touched. But the scoffer did not always escape. Not a professor of religion within the region of the great revival but had heard or could tell of some great conversion by special act of God. One disbeliever, it was reported, while cursing and swearing, had been crushed by a tree falling on him at the Cane Ridge meeting. Another was said to have mounted his horse to ride away, when the jerks seized him, pulled his feet from the stirrups, and flung him on the ground, whence he rose a Christian man. A lad who feigned sickness, kept from church, and lay abed, was dragged out and dashed against the wall till he betook himself to prayer. When peace was restored to him, he passed out into his father's tan-yard to unhair a hide. Instantly the knife left his hand, and he was drawn over logs and hurled against trees and fences till he began to pray in serious earnest. A foolish woman who went to see the jerks was herself soon rolling in the mud. Scores of such stories passed from mouth to mouth, and may now be read in the lives and narratives of the preachers. The community seemed demented. From the nerves and muscles the disorder passed to the mind. Men dreamed dreams and saw visions, nay, fancied themselves dogs, went down on all fours, and barked till they grew hoarse. It was no uncommon sight to behold numbers of them gathered about a tree, barking, yelping, "treeing the Devil." Two years later, when much of the excitement of the great revival had gone down, falling and jerking gave way to hysterics. During the most earnest preaching and exhorting, even sincere professors of religion would on a sudden burst into loud laughter; others, unable to resist, would follow, and soon the assembled multitude would join in. This was the "Holy Laugh," and became, after 1803, a recognized part of worship. EFFECTS OF THE EMBARGO OF 1807 From a 'History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War. D. Appleton & Co., 1885. Copyright 1885, by John Bach McMaster. PAR ARALYSIS seized on the business of the coast towns and began to spread inward. Ships were dismantled and left half loaded at the wharves. Crews were discharged. The sound of the caulking-hammer was no longer heard in the ship-yards. The sail-lofts were deserted, the rope-walks were closed; the cartmen had nothing to do. In a twinkling the price of every domestic commodity went down, and the price of every foreign commodity went up. But no wages were earned, no business was done, and money almost ceased to circulate. The federal revenues fell from sixteen millions to a few thousands. . The value of the shipping embargoed has been estimated at fifty millions; and as the net earnings were twenty-five per cent., twelve and a half millions more were lost to the country through the enforced idleness of the vessels. From an estimate made at the time, it appears that one hundred thousand men were believed to have been out of work for one year. They earned from forty cents to one dollar and thirtythree cents per day. Assuming a dollar as the average rate of daily wages, the loss to the laboring class was in round numbers. thirty-six millions of dollars. On an average, thirty millions had been invested annually in the purchase of foreign and domestic produce. As this great sum was now seeking investment which could not be found, its owners were deprived not only of their profits, but of two millions of interest besides. Unable to bear the strain, thousands on thousands went to the wall. The newspapers were full of insolvent-debtor notices. All over the country the court-house doors, the tavern doors, the post-offices, the cross-road posts, were covered with advertisements of sheriffs' sales. In the cities the jails were not large enough to hold the debtors. At New York during 1809 thirteen hundred men were imprisoned for no other crime than being ruined by the embargo. A traveler who saw the city in this day of distress assures us that it looked like a town ravaged by pestilence. The counting-houses were shut or advertised to let. The coffee-houses were almost empty. The streets along the water-side were almost deserted. The ships were dismantled; their decks were cleared, their hatches were battened down. Not a box, not a cask, not a barrel, not a bale was to be seen on the wharves, where the grass had begun to grow luxuriantly. A year later, in this same city, eleven hundred and fifty men were confined for debts under twenty-five dollars, and were clothed by the Humane Society. EMERICH MADÁCH (1823-1864) BY GEORGE ALEXANDER KOHUT UNGARY is a favorite land of the Muses. Romance, ardent sentiment, and a certain mystic fervor give to her poetry an exquisite charm. A thrill of fire and passion vibrates in her songs and melodies. Her folk-lore and ancient traditions teem with rich Oriental imagery and beautiful conceptions. These ancient gems have in the present century received a fresh setting at the hands of the literary artists, who have borne witness to the unabated vigor of this people "barbarously grand." Of the modern school, Petöfi the lyric poet and Madách the dramatic are the most popular poets of Hungary. EMERICH MADÁCH Madách Imre (for the family name comes first in Hungarian) was born in Alsó Sztregova, Hungary, January 21st, 1823; and died in his native town October 5th, 1864. Of his life little need be told. He was notary, orator, and journalist; at an early age he wrote a number of essays on natural science, archæology, and æsthetics. He wrote lyric as well as dramatic poetry; but it is chiefly through his two dramatic poems, Moses' and The Tragedy of Man,' written almost simultaneously in 1860, that he is best known. An edition of his collected writings, in three volumes, was issued by Paul Gyulai in Budapest, 1880. His masterpiece, The Tragedy of Man,' has been rendered into German no less than five times; the latest version, by Julius Lechner von der Lech (Leipzig, 1888, with a preface by Maurice Jókai), being the most felicitous. Alexander Fischer gave a splendid résumé of this powerful drama in Sacher-Masoch's periodical, Auf der Höhe (Vol. xvi., 1885), -the only analysis of it in any language except Hungarian. Though it is too philosophical and contemplative in character, and not intended for the stage, its first production, which took place in September 1883, created an immense sensation both in Austria and Hungary. To English readers, Madách is a total stranger. His name is scarcely ever found in any encyclopædia or biographical dictionary; and strangely enough, no attempt has been thus far made to give even a selection from this latter-day Milton of Hungary. It is not here intended to explain the origin and inner development of this fascinating drama, nor to draw elaborate parallels between its author and his predecessors in other lands. Such a comparative critical study would be interesting as showing the spiritual kinship between master minds, centuries distant from one another, whose sympathies are in direct touch with our own ideals and life problems. Madách will plead his own cause effectively enough. To him, however, who in reading the Tragedy of Man' involuntarily makes such comparisons, and might be led unjustly to question the author's originality, the graceful adage Grosse Geister treffen sich (Great minds. meet) will serve as an answer. He should rather say, with true artistic estimate, that the shading in the one landscape of a higher life helps to set off the vivid and brilliant coloring in the other; so that the whole, viewed side by side, presents a series of wondrous harmonies. Madách imbibed, no doubt, from foreign sources. He was familiar with 'Paradise Lost,' and with the now obsolete but once much-lauded epic, 'La Semaine (The Week), of Milton's French predecessor Du Bartas; Alfieri's tramelogedia, Abele,' and Gesner's 'Death of Abel,' as well as Byron's 'Mystery of Cain,' may also have come to his notice; Goethe's 'Faust' appears more than once, and may be recognized in any incognito. Yet we cannot say with certainty that any one of these masterpieces influenced his own work, any more than Milton inspired the great German bard. We might as justly tax him with drawing upon Hebrew tradition for the entire plot of his drama, beginning with the fourth scene; for strangely enough, Adam's experiences with his mentor and Nemesis, Lucifer, are foreshadowed in the very same manner in a quaint legend of the Jewish Rabbis, told nearly twenty centuries ago. The comparative study of literature will reveal other facts equally amazing. It is of course self-evident that the morbid pessimism which rings its vague alarms throughout the book is that of Ecclesiastes, whose vanitas vanitatum is the key to his doleful plaint. "I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven: it is a sore travail that God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. . . And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also was a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." (Eccl. i. 12-18.) This is the leading theme, and Lessing's soulful simile of the ideal, the grand morale: "If God held truth in his right hand," says he, "and in his left the mere striving after truth, bidding me choose 9517 between the two, I would reverently bow to his left and say, 'Give but the impulse; truth is for thee alone!>» Thus, after traversing many lands the world over; after plunging into every pleasure and being steeped in every vice; after passions human and divine have had their sway over his spirit,-Adam concedes to Lucifer that the world of ideals is illusory, existing only in fancy, thriving but in our own souls, nourished by sentiment, and supersensitive to the touch of grosser things. And yet the echo which answers his sad pleadings, as he cries out disheartened — "O sacred poetry, hast thou then Quite forsaken this prosy world of ours?» is a wholly unexpected one in the grand finale. It teaches the doctrine of eternal hope, as the great Hebrew pessimist Koheleth summed it up, when only the Hellenic intellect reigned supreme and the Hellenic heart was cold: "I have decreed, O man- strive ye and trust!» The ideal conquers in the end, should life and love not fail. Poetry and sentiment transform even this valley of the shadow of death into a Paradise regained. It is a song of the ideals in which salvation lies; and the words of the Lord with which the poem closes are, "Struggle and trust." Scene: An open square in Constantinople. A few citizens lounging about. In the centre the palace of the Patriarch; to the right a cloister; to the left a grove. Adam as Tancred, in the prime of life, is seen advancing at the head of returning Crusaders, accompanied by other knights, with colors flying and drums beating; Lucifer as his armor-bearer. Evening, then night. F' IRST CITIZEN Behold, there comes another horde of heathen; Second Citizen - Hide ye the women: but too well Knows this rebel the joys of the seraglio. |