THE Lake of Nemi is a beautiful sheet of water, about thirteen miles from Rome, on the road to Naples. Nemi derives its name from the Nemus Dianæ that shaded its banks. Like the Lake of Albano, (an extinct crater,) it occupies a deep hollow in the mountains, but is much inferior to that of Albano in extent. The banks are covered with gardens and orchards well fenced and thickly planted, forming an enchanting scene of fertility and cultivation. The castle and town of Nemi stand on the eastern side of the lake, on a high rock overhanging the crater. The lake, with its beautiful scenery, is a constant resort of artists, who frequent it from Rome, with a view of advancing themselves in their art. "SEATSFIELD" REDIVIVUS. PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. [NUMBER 5. acquaintance with any new celebrity, and we are happy to NEW-YORK, April, 1844. MY DEAR GENERAL-I have observed in the Eastern papers, and indeed in several of our city journals, repeated inquiries as to "who is Seatsfield ?"-in reference to some German publications of great merit, and likewise reminiscences of our Western states. The inquiry has been so frequently repeated, "Who is Seatsfield?" that my attention has at length been called to the subject, and, on reflection, I think I can solve the mystery. Somewhere about the year 1832, a tall, genteel-looking German, who spoke good English, called upon me to procure employment by his pen. I found him a most agreeable and intelligent gentleman, one who had travelled much, and was so familiar with the diplomatists of Europe, and particularly with the German writers of incurred the displeasure of his government, had been banished for political offences, and found himself in a strange country without means, and dependent upon his pen for support. He wrote some things for my paper; but I soon of force and beauty, were not adapted to the columns of a discovered that the character and style of his writings, full political journal, and I forthwith consigned him to the NEWYORK MIRROR, where he met with the usual reception awarded to men of genius, and became an occasional contributor and was liberally remunerated. Ir is extraordinary-somewhat humiliating too-to observe what fame is made of-of how much besides merit-eminence, that I was impressed with the idea that he had how many fortunate accidents are necessary-how much kindness from others-how many combinations of things beyond the aspirant's control! It is curious how familiar we may be with genius without detecting it! It is wonder. ful how long the conscious possessor of an immortal gift may walk the world with the jewel in his breast, unable to persuade his most intimate friends that it is there! The thought makes one turn round and look at his neighbour wondering if there be not,-now,-at his elbow,—an unrecognized immortal! It makes one do another thing, too— cast a doubtful glance on those who are ticketed "genius," and wonder if it be not more owing to this necessary luck than to the helpless destiny of merit! There was a United States laugh when the opinion of a German writer was first quoted that Seatsfield was an American author, superiour to Irving and Cooper. He had never been heard of. The announcement was even thought to be a quiz! By dint of joking upon the question, "Who is Seatsfield?" however, the graveyards of some editorial memories gave up such a name; and as there is no man's book wholly unread, (console yourselves, oh neglected!) it soon appeared that there were those who knew Seatsfield's works, and had taken the trouble to import them as worth preserving. He had his unsuspected island above the high. water mark of Lethe! Though his fire had apparently quite gone out, there was a live spark in the ashes. A month after the first putting of the query as to his ever hav. ing existed, the following paragraph appears: J. SEATSFIELD, the Great Unknown, the announcement of whose works has caused so vast a sensation in this country and Europe, is about to become better known to his quondam countrymen, through the medium of the New World press. That paper of to-day contains a spirited translation of one of his "Scenes at Sea," which fully sustains the favourable opinion which the German critics have expressed. We are happy to learn that the enterprising publisher of the New World has several of Seatsfield's works in rapid process of translation, the first of which, under the general title of "Life in the New World, or sketches of American Society," will appear early in the ensuing week. It gives the "Courtship of George Howard, Esq." which, we are informed, is exceedingly rich and recherché. The scene opens in this city. There is nothing so interesting as an account of personal In less than a year I received a letter from him, dated in some part of the Western states, in which he had been travelling, written in good spirits and apparently as if executing a mission of some kind, under the authority and direction of his friends at home, and I presume he wrote his sketches of Western character, &c. at that time. He called to see me on his return, and announced some change in his condition, and his intention to return to Europe; since then I received but one letter from him, in which, among other things, I think he stated that Prince Puckler Muskau, in his work on the antiquities of Western Africa, which he was engaged upon in some way, had drawn largely on my travels in the Barbary states, a work now almost out of print. I expect that his “ Virey” “The Legitimist and Republican," must have created great sensation among the German monarchies, as the author was under the necessity of residing most of his time in Switzerland, and was by many considered an American. He wrote in English exceedingly well, but for a paper of intense interest he preferred German. He then translated it, losing, of course, much of its original force. He is evidently a man of great genius and intelligence, a very agreeable writer, and possesses a fine taste. If you will turn to the pages of the old Mirror of 1832-3, you will find some very pretty things from my friend, Charles Saarsfield; and thus, my dear General, you will be able to solve the mystery as to "who is Seatsfield ?" Ever truly yours, MAY-DAY. M. M. NOAH. MAY-DAY is a word which used to awaken in the minds of our ancestors all the ideas of youth, and verdure, and blossoming, and love, and hilarity; in short, the union of the two best things in the world, the love of nature, and the love of each other. It was the day on which the arrival of Now the bright Morning-Star, Day's harbinger, Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire These songs were stopped by Milton's friends the Puritans, whom in his old age he differed with, most likely on these points among others. But till then, they appear to have been as old, all over Europe, as the existence of society. The Druids are said to have had festivals in honour of May. Our Teutonic ancestors had, undoubtedly; and in the countries which had constituted the western Roman empire, Flora still saw thanks paid for her flowers, though her worship had gone away.* The homage which was paid to the Month of Love and flowers, may be divided into two sorts, the general and the individual. The first consisted in going with others to ga. ther May, and in joining in sports and games afterwards. On the first of the month, "the juvenile part of both sexes," says Bourne, in his Popular Antiquities," were wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighbouring wood, where they broke down branches from the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this was done, they returned with their booty about the rising of the sun, and made their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after part of the day was chiefly spent in dancing round a May-pole, which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stood there, as it were, consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violation offered to it, in the whole circle of the year." Spenser, in his Shepherd's Calendar, has detailed the circumstances, in a style like a rustic dance. Younge folke now flocken in-every where * * * * Sicker this morowe, no longer agoe, When envious night commands them to be gone, A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again; Among the gentry and at court the spirit of the same enjoyments took place, modified according to the taste or rank of the entertainers. The most universal amusement, agreeably to the general current in the veins, and the common participation of flesh and blood (for rank knows no distinction of legs and knee-pans,) was dancing. Contests of chiv. alry supplied the place of more rural gymnastics. But the most poetical and elaborate entertainment was the mask. finest spirits of the time though they showed both their manA certain flowery grace was sprinkled over all; and the liness and wisdom, in knowing how to raise the pleasures of the season to their height. Sir Philip Sydney, the idea of whom has come down to us as a personification of all the refinement of that age, is fondly recollected by Spenser in this character. His sports were faire, his joyance innocent, For he could pipe, and daunce, and caroll sweet, This maiden, in a morn betime, Went forth when May was in the prime The honey-suckle, the harlock, To deck her summer-hall. Drayton's Pastorals, Eclog. 4. The But when morning pleasures are to be spoken of, the lovers of poetry who do not know Chaucer, are like those who do not know what it is to be up in the morning. He has left us two exquisite pictures of the solitary observance of May, in his Palamon and Arcite. They are the more curious, inasmuch as the actor in one is a lady, and in the other a knight. How far they owe any of their beauty to his original, the Theseibe of Boccaccio, we cannot say; for we never had the happiness of meeting with that rare work. Italians have so neglected it, that they have not only never given it a rifacimento or re-modelling, as in the instance of Boiardo's poem, but are almost as much unacquainted with it, we believe, as foreign nations. Chaucer thought it worth his while to be both acquainted with it, and to make others arch-after Boccaccio's age who was so likely to understand him so; and we may venture to say, that we know of no Italian to the core, as his English admirer, Ariosto not excepted. Still, from what we have seen of Boccaccio's poetry, we can imagine the Theseide to have been too lax and long. If Chaucer's Palamon and Arcite be all that he thought proper to distil from it, it must have been greatly so; for it was an epic. But at all events the essence is an exquisite one. The tree must have been a fine old enormity, from which such honey could be drawn. The day was passed in sociality and manly sports;-in As I have seen the Lady of the May, Built by the Maypole, where the jocund swains * The great May holiday observed over the west of Europe was known for centuries, up to a late period, under the name of the Belte, or Beltane. Such a number of etymologies, all perplexingly probable, have been found for this word, that we have been surprised to miss among them that of Bel-temps, the Fine Time or Season. Thus Printemps, the First Time, or Prime Season, is the Spring. + Buskets-Boskets -Bushes-from Boschetti, Ital. Tabrere, a Tabourer. To begin as in duty bound, with the lady. How she * Britannia's Pastorals, by William Browne. Song the 4th. Browne, like his friend Wither, wanted strength and the power of selection, though not to such an extent. He is, however, well worth reading by those who can expatiate over a pastoral subject, like a meadowy tract of country finding out the beautiful spots, and gratified, if not much delighted, with the rest. His genius, which was by no means destitute of the social part of passion, seems to have been turned almost wholly to description, by the beauties of his native county Devonshire. sparkles through the antiquity of the language, like a young beauty in an old hood! Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, That Emelie But we will alter the spelling where we can, as in a former instance, merely to let the reader see what a notion is in his way, if he suffers the look of Chaucer's words to prevent his enjoying him. Thus passeth year by year, and day by day, She walketh up and down where as her list; The great tower, that was so thick and strong, Was even joinant to the garden wall, There as this Emily had her playing. Bright was the sun, and clear that morwèning [How finely, to our ears at least, the second line of the couplet always rises up from this full stop at the first!] Bright was the sun, and clear that morwèning, And Palamon, this woeful prisoner, As was his wont, by leave of his jailèr, Was risen, and roamed in a chamber on high, In which he all the noble city sigh,t And eke the garden, full of branches green, There as this fresh Emilia the sheent Was in her walk, and roamed up and down. Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of Dryden, says upon the passage before us, and Dryden's version of it, that "the modern must yield the palm to the ancient, in spite of the beauty of his versification." We quote from memory, but this is the substance of his words. For our parts, we agree with them, as to the consignment of the palm, but not as to the exception about the versification. With some allowance as to our present mode of accentuation, appears to us to be touched with a finer sense of music even than Dryden's. It is more delicate, without any inferiority in strength, and still more various. But to our other portrait. It is as sparkling with young manhood, as the former is with a gentler freshness. What a burst of radiant joy is in the second couplet; what a vital quickness in the comparison of the horse, "starting as the fire ;" and what a native and happy ease in the conclusion! The busy lark, the messenger of day, Out of the court, were it a mile or tway: And to the grove, of which that I you told, By aventure his way 'gan to hold, To maken him a garland of the greves, Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves, And loud he sung against the sunny sheen: "O May, with all thy flowers and thy green, Right welcome be thou, faire freshe May: hope that I some green here getten may." And from his courser, with a lusty heart, Into the grove full hastily he start, And in the path he roamed up and down. The versification of this is not so striking as the other, but Dryden again falls short in the freshness and feeling of the sentiment. His lines are beautiful; but they do not come home to us with so happy and cordial a face. Here they are. The word morning in the first line, as it is repeated in the second, we are bound to consider as a slip of the pen; perhaps for mounting. The morning-lark, the messenger of day, And soon the sun arose with beams so bright, That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight: He with his tepid rays the rose renews, And licks the drooping leaves and dries the dews; Forth on his fiery steed betimes he rode, For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours, And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers: When thy short reign is past, the feverish sun The sultry tropic fears, and moves more slowly on. So may thy tender blossoms fear no blight, Nor goats with venom'd teeth thy tendrils bite, As thou shalt guide my wandering steps to find The fragrant greens I seek, my brows to bind." His vows address'd, within the grove he stray'd. How poor is this to Arcite's leaping from his courser "with a lusty heart!" How inferior the common-place of the "fiery steed," which need not involve any actual notion in the wri. ter's mind, to the courser "starting as the fire ;"-how inferior the turning his face to "the rising day" and raising his voice to the singing "loud against the sunny sheen ;" and lastly, the whole learned invocation and adjuration of May, about guiding his "wandering steps" and "so may thy tender blossoms" &c. to the call upon the "fair fresh May," ending with that simple, quick-hearted line, in which he hopes he shall get "some green here;" a touch in the happiest vivacity! Dryden's genius, for the most part, wanted faith in nature. It was too gross and sophisticate. There was as much difference between him and his original, as between a hot noon in perukes at St. James's, and one of Chaucer's lounges on the grass, of a May-morning. All this worship of May is over now. There is no issuing forth, in glad companies, to gather boughs; no adorning of houses with "the flowery spoil;" no songs, no dances, no village sports and coronations, no courtly poetries, no sense and acknowledgment of the quiet presence of nature, in grove or glade. O dolce primavera, o fior novelli, O thou delicious spring, O ye new flowers, O airs, O youngling bowers; fresh thickening grass, Two hundred years ago, our ancestors used to delight in anticipating their May holidays. Bigotry came in, and frowned them away; then Debauchery, and identified all pleasures with the town; then Avarice, and we have ever since been mistaking the means for the end. Fortunately, it does not follow that we shall continue to do so. Commerce, while it thinks it is only exchanging commodities, is helping to diffuse knowledge. All other gains, all selfish and extravagant systems of acquisition,tend to over-do themselves, and to topple down by their own undiffused magnitude. The world, as it learns other things, may learn not to confound the means with the end, or at least (to speak more philosophically,) a really poor means with a really richer. The veriest cricket-player on a green has as sufficient a quantity of excitement as a fundholder or a partisan; and health, and spirits, and manliness to boot. Knowledge may go on; must do so, from necessity; and should do so, for the ends we speak of; but knowledge, so far from being incompatible with simplicity of pleasures, is the quickest to perceive its wealth. Chaucer would lie for hours, looking at the daisies. Scipio and Lælius could amuse themselves with making ducks and drakes on the water. Epaminondas, the greatest of all the active spirits of Greece, was a flute-player and dancer. Alfred the Great could act the whole part of a minstrel. Epicurus taught the riches of temperance and intellectual pleasure in a garden. The other philosophers of his country walked between heaven and earth in the colloquial bowers of Academus; and " the wisest heart of Solomon," who found everything vain because he was a king, has left us panegyrics on the Spring and the "voice of the turtle," because he was a poet, a lover and a wise man. SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTH-DAY. THE fifth of May, making the due allowance of twelve days from the twenty-third of April, according to the change of the Style, is the birth-day of Shakspeare. Pleasant thoughts must be associated with him in everything. If he is not to be born in April, he must be born in May. Nature will have him with her on her blithest holidays, like her favourite lover. O thou divine human creature-greater name than even divine poet or divine philosopher-and yet thou wast all three-a very spring and vernal abundance of all fair and noble things is to be found in thy productions! They are truly a second nature. We walk in them, with whatever society we please; either with men, or fair women, or circling spirits, or with none but the whispering airs and leaves. Thou makest worlds of green trees and gentle natures for us, in thy forests of Arden, and thy courtly retirements of Navarre. Thou bringest us among the holiday lasses on the green sward; layest us to sleep among fairies in the bowers of midsummer; wakest us with the song of the lark and the silver-sweet voices of lovers: bringest more music to our ears, both from earth and from the planets; anon settest us upon enchanted islands, where it welcomes us again, from the touching of invincible instruments; and after all, restorest us to our still desired haven, the arms of humanity. Whether grieving us or making us glad, thou makest us kinder and happier. The tears which thou fetchest down are like the rains of April, softening the times that come after them. Thy smiles are those of the month of love, the more blessed and universal for the tears. The birth-days of such men as Shakspeare ought to be kept, in common gratitude and affection, like those of relations whom we love. He has said, in a line full of him, that One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. How near does he become to us with his thousand touches! The lustre and utility of intellectual power is so increasing in the eyes of the world, that we do not despair of seeing the time when his birth-day will be a subject of public rejoicing; when the regular feast will be served up in tavern and dwelling-house, the bust crowned with laurel, and the theatres sparkle with illuminations. In the meantime, it is in the power of every admirer of Shakspeare to honour the day privately. Rich or poor, busy or at leisure, all may do it. The busiest finds time to eat his dinner, and may pitch one considerate glass of wine down his throat. The poorest may call him to mind, and drink his memory in honest water. We had mechanically written health, as if he were alive. So he is in spirit;and the spirit of such a writer is so constantly with us, that it would be a good thing, a judicious extravagance, a contemplative piece of jollity, to drink his health instead of his memory. But this, we fear, should be an impulse. We must content ourselves with having felt it here, and drinking it in imagination. To act upon it, as a proposal of the day before yesterday, might be too much like getting up an extempore gesture, or practising an unspeakable satisfaction. An outline, however, may be drawn of the manner in which such a birth-day might be spent. The tone and colouring would be filled up, of course, according to the taste of the parties. If any of our readers, then, have leisure as well as inclination to devote a day to the memory of Shakspeare, we would advise them, in the first place, to walk out, whether alone or in company, and enjoy during the morn ing as much as possible of those beauties of nature, of which he has left us such exquisite pictures. They would take a volume of him in their hands the most suitable to the occasion; not to hold themselves bound to sit down and read it, nor even to refer to it, if the original work of nature should occupy them too much; but to read it, if they read anything; and to feel that Shakspeare was with them substantially as well as spiritually; that they had him with them under their arm. There is another thought connected with his presence, which may render the Londoner's walk the more interesting. Shakspeare had neither the vanity which induces a man to be disgusted with what everybody can enjoy; nor, on the other hand, the involuntary self-degradation which renders us incapable of enjoying what is abased by our own familiarity of acquaintanceship. About the metropolis, therefore, there is perhaps not a single rural spot, any more than about Stratford-upon-Avon, which he has not himself enjoyed. The south side of London was the one nearest his theatre. Hyde Park was then, as it is now, one of the fashionable promenades. Richmond also was in high pride of estimation. At Greenwich Elizabeth held her court, and walked abroad amid the gallant service of the Sydneys and Raleighs. And Hampstead and Highgate, with the country about them, were, as they have been ever since, the favourite resort of the lovers of natural productions. Nay, without repeating what we said in a former number about the Mermaid in Cornhill, the Devil Tavern in Fleet. street, the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, and other town associations with Shakspeare, the reader who cannot get out of London on his birth-day, and who has the luck to be hard at work in Chancery-lane or the Borough, may be pretty certain that Shakspeare has admired the fields and the May flowers there; for the fields were close to the latter, perhaps came up to the very walls of the theatre; and the suburban mansion and gardens of his friend Lord Southampton occupied the spot now called Southampton-buildings. It was really a country neighbourhood. The Old Bourne (Holborn) ran by with a bridge over it; and Gray's Inn was an Academic bower in the fields. The dinner does not much signify. The sparest or the most abundant will suit the various fortunes of the great poet; only it will be as well for those who can afford wine, to pledge Falstaff in a cup of "sherris sack," which seems to have been a sort of sherry negus. After dinner Shakspeare's volumes will come well on the table; lying among the dessert like laurels, where there is one, and supplying it where there is not. Instead of songs, the persons present may be called upon for scenes. But no stress need be laid on this proposition, if they do not like to read out aloud. The pleasure of the day should be as much at liberty as pos sible; and if the company prefer conversation, it will not Shakspeare shall not have touched upon also. If the enthu be very easy for them to touch upon any subject which siasm is in high taste, the ladies should be crowned with violets, which (next to the roses of their lips) seem to have been his favourite flower. After tea should come singing plays, and the ballad of Thou soft-flowing Avon. If an enand music, especially the songs which Arne set from his graving or bust of him could occupy the principal place in the room, it would look like the "present deity" of the oc casion; and we have known a very pleasant effect produced by everybody's bringing some quotation applicable to him from his works, and laying it before his image, to be read in the course of the evening. |