Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly Magazine, March 1844

V >> Various >> Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly Magazine, March 1844

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We intend, one of these days, provided our remarks attract sufficient
attention, to publish a volume upon this subject. We have the materiel by
us and about us; and as soon as we can make arrangements with Mr. POH for
a puff in the 'North-American Review,' or the 'Southern Literary
Messenger,' we shall broach the affair to Mr. FIELDS, the enterprising
publisher. We have moreover desired Mr. WHIPPLE to write to his friend Mr.
MACAULAY in England, who will doubtless be proud to foster American
letters by a hoist in the 'Edinburgh.' There is only one other thing
absolutely requisite for the success of the book, and that is the
appearance of this article in the KNICKERBOCKER. Befriend me then with
your fine taste, renowned HERR DIEDRICH! and give me room. I shall not
dive deeply into the matter now; but for the good of my young countrymen,
the labor of whose brains is incompatible with a fruitful development of
whiskers, I wish to put forth a page of advice that may save them a world
of fatigue. It is common with those who are far gone in this tuneful
disorder to set up late o' nights and tipple coffee. Under my new system,
I will engage that they may retire to bed on mulled-punch nightly, at
eleven, and yet effect all that they now perform with the greatest injury
to their eyes and complexions. But _pocas pallabras_--enough of this
preface: will not the thing speak for itself? There needs no farther
introduction for these brief extracts from the aforesaid work:

THE EASIEST WAY OF DISCHARGING A SONNET.

A SONNET (as before stated) consists of fourteen and no more spasms. They
are calm, deliberate twinges, however, and upon a homoeopathical
principle, the great object should be to get over each one in the calmest
possible manner; _idem cum eodem_. The thing cannot be treated too coolly,
for its very essence is dull deliberation. The name sonnet is probably
derived, through the Italian _sonno_, from the Latin word for sleep, in
allusion to its lethargic quality. The best mode of encouraging the efflux
of the peccant humor is for the patient to have a cigar in his mouth. The
narcotic fumes of tobacco are highly favorable to its ejection. The first
step then is the selection of rhymes. Fourteen of these in their proper
order should be written perpendicularly on the right hand of a smooth
sheet of white paper. When this is done, it is necessary to read them
over, up and down, several times, until some general idea of a subject or
a title suggests itself. Great care must be taken, in the selection of
rhymes, to get as original ones as possible, and such as shall strike the
eye. Still greater should be the precaution not to choose such incongruous
rhymes as may not easily be welded together or amalgamated into one whole
by the mercury of fancy. For instance, it would be well to avoid coupling
such words as moon and spoon, breeze and cheese and sneeze; Jove and
stove; hope and soap; all which it might be difficult to bring together
harmoniously. Here the artist, the man of true science, will discover
himself. SHELLEY affords a good choice of rhymes; chasm and spasm; rift
and drift; ravine and savin, are useful conjunctions. If you have a
ravine, it will be very easy to stick in a savin, but you must avoid a
_spavin_, or your verse may halt for it. This we call being artistical.
_Benissimo!_ then. Having fixed upon your subject, all you have to do is
to fill up the lines to match the ends, and this, in one evening's
practice, will become as easy, the same thing in fact, as the filling up
of the blank form of an ordinary receipt.

But the most expeditious and surest way of procuring a good Sonnet is the
Division of Labor System. This has often been unconsciously practised by
modern poets, but it has never been explicitly set forth till now. Every
body knows that even in the fabrication of so small a thing as a needle,
the process is facilitated by dividing it among a number of hands; as to
one the eye, to another the point, to one the grinding, to another the
polishing. In the same way, to render a sonnet pointed and sharp, to
polish it and insure it against cutting the thread of its argument, the
work should be performed by two or more. Every sonnet, in short, ought to
be a translation. I do not say a translation from the German or any other
jargon, but a translation from English--from one man's into another man's
English. It is absurd for one workman to do both rhyming and thinking. In
this go-ahead age and country, that were a palpable waste of time. Take
any 'matter-ful' author, cut out a juicy slice of his thought, and make
that your material. Trim it, compress it, turn it and twist it upside down
and inside out, vary it any way but the author's own, and you will be
likely to effect a speedy and wholesome operation. What a saving of time
is here! Who will be silly enough to manufacture his own thinkings into
verse when the world is so full of excellent stuff as yet unwrought in the
great mine of letters? Let us not burn up our own native forests while we
can fetch coals from Newcastle. What a pleasant prospect for readers too!
A man may be sure _then_, that a sonnet shall contain a thought. He will
not be gulled into experiments upon decent-looking, respectable dross and
plausible inanity. He shall not dig hungrily for an idea, and be filled
with volumes of wind. With the fourteenth pang his anxiety shall be over,
and he shall drop asleep satisfied; _tandem dormitum dimittitur_.

Not to anticipate farther our forthcoming book, nor to forestall the
critics in any more extracts, we shall lay before the reader two or three
samples of work done according to this system. CARLYLE has furnished our
raw material. His pages are so full of poetry that little time need be
expended in selecting a fit piece for working up. See now if these be not
sonnets which BOWLES might have been proud to claim. Each one is warranted
to contain a thought; an hour or so would suffice for the completion of
half a dozen such. Observe too, that little deviation is necessary from
the original, the words falling naturally into both rhythm and rhyme. We
commence with a few translations from Carlyle. The initial specimen is
taken from Herr TEUFELSDROeCKH'S remarks on BONAPARTE. This is the passage:

'The man (NAPOLEON) was a Divine Missionary, though unconscious of
it, and preached through the cannon's throat this great doctrine:
_La carriere ouverte aux talens_; 'The Tools to him that can
handle them.' . . . Madly enough he preached, it is true, as
Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect
utterance, amid much frothy rant, yet as articulately perhaps as
the case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American
Backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle
with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong
liquor, rioting, and even theft; whom notwithstanding the peaceful
Sower will follow, and as he cuts the boundless harvest, bless.'

SARTOR RESARTUS: BOOK II., CHAP. VIII.

SONNET I.--NAPOLEON.

Napoleon was a Missionary merely,
Who through the cannon's throat this truth expressed,
Unconsciously, divinely and sincerely,
_The Tools to him that handles 'em the best._
Madly enough, indeed, the man did preach,
Amid much rant, as all Enthusiasts do,
And yet with as articulate a speech
As the strange case, perhaps, allowed him to.
Or call him a Backwoodsman, if you will;
Who, forced to fell unpenetrated woods,
And doomed innumerable wolves to kill,
Got drunk sometimes, and stole his neighbor's goods;
Whom will the Sower follow ne'ertheless,
And as he cuts the boundless harvest, bless.

Or let us try the following description of the Hotel de Ville in the
French Revolution:

'O evening sun of July! how at this hour thy beams fall slant on
reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old women spinning in
cottages; on ships far out on the silent main; on Balls at the
Orangerie of Versailles, where high-rouged dames of the palace are
even now dancing with double-jacketted Hussar officers; and also
on this roaring Hell-porch of a Hotel de Ville. Babel-tower, with
the confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam added with the
conflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One forest of
distracted steel bristles endless in front of an Electoral
Committee.'

FRENCH REVOLUTION: BOOK V., CHAP. VII.

SONNET II.--THE HOTEL DE VILLE.

O evening sun of most serene July!
How at this hour thy slant refulgence pours
On reapers working in the open sky,
And women spinning at their cottage doors,
On ships far out upon the silent main,
On gay Versailles, where through the light quadrille
Hussars are leading forth a high-rouged train,
And on the hell-porch-like Hotel de Ville.
Not Babel's tower with all its million tongues,
Save Bedlam too therewith had added been,
To mingle burning brains with roaring lungs,
Could feebly imitate that dreadful din;
One endless forest of distracted steel
Bristling around that mad Hotel de Ville!

Or to return to Professor TEUFELDROeCKH'S vast chaos of ideas. Let us try
another passage therefrom:

'It struck me much as I sat beside the Kuhbach, one silent
noontide, and watched it flowing, gurgling, to think how this same
streamlet had flowed and gurgled through all changes of weather
and of fortune, from beyond the earliest date of history. Yes,
probably on the morning when JOSHUA forded Jordan; even as at the
midday when CAESAR, doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet
kept his Commentaries dry; this little Kuhbach, assiduous as
Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness,
unnamed, unseen.'

SARTOR RESARTUS: BOOK II., CHAP. III.

SONNET III.--ETERNITY OF NATURE.

One silent noonday, as I sat beside
The gurgling flow of Kuhbach's little river,
Methought how, even as I saw it glide,
That stream had flowed and gurgled on forever.
Yes, on the day when JOSHUA passed the flood
Of ancient Jordan; when across the Nile
CAESAR swam (hardly, doubtless, through the mud,)
Yet kept his Commentaries dry the while,
This little Kuhbach, like Siloa's rill,
Or Tiber's Tide, assiduous and serene,
Ev'n then, the same as now, was murmuring still
Across the wilderness, unnamed, unseen.
Art's but a mushroom--only Nature's old;
In yon grey crag six thousand years behold!

From the same chapter of the same book we venture one more extract. It is
where the Professor is full of grief and reminiscences; where, reflecting
on his first experience of wo in the death of Father ANDREAS, he becomes
once more spirit-clad in quite inexpressible melancholy, and says, 'I have
now pitched my tent under a cypress-tree,' etc.:

SONNET IV.--BLISS IN GRIEF.

Under a cypress-tree I pitch my tent:
The tomb shall be my fortress; at its gate
I sit and watch each hostile armament,
And all the pains and penalties of Fate.
And oh ye loved ones! that already sleep,
Hushed in the noiseless bed of endless rest,
For whom, while living, I could only weep,
But never help in all your sore distress,
And ye who still your lonely burthen bear,
Spilling your blood beneath life's bitter thrall,
A little while and we shall all meet _there_,
And one kind Mother's bosom screen us all;
Oppression's harness will no longer tire
Or gall us there, nor Sorrow's whip of fire.

But we are borrowing too much from our embryo volume. Patience, dear
Public! until we can find a publisher. In the mean time, examine the
specimens we have presented to you. Can any one tell us where to look for
sonnets, more satisfactory than these? We congratulate our country on the
prospect of our soon having an American literature. Let our industrious
young aspirants try a work in which they may succeed in producing
something of sterling value. A year or two will suffice to turn half the
plodding prose writers of Britain into original poets. Every brilliant
article that appears in the Quarterly might here renascent spring forth
like Arethusa, in a new and more melodious voice; bubbling up in a pretty
epic or stormy lyric. See, for example, how easily SIDNEY SMITH might be
done into rhyme:

SONNET V.

I never meet at any public dinner
A Pennsylvanian, but my fingers itch
To pluck his borrowed plumage from the sinner,
And with the spoil the company enrich.
His pocket-handkerchief I would bestow
On the poor orphan; and his worsted socks
Should to the widow in requital go
For having sunk her all in Yankee stocks;
To John the footman I would give his hat,
Which only cost six shillings in Broadway:
As for his diamond ring--I'd speak for that;
His gold watch too my losses might repay:
Himself might home in the next steamer hie,
For who would take him--or his word? Not I.

'LEGENDS OF THE CONQUEST OF SPAIN.'--Some eighteen years ago, a work in a
single volume, entitled as above, and written by the author of the
'Sketch-Book,' was issued from the press of MURRAY, the celebrated London
book-seller. It would seem to have been put forth as a kind of
_avant-courier_ of 'The Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada;' but unlike
that elaborate work, was never republished in this country, and has never
been included in any of the complete editions of Mr. IRVING'S writings. We
are indebted to the kind courtesy of a gentleman who has been spending
some months with our distinguished countryman and correspondent at Madrid,
for a copy of the book, which he obtained at that capital. We have good
reason to believe that it has been encountered by few if any readers on
this side the Atlantic. A very stirring extract from its pages will be
found elsewhere in this Magazine. Mr. IRVING introduces the legends to his
readers with a few prefatory sentences, in which he states that he has
ventured to dip more deeply into the enchanted fountains of old Spanish
chronicle than has usually been done by those who have treated of the
eventful period of which he writes; but in so doing, he only more fully
illustrates the character of the people and the times. He has thrown the
records into the form of legends, not claiming for them the authenticity
of sober history, yet giving nothing that had not a historical foundation.
'All the facts herein contained,' says the writer, 'however extravagant
some of them may be deemed, will be found in the works of sage and
reverend chroniclers of yore, growing side by side with long acknowledged
truths, and might be supported by learned and imposing references in the
margin.' To discard every thing wild and marvellous in this portion of
Spanish history is to discard some of its most beautiful, instructive, and
national features; it is to judge of Spain by the standard of probability
suited to tamer and more prosaic countries. Spain is virtually a land of
poetry and romance, where every-day life partakes of adventure, and where
the least agitation or excitement carries every thing up into extravagant
enterprise and daring exploit. The Spaniards in all ages have been of
swelling and braggart spirit, soaring in thought, and valiant though
vainglorious in deed. When the nation had recovered in some degree from
the storm of Moslem invasion, and sage men sought to inquire and write the
particulars of the tremendous reverses which it produced, it was too late
to ascertain them in their exact verity. The gloom and melancholy that had
overshadowed the land had given birth to a thousand superstitious fancies;
the woes and terrors of the past were clothed with supernatural miracles
and portents, and the actors in the fearful drama had already assumed the
dubious characteristics of romance. Or if a writer from among the
conquerors undertook to touch upon the theme, it was embellished with all
the wild extravagances of an oriental imagination, which afterward stole
into the graver works of the monkish historians. Hence the chronicles are
apt to be tinctured with those saintly miracles which savor of the pious
labors of the cloister, or those fanciful fictions that betray their
Arabian Authors. Scarce one of their historical facts but has been
connected in the original with some romantic fiction, and even in its
divorced state, bears traces of its former alliance. The records in
preceding pages are 'illuminated' by these prefatory remarks of our
author, if their _truth_ be not altogether established! How the Count
JULIAN receives the account of the dishonor of his child, and his conduct
thereupon; and how DON RODERICK hastens, through various tribulation, to
his final overthrow; will be matter for another number. Meanwhile the
reader will not fail to note the great beauty of the descriptions, which
in the hands of our great master of the power and beauty of 'the grand old
English tongue,' assume form and color, and stand out like living pictures
to the eye.

AMERICAN PTYALISM: 'QUID RIDES?'--A pleasant correspondent, whom our
readers have long known, and as long admired and esteemed, in a familiar
gossip, (by favor of 'Uncle SAMUEL'S mail-bag,) with the Editor, gives us
the following 'running account' of his ruminations over an early-morning
quid of that 'flavorous weed' so well beloved of our friend Colonel STONE.
It is in some sort a defence of American ptyalism, and in the tendency of
its inculcations, reminds us of the arguments in favor of the cultivation
of a refined style of _murder_, which should constitute it one of the fine
arts, to which we gave a place many months back: 'After having in my
broken dreams perambulated every part and parcel of the universe, and then
tossed about for hours on an ocean of bodily discomforts, each a dagger to
repose, and mental disquietudes, of which any one was enough to wither all
the poppies of Somnus, I rose about four o' my watch, and commenced
chewing the narcotic weed of Virginia. For you must know that in childhood
almost, through a precocious mannishness and a desire of experimental
knowledge, I commenced the habit of tobacco-chewing, and the vice born of
a freak, has 'grown with my growth,' till now it holds me as in a 'vice'
screwed up and secured by a giant. (Please observe that there's a pun in
that last sentence.) Where the conventionalities of society compel me to
attidunize my appearance and customs into the stiffness of gentility, I
puff the Havana; but when the privacy of my own room or the solitude of
the roads and fields permit me to vulgarize to my liking, I thrust a ball
of 'Mrs. MILLER'S fine-cut,' or a fragment of the 'natural James' River
sweet,' between the sub-maxillary bone and its carnal casement, and then
masticate and expectorate 'a la Yankee.' or 'more Americano.' Pah! oh!
fie! for shame! and all other interjections indicative of horror, or
expressive of disgust. '_Quousque tandem?_' Beg your pardon, Mrs.
TROLLOPE. '_Quamdiu etiam?_' I implore your commiseration, Captain BASIL.
'_Oh, tempora! oh, mores!_' Have mercy, illustrious and
praise-bespattered, and almost Sir-Waltered BOZ. Do not, under the uneasy
weight of glory, and in the intoxicating consciousness of a right to the
oligarchic exclusiveness of the goose-quill 'haute volee,' strike right
and left among your sturdy democratic adorers, because they choose to
convert their mandibles into quid-grinders, and their [Greek: chasmat'
odonton] into ceaseless jet d'eaux of saliva. Reflect that the 'quid'
assists in a philosophic investigation of the 'quiddities' of things, and
that from this habit alone perhaps we have made such advances in casuistry
as to have discovered equity in repudiation, freedom in mobocracy, and the
sword of justice in the bowie-knife. Chewing is eminently democratic,
since all chewers are 'pro hac _vice_' on a perfect equality, and a
'millionaire;' or, for that matter, a 'billionaire,' if we had him, would
not hesitate to take out of his mouth a moiety of his last 'chew' and give
it to an itinerant Lazarus. What can be more admirable than this 'de bon
air' plebeianism, and universal right-hand of fellowship? Does not he who
extends among the people the use of this democratizing weed, emphatically
give them a '_quid_ pro quo?' Are not slovenliness and filth the virtues
of republics, while neatness and elegance are vices of court-growth, and
expand into their most ramified and minute perfectness of polish only in
the palaces of kings? Furthermore, oh laurelled and triumphant PICKWICK!
if expectoration be filthy, it must be because the 'thing expectorated' is
unclean; and if so, is it not more decent to become rid of the 'unclean
thing' by the readiest process, than to retain it, making the stomach a
receptacle of abominations? And are you, Sir Baronet of the realm
imaginary, subject to no gross corporeal needs and operations? And if, as
you will say, you perform those foul rites in a state of retiracy, are you
not adding the sin of hypocrisy to your preexistent guilt? If it has
succeeded to you, as to few penny-a-liners, to have emerged by the sale of
your Attic-salt from the attics of Grub-street into the 'swept and
garnished chambers' of the Regent, and if after quaffing the ale of
Bow-street, procured by caricatures of Old Baily reports, you have sipped
your hockheimer, while standing, scarce yet unbewildered, in the gas-light
splendor reflected from the 'vis-a-vis' mirrors of Almack's, yet do not
exalt yourself above all that is fleshly. Reflect that you, so lately
unrivalled, can now see a EUGENE SUE whose brow is umbraged by laurels of
a more luxuriant and lovely green. Cease your expectorations of bile upon
a great people; admit that mastication of the 'odorous vegeble' is a
Spartan virtue; and we will again vote you an Anak in the kingdom of pen
and paper. Then again shall we be led to believe that your praises and
your vituperations are equally unpurchasable. Then once more shall we
think you would swallow no golden pill, nor suffer your throat to be
ulcerated by a silver quinsy.'

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--If any of our readers are
desirous of looking into the _rationale_ of irrationality, to employ a
highly 'unitive' phrase, let them take up, if they can command it, the
'_Annual Report of the Managers of the New York State Lunatic Asylum_,'
one of the clearest and most comprehensive documents in its kind that we
have ever perused. It proceeds from the capable pen of A. BRIGHAM, M. D.
the superintendent and physician of the institution, and is full upon the
definition, causes and classification of insanity; the size and shape of
the heads of the patients; the pulse; description of the building; daily
routine of business, diet, labor, amusements, religious worship, visitors,
suggestions to those who have friends whom they expect to commit to the
care of the asylum, etc., etc. The cause of insanity in _fifty_ out of two
hundred and seventy-six patients is attributed to religious anxiety,
produced by long attendance on protracted religious meetings, etc. Want of
sleep is decidedly the most frequent and immediate cause of insanity, and
one the most important to guard against. 'So rarely (says the
superintendent) do you see a recent case of insanity that is not preceded
by want of sleep, that we regard it as almost the sure precursor of mental
derangement.' As evidences of the difficulty of arranging the insane in
classes, founded on symptoms, Dr. BRIGHAM gives us the following synopsis
of individual peculiarities noticed among certain of the inmates of the
Asylum:

'In addition to emperors, queens, prophets and priests, we have
one that says he is nobody, a nonentity. One that was never born,
and one that was born of her grandmother, and another dropped by
the devil flying over the world. One has had the throat cut out
and put in wrong, so that what is swallowed passes into the head,
and another has his head cut off and replaced every night. One
thinks himself a child, and talks and acts like a child. Many
appear as if constantly intoxicated. One has the gift of tongues,
another deals in magic, several in animal magnetism. One thinks he
is a white polar bear. A number have hallucinations of sight,
others of hearing. One repeats whatever is said to him, another
repeats constantly words of the same sound, as door, floor. One is
pursued by the sheriff, many by the devil. One has invented the
perpetual motion and is soon to be rich; others have already
acquired vast fortunes: scraps of paper, buttons and chips are to
them, large amounts of money. Many pilfer continually and without
any apparent motive, while others secrete every thing they can
find, their own articles as well as those of others. A majority
are disposed to hoard up trifling and useless articles, as scraps
of tin, leather, strings, nails, buttons, etc., and are much
grieved to part with them. One will not eat unless alone, some
never wish to eat, while others are always starving. One with a
few sticks and straws fills his room with officers and soldiers,
ships and sailors, carriages and horses, the management of which
occupies all his time and thoughts. Some have good memory as
regards most things, and singularly defective as to others. One
does not recollect the names of his associates, which he hears
every hour, yet his memory is good in other respects. One says he
is THOMAS PAINE, author of the 'Age of Reason,' a work he has
never read; another calls himself General WASHINGTON; and one old
lady of diminutive size calls herself General SCOTT, and is never
so good-natured as when thus addressed. One is always in court
attending a trial, and wondering and asking when the court is to
rise. Another has to eat up the building, drink dry the canal, and
swallow the Little Falls village, and is continually telling of
the difficulty of the task.'

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