Travels of four years and a half in the United States of America E-Book

Davis John

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 481

Beschreibung

This reprint of John Davis's "Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America" (during 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801 and 1802) is a welcome addition to the list of foreign impressions of the republic in the days of its youth, now being made accessible to others than the bibliophile. Unlike most of his compeers, Davis cared naught for the commonplace anecdotes of the traveler or for the political and statistical observations that crowd the pages of those whose humor, as the author himself remarks, " bears no proportion to their morbid drowsiness." He does not describe his meals, complain of his bed, draw pictures of ruins, " accumulate magnificent epithets " or lose himself in figures. A sort of literary tramp, he wandered afoot through a great part of the fifteen states, recording what he saw and heard and did with a spicy freedom of expression and a cheery abundance of allusion to writers of prose and verse which make his book eminently readable. John Davis was one of the most observant of our early visitors, and his comments on men and things are very well worth reading. His accounts of his life in South Carolina, in Washington, Philadelphia and in Virginia are of especial interest. He visited Alexandria, Occoquan, Colchester and other places in that section, heard Parson Weems preach at Pohick, and taught school in Prince William County for several months.

Leseprobe

Travels of four years and a half in the United States of America

JOHN DAVIS

Travels of four years and a half in the United States of America, J. Davis

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783988680242

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

CONTENTS:

DEDICATION... 1

PREFACE.3

TRAVELS, &c.5

VOYAGE FROM BRISTOL TO NEW YORK.. 5

CHAP. I.9

CHAP. II.26

CHAP. III.36

CHAP. IV.56

CHAP. V.82

CHAP. VI.92

CHAP. VII.101

CHAP. VIII.125

CHAP. IX.163

CHAP. X.187

VOYAGE FROM BALTIMORE IN MARYLAND, TO COWES IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.206

DEDICATION

DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, ESQ. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

JOHN DAVIS.

of Salisbury

Banks of the Occoquan, August 31, 1801.

SIR,

IN frequent journeyings through your country, I have made remarks on the character, the customs and manners of the people; these remarks I purpose to systematize into a Volume, and to you I should be happy to be allowed the honour of dedicating them. The object of my speculations has been Human Nature; speculations that will lead the reader to the contemplation of his own manners and enable him to compare his condition with that of other men.

In my uncertain peregrinations, I have entered with equal interest the mud-hut of the negro, and the log-house of the planter; I have alike communed with the slave who wields the hoe, and the task-master who imposes his labour. My motto has been invariably, Homo sum! humani nihil a me alienum puto; and after saying this, whatever I were to say more, would be idle declamation.

I am, SIR,

Your most obedient, most humble Servant,

JOHN DAVIS.

Thomas Jefferson, Esq.

President of the United States of America,

Monticello, Virginia.

MONTICELLO, September 9, 1801.

Sir,

I received duly your letter of August 31, in which you do me the honour to propose to dedicate to me the work you are about to publish. Such a testimony of respect from an enlightened Foreigner cannot but be flattering to me, and I have only to regret that the choice of the patron will be little likely to give circulation to the work: its own merit however will supply that defect.

Should you in your journeyings have been led to remark on the same objects on which I gave crude notes some years ago, I shall be happy to see them confirmed or corrected by a more accurate observer.

I pray you to accept the assurances of my respect and consideration.

TH: JEFFERSON.

Mr. Davis,

Occoquan, Virginia.

PREFACE.

Having employed four years and a half in travelling through the Southern States of North America, I was about to return home content with regulating imagination by reality, when the accidental perusal of those Travellers who had journeyed over the same ground, determined me to become a publisher. Of these some want taste, and others literature; some incapable of observation, count with profound gravity the number of miles from place to place; and others, intent only upon feeding, supply a bill of fare. A family likeness prevails through the whole. Their humour bears no proportion to their morbid drowsiness. We are seldom relieved from the langour of indifference, or the satiety of disgust; but in toiling through volumes of diffusive mediocrity, the reader commonly terminates his career by falling asleep with the writer.

In comparing this Volume with the volumes of my predecessors, the reader will find himself exempt from various persecutions.

1. I make no mention of my dinner, whether it was fish or flesh, boiled or roasted, hot or cold.

2. I never complain of my bed, nor fill the imagination of the reader with mosquitoes, fleas, bugs, and other nocturnal pests.

3. I make no drawings of old castles, old churches, old pent-houses, and old walls, which, undeserving of repair, have been abandoned by their possessors. Let them be sacred to the Welch Tourist, the Scotch Tourist, and id genus omne.

4. In treating common subjects, I do not accumulate magnificent epithets, and lose myself in figures.

That this Volume will regale curiosity while man continues to be influenced by his senses and affections, I have very little doubt. It will be recurred to with equal interest on the banks of the Thames, and those of the Ohio. There is no man who is not pleased in being told by another what he thought of the world, and what the world thought of him. This kind of biography, when characterized by simplicity and truth, has more charms for the multitude than a pompous history of the intrigues of courts, the negotiations of statesmen, and the devastation of armies.

The Memoirs of Franklin the printer, come more home to my feelings than the History of Sir Robert Walpole 's Administration. I behold the concluding page of the one with the same eye of sorrow, that the Traveller in the woods of America casts upon the sun's departing ray; but the other is task-reading, and, in perusing it, I consult more the taste of the public, than my own disposition. Yet even Franklin studied his ease in withholding his Memoirs from the world till he was beyond the reach of its censure; and I know no writers of eminence who have ventured to encounter the malice of ridicule by the publication of their own biography, but Wakefield whose loss the sons of learning are yet deploring, and Kotzebue who is still holding the mirror up to nature.

There are some who would conceal the situation to which my exigencies reduced me in America; but I should blush to be guilty of such ridiculous pride; and let the insolence of those who scorn an honest calling be repressed by remembering, that the time is not very remote when all conditions will be levelled; when the celebrated and obscure, the powerful and weak, shall all sink alike into one common grave.

Though my mode of life has not been favourable to the cultivation of an elegant style, yet in what relates to the structure of my sentences, I shall not fear competition with those who have reposed from their youth under the shade of Academic bowers. He who can have recourse to the critical prefaces of Dryden, the voluble periods of Addison, the nervous sentences of Johnson, and the felicitous antitheses of Goldsmith, may spare himself the trouble of seeking that purity and decoration of language in a College, which may be found in his closet.[1]

In the progress of my work, it will be discovered that I have not joined myself to that frantic crew of Deists, who would prostrate every institution, human or divine; and, though I dedicate my book to a republican, it is not the magistrate but the man, whom I address. I am no republican! No federalist! I have learned to estimate rightly the value of the British Constitution; and I think no system of government so perfect as that of King, Lords, and Commons.

A word more before I conclude. Should the critic detect the vanity that not infrequently swells my periods, let him be assured that he cannot be more sensible of it than I. When a man becomes the historiographer of his own actions, he can scarcely avoid this error without degenerating into the opposite one of affected diffidence. I have often caught myself making my own panegyric; the fact is indisputable; yet it is still better to be vain than dull.

TRAVELS, &c.

Voyage from Bristol to New York

Having formed. the resolution of visiting the United States, I repaired, December 15, 1797, from Salisbury to Bristol, with a view of embarking on board a Snow of two hundred tons, which lay at the Quay, and was bound to New York. The Captain had purposed to sail the 20th of the same month, but it was not before January 7th of the new year, that the vessel moved from the wharf, when the spring-tide enabled her to proceed down the river.

For my passage, which was in the steerage, I had paid seven guineas to the merchants who chartered the vessel, and my mess, which was with two young gentlemen of my acquaintance, cost me only three pounds more. But, with this money, besides provisions, we purchased a stove, which, during the voyage, was a treasure to us. It not only fortified us against the cold, but we cooked our victuals upon it; and the drawer which was designed to hold the ashes, made an admirable oven. Hence there was never any occasion for us to have recourse to the caboose; but, on the contrary, when the frequent gales of wind which we experienced caused the sea to break over the vessel, the cabin-boy solicited leave to dress his dinner on our fire. In relating these circumstances, I must claim the indulgence of the reader not to rank me among the courtiers of Alcinous; men, fruges consumere nati. My only motive is, to suggest to the enterprising traveller at how small an expense he may be enabled to cross the Atlantic.

The cabin was by no means an enviable place. It offered neither accommodation nor society. Its passengers consisted of an Unitarian priest and family, and two itinerant merchants. The steerage group was composed of a good, jolly, Somersetshire farmer and his housekeeper, who were going to settle in Pennsylvania, of the two young gentlemen I have already mentioned, and myself. Having repeatedly crossed the Equator, and doubled the Cape of Good Hope, there is no occasion for me to say that the ocean was familiar to me; and that, while the other passengers were sick and dejected, I was in health and good spirits. To the roll of the vessel I was fully accustomed; but my companions not having gotten their sea legs on board, tumbled grievously about the decks. The library which I had brought with me, consisted of nearly three hundred volumes, and would have endeared me to any place. The Muses, whom I never ceased to woo, blessed me, I thought, not, infrequently, with their nightly visitations; and I soothed my mind to tranquillity with the fancied harmony of my verse.

Ridentur mala qui componunt carmina: verum

Gaudent scribentes, et se venerantur, et ultro,

Si taceas, laudant; quidquid scripsere, beati.

Hor.[2]

Being an old sailor, I had provided myself with a cot, which, by making me insensible to the roll of the vessel, would, I thought, render my sleep more tranquil and undisturbed than a cabin. But I cannot say my slumbers, the first night were very soft; for, hanging the wake of the hatchway, the breeze from the deck made my situation very unpleasant. Foreseeing also that I was exposed to the deluge of every sea the brig should ship on the passage, I unhung my cot, and put it into a spare fore and aft cabin, which, to my satisfaction, I found, afterwards, was the only dry one in the steerage. The wind being favourable on getting under weigh, we profited from the occasion by shaking out the reefs and shewing all our canvass to the breeze.

The old housekeeper, the very type of Dame Leonarda in Gil Blas, was the first among the passengers that began to hold up her head; and the fourth day of our voyage she murdered an old hen to regale a poor sick gentleman, who thought he could relish some chicken broth. We had scarcely been out a week, when we experienced a gale of wind that was not less disastrous than tremendous. A sea which broke over the quarter washed a hencoop from its lashing and drowned nearly three dozen of fowls. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The sailors made the fowls into an huge sea-pye of three decks, which they called the United States Man of War, and fed on it eagerly.

There was a carter in the vessel, who came on board to work his passage; but he did very little work. Whenever a porpoise or even a gull was visible, he considered it the presage of a storm, and became himself invisible till it was over. A report being circulated that the rats had left the vessel when in harbour, Coster Pearman concluded that they had done it by instinct; and, as an opinion prevails among sailors that a ship, on such an event, never gets safe to her port of destination, the booby gave himself up for lost. But hearing one night a rat scratch against the vessel's side, he ran upon deck in his shirt to proclaim it to the sailors, calling out with a joyful tone of voice, "Whoa! hoa! hoa! a rat! a rat!"

The two Brothers was a miserably sailing tub, and her passage a most tedious one. Head winds constantly prevailed, and scarcely a week elapsed without our lying-to more than once. To scud her was impracticable, as she would not steer small, and several times the Captain thought she was going to founder. Her cargo, which consisted of mill stones and old iron, made her strain so with rolling, that incessant pumping could hardly keep her free. She seemed to be fitted out by the parish; there was not a rope on board strong enough to hang a cat with. She had only one suit of sails, not a single spar, and her cordage was old. If a sail was split by the wind, there was no other alternative but to mend it; and when, after being out six weeks, we had sprung our fore topmast, we were compelled to reef it. The same day, I remember, we fell in with a schooner from New York, which we spoke. It was on the 18th of February. She was bound to St. Sebastian. The seamen being employed, I volunteered my services to pull an oar on board her, which were readily accepted. Her Captain received us politely and regaled us with some cyder. She had left port only a fortnight; but it took the ill-fated Two Brothers a month to get thither. We parted with regret. The Captain of her was of a social, friendly disposition. As to our own skipper, he was passionately fond of visiting every vessel that he saw on the passage. If an old salt fish schooner hove in sight, he clamoured for his boarding-boots, and swore he would go to her if it were only to obtain a pint of molasses. Once, having hailed a vessel, he was justly rebuked. He told the Captain of her he would hoist out his boat and go to see him; but the man not approving, I suppose, his physiognomy, hauled aft his sheets and bore round up before the wind. The skipper had contracted these habits during the American war, when he commanded a small privateer; and he could not in his old age reclaim the foibles of his youth.

As we increased our longitude, the priest, in examining his barrels of white biscuit, found one of them emptied by other hands than his own. Suspicion fell on a sailor, whom he one day accused before the passengers, as he was standing at the helm. "Did you not steal my biscuit, sirrah!" said the parson. "I did, Sir," answered the fellow. "And what, pray, can you say in defence of yourself?" "Why, Sir, I can say-that when I crossed the Line, Neptune made me swear I would never eat brown bread when I could get white; and your barrel of white stood next my barrel of brown. " This reply of the sailor was so happy and unexpected, that to remain grave exceeded all powers of face. The roar of the sea was lost in the combined laughter that arose from the Captain, passengers, and ship's company. Farmer Curtis, whom the tythes exacted from him by the parson of his parish had nearly ruined, now revenged himself on the cloth by a peal of laughter that shook the ship from stem to stern; not even the priest could refrain from a smile; though, perhaps, it was rather a sardonic grin; a distortion of the countenance, without any gladness of heart.

On the 8th of March, we saw the Isles of Sile, and three days after weathered the breakers of Nantucket; from whence, coasting to the southward, we made Long Island, and ran up to Sandy Hook. The wind subsiding, we let go our anchor, and the next morning, at an early hour, I accompanied the Captain and two of the cabin passengers on shore. It was Sunday, March 18th.

On the parched spot, very properly called Sandy Hook, we found only one human habitation, which was a public house. The family consisted of an old woman, wife to the landlord, two young girls of homely appearance, a negro man and boy. While breakfast was preparing, I ascended, with my companions, the light house, which stood on the point of the Hook. It was lofty, and well furnished with lamps. On viewing the land round the dwelling of our host, I could not help thinking that he might justly exclaim with Selkirk:

"I'm monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute,

From the Centre all round to the sea,

I am lord of the fowl and the brute."

The morning passed away not unpleasantly. The vivacity of the Captain enlivened our breakfast, which was prolonged nearly till noon; nor do I think we should have then risen from table, had not the Mate, who was left in charge of the snow, like a good seaman, hove short, and loosened his sails in readiness to avail himself of the breeze which had sprung up in our favour. The Captain, therefore, clamoured for the bill, and finished his last bowl of grog with the favorite toast of Here's to the wind that blows, the ship that goes, and the lass that loves a sailor.

In our progress to the town, we passed a British frigate lying at anchor. It was sunset, and the roll of the spirit-stirring drum brought to my recollection those scenes, that pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war, that makes ambition virtue.[3] We moored our vessel to one of the wharfs, and I rejoiced to find myself on a kindred shore.

CHAP. I.

Upon my landing at New York, my first care was to deliver a letter of recommendation which I had been favoured with by a friend to a merchant in the city; together with a volume of Travels from Boston to Philadelphia, which he had recently published. But I cannot say that I was received with the urbanity I had anticipated. Neither my friend's letter, nor his book, could soften the features of the stern American; and were the world to read the volume with as little interest as he, it would soon be consigned to the peaceful shelf.

I was now to become the architect of my own fortune. Though on a kindred shore, I had not even an acquaintance to whom I could communicate my projects; the letter had failed me that was to decide my fortune at one blow, and I found myself solitary and sad among the crowds of a gay city.

But I was not long depressed by melancholy reflections over my condition, for I found a friend in a man, who, having himself been unfortunate, could feel for another in adversity. A concurrence of circumstances had brought me into the company of Mr. Caritat, a bookseller, who, being made acquainted with my situation, addressed me with that warmth, which discovers a desire to be useful, rather than a wish to gratify curiosity.

He inquired into my projects. I told him that my scheme was to get into some family as a private tutor. A private Tutor! said he. Alas! the labour of Sisyphus in hell is not equal to that of a private Tutor in America! Why your project puts me in mind of young Mr. Primrose. And your exclamations, said I, remind me of his cousin in London. Just enough, rejoined Mr. Caritat, and let me examine you a little after the manner of his cousin.

Do you write a good hand, and understand all the intricacies of calculation? No. Then you will not do for a private Tutor. It is not your Latin and Greek, but your handwriting and cyphering, that will decide your character. Penmanship, and the figures of arithmetic, will recommend you more than logic and the figures of rhetoric. Can you passively submit to be called Schoolmaster by the children, and Cool Mossa by the negroes? No. Then you will not do for a private Tutor. Can you comply with the humility of giving only one rap at the door that the family may distinguish it is the Private Tutor; and can you wait half an hour with good humour on the steps, till the footman or housemaid condescends to open the door? No. Then you will not do for a private Tutor. Can you maintain a profound silence in company to denote your inferiority; and can you endure to be helped always the last at table, aye even after the clerk of the counting-house? No. Then you will not do for a private Tutor. Can you hold your eyes with your hands, and cry Amen! when grace is said; and can you carry the childrens' bibles and prayer-books to church twice every Sunday? No. Then you will not do for a private Tutor. Can you rise with the sun, and teach till breakfast; swallow your breakfast, and teach till dinner; devour your dinner, and teach till tea-time; and from tea-time to bed-time sink into insignificance in the parlour? No. Then you will not do for a private Tutor. Do you expect good wages? Yes. Then you will never do for a private Tutor. No, sir, the place of private Tutor is the last I would recommend you; for as Pompey, when he entered a tyrant's dominions, quoted a verse from Euripides that signified his liberty was gone, so a man of letters, when he undertakes the tuition of a family in America, may exclaim he has lost his independence.-Through not a countryman of your's, continued Mr. Caritat, I am from the same division of the globe, for I was born and educated in France. I should be happy to serve you, but I have not the hypocrisy to pretend that my offers of service are disinterested: interest blends itself with all human actions, and you, sir, have it in your power to be useful to me; I know you are skilled in French, because I have conversed with you in that language; of your own idiom you also discover an intimate acquaintance. Vous etes donc mon homme. I have just imported Buonaparte's campaign in Italy, from Boundeaux, and the people are eager for a translation. Will you undertake the task? Will yon translate the work for two hundred dollars? This is not the land of literature; booksellers in this country are not the patrons of authors, and therefore the remunerations for literary labour are not munificent. But the notoriety of Buonaparte will sell the work; and the translation make your name known beyond the mountains of the Blue Ridge. In a word, if you will translate the volume, I will pay you two hundred dollars.

Less declamation would have made me undertake the translation. I could hardly conceal my transports; and hugging the volume to my breast I danced home to my lodgings.

I lodged with a young man, who called himself a Physician, in Ferry-street, a melancholy alley impervious to the sun. Doctor de Bow, however, in huge gilt letters, adorned the entrance of the house:

"And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,

An alligator stuff'd, and other skins

of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves

A beggarly account of empty boxes;

Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,

Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses

Were thinly scattered to make up a shew."

Of the medical skill of the Doctor, I cannot pretend to judge; but he had little or no practice in his profession, notwithstanding he dressed in black, maintained a profound gravity, and wore green spectacles on his nose.

While the Doctor was reading the Life of Don Quixote, I was to be seen toiling at my translation like Cruden at his Concordance. The original was an octavo of four hundred pages, and every time I opened the volume it seemed to increase in bulk; but the golden dream of reputation fortified my diligence, and I corrected the proof-sheets with lively sensibility.

Emolument, and an avidity of reputation, are two powerful incentives to literary industry; and I prosecuted my translation with so much diligence, that on the fourth of June 179 it was ushered into the literary world amidst the acclamations of the Democrats, and the revilings of the Federalists. This was to me extraordinary, for I had professed myself of neither party, but declared my intention never to meddle with the politics of a country, in which I had neither a fixed dwelling, nor an acre of land.

About this period, my friend the Doctor relinquished his house, and rented a little medicinal shop of a Major Howe, who was agreeably situated in Cherry-street. As the Major took boarders, I accompanied the Doctor to his house, determined to eat, drink, and be merry over my two hundred dollars. With some of the well-stamped coin I purchased a few dozen of Madeira, and when the noontide heat had abated, I quaffed the delicious liquor with the Major and the Doctor under a tree in the garden.

Major Howe, after carrying arms through the revolutionary war, instead of reposing upon the laurels he had acquired, was compelled to open a boarding-house in New York, for the maintenance of his wife and children. He was a member of the Cincinnati, and not a little proud of his Eagle. But I thought the motto to his badge of Omnia reliquit servare Rempublicam, was not very appropriate; for it is notorious that few Americans had much to leave when they accepted commissions in the army. Victor ad aratrum redit would have been better.

In principles, my military friend was avowedly a Deist, and by tracing the effect to the cause, I shall expose the pernicious tendency of a book which is read with avidity. The Major was once commanding officer of the fortress at West Point, and by accident borrowed of a subaltern the history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He read the work systematically, and a diligent perusal of that part which relates to the progress of Religion, caused him to become a Sceptic, and reject all belief in revelation. Before this period the Major was a constant attendant on the Established Church, but he now enlisted himself under the banners of the Infidel Palmer, who delivers lectures on Deism at New York, and is securing for himself and followers considerable grants of land in hell.

My translation introduced me to the acquaintance of some distinguished characters in New York, and among others that caressed me was the celebrated Colonel Burr, who was in the late election chosen for the office of Vice-President of the United States. The letters interspersed through this narrative will shew my intimacy with Mr. Burr, whom I have seen in his social hour ; and of whose political character I am perhaps enabled to give the prominent features. The slave of no party, and unbiassed by personal affections, my portrait shall be free as it is unprejudiced.

To a genius of singular perspicacity, Mr. Burr joins the most bland and conciliating manners. With a versatility of powers, of which, perhaps, America furnishes no other example, he is capable of yielding an undivided attention to a single object of pursuit. Hence we find him at the close of the Revolutionary War, in which he took a very honorable part, and in the fatigues of which he bore no common share, practising the law with unrivalled brilliancy and success. Indeed his distinguished abilities attracted so decided a leaning of the Judges in his favor, a deference for his opinions so strongly marked, as to excite in no small degree the jealousy of the bar. So strong was the impression made by the general respect for his opinions, that exclamations of despair were frequently heard to escape the lips of the Counsel whose fortune it was to be opposed by the eloquence of Mr. Burr. I am aware that this language wears the colour of panegyric; but the recollections which the facts must excite in the breasts of his candid rivals, will corroborate its accuracy.

For a short period Mr. Burr acted as Attorney-General to the State; but his professional reputation, already at the acme of splendour, could derive no new lustre from the office. It however should be remembered, that in State prosecutions, a disposition to aggravate the enormities of the accused was never attributed to him.

At length Mr. Burr was removed by the Legislature of the State to the Senate of the United States. The deliberations of that body being conducted in secret, the public possessed but slender means of knowing and appreciating the merits of individual members. But it is certain, from the lead he took in some of its most important transactions, and from the deference shewn his opinions by his senatorial colleagues, that the character for ability which he had previously acquired, must have been there well sustained. It was, indeed, universally acknowledged, that no other State was so respectably represented as the State of New York, in the combined talents of Mr. Burr and Mr. King.

His time of service expiring, Mr. Burr again returned to the exercise of his profession with a facility which would induce a belief that his legal pursuits had never been interrupted.

Such are the outlines of the character of the man who, cultivating literature himself, loved to encourage it in others; and who, with a condescension little known to patrons, sought out my obscure lodgings in a populous city, and invited me to his house.

I found Mr. Burr at breakfast, reading my translation over his coffee. He received me with that urbanity which, while it precludes familiarity, banishes restraint; and discovered by his conversation, that he was not less skilled in elegant literature, than the science of graciousness and attraction.

Mr. Burr introduced me to his daughter, whom he has educated with uncommon care; for she is elegant without ostentation and learned without pedantry. At the time that she dances with more grace than any young lady of New York, Miss Theodosia Burr speaks French and Italian with facility, is perfectly conversant with the writers of the Augustan age, and not unacquainted with the language of the Father of Poetry. Martel, a Frenchman, has dedicated a volume of his productions to Miss Burr, with the horatian epithet of "dule decus."

Fortune had now opened to me les entreés of the house of Mr. Burr, to whose table and library I had the most unrestrained access. But Mr. Burr did not stop here: he proposed to me the study of the law, which I imprudently declined, and thus neglected to take that flood in the tide of my affairs which led immediately to fortune. A student of the law could not have formed himself on a better model than Mr. Burr; for at the same time that he was perhaps the most skilled of any man in the practice, he was also the most eloquent.

The favorable reception given to the campaign in Italy, of which the whole impression was soon diffused through the different States of the Union, animated Caritat with courage for another publication; and few men knew better how to gratify present curiosity, by directing his attention to temporary subjects.

In the preceding winter an occurrence had happened of which the public had not abated their eagerness to know the particulars. A German by the name of Ferdinand Lowenstoff had become enamoured of a young girl named Elizabeth Falkenham, a native of New York. Ferdinand was forty, but Elizabeth had scarcely seen sixteen summers. Ferdinand, notwithstanding the disparity of their years, found means to win the affections of Elizabeth, who consented to marry him; but it was judged expedient to defer their marriage till the return of Elizabeth's brother-in-law from Germany, who had left his child under her care. In the meantime love prevailed over prudence, and the lover unloosed the virgin zone of his yielding fair. At length the brother returned from Germany, but would not consent to the marriage, and to release himself from the importunities of Ferdinand, confined his sister-in-law to her chamber. The indignation of the lover was inflamed, and to banish from his mind an object whom he could not obtain, he married a French lady from Guadeloupe, remarkable for the beauty of her person, and the vivacity of her conversation. But the charms of a newer object, however lovely and eloquent, could not obliterate the impression which Elizabeth had made: he pined for her in secret, and became a victim to melancholy.

In this harassed state of mind Ferdinand continued some months, when a letter was privately delivered him, in the superscription of which he recognized the hand-writing of Elizabeth. It was short, but emphatical: I am pregnant, and resolved on death!-Ferdinand, far from discouraging, fortified Elizabeth in her resolution, by professing an earnest desire himself to share her fate, and seek an oblivion also of his own woes in a voluntary death. The reply to the letter in which Ferdinand desires to die with this unhappy girl, is an injunction to break without delay his union with visible nature; to rush before his Maker "with all his imperfections on his head." It goes further; it proposes to add the crime of murder to that of suicide.

"But why recall your resolution because of "the child of my womb? Let it not see the light "of a world that has nothing but misery for its "portion; come to me this night! Bring with "thee poison! Bring with thee pistols! And "when the clock strikes twelve we'll both become "immortal!"

From this it is plain that Ferdinand was at first held in suspense between contrary impulses; but his mind was not long diverted from its purpose, for contriving an. interview with Elizabeth the same night, he first shot her with a pistol, and afterwards himself. The fatal event took place at a house in the Bowery, where the lovers were found weltering in their blood, and letters explaining the motive of their rash conduct were placed on a table. Such deliberate suicide was perhaps, unexampled, and the letters that had passed between the unhappy pair, I dilated into a volume, which Caritat published to the emolument of us both, and, I hope, without injury to the world.

Far be it from me to insult over the ashes of the dead; but I consider it a species of moral obligation to make mention that Ferdinand was not only insensible to all the purposes of piety, but rejected all belief in Revelation. Let the reader impress this circumstance on his mind; let him contemplate the wretchedness of Deistical principles. Had he given to piety an early ascendancy over his heart, he might have withheld Elizabeth from plunging into the vale of misery; he would have sounded in her ears the holy admonition, Return and live, for why wilt thou die!

To the memory of these unfortunate lovers I wrote an elegy, which, produced from sympathy for their fate, may, perhaps, excite, the softer emotions in the breasts of my readers.

ELEGY to the Memory of FERDINAND and ELIZABETH.

WHERE wand'ring ghosts their vigils keep at night,

And dance terrific by the moon's pale light;

Where gloomy yews their sable branches wave,

And cast their shadow o'er the rising grave,

Together rest in death's profound repose

These hapless victims to love's tender woes.

That form which once with every charm was blest,

To touch the heart, and break the gazer's rest;

Those eyes that sparkled once with love's bright fire,

That voice which sung responsive to the lyre:

That face which once, with sweetly-soothing smiles,

Beam'd forth expression, and display'd its wiles,

Now lifeless rests beneath the clay-cold ground,

O'er which grim spectres take their nightly round;

Where the hoarse raven flaps his leaden wing,

Where Philomel was never heard to sing,

But where the owl, with melancholy strain,

Does to the moon in solitude complain.

O! you, whose breast have felt the pangs of love,

If e'er my verse your sympathy could move

Here give your sorrows; o'er the ashes weep

Of these sad lovers, lock'd in death's cold sleep.

Sunk are those hearts that once with vivid glow,

Melted in mutual tenderness of woe;

Clos'd are those eyes that, bright with living fire,

Spoke the sweet eloquence of soft desire:

Mute are those lips, that oft-times would disclose

The moving story of impending woes:

Now lifeless rest, yet bleeding from the wound,

This hapless pair beneath the mould'ring ground.

Ah! cruel brother of a charge too good,

'Twas you who caus'd this pair to shed their blood,

To seek an end to weight of human woe,

To plunge despairing in the vale below,

To court a death that weeping crouds lament,

Ah! could not beauty make thy soul relent?

Could not the plaints of love once reach thy heart?

Could not the weeping eye a grief impart?

Could not Eliza's voice thy pity move;

But, must her choice thy furious lips reprove?

Oh! when thy eyes death's horrid form shall meet,

And when thy hearse moves slowly through the street,

May not a tear thy memory demand,

But call reproaches from this gen'rous land!

A land, where love's inflicting power extends,

Where the proud youth at beauty's altar bends;

Where the muse smiles, when Barlow strikes the lyre,

In bold sublimity of epic fire.

Yet shall each muse her tuneful tribute bring,

Sweep the sad harp, and mournful touch the string;

Rehearse the woes that mingled with their love,

And ev'ry heart to tears of sorrow move.

Ye swains and nymphs, with health and beauty crown'd,

Scarce let your footsteps press the hallow'd ground,

When the loud bell, slow-echoing from the walls,

Your minds to worship or to prayer calls;

But, treading lightly o'er the lover's grave,

Drop the sad tear their mem'ries from you crave.

My occupations at New York, however agreeable, did not repress my desire to explore the continent before me; and I thought it best to travel while I had some crowns left in my purse. I felt regret at the thought of separating from the Doctor, whom I was attached to from habit; but the Doctor soon relieved me by saying, he would accompany me whithersoever I went; that no man loved travelling better than he, and that he would convert his medicines into money to defray his expenses on the road.

But tell me, said the Doctor, are you fond of walking? I assured him no person could be more so. Then, resumed he, let us each provide ourselves with a good cudgel, and begin our journey on foot. I will put a case of instruments into my pocket, and you can slip into your's the campaign of Buonaparte in Italy.

But whither, replied I, do you propose to go; and what, I beseech you, is the object of your travelling? To see the world, assuredly, said he; to eat, drink, and laugh away care on the road. How Doctor, said I, would you approve of a walk to Philadelphia? I should like it of all things, said the Doctor. In our way to it we should go through the place of my birth; you have heard, I guess, of Hackensack; and at Philadelphia I could get somebody to introduce me to the great Doctor Rush. All we have to do is to send on our trunks in the coach, and trudge after them on foot.

Our resolution was no sooner taken than executed. The Doctor got an apothecary, who lived opposite, to purchase what few drugs were contained in his painted drawers; and having dispatched our trunks forward by the coach, we began our journey to Philadelphia.

Having crossed the Hudson, which separates York-Island from the shore of the Jerseys, we were landed at a Tavern delightfully situated on the bank of the river, The Doctor having once reduced a fractured leg for the landlord, proposed dining at the Tavern: he will certainly charge us nothing, said he, for I once reduced his leg, when the Tibia and Fibula were both badly fractured. It was a nice case, and I will put him in mind of it.

But you charged him! Doctor! did you not, said I. No matter for that, replied he. I should have been expelled from the College of Whigs, had I not put in my claim.

I represented to the Doctor that no man who respected himself would become an eleemosynary guest at the table of another, when he had money to defray his wants. That to remind another of past services discovered a want of humanity; and that a mean action, though it may not torment the mind at the moment it was done, never fails afterwards to bring compunction: for the remembrance of it will present itself like a spectre to the imagination.

The landlord of the tavern was a portly man, who in the middle of the day was dressed in a loose night-gown and moccasins; he recognised the Doctor, whom he shook heartily by the hand, and turning to a man in company said, "they may talk of Doctor Rush, Doctor Mitchell, or Doctor Devil, but I maintain Doctor De Bow is the greatest Doctor of them all."

It was difficult to refrain from laughing aloud; but the speech of the landlord inspired the Doctor with very different emotions: he made an inclination of his head, adjusted his spectacles, and assumed a profound look that assented to the justness of the remark.

What, gentlemen, said the landlord, would you choose for your dinner? It is now the hottest part of the day, and if you are walking to Newark, you will find the evening more pleasant. How comes on trade, Doctor, at New York? I warrant you have got your share.

Why, Mr. Clinch, replied the Doctor, I cannot complain. There have been several cases of fever to which I was called. And the patients were right, said Mr. Clinch, for they could not have called a better Doctor had they sent over the four quarters of the globe for him. Well, it is true, God sends this country fevers, but he also sends us Doctors who are able to cure them. It is like the State I was born in: Virginia is infested with snakes, but it abounds with roots to cure their bite. Come walk in, gentlemen, walk in. I will get dinner ready directly.

Our dinner was a miserable one; but the landlord seasoned his dishes with flattery, and the Doctor found it very palatable. We went forward in the cool; nor did my friend hesitate to pay his club towards two dollars for our repast: it was high, the Doctor whispered, but continued he, when a man's consequence is known at a tavern it always inflames the bill.

It was our original design to have gone through Hackensack, a little village that claimed the honor of my companion's nativity; but it was getting late; the road to it was circuitous, and we wished much that night to travel to Elizabeth Town. The Doctor consoled himself for not visiting his family by observing that no man was a prophet at home.

We did not stop long at Newark, but prosecuted our walk, after taking shelter from a shower of rain in one of its sylvan habitations.[4] The sun, which had been obscured, again gladdened the plains; and the birds which had ceased awhile singing, again renewed their harmony.

We reached Elizabeth Town a little while after the stagecoach. My companion being somewhat fatigued, retired early to bed, but I devoted great part of the night to the refined pleasures of reading and reflection. There is no life so unsettled but a lover of reading will find leisure for the acquisition of knowledge, an acquisition that depends not on either seasons or place. To know the value of time, we must learn to appreciate every particle of it; and remember that moments, however trifling in appearance, form the year by accumulation.

When I went to bed there was little sleep to be obtained; for a huge mastiff in the yard, notwithstanding the Doctor put his head out of the window and vociferated to him repeatedly, did not remit barking the whole of the night. We therefore rose without being called, and pursued our journey to Princetown, a place more famous for its College than its learning.

The road from Prince-town to Trenton offers little matter for speculation. I know that in some places there were battles fought between the British and their revolted Colonists; but the recollection of it tends to no use, and, I am sure, it cannot be pleasing.

At Trenton, the Doctor, who was afflicted with sore eyes, declined proceeding any further. It was to no purpose that I expostulated with him on the folly of his conduct and urged that we had not many more miles to travel. The son of Paracelsus was inexorable, and it only remained for me to perform the last office of friendship, which was to tie a bandage over his eyes, and lead him blindfolded to his room; in our way to which, happening to stumble, the Doctor comically enough observed, When the blind leads the blind, they shall both of them fall.

From Trenton I was conveyed over the Delaware in the ferryboat, with an elderly man, clad in the garb of a Quaker. His looks beamed benignity, and his accents breathed kindness: but, as the great Master of Life observes, there is no art can find the mind's construction in the face.

We had scarce landed on the opposite bank of the river, when a poor cripple in a soldier's jacket, advanced towards the Quaker, holding both his crutches in one hand, and taking half a hat from his head with the other:-Bestow your charity, cried the beggar, on a poor worn-out soldier, who fought for your liberty during a long war, and got wounded by a Hessian at the very place you have just left. Refuse not your charity to an old soldier in distress.

Alas! exclaimed the Quaker, this comes of war. Shame on our nature. Beasts live in concord, men only disagree. Had thou taken the advice of scripture, thou wouldest have escaped thy wounds!

What, Master, is that?

Why, Friend, if a man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other.

And were you to take the advice of scripture, you would not refuse me your alms.

What, Friend, is that?

Why when a man wants to borrow of thee, turn not thou away.

I remember no such passage, replied the Quaker.

It is in the New Testament, said the beggar.

The text has been corrupted, cried the Quaker, hastening away through a field.

Won't you give me a copper? bawled the beggar, limping after the Quaker.

Charity begins at home, said the Quaker, accelerating his pace.

The Lord help thee, exclaimed the beggar, halting almost breathless on his crutch. But here perhaps is a gentleman who has more of the milk of human kindness.

To become acquainted with human life, the traveller must not mingle only with the sons of opulence and ease; these know no greater fatigue than the hurry of preparation for a ball and experience no higher mortification than the disappointment of pride. Such beings who pass their days in solemn pomp and plenty, can display no examples of fortitude, of serenity, or patience; their wishes are anticipated, and their mandates obeyed. It is among the children of adversity that we must look for resignation under misfortune; it is from the indigent only we can be instructed to bear calamities without repining.

Impressed with this conviction, I entered into discourse with the cripple, whom I found to be a man not without reflection. He had seen better days and hoped for their return. Though my present appearance, said he, shews I am in the most wretched state of poverty, there was a time when I knew the comforts of a home and fireside. These are past, but there is a pleasure in the recollection of them; for no man who has enjoyed the comforts of life, is ever without the hope that he shall enjoy them again.

I had walked about a mile along the bank of the Delaware, when the coach to Philadelphia overtook me, and finding the road dusty I complied with the invitation of the driver to get into the vehicle. At Bristol we took up two young women, clad in the habit of Quakers, whom I soon, however, discovered to be girls of the town; and who, under pretence of shewing me a letter, discovered their address.

A spacious road conducted us to Philadelphia, which we entered at Front-street. I had expected to be charmed with the animation of the American metropolis;[5] but a melancholy silence prevailed in the streets, the principal houses were abandoned, and none but French people were to be found seeking pleasure in society.

The coach stopped at the sign of the Sorrel-Horse, in Second Street, where I heard only lamentations over the Yellow Fever, which had displayed itself in Water Street, and was spreading its contagion.

It costs no more to go to a good tavern than a bad one; and I removed my trunks, which I found at the Stage-office, to the French Hotel in the same street. Mr. Pecquet received me with a bowing mien and called Jeannette for the passepartout to shew me his apartments. He exercised all his eloquence to make me lodge in his hotel. He observed that his house was not like an American house; that he did not in summer put twelve beds in one room; but that every lodger had a room to himself, and Monsieur, added he very solemnly, " Ici il ne sera pas necessaire de sortir de volre lit, comme chez les Americains, pour aller a la fenetre, car Jeannette n' oublie jamais de mettre un pot de chambre sous le lit. "

Monsieur Pecquet assured me his dinners were of a superior kind, and finding I was an Englishman, observed with a bow, that he could furnish me with the best porter brewed in the city of Philadelphia.

Such professions as these what unhoused traveller could resist? I commended Monsieur Pecquet on his mode of living, reciprocated compliments with him, chose the chamber I thought the coolest, and the same night found myself at supper with a dozen French ladies and gentlemen, who could not utter a word of English, and with whom I drank copious libations of that porter which my host had enlarged upon with such elegance of declamation.

My first visit was to the library. A bust of Doctor Franklin stands over the door, whose head it is to be lamented the librarian cannot place on his own shoulders. Of the two rooms the Franklinian Library is confined to books in the English language, but the Loganian Library comprehends every classical work in the ancient and modern languages. I contemplated with reverence the portrait of James Logan, which graces the room.

- magnum et venerabile nomen.

I could not repress my exclamations. As I am only a stranger, said I, in this country, I affect no enthusiasm on beholding the statues of her Generals and Statesmen. I have left a church filled with them on the shore of Albion that have a prior claim to such feeling. But I here behold the portrait of a man whom I consider so great a benefactor to Literature, that he is scarcely less illustrious than its munificent patrons of Italy; his soul has certainly been admitted to the company of the congenial spirits of a Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis. The Greek and Roman authors forgotten on their native banks of the Ilyssus and Tiber, delight by the kindness of a Logan the votaries to learning on those of the Delaware.

It has been observed, I believe, by Horace, that there have lived many heroes not inferior in prowess to those of the Iliad, but that for want of a bard to sing their feats, they might as well have not achieved them. But how many characters are now unknown, who susceptible only of the social energies, deserve to be remembered more than an Agamemnon, or an Achilles. What man ever rose from the Iliad with an accession of benevolence? but who would not be better for reading the life of a Kyrle,[6] of whom nothing can be now known but what is furnished by an episode in a poem.

Of the readers of this volume there are few who have ever heard mention made of James Logan of Philadelphia; a man whose benevolent actions aspire far higher than any Greek or Roman fame.

James Logan was born in Scotland, about the year 1674. He was one of the people called Quakers and accompanied William Penn in his last voyage to Pennsylvania. For many years of his life he was employed in public business, and rose to the offices of Chief Justice and Governor of the Province; but he felt always an ardour of study, and by husbanding his leisure, found time to write several treatises in Latin, of which one on the Generation of Plants, was translated into English by Dr. Fothergill.

Being declined in the vale of years, Mr. Logan withdrew from the tumult of public business to the solitude of his country-seat, near Germantown, where he found tranquillity among his books, and corresponded with the most distinguished literary characters of Europe. He also made a version of Cicero de Senectute, which was published with notes by the late Dr. Franklin. Whether Franklin was qualified to write annotations on Tully's noble treatise, will admit of some doubt; for the genius of Franklin was rather scientific than classical.

Mr. Logan died in 1751, at the venerable age of seventy-seven; leaving his library, which he had been fifty years collecting, to the people of Pennsylvania; a monument of his ardour for the promotion of literature.[7]

It was at this library that during three successive afternoons I enjoyed that calm and pure delight which books afford. But on the fourth I found access denied, and that the librarian had fled from the yellow fever, which spread consternation through the city.

Of the fever I may say that it momentarily became more destructive. Sorrow sat on every brow, and nothing was to be seen but coffins carried through the streets unattended by mourners. Indeed it was not a time to practise modes of sorrow, or adjust the funeral rites; but the multitude thought only of escaping from the pestilence that wasted at noon-day, and walked in darkness.

This was a period to reflect on the vanity of human life, and the mutability of human affairs. Philadelphia, which in the spring was a scene of mirth and riot, was in the summer converted to a. sepulchre for the inhabitants. The courts of law were shut, and no subtile lawyer could obtain a client; the door of the tavern was closed, and the drunkard was without strength to lift the bowl to his lips: no theatre invited the idle to behold the mimic monarch strut his hour upon the stage; the dice lay neglected on the gaming-table, nor did the dancing-room re-echo with the steps of the dancer: man was now humbled! Death was whetting his arrows, and the graves were open. All jollity was fled. The hospital-cart moved slowly on where the chariot before had rolled its rapid wheels; and the coffin-makers were either nailing up the coffins of the dead, or giving dreadful note of preparation by framing others for the dying, where lately the mind at ease had poured forth its tranquillity in songs; where the loud laugh had reverberated, and where the animating sound of music had stolen on the ear.-In this scene of consternation, the negroes were the only people who could be prevailed on to assist the dying, and inter those who were no more. Their motive was obvious; they plundered the dead of their effects and adorned themselves in the spoils of the camp of the King of Terrors. It was remarked to me by a lady of Philadelphia, that the negroes were never so well clad as after the yellow fever.

I had been a week at Philadelphia, without hearing any tidings of my friend the Doctor, when walking one evening past the Franklin's-Head, I recognised him conversing with a stranger in the front room. The physician had arrived only that evening. He had staid six days at Trenton, leading a pleasant, convalescent life; from whence he had written me a letter, which I found afterwards at the post office. We were rejoiced to meet each other, and the better to exchange minds, I accompanied the Doctor into Arch-street, where taking possession of the porch of an abandoned dwelling, we sat conversing till a late hour. The most gloomy imagination cannot conceive a scene more dismal than the street before us: every house was deserted by those who had strength to seek a less baneful atmosphere; unless where parental fondness prevailed over self-love. Nothing was heard but either the groans of the dying, the lamentations of the survivors, the hammers of the coffin-makers, or the howling of the domestic animals, which those who fled from the pestilence had left behind, in the precipitancy of their flight. A poor cat came to the porch where I was sitting with the Doctor and demonstrated her joy by the caresses of fondness. An old negro-woman was passing at the same moment with some pepper-pot[8] on her head. With this we fed the cat that was nearly reduced to a skeleton; and prompted by a desire to know the sentiments of the old negro-woman, we asked her the news. God help us, cried the poor creature, very bad news. Buckra die in heaps. By and bye nobody live to buy pepper-pot, and old black woman die too.

I would adduce this as a proof, that calamities usually move us as they regard our interest. The negro-woman lamented the ravages of the fever, because it prevented the sale of her pepper pot.

Finding all business suspended at Philadelphia, and the atmosphere becoming hourly more noisome, we judged it prudent to leave the city without delay; and finding a vessel at the wharfs ready to sail for Charleston, in South Carolina, we agreed for the passage, and put our luggage on board.

Having taken leave of Monsieur Pecquet, whose excellent dinners had enhanced him in the opinion of the Doctor, we on the 22nd of September, 1798, went on board, and bade adieu to Philadelphia, which was become a Golgotha.

The vessel having hauled out into the stream, we weighed with a fair wind, and shaped our course down the serpentine, but beautiful river of the Delaware. Our cabin was elegant, and the fare delicious. I observed the Doctor's eyes brighten at the first dinner we made on board, who expressed to me a hope that we might be a month on the passage, as he wished to eat out the money the captain had charged him.

The first night the man at the helm fell asleep, and the tide hove the vessel into a cornfield, opposite Wilmington; so that when we went upon deck in the morning, we found our situation quite pastoral. We floated again with the floodtide, and at noon let go our anchor before Newcastle.

It took us two days to clear the Capes. The banks of the Delaware had been extolled to me as the most beautiful in the world; but I thought them inferior to those of the Thames.

We were now at sea, bounding on the waves of the Atlantic. Of our passengers the most agreeable was an old French gentleman from St. Domingo. Monsieur Lartigue, to the most perfect good breeding joined great knowledge of mankind, and at the age of sixty had lost none of his natural gaiety. It was impossible to be dejected in the company of such a man. If any person sung on board, he would immediately begin capering; and when the rest were silent, he never failed to sing himself.

Nothing very remarkable happened in our passage, unless it be worthy of record that one morning the captain suffered his fears to get the better of his reason and mistook a Virginian sloop for a French privateer; and another day the mate having caught a dolphin, Mr. Lartigue exclaimed, Il faut qu'il soit ragouti.

After a passage of five days we came to an anchor in Rebellion Roads, from which we could plainly discern the spires and houses of Charleston ; and the following day we stood towards Fort Johnson, which no vessels are suffered to pass without being examined.

Here the Port Physician came on board, with orders for us to perform quarantine a fortnight, to the great joy of the Doctor, who had not yet eaten half of what he wished to eat on board. Monsieur Lartigue had abundantly stocked himself with comfitures and wine; and I doubt not but the Doctor still remembers the poignancy of his preserved cherries, and the zest of his claret.

CHAP. II.