Robert Browning Poem

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[APRIL 18, 1863.

242

(Previous Page) Our fair readers will doubtless take pleasure in studying out the dresses. The Times reporter thus described them:

The Princess's dress is embroidered white silk, trimmed with silver, which can just be discerned in rich designs glittering between the snowy folds. The traditional white is not, however, departed from, though over all she wears a slight bodice with open sleeves of white silk, embroidered with silver, and which, falling tight, sets off her tapering waist and faultless symmetry of form to absolute perfection. Her gorgeous train of white and silver is borne by eight young ladies, between the ages of fifteen and twenty, the very choice and flower of the fair scions of our most ancient houses.

The young ladies thus honored with so fair a post in the long programme of this happy day are all the daughters of dukes, marquises, or earls, whose titles are almost as familiar as the names of our kings of old. They were Lady Victoria Alexandria Montagu Douglas Scott, daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch; Lady Theodora Grosvenor, daughter of the Marquis of Westminster; Lady Diana Beauclerk, daughter of the Duke of St. Albans; Lady Elma Bruce, daughter of the Earl of Elgin; Lady Victoria Hare, sister of the Earl of Listowel; Lady Agneta Yorke, daughter of the Earl of Hardwicke; Lady Victoria Alexandrina Elizabeth Campbell, daughter of the Earl of Cawdor; Lady Constance Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon; Lady Ernestine Emma Horatia Mount Edgecumbe, daughter of the Earl of Mount Edgecumbe; and Lady Feodorowna Cecilia Wellesley, daughter of Earl Cowley.

It is quite superfluous to say how they looked, as, robed in snowy white and wrapped in veils, they followed their royal mistress with soft footsteps, though, as they were not going to be married, they seemed to think themselves relieved from the necessity of looking on the ground, and glanced about and turned to one and another, and made believe to look as if they did not know and hear that they commanded almost their full tribute of admiration, even behind such a lady in such a scene as this. Imagination must draw their pictures, for words would fail to paint them. Their dresses were all of white—a wonderful mixture of silk and lace that made them seem ethereal in their lightness, as partly wrapped in long soft veils they passed as noiselessly as a vision which can not be forgotten or described.

Another writer says:

The Princess's wedding-dress consisted of a petticoat of pearl-white silk, embroidered with the rose, thistle, and shamrock, trimmed with four rows of silver lace round the bottom, robing up the centre, over which was suspended a train of crimson velvet, magnificently embroidered with the same design in silver as the petticoat. The bodice and sleeves were composed of the same costly materials. The costumes of the bridemaids were composed of a rich white glace slip, covered with tulle skirts, the bottom trimmed with a ruche of bouillonnes of tulle, the middle one looped up in spaces all round with bouquets of blush-roses, heather, and shamrock. From the waist fell a long tulle tunique, festooned upon one side with two long hanging bouquets of roses, etc.; the body and sleeves trimmed to correspond with tulle and flowers. Coiffure, a wreath of roses, heather, and shamrock, with a long tulle veil falling from the back of the head.

The Illustrated London News says:

The Princess looked as beautiful as she did on Saturday—as beautiful as we trust she will for many and many a long year; but she was evidently in a state of extreme nervous agitation; her eyes were downcast, and it was easy to perceive the tremulous motion of the large bouquet of orange-flowers she carried. Her dress, of ample but inordinate dimensions, was of white tulle over white silk, richly decked with orange-blossoms; a wreath of the same pretty components encircled her head, and mingled with her soft brown hair, which was not so entirely coiffee a la Chinoise as on Saturday, but had sufficient abandon given to it to permit one of those long, pendent curls called a repentir to fall on her neck. For all ornament she wore the superb parure of pearls and diamonds presented to her by the bridegroom. Her train, which was of great length, was of white silk, and was borne by the eight noble damsels—daughters of earls—who officiated as bride-maids.

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH
CLOISTER.

BY ROBERT BROWNING.

GR-R-R—there go, my heart's abhorrence!

Water your damned flower-pots, do!

If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,

God's blood, would not mine kill you!

What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?

Oh, that rose has prior claims—

Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?

Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together:

Salve tibi! I must hear

Wise talk of the kind of weather,

Sort of season, time of year:

Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely

Dare we hope oak galls, I doubt:

What's the Latin name for "parsley?"

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,

Laid with care on our own shelf!

With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,

And a goblet for ourself,

Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps—

Marked with L. for our initial!

(He, he! There his lily snaps!)

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores

Squats outside the Convent bank,

With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horse-hairs

—Can't I see his dead eye glow

Bright, as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?

(That is, if he'd let it show!)

When he finishes refection,

Knife and fork he never lays

Cross-wise, to my recollection,

As do I, in Jesu's praise.

I, the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp—

In three sips the Arian frustrate;

While he drains his at one gulp!

Oh, those melons! If he's able,

We're to have a feast; so nice!

One goes to the Abbot's table,

All of us get each a slice.

How go on your flowers? None double?

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange!—And I, too, at such trouble,

Keep 'em close-nipped on the sly!

There's a great text in Galatians,

Once you trip on it, entails

Twenty-nine distinct damnations,

One sure, if another fails.

If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying

Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel,

On gray paper with blunt type!

Simply glance at it, you grovel

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:

If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print,

When he gathers his green-gages,

Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

Or, there's Satan!—one might venture

Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave

Such a flaw in the indenture

As he'd miss till, past retrieve,

Blasted lay that rose-acacia

We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine...

'St, there's vespers! Plena gratid

Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r—you swine!

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 1863.

CHARLESTON.

AS we go to press the public mind is intensely anxious about Charleston. A dispatch from rebel sources mentions that our troops landed in force, on 2d, on Seabrook's plantation, on John's Island. Letters from our own people allude to the advance of at least one of our regiments to within nine miles of Charleston. And the Navy Department allows it to be known that Admiral Dupont expected to attack the water defenses of the place about 6th inst. From these various scraps of intelligence the public infer that Charleston has been or is being attacked, and loyal people await the result with intense anxiety. The capture of Charleston would strike a blow at the rebellion as severe as the capture of New Orleans; while, on the other hand, the repulse of Hunter and Dupont would considerably discourage the North.

From the elaborate map of Charleston and its vicinity, which we published a couple of weeks since, it can readily be discovered that the place has been made very formidable indeed. For over a year the most skillful engineers in the South have been engaged in fortifying it. The islands, between which vessels must pass to enter the harbor, are studded with forts and batteries; and from the best information that could be obtained, our officers are of opinion that not less than 1000 guns are in position, commanding the channel, the inlets, and the various roads traversing James and Sullivan's Islands. Across the mouth of the harbor is stretched a row of piles or obstructions—which, so long as they remain there, close all access and egress. Connected with these are numerous torpedoes, and other explosive machines, the effect of which may be imagined from the fact that one of them exploding under the Montauk lifted her stern one foot out of water. These obstructions passed, a hostile fleet would then have to encounter Fort Sumter—which has not been iron-clad, as some people foolishly report, or clad with Palmetto logs, of which there are none to be had—but which has undoubtedly been strengthened very considerably, and filled with heavy rifled cannon; Fort Moultrie, which is now a most formidable work, having been entirely rebuilt by General Ripley; a new powerful work, built in the centre of the harbor by General Beauregard; and the rebel iron-clad fleet, including a number of nondescript floating batteries, etc. Such is the prospect before Admiral Dupont and his fleet.

We know less about the land defenses than about the works on the sea-board. But it has been pretty thoroughly ascertained that careful engineering works have been thrown up by Beauregard on every avenue leading to the city by which an army could approach, and mounted with guns of large calibre. In and behind these works the rebels have an army the strength of which it is difficult to conjecture. As, however, every male between 18 and 45 is in the army, it is probably fair to presume that at Charleston and Savannah there must be 50,000 rebels under arms, the bulk of whom could be concentrated within a few hours at any point desired.

It will thus be seen that General Hunter and Admiral Dupont have no holiday task before them. We will not infringe the rules of the Department by stating what we know of the strength of our forces in that quarter, or of the ingenious devices which have been contrived for the purpose of overcoming torpedoes and obstructions, and destroying floating batteries. It may suffice to say that if the rebels are formidable, so are their antagonists. If Beauregard's troops will fight with the desperation of men contending for their homes, our gallant soldiers will, on the other hand, strain every nerve to punish the detestable city which was the cradle of the rebellion. Of the relative merits of the contending Generals it is difficult to speak.

Beauregard, who was much praised at the outbreak of the rebellion, is now held very cheap by the rebel Government. General Hunter has never had an opportunity of showing what he can do, but those who know him best are confident he will give a good account of himself.

We can say no more. If the deadly struggle has begun, then GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT!

WAR AND TRADE.

BEFORE the rebellion broke out, it was a common saying at the South that the North could not fight the South because its prosperity was bound up with the free export of Southern staples. Trade tables were quoted to show that over two-thirds our exports were of Southern growth, while nine-tenths of our importations were landed at Northern ports; whence it was inferred that, in default of Southern cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, and turpentine, the Northern States would be unable to pay for the foreign manufactures which they consumed, and would inevitably become bankrupt. This sort of reasoning was ventilated not only in Southern journals and speeches, but in Northern papers devoted to the Southern cause, and in such British pro-slavery organs as the London Times.

We have now before us the returns of the trade of the first year of war. Sumter was bombarded on 12th April, 1861, and the war actually commenced on 15th of that month. The fiscal year 1861-'62 commenced on 1st July, 1861, and ended on 30th June, 1862. It was from first to last a year of war. Yet our foreign commerce during that year shows an aggregate export of $229,790,280, against an aggregate import of $205,819,823, thus leaving a balance in favor of the country of $23,970,457. These figures are very much less than the average for the past ten years. Of Southern products—cotton, tobacco, rice, and turpentine—we were in the habit, before the war, of sending to Europe over $200,000,000 worth, and at times the export of these staples very largely exceeded this sum. In 1851-'52 we exported barely $14,000,000 of all these articles, and we probably imported an equal amount. It seems, however, that our consumption of foreign goods has declined with our exports, and that, in fact, the first year of the war left us at least as well off, so far as foreign nations are concerned, as any previous year of peace.

The great law of compensation, which politicians and merchants so constantly neglect, and which none but thoughtful statisticians understand, led to an increase in our exports of food which made up for the decrease in our exports of cotton, and simultaneously reduced our imports by so much as the South was in the habit of consuming.

Southern sympathizers—now known as Copperheads—predicted in 1860 that in the event of war out gold would all be drawn from us. Notwithstanding the fact that the bulk of our foreign merchants have remitted their means in gold or its equivalent—exchange—to Europe, for the sake of safety, we discover that with the single exception of the abnormal year 1860-'61, the specie export of the year 1861-'62, $36,886,956, was less than that of any year since 1853-'54. We received from our mines, during that year, more specie than we sent abroad. The export during the current year will be heavier, but it will not exceed that of the years 1855, 1859, or 1860, and it will fall considerably short of that of the year 1857.

In estimating the foreign trade of the United States care must always be taken not to forget the movement of stocks. From 1853 to 1857 Federal, State, county, city, and railway stocks constituted one of our staple exports. Every steamer took out large parcels, thus swelling the balance of trade in our favor, and helping to pay for the foreign goods we consumed. After the revulsion of 1857 this foreign demand for our securities fell off, and the mismanagement and misfortunes of our railways, assisted by the dishonest conduct of certain Western communities, led to a pretty general return of American securities from Europe. From 1858 to 1861 every steamer which arrived here came freighted with American stocks. About the close of the year 1861 the tide changed again, though almost imperceptibly. The European markets had been denuded of American securities, and a fresh inquiry for them arose. For the past year the current has flowed eastward. It has at times been so slight as to defy observation. At other times, as latterly, it has been very active indeed. At present we are exporting American securities to an amount which will tell very sensibly on our foreign exchanges.

THE LOUNGER.

"THE LEAGUE OF STATES."

THIS is the title of a paper in Harper's Magazine for January, which has been reprinted in pamphlet form by Mr. C. B. Richardson. The author is the historian Benson J. Lossing, and it presents in a clear, concise, and conclusive manner the development of the instinct of nationality from which the American Confederation, and finally the American Union, sprang. No man familiar with our history, or closely observant of our life, but feels that the

Union is merely the word by which we express the fact of the nation. It was the instinct of nationality that made the Constitution and the Union. It was not the nation that was made by the Union. That only gave the inevitable political form to the fact. Nationality is a sentiment; a feeling; an instinct. It can not be repealed. It can not be dissolved. If every State in the country should separate from every other the attraction of cohesion would instantly go to work, and they would all gravitate back again into one.

Hence the futility of all effort in the war which aims at any other result than union. In the rebel States the sentiment of nationality and patriotism is doubtless greatly overborne by party hatred, and a mania upon the Slavery question. But those at the South who still hold fast to the country are those from whom the future of the South will spring. Those in whom the preference for a State or love of slavery has destroyed the national instinct, are those whom the war will exterminate or expel. It is the feeling of the mass of the people which will control and decide this quarrel. If the rebellious faction could be allowed to go without danger to the nation; there would be a large party which would cry "good riddance." But that can no more be done than a foot or a hand can be cut off from the body without maiming it.

It is in view of this fact of nationality, and of its necessity, that the concluding words of Mr. Lossing's admirable and instructive pamphlet have such meaning:

"Let us remember that we are a Nation, not a league of States. Words have deep significance in certain relations. Let us, in thinking, speaking, and writing of our Government and its concerns, habitually use the word National instead of Federal. The former expresses a great truth, and is broad and noble; the latter expresses a falsehood, and is narrow and ignoble in comparison. The former is calculated to inspire our children with just, expanded, and patriotic views; the latter, by its common use, will tend to perpetuate the heretical doctrine of State sovereignty, give our children false ideas, and make them subservient to sectional bigotry. Let us habitually say, National Congress, National Capitol, National Government, National Army and Navy, National Judiciary, etc. Let the idea of Nationality permeate our whole political system."

FROM A DIARY.

JONES, who has just come from Washington, smiles when he is asked why Butler is not employed, and answers, "Halleck." When he is questioned to know why Fremont failed to get the command which was so certainly promised him, he smiles again and replies, "Halleck." When some one inquires of him why McClellan is out of service, he sweetly smiles and rejoins, "Halleck."

"Halleck," said Jones at the club, and in the blandest tones, "is our old Man of the Sea. He is by no means a large man, but he has got us comfortably between his knees."

"Yes," replied —, "that may be so, but is not the President Commander-in-Chief?"

"Certainly, but he doesn't want to have any trouble with General Halleck. He wants things to go smoothly. The President wanted to appoint Fremont, but General Halleck's dislike of him is notorious, and he was not appointed."

"But the Secretary of War?"

"Oh; is there a Secretary of War? When General Mitchell was sent to South Carolina, he considered it an exile. Do you ask why he was sent there to command the six or seven thousand men in that department? I answer, 'Halleck.' General Halleck was of opinion that General Mitchell was abetter astronomer than general. He thought that his Western services sounded well when read in print, but that they were of small account. Why was Mitchell recalled? Was he sent for from Alabama to be sent to South Carolina? I think not. I think that he was destined for another command, and in Virginia. If you ask me why he didn't get it, I can only answer politely, 'Halleck.' If you ask why any thing military hitches, the answer is, as sweetly as you can put it, 'Halleck.' I do not speak of Fredericksburg, nor allude to pontoons. I freely allow that we do not know much, and that we hear more lies than truths. I know also that we are foolishly impatient; and must always have a scape-goat. Moreover, I think that few of us do justice to the extreme difficulty of the President's position. But while I try not to forget all this, I can not approve a military management which leaves a man like Butler unemployed; because, if for no other reason, it is precisely what delights every Copperhead, and, for one, I should be perfectly willing to see General Halleck and General Butler change places."

There was not a man in the room who did not agree with Jones.

There has been a good deal of fluttering and letter-writing since the publication of Lord Lyons's dispatch announcing that some persons in New York, whom he called "Conservative" leaders, had been plotting with him, or proposing to plot, for the intervention of England in our war. The Herald immediately mentioned several prominent persons as leaders. Upon which some of them hastened to purge themselves of suspicion. How could they henceforth appeal to Patrick against John Bull if' Patrick knew they had been trying to persuade John to put his finger into our affairs? With edifying celerity Mr. Fernando Wood was the first to purge. When — read his letter he turned to —, and said,

"Well, Fernando disclaims any part in the plot!"

"Indeed!"

"Yes; but your tone argues incredulity."

"Does it? Well, some birds are too old to allow any salt to be thrown upon their tails."

"What does that mean ?" asked —, with an inquiring look.

"It means only," replied —, "that my faith in Mr. Wood's political remarks has long ago taken the benefit of the statute of limitations."

"Well, but what do you say of the, Honorable Mr. Belmont's letter?"

"I didn't observe," replied —, puffing his cigar calmly, "that he denied having conferred with Lord Lyons."

"You know he had just returned from the Havana, don't you?"

"Yes; and I know that he had just heard from Rhode Island."

AMERICAN CITIZENS.

THE meeting of "adopted citizens" a week or two since was unanimous in its expression of enthusiastic loyalty to the Government. But why "adopted citizens?" There are but two political classes of persons in this country, those who are and those who are not citizens. If the gentlemen (Next Page)