The Portland Sketch Book Part 1

The Portland Sketch Book.

by Various.

PREFACE.

The object of the Portland Sketch-Book, is to collect in a small compa.s.s, literary specimens from such authors as have a just claim to be styled Portland writers. The list might have been extended to a much greater length, had all been included who have made our city a place of transient residence; but no writer has a place in this volume who is not, or has not been, a citizen of Portland, either by birth or a long residence. Therefore, all the names contained in these pages are emphatically those of Portland authors. Among those who were actually born here and either wholly, or in part educated here, will be found the following names, most of which are already known to the world of literature.

S. B. Beckett--James Brooks--William Cutter--Charles S.

Daveis--Nathaniel Deering--P. H. Greenleaf--Charles P. Ilsley--Joseph Ingraham--Geo. W. Light--Henry W. Longfellow--Grenville Mellen--Frederick Mellen--Isaac McLellan, Jr.--John Neal--Elizabeth Smith--William Willis--N. P. Willis.

Considering the population of our city--hardly fifteen thousand at this time--the list itself we apprehend will be considered as not the least remarkable part of the book.

It was the design of the Publishers to furnish a book composed of original articles from all our living authors, and to select only from those who have been lost to us; but though great exertions were made, the editor found much difficulty in collecting original materials, even after they had been promised by almost every individual to whom she applied. According to the original design, each living author was to have contributed a limited number of pages; but after frequent disappointments, all restrictions were taken off; each writer furnished as many original pages as suited his pleasure, and the deficiency was supplied by selected articles. In her selections, the editor has endeavored to do impartial justice to our authors, and, in almost every instance, she has been guided by them in her choice. If in any case she has been obliged to exercise her own judgment, in contradiction to theirs, it was because the publishers had restricted her to a certain number of pages, and the articles proposed would have swelled the volume beyond the prescribed limits. _Original_ papers are inserted exactly as they were supplied by their separate authors. A general invitation was extended; therefore it should give no offence, if those who have contributed largely fill the greater portion of the Book, to the exclusion of much excellent matter, which might have been selected.

Several writers who did not forward their contributions as expected, have been omitted altogether, as the editor could find nothing of theirs extant which was adapted to a work strictly literary.

In order to avoid all appearance of partiality, it has been thought advisable to make an alphabetical arrangement of names, and to let chance decide the position of each author in the Book.

The compiler has a word of apology to offer, before she consigns her little book to the public. Reasons which will be easily understood would have prevented her appropriating any considerable portion to herself; but she had contracted with the publishers to furnish a volume, which should be at least two thirds original, and when the pages forwarded to her were found insufficient for her object, she was obliged, however unwillingly, to supply the deficiency.

The Editor now submits her Portland Book to the public, with much solicitude that it may meet with approbation--feeling certain that indulgence would be extended to her, could it be known how much labor and difficulty have attended her slender exertions, in the literature of a city she has never ceased to love.

P. S. Among the papers omitted from necessity, is one by the Rev. Dr.

Nichols, which, owing to accident, did not arrive till the arrangements for the work were entirely completed. In the absence of the Editor, whose own leading article arrived _almost_ too late for insertion, we have taken the liberty to state the facts, that our readers may understand the cause of an omission so extraordinary.

THE PORTLAND SKETCH BOOK.

DIAMOND COVE.

A beauteous Cove, amid the isles That sprinkle Casco's winding bay, Where, like an Eden, nature smiles In all her wild and rich array.

'Tis sheltered from the ocean's roar By beetling crags and foam-girt rifts, And mossy trees, that ages h.o.a.r Have braved the sea-gales on its cliffs!

The broad-armed oak, the beech and pine, And elm, their branches intertwine Above its tranquil, gla.s.sy face, So that the sun finds scarcely s.p.a.ce At mid-day, for his fervid beam To s.h.i.+mmer on the limpid stream; And in its rugged, sparry caves, Worn by the winter's tempest waves, Gleams many a crystal wildly bright Like _diamonds_, flas.h.i.+ng radiant light, And hence the fairy spot is 'hight.'

The forests far extending round, Ne'er to the spoiler's axe resound; Nor is man's toil or traces there; But resteth all as lone and fair-- The sunny slopes, the rocks and trees, As desert isles in Indian seas, That sometimes rise upon the view Of some far-wandering, wind-bound crew, Sleeping alone mid ocean's blue.

The lonely ospray rears her brood Deep in the forest-solitude; And through the long, bright summer day, When ocean, calm as mountain lake, Bears not a breath its hush to break, The snow-winged sea-gull tilts away Upon the long, smooth swell, that sweeps, In curving, wide, unbroken reach, Into the cove from outer deeps, Unwinding up the pebbly beach.

Oft blithly ring the wide old woods, Within their loneliest solitudes, To youthful shout, and song, and glee, And viol's merry minstrelsy, When summer's stirless, sultry air Pervades the city's thoroughfare, And drives the throng to seek the shades Of these green, zephyr-breathing glades!

The dance goes round; the trunks so tall-- Rough columns of the festal hall-- Sustain a broad and lofty roof Of nature's greenest, loveliest woof!

The maiden weaves, in lieu of wreath, The bending fern-plumes in her hair, And the wild flowers with scented breath, That spring to blossom every where Around; the forest's dream-like rest Drives care and sorrow from each breast, And makes the worn and weary blest!

And when the broad, dim waters blush Beneath the tints of ebbing day, When comes the moon out in the hush Of eve, with mellow, timid ray, And twilight lingers far away On the blue waste, the fisher's skiff Comes dancing in, and 'neath the cliff Is moored to rest, till morning's train Beams with fresh beauty o'er the main, And wakes him to his toil again!

O, lovely there is sunset-hour!

When twilight falls with soothing power Along the forest-windings dim, And from the thicket, sweet and low, The red-breast tunes a farewell hymn To daylight's latest, lingering glow-- When slope, and rock, and wood around, In all their dreamy, hushed repose, Are gla.s.sed adown the bright profound-- And pa.s.sing fair is evening's close!

When from the bright, cerulean dome, The sea-fowl, that have all the day Wheeled o'er the far, lone billows' spray, Come thronging to their eyries home; When over rock and wave, remote, From yon dim fort, the bugle's note Along the listening air doth creep, Seeming to steal down from the sky, Or with out-bursting, martial sweep Rings through the forests, clanging high, While echo waked bears on the strain, Till faint, beyond the trackless main, In realms of s.p.a.ce it seems to die.

But lovelier still is night's calm noon!

When like a sea-nymph's fairy bark, The mirrored crescent of the moon Swings on the waters weltering dark; And in her solitary beam, Upon each bald, storm-beaten height, The quartz and mica wildly gleam, Spangling the rocks with magic light; And when a silvery minstrelsy Is swelling o'er the dim-lit sea, As of some wandering fairy throng, Pa.s.sing on viewless wing along, Tuning their spirit-lyres to song; And when the night's soft breeze comes out, And for a moment breathes about, Shaking a burst of fresh perfume From every honied bell and bloom, Startling the tall pine from its rest, And sleeping wood-bird in her nest, Or kissing the bright water's breast; Then stealing off into the shade, As if it were a thing afraid!

The Indian prized this beauteous spot Of old; beneath the embowering shade He reared his rude and simple cot; And round these wild sh.o.r.es where they played In youth, still--pilgrims from the bourn Of far Pen.o.bscot's sinuous stream, Aged and bowed, and weary worn-- Lingering they love to stray, and dream O'er the proud hopes possessed of yore, When forest, isle and mainland sh.o.r.e, For many a league, owned but their sway; When, on the labyrinthine bay, Now checkered o'er with many a sail, Alone his lightsome birch canoe Fast, by the bright, green islets flew, Nor bark spread canvas to the gale.

Matchless retreat! mayst aye remain As wild, as natural and free As now thou art; nor hope of gain, Nor enterprize a motive be To lay thy h.o.a.ry forests low; Gold ne'er can make thy beauties glow, Nor enterprize restore thy pride, When once the monarchs round thy tide, Have felt the exterminating blow.

OUR OWN COUNTRY.

By James Brooks.

What nation presents such a spectacle as ours, of a confederated government, so complicated, so full of checks and balances, over such a vast extent of territory, with so many varied interests, and yet moving so harmoniously! I go within the walls of the capitol at Was.h.i.+ngton, and there, under the star-spangled banners that wave amid its domes, I find the representatives of three territories, and of twenty-four nations, nations in many senses they may be called, that have within them all the germ and sinew to raise a greater people than many of the proud princ.i.p.alities of Europe, all speaking one language--all acting with one heart, and all burning with the same enthusiasm--the love and glory of our common country,--even if parties do exist, and bitter domestic quarrels now and then arise. I take my map, and I mark from whence they come. What a breadth of lat.i.tude, and of longitude, too,--in the fairest portion of North-America! What a variety of climate,--and then what a variety of production! What a stretch of sea-coast, on two oceans--with harbors enough for all the commerce of the world! What an immense national domain, surveyed, and unsurveyed, of extinguished, and unextinguished Indian t.i.tles within the States and Territories, and without, estimated, in the aggregate, to be 1,090,871,753 acres, and to be worth the immense sum of $1,363,589,69,--750,000,000 acres of which are without the bounds of the States and the territories, and are yet to make new States and to be admitted into the Union! Our annual revenue, now, from the sales, is over three millions of dollars. Our national debt, too, is already more than extinguished,--and yet within fifty-eight years, starting with a population of about three millions, we have fought the War of Independence, again not ingloriously struggled with the greatest naval power in the world, fresh with laurels won on sea and land,--and now we have a population of over thirteen millions of souls.

One cannot feel the grandeur of our Republic, unless he surveys it in detail. For example, a Senator in Congress, from Louisiana, has just arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton. Twenty days of his journey he pa.s.sed in a steam-boat on inland waters,--moving not so rapidly, perhaps, as other steam-boats sometimes move, in deeper waters,--but constantly moving, at a quick pace too, day and night. I never shall forget the rapture of a traveller, who left the green parks of New Orleans early in March,--that land of the orange and the olive, then teeming with verdure, freshness and life, and, as it were, mocking him with the mid-summer of his own northern home. He journeyed leisurely toward the region of ice and snow, to watch the budding of the young flowers, and to catch the breeze of the Spring. He crossed the Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne; he ascended the big Tombeckbee in a comfortable steam-boat. From Tuscaloosa, he shot athwart the wilds of Alabama, over Indian grounds, that b.l.o.o.d.y battles have rendered ever memorable. He traversed Georgia, the Carolinas, ranged along the base of the mountains of Virginia,--and for three months and more, he enjoyed one perpetual, one unvarying, ever-coming Spring,--that most delicious season of the year,--till, by the middle of June, he found himself in the fogs of the Pa.s.samaquoddy, where tardy summer was even then hesitating whether it was time to come. And yet he had not been off the soil of his own country! The flag that he saw on the summit of the fortress, on the lakes near New Orleans, was the like of that which floated from the staff on the hills of Fort Sullivan, in the easternmost extremity of Maine;--and the morning gun that startled his slumbers, among the rocky battlements that defy the wild tides of the Bay of Fundy, was not answered till many minutes after, on the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Mexico. The swamps, the embankments, the cane-brakes of the Father of Waters, on whose muddy banks the croaking alligator displayed his ponderous jaws,--the cotton-fields, the rice-grounds of the low southern country,--and the vast fields of wheat and corn in the regions of the mountains, were far, far behind him:--and he was now, in a Hyperborean land--where nature wore a rough and surly aspect, and a cold soil and a cold clime, drove man to launch his bark upon the ocean, to dare wind and wave, and to seek from the deep, in fisheries, and from freights, the treasures his own home will not give him. Indeed, such a journey as this, in one's own country, to an inquisitive mind, is worth all 'the tours of Europe.' If a young American, then, wishes to feel the full importance of an American Congress, let him make such a journey. Let him stand on the levee at New Orleans and count the number and the tiers of American vessels that there lie, four, five and six thick, on its long embankment.

Let him hear the puff, puff, puff, of the high-pressure steam-boats, that come sweeping in almost every hour, perhaps from a port two thousand miles off,--from the then frozen winter of the North, to the full burning summer of the South,--all inland navigation,--fleets of them under his eye,--splendid boats, too, many of them, as the world can show,--with elegant rooms, neat berths, s.p.a.cious saloons, and a costly piano, it may be,--so that travellers of both s.e.xes can dance or sing their way to Louisville, as if they were on a party of pleasure. Let him survey all these, as they come in with products from the Red River, twelve hundred miles in one direction, or from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, two thousand miles in another direction, from the western tributaries of the vast Mississippi, the thickets of the Arkansas, or White River,--from the muddy, far-reaching Missouri, and its hundreds of branches:--and then in the east, from the Illinois, the Ohio, and its numerous tributaries--such as the Tennessee, the c.u.mberland, or the meanest of which, such as the Sandy River, on the borders of Kentucky--that will in a freshet fret and roar, and dash, as if it were the Father of Floods, till it sinks into nothing, when embosomed in the greater stream, and there acknowledges its own insignificance. Let him see 'the Broad Horns,' the adventurous flatboats of western waters, on which--frail bark!--the daring backwoodsman sallies forth from the Wabash, or rivers hundreds of miles above, on a voyage of atlantic distance, with hogs--horses--oxen and cattle of all kinds on board--corn, flour, wheat, all the products of rich western lands--and let him see them, too, as he stems the strong current of the Mississippi, as if the wood on which he floated was realizing the fable of the Nymphs of Ida--G.o.ddesses, instead of pines.

Take the young traveller where the clear, silvery waters of the Ohio become tinged with the mud from the Missouri, and where the currents of the mighty rivers run apart for miles, as if indignant at the strange embrace. Ascend with him farther, to St. Louis, where, if he looks upon the map he will find that he is about as near the east as the west, and that soon, the emigrant, who is borne on the wave of population that now beats at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and anon will overleap its summits--will speak of him as he now speaks of New-England, as far in the east. And then tell him that far west as he is, he is but at the beginning of steam navigation--that the Mississippi itself is navigable six or seven hundred miles upward--and that steam-boats have actually gone on the Missouri two thousand one hundred miles above its mouth, and that they _can go_ five hundred miles farther still! Take him, then, from this land where the woodsman is leveling the forest every hour, across the rich prairies of Illinois, where civilization is throwing up towns and villages, pointed with the spire of the church, and adorned with the college and the school,--then athwart the flouris.h.i.+ng fields of Indiana, to Cincinnati,--well called 'the Queen of the West,'--a city of thirty thousand inhabitants, with paved streets, numerous churches, flouris.h.i.+ng manufactories, and an intelligent society too,--and this in a State with a million of souls in it now, that has undertaken gigantic public works,--where the fierce savages, even within the memory of the young men, made the hearts of their parents quake with fear,--roaming over the forests, as they did, in unbridled triumph,--wielding the tomahawk in terror, and ringing the war-hoop like demons of vengeance let loose from below! Show him our immense inland seas, from Green Bay to Lake Ontario,--not inconsiderable oceans,--encompa.s.sed with fertile fields.

Show him the public works of the Empire State, as well as those of Pennsylvania,--works the wonder of the world,--such as no people in modern times have ever equalled. And then introduce him to the busy, humming, thriving population of New-England, from the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Switzerland of America, to the northern lakes and wide sea-coast of Maine. Show him the industry, energy, skill and ingenuity of these hardy people, who let not a rivulet run, nor a puff of wind blow, without turning it to some account,--who mingle in every thing, speculate in every thing, and dare every thing wherever a cent of money is to be earned--whose lumbermen are found not only in the deepest woods of the snowy and fearful wilds of Maine, throwing up sawmills on the lone waterfalls, and making the woods ring with their hissing music--but found, too, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and coming also on mighty rafts of deal from every eastern tributary of the wild St. John, Meduxnekeag and Aroostook, streams whose names geographers hardly know.

And then too, as if this were not enough, they turn their enterprize and form companies 'to log and lumber,' even on the Ocmulgee and Oconee of the State of Georgia--and on this day they are actually found in the Floridas, there planning similar schemes, and as there are no waterfalls, making steam impel their saws. Show him the banks of the Pen.o.bscot, now studded with superb villages--jewels of places, that have sprung up like magic--the magnificent military road that leads to the United States'

garrison at Houlton, a fairy spot in the wilderness, but approached by as excellent a road as the United States can boast of.

Show him the hundreds and hundreds of coasters that run up every creek and inlet of tide-water there, at times left high and dry, as if the ocean would never float them more: and then lift him above considerations of a mercenary character, and show him how New-England men are perpetuating their high character and holy love of liberty,--and how, by neat and elegant churches, that adorn every village,--by comfortable school-houses, that appear every two miles, or oftener, upon almost every road, free for every body,--high-born, and low-born,--by academies and colleges, that thicken even to an inconvenience; by asylums and inst.i.tutions, munificently endowed, for the benefit of the poor:--and see, too, with what generous pride their bosoms swell when they go within the consecrated walls of Faneuil Hall, or point out the heights of Bunker Hill, or speak of Concord, or Lexington.

Give any young man such a tour as this--the best he can make--and I am sure his heart will beat quick, when he sees the proud spectacle of the a.s.semblage of the representatives of all these people, and all these interests, within a single hall. He will more and more revere the residue of those revolutionary patriots, who not only left us such a heritage, won by their sufferings and their blood, but such a const.i.tution--such a government here in Was.h.i.+ngton, regulating all our national concerns--but who have also, in effect, left us twenty-four other governments, with territory enough to double them by-and-by--that regulate all the minor concerns of the people, acting within their own sphere; now, in the winter, a.s.sembling within their various capitols, from Jefferson city, on Missouri, to Augusta, on the Kennebec;--from the capitol on the Hudson, to the government house on the Mississippi.

Show me a spectacle more glorious, more encouraging, than this, even in the pages of all history; such a constellation of free States, with no public force, but public opinion--moving by well regulated law--each in its own proper orbit, around the brighter star in Was.h.i.+ngton,--thus realizing, as it were, on earth, almost practically, the beautiful display of infinite wisdom, that fixed the sun in the centre, and sent the revolving planets on their errands. G.o.d grant it may end as with them!

THE CRUISE OF THE DART.

By S. B. Beckett.

"There was an old and quiet man, And by the fire sat he; And now, said he, to you I'll tell Things pa.s.sing strange that once befell A s.h.i.+p upon the sea."--_Mary Howitt._

"There she is, Ricardo," said I to my friend, as we reached the end of the pier, in Havana, while the Dart lay about half a mile off the sh.o.r.e,--"what think you of her?"

"Beautiful!--a more symmetrical craft never pa.s.sed the Moro!"

So thought I, and my heart responded with a thrill of pride to the sentiment. How saucy she looked, with her gay streamers abroad upon the winds, and the red-striped flag of the Union floating jauntily at the main peak--with her lofty masts tapering away, till, relieved against the blue abyss, they were apparently diminished to the size of willow wands, while the slight ropes that supported the upper spars seemed, from the pier, like the fairy tracery of the spider. Although surrounded by s.h.i.+ps, xebecs, brigantines, polacres, galleys and galliots from almost every clime in christendom, she stood up conspicuously among them all, an apt representative of the land whence she came! But let us take a nearer view of the beauty. The hull was long, low, and at the bows almost as sharp as the missile after which she was named. From the waist to the stern she tapered away in the most graceful proportions, and she had as lovely a run as ever slid over the dancing billows. Light and graceful as a sea-bird, she rocked on the undulating water. But her rig!--herein, to my thinking, was her chiefest beauty--every thing pertaining to it was so exact, so even and so _tanto_. Besides the sail usually carried by man-of-war schooners, she had the requisite appertenances for a royal and flying kite, or sky-sail, which, now that she was in port, were all rigged up. Not another vessel of her cla.s.s in the navy could spread so much canvas to the influence of old Boreas as the Dart.

Her armament consisted of one long bra.s.s twenty-four pounder, mounted on a revolving carriage mids.h.i.+ps, and six twelve-pound carronades. Add to this a picked crew of ninety men, with the redoubtable Jonathan West as our captain, Mr. Dacre Dacres as first, and your humble servant, Ahasuerus Hackinsack, as second lieutenant, besides a posse of minor officers and middies,--and you may form a faint idea of the Dart.