Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

from the United States, only 3000 settlers ar- | unbroken, notwithstanding his long confinement. rived in Utah in 1851. These details, which The wagons swarmed with women and children, we have collected from the official statistics and I estimated the train at a thousand head of published in the "Star," will show how grossly cattle, a hundred head of sheep, and five hundred human souls. (S. 223.) the Mormon emigration has been exaggeratThe wagon (he tells us elsewhere), is literally ed by the press. The American papers, with the emigrant's home. In it he carries his all, and their grandiloquence, are constantly telling us it serves him as tent, kitchen, parlor, and bedthat hundreds of thousands have arrived on room: and not unfrequently also as a boat, to their way to Utah; and these fables are copied ferry his load over an otherwise impassable on this side of the Atlantic, and go the round of stream. (S. 26.) Europe. In reality, during the fourteen years from 1837 to 1851, under 17,000 Mormons The deluded proselytes, who, in the mere had emigrated from England. In future, act of reaching the parched valley of Deseret, however, while the Emigration Fund contin- expend an amount of capital and toil sufficient ues in operation, the rate will probably be not to establish them with every comfort in many less than 3000 a-year. We may therefore happier colonies, are by no means drawn suppose that, including the proselytes from from the most ignorant portion of the commuthe Union, the census of Utah will be in-nity. More than two-thirds of their number creased by 3500 annually. Beside this, we consists of artisans and mechanics. Out of may allow, perhaps, 1000 per annum (consid-352 emigrants who sailed from Liverpool in ering the nature of the population) for the February 1852, Mr. Mayhew ascertained that average excess of births over deaths during the only 108 were unskilled laborers; the remaintime that the population is rising from 30,000 ing 244 consisted of farmers, miners, engineto 60,000. On this hypothesis, it will have makers, joiners, weavers, shoemakers, smiths, reached the required number by 1859. tailors, watch-makers, masons, butchers, bakThis emigration, though very insignificant ers, potters, painters, ship-wrights, iron-mouldwhen compared with the exaggerated state- ers, basket-makers, dyers, ropers, paper-nakments above mentioned, is surprisingly great, ers, glass-cutters, nailors, saddlers, sawyers, when we consider the enormous difficulties by and gun-makers. (M. Illust. 245.) Thus the which it is impeded. In fact, if we except Mormon emigration is drawn mainly from a the capital of Thibet, there is perhaps no city single class of society; and the result is, that in the world so difficult to reach as the me- the population of Utah presents an aspect sintropolis of the Mormons. Emigrants from gularly homogeneous, and has attained (withEurope must first undertake the long sea out any socialism) more nearly to the socialist voyage to New Orleans; thence they must ideal of a dead level than any other communiproceed by steamer up the Mississippi to St. ty in the world. There are no poor, for the Louis, a distance 1300 miles. From St. Lou- humblest laborer becomes on his arrival a is, a farther voyage of 800 miles brings them peasant proprietor; and, although, some have to the junction of the Missouri and the Platte. already grown rich, yet none are exempt From thence they must proceed in wagons from the necessity of manual labor, except, across the wilderness, a journey of three weary months, before they reach their final destination. The appearance of these trains of pilgrims must be highly curious and picturesque. Captain Stansbury thus describes one of them, which he passed :

indeed, the prophets and chief apostles of the Church. And even these seek to avert popular envy, by occasionally taking a turn at their old employments; following the example of the President, who was bred a carpenter and still sometimes does a job of joiner's work We met ninety-five wagons to-day, containing upon his mills. (G. 141.) Such a state of sothe advance of the Mormon emigration. Two ciety combines the absence of many evils and large flocks of sheep were driven before the train; much misery, with the want of those huand geese and turkeys had been conveyed in manizing influences which result from the coops the whole distance, without apparent dam-intermixture of men of leisure with men of age. One old gander poked his head out of his labor. box, and hissed most energetically at every passer by, as if to show that his spirit was still

CASTLE-BUILDING.-We speak of building | Castles in the air. The phrase in Charron is building Castles in Spain.

"SAT CITO, SI SAT BENE."-St. Jerome (Ep. Ixvi. § 9, ed. Vallars') quotes this as a maxim of Cato's.

[TO BE CONCLUDED.]

α

UOVE DE PASCA.-An Italian Priest preaching on Easter Sunday before Cardinal Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, said he was like Pace egg, red. blessed, but a little hard. Havete un Prelato santissimo; e come l'uove de Pasca, rosso e benedetto, ma e vero ch' e un poco duretto."

[ocr errors]

From the New York Observer.

LIFE OF DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.

ton's men, which left him on the field for dead. Jack Reardon, unfitted for the musket, was preserved to wield again the ferula over the childhood of Virginia.

thieving or burglary. On the contrary, he was a good citizen of his new State, enlisting among the revolutionary forces, when enemies were in the field, and suffering in the cause repeated AGAIN and again have we spoken of.the forth-wounds from the bayonets and sabres of Tarlecoming "Life" of ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D.D. by his son. Several correspondents have already sent us their well digested thoughts on the admirable execution of the work, which may well be called a model biography; but we have, this week, a special pleasure in copying the following notice from the "Churchman" of this city, an Episcopal paper, of the High Church school, and we think our readers will be gratified, as we have been, by its perusal.

The first thirty years of Alexander's life were passed in a region, every mile of which is historic ground, and among a people, almost every one of whom is at least a local celebrity, if not known to American fame. He lived among the old Virginia gentlemen, who appear to have had as great

army of the missionary preachers whose eloquence sounded through the valleys of the State; he was of the Presbyterians and among the Churchmen; he heard Patrick Henry speak, and bring to the bar the same order of eloquence with which his friend John Blair Smith had invigorated the appeals of the pulpit. Every one has heard of James Waddell, the blind preacher, whom Wirt has celebrated in the British Spy. It was Alexander's good fortune one day, as he was travelling on horseback and meditating which of two roads he should take, at a fork, to choose the one which led to that preacher's house, where he found a young lady of beauty, his daughter, whom he married, and with whom he lived happily the remainder of a long life.

The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D., First Pro-respect for books as for horses; he was one of the fessor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey. By James W. Alexander, D. D. Published by Charles Scribner, New York. This judicious and well written biography has a twofold interest, in the historical and religious life of its subject. In the latter relation, Dr. Alexander was for nearly half a century an influential instructor, profoundly versed in the various departments of theology, with particular reference to Biblical interpretation and criticism of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures; delivering his lectures at a seat of learning of which he may be said to have been the founder, as he started with it alone in its infancy till it grew up with an increase of professors and students. The Theological Seminary of Princeton, the organi- The traits of manners of the time and country zation of which is independent of the College of Old Virginia are very happily delineated, as of Princeton, was established by an act of the they presented themselves to a young itinerant General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in clergyman; and they are sketched by his own 1812, when Dr. Ålexander was called, from his pen, as reminiscences, when he looked back upon congregation at Philadelphia, to fill its first chair. them with a secondary interest, which supplied He had previously been the head of the similar the place of the original novelty. Alexander school of instruction at Hampden Sidney in Vir- was a metaphysician, and knew how to analyze ginia; and, carrying back his history, we find this feeling of the knowledge and wonder of the him, in his youth, brought up in the central val- man superior to the instincts of the youth. In ley of that state, under the country influences of his remarks on the influence of the mountains the old western revolutionary era, with a leaning about his early home upon his youthful characupon the traditions of the old world in the Scotch ter, he cannot trace any direct impressions of Presbyterian associations and observances of the their poetry or sublimity, at least any consciousregion. It is a curious circumstance in the life ness of these things. "The love of the beauties of a man, who was to present a constant model of nature" he pronounces, in a passage which of exemplary piety, and give laws, at a seminary grows into a fine essay, to be "slow in its develof theology, to a considerable portion of the re-opment," while he admits the animal sense of ligious world, that his earliest instructions in the the sublime in wonder. It is when thought and ancient languages should be received from a experience and culture work upon these brute youth who had been exiled from the wickedness of London as a convict, transported to America, according to one of the usages of good old King George, and literally sold the price of a felon, at the market for such commodities at Baltimore. There this young man, John Reardon, was bought by the father of Alexander, and transported to his country place in Roxbridge county. The intelligent farmer and trader had the good sense to perceive the availability of what booklearning he possessed; and, without taking the alarm professed by some theorists, at the connection of vice with knowledge, built up a log school house for him on his grounds, and collected the youth of the neighborhood under his authority. It does not appear that he taught

materials in the mind, in after years, that poetry comes forth with all its subtle philosophy. Thus art goes on perfecting nature in the mind, and man is compensated by his superior enjoyments for the loss of his childhood.

When our preacher leaves the self-made men of the wilderness, to travel among the learned and polished folk of the north, as he did in the very beginning of the century, visiting Nassau Hall and New-York and Harvard, he is everywhere observant of the novelty of character. His reminiscences give us some very happy sketches of Samuel Stanhope Smith, the successor of Witherspoon at Princeton, of those famous NewEnglanders, Hopkins and Emmons, and one day, on his route to Hanover, of a plain man who has

been talked of latterly as much as any of them. | graphical notices of the volume, which is largely *Passing from Massachusetts over the moun-made up from Dr. Alexander's own manuscripts. tains of New-Hampshire, he lodged within a few As his was one of those healthy minds more apt rods of the house of a farmer, the father of the to think of other people than himself, he has left Hon. Daniel Webster. The old gentleman came on record materials of much value for the study over to the tavern in the morning, and chatted of his period. What should justly be said of his for half an hour. Among other things, he said own faculties and the secret of his powers, his that he had a son at Dartmouth, who was about son, one of a family which inherits the father's to take his bachelor's degree. The father was ability, usefulness, and serious purpose of life, large in frame, high-breasted and broad-should- the Rev. Dr. James W. Alexander, of this city, ered, and, like his son. had heavy eyebrows. has wisely said in this memoir. He has disHe was an affable man, of sound sense, and con- charged a difficult duty at once with reverence siderable information, and expressed a wish that and ease, and given what is rare in religious I might be acquainted with his son, of whom it biographies, a picture of the man as well as the was easy to see that he was proud." clergyman.

These notices will indicate the personal bio

CHAPTER XVIII.

TRAVELS OF DISCOVERY.

only the blank wall of Kensignton Gardens lining one side of the way. When a solitary cab was seen to stop here at one of the turnings, the piétons passing regarded it as a relief, and lookTHE dinner-carriages had disappeared. So ed with languid curiosity at the descent of the had the cabs bound for the theatres. The om- single person it contained. Those who did so nibuses were few and far between; and more turned to look again; for although the indivithan an hour ago those persons who patronized dual was shrouded from head to foot in a black neither cab nor omnibus, but walked home from cloak and veil, with the hood drooping far over business, had reached their suburban dwellings her bonnet, there was an unmistakable air of disand six o'clock tea. The visible population of tinction in her walk and carriage. She moved London had changed its character, both in re-quietly along, however, up the turnings, and the spect to numbers and appearance. The females spectators passed on their way. had an air of directness, as if they had chosen The lady walked slowly and collectedly up the hour for business; the men wore generally the street, as if she was going to her own or a that solitary look which betrays the want of a neighbor's house: but when she had gained the family fireside; the policemen mustered strong, end, she paused and hesitated. Streets were on having sallied forth to take their promenade un-all sides-before, behind, and on either hand. interrupted by the crowd, or to make the agree. She chose the left, and thus proceeded further to able to Polly, who had come up from the hot the west. At the end of that street there was kitchen, when the dinner was fairly off her hands, another pause, another self-consultation, and she to breathe the fresh air on the area-steps. Lon- turned to the right. Then came a longer pause: don was mostly within doors. Some of the in- the evening was dark, the lamps few, the wilderhabitants were at dinner-these were the aristo-ness of brick and stucco seemingly interminable. crats; some had already dined, and were chat- Occasionally somebody passed her, and turned ting over their wine-these were the upper mid-round to look: this made her quicken her steps. dle classes; some were at tea-these were the Once or twice a policeman turned the bull's eye lower middle classes; some had left tea more of his lantern upon her veiled face, and then than two hours behind, and were longing for wheeling about, followed her; but gradually his supper-these were the small shopkeepers and pace became slower, and then he altogether hand-workers. The guest-rooms of most of the abandoned the pursuit. This is an ordinary houses were full; so were the theatres; so were ruse of the Force, who calculate on the indivithe exhibitions; so were the popular churches dual followed, if conscious of having been at any where evening-service was performed; and in a unlawful work, betraying his delinquency by proportionate degree the streets were empty. taking to flight; but in the present case the veilBut it was not a gloomy void that was thus pre-ed lady did not run, but glided at what appeared sented; for the shop-windows blazed, and the to be her usual rate of speed. long lines of gas-lamps sparkled like stars in the blackness of the evening.

She at length seemed to regret her reserve or timidity, and looked round as if in search of some one to direct her. A servant-girl at the moment came out of one of the houses, and she addressed her.

In approaching the suburbs, the glare was gradually left behind, the shops and lamps becoming fewer, and the former sometimes disappearing altogether. The aspect of the scene, "Kensington Gravel Pits?" said the girl. early as the hour was, became decidedly solitary; " Oh, you must take that street opposite, and go and this character was aided even by the few on a good step. You are from the Tyburn lights, occurring at regular but distant intervals. way?" The road leading towards the Bayswater suburb, "Yes." so busy and so gay a few hours ago, might al- "Well, you see you have come out of your most be described as dreary; the country-like road. Hartwell Place? I don't know that; you expanse of Hyde Park being left behind, and must ask again when you get nearer it." The

lady bowed and glided on, and the girl stood staring after her till the black figure was lost in the black darkness.

until now she had never in her life been in the case of an unprotected female. She had hitherto moved through the world like a queen in a play, surrounded by domestics, court, army, and preceded and followed by a flourish of trumpets. Te find herself alone and on foot, wandering in the dark, and through unknown paths, stared at like a spectre by the passers-by, and hunted like a criminal by policemen-this was a situation so absolutely at variance with her rôle, that the courage which sustained her must have been something truly heroical.

Soon after this, while the solitary wayfarer was passing a house of some pretensions, the door suddenly opened, and from the brilliantly lighted hall several young men, who had apparently been too familiar with the wine-decanters, issued forth in boisterous merriment. One of them, struck with the nun-like figure that was gliding past, followed her, while his laughing companions incited him to the chase with a viewhollo that made the street ring. The lady quick- But Claudia was determined, coute qui conte, ened her gliding pace-quicker-quicker-till to ascertain a certain fact; and a few words with the gentleman fairly ran, and at his highest Mr. Poringer, spoken apparently at random, had speed. She distanced him for a time, turning shown her that this would be easy, if she could several corners, and darting across several only reach the place unobserved. She would streets, till at length he was sensibly gaining be fooled by nobody. She would believe nothing upon her, and would perhaps have ultimately but what was revealed to her by her own eyes. won the race, had not his foot been caught by a large stone, which brought him down with a heavy fall. Two policemen turning the nearest corner at the moment, witnessed the accident, and seeing a female in the act of flight, one of them pursued her, while the other went to the assistance of the gentleman, who lay stunned upon the street.

She would distrust Adolphus; she would distrust his lackey; she would distrust Miss Heavystoke; she would distrust Oaklands; she would distrust her own father. She would see, learn, know everything herself. Her visit to the family lawyer, which was on ordinary business, might have been paid at any other time, or she might have sent, more characteristically, for him to wait The policeman was a still more dangerous upon her; but she chose to go, and at an unusual enemy than the gentleman, for he sprung his hour, that her father might be from home during rattle as he ran, and presently the terrifying her absence, and that she might have an excuse sound was heard taken up at several points, some for making use of a conveyance not driven or distant, some nearer, as if by echoes. When accompanied by the servants of the family. Her turning the next corner the fugitive was inter-meeting there with Sara, and the nature of this cepted and caught roughly by the arm, while the young person's business, which she had extractglare of a bull's eye was turned upon her face. ed from the lawyer, gave her a sensation so new Still he spoke no word; and when the pursuer and strange that she could not analyze it. It came up, the two were about to lead her back to served to fix her resolve, however, still more where the supposed offence had been committed, firmly; it elevated her courage, it gave speed to when the footsteps of the other policeman were her steps, and made her feel as if every moment heard thundering along the street, and his voice was precious, as if she had already lost time, as exclaiming : "All's right--Let her alone!" if her fate depended upon her object being atWhen he approached, he explained that the gen-tained that evening.

tleman had falled by accident, and that the lady The adventures she encountered had been ran only because he had frightened her even quite unforeseen; but her habitual presence of before he had finished she had moved away in mind had been equal to the exigency. To sumsilence as before, and was already at some dis-mon the aid of the police, to complain, to utter

tance.

"Are you sure you are right?" said one of the trio. "Isn't it odd, that if frightened, she didn't cry out? I don't like that silence!"

"Don't the gentleman know best anyhow?" replied P. 47. "If he don't charge, we can't take her; and sure a woman's houlding her tongue is no offince!"

When the silent lady reached a certain distance, she slackened her pace, panting like a hunted deer. But there was something resolute even in her quick-drawn breaths, and her figure was still erect and her nerves strung. She had not given in. She would carry out her project, whatever it was, in spite of fortune. But, owing to her ignorance of the locality, rendered practi cally darker by the darkness of the evening, she had made a mistake. She had left the cab too soon it might have taken her far nearer the scene of action, without the slightest risk of its awakening observation. Her intrepidity was not of so common a kind as might be supposed; for

even a word that might seem to require expla nation, would have been to run the risk of public inquiry. Even to ask her way frequently, appeared to her to be dangerous to her scheme; and it was, therefore, chiefly by dint of patient prowling, that she at length succeeded in reaching the opening of Hartwell Place, the name of which she read by the light of a dull lamp at the corner. It was at this hour a singularly gloomylooking avenue; the gardens forming one side of the way being a mass of impenetrable shadow, while the only light in the street beyond the corner where she stood was a kind of luminous haze, thrown forth apparently from a window at the further end. This showed her that the information she had received concerning the locality was correct; and with the same deliberate and noiseless pace with which she had been accustomed to float up the long vista of her own drawing-room, she glided on along the solitary street. The object of her journey of discovery being simply to look in for a moment at the

window, we will now give the reader a peep of the interior but in doing this, we must be permitted to proceed in our own deliberate way.

:

Robert Oaklands had not been idle during the long intervals of his visits to his Wearyfoot friends. A portion of the day he gave up to writing for the weekly and monthly periodicals, for he could not afford now to wait the slow movements of a quarterly; and the rest of his time he spent in inquiry and reflection on a plan he had hitherto kept to himself. His resolution, however, had that very day been taken; and in the evening, when Mr. Driftwood called, he did not scruple to mention to him and Mrs. Margery what he was about to do.

"You may remember, Mr. Driftwood," said he, "that when I came to London first, in reply to your question as to how I proposed to live, I gave you a long list of my accomplishments, and you seemed to think that even a small portion of the number would suffice."

"I think so still," replied the artist: "what you want is steadiness-you won't stick to a thing when you begin it. If you had followed the painting, you might have been near by this time; and, at any rate, if you had joined me in business, as I proposed, you might have rattled off the portraits as your share of the work, while I executed gallery-pictures that would have been a fortune to us both one day."

"Even the portraits, I fear," said Robert, smiling, "would have wanted the Grecianizing hand of the master!"

"So they would-I would have touched them all over after you. Come, you shall have a chance yet take back your word, and come to Jermyn Street to-morrow." Robert shook his head.

"Perhaps I could do even that: I shouldn't mind trying if it came to the push. But the truth is, I think it is a pity that such accomplishments as these should be lost, and lost they are in an old country where all of them are separate and crowded trades. I am going to try a new field, Driftwood; yes, Margery, and one where it will go hard with me if I cannot find a lump of gold the size of an egg at least, to send home to you." This announcement excited a great commotion in the room. The artist took it upon him to be exceedingly angry with his imprudent young friend; and Mrs. Margery, so rudely awakened from her favorite dream, could hardly find voice for remonstrance.

"And just when it was all coming out," said she, "exactly as I told from the first! It's a flying in the face of Providence to interfere with fate, that's what it is! See if you will get as comfortable a room in these outlandish places, or as nice a bit of victuals as any lord in the land has on his plate, or a shirt more spotless than you will find in the first drawing-room in England! And see if you will get anybody to mind your little comforts-and rise before daylight to get your breakfast the first thing, so that you may not work on an empty stomachand think nothing of anything, but thank you for it all-and feel so proud, and so hap-haphappy!"-and poor Margery lifted up her voice and wept.

"What he will get," said Driftwood, sententiously, "is cold and rags, with the damp ground to lie upon; starvation if he finds no gold, and a pickaxe through his skull if he does.

"Don't mind him, Margery," said Robert, soothingly-"that picture is quite in the out-ofdoors-style I shall never, it is truc, either "Then what are you to be after? You took abroad or at home, meet with the comfort and to the cabinet-making, not so genteel a thing as kindness I enjoy here; but I can rough it as well painting to be sure, but still you would have done as most people, and I can work and live where well enough there if you had only stuck to it. But men of higher talent and higher rearing would some new crotchet came in the way, and no hu- sit down and perish. As for the pickaxe, I am man being could tell what you were about for not sure that I shall put myself in the way of it ever so long. You may have been a billiard- at all-I rather think I shall not. The mines marker for aught I know; and even that would are a lottery in which there are only a few prizes have been more rational than hunting about, as to a thousand blanks; but in the midst of a popMargery's idea was, here, there, and everywhere.ulation, one-half of which cannot, and the other after grand relations you never saw or heard tell half will not work at ordinary trades, there must of in your life." be numerous fields of industry and ingenuity for such as I.”

"That is all true-sit quiet, Margery, and don't mind him-but cabinet-making, you know, Here the conversation was interrupted by a would never have brought me more than jour-single knock at the door, and Doshy presently neyman's wages, and I had, and have, a strong ushered in a female visitor, handsomely dressed fancy for something more. Still my projects in walking-costume. It was Molly; and the two have all failed-I admit that, and it is necessary Wearyfoot friends were in one another's arms in to try something new. Now, you may remem- an instant, Mrs. Margery weeping on her friend's ber my capabilities were not bounded by paint-bosom, and her friend, who was never behind ing, cabinet making, and authorship." hand on such occasions, weeping with her, and "Oh, you could do fifty other things, I know, taking the cause of sorrow upon trust. Molly, and I saw you myself do half of them. You are after this preliminary business was over, curtesied a house painter, a glazier, a carpenter, a brick-to Robert with some awkwardness, for like other layer, a slater, and so on-but what is the use sensitive ladies, Molly was the victim of convenof that? Would you be more than a journey- tionalism. She knew that it would be improper man for the number of your trades? You could to be so familiar with a gentleman of his figure carry a hod, too, ever so high. Stuff!-If you and manners, but she longed to tell him at once could get up a pole one-third of the length, and how sorry she was for her late ill-humor. To stand on your head on the top of it, it would be sit down with him like an equal was out of the more to the purpose." question, but there was no other room in the

« PreviousContinue »