jects in which example has infinitely more power than the most convincing arguments, or the highest charms of poetry. Goldsmith's Deserted Village, though possessing these two advantages in a greater degree than any other work of the kind, has not prevented villages in England from being deserted. The apparent interest of the rich individuals, who form the taste as well as the laws in that country, has been against him; and with that interest it has been vain to contend. The vicious habits which in this little piece I endeavor to combat, seem to me not so difficult to cure. No class of people has any interest in supporting them, unless it be the interest which certain families may feel in vieing with each other in sumptuous entertainments. There may indeed be some instances of depraved appetites which no arguments will conquer; but these must be rare. There are very few persons but would always prefer a plain dish for themselves, and would prefer it likewise for their guests, if there were no risk of reputation in the case. This difficulty can only be removed by example; and the example should proceed from those whose situation enables them to take the lead in forming the manners of a nation. Persons of this description in America, I should hope, are neither above nor below the influence of truth and reason when conveyed in language suited to the subject. Whether the manner I have chosen to address my arguments to them be such as to promise any success, is what I cannot decide. But I certainly had hopes of doing some good, or I should not have taken the pains of putting so many rhymes together; and much less should I have ventured to place your name at the head of these observations. Your situation commands the respect and your character the affections of a numerous people. These circumstances impose a duty upon you, which I believe you discharge to your own satisfaction and that of others. The example of your domestic virtues has doubtless a great effect among your countrywomen. I only wish to rank simplicity of diet among the virtues. In that case it will certainly be cherished by you, and I should hope more esteemed by others than it is at present. THE AUTHOR. THE HASTY PUDDING.-CANTO I. Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise, To cramp the day and hide me from the skies; Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurled, Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world, I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, A virgin theme, unconscious of the Muse, But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire The purest frenzy of poetic fire. ye Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd, Who hurl your thunders round the epic field; Nor who strain your midnight throats to sing Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring; Or on some distant fair your notes employ, And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy. I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, My morning incense, and my evening meal, The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl, Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul. The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine, Its substance mingle, married in with thine, Shall cool and temper thy superior heat, And save the pains of blowing while I eat. Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue, Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime, And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme, VOL. I.-26 No more thy awkward unpoetic name First learn'd with stones to crack the well dried maize, Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower, I here ascribe her one great virtue more. Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy roam, Each clime my country, and each house my home, For thee through Paris, that corrupted town, * But here, though distant from our native shore, With mutual glee, we meet and laugh once more, The same! I know thee by that yellow face, That strong complexion of true Indian race, Which time can never change, nor soil impair, Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air; For endless years, through every mild domain, Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign, But man, more fickle, the bold license claims, In different realms to give thee different names. Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant Polenta call, the French of course Polente. E'en in thy native regions, how I blush To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush! On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spaw Insult and eat thee by the name Suppawn. All spurious appellations, void of truth; I've better known thee from my earliest youth, Thy name is Hasty-Pudding! thus my sire Was wont to greet thee fuming from his fire; And while he argued in thy just defence * A certain king, at the time when this was written, was publishing proclamations to prevent American principles from being propagated in his country. With logic clear, he thus explain'd the sense:- There are who strive to stamp with disrepute Let the green succotash with thee contend, Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend, Let butter drench them in its yellow tide, And a long slice of bacon grace their side; Not all the plate, how famed soe'er it be, Can please my palate like a bowl of thee. Some talk of Hoe-Cake, fair Virginia's pride, Rich Johnny-Cake, this mouth has often tried; Both please me well, their virtues much the same, Alike their fabric, as allied their fame, Except in dear New England, where the last Receives a dash of pumpkin in the paste, To give it sweetness and improve the taste. But place them all before me, smoking hot, The big, round dumpling, rolling from the pot, The pudding of the bag, whose quivering breast, With suet lined, leads on the Yankee feast, The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides A belly soft the pulpy apple hides; The yellow bread whose face like amber glows, And all of Indian that the bake-pan knows,You tempt me not-my fav'rite greets my eyes, To that loved bowl my spoon by instinct flies. CANTO II. To mix the food by vicious rules of art, To kill the stomach, and to sink the heart To make mankind to social virtue sour, Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour; For this the kitchen muse first fram'd her book, Commanding sweats to stream from every cook; Children no more their antic gambols tried, And friends to physic wonder'd why they died. Not so the Yankee-his abundant feast, With simples furnish'd and with plainness drest, A numerous offspring gathers round the board, And cheers alike the servant and the lord; While the full pail rewards the milk-maid's toil, Yet may the simplest dish some rules impart, But since, O man! thy life and health demand When now the ox, obedient to thy call, Thrice in the season, through each verdant row Wield the strong ploughshare and the faithful hoe: The faithful hoe, a double task that takes, To till the summer corn, and roast the winter cakes. Slow springs the blade, while check'd by chilling rains, Ere yet the sun the seat of Cancer gains; Entwine their arms, and kiss from hill to hill. The bolder squirrel labors through the day. At last the closing season browns the plain, CANTO III. The days grow short; but though the falling sun To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, Night's pleasing shades his various tasks prolong, And yield new subjects to my various song. For now, the corn-house fill'd, the harvest home, The invited neighbors to the husking come; A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play, Unite their charms to chase the hours away. Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, The laws of husking every wight can tell; She walks the round, and culls one favored beau, Meanwhile the housewife urges all her care, First with clean salt, she seasons well the food, I leave them to their feast. There still belong And mix, like bards, the useful and the sweet. Blest cow! thy praise shall still my notes employ, Great source of health, the only source of joy; Mother of Egypt's god,-but sure, for me, Were I to leave my God, I'd worship thee. How oft thy teats these pious hands have press'd! How oft thy bounties prove my only feast! How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain! And roar'd, like thee, to see thy children slain! Ye swains who know her various worth to prize, Ah! house her well from winter's angry skies. Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer, Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer; When spring returns, she'll well acquit the loan, And nurse at once your infants and her own. Milk then with pudding I should always choose; To this in future I confine my muse, Till she in haste some further hints unfold, Good for the young, nor useless to the old. First in your bowl the milk abundant take, Then drop with care along the silver lake Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide; But when their growing mass no more can sink, When the soft island looms above the brink, Then check your hand; you've got the portion due, So taught my sire, and what he taught is true. There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear The nice distinction, yet to me 'tis clear. The deep bowl'd Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop In ample draughts the thin diluted soup, Performs not well in those substantial things, Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings; Where the strong labial muscles must embrace, The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space. With ease to enter and discharge the freight, A bowl less concave, but still more dilate, Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size, A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes. Experienced feeders can alone impart A rule so much above the lore of art. These tuneful lips that thousand spoons have tried, Fear not to slaver; 'tis no deadly sin:- The following note was added: "There are various ways of preparing and eating it; with molasses, butter, sugar, cream, and fried. Why so excellent a thing cannot be caten alone? Nothing is perfect alone, even man who boasts of so much perfection is nothing without his fellow substance. In eating, beware of the lurking heat that lies deep in the mass; dip your spoon gently, take shallow dips and cool it by degrees. It is sometimes necessary to blow. This is indicated by certain signs which every experienced feeder knows. They should be taught to young beginners. I have known a child's tongue blistered for want of this attention, and then the schooldame would insist that the poor thing had told a lie. A mistake: the falsehood was in the faithless pudding. A prudent mother will cool it for her child with her own sweet breath. The husband, seeing this, pretends his own wants blowing too from the same lips. A sly deceit of love. JOHN MARSHALL. JOHN MARSHALL, the author of the Life of Washington, and the judicial basis of authority of the Supreme Court of the United States, was one of the vigorous natural growths of America, which could sometimes out of the field of action and the energies of the new state produce even great lawyers-the product, according to Lord Coke, of the vigils of twenty years at much shorter notice. Hamilton took his station at the bar in almost a single step from the camp. Marshall's education was that of a soldier. Both, however, possessed what neither the Temple nor Westminster Hall, Littleton nor Coke could confer the judicial mind. Nature had set in these men the elements of the law, and whatever wind that should blow, was to ripen them. Montain John Marshall was born (the eldest of a family of fifteen children) in Fauquier county, Virginia, September 24, 1755. His father was a man of character and ability, of limited education and opportunities among the mountains of Virginia, but of sufficient insight and sagacity to direct the capacities of his son, whom he placed, at the age of fourteen, under the charge of a clergyman, a Mr. Campbell, at a considerable distance from his home, receiving him back again at the end of a year, to complete what book knowledge he was to start in the world with, under the tuition of another clergyman from Scotland, who had then become guardian of the parish, and an inmate of his father's house. This is one of many instances in which the great minds of America received their first discipline at the hands of the clergy. At a somewhat later day, in Virginia, Williain Wirt, another legal eminence, received his first culture and generous love of learning at the hands of a clergyman-the Rev. James Hunt, from Princeton. James Madison was educated by a She knows the cheat, but feigning ignorance, lends her pouting lips and gives a gentle blast, which warms the husband's heart more than it cools his pudding." clergyman, and also Legaré. Hamilton in the West Indies was taught, and sent to New York by a clergyman, Dr. Knox, at Santa Cruz, and two clergymen of that city, Drs. Rodgers and Mason, received him on his arrival. In New England it was the general rule. The clergyman was the sun of the intellectual system in village, township, and city. John Adams, in his early lifewe may take him as a fair type of self-culture, seizing upon all neighboring advantages-was almost as inuch a clerical growth as a pupil of St. Omer's or the Propaganda. Throughout the South, the clergyman was the pioneer of education. This is a missionary influence which does not suggest itself so prominently as it should to the American of the present day. We are apt to think of the clergyman only in his relation to the pulpit, and confine our notions of his influence to the family and the parish, in those concerns of eternal welfare which are locked up in the privacies of home and the heart. These spiritual relations have, indeed, the grandest and widest scope; but there are others which should not be separated from them. The clergyman not only sanctified and cemented the parish, but he founded the state. It was his instruction which moulded the soldier and the statesman. Living among agriculturists remote from towns, where language and literature would naturally be neglected and corrupted, in advance of the schoolmaster and the school, he was the future college in embryo. When we see men like Marshall graduating at his right hand, with no other courses than the simple man of God who had left the refinements of civilization for the wilderness taught, and with no other diploma but his benediction, we may indeed stop to honor their labors. Let the name of the American missionary of the colonial and revolutionary age suggest something more to the student of our history than the limited notion of a combatant with heathenism and vice. He was also the companion and guide to genius and virtue. When the memorials of those days are written, let his name be recorded, in no insignificant or feeble letters, on the page with the great men of the state whom his talents and presence inspired. Like his father, Marshall took part in the active military service of the Revolutionary war, starting in the action of the provincial militia of Virginia with Lord Dunmore at the Great Bridge. He attained the rank of a Captain in 1777, and was at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, continuing with his Virginia company till the expiration of their term of service. In the midst of these affairs he attained his initiatory knowledge of law; was admitted to the bar in 1780, and recalled at once to the field to repel the invasion of Arnold. He rose rapidly in his legal profession at the close of the war in 1782, when he was elected to the legislature of his state, appearing in that assembly, from various constituencies, till 1796. When the Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1788 by the Virginia convention, he was a member of that body, ably seconding its provisions. In 1797 he was minister to France, with Pinckney and Gerry, in the unsuccessful attempt at negotiation with the French Directory, when his native manliness and honor were brought in contact with the mean and subtle policy of Talleyrand. Returning to America the next year, he was elected to Congress in 1799. His speech in the House of Representatives, when the papers were called for in the Robbins case, is one of the great landmarks of Congressional debate. Robbins had been a mutineer in the British navy; had escaped to the United States; betrayed his disguise at Charleston; been reclaimed under the British treaty; surrendered by the administration; carried off to Halifax; tried, and executed. Marshall closed a long debate with a brilliant legal vindication of the Government. It prepared his way to the Chief-Justiceship of the Supreme Court in 1801, the office with which his memory is identified. In the authority and ability of his decisions, extended over a period of thirty-five years, he still exists in the life and action of the Republic.* His latest memorialist, Benton, quotes John Randolph's eulogy of his "native dignity and unpretending grace" in this office, and adds this tribute to the man and his manners:—“ He was supremely fitted for high judicial station-a solid judgment, great reasoning powers, acute and penetrating mind; with manners and habits to suit the purity and the sanctity of the ermine; attentive, patient, laborious; grave on the bench, social in the intercourse of life; simple in his tastes, and inexorably just. Seen by a stranger come into a room, and he would be taken for a modest country gentleman, without claims to attention, and ready to take the lowest place in company or at table, and to act his part without trouble to anybody. Spoken to and closely observed, he could be seen to be a gentleman of finished breeding, of winning and prepossessing talk, and just as much mind as the occasion required him to show."t In 1805 appeared his Life of Washington, in five octavo volumes. As a narrative it is faithful and conscientious, and it relies on valuable original material, the writer having had access to the papers of the family. Marshall died in office, at Philadelphia, July 6, 1835, having, shortly previous to his death, borne with characteristic fortitude a painful and temporarily successful operation for the stone. As the patient was nearly eighty years of age, this is one of the remarkable cases of medical science. A courteous and intelligent English traveller in the United States, the Hon. Charles Augustus Murray, has given us a pleasing picture of Marshall, as he appeared at Richmond in 1835, a few months before his death:-"A tall, venerable man; his hair tied in a cue, according to olden custom, and with a countenance indicating that * In 1839, an octavo volume of Marshall's leading decisions in the Supreme Court was published in Boston-"The Writings of John Marshall, late Chief Justice of the United States, upon the Federal Constitution." Thirty Years' View, by a Senator, i. 681. The Life of George Washington, Commander-in-chief of the American forces, during the war which established the independence of his country, and first President of the United States: compiled under the inspection of the Honourable Bushrod Washington, from original papers bequeathed to him by his deceased relative, and now in possession of the author, to which is prefixed an Introduction, containing a compend'ous view of the Colonies planted by the English on the Continent of North America, from the settlement to the commencement of that war which terminated in their Independence. By John Marshall, Philadelphia. simplicity of mind and benignity which so eininently distinguish his character. I had the pleasure of several long conversations with him, and was struck with admiration at the extraordinary union of modesty and power, gentleness and force which his mind displays. His house is small, and more humble in appearance than those of the average of successful lawyers or merchants. I called three times upon him; there is no bell to the door; once I turned the handle of it, and walked in unannounced; on the other two occasions he had seen me coming, and lifted the latch and received me at the door, although he was at the time suffering from some very severe contusions received in the stage while travelling on the road from Fredericksburg to Richmond. I verily believe there is not a particle of vanity in his composition, unless it be of that venial and hospitable nature which induces him to pride himself on giving to his friends the best glass of Madeira in Virginia."* Anecdotes of the simplicity of Marshall are numerous. On one occasion, as the story has been related to us, at the old market at Richmond, meeting a would-be exquisite, and hearing him call for some one to take a turkey which he had purchased home for him, he humorously offered himself. He was in his usual plain dress, and the gentleman, taking him for a countryman, accepted his services. The judge carried the turkey home, and actually received a shilling for his services, which proved a very costly retainer to the young man, in the .amount of chagrin he endured, when he found that his porter was the Chief-Justice of the United States. He added to his rustic appearance with his homespun dress and yarn stockings, on some occasions, by coming into court covered with the burrs caught in riding through the woods from his farm on his little pony. Ilis favorite haunt at Richmond was Buchanan's spring, just on the edge of town, where he used to go with the club of which he was a member, pitch quoits, drink juleps, and dispute about the technicalities of the game with the zest of a boy. The club still survives, rich in these traditions.t WASHINGTON. In the sober language of reality, without attempting to deck a figure with ornaments or with qualities borrowed from the imagination, a person who has had some opportunity to observe him while living, and who since his decease has most assiduously inspected his private and public papers, will endeavour faithfully to give the impressions which he has himself received. General Washington was rather above the common size, his frame was robust, and his constitution vigorous capable of enduring great fatigue, and requiring a considerable degree of exercise for the preservation of his health. His exterior created in the beholder the idea of strength united with manly gracefulness. ix. His manners were rather reserved than free, *Travels in North America during the years 1834-5-6, ch. Art. Encyclopædia Americana. Supplementary Volume. Life by Story, Ainerican Portrait Gallery, and Discourse before the Suffolk Bar. 1835. Sketch and Eulogy by Horace Binney, Philadelphia, 1895. George Van Santvoord's Lives of Chief Justices, 1854. |