Recollections of a Lifetime, by Samuel Griswold Goodrich (New York & Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1856)
[Notes for earlier part of volume 2
* The Reform Bill was a popular measure, which swept away the rotten boroughs, and greatly extended the suffrage. After a long and violent struggle, it passed the House of Lords on the 4th of June, 1832, and received the royal sanction on the 7th. That day I arrived in Liverpool, amid a general feeling of joy and exhilaration. The Duke of Wellington had protested against the bill, though the king, William IV., and the ministry had favored it; in consequence, he was insulted by a mob, while passing on horseback through one of the streets of London, June 18th, the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. A few days after this, there was a military review in Hyde Park, and King William being present, a large concourse of people assembled; among them was the Duke of Wellington. After the review was over, he was encircled by an immense mass of persons, indignant at the insult he had received, and desirous of testifying their respect and affection. Most of them condemned his opposition to the reform bill, but this could not extinguish or diminish their sense of his great merit. I was present, and moved on at the side of the old veteran, mounted on horseback and dressed as a citizen--his hat off, and testifying by his looks, his sensibility to these spontaneous marks of regard. He was conducted to the gate of the park, near his residence--Apsley House, and there he bade adieu to his shouting escort.
On this occasion, as well as on others, I saw King William IV., a large,
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red-faced man, with an amiable, though not very intellectual expression. He was, however, very popular, and in contrast to George IV., who was exceedingly disliked during the latter part of his reign, he was a favorite with the people, who gave him the title of the "patriot king."
As I shall have no other opportunity, I may as well complete my gallery of British sovereigns, by a brief notice of Queen Victoria, whom I have often seen. Of her character I have already spoken; as to her personal appearance, all the world have a general idea of it, from the portraits in the shop-windows; but truth compels me to declare that all the personal beauty in these representations, is ideal. Her majesty is really a very ordinary and rather coarse-looking woman--especially to one whose standard is founded upon the delicate and graceful type of American female beauty. When I say she is as good as she is homely, and is loved and cherished by her people according to her merits, I give strong testimony to her virtues. Prince Albert is a very handsome man, and it must be said that the large family of princes and princesses not only resemble him, strikingly, but share in his personal good looks. I have seen few more gratifying sights in England than this royal family--deserving and receiving the affection of the people.
II, p. 341: more than forty times
* About this time there was a strong popular excitement in Boston and the vicinity against the Irish, and especially the Roman Catholic religion. It manifested itself in what was called the "Broad-street Riot"--June 11, 1839--in which the Irish, who gathered in that quarter, were attacked, their houses rifled, their beds ripped open, and the furniture destroyed to the amount of two thousand dollars; and also in burning down the Catholic Female Seminary--a species of Convent, where it was said there were evil doings--in the adjacent town of Charlestown. My purpose was to allay this excitement by presenting
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the history of the Irish people, with the adversities they had suffered, and the many amiable and agreeable traits that had survived; amid all the causes which had operated to degrade them. I believe that my efforts were not wholly fruitless: the lecture was encouraged, and when printed, received a commendatory notice even from the North American Review--written by T. C. Grattan, himself an Irishman.
* Alexander H. Everett was a native of Massachusetts, and a younger brother of Edward Everett, born in 1790. He studied law in the office of John Quincy Adams at Boston, and in 1809 he accompanied him as attaché in his mission to Russia. Mr. Everett's political career clearly displays the influence of this early connection with Mr. Adams. Having remained at St. Petersburg two years, he returned to the United States by way of England, where he spent some months. He now took part with the democrats, and wrote against the Hartford Convention and in favor of the war. Soon after the peace he was appointed secretary of legation to Governor Eustis, in his mission to the Netherlands. Here he continued several years, the latter part of the time as chargé. On visiting Brussels in 1824, I called upon him, and was agreeably impressed by his fine person and dignified, though cold and distant, manners. In 1825, he was appointed by his former patron, then President of the United States, Minister to Spain, where he remained till he was dismissed by Gen. Jackson. Mr. Everett, having failed of success in his attempts to obtain office from the people of Massachusetts, was employed by the general government, first as Commissioner to Cuba, and afterward to China. he died a few months subsequent to his arrival at Canton--that is, in June, 1847. In literature, he held a respectable position, having written several works of learning and ability, and some essays of great elegance. In politics, unfortunately, he followed the example of Mr. Adams, in a sudden and startling change of his party, under circumstances which injured his character and impaired his usefulness.
II, p. 349: was made responsible for it
* In this election, Edward Everett, who had been governor of the State since 1835, and had administered the government with great success, was defeated by a single vote, Marcus Morton, a judge of the Supreme Court, and who had been the standing democratic candidate for many years without any seeming prospect of success, being chosen in his place. It is an interesting fact that such is the respect for the ballot, that among a hundred thousand votes, a majority of one was submitted to without question or opposition. A good anecdote is connected with this incident. Governor Morton with his party had opposed the encouragement of railroads by the use of the State credit. Nevertheless, while he was governor, the branch railroad, running through his own town, Taunton, to the thriving and enterprising town of New Bedford, was completed. This event was to be celebrated by a jubilee at the latter place, and the governor was invited to be present. The ceremonies were to commence at twelve o'clock, but at that hour his excellency had not arrived. The whole proceedings were delayed and embarrassed, until just as the clock was striking one, the governor appeared. J. H. Clifford, the witty and eloquent State's attorney, so universally known for his admirable management of the trial of Dr. Webster, the murderer of Parkman, and afterward himself governor of the State, immediately rose and offered the following sentiment--
Governor Morton, who always gets in by one!
It is needless to say that the sentiment, as well as the governor, was hailed with acclamation; and it may be stated incidentally, that, inasmuch as a railroad had passed through the governor's own town, he, and I may add his party, thenceforward were advocates of railroads. The next year (1840), in the whirlwind of the Harrison campaign, Governor Morton gave place to "honest John Davis," a name known and honored throughout the whole United States.
* The bankruptcies that took place in Boston from November 1, 1836, to May 12, 1837, were one hundred and sixty-eight--some of very large amount. About the same time, the crash in New York was terrific, bearing down many of the oldest and wealthiest houses in the city. In New Orleans, in May, 1837, the failures in two days, amounted to twenty-seven millions of dollars. A committee of New York, addressing the President, stated that the depreciation of real estate in that city was forty millions of dollars in six months! They also stated that two hundred and fifty failures took place in the space of two months; that the depreciation of local stocks was twenty millions, and the fall of merchandise thirty per cent. within the same period. Twenty thousand persons, dependent upon their labor, were said to be thrown out of employment, at the same time. The committee added, "the error of our rulers has produced a wider desolation than the pestilence which depopulated our streets, or the conflagration which laid them in ashes." Similar ruin visited every part of the Union--the people, corporations, States, being reduced to bankruptcy. It was estimated that half a million of persons were made bankrupt by reason of the various measures of the Jackson and Van Buren administrations. Hundreds and thousands of persons, destitute of employment, and almost destitute of bread, found relief in swelling the Harrison processions and gatherings, in singing patriotic songs, and shouting for reform.
* A speechmaker, in the western part of the State of Virginia during the canvass, has given us the following anecdote. He was holding forth upon the merits of Gen. Harrison, and especially upon his courage, tact, and success as a military commander. While in the midst of his discourse, a tall, gaunt man--who was probably a schoolmaster in
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those parts--arose from the crowd, and said, in a voice which penetrated the whole assembly--
"Mister--Mister! I want to ax you a question." To this the orator assented, and the man went on as follows:
"We are told, fellow-citizens, that Gineral Harrison is a mighty great gineral; but I say he's one of the very meanest sort of ginerals. We are told here to-night, that he defended himself bravely at Fort Meigs; but I tell you that on that occasion he was guilty of the Small Tail Movement, and I challenge the orator here present to deny it!"
The speaker declared his utter ignorance of what the intruder meant by "Small Tail Movement."
"I'll tell you," said the man; "I've got it here in black and white. Here is Grimshaw's History of the United States"--holding up the book--" and I'll read what it says: 'At this critical moment, Gen. Harrison executed a novel movement!' Does the gentleman deny that?"
"No: go on."
"Well, he executed a novel movement. Now, here's Johnson's dictionary"--taking the book out of his pocket and holding it up--"and here it says: 'Novel--a small tale!" And this was the kind of movement Gen. Harrison was guilty of. Now, I'm no soger, and don't know much of milentary tictacks--but this I do say: a man who, in the face of an enemy, is guilty of a Small Tail Movement, is not fit to be President of the United States, and he shan't have my vote!"
The relator of the anecdote says that it was quite impossible for him to overcome the effect of this speech, and we are left to conclude that the vote of that vicinity was given to Van Buren.
II, p. 353: the utter charlatanism
* For example: while I was in the Senate, and the Fifteen Gallon prohibitory law was under discussion, many people came into the lobby to listen to the debates, which excited great interest. Among these was a very respectable man from my own county of Norfolk. He asked me how I was going to vote. I replied that I had hardly made up my mind, and asked his opinion as to what I ought to do. He strongly enjoined it upon me to vote for the measure, saying that the public mind generally was prepared for it, and that in our county, especially, the sentiment in favor of it was overwhelming. And yet, at the next election this very man was a candidate against me, on the ground that he was in favor of the repeal of the law. He insisted that it was an extreme measure; and although he was a temperance man--God forbid that he should be any thing else--he still thought it would do harm to the good cause! Therefore he contended for its repeal, and the substitution of some milder course! This man was a type of a very numerous class, whose principles fluctuate with the tide of public opinion, and the chances which arise for riding into office.
II, p. 354: some selfish or sinister end
* About these days, in a certain town not far from Boston, there was a large family, of several generations, by the name of Cpp. At one of the elections for members to represent the place in the General Court, it appeared that among the votes distributed at the polls were a large number for William Cpp, and the whole family were present, like swarming bees, actively engaged in promoting his election. One of them came up to the person who told me the story, and asked him to vote for William. He naturally desired to know the reason for such a measure, and the more particularly as he had never heard of any peculiar claims or qualifications, for the office in question, which the said William possessed. "Well," said the Cpp, "I'll tell you how 'tis. William's got a little behindhand, and wants to shingle his barn. This will cost about a hundred dollars. Now, if he can go to the General Court one session, he'll save a hundred dollars, and so, you see, he can shingle his barn!" I have seen a good deal of this barn-shingling, even in New England.
II, p. 355: complimentary dinner
* This dinner took place on the 1st of February, 1842. It was deemed a matter of sufficient importance to have the whole proceedings--speeches, letters, and toasts--reported, and published in a book. In the light of the present day, many of these--though sparkling with wit and good feeling--are rather calculated to make us regret the whole occasion. The strain of compliment was excessive; it set an example which, in this respect, was copied elsewhere--and the object of all this, blunt adulation, as we now know, laughed at it in his sleeve at the time, and openly afterward, when he had got safe back to England. This should be a lesson to us for all future time. Foreigners will judge us somewhat according to their own standard. They regard all excessive demonstrations of the kind here alluded to as proceeding either from snobbery, or a desire to exhibit themselves, on the part of the leaders. They are, therefore, rather disgusted than conciliated by these overdone attentions.
II, p. 357: the British Parliament
* The first English parliamentary statute in regard to copyright, is that of Queen Anne, A. D. 1710, giving copyright to the author for twenty-one years, and if he be living at the expiration of this time, for the residue of his life. By subsequent acts, this period was extended to twenty-eight years. The movement above alluded to, which commenced in 1837, and in which Talfourd took a leading part, aimed at extending the protection to forty-two years, which, after about two years of consideration, became and remains the law of Great Britain on this subject. If the author shall have died before the expiration of the forty-two years, the heirs may have an extension of the time for seven years from the date of his death.
During the discussion which ensued, the subject of copyright was viewed in every possible light. A large number of petitions was presented to Parliament in behalf of increased protection; among them was one from Thomas Hood, in which the following passages occur:
"That your petitioner is the proprietor of certain copyrights, which the law treats as copyhold, but which injustice and equity should be his freehold. He cannot conceive how 'Hood's Own,' without a change in the title-deed as well as the title, can become 'Everybody's Own' hereafter.
"That cheap bread is as desirable and necessary as cheap books, but it hath not yet been thought just or expedient to ordain that after a certain Dumber of crops, all cornfields shall become public property.
"That as a man's hairs belong to his head, so his head should belong to his heirs; whereas, on the contrary, your petitioner hath ascertained, by a nice calculation, that one of his principal copyrights will expire on the same day that his only son should come of age. The very law of nature protests against an unnatural law, which compels an author to write for everybody's posterity except his own."
Among these petitions is one from John Smith, bookseller of Glasgow, who says that about the year 1820, he wrote an essay in behalf of perpetual copyright, as demanded by justice and equity. I have seen no assertion of this principle prior to this date.
The earliest direct advocacy of international copyright that I have met with, is by John Neal, in the "Yankee," 1828.
* Various circumstances conspired to aggravate this feeling, Mr. Carlyle compared our reprinting British books, without copyright, to Rob Roy's cattle-stealing; while at the same time British publishers had done and continued to do the same thing in respect to American books. The British government had indeed offered to go into a mutual interchange of copyright law, but in the mean time their publishers went on reprinting American works, without compensation, as before. Their position, therefore, was only this: they would stop thieving when we would; and the condition of their giving up what they held to be piracy, was a bargain on which they would get a thousand pounds, where we should obtain perhaps a hundred! And still again: one of the last acts of Mr. Dickens, before he left England on his mission, was the reproduction in his "Pic-nic Papers" of the Charcoal Sketches of Joseph C. Neale, of Philadelphia, not only without copyright, but concealing the name of the author, and merely saying that "it was from an American source"--leaving the impression that it was originally written for his book! In addition to all this, reflecting men saw that this claim of international copyright was chiefly based on principles of absolute and universal right, which were repudiated, not only by the local copyright law of Great Britain, but that of all other civilized countries. These were hindrances to the immediate passage of any international copyright in this country, because they created a prejudice against it as well as fear of its consequences. But these difficulties are now past, and it is time to consider the subject in a calmer and wiser spirit.
* Various suggestions have been urged against this; it has been said that the author's right consists of two things--his manuscript and his ideas; the one material, the other incorporeal. His claim to the first is valid, and remains with him, but he parts with the other by publication. This objection is fully answered by a suggestion already made, that it is only by the power to control the copying of his work, that an author can obtain compensation for his labor.
Another suggestion has been made by Mr. H. C. Carey, to this effect, that a book consists of two parts--facts and ideas, which he calls the body, and the language, which he considers the clothing. Now, he says, facts and ideas are old, and have become common property; they ore like a public fountain--common to all--and for this portion of his work the author can claim no reward: all he can ask compensation for is the language in which he has clothed these facts and ideas.
Now there are two objections to this: one is as to the fact on which this theory is founded, and the other in respect to the inferences drawn from it. Mr. Carey has written some clever works on Political Economy; he may say that there is nothing new in these, and that his only merit lies in having put old ideas into new language, but the public will not agree with him in this. The public will not agree that there is nothing new in the facts and ideas of the histories of Prescott, Bancroft, and Macaulay; in the romances of Cooper and Scott; in the poetry of Wordsworth and Byron; in the delightful travels of Bayard Taylor, and the inspired song of Hiawatha. Indeed, there hag probably been no age of the world, in which literature has been so highly original, in its facts and ideas, as during this particular portion of time, which Mr. Carey considers as wholly barren and unproductive of thought.
His inferences seem as illogical as his premises are unsound. If a man makes salt from the sea, which is a common reservoir, is that a reason
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why he shall not have complete control of the product of his labor? A man has a right to the fruit of his toil; the public may and will fix a price upon his products, according to the amount of labor, skill, and capital bestowed, but they may not deny his right to them, or confiscate them or any portion of them. If a man uses old ideas, the public will reward him accordingly, but it is no argument in behalf of denying him the right to sell what he has produced, for what he can get.
II, p. 362: the hands of the producers
* There are other modes of acquisition, as discovery, hunting, fishing, which carry the same right of possession, an actual production by manual labor.
II, p. 363: what belongs to them
* Nothing is more opposed to man's instincts than the negation of his individuality, implied by Communisn. A man feels that he is a being, in himself; that he has the right to act and think independently, and of and for himself. It is this individuality, this independence, which gives value, meaning, responsibility, to his conduct. Communism overturns this idea: this regards mankind as grouped into societies, each society being like a tree, of which the individual person is but a leaf; or like the madrepores--a myriad of little insects living in the fibres of a sort of animal-plant rooted to a rock--all breathing, all nourished, all acting, with one nervous system, one consciousness, one sensorium. This is phalansterianism; here is the root of Proudhon's apothegm--as every thing belongs to society, it is robbery for an individual to appropriate any thing to himself. Nevertheless, in looking at civilized society, in all ages, we find something of this communism; that is to say, we find that mankind, living together in communities, give up at least a portion of their abstract rights, and agree to be governed by laws which take into view the highest good of all. Thus society is a compromise, in which both the principle of individual rights, according to Blackstone, and communal rights, according to Proudhon, are recognized. The rule was laid down nearly two thousand years ago--Do to another as you would have another do to you, and we are not likely to get a better. That regards man as a being of intellect, conscience, and responsibility, and bound to seek his own happiness by promoting the happiness of others. That is Christianity, which is above Communism--though the latter has certainly taught us, in some respects,
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better how to carry out the aims of Christianity. As a system, it is fallacious; as having developed instructive facts, it has contributed largely to civilization.
* The idea, so familiar now, that a man has a right to the fruit of his labor, is after all of rather modern date. So long as governments could compel men to plow, sow, reap, and thus feed society--by holding them in slavery--so long this was practiced all over Europe. A fundamental idea of the feudal system was, that the land-workers were villains, and belonged either to the soil or to the lord of the manor, and were transferred, in purchase and sale, as such. In England, in 1360, "the Statute of Laborers" punished workmen who left their usual abodes, by being branded in the foreheads with the letter F.; it required persons not worth forty shillings to dress in the coarsest russet cloth, and to be served once a day "with meat, fish, or the offal of other victuals." In 1461, the king of France ordained that "the good fat meat should be sold only to the rich, and the poor should be confined to the buying of lean and stinking meat."
During these periods, laborers who removed from place to place must have letters-patent granting them this privilege, or be put in the stocks. In 1406, children of poor parents must be brought up in the trade or calling of their parents. These absurd and iniquitous laws did not cease till the time of Charles II.; indeed, so late as 1775, the colliers of Scotland were considered as belonging to the collieries in which they had been accustomed to work!
The source of this system was a desire on the part of the capitalists to compel the laborers to work for them as slaves; it was the conspiracy of capital against free labor; nor was it abandoned until it was discovered by the governments that this system of compulsory or slave labor was unprofitable. Policy, necessity indeed, dictated the protection of labor, and it is in pursuance of this policy for some two hun-
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dred years that the right of a man to the fruit of his labor has come to be regarded as an axiom in all truly civilized countries.
II, p. 371: in the United States
* This notice should be recorded in some one office, say in a register, kept for that purpose, at the Smithsonian Institute, so that by reference to this, any person may know if copyright of a work which is announced, is to be copyrighted, and also may see whether this requisition of the law has been complied with.
II, p. 372: printed on American paper
* I had entertained the idea that it would be proper to prescribe the condition that the books should be from American type, and American engravings, but several eminent publishers think it will be for the advantage of all concerned, to permit the use of foreign stereotype plates, inasmuch as there will often be great economy in this. We shall soon send as many of these to England as we shall take from thence. On the whole, it is believed that the true interest of engravers and type-founders even, will be best consulted by letting the arrangement be made as here proposed.
II, p. 373: and half to the publisher
* In many, and probably most cases, the increased cost of books would not be more than ten per cent., and for this reason, that we should import English stereotype plates, thus making a great saving in the outlay of capital. This would certainly be the case in works embellished with engravings.
II, p. 374: a nation's glory and defence
* "But are we to have--ought we have--a literature of our own? I say yes--we not only are to have, but we ought to have such a thing. It would do more for us in a time of peace, than our battles on the sea or our battles on the land in a time of war. In fact, authors are the militia of a country on the peace establishment; it is they that are to defend us and our firesides, the character of our country, our institutions, our hope and our faith, when they are assailed by the pen-militia of Europe. And though--as I have had occasion to say before--it may be cheaper to buy our literature ready-made; cheaper, so far as the money goes, for the present age 'to import it in bales and hogsheads,' than to make it for ourselves, yet in the long run it would be sure to turn out otherwise. It would be cheaper to buy soldiers ready-made,
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the mercenaries of Europe to defend us in time of war, than it would be to make soldiers of our fathers and brothers and sons--cheaper in the outset, perhaps; and yet, who would leave his country to the care of a military stranger--to the good faith of hired legions? Where would be the economy, after a few years? Even if it were cheaper to import our defenders, therefore, it would be safer and wiser to manufacture defenders; and if in a time of war, why not in a time of peace?
"But granting a native literature to be essential to our character--and who is there to deny it?--for books travel the earth over; books are read everywhere; and every great writer, every renowned author confers a dignity upon his native country, of more worth and of more durability than the warrior does--granting it, I say, to be so important for the character and safety of a people in time of peace, how are we to have it? By paying for it. By making it worth the while of our young men to give up a portion of their time to the study of writing, not as a boyish pastime--no, nor even as a trade, but as an art--a science."--John Neal.
* In France, copyright was regulated by royal decrees, till 1789, when a general law was passed, establishing the old practice, which gave the author copyright in perpetuity, except that in case of sale to a publisher, it terminated at his death. At present, by acts of 1793 and 1810, the author has copyright during his life, and then his children twenty years after. If there are no children, the actual heirs enjoy it for ten years.
The copyright law of England is stated elsewhere.
In Holland and Belgium, the copyright laws of France are adopted.
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The law is similar in Prussia, and also in the Zollverein, the heirs enjoying the right, however, for thirty instead of twenty years, after the author's decease.
In Russia, the law gives copyright during the lifetime of the author, and twenty-five years after. An additional period of ten years is granted, if an edition is published within five years before the expiration of the copyright.
Sardinia adopted the French law in 1848. In Portugal the law is similar to that of Prussia. Spain formerly gave unlimited copyright, but often to religions communities, and not to the author. At present, the author has copyright during his lifetime, and his heirs fifty years after his death.
Prussia was the first nation to pass a general act, offering International Copyright to all countries that would reciprocate the same. This was incorporated into her copyright law of 1837. England followed this example in 1838.
Treaties for International Copyright have been entered into between Austria, Sardinia, and Tessin, 1840; Prussia and England, 1846; France, Sardinia, Hanover, England, and Portugal, in 1846, 1850, and 1851.
France has added a law prohibiting the counterfeiting of foreign books and works of art, without requiring reciprocal stipulations from other countries.
It is to be remarked, that International Copyright between these European States, generally having different languages, and trifling interests' at stake, is very easy and natural; it is practically a very different matter between England and the United States, which have the same language, and immense industrial arts, trades, and professions, directly connected with the subject. There may, indeed, be as good a reason why such an agreement should exist between Great Britain and the United States as between Great Britain and France, but still, as it involves infinitely greater consequences, it is reasonable to treat the subject with more mature and careful consideration.
* The following is a table of estimates of the various Industrial Interests connected with the press, presented to Congress in behalf of the Convention which met at Boston in 1842. Mr. Tileston, of Dorchester, and myself were the committee appointed to proceed to Washington to enforce the wishes of the petitioners, founded upon this exhibition. Mr. Fillmore, the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, then
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charged with framing the Tariff bill which soon after passed into a law, gave us a patient hearing, and the views of the petitioners were duly considered and acceded to.
| Employments | No. of persons employed. | Amount of business annually. | No. of books, &c., annually produced. | Capital invested. |
| Publishing and Bookselling. | 4,000 | $7,000,000 | 12,000,000 vols | 4,000,000 |
| Periodicals, exclusive of Newspapers. | .... | 500,000 | 3,000,000 Nos. | 200,000 |
| Bookbinders. | 3,060 | 1,646,000 | ... | 800,000 |
| Type & Stereotype Founders. | 700 | 426,000 | ... | 400,000 |
| Engraving, Wood, Steel, & Copper, includ. Designs | 500 | 250,000 | ||
| Plate Printing. | 500 | 400,000 | ||
| Newspapers. | ... | 6,000,000 | 300,000,000 sheets ann'y. | 2,200,000 |
| Printing, including Newspapers. | 25,088 | 7,126,912 | ... | 3,000,000 |
| Paper of all kinds used for printing. | 8,000 | 5,000,000 | ... | 5,000,000 |
![[pointing hand]](hand.jpg){kind=small}
At the present time, 1856, it will be safe to double most of these estimates,
to represent the present state of the same interests.
II, p. 387: religious and educational
* See the "Bibliographical Guide to American Literature" of Messrs. Trübner & Co., London--an interesting work, abounding in curious and startling yet gratifying facts, in respect to the literature of the United States.
II, p. 388: five millions of volumes
* See Trübner's Bibliographical Guide, before quoted, page xxvii. It is there estimated that in 1860 the public libraries will amount to ten millions of volumes.
II, p. 391: the patriotism of our country
* "In order that America may take its due rank in the commonwealth of nations, a literature is needed which shall be the exponent of its higher life. We live in times of turbulence and change. There is a general dissatisfaction, manifesting itself often in rude contests, and ruder
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speech, with the gulf which separates principles from actions. Men are struggling to realize dim ideals of right and truth, and each failure adds to the desperate earnestness of their efforts. Beneath all the shrewdness and selfishness of the American character, there is a smouldering enthusiasm which flames out at the first touch of fire--sometimes at the hot and hasty words of party, and sometimes at the bidding of great thoughts and unselfish principles. The heart of the nation is easily stirred to its depths; but those who rouse its fiery impulses into action are often men compounded of ignorance and wickedness, and wholly unfitted to guide the passions which they are able to excite. There is no country in the world which has nobler ideas embodied in more worthless shapes. All our factions, fanaticisms, reforms, parties, creeds, ridiculous or dangerous though they often appear, are founded on some aspiration or reality which deserves a better form and expression. There is a mighty power in great speech. If the sources of what we call our fooleries and faults were rightly addressed, they would echo more majestic and kindling truths. We want a poetry which shall speak in clear, loud tones to the people; a poetry which shall make us more in love with our native land, by converting its ennobling scenery into the images of lofty thoughts; which shall give visible form and life to the abstract ideas of our written constitutions; which shall confer upon virtue all the strength of principle and all the energy of passion; which shall disentangle freedom from cant and senseless hyperbole, and render it a thing of such loveliness and grandeur as to justify all self-sacrifice; which shall make us love man by the new consecrations it sheds on his life and destiny; which shall force through the thin partitions of conventionalism and expediency; vindicate the majesty of reason; give new power to the voice of conscience, and new vitality to human affection; soften and elevate passion; guide enthusiasm in a right direction; and speak out in the high language of men to a nation of men."
E. P. Whipple.
II, p. 396: had rung through the hall
* A remarkable instance of the license which Mr. Randolph allowed to himself, occurred in the Senate, of which he was then a member, soon after Mr. Adams's accession to the presidency. In a discussion which took place upon the "Panama Mission," Randolph closed a very intemperate speech with the following words, on their face referring to events which had occurred at a recent race-course, but, in fact, plainly meaning the alliance between Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay:
I was defeated, horse, foot, and dragoons--cut up, clean broke down
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by the coalition of Blifil and Black George--by the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan with the Black-leg!"
The "Coalition," so much talked of at the time, charged Mr. Clay with giving Mr. Adams his influence in the election to the presidency, in consideration that he was to be Secretary of State. This was urged with great vehemence and effect, both against Mr. Adams's administration and Mr. Clay, personally. Randolph's endorsement of the charge, at this time, fiendish as the manner of it was, seemed a staggering blow, and Mr. Clay thought it necessary to call him to account for it. The duel took place on the banks of the Potomac, but Randolph fired in the air, and the difficulty was appeased.
No man in our history has been more discussed than John Randolph. He was undoubtedly a man of genius, but, on the whole, both in public and private, was an exceedingly dangerous example. He said some good things, and sometimes seemed almost inspired, but his mind and heart were soured and narrowed by inherent physical defects, which at last led to occasional lunacy. He died at Philadelphia in 1833, aged 60.
* William Pinkney was a native of Annapolis, born 1764. He was appointed to various European missions by the United States government, and held other eminent public stations. His greatest celebrity, however, was attained at the bar, where he was distinguished alike for learning and eloquence. He was a great student, and prepared himself with the utmost care, though he affected to rely chiefly on his native powers. A member of Monroe's Cabinet once told me that he heard Pinkney, about five o'clock of a winter morning, reciting and committing to memory, in his room, the peroration of a plea which he heard delivered the same day before the Supreme Court!
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His senatorial displays are said to have been often more florid than profound. Soon after first taking his seat in the House of Representatives he made a speech, which was very brilliant, but rather pretentious and dictatorial. John Randolph gave him a hint of this. He said: "Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland"--then pausing, and looking toward Pinkney, added--"I believe the gentleman is from Maryland?" As Pinkney had been ambassador to several courts in Europe, and was the most conspicuous lawyer at the bar of the Supreme Court, he felt this sarcasm keenly. When I saw him, he had just taken his seat in the Senate; two years afterward he died, aged fifty-seven.
* The electoral vote stood thus: for Gen. Jackson, ninety-nine; Mr. Adams, eighty-four; Mr. Crawford, forty-one; Mr. Clay, thirty-seven. It was perfectly constitutional to elect Mr. Adams, but the event showed the difficulty of sustaining a President who has less than one-third of the popular vote in his favor.
The vote in the House of Representatives was first declared by Daniel Webster, and then by John Randolph. At the announcement that Adams was elected, there was some clapping of hands and there were some hisses, whereupon the galleries were cleared.
* A somewhat severe but still acute analyst of Mr. Adams's character says: "Undoubtedly, one great reason of his unpopularity was his cold, antipathetic manner, and the suspicion of selfishness it suggested, or at least aided greatly to confirm. None approached Mr. Adams, but to recede. He never succeeded, he never tried to conciliate."
I recollect an anecdote somewhat illustrative of this. When he was candidate for the Presidency, his political friends thought it advisable that he should attend a cattle-show at Worcester, Mass., so as to conciliate the numbers of influential men who might be present. Accordingly he went, and while there many persons were introduced to him, and among the rest a farmer of the vicinity--a man of substance and great respectability. On being presented, he said--
"Mr. Adams, I am very glad to see you. My wife, when she was a gal, lived in your father's family; you were then a little boy, and she has told me a great deal about you. She has very often combed your head."
"Well," said Mr. Adams, in his harsh way--"I suppose she combs yours now!" The poor farmer slunk back like a lashed hound, feeling the smart, but utterly unconscious of the provocation.
Mr. Adams's course in the House of Representatives--to which he was elected for a series of years, after he had been President--was liable to great and serious exception. His ago, the high positions he had held, his vast experience and unbounded stores of knowledge, might have made him the arbiter of that body. Such, however, was his love of gladiatorial displays, that he did more to promote scenes of collision, strife, and violence, in words and deeds, than any other member. I remember one day to have been on the floor of the House, when he attacked Mr. Wise with great personality and bitterness. In allusion to the Cilley duel, with which he was connected, he spoke of him as coming into that assembly, "his hands dripping with blood!" There was a terrible yarring tone in his voice, which gave added effect to the denunciation. Every person present seemed to be thrilled with a sort
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of horror, rather toward Mr. Adams than the object of his reproaches. In speaking of this scene to me afterward, an eminent member of Congress said, that "Mr. Adams's greatest delight was to be the hero of a row." There is no doubt that the rude personal passages which often occur in the House of Represervatives, derived countenance from Mr. Adams's example. It is melancholy to reflect how a great intellect, and, on the whole, a great life, were marred and dwarfed by inherent personal defects.
II, p. 407: mainly by northern votes
* Mr. Calhoun had one hundred and fourteen votes from the non-slaveholding States, and sixty-eight only from the others.
* There seems to have been a singular fatuity in Mr. Clay's great measures--if we may be permitted to test them by time and their result. He promoted the war, but was himself one of the negotiators of a peace with the enemy, without a single stipulation in regard to the causes of the war, and this too after an expenditure of thirty thousand lives and a hundred millions of dollars on our side, and probably an equal expenditure on the other. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which he so far favored as to gain the credit of it, has been recently expunged, leaving national discord and local civil war in its place. The Compromise of 1833 was regarded by many of the eminent men in the country, as one of the most disastrous political movements that could
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have been devised, and by its inconsistency with his previous doctrines, lost him forever the confidence of his best friends, especially at the North. Mr. J. Q. Adams once told me that he considered this as a fatal mistake on Mr. Clay's part, as he saved Mr. Calhoun without conciliating him, at the same time alienating many leading men throughout the country who had before been devoted to him. The Compromise of 1850, in which Mr. Clay was the chief, has already lost its force, and is likely hereafter to be rather a source of agitation than of peace. His grand and comprehensive system, to which he gave the name of "American," and which proposed to build up a mighty nation through a National Bank, giving us a currency--Internal Improvements, promoting commerce and binding the States in the bonds of union--the Tariff, to render us independent of foreign nations in peace and in war--and the Panama Mission, placing us at the head of the powers of this continent,--all these have been trampled under foot by Jackson, and Van Buren, and Polk, and Pierce, and the People. They have been erased from our policy, and their history is chiefly memorable for the ability with which their great originator promoted them, and yet only to insure the defeat, of his own ambition. After a few brief years, Henry Clay will be only known to the student of history, who looks beyond existing monuments for testimonials of the giants of bygone generations. Even his speeches, stirring as they were on those who heard them--having no eminence in literature, no body and soul of general truth, reflection, and philosophy, and little connection with current politics--will soon be among the traditions of the past. The fallacy of Mr. Clay's career lay in this--he created issues, founded schemes, planned systems, as the ladders of ambition; the truer plan, even for ambition, is to make truth and duty and principle the polar star of life and action.
* I was at this time Master of the Lodge at Hartford, St. John's No. 4, and attended this celebration officially as a deputy from the Grand Lodge of Connecticut. I recollect that when the lodges assembled at Boston, Gen. Lafayette was among them. I had seen him before in Paris, at a dinner on Washington's birthday, A. D. 1824, when he first announced his intention of coming to America. I afterward saw him, both at Washington and Paris. I may mention a single anecdote, illustrative of his tenderness of heart. While he was at Washington, Mr. Morse--since so universally known as the inventor of the electric telegraph--was employed to paint his portrait for the City Hall of New York. One day, when the people were collecting in the hall of the hotel for dinner, I saw Mr. Morse apart, in the corner of the room, reading a letter. I noticed, in a moment, that he was greatly agitated. I went to him, and asked him the cause. He could not speak; he put the letter into my hand, and staggered out of the room. I looked over the epistle, and saw that it contained the fatal intelligence of the death of his wife, at New Haven, whom he had left there, in health, a few days before. He felt it necessary to leave Washington immediately, and go to his friends, and 1 agreed to accompany him. It was necessary that this should be communicated to Lafayette. I went to him and told him the story. He was very much affected, and went with me to see Mr. Morse. He took him in his arms and kissed him, and wept over him,
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as if he had been his own child. Nothing could be more soothing than this affectionate sympathy.
In Mr. Webster's discourse, which I have been noticing, there was a passage addressed to Lafayette, which, I believe, is slightly altered in the present printed copy. It was told as an anecdote, some years ago, that he composed the discourse while fishing for cod off Nantasket Beach. It would seem that as he came to the point of addressing Lafayette, he had a vigorous bite, and from habit, more than attention to the business in hand, began to haul in. Just as the fish emerged from the water, Mr. Webster went on thus--"Fortunate man! the representative of two hemispheres--welcome to these shores!"--whereupon the huge fish was safely jerked into the boat. I can not vouch for the authenticity of the story, bat I tell it as too good to be lost.
II, p. 412: overwhelming emotion
* One incident, which occurred on this occasion, is worth mentioning. I sat near two old men, farmers I should judge, who remained with their mouths open from the beginning to the end of the oration. Not a sentence escaped them. I could see reflected in their countenances the whole march of the discourse. When it was over, they rose up, and having drawn a long breath, one said to the other--"Well, that was good; every word seemed to weigh a pound!" While Mr. Webster was in Europe in 1839, I wrote a series of anecdotical sketches of him, published in the National Intelligencer, and among other things, recited this incident. It found its way to England, and the London Times, in describing Mr. Webster's manner in the speech he made at the Oxford Cattle Show, repeated this anecdote as particularly descriptive of his massive and weighty eloquence.
* S. S. Prentiss was a native of Maine, but removed to Mississippi, where he soon distinguished himself as a brilliant orator. In the Harrison Campaign of 1840, "he took the stump," and made a series of most effective speeches, crowds gathering from many miles around, to hear him. One day he met with a caravan of wild beasts, and it was suggested that he should speak from the top of one of the wagons. He mounted that of the hyenas, and as he was lame, and carried a strong cane, occasionally he poked this through a hole in the top and stirred up the hyenas within. Prentiss had scathing powers of denunciation, and he was unsparing in his sarcasms upon the administration of Jackson and his successor Van Buren, which, as he insisted, had caused the ruin then
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desolating the country; but when to his blasting sentences were added the howlings of the hyenas, judiciously put in at the climaxes, it was something more than words--it was "action, action, action!"
I remember once to have heard this famous orator, the same season, at a whig meeting in Faneuil Hall, Edward Everett presiding. I hardly knew which most to admire--the polished elegance, spiced with graceful and pertinent wit, of Everett, or the dashing splendor of Prentiss. The one seemed like the fountain of Velino playing amid Grecian sculpture; the other, a cataract of the Far West, fed from inexhaustible fountains, and lighting whole forests with its crystals and its foam.
Mr. Prentiss died in 1850, greatly lamented, at the early age of forty.
II, p. 419: beautiful sentiments in beautiful language
* It would be easy to fill volumes with passages of this sort: the following, taken at random from Mr. Webster's published works, will illustrate what I have said:
"Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Where her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation for social security, general happiness, and the improvement and progress of our race."
"One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate, but he must die as a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality; to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of ail relations, the relation between the Creator and the created."
"Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life; it points to another world."
"Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to his throne. If that tie be all sundered, all broken, he floats away, a worthless atom in the universe--its proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death."
Speaking at Valley Forge of the sufferings of the American army
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there, under Washington, in the winter of 1777-8, he described them as "destitute of clothing, destitute of provisions, destitute of every thing but their faith in God and their immortal leader."
"The slightest glance must convince us that mechanical power and mechanical skill, as they are now exhibited in Europe and America, mark an epoch in human history worthy of all admiration. Machinery is made to perform what has formerly been the toil of human hands, to sin extent that astonishes the most sanguine, with a degree of power to which no number of human arms is equal, and with such precision and exactness as almost to suggest the notion of reason and intelligence in the machines themselves. Every natural agent is put unrelentingly to the task. The winds work, the waters work, the elasticity of metals works; gravity is solicited into a thousand new forms of action; levers are multiplied upon levers; wheels revolve on the peripheries of other wheels; the saw and the plane are tortured into an accommodation to new uses, and last of all, with inimitable power, and 'with whirlwind sound,' comes the potent agency of steam."
"Steam is found in triumphant operation on the seas; and under the influence of its strong propulsion, the gallant ship,
'Against the wind, against the tide, Still steadies with an upright keel.'
It is on the rivers, and the boatman may repose on his oars; it is on highways, and begins to exert itself along the courses of land conveyance; it is at the bottom of mines, a thousand feet below the earth's surface; it is in the mill, and in the workshops of the trades. It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it prints."
"Whether it be consciousness, or the result of his reasoning faculties, man soon learns that he must die. And of all sentient beings, he alone, as fur as we can judge, attains to this knowledge. His Maker has made him capable of learning this. Before he knows his origin
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and destiny, he knows that he is to die. Then comes that most urgent and solemn demand for light that ever proceeded, or can proceed, from the profound and anxious breedings of the human soul. It is stated, with wonderful force and beauty, in that incomparable composition, the book of Job: 'For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease; that, through the scent of water, it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But if a man die, shall he live again? And that question nothing but God, and the religion of God, can solve. Religion does solve it, and teaches every man that he is to live again, and that the duties of this life have reference to the life which is to come. And hence, since the introduction of Christianity, it has been the duty, as it has been the effort, of the great and the good, to sanctify human knowledge, to bring it to the fount, and to baptize learning into Christianity; to gather up all its productions, its earliest and its latest, its blossoms and its fruits, and lay them all upon the altar of religion and virtue."
"I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round
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it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin."
It is known that some of these fine passages ware suddenly struck out in the heat of debate; others no doubt were polished and perfected with care. On a certain occasion, Mr. Webster startled the Senate by a beautiful and striking remark in relation to the extent of the British empire, as follows: "She has dotted the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circle the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."
On going out of the Senate, one of the members complimented Mr. Webster upon this, saying that he was all the more struck with it as it was evidently impromptu. "You are mistaken," said Mr. Webster; "the idea occurred to me when I was on the ramparts of Quebec, some months since. I wrote it down, and re-wrote it, and after several trials, got it to suit me, and laid it by for use. The time came to-day, and so I put it in."
II, p. 426: his own matchless abilities
* The "great debate" here alluded to, took place in the Senate, in January, 1830. Colonel Hayne had attacked Mr. Webster with great power, fortified as he was by facts, arguments, and suggestions, furnished by democratic members from all parts of the Union, and going over Mr. Webster's whole political life. The reply was triumphant and overwhelming, and is justly considered the greatest forensic effort which our history supplies. There is, indeed, so far as I know, no speech which equals it, if we regard the variety of its topics, the vast scope of its leading considerations, the beauty and felicity of many of its passagos, and its completeness as a whole.
* John M. Niles was a native of Windsor, Connecticut. He studied law, and settled at Hartford, devoting himself, however, to politics. He was of small, awkward, and insignificant personal appearance, and for this reason, probably, was for many years treated and regarded with some degree of contempt, especially by the federalists, to whom he was politically opposed. I knew him well, and early learned to appreciate the logical force of his understanding. He was associated in the Times newspaper, and was probably, more than any other single person, the instrument of overturning the federal party in the State, in 1817. He now rose to various eminent public stations, at last becoming a Senator of the United States, and for a short time Postmaster-general under Mr. Polk. He had strong common sense, and close reasoning powers, which operated with the precision of cog-wheels. Mr. Webster regarded his speech upon the tariff, while he was in the Senate, as one of the very ablest ever delivered upon that subject.
I must give a sketch of a scene in Mr. Forsyth's parlor, on the occasion
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above alluded to, as it presents a tableaux of three marked men. The dinner had been finished for some time, but several of the gentlemen lingered at the table. The ladies had retired, and made a considerable semicircle around the fire in the parlor. Mr. Forsyth was in the middle of this room, receiving the gentlemen as they came from the dining-hall, and who, after a little conversation with him, bowed to the ladies and took their leave.
At last Messrs. Benton, Hill, and Niles came from the dining-room together, and stopped to converse with Mr. Forsyth. Mr. Hill, who was very lame, said good-night to his host and went straight to the door, without taking the slightest notice of the bright circle around the fireside. Benton came next; but he is an old courtier, and therefore paid his addresses to the ladies, beginning with Mrs. Meigs--Mrs. Forsyth's mother--and bowing gracefully to each, was about to take his leave. Niles came next. His first idea evidently was to follow the example of Isaac Hill, but as Benton was actually performing his courtesies, he felt it impossible wholly to disregard such a pattern. Setting out first for the door, he soon diverged toward the fireside; when near the ladies, he was suddenly seized with panic, and pulling out a red bandanna handkerchief from his pocket, gave a load blast upon his nose, shot out of the door, and thus safely effected his retreat.
Mr. Niles died at Hartford in 1856, aged sixty-nine.
* Mr. Storrs was a native of Middletown, Connecticut, and brother of the present Judge Storrs of that State. He was educated at Yale, and was there considered a dull scholar, yet he early became eminent as a lawyer and a statesman. He first settled at Utica, but afterward removed to the city of New York, where he died in 1837, aged forty-nine. He was distinguished for various acquirements, great powers of discrimination, remarkable logical exactness, and a ready and powerful elocution.
II, p. 442: the Place Louis Quinze
* This is now the Place de la Concorde, and is one of the most beautiful squares in the world. In the center is the famous obelisk of Luxor: from this point four superb works of architecture are seen at the four cardinal points--to the west, through the avenue of the Champs Elisées, is the Arc de Triomphe de 1'Etoile; to the north, the Church of the Madeleine; to the east, the Palace of the Tuileries; to the south, the Chamber of Deputies.
* Mr. David Bailie Warden, who had been Secretary of Legation when Gen. Armstrong was Minister to Holland, was at this time Consul of the United States at Paris. He was a native of Ireland, but had become an American citizen. He was a corresponding member of the Institute and was a man of considerable scientific and literary acquirements. He wrote a clever History of the United States. He died at Paris in 1845, aged 67.
II, p. 452: baffled them for seventeen years
* Abd-el-Kadir, who had been the indomitable leader of the Arabs of the Desert, against the French, who had conquered Algiers, surrendered to Gen. Lamoriciére, December 23d, 1847.
II, p. 460: one of their muskets went off
* It has since been said, and is generally believed, that a revolutionist by the name of Lagrange fired this shot with a pistol, having expected and designed the events which immediately followed.
II, p. 463: consigned to the flames
* Many occurrences, during the revolution, served to display, on the part of the people, commonly, but injuriously, called the mob, sentiments not inferior in beauty and elevation to those handed down for centuries in the histories of ancient Greece and Rome. During the sacking of the Palais Royal, the insurgents found an ivory crucifix. In the very heat of their fury against tyranny, they reverently paused, and taking the sacred emblem of their faith, bore it to the old church of St. Roch, where it was safely deposited.
* In the recent improvements in Paris, the ruins of the Chateau d'Eau have been removed, and a square has been opened upon their site from the Palais Royal to the new portions of the Louvre. These and other alterations have rendered this one of the most beautiful quarters of the city. The Louvre and the Tuileries have been united, and now form one of the most magnificent palaces in Europe.
* The various members of the royal family, having escaped to England, established themselves at Claremont, near London, where they have continued till this time. Louis Philippe died there the 22d of August, 1850.
* Mr. Bush, who was then our ambassador to France, proceeded in his official capacity to the Hotel de Ville, three or four days after the completion of the revolution, and recognized the government, congratulating them upon a change which had resulted in the establishment of a republic.
II, p. 475: Vive la Republique Americaine
* The committee on the address, besides myself, were Messrs. Corbin, of Virginia, Shimmin, of Boston, and the late Henry Coleman, well known for his agricultural writings, as well as his travels in England and France.
The president on the occasion was Hon. G. W. Erving, formerly minister of the United States to Madrid.
The chief marshal was Wright Hawkes, Esq., of New York, assisted by Robert Wickliffe, Jr,, of Kentucky, E. C. Cowden, of Boston, &c.
It is a curious fact, that the Americans in the procession were several inches taller than the average of Frenchmen--a circumstance which attracted general attention in Paris at the time.
* M. Guillaume Tell Poussin came to the United States many years ago, and was employed here as an engineer for a long time. After his return to France, he wrote an able statistical work on this country, in which he highly praised our institutions. When the French Republic was organized, lie was sent as minister to Washington. Mr. Clayton, Secretary of State under Gen. Taylor, took exception to certain expressions used by M. Poussin in his correspondence with the department, and accordingly he ceased to represent his country here. M. Poussin is, however, a sincere republican, and a great admirer of the United States; and though his principles are well known, such is the respect entertained for him, that the suspicion of the French government, even under the empire, has never subjected him to constraint or annoyance.
* These men were Socialists, and aimed at a destruction of the government, so that they might bring into effect their peculiar schemes. They were shortly afterward tried at Bourges, and sentenced to long imprisonment or banishment. Louis Blanc and Caussidiére escaped to England. The former remains in London; the latter is now a wine-merchant in New York.
II, p. 480: the American Consul at Paris
* Paris is not a seaport, and therefore the numerous consular duties connected with shipping are never required here. On the other hand, it is the literary metropolis of France; and as French consuls are required to collect and furnish geographical, historical, commercial, and statistical information, I found myself constantly applied to by editors
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of papers, authors, bankers, merchants, government officials, for particular fncts in regard to the United States. I was exceedingly struck with the general ignorance of all classes, as to our country, its institutions, geography, population, history, &c. I therefore prepared a work, which, with the kind assistance of M. Delbrück, was put into French, and published--it being an octavo volume of about three hundred and seventy-five pages, entitled Les Etats-Unis d' Amérique. I had the gratification of seeing it well received on all sides, even by the members of the government, from whom I had complimentary acknowledgments. There is, indeed, a great and growing interest in our country all over Europe, and it seems to be the duty of American officials abroad to take advantage of their opportunities to satisfy and gratify this curiosity by furnishing, in a correct and accessible form, the kind of information that is desired.
The number of Americans in Paris, residents and travelers, varies from one to three thousand. If the Consul is understood to bar out his countrymen, he may see very few of them; if, on the contrary, he is willing to make himself useful in a neighborly way, many of them will call upon him to take his advice as to schools, physicians, routes of travel, and the like. When there is difficulty, the Consul is the natural resource of his countrymen, especially for those who are without acquaintance. In case of the death of an American, if there Is no friend or relative present upon whom the duty devolves, the Consul gives directions as to the funeral, and takes charge of the effects of the deceased.
I have already alluded to French physicians and surgeons, and expressed the opinion that ours, in America, are quite as good. There is, no doubt, great science in the medical and surgical professions of Paris; but there are two things to be suggested to those who go there for advice. In the first place, these practitioners are very daring in their treatment of strangers, and in the next, their charges to foreigners are usually about double the ordinary rates.
While I was in Paris, a very wealthy and rather aged gentleman from Virginia consulted an eminent surgeon there, as to hydrocele. An op-
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eration was recommended and performed, entirely against the advice of a Virginia physician who chanced to be in Paris, and was consulted. In thirty days the gentleman died. He had intrusted his affairs to me, and I paid his bills. The charge of the surgeon was five thousand francs! The bills of the nurses, hotels, attendants, &c., were of a similar character. A young physician, who had been employed fourteen days as nurse, estimated his services at fifteen hundred francs! I make these, remarks, that my countrymen going to Paris for medical or surgical advice, may be duly warned against placing themselves in the hands of rash, and unprincipled practitioners. A great name in Paris is by no means a guarantee of that care, prudence, and conscientiousness, which belong to the physician at home.
II, p. 489: the Chamber of Deputies
* The National Assembly held its sessions in a temporary building erected in the courtyard of the Chamber of Deputies, proper. This
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was popularly called Pasteboard Hall. Louis Napoleon ordered it to be demolished soon after the promulgation of his Constitution, some weeks subsequent to the Coup d'Etat.
II, p. 498: the reckless soldiers
* The soldiers fired upon all they saw in the streets. An old woman going along with a loaf of bread, had a bullet put through her; an apothecary, who ventured to appear at his door, instantly received a ball in his forehead. Files of soldiers poured their volleys upon the innocent people passing along the Boulevard; shots were fired at the windows of private houses; seven persons were killed in a bookseller's shop. One of my friends saw seventeen dead bodies in one gutter.
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These persons thus slaughtered were not rioters, working at barricades; they were mostly gentlemen, and hence it was called the massacre of the "kid gloves." The soldiers had undoubtedly been stimulated by liquor to qualify them to perform this work of butchery.
II, p. 502: some noble spirits still pine in exile
* The number of individuals exiled by the Coup d'Etat amounted to several thousands--some of the more obnoxious persons being sent to Cayenne, Noukahiva, and Lambessa in Algeria. Others were only banished from France; a portion of these have since had permission to return. Among those still excluded is Victor Hugo, no doubt the most eloquent writer and orator now living. He has continued to make the island of Jersey his residence. Two other exiles of some note are Ledru Rollin and Louis Blanc, members of the Provisional Government, and whose misconduct contributed largely to the overthrow of the republic. These have remained in England. Lamoriciére, Changarnier, Charras, and Bedeau, all distinguished officers, are in Belgium or Germany.
Cavaignac, who was imprisoned with other members of the Assembly, was speedily released. He is believed to be a sound republican, somewhat according to our American ideas. He is permitted to reside in Prance, but takes no part in public affairs. Lamartine, a fine poet,
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a captivating orator, an elegant writer, and withal a man whose heart is full of every noble sentiment, escaped the indignity of imprisonment, and he too is allowed to live in his native land. But his lips are sealed as to every political question, and his only communication with his countrymen and with mankind is through literature, carefully divested of every thought and feeling pertaining to current politics. Every author in France, indeed, wears a muzzle which only permits him to breathe such thoughts as cannot offend the powers that be.
II, p. 505: the 1st of August, 1853
* I shall, I trust, be excused for inserting in a note the following, which I take from Galignani's Paris Messenger of December 15th, 1854:
Mr. Goodrich, the late Consul of the United States of America at Paris.--The Americans in Paris lately presented to Mr. Goodrich a medallion executed in vermeil, by the distinguished artist, Adam-Salomon, with the following inscription encircling an admirable portrait of the consul, in relief--
"To S. G. Goodrich, Consul of the United States of America, at Paris, presented by his countrymen in that City, August 1st, 1853."
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The following correspondence, which took place between the parties, is creditable to all concerned:
"Paris, September 5th, 1854.
"To S. G. Goodrich, esq.--
"It is my very agreeable duty to present you, herewith, a medallion, executed at the request of a number of your American friends at Paris. It is destined alike as a token of personal respect, and an expression of the universal gratification among your countrymen at the manner in which you discharged your duties while consul of the United States here. Not content with a merely formal fulfillment of your official obligations, you made your position eminently agreeable and useful to your countrymen, and at the same time rendered it subservient to the best interests of our common country. On these points there is but one opinion; and, therefore, in making this offering, in behalf of your numerous friends, I am instructed to add their congratulations that nothing can deprive you of the good-will and good opinion so legitimately obtained.
I am, sir, respectfully yours,
"Paris, September 16th, 1854.
"My Dear Sir:--I have this day had the pleasure of receiving your letter, with the accompanying testimonial of personal regard and approbation of my official conduct, presented by you in behalf of my American friends in Paris. I need not say that I receive these unexpected tokens of kindness with great satisfaction, rendered doubly gratifying by the fact that they come when all know that I have only the humble thanks of a private citizen to give in return. While I thus acknowledge and cherish the compliment my friends have paid me, I feel bound to say that I had been already compensated for any personal sacrifices I had made to obligations lying beyond the mere routine of official duty, while I held the consulate in Paris. During that period, a space of little over two years, more than five hundred letters of introduction were presented to me, and I received at my house several thousands of my countrymen, strangers in this city; yet the instances were extremely rare in which an American trespassed either upon my time or my feelings. On the con-
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trary, I was day by day more than rewarded for any services rendered, by the agreeable intercourse of persons so universally intelligent, so little requiring, and so instinctively perceiving and observing the proprieties of every situation in which they were placed. I take great pleasure in recording a fact so creditable to our countrymen, even though it may deprive me of all claims to the merits which the kindness of my friends assigns to my conduct. I have the honor to be,
"With great respect, yours, &c.,
"S. G. GOODRICH."
"Francis Warden, Esq.
II, p. 508: these fugitive letters
* I had intended to say a few words in respect to the leading literary persons of France, at the present day, but in entering upon the
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subject I find it too extensive. I may, however, name in a single paragraph, Alexandre Dumas, whose versatility, fecundity, and capacity for labor are without parallel, and whose genius has placed him at the head of living novelists and dramatists, in spite of his notorious charlatanry and love of publicity; Adolphe Dumas, his son, whose three plays illustrative of the manners of equivocal society and of the life of abandoned women has made him rich at the age of thirty-one--a fact very suggestive as to the state of Parisian society; Lamartine, whose humble apartments in the Rue de la Ville l'Evéque are constantly filled with the admiring friends of the impoverished poet and the disowned politician; Alphonse Karr, whose caustic satires upon vice, folly, and prevalent abuses, published once a week, have made him a valuable reformer; Ampére, the traveler and linguist, whose work upon the United States is perhaps the most just that has yet been written by a foreigner; Emile de Girardin, whose innovation in editorial writing--consisting of the constant recurrence of the alinéa, or paragraph, each one of which contains a distinct proposition, deduced from the previous one and leading directly to that which follows--was one of the features of the Presse which produced its immense popularity; Scribe, the indefatigable playwright and librettist; Méry, the poet-laureate or court poetaster; Ponsard, whose two comedies in verse, "L'Honneur et l'Argent" and "La Bourse," are rapidly carrying him to a chair in the Academy; Béranger, hale and active at the age of seventy-six, and the most popular man in France; Gustave Planche, the critic and the terror of authors; Jules Janin, the dramatic critic, whose long labors have been totally unproductive of good to either actor or dramatist; Madame de Girardin--recently deceased--whose one act drama of "La Joie fait Peur" is the most profound piece of psychological dissection in existence; and Madame Dudevant, alias George Sand, whose power of painting the finer and more hidden emotions of the soul is unrivaled.
I must add a word in respect to Madame Ristori, the Italian tragedienne who has recently caused such a thrill of excitement in Paris. She is in nothing more remarkable than in her contrast to Rachel. The latter is the pupil of art, the former of nature. Rachel always plays the same part in the same manner. Every tone, every gesture is studied profoundly,
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and always comes in. at the same time and place. Ristori enters into the play with her whole soul, and acts as her feelings dictate. She is of somewhat light complexion, with hazel eyes and brown hair; she has correct features, and off the stage is of grave, lady-like manners and appearance. On the stage she seems to work miracles. I have seen her in Marie Stuart, while on her knees at confession, by a slight continued movement upward make the audience feel as if she were actually ascending to heaven, personally and before their eyes!
* It is said, and I believe truly, that Dr. Franklin's appearance at the court of Louis XVI. in a plain suit of drab cloth, and which for a brief space intoxicated the giddy beau moude of Paris, was accidental: his court suit not arriving in time, and the king, who waited anxiously to receive him, requesting that he would come as he was. Whether this was so or not, I believe there is no doubt that Dr. Franklin afterward adopted a court suit, consisting of a black velvet embroidered coat, and black small-clothes, with a small sword. Dr. Franklin was a man of too much sense to undertake to shock established tastes by an offensive departure from what was esteemed propriety. All the portraits of him taken while he was cur ambassador at the French court, show that he was accustomed to dress handsomely. I have a copy of one by Greuze, which represents him in a green silk dressing-gown, edged with fur, a light-colored satin waistcoat, with a frill at the bosom. Such a dress, for an elderly gentleman in his study, would now-a-days be considered almost foppish.
II, p. 514: became extremely awkward
* The desire of our ministers to satisfy the government at home, as well as to take advantage of the popular outburst in favor of the black coat, and at the same time to avoid the ridicule which they knew would attach to their appearing in a common dress at court, led to humiliating devices. Mr. Soulé adopted the shad-bellied, black velvet embroidered coat and small-clothes of the Municipal Council of Paris, said also to have been used by Dr. Franklin. Mr. Buchanan wore a black or blue coat, white waistcoat, small-clothes, silk stockings, a sword, and chapeau bras! Mr. Dallas is understood to have adopted the same costume. If we sympathize with these gentlemen for being forced into such humiliating subterfuges, we ought to bestow more serious condemnation upon those who led them into temptation. In some of the . northern courts of Europe, I believe our diplomats have adopted the simple black coat.
I understand that the Consul of Alexandria, whose functions are part-
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ly diplomatic, wears a blue coat with thirty-one stars, wrought in gold, on the collar. This is a beautiful idea, and might suggest to our government a very simple and appropriate consular and diplomatic costume. Some costume--distinct and national and perfectly understood in all countries--is really important, as well for our consuls as diplomats. Those who insist upon the black coat, show a total ignorance of the duties and position of our public officers abroad, and of the nations among whom they officiate.
II, p. 517: to appear at court
* In general, a person who should attempt to enter at a court reception, without a proper costume, would be stopped at the door: if he should, by accident, gain admittance, he would probably be invited to leave the room. A professional dress, as that of a soldier, a clergyman, &c., is considered a proper costume at Paris, and I believe at most other courts. If a person is not professional, he must wear either the prescribed costume of his own country, or that of the court to which he is introduced The British minister will introduce no one at a foreign court, who has not been previously presented to the Queen at home.
* Mr. Saunders' Circulars were addressed, one to the President of the Swiss Cantons and the other to the French people--the latter being of a very incendiary character. These were translated into various languages, and scattered all over Europe, by the Italian and French exiles in London. I saw one of these, with a preface by Saffi, in which he stated that the writer, Citizen Saunders, was Consul General of the United States in Great Britain, that he was very intimate with Mr. Buchanan, the American minister at London, and thus conveying the idea that he spoke officially, in some degree, for the United States. A certain authority was lent to these documents by the statement that they were circulated in France under the seal of the American Legation in London. To judge of the effect produced by all this, let us consider what would be the feeling of oar people, if some foreign official should undertake to teach us our duty, and should even call upon us to cut the throats of our rulers!
* Florence has a population of one hundred, and ten thousand inhabitants, but it is so compactly built as to occupy a very small territorial space. It is surrounded by a wall, partly of brick and partly of stone, and yet so feeble and dilapidated, as to be wholly useless, except for the purposes of police. It has six gates, duly guarded by military sentries. It is the capital of Tuscany, which is called a Grand Duchy, the Grand Duke, its present ruler, Leopold II,, being an Austrian prince. The government is a rigid despotism, sustained by means of a few thousand Austrian troops, and the moral influence of the authority of Austria itself, ever ready to rush to the aid of the government.
* The principal gallery, the Ufizzi, contains the statue of the Venus de' Medici, the group of Niobe, and the most extensive collection of paintings and statuary illustrative of the history and progress of art, in the world. The collection in the Pitti Palace, the residence of the Grand Duke, is less extensive, but it is beautifully arranged, and comprises many gems of art, especially in painting and mosaic. Mr. Powers and Mr. Hart, American sculptors, celebrated for their busts in marble, are established in this city. Here we met Buchanan Read, who had just finished his charming poem, The New Pastoral; at the same time he was acquiring hardly less celebrity by his pencil.
II, p. 527: the treasures of art
* Rome is not only a depository of exhaustless stores of relics of art, and curiosities illustrative of history, but it is the great studio of living artists from all parts of Europe. Both painting and sculpture are pursued here with eminent success. The Angel of the Resurrection in the studio of Tenerani, is the most beautiful and sublime piece of sculpture I ever beheld. Gibson, an Englishman, takes the lead among foreigners, his best things consisting of reliefs, which are beautiful indeed. His Venus is English, but fine. He has tried coloring statuary, after the manner of the ancients, but it is not approved. Our American Crawford ranks very high for invention and poetic expression. He has shown a capacity beyond any other American sculptor, for groups on a large scale. Bartholomew, of Connecticut, is a man of decided genius, and is rapidly attaining fame. Ives, Mosier, Rogers--all our countrymen--are acquiring celebrity.
Among the foreign painters, the most celebrated is Overbeck, a German. He chooses religious subjects, and is a little pre-Raphaelitish in his style. Page, Terry, Chapman, are all highly appreciated, both at home and abroad. I here met the landscape painter, George L. Brown, whom I employed twenty years ago, for a twelvemonth, as a wood-engraver. He has studied laboriously of late, and his pictures are beautiful. When he was a boy, he painted a picture, the first he ever finished, Isaac P. Davis, of Boston, a well-known amateur, called to see it, and asked the price. Brown meant to say fifty cents, but in his confusion said fifty dollars. It was taken by Mr. Davis at this price: so the wood-cutter became a landscape painter!
II, p. 534: the electric telegraph
* The original profession of Samuel Finley Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, was that of an historical painter. He went to Europe for the purpose of perfecting himself in this, the second time, in 1824. In the autumn of 1832 he was returning in a ship from Havre, when the subject of electro-magnetism one day became the theme of conversation at the lunch-table. The fact that an electric spark could be obtained from a magnet, had led to the new science of magneto-electricity. Reflecting upon this, the idea of making electricity the means of telegraphic communication struck him with great force. It appears that in this conception he had been anticipated by scientific men, but nothing had been effected toward realizing it. Mr. Morse, after earnest and absorbing reflection upon this subject during his voyage, on his arrival set himself to the task of making it practical, and the plan he finally discovered and laid before the world was entirely original with him. All telegraphists before used evanescent signs; his system included not only the use of a new agent, but a self-recording apparatus, adding to the celerity of lightning almost the gift of speech. This was a new and wonderful art--that of a speaking and printing telegraph!
It would be interesting, if I had space, to trace this invention through all its alternations in the mind, feelings, and experiments of its producer. I can only say that after encountering and overcoming innumerable obstacles, the instrument was made to work on a small but decisive scale, in 1835. In 1837 he established his apparatus at Washington, and, as every thing seemed to promise success, he made an arrangement with a member of Congress (F, O. J. Smith) to take an interest in the patent, and to proceed forthwith to Europe to secure patents there. This was done, and Mr. Morse soon joined his associate in England. The expedition resulted only in long embarrassment and disaster to the inventor. Having returned to the United States, and successfully struggling with obstacles and adversities, he finally obtained the assistance of the government, and a line of telegraph was built from Washington to Baltimore. After some mistakes and many failures, the work proved successful, effective experiments having been made in 1844. The first sentence sent over the line is said to have been dictated by Miss Anna Ellsworth, daughter of H. L. Ellsworth, then commissioner of patents--
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"What hath God wrought?" It was indeed a natural and beautiful idea, at the moment that man had opened a new and startling development of the works of the Almighty. The means of instantly transmitting intelligence through space, seems to illustrate not only the omnipotence, but the omniscience and omnipresence of God.
Thus the telegraph was established, and though Mr. Morse has encountered opposition, rivalry, and almost fatal competition, he is generally admitted throughout the world to be the true inventor of this greatest marvel of art, the electric telegraph.