The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844

That I may lament with thee:
Be my soul His death enduring,
And His passion—thus securing
Of His pains the memory.

IX

Fac me plagis vulnerari,
Cruce hac inebriari,
Ob amorem filii:
Inflammatus et accensus
Per te, virgo, sim defensus
In die judicii.

IX

With those blows may I be smitten,
In my heart that cross be written,
For thy Son’s dear love alway:
Glowing, burning with affection,
Grant me, Virgin! thy protection,
In the dreaded judgment-day.

X

Fac me cruce custodiri,
Morte Christi præmuniri,
Confoveri gratia:
Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animæ donetur
Paradisi gloria.

X

May that cross its aid extend me,
May the death of Christ defend me,
With its saving grace surround;
And when life’s last link is riven,
To my soul be glory given,
That in Paradise is found.

    St. Paul’s College. G. H. H.

Our Pine-street correspondent, who addresses us upon the ‘Fashionable Society in New-York,’ writes from the promptings of an honest-hearted frankness, that is quite clear; but he has not yet acquired that sort of useful information which is conveyed by the term, ‘knowing the world.’ The ‘fashionable circles’ par excellence, whose breeding and bearing he impugns, are of the Beauvoir school; persons who ‘are of your gens de cotorie; your people of the real ‘caste’ and ‘tone;’ that is, your people who singly would be set down as nought in society, but who, as a ‘set,’ have managed to make their joint-stock impudence imposing.’ Our correspondent, we suspect, has one important lesson to learn in his intercourse with such persons; and it is a lesson which has been felicitously set forth by a late English essayist. There is a recipe in some old book, he says, ‘How to avoid being tossed by a bull;’ and the instruction is, ‘Toss him.’ Try the experiment upon the first coxcomb who fancies that you are his inferior; charge first, and give him to understand at once that he is yours. Be coldly supercilious with all ‘important’ catiffs, and most punctual be your attention to any matter in debate; but let no temptation prevail with you to touch on any earthly point beyond it. In the case alluded to, a pompous old baronet comes down stairs loaded to the very muzzle to repress ‘familiarity’ on the part of a young man, who from an estate of dependence has recently mounted by inheritance to a princely fortune; but the cool, quiet young gentleman finds the old baronet guilty of ‘familiarity’ himself, and makes him bear the penalty of it, before six sentences are exchanged between them. The secret of the whole thing was, a quiet look directly in the eye, and the preservation of a deliberate silence; the true way to dissolve your pompous gentleman or affected ‘fashionable’ lady. The baronet’s long pauses the young heir did not move to interrupt. His mere listening drew the old aristocrat gradually out; his auditor replied monosyllabically, and made him pull him all the way. It was pitiful to see the old buzzard, who thought himself high and mighty, compelled to communicate with one who would have no notion of any body’s being high and mighty at all; getting gradually out of patience at the obstinate formality he was compelled to encounter, which he was sure any direct overture toward intimacy on his part would remove; and at last, in the midst of his doubts whether he should be familiar with the young man, being struck with a stronger doubt whether such familiarity would be reciprocated; it was a rich scene altogether, and worthy of being remembered by our correspondent. ••• The May issue of the ‘Cultivator’ agricultural Magazine, which under the supervision of the late Willis Gaylord reached a circulation of between forty and fifty thousand copies, contains an elaborate notice of its lamented editor, in which we find (in a letter from H. S. Randall, Esq.,) the following passage:

‘His reading was literally boundless. He was as familiar with the natural sciences, history, poetry, and belles-letters, as with agriculture, and nearly if not quite as well qualified to discuss them. It was difficult to start any literary topic which you did not at once perceive had been examined by him with the eye of a scholar and critic. In one of my letters, half sportively, yet in a serious tone, I asked him ‘what he thought of the German Philosophy?’ In his answer, Kant and Fichte, and I think Schelling and Jacobi, were discussed with as much familiarity as most scholars would find themselves qualified to make use of in speaking of Locke, or Stewart, or Brown. In commenting on the report of mine, (on Common School Libraries,) alluded to by him in the last Cultivator, he betrays an extensive knowledge of the literature of nearly every nation in Europe. As a writer, the public have long been acquainted with Mr. Gaylord. He wrote on nearly every class of topics connected with human improvement; in papers, magazines, and not unfrequently in books. But it is as an agricultural writer that he is best known. Here, taken all in all, he stands unrivalled. There are many agricultural writers in our country who are as well or better qualified to discuss a single topic, than he was. But I deem it not disrespectful to say, that for acquaintance with and ability to discuss clearly and correctly every department of agricultural science, he has not, he never has had, an equal in this State. He was every way fitted for an editor. Placable and forgiving in his temper; modest, disinterested, unprejudiced; never evincing a foolish credulity; above deception, despising quackery; with an honesty of motive that was never suspected.’

No one who knew intimately our lamented relative and friend, but will confirm the justice of this encomium. We trust that a collection of Willis Gaylord’s writings, literary, scientific, and agricultural, will be made by some competent hand. They are demanded, we perceive, by various public journals throughout the country. ••• Professor Gouraud’s extraordinary exposition of Phreno-Mnemotechny seems to be winning him ‘fame and fortune’ wherever he goes. He was in Philadelphia at the last advices, where his success was to the full as signal as in this city. It is obvious, we think, that the advantages of this great system will hereafter be chiefly enjoyed by the rising generation, who will thus be enabled to attain in six months an amount of information which in the ordinary way could scarcely be mastered in as many years. Still, the science has already been studied by hundreds of highly-endowed men, persons eminent in their own peculiar walks, who have cheerfully yielded their tributes of admiration to its vast resources. Several excellent articles upon this theme have from time to time appeared in the columns of the ‘New World’ weekly journal, from the pen of Mr. Mackay, one of the editors; who, being himself a pupil of Mr. Gouraud, writes from personal experience of the matter in question. ‘A thousand dollars,’ he avers, ‘would not be a fair equivalent for the great advantages obtainable by Phreno-Mnemotechny;’ and in this opinion there is a general concurrence of Professor Gouraud’s pupils in this city. ••• What a power there is in much of the occasional music one hears, to stir the heart! Perhaps you never heard Brough, to the ‘instrumentation’ of that fine composer and most facile performer, ‘Frank Brown,’ sing Barry Cornwall’s ‘King Death,’ or ‘The Admiral and the Shark?’ No? Then never let the opportunity to do so slip, if you should ever be so fortunate as to enjoy it. Listen to the words of the first-named:

I

King Death was a rare old fellow,
He sat where no sun could shine;
And he lifted his hand so yellow,
And poured out his coal-black wine!

II

There came to him many a maiden,
Whose eyes had forgot to shine,
And widows with grief o’er laden,
For a draught of his sleepy wine.

III

The scholar left all his learning,
The poet his fancied woes;
And the beauty her bloom returning
Like life to the fading rose.

IV

All came to the rare old fellow,
Who laughed till his eyes dropped brine,
As he gave them his hand so yellow,
And pledged them in Death’s black wine.

We should reluct at consorting with any citizen who could hear this song executed, in the manner of Brough, without feeling the electric fluid coursing up his vertebra, and passing off at the points of his hair, as the hollow tones waver down the chromatic, or wail in low and spondaic monotones. ‘F. B.’ was ‘rich’ in ‘Over There,’ a song which, like the numerous platitudes of the ‘Brigadier-General,’ is indebted to its music for its popularity. There ensues a verse that is very striking:

‘Oh! I wish I was a geese,
Over there! over there!
Oh! I wish I was a geese,
Over there!

‘Oh I wish I was a geese,
’Cause they lives and dies in peace,
And accumulates much grease,
Over there!’

Nothing by the author of Thomas Campbell’s ‘Woodman Spare that Beechen-Tree’ amended, equals the foregoing in the melody of its language or ‘breadth of effect.’ Speaking of songs: what can be more delightful than those of our fair correspondent Mrs. Hewitt? Her translations are excellent; and the words she has written for the use of that great musical genius, Wallace, in his romance of ‘Le Réve,’ are ‘beautiful exceedingly.’ Mrs. Bailey, a most pleasing artiste, well remembered here, has recently produced them at her concerts in Baltimore, with great éclat. ••• The ‘Spirit of the Times,’ with its numerous and ample pages, filled to overflowing with a variety which always seems to embrace ‘every thing that’s going;’ whether relating to all sorts of matters interesting to all sorts of sportsmen, or to literature, the drama, agricultural science, and the fine arts; this same widely popular journal is now afforded at FIVE DOLLARS A YEAR! ‘Ask that gentleman to sit down; he’s said enough!’ ••• Every-body must remember the ‘Boots’ who figures in one of Dickens’ stories, who was wont to designate all the lodgers by the names of their different kinds of boots, shoes, slippers, etc. The author of ‘The Two Patrons,’ a capital tale in the last number of Blackwood’s Magazine, has a serving-man of a similar kind, who in commenting upon the visitors at his master’s house, compares them to diverse dishes, as shadowing forth the relative degrees of aristocracy. He establishes some one supereminent article of food as a high ideal, to which all other kinds of edibles are to be referred; and the farther removed from this imaginary point of perfection any dish appears, the more vulgar and common-place it becomes: ‘They are low, uncommon low; reg’lar b’iled mutton and turnips. They may be rich, but they a’nt genteel. Nothink won’t do but to be at it from the very beginning; fight after it as much as they like; wear the best of gownds, and go to the fustest of boarding-schools; though they plays ever so well on the piando, and talks Italian like a reg’lar Frenchman, nothink won’t do; there’s the b’iled mutton and turnips sticking out still. Lady Charlotte, now, is a werry different affair; quite the roast fowl and bl’mange; how unlike our young ladies!—b’iled veals and parsley and butters—shocking wulgarity! And look at the father: I never see no gentleman with so broad a back, except p’raps a prize-ox.’ There is another very amusing character in the same story; one of those stupid matter-of-fact persons, who can never appreciate a figure of speech, or understand the simplest jest. A ‘benign cerulean,’ enthusiastic for the ‘rights of the sex,’ remarks that woman’s rights and duties are becoming every day more widely appreciated. ‘The old-fashioned scale must be readjusted; and woman, noble, elevating, surprising woman, ascend to the loftiest eminence, and sit superior on the topmost branch of the social tree.’ The ear of the matter-of-fact man catches the last simile, and he ventures to say: ‘Uncommon bad climbers, for the most part in general, is women. Their clothes isn’t adapted to it. I minds once I seen a woman climb a pole after a leg of mutting!’ If looks could have killed the mal-apropos speaker, he would not have survived the reception which this ridiculous remark encountered from every guest at the table. He was himself struck with the mournful silence that followed his observation, and added, by way of explanation: ‘That was a thing as happing’d on a pole; in coors it would be werry different on a tree, because of the branches.’ At length, however, the theme of woman is renewed by the former advocate: ‘Woman has not yet received her full development. The time will come when her influence shall be universal; when, softened, subdued, and elevated, the animal now called Man will be unknown. You will be all women: can the world look for a higher destiny?’ ‘In coors,’ observed the old spoon, ‘if we are all turned into woming, the world will come to an end. For ‘spose a case; ‘spose it had been my sister as married my wife, instead of me; it’s probable there would’nt have been no great fambly; wich in coors, if there was no population–’ What the fearful result of this supposed case would have been, was not permitted to transpire. The feminine ‘b’iled veals and parsley and butters’ immediately rose and left the table, and the matter-of-fact man to the ridicule of the male guests. ••• If our metropolitan friend ‘S.,’ who has disappointed us in a paper intended for the present number, ‘by reason of that contemptible disorder, dyspepsia,’ will take our advice, he will not be likely to fail us again, from a similar cause. Let him walk, as we do, some six or eight miles every day; and above all, pay frequent visits to our old friend Dr. Rabineau’s spacious and delightful Salt-Water Swimming Bath, near Castle-Garden; always remembering to make free use of his ‘crash towels.’ Dyspepsia never made a call upon us; and it ‘doesn’t associate with any body’ that keeps company with that public benefactor, Dr. Rabineau. ••• We should be reluctant to introduce the annexed profane story to our readers, but that it forcibly illustrates a characteristic vice of the wandering natives of a little island across the water, who are never at a loss for ‘themes of disgust’ in relation to America, and the ‘revolting habits’ of American citizens. On the continent, an Englishman is universally known by the soubriquet of ‘Signor Goddam; and many of our readers wilt remember Byron’s anecdote of the pompous Italian in London, who was desirous of imitating the English style in the British metropolis. ‘Bring me,’ said he, with an imperious tone, ‘bring me some wine! Why don’t you bring him?’ The servant answered: ‘I will, Sir.’ ‘You will?’ rejoined the Italian; ‘you will, eh? Goddam, you MUSHT!’ And this settled the question. But to the story ‘under notice,’ which was picked up by our correspondent at Cairo, in Egypt:

‘An impetuous Englishman, unacquainted with any language but his own, was desirous of seeing Egypt, and satisfying himself by occular demonstration of the truth of the many wonders which he had heard of that celebrated land. To get to Alexandria was easy enough; and some acquaintances whom he had picked up on the way, kindly facilitated his journey to the Nile, and saw him fairly afloat in his cangea for Cairo. But here, left with an Arab captain, and five swarthy Egyptians, his difficulties commenced, and without knowing a single word of Arabic, he had to depend on his own resources. The boats on the Nile are very ticklish flat-bottomed affairs, wretchedly handled. Before the wind they rush up like steamers, but on a wind, go to lee-ward like feathers; while in consequence of the Nile being full of shifting sand-banks, with a daily varying depth of water, they are continually running aground in the middle of the river. To this add the laziness of the captain and crew, to whom time was of no consequence; to-day, to-morrow, the next day, or a week hence, was all the same to them; they had no preferment to look forward to, no release from labor but death; and wisely enough, perhaps, exerted themselves as little as they could. ‘Inshalla! God was great, and the sun was hot! Why should they weary themselves?’ And so they took every opportunity to rest, cook their miserable fare, and dawdle the listless hours away. Of these dilatory habits of the natives the Englishman had been warned, and that whenever it happened, he was to prevent them from stopping, and force them to go on.

‘The opportunity was not long wanting. Without any reason sufficiently apparent to him, the huge stone fastened to a coir cable, and doing duty for an anchor, was dropped overboard, and the crew betook themselves to sleep. What was to be done? Of Arabic he had not a word to tell them to proceed; but he had plenty of English; so by dint of shaking his stick at the captain, and a somewhat boisterous ‘G-d d—n your eyes!’ roared out in a tone sufficiently indicative of his wishes, the primitive ‘anchor’ was got up, and onward they proceeded. Delighted to find his most British remonstrance succeed, he did not let it rust for want of practice; but every time the lazy crew attempted to ‘bring to,’ the stamp, the roar, and the shake of the stick, with the never-failing objurgation, were resorted to, and invariably with the same results. The passage up to Cairo averages three days, but vessels have been known to be as many as nine. Seven, eight, nine days past; twelve, fourteen; yet as if by magic, Grand Cairo seemed to recede before them. No time had been lost by him, for the wind had been strong in their favor, and he scarcely allowed the crew to take the necessary rest. It was very odd how greatly had he been misinformed in the distance! The very maps too seemed leagued against him; his manifold measurings and calculations were of no apparent avail. At last, at rising on the morning-of the fifteenth day, he found himself at anchor off a strange tumble-down-looking town, which by signs the captain gave him to understand was the place of his destination. Could that be ‘Grand Cairo!’ How odd! But then he was in a country of oddities; and on stepping ashore, he encountered a sun-burnt English-looking man gazing earnestly at the new arrival.

‘Is this Grand Cairo, Sir?’ inquired the astonished novice.

‘Grand Cairo, Sir! Good God, no! This is Kennah, a thousand miles beyond! Why, how the devil did you manage to get up here without knowing it? Do you speak Arabic?’

‘Not a word!’