NO. XV.—THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1807.

SKETCHES FROM NATURE.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

The brisk northwesters, which prevailed not long since, had a powerful effect in arresting the progress of belles, beaux, and wild pigeons in their fashionable northern tour, and turning them back to the more balmy region of the south. Among the rest, I was encountered, full butt, by a blast which set my teeth chattering, just as I doubled one of the frowning bluffs of the Mohawk Mountains, in my route to Niagara, and facing about incontinently, I forthwith scud before the wind, and a few days since arrived at my old quarters in New York. My first care, on returning from so long an absence, was to visit the worthy family of the Cocklofts, whom I found safe burrowed in their country mansion. On inquiring for my highly respected coadjutor, Langstaff, I learned, with great concern, that he had relapsed into one of his eccentric fits of the spleen, ever since the era of a turtle dinner given by old Cockloft to some of the neighboring squires, wherein the old gentleman had achieved a glorious victory in laying honest Launcelot fairly under the table. Langstaff, 341although fond of the social board and cheerful glass, yet abominates any excess, and has an invincible aversion to getting mellow, considering it a willful outrage on the sanctity of the imperial mind, a senseless abuse of the body, and an unpardonable, because a voluntary, prostration of both mental and personal dignity. I have heard him moralize on the subject, in a style that would do honor to Michael Cassio himself; but I believe, if the truth were known, this antipathy rather rises from his having, as the phrase is, but a weak head, and nerves so extremely sensitive, that he is sure to suffer severely from a frolic, and will groan and make resolutions against it for a week afterward. He therefore took this waggish exploit of old Christopher’s, and the consequent quizzing which he underwent, in high dudgeon; had kept aloof from company for a fortnight, and appeared to be meditating some deep plan of retaliation upon his mischievous old crony. He had, however, for the last day or two, shown some symptoms of convalescence: had listened, without more than half a dozen twitches of impatience, to one of Christopher’s unconscionable long stories, and even was seen to smile, for the one hundred and thirtieth time, at a venerable joke originally borrowed from Joe Miller, but which, by dint of long occupancy, and frequent repetition, the old gentleman now firmly believes happened to himself somewhere in New England.

As I am well acquainted with Launcelot’s haunts, I soon found him out. He was lolling on his favorite bench, rudely constructed at the 342foot of an old tree, which is full of fantastical twists, and with its spreading branches forms a canopy of luxuriant foliage. This tree is a kind of chronicle of the short reigns of his uncle John’s mistresses; and its trunk is sorely wounded with carvings of true lovers’ knots, hearts, darts, names, and inscriptions!—frail memorials of the variety of the fair dames who captivated the wandering fancy of that old cavalier in the days of his youthful romance. Launcelot holds this tree in particular regard, as he does everything else connected with the memory of his good uncle John. He was reclining, in one of his usual brown studies, against its trunk, and gazing pensively upon the river that glided just by, washing the drooping branches of the dwarf willows that fringed its bank. My appearance roused him; he grasped my hand with his usual warmth, and with a tremulous but close pressure, which spoke that his heart entered into the salutation. After a number of affectionate inquiries and felicitations, such as friendship, not form, dictated, he seemed to relapse into his former flow of thought, and to resume the chain of ideas my appearance had broken for a moment.

“I was reflecting,” said he, “my dear Anthony, upon some observations I made in our last number; and considering whether the sight of objects once dear to the affections, or of scenes where we have passed different happy periods of early life, really occasions most enjoyment or most regret. Renewing our acquaintance with well-known and long separated objects, revives, it is 343true, the recollection of former pleasures, and touches the tenderest feelings of the heart; as the flavor of a delicious beverage will remain upon the palate long after the cup has parted from the lips. But on the other hand, my friend, these same objects are too apt to awaken us to a keener recollection of what we were, when they once delighted us; and to provoke a mortifying and melancholy contrast with what we are at present. They act, in a manner, as milestones of existence, showing us how far we have travelled in the journey of life—how much of our weary but fascinating pilgrimage is accomplished. I look round me, and my eye fondly recognizes the fields I once sported over, the river in which I once swam, and the orchard I intrepidly robbed in the halcyon days of boyhood. The fields are still green, the river still rolls unaltered and undiminished, and the orchard is still flourishing and fruitful;—it is I only am changed. The thoughtless flow of madcap spirits that nothing could depress, the elasticity of nerve that enabled me to bound over the field, to stem the stream and climb the tree—the ‘sunshine of the breast’ that beamed an illusive charm over every object, and created a paradise around me—where are they?—the thievish lapse of years has stolen them away, and left in return nothing but gray hairs, and a repining spirit.” My friend Launcelot concluded his harangue with a sigh, and as I saw he was still under the influence of a whole legion of the blues, and just on the point of sinking into one of his whimsical and unreasonable fits 344of melancholy abstraction, I proposed a walk. He consented, and slipping his left arm in mine, and waving in the other a gold-headed thorn cane, bequeathed him by his uncle John, we slowly rambled along the margin of the river.

Langstaff, though possessing great vivacity of temper, is most wofully subject to these “thick coming fancies;” and I do not know a man whose animal spirits do insult him with more jiltings, and coquetries, and slippery tricks. In these moods he is often visited by a whimwham which he indulges in common with the Cocklofts. It is that of looking back with regret, conjuring up the phantoms of good old times, and decking them out in imaginary finery, with the spoils of his fancy; like a good lady widow, regretting the loss of the “poor dear man;” for whom, while living, she cared not a rush. I have seen him and Pindar, and old Cockloft, amuse themselves over a bottle with their youthful days, until by the time they had become what is termed merry, they were the most miserable beings in existence. In a similar humor was Launcelot at present, and I knew the only way was to let him moralize himself out of it.

Our ramble was soon interrupted by the appearance of a personage of no little importance at Cockloft Hall—for, to let my readers into a family secret, friend Christopher is notoriously henpecked by an old negro, who has whitened on the place; and is his master, almanac, and counselor. My readers, if haply they have sojourned in the country and become conversant in rural 345manners, must have observed that there is scarce a little hamlet but has one of these old, weather-beaten wiseacres of negroes, who ranks among the great characters of the place. He is always resorted to as an oracle to resolve any question about the weather, fishing, shooting, farming, and horse-doctoring; and on such occasions will slouch his remnant of a hat on one side, fold his arms, roll his white eyes, and examine the sky, with a look as knowing as Peter Pindar’s magpie when peeping into a marrow-bone. Such a sage curmudgeon is old Cæsar, who acts as friend Cockloft’s prime master or grand vizier; assumes, when abroad, his master’s style and title; to wit, Squire Cockloft; and is, in effect, absolute lord and ruler of the soil.

As he passed us, he pulled off his hat with an air of something more than respect; it partook, I thought, of affection. “There, now, is another memento of the kind I have been noticing,” said Launcelot; “Cæsar was a bosom friend and chosen playmate of Cousin Pindar and myself, when we were boys. Never were we so happy as when, stealing away on a holiday to the Hall, we ranged about the fields with honest Cæsar. He was particularly adroit in making our quail-traps and fishing-rods; was always the ringleader in all the schemes of frolicsome mischief perpetrated by the urchins of the neighborhood; considered himself on an equality with the best of us; and many a hard battle have I had with him, about the division of the spoils of an orchard, or the title to a bird’s nest. Many a summer evening 346do I remember when, huddled together on the steps of the Hall door, Cæsar, with his stories of ghosts, goblins, and witches, would put us all in a panic, and people every lane, and churchyard, and solitary wood, with imaginary beings. In process of time, he became the constant attendant and Man Friday of Cousin Pindar, whenever he went a sparking among the rosy country girls of the neighboring farms; and brought up his rear at every rustic dance, when he would mingle in the sable group that always thronged the door of merriment; and it was enough to put to the rout a host of splenetic imps to see his mouth gradually dilate from ear to ear, with pride and exultation, at seeing how neatly Master Pindar footed it over the floor. Cæsar was likewise the chosen confidant and special agent of Pindar in all his love affairs, until, as his evil stars would have it, on being intrusted with the delivery of a poetic billet-doux to one of his patron’s sweethearts, he took an unlucky notion to send it to his own sable dulcinea, who, not being able to read it, took it to her mistress; and so the whole affair was blown. Pindar was universally roasted, and Cæsar discharged forever from his confidence.

“Poor Cæsar!—he has now grown old, like his young masters, but he still remembers old times; and will, now and then, remind me of them as he lights me to my room, and lingers a little while to bid me a good-night. Believe me, my dear Evergreen, the honest, simple old creature has a warm corner in my heart; I don’t see, for my part, why a body may not like a negro as well as a white man!”

347By the time these biographical anecdotes were ended we had reached the stable, into which we had involuntarily strolled, and found Cæsar busily employed in rubbing down the horses; an office he would not intrust to anybody else, having contracted an affection for every beast in the stable, from their being descendants of the old race of animals, his youthful contemporaries. Cæsar was very particular in giving us their pedigrees, together with a panegyric on the swiftness, bottom, blood, and spirit of their sires. From these he digressed into a variety of anecdotes in which Launcelot bore a conspicuous part, and on which the old negro dwelt with all the garrulity of age. Honest Langstaff stood leaning with his arm over the back of his favorite steed, old Killdeer; and I could perceive he listened to Cæsar’s simple details with that fond attention with which a feeling mind will hang over narratives of boyish days. His eye sparkled with animation, a glow of youthful fire stole across his pale visage; he nodded with smiling approbation at every sentence; chuckled at every exploit; laughed heartily at the story of his once having smoked out a country singing-school with brimstone and assafœtida; and slipping a piece of money into old Cæsar’s hand to buy himself a new tobacco-box, he seized me by the arm and hurried out of the stable, brimful of good nature. “’Tis a pestilent old rogue for talking, my dear fellow,” cried he, “but you must not find fault with him—the creature means well.” I knew, at the very moment that he made this apology, honest Cæsar 348could not have given him half the satisfaction, had he talked like a Cicero or a Solomon.

Launcelot returned to the house with me in the best possible humor—the whole family, who in truth love and honor him from their very souls, were delighted to see the sunbeams once more play in his countenance. Every one seemed to vie who should talk the most, tell the longest stories, and be most agreeable; and Will Wizard, who had accompanied me in my visit, declared, as he lighted his cigar—which had gone out forty times in the course of one of his oriental tales—that he had not passed so pleasant an evening since the birthnight ball of the beauteous empress of Hayti.

[The following essay was written by my friend Langstaff, in one of the paroxysms of his splenetic complaint; and, for aught I know, may have been effectual in restoring him to good humor. A mental discharge of the kind has a remarkable tendency toward sweetening the temper—and Launcelot is, at this moment, one of the best-natured men in existence.

A. Evergreen.]

349

ON GREATNESS.

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

We have more than once, in the course of our work, been most jocosely familiar with great personages; and, in truth, treated them with as little ceremony, respect, and consideration, as if they had been our most particular friends. Now, we would not suffer the mortification of having our readers even suspect us of any intimacy of the kind; assuring them we are extremely choice in our intimates and uncommonly circumspect in avoiding connections with all doubtful characters; particularly pimps, bailiffs, lottery-brokers, chevaliers of industry, and great men. The world, in general, is pretty well aware of what is to be understood by the former classes of delinquents; but as the latter has never, I believe, been specifically defined, and as we are determined to instruct our readers to the extent of our abilities, and their limited comprehension, it may not be amiss here to let them know what we understand by a great man.

First, therefore, let us—editors and kings are always plural—premise, that there are two kinds of greatness: one conferred by heaven—the exalted nobility of the soul—the other, a spurious distinction, engendered by the mob and lavished upon its favorites. The former of these distinctions we have already contemplated with reverence; the latter, we will take this opportunity to strip naked before our unenlightened 350readers; so that, if by chance any of them are held in ignominious thralldom by this base circulation of false coin, they may forthwith emancipate themselves from such inglorious delusion.

It is a fictitious value given to individuals by public caprice, as bankers give an impression to a worthless slip of paper; thereby gaining it a currency for infinitely more than its intrinsic value. Every nation has its peculiar coin, and peculiar great men; neither of which will, for the most part, pass current out of the country where they are stamped. Your true mob-created great man, is like a note of one of the little New England banks, and his value depreciates in proportion to the distance from home. In England, a great man is he who has most ribbons and gewgaws on his coat, most horses to his carriage, most slaves in his retinue, or most toad-eaters at his table; in France, he who can most dextrously flourish his heels above his head—Duport is most incontestably the greatest man in France!—when the Emperor is absent. The greatest man in China, is he who can trace his ancestry up to the moon; and in this country, our great men may generally hunt down their pedigree until it burrow in the dirt like a rabbit. To be concise: our great men are those who are most expert at crawling on all fours, and have the happiest facility of dragging and winding themselves along in the dirt. This may seem a paradox to many of my readers, who, with great good nature be it hinted, are too stupid to look beyond the mere surface of our invaluable writings; and often pass 351over the knowing allusions, and poignant meaning, that is slily couching beneath. It is for the benefit of such helpless ignorants, who have no other creed but the opinion of the mob, that I shall trace, as far as it is possible to follow him in his progress from insignificance—the rise, progress, and completion of a little great man.

In a logocracy, to use the sage Mustapha’s phrase, it is not absolutely necessary to the formation of a great man that he should be either wise or valiant, upright or honorable. On the contrary, daily experience shows, that these qualities rather impede his preferment; inasmuch as they are prone to render him too inflexibly erect, and directly at variance with that willow suppleness which enables a man to wind and twist through all the nooks and turns and dark winding passages that lead to greatness. The grand requisite for climbing the rugged hill of popularity—the summit of which is the seat of power—is to be useful. And here, once more, for the sake of our readers, who are, of course, not so wise as ourselves, I must explain what we understand by usefulness. The horse, in his native state, is wild, swift, impetuous, full of majesty, and of a most generous spirit. It is then the animal is noble, exalted, and useless. But entrap him, manacle him, cudgel him, break down his lofty spirit, put the curb into his mouth, the load upon his back, and reduce him into servile obedience to the bridle and the lash, and it is then he becomes useful. Your jackass is one of the most useful animals in existence. If my readers do 352not now understand what I mean by usefulness, I give them all up for most absolute nincoms.

To rise in this country a man must first descend. The aspiring politician may be compared to that indefatigable insect, called the tumbler, pronounced by a distinguished personage to be the only industrious animal in Virginia, which buries itself in filth, and works ignobly in the dirt, until it forms a little ball, which it rolls laboriously along, like Diogenes in his tub; sometimes head, sometimes tail foremost, pilfering from every rut and mud hole, and increasing its ball of greatness by the contributions of the kennel. Just so the candidate for greatness;—he buries himself in the mob; labors in dirt and oblivion, and makes unto himself the rudiments of a popular name from the admiration and praises of rogues, ignoramuses, and blackguards. His name once started, onward he goes, struggling and puffing, and pushing it before him; collecting new tribute from the dregs and offals of society as he proceeds, until having gathered together a mighty mass of popularity, he mounts it in triumph; is hoisted into office, and becomes a great man, and a ruler in the land. All this will be clearly illustrated by a sketch of a worthy of the kind, who sprung up under my eye, and was hatched from the dirt by the broad rays of popularity, which, like the sun, can “breed maggots in a dead dog.”

Timothy Dabble was a young man of very promising talents; for he wrote a fair hand, and had thrice won the silver medal at a country 353academy; he was also an orator, for he talked with emphatic volubility, and could argue a full hour, without taking either side, or advancing a single opinion; he had still further requisites for eloquence, for he made very handsome gestures, had dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, and enunciated most harmoniously through his nose. In short, nature had certainly marked him out for a great man; for though he was not tall, yet he added at least half an inch to his stature by elevating his head, and assumed an amazing expression of dignity by turning up his nose and curling his nostrils, in a style of conscious superiority. Convinced by these unequivocal appearances, Dabble’s friends, in full caucus, one and all, declared that he was undoubtedly born to be a great man, and it would be his own fault if he were not one. Dabble was tickled with an opinion which coincided so happily with his own—for vanity, in a confidential whisper, had given him the like intimation—and he reverenced the judgment of his friends because they thought so highly of himself. Accordingly he set out with a determination to become a great man, and to start in the scrub-race for honor and renown. How to attain the desired prize was however, the question. He knew, by a kind of instinctive feeling, which seems peculiar to groveling minds, that honor, and its better part—profit, would never seek him out; that they would never knock at his door and crave admittance, but must be courted, and toiled after, and earned. He therefore strutted forth into the highways, and market-places, 354and the assemblies of the people; ranted, like a true cockerel orator, about virtue, and patriotism, and liberty, and equality, and himself. Full many a political windmill did he battle with; and full many a time did he talk himself out of breath and his hearers out of patience. But Dabble found, to his vast astonishment, that there was not a notorious political pimp at a ward meeting but could out-talk him; and what was still more mortifying, there was not a notorious political pimp but was more noticed and caressed than himself. The reason was simple enough; while he harangued about principles, the others ranted about men; where he reprobated a political error, they blasted a political character. They were, consequently, the most useful; for the great object of our political disputes is not who shall have the honor of emancipating the community from the leading-strings of delusion, but who shall have the profit of holding the strings and leading the community by the nose.

Dabble was likewise very loud in his professions of integrity, incorruptibility, and disinterestedness; words which, from being filtered and refined through newspapers and election handbills, have lost their original signification, and in the political dictionary are synonymous with empty pockets, itching palms, and interested ambition. He, in addition to all this, declared that he would support none but honest men; but unluckily, as but few of these offered themselves to be supported, Dabble’s services were seldom required. He pledged himself never to engage in 355party schemes, or party politics, but to stand up solely for the broad interests of his country—so he stood alone; and what is the same thing, he stood still; for, in this country, he who does not side with either party is like a body in a vacuum between two planets, and must forever remain motionless.

Dabble was immeasurably surprised that a man so honest, so disinterested, and so sagacious withal, and one, too, who had the good of his country so much at heart, should thus remain unnoticed and unapplauded. A little worldly advice, whispered in his ear by a shrewd old politician, at once explained the whole mystery. “He who would become great,” said he, “must serve an apprenticeship to greatness, and rise by regular gradation, like the master of a vessel, who commences by being scrub and cabin-boy. He must fag in the train of great men, echo all their sentiments, become their toad-eater and parasite—laugh at all their jokes, and, above all, endeavor to make them laugh; if you only make a great man laugh now and then, your fortune is made. Look about you, youngster, and you will not see a single little great man of the day, but his herd of retainers, who yelp at his heels, come at his whistle, worry whoever he points at, and think themselves fully rewarded by sometimes snapping up a crumb that falls from his table. Talk of patriotism, and virtue, and incorruptibility!—tut, man! they are the very qualities that scare munificence, and keep patronage at a distance. You might as well attempt to entice 356crowds with red rags and gunpowder. Lay all these scarecrow virtues aside, and let this be your maxim, that a candidate for political eminence is like a dried herring; he never becomes luminous until he is corrupt.”

Dabble caught with hungry avidity these congenial doctrines, and turned into his predestined channel of action with the force and rapidity of a stream which has for a while been restrained from its natural course. He became what nature had fitted him to be: his tone softened down from arrogant self-sufficiency to the whine of fawning solicitation. He mingled in the caucuses of the sovereign people; assumed a patriotic slovenliness of dress; argued most logically with those who were of his own opinion; and slandered, with all the malice of impotence, exalted characters whose orbit he despaired ever to approach—just as that scoundrel midnight thief, the owl, hoots at the blessed light of the sun, whose glorious lustre he dares never contemplate. He likewise applied himself to discharging, faithfully, the honorable duties of a partisan; he poached about for private slanders and ribald anecdotes; he folded handbills; he even wrote one or two himself, which he carried about in his pocket and read to everybody; he became secretary at ward meetings, set his hand to divers resolutions of patriotic import, and even once went so far as to make a speech, in which he proved that patriotism was a virtue—that the reigning bashaw was a great man—that this was a free country, and he himself an arrant and incontestible buzzard!

357Dabble was now very frequent and devout in his visits to those temples of politics, popularity, and smoke—the ward porter-houses; those true dens of equality, where all ranks, ages, and talents are brought down to the level of rude familiarity. ’Twas here his talents expanded, and his genius swelled up to its proper size—like the toad, which, shrinking from balmy airs and jocund sunshine, finds his congenial home in caves and dungeons, and there nourishes his venom and bloats his deformity. ’Twas here he reveled with the swinish multitude in their debauches on patriotism and porter; and it became an even chance whether Dabble would turn out a great man or a great drunkard. But Dabble in all this kept steadily in his eye the only deity he ever worshipped—his interest. Having, by this familiarity, ingratiated himself with the mob, he became wonderfully potent and industrious at elections—knew all the dens and cellars of profligacy and intemperance—brought more negroes to the polls, and knew to a greater certainty where votes could be bought for beer, than any of his contemporaries. His exertions in the cause, his persevering industry, his degrading compliance, his unresisting humility, his steadfast dependence, at length caught the attention of one of the leaders of the party, who was pleased to observe that Dabble was a very useful fellow, who would go all lengths. From that moment his fortune was made—he was hand and glove with orators and slang-whangers; basked in the sunshine of great men’s smiles, and had the honor, sundry times, of 358shaking hands with dignitaries during elections, and drinking out of the same pot with them at a porter-house!!

I will not fatigue myself with tracing this caterpillar in his slimy progress from worm to butterfly: suffice it that Dabble bowed and bowed, and fawned, and sneaked, and smirked, and libeled, until one would have thought perseverance itself would have settled down into despair. There was no knowing how long he might have lingered at a distance from his hopes, had he not luckily got tarred and feathered for some electioneering maneuver. This was the making of him! Let not my readers stare; tarring and feathering here is equal to pillory and cropped ears in England; and either of these kinds of martyrdom will insure a patriot the sympathy and support of his faction. His partisans—for even he had his partisans—took his case into consideration. He had been kicked, and cuffed, and disgraced, and dishonored in the cause; he had licked the dust at the feet of the mob; he was a faithful drudge, slow to anger, of invincible patience, of incessant assiduity; a thorough-going tool, who could be curbed, and spurred, and directed at pleasure—in short, he had all the important qualifications for a little great man, and he was accordingly ushered into office amid the acclamations of the party. The leading men complimented his usefulness, the multitude his republican simplicity, and the slang-whangers vouched for his patriotism. Since his elevation, he has discovered indubitable signs 359of having been destined for a great man. His nose has acquired an additional elevation of several degrees, so that now he appears to have bidden adieu to this world, and to have set his thoughts altogether on things above; and he has swelled and inflated himself to such a degree that his friends are under apprehensions that he will, one day or other, explode and blow up like a torpedo.

360