The Breitmann Ballads Part 1

The Breitmann Ballads.

by Charles G. Leland.

Preface

To the Edition of 1889.

Though twenty years have pa.s.sed since the first appearance of the "Breitmann Ballads" in a collected form, the author is deeply gratified -- and not less sincerely grateful to the public -- in knowing that Hans still lives in many memories, that he continues to be quoted when writers wish to ill.u.s.trate an exuberantly joyous "barty" or ladies so very fas.h.i.+onably dressed as to recall "de maidens mit nodings on," and that no inconsiderable number of those who are "beginning German"

continue to be addressed by sportive friends in the Breitmann dialect as a compliment to their capacity as linguists. For as a young medical student is asked by anxious intimates if he has got as far as salts, I have heard inquiries addressed to tyros in Teutonic whether they had mastered these songs. As I have realised all of this from newspapers and novels, even during the past few weeks, and have learned that a new and very expensive edition of the work has just appeared in America, I trust that I may be pardoned for a self-gratulation, which is, after all really grat.i.tude to those who have demanded of the English publisher another issue. My chief pleasure in this -- though it be mingled with sorrow -- is, that it enables me to dedicate to the memory of my friend the late NICHOLAS TRUBNER the most complete edition of the Ballads ever printed. I can think of no more appropriate tribute to his memory, since he was not only the first publisher of the work in England, but collaborated with the author in editing it so far as to greatly improve and extend the whole. This is more fully set forth in the Introduction to the Glossary, which is all his own. The memory of the deep personal interest which he took in the poems, his delight in being their publisher, his fondness for reciting them, is and ever will be to me indescribably touching; such experiences being rare in any life. He was an immensely general and yet thorough scholar, and I am certain that I never met with any man in my life who to such an extensive bibliographical knowledge added so much familiarity with the contents of books. And he was familiar with nothing which did not interest him, which is rare indeed among men who MUST know something of thousands of works -- in fact, he was a wonderful and very original book in himself, which, if it had ever been written out and published, would have never died. His was one of the instances which give the world good cause to regret that the art of autobiography is of all others the one least taught or studied. There are few characters more interesting than those in which the practical man of business is combined with the scholar, because of the contrasts, or varied play of light and shadow, in them, and this was, absolutely to perfection, that of Mr. Trubner. And if I have re-edited this work, it was that I might have an opportunity of recording it.

There are others to whom I owe sincere grat.i.tude for interest displayed in this work when it was young. The first of these was the late CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED of New York. With the exception of the "Barty," most of the poems in the first edition were written merely to fill up letters to him, and as I kept no copy of them, they would have been forgotten, had he not preserved and printed them after a time in a sporting paper. Nor would they even after this have appeared (though Mr. Bristed once tried to surprise me with a privately printed collection of them, which attempt failed) had not Mr. RINGWALT, my collaborator on the PHILADELPHIA PRESS, and also a printer, had such faith in the work as to have it "set up" in his office, offering to try an edition for me. This was transferred to PETERSON BROTHERS, in whose hands the sale became at once very great; and I should be truly ungrateful if I omitted to mention among the many writers who were very kind in reviews, Mr. GEORGE A. SALA, who was chiefly influential in introducing Hans Breitmann to the English public, and who has ever been his warmest friend. Another friend who encouraged and aided me by criticism was the late OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, a man of immense erudition, especially in archaeology, curiosa and facetiae. I trust that I may be pardoned for here mentioning that he often spoke of Breitmann's "Interview with the Pope" as his favorite Macaronic poem, which, as he had published two volumes of Macaronea, was praise indeed. His theory was, that as Macaronics were the ultra-extravagance of poetry, he who wrote most recklessly in them did best; in fact, that they should excel in first-rate BADNESS; and from this point of view it is possible that Breitmann's Latin lyric is not devoid of merit, since a.s.suredly n.o.body ever wrote a worse. The late LORD LYTTON, or "Bulwer," was also kind enough to take an interest in these Ballads, which was to me as gratifying as it was amazing. It was one of the great surprises of my life. I have a long letter from him, addressed to me on the appearance of the collected edition, in 1870. In it he spoke with warmest compliment of the poem of "Leyden," and the first verses of "Breitmann in Belgium."

In conclusion, I acknowledge the courtesy of Messers.

DALZIELL BROTHERS for allowing me to republish here four poems which had appeared in the "Brand New Ballads" published by them in 1885. But to mention all of the people of whom I have grateful memories in connection with the work, who have become acquainted with me through it, or written to me, or said pleasant words, would be impossible. I am happy to think it would embrace many of the Men of the Times during the last twenty years -- and unfortunately too many who are now departed. And trusting that the reader will take in good part all that I have said, I remain, -- his true friend (for truly there is no friend dearer than a devoted reader),

CHARLES G. LELAND

PREFACE

When HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY, WITH OTHER BALLADS, appeared, the only claim made on its behalf was, that it const.i.tuted the first book ever written in English as imperfectly spoken by Germans. The author consequently held himself bound to give his broken English a truthful form. So far as observation and care, aided by the suggestions of well-educated German friends, could enable him to do this, it was done. But the more extensive were his observations, the more did the fact force itself upon his mind, that there is actually no well-defined method or standard of "German-English," since not only do no two men speak it alike, but no one individual is invariably consistent in his errors or accuracies. Every reader who knows any foreign language imperfectly is aware that HE SPEAKS IT BETTER AT ONE TIME THAN ANOTHER, and it would consequently have been a grave error to reduce the broken and irregular jargon of the book to a fixed and regular language, or to require that the author should invariably write exactly the same misp.r.o.nunciations with strict consistency on all occasions.

The opinion -- entirely foreign to any intention of the author -- that Hans Breitmann is an embodied satire on everything German, has found very few supporters, and it is with the greatest gratification that he has learned that educated and intelligent Germans regard Hans as a jocose burlesque of a type which is every day becoming rarer. And if Teutonic philosophy and sentiment, beer, music, and romance, have been made the medium for what many reviewers have kindly declared to be laughter-moving, let the reader be a.s.sured that not a single word was meant in a bitter or unkindly spirit. It is true that there is always a standpoint from which any effort may be misjudged, but this standpoint certainly did not occur to the writer when he wrote, with anything but misgiving, of his "hearty, hard-fighting, good-natured old ex-student," who, in the political ballads and others, appears to no moral disadvantage by the side of his a.s.sociates.

Breitmann in several ballads is indeed a very literal copy or combination of characteristics of men who really exist or existed, and who had in their lives embraced as many extremes of thought as the Captain. America abounds with Germans, who, having received in their youth a "cla.s.sical education," have pa.s.sed through varied adventures, and often present the most startling paradoxes of thought and personal appearance. I have seen bearing a keg a porter who could speak Latin fluently. I have been in a beer-shop kept by a man who was distinguished in the Frankfurt Parliament. I have found a graduate of the University of Munich in a negro minstrel troupe. And while mentioning these as proof that Breitmann, as I have depicted him, is not a contradictory character, I cannot refrain from a word of praise as to the energy and patience with which the German "under a cloud" in America bears his reverses, and works cheerfully and uncomplainingly, until, by sheer perseverance, he, in most cases, conquers fortune. In this respect the Germans, as a race, and I might almost say as individuals, are superior to any others on the American continent. And if I have jested with the German new philosophy, it is with the more seriousness that I here acknowledge the deepest respect for that true practical philosophy of life -- that well-balanced mixture of stoicism and epicurism -- which enables Germans to endure and to ENJOY under circ.u.mstances when other men would probably despair.

Breitmann is one of the battered types of the men of '48 -- a person whose education more than his heart has in every way led him to entire scepticism or indifference -- and one whose Lutheranism does not go beyond "Wein, Weib, und Gesang." Beneath his unlimited faith in pleasure lie natural shrewdness, an excellent early education, and certain principles of honesty and good fellows.h.i.+p, which are all the more clearly defined from his moral looseness in details which are identified in the Anglo-Saxon mind with total depravity. In such a man, the appreciation of the beautiful in nature may be keen, but it will continually vanish before humour or mere fun; while having no deep root in life or interests in common with the settled Anglo-Saxon citizen, he cannot fail to appear at times to the latter as a near relation to Mephistopheles. But his "mockery"

is as accidental and naif as that of Jewish Young Germany is keen and deliberate; and the former differs from the latter as the drollery of Abraham a Santa Clara differs from the brilliant satire of Heine.

The reader should be fairly warned that these poems abound in words, phrases, suggestions, and even couplets, borrowed to such an extent from old ballads and other sources, as to make acknowledgement in many cases seem affectation. Where this has appeared to be worth the while, it has been done. The lyrics were written for a laugh -- without antic.i.p.ating publication, so far as a number of the princ.i.p.al ones in the first volume were concerned, and certainly without the least idea that they would be extensively and closely criticised by eminent and able reviewers. Before the compilation the "Barty" had almost pa.s.sed from the writer's memory, several other songs of the same character by him were quite forgotten, while a number had formed portions of letters to friends, by one of whom a few were published in a newspaper. When finally urged by many who were pleased with "Breitmann" to issue these humble lyrics in book form, it was with some difficulty that the first volume was brought together.

The excuse for the foregoing observations is the unexpected success of a book which is of itself of so eccentric a character as to require some explanation. For its reception from the public, and the kindness and consideration with which it has been treated by the press, the author can never be sufficiently grateful.

CHARLES G. LELAND London, 1871.

INTRODUCTION

BY THE PUBLISHER

"HANS BREITMANN GIFE A BARTY" - the first of the poems here submitted to the English public - appeared originally in 1857, in Graham's Magazine, in Philadelphia, and soon became widely known. Few American poems, indeed, have been held in better or more constant remembrance than the ballad of "Hans Breitmann's Barty;" for the words just quoted have actually pa.s.sed into a proverbial expression. The other ballads of the present collection, likewise published in several newspapers, were first collected in 1869 by Mr. Leland, the translator of Heine's "Pictures of Travel" and "Book of Songs," and author of Meister Karl's Sketch -Book," Philadelphia, 1856 and "Suns.h.i.+ne in Thought," New York, 1863. They are much of the same character as "The Barty" - most of them celebrating the martial career of "Hans Breitmann," whose prototype was a German, serving during the war in the 15th Pennsylvanian cavalry, and who - we have it on good authority - was a man of desperate courage whenever a cent could be made, and one who never fought unless something could be made. The "rebs" "gobbled" him one day; but he re-appeared in three weeks overloaded with money and valuables. One of the American critics remarks: - "Throughout all the ballads it is the same figure presented - an honest 'Deutscher,' drunk with the New World as with new wine, and rioting in the expression of purely Deutsch nature and half-Deutsch ideas through a strange speech."

The poems are written in the dull broken English (not to be confounded with the Pennsylvanian German) spoken by millions of - mostly uneducated - Germans in America, immigrants to a great extent from southern Germany. Their English has not yet become a distinct dialect; and it would even be difficult to fix at present the varieties in which it occurs. One of its prominent peculiarities, however, is easily perceived: it consists in the constant confounding of the soft and hard consonants; and the reader must well bear it in mind when translating the language that meets his eye into one to become intelligible to his ear.

Thus to the German of our poet, kiss becomes giss; company - gompany; care - gare; count - gount; corner - gorner; till - dill; terrible - derrible; time - dime; mountain - moundain; thing - ding; through - droo; the - de; themselves - demselves; other - oder; party - barty; place - blace; pig - big; priest - breest; piano - biano; plaster - blaster; fine - vine; fighting - vighting; fellow - veller; or, vice versa, he sounds got - cot; green - creen; great - crate; gold dollars - cold tollars; dam - tam; dreadful - treadful; drunk - troonk; brown - prown; blood - ploot; bridge - pridge; barrel - parrel; boot - poot; begging - peggin'; blackguard - plackguart; rebel - repel; never - nefer; river - rifer; very - fery; give - gife; victory - fictory; evening - efening; revive - refife; jump - shoomp; join - choin; joy - choy; just - shoost; joke - choke; jingling - s.h.i.+ngling;, &c.; or, through a kindred change, both - bofe; youth - youf; but mouth - mout'; earth - eart'; south - sout'; waiting - vaiten;' was - vas; widow - vidow; woman - voman; work - vork; one - von; we - ve, &c. And hence, by way of a compound mixture, we get from him drafel for travel, derriple for terrible, a daple-leck for a table-leg, bepples for pebbles, tisasder for disaster, schimnastig dricks for gymnastic tricks, let-bencil for lead-pencil, &c. The peculiarity of Germans p.r.o.nouncing in their mother tongue s like sh when it is followed by a t or p, and of Germans in southern Germany often also final s like sh, naturally produced in their American jargon such results as shplit, shtop, shtraight, shtar, shtupendous, shpree, shpirit, &c; ish(is), ash(as), &c.; and, by a.n.a.logy led to shveet(sweet), schwig(swig), &c. We need not notice, however, more than these freaks of the German-American-English of the present poems, as little as we need advert to simple vulgarisms also met with in England, such as the omission of the final g in words terminating in ing (blayin' - playing; shpinnen' - spinning; ridin', sailin', roonin', &c.). We must, of course, a.s.sume that the reader of this little volume is well acquainted both with English and German.

The reader will perceive that the writer has taken another flight in "Hans Breitmann's Christmas," and many of the later ballads, from what he did in those preceding; and exception might be taken to his choice of subjects, and treatment of them, if the language employed by him were a fixed dialect - that is, a language arrested at a certain stage of its progress; for in that case he would have had to subordinate his pictures to the narrow sphere of the realistic incidents of a given locality. But the imperfect English utterances of the German, newly arrived in America, coloured more or less by the peculiarities of his native idiom, do not make, and never will make a dialect, for the simple reason that, in proportion to his intelligence, his opportunities, and the length of time spent by him among his new English-speaking countrymen, he will sooner or later rid himself of the crudenesses of his speech, thus preventing it from becoming fixed. Many of the Germans who have emigrated and are still emigrating to America belong to the well-educated cla.s.ses, and some possess a very high culture. Our poet has therefore presented his typical German, with perfect propriety, in a variety of situations which would be imperceptible within which the the dialect necessarily moves, and has endowed him with character, even where the local colour is wanting.

In "Breitmann in Politics," we are on purely American ground.

In it the Germans convince themselves that, as their hero can no longer plunder the rebels, he ought to plunder the nation, and they resolve on getting him elected to the State Legislature.

They accordingly form a committee, and formulate for their candidate six "moral ideas" as his platform. These they show to their Yankee helper, Hiram Twine, who, having changed his politics fifteen times, and managed several elections, knows how matters should be handled. He says the moral ideas are very fine, but not worth a "dern;" and instead of them proclaims the true cry, that Breitmann is sound upon the goose, about which he tells a story. Then it is reported that the German cannot win, and that, as he is a soldier, he has been sent into the political field only to lead the forlorn hope and get beaten.

In answer to this, Twine starts the report that Smith has sold the fight to Breitmann, a notion which the Americans take to at once -

"For dey mostly d.i.n.ked id de naturalest ding as efer couldt pefall For to sheat von's own gonst.i.tuents is de pest mofe in de came, Und dey nefer sooposed a Dootchman hafe de sense to do de same."

Accordingly, Breitmann calls a meeting of Smith's supporters, tells them that he hopes to get a good place for his friend Smith, though he cannot approve of Smith's teetotal principles, because he, Breitmann, is a republican, and the meaning of that word is plain: - "... If any enlightened man vill seeken in his Bibel, he will find dat a publican is a barty ash sells lager; und de ding is very blain, dat a re-publican ish von who sells id 'gain und 'gain." Moreover, Smith believes in G.o.d, and goes to church, - what liberal German can stand this? - while Breitmann, being a publican, must be a sinner. As to parties, the principles of both are the same - plunder - and "any man who gifes me his fote, - votefer his boledics pe, - shall alfays pe regardet ash bolidigal friendt py me."

This brings the house down. And when Breitmann announces that he sells the best beer in the city, and stands drinks gratis to his "bolidigal friendts," and orders in twelve barrels of lager for the meeting, he is unanimously voted "a brickbat, and no sardine."

After this brilliant success, the author is obliged to pause, in order to proclaim the intellectual superiority of Germans to the whole world. He gets tremendously be-fogged in the process, but that is no matter -

"Ash der Hegel say of his system,' Dat only von mans knew Vot der tyfel id meant; and he couldn't tell,' und der Jean Paul Richter, too, Who saidt, 'Gott knows, I meant somedings vhen foorst dis buch I writ, Boot Gott only weiss vot das buch means now, for I hafe forgotten it!'"

But, taking the point as proved, our German still allows that the Yankees have some sharp-pointed sense, which he ill.u.s.trates by narrating how Hiram Twine turned a village of Smith-voters into the Breitmann camp. The village is German and Democrat. Smith has forgotten his meeting, and Twine, who is very like Smith, and rides into the village to watch the meeting, is taken by the Germans for Smith. On this, Twine resolves to personate Smith, and give his supporters a dose of him. Accordingly, on being asked to drink, he tells the Germans that none but hogs would drink their stinking beer, and that German wine was only made for German swine. Then he goes to the meeting, and, having wounded their feelings in the tenderest point, - the love of beer, - attacks the next tenderest, - their love for their language, - by declaring that he will vote for preventing the speaking of it all through the States; and winds up by exhorting them to stop guzzling beer and smoking pipes, and set to work to un-Germanise themselves as soon as possible. On this "dere coomed a s.h.i.+ndy,"

with cries of "Shoot him with a bowie-knife," and "Tar and feather him." A revolver-ball cuts the chandelier-cord; all is dark; and amidst the row, Twine escapes and gallops off, with some pistol-b.a.l.l.s after him. But the village votes for Breitmann, and be "licks der Schmit."

The ballad, "Breitmann's Going to Church," is based on a real occurrence. A certain colonel, with his men, did really, during the war, go to a church in or near Nashville, and, as the saying is, "kicked up the devil, and broke things," to such an extent, that a serious reprimand from the colonel's superior officer was the result. The fact is guaranteed by Mr. Leland, who heard the offender complain of the "cruel and heartless stretch of military authority." As regards the firing into the guerilla ball-room, it took place near Murfreesboro', on the night of Feb. 10 or 11, 1865; and on the next day, Mr. Leland was at a house where one of the wounded lay. On the same night a Federal picket was shot dead near Lavergne; and the next night a detachment of cavalry was sent off from General Van Cleve's quarters, the officer in command coming in while the author was talking with the general, for final orders. They rode twenty miles that night, attacked a body of guerillas, captured a number, and brought back prisoners early next day. The same day Mr. Leland, with a small cavalry escort, and a few friends, went out into the country, during which ride one or two curious incidents occurred, ill.u.s.trating the extraordinary fidelity of the blacks to Federal soldiers.

The explanation of the poem ent.i.tled, "The First Edition of Breitmann," is as follows: - It was not long after the war that a friend of the writer's to whom "the Breitmann Ballads" had been sent in MSS., and who had frequently urged the former to have them published, resolved to secure, at least, a small private edition, though at his own expense. Unfortunately the printers quarrelled about the MSS., and, as the writer understood, the entire concern broke up in a row in consequence. And, in fact, when we reflect on the amount of fierce attack and recrimination we reflect this unpretending and peaceful little volume elicited after the appearance of the fifth English edition, and the injury which it sustained from garbled and falsified editions, in not less than three unauthorised reprints, it would really seem as if this first edition, which "died a borning," had been typical of the stormy path to which the work was predestined.

"I Gili Romaneskro," a gipsy ballad, was written both in the original and translation - that is to say, in the German gipsy and German English dialects - to cast a new light on the many-sided Bohemianism of Herr Breitmann.

The readers of more than one English newspaper will recall that the idea of representing Breitmann as an Uhlan, scouting over France, and frequently laying houses and even cities under heavy contribution, has occurred to very many of "Our Own." A spirited correspondent of the Telegraph, and others of literary fame, have familiarly referred to the Uhlan as Breitmann, indicating that the German-American free-lance has grown into a type; and more than one newspaper, antic.i.p.ating this volume, has published Anglo-German poems referring to Hans Breitmann and the Prussian-French war. In several pamphlets written in Anglo-German rhymes, which appeared in London in 1871, Breitmann was made the representative type of the war by both the friends and opponents of Prussia, while during February of the same year Hans figured at the same time, and on the same evenings for several weeks, on the stages of three London theatres. So many imitations of these poems were published, and so extensively and familiarly was Mr. Leland's hero spoken of as the exponent of the German cause, that it seemed to a writer at the time as if he had become "as regards Germany what John Bull and Brother Jonathan have long been to England and America." In connection with this remark, the following extract from a letter of the Special Correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph of August 29, 1870, may not be without interest: -

"The Prussian Uhlan of 1870 seems destined to fill in French legendary chronicle the place which, during the invasions of 1814 - 15, was occupied by the Cossack. He is a great traveller.

Nancy, Bar-le-Duc, Commercy, Rheims, Chalons, St. Dizier, Chaumont, have all heard of him. The Uhlan makes himself quite at home, and drops in, entirely in a friendly way, on mayors and corporations, asking not only himself to dinner, but an indefinite number of additional Uhlans, who, he says, may be expected hourly. The Uhlan wears a blue uniform turned up with yellow, and to the end of his lance is affixed a streamer intimately resembling a very dirty white pocket-handkerchief.

Sometimes he hunts in couples, sometimes he goes in threes, and sometimes in fives. When he lights upon a village, he holds it to ransom; when he comes upon a city, he captures it, making it literally the prisoner of his bow and his spear. A writer in Blackwood's Magazine once drove the people of Lancas.h.i.+re to madness by declaring that, in the Rebellion of 1745, Manchester 'was taken by a Scots sergeant and a wench;' but it is a notorious fact that Nancy submitted without a murmur to five Uhlans, and that Bar-le-Duc was occupied by two. When the Uhlan arrives in a conquered city, he visits the mayor, and makes his usual inordinate demands for meat, drink, and cigars. If his demands are acceded to, he accepts everything with a grin. If he is refused, he remarks, likewise with a grin, that he will come again to-morrow with three thousand light hors.e.m.e.n, and he gallops away; but in many cases he does not return. The secret of the fellow's success lies mainly in his unblus.h.i.+ng impudence, his easy mendacity, and that intimate knowledge of every highway and byway of the country which, thanks to the military organisation of the Prussian army, he has acquired in the regimental school. He gives himself out to be the precursor of an imminently advancing army, when, after all, he is only a boldly adventurous free-lance, who has ridden thirty miles across country on the chance of picking up something in the way of information or victuals. Only one more touch is needed to complete the portrait of the Uhlan. His veritable name would seem to be Hans Breitmann, and his vocation that of a 'b.u.mmer;'

and Breitmann, we learn from the preface to Mr. Leland's wonderful ballad, had a prototype in a regiment of Pennsylvanian cavalry by the name of Jost, whose proficiency in 'b.u.mming,'

otherwise 'looting,' in swearing, fighting, and drinking lager beer, raised him to a pitch of glory on the Federal side which excited at once the envy and the admiration of the boldest bush-whackers and the gauntest guerillas in the Confederate host."

The present edition embraces all the Breitmann poems which have as yet appeared; and the publisher trusts that in their collected form they will be found much more attractive than in scattered volumes. Many new lyrics, ill.u.s.trating the hero's travels in Europe, have been added, and these, it is believed, are not inferior to their predecessors.

N. TRUBNER.

The Breitmann Ballads.

HANS BREITMANN'S BARTY.

HANS BREITMANN gife a barty; Dey had biano-blayin', I felled in lofe mit a Merican frau, Her name vas Madilda Yane.

She hat haar as prown ash a pretzel, Her eyes vas himmel-plue, Und vhen dey looket indo mine, Dey shplit mine heart in dwo.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty, I vent dere you'll pe pound; I valtzet mit Matilda Yane, Und vent shpinnen' round und round.