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[Transcriber's note: All footnotes moved to end of document.]




THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

       *       *       *       *       *

VOL. I.--APRIL, 1862.--No. IV.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE WAR BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN MISSOURI.


It is admitted that no man can write the history of his own times with
such fullness and impartiality as shall entitle his record to the
unquestioning credence and acceptance of posterity. Men are necessarily
actors in the scenes amid which they live. If not personally taking an
active part in the conduct of public affairs, they have friends who are,
and in whose success or failure their own welfare is in some way bound
up. The bias which interest always gives will necessarily attach to
their judgment of current events, and the leading actors by whom these
events are controlled. Cotemporaneous history, for this reason, will
always be found partisan history--not entitled to, and, if intelligently
and honestly written, not exacting, the implicit faith of those who
shall come after; but simply establishing that certain classes of
people, of whom the writer was one, acted under the conviction that they
owed certain duties to themselves and their country. It will be for the
future compiler of the world's history, who shall see the end of present
struggles, to determine the justice of the causes of controversy, and
the wisdom and honesty of the parties that acted adversely. To such
after judgment, with a full knowledge of present reproach as a partisan,
the writer of this article commends the brief sketch he will present of
the beginning and military treatment of the great Rebellion in the State
of Missouri. He will not attempt to make an episode of any part of this
history, because of the supposed vigor or brilliancy of the martial
deeds occurring in the time. Least of all would he take the 'Hundred
Days,' which another pen has chosen for special distinction, as
representing the period of heroism in that war-trampled State. Any
'hundred days' of the rebellion in Missouri have had their corresponding
_nights_; and no one can be bold enough yet to say that the day of
permanent triumph has dawned. Humiliation has alternated with success so
far; and the most stunning defeats of the war in the West marked the
beginning and the close of the hundred days named for honor. This fact
should teach modesty and caution. For while justice to men requires us
to admit that the greatest abilities do not always command success,
devotion to principle forbids that a noble cause should be obscured to
become the mere background of a scene in which an actor and popular idol
is the chief figure. It is with a consciousness of such partialities as
are common to men, but with an honest purpose, so far as the writer is
able, to subordinate men to principles, that this review of the origin
and chief incidents of the rebellion in Missouri is begun.

The close connection of the State of Missouri with the slavery agitation
that has now ripened into a rebellion against the government of the
United States, is a singular historical fact. The admission of the State
into the Union was the occasion of vitalizing the question of slavery
extension and fixing it as a permanent element in the politics of the
country. It has continued to be the theatre on which the most important
conflicts growing out of slavery extension have been decided. It will be
the first, in the hope and belief of millions, to throw off the fetters
of an obsolete institution, so long cramping its social and political
advancement, and to set an example to its sister slave-holding States of
the superior strength, beauty, and glory of Freedom.

The pro-slavery doctrines of John C. Calhoun, after having pervaded the
democracy of all the other slave-holding States, and obtained complete
possession of the national executive, legislative and judicial
departments, finally, in 1844, appeared also in the State of Missouri.
But it was in so minute and subtle a form as not to seem a sensible
heresy. Thomas H. Benton, the illustrious senator of the Jackson era,
was then, as he had been for twenty-four years, the political autocrat
of Missouri. He had long been convinced of the latent treason of the
Calhoun school of politicians. He was able to combat the schemes of the
Southern oligarchy composing and controlling the Cabinet of President
Polk; unsuccessfully, it is true, yet with but slight diminution of his
popularity at home. Nevertheless, the seeds of disunion had been borne
to his State; they had taken root; and, like all evil in life, they
proved self-perpetuating and ineradicable. In 1849 the Mexican war,
begun in the interest of the disunionists, had been closed. A vast
accession of territory had accrued to the Union. It was the plan and
purpose of the disunion party to appropriate and occupy this territory;
to organize it in their interests; and, finally, to admit it into the
Union as States, to add to their political power, and prepare for that
struggle between the principle of freedom and the principle of slavery
in the government, which Mr. Calhoun had taught was inevitable. But the
hostility of Benton in the Senate was dreaded by the Southern leaders
thus early conspiring against the integrity of the Union. The Missouri
senator seemed, of all cotemporaneous statesmen, to be the only one that
fully comprehended the incipient treason. His earnest opposition assumed
at times the phases of _monomania_. He sought to crush it in the egg. He
lifted his warning voice on all occasions. He inveighed bitterly against
the 'Nullifiers,' as he invariably characterized the Calhoun
politicians, declaring that their purpose was to destroy the Union. It
became necessary, therefore, before attempting to dispose of the
territories acquired from Mexico, to silence Benton, or remove him from
the Senate. Accordingly, when the legislature of Missouri met in 1849, a
series of resolutions was introduced, declaring that all territory
derived by the United States, in the treaty with Mexico, should be open
to settlement by the citizens of all the States in common; that the
question of allowing or prohibiting slavery in any territory could only
be decided by the people resident in the territory, and then only when
they came to organize themselves into a State government; and, lastly,
that if the general government should attempt to establish a rule other
than this for the settlement of the territories, the State of Missouri
would stand pledged to her sister Southern States to co-operate in
whatever measures of resistance or redress _they_ might deem necessary.
The resolutions distinctly abdicated all right of judgment on the part
of Missouri, and committed the State to a blind support of Southern
'Nullification' in a possible contingency. They were in flagrant
opposition to the life-long principles and daily vehement utterances of
Benton--as they were intended to be. Nevertheless, they were adopted;
and the senators of Missouri were instructed to conform their public
action to them. These resolutions were introduced by one Claiborne F.
Jackson, a member of the House of Representatives from the County of
Howard, one of the most democratic and largest slave-holding counties in
the State. The resolutions took the name of their mover, and are known
in the political history of Missouri as the 'Jackson resolutions.' And
Claiborne F. Jackson, who thus took the initiative in foisting treason
upon the statute-books of Missouri, is, to-day, by curious coincidence,
the official head of that State nominally in open revolt. But Jackson,
it was early ascertained, was not entitled to the doubtful honor of the
paternity of these resolutions. They had been matured in a private
chamber of the Capitol at Jefferson City, by two or three conspirators,
who received, it was asserted by Benton, and finally came to be
believed, the first draft of the resolutions from Washington, where the
disunion cabal, armed with federal power, had its headquarters.

Thus the bolt was launched at the Missouri senator, who, from his
prestige of Jacksonism, his robust patriotism, his indomitable will, and
his great abilities, was regarded as the most formidable if not the only
enemy standing in the way of meditated treason. It was not doubted that
the blow would be fatal. Benton was in one sense the father of the
doctrine of legislative instructions. In his persistent and famous
efforts to 'expunge' the resolutions of censure on Gen. Jackson that had
been placed in the Senate journal, Benton had found it necessary to
revolutionize the sentiments or change the composition of the Senate.
Whigs were representing democratic States, and Democrats refused to vote
for a resolution expunging any part of the record of the Senate's
proceedings. To meet and overcome this resistance, Benton introduced the
dogma that a senator was bound to obey the instructions of the
legislature of his State. He succeeded, by his great influence in his
party, and by the aid of the democratic administration, in having the
dogma adopted, and it became an accepted rule in the democratic party.
Resolutions were now invoked and obtained from State legislatures
instructing their senators to vote for the 'Expunging Resolutions,' or
resign. Some obeyed; some resigned. Benton carried his point; but it was
at the sacrifice of the spirit of that part of the Constitution which
gave to United States senators a term of six years, for the purpose of
protecting the Senate from frequent fluctuations of popular feeling, and
securing steadiness in legislation. Benton was the apostle of this
unwise and destructive innovation upon the constitutional tenure of
senators. He was doomed to be a conspicuous victim of his own error.
When the 'Jackson resolutions' were passed by the legislature of
Missouri, instructing Benton to endorse measures that led to
nullification and disunion, he saw the dilemma in which he was placed,
and did the best he could to extricate himself. He presented the
resolutions from his seat in the Senate; denounced their treasonable
character, and declared his purpose to appeal from the legislature to
the people of Missouri.

On the adjournment of Congress, Benton returned to Missouri and
commenced a canvass in vindication of his own cause, and in opposition
to the democratic majority of the legislature that passed the Jackson
resolutions, which has had few if any parallels in the history of the
government for heat and bitterness. The senator did not return to argue
and convert, but to fulminate and destroy. He appointed times and places
for public speaking in the most populous counties of the State, and
where the opposition to him had grown boldest. He allowed no 'division
of time' to opponents wishing to controvert the positions assumed in his
speeches. On the contrary, he treated every interruption, whether for
inquiry or retort, on the part of any one opposed to him, as an insult,
and proceeded to pour upon the head of the offender a torrent of
denunciation and abuse, unmeasured and appalling. The extraordinary
course adopted by Benton in urging his 'appeal,' excited astonishment
and indignation among the democratic partisans that had, in many cases,
thoughtlessly become arrayed against him.[A] They might have yielded to
expostulation; they were stung to resentment by unsparing vilification.
The rumor of Benton's manner preceded him through the State, after the
first signal manifestations of his ruthless spirit; and he was warned
not to appear at some of the appointments he had made, else his life
would pay the forfeit of his personal assaults. These threats only made
the Missouri lion more fierce and untamable. He filled all his
appointments, bearing everywhere the same front, often surrounded by
enraged enemies armed and thirsting for his blood, but ever denunciatory
and defiant, and returned to St. Louis, still boiling with inexhaustible
choler, to await the judgment of the State upon his appeal. He failed.
The pro-slavery sentiment of the people had been too thoroughly evoked
in the controversy, and too many valuable party leaders had been
needlessly driven from his support by unsparing invective. An artful and
apparently honest appeal to the right of legislative instructions,--an
enlargement of popular rights which Benton himself had conferred upon
them,--and--the unfailing weapon of Southern demagogues against their
opponents--the charge that Benton had joined the 'Abolitionists,' and
was seeking to betray 'the rights of the South,' worked the overthrow of
the hitherto invincible senator. The Whigs of Missouri, though agreeing
mainly with Benton in the principles involved in this contest, had
received nothing at his hands, throughout his long career, but defeat
and total exclusion from all offices and honors, State and National.
This class of politicians were too glad of the prospective division of
his party and the downfall of his power, to be willing to re-assert
their principles through a support of Benton. The loyal Union sentiments
of the State in this way failed to be united, and a majority was elected
to the legislature opposed to Benton. He was defeated of a re-election
to the Senate by Henry S. Geyer, a pro-slavery Whig, and supporter of
the Jackson resolutions, after having filled a seat in that august body
for a longer time consecutively than any other senator ever did. Thus
was removed from the halls of Congress the most sagacious and formidable
enemy that the disunion propagandists ever encountered. Their career in
Congress and in the control of the federal government was thenceforth
unchecked. The cords of loyalty in Missouri were snapped in Benton's
fall, and that State swung off into the strongly-sweeping current of
secessionism. The city of St. Louis remained firm a while, and returned
Benton twice to the House; but his energies were exhausted now in
defensive war; and the truculent and triumphant slave power dominating,
the State at last succeeded, through the coercion of commercial
interests, in defeating him even in the citadel of loyalty. He tried
once more to breast the tide that had borne down his fortunes. He became
a candidate for governor in 1856; but, though he disclaimed anti-slavery
sentiments, and supported James Buchanan for President against Fremont,
his son-in-law, he was defeated by Trusten Polk, who soon passed from
the gubernatorial chair to Benton's seat in the United States Senate,
from which he was, in course of time, to be expelled. Benton retired to
private life, only to labor more assiduously in compiling historical
evidences against the fast ripening treason of the times.

The Missouri senator was no longer in the way of the Southern oligarchs.
A shaft feathered by his own hands--the doctrine of instructions--had
slain him.

But yet another obstacle remained. The Missouri Compromise lifted a
barrier to the expansion of the Calhoun idea of free government, having
African slavery for its corner-stone. This obstacle was to be removed.
Missouri furnished the prompter and agent of that wrong in David E.
Atchison, for many years Benton's colleague in the Senate. Atchison was
a man of only moderate talents, of dogged purpose, willful, wholly
unscrupulous in the employment of the influences of his position, and
devoid of all the attributes and qualifications of statesmanship. He was
a fit representative of the pro-slavery fanaticism of his State; had
lived near the Kansas line; had looked upon and coveted the fair lands
of that free territory, and resolved that they should be the home and
appanage of slavery. It is now a part of admitted history, that this
dull but determined Missouri senator approached Judge Douglas, then
chairman of the Committee on Territories, and, by some incomprehensible
influence, induced that distinguished senator to commit the flagrant and
terrible blunder of reporting the Kansas-Nebraska bill, with a clause
repealing the Missouri Compromise, and thus throwing open Kansas to the
occupation of slavery. That error was grievously atoned for in the
subsequent hard fate of Judge Douglas, who was cast off and destroyed by
the cruel men he had served. Among the humiliations that preceded the
close of this political tragedy, none could have been more pungent to
Judge Douglas than the fact that Atchison, in a drunken harangue from
the tail of a cart in Western Missouri, surrounded by a mob of 'border
ruffians' rallying for fresh wrongs upon the free settlers of Kansas,
recited, in coarse glee and brutal triumph, the incidents of his
interview with the senator of Illinois, when, with mixed cajolery and
threats, he partly tempted, partly drove him to his ruin. The
Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed. What part Atchison took, what part
Missouri took, under the direction of the pro-slavery leaders that
filled every department of the State government, the 'border-ruffian'
forays, the pillage of the government arsenal at Liberty, the embargo of
the Missouri river, and the robbing and mobbing of peaceful emigrants
from the free States, the violence at the polls, and the fraudulent
voting that corrupted all the franchises of that afflicted territory, do
sufficiently attest. It is not needed to rehearse any of this painful
and well-known history.

The Territory of Kansas was saved to its prescriptive freedom. The
slavery propagandists sullenly withdrew and gave up the contest. The
last days of the dynasty that had meditated the conquest of the
continent to slave-holding government were evidently at hand. The result
of the struggle in Kansas had reversed the relation of the contesting
powers. The oligarchs, who had always before been aggressive, and
intended to subordinate the Union to slavery, or destroy it, found
themselves suddenly thrown on the defensive; and, with the quick
intelligence of a property interest, and the keen jealousy of class and
caste which their slave-holding had implanted, they saw that they were
engaged in an unequal struggle, that their sceptre was broken, and that,
if they continued to rule, it would have to be over the homogeneous half
of a dismembered Union. From this moment a severance of the Slave
States from the Free was resolved on, and every agency that could
operate on governments, State and National, was set to work. It was not
by accident that Virginia had procured the nomination of the facile
Buchanan for President in the Baltimore Convention of 1856; it was not
by accident that Floyd was made Secretary of War, or that, many months
before any outbreak of rebellion, this arch traitor had well-nigh
stripped the Northern arsenals of arms, and placed them where they would
be 'handy' for insurgents to seize. It was not by accident that John C.
Breckenridge headed the factionists that willfully divided and defeated
the National Democracy, that perchance could have elected Judge Douglas
President; nor was it by accident that Beriah Magoffin, a vain, weak
man, the creature, adjunct, and echo of Breckenridge, filled the office
of governor of Kentucky, nominated thereto by Breckenridge's personal
intercession. And lastly, to return to the special theatre of this
sketch, it was not by accident that Claiborne F. Jackson, the original
mover for Benton's destruction, was at this remarkable juncture found
occupying the governor's chair, with Thomas C. Reynolds for his
lieutenant governor, a native of South Carolina, an acknowledged
missionary of the nullification faith to a State that required to be
corrupted, and that he had, during his residence, zealously endeavored
to corrupt.

We have now reached the turning point in the history of Missouri. The
State is about to be plunged into the whirlpool of civil war.
Undisguised disunionists are in complete possession of the State
government, and the population is supposed to be ripe for revolt. Only
one spot in it, and that the city of St. Louis, is regarded as having
the slightest sympathy with the political sentiments of the Free States
of the Union. The State is surely counted for the 'South' in the
division that impends, for where is the heart in St. Louis bold enough,
or the hand strong enough, to resist the swelling tide of pro-slavery
fanaticism that was about to engulf the State? Years ago, when it was
but a ripple on the surface, it had overborne Benton, with all his fame
of thirty years' growth. What leader of slighter mold and lesser fame
could now resist the coming shock? In tracing the origin and growth of
rebellion in Missouri, it is interesting to gather up all the threads
that link the present with the past. It will preserve the unity of the
plot, and give effect to the last acts of the drama.

The first visible seam or cleft in the National Democratic party
occurred during the administration of President Polk, in the years
1844-48. Calhoun appeared as Polk's Secretary of State. Thomas Ritchie
was transferred from Richmond, Va., to Washington, to edit the
government organ, in place of Francis P. Blair, Sr. The Jackson _regime_
of unconditional and uncompromising devotion to the 'Federal Union' was
displaced, and the dubious doctrine of 'States' Rights' was formally
inaugurated as the chart by which in future the national government was
to be administered. But the Jackson element was not reconciled to this
radical change in the structure and purpose of the National Democratic
organization; and, although party lines were so tensely drawn that to go
against 'the Administration' was political treason, and secured
irrevocable banishment from power, the close of Polk's administration
found many old Democrats of the Jackson era ready for the sacrifice. The
firm resolve of these men was manifested when, after the nomination of
Gen. Cass, in 1848, in the usual form, at Baltimore, by the Democratic
National Convention, they assembled at Buffalo and presented a counter
ticket, headed by the name of Martin Van Buren, who had been thrust
aside four years previously by the Southern oligarchs to make way for
James K. Polk. The entire artillery of the Democratic party opened on
the Buffalo schismatics. They were stigmatized by such opprobrious
nicknames and epithets as 'Barnburners, 'Free Soilers,'
'Abolitionists,' and instantly and forever ex-communicated from the
Democratic party. In Missouri alone, of all the Slave States, was any
stand made in behalf of the Buffalo ticket. Benton's sympathies had been
with Van Buren, his old friend of the Jackson times; and Francis P.
Blair, Sr., of the _Globe_, had two sons, Montgomery Blair and Francis
P. Blair, Jr., resident in St. Louis. These two, with about a hundred
other young men of equal enthusiasm, organized themselves together,
accepted the 'Buffalo platform' as their future rule of faith, issued an
address to the people of Missouri, openly espousing and advocating free
soil-principles; and, by subscription among themselves, published a
campaign paper, styled the _Barnburner_, during the canvass. The result
at the polls was signal only for its insignificance; and the authors of
the movement hardly had credit for a respectable escapade. But the event
has proved that neither ridicule nor raillery, nor, in later years,
persecutions and the intolerable pressure of federal power, could turn
back the revolution thus feebly begun. In that campaign issue of the
_Barnburner_ were sown the seeds of what became, in later nomenclature,
the Free Democracy, and, later still, the 'Republican' party of
Missouri. The German population of St. Louis sympathized from the start
with the free principles enunciated. Frank Blair, Jr., became from that
year their political leader; right honestly did he earn the position;
and right well, even his political foes have always admitted, did he
maintain it.

Frank Blair was a disciple of Benton; yet, as is often the case, the
pupil soon learned to go far ahead of his teacher. In 1852, there was a
union of the Free Democrats and National Democrats of Missouri, in
support of Franklin Pierce. But the entire abandonment of Pierce's
administration to the rule of the Southern oligarchs sundered the
incongruous elements in Missouri forever. In 1856 Benton was found
supporting James Buchanan for President; but Blair declined to follow
his ancient leader in that direction. He organized the free-soil element
in St. Louis to oppose the Buchanan electoral ticket. An electoral
ticket in the State at large, for John C. Fremont, was neither possible
nor advisable. In some districts no man would dare be a candidate on
that side; in others, the full free-soil vote, from the utter
hopelessness of success, would not be polled; and thus the cause would
be made to appear weaker than it deserved. To meet the emergency, and
yet bear witness to principle, the free-soil vote was cast for the
Fillmore electoral ticket, 'under protest,' as it was called, the name
of 'John C. Fremont' being printed in large letters at the head of every
free-soil ballot cast. By this means the Buchanan electors were beaten
fifteen hundred votes in St. Louis City and County, where, by a union as
Benton proposed, they would have had three thousand majority. But the
'free-soilers' failed to defeat Buchanan in the State.

Nothing discouraged by this result, Blair resumed the work of organizing
for the future. The Fillmore party gave no thanks to the free-soilers
for their aid in the presidential election, nor did the latter ask any.
They had simply taken the choice of evils; and now, renouncing all
alliances, Blair became the champion and leader of a self-existing,
self-reliant State party, that should accomplish emancipation in
Missouri. He again established a newspaper to inculcate free principles
in the State. By untiring effort, he revived and recruited his party. He
gave it platforms, planned its campaigns, contested every election in
St. Louis, whether for municipal officers, for State legislature, or for
Congress; and always fought his battles on the most advanced ground
assumed by the growing free-soil party of the Union. The powerful and
rapidly-increasing German population of St. Louis responded nobly to his
zeal and skillful leadership. Soon a victory was gained; and St. Louis
declared for freedom, amid acclamations that reverberated throughout the
States that extended from the Ohio to the lakes, and from the
Mississippi to the Atlantic. But, having wrenched victory from a people
so intolerant as the pro-slavery population of Missouri, it was not to
be expected that he would retain it easily. He was set upon more
fiercely than ever. The loss of the city of St. Louis was considered a
disgrace to the State; and the most desperate personal malignity was
added to the resentment of pro-slavery wrath in the future election
contests in that city. The corrupting appliances of federal power were
at last invoked, under Buchanan's administration; and Blair was for the
moment overwhelmed by fraud, and thrown out of Congress. But, with a
resolution from which even his friends would have dissuaded him, and
with a persistency and confidence that were a marvel to friend and foe,
he contested his seat before Congress, and won it. And this verdict was
soon ratified by his brave and faithful constituency at the polls. Such
was the Republican party, such their leader in St. Louis, when the black
day of disunion came. And in their hands lay the destiny of the State.

As soon as the presidential election was decided, and the choice of
Abraham Lincoln was known, the disunionists in Missouri commenced their
work. Thomas C. Reynolds, the lieutenant-governor, made a visit to
Washington, and extended it to Virginia, counseling with the traitors,
and agreeing upon the time and manner of joining Missouri in the revolt.
The legislature of Missouri met in the latter part of December, about
two weeks after the secession of South Carolina. A bill was at once
introduced, calling a State convention, and passed. The message of
Claiborne F. Jackson, the governor, had been strongly in favor of
secession from the Union. The Missouri _Republican_, the leading
newspaper of the State, whose advocacy had elected the traitor,
declared, on the last day of the year, that unless guaranties in defence
of slavery were immediately given by the North, Missouri should secede
from the Union. And so the secession feeling gathered boldness and
volume.

Candidates for the State convention came to be nominated in St. Louis,
and two parties were at once arrayed--the unconditional Union party, and
the qualified Unionists, who wished new compromises. Frank Blair was one
of the leaders of the former, and he was joined by all the true men of
the old parties. But the secessionists--they might as well be so called,
for all their actions tended to weaken and discredit the
Union--nominated an able ticket. The latter party were soon conscious of
defeat, and began to hint mysteriously at a power stronger than the
ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of 'Southern rights.' To
many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat. Not so to
Frank Blair. He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the
latter in the settled purpose of the 'nullifiers' to subvert and destroy
the government. And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union
party, on an ever-memorable evening in the month of January, he startled
the company by the proposition that the time had come when the friends
of the government must arm in its defence. With a deference to his
judgment and sagacity that had become habitual, the Unionists yielded
their consent, and soon the enrolment of companies began; nightly drills
with arms took place in nearly all the wards of the city; and by the
time of election day some thousands of citizen soldiers, mostly Germans,
could have been gathered, with arms in their hands, with the quickness
of fire signals at night, at any point in the city. The secessionists
had preceded this armed movement of the Union men by the organization of
a body known as 'minute-men.' But the promptness and superior skill that
characterized Frank Blair's movement subverted the secession scheme; and
it was first repudiated, and then its existence denied. The day of
election came, and passed peacefully. The unconditional Union ticket was
elected by a sweeping majority of five thousand votes. The result
throughout the State was not less decisive and surprising. Of the entire
number of delegates composing the convention, not one was chosen who had
dared to express secession sentiments before the people; and the
aggregate majority of the Union candidates in the State amounted to
about eighty thousand. The shock of this defeat for the moment paralyzed
the conspirators; but their evil inspirations soon put them to work
again. Their organs in Missouri assumed an unfriendly tone towards the
convention, which was to meet in Jefferson City. The legislature that
had called the convention remained in session in the same place, but
made no fit preparations for the assembling of the convention, or for
the accommodation and pay of the members. The debate in the legislature
on the bill for appropriations for these purposes was insulting to the
convention, the more ill-tempered and ill-bred secession members
intimating that such a body of 'submissionists' were unworthy to
represent Missouri, and undeserving of any pay. The manifest ill feeling
between the two bodies--the legislature elected eighteen months
previously, and without popular reference to the question of secession,
and the convention chosen fresh from the people, to decide on the course
of the State--soon indicated the infelicity of the two remaining in
session at the same time and in the same place. Accordingly, within a
few days after the organization of the convention, it adjourned its
session to the city of St. Louis. It did not meet a cordial reception
there. So insolent had the secession spirit already grown, that on the
day of the assembling of the convention in that city, the members were
insulted by taunts in the streets and by the ostentatious floating of
the rebel flag from the Democratic head-quarters, hard by the building
in which they assembled.

Being left in the undisputed occupancy of the seat of government, the
governor, lieutenant-governor, and legislature gave themselves up to the
enactment of flagrant and undisguised measures of hostility to the
federal government. Commissioners from States that had renounced the
Constitution, and withdrawn, as they claimed, from the Union, arrived at
Jefferson City as apostles of treason. They were received as
distinguished and honorable ambassadors. A joint session of the
legislature was called to hear their communications. The
lieutenant-governor, Reynolds, being the presiding officer of the joint
session, required that the members should rise when these traitors
entered, and receive them standing and uncovered. The commissioners were
allowed to harangue the representatives of Missouri, by the hour, in
unmeasured abuse of the federal government, in open rejoicings over its
supposed dissolution, and in urgent appeals to the people of Missouri to
join the rebel States in their consummated treason. Noisy demonstrations
of applause greeted these commissioners; and legislators, and the
governor himself, in a public speech in front of the executive mansion,
pledged them that Missouri would shortly be found ranged on the side of
seceded States. The treason of the governor and legislature did not stop
with these manifestations. They proceeded to acts of legislation,
preparatory to the employment of force, after the manner of their
'Southern bretheren.' First, it was necessary to get control of the city
of St. Louis. The Republican party held the government of the city,
mayor, council, and police force--a formidable Union organization. The
legislature passed a bill repealing that part of the city charter that,
gave to the mayor the appointment of the police, and constituting a
board of police commissioners, to be appointed by the governor, who
should exercise that power. He named men that suited his purposes. The
Union police were discharged, and their places filled by secessionists.
Next, the State militia was to be organized in the interests of
rebellion, and a law was passed to accomplish that end. The State was
set off into divisions; military camps were to be established in each;
all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and fifty were liable
to be called into camp and drilled a given number of days in the year;
and, when summoned to duty, instead of taking the usual oath to support
the Constitution of the United States, they were required only to be
sworn 'to obey the orders of the governor of the State of Missouri.'
These camps were styled camps of instruction. One of them was
established at St. Louis, within the corporate limits of the city, about
two miles west of the court-house, on a commanding eminence.

Thus the lines began to be drawn closely around the Unionists of St.
Louis. The State convention had adjourned, and its members had gone
home, having done but little to re-assure the loyalists. They had,
indeed, passed an ordinance declaring that Missouri would adhere to the
Union; but the majority of the members had betrayed such hesitancy and
indecision, such a lack of stomach to grapple with the rude issues of
the rebellion, that their action passed almost without moral effect.
Their ordinance was treated with contempt by the secessionists, and
nearly lost sight of by the people; so thoroughly were all classes
lashed into excitement by the storm of revolution now blackening the
whole Southern Hemisphere.

The friends of the Union could look to but one quarter for aid, that was
Washington, where a new administration had so recently been installed,
amid difficulties that seemed to have paralyzed its power. The
government had been defied by the rebellion at every point; its ships
driven by hostile guns from Southern ports; its treasures seized; its
arsenals occupied, and its abundant arms and munitions appropriated.
Nowhere had the federal arm resented insult and robbery with a blow.
This had not been the fault of the government that was inaugurated on
the fourth of March. It was the fruit of the official treason of the
preceding administration, that had completely disarmed the government,
and filled the new executive councils with confusion, by the numberless
knaves it had placed in all departments of the public service, whose
daily desertions of duty rendered the prompt and honest execution of the
laws impossible. But the fact was indisputable; and how could St. Louis
hope for protection that had nowhere else been afforded? The national
government had an arsenal within the city limits. It comprised a
considerable area of ground, was surrounded by a high and heavy stone
wall, and supplied with valuable arms. But so far from this
establishment being a protection to the loyal population, it seemed more
likely, judging by what had occurred in other States, that it would
serve as a temptation to the secession mob that was evidently gathering
head for mischief, and that the desire to take it would precipitate the
outbreak. The Unionists felt their danger; the rebels saw their
opportunity. Already the latter were boasting that they would in a short
time occupy this post, and not a few of the prominent Union citizens of
the town were warned by secession leaders that they would soon be set
across the Mississippi river, exiles from their homes forever. As an
instance of the audacity of the rebel element at this time, and for
weeks later, the fact is mentioned that the United States soldiers, who
paced before the gates of the arsenal as sentinels on duty, had their
beats defined for them by the new secession police, and were forbidden
to invade the sacred precincts of the city's highway. The arsenal was
unquestionably devoted to capture, and it would have been a prize to the
rebels second in value to the Gosport navy-yard. It contained at this
time sixty-six thousand stand of small arms, several batteries of light
artillery and heavy ordnance, and at least one million dollars' worth of
ammunition. It was besides supplied with extensive and valuable
machinery for repairing guns, rifling barrels, mounting artillery, and
preparing shot and shell. The future, to the Union men of St. Louis,
looked gloomy enough; persecution, and, if they resisted, death, seemed
imminent; and no voice from abroad reached them, giving them good cheer.
But deliverance was nigh at hand.

About the middle of January, Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, of the Second
Infantry, U.S.A., arrived in St. Louis with his company; and his rank
gave him command of all the troops then at the arsenal and Jefferson
Barracks, a post on the river, ten miles below, the department being
under the command of Brigadier General Harney. Capt. Lyon had been
garrisoning a fort in Kansas. He was known to some of the Union men of
St. Louis; and his resolute spirit and devoted patriotism marked him as
their leader in this crisis. Frank Blair at once put himself in
communication with Capt. Lyon, and advised him fully and minutely as to
the political situation. He exposed to him the existence of his
volunteer military organization. At his request Capt. Lyon visited and
reviewed the regiments; and it was arranged between them that if an
outbreak should occur, or any attempt be made to seize the arsenal,
Capt. Lyon should receive this volunteer force to his assistance, arm it
from the arsenal, and take command for the emergency. It should be
known, however, to the greater credit of the Union leaders of St. Louis,
that they had already, from private funds, procured about one thousand
stand of arms, with which their nightly drills, as heretofore stated,
had been conducted. As soon as Capt. Lyon's connection with this
organization was suspected, an attempt was made to have him removed, by
ordering him to Kansas on the pretext of a court of inquiry; but this
attempt was defeated. Thus matters stood for a time, the Union men
beginning to be reassured, but still doubtful of the end. After a while,
Fort Sumter was opened upon, and fell under its furious bombardment. The
torch of war was lit. President Lincoln issued his proclamation for
volunteers. Gov. Jackson telegraphed back an insolent and defiant
refusal, in which he denounced the 'war waged by the federal government'
as 'inhuman and diabolical.' Frank Blair instantly followed this
traitorous governor's dispatch by another, addressed to the Secretary of
War, asking him to accept and muster into service the volunteer
regiments he had been forming. This offer was accepted, and the men
presented themselves. But Brig. Gen. Harney, fearing that the arming of
these troops would exasperate the secession populace, and bring about a
collision with the State militia, refused to permit the men to be
mustered into service and armed. This extraordinary decision was
immediately telegraphed to the government, and Gen. Harney was relieved,
leaving Capt. Lyon in full command. This was the 23d of April. In a week
four full regiments were mustered in, and occupied the arsenal. A
memorial was prepared and sent to Washington by Frank Blair, now colonel
of the first of these regiments, asking for the enrolment of five other
regiments of Home Guards. Permission was given, and in another week
these regiments also were organized and armed. The conflict was now at
hand. Simultaneously with this arming on the part of the government for
the protection of the arsenal, the order went forth for the assembling
of the State troops in their camps of instruction. On Monday, the 6th of
May, the First Brigade of Missouri militia, under Gen. D.M. Frost, was
ordered by Gov. Jackson into camp at St. Louis, avowedly for purposes of
drill and exercise. At the same time encampments were formed, by order
of the governor, in other parts of the State. The governor's adherents
in St. Louis intimated that the time for taking the arsenal had arrived,
and the indiscreet young men who made up the First Brigade openly
declared that they only awaited an order from Gov. Jackson--an order
which they evidently had been led to expect--to attack the arsenal and
possess it, in spite of the feeble opposition they calculated to meet
from 'the Dutch' Home Guards enlisted to defend it. A few days
previously, an agent of the governor had purchased at St. Louis several
hundred kegs of gun-powder, and succeeded, by an adroit stratagem, in
shipping it to Jefferson City. The encampment at St. Louis, 'Camp
Jackson,' so called from the governor, was laid off by streets, to which
were assigned the names 'Rue de Beauregard,' and others similarly
significant; and when among the visitors whom curiosity soon began to
bring to the camp a 'Black Republican' was discovered by the
soldiers,--and this epithet was applied to all unconditional
Unionists,--he was treated with unmistakable coldness, if not positive
insult. If additional proof of the hostile designs entertained against
the federal authority by this camp were needed, it was furnished on
Thursday, the 9th, by the reception within the camp of several pieces of
cannon, and several hundred stand of small arms, taken from the federal
arsenal at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was then in the possession of
the rebels. These arms were brought to St. Louis by the steamboat _J.C.
Swon_, the military authorities at Cairo having been deceived by the
packages, which were represented to contain marble slabs. On the arrival
of the _Swon_ at the St. Louis levee, the arms were taken from her, sent
to Camp Jackson, and received there with demonstrations of triumph.

When Capt. Lyon was entrusted with full command at St. Louis, President
Lincoln had named, in his orders to him, a commission of six loyal and
discreet citizens with whom he should consult in matters pertaining to
the public safety, and with whose counsel he might declare martial law.
These citizens were John How, Samuel T. Glover, O.D. Filley, Jean J.
Witsig, James O. Broadhead, and Col. Frank P. Blair. The last
mentioned--Colonel Blair--was Capt. Lyon's confidential and constant
companion. They were comrades in arms, and a unit in counsel. Their
views were in full accord as to the necessity of immediately reducing
Camp Jackson. Defiance was daily passing between the marshalling hosts,
not face to face, but through dubious partisans who passed from camp to
camp, flitting like the bats of fable in the confines of conflict. Capt.
Lyon's decision, urged thereto by Col. Blair, was made without calling a
council of the rest of his advisers. They heard of it, however, and,
though brave and loyal men all, they gathered around him in his quarters
at the arsenal, Thursday evening, and besought him earnestly to change
his purpose. The conference was protracted the livelong night, and did
not close till six o'clock, Friday morning, the 10th. They found Capt.
Lyon inexorable,--the fate of Camp Jackson was decreed. Col. Blair's
regiment was at Jefferson Barracks, ten miles below the arsenal, at that
hour. It was ordered up; and about noon on that memorable Friday, Capt.
Lyon quietly left the arsenal gate at the head of six thousand troops,
of whom four hundred and fifty were regulars, the remainder United
States Reserve Corps or Home Guards, marched in two columns to Camp
Jackson, and before the State troops could recover from the amazement
into which the appearance of the advancing army threw them, surrounded
the camp, planting his batteries upon the elevations around, at a
distance of five hundred yards, and stationing his infantry in the roads
leading from the grove wherein their tents were pitched. The State
troops were taken completely by surprise; for, although there had been
vague reports current in camp of an intended attack from the arsenal,
the cry of the visitors at the grove, 'They're coming!' 'They're
coming!' raised just as the first column appeared in sight, found them
strolling leisurely under the trees, chatting with their friends from
the city, or stretched upon the thick green grass, smoking and reading.

       *       *       *       *       *

BEAUFORT DISTRICT,--PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.


The sovereign State of South Carolina seems from the beginning to have
been actuated by the desire not only to mold its institutions according
to a system differing entirely from that of its sister States, but even
to divide its territory in a peculiar manner, for which reason we find
in it 'districts' taking the place of counties. The south-west of these
bears the name of its principal town, 'Beaufort.' It is bounded on the
west by the Savannah River, and on the south by the Atlantic. Its length
from north to south is fifty-eight miles, its breadth thirty-three
miles, and it contains about one and a quarter millions of acres of land
and water. Considered geologically, Beaufort is one of the most
remarkable sections of the United States. As recent events have brought
it so prominently before us, we propose to consider its history,
capacities, and prospects.

From its proximity to the Spanish settlements in the peninsula of
Florida, its beautiful harbors and sounds were early explored and taken
possession of by the Spaniards. It is now certain they had established a
post here called 'Fort St. Phillip,' at St. Elena,[B] as early as
1566-7; this was probably situated on the south-western point of St.
Helena Island, and some remains of its entrenchment can still be traced.
From this fort Juan Pardo, its founder, proceeded on an expedition to
the north-west, and explored a considerable part of the present States
of South Carolina and Georgia.

How long the Spaniards remained here is now uncertain, but they long
claimed all this coast as far north as Cape Fear. The French planted a
colony in South Carolina, and gave the name Port Royal to the harbor and
what is now called Broad River; but they were driven off by the
Spaniards, and history is silent as to any incidents of their rule for a
century. In 1670 a few emigrants arrived in a ship commanded by Capt.
Hilton, and landed at what is now known as 'Hilton's Head,' the
south-western point of Port Royal harbor, which still perpetuates his
name. The colony was under the management of Col. Sayle; but the
Spaniards at St. Augustine still claimed the domains, and the settlers,
fearing an attack, soon removed to the site of Old Charleston, on Ashley
River. In 1682, Lord Cardoss led a small band from Scotland hither,
which settled on Port Royal Island, near the present site of Beaufort.
He claimed co-ordinate authority with the governor and council at
Charleston. During the discussion of this point the Spaniards sent an
armed force and dislodged the English, most of whom returned to their
native country. A permanent settlement was finally made on Port Royal
Island in 1700. The town of Beaufort was laid out in 1717, and an
Episcopal church erected in 1720. The name was given from a town in
Anjou, France, the birthplace of several of the Huguenot settlers.

For many years the Spaniards threatened the coast as far north as
Charleston, but the settlement increased, and extended over St. Helena
and other islands. Slavery was here coeval with settlement, and the
peculiar institution was so earnestly fostered, that in 1724 it was
estimated that South Carolina contained 18,000 slaves to only 14,000
whites. The slaves were mostly natives of Africa of recent importation,
and were poorly adapted to clear up the forests and prepare the way for
extensive plantations, but their cost was small, and every year they
improved in capacity and value. In the succeeding half century were laid
the fortunes of the prominent families who have controlled the district,
and often greater interests, to our day. Grants of land could be had
almost for the asking, especially by men of influence; and fertile
islands were given, containing hundreds and sometimes thousands of
acres, to a single family, who have here been monarchs of all they
survey, including hundreds of slaves, till _the Hegira_ or _flight_ A.D.
1861.

When we take into account the salubrity of the climate and the fertility
of the soil, we must allow that this district has many natural
advantages which can not be excelled by any section of the same extent
in this country. A considerable part of the district is composed of
islands, which are supposed to be of a comparatively recent formation,
many of them beautiful to the eye, and rich in agricultural facilities;
they are in number upwards of fifty, not less than thirty of them being
of large size. Upon the sea-coast are Reynolds, Prentice, Chaplins,
Eddings, Hilton Head, Dawfuskie, Turtle, and the Hunting Islands. Behind
these lie St. Helena, Pinckney, Paris, Port Royal, Ladies', Cane,
Bermuda, Discane, Bells, Daltha, Coosa, Morgan, Chissolm, Williams
Harbor, Kings, Cahoussue, Fording, Barnwell, Whale, Delos, Hall, Lemon,
Barrataria, Lopes, Hoy, Savage, Long, Round, and Jones Islands. These
are from one to ten miles in length, and usually a proportional half in
width. St. Helena is over twenty miles in extent, and could well support
an agricultural population of twenty thousand. Port Royal is next in
size, but, being of a more sandy formation, is not so fertile. These
islands are all of an alluvial formation,--the result of the action of
the rivers and the sea. There is no rock of any kind, not even a pebble
stone, to be found in the whole district.

The soil of these islands is composed mostly of a fine sandy loam, very
easily cultivated. In most of them are swamps and marshes, which serve
to furnish muck and other vegetable deposits for fertilizing; but the
idea of furnishing anything to aid the long over-worked soil seems to
these proprietors like returning to the slave some of the earnings taken
from him or his ancestors, and is seldom done till nature is at last
exhausted, and then it is allowed only a few years' repose. Situated
under the parallel of 32°, there is scarcely a product grown in our
country, of any value, that can not be produced here. Previous to the
Revolution the principal staple for market was indigo, and that raised
in this district always commanded the highest price. It was from the
proceeds of this plant that the planters were enabled for a long period
to purchase slaves and European and northern American productions. Soon
after the Revolution their attention was turned to cotton; but the
difficulty of separating it from the seed seemed to make it impossible
to furnish it in any profitable quantity, for so slow was the process
then followed that, with the utmost diligence, a negro could not, by
hand labor, clean over a few pounds per day. The genius of Whitney,
however, opened a new era to the cotton planters, who were much more
eager to avail themselves of his invention than to remunerate him. It
was soon perceived that the cotton raised on these islands was far
superior to that produced in the interior, which is still called Upland,
only to distinguish it from the 'Sea Island.' It was also noticed that
while the common variety produced a seed nearly green with a rough skin,
the seed of the islands soon became black with a smooth skin; the effect
entirely of location and climate, as it soon resumes its original color
when transported back to the interior. The cultivation of this variety
is limited to a tract of country of about one hundred and fifty miles in
length, and not over twenty-five miles in breadth, mostly on lands
adjacent to the salt water, the finest 'grades' being confined to the
islands within this district. It is true that black-seed cotton is
cultivated to some extent along the coast from Georgetown, S.C., to St.
Augustine, but a great part of it is of an inferior quality and staple,
and brings in the market less than one-half the price of the real 'Sea
Island.' This plant seems to delight in the soft and elastic atmosphere
from the Gulf Stream, and, after it is 'well up,' requires but a few
showers through the long summer to perfect it. It is of feeble growth,
particularly on the worn-out lands, and two hundred pounds is a good
yield from an acre. An active hand can tend four acres, besides an acre
of corn and 'ground provisions;' but with a moderate addition of
fertilizers and rotation of crops no doubt these productions would be
doubled. If the yield seems small, the price, however, makes it one of
the most profitable products known. The usual quotations for choice Sea
Islands in Charleston market has been for many years about four times as
great as for the middling qualities of Uplands,--probably an average of
from thirty-five to forty-five cents per pound; and for particular
brands[C] sixty to seventy cents is often paid. The writer has seen a
few bales, of a most beautiful color and length of staple, which sold
for eighty cents, when middling Uplands brought but ten cents per pound.
It is mostly shipped to France, where it is used for manufacturing the
finest laces, and contributes largely to the texture of fancy silks,
particularly the cheaper kinds for the American market. After passing
above the flow of the salt water, but within the rise of the tide, there
is a wide alluvial range along the rivers and creeks, which, by a system
of embankments, can be flowed or drained at pleasure. This is cultivated
with rice, and, if properly cared for, yields enormous crops, sometimes
of sixty bushels to an acre. The land is composed of a mass of muck,
often ten feet deep and inexhaustible, and never suffers from drought.
This land is very valuable, one hundred dollars often being paid per
acre for large plantations. Much rice land, however, remains uncleared
for want of the enterprise and perseverance necessary to its
improvement.

Farther in the interior the land is principally of a sandy formation,
most of it underlaid with clay. Very little effort is, however, made by
planters to cultivate it, although it is very easily worked, and with a
little manuring yields fair crops of corn and sweet potatoes. The cereal
grains are seldom cultivated, but no doubt they would yield well. A
large portion of the main-land is composed of swamps, of which only
enough have been reclaimed to make it certain that here is a mine of
wealth to those gifted with the energy to improve it. The soil is as
fertile as the banks of the Nile, and nowhere could agricultural
enterprise meet with such certainly profitable returns. Recurring again
to the agricultural capacity of the islands, it is certain that good
crops of sugar-cane can be grown on them. During the war of 1812, the
planters turned their attention to it, and succeeded well, since which
time many of them have continued to plant enough for their own use; but
this plant soon exhausts such a soil, unless some fertilizer is used,
and they therefore prefer cotton, which draws a large part of its
sustenance from the atmosphere alone. The sweet and wild orange grows
here, and some extensive groves are to be seen. Figs are produced in
abundance from September till Christmas. Gardens furnish abundant
vegetables, yielding green peas in March and Irish potatoes in May,
while numerous tribes of beautiful flowers hold high carnival for more
than half the year.

This seems to be the true home of the rose, which is found blooming from
March until Christmas. Many of the rare climbing varieties of this
flower, which we see at the North only as small specimens in
green-houses, grow here in wild profusion. The grape is represented by
many species indigenous to this State alone, and could, no doubt, be
cultivated and produced in greater variety and perfection than elsewhere
on this continent, as the climate is more equable. A species of Indian
corn, called 'white flint corn,' and which when cooked is very
nutritious and white as snow, seems indigenous to these islands. It is
much superior to the common varieties.

Of the sylva we will only say, it is equal in value and variety to that
of any section of our country. Here is the home of the palmetto[D] or
cabbage tree, the only palm in our wide country. The live oak, once so
abundant, has, however, been largely cut off, mostly to supply our
navy-yards, and some of the ships built from it are now blockading the
very harbors from which it was carried. The pitch pine is the common
growth of the interior, and under a new system would form a valuable
article of commerce as lumber, and as yielding the _now_ so much
required turpentine. Of wild animals and birds, here are to be found a
large variety. The Hunting Islands and others are well stocked with
deer. During the winter wild, geese and ducks abound, and a variety of
fish, with fine oysters, can be had at all seasons.

We now come to consider the present inhabitants of this district. The
whites are almost entirely the descendants of the earliest settlers of
this State, who were English,[E] Scotch, and Protestant Irish, with a
slight infusion of the Huguenot and Swiss elements. A century and a half
has rendered them homogeneous. As there has never been any interest here
other than agriculture, and as every man may be said to own the
plantation he cultivates, there has been as little change of property or
condition as possible, and therefore the same land and system of
cultivation has passed from father to son through four or five
generations. Had there been any emigration or change of population, some
alterations, and most likely new enterprise and vigor, would have been
infused, and more modern and national feeling have been instituted for
their narrow and sectional prejudices. No doubt our national character
has been much influenced by the division of land. Where this has been
nearly equal, as in our New England towns, a republican form of
government has been almost a necessity. But at the South an entirely
different arrangement has prevailed. Land was at first distributed in
large bodies fitted to accommodate a state of slavery; and the
consequence was that a feudal system was inaugurated from the
settlement, which has continued with increasing power. This has been one
of the permanent causes of Southern pride and exclusiveness.

The inhabitants of South Carolina and Virginia previous to the
Revolution were very supercilious towards the North, and even to their
less opulent neighbors of Georgia and North Carolina; a feeling which
was often the cause of much antagonism among the officers and soldiers
during the war. Charleston and Williamsburg gave the tone to good
society, and it was haughty and aristocratic in the extreme. While
Virginia has for the last half century been in a state of comparative
decay, South Carolina has, by its culture of cotton and rice, just been
able to hold its own; but the pride and exclusiveness of its people have
increased much faster than its material interests. Although the
Constitution of the United States guarantees to every State a republican
form of government, no thinking person who has resided for a single week
within the limits of South Carolina can have failed to see and feel
that a tyranny equal to that of Austria exists there. The freedom of
opinion and its expression were not permitted. Strangers were always
under espionage, and public opinion, controlled by an oligarchy of
slave-holders, overruled laws and private rights. Nowhere, even in South
Carolina, was this feeling of _hauteur_ so strong as in that portion of
the State which we are describing. On the large plantations the owners
ruled with power unlimited over life and property, and could a faithful
record be found it would prove one of vindictive oppression, productive
oftentimes of misery and bloodshed. Most of the wealthier planters in
the district have residences at Beaufort, to which they remove during
the summer months to escape the malaria arising from the soil around
their inland houses. This place may be considered the home of the
aristocracy. Here reside the Barnwells,[F] Heywards, Rhetts[G](formerly
called Smiths,) Stuarts, Means, Sams, Fullers,[H] Elliots,[I] Draytons
and others, altogether numbering about fifty families, but bearing not
more than twenty different names, who rule and control the country for
forty miles around. This is the most complete and exclusive approach to
'nobility' of blood and feeling on our continent. Nowhere else is family
pride carried to such an extent. They look with supercilious disdain on
every useful employment, save only the planting of cotton and rice.
Nothing in any of our large cities can equal the display of equipages,
with their profusion of servants in livery, exhibited on pleasant
afternoons, when the mothers and daughters of these cotton lords take
their accustomed airing. So powerfully has this feeling of exclusiveness
prevailed that no son or daughter dares marry out of their circle. For a
long series of years has this custom prevailed, and the consequence is
that the families above named are nearly of a common blood; and it needs
no physiologist to tell us the invariable effect arising from this
transgression of natural laws, on the physical and mental faculties of
both sexes. In such a state of society is it strange that the present
generation should have grown up with ideas better suited to the castes
of India than to those of republican America? As a consequence they
consider their condition more elevated than that of their neighbors in
the adjoining States, and of almost imperial consideration. But no
language can express their bitter contempt for the people of the North,
more particularly for those of New England birth.

In perusing the history and progress of any portion of our country, the
statistics of population become an interesting study. Let us glance over
a brief table, showing what the increase has been in this district for
the past forty years, and its miserable deficiency in physical means of
strength and defense. In 1820 the district contained 32,000 souls, of
which there were 4,679 whites and 27,339 slaves, and 141 free blacks. In
1860 there were 6,714 whites and 32,500 slaves, and 800 free blacks,
making a total of 40,014,--an increase of whites of 2,035, of slaves
5,161, of free blacks 650:--total increase 7,855 in forty years. Here we
have nearly the largest disproportion of whites to slaves in any part of
the South. Of the 6,714 whites, about 1,000 are probably men over
twenty-one years of age, and it is not to be presumed that an equal
number are capable of bearing arms. Is it possible to find anywhere a
community more helpless for its own protection or defense? It is one of
the truths of science and philosophy that nature, when forced beyond its
own powers and laws, will react, and again restore its own supremacy. So
we here find a magnificent space of country, rich in all natural
requisites, and unsurpassed in its capabilities of producing not only
the necessaries of life, but its luxuries, having an exclusive right to
some of the most valuable staples of the world, which has been for a
century and a half the abode of an imperious few, who have, by
tyrannical power, wrung from the bones and muscles of generations of
poor Africans the means to sustain their luxury, power, and pride. They
have also robbed from the mother earth the fertility of its soil to its
utmost extent, leaving much of it completely exhausted. This state of
things has reacted on them; it has made them proud, domineering,
ambitious, and revengeful of fancied injuries. It has hurried them into
rebellion against the best government the world ever saw,--and this has
at last brought with it its own punishment and retribution. It has
placed their soil, their mansions, their crops and poor slaves in the
possession of the hated men of the North, and under the laws and control
of the government they affected to despise. When the last gun had
sounded from the ramparts at Port Royal, and the Stars and Stripes again
resumed their supremacy on the soil of South Carolina, a new era dawned
over these beautiful islands and waters, and the day that witnessed the
retreat of the rebel forces should hereafter mark, like the flight of
Mahomet, the inauguration of a new dispensation for this land and its
people. Let us, therefore, in continuing our chronicles, cast the
horoscope, and, without claiming any spirit of prophecy, show the duties
of our nation in this contingency, and the beneficial results that must
flow from it, if carried out with the energy, perseverance, and
practical Christianity due to our country and the age in which we live.

The accession to any government of new territory brings with it new
duties, which it is always important should be performed with energy and
decision, so that the greatest good, to the greatest number, may be the
result. A good Providence has placed the domain under consideration in
our possession. Its political condition is to us unique, and almost
embarrassing. If the question is asked, 'Can we hold and dispose of a
part, or whole, of a sovereign State as a conquered province?' the
answer must be in the affirmative. Government is supreme, and must be
exercised, particularly to protect the weak, and for the general good of
the whole nation. Here is a region, as fair as the sun shines upon, now
in a great measure deserted and lying waste. What is to be done with it?
and what is our duty in this exigency? The first want is a government,
for without a proper one no progress can be made. Let Congress then at
once establish a territorial government over so much of the State as we
now have in our possession, and over what we may in future obtain;--not
a government to exhibit pomp, and show, but one practical and useful,
with a court and its proper officers. Let every large unrepresented
estate be placed in the hands of a temporary administrator, who should
be a practical and honest man, and held to a strict account for all
properties entrusted to his keeping, and who should act also as guardian
to the slaves belonging to the estate. Then enforce the collection of a
tax; and if the owner comes forward within sixty days, pays the tax,
takes the oath of allegiance, and agrees to remain in the territory and
assist in enforcing and executing the laws, during that and the
succeeding year, let him resume his property, and be protected in all
his rights. But in default of any loyal response from the proprietor,
the property should be disposed of, in moderate quantities, to actual
settlers, who should be bound to do duty for its defense, whenever
called upon.

But then comes the great difficulty, the disposition of the slaves,--the
great question which has so long been discussed as a theory, and which
now has to be met as a practical measure. Let us meet it as men and
patriots, and, rising above the clamor of fanatics, or the proclamations
of new-fangled and demagoguing brigadiers, look at the permanent result
to our whole country, and the real good of the African race.

Humanity, society, and property, all have claims and acknowledged
rights; let them all be considered. It is well known that the slaves on
these islands have always been kept in a state of greater ignorance of
the world and all practical matters than those inhabiting the border
States, or where there is a larger proportion of whites, with whom they
often labor and associate. To emancipate them at once would be to do a
great wrong to the white man, to the property, in whatever hands it
might be, and a still greater injury to the slave. There can be but one
way of disposing of this question which will satisfy the nation, and
quiet the fears of the conservative, and preserve the hopes of the
radical, which is, to pursue a _middle_ course--a policy which shall as
nearly as possible equalize the question to all parties. Let the slave
be retained on the plantation where he is found; and, as no race are so
much attached to their own locality, so let them remain, place them
under a proper system of APPRENTICESHIP, with a mild code of laws, where
every right shall be protected, where suitable instruction, civil and
religious, shall be given, and where the marriage rite shall be
administered and respected. Under such laws and beneficent institutions,
this territory would soon be settled by men from the West, the North,
and from Europe, intelligent, enterprising, and industrious, who would
retrieve its worn-out fields, and introduce new systems of culture, with
all the modern labor-saving utensils. With kind treatment and new hopes,
the simple sons of Africa would have inducements to labor and to await
with patient hope the future and its rewards. Then would Beaufort
District become what the Giver of all good designed it to be--the abode
of an industrious, peaceful, and prosperous community. The production of
its great staple, 'Sea-Island cotton,' would be immensely increased, and
its quality improved, till it rivaled the silks of the Old World. The
yield of rice would be doubled, and its gardens and orchards would
supply the North with fruits now known only to the tropics.

So soon as the new government was fairly inaugurated, and the condition
of the land and its future cultivation settled, a movement would of
necessity be made to found here a city which would be the great
commercial metropolis of the South.

Charleston was 'located' at the wrong place, simply with the object of
being as distant as possible from the Spanish settlements, and has
always suffered from an insufficient depth of water on its bars to
accommodate the largest class of merchant ships. It has barely sixteen
feet of water at high tide, and ships loaded as lightly as possible
have often been obliged to wait for weeks to enter or leave the port. A
decrease of one or two feet in its main channel would, in its palmiest
days, have been fatal to its prosperity. The sinking of a dozen ships
loaded with stone has no doubt placed a permanent barrier to the
entrance of all but a small class of vessels. The ships themselves may
soon be displaced or destroyed by the sea-worm, but the New England
granite will prove a lasting monument to the folly and madness of the
rebellion. The destruction of the best part of the city by fire seems
also to show that Providence has designed it to be ranked only with the
cities of the past.

The productions of South Carolina have always been large and valuable,
and since the completion of their system of railroad facilities they
have greatly increased; therefore a commercial city is a necessity, and
Port Royal must be its locality. Here is the noblest harbor south of the
Chesapeake, with a draught of water of from twenty-five to thirty feet,
enough for the largest-sized ships, and sufficient anchorage room for
all the navies of the world. Our government should here have a naval
depot to take the place of Norfolk, since there is no more suitable
place on the whole coast. In this connection the name, Royal Port, is
truly significant.

The precise locality for the new city can not now be indicated, but we
would suggest the point some two miles south-west of Beaufort, which
would give it a position not unlike New York. It would have the straight
Broad River for its Hudson, with a fine channel on the south and east
communicating with numerous sounds and rivers. Its situation on an
island of about the same length as Manhattan completes the parallel.

The value of the produce conveyed over the sounds and rivers connecting
with Port Royal, by sloops and steamers, must be counted by millions of
dollars. We may estimate the crop of Sea-Island cotton at about fifteen
thousand bales, or six millions of pounds, and of rice about fifty
million pounds. Yankee enterprise would soon double the amount, and add
to it an immense bulk of naval stores and lumber.

But this is but a moiety of what the exports would be. A branch railroad
only ten miles long would connect this port with all the railroads of
South Carolina and Georgia, which, diverging from Charleston and
Savannah, spread themselves over a large part of five States. This road
would make tributary to this place a vast district of country.

Savannah, which has for the last few years competed with Charleston for
this trade, will soon feel the power of the government, and it must
yield up a large part of its business to the more favorable location of
the new city.

A few short years, and what a change may come over these beautiful
islands and the waters that hold them in its embrace! A fair city,
active with its commerce and manufactures, wharves and streets lined
with stores and dwellings, interspersed with churches and schools,
inhabited by people from every section of our country, and from every
part of Europe, all interested to improve their own condition, and all
combining to add strength and wealth to the Union which they agree to
respect, love, honor, and defend!

       *       *       *       *       *

THE ANTE-NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA.


I. THE MYTHICAL ERA.

Who were the first settlers in America?

Within a few years our school-books pointed to Cristoval Colon, or
Columbus, and his crew, as the first within the range of history who
'passed far o'er the ocean blue' to this hemisphere. Now, however, even
the school-books--generally the last to announce novel truths--say
something of the Norsemen in America, though they frequently do it in a
discrediting and discreditable way. However, the old Vikings have
triumphed once more, even in their graves, and Professor Rafn can prove
as conclusively that his fierce ancestry trod the soil of Boston as that
the Mayflower Puritans followed in their footsteps. It is a dim old
story, laid away in Icelandic manuscripts, and confirmed by but few
relics on our soil; yet it is strong enough to give New England a link
to the Middle Ages of Europe, with their wildest romance and strangest
elements. It is pleasant to think that far back in the night there
walked for a short season on these shores great men of that hearty
Norse-Teuton race which in after times flowed through France into
England, and from England through the long course of ages hitherward.
Among the old Puritan names of New England there is more than one which
may be found in the roll of Battle Abbey, and through the Norse-Norman
spelling of which we trace the family origin of fierce sea-kings in
their lowland isles or rocky lairs on the Baltic.

But there are older links existing between America and Europe than this
of the Norseman. Of these the first is indeed buried in mystery--leading
us back into that sombre twilight of 'symbolism,' as the Germans
somewhat obscurely call the study of the early ages whose records are
lost, and which can only be traced by reflection in the resemblances
between mythologies which argue a common origin, and the monuments
remaining, which seem to establish it. Yes, America has this in common
with every country of Asia, Europe, and Africa: she has relics which
indicate that at one time she was inhabited by a race which had perhaps
the same faith, the same stupendous nature-worship, with that of the Old
World, and which was, to reason by analogy, _possibly_ identified by the
same language and customs. What _was_ this race, this religion, this
language? Who shall answer? Men like Faber, and Higgins, and Lajard,
with scores of others, have unweariedly gathered together all the points
of resemblance between the religions and mythologies of the Hindus and
Egyptians and Chinese, the Druids and the Phenicians, the Etruscans and
the Scandinavians, and old Sclavonic heathen, and found in and between
and through them all a startling identity: everywhere the Serpent,
everywhere the Queen of Heaven with her child, everywhere the cup of
life and the bread and honey of the mysteries, with the salt of the
orgie, everywhere a thousand fibres twining and trailing into each other
in bewildering confusion, indicating a common origin, yet puzzling
beyond all hope those who seek to find it. So vast is the wealth of
material which opens on the scholar who seeks to investigate this common
origin of mythologies, and with them the possible early identity of
races and of languages, that he is almost certain to soon bury himself
in a hypothesis and become lost in some blind alley of the great
labyrinth.

Certain points appear to have once existed in common to nations on every
part of the earth previous to authentic history, and in these America
had probably more or less her share, as appears from certain monuments
and relics of her early races. They are as follows:--

1. A worship of nature, based on the inscrutable mystery of generation
with birth and death. As these two extremes caused each other, they were
continually _identified_ in the religious myth or symbol employed to
represent either.

2. This great principle of action, developing itself into birth and
death, was regarded as being symbolized in every natural object, and
corresponding with these there were created myths, or 'stories,' setting
forth the principal mystery of nature in a thousand poetic forms.

3. The formula according to which all myths were shaped was that of
transition, or _the passing through_. The germ, in the mother or in the
plant, which after its sleep reappeared in life, was also recognized in
Spring, or Adonis, coming to light and warmth after the long death of
winter in the womb of the earth. The ark, which floats on the waters,
bearing within it the regenerator, signified the same; so did the cup or
horn into which the wine of life was poured and from which it was drunk;
so too did nuts, or any object capable of representing latent existence.
The passing into a cavern through a door between pillars or rocky
passes, or even the wearing of rings, all intimated the same
mystery--the going into and the coming forth into renewed life.

4. But the great active principle which lay at the foundation of the
mystery of birth and death, or of action, was set forth by the
serpent--the type of good and evil, of life and destruction--the first
intelligence. It is the constant recurrence of this symbol among the
early monuments of America, as of the Old World, which proves most
conclusively the existence at one time of a common religion, or
'cultus.' It was probably meant to signify water from its wavy curves,
and the snake-like course of rivers, as inundation seems to have been,
according to early faith, the most prolific source of the destruction of
nature, and yet the most active in its revival.

There are in Brittany vast lines of massy Druidic stones, piled
sometimes for leagues in regular order, in such a manner as to represent
colossal serpents. Those who will consult the French _Dracontia_ will be
astonished at the labor expended on these strange temples. Squier has
shown that the earth-works of the West represent precisely the same
symbol. Mexico and South America abound, like Europe and the East, in
serpent emblems; they twine around the gods; they are gods themselves;
they destroy as Typhon, and give life in the hands of Esculapius.

In the United States, as in Europe and in the East, there are found in
steep places, by difficult paths, always near the banks of streams,
narrow, much-worn passages in rocks, through which one person[J] can
barely squeeze, and which were evidently not intended for ordinary
travel. The passing through these places was enjoined on religious
votaries, as indicating respect for the great principle of regeneration.
The peasants of Europe, here and there, at the present day, continue to
pass through these rock or cave doors, 'for luck.' It was usual, after
the transition, whether into a cave, where mysteries, feasts, and orgies
were held, significant of 'the revival,' or merely through a narrow
way,--to bathe in the invariably neighboring river; the serpent-river or
water which drowns organic life, yet without which it dies.

In England, at a comparatively recent period, and even yet occasionally
in Scandinavia, the peasantry plighted their troth by passing their
hands through the hole in the 'Odin-stones,' and clasping them. Beads
and wedding rings and 'fairy-stones,' or those found with holes in them,
were all linked to the same faith which rendered sacred every
resemblance to the 'passing through.' The graves of both North and
South America contain abundant evidence of the sacredness in which the
same objects were held. I have a singularly-shaped soapstone ornament,
taken from an Indian grave, whose perforation indicates the
'fairy-stone.' The religious legends of Mexico and of Peru are too
identical with many of the Old World to be passed over as coincidences;
the gold images of Chiriqui, with their Baal bell-ringing figures, and
serpent-girt, pot-bellied phallic idols, are too strikingly like those
of _Old_ Ireland and of the East not to suggest some far-away common
origin. I have good authority for saying that almost every symbol,
whether of cup or dove, serpent or horn, flower or new moon, boat or
egg, common to Old World mythology, may be found set forth or preserved
with the emphasis of religious emblems in the graves or ruined temples
of ancient North America.

The mass of evidence which has been accumulated by scholars illustrative
of a common origin of mythologies and a centralization of them around
the serpent; or, as G.S. Faber will have it, the Ark; or, as some think,
the heavenly bodies; or, as others claim, simply a worship of paternity
and maternity,--is immense. Why they should claim separate precedence
for symbols, all of which set forth the one great mystery how GOD
'weaves and works in action's storm,' is only explicable on the ground
that 'every scholar likes to have his own private little pet
hypothesis.' Enough, however, may be found to show that this stupendous
nature-worship _was_ held the world over,--_possibly_ in the days of a
single language,--in America as in ancient Italy, or around the sacred
mountain-crags of India; in Lebanon as in Ireland, in the garden-lands
of Assyria, and in the isles of the South.

Yet all this is as yet, for the truly scientific ethnologist, only
half-fact, indefinite, belonging to the cloud-land of fable. The poet or
the thinker, yearning for a new basis of art, may find in the immense
mass of legends and symbols an identification between all the forms of
nature in a vast harmony and mutual reflection of every beautiful
object; but for the man of facts it is unformed, not arranged, useless.
We know not the color of the race or races which piled the Western
mounds; their languages are lost; they are vague mist-gods, living in a
dimmer medium than that of mere tradition. So ends the first period of
intercommunication between Asia--the probable birthplace of the old
mythology--and America.


II. THE CHINESE DISCOVERERS OF MEXICO IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.

But there is a second link, ere we come to the Norsemen, which is strong
enough to merit the favorable consideration of the scientific man, for
it rests on evidence worthy serious investigation. I refer to the fact
that the Chinese-Annals, or Year Books,--which, according to good
authority, have been well kept, and which are certainly prosaic and
blue-bookish enough in their mass of dry details of embassies and
expenditures to be highly credible,--testify that in the fifth century
the Chinese learned the situation of the great peninsula Aliaska, which
they named Tahan, or Great China. Beyond this, at the end of the fifth
century,--be it observed that the advances in discovery correspond in
time in the records,--they discovered a land which Deguignes long after
identified with the north-west coast of America. With each discovery,
the people of these new lands were compelled, or were represented at
court as having been compelled, to send ambassadors wife tribute to the
Central Realm, or China.

But there had been unofficial Chinese travelers in Western America, and
even in Mexico itself, before this time. Those who have examined the
history of that vast religious movement of Asia which, contemporary with
Christianity, shook the hoary faiths of the East, while a higher and
purer doctrine was overturning those of the West, are aware that it had
many external points or forms in common with those of the later Roman
church, which have long been a puzzle to the wise. To say nothing of
mitres, tapers, violet robes, rosaries, bells, convents, auricular
confession, and many other singular identities, the early Buddhist
church distinguished itself by a truly catholic zeal for the making of
converts, and, to effect this, sent its emissaries to Central Africa and
Central Russia; from the Sclavonian frontier on the west to China,
Japan, and the farthest Russian isles of the east. On they went; who
shall say where they paused? We know that there are at this day in St.
Petersburg certain books on black paper taken from a Buddhist temple
found in a remote northern corner of Russia. It was much less of an
undertaking, and much less singular, that Chinese priests should pass,
by short voyages, from island to island, almost over the proposed
Russian route for the Pacific telegraph to America. That they _did so_
is explicitly stated in the Year Books, which contain details relative
to _Fusang_, or Mexico, where it is said of the inhabitants that 'in
earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of Buddha.
But it happened in the second "year-naming" "Great Light" of Song (A.D.
458), that five beggar monks, from the kingdom Kipin, went to this land,
extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his holy writings
and images. They instructed the people in the principles of monastic
life, and so changed their manners.'

But I am anticipating my subject. In another chapter I propose, on the
authority of Professor Neumann, a learned Sinologist of Munich, to set
forth the proofs that in the last year of the fifth century a Buddhist
priest, bearing the cloister name of Hoei-schin, or Universal
Compassion, returned from America, and gave for the first time an
official account of the country which he had visited, which account was
recorded, and now remains as a simple fact among the annual registers of
the government.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

THE SPUR OF MONMOUTH.


  'Twas a little brass half-circlet,
    Deep gnawed by rust and stain,
  That the farmer's urchin brought me,
    Plowed up on old Monmouth plain;
  On that spot where the hot June sunshine
    Once a fire more deadly knew,
  And a bloodier color reddened
    Where the red June roses blew;--

  Where the moon of the early harvest
    Looked down through the shimmering leaves,
  And saw where the reaper of battle
    Had gathered big human sheaves.
  Old Monmouth, so touched with glory--
    So tinted with burning shame--
  As Washington's pride we remember,
    Or Lee's long tarnished name.

  'Twas a little brass half-circlet;
    And knocking the rust away,
  And clearing the ends and the middle
    From their buried shroud of clay,
  I saw, through the damp of ages
    And the thick disfiguring grime,
  The buckle-heads and the rowel
    Of a spur of the olden time.

  And I said--what gallant horseman,
    Who revels and rides no more,
  Perhaps twenty years back, or fifty,
    On his heel that weapon wore?
  Was he riding away to his bridal,
    When the leather snapped in twain?
  Was he thrown and dragged by the stirrup,
    With the rough stones crushing his brain?

  Then I thought of the Revolution,
    Whose tide still onward rolls--
  Of the free and the fearless riders
    Of the 'times that tried men's souls.'
  What if, in the day of battle
    That raged and rioted here,
  It had dropped from the foot of a soldier,
    As he rode in his mad career?

  What if it had ridden with Forman,
    When he leaped through the open door,
  With the British dragoon behind him,
    In his race o'er the granary floor?
  What if--but the brain grows dizzy
    With the thoughts of the rusted spur;
  What if it had fled with Clinton,
    Or charged with Aaron Burr?

  But bravely the farmer's urchin
    Had been scraping the rust away;
  And cleansed from the soil that swathed it,
    The spur before me lay.
  Here are holes in the outer circle--
    No common heel it has known,
  For each space, I see by the setting,
    Once held some precious stone.

  And here--not far from the buckle--
    Do my eyes deceive their sight?--
  Two letters are here engraven,
    That initial a hero's might!
  'G.W.'! Saints of heaven!
    Can such things in our lives occur?
  Do I grasp such a priceless treasure?
    Was this _George Washington's spur_?

  Did the brave old _Pater Patrioe_
    Wear that spur like a belted knight--
  Wear it through gain and disaster,
    From Cambridge to Monmouth flight?
  Did it press his steed in hot anger
    On Long Island's day of pain?
  Did it drive him, at terrible Princeton,
    'Tween two storms of leaden rain?

  And here--did the buckle loosen,
    And no eye look down to see,
  When he rode to blast with the lightning
    The shrinking eyes of Lee?
  Did it fall, unfelt and unheeded,
    When that fight of despair was won,
  And Clinton, worn and discouraged,
    Crept away at the set of sun?

  The lips have long been silent
    That could send an answer back;
  And the spur, all broken and rusted,
    Has forgotten its rider's track!
  I only know that the pulses
    Leap hot, and the senses reel,
  When I think that the Spur of Monmouth
    May have clasped George Washington's heel!

  And if it be so, O Heaven,
    That the nation's destiny holds,
  And that maps the good and the evil
    In the future's bewildering folds,
  Send forth some man of the people,
    Unspotted in heart and hand,
  On his foot to buckle the relic,
    And charge for a periled land!

  There is fire in our fathers' ashes;
    There is life in the blood they shed;
  And not a hair unheeded
    Shall fall from the nation's head.
  Old bones of the saints and the martyrs
    Spring up at the church's call:--
  God grant that the Spur of Monmouth
    Prove the mightiest relic of all!

       *       *       *       *       *

THE FATAL MARRIAGE OF BILL THE SOUNDSER.


Reader, possibly you do not know what a 'Soundser' is. Then I will tell
you. In the coastwise part of the State of New Jersey in which I live,
numerous sounds and creeks everywhere divide and intersect the low,
sea-skirting lands, wherein certain people are wont to cruise and delve
for the sake of securing their products, and hence come to be known in
our homely style as Soundsers. The fruitage afforded by these sounds is
both manifold and of price. Throughout all the pleasant weather, they
yield, with but little intermission, that gastronomic gem, the terrapin;
the succulent, hard-shell clam, and the 'soft' crab; the deep-lurking,
snowy-fleshed hake, or king-fish; the huge, bell-voiced drum, and that
sheen-banded pride of American salt-water fishes, the sheepshead. During
the waning weeks of May, and also with the continuance of dog-days, this
already profuse bounty receives a goodly accession in the shape of vast
flocks of willets, curlews, gray-backs, and other marine birds, which,
with every ebb tide, resort to their shoaler bars and flats, to take on
those layers of fat which the similarly well-conditioned old gentleman
of the city finds so inexpressibly delicious. When the summer is once,
over, and while the cold weather prevails, they furnish another and
quite new set of dainties. Then the span-long, ripe, 'salt' oyster is to
be had for the raking of their more solidly-bottomed basins; and all
along their more retired nooks and harbors, the gunner, by taking proper
precautions, may bring to bag the somewhat 'sedgy' but still
well-flavored black duck, the tender widgeon, the buttery little
bufflehead, the incomparable canvas-back, and the loud-shrieking,
sharp-eyed wild goose. All this various booty is industriously secured
by the 'soundsers,' to find, ere long, a ready market in the larger
inland towns and cities. But united to this shooting, fishing, and
oyster-catching, they have another 'trade' whose scene is on the waters,
though it connects itself with the sea, rather than the sounds, and
_this_ is 'wrecking.' They are prompt for this service whenever the
occasion requires; indeed, I sometimes think they prefer it, dangerous
though it be, before all others. Inured as they are to every sort of
exposure, they are of course a tough and rugged race; and what with
their diversity of occupation, calling, as it does, for a constant
interchange of the use of the gun, net, boat, fishing line, and some one
or other arm or edge tool, they are usually, nay, almost invariably,
handy and quick-witted.

By far the most notable 'soundser' our neighborhood ever bred was my
hero, BILL. Physically, at least, he was a true wonder. He stood full
six feet two, weighed eleven score pounds, and at the same time carried
no more flesh than sufficed to hide the exact outline of his bones.
Another man so strong as he I have never seen. I have repeatedly known
him to lift and walk off with anchors weighing five and six hundred
weight; and those big, thick hands of his could twist any horseshoe as
if it were a girl's wreath. Certainly he was not in the least graceful;
that 'ponderosity' of his could in no way be repressed. But he was still
of rude comeliness, his shape being squarely fitted and tolerably
proportioned, while his broad, red-maned visage wore a constant glow of
plain, though sincere, kindliness and good-humor.

As his physical man was uncommon, so he had uncommon mental endowments.
He was the only 'soundser' I ever knew who understood farming. He had
inherited a farmstead of some twenty-five or thirty acres, and this he
soon had blooming as the rose. When occasion required, he wrought on
it, day and night. He divided it, with truest judgment, into proper
fields, experimented successfully with various kinds of novel manures
(most of which he obtained from the sea), grew stock, planted, in
rotation, and, with only here and there a sympathizer, gave in his full
adherence to the theory of root culture. And he was a mechanic. He could
build house or barn to the last beam, and ship or boat to the last
joint; nay, he once devised the model of a self-righting life-boat,
which I have often heard shipmasters, and even real shipwrights, descant
upon in the highest terms of praise. Moreover, I can affirm that he was
a navigator. It is true that the _science_ of seamanship, as set forth
in books, he had never mastered. But he knew right well what winds of a
certain force and direction foretold, what waves of a certain height and
aspect meant; and this knowledge, combined with a squint, now and then,
at his pocket compass, sufficed to enable him to take a vessel with
safety anywhere along our coast.

But while my old pal showed high abilities in other arts, as a
'soundser' and wrecker he was not to be matched. He brought to the first
of these pursuits a clearness of observation which would have met the
approbation of many an acknowledged man of science. He knew every sort
of food which bird and fish fed upon, where it was to be found, and the
circumstances favorable to its production. He knew why the game resorted
to certain spots yesterday, and avoided them to-day; what
circumstances--and they are very many--impelled it to joyousness or
quietude; and what were most of its minor instincts. And all this was
done _thoroughly_, withal. There was no haphazard or uncertainty in any
of his conclusions. Taking thought of sundry conditions, he could tell
at any time when such a thing was applicable; how many sheepsheads one
could catch in the sounds; whether the _honk_ of the wild goose, flying
overhead, announced that he was on his way to a fresh-water pool or a
bar of gravel; whether the black ducks were cooling their thirsty
gizzards in a woodland pond, sitting scattered about the marshes, or
huddling together on the bosom of the sea. In a word, his mind had
gathered unto itself every law, of the least importance, affecting the
existence of such wild creatures about us as cost any pains to bring to
hand; and thus he was literally master over them, and held their lives
subject to his will. That this power was really surprising, will hardly
be disputed; and since we, his associates, could in no way possess
ourselves of the like, it passed among us for something almost
miraculous.

Still, brilliant 'soundser' as old Bill was, he was far greater as a
wrecker; since I am now about to relate an occurrence in the line which
proves him a veritable hero. As is perfectly well known, our American
coast is often the scene of fearful storms, which deal out wide-spread
destruction to mariners. With us, these gales are commonest in February,
and hence this month is held in marked dread. Some years ago, in the
season referred to, a storm burst upon our shores, whose like only a few
of the older among us had ever known. After fitfully moaning from the
northward and eastward for a day or two, the wind, one morning, finally
settled due north-east,--thus sweeping directly upon the land,--and blew
a hurricane. It was excessively cold, too, yet not so cold but that a
fine, dry snow was falling, though from the fury of the wind this could
settle nowhere, but was driven, whirling and surging, before the blast
in dense clouds. In short, it was a time of truly unearthly wildness;
and our hearts sank the deeper in us, since we knew what ere long must
inevitably occur. At last, within an hour or two of nightfall, the sound
of a ship's bell, rung hurriedly, pealed towards us along the uproar of
the tempest, and by this we were made aware that a vessel had been
wrecked on a certain shoal rising up in the ocean, about two miles from
that part of the beach nearest our village. To go to the rescue of this
vessel, at this time, was absolutely impossible. For, to say nothing of
the wrath of the winds, the air was so thick with snow that, in the
speedily advancing hours of darkness, in which we should not fail to be
entrapped, we would be powerless to find our way at sea a foot. There
was no help for it; the poor victims of the shipwreck must that very
night know death in one or another most terrifying shape, 'if it was the
will of the Lord.' With this mournful conviction, about twenty of us
gathered at old Bill's house with the closing in of a darkness as of
Tartarus, and kept its watches. The anger of the storm abated in no way
whatever till morning, and then the sole change that took place was a
somewhat thinner aspect of the driving snow. Yet, even when this was
discerned, every man of us hastened to draw over his ordinary winter
garb an oil-cloth suit which enveloped him from head to foot, and
soberly announced himself ready to do his duty in the strait. That we
should be exposed to the greatest dangers was absolutely certain; and
whether a single survivor of the terrors of that awful night yet clung
to the few frail timbers in the sea, for us to rescue, none but Heaven
knew; still, the manhood of each demanded that what was possible to be
done in the matter we should at least attempt.

And so we started; the leader being old Bill, who to some end, that I
could not then divine, bore a boat-sail bundled on his back. Our first
business was to make way to our surf or life boat. This lay about three
miles from the village, reckoning as the crow flies, and was sheltered
under a rude house which stood on the shores of a bay opening by an
inlet into the sea. Our common way of gaining this house was through a
circuitous passage of the sounds; but these we soon discovered, in
consonance with a previous prediction of old Bill's, were entirely
frozen over save in certain parts of their channels; and hence, this
route being unnavigable for such boats as were at hand, which, without
exception, were light gunning and fishing skiffs, we were forced to
avail ourselves of a barely practicable land track of which we knew, and
which, as it led about among the marshes, was also circuitous. And the
necessity of choosing this land path added to our difficulties, in that
we were forced to provide ourselves with a small batteau and drag it
behind us, to be able to cross many ditches and sloughs with which it
was barred, and which, particularly along their edges, were never really
frozen. After toiling and battling for a long period, and at the same
time having to face the most painfully cutting wind that burst
unobstructedly over the level area of the marshes, we at last reached
the house wherein the life-boat lay, and when old Bill had scrutinized
its oars, and stored it with a mingled collection of cordage, canvas and
spars, we ran it into the water. But now another trouble arose. The bay,
like the sounds of which indeed it formed a part, was covered with
ice,--either in solid sheets, or that thick slush, peculiar to ocean
estuaries, which is chiefly known as 'porridge ice,'--and, from its
comparative shallowness, covered so densely, too, that if we had trusted
to getting our boat out of it by sheer rowing, it would have taken us
the entire day so to do. In this emergency nothing would serve but that
we must advance bodily into the water, and, crushing and clearing away
the ice with our feet, drag the boat, in a depth at least sufficient for
her to float, to the entrance of the inlet, where the current ran so
strongly that no ice could gather. After a severely trying amount of
labor, this point was finally gained, and we stood fairly in front of
the tall, thundering breakers; whereupon each man nimbly jumped to his
place in the craft, that of steersman being the post of old Bill.

As we gave way on our oars, we shot along the inlet without much
difficulty; and presently old Bill announced that, he caught a faint
sight of the wreck in the distance--to all appearance 'most all gone but
the hull.' But we had little or no opportunity to indulge in speculation
or remark on the discovery, for in a moment or two we began to oppose
the wildness of the open main, and the hour of our real trial set in.
For the first time we could now appreciate the full force of the gale.
Good Heavens, how it blew! The waters seemed alive and in direst
convulsion. Everywhere huge walls of breakers were constantly upheaved
to be felled and shattered with a roar as of some terrific cannonade;
while the air became the arena for a helter-skelter tossing of sheets of
spray, clots of froth, and spirts of brine, which plentifully assailed
our poor boat in their madness, and, besides partially filling her with
slush, encased every man in a complete coating of ice. If our craft had
not been modeled with the very highest degree of skill, and if our
steersman had not been one of a thousand, we could have made no headway
at all in this appalling tumult. As it was, our advance was of the
weakest, and its success seemed very doubtful, let our efforts be what
they might. Not but what we could sufficiently hold our own in the swirl
of the vanquished waves; but when they swooped upon us in their full
stature, they not only sent the boat back as if she had been a mere
feather, but with a second's awkwardness on the part of old Bill they
would have flung her clean over from stem to stern, and our places among
the living would have been vacant. Having strained every nerve for
nearly two hours, we were still but part way through the breakers, while
some of the men began to complain of fatigue; with which old Bill seized
a favorable opportunity to put the boat about, and we were swept ashore
on the beach as in the twinkling of an eye. Here, we secured our boat by
hauling her high and dry on the strand; freed her from the slush and
water which had gained in her bottom; and then retired to the leeward of
a range of sand hills near by, to recruit our energies.

With full leisure to ponder over the difficulties confronting our
expedition, some few of the crew now began to 'speak it foully,' and
even to emit gruff proposals to return homewards. But to these waverers
old Bill at once administered the sternest rebuke; and, as they at last
held their peace, he averred with a gay smile (for he dearly loved the
presence of danger, and could never be brought to look on it other than
as a rough sort of irresponsible horse-play, over which he was sure in
one way or another to gain the mastery), that he had now weighed all the
conditions of the pass, and that the next time we attempted it we should
assuredly prevail. This assertion, coming from such a source, encouraged
one and all very greatly; and ere long we cheerfully launched our boat
once more, and again began to tug at the quivering oars. In a very
little while it became apparent enough that the tactics that Bill
intended to adopt in our present venture were very different from those
put in practice with the last. Instead of boldly facing the breakers as
he had heretofore done, he now began his maneuvering by laying us
directly in the trough of the sea,--planting the boat a little
crosswise, however, so as to prevent an untoward swell from riding over
her side and thus filling her,--and the instant he saw an advancing
breaker beginning to fracture, as a prelude to its downfall and
destruction, he boldly sped us, when the thing was at all practicable,
straight in the teeth of the gap, and as it proceeded to widen, we shot
through it, with the surf leaping and tossing on either hand high above
our heads. This stroke could have been possible only to a steersman
possessed of herculean strength, combined with the rarest daring and
coolness; and, as the result of these qualities, it was exceedingly
effective. It lessened the danger of our being capsized almost entirely.
Indeed, the sole mishap that was threatened by so doing, was the
liability to being swamped by the falling fragments of the breakers;
but this peril old Bill declared we might safely trust he would also
avert. It being the nature of humanity to experience a mood of high
exaltation with the surmounting of any serious obstacle, we now worked
our way with minds light and cheery, and with all thoughts of anything
like fatigue completely forgotten. Though our course was on the whole a
zigzag one, and though we certainly met with one or two serious rebuffs,
we were constantly gaining headway, and in something over an hour forced
the last line of the breakers, and stemmed what on ordinary occasions
would have been simply the blue body of the Atlantic. But even here a
huge commotion was reigning, though our progress was far less tedious
than it had previously been; and with about another hour's labor we were
alongside the wreck, and had climbed to her deck.

The plight of the vessel was mournful enough. She had evidently been
built for a three-masted schooner, but, as Bill had observed when he
first obtained a view of her, everything about her was well-nigh gone
save her hull. Her bulwarks had been thoroughly crushed, and so the sea
had successively torn away her boats, shivered her galley and
wheelhouse, and filled her cabin and hold. Her masts were also
destroyed, the fore and mizzen masts being carried away from their
steppings, and the main-mast broken completely in twain just above the
cross-trees. But a sight still more desolate, as well as harrowing, yet
awaited us, as, in overhauling the sail-encumbered shrouds of the
partially standing mast, we discovered several ice-bound figures rigidly
hanging therein, which, being cut away and lowered to our boat, proved
to be the body of a negro perfectly stark and dead, and three most
pitiable white sailors, whose life was so far extinguished that they
could neither move hand nor foot, nor utter more than the feeblest
moans.

When we had covered the face of the dead and sheltered the well-nigh
dead as best we could in the bottom of our boat, of course our chief
thought was to return to the shore as swiftly as possible. But on this
head there was no call to entertain the smallest solicitude; for after
old Bill, from a motive that we could not yet name, had 'stepped' a mast
through one of the foremost thwarts of the boat, and rigged a sail all
ready to be spread, we cast off from the wreck, and presently, dropping
into the full strength of the wind, were swept onward like an arrow,
with scarce the least use of any other oar than that in the hands of our
stalwart steersman. Speedily crossing the outer waters, we leaped and
bounded over the breakers; and when old Bill, as we were rushing along
the inlet, gave orders for the hoisting of the sail, we not only
hastened to obey him, but immediately saw an all-important reason for
the command. For we were now about entering the ice of the sounds; and
as the boat flew in its midst, her stiff, tight sail drove her through
the stubborn obstruction as easily and in much the same manner as the
steam plow rips up the matted bosom of the prairies. In due season we
reached the landing where we usually disembarked from the sounds, and
where we found a wagon awaiting us, to which we bore our sad freightage,
and led the way for old Bill's house. On arriving, we laid the corpse in
an outbuilding and carried the sailors into a bedroom. But what was to
be next done? To tell the truth, most of us knew no more than so many
children. But here our leader again showed his knowledge. Strongly
condemning the lighting of a fire in the apartment,--which some one was
about to do,--he set us busily at work bringing him a good supply of
tubs, and buckets of cold water, into which he dipped the naked persons
of the sufferers; and as this treatment, combined with a patient, gentle
chafing, which was also administered, at last restored the flow of their
vital forces, he gave them a few spoonfuls of broth apiece, and, while
they looked a gratefulness they could nowise express, lifted them like
babes with his giant arms to warm beds, where they fell into what was
at first a fitful, broken slumber, but finally a childlike, placid
sleep. They were saved!

If the reader is now curious to know why a man like old Bill was not a
patrician and captain in the campaign of life, rather than the mere
private and plebeian he was, I can answer that there were several things
which impeded that consummation. His character, though of wonderful
height and force in some respects, was, after all, without true
discipline, and presented many glaring incongruities. Thus, whatever he
had of what could really be named ambition was satisfied when he had
surprised us 'soundsers;' and our praise--and we lavished it upon him in
full measure, as we knew he liked it--was all the praise he seemed to
desire. Then, he was altogether one of us in his notions of pleasure and
recreation. Like the rest of us, he cordially appreciated the sparkling
product of the New England distilleries, and far more than any of us--to
such a pitch did his animal spirits rule--he relished our broad sea-side
jokes and songs, and as well our rattling jigs and hornpipes. As for
others attempting to elevate him to a more exalted station, the thing
was simply impossible. When led of his own accord to seek other society
than ours, he could by no means content himself with the companionship
of staid practical persons, who on account of his latent worth would
have readily countenanced, and with the least opportunity even served
him, but he invariably paid his court to adventurers; such creatures,
for instance, as seedy 'professors' of one kind or another, who, in the
inevitable shawl and threadbare suit of black, were constantly
dismounting at the village tavern, with proposals either to 'lecture' on
something, or 'teach' somewhat, as the case might happen to be, and who,
having no affinity whatever with the brawny, awkward Viking who fondly
hung on their shabby-genteel skirts, amused themselves at his greenness,
or pooh-pooh'd him altogether, as they saw fit. And when, as it not
unfrequently happened, official and influential individuals at a
distance were moved by the story of his renown to pay him their respects
in person, and listen courteously and gravely to his opinions, his
discrimination stood him in no better stead, for as soon as he possibly
could he bent the conference towards a sailor's revel, and astonished
his stately visitants by singing the spiciest songs, and sometimes even
by a Terpsichorean display in full costume; for he was excessively proud
of his accomplishments in this line, and implicitly believed that the
shaking of his elephantine limbs, and the whirling of his broad,
coatless flanks, formed a spectacle so tasteful and entertaining, that
no one could fail to enjoy it to the utmost. Assuredly I have now said
enough as to old Bill's incapacities for a grander role in life. In
reality that part of a lofty manhood to which he at first sight seemed
fitted, was not his; for, properly speaking, he was not an actual man,
but a boy--a grand and glorious boy, if you will, but yet a very boy;
and at length he met the fate of a boy, as we shall learn.

Once more we were engaged upon a wreck. But this time it was in no
hyperborean tempest that we were called forth, but when the very
sweetest airs of June were blowing. The case demanding our aid was that
of a wrecking schooner which had gaily left her moorings in New York
harbor to pick up a summer's living along the coast, but had
inadvertently cut up some of her capers rather too near our beach, and
so with one fine ebb tide found herself stranded. As it was an instance
of sickness in the regularly graduated and scientific college itself,
our whole shore was intensely 'tickled' at the accident. And again, as
this doctress, like many another ailing leech, was quite incapable of
curing her own suffering, her toddy-blossom-faced bully of a New York
captain was pleased to salute old Bill with cup high in air, and beg
that he would take a sufficient force and heave the distressed craft
into deep water. Thus a crew of us were called together and set to work
at the vessel. As the weather was so warm and beautiful, and as bed and
board were at this time to be had on the beach, we agreed among us that
our convenience would be the better served by taking up our temporary
quarters near the scene of our labors. Now, the place where we were
offered the necessary accommodation consisted of an ancient plank-built
tenement, which stood behind a sand-ridge that a far younger Atlantic
than ours had piled up, and then, retreating, abandoned. In winter this
rude domicile was bare and tenantless; but in the summer months it was
usually occupied by some thriftless gammer or gaffer from the main-land,
who, having stocked it with a few of the coarsest household goods, and
whatever provisions came to hand, offered entertainment to such wreckers
and 'soundsers' as happened to be in its vicinity. The present incumbent
of the hostel was a woman, claiming to be a widow, of the name of Rose;
bearing in most respects no resemblance whatever to any of her
predecessors. Where she was born, or had hitherto resided, none of us
knew: all that gossip could, gather was that she had unexpectedly
descended from a passing vessel with her effects and entered directly
the abandoned house. When questioned as to the scene of her earlier
life, she vaguely gave answer that she had disported herself largely in
'Philadelphy;' but as no 'Philadelphy' woman that ever walked through a
doorway was or is able to compound a chowder or bake a clam pie worthy
of the name, and as Madame Rose understood how to prepare both these
luxuries to a charm, her statement must have been false; she was,
undoubtedly, a 'coast-wise' lady, and one who knew who Jack was as well
as he himself did. Her appearance was, on the whole, agreeable. She was
tall, slender, of regular features, and, though indisputably on the
shady side of forty, was still free from any signs that would proclaim
her charms to be on the wane. I remember in particular that she had
long, white and regular teeth, thereby strongly contrasting with our
native women, who as a rule lose their teeth early. Her manners were
very novel to us. She was invariably of a simpering, ducking turn, and
interlarded her curt speech with curiously hard words. In dress she
carried matters with an incomparably high hand. She wore hoops 'all day
long,'--a freak then never even so much as thought of in our
village,--adorned her fingers with many rings, and her throat with large
florid brooches, and in the evening, after having brought her household
duties to a close, sat here or there with her sewing, in silks (though
perhaps not of the newest), or other highly-civilized stuffs.

Most of our crew regarded their hostess with greatly mingled feelings;
but old Bill entertained but one sentiment for her,--that of unqualified
admiration. As we only 'wrought' at the stranded schooner on the high
water,--some five hours out of the twenty-four,--he had plenty of
opportunity to dangle after his dearie, and did so unremittingly. While
the rest of us were either napping, dancing the lively 'straight four,'
hunting herns' eggs among the sand-hills, and so on, according to our
inclination, he, in far more romantic mood, seized all possible
opportunities to quickly gather fire-wood for his charmer, fill her
tea-kettle, open whatever clams and oysters she was about to cook, and,
above all, to recount for her delight one of those inimitable yarns of
his, at whose points he himself was sure to laugh till the rafters of
the house shook and the plates in the dresser rattled again. But this
was merely the first stage of his passion. Before long, as is not
unusual in such cases, it took another and more bodeful turn. That
inextinguishable laughter of his was heard no more, or at best gave
place to a feeble tittering; his stories dropped from his lips with but
flat pungency; and instead of performing his lady-love's 'chores' with a
mirthful readiness, he went through them in a heartsick way, the while
directing towards her furtive looks of supplication. The true state of
matters was now obvious to all Old Bill was another fatally-stricken
victim of that spooney archer-boy who next to death holds dominion over
men; and with his case, thus momentous, we could but feel a renewed
interest in his behalf, and busy our tongues about him. I, for my part,
thought that as he was a widower, and needful of a wife to comfort him
in his advancing age, and that as the present object of his affections,
if not a highly 'forcible' woman, seemed at all events to be one of whom
no great harm was to be feared, there could be no valid objection to his
being joined to her; particularly if nothing was divulged proving her to
be other than what she seemed. But this view I found to be on the whole
unacceptable to my auditory. Almost to a man they condemned the
propriety of the match. It could not actually be said that they disliked
Mrs. Hose, but they were jealous of her, as, in her manner and style of
array, she considerably dimmed the lustre of their own women; and they
distrusted her as she was a stranger; it being a marked habit with most
of our folks to distrust all strangers save those from whom they expect
pecuniary awards. But meanwhile, notwithstanding this criticism, the
little idyl in our midst was developing itself apace. On the afternoon
of one beautiful Sunday, a day in which we of course ordinarily did no
work, when the dinner-table had been well cleared away, what should we
see but old Bill swinging forth with his sailor gait from the house, and
arrayed as jauntily as his check shirt and pea-jacket (his only suit of
apparel at hand) would permit, to be speedily followed by Mrs. Rose, who
with one set of finger-tips held up the light folds of a sweetly blue
lawn skirt, and with the other bore aslant before her a bewitching pink
parasol. Undoubtedly there was a great indulgence in sly winks and
suppressed titterings on the part of such of us as chanced to be
witnesses of this at once festal and sentimental sally; but the twain
heeded naught whatsoever of these manifestations, but struck off along
the snow-white strand where the sea was droning its hymn so lazily that
it would have inevitably put itself to sleep, if the fish-hawks had not
so continually disturbed it by mischievously diving headlong into its
bosom. At last they returned again; and we soon became aware that the
stroll had not been without great results to both; since Mrs. Rose
affected to be laboring under a high degree of emotion, and retired to
the privacy of her apartment, while old Bill was by no means the
dolorous swain of a few hours before, but, making his way among us, with
his wide mouth stretching its best, proceeded formally to shake hands
with one and all as though he had finally got back from a long and
arduous voyage; and then, merrily calling for a certain brown jug which
was among our stores, removed the corn-cob which served as a cork, and
having wetted his great heart with a draught which I have no doubt
measured a full pint, fell, entirely regardless of the day, to
performing his most spirited hoe-down, while the most of us looked on
with a mirth that knew no bounds.

Yes, old Bill was now 'a happy man,' Mrs. Rose could but accept such a
suitor as he, if but from the fact that; his ardor and his pain were of
the freshest complexion, and of an amplitude fully proportioned to that
of his extraordinary physical bulk. As we tendered him our
congratulations upon his happy state, he received the courtesy with
extreme complacency. But, to tell the truth, those who did thus
congratulate him were but few. Most of the men remained of their old
mind as to the proposed match; indeed, I ere long found that they looked
upon it with less favor than ever. It appeared that they had been
inflamed with a rumor that Mrs. Rose intended to beguile her adorer to a
foreign shore, where a scion or two of her brilliant house found happy
sustenance; and that nothing but evil could accrue from such an act, was
of course as clear as noonday. Now, when I came to trace this rumor to
its source, I became apprised that it owed its publicity to an old man
of our number known by the nickname of 'Mister,' who was remarkable for
a rare amount of credulity, self-conceit, and obstinacy, and at the same
time for being the invariable butt of his company. This wiseacre averred
that he had succeeded in wringing from Mrs. Rose the confession that
directly she and old Bill were made man and wife, they were to depart
for Hatteras Inlet, on the coast of North Carolina, where the lady gay
possessed 'relations;' and this narrative, wofully muttered about among
our crew, and accompanied with a due amount of sighs and head-shakings,
had depressed them most fearfully, not withstanding the character of the
narrator.

The fact of the matter was, that most of the men were actually desirous
that a betrothal, contracted directly in the face of public opinion, and
without the smallest deference to anybody, as that of old Bill and Mrs.
Rose had been, should come to some kind of grief or other, and they were
fain to believe that it would do so. As for me, I was without true
concern on the subject, as I had ever been. If it should indeed fall out
that old Bill was to take a trip to Hatteras with his bride, I was
convinced that he would enjoy himself famously among the great abundance
of fish and game said to abound in that place, and that in the end he
would return to us again, to rule over us in greater splendor than ever;
as for his sweetheart or any of her like doing him any actual injury,
the idea seemed so preposterous to me, that whenever an opportunity
presented itself I did not fail to ridicule it to the utmost. Still, in
order to do my whole duty in the matter, I hastened to impress old Bill
with the importance of his becoming acquainted with the antecedents of
his lady-love, and thus saving himself from the possibility of a
misstep. But this counsel did no farther good than to bring a clouded
brow to my dear old friend, and so I did not persist in it. Indeed, we
communed together but little more in any way; for very shortly after he
resigned his place as our 'boss,' and left post-haste for the main-land.
Here, as was revealed to me in due season, he amazed the neighborhood by
incontinently renting his farmstead to a son with whom he had been on
indifferent terms for years; dispatching his daughter, who had
heretofore acted as his housekeeper, off to a distant town to become an
apprentice to a milliner's trade; and stowing his clothes and a shot-bag
of hard money which he was known to possess into a sailor's chest, with
which, together with his gun and a Methodist preacher, he again hurried
off for the asylum of his beloved. Arrived once more in the witching
presence, he waited till evening (yet how he was constrained so to do is
more than I can tell), and then, as we made it a duty to be gathered
about him once more, the wedding took place.

The occasion was one of such interest, that the preacher could but make
the most of it. After the nuptial benediction had been pronounced, he
straightway launched forth into a homily of such graciousness and force,
that but few of us missed being forcibly wrought upon, while Mrs. Rose
was stirred apparently to the depths of her being. On the day succeeding
the marriage, our light-hearted Benedict abandoned himself to another
jollification. But the next morning, a schooner headed in towards the
beach, and, slackening the peaks of her sails, sent ashore a yawl, whose
crew saluted Mrs. Rose as an old and familiar friend, and with whose
apparition, without the least regard as to what shift we wreckers were
to make, a great packing was begun in the house. Bedsteads were taken
down, beds were bundled up in sheets, crockery was thrust away in
barrels, and all borne one after the other to the yawl, where the bride,
with her potent parasol full spread, and pretending to shudder at the
sight of the gently heaving breakers through which she was soon to pass,
mincingly threw herself in the thick of the luggage, and old Bill
mounted the stern, with his huge palm extended for a good-by shake.
'Good-by, old chap,' said I, as I took his hand the last of all,
'good-by! You're not half mean enough to stay away from us forever; so
in the meantime do your best to show the Hatteras boys what a nice thing
it is to be somebody in the world!' And thus the boat put off, and,
reaching the schooner in a few moments, was hoisted to her decks. In a
few moments more the vessel had reset her sails, and, with a free wind,
bore straight to the southward out of sight.

Now comes the singular part of my story. In a few weeks from the time of
their sailing, we heard that old Bill and his wife had safely landed at
Hatteras Inlet, and rented a small house on one of the beaches there,
with the intention of opening a kind of tavern; but no sooner were they
fairly settled in their new abode than old Bill was found one morning
_dead in his bed_, with evident signs of having met with foul play;
though what kind of death these indications pointed at was very
uncertain.

The closest and shrewdest investigation failed to attach a well-grounded
suspicion to any one. Poor Bill was dead--and nothing more was ever
known. Singular enough, the conduct of his widow was such as to entirely
avert even from her enemies hints of complicity in the crime,--if crime
there was,--though none doubted that there had been a murder, and that
murder in a few attendant circumstances seemed to indicate female aid.
Shortly after this catastrophe, Madame Rose made 'a vendue' of her
deceased husband's gun and apparel, packed up her own worldly goods, and
vanished, to be heard of no more.

And so our shore lost its best 'soundser'--a man of mark in his way,
great of frame and heart, and one long to be recalled in our humble
annals of wrecking and of sport. He was one of those vigorous
out-croppings of sturdy Northern physique recalling in minute detail the
stories told of those giant children, the Vikings and Goths of the
fighting ages, and which the blood, though as healthy as ever,--witness
the glorious exploits of our soldiers even as I write,--produces less
frequently in these days of culture. Such as I have described was the
character of Bill the Soundser, and such was literally and truly his
mysterious death.

       *       *       *       *       *

COLUMBIA TO BRITANNIA.

VIA SHAKSPEARE.


                  Thou cold-blooded slave,
  Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?
  Been sworn my soldier? bidding me depend
  Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength?
  And dost thou now fall over to my foes,
  And wear a lion's hide? Doff it for shame,
  And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs.

KING JOHN, III. 1.

       *       *       *       *       *

GENERAL LYON.


To-day all the Northland shouts for joy, flashes its announcements of
victory along myriad leagues of wire, hurls them from grim cannon mouths
out over broad bays till the seas tremble with sympathy, huzzas in the
streets, flames in bonfires, would even clash the clouds together and
streak the heavens with lightning--and for what? The flag waves again in
Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, and the cause is safe! _The
cause_--have we all learned what that means, brother Americans?
Something broader than mere Union, the pass-word of so many thousands to
suffering and death, something more than the freedom of the press and
the ballot-box. It means Progress; and until we acknowledge this, all
freedom is a vast injustice, luring men on to Beulahs which Fate--the
fate they worship--will never have them reach. It would be little enough
to regain our foothold upon Southern territory, or repossess Southern
forts, even if forts and territory have been wrested from us by treason
and perjury, if with every mile of advance we did not gain a stronghold
of principle. We are not straining every nerve, struggling under immense
financial burdens, wrenching away tender household ties, sacrificing
cheerfully and eagerly private interests, brilliant prospects, and high
hopes, only to prove that twenty millions of men are physically stronger
than twelve. God forbid! This is no latter-day Olympic game, whoso
victors are to be rewarded with the applause of a party or a generation.
All the dead heroes and martyrs of the past will crowd forward to offer
their unheard thanks; all the years to come will embalm with blessings
the memory of the patriots who open the door to wide advancement,
prosperous growth, and high activity of a universal intelligence.

And among these brave men, whom the world shall delight to honor, let
our deepest grief and our justest pride be for LYON. We have given his
honest life too little notice;--this man whose sincerity was equalled
only by his zeal; who, in a rarely surpassed spirit of self-abnegation,
was content to lie down and die in the first heat of the great conflict,
and to leave behind for more favored comrades the triumphal arches and
rose-strewn paths of victory. The world has known no truer martyr than
he who fell at Wilson's Creek, August 10th, 1861.

'The history of every man paints his character,' says Goethe; and scanty
and imperfect as are the recorded details of General Lyon's life, enough
is known to prove him to have been high-minded and brave as a soldier,
with a perseverance and a penetration that analyzed at once the
platforms of contending factions, and read in their elements the
principles which are to govern the future of our nation.

He came of the stout Knowlton stock of Connecticut, a family of whom
more than one served England in the old French war, and afterward
distinguished themselves against her in the Revolution. We hear of the
gallant Captain Knowlton at Bunker Hill, throwing up, in default of
cotton, the breastwork of hay, which proved such an efficient protection
to the provincials during the battle. Once more he appears as colonel,
at Harlem Plains, rushing with his Rangers ('Congress' Own') upon the
enemy on the Plains, and, cut off shortly from retreat by
reinforcements, fighting bravely between the foes before and their
reserves behind, and, falling at last, borne away by sorrowing comrades,
and buried at sunset within the embankments. 'A brave man,' wrote
Washington, 'who would have been an honor to any country.' With the
memory of such a hero engrafted upon his earliest childhood, we can not
wonder at the bent of the boy Lyon's inclinations. 'Daring and
resolute, and wonderfully attached to his mother,' it is easy to
imagine what lessons of endurance and decision he learned from her,
whose just inheritance was the stout-hearted patriotism that had
flowered into valorous deeds in her kindred, and was destined to live
again in her son. It was, an ordinary childhood, and a busy, uneventful
youth, passed for the most part in the old red farm-house nestled
between two rocky hills near Eastport, where he was born. In 1837 he
entered the Military Academy at West Point, and was a graduate, with
distinction, four years later. Of the years immediately following, we
have little information; but we can fancy the young soldier laying, in
his obscurity, the foundation for that practical military knowledge
which so eminently distinguished his late brilliant career. During his
years of service in the Everglades of Florida, and on our Western
frontier, he had ample opportunity to gain a thorough insight into his
profession.

He first appears in the history of the country in the Mexican war, is
present at the bombardment of Vera Cruz, dashes after the enemy at Cerro
Gordo, capturing on the crest of the hill a battery which he turns upon
the discomfited foe. At Contreras his command proves as impenetrable as
a phalanx of Alexander; and when at last the victorious Americans fight
their way into Mexico, the city of fabulous treasures and associations
well-nigh classical, for the first time he receives a wound. He was
breveted captain for his gallantry at Cherubusco, and at the end of the
war received the rank of full captain, and was ordered with his regiment
to California. No appointment could have been more felicitous. In the
guerilla mode of warfare demanded by the peculiar nature of the country
and its inhabitants, his habits of quick decision, and the experience of
a war with an enemy equally unscrupulous though less undisciplined, were
absolutely invaluable. Here was no scope for the conception and
excitation of deep-laid schemes; the movements of the enemy were too
rapid. Plans that would elsewhere have been matured only in the process
of a long campaign, were here often originated and completed in a single
night. Simple strategy was of more avail than the most intricate display
of military science, and the impulse of a moment more to be relied upon
than the prudent forethought of a month. He had to combat, in the
newly-acquired territory, the cunning of tribes whose natural ferocity
was sharpened into vindictiveness by the encroachments upon their soil
of a new and strange people; and every association with the intruders,
who were for the most part men of little reputation and less principle,
had developed in the Indians only the fiercest and most decided
animosity. To encounter their vigilance with watchfulness as alert, to
confound their swift counsels with sudden alarm, to penetrate their
ambuscades and anticipate their cunning with incessant activity, to be,
in short, ubiquitous, was the duty of Captain Lyon.

After years spent in the uncertain tactics of this half barbaric
warfare, he was removed, in the height of political strife in Kansas, to
its very centre. Here, while comparatively free from the wearisome
requirements of active service such as had been demanded in California,
and at a time when events the most portentous proved clearly to the
great minds of the country the advance of a political crisis whose
consequences must be most important, involving--should deep-laid
conspiracy be successful--the bankruptcy of principle and that
high-handed outrage, the triumph, of a minority,--Captain Lyon had full
liberty and abundant opportunity to settle for himself the great
questions mooted in the Missouri Compromises, the Lecompton
Constitutions and the Dred Scott decisions of the day. To a mind
unprejudiced, except as the honest impulses of every honest man's heart
are always prejudiced in favor of the right, there was but a single
decision. Disgusted with the heartless policy which democracy had for so
many years pursued, and which now threatened to culminate either in its
utter degradation at the North, or in the establishment in the South of
an oligarchy which would annihilate all free action and suppress all
free opinion, he severed his connection with that party,--a step to
which he was also impelled by the injustice that was then seeking to
force upon the people of Kansas an institution which they condemned as
unproductive and expensive, to say nothing of their moral repugnance to
the very A B C of its principles. It was at this time that Captain Lyon
contributed to the _Manhattan Express_, a weekly journal of the
neighborhood, a series of papers in which he took an earnest, manly and
decided stand in favor of the principles which his thoughtful mind
recognized as alone 'reliable,' and harmonious with the grand design and
end of the great Republic of the West. To these articles we shall
hereafter refer, at present hastening through the career, so striking
and so sad, which a few brief months cut short, leaving only the memory
of General Lyon as a legacy to the country his single aim and wise
counsels would have saved.

The guns of Fort Sumter had flashed along our coast an appeal whose
force no words can ever compute. The days had been busy with the
assembling of armies, the nights restless with their solemn marches, and
forge and factory rang with the strokes of the hammer and the whirr of
flying shafts, whose echoes seemed measured to the air of some new
Marseillaise. From our homes rushed forth sons, husbands, brothers,
fathers, followed by the prayers and blessings of dear women, who
yielded them early but willingly to their country. And while regiments
clustered along the Potomac, and Washington lay entrenched behind white
lines of tents, we find our soldier, fresh from Kansas strifes, in
command of the United States Arsenal at St. Louis; and to his prompt
action and decided measures at this important juncture the early success
of the Union cause in Missouri is to be attributed. For a time St. Louis
was the theatre of action. The police commissioners, backed by Governor
and Legislature, in the demanded the removal of the Union troops from
the grounds of the arsenal, claiming it as the exclusive property of the
State, and asserting that the authority usurped by the general
government as but a partial sovereignty, and limited to the occupation,
for purposes exclusively military, of the certain tracts of land now
pending in this novel court of chancery. This highly enigmatical
exposition of State rights, pompous and inflated though it was, failed
to convince or convert Captain Lyon, who, being unable to detect, in his
occupancy of the arsenal, any exaggeration of the rights vested by the
Constitution in the general government, declined to abandon his post,
and proceeded to call out the Home Guard, then awaiting the arrival of
General Harney, and temporarily under his command. His little army of
ten thousand men was then drawn up upon the heights commanding Camp
Jackson, then occupied by the Missouri militia under Col. Frost, whoso
command had been increased by the addition of numerous individuals of
avowed secession principles. Uninfluenced by the reception of a note
from this officer asserting his integrity and his purpose to defend the
property of the United States, and disavowing all intention hostile to
the force at the arsenal, Captain Lyon replied by a peremptory summons
for an unconditional surrender. He found it incredible that a body
assembled at the instigation of a traitorous governor, and acting under
his instructions and according to the 'unparalleled legislation' of a
traitorous legislature, receiving under the flag of the Confederate
States munitions of war but lately the acknowledged property of the
general government, could have any other than the as most unfriendly
designs upon its enemies. The force of Camp Jackson (which
notwithstanding its professed character, boasted its streets Beauregard
and Davis) being numerically inferior, and perhaps not entirely prepared
to do battle for a cause whose legitimacy must still have been a
question with many of them, decided, after a council of war, to comply
with the demands of Capt. Lyon, and became his prisoners. A few days
afterward General Harney arrived, and Captain Lyon was elected Brigadier
General by the 1st Brigade Missouri Volunteers.

Convinced of the imminence of the crisis and the peril of delay, Gen.
Lyon immediately commenced active operations against the secessionists
at Potosi, and ordered the seizure of the steamer which had supplied the
offensive army with material of war from the United States property at
Baton Rouge. In the meantime, Gen. Harney, with a culpable blindness,
had made an extraordinary arrangement with Gen. Price, by which he
pledged himself to desist from military movements so long as the command
of Gen. Price was able to preserve order in the State. Upon his removal
by the authorities at Washington, nine days later, Gen. Lyon was left in
command of the department. At this time the rebel general took occasion,
in a proclamation to the people of Missouri, to feel assured that 'the
successor of Gen. Harney would certainly consider himself and his
government in honor bound to carry out this agreement (the Harney-Price)
in good faith.' But his assurance was without foundation. The temper of
the new commander had been tried in the Camp Jackson affair, and an
interview between Price, Jackson and other prominent secessionists and
Gen. Lyon, resulted, after a few hours' consultation, in the declaration
of the Union general that the authority of his government would be
upheld at any cost and its property protected at all hazards. Three days
later, Jackson fled to Booneville, fearing an attack upon Jefferson
City, which was immediately occupied by Gen. Lyon, who was received with
acclamation by the citizens. Unwilling to grant by delay what he had
refused to an underhand diplomacy,--opportunity to the enemy to possess
the government property, or entrench themselves strongly in their new
quarters,--the general, with characteristic promptness, ordered an
advance upon Booneville. The rebel force was stationed above Rockport,
but retreated, after a skirmish which did not assume the proportions of
a battle; and the Union army, two thousand strong, entered the town,
where the national colors and the welcomes of the inhabitants testified
their joy at the change.

The army of General Lyon, amounting at one time to ten thousand, had
decreased by the first of August--the term of enlistment of many of the
soldiers having expired--to six thousand; and it was with this number
that, having swept the south-west, and believing the enemy intended to
attack him at Springfield, he advanced to meet them at Dug Springs. The
army of the enemy was larger and their position a strong one, but they
were unable to hold it, and, after a sharp skirmish, fled in disorder,
while Gen. Lyon continued his march toward Springfield. His situation
had now become a critical one. The reinforcements for which he had
telegraphed in vain, and in vain sent messengers to entreat from the
chief of the department, Gen. Fremont, then in St. Louis, did not
arrive. His army was subsisting on half rations, and wearied with
exhausting marches over the uneven country in the extreme heat of
midsummer. And now, for the first time, hope seemed to desert the
general. Under his direction the cause had hitherto triumphed in
Missouri. Now, with zeal unabated and courage unflinching, he must fall
before the enemy he had so successfully opposed, or retreat where
retreat was disaster, disgrace, and defeat. No wonder that, as from day
to day he looked for the expected aid as men in drought for the clouds
that are to bless them, he grew restless and perplexed and despairing;
no wonder that the face that had never before worn the lines of
indecision, should now lose its accustomed cheerfulness and glance of
calm purpose, and challenge sympathy and pity for the heart that had
never before asked more than admiration and respect. He felt that the
hour had its demands, and that they must be met. Action, even in the
face of disaster, was less a defeat than an inglorious retirement. The
public, surely unaware of the fearful odds against him, clamored for an
engagement; the State expected it of its hero; the government awaited
it, and with a brave heart, but no hope, Gen. Lyon prepared for the
attack. The result all the world knows. Was it a victory where the
conquerors were obliged to retire from the field, and carry out their
wounded under a flag of truce? Was it a defeat where the enemy had been
thrice repulsed, once driven from the ground, had burned their baggage
train, and made no pursuit of the retreating army?

But most mournful are those last moments of the faithful soldier's life;
most solemn those last tones of his voice as his orders rang out on that
misty morning amid the smoke and shouts of the battle-field. He stands
here bare-headed, the blood streaming from two wounds which he does not
heed, the cloud of perplexity settling over his face like a pall, his
troubled eyes fixed upon the enemy. He turns to head a regiment which
has lost its colonel--"Forward! men; I will lead you!" A moment, and he
lies there: no more striving for victory here; no more anxious hours of
weary watching for the succor that never came; no more goadings from an
exacting public, nor any more appeals to an unheeding chief. Even the
triumphant hush of life could not smooth out those lines cut by unwonted
care upon his face, or answer the mute questioning of that painful
indecision there. So from the West they brought him, by solemn marches,
to the East, and colors hung at half-mast, and bells were tolled as the
flag-draped hero was borne slowly by. And to the music of tender dirges,
he, whose whole life had been, inspired by the whistling of fifes and
rolling of drums, was laid to rest. A handful of clods falling upon his
breast, their hollow sound never thrilling the mother heart that lay
again so near her son's, a volley fired over the grave, and all was
over. Of all the brave men gone, no fate has seemed to us so sad.
Winthrop, young and ardent, with the tide of great thoughts rashing in
upon his princely heart, died in the flush of hope with the fresh
enthusiasm of poetry and undimmed patriotism shining in his eyes, and we
laid our soldier to sleep under the violets. Ellsworth fell forward with
the captured flag of treason in his hand, and the whole nation cheering
him on in his early sally upon the 'sacred' Virginia soil. Brave and
honorable, with fine powers cultured by study and earnest thought, death
took from him no portion of the fame life would have awarded him. Baker
rode into the jaws of death in that fatal autumn blunder; but the
ignominy of defeat rested upon other shoulders. His only to obey, even
while 'all the world wondered.' But he did not fall before the honor of
a country's admiration and the meed of her grateful thanks were his.
Soldier, orator and statesman, he had gained in a brilliant career a
glory earned by few, and could well afford to die, assured of a memory
justified from all reproach. But to Lyon, whom there were so few to
mourn, death in the midst of anticipated defeat was bitter indeed. No
time to retrieve the losses and disasters the cruel remissness of others
had entailed upon him; the fruit of the anxious toil of months wrested
from him even as it began to ripen; all his glad hopes chilled by
suspicion, but his faith, we may well believe, still strong in the
ultimate success of the cause he loved. A whole life he had given to his
country, and she had not thought it worth while to redeem it from
disgrace with the few thousands that he asked. He had outlived the
elasticity of youth, when wrongs are quickly remedied, and new impulses
spring, like phoenixes, from the ashes of the old. Uncertain whether he
were the victim of a conspiracy, the tool of a faction, or the martyr to
some unknown theory, he died, and as the country had been to him wife
and children, he left her his all.

It was known to but few that the soldier, whose career had been rather
useful than brilliant, had, when the scheming of politicians and their
doubly-refined arguments threatened to deceive and ruin the country,
put by his sword and taken up the pen. In a series of articles, short,
concise, and to the point, he effectually canvassed the State. They are
addressed to thinking men everywhere. Free from all trickery, strictly
impartial, relying entirely upon the soundness of his premises for
success,--for elegance of diction he had not, and he was too honest even
to become a sophist,--these papers manifest at once the true patriot and
the intelligent man. Thousands of adherents the Republican cause had in
1860, but not one more indefatigable or more heartily in earnest than
Lyon. Outside the limits of party interests, and uninfluenced personally
by the predominance of either faction, he had worked out in his own way
the problem of national life, and now spread its solution before his
readers. 'Our cause,' said he, 'is to honor labor and elevate the
laborer.' Here we have the kernel of the whole matter; the spirit, if
not the letter, of the whole republican system of government. The secret
that philosophers have elaborated from the unconquerable facts of
physics, ethics, and psychology, that men of genius have evolved with
infinite difficulty from the mass of crude aesthetic associations that
cluster around every object of nature or of art, Lyon, working and
thinking alone as a citizen, has discovered, with the sole aid of common
sense and the habit of practical observation. Carey and Godwin have
proved by statistics for unbelievers the reasonableness of the doctrine
enunciated by Lyon. Now, thanks to the untiring efforts of a few
stout-hearted patriots, it is no new one to the North; but in the late
presidential contest it was a strange weapon glittering in strong hands.
Our society, diluted and weakened by the Southern element, revolted at
first from the creed that is to prove its salvation. Not alone in our
border States had the dragon crept, searing our fair institutions with
his hot breath, but even upon the sturdy old Puritan stock were
engrafted many of the petty notions that pass for 'principles' in Dixie.
True, we were educated, all of us, into a sort of decent regard for the
good old element of labor,--we call it industry,--more antique, since
antiquity is a virtue, than aristocracy, for it began in Paradise. But
this was a feature of our Northern character that was to be hurried out
of sight, ignominiously buried without candle or bell, when the giant of
Southern chivalry stalked across our borders. The bravado and
gentlemanly ruffianism of youthful F.F.V-ism at college, and the
supercilious condescension of incipient Southern belledom in the
seminary, impressed young North America with a respect that was indeed
unacknowledged, but that grew with its growth and strengthened with its
strength. But this mock romance of ancestry, this arrogant assumption by
the South of all the social virtues and courtesies of which the nation,
or indeed the universe, could boast, was like the flash of an expiring
candle to Lyon. He had little to do with first families North or South;
his mission was to the _people_. His practical mind gathered in, sheaf
after sheaf, a whole harvest of political facts. He saw that the
government of the United States, originally intended to be administered
by the people, had been for years in the power of the minority. Against
this perversion of the purpose of the founders of the republic, this
outrage to the memory of men who labored for its defense and welfare, he
entered his earnest protest. The shallow effort of the Democratic party
to establish upon constitutional grounds the monstrous phantom of
justice they called government, was met by his hearty indignation. He
says, 'With the artfulness of a deity and the presumption of a fiend,
our own Constitution is perversely claimed by the Democracy as the ægis
for the establishment of a slave autocracy over our country.'

No element more fatal to our growth or freedom could Lyon conceive than
this slave autocracy. It sapped the very foundations of republicanism,
and, stealthily advancing to the extreme limits of the law, enjoyed the
confidence of the people, while it plotted their subjugation. All the
varied machinery of the new social system, falsely styled government,
had for its object the extinction of individual rights and the
deification of capital. Church and state united in the unholy effort to
Crush the masses, and intriguing politicians, by dint of dazzling
rhetoric and plausible promises, lured the people on to secure their own
downfall at the polls. The only remedy for this Lyon saw in the
elevation of the masses. 'It is the greatest political revolution yet to
be effected,' he says, 'to bring the laboring man to know that honest
industry is the highest of merits, and should be awarded the highest
honor; and, properly pursued, contributes to his intelligence and
morality, and to the virtues needed for official station.' 'The
calamity,' says an eminent writer from his far Platonean heights, 'is
the masses;' but liberty is a new religion that is to sweep over the
world and regenerate them. And to this end Lyon boldly advocated
emancipation for the sake of the white man. If to-day, when patriotism
is at a premium, men tremble before the acknowledged necessity of this
measure, and are either too cowardly or too indolent to meet the demands
of the times, it required no little boldness in 1860 to advance a theory
so decided, even in a Kansas newspaper. But Lyon knew the inefficiency
of half-way measures, and the moral degradation they inevitably entail
upon the community so weak or so deluded as to adopt them. The hue and
cry of abolitionism did not disturb him; he was not afraid of names.
Conservatism that sat in state at Washington, and pulled the wires all
over the country,--a tremendous power, none the less fearful in that it
was only a galvanized one,--was a dead letter to him, its dignity
departed with the age that had demanded it. Conservatism would have
resented no impositions, established no new landmarks, asserted no
independence; would carry its mails on horseback, creep over the ocean
in schooners, fight by sea in piked brigantines, and by land with spear
and battle-axe; it would have emancipated no slaves in Great Britain and
France, and no serfs in Russia. But if freedom means anything, it means
_Progress_,--liberty to advance, never to retrograde. 'Nothing in the
world will ever go backward,' said the old lizard to Heine. All the
authority of a new Areopagus could never sanction that; and yet this
liberty the South claims, nay, has already acted upon, so that the world
may see the result of the experiment, and against its continuance Lyon
protests. In the long silent years of preparation for the fray he has
nursed strange thoughts on the ultimate destiny of man. He has seen in
dreams, prophetic of a mighty accomplishment, his country growing great,
and vigorous, and powerful, extending to struggling humanity everywhere
the protection of her friendship, building up noble institutions,
encouraging science and the useful arts, and leading the van in the
world's great millennial march; and this not through any miraculous
interposition of Providence, but by means of an exalted intelligence and
the power of thought stimulating to action, and that of the noblest
kind.

But you argue the unfitness of the masses for this destiny. Lyon
answers,--not in any musically-rounded sentences, in phrases nicely
balanced; the man is plain and outspoken,--'This is a truth of
philosophy and political economy, that man rises to a condition
corresponding to the rights, duties and responsibilities devolved upon
him; and therefore the only true way to make a man is to invest him with
the rights, duties and responsibilities of a man, and he generally rises
in intellectual and moral greatness to a position corresponding to these
circumstances.' It is a mistake to suppose the great body of the people
ignorant of their position, or unconscious of their growing importance
and dignity as representatives of a mighty empire. Vice and poverty have
indeed well-nigh quenched humanity in thousands in our great cities,
but these are but a drop in the ocean. Behind lies our vast West, with
its teeming population, sturdy, active and energetic. All our mountain
districts are alive with men who, thanks to the press, are beginning to
feel their power. Every advantage of physical development their hardy
life gives them, and the growing consciousness and comprehension of
freedom, blooming under a munificent free-school dispensation, will do
the rest. Our internal manufacturing and agricultural elements at the
North, already powerful and irrepressible, will soon exercise a
tremendous influence in our government. Shall it be the influence of
ignorance played upon by the sophistry of demagogues and helping to
rebuild the vicious doctrines that have stood firmly for so many years,
or the healthful influence of intelligent industry tending to our
greatness and prosperity? This our war is to decide. No peaceful
solution of the great question could be made. This Lyon foresaw in the
truckling of politicians North to win the unit of Southern political
sympathy: the main end and aim of the South being the appointment of
Southern men to the Presidency, 'as security on the one hand against
unfavorable executive action toward slavery, and on the other against
executive patronage adverse to its interests, the democratic party North
succeeded, by trimming party sails and decking party leaders, in suiting
their fastidious Southern leaders.' The question once at issue, even a
peaceful separation was impossible, though an amendment of the
Constitution should sanction it. War was inevitable. The great bugbear
of slavery would still exist; fugitive slave laws be forever upon the
political carpet; formidable jealousies spring up between two nations
founded upon such diverse principles, yet united by very natural
circumstance of language and climate; internal wrangling would destroy
all unity, conspiracies give the death-blow to all prosperity and all
hope of advancement. All this if there were no great party at the North
to rise upon the vast ground of humanity, claiming for its millions the
privilege of an unfettered life, for its children a fair start in the
future. Only one remedy Lyon knew, and he stood there, the early apostle
of Emancipation, and preached it. His doctrine was not accepted then, it
is not accepted now; but the time must come, when millions shall have
been expended, and blood shall have flowed like water only to delay it,
when we will fly to it for salvation. Let those who still cry 'Peace,
peace,' when there is no peace, learn what is to be its
price--Emancipation. It will be a bitter draught; well, so was the
independence of her colonies to England. And every day makes it more
bitter; the gall in the cup rises to the brim; a few more months and it
will overflow; the people will take the matter into their own hands and
legislate slavery into the swamps of Florida.

It is a lame and blind philanthropy that cries for a respite. 'A little
more sleep, a little more slumber. After us the deluge.' And meanwhile
the damnable lies gain ground, and a new generation is lost to its due
development. Have we yet to learn that we are no longer individuals, but
parts of a mighty nation, and responsible in some sort, every one, women
and men, for its destiny? Poland has learned this lesson. Her eyes are
upon us now. Shall she, still struggling, find that blood and treasure,
and all the thousand dear blessings of peace, have been sacrificed in
vain? If you cry 'War is an evil!' we grant it; but is it reserved for
the nineteenth century to discover a creed for which there shall be no
martyrs? What great gift has the world ever won that was not bought with
blood? When has independence of action or thought been purchased
otherwise than at the cost of persecution,--more revolution? Then let us
not slander revolutions. They are the throes of nature undergoing her
purification; if it is as by fire, oh! let us have courage and stand
beside her in her hour of trial. St. George will not fight forever; the
dragon of oppression is dying.

  'Yes, although so slowly, he _is_ dying;
  Many thousand years have fled in darkness,
  Since the sword first cut his scaly armor,
  And the red wound roused him into madness;
  But the good knight is of race immortal,
  Ever young, and passionate and fearless;
  And the strength which oozes from the dragon,
  Blooms reviving in the glorious warrior.'

And, after all, the demon of war is not so black as we have painted him.
We do not shudder to-day as we read of the siege of Troy or the downfall
of Carthage, or the Romance of the Cid. The song of Deborah, 'of the
avenging of Israel _when the people willingly offered themselves_,' is
one glorious burst of praise to God and gratitude to the martyrs. There
was war in heaven when ambition was cast out:--what quiet pastoral
appeals to our noblest impulses as Paradise Lost does? Wisely and well
speaks the English clergyman when he says:--

'But the truth is that here, as elsewhere, poetry has reached the truth,
while science and common sense have missed it. It has distinguished--as,
in spite of all mercenary and feeble sophistry, men ever will
distinguish--war from mere bloodshed. It has discerned the higher
feelings which lie beneath its revolting features. Carnage is terrible.
The conversion of producers into destroyers is a calamity. Death, and
insults to women worse than death--and human features obliterated
beneath the hoof of the war-horse--and reeking hospitals, and ruined
commerce, and violated homes, and broken hearts--they are all awful. But
there is something worse than death: cowardice is worse. And the _decay
of enthusiasm and manliness is worse_. And it is worse than death, aye,
worse than one hundred thousand deaths, when a people has gravitated
down into the creed, that the "wealth of nations" consists, not in
generous hearts, "fire in each breast, and freedom on each brow," in
national virtues, and primitive simplicity, and heroic endurance, and
preference of duty to life--not in _men_, but in silk and _cotton_, and
something that they call "capital." Peace is blessed--peace arising out
of charity. But peace springing out of the calculations of selfishness
is not blessed. If the price to be paid for peace is this, that wealth
accumulate and men decay, better far that every street, in every town of
our once noble country, should run blood.'[K]

As we write, every telegram proves the vaunted unity of the South a
sham, a visionary political bugbear, no longer strong or hideous enough
to frighten the most inveterate conservative dough-face. But a few
victories do not end the war; still earnestness and effort and
sacrifice, for the sick man of America will fight even when his 'brains
are out.' Not until we have proved to Breckenridge, the traitor, that we
are not 'fighting for principles that three-fourths of us abhor,' and
that the Union is not only 'a means of preserving the principles of
political liberty,' but that in it is irrevocably bound up every living
principle of all liberty, social, religious and individual; that in its
shelter only we have security against wrong at home and insult from
abroad; not until Emancipation has instituted a new order of things in
society as well as in politics, will the death of the out-spoken patriot
and brave man, Lyon, be avenged, and the Struggle be at an end. 'Genius
is patient,' but patience has had her perfect work, and the days of
Rebellion are numbered. On with the crusade!

       *       *       *       *       *

MACCARONI AND CANVAS.


II.

The voice of Rome is baritone, always excepting that of the Roman
locomotive,--the donkey,--which is deep bass, and comes tearing and
braying along at times when it might well be spared. In the still night
season, wandering among the moonlit ruins of the Coliseum, while you
pause and gaze upon the rising tiers of crumbling stone above you,
memory retraces all you have read of the old Roman days: the forms of
the world-conquerors once more people the deserted ruin; the clash of
ringing steel; hot, fiery sunlight; thin, trembling veil of dust pierced
by the glaring eyes of dying gladiators; red-spouting blood; screams of
the mangled martyrs torn by Numidian lions; moans of the dying; fierce
shouts of exultation from the living; smiles from gold-banded girls in
flowing robes, with floating hair, flower-crowned, and perfumed; the hum
of thrice thirty thousand voices hushed to a whisper as the combat hangs
on an uplifted sword; the--

Aw-waw-WAUN-ik! WAW-NIK! WAUN-KI-w-a-w-n! comes like blatant fish-horn
over the silent air, and your dream of the Coliseum ends ignominiously
with this nineteenth-century song of a jackass.

At night you will hear the shrill cry of the screech-owl sounding down
the silent streets in the most thickly-populated parts of the city. Or
you will perhaps be aroused from sleep, as Caper often was, by the
long-drawn-out cadences of some countryman singing a _rondinella_ as he
staggers along the street, fresh from a wine-house. Nothing can be more
melancholy than the concluding part of each verse in these rondinellas,
the voice being allowed to drop from one note to another, as a man
falling from the roof of a very high house may catch at some projection,
hold on for a time, grow weak, loose his hold, fall, catch again, hold
on for a minute, and at last fall flat on the pavement, used up, and
down as low as he can reach.

But the street-cries of this city are countless; from the man who brings
round the daily broccoli to the one who has a wild boar for sale, not
one but is determined that you shall hear all about it. Far down a
narrow street you listen to a long-drawn, melancholy howl--the voice as
of one hired to cry in the most mournful tones for whole generations of
old pagan Romans who died unconverted; poor devils who worshiped wine
and women, and knew nothing better in this world. And who is their
mourner? A great, brawny, tawny, steeple-crowned hat, blue-breeched,
two-fisted fish-huckster; and he is trying to sell, by yelling as if his
heart would break, a basket of fish not so long as your finger. If he
cries so over anchovies, what would he do if he had a whale for sale?

Another _primo basso profundo_ trolls off a wheelbarrow and a fearful
cry at the same time; not in unison with his merchandise, for he has
birds--quail, woodcock, and snipe--for sale, besides a string of dead
nightingales, which he says he will 'sell cheap for a nice stew.' Think
of stewed nightingales! One would as soon think of eating a boiled
Cremona violin.

But out of the way! Here comes, blocking up the narrow street, a
_contadino_, a countryman from the Campagna. His square wooden cart is
drawn by a donkey about the size of, and resembling, save ears, a singed
Newfoundland dog; his voice, strong for a vegetarian,--for he sells
onions and broccoli, celery and tomatoes, _finocchio_ and mushrooms,--is
like tearing a firm rag: how long can it last, subjected to such use?

It is in the game and meat market, near the Pantheon, that you can more
fully become acquainted with the street cries of Rome; but the Piazza
Navona excels even this. Passing along there one morning, Caper heard
such an extraordinary piece of vocalization, sounding like a Sioux
war-whoop with its back broken, that he stopped to see what it was all
about. There stood a butcher who had exposed for sale seven small stuck
pigs, all one litter; and if they had been his own children, and died
heretics, he could not have howled over them in a more heart-rending
manner.

About sunrise, and even before it,--for the Romans are early
risers,--you will hear in spring-time a sharp ringing voice under your
window, '_Acqua chetosa! Acqua, chetosa!_' an abridgment of _acque
accetosa_, or water from the fountain of Accetosa, considered a good
aperient, and which is drank before breakfast. Also a voice crying out,
'_Acqua-vi-ta!_' or spirits, drank by the workmen and others at an
expense of a baioccho or two the table-spoonful, for that is all the
small glasses hold. In the early morning, too, you hear the chattering
jackdaws on the roofs; and then, more distinctly than later in the day,
the clocks striking their odd way. The Roman clocks ring from one to six
strokes four times during the twenty-four hours, and not from one to
twelve strokes, as with us. Sunset is twenty-four o'clock, and is noted
by six strokes; an hour after sunset is one o'clock, and is noted by one
stroke; and so on until six hours after, when it begins striking one
again. As the quarter hours are also rung by the clocks, if you happen
to be near one you will have a fine chance to get in a muddle trying to
separate quarters from hours, and Roman time from your own. Another
noise comes from the game of _morra_. Caper was looking out of his
window one morning, pipe in mouth, when he saw two men suddenly face
each other, one of them bringing his arm down very quickly, when the
other yelled as if kicked, '_Dué!_' (two), and the first shouted at the
top of his lungs, '_Tre!_' (three). Then they both went at it, pumping
their hands up and down and spreading their fingers with a quickness
which was astonishing, while all the time they kept screaming, 'One!'
'Four!' 'Three!' 'Two!' 'Five!' etc., etc. 'Ha!' said Caper, 'this is
something like; 'tis an arithmetical, mathematical, etcetrical school in
the open air. The dirtiest one is very quick; he will learn to count
five in no time. But I don't see the necessity of saying "three" when
the other brings down four fingers, or saying "five" when he shows two.
But I suppose it is all right; he hasn't learned to give the right names
yet.' He learned later that they were gambling.

While these men were shouting, there came along an ugly old woman with a
tambourine and a one-legged man with a guitar, and seeing prey in the
shape of Caper at his window, they pounced on him, as it were, and
poured forth the most ear-rending discord; the old lady singing, the old
gentleman backing up against a wall and scratching at an accompaniment
on a jangling old guitar. The old lady had a bandana handkerchief tied
over her head, and whilst she watched Caper she cast glances up and down
the street, to see if some rich stranger, or _milordo_, was not coming
to throw her a piece of silver.

'What are you howling about?' shouted Caper down to her.

'A new Neapolitan canzonetta, signore; all about a young man who grieves
for his sweetheart, because he thinks she is not true to him, and what
he says to her in a serenade.' And here she screechingly sung,--

  But do not rage, I beg, my dear;
  I want you for my wife,
  And morning, noon, and night likewise,
  I'll love you like my life.

  CHORUS.

  I only want to get a word,
  My charming girl, from thee.
  You know, Ninella, I can't breathe,
  Unless your heart's for me!

'Well,' said Caper, 'if this is Italian music, I don't _see_ it.'

The one-legged old gentleman clawed away at the strings of the guitar.

'I say,'_llustrissimo_,' shouted Caper down to him, 'what kind of
strings are those on your instrument?'

'_Excellenza_, catgut,' he shouted, in answer.

'_Benissimo!_ I prefer cats in the original packages. There's a _paolo_:
travel!'

Caper had the misfortune to make the acquaintance of a professor of the
mandolin, a wire-strung instrument, resembling a long-necked squash cut
in two, to be played on with a quill, and which, with a guitar and
violin, makes a concert that thrills you to the bones and cuts the
nerves away.

But the crowning glory of all that is ear-rending and peace-destroying,
is carried around by the _Pifferari_ about Christmas time. It is a
hog-skin, filled with wind, having pipes at one end, and a jackass at
the other, and is known in some lands as the bagpipe. The small shrines
to the Virgin, particularly those in the streets where the wealthy
English reside, are played upon assiduously by the _pifferari_, who are
supposed by romantic travelers to come from the far-away Abbruzzi
Mountains, and make a pilgrimage to the Eternal City to fulfil a vow to
certain saints; whereas it is sundry cents they are really after. They
are for the most part artists' models, who at this season of the year
get themselves up _à la pifferari_, or piper, to prey on the romantic
susceptibilities and pockets of the strangers in Rome, and, with a pair
of long-haired goat-skin breeches, a sheepskin coat, brown rags, and
sandals, or _cioccie_, with a shocking bad conical black or brown hat,
in which are stuck peacock's or cock's feathers, they are ready equipped
to attack the shrines and the strangers.

Unfortunately for Caper there was a shrine to the Virgin in the
second-story front of the house next to where he lived; that is,
unfortunately for his musical ear, for the lamp that burned in front of
the shrine every dark night was a shining and pious light to guide him
home, and thus, ordinarily, a very fortunate arrangement. In the
third-story front room of the house of the shrine dwelt a Scotch artist
named MacGuilp, who was a grand amateur of these pipes, and who declared
that no sound in the world was so sweet to his ear as the bagpipes: they
recalled the heather, haggis, and the Lothians, and the mountain dew, ye
ken, and all those sorts of things.

One morning at breakfast in the Café Greco he discoursed at length about
the pleasure the pifferari gave him; while Caper, taking an opposite
view, said they had, during the last few days, driven him nearly crazy,
and he wished the squealing hog-skins well out of town.

MacGuilp told him he had a poor ear for music: that there was a charm
about the bagpipes unequalled even by the unique voices of the Sistine
Chapel; and there was nothing he would like better than to have all the
pipers of Rome under his windows.

Caper remembered this last rash speech of Master MacGuilp, and
determined at an early hour to test its truth. It happened, the very
next morning at breakfast, that MacGuilp, in a triumphant manner, told
him that he had received a promise of a visit from the Duchess of ----,
with several other titled English; and said he had not a doubt of
selling several paintings to them. MacGuilp's style was of the
blood-and-thunder school: red dawns, murdered kings, blood-stained
heather, and Scotch plaids, the very kind that should be shown to the
sweet strainings of hog-skin bagpipes.

In conversation Caper found out the hour at which the duchess intended
to make her visit. He made his preparations accordingly. Accompanied by
Rocjean, he visited Gigi, who kept a costume and life school of models,
found out where the pipers drank most wine, and going there and up the
Via Fratina and down the Spanish Steps, managed to find them, and
arranged it so that at the time the duchess was viewing MacGuilp's
paintings, he should have the full benefit of a serenade from all the
pifferari in Rome.

The next morning Caper, pipe in mouth, at his window, saw the carriage
of the duchess drive up, and from it the noble English dismount and
ascend to the artist's studio. The carriage had hardly driven away when
up came two of the pipers, and happening to cast their eyes up they saw
Caper, who hailed them and told them not to begin playing until the
others arrived. In a few moments six of the hog-skin squeezers stood
ready to begin their infernal squawking.

'Go ahead!' shouted Caper, throwing a handful of _baiocchi_ among them;
and as soon as these were gathered up, the pipers gave one awful,
heart-chilling blast, and the concert was fairly commenced. Squealing,
shrieking, grunting, yelling, and humming, the sounds rose higher and
higher. Open flew the windows in every direction.

'_C'est foudroyante!_' said the pretty French _modiste_.

'What the devil's broke loose?' shouted an American.

'_Mein Gott im himmel! was ist das?_' roared the German baron.

'_Casaccio! cosa faceste?_' shrieked the lovely Countess Grimanny.

'_In nomine Domine!_' groaned a fat friar.

'_Caramba! vayase al infierno!_' screamed Don Santiago Gomez.

'_Bassama teremtete!_' swore the Hungarian gentleman.

Louder squealed the bagpipes, their buzz filled the air, their shrieks
went ringing up to MacGuilp like the cries of Dante's condemned. The
duchess found the sound barbarous. MacGuilp opened his window, upon
which the pipers strained their lungs for the Signore Inglese, grand
amateur of the bagpipes. He begged them to go away. 'No, no, signore; we
know you love our music; we won't go away.'

The duchess could stand it no longer, her Servant called the carriage,
the English got in and drove off.

Still rung out the sounds of the six bagpipes. Caper threw them more
_baiocchi_.

Suddenly MacGuilp burst out of the door of his house, maul-stick in
hand, rushing on the pifferari to put them to flight.

'_Iddio giusto!_' shouted two of the pipers; 'it is, IT IS the
_Cacciatore_! the hunter; the Great Hunter!'

'He is a painter!' shouted another.

'No, he isn't; he's a hunter. _Gran Cacciatore!_ Doesn't he spend all
his time after quails and snipe and woodcock? Haven't I been out with
him day after day at Ostia? Long live the great hunter!'

MacGuilp was touched in a tender spot. The homage paid him as a great
hunter more than did away with his anger at the bagpipe serenade. And
the last Caper saw of him he was leading six pifferari into a wine shop,
where they would not come out until seven of them were unable to tell
the music of bagpipes from the music of the spheres.

So ends the music, noises, and voices, of the seven-hilled city.


SERMONS IN STONES.

One bright Sunday morning in January, Rocjean called on Caper to ask him
to improve the day by taking a walk.

'I thought of going up to the English chapel outside the Popolo to see a
pretty New Yorkeress,' said the latter; 'but the affair is not very
pressing, and I believe a turn round the Villa Borghese would do me as
much good as only looking at a pretty girl and half hearing a poor
sermon.'

'As for a sermon, we need not miss that,' answered Rocjean, 'for we will
stop in at Chapin the sculptor's studio, and if we escape one, and he
there, I am mistaken. They call his studio a shop, and they call his
shop the Orphan's Asylum, because he manufactured an Orphan Girl some
years ago, and, as it sold well, he has kept on making orphans ever
since.

'The murderer!'

'Yes; but not half as atrocious as the reality. You must know that when
he first came over here he had an order to make a small Virgin Mary for
a Catholic church in Boston; but the order being countermanded after he
had commenced modeling in clay, he was determined not to lose his time,
and so, having somewhere read of, in a yellow-covered novel, or seen in
some fashion-plate magazine, a doleful-looking female called The Orphan,
he instantly determined, cruel executioner that he is, to also make an
orphan. And he did. There is a dash of bogus sentiment in it that passes
for coin current with many of our traveling Americans; and the thing has
"sold." He told me not long since he had orders for twelve copies of
different sized Orphans, and you will see them all through his asylum.
Do you remember those lines in Richard the Third,--

  '"Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
  And call us orphans--wretched?"'

They found Chapin in his shop, alias studio, busily looking over a
number of plaster casts of legs and arms. He arose quickly as they
entered and threw a cloth over the casts.

'Hah! gudmornin', Mister Caper. Glad to see you in my studiyo. Hallo,
Rocjan! you there? Why haven't you ben up to see my wife and daughters?
She feels hurt, I tell you, 'cause you don't come near us. Do you know
that Burkings of Bosting was round here to my studiyo yeserday: sold
_him_ an Orphan. By the way, Mister Caper, air you any relation to Caper
of the great East Ingy house of Caper?'

'He is an uncle of mine, and is now in Florence; he will be in Rome next
week.'

A tender glow of interest beamed in Chapin's eyes: in imagination he saw
another Orphan sold to the rich Caper, who might 'influence trade.' His
tone of voice after this was subdued. As Caper happened to brush against
some plaster coming in the studio, Chapin hastened to brush it from his
coat, and he did it as if it were the down on the wing of a beautiful
golden butterfly.

'I was goin' to church this mornin' long with Missus Chapin; but I guess
I'll stay away for once in me life. I want to show you The Orphan.'

'I beg that you will not let me interfere with any engagement you may
have,' said Caper; 'I can call as well at any other time.'

'Oh, no; I won't lissen to that; I don't want to git to meeting before
sermon, so come right stret in here now. There! there's The Orphan. You
see I've made her accordin' to the profoundest rules of art. You may
take a string or a yard measure and go all over her, you won't find her
out of the way a fraction. The figure is six times the length of the
foot; this was the way Phidias worked, and I agree with him. Them were
splendid old fellows, them Greeks. There was art for you; high art!'

'That in the Acropolis was of the highest order,' said Rocjean.

'Yes,' answered Chapin, who did not know where it was; 'far above all
other. There was some sentiment in them days; but it was all of the
religious stripe; they didn't come down to domestic life and feelin';
they hadn't made the strides we have towards layin' open art to the
million--towards developing _hum_ feelings. They worked for a precious
few; but we do it up for the many. Now there's the A-poller
Belvidiary--beautiful thing; but the idea of brushin' his hair that way
is ridicoolus. Did you ever see anybody with their hair fixed that way?
Never! They had a way among the Greeks of fixing their drapery right
well; but I've invented a plan--for which I've applied to Washington for
a patent--that I think will beat anything Phidias ever did.'

'You can't tell how charmed I am to hear you,' spoke Rocjean.

'Well, it _is_ a great invention,' continued Chapin; 'and as I know
neither of you ain't in the 'trade' (smiling), I don't care but what
I'll show it to you, if you'll promise, honor bright, you won't tell
anybody. You see I take a piece of muslin and hang it onto a statue the
way I want the folds to fall; then I take a syringe filled with starch
and glue and go all over it, so that when it dries it'll be as hard as a
rock. Then I go all over it with a certain oily preparation and lastly
I run liquid plaster-paris in it, and when it hardens, I have an exact
mold of the drapery. There! But I hain't explained The Orphan. You see
she's sittin' on a very light chair--_that_ shows the very little
support she has in this world. The hand to the head shows meditation;
and the Bible on her knee shows devotion; you see it's open to the book,
chapter, and verse which refers to the young ravens.'

'Excuse me,' said Caper, 'but may I ask why she has such a _very_
low-necked dress on?'

'Well, my model has got such a fine neck and shoulders,' replied Chapin,
'that I re-eely couldn't help showing 'em off on the Orphan: besides,
they're more in demand--the low neck and short sleeves--than the
high-bodied style, which has no buyers. But there is a work I'm engaged
on now that would just soot your uncle. Mr. Caper, come this way.'

Caper saw what he supposed was a safe to keep meat cool in, and
approached. Chapin threw back the doors of it like a showman about to
disclose the What Is It? and Caper saw a dropsical-looking Cupid with a
very short shirt on, and a pair of winged shoes on his feet. The figure
was starting forward as if to catch his equilibrium, which he had that
moment lost, and was only prevented from tumbling forward by a bag held
behind him in his left hand, while his right arm and hand, at full
length, pointed a sharp arrow in front of him.

'Can you tell me what _that_ figger represents?' asked Chapin. As he
received no reply, he continued: '_That_ is Enterprise; the two little
ruts at his feet represent a railroad; the arrow, showin' he's sharp,
points ahead; Go ahead! is his motto; the bag in his hand represents
money, which the keen, sharp, shrewd business man knows is the reward of
enterprise. The wreath round his head is laurel mixed up with lightnin',
showin' he's up to the tellygraph; the pen behind his ear shows he can
figger; and his short shirt shows economy, that admirable virtoo. The
wings on his shoes air taken from Mercury, as I suppose you know; and--'

'I say, now, Chapin, don't you think he's got a little too much legs,
and rather extra stomach on him, to make fast time?' asked Rocjean.

'Measure him, measure him!' said Chapin, indignantly; 'there's a string.
Figure six times the length of his foot, everything else in proportion.
No, _sir_; I have not studied the classic for nothin'; if there is any
one thing I am strong on, it's anatomy. Only look at his hair. Why, sir,
I spent three weeks once dissectin'; and for more'n six months I didn't
do anything, during my idle time, but dror figgers. Art is a kind of
thing that's born in a man. This saying the ancients were better
sculpters than we air, is no such thing; what did they know about
steam-engines or telegraphs? _Fiddle!_ They did some fustrate things,
but they had no idee of fixin' hair as it should be fixed. No, sir; we
moderns have great add-vantagiz, and we improve 'em. Rome is the Cra--'

'I must bid you good-day,' interrupted Caper; 'your wife will miss you
at the sermon: you will attribute it to me; and I would not
intentionally be the cause of having her ill-will for anything.'

'Well, she is a pretty hard innimy; and they do talk here in Rome if you
don't toe the mark. But ree-ly, you mustn't go off mad (smiling). You
must call up with Rocjan and see us; and I ree-ly hope that when your
uncle comes you will bring him to my studiyo. I am sure my Enterprise
will soot him.'

So Chapin saw them out of his studio. Not until Caper found himself
seated on a stone bench under the ilexes of the Villa Borghese, watching
the sunbeams darting on the little lizards, and seeing far off the
Albanian Mountains, snowcapped against the blue sky--not until then did
he breathe freely.

'Rocjean,' said he; 'that stone-cutter down there--that Chapin--'

'_Chameau!_ roared Rocjean. 'He and his kind are doing for art what the
Jews did for prize-fighting--they ruin it. They make art the
laughing-stock of all refined and educated people. Art applied solely to
sculpture and painting is dead; it will not rise again in these our
times. But art, the fairy-fingered beautifier of all that surrounds our
homes and daily walks, save paintings and statuary, never breathed so
fully, clearly, nobly as now, and her pathway amid the lowly and homely
things around us is shedding beauty wherever it goes. The rough-handed
artisan who, slowly dreaming of the beautiful, at last turns out a stone
that will beautify and adorn a room, instead of rendering it hideous,
has done for this practical generation what he of an earlier theoretical
age did for his cotemporaries when he carved the imperial Venus of
Milos. Enough; _this_ is the sermon _not_ preached from stones.'


A BALL AT THE COSTA PALACE

One sunlight morning in February, while hard at work in his studio,
Caper was agreeably surprised by the entrance of an elderly uncle of
his, Mr. Bill Browne, of St. Louis, a gentleman of the rosy, stout,
hearty school of old bachelors, who, having made a large fortune by
keeping a Western country store, prudently retired from business, and
finding it dull work doing nothing, wisely determined to enjoy himself
with a tour over the Continent, 'or any other place he might conclude to
visit.'

'I say, Jim, did you expect to see me here?' was his first greeting.

'Why, Uncle Bill! Well, you are the last man I ever thought would turn
up. They didn't write me a word of your coming over,' answered Caper.

'Mistake; they wrote you all about it; and if you'll drop round at the
post-office, you'll find letters there telling you the particulars. Fact
is, I am ahead of the mail. Coming over in the steamer, met a man named
Orville; told me he knew you, that he was coming straight through to
Rome, and offered to pilot me. So I gave up Paris and all that, and came
smack through, eighteen days from New York. But I'm dry. Got a match?
Here, try one of these cigars.'

Caper took a cigar from his uncle's case, lit it, and then, calling the
man who swept out the studios, sent him to the neighboring wine-shop for
a bottle of wine.

'By George, Jim, that's a pretty painting: that jackass is fairly alive,
and so's the girl with a red boddice. I say, what's she got that towel
on her head for? Is it put there to dry?'

'No; that's an Italian peasant girl's head-covering. Most all of them do
so.'

'Do they? I'm glad of that. But here comes your man with the liquor.'

And, after drinking two or three tumblers full, Uncle Bill decided that
it was pretty good cider. The wine finished, together with a couple of
rolls that came with it, the two sallied out for a walk around the
Pincian Hill, the grand promenade of Rome. Towards sunset they thought
of dinner, and Uncle Bill, anxious to see life, accepted Caper's
invitation to dine at the old Gabioni: here they ordered the best
dishes, and the former swore it was as good a dinner as he ever got at
the Planter's House. Rocjean, who dined there, delighted the old
gentleman immensely, and the two fraternized at once, and drank each
other's health, old style, until Caper, fearing that neither could
conveniently hold more, suggested an adjournment to the Greco for coffee
and cigars.

While they were in the café, Rocjean quietly proposed something to
Caper, who at once assented; the latter then said to Uncle Bill,--

'You have arrived in Rome just at the right time. You may have heard at
home of the great Giacinti family; well, the Prince Nicolo di Giacinti
gives a grand ball to-night at the Palazzo Costa. Rocjean and I have
received invitations, embracing any illustrious strangers of our
acquaintance who may happen to be in Rome; so you must go with us. You
have no idea, until you come to know them intimately, what a
good-natured, off-hand set the best of the Roman nobility are. Compelled
by circumstances to keep up for effect an appearance of great reserve
and dignity before the public, they indemnify themselves for it in
private by having the highest kind of old times. They are passionately
attached to their native habits and costumes, and though driven, on
state occasions especially, to imitate French and English habits, yet
they love nothing better than at times to enjoy themselves in their
native way. The ball given by the prince to-night is what might be
called a free-and-easy. It is his particular desire that no one should
come in full dress; in fact, he rather likes to have his stranger guests
come in their worst clothes, for this prevents the attention of the
public being called to them as they enter the palace. After you have
lived some time in Rome you will see how necessary it is to keep dark,
so you will see no flaring light at the palace gate; it's all as quiet
and common-place as possible. The dresses, you must remember, are
assumed for the occasion because they are, or were, the national
costume, which is fast disappearing, and if it were not for the noble
wearers you will see to-night, you could not find them anywhere in Rome.
You will perhaps think the nobility at the ball hardly realize your
ideas of Italian beauty and refinement, compared with the fine specimens
of men and women you may have seen among the Italian opera singers at
home: well, these same singers are picked specimens, and are chosen for
their height and muscular development from the whole nation, so that
strangers may think all the rest at home are like them: it is a little
piece of deception we can pardon.'

After this long prelude, Rocjean proposed that they should try a game of
billiards in the Café Nuovo. After they had played a game or two, and
drank several _mezzo caldos_, or rum punches, they walked up the Corso
to the Via San Claudio, No. 48, and entered the palace gate. It was very
dark after they entered, so Rocjean, telling them to wait one moment,
lit a _cerina_, or piece of waxed cord, an article indispensable to a
Roman, and, crossing the broad courtyard, they entered a small door, and
after climbing and twisting and turning, found a ticket-taker, and the
next minute were in the ball-room.

Uncle Bill was delighted with the excessively free-and-easy ball of
Prince Giacinti, but was very anxious to know the names of the nobility,
and Rocjean politely undertook to point out the celebrities, offering
kindly to introduce him to any one he might think looked sympathetic;
'what they call _simpatico_ in Italian,' explained Rocjean.

'That pretty girl in _Ciociara_ costume is the Condessa or Countess
Stella di Napoli.'

'Introduce me,' said Uncle Bill.

Rocjean went through the performance, concluding thus: 'The countess
expresses a wish that you should order a _bottiglia_ (about two bottles)
of red wine.'

'Go ahead,' quoth Uncle Bill; 'for a nobility ball this comes as near a
dance-house affair as I ever want to approach. By the way, who is that
pickpocket-looking genius with eyes like a black snake?'

'Who is _that_?' said Rocjean, theatrically. 'Chut! a word in your ear;
that is An-to-nel-li!'

'The devil! But I heard some one only a few minutes ago call him
Angelucio.'

'That was done satirically, for it means big angel, which you, who read
the papers, know that Antonelli is _not_. But here comes the wine, and I
see the countess looks dry. Pour out a half-dozen glasses for her. The
Roman women, high and low, paddle in wine like ducks, and it never
upsets them; for, like ducks, their feet are so large that neither you
nor wine can throw them. I wish you could speak Italian, for here comes
the Princess Giacinta _con Marchese_--'

'I wish,' said Uncle Bill, 'you would talk English.'

'Well,' continued Rocjean, 'with the Marchioness Nina Romana, if you
like that better. Shall I introduce you?'

'Certainly,' replied the old gentleman, 'and order two more what d'ye
call 'ems. It's cheap--this knowing a princess for a quart of red
teaberry tooth-wash, for that's what this "wine" amounts to. I am going
to dance to-night, for the Princess Giacinta is a complete woman after
my heart, and weighs her two hundred pound any day.'

The nobility now began begging Rocjean and Caper to introduce them to
his excellency _Il vecchio_, or the old man; and Uncle Bill, in his
enthusiasm at finding himself surrounded with so many princes,
Allegrini, Pelligrini, Sapgrini, and Dungreeny, compelled Caper to order
up a barrel of wine, set it a-tap, and tell the nobility to 'go in.' It
is needless to say that they _went_ in. Many of the costumes were very
rich, especially those of the female nobility; and in the rush for a
glass of wine the effect of the brilliant draperies flying here and
there, struggling and pushing, was notable. The musicians, who were
standing on what appeared to be barrels draped with white cloth, jumped
down and tried their luck at the wine-cask, and, after satisfying their
thirst, returned to their duties. There was a guitar, mandolin, violin,
and flute, and the music was good for dancing. Uncle Bill was pounced on
by the Princess Giacinta and whirled off into some kind of a dance, he
did not know what; round flew the room and the nobility; round flew
barrels of teaberry tooth-wash, beautiful princesses, big devils of
Antonellis. Lights, flash, hum, buzz, buzz, zzz--ooo--zoom!

Uncle Bill opened his eyes as the sunlight shed one golden bar into his
sleeping-room at the Hotel d'Europe, and there by his bedside sat his
nephew, Jim Caper, reading a letter, while on a table near at hand was a
goblet full of ice, a bottle of hock, and another bottle corked, with
string over it.

'It's so-da wa-ter,' said Uncle Bill, musing aloud.

'Hallo, uncle, you awake?' asked Caper, suddenly raising his eyes from
his letter.

'I am, my son. Give thy aged father thy blessing, and open that hock and
soda water quicker! I say, Jim, now, what became of the nobility, the
Colonnas and Aldobrandinis, after they finished that barrel? Strikes me
some of them will have an owlly appearance this morning.'

'You don't know them,' answered Caper.

'I am beginning to believe I don't, too,' spoke Uncle Bill. 'I say, now,
Jim, where did we go last night?'

'Why, Uncle Bill, to tell you the plain truth, we went to a ball at the
Costa Palace, and a model ball it was, too.'

'I have you! Models who sit for you painters. Well, if they arn't
nobility, they drink like kings, so it's all right. Give us the hock,
and say no more about it.'

       *       *       *       *       *

HOWE'S CAVE.


Few persons, perhaps, are aware that Schoharie County, N.Y., contains a
cave said to be nine or ten miles in extent, and, in many respects, one
of the most remarkable in America. Its visitors are few,--owing,
probably, to its recent discovery, together with its comparative
inaccessibility;--yet these few are well rewarded for its exploration.

In the month of August, 1861, I started, with three companions, to visit
this interesting place.

I will not weary the reader by describing the beauty of the Hudson and
the grandeur of the Catskills; yet I would fain fix in my memory forever
one sunrise, seen from the summit of a bluff on the eastern bank of the
river, when the fog, gradually lifting itself from the stream, and
slowly breaking into misty fragments, unveiled broad, smiling meadows,
dark forests, village after village, while above all, far in the
distance, rose the Catskills, clear in the sunlight.

After two days crowded with enjoyment, we arrived in Schoharie, where we
passed the night. Having given orders to be called at five, we took
advantage of the leisure hour this arrangement gave us to view, the next
morning.


AN OLD FORT.

In reality, the 'fort' is a dilapidated old church, used as a shelter
during the Indian wars, and also in the days of the Revolution. On the
smooth stones that form the eastern side are carved the names of the
soldiers who defended it, with the date, and designation of the regiment
to which they belonged. I deciphered also, among other curious details,
the name of the person who 'gave the favor of the ground.' I would
gladly have indulged my antiquarian tastes by copying these rude
inscriptions; but the eager cries of my companions compelled me to hurry
on.

The western portion of the structure has also its story to tell. The
traces of besieging cannon balls are still to be distinctly seen, and in
one place I observed a smooth, round hole, made by the passage of a ball
into the interior of the fort.

As I stood on the walls of this ancient building, surveying the valley
it overlooked, with its straggling village lying at our feet, and the
fair Schoharie Creek, now gleaming in the sunlight of the meadows, or
darkening in the shade of the trees that overhung it, the past and the
present mingled strongly in my thoughts.

The Stars and Stripes, that on this very spot had seen our fathers
repelling a foreign foe, now waved over their sons, forced from their
quiet homes, not to contend with the stranger and the alien, but to
subdue those rebellious brothers whose sacrilegious hands had torn down
that sacred flag, reared amidst the trials and perils of '76. Not less
noble the present contest than the past, nor less heroic the soldier of
to-day than the patriot of the Revolution. We continue to-day the fight
they fought against injustice and oppression--a conflict that will end
only when every nation and every race shall lift unshackled hands up to
God in thanksgiving for the gift of freedom. A deeper love of my
country, and a firmer trust in the God of truth and justice, sank into
my heart as I turned away from those rude walls, sacred to the memory of
departed valor.

We hurried back to the breakfast that awaited us, and then drove to

THE CAVE,

which lies six miles from the village of Schoharie. The entrance is at
the base of a heavily-wooded mountain that shuts in a secluded little
valley. The only opening from this solitary vale is made by a small
stream that winds out from among the hills. The entire seclusion of the
place has prevented its earlier discovery; but the inevitable 'Hotel'
now rears its wooden walls above the cave to encourage future
adventurers to explore its recesses.

In the absence of the proprietor of the hotel, who usually acts as
cicerone, we took as guide a sun-burnt young man, with an economical
portion of nose, closely cut hair, and a wiry little mouth, which we saw
at a glance would open only at the rate of a quarter of a dollar a fact.
He proved himself, however, shrewd, witty, and, withal, good-natured,
and as fond of a joke as any one of us all. Bob, for so our new
companion named himself, showed us at once into a dressing-room,
advising us to put on, over our own garments, certain exceedingly coarse
and ragged coats, hats and pants, which transformed us at once from
rather fashionable young men into a set of forlorn-looking beggars. Each
laughed at the appearance of the other, unconscious of his own
transformation; but Bob, with more truth than politeness, informed us
that we all 'looked like the Old Nick;' whence it appeared that in Bob's
opinion the Enemy is usually sorely afflicted with a shabby wardrobe,
and that, in the words of the sage,

  'Poverty is the devil.'


Being furnished with small oil lamps, we descended to the mouth of the
cave. This opens at once into an entrance-hall, one hundred and fifty
feet in length and thirty in width, and high enough for a tall man to
enter upright.

I inquired of Bob when the cave was discovered. 'In 1842,' he replied.
'And by whom?' I continued. 'Why,' rejoined our guide, 'Mister Howe was
a huntin' for caves, and he came across this one.' Rather a queer thing
to be hunting for, I thought, though without comment; but in future I
allowed Bob to carry on the conversation as best suited himself. He
plunged at once into a dissertation on the state of the country, gravely
stating that 'Washington was taken.' At the involuntary smile which this
astounding piece of news called forth, Bob confessed 'he might be
mistaken in this respect, as his paper came but once a week, and
frequently only once in two weeks.' Finding him a stanch Union man, and
inclined to serve his country to the best of his ability, we undertook
'to post him up' on the present state of affairs, for which the poor
fellow was truly grateful.

Entrance Hall leads into Washington Hall, a magnificent apartment, three
hundred feet long, and in the lowest part upwards of forty feet high.
Our guide favored us at every turn with some new story or legend,
repeated in a sing-song, nasal tone, ludicrously contrasting with the
extravagance of the tales themselves. Yet he recited all alike with the
most immovable gravity. It was a lively waltz of three notes.

Old Tunnel and Giant's Chapel, two fine cave-rooms, were next explored.
On entering the latter, Bob favored us with the rehearsal of an old
story from the Arabian Nights, which--unfortunately, not one which will
bear repetition--he wished us to believe actually happened in this very
locality.

I may here confess that, when we came to 'the dark hole in the ground,'
I felt some slight reluctance to trust myself therein. Bob, observing
this, immediately drew from his lively imagination such an astonishing
increase of the perils of the way, looking complacently at me all the
while, that my alarm, strange to say, took flight at once, and I pushed
onward defiantly. The journey is, however, one that might justly inspire
timidity. Above our heads, and on each side, frowned immense rocks,
threatening at every instant to fall upon us; while the dash and babble
of a stream whose course we followed, increasing in volume as we
progressed, came to our ears like the 'sound of many waters.' We crossed
this stream a hundred times, at least, in our journey. Sometimes it
murmured and fretted in a chasm far below us; again, it spread itself
out in our very path, or danced merrily at our side, until it seemed to
plunge into some distant abyss with the roar of a cataract.

We emerged from the windings of our tortuous path into Harlem Tunnel, a
room six hundred feet in length. In its sides were frequent openings,
leading into hitherto unexplored parts of the cave; but we did not
venture to enter many of these. Never have I seen such rocks as we here
encountered; at one time piled up on one another, ready to totter and
fall at a touch; at another, jutting out in immense boulders, sixty feet
above our heads, while, in the openings they left, we gazed upward into
darkness that seemed immeasurable.

From Harlem Tunnel we came into Cataract Hall, also of great length, and
remarkable for containing a small opening extending to an unknown
distance within the mountain, since it apparently cannot be explored.
Applying the ear to this opening, the sound of an immense cataract
becomes audible, pouring over the rocks far within the recesses of the
mountain, where the Creator alone, who meted out those unseen, sunless
waters, can behold its beauty and its terror.

Crossing the Pool of Siloam, whose babbling waters sparkled into beauty
as we held our lamps above them, we entered Franklin Hall. Here the
roof, although high enough in some places, is uncomfortably low in
others; whereupon Bob bade us give heed to the caution of Franklin,
'Stoop as you go, and you will miss many hard thumps.'

We arrived next at Flood Hall, where a party of explorers were once put
in great peril by a sudden freshet in the stream. They barely saved
themselves by rapid flight, the water becoming waist-deep before they
gained the entrance. We had no reason to doubt the truth of this story,
as there were evidences of the rise and fall of water all about us.

Congress Hall now awaited us, but I will omit a description of it, as
Musical Hall, which immediately succeeded, contains so much more that is
interesting. On entering, our attention was first directed to an
aperture wide enough for the admission of a man's head. Any sound made
in this opening is taken up and repeated by echo after echo, till the
very spirit of music seems awakened. Wave after wave of melodious sound
charms the ear, even if the first awakening note has been most
discordant. If the soul is filled with silent awe while listening to the
unseen waterfall in Cataract Hall, it is here wooed into peace by a
harmony more perfect than any produced by mortal invention. A
temple-cavern vaster than Ellora with a giant 'lithophone' for organ!

The second wonder of Musical Hall is a lake of great extent, and from
ten to thirty feet in depth. The smooth surface of these crystal waters,
never ruffled by any air of heaven, and undisturbed save by the dip of
our oars as we were ferried across, the utter darkness that hid the
opposite shore from our straining sight, the huge rocks above, whose
clustering stalactites, lighted by our glimmering lamps, sparkled like a
starry sky, the sound of the far-off waterfall, softened by distance
into a sad and solemn music, all united to recall with a vivid power,
never before felt, the passage of the 'pious Æneas' over the Styx, which
I had so often read with delight in my boyhood. I half fancied our
Yankee Bob fading into a vision of the classic Charon, and that the
ghosts of unhappy spirits were peering at us from the darkness.

At the end of the lake is Annexation Rock, a huge limestone formation in
the shape of an egg. It stands on one end, is twenty-eight feet in
diameter, and over forty in height.

We were now introduced into Fat Man's Misery, where the small and
attenuated have greatly the advantage. We emerged from this narrow and
difficult passage into the Museum, half a mile long, and so called from
the number and variety of its formations. We did not linger to examine
its curiosities, but pushed on over the Alps, which we surmounted, aided
partly by ladders. Very steep and rugged were these Alps, and quite
worthy of the name they bear. We descended from them into the Bath-room,
where a pool of water and sundry other arrangements suggest to a lively
imagination its designation. It certainly has the recommendation of
being the most retired bath-room ever known. That of the Neapolitan
sibyl is public in comparison to it.

We then entered Pirate's Retreat. Why so named, I can not guess, for I
doubt if the boldest pirate who ever sailed the 'South Seas o'er' would
dare venture alone so far underground as we now found ourselves.

Leaving the Pirate's Retreat, we were obliged to cross the Rocky
Mountains, similar in formation and arrangement to the Alps. The Rocky
Mountains lead into Jehoshaphat's Valley, one mile in length. Like its
namesake, this valley is a deep ravine, with steep, rugged sides, and a
brawling brook running at the bottom.

Miller's Hall next claims our attention. Here we take leave of the
brook, which, with the cave, loses itself in a measureless ravine, where
the rocks have fallen in such a manner as to obstruct any further
explorations.

From thence, turning to the right, we enter Winding Way, a most
appropriate name for the place. The narrow passage turns and twists
between masses of solid rook, high in some places, and low in others.
The deathlike silence of the solitude that surrounded us impressed us
with a vague feeling of fear, and we felt no disposition to tempt the
Devil's Gangway, especially as, in consequence of a recent freshet, it
was partly filled with water. Our guide informed us that beyond the
Gangway were several rooms, among which Silent Chamber and Gothic Arch
were the most noteworthy. The portion of the cave visited by tourists
terminates in the 'Rotunda,' eight miles from the entrance; although
explorations have been made some miles further. The Rotunda is
cylindrical in shape, fifteen feet in diameter, and one hundred feet in
height.

We were now in a little room six miles from the mouth of the cave, and
thought the present a good opportunity to try the effect of the absence
of light and sound on the mind. Extinguishing our lights, therefore, we
resigned ourselves to the influences of darkness and silence. To realize
such a state fully, one must find one's self in the bowels of the earth,
as we were, where the beating of our own hearts alone attested the
existence of life. We were glad to relight our lamps and begin our
return to upper air.

I have already mentioned Annexation Rock; near it is another curious
freak of nature, called the Tree of the World's History. It resembles
the stump of a tree two feet in diameter, and cut off two feet above the
ground, upon which a portion of the trunk, six feet in length, is
exactly balanced. A singular type of the changes which time makes in the
world above-ground.

In the Museum, whose examination we had postponed till our return, we
were lost in a world of wonders. It were vain to attempt to describe or
even enumerate half of the various objects that met us at every turn.
Churches, towers, complete with doors and windows, as if finished by the
hand of an architect; an organ, its long and short pipes arranged in
perfect order; Lot's Wife, a figure in stone, life size; in another
place two women, in long, flowing garments, standing facing each other,
as if engaged in earnest conversation, and a soldier in complete
armor,--these were among the most striking of the larger objects. The
vegetable world was also well represented. Here was a bunch of carrots,
fresh as if just taken from the ground, sheaves of wheat, bunches of
grain and grass hanging from the walls and roofs. Interspersed were
birds of every species, doves in loving companionship, sparrows, and
hawks. I noticed also in one place a pair of elephant's ears perfect as
life. Indeed it was not difficult to believe that these stony semblances
had once been endowed with life, and, ere blight or decay could change,
had been transmuted into things of imperishable beauty.

While waiting for our guide to unmoor the boat, which was to take us
over the lake a second time, I ran up the bank to look at the
stalactites that hung in the greatest profusion above the water. The
light of my lamp shining through them produced an effect as surprising
as it was beautiful. But no words can do justice to the scene. Imagine
an immense room whose ceiling is studded with icicles forming every
conceivable curve and angle, and you will have only a faint idea of the
number and variety of these subterranean ornaments.

A mile from the entrance we found some stray bats,--the first living
creatures we had met. We endeavored to attract them by holding up our
lamps, and succeeded so well that we were glad to leave them behind us
as soon as possible.

It is a singular fact, noted by other cave-explorers, and confirmed by
our own experience, that while within a cave one's usual vigor and
activity appears augmented. A slight reaction takes place on coming out
into the upper world, and renders rest doubly refreshing and grateful.

Let me, in closing, advise other visitors to Howe's Cave to choose _fair
weather, and take time enough_ for their visit, as the windings of the
cave and its curiosities are alike exhaustless.

       *       *       *       *       *

POTENTIAL MOODS


      I sit and dream
  Of the time that prophets have long foretold,
  Of an age surpassing the age of gold,
  Which the eyes of the selfish can never behold,
      When truth and love shall be owned supreme.

      I think and weep
  O'er the thousands oppressed by sin and woe,
  O'er the long procession of those who go,
  Through ignorance, error, and passions low,
      To the unsought bed of their dreamless sleep.

      I wait and long
  For the sway of justice, the rule of right;
  For the glad diffusion of wisdom's light;
  For the triumph of liberty over might;
      For the day when the weak shall be free from the strong.

      I work and sing
  To welcome the dawn of the fairer day,
  When crime and sin shall have passed away,
  When men shall live as well as they pray,
      And earth with the gladness of heaven shall ring.

      I trust and hope
  In the tide of God's love that unceasingly rolls,
  In the dear words of promise that bear up our souls,
  In the tender compassion that sweetly consoles,
      When in death's darkened valley we tremblingly grope.

      I toil and pray
  For the beauty excelling all forms of art;
  For the blessing that comes to the holy heart;
  For the hope that foretells, and seems a part
      Of the life and joy of the heavenly day.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE TRUE INTEREST OF NATIONS.


For a litigious, quarrelsome, fighting animal, man is very fond of
peace. He began to shed blood almost as soon as he began to go alone in
company with his nearest relatives; and when Abel asked of Cain, 'Am I
not a man and a brother?' the latter, instead of giving him the hug
fraternal, did beat him to death. Cain's only object, it should seem,
was a quiet life, and Abel had disturbed his repose by setting up a
higher standard of excellence than the elder brother could afford to
maintain. It was only to 'conquer a peace' that Cain thus acted. He
desired 'indemnity for the past and security for the future,' and so he
took up arms against his brother and ended him. He loved peace, but he
did not fear war, because he was the stronger party of the two, his
weapons being as ready for action as the British navy is ready for it
to-day; and Abel was as defenceless as we were a twelvemonth ago. Cain
is the type of all mankind, who know that peace is better than war, but
who rush into war under the pressure of envy and pride. Ancient as
violence is, it is not so old as peace; and it is for peace that all
wars are made, at least by organized communities. All peoples have in
their minds the idea of a golden age, not unlike to that time so vividly
described by Hesiod, when men were absolutely good, and therefore happy;
living in perfect accord on what the earth abundantly gave them,
suffering neither illness nor old age, and dying as calmly as they had
lived. Historical inquiry has so far shaken belief in the existence of
any such time as that painted by the poet, that men have agreed to place
it in the future. It has never been, but it is to be. It will come with
that 'coming man,' who travels so slowly, and will be by him
inaugurated, a boundless millennial time. In the mean time contention
prevails; 'war's unequal game' is played with transcendent vigor, and at
a cost that would frighten the whole human race into madness were it
incurred for any other purpose. But, while fighting, men have kept their
eyes steadily fixed upon peace, which is to be the reward of their valor
and their pecuniary sacrifices. Every warlike time has been followed by
a period in which strenuous exertions have been made to make peace
perpetual. Never was there a more profound desire felt for peace than
that which prevailed among the Romans of the Augustan age, after a
series of civil and foreign wars yet unparalleled in the history of
human struggles. One poet could denounce the first forger of the iron
sword as being truly brutal and iron-hearted; and another could declare
it to be the 'mission' of the Romans only to impose terms of peace upon
barbarians, who should be compelled to accept quiet as a boon, or endure
it as a burden. Strange sentiments were these to proceed from the land
of the legions, but they expressed the current Roman opinion, which
preferred even dishonor to war. So was it after the settlement of Europe
in 1815. A generation that had grown up in the course of the greatest of
modern contests produced the most determined and persistent advocates of
the 'peace-at-any-price' policy; and for forty years peace was preserved
between the principal Christian nations, through the exertions of
statesmen, kings, philanthropists, and economists, who, if they could
agree in nothing else, were almost unanimous in the opinion that war was
an expensive folly, and that the first duty of a government was to
prevent its subjects from becoming military-mad. Perhaps there never was
a happier time in Christendom than it knew between the autumn of 1815
and the spring of 1854, after Napoleon had gone down and before Nicholas
had set himself up to dictate law to the world. It was the modern age of
the Antonines, into which was crowded more true enjoyment than mankind
had known for centuries; and they are beginning to learn its excellence
from its loss,--war raging now in the New World, while Europe lives in
hourly expectation of its occurrence. There were wars, and cruel wars,
too, in those years, but they faintly affected Europe and the United
States, and probably added something to men's happiness, for the same
reason that a storm to which we are not exposed increases our sense of
comfort. Their thunders were remote, and they furnished materials for
the journals. So we saw a Providence in them, and thanked Heaven, some
of us, that we no longer furnished examples of the folly of contention.

The friends of peace were actuated by various motives. With statesmen
and politicians peace was preferred because it was cheaper than war, and
all countries were burdened with debt. England has sometimes been
praised because she so uniformly threw her influence on the side of
peace, after she had accomplished her purpose in the war against
imperial France. Time and again, she might have waged popular wars, and
in which she would have probably been successful; but she would help
neither the Spaniards against France and the Holy Alliance, nor the
Turks against the Russians, nor the Poles against the Czar, nor the
Hungarians against the Austrians, nor the Italians against the Kaiser,
nor the Greeks against the Turks. She settled all her disputes with the
United States by negotiation, and showed no disposition to fight with
France, except when she had all the rest of Europe on her side. But this
praise has not been deserved. England did not quarrel with powerful
countries, because she could not afford to enter upon costly warfare.
She had gone to the extent of her means when her debt had reached to
four thousand million dollars, and she could not increase that debt
largely until she should also have increased her wealth. Time was
required to add to her means, and to lessen her debt; and to such a
state had her finances been reduced, that it is now twenty years since
she began to derive a portion of her revenue from an income tax, which,
imposed in the time of peace, was increased when war became inevitable.
The bonds she had given to keep the peace were too great to admit of her
breaking it. She did not fight, because she doubted her ability to fight
successfully. She had no wish to behold another suspension of cash
payments by her national bank; and a general war would be sure to bring
suspension. But she was as ready as she had ever been to contend with
the weak. The Chinese and the Afghans did not find her very forbearing,
though with neither of those peoples had she any just cause for war.

With the disunited States she has been as prompt to quarrel as she was
slow to contend with the United States; and now she is one of the high
contracting parties to the crusade against Mexico. We say nothing of the
Sepoy war, for that was a contest for 'empire,' as Earl Russell would
say. She could not, in the days of Clyde, give up what she had acquired
in the days of Clive; and no one ought to blame her for what she did in
India, though it can not be denied that the mutiny was the consequence
of her own bad conduct in the East. With Russia, Austria, and Prussia to
back her, in 1840, she went to the verge of a war with France; but, in
so doing, the government did that which the English nation by no means
warmly approved; and the fall of the whig ministry, in 1841, was in no
small part due to Lord Palmerston's policy in the preceding year. The
Russian war was brought about by the action of the English people, who
were angry with the Czar because his empire had the first place in
Europe. The government would have prevented that war from breaking out
if it could, but popular pressure was too strong for it, and it had to
give way. The event has proved that the English government was wiser
than were the English people, France alone having gained anything from
the departure from what had become the policy of Europe; and for France
to gain is not altogether for the benefit of England.

Of the motives of the philanthropists, we have little to say. They are
always respectable, and it is a pity that the world should be too wicked
to appreciate them. But those of the economists are open to remark, and
the more so because there has been so much claimed for them. They
reduced everything to a matter of interest. Peace, they reasoned, is for
the welfare of all men; and, if an enlightened self-interest could be
made to prevail the world over, war would be rendered an impossibility.
Wars between civilized countries have mostly grown out of mistaken views
of interest on the part of governments and peoples. Once enlighten both
rulers and ruled, and make them understand that war can not pay, and
selfishness will accomplish what religion, and morality, and
benevolence, and common sense have failed to accomplish. Cutting throats
may be a very agreeable pastime; but no man ever yet paid for anything
more than it was worth, with his eyes wide open to the fact that he was
not buying a bargain, but selling himself. Nations would be as wise as
individuals, unless it be true that the sum of intelligence is not so
great as the items that compose it; and when it should have been made
indisputably clear that to make war was to make losses, while peace
should be as indisputably profitable, there would be no further occasion
to expend, annually, immense sums upon the support of great armaments,
such as were not kept up, even in times of war, by the potentates of
earlier days. The reason of mankind was to be appealed to, and they were
to be made saints through the use of practical logic. Neighborhood,
instead of being regarded as cause for enmity, was to be held as ground
for good feeling and liberal intercourse. Under the old system it had
been the custom to call France and England 'natural enemies,' words that
attributed to the Creator the origin of discord. Under the new system,
those great countries were to become the best of friends, as well as the
closest of neighbors; and one generation of free commerce was to do away
with the effects of five centuries of disputes and warfare. England was
to forget the part which France took in the first American war, and
France was to cease to recollect that there had been such days as Crécy
and Agincourt, Vittoria and Waterloo; and also that England had
overthrown her rule in North America, and driven her people from India.
But it was not France and England only that were to enter within the
charmed circle; all nations were to be admitted into it, and the whole
world was to fraternize. It was to be Arcadia in a ring-fence, an
Arcadia solidly based upon heavy profits, with consols, _rentes_, and
other public securities--which in other times had a bad fashion of
becoming very insecure--always at a good premium. Quarter-day was to be
the day for which all other days were made, and it would never be
darkened by the imposition of new taxes, by repudiation, or by any other
of those things that so often have lessened the felicity of the
fund-holder.

That the new Temple of Peace might be enabled to rise in proper
proportions, it became necessary to destroy some old edifices, and to
remove what was considered to be very rubbishy rubbish. Protection,
tariffs, and so forth, once worshiped as evidences of ancestral wisdom,
were to be got rid of with all possible speed, and free trade was to be
substituted, that is, trade as free as was compatible with the raising
of enormous revenues, made necessary by the foolish wars of the past. In
due time, perfect freedom of trade would be had; but a blessing of that
magnitude could not be expected to come at once to the relief of a
suffering world. England, which had taken the lead in supporting
protection, and whose commercial system had been of the most illiberal
and sordid character, became the leader in the grand reform, pushing the
work vigorously forward, and, with her usual consideration for the
feelings and rights of others, ordering the nations of Europe and
America to follow her example. She had discovered that she had been all
in the wrong since the day when Oliver St. John's wounded pride led him
to the conclusion that it was the duty of every patriotic Englishman to
do his best to destroy the commerce of Holland. She was very impatient
of those peoples who were shy of imitating her, forgetting that her
conduct through six generations had made a strong impression on the
world's mind, and that her sudden conversion could not immediately avail
against her long persistence in sinning against political economy, if
indeed she had so sinned; and the question was one that admitted of some
dispute, free trade being but an experiment. Gradually, however, men
came round to the British view, in theory at least; and among the
intelligent classes it was admitted that commerce without restriction
was the true policy of nations, which must be gradually adopted as the
basis of all future action, due regard to be paid to those potent
disturbing forces, vested interests. France was slow to yield in
practice, though she had produced some of the cleverest of economical
writers; for she is as little given to change in matters of business as
she is ready to rush into political revolutions. But even France at last
gave signs of her intention to abandon her ancient practice in deference
to modern theories; and Napoleon III. and Mr. Cobden laid their wise
heads together to form plans for the completion of the 'cordial
understanding,' on the basis of free trade. Less than forty years had
sufficed to effect a gradual change of human opinion, and protection
seemed about to be sent to that limbo in which witchcraft, alchemy, and
judicial astrology have been so long undisturbedly reposing.

Death, we are told, found his way into Arcadia; and disappointment was
not long in coming to disturb the modern Arcadians, who had as much to
do with cotton as their predecessors with wool. The dream of universal
peace, a peace that was to endure because based on enlightened
selfishness,--that is to say on buying in cheap markets and selling in
dear ones,--was as rudely dispelled as had been all earlier dreams of
the kind. Interest, it was found, could no more make men live lovingly
together than principle could cause them to do so in by-gone times. If
there were two nations that might have been insured not to fight each
other, because interest was sufficient to prevent men from having resort
to war, those nations were Russia and England. They were in no sense
rivals, according to the definition of rivalry in the circles of
commerce. Between them there was much buying and selling, to the great
profit of both. England is an old nation, with the arts of industry
developed among her people to an extent that is elsewhere unknown. The
division of labor that prevails among her working people is so extensive
and so minute, that in that respect she defies comparison. Other
countries may have as skillful laborers as she possesses, but their
industry is of a far less various character. Russia is a new country,
and she requires what England has to dispose of; and England finds her
account in purchasing the raw materials that are so abundantly produced
in Russia. Commercially speaking, therefore, these two nations could not
fall out, could not quarrel, could not fight, if they would. In all
other respects, too, they could be counted upon to set a good example to
all other communities. They had more than once been allies, each had
done the other good services at critical tunes, and they had had the
foremost places in that grand alliance which had twice dethroned
Napoleon I. The exceptions to their general good understanding belong to
those exceptions which are supposed to be useful in proving a given
rule. When the tory rulers of England became alarmed because of the
success of Catharine II. in her second Turkish war, and proposed doing
what was done more than sixty years later,--to assist the Osmanlis,--the
opposition to their policy became so powerful that even the strong
ministry of William Pitt had to listen to its voice; which shows that
the tendency of English opinion was then favorable to Russia. The
hostility of Czar Paul to England, in his last days, is attributed to
the failure of his mind; and the immediate resumption of good relations
between the two countries after his death, establishes the fact that the
English and the Russians were not sharers in the Czar's feelings. During
the five years that followed Tilsit, Russia appeared to be the enemy of
England, and war existed for some time between the two empires; but this
was owing to the ascendency of the French, Alexander having to choose
between England and France. The nominal enemies did each other as little
injury as possible; and, in 1812, they became greater friends than ever.
Most Englishmen were probably of Lord Holland's opinion, that England's
interest dictated a Russian connection; and in the eighteenth century
England was, in some sense, the nursing mother of the new empire, though
once or twice she was inclined to do as other nurses have
done,--administer some punishment to the rude and healthy child she was
fostering, and not without reason. So harmonious had been the relations
of these two magnificent states, that an eminent Russian author, Dr.
Hamel, writing in 1846, could say: 'Nearly three hundred years have now
elapsed since England greeted Muscovy at the mouth of the Dwina. So
great have been the benefits to trade, the arts, and industry in
general, arising from the friendly relations between England and Russia,
which, in 1853, will have completed the third century of their
continuance, that one might expect to see this period closed, in both
countries, with a jubilee to commemorate so remarkable an example of
uninterrupted amicable intercourse between nations.' The year 1853 came;
but, instead of being a jubilee to the old friends of three centuries'
standing, it brought the beginning of that contest which is known as the
Russian war. That was a proper way, indeed, to notice the happy return
of the three-hundredth anniversary of the establishment of
'uninterrupted amicable intercourse' between the nations, whose soldiers
were soon slaughtering each other with as much energy as if they had
been 'natural enemies' from immemorial time. Interest had no power to
turn aside the storm of war. The English people were angry with Russia
because the iron-willed Czar had carried matters in Europe with a very
high hand, and was, in fact, virtually master of the Old World, and
suspected of being on uncommonly good terms with the masters of the New
World. Nicholas had succeeded to the place of Napoleon in their ill
graces. They liked the Cossackry of the one as little as they had liked
the cannonarchy of the other. It was a case of pure jealousy. Russia was
too powerful to suit the English idea of the fitness of things, and
therefore it was necessary that she should be chastised and humbled.
Fear of Russia there could have been none in the English mind. It has
been thought that England contended for the safety of her Eastern
dominions; but then the Czar offered her Egypt and Candia, possession of
which would not only have much strengthened her Indian empire, but have
been the means of making her more powerful at home. Nothing better could
have been offered for her acceptance, if valuable territories would have
satisfied her feelings; and much praise has been bestowed upon her
because she did not close with the Czar's proposition 'to share and
share alike' the lands of the House of Othman; but that praise is not
quite deserved, the desire not to see Russia aggrandized being a
stronger sentiment with her than was the desire to aggrandize herself.
Had the question been left for British statesmen alone to settle,--had
the British premier been as free to act for England as the Czar was for
Russia,--poor, sick Turkey would have been cut and carved most
expeditiously and artistically; she would have been partitioned as
perfectly as Poland, and Abdul Medjid would have experienced the fate of
Stanislaus Poniatowski. But English ministers hold power only on
condition of doing the will of the English nation, and that nation had
contracted an aversion to Russia that was uncontrollable, and before its
hostility its ministers had to give way, slowly and reluctantly; and the
half-measures they adopted, like the half-measures of our own government
toward the secessionists, explain the disasters of the war. The English
people were determined that there should be an end, for the time at
least, to the Russian hegemony, and threw themselves into the arms of
France with a vivacity that would have astonished any other French ruler
but Napoleon III., who had lived among them, and who knew them well. The
war was waged, and, when over, what had England gained? Nothing solid,
it must be admitted. The territory of Russia remained unimpaired, and
there is not the slightest evidence that her influence in the East was
lessened by the partial destruction of Sebastopol. The Russian navy of
the Euxine had ceased to exist; but as it consisted principally of
vessels that were not adapted to the purposes of modern warfare, the
loss of the Russians in that respect was not of a very serious
character. Russia's European leadership was suspended; but her power and
her resources, which, if properly employed, must soon reinstate her,
were not damaged. England _had_ fought for an idea, and had fought in
vain.

France had as little interest in the Russian war as England, and the
French people had no wish to fight the Czar. They would have preferred
fighting the English, in connection with the Czar,--an arrangement that
would have been more profitable to their country. But the emperor had a
quarrel with his arrogant brother at St. Petersburgh, and he availed
himself of the opportunity afforded by that brother's obstinacy to teach
him a lesson from which he did not live to profit. Nicholas had cut the
new emperor, and had caused him to be taboo'd by most of the sovereigns
of Europe; and the Frenchman determined to cut his way to consideration.
This he was enabled to do, with the aid of the English; and ever since
the war's close he has held the place which became vacant on the death
of Nicholas--that of Europe's arbiter. The French fought well, as they
always do, but their heart was not in the war. The emperor had the war
party pretty much to himself. Exactly the opposite state of things
existed in France to that which existed in England. In the former
country, the government was for war, and the people were for peace; in
the latter, the government was for peace, and the people were for war.
In each country power was in the hands of the war party, and so war was
made, in spite of the wishes of the French people and of English
statesmen. When Napoleon III. had accomplished _his_ purpose, he ordered
the English to make peace, and peace was made. In this way he satisfied
his subjects, showing them that he had no intention of making England
more powerful than she had been, or Russia weaker. He had prevented
Russia from extending her dominion, but he had also prevented England
from lessening that dominion.

The Italian war was waged in opposition to the sentiments of the French
people, which was one of the leading causes of its sudden termination,
with its object, only half accomplished, and much to the damage of the
emperor's reputation for statesmanship and courage. Whether, in a
comprehensive sense, that war was entered upon for purposes adverse to
the interests of France, may well be doubted; but it is certain that it
was an unpopular measure in that country. The French had no objection to
the humiliation of Austria; but it would be a grave error to suppose
that they have any wish to behold Italy united and powerful. The kingdom
of Italy, should it become all that is desired for it by its friends in
this country, would be to France a source of annoyance, and probably of
danger. The emperor's power was shaken by his Italian policy, and hence
it was that he played the confederature game so long, to the
astonishment of foreigners, and got possession of Savoy and Nice, to
the astonishment and anger of England; and hence it is that he is
seeking Sardinia and other portions of Italy. Thus, the Italian war was
begun against the interests of the French people, or what that people
believe to be their interests, though this is the age in which there is
to be peace, because that is not to be broken except when popular
interests require that it shall no longer be preserved.

But the most remarkable instance of the fallacy of the idea that regard
for the true interests of nations must banish hostilities from the
world, is afforded by the coarse of France and England toward this
country since the beginning of the secession war. Both those countries
have great interest not only in the preservation of peace _with_ the
United States, but in the preservation of peace _in_ the United States;
and yet they have done all that it lies in their power to do to
encourage our rebels, and have been on the verge of war with us: and war
with them, and with Spain, is exported by many Americans, who judge of
the future by the present and the past. England had a vast trade with
the American Union, buying at the South, and selling to the North, and
hence any disturbances here were sure to operate adversely to her
interests; but no sooner had it become apparent that our troubles were
to be of a serious character, than her weight was thrown on to the side
of the rebels, who never would have been able to do much but for the
encouragement they have received from abroad. The trade of France was
not so great with America as that of England; yet it was valuable, and
the French have suffered much from its suspension, perhaps we should say
its loss. The North has purchased but little from Europe for a year, and
the South has sold less to Europe in that time. There has been a trade
in food between the North and some European countries, in which grain
has been exchanged for gold, though it would have been better for both
parties could anything else than gold have been brought to America, true
commerce consisting in the interchange of commodities. For all the
sufferings that have been experienced by Englishmen and Frenchmen, they
have none but themselves and their governments to censure. That peace
has not been preserved is not our fault; and the war that has been blown
into so fierce a flame has been fed from Europe; it has been fanned by
breezes from France and England. When it was first seen that there was
danger of civil war, the governments of those countries, if they had
really had any regard for the true interests of their countries, would
have discouraged the rebels in the most public and pointed manner
imaginable, not because they cared for us, but for the simple reason
that they were bound so to act as should best promote the welfare of
their own peoples. War in America meant suffering to the artisans and
laborers of Europe, who, thus far, have suffered more from the war than
have any portion of the American people, except the residents of
Southern cities. Napoleon III. and Lord Palmerston should have said to
the agents of the Confederacy, and have taken care to publish their
words, 'We can afford you neither aid in deeds nor encouragement in
words. Our relations with both sections of the American nation are such,
that our respective countries must suffer immensely from the course
which you are about to pursue, not because you have been oppressed, or
fear oppression, but because you have been beaten in an election, and
power, for the time, has been taken from your hands. You ask us to act
hostilely against the established government of the United States, that
government having given us no cause of offense,--to become the patrons
of a revolution that has no cause, but the consequences of which may be
boundless. To revolutions we are averse; and one of our governments
exists in virtue of opposition to the party of disorder in Europe. You
ask us to do that which would lessen the means of livelihood to millions
of our people; for, granting that you should succeed, still there would
necessarily be so great a change produced by your action, and by our
intervention in American affairs, that for years America would not be
the good customer to France and England that she has been for a
generation. With the merits of your cause we can have nothing to do, our
true interests pointing to the maintenance of the strictest neutrality
in the contest between you and the federal government; and the dictates
of interest are fortified by the suggestions of principle. Your movement
is essentially disorderly in its character, and it is undertaken
avowedly in the interest of slavery; and not only are we the supporters
of the existing order of things the world over, but we are hostile to
slavery, having abolished it in all parts of our dominions. Our advice
to you is, to submit to the federal government, and to seek for the
redress of your grievances, if such you have, by means recognized in the
constitution and laws of your country. From us you can receive no aid,
and you should dismiss all expectation of it from your minds at once and
forever. We are indifferent to the form of the American government, and
its internal policy can not concern us; but the interests of our peoples
require that we should live in peace with the people of America, whether
they be of the South or of the North, slave-holders or abolitionists;
and we shall not quarrel with any portion of them for the sake of
facilitating the erection of a republic to be founded on the basis of
the divine nature of slavery, the first time that so preposterous a
pretension was ever put forward by the audacity or the impudence of
men.' Had something like this been said to the agents of the rebels, and
had the English press supported the same views, the rebellion would have
been at an end ere this, and the commercial relations of America and
Europe would have experienced no sensible interruption. English
interests, in an especial sense, demanded that the rebels should be
discouraged, and discouragement from London would have rendered
rebellion hopeless, and have promoted peace in Savannah and New Orleans.

But it was not in England's nature to pursue a course that would have
been as much in harmony with her material interests as with that high
moral character which she claims as being peculiarly her own. There
appeared to have presented itself an opportunity to effect the
destruction of the American Republic, and England could not resist the
temptation to strike us hard: and, for almost a year, she has been to
the Union a more deadly foe than we have found in the South. We do not
allude to the _Trent_ question, for in that we were clearly in the
wrong, and Mason and Slidell should have been released on the 16th of
November, and not have been detained in captivity six weeks. Secretary
Seward has placed the point so emphatically beyond all doubt, that we
must all be of one mind thereon, whether in England or America. England
might have been moderate in her action, in view of her repeated outrages
on the rights of neutrals, but no intelligent American can condemn her
position. It is to other things that we must look for evidence of her
determination to effect our extinction as a nation. She has, while
dripping with Hindoo blood, and while yet men's ears are filled with
accounts of the blowing of sepoys from the muzzles of cannon by her
military executioners, absolutely demanded of us an acknowledgment of
the Southern Confederacy's independence, on the ground that it is
inhuman to wage war for the maintenance of our national life. She has
compared our mild and forbearing government with the savage proconsulate
of Alva in the Netherlands! She has charged us with waging war against
civilization, because we have employed stone fleets to close entrances
to the harbor of Charleston, though her own history is full of instances
of their employment for similar purposes! She has encouraged her traders
and seamen to furnish the rebels with arms of all kinds, and stores of
every description! She has excluded our ships-of-war from her ports,
refusing to allow them to coal at places at which she had granted us the
privilege, in time of peace, of establishing stations for fuel! She has
given shelter and protection to the privateers of the rebels, vessels
that had violated her own laws almost within sight of her own shores,
and certainly within the narrow seas! She has acknowledged the
belligerent character of the South, which is virtually an acknowledgment
of its independence, for none but nations can lawfully wage war. She
has, through her Minister for Foreign Affairs, declared that our war
with the secessionists is of the same character as the war which the
Spaniards carried on with their American colonists, and that there is no
difference between it and the attempt of the Turks to subdue the Greeks!
Monstrous perversions of history for even Earl Russell to be guilty of!
Her leading periodicals and journals, with few exceptions, have
denounced our country, our course, and our government in the bitterest
language, and to the manifest encouragement of the rebels, who see in
their language the rapid growth and prompt exhibition of a sentiment of
hostility to this country, and which must, sooner or later, end in war;
and war between England and America would be sure to lead to the success
of the Confederates, even if we should come out of it victoriously.

Thus we see that the attempt to establish peace on the basis of the true
interests of nations has not only failed, but that it has failed
signally and deplorably. The solid Doric Temple of Mammon has no more
been able to stand against the storms of war than has the Crystal Palace
of Sentiment. The fair fabric which was the type of materialism has
fallen, and it would be most unwise to seek its reconstruction. That
which was to have stood as long and as firmly as the Pyramids has fallen
before the first moss could gather upon it. Nor is the reason of this
fall far to seek, as it lies upon the surface, and ought to have been
anticipated--would have been, only that men are so ready to believe in
what they wish to believe. England, as a nation, has two interests to
consult, and which do not always accord. She has her commercial interest
and her imperial interest; and, when the two conflict, the last is sure
to become first. Her position as a nation was threatened only by the
United States and Russia. The dynastic disputes of France, which are far
from being at an end, and the generally unsettled character of French
politics, must long prevent that country from becoming the permanent
rival of England. France is great to-day, and England acts wisely in
preparing to meet her in war; but to-morrow France may become weak, and
her voice be feeble and her weight light in Europe and the world. Three
houses claim her throne, and the Republicans may start up into active
life again, as we saw they did in 1848. Neither Austria nor Prussia can
ever furnish England cause of alarm. With Russia the case is very
different, as her government is solidly established; her resources are
vast, and in the course of steady development, and her desire to
establish her supremacy in the East is a fixed idea with both rulers and
ruled. Unchecked, she would have thrown England into the background, and
supposing that she had resolved not to allow that country a share of the
spoil of Turkey. The hard character and harsh policy of Nicholas ended
in furnishing to England an opportunity to throw Russia herself into the
background for the time, and that opportunity she made use of, but not
to the extent that she had determined upon, owing to her dependence upon
France, which became the shield of Russia after having been the sword of
England. The United States were a formidable rival of England; and, but
for the breaking out of our troubles, we should have been far ahead of
her by 1870, and perhaps have stripped her of all her American
possessions. When those troubles began, she proceeded to take the same
advantage of them that she had taken of the Czar's blunder. To sever the
American nation in twain is her object, as some of her public men have
frankly avowed; and she believes that the disintegrating process, once
commenced, would not stop with the division of the country into the
Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy. She expects, should the
South succeed, to see half a dozen republics here established, and is
not without hope that not even two States would remain together; and for
this hope she has very good foundation. The American nation destroyed,
England would become as great in the West as she is in the East, and
would hold, with far greater means at her command, the same position
that was hers in the last days of George II., when the French had been
expelled from America and India. She would have no commercial rival, and
there would no longer be an American navy susceptible of gigantic
increase. She would be truly the sea's sovereign; and whoso rules the
sea has power to dictate to the land. 'Whosoever commands the sea,' says
Sir Walter Raleigh, 'commands the trade of the world; whosoever commands
the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, and
consequently the world itself.' England never would have gone to war
with the _United States_ to prevent their growth; but, now that they
have instituted civil war, it is certain that she will do all that lies
in her power to prevent the reconstruction of the Union. The war of
words has been begun, and it is but preliminary to the war of swords.
The savage music of the British press is the overture to the opera. The
morality of England may be neither higher nor lower than that of all
other countries,--may be no worse than our own,--but there is so much
that is offensive in her modes of exhibiting her destitution of
principle, that she is more hated than all other powerful countries that
ever have existed. She not only sins as badly as other nations, but
manages to make herself as odious for her manner of sinning as for the
sins themselves. There is no crime that she is not capable of, if its
perpetration be necessary to promote her own power. When Sir William
Reid was governor of Malta, he said to Mr. Lushington, 'I would let them
(_i.e._ the heathen) set up Juggernaut in St. George's Square (in
Edinburgh), if it were conducive to England's holding Malta.' And as
this time-blue Presbyterian was ready to allow the solemnization of the
bloodiest rites of paganism in the most public place of the Christian
city of Edinburgh, if that kind of tolerance would be conducive to
England's retention of Malta,--of which she holds possession, by the
way, in consequence of one of the grossest breaches of faith mentioned
even in her history,--so do we find the Christian people, peers, and
priests of England ready to become the allies of slave-holders and the
supporters of slavery, if thereby the American Republic can be
destroyed, as they believe that its existence may become the source of
danger to the ascendency of their country.

The last intelligence from England allows us to believe that that
country has adopted a more liberal policy, and that her government will
do nothing to aid the rebels. Some of the language of Ministers is
friendly, and altogether the change is one of a character that can not
be otherwise than agreeable to us. France, too, has declared her
neutrality as strongly as England. These declarations were made before
intelligence of our military and naval successes had reached Europe,
which renders them all the more weighty. Peace between America and
Europe may, therefore, be counted upon, unless some very great reverses
should befall our arms.

       *       *       *       *       *

AMONG THE PINES.


The 'Ole Cabin' to which Jim had alluded as the scene of Sam's
punishment by the Overseer, was a one-story shanty in the vicinity of
the stables. Though fast falling to decay, it had more the appearance of
a decent habitation than the other huts on the plantation. Its thick
plank door was ornamented with a mouldy brass knocker, and its four
windows contained sashes, to which here and there clung a broken pane,
the surviving relic of its better days. It was built of large unhewn
logs, notched at the ends and laid one upon the other, with the bark
still on. The thick, rough coat which yet adhered in patches to the
timber had opened in the sun, and let the rain and the worm burrow in
its sides, till some parts had crumbled entirely away. At one corner the
process of decay had gone on till roof, superstructure, and foundation
had rotted down and left an opening large enough to admit a coach and
four horses. The huge chimneys which had graced the gable-ends of the
building were fallen in, leaving only a mass of sticks and clay to tell
of their existence, and two wide openings to show how great a figure
they had once made in the world. A small space in front of the cabin
would have been a lawn, had the grass been willing to grow upon it; and
a few acres of cleared land in its rear might have passed for a garden,
had it not been entirely overgrown with young pines and stubble. This
primitive structure was once the 'mansion' of that broad plantation,
and, before the production of turpentine came into fashion in that
region, its rude owner drew his support from its few surrounding acres,
more truly independent than the present aristocratic proprietor, who,
raising only one article, and buying all his provisions, was forced to
draw his support from the Yankee or the Englishman.

Only one room, about forty feet square, occupied the interior of the
cabin. It once contained several apartments, vestiges of which still
remained, but the partitions had been torn away to fit it for its
present uses. What those uses were, a moment's observation showed me.

In the middle of the floor, which was mostly rotted away, a space about
fifteen feet square was covered with thick pine planking, strongly
nailed to the beams. In the centre of this planking an oaken block was
firmly bolted, and to it was fastened a strong iron staple that held a
log-chain, to which was attached a pair of shackles. Above this, was a
queer frame-work of oak, somewhat resembling the contrivance for drying
fruit I have seen in Yankee farm-houses. Attached to the rafters by
stout pieces of timber, were two hickory poles, placed horizontally, and
about four feet apart, the lower one rather more than eight feet from
the floor. This was the whipping-rack, and hanging to it were several
stout whips with short hickory handles, and long triple lashes. I took
one down for closer inspection, and found burned into the wood, in large
letters, the words 'Moral Suasion.' I questioned the appropriateness of
the label, but the Colonel insisted with great gravity that the whip is
the only 'moral suasion' a darky is capable of understanding.

When punishment is inflicted on one of the Colonel's negroes, his feet
are confined in the shackles, his arms tied above his head, and drawn by
a stout cord up to one of the horizontal poles; then, his back bared to
the waist, and standing on tip-toe, with every muscle stretched to its
utmost tension, he takes 'de lashes.'

A more severe but more unusual punishment is the 'thumb-screw.' In this
a noose is passed around the negro's thumb and fore-finger, while the
cord is thrown over the upper cross-pole, and the culprit is drawn up
till his toes barely touch the ground. In this position the whole
weight of the body rests on the thumb and fore-finger. The torture is
excruciating, and strong, able-bodied men can endure it but a few
moments. The Colonel naively told me that he had discontinued its
practice, as several of his _women_ had nearly lost the use of their
hands, and been incapacited for field labor, by its too frequent
repetition. 'My ---- drivers,'[L] he added, 'have no discretion, and no
humanity; if they have a pique against a nigger, they show him no
mercy.'

The old shanty I have described was now the place of the Overseer's
confinement. Open as it was at top, bottom, and sides, it seemed an
unsafe prison-house; but Jim had rendered its present occupant secure by
placing 'de padlocks on him.'

'Where did you catch him?' asked the Colonel of Jim, as, followed by
every darky on the plantation, we took our way to the old building.

'In de swamp, massa. We got Sandy and de dogs arter him--dey treed him,
but he fit like de debil.'

'Any one hurt?'

'Yas, Cunnel; he knifed Yaller Jake, and ef I hadn't a gibin him a
wiper, you'd a had anudder nigger short dis mornin'--shore.'

'How was it? tell me,' said his master, while we paused, and the darkies
gathered around.

'Wal, yer see, massa, we got de ole debil's hat dat he drapped wen you
had him down; den we went to Sandy's fur de dogs--dey scented him to
onst, and off dey put for de swamp. 'Bout twenty on us follored 'em.
He'd a right smart start on us, and run like a deer, but de hounds
kotched up wid him 'bout whar he shot pore Sam. He fit 'em and cut up de
Lady awful, but ole Caesar got a hole ob him, and sliced a breakfuss out
ob his legs. Somehow, dough, he got away from de ole dog, and clum a
tree. 'T was more'n an hour afore we kotched up; but dar he war, and de
houns baying 'way as ef dey know'd wat an ole debil he am. I'd tuk one
ob de guns--you warn't in de hous, massa, so I cudn't ax you.'

'Never mind that; go on,' said the Colonel.

'Wal, I up wid de gun, and tole him ef he didn't cum down I'd gib him
suffin' dat 'ud sot hard on de stummuk. It tuk him a long w'ile, but--he
_cum down_.' Here the darky showed a row of ivory that would have been a
fair capital for a metropolitan dentist.

'Wen he war down,' he resumed, 'Jake war gwine to tie him, but de ole
'gator, quicker dan a flash, put a knife enter him.'

'Is Jake much hurt?' interrupted the Colonel.

'Not bad, massa; de knife went fru his arm, and enter his ribs, but de
ma'am hab fix him up, and she say he'll be 'round bery sudden.'

'Well, what then?' inquired the Colonel.

'Wen de ole debil seed he hadn't finished Jake, he war gwine to gib him
anoder dig, but jus den I drap de gun on his cocoa-nut, and he neber
trubble us no more. 'Twar mons'rous hard work to git him out ob de
swamp, 'cause he war jes like a dead man, and we had to tote him de hull
way; but he'm dar now, massa (pointing to the old cabin), and de
bracelets am on him.'

'Where is Jake?' asked the Colonel.

'Dunno, massa, but reckon he'm to hum.'

'One of you boys go and bring him to the cabin,' said the Colonel.

A negro-man went off on the errand, while we and the darkies resumed our
way to the Overseer's quarters. Arrived there, I witnessed a scene that
words can not picture.

Stretched at full length on the floor, his clothes torn to shreds, his
coarse carroty hair matted with blood, and his thin, ugly visage pale as
death, lay the Overseer. Bending over him, wiping away the blood from
his face, and swathing a ghastly wound on his forehead, was the negress
Sue; while at his shackled feet, binding up his still bleeding legs,
knelt the octoroon woman.

'Is _she_ here?' I said, involuntarily, as I caught sight of the group.

'It's her nature,' said the Colonel, with a pleasant smile; 'if Moye
were the devil himself, she'd do him good if she could; another such
woman never lived.'

And yet this woman, with all the instincts that make her sex
angel-ministers to man, lived in daily violation of the most sacred of
all laws,--because she was a slave. Will Mr. Caleb Cushing or Charles
O'Conner please tell us why the Almighty invented a system which forces
his creatures to break the laws of His own making?

'Don't waste your time on him, Alice,' said the Colonel, kindly; 'he
isn't worth the rope that'll hang him.'

'He was bleeding to death; he must have care or he'll die,' said the
octoroon woman.

'Then let him die, d---- him,' replied the Colonel, advancing to where
the Overseer lay, and bending down to satisfy himself of his condition.

Meanwhile more than two hundred dusky forms crowded around and filled
every opening of the old building. Every conceivable emotion, except
pity, was depicted on their dark faces. The same individuals whose
cloudy visages a half-hour before I had seen distended with a wild mirth
and careless jollity, that made me think them really the docile,
good-natured animals they are said to be, now glared on the prostrate
Overseer with the infuriated rage of aroused beasts when springing on
their prey.

'You can't come the possum here. Get up, you ---- hound,' said the
Colonel, rising and striking the bleeding man with his foot.

The fellow raised himself on one elbow and gazed around with a stupid,
vacant look. His eye wandered unsteadily for a moment from the Colonel
to the throng of cloudy faces in the doorway; then, his recent
experience flashing upon him, he shrieked out, clinging wildly to the
skirts of the octoroon woman, who was standing near, 'Keep off them
cursed hounds,--keep them off, I say--they'll kill me!--they'll kill
me!'

One glance satisfied me that his mind was wandering. The blow on the
head had shattered his reason, and made the strong man less than a
child.

'You shan't be killed yet,' said the Colonel. 'You've a small account to
settle with me before you reckon with the devil.'

At this moment the dark crowd in the doorway parted, and Jake entered,
his arm bound up and in a sling.

'Jake, come here,' said the Colonel; 'this man would have killed you.
What shall we do with him?'

''Tain't fur a darky to say dat, massa,' said the negro, evidently
unaccustomed to the rude administration of justice which the Colonel was
about to inaugurate; 'he did wuss dan dat to Sam, mass--he orter swing
for shootin' him.'

'That's _my_ affair; we'll settle your account first,' replied the
Colonel.

The darky looked undecidedly at his master, and then at the Overseer,
who, overcome by weakness, had sunk again to the floor. The little
humanity in him was evidently struggling with his hatred of Moye and his
desire of revenge, when the old nurse yelled out from among the crowd,
'Gib him fifty lashes, Massa Davy, and den you wash him down.[M] Be a
man, Jake, and say dat.'

Jake still hesitated, and when at last he was about to speak, the eye of
the octoroon woman caught his, and chained the words to his tongue, as
if by magnetic power.

'Do you say that, boys;' said the Colonel, turning to the other negroes;
'shall he have fifty lashes?'

'Yas, massa, fifty lashes--gib de ole debil fifty lashes,' shouted about
fifty voices.

'He shall have them,' quietly said the master.

The mad shout that followed, which was more like the yell of demons than
the cry of men, seemed to arouse the Overseer to a sense of the real
state of affairs. Springing to his feet, he gazed wildly around; then,
sinking on his knees before the octoroon, and clutching the folds of her
dress, he shrieked, 'Save me, good lady, save me! as you hope for mercy,
save me!'

Not a muscle of her face moved, but, turning to the excited crowd, she
mildly said, 'Fifty lashes would kill him. _Jake_ does not say
that--your master leaves it to him, and he will not whip a dying
man--will you, Jake?'

'No, ma'am--not--not ef you go agin it,' replied the negro, with very
evident reluctance.

'But he whipped Sam, ma'am, when he was nearer dead than _he_ am,' said
Jim, whose station as house-servant allowed him a certain freedom of
speech.

'Because he was brutal to Sam, should you be brutal to him? Can you
expect me to tend you when you are sick, if you beat a dying man? Does
Pompey say you should do such things?' said the lady.

'No, good ma'am,' said the old preacher, stepping out, with the freedom
of an old servant, from the black mass, and taking his stand beside me
in the open space left for the 'w'ite folks;' 'de ole man dusn't say
dat, ma'am; he tell 'em de Lord want 'em to forgib dar en'mies--to lub
dem dat pursyskute em;' then, turning to the Colonel, he added, as he
passed his hand meekly over his thin crop of white wool and threw his
long heel back, 'ef massa'll 'low me I'll talk to 'em.'

'Fire away,' said the Colonel, with evident chagrin. 'This is a nigger
trial; if you want to screen the d---- hound you can do it.'

'I dusn't want to screed him, massa, but I'se bery ole and got soon to
gwo, and I dusn't want de blessed Lord to ax me wen I gets dar why I
'lowed dese pore ig'nant brack folks to mudder a man 'fore my bery face.
I toted you, massa, fore you cud gwo, I'se worked for you till I can't
work no more; and I dusn't want to tell de Lord dat _my_ massa let a
brudder man be killed in cole blood.'

'He is no brother of mine, you old fool; preach to the nigs, don't
preach to me,' said the Colonel, stifling his displeasure, and striding
off through the black crowd, without saying another word.

Here and there in the dark mass a face showed signs of relenting; but
much the larger number of that strange jury, had the question been put,
would have voted--DEATH.

The old preacher turned to them as the Colonel passed out, and said, 'My
chil'ren, would you hab dis man whipped, so weak, so dyin' as he am, of
he war brack?'

'No, not ef he war a darky--fer den he wouldn't be such an ole debil,'
replied Jim, and about a dozen of the other negroes.

'De w'ite ain't no wuss dan de brack--dey'm all 'like--pore sinners all
ob 'em. De Lord wudn't whip a w'ite man no sooner dan a brack one--He
tinks de w'ite juss so good as de brack (good Southern doctrine, I
thought). De porest w'ite trash wudn't strike a man wen he war down.'

'We'se had 'nough of dis, ole man,' said a large, powerful negro (one of
the drivers), stepping forward, and, regardless of the presence of Madam
P---- and myself, pressing close to where the Overseer lay, now totally
unconscious of what was passing around him. 'You needn't preach no more;
de Cunnul hab say we'm to whip ole Moye, and we'se gwine to do it, by
----.'

I felt my fingers closing on the palm of my hand, and in a second more
they would have cut the darky's profile, had not Madam P---- cried out,
'Stand back, you impudent fellow: say another word, and I'll have you
whipped on the spot.'

'De Cunnul am my massa, ma'am--_he_ say ole Moye shall be whipped, and
I'se gwine to do it--shore.'

I have seen a storm at sea--I have seen the tempest tear up great
trees--I have seen the lightning strike in a dark night--but I never saw
anything half so grand, half so terrible, as the glance and tone of that
woman as she cried out, 'Jim, take this man--give him fifty lashes this
instant.'

Quicker than thought, a dozen darkies were on him. His hands and feet
were tied and he was under the whipping-rack in a second. Turning then
to the other negroes, the brave woman said, 'Some of you carry Moye to
the house, and you, Jim, see to this man--if fifty lashes don't make him
sorry, give him fifty more.'

This summary change of programme was silently acquiesced in by the
assembled darkies, but many a cloudy face scowled sulkily on the
octoroon, as, leaning on my arm, she followed Junius and the other
negroes, who bore Moye to the mansion. It was plain that under those
dark faces a fire was burning that a breath would have fanned into a
flame.

We entered the house by its rear door, and placed Moye in a small room
on the ground floor. He was laid on a bed, and stimulants being given
him, his senses and reason shortly returned. His eyes opened, and his
real position seemed suddenly to flash upon him, for he turned to Madam
P----, and in a weak voice, half-choked with emotion, faltered out, 'May
God in heaven bless ye, ma'am; God _will_ bless ye for bein' so good to
a wicked man like me. I doesn't desarve it, but ye woant leave me--ye
woant leave me--they'll kill me ef ye do!'

'Don't fear,' said the Madam; 'you shall have a fair trial. No harm
shall come to you here.'

'Thank ye, thank ye,' gasped the Overseer, raising himself on one arm,
and clutching at the lady's hand, which he tried to lift to his lips.

'Don't say any more now,' said Madam P----, quietly; 'you must rest and
be quiet, or you won't get well.'

'Shan't I get well? Oh, I can't die--I can't die _now_!'

The lady made a soothing reply, and giving him an opiate, and arranging
the bedding so that he might rest more easily, she left the room with
me.

As we stepped into the hall, I saw through the front door, which was
open, the horses harnessed in readiness for 'meeting,' and the Colonel
pacing to and fro on the piazza, smoking a cigar. He perceived us, and
halted in front of the doorway.

'So, you've brought that d---- blood-thirsty villain into my house!' he
said to Madam P----, in a tone of strong displeasure.

'How could I help it? The negroes are mad, and would kill him anywhere
else,' replied the lady, with a certain self-confidence that showed she
knew her power over the Colonel.

'Why should _you_ interfere between them and him? Has he not insulted
you often enough to make you let him alone? Can you so easily forgive
his taunting you with'--He did not finish the sentence, but what I had
learned on the previous evening from the old nurse gave me a clue to its
meaning. A red flame flushed the face and neck of the octoroon
woman--her eyes literally flashed fire, and her very breath seemed to
come with pain; in a moment, however, this emotion passed away, and she
quietly said, 'Let me settle that in my own way. He has served _you_
well--_you_ have nothing against him that the law will not punish.'

'By ----, you are the most unaccountable woman I ever knew,' exclaimed
the Colonel, striding up and down the piazza, the angry feeling passing
from his face, and giving way to a mingled expression of wonder and
admiration. The conversation was here interrupted by Jim, who just then
made his appearance, hat in hand.

'Well, Jim, what is it?' asked his master.

'We'se gib'n Sam twenty lashes, ma'am, but he beg so hard, and say he so
sorry, dat I tole him I'd ax you 'fore we gabe him any more.'

'Well, if he's sorry, that's enough; but tell him he'll get fifty
another time,' said the lady.

'What Sam is it?' asked the Colonel.

'Big Sam, the driver,' said Jim.

'Why was he whipped?'

'He told me _you_ were his master, and insisted on whipping Moye,'
replied the lady.

'Did he dare to do that? Give him a hundred, Jim, not one less,' roared
the Colonel.

'Yas, massa,' said Jim.

The lady looked significantly at the negro and shook her head, but said
nothing, and he left.

'Come, Alice, it is nearly time for meeting, and I want to stop and see
Sandy on the way.'

'I reckon I won't go,' said Madam P----.

'You stay to take care of Moye, I suppose,' said the Colonel, with a
slight sneer.

'Yes,' replied the lady; 'he is badly hurt, and in danger of
inflammation.'

'Well, suit yourself. Sir. K----, come, _we'll_ go--you'll meet some of
the _natives_.'

The lady retired to the house, and the Colonel and I were soon ready.
The driver brought the horses to the door, and as we were about to enter
the carriage, I noticed Jim taking his accustomed seat on the box.

'Who's looking after Sam?' asked the Colonel.

'Nobody, Cunnul; de ma'am leff him gwo.'

'How dare you disobey me? Didn't I tell you to give him a hundred?'

'Yas, massa, but de ma'am tole me notter.'

'Well, another time you mind what _I_ say--do you hear?' said his
master.

'Yas, massa,' said the negro, with a broad grin, 'I allers do dat.'

'You _never_ do it, you d---- nigger; I ought to have flogged you long
ago.'

Jim said nothing, but gave a quiet laugh, showing no sort of fear, and
we entered the carriage. I afterwards learned from him that he had never
been whipped, and that all the negroes on the plantation obeyed the lady
when, which was seldom, her orders came in conflict with their master's.
They knew if they did not, the Colonel would whip them.

As we rode slowly along the Colonel said to me, 'Well, you see that the
best people have to flog their niggers sometimes.'

'Yes, _I_ should have given that fellow a hundred lashes, at least. I
think the effect on the others would have been bad if Madam P---- had
not had him flogged.'

'But she generally goes against it. I don't remember of her having it
done in ten years before. And yet, though I've the worst gang of niggers
in the district, they obey her like so many children.'

'Why is that?'

'Well, there's a kind of magnetism about her that makes everybody love
her; and then she tends them in sickness, and is constantly doing little
things for their comfort; _that_ attaches them to her. She is an
extraordinary woman.'

'Whose negroes are those, Colonel?' I asked, as, after a while, we
passed a gang of about a dozen, at work near the roadside. Some were
tending a tar-kiln, and some engaged in cutting into fire-wood the pines
which a recent tornado had thrown to the ground.

'They are mine, but they are working now for themselves. I let such as
will, work on Sunday. I furnish the "raw material," and pay them for
what they do, as I would a white man.'

'Would'nt it be better to make them go to hear the old preacher;
could'nt they learn something from him?'

'Not much; Old Pomp never read anything but the Bible, and he don't
understand that; besides, they can't be taught. You can't make "a
whistle out of a pig's tail;" you can't make a nigger into a white man.'

Just here the carriage stopped suddenly, and we looked out to see the
cause. The road by which we had come was a mere opening through the
pines; no fences separated it from the wooded land, and being seldom
traveled, the track was scarcely visible. In many places it widened to a
hundred feet, but in others tall trees had grown up on its opposite
sides, and there was scarcely width enough for a single carriage to pass
along. In one of these narrow passages, just before us, a queer-looking
vehicle had upset, and scattered its contents in the road. We had no
alternative but to wait till it got out of the way; and we all alighted
to reconnoitre.

The vehicle was a little larger than an ordinary hand-cart, and was
mounted on wheels that had probably served their time on a Boston dray
before commencing their travels in Secessiondom. Its box of pine
boarding and its shafts of rough oak poles were evidently of Southern
home manufacture. Attached to it by a rope harness, with a primitive
bridle of decidedly original construction, was--not a horse, nor a mule,
nor even an alligator, but a 'three-year-old heifer.'

The wooden linch-pin of the cart had given way, and the weight of a
half-dozen barrels of turpentine had thrown the box off its balance, and
rolled the contents about in all directions.

The appearance of the proprietor of this nondescript vehicle was in
keeping with the establishment. His coat, which was much too short in
the waist and much too long in the skirts, was of the common reddish
gray linsey, and his nether garments, of the same material, stopped just
below the knees. From there downwards, he wore only the covering that is
said to have been the fashion in Paradise before Adam took to
fig-leaves. His hat had a rim broader than a political platform, and his
skin a color half way between that of tobacco-juice and a tallow candle.

'Wal, Cunnul, how dy'ge?' said the stranger, as we stepped from the
carriage.

'Very well, Ned; how are you?'

'Purty wal, Cunnul; had the nagur lately, right smart, but'm gittin'
'roun.'

'You're in a bad fix here, I see. Can't Jim help you?'

'Wal, p'raps he moight. Jim, how dy'ge?'

'Sort o' smart, ole feller. But come, stir yerseff; we want ter gwo
'long,' replied Jim, with a manifest lack of courtesy that showed he
regarded the white man as altogether too 'trashy' to be treated with
much ceremony.

With the aid of Jim, a new linch-pin was soon whittled out, the
turpentine rolled on to the cart, and the vehicle put in a moving
condition.

'Where are you hauling your turpentine?' asked the Colonel.

'To Sam Bell's, at the "Boro'."'

'What will he pay you?'

'Wal, I've four barr'ls of "dip," and tu of "hard." For the hull, I
reckon he'll give three dollars a barr'l.'

'By tale?'

'No, for two hun'red and eighty pound.'

'Well, _I'll_ give you two dollars and a half by weight.'

'Can't take it, Cunnel; must get three dollar.'

'What, will you go sixty miles with this team, and waste five or six
days, for fifty cents on six barrels--three dollars?'

'Can't 'ford the time, Cunnel, but must git three dollar a barr'l.'

'That fellow is a specimen of our "natives,"' said the Colonel, as we
resumed our seats in the carriage. 'You'll see more of them before we
get back to the plantation.'

'He puts a young cow to a decidedly original use,' I remarked.

'Oh no, not original here; the ox and the cow with us are both used for
labor.'

'You don't mean to say that cows are generally worked here?'

'Of course I do. Our breeds are good for nothing as milkers, and we put
them to the next best use. I never have cow's milk on my plantation.'

'You don't! why, I could have sworn it was in my coffee this morning.'

'I wouldn't trust you to buy brandy for me, if your organs of taste are
not keener than that. It was goat's milk.'

'Then how do you get your butter?'

'From the North. I've had mine from my New York factors for over two
years.'

We soon arrived at Sandy the negro-hunter's, and halted to allow the
Colonel to inquire as to the health of his family of children and
dogs,--the latter the less numerous, but, if I might judge by
appearances, the more valued of the two.

       *       *       *       *       *

SOUTHERN AIDS TO THE NORTH.


II.

If war did little else, it would have its value from the fact that it
acts so extensively as an institution for the dissemination of useful
knowledge. Every murmur of political dissension sends thousands to
consult the map, and repair their early neglect of geography. Perhaps if
atlases and ethnographical works were more studied we should have less
war. And it is by no means impossible that the mutual knowledge which
has been or is to be acquired by the people of the South and the North
during this present war will eventually aid materially in establishing a
firm bond of union.

That we have much to learn is shown in the firm faith with which so many
have listened to the threats of 'a united South.' Until recently the
fierce and furious assurances of the rebel press, that south of Mason
and Dixon's line all were wedded heart and soul to their cause, were
taken almost without a doubt. Who has forgotten the late doleful
convictions of the dough-faces that the South would hold together to the
last in spite of wind or weather, concluding invariably with the old
refrain,--'Suppose we conquer them--what then?' Had the country at large
known in detail, as it _should_ have known from a common-school
education, what the South _really_ is,--or from experience of life what
human nature really is,--it would never have believed that this boasted
unanimity was based on aught save ignorance or falsehood. The Southern
press itself, almost without an exception, betrays gross ignorance of
its own country, and is very superficial in its statistics, inclining
more than any other to warp facts and figures to suit preconceived
views. We, like it, have tacitly adopted the belief that south of a
certain line a certain climate invariably prevailed, and that under its
influences, from the Border to the Gulf of Mexico, there has been
developed a race essentially alike in all its characteristics. The
planter and the slave-owner, or the city merchant, has been the type
with which our writers have become familiar at the hotel and the
watering-place, or in the 'store,' and we have accepted them as speaking
for the South, quite forgetful that in America, as in other countries,
the real man of the middle class travels but little, and when he does,
is seldom to be found mingling in the 'higher circles.' Yet even this
Southern man of the middle class and of 'Alleghania,' when at the North
frequently affects a 'Southern' air, which is not more natural to him
than it is to the youthful scions of Philadelphia and New York, who,
when in Europe, so often talk pro-slavery and bowie knife, as though
they lived in the very heart of planterdom. But the truth is that when
we search the South out closely we find that in reality there is a very
great difference between its districts and their inhabitants, and, in
_fact_, as has been very truly said, 'not only is there no geographical
boundary between the free and slave States, but no moral and
intellectual boundary.'

In the great temperate region which, parting from either side of the
Alleghanies, extends from Virginia to Alabama, and is still continued in
the pleasant level of Texas, slavery has rolled away from either
mountain side like a flood, leaving it the home of a hardy population
which regards with jealousy and dislike both the wealthy planter and the
negro. James W. Taylor, in his valuable collection of facts, claims that
through the whole extent of the Southern Alleghania slavery has
relatively diminished since 1850, and that the forthcoming census tables
will establish the assertion. 'The superintendent of the census,' he
says, 'would furnish a document, valuable politically and for military
use, if he would anticipate the publication of this portion of his
voluminous budget.' If government, indeed, were to communicate to the
public what information it now holds, and has long held, relative to the
numbers and strength of the Union men of the South, an excitement of
amazement would thrill through the North. It was on the basis of this
knowledge that our great campaign was planned,--and it can not be denied
that thousands of stanch Union men were greatly astonished at the
revelations of sympathy which burst forth most unexpectedly in districts
where the stars and stripes have been planted. But the Cabinet 'knew
what it knew' on this subject. Much of its knowledge never can be
revealed, but enough will come to-night to show that in our darkest hour
we had an enormous mass of aid, little suspected by those weaker
brethren who stood aghast at the Southern bugbear, and who, falling
prostrate in nerveless terror at the windy spectre, quaked out repeated
assurances that _they_ had no intention of 'abolitionizing the war,' and
even earnestly begged and prayed that the emancipationists might all be
sent to Fort Warren,--so fearful were the poor cowards lest the united
South, in the final hour of victory, might include them in its catalogue
of the doomed. What would they say if they knew the number and power of
the ABOLITIONISTS OF THE SOUTH,--a body of no trifling significance,
whose fierce grasp will yet be felt on the throat of rebellion and of
slavery? It is grimly amusing to think of the aid which the South
counted on receiving from these Northern dough-faces,--little thinking
that within itself it contained a counter-revolutionary party, far more
dangerous than the Northern friends were helpful.

It should be borne in mind that where such an evil as slavery exists
there will be numbers of grave, sensible men, who, however quiet they
may keep, will have their own opinions as to the expediency of
maintaining it. The bigots of the South may rave of the beauty of 'the
institution,' and make many believe that they speak for the whole,--a
little scum when whipped covers the whole pail,--but beneath all lies a
steadily-increasing mass of practical men who would readily enough
manifest their opposition should opportunity favor free speech. Such
people, for instance, are not insensible to the enormously corrupting
influence of negroes on their children. Let the reader recall Olmsted's
experiences,--that, for example, where he speaks of three negro women
who had charge of half a dozen white girls of good family, 'from three
to fifteen years of age.'

    Their language was loud and obscene, such as I never heard
    before from any but the most depraved and beastly women of the
    streets. Upon observing me they dropped their voices, but not
    with any appearance of shame, and continued their altercation
    until their mistresses entered. The white children, in the mean
    time, had listened without any appearance of wonder or
    annoyance. The moment the ladies opened the door, they became
    silent.--_Cotton Kingdom_, vol. i. p. 222.

The Southern _Cultivator_ for June, 1855, speaks of many young men and
women who have 'made shipwreck of all their earthly hopes, and been led
to the fatal step by the seeds of corruption which in the days of
childhood and youth were sown in their hearts by the indelicate and
lascivious manners and conversation of their fathers' negroes.' If we
had no other fact or cause to cite, this almost unnamable one might
convince the reader that there must be a groundwork somewhere in the
South among good, moral, and decent people, for antipathy to
slavery,--human nature teaches us as much. And such people exist, not
only among the hardy inhabitants of the inland districts, who are not
enervated by wealth and 'exclusiveness,' but in planterdom itself.

There are few in the North who realize the number of persons in the
South who silently disapprove of slavery on sound grounds, such as I
have mentioned. Does it seem credible that nearly _ten millions_ of
people should socially sympathize with some three hundred thousand
slave-holders, who act with intolerable arrogance to all
non-slave-holders? 'Even in those regions where slavery is profitable,'
as a writer in the Boston _Transcript_ well expresses it, 'the poor
whites feel the slaveocracy as the most grinding of aristocracies.'

    In those regions where it is not profitable, the population
    regard it with a latent abhorrence, compared with which the
    rhetorical and open invectives of Garrison and Phillips are
    feeble and tame. Anybody who has read Olmsted's truthful
    narrative of his experience in the slave States can not doubt
    this fact. The hatred to slavery too often finds its expression
    in an almost inhuman hatred of 'niggers,' whether slave or free,
    but it is none the less significant of the feelings and opinions
    of the white population.

As I write, every fresh thunder of war and crash of victory is followed
by murmurs of amazement at the enthusiastic receptions which the Union
forces meet in most unexpected strongholds of the enemy, in the very
heart of slavedom. Yet it was _known_ months ago, and prophesied, with
the illustration of undeniable facts, that this counter-revolutionary
element existed. One single truth was forgotten,--that these Southern
friends of the Union, even while avowing that slavery must be supported,
had no love of it in their hearts. Emancipation has been sedulously set
aside under pretence of conciliating them; but it was needless,--'old
custom' had made them cautious, and mindful of 'expediency;' but the
mass of them hate 'the institution.' It is for the traitorous Northern
_dough-faces_, and the paltry handful of secessionists, 'on a thin slip
of land on the Atlantic,' that slavery is, at present, cherished. The
great area of the South is free from it,--and ever will be.

It has frequently been insisted on that the mere _geographical_
obstacles to disunion are such as to render the cause of slavery
hopeless in the long run. Yet to this most powerful Southern aid to the
North, men seem to have been strangely blind during the days of doubt
which so long afflicted us. These obstacles are, briefly, the enormous
growing power of the West, and its inevitable outlet, the Mississippi
river. 'For it is the mighty and free _West_ which will always hang like
a lowering thunder-cloud over them.'[N] On this subject I quote at
length from an article, in the Danville (Ky.) _Review_, by the Rev. R.
J. Breckenridge, D.D.:--


    Whoever will look at a map of the United States, will observe
    that Louisiana lies on both sides of the Mississippi river, and
    that the States of Arkansas and Mississippi lie on the right and
    left banks of this great stream--eight hundred miles of whose
    lower course is thus controlled by these three States, unitedly
    inhabited by hardly as many white people as inhabit the city of
    New York. Observe, then, the country drained by this river and
    its affluents, commencing with Missouri on its west bank and
    Kentucky on its east bank. There are nine or ten powerful
    States, large portions of three or four others, several large
    Territories--in all, a country as large as all Europe, as fine
    as any under the sun, already holding many more people than all
    the revolted States, and powerful regions of the earth. Does any
    one suppose that these powerful States--this great and energetic
    population--will ever make a peace that will put the lower
    course of this single and mighty national outlet to the sea in
    the hands of a foreign government far weaker than themselves? If
    there is any such person he knows little of the past history of
    mankind, and will perhaps excuse us for reminding him that the
    people of Kentucky, before they were constituted a State, gave
    formal notice to the federal government, when Gen. Washington
    was President, that if the United States did not require
    Louisiana they would themselves conquer it. The mouths of the
    Mississippi belong, by the gift of God, to the inhabitants of
    its great valley. Nothing but irresistible force can disinherit
    them.

    Try another territorial aspect of the case. There is a bed of
    mountains abutting on the left bank of the Ohio, which covers
    all Western Virginia, and all Eastern Kentucky, to the width,
    from east to west, in those two States, of three or four hundred
    miles. These mountains, stretching south-westwardly, pass
    entirely through Tennessee, cover the back parts of North
    Carolina and Georgia, heavily invade the northern part of
    Alabama, and make a figure even in the back parts of South
    Carolina and the eastern parts of Mississippi, having a course
    of perhaps seven or eight hundred miles, and running far south
    of the northern limit of profitable cotton culture. It is a
    region of 300,000 square miles, trenching upon eight or nine
    slave States, though nearly destitute of slaves itself;
    trenching upon at least five cotton States, though raising no
    cotton itself. The western part of Maryland and two-thirds of
    Pennsylvania are embraced in the north-eastern continuation of
    this remarkable region. Can anything that passes under the name
    of statesmanship be more preposterous than the notion of
    permanent peace on this continent, founded on the abnegation of
    a common and paramount government, and the idea of the
    supercilious domination of the cotton interest and the
    slave-trade over such a mountain empire, so located and so
    peopled?

    As a further proof of the utter impossibility of peace except
    under a common government, and at once an illustration of the
    import of what has just been stated, and the suggestion of a new
    and insuperable difficulty, let it be remembered that this great
    mountain region, throughout its general course, is more loyal to
    the Union than any other portion of the slave States. It is the
    mountain counties of Maryland that have held treason in check in
    that State; it is forty mountain counties in Western Virginia
    that have laid the foundation of a new and loyal commonwealth;
    it is the mountain counties of Kentucky that first and most
    eagerly took up arms for the Union; it is the mountain region of
    Tennessee that alone, in that dishonored State, furnished
    martyrs to the sacred cause of freedom; it is the mountain
    people of Alabama that boldly stood out against the Confederate
    government till their own leaders deserted and betrayed them.

It is not a strong point, but it is worth noting, that even in South
Carolina there is an Alleghanian area of 4,074 square miles, equal to
the State of Connecticut, in which the diminished proportion of slaves,
with other local causes, are sufficient to indicate the Union feeling
which indeed struggles there in secret. These counties are:--

                   FREE.        SLAVE.
Spartanburgh,     18,311         8,039
Greenville,       13,370         6,691
Anderson,         13,867         7,514
Pickens,          13,105         3,679

Slavery is here large, as compared to the other counties of
'Alleghania,' but the great proportion of free inhabitants, as
contrasted with the districts near the Atlantic, makes it worth citing.
In accordance with a request, I give from Jas. W. Taylor's collection,
illustrating this subject, the table of population in East Tennessee:--

    The following table, from the census of 1850, presents the slave
    and cotton statistics of this district, in their relation to the
    free population:

    COUNTIES.          FREE.      SLAVE.        COTTON,
                                             400 lb. bales.
    Johnson,           3,485         206           0
    Carter,            5,911         353           0
    Washington,       12,671         930           0
    Sullivan,         10,603       1,004         153
    Hancock,           5,447         202           2
    Hawkins,          11,567       1,690           0
    Greene,           16,526       1,093           0
    Cocke,             7,501         719           3
    Sevier,            6,450         403           0
    Jefferson,        11,458       1,628           0
    Granger,          11,170       1,035           1
    Knox,             16,385       2,193           0
    Union, new county,
    Claiborne,         8,610         660           0
    Anderson,          6,391         503           0
    Campbell,          5,651         318           1
    Scott,             1,808          37           0
    Morgan,            3,301         101           9
    Cumberland, new county,
    Roane,            10,525       1,544         121
    Blount,           11,213       1,084           6
    Munroe,           10,623       1,188           0
    McMinn,           12,286       1,568       2,821
    Polk,              5,884         400          29
    Bradley,          11,478         744       1,600
    Meigs,             4,480         395           2
    Hamilton,          9,216         672           0
    Rhea,              3,951         436           0
    Bledsoe,           5,036         827           0
    Sequatche, new county,
    Van Buren,         2,481         175           2
    Grundy,            2,522         236          24
    Marion,            5,718         551      24,413
    Franklin,         10,085       3,623         637
    Lincoln,          17,802       5,621       2,576

    The geographical order of the foregoing list of counties is from
    the extreme north-east--Johnson--south-west to Lincoln, on the
    Alabama line. I have included a tier of counties the west, which
    embrace the summits and western slopes of the Cumberland Hills,
    regarding their physical and political features as more
    identified with East than Middle Tennessee. Such are Lincoln,
    Franklin, Grundy, Van Buren, Cumberland, Morgan and Scott
    counties.

    I estimate the area of this district as about 17,175 square
    miles, an extent of territory exceeding the aggregate of the
    following States:

  Massachusetts,   7,800 square miles.
  Connecticut,     4,674 square miles.
  Rhode Island,    l,306 square miles.
                  ------
                  13,180 square miles.

Yet it is not many months since even this Tennessee region, it was
generally feared, would be false to the Union, on account of its
attachment to slavery.

The reader who has studied the facts which I have cited, indicating the
existence of a powerful Union party at the South (and the facts are few
and weak compared to the vast mass which exist, and which are known to
government), may judge for himself whether that party is Union _in spite
of pro-slavery principles_, as so many would have us believe. Let him
see where these Union men are found, where they have come forth with the
greatest enthusiasm, and _then_ say that he believes they are friends to
slavery. Let him bear in mind the hundreds of thousands of acres, the
vast tracts, equal in extent to whole Northern States, in the South,
which are unfitted for slave labor, and reflect whether the inhabitants
of these cool, temperate regions are not as conscious of their
inadaptability to slave labor as he is himself; and whether _they_ are
so much attached to the institution which fosters the Satanic pride,
panders to the passions, and corrupts the children of the planter of the
low country.

Since writing the above, the long-expected declaration of President
LINCOLN has appeared in favor of adopting a plan which may lead to the
gradual abolishment of slavery. He proposes that the United States shall
coöperate with such slave States as may desire Emancipation, by giving
such pecuniary aid as may compensate for any losses incurred. No
interference with State rights or claims to rights in the question is
intended.

It is evident that this message is directed entirely to the
strengthening and building up of the Union party of the South, and has
been based quite as much on their demands and on a knowledge of their
needs, as on any Northern pressure. And it will have a sure effect. It
will bring to life, if realized, those seeds of counter-revolution which
so abundantly exist in the South. The growth may be slow, but it will be
certain. So long as the certainty exists that compensation _may_ be
obtained, there will be a party who will long for it; and where there is
a will there is a way. The executive has finally _officially_ recognized
the truth of the theory of Emancipation, and thereby entitled itself to
the honor of having taken the greatest forward step in the glorious path
of Freedom ever made even in our history.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.


NO. I.

In addressing you for the first time, you will perhaps expect me to give
some account of myself and my ancestry, as did the illustrious
_Spectator_.

My remote ancestors are Irish. From them I inherited enthusiasm, a
gun-powder temper, a propensity to blunder, and a name--Molly O'Molly.
The origin of this name I have in vain endeavored to trace in history,
perhaps because it belonged to a very old family, one of the
_prehistorics_. As such it might have been that of a demigod, or,
according to the development theory, of a _demi-man_. Or it might have
been that of an old Irish gentleman, _gentle_ in truth;--in the
formative stage of society it is the monster that leaves traces of
himself, as in an old geologic period the huge reptile left his tracks
in the plastic earth, which afterward hardened into rock.

Then, too, I have searched in vain for anything like it in ancient Irish
poetry, thinking that my progenitor's name might have been therein
embalmed. 'The stony science'--mind you--reveals to us the former
existence of the huge reptile, the fragmentary, mighty mastodon, and,
imperfect, the mail-clad fish. But, wonder of wonders, we find the whole
_insect_ preserved in that fossil gum amber. And even so in verse,
characters are preserved for all time, that could not make their mark in
history, and that had none of the elements of an earthly immortality.
Did I wish immortality I would choose a poet for my friend;--an _In
Memoriam_ is worth all the records of the dry chronicler.

But, it is not with the root of the family tree that you have to do, but
with the twig Myself.

As for my physique,--I am not like the scripture personage who beheld
his face in a glass, and straightway forgot what manner of man he was. I
have, on the contrary, a very distinct recollection of my face; suffice
it to say, that, had I Rafaelle's pencil, I would not, like him, employ
it on my own portrait.

And my life--the circumstances which have influenced, or rather created
its currents, have been trifling; not that it has had no powerful
currents; it is said that the equilibrium of the whole ocean could be
destroyed by a single mollusk or coralline,--but my life has been an
uneventful one. I never met with an adventure, never even had a
hair-breadth escape,--yes, I did, too, have one hair-breadth escape. I
once just grazed matrimony. The truth is, I fell in love, and was
sinking with Falstaff's 'alacrity,' when I was fished out; but somehow I
slipt off the hook--fortunately, however, was left on shore. By the way,
the best way to get out of love is to be drawn out by the matrimonial
hook. One of Holmes' characters wished to change a vowel of the verb _to
love_, and conjugate it--I have forgotten how far. Where two set out to
conjugate together the verb to love in the first person plural, it is
well if they do not, before the honey-moon is over, get to the
present-perfect, indicative. Alas! I have thus far, in the first person
singular, conjugated too many verbs, among them _to enjoy_. As for _to
be_, I have come to the balancing in my mind of the question that so
perplexed Hamlet--'To be, or not to be.' For, with all the natural
cheerfulness of my disposition, I can not help sometimes looking on the
dark side of life. But there is no use in setting down my gloomy
reflections,--all have them. We are all surrounded by an atmosphere of
misery, pressing on us fifteen pounds to the square inch, so evenly and
constantly that we know not its fearful weight. To change the figure.
Have you ever thought how much misery one life _can_ hold in solution?
Each year, as it flows into it, adds to it a heaviness, a weight of woe,
as the rivers add salts to the ocean. I do not refer to the most
unhappy, but to all. Some one says,--

  'If singing breath, if echoing chord
    To every hidden pang were given,
  What endless melodies were poured,
    As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven.'

If breath to every hidden prayer were given, could it be _singing_
breath? Would it not be a wail monotonous as the dirge of the November
wind over the dead summer, a wail for lost hopes, lost joys, lost loves?
Or the monotony would be varied--as is the wind by fitful gusts--by
shrieks of despair, cries of agony. No, no, there is no use in trying to
modulate our woes,--'we're all wrong,--the _time_ in us is lost.'

            'Henceforth I'll bear
  Affliction, till it do cry out itself,
    "Enough, enough," and die.'

But why talk thus? why mourn over dead hopes, dead joys, dead loves?
'Tis best to bury the dead out of our sight, and from them will spring
many humbler hopes, quieter joys, more lowly affections, which 'smell
sweet' though they 'blossom in the dust,' and they are the only
resurrection these dead ones can ever have. I have been reading, in
Maury's Geography of the Sea, how the sea's dead are preserved; how they
stand like enchanted warders of the treasures of the deep, unchanged,
except that the expression of life is exchanged for the ghastliness of
death. So, down beneath the surface currents do some deep souls preserve
their dead hopes, joys, loves. Oh, this is unwise; this is _not_ as God
intended; for, unlike the sea's dead, there will be for these no
resurrection.

Thus far I wrote, when the current of my thoughts was changed by a
lively tune struck up by a hand-organ across the street. I am not 'good'
at distinguishing tunes, but this one I had so often heard in childhood,
and had so wondered at its strange title, that I could but remember it.
It was 'The Devil's Dream.' Were I a poet, I would write the words to
it;--but then, too, I would need be a musician to compose a suitable new
tune to the words! The rattling, reckless notes should be varied by
those sad enough to make an unlost angel weep--an unlost angel, for, to
the hot eyes of the lost, no tears can come. 'The _Devil's_
Dream'--perhaps it is of Heaven. Doubtless, frescoed in heavenly colors
on the walls of his memory, are scenes from which fancy has but to brush
the smoke and grime of perdition to restore them to almost their
original beauty. I could even pity the 'Father of lies,' the 'Essence of
evil,' the 'Enemy of mankind,' when I think of the terrible awaking. But
does _he_ ever sleep? Has there since the fall been a pause in _his_
labors? Perhaps the reason this tune-time is so fast is because he is
dreaming in a hurry,--must soon be up and doing. But it is my opinion
that he has so wound up the world to wickedness, that he might sleep a
hundred years, and it would have scarcely begun to run down on his
awaking; when, from the familiar appearance of all things, he would
swear 'it was but an after-dinner nap.' Indeed he might die, might
to-day go out in utter nothingness like a falling star, and it would be
away in the year two thousand before he would be missed,--we have
learned to do our own devil-work so rarely. Meanwhile the well-wound
world--as a music-box plays over the same tunes--would go on sinning
over the same old sins. Satan is a great economist, but a paltry
deviser,--he has not invented a new sin since the flood. My thoughts
thus danced along to the music, when they were brought to a dead stop by
its cessation; and it was time, you will think....

But, permit me to remind you that my name is not _acquired_, but
_inherited_.

At your service,

MOLLY O'MOLLY.


NO. II.

I detest that man who bides his time to repay a wrong or fancied wrong,
who keeps alive in his hardened nature the vile thing hatred, and would
for centuries, did he live thus long,--as the toad is kept alive in the
solid rock. Hugh Miller says he is 'disposed to regard the poison bag of
the serpent as a mark of degradation;' this venomous spite is certainly
a mark of degradation, and it is only creeping, crawling souls that have
it, but the creeping and crawling are a part of the curse.

Yet I have a respect for honest indignation, righteous anger, such as
the O'Mollys have ever been capable of. And all the O'Molly blood in my
veins has been stirred by the contemptuous manner in which some men have
spoken of woman. 'Weak woman,--inconstant woman;' they have made the
wind a type of her fickleness. In this they are right; for it has been
proved that the seasons in their return, day and night, are not more
sure than the wind. Such fickleness as this is preferable to _man's_
greatest constancy. Woman weak! she's gentle as the summer breeze, I
grant;--but, like this same breeze, when she's roused--then beware! You
have doubtless heard of that gale that forced back the Gulf Stream, and
piled it up thirty feet at its source.

Take care how you sour woman's nature,--remember that, once soured, all
the honey in the universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as
making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of
vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process?
Grumbling--everlasting fault-finding--at breakfast, dinner, and supper,
the same old tune. I don't see how the man who boards can endure it; he
is obliged to swallow his food without complaint. The landlady at the
head of the table is a very different-looking individual from the meek
woman he afterwards calls wife,--not a word can he say, though he
morning after morning, in his breakfast, recognizes, through its various
disguises, yesterday's dinner. By the way, this is after Dame Nature's
plan; she uses the greatest economy in feeding her immense family of
boarders; never wastes a refuse scrap, or even a drop of water. If one
of these boarders dies, it is true he is not, like 'the poor work-house
boy,' served up as one dish, but he becomes an ingredient in many 'a
dainty dish' fit to 'to set before a king.' But I am not, like 'Miss
Ophelia' in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' going to explore the good dame's
kitchen,--will rather eat what is set before me, asking no questions;
which last, what _man_ ever did, if he could help it?

For an insignificant man, originally but a cipher, who owes it to his
wife that he is even the fraction that he is, to talk about 'woman
knowing her place--he's head,' etc.! If he had given her the place that
belonged to her, their value, not as individual figures, but as one
number, would have been increased a thousand fold. I have made a
calculation, and this is literally true, or rather, you will say,
_figuratively_ true. Well, this kind of figures can not lie.

'The rose,' the Burmese say, 'imparts fragrance to the leaf in which it
is folded.' Many a man has had a sweetness imparted to his character by
the woman he has sheltered in his bosom--though some characters 'not all
the perfume of Arabia could sweeten;' and, strange as it seem, most
women would rather be folded in a _tobacco_ leaf than 'waste their
sweetness on desert air.' Though it is a long time since I have been a
man _lover_, I am not a man _hater_. I can not hate anything that has
been so hallowed by woman's love,--_its_ magnetism gives a sort of
attractive power to him.

Notwithstanding all that has been said about woman's weakness, it is
acknowledged that she has a pretty strong will of her own. Well, we need
a strong will,--it is the great _centrifugal force_ that God has given
to all. Only it must be subordinate to the _centripetal force_ of the
universe--the Divine will.

It is said that the centripetal force of our solar system is the Pleiad
Alcyon. I know not whether the other stars of that cluster feel this
attraction; if they do, what a centrifugal force the lost Pleiad must
have had, to break away from 'the sweet influences' which, through so
immense a distance, draw the sun with all his train. This is not without
a parallel--when 'the morning stars sang together' over the new-born
earth, one 'star of the morning' was not there to join in the chorus.

But Old Sol will probably never so strongly assert _his_ centrifugality
as to set such an example of _secession_ to his planets and comets.

Pardon this astronomical digression. I have just returned from hearing
an itinerant lecturer, and it will take a week to get the smoke of his
magic lantern out of my eyes. If there is any error in these
observations, blame the itinerant, not me.

I had been low-spirited all day, had tried reading, work,--all of no
avail. Dyspeptic views of life would present themselves to my mind. Some
natures, and mine is of them, like the pendulum, need a weight attached
to them to keep them from going too fast. But a wholesome sorrow is very
different from this moping melancholy, when the thoughts run in one
direction, till they almost wear a channel for themselves--when the
channel is worn, there is _insanity_.

Neither are my gloomy religious views to-day those that will regenerate
the world. Those lines of Dr. Watts,--'We should suspect some danger
nigh When we possess delight,'--it is said, were written after a
disappointment in love--it was 'sour grapes' that morning--with the
grave divine.

As a general rule, where we possess _continued_ delight, there is no
'danger nigh.' Where an enjoyment comes between us and our God, it casts
on us a shadow. When we have plucked a beautiful flower, if poisonous,
it has such a sickening odor that we fling it from us. We do not 'pay
too dear for our whistle,' unless it costs us a sin; then it soon
becomes a loathed and useless toy. Otherwise, the dearer we pay, the
sweeter its music.

And even if there is 'danger nigh'--because we are pleased with the
beautiful foam, need we steer straight for the breakers? Not every
tempting morsel is the enemy's bait, though we should be careful how we
nibble;--he is no blunderer (a proof positive that he is not Irish),
never leaves his trap sprung--and we may get caught.

This is a synopsis of the arguments, or rather assertions, with which I
opposed those of the blues; but, finding they were getting the better of
me, I started out for a walk. It was a chilly afternoon; the whole sky,
except a clear place just above the western horizon, was covered with
those heavy, diluted India-ink clouds; the setting sun throwing a dreary
red light on the northern and eastern mountains, adding sullenness to
the gloom, instead of dispelling it. But why describe this gloomy
sunset, there are so many beautiful ones?--when, as the grand, old,
dying Humboldt said, the 'glorious rays seem to beckon earth to heaven?'

Well, I walked so fast that I left my blue tormentors far in the rear.
On the way I met a friend, who invited me to go to the astronomical
lecture. Here you have it, after many digressions. My thoughts never
strike a plane surface, but always a spherical, and fly off in a
tangent.

Sydney Smith says, 'Remember the flood and be brief.' You know I belong
to a very old family; and from an ancestor, who lived before the flood,
has been transmitted through a long line of O'Mollys a disposition to
spin out. Unfortunately an antediluvian length of time was not an
_heir-loom_ to

Your humble servant,

MOLLY O'MOLLY.

       *       *       *       *       *


SKETCHES OF EDINBURGH LITERATI.

BY A FORMER MEMBER OF ITS PRESS.


There was a time when the little hamlet of Cockpaine, ten miles from
Edinburgh, in addition to the charms of its scenery, was also socially
attractive from the high literary talent of several of its residents. It
was situated on the banks of the Esk, whose rapid flow affords a
valuable water-power. This had been improved under the enterprise of Mr.
Craig, an extensive manufacturer, who became at last proprietor not only
of the mills, but of the entire village. Mr. Craig was successful for
several years; but the revulsions of trade during the Crimean war swept
away his previous profits, and in 1854 he sank in utter bankruptcy.

The extensive domain of the Earl of Dalhousie lay next to Cockpaine, and
the village site seemed all that was necessary to its completeness. As
soon as the latter was offered for sale, the earl made the long-desired
purchase, and then began the immediate eviction of its population. I saw
four hundred operatives, of all ages, driven off on one sad occasion--a
scene which reminded me most painfully of Goldsmith's lines in the
'Deserted Village:'--

  'Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting day
  That called them from their native walks away,
  When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
  Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
  And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
  For seats like these beyond the western main;
  And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
  Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.'

A subsequent visit to what was once the thriving village, with its
embowered cottages reflected from the waters of the Esk, its groups of
romping children, its Sabbath melodies and its secular din, now changed
to a nobleman's preserves, recalled the following truthful sketch from
the same poem:--

  'Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed,
  In Nature's simplest charms arrayed;
  But verging to decline, its splendors rise,
  Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
  While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
  The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
  And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
  _The country blooms, a garden and a grave._'

Among those whom Mr. Craig had numbered with the friends of his better
days, the first rank might have been conceded to that most eccentric and
interesting child of genius, Thomas DeQuincey.

Mr. Craig had thrown open to his use a lovely cottage and grounds,
commonly known as 'the Paddock,' which DeQuincey and his family occupied
for several years as privileged guests. 'The Opium-eater,' as he was
universally called by the villagers, was not more remarkable in
character than in appearance. His attenuated form, though but five feet
six in height, seemed singularly tall; and his sharply aquiline
countenance was strongly indicative of reflection. This aspect was
increased by a downward cast of the eyes, which were invariably fixed
upon the ground; and in his solitary walks he seemed like one rapt in a
dream. Such a character could not but be quite a marvel to the literary
coterie of Cockpaine, which found in him an inexhaustible subject of
discussion; while the more common class of the community viewed him with
solemn wonderment--'aye, there he gaes aff to th' brae--he'll kill
himsell wi' ower thinkin'--glowrin all the day lang--ah, there's na gude
in that black stuff; it's worse nor whiskey and baccy forbye.' Such were
some of the ordinary comments on the weird form which was seen emerging
from 'the Paddock' and moving in solitude towards the hills. Taciturnity
was a striking feature in DeQuincey's character, and was, no doubt,
owing to intense mental action. The inner life, aroused to extreme
activity by continued stimulus, excluded all perceptions beyond its own
limits, and the world in which he dwelt was sufficiently large without
the intrusion of external things. In his walks I would often follow in
his track, with that fondness of imitation peculiar to childhood, but
was never the object of his notice, and never heard him converse but
once. Overcome by such recluse habits, DeQuincey showed no desire to
court the patronage of the great, and had but little intercourse with
the lordly family of the Dalhousies. Indeed, his only intimacy was with
Mr. Craig, whose hospitality had won his heart. He was at this time
still consuming enormous quantities of opium, having never abated its
use, notwithstanding his allusions to reform in the 'Confessions.' His
two daughters, like those of Milton, cheered the domestic scenes of 'the
Paddock,' and the trio formed a circle whose interest pervaded the
literary world.

DeQuincey was at that time writing for Hogg's _Instructor_, a popular
Edinburgh periodical, in which his articles were a leading attraction.
The _Instructor_ was published weekly, and in addition to the pen of the
'Opium-eater,' could boast the editorship of the brilliant George
Gilfillan. The former of these devoted himself to a series of
interesting miscellanies, in which he brought out many pen-and-ink
portraits of striking power. At times, indeed, he was almost considered
joint editor; but his use of opium was so little abated, that it
forbade dependence upon his pen. The quantity of the drug consumed by
him, according to report, was astonishing. In his daily walk along the
Esk, his form was easily distinguished, even at a distance, by the prim
black surtout, whose priestly aspect was somewhat in contrast with his
'shocking-bad' hat. DeQuincey had by this time escaped from the poverty
of his early days, of which he speaks so bitterly in his 'Confessions,'
and was, if not a man of wealth, at least in easy circumstances. He was
reputed to own a snug little estate, called 'Lasswade;' but he abandoned
it to a tenant, and gave preference to Cockpaine, which charmed him by
its romantic scenery. His pay for contributions to the _Instructor_
could not have been less than a guinea per page; and Hogg, its publisher
(who was no relation to the Ettrick shepherd), would have given him more
had it been demanded. The _Instructor_ was subsequently merged into the
_Titan_, and its place of publication changed to London.

Removing from Cockpaine, my initiation into Edinburgh life was through
an acquaintance with the noted publishing house of the Messrs. Black,
who were then getting out their splendid edition of the _Encyclopedia
Brittanica_.

This vast enterprise, which cost £25,000, was highly profitable, through
the energy and cleverness of Robert Black, who conducted it. Among other
distinguished contributors, I frequently met in its office Mr.,
subsequently Lord, Macaulay, who furnished the articles on 'Pitt,'
'Canning,' and other distinguished statesmen. Although at that time a
man of slender means, Mr. Macaulay refused compensation for these
papers, on the score of strong personal friendship. However, he received
an indirect reward, more valuable than mere gold, since Robert Black was
his strong political supporter, and frequently presided at public
meetings held to further Macaulay's interests. I have often seen Music
Hall crowded by an enthusiastic mass while the bookseller filled the
chair, and the great reviewer appeared as a public orator. Macaulay's
person was very striking and impressive. He was tall, and of noble build
and full development. Although one of the most diligent of readers and
hard working of students of any age, his ruddy countenance did not
indicate close application, and his appearance was anything but that of
a book-worm. Indeed, at first glance, one would have taken him for a
fine specimen of the wealthy English farmer; and to have observed his
habits of good living at the social dining parties, would have added to
the impression that in him the animal nature was far in advance of the
intellectual. Macaulay, on all festive occasions, proved himself as
elegant a conversationist as he was a writer; his tone was thoroughly
English, and his pronunciation, like that of Washington Irving, was
singularly correct. As a speaker, he at times rose to splendid flights
of oratory, although his delivery from memory was less effective than
the extemporaneous style. Macaulay never married, but was always happy
in the social circle of his friends.

The Blacks were likewise publishers of Scott's novels, the demand for
which was so great that they were seldom 'off the press.' Three standard
editions were issued,--one of forty-eight volumes, at a low rate,
another of twenty-five volumes, at higher cost, and an additional
library edition, of still greater price. Of these, one thousand 'sets'
per year were the average of sale.

Shortly after this, I was in connection with the Ballantynes, who
published Blackwood's Magazine, one of the most profitable periodicals
in the United Kingdom. This connection led to an acquaintance with John
Wilson, better known as 'Christopher North,' of 'Old Ebony.' When the
printers were in haste, I have frequently walked down to his residence
in Gloucester Place, and sat by his side, waiting patiently, hour after
hour, for copy. The professor always wrote in the night, and would
frequently dash off one of his splendid articles between supper and
daybreak. His study was a small room, containing a table littered with
paper, the walls garnished with a few pictures, while heaps of books
were scattered wherever chance might direct. At this table might have
been seen the famous professor of moral philosophy, stripped to his
shirt and pantaloons, the former open in front, and displaying a vast,
hirsute chest, while a slovenly necktie kept the limp collar from utter
loss of place. This was his favorite state for composition, and was in
true keeping with the character and productions of his genius. When in
public, the professor was still a sloven; but his heavy form and
majestic head and countenance--though he was not a tall man--at once
commanded respect. He never appeared anything but the philosopher, and
I, who saw him in the dishabille of his study, never lost my awe for his
greatness. He had a worthy family, and maintained an excellent
establishment. Aytoun, who is now editor of Blackwood, married one of
his daughters, and has proved, by his stirring ballads, that he was
worthy of such an alliance. In writing, the professor eschewed gas
light, and made use of the more classic lamp. A bottle of wine was his
companion, and stood at his elbow until exhausted. This will perhaps
explain much of the convivial character of the 'Notes.' The
old-fashioned quill pen was his preference; and as the hours advanced,
and mental excitement waxed in activity, the profuse spattering of ink
rattled like rain. As a matter of course, his pay was of the highest
rate, and his articles were read with avidity. One reason of this may be
found in the boldness with which he drags into the imaginary colloquies
of _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ the literati of both kingdoms. This liberty was
sometimes felt keenly, and sharply resented. Poor James Hogg, the
'Ettrick Shepherd,' who was just then getting a position in the literary
world, sometimes found himself figuring unexpectedly in the scenes, as
the victim of relentless wit. As a retaliation, Hogg attacked Wilson in
a sheet which he was then publishing in the Cowgate, under the aid and
patronage of a hatter.

It was one of John Wilson's fancies to affect a love of boxing, and it
was a favorite theme in the 'Ambrosial Discussions.' From this some have
imagined that he was of a pugilistic turn, whereas he knew nothing of
the 'science,' and only affected the knowledge in jest.

Next to old 'Kit North,' the most truly beloved contributor to Blackwood
was 'Delta,' whose poetry was for years expected, almost of course, in
every number. As Wilson's identity was well-nigh lost in his imaginary
character, so plain Dr. Moir was, in the literary world, merged in
'Delta' of Blackwood. But to the inhabitants of Musselburg he sustained
a character altogether different, and the gentle _Delta_ was only known
as one worthy of the title of 'the good physician.' I lived at
Musselburg two years, and had ample opportunities of personal
acquaintance. Dr. Moir was a man of highly benevolent countenance, and
of quiet and retiring manners. His practice was very extensive, and at
almost all hours he could have been seen driving an old gray horse
through the streets and suburbs of the town. The ancient character of
Musselburg seemed to have been as congenial to his temperament as
Nuremberg was to that of Hans Sachs. Indeed, in antiquity it can glory
over 'Auld Reekie,' according to the quaint couplet,--

  'Musselboro' was a boro' when Edinburgh was nane;
  Musselboro'll be a boro' when Edinburgh is gane.'

Moir was buried at Inveresk, where his remains are honored by a noble
monument; the memory of his genius will be cherished by all readers of
Blackwood. He died in 1854.

While engaged on the Encyclopedia to which we have made reference, I
made the acquaintance of McCulloch, the distinguished writer of
finances, who furnished the article on 'Banking.'

However distinguished may have been the position of this man in point of
talent, he failed utterly to command respect; and I chiefly remember his
coarse, overbearing tone of boastful superiority, and his abusive
language to the compositors who set up his MSS. That they found the
latter difficult of deciphering is not surprising, since the sheet
looked less like human calligraphy than a row of bayonets. McCulloch had
edited the '_Scotsman_' with decided ability, and having attracted the
attention of Lord Brougham, had received an appointment in the
stationer's office. But in his promotion he quickly forgot his humble
origin, and displayed his native vulgarity by lording it over the
craftsmen who gave form and life to his thoughts.

Among the giants of Scotland at that time, Thomas Chalmers ranked chief,
and the death of Sir Walter Scott had left him without a peer. I used to
meet him as he took his early walks, and in his loving way of greeting
youth he often bade me a cheerful good-morning. He was then living at
Kinghorn, about eight miles from Edinburgh. Dr. Chalmers' robust stature
was in keeping with the power of his intellect. He was of massive frame,
and displayed a breadth of shoulder which seemed borrowed from the
Farnese Hercules. Though so distinguished as a divine, there was nothing
clerical in his appearance--nothing of that air of 'the cloth' which at
once proclaims the preacher. His noble features were generally
overspread with a benevolent smile, which seemed to shed an illumination
as though from the ignition of the soul; while at other times he was
possessed with a spirit of abstraction as if walking in a dream.

As a theologian, Chalmers was great beyond any of his contemporaries;
and yet, strictly speaking, his genius was mathematical, rather than
theological. In this respect he resembled that famed American of whom he
professed himself a disciple--Jonathan Edwards. Of the latter it is
stated by no less a critic than the author of the _Eclipse of Faith_
(Henry Rogers), that he was born a mathematician. Chalmers, however, was
a master of all science, and it would have been difficult for even a
specialist to have taken him at an advantage. As greatness is always set
off by simplicity, the latter feature was one of the chief beauties in
what we may call the Chalmerian Colossus. I have often seen him leaning
upon the half open door of a smithy, conversing with the intelligent
workmen, as they rested from the use of the sledge. Having referred to
his love of children, I may add, in respect to myself, that when I, in
my childhood, spoke to him in the street, I was generally favored with
an apple. He was indeed an ardent lover of the young, and his genius
seemed to gather freshness from his intercourse with childhood.

Edinburgh will not soon forget his interest in the welfare of the poor,
in which he has been so ably seconded by the present Dr. Guthrie. I well
remember beholding the two Christian reformers, standing above the slums
of the city, contemplating the fields which the latter had assumed.
Suddenly Chalmers clapped his friend upon the back, and exclaimed, in
rude pleasantry, 'Wow, Tummus Guthrie, but ye ha a bonnie parish.'
Chalmers' pronunciation was singularly broad, and not easily understood
by many. Stopping once, during a tour in England, at a place where there
was a seminary, a gentleman inquired of him how many Scotch boys were in
attendance. 'Saxtain or savantain,' was the reply. 'Enough,' says the
gentleman, _sotto voce_, to corrupt a whole school.' As regards
calligraphy, Chalmers wrote the most illegible hand in Scotland. He
could not even read it himself, and was frequently obliged to call his
wife and daughters to his aid. Many of his discourses, when intended for
the press, were copied by them. His manuscript, when fresh from his
hand, looked as though a fly had fallen into the ink-stand, and then
crawled over the page. When his letters were received at his paternal
home, the language of the father was, 'A letter from Tummus, eh; weel,
when he comes hame, he maun read it himsel.' There was something
Homeric in Chalmers' mind; and Hugh Miller always considered him the
bard of the Free Church, as well as its great theologian and still
greater benefactor; and this, too, notwithstanding the fact that he
never wrote a line of verse in his life. The simplest truths, when
announced by him, took a poetic shape, and moved along with all the
majesty of his towering genius. Speaking of Hugh Miller brings him
before us at the time that he was writing for the _Caledonia Mercury_.
He was then editor of _The Witness_, but gave to the former paper such
moments as he could abstract from his more serious duties. His
department in the _Mercury_ was the reviewing new publications. Besides
his engagement with these two journals, he was pursuing those studies
which made him the prince of British geologists. Geology was his
passion. Indeed, while writing leaders for the _Witness_, or turning
over the leaves of hot-pressed volumes, his mind was wandering among
such scenes as the 'Lake of Stromness,' and the 'Old Red Sandstone' of
his native Cromarty. His geological sketches in the _Witness_ were a new
feature in journalism, and formed the basis of that work which so
admirably refuted the 'Vestiges of Creation.' I met Miller daily for
several years. He was tall, and of a well-built and massive frame, and
evidently capable of great endurance, both of mind and body. Considered
as one of the distinguished instances of self-made men, Hugh Miller
finds his only parallel in Horace Greeley, although the path to
greatness was in the first instance even more laborious than in the
latter. Let any one read Miller's experiences and adventures, as
described in 'My Schools and my Schoolmasters,' and he will find a
renewed suggestion of the thought which Johnson so pathetically breathes
in his 'London:'--

  'The mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
  Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.'

Miller's appearance, when in trim attire, was that of the Scottish
'Dominie,' or parish schoolmaster; but, like the great American editor,
he was exceedingly slovenly, both by nature and by long habits of
carelessness. When in the street, he always wore the plaid, although
that garment was quite out of use, and indicated at once something
quaint or rustic in the wearer. At this time Miller was living in one of
the suburbs of Edinburgh, called Porto Bello. When we exchanged
greetings in the street, his countenance, usually overcast with the pale
hue of thought, would light up with a bright and open smile, which
continued as long as he was speaking, but soon yielded to returning
abstraction. One of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen was the
groups of youth whom Miller used to invite as companions of an afternoon
walk. None were forbidden on the score of childhood, and many a 'wee
bairn' trotted after the larger lads who accompanied 'the gude
stane-cracker,' and 'the bonnie mon what gaes amang the rocks.' He might
well be called the 'stane-cracker,' since I have seen him on Calton
Hill, or Arthur's Seat, or among the crags, lecturing, in a calm, quiet
tone, on the mysteries which his hammer had brought to light. These were
the only recreations of one whose days and nights were, with the
exception of a brief and often wakeful season of rest, given to
laborious study. Had he indulged more freely in them, he might have
escaped the terrible fate which overtook him. But he never could
emancipate himself from the labor to which he was chained. His
'Impressions of England,' which is one of the most delightful of his
books, was the product of a subsequent tour for health. If such were his
recreations, what must have been his labors? Miller's domestic life did
much to cheer an over-worked system. He gives, in the 'Schools and
Schoolmasters,' a pleasing allusion to the fascination of his courtship;
and his subsequent life was graced by one whoso appearance, as I
remember her, was singularly lovely and interesting. In his home circle,
Miller was truly a happy man. I may remark, in passing, that this is a
feature in Scottish genius. While Shelley, Byron, Bulwer, Dickens, and
other English authors, have been wrecked by home difficulties, Scott,
Chalmers, Miller, Wilson, and the whole line of Scottish authors, drank
deep of domestic felicity. Perhaps this may be explained by the contrast
between the warmth of Scottish character, and the saturnine and unsocial
disposition of the English. Edinburgh could at that time boast of two
distinguished men of the name of Miller; and the great geologist had
almost his fellow in the professor of surgery. The two were very
intimate, and the one found in the other not only a friend, but a
faithful medical adviser. Professor Miller was then printing his leading
work, and I had frequent occasion to visit him with reference to its
publication. One morning, as I rang, the professor came to the door with
a hurried and nervous step. As it opened, I noted that his tall form was
peculiarly agitated, and his countenance was deadly pale. In a calm,
subdued voice, he informed me that Hugh Miller had just committed
suicide with a pistol. The terrible news overcame me with a shudder, and
I almost sank to the floor. The fact was not yet generally known; and
oh, when it should be made public, what a blow would be felt by the
moral and scientific world! The professor knew that the affair might
possibly be ascribed by some to accident, but he at once referred it to
insanity. The over-worked brain of the geologist had been for some time
threatened with a collapse. He had, in addition to the management of the
_Witness_, been elaborating a work of deep and exhausting character, and
the mental excitement which accompanied its completion was like
devouring fire. I have frequently gone to his room at a late hour of the
night, and found him sitting before the smouldering grate, so absorbed
in thought that, as he balanced the probabilities of contending
theories, he unwittingly accompanied the mental effort by balancing the
poker on the bar. I have seen, on such an occasion, a greasy stream
oozing from the pocket of his fustian coat, and supplied by the roll of
butter which at morning market he had purchased for home use. On the
table lay his MSS., so marred with interlinings and corrections, that,
notwithstanding his neat and delicate hand, it was almost a complete
blot. These habits could not but terminate in utter wreck, and I have
ever coincided with the professor's opinion as to the cause of his
death. This gentleman stated to me a fact not generally known, that a
few days before the awful catastrophe, the unfortunate man called on him
in great distress, and sought his advice. He complained of a pain in his
head, and then added an expression of fears with regard to that which
was to him of untold value. This was his mineral and geological
collection in Shrub Place, which was, no doubt, the most valuable
private one in the kingdom. He was haunted by apprehension of its
robbery by a gang of thieves, and asked what measures of safety would be
advisable. The professor endeavored to expel the absurd idea by playful
remark, and supposed himself somewhat successful. The next thing he
heard was the intelligence of his death. It is quite evident that the
fatal revolver was purchased for the defense of his treasures. What a
lesson is this of the danger of excessive application, of unreasonable
toil, of late hours, and mental tension. A continued exhaustion of his
energies had brought upon the geologist a state of mental horror from
which death seemed the only relief. The reaction of the nervous system
was, no doubt, similar to that arising from delirium tremens; and thus
extremes met, and the _savant_ perished like the inebriate.

The tragedy did not seem complete until another victim should be added.
The professor took the revolver to Thompson's, on Leith Walk, in order
to learn by examination how many shots had been fired by the unfortunate
suicide. The gunsmith took the weapon, but handled it so carelessly,
that it went off in his hands, and the ball caused his death.

Speaking of excessive labor, we may observe that this is the general
rule among men of science or letters. They are, as a class, crushed by
engagements and duties, as well as by problems and questions of which
the world can not even dream.

The Edinburgh literati know but little of rest or recreation; from the
editor's chair up to the pulpit, they are under a lash as relentless as
that of the taskmaster of Egypt. For instance, we might refer to
Buchanan, of the _Mercury_. He has sat at his desk until he has become
an old man, with the smallest imaginable subtraction of time for food
and sleep, writing night and day, and carrying, in his comprehensive
brain, the whole details of an influential journal. This feature,
however, is not confined to the Old World, and may easily be paralleled
in the journalism of America. Both Raymond, of the _Times_, and Bennett,
of the _Herald_, almost live in the editorial function; and the former
of these, though now Speaker of the Assembly, will either pen his
leaders in his desk, during the utterance of prosy speeches, or in hours
stolen from sleep after adjournment. In addition to these, we might
quote the caustic language of Mr. Greeley, in reference to some
mechanics who had 'struck,' in order to reduce their day's labor (we
think to nine hours). 'He was in favor of short days of work, and having
labored eighteen hours per diem for nearly twenty years, he was now
going to "strike" for fifteen during the rest of his life.' But I doubt
the success of Mr. Greeley's 'strike,' and apprehend that his early
application has continued with but little abatement.

Before leaving Edinburgh for the New World, it was my good fortune to
become acquainted with Jeffrey. He was at this time not so much
distinguished as the reviewer, as he was by his new title of Lord
Jeffrey, Judge of Court Session, with a salary of £3000 per annum. Lord
Jeffrey was a small man, of light but elegant make, and peculiarly
symmetrical. His head was quite small, but his countenance was of an
imposing character; and his eye, brilliant but not fierce, often melted
into a pensive tenderness. Such was Jeffrey's appearance on the bench in
his latter days. I should have little judged from it that he was the
relentless critic, whoso withering sarcasm was felt from the garrets of
Grub Street to the highest walk of science or university life. My
intimacy with Ballantyne, who published the _Edinburgh Review_, often
brought the different MSS. before me, and I could contrast the exquisite
neatness of Wardlaw with the slanting school-boy hand of Jeffrey. The
tone and style of review literature have changed greatly since its
inception, when each quarterly gloried in the character of a literary
ogre, and dead men's bones lay round its doors, as erst about the castle
of Giant Despair. Authors are not now thrown to the wild beasts for the
entertainment of the multitude, as in former days; and had John Keats,
or even poor Henry Kirke White, written and published fifty years later,
they would never have perished by the critic's pen. Yet the same
malignant assault which crushed their tender muse was the only thing
which could amuse the latent powers of a far greater genius; and had not
Byron been as cruelly attacked by the _Edinburgh_, he would never have
given 'Childe Harold' to the world. The authorship of that most unjust
and malignant _critique_, which, however brief, was sufficient to make
the author of 'the Hours of Idleness,' foe the time, contemptible, was
long a secret; but it is now admitted that it was by Jeffrey. Little did
the murderous critic think that his challenge would bring out an
adversary who would soon unhorse him, and then dash victoriously over
the field under the especial patronage of fame.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE HUGUENOT FAMILIES IN AMERICA.


III.

THE HUGUENOTS OF ULSTER.


It is said that the lands of the early Huguenot settlers in Ulster
County were so arranged in small lots, and within sight of each other,
as to prevent surprise from the Indians whilst their owners were
cultivating them. Louis Bevier, one of the most honored patentees, was
the ancestor of the highly-respectable family bearing his name in that
region. When he was about to leave France, his father became so
exasperated, that he refused to bestow upon him the commonest
civilities. Nor would he condescend to return the kind salutations of
another son in the public streets, affectionately offered by the pious
emigrant, and for the last time.

Another of the patentees, Deyo, visited France to claim his confiscated
estates, but, failing of success, returned. Kingston, at this early
period, was the only trading post or village for the French Protestants,
and sixteen miles distant from their settlement, although in a straight
line. Paltz was not more than eight miles west of the Hudson River; this
route, M. Deyo undertook, alone, to explore--but never returned. It was
thought that the adventurous Huguenot died suddenly, or was devoured by
the wild beasts. A truss and buckle which he owned were found about
thirty years afterwards, at the side of a large hollow tree. His life
seems to have been one full of toils and dangers, having endured severe
sufferings for conscience' sake, before he reached Holland from France.
For days he concealed himself in hiding places from his persecutors, and
without food, finally escaping alone in a fishing boat, during a
terrific storm.

The descendants of the Ulster Dubois are very influential and numerous
in our day, but there is a tradition that this family at one time was in
great danger of becoming extinct. For a long while it was the custom of
parents to visit Kingston, for the purpose of having their children
baptized. M. Dubois and wife were returning from such a pious visit, and
while crossing the Roundout, on the ice, it gave way, plunging the
horses, sleigh and party in the rapid stream. With great presence of
mind, the mother threw her infant, an only son, upon a floating frozen
cake, which, like the ark of Moses, floated him safely down the stream,
until he was providentially rescued. For some time this child was the
only male Dubois among the Paltz Huguenots, and had he perished on that
perilous occasion, his family name would also have perished with him;
still there were seven females of the same house, called the _seven
zuisters_, all of whom married among the most respectable French
Protestant families. To no stock do more families in Ulster County trace
their origin than that of Dubois. Some antiquarians deny this tradition
of the seven sisters, but contend that they were _Lefevres_.

There were two Le Fevres among the Ulster patentees. Their progenitors
it is said were among those early Protestants of France who
distinguished themselves for intellectual powers, prominence in the
Reformed Church, with enduring patience under the severest trials, and
death itself. Le Fevre, a doctor of theology, adorned the French
metropolis when Paris caught the first means of salvation in the
fifteenth century. He preached the pure gospel within its walls; and
this early teacher declared '_our religion has only one foundation, one
object, one head, Jesus Christ, blessed forever. Let us then not take
the name of Paul, of Apostles, or of Peter. The Cross of Christ alone
opens heaven and shuts the gates of hell_.' In 1524, he published a
translation of the New Testament, and the next year a version of the
Psalms. Many received the Holy Scriptures from his hands, and read them
in their families, producing the happiest results. Margaret, the
beautiful and talented Princess of Valois, celebrated by all the wits
and scholars of the time, embraced the true Christianity, uniting her
fortune and influence with the Huguenots, and the Reformation thus had a
witness in the king's court. She was sister to Francis the First, the
reigning monarch. By the hands of this noble lady, the Bishop of Meuse
sent to the king a translation of St. Paul's Epistles, richly
illuminated, he adding, in his quaint and beautiful language, 'They will
make a truly royal dish of fatness, that never corrupts, and having the
power to restore from all manner of sickness. The more we taste them,
the more we hunger after them, with desires that are ever fed and never
cloyed.'

Abraham Hasbroucq, which is the original orthography of the name among
the patentees, was a native of Calais, and the first emigrant of that
family to America, in 1675, with a party of Huguenot friends; they
resided for a while in the Palatinate on the banks of the Rhine. To
commemorate their kindness, when they reached our shores the new
settlement was called '_De Paltz_,' now '_New Paltz_,' as the Palatinate
was always styled by the Dutch. Here, also, the beautiful stream flowing
through New Paltz was known by the name of _Walkill_, after the river
Wael, a branch of the Rhine, running into Holland.

The first twelve patentees, or the '_Duzine_,' managed the affairs of
the infant settlement as long as they lived, and after their death it
was a custom to elect a court officer from among the descendants of
each, at the annual town meetings. For a long period they kept in one
chest all the important papers of their property and land titles. The
pastor or the oldest man had charge of the key, and reference was made
to this depository for the settlement of all difficulties about
boundaries. Hence they were free from legal suits as to their lands; and
to this judicious, simple plan may be traced the well-known harmony of
the numerous descendants in this region,--the fidelity of their
landmarks, with the absence of litigation.

We know of no region in our land where property has remained so long in
the same families, as it has at New Paltz; since its first settlement,
there has been a constant succession of intermarriages among the French
descendants, and many continue to reside upon the venerable homesteads
of their early and honored forefathers.

Devoted as the Huguenots ever had been to the worship of the Almighty,
one of their first objects at New Paltz was the erection of a church. It
was built of logs, and afterwards gave place to a substantial edifice of
brick, brought from Holland, the place answering the double purpose of
church and fort. Their third house of worship was an excellent stone
building, which served the Huguenots for eighty years, when it was
demolished in 1839, and the present splendid edifice placed on the
venerable spot and dedicated to the service of Almighty God. It is
related that a clergyman of eccentric dress and manners, at an early
period, would occasionally make a visit to New Paltz, and, for the
purpose of meditation, would cross the Walkill in a canoe, to some large
elms growing upon a bank opposite the church; on one occasion the stream
was low, and while pushing across with a pole, it broke, and the
Dominie, losing his balance, pitched overboard. He succeeded, however,
in reaching the shore, and proceeded to the nearest house, for the
purpose of drying his clothes. This partly accomplished, he entered the
pulpit and informed his congregation that he had intended to have
preached a sermon on baptism; but, eyeing his garments, he observed that
_circumstances_ prevented, as he could now sympathize with Peter, and
take the text, 'Lord, save, or I perish.'

To serve God according to the dictates of their own conscience, had ever
been a supreme duty with the French Protestants, and paramount to
everything else. For this they had endured the severest persecutions in
France, and had sacrificed houses, lands, kindred and their native
homes; they had crossed a trackless ocean, and penetrated the howling
wilderness, inhabited by savage tribes--and for what?--To serve their
MAKER, and the RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. They had been the salt of France,
and brought over with them their pious principles, with their
Bibles,--the most precious things. Some of these faded volumes are still
to be found among the children of the American Huguenots, and we have
often seen and examined one of the most venerable copies. It is
Diodati's French Bible, with this title:--

  LA SAINTE
  BIBLE,
  INTERPRETEE PAR JEAN DIODATI,
  MDCXLIII.
  IMPRIMEE A GENEVE.

The sacred book is 219 years old, in excellent condition, and well
covered with white dressed deerskin, its ties of the same material. It
was brought to America by Louis Bevier, a French Protestant of Ulster,
and has been preserved as a precious family relic through nine
generations. It was carried from France to Holland, and thence to New
Paltz. 'Blessed Book! the hands of holy martyrs have unfolded thy sacred
pages, and their hearts been cheered by thy holy truths and promises!'
There is also a family record written in the volume, faintly legible, of
the immediate descendants of Louis Bevier and his wife, Maria Lablau,
from the year 1674 to 1684.

Above anything else did the Huguenots of France love their BIBLES.
Various edicts, renewed in 1729, had commanded the seizure and
destruction of _all_ books used by the Protestants, and for this
purpose, any consul of a commune, or any priest, might enter the houses
to make the necessary search. We may therefore compute by millions the
volumes destroyed in obedience to these royal edicts. On the 17th of
April, 1758, about 40,000 books were burned at one time in Bordeaux; and
it is also well known that at Beaucaire, in 1735, there was an
auto-da-fé almost equal to that of Bordeaux. It was a truly sad day, in
France, when the old family BIBLE must be given up; the book doubly
revered and most sacred, because it was the WORD of GOD, and sacred too
from the recollections connected with it! Grandparents, parents, and
children, all, from their earliest infancy, had daily seen, read and
touched it. Like the household deities of the ancients, it had been
always present at all the joys and sorrows of the family. A touching
custom inscribed on the first or last pages, and at times even upon its
margins, the principal events in all those beloved lives. Here were the
Births, Baptisms, Marriages, and the Deaths. Now all these tender, pious
records must perish at once in the flames.

But mind, immortal mind, could not be destroyed; for free thought, and
truth, and instruction, among the people, were companions of the
Reformation, and books would circulate among all ranks throughout
Protestant France. The works generally came from Holland through Paris,
and from Geneva, by Lyons or Grenoble. Inside of baled goods, and in
cases and barrels of provisions, secretly, thousands of volumes were
sent from north to south, from east to west, to the oppressed Huguenots.
The great work which Louis XIV. believed buried beneath the ruins of his
bloody edicts still went on silently. At Lausanne was established a
seminary, about the year 1725, where works for the French Protestant
people were printed and circulated. The Bishop of Canterbury, with Lord
Warke, and a few foreign sovereigns, actively assisted in the founding
of this institution. Thus did that beautiful town become the source of
useful and religious knowledge to thousands, although it was conveyed
far and wide in a very quiet and secret way. One man was condemned to
the galleys for having received barrels, marked '_Black and White
Peas_,' which were found full of 'Ostervald's Catechisms.'

How strange it seems to us, writing in our own Protestant land, that
cruel authority should ever have intervened with matters of faith! What
can be more plain or truthful than that there should be liberty of
conscience; and that God alone has the power and the right to direct it,
and that it is an abuse and a sacrilege to come between God and
conscience? After the revocation of the edict of Nantes and the death of
Louis XIV., his royal successor sometimes vaguely asked himself why he
persecuted his Protestant subjects? when his marshal replied, that his
majesty was only the executor of former edicts. He seemed to have
consoled himself that he had found the system _already_ established, and
he only carried out the errors of his predecessor. Forty years of
remorseless persecutions against his best subjects, without asking
himself why! Of all the weaknesses of his reign, this was the most
odious and the most guilty; his hand was most literally weary of signing
cruel edicts against the Protestants of his kingdom, without even
reading them, and which obedience to his mandates had to transcribe in
letters of fire and blood, on the remotest parts of his realm.

Let us return to the Frenchmen of Ulster, who for some time after their
emigration used their own language, until a consultation was held to
determine whether this, or the English or Dutch, should be adopted in
the families. As the latter was generally spoken in the neighboring
places,--Kingston, Poughkeepsie and Newburgh,--and also at the schools
and churches, it was decided to speak Dutch only to their children and
servants. Having for a while, however, continued the use of their native
tongue, some of the Huguenot descendants in the Paltz still write their
names as their French ancestors wrote them more than two centuries ago.
Dubois, Bevier, Deyeau, Le Fevre, Hasbroque, are well-known instances.

_Petronella_ was once an admired name among the Huguenot ladies, and
became almost extinct in Ulster at one time. The last was said to have
been Petronella Hasbroque, a lady distinguished for remarkable traits of
character. Judge Hasbroque, of Kingston, the father of the former
President of Rutger's College, was very anxious that his son would give
this name to one of his daughters. In case of compliance, a handsome
marriage portion was also promised; but the parents declined the
generous offer, whether from a dislike to the name, or a belief that the
property would be theirs, at any rate, some day, is not known. A
granddaughter, however, of a second generation, named her first-born
Petronella, and thus gratifying the desire of her near kinsman, secured
a marriage portion for the heir, and preserved the much-admired name
from oblivion--certainly three important results.

It was a well-known and distinguished trait of the New Paltz Huguenots,
that but few intermarriages have taken place among their own families
(_Walloon_); they differed in this respect from all other French
Protestants who emigrated to America and mingled with the other
population by matrimonial alliances. In Kingston, Poughkeepsie, and
other neighborhoods, near by, there is an unusual number of Dutch
names--the Van Deusens, Van Benschotens, Van Kleeds, Van Gosbeeks, Van
De Bogerts, Van Bewer, and others, almost _ad infinitum_, whilst for
miles around the populous and wealthy town of Old Paltz scarcely a
family can be found with such patronymics. Notwithstanding, somewhat
like the Israelites, these Frenchmen classed themselves, in a measure,
as a distinct and separate people; still, the custom did not arise from
any dislike to the Hollanders,--on the contrary, they were particularly
attached to that people, who had been their best friends, both in
Holland and America; and these associations were ever of a most friendly
and generous character. After a while, the Huguenots of Ulster adopted
not only the language, but the customs and habits of the Dutch. After
the destruction of the Protestant churches at Rochelle, in 1685, the
colonists of that city came in such numbers to the settlement of New
York, that it was necessary sometimes to print public documents not only
in Dutch and English, but French also.

We do not wish to make our articles a Doomsday-book for the Huguenots,
still it is pleasant for their descendants to know that they came from
such honorable stock, and, with all of our boasted republicanism, we are
not ashamed that we _are_ so born. Here are some of the names to be
found in the old records of Ulster:--Abraham Hausbrough, Nicholas
Antonio, 'Sherriffe' Moses Quartain, 'Leon,' Christian Dubois, Solomon
Hasbrook, Andries Lafeever, Hugo Freer, Peter Low, Samuel Boyce, Roeleff
Eltinge, 'Esq.,' Nicholas Roosa, Jacobus DeLametie, Nicholas Depew,
'Esq.,' Philip Viely, Boudwyn Lacounti, 'Capt.' Zacharus Hoofman,'
Lieut.' Benjamin Smedes, Jr., 'Capt.' Christian Dugo, James Agmodi,
Johannis Low, Josia Eltin, Samuel Sampson, Lewis Pontenere, Abra.
Bovier, Peter Dejo, Robert Cain, Robert Hanne, William Ward, Robert
Banker, John Marie, Jonathan Owens, Daniel Coleman, Stephen D'Lancey,
Eolias Nezereau, Abraham Jouneau, Thomas Bayeuk, Elia Neau, Paul
Droilet, Augustus Jay, Jean Cazeale, Benjamin Faneil, Daniel Cromelin,
John Auboyneau, Francis Vincent, Ackande Alliare, James Laboue
(Minister). In 1713-14 we find, in an address of the ministers and
elders of the Huguenot Church in New York, 'Louis Rou, Minister of the
French Church, in New York, John Barberie, Elder, Louis Cané, _ancien_
(the older), Jean Lafont, _ancien_, André Feyneau, _ancien_.' To another
religious document there are Jean la Chan, Elias Pelletrau, Andrew
Foucault, James Ballereau, Jaque Bobin, N. Cazalet, Sam'l Bourdet, David
Le Telier, Francois Bosset.

       *       *       *       *       *

'TEN TO ONE ON IT.'


  When the Union was broken, truly then
  One Southron was equal to Yankees ten.
  When the Union war began to thrive,
  One Southron was equal to Yankees five.
  When Donaldson went, 'twas plain to see
  One Southron scarce equalled Yankees three.
  Now, Manassas is lost; yet, to Richmond view,
  One Southron still equals Yankees two.
  And lo! a coming day we see,--
  And Oh! what a day of pride 't will be,--
  When a Northern mechanic or merchant can
  Rank square with a Dirt-eater, man for man.
  Perhaps this point we may fairly turn,
  And Richmond, to her amazement, learn,
  When peace shall have come, and war be fled,
  And its hate be the tale of time long sped,
  That where there is work or thought for men,
  One Yankee is equal to Dirt-eaters ten.

       *       *       *       *       *

LITERARY NOTICES.


UNDER CURRENTS OF WALL STREET. A Romance of Business. By Richard B.
Kimball, Author of 'St. Leger,' 'Romance of Student Life,' &c. New York:
G.P. Putnam; Boston: A.K. Loring. 1861.

In the United States about one person in a hundred is engaged in
mercantile pursuits--in other words, in 'broking,' or transferring from
the producer to the consumer. Of this number, a larger proportion than
in any other country are brokers in the strict sense of the word,
buying, selling, or exchanging money or its equivalents, and managing
credit so that others may turn it into capital. A more active, eventful,
precarious and extraordinary life, or one calling more for the exercise
of sharpness and shrewdness, does not exist, than that of these men.
They are among regular business men what the 'free lance' is among
military men, or the privateer among those of the true marine. Any one
who has been familiar with one of the 'craft,' has probably heard him
say at one time or another--'what I have seen would make one of the most
remarkable novels you ever read;' and he spoke the literal truth.

Realizing this fact, Mr. KIMBALL, a lawyer of twenty years' standing in
Wall St., and consequently perfectly familiar with all its
characteristics, has devoted literary talents, which long ago acquired
for him not merely an enviable American but a wide European celebrity,
to describing this broker-life, with its lights and shadows. Choosing a
single subject and a single class, he has elaborated it with a
truthfulness which is positively _startling_. As we often know that a
portrait is perfect from its manifest verisimilitude, so we feel from
every chapter of this book that the author has, with strictest fidelity,
adhered to real life with pre-Raphaelitic accuracy but without
pre-Raphaelitic servility to any tradition or set mannerism. The pencil
of a reporter, the lens of the photographer, are recalled by his
sketches, and not less life-like, simple and excellent are the
reflections of the business office as shown in its influence in the home
circle. The reader will recall the extraordinary popularity which
certain English romances, setting forth humble unpoetic life, have
enjoyed of late years. We refer to the _Adam Bede_ and _Silas Marner_
school of tales, in which every twig is drawn, every life-lineament set
forth with a sort of DENNER minuteness--truthful, yet constrained,
accurate but petty. In this novel, Mr. KIMBALL, while retaining all the
accuracy of _Adam Bede_, has swept more broadly and forcibly out into
life;--there are strong sorrows, great trials seen from the stand-point
of a man of the world, and a free, bold color which startles us, while
we, at the same time, recognize its reality.

The 'hero' of the work is a merchant, who, like many others after
incurring bankruptcy, takes to Wall Street--to selling notes as an
under-broker for a living. In describing his trials, the author has,
with consummate skill and extraordinary knowledge of both causes and
effects, pointed out the peculiarities, institutions, and good or bad
workings of the American mercantile system, in such a manner as to have
attracted from the soundest authority warm praise of his work, as
embodying practical knowledge of a kind seldom found in 'novels.' From
'broking' to speculating--from that again to the old course--alternately
buoyed up or cast down, through trials and troubles, the bankrupt, at
last, in his darkest hour, lands on that 'luck' which in America comes
sooner or later to every one. It is worth remarking that in all his
characters, as in his scenes, the author is careful to maintain the
balance of truth. He shows us that among the sharks and harpies of Wall
Street there are phases of honor and generosity--that the arrogance or
coldness of a bank-officer may have a rational foundation--that feelings
as intense are awakened in common business pursuits as in the most
dramatic and erratic lives. In this _just_ treatment of character,--this
avoiding of the old saint and angel system of depicting men,--KIMBALL is
truly pre-eminent, and under it even the casual SOL DOWNER strikes us
with an individuality and a force not inferior to that of the hero
himself.

We can not take leave of this truly remarkable book without referring to
the under-current of kindly, humane feelings with which it abounds.
There is a delicate, tremulous sympathy for the sufferings and joys
which he depicts, which reflects the highest credit on the author. There
are, in this book, unaffected touches of pathos, founded on the most
natural events in the world, which have never been surpassed by any
novelist.

We are glad that novelists are leaving romance and going to real life.
One breaking into the harsh industry of the factory and market, another
taking down the joys and sorrows of the humble weaver, another
describing, as in this work, the strange hurrying life of the 'outside
broker' to the sharpest-cut detail,--all giving us truth and observation
in the place of vague imagination;--such are the best results of late
literature; and prominent among these the future historian will place
the Under-currents of Wall Street.


MARGARET HOWTH. A Story of To-Day. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

We know of no other truly American novel into which so many elements
have been forced by the strength of genius into harmony, as in _Margaret
Howth_. One may believe, in reading it, that the author, wearied of the
old cry that the literature of our country is only a continuation of
that of Europe, had resolved to prove, by vigorous effort, that it _is_
possible to set forth, not merely the incidents of our industrial life
in many grades, in its purely idiomatic force, but to make the world
realize that in it vibrate and struggle outward those aspirations, germs
of culture and reforms which we seldom reflect on as forming a part of
the inner-being of our very practical fellow-citizens. The work has two
characteristics,--it breaks, with a strong intellect and fine
descriptive power, into a new field, right into the rough of real life,
bringing out fresher and more varied forms than had been done before,
and in doing this makes us understand, with strange ability, how the
thinkers among our people _think_. We all know how it flows _in_ to
them, from lecture and book, from the _Tribune_ and school--but few,
especially in the Atlantic cities, know what becomes of culture among
men and women who 'work and weave in endless motion' in the
counting-house, or factory, or through daily drudgery and the reverses
from wealth to poverty. Others have treated a single **o [transcriber's
note: illegible word] of life, dramatically and by events, as well as
Miss HARDING, but no one American has dared such intricacies of thought
and character in individuals--has raised them to such a height, and
developed them with such a powerful will, without falling into
conventionalism or improbability. Unlike most novels, its 'plot,' though
excellent, is its least attraction--we can imagine that the superb pride
which gleams out in so many rifts has induced the author to voluntarily
avoid display of that ingeniously spinning romantic talent in which
novelists excel precisely in proportion to their lack of all nobler
gifts. It is a certain rule, as to literary snobs, that in proportion as
the food which they give diminishes in excellence, does the plate on
which it is served increase in value. But let none imagine that
_Margaret Howth_ lacks _interest_--it is replete with burning, vivid,
thrilling interest--it has the attraction which fascinates _all_
readers, based in a depth of knowledge so extraordinary that it can be
truly appreciated by but few. The immense popularity which it has
acquired and the general praise awarded it by the press, proves that it
has gone right to the hearts of the people--whence it came.

Those who accuse _Margaret Howth_ of harshness and a lack of
winsomeness, have neither understood the people whom it describes nor
the degree of stern strength requisite to wrest from life and nature
fresh truth. The pioneers of every great natural school (and every
indication shows that one is now dawning) have quite other than
lute-sounding tasks in hand, however they may hunger and thirst for
beauty, love, and rose-gardens. Under the current of this book runs the
keenest, painfulest craving to give freely to life these very
elements--its intensest inner-spirit is of love and beauty; it throbs
and burns with a sympathy for suffering humanity which is at once fierce
and tearful. As regards the minor artistic defects of _Margaret Howth_,
they are, if we regard it entirely, the shadows inseparable from its
substance, felt by those who remain in them, but in no wise detracting
from the beauty of the edifice when we regard it from the proper point
of view.


ETHICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL INQUIRIES, CHIEFLY RELATIVE TO SUBJECTS OF
POPULAR INTEREST. By A.H. Dana. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand
Street; Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1862.

A delightful collection of essays of the most valuable character, in
which the agreeable is throughout fully qualified with the useful. The
titles of several of these chapters are of themselves attractive: Races
of Men, Compensations of Life, Authorship, Influence of Great Men,
Lawyers, Hereditary Character, Sensuality, Health, Narcotic Stimulants,
Theology, and The Supernatural,--all of them treated with a clearness
and comprehensiveness which can not fail to earn for the work extensive
popularity.


BAYARD TAYLOR'S WORKS, VOL. III. Caxton Edition. At Home and Abroad.
Second Series. New York: G.P. Putnam.

The third volume of this exquisitely, printed and fully-illustrated
series of the works of BAYARD TAYLOR is, in all respects, fully equal to
its predecessors, both as regards typographic and literary merit.


THOMAS HOOD'S WORKS, VOL. III. 'Aldine Edition.' Edited by Epes Sargent.
New York: G.P. Putnam.

The materials of the present volume, as we are informed by the editor,
have been chiefly drawn from the collections of humorous pieces
published by THOMAS HOOD under the title of _Hood's Own_,
_Whimsicalities_, and _Whims and Oddities_. In connection with the first
volume of this series it completes the reprint of _all_ of HOOD'S poems.
The present volume is, like its predecessors, most exquisitely printed
and bound. It contains a grotesque title-page from the pencil of HOPPIN,
with a fine steel engraving of the author.


A SOUTH CAROLINA PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY. New York: G.P. Putnam. 1861.

A very interesting letter from HENRY LAURENS, second President of the
Continental Congress, to his son, Col. JOHN LAURENS, dated Charleston,
S.C., Aug. 14, 1776, now first published from the original letter. It
contains a vehement plea for Emancipation, and speaks with bitter
contempt of England for encouraging the slave-trade in America.


THE REBELLION; ITS LATENT CAUSES AND TRUE SIGNIFICANCE. In Letters to a
Friend abroad. By Henry T. Tuckerman. New York: Jas. G. Gregory. 1861.

An excellent work, discussing the social peculiarities of the South with
great ability.

       *       *       *       *       *

BOOKS RECEIVED


PAMPHLETS ON THE WAR.

Among the many publications on the War which have from time to time
found their way to our table, are the following pamphlets:--

RELATION OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS TO
SLAVERY. By Charles K. Whipple. Boston: R.F. Wallcut. 1861.

WITHIN FORT SUMTER. By one of the Company. New York: N. Tibbals & Co.
1861.

A LECTURE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. By Noble Butler.
Louisville, Ky.: John P. Maton. 1862.

THE WAR. Correspondence between the Young Men's Christian Association of
Richmond, Va., and the City of New York. New York: G.P. Putnam. 1861.

SPEECH OF GEN. HIRAM WALBRIDGE, of New York, at Tammany Hall, Aug. 21,
1856, on the Reorganization of our Navy. New York. 1862.

THE REBELLION: OUR RELATIONS AND DUTIES. Speech of Hon. Edward
McPherson, of Pennsylvania, delivered in the House of Representatives,
Feb. 14, 1862. Washington. 1862.

ARE THE SOUTHERN PRIVATEERS PIRATES? Letter to the Hon. Ira Harris,
United States Senator. By Charles P. Daly, LL.D., First Judge of the
Court of Common Pleas of the City of New York. New York: Jas. B. Kirker,
599 Broadway. 1862.

SPECIAL MESSAGE DELIVERED TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE
OF IOWA. By Governor S.J. Kirkwood. Des Moines, Iowa: F.W. Palmer. 1862.

PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE--SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND MILITARY. Written for
_The London Times_, by William Howard Russell, LL.D., Special
Correspondent. New York: Jas. G. Gregory. 1861.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT MT. KISCO, Westchester Co., New York, July 4,
1861. By John Jay, Esq. New York: Jas. G. Gregory. 1861.

THE REJECTED STONE; or, INSURRECTION _vs_. RESURRECTION IN AMERICA. By a
Native of Virginia. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. 1861.

THE INDISSOLUBLE NATURE OF THE AMERICAN UNION, considered in connection
with the assumed Rights of Secession. A Letter to Hon. Peter Cooper, of
New York. By Nahum Capen. Boston: A. Williams & Co. New York: Ross &
Tousey. 1862.

THE UNION. An Address, by the Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, delivered before
the Literary Societies of Amherst College, July 10, 1861. New York: Jas.
G. Gregory. 1861.

ALLEGHANIA. The Strength of the Union and the Weakness of Slavery in the
High Lands of the South. By JAMES W. TAYLOR. Saint Paul: James
Davenport. 1862.


A pamphlet deserving close study and general circulation.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, in Tremont Temple,
Boston, Dec. 16, 1861.

This address has enjoyed great popularity, and will deservedly take
place among the most characteristic and valuable pamphlets of the war.


AMERICA, THE LAND OF EMANUEL; or, CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY A REFUGE FOR
THE GATHERING TO SHILOH. By Lorenzo D. Grosvenor, of Shaker Community,
South Groton, Mass. A. Williams & Co., 100 Washington St., Boston. 1861.


SPEECH DELIVERED BY HON. J.M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, ON THE REBELLION, ITS
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES, at the College Hall, in the City of Toledo,
Nov. 26, 1861, Towers & Co., Washington, D.C. 1861.


An excellent pamphlet, which has been extensively and favorably noticed
by the press, and been several times reprinted.


THE AMERICAN CRISIS, its Cause, Significance and Solution. By Americus.
Chicago, Ill.: John R. Walsh. 1861.

A vigorous and able document.


WAR AND EMANCIPATION. A Thanksgiving Sermon preached in the Plymouth
Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, Nov. 21, 1861. By Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher. Philadelphia: W. Peterson & Brothers. 1861.

Concise, spirited, and full of sound ideas.

       *       *       *       *       *

EDITOR'S TABLE.


On the ninth of March President LINCOLN made the first announcement of
an official endorsement of the great principle of gradual Emancipation,
by transmitting to Congress a message recommending that the United
States ought to coöperate with any State which may adopt a gradual
emancipation of slavery, by giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be
used at its discretion, to compensate for the inconvenience, public and
private, which may be produced by any such change of system.

    Any member of Congress, with the census tables and the treasury
    notes before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the
    current expenditures of this war would purchase, at a fair
    valuation, all the slaves in any named State. Such a position on
    the part of the General Government sets up no claim of a right
    by federal authority to interfere with slavery within State
    limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control of the
    subject, in each case, to the State and its people immediately
    interested.

It is almost needless to point out to the reader that the views, both
direct and implied, which are urged in this message, are in every
respect identical with those to advance which the CONTINENTAL was
founded, and for which it has strenuously labored from the beginning.
There is nothing in them of the 'Abolitionism' which advocates
'immediate and unconditional' freeing of the blacks; while, on the other
hand, the only persons who can object to them are those who hold that
slavery is a good thing in itself, never to be disturbed. It is, in
short, all that the rational friends of progress can at present
desire--an official recognition of the great truth that slavery ought to
be abolished, but in such a manner as to cause the least possible
trouble.

It is amusing to observe the bewilderment of the pro-slavery Northern
Democratic press, which has so earnestly claimed the Executive as
'conservative,' and on which this message has fallen like a
thunder-clap. They have, of course, at once cried out that, should it
receive the sanction of Congress, it would still amount to nothing,
because no legislature of a slave State will accept it; an argument as
ridiculous as it is trivial. That the South would, for the present,
treat the proposal with scorn, is likely enough. But the edge of the
wedge has been introduced, and emancipation has been at least
_officially_ recognized as desirable. While such a possible means of
securing property exists, there will always be a strong party _forming_
in the South, whether they attain to a majority or not, and this party
will be the germ of disaster to the secessionists. There are men enough,
even in South Carolina, who would gladly be paid for their slaves, and
these men, while maintaining secession views in full bluster, would
readily enough find some indirect means of realizing money on their
chattels. It may work gradually--but it _will_ work. As disaster and
poverty increase in the South, there will increase with them the number
of those who will see no insult or injury in the proposition to buy from
them property which is becoming, with every year, more and more
uncertain in its tenure.

Let it be remembered that this message was based on the most positive
knowledge held by the Executive of the desires of the Union men in the
South, and of their strength. The reader who will reflect for a moment
can not fail to perceive that, unless it had such a foundation, the
views advanced in it would have been reckless and inexplicable indeed.
It was precisely on this basis, and in this manner, that the
CONTINENTAL, in previous numbers, and before it the New York
KNICKERBOCKER Magazine, urged the revival of the old WEBSTER theory of
gradual remunerated emancipation, declaring that the strength of the
Union party in the South was such as to warrant the experiment.[O] We
have also insisted, in our every issue, that, while emancipation should
be borne constantly in view and provided for as something which must
eventually be realized for the sake of the advancing interests of WHITE
labor and its expansion, everything should be effected as gradually _as
possible_, so as to neither interfere with the plans of the war now
waging, nor to stir up needless political strife. We simply asked for
some firmly-based official recognition of the rottenness of the 'slavery
plank in the Southern platform,' and trusted that the _utmost_ caution
and deliberation would be observed in eventually forwarding
emancipation. We were literally alone, as a publication, in these views,
and were misrepresented both by the enemies who were behind us and the
zealous friends who were before us. We have never cried for that
'unconditional and immediate emancipation of slavery' with which the
_Liberator_, with the kindest intentions, but most erroneously, credits
us. We should be glad enough to see it, were it possible; but, knowing
that the immediate-action theory has been delaying the cause for thirty
years, we have invariably suggested the _firm_ but gradual method. That
method has at last been formally advanced by the President, in a manner
which can reasonably give offense to no one. The beginning has been
made: it is for the country to decide whether it--the most important
suggestion of the age--shall be realized.

       *       *       *       *       *

The news of the capture of Fort Donelson had barely reached us, the roar
of the guns celebrating our rapid successes had not died away, ere that
fragment of the Northern ultra pro-slavery party which had done so much
towards deluding the South into secession, impudently raised its head
and began most inopportunely and impertinently to talk of amnesty and
the rights of the South. There are things which, under certain
limitations, may be right in themselves, but which, when urged at the
wrong time, become wrongs and insults; and these premature cries to
restore the enemy to his old social and political standing are of that
nature. They are insufferable, and would be ridiculous, were it not that
in the present critical aspect of our politics they may become
dangerous. Since this war began, we have heard much of the want of true
loyalty in the ultra abolitionists, who would make the object of the
struggle simply emancipation, without regard to consequences; and we
have not been sparing in our own condemnations of such a limited and
narrow view,--holding, as we do, that emancipation, if adopted, should
be for the sake of the _white man_ and the Union, and not of the negro.
But 'Abolition' of the most one-sided and suicidal description is less
insulting to those who are lavishing blood and treasure on the great
cause of freedom, than is the conduct, at this time, of those men who
are now, through their traitorous organs, urging the cry that the hour
is at hand when we must place slavery firmly on a constitutional basis;
this being, as they assert, the only means whereby the Union can ever be
harmoniously restored.

In view of the facts, it is preposterous to admit that this assumption
is even plausible. He must be ignorant indeed of our political history
during the past twenty years, or strangely blind to its results, who has
not learned that a belief that the North is ever anxious to concede for
the sake of its 'interests' has been the great stimulus to the arrogance
of the South. While the principles of the abolitionists have been the
shallow _pretence_, the craven cowardice of such men as BUCHANAN and
CUSHING has been the _real_ incitement to the South to pour insult and
wrong on the North. Concession has been our bane. It was paltering and
concession that palsied the strong will and ready act which should have
prevented this war; for had it not been for such men as the traitors who
are now crying out for Southern rights, the rebellion would have been
far more limited in its area, and long since crushed out. No cruelties
on our part, no threats to carry all to the bitter end, would so
encourage the South at present, as this offer to shake hands ere the
fight be half over.

When the time comes for amnesty and 'Southern Rights,' we trust that
they will be considered in a spirit of justice and mercy. Till it comes
let there be no word spoken of them. The South has, to its own detriment
and to ours, firmly and faithfully _believed_ that Northern men are
cowards, misers, men sneaking through life in all dishonor and baseness.
When millions believe such intolerable falsehoods of other millions of
their fellow-citizens, they must be taught the truth, no matter what the
lesson costs. Even now the Southern press asserts that our victories
were merely the results of overwhelming majorities, and that the Yankees
are becoming frightened at their own successes. There is not one of
these traitorous, dough-face meetings of which the details are not
promptly sent--probably by the men who organize them--all over the South
to inspire faith in a falling cause. When the rebels shall have learned
that these traitors have positively _no_ influence here,--and the sooner
they learn it the better,--when they realize that the people of the
North are as determined as themselves, and their equals in all noble
qualities, then, and not till then, will it be time to talk of those
concessions which now strike every one as smacking of meanness and
cowardice.

The day has come for a new order of things. The South must learn--and
show by its acts that it has been convinced--that the North is its equal
in those virtues which it claims to monopolize. But this it will only
learn from the young and vigorous minds of the new school,--from its
_enemies_,--and not from the trembling old-fashioned traitors, who have
been so long at its feet that they shiver and are bewildered, now that
they are fairly isolated, by the tide of war, from their former ruler.
Politicians of this stamp, who have grown old while prating of Southern
rights, can not, do not, and never will _realize_ but that, some day or
other, all will be restored in _statu quo ante bellum_. They expect
Union victories, but somehow believe that their old king will enjoy his
own again--that there will be a morning when the South will rule as
before. It is this which inspires their craven timidity. They cry out
against emancipation in every form,--blind to the onward and inevitable
changes which are going on,--so that when the South comes in again they
may point to their record and say, '_We_ were ever true to you. We,
indeed, urged the war, for we were compelled by you to fight, but we
were always true to your main principles.' They have wasted time and
trouble sadly--it will all be of no avail. Be it by the war, be it by
what means it may, the social system and political rule of the South are
irrevocably doomed. It may, from time to time, have its convulsive
recoveries, but it is doomed. The demands of free labor for a wider area
will make themselves felt, and the black will give way to the white, as
in the West the buffalo vanishes before the bee.

We are willing that the question of emancipation should have the widest
scope, and, if expediency shall so dictate, that it should be realized
in the most gradual manner. We believe that, owing to the experiences of
the past year, more than one slave State will, ere long, contain a
majority of clear-headed, patriotic men, who will be willing to legalize
the freedom of all blacks born within their limits, after a certain
time; and if this time be placed ten years or even fifteen hence, it
will make no material difference. By that time the pressure of free
labor, and the increase of manufacturing, will have rendered some such
step a necessity. Should the payment of all loyal slave-holders, in the
border States, for their chattels, prove a better plan,--and it could
hardly fail to promptly reduce the rebellious circle to a narrow and
uninfluential body,--let it be tried. If any of the arguments thus far
adduced in favor of assuming slavery to be an institution which is
_never_ to be changed, and which _must_ be immutably fixed in the North
American Union, can be proved to be true, we would say, then let
emancipation be forever forgotten--for the stability of the Union must
take precedence of everything. But we can not see it in this light. We
can not see that peace and Union can exist while the slave-holder
continues to increase in arrogance in the South, and while the
abolitionists every day gather strength in the North. Every day of this
war has seen the enemies of slavery increase in number and in power,
until to expect them to lose power and influence is as preposterous as
to hope to see the course of nature change. Should a peace be now
patched up on the basis of _immutable_ slavery, we should, to judge from
every appearance, simply prolong the war to an infinitely more
disastrous end than it now threatens to assume. We should incur debts
which would crush our prosperity; we should bequeath a heritage of woe
to our children, which would prove their ruin. While the great cause of
all this dissension lies legalized and untouched, there will continue to
be a party which will never cease to strive to destroy it. The question
simply is, whether we will be wounded now, or utterly slain by and by.

Meanwhile let us, before all things, push on with the war! It is by our
victories that slavery will be in the beginning most thoroughly
attacked. If the South, as it professes, means to fight to the last
ditch, and to the black flag, all discussion of emancipation is
needless; for in the track of our armies the contraband assumes freedom
without further formula. But we are by no means convinced that such will
be the case. The _first_ ditches have, as yet, been by no means filled
with martyrs to secession,--armistices are already subjects of
rumor,--and it should not be forgotten that the Union men of the South
are powerful enough to afford efficient aid in placing the question of
ultimate emancipation on a basis suitable to all interests.

All that the rational emancipationist requires is a _legal beginning_.
We have no desire to see it advance more rapidly than the development of
the country requires--in short, what is really needed is simply the
assurance that by war or by peace _some_ basis shall be found for
ultimately carrying out the views of the fathers of the American Union,
and rendering this great nation harmonious and happy. Every day brings
us nearer the great issue,--not of slavery and anti-slavery,--but
whether slavery is to be assumed as an immutable element in America, or
whether government will bring such influences to bear as will lead the
way to peace and the rights of free labor. Every step is leading us to

  THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

  O Lord, look kindly on this work for thee!
    Yes, smile upon the side that's for the right!
    To them O grant the glorious arm of might,
  And in the end give them the victory!
  Free principles are rushing like the sea
    Which opened for the fleeing Israelite,--
    Free principles, to test their worth in fight,--
  And woe to them that 'twixt the surges be!
  And as, O Lord, thou then did'st show thy care,
    And mad'st a grave to drink thy enemy,
  So now, O Father, sink him in despair--
    The only blight we own--cursed Slavery.
  O then will end the conflict! Yes, God, then
  We'll be indeed a nation of FREE MEN!

       *       *       *       *       *

The N.O. _Delta_ is full of indignation at the Southern men who are
alarmed for their property, and betrays, in its anger, the fact that
these disaffected persons are not few in the Pelican State. But,
plucking up courage, it declares that--

    Our people will retire into the interior, and in their mountains
    and swamps they will maintain a warfare which must ultimately
    prove successful.

Doubtful--very. In the first place, 'our people' can not very well
swamp it like runaway negroes, and, secondly, they will encounter, in
the mountains, the Union men of the South. Give us the cities and the
level country for a short time, and we shall very soon find the
Pelicandidates for comfortable quarters rolling back, by thousands, into
Unionism.

       *       *       *       *       *

As we write, there is a panic in Richmond, caused by the discovery that
there is a large body of Union men in the city itself, headed by JOHN
MINOR BOTTS, who seems to have determined to 'head off' the secession
party in its stronghold, 'or die'--he having, since the decease of JOHN
TYLER, turned his 'heading off' abilities against JEFF DAVIS. The
_Examiner_ mentions, in terror, the confession of the Union prisoners,
that there are in Richmond 'thousands of arms concealed, and men
enrolled, who would use them on the first approach of the Yankee army.'
One of the arrested, a Mr. STEARNS, when led to the prison, surveyed it
in a most contemptuous manner, remarking 'If you are going to imprison
all the Union men in Richmond, you will have to provide a much larger
jail than this.'

It is the German residents of Richmond who are said to constitute the
majority of these Union men. All honor to our German friends of the
South! They have received, thus far, too little credit for their staunch
adherence to the principles of freedom. Let them take courage; a day is
coming when we shall all be free--free from _every_ form of slavery!
_Noch ist die Freiheit nicht verloren_!--'Freedom is not lost as yet.'
Some of them remember _that_ song of old.

       *       *       *       *       *

A paragraph has recently gone the rounds, which impudently assures the
friends of Emancipation that, unless they promptly desist from further
interference or agitation, they will speedily build up a Southern party
in the North, which will seriously interfere with the prosecution of the
war!

That is to say, that the majority of the people of the North fully
acquiesce in the justice of the main principles held by the South--the
only difference of opinion being whether these slavery and
slavery-extension doctrines can be practically developed under our
federal Union! Yet we, knowing, seeing, feeling, in this war, the
enormously evil effects of the slave system on the free men among whom
it exists, are expected to endure and legalize _the cause_ which stirred
it up! Either the South is right or wrong--there is no escaping the
dilemma. Either it was or was not justly goaded by 'abolition' into
secession. If the South is _quite_ right in wishing to preserve slavery
intact forever, surely those are in the wrong who would make war on it
for wishing to secede from a government which tolerates attacks on
legalized institutions! What a precious paradox have we here? Yet these
virtual justifiers of the South in the great cause of the war, claim to
be zealous and forward in punishing that secession which, according to
their own views, is constitutional and right!

If slavery be right, then the South is right. No impartial foreigner
could fail to draw this conclusion under the circumstances of this war.
But _is_ it right; we do not say as a thing of the past, and of a
rapidly vanishing serf-system, but as an institution of the progressive
present? Witness the words of G. BATELLE, a member of the Western
Virginia Constitutional Convention,--as we write, in session at
Wheeling,--and who has published an address to that body on the question
of Emancipation, from which we extract the following:--

    The injuries which slavery inflicts upon our own people are
    manifold and obvious. It practically aims to enslave not merely
    another race, but our own race. It inserts in its bill of rights
    some very high-sounding phrases securing freedom of speech; and
    then practically and in detail puts a lock on every man's mouth,
    and a seal on every man's lips, who will not shout for and swear
    by the divinity of the system. It amuses the popular fancy with
    a few glittering generalities in the fundamental law about the
    liberty of the press, and forthwith usurps authority, even in
    times of peace, to send out its edict to every postmaster,
    whether in the village or at the cross-roads, clothing him with
    a despotic and absolute censorship over one of the dearest
    rights of the citizen. It degrades labor by giving it the badge
    of servility, and it impedes enterprise by withholding its
    proper rewards. It alone has claimed exemption from the rule of
    uniform taxation, and then demanded and received the largest
    share of the proceeds of that taxation. Is it any wonder, in
    such a state of facts, that there are this day, of those who
    have been driven from Virginia mainly by this system, men
    enough, with their descendents, and means and energy, scattered
    through the West, of themselves to make no mean State?...

    It has been as a fellow-observer, and I will add as a
    fellow-sufferer, with the members of the Convention, that my
    judgment of the system of slavery among us has been formed. We
    have seen it seeking to inaugurate, in many instances all too
    successfully, a reign of terror in times of profound peace, of
    which Austria might be ashamed. We have seen it year by year
    driving out from our genial climate, and fruitful soil, and
    exhaustless natural resources, some of the men of the very best
    energy, talent and skill among our population. We have seen
    also, in times of peace, the liberty of speech taken away, the
    freedom of the press abolished, and the willing minions of this
    system, in hunting down their victims, spare from degradation
    and insult neither the young, nor the gray-haired veteran of
    seventy winters, whose every thought was as free from offense
    against society as is that of the infant of days.

When an evil attains this extent, he is a poor citizen, a poor cowardly
dallier with opinions, whatever his fighting mark may be, who can make
up his mind to calmly acquiesce in establishing its permanence, or to
stiffly oppose every movement and every suggestion tending in the least
towards its abrogation.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the present number of the CONTINENTAL will be found an article on
General LYON, in which reference is made to the generally credited
assertion, that the deceased hero was not reinforced as he desired
during the campaign in Missouri. This is one of the questions which time
alone will properly answer. In accordance with the principles involved
in _audi alteram partem_, we give on this subject the following
abridgment of a portion of General FREMONT'S defense, published in the
New York _Tribune_ of March 6:--

    Lyon's and Prentiss's troops were nearly all three months men,
    whose term of enlistment was about expiring. Arms and money were
    wanted, but men offered in abundance. The three months men had
    not been paid. The Home Guards were willing to remain in the
    service, but their families were destitute. Gen. Fremont wrote
    to the President, stating his difficulties, and informing him
    that he should peremptorily order the United States Treasurer
    there to pay over to his paymaster-general the money in his
    possession, sending a force at the same time to take the money.
    He received no reply, and assumed that his purpose was approved.

    Five days after he arrived at St. Louis he went to Cairo, taking
    three thousand eight hundred men for its reinforcement. He says
    that Springfield was a week's march, and before he could have
    reached it, Cairo would have been taken by the rebels, and
    perhaps St. Louis. He returned to St. Louis on the 4th of
    August, having in the meantime ordered two regiments to the
    relief of Gen. Lyon, and set himself to work at St. Louis to
    provide further reinforcements for him; but he claims that
    Lyon's defeat can not be charged to his administration, and
    quotes from a letter from General Lyon, dated on the 9th of
    August, expressing the belief that he would be compelled to
    retire; also, from a letter written by Lyon's adjutant general,
    in which he says 'General Fremont was not inattentive to the
    situation of General Lyon's column.'

       *       *       *       *       *

A daily cotemporary, in an onslaught on Emancipation, contains the
following:--

    Delaware has recently had a proposition before the legislature
    to abolish the scarcely more than nominal slavery still existing
    in it; but the legislature adjourned without even listening to
    it, though it contemplated full pecuniary compensation.

Yes; and the legislature of Delaware, a few years ago, legalized
lotteries,--one of the greatest social curses of the country,--and made
itself a hissing and a by-word to all decent men by sanctioning the most
widely-destructive method of gambling known. The Delaware legislature
indeed!

       *       *       *       *       *

We are indebted to a friend for the following paragraph:--

It is deeply significant that since the late Federal victories, the
Southern press, even in Richmond itself, speaks nervously and angrily of
the Union men among them, and of their increasing boldness in openly
manifesting their sentiments. A few months since, this belief in Union
men in the South was abundantly ridiculed by those who believed that all
the slave-holding States were unanimous in rebellion, and that therefore
it would be preposterous to hope to reconcile them to emancipation. Now
that the Union strength in that region is beginning to manifest itself,
we are informed that we shall lose it if we do aught contrary to
Southern rights. And this too, although the Southern Union men have
never been spoken of by their rebel neighbors as aught save 'the
abolitionists in our midst!'

       *       *       *       *       *

The following communication from a well-known financier and writer on
currency can not fail to be read with interest by all:--

THE SINEWS OF WAR.

These are, men and money, but especially MONEY, for on the money depends
the men. In a good cause, with an educated, intelligent people, every
man able to discern for himself the right side of the question
presented, there is no difficulty about men; the state has only to say
how many are needed, and the want will be promptly supplied. The
experience of the last six months gives us evidence sufficient on this
point: an army of six hundred thousand men drawn together without an
effort, every man a volunteer,--a spectacle never before exhibited to
the world,--puts at rest all doubt upon it; and not only that, it
settles beyond all cavil the superiority of self-government, based on
the broadest principles of freedom and the broadest system of education,
over any other form which has ever been adopted. Passing from this,
however, as a fact which needs no argument or illustration, we come to
the more difficult question of how to raise the other sinew--money.

In calling for men the state relies upon the intelligence and patriotism
of its citizens; upon their intelligence to understand the cause, on
their patriotism to respond to its call. It offers them no inducements
in the shape of pay, nothing more than to feed and clothe them, to aid
them hereafter if wounded, to keep their families from starvation if
they are killed. This is all; and this is enough. But these assumed
obligations of the state must be sacredly and promptly kept. Our noble
volunteers must be fed, and clothed, and cared for, and to this end the
state must have the requisite means. And to obtain the needed supply
without oppressive taxation on the one hand, or placing a load on
posterity too heavy to be borne on the other hand, is a question of
difficult solution; and yet we shall see that there is in the present
administration the ability and the will to solve it.

It is said that our expenditures in this great struggle will, by the
first of June, amount to the enormous sum of $600,000,000. It is said by
the arch traitor at the head of the rebels that under this load of debt
we shall sink. It is said by the leading papers of England that we have
no money, have exhausted our credit, must disband our armies, and make
the best terms we can with rebellion. Doubtless, our credit in Europe is
at a low ebb just now, and we are thrown upon our own resources, and on
these we must swim or sink. There is nothing to reject in this. We have
shown the world how a free state can raise troops and create a navy out
of its own materials; and now we will show the world how a free state
can maintain its army and navy out of its own resources; and if the
result proves--as it will prove--that our free institutions are the
safest, strongest, and best for the people in war as well as in peace,
then the great struggle we are now going through with will be worth more
to the true interests of humanity everywhere than all the battles which
have been fought since the dawn of the present century. For a hundred
years, openly or covertly, but without intermission, has war been going
on between despotism and freedom, with varied success, but on the whole
with a steady gain for freedom; and now here, on the same field where
it originated, is the long strife to be finally settled. On these same
fields the same freedom is to culminate in unquenchable splendor, or to
set forever, leaving mankind to grope in darkness and ignorance under
the misrule of despotic tyranny. We are in arms not only to suppress an
odious uprising of despotism against freedom within our own borders, but
to show by our example, to all the nations of the earth, what freedom is
and what freedom means.

In seeking aid of the money power, we go beyond the line where
patriotism gives us all we need, promptly and liberally, into the cold
region of selfishness, whose people are too much absorbed in adding to
and counting up their gains to be able to spare much time or thought on
country or freedom. No voluntary sacrifices to be expected here. What we
want we must buy, and pay for; it is only to see that we do not pay too
much for it. Selfish, timid, grasping, these people are a skittish set
to deal with. Nobody understands better the game of 'the spider and the
fly,' and they are as ready to play it with the state as with smaller
opponents, if the state will but let them. From his first visit to this
region, to the present time, our able Secretary of the Treasury was, and
continues to be, '_master of the position_.'

When the Secretary held his first sociable with the representatives of
the money power, neither he nor they had a very keen perception of what
they wanted of each other; the rebellion was not then developed in the
gigantic proportions it has since assumed; and it was hoped and
expected, with some show of reason, that two or three hundred millions
would be enough to put it down. This amount the power could and would
willingly furnish for a 'consideration,' the half presently, on
condition that it should be allowed the refusal of the other half when
it should be wanted; and so a bargain was quickly struck, to the mutual
content of both parties. But, as the thunder grew louder and the storm
fiercer, it became evident that our wants would soon be doubled, at
least. The money power hung back; the 7-3/10 remained in the banks. The
representatives said they were only agents, the agents stopped payment,
and the whole circulation of gold fell to the ground at once, not only
putting a sudden check upon all business operations, but leaving the
Treasury without any sort of currency to pay out: a sad state of things
enough. The money power drew in its head, pretending not to see
anything, waiting for propositions, expecting to reap a rich harvest out
of the state's necessities, by making its own terms. How could it be
otherwise? must not the state have several hundred millions? must not
the astute Secretary sell the state's promises to pay, _secured by a
first mortgage on all Uncle Sam's vast possessions_, on their own terms?

It was not a pleasant predicament for a nervous or a faint-hearted man
to be placed in. But then Mr. Chase is neither nervous nor
faint-hearted, and when Congress came together he not only told his
wants frankly, but proposed a neat little plan for supplying them
without selling notes at fifty per cent. discount. Taking into view the
want of a sound currency for business purposes, and the want of some
currency to pay out from the Treasury instead of the gold which had
disappeared and left a vacuum, he proposed to borrow $150,000,000, by
issuing Treasury Notes, payable on demand, without interest, and making
them a _legal tender for the payment of all debts_, with a proviso that
any parties who should at any time have more on hand than they wanted
should be allowed to invest them in bonds bearing six per cent interest.
It was a very simple proposition--almost sublime for its simplicity;
there was no mystery about it; and yet it was the very turning point of
the ways and means of crushing the rebellion, without being ourselves
crushed under an unbearable burden of debt. The money power stood
aghast, and hardly recovered breath in time to oppose its passage
through Congress; but the common sense of the people hailed Mr. Chase as
a deliverer, and Congress endorsed common sense. Seriously, this
splendid invention of the Secretary has given a new face to our
financial affairs by placing the money power where it always should
be,--in subservience to the people,--instead of allowing it to become a
grinding task-master. The importance of this measure can hardly be
appreciated yet. A member of Congress, himself a merchant, and an able
financier, says:

'My theory in regard to it is, that as the currency is increased by the
addition of these notes to its volume, prices generally will rise,
including the price of U.S. bonds, until they reach par; at that point,
these notes, being convertible into bonds, the rise in the price of
bonds will stop, because further additions to the currency, whether of
these notes, bank notes, or coin, will only stimulate the conversion of
notes into bonds; and that conversion will check the increase of
currency. The _excess_ of notes will then be gradually withdrawn from
circulation for conversion,--leaving only such an amount in circulation
as a healthy and natural condition of the currency will require.'

A theory in which we fully concur. We see growing out of it a
restoration of business: government creditors paid in a currency equal
to gold; low prices for all government contracts; a consequent
diminished expenditure for supplies, and an annual payment for interest
on the debt we shall owe, which can be easily met without heavy
taxation. However it may turn out in the conduct of the war,--and we
have full faith in that also,--it is very certain that in the conduct of
the finances we have found the man for the times. The whole country
feels this, and breathes easier for it. The arch rebel, in a recent
address to his satellites, admits that he altogether underestimated the
patriotism and loyalty of the men of the North, but takes fresh courage
from the certainty that we shall shortly back down under our load of
debt. A little further on and he will find that he has just as much
mistaken our power in that respect,--that as his own worthless promises,
based upon nothing, fall to nothing, the notes of the Union will stand
as firm and as fair in the money market as her banner will on the
battle-field.

Men and money are the sinews of war. In our first trial, patriotism has
furnished the men, and the presiding genius of the Treasury has clearly
pointed out the means for obtaining the money. _Laus Deo_!

       *       *       *       *       *

Note.--For the benefit of those of our readers who do not understand
currency facts and theories, we make the following explanation. The
relation of currency, or circulation medium, to the industry and
business of the state, is similar to that of steam in an engine: a
certain amount is required to keep up a regular and natural movement; an
excessive amount causes too rapid motion, and a deficiency the reverse.
Currency is made up of several things. Bank deposits, circulating by
checks, bank notes, and coin, are the most important and best
understood. The aggregate amount of these three items before the
suspension of specie payments was above $450,000,000; and this sum is
required to give a healthy movement to business affairs. Take away any
portion of it, and prices fall and labor languishes, because the motion
from it is too small for the work required; add considerably to it, and
prices rise, because the motive power, being superabundant, is too
freely used. When specie payment was suspended this motive power was
reduced; the circulating medium fell from four hundred and fifty to
three hundred and fifty millions, perhaps less; and unless this loss is
replaced it is quite clear that prices must fall and the employment of
labor be curtailed. The issue of treasury notes will fill the gap,
making the business motive power of the same strength and ability as
before. Thus it will be seen that the emission of treasury notes plays
an important part upon the industry and business of the state, which,
under existing circumstances, can hardly be over-valued, as well as in
the national finances.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Darwin-development theory has of late attracted no little attention.
One of our contributors favors us with _his_ views in the following
'wild-verse,' which is itself rather of the transition order:--

MODERN ANSWERS TO ANCIENT RIDDLES.

'Whar did ye come from? Who d'ye belong to!'--_Ethiops_.

    Philosophers say, deny it who may,
    That the man who stands upright so bravely to-day,
    Once crawled as a reptile with nose to the sod,
    His grandfather Monad a bit of a clod.

  To be sure, man's descent is not made out quite plain,
  But one or two _guesses_ might piece out the chain;
  If the chain is quite long a few links won't be missed;
  Or, if you must join it, _just give it a twist_.

    A bold Boston doctor, by stride superhuman,
    Makes only a step from a snake to a woman;
    Or, inspect your best friends by Granville's good glass,
    And the difference's as small 'twixt a man and an ass.

  'From the company he keeps we may learn a man's nature;'
  If he will play with monkey, dog, cat, or such creature,
  The schoolmen will say, as a matter of course,
  'Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.' Notice its force!

    If with doubts you're still puzzled, and wonder who can
    Answer all your objections, why Darwin's your man.
    He can bridge o'er a chasm both broad and profound;
    The last thing he needs for a theory is _ground_.

  Bring your queries and facts, no matter how tough;
  Development doctrine makes light of such stuff.
  One example of these will perhaps be enough:--
  'These crawlers,' for instance, 'should they be still here,'
  'Not yet become bipeds?' The answer is clear:

    In our strangely unequal organic advance,
    He is the most forward who has the best chance.
    By braving the weather and struggling with brother,
    The one who survives it all gains upon t'other.

  The old Bible 'myth,' now, of Jacob and Esau,
  Is the struggle 'twixt species, the monkey and man law;
  One hairy, one handsome, one favored, one cursed;
  And sometimes the last one turns out to be first.

    Still, through cycles enough let the laggard persist,
    Let the weak be suppressed since he can not resist,
    And, proceeding by logic which none may dispute,
    Can't we safely infer there's an end to the brute?

  You may, if you please, supersede Revelation,
  By wholly new methods of ratiocination;
  Though, since head and heart _need be_ in contradiction,
  Why should reason hold faith under any restriction?
  Shut your eyes, and guess down heaven's good pious fiction.[P]

    Noah's ark was superfluous. Where were his brains,
    For those beasts and those sons to provide with such pains,
    When they might to a deluge cry Fiddle di dee,
    And sprout fins and scales, if they took to the sea?

  Well, perhaps in those days they had not yet known
  That _by need of new functions new organs are grown_.
  Those drowned chaps were sure a 'degenerate' crew,
  Or else, on their plunge into element new,
  Some 'law of selection' had rescued a few.
  And, 'if wishes were fishes' I think one or two
  Would have _wished_, and swam out of their scrape, do not you?
  Can it be that those 'Fish Tales' of mermen are true?

    No wonder that racing was always in fashion,--
    All orders of beings were born with the passion--
    But it seems that at length Genus Man will be winner.
    You cry 'Lucky dog!' But what now about dinner?

  No oysters, no turtle, fresh salmon, fried sole,
  No canvas duck nor fowl casserole.
  All these he has seen disappear from the stage,
  A sacrifice vast growing age after age.

    Their successive growth upward he's watched with dismay;
    They have come to be men, having all had their day!
    Though he took, while its lord, quite a taste of the creature,
    By rule Epicurean 'dum vivim.,' etcetera.

  In Paradise, Adam and Eve, to be sure,
  Since they didn't have flesh, ate their onion sauce pure,
  But, as our old friend John P. Robinson he
  Said, 'they didn't know everything down in Judee.'

    Now the better taught modern he very well knows
    What to beef and to mutton society owes.
    What are homes without hearths? What's a hearth without roasts?
    Or a grand public dinner with _nothing_ but toasts?

  Yet, what government measure, or scheme philanthropic,
  Or learned convention in hall philosophic,
  But is mainly sustained upon leasts and collations?
  At least, it is so in all civilized nations.

    Here's a fix! Yet indeed, soon or late, the whole race
    Must the problem decide on, with good or ill grace.
    We cannot go hungry; what are we to do?
    Shall we pulse it, like Daniel, that knowing young Jew?
    Letting Grahamite doctors our diet appoint,
    Eat our very plain pudding without any joint?

  Or, shall we the bloody alternative take,
  And cannibal meals of our relatives make,
  Put aside ancient scruples (for what's in a name?)
  And shake hands with the dainty New Zealander dame,
  Who thought that she really might relish a bit
  Of broiled missionary brought fresh from the spit?

    'Twere surely most cruel in Nature our nurse,
    Man's march of improvement so quick to reverse.
    Will she offer a choice which we may not refuse,
    When we're sure to turn savage however we choose?

  We may slowly creep up to a lofty position,
  Then go back at one leap to the lower condition.
  Even so, my good friend, in a circle he goes,
  Who would follow such theories on to their close.
  If you've started with Darwin, as sure as you're born,
  You're in a dilemma; pray take either horn.

  T.

       *       *       *       *       *

Who has not belonged in his time to a debating society? What youth
ambitious of becoming 'a perfect _Hercules_ behind the bar?'--as a well
meaning but unfortunate Philadelphian once said in a funeral eulogy over
a deceased legal friend--has not 'debated' in a club 'formed for
purposes of mutual _and_ literary improvement of the mind?' All who have
will read with pleasure the following letter from one who has most
certainly been there:--

    DEAR CONTINENTAL:

    I am a man that rides around over the 'kedn'try.' In the little
    village where I am now tarrying, the school-house bell is
    ringing to call together the members of that ancient institution
    peculiar to villages, the debating society. A friend informs me
    that the time-honored questions--Should capital punishment be
    abolished?--Did Columbus deserve more praise than
    Washington?--Is art more pleasing to the eye than nature?--have
    each had their turn in their regular rotation, and that the
    question for to-night is--as you might suppose--Has the Indian
    suffered greater wrongs at the hands of the White man than the
    Negro? As I have a distinct recollection of having thoroughly
    investigated and zealously declaimed on each of the above topics
    in days lang syne, I shall excuse myself from attendance this
    evening, on the ground that I am already extensively informed on
    the subject in hand, and my mind is fully made up. But I hereby
    acknowledge my indebtedness to the good fellow who told me the
    object of the ringing of the bell--for he has unconsciously
    started up some of the most amusing recollections of my life.
    Sitting here alone in my room, I have just taken a hearty laugh
    over a circumstance that had well-nigh given me the slip. The
    question was the same Negro-Indian-White-man affair. One of the
    orators, having, a long time previously, seen a picture in an
    old 'jography' of some Indians making a hubbub on board certain
    vessels, and reading under it, _Destruction of Tea in Boston
    Harbor_, brought up the circumstance, and insisting with great
    earnestness that the white man had received burning wrongs at
    the hands of the Indian, and that the latter had _no reason at
    all to complain_, dwelt with great emphasis on the ruthless
    destruction of the white man's tea in Boston Harbor by the
    latter, in proof of his 'point.'

    I remember also a debating society in the little village of
    R----, which numbered some really very worthy and intelligent
    members, but of course included some that were otherwise, among
    whom was a silly young fellow, who had mistaken his proper
    calling--(he should have been a wood-chopper), and was suffering
    under an attack _at_ medicine. The question for debate on one
    occasion was--Is conscience an infallible guide? Being expected
    to take part in the discussion, he was bent on thorough
    preparation, and ransacked his preceptor's professional
    library--(almost as poor a place as a lawyer's) for a work on
    _conscience_. He found abundance of matter, however, for a
    lengthy chapter on the subject, as he supposed, occurring in
    several of the dusty octavos, and he thumbed the leaves with
    most patient assiduity. He had misspelled the word however, and
    was reading all the while on _consciousness_--a subject which
    would very naturally occur in some departments of medicine. But
    it was all one to him, he didn't see the difference, and the
    ridiculous display he made to us of his 'cramming' on
    consciousness can be better imagined than described.

    Years after found me inside college walls--but colleges in the
    West, be it remembered, sometimes include preparatory
    departments, into which, by the courtesy of the teachers, many
    young men are admitted who would hardly make a respectable
    figure in the poorest country school, but who by dint of honest
    toil finally do themselves great credit.

    I 'happened in' on a number of such, one evening, whose
    affinities had drawn them together with a view to forming a
    debating society, to be made exclusively of their own kind. I
    listened with much interest and pleasure to the preliminaries of
    organization, and smiled, when they were about to 'choose a
    question,' to see them bring out the same old coaches mentioned
    in the beginning of this article; when one of their number
    arose, evidently dissatisfied with the old beaten track, and
    seemed bent on opening a new vein. He was a good, honest,
    patient fellow, but his weakness in expressing himself was,
    that, although his delivery was very slow, he didn't know how he
    was going to end his sentences when he began them. 'Mr.
    President,' said he, 'how would this do? Suppose a punkin seed
    sprouts in one man's garden, and the vine grows through the
    fence, and bears a punkin on another man's ground--now--(a long
    pause)--the question is--whose punkin--_does it belong to?_' The
    poor fellow subsided, as might be supposed, amid a roar of
    voices and a crash of boots.

There is a legal axiom which would settle the pumpkin-vine query--that
of _cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum_--'ownership in the soil
confers possession of everything even as high as heaven.' Our friends in
Dixie seem determined to prove that they have also fee simple in their
soil downwards as far as the other place, and by the last advices were
digging their own graves to an extent which will soon bring them to the
utmost limit of their property!

       *       *       *       *       *

Does the reader remember Poor Pillicoddy, and the mariner who was ever
expected to turn up again? Not less eccentric, as it seems to us, is the
re-apparition chronicled in the following story by a friend:--

    TURNING UP AGAIN!

    'You were all through that Mexican war, and out with Walker in
    Niggerawger.--Well, what do you think 'bout Niggerawger? Kind of
    a cuss'd 'skeeter hole, ain't it?'

    'Tain't so much 'skeeters as 'tis snaiks, scorpiums and the
    like,' answered the gray-moustached corporal. 'It's hot in them
    countries as a Dutch oven on a big bake; and going through them
    parts, man's got to move purty d----d lively to git ahead of the
    yaller fever; it's right onto his tracks the hull time.'

    'Did you git that gash over your nose out there?'

    'Yes, I got that in a small scrimmage under old GRAY EYES. 'Twas
    next day _after a fight_ though, cum to think on it. We'd been
    up there and took a small odobe hole called Santa Sumthin', and
    had spasificated the poperlashun, when I went to git a gold
    cross off an old woman, and she up frying-pan of _frijoles_ and
    hit me, so!' Here the corporal aimed a blow with his pipe at the
    face of the high private he was talking with;--the latter dodged
    it.

    'That was a big thing, that fight at Santa Sumthin'; the way we
    went over them mud walls, and wiped out the Greasers, was a
    cortion. I rac'lect when we was drawed up company front, afore
    we made the charge, there was a feller next me in the ranks--I
    didn't know him from an old shoe, 'cause he'd ben drafted that
    morning into us from another company. Says he,--

    'We're going into hair and cats' claws 'fore long, and as I'm
    unbeknownst amongst you fellers, I'd like to make a bargain with
    you.'

    'Go it,' says I; 'I'm on hand for ennything.'

    'Well,' says he, 'witchever one of us gits knocked over, the
    tother feller 'll look out for him, and if he ain't a goner 'll
    haul him out, so the doctor can work onto him.'

    'Good,' says I, 'you may count me in there; mind you look after
    ME!'

    The fight began, and when we charged, the fust thing I knowed
    the feller next me, wot made the bargain, he went head over
    heels backwards; and to tell the honest trooth, I was just that
    powerful egsited I never minded him a smite, but went right
    ahead after plunder and the Greasers, over mud walls and along
    alleys, till I got, bang in, where I found something worth
    fighting about it. 'Bout dusk, when we was all purty full of
    _agwadenty_, they sent us out to bury our fellers as was killed
    in the scrimmage; and as we hadn't much time to spare, we didn't
    dig a hole more'n a foot or two deep, and put all our fellers
    in, in a hurry. Next morning airly, as I was just coming out of
    a church where I'd ben surveyin' some candle-stix with a
    jack-knife to see ef they were silver, [witch they were
    not,--hang em!]--as I was coming out of the church I felt a
    feller punch me in the back--so I turned round to hit him back,
    when I see the feller, as had stood by me in the ranks the day
    before, all covered over with dirt, and mad as a ringtail
    hornet.

    'Hello!' said I.

    'Hello! yourself,' said he. 'I want ter know what yer went and
    berried me for, afore I was killed for?'

    I never was so put to for a answer afore in all my life, 'cause
    I wanted to spasificate the feller, so I kind of hemmed, and
    says I--'Hm! the fact was, this dirty little hole of a town was
    _rayther_ crowded last night, and I--just to please you, yer
    know--I lodged you out there; but I swear I was this minute
    going out there to dig you up for breakfuss!'

    'If that's so,' said he, 'we won't say no more 'bout it; but the
    next time you do it, don't put a feller in so deep; for I had a
    oncommon hard scratch turning up again!'

    H.P.L.

We are indebted to the same writer for the following Oriental
market-picture--we might say scene in a proverb:

    PROVERBIALLY WISE.

    ACHMET sat in the bazaar, calmly smoking: he had said to himself
    in the early morning,--'When I shall have made a hundred
    piastres I will shut up shop for the day, and go home and take
    it easy, _al'hamdu lillah_!' Now a hundred piastres in the land
    of the faithful, where the sand is and the palms grow, is equal
    to a dollar in the land of Jonathan: and the expression he
    concluded his sentence with is equivalent to--Praise be to
    Allah!

    Along came a blind fakir begging; then ACHMET gave him five
    paras, although his charity was unseen; neither did he want it
    to be seen, for he said to himself,--

    'Do good and throw it into the sea--if the fishes don't know it,
    God will.'

    And as he handed the poor blind fakir the small coin, he said to
    him, in a soothing voice,--

    '_Fa'keer_' (which in the Arabic means poor fellow), 'the nest
    of a blind bird is made by Allah.'

    Then along came SULIMAN BEY, who was high in office in the land
    of Egypt, and was wealthy, and powerful, and very much hated and
    feared. And ACHMET bowed down before him, and performed
    obeisance in the manner of the Turks, touching his own hand to
    his lips, his breast, his head:--and the SULIMAN BEY went
    proudly on. Then ACHMET smiled, and YUSEF, who had a stall in
    the bazaar opposite to him, winked to ACHMET, saying, in a low
    voice,--

      'Kiss ardently the hands which you can not cut off:'--

    and they smiled grimly one unto the other.

    'Did you hear the music in the Esbekieh garden yesterday?' asked
    YUSEF of ACHMET. 'I think it was horrible.'

    'It cost nothing to hear it,' quoth ACHMET: 'there was no charge
    made.'

    '_Aio_! true,' answered YUSEF; 'but there were too many drums; I
    wouldn't have one if I were Pacha.'

    'Welcome even pitch, if it is gratis.'

    'Wanting to make the eyebrows right, pull out the eyes,' said
    ACHMET, contentedly. 'And as for your disliking the music,--A
    cucumber being given to a poor man, he did not accept it because
    it was crooked!'--'Come, let us shut up shop and go to the
    mosque. It is fated that we sell no goods to-day. _Wajadna
    bira'hmat allah ra'hah_--By the grace of Allah we have found
    repose!'

       *       *       *       *       *

Our correspondent gives us a pun in our last number over again. It is
none the worse, however, for its new coat, as set forth in

    GETTING AHEAD OF TIME.

    'Well now, I declare, this is too bad. Here it is five minutes
    past ten and BUDDEN ain't here. Did anybody ever know that man
    to keep an engagement?'

    'Yes,' replied the Doctor to the Squire, 'I knew him to keep
    one.'

    'Let it out,' said the Squire.

    'An engagement to get married.'

    'Hm!' replied the Squire, looking over his spectacles with the
    air of one who had been deceived. At this moment JERRY BUDDEN, a
    jolly-looking, fat, middle-aged man entered the office quietly
    and coolly, having all the air of one who arrived half an hour
    before the appointed time of meeting.

    'Got ahead of time this morning, any way,' said Jerry.

    'The devil you did!' spoke the Squire, testily; 'you are seven
    minutes behind time this morning; you would be behindhand
    to-morrow and next day, and so on as long as you live. Confound
    it, Jerry, you make me mad with your laziness and coolness.
    Ahead of time! why look at that watch!'--Here the Squire,
    pulling out a plethoric-looking, smooth gold watch, about the
    size of a bran biscuit, held it affectionately in the palm of
    his right hand. 'Look at _that_ watch!'

    'Nice watch,' said Jerry, 'very nice watch. The best of watches
    will sometimes get out of order though. How long since you had
    it cleaned?'

    The Squire looked indignant, and broke out, 'I've carried that
    watch more'n thirty year; I have it cleaned regularly, and it is
    always right to a minute, always! It's _you_ that want
    regulating.'

    'Can't help it,' spoke Jerry; 'I got ahead of time this
    morning.'

    'Bet you a hat on it,' said the Squire.

    'Done!' answered Jerry. And, putting his hand in his pocket, he
    deliberately produced the torn page of an old almanac, and,
    pointing to part of an engraving of the man with an hour-glass,
    said to the Squire,--

    'Hain't I got a Head of Time--this morning?'

    Jerry now wears a new hat!

       *       *       *       *       *

'What poor slaves are the American people!' says the Times' own RUSSELL.
'They may abjure kings and princes, but they are ruled by hotel-keepers
and waiters.' The following translation from the Persian shows, however,
that a man may be a king or a prince and a hotel-keeper at the same
time.

A ROYAL HOTEL-KEEPER.

FROM THE PERSIAN. BY HENRY P. LELAND.

  IBRAM BEN ADHAM at his palace gate,
  Sits, while in line his pages round him wait;
  When a poor dervish, staff and sack in hand,
  Straight would have entered IBRAM'S palace grand.
  'Old man,' the pages asked, 'where goest thou now?'
  'In that hotel,' he answered, with a bow.
  The pages said,--'Ha! dare you call hotel
  A palace, where the King of Balkh doth dwell?'
  IBRAM the King next to the dervish spoke:
  'My palace a hotel? Pray, where's the joke?'
  'Who,' asked the dervish, 'owned this palace first?'
  'My grandsire,' IBRAM said, while wrath he nursed.
  'Who was the next proprietor?' please say.
  'My father:' thus the king replied straightway.
  'Who hired it then upon your father's death?'
  'I did,' King IBRAM answered, out of breath.
  'When you shall die, who shall within it dwell?'
  'My son,' the King replied. 'Why ask'st thou? Tell!'
  'IBRAM!' then spoke the dervish to him straight,
  'I'll answer thee, nor longer make thee wait.
  The place where travelers come, and go as well,
  Is, really, not a palace, but--hotel!'

Yea, friends; and, as another genial poet has discovered, life itself is
but a hostelrie or tavern, where some get the highest rooms, while
others, of greater social weight, gravitate downwards into the first
story, sinking like gold to the bottom of the hotel pan,--that is O.W.
HOLMES', his idea, reader, not ours. _Apropos_ of HOLMES and kings--his
thousands of reader friends have ere this seen with pleasure that the
Emperor of all the French was not unmindful of one of his
brother-potentates,--in the world of song,--when he paid OLIVER WENDELL
the courteous compliment which has of late gone the rounds, and which
conferred as much honor on the giver as the taker thereof.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Spring poems have begun. _Vide licet_.

  TO AN EARLY BIRD.

  In homely phrase we oft are told
    'Tis early birds that catch the worms;
  But certainly that Spring bird there
     Don't half believe the aforesaid terms.

  He's sorry that he hither flew,
     In hopes a forward March to find,
  And towards warm climates, whence he came,
     To backward march is sore inclined.

  Lured by one ray of sunlight, he
     Flew northward to our land of snow;
  And now, with frozen toes, he stands
     On frozen earth:--the worms--below!

  Tu whit! whit! whit! he tries in vain
     To whistle in a cheerful way;
  He feels he's badly sold, and that--
     He came _too early_ in the day.

  I sprinkle seed and crumbs around;
    He quickly flies and famished eats:--
  He would have starved to death had he
    Relied on proverb-making cheats.

       *       *       *       *       *

Of the same up-Springings, in higher vein, we have the following:--

  APRIL.

  BY ED. SPRAGUE RAND.

  Now with the whistling rush of stormy winds,
    'Mid weeping skies and smiling, sunny hours,
  Comes the young Spring, and scatters, from the pines,
    O'er the brown--woodland soft, balsamic showers.

  Wake, azure squirrel cups, on grassy hills!
    Peep forth, blue violets, upon the heath!
  The epigræa from the withered leaves
    Sends out the greeting of her perfumed breath.

  Nodding anemones within the wood
    Shake off the winter's sleep, and haste to greet;
  Where in the autumn the blue asters stood,
    The saxifrage creeps out, with downy feet.

  Nature is waking! From a wreath of snow,
    Close by the garden walls, the snowdrop springs;
  And the air rings with tender melodies,
    Where thro' the dark firs flash the bluebird's wings.

  A few days hence, and o'er the distant hills
    A tender robe of verdure shall be spread,
  And life in myriad forms be manifest,
    Where all seemed desolate, and dark, and dead.

  E'en now, upon the sunny woodland slopes,
    The fair vanessa flits with downy wing;
  And in the marshes, with the night's approach,
    The merry hylas in full chorus sing.

  _Patience_ and _faith_, all will be bright again.
    Take from the present, for the future hours,
  The tendered promise. In the storm and rain,
    Remember suns shine brighter for the showers.

  To us, my countrymen, the lesson comes;
    Our night of winter dawns in brightest day;
  The storm is passing, and the rising sun
    Dispels our doubts, drives cloudy fears away.

  The sun of freedom, veiled in clouds too long,
    Sheds o'er our land its rays of quickening life;
  And liberty, our starry banner, waves,
    Proclaiming freedom mid the battle's strife.

       *       *       *       *       *

STRIKING TURPENTINE.

Not a bad story that of the physician, who, vaccinating several medical
students, 'performed the ceremony' for a North Carolinian from the
pitch, tar and turpentine districts. The lancet entering the latter's
arm a little too deep, owing to the Corn-cracker jerking his arm through
nervousness, one of the medical students called out,--

'Take care there, doctor, if you don't look out you'll strike
turpentine.'

The Corn-cracker--full of spirit--wanted to fight.

We should have handed this anecdote over to X., who travels through the
Pines, that he might pronounce on its authenticity. The following,
however, we know to be true--on the word of a very _spirituelle_ dame,
long resident in the Old North State. When the present war first sent
its murmurs over the South, an old bushman earnestly denied that it
'would ruin everything.' 'Kin it stop the turpentime from running?' he
triumphantly cried. 'In course not. Then what difference _kin_ it make
to _the country_?'

       *       *       *       *       *

The following sketch, 'Hiving the Bees and what came of it,' from a
valued friend and correspondent in New Haven, is a humorous and truthful
picture of the old-fashioned rural 'discipline' once so general and now
so rapidly becoming a thing of the past:--

    HIVING BEES AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

    When a boy at school in the town of G----I became acquainted
    with old Deacon Hubbard and his wife--two as good Christian
    people as could be found, simple in their manners and
    kind-hearted. The deacon was 'well to do in the world,' having a
    fine farm, a pleasant house, and, with his quiet way of living,
    apparently everything to make him comfortable.

    He took great delight in raising bees, and the product of his
    hives was every year some hundreds of pounds of honey, for which
    there was always a ready market, though he frequently gave away
    large quantities among his neighbors.

    One Sunday morning, when passing the place of Deacon Hubbard on
    my way to meeting, I saw the deacon in his orchard near his
    house, apparently in great trouble about something in one of
    his apple trees. I crossed the road to the fence and called to
    him, and asked him what was the matter. He was a very
    conscientious man, and would not do anything on the Lord's day
    that could be done on any other; but he cried, 'Oh, dear! my
    bees are swarming, and I shall surely lose them. If I was a
    young man I could climb the tree and save them, but I am too old
    for that.' I jumped over the fence, and as I approached him he
    pointed to a large dark mass of something suspended from the
    limb of an apple tree, which to me was a singular-looking
    object, never having before seen bees in swarming time. I had
    great curiosity to see the operation of hiving, and suggested
    that perhaps I could help him, though at the time afraid the
    bees would sting me for my trouble. The gratification to be
    derived I thought would repay the risk, and calling to mind some
    lines I had  heard,--

  'Softly, gently touch a nettle,
    It will sting thee for thy pains;
  Grasp it like a man of mettle,
    Soft and harmless it remains,--'

    I told him that I would assist him. He assured me that if I
    could only get a rope around the limb above and fasten it to the
    one on which the bees were, then saw off that limb and lower it
    down, he could secure them without much trouble.

    With saw and rope in hand I ascended the tree, and, after due
    preparation, severed the limb and carefully lowered it within
    the deacon's reach. I was surprised, and felt repaid for my
    trouble, to see with what ease and unconcern Dea. Hubbard, with
    his bare hands, scooped and brushed the swarm of bees into a
    sheet he had prepared, and how readily he got them into a vacant
    hive. Many thanks did the deacon proffer me for my timely
    assistance, and moreover insisted on my staying with him to
    dine. It seemed to me that I was never in a more comfortable
    house, and I am sure I never received a more cordial greeting
    than that bestowed upon me by his venerable spouse.

    The place where I boarded with several other boys was with a
    widow lady by the name of White, who was very kind to me, but
    who had the misfortune to have had three husbands, and her
    daughters did not all revere the memory of the same father, and
    consequently there were oftentimes differences among them.

    For several days after this transaction I had noticed on the
    table at our daily meal a nice dish of honey, an unusual treat,
    but to which we boys paid due respect.

    My term at school expired, and I went home to my father's, a
    distance of some thirty miles, and assisted him on the farm
    during the fall months, employing much of my leisure time in
    studying.

    My father was a stern, straight-forward man--a member of the
    Orthodox church, and one who professed to believe in all the
    proprieties of life, and endeavored to impress the same on the
    minds of his children.

    One day, after dinner, he said to me, in his stern way of
    speaking,--'Gilbert, what kind of scrape did you get into in
    G----?'

    For my life I could not tell what I had been doing, and had but
    little chance to think, ere he tossed a letter across the table
    and said, 'Read that, and tell me what it means!' The letter was
    directed to me, but he had exercised his right to open and read
    it for me. It was from G----, and signed by the four deacons of
    the church there, asking explicit answers to the following
    questions:--1st. Did you help Deacon Hubbard hive his bees? 2d.
    If so, did you receive any remuneration from him for your
    services? 3d. Will you state what it was? You are expected to
    answer the questions fully.'

    'What have you to say to that, young man?' said my father, with
    more than usual sternness; and I began to think that I had got
    into some kind of difficulty.

    I told him that I would answer the letter, so went to my room
    and wrote, saying that I _did_ help Deacon Hubbard hive his
    bees, and that I _had_ been paid a thousand times by the many
    acts of kindness of himself and wife, and should always feel
    happy in doing anything for them that I could.

    As my father read this letter I had written, I noticed a smile
    on his countenance, which lasted but an instant, when he said,
    'You may send it; but I want to know what this scrape is, and I
    will.'

    A few days after the reply was sent, another letter arrived from
    the four deacons, stating that I had not been explicit enough in
    my answer, and wanted me to say, 1st. Whether I had helped
    Deacon Hubbard hive his bees on Sunday. 2d. Whether I had ever
    received from him a large pan of honey in the comb? 3d. Whether
    my father was a member of the church? 4th. Whether he would give
    his consent for me to come to G---- on business of great
    importance if they would pay my expenses, and how soon I could
    come?

    It was cold weather, several months after I left G----, when
    this letter came to hand, and I did not fancy a ride of thirty
    miles at that time; I however had permission to promise that I
    would be there on the first Monday in May, which was the day of
    'General Training,' and a great day at that period. In my answer
    to the second letter I said that I thought I had answered their
    first question sufficiently before; and in answer to the second
    I would say, that I had never received any honey from Deacon
    Hubbard; to the third, that my father was a member of the
    church; and to the fourth, that I would come there on the day
    named above.

    The first Monday in May was a bright and lovely day, and at an
    early hour I mounted a horse and started for G----, arriving
    there before noon. On my way into the village I had to pass the
    house of Deacon Hubbard, who, knowing that I was expected that
    day, was looking for my approach, and as I drew near the house I
    saw his venerable form in the road. It was my intention to pass
    his house without being seen, but that was impossible. He
    insisted on my going into the house. His good wife met me at the
    door with a cordial greeting, but, with tearful eyes, said she
    feared there was some dreadful trouble in store for me, for the
    deacons of the church had been watching for me all the morning.
    After explaining as well as I could the reason of my visit, with
    the little information I had, Deacon Hubbard exclaimed--'Well, I
    don't know but they'll make you walk the church aisle, for
    there's some trouble somewhere.' We had but little time for
    conversation before Mrs. H. saw the venerable deacons
    approaching the house; and I shall never forget the solemn look
    and steps with which they advanced, the senior deacon, Flagg,
    leading the procession. As they were ushered into the front room
    they seated themselves in a row according to their respective
    ages, each wearing the solemn countenance of a Pilgrim father.
    When I entered the room they all arose and took me by the hand,
    thanking me for faithfully keeping my promise, and hoped the
    Lord would reward me therefor. Deacon Flagg, after a few
    preliminary remarks, said: 'Young man, there has been a grievous
    sin committed among the Lord's anointed in our church, and we
    have sent for you that we may be enabled to detect the erring
    one! and we hope you will so far consider the importance of the
    matter as to answer truly the questions that may be propounded
    to you. My young friend, will you have the goodness to say, in
    the hearing of our good brother, Deacon Hubbard, whether or not
    you ever received from him a present of a large pan of honey for
    helping him hive his bees?'

    I answered that I never had. All eyes were turned on Deacon H.,
    and an audible groan came from Deacon Harris as I made my reply.
    Deacon Flagg addressed me as follows:--'My youthful friend, will
    you be willing to accompany these gentlemen to the house of
    sister White, and say the same before her?' I was willing,
    provided my friend Deacon Hubbard would go along, which he
    consented to do, and we started.

    It was but a short way across the Common, and ours was a solemn,
    silent procession, and I must have appeared like a very culprit.
    On nearing the house, Deacon Flagg said he would first enter and
    inform sister White of our business, and return when she was
    ready to receive us. He returned in a short time, with a longer
    face than before, and as he approached us, clasping his hands,
    he said with an agonized tone, 'Dear brethren, Oh! it is all too
    true! Satan entered her heart,--she coveted the honey,--and
    fell.' A groan of holy horror came from all the good old men. It
    was not necessary for us to enter the abode of wickedness, he
    said, for she would confess all.

    The whole proceeding had been a mystery to me, but I soon
    learned that the next day after hiving the bees, Deacon Hubbard
    had sent a large pan of honey to sister White's house, intended
    for me, but she gave us boys a little for a few days and put the
    rest away; or, as she afterwards said, she coveted it, and said
    nothing to me about it; and I should probably have known nothing
    of it had it not been for a disagreement between herself and
    daughters about a division of the honey, which finally got to be
    a church matter.

    Deacon Hubbard insisted on my going to dine with him; so, with a
    parting shake of the hand with the other four venerable men, we
    started for his house. Such a feast as dame Hubbard had provided
    on that occasion boys do not often see; substantial food enough
    for half a score of men, aside from the pies and plum pudding
    which made their appearance in due course; and in front of the
    dish assigned to me was a dish of the purest honey. After dinner
    Deacon Hubbard took me to see his bees, and explained many
    things in relation to them curious and instructive, promising
    more information on the subject if he could prevail upon me to
    remain in G---- till the next morning. The fatigue of the long
    ride that day, and my desire to see a little of the 'Training,'
    decided me to remain over night.

    In the morning my horse was fresh, having been well taken care
    of by my friend; so, after a hearty breakfast, I bade adieu to
    the good couple, with a pleasant recollection of their
    hospitality and kindness. When ready to start, dame Hubbard,
    with the best intentions, brought me a large pail of honey,
    wishing I would carry it home to my parents, but as it was
    impossible for me to carry it on horseback, I had to decline.

    It was near noon the next day when I reached home, and my first
    greeting from my father was, 'Well, Gilbert, now let me know
    about the scrape you got into last summer in G----.'

    I told him all I had learned about the matter, to which be
    expressed his pleasure that it was no worse, and gave me much
    good advice as to the future.

    A few weeks after I readied home there was a large tub of honey
    left at my father's house, with a letter for me, informing me
    that sister White had been expelled from the church in G---- for
    covetousness; that my friends the Hubbards were well; that the
    four deacons spoke very highly in my praise, and hoped I would
    _feel rewarded_ for the trouble I had taken. Years have passed
    since the matters here mentioned took place, but up to this time
    nothing has been said to me about 'paying my expenses.'

    JAY G. BEE.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Malaprop founded a school which has been prolific in disciples.
From one of these we learn that--

    Old Mr. P. died a short time ago, much to the regret of his many
    friends, for he was a good neighbor, and had always lived
    honestly and uprightly among his fellow-men. At the time of his
    funeral Mrs. L. was sorrowing for his loss, with others of her
    sex, and paid the following tribute to his memory:

    'Poor Mr. P., he was a good man, a kind man, and a Christian
    man--he always lived _according to_ HOYLE, and died with the
    hope of a blessed immortality.'

'Played the wrong card there.'

       *       *       *       *       *

ADAM'S FAMILY JARS.

IN CRACKED NUMBERS.

  One fact is fundamental,
  One truth is rudimental;
  Before man had the rental
  Of this dwelling of a day,
  He was in nothing mental,
  But an image-man of clay.

    In the ground
  Was the image found;
    Of the ground
  Was it molded round;
  And empty of breath,
  And still as in death,
  Inside not a ray,
  Outside only clay,
  Deaf and dumb and blind,
  Deadest of the kind,
    There it lay.

  Unto what was it like? In its shape it was what?
  The world says 'a man,'--but the world is mistaken.
  To revive the old story, a long time forgot,
  'Twasn't man that was made, but a pot that was baken.

  And what if it was human-faced like the Sphinx?
  There's no riddle to solve, whate'er the world thinks:
  The fiat that made it, from its heels to its hair,
  Wasn't simply 'Be man!' but 'Stand up and Be Ware!'

  And straightway acknowledging its true kith and kin
  With that host of things known to be hollow within,
  It took up a stand with its handles akimbo,
  Bowels and bosom in a cavernous limbo.

  Curving out at the bottom, it swelled to a jig;
  Curving in at the top, narrow-necked, to the mug;
  Two sockets for sunshine in the frontispiece placed,
  A crack just below--merely a matter of taste;
  A flap on each side hiding holes of resounding,
  For conveyance within of noises surrounding;
  And a nozzle before,
  All befitted to snore,
  Was a part of the ware
  For adornment and air.

  Now for what was this slender and curious mold?
  Had it no purpose? Had it nothing to hold?
  A world full of meaning, my friend, if 'twere told.
  You remember those jars in the Arabian Night,
  As they stood 'neath the stars in Al' Baba's eyesight:
  Little dreamed Ali Baba what ajar could excite--
    For how much did betide
    When a man was inside!
  When from under each cover a man was to spring,
  Where then was the empty, insignificant thing?
    It was so with this jar,
    'Twasn't hollow by far;
  Breathless at first as an exhausted receiver,
  When the air was let in, lo! man, the achiever!

  But an accident happened, a cruel surprise;
  How frail proved the man, and how very unwise!
  As if plaster of Paris, and not Paradise,
    No more of clay consecrate,
    He broke up disconsolate,
  Pot-luck for his fortune, though the world's potentate.

  It brings to our memory that Indian camp,
  Where men lay in ambush, every one with a lamp,
  Each light darkly hid in a vessel of clay,
  Till the sword should be drawn, and then on came the fray.
  'Twas so in the fortunes of this queer earthen race,
  (It happened before they were more than a brace).
    The fact of a fall
    Did break upon all!
  The lamp of each life being uncovered by sin,
  The pitcher was broken, and the devil pitched in!

  So much for his story to the moment he erred,
  From what dignified pot he became a pot-sherd.
    Since that day the great world,
    Like a wheel having twirled,
  Hath replenished the earth from the primitive pair,
  And turned into being every species of ware.

  There are millions and millions on the planet to-day,
  Of all sorts, and all sizes, all ranks we may say;
  There's a rabble of pots, with the dregs and the scum,
  And a peerage of pots, above finger and thumb.

  Look round in this pottery, look down to the ground,
  Where bottle and mug, jug and pottle abound;
  From the plebeian throng see the graded array;
  There is shelf above shelf of brittle display,
  As rank above rank the poor mortals arise,
  From menial purpose to princely disguise.

  See vessels of honor, emblazoned with cash,
  Of standing uncertain, preparing to dash.
  See some to dishonor, in common clay-bake,
  Figure high where the fire and the flint do partake.

  There's the bottle of earth by glittering glass,
  As by blood of the gentlest excelling its class,
    Becoming instanter
    A portly decanter!

  There's the lowly bowl, or the basin broad,
  By double refinement a punch-bowl lord!
  There's the beggarly jug, ignoble and base,
  By adornment of art the Portland vase!

  But call them, title them, what you will,
  They're bound to break, they are brittle still;
  No saving pieces, or repairing,
  No Spaulding's glue for human erring;
  All alike they will go together,
  And lie in Potter's field forever.

  At length the whole secret of life is told:
  'Tis because we're earth, and not of gold,
  'Tis because we're ware that beware we must,
  Lest we crack, and break, and crumble to dust.

  What wonder that men so clash together,
  And in the clash so break with each other!
  Or that households are full of family jars,
  And boys are such pickles in spite of papas!
  That the cup of ill-luck is drained to the dregs,
  When a man's in his cups and not on his legs!
  That meaning should be in that word for a sot,
  He's ruined forever--he's going to pot!

  So goes the world and its generations,
  So go its tribes, and its tribulations;
  Crowding together on the stream of time,
  It almost destroys the chime of my rhyme,
  While they strike, and they grind, and rub and dash,
  And are sure to go to eternal smash.
  Lamentable sight to be seen here below!
  Man after man sinking,--blow after blow,--
  A bubble, a choke,--each blow is a knell,--
  Broken forever! There's no more to tell.

         *       *       *       *       *

  There _is_ more to tell, of a promise foretold;
  Though now 'tis a vessel of homeliest mold,
  Yet 'tis that which will prove a crock of gold,
  When the crack of doom shall the truth unfold.

  'Tis hard to believe, for so seemeth life,
  A cruse full of oil, with nothing more rife;
  Yet what saith the prophet? It never shall fail:
  Life is perennial, of immortal avail.

  'Tis hard to believe, for to dust we return,
  To lie like the ashes in a burial urn;
  But look at the skies! see the heavenly bowers!
  The urn is a vase--the ashes are flowers!

  'Tis hard to believe; like a jar full of tears,
  Life is filled with humanity's griefs and fears;
  'Tis a tear-jar o'erflowing, close by the urn,
  Even weeping for those in that gloomy sojourn.
  And yet, when with time it has crumbled away,
  The omnipotent Potter will in that day
  Turn again to the pattern of Paradise,
  Will fashion it anew and bid it arise,
  A jar full adorned and with richest designs,
  With tracery covered, and heavenly signs,
  With jewels deep-set, and with fine gold inlaid,
  Enamel of love,--yes, a nature new made.
  And then from the deep bottom, as from a cup
  Of blessing, there ever will come welling up
  The living waters of a pellucid soul,
  A gush of the spirit, from a heart made whole.

  So, like the water-pots rough, by the door at the East,
  Our purpose will change, and our power be increased,
  When we stand in the gate of the Heavenly Feast:
  The word will be spoken: we'll flow out with wine
  The blood of the true Life, pressed from the true Vine,
  Perpetual chalice, inexhaustible bowl,
  Of pleasures immortal, overflowing the soul!

Dust we are and to dust we must return--but, as the old epitaph said of
Catherine Gray, who sold pottery,--

  'In some tall pitcher or broad pan
  She in life's shop may live again,'--

so, in a higher sphere we may all become vases unbreakable, filled with
the wine of life.

       *       *       *       *       *

Were the enemy in their senses they would probably admit that the
annexed proposal is far from being deficient in common-sense:--

DEAR CONTINENTAL:

I see that it is proposed by the Southern press that the rebels, as they
retreat, shall burn all their tobacco.

I have a proposition to make.

Let General McCLELLAN send a flag of truce and inform them that if they
need any assistance in that work, nothing will give me greater pleasure
than to assist in the consummation.

I have an enormous meerschaum and a corps of friends equally well piped.
If the seceders have no time to ignite the weed, we are quite ready, and
a great deal more willing, considering the late frightful rise in
Lynchburg, to do it for them. I can answer for burning one pound a day
myself. What do you think of it? It isn't traitorous in me, is it, to
thus desire to aid and assist the enemy?

Yours truly,

RAUCHER.

       *       *       *       *       *

A CURE FOR STEALING.

  Far back among the days of yore
  There's many a pleasing tale in store,
  Rich with the humor of the time,
  That sometimes jingle well in rhyme.
  Of these, the following may possess
  A claim on 'hours of idleness.'
    When Governor Gurdon Saltonstall,
  Like Abram Lincoln, straight and tall,
  Presided o'er the Nutmeg State,
  A loved and honored magistrate,
  His quiet humor was portrayed
  In Yankee tricks he sometimes played.
  The Governor had a serious air,
  'Twas solemn as a funeral prayer,
  But when he spoke the mirth was stirred,--
  A joke leaped out at every word.
    One morn, a man, alarmed and pale,
  Came to him with a frightful tale;
  The substance was, that Jerry Style
  Had _stolen wood_ from off his pile.
  The Governor started in surprise,
  And on the accuser fixed his eyes.
  'He steal my wood! to his regret,
  Before this blessed sun shall set,
  I'll put a final end to _that_.'
  Then, putting on his stately hat,
  All nicely cocked and trimmed with lace,
  He issued forth with lofty grace,
  Bade the accuser; duty mind,'
  And follow him 'five steps _behind_.'
    Ere they a furlong's space complete,
  They meet the culprit in the street;
  The Governor took him by the hand--
  That lowly man! that Governor grand!--
  Kindly inquired of his condition,
  His present prospects and position.
  The man a tale of sorrow told--
  That food was dear, the winter cold,
  That work was scarce, and times were hard,
  And very ill at home they fared,--
  And, more than this, a bounteous Heaven
  To them a little babe had given,
  Whose brief existence could attest
  This world's a wintry world at best.
    A silver crown, whose shining face
  King William's head and Mary's grace,
  Dropped in his hand. The Governor spoke,--
  His voice was cracked--it almost broke,--'If
  work is scarce, and times are hard,
  There's a _large wood-pile in my yard;
  Of that you may most freely use,
  So go and get it when you choose_.'
  Then on he walked, serenely feeling
  That there he'd put an end to stealing.
  The accuser's sense of duty grew
  The space 'twixt him and Governor too.

       *       *       *       *       *

'The Anaconda is tightening its folds,' and at every fold the South
cries aloud. The following bit of merry nonsense, which has the merit of
being 'good to sing,' may possibly enliven more than one camp-fire, ere
the last fold of the 'big sarpent' has given the final stifle to the
un-fed-eralists.

  THE 'ANACONDA.'

  Won't it make them stop and ponder?
  Yes! 't will make them stop and ponder!
  What?--The fearful Anaconda!
     (All.) Yes! The fearful Anaconda!
  (Chorus.) Stop and ponder!--Anaconda!
            Big and fearful; big and fearful,
            Big and fearful Anaconda!

  Is not that the Rebel South?
  Yes! that is the Rebel South.
  Arn't they rather down in month?
     (All.) Yes! they're rather down in mouth!
  (Chorus.) Rebel South, down in mouth,
            Stop and ponder!--Anaconda!
            Big and fearful, &c, &c.

  Is not that the traitor DAVIS?
  Yes! that is the traitor DAVIS!
  Don't he wish he could enslave us?
     (All.) Yes! he wanted to enslave us!
  (Chorus.) Traitor DAVIS, can't enslave us.
            Rebel South, down in mouth,
            Stop and ponder!--Anaconda!
            Big and fearful, &c. &c.

  Isn't that the gallows high there?
  Yes! that is the gallows high there!
  And JEFF DAVIS that I spy there?
     (All.) 'Tis JEFF DAVIS that you spy there.
  (Chorus.) Hanging high there, DAVIS spy there.
            Traitor DAVIS, you enslave us!
            Rebel South, down in mouth,
            Stop and ponder!--Anaconda!
            Big and fearful, big and fearful,
            BIG AND FEARFUL ANACONDA!

       *       *       *       *       *

Our ever-welcome New Haven friend re-appears this month, with the
following jest:--

    The other day lawyer JONES, of Hartford, Conn., wrote a letter
    to my friend PLOPP, whom he supposed to be in Hartford at the
    time. The missive was forwarded to PLOPP, who is in Newport. It
    requested him to 'step in and settle.' PLOPP replied:

    My dear JONES:--

    Yours of 10th is rec'd. I reply,--

    1st. I can't step in, because I am not in Hartford.

    2d. I can't settle, because I am not in the least riled.

    3d. I notice you spell Hartford without a _t._ This is an error.
    Allow me, as per example, to suggest the correct orthography, to
    wit, Hartford.

    I shall always he glad to hear from you.

    Yours,

    I. PLOPP.

       *       *       *       *       *

The present aspect of the great question is well set forth by a
correspondent, 'LEILA LEE,' in the following sketch:--

    OUR OLD PUMP.

    The writer was once placed in circumstances of peculiar
    interest, where a word in season was greatly needed, and that
    word was not spoken, because it would have been thought unseemly
    that it should fall from the lips of a woman. Our supply of
    water had failed. The well was deep, and, like Jacob's well,
    many had been in the habit of coming thither to draw. My father
    had called in advisers, men of experience, and they decided that
    the lower part of the pump was rotten, and must be removed. It
    had probably stood there more than fifty years, and had been so
    useful in its day, that it was like an old and familiar friend.

    The work was commenced, and all the family stood by the closed
    window, the children's faces pressed close to the glass, as
    with eager eyes we all watched the heavy machinery erected over
    the old well. A mother came out of a neighboring house, and
    stood with a babe in her arms to see the work. A large rope was
    firmly placed around the pump, and made fast to the derrick.
    Then came the tug of war, and with a long pull, a strong pull,
    and a pull all together, the wooden pump rose up gradually from
    its hiding-place of years.

    'Oh, mother! mother!' I exclaimed; 'see, the derrick is not long
    enough to raise the pump out of the well! Why don't they saw it
    off, and take out the old pump in two or three pieces?'

    Just then papa screamed to Mrs. Rice, 'Run out of the way,
    quick, with your baby!'

    There stood all the workmen in dismay. What was to be done? My
    father had no idea that he had undertaken such a tremendous job,
    and now he was in great perplexity. Who, indeed, could have
    believed that the well was deep enough to hold a pump of such
    immense size as this, that had become so old and rotten? Oh, for
    ropes longer and stronger! Oh, for muscle and nerve! Oh, for men
    of herculean strength to meet this terrible crisis! At that
    moment, a timely suggestion, from any quarter, would have been
    welcome. But, even then, it might have been too late; for the
    pump fell with a tremendous crash, carrying with it all the
    machinery. Papa fell upon the ground, but the derrick had safely
    passed over him, prostrating the fences, and endangering the
    lives of the workmen.

    This scene, which was soon almost forgotten, is recalled by the
    fearful crisis that is now upon us. While we rejoice in our
    recent victories, and believe that this wicked rebellion will
    soon be subdued, we must rejoice with trembling, so long as
    SLAVERY, the acknowledged _casus belli_, still remains. The
    unsightly monster, in all its rottenness and deformity, is drawn
    up from the hiding-place of ages, and it can no more be restored
    to its former _status_, than, at the will of the workmen, our
    old pump could be thrust back, when, suspended in the air, it
    threatened their destruction. God forbid that our rulers should
    desire it! What, then, is to be done? No giant mind has yet been
    found to grapple successfully with this great evil--no body of
    men who can concentrate a moral power sufficient to remove this
    worn-out system, without endangering some interest of vital
    importance to our beloved country.

    Zion must now lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes, for
    the wisdom of the wise has become foolishness, that God alone
    may be exalted. He will surely bring down every high thought,
    and every vain imagination, and his own people must learn what
    it is 'to receive the kingdom of God as little children.' How
    shall liberty be proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of
    the land, to all the inhabitants thereof, and, in obedience to
    the will of God, this year become a year of jubilee to the poor
    and oppressed of our nation? How shall the emancipation of
    slavery conduce to the best interest of the master, no less than
    to the happiness of the slave?

    Probably some very simple solution will be given to this
    question, in answer to the earnest cry of God's people. Should
    it please him to hide this thought for the crisis from the wise
    and prudent, and reveal it unto babes, God grant that it may be
    in our hearts to respond, 'Even so, Father, for so it seemeth
    good in thy sight.'

       *       *       *       *       *

The simple solution has already been begun by our Executive, in
recognizing the _principle_--its extraordinary advance among all classes
will soon fully develop it. In illustration of this we quote a letter
which the editor of the New Haven _Journal and Courier_ vouches to come
from an officer in the navy, known to him:--

    From what we see and know of the operations of the rebels in
    this part of the South (the Southern coast, where he has been
    stationed), and from what we see perfidious Englishmen doing for
    the rebels, we are fast becoming strong abolitionists. We feel
    that _now_ Slavery must receive its death-blow, and be destroyed
    forever from the country. You would be surprised to see the
    change going on in the minds of officers in our service, who
    have been great haters of abolitionists; and the Southerners in
    our navy are the most bitter toward those who have made slavery
    the great cause of war. They freely express the opinion that the
    whole system must be abolished, and even our old captain, who is
    a native of Tennessee, and who has hitherto insisted that the
    abolitionists of the North brought on this war, said last night,
    'If England continues to countenance the _institution_, I hope
    our government will put arms in the hands of the slaves, and
    that slavery will now be the destruction of the whole South, or
    of the rebels in the South.' He further said, 'The slave-holder
    has, by the tacit consent and aid of England, brought on the
    most unjustifiable, iniquitous and barbarous war ever known in
    the history of the world.'

Too far and too fast--it is not Abolition, or the good of the black, but
Emancipation, or the benefit of the _white_ man, which is really
progressing so rapidly with the American people. But whatever causes of
agitation are at work, whether on limited or general principles of
philanthropy and political economy, one thing is at least certain--the
day of the triumph of free labor is dawning, while the cause of progress

    'Careers with thunder speed along!'

       *       *       *       *       *

It is almost a wonder that the late offer of the king of Siam to stock
this land with elephants was not jumped at, when one remembers the
American national fondness for the animal, and how copiously our popular
orators and poets allude to a sight of the monster. Among the latest
elephantine tales which we have encountered is the following, from our
New Haven correspondent:--

    Dr. H., of this pleasant city of Elms, has been noted for many
    years for always driving the gentlest and most sober, but at the
    same time the most fearfully 'homely' of horses. His steeds will
    always stand wherever he pleases to leave them, but they have
    rather a venerable and woful aspect, that renders them anything
    but pleasant objects to the casual observer. A few years ago
    there came a caravan to town, and several horses were badly
    frightened by the elephants, so that quite a number of accidents
    took place. A day or two after, old Dr. Knight met Dr. H., and
    speaking of the accidents, Dr. Knight remarked that he had not
    dared to take his horse out while the procession was passing
    through the streets. 'Oh, ho!' said Dr. H., 'why, I took my mare
    and drove right up alongside of them, and she wasn't the least
    bit scared!'

    'Hum--yes,' says Dr. K., '_but how did the elephant stand it_?'

       *       *       *       *       *

By particular request we find room for the following:--

    Hon. ---- then read his Poem entitled the 'Boulder,' which must
    be heard before we can form an idea of the genius of the poet.
    First we are reminded of the style of the sweet songs of
    Pherimorz as his enchanting strains fell upon the enraptured
    soul of the fair Lady of the Lake. Then away, on painted wings
    of gratified imagination, is the mind carried to the zephyr
    wooings of the dying sunset, over the elevated brow of the dark
    Maid of the Forest, as she reclines upon her couch of eagles'
    feathers, and down from angles wings, hearing the last whisper
    of the falling echo from the world of sound.

    Whether the wild chaos of storm and whirlwind which madly raged
    over the benighted earth before 'light was,' rushed to the dark
    caverns where the fettered earthquake lay, when order was
    demanded by the Father of Lights, we can not tell; but surely it
    is a pleasing thought for the mind engulfed in the unfathomed
    darkness of uncreated light, to be brought out and suffered to
    rest on the peaceful bosom of the new creation. Whether 'the
    world that then was' was overflown and perished by the causes
    set forth, we can not tell. We regret that we can not now give a
    more extended and particular notice of this poem; let us hope
    that ere long we may enjoy the delight of reading its printed
    form.

That must indeed have been a poem which could inspire _such_ poetry in
others.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Boston _Courier_ published, over the signature of 'MIDDLESEX,'
during the months of February and March, a number of articles entitled,
_Through the Gulf States_. So far as we have examined and compared the
series, it appears to be a literal reprint, with a few trivial
alterations of dates and statistics, of the _Letters from the Gulf
States_, originally published in the _Knickerbocker New York Monthly
Magazine_, in 1847.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE KNICKERBOCKER

FOR 1862.


In the beginning of the last year, when its present proprietors assumed
control of the Knickerbocker, they announced their determination to
spare no pains to place it in its true position as the leading
_literary_ Monthly in America. When rebellion had raised a successful
front, and its armies threatened the very existence of the Republic, it
was impossible to permit a magazine, which in its circulation reached
the best intellects in the land, to remain insensible or indifferent to
the dangers which threatened the Union. The proprietors accordingly gave
notice, that it would present in its pages, forcible expositions with
regard to the great question of the times,--_how to preserve the_ UNITED
STATUS OF AMERICA _in their integrity and unity_. How far this pledge
has been redeemed the public must judge. It would, however, be mere
affectation to ignore the seal of approbation which has been placed on
these efforts. The proprietors gratefully acknowledge this, and it has
led them to embark in a fresh undertaking, as already announced,--the
publication of the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, devoted to Literature and
National Policy; in which magazine, those who have sympathized with the
political opinions recently set forth in the KNICKERBOCKER, will find
the same views more fully enforced and maintained by the ablest and most
energetic minds in America.

The KNICKERBOCKER, while it will continue firmly pledged to the cause of
the Union, will henceforth be more earnestly devoted to literature, and
will leave no effort untried to attain the highest excellence in those
departments of letters which it has adopted as specialties.

The January number commences its thirtieth year. With such antecedents
as it possesses, it seems unnecessary to make any especial pledges as to
its future, but it may not be amiss to say that it will be the aim of
its conductors to make it more and more deserving of the liberal support
it has hitherto received. The same eminent writers who have contributed
to it during the past year will continue to enrich its pages, and in
addition, contributions will appear from others of the highest
reputation, as well as from many rising authors. While it will, as
heretofore, cultivate the genial and humorous, it will also pay
assiduous attention to the higher departments of art and letters, and
give fresh and spirited articles on such biographical, historical,
scientific, and general subjects as are of especial interest to the
public.

In the January issue will commence a series of papers by CHARLES GODFREY
LELAND, entitled "SUNSHINE IN LETTERS," which will be found interesting
to scholars as well as to the general reader, and in an early number
will appear the first chapters of a NEW and INTERESTING NOVEL,
descriptive of American life and character.

According to the unanimous opinion of the American press, the
KNICKERBOCKER has been greatly improved during the past year, _and it is
certain that at no period of its long career did it ever attract more
attention or approbation_. Confident of their enterprise and ability,
the proprietors are determined that it shall be still more eminent in
excellence, containing all that is best of the old, and being
continually enlivened by what is most brilliant of the new.

TERMS.--Three dollars a year, in advance. Two copies for Four Dollars
and fifty cents. Three copies for Six dollars. Subscribers remitting
Three Dollars will receive as a premium, (post-paid,) a copy of Richard
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J.R. GILMORE, 532 Broadway, New York.

C.T. EVANS, General Agent, 532 Broadway, New York.

All communications and contributions, intended for the Editorial
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Newspapers copying the above and giving the Magazine monthly notices,
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       *       *       *       *       *

PROSPECTUS

OF

The Continental Monthly.


There are periods in the world's history marked by extraordinary and
violent crises, sudden as the breaking forth of a volcano, or the
bursting of a storm on the ocean. These crises sweep away in a moment
the landmarks of generations. They call out fresh talent, and give to
the old a new direction. It is then that new ideas are born, new
theories developed. Such periods demand fresh exponents, and new men for
expounders.

This Continent has lately been convulsed by an upheaving so sudden and
terrible that the relations of all men and all classes to each other are
violently disturbed, and people look about for the elements with which
to sway the storm and direct the whirlwind. Just at present, we do not
know what all this is to bring forth; but we do know that great results
MUST flow from such extraordinary commotions.

At a juncture so solemn and so important, there is a special need that
the intellectual force of the country should be active and efficient. It
is a time for great minds to speak their thoughts boldly, and to take
position as the advance guard. To this end, there is a special want
unsupplied. It is that of an Independent Magazine, which shall be open
to the first intellects of the land, and which shall treat the issues
presented, and to be presented to the country, in a tone no way tempered
by partisanship, or influenced by fear, favor, or the hope of reward;
which shall seize and grapple with the momentous subjects that the
present disturbed state of affairs heave to the surface, and which CAN
NOT be laid aside or neglected.

To meet this want, the undersigned have commenced, under the editorial
charge of CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, the publication of a new Magazine,
devoted to Literature and National Policy.

In POLITICS, it will advocate, with all the force at its command,
measures best adapted to preserve the oneness and integrity of these
United States. It will never yield to the idea of any disruption of this
Republic, peaceably or otherwise; and it will discuss with honesty and
impartiality what must be done to save it. In this department, some of
the most eminent statesmen of the time will contribute regularly to its
pages.

In LITERATURE, it will be sustained by the best writers and ablest
thinkers of this country.

Among its attractions will be presented, in an early number, a NEW
SERIAL of American Life, by RICHARD B. KIMBALL, ESQ., the very popular
author of "The Revelations of Wall Street," "St. Leger," &c. A series of
papers by HON. HORACE GREELEY, embodying the distinguished author's
observations on the growth and development of the Great West. A series
of articles by the author of "Through the Cotton States," containing the
result of an extended tour in the seaboard Slave States, just prior to
the breaking out of the war, and presenting a startling and truthful
picture of the real condition of that region. No pains will be spared to
render the literary attractions of the CONTINENTAL both brilliant and
substantial. The lyrical or descriptive talents of the most eminent
_literati_ have been promised to its pages; and nothing will be admitted
which will not be distinguished by marked energy, originality, and solid
strength. Avoiding every influence or association partaking of clique or
coterie, it will be open to all contributions of real merit, even from
writers differing materially in their views; the only limitation
required being that of devotion to the Union, and the only standard of
acceptance that of intrinsic excellence.

The EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT will embrace, in addition to vigorous and
fearless comments on the events of the times, genial gossip with the
reader on all current topics, and also devote abundant space to those
racy specimens of American wit and humor, without which there can be no
perfect exposition of our national character. Among those who will
contribute regularly to this department may be mentioned the name of
CHARLES F. BROWNE ("Artemus Ward"), from whom we have promised an
entirely new and original series of SKETCHES OF WESTERN LIFE.

The CONTINENTAL will be liberal and progressive, without yielding to
chimeras and hopes beyond the grasp of the age; and it will endeavor to
reflect the feelings and interests of the American people, and to
illustrate both their serious and humorous peculiarities. In short, no
pains will be spared to make it the REPRESENTATIVE MAGAZINE of the time.

TERMS:--Three Dollars per year, in advance (postage paid by the
Publishers;) Two Copies for Five Dollars; Three Copies for Six Dollars,
(posture unpaid); Eleven copies for Twenty Dollars, (postage unpaid).
Single numbers can be procured of any News-dealer in the United States.
The KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE and the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY will be furnished
for one year at FOUR DOLLARS.

Appreciating the importance of literature to the soldier on duty, the
publisher will send the CONTINENTAL, _gratis_, to any regiment in active
service, on application being made by its Colonel or Chaplain; he will
also receive subscriptions from those desiring to furnish it to soldiers
in the ranks at half the regular price; but in such cases it must be
mailed from the office of publication.

J.R. GILMORE, 110 Tremont Street, Boston.

CHARLES T. EVANS, at G.P. PUTNAM'S, 532 Broadway, New York, is
authorized to receive Subscriptions in that City.

N.B.--Newspapers publishing this Prospectus, and giving the
CONTINENTAL monthly notices, will be entitled to an exchange.




Number 5. 25 Cents.


The Continental Monthly


Devoted to Literature and National Policy.

       *       *       *       *       *

MAY, 1862.

       *       *       *       *       *

NEW-YORK AND BOSTON:

J.R. GILMORE, 532 BROADWAY, NEW-YORK,

AND 110 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON.

NEW-YORK: HENRY DEXTER AND ROSS & TOUSEY.

PHILADELPHIA: T.B. CALLENDER AND A. WINCH.




CONTENTS.

NO. V.

       *       *       *       *       *

What Shall we do with it? Hon. John W. Edmonds

A Philosophical Bankrupt

The Molly O'Molly Papers

All Together

A True Story. Miss McFarlane

Maccaroni and Canvas. Henry P. Leland

Fairies

John Bright. George M. Towle

The Ante-Norse Discoverers of America. C.G. Leland

State Rights

Roanoke Island. Frederic Kidder

A Story of Mexican Life

Changed

Hamlet a Fat Man. Carlton Edwards

The Knights of the Golden Circle

Columbia's Safety

Ursa Major. H.B. Brownwell

Fugitives at the West. S.C. Blackwell

The Education to be

Guerdon

Literary Notices

Editor's Table

       *       *       *       *       *

In the next Number will be commenced a new Novel of American Life, by
R.B. Kimball, Esq., entitled 'WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?' an account of the life
and conduct of Hiram Meeker, one of the leading men in the mercantile
community, and 'a bright and shining light' in the Church, recounting
what he did, and how he made his money.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: An incident that occurred at Palmyra, in Marion County, of
which the writer was a witness, may be given as a fair illustration of
Benton's insulting and insufferable manner in this celebrated canvass.
During the delivery of his speech, in the densely-crowded court-house, a
prominent county politician, who was opposed to Benton, arose and put a
question to him. 'Come here,' said Benton, in his abrupt and
authoritative tone. The man with difficulty made his way through the
mass, and advanced till he stood immediately in front of Benton. 'Who
are you, sir?' inquired the swelling and indignant senator. The citizen
gave his well-known name. 'Who?' demanded Benton. The name was
distinctly repeated. And then, without replying to the question that had
been proposed, but with an air of disdain and annihilating contempt that
no man in America but Benton could assume, he proceeded with his speech,
leaving his interrogator to retire from his humiliating embarrassment as
best he could. At the close of the address, some of his friends
expressed surprise to Benton that he had not known the man that
interrupted him. 'Know him!' said he; 'I knew him well enough. I only
meant to make him stand with his hat in his hand, and tell me his name,
like a nigger.']

[Footnote B: See Historical Mag., Vol. 4, p. 230.]

[Footnote C: Among the cotton lately arrived from Port Royal was a
number of bales marked with the form of a coffin. It was the growth of
'Coffin's Island,' which is usually of the highest grade.]

[Footnote D: The palmetto is a straight, tall tree, with a tuft of
branches and palm leaves at its top. The new growth is the centre as it
first expands somewhat resembles a cabbage. It is often used for boiling
and pickling. The wood of the tree is spongy, and is used for building
wharves, as it is impervious to the sea-worm. It is said that a cannon
ball will not penetrate it. It is a paltry emblem for a State flag, as
its characteristics accurately indicate pride and poverty. When used for
wharves, it, however, becomes a veritable '_Mudsill_.']

[Footnote E: Before 1700 a colony from Dorchester, Mass., made a
settlement on Ashley River, and named it for their native town;
afterwards, they sent an offshoot and planted the town of Midway, in
Georgia. For more than a century they kept up their Congregational
Church, with many of their New England institutions. Their descendants
in both States have been famed for their enterprise, industry, and moral
qualities down to the present day.]

[Footnote F: The Barnwells can trace their pedigree back about one
hundred and fifty years to a Col. Barnwell who commanded in an Indian
war. Subsequently the name appears on the right side in the Revolution.
This is a long period to trace ancestry in Carolina; for while nearly
all New England families can trace back to the Puritans, more than two
hundred years, the lordly Carolinians generally get among the 'mudsills'
in three or four generations at the farthest.]

[Footnote G: Some thirty years ago, R. Barnwell Smith made a figure in
Congress by his ultra nullification speeches, and was then considered
the greatest fire-eater of them all. He was not 'to the manor born,' but
was the son of a Gen. Smith, who founded and resided in the small and
poverty-stricken town of Smithville, N.C., at the mouth of the Cape Fear
River. As his paternal fortune was small, and some family connection
existed with the Barnwells, he emigrated to Beaufort, and there
practiced as a lawyer. He was followed by two brothers, who had the same
profession. He was the first who openly advocated secession in Congress.
They have all been leading politicians and managers of the Charleston
_Mercury_, which, by its mendacity and constant abuse of the North, and
its everlasting laudations of Southern wealth and power, has done much
to bring on the present war.

Desirous to stand better with the aristocracy, some years ago the family
sunk the plebeian patronymic of Smith and adopted that of Rhett, a name
known in South Carolina a century previous.]

[Footnote H: During Nullification times the Fullers were Union men.
Doctor Thomas Fuller, who, a short time since, set fire to his buildings
and cotton crop to prevent their falling into Yankee hands, is well
known as a kind-hearted physician, and better things might have been
expected of him.

His brother is a celebrated Baptist clergyman in Baltimore. He was
formerly a lawyer, and afterwards preached to an immense congregation,
mainly of slaves, in his native place.]

[Footnote I: Many years ago the Elliots were staunch Union men, and
Stephen Elliot, a gentleman of talent, wrote many very able arguments
against nullification and in favor of the Union. He always thought that
Port Royal must some day be the great naval and commercial depot of the
South. He may yet live to see his former anticipations realized, though
not in the way he desired.]

[Footnote J: An Inquiry laid by me it few years ago before the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania elicited information as to several of
these 'gates' in that State. I have not the work by me, but I believe
that FALES DUNLAP, Esq., of New York, asserts on Rabbinical authority,
in an appendix to _Sod or the Mysteries_, that the Hebrew word commonly
translated as 'passover' should be rendered 'passing through.']

[Footnote K: _Robertson's Lectures and Addresses._ Boston: Ticknor &
Fields.]

[Footnote L: The negro whippers and field overseers.]

[Footnote M: Referring to the common practice of bathing the raw and
bleeding backs of the punished slaves with a strong solution of salt and
water.]

[Footnote N: _Words to the West. Knickerbocker Magazine_, Oct., 1861.]

[Footnote O: _Continental Magazine_, March, 1862. See article, _Southern
Aids to the North_.]

[Footnote P:

  Don't speak of quacks; just take your dose;
  Why should you try to mend it,
  If Doctor H---- concocts the pill,
  And _Parsons_ recommend it?

See _Amer. Jour. of Sci._, Vol. xxx., 2d Scr., pages 10-12.]