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and with their tops thrown down, pass slowly up one, and down another, of the long avenues of the paseo, which are sometimes so full, that the checking of one horse stops the whole line. The gentlemen walk at the sides, or crowd together at the ends of the avenues, where they scrutinize the ladies as they pass, without reserve. Should one admire matron or maid, he tells his admiration, and his avowal is graciously received. This general custom of driving in full dress, affords continual opportunities to judge of the pretensions of the fair Habaneros to beauty. I became reluctantly convinced that personal charms are rare among them, especially in the higher classes. I saw but one of gentle blood, and but three or four among the middle class, who would be made the marks for opera glasses in New-York. The ladies, Creoles and Spaniards, generally have bright black eyes, and dark glossy hair, but the mouth is apt to be large and heavy, and the eyes are rarely expressive or finely formed. Their figures incline too often to excessive fulness or its opposite. Their hands and feet are small; but they spoil the appearance of the latter by wearing shoes which are too short, by which they are made to look clubbed and ungraceful. They dress more hideously than it is possible to conceive. Their fashions are, of course, Parisian; but their combinations of colors would drive a French modiste mad. An orange-colored robe with maroon flounces, or the same flounces upon a green robe, or a French gray robe, with rose-colored flounces, are not uncommon. Their fans are magnificent, and it is needless to say what an important part of the female pa

raphernalia they are here, as in Spain. Some ladies have a hundred, and more.

On two or three evenings a week, one of the regimental bands plays in the Grand Plaza, before the Palace. At this time the square is surrounded with a double row of volantes filled with ladies in full dress. Gentlemen walk in the square and pay their respects to such of their fair friends as they may recognize. This answers the purpose of our evening visits. Society, as we understand it, does not exist in Havana. Set balls and fêtes, the paseo, the Grand Plaza, and the theatre, take its place. The music over, the ladies drive home, and soon the streets are almost deserted. At half-past eight o'clock the watchmen make their appearance. Each one is armed with a lance, a long knife, and a pair of pistols, and carries a lantern; and thus they bristle through the city, blowing a whistle, and calling the time and the weather at every half hour. Their orders are "to comprehend all vagrom men," and they are not slow to obey them. The police of the city, especially at night, is very rigid, and any man in the street after ten o'clock, is liable to be called to an account. This, among other things about the place, smacks of antiquity; and as you are dozing off into your first sleep and beginning to think uncertain thoughts, the long drawn nasal cry of the watchmen will mingle with your fancies, and take you back perchance, in dreams, to Messina, and Dogberry, who had "two coats and every thing handsome," and Verges, who was "as honest as any man who was no honester than he;" and to that soldierly bachelor Benedick, and the lady Beatrice, who loved him from the

beginning, even while she jeered and flouted him; and to gentle Hero, "done to death by slanderous tongues:" and if it should be so, you will never patiently see

the play played out again, even though Ellen Tree were Beatrice, Wallack Benedick, and Burton Dogberry. One such ideal vision kills stage effect for ever.

NOTE.

We have received from an esteemed correspondent, the following communication of interesting facts, relating to the building known in Havana as The Chapel of Columbus' first Mass,' which was alluded to in our last number. We were fully aware of the objections which he urges against the supposition that Columbus heard Mass upon the site of this chapel; and we stated explicitly, as our correspondent quotes, that that event took place "according to tradition," only. To speak of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, as standing, according to tradition, upon the spot where Christ was born, even when we know that such is not the case, is not to claim credit for the tradition. The seiba tree "became sterile" long ago; but its trunk is said, doubtless erroneously, to have been standing within the memory of living inhabitants of Havana. The monument described by our correspondent, stands a little more than half-way between the gate and the entrance to the building. G. P. has our thanks for the interesting inscriptions, copies of which we did not possess.

To the Editor of Putnam's Monthly,

SIR-I have been much gratified by a perusal of "A Glance at Havana," in the February number of your "Monthly,”—a very correct idea being given of both the place and people. There is one statement, however, which, although the traditions of the city may afford some foundation for it, is not historically correct; and as I do not think your contributor would desire to have it remain uncontradicted on the pages of a magazino, which, hereafter, I trust, will be recognized as authority upon many subjects, I would beg leave to notice it. The statement referred to is contained in the following passage:

*****Another minute's walk brings us to the chapel built upon the spot, where, according to tradition, Columbus first heard mass upon the island. This is a very small Grecian building, standing at the end of a court-yard, about one hundred feet in depth, the entrance to which is through a lofty gateway, surmounted with the royal arms of Spain, surrounded with the ever-present inscription, "Siempre feal isla de Cuba." The tree, under which the temporary altar was said to have been raised by the discoverer, was standing not many years since, but fell in one of the terrible hurricanes which sometimes enliven the torpor of tropical life. The chapel is opened to the public but once a year, and then with great solemnity."

Now, as Columbus died in 1506, and Havana was not founded until 1519, his performance of Mass upon the spot would be rather questionable, independent of proof that he did not visit that part of the coast, and that the structures referred to were not intended to commemorate such an event.

The chapel, to which allusion is made, was erected about the year 1827, and within it are two pictures, of large size, by some modern artist; one of them representing the celebration of the first Mass, and the other, the meeting of the first Cabildo (congress or local council), held on the site of the present city. As stated in the magazine, the court and chapel are rarely open to visitors, except by special permission, but more frequently than once a year. Had access been obtained by your contributor, he would have found the following inscription in Spanish, upon its front:

"In the reign of Ferdinand VII.-Don Francisco Dionisio Vives being President and Governor-loyal Havana, religious and civil, erected this simple monument, decorating the spot where, in the year 1519, the first Mass and Cabildo were celebrated. The Bishop, Don John Joseph Dias de Espada, solemnized that grand sacrifice."

In front of the chapel stands (I use the present tense, presuming it to be still there, although it is not mentioned by your contributor), a white monumental column (brick stuccoed I think), standing on a base of the island stone, of which you have here a representation, of older date, but repaired and improved when the chapel was erected, which bears an inscription on each of its three faces. The first is in Spanish, which may be thus translated:

46 The town or city of Havana was founded in the year 1515, and when removed from its first site to the banks of this harbor in 1519, it is related that there was on this spot a frondiferous (frondosa) Seiba, under which were celebrated the first Mass and the first Cabildo. It remained until 1753, when it became sterile, and to perpetuate its memory, our Catholic Monarch Ferdinand VI., then governing Spain, ordered this stone to be erected. Field Marshal Don Francisco Cajigal de la Vega of the order of Santiago, Governor and Captain General of this island. The Attorney General being Doctor Don Manuel Philip de Arango, LL. D., A. D., 1754."

The second inscription is in Latin, and is of similar import. The third is also in Latin, and refers to Columbus, which accounts for the connection of his name with the place; the following is a free translation:

D. O. M.

"The illustrious august hero, Christopher Columbus, renowned for skill in nautical affairs, having discovered a new world, and subjected it to the crown of Castile, died at Valladolid on the 20th May, 1506. His body, delivered to the care of the Carthusians of Spain, was transferred, at his own desire, to the Church of the Metropolis of Hispaniola. Thence, when peace was concluded with the French Republic, his remains were removed to the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary, of Conception: the chief religious orders being present at the solemnities on the 19th January, 1795. The city of Havana, not unmindful of so great a benefactor, preserves his precious remains until the great day.

"The most illustrious Señor Don Philip Joseph Tres-palacios being Bishop, and his Excellency, Don Lewis de las Casas, Governor and Captain General." Very respectfully, yours, G. P.

SIMPKINS ON HIS BALDNESS.

Come listen, friends, the while I spin
A ditty of my cares;

How years, like greyhounds, swift and thin,
Are hunting all my hairs.

I could uncover once, 'tis known,
With quite an easy air;

But now my head has somehow grown
A harder thing to bare.

Like Alexander's is my fate;

Nay worse, for, ere I'm down,
My hairs, not wise enough to wait,
Fall out about my crown.

I strive my stormy soul to calm
With all the oils I see;
Alas, not all Columbia's Balm
Brings any balm to me!

Galvanic remedies in vain

I've used to ease my care;
They give me, dreadful shocks of pain
But ne'er a shock of hair.

Tricopherous and Macassar fail;
Each nostrum only tends
To point anew that ancient tale
The hair with many friends.

Though orthodoxy I've professed
Since I could bend a knee,
Yet now I wish myself possessed
Of every hair I see.

Nay, I have stranger things than that
To make your eyes grow big,-
Though a place-hunting Democrat
I'm turning to a wig.

On science once I used to spout

With zeal and satisfaction;

But now my top-piece makes me doubt
Capillary attraction.

Why, why resist, since time the foe

At all precautions mocks,

And, were I Hobbs himself, would go
And pick my strongest locks?

Yea, what avails it to retire,

And shrink from sight appalled,

When, like a lost child by the crier,
Where'er I go I'm bald?

Besides, although my head look odd,
The songs of many a skald are
About a Scandinavian god

Who certainly was Balldur.

BANCROFT.

History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent. By GEORGE BANCROFT. VOL. V. pp. 459. Boston. 1852.

A

MORE congenial task was never given to an artist, than the composition of American history has been to Mr. Bancroft. If genius is subject to the law of predestination, we should say that he was born expressly for the fulfilment of this work. At all events, he has made it his peculiar mission; he has engaged in it as a chosen and favorite labor; he has gathered constant inspiration from his theme; and melted all that was harsh and prosaic in its details into fluent and harmonious beauty, by the warm glow of his enthusiasm. Seldom has a work of literary art borne such an impress of the sentiment, in which it was conceived. Its profound sincerity of thought, its faithfulness to the convictions from which it proceeds, its loyalty to the ideas with which it identifies the action of Providence in the progress of the ages, give a freshness and vitality to its narrative, which we rarely find in philosophical histories. We venture to believe that no other subject could present such a powerful appeal to the sympathies of the author; and we are certain that it is precisely the intellectual characteristics which he possesses, that are best adapted to develope the great theme in all its grandeur and comprehensiveness.

The condition of American history, previous to the cultivation of the field by Mr. Bancroft, afforded little promise of brilliant success in its elaboration. Its leading facts had been succinctly related. Its annals had been recorded with diligent minuteness. The principal dates and incidents were familiar to every schoolboy. The simple narratives of contemporary documents had been wrought up into popular displays of festive eloquence. Poetry had thrown its enchantments around the romantic features of our colonial and revolutionary epochs. But still every thing was in a chaotic state. No plastic spirit had shaped the crude materials into the epic symmetry, which forms the appropriate dress of truth, as well as of fiction. No previous writer had dreamed of the singular capabilities of the subject. It had been regarded only with the most superficial views. The general principles involved in the development of American civilization, had never been investigated; scarcely had they occupied the attention of thinking men. The time for that had not yet come. Thus far, our history had been written only by piecemeal; and the sublime

unity, which pervaded its different elements, and connected it with the politics and culture of Europe, was hardly suspected; much less was it unfolded in its profound relations with the past and the future. When Mr. Bancroft first announced his intention of writing the history of the United States, the plan was received, as we have been told, with utter indifference by eminent literary men whom he consulted. They perceived that there was already a plenty of isolated narratives; but they had no comprehension of the philosophic unity which might be given to the subject by the hand of a master. It remained for the youthful and ambitious scholar, fresh from historical and philosophical studies under the influence of the best European culture, to falsify their predictions, and enlarge the sphere of their ideas, by the production of a work combining originality, depth, and picturesque beauty, to such a degree, as at once to elevate it to the highest rank in American literature. He has redeemed the subject from the repulsive barrenness of the mere annalist, connected its events with the principles on which they depend, evolved the universal laws which underlie the special developments of history, thrown around the fortunes of a few struggling victims of oppression, the fascinations of eloquence, seized upon the imaginative elements in their story with the alert fancy of a poet, and illustrated their progress from dependence to freedom by the lights of a noble and suggestive philosophy.

The adaptation of the subject to the author, and of the author to the subject, has been a singularly happy circumstance in Mr. Bancroft's literary career. Not that he would have failed of distinction in any department of intellectual effort. to which he might have devoted his energies. He possesses too choice and brilliant gifts of nature, not to have attained an enviable eminence. Uniting a remarkable versatility of thought with great activity of temperament, he has exhibited the qualities which insure the success of the poet, the orator, the elegant essayist, and the founder of philosophical systems. But in no other sphere than that with which his name has become identified, could he have found such scope for the exercise of his peculiar endowments. He was the first writer to conceive of the history of his country, as an integral

unity; and in this conception he has opened "fresh fields and pastures new," converting the arid wastes of solitary and unrelated events into scenes of living and beautiful harmony. In this respect, he enjoys the same felicity with our most universally admired prose writer, Washington Irving. What Irving has done for the local scenery of his native land, Bancroft has done for its history. Under the magic touch of Irving, the picturesque glories of the American streams and forests have been revealed in lovelier enchantment, wedded to a thousand quaint traditions, and crowned with a natural home-like charm that appeals to the heart no less than to the eye. In like manner, Bancroft has invested familiar themes with a new significance, combined the imagination with the memory in the retrospect of the Past, adorned the deeds of our ancestors with the chaste coloring of historical portraiture, and revived the fading memorials of our heroic age in a form of permanent reality. We may say of both these great writers, that they have been equally fortunate in the moment of their appearance on the scene of American letters. Each had his destined work; the world into which they were born was unoccupied; a crowd of materials lay open to their hand; with the true instinct of genius they recognized their advantage; and the signal success which they have reaped, is no less due to the fortunate accident of their position, than to the acknowledged splendor of their endowments. Such is often the apparently precarious tenure of literary fame. We think it may partly be explained by chronology-that a few years earlier or a few years later, would have changed the fate of the greatest "heirs of renown "-forgetting that it is the glorious privilege of genius to detect the latent qualities of the time, to discover the unshaped materials of poetry and creative thought amidst the rubbish of daily life, and, like the healing descent of the angel, to call forth potent elements of vitality from the stagnant pool of custom. No doubt the genius, both of Irving and Bancroft, is indebted to opportunity; but how often has the same opportunity been presented, with no answering inspiration to turn it to account!

The peculiar merit of Mr. Bancroft as a historian, consists not in any one predominant characteristic, which designates his mode of composition, but in the completeness and artistic proportion with which he has constructed an organic whole from a vast collection of materials. Regarded merely as a narrator, we cannot assign him the highest rank. His style is too elaborate for the graceful flow of

narrative writing. Each sentence is fraught with a weighty meaning. In a few lines, are often condensed the results of extensive research. Chapters are crowded into a paragraph. The connecting links on which the charming play of style so much depends, are wanting. The well-rounded transitions, by which the reader is gently transported from one topic to another, without a sense of mental fatigue, are seldom supplied, so that the journey, instead of leading over a smooth and facile road, takes us up a mountain ascent, where a watchful eye and strong nerve are essential to progress. In the pages of Bancroft we rarely find the sweet and limpid flow of expression, which gives such a seductive enchantment to the style of Washington Irving; nor do they ever exhibit the well-mannered diffuseness, the soft, velvety evenness of surface, which make the reading of Prescott an almost voluptuous delight. But this defect in narrative, is inherent in the plan of his history. He aims at integral representation, rather than at a lucid but superficial sketching of events. The attempt to unfold the seminal idea of American history, to portray the course of affairs in their relations with the great worlddrama of the age, and to combine the veracity of facts with the proportions of epic unity, could hardly be carried into effect within the limits of a smoothly flowing narrative.

The first condition of good narrative. however, Mr. Bancroft possesses in a most eminent degree. His statements are founded on thorough investigation. With a strong disposition to generalize in theorythe leading attribute of all philosophical minds-he never indulges it, in the sphere of facts. He never loses sight of minute events and circumstances in a cloud of generalizations. Practised in the examination of historical evidence, he brings a singular sagacity to the decision of those delicate points, where the balance often trembles in suspense, but on which the most pregnant issues depend. No one can detect any marks of haste or impatience. any neglect in the search for latent evidence, any reluctance to unravel vast and repulsive masses of testimony in the construction of his narrative. Cherishing decided predilections in matters of opinion and taste, he has preserved such remarkable impartiality of statement, that the very breadth and candor of his views has led censorious and cavilling judges to accuse him of time-serving. But no such charge is warranted by facts. He never conceals his own convictions; never professes sympathy with an opinion which he does not respect; and above all, never

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