Old New England Traits. Various
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of the families of the town, who imparted to it a well-founded reputation, not surpassed, if equaled, by that of any town or city in the land; for instance, there 24 were the Lowells, who gave name, afterwards, to that wonderful city of spindles, which enjoys as world-wide a standing in the annals of manufacturing enterprise as the old-world Manchester of a long-anterior date, and one of whom, amid the desolate ruins of Luxor, struck by the hand of fatal disease, conceived the idea of establishing that noble Institute which bears his name, and will convey it to future grateful generations; a name, too, which has so resounded in the popular literature of the day. Then, there were the Jacksons, famous in mechanics and in two of the learned professions; Charles Jackson, the erudite and upright judge, and James Jackson, one of those skillful and truly benevolent physicians, whose memory is still in the hearts of many surviving patients. The Tyngs, too, resided there, long honorably connected with colonial history and still represented by descendants of national repute. Amongst other remarkable individuals was Jacob 25 Perkins, the famous inventor, who at an advanced age ended his useful career with no little foreign celebrity in the great city of the world. I have read lately of his successful exhibition of his wonderful steam-gun, in the presence of the Duke of Wellington and other competent judges of the experiment, and know not what national prejudice, perhaps, or other casual reason, prevented its adoption.[3] In science, too, we had Master Nicholas Pike, an ancient magistrate, whose arithmetic held its ground throughout the country, until it was superseded by that of Master Michael Walsh, which received the high commendation of so capital a judge, in matters of calculation, as the old land-surveyor and finally head of the 26 nation, Washington. Master Walsh was an Irishman by birth, though “caught young,” as Dr. Johnson remarked, to account for any distinction acquired by natives of Scotland; and he displayed much of that impulsive temperament imputed to the people of Erin’s Green Isle. He dressed in the old style, his gray hair gathered into a queue, and wearing top-boots to the last. He was an excellent classical scholar, as well as mathematician. The pupils he prepared for college did justice to his instructions, and some have acquired great eminence in the several professions and in the conduct of important national affairs. As an instance of his patriotic attachment to his adopted country, upon casually meeting, late in life, a certain writer of the town, after a cordial salutation, he added with a slight dash of the brogue, “I thank ye for the Red and the Blue!” The young person was a little taken aback, not remembering the allusion, for a moment, when the old 27 gentleman repeated emphatically—“The Red and the Blue, ye know—Tom Campbell.” It was in reference to a couple of stanzas, addressed to the United States by that great lyric poet, scarcely equaled in his day, namely:—
| “United States! your banner wears Two emblems: one of fame; Alas! the other that it bears Reminds us of your shame! “The white man’s liberty in types Stands blazoned by your stars: But what’s the meaning of your stripes? They mean your negroes’ scars.” |
To this the American had retorted:—
| “TO THE ENGLISH FLAG. “England! whence came each glowing hue, That tints yon flag of ‘meteor’ light,[4]— The streaming red, the deeper blue, Crossed with the moonbeam’s pearly white? 28 “The blood and bruise—the blue and red— Let Asia’s groaning millions speak! The white—it tells the color fled From starving Erin’s pallid cheek!” |
The verses were at first circulated as above set down. Campbell afterwards altered the two first lines of the second stanza into:—
| “Your standard’s constellation types White freedom by its stars,” etc.— |
impairing it, as some will think, both in force and in whatever poetical expression it may have originally had. Poets are apt to make similar mistakes, frittering away the first glow of thought and language, in revision. Has not Tennyson thus injured “The ride of the six hundred?” and did not Campbell himself half spoil “Hohenlinden,” by taming its phraseology down into a supposed superfluous accuracy? For example, he first wrote—
| “ ’Tis morn, but scarce yon lurid sun Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,” etc. |
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It occurred to him, or some “stop-watch critic” suggested, that the sun itself was not actually “lurid,” on that celebrated occasion, and he accordingly changed the expression to “level,” thus signifying a mere natural phenomenon; and, besides the sacrifice of a fine poetical expression, forgetting that the sun must have appeared actually “lurid” through the interposition of “the war-clouds, rolling dun.” Nor is this the only instance of misapplied fastidiousness in that splendid and stirring piece.
Then, there was the Rev. Dr. Spring, father of that celebrated clergyman, Dr. Gardiner Spring, of New York. He had been a chaplain in the army of the Revolution; and when I, as a boy, pulled off my cap to him in the street, I fancied there was something a little military in his polite salute in return. The good Doctor held to what were called Hopkinsian tenets, a special form of strict orthodoxy; and it was alleged that, differing from the ordinary practice 30 of religious people in the town, and construing literally the record of the Creation, “The evening and the morning were the first day,”—the Saturday evening was observed with primitive strictness in the family, while on Sunday evening, after sunset, the excellent matron assumed her knitting-work, or attended to whatever secular occupation she chose. I have often thought, and it seems likely, that the name of Swett—that of one of the most eminent and excellent physicians of his day, in our community, and who in fact fell a sacrifice to the faithful discharge of his professional duty—was the same as Schwedt, borne by the Prince de Schwedt, well known at the court of Frederick of Prussia (so called) the Great. The good Doctor examined the throat of a yellow fever patient, in a vessel lying at quarantine ground in the river, and inhaling his infectious breath, went home declaring he had taken the disease, of which he shortly died. The efforts and liberality of 31 his son, the late Colonel Samuel Swett, in promoting the establishment of the Public Library of the town, though himself long a resident in the capital of the State, will forever endear his memory to the inhabitants. The daughter of another distinguished physician, Dr. Sawyer, was Mrs. George Lee, who gained no little reputation by her “Lives of the Ancient Painters,” and especially by a book which attained great popularity under the title of “Three Experiments of Living.” I should do great injustice to a list of noted personages—to some of whom allusion is made elsewhere in these pages, and which might be extended, if consistent with the objects of this work, were I to omit mention of a lady, Miss Hannah F. Gould, whose poetical productions gained her well-deserved applause and many friends, and some of whose highly pleasing verses still retain their hold upon public esteem. Reflectively, too, we might claim some share in the distinction of the most popular American 32 poet of our own day; for the direct ancestors of Longfellow were natives of our immediate vicinage. I had no intention, certainly, of offering any tribute to the living in these memorials of the past; but one name inevitably suggests itself, better known on ’Change, in London, than in the place of his birth. I speak of William Wheelwright, a lad, at the period to which these sketches refer, long resident abroad, though occasionally brought home by the obligations and affections of family ties, to whose enterprise, and arduous, untiring pursuit of his object are owing steam navigation and railway lines in the southern part of this Continent, and to whose praise the whole South American coast will respond.
There were others and many, of high personal character and local reputation, and not a few of strongly marked characteristics, whose names, perhaps, would scarcely sound familiar to modern ears; 33 but I cannot pass over one wealthy merchant, distinguished for his strong common sense and decided individuality, as well as for a success in business scarcely equaled in this country, in his day—the well-known William Bartlett, to whose judicious bounty the chief theological seminary of the State and its principal Academy for the instruction of youth owe so much toward the assurance of their permanent foundation.
Nor should the memory of Oliver Putnam fail of a record, who, long absent