Part 12 (2/2)

Nevertheless, George S. h.e.l.lman says that Mrs. Brevoort's ball, February 24, 1840,--was ”the most splendid social affair of the first half of the nineteenth century in New York.”

There was great preparation for it, and practically all ”society” was asked--and nothing and n.o.body else. It was incidentally the occasion of the first ”society reporting.” Attree, of the New York _Herald_, was an invited guest and went in costume--quite an innovation for conservative old Manhattan.

Lossing tells us: ”At the close of this decade the features of New York society presented conspicuous transformations. Many exotic customs prevailed, both public and private, and the expensive pleasures of the Eastern Hemisphere had been transplanted and taken firm root. Among other imported amus.e.m.e.nts was the masked ball, the first of which occurred in the city of New York in 1840, and produced a profound sensation, not only _per se_, but because of an attending circ.u.mstance which stirred 'society' to its foundation.”

The British Consul in New York at that time was Anthony Barclay,--he lived at College Place,--who was destined later to fall into evil repute, by raising recruits here during the Crimean trouble. He had a daughter, Matilda, who was remarkably lovely and--if we may believe reports--a very great belle in American society. She had a number of ”suitors,” as they were gracefully called in those days, and among them was one Burgwyne, from South Carolina--very young, and, we may take it, rather poor.

Lossing says: ”There was also in attendance a gay, young South Carolinian named Burgwyne.”

The Consul and Mrs. Barclay disapproved of him strongly. But Matilda who was beautiful, warm-blooded and wayward did not. She loved Burgwyne with a reciprocal ardour, and when the masked ball at the Brevoorts' came on the tapis it seemed as though the G.o.ddess of Romance had absolutely stretched out her hands to these two reckless, but adorable lovers.

They had a favourite poem--most lovers have favourite poems;--theirs was ”Lalla Rookh.”

There may be diverse opinions as to Thomas Moore's greatness, but there can scarcely be two as to his lyric gift. He could write charming love-songs, simple and yet full of colour, and, given the Oriental theme, it is no wonder that youths and maidens of his day sighed and smiled over ”Lalla Rookh” as over nothing that had yet been written for them. It is a delightful tale, half-prose and half-poetry, written entirely and whole-heartedly for lovers, and Burgwyne and Matilda found it easy to put themselves in the places of the romantic characters in the drama--Lalla Rookh, the incomparably beautiful Eastern Princess and Feramorz, the young Prince in disguise, ”graceful as that idol of women, Crishna.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: GROVE STREET. Looking toward St. Luke's Church.]

They secretly agreed to go to the masked ball at the Brevoorts' as their romantic favourites and prototypes. The detailed descriptions in the book gave them sufficient inspiration. She wore floating gauzes, bracelets, ”a small coronet of jewels” and ”a rose-coloured, bridal veil.” His dress was ”simple, yet not without marks of costliness,”

with a ”high Tartarian cap.... Here and there, too, over his vest, which was confined by a flowered girdle of Kaskan, hung strings of fine pearls, disposed with an air of studied negligence.”

So they met at the ball and danced together, and I suppose he quoted:

_”Fly to the desert, fly with me, Our Arab tents are rude for thee; But, oh! the choice what heart can doubt, Of tents with love, or thrones without?”_

Obviously she chose the tents with love, for as the clock struck four they slipped away together and were married!

As Lossing puts it:

”They left the festive scene together at four o'clock in the morning, and were married before breakfast.”

They did not change their costumes, dear things! They wanted the romantic trappings for their love poem--a love poem which was to them more enchanting--more miraculous--than that of Lalla Rookh and the King of Bucharia. I hope they lived happily ever after, like the brave, young romanticists they were!

In 1835 a hotel was opened on the corner of Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue, and it was appropriately named for the ill.u.s.trious family over the way. The Brevoort House is certainly as historic a pile, socially speaking, as lower New York has to offer. Arthur Bartlett Maurice says of it:

”In the old-time novels of New York life visiting Englishmen invariably stopped at the Brevoort.”

Of this hotel more anon, since it has recently become knit into the fabric of the modern Village.

But a scant two blocks away from the Brevoort stands another hostelry which is indissolubly a part of New York's growth--especially the growth of her Artist's Colony. It is the Lafayette, or as many of its habitues still love to call it--”The Old Martin.” This, the first and most famous French restaurant of New York, needs a special word or two. It must be considered alone, and not in the company of lesser and more modern eating places.

John Reed says that the ”Old Martin” was the real link between the old Village and the new, since it was the cradle of artistic life in New York. Bohemians, he declared, first foregathered there _as_ Bohemians, and the beginnings of what has become America's Latin Quarter and Soho there first saw the light of day--or rather the lights of midnight.

Jean Baptiste Martin who had been running a hotel in Panama during the first excavations there--made by the French, as you may or may not remember--came to New York in 1883. He had been here the year before for a time and had decided the city needed a French hotel. He arrived on the 25th of June, and on the 26th he bought the hotel! He chose a house on University Place--No. 17--a little _pension_ kept by one Eugene Larru, and from time to time bought the adjoining houses and built extensions until he had made it the building we see today. He called it the Hotel de Panama.

But it was not as the Hotel de Panama that it won its unique place in the hearts of New Yorkers. ”In 1886,” Mr. Martin says, ”I decided to change the name of my place. 'Panama' gave people a bad impression.

They a.s.sociated it with fever and Spaniards, and neither were popular!

So it became the Hotel Martin. Then, when I started another restaurant at Twenty-sixth Street, the 'Old Martin' became the Lafayette.”

The artists and writers came to the Hotel Martin to invite their respective Muses inspired by Mr. Martin's excellent food and drink.

From the bachelors' quarters on the nearby square--the Bened.i.c.k and other studio houses--shabby, ambitious young men came in droves. Mr.

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