Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852

Wouldst thou seek a wreath of glory on the ensanguined battle-field?
Know that to a single victor, thousands in subjection yield;
Thousands who with pulses beating high as his, the strife essayed —
Thousands who with arms as valiant, wielded each his shining blade —
Thousands who in heaps around him, vanquished, in the dust are laid!

Vanquished! while above the tumult, Victory’s trump, with swelling surge,
Sounds for him a song of triumph – sounds for them a funeral dirge!
E’en the laurel wreath he bindeth on his brow, their life-blood stains —
Sighs, and tears, and blood commingling, make the glory that he gains —
And unknown, sleeps many a hero, on Ambition’s burial plains!

Or, the purple field despising – deeming war’s red glory shame —
Wouldst thou, in seclusion, gather greener laurels, purer fame?
Stately halls Ambition reareth, all along her highway side —
Halls of learning, halls of science, temples where the arts abide —
Wilt thou here secure a garland woven by scholastic pride?

Ah! within those cloisters gloomy, dimly wastes the midnight oil —
Days of penury and sorrow alternate with nights of toil!
Countless crowds those portals enter, breathing aspirations high —
Youthful, ardent, self-reliant – each believing triumph nigh;
Countless crowds grow wan and weary, and within those portals die!

Ay, of all who enter thither, few obtain the proffered prize,
While unblest, unwept, unhonored, undeveloped genius dies!
Genius which had else its glory on remotest ages shown —
Beamed through History’s deathless pages, glowed on canvas, lived in stone —
Yet along Ambition’s way-side, fills it many a grave unknown!

But, perchance thou pinest only for those grottoes old and hoar,
In whose deep recesses hidden, Fortune heaps her glittering store:
Enter, then, the dreary pathway – but, above each lonely mound
Lightly tread, and pause to ponder – for, like those who slumber round,
Thou mayst also lie forgotten on Ambition’s burial ground!

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS

The Upper Ten Thousand. By Charles Astor Bristed. Stringer & Townsend, Broadway.

A very clever book, by a rather clever man. We learn it is the most popular brochure of the season, nor do we wonder at it, for it has all the elements to procure it a fleeting popularity – pungency, personality, impudence, insolence, ill-nature, satire and slang, malignity and mendacity – every thing, in short, likely to tickle the palates of all classes, to pander to the worst tastes, please the worst passions, and gratify the self-adulation of all readers.

It is not to be denied that the descriptions are racy and pointed; that some caste-affectations are skillfully satirized; some local absurdities happily shown up; and that there are some points of humor, and even some sound criticisms, mixed up with much grossness, much ill taste, most disgusting egotism, and personality the most broad, brutal, and malign.

As to Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s denial of the applicability of Harry Benson, alias Harry Masters, in this edition, to himself, and of all personality or individual satire throughout the pages of the work – he may say what he will, but no one will believe him. An author who, in depicting a fictitious hero, chooses to identify that hero with himself, to the extent of accurately describing the houses of his own grandfather and father-in-law, with their respective bearings, distances and situations in the city, as those of the same kinsmen of his hero – of attributing to him well-known incidents of his own life, such as lending money to a dissipated and debauched young ex-lieutenant of the English army, and then dunning his half heartbroken father for the paltry amount, with rowdy letters, which he subsequently published in the newspapers – buying a negro slave, in order to liberate him and gain Buncombe, as it is called, by making capital of his philanthropy in the public journals – and, lastly, ascribing to his fictitious personage his own domestic grievances, and his own quarrels at a watering-place – all matters of actual notoriety – has no earthly right to complain if the public say he has made himself his own hero.

Nor when he describes invidiously, and most ill-naturedly depicts well-known persons of “our set,” as he chooses to denominate it – though we greatly doubt his belonging even to it, trifling, ridiculous and contemptible as it is – so accurately that neither the persons caricatured, nor any who know them, can avoid at a glance recognizing their identity, has he any reason to wonder if his wit be rewarded with the cowhide. When we compare Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s positive denial of any personality, with his broad and brutal delineation of the Hon. Pompey Whitey, editor of a New York Socialist, Anti-Rent, Abolition, and Ghost-believing journal, ex-member of Congress – we say brutal, because in it he lifts the veil of domestic life, and touches upon matters which, whether true or false, the public has no right to hear of – we know not which most to wonder at, the audacity, or the shortsightedness, of the falsehood.

The attempt at disguise is so feeble that we doubt not the prototype, either of Pompey Whitey or of the Catholic Archbishop Feegrave, could readily obtain exemplary damages from any jury, if he should think it worth the while to break a butterfly upon the wheel.

To show the perfect identity of the persons Henry Masters and Charles Astor Bristed, we shall proceed to quote two or three passages, which are, by the way, singularly good specimens both of the style of the book, with its flippancy and smartness, its insolence and egotism, its blended capability of amusing and disgusting – the revolting effect it must have on every high judgment and right thinking mind, and the power of entertaining the fashionable mob, who delight in scandalizing and abusing their dearest friends, and the vulgar mob, who are always dying to hear something about the fashionables, be it right or wrong.

Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s money concerns with ex-Lieutenant Law of the British army!

“At that moment Clara appeared, in a dressing-gown also; but hers was a tricolor pattern, lined with blue silk.

“‘A very handsome young couple, certainly,’ thought the Englishman, ‘but how theatrically got up? I wonder if they always go about in the country dressed this way!’ And he thought of the sensation, the mouvemens divers that such a costume would excite among the guests of the paternal mansion at Alderstave.

“Masters, with a rapid alteration of style and manner, and a vast elaboration of politeness, introduced his wife and guest. Ashburner fidgeted a little, and looked as if he did not exactly know what to do with his arms and legs. Mrs. Masters was as completely at her ease as if she had known him all her life, and, by way of putting him at his ease too, began to abuse England and the English to him, and retail the old grievance of her husband’s plunder by Ensign Lawless, and the ungentlemanly behavior of Lawless père on the occasion, and the voluminous correspondence that took place between him and Harry, which the Blunder and Bluster afterward published in full, under the heading ‘American Hospitality and English Repudiation,’ in extra caps; and so she went on to the intense mystification of Ashburner, who couldn’t precisely make out whether she was in jest or earnest, till Masters came to the rescue.”

Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s purchase of the negro, and his opinion of Southern gentlemen in general. Of which said Southern gentlemen will doubtless die broken-hearted!

“‘I got these a bargain for 800 dollars from a friend,’ quoth Masters, anent his horses, ‘who was just married and going abroad. Probably a jockey would have charged me four figures for them. That was a year ago last month. I had twenty-six hundred then to spend in luxuries, and invested it in three nearly equal portions. It may amuse to know now. These horses I bought for myself, as I said, for 800 dollars; a grand Pleyel for Mrs. Masters for 900 dollars; and a man for myself for the same sum.’

“‘A man?’

“‘Yes, a coachman. You look mystified. Come, now, candidly, is New York a slave State? Do you know, or what do you think?’

“‘I had supposed it was not.’

“‘You supposed right, and know more about it than all your countrymen take the trouble to know. Nevertheless, it is literally true that I bought this man for the other 900 dollars; and it happened in this wise. One fine morning there was a great hue and cry in Washington. Nearly a hundred slaves of different ages, sexes, and colors, most of them house-servants in the best families, had made a stampedo, as the Western men say. They had procured a sloop through the aid of some white men, and sailed off up the Potomac – not a very brilliant proceeding on their part. The poor devils were all taken, and sentence of transportation passed upon them – for it amounts to that: They were condemned (by their masters) to be sold into the South-Western States. Some of the cases were peculiarly distressing – among others, a quadroon man, who had been coachman to one of our government secretaries. He had a wife and five children, all free in Washington; but two of his sisters were in bondage with him – very pretty and intelligent girls report said. The three were sold to a slave-trader, who kept them some time on speculation. The circumstance attracted a good deal of attention in New York; some of the papers were full of it. I saw the account one morning, and happening to have those 900 dollars on hand, I wrote straight off to one of our abolition members at Washington, (I never saw him in my life, but one doesn’t stand on ceremony in such matters, and the whole thing was done on the spur of the moment,) saying that if either of the girls could be bought for that sum I would give it. The gentleman who had the honor of my correspondence put upon him, wrote to another gentleman – standing counsel, I believe, for the Washington abolitionists – and he wrote to the slave-trader, one Bruin, (devilish good name that for his business!) who sent back a glorious answer, which I keep among my epistolary curiosities. ‘The girls are very fine ones,’ said this precious specimen; ‘I have been offered 1000 dollars for one of them by a Louisiana gentleman. They cannot be sold at a lower price than 1200 dollars and 1300 dollars respectively. If I could be sure that your friend’s motives were those of unmixed philanthropy, I would make a considerable reduction. The man, who is a very deserving person, and whom I should be glad to see at liberty, can be had for 900 dollars; but I suppose your correspondent takes less interest in him.’ The infernal scamp thought I wanted a mistress, and his virtuous mind revolted at the thought of parting with one of the girls for such a purpose – except for an extra consideration.’[9 - All the above incidents are literally true, and the extracts from Bruin’s letter almost verbatim copies.]

“‘It must have been a wet blanket upon your philanthropic intentions.’

“‘Really I hardly knew whether to be most angry or amused at the turn things had taken. As to Clara, she thought it a glorious joke, and did nothing for the next month but quiz me about the quadroon girls, and ask me when she might expect them. However, I thought, with the Ethiopian in the ballad, that ‘it would never do to give it up so,’ and accordingly wrote back to Washington that I should be very glad indeed to buy the man. Unfortunately, the man was half-way to Mississippi by that time – Now we are well up that hill and can take a good brush down to the next. G’l-lang, ponies! He-eh! Wake up, Firefly!’

“‘And then?’

“‘Oh, how he got off, after all! It was a special interference of Providence. (G’lang, Star!) The Hon. Secretary felt some compunctions about the fate of his coachman, and hearing that the money was all ready to pay for him, actually paid himself the additional 50 dollars required to bring him back to Washington; so he lives there now a free man with his family – at least, for all I know to the contrary, for I never heard any more about him since.’

“‘And what became of the girls?’

“‘There was a subscription raised for them here. My brother Carl gave something toward it – not that he cared particularly for the young ladies, but because he had a strong desire to sell the gentleman from Louisiana. They were ransomed, and brought here, and put to school somewhere, and a vast fuss made about them – quite enough to spoil them, I’m afraid. And so ends that story. What a joke, to think of a man being worth just as much as a grand piano, and a little more than a pair of ponies!’

“Ashburner thought that Masters treated the whole affair too much as a joke.

“‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘if these people came to New York, or you met them traveling, would you associate with them on familiar terms?’

“‘Not with Mr. Bruin, certainly,’ replied Harry. ‘To give the devil his due, such a man is considered to follow an infamous vocation, even in his part of the country.’

“‘But the Honorable Secretary and the other gentlemen, who sell their men to work on the cotton plantations and their women for something worse?’

“‘H-m! A-h! Did you ever meet a Russian? – in your own country, I mean.’

“‘Yes, I met one at dinner once. I wont pretend to pronounce his name.’

“‘Did you go out of the way to be uncivil to him, because he owned serfs?’

“‘No, but I didn’t go out of my way to be particularly genial with him.’