26

AWKWARDNESS OF YOUNG GIRLS.

this happened. A tall, scraggy girl, with red elbows, and salt-cellars at my collar-bones, which were always exposed, for fashion at that time made girls of this age uncover neck and arms. It also made them put on "pantalettes," the ugliest garment that ever rendered a girl hideous.

I think twelve or thirteen is a very trying age for a girl. Too old to play with dolls, too young to play with love, she looks with disdain on her juniors, and with burning envy on her seniors; and when the Sallie Wards and the Theresa Chalfants, and the Olivia Groesbecks came aboard with their "bucks," it is not strange that the girl should stare at them wonderingly, admiringly, and then rush off in despair and go make faces at herself in the glass because she is not pretty, and sees no prospect of ever becoming so.

What luscious fare was provided on those boats, it is almost unnecessary to say. The thing has passed into a proverb. When, as frequently happens, we are told that such or such a hotel is kept by an old ex-steamboat captain, we know at once that at that place the inner creature will be succulently pandered to.

Such steaming hot corn-bread, such tough hoe-cake, such overdone beefsteak, sailing in rich, brown gravy! Ah, those days of gravy! How we partook of it again and again, and soaked our hot biscuit in it, and drank strong coffee along with it, and never once stopped to think that we had such a thing as a digestion.

Alas! those days are past, and gravy is now a matter for grave consideration.

But the evening sports were best of all. After "supper" everything would be cleared away, tables and chairs ranged snugly along the sides of the boat, and the long narrow cabin would be ready for the mazy dance. No opera bouffe indecencies, no improper Germans, nor shocking round dances, but the good old time cotillion, when all

STEAMBOAT MUSICIANS.

27

we had to do was to stand up and "jine in,” no prior instruction by dancing masters being necessary, for the "figures" were called out, and easily followed.

The musicians on the boat were generally "niggers:" they were summoned from their other occupations by the captain with a "Here, you black nigger, come up and play for the ladies and gentlemen," and grinning red lips and a cracked fiddle would soon appear.

The fiddler on "our" boat was one "Wash" by name, but not by nature; for cleanliness was not taught to the negroes then any more than the alphabet was.

"Wash" not only called the figures and played the fiddle, but he also kept time with his feet, and sang words to the tune he was playing. What made it most amusing was that the words were extemporaneous and apposite to the occasion, and often very shrewd hits at the company assembled. Many a bashful swain or "buck" has been helped on to his avowal by Wash's lyric assistance, given in such style as this, for instance:

"Massa Dick he lub Miss Sallie well.

(Keeping time with both feet and calling the figure very loudly.) FORWARD FOUR!

But he ain't got courage for to tell.

SET TO YOUR PARTNERS, AND DOSEY DOE!"

It is true, life on the Ohio wave was not at all rosecoloured. Explosions were frequent; to bu'st a b'iler was next door to an every day occurrence. Professional gamblers, "sporting men" (sad sport!) took up a local habitation on the packets, and fleeced verdant passengers traveling southward. Rows, where the dreadful bowie was flourished and fatally used, were often seen. But such dangerous diversions seemed only to add zest to the dish, and I fancy travel was never interrupted for any length of time by these "unpleasantnesses."

Now, all this is changed. Traveling by boat has become quite as hum-drum as traveling by rail. The captain is still the leading spirit of the boat; but he lets you come aboard and go off with as much nonchalance as the proprietor of a hotel does when you occupy one of his rooms over night. Black men have more serious business now than fiddling; sporting men are at a discount; and bowie knives are vulgar.

In Cincinnati itself are to be seen very great changes. Fourth-st., which was once a sort of Broadway and Fifthave. combined, is now only Broadway in its character: the Fifth-avenue part is dead and dull, deserted by all save the old and quiet families who would be glad to surrender their places to trade, only trade objects, and says property eastward is not worth anything for business purposes; and the city moves in the other direction.

Longworth's fine property-surrounded by grounds which used to be called the "Garden of Eden," and which, in early days, I really thought had some direct connection with Paradise-stands still intact; but to the eye of one who knew it of yore, and loved it (and half believed that Adam and Eve had once lived there), the modern elegances of bronze lamps from Paris are a hateful innovation.

And year by year the population of Cincinnati increases, while that of Spring Grove-especially in cholera seasons— keeps fair pace.

Ay, turn where we will, to the West or to the East, this spectacle meets our eyes. Death stalking grim and gaunt, hand in hand with teeming birth-smiting the aged, the youthful, the Therese Chalfants, the Olivia Groesbecks, their bucks and beaux, and making the talk of their beauty and brilliancy as much a matter of indifference as the loveliness and wit of Louise de la Valliers and Lady Mary Wortley Montague.

Thus, day by day, we build and build, and hour by hour we rot and rot, and thereby hangs a tale.

The correspondent of a Philadelphia journal recalls the period of our father's early residence in that city in these words: "I remember, as if it were but yesterday, my first introduction to Cornelius A. Logan, Esq., the eminent comedian, now, alas, no more. He resided, at the period alluded to, (embracing the years from 1825 to '30), either in Willow or Noble Street, I forget which, below Second. He had around him a small family of children-children that have now become men and women."

This was several years before the date of my birthwhich took place in the village of Elmira, N. Y., in the summer of 1839, when my father was filling a professional engagement there.

The reputation of Cornelius A. Logan as an actor is confined to comedy; but, like many others who, have mistaken their forte, he commenced his theatrical career as a tragedian. There can be no doubt that his powers as a comedian were extraordinary. His contemporaries seem to have had but one opinion of his ability to stir the merriment of an audience irresistibly. The critic of the New Orleans Delta declared that "his dry quaint manner would almost elicit laughter from a dead elephant." The Nashville American of Oct. 15, 1851, said: "He stands at the head of his profession-a position he has maintained for many years-and the ablest and most practiced critics in all the Atlantic cities have universally accorded to him the position of almost the highest and most original genius on the American stage." His chief popularity was in the West and South.

Of his poetical works, my father neglected to make any collection. He was singularly careless of literary renown. One of his noblest poems, undoubtedly, was "The Mississippi," written at the mouth of the Ohio river. This poem was copied into the Edinburg Review with a handsome tribute to the author, and was favorably reviewed in several other European publications of high critical character.

30

EARLY HISTORY OF THE DRAMA.

Of his critical essays, one of the most erudite and able was his reply to a distinguished divine who had preached against the stage. This production is so well suited to the pages of the present work that I have a double satisfaction in extracting largely from it-pride in the literary work of a loved and honored father, and the pleasure which it ever gives me to furnish earnest defence of an honorable stage against its enemies both from within and from without.

"In the remoter ages of the world," wrote my father, "the Drama was the only medium of human worship. Bacchus, and Mammon, and the whole host of heathen deities were imaginations of a much later date. The shepherds and husbandmen of the Nile-the earliest worshipers that tradition reaches-invented a sort of sacred Drama, of which the priests were the actors. The 'God of the Overflow' was adored in a secondary character— that is, as represented by a sage, whose duty it was to watch the march of the heavenly bodies, and to predict the period of the inundation of the valley. A malignant spirit was also introduced upon the scene, who was crowned with a dead serpent of the Nile, and whose dress was composed of the leaves of the withered lotus. This mystery, like the melodrama of the present day, was interspersed with music, and the most magnificient temples were erected for its representation. These were the first churches. Thus it appears that Religion and the Drama were at first identical, but time has divided them. God has assigned to the one the high and holy mission of promulgating throughout the world his ineffable glory, and to the other he has delegated the power to sway the human heart by striking its subtle and intangible chords-to soften, to refine, and to elevate. 'Tis true that Thespis on his car at Athens chanted odes to Bacchus; but Bacchus was not held by the Athenians as the God of Drunkenness, as