Literary Byways Part 14

To the gentlemen and officers of Portsmouth, from your humble servant,

WILLIAM FALL.

"N.B.--I am very sorry that I did not think of this before, for if I had, your people should not have had the pleasure of seeing me take the lashes."

_Curiosities of the Lottery_ is the t.i.tle of another volume of Mr.

Brooks's "Olden Time Series." Selling lottery tickets was regarded as a respectable calling. "The better the man," says Mr. Brooks, "the better the agent. Indeed, it was generally thought to be just as respectable to sell lottery tickets as to sell Bibles; and we have them cla.s.sed together in the same advertis.e.m.e.nt." In England, we must not forget the fact that the business was conducted on the same lines in bygone times. The first lottery in this country was drawn day and night at the west door of St.

Paul's Cathedral, London, from the 11th of January to May 6th, 1569. The profit, which was considerable, was devoted to the repair of harbours. The prizes consisted of pieces of plate.

In the United States, lotteries were inst.i.tuted for a variety of objects, including building bridges, cleaning rivers, rebuilding Faneuil Hall, raising money to successfully carry on the work of Dartmouth College, Harvard College, and other seats of learning. The advertis.e.m.e.nts were extremely quaint, ill.u.s.trated with crudely drawn but effective pictures, and supplied "a speedy cure for a broken fortune." Rhymes as well as pictures were largely employed in advertis.e.m.e.nts for lotteries. Much has been spoken and written against lotteries; but, nevertheless, in some of the States of the Union they are still lawful.

With a dip into a volume called _Days of the Spinning Wheel_, we bring our old-time gleanings to a close. The items we cull relate to a trade once very general in the United States, but happily now a thing of the past.

Advertis.e.m.e.nts similar to the following appeared in all the American newspapers; not a few of the publishers took an active part in the trade of buying and selling human beings. "To be sold," advertises the _Boston Evening Gazette_, 1741, "by the printer of this paper, the very best negro woman in this town, who has had the small pox and measles; is as hearty as a horse, as brisk as a bird, and will work like a beaver." The same publisher stated that he also had on sale "a negro man about thirty years old, who can do both town and country business very well, but will suit the country best, where they have not so many dram-shops as we have in Boston. He has worked at the printing business fifteen or sixteen years; can handle axe, saw, spade, hoe, or other instrument of husbandry as well as most men, and values himself and is valued by others for his skill in cookery."

In the _Gazette_ of May 12, 1760, is offered for sale "a negro woman about twenty-eight years of age; she is remarkably healthy and strong, and has several other good qualities; and is offered for sale for no other reason than her being of a furious temper, somewhat lazy. Smart discipline would make her a very good servant. Any person minded to purchase may be further informed by inquiring of the printer." It will be gathered from the foregoing that the faults of the slaves were clearly stated.

Children were often given away; and many announcements like the following, drawn from the _Postboy_, February 28, 1763, appeared:--"To be given away, a male negro child of good breed, and in good health. Inquire of Green and Russell."

Runaway slaves gave considerable trouble to their owners, and the papers include numerous advertis.e.m.e.nts, details respecting appearance, speech, dress, etc., of the missing persons. After describing his runaway slave, the owner concluded his announcement thus: "All masters of vessels and others are cautioned against harbouring, concealing, or carrying off the said negro, if they would avoid the rigour of the law."

The Earliest American Poetess:

Anne Bradstreet.

To Northamptonshire belongs the honour of giving birth to the first woman poet who produced a volume of poetry in America. Her name was Anne Bradstreet. She was born in the year 1612. The place of her birth is not absolutely certain. "There is little doubt," says Helen Campbell, the author of "Anne Bradstreet, and Her Time," "that Northampton, England, was the home of her father's family." At an early age she sailed with her father, Thomas Dudley, to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, he being one of the earliest settlers in New England. For some years he had been steward to the Earl of Lincoln. He was a man of means, and belonged to a good family, claiming kinship with the Dudleys and Sidneys of Penshurst. Literature had for him many charms; he wrote poetry, and, says his daughter, he was a "magazine of history." He left his native country and braved the perils of sea and land to settle in a distant clime where he might worship G.o.d according to his conscience. This stern, truth-speaking Puritan soon had his sterling merits recognised, and held the governorship of Ma.s.sachusetts from 1634 to 1650. He closed at the age of seventy-seven years a well-spent life. After death, in his pocket were found some of his recently written verses. His daughter Anne was a woman of active and refined mind, having acquired considerable culture at a time when educational accomplishments were possessed by few. She suffered much from ill-health; in her girlhood she was stricken with small pox, and was also lame. Her many trials cast a tinge of sadness over her life and writings.

She grew up to be a winsome woman, gaining esteem from the leading people of her adopted country, and her fame as a writer of poetry reached the land of her nativity.

She married, in 1629, Simon Bradstreet, Secretary, and afterwards Governor, of the Colony.

Her first volume, published at Boston in 1640, was dedicated to her father. The t.i.tle is very long, and is as follows: "Several Poems, compiled with great variety of wit and learning, full of delight, wherein especially is contained a Complete Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Const.i.tutions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year; together with an exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies, viz.: the a.s.syrian, Persian, and Grecian, and the Beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King; with divers other pleasant and serious Poems. By a Gentlewoman of New England." The book met with much favour, and soon pa.s.sed into a second edition. In the third edition, issued in 1658, her character is thus sketched: "It is the work of a woman honoured and esteemed where she lives, for her gracious demeanour, her eminent parts, her pious conversation, her courteous disposition, her exact diligence in her place, and discreet management of her family occasions; and more so, these poems are the fruits of a few hours curtailed from her sleep, and other refreshments." The work was reprinted and published in London in 1650, with the high-sounding t.i.tle of "The Tenth Muse, lately sprung up in America." Compared with much that was written in the age in which she lived, her poetry is ent.i.tled to a foremost rank, but it is not sufficiently good to gain for it a lasting place in literature. It mainly attracts attention in our time as being the first collection of poetry published in America.

Professor Charles F. Richardson, one of the soundest American critics, speaks of some of the poems as by "no means devoid of merit, though disfigured by a paucity of words and stiffness of style." The estimable writer of this volume won words of praise from her leading countrymen.

President Rogers, of Harvard College, himself a poet, thus addressed her:--

"Madam, twice through the Muses's grove I walked Under your blissful bowers-- Twice have I drunk the nectar of your lines."

All her critics were not so complimentary as President Rogers. Some did not think that a woman had a right to produce poetry and to such she adverts in the following lines:--

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits, A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite they cast on female wits: If what I do prove well, it won't advance; They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance."

Here are four lines on "The Vanity of all Worldly Things," which, give a favourable example of her poetic power:--

"As he said vanity, so vain say I, Oh vanity, O vain all under sky; Where is man can say, lo! I have found On brittle earth a consolation sound?"

The next specimen of her poetry is an "Elegy on a Grandchild":--

"Farewell, sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye; Farewell, fair flower, that for a s.p.a.ce was lent, Then ta'en away into eternity.

Blest Babe, why should I once bewail thy fate, Or sigh the days so soon were terminate, Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state?"

"By nature trees do rot when they are grown, And plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall, And corn and gra.s.s are in their season mown, And time brings down what is both strong and tall; But plants new set to be eradicate, And buds new-bloom to have so short a date, 'Tis by His hand alone that nature guides, and fate."

The lines which follow were written in the prospect of death, and addressed to her husband:--

"How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend, How soon 't may be thy lot to lose thy friend, We both are ignorant. Yet love bids me These farewell lines to recommend to thee, That, when that knot's untied that made us one I may seem thine, who in effect am none.

"And, if I see not half my days that's due, What Nature would G.o.d grant to yours and you.

The many faults that well you know I have, Let be interred in my oblivious grave; If any virtue is in me, Let that live freshly in my memory; And when thou feel'st no griefs, as I no harms, Yet live thy dead, who long lay in thine arms; And, when thy loss shall be repaid with gains, Look to my little babes, my dear remains, And, if thou lov'st thyself or lovest me, These, oh protect from step-dame's injury!

And, if chance to thine eyes doth bring this verse, With some sighs honour my absent hea.r.s.e, And kiss this paper, for thy love's dear sake, Who with salt tears this last farewell doth take."

In the year 1666, her house at Andover was consumed by fire, and her letters and papers destroyed, which put an end to one of her literary projects. Six years later she died, at the age of sixty years. It is said of her by an American author: "Her numbers are seldom correct, and her ear had little of Milton's tenderness or Shakespeare's grace; yet she was the contemporary of England's greatest poets, the offspring of that age of melody which had begun with Spenser and Sidney, an echo, from the distant wilderness of the period of universal song." Several of her descendants are amongst the most gifted of American poets; they include Channing, Dana, Holmes, and others. Her husband nearly reached the age of a hundred years, and was termed "the Nestor of New England."

A Playful Poet:

Miss Catherine Fanshawe.

Several lasting contributions were made to poetical literature by Miss Catherine Maria Fanshawe. In the literary and artistic circles of London in the closing years of the last century, and for more than three decades of the present century she was popular.

Miss Fanshawe was born in 1775, and came of a good old English family. At an early age she displayed literary gifts full of promise. The following sonnet, written at the age of fourteen and addressed to her mother, has perhaps not been excelled by any youthful writer:--

"Oh thou! who still by piercing woe pursued, Alone and pensive, pour'st thy sorrows here, Forgive, if on thy griefs I dare intrude To wipe from thy lov'd cheek the falling tear.

Dear mourner, think!--thy son will weep no more; His life was spotless, and his death was mild, And, when this vain delusive life is o'er, He'll shine a seraph, whom thou lost a child.

Then, as we bend before th' eternal throne, Oh may'st thou, with exulting accents boast, 'Now shall my children ever be my own, For none of those thou gavest me are lost.'

With rapture then thou'lt meet th' angelic boy, And she who sow'd in tears shall meet in joy."

_August, 1789._

A long playful poem composed at the age of sixteen, was addressed to the Earl of Harcourt, on his wishing to spell her name, Catherine, with a K.

It displays much erudition, but it is too long to quote in full. We give a few of the lines pleading for the letter C:--

"And can his antiquarian eyes, My Anglo-Saxon C despise?

And does Lord Harcourt day by day, Regret the extinct initial K?

And still with ardour unabated, Labour to get it reinstated?

I know, my lord, your generous pa.s.sion, For every long exploded fashion; And own the Catherine you delight in, Looks irresistibly inviting, Appears to bear the stamp and mark, Of English used in Noah's Ark; 'But all that glitters is not gold,'

Not all things obsolete are old.

Would you but take the pains to look, In Dr. Johnson's quarto book (As I did, wishing much to see, Th' aforesaid letter's pedigree), Believe me, 'twould a tale unfold, Would make your Norman blood run cold; My lord, you'll find the K's no better, Than an interpolated letter; A wand'ring Greek, a franchis'd alien, Derived from Cadmus or Deucalion; And why, or wherefore, none can tell, Inserted 'twixt the J and L.

The learned say, our English tongue On Gothic beams is built and hung.

Then why the solid fabric piece, With motley ornaments from Greece?

Her lettered despots had no bowels, For northern consonants and vowels; The Roman and the Greek grammarian Deem'd us, and all our words barbarian; 'Till those hard words, and harder blows, Had silenced all our haughty foes; And proud they were to kiss the sandals (Shoes we had none) of Goths and Vandals."

She wrote a satire on William Cobbett, M.P., for Oldham, which was extremely popular amongst politicians at the period it was penned. This is not surprising, for it contains some most amusing lines. It is ent.i.tled "The Speech of the Member for Odium."