VVV

C. B. BROWN.

THE pioneer American novelist was Charles

Brockden Brown, who was born in Phil. adelphia in 1771, and died there of consumption, at the age of thirty-nine. He was a man of good family and well educated, and was trained as a lawyer; but quiet, sickly and retiring, he preferred literature to the bar, and after an ingenious speculation, called "Alcuin: A Dialogue on the Rights of Women," he poured forth several political pamphlets, minor poems, tales and biographical essays. In addition to other literary work, he published a series of novels, five of them being written in three years, and all of them before he was thirty. He also edited and was the chief contributor to three successive literary magazines.

Brown was the first American writer to obtain a European celebrity. His romances were eagerly devoured, and the criticisms of the time awarded him a high place in literature. He was no traveler, his longest journeys being from Philadelphia to New York, but he read voraciously, and, in particular, he seems to have assimilated the English novels of the time. Those were the fear-inspiring and blood-curdling romances of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis, and Brown imported their whole apparatus of thrilling mysteries from the ghostly castles and cloisters of Europe to the plain brick or wooden dwellings of what had just been the colonies. When the mysteries refused to be so "cribbed, cabined and confined," Brown built them a summer house or two, near at hand, on a height, beside a precipice, above a darkly rolling river. As for the appropriate accessories, they are all here, -spooks, unaccountable voices, midnight intruders, the

!

swish of unearthly garments; the dark man with a past, the beautiful woman under a cloud, the estimable son, husband, father, brother, friend, who proved to be a veritable fiend. And the whole plot ends in an electric glare of explanation, the supernatural melting weakly into a trick of ventriloquism, a habit of somnambulism, and the like.

Brown's novels are weird, unhealthy, and exciting, with powerful passages, but, in general, imitative of old world tales. What we really miss is space, landscape, hoary piles, ruined monasteries, and distinction. His plots are his own, his manner, William Godwin's, the machinery, Mrs. Radcliffe's or Monk Lewis's. His two most hectic and popular novels are "Wieland" and "Edgar Huntly;" "Arthur Mervyn" contains a particularly circumstantial account of the yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793, which exhibits clearly Brown's mastery of the details of the horrible. The author himself was pure-minded and amiable, much beloved, and much lamented.

YELLOW FEVER IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1793.

(From "Arthur Mervyn.")

As I drew near the city, the tokens of its calamitous condition became more apparent. Every farm-house was filled with supernumerary tenants, fugitives from home, and haunting the skirts of the road, eager to detain every passenger with inquiries after news. The passengers were numerous; for the tide of emigration was by no means exhausted. Some were on foot, bearing in their countenances tokens of their recent terror, and filled with mournful reflections on the forlornness of their state. Few had secured to themselves an asylum; some were without the means of paying for food or lodging in the coming night; others, who were not thus destitute, knew not where to apply for entertainment, every house being already overstocked with inhabitants, or barring its inhospitable doors at their approach.

Families of weeping mothers and dismayed children, attended with a few pieces of indispensable furniture, were carried in vehicles of every form. The parent or husband

had perished; and the price of some movable, or the pittance handed forth by public charity, had been expended to purchase the means of retiring from this theatre of disasters; though uncertain and hopeless of accommodation in the neighboring districts.

Between these and the fugitives whom curiosity had led to the road, dialogues frequently took place, to which I was suffered to listen. From every mouth the tale of sorrow was repeated with new aggravations. Pictures of their own distress, or that of their neighbors, were exhibited in all the hues which imagination can annex to pestilence and poverty. . .

The sun had nearly set before I reached the precincts of the city. I entered High street after nightfall. Instead of equipages and a throng of passengers, the voice of levity which I had formerly observed, and which the mildness of the season would at other times have produced, I found nothing but a dreary solitude.

The market-place, and each side of this magnificent avenue were illuminated, as before, by lamps; but between the Schuylkill and the heart of the city, I met not more than a dozen figures; and these were ghost-like, wrapt in cloaks, from behind which they cast upon me glances of wonder and suspicion; and, as I approached, changed their course to avoid me. Their clothes were sprinkled with vinegar, and their nostrils defended from contagion by some powerful perfume.

I cast a look upon the houses, which I recollected to have seen brilliant with lights, resounding with lively voices, and thronged with busy faces. Now they were closed, above and below; dark, and without tokens of being inhabited. . . . . I approached a house, the door of which was opened, and before which stood a vehicle, which I presently recognized to be a hearse. The driver was seated on it. I stood still to mark his visage, and to observe the course which he proposed to take. Presently a coffin, borne by two men, issued. The driver was a negro, but his companions were white. Their features were marked by indifference to danger or pity. One of them, as he assisted in thrusting the coffin into the

cavity provided for it, said, "I'll be damned if I think the poor dog was quite dead. It wasn't the fever that ailed him, but the sight of the girl and her mother on the floor. I wonder how they all got into that room. What carried them there?"

The other surlily muttered, "Their legs, to be sure."

"But what should they hug together in one room for?" "To save us trouble, to be sure."

"And I thank them with all my heart; but damn it, it wasn't right to put him in his coffin before the breath was fairly gone. I thought the last look he gave me told me to stay a few minutes."

"Pshaw! he could not live. The sooner dead the better for him, as well as for us. Did you mark how he eyed us, when we carried away his wife and daughter? I never cried in my life, since I was knee-high, but curse me if I ever felt in better tune for the business than just then. Hey!" continued he, looking up and observing me, standing a few paces distant, and listening to their discourse, "What's wanted? Anybody dead?"

I stayed not to answer or parley, but hurried forward. My joints trembled, and cold drops stood on my forehead. I was ashamed of my own infirmity; and by vigorous efforts of my reason, regained some degree of composure.

WELBECK AND MERVYN.

(From "Arthur Mervyn.")

[Welbeck, to avoid his creditors and an arrest for murder, secretly quitted Philadelphia. Mervyn, sick with the yellow fever, finds his way to the house he had inhabited, in the hope of dying there alone. But Welbeck returns hoping to secure twenty one-thousand dollar notes concealed between the leaves of a MS. volume which had belonged to a young foreigner whom he had attended in his last moments, whose property he had seized, and whose sister he had ruined. Mervyn has already discovered this money, and, in the hope of being able to return it to the unfortunate girl, taken possession of it. Welbeck relates to Mervyn his adventures since their separation and inquires about the missing volume.]

WELBECK had ceased to be dreaded or revered. That awe which was once created by his superiority of age, refinement

of manners, and dignity of garb, had vanished. I was a boy in years, an indigent and uneducated rustic, but I was able to discern the illusions of power and riches, and abjured every claim to esteem that was not founded on integrity. There was no tribunal before which I should falter in asserting the truth, and no species of martyrdom which I would not cheerfully embrace in its cause.

After some pause, I said, "Cannot you conjecture in what way this volume has disappeared?"

"No;" he answered with a sigh. "Why, of all his volumes, this only should have vanished, was an inexplicable enigma."

"Perhaps," said I, "it is less important to know how it was removed, than by whom it is now possessed."

"Unquestionably; and yet unless that knowledge enables me to regain the possession it will be useless."

"Useless then it will be, for the present possessor will never return it to you."

"Indeed," replied he, in a tone of dejection, "your conjecture is most probable. Such a prize is of too much value. to be given up."

"What I have said flows not from conjecture, but from knowledge. I know that it will never be restored to you."

At these words, Welbeck looked at me with anxiety and doubt."You know that it will not! Have you any knowledge of the book? Can you tell me what has become of it?"

"Yes, after our separation on the river, I returned to this house. I found this volume and secured it. You rightly suspected its contents. The money was there."

Welbeck started as if he had trodden on a mine of gold. His first emotion was rapturous, but was immediately chastised by some degree of doubt. "What has become of it? Have you got it? Is it entire? Have you it with you?" "It is unimpaired. I have got it, and shall hold it as sacred for the rightful proprietor."

The tone with which this declaration was accompanied, shook the new-born confidence of Welbeck. "The rightful proprietor! true, but I am he. To me only it belongs, and to me you are doubtless willing to restore it."