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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9239-0.txt b/9239-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a24537 --- /dev/null +++ b/9239-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1259 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Old News, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Old News + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: September 18, 2003 [eBook #9239] +[Most recently updated: May 16, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD NEWS *** + + + + +Old News + +by Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + + +There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small +half-sheet, yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted +with a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of +antiquity, in a species of literature which we are accustomed to +consider as connected only with the present moment. Ephemeral as they +were intended and supposed to be, they have long outlived the printer +and his whole subscription-list, and have proved more durable, as to +their physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and stone of +the town where they were issued. These are but the least of their +triumphs. The government, the interests, the opinions, in short, all +the moral circumstances that were contemporary with their publication, +have passed away, and left no better record of what they were than may +be found in these frail leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers! +Their productions excel all others in immediate popularity, and are +certain to acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They +scatter their leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity +collects them, to be treasured up among the best materials of its +wisdom. With hasty pens they write for immortality. + +It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets between +the thumb and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety +years ago, held it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire. +Many of the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. There +he sits, a major, a member of the council, and a weighty merchant, in +his high-backed arm-chair, wearing a solemn wig and grave attire, such +as befits his imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little +finery, except a huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved. +Observe the awful reverence of his visage, as he reads his Majesty’s +most gracious speech; and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders +over some paragraph of provincial politics, and the keener intelligence +with which he glances at the ship-news and commercial advertisements. +Observe, and smile! He may have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, +the wisdom of the politician appears like folly, because we can compare +its prognostics with actual results; and the old merchant seems to have +busied himself about vanities, because we know that the expected ships +have been lost at sea, or mouldered at the wharves; that his imported +broadcloths were long ago worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine +quaffed to the lees; and that the most precious leaves of his ledger +have become waste-paper. Yet, his avocations were not so vain as our +philosophic moralizing. In this world we are the things of a moment, +and are made to pursue momentary things, with here and there a thought +that stretches mistily towards eternity, and perhaps may endure as +long. All philosophy that would abstract mankind from the present is no +more than words. + +The first pages of most of these old papers are as soporific as a bed +of poppies. Here we have an erudite clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge +professor, occupying several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate +and Brady, as compared with the New England version of the Psalms. Of +course, the preference is given to the native article. Here are doctors +disagreeing about the treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and +blackguarding each other with a characteristic virulence that renders +the controversy not altogether unreadable. Here are President +Wigglesworth and the Rev. Dr. Colman, endeavoring to raise a fund for +the support of missionaries among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay. +Easy would be the duties of such a mission now! Here—for there is +nothing new under the sun—are frequent complaints of the disordered +state of the currency, and the project of a bank with a capital of five +hundred thousand pounds, secured on lands. Here are literary essays, +from the Gentleman’s Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, from +the London newspapers. And here, occasionally, are specimens of New +England honor, laboriously light and lamentably mirthful, as if some +very sober person, in his zeal to be merry, were dancing a jig to the +tune of a funeral-psalm. All this is wearisome, and we must turn the +leaf. + +There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, in the perusal of +those little items which characterize the manners and circumstances of +the country. New England was then in a state incomparably more +picturesque than at present, or than it has been within the memory of +man; there being, as yet, only a narrow strip of civilization along the +edge of a vast forest, peopled with enough of its original race to +contrast the savage life with the old customs of another world. The +white population, also, was diversified by the influx of all sorts of +expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation of +bond-servants from Ireland and elsewhere, so that there was a wild and +unsettled multitude, forming a strong minority to the sober descendants +of the Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark +shade to the picture of society. The consequence of all this was a +great variety and singularity of action and incident, many instances of +which might be selected from these columns, where they are told with a +simplicity and quaintness of style that bring the striking points into +very strong relief. It is natural to suppose, too, that these +circumstances affected the body of the people, and made their course of +life generally less regular than that of their descendants. There is no +evidence that the moral standard was higher then than now; or, indeed, +that morality was so well defined as it has since become. There seem to +have been quite as many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the +number of honest deeds; there were murders, in hot-blood and in malice; +and bloody quarrels over liquor. Some of our fathers also appear to +have been yoked to unfaithful wives, if we may trust the frequent +notices of elopements from bed and board. The pillory, the +whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows, each had their use in those +old times; and, in short, as often as our imagination lives in the +past, we find it a ruder and rougher age than our own, with hardly any +perceptible advantages, and much that gave life a gloomier tinge. In +vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air over our picture of +this period; nothing passes before our fancy but a crowd of sad-visaged +people, moving duskily through a dull gray atmosphere. It is certain +that winter rushed upon them with fiercer storms than now, blocking up +the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming the roads along the sea-coast +with mountain snow drifts; so that weeks elapsed before the newspaper +could announce how many travellers had perished, or what wrecks had +strewn the shore. The cold was more piercing then, and lingered further +into the spring, making the chimney-corner a comfortable seat till long +past May-day. By the number of such accidents on record, we might +suppose that the thunder-stone, as they termed it, fell oftener and +deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and unsheltered wretches. In fine, our +fathers bore the brunt of more raging and pitiless elements than we. +There were forebodings, also, of a more fearful tempest than those of +the elements. At two or three dates, we have stories of drums, +trumpets, and all sorts of martial music, passing athwart the midnight +sky, accompanied with the—roar of cannon and rattle of musketry, +prophetic echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the land. +Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French fleets on +the coast, and of the march of French and Indians through the +wilderness, along the borders of the settlements. The country was +saddened, moreover, with grievous sicknesses. The small-pox raged in +many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a scourge, to have +been regarded with as much affright as that which drove the throng from +Wall Street and Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There +were autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive +throat-distemper,—diseases unwritten in medical hooks. The dark +superstition of former days had not yet been so far dispelled as not to +heighten the gloom of the present times. There is an advertisement, +indeed, by a committee of the Legislature, calling for information as +to the circumstances of sufferers in the “late calamity of 1692,” with +a view to reparation for their losses and misfortunes. But the +tenderness with which, after above forty years, it was thought +expedient to allude to the witchcraft delusion, indicates a good deal +of lingering error, as well as the advance of more enlightened +opinions. The rigid hand of Puritanism might yet be felt upon the reins +of government, while some of the ordinances intimate a disorderly +spirit on the part of the people. The Suffolk justices, after a +preamble that great disturbances have been committed by persons +entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes, and other +wheel-carriages, on the evening before the Sabbath, give notice that a +watch will hereafter be set at the “fortification-gate,” to prevent +these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect of a +walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members, with +a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes proclamation against +certain “loose and dissolute people” who have been wont to stop +passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, “otherwise called +Pope’s Day,” and levy contributions for the building of bonfires. In +this instance, the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate. + +The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the +sombre character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer +seldom fails to notice that the corpse was “very decently interred.” +But when some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of +the “worshipful” such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of +deacon, justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic +sketch of his honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black +pomp of his funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and +mourning rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have +seen it represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the +bearers, and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black +garments, while grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds +of doleful emblems, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach maker +at this period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the chief of +his living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be +fair, however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader’s +mind; nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in +dark attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this +reminds us that there is an incidental notice of the “dancing-school +near the Orange-Tree,” whence we may infer that the salutatory art was +occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic +gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the +aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor was the centre. But we +are scandalized at the attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more +reprehensible amusement: he challenges the whole country to match his +black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to be decided on Metonomy +Common or Chelsea Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be +inferred from this freak of an individual. There were no daily and +continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes the people +rejoiced, in their own peculiar fashion, oftener with a calm, religious +smile than with a broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great +family, at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth throughout +the pleasant days of Election-week. This latter was the true holiday +season of New England. Military musters were too seriously important in +that warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they stirred up +and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions of solemn festival to +the governor and great men of the province, at the expense of the +field-offices. The Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; +for the anniversary of the king’s birth appears to have been celebrated +with most imposing pomp, by salutes from Castle William, a military +parade, a grand dinner at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination +in the evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in these +testimonials of loyalty to George the Second. So long as they dreaded +the re-establishment of a popish dynasty, the people were fervent for +the house of Hanover: and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the +country was a barrier between the monarch and the occasional +discontents of the colonies; the waves of faction sometimes reached the +governor’s chair, but never swelled against the throne. Thus, until +oppression was felt to proceed from the king’s own hand, New England +rejoiced with her whole heart on his Majesty’s birthday. + +But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of the population, +since it was their gift to be merry in the worst of circumstances; and +they endured, comparatively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of +our fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in these human +commodities. No advertisements are more frequent than those of “a negro +fellow, fit for almost any household work”; “a negro woman, honest, +healthy, and capable”; “a negro wench of many desirable qualities”; “a +negro man, very fit for a taylor.” We know not in what this natural +fitness for a tailor consisted, unless it were some peculiarity of +conformation that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves of a +family were inconveniently prolific,—it being not quite orthodox to +drown the superfluous offspring, like a litter of kittens,—notice was +promulgated of “a negro child to be given away.” Sometimes the slaves +assumed the property of their own persons, and made their escape; among +many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry after his negro +Juba. But, without venturing a word in extenuation of the general +system, we confess our opinion that Caesar, Pompey, Scipio, and all +such great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised had they +stayed at home, foddering the cattle, cleaning dishes,—in fine, +performing their moderate share of the labors of life, without being +harassed by its cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not +excluded from the domestic affections: in families of middling rank, +they had their places at the board; and when the circle closed round +the evening hearth, its blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, +intermixed familiarly with their master’s children. It must have +contributed to reconcile them to their lot, that they saw white men and +women imported from Europe as they had been from Africa, and sold, +though only for a term of years, yet as actual slaves to the highest +bidder. Slave labor being but a small part of the industry of the +country, it did not change the character of the people; the latter, on +the contrary, modified and softened the institution, making it a +patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity of the times. + +Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were +peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on +his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head +inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the +crooked streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the +advertisements of the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be +mindful, says he, to call at Captain Scut’s, in Creek Lane, and examine +his rich velvet, whether it be fit for my apparel on Election-day,—that +I may wear a stately aspect in presence of the governor and my brethren +of the council. I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the +jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and mine have lasted +me some half-score years. My fair daughter Miriam shall have an apron +of gold brocade, and a velvet mask,—though it would be a pity the wench +should hide her comely visage; and also a French cap, from Robert +Jenkins’s, on the north side of the town-house. He hath beads, too, and +ear-rings, and necklaces, of all sorts; these are but vanities, +nevertheless, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame desireth +another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I must inspect the lot of +Irish lasses, for sale by Samuel Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; +as also the likely negro wench, at Captain Bulfinch’s. It were not +amiss that I took my daughter Miriam to see the royal waxwork, near the +town-dock, that she may learn to honor our most gracious King and +Queen, and their royal progeny, even in their waxen images; not that I +would approve of image-worship. The camel, too, that strange beast from +Africa, with two great humps, to be seen near the Common; methinks I +would fain go thither, and see how the old patriarchs were wont to +ride. I will tarry awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good +friends Kneeland & Green, and purchase Dr. Colman’s new sermon, and the +volume of discourses by Mr. Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy +on baptism, between the Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary; and +see whether this George Whitefield be as great in print as he is famed +to be in the pulpit. By that time, the auction will have commenced at +the Royal Exchange, in King Street. Moreover, I must look to the +disposal of my last cargo of West India rum and muscovado sugar; and +also the lot of choice Cheshire cheese, lest it grow mouldy. It were +well that I ordered a cask of good English beer, at the lower end of +Milk Street. + +Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of stout old +Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto-wines, which I have now lying in the +cellar of the Old South meeting-house. But, a pipe or two of the rich +Canary shall be reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own +wine-cellar, and gladden my heart when it begins to droop with old age. + +Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of his sepulchre? Did he +bethink him to call at the workshop of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold Lane, +and select such a gravestone as would best please him? There wrought +the man whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen, was +ultimately in demand by all the busy multitude who have left a record +of their earthly toil in these old time-stained papers. And now, as we +turn over the volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy stones of +a burial-ground. + +II. THE OLD FRENCH WAR. + +At a period about twenty years subsequent to that of our former sketch, +we again attempt a delineation of some of the characteristics of life +and manners in New England. Our text-book, as before, is a file of +antique newspapers. The volume which serves us for a writing-desk is a +folio of larger dimensions than the one before described; and the +papers are generally printed on a whole sheet, sometimes with a +supplemental leaf of news and advertisements. They have a venerable +appearance, being overspread with a duskiness of more than seventy +years, and discolored, here and there, with the deeper stains of some +liquid, as if the contents of a wineglass had long since been splashed +upon the page. Still, the old book conveys an impression that, when the +separate numbers were flying about town, in the first day or two of +their respective existences, they might have been fit reading for very +stylish people. Such newspapers could have been issued nowhere but in a +metropolis the centre, not only of public and private affairs, but of +fashion and gayety. Without any discredit to the colonial press, these +might have been, and probably were, spread out on the tables of the +British coffee-house, in king Street, for the perusal of the throng of +officers who then drank their wine at that celebrated establishment. To +interest these military gentlemen, there were bulletins of the war +between Prussia and Austria; between England and France, on the old +battle-plains of Flanders; and between the same antagonists, in the +newer fields of the East Indies,—and in our own trackless woods, where +white men never trod until they came to fight there. Or, the travelled +American, the petit-maitre of the colonies,—the ape of London foppery, +as the newspaper was the semblance of the London journals,—he, with his +gray powdered periwig, his embroidered coat, lace ruffles, and glossy +silk stockings, golden-clocked,—his buckles of glittering paste, at +knee-band and shoe-strap,—his scented handkerchief, and chapeau beneath +his arm, even such a dainty figure need not have disdained to glance at +these old yellow pages, while they were the mirror of passing times. +For his amusement, there were essays of wit and humor, the light +literature of the day, which, for breadth and license, might have +proceeded from the pen of Fielding or Smollet; while, in other columns, +he would delight his imagination with the enumerated items of all sorts +of finery, and with the rival advertisements of half a dozen +peruke-makers. In short, newer manners and customs had almost entirely +superseded those of the Puritans, even in their own city of refuge. + +It was natural that, with the lapse of time and increase of wealth and +population, the peculiarities of the early settlers should have waxed +fainter and fainter through the generations of their descendants, who +also had been alloyed by a continual accession of emigrants from many +countries and of all characters. It tended to assimilate the colonial +manners to those of the mother-country, that the commercial intercourse +was great, and that the merchants often went thither in their own +ships. Indeed, almost every man of adequate fortune felt a yearning +desire, and even judged it a filial duty, at least once in his life, to +visit the home of his ancestors. They still called it their own home, +as if New England were to them, what many of the old Puritans had +considered it, not a permanent abiding-place, but merely a lodge in the +wilderness, until the trouble of the times should be passed. The +example of the royal governors must have had much influence on the +manners of the colonists; for these rulers assumed a degree of state +and splendor which had never been practised by their predecessors, who +differed in nothing from republican chief-magistrates, under the old +charter. The officers of the crown, the public characters in the +interest of the administration, and the gentlemen of wealth and good +descent, generally noted for their loyalty, would constitute a +dignified circle, with the governor in the centre, bearing a very +passable resemblance to a court. Their ideas, their habits, their bode +of courtesy, and their dress would have all the fresh glitter of +fashions immediately derived from the fountain-head, in England. To +prevent their modes of life from becoming the standard with all who had +the ability to imitate them, there was no longer an undue severity of +religion, nor as yet any disaffection to British supremacy, nor +democratic prejudices against pomp. Thus, while the colonies were +attaining that strength which was soon to render them an independent +republic, it might have been supposed that the wealthier classes were +growing into an aristocracy, and ripening for hereditary rank, while +the poor were to be stationary in their abasement, and the country, +perhaps, to be a sister monarchy with England. Such, doubtless, were +the plausible conjectures deduced from the superficial phenomena of our +connection with a monarchical government, until the prospective +nobility were levelled with the mob, by the mere gathering of winds +that preceded the storm of the Revolution. The portents of that storm +were not yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, therefore, +would have the rich effect produced by distinctions of rank that seemed +permanent, and by appropriate habits of splendor on the part of the +gentry. + +The people at large had been somewhat changed in character, since the +period of our last sketch, by their great exploit, the conquest of +Louisburg. After that event, the New-Englanders never settled into +precisely the same quiet race which all the world had imagined them to +be. They had done a deed of history, and were anxious to add new ones +to the record. They had proved themselves powerful enough to influence +the result of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and willingly +consented, to join their strength against the enemies of England; on +those fields, at least, where victory would redound to their peculiar +advantage. And now, in the heat of the Old French War, they might well +be termed a martial people. Every man was a soldier, or the father or +brother of a soldier; and the whole land literally echoed with the roll +of the drum, either beating up for recruits among the towns and +villages, or striking the march towards the frontiers. Besides the +provincial troops, there were twenty-three British regiments in the +northern colonies. The country has never known a period of such +excitement and warlike life; except during the Revolution,—perhaps +scarcely then; for that was a lingering war, and this a stirring and +eventful one. + +One would think that no very wonderful talent was requisite for an +historical novel, when the rough and hurried paragraphs of these +newspapers can recall the past so magically. We seem to be waiting in +the street for the arrival of the post-rider—who is seldom more than +twelve hours beyond his time—with letters, by way of Albany, from the +various departments of the army. Or, we may fancy ourselves in the +circle of listeners, all with necks stretched out towards an old +gentleman in the centre, who deliberately puts on his spectacles, +unfolds the wet newspaper, and gives us the details of the broken and +contradictory reports, which have been flying from mouth to mouth, ever +since the courier alighted at Secretary Oliver’s office. Sometimes we +have an account of the Indian skirmishes near Lake George, and how a +ranging party of provincials were so closely pursued, that they threw +away their arms, and eke their shoes, stockings, and breeches, barely +reaching the camp in their shirts, which also were terribly tattered by +the bushes. Then, there is a journal of the siege of Fort Niagara, so +minute that it almost numbers the cannon-shot and bombs, and describes +the effect of the latter missiles on the French commandant’s stone +mansion, within the fortress. In the letters of the provincial +officers, it is amusing to observe how some of them endeavor to catch +the careless and jovial turn of old campaigners. One gentleman tells us +that he holds a brimming glass in his hand, intending to drink the +health of his correspondent, unless a cannon ball should dash the +liquor from his lips; in the midst of his letter he hears the bells of +the French churches ringing, in Quebec, and recollects that it is +Sunday; whereupon, like a good Protestant, he resolves to disturb the +Catholic worship by a few thirty-two pound shot. While this wicked man +of war was thus making a jest of religion, his pious mother had +probably put up a note, that very Sabbath-day, desiring the “prayers of +the congregation for a son gone a soldiering.” We trust, however, that +there were some stout old worthies who were not ashamed to do as their +fathers did, but went to prayer, with their soldiers, before leading +them to battle; and doubtless fought none the worse for that. If we had +enlisted in the Old French War, it should have been under such a +captain; for we love to see a man keep the characteristics of his +country.* + +[* The contemptuous jealousy of the British army, from the general +downwards, was very galling to the provincial troops. In one of the +newspapers, there is an admirable letter of a New England man, copied +from the London Chronicle, defending the provincials with an ability +worthy of Franklin, and somewhat in his style. The letter is +remarkable, also, because it takes up the cause of the whole range of +colonies, as if the writer looked upon them all as constituting one +country, and that his own. Colonial patriotism had not hitherto been so +broad a sentiment.] + + +These letters, and other intelligence from the army, are pleasant and +lively reading, and stir up the mind like the music of a drum and fife. +It is less agreeable to meet with accounts of women slain and scalped, +and infants dashed against trees, by the Indians on the frontiers. It +is a striking circumstance, that innumerable bears, driven from the +woods, by the uproar of contending armies in their accustomed haunts, +broke into the settlements, and committed great ravages among children, +as well as sheep and swine. Some of them prowled where bears had never +been for a century, penetrating within a mile or two of Boston; a fact +that gives a strong and gloomy impression of something very terrific +going on in the forest, since these savage beasts fled townward to +avoid it. But it is impossible to moralize about such trifles, when +every newspaper contains tales of military enterprise, and often a +huzza for victory; as, for instance, the taking of Ticonderoga, long a +place of awe to the provincials, and one of the bloodiest spots in the +present war. Nor is it unpleasant, among whole pages of exultation, to +find a note of sorrow for the fall of some brave officer; it comes +wailing in, like a funeral strain amidst a peal of triumph, itself +triumphant too. Such was the lamentation over Wolfe. Somewhere, in this +volume of newspapers, though we cannot now lay our finger upon the +passage, we recollect a report that General Wolfe was slain, not by the +enemy, but by a shot from his own soldiers. + +In the advertising columns, also, we are continually reminded that the +country was in a state of war. Governor Pownall makes proclamation for +the enlisting of soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend +to the discipline of their regiments, and the selectmen of every town +to replenish their stocks of ammunition. The magazine, by the way, was +generally kept in the upper loft of the village meeting-house. The +provincial captains are drumming up for soldiers, in every newspaper. +Sir Jeffrey Amherst advertises for batteaux-men, to be employed on the +lakes; and gives notice to the officers of seven British regiments, +dispersed on the recruiting service, to rendezvous in Boston. Captain +Hallowell, of the province ship-of-war King George, invites able-bodied +seamen to serve his Majesty, for fifteen pounds, old tenor, per month. +By the rewards offered, there would appear to have been frequent +desertions from the New England forces: we applaud their wisdom, if not +their valor or integrity. Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls, +firelocks, pistols, swords, and hangers, were common articles of +merchandise. Daniel Jones, at the sign of the hat and helmet, offers to +supply officers with scarlet broadcloth, gold-lace for hats and +waistcoats, cockades, and other military foppery, allowing credit until +the payrolls shall be made up. This advertisement gives us quite a +gorgeous idea of a provincial captain in full dress. + +At the commencement of the campaign of 1759, the British general +informs the farmers of New England that a regular market will be +established at Lake George, whither they are invited to bring +provisions and refreshments of all sorts, for the use of the army. +Hence, we may form a singular picture of petty traffic, far away from +any permanent settlements, among the hills which border that romantic +lake, with the solemn woods overshadowing the scene. Carcasses of +bullocks and fat porkers are placed upright against the huge trunks of +the trees; fowls hang from the lower branches, bobbing against the +heads of those beneath; butter-firkins, great cheeses, and brown loaves +of household bread, baked in distant ovens, are collected under +temporary shelters or pine-boughs, with gingerbread, and pumpkin-pies, +perhaps, and other toothsome dainties. Barrels of cider and spruce-beer +are running freely into the wooden canteens of the soldiers. Imagine +such a scene, beneath the dark forest canopy, with here and there a few +struggling sunbeams, to dissipate the gloom. See the shrewd yeomen, +haggling with their scarlet-coated customers, abating somewhat in their +prices, but still dealing at monstrous profit; and then complete the +picture with circumstances that bespeak war and danger. A cannon shall +be seen to belch its smoke from among the trees, against some distant +canoes on the lake; the traffickers shall pause, and seem to hearken, +at intervals, as if they heard the rattle of musketry or the shout of +Indians; a scouting-party shall be driven in, with two or three faint +and bloody men among them. And, in spite of these disturbances, +business goes on briskly in the market of the wilderness. + +It must not be supposed that the martial character of the times +interrupted all pursuits except those connected with war. On the +contrary, there appears to have been a general vigor and vivacity +diffused into the whole round of colonial life. During the winter of +1759, it was computed that about a thousand sled-loads of country +produce were daily brought into Boston market. It was a symptom of an +irregular and unquiet course of affairs, that innumerable lotteries +were projected, ostensibly for the purpose of public improvements, such +as roads and bridges. Many females seized the opportunity to engage in +business: as, among others, Alice Quick, who dealt in crockery and +hosiery, next door to Deacon Beautineau’s; Mary Jackson, who sold +butter, at the Brazen-Head, in Cornhill; Abigail Hiller, who taught +ornamental work, near the Orange-Tree, where also were to be seen the +King and Queen, in wax-work; Sarah Morehead, an instructor in +glass-painting, drawing, and japanning; Mary Salmon, who shod horses, +at the South End; Harriet Pain, at the Buck and Glove, and Mrs. +Henrietta Maria Caine, at the Golden Fan, both fashionable milliners; +Anna Adams, who advertises Quebec and Garrick bonnets, Prussian cloaks, +and scarlet cardinals, opposite the old brick meeting-house; besides a +lady at the head of a wine and spirit establishment. Little did these +good dames expect to reappear before the public, so long after they had +made their last courtesies behind the counter. Our great-grandmothers +were a stirring sisterhood, and seem not to have been utterly despised +by the gentlemen at the British coffee-house; at least, some gracious +bachelor, there resident, gives public notice of his willingness to +take a wife, provided she be not above twenty-three, and possess brown +hair, regular features, a brisk eye, and a fortune. Now, this was great +condescension towards the ladies of Massachusetts Bay, in a threadbare +lieutenant of foot. + +Polite literature was beginning to make its appearance. Few native +works were advertised, it is true, except sermons and treatises of +controversial divinity; nor were the English authors of the day much +known on this side of the Atlantic. But catalogues were frequently +offered at auction or private sale, comprising the standard English +books, history, essays, and poetry, of Queen Anne’s age, and the +preceding century. We see nothing in the nature of a novel, unless it +be “The Two Mothers, price four coppers.” There was an American poet, +however, of whom Mr. Kettell has preserved no specimen,—the author of +“War, an Heroic Poem”; he publishes by subscription, and threatens to +prosecute his patrons for not taking their books. We have discovered a +periodical, also, and one that has a peculiar claim to be recorded +here, since it bore the title of “THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE,” a +forgotten predecessor, for which we should have a filial respect, and +take its excellence on trust. The fine arts, too, were budding into +existence. At the “old glass and picture shop,” in Cornhill, various +maps, plates, and views are advertised, and among them a “Prospect of +Boston,” a copperplate engraving of Quebec, and the effigies of all the +New England ministers ever done in mezzotinto. All these must have been +very salable articles. Other ornamental wares were to be found at the +same shop; such as violins, flutes, hautboys, musical books, English +and Dutch toys, and London babies. About this period, Mr. Dipper gives +notice of a concert of vocal and instrumental music. There had already +been an attempt at theatrical exhibitions. + +There are tokens, in every newspaper, of a style of luxury and +magnificence which we do not usually associate with our ideas of the +times. When the property of a deceased person was to be sold, we find, +among the household furniture, silk beds and hangings, damask +table-cloths, Turkey carpets, pictures, pier-glasses, massive plate, +and all things proper for a noble mansion. Wine was more generally +drunk than now, though by no means to the neglect of ardent spirits. +For the apparel of both sexes, the mercers and milliners imported good +store of fine broadcloths, especially scarlet, crimson, and sky-blue, +silks, satins, lawns, and velvets, gold brocade, and gold and silver +lace, and silver tassels, and silver spangles, until Cornhill shone and +sparkled with their merchandise. The gaudiest dress permissible by +modern taste fades into a Quaker-like sobriety, compared with the deep, +rich, glowing splendor of our ancestors. Such figures were almost too +fine to go about town on foot; accordingly, carriages were so numerous +as to require a tax; and it is recorded that, when Governor Bernard +came to the province, he was met between Dedham and Boston by a +multitude of gentlemen in their coaches and chariots. + +Take my arm, gentle reader, and come with me into some street, perhaps +trodden by your daily footsteps, but which now has such an aspect of +half-familiar strangeness, that you suspect yourself to be walking +abroad in a dream. True, there are some brick edifices which you +remember from childhood, and which your father and grandfather +remembered as well; but you are perplexed by the absence of many that +were here only an hour or two since; and still more amazing is the +presence of whole rows of wooden and plastered houses, projecting over +the sidewalks, and bearing iron figures on their fronts, which prove +them to have stood on the same sites above a century. Where have your +eyes been that you never saw them before? Along the ghostly +street,—for, at length, you conclude that all is unsubstantial, though +it be so good a mockery of an antique town,—along the ghostly street, +there are ghostly people too. Every gentleman has his three-cornered +hat, either on his head or under his arm; and all wear wigs in infinite +variety,—the Tie, the Brigadier, the Spencer, the Albemarle, the Major, +the Ramillies, the grave Full-bottom, or the giddy Feather-top. Look at +the elaborate lace-ruffles, and the square-skirted coats of gorgeous +hues, bedizened with silver and gold! Make way for the phantom-ladies, +whose hoops require such breadth of passage, as they pace majestically +along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or yellow, brilliantly +embroidered, and with small satin hats surmounting their powdered hair. +Make way; for the whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly +garments brush against their robes. Now that the scene is brightest, +and the whole street glitters with imaginary sunshine,—now hark to the +bells of the Old South and the Old North, ringing out with a sudden and +merry peal, while the cannon of Castle William thunder below the town, +and those of the Diana frigate repeat the sound, and the Charlestown +batteries reply with a nearer roar! You see the crowd toss up their +hats in visionary joy. You hear of illuminations and fire-works, and of +bonfires, built oil scaffolds, raised several stories above the ground, +that are to blaze all night in King Street and on Beacon Hill. And here +come the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the tramping hoofs of the +Boston troop of horseguards, escorting the governor to King’s Chapel, +where he is to return solemn thanks for the surrender of Quebec. March +on, thou shadowy troop! and vanish, ghostly crowd! and change again, +old street! for those stirring times are gone. + +Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire broke out, on the +twentieth of March, 1760, at the Brazen-Head, in Cornhill, and consumed +nearly four hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been +epochs in the chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had hitherto been +termed the Great Fire, but now resigned its baleful dignity to one +which has ever since retained it. Did we desire to move the reader’s +sympathies on this subject, we would not be grandiloquent about the sea +of billowy flame, the glowing and crumbling streets, the broad, black +firmament of smoke, and the blast or wind that sprang up with the +conflagration and roared behind it. It would be more effective to mark +out a single family at the moment when the flames caught upon an angle +of their dwelling: then would ensue the removal of the bedridden +grandmother, the cradle with the sleeping infant, and, most dismal of +all, the dying man just at the extremity of a lingering disease. Do but +imagine the confused agony of one thus awfully disturbed in his last +hour; his fearful glance behind at the consuming fire raging after him, +from house to house, as its devoted victim; and, finally, the almost +eagerness with which he would seize some calmer interval to die! The +Great Fire must have realized many such a scene. + +Doubtless posterity has acquired a better city by the calamity of that +generation. None will be inclined to lament it at this late day, except +the lover of antiquity, who would have been glad to walk among those +streets of venerable houses, fancying the old inhabitants still there, +that he might commune with their shadows, and paint a more vivid +picture of their times. + +III. THE OLD TORY. + +Again we take a leap of about twenty years, and alight in the midst of +the Revolution. Indeed, having just closed a volume of colonial +newspapers, which represented the period when monarchical and +aristocratic sentiments were at the highest,—and now opening another +volume printed in the same metropolis, after such sentiments had long +been deemed a sin and shame,—we feel as if the leap were more than +figurative. Our late course of reading has tinctured us, for the +moment, with antique prejudices; and we shrink from the strangely +contrasted times into which we emerge, like one of those immutable old +Tories, who acknowledge no oppression in the Stamp Act. It may be the +most effective method of going through the present file of papers, to +follow out this idea, and transform ourself, perchance, from a modern +Tory into such a sturdy King-man as once wore that pliable nickname. + +Well, then, here we sit, an old, gray, withered, sour-visaged, +threadbare sort of gentleman, erect enough, here in our solitude, but +marked out by a depressed and distrustful mien abroad, as one conscious +of a stigma upon his forehead, though for no crime. We were already in +the decline of life when the first tremors of the earthquake that has +convulsed the continent were felt. Our mind had grown too rigid to +change any of its opinions, when the voice of the people demanded that +all should be changed. We are an Episcopalian, and sat under the +High-Church doctrines of Dr. Caner; we have been a captain of the +provincial forces, and love our king the better for the blood that we +shed in his cause on the Plains of Abraham. Among all the refugees, +there is not one more loyal to the backbone than we. Still we lingered +behind when the British army evacuated Boston, sweeping in its train +most of those with whom we held communion; the old, loyal gentlemen, +the aristocracy of the colonies, the hereditary Englishman, imbued with +more than native zeal and admiration for the glorious island and its +monarch, because the far-intervening ocean threw a dim reverence around +them. When our brethren departed, we could not tear our aged roots out +of the soil. + +We have remained, therefore, enduring to be outwardly a freeman, but +idolizing King George in secrecy and silence,—one true old heart +amongst a host of enemies. We watch, with a weary hope, for the moment +when all this turmoil shall subside, and the impious novelty that has +distracted our latter years, like a wild dream, give place to the +blessed quietude of royal sway, with the king’s name in every +ordinance, his prayer in the church, his health at the board, and his +love in the people’s heart. Meantime, our old age finds little honor. +Hustled have we been, till driven from town-meetings; dirty water has +been cast upon our ruffles by a Whig chambermaid; John Hancock’s +coachman seizes every opportunity to bespatter us with mud; daily are +we hooted by the unbreeched rebel brats; and narrowly, once, did our +gray hairs escape the ignominy of tar and feathers. Alas! only that we +cannot bear to die till the next royal governor comes over, we would +fain be in our quiet grave. + +Such an old man among new things are we who now hold at arm’s-length +the rebel newspaper of the day. The very figure-head, for the +thousandth time, elicits it groan of spiteful lamentation. Where are +the united heart and crown, the loyal emblem, that used to hallow the +sheet on which it was impressed, in our younger days? In its stead we +find a continental officer, with the Declaration of Independence in one +hand, a drawn sword in the other, and above his head a scroll, bearing +the motto, “WE APPEAL TO HEAVEN.” Then say we, with a prospective +triumph, let Heaven judge, in its own good time! The material of the +sheet attracts our scorn. It is a fair specimen of rebel manufacture, +thick and coarse, like wrapping-paper, all overspread with little +knobs; and of such a deep, dingy blue color, that we wipe our +spectacles thrice before we can distinguish a letter of the wretched +print. Thus, in all points, the newspaper is a type of the times, far +more fit for the rough hands of a democratic mob, than for our own +delicate, though bony fingers. Nay we will not handle it without our +gloves! + +Glancing down the page, our eyes are greeted everywhere by the offer of +lands at auction, for sale or to be leased, not by the rightful owners, +but a rebel committee; notices of the town constable, that he is +authorized to receive the taxes on such all estate, in default of +which, that also is to be knocked down to the highest bidder; and +notifications of complaints filed by the attorney-general against +certain traitorous absentees, and of confiscations that are to ensue. +And who are these traitors? Our own best friends; names as old, once as +honored, as any in the land where they are no longer to have a +patrimony, nor to be remembered as good men who have passed away. We +are ashamed of not relinquishing our little property, too; but comfort +ourselves because we still keep our principles, without gratifying the +rebels with our plunder. Plunder, indeed, they are seizing +everywhere,—by the strong hand at sea, as well as by legal forms oil +shore. Here are prize-vessels for sale; no French nor Spanish +merchantmen, whose wealth is the birthright of British subjects, but +hulls of British oak, from Liverpool, Bristol, and the Thames, laden +with the king’s own stores, for his army in New York. And what a fleet +of privateers—pirates, say we—are fitting out for new ravages, with +rebellion in their very names! The Free Yankee, the General Greene, the +Saratoga, the Lafayette, and the Grand Monarch! Yes, the Grand Monarch; +so is a French king styled, by the sons of Englishmen. And here we have +an ordinance from the Court of Versailles, with the Bourbon’s own +signature affixed, as if New England were already a French province. +Everything is French,—French soldiers, French sailors, French surgeons, +and French diseases too, I trow; besides French dancing-masters and +French milliners, to debauch our daughters with French fashions! +Everything in America is French, except the Canadas, the loyal Canadas, +which we helped to wrest, from France. And to that old French province +the Englishman of the colonies must go to find his country! + +O, the misery of seeing the whole system of things changed in my old +days, when I would be loath to change even a pair of buckles! The +British coffee-house, where oft we sat, brimful of wine and loyalty, +with the gallant gentlemen of Amherst’s army, when we wore a redcoat +too,—the British coffee-house, forsooth, must now be styled the +American, with a golden eagle instead of the royal arms above the door. +Even the street it stands in is no longer King Street! Nothing is the +king’s, except this heavy heart in my old bosom. Wherever I glance my +eyes, they meet something that pricks them like a needle. This +soap-maker, for instance, this Hobert Hewes, has conspired against my +peace, by notifying that his shop is situated near Liberty Stump. But +when will their misnamed liberty have its true emblem in that Stump, +hewn down by British steel? + +Where shall we buy our next year’s almanac? Not this of Weatherwise’s, +certainly; for it contains a likeness of George Washington, the upright +rebel, whom we most hate, though reverentially, as a fallen angel, with +his heavenly brightness undiminished, evincing pure fame in an +unhallowed cause. And here is a new book for my evening’s recreation,—a +History of the War till the close of the year 1779, with the heads of +thirteen distinguished officers, engraved on copperplate. A plague upon +their heads! We desire not to see them till they grin at us from the +balcony before the town-house, fixed on spikes, as the heads of +traitors. How bloody-minded the villains make a peaceable old man! What +next? An Oration, on the Horrid Massacre of 1770. When that blood was +shed,—the first that the British soldier ever drew from the bosoms of +our countrymen,—we turned sick at heart, and do so still, as often as +they make it reek anew from among the stones in King Street. The pool +that we saw that night has swelled into a lake,—English blood and +American,—no! all British, all blood of my brethren. And here come down +tears. Shame on me, since half of them are shed for rebels! Who are not +rebels now! Even the women are thrusting their white hands into the +war, and come out in this very paper with proposals to form a +society—the lady of George Washington at their head—for clothing the +continental troops. They will strip off their stiff petticoats to cover +the ragged rascals, and then enlist in the ranks themselves. + +What have we here? Burgoyne’s proclamation turned into Hudibrastic +rhyme! And here, some verses against the king, in which the scribbler +leaves a blank for the name of George, as if his doggerel might yet +exalt him to the pillory. Such, after years of rebellion, is the +heart’s unconquerable reverence for the Lord’s anointed! In the next +column, we have scripture parodied in a squib against his sacred +Majesty. What would our Puritan great-grandsires have said to that? +They never laughed at God’s word, though they cut off a king’s head. + +Yes; it was for us to prove how disloyalty goes hand in hand with +irreligion, and all other vices come trooping in the train. Nowadays +men commit robbery and sacrilege for the mere luxury of wickedness, as +this advertisement testifies. Three hundred pounds reward for the +detection of the villains who stole and destroyed the cushions and +pulpit drapery of the Brattle Street and Old South churches. Was it a +crime? I can scarcely think our temples hallowed, since the king ceased +to be prayed for. But it is not temples only that they rob. Here a man +offers a thousand dollars—a thousand dollars, in Continental rags!—for +the recovery of his stolen cloak, and other articles of clothing. +Horse-thieves are innumerable. Now is the day when every beggar gets on +horseback. And is not the whole land like a beggar on horseback riding +post to the Davil? Ha! here is a murder, too. A woman slain at +midnight, by all unknown ruffian, and found cold, stiff, and bloody, in +her violated bed! Let the hue-and-cry follow hard after the man in the +uniform of blue and buff who last went by that way. My life on it, he +is the blood-stained ravisher! These deserters whom we see proclaimed +in every column,—proof that the banditti are as false to their Stars +and Stripes as to the Holy Red Cross,—they bring the crimes of a rebel +camp into a soil well suited to them; the bosom of a people, without +the heart that kept them virtuous,—their king! + +Here flaunting down a whole column, with official seal and signature, +here comes a proclamation. By whose authority? Ah! the United +States,—these thirteen little anarchies, assembled in that one grand +anarchy, their Congress. And what the import? A general Fast. By +Heaven! for once the traitorous blockheads have legislated wisely! Yea; +let a misguided people kneel down in sackcloth and ashes, from end to +end, from border to border, of their wasted country. Well may they fast +where there is no food, and cry aloud for whatever remnant of God’s +mercy their sins may not have exhausted. We too will fast, even at a +rebel summons. Pray others as they will, there shall be at least an old +man kneeling for the righteous cause. Lord, put down the rebels! God +save the king! + +Peace to the good old Tory! One of our objects has been to exemplify, +without softening a single prejudice proper to the character which we +assumed, that the Americans who clung to the losing side in the +Revolution were men greatly to be pitied and often worthy of our +sympathy. It would be difficult to say whose lot was most lamentable, +that of the active Tories, who gave up their patrimonies for a pittance +from the British pension-roll, and their native land for a cold +reception in their miscalled home, or the passive ones who remained +behind to endure the coldness of former friends, and the public +opprobrium, as despised citizens, under a government which they +abhorred. In justice to the old gentleman who has favored us with his +discontented musings, we must remark that the state of the country, so +far as can be gathered from these papers, was of dismal augury for the +tendencies of democratic rule. It was pardonable in the conservative of +that day to mistake the temporary evils of a change for permanent +diseases of the system which that change was to establish. A +revolution, or anything that interrupts social order, may afford +opportunities for the individual display of eminent virtues; but its +effects are pernicious to general morality. Most people are so +constituted that they can be virtuous only in a certain routine; and an +irregular course of public affairs demoralizes them. One great source +of disorder was the multitude of disbanded troops, who were continually +returning home, after terms of service just long enough to give them a +distaste to peaceable occupations; neither citizens nor soldiers, they +were very liable to become ruffians. Almost all our impressions in +regard to this period are unpleasant, whether referring to the state of +civil society, or to the character of the contest, which, especially +where native Americans were opposed to each other, was waged with the +deadly hatred of fraternal enemies. It is the beauty of war, for men to +commit mutual havoc with undisturbed good-humor. + +The present volume of newspapers contains fewer characteristic traits +than any which we have looked over. Except for the peculiarities +attendant on the passing struggle, manners seem to have taken a modern +cast. Whatever antique fashions lingered into the War of the +Revolution, or beyond it, they were not so strongly marked as to leave +their traces in the public journals. Moreover, the old newspapers had +an indescribable picturesqueness, not to be found in the later ones. +Whether it be something in the literary execution, or the ancient print +and paper, and the idea that those same musty pages have been handled +by people once alive and bustling amid the scenes there recorded, yet +now in their graves beyond the memory of man; so it is, that in those +elder volumes we seem to find the life of a past age preserved between +the leaves, like a dry specimen of foliage. It is so difficult to +discover what touches are really picturesque, that we doubt whether our +attempts have produced any similar effect. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD NEWS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Old News</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 18, 2003 [eBook #9239]<br /> +[Most recently updated: May 16, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD NEWS ***</div> + +<h1>Old News</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Nathaniel Hawthorne</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small half-sheet, +yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted with a rude old +type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of antiquity, in a species of +literature which we are accustomed to consider as connected only with the +present moment. Ephemeral as they were intended and supposed to be, they have +long outlived the printer and his whole subscription-list, and have proved more +durable, as to their physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and +stone of the town where they were issued. These are but the least of their +triumphs. The government, the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral +circumstances that were contemporary with their publication, have passed away, +and left no better record of what they were than may be found in these frail +leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their productions excel all others +in immediate popularity, and are certain to acquire another sort of value with +the lapse of time. They scatter their leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and +posterity collects them, to be treasured up among the best materials of its +wisdom. With hasty pens they write for immortality. +</p> + +<p> +It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets between the thumb +and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety years ago, held +it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of the numbers bear +the name of an old colonial dignitary. There he sits, a major, a member of the +council, and a weighty merchant, in his high-backed arm-chair, wearing a solemn +wig and grave attire, such as befits his imposing gravity of mien, and +displaying but little finery, except a huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, +curiously carved. Observe the awful reverence of his visage, as he reads his +Majesty’s most gracious speech; and the deliberate wisdom with which he +ponders over some paragraph of provincial politics, and the keener intelligence +with which he glances at the ship-news and commercial advertisements. Observe, +and smile! He may have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the wisdom of +the politician appears like folly, because we can compare its prognostics with +actual results; and the old merchant seems to have busied himself about +vanities, because we know that the expected ships have been lost at sea, or +mouldered at the wharves; that his imported broadcloths were long ago worn to +tatters, and his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that the most +precious leaves of his ledger have become waste-paper. Yet, his avocations were +not so vain as our philosophic moralizing. In this world we are the things of a +moment, and are made to pursue momentary things, with here and there a thought +that stretches mistily towards eternity, and perhaps may endure as long. All +philosophy that would abstract mankind from the present is no more than words. +</p> + +<p> +The first pages of most of these old papers are as soporific as a bed of +poppies. Here we have an erudite clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge professor, +occupying several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate and Brady, as +compared with the New England version of the Psalms. Of course, the preference +is given to the native article. Here are doctors disagreeing about the +treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and blackguarding each other with a +characteristic virulence that renders the controversy not altogether +unreadable. Here are President Wigglesworth and the Rev. Dr. Colman, +endeavoring to raise a fund for the support of missionaries among the Indians +of Massachusetts Bay. Easy would be the duties of such a mission now! +Here—for there is nothing new under the sun—are frequent complaints +of the disordered state of the currency, and the project of a bank with a +capital of five hundred thousand pounds, secured on lands. Here are literary +essays, from the Gentleman’s Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, +from the London newspapers. And here, occasionally, are specimens of New +England honor, laboriously light and lamentably mirthful, as if some very sober +person, in his zeal to be merry, were dancing a jig to the tune of a +funeral-psalm. All this is wearisome, and we must turn the leaf. +</p> + +<p> +There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, in the perusal of those +little items which characterize the manners and circumstances of the country. +New England was then in a state incomparably more picturesque than at present, +or than it has been within the memory of man; there being, as yet, only a +narrow strip of civilization along the edge of a vast forest, peopled with +enough of its original race to contrast the savage life with the old customs of +another world. The white population, also, was diversified by the influx of all +sorts of expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation of +bond-servants from Ireland and elsewhere, so that there was a wild and +unsettled multitude, forming a strong minority to the sober descendants of the +Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark shade to the +picture of society. The consequence of all this was a great variety and +singularity of action and incident, many instances of which might be selected +from these columns, where they are told with a simplicity and quaintness of +style that bring the striking points into very strong relief. It is natural to +suppose, too, that these circumstances affected the body of the people, and +made their course of life generally less regular than that of their +descendants. There is no evidence that the moral standard was higher then than +now; or, indeed, that morality was so well defined as it has since become. +There seem to have been quite as many frauds and robberies, in proportion to +the number of honest deeds; there were murders, in hot-blood and in malice; and +bloody quarrels over liquor. Some of our fathers also appear to have been yoked +to unfaithful wives, if we may trust the frequent notices of elopements from +bed and board. The pillory, the whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows, +each had their use in those old times; and, in short, as often as our +imagination lives in the past, we find it a ruder and rougher age than our own, +with hardly any perceptible advantages, and much that gave life a gloomier +tinge. In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air over our picture of +this period; nothing passes before our fancy but a crowd of sad-visaged people, +moving duskily through a dull gray atmosphere. It is certain that winter rushed +upon them with fiercer storms than now, blocking up the narrow forest-paths, +and overwhelming the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snow drifts; so +that weeks elapsed before the newspaper could announce how many travellers had +perished, or what wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more piercing then, +and lingered further into the spring, making the chimney-corner a comfortable +seat till long past May-day. By the number of such accidents on record, we +might suppose that the thunder-stone, as they termed it, fell oftener and +deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers +bore the brunt of more raging and pitiless elements than we. There were +forebodings, also, of a more fearful tempest than those of the elements. At two +or three dates, we have stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial +music, passing athwart the midnight sky, accompanied with the—roar of +cannon and rattle of musketry, prophetic echoes of the sounds that were soon to +shake the land. Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French +fleets on the coast, and of the march of French and Indians through the +wilderness, along the borders of the settlements. The country was saddened, +moreover, with grievous sicknesses. The small-pox raged in many of the towns, +and seems, though so familiar a scourge, to have been regarded with as much +affright as that which drove the throng from Wall Street and Broadway at the +approach of a new pestilence. There were autumnal fevers too, and a contagious +and destructive throat-distemper,—diseases unwritten in medical hooks. +The dark superstition of former days had not yet been so far dispelled as not +to heighten the gloom of the present times. There is an advertisement, indeed, +by a committee of the Legislature, calling for information as to the +circumstances of sufferers in the “late calamity of 1692,” with a +view to reparation for their losses and misfortunes. But the tenderness with +which, after above forty years, it was thought expedient to allude to the +witchcraft delusion, indicates a good deal of lingering error, as well as the +advance of more enlightened opinions. The rigid hand of Puritanism might yet be +felt upon the reins of government, while some of the ordinances intimate a +disorderly spirit on the part of the people. The Suffolk justices, after a +preamble that great disturbances have been committed by persons entering town +and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes, and other wheel-carriages, on the +evening before the Sabbath, give notice that a watch will hereafter be set at +the “fortification-gate,” to prevent these outrages. It is amusing +to see Boston assuming the aspect of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a +detachment of church-members, with a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher +makes proclamation against certain “loose and dissolute people” who +have been wont to stop passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, +“otherwise called Pope’s Day,” and levy contributions for the +building of bonfires. In this instance, the populace are more puritanic than +the magistrate. +</p> + +<p> +The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the sombre +character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer seldom fails to +notice that the corpse was “very decently interred.” But when some +mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of the +“worshipful” such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of +deacon, justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic sketch of +his honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black pomp of his +funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning rings. The +burial train glides slowly before us, as we have seen it represented in the +woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the bearers, and the lamentable friends, +trailing their long black garments, while grim Death, a most misshapen +skeleton, with all kinds of doleful emblems, stalks hideously in front. There +was a coach maker at this period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the +chief of his living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be +fair, however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader’s +mind; nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark +attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this reminds us that +there is an incidental notice of the “dancing-school near the +Orange-Tree,” whence we may infer that the salutatory art was +occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic gravity +of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the aristocratic circle, of +which the royal governor was the centre. But we are scandalized at the attempt +of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more reprehensible amusement: he challenges +the whole country to match his black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to +be decided on Metonomy Common or Chelsea Beach. Nothing as to the manners of +the times can be inferred from this freak of an individual. There were no daily +and continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes the people rejoiced, +in their own peculiar fashion, oftener with a calm, religious smile than with a +broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great family, at Thanksgiving time, +or indulged a livelier mirth throughout the pleasant days of Election-week. +This latter was the true holiday season of New England. Military musters were +too seriously important in that warlike time to be classed among amusements; +but they stirred up and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions of solemn +festival to the governor and great men of the province, at the expense of the +field-offices. The Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; for the +anniversary of the king’s birth appears to have been celebrated with most +imposing pomp, by salutes from Castle William, a military parade, a grand +dinner at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination in the evening. There +was nothing forced nor feigned in these testimonials of loyalty to George the +Second. So long as they dreaded the re-establishment of a popish dynasty, the +people were fervent for the house of Hanover: and, besides, the immediate +magistracy of the country was a barrier between the monarch and the occasional +discontents of the colonies; the waves of faction sometimes reached the +governor’s chair, but never swelled against the throne. Thus, until +oppression was felt to proceed from the king’s own hand, New England +rejoiced with her whole heart on his Majesty’s birthday. +</p> + +<p> +But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of the population, since it +was their gift to be merry in the worst of circumstances; and they endured, +comparatively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of our fathers. There +seems to have been a great trade in these human commodities. No advertisements +are more frequent than those of “a negro fellow, fit for almost any +household work”; “a negro woman, honest, healthy, and +capable”; “a negro wench of many desirable qualities”; +“a negro man, very fit for a taylor.” We know not in what this +natural fitness for a tailor consisted, unless it were some peculiarity of +conformation that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves of a family +were inconveniently prolific,—it being not quite orthodox to drown the +superfluous offspring, like a litter of kittens,—notice was promulgated +of “a negro child to be given away.” Sometimes the slaves assumed +the property of their own persons, and made their escape; among many such +instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry after his negro Juba. But, without +venturing a word in extenuation of the general system, we confess our opinion +that Caesar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such great Roman namesakes, would have +been better advised had they stayed at home, foddering the cattle, cleaning +dishes,—in fine, performing their moderate share of the labors of life, +without being harassed by its cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not +excluded from the domestic affections: in families of middling rank, they had +their places at the board; and when the circle closed round the evening hearth, +its blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with their +master’s children. It must have contributed to reconcile them to their +lot, that they saw white men and women imported from Europe as they had been +from Africa, and sold, though only for a term of years, yet as actual slaves to +the highest bidder. Slave labor being but a small part of the industry of the +country, it did not change the character of the people; the latter, on the +contrary, modified and softened the institution, making it a patriarchal, and +almost a beautiful, peculiarity of the times. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were +peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on his +three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid of ebony +and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked streets of Boston, +on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of the day. Thus he +communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to call at Captain +Scut’s, in Creek Lane, and examine his rich velvet, whether it be fit for +my apparel on Election-day,—that I may wear a stately aspect in presence +of the governor and my brethren of the council. I will look in, also, at the +shop of Michael Cario, the jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; +and mine have lasted me some half-score years. My fair daughter Miriam shall +have an apron of gold brocade, and a velvet mask,—though it would be a +pity the wench should hide her comely visage; and also a French cap, from +Robert Jenkins’s, on the north side of the town-house. He hath beads, +too, and ear-rings, and necklaces, of all sorts; these are but vanities, +nevertheless, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame desireth another +female in the kitchen; wherefore, I must inspect the lot of Irish lasses, for +sale by Samuel Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; as also the likely negro +wench, at Captain Bulfinch’s. It were not amiss that I took my daughter +Miriam to see the royal waxwork, near the town-dock, that she may learn to +honor our most gracious King and Queen, and their royal progeny, even in their +waxen images; not that I would approve of image-worship. The camel, too, that +strange beast from Africa, with two great humps, to be seen near the Common; +methinks I would fain go thither, and see how the old patriarchs were wont to +ride. I will tarry awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good friends +Kneeland & Green, and purchase Dr. Colman’s new sermon, and the +volume of discourses by Mr. Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy on +baptism, between the Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary; and see +whether this George Whitefield be as great in print as he is famed to be in the +pulpit. By that time, the auction will have commenced at the Royal Exchange, in +King Street. Moreover, I must look to the disposal of my last cargo of West +India rum and muscovado sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire cheese, lest +it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask of good English beer, at the +lower end of Milk Street. +</p> + +<p> +Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of stout old Vidonia, +rich Canary, and Oporto-wines, which I have now lying in the cellar of the Old +South meeting-house. But, a pipe or two of the rich Canary shall be reserved, +that it may grow mellow in mine own wine-cellar, and gladden my heart when it +begins to droop with old age. +</p> + +<p> +Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of his sepulchre? Did he bethink +him to call at the workshop of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold Lane, and select such a +gravestone as would best please him? There wrought the man whose handiwork, or +that of his fellow-craftsmen, was ultimately in demand by all the busy +multitude who have left a record of their earthly toil in these old +time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the volume, we seem to be +wandering among the mossy stones of a burial-ground. +</p> + +<h3>II. THE OLD FRENCH WAR.</h3> + +<p> +At a period about twenty years subsequent to that of our former sketch, we +again attempt a delineation of some of the characteristics of life and manners +in New England. Our text-book, as before, is a file of antique newspapers. The +volume which serves us for a writing-desk is a folio of larger dimensions than +the one before described; and the papers are generally printed on a whole +sheet, sometimes with a supplemental leaf of news and advertisements. They have +a venerable appearance, being overspread with a duskiness of more than seventy +years, and discolored, here and there, with the deeper stains of some liquid, +as if the contents of a wineglass had long since been splashed upon the page. +Still, the old book conveys an impression that, when the separate numbers were +flying about town, in the first day or two of their respective existences, they +might have been fit reading for very stylish people. Such newspapers could have +been issued nowhere but in a metropolis the centre, not only of public and +private affairs, but of fashion and gayety. Without any discredit to the +colonial press, these might have been, and probably were, spread out on the +tables of the British coffee-house, in king Street, for the perusal of the +throng of officers who then drank their wine at that celebrated establishment. +To interest these military gentlemen, there were bulletins of the war between +Prussia and Austria; between England and France, on the old battle-plains of +Flanders; and between the same antagonists, in the newer fields of the East +Indies,—and in our own trackless woods, where white men never trod until +they came to fight there. Or, the travelled American, the petit-maitre of the +colonies,—the ape of London foppery, as the newspaper was the semblance +of the London journals,—he, with his gray powdered periwig, his +embroidered coat, lace ruffles, and glossy silk stockings, +golden-clocked,—his buckles of glittering paste, at knee-band and +shoe-strap,—his scented handkerchief, and chapeau beneath his arm, even +such a dainty figure need not have disdained to glance at these old yellow +pages, while they were the mirror of passing times. For his amusement, there +were essays of wit and humor, the light literature of the day, which, for +breadth and license, might have proceeded from the pen of Fielding or Smollet; +while, in other columns, he would delight his imagination with the enumerated +items of all sorts of finery, and with the rival advertisements of half a dozen +peruke-makers. In short, newer manners and customs had almost entirely +superseded those of the Puritans, even in their own city of refuge. +</p> + +<p> +It was natural that, with the lapse of time and increase of wealth and +population, the peculiarities of the early settlers should have waxed fainter +and fainter through the generations of their descendants, who also had been +alloyed by a continual accession of emigrants from many countries and of all +characters. It tended to assimilate the colonial manners to those of the +mother-country, that the commercial intercourse was great, and that the +merchants often went thither in their own ships. Indeed, almost every man of +adequate fortune felt a yearning desire, and even judged it a filial duty, at +least once in his life, to visit the home of his ancestors. They still called +it their own home, as if New England were to them, what many of the old +Puritans had considered it, not a permanent abiding-place, but merely a lodge +in the wilderness, until the trouble of the times should be passed. The example +of the royal governors must have had much influence on the manners of the +colonists; for these rulers assumed a degree of state and splendor which had +never been practised by their predecessors, who differed in nothing from +republican chief-magistrates, under the old charter. The officers of the crown, +the public characters in the interest of the administration, and the gentlemen +of wealth and good descent, generally noted for their loyalty, would constitute +a dignified circle, with the governor in the centre, bearing a very passable +resemblance to a court. Their ideas, their habits, their bode of courtesy, and +their dress would have all the fresh glitter of fashions immediately derived +from the fountain-head, in England. To prevent their modes of life from +becoming the standard with all who had the ability to imitate them, there was +no longer an undue severity of religion, nor as yet any disaffection to British +supremacy, nor democratic prejudices against pomp. Thus, while the colonies +were attaining that strength which was soon to render them an independent +republic, it might have been supposed that the wealthier classes were growing +into an aristocracy, and ripening for hereditary rank, while the poor were to +be stationary in their abasement, and the country, perhaps, to be a sister +monarchy with England. Such, doubtless, were the plausible conjectures deduced +from the superficial phenomena of our connection with a monarchical government, +until the prospective nobility were levelled with the mob, by the mere +gathering of winds that preceded the storm of the Revolution. The portents of +that storm were not yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, +therefore, would have the rich effect produced by distinctions of rank that +seemed permanent, and by appropriate habits of splendor on the part of the +gentry. +</p> + +<p> +The people at large had been somewhat changed in character, since the period of +our last sketch, by their great exploit, the conquest of Louisburg. After that +event, the New-Englanders never settled into precisely the same quiet race +which all the world had imagined them to be. They had done a deed of history, +and were anxious to add new ones to the record. They had proved themselves +powerful enough to influence the result of a war, and were thenceforth called +upon, and willingly consented, to join their strength against the enemies of +England; on those fields, at least, where victory would redound to their +peculiar advantage. And now, in the heat of the Old French War, they might well +be termed a martial people. Every man was a soldier, or the father or brother +of a soldier; and the whole land literally echoed with the roll of the drum, +either beating up for recruits among the towns and villages, or striking the +march towards the frontiers. Besides the provincial troops, there were +twenty-three British regiments in the northern colonies. The country has never +known a period of such excitement and warlike life; except during the +Revolution,—perhaps scarcely then; for that was a lingering war, and this +a stirring and eventful one. +</p> + +<p> +One would think that no very wonderful talent was requisite for an historical +novel, when the rough and hurried paragraphs of these newspapers can recall the +past so magically. We seem to be waiting in the street for the arrival of the +post-rider—who is seldom more than twelve hours beyond his +time—with letters, by way of Albany, from the various departments of the +army. Or, we may fancy ourselves in the circle of listeners, all with necks +stretched out towards an old gentleman in the centre, who deliberately puts on +his spectacles, unfolds the wet newspaper, and gives us the details of the +broken and contradictory reports, which have been flying from mouth to mouth, +ever since the courier alighted at Secretary Oliver’s office. Sometimes +we have an account of the Indian skirmishes near Lake George, and how a ranging +party of provincials were so closely pursued, that they threw away their arms, +and eke their shoes, stockings, and breeches, barely reaching the camp in their +shirts, which also were terribly tattered by the bushes. Then, there is a +journal of the siege of Fort Niagara, so minute that it almost numbers the +cannon-shot and bombs, and describes the effect of the latter missiles on the +French commandant’s stone mansion, within the fortress. In the letters of +the provincial officers, it is amusing to observe how some of them endeavor to +catch the careless and jovial turn of old campaigners. One gentleman tells us +that he holds a brimming glass in his hand, intending to drink the health of +his correspondent, unless a cannon ball should dash the liquor from his lips; +in the midst of his letter he hears the bells of the French churches ringing, +in Quebec, and recollects that it is Sunday; whereupon, like a good Protestant, +he resolves to disturb the Catholic worship by a few thirty-two pound shot. +While this wicked man of war was thus making a jest of religion, his pious +mother had probably put up a note, that very Sabbath-day, desiring the +“prayers of the congregation for a son gone a soldiering.” We +trust, however, that there were some stout old worthies who were not ashamed to +do as their fathers did, but went to prayer, with their soldiers, before +leading them to battle; and doubtless fought none the worse for that. If we had +enlisted in the Old French War, it should have been under such a captain; for +we love to see a man keep the characteristics of his country.* +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[* The contemptuous jealousy of the British army, from the general downwards, +was very galling to the provincial troops. In one of the newspapers, there is +an admirable letter of a New England man, copied from the London Chronicle, +defending the provincials with an ability worthy of Franklin, and somewhat in +his style. The letter is remarkable, also, because it takes up the cause of the +whole range of colonies, as if the writer looked upon them all as constituting +one country, and that his own. Colonial patriotism had not hitherto been so +broad a sentiment.] +</p> + +<p> +These letters, and other intelligence from the army, are pleasant and lively +reading, and stir up the mind like the music of a drum and fife. It is less +agreeable to meet with accounts of women slain and scalped, and infants dashed +against trees, by the Indians on the frontiers. It is a striking circumstance, +that innumerable bears, driven from the woods, by the uproar of contending +armies in their accustomed haunts, broke into the settlements, and committed +great ravages among children, as well as sheep and swine. Some of them prowled +where bears had never been for a century, penetrating within a mile or two of +Boston; a fact that gives a strong and gloomy impression of something very +terrific going on in the forest, since these savage beasts fled townward to +avoid it. But it is impossible to moralize about such trifles, when every +newspaper contains tales of military enterprise, and often a huzza for victory; +as, for instance, the taking of Ticonderoga, long a place of awe to the +provincials, and one of the bloodiest spots in the present war. Nor is it +unpleasant, among whole pages of exultation, to find a note of sorrow for the +fall of some brave officer; it comes wailing in, like a funeral strain amidst a +peal of triumph, itself triumphant too. Such was the lamentation over Wolfe. +Somewhere, in this volume of newspapers, though we cannot now lay our finger +upon the passage, we recollect a report that General Wolfe was slain, not by +the enemy, but by a shot from his own soldiers. +</p> + +<p> +In the advertising columns, also, we are continually reminded that the country +was in a state of war. Governor Pownall makes proclamation for the enlisting of +soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend to the discipline of their +regiments, and the selectmen of every town to replenish their stocks of +ammunition. The magazine, by the way, was generally kept in the upper loft of +the village meeting-house. The provincial captains are drumming up for +soldiers, in every newspaper. Sir Jeffrey Amherst advertises for batteaux-men, +to be employed on the lakes; and gives notice to the officers of seven British +regiments, dispersed on the recruiting service, to rendezvous in Boston. +Captain Hallowell, of the province ship-of-war King George, invites able-bodied +seamen to serve his Majesty, for fifteen pounds, old tenor, per month. By the +rewards offered, there would appear to have been frequent desertions from the +New England forces: we applaud their wisdom, if not their valor or integrity. +Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls, firelocks, pistols, swords, and +hangers, were common articles of merchandise. Daniel Jones, at the sign of the +hat and helmet, offers to supply officers with scarlet broadcloth, gold-lace +for hats and waistcoats, cockades, and other military foppery, allowing credit +until the payrolls shall be made up. This advertisement gives us quite a +gorgeous idea of a provincial captain in full dress. +</p> + +<p> +At the commencement of the campaign of 1759, the British general informs the +farmers of New England that a regular market will be established at Lake +George, whither they are invited to bring provisions and refreshments of all +sorts, for the use of the army. Hence, we may form a singular picture of petty +traffic, far away from any permanent settlements, among the hills which border +that romantic lake, with the solemn woods overshadowing the scene. Carcasses of +bullocks and fat porkers are placed upright against the huge trunks of the +trees; fowls hang from the lower branches, bobbing against the heads of those +beneath; butter-firkins, great cheeses, and brown loaves of household bread, +baked in distant ovens, are collected under temporary shelters or pine-boughs, +with gingerbread, and pumpkin-pies, perhaps, and other toothsome dainties. +Barrels of cider and spruce-beer are running freely into the wooden canteens of +the soldiers. Imagine such a scene, beneath the dark forest canopy, with here +and there a few struggling sunbeams, to dissipate the gloom. See the shrewd +yeomen, haggling with their scarlet-coated customers, abating somewhat in their +prices, but still dealing at monstrous profit; and then complete the picture +with circumstances that bespeak war and danger. A cannon shall be seen to belch +its smoke from among the trees, against some distant canoes on the lake; the +traffickers shall pause, and seem to hearken, at intervals, as if they heard +the rattle of musketry or the shout of Indians; a scouting-party shall be +driven in, with two or three faint and bloody men among them. And, in spite of +these disturbances, business goes on briskly in the market of the wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +It must not be supposed that the martial character of the times interrupted all +pursuits except those connected with war. On the contrary, there appears to +have been a general vigor and vivacity diffused into the whole round of +colonial life. During the winter of 1759, it was computed that about a thousand +sled-loads of country produce were daily brought into Boston market. It was a +symptom of an irregular and unquiet course of affairs, that innumerable +lotteries were projected, ostensibly for the purpose of public improvements, +such as roads and bridges. Many females seized the opportunity to engage in +business: as, among others, Alice Quick, who dealt in crockery and hosiery, +next door to Deacon Beautineau’s; Mary Jackson, who sold butter, at the +Brazen-Head, in Cornhill; Abigail Hiller, who taught ornamental work, near the +Orange-Tree, where also were to be seen the King and Queen, in wax-work; Sarah +Morehead, an instructor in glass-painting, drawing, and japanning; Mary Salmon, +who shod horses, at the South End; Harriet Pain, at the Buck and Glove, and +Mrs. Henrietta Maria Caine, at the Golden Fan, both fashionable milliners; Anna +Adams, who advertises Quebec and Garrick bonnets, Prussian cloaks, and scarlet +cardinals, opposite the old brick meeting-house; besides a lady at the head of +a wine and spirit establishment. Little did these good dames expect to reappear +before the public, so long after they had made their last courtesies behind the +counter. Our great-grandmothers were a stirring sisterhood, and seem not to +have been utterly despised by the gentlemen at the British coffee-house; at +least, some gracious bachelor, there resident, gives public notice of his +willingness to take a wife, provided she be not above twenty-three, and possess +brown hair, regular features, a brisk eye, and a fortune. Now, this was great +condescension towards the ladies of Massachusetts Bay, in a threadbare +lieutenant of foot. +</p> + +<p> +Polite literature was beginning to make its appearance. Few native works were +advertised, it is true, except sermons and treatises of controversial divinity; +nor were the English authors of the day much known on this side of the +Atlantic. But catalogues were frequently offered at auction or private sale, +comprising the standard English books, history, essays, and poetry, of Queen +Anne’s age, and the preceding century. We see nothing in the nature of a +novel, unless it be “The Two Mothers, price four coppers.” There +was an American poet, however, of whom Mr. Kettell has preserved no +specimen,—the author of “War, an Heroic Poem”; he publishes +by subscription, and threatens to prosecute his patrons for not taking their +books. We have discovered a periodical, also, and one that has a peculiar claim +to be recorded here, since it bore the title of “T<small>HE</small> +N<small>EW</small> E<small>NGLAND</small> M<small>AGAZINE</small>,” a +forgotten predecessor, for which we should have a filial respect, and take its +excellence on trust. The fine arts, too, were budding into existence. At the +“old glass and picture shop,” in Cornhill, various maps, plates, +and views are advertised, and among them a “Prospect of Boston,” a +copperplate engraving of Quebec, and the effigies of all the New England +ministers ever done in mezzotinto. All these must have been very salable +articles. Other ornamental wares were to be found at the same shop; such as +violins, flutes, hautboys, musical books, English and Dutch toys, and London +babies. About this period, Mr. Dipper gives notice of a concert of vocal and +instrumental music. There had already been an attempt at theatrical +exhibitions. +</p> + +<p> +There are tokens, in every newspaper, of a style of luxury and magnificence +which we do not usually associate with our ideas of the times. When the +property of a deceased person was to be sold, we find, among the household +furniture, silk beds and hangings, damask table-cloths, Turkey carpets, +pictures, pier-glasses, massive plate, and all things proper for a noble +mansion. Wine was more generally drunk than now, though by no means to the +neglect of ardent spirits. For the apparel of both sexes, the mercers and +milliners imported good store of fine broadcloths, especially scarlet, crimson, +and sky-blue, silks, satins, lawns, and velvets, gold brocade, and gold and +silver lace, and silver tassels, and silver spangles, until Cornhill shone and +sparkled with their merchandise. The gaudiest dress permissible by modern taste +fades into a Quaker-like sobriety, compared with the deep, rich, glowing +splendor of our ancestors. Such figures were almost too fine to go about town +on foot; accordingly, carriages were so numerous as to require a tax; and it is +recorded that, when Governor Bernard came to the province, he was met between +Dedham and Boston by a multitude of gentlemen in their coaches and chariots. +</p> + +<p> +Take my arm, gentle reader, and come with me into some street, perhaps trodden +by your daily footsteps, but which now has such an aspect of half-familiar +strangeness, that you suspect yourself to be walking abroad in a dream. True, +there are some brick edifices which you remember from childhood, and which your +father and grandfather remembered as well; but you are perplexed by the absence +of many that were here only an hour or two since; and still more amazing is the +presence of whole rows of wooden and plastered houses, projecting over the +sidewalks, and bearing iron figures on their fronts, which prove them to have +stood on the same sites above a century. Where have your eyes been that you +never saw them before? Along the ghostly street,—for, at length, you +conclude that all is unsubstantial, though it be so good a mockery of an +antique town,—along the ghostly street, there are ghostly people too. +Every gentleman has his three-cornered hat, either on his head or under his +arm; and all wear wigs in infinite variety,—the Tie, the Brigadier, the +Spencer, the Albemarle, the Major, the Ramillies, the grave Full-bottom, or the +giddy Feather-top. Look at the elaborate lace-ruffles, and the square-skirted +coats of gorgeous hues, bedizened with silver and gold! Make way for the +phantom-ladies, whose hoops require such breadth of passage, as they pace +majestically along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or yellow, brilliantly +embroidered, and with small satin hats surmounting their powdered hair. Make +way; for the whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly garments brush +against their robes. Now that the scene is brightest, and the whole street +glitters with imaginary sunshine,—now hark to the bells of the Old South +and the Old North, ringing out with a sudden and merry peal, while the cannon +of Castle William thunder below the town, and those of the Diana frigate repeat +the sound, and the Charlestown batteries reply with a nearer roar! You see the +crowd toss up their hats in visionary joy. You hear of illuminations and +fire-works, and of bonfires, built oil scaffolds, raised several stories above +the ground, that are to blaze all night in King Street and on Beacon Hill. And +here come the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the tramping hoofs of the Boston +troop of horseguards, escorting the governor to King’s Chapel, where he +is to return solemn thanks for the surrender of Quebec. March on, thou shadowy +troop! and vanish, ghostly crowd! and change again, old street! for those +stirring times are gone. +</p> + +<p> +Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire broke out, on the +twentieth of March, 1760, at the Brazen-Head, in Cornhill, and consumed nearly +four hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been epochs in the +chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had hitherto been termed the Great Fire, but +now resigned its baleful dignity to one which has ever since retained it. Did +we desire to move the reader’s sympathies on this subject, we would not +be grandiloquent about the sea of billowy flame, the glowing and crumbling +streets, the broad, black firmament of smoke, and the blast or wind that sprang +up with the conflagration and roared behind it. It would be more effective to +mark out a single family at the moment when the flames caught upon an angle of +their dwelling: then would ensue the removal of the bedridden grandmother, the +cradle with the sleeping infant, and, most dismal of all, the dying man just at +the extremity of a lingering disease. Do but imagine the confused agony of one +thus awfully disturbed in his last hour; his fearful glance behind at the +consuming fire raging after him, from house to house, as its devoted victim; +and, finally, the almost eagerness with which he would seize some calmer +interval to die! The Great Fire must have realized many such a scene. +</p> + +<p> +Doubtless posterity has acquired a better city by the calamity of that +generation. None will be inclined to lament it at this late day, except the +lover of antiquity, who would have been glad to walk among those streets of +venerable houses, fancying the old inhabitants still there, that he might +commune with their shadows, and paint a more vivid picture of their times. +</p> + +<h3>III. THE OLD TORY.</h3> + +<p> +Again we take a leap of about twenty years, and alight in the midst of the +Revolution. Indeed, having just closed a volume of colonial newspapers, which +represented the period when monarchical and aristocratic sentiments were at the +highest,—and now opening another volume printed in the same metropolis, +after such sentiments had long been deemed a sin and shame,—we feel as if +the leap were more than figurative. Our late course of reading has tinctured +us, for the moment, with antique prejudices; and we shrink from the strangely +contrasted times into which we emerge, like one of those immutable old Tories, +who acknowledge no oppression in the Stamp Act. It may be the most effective +method of going through the present file of papers, to follow out this idea, +and transform ourself, perchance, from a modern Tory into such a sturdy +King-man as once wore that pliable nickname. +</p> + +<p> +Well, then, here we sit, an old, gray, withered, sour-visaged, threadbare sort +of gentleman, erect enough, here in our solitude, but marked out by a depressed +and distrustful mien abroad, as one conscious of a stigma upon his forehead, +though for no crime. We were already in the decline of life when the first +tremors of the earthquake that has convulsed the continent were felt. Our mind +had grown too rigid to change any of its opinions, when the voice of the people +demanded that all should be changed. We are an Episcopalian, and sat under the +High-Church doctrines of Dr. Caner; we have been a captain of the provincial +forces, and love our king the better for the blood that we shed in his cause on +the Plains of Abraham. Among all the refugees, there is not one more loyal to +the backbone than we. Still we lingered behind when the British army evacuated +Boston, sweeping in its train most of those with whom we held communion; the +old, loyal gentlemen, the aristocracy of the colonies, the hereditary +Englishman, imbued with more than native zeal and admiration for the glorious +island and its monarch, because the far-intervening ocean threw a dim reverence +around them. When our brethren departed, we could not tear our aged roots out +of the soil. +</p> + +<p> +We have remained, therefore, enduring to be outwardly a freeman, but idolizing +King George in secrecy and silence,—one true old heart amongst a host of +enemies. We watch, with a weary hope, for the moment when all this turmoil +shall subside, and the impious novelty that has distracted our latter years, +like a wild dream, give place to the blessed quietude of royal sway, with the +king’s name in every ordinance, his prayer in the church, his health at +the board, and his love in the people’s heart. Meantime, our old age +finds little honor. Hustled have we been, till driven from town-meetings; dirty +water has been cast upon our ruffles by a Whig chambermaid; John +Hancock’s coachman seizes every opportunity to bespatter us with mud; +daily are we hooted by the unbreeched rebel brats; and narrowly, once, did our +gray hairs escape the ignominy of tar and feathers. Alas! only that we cannot +bear to die till the next royal governor comes over, we would fain be in our +quiet grave. +</p> + +<p> +Such an old man among new things are we who now hold at arm’s-length the +rebel newspaper of the day. The very figure-head, for the thousandth time, +elicits it groan of spiteful lamentation. Where are the united heart and crown, +the loyal emblem, that used to hallow the sheet on which it was impressed, in +our younger days? In its stead we find a continental officer, with the +Declaration of Independence in one hand, a drawn sword in the other, and above +his head a scroll, bearing the motto, “W<small>E APPEAL TO</small> +H<small>EAVEN</small>.” Then say we, with a prospective triumph, let +Heaven judge, in its own good time! The material of the sheet attracts our +scorn. It is a fair specimen of rebel manufacture, thick and coarse, like +wrapping-paper, all overspread with little knobs; and of such a deep, dingy +blue color, that we wipe our spectacles thrice before we can distinguish a +letter of the wretched print. Thus, in all points, the newspaper is a type of +the times, far more fit for the rough hands of a democratic mob, than for our +own delicate, though bony fingers. Nay we will not handle it without our +gloves! +</p> + +<p> +Glancing down the page, our eyes are greeted everywhere by the offer of lands +at auction, for sale or to be leased, not by the rightful owners, but a rebel +committee; notices of the town constable, that he is authorized to receive the +taxes on such all estate, in default of which, that also is to be knocked down +to the highest bidder; and notifications of complaints filed by the +attorney-general against certain traitorous absentees, and of confiscations +that are to ensue. And who are these traitors? Our own best friends; names as +old, once as honored, as any in the land where they are no longer to have a +patrimony, nor to be remembered as good men who have passed away. We are +ashamed of not relinquishing our little property, too; but comfort ourselves +because we still keep our principles, without gratifying the rebels with our +plunder. Plunder, indeed, they are seizing everywhere,—by the strong hand +at sea, as well as by legal forms oil shore. Here are prize-vessels for sale; +no French nor Spanish merchantmen, whose wealth is the birthright of British +subjects, but hulls of British oak, from Liverpool, Bristol, and the Thames, +laden with the king’s own stores, for his army in New York. And what a +fleet of privateers—pirates, say we—are fitting out for new +ravages, with rebellion in their very names! The Free Yankee, the General +Greene, the Saratoga, the Lafayette, and the Grand Monarch! Yes, the Grand +Monarch; so is a French king styled, by the sons of Englishmen. And here we +have an ordinance from the Court of Versailles, with the Bourbon’s own +signature affixed, as if New England were already a French province. Everything +is French,—French soldiers, French sailors, French surgeons, and French +diseases too, I trow; besides French dancing-masters and French milliners, to +debauch our daughters with French fashions! Everything in America is French, +except the Canadas, the loyal Canadas, which we helped to wrest, from France. +And to that old French province the Englishman of the colonies must go to find +his country! +</p> + +<p> +O, the misery of seeing the whole system of things changed in my old days, when +I would be loath to change even a pair of buckles! The British coffee-house, +where oft we sat, brimful of wine and loyalty, with the gallant gentlemen of +Amherst’s army, when we wore a redcoat too,—the British +coffee-house, forsooth, must now be styled the American, with a golden eagle +instead of the royal arms above the door. Even the street it stands in is no +longer King Street! Nothing is the king’s, except this heavy heart in my +old bosom. Wherever I glance my eyes, they meet something that pricks them like +a needle. This soap-maker, for instance, this Hobert Hewes, has conspired +against my peace, by notifying that his shop is situated near Liberty Stump. +But when will their misnamed liberty have its true emblem in that Stump, hewn +down by British steel? +</p> + +<p> +Where shall we buy our next year’s almanac? Not this of +Weatherwise’s, certainly; for it contains a likeness of George +Washington, the upright rebel, whom we most hate, though reverentially, as a +fallen angel, with his heavenly brightness undiminished, evincing pure fame in +an unhallowed cause. And here is a new book for my evening’s +recreation,—a History of the War till the close of the year 1779, with +the heads of thirteen distinguished officers, engraved on copperplate. A plague +upon their heads! We desire not to see them till they grin at us from the +balcony before the town-house, fixed on spikes, as the heads of traitors. How +bloody-minded the villains make a peaceable old man! What next? An Oration, on +the Horrid Massacre of 1770. When that blood was shed,—the first that the +British soldier ever drew from the bosoms of our countrymen,—we turned +sick at heart, and do so still, as often as they make it reek anew from among +the stones in King Street. The pool that we saw that night has swelled into a +lake,—English blood and American,—no! all British, all blood of my +brethren. And here come down tears. Shame on me, since half of them are shed +for rebels! Who are not rebels now! Even the women are thrusting their white +hands into the war, and come out in this very paper with proposals to form a +society—the lady of George Washington at their head—for clothing +the continental troops. They will strip off their stiff petticoats to cover the +ragged rascals, and then enlist in the ranks themselves. +</p> + +<p> +What have we here? Burgoyne’s proclamation turned into Hudibrastic rhyme! +And here, some verses against the king, in which the scribbler leaves a blank +for the name of George, as if his doggerel might yet exalt him to the pillory. +Such, after years of rebellion, is the heart’s unconquerable reverence +for the Lord’s anointed! In the next column, we have scripture parodied +in a squib against his sacred Majesty. What would our Puritan great-grandsires +have said to that? They never laughed at God’s word, though they cut off +a king’s head. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; it was for us to prove how disloyalty goes hand in hand with irreligion, +and all other vices come trooping in the train. Nowadays men commit robbery and +sacrilege for the mere luxury of wickedness, as this advertisement testifies. +Three hundred pounds reward for the detection of the villains who stole and +destroyed the cushions and pulpit drapery of the Brattle Street and Old South +churches. Was it a crime? I can scarcely think our temples hallowed, since the +king ceased to be prayed for. But it is not temples only that they rob. Here a +man offers a thousand dollars—a thousand dollars, in Continental +rags!—for the recovery of his stolen cloak, and other articles of +clothing. Horse-thieves are innumerable. Now is the day when every beggar gets +on horseback. And is not the whole land like a beggar on horseback riding post +to the Davil? Ha! here is a murder, too. A woman slain at midnight, by all +unknown ruffian, and found cold, stiff, and bloody, in her violated bed! Let +the hue-and-cry follow hard after the man in the uniform of blue and buff who +last went by that way. My life on it, he is the blood-stained ravisher! These +deserters whom we see proclaimed in every column,—proof that the banditti +are as false to their Stars and Stripes as to the Holy Red Cross,—they +bring the crimes of a rebel camp into a soil well suited to them; the bosom of +a people, without the heart that kept them virtuous,—their king! +</p> + +<p> +Here flaunting down a whole column, with official seal and signature, here +comes a proclamation. By whose authority? Ah! the United States,—these +thirteen little anarchies, assembled in that one grand anarchy, their Congress. +And what the import? A general Fast. By Heaven! for once the traitorous +blockheads have legislated wisely! Yea; let a misguided people kneel down in +sackcloth and ashes, from end to end, from border to border, of their wasted +country. Well may they fast where there is no food, and cry aloud for whatever +remnant of God’s mercy their sins may not have exhausted. We too will +fast, even at a rebel summons. Pray others as they will, there shall be at +least an old man kneeling for the righteous cause. Lord, put down the rebels! +God save the king! +</p> + +<p> +Peace to the good old Tory! One of our objects has been to exemplify, without +softening a single prejudice proper to the character which we assumed, that the +Americans who clung to the losing side in the Revolution were men greatly to be +pitied and often worthy of our sympathy. It would be difficult to say whose lot +was most lamentable, that of the active Tories, who gave up their patrimonies +for a pittance from the British pension-roll, and their native land for a cold +reception in their miscalled home, or the passive ones who remained behind to +endure the coldness of former friends, and the public opprobrium, as despised +citizens, under a government which they abhorred. In justice to the old +gentleman who has favored us with his discontented musings, we must remark that +the state of the country, so far as can be gathered from these papers, was of +dismal augury for the tendencies of democratic rule. It was pardonable in the +conservative of that day to mistake the temporary evils of a change for +permanent diseases of the system which that change was to establish. A +revolution, or anything that interrupts social order, may afford opportunities +for the individual display of eminent virtues; but its effects are pernicious +to general morality. Most people are so constituted that they can be virtuous +only in a certain routine; and an irregular course of public affairs +demoralizes them. One great source of disorder was the multitude of disbanded +troops, who were continually returning home, after terms of service just long +enough to give them a distaste to peaceable occupations; neither citizens nor +soldiers, they were very liable to become ruffians. Almost all our impressions +in regard to this period are unpleasant, whether referring to the state of +civil society, or to the character of the contest, which, especially where +native Americans were opposed to each other, was waged with the deadly hatred +of fraternal enemies. It is the beauty of war, for men to commit mutual havoc +with undisturbed good-humor. +</p> + +<p> +The present volume of newspapers contains fewer characteristic traits than any +which we have looked over. Except for the peculiarities attendant on the +passing struggle, manners seem to have taken a modern cast. Whatever antique +fashions lingered into the War of the Revolution, or beyond it, they were not +so strongly marked as to leave their traces in the public journals. Moreover, +the old newspapers had an indescribable picturesqueness, not to be found in the +later ones. Whether it be something in the literary execution, or the ancient +print and paper, and the idea that those same musty pages have been handled by +people once alive and bustling amid the scenes there recorded, yet now in their +graves beyond the memory of man; so it is, that in those elder volumes we seem +to find the life of a past age preserved between the leaves, like a dry +specimen of foliage. It is so difficult to discover what touches are really +picturesque, that we doubt whether our attempts have produced any similar +effect. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD NEWS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f38450 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9239 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9239) diff --git a/old/9239.txt b/old/9239.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4673b6d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/9239.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1280 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old News, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Old News + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: December 20, 2010 [EBook #9239] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 18, 2003 +Last Updated: February 6, 2007 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD NEWS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + THE SNOW-IMAGE + + AND + + OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES + + + + OLD NEWS + + By + + Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + +There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small +half-sheet, yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted +with a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of +antiquity, in a species of literature which we are accustomed to consider +as connected only with the present moment. Ephemeral as they were +intended and supposed to be, they have long outlived the printer and his +whole subscription-list, and have proved more durable, as to their +physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and stone of the +town where they were issued. These are but the least of their triumphs. +The government, the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral +circumstances that were contemporary with their publication, have passed +away, and left no better record of what they were than may be found in +these frail leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their +productions excel all others in immediate popularity, and are certain to +acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They scatter their +leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity collects them, to be +treasured up among the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty pens +they write for immortality. + +It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets between the +thumb and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety years +ago, held it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of +the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. There he sits, a +major, a member of the council, and a weighty merchant, in his high-backed +arm-chair, wearing a solemn wig and grave attire, such as befits +his imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little finery, except a +huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved. Observe the awful +reverence of his visage, as he reads his Majesty's most gracious speech; +and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders over some paragraph of +provincial politics, and the keener intelligence with which he glances at +the ship-news and commercial advertisements. Observe, and smile! He may +have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the wisdom of the politician +appears like folly, because we can compare its prognostics with actual +results; and the old merchant seems to have busied himself about +vanities, because we know that the expected ships have been lost at sea, +or mouldered at the wharves; that his imported broadcloths were long ago +worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that +the most precious leaves of his ledger have become waste-paper. Yet, his +avocations were not so vain as our philosophic moralizing. In this world +we are the things of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary things, +with here and there a thought that stretches mistily towards eternity, +and perhaps may endure as long. All philosophy that would abstract +mankind from the present is no more than words. + +The first pages of most of these old papers are as soporific as a bed of +poppies. Here we have an erudite clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge +professor, occupying several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate +and Brady, as compared with the New England version of the Psalms. Of +course, the preference is given to the native article. Here are doctors +disagreeing about the treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and +blackguarding each other with a characteristic virulence that renders the +controversy not altogether unreadable. Here are President Wigglesworth +and the Rev. Dr. Colman, endeavoring to raise a fund for the support of +missionaries among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay. Easy would be the +duties of such a mission now! Here--for there is nothing new under the +sun--are frequent complaints of the disordered state of the currency, and +the project of a bank with a capital of five hundred thousand pounds, +secured on lands. Here are literary essays, from the Gentleman's +Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, from the London newspapers. +And here, occasionally, are specimens of New England honor, laboriously +light and lamentably mirthful, as if some very sober person, in his zeal +to be merry, were dancing a jig to the tune of a funeral-psalm. All this +is wearisome, and we must turn the leaf. + +There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, in the perusal of +those little items which characterize the manners and circumstances of +the country. New England was then in a state incomparably more +picturesque than at present, or than it has been within the memory of +man; there being, as yet, only a narrow strip of civilization along the +edge of a vast forest, peopled with enough of its original race to +contrast the savage life with the old customs of another world. The +white population, also, was diversified by the influx of all sorts of +expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation of bond-servants +from Ireland and elsewhere, so that there was a wild and unsettled +multitude, forming a strong minority to the sober descendants of the +Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark shade to +the picture of society. The consequence of all this was a great variety +and singularity of action and incident, many instances of which might be +selected from these columns, where they are told with a simplicity and +quaintness of style that bring the striking points into very strong +relief. It is natural to suppose, too, that these circumstances affected +the body of the people, and made their course of life generally less +regular than that of their descendants. There is no evidence that the +moral standard was higher then than now; or, indeed, that morality was so +well defined as it has since become. There seem to have been quite as +many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the number of honest deeds; +there were murders, in hot-blood and in malice; and bloody quarrels over +liquor. Some of our fathers also appear to have been yoked to unfaithful +wives, if we may trust the frequent notices of elopements from bed and +board. The pillory, the whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows, each +had their use in those old times; and, in short, as often as our +imagination lives in the past, we find it a ruder and rougher age than +our own, with hardly any perceptible advantages, and much that gave life +a gloomier tinge. In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air +over our picture of this period; nothing passes before our fancy but a +crowd of sad-visaged people, moving duskily through a dull gray +atmosphere. It is certain that winter rushed upon them with fiercer +storms than now, blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming +the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snow drifts; so that weeks +elapsed before the newspaper could announce how many travellers had +perished, or what wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more +piercing then, and lingered further into the spring, making the +chimney-corner a comfortable seat till long past May-day. By the number +of such accidents on record, we might suppose that the thunder-stone, as +they termed it, fell oftener and deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and +unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers bore the brunt of more raging +and pitiless elements than we. There were forebodings, also, of a more +fearful tempest than those of the elements. At two or three dates, we +have stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial music, passing +athwart the midnight sky, accompanied with the--roar of cannon and rattle +of musketry, prophetic echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the +land. Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French fleets +on the coast, and of the march of French and Indians through the +wilderness, along the borders of the settlements. The country was +saddened, moreover, with grievous sicknesses. The small-pox raged in +many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a scourge, to have been +regarded with as much affright as that which drove the throng from Wall +Street and Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There were +autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive +throat-distemper,--diseases unwritten in medical hooks. The dark +superstition of former days had not yet been so far dispelled as not to +heighten the gloom of the present times. There is an advertisement, +indeed, by a committee of the Legislature, calling for information as to +the circumstances of sufferers in the "late calamity of 1692," with a +view to reparation for their losses and misfortunes. But the tenderness +with which, after above forty years, it was thought expedient to allude +to the witchcraft delusion, indicates a good deal of lingering error, as +well as the advance of more enlightened opinions. The rigid hand of +Puritanism might yet be felt upon the reins of government, while some +of the ordinances intimate a disorderly spirit on the part of the people. +The Suffolk justices, after a preamble that great disturbances have been +committed by persons entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, +calashes, and other wheel-carriages, on the evening before the Sabbath, +give notice that a watch will hereafter be set at the "fortification-gate," +to prevent these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect +of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members, +with a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes proclamation against +certain "loose and dissolute people" who have been wont to stop +passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, "otherwise called +Pope's Day," and levy contributions for the building of bonfires. In +this instance, the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate. + +The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the sombre +character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer seldom +fails to notice that the corpse was "very decently interred." But when +some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of the +"worshipful" such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of deacon, +justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic sketch of his +honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black pomp of his +funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning +rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have seen it +represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the bearers, +and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments, while +grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful +emblems, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach maker at this +period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the chief of his +living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be fair, +however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader's mind; +nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark +attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this reminds +us that there is an incidental notice of the "dancing-school near the +Orange-Tree," whence we may infer that the salutatory art was +occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic +gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the +aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor was the centre. But we +are scandalized at the attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more +reprehensible amusement: he challenges the whole country to match his +black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to be decided on Metonomy +Common or Chelsea Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be +inferred from this freak of an individual. There were no daily and +continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes the people +rejoiced, in their own peculiar fashion, oftener with a calm, religious +smile than with a broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great +family, at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth throughout +the pleasant days of Election-week. This latter was the true holiday +season of New England. Military musters were too seriously important in +that warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they stirred up +and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions of solemn festival to +the governor and great men of the province, at the expense of the +field-offices. The Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; for +the anniversary of the king's birth appears to have been celebrated with +most imposing pomp, by salutes from Castle William, a military parade, a +grand dinner at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination in the +evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in these testimonials of +loyalty to George the Second. So long as they dreaded the +re-establishment of a popish dynasty, the people were fervent for the +house of Hanover: and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the country +was a barrier between the monarch and the occasional discontents of the +colonies; the waves of faction sometimes reached the governor's chair, +but never swelled against the throne. Thus, until oppression was felt +to proceed from the king's own hand, New England rejoiced with her whole +heart on his Majesty's birthday. + +But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of the population, +since it was their gift to be merry in the worst of circumstances; and +they endured, comparatively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of +our fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in these human +commodities. No advertisements are more frequent than those of "a negro +fellow, fit for almost any household work"; "a negro woman, honest, +healthy, and capable"; "a negro wench of many desirable qualities"; +"a negro man, very fit for a taylor." We know not in what this natural +fitness for a tailor consisted, unless it were some peculiarity of +conformation that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves of a +family were inconveniently prolific,--it being not quite orthodox to +drown the superfluous offspring, like a litter of kittens,--notice was +promulgated of "a negro child to be given away." Sometimes the slaves +assumed the property of their own persons, and made their escape; among +many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry after his negro +Juba. But, without venturing a word in extenuation of the general +system, we confess our opinion that Caesar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such +great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised had they stayed at +home, foddering the cattle, cleaning dishes,--in fine, performing their +moderate share of the labors of life, without being harassed by its +cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from the +domestic affections: in families of middling rank, they had their places +at the board; and when the circle closed round the evening hearth, its +blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with +their master's children. It must have contributed to reconcile them to +their lot, that they saw white men and women imported from Europe as they +had been from Africa, and sold, though only for a term of years, yet as +actual slaves to the highest bidder. Slave labor being but a small part +of the industry of the country, it did not change the character of the +people; the latter, on the contrary, modified and softened the +institution, making it a patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity +of the times. + +Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were +peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on +his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid +of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked +streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of +the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to +call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, and examine his rich velvet, +whether it be fit for my apparel on Election-day,--that I may wear a +stately aspect in presence of the governor and my brethren of the +council. I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the +jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and mine have lasted me +some half-score years. My fair daughter Miriam shall have an apron of +gold brocade, and a velvet mask,--though it would be a pity the wench +should hide her comely visage; and also a French cap, from Robert +Jenkins's, on the north side of the town-house. He hath beads, too, and +ear-rings, and necklaces, of all sorts; these are but vanities, +nevertheless, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame desireth +another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I must inspect the lot of Irish +lasses, for sale by Samuel Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; as also +the likely negro wench, at Captain Bulfinch's. It were not amiss that I +took my daughter Miriam to see the royal waxwork, near the town-dock, +that she may learn to honor our most gracious King and Queen, and their +royal progeny, even in their waxen images; not that I would approve of +image-worship. The camel, too, that strange beast from Africa, with two +great humps, to be seen near the Common; methinks I would fain go +thither, and see how the old patriarchs were wont to ride. I will tarry +awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good friends Kneeland & +Green, and purchase Dr. Colman's new sermon, and the volume of discourses +by Mr. Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy on baptism, between the +Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary; and see whether this George +Whitefield be as great in print as he is famed to be in the pulpit. By +that time, the auction will have commenced at the Royal Exchange, in King +Street. Moreover, I must look to the disposal of my last cargo of West +India rum and muscovado sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire +cheese, lest it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask of good +English beer, at the lower end of Milk Street. + +Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of stout old +Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto-wines, which I have now lying in the +cellar of the Old South meeting-house. But, a pipe or two of the rich +Canary shall be reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own +wine-cellar, and gladden my heart when it begins to droop with old age. + +Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of his sepulchre? Did he +bethink him to call at the workshop of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold Lane, and +select such a gravestone as would best please him? There wrought the man +whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen, was ultimately in +demand by all the busy multitude who have left a record of their earthly +toil in these old time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the +volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy stones of a +burial-ground. + + +II. THE OLD FRENCH WAR. + +At a period about twenty years subsequent to that of our former sketch, +we again attempt a delineation of some of the characteristics of life and +manners in New England. Our text-book, as before, is a file of antique +newspapers. The volume which serves us for a writing-desk is a folio of +larger dimensions than the one before described; and the papers are +generally printed on a whole sheet, sometimes with a supplemental leaf of +news and advertisements. They have a venerable appearance, being +overspread with a duskiness of more than seventy years, and discolored, +here and there, with the deeper stains of some liquid, as if the contents +of a wineglass had long since been splashed upon the page. Still, the +old book conveys an impression that, when the separate numbers were +flying about town, in the first day or two of their respective +existences, they might have been fit reading for very stylish people. +Such newspapers could have been issued nowhere but in a metropolis the +centre, not only of public and private affairs, but of fashion and +gayety. Without any discredit to the colonial press, these might have +been, and probably were, spread out on the tables of the British +coffee-house, in king Street, for the perusal of the throng of officers +who then drank their wine at that celebrated establishment. To interest +these military gentlemen, there were bulletins of the war between Prussia +and Austria; between England and France, on the old battle-plains of +Flanders; and between the same antagonists, in the newer fields of the +East Indies,--and in our own trackless woods, where white men never trod +until they came to fight there. Or, the travelled American, the +petit-maitre of the colonies,--the ape of London foppery, as the newspaper +was the semblance of the London journals,--he, with his gray powdered +periwig, his embroidered coat, lace ruffles, and glossy silk stockings, +golden-clocked,--his buckles of glittering paste, at knee-band and +shoe-strap,--his scented handkerchief, and chapeau beneath his arm, even +such a dainty figure need not have disdained to glance at these old yellow +pages, while they were the mirror of passing times. For his amusement, +there were essays of wit and humor, the light literature of the day, +which, for breadth and license, might have proceeded from the pen of +Fielding or Smollet; while, in other columns, he would delight his +imagination with the enumerated items of all sorts of finery, and with +the rival advertisements of half a dozen peruke-makers. In short, newer +manners and customs had almost entirely superseded those of the Puritans, +even in their own city of refuge. + +It was natural that, with the lapse of time and increase of wealth and +population, the peculiarities of the early settlers should have waxed +fainter and fainter through the generations of their descendants, who +also had been alloyed by a continual accession of emigrants from many +countries and of all characters. It tended to assimilate the colonial +manners to those of the mother-country, that the commercial intercourse +was great, and that the merchants often went thither in their own ships. +Indeed, almost every man of adequate fortune felt a yearning desire, and +even judged it a filial duty, at least once in his life, to visit the +home of his ancestors. They still called it their own home, as if New +England were to them, what many of the old Puritans had considered it, +not a permanent abiding-place, but merely a lodge in the wilderness, +until the trouble of the times should be passed. The example of the +royal governors must have had much influence on the manners of the +colonists; for these rulers assumed a degree of state and splendor which +had never been practised by their predecessors, who differed in nothing +from republican chief-magistrates, under the old charter. The officers +of the crown, the public characters in the interest of the +administration, and the gentlemen of wealth and good descent, generally +noted for their loyalty, would constitute a dignified circle, with the +governor in the centre, bearing a very passable resemblance to a court. +Their ideas, their habits, their bode of courtesy, and their dress would +have all the fresh glitter of fashions immediately derived from the +fountain-head, in England. To prevent their modes of life from becoming +the standard with all who had the ability to imitate them, there was no +longer an undue severity of religion, nor as yet any disaffection to +British supremacy, nor democratic prejudices against pomp. Thus, while +the colonies were attaining that strength which was soon to render them +an independent republic, it might have been supposed that the wealthier +classes were growing into an aristocracy, and ripening for hereditary +rank, while the poor were to be stationary in their abasement, and the +country, perhaps, to be a sister monarchy with England. Such, doubtless, +were the plausible conjectures deduced from the superficial phenomena of +our connection with a monarchical government, until the prospective +nobility were levelled with the mob, by the mere gathering of winds that +preceded the storm of the Revolution. The portents of that storm were +not yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, therefore, would +have the rich effect produced by distinctions of rank that seemed +permanent, and by appropriate habits of splendor on the part of the +gentry. + +The people at large had been somewhat changed in character, since the +period of our last sketch, by their great exploit, the conquest of +Louisburg. After that event, the New-Englanders never settled into +precisely the same quiet race which all the world had imagined them to +be. They had done a deed of history, and were anxious to add new ones to +the record. They had proved themselves powerful enough to influence the +result of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and willingly +consented, to join their strength against the enemies of England; on +those fields, at least, where victory would redound to their peculiar +advantage. And now, in the heat of the Old French War, they might well +be termed a martial people. Every man was a soldier, or the father or +brother of a soldier; and the whole land literally echoed with the roll +of the drum, either beating up for recruits among the towns and villages, +or striking the march towards the frontiers. Besides the provincial +troops, there were twenty-three British regiments in the northern +colonies. The country has never known a period of such excitement and +warlike life; except during the Revolution,--perhaps scarcely then; for +that was a lingering war, and this a stirring and eventful one. + +One would think that no very wonderful talent was requisite for an +historical novel, when the rough and hurried paragraphs of these +newspapers can recall the past so magically. We seem to be waiting in +the street for the arrival of the post-rider--who is seldom more than +twelve hours beyond his time--with letters, by way of Albany, from the +various departments of the army. Or, we may fancy ourselves in the +circle of listeners, all with necks stretched out towards an old +gentleman in the centre, who deliberately puts on his spectacles, unfolds +the wet newspaper, and gives us the details of the broken and +contradictory reports, which have been flying from mouth to mouth, ever +since the courier alighted at Secretary Oliver's office. Sometimes we +have an account of the Indian skirmishes near Lake George, and how a +ranging party of provincials were so closely pursued, that they threw +away their arms, and eke their shoes, stockings, and breeches, barely +reaching the camp in their shirts, which also were terribly tattered by +the bushes. Then, there is a journal of the siege of Fort Niagara, so +minute that it almost numbers the cannon-shot and bombs, and describes +the effect of the latter missiles on the French commandant's stone +mansion, within the fortress. In the letters of the provincial officers, +it is amusing to observe how some of them endeavor to catch the careless +and jovial turn of old campaigners. One gentleman tells us that he holds +a brimming glass in his hand, intending to drink the health of his +correspondent, unless a cannon ball should dash the liquor from his lips; +in the midst of his letter he hears the bells of the French churches +ringing, in Quebec, and recollects that it is Sunday; whereupon, like a +good Protestant, he resolves to disturb the Catholic worship by a few +thirty-two pound shot. While this wicked man of war was thus making a +jest of religion, his pious mother had probably put up a note, that very +Sabbath-day, desiring the "prayers of the congregation for a son gone a +soldiering." We trust, however, that there were some stout old worthies +who were not ashamed to do as their fathers did, but went to prayer, with +their soldiers, before leading them to battle; and doubtless fought none +the worse for that. If we had enlisted in the Old French War, it should +have been under such a captain; for we love to see a man keep the +characteristics of his country. + + [The contemptuous jealousy of the British army, from the general + downwards, was very galling to the provincial troops. In one of the + newspapers, there is an admirable letter of a New England man, + copied from the London Chronicle, defending the provincials with an + ability worthy of Franklin, and somewhat in his style. The letter + is remarkable, also, because it takes up the cause of the whole + range of colonies, as if the writer looked upon them all as + constituting one country, and that his own. Colonial patriotism had + not hitherto been so broad a sentiment.] + +These letters, and other intelligence from the army, are pleasant and +lively reading, and stir up the mind like the music of a drum and fife. +It is less agreeable to meet with accounts of women slain and scalped, +and infants dashed against trees, by the Indians on the frontiers. It is +a striking circumstance, that innumerable bears, driven from the woods, +by the uproar of contending armies in their accustomed haunts, broke into +the settlements, and committed great ravages among children, as well as +sheep and swine. Some of them prowled where bears had never been for a +century, penetrating within a mile or two of Boston; a fact that gives a +strong and gloomy impression of something very terrific going on in the +forest, since these savage beasts fled townward to avoid it. But it is +impossible to moralize about such trifles, when every newspaper contains +tales of military enterprise, and often a huzza for victory; as, for +instance, the taking of Ticonderoga, long a place of awe to the +provincials, and one of the bloodiest spots in the present war. Nor is +it unpleasant, among whole pages of exultation, to find a note of sorrow +for the fall of some brave officer; it comes wailing in, like a funeral +strain amidst a peal of triumph, itself triumphant too. Such was the +lamentation over Wolfe. Somewhere, in this volume of newspapers, though +we cannot now lay our finger upon the passage, we recollect a report that +General Wolfe was slain, not by the enemy, but by a shot from his own +soldiers. + +In the advertising columns, also, we are continually reminded that the +country was in a state of war. Governor Pownall makes proclamation for +the enlisting of soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend to +the discipline of their regiments, and the selectmen of every town to +replenish their stocks of ammunition. The magazine, by the way, was +generally kept in the upper loft of the village meeting-house. The +provincial captains are drumming up for soldiers, in every newspaper. +Sir Jeffrey Amherst advertises for batteaux-men, to be employed on the +lakes; and gives notice to the officers of seven British regiments, +dispersed on the recruiting service, to rendezvous in Boston. Captain +Hallowell, of the province ship-of-war King George, invites able-bodied +seamen to serve his Majesty, for fifteen pounds, old tenor, per month. +By the rewards offered, there would appear to have been frequent +desertions from the New England forces: we applaud their wisdom, if not +their valor or integrity. Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls, +firelocks, pistols, swords, and hangers, were common articles of +merchandise. Daniel Jones, at the sign of the hat and helmet, offers to +supply officers with scarlet broadcloth, gold-lace for hats and +waistcoats, cockades, and other military foppery, allowing credit until +the payrolls shall be made up. This advertisement gives us quite a +gorgeous idea of a provincial captain in full dress. + +At the commencement of the campaign of 1759, the British general informs +the farmers of New England that a regular market will be established at +Lake George, whither they are invited to bring provisions and +refreshments of all sorts, for the use of the army. Hence, we may form a +singular picture of petty traffic, far away from any permanent +settlements, among the hills which border that romantic lake, with the +solemn woods overshadowing the scene. Carcasses of bullocks and fat +porkers are placed upright against the huge trunks of the trees; fowls +hang from the lower branches, bobbing against the heads of those beneath; +butter-firkins, great cheeses, and brown loaves of household bread, baked +in distant ovens, are collected under temporary shelters or pine-boughs, +with gingerbread, and pumpkin-pies, perhaps, and other toothsome +dainties. Barrels of cider and spruce-beer are running freely into the +wooden canteens of the soldiers. Imagine such a scene, beneath the dark +forest canopy, with here and there a few struggling sunbeams, to +dissipate the gloom. See the shrewd yeomen, haggling with their +scarlet-coated customers, abating somewhat in their prices, but still +dealing at monstrous profit; and then complete the picture with +circumstances that bespeak war and danger. A cannon shall be seen to +belch its smoke from among the trees, against some distant canoes on +the lake; the traffickers shall pause, and seem to hearken, at intervals, +as if they heard the rattle of musketry or the shout of Indians; a +scouting-party shall be driven in, with two or three faint and bloody men +among them. And, in spite of these disturbances, business goes on briskly +in the market of the wilderness. + +It must not be supposed that the martial character of the times +interrupted all pursuits except those connected with war. On the +contrary, there appears to have been a general vigor and vivacity +diffused into the whole round of colonial life. During the winter of +1759, it was computed that about a thousand sled-loads of country produce +were daily brought into Boston market. It was a symptom of an irregular +and unquiet course of affairs, that innumerable lotteries were projected, +ostensibly for the purpose of public improvements, such as roads and +bridges. Many females seized the opportunity to engage in business: as, +among others, Alice Quick, who dealt in crockery and hosiery, next door +to Deacon Beautineau's; Mary Jackson, who sold butter, at the Brazen-Head, +in Cornhill; Abigail Hiller, who taught ornamental work, near the +Orange-Tree, where also were to be seen the King and Queen, in wax-work; +Sarah Morehead, an instructor in glass-painting, drawing, and japanning; +Mary Salmon, who shod horses, at the South End; Harriet Pain, at the Buck +and Glove, and Mrs. Henrietta Maria Caine, at the Golden Fan, both +fashionable milliners; Anna Adams, who advertises Quebec and Garrick +bonnets, Prussian cloaks, and scarlet cardinals, opposite the old brick +meeting-house; besides a lady at the head of a wine and spirit +establishment. Little did these good dames expect to reappear before the +public, so long after they had made their last courtesies behind the +counter. Our great-grandmothers were a stirring sisterhood, and seem not +to have been utterly despised by the gentlemen at the British coffee-house; +at least, some gracious bachelor, there resident, gives public +notice of his willingness to take a wife, provided she be not above +twenty-three, and possess brown hair, regular features, a brisk eye, and +a fortune. Now, this was great condescension towards the ladies of +Massachusetts Bay, in a threadbare lieutenant of foot. + +Polite literature was beginning to make its appearance. Few native works +were advertised, it is true, except sermons and treatises of +controversial divinity; nor were the English authors of the day much +known on this side of the Atlantic. But catalogues were frequently +offered at auction or private sale, comprising the standard English +books, history, essays, and poetry, of Queen Anne's age, and the +preceding century. We see nothing in the nature of a novel, unless it be +"_The Two Mothers_, price four coppers." There was an American poet, +however, of whom Mr. Kettell has preserved no specimen,--the author of +"War, an Heroic Poem"; he publishes by subscription, and threatens to +prosecute his patrons for not taking their books. We have discovered a +periodical, also, and one that has a peculiar claim to be recorded here, +since it bore the title of "_THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE_," a forgotten +predecessor, for which we should have a filial respect, and take its +excellence on trust. The fine arts, too, were budding into existence. +At the "old glass and picture shop," in Cornhill, various maps, plates, +and views are advertised, and among them a "Prospect of Boston," a +copperplate engraving of Quebec, and the effigies of all the New England +ministers ever done in mezzotinto. All these must have been very salable +articles. Other ornamental wares were to be found at the same shop; such +as violins, flutes, hautboys, musical books, English and Dutch toys, and +London babies. About this period, Mr. Dipper gives notice of a concert +of vocal and instrumental music. There had already been an attempt at +theatrical exhibitions. + +There are tokens, in every newspaper, of a style of luxury and +magnificence which we do not usually associate with our ideas of the +times. When the property of a deceased person was to be sold, we find, +among the household furniture, silk beds and hangings, damask table-cloths, +Turkey carpets, pictures, pier-glasses, massive plate, and all +things proper for a noble mansion. Wine was more generally drunk than +now, though by no means to the neglect of ardent spirits. For the +apparel of both sexes, the mercers and milliners imported good store of +fine broadcloths, especially scarlet, crimson, and sky-blue, silks, +satins, lawns, and velvets, gold brocade, and gold and silver lace, and +silver tassels, and silver spangles, until Cornhill shone and sparkled +with their merchandise. The gaudiest dress permissible by modern taste +fades into a Quaker-like sobriety, compared with the deep, rich, glowing +splendor of our ancestors. Such figures were almost too fine to go about +town on foot; accordingly, carriages were so numerous as to require a +tax; and it is recorded that, when Governor Bernard came to the province, +he was met between Dedham and Boston by a multitude of gentlemen in their +coaches and chariots. + +Take my arm, gentle reader, and come with me into some street, perhaps +trodden by your daily footsteps, but which now has such an aspect of +half-familiar strangeness, that you suspect yourself to be walking abroad +in a dream. True, there are some brick edifices which you remember from +childhood, and which your father and grandfather remembered as well; but +you are perplexed by the absence of many that were here only an hour or +two since; and still more amazing is the presence of whole rows of wooden +and plastered houses, projecting over the sidewalks, and bearing iron +figures on their fronts, which prove them to have stood on the same sites +above a century. Where have your eyes been that you never saw them +before? Along the ghostly street,--for, at length, you conclude that all +is unsubstantial, though it be so good a mockery of an antique town,--along +the ghostly street, there are ghostly people too. Every gentleman +has his three-cornered hat, either on his head or under his arm; and all +wear wigs in infinite variety,--the Tie, the Brigadier, the Spencer, the +Albemarle, the Major, the Ramillies, the grave Full-bottom, or the giddy +Feather-top. Look at the elaborate lace-ruffles, and the square-skirted +coats of gorgeous hues, bedizened with silver and gold! Make way for the +phantom-ladies, whose hoops require such breadth of passage, as they pace +majestically along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or yellow, brilliantly +embroidered, and with small satin hats surmounting their powdered hair. +Make way; for the whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly +garments brush against their robes. Now that the scene is brightest, and +the whole street glitters with imaginary sunshine,--now hark to the bells +of the Old South and the Old North, ringing out with a sudden and merry +peal, while the cannon of Castle William thunder below the town, and +those of the Diana frigate repeat the sound, and the Charlestown +batteries reply with a nearer roar! You see the crowd toss up their hats +in visionary joy. You hear of illuminations and fire-works, and of +bonfires, built oil scaffolds, raised several stories above the ground, +that are to blaze all night in King Street and on Beacon Hill. And here +come the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the tramping hoofs of the Boston +troop of horseguards, escorting the governor to King's Chapel, where he +is to return solemn thanks for the surrender of Quebec. March on, thou +shadowy troop! and vanish, ghostly crowd! and change again, old street! +for those stirring times are gone. + +Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire broke out, on the +twentieth of March, 1760, at the Brazen-Head, in Cornhill, and consumed +nearly four hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been epochs +in the chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had hitherto been termed the +Great Fire, but now resigned its baleful dignity to one which has ever +since retained it. Did we desire to move the reader's sympathies on this +subject, we would not be grandiloquent about the sea of billowy flame, +the glowing and crumbling streets, the broad, black firmament of smoke, +and the blast or wind that sprang up with the conflagration and roared +behind it. It would be more effective to mark out a single family at the +moment when the flames caught upon an angle of their dwelling: then would +ensue the removal of the bedridden grandmother, the cradle with the +sleeping infant, and, most dismal of all, the dying man just at the +extremity of a lingering disease. Do but imagine the confused agony of +one thus awfully disturbed in his last hour; his fearful glance behind at +the consuming fire raging after him, from house to house, as its devoted +victim; and, finally, the almost eagerness with which he would seize some +calmer interval to die! The Great Fire must have realized many such a +scene. + +Doubtless posterity has acquired a better city by the calamity of that +generation. None will be inclined to lament it at this late day, except +the lover of antiquity, who would have been glad to walk among those +streets of venerable houses, fancying the old inhabitants still there, +that he might commune with their shadows, and paint a more vivid picture +of their times. + + +III. THE OLD TORY. + +Again we take a leap of about twenty years, and alight in the midst of +the Revolution. Indeed, having just closed a volume of colonial +newspapers, which represented the period when monarchical and +aristocratic sentiments were at the highest,--and now opening another +volume printed in the same metropolis, after such sentiments had long +been deemed a sin and shame,--we feel as if the leap were more than +figurative. Our late course of reading has tinctured us, for the moment, +with antique prejudices; and we shrink from the strangely contrasted +times into which we emerge, like one of those immutable old Tories, who +acknowledge no oppression in the Stamp Act. It may be the most effective +method of going through the present file of papers, to follow out this +idea, and transform ourself, perchance, from a modern Tory into such a +sturdy King-man as once wore that pliable nickname. + +Well, then, here we sit, an old, gray, withered, sour-visaged, threadbare +sort of gentleman, erect enough, here in our solitude, but marked out by +a depressed and distrustful mien abroad, as one conscious of a stigma +upon his forehead, though for no crime. We were already in the decline +of life when the first tremors of the earthquake that has convulsed the +continent were felt. Our mind had grown too rigid to change any of its +opinions, when the voice of the people demanded that all should be +changed. We are an Episcopalian, and sat under the High-Church doctrines +of Dr. Caner; we have been a captain of the provincial forces, and love +our king the better for the blood that we shed in his cause on the Plains +of Abraham. Among all the refugees, there is not one more loyal to the +backbone than we. Still we lingered behind when the British army +evacuated Boston, sweeping in its train most of those with whom we held +communion; the old, loyal gentlemen, the aristocracy of the colonies, the +hereditary Englishman, imbued with more than native zeal and admiration +for the glorious island and its monarch, because the far-intervening +ocean threw a dim reverence around them. When our brethren departed, we +could not tear our aged roots out of the soil. + +We have remained, therefore, enduring to be outwardly a freeman, but +idolizing King George in secrecy and silence,--one true old heart amongst +a host of enemies. We watch, with a weary hope, for the moment when all +this turmoil shall subside, and the impious novelty that has distracted +our latter years, like a wild dream, give place to the blessed quietude +of royal sway, with the king's name in every ordinance, his prayer in the +church, his health at the board, and his love in the people's heart. +Meantime, our old age finds little honor. Hustled have we been, till +driven from town-meetings; dirty water has been cast upon our ruffles by +a Whig chambermaid; John Hancock's coachman seizes every opportunity to +bespatter us with mud; daily are we hooted by the unbreeched rebel brats; +and narrowly, once, did our gray hairs escape the ignominy of tar and +feathers. Alas! only that we cannot bear to die till the next royal +governor comes over, we would fain be in our quiet grave. + +Such an old man among new things are we who now hold at arm's-length the +rebel newspaper of the day. The very figure-head, for the thousandth +time, elicits it groan of spiteful lamentation. Where are the united +heart and crown, the loyal emblem, that used to hallow the sheet on which +it was impressed, in our younger days? In its stead we find a +continental officer, with the Declaration of Independence in one hand, a +drawn sword in the other, and above his head a scroll, bearing the motto, +"WE APPEAL TO HEAVEN." Then say we, with a prospective triumph, let +Heaven judge, in its own good time! The material of the sheet attracts +our scorn. It is a fair specimen of rebel manufacture, thick and coarse, +like wrapping-paper, all overspread with little knobs; and of such a +deep, dingy blue color, that we wipe our spectacles thrice before we can +distinguish a letter of the wretched print. Thus, in all points, the +newspaper is a type of the times, far more fit for the rough hands of a +democratic mob, than for our own delicate, though bony fingers. Nay we +will not handle it without our gloves! + +Glancing down the page, our eyes are greeted everywhere by the offer of +lands at auction, for sale or to be leased, not by the rightful owners, +but a rebel committee; notices of the town constable, that he is +authorized to receive the taxes on such all estate, in default of which, +that also is to be knocked down to the highest bidder; and notifications +of complaints filed by the attorney-general against certain traitorous +absentees, and of confiscations that are to ensue. And who are these +traitors? Our own best friends; names as old, once as honored, as any in +the land where they are no longer to have a patrimony, nor to be +remembered as good men who have passed away. We are ashamed of not +relinquishing our little property, too; but comfort ourselves because we +still keep our principles, without gratifying the rebels with our +plunder. Plunder, indeed, they are seizing everywhere,--by the strong +hand at sea, as well as by legal forms oil shore. Here are prize-vessels +for sale; no French nor Spanish merchantmen, whose wealth is the +birthright of British subjects, but hulls of British oak, from Liverpool, +Bristol, and the Thames, laden with the king's own stores, for his army +in New York. And what a fleet of privateers--pirates, say we--are +fitting out for new ravages, with rebellion in their very names! The +Free Yankee, the General Greene, the Saratoga, the Lafayette, and the +Grand Monarch! Yes, the Grand Monarch; so is a French king styled, by +the sons of Englishmen. And here we have an ordinance from the Court of +Versailles, with the Bourbon's own signature affixed, as if New England +were already a French province. Everything is French,--French soldiers, +French sailors, French surgeons, and French diseases too, I trow; besides +French dancing-masters and French milliners, to debauch our daughters +with French fashions! Everything in America is French, except the +Canadas, the loyal Canadas, which we helped to wrest, from +France. And to that old French province the Englishman of the colonies +must go to find his country! + +O, the misery of seeing the whole system of things changed in my old +days, when I would be loath to change even a pair of buckles! The +British coffee-house, where oft we sat, brimful of wine and loyalty, with +the gallant gentlemen of Amherst's army, when we wore a redcoat too,--the +British coffee-house, forsooth, must now be styled the American, with a +golden eagle instead of the royal arms above the door. Even the street +it stands in is no longer King Street! Nothing is the king's, except +this heavy heart in my old bosom. Wherever I glance my eyes, they meet +something that pricks them like a needle. This soap-maker, for instance, +this Hobert Hewes, has conspired against my peace, by notifying that his +shop is situated near Liberty Stump. But when will their misnamed +liberty have its true emblem in that Stump, hewn down by British steel? + +Where shall we buy our next year's almanac? Not this of Weatherwise's, +certainly; for it contains a likeness of George Washington, the upright +rebel, whom we most hate, though reverentially, as a fallen angel, with +his heavenly brightness undiminished, evincing pure fame in an unhallowed +cause. And here is a new book for my evening's recreation,--a History of +the War till the close of the year 1779, with the heads of thirteen +distinguished officers, engraved on copperplate. A plague upon their +heads! We desire not to see them till they grin at us from the balcony +before the town-house, fixed on spikes, as the heads of traitors. How +bloody-minded the villains make a peaceable old man! What next? An +Oration, on the Horrid Massacre of 1770. When that blood was shed,--the +first that the British soldier ever drew from the bosoms of our +countrymen,--we turned sick at heart, and do so still, as often as they +make it reek anew from among the stones in King Street. The pool that we +saw that night has swelled into a lake,--English blood and American,--no! +all British, all blood of my brethren. And here come down tears. Shame +on me, since half of them are shed for rebels! Who are not rebels now! +Even the women are thrusting their white hands into the war, and come out +in this very paper with proposals to form a society--the lady of George +Washington at their head--for clothing the continental troops. They will +strip off their stiff petticoats to cover the ragged rascals, and then +enlist in the ranks themselves. + +What have we here? Burgoyne's proclamation turned into Hudibrastic +rhyme! And here, some verses against the king, in which the scribbler +leaves a blank for the name of George, as if his doggerel might yet exalt +him to the pillory. Such, after years of rebellion, is the heart's +unconquerable reverence for the Lord's anointed! In the next column, we +have scripture parodied in a squib against his sacred Majesty. What +would our Puritan great-grandsires have said to that? They never laughed +at God's word, though they cut off a king's head. + +Yes; it was for us to prove how disloyalty goes hand in hand with +irreligion, and all other vices come trooping in the train. Nowadays men +commit robbery and sacrilege for the mere luxury of wickedness, as this +advertisement testifies. Three hundred pounds reward for the detection +of the villains who stole and destroyed the cushions and pulpit drapery +of the Brattle Street and Old South churches. Was it a crime? I can +scarcely think our temples hallowed, since the king ceased to be prayed +for. But it is not temples only that they rob. Here a man offers a +thousand dollars--a thousand dollars, in Continental rags!--for the +recovery of his stolen cloak, and other articles of clothing. +Horse-thieves are innumerable. Now is the day when every beggar gets on +horseback. And is not the whole land like a beggar on horseback riding +post to the Davil? Ha! here is a murder, too. A woman slain at +midnight, by all unknown ruffian, and found cold, stiff, and bloody, in +her violated bed! Let the hue-and-cry follow hard after the man in the +uniform of blue and buff who last went by that way. My life on it, he is +the blood-stained ravisher! These deserters whom we see proclaimed in +every column,--proof that the banditti are as false to their Stars and +Stripes as to the Holy Red Cross,--they bring the crimes of a rebel camp +into a soil well suited to them; the bosom of a people, without the heart +that kept them virtuous,--their king! + +Here flaunting down a whole column, with official seal and signature, +here comes a proclamation. By whose authority? Ah! the United +States,--these thirteen little anarchies, assembled in that one grand +anarchy, their Congress. And what the import? A general Fast. By +Heaven! for once the traitorous blockheads have legislated wisely! Yea; +let a misguided people kneel down in sackcloth and ashes, from end to end, +from border to border, of their wasted country. Well may they fast where +there is no food, and cry aloud for whatever remnant of God's mercy their +sins may not have exhausted. We too will fast, even at a rebel summons. +Pray others as they will, there shall be at least an old man kneeling for +the righteous cause. Lord, put down the rebels! God save the king! + +Peace to the good old Tory! One of our objects has been to exemplify, +without softening a single prejudice proper to the character which we +assumed, that the Americans who clung to the losing side in the +Revolution were men greatly to be pitied and often worthy of our +sympathy. It would be difficult to say whose lot was most lamentable, +that of the active Tories, who gave up their patrimonies for a pittance +from the British pension-roll, and their native land for a cold reception +in their miscalled home, or the passive ones who remained behind to +endure the coldness of former friends, and the public opprobrium, as +despised citizens, under a government which they abhorred. In justice to +the old gentleman who has favored us with his discontented musings, we +must remark that the state of the country, so far as can be gathered from +these papers, was of dismal augury for the tendencies of democratic rule. +It was pardonable in the conservative of that day to mistake the +temporary evils of a change for permanent diseases of the system which +that change was to establish. A revolution, or anything that interrupts +social order, may afford opportunities for the individual display of +eminent virtues; but its effects are pernicious to general morality. +Most people are so constituted that they can be virtuous only in a +certain routine; and an irregular course of public affairs demoralizes +them. One great source of disorder was the multitude of disbanded +troops, who were continually returning home, after terms of service just +long enough to give them a distaste to peaceable occupations; neither +citizens nor soldiers, they were very liable to become ruffians. Almost +all our impressions in regard to this period are unpleasant, whether +referring to the state of civil society, or to the character of the +contest, which, especially where native Americans were opposed to each +other, was waged with the deadly hatred of fraternal enemies. It is the +beauty of war, for men to commit mutual havoc with undisturbed +good-humor. + +The present volume of newspapers contains fewer characteristic traits +than any which we have looked over. Except for the peculiarities +attendant on the passing struggle, manners seem to have taken a modern +cast. Whatever antique fashions lingered into the War of the Revolution, +or beyond it, they were not so strongly marked as to leave their traces +in the public journals. Moreover, the old newspapers had an +indescribable picturesqueness, not to be found in the later ones. +Whether it be something in the literary execution, or the ancient print +and paper, and the idea that those same musty pages have been handled by +people once alive and bustling amid the scenes there recorded, yet now in +their graves beyond the memory of man; so it is, that in those elder +volumes we seem to find the life of a past age preserved between the +leaves, like a dry specimen of foliage. It is so difficult to discover +what touches are really picturesque, that we doubt whether our attempts +have produced any similar effect. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old News, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD NEWS *** + +***** This file should be named 9239.txt or 9239.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/2/3/9239/ + +Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: Old News + (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: Nov, 2005 [EBook #9239] +[This file was first posted on September 18, 2003] +[Last updated on February 6, 2007] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD NEWS *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + THE SNOW-IMAGE + + AND + + OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES + + + + OLD NEWS + + By + + Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + +There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small half- +sheet, yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted with +a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of +antiquity, in a species of literature which we are accustomed to consider +as connected only with the present moment. Ephemeral as they were +intended and supposed to be, they have long outlived the printer and his +whole subscription-list, and have proved more durable, as to their +physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and stone of the +town where they were issued. These are but the least of their triumphs. +The government, the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral +circumstances that were contemporary with their publication, have passed +away, and left no better record of what they were than may be found in +these frail leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their +productions excel all others in immediate popularity, and are certain to +acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They scatter their +leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity collects them, to be +treasured up among the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty pens +they write for immortality. + +It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets between the +thumb and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety years +ago, held it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of +the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. There he sits, a +major, a member of the council, and a weighty merchant, in his high- +backed arm-chair, wearing a solemn wig and grave attire, such as befits +his imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little finery, except a +huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved. Observe the awful +reverence of his visage, as he reads his Majesty's most gracious speech; +and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders over some paragraph of +provincial politics, and the keener intelligence with which he glances at +the ship-news and commercial advertisements. Observe, and smile! He may +have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the wisdom of the politician +appears like folly, because we can compare its prognostics with actual +results; and the old merchant seems to have busied himself about +vanities, because we know that the expected ships have been lost at sea, +or mouldered at the wharves; that his imported broadcloths were long ago +worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that +the most precious leaves of his ledger have become waste-paper. Yet, his +avocations were not so vain as our philosophic moralizing. In this world +we are the things of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary things, +with here and there a thought that stretches mistily towards eternity, +and perhaps may endure as long. All philosophy that would abstract +mankind from the present is no more than words. + +The first pages of most of these old papers are as soporific as a bed of +poppies. Here we have an erudite clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge +professor, occupying several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate +and Brady, as compared with the New England version of the Psalms. Of +course, the preference is given to the native article. Here are doctors +disagreeing about the treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and +blackguarding each other with a characteristic virulence that renders the +controversy not altogether unreadable. Here are President Wigglesworth +and the Rev. Dr. Colman, endeavoring to raise a fund for the support of +missionaries among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay. Easy would be the +duties of such a mission now! Here--for there is nothing new under the +sun--are frequent complaints of the disordered state of the currency, and +the project of a bank with a capital of five hundred thousand pounds, +secured on lands. Here are literary essays, from the Gentleman's +Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, from the London newspapers. +And here, occasionally, are specimens of New England honor, laboriously +light and lamentably mirthful, as if some very sober person, in his zeal +to be merry, were dancing a jig to the tune of a funeral-psalm. All this +is wearisome, and we must turn the leaf. + +There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, in the perusal of +those little items which characterize the manners and circumstances of +the country. New England was then in a state incomparably more +picturesque than at present, or than it has been within the memory of +man; there being, as yet, only a narrow strip of civilization along the +edge of a vast forest, peopled with enough of its original race to +contrast the savage life with the old customs of another world. The +white population, also, was diversified by the influx of all sorts of +expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation of bond-servants +from Ireland and elsewhere, so that there was a wild and unsettled +multitude, forming a strong minority to the sober descendants of the +Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark shade to +the picture of society. The consequence of all this was a great variety +and singularity of action and incident, many instances of which might be +selected from these columns, where they are told with a simplicity and +quaintness of style that bring the striking points into very strong +relief. It is natural to suppose, too, that these circumstances affected +the body of the people, and made their course of life generally less +regular than that of their descendants. There is no evidence that the +moral standard was higher then than now; or, indeed, that morality was so +well defined as it has since become. There seem to have been quite as +many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the number of honest deeds; +there were murders, in hot-blood and in malice; and bloody quarrels over +liquor. Some of our fathers also appear to have been yoked to unfaithful +wives, if we may trust the frequent notices of elopements from bed and +board. The pillory, the whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows, each +had their use in those old times; and, in short, as often as our +imagination lives in the past, we find it a ruder and rougher age than +our own, with hardly any perceptible advantages, and much that gave life +a gloomier tinge. In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air +over our picture of this period; nothing passes before our fancy but a +crowd of sad-visaged people, moving duskily through a dull gray +atmosphere. It is certain that winter rushed upon them with fiercer +storms than now, blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming +the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snow drifts; so that weeks +elapsed before the newspaper could announce how many travellers had +perished, or what wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more +piercing then, and lingered further into the spring, making the chimney- +corner a comfortable seat till long past May-day. By the number of such +accidents on record, we might suppose that the thunder-stone, as they +termed it, fell oftener and deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and +unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers bore the brunt of more raging +and pitiless elements than we. There were forebodings, also, of a more +fearful tempest than those of the elements. At two or three dates, we +have stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial music, passing +athwart the midnight sky, accompanied with the--roar of cannon and rattle +of musketry, prophetic echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the +land. Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French fleets +on the coast, and of the march of French and Indians through the +wilderness, along the borders of the settlements. The country was +saddened, moreover, with grievous sicknesses. The small-pox raged in +many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a scourge, to have been +regarded with as much affright as that which drove the throng from Wall +Street and Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There were +autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive throat-distemper,-- +diseases unwritten in medical hooks. The dark superstition of former +days had not yet been so far dispelled as not to heighten the gloom of +the present times. There is an advertisement, indeed, by a committee of +the Legislature, calling for information as to the circumstances of +sufferers in the "late calamity of 1692," with a view to reparation for +their losses and misfortunes. But the tenderness with which, after above +forty years, it was thought expedient to allude to the witchcraft +delusion, indicates a good deal of lingering error, as well as the +advance of more enlightened opinions. The rigid hand of Puritanism might +yet be felt upon the reins of government, while some of the ordinances +intimate a disorderly spirit on the part of the people. The Suffolk +justices, after a preamble that great disturbances have been committed by +persons entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes, and +other wheel-carriages, on the evening before the Sabbath, give notice +that a watch will hereafter be set at the "fortification-gate," to +prevent these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect +of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members, +with a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes proclamation against +certain "loose and dissolute people" who have been wont to stop +passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, "otherwise called +Pope's Day," and levy contributions for the building of bonfires. In +this instance, the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate. + +The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the sombre +character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer seldom +fails to notice that the corpse was "very decently interred." But when +some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of the +"worshipful" such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of deacon, +justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic sketch of his +honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black pomp of his +funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning +rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have seen it +represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the bearers, +and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments, while +grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful +emblems, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach maker at this +period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the chief of his +living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be fair, +however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader's mind; +nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark +attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this reminds +us that there is an incidental notice of the "dancing-school near the +Orange-Tree," whence we may infer that the salutatory art was +occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic +gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the +aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor was the centre. But we +are scandalized at the attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more +reprehensible amusement: he challenges the whole country to match his +black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to be decided on Metonomy +Common or Chelsea Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be +inferred from this freak of an individual. There were no daily and +continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes the people +rejoiced, in their own peculiar fashion, oftener with a calm, religious +smile than with a broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great +family, at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth throughout +the pleasant days of Election-week. This latter was the true holiday +season of New England. Military musters were too seriously important in +that warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they stirred up +and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions of solemn festival to +the governor and great men of the province, at the expense of the field- +offices. The Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; for +the anniversary of the king's birth appears to have been celebrated with +most imposing pomp, by salutes from Castle William, a military parade, a +grand dinner at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination in the +evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in these testimonials of +loyalty to George the Second. So long as they dreaded the +re-establishment of a popish dynasty, the people were fervent for the +house of Hanover: and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the country +was a barrier between the monarch and the occasional discontents of the +colonies; the waves of faction sometimes reached the governor's chair, +but never swelled against the throne. Thus, until oppression was felt +to proceed from the king's own hand, New England rejoiced with her whole +heart on his Majesty's birthday. + +But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of the population, +since it was their gift to be merry in the worst of circumstances; and +they endured, comparatively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of +our fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in these human +commodities. No advertisements are more frequent than those of "a negro +fellow, fit for almost any household work"; "a negro woman, honest, +healthy, and capable"; "a negro wench of many desirable qualities"; +"a negro man, very fit for a taylor." We know not in what this natural +fitness for a tailor consisted, unless it were some peculiarity of +conformation that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves of a +family were inconveniently prolific,--it being not quite orthodox to +drown the superfluous offspring, like a litter of kittens,--notice was +promulgated of "a negro child to be given away." Sometimes the slaves +assumed the property of their own persons, and made their escape; among +many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry after his negro +Juba. But, without venturing a word in extenuation of the general +system, we confess our opinion that Caesar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such +great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised had they stayed at +home, foddering the cattle, cleaning dishes,--in fine, performing their +moderate share of the labors of life, without being harassed by its +cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from the +domestic affections: in families of middling rank, they had their places +at the board; and when the circle closed round the evening hearth, its +blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with +their master's children. It must have contributed to reconcile them to +their lot, that they saw white men and women imported from Europe as they +had been from Africa, and sold, though only for a term of years, yet as +actual slaves to the highest bidder. Slave labor being but a small part +of the industry of the country, it did not change the character of the +people; the latter, on the contrary, modified and softened the +institution, making it a patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity +of the times. + +Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were +peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on +his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid +of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked +streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of +the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to +call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, and examine his rich velvet, +whether it be fit for my apparel on Election-day,--that I may wear a +stately aspect in presence of the governor and my brethren of the +council. I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the +jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and mine have lasted me +some half-score years. My fair daughter Miriam shall have an apron of +gold brocade, and a velvet mask,--though it would be a pity the wench +should hide her comely visage; and also a French cap, from Robert +Jenkins's, on the north side of the town-house. He hath beads, too, and +ear-rings, and necklaces, of all sorts; these are but vanities, +nevertheless, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame desireth +another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I must inspect the lot of Irish +lasses, for sale by Samuel Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; as also +the likely negro wench, at Captain Bulfinch's. It were not amiss that I +took my daughter Miriam to see the royal waxwork, near the town-dock, +that she may learn to honor our most gracious King and Queen, and their +royal progeny, even in their waxen images; not that I would approve of +image-worship. The camel, too, that strange beast from Africa, with two +great humps, to be seen near the Common; methinks I would fain go +thither, and see how the old patriarchs were wont to ride. I will tarry +awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good friends Kneeland & +Green, and purchase Dr. Colman's new sermon, and the volume of discourses +by Mr. Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy on baptism, between the +Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary; and see whether this George +Whitefield be as great in print as he is famed to be in the pulpit. By +that time, the auction will have commenced at the Royal Exchange, in King +Street. Moreover, I must look to the disposal of my last cargo of West +India rum and muscovado sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire +cheese, lest it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask of good +English beer, at the lower end of Milk Street. + +Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of stout old +Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto-wines, which I have now lying in the +cellar of the Old South meeting-house. But, a pipe or two of the rich +Canary shall be reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own +wine-cellar, and gladden my heart when it begins to droop with old age. + +Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of his sepulchre? Did he +bethink him to call at the workshop of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold Lane, and +select such a gravestone as would best please him? There wrought the man +whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen, was ultimately in +demand by all the busy multitude who have left a record of their earthly +toil in these old time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the +volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy stones of a +burial-ground. + + +II. THE OLD FRENCH WAR. + +At a period about twenty years subsequent to that of our former sketch, +we again attempt a delineation of some of the characteristics of life and +manners in New England. Our text-book, as before, is a file of antique +newspapers. The volume which serves us for a writing-desk is a folio of +larger dimensions than the one before described; and the papers are +generally printed on a whole sheet, sometimes with a supplemental leaf of +news and advertisements. They have a venerable appearance, being +overspread with a duskiness of more than seventy years, and discolored, +here and there, with the deeper stains of some liquid, as if the contents +of a wineglass had long since been splashed upon the page. Still, the +old book conveys an impression that, when the separate numbers were +flying about town, in the first day or two of their respective +existences, they might have been fit reading for very stylish people. +Such newspapers could have been issued nowhere but in a metropolis the +centre, not only of public and private affairs, but of fashion and +gayety. Without any discredit to the colonial press, these might have +been, and probably were, spread out on the tables of the British coffee- +house, in king Street, for the perusal of the throng of officers who then +drank their wine at that celebrated establishment. To interest these +military gentlemen, there were bulletins of the war between Prussia and +Austria; between England and France, on the old battle-plains of +Flanders; and between the same antagonists, in the newer fields of the +East Indies,--and in our own trackless woods, where white men never trod +until they came to fight there. Or, the travelled American, the petit- +maitre of the colonies,--the ape of London foppery, as the newspaper was +the semblance of the London journals,--he, with his gray powdered +periwig, his embroidered coat, lace ruffles, and glossy silk stockings, +golden-clocked,--his buckles of glittering paste, at knee-band and shoe- +strap,--his scented handkerchief, and chapeau beneath his arm, even such +a dainty figure need not have disdained to glance at these old yellow +pages, while they were the mirror of passing times. For his amusement, +there were essays of wit and humor, the light literature of the day, +which, for breadth and license, might have proceeded from the pen of +Fielding or Smollet; while, in other columns, he would delight his +imagination with the enumerated items of all sorts of finery, and with +the rival advertisements of half a dozen peruke-makers. In short, newer +manners and customs had almost entirely superseded those of the Puritans, +even in their own city of refuge. + +It was natural that, with the lapse of time and increase of wealth and +population, the peculiarities of the early settlers should have waxed +fainter and fainter through the generations of their descendants, who +also had been alloyed by a continual accession of emigrants from many +countries and of all characters. It tended to assimilate the colonial +manners to those of the mother-country, that the commercial intercourse +was great, and that the merchants often went thither in their own ships. +Indeed, almost every man of adequate fortune felt a yearning desire, and +even judged it a filial duty, at least once in his life, to visit the +home of his ancestors. They still called it their own home, as if New +England were to them, what many of the old Puritans had considered it, +not a permanent abiding-place, but merely a lodge in the wilderness, +until the trouble of the times should be passed. The example of the +royal governors must have had much influence on the manners of the +colonists; for these rulers assumed a degree of state and splendor which +had never been practised by their predecessors, who differed in nothing +from republican chief-magistrates, under the old charter. The officers +of the crown, the public characters in the interest of the +administration, and the gentlemen of wealth and good descent, generally +noted for their loyalty, would constitute a dignified circle, with the +governor in the centre, bearing a very passable resemblance to a court. +Their ideas, their habits, their bode of courtesy, and their dress would +have all the fresh glitter of fashions immediately derived from the +fountain-head, in England. To prevent their modes of life from becoming +the standard with all who had the ability to imitate them, there was no +longer an undue severity of religion, nor as yet any disaffection to +British supremacy, nor democratic prejudices against pomp. Thus, while +the colonies were attaining that strength which was soon to render them +an independent republic, it might have been supposed that the wealthier +classes were growing into an aristocracy, and ripening for hereditary +rank, while the poor were to be stationary in their abasement, and the +country, perhaps, to be a sister monarchy with England. Such, doubtless, +were the plausible conjectures deduced from the superficial phenomena of +our connection with a monarchical government, until the prospective +nobility were levelled with the mob, by the mere gathering of winds that +preceded the storm of the Revolution. The portents of that storm were +not yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, therefore, would +have the rich effect produced by distinctions of rank that seemed +permanent, and by appropriate habits of splendor on the part of the +gentry. + +The people at large had been somewhat changed in character, since the +period of our last sketch, by their great exploit, the conquest of +Louisburg. After that event, the New-Englanders never settled into +precisely the same quiet race which all the world had imagined them to +be. They had done a deed of history, and were anxious to add new ones to +the record. They had proved themselves powerful enough to influence the +result of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and willingly +consented, to join their strength against the enemies of England; on +those fields, at least, where victory would redound to their peculiar +advantage. And now, in the heat of the Old French War, they might well +be termed a martial people. Every man was a soldier, or the father or +brother of a soldier; and the whole land literally echoed with the roll +of the drum, either beating up for recruits among the towns and villages, +or striking the march towards the frontiers. Besides the provincial +troops, there were twenty-three British regiments in the northern +colonies. The country has never known a period of such excitement and +warlike life; except during the Revolution,--perhaps scarcely then; for +that was a lingering war, and this a stirring and eventful one. + +One would think that no very wonderful talent was requisite for an +historical novel, when the rough and hurried paragraphs of these +newspapers can recall the past so magically. We seem to be waiting in +the street for the arrival of the post-rider--who is seldom more than +twelve hours beyond his time--with letters, by way of Albany, from the +various departments of the army. Or, we may fancy ourselves in the +circle of listeners, all with necks stretched out towards an old +gentleman in the centre, who deliberately puts on his spectacles, unfolds +the wet newspaper, and gives us the details of the broken and +contradictory reports, which have been flying from mouth to mouth, ever +since the courier alighted at Secretary Oliver's office. Sometimes we +have an account of the Indian skirmishes near Lake George, and how a +ranging party of provincials were so closely pursued, that they threw +away their arms, and eke their shoes, stockings, and breeches, barely +reaching the camp in their shirts, which also were terribly tattered by +the bushes. Then, there is a journal of the siege of Fort Niagara, so +minute that it almost numbers the cannon-shot and bombs, and describes +the effect of the latter missiles on the French commandant's stone +mansion, within the fortress. In the letters of the provincial officers, +it is amusing to observe how some of them endeavor to catch the careless +and jovial turn of old campaigners. One gentleman tells us that he holds +a brimming glass in his hand, intending to drink the health of his +correspondent, unless a cannon ball should dash the liquor from his lips; +in the midst of his letter he hears the bells of the French churches +ringing, in Quebec, and recollects that it is Sunday; whereupon, like a +good Protestant, he resolves to disturb the Catholic worship by a few +thirty-two pound shot. While this wicked man of war was thus making a +jest of religion, his pious mother had probably put up a note, that very +Sabbath-day, desiring the "prayers of the congregation for a son gone a +soldiering." We trust, however, that there were some stout old worthies +who were not ashamed to do as their fathers did, but went to prayer, with +their soldiers, before leading them to battle; and doubtless fought none +the worse for that. If we had enlisted in the Old French War, it should +have been under such a captain; for we love to see a man keep the +characteristics of his country. + + [The contemptuous jealousy of the British army, from the general + downwards, was very galling to the provincial troops. In one of the + newspapers, there is an admirable letter of a New England man, + copied from the London Chronicle, defending the provincials with an + ability worthy of Franklin, and somewhat in his style. The letter + is remarkable, also, because it takes up the cause of the whole + range of colonies, as if the writer looked upon them all as + constituting one country, and that his own. Colonial patriotism had + not hitherto been so broad a sentiment.] + +These letters, and other intelligence from the army, are pleasant and +lively reading, and stir up the mind like the music of a drum and fife. +It is less agreeable to meet with accounts of women slain and scalped, +and infants dashed against trees, by the Indians on the frontiers. It is +a striking circumstance, that innumerable bears, driven from the woods, +by the uproar of contending armies in their accustomed haunts, broke into +the settlements, and committed great ravages among children, as well as +sheep and swine. Some of them prowled where bears had never been for a +century, penetrating within a mile or two of Boston; a fact that gives a +strong and gloomy impression of something very terrific going on in the +forest, since these savage beasts fled townward to avoid it. But it is +impossible to moralize about such trifles, when every newspaper contains +tales of military enterprise, and often a huzza for victory; as, for +instance, the taking of Ticonderoga, long a place of awe to the +provincials, and one of the bloodiest spots in the present war. Nor is +it unpleasant, among whole pages of exultation, to find a note of sorrow +for the fall of some brave officer; it comes wailing in, like a funeral +strain amidst a peal of triumph, itself triumphant too. Such was the +lamentation over Wolfe. Somewhere, in this volume of newspapers, though +we cannot now lay our finger upon the passage, we recollect a report that +General Wolfe was slain, not by the enemy, but by a shot from his own +soldiers. + +In the advertising columns, also, we are continually reminded that the +country was in a state of war. Governor Pownall makes proclamation for +the enlisting of soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend to +the discipline of their regiments, and the selectmen of every town to +replenish their stocks of ammunition. The magazine, by the way, was +generally kept in the upper loft of the village meeting-house. The +provincial captains are drumming up for soldiers, in every newspaper. +Sir Jeffrey Amherst advertises for batteaux-men, to be employed on the +lakes; and gives notice to the officers of seven British regiments, +dispersed on the recruiting service, to rendezvous in Boston. Captain +Hallowell, of the province ship-of-war King George, invites able-bodied +seamen to serve his Majesty, for fifteen pounds, old tenor, per month. +By the rewards offered, there would appear to have been frequent +desertions from the New England forces: we applaud their wisdom, if not +their valor or integrity. Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls, +firelocks, pistols, swords, and hangers, were common articles of +merchandise. Daniel Jones, at the sign of the hat and helmet, offers to +supply officers with scarlet broadcloth, gold-lace for hats and +waistcoats, cockades, and other military foppery, allowing credit until +the payrolls shall be made up. This advertisement gives us quite a +gorgeous idea of a provincial captain in full dress. + +At the commencement of the campaign of 1759, the British general informs +the farmers of New England that a regular market will be established at +Lake George, whither they are invited to bring provisions and +refreshments of all sorts, for the use of the army. Hence, we may form a +singular picture of petty traffic, far away from any permanent +settlements, among the hills which border that romantic lake, with the +solemn woods overshadowing the scene. Carcasses of bullocks and fat +porkers are placed upright against the huge trunks of the trees; fowls +hang from the lower branches, bobbing against the heads of those beneath; +butter-firkins, great cheeses, and brown loaves of household bread, baked +in distant ovens, are collected under temporary shelters or pine-boughs, +with gingerbread, and pumpkin-pies, perhaps, and other toothsome +dainties. Barrels of cider and spruce-beer are running freely into the +wooden canteens of the soldiers. Imagine such a scene, beneath the dark +forest canopy, with here and there a few struggling sunbeams, to +dissipate the gloom. See the shrewd yeomen, haggling with their scarlet- +coated customers, abating somewhat in their prices, but still dealing at +monstrous profit; and then complete the picture with circumstances that +bespeak war and danger. A cannon shall be seen to belch its smoke from +among the trees, against some distant canoes on the lake; the traffickers +shall pause, and seem to hearken, at intervals, as if they heard the +rattle of musketry or the shout of Indians; a scouting-party shall be +driven in, with two or three faint and bloody men among them. And, in +spite of these disturbances, business goes on briskly in the market of +the wilderness. + +It must not be supposed that the martial character of the times +interrupted all pursuits except those connected with war. On the +contrary, there appears to have been a general vigor and vivacity +diffused into the whole round of colonial life. During the winter of +1759, it was computed that about a thousand sled-loads of country produce +were daily brought into Boston market. It was a symptom of an irregular +and unquiet course of affairs, that innumerable lotteries were projected, +ostensibly for the purpose of public improvements, such as roads and +bridges. Many females seized the opportunity to engage in business: as, +among others, Alice Quick, who dealt in crockery and hosiery, next door +to Deacon Beautineau's; Mary Jackson, who sold butter, at the Brazen- +Head, in Cornhill; Abigail Hiller, who taught ornamental work, near the +Orange-Tree, where also were to be seen the King and Queen, in wax-work; +Sarah Morehead, an instructor in glass-painting, drawing, and japanning; +Mary Salmon, who shod horses, at the South End; Harriet Pain, at the Buck +and Glove, and Mrs. Henrietta Maria Caine, at the Golden Fan, both +fashionable milliners; Anna Adams, who advertises Quebec and Garrick +bonnets, Prussian cloaks, and scarlet cardinals, opposite the old brick +meeting-house; besides a lady at the head of a wine and spirit +establishment. Little did these good dames expect to reappear before the +public, so long after they had made their last courtesies behind the +counter. Our great-grandmothers were a stirring sisterhood, and seem not +to have been utterly despised by the gentlemen at the British coffee- +house; at least, some gracious bachelor, there resident, gives public +notice of his willingness to take a wife, provided she be not above +twenty-three, and possess brown hair, regular features, a brisk eye, and +a fortune. Now, this was great condescension towards the ladies of +Massachusetts Bay, in a threadbare lieutenant of foot. + +Polite literature was beginning to make its appearance. Few native works +were advertised, it is true, except sermons and treatises of +controversial divinity; nor were the English authors of the day much +known on this side of the Atlantic. But catalogues were frequently +offered at auction or private sale, comprising the standard English +books, history, essays, and poetry, of Queen Anne's age, and the +preceding century. We see nothing in the nature of a novel, unless it be +"_The Two Mothers_, price four coppers." There was an American poet, +however, of whom Mr. Kettell has preserved no specimen,--the author of +"War, an Heroic Poem"; he publishes by subscription, and threatens to +prosecute his patrons for not taking their books. We have discovered a +periodical, also, and one that has a peculiar claim to be recorded here, +since it bore the title of "_THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE_," a forgotten +predecessor, for which we should have a filial respect, and take its +excellence on trust. The fine arts, too, were budding into existence. +At the "old glass and picture shop," in Cornhill, various maps, plates, +and views are advertised, and among them a "Prospect of Boston," a +copperplate engraving of Quebec, and the effigies of all the New England +ministers ever done in mezzotinto. All these must have been very salable +articles. Other ornamental wares were to be found at the same shop; such +as violins, flutes, hautboys, musical books, English and Dutch toys, and +London babies. About this period, Mr. Dipper gives notice of a concert +of vocal and instrumental music. There had already been an attempt at +theatrical exhibitions. + +There are tokens, in every newspaper, of a style of luxury and +magnificence which we do not usually associate with our ideas of the +times. When the property of a deceased person was to be sold, we find, +among the household furniture, silk beds and hangings, damask table- +cloths, Turkey carpets, pictures, pier-glasses, massive plate, and all +things proper for a noble mansion. Wine was more generally drunk than +now, though by no means to the neglect of ardent spirits. For the +apparel of both sexes, the mercers and milliners imported good store of +fine broadcloths, especially scarlet, crimson, and sky-blue, silks, +satins, lawns, and velvets, gold brocade, and gold and silver lace, and +silver tassels, and silver spangles, until Cornhill shone and sparkled +with their merchandise. The gaudiest dress permissible by modern taste +fades into a Quaker-like sobriety, compared with the deep, rich, glowing +splendor of our ancestors. Such figures were almost too fine to go about +town on foot; accordingly, carriages were so numerous as to require a +tax; and it is recorded that, when Governor Bernard came to the province, +he was met between Dedham and Boston by a multitude of gentlemen in their +coaches and chariots. + +Take my arm, gentle reader, and come with me into some street, perhaps +trodden by your daily footsteps, but which now has such an aspect of +half-familiar strangeness, that you suspect yourself to be walking abroad +in a dream. True, there are some brick edifices which you remember from +childhood, and which your father and grandfather remembered as well; but +you are perplexed by the absence of many that were here only an hour or +two since; and still more amazing is the presence of whole rows of wooden +and plastered houses, projecting over the sidewalks, and bearing iron +figures on their fronts, which prove them to have stood on the same sites +above a century. Where have your eyes been that you never saw them +before? Along the ghostly street,--for, at length, you conclude that all +is unsubstantial, though it be so good a mockery of an antique town,-- +along the ghostly street, there are ghostly people too. Every gentleman +has his three-cornered hat, either on his head or under his arm; and all +wear wigs in infinite variety,--the Tie, the Brigadier, the Spencer, the +Albemarle, the Major, the Ramillies, the grave Full-bottom, or the giddy +Feather-top. Look at the elaborate lace-ruffles, and the square-skirted +coats of gorgeous hues, bedizened with silver and gold! Make way for the +phantom-ladies, whose hoops require such breadth of passage, as they pace +majestically along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or yellow, brilliantly +embroidered, and with small satin hats surmounting their powdered hair. +Make way; for the whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly +garments brush against their robes. Now that the scene is brightest, and +the whole street glitters with imaginary sunshine,--now hark to the bells +of the Old South and the Old North, ringing out with a sudden and merry +peal, while the cannon of Castle William thunder below the town, and +those of the Diana frigate repeat the sound, and the Charlestown +batteries reply with a nearer roar! You see the crowd toss up their hats +in visionary joy. You hear of illuminations and fire-works, and of +bonfires, built oil scaffolds, raised several stories above the ground, +that are to blaze all night in King Street and on Beacon Hill. And here +come the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the tramping hoofs of the Boston +troop of horseguards, escorting the governor to King's Chapel, where he +is to return solemn thanks for the surrender of Quebec. March on, thou +shadowy troop! and vanish, ghostly crowd! and change again, old street! +for those stirring times are gone. + +Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire broke out, on the +twentieth of March, 1760, at the Brazen-Head, in Cornhill, and consumed +nearly four hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been epochs +in the chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had hitherto been termed the +Great Fire, but now resigned its baleful dignity to one which has ever +since retained it. Did we desire to move the reader's sympathies on this +subject, we would not be grandiloquent about the sea of billowy flame, +the glowing and crumbling streets, the broad, black firmament of smoke, +and the blast or wind that sprang up with the conflagration and roared +behind it. It would be more effective to mark out a single family at the +moment when the flames caught upon an angle of their dwelling: then would +ensue the removal of the bedridden grandmother, the cradle with the +sleeping infant, and, most dismal of all, the dying man just at the +extremity of a lingering disease. Do but imagine the confused agony of +one thus awfully disturbed in his last hour; his fearful glance behind at +the consuming fire raging after him, from house to house, as its devoted +victim; and, finally, the almost eagerness with which he would seize some +calmer interval to die! The Great Fire must have realized many such a +scene. + +Doubtless posterity has acquired a better city by the calamity of that +generation. None will be inclined to lament it at this late day, except +the lover of antiquity, who would have been glad to walk among those +streets of venerable houses, fancying the old inhabitants still there, +that he might commune with their shadows, and paint a more vivid picture +of their times. + + +III. THE OLD TORY. + +Again we take a leap of about twenty years, and alight in the midst of +the Revolution. Indeed, having just closed a volume of colonial +newspapers, which represented the period when monarchical and +aristocratic sentiments were at the highest,--and now opening another +volume printed in the same metropolis, after such sentiments had long +been deemed a sin and shame,--we feel as if the leap were more than +figurative. Our late course of reading has tinctured us, for the moment, +with antique prejudices; and we shrink from the strangely contrasted +times into which we emerge, like one of those immutable old Tories, who +acknowledge no oppression in the Stamp Act. It may be the most effective +method of going through the present file of papers, to follow out this +idea, and transform ourself, perchance, from a modern Tory into such a +sturdy King-man as once wore that pliable nickname. + +Well, then, here we sit, an old, gray, withered, sour-visaged, threadbare +sort of gentleman, erect enough, here in our solitude, but marked out by +a depressed and distrustful mien abroad, as one conscious of a stigma +upon his forehead, though for no crime. We were already in the decline +of life when the first tremors of the earthquake that has convulsed the +continent were felt. Our mind had grown too rigid to change any of its +opinions, when the voice of the people demanded that all should be +changed. We are an Episcopalian, and sat under the High-Church doctrines +of Dr. Caner; we have been a captain of the provincial forces, and love +our king the better for the blood that we shed in his cause on the Plains +of Abraham. Among all the refugees, there is not one more loyal to the +backbone than we. Still we lingered behind when the British army +evacuated Boston, sweeping in its train most of those with whom we held +communion; the old, loyal gentlemen, the aristocracy of the colonies, the +hereditary Englishman, imbued with more than native zeal and admiration +for the glorious island and its monarch, because the far-intervening +ocean threw a dim reverence around them. When our brethren departed, we +could not tear our aged roots out of the soil. + +We have remained, therefore, enduring to be outwardly a freeman, but +idolizing King George in secrecy and silence,--one true old heart amongst +a host of enemies. We watch, with a weary hope, for the moment when all +this turmoil shall subside, and the impious novelty that has distracted +our latter years, like a wild dream, give place to the blessed quietude +of royal sway, with the king's name in every ordinance, his prayer in the +church, his health at the board, and his love in the people's heart. +Meantime, our old age finds little honor. Hustled have we been, till +driven from town-meetings; dirty water has been cast upon our ruffles by +a Whig chambermaid; John Hancock's coachman seizes every opportunity to +bespatter us with mud; daily are we hooted by the unbreeched rebel brats; +and narrowly, once, did our gray hairs escape the ignominy of tar and +feathers. Alas! only that we cannot bear to die till the next royal +governor comes over, we would fain be in our quiet grave. + +Such an old man among new things are we who now hold at arm's-length the +rebel newspaper of the day. The very figure-head, for the thousandth +time, elicits it groan of spiteful lamentation. Where are the united +heart and crown, the loyal emblem, that used to hallow the sheet on which +it was impressed, in our younger days? In its stead we find a +continental officer, with the Declaration of Independence in one hand, a +drawn sword in the other, and above his head a scroll, bearing the motto, +"WE APPEAL TO HEAVEN." Then say we, with a prospective triumph, let +Heaven judge, in its own good time! The material of the sheet attracts +our scorn. It is a fair specimen of rebel manufacture, thick and coarse, +like wrapping-paper, all overspread with little knobs; and of such a +deep, dingy blue color, that we wipe our spectacles thrice before we can +distinguish a letter of the wretched print. Thus, in all points, the +newspaper is a type of the times, far more fit for the rough hands of a +democratic mob, than for our own delicate, though bony fingers. Nay we +will not handle it without our gloves! + +Glancing down the page, our eyes are greeted everywhere by the offer of +lands at auction, for sale or to be leased, not by the rightful owners, +but a rebel committee; notices of the town constable, that he is +authorized to receive the taxes on such all estate, in default of which, +that also is to be knocked down to the highest bidder; and notifications +of complaints filed by the attorney-general against certain traitorous +absentees, and of confiscations that are to ensue. And who are these +traitors? Our own best friends; names as old, once as honored, as any in +the land where they are no longer to have a patrimony, nor to be +remembered as good men who have passed away. We are ashamed of not +relinquishing our little property, too; but comfort ourselves because we +still keep our principles, without gratifying the rebels with our +plunder. Plunder, indeed, they are seizing everywhere,--by the strong +hand at sea, as well as by legal forms oil shore. Here are prize-vessels +for sale; no French nor Spanish merchantmen, whose wealth is the +birthright of British subjects, but hulls of British oak, from Liverpool, +Bristol, and the Thames, laden with the king's own stores, for his army +in New York. And what a fleet of privateers--pirates, say we--are +fitting out for new ravages, with rebellion in their very names! The +Free Yankee, the General Greene, the Saratoga, the Lafayette, and the +Grand Monarch! Yes, the Grand Monarch; so is a French king styled, by +the sons of Englishmen. And here we have an ordinance from the Court of +Versailles, with the Bourbon's own signature affixed, as if New England +were already a French province. Everything is French,--French soldiers, +French sailors, French surgeons, and French diseases too, I trow; besides +French dancing-masters and French milliners, to debauch our daughters +with French fashions! Everything in America is French, except the +Canadas, the loyal Canadas, which we helped to wrest, from +France. And to that old French province the Englishman of the colonies +must go to find his country! + +O, the misery of seeing the whole system of things changed in my old +days, when I would be loath to change even a pair of buckles! The +British coffee-house, where oft we sat, brimful of wine and loyalty, with +the gallant gentlemen of Amherst's army, when we wore a redcoat too,--the +British coffee-house, forsooth, must now be styled the American, with a +golden eagle instead of the royal arms above the door. Even the street +it stands in is no longer King Street! Nothing is the king's, except +this heavy heart in my old bosom. Wherever I glance my eyes, they meet +something that pricks them like a needle. This soap-maker, for instance, +this Hobert Hewes, has conspired against my peace, by notifying that his +shop is situated near Liberty Stump. But when will their misnamed +liberty have its true emblem in that Stump, hewn down by British steel? + +Where shall we buy our next year's almanac? Not this of Weatherwise's, +certainly; for it contains a likeness of George Washington, the upright +rebel, whom we most hate, though reverentially, as a fallen angel, with +his heavenly brightness undiminished, evincing pure fame in an unhallowed +cause. And here is a new book for my evening's recreation,--a History of +the War till the close of the year 1779, with the heads of thirteen +distinguished officers, engraved on copperplate. A plague upon their +heads! We desire not to see them till they grin at us from the balcony +before the town-house, fixed on spikes, as the heads of traitors. How +bloody-minded the villains make a peaceable old man! What next? An +Oration, on the Horrid Massacre of 1770. When that blood was shed,--the +first that the British soldier ever drew from the bosoms of our +countrymen,--we turned sick at heart, and do so still, as often as they +make it reek anew from among the stones in King Street. The pool that we +saw that night has swelled into a lake,--English blood and American,--no! +all British, all blood of my brethren. And here come down tears. Shame +on me, since half of them are shed for rebels! Who are not rebels now! +Even the women are thrusting their white hands into the war, and come out +in this very paper with proposals to form a society--the lady of George +Washington at their head--for clothing the continental troops. They will +strip off their stiff petticoats to cover the ragged rascals, and then +enlist in the ranks themselves. + +What have we here? Burgoyne's proclamation turned into Hudibrastic +rhyme! And here, some verses against the king, in which the scribbler +leaves a blank for the name of George, as if his doggerel might yet exalt +him to the pillory. Such, after years of rebellion, is the heart's +unconquerable reverence for the Lord's anointed! In the next column, we +have scripture parodied in a squib against his sacred Majesty. What +would our Puritan great-grandsires have said to that? They never laughed +at God's word, though they cut off a king's head. + +Yes; it was for us to prove how disloyalty goes hand in hand with +irreligion, and all other vices come trooping in the train. Nowadays men +commit robbery and sacrilege for the mere luxury of wickedness, as this +advertisement testifies. Three hundred pounds reward for the detection +of the villains who stole and destroyed the cushions and pulpit drapery +of the Brattle Street and Old South churches. Was it a crime? I can +scarcely think our temples hallowed, since the king ceased to be prayed +for. But it is not temples only that they rob. Here a man offers a +thousand dollars--a thousand dollars, in Continental rags!--for the +recovery of his stolen cloak, and other articles of clothing. Horse- +thieves are innumerable. Now is the day when every beggar gets on +horseback. And is not the whole land like a beggar on horseback riding +post to the Davil? Ha! here is a murder, too. A woman slain at +midnight, by all unknown ruffian, and found cold, stiff, and bloody, in +her violated bed! Let the hue-and-cry follow hard after the man in the +uniform of blue and buff who last went by that way. My life on it, he is +the blood-stained ravisher! These deserters whom we see proclaimed in +every column,--proof that the banditti are as false to their Stars and +Stripes as to the Holy Red Cross,--they bring the crimes of a rebel camp +into a soil well suited to them; the bosom of a people, without the heart +that kept them virtuous,--their king! + +Here flaunting down a whole column, with official seal and signature, +here comes a proclamation. By whose authority? Ah! the United States, +--these thirteen little anarchies, assembled in that one grand anarchy, +their Congress. And what the import? A general Fast. By Heaven! for +once the traitorous blockheads have legislated wisely! Yea; let a +misguided people kneel down in sackcloth and ashes, from end to end, from +border to border, of their wasted country. Well may they fast where +there is no food, and cry aloud for whatever remnant of God's mercy their +sins may not have exhausted. We too will fast, even at a rebel summons. +Pray others as they will, there shall be at least an old man kneeling for +the righteous cause. Lord, put down the rebels! God save the king! + +Peace to the good old Tory! One of our objects has been to exemplify, +without softening a single prejudice proper to the character which we +assumed, that the Americans who clung to the losing side in the +Revolution were men greatly to be pitied and often worthy of our +sympathy. It would be difficult to say whose lot was most lamentable, +that of the active Tories, who gave up their patrimonies for a pittance +from the British pension-roll, and their native land for a cold reception +in their miscalled home, or the passive ones who remained behind to +endure the coldness of former friends, and the public opprobrium, as +despised citizens, under a government which they abhorred. In justice to +the old gentleman who has favored us with his discontented musings, we +must remark that the state of the country, so far as can be gathered from +these papers, was of dismal augury for the tendencies of democratic rule. +It was pardonable in the conservative of that day to mistake the +temporary evils of a change for permanent diseases of the system which +that change was to establish. A revolution, or anything that interrupts +social order, may afford opportunities for the individual display of +eminent virtues; but its effects are pernicious to general morality. +Most people are so constituted that they can be virtuous only in a +certain routine; and an irregular course of public affairs demoralizes +them. One great source of disorder was the multitude of disbanded +troops, who were continually returning home, after terms of service just +long enough to give them a distaste to peaceable occupations; neither +citizens nor soldiers, they were very liable to become ruffians. Almost +all our impressions in regard to this period are unpleasant, whether +referring to the state of civil society, or to the character of the +contest, which, especially where native Americans were opposed to each +other, was waged with the deadly hatred of fraternal enemies. It is the +beauty of war, for men to commit mutual havoc with undisturbed good- +humor. + +The present volume of newspapers contains fewer characteristic traits +than any which we have looked over. Except for the peculiarities +attendant on the passing struggle, manners seem to have taken a modern +cast. Whatever antique fashions lingered into the War of the Revolution, +or beyond it, they were not so strongly marked as to leave their traces +in the public journals. Moreover, the old newspapers had an +indescribable picturesqueness, not to be found in the later ones. +Whether it be something in the literary execution, or the ancient print +and paper, and the idea that those same musty pages have been handled by +people once alive and bustling amid the scenes there recorded, yet now in +their graves beyond the memory of man; so it is, that in those elder +volumes we seem to find the life of a past age preserved between the +leaves, like a dry specimen of foliage. It is so difficult to discover +what touches are really picturesque, that we doubt whether our attempts +have produced any similar effect. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD NEWS *** +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + +** This file should be named haw6610.txt or haw6610.zip ** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, haw6611.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, haw6610a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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