 | CASTLE GARDEN. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches |  |
19. CASTLE GARDEN.
[From the New York Times of November 10, 1834.]
Messrs. Editors.—If I remember rightly, the wigs
promised to give it up, if they lost this election—this one, at
which they had the majority of the inspectors, and all the
lamplighters on their side. Now, will they do it? Will
they submit to the expression of the will of the majority?
again into the swamps and bogs of bad temper and lost bets?
Some of them will not, I know. In fact, I believe that the
majority of the opposition in this city, are sensible of the
blind captivity into which they have been led by their editorial
prophet. But Hark! the trumpet is blown! the tocsin
is sounded! to the rescue! is the cry! war to the knife!
says the Courier of Saturday. “Let us rally, and organize,
draw the line between us and the democrats, distinctly; let
us employ no man, love no woman, own no friend, who thinks
not with us; nor counsel, nor cure, nor feed, nor clothe, nor
buy from, nor speak to any individual, high or low, rich or
poor, kinsman or stranger, whoever he may be, unless he
throws up his hat and hurras for wiggery. That is the
substance of it. Look at the manifesto—the fiat—the imperial
decree. With what a pompous consequence, the dictator
issues his this “must” be done, and that “must” be done.
However, there is no use of quarrelling about these things.
Rather let us laugh at them, and show their utter absurdity.
With this view I have been tumbling over the first book of
Paradise Lost. That is a book, by the bye, which they
who mean to “take courage from despair,” ought to read,
The Courier has drawn from it already.
All is not lost, the unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate
And courage never to submit, or yield,
Or what is else not to be overcome.”
That was what Satan said to his next door neighbor when
he turned over upon his aching side, in the current of hot
stuff, into which he and his followers had been lately plunged,
after being defeated in a hard fought battle. What a prototype
of the general-in-chief of the wigs. “Never give it
Banish them from your families, and friendships, hold no
communion with them, proscribe them as outlaws.—And then
he reasons. How devilish plausible!
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced
We may, with more successful hope, resolve
To wage by force, or guile, eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand foe,
Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy
Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of Heaven.
So spake the apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair.”
And so speaks, and vaunts “the apostate” dictator of the
wigs. “We are,” says he, “in arms not worse;” that is to
say, we've got all the talent and decency on our side, and the
control of the city treasury;—“in foresight much advanced;”
that is to say, we know, now, that we cannot reckon upon
our own honesty. There have been traitors among us—But
let Milton speak. In the following extract, one would think
he was describing a tribulation meeting at Masonic Hall.
Downcast, and dark, yet such wherein appeared
Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their chief
Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost
In loss itself, which on his countenance cast
Like doubtful hue; but he, his wonted pride
Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore
Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised
Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears.”
I beg to be understood, as quoting these passages with no
intentional irreverence, with no spirit of exultation over, or
taunt against the many respectable well meaning individuals
that compose the main body of the wigs. I have made the
quotations only to illustrate the devilish spirit of the counsel
which the Courier gives to his defeated followers.
Since my hand is in, I'll give a few more illustrations.
Pandemonium. Satan loquitur.
Was not inglorious, though the event was dire,
As this place testifies, and this dire change
Hateful to utter.”
In the same spirit the Courier would say, “we fought hard
and did all that we could, although we got beat; as the people—we
have paid for steamboats, and frigates, and eagles,
and liberty poles, and beer—will all testify, and also `this dire
change,' or cash, which we have got to hand over in payment
of our bets.”
Foreseeing or presaging, from the depth
Of knowledge past or present, could have feared
How such united force of Gods, how such
As stood like these could ever know repulse!”
Just so reasons the Courier. The wigs have been taught
to believe that they were the only wise and powerful people
in the country. They believed in their invincibility.
“Great reactions,” they were told were going on in their
favor, every where. Men were “breaking off by whole acres”
from the democratic ranks. All H—l was moved to get up
an excitement—and how could “such as stood like these,”
the great, the rich, the eloquent, the learned, and the cunning,
get beat by Democrats. The style of reasoning is the same.
There is a congenial sympathy between the two minds that
is indeed most admirable. But Satan continues,
That all these puissant legions, whose exile
Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to reascend
Self-raised, and repossess their native seat.
“Emptied Heaven.”—Arrogant vanity! So the Courier
talked when half a dozen lawyers joined his standard. And
and discomfiture, aspires to future victories!
If counsels different, or dangers shunned
By me, have lost our hopes.”
Courier again. Who believes that its shut up shop resolution
or any other of its “counsels,” were different, or disgusting
to its party? And as to “shunning danger,” look at
the bristling steel that invites the “hired bullies” to pay a visit
to the office!
After Satan had expressed his sentiments, then the other
leaders suggested their views as to the mode of carrying on
the war. I will conclude with a short extract from the
speech of each. Your readers can make the application.
Mammon addressed the meeting at length.
From Heaven, for e'en in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent.”
He was for backing out entirely, and the substance of his
advice was,
“Let us rather seek
Our own good from ourselves, and from our own,
Live to ourselves.”
Moloch—
More unexpert, I boast not; them let those
Contrive, who need, or when they need not, use.”
Belial—
As not behind in hate, if what was urged,
Main reason to persuade immediate war,
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success.”
Beelzebub.—
By sudden onset either with hellfire,
To waste the whole creation, or possess
All as our own, and drive, as we were driven,
The puny habitants, OR IF NOT DRIVE,
Seduce them to our party.”
So counselled the fallen spirits, when they met “to reorganize,”
in Pandemonium, as Milton, drawing from his
knowledge of bad hearts, powerfully imagines. Turn the
Courier's article of Saturday into blank verse, and you might
add it on to either of the speeches made at that meeting, and
no one could doubt its devilish origin.
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