 | I. OLD NEWS. The snow-image |  |
1. I. OLD NEWS.
Here is a volume of what were once newspapers,
each on a small half-sheet, yellow and time-stained, of
a coarse fabric, and imprinted with a rude old type.
Their aspect conveys a singular impression of antiquity,
in a species of literature which we are accustomed to
consider as connected only with the present moment.
Ephemeral as they were intended and supposed to be,
they have long outlived the printer and his whole subscription-list,
and have proved more durable, as to their
physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and
stone, of the town where they were issued. These are
but the least of their triumphs. The government,
the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral circumstances
that were contemporary with their publication,
have passed away, and left no better record of what
they were than may be found in these frail leaves.
Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their productions
excel all others in immediate popularity, and are
certain to acquire another sort of value with the lapse of
time. They scatter their leaves to the wind, as the
sybil did, and posterity collects them, to be treasured up
among the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty
pens they write for immortality.
It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets
between the thumb and finger, and picture forth
the personage who, above ninety years ago, held it, wet
from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of
the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary.
There he sits, a major, a member of the council, and a
weighty merchant, in his high-backed arm-chair, wearing
a solemn wig and grave attire, such as befits his
imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little
finery, except a huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously
carved. Observe the awful reverence of his visage,
as he reads His Majesty's most gracious speech;
and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders over
some paragraph of provincial politics, and the keener
intelligence with which he glances at the ship-news and
commercial advertisements. Observe, and smile! He
may have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the
wisdom of the politician appears like folly, because we
can compare its prognostics with actual results; and the
old merchant seems to have busied himself about vanities,
because we know that the expected ships have been
lost at sea, or mouldered at the wharves; that his
imported broadcloths were long ago worn to tatters, and
his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that the
most precious leaves of his ledger have become wastepaper.
Yet, his avocations were not so vain as our
philosophic moralizing. In this world, we are the things
of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary things,
with here and there a thought that stretches mistily
towards eternity, and perhaps may endure as long. All
philosophy that would abstract mankind from the present
is no more than words.
The first pages of most of these old papers are as
soporific as a bed of poppies. Here we have an erudite
clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge professor, occupying
several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate and
Brady, as compared with the New England version of
the Psalms. Of course, the preference is given to the
native article. Here are doctors disagreeing about the
treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and black-guarding
each other with a characteristic virulence that
renders the controversy not altogether unreadable. Here
are President Wigglesworth and the Rev. Dr. Colman,
endeavoring to raise a fund for the support of missionaries
among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay. Easy
would be the duties of such a mission now! Here —
for there is nothing new under the sun — are frequent
complaints of the disordered state of the currency, and
the project of a bank with a capital of five hundred
thousand pounds, secured on lands. Here are literary
essays, from the Gentleman's Magazine; and squibs
against the Pretender, from the London newspapers.
And here, occasionally, are specimens of New England
humor, laboriously light and lamentably mirthful, as if
some very sober person, in his zeal to be merry, were
dancing a jig to the tune of a funeral-psalm. All this is
wearisome, and we must turn the leaf.
There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit,
in the perusal of those little items which characterize
the manners and circumstances of the country. New
England was then in a state incomparably more picturesque
than at present, or than it has been within the
memory of man; there being, as yet, only a narrow
strip of civilization along the edge of a vast forest, peopled
savage life with the old customs of another world. The
white population, also, was diversified by the influx of
all sorts of expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual
importation of bond-servants from Ireland and elsewhere,
so that there was a wild and unsettled multitude, forming
a strong minority to the sober descendants of the
Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing
their dark shade to the picture of society. The consequence
of all this was a great variety and singularity of
action and incident, many instances of which might be
selected from these columns, where they are told with a
simplicity and quaintness of style that bring the striking
points into very strong relief. It is natural to suppose,
too, that these circumstances affected the body of the
people, and made their course of life generally less
regular than that of their descendants. There is no
evidence that the moral standard was higher then than
now; or, indeed, that morality was so well defined as it
has since become. There seem to have been quite as
many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the number
of honest deeds; there were murders, in hot-blood and
in malice; and bloody quarrels over liquor. Some of our
fathers also appear to have been yoked to unfaithful
wives, if we may trust the frequent notices of elopements
from bed and board. The pillory, the whipping-post,
the prison, and the gallows, each had their use in
those old times; and, in short, as often as our imagination
lives in the past, we find it a ruder and rougher age
than our own, with hardly any perceptible advantages,
and much that gave life a gloomier tinge.
In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air
fancy but a crowd of sad-visaged people, moving duskily
through a dull gray atmosphere. It is certain that winter
rushed upon them with fiercer storms than now,
blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming
the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snowdrifts;
so that weeks elapsed before the newspaper could
announce how many travellers had perished, or what
wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more
piercing then, and lingered further into the spring, making
the chimney-corner a comfortable seat till long past
May-day. By the number of such accidents on record,
we might suppose that the thunder-stone, as they termed
it, fell oftener and deadlier, on steeples, dwellings, and
unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers bore the
brunt of more raging and pitiless elements than we.
There were forebodings, also, of a more fearful tempest
than those of the elements. At two or three dates, we
have stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial
music, passing athwart the midnight sky, accompanied
with the roar of cannon and rattle of musketry, prophetic
echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the land.
Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of
French fleets on the coast, and of the march of French
and Indians through the wilderness, along the borders
of the settlements. The country was saddened, moreover,
with grievous sickness. The small-pox raged in
many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a
scourge, to have been regarded with as much affright
as that which drove the throng from Wall-street and
Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There
were autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive
books. The dark superstition of former days had not
yet been so far dispelled as not to heighten the gloom
of the present times. There is an advertisement, indeed,
by a committee of the Legislature, calling for information
as to the circumstances of sufferers in the “late calamity
of 1692,” with a view to reparation for their losses and
misfortunes. But the tenderness with which, after above
forty years, it was thought expedient to allude to the
witchcraft delusion, indicates a good deal of lingering
error, as well as the advance of more enlightened opinions.
The rigid hand of Puritanism might yet be felt
upon the reins of government, while some of the ordinances
intimate a disorderly spirit on the part of the
people. The Suffolk justices, after a preamble that
great disturbances have been committed by persons
entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes,
and other wheel-carriages, on the evening before
the Sabbath, give notice that a watch will hereafter be
set at the “fortification-gate,” to prevent these outrages.
It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect of a
walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of
church-members, with a deacon at their head. Governor
Belcher makes proclamation against certain “loose
and dissolute people” who have been wont to stop passengers
in the streets, on the Fifth of November, “otherwise
called Pope's Day,” and levy contributions for the
building of bonfires. In this instance, the populace are
more puritanic than the magistrate.
The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance
with the sombre character of the times. In cases
of ordinary death, the printer seldom fails to notice that
some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease
of the “worshipful” such-a-one is announced, with all
his titles of deacon, justice, counsellor, and colonel; then
follows an heraldic sketch of his honorable ancestors,
and lastly an account of the black pomp of his funeral,
and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning-rings.
The burial train glides slowly before us, as
we have seen it represented in the wood-cuts of that day,
the coffin, and the bearers, and the lamentable friends,
trailing their long black garments, while grim death, a
most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful emblems,
stalks hideously in front. There was a coach-maker
at this period, one John Lucas, who seems to
have gained the chief of his living by letting out a sable
coach to funerals.
It would not be fair, however, to leave quite so dismal
an impression on the reader's mind; nor should it be
forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark attire,
as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this
reminds us that there is an incidental notice of the
“dancing-school near the Orange-Tree,” whence we
may infer that the saltatory art was occasionally practised,
though perhaps chastened into a characteristic
gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined
to the aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor
was the centre. But we are scandalized at the
attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more reprehensible
amusement: he challenges the whole country
to match his black gelding in a race for a hundred
pounds, to be decided on Metonomy Common or Chelsea
Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be
no daily and continual opportunities of being merry; but
sometimes the people rejoiced, in their own peculiar
fashion, oftener with a calm, religious smile than with a
broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great family,
at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth
throughout the pleasant days of Election-week. This
latter was the true holiday-season of New England.
Military musters were too seriously important in that
warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they
stirred up and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions
of solemn festival to the governor and great men
of the province, at the expense of the field-officers. The
Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; for
the anniversary of the king's birth appears to have
been celebrated with most imposing pomp, by salutes
from Castle William, a military parade, a grand dinner
at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination in the
evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in
these testimonials of loyalty to George the Second. So
long as they dreaded the reëstablishment of a popish
dynasty, the people were fervent for the house of Hanover:
and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the
country was a barrier between the monarch and the
occasional discontents of the colonies; the waves of
faction sometimes reached the governor's chair, but
never swelled against the throne. Thus, until oppression
was felt to proceed from the king's own hand, New
England rejoiced with her whole heart on His Majesty's
birth-day.
But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of
the population, since it was their gift to be merry in the
few hardships, under the domestic sway of our
fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in
these human commodities. No advertisements are more
frequent than those of “a negro fellow, fit for almost any
household work;” “a negro woman, honest, healthy and
capable;” “a young negro wench, of many desirable
qualities;” “a negro man, very fit for a taylor.” We
know not in what this natural fitness for a tailor consisted,
unless it were some peculiarity of conformation
that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves
of a family were inconveniently prolific, — it being not
quite orthodox to drown the superfluous offspring, like a
litter of kittens, — notice was promulgated of “a negro
child to be given away.” Sometimes the slaves assumed
the property of their own persons, and made their escape:
among many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry
after his negro Juba. But, without venturing a
word in extenuation of the general system, we confess
our opinion that Cæsar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such
great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised
had they staid at home, foddering the cattle, cleaning
dishes, — in fine, performing their moderate share of the
labors of life, without being harassed by its cares. The
sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from
the domestic affections: in families of middling rank,
they had their places at the board; and when the circle
closed round the evening hearth, its blaze glowed on
their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with their
master's children. It must have contributed to reconcile
them to their lot, that they saw white men and women
imported from Europe as they had been from Africa,
slaves to the highest bidder. Slave labor being but a
small part of the industry of the country, it did not
change the character of the people; the latter, on the
contrary, modified and softened the institution, making
it a patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity of
the times.
Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over
whose shoulder we were peeping, while he read the
newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on his
three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a
head inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting
forth, through the crooked streets of Boston, on various
errands, suggested by the advertisements of the day.
Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful,
says he, to call at Captain Scut's, in Creek-lane, and
examine his rich velvet, whether it be fit for my apparel
on Election-day, — that I may wear a stately aspect in
presence of the governor and my brethren of the council.
I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the
jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and
mine have lasted me some half-score years. My fair
daughter Miriam shall have an apron of gold brocade,
and a velvet mask, — though it would be a pity the
wench should hide her comely visage; and also a French
cap, from Robert Jenkins', on the north side of the town-house.
He hath beads, too, and ear-rings, and necklaces,
of all sorts; these are but vanities — nevertheless,
they would please the silly maiden well. My dame
desireth another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I
must inspect the lot of Irish lasses, for sale by Samuel
Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; as also the likely
that I took my daughter Miriam to see the royal wax-work,
near the town-dock, that she may learn to honor
our most gracious King and Queen, and their royal progeny,
even in their waxen images; not that I would
approve of image-worship. The camel, too, that strange
beast from Africa, with two great humps, to be seen near
the common; methinks I would fain go thither, and see
how the old patriarchs were wont to ride. I will tarry
a while in Queen-street, at the book-store of my good
friends Kneeland & Green, and purchase Doctor Colman's
new sermon, and the volume of discourses by Mr.
Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy on baptism,
between the Reverend Peter Clarke and an unknown
adversary; and see whether this George Whitefield be
as great in print as he is famed to be in the pulpit. By
that time, the auction will have commenced at the Royal
Exchange, in King-street. Moreover, I must look to the
disposal of my last cargo of West India rum and muscovado
sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire cheese,
lest it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask
of good English beer, at the lower end of Milk-street.
Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of
stout old Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto wines, which
I have now lying in the cellar of the Old South meeting-house.
But, a pipe or two of the rich Canary shall be
reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own wine-cellar,
and gladden my heart when it begins to droop
with old age.
Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of
his sepulchre? Did he bethink him to call at the workshop
of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold-lane, and select such
the man whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen,
was ultimately in demand by all the busy multitude
who have left a record of their earthly toil in these
old time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the
volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy
stones of a burial-ground.
| I. OLD NEWS. The snow-image | |