The life and dramatic works of Robert Montgomery Bird

Preface

It is a matter of surprise that Robert Montgomery Bird has hitherto escaped the biographer. Excepting the brief mention in textbooks and encyclopedias, virtually nothing has been written of a man whose name was once well known to the reading public of both America and England. Cast into cacophonous German, one of his novels found its way to the continent and ran through successive editions. It is, of course, futile to deprecate the verdicts of time as it is unsafe to predict them. It is rather the purpose of this book to set forth the claims of Dr. Bird, such as they are, to rank among American men of letters; and incidentally to explore a character of great charm that made him loved of all that knew him.

In consequence of the total lack of Bird Biography and criticism, the present writer has had to depend solely on first-hand sources. He was fortunate, through the kindness of Dr. Bird's relatives, in having at his disposal all the extant family papers, — letters, diaries, clippings, personal account books, rough and final drafts of novels and plays, and other miscellaneous documentary material of which there is a great abundance.

vi PREFACE

Of the four plays in this volume, Pelopidas, The Gladiator, and Oralloossa appear in print for the first time. The Broker of Bogota was first published in Prof. A. H. Quinn's recent volume, Representative American Plays; and although the present text is virtually a reprint of that, it was thought desirable to include the play with the three other chief dramatic works of Bird. In every case, as is stated fully elsewhere, the texts are based on manuscripts in the collection of Bird papers at the Library of the University of Pennsylvania.

It would be gratifying to mention all of the many kind friends who have helped or encouraged in the preparation of this book. But space permits of only brief acknowledgments. Dr. Roland G. Kent, of the Latin Department of the University of Pennsylvania, cheerfully answered a number of queries; Miss Jean Williams of Bristol, Pennsylvania, and Miss Dorothy Stock of Woodbury, New Jersey, aided me with collation and proofreading; Miss Mary Mack, Mrs. Barnes, and Mr. Beach of the Edwin Forrest Home, joined in making my visits at the Home both helpful and enjoyable; Miss Emily Rodney and Mr. Henry Hanby Hay of New Castle, Delaware, hospitably acquaintedme with the scenes of Dr. Bird's early years. I take especial pleasure in acknowledging the aid and encouragement that were mine at the hands of Dr. Bird's relatives. I wish to thank Mrs. John Struthers, a niece of Dr. Bird, and Miss

PREFACE vii

Helen von L. Struthers of Philadelphia, for many delightful hours in their home and for the use of their manuscripts. To Mr. Robert Montgomery Bird of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the grandson of the author, more is due than can be told. But for his exceptional kindness this volume had never existed. After permitting me an unrestricted use of his grandfather's papers, he generously presented them in toto to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania . To Prof. Felix E . Schelling, LL. D . , of Pennsylvania, I am indebted for much helpful criticism, but more for the inspiration of an acquaintanceship that all who have been his students must know; while Prof. Arthur H. Quinn, Dean of the College, not only suggested the subject as a thesis in American literature, but gave without stint of his time and experience in supervising the work.

North Wales, Pa., June, 1918.

Clement E. Foust.

Contents

PACK

Preface ....... v

Part I Life Mapter

I. — Birth and Parentage II. — Education

III. — Apprenticeship and First Success "The Gladiator"

IV. — Forrest and the Later Plays

V. — A Prolific Novelist

VI. — Marriage, Farming, Teaching, and Politics ....

VII. — Journalism . . .

VIII.— Last Days ....

Appendices ....

Bibliographical Note

50 76

108 130

144 161 165

CONTENTS PART II DRAMATIC WORKS Pelopidas The Gladiator Oralloossa

The Broker of Bogota Index

171 297 441 577 723

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The

Life and Dramatic Works of

Robert Montgomery Bird

Chapter I

Robert Montgomery Bird was born February 5, 1806, at New Castle, Delaware. 1 He was the son of John and Elizabeth Van Leuvenigh Bird, the sixth of seven children. Both parents came of large and stable families that had lived on their Delaware lands for generations. They had owned farms, married well, worthily served their communities, and were reliable, upright people. From them Dr. Bird received a rich inheritance of character and health.

The Birds trace their lineage to an old English family from Cheshire, whither originally they came from Ireland. John Bird, one of its members, won eminence in the time of Henry VIII. He was

1 The house in which he was born, now numbered 216, is still to be seen on Delaware Street facing the old "green" or market place.

sent by the King, with the royal almoner and a clerk of the council, to the divorced Queen, Catherine of Aragon, to induce her to forbear the name of Queen, "which nevertheless she would not do," the documents expressly phrase it. He was successively bishop of Penrith, bishop of Bangor, and in 1541 first bishop of Chester. At the Restoration, a family tradition avers, two brothers of the name, members of Parliament, voted against King Charles with the result that one lost his head, leaving a widow and children in England. The other was banished to America, where his son supposedly began the family line. Certain it is that Thomas Bird settled in Delaware about 1700 and bought large tracts of land along the Red Clay Creek and in Christiana Hundred. x All that is known of Thomas Bird declares him a man of worth and honor, a leader in his community. He married Sarah Empson, daughter of Cornelius Empson, a judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and died leaving six sons and four daughters. These and their children added to farms, already great, land in that loveliest county of Delaware, Brandy -

1 In 1 7 13 Thomas Bird bought one hundred acres on the eastern side of Red Clay Creek, New Castle County; in 17 19 four hundred acres more "cleared by purchase"; and later 184 acres in Christiana Hundred. For the original survey see the Taylor Papers, New Castle County Warrants and Surveys, in the archives of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia. In the main my account of the Bird and Van Leuvenigh families is based on genealogical tables owned by Mrs. John Struthers of Philadelphia, a niece of Dr. Bird.

wine Hundred, and passed their quiet lives upon its rolling uplands. Their bones rest in the quaint graveyard of Old Swedes Church, Wilmington. 1 John Bird 3d, great-grandson of Thomas and father of Robert Montgomery, was born in Brandywine Hundred, April 25, 1769, and was a man of wide interests and varied ability. Although associated with James Riddle, ship-chandler, at New Castle, he filled numerous public appointments and offices. In 1797 he was one of the State's commissioners to fix the boundaries of New Castle, and helped to survey the town, assess the properties, and list the residents. In 1801 the New Castle Academy was incorporated and John Bird made a trustee. In 1 802 he was elected to the Senate of Delaware, and from 1804 to 1809 served as a State representative. He married, February, 1795, Elizabeth Van Leuvenigh, and died at New Castle, April 12, 1810, leaving six sons and a daughter. Plainly John Bird lived a life, though short in years, uncommonly rich and full; a prompt man of affairs, a pioneer in his home town, who had helped to organize its institutions and incorporate its citizenry. It is of more significance in the light of his son's accomplishment, to note that he was also a man of genuine literary interests. He was a reading man, and knew and loved the masterpieces. It is especially worthy of note that

1 John Bird 1st, son of Thomas, was born in 1705 and died in 1754. John Bird 2d, grandson of Thomas, and grandfather of Dr. Bird, was born in 1738 and died in 1776.

he left a manuscript book of verse that he himself composed.

The mother's stock exhibits in like degree character and sturdy worth. God-fearing, honorable, and industrious, they early became influential and rich. From about 1700, also, it seems, this family had resided in Delaware, for within a year of that date Hendrick Van Leuvenigh, of Amsterdam, left Holland, sailed to America, and settled in Appoquinimink Hundred, New Castle County. Here on a tract of two hundred and twenty-five acres, which he named "Black Walnut Landing," he lived until about 1716, leaving three sons as his issue, John, Henry, and Philip. Zachariah Van Leuvenigh, son of John and grandfather of Dr. Bird, was one of the foremost citizens of New Castle. He numbered among his friends George Read, Thomas McKean, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Chief Justice McWilliams, Judge Finney, and Governor Van Dyke. In 1756 he was commissioned an ensign of the "Upper Regiment of New Castle County," raised for service in the French and Indian War. In 1761 his name was affixed as one of the ' ' Principal Inhabitants" of the county to a proclamation of allegiance sent by the Deputy Governor and Council of Pennsylvania to King George III. of England. After the battle of Lexington, on April 19, 1775, mounted messengers were sent throughout the colonies to spread the news of victory. At New Castle Zachariah Van Leuvenigh and Stephen

Spencer in behalf of the town received the missive, indorsed it as proof of delivery, and sent it on its way to the South. He married Ann Armitage, daughter of Hon. James Armitage, May 27, 1755. Both lie buried in the yard of old Immanuel Church at New Castle, where throughout their lives they were members. Of their children, Mary married Nicholas Van Dyke, who was to count so much in shaping the career of young Bird; and Elizabeth, successively, John Bird 3d and the Rev. Samuel Barr.

It is worth our while to examine this heritage of Dr. Bird. Clearly there was nothing unusual about it, except perhaps the uniformity with which they possessed the fundamentals — piety, enlightenment, stability, and health. John and Elizabeth Bird were of a stock of people who seldom left their names in history or even figured in the newspapers, but who passed quiet, fruitful lives in the daily round of duties that lay next them. For generations they had prospered and were well-todo. On both sides they had supplied their share of leading citizens who struck deep roots in local affairs. Socially, they were a conservative people ; physically — at least this was true of the Birds — they were of the race of Anek, tall and strong of frame ; and intellectually, as we have seen, alert, steady, versatile, and in one case at least possessed with definitely literary tastes. John Bird, the father of Dr. Bird, found time in a crowded life of affairs to read, and even to write verse.

But the blessing of a father's guidance Robert Montgomery Bird was not long to enjoy. In the early months of the year 1810 the firm of Bird & Riddle, government navy agents, met with sudden and calamitous reverses ending in bankruptcy and a total loss of the fortunes of both partners. In consequence, on April 12, 18 10, John Bird suddenly died of an aneurism of the heart, leaving penniless a wife and seven children. The consequences of a calamity so overwhelming can be easily surmised. The immediate effect was to disperse the family, which was never reunited. The older boys were obliged to go where necessity led them. Mrs. Bird, with her youngest son, Henry, moved to humbler quarters in New Castle, and later occupied for months at a time "The Hermitage," a lovely countryseat of the Van Dykes still to be seen a quarter of a mile west of New Castle. Hers was no easy task. The War of 18 12 was threatening and times were hard; besides in those days few employments were open to women, even to those of education. But a strength of spirit, born of hardship and affection, enabled her to provide for those who were still dependent upon her until her marriage in 181 5 with the man who twenty years before had blessed her first union, the Rev. Samuel Barr. Robert Montgomery Bird, then four years old, went into the home of his uncle, the Hon. Nicholas Van Dyke of New Castle.

In his new surroundings, young Bird was very far from unfortunate. The Van Dyke family was one of the oldest, ablest, and stateliest in Delaware. Nicholas Van Dyke, senior, had been a member of the Council of Safety in 1776, had helped to frame the Constitution of Delaware, and was President of the State from 1783 to 1786. His son, with whom Bird now made his home, was similarly a man of note. Educated at Nassau Hall, he early won distinction at the bar, had served his State in its legislature, and was successively a member of the House and the Senate at Washington in 1809 and 181 7. General Lafayette counted him "one of the first statesmen in rank whom he knew in America." He was a man of stern integrity, with views on education and religion that bordered on the severe. A jurist and a statesman of large experience, he was probably, too, an eloquent and incisive talker. And what of the guests that came to dine or spend the night? Many must have been the lawyers and men of affairs who dropped in frequently in busy talk about state matters. To an alert, docile boy like Bird such association must have been most powerfully stimulating and directive. In any case he now acquired a habit of industry and a love of reading that lasted throughout his life. His character, too, was confirmed in the ways of honor. Mr. Van Dyke being a ruling elder and an active member of the Presbyterian Church, it may be supposed that Bird, with the rest of the family, was brought up strictly to habits of church attendance.

Nor was his new environment either bleak or colorless. Dorcas Van Dyke, a pretty, sympathetic girl of his own years, became his confidante and advocate and from the comradeship there flowed to each a permanently ennobling influence. Her character, years afterward, he lovingly set forth in Nanna Howard, in The Adventures of Robin Day. The account depicts, of course, a later stage of their friendship, which, however, had its beginnings at this time. 1 "The development of her faculties," runs the narrative, "her rapid advance in beauty, grace, sweetness of disposition, — in everything that could warm the heart and influence the pride of a doting father were indeed surprising ; and at the time of which I speak — that is when I had reached what was supposed to be the verge of my eighteenth year — she was a creature, being nearly fifteen years old, whom no one could look upon without interest or imagination. She was the loveliest of creatures; and I, who had grown to regard her and to call her a sister, was as proud of her beauty as was my patron, her father himself. ... It could not be otherwise than that such a being with whom my daily and hourly intercourse was that of a brother, should sooner or later exercise a strong and happy influence, even without knowing it herself, over both my manners and my feelings ; and it is to the

1 Chapter IX. According to Dr. Bird's wife, Mrs. Mary Bird, The Adventures of Robin Day is autobiographical in several chapters, especially those narrating the youth and education of Robin Day.

commencement of that influence, more than to the remonstrance of my patron, that I date the first improvement in both. So true is it that the silent, and even unsuspected influence of woman sways the heart more strongly to virtue and manliness than the wisest admonitions of the sages. " When she was married years afterward on Oct. 6, 1824, to Charles Irenee Du Pont, Lafayette, then visiting America, graciously honored the occasion with his presence, occupying an elevated seat, where through doors and windows kept open for the purpose, the citizens of New Castle viewed both him and the ceremony. r

From these early years Bird gave hints of rich promise, and yet he was not abnormal or eccentric. He had what has been termed a ' ' successful childhood, " going the rounds of fun and mishap eagerly, honestly, and pugnaciously. His wife's account describes him as a spirited, exuberant boy, with even more than the usual push of youth, a leader at cricket, a lover of adventure, and a crack at a bout or a tussle. 2 Once with another young explorer, it seems, he barely missed drowning on a drifting ice floe in a bight of the Delaware off New Castle. The scenes of the Brandy wine, near which Mrs. Bird lived for a time, lay at hand rich in

1 American Historical Register, vol. iii., p. 634.

2 Mrs. Bird left a manuscript sketch of her husband's life numbering eighty-odd pages, presented with the Bird Papers to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania by the grandson of Dr. Bird, Mr. Robert M. Bird, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

io LIFE OF ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD

historic beauty; while the ruins of the old Dutch town, New Amstel, supplied him with endless tales of ghosts and haunted houses. Here was a life in the open, not dull enough to stifle, yet healthfully free from the rush and irritation of a city. Unlike the ordinary boy, Bird was extremely imaginative and acutely sensitive. His imagination, his wife relates, was the source of peculiar enjoyment. His greatest pleasure was to steal from all and stretch full length in his uncle's garden and give full rein to that imagination which had already begun to assert its supremacy. This faculty, discovered and cherished in secret, became the source of his most exquisite enjoyment. He had been often heard to say that no actual scenes displayed before his physical eyes were more distinct, more detailed, or better remembered. The Van Dyke home stood at the corner of Delaware and Orange streets, New Castle, and had in the rear a deep, narrow garden with arbored walks and flower plots. Hither he often stole to read again and again with the sharp zest of childhood books of adventure, travel, and history. To a mind so swiftly absorptive as his, who can assess the nutritive- value of such reading ?

There was much, besides, in the old town of New Castle itself to stir and quicken a nature fond of romance. Had there actually been a choice of environment, one could scarcely have been found richer in history and tradition. "Like Salem in New England and Charleston in the South,"

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE n

New Castle has always had a flavor and distinction. In colonial days it was a seat of wealth and cultivation ; there dwelt the first families of Delaware, — the Johns, the Van Dykes, the Armitages, the Stocktons, the Rodneys, and the Reads. Since then its position off the main lines of traffic and the swift growth of Wilmington have shut it off from the commercializing effects of trades and industries. In consequence it has kept to a degree the mellow charm of early times. Nor is its past without its stirring scenes. Near its site stood Fort Casimir, built in 1 63 1 by the Dutch, who shortly after built the town of New Amstel, captured in 1664 by the English and renamed New Castle. At its quaint court-house William Penn, upon landing in America, October 28, 1682, received from the Duke of York's Commissioners the symbols of ownership, a key of the fort, some water, some turf, and a twig. Under its main girders are heavy timber pillars upon which in olden days the hands of manslaughterers were placed while the sizzling iron branded them with the letters M. S. A. "until the fumes filled the room. " As a port of entry and a station on the old stage route between Philadelphia and Baltimore, New Castle has seen many men of prominence. Here Washington, supposedly, and Lafayette attended notable weddings. Black Hawk and Jackson have walked its streets, adding each his cluster to the town's traditions. Architecturally the town has long been of interest. Nowhere in America can be found finer types of the old colonial home. The stately entrances and hallways, the plain lintels cut like flat arches and set flush with the wall, the beautifully turned bannisters, and secret panels must all have shed upon the sensitive mind of young Bird a pervasively gracious influence. New Castle is a river town, and from the windows of houses along the strand could be seen on a level expanse of the Delaware, steamers and freighters plying their silent ways, as could those of the Dutch, the Swedes, and the English in days of long ago. In such surroundings, then, mellow with tradition and romance, Robert Montgomery Bird dreamed the dreams of boyhood and saw the "visions of grandeur" which pleasantly lingered with him through all the years of manhood.

Chapter II

The only school in New Castle during Bird's boyhood was New Castle Academy. The original building is still a picturesque sight on the old public green next to Immanuel Church. Although enlarged and modernized, it remains untouched in its main lines— a rectangular structure of brick with numerous windows, a central hall opening on the walled yard behind, a quaint, divided stairway, and neat sunshiny classrooms. From its incorporation in 1 80 1 John Bird had been a trustee, and hither young Bird was sent for his elementary schooling.

The methods of instruction at New Castle Academy during Bird's attendance were singularly crude and galling, and were an experience he never forgot. In later years he frequently spoke of the severity of this early schooling. The first aim of the teacher, it seems, was to break the spirit of his charges. A sympathetic sharing of interests and the profit that comes of pleasure were plainly things unknown. The result was a standing challenge on the part of the pedagogue, and a series of organized revolts on the part of the school. Though shy and docile to a degree, and of a type of mind that would have drawn nutriment from the plainest fare, young Bird came in for an inordinate share of "correction." Hardly a day passed, his wife asserts, without its bitter tally on his knuckles or his back. In some instances, it seems, this punishment amounted to downright assault. The effect on the sensitive nature of Bird was a feeling of abhorrence so deep that one day he took an oath, on bended knee, runs the record, "to kill his pursuer as soon as he was old and strong enough to do so. " This threat he never executed, but he paid the score as unforgivably by conferring on the bully immortality. In The Adventures of Robin Day he has preserved M'Goggin and his ways with suitable embellishments, for those who care to read. The account also vividly depicts Bird's first school days. "The trustees succeeded in engaging the services of a person who, I verily believe, was procured for the sole purpose of testing the efficacy of the brutum fulmen, of subjugating us by main force; for he was an illiterate, vulgar dolt, an Irishman just caught, who professed, as he said himself, to teach nothing but 'r'ading, writin', 'rithmetic, and dacent manners'; although in other respects the very man the trustees wanted. His name was M'Goggin. He was six feet high, and limbed and shouldered like a Hercules; and indeed of such strength and activity, that had he been set at the business for which he was best qualified, that is canal digging, I have no doubt he would have cut through the Isthmus of Panama in a month without any assistance. He had an ugly look, too, about the eyes, which besides being the color of a cat's, were overshadowed by a pair of brows of such bigness and appearance that they looked like two stuffed ratskins stuck on with glue; and his complexion was of the hue of sole-leather, plentifully besprinkled with freckles of the size of half-dimes. To add to his demerits, he was entirely incapable of fear, and had such a natural love of a row, that, when informed by the trustees of our character and doings ... he rubbed his hands with satisfaction, and declared we were 'swate little devils' and that we should get along very well together."

This stage of Bird's career abruptly closed one day when he was found by his uncle, Mr. Van Dyke, in the hands of his sympathizing cousin, who was dressing a bruised and lacerated back. He was immediately withdrawn from school and for a time allowed to read and ramble as he liked. He enjoyed a freedom, it seems, that our disciplinarians would have probably called neglect, and yet what a wise neglect! It was a chance to grow spontaneously. In any case, for a boy of Bird's type, aimless play is often the richest pre-experience. His interests, free and unconstrained, are in consequence real and vital. The imagination expands to the new freedom, and self -education, which for the gifted is the best education, begins. Thus it was with Bird. Blighting as the effects of the Academy were, reading had become a passion. In 1812 the New Castle Library Company was chartered, and here he obtained books of history, romance, and adventure, reading and re-reading with a zest that must have made them richly nutritive. Now, too, though a boy of but ten or twelve, he began to play with verse and actually finished, according to his wife, a long poem which he hid, but which the tantalizing Dorcas unearthed and read with a flourish to the Van Dyke family. The experience, though it stirred the mirth of Dr. Bird years after, gave pain at the time, and somewhat dashed his ardor. It may possibly have contributed to a distaste to be known as a poet that lasted throughout his life ; for these early smarts to a nature so acutely sensitive were sharp and long remembered. But pleasurable to a degree he never forgot were his rambles through the historic scenes of the Brandywine and the ruins of New Amstel, where the yellow brick and coins of Holland were still occasionally picked up. Here dwelt a double charm — the beauty of a smiling country rich in a storied past. And no doubt, too, these frequent jaunts helped to give the large-framed, fair-haired boy that stock of bodily health which brought him at maturity an astounding capacity for incessant toil.

Meanwhile, on May 31, 181 8, the Reverend Samuel Barr died and Bird's mother removed to

Philadelphia, where she lived with an older son, James Madison Bird. In the year 1820 Robert Montgomery Bird joined them, although still under the guardianship of the Honorable Nicholas Van Dyke, as the following letter shows:

New Castle, June 5, 1820.

Dear Nephew:

I should have written to you sooner but expected to go to Philadelphia and converse with you about your brother R. M. Bird. The situation of my family has prevented me from leaving home and at present I see no prospect of being at liberty shortly.