And some philosophers have styled romance the special glory of Christianity. It is certainly the characteristic of critical as distinguished from organic periods,of the mind acting mystically in a savage and unknown universe, rather than of the mind that has reduced the heavens and earth to its arts and sciences. The novel, therefore, as the wildest organ of romance, is most appropriate to a time of great intellectual agitation, when intellectual men are but half-conscious of the tendencies that are setting about them, and consequently cease to propose to themselves final goals, do not attempt scrupulous art, but play jubilantly with current facts. Hence, perhaps, its popularity since the first conflicts of the Protestant Reformation, and especially since the great French Revolution, when amid new inventions and new ideas mankind has contemplatively looked for the coming events, the new historical eras, which were casting their shadows before.
When, some time, Christian art shall become classical, and Christian ideas be developed by superior men as fairly as the Hellenic conceptions were, the novel may either assume to itself some peculiar excellency, or may cease to hold the comparative rank in literature which it enjoys at present. Then the numberless prose romances which occupy the present generation of readers will, perhaps, be collected in some immense corpus, like the Byzantine historians, will be reckoned among the curiosities of literature, and will at least have the merit of making the study of antiquities easy and interesting. There is an old couplet,
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
At a time when extemporaneous composition and thoughtless reading are much in fashion, it will not be amiss to invoke profounder studies, and slower, but more useful and permanent results. Let it be remembered that even the Divine Mind first called into being the chaos of creation, and then in seven days reviewed and elaborated it into a beautiful order.
* * * * *A LEGEND OF MARYLAND
"AN OWRE TRUE TALE."[Concluded.]
CHAPTER VII
THE OLD CITYLet me now once more shift the scene. In the summer of 1684, the peaceful little port of St. Mary's was visited by a phenomenon of rare occurrence in those days. A ship of war of the smaller class, with the Cross of St. George sparkling on her broad flag, came gliding to an anchorage abreast the town. The fort of St. Inigoes gave the customary salute, which I have reason to believe was not returned. Not long after this, a bluff, swaggering, vulgar captain came on shore. He made no visit of respect or business to any member of the Council. He gave no report of his character or the purpose of his visit, but strolled to the tavern,I suppose to that kept by Mr. Cordea, who, in addition to his calling of keeper of the ordinary, was the most approved shoemaker of the city,and here regaled himself with a potation of strong waters. It is likely that he then repaired to Mr. Blakiston's, the King's Collector,a bitter and relentless enemy of the Lord Proprietary,and there may have met Kenelm Chiseldine, John Coode, Colonel Jowles, and others noted for their hatred of the Calvert family, and in such company as this indulged himself in deriding Lord Baltimore and his government, During his stay in the port, his men came on shore, and, imitating their captain's unamiable temper, roamed in squads about the town and its neighborhood, conducting themselves in a noisy, hectoring manner towards the inhabitants, disturbing the repose of the quiet burghers, and shocking their ears with ribald abuse of the authorities. These roystering sailorsI mention it as a point of historical interesthad even the audacity to break into Alderman Garret Van Swearingen's garden, and to pluck up and carry away his cabbages and other vegetables, andaccording to the testimony of Mr. Cordea, whose indignation was the more intense from his veneration for the Alderman, and from the fact that he made his Worship's shoesthey would have killed one of his Worship's sheep, if his (Cordea's) man had not prevented them; and after this, as if on purpose more keenly to lacerate his feelings, they brought these cabbages to Cordea's house, and there boiled them before his eyes,he being sick and not able to drive them away.
After a few days spent in this manner, the swaggering captainwhose name, it was soon bruited about, was Thomas Allen, of his Majesty's Navywent on board of his ketch,or brig, as we should call it,the Quaker, weighed anchor, and set sail towards the Potomac, and thence stood down the Bay upon the coast of Virginia. Every now and then, after his departure, there came reports to the Council of insults offered by Captain Allen to the skippers of sundry Bay craft and other peaceful traders on the Chesapeake; these insults consisting generally in wantonly compelling them to heave to and submit to his search, in vexatiously detaining them, overhauling their papers, and offending them with coarse vituperation of themselves, as well as of the Lord Proprietary and his Council.
About a month later the Quaker was observed to enter the Patuxent River, and cast anchor just inside of the entrance, near the Calvert County shore, and opposite Christopher Rousby's house at Drum Point. This wassays my chronicleon Thursday, the 30th of October, in this year 1684. As yet Captain Allen had not condescended to make any report of his arrival in the Province to any officer of the Proprietary.
On Sunday morning, the 2d of November, the city was thrown into a state of violent ebullitionlike a little red-hot tea-kettleby the circulation of a rumor that got wind about the hour the burghers were preparing to go to church. It was brought from Patuxent late in the previous night, and was now whispered from one neighbor to another, and soon came to boil with an extraordinary volume of steam. Stripping it of the exaggeration natural to such an excitement, the rumor was substantially this: That Colonel Talbot, hearing of the arrival of Captain Allen in the Patuxent on Thursday, and getting no message or report from him, set off on Friday morning, in an angry state of mind, and rode over to Patuxent, determined to give the unmannerly captain a lesson upon his duty. That as soon as he reached Mattapony House, he took his boat and went on board the ketch. That there he found Christopher Rousby, the King's Collector, cronying with Captain Allen, and upholding him in his disrespect to the government. That Colonel Talbot was very sharp upon Rousby, not liking him for old grudges, and more moved against him now; and that he spoke his mind both to Captain Allen and Christopher Rousby, and so got into a high quarrel with them. That when he had said all he desired to say to them, he made a move to leave the ketch in his boat, intending to return to Mattapony House; but they who were in the cabin prevented him, and would not let him go. That thereupon the quarrel broke out afresh, and became more bitter; and it being now in the night, and all in a great heat of passion, the parties having already come from words to blows, Talbot drew his skean, or dagger, and stabbed Rousby to the heart. That nothing was known on shore of the affray till Saturday evening, when the body was brought to Rousby's house; after which it became known to the neighborhood; and one of the men of Major Sewall's plantation, which adjoined Rousby's, having thus heard of it, set out and rode that night over to St. Mary's with the news, which he gave to the Major before midnight. It was added, that Colonel Talbot was now detained on board of the ketch, as a prisoner, by Captain Allen.