not uncommon in the vicinity of the foot of School Street in those days, and no innovating Hathorne had disturbed the quiet of the place with countless omnibuses. The old corner was then occupied by an English gentleman named Barmesyde, who gave good dinners, and was on intimate terms with the colonial governor.

My venerated relative, to whom I have already alluded, enjoyed his friends.h.i.+p, and in his latter days delighted to talk of him, and tell his story to those who had heard it so often, that Hugh Greville Barmesyde, Esquire, seemed like a companion of their own young days.

Old Barmesyde sprang from an ancient Somersets.h.i.+re family, from which he inherited a considerable property, and a remarkable energy of character.

He increased his wealth during a residence of many years in Antigua, at the close of which he relinquished his business, and returned to England to marry a beautiful English lady to whom he had engaged himself in the West Indies. He arrived in England the day after the funeral of his betrothed, who had fallen a victim to intermittent fever. Many of his relations had died in his absence, and he found himself like a stranger in the very place where he had hoped to taste again the joys of home.

The death of the lady he loved so dearly, and the changes in his circle of friends, were so depressing to him, that he resolved to return to the West Indies. He thought it would be easier for him to continue in the a.s.sociations he had formed there than to recover from the shock his visit to England had given him. So he took pa.s.sage in a brig from Bristol to Antigua, and said farewell forever, as he supposed, to his native land. Before half the voyage was accomplished, the vessel was disabled: as Mr. Choate would express it, a north-west gale inflicted upon her a serious, an immedicable injury; and she floated a wreck upon the foamy and uneven surface of the Atlantic. She was fallen in with by another British vessel, bound for Boston, which took off her company, and with the renewal of the storm she foundered before the eyes of those who had so lately risked their lives upon her seaworthiness. When Mr.

Barmesyde arrived in Boston, he found an old friend in the governor of the Province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. Governor Pownall had but lately received his appointment from the Crown, and being a comparative stranger in Boston, he was as glad to see Mr. Barmesyde as the latter was to see him. It was several months before an opportunity to reach the West Indies offered itself, and when one did occur, Mr. Barmesyde only used it to communicate with his agent at Antigua. He had given up all ideas of returning thither, and had settled down, with his negro servant Cato, to housekeeping at the corner of School Street, within a few doors of his gubernatorial friend.

Governor Pownalls term of office was not a long one, but even when he was removed, Mr. Barmesyde stuck faithfully to the old corner. He had found many warm friends here, and could no longer consider himself alone in the world. He was a man of good natural powers, and of thorough education. He was one of those who seem never to lose any thing that they have once acquired. In person he was tall and comely, and my grandfather said that he somewhat resembled General Was.h.i.+ngton as he appeared twenty-five years later, excepting that Mr. Barmesydes countenance was more jolly and port-winy. From all I can learn, his face, surmounted by that carefully-powdered head of hair, must have resembled a red brick house after a heavy fall of snow. If Hugh Barmesyde had a fault, I am afraid it was a fondness for good living. He attended to his marketing in person, a.s.sisted by his faithful Cato, who was as good a judge in such matters as his master, and who used to vindicate the excellence of his masters fare by eating until he was black in the face. For years there were few vessels arrived from England without bringing choice wines to moisten the alimentary ca.n.a.l of Mr.

Barmesyde. The Windward Isles contributed bountifully to keep alight the festive flame that blazed in his cheery countenance, and to make his flip and punch the very best that the province could produce. Every Sunday morning Mr. Barmesydes best buckles sparkled in the sunbeams as he walked up School Street to the Kings Chapel. Not that he was an eminently religious man, but he regarded religion as an inst.i.tution that deserved encouragement for the sake of maintaining a proper balance in society. The quiet order and dignity of public wors.h.i.+p pleased him, the liturgy gratified his taste, and so Sunday after Sunday his big manly voice headed the responses, and told that its possessor had done many things that he ought not to have done, and had left undone a great many that he ought to have done.

Mr. Barmesyde was not a mere feeder on good things, however; he had a cultivated taste for literature, and his invoices of wine were frequently accompanied by parcels of new books. The old gentleman took a great delight in the English literature of that day. Fielding and Smollett were writing then, and no one took a keener pleasure in their novels than he. He imported, as he used to boast, the first copy of Dr.

Johnsons Dictionary that ever came to America, and was never tired of reading that stately and pathetic preface, or of searching for the touches of satire and individual prejudice that abound in that entertaining work. His well-worn copy of the Spectator, in eight duodecimo volumes, presented by him to my grandfather, now graces one of my book shelves. His books were always at the service of his friends, who availed themselves of the old gentlemans kindness to such an extent that his collection might have been called a circulating library. But it was not merely for the frequent "feast of reason and flow of soul" that his friends were indebted to him. He was the very incarnation of hospitality. I am afraid that my excellent grandparent had an uncommon admiration for this trait in the old fellows character, for a frequent burning twinge in one of the toes of my right foot, and occasionally in the knuckles of my left hand, reminds me of his fondness for keeping his legs under Mr. Barmesydes festive mahogany. A few years ago, when a new floor was laid in the cellar at the old corner, a large number of empty bottles was discovered, whose appearance bore witness to the previous good character of the place as a cellar. Some labels were also found bearing dates like 1697, 1708, 1721, &c. To this day the occupants of the premises take pleasure in showing the dark wine stains on the old stairs leading to the cellar.

But Mr. Barmesydes happiness, like the _gioia de profani_, which we have all heard the chorus in the last scene of Lucrezia Borgia discordantly allude to, was but transient. The dispute which had been brewing for years between the colonies and the mother country, began to grow unpleasantly warm. Mr. B. was a stanch loyalist. He allowed that injustice had been done to the colonies, but still he could not throw off his allegiance to his most religious and gracious king, George III., Defender of the Faith. He was ready to do and to suffer as much for his principles as the most ardent of the revolutionists. And he was not alone in his loyalty. There were many old-fas.h.i.+oned conservative people in this revolutionary and ismatic city in those days as well as now. The publication in this city of a translation of De Maistres great defence of the monarchical principle of government, (the Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Const.i.tutions,) and of the late Mr. Olivers "Puritan Commonwealth," proves that the surrender of Cornwallis and the formation of the Federal Const.i.tution did not destroy the confidence of a good many persons in the truth of the principles on which the loyalists took their stand. The unfortunate occurrence in State Street, March 5, 1770, gave Mr. B. great pain. He regretted the bloodshed, but he regretted more deeply to see many persons so blinded by their hatred of the kings most excellent majesty, as to defend and praise the action of a lawless mob just punished for their riotous conduct. The throwing overboard of the tea excited his indignation. He stigmatized it (and not without some reason on his side) as a wanton and cowardly act,a destruction of the property of parties against whom the town of Boston had no cause of complaint,a deed which proved how little real regard for justice and honour there might be among those who were the loudest in their shrieks for freedom. Of course he could not give utterance to these sentiments without exciting the ire of many people; and feeling that he could no longer safely remain in this country, he concluded to return to England. In the spring of 1774, Hugh Greville Barmesyde gave his last dinner to a few of the faithful at the old corner, and sailed the next day with a sorrowing heart and his trusty Cato for the land of his birth. He spent the remainder of his days in London, where he died in 1795. He was interred in the vault belonging to his family, in the north transept of the Parish Church of Shepton Mallet, in Somersets.h.i.+re, where there is still a handsome tablet commemorating his many virtues and the inconsolable grief of the nephews and nieces whom his decease enriched.

Some of the less orderly "liberty boys" bore witness to the imperfect sympathy that existed between them and the late occupant of the old corner, by breaking sundry panes of gla.s.s in the parlour windows the night after his departure. The old house, during the revolutionary struggle, followed the common prosaic course of ordinary occupancy.

There was "marrying and giving in marriage" under that steep and ancient roof in those days, and troops of clamorous children used to play upon the broad stone steps, and tarnish the bra.s.ses that Cato was wont to keep so clean and bright. In the latter part of the last century the old house underwent a painful transformation. An enterprising apothecary perverted it to the uses of trade, and decorated its new windows with the legitimate jars of various coloured fluids. It is now nearly half a century since it became a bookstore. Far be it from me to offer any disturbance to the modesty of my excellent friends, Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, by enlarging upon the old corner in its present estate. It were useless to write about any thing so familiar. They are young men yet, and must pardon me if I have used the prerogative of age and spoken too freely about their old establishment and its reminiscences. I love the old corner, and should not hesitate to apply to it the words of Horace which I have quoted above. I love its freedom from pretence and ostentation. New books seem more grateful to me there than elsewhere; for the dinginess of Paternoster Row harmonizes better with literature than the plate gla.s.s and gairish glitter of Piccadilly or Regent Street.

The large looking-gla.s.s which stands near the Was.h.i.+ngton Street entrance to the old corner used to adorn the dining-room where Mr. Barmesyde gave so many feasts. It is the only relic of that worthy gentleman now remaining under that roof. If that gla.s.s could only publish its reflexions during the past century, what an entertaining work on the curiosities of literature and of life it might make! It is no ordinary place that may boast of having been the familiar resort of people like Judge Story, Mr. Otis, Channing, Kirkland, Webster, Choate, Everett, Charles Kemble and the elder Vandenhoff with their gifted daughters, Ellen Tree, the Woods, Finn, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, James, Bancroft, Prescott, Emerson, Brownson, Dana, Halleck, Bryant, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Willis, Bayard Taylor, Whipple, Parkman, Hilliard, Sumner, Parsons, Sprague, and so many others whose names will live in literature and history. It is a very pleasant thing to see literary men at their ease, as they always are around those old counters. It is a relief to find that they can throw off at times the dignity and restraint of authors.h.i.+p. It is pleasant to see the lecturer and the divine put away their tiresome earnestness and severe morality, and come down to the jest of the day. It refreshes one to know that Mr.

Emerson is not always orphic, and that the severely scholastic Everett can forget his elegant and harmonious sentences, and descend to common prose. For we can no more bear to think of an orator living unceasingly in oratory than we could of Signorina Zanfretta being obliged to remain constantly poised on the _corde tendue_.

The bust of Sir Walter Scott has filled the s.p.a.ce above the mirror I have spoken of, for many years. It is a fine work of Chantreys, and a good likeness of that head of Sir Walters, so many _stories_ high that one can never wonder where all his novels came from. Except this specimen of the plastic art, and one of Professor Aga.s.siz, there is little that is ornamental in the ancient haunt. The green curtain that decorates the western corner of the establishment is a comparatively modern inst.i.tution. It was found necessary to fence off that portion of the shop for strict business purposes. The profane converse of the world cannot penetrate those folds. Into that _sanctissimum sanctissimorum_ no joke, however good, may enter. What a strange dispensation of Providence is it, that a man should have been for years enjoying the good society that abounds at that corner, and yet should seem to have so little liking for a quiet jest as the estimable person who conceals his seriousness behind that green curtain!

But every thing must yield to the law of nature, and the old corner must share the common lot. Some inauspicious night, the fire-alarm will sound for District III.; hoa.r.s.e voices will echo at the foot of School Street, calling earnestly on No. 3 to "hold on," and No. 9 to "play away"; where erst good liquor was wont to abound water will more abound, and when the day dawns Mr. Barmesydes old house will be an unsightly ruin,there will be mourning and desolation among the lovers of literature, and wailing in the insurance offices in State Street. When the blackened ruins are cleared away, boys will pick up sc.r.a.ps of scorched ma.n.u.scripts, and sell them piecemeal as parts of the original copy of Hiawatha, or Evangeline, or the Scarlet Letter. In the fulness of time, a tall, handsome stone or iron building will rise on that revered site, and we lovers of the past shall try to invest it with something of the unpretending dignity and genial a.s.sociations of the present venerable pile, which will then be cherished among our most precious memories.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THEATRE ALLEY

We are all a.s.sociationists. There is no man who does not believe in a.s.sociation in some degree. For myself, I am firm in the faith. Let me not be misunderstood, however; I do not mean that principle of a.s.sociation which the late Mr. Fourier advocated in France, and Mr.

Brisbane in America. I do not believe in the utopian schemes which have been ground out of the brains of philosophers who mistake vagueness and impracticability for sublimity, and which they have misnamed a.s.sociation. The principle of a.s.sociation to which I pay homage is one which finds a home in every human heart. It is that principle of our nature which, when the bereaved Queen Constance was mourning for her absent child, "stuffed out his vacant garments with his form." It is that principle which makes a man love the scenes of his boyhood, and which brings tears to the eyes of the traveller in a foreign land, when he hears a familiar strain from a hand organ, however harsh and out of tune. Even the brute creation seems to share in it; the cat is sure to be found in her favourite place at the fireside, while the tea kettle makes music on the hob; the dog, too, (let Hercules himself do what he may,) will not only have his day, but will have his chosen corner for repose, and will stick to it, however tempting you may make other places by a superabundance of door mats and other canine furniture. And the tired cart horse, when his days labour is over, and he finds himself once more in the familiar stall, with his provender before himdo you not suppose that the a.s.sociations of equine comfort by which he is surrounded are dearer to him than any hopes of the luxury and splendour of Her Britannic Majestys stables at Windsor could be? Ask him if he would leave his present peck of oats for the chances of royal service, and a red-waistcoated, white-top-booted groom to wait upon him, and I will warrant you that he will answer _nay_!

There is no nation nor people that is free from this bondage of a.s.sociation. We treasure General Jacksons garments with respectful care in a gla.s.s case in the Patent Office at Was.h.i.+ngton; in the Louvre, you shall find preserved the crown of Charlemagne and the old gray coat of the first Napoleon; and at Westminster Abbey, (if you have the money to pay your admission fee,) you may see the plain old oaken chair in which the crowned monarchs of a thousand years have sat. Go to Rome, and stand "at the base of Pompeys statua," and a.s.sociation shall carry you back in imagination to the time when the mighty Julius fell. Stand upon the gra.s.sy mounds of Tusculum, and you will find yourself glowing with enthusiasm for Cicero, and wonder how you could have grown so sleepy over _Quousque tandem_, &c., in your schoolboy days. Climb up the Trasteverine steep to where the convent of San Onofrio suns itself in the bright blue air of Rome, and while the monks are singing the divine office where the bones of Ta.s.so repose, you may fill your mind with memories of the bard of the crusades, in the chamber where his weary soul found the release it craved. Go to that fair capital which seems to have hidden itself among the fertile hills of Tuscany; walk through its pleasant old streets, and you shall find yourself the slave of many pleasing a.s.sociations. The very place where Dante was wont to stand and gaze at that wondrous dome which Michel Angelo said he was unwilling to copy and unable to excel, is marked by an inscription in the pavement.

Every street has its a.s.sociations that appeal to your love of the beautiful or the heroic. Walk out into the lively streets of that city which stands at the head of the worlds civilization, and you are overwhelmed with historic a.s.sociations. You seem to hear the clatter of armed heels in some of those queer old alleys, and the vision of G.o.dfrey or St. Louis, armed for the holy war, would not astonish you. The dim and stately halls of the palaces are eloquent of power, and you almost expect to see the thin, pale, thoughtful face of the great Richelieu at every corner. Over whole districts, rebellion, and anarchy, and infidelity, once wrote the history of their sway in blood, and even now, the names of the streets, as you read them, seem to fill you with terrible mementoes.

But to us, Americans, connected as we are with England in our civilization and our literature, how full of thrilling a.s.sociations is London! From Whitehall, where Puritanism d.a.m.ned itself by the murder of a king, to Eastcheap, where Mistress Quickly served Sir John with his sherris-sack; from St. Saviours Church, where Ma.s.singer and Fletcher lie in one grave, to Miltons tomb in St. Giless, Cripplegate, there is hardly a street, or court, or lane, or alley, which does not appeal by some a.s.sociation to the student of English history or literature. He perambulates the Temple Gardens with Chaucer; he hears the partisans of the houses of York and Lancaster, as they profane the silence of that scholastic spot; he walks Fleet Street, and disputes in Bolt Court with Dr. Johnson; he smokes in the coffee-houses of Covent Garden with Dryden and Pope, and the wits of their day; he makes morning calls in Leicester Square and its neighbourhood, on Sir Philip Sidney, Hogarth, Reynolds, and Newton; he buys gloves and stockings at Defoes shop in Cornhill; and makes excursions with d.i.c.ky Steele out to Kensington, to see Mr.

Addison. Drury Lane, despite its gin, and vice, and squalour, has its a.s.sociations. The old theatre is filled with them. They show you, in the smoky green-room, the chairs which once were occupied by Siddons and Kemble; the seat of Byron by the fireside in the days of his trustees.h.i.+p; the mirrors in which so many dramatic worthies viewed themselves, before they were called to achieve their greatest triumphs.

Every where you find men acknowledging in their actions their allegiance to this great natural law. Our own city, too, has its a.s.sociations. Who can pa.s.s by that venerable building in Union Street, which, like a deaf and dumb beggar, wears a tablet of its age upon its unsightly front, without recalling some of the events that have taken place, some of the scenes which that venerable edifice has looked down upon, since its solid timbers were jointed in the year of salvation 1685? Who can enter Faneuil Hall without a quickening of his pulse? Who can walk by the old Hanc.o.c.k House, and not look up at it as if he expected to see old John (the best writer on the subject of American independence) standing at the door in his shad-bellied coat, knee-breeches, and powdered wig? Who can look at the Old South Church without thinking of the part it played in the revolution, and of the time when it was obliged to yield its unwilling horsepitality to the British cavalry? Boston is by no means deficient in a.s.sociations. Go to Brattle Street, to Copps Hill, to Mount Was.h.i.+ngton, to Deer Island,though it must be acknowledged, the only a.s.sociation connected with the last-named place is the Provident a.s.sociation.

If there be a fault in the Yankee character, I fear it is a lack of sufficient respect for the memory of the past. Nature will have her way with us, however we may try to resist her and trample old recollections under foot. We wors.h.i.+p prosperity too much; and the wide, straight streets of western cities, with the telegraph posts standing like sentinels on the edge of the sidewalks, and a general odour of pork-packing and new houses pervading the atmosphere, seem to our acquisitive sense more beautiful than the sculptured arch, the moss-grown tower, the quaint gable, and all the summer fragrance of the gardens of the Tuileries or the _Unterdenlinden_. I am afraid that we almost deserve to be cla.s.sed with those who (as Mr. Thackeray says) "have no reverence except for prosperity, and no eye for any thing but success."

Many are kindled into enthusiasm by meditating upon the future of this our country,"the newest born of nations, the latest hope of mankind,"but for myself I love better to dwell on the sure and unalterable past, than to speculate upon the glories of the coming years. While I was young, I liked, when at sea, to stand on the top-gallant forecastle, and see the proud s.h.i.+p cut her way through the waves that playfully covered me with spray; but of late years my pleasure has been to lean over the taffrail and muse upon the subsiding foam of the vessels wake. The recollection even of storms and dangers is to me more grateful than the most joyful antic.i.p.ation of a fair wind and the expected port. With these feelings, I cannot help being moved when I see so many who try to deaden their natural sensibility to old a.s.sociations. When the old Province House pa.s.sed into the hands of the estimable Mr. Ordway, I congratulated him on his success, but I mourned over the dark fate of that ancient mansion. I respected it even in its fallen state as an inn,for it retained much of its old dignity, and the ghosts of Andros and his predecessors seemed to brush by you in its high wainscoted pa.s.sages and on its broad staircases; but it did seem the very ecstasy of sacrilege to transform it into a concert-room. I rejoiced, however, a few years since, when the birthplace of B.

Franklin, in Milk Street, was distinguished by an inscription to that effect in letters of enduring stone. That was a concession to the historic a.s.sociations of that locality which the most sanguine could hardly have expected from the satinetters of Milk Street.

But I am forgetting my subject, and using up my time and ink in the prolegomena. My philosophy of a.s.sociation received a severe blow last week. It was a pleasant day, and I hobbled out on my gouty timbers for a walk. I wandered into Franklin Place, but it was not the Franklin Place of my youth. The rude hand of public improvement had not been kept even from that row of houses which, when I was a boy, was thought an ornament to our city, and was dignified with the name of the Tontine Buildings.

Franklin Place looked as if two or three of its front teeth had been knocked out. I walked on, and my sorrow and dismay were increased to find that the last vestige of Theatre Alley had disappeared. It was bad enough when the old theatre and the residence of the Catholic bishops of Boston were swept away: I still clung to the old alley, and hoped that it would not pa.s.s away in my timethat before the old locality should be improved into what the profane vulgar call sightliness and respectability, I should (to use the common expressions of one of our greatest orators, who, in almost every speech and oration that he has made for some years past, has given a sort of obituary notice of himself before closing) have been "resting in peace beneath the green sods of Mount Auburn," or should have "gone down to the silent tomb."