BAYARD TAYLOR. [Born, 1.825.] BAYARD TAYLOR was born on the eleventh of January, 1825, at Kennet Square, near the Brandywine, in Pennsylvania, and in that rural and classical region he lived until his departure for Europe in the summer of 1844. Having passed two years in Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and France, he returned to the United States, and after publishing an account of his travels, under the title of "Views a-Foot," he settled in New York, where except while absent on his travels he has since been occupied as one of the editors of "The Tribune," in which journal the greater part of his recent productions have been first printed. Though not egotistical, there is scarcely an author more easily detected in his works. And this is not from any of those tricks of style in which alone consists the individuality of so many; but his sincere, frank, and enthusiastic spirit, grateful while aspiring, calm while struggling, and humble while attaining; and his life, which moves in order in the crowd and jar of society, in the solitude where Nature is seen with reverence, "up heights of rough ascent," and over streams and chasms, by shapely ways constructed by his will and knowledge. We do not remember any book of travels in which an author appears altogether so amiable and interesting as he in his " Views a-Foot." He always lingers in the background, or steps forward modestly but to solicit more earnestly our admiration for what has kindled his own: but undesignedly, or against his design even, he continually engrosses our interest, as if he were the hero of a novel; and as we pass from scene to scene with him, we think of the truth and poetry of each only to sympathize in his surprise, and joy, and wonder. BAYARD TAYLOR's first move in literature was a small volume of poems, of which the longest, and the longest he has yet published, was upon an incident in Spanish history. This was written when he was about eighteen years of age, and my acquaintance with him commenced when he arrived in the city with his manuscripts. We read “Ximena" together; and, while negotiations were in progress for its publication, discussed the subject of Americanism in letters. I urged upon his consideration the themes I thought best adapted to the development and illustration of his genius. Here was a young author, born and nurtured in one of the most characteristic and beautiful of our rural districts, so removed from the associations that vitiate the national feeling and manner, and altogether of a growth so indigenous, that he was one of the fittest types of our people, selecting the materials for his first production from scenes and actions which are more picturesque, more romantic, or in any way more suitable for the purposes of art, only as they have been made so by art, and are seen through the media of art, in preference to the fresh valleys and mountains and forests, and lakes and rivers and cataracts, and high resolve, and bold adventure, and brave endurance, which have more distinctly marked, and varied, and ennobled our history than all other histories, in events crowding so fast upon each other, that our annals seem but a rehearsal of all that had been before, with years for centuries-divided by the Declaration of Independence, which is our gospel-beyond which the colonies are ancient nations, and this side of which our states have swept, with steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs, the whole breadth of Time; and ere the startled empires are aware, are standing before them all, beckoning them to the last and best condition, which is the fulfilment of farthest-reaching prophecy. In such a choice, he had not only to enter into a competition with the greatest geniuses of the countries and ages he invaded, but, worse than this, to be a parasite of their inspiration, or to animate old forms, disciplined to a mere routine, with the new life to which he was born-sacrificing altogether his native strength, or attempting its exhibition in fetters. Genius creates, but not like the Divine energy, from nothing. Genius creates from knowledge; and the fullness of knowledge necessary to its uses can be acquired, not from any second-hand glimpses through books, or pictures, or discourse, but from experience in the midst of its subjects, the respiration of their atmosphere, a daily contact with their forms, and a constant sympathy with their nature. This pervading intelligence gives no transient tone to the feelings, but enters into the essence of character, and becomes a part of life. He who would set aside the spirit of his age and country, to take upon himself another being, must approach his task with extraordinary powers and an indomitable will, or he will fail utterly. It is undoubtedly true that, to be American, it is not needful in all cases to select subjects which are so geographically; but this admission does not justify an indiscriminate use of foreign life, or a reckless invasion or assumption of foreign sentiment. There must be some relationship of condition and aspiration. Of all writers who have yet written, MILTON was the most American. All the works of CHANNING embrace less that is national to us than a page of the "Defence of the People of England ;" and a library larger than that which was at Alexandria, of such books as IRVING's, would not contain as much Americanism as a paragraph of the Areopagitica." But the Genius of America was born in England, and his strength was put forth in those conflicts of the commonwealth which ended in the exile of the young Hercules. During the Cromwellian era, England offers almost as ap 66 propriate a field for illustration by the American Mr. TAYLOR bappily went abroad just after the The discovery, soon after Mr. TAYLOR became connected with the "Tribune," that California was underlaid with gold, turned all eyes in that direction, and he was among the first to leave New York for San Francisco. Starting in June, 1849, he sailed for Chagres, crossed the Isthmus to Panama, arrived in the Pacific territory, visited the gold placers, explored the forests and mountains of the interior, went to Mazatlan, travelled by land to Mexico, and returned home by way of Vera Cruz and Mobile, having been absent between eight and nine months, and met with a variety of stirring and romantic adventures such as is selet crowded within so short a space of time in the experience of one individual. He published. after, his "Eldorado, or Adventures in the Phi of Empire." In 1851 appeared his "Book of Romans, Lyrics and Songs," which greatly increased ha reputation as a poet. It contained "The Mete sychosis of the Pine," and "Kubleh," two of Li finest poems. There is a little episode in his life which has already been referred to in print, and may therefore be repeated, however sacred is its nature, sinet it would be difficult to convey by different means as just an impression of his character. Th readers of poetry, which more than any other kind of literature is apt to be an emanation from the heart as well as the brain, wish always to know something of the interior life of an author, mare than his books disclose, and the appreciation of his works is deeper as they may be connected with his peculiar temper or vicissitudes. In his boyhood, BAYARD TAYLOR discovered in a fair young angel of the place where he was born, that portion of himself which, according to the old mystery, should crown each nature with perfection and happiness. When he aspired, she was at the far-away end of the high-reaching vista, holding in her hand the hoped-for crown. In a letter which he sent from Rome, we see what substance his dreams were of, while a hundred ages hovered about his bed to bind his soul: IN ITALY. DEAR Lillian, all I wished is won! There are a thousand evil things that mar each plan of joy; the marriage was deferred, perhaps for the poet to make his way in the world; and when he came back from California there was perceived another cause for deferring it; she was in ill health, and all that could be done for her was of no avail; and the suggestion came, the doubt and finally the terrible conviction, that she had the consumption, and was dying. He watched her suffering day by day, and when hope was quite dead, that he might make little journeys with her, and minister to her gently as none could but one whose light came from her eyes, he married her; while her sun was setting placed his hand in her's, that he might go with her down into the night. There are not many such marriages; there were never any holier since the father of mankind looked up into the face of our mother. She lived a few days, a few weeks perhaps, and then he came back to his occupations, and it was never mentioned that there had been any such events in his life. In the summer of 1851, his health had become so much impaired that he felt the need of relaxation from labor, and change of scene, and started on his journey round the world. He sailed from Philadelphia on the twenty-eighth of August, and after a short stay in London proceeded to Egypt by way of the Rhine, Vienna, Trieste, and Smyrna. He reached Alexandria on the fourth of November, and immediately left for Cairo, in order to make preparations for the tour into Central Africa. He started from Cairo on the seventeenth of the month, in company with a German gentleman, bound for the first cataract, and after visiting all the Egyptian temples on the Nile, on the fifteenth of December reached Assouan, where the German left him to return. Accompanied by a faithful dragoman, and an Arab servant, he followed the Nile to Korosko, in Nubia, where he took camels to cross the great Nubian desert, and after a journey of nine days, through a waste of sand, and porphyry mountains, reached the Nile again at Abou Hammed, on the Ethiopian frontier, and continued his journey with camels to El Mekheyref, the capital of Dar Berber, where he arrived on the third of January, 1852. Here he took a boat for Khartoum, visiting on the way the ruins of ancient Meroë, and the town of Shendy, formerly the capital of a powerful Ethiopian kingdom. He arrived at Khartoum, the capital of Egyptian Soudan, at the juncture of the Blue with the White Nile, on the twelfth of January. The chiefs of all the Arab tribes between the Nile and the Red Sea, as far south as Abyssinia, were then in that city, and he was enabled to make their acquaintance, and to learn much of the unknown countries they inhabit. After remaining there ten days, he took a boat and ascended the White Nile as far as the islands of the Shilook negroes, between the twelfth and thirteenth degrees of north latitude, where, on account of the lateness of the season, and the fears of his boatmen, who refused to proceed, he was obliged to commence his return. He penetrated a greater distance in that direction, however, than any other traveller except D'ARNAUD, WERNE, and Dr. KNOBLECHER, and carried the American flag a thousand miles farther into Africa than any one had done before him. He left Khartoum again on the fifth of February, and in fifteen days crossed the Beyooda Desert, west of the Nile, to the ruins of Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, whence he went to Dongola, and passing through the countries of Mahass and Sakkôt, reached the second cataract on the ninth of March; made a rapid descent of the Nile, and was again in Cairo on the first of April, having travelled about four thousand miles. He went from Alexandria to Beyrout, and made the circuit of Palestine and Syria, visiting Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Damascus, and the cedars of Lebanon. Leaving Beyrout again on the twenty-eighth of May, he sailed northward along the coast to the mouth of the Orontes: and thence penetrated inland to Antioch and Aleppo, after a stay of six days in which city he proceeded to the Plain of Issus, and Tarsus in Cilicia, and crossing the range of the Taurus into Cappadocia, visited Konich, the ancient Iconium, passed through the forests of Phrygia to Kiutahya, by the old Greek city of Ezani and the Bithynian Olympus to Broussa, and on the thirteenth of July entered Constantinople, where he continued until the sixth of August, witnessing in that period the great Mohammedan festival of the Bairam. He took a ship from Constantinople for Malta and Sicily, and was at the foot of Mount Etna when the eruption of 1852 broke out. From Sicily he passed through Italy, the Tyrol, and Germany, renewing his acquaintance with scenes and persons described in his "Views a-Foot," and reached London by the middle of October. He next sailed from Southampton for Gibraltar, and spent a month in the south of Spain, visiting Seville, Cordova, and Granada, and returning to Gibraltar took the overland route to Alexandria, crossed to Suez, and proceeded to Bombay, where he arrived on the twenty-seventh of December. A journey of seven hundred and eighty miles brought him to Agra, whence he went to Delhi, and thence to the range of the Himalayas. Having visited Lucknow, the capital of the kingdom of Oude, Allahabad, and Benares, the holy city of the Ganges, he travelled to Calcutta, and there embarked for Hong Kong, by way of Penang and Singapore, and shortly after his arrival in China, was attached to the American legation, and accompanied the minister, Mr. HUMPHREY MARSHALL, to Shanghai, where he remained nearly two months. When the American expedition under Commodore PERRY reached Shanghai, he was allowed to enter the naval service, with the rank of master's mate, for the purpose of accompanying it; and sailed on the seventeenth of May, 1853, for Loo Choo, where he was attached to a party which explored the interior of the island, never before visited by white men. In June, he proceeded to the Bonin Islands, in the Pacific, eight hundred miles east of Loo Choo, and explored them, and returning, sailed for Japan, and came to anchor in the bay of Yeddo on the eighth of July. After witnessing all the negotiations which took place, and participating in the landing, he returned with the squadron to Loo Choo and China, and remained a month at Macao. He then, with the permission of Commodore PERRY, resigned his place in the navy, passed a short time at Canton, and on the fifth of September took passage for New York; and after a voyage of one hundred and one days, during which he stopped at Java and St. Helena, arrived home on the twentieth of December, having been absent two years and four months and travelled more than fifty thousand miles. His spirited, graphic and entertaining history of this journey is given in three works entitled "The Lands of the Saracen," "A Journey to Central Africa," and "India, Loo Choo, and Japan." Mr. TAYLOR has probably travelled more extensively than any man of his years in the world, and the records of his adventures have the best charms of works in their class; but eminent as he is as a writer of travels, his highest and most enduring distinction will be from his poetry. As a picturesque, passionate and imaginative poet his excellence has been more and more conspicuous every year since he printed his little volume of juvenile effusions containing “Ximena, a Story of the Sierra Morena." The fame he has won among the masses as a tourist has undoubtedly been in the way of his proper reputation in literary art; but his travels will hereafter be to his poems no more than those of SMOLLET are to his extraordinary novels. Besides his works already mentioned he has published "The American Legend," a poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, in 1850; and "Poems of the Orient," which appeared in 1854, and embrace only such pieces as were written while he was on his passage round the world, and present the more poetical phases of that portion of his experiences. They are glowing with the warm light of the east, and passages rich, sensuous and impetuous as the Arab sings in dreams, with others gentle and tender and exquisitely modulated as ever were murmured by the meditative and sentimental Persian. The profound influence of oriental life, nature, and reminiscence, upon his imagination, are vindicated in a sonnet of NUBIA. "A LAND of Dreams and Sleep-a poppied land, Before her threshold, in their ancient place, The whole book exhibits an advance in general cultivation, an increased mastery of the difeutis and resources of rhythm, a deeper sympathy w nature, and no deficiency of that genuineness, that fidelity to his own character, which is among the most eminent attractions of his previous perform ances. In a proem, addressed to his friend R. H. STODDARD, he describes the growth and tendercies of his intellectual passion: "I pitch my tent upon the naked sands, And the tall palm, that plumes the orient lands, Gazed on its glory, heard the grand acclaim In Nature, making mine her myriad shows; Of cities, may behold the open sky, Instinct with Freedom. Blame me not, that I With bright APOLLO, to converse with PAN.” Here is his poetical creed, which is in perfect correspondence with his organization, and admi rably adapted for the development of his finest powers. In the following pages are examples of his emo tion and art in different periods. I reluctantly omit "The Romance of the Maize," in which he has embodied a fine Indian superstition, his noble Ode to Shelley," and several others, exhibiting a still wider range of feeling and invention. We touch the lower life of beast and clod, All outward wisdom yields to that within, And thus I know, by memories unfurled Rooted upon a cape that overhung The entrance to a mountain gorge; whereon Behind, the silent snows; and wide below, There did I clutch the granite with firm feet, And howled the mountain wolf. There did I louder sing than all the floods Whirled in white foam adown the precipice, And the sharp sleet that stung the naked woods Answer with sullen hiss: But when the peaceful clouds rose white and high She, with warm fingers laced in mine, did melt The sap in every bud, And tingled through my rough old bark, and fast Pushed out the younger green, that smoothed my tones, When last year's needles to the wind I cast, I held the eagle, till the mountain mist The dappled falcon bore. Poised o'er the blue abyss, the morning lark Down on the pasture-slopes the herdsman lay, And once an army, crowned with triumph came Borne on a glittering surge Of tossing spears, a flood that homeward rolled, While cymbals timed their steps of victory, And horn and clarion from their throats of gold Sang with a savage glee. I felt the mountain-walls below me shake, Vibrant with sound, and through my branches poured The glorious gust: my song thereto did make Some blind harmonic instinct pierced the rind When fierce autumnal gales began to blow, Filled with a whispering gush, like that which flows Through organ-stops, when sank the sun's red disk Beyond the city, and in blackness rose Temple and obelisk; No longer Memory whispers whence arose Let fall a fiery bolt to smite my top, Upwrenched my roots, and o'er the precipice Hurled me, a dangling wreck, erelong to drop Into the wild abyss; Or whether hands of men, with scornful strength And force from Nature's rugged armory lent, Sawed through my heart and rolled my tumbling length Sheer down the steep descent. All sense departed, with the boughs I wore; Yet still that life awakens, brings again Thence am I made a poet: thence are sprung And if some wild, full-gathered harmony |