1837.]

The Waves.

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in congratulating the king on his escape from assassination, one of the English committee proposed, that the republicans should appear in their own court dress!' One would think, that with the present facility of intercourse between the two countries, they might be better informed; but it is certainly the fact, that in the present 1836, you will hear blunders, such as these specimens, from five persons out of eight, in England, who have any thing to say concerning the United States.

'I COULD never tire of gazing upon waves. Whether watching them by the shore of an inland lake, as they roll up, in hues of emerald, to the reedy marge, or listening to their swelling monotone, as they break upon the long sea-beach, or curl into white foam in mid-ocean, they are alike beautiful and inspiring to me.' LETTER FROM A FRIEND.

OLLAPODIANA.

NUMBER TWENTY,

WHETHER you be gentle or simple, reader - whether poetical or prose-enamored - you have been free from any inflictions or productions of mine - whichsoever you may please to call them - any time these several months. If the omission has been grievous, you have had a monition that your life is not all sunshine, many things being oft anticipated, which come not to hand of him that desireth them; if pleasing, you are now reminded, that pleasures of a sublunary character are too brief to have long uniform continuance, since diuturnity of delight is a dream, and folly of expectation.' So much for prefatory philosophy. PLATO, when he paced along the olivewalks, beneath the groves of Academe, or listened to the prattle of shining Grecian streams of yore, never knew what it was to meditate the exordium of a magazine paper. As yet, when he flourished, 'editors and agents of periodicals' never took prominent parts in university processions, with toll-gate keepers, sea-serpents, and American eagles, as was jocosely related of the late conflagratory assemblage in the edifice of Brown, on Providence Plantations.

By the way, I laughed extremely at the piece to which I allude, which was full of delightsome and most facetious things, right aptly conceited. It was an imaginary procession at Brown University, on occasion of burning all the literary productions of the students for the last five or six years. Had the sacrificial mandate extended to the honorary members of her societies, then would OLLAPOD have been obliged to be present with his offering to the insatiate elements; and with 'survivors of the Boston massacre, in coaches,' or 'superannuated toll-keepers of the Pawtucket Turnpike,' followed in the train of the great marine visitor at Nahant, or that supposed bird, met by the dreamer (immortalized by the muse of SANDS) who sailed a-nigh it in his vision, what time his spectral charger waved to the breeze of midnight

'the long, long tail, that glorified That glorious animal's hinder side!'

I'LL warrant me a dozen of Burgundy, with all olives and appurtenances thereunto properly belonging, that this same humorous description gave offence to those who support the dignity of a timehonored alma-mater. But they must have laughed in their sleeves at the witty conception of it. Yet it is an old saying, 'A blow with a word strikes deeper than one with a sword.' Many men,' saith the profound old Democritus, Junior, are as much gauled with a jest, a pasquil, satyre, apologe, epigram, or the like, as with any misfortune whatever. Princes and potentates, that are otherwise happy, and have all at command, secure and free, are grievously vexed with these pasquilling satyrs: they fear a railing Aretine, more than an enemy in the field; which made most princes of his time, as some

1837.]

Satire Robert C. Sands.

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relate, allow him a liberal pension, that he should not tax them in his satyrs. The gods had their Momus, Homer his Zoïlus, Achilles his Thersites, Philip his Demades: the Cæsars themselves in Rome were commonly taunted. There was never wanting a Petronius, a Lucian, in those times; nor will be a Rabelais, an Euphormio, a Boccalinus, in ours. Adrian the Sixth, pope, was so highly offended and grievously vexed with pasquils at Rome, he gave command that satyre should be demolished and burned, the ashes flung into the river Tiber, and had done it forthwith, had not Ludovicus, a facete companion, dissuaded him to the contrary, by telling him that pasquils would turn to frogs in the bottom of the river, and croak worse and louder than before.' A right pithy description is this, of the effect of wit and words.

return.

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I HAVE Sometimes guffawed immeasurably, at the sharp cuts and thrusts not seldom indulged in by the current writers of our country, both in periodicals and newspapers. Not that I particularly affect the vapid abortions which appear in each department, as now and then they must inevitably do: but names and sources might readily be mentioned in both, whereat the general lip shall curl you a smile, as if by intuition. Our magazines have a goodly sprinkling of the cheerful; and in dull times, one can but wish that they even had more. There is a spirit - and I mentioned but now the name of its incarnate habitation which has gone from among us, no more to Ah me! that spirit! It was stored with sublunary lore; calm, philosophical, observant; a lens, through which the colors of a warm heart, full of genuine philanthrophy and goodness, shone forth upon the world. It was sportive in its satire, and its very sadness was cheerful. Grasping and depicting the Great, it yet ennobled and beautified the Small. Its messengers of thought, winged and clothed with beautiful plumage, went forth in the world, to please by their changeableness, or to impress the eye of fancy with their enduring loveliness. Such was the spirit of SANDS, whose light was quenched for ever, while inditing a good matter' for the very pages which now embody this feeble tribute to his genius. I well remember, when I first approached his native city, after his death, how thick-coming were the associations connected with his memory, which brought the tears into my eyes. The distant shades of Hoboken, where he so loved to wander; the spreading bay, whereon his 'rapt, inspired' eye has so often rested; the city, towering sleepily afar; the fairy hues of coming twilight, trembling over the glassy Hudson, sloop-bestrown; the half-silver, half-emerald shades, blending together under the heights of Weehawken- these, appealing to my eye, recalled the Lost to my side. I looked to the shore, and there

'The shadows of departed hours
Hung dim upon the early flowers;
Even in their sunshine seemed to brood
Something more deep than solitude.'

The

NO BARD, 'holy and true,' was ever more deeply imbued than SANDS with the spirit of song.' Sublimity, tenderness, description, all were his. But in his dissertations on all subjects, his struggling humor at last came uppermost. From classic stores, he could educe the novel jeu d'esprit; from fanciful premises, the most amusing conclusions. Having given a pleasant line or two from one of his happiest sketches, I feel irresistibly inclined to encompass the whole. It is necessary, beforehand, to discern the preamble of the argument. A fellow-minstrel has indited and published to the world a fanciful picture of the national eagle, in all his original wildness, surrounded with characteristic scenery. The picture is a grand one, but overcolored; and would seem to have been drawn according to the admitted principle of the writer in composition, that whatever he writes is either superlatively good, or sheer nonsense.' The former quality predominates; but there is enough of the latter in all he has written. The minstrel just mentioned also gave birth to a midnight phantom, or the sketch of a most supernal steed; the burlesque presentment whereof is hereto annexed, together with certain allusions to the feathery emblem of the republic, which show that the limner knew how to kill two rare objects with one satirical fragment of granite:'

'A MISTY dream-and a flashy maze

Of a sunshiny flush- and a moonshiny haze!
I lay asleep with my eyes open wide,
When a donkey came to my bedside,

And bade me forth to take a ride.

It was not a donkey of vulgar breed,

But a cloudy vision — a night-mare steed!

His ears were abroad like a warrior's plume

From the bosom of darkness was borrowed the gloom

Of his dark, dark hide, and his coal black hair,

But his eyes like no earthly eyes they were!

Like the fields of heaven where none can see

The depths of their blue eternity!

Like the crest of a helinet taught proudly to nod,

And wave like a meteor's train abroad,

Was the long, long tail, that glorified

The glorious donkey's hinder side!

And his gait description's power surpasses-
'Twas the beau ideal of all jack-asses.

'I strode o'er his back, and he took in his wind
And he pranced before- and he kicked behind
And he gave a snort, as when mutterings roll
Abroad from pole to answering pole-
While the storm-king sits on the hail-cloud's back,
And amuses himself with the thunder-crack!
Then off he went, like a bird with red wings,
That builds her nest where the cliff-flower springs-
Like a cloudy steed by the light of the moon,
When the night's muffled horn plays a windy tune;
And away I went, while my garment flew
Forth on the night breeze, with a snow-shiny hue-
Like a streak of white foam on a sea of blue.
Up-bristled then the night-charger's hair too,
Like a bayonet grove, at a 'shoulder-hoo!'

'Hurra! hurra! what a hurry we made!
My hairs rose too, but I was not afraid;
Like a stand of pikes they stood up all,
Each eye stood out like a cannon ball;

1837.]

The Phantom Steed!'

So rapt I looked, like the god of song,
As I shot and whizzed like a rocket along.
Thus through the trough of the air as we dash'd,
Goodly and glorious visions flash'd

Before my sight with a flashing and sparkling,
In whose blaze all earthly gems are darkling.
As the gushes of morning, the trappings of eve,
Or the myriad lights that will dance when you give
Yourself a clout on the orb of sight,

And see long ribands of rainbow light;
Such were the splendors, and so divine,
So rosy and starry, and fiery and fine.

'Then eagle! then stars! and then rainbows! and all
That I saw at Niagara's tumbling fall,

Where I sung so divinely of them and their glories,
While mewed in vile durance, and kept by the tories;
Where the red cross flag was abroad on the blast,
I sat yery mournful, but not downcast.

My harp on the willows I did not hang up,
Nor the winglets of fancy were suffered to droop,
But I soared, and I swooped, like a bird with red wings,
Who mounts to the cloud-god, and soaringly sings.

'But the phantom steed in his whirlwind course,
Galloped along like Beelzebub's horse,

Till we came to a bank, dark, craggy, and wild,
Where no rock-flowers blushed, no verdure smiled-
But sparse from the thunder-cliffs bleak and bare,
Like the plumage of ravens that warrior helms wear.
And below very far was a gulf profound,
Where tumbling and rumbling, at distance resound
Billowy clouds-o'er whose bottomless bed
The curtain of night its volumes spread -
But a rushing of fire was revealing the gloom,
Where convulsions had birth, and the thunders a home.

'You may put out the eyes of the sun at mid-day -
You may hold a young cherubim fast by the tail
You may steal from night's angel his blanket away
Or the song of the bard at its flood-tide may stay,
But that cloud-phantom donkey to stop you would fail!

'He plunged in the gulf-'t was a great way to go,
Ere we lit mid the darkness and flashings below;
And I looked as I hung o'er that sulphurous light
Like a warrior of flame!-on a courser of night!
But what I beheld in that dark ocean's roar,

I have partly described in a poem before,

And the rest I reserve for a measure more strong,

When my heart shall be heaving and bursting with song!

'But I saw, as he sailed 'mid the dusky air,

A bird that I thought I knew every where,

A fierce gray bird with a terrible beak,

With a glittering eye, and peculiar shriek :

'Proud Bird of the Cliff!' I addressed him then

'How my heart swells high thus to meet thee again!

Thou whose bare bosom for rest is laid

On pillows of night by the thunder-cloud made!
With a rushing of wings and a screaming of praise,
Who in ecstacy soar'st in the red-hot blaze!
Who dancest in heaven to the song of the trump,
To the fife's acclaim, and bass-drum's thump!
Whence com'st thou,' I cried, and goest whither?'
As I gently detained him by his tail-feather.

He replied, 'Mr. N. − ! Mr. N - let me loose!
I am not an eagle, but only a goose!

Your optics are weak, and the weather is hazy-
And excuse the remark, but I think you are crazy."

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