NO. XVII.—WEDNESDAY, NOV. 11, 1807.

AUTUMNAL REFLECTIONS.

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.

When a man is quietly journeying downward into the valley of the shadow of departed youth, and begins to contemplate, in a shortened perspective, the end of his pilgrimage, he becomes more solicitous than ever that the remainder of his wayfaring should be smooth and pleasant; and the evening of his life, like the evening of a summer’s day, fade away in mild uninterrupted serenity. If haply his heart has escaped uninjured through the dangers of a seductive world, it may then administer to the purest of his felicities, and its chords vibrate more musically for the trials they have sustained—like the viol which yields a melody sweet in proportion to its age.

To a mind thus temperately harmonized—thus matured and mellowed by a long lapse of years—there is something truly congenial in the quiet enjoyment of our early autumn, amid the tranquillities of the country. There is a sober and chastened air of gayety diffused over the face of nature, peculiarly interesting to an old man; and when he views the surrounding landscape 381withering under his eye, it seems as if he and nature were taking a last farewell of each other and parting with a melancholy smile; like a couple of old friends, who, having sported away the spring and summer of life together, part at the approach of winter with a kind of prophetic fear that they are never to meet again.

It is either my good fortune, or mishap, to be keenly susceptible to the influence of the atmosphere; and I can feel in the morning, before I open my window, whether the wind is easterly. It will not, therefore, I presume, be considered an extravagant instance of vainglory when I assert, that there are few men who can discriminate more accurately in the different varieties of damps, fogs, Scotch mists, and northeast storms, than myself. To the great discredit of my philosophy, I confess, I seldom fail to anathematize and excommunicate the weather, when it sports too rudely with my sensitive system; but then I always endeavor to atone therefor, by eulogizing it when deserving of approbation. And as most of my readers—simple folks!—make but one distinction, to wit, rain and sunshine; living in most honest ignorance of the various nice shades which distinguish one fine day from another, I take the trouble, from time to time, of letting them into some of the secrets of nature. So will they be the better enabled to enjoy her beauties, with the zest of connoisseurs, and derive at least as much information from my pages as from the weather-wise lore of the almanac.

Much of my recreation, since I retreated to 382the Hall, has consisted in making little excursions through the neighborhood; which abounds in the variety of wild, romantic, and luxuriant landscape that generally characterizes the scenery in the vicinity of our rivers. There is not an eminence within a circuit of many miles but commands an extensive range of diversified and enchanting prospect.

Often have I rambled to the summit of some favorite hill; and thence, with feelings sweetly tranquil, as the lucid expanse of the heavens that canopied me, have noted the slow and almost imperceptible changes that mark the waning year. There are many features peculiar to our autumn, and which give it an individual character. The “green and yellow melancholy” that first steals over the landscape—the mild and steady serenity of the weather, and the transparent purity of the atmosphere, speak, not merely to the senses, but the heart. It is the season of liberal emotions. To this succeeds fantastic gayety, a motley dress, which the woods assume, where green and yellow, orange, purple, crimson, and scarlet, are whimsically blended together. A sickly splendor this!—like the wild and broken-hearted gayety, that sometimes precedes dissolution,—or that childish sportiveness of superannuated age, proceeding, not from a vigorous flow of animal spirits, but from the decay and imbecility of the mind. We might, perhaps, be deceived by this gaudy garb of nature, were it not for the rustling of the falling leaf, which, breaking on the stillness of the scene, seems to announce, in prophetic whispers, the 383dreary winter that is approaching. When I have sometimes seen a thrifty young oak changing its hue of sturdy vigor for a bright, but transient glow of red, it has recalled to my mind the treacherous bloom that once mantled the cheek of a friend who is now no more; and which, while it seemed to promise a long life of jocund spirits, was the sure precursor of premature decay. In a little while, and this ostentatious foliage disappears; the close of autumn leaves but one wide expanse of dusky brown, save where some rivulet steals along, bordered with little strips of green grass; the woodland echoes no more to the carols of the feathered tribes that sported in the leafy covert, and its solitude and silence is uninterrupted except by the plaintive whistle of the quail, the barking of the squirrel, or the still more melancholy wintry wind, which, rushing and swelling through the hollows of the mountains, sighs through the leafless branches of the grove, and seems to mourn the desolation of the year.

To one who, like myself, is fond of drawing comparisons between the different divisions of life, and those of the seasons, there will appear a striking analogy, which connects the feelings of the aged with the decline of the year. Often, as I contemplate the mild, uniform, and genial lustre with which the sun cheers and invigorates us in the month of October, and the almost imperceptible haze which, without obscuring, tempers all the asperities of the landscape, and gives to every object a character of stillness and repose, I cannot 384help comparing it with that portion of existence when, the spring of youthful hope and the summer of the passions having gone by, reason assumes an undisputed sway, and lights us on with bright, but undazzling lustre, adown the hill of life. There is a full and mature luxuriance in the fields that fills the bosom with generous and disinterested content. It is not the thoughtless extravagance of spring, prodigal only in blossoms, nor the languid voluptuousness of summer, feverish in its enjoyments, and teeming only with immature abundance—it is that certain fruition of the labors of the past—that prospect of comfortable realities, which those will be sure to enjoy who have improved the beauteous smiles of heaven, nor wasted away their spring and summer in empty trifling or criminal indulgence.

Cousin Pindar, who is my constant companion in these expeditions, and who still possesses much of the fire and energy of youthful sentiment, and a buxom hilarity of the spirits, often, indeed, draws me from these half-melancholy reveries, and makes me feel young again by the enthusiasm with which he contemplates, and the animation with which he eulogizes the beauties of nature displayed before him. His enthusiastic disposition never allows him to enjoy things by halves, and his feelings are continually breaking out in notes of admiration and ejaculations that sober reason might perhaps deem extravagant. But, for my part, when I see a hale, hearty old man, who has jostled through the rough path of the world, without having worn away the fine 385edges of his feelings, or blunted his sensibility to natural and moral beauty, I compare him to the evergreen of the forest, whose colors, instead of fading at the approach of winter, seem to assume additional lustre, when contrasted with the surrounding desolation. Such a man is my friend Pindar; yet sometimes, and particularly at the approach of evening, even he will fall in with my humor; but he soon recovers his natural tone of spirits; and, mounting on the elasticity of his mind, like Ganymede on the eagle’s wing, he soars to the ethereal regions of sunshine and fancy.

One afternoon we had strolled to the top of a high hill in the neighborhood of the Hall, which commands an almost boundless prospect; and as the shadows began to lengthen around us, and the distant mountains to fade into mist, my cousin was seized with a moralizing fit. “It seems to me,” said he, laying his hand lightly on my shoulder, “that there is just at this season, and this hour, a sympathy between us and the world we are now contemplating. The evening is stealing upon nature as well as upon us; the shadows of the opening day have given place to those of its close; and the only difference is, that in the morning they were before us, now they are behind; and that the first vanished in the splendors of noonday, the latter will be lost in the oblivion of night. Our ‘May of life,’ my dear Launce, has forever fled; our summer is over and gone—but,” continued he, suddenly recovering himself, and slapping me gayly on the 386shoulder—“but why should we repine?—what? though the capricious zephyrs of spring, the heats and hurricanes of summer, have given place to the sober sunshine of autumn! and though the woods begin to assume the dappled livery of decay! yet the prevailing color is still green—gay, sprightly green.

“Let us then comfort ourselves with this reflection; that though the shades of the morning have given place to those of the evening—though the spring is past, the summer over, and the autumn come—still you and I go on our way rejoicing, and while, like the lofty mountains of our southern America, our heads are covered with snow, still, like them, we feel the genial warmth of spring and summer playing upon our bosoms.”

BY LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.,

In the description which I gave some time since, of Cockloft Hall, I totally forgot to make honorable mention of the library, which I confess was a most inexcusable oversight; for in truth it would bear a comparison, in point of usefulness and eccentricity, with the motley collection of the renowned hero of La Mancha.

It was chiefly gathered together by my grandfather; who spared neither pains nor expense to procure specimens of the oldest, most quaint, and insufferable books in the whole compass of English, 387Scotch, and Irish literature. There is a tradition in the family that the old gentleman once gave a grand entertainment in consequence of having got possession of a copy of a phillipic, by Archbishop Anselm, against the unseemly luxury of long-toed shoes, as worn by the courtiers in the time of William Rufus, which he purchased of an honest brick-maker in the neighborhood, for a little less than forty times its value. He had undoubtedly a singular reverence for old authors, and his highest eulogium on his library was, that it consisted of books not to be met with in any other collection; and as the phrase is, entirely out of print. The reason of which was, I suppose, that they were not worthy of being reprinted.

Cousin Christopher preserves these relics with great care, and has added considerably to the collection; for with the Hall he has inherited almost all the whimwhams of its former possessor. He cherishes a reverential regard for ponderous tomes of Greek and Latin; though he knows about as much of these languages, as a young Bachelor of Arts does a year or two after leaving college. A worm-eaten work in eight or ten volumes he compares to an old family, more respectable for its antiquity than its splendor; a lumbering folio he considers as a duke; a sturdy quarto, as an earl; and a row of gilded duodecimos, as so many gallant knights of the garter. But as to modern works of literature, they are thrust into trunks and drawers, as intruding upstarts, and regarded with as much contempt as mushroom nobility in 388England; who, having risen to grandeur, merely by their talents and services, are regarded as utterly unworthy to mingle their blood with those noble currents that can be traced without a single contamination through a long line of, perhaps, useless and profligate ancestors, up to William the Bastard’s cook, or butler, or groom, or some one of Rollo’s freebooters.

Will Wizard, whose studies are of a most uncommon complexion, takes great delight in ransacking the library; and has been, during his late sojournings at the Hall, very constant and devout in his visits to this receptacle of obsolete learning. He seemed particularly tickled with the contents of the great mahogany chest of drawers mentioned in the beginning of this work. This venerable piece of architecture has frowned in sullen majesty, from a corner of the library, time out of mind; and is filled with musty manuscripts, some in my grandfather’s handwriting and others evidently written long before his day.

It was a sight, worthy of a man’s seeing, to behold Will with his outlandish phiz poring over old scrawls that would puzzle a whole society of antiquarians to expound, and diving into receptacles of trumpery, which for a century past, had been undisturbed by mortal hand. He would sit for whole hours, with a phlegmatic patience unknown in these degenerate days, except, peradventure, among the High Dutch commentators, prying into the quaint obscurity of musty parchments, until his whole face seemed to be converted into a folio leaf of black letter; and occasionally, 389when the whimsical meaning of an obscure passage flashed on his mind, his countenance would curl up into an expression of gothic risibility, not unlike the physiognomy of a cabbage leaf wilting before a hot fire.

At such times there was no getting Will to join in our walks; or take any part in our usual recreations; he hardly gave us an oriental tale in a week, and would smoke so inveterately that no one else dared to enter the library under pain of suffocation. This was more especially the case when he encountered any knotty piece of writing; and he honestly confessed to me that one worm-eaten manuscript, written in a pestilent crabbed hand, had cost him a box of the best Spanish cigars before he could make it out; and after all, it was not worth a tobacco-stalk. Such is the turn of my knowing associate; only let him get fairly in the track of any odd out-of-the-way whimwham, and away he goes, whip and cut, until he either runs down his game, or runs himself out of breath; I never in my life met with a man who rode his hobby-horse more intolerably hard than Wizard.

One of his favorite occupations, for some time past, has been the hunting of black letter, which he holds in high regard; and he often hints, that learning has been on the decline ever since the introduction of the Roman alphabet. An old book printed three hundred years ago is a treasure; and a ragged scroll, about one-half unintelligible, fills him with rapture. O! with what enthusiasm will he dwell on the discovery of the 390Pandects of Justinian, and Livy’s history; and when he relates the pious exertions of the Medici, in recovering the lost treasures of Greek and Roman literature, his eye brightens, and his face assumes all the splendor of an illuminated manuscript.

Will had vegetated for a considerable time in perfect tranquillity among dust and cobwebs, when one morning as we were gathered on the piazza, listening with exemplary patience to one of Cousin Christopher’s long stories about the Revolutionary War, we were suddenly electrified by an explosion of laughter from the library. My readers, unless peradventure they have heard honest Will laugh, can form no idea of the prodigious uproar he makes. To hear him in a forest, you would imagine—that is to say if you were classical enough—that the satyrs and the dryads had just discovered a pair of rural lovers in the shade, and were deriding, with bursts of obstreperous laughter, the blushes of the nymph and the indignation of the swain,—or if it were suddenly, as in the present instance, to break upon the serene and pensive silence of an autumnal morning, it would cause a sensation something like that which arises from hearing a sudden clap of thunder in a summer’s day, when not a cloud is to be seen above the horizon. In short, I recommend Will’s laugh as a sovereign remedy for the spleen: and if any of our readers are troubled with that villainous complaint—which can hardly be, if they make good use of our works—I advise them earnestly to get introduced to him forthwith.

391This outrageous merriment of Will’s, as may be easily supposed, threw the whole family into a violent fit of wondering; we all, with the exception of Christopher, who took the interruption in high dudgeon, silently stole up to the library; and bolting in upon him, were fain at the first glance to join in his aspiring roar. His face—but I despair to give an idea of his appearance!—and until his portrait, which is now in the hands of an eminent artist, is engraved, my readers must be content: I promise them they shall one day or other have a striking likeness of Will’s indescribable phiz, in all its native comeliness.

Upon my inquiring the occasion of his mirth, he thrust an old, rusty, musty, and dusty manuscript into my hand, of which I could not decipher one word out of ten, without more trouble than it was worth. This task, however, he kindly took off my hands; and, in a little more than eight-and-forty hours, produced a translation into fair Roman letters; though he assured me it had lost a vast deal of its humor by being modernized and degraded into plain English. In return for the great pains he had taken, I could not do less than insert it in our work. Will informs me that it is but one sheet of a stupendous bundle which still remains uninvestigated. Who was the author we have not yet discovered; but a note on the back, in my grandfather’s handwriting, informs us that it was presented to him as a literary curiosity by his particular friend, the illustrious Rip Van Dam, formerly lieutenant-governor 392of the colony of New Amsterdam; and whose fame, if it has never reached these latter days, it was only because he was too modest a man ever to do anything worthy of being particularly recorded.

CHAP. CIX.—OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE RENOWNED AND ANTIENT CITY OF GOTHAM.

How Gotham city conquered was,

And how the folks turned apes—because.

Link. Fid.

Albeit, much about this time it did fall out that the thrice renowned and delectable city of Gotham did suffer great discomfiture, and was reduced to perilous extremity, by the invasion and assaults of the Hoppingtots. These are a people inhabiting a far distant country, exceedingly pleasaunte and fertile; but they being withal egregiously addicted to migrations, do thence issue forth in mighty swarms, like the Scythians of old, overrunning divers countries and commonwealths, and committing great devastations wheresoever they do go, by their horrible and dreadful feats and prowesses. They are specially noted for being right valorous in all exercises of the leg; and of them it hath been rightly affirmed that no nation in all Christendom or elsewhere, can cope with them in the adroit, dexterous, and jocund shaking of the heel.

This engaging excellence doth stand unto them 393a sovereign recommendation, by which they do insinuate themselves into universal favor and good countenance; and it is a notable fact, that, let a Hoppingtot but once introduce a foot into company, and it goeth hardly if he doth not contrive to flourish his whole body in thereafter. The learned Linkum Fidelius, in his famous and unheard-of treatise on man, whom he defineth, with exceeding sagacity, to be a corn-cutting, tooth-drawing animal, is particularly minute and elaborate in treating of the nation of the Hoppingtots, and betrays a little of the Pythagorean in his theory, inasmuch as he accounteth for their being so wonderously adroit in pedestrian exercises, by supposing that they did originally acquire this unaccountable and unparalleled aptitude for huge and unmatchable feats of the leg, by having heretofore been condemned for their numerous offenses against that harmless race of bipeds,—or quadrupeds, for herein the sage Linkum Fidelius appeareth to doubt and waver exceedingly—the frogs, to animate their bodies for the space of one or two generations.

He also giveth it as his opinion, that the name of Hoppingtots is manifestly derivative from this transmigration. Be this, however, as it may, the matter, albeit it has been the subject of controversy among the learned, is but little pertinent to the subject of this history; wherefore shall we treat and consider it as naughte.

Now these people being thereto impelled by a superfluity of appetite, and a plentiful deficiency of the wherewithal to satisfy the same, did take 394thought that the antient and venerable city of Gotham, was, peradventure, possessed of mighty treasures, and did, moreover, abound with all manner of fish and flesh, and eatables and drinkables, and such like delightsome and wholesome excellencies withal. Whereupon calling a council of the most active heeled warriors, they did resolve forthwith to put forth a mighty array, make themselves masters of the same, and revel in the good things of the land. To this were they hotly stirred up, and wickedly incited, by two redoubtable and renowned warriors, hight Pirouet and Rigadoon; ycleped in such sort, by reason that they were two mighty, valiant, and invincible little men; utterly famous for the victories of the leg which they had, on divers illustrious occasions, right gallantly achieved.

These doughty champions did ambitiously and wickedly inflame the minds of their countrymen, with gorgeous descriptions, in the which they did cunninglie set forth the marvelous riches and luxuries of Gotham; where Hoppingtots might have garments for their bodies, shirts to their ruffles, and might riot most merrily every day in the week on beef, pudding, and such like lusty dainties. They, Pirouet and Rigadoon, did likewise hold out hopes of an easy conquest; forasmuch as the Gothamites were as yet but little versed in the mystery and science of handling the legs; and being, moreover, like unto that notable bully of antiquity, Achilles, most vulnerable to all attacks on the heel, would doubtless surrender at the very first assault. Whereupon, on the 395hearing of this inspiriting counsel, the Hoppingtots did set up a prodigious great cry of joy, shook their heels in triumph, and were all impatience to dance on to Gotham and take it by storm.

The cunning Pirouet, and that arch caitiff Rigadoon, knew full well how to profit of this enthusiasm. They forthwith did order every man to arm himself with a certain pestilent little weapon called a fiddle; to pack up in his knapsack a pair of silk breeches, the like of ruffles, a cocked hat of the form of a half-moon, a bundle of catgut—and inasmuch as in marching to Gotham, the army might peradventure be smitten with scarcity of provisions, they did account it proper that each man should take especial care to carry with him a bunch of right merchantable onions. Having proclaimed these orders by sound of fiddle, they, Pirouet and Rigadoon, did accordingly put their army behind them, and striking up the right jolly and sprightful tune of Ça Ira, away they all capered toward the devoted city of Gotham, with a most horrible and appalling chattering of voices.

Of their first appearance before the beleaguered town, and of the various difficulties which did encounter them in their march, this history saith not; being that other matters of more weighty import require to be written. When that the army of the Hoppingtots did peregrinate within sight of Gotham, and the people of the city did behold the villainous and hitherto unseen capers and grimaces which they did make, a most horrific panic was stirred up among the citizens; 396and the sages of the town fell into great despondency and tribulation, as supposing that these invaders were of the race of the Jig-hees, who did make men into baboons when they achieved a conquest over them. The sages, therefore, called upon all the dancing-men and dancing-women, and exhorted them, with great vehemence of speech, to make heel against the invaders, and to put themselves upon such gallant defense, such glorious array, and such sturdy evolution, elevation, and transposition of the foot as might incontinently impester the legs of the Hoppingtots, and produce their complete discomfiture. But so it did happen, by great mischance, that divers light-heeled youths of Gotham, more especially those who are descended from three wise men, so renowned of yore for having most venturesomely voyaged over sea in a bowl, were, from time to time, captured and inveigled into the camp of the enemy; where, being foolishly cajoled and treated for a season with outlandish disports and pleasantries, they were sent back to their friends, entirely changed, degenerated, and turned topsy-turvy; insomuch that they thought thenceforth of nothing but their heels, always essaying to thrust them into the most manifest point of view; and, in a word, as might truly be affirmed, did forever after walk upon their heads outright.

And the Hoppingtots did day by day, and at late hours of the night, wax more and more urgent in this their investment of the city. At one time they would, in goodly procession, make an open assault by sound of fiddle in a tremendous 397contra-dance—and anon they would advance by little detachments and maneuvers to take the town by figuring in cotillons. But truly their most cunning and devilish craft and subtilty was made manifest in their strenuous endeavors to corrupt the garrison, by a most insidious and pestilent dance called the Waltz. This, in good truth, was a potent auxiliary; for, by it, were the heads of the simple Gothamites most villainously turned, their wits sent a wool-gathering, and themselves on the point of surrendering at discretion even unto the very arms of their invading foemen.

At length the fortifications of the town began to give manifest symptoms of decay; inasmuch as the breastwork of decency was considerably broken down, and the curtain works of propriety blown up. When that cunning caitiff, Pirouet, beheld the ticklish and jeopardized state of the city—“Now, by my leg,” quoth he,—he always swore by his leg, being that it was an exceedingly goodlie leg,—“now, by my leg,” quoth he, “but this is no great matter of recreation; I will show these people a pretty, strange, and new way, forsooth, presently, and will shake the dust off my pumps upon this most obstinate and uncivilized town. Whereupon he ordered, and did command his warriors, one and all, that they should put themselves in readiness, and prepare to carry the town by a GRAND BALL. They, in nowise to be daunted, do forthwith, at the word, equip themselves for the assault; and in good faith, truly, it was a gracious and glorious sight—a most 398triumphant and incomparable spectacle—to behold them gallantly arrayed in glossy and shining silk breeches tied with abundance of ribbon; with silken hose of the gorgeous color of the salmon; right goodlie morocco pumps, decorated with clasps or buckles of a most cunninge and secret contrivance, inasmuch as they did of themselves grapple to the shoe without any aid of fluke or tongue, marvelously ensembling witchcraft and necromancy. They had, withal, exuberant chitterlings, which puffed out at the neck and bosom, after a most jolly fashion, like unto the beard of an antient he-turkey; and cocked hats, the which they did carry not on their heads, after the fashion of the Gothamites, but under their arms, as a roasted fowl his gizzard.”

Thus being equipped and marshaled, they do attack, assault, batter, and belabor the town with might and main; most gallantly displaying the vigor of their legs, and shaking their heels at it most emphatically. And the manner of their attack was in this sort: first, they did thunder and gallop forward in a contre-temps—and anon, displayed column in a Cossack dance, a fandango, or a gavot. Whereat the Gothamites, in nowise understanding this unknown system of warfare, marveled exceedinglie, and did open their mouths incontinently, the full distance of a bow-shot, meaning a cross-bow, in sore dismay and apprehension. Whereupon, saith Rigadoon, flourishing his left leg with great expression of valor, and most magnific carriage: “My copesmates, for what wait we here? are not the townsmen already 399won to our favor? do not their women and young damsels wave to us from the walls in such sort that, albeit there is some show of defense, yet is it manifestly converted into our interests?” So saying, he made no more ado, but leaping into the air about a flight-shot, and crossing his feet six times, after the manner of the Hoppingtots, he gave a short partridge-run, and with mighty vigor and swiftness did bolt outright over the walls with a somerset. The whole army of Hoppingtots danced in after their valiant chieftain, with an enormous squeaking of fiddles, and a horrific blasting and brattling of horns; insomuch that the dogs did howl in the streets, so hideously were their ears assailed. The Gothamites made some semblance of defense, but their women having been all won over into the interest of the enemy, they were shortly reduced to make most abject submission; and delivered over to the coercion of certain professors of the Hoppingtots, who did put them under most ignominious durance, for the space of a long time, until they had learned to turn out their toes, and flourish their legs after the manner of their conquerors. And thus, after the manner I have related, was the mighty and puissant city of Gotham circumvented, and taken by a coup de pied: or, as it might be rendered, by force of legs.

The conquerors showed no mercy, but did put all ages, sexes, and conditions, to the fiddle and the dance; and, in a word, compelled and enforced them to become absolute Hoppingtots. “Habit,” as the ingenious Linkum Fidelius profoundly 400affirmeth, “is second nature.” And this original and invaluable observation hath been most aptly proved, and illustrated, by the example of the Gothamites, ever since this disastrous and unlucky mischance. In process of time, they have waxed to be most flagrant, outrageous, and abandoned dancers; they do ponder on naughte but how to gallantize it at balls, routs, and fandangoes; insomuch that the like was in no time or place ever observed before. They do moreover, pitifully devote their nights to the jollification of the legs, and their days forsooth to the instruction and edification of the heel. And to conclude; their young folk, who whilome did bestow a modicum of leisure upon the head, have of late utterly abandoned this hopeful task, and have quietly, as it were, settled themselves down into mere machines, wound up by a tune, and set in motion by a fiddle-stick!

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