Captain Mayne Reid: Soldier and Novelist.
Part I.—Biographical.
HE publication of a memoir of the late Capt. Mayne Reid by his widow, has aroused the interest of a new generation in the works of a gallant gentleman, whose novels, translated into many languages, gave universal pleasure; and the memory of whose brilliant military exploits, in the Mexican war of 1846-8, will ever be preserved by those who admire brave deeds. Three countries take especial pride in Mayne Reid. Ireland, the land of his birth; America, the country for which he fought, and in which the scenes of his chief novels were laid; and England, his home for thirty-four years, wherein his books were written.
The following sketch is indebted for several particulars to the excellent life of Mayne Reid, by Mrs. Reid, to whom acknowledgments are due for permitting the publication of the letters, and illustrations presented.
Lieut Mayne Reid, age 29.
Capt. Mayne Reid was born in April, 1818, at Ballyroney, in the north of Ireland. He was the eldest son of the Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid, Presbyterian minister, whom he was named after; his mother being the daughter of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford, a descendant of the "hot and hasty Rutherford," mentioned in Sir Walter Scott's poem "Marmion," which would account for Mayne Reid's fiery temperament. Though an impetuous youth with adventurous ideas, longing to travel and see the world, his father destined and educated him for the Church. At college he obtained fair distinction in mathematics, classics, and, as might be expected, athletics, but for theology he showed a marked distaste. With his characteristics and tastes, it is therefore not surprising to find that at the thoughtless age of twenty, full of golden dreams, but with apparently no decided purpose, he set out for Mexico, where he landed in 1838, and had experiences of the wild and riotous life which was then the distinguishing feature of New Orleans. Leaving the Crescent City he disappeared for a while to enjoy a backwoods existence, and for several years his life abounded in incidents, fully as romantic and exciting as those afterwards detailed as occurring to the heroes of his own works of fiction. In the companionship of trappers, he sojourned with Indians, and took part in their forays when they were a powerful and warlike race, and travel in their hunting grounds involved danger, for in those days "wild in woods, the noble savage ran" in, so to speak, his primal state, uncontaminated by the effacing influences of modern civilisation. The prairie was then Mayne Reid's home, the wild mustang his steed; buffaloes and "grizzlies" his game; his comrades redskins, each, in the words of Longfellow,
"Armed for hunting,
Dressed in deer-skin shirt and leggings,
Richly wrought with quills and wampum;
On his head his eagle feathers,
Round his waist his belt of wampum,
In his hand his bow of ashwood,
Strung with sinews of the reindeer;
In his quiver oaken arrows,
Tipped with jasper, winged with feathers."
His adventures with various tribes on the war-path or scalp-hunting have been recounted with unequalled dramatic force in those stirring novels, in which, as has been aptly observed, the romance is reality. Perilous enterprise and hair-breadth escapes were his daily lot, and with his strange and dangerous associates he made excursions up the Red River, and explored the banks of the Missouri and the Platte. Afterwards Mayne Reid penetrated every State in the Union. In those early years of his fight for life, besides being a hunter, and trader, he at different times was a store-keeper, nigger
