PART V

.

There, you have my story exactly as it is related, on winter evenings, to impress ideas of wisdom on the minds of the young Norwegians. Between the wife of Gudbrand and the wife of Peter the Graybeard they must choose, at their own risk and peril.

'The choice is an easy one,' says an amiable lady-friend of mine, who has just become a grandmother. 'Gudbrand's wife is the one to imitate, not only on account of her prudence, but for her worth. You men are much more amusing than you fancy: when your own self-esteem is at stake, you love truth and justice about as much as bats love a glare of light. The greatest enjoyment these gentlemen experience is in pardoning us when they are guilty, and in generously offering to overlook our errors when they alone are in the wrong. The wisest thing we can do is to let them talk, and to pretend to believe them. That is the way to tame these proud, magnificent creatures, and, by pursuing the plan perseveringly, one may lead them about by the nose, like Italian oxen.

'But, aunty,' says a fair young thing beside us, 'one can't keep quiet all the time. Not to yield when you're not in the wrong, is a right.'

'And when you're wrong, my dear niece, to yield is a royal pleasure. What woman ever abandoned this exalted privilege? We are all somewhat akin to that amiable lady who, when all other arguments had been exhausted, crushed her husband with a magnificent look, as she said,--

'"Sir, I give you my word of honor that I am in the right."

'What could he reply? Can one contradict the veracity of one's own wife? And what is strength fit for if not to yield to weakness? The poor husband hung his head, and did not utter another word. But to keep still is not to acknowledge defeat, and _silence is not peace_!'

'Madame,' says a young married woman, 'it seems to me that there is no choice left; when a woman loves her husband all is easy; it is a pleasure to think and act as he does.'

'Yes, my child, that is the secret of the comedy. Every one knows it, but no one avails herself of it. So long as even the last glow of the honey-moon illuminates the chamber of a young couple, all goes along of itself. So long as the husband hastens to anticipate every wish, we have merit and sense enough to let him do it. But at a later moment, the

## scene changes. How, then, are we to retain our sway? Youth and beauty

decay, and the charm of wit and intelligence is not sufficient. In order to remain mistresses of our homes, we must practice the most divine of all the virtues--gentleness--a blind, dumb, deaf gentleness of demeanor, that pardons everything for the sake of pardoning.'

To love a great deal,--to love unconditionally, so as to be loved a little in return,--that is the whole moral of the story of Gudbrand.

* * * * *

THE HUGUENOT FAMILIES IN AMERICA.

II.

The brave Admiral Coligny first conceived the plan of a colony in America for the safety of his persecuted Huguenot brethren of France. Such an enterprise was undertaken as early as the year 1555, with two vessels, having on board mechanics, laborers, and gentlemen, and a few ministers of the Reformed faith. They entered the great river which the Portuguese had already named _Rio Janeiro_, and built a fort, calling it 'Coligny.' Here they sought a new country, where they might adore God in freedom. Unforeseen difficulties, however, discouraged these bold Frenchmen, and the pious expedition failed, some dispersing in different directions, while others regained the shores of France with great difficulty. A second attempt was also unsuccessful. Coligny, in 1562, obtained permission from Charles IX. to found a Protestant colony in Florida. Two ships left Dieppe with emigrants, and, reaching the American shores, entered a large, deep river called _Port Royal_, which name it still retains, and is, by coincidence, the spot recently captured by the United States forces.[F] Fort Charles, in honor of the reigning king of France, was built near by, and in a fertile land of flowers, fruits, and singing birds. The country itself was called _Carolina_. Reduced to the most cruel extremities of famine and death, the remaining colonists returned to Europe.

Still undismayed by these two disastrous attempts, Coligny, the Huguenot leader, dispatched a third expedition of three vessels to our shores, making another attempt near the mouth of the St. John's River (Fort Caroline). Philip II. was then on the throne, and would not brook the heresy of the Huguenots, or Calvinism, in his American provinces. Priests, soldiers, and Jesuits were dispatched to Florida, where the new settlers, 'Frenchmen and Lutherans,' were destroyed in blood. Such was the melancholy issue of the earliest attempts to establish a Huguenot or Protestant settlement in North America. And nearly one hundred years before it was occupied by the English, Carolina, for an instant, as it were, was occupied by a band of Christian colonists, but, through the remorseless spirit of religious persecution, again fell under the dominion of the uncivilized savages. We refer to these earliest efforts as proper to the general historical connection of our subject, although not absolutely necessary to its investigation.

At the commencement of the seventeenth century, England, on her own behalf, took up the generous plans of Coligny. Possessing twelve colonies in America, when the edict of Nantes was revoked, that nation resolved here to offer peaceful homes to persecuted Huguenots from France. This mercy she had extended to them in England and Ireland; now her inviting American colonies were thrown open for the same generous purpose. Even before that insane and fatal measure of Louis XIV., the Revocation, and especially after the fall of brave La Rochelle, numerous Protestant fugitives, mostly from the western provinces of France, had already emigrated, for safety, to British America. In 1662 the French government made it a crime for the ship-owners of Rochelle to convey emigrants to any country or dependency of Great Britain. The fine for such an offence was ten livres to the king, nine hundred for charitable objects, three hundred to the palace chapel, one hundred for prisoners, and five hundred to the mendicant monks. One sea-captain, Brunet, was accused of having favored the escape of thirty-six young men, and condemned to return them within a year, or to furnish a legal certificate of their death, on pain of one thousand livres, with exemplary punishment.[G] It is imagined that these young voluntary Huguenot exiles emigrated to Massachusetts, from the fact that the same year when this strange cause was tried in France, Jean Touton, a French doctor, requested from the authorities of that colony the privilege of sojourning there. This favor was immediately granted; and from that period _Boston_ possessed establishments formed by Huguenots, which attracted new emigrants.

In 1679, Elie Nean, the head of an eminent family from the principality of Soubise, in Saintonge, reached that city. This refugee, sailing afterwards in his own merchant vessel for the island of Jamaica, was captured by a privateer, carried back to France, confined in the galleys, and only restored to his liberty through the intercession of Lord Portland.

One of the first acts of the Boston Huguenots was to settle a minister, giving him forty pounds a year, and increasing his salary afterwards. Surrounded by the savages on every side, they erected a fort, the traces of which, it is said, can still be seen, and now overgrown with roses, currant bushes, and other shrubbery. Mrs. Sigourney, herself the wife of a Huguenot descendant, during a visit to this time-honored spot, wrote the beautiful lines,--

'Green vine, that mantlest in thy fresh embrace Yon old gray rock, I hear that thou with them Didst brave the ocean surge. Say, drank thus from The dews of Languedoc? or slow uncoiled An infant fibre 'mid the faithful mold Of smiling Roussillon? Didst thou shrink From the fierce footsteps of fighting unto death At fair Rochelle? Hast thou no tale for me?'

Their fort did not render the French settlers safe from the murderous assaults of savage enemies. A.W. Johnson, with his three children, were massacred here by them; his wife was a sister of Mr. Andrew Sigourney, one of the earliest Huguenots. After this murderous attack the French Protestants deserted their forest home, repairing to Boston in 1696, where vestiges of their industry and agricultural taste long remained; to this day many of the pears retain their French names, and the region is celebrated for its excellence and variety of this delicious fruit. The Huguenots erected a church at Boston in 1686, and ten years afterwards received as pastor a refugee minister from France, named Diaillé.[H] The Rev. M. Lawrie is also mentioned as one of their pastors. But from official records we learn more of the Rev. Daniel Boudet, A.M. He was a native of France, born in 1652, and studied theology at Geneva. On the revocation, he fled to England, receiving holy orders from the Lord Bishop of London. In the summer of 1686 he accompanied the Huguenot emigrants to Massachusetts; and Cotton Mather speaks of him as a faithful minister 'to the French congregation at New Oxford, in the _Nipmog_ (Indian) counties.' This was New Oxford, near Boston. He labored for eight years, 'propagating the Christian faith,' both among the French and the Indians. He complains, as we do in our day, of the progress of the sale of rum among the savages,'_without order or measure_' (July 6, 1691). We shall learn more of him at New Rochelle, where he removed, probably, in 1695, and could preach to both English and French emigrants. Soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Joseph Dudley, with other proprietors, introduced into Massachusetts thirty French Protestant families, settling them on the easternmost part of the 'Oxford tract.'[I]

Massachusetts, peopled in part by the rigid Protestant Dissenters, naturally favored these new victims, persecuted by a church still more odious to them than that of England. Their sympathies were deeply excited by the arrival of the French exiles. The destitute were liberally relieved, the towns of Massachusetts making collections for this purpose, and also furnishing them with large tracts of land to cultivate. In 1686 the colony at Oxford thus received a noble grant of 11,000 acres; and other provinces followed the liberal example. Every traveler through New England has seen 'Faneuil Hall,' which has been called the 'Cradle of Liberty,' and where so many assemblages for the general good have been held. This noble edifice was presented to Boston, for patriotic purposes, by the son of a Huguenot.

Much of our knowledge concerning the Huguenots of New York has been obtained from the documentary papers at Albany. Some of the families, before the revocation, as early as the year 1625, reached the spot where the great metropolis now stands, then a Dutch settlement. The first birth in New Amsterdam, of European parents, was a daughter of George Jansen de Rapelje, of a Huguenot family which fled to Holland after the St. Bartholomew's massacre, and thence sailed for America. Her name was Sarah. Her father was a Walloon from the confines of France and Belgium, and settling on Long Island, at the _Waal-bogt_, or Walloon's Bay, became the father of that settlement. In 1639 his brother, Antonie Jansen de Rapelje, obtained a grant of one hundred 'morgens,' or nearly two hundred acres of land, opposite Coney Island, and commenced the settlement of Gravesend. Here most numerous and respectable descendants of this Walloon are met with to this day. Jansen de Rapelje, as he was called, was a man of gigantic strength and stature, and reputed to be a Moor by birth. This report, probably, arose from his adjunct of _De Salee_, the name under which his patent was granted; but it was a mistake; he was a native Walloon, and this suffix to his name, we doubt not, was derived from the river Saale, in France, and not Salee, or Fez, the old piratical town of Morocco. For many years after the Dutch dynasty, his farm at Gravesend continued to be known as Anthony Jansen's Bowery. The third brother of this family, William Jansen de Rapelje, was among the earliest settlers of Long Island and founders of Brooklyn. Singularly, the descendants of _Antonie_ have dropped the Rapelje, and retained the name of Jansen, or Johnson, as they are more commonly called. On the contrary, George's family have left off Jansen, and are now known as Rapelje or Rapelyea.

Most of the Huguenots who went to Ulster, N.Y., at first sought deliverance from persecutions among the Germans, and thence sailed for America. Ascending the Hudson, these emigrants landed at Wiltonyck, now Kingston, and were welcomed by the Hollanders, who had prepared the way in this wilderness for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. Here was a Reformed Dutch church, and Hermanus Blomm, its pastor, commissioned by the Classis of Amsterdam to preach 'both on water and on the land, and in all the neighborhood, but principally in _Esopus_.' This region, selected by the French Protestants for their future land, was like their own delightful native France for great natural beauties. Towards the east and west flowed the waters of the noble ever-rolling Hudson, while on the north the Shamangunk Mountains, the loftiest of our Fishkill monarchs, looked like pillars upon which the arch of heaven there rested. No streams can charm the eye more than those which enrich this region,--the Rosendale, far from the interior, the Walkill, with its rapid little falls, 'the foaming, rushing, warsteed-like' Esopus Creek, with the dashing, romantic Saugerties, fresh from the mountain-side. Both the Dutch and the French emigrants followed these beautiful rivers towards the south, and made their earliest settlements there. On these quiet and retired banks their ashes repose. Hallowed be their memories, virtues, and piety! In those regions thousands of their descendants now enjoy the rich and glorious patrimony which have followed their industry and frugality.

In the year 1663, the savages attacked Kingston and massacred a part of its inhabitants, slaying twenty-four, and took forty-five prisoners. The dominie, Blomin, escaped, and has left a description of the tragical event.[J] 'There lay,' he writes, 'the burnt and slaughtered bodies, together with those wounded by bullets and axes. The last agonies and the moans and lamentations were dreadful to hear.... The houses were converted into heaps of stones, so that I might say with Micah, "We are made desolate;" and with Jeremiah, "A piteous wail may go forth in his distress." With Paul I say, "Brothers, pray for us." I have every evening, during a whole month, offered up prayers with the congregation, on the four points of our fort, under the blue sky.... Many heathen have been slain, and full twenty-two of our people have been delivered out of their hands by our arms. The Lord our God will again bless our arms, and grant that the foxes who have endeavored to lay waste the vineyard of the Lord shall be destroyed.'

Among the prisoners were Catharine Le Fever, the wife of Louis Dubois, with three of their children. These were Huguenots; and a friendly Indian gave information where they could be found. The pursuers were directed to follow the Rondout, the Walkill, and then a third stream; and a small, bold band, with their knapsacks, rifles, and dogs, undertook the perilous journey. Towards evening, Dubois, in advance of the party, discovered the Indians within a few feet of him, and one was in the act of drawing his bow, but, missing its string, from fear or surprise, the Huguenot sprang forward and killed him with his sword, but without any alarm. The party then resolved to delay the attack until dark; at which hour the savages were preparing for slaughter one of their unfortunate captives, which was none other than the missing wife of Dubois himself. She had already been placed upon the funeral pile, and at this trying moment was singing a martyr's psalm, the strains of which had often cheered the pious Huguenots in days of the rack and bloody trials. The sacred notes moved the Indians, and they made signs to continue them, which she did, fortunately, until the approach of her deliverers. 'White man's dogs! white man's dogs!' was the first cry which alarmed the cruel foes. They fled instantly, taking their prisoners with them. Dubois calling his wife by name, she was soon restored to her anxious friends, with the other captives. At the moment of their rescue, the prisoners were preparing for the bloody sacrifice to savage cruelty, and singing the beautiful psalm of the 'Babylonish Captives.' Heaven heard those strains, and the deliverance came. During this fearful expedition the Ulster Huguenots first discovered the rich lowlands of Paltz.

This was the section which they selected for their homes, distant some eighty-five miles from New York, along the west shores of the Hudson, and extending from six to ten miles in the interior. It was called _New Paltz_, and its patent obtained from Gov. Andreas; twelve of their brethren were religiously selected by the emigrants as the _Patentees_, and known by the appellation of the '_Duzine_,' or the twelve patentees, and these were regarded as the patriarchs in this little Christian community. A list of the original purchasers has been preserved, and were as follows: Louis Dubois, Christian Dian, since Walter Deyo, Abraham Asbroucq, now spelt Hasbrouck, Andros Le Fever, often Le Febre and Le Febore, John Brook, said to have been changed into Hasbrouck, Peter Dian, or Deyo, Louis Bevier, Anthony Cuspell, Abraham Du Bois, Hugo Freir, Isaac Dubois, Simon Le Fever.

A copy of this agreement with the Indians still exists, and the antiquarian may find it among the State records at Albany. It is a curious document, with the signatures of both parties, the patentees' written in the antique French character, with the hieroglyphic marks of the Indians. A few Indian goods--kettles, axes, beads, bars of lead, powder, casks of wine, blankets, needles, awls, and a 'clean pipe'--were the insignificant articles given, about two centuries ago, for these lands, now proverbially rich, and worth millions of dollars. The treaty was mutually executed, according to the records from which we quote, on the 20th of May, 1677.

The patentees immediately took possession of their newly-acquired property, their first conveyances being three wagons, which would be rare curiosities in our day. The wheels were very low, shaped like old-fashioned spinning-wheels, with short spokes, wide rim, and without any iron. The settlers were three days on their way from Kingston to New Paltz, a distance of only sixteen miles. The place of their first encampment is still known by the name of '_Tri Cor_,' or three cars, in honor of these earliest conveyances. Soon, however, they selected a more elevated site, on the banks of the beautiful Walkill, where the village now stands. Log houses were erected not far apart, for mutual defence, and afterwards stone edifices, with port-holes, some of which still remain.

* * * * *

MACCARONI AND CANVAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Rome is the cradle of art,--which accounts for its sleeping there.

Nature, however, is nowhere more wide awake than it is in and around this city: therefore, Mr. James Caper, animal painter, determined to repose there for several months.

The following sketches correctly describe his Roman life.

ARRIVAL IN ROME.

It was on an Autumn night that the traveling carriage in which sat James Caper arrived in Rome; and as he drove through that fine street, the Corso, he saw coming towards him a two-horse open carriage, filled with Roman girls of the working class (_minenti_). Dressed in their picturesque costumes, bonnetless, their black hair tressed with flowers, they stood up, waving torches, and singing in full voice one of those songs in which you can go but few feet, metrically speaking, without meeting _amore_. And then another and another carriage, with flashing torches and sparkling-eyed girls. It was one of the turnouts of the _minenti_; they had been to Monte Testaccio, had drank all the wine they could pay for; and, with a prudence our friend Caper could not sufficiently admire, he noticed that the women were in separate carriages from the men. It was the Feast Day of Saint Crispin, and all the cobblers, or artists in leather, as they call themselves, were keeping it up bravely.

'Eight days to make a pair of shoes?' he once asked a shoemaker. 'Si, Signore, there are three holidays in that time.' Argument unanswerable.

As the carriages rolled by, Caper determined to observe the festivals.

The next day our artist entered his name in his banker's register, and had the horror of seeing it mangled to 'Jams Scraper' in the list of arrivals published in the _Giornale di Roma_. For some time after his arrival in Rome, he was pained to receive cards, circulars, notices, letters, advertisements, etc., from divers tradesmen, all directed to the above name. In revenge, he here gives them a public airing. One firm announces,--

'Manafactury of Remain Seltings, Mosaïques, Cameas, Medalls, Erasofines, &c.' (Erasofines is the Roman-English for crucifixes.) And on a slip of paper, handsomely printed, is an announcement that they make 'Romain Perles of all Couloueurs'--there's color for you!

A tailor, under the head of '_Ici un parle Français_,' prints, 'Merchant _and_ tailor. Cloths (clothes?) Reddy maid, Mercery Roman; Scarfs, etc.'

Another, 'Roman Artickles Manofactorer'--hopes to be 'honnoured with our Custom, (American?), and flaters himsself we will find things to our likings.' Everything but the English, you know--that is not exactly to our liking. Another, from a lady, reads,--

_A VENTRE!_

_une Galérie decomposée de 300 d'Anciens Maitres, et de l'école romaine peintres sur bois, sur cuivre et sur toit, &c._

_Ventre_ for _Vendre_ is bad enough, but a 'gallery of decomposed old masters and of Roman school painters on wood and on the roof,' when it was intended to say 'A gallery composed of 300 of the old masters--' But let us leave it untranslated; it is already _decomposée_.

A SHORT WALK.

Mr. Caper having indignantly rejected the services of all professors of the guiding art or 'commissionaires,' slowly sauntered out of his hotel the morning after his arrival, and, map in hand, made his way to the tower on the Capitoline Hill. Threading several narrow, dirty streets, he at last went through one where in one spot there was such a heap of garbage and broccoli stumps that he raised his eyes to see how high up it reached against the walls of a palace; and there read, in black letters,

_Immondezzaio_;

literally translated, A Place for Dirt. On the opposite wall, which was the side of a church, he saw a number of black placards on which were large white skulls and crossbones, and while examining these, a bare-headed, brown-bearded, stout Franciscan monk passed him. From a passing glance, Caper saw he looked good-natured, and so, hailing him, asked why the skulls and bones were pasted there.

'Who knows?' answered the monk. 'I came this morning from the Campagna; this is the first time in all my life I have been in this magnificent city.'

'Can you tell me what that word means up there?' said Caper, pointing to _immondezzaio_.

'Signore, I can not read.'

'Perhaps it is the name of the street, maybe of the city?'

'It must be so,' answered the priest, 'unless it's a sign of a lottery office, or a caution against blasphemy up and down the pavement. Those are the only signs we have in the country, except the government salt and cigar shops.' ... He took a snuff-box from a pocket in his sleeve, and with a bow offered a pinch to Mr. Caper. This accepted, they bid each other profoundly farewell.

'There goes a brick!' remarked the traveler.

Arrived at the entrance-door to the tower of the Capitoline Hill, James Caper first felt in one pocket for a silver piece and in the other for a match-box, and finding them both there, rang the bell, and then mounted to the top of the tower. Lighting a _zigarro scelto_ or papal cigar, he leaned on both elbows on the parapet, and gazed long and fixedly over the seven-hilled city.

'And this,' soliloquized he, _is_ Rome. Many a day have I been kept in school without my dinner because I was not able to parse thee idly by, _Roma_--Rome--noun of the first declension, feminine gender, that a quarter of a century ago caused me punishment, I have thee now literally under foot, and (knocking his cigar) throw ashes on thy head.

'My mission in this great city is not that of a picture-peddler or art student. I come to investigate the eating, drinking, sleeping arrangements of the Eternal City--its wine more than its vinegar, its pretty girls more than its galleries, its _cafés_ more than its churches. I see from here that I have a fine field to work in. Down there, clambering over the fallen ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars, is a donkey. Could one have a finer opportunity to see in this a moral and twist a tail? From those fallen stones, Memory-glorious old architect--rears a fabric wondrously beautiful; peoples it with eidolons white and purple-robed, and gleaming jewel-gemmed; or, iron armed, glistening with flashing light from polished steel--heroes and slaves, conquerors and conquered; my blood no longer flows to the slow, jerking measure of a nineteenth-century piece of mechanism, but freely, fully, and completely. Hurrah, my blood is up! dark, liquid eyes; black, flowing locks; strange, pleasing perfumes are around me. There is a rush as of a strong south wind through a myriad of floating banners, and I am borne onward through triumphal arches, past pillared temples, under the walls of shining palaces, into the Coliseum....

'Pray, and can you tell me--if that pile of d----d old rubbish--down there, you know--is the Forum--for I do not--see it in Murray--though I'm sure--I have looked very clearly--and Murray you know--has everything down in him--that a traveler....

'A commercial traveler?' ... interrupted Mr. Caper, speaking slowly, and looking coolly into the eyes of the blackguard Bagman.... 'The ruins you see there are those of the Forum. Good morning.'

MODERN ART.

'Lucrezia Borgia at the Tomb of Don Giovanni! You see,' said the artist, 'I have chosen a good name for my painting, ... and it's a great point gained. Forty or fifty years ago, some of those fluffy old painters would have had Venus worshiping at the shrine of Bacchus.'

'Whereas, you think it would be more appropriate for her to worship Giove?' ... asked Capar.

'No _sir_!... I run dead against classic art: it's a drug. I tried my hand at it when I first came to Rome. Will you believe me, I never sold a picture. Why that very painting'--pointing to the Borgia--'is on a canvas on which I commenced The Subjugation of Adonis.'

'H'm! You find the class of Middle Age subjects most salable then?'

'I should think I did. Something with brilliant colors, stained glass windows, armor, and all that, sells well. The only trouble is, ultramarine costs dear, although Dovizzelli's is good and goes a great ways. I sold a picture to an Ohio man last week for two hundred dollars, and it is a positive fact there was twenty _scudi_ (dollars) worth of blue in it. But the infernal Italians spoil trade here. Why, that fellow who paints Guide's Speranzas up there at San Pietro in Vineulo is as smart as a Yankee. He has found out that Americans from Rhode Island take to the Speranza, because Hope is the motto of their State, and he turns out copies hand over fist. He has a stencil plate of the face, and three or four fellows to paint for him; one does the features of the face, another the hand, and another rushes in the background. Why, sir, those paintings can be sold for five _scudi_, and money made on them at that. But then what are they? Wretched daubs not worth house-room. Have you any thoughts of purchasing paintings?'

Caper smiled gently.... 'I had not when I first came to Rome, but how long I may continue to think so is doubtful. The temptations' (glancing at the Borgia) 'are very great.' ...

'Rome,' ... interrupted the artist, ... 'is the cradle of art.'

A ROOM HUNT.

Caper, on his first arrival in Home, went to the Hotel Europe, in the Piazza di Spagna. There for two weeks he lived like a _milordo_. He formed many acquaintances among the resident colony of American artists, and was received by them with much kindness. Some of the mercenary ones of their number, having formed the opinion that he came there to buy paintings, ignorant of his profession, were excessively polite;--but their offers of services were declined. When Caper finally moved to private lodgings in Babuino Street and opened a studio, hope for a season bade these salesmen all farewell; they groaned, and owned that they had tried but could not sell.

Among the acquaintances formed by Caper, was a French artist named Rocjean. Born in France, he had passed eight or ten years in the United States, learned to speak English very well, and was residing in Rome 'to perfect himself as an artist.' He had, when Caper first met him, been there two years. In all this time he had never entered the Vatican, and having been told that Michael Angelo's Last Judgment was found to have a flaw in it, he had been waiting for repairs before passing his opinion thereon. On the other hand, he had studied the Roman _plebe_, the people, with all his might. He knew how they slept, eat, drank, loved, made their little economies, clothed themselves, and, above all, how they blackguarded each other. When Caper mentioned to him that he wished to leave his hotel, take a studio and private lodgings, then Rocjean expanded from an old owl into a spread eagle. Hurriedly taking Caper by the arm, he rushed him from one end of Rome to the other, up one staircase and down another; until, at last, finding out that Rocjean invariably presented him to fat, fair, jolly-looking landladies (_padrone_), with the remark, 'Signora, the Signor is an Englishman and very wealthy,' he began to believe that something was wrong. But Rocjean assured him that it was not--that, as in Paris, it was Madame who attended to renting rooms, so it was the _padrona_ in Rome, and that the remark, 'he is an Englishman, and very wealthy,' were synonymous, and always went together. 'If I were to tell them you were an American it would do just as well--in fact, better, but for one thing, and that is, you would be swindled twice as much. The expression "and very wealthy," attached to the name of an Englishman, is only a delicate piece of flattery, for the majority of the present race of traveling English are by no means lavish in their expenditures or very wealthy. In taking you to see all these pretty women, I have undoubtedly given you pleasure, at the same time I have gratified a little innocent curiosity of mine:--but then the chance is such a good one! We will now visit the Countess ----, for she has a very desirable apartment to let; after which we will proceed seriously to take rooms with a home-ly view.'

The Countess ---- was a very lovely woman, consequently Caper was fascinated with the apartment, and told her he would reflect over it.

'Right,' said Rocjean, after they had left; 'better reflect over it than in it--as the enormous draught up chimney would in a short time compel you to.'

'How so?'

'I have a German friend who has rooms there. He tells me that a cord of firewood lasts about long enough to warm one side of him; when he turns to warm the other it is gone. He has lived there three years reflecting over this; the Countess occasionally condoles with him over the draught of that chimney.'

'H'm! Let us go to the homely: better a drawn sword than a draught.'

They found a homely landlady with neat rooms in the via Babuino, and having bargained for them for twelve _scudi_ a month, their labors were over.

MACCARONICAL.

There was, when Caper first came to Rome, an eating-house, nearly opposite the fountain Trevi, called the Gabioni. It was underground,--in fact, a series of cellars, popularly conjectured to have been part of the catacombs. In one of these cellars, resembling with its arched roof a tunnel, the ceiling so low that you could touch the apex of the round arch with your hand, every afternoon in autumn and winter, between the hours of five and six, there assembled, by mutual consent, eight or ten artists. The table at which they sat would hold no more, and they did not want it to. Two waiters attended them, Giovanni for food, Santi for wine and cigars. The long-stemmed Roman lamps of burnished brass, the bowl that held the oil and wicks resembling the united prows of four vessels, shedding their light on the white cloth and white walls, made the old place cheerful. The white and red wine in the thin glass flasks gleamed brightly, and the food was well cooked and wholesome. Here in early winter came the sellers of 'sweet olives,' as they called them, and for two or three cents (_baiocchi_) you could buy a plateful. These olives were green, and, having been soaked in lime-water, the bitter taste was taken from them, and they had the flavor of almonds.

But the maccaroni was the great dish in the Gabioni; a four-cent plate of it would take the sharp edge from a fierce appetite, assisted as it was by a large one-cent roll of bread. There was the white pipe-stem and the dark ribbon (_fettucia_) species; and it was cooked with sauce (_al sugo_), with cheese, Neapolitan, Roman and Milan fashion, and--otherways. Wild boar steaks came in winter, and were cheap. Veal never being sold in Rome until the calf is a two-year-old heifer, was no longer veal, but tender beef, and was eatable. Sardines fried in oil and batter were good. Game was plenty, and very reasonable in price, except venison, which was scarce. The average cost of a substantial dinner was from thirty to forty baiocchi, and said Rocjean, 'I can live like a prince--like the Prince B----, who dines here occasionally--for half that sum.'

The first day Caper dined in the Gabioni, what with a dog-fight under the table, cats jumping upon the table, a distressed marchioness (fact) begging him for a small sum, a beautiful girl from the Trastevere, shining like a patent-leather boot, with gold ear-rings, and brooch, and necklace, and coral beads, who sat at another table with a French soldier--these and those other little _piquante_ things, that the traveler learns to smile at and endure, worried him. But the dinner was good, his companions at table were companionable, and as he finished an extra _foglietta_ (pint) of wine, price eight cents, with Rocjean, he concluded to give it another trial. He kept at giving it trials until the old Gabioni was closed, and from it arose the Four Nations or Quattre Nazione in Turkey Cock Alley (_viccolo Gallmaccio_), which, as any one knows, is near Two Murderers' Street. (_Via Due Macelli_)

'Now that we have finished dinner,' spoke Rocjean, 'we will smoke: then to the Caffe or Café Greco and have our cup of black coffee.'

AMERICA IN ROME.

It may be a good thing to have the conceit taken out of us--but not by the corkscrew of ignorance; the operation is too painful. Caper, proud of his country, and believing her in the front rank of nations, was destined to learn, while in Rome and the Papal States, that America was geographically unknown.

He consoled himself for this with the fact that geography is not taught in the 'Elementary Schools' there;--and for the people there are no others.

The following translation of a notice advertising for a schoolmaster, copied from the walls of a palace where it was posted, shows the sum total taught in the common schools:--

The duties of the Master are to teach Reading, Writing, the First Four Rules of Arithmetic; to observe the duties prescribed in the law '_Quod divina sapientia_;' and to be subject to the biennial committee like other salaried officers of the department; as an equivalent for which he shall enjoy (_godrá_) an annual salary of $60, payable in monthly shares.

(Signed)

IL GONFALONIERE ---- ----.

But what can you expect when one of the rulers of the land asserted to Caper that he knew that 'pop-corn grew in America on the banks of the Nile, after the water went down,--for it never rains in America'?

It was a handsome man, an advocate for Prince Doria, who, once traveling in a _vetturo_ with Caper, asked him why he did not go to America by land, since he knew that it was in the south of England; and gently corrected a companion of his, who told Caper he had read and thought it strange that all Americans lived in holes in the ground, by saying to him that if such houses were agreeable to the _Signori Americani_ they had every right to inhabit them.

The landlord of a hotel in a town about thirty miles from Rome asked Caper if, when he returned to New York, he would not some morning call and see his cousin--in Peru!

This same landlord once drew his knife on a man, when, accompanied by Caper, he went to observe a saint's day in a neighboring town. The cause of the quarrel was this--the landlord, having been asked by a man who Caper was, told him he was an American. The man asserted that Americans always wore long feathers in their hair, and that he did not see any on Caper's head. The landlord, determined to stand by Caper, swore by all the saints that they were under his hat. The man disbelieved it. Out came the 'hardware' with that jarring cr-r-r-rick the blade makes when the notched knife-back catches in the spring, but Caper jumped between them, and they put off stabbing one another--until the next saint's day.

It was with pleasure that Caper, passing down the Corso one morning, saw there was an Universal Panorama, including views of America, advertised to be exhibited in the Piazza Colonna. 'Here is an opportunity,' thought he, 'for the Romans to acquire some knowledge of a land touching which they are very much at sea. The views undoubtedly will do for them what the tabooed geographies are not allowed to do--give them a little education to slow music.'

Accompanied by Rocjean, he went one evening to see it, and found it on wheels in a traveling van, drawn up at one side of the Colonna Square.

'Hawks inspected it the other evening,' said Rocjean; 'and he describes it as well worth seeing. The explainer of the Universal Panorama resembles the wandering Jew, exactly, with perhaps a difference about the change in his pockets; and the paintings, comical enough in themselves, considering that they are supposed to be serious likenesses of the places represented, are made still funnier by the explanations of the manager.'

Securing tickets from a stout, showy ticket-seller, adorned with a stunning silk dress, crushing bracelets, and an overpowering bonnet, they subduedly entered a room twenty feet long by six or eight wide, illuminated with the mellow glow of what appeared to be about thirty moons. The first things that caught their eye were several French soldiers who were acting as inspection guard over several rooms, having stacked their muskets in one corner. Their exclamations of delight or sorrow, their criticisms of the art panoramic, in short, were full of humor and trenchant fun. But 'the explanator' was before them; where he came from they could not see, for his footsteps were light as velvet, evidently having 'gums' on his feet; his milk-white hair, parted in the middle of his forehead, hung down his back for a couple of feet, while his milk-white beard, hanging equally low in front, gave him the appearance of a venerable billy goat. He was an Albino, and his eyes kept blinking like a white owl's at mid-day. He had a voice slightly tremulous, and mild as a cat's in a dairy.

'Gen-till-men, do me the playshure to gaze within this first hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool land of Sweet-sir-land. Vi-yew from the some-mut of the Riggy Cool'm. Day break-in' in the dis-tant yeast. He has a blan-kit round him, sir; for it is cold upon the moun-tin tops at break of day. [Madame, the stupen-doss irrup-tion of Ve-soov-yus is two holes from the corner.]

'Gen-till-men, do me the play-zure to gaze upon the second hole. 'Tis Flor-renz the be-yu-ti-fool, be the bangs off the flowin' Arno. 'Twas here that--'

'No matter about all that,' said Caper; 'show off America to us.' He slipped a couple of _pauls_ into his hand, and instantly the Venerable skipped four moons.

'Gen-till-men, do me the play-zure to gaze upon this hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of Nuova Jorck in Ay-mer-i-kay, with the flour-ish-ing cities of Brook-lyn, Nuova Jer-sais, and Long Is-lad. The impo-sing struc-ture of rotund form is the Gr-rand Coun-cill Hall con-tain-ing the coun-cill chamber of the Amer-i-can nations.... [You say it is the Bat-tai-ree? It may be the Bat-tai-ree.] _What is that road in Broo-klin_? that is the ra'l-road to Nuova Or-lins di-rect. _What is that wash-tub_? "Tis not a wash-tub--'tis a stim-boat. They make the stim out of coal, which is found on the ground. _Is that the Ay-mer-i-cain eagill_? 'Tis not; 'tis a hoarse-fly which has in-tro-doo-ced hisself behind the glass. _Are those savages in Nuova Jer-sais_? (New Jersey.) Those are trees.'

'Pass on, illustrious gen-till-men, to the next hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of Filadelfia. The houses here are all built of woo-ood. The two rivaires that cir-cum-vent the city are the Lavar (Delaware?) and the Hud-soon. I do not know what is "a pum-king cart," but the car-riage which you see before you is a fi-ah engine, be-cause the city is all built of woo-ood. The tall stee-ple belongs to the kay-ker (Quaker) temple of San Cristo.'

Rocjean now gave the Venerable a _paul_, requesting him to dwell at length upon these scenes, as he was a Frenchman in search of a little of geography.

'Excellencies, I will do my en-dea-vors. The gran-diose ship as lies in the Lavar (Delaware) riv-aire is fool of em-i-gr-rants. The signora de-scen-din' the side of the ship is in a dreadful sit-u-a-tion tru-ly. [Per-haps the artist was in a boat and de-scri-bed the scene as he saw it.] The elephant you see de-scen-din' the street is a nay-tive of this tropi-cal re-gion, and the cock-a-toos infest the sur-round-in' air. The Moors you see along the wharves are the spon-ta-ne-ous born of the soil. Those are kay-kers (Quakers?) on mules with broad-brimmed hats onto their heads; the sticks in their hands are to beat the Moors who live on their su-gar plan-tay-tions.... Music? did you ask, Madame? We have none in this establish-ment. Kone.

'Excellencies, the next hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of Bal-ti-mory. You behold in the be-fore ground a gr-rand feast day of Amer-i-cain peas-ants; they are be-hold-ing their noble Count re-pair-ring to the chase with a serf on a white hoarse-bag (horse-back?). The little joke of the cattle is a play-fool fan-cy of the jocose artiste as did the panorama. I am un-ac-count-able for veg-garies such as them. The riv-aire in the bag-ground is the Signora-pippi'....

'The what?' asked Caper, shaking with laughter.

'A gen-till-man the other day told me that only the peasants in Americay say Missus or Mis-triss, and that the riv-aire con-se-kwen-tilly was not Missus-pippi, but, as I have had the honor of saying, the Signora-pippi rivaire. The next hole, Excel-len-cies!--'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of Vaskmenton (Washington), also on the Signora-pippi riv-aire. The white balls on the trees is cot-ton. Those are not white balls on the ground, those are ship;--ships as have woolen growin' onto their sides (sheep?). 'Tis not a white bar-racks: 'tis the Palazzo di Vaskmenton, a nobil gen-e-ral woo lives there, and was for-mer-ly king of the A-mer-i-cain nations. What does that Moor, with the white lady in his arms? it is a negro peas-sant taking his mis-triss out to air,--'tis the customs in those land.... That negress or fe-mail Moor with some childs is also airring, and, the white 'ooman tyin' up her stockings is a sportive of the artiste. He is much for the hum-or-ous.

'Excellencies, the last hole A-mer-i-cain. 'Tis the stoo-pen-doss Signora-pippi rivaire in all its mag-gnif-fi-cent booty. What is that cockatoo doing there? He is taking a fly. _You do not see the fly_? I mean a flight. _What is that bust to flin-ders_? That is a stim-boat was carryin' on too much stim, and the stim, which is made of coal, goes, off like gun-pow-dair if you put lights onto it. This is a fir-ful and awe-fool sight. The other stim-boat is not bustin', it is sailin'. What is that man behind the whil-house with the cards while another signer kicks into him on his coat-tails, I do not know. It is steel the sportifs of the artiste.'

'Excel-len-cies, the last hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool bustin'--no, not bustin', but ex-plo-sion of Vee-soov-yus. You can see the sublime sight, un-terrupt-ted be me ex-play-nations. I thank you for your attentions auri-cu-lar and pe-coo-niar-ry. _Adio_, until I have the play-shure of seein' you oncet more.'

'I tell you what, Rocjean,' said Caper, as he came out from the panorama, 'America has but a POOR SHOW in the Papal dominions.'

* * * * *

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.

Grand with all that the young earth had of vigorous and queenly to adorn her, rich with the spoils of victories not all bought with battle-axe and sword, stately with a pride that had won its just and inalienable majesty from elastic centuries of progress and culture, History, the muse to whom fewest songs were sung, yet whose march was music's sublimest voice, trembled upon the brink of the Dark Ages, and leaped, in her armor, into the abyss of ignorance before her. A poetry the purest, an art the noblest, a religion deeply symbolical, a freedom bold and magnificent, had given to the world-histories of those early days a melody varied and faultless, a form flowing yet well-defined, an earnestness that was sacred, a truth that was divine. A philosophy rich and largely suggestive had made the great men of Greece and Rome alert, vigilant, penetrating, before luxury and oppression had dragged them down to ruin and ignorance; and at last Ambition, splendid but destructive, becoming the world's artist, blended the midnight tints of decline and suffering with the carnation of triumph and liberty, and cast over the pictures of History the Rembrandt-like shadows, heavy and wavering, that add a fearful intensity to their charms.

To these eras, once splendid and promising, succeeded a night, long, hopeless, disastrous. Its hours were counted by contentions, its darkness was deepened by crime. The sun had set upon a mighty empire, regnant upon her seven hills, glorious with conquest, drunken with power: when the day dawned upon the thousandth year of the Christian era, its crumbled arches and moss-grown walls alone testified to the truth of History that had survived the universal destruction.

And now came the age of knight and paladin, of crusades and talismans. The rough, vigorous life that had been developing at the North, exuberant with a strength not yet so mature that it could be employed in the wise and practical pursuits of civilized life, burst forth into an enthusiasm half military, half religious, that pervaded all ranks, but was 'mightiest in the mighty.' The Saxons, fair-haired, with wild blue eyes, whence looked an inflexible perseverance, the dark-browed Normans, and the men of fair Bretagne, swooped down falcon-like from their nests among the rocks and by the seas of Northern Europe upon the impetuous Saracens, and fought brave poems that were written on sacred soil with their blood. From the strife of years the heroes returned, their flowing locks whitened by years and suffering, the fair Saxon faces browned by the fervent suns of the distant East. From hardship and imprisonment they marched with gay songs amid acclamations and welcome to their homes upon the Northern shores. Their once shining armor was dimmed and rusted with their own blood; but they bore upon their 'spears the light' of a culture more refined, a knowledge more subtle, than those high latitudes had ever before known.

From this marriage of the barbaric vigor of the North with the delicate and infinitely pliable sensuousness of the South, the classic union of Strength and Desire, Chivalry was born. Leaping forth to light and power, a majestic creation, glittering in the knightly panoply, noble by its knightly vows, it stood resplendent against the dark background of the past ages, the inevitable and legitimate offspring of the times and circumstances that gave it birth. The courtly baptism was eagerly sought, its requirements rigidly obeyed. The lands bristled with the lances of their valiant sons, and Quixotic expeditions were the order of the age. But not alone with sword and spear were gallant contests decided; the gauntlet thrown at the feet of a proud foe was not always of iron. _El gai saber_, the _gaye science_, held its august courts, where princesses entered the lists and vanquished gallant troubadours with the concord of their sweet measures. Slowly, yet with resistless strength, a new social world was rising upon the splendid ruins of the old. Its principles were just, if their garb was fantastical. It began with that almost superstitious reverence for woman, which had borrowed its religion from the Teuton, its romance from the Minnesinger and the Trouveur: it will end in the honesty and freedom of a world mature for its enjoyment.

Thus, while the kingdoms of Europe were rising to a height where to oppress, to torture, to fight, were to seem their sole aim and purpose, in a hitherto obscure corner of the great theatre of modern life an unknown element was developing itself, which was in time to shake the greatest nations with its power, to inflame all Europe with jealousy and cupidity, and to dictate to empires the very terms of their existence. And this element was LABOR. The rich lowlands of the 'double-armed' Rhine teemed with a busy life, that, king-like, demanded a tribute of the sea, and wrenched from the greedy waves a treasure that its industry made priceless. Each man became a prince in his own divine right, and every occupation had its lords and its lore, its 'mysteries,' and its social rights. The seamen, merchants, and artisans of the Netherlands had made their country the richest in Europe. They ranged the seas and learned the value of the land; and while they fed the great despot of the Middle Ages, the light of intelligence, born of energy and nurtured by activity, cast its benignant gleams from the central island of the Rhine, and drove from their mountain nooks the owls and bats of tyranny and superstition. They fought first, these lords of the soil, among themselves, for local privileges, advancing in their continuous struggles upon the very threshold of the church. By strong alliances they kept at bay their feudal lords, and fettered the ecclesiastical power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful, but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of despotism, frail, yet old as ambition, the lamp of freedom had long burned dimly: now its flames were licking, with serpent-like tongues, the enclosure so long deemed sacred, and threatened, as they dyed the air with their amber flood of light, to shiver their temple to fragments. The theory of the divine right of kings was but another 'Luck of Edenhall.' Its slender stem trembled now within the rough grasp of the sacrilegious and burly Netherlanders, who hesitated not long ere they dashed it with the old superstition to the ground, shaking the civilized world to its centre by the shock. But out of the ruins a statelier edifice was to rise, whose windows, like those of the old legend, were stained by the lifeblood of its architect.

The historian who would worthily depict such an age, such a people, such principles, must be an artist, but one in whom the creative faculty does not blind the moral obligations. He must bring to the work a republican sympathy, must be governed by a republican justice, and wear a character as noble as the struggle that he paints. And such an artist, such a historian, such a man, we have in JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.

The honors of Harvard, early and nobly earned, had given to the boy at seventeen the privileges and dignity of manhood. He was destined to become a scholar, eminent, even among the rarely and richly cultured minds of his own New England, for his universal knowledge, clearness of intellect, prompt energy, and indomitable perseverance. Inspired by these gifts and attainments, it was only natural, almost inevitable, that his first appearance upon the literary stage should have been in the _rôle_ of a novelist. The active young intellect was pliant and strong, but had not yet learned its power. Before him lay the broad fields of romance, fascinating with their royal _fleurs de lis_, rich with the contributions of every age, some quaint and laughter-moving, some pompous and exaggerated, some soul-stirring and grand. Impelled, perhaps, less by a thirst for fame than a desire to satisfy the resistless impulses of an energetic nature, and lay those fair ghosts of enterprises dimly recognized that beckoned him onward, he followed the first path that lay before him, and became a romance writer. His first work, _Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs of a Provincial_, was published in 1839, and subsequently appeared _Merry Mount, a Romance of Massachusetts_. It is curious to trace in these first flights of a genius that has since learned its legitimate field, a tendency to the breadth of Motley's later efforts, an instinctive and evidently unconscious passion for the descriptive, an admirably curbed yet still powerful impatience of the light fetters, the toy regulations of the realm of Fiction, and an earnestness that has since bloomed in the world of Fact and History. The very imperfections of the novelist have become the charms of the historian. His student-life in Germany, his after-plot in the stirring Revolutionary times, strongly as they are drawn, animated as they are with dashes of that vivid power that stamps every page of the histories of their author, yet lack the proof of that unquestioned yet unobtrusive consciousness of genius that harden the telling sentences of the _Rise of the Dutch Republic_ and the _United Netherlands_ into blocks of adamant, polished by friction with each other to a diamond brightness, and reflecting only the noblest sentiments, the most profound principles. The dice had been thrown a second time, and Motley had not won a victory. The applause of the press was insufficient to the man, who felt that he had not yet struck the key-note of his destiny. To be counted the follower of Cooper was not the meet guerdon of an intellect to which the shapely monuments of ancient literature yielded the clue to their hieroglyphic labyrinths of knowledge, and that pierced with lightning swiftness the shell of events, and possessed the latent principles of life in their warm hearts. He returned, therefore, to Europe, leaving behind him a reputation which at no distant day was destined to spring from a new and more noble foundation into a lasting and more stately pile.

To a mind like Motley's, the department of history presented the most attractive features. There could honestly be no dabbling with the specious and seductive alchemy of Fiction. Truth had molded every period of the world's life. Truth defied had tripped up nations in their headlong race after dominion and unrighteous power. Truth victorious had smiled upon their steady growth to greatness and honor. To write history was to write poetry, art, philosophy, religion, life. The pen that sketched the rise, the progress, and the fate of nations, was in fact the chisel of a sculptor, whose theme was humanity.

And what work so fitting for the American author as the record of a nation struggling away from the oppression of feudal institutions, which stifled all growth either towards knowledge or civil greatness, throwing off the trammels of religious intolerance, defying the most powerful nation of Christendom, which had breathed an air of bigotry in its long contest with the Moors, and waging an exhaustive war of nearly a century's duration against fearful odds, only to win an independent existence? We had treasured as rare heirlooms the Mechlin laces of our grandmothers, had our favorite sets of Tournay porcelain, awaited with curious and enthusiastic patience our shares in the floral exportations of Harlem, trodden daily the carpetings of Brussels, and esteemed ourselves rich with a fragment of its tapestry, or a rifle of Namur; we had honored the vast manufacturing interest of the Netherlands, their commercial prosperity and noble enterprise; but here all thought of them had ended. Schiller had not taught us that the ancestors of the miners of Mons, the artisans of Brussels, the seamen of Antwerp, the professors of Leyden, were heroes, worthy to stand beside Leonidas and Bozzaris; Strâda had failed to rouse us to enthusiasm at the thought of their long, noble battle for life. Grotius had indeed painted for us with a very Flemish nicety of detail their manners and customs, but had forgotten to round his skeleton of a nation with the passions that animated every stage of its development. It remained for Motley, with all the quick sympathies of an American heart, to rouse our affections and to command our reverence for a people so unfortunate and so brave. It was reserved for him to teach us that William of Orange was not less a martyr to the truth than Huss or Latimer.

It was no common scholar who so worthily finished this task. It was not enough that the intellectual integrity of oar historian was unquestioned, his judgment mature, his knowledge vast and comprehensive. During the years of preparation he had become thoroughly cosmopolite; all the _petty_ prejudices of country and blood had been swept away before the advancing dignity of a reason that became daily more truly and completely the master of itself. All the thousand minute refinements of an extensive and intimate association with the commanding and courtly minds of the age fitted him to cope more successfully with the spirit of subtle intrigue, the fox-like sagacity, the wolfish rapacity, the cruel lack of diplomatic honor, and the illimitable and terrible intolerance that distinguished in so wonderful a degree the historical era of Motley's choice. He came with all the zeal of a true lover of liberty, himself republican, as earth's most cultured sons have been in every age, in thought, habit, and sentiment, to trace for the future and for us the records of a people who were willing to suffer a master, but who revolted from a tyrant; who, with a rare but unappreciated and too nice honor, strove to keep to the yoke that their forefathers had worn, only asking from their ruler the respect and consideration due the faithful servants of his crown, who were no longer the abject slaves of a monarchy, and yet, through an inveterate habit of servitude, were scarcely prepared for the independence of a republic. How nobly he has fulfilled his mission, the hearty applause of two nations sufficiently testifies.

To the wide, comprehensive vision of Motley, history appears in its true light as a science, demanding the assistance of other sciences to the due and harmonious development of all its parts. It relies not more upon the correctness of the recorder's authorities and the profoundness of his researches in the mere region of the events and mutual relation of nations, than upon his universal acquaintance with general literature and the sister arts of politics and philosophy. It was for the treacherous and elegant Bolingbroke to reduce the noble art of Thucydides from the height of sublimity and grandeur to the parlor level of the conversations of the Hotel de Rambouillet, to introduce into the most serious political disquisitions, concerning perhaps the welfare of society, an imperceptible yet carefully elaborated and most effective tone of levity that speedily proved disastrous to their object. It was be who forced the vapid but imposing ceremonial of the _bon ton_ into the records of church and state; who clothed his empty but pompous periods with the ermine of royalty, to ensure them the reverence of a deluded multitude; who stripped Virtue of her ancient prerogatives, and fed her with the crumbs from his table. His polished diction, undeniable talent and fine acquisitions served most unhappily to disguise his real poverty of sentiment, and for a time, at least, diverted the current of popular feeling from the true, beautiful, and reliable in early literature and art, no less than in history. With what success his faulty and imperfect theories were engrafted upon the literature of his nation, the learned and sagacious Schlosser conclusively proves in his _History of the Eighteenth Century_. Says this ripe scholar and deep thinker, 'All that Bolingbroke ridicules as tedious and without talent, all that he laughs at as useless and without taste, all that which, urged by his labors and those of his like-minded associates, had for eighty years disappeared from ancient history, is again brought back in our day. So short is the triumph of falsehood.' Well may we pervert the verses of Horace,--

'Nullæ placere diu, nec vivere _historiæ_ possunt Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus.'

That was an ungenerous fountain whence Bolingbroke drank even his chilling draughts of inspiration. Splendid, in sooth, as the great _Brunnen_ of the luckless Abderites of Wieland, with its sea-god of marble surrounded by a stately train of nymphs, tritons, and dolphins, from whose jets the water only dripped like tears, because, says the writer, with grave naïveté, 'there was scarcely enough to moisten the lips of a single nymph.' Truly the purple wine of inspiration is as necessary to the historian as to the poet; and if the laughing Bacchus that holds the beaker to the student's eager lips be not clothed in the classic robes of the senate-chamber or the flowing garments of the professor, he wears at least the fawn's dappled hide, and in his hand

'His thyrsus holds--an ivy-crowned spear.'

Does not the gentle Euripides show us the god, 'his horned head with dragon wreath entwined?' And those two sacred horns point back to the dread mysteries of the Ogdoad sublime,

'The great Cabiri of earth's dawning prime.'

They trace with lines that never swerve from truth the history of the primeval world, the early days of Noah and his ark. They recall to us the old story of life and suffering, of deluge and salvation; on their crescent points hangs the eternal principle of the efficacy of sacrifice. They float with the moon-ark of Astarté Mylitta on hyacinthine seas of night-clouds, and their high import, dimmed and lost in the great stream of Time, rises again in the ages, uncrowned with the early luxuriance of symbol and mystery. The mystic horns appear over the brow of the queenly Sappho of Grillparzer, upon whose hair

'Rested the diadem, _like the pale moon_ Upon the brow of night, a silver crest;'

and the white-robed Madonna, with child-like face upraised, and deep, tender eyes uplifted, yet rests her slender, sandaled foot upon the horned moon, floating below her in misty clouds.

A hiatus for which we crave indulgence; a dream, and yet not all a dream, for each of these old types encloses a living truth, and unfolds into a history, tangled, perhaps, and imperfect, but suggestive and reliable, of races and religions that had else passed away into oblivion. And the earnest student of the present, or the historian of the past, can never disregard these dim old treasures, but must draw from them a fresher faith in his own humanity and in the eternal laws of God, that are unchangeable as he is immortal.

The art of history advances with the art of poetry; both, and indeed all literature, correspond aesthetically with the manners, customs, theology, and politics of the nation of their birth. The severe grandeur of Thucydides, the invariable sweetness of Xenophon, and the cheerful elegance of Herodotus, recall, with their just conceptions of harmony, their noble and sustained flow of thought, and their freedom from the adventitious ornaments of an exaggerated rhetoric or a sentimental morality, the golden age of Greece. We seem to stand within the Parthenon, to gaze upon the Venus of Cnidus, to be jostled by the gay crowd at the Olympic games. It was indeed a golden age, when all that was beautiful in nature was reverently and assiduously nurtured, and all that was noble and natural in art was magnificently encouraged; an age in which refinement and nobility were not accidents, but necessities; when politics had reached the high grade of an art, and oratory attained a beauty and power beyond which no Pitt, Canning, or Brougham has ever yet aspired; an age when the gifted Aspasia held her splendid court, and Alcibiades and Socrates were proud to sit at the Milesian's feet; when Pericles, who 'well deserved the lofty title of Olympian,' lived and ruled: the golden age when Socrates thought and taught, bearing in its bosom the guilty day when Socrates died.

Not less faithful portraitures of the influences that formed them are the histories of Livy, of Sallust, and of Tacitus. They wrote in a language that had been sublimated into electric clouds by the warm and splendid diffuseness of Cicero, and reduced to a granite-like strength by the cold and exquisite simplicity of Terence. The amiable fustian, the Falstaffian bombast of Lucan and Ovid's brilliant imagination, all stamp their indelible seal upon the vivid coloring of Livy, the somewhat affected severity of Sallust, and the elegant morality of Tacitus. The banner of the monarchy flaunts across every page of these writers. They even bear the impress of an architecture whose splendor and strength did not atone for its disregard of the old Hellenic lines and rules. They bear the same relation to Thucydides and Herodotus that a pillar of the Roman Ionic order, with its angularly turned volutes and arbitrary perpendicularity of outline, does to its graceful Greek mother, with her primitive and expressive scrolls, and the slightly convex profile of her shaft. In more modern times, a black-letter, quaint sentence of Froissart or Monstrelet is like a knight in full armor, bristling with quaint, beautiful devices, golden dragons inlaid on Milan cuirasses, golden vines on broad Venetian blades, apes on the hilts of grooved-bladed, firm stilettoes, or the illuminated margins of old metrical romances. The pages of Strada are darkened by the stormy passions of a battling age, crossed with the lurid light of Moorish tragedies; an _ay de mi Alhama_ moans under his pride and bigotry. Torquemadas grind each sentence into dullness and inquisitorial harmlessness, yet now and then sweeps by a trace of Lope de Vega, a word that reminds us of Calderon, while still oftener the euphuism of Gongora pervades the writer's mind and flows in platitudes from his guarded pen.

As we near our own day, history is invested with new dignities; its arms float, sea-weed like, on the raging waves of political life, as if to grasp from some fragment of shipwrecked treaties or some passing argosy of government a precious jewel to light its deep researches. It takes in with nervous grasp the tendencies of literature; its keen gaze drinks in the features of popular belief and searches out the fountains of popular error. Fully equal to the requirements of the exacting age, Motley has produced a work whose lightest merit is its equal conformity to the new rules of his art. He possesses in an eminent degree the first qualification which the old Abbé de Mably, in his _Manière d'ecrire l'histoire_, insists upon for the historian. He recognizes the natural rights of man, those rights which are the same in every age, and as powerful in their demands in the sixteenth century as in the nineteenth. His well-balanced mind acknowledges and respects the duties of man as citizen and magistrate, and the mutual rights of nations. No splendor, no power, no prejudice, has been able to seduce him from his high principles, neither does a warm and manifest sympathy with his subject delude him even into the passing extravagance of an undue praise. If he comprehends the greatness of the national character he almost flings upon the canvas before us, he appreciates as profoundly its weaknesses too. Strada's history is a poison, which strikes at the very roots of society, and would wither all the fresh young leaves of its vigorous spring. Motley's is its powerful antidote, which restores the juices of life to the brittle fibres, smooths out the shriveled leaves, and clothes them again with the fresh green of hope and promise. Strada is the slave of the victor; Motley is the champion of the vanquished. Strada bends the dignity of Justice before the painted sceptre of Despotism; Motley exalts the honest title of the man above the will of the perjured monarch. Strada gilds with the false gold of sophistry the very chains that gall his soul; Motley sharpens on the clear crystal of his unobtrusive logic, the two-handed sword of power, and cuts his way through an army of protocols and pacts to the fortress of Liberty.

It is, we believe, an exploded theory that the characters of modern times are inferior to those of antiquity. 'Under the toga as under the modern dress,' says Guizot, 'in the senate as in our councils, men were what they still are;' and the old Jesuit takes a narrow view of the progress of mankind, who asserts that the masculine and vigorous treatment that was necessary to Thucydides and Livy is not required by the historians of our puny and degenerate day. Even the Count Gobineau, who so ably and, to his followers, conclusively proves the fallacy of the dearest hope of every learned philanthropist and patriot, does not, in his most earnest antagonism to the doctrine of human progress, insinuate the existence of a principle urging the systematic and inevitable decline of individual power from age to age. So far from exacting less of the historian, the present age demands even a firmer handling. Our era has its Alexanders and Cæsars; its Hannibals and Hectors; and if these men of antiquity rise before us with an unapproachable air of grandeur, it is because the light shining from our distant stand-point surrounds them with deeper shadows, and throws them in bolder relief against the background of their vanished ages. It is a simple triumph of _chiaro-scuro_, and by no means the proof of the truth of an absurd theory.

It is mournful enough to see the dead nations that were once young and glorious pacing onward through an inferno like so many headless Bertrand de Borns, bearing by the hair

'The severed member, lantern-wise Pendent in hand.'

For ourselves, we have no fear of lighting our own spirit thus through any Malabolge of purification. And this bold faith animates Motley; it invigorates all his work with a firmness that inspires full confidence in his readers. Free as he is from every puerile superstition, his mastery of his subject is complete. He exercises over it a sort of magistracy which extends even to his own flashing impulses. Never pausing to display his moral learning, he avoids the tedious diffuseness of Rollin; steering adroitly around the quicksands of political dissertation, he escapes the pragmatical essayism of Guiccardini. Not easily fascinated by the trifles that swim like vapid foam upon the tide of history,--petty domestic details, the Königsmark intrigues of royalty, the wines and flowers of the banquet table, the laces and jewels of the court,--he leaves far in the distance the entertaining Davila, who, says the sarcastic Schlosser, 'wrote memoirs after the French fashion for good society,' yet whom the arbitrary and adventurous Bolingbroke does not scruple to declare 'in many respects the equal of Livy!' And yet no single stroke is omitted which is needed to preserve the unity of the work. Tacitus himself did not embellish with more commanding morality his histories. The jots and tittles of the _Groot Privilegie_, the terms of the famous 'Pacification of Ghent,' the solemn import of the _Act of Adjuration_, and the political ambition of the church, are as faithfully drawn as the Siege of Leyden, or the 'Spanish Fury' of Antwerp.

Hume, in the narrowness of a so-called philosophical indifference to the appeals of domestic life and the details of national theology and art, gives us only a running commentary upon mere chronological events, galvanized by the touch of his keen intellect and fine rhetoric into a deceitful vigor, and ornamented with the poisonous night-shade blossoms of a spurious philosophy. We may more justly seek some analogy between Gibbon and Motley, even if the search but discover points of difference so radical that a comparison is impossible. The solemn, measured, and splendid rhetoric of Gibbon is met by the animated, impetuous, and brilliant flow of Motley's thought. Neither leans to the ideal; with both the actual prevails. The policy of a government is summoned by neither before the partial tribunal of a sentiment, or the intricate scheme of some Machiavelli subjected to the imperfect analysis of a headstrong imagination. But Gibbon, though he writes in the vernacular, has lost all the honest nationality that should give an air of sincerity to his work; his brilliant antithesis belongs to the ornate school of the French literature of the day; and, fascinating as is the pomp and commanding march of his sentences, we are rather dazzled by his eloquence than convinced by his argument. He is picturesque, rich; but it is the picturesqueness and richness of the truly bewildering Roman architecture of the Renaissance--half Byzantine, three-eighths Gothic, and the remainder Greek. But Motley, with all his varied learning and association, is still perfectly and nobly Anglo-Saxon. His short, epigrammatic sentences ring like the click of musketry before the charge, and swell into length and grandeur with the progress of his theme. The simplicity, not of ignorance but of genius, characterizes him. He does not cater to our hungry fancy, he appeals grandly to our noblest impulses. In Motley a spirit of the most refined humanity is everywhere visible; he is guilty of no Voltairean satiric stabs at purity, no petulant Voltairean flings at the faith he does not share. All is manly, terse, frank, undisguised. Honorable himself, he does not, like Gibbon, distrust all mankind, and question with a sarcasm the very sincerity of a martyr at the stake.

Among Americans, Motley is what Botta is to the historians of Southern Europe. The same grand principles actuate both writers; the same tendency to philosophical generalization is evident in the structure of their works, the same inflexible pursuit of a fixed and visible aim, the same enthusiastic love for freedom. But with Botta the poetical element, which is only secondary with Motley, predominates. He holds the nervous pen of a true Italian--more than that, of a true Italian patriot. All the hitherto suppressed fire of his nation flames out on his pages in an indignation as natural as it is superb. His lines vibrate with passion, his words are tremulous with a noble pain. His very pathos is impatient, stern, and proud; it cleaves our hearts like a battle-axe, rather than meets them as with summer showers. His sarcasm is as keen and effective, but far more startling; it hisses its way from some iron-cold comment, and stabs the monarch whom it crowns. His fertility of imagination is not weakened by contact with the details of government. The same pen that draws in such inimitably graceful lines the sugar-plums of starving Genoa, lingering about flower-wreathed baskets of bonbons sold in the public squares to famishing men and women, sketches in a style as nervous and appropriate the complex detail of governmental policy. He unfolds his subject with the skill of an epic poet; its general effect is sublime, and its petty details arranged with a rarely careless skill. If he is sometimes diverted by a burst of enthusiasm, of indignation, or of horror, into an inequality, the rough island thrown up in the sea of his fancy is speedily verdured over with the wonderful luxuriance of his genius. If he bends sometimes to amuse, to revel among his sonorous Italian adjectives in the description of a coronation at Milan, or an opera of Valetta, it is part of his purpose, giving to his picture the rich and glowing tints that bring out, by violence of contrast, the more elaborate tinting in of dark upon dark behind them.

Something of this we recognize in Motley; but none of Botta's tendency to proverbial sayings, bitter with a sarcasm that wounds most deeply its creator; as, 'To believe that abstract principle will prevail over full purses is the folly of a madman.' Neither do we find in Motley the occasional terse conciseness of Botta,--little epics enclosed in a short sentence. 'Napoleon had redeemed France; but he had created Italy.' But the Italian can not be impartial. Just he is, but it is the accident of his political position, not the deference paid by the historian to his art. He writes of an age from whose injustice he has suffered, of a country whose miseries he has shared, of a people whose brother he is. And here Motley stands second only to Thucydides among historians. In the Greek, impartiality was almost divine, for he wrote in the very smoke of the conflict, wrote as if with his dripping lance upon rocks dyed with the blood of his countrymen. With Motley impartiality is the product of a nature strictly noble, that aims through its art not only to delight the present, but to instruct the future, and which bases its doctrines of right and wrong upon the principles that govern universal nature. The temper of Thucydides is lofty and even; though never genial, he is always calm and accessible; though often sublime, he is never pathetic; too grand to be sarcastic, he is also too proud to be selfish.

Motley, if lacking the great and admirable element of sublimity, which Longinus extols, compensates for it by the animation and variety of his style, which changes, as does his mood, with his subject. He enters with all the vigor of his manhood into the spirit of the scenes which he sketches. He describes a character, and his strokes are bold, quick, decided; he follows the intricacies of political intrigue, and his movement is slow, continuous, wary, while it still remains firm, confident, and successful. He can administer the finances with Escovedo, while his wide, keen intelligence, undismayed, masters at a glance the wily policy of Alexander of the '_fel Gesicht_.' No modern historian has given more comprehensive sketches of character. No quality escapes his vigilance; he yields every faculty the consideration which is its due. The portraits of Alva, of Navarre, of Farnese, of Orange, of Don John of Austria, are so many colossal statues, that seem to unite in themselves all the possible features and characteristics of humanity. He is indeed rather a sculptor than a painter. His figures are round, perfect, throbbing with life, and their hard and striking outlines, springing sharply from the background of despotism and persecution, are more imposing than any Rubens-like vividness of coloring which could warm them. He treats of diplomacy as a diplomat, unwinds the reel of protocol and treaty, and binds up with the inflexible cord the rich sheaves of his deep researches. His reflections are suggestive but short, and his details never weary.

He loves, too, to mark the sympathies of nature with event--the rain falling upon the black-hung scaffold, or the laughter of gay sunshine mingling with the shouts of a great victory. And here he differs, as indeed he does in almost every other respect, with Macaulay. The Englishman thinks little of nature; as he himself says of Dante, 'He leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky; his business is with man.' Indeed, the absence of a true and universal sympathy is the one vast defect of Macaulay. No position is so high that it may not be overshadowed by the giant form of his violent partisanship, no character so small that it may not be raised to the semblance of greatness by the mere force of his political preferences. His scholarship was splendid, his genius commanding, the beauty of his style unsurpassed; but he perverted his knowledge to subserve certain public ends, and wielded his magnificent powers too often in the defence of an undeserving cause. Fascinated by his dazzling rhetoric, borne along by its rapid and tumultuous current to the most brilliant conclusions, we forget the narrowness of the stream. His scope of vision was indeed great, but it had its limits, and these were not imposed by time or necessity, but by the unyielding will of his own prejudices. As his virtues were massive, so were his errors grievous. He ventured to grasp the great speculative themes of existence with a mind that was neither profound nor suggestive. He swam with all the wondrous ease of an athlete through the billows and across the currents and counter-currents of elegant literature, of politics, of theology, yet possessed not the diver's power to win their sunken but priceless jewels. Rich he was with the accumulated intellectual spoil of centuries, but the power of exhaustive generalization was denied him. His perceptions were vigorous and acute, and none knew more perfectly to exhaust a subject, if its requirements were of the actual and tangible rather than of the ideal and spiritual order. He was a thorough logician, but a superficial philosopher; a master of style, but oblivious of those great religious truths of which the events of his great history were but the natural outgrowth and product. But nothing can exceed the power of his rhetoric, that is uncontrolled by any laws, yet offends none, unless it be the arbitrariness of his dogmatism, that concedes no favors and asks no gifts.

Less vehement, less ornate, possibly less learned than Macaulay, with frequent though trifling inequalities of style, Motley goes far beyond him in real practical insight into the heart of affairs. There is a unity in all visible life, whether of nation, of individual, of church, or of inarticulate nature, that escaped Macaulay and impresses Motley. The one would govern the universe with the arbitrary rules of a political clique; the other applies to all the infallible test of a universal philosophy. Both writers are thoroughly incorporated with their subject; but where Macaulay was the captive of a mighty and often just prejudice, Motley is the exponent of a living principle. Everywhere Macaulay was a Whig and an Englishman; everywhere Motley is a Republican and a cosmopolite.

Motley is indeed inferior to his English contemporary in many striking points whose value every reader will determine for himself; but his occasional and rare inaccuracies of expression and inelegances of language are on the surface, and may be removed by the stroke of a pen without marring the general effect of his work. He possesses, among many charms, an unfailing geniality, which, united with his fine dramatic powers, fascinates us completely. He abounds also in fine poetical touches, that give us glimpses of a mind cultured to the last degree of literary refinement. His 'rows of whispering limes and poplars' are like arabesques of gold straying over the margins of some old _romanceros_. His descriptions glow with the fresh and ever-varying delight of the observant traveler, who seems to see before him for the first time the cities which, with a few vigorous and simple strokes, he transfers to big pages. His pictures have the charm of naturalness and a simplicity that is more effective than the most ornate diffuseness. Thus he says of the picturesque little city of Namur: 'Seated at the confluence of the Sambre with the Meuse, and throwing over each river a bridge of solid but graceful structure, it lay in the lap of a most fruitful valley. A broad, crescent-shaped plain, fringed by the rapid Meuse, and enclosed by gently-rolling hills, cultivated to their crests, or by abrupt precipices of limestone crowned with verdure, was divided by numerous hedgerows, and dotted all over with corn-fields, vine-yards, and flower-gardens. Many eyes have gazed with delight upon that well-known and most lovely valley, and many torrents of blood have mingled with those glancing waters since that long-buried and most sanguinary age which forms our theme; and still, placid as ever is the valley, brightly as ever flows the stream. Even now, as in that banished but never-forgotten time, nestles the little city in the angle of the two rivers; still directly over its head seems to hang in mid-air the massive and frowning fortress, like the gigantic helmet in the fiction, as if ready to crush the pigmy town below.' How like the _Ueberfahrt_ of Uhland:--

'Ueber diesen Strohm, vor Jahren, Bin ich einmal schon gefahren, Hier die Burg, im Abendschimmer, Drüben rauscht das Wehr, wie immer.'

We may quote his description of the great square of Brussels, the scene of the double execution of Montmorency, of Horn, and the gallant and unfortunate 'Count d'Egmont,' not only as an example of his dignified and sustained style, but also as an evidence of his sensitiveness to those minor refinements of association and place that bespeaks the talented artist. 'The great square of Brussels had always a striking and theatrical aspect. Its architectural effects, suggesting in some degree the meretricious union between Oriental and a corrupt Grecian art, accomplished in the mediaeval midnight, have amazed the eyes of many generations. The splendid Hotel de Ville, with its daring spire and elaborate front, ornamented one side of the place; directly opposite was the graceful but incoherent façade of the Brood-huis, now the last earthly resting place of the two distinguished victims; while grouped around these principal buildings rose the fantastic palaces of the Archers, Mariners, and other guilds, with their festooned walls and toppling gables bedizened profusely with emblems, statues, and quaint decorations. The place had been alike the scene of many a brilliant tournament and of many a bloody execution. Gallant knights had contended within its precincts, while bright eyes rained influences from all those picturesque balconies and decorated windows. Martyrs to religious and to political liberty had upon the same spot endured agonies which might have roused every stone of its pavement to mutiny or softened them to pity. Here Egmont himself, in happier days, had often borne away the prize of skill or of valor, the cynosure of every eye; and hence, almost in the noon of a life illustrated by many brilliant actions, he was to be sent, by the hand of tyranny, to his great account.'

There are, too, dashes of a healthy sarcasm among these records, not, however, of such frequent occurrence as to darken the flow of the narrative, but sufficiently indicative of the strength and energy of the writer. Never attacking the honest faith of any man, his satires are levelled at hypocrisy, never error, as when he says of the venerable tyrant, the master of the Invincible Armada, when he had received from the trembling secretary the assurance of the failure of the hope of Spain: 'So the king, as fortune flew away from him, wrapped himself in his virtue, and his counsellors, imitating their sovereign, arrayed themselves in the same garment;' a scanty mantle, in truth, but, no doubt, amply sufficient for the denizens of that torrid atmosphere of bigotry in which Spain has lived for centuries.

Of what earnest stuff Motley's dreams of religious freedom are made, we read in his terse comments upon the declaration of the principles of liberty of conscience by the States General. 'Such words shine through the prevailing darkness of the religious atmosphere at that epoch like characters of light. They are beacons in the upward path of mankind. Never before had so bold and wise a tribute to the genius of the Reformation been paid by an organized community. Individuals walking in advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had seemed to die away, but at last, a little, struggling, half-developed commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind.'

Thus we have no longer a wearisome compilation of events strung upon the thread of chronology, but a practical history of the most momentous epoch of modern times. No hand has before pointed out so faithfully its great motive power or adjusted so nicely its apparent contradictions. The structure is grand; it is the expression of a glorious faith. In the accomplishment of so vast a design, Motley has won our warmest gratitude, while he has awakened our deepest sympathies. Not alone to the learned, the scholarly, and the elegant, are these volumes addressed; their high-toned thought has met response in the people's heart, and children bend with flushed faces over the high romance of the struggle that cost the lives of thousands, and recognize, perhaps dimly, the import of that great advance from the darkness of intolerance to the light of freedom, that was so well worth the treasure of blood with which it was bought.

And here we part with Motley the historian, only to clasp hands with Motley the patriot. In the present tremendous struggle of people against progress, this fierce contest between labor and the lords, these last convulsions of the expiring giant of feudal aristocracy, whose monstrous conception dates far back among the Middle Ages, Motley has shown himself the true champion of the doctrines advocated in his histories. His platform is still the same, but how changed the theatre of his

## action! His letter to the London _Times_ on the 'Causes of the American

Civil War' is a masterly exposition of facts, whose naked power is obscured by no useless displays of rhetoric. Its tone is calm, dignified, confident; its statements are strongly maintained, its logic convincing. All honor to the man who from his quiet researches in royal archives and busy deciphering of dusty MSS. turned to his country in her hour of need, and defended her where defence should have been superfluous, but was, unhappily, of small avail. And still he works nobly for the dear old flag, and, intimately _lié_ as he is with the first literati and politicians of Europe, it is not easy to measure his influence. His purely literary habits forbid all suspicion of his disinterestedness, and will go far to commend him to the sympathies of the commanding intellects of the age. Let us hope for the time when, with renewed faith in his mighty theories and still renewing love for his motherland, he shall return to the retirement which has already produced such noble fruits, and add works as worthy to our American classics. Meanwhile, _vive qui vince!_

* * * * *

THE LESSON OF THE HOUR.

Thou who for years hast watched the course of nature, What time the changing seasons swept their round, And, 'mid the play of every varying feature, New founts of pleasure for thyself hast found; Who, when dark clouds upon the mountain glooming, Threaten destruction to the smiling plain, Canst pierce the shadow and foresee the blooming Of budding blossoms brighter for the rain:

To whom, when the dread winter's icy fingers Have chilled to silence the gay babbling stream, A memory of its summer music lingers, Or April violets in the future beam; To whom the darkness whispers of the dawning, And sorrow's night tells of the coming day; And even death is but the twilight morning Of glory which shall never fade away;--

_Teach us thy lesson_. Unto us be given The trusting faith the April flowers display; Looking in their meek confidence to heaven,-- Trusting to God the future of the day. Our night is dark, and perils vast surround us, But, firm in truth and right, what shall we fear? Has danger ever yet base cravens found us? Who has sustained thus far will guide us here.

Ye countless legions, where each man is holding Himself a bulwark for the cause of right, In war's fierce furnace, where our God is molding Each soul for his own ends in Freedom's fight, March on to victory in overwhelming number, Singing the peans of the noble free; Our Liberty has just awaked from slumber, To carry out the world's great destiny.

O mighty nation! all thy early glory Shall be as nothing to the great renown Which in the future ages shall come o'er thee, For thine is Liberty's immortal crown. Heed not the jealousies forever thronging,-- The petty envyings which gird thee round; 'Tis thine to carry out the world's great longing, To find that liberty none else has found.

What though across the swelling, broad Atlantic Comes scornful menace? it is naught to thee-- 'Tis but the jealous raving, wild and frantic, Of those who would, but never can, be free;-- Who, slaves to selfish passions bold ambition, Hold up their shackled arms in heaven's broad light, And prate of freedom, boast their high position, And strive to turn to interest Truth and Right.

_We need more faith!_ What though the means be weakness? With God supreme, the victory must be ours! From imperfection he works out completeness; From feeble means makes overwhelming powers. How shall this be? The knowledge is not given; Each to his duty in the field of Right; Sure as th' Almighty ruleth earth and heaven, His arm will do it in resistless might.

* * * * *

AMONG THE PINES.

'Dee ye tink Massa Davy wud broke his word, sar?' said the old negress, bridling up her bent form, and speaking in a tone in which indignation mingled with wounded dignity; 'p'raps gemmen do dat at de Norf--dey neber does it har.'

'Excuse me, Aunty; I know your master is a man of honor; but he's very much excited, and very angry with Scip.'

'No matter for dat, sar; Massa Davy neber done a mean ting sense he war born.'

'Massa K---- tinks a heap ob de Gunnel, Aunty; but he reckons he'm sort o' crazy now; dat make him afeard,' said Scip, in an apologetic tone.

'What ef he am crazy? You'se safe _har_,' rejoined the old woman, dropping her aged limbs into a chair, and rocking away with much the same air which ancient white ladies occasionally assume.

'Won't you ax Massa K---- to a cheer?' said Scip; 'he hab ben bery kine to me.'

The negress then offered me a seat; but it was some minutes before I rendered myself sufficiently agreeable to thaw out the icy dignity of her manner. Meanwhile I glanced around the apartment.

Though the exterior of the cabin was like the others on the plantation, the interior had a rude, grotesque elegance about it far in advance of any negro hut I had ever seen. The logs were chinked with clay, and the one window, though destitute of glass, and ornamented with the inevitable board-shutter, had a green moreen curtain, which kept out the wind and the rain. A worn but neat and well-swept carpet partly covered the floor, and on the low bed was spread a patch-work counterpane. Against the side of the room opposite the door stood an antique, brass-handled bureau, and an old-fashioned table, covered with a faded woolen cloth, occupied the centre of the apartment. In the corner near the fire was a curiously-contrived side-board, made of narrow strips of yellow pine, tongued and grooved together, and oiled so as to bring out the beautiful grain of the wood. On it were several broken and cracked glasses, and an array of irregular crockery. The rocking-chair, in which the old negress passed the most of her time, was of mahogany, wadded and covered with chintz, and the arm-seat I occupied, though old and patched in many places, had evidently moved in good society.

The mistress of this second-hand furniture establishment was arrayed in a mass of cast-off finery, whose gay colors were in striking contrast with her jet-black skin and bent, decrepit form. Her gown, which was very short, was of flaming red and yellow worsted stuff, and the enormous turban that graced her head and hid all but a few tufts of her frizzled, 'pepper-and-salt' locks, was evidently a contribution from the family stock of worn-out pillow-cases. She was very aged,--upwards of seventy,--and so thin that, had she not been endowed with speech and motion, she might have passed for a bundle of whalebone thrown into human shape, and covered with a coating of gutta-percha. It was evident she had been a valued house-servant, whose few remaining years were being soothed and solaced by the kind and indulgent care of a grateful master.

Scip, I soon saw, was a favorite with the old-negress, and the marked respect he showed me quickly dispelled the angry feeling excited by my doubts of 'Massa Davy,' and opened her heart and her mouth at the same moment. She was terribly garrulous; her tongue, as soon as it got under way, ran on as if propelled by machinery and acquainted with the secret of perpetual motion; but she was an interesting study. The single-hearted attachment she showed for her master and his family gave me a new insight into the practical working of 'the peculiar institution,' and convinced me that even slavery, in some of its aspects, is not so black as it is painted.

When we were seated, I said to Scip, 'What induced you to lay hands on the Colonel? It is death, you know, if he enforces the law.'

'I knows dat, massa; I knows dat; but I had to do it. Dat Moye am de ole debil, but de folks round har wud hab turned on de Cunnel, shore, ef he'd killed him. Dey don't like de Cunnel; dey say he'm a stuck-up seshener.'

'The Colonel, then, has befriended you at some time?'

'No, no, sar; 'twarn't dat; dough I'se know'd him a long w'ile,--eber sense my ole massa fotched me from de Habana,--but 'twarn't dat.'

'Then _why_ did you do it?'

The black hesitated a moment, and glanced at the old negress, then said,--

'You see, massa, w'en I fuss come to Charles'n, a pore little ting, wid no friend in all de worle, dis ole aunty war a mudder to me. She nussed de Cunnel; he am jess like her own chile, and I know'd 'twud kill her ef he got hisself enter trubble.'

I noticed certain convulsive twitchings about the corners of the old woman's mouth as she rose from her seat, threw her arms around Scip, and, in words broken by sobs, faltered out,--

'_You_ am my chile; I loves you better dan Massa Davy--better dan all de worle.'

The scene, had they not been black, would have been one for a painter.

'You were the Colonel's nurse, Aunty,' I said, when she had regained her composure. 'Have you always lived with him?'

'Yas, sar, allers; I nussed him, and den de chil'ren--all ob 'em.'

'All the children? I thought the Colonel had but one--Miss Clara.'

'Wal, he habn't, massa, only de boys.'

'What boys? I never heard he had sons.'

'Neber heerd of young Massa Davy, nor Massa Tommy! Hain't you _seed_ Massa Tommy, sar?'

'Tommy! I was told he was Madam P----'s son.'

'So he am; Massa Davy had _her_ long afore he had missus.'

The truth flashed upon me; but could it be possible? Was I in South Carolina or in Utah?

'Who is Madam P----?' I asked.

The old woman hesitated a moment, as if in doubt whether she had not said too much; but Scip quietly replied,--

'She'm jess what aunty am--_de Cunnel's slave!_'

'His _slave_! it can't be possible; she is white!'

'No, massa; she am brack, and de Cunnel's slave!'

Not to weary the reader with a long repetition of negro-English, I will tell in brief what I gleaned from an hour's conversation with the two blacks.

Madam P---- was the daughter of Ex-Gov. ----, of Virginia, by a quarteron woman. She was born a slave, but was acknowledged as her father's child, and reared in his family with his legitimate children. When she was ten years of age her father died, and his estate proving insolvent, the land and negroes were brought under the hammer. His daughter, never having been manumitted, was inventoried and sold with the other property. The Colonel, then just of age, and a young man of fortune, bought her and took her to the residence of his mother in Charleston. A governess was provided for her, and a year or two afterwards she was taken to the North to be educated. There she was frequently visited by the Colonel; and when fifteen her condition became such that she was obliged to return home. He conveyed her to the plantation, where her elder son, David, was soon afterwards born, 'Aunt Lucy' officiating on the occasion. When the child was two years old, leaving it in charge of the aged negress, she accompanied the Colonel to Europe, where they remained for a year. Subsequently she passed another year at a Northern seminary; and then, returning to the plantation, was duly installed as its mistress, and had ever since presided over its domestic affairs. She was kind and good to the negroes, who were greatly attached to her, and much of the Colonel's wealth was due to her excellent management of the estate.

Six years after the birth of 'young Massa Davy,' the Colonel married his present wife, that lady having full knowledge of his left-handed connection with Madam P----, and consenting that the 'bond-woman' should remain on the plantation, as its mistress. The legitimate wife resided, during most of the year, in Charleston, and when at the homestead took little interest in domestic matters. On one of her visits to the plantation, twelve years before, her daughter, Miss Clara, was born, and within a week, and under the same roof, Madam P---- presented the Colonel with a son,--the lad Thomas, of whom I have spoken. As the mother was a slave, the children were so also at their birth, but _they_ had been manumitted by their father. One of them was being educated in Germany; and it was intended that both should spend their lives in that country, the taint in their blood being an insuperable bar to their ever acquiring social position at the South.

As she finished the story, the old woman said, 'Massa Davy am bery kind to de missus, sar, but he _love_ de ma'am; an' he can't help it, 'cause she'm jess so good as de angels.'[K]

I looked at my watch,--it was nearly ten o'clock, and I rose to go. As I did so the old negress said,--

'Don't yer gwo, massa, 'fore you hab sum ob aunty's wine; you'm good friends wid Scip, and I knows _you'se_ not too proud to drink wid brack folks, ef you am from de Norf.'

Being curious to know what quality of wine a plantation slave indulged in, I accepted the invitation. She went to the side-board, and brought out a cut-glass decanter, and three cracked tumblers, which she placed on the table. Filling the glasses to the brim, she passed one to Scip, and one to me, and, with the other in her hand, resumed her seat. Wishing her a good many happy years, and Scip a pleasant journey home, I emptied the glass. It was Scuppernong, and the pure juice of the grape!

'Aunty,' I said, 'this wine is as fine as I ever tasted.'

'Oh yas, massa, it am de raal stuff. I growed de grapes myseff.'

'You grew them?'

'Yas, sar, an' Massa Davy make de wine. He do it ebery yar for de ole nuss.'

'The Colonel is very good. Do you raise anything else?'

'Yas, I hab collards and taters, a little corn, and most ebery ting.'

'But who does your work? _You_ certainly can't do it?'

'Oh, de ma'am looks arter dat, sar; she'm bery good to de ole aunty.'

Shaking hands with both the negroes, I left the cabin, fully convinced that all the happiness in this world is not found within plastered apartments.

The door of the mansion was bolted and barred; but, rapping for admission, I soon heard the Colonel's voice asking, 'Who is there?' Giving a satisfactory answer, I was admitted. Explaining that he supposed I had retired to my room, he led the way to the library.

That apartment was much more elegantly furnished than the drawing-rooms. Three of its sides were lined with books, and on the centre-table, papers, pamphlets, and manuscripts were scattered in promiscuous confusion. In an armchair near the fire, Madam P---- was seated, reading. The Colonel's manner was as composed as if nothing had disturbed the usual routine of the plantation; no trace of the recent terrible excitement was visible; in fact, had I not been a witness to the late tragedy, I should have thought it incredible that he, within two hours, had been an actor in a scene which had cost a human being his life.

'Where in creation have you been, my dear fellow?' he asked, as we took our seats.

'At old Lucy's cabin, with Scip,' I replied.

'Indeed. I supposed the darky had gone.'

'No, he doesn't go till the morning.'

'I told you he wouldn't, David,' said Madam P----; 'now, send for him,--do make friends with him before he goes.'

'No, Alice, it won't do. I bear him no ill-will, but it won't do. It would be all over the plantation in an hour.'

'No matter for that; our people would like you the better for it.'

'No, no. I can't do it. I mean him no harm, but I can't do that.'

'He told me _why_ he interfered between you and Moye,' I remarked.

'Why did he?'

'He says old Lucy, years ago, was a mother to him; that she is greatly attached to you, and it would kill her if any harm happened to you; and that your neighbors bear you no good-will, and would have enforced the law had you killed Moye.'

'It is true, David; you would have had to answer for it.'

'Nonsense! what influence could this North County scum have against _me_?'

'Perhaps none. But that makes no difference; Scipio did right, and you should tell him you forgive him.'

The Colonel then rang a small bell, and a negro woman soon appeared. 'Sue,' he said, 'go to Aunt Lucy's and ask Scip to come here. Bring him in at the front door, and, mind, let no one know he comes.'

The woman in a short time returned with Scip. There was not a trace of fear or embarrassment in the negro's manner as he entered the room. Making a respectful bow, he bade us 'good evening.'

'Good evening, Scip,' said the Colonel, rising and giving the black his hand; 'let us be friends. Madam tells me I should forgive you, and I do.'

'Aunt Lucy say ma'am am an angel, sar, and it am tru,--it am tru, sar,' replied the negro, with considerable feeling.

The lady rose, also, and took Scip's hand, saying, '_I_ not only forgive you, Scipio, but I _thank_ you for what you have done. I shall never forget it.'

'You'se too good, ma'am; you'se too good to say dat,' replied the darky, the moisture coming to his eyes; 'but I meant nuffin' wrong,--I meant nuffin' dis'specful to de Cunnel.'

'I know you didn't, Scip; but we'll say no more about it;--good-by,' said the Colonel.

Shaking hands with each one of us, the darky left the apartment.

One who does not know that the high-bred Southern gentleman considers the black as far below him as the horse he drives, or the dog he kicks, can not realize the amazing sacrifice of pride which the Colonel made in seeking a reconciliation with Scip. It was the cutting off of his right hand. The circumstance showed the powerful influence held over him by the octoroon woman. Strange that she, his slave, cast out from society by her blood and her life, despised, no doubt, by all the world, save by him and a few ignorant blacks, should thus control a proud, self-willed, passionate man, and control him, too, only for good.

After the black had gone, I said to the Colonel, 'I was much interested in old Lucy. A few more such instances of cheerful and contented old age might lead me to think better of slavery.'

'Such cases are not rare, sir. They show the paternal character of our "institution." We are _forced_ to care for our servants in their old age.'

'But have your other aged slaves the same comforts that Aunt Lucy has?'

'No; they don't need them. She has been accustomed to live in my house, and to fare better than the plantation hands; she therefore requires better treatment.'

'Is not the support of that class a heavy tax upon you?'

'Yes, it _is_ heavy. We have, of course, to deduct it from the labor of the able-bodied hands.'

'What is the usual proportion of sick and infirm on your plantation?'

'Counting in the child-bearing women, I reckon about twenty per cent.'

'And what does it cost you to support each hand?'

'Well, it costs _me_, for children and all, about seventy-five dollars a year. In some places it costs less. _I_ have to buy all my provisions.'

'What proportion of your slaves are able-bodied hands?'

'Somewhere about sixty per cent. I have, all told, old and young,--men, women, and children,--two hundred and seventy. Out of that number I have now equal to a hundred and fifty-four _full_ hands. You understand that we classify them: some do only half tasks, some three-quarters. I have _more_ than a hundred and fifty-four working men and women, but they do only that number of full tasks.'

'What does the labor of a _full_ hand yield?'

'At the present price of turpentine, my calculation is about two hundred dollars a year.'

'Then your crop brings you about thirty-one thousand dollars, and the support of your negroes costs you twenty thousand.'

'Yes.'

'If that's the case, my friend, let me advise you to sell your plantation, free your niggers, and go North.'

'Why so, my dear fellow?' asked the Colonel, laughing.

'Because you'd make money by the operation.'

'I never was good at arithmetic; go into the figures,' he replied, still laughing, while Madam P----, who had laid aside her book, listened very attentively.

'Well, you have two hundred and seventy negroes, whom you value, we'll say, with your mules, "stills," and movable property, at two hundred thousand dollars; and twenty thousand acres of land, worth about three dollars and a half an acre; all told, two hundred and seventy thousand dollars. A hundred and fifty-four able-bodied hands produce you a yearly profit of eleven thousand dollars, which, saying nothing about the cost of keeping your live stock, the wear and tear of your mules and machinery, and the yearly loss of your slaves by death, is only four per cent. on your capital. Now, with only the price of your land, say seventy thousand dollars, invested in safe stocks at the North, you could realize eight per cent.--five thousand six hundred dollars,--and live at your ease; and that, I judge, if you have many runaways, or many die on your hands, is as much as you really _clear_ now. Besides, if you should invest seventy thousand dollars in almost any legitimate business at the North, and should add to it, _as you now do_, your _time_ and _labor_, you would realize far more than you do at present from your entire capital.'

'I never looked at the matter in that light. But I have given you my profits as they _now_ are; some years I make more; six years ago I made twenty-five thousand dollars.'

'Yes; and six years hence you may make nothing.'

'That's true. But it would cost me more to live at the North.'

'There you are mistaken. What do you pay for your corn, your pork, and your hay, for instance?'

'Well, my corn I have to bring round by vessel from Washington (North Carolina), and it costs me high when it gets here,--about ten bits (a dollar and twenty-five cents), I think.'

'And in New York you could buy it now at sixty to seventy cents. What does your hay cost?'

'Thirty-five dollars. I pay twenty for it in New York,--the balance is freight and hauling.'

'Your pork costs you two or three dollars, I suppose, for freight and hauling.'

'Yes; about that.'

'Then in those items you might save nearly a hundred per cent.; and they are the principal articles you consume.'

'Yes; there's no denying that. But another thing is just as certain: it costs less to support one of my niggers than one of your laboring men.'

'That may be true. But it only shows that our laborers fare better than your slaves.'

'I'm not sure of that. I _am_ sure, however, that our slaves are more contented than the run of laboring men at the North.'

'That proves nothing. Your blacks have no hope, no chance to rise; and they submit--though I judge not cheerfully--to an iron necessity. The Northern laborer, if very poor, may be discontented; but discontent urges him to effort, and leads to the bettering of his condition. I tell you, my friend, slavery is an expensive luxury. You Southern nabobs _will_ have it; and you have to _pay for it_.'

'Well, we don't complain. But, seriously, my good fellow, I feel that I'm carrying out the design of the Almighty in holding my niggers. I think he made the black to serve the white.'

'_I_ think,' I replied, 'that whatever He designs works perfectly. Your institution certainly does not. It keeps the producer, who, in every society, is the really valuable citizen, in the lowest poverty, while it allows those who do nothing to be "clad in fine linen, and to fare sumptuously every day."'

'It does more than that, sir,' said Madam P----, with animation; 'it brutalizes and degrades the _master_ and the _slave_; it separates husband and wife, parent and child; it sacrifices virtuous women to the lust of brutal men; and it shuts millions out from the knowledge of their duty and their destiny. A good and just God could not have designed it; and it must come to an end.'

If lightning had struck in the room I could not have been more startled than I was by the abrupt utterance of such language in a planter's house, in his very presence, and _by his slave_. The Colonel, however, expressed no surprise and no disapprobation. It was evidently no new thing to him.

'It is rare, madam,' I said, 'to hear such sentiments from a Southern lady--one reared among slaves.'

Before she could reply, the Colonel laughingly said,--

'Bless you, Mr. K----, madam is an out-and-out abolitionist, worse by fifty per cent. than Garrison or Wendell Phillips. If she were at the North she would take to pantaloons, and "stump" the entire Free States; wouldn't you, Alice?'

'I've no doubt of it,' rejoined the lady, smiling. 'But I fear I should have poor success. I've tried for ten years to convert _you_, and Mr. K---- can see the result.'

It had grown late; and, with my head full of working niggers and white slave-women, I went to my apartment.

The next day was Sunday. It was near the close of December, yet the air was as mild and the sun as warm as in our Northern October. It was arranged at the breakfast-table that we all should attend service at 'the meeting-house,' a church of the Methodist persuasion, located some eight miles away; but as it wanted some hours of the time for religious exercises to commence, I strolled out after breakfast, with the Colonel, to inspect the stables of the plantation. 'Massa Tommy' accompanied us, without invitation; and in the Colonel's intercourse with him I observed as much freedom and familiarity as he would have shown to an acknowledged son. The youth's manners and conversation showed that great attention had been given to his education and training, and made it evident that the mother whose influence was forming his character, whatever a false system of society had made her life, possessed some of the best traits of her sex.

The stables, a collection of one-story framed buildings, about a hundred rods from the house, were well lighted and ventilated, and contained all 'the modern improvements.' They were better built, warmer, more commodious, and in every way more comfortable than the shanties occupied by the human cattle of the plantation. I remarked as much to the Colonel, adding that one who did not know would infer that he valued his horses more than his slaves.

'That may be true,' he replied, laughing. 'Two of my horses here are worth more than any eight of my slaves;' at the same time calling my attention to two magnificent thorough-breds, one of which had made '2.32' on the Charleston course. The establishment of a Southern gentleman is not complete until it includes one or two of these useless appendages. I had an argument with my host as to their value compared with that of the steam-engine, in which I forced him to admit that the iron horse is the better of the two, because it performs more work, eats less, has greater speed, and is not liable to the spavin or the heaves; but he wound up by saying, 'After all, I go for the thorough-breds. You Yankees have but one test of value--use.'

A ramble through the negro-quarters, which followed our visit to the stables, gave me some further glimpses of plantation life. Many of the hands were still away in pursuit of Moye, but enough remained to make it evident that Sunday is the happiest day in the darky calendar. Groups of all ages and colors were gathered in front of several of the cabins, some singing, some dancing, and others chatting quietly together, but all enjoying themselves as heartily as so many young animals let loose, in a pasture. They saluted the Colonel and me respectfully, but each one had a free, good-natured word for 'Massa Tommy,' who seemed an especial favorite with them. The lad took their greetings in good part, but preserved an easy, unconscious dignity of manner that plainly showed he did not know that _he_ too was of their despised, degraded race.

The Colonel, in a rapid way, gave me the character and peculiarities of nearly every one we met. The titles of some of them amused me greatly. At every step we encountered individuals whose names have become household words in every civilized country.[L] Julius Cæsar, slightly stouter than when he swam the Tiber, and somewhat tanned from long exposure to a Southern sun, was seated on a wood-pile, quietly smoking a pipe; while near him, Washington, divested of regimentals, and clad in a modest suit of reddish-gray, his thin locks frosted by time, and his fleshless visage showing great age, was gazing, in rapt admiration, at a group of dancers in front of old Lucy's cabin.

In this group about thirty men and women were making the ground quake and the woods ring with their unrestrained jollity. Marc Antony was rattling away at the bones, Nero fiddling as if Rome were burning, and Hannibal clawing at a banjo as if the fate of Carthage hung on its strings. Napoleon, as young and as lean as when he mounted the bridge of Lodi, with the battle-smoke still on his face, was moving his legs even faster than in the Russian retreat; and John Wesley was using his heels in a way that showed _they_ didn't belong to the Methodist church. But the central figures of the group were Cato and Victoria. The lady had a face like a thunder-cloud, and a form that, if whitewashed, would have outsold the 'Greek Slave.' She was built on springs, and 'floated in the dance' like a feather in a high wind. Cato's mouth was like an alligator's, but when it opened, it issued notes that would draw the specie even in this time of general suspension. As we approached he was singing a song, but he paused on perceiving us, when the Colonel, tossing a handful of coin among them, called out, 'Go on, boys; let the gentleman have some music; and you, Vic, show your heels like a beauty.'

A general scramble followed, in which 'Vic's' sense of decorum forbade her to join, and she consequently got nothing. Seeing that, I tossed her a silver piece, which she caught. Grinning her thanks, she shouted, 'Now, clar de track, you nigs; start de music. I'se gwine to gib de gemman de breakdown.'

And she did; and such a breakdown! 'We w'ite folks,' though it was no new thing to the Colonel or Tommy, almost burst with laughter.

In a few minutes nearly every negro on the plantation, attracted by the presence of the Colonel and myself, gathered around the performers; and a shrill voice at my elbow called out, 'Look har, ye lazy, good-for-nuffin' niggers, carn't ye fotch a cheer for Massa Davy and de strange gemman?'

'Is that you, Aunty?' said the Colonel. 'How d'ye do?'

'Sort o' smart, Massa Davy; sort o' smart; how is ye?'

'Pretty well, Aunty; pretty well. Have a seat.' And the Colonel helped her to one of the chairs that were brought for us, with as much tenderness as he would have shown to an aged white lady.

The 'exercises,' which had been suspended for a moment, recommenced, and the old negress entered into them as heartily as the youngest present. A song from Cato followed the dance, and then about twenty 'gentleman and lady' darkies joined, two at a time, in a half 'walk-round' half breakdown, which the Colonel told me was what suggested the well-known 'white-nigger' dance and song of Lucy Long. Other performances succeeded, and the whole formed a scene impossible to describe. Such uproarious jollity, such full and perfect enjoyment, I had never seen in humanity, black or white. The little nigs, only four or five years old, would rush into the ring and shuffle away at the breakdowns till I feared their short legs would come off; while all the darkies joined in the songs, till the branches of the old pines above shook as if they too had caught the spirit of the music. In the midst of it, the Colonel said to me, in an exultant tone,--

'Well, my friend, what do you think of slavery _now_?'

'About the same that I thought yesterday. I see nothing to change my views.'

'Why, are not these people happy? Is not this perfect enjoyment?'

'Yes; just the same enjoyment that aunty's pigs are having; don't you hear them singing to the music? I'll wager they are the happier of the two.'

'No; you are wrong. The higher faculties of the darkies are being brought out here.'

'I don't know that,' I replied. 'Within the sound of their voices, two of their fellows--victims to the inhumanity of slavery--are lying dead, and yet they make _Sunday_ 'hideous' with wild jollity, while they do not know but Sam's fate may be theirs to-morrow.'

Spite of his genuine courtesy and high breeding, a shade of displeasure passed over the Colonel's face as I made this remark. Rising to go, he said, a little impatiently, 'Ah, I see how it is; that d---- Garrison's sentiments have impregnated even you. How can the North and the South hold together when even moderate men like you and me are so far apart?'

'But you,' I rejoined, good-humoredly, 'are not a moderate man. You and Garrison are of the same stripe, both extremists. You have mounted one hobby, _he_ another; that is all the difference.'

'I should be sorry,' he replied, recovering his good-nature, 'to think myself like Garrison. I consider him the ---- scoundrel unhung.'

'No; I think he means well. But you are both fanatics, both 'bricks' of the same material; we conservatives, like mortar, will hold you together and yet keep you apart.'

'I, for one, _won't_ be held. If I can't get out of this cursed Union in any other way, I'll emigrate to Cuba.'

I laughed, and just then, looking up, caught a glimpse of Jim, who stood, hat in hand, waiting to speak to the Colonel, but not daring to interrupt a white conversation.

'Hallo, Jim,' I said; 'have you got back?'

'Yas, sar,' replied Jim, grinning all over as if he had some agreeable thing to communicate.

'Where is Moye?' asked the Colonel.

'Kotched, massa; I'se got de padlocks on him.'

'Kotched,' echoed half a dozen darkies, who stood near enough to hear; 'Ole Moye is kotched,' ran through the crowd, till the music ceased, and a shout went up from two hundred black throats that made the old trees tremble.

'Now gib him de lashes, Massa Davy,' cried the old nurse. 'Gib him what he gabe pore Sam; but mine dat you keeps widin de law.'

'Never fear, Aunty,' said the Colonel; 'I'll give him ----.'

How the Colonel kept his word will be told in another number.

* * * * *

## ACTIVE SERVICE; OR, CAMPAIGNING IN WESTERN VIRGINIA.

I have been to the war; I have seen armed secessionists, and I have seen them run; but, more than that, I have seen _Active Service_. It was _active_, and no mistake.

In April last, my country needed my services; I had been playing soldier, and I felt it my duty to respond to the call of the President. I did respond. I uncovered my head, raised my right hand, and solemnly swore to obey the President of the United States for three months. The three months have expired, and I am once more a free American citizen, and for the first time in my life I know what it is to be _free_.

## ACTIVE SERVICE! That's what the military men call it. I have often read

of it; I have heard men talk about it; but now I have seen it. I meet people every day who congratulate me on my safe return, and say, 'I suppose you are going again?' Perhaps I am.

It was a beautiful day when our company left home, and what a crowd of people assembled to see us off! What a waving of banners and handkerchiefs; what shouting and cheering; what an endless amount of hand-shaking; how many 'farewells,' 'good-bys,' and 'take-care-of-yourselves,' were spoken; all of this had to be gone through with, and our company run the gauntlet and nobody was hurt.

Going to war is no child's play, as many seem to suppose. Once sworn in as a _private_, you become a tool, a mere thing, to do another's bidding. I do not say this to discourage enlistments,--far from it. I am only speaking the truth. 'Forewarned, forearmed.' If there is a hard life upon earth, it is that of a common soldier; he may be the bravest man in the army, he may perform an endless amount of daring deeds, but it is seldom that he gains a tangible reward. He does all the fighting, he performs all the drudgery, he is plundered by the sutler, he lives on pork and hard-bread, but he gets none of the honors of a victory. As Biglow says,--

'Lieutenants are the lowest grade that help pick up the coppers.'

I belonged to an artillery company. I joined this because somebody told me I could ride. I wish I had that _somebody_ by the throat. The idea of a man's _riding_ over the mountains of Western Virginia! I won't call it ridiculous, for that's no name for it.

I will pass over the uninteresting part of the campaign, that of lying in camp, as everybody now-a-days has ample opportunity to judge of camp life, in the cities, and take the reader at once into 'active service,' and show the hardships and trials, together with the fun (for soldiers _do_ have their good times) of campaigning.

On the 29th day of May, 1861, we arrived at Parkersburgh, Va. It was my first visit to the Old Dominion. We had been taught when youngsters at school to regard Virginia as a sort of Holy Land, 'flowing with milk and honey,' and the mother of all that is great and noble in the United States, if not in the world. We were 'going South.'

It was at the close of a warm spring day that we landed there; the sun was just sinking in the west as the boat rounded-to at the wharf. We jumped ashore, and for the first time in our lives inhaled the 'sacred atmosphere' of the so-called Southern Confederacy. All was bustle and confusion; but we soon had our traps, _i.e._, guns, caissons and horses, unloaded, and a little after dark were on the march. We proceeded a few miles out of town, and at midnight halted, pitched our tents, stationed guards, and all who were so fortunate as not to be detailed for duty were soon sound asleep.

At Grafton, one hundred miles east of Parkersburgh, we were told there was a party of some two thousand rebels. This then was the object of our visit to Western Virginia, to drive these men east of the mountains,--from whence most of them came,--and to protect the honor of our flag in that portion of Virginia now known by the name of Kanawha.

At sunrise on the 30th, we marched to the depot of the north-western branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and, after a hard half-day's work in loading our guns, horses and wagons, stowed ourselves away in cattle cars, and were once more ready for a start. As we rattled along over the railroad, the scenery for the first few miles was beautiful, and we began to think that Old Virginny was really the flower of the Union. But a 'change soon came over the spirit of our dreams.'

After passing a small shanty, called Petroleum,--from the numerous oil-wells in the vicinity,--we met with the first really hard work we had seen since we began the life of a soldier. Here the rebels had burnt one of the railroad bridges, and all hands had to 'fall in' and repair damages. Never did men work with a better will. Slender youths, who, if they had been told one month before, that on the 30th day of May, 1861, they would be laying rails and cutting timber for Uncle Sam, for eleven dollars a month, would have pitied their informant as insane, were here working with a will that showed what a man can do if he only sets himself about it. For two days and a night we toiled and ceased not, and when, on the evening of the second day, we passed over the 'soldiers' bridge' in safety, such a shout rent the air as I never heard before.

A few miles beyond the burnt bridge, the scenery began to change. In the clear starlight, instead of beautiful streams and fine farms, we beheld hills and mountains covered with an almost impenetrable growth of underbrush, and large rocks hanging over our heads, ready to be hurled down upon us by some unseen hand, and to crush our little handful of men. On we went, at a snail's pace, till about ten o'clock, P.M., when our joy was again turned to woe, for here too the dogs of Jeff Davis had been doing their work, and had burnt another bridge. We waited until morning, and then, after some hard swearing, were once more transformed into 'greasy mechanics,' and before the sun went down had passed to the 'other side of Jordan' in safety.

Here began our first experience of the hospitality of the sons, or rather daughters, of Virginia.

A small farm-house stood near the bridge, numerous cows were grazing in the pasture close by, and everything denoted a home of comfort and plenty. This, I thought, must be the home of some F.F.V., and I will take a pail--or rather camp kettle--and 'sarah forth' to buy a few quarts of milk. Wending my way to the house, I knocked at the door, and instantly six female heads protruded from the window. Presently one of them, an elderly woman, opened the door, and inquired what I wanted.

'Have you any milk to spare?' I said.

'I reckon,' replied the woman.

'I would like to get a few quarts,' I said, handing her my kettle. I took a seat on the door-step, and wondered what these six women were doing in this lonely spot. They evidently lived alone, for not a man was to be seen around. The table was spread for dinner, six cups, six plates, six spoons, and no more. I was about to ask for the man of the house, when the old woman returned with my kettle of milk.

'How much?' I asked, as I thrust my hand deep into my pocket, and drew forth one of the few coins it was my fortune to possess.

'Only four bits,' said the ancient female.

I thought milk must have 'riz' lately, but I paid the money and left.

From observations since taken, I infer these six women were 'grass widows,' whose husbands had enlisted in the rebel army, and left them behind to plunder the Union troops by selling corn-bread and milk for ten times its value.

I took a seat on a log, and congratulated myself on the prospect of a good dinner. By the aid of a stone I managed to crumble 'two shingles' of hard bread into a cup of the milk, and then, with an appetite such as I never enjoyed in _America_, sat to work. I took one mouthful, when, lo! the milk was sour! Hurling cup and contents toward the hospitable mansion, I fell back upon my regular diet of salt pork.

Leaving the Virginia damsels to plunder the next regiment of Federals that came along, we were soon once more on our way, and on Saturday, the 1st of June, arrived at Clarksburgh. Here we learned that the rebels had left Grafton and gone to Phillippi, some twenty miles back in the country. We remained at Clarksburgh until Sunday morning, when, once more stowing ourselves 'three deep' on flats and stock cars, we proceeded as far as Webster. Here we left the railroad, and pursued the rebels afoot.

Webster is a big name, and there we flattered ourselves we could get some of the comforts of life. But once again we were doomed to disappointment. Two stores, a dozen or so of shanties, and a secession pole, make up this mighty town. Parkersburgh is a 'right smart place;' Clarksburgh 'isn't much to speak of;' the only thing of interest about it is the home of Senator Carlisle; but Webster is a little the worst place I have ever seen. I am sorry to say, in the language of the great man whose name it bears, 'It still lives.'

Observing a shanty on the summit of a small hill, with the words, 'Meals at all hours,' over the door, I wended my way over sundry cow-paths and through by-lanes towards it, until at last, fatigued, and with hands torn and bleeding from catching hold of roots and bushes to keep myself from falling, I arrived at the summit of the hill. A young woman stood in the door-way of the shanty, and I asked her if I could obtain a dinner.

'Yes,' she said. 'Walk in and take a cheer.' She shoved a three-legged stool towards me, and I took it.

She was about eighteen years of age, and had a very pretty face,--though it was thickly covered with a coating of the sacred soil,--a musical voice, and a small hand. Her eyes sparkled like fire-flies on a June night, and her hair hung in wavy ringlets over what would have been an 'alabaster brow,' had it not been for the superabundance of _dirt_ above mentioned. She was the only good-looking woman I saw in Western Virginia.

I took a seat at the table, and from a broken cup drank a few swallows of tolerable coffee. As for the edibles, 'twas the same old story,--corn bread and maple molasses, fried pork and onions. I staid there perhaps fifteen minutes, and learned from my hostess that Webster was, previous to the war 'a right smart village,' but that the male inhabitants had mostly joined the rebel army, then at Phillippi. She, different from most women I met in Virginia, expressed sympathy for the Union cause. It seemed so strange to find a _Union_ woman in that part of the country, I was induced to ask if Webster had the honor of being her birth-place.

'Oh no,' she said; 'I was born in 'Hio.'

That solved the whole mystery. I willingly paid the 'four bits' for my dinner; and, as a storm was coming on, made all haste back to the railroad, where we were getting ready to march on Phillippi, distance thirteen Virginian, or about twenty _American_, miles.

'Fall in, Company Q!' shouted the orderly. 'Numbers one, two, three, and four, do so and so; five, six, seven, and eight, do this, that, and the other!' So at it we went; and never in my life did I perform a harder afternoon's work than on Sunday, the 2d of June, 1861. It was a warm, sultry day, and our morning's ride in the cars had been dusty and fatiguing; and when, about dusk, a heavy rain-storm set in and drenched us to the skin, we were sorry-looking objects indeed.

Although we had been in service six weeks, we had but just received our uniforms that morning. My pants, when I put them on, were about six inches too long, and the sleeves of my blouse ditto. After marching all night in the rain, my trowsers only came down as far as my knees; they shrank two feet in twelve hours. Many of the men threw away their shoddy uniforms after wearing them one day, as they were totally unfit for use. They tore as easily as so much paper, and were no protection whatever from the weather. Somebody, I don't pretend to say who, made a good thing when he furnished them to the government. No doubt they were supplied by some _loyal_ and _respectable_ citizen, who would not knowingly cheat his country out of a penny! We have reaped a bountiful harvest of such patriots during the past year. May the Lord love them!

At eleven o'clock on the night of the 2d of June we started for Phillippi. It commenced raining about seven o'clock in the evening, and we were all wet to the skin. The night was very dark, and the road, though they called it a 'pike,' was one of the worst imaginable; it wound 'round and round,'--

'It turned in and turned out, Leaving beholders still in doubt Whether the wretched muddy track Were going South or coming back,'--

and seemed to run in every direction but the right one. It was a road such as can be found only in Virginia. The mud was almost up to the hubs of the wagon-wheels; the horses pulled, the drivers laid on the lash and a string of oaths at the same time; the wind blew, and the rain came down in torrents. More than once on that awful march did we lend a helping hand to get the horses out of some 'slough of Despond.' Over the mountains and through the woods we went, at the rate of about two miles an hour. Many gave out and lay down by the wayside; and when at last morning dawned, a more pitiable set of beings never were seen upon earth. The men looked haggard and wan, the horses could hardly stand, and we were in anything but a good condition for invading an enemy's country.

At daylight we were within two miles of Phillippi. Col. (now General) Lander was with the advance, and had discovered that the enemy were ready for a retreat. Their baggage was loaded, and if we did not make the last two miles at 'double-quick,' he was fearful we would be too late to accomplish the object of the expedition. So the order was given, 'Double-quick!' and jaded horses and almost lifeless men rushed forward, buoyed up with the prospect of having a brush with the rascals who had given us so much trouble.

We had gone about a mile and a half, when, at a turn in the road, an old woman rushed out from a log cabin, and, in a loud and commanding voice, exclaimed,--

'Halt, artillery, or I'll shoot every one of you!'

Not obeying the order, she fired three shots at us, none of which took effect. At the same time three men rushed from the back of the house toward the rebel camp at the foot of the hill, shouting at the top of their voices to give warning of our approach. A squad of our fellows took after them, and soon overtook them in a corn-field, when they denied coming from the house, and said they were out planting corn! A likely story, as it was hardly daylight, and the rain was falling in torrents. However, during the forenoon they took _oath_, and were set free!

Past the log house we went at 'double-quick,' and in less time than it takes to tell it, the artillery took position in a small piece of wood on the summit of a hill overlooking the town. At once the order was given, 'Action front!' and the first the rebels knew of our approach was the rattling of canister among their tents. Out they swarmed, like bees from a molested hive. This way and that the chivalry flew, and yet scarcely knew which way to run. 'Bould sojer boys,' with nothing but their underclothes on, mounted their nags bareback, and fled 'over the hills and far away' towards Beverley, firing as they ran a few random shots. Before the infantry reached the town most of them had made good their escape, leaving behind, however, nearly all their baggage, a large number of horses, wagons, tents, and about eight hundred stand of arms, together with a nicely-cooked breakfast, which they had no idea they were preparing for 'Lincoln's hirelings.'

We took about fifty prisoners, among them the man who wounded Col. (now General) Kelley. They were retained until the next day, when the oath was administered, and they were let loose to rejoin their companions in arms. About four weeks after this, we had the pleasure of retaking, several of these fellows; some of them, in fact, were taken three or four times, each time taking the oath, and being set at liberty, and each time, true to their nature--and Jeff Davis--immediately taking up arms again against the government.

Phillippi, from any of the neighboring hills, or rather mountains, presents a rather picturesque appearance. It was, previous to the war, a place of about one thousand inhabitants. It boasts a good court-house, a bank, and two hotels, and was by far the most civilized-looking town we had then seen in Virginia. But, alas! what a change had come over its once happy populace. When we entered it, not a dozen inhabitants were left. We were told that Phillippi was the head-quarters of rebellion in Western Virginia. Here was published the Barbour County _Jeffersonian_, a rabid secession newspaper, now no more, for the press was demolished, and the types thrown into a well. The editor had joined the rebel army a few days before our arrival, and was among the loudest denunciators of our government. He boasted he would shed the last drop of his blood (he was very careful as to shedding the first) before he would retreat one inch before the _Abolitionists_. We afterwards learned from some of his men that he was among the first to mount his horse and run to the mountains; the last that was seen of him he was going at lightning speed toward Richmond, and in all probability _il court encore_,--he is running yet.

We had taken possession of the town and most of the enemy's baggage and equipments; still our commanding officer was not satisfied, neither were the men. We had intended to completely surround the enemy and to cut off every possible chance of his retreat. The attack was to have been made at five o'clock, A.M.; but one column, that which marched from Grafton, was about twenty minutes too late, and when at last it did make its appearance, it entered town by the wrong road, having been misled by the guide. The consequence was, the enemy retreated on the Beverley road, where they met with little or no resistance. Our men were too much fatigued to follow the fast-fleeing traitors, and most of them made good their escape.

After the excitement of the attack, the men dropped down wherever they stood, in the streets, in the fields, or in the woods, and slept soundly until noon, the rain continuing to fall in torrents. But what was that to men worn out with marching? I never slept better than when lying in a newly-plowed corn-field, with the mud over my ankles, the rain pelting me in the face, and not a blanket to cover me.

_Bang! bang! bang!_ and up I jumped from my bed of mud, thinking the fight had again commenced. Somewhat bewildered, I rubbed the 'sacred soil' from my eyes and looked about me. It was noon; the rain had ceased, and from the constant sound of musketry, I supposed a battle was then raging. But instead of fighting the 'secesh,' I soon found the Indiana boys were making havoc among the fowls of the chivalry. They fired too much at random to suit my taste, and I made tracks for a safer abode. Beating a hasty retreat to the hill where my company was stationed, I found a large crowd gathered around some of the captured wagons, overhauling the plunder. And what a mixed-up mess! Old guns, sabres, bowie-knives, pistols made in Richmond in 1808, old uniforms that looked like the property of some strolling actor, and love-letters which the bold chivalry had received from fair damsels, who all expressed the desire that, their 'lovyers' would bring home, Old Abe's scalp. These letters afforded great amusement to our boys, though it was hard to read many of them, and were they put into print, Artemus Ward would have to look to his 'lorrels.'

Bang! bang! bang! they kept on shooting till dark. It is useless to say we had chickens for supper that night; and I would not be surprised if the chicken crop of Phillippi and vicinity should be rather small for a few years to come.

Wild rumors were running through the camp all day that the 'secesh' had been reinforced, were ten thousand strong, and, with forty pieces of cannon, would attack us that night. Some said they were commanded by Gov. Wise, the lunatic, others by Beauregard, and some positively asserted that Jeff Davis led the rebel forces himself. At all events, it was pretty well settled that we were to be attacked forthwith. Our men slept on their arms, but not a secesh appeared.

I, as usual, was on guard that night, and, feeling that a great responsibility rested on my shoulders, was 'doubly armed.' A well-known professor, a member of the same company as myself, was on the first relief; I was on the second. I went on duty at ten o'clock, P.M., and the professor kindly loaned me his revolver, and, in addition, soon returned with an extra musket, a secession sabre, and one of the captured pistols. Thus loaded down with swords, pistols, and muskets, and guarding a six-pounder, I felt _tolerably_ safe. After walking up and down my beat a few times, I found the two muskets began to feel rather heavy, and the two sabres to be rather uncomfortable dangling about my legs; and thinking that two revolvers and a _secesh_ pistol would be all that I could use to advantage, I divested myself of the extra equipments, and passed the residue of my 'two-hours' watch' in committing to memory 'my last dying words,' for use in case the secesh put an end to my existence.

Our colonel's name was Barnett; the countersign for the night was Buena Vista. About eleven o'clock I observed a man coming towards me. 'Halt!' I exclaimed; 'who goes there?'

'A _friendt_,' was the reply.

'Advance, friend, and give the countersign.'

The man walked towards me, and whispered in my ear 'Barnett's Sister!' at the same time attempting to pass. Placing my bayonet close against his breast, I ordered him to 'halt!' and called for the corporal of the guard. The Dutchman--for such he was--begged and plead, but it was of no use; I told him he was trying to 'run the guard,' and he must go to the guard-house.

'Barnett's Sister! Barnett's Sister! Barnett's Sister!' shouted the Dutchman. 'I know nothing about Barnett's Sister,' said I; 'stop your noise, or you will rouse the camp.'

Just then, the officer of the guard came round. I stated the case to him, and the man was taken to the guard-house. The next morning he was released, and on inquiry at head-quarters it was found that he had the password, but had confounded 'Buena Vista' with 'Barnett's Sister.' We all enjoyed a good laugh over it, and ever after 'Barnett's Sister' was the password for all who attempted to 'run the guard.'

We lay at Phillippi nearly six weeks. Every day or two an alarm would occur, the long roll would beat, and the men would form in line of battle. It is needless to say the alarms were all false. There are always hundreds of rumors in every camp, and ours was not an exception. But after the first week we paid little attention to the many wild reports which were in circulation. Although Gov. Wise had said he would take dinner in Phillippi or in ---- on the fourth of July; notwithstanding Gov. Letcher had issued a proclamation warning us to leave the State in twenty-four hours or he would hang every one of us; although a proclamation dated Staunton, Va., June 7th, 1861, stated to the people of Western Virginia that their little band of _volunture (?)_ had been forced from Phillippi by the ruthless Northern foe, led on by traitors and tories, and that Jeff Davis and John Letcher had sent to their aid a force of cavalry, artillery and rifles; and although the proclamation wound up by saying To-morrow an ARMY will follow! we felt tolerably safe at Phillippi. We had determined, if the aforesaid army did appear, it should have a warm reception.

Every day or two scouting parties went out and captured a few stray 'Bush-Whackers,' to whom the oath was administered, and they were released. Days and weeks passed, but the army of Davis, Beauregard, and Co., failed to appear. They had, however, congregated and entrenched themselves at Laurel Hill, about thirteen miles east of Phillippi.

We were reinforced from time to time, until our force numbered some forty-five hundred men, when Gen. McClellan determined to rout the enemy from Laurel Hill and Rich Mountain. How well he succeeded, history will tell.

On the night of the 6th of July, we left Phillippi for Laurel Hill, starting at midnight. The road was rather rough, but much better than we expected to find it. When we were within about five miles of the enemy's camps; we passed a toll-gate, where an old woman came to the door to 'collect toll.' Some of our boys stopped at the house to get a drink of water, and asked the old lady how far it was to camp,--meaning the rebel camp. 'About four miles,' she said, 'but you can't get in without a pass.'

The artillery was just then passing her door; the boys pointed to that, and told her 'they thought they had a pass that would take them in.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, as the thought struck her that we were Federals, 'you won't find it as easy work as you did at Phillippi; they're going to fight this time.'

On our return home this same woman was at the door, but she didn't demand _toll_ this time. 'Well, old lady,' said one of our fellows, 'what do you think _now_ about the fighting qualities of your men?'

'They who fight and run away, Will live to fight another day,'

she exclaimed, and, slamming the door, vanished from sight, I trust forever.

At daylight we drove in the rebel pickets at Laurel Hill. We were within a mile and a half of their main camp, and halted there to await orders from Gen. McClellan, before beginning the attack. He was advancing on the enemy at Rich Mountain and Beverley.

We threw a few shells into the rebel camp, producing great consternation among their men and horses. For four days we kept up skirmishing, but on the fifth day it rained, and little was done. All were anxious to commence the attack, but, as we had heard nothing from Gen. McClellan, all had to 'wait for orders.' That night the enemy, hearing of the Federal victory at Rich Mountain, and the occupation of Beverley by McClellan, and evidently thinking himself in a 'bad fix,' retreated from Laurel Hill toward St. George. In the morning our forces took possession of his camp and fortifications, and part of our column pursued the flying forces, overtaking them at Cornick's Ford, where a sharp engagement ensued, which resulted in a total rout of the rebels, and the death of Gen. Garnett. Only a portion of his army escaped over the mountains to Eastern Virginia.

So hasty was the retreat from Laurel Hill, that the enemy left behind all the sick and wounded, telling them the Union troops would kill them as soon as they took possession of their camp. A large number of tents, a quantity of flour, and a few muskets, fell into our hands. The fortifications at Laurel Hill were strong, and evidently planned and constructed by men who understood their business.

Among the numerous letters which we found in the rebel camp, was one written to one of the Richmond papers, during the _siege_ of Laurel Hill. In that part of the letter which was intended for publication, the writer said:--

'The Yankees have at last arrived, about ten thousand strong. For the past two days we have had some sharp skirmishing, during which time we have killed one hundred of the Hessians. We have, as yet, lost but one man.'

In a _private note_ to the editor, the writer adds:--

'I guess the Yankees have got us this time. There is a regiment here who call themselves the Indiana Ninth, but they lie,--they are regulars. They have got good rifles, and they take good aim. If it wasn't for this, we would attack them.'

This little item shows how the masses of the Southern people are deceived. Through the medium of the press they are made to believe they are gaining great victories, and repulsing the 'abolitionists' at every step, killing hundreds of our men, and losing none of their own. Our total loss at Laurel Hill was six men. The rebel loss, as near as could be ascertained, was forty. The rebel leaders know they are playing a game for life or death, and so long as they can keep in power by deceiving the people, just so long will this rebellion continue. Could the _truth_ be forced upon the people of the South, the rebellion would go down as quickly as it rose.

Many laughable incidents occurred while we were skirmishing with the enemy at Laurel Hill. We received a newspaper containing the message of President Lincoln. One of the Indiana boys, thinking it might do the secesh good to hear a few loyal sentiments, mounted a stump, paper in hand, and exclaimed, 'I say, secesh, don't you want to hear old Abe's message?' He then commenced reading, but had proceeded only a short way, before 'ping, ping' came the rifle balls around the stump; down jumped Indiana, convinced that reading even a President's message amidst a shower of bullets isn't so agreeable, after all.

We staid at Laurel Hill about two weeks. The enemy had been completely routed from that part of Virginia, and our term of enlistment having expired, our thoughts began to turn homeward. That ninety days' soldiering was the longest three months we ever experienced. It seemed an age since we had tasted a good meal, and all were anxious to once more cross the Ohio, and see a civilized country. The long looked-for order came at last, ''Bout face!' and we were on our homeward march. A more jovial, ragged, dirty, and hungry set of men, were never mustered out of service. We reached Camp Chase at Columbus, Ohio, about the last of July, and as each man delivered up his knapsack and etceteras, he felt as if a 'great weight' had been taken from his shoulders. We were once more free men; no one could order us about, tell us where we should or where we should not go. There was no more touching of hats to upstart lieutenants and half-witted captains or colonels. We could go where we liked, and do as we pleased, and not be reported, or sent to the guard-house. If my memory serves me aright, we _did_ do pretty much as we pleased; in other words, for two days, 'we made Rome howl!'

What we saw of Western Virginia and its inhabitants left anything but a favorable impression on our minds. The country is wild and romantic, but good for little or nothing for farming purposes. The houses are mostly built of logs, being little more than mere huts, and around each of these 'mansions' may be seen at least a dozen young 'tow-heads,' who are brought up in ignorance and filth. The inhabitants are lazy and ignorant, raising hardly enough to keep starvation from their doors. School houses are almost unknown; we did not see one in the whole course of our march; the consequence is, not more than one in ten of the population can read or write. And the few who 'can just make out to spell' are worse off than their more ignorant brethren.

'A little learning is a dangerous thing.'

And these people know just enough to make them _dangerous_. They have read in some of their county newspapers that Vice-President Hamlin is a negro, and that Lincoln is waging this war for the purpose of liberating the slaves and killing their masters. This they believe, and any amount of reasoning cannot convince them to the contrary. It seems to be enough for them to know that they are _Virginians_; upon this, and this alone, they live and have their being. They are by far the most wretched and degraded people in America,--I had almost said in the world. The women, if possible, are worse than the men; they go dressed in a loose, uncouth manner, barefooted and bareheaded; their principal occupation is chewing tobacco and plundering Union troops by getting ten prices for their eggs, butter, and corn bread. And these are the people our children--and their fathers before them--have been taught to regard as the true _chivalry_ of America! The people of the United States are beginning to see that Virginia and her sons have been greatly over-estimated. That Virginia has produced true and great men, no one will deny. There are a few such still within her borders; but, taking her as a whole, the picture I have drawn is a true one.

By my soldiering experience I learned some things which it would have been impossible to learn had I never 'gone for a soger.' First, I ascertained--shall I say from my _personal_ experience?--that a man dressed in soldier-clothes can stand twice as much bad liquor as one clothed in the garb of a citizen. Secondly, that to be a good soldier a man should be able to go at least forty-eight hours without eating, drinking, or sleeping, and then endure guard-duty all night in a drenching rain, without grumbling or fault-finding. Thirdly, I _think_ I have discovered that the martial road to glory '_is a hard road to travel_.'

* * * * *

A CABINET SESSION.

_The President: Secretaries Seward, Chase, Bates, Smith, Blair and Welles. Enter Mr. Stanton._

_Mr. Lincoln._ Gentlemen, I officially present Mr. Stanton!

[_Mr. Stanton, bowing with graceful dignity, seats himself at the table._]

_Mr. Seward (breaking the momentary pause in his jocular way)._ Remember, Mr. Secretary of War, you are now in the old chair of Floyd and Davis: and sit thee down as if on nettles.

_Mr. Chase._ Aye; but out of the 'nettle danger' pluck thou 'the flower safety.'

_Mr. Stanton (with emphasis)._ Believe me, I appreciate not so much the honor as the responsibilities of my new position. I claim a good omen, for, as I turned just now towards the gate, a little boy, seated upon one of the granite blocks for the new building hereabout, trolled out as my salutation the lines of the national air,--

'Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto, In God is our trust.'

_Mr. Welles._ Amen!

_Mr. Bates._ I suppose you passed not a few interesting hours in this room at the twilight of Mr. Buchanan's day, whilst holding _my_ portfolio?

_Mr. Stanton._ Too momentous to be called by _me_ interesting. Posterity, reading, will say _that_. And those twilight hours, as you felicitously term them, were followed by anxious vigils. But these belong to confidences.

_Mr. Lincoln (abruptly and familiarly)._ Talking of confidences, what do you think of the news about Zollicoffer?

_Mr. Stanton._ It appears reliable, and is a most providential success. Eastern Tennessee was tending to the position which Lucknow sustained towards the Indian rebellion. It is now relieved, and a fortnight or so will bring intelligence that the whole of it has practically joined forces to Western Virginia. I regard it as of the highest importance to prove, by industrious acts, that we recognize and reward the sufferings of these American Albigenses in their Cumberland fastnesses. How grandly would swell the old Miltonian hymn, properly paraphrased, when a brigade of the loyal Tennessians may sing

'Avenge, Columbia, thy slaughtered hosts, whose bones Lie scattered on the Western mountains cold,'

and so forth!

_Mr. Lincoln._ Now, you are stepping into Seward's province. _He_ is the poet of my cabinet!

_Mr. Seward._ Granted for the argument: but there is more truth than poetry in what our new brother has just said. Throughout how many weary months have those brave thousands who voted against secession awaited the crack of our rifles and our cannon-smoke--true music and sacred incense to them.

_Mr. Blair (practically)._ Next to the border States we must take care of the newspapers.

_Mr. Welles._ Ah, those newspapers: bothersome as urchins in a nursery, and yet as necessary to the perfect development of life's enjoyment.

_Mr. Chase._ Well said for the navy. But what do you say of the magnificent Neckars, whose monied articles from Boston to Chicago would swamp the treasury in a week, if they were believed in?

_Mr. Lincoln._ Being born and raised so far from the great metropolitan centres, I don't seem to take to newspapers so kindly as the rest of you do.

_Mr. Stanton._ With great respect to your Honor (as we say in court), I deem it a great mistake to neglect newspaper suggestions, however provincial. 'Do you hear (as Hamlet says), let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.' And your metropolitan editor, after all, follows the bent of the public opinion of the provinces as he scissors it from his thousand and one exchanges. The village or country editor has time to mix among the people, and hears them talk to reproduce it artistically. The city editor finds little time for this. Besides, there _is_ very little of reliable public opinion amid cities. The American mind is styled fickle; so it may be in the great marts. From _them_ come your sensations and spasms. The interior is more stable, and less swayed by impulses. Aggregate a hundred county editorials all over the North, then strike an average, and you will find the product in the last big journal. The misfortune of Washington social life is that we walk in it over a circle. Hither come 'needy knife-grinders,' and axe-sharpeners, and place-hunters, who say what they think will be agreeable to the ears of power. But the other kind of mails, presided over by Mr. Blair, bring us wholesome, although sometimes disagreeable, truths. They are worth attending to, Mr. President. Let us 'strike,' but let us 'hear.'

_Mr. Seward._ In the matter of newspapers, my son Fred and I divide reading. He distils the metropolitan gazettes, and I those of England and France. Then we exchange commodities at breakfast time. Fred, having been an editor, can boil down the news very rapidly, and so put its essence into our coffee-pot. The foreign journals, however, have so much in them that is dissimulative and latent, they require more care and discernment. Mr. Hunter aids me in dissecting them.

_Mr. Lincoln._ You are the son of an editor, Montgomery; how do you stand on this subject of Colfax's bill to carry all the papers in your mails? The rebel postmaster-general, in _his_ report, made, you remember, an elaborate argument to justify the Jeff Davis law, which forbids the sending of newspapers and periodicals by expressmen.

_Mr. Blair._ When Colfax will accept as an amendment a prohibition of telegrams, and the obliging our mails to transmit _all_ intelligence, then I will consider of his views.

_Mr. Smith._ Well said; as good an extract that from the last edition of Blair's rhetoric as could be wished for.

_Mr. Chase._ Or in the Tribune satires of Horace! But let me ask Mr. Blair what he thinks of a newspaper tax.

_Mr. Blair._ Very favorably. I am for a mill stamp on every paper, obliging every ten readers to pay the government one cent.

_Mr. Stanton._ Mr. Secretary of the Interior, what is the average circulation of newspapers in the loyal section?

_Mr. Smith._ A thousand million.

_Mr. Chase_ (rapidly computing). Which on Mr. Blair's proposition would yield a million dollars revenue.

_Mr. Welles._ And support the government at our present rate of expenditure _for one day!_

_Mr. Seward._ The public would bear half a cent on each paper. The publisher could make his readers insensibly pay the tax, and improve both paper and issue by receiving another half cent: and so add one cent of charge per copy.

_Mr. Chase._ Which would yield a revenue of five millions per year.

_Mr. Lincoln._ Would the people stand such a charge?

_Mr. Stanton (good humoredly)._ Will our friend the Secretary of State smoke fewer cigars when you come to tax tobacco?

_Mr. Welles (naïvely)._ But newspaper reading is not a vice.

_Mr. Bates._ Be not so sure of that. The passion for newspapers excites the minds of the whole republic. Now-a-days your servant reads the news as he works. The clergy peruse the Sunday extras, and the crossing-sweeper begs your worn-out copy instead of a cigar-stump.

_Mr. Blair._ Yet Gen. McClellan has not read a newspaper in three months.

_Mr. Lincoln._ The subject brings to my mind a good old parson in Springfield who used to complain that the _Weekly Republican_ was as bad as himself. He was preaching his old sermons over and over again with new texts. Come to find out, he had a waggish grandson who for three previous weeks had neatly gummed the fresh date over the old one, and the dear divine had been perusing the same paper as many times.

_(Omnes laughing heartily.)_

_Mr. Stanton._ Talking of General McClellan,--I had my first engagement with him last night at one o'clock.

_Mr. Welles (startled)._ One o'clock! No wonder he has had typhoid fever.

_Mr. Lincoln._ I think he is napping it now. He has a wonderful facility at the sleep business. Forty winks seem to refresh him as much as four hours do other people. At my last levee, according to the newspapers, he and his wife retired early. _He_ went up stairs and napped for two hours, desiring to see me for half an hour alone afterward. Then he spent several hours at the topographical bureau, hunting for some old maps which he insisted had been there since the Creek campaign. He was rewarded for his industry by finding also an admirable map and survey of the situation around New Orleans.

_Mr. Seward._ The General is a believer in Robert Bruce's spider. The American spider's-web didn't reach Richmond in July, nor Columbus in November, but McClellan has kept on busily spinning.

_Mr. Blair._ Can any one tell me what is the General's platform?

_Mr. Stanton._ I can. Long before I dreamed of being here, he told me. It is in three words.

_Mr. Lincoln._ That's the shortest I ever heard of next to that of the English parson--'What _I_ say is orthodox, what I don't believe is heterodox.'

_Mr. Smith._ But the three words?

_Mr. Seward._ Cæsar's was in these words: _Veni, vidi, vici_.

_Mr. Stanton._ It is to be fervently hoped _they_ will become the Latin translation of his own platform. McClellan's is, 'TO RETRIEVE BULL RUN!'

_Mr. Lincoln (laughing)._ Then, if the General told you that, he is a plagiarist: for that is _my_ platform. When he was made commander here, he asked me what I wanted done. Said I, 'Retrieve Bull Run.' He said he would, and turned to go. I jocularly added, 'But can't you tell us how you are going to do it?' He mused a moment, and then said, 'I must work it out algebraically, and from unknown quantities produce the certain result. "Drill" shall be my "_x_" and "Transportation" my "_y_" and "Patience" my "_z_." Then _x_ + _y_ + _z_ = success.' And now that Mr. Stanton is here, I doubt not the slate is ready for the figuring.

_Mr. Stanton._ Thank you, Mr. President, for the compliment. May it prove a simple equation.

_Mr. Chase (with energy)._ Now we call for your platform, Mr. Secretary of War.

_Mr. Stanton (gracefully bowing)._ The President's--yours--_ours (looking all around)_.

_Mr. Seward._ But the allusion is a proper personal one, nevertheless. Remember court-martial law--the youngest always speaks first!

(_Omnes compose themselves in a listening attitude._)

_Mr. Stanton._ First and foremost, I believe slavery to be the _casus belli_. To treat the _casus belli_ above and beyond all other considerations I hold to be the duty of the true commander-in-chief: as the surgeon disregards secondary symptoms and probes the wound. I would treat this _casus belli_ as the Constitution allows us to treat it--not one hair's breadth from the grand old safeguard would I step. Under the Constitution I believe slavery to be a purely local institution. In Louisiana and Texas, a slave is an immovable by statute, and is annexed to the realty as hop-poles are in the law of New York. In Alabama and Mississippi, the slave is a chattel. In the first-named States he passes by deed of national act and registration; in the other, by simple receipt or delivery. Thus even among slave States there is no uniform system respecting the slave property. To the Northern States the slave is a person in his ballot relation to congressional quota and constituency, and also an apprentice to labor, to be delivered up on demand. The slave escaping from Maryland to Pennsylvania is not to be delivered up, nor cared about, nor thought about, until he is demanded. Liberty is the law of nature. Every man is presumed free in choice, and not even to be trammeled by apprenticeship, until the contrary is made clearly to appear. One man may be a New York discharged convict, for instance--an unpardoned convict. He emigrates southward, he obtains property, according to local law, in a slave. The slave escapes to New York. The convict--unpardoned--master enters the tribunal there on his demand. Quoth the escaped apprentice, producing the record of the conviction, 'Mr. Claimant, you have no standing in court. Your civil rights are suspended in this State until you are pardoned. You are _not_ pardoned, therefore I will not answer aye or no to your claim, until you are legitimately in court, and recognized by the judges.' I take it that plea would avail. And if the crier wanted to employ a person to sweep the court-room the next moment, he could employ that defendant to do it. There is not a man in the rebel States (_whom we publicly know of_) who has a standing under the Constitution regarding this slavery question. By his own argument he lives in a foreign country; by our own argument he is not _rectus in curia_. Were I an invading general and wanted horses, I would decoy them from the rebels with hay and stable enticements. If I wanted trench-diggers, camp scullions, or artillerists, or pilots, or oarsmen, or guides, and, being that general, saw negroes about me, I should press them into my service. Time enough to talk about the rights of some one to possess the negroes by better claim of title to service when that somebody, with the Constitution in one hand and stipulation of allegiance in the other, demands legal possession. Even the fugitive slave is emancipated practically whilst in Ohio, and whilst not yet demanded. Rebel soldiers daily leave their plantations and abandon their negroes. _Pro tem_, at least, the latter are then emancipated. Let them, when within Our lines, continue emancipated.

_Mr. Welles._ Would you arm them?

_Mr. Stanton._ Yes, if exigencies of situation so demanded. The beleaguered garrison at Lucknow armed every one about the place--natives or not, servants or masters. Did General Washington spare the whisky stills in the time of the insurrection in Western Virginia when they were in his way? Yet the stills were universally agreed to be property, and were not taken by due process of law. Shall we fight a rebel in Charleston streets, and at the same time protect his negro by a guard in the Charleston jail?

_Mr. Blair._ But what instructions would you give to the soldiers about this _casus belli_?

_Mr. Stanton._ None at all. The soldier should know nothing about _casus belli_. General Buell answered the correspondent well when he said, 'I know nothing about the cause of this war. I am to fight the rebels and obey orders.' Cries a general to a subaltern--'Yonder smokes a battery--go and take it.' Do we issue specific instructions to the troops about the women, the children, the chickens, the forage, the mules-persons or property--whom they encounter? The circumstances and the exigencies of the situation determine their conduct. A household mastiff who will pin a rebel by the throat when he passes his kennel, flying from pursuit, is just as serviceable as would prove a loyal bullet sped to the rebel's brain. I believe that the acknowledged fact, the necessary fact, that wherever our army advances, emancipation practically ensues, will carry more terror to the slave-owner than any other warlike incident. But I would have them understand that this result is not our design, but a necessity of _their_ rebellion.

_Mr. Bates._ You are like the last witness upon the stand--subjected to a vigorous cross-examination upon everything gone before. Have you ever thought what is to be the upshot of the contention?

_Mr. Stanton._ Restoration of the Union!

_Mr. Bates._ Aye, but how to be brought about? Are not the pride and the obstinacy growing stronger every day at the South?

_Mr. Stanton._ 'Men are but children of a larger growth.' Who of us has not conquered pride and obstinacy in the nursery? I have seen the boy of a mild-tempered father fairly admire the parent when he broke the truce of affection and vigorously thrashed him. The large majority of the Southern people have been educated to believe the men of the North cowardly, mean, and avaricious. Cowardly, because they persistently refused the duel. Mean, because all classes worked, and there seemed among them no arrogance of birth. Avaricious, because they crouched to the planters with calico and manufactures, or admired their bullying for the sake of their cotton.

And the great masses of the South have been and are learning how the present leaders have duped them upon all these points. They have discovered we are not cowards. Every prisoner, from the chivalric Corcoran to the urchin drummer-boy at Richmond who spat on the sentinel, has afforded proof of courage and fortitude, whilst thousands and thousands of people have secretly admired it. The very death vacancies at family boards throughout the plantations perpetually remind the Southrons that _we are not_ cowards in fight. They have learned, too, that we are neither mean nor avaricious, when the millionaire merchant, whom they knew two years ago, cheerfully accepts the poor man's lot of to-day; or when they behold all classes without one murmur hear of a million dollars per day being spent on the war, and then _clamor to be taxed_! If they perceive the negroes leaving them, they at once also perceive that in loyal Maryland, loyal Virginia, loyal Kentucky and loyal Missouri,--in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Louisville,--the slaves under local laws are protected to their owners. Thus the most stupid will reason, It is our own act which has placed in jeopardy this our property. With a restored Union, Georgia and Louisiana must be as Maryland and Kentucky continued even in the midst of camps. Who, during the acme of the French revolution, could have believed that the people of Paris would so soon and so readily accept even despotism as the panacea of turmoil? Show a real grievance, and I grant you that rebellion achieves the dignity of revolution. Provide an imaginary or a colored evil as the basis of insurrection, and even pride and obstinacy will eventually comprehend the sophistry of the leaders.

_Mr. Lincoln._ Seward's secret correspondence with Southern loyalists proves these things. Mr. Stanton must read that last letter from....

_Mr. Stanton._ Indeed! You surprise me. Pray how could you receive intelligence from him?

_Mr. Lincoln (opening a drawer)._ Do you see this button? I unscrew this eye. The two discs now separate. Between them you can put a sheet of French letter paper. When the troops advanced to Bull Run, certain of the soldiers were provided with such buttons. Various deserters have had them.

_Mr. Seward (laughing.)_ Who knows but General Scott's coachman had one or two?[M]

_Mr. Stanton._ This practically corroborates my theories. If we in Washington find it so difficult to repress communication and spies, is it not fair to presume that in Richmond, Savannah, New Orleans and Memphis (where there is _real_ incentive from suffering and persecution), it is equally impossible to stop information? It was impossible to procure it when the three rifled cannon at the Richmond foundry were found spiked. It would prove serviceable to the patience of the nation, could it only step behind the scenes and learn much--known to us--which it must ere long understand.

* * * * *

_Mr. Lincoln._ I have just received by our secret mail a very affecting letter from Col. Corcoran. I will read an extract. [_Reads._]

'Of my physical suffering I will not speak. If restored to friends and home I shall, however, be a memorable example of the victory of mind over body. I determined to lay down my life for my country when I left that home; and if it will serve the cause, as I have repeatedly told the people here, to hang, or draw, or quarter me, I am ready for the sacrifice. But there are hundreds among the prisoners whose minds are not so buoyant as mine, who do suffer terribly. Can not some means be devised to clothe and feed _them_, or to exchange for them?'

_Mr. Blair._ A patriot soul. The clerkship left in the New York post-office when the Colonel departed for the war has been retained for him.

_Mr. Lincoln (quickly)._ Ah! _that_ heroic sufferer shall have something better than a clerkship if he ever returns.

_Mr. Stanton._ I have thought much of this exchange of prisoners and captivity amelioration. When the insurrection was inchoate, we could afford to be punctilious. But its present gigantic proportions surely affect the question (so to term it) of ransom. When our countrymen were in the Algerine prisons we took means to treat for them. What say you, gentlemen, against sending commissioners to Richmond for the purpose of supervising the medicines, clothing, food and exchange of our prisoners?

_Mr. Seward._ That may only be conceded by accepting commissioners for a similar purpose from the rebel government.

_Mr. Chase._ Our plans are now so perfectly matured that even the danger of spies recedes. I am in favor of Mr. Stanton's proposition.

_Mr. Lincoln._ I think you can try it. There are so many prisoners, from all parts of the country, that public sentiment must uphold the measure.

_Mr. Smith._ Mr. Secretary of State, you were taking notes whilst Mr. Stanton was giving his views upon the restoration question. Were they on that subject?

_Mr. Seward._ Yes. Some fleeting thoughts occurred to me which I was desirous of preserving for to-morrow. _I_ have a great deal of faith in establishing Southern 'doughfacery.'

_Mr. Welles._ Doughfacery?

_Mr. Seward._ Yes: that supremacy of pocket over pride which so long afflicted the North. Above and beyond the slave-owners must rise the great class of manufacturers and merchants,--almost every third man of Northern origin, too,--whose pocket is the great sufferer, and without whose property, hereafter, plantations can not prosper. Given a decent pretext for adjustment, when pride will go to the wall. Once allow the masses to grasp the reins, and the slave-owners will be driven to the wall-side of the political highway also. This I call Southern doughfacery for the sake of a phrase well understood.

_Mr. Blair._ Then your old plan of the great national convention comes in vogue?

_Mr. Lincoln._ _My_ plan! (_Good humoredly._) You must not _all_ steal my thunder. By the way, Seward, your pleasant friend Judge D----, who came from New York about Col. Corcoran, told me the meaning of that phrase. It seems a Dublin stage manager got up a scenic play with thunder in it perfectly imitated by a diapason of bass drums. A rival got up another scenic play, to which, out of jealous _pique_, the inventor repaired as a spectator. To his surprise he heard his own invention from behind the scenes. He instantly exclaimed aloud, 'The rascal, he's stolen my thunder!'

_Mr. Seward (jocularly)._ The President finds a parallel between a national convention and thunder. Well, well, the clearest atmosphere is breathed after the clouds culminate in thunder and lightning. I accept the application.

_Mr. Chase._ But if the South is to surrender pride, what are _we_ to surrender?

_Mr. Seward (quickly)._ _Political_ pride. The battle of freedom was fought and won when the Inaugural was pronounced. The South can not recover from the present stagnation in a quarter-century, by which time it will again have accepted contentedly the original belief that slavery, like one of the lotteries of Georgia, or one of the red-dog banks of Arkansas, is a purely local institution.

_Mr. Stanton._ I heartily accept the project of a national convention. But I am against any agitation or committal to leading ideas which are to control it. One convention ruined France, and another saved it. We can better obtain consent of North and South to holding a convention by forbearance from discussing its probable platform. Let it meet. No fear but it will elucidate _some_ satisfactory result.

_Mr. Welles._ You have just discussed this question of war. I wish something could be done to settle this affair of privateering. To my reflection it appears to embrace a very important consideration of 'policy' as well as of law. A man does not always punish his embezzling clerk because the law gives him authority to do so. The ocean rebel who to-day captures our transports laden with soldiers, may to-morrow put off twenty boats in the Potomac, and capture our men on the river schooner. The Attorney General's opinion and the law of Judge Kelson in New York hang the former; but military law will exchange the latter whenever a satisfactory opportunity presents itself.

_Mr. Lincoln._ The policy question has become a grave one. I have been much struck by the letter of Judge Daly, of New York, to Senator Harris--a most opportune, learned, and temperate paper.

[_Enter an attendant._]

_Mr. Lincoln._ Gen. McClellan is at the door. Invite him in.

_Mr. Stanton._ By all means. He is 'the very head and front of our offending.'

[_Enter Gen. McClellan._]

_Gen. McC._ Good evening, Mr. President and Cabinet. (_Speaking rapidly and brusquely._) The bridge equipages are now entirely complete. Here is a dispatch acknowledging the receipt of the last supply. With February is ushered in the Southern spring, which, as you all know, _must_ end 'this winter of our discontent.' The Western V now is perfect from Cairo and Harper's Ferry at the top to Cumberland Gap at the bottom. It is the first letter in Victory.

_Mr. Lincoln._ When the General becomes oratorical, then indeed has he good news.

_Gen. McC._ I have, sir; but, with great respect to all these our friends, it must be for your own ears, to-night at least.

_Mr. Lincoln (rising)._ We will withdraw to the library. Gentlemen, pray come to some understanding during our absence respecting the reply to be sent to M. Thouvenel's extraordinary secret dispatch. I will rejoin you in--

_Gen, McC._ Seven minutes, Mr. President--those are all I can spare. Good evening, gentlemen.

* * * * *

LITERARY NOTICES.

BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOME PROVINCES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. An Introductory Lecture delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard University, Nov. 6, 1861. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, M.D., Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861.

It is a pleasant thing to realize, in reading a work like this, how perfectly GENIUS is capable of rendering deeply interesting to the most general reader topics which in the hands of mere _talent_ become intolerably 'professional' and dry. The mind which has once flowed through the golden land of poetry becomes, indeed, like the brook of Scottish story, more or less alchemizing,--communicating an aureate hue even to the wool of the sheep which it washes, and turning all its fish into 'John Dorées.' And in doing this, far from injuring the practical and market value of either, it positively improves them. For genius is always general and human, and rises intuitively above conventional poetry and conventional science, to that higher region where fact and fancy become identified in truth. And such is the characteristic of the lecture before us, in which solid, nutritive learning loses none of its alimentary value for being cooked with all the skill of a _Ude_ or of a _Francatelli_. Many passages in the work illustrate this power of æsthetic illustration in a truly striking manner.

In certain points of view, human anatomy may be considered an almost exhausted science. From time to time some small organ, which had escaped earlier observers, has been pointed out,--such parts as the _tensor tarsi_, the otic ganglion, or the Pacinian bodies; but some of the best anatomical works are those which have been classic for many generations. The plates of the bones of Vesalius, three centuries old, are still masterpieces of accuracy, as of art. The magnificent work of Albinus on the muscles, published in 1747, is still supreme in its department, as the constant references of the most thorough recent treatise on the subject--that of Theile--sufficiently show. More has been done in unravelling the mysteries of the faciæ, but there has been a tendency to overdo this kind of material analysis. Alexander Thompson split them up into cobwebs, as you may see in the plates to Velpeau's Surgical Anatomy. I well remember how he used to shake his head over the coarse work of Scarpa and Astley Cooper;--_as if Denner, who painted the separate hairs of the head and pores of the skin, in his portraits, had spoken lightly of the pictures of Rubens and Vandyck_.

Laymen can not decide, where doctors disagree; but there are few who will not at least read this lecture with pleasure.

JOHN BRENT. By Major Theodore Winthrop. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

It is strange that so soon after the appearance of _Tom Tiddler's Ground_, with its one good story of a wild gallop over the Plains, a novel should have appeared in which the same scenes are reproduced,--the whole full of wild-fire and gallop.--American life-fever and prairie-dust,--uneasy contrasts of the feelings of gentlemen and memories of _salons_ with pork-frying, hickory shirts, and whisky. The excitement and movement of _John Brent_ are wonderful. Had the author been an artist, we should have had in him an American Correggio,--with strong lights and shadows, bright colors, figures of desperadoes inspired with the air of gentlemen, and gentlemen, real or false, who play their parts in no mild scenes. It is the first good novel which has given us a picture of the West since California and Mormondom added to it such vivid and extraordinary coloring, and since the 'ungodly Pike'--that 'rough' of the wilderness--has taken the place of the well-nigh traditional frontiersman. It is entertaining and exciting, and will attain a very great popularity, having in it all the elements to secure such success. Those who recognized in _Cecil Dreeme_ the vividly-photographed scenes and characters of New York, will be pleased to find the same talent employed on a wider field, among more vigorous natures, and assuming a far more active development. Never have we felt more keenly regret at the untimely decease of an author than for WINTHROP, while perusing the pages of _John Brent_. There went out a light which _might_ have shown, in Rembrandt shadows and gleams, the most striking scenes of this country and this age.

MEMOIR, LETTERS AND REMAINS OF ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. Translated from the French, by the Translator of Napoleon's Correspondence with King Joseph. In two volumes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

No French writer enjoys a more truly enviable popularity in America than M. DE TOCQUEVILLE. That he should have discussed the vital principles of our political and social life, in a manner which not only made him no enemies among us, but established his 'Democracy' as a classic reference, is as wonderful as it was well deserved. The present work is, however, a delightful one by itself, and will be read with a relish. We sympathize with the translator (a most capable one by the way) when he declares that he leaves his task with regret, fearing lest he never again may have an opportunity of associating so long and so intimately with such a mind. The typography and paper are of superior quality.

POEMS BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. ('Blue and gold.') First American Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

'Fresh, beautiful, and winsome.'--Among the living poets of England there may be many who are popularly regarded as 'greater,' but certainly there is none more unaffectedly natural or simply delightful than WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. We are pleased at his probably unconscious Irish-isms in his humbler lyrics, which have deservedly attained the proud eminence of veritable 'Folk-songs' in the mouths of the people, and are touched by the exquisite music, the tender feeling, and the beautiful picturing which we find inspiring his lays. It requires but little knowledge of them to be impressed with the evident love of his art with which our Irish bard is filled. It would be difficult to find in the same number of songs by any contemporary so little evident effort allied to such success.

THE CHURCH MONTHLY. Edited by Rev. George M. Randall, D.D., and Rev. F.D. Huntington, D.D. Vol. II. No. 6. Boston: E.P. Dutton & Co. 1861.

This beautiful and scholarly magazine, which abounds in 'the elegant expression of sound learning,' contains, in the present number, a noble article on _Loyalty in the United States_, by Rev. B.B. BABBITT, which we would gladly have read by every one. Almost amusing, and yet really beautiful, is the following Latin version of 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' by Rev. EDWARD BALLARD.

_In Canabulis_.

'Nunc recline ut dormirem, Precor te, O Domine, Ut defendas animam; Ante diem si obirem, Precor te, O Domine, Us servares animam. Hoc que precor pro Iesu!'

WORKS OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Vols. I. & II. New York: G.P. Putnam.

BAYARD TAYLOR has the pleasant art of communicating personal experiences in a personal way. It is not an unknown X, an invisible essence of criticism, which travels for us in his sketches, but a veritable traveler, speaking, Irving-like, of what he sees, so that we see and feel with him. In these volumes, the ups and downs, the poverties and even the ignorances of the young traveler are set forth--not paraded--with great vividness, and we come to the end of each chapter as if it were the scene of a good old-fashioned comedy. CORYATT without his crudities, if we can imagine such a thing, suggests himself, with alternations of 'HERODOTUS his gossip' without his craving credulity. Perhaps these volumes explain more than any of their predecessors the causes of TAYLOR'S popularity, and like them will do good work in stimulating that love of travel which with many becomes the absorbing passion sung by MULLER,--'_Wandern! ach! Wandern!_'

THOMAS HOOD'S WORKS. Edited by Epes Sargent. New York: G.P. Putnam. 1862.

A beautifully printed and bound volume, on the best paper, with two fine illustrations,--one by HOPPIN, setting forth Miss Kilmansegg and her golden leg with truly Teutonic grotesquerie. It contains Hood's Poems, never made more attractively readable than in this edition. As a gift it would be difficult to find a work which would be more generally acceptable to either old or young.

NATIONAL MILITARY SERIES. Part First. By Captain W.W. Van Ness. New York: Carleton, 413 Broadway.

A neat little work on military tactics, conforming to the army regulations adopted and approved by the War Department of the United States. It is thoroughly practical, 'being arranged on the plainest possible principle of question and answer,' and being within the reach of the dullest capacity, and thoroughly comprehensive of all required of the soldier, will probably become, as its author trusts, 'a standard military work.'

FORT LAFAYETTE; OR, LOVE AND SECESSION. By Benjamin Wood. New York: Carleton, 413 Broadway. 1862.

Even while a tree is being blown down by the hurricane, small fungi or other minute vegetation spring up in its rifts; every social shock of the day is promptly scened and 'tagged' at the minor theatres; and shall this war escape its novels? Mr. WOOD votes in the negative, and supplies us with a somewhat sensational yet not badly manufactured article, which, like the melo-dramas referred to, will be received with delight by a certain line of patrons, and, we presume, be also relished. It is a first-rate specimen of a second-rate romance.

HEROES AND MARTYRS: Notable Men of the Time. With Portraits on Steel. New York: G.P. Putnam, 532 Broadway. C.T. Evans, General Agent. 1862. Price 25 cents.

The first number of a large quarto, exquisitely printed, biographical series of sketches of the military and naval heroes, statesmen, and orators, distinguished in the American crisis of 1861-62, and edited by FRANK MOORE. The portraits of Commodore S.F. DUPONT and Major THEODORE WINTHROP, in this first number, are excellent; while the literary portion, devoted to WINFIELD SCOTT, deserves praise. The cheapness of the publication is truly remarkable.

TRANSACTIONS of THE MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, FOR THE YEAR 1861. Boston: Henry W. Dutton & Son, Printers, Transcript Building. 1862.

A work testifying to the great extent and efficacy of the labors of the society, and one which, among a mass of merely business detail, contains much interesting information. An article on the first discovery of the heather in America, by EDWARD S. RAND, is well worth reading. Can any of our wise men re-discover the lost Pictish art of making good beer from that plant?

* * * * *

BOOKS RECEIVED.

DINAH. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street. Boston: Brown & Taggard. 1861.

THE REBELLION RECORD. A Diary of American Events, with Documents, Narratives, Illustrative Incidents, and Poetry. Edited by Frank Moore. New York: G.P. Putnam.

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT; OR, SPEAKING THE TRUTH FOR A DAY. By Mrs. Emma D.E.N. Southworth. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Price 25 cents. 1861.

THE AMERICAN CRISIS: Its Cause, Significance, and Solution. By Americus. Chicago, Illinois: Joshua R. Walsh, 1861.

* * * * *

EDITOR'S TABLE.

Step by step the vast net is closing in on the enemy,--little by little the vice is tightening,--and if no incalculable calamity overtake the armies of the Union, it is but fair to assume that at no distant day the rebel South will find itself in the last extremity, overwhelmed by masses from without and demoralized by want of means within. Government at present holds the winning cards,--if they are only skillfully played the game is its own. It is impossible to study the map and the present position of our forces with our resources, and not realize this. 'Hemmed in!' is the despairing cry from Southern journals, which but the other day insolently threatened to transfer the war to Northern soil, and to sack New York and Philadelphia; and, with their proverbial fickleness and fire, we find many of them half rebelling against the management of Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS and his coadjutors.

This is all encouraging. On the other hand, we are beginning to feel more acutely the miseries of war, and its enormous cost. The time is at hand when the whole country will be called on to show its heroism by patient endurance of many trials, and by _living_ as well as dying for the great cause of liberty and Union. Let it all be done patiently and without a murmur. Every suffering will be repaid tenfold in the hour of triumph. Let it be remembered that as we suffer our chances of victory increase, and that every pain felt by us is a death-pang to the foe. Now, if ever, the Northern quality of stubborn endurance must show itself. We, too, can suffer as heroically as the South boasts of doing. It is this which in the course of events must inevitably give us the victory, for no spirit of chivalry, no enthusiasm, can ultimately resist sturdy Saxon pluck. The South, foolishly enough, has vaunted that it is inspired by the blood and temper of the Latin races of Southern Europe, and it can not be denied that their climate has given them the impulsiveness of their ideal heroes. In this fiery impatience lies the element which renders them incapable of sustaining defeat, and which, after any disaster, must stimulate dissension among them.

It should also be borne in mind that the most direct causes of our sufferings all involve very practical benefits. The Southern press taunts our soldiers with enlisting for pay. Let us admit that vast numbers have truly been partially induced by the want of employment at home to enter the army. It is a peculiar characteristic of all Northern blood that it can and does combine intelligence and interest with the strongest enthusiasm. No man was ever made a worse soldier by being prudent, any more than by being a religious Christian. Taunts and jeers can not affect the truth. The Protestant mechanic soldiery of Germany during the wars of the Reformation, the men of Holland, and the Puritans of England, were all reviled for the same cause--but they conquered. God never punishes men for common-sense, nor did it ever yet blind zeal, though it may prevent zeal from degenerating into sheer madness. The war, while it has crippled industry, has also kept it alive,--it has become a great industrial central force, giving work to millions. Again, in the creation of a debt we shall find such a stimulus to industry as we never before knew. Taxation, which kills a weak country crippled by feudal laws and nightmared by an extravagant court and nobility, simply induces fresh and vigorous effort to make additional profits in a land of endless resources and of vast territory, where every man is free to work at what he chooses. Taxation may come before us like a raging lion, but, in the words of BEECHER, we shall find honey in the carcass. Let us only cheerfully make the best of everything, and uphold the administration and the war with a right good will, and we shall learn as we never did before the extent of the incredible elasticity and recuperative power of the American.

It is evident that the present war will have a beneficial result in making us acquainted with the real nature of this arrogant and peculiar South-land. It was said that the Crimean struggle did much good by dispelling the cloudy hobgoblin mystery which hung over Russia, and, while it destroyed its prestige as a bugbear, more than compensated for this, by giving it a proper place abreast of civilized nations in the great march of industry and progress. Just so we are learning that the South is perfectly capable of receiving white labor, that it is not strangely and peculiarly different from the rest of the cis-tropical regions, that the negro is no more its necessity than he is to Spain or Italy, and that, in short, white labor may march in, undisturbed, so soon as industry ceases to be regarded as disgraceful in it. We have learned the vital necessity of union and identity of feeling between all the States, and found out the folly of suffering petty local state attachments to blind us to the glory of citizenship in a nation, which should cover a continent. We have learned what the boasted philanthropy of England is worth when put to the test of sacrifice, and also how the British lion can put forth the sharpest and most venomous of feline claws when an opportunity presents itself of ruining a possible rival. More than this, we have learned to be self-reliant, to take greater and more elevated views of political duty, and to be heroic without being extravagant. Since we were a republic no one year has witnessed such national and social progress among us as the past. We have had severe struggles, and we have surmounted them; we have had hard lessons, and we have learned them; we have had trials of pride, and we have profited by them. And as we contend for principles based in reason and humanity and confirmed by history, it follows that we must inevitably come forth gloriously triumphant, if we but bravely persevere in enforcing those principles.

The large amount of political information regarding the South and its resources which has been of late widely disseminated in the North, is a striking proof that, disguise the question as we will, the extension of free labor is, from a politico-economical point of view (which is, in fact, the only sound one), the real, or at least ultimate basis of this struggle. The matter in hand is the restitution of the Union, laying everything else aside; but the great fact, which will not step aside, is the consideration whether ten white men or one negro are to occupy a certain amount of soil. There is no evading this finality, there is no impropriety in its discussion, and it SHALL be discussed, so long as free speech or a free pen is left in the North. So far from interfering with the war, it is a stimulus to the thousands of soldiers who hope eventually to settle in the South in districts where their labor will not be compared with that of 'slaves,' and it is right and fit that they should anticipate the great and inevitable truth in all its relations to their own welfare and that of the country.

We cheerfully agree with those who try with so much energy that Emancipation is not the matter in hand, and quite as cheerfully assent when they insist that the enemy, and not the negro, demands all our present energy. But this has nothing to do with the great question, whether slavery is or is not to ultimately remain as a great barrier to free labor in regions where free labor is clamoring for admission. That is all we ask, nothing more. The instant the North and West are assured that at some time, though remote, and by any means or encouragements whatever, which expediency may dictate, the great cause of secession and sedition--will be removed from our land, then there will be witnessed an enthusiasm compared to which that of the South will be but lukewarm. That this will be done, no rational person now doubts, or that government will cheerfully act on it so soon as the fortunes of war or the united voice of the people strengthen it in the good work. And until it _is_ done, let every intelligent freeman bear it in mind, thinking intelligently and acting earnestly, so that the great work may be advanced rapidly and carried out profitably and triumphantly.

The leading minds of the South, shrewder than our Northern anti-emancipation half traitors and whole dough-faces, foreseeing the inevitable success of ultimate emancipation, have given many signs of willingness to employ even it, if needs must be, as a means of effectually achieving their 'independence.' They have baited their hooks with it to fish for European aid--they have threatened it armed, as a last resort of desperation, if conquered by the North. Knowing as well as we that the days of slavery are numbered, they have used it as a pretense for separation, they would just as willingly destroy it to maintain that separation. Since the war began, projects of home manufactures, and other schemes involving the encouragement of free labor, have been largely discussed in the South,--and yet in spite of this, thousands among us violently oppose Emancipation. In plain, truthful words they uphold the ostensible platform of the enemy, and yet avow themselves friends of the Union.

We have said it before, we repeat it: we ask for no undue haste, no unwise measures, nothing calculated to irritate or disorganize or impede the measures which government may now have in hand. But we hold firmly that Emancipation be calmly regarded as a measure which _must_ at some time be fully carried out. Be it limited for the time, or for years, to the Border States, be it assumed partially or entirely under the modified form of apprenticeship, be it proclaimed only in Texas or South Carolina, it has in some way a claim to recognition, and _must_ be recognized. Its friends are too many to be ignored in the day of settlement.

* * * * *

It is proper that every detail of contract corruption should be brought fully to light, and the country owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. DAWES for his manly attack on the wretches who have crippled the war, robbed the soldier, swindled the tax-payers, and aided the enemy by their wicked rapacity. Let it be remembered that whatever his sentiments may have been, every man who has been instrumental, directly or indirectly, in cheating the treasury and the my during this period of distress, has been one of its enemies, and far more deadly than if he had been openly enlisted under the banners of JEFFERSON DAVIS. Were we anything but the best-natured and most enduring public in the world, such revelations as have by the been made would long since have driven these rapacious traitors beyond sea or into the congenial Dixie for which they have indirectly labored.

We have been accustomed to read much since infancy of the sufferings of our army during the Revolution,--how they were hatless, ragged, starved, and badly armed. We have shuddered at the pictures of the snow at Valley Forge, tracked by the blood from the feet of shoeless soldiers. Yet, in the year 1861, with abundant means and with all the sympathy and aid of a wealthy country, there has been more suffering in the army than the Revolution witnessed, and it was due in a great measure to men who hastened to the spoil like vultures to their prey. If the army has not in advanced, if proper weapons are not even yet ready, let the reader reflect how much the army is still crippled owing to imperfect supplies, and have patience.

It is not the soldier alone who has been robbed by the contractor. The manufacturer who sees only a government order between himself and failure, and who is willing to do anything to keep his operatives employed, is asked to supply inferior goods at a low price. He may take the order or leave it,--if he will not, another will,--and with it is expected to take the risk of a return. When a man sees ruin before him, he will often yield to such temptations. The contractor takes the goods, sells them if he can, and pockets the profits, sometimes ten times over what the manufacturer gains. He thereby robs outright, not only the soldier, but also the operatives who make the goods, since the manufacturer must reduce their wages to the lowest living point, in order to save himself.

It will all come to light. There is a discovery of all evil, and there is a grace which money cannot remove, neither from the thief nor from his children. And we rejoice to see that so much is being made known, and that in all probability the public will be fully informed as to who were principally guilty in these enormous and treasonable corruptions.

* * * * *

It is stated, on good authority, that the only objection urged by the President to adopting the policy of Emancipation, is the danger which would be thereby incurred of effectually losing the allegiance of the loyal slave-holders in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri.

The obvious answer to this is, that by paying these loyal slave-holders for their chattels they could not fail to become firmer friends than ever. When we reflect on the extremely precarious tenure of all such property on the Border it becomes apparent that the man must be a lunatic indeed to hope for the permanency of the institution in the tobacco States. Since the war began nearly the two-thirds of the slaves in Missouri have changed their _habitat_,--about one-half of the number having been 'sold South,' while the other moiety have traveled North, without reference to ownership.

The administration need be under no apprehension as to the popularity of this measure. It would be hailed with joy by millions. The capitalists of our Northern cities, who now await with impatience some indications of A REGULAR POLICY, will welcome with enthusiasm a proposition which would at once render the debatable land no longer debatable, and which would effectually disorganize the entire South, by rendering numbers desirous of selling their slaves in order to secure what must sooner or later be irrecoverably lost. If government has a policy in this matter, it is time that the public were informed of it. The public is ready to be taxed to any extent, it is making tremendous sacrifices; all that it asks in return is some nucleus around which it may gather,--a settled principle by which its victories in war may be made to form the basis of a permanent peace.

* * * * *

The English press, statesmen and orators have been pleased to regard our democratic government as a failure.

But we have at least one advantage. When an enormous wrong is perpetrated on the people by a secretary, _he can be hustled out of the way_, and the accomplices be punished.

In England we have seen of late the most enormous political and social outrage of the century coolly committed, without the slightest regard to consequences, and without the slightest fear of any punishment whatever.

The truth has come to light, and every investigation, in the opinion of the ablest and most sagacious men, confirms the assertion that the late MASON and SLIDELL difficulty was simply an immense stock-jobbing swindle, played in the most heartless manner on this country and on England, without heed as to the terrible consequences.

The London _Times_, as is well known, is the organ of the ROTHSCHILDS. During the late iniquitous war-flurry it acted perfectly in concert with Lord PALMERSTON. While that gentleman kept back _for three weeks_ dispatches, which, if published, would have had the immediate effect of establishing a peaceful feeling, his Hebrew accomplices bought literally right and left of securities of every kind. Grand pickings they had; everything had tumbled down. England was roused by the _Times_ to a fury; a feeling of fierce injury was excited in this country, which an age will not now allay; and right in the midst of this, when one word might have changed the whole, the official ministerial organ _explicitly denied the existence of those 'peace' dispatches_ which have since come to light!

Let us anticipate some of the results of this precious Palmerston-Hebrew-_Times_ swindle.

It has cost England twenty millions of dollars.

It has aroused such a feeling in this country against England as no one can remember.

It has effectually killed the American market for English goods, and put the tariff up to prohibition _en permanence_.

It has, by doing this, struck the most deadly blow at English prosperity which history has ever witnessed; for all that was needed to stimulate American industry up to the pitch of competing with England in foreign markets was such a prohibitory tariff as would compel us to manufacture for ourselves what we formerly bought.

Who will say now that a republic does not work as well as a monarchy?

* * * * *

We have read with pleasure a recently written and extensively republished article by SINCLAIR TOUSEY, of New York, condemnatory of the proposed stamp tax, and in which we most cordially concur; not because it is a tax materially affecting the interests of publishers, but because, as Mr. TOUSEY asserts, the diffusion of knowledge among the people is a powerful element of strength _in government itself_. In these times, it is essential, far more than during peace, that the newspaper should circulate very freely, stimulating the public, aiding government and the war, and keeping the mind of the country in living union. Nothing would more rapidly produce a torpor--and there is too much torpor now--than a measure which would have the effect of killing off perhaps one half of the country press, the great mass of which is barely able to live as it is. 'Let the press be as free as possible. Let it be free from onerous taxation, and left unfettered by special duties to do its just work.' This is a war for freedom, and the test of freedom is a free press.

* * * * *

We are indebted to a valued correspondent in Illinois for the following communication, setting forth the state of affairs in Southern Missouri during the past summer. Few of our readers are ignorant that since that time the region in question has been 'harried and shorn' even to desolation by the brigands of Secessia.

In conversing lately with Dr. R., who fled for his life, last July, from Ripley County, Southern Missouri, I collected some information which may not be unacceptable to your readers.

Dr. R. states that early last summer the citizens of Southern Missouri began gathering into companies of armed men opposed to the general government, and that it was a fear that the general government would not protect their lives and property which induced great numbers of really Union men to take sides with the rebels. They saw their country thronging with secession soldiers; were told it was the will of the State government that they enlist for the protection of the State: if they did not do this voluntarily, they would be drafted; and all drafted ones would in camp take a subordinate position, have to perform the cooking and washing, in short, all the drudgery for those who volunteered. This falsehood drove hundreds of the ignorant Missourians into the rebel ranks. Captain LOWE, afterwards Col. LOWE, who was killed at the battle of Fredericktown, was the recruiting officer in Ripley and its adjoining counties. He arrested Dr. R. on the 4th of July, on a charge of expressing sentiments 'dangerous to the welfare of the community.' Dr. R. was tried by a court-martial, in presence of the three hundred soldiers then assembled. Witnesses against the Doctor were produced, but he was not allowed time to summon witnesses in his behalf, nor to procure counsel. One novel circumstance in the trial was occasioned by the absence of any justice of the peace to administer the usual oath to the witnesses. None were procurable, from the fact that all had resigned, refusing to act officially under a government they had repudiated. In this dilemma the prisoner came to their relief. 'Gentlemen, I am a justice of the peace, as most of you already know, and, as I have not yet resigned, I will swear in the witnesses for you.' 'Wall, I reckon he kin act as justice afore he's convicted,' suggested one of the crowd. So the Doctor administered the oath in the usual solemn manner. This self-possession and fearlessness seemed to have an effect on his judges, for, after the testimony, he was permitted to cross-question the witnesses and plead his own cause. He was able to neutralize some of the charges against him. The jury, after an absence of fifteen minutes, returned verdict that 'as there was nothing proved against the prisoner which would make him dangerous to the community, he was permitted to be discharged. But,' added the foreman, 'I am instructed by the committee to say they believe Dr. R. to be a Black Republican, and to tell him that if he wants to utter Black Republican sentiments, he has got to go somewhere else to do it.' It was well known the Doctor had voted for DOUGLAS. But here followed an animated conversation between the prisoner and LOWE'S men as to what constituted Black Republicanism; the result of which was, as the Doctor turned to depart, Captain LOWE informed him he was re-arrested!

By the influence of some of the soldiers, the prisoner succeeded next day in effecting his escape. Traveling by night and concealing himself by day, he finally reached the federal lines in safety. His family were not permitted to follow him, and did not succeed in eluding the vigilance of their enemies and joining him until the middle of January. When a Union man escapes them, the rebels are always opposed to the removal of his wife and children, as, by retaining them, they hope to get the husband and father again into their hands. And, as all communication by letter is cut off, many a man, during the last six months, has stolen back to see his family at the risk of his life, and lost it.

Dr. R. was the first man arrested in Ripley County; but LOWE immediately began a lively persecution of suspected Unionists. Some escaped with life, their enemies being satisfied with scourging and plundering them, but scores were hung. LOWE'S soldiers furnished and equipped themselves by robbing Union houses and the country stores.

Many suspected Union men shielded themselves by denouncing others, giving information of the property of others, and being forward in insulting and quartering lawless soldiers upon defenceless families. So that, Dr. R. states, there are created between neighbors, all through that section, feuds which will never cease to exist. Many a man has suffered family wrongs from his neighbor which he thirsts to go back to revenge, which he swears yet to revenge, and which he feels nothing but the blood of the offender can revenge! And should peace be declared to-morrow, a social war would still exist in Missouri!

People dwelling in the free States, where the schoolhouse is not abolished, where the laws still live and restrain, can have no conception of the state of society where the whole community has returned suddenly to savage life; a life wherein the reaction from a former restraint renders the viciously disposed far more intensely barbarous than his red brother of the plain.

LOWE'S men, and all similarly recruited by order of ex-Governor JACKSON, remained in service six months, and were to be paid in State scrip. But as that was worthless, they never received anything in rations, clothing, or money, but what they plundered from their fellow-citizens. Many of these state rights soldiers have since enlisted in the Confederate army; but Confederate paper being fifty per cent. below par, and not rising, the legitimate pay of the Southern soldier is likely to be small.

In Northern Arkansas, all males between fifteen and forty-five years of age have been ordered to be ready for the Confederate service when called upon. This has caused a fear of failure in next year's crops from scarcity of men in that section. There is great suffering among them now. Salt rose to $25 a sack. The authorities prohibited the holders from charging more than $12, the present price. Pins are $1.50 per paper; jeans $5 per yard; and everything else in proportion.

One word in comment. Every additional fact of the deplorable condition of things in the slave States is an additional reason why the North should firmly meet the cause of this misery. If the North should have the manhood to strike a blow at slavery _now_, still a generation must pass before harmony would ensue; but if the North _evades and dallies_, scores of generations must live and die before America sees unbroken peace again.

* * * * *

While the war goes on, the contrabands go off. A writer in the Norfolk _Day Book_ complains that slaves are escaping from that city in great numbers, asserting that they get away through the instrumentality of _secret societies_ in Norfolk, which hold their meetings weekly, and in open day. No one can doubt that this war is clearing the Border of its black chattels in double-quick time. Why not strike boldly, and secure it by offering to pay all its loyal slave-holders for their property? Of one thing, let the country rest assured--the friends of Emancipation will not brook much longer delay. It MUST and SHALL be carried through,--_and we are strong enough to do it_.

* * * * *

Thurlow Weed grows apace, and occasionally writes a good thing from London--as, for instance, in the following:--

At breakfast, a few days since, a distinguished member of Parliament, who has been much in America, remarked, with emphasis, that he had formerly entertained a high opinion of 'JUDGE LYNCH,' looking with much favor upon that species of impromptu jurisprudence known as 'Lynch law,' but since it failed to hang FLOYD, COBB and THOMPSON, of BUCHANAN'S cabinet, he had ignored and was disgusted with the system.

What would the distinguished member have said had he been familiar with the Catiline steamer case, the mysteries of shoddy contracts, the outfitting of the Burnside expedition, and innumerable other rascalities? The gentleman was right,--Lynch law has proved a failure; and, if we err not, another kind of law has of late months been not very far behind it in inefficiency. Our Southern foes have at least one noble trait--they hang their rascals.

* * * * *

'_Non dum_,' 'not yet,' was the motto of a great king, who, when the time came, shook Europe with his victories. 'Not yet,' says the Christian, struggling through trial and temptation towards the peace which passeth understanding and a heavenly crown. 'Not yet,' says the brave reformer, fighting through lies and petty malice, and all the meanness of foes lying in wait, ere he can convince the world that he is in the right. 'Not yet,' says the soldier, as he marches his weary round, waiting to be relieved, and musing on the battle and the war for which he has pledged his life and his honor--and they are a world to _him_. 'Not yet,' says every great man and woman, laying hands to every noble task in time, which is to roll onward in result into eternity. Wait, wait, thou active soul,--even in thy most vigorous activity let thy work be one of waiting, and of great patience in thy fiercest toil. There will come a day of triumph, when the fresh wind will banish the heat, and fan the laurel on thy brow. Such is the true moral of the following lyric:--

FALLEN.

BY EDWARD S. RAND.

Blow gently, Oh ye winter winds, Along the ferny reaches, Nor whirl the yellow leaves which cling Upon the saddened beeches; And gently breathe upon the hills Where spring's first violets perished,-- Died like the budding summer hopes Our hearts too fondly cherished.

Oh memory, bring not back the past, To brim our cup of sorrow; The drear to-day creeps on to bring A drearier to-morrow. Can streaming eyes and aching hearts Glow at the battle's story, Or they who stake their all and lose Exult in fame and glory?

Oh, lay them tenderly to rest, Those for their country dying,-- Let breaking hearts and trembling lips Pour the sad dirge of sighing. Yet louder than the requiem raise The song of exultation, That the great heritage is ours _To die to save the nation_.

In patience wait, nor think that yet Shall Right and Freedom perish, Nor yet Oppression trample down The heritage we cherish! For still remember, precious things Are won by stern endeavor,-- Though in the strife our heart-strings break, The Right lives on forever.

* * * * *

When you write let your chirography be legible. Strive not overmuch after beauty of finish, make not your _a_'s like unto _u_'s or your _o_'s like _v_'s; let not your heart be seduced by the loveliness of flourishes, and be not tempted of long-tailed letters. Above all, write your own name distinctly,--which is more than many do, and much more than was done by the gentleman described in the following letter from a kindly correspondent:--

MADISON, WIS.

DEAR CONTINENTAL:

The holder of any considerable quantity of Wisconsin currency is liable not only to the occasional loss consequent upon the absquatulation of a tricksy wild-cat, but also to great perplexity as to the name of the gentleman who countersigns the bills. These inscrutable counter-signatures are accomplished by ROBERT MENZIES, our excellent Deputy Bank Comptroller. His cabalistic 'R. Menzies' does not greatly resemble a well-executed specimen of copperplate engraving. The initial 'R' is always plain enough, but the 'Menzies' is sometimes read Moses, and sometimes Muggins, and is always liable to be translated Meazles.

Mr. MENZIES is a Scotchman, brimful of Caledonian lore and enthusiasm. His penmanship is not always so sublimely obscure as his performances on bank-paper would indicate; but in its best estate it is capable of sometimes more than one reading. Witness the following instance: In the winter of 1858 and '9, Mr. MENZIES delivered a very interesting lecture, before a literary society, in Prairie du Chien; subject, THE SONG-WRITERS OF SCOTLAND. Mr. M. not residing at Prairie du Chien, the lecture was, of course, the subject of a preliminary correspondence. At the meeting of the society next previous to the one when the lecture was delivered, Elder BRUNSON, the president, announced that he had received a letter from Mr. MENZIES, accepting the invitation to lecture before the society, and naming as the subject of his lecture 'THE LONG WINTERS or SCOTLAND.'

* * * * *

Readers who are afflicted with the isothermal doctrine may experience some benefit from the perusal of a letter for which we are indebted to a friend not very far 'out West:'--

SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

DEAR CONTINENTAL:

I have a friend who would be sound on the goose, as I verily believe, and a patriotic anti-Jeff Davis platform Emancipator, if he hadn't unfortunately picked up a fine learned word. That word is

ISOTHERMAL.

And that word he carries about as a hen carries a boiled potato--something too big to swallow but nice to peck at. And he pecks at it continually.

'I could admit that the slaves should be free,' he says, 'but then nature, you know, has fixed an isothermal line. She has isothermally deemed that south of that line the black is isothermally fitted to isothermalize or labor according to the climate as a slave.'

'Good,' I replied. 'So you admit that all anthropological characteristics as developed by climate are quite right?'

[He liked that word 'anthropological,' and assented.]

'Good again. Well, then, you must admit that to judge by statistics there is an isothermal line of unchastity, or "what gods call gallantry," and further north, one of drunkenness? How much morality is there in a tropical climate? How many temperate men to the dozen in Scandinavia or Russia?'

My isothermalist attempted a weak parry, but failed. When he recovers I will inform you.

YOURS TRULY.

P.S. I am preparing a series of tables by which I hope to prove the existence of the following isothermalities:

A Lager-beer line. A Tobacco-chewing line. A reading of TUPPER and COVENTRY PATMORE line. A CREAM CHEESE line. A Doughface line. And a Clothes line.

* * * * *

We are indebted to R. WOLCOTT for the following sketch of War Life:--

'TAKEN PRISONER.'

It was a terrible battle. Amid the rattle of musketry and whistling of bullets, the clashing of sabres, the unearthly cries of wounded horses and the wild shouting of men, the clear voice of Lieutenant Hugh Gregory rang out: 'Rally! my brave boys, rally, and avenge the Captain's death!'

'Not quite so fast, sir,' quietly remarked a rebel officer, bringing his sword to a salute; 'you observe that your men are retreating and you are my prisoner.'

Hugh saw that it was so, and with a heavy heart gave himself up.

'Hurrah for the stars and stripes!' shouted a brave young soldier, attempting to raise himself upon his elbow, but falling back, exhausted from the loss of blood.

'Damn you, I'll stripe you!' exclaimed a brutal fellow, rising in his stirrups and aiming a blow at the wounded man.

'Dare to strike a helpless man!' shouted his commander; and he warded off the blow with a stroke that sent the fellow's sabre spinning into the air. 'Now dismount, and help him if you can.' But it was too late; the brave soul had gone out with those last words.

'Lieutenant,' said the rebel officer, whom we will know as Captain Dumars, 'I see that you are wounded. Let me assist you upon this horse, and one of my sergeants will show you the surgeon's quarters.' And he bound up the wounded arm as well as he could, helped him upon the horse, and, with a playful _Au revoir_, rode on.

Hugh's wound was too painful, and he was too weak and tired, to wonder or to think clearly of anything; he only felt grateful that his captor was a gentleman, and quietly submitted himself to the sergeant's guidance.

The battle was ended,--in whose favor it does not matter, so far as this story is concerned,--and Captain Dumars obtained permission to take Lieutenant Gregory to his mother's house until he should recover from his wound or be exchanged.

When Hugh found himself established in a pleasant little chamber with windows looking out upon the flower-garden and the woods beyond, fading away into his own loved North land, he thought that, after all, it was not so terrible to be a prisoner of war. He was decidedly confirmed in this opinion when he occasionally caught a glimpse of the lithe form of Annie Dumars flitting about among the flowers; and being somewhat of a philosopher, in his way, he determined to take it easy.

The presence of one of the 'Hessians' at Mrs. Dumars' house gave it much the same attraction that is attached to a menagerie. Feminine curiosity is an article that the blockade can not keep out of Dixie, and many were the morning calls that Annie received, and many and various were the methods of pumping adopted to learn something of the prisoner,--how he looked, how he acted, how he was dressed, and so forth.

'Impertinence!' he heard Annie exclaim, as one of these gossips passed through the gate, after putting her through a more minute inquisition than usual. And he heard dainty shoe-heels impatiently tapping along the hall, and when she brought in a bouquet of fresh flowers he saw in her face traces of vexation.

'I seem to be quite a "What-is-it?"'

'Shame!'--and she broke off a stem and threw it out of the window with altogether unnecessary vehemence.

'Splendid girl!' thought Hugh; 'where have I seen her?'

And he turned his thoughts back through the years that were past, calling up the old scenes; the balls, with their mazy, passionate waltzes, and their promenades on the balcony in the moonlight's mild glow, when sweet lips recited choice selections from Moore, and white hands swayed dainty sandal-wood fans with the potency of the most despotic sceptres; the sleigh-rides, with their wild rollicking fun, keeping time to the merry music of the bells and culminating in the inevitable upset; the closing exercises of the seminary, when blooming girls, in the full efflorescence of hot-house culture, make a brief but brilliant display before retiring to the domestic sphere--Oh, yes--

'Miss Dumars, were you not at the ---- Institute last year?'

'Yes.'

'Then you know my cousin,--Jennie Gregory?'

'Yes, indeed:--and you are her cousin. How stupid in me not to recollect it.'

And she told him how that 'Jennie' was her dearest friend, and how in their intimacy of confidence she had told her all about him, and shown her his picture, and--in short, Hugh and Annie began to feel much better acquainted.

It was a few days after this that Hugh sat by the open window, listening to Annie reading from the virtuous and veracious _Richmond Enquirer_. Distressed by what he heard, not knowing whether it was true or not, he begged her to cease torturing him. She laid aside the paper with an emphatic 'I don't believe it!' that could not but attract his attention, and he looked up in surprise.

'I must tell you, Mr. Gregory--I have been tortured long enough by this forced secrecy--_I am a rebel!_'

'That is the name we know you by,' he replied, smiling.

'But I am a _rebellious_ rebel. Yes,' she added, rising, 'I detest with all my heart this wicked, causeless rebellion. I detest the very names of the leaders of it. And yet I am compelled to go about with lies upon my lips, and to act lies, till I detest myself more than all else! I have consoled myself somewhat by making a flag and worshiping it in secret. I will get it and show it to you.'

'This,' she continued, returning with a miniature specimen of the dear old flag, 'a _real_ flag, the emblem of a real living nation, must be kept hidden, its glorious lustre fading away in the dark, while that,' pointing to where the 'stars and bars' were fluttering in the breeze, 'that miserable abortion is insolently flaunted before our eyes, nothing about it original or suggestive--except its stolen colors, reminding us of the financial operations of Floyd! Oh, if hope could be prophecy--if a life that is an unceasing prayer for the success of the federal arms could avail, it would not be long before this bright banner would wave in triumph over all the land, its starry folds gleaming with a purer, more glorious light than ever!'

And as she stood there, with eyes uplifted as in mute prayer, and fervently kissed the silken folds of the flag, Hugh wished that his station in life had been that of an American flag.

Time passed on, and the prisoner was to be exchanged for a rebel officer of equal rank. Captain Dumars brought him the intelligence, and was surprised at the seeming indifference with which he received it.

'You don't seern particularly elated by the prospect of getting among the Yankees again.'

'I am eager to take my sword again; but my stay here has been far from unpleasant. You, Captain, have been away so much that I have not been able to thank you for making my imprisonment so pleasant. I am at a loss to know why you have shown such favor to me especially.'

'This is the cause,' replied the Captain, laying his finger upon a breast-pin that Hugh always wore upon his coat, at the same time unbuttoning his own; 'you see that I wear the same.'

It was a simple jewel, embellished only by a few Greek characters, but it was the emblem of one of those college societies, in which secrecy and mystery add a charm to the ties of brotherhood. And it was this fraternal tie, stronger than that of Free-Masonry, because more exclusive, that made Hugh's a pleasant imprisonment, and made him happy in the love of one faithful among the faithless, loyal among many traitors. For of course the reader has surmised--for poetic justice demands it--that Hugh fell desperately in love with Annie, and Annie _ditto_ Hugh. How he told the tender tale, and how she answered him,--whether with the conventional quantity of blushes and sighs, or not,--is none of your business, reader, or mine; so don't ask me any questions.

It was the evening of the day before Hugh's departure. They, Annie and Hugh, sat in the little porch, silent and sad, watching the shadows slowly creeping up the mountain side towards its sun-kissed summit, like a sombre pall of sorrow shrouding a bright hope.

'And to-morrow you are free.'

'No, Annie, not free. My sword will be free, but my heart will still linger here, a prisoner. But when the war is over, and the old flag restored--'

'Then,' and here her eyes were filled with the glorious light of prophetic hope, '_I_ will be _your_ prisoner.'

And still Hugh is fighting for the dear old flag; and still Annie is praying for it, and waiting for the sweet imprisonment.

There has been many as sweet a romance as this, reader, acted ere this, during the war. Would that all captivity were as pleasant!

* * * * *

'I would not live alway,' says the hymn, and the sentiment has, like every great truth, been set forth in a thousand forms. One of the most truly beautiful which we have ever met is that of

THE CITY OF THE LIVING.

In a long-vanished age, whose varied story No record has to-day, So long ago expired its grief and glory-- There flourished, far away,

In a broad realm, whose beauty passed all measure A city fair and wide, Wherein the dwellers lived in peace and pleasure And never any died.

Disease and pain and death, those stern marauders, Which mar our world's fair face, Never encroached upon the pleasant borders Of that bright dwelling-place.

No fear of parting and no dread of dying Could ever enter there-- No mourning for the lost, no anguished crying Made any face less fair.

Without the city's walls, death reigned as ever, And graves rose side by side-- Within, the dwellers laughed at his endeavor, And never any died.

O, happiest of all earth's favored places! O, bliss, to dwell therein-- To live in the sweet light of loving faces And fear no grave between!

To feel no death-damp, gathering cold and colder, Disputing life's warm truth-- To live on, never lonelier or older, Radiant in deathless youth!

And hurrying from the world's remotest quarters A tide of pilgrims flowed Across broad plains and over mighty waters, To find that blest abode,

Where never death should come between, and sever Them from their loved apart-- Where they might work, and will, and live forever, Still holding heart to heart.

And so they lived, in happiness and pleasure, And grew in power and pride, And did great deeds, and laid up stores of treasure, And never any died.

And many yers rolled on, and saw them striving With unabated breath, And other years still found and left them living, And gave no hope of death.

Yet listen, hapless soul whom angels pity, Craving a boon like this-- Mark how the dwellers in the wondrous city Grew weary of their bliss.

One and another, who had been concealing The pain of life's long thrall, Forsook their pleasant places, and came stealing Outside the city wall,

Craving, with wish that brooked no more denying, So long had it been crossed, The blessed possibility of dying,-- The treasure they had lost.

Daily the current of rest-seeking mortals Swelled to a broader tide, Till none were left within the city's portals, And graves grew green outside.

Would it be worth the having or the giving, The boon of endless breath? Ah, for the weariness that comes of living There is no cure but death!

Ours were indeed a fate deserving pity, Were that sweet rest denied; And few, methinks, would care to find the city Where never any died!

* * * * *

Does the reader recall DEAN SWIFT'S account of the immortal Strudlbrugs and their undying miseries--it is in the City of Laputu, we believe. Their life was passed as if in such a city. Ah, death! it is, after all, only birth in another form. And to step to the ridiculous, we are reminded of an

EPITAPH IN A DEDHAM CHURCHYARD.

I've paid the debt which all must pay, Though awful to my view, On frightful rocks where billows poured, And broken buildings flew. The cruel Death has conquered me; The victory is but small, For I shall rise and live again,-- And Death himself shall fall.

* * * * *

There are not many of those who 'read the papers,' who have not met from time to time with the quaint experiences of THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR,--a gentleman who, in the columns of the _Buffalo Republican_, and more recently in the spicy _Cleveland Plain Dealer_, has often wished that his too, too solid flesh would melt. It is with pleasure that we welcome him to our pages in the following original sketch:--

THE 'FAT CONTRIBUTOR' AS A GYMNAST.

'But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks.'

RICHARD III.

Says the cardinal in the play--'In the bright lexicon of youth there's no such word as fail.' Without stopping to discuss the reliability of a lexicon that omits words in that careless manner, I must say that in the dictionary of fat men who aspire to gymnastics that word distinctly occurs. I had my misgivings, but was over-persuaded by my friends. They said gymnastics would develop muscular strength, thus enabling me to _hold_ my flesh in case it attempted to run away. They added, as an additional incentive, that the spectacle of a man who weighs nearly three hundred pounds, doing the horizontal ladder, climbing a slack-rope hand over hand, or suspending his weight by his little finger, would be a 'big thing.' I asked them how I was to attain that end. 'By practice,' was the reply; 'practice makes perfect.' It did;--it made a perfect fool of me, as you shall see.

I never had much taste for feats requiring physical effort, except lifting--lifting with my teeth. The amount of beef, pork, mutton and vegetables that I have lifted in that way is immense. After hearing Dr. WINSHIP lecture, I practiced lifting a flour barrel with a man inside of it, and finally succeeded in holding it out at arm's length. [I may remark incidentally that the barrel _had no heads in it_.]

To return to the case in hand (and a case in hand is worth two in the bush): I was deluded into purchasing a season ticket in the gymnasium, and one afternoon I sought the locality. A number were exercising in various ways, and I laid off my coat preparatory to 'going in.' As I bent down to adjust a pair of slippers, I heard some rapid steps behind me, and the next instant a pair, of hands and a man's head fell squarely on my back, a pair of heels smote together in the air, and with a somersault the gymnast regained the ground several feet in advance of me. I assumed an indignant perpendicular, when the fellow turned with well-feigned amazement and stammered forth an apology. Bent over as I was, he had mistaken me for a heavily padded 'wooden horse,' which formed a portion of the apparatus.

Desiring to be weighed from time to time, in order that I might note the effect of gymnastics upon my tonnage, I asked one, who was resting after prodigious efforts to wrench his arms off at a lifting machine, if there were scales convenient. He surveyed me for a moment--looked puzzled--and finally replied hesitatingly,--'Y-e-s, I think we can manage it.' He led the way to a window overlooking the Ohio canal. 'Do you see that building?' said he, pointing to a low structure on the heel path side, extending partly over the canal. I intimated that the fabric in question produced a distinct impression on the optic nerves, and inquired its use. '_Weigh-lock_' he shrieked; '_go and be weighed!_'

'_Go and be d----d!_' I yelled, furious at being thus victimized; but my angry and profane rejoinder was lost in the shout of laughter that went up from the assembled athletes.

Natural abhorrence of jokes, practical or otherwise, is a trait among my people; it runs in the family, like wooden legs. I immediately sought the boss gymnaster and related the manner in which I had been introduced to his elevating establishment. I told him I had come there neither to be made a horse of by one nor an ass of by another. He pledged his word that the like should not occur again, and I was appeased.

I first attempted the parallel bars, but they were never intended for men of my breadth. My hands giving way, I became so firmly wedged between the bars that it was necessary to cut one of them away in order to release me. A wag pronounced it a feat without a parallel.

The horizontal bar next claimed my attention. I had seen others hang with their heads down, suspended by their legs alone, and the trick appeared quite easy of execution. I succeeded in suspending myself in the manner indicated, but--_revocare gradum_--when I attempted to regain the bar with my hands, it was no go. I was in a perspiration of alarm at once; my legs grew weak; my head swam from the rush of blood; twist and squirm as I would, I couldn't reach the bar with the tip end of a finger even. My head was four or five feet from the ground, so that a fall was likely to break my neck, and when my frantic efforts to clutch the bar with my hands failed, I shrieked in very desperation. Men came running to my aid. They raked the tan bark, with which the ground was strewn, in a pile beneath me, to break my fall as much as possible, and, relaxing my hold of the bar, I came down in a heap, rolled up like a gigantic caterpillar, and dived head and shoulders into the tan bark, where I was nearly smothered before I could be extracted. It was a terrible fright, but I escaped with a few bruises.

My brief career as a gymnast terminated with the 'ladder act.' I felt unequal to the task of drawing myself up the ladder (which was slightly inclined from the perpendicular), as I had seen others do, but once at the top I believed I could lower myself down. A purchase was rigged in the roof, by which I was hoisted to the top of the ladder, some thirty feet from the ground, when, grasping a round firmly with my hands, the purchase was disconnected from my waist belt, and I began the descent. It was very severe on the arms, and I desired to rest myself by placing my feet on a round, but my protuberant paunch would not permit it. When I had accomplished about half the distance in safety, a round snapped suddenly with the unusual weight. I remember clutching frantically at the next, which broke as did the other; then followed a sensation of falling, succeeded by a collision as between two express trains at full speed, and I knew no more. When I recovered consciousness, I was in my own bed, and four surgeons were endeavoring to set my broken leg with a stump extractor. Gymnastics are a little out of my line.

FAT CONTRIBUTOR.

Unlike BRUMMEL, _we_ know who our fat friend is, and shall be happy to see him again.

* * * * *

'Talbot,' of Washington, one of those who keep the many chronicles of government, gives us the following from his repertoire:--

Shortly after the inauguration of President Lincoln, and during the period in which the throng of office-seekers was greatest, an applicant for a clerkship in one of the departments received notification to appear before the 'examining committee' for examination as to qualifications. In due time he appeared, and announced himself 'ready.' The aforesaid 'committee,' supposing that they had before them a decidedly 'soft one,' determined to enjoy a little 'sport' at the poor fellow's expense. After having put a great many questions to him, none of which in the least applied to the duties he would be expected to perform, he was asked how he would ascertain the number of square feet occupied by the Patent Office building. This question aroused in him suspicions that 'all was not right,' and, with a promptness and emphasis that effectually dampened the hopes of his questioners, he replied, '_Well, gentlemen, I should employ an experienced surveyor._'

The same correspondent tells us that--

In one of the rural towns of Illinois lived, a few years agone, a very eccentric individual known as 'DICKEY BULARD,' whose original sayings afforded no little amusement to his neighbors.

DICKEY had his troubles, the saddest of which was the loss of his only son. Shortly after this event, in speaking of it to some friends, he broke out in the following pathetic expression of feeling:

'I'd rather a' lost the best cow I have, and ten dollars besides, than that boy. If it had been a gal, it wouldn't a' made so much difference; but it was the only boy I had.'

On another occasion, in referring to the death of his grandmother, who had been fatally injured by a butt from a pet ram, DICKEY gave vent to his feelings as follows:

'I never felt so bad in all my life as I did when grandmother died. She had got so old, and we had kept her so long, _we wanted to see how long we could keep her_.

* * * * *

It is the 'turn of the tune' which gives point to the far-famed legend of 'The Arkansaw Traveler,'--which legend, in brief, is to the effect that a certain fiddling 'Rackensackian,' who could never learn more than the first half of a certain tune, once bluntly refused all manner of hospitality to a weary wayfarer, avowing with many an oath that his house boasted neither meat nor whisky, bed nor hay. But being taught by the stranger the 'balance' of the tune,--'the turn,' as he called it,--he at once overwhelmed his musical guest with all manner of dainties and kindnesses. And it is the 'turn of the tune,' in the following lyric, from the soft tinkle of the guitar to the harsh notes of the 'beaten parchment,' which gives it a peculiar charm.

THE GUITAR AND THE DRUM.

BY R. WOLCOTT, CO. B., TENTH ILLINOIS

Evening draws nigh, and the daylight In golden splendor dies; And the stars look down through the gloaming With soft and tender eyes.

I sit alone in the twilight, And lazily whiff my cigar, Watching the blue wreaths curling, And thrumming my old guitar:

Old, and battered, and dusty,-- A veteran covered with scars; Yet to me the most precious of treasures, The sweetest of all guitars.

For a gentle spirit dwells in it, That speaks through the trembling strings, And in echo to my thrumming A wonderful melody sings.

As I softly strike the measures, The spirit murmurs low A song of departed pleasures, A dream of the long ago.

And like a weird enchanter It paints in the star-lit sky Pictures from memory's record, Scenes of the days gone by.

And as the ripples of music Float out on the evening air, There comes to me a vision Of the girl with the golden hair.

Kindly she turns upon me. Those lustrous, violet eyes, And my heart with passionate yearnings To meet her eagerly flies.

Nearer she comes, and yet nearer, At the beck of the spirit's wand, And I feel the gentle pressure On my brow of her warm, white hand--

_Tr-r-r-rum-ti-tum-tum, tr-r-r-rum-ti-tum-tum!_ 'Tis the warning voice of the rolling drum. Through the awakened night air come The stern command and the busy hum Of hurried preparation. 'Tis no time now for idle strumming Of light guitars: in that loud drumming Is fearful meaning; the hour is coming That for some of us will be the summing Of all life's preparation.

Quick, quick, my boys: fall in! fall in! Now is the hour when we begin The battle with this monstrous sin. Onward to victory!--or to win A patriot's martyrdom! Stay no longer to bandy words; Trust we now to our gleaming swords; For foul rebellion's dastardly hordes A terrible hour has come.

By all that you love beneath the skies; By the world of cherished memories; By your hopes for the coming years; By the tender light of your loved one's eyes; By the warm, white hands you so highly prize; By your mothers' parting tears, Swear the horrible wrong to crush! What though you fall in the battle's rush, And the velvet leaves of the greensward blush With your young life's crimson tide? The angels look down with pitying love, And your tale will be told in the record above: 'For his country's honor he died.'

The gentle strings of the light guitar, Waking soft echoes from memory's chords, And tender dreams of home-- The noise, and the pomp, and the glitter of war; The furious charge, and the clashing swords; The song of the rolling drum.

How many a young heart has, in these later days, been turned from soft guitar-tones of idleness, to the brave, rattling measures of drum-life! It will do good, this war of ours; and many a brave fellow will, in after years, look back upon it as the school in which he first learned to be a thoroughly practical and sensible MAN.

* * * * *

We are indebted to a gossiping and ever most welcome New Haven friend for the following anecdote of one of the men who, clothed in a little brief authority, 'go about 'restin' people:'

Our village we consider one of the most pleasant in the country; our boys full of life and activity, and our officers men of energy and perseverance, and men who understand their importance. In proof of these assertions, I offer the following sketch of an occurrence a few years ago.

DICK BARNES was a blacksmith, and a man of considerable notoriety in those days, and from the peculiar prominence of his front upper teeth he had derived, from the boys of the village, the singular nick-name of 'Tushy.' For two or three successive years he had been elected constable, and the duties of this great public office appeared to demand that he should neglect his legitimate private business, so that it was said that the safest place for him to secrete himself--the most unlikely place where he would be sought--would be behind his own anvil. Like many others 'clothed with a little brief authority' he was not overmodest in showing his importance.

The boys were then, as they are now, fond of skating, and there was a large pond near the centre of the village on which they used to have fine times on moonlight evenings, and especially Sunday evenings, and, as a natural consequence, when large numbers of boys are engaged in sport, they were somewhat noisy.

One Sunday evening, when the ice was very smooth and the boys were enjoying themselves, BARNES made his appearance on the ice and ordered them off, in tones, and exclamations of authority. The boys did not like this interference in their sports and couldn't see the justice of his demand. 'That's old Tushy,' says one, and the cry of 'Tushy,' 'Tushy,' soon passed among the crowd of skaters, till BARNES began to think it personal, and was determined to catch one of them and make of him an example. The ice was 'glib,' as they termed it, and as they all had skates except 'Tushy,' they were rather rude in their behavior towards him,--a not very uncommon circumstance,--and though they were careful to keep out of harm's way, they kept near enough to him to annoy him. Finding all efforts to catch one of them fruitless, with the advantage they had,--for 'the wicked _stand_ on slippery places,'--he announced his determination to catch one of them anyhow, and started for the shore.

Boys are usually quicker in arriving at conclusions than older people, and one of them suggested that he had gone for his skates. 'Good! now we'll have some fun, boys,' says Phil Clark, who was a good skater, and withal a good leader in a frolic. 'You follow me and do as I tell you, and I don't believe old "Tushy" will follow us far.' By general consent he led them to the dry, sandy shore, and such as had them filled their handkerchiefs, and such as could not boast of that superfluity filled their caps, with sand. 'Now,' says Phil, 'when he comes back, and it won't be long, we'll form a line and wait till he gets his skates on, when he'll put chase for some of us. If he gets near any of us, some one sing out "Bully," and every boy drop his sand, and if he catches any one we'll all pitch in.'

'Tushy' in a little while made his appearance, and soon had his skates strapped to his feet, and after a few stamps upon the ice, to see that they were properly secured, glided a few strokes and started off for the boys. The moon was shining 'as bright as day,' and old Tushy's movements were perfectly apparent. The pond was huge, and afforded a good opportunity for a trial of speed, and, though many of the boys were good skaters, 'Tushy' perseveringly determined to capture one of them, and started for the one nearest. This was 'Phil,' who was the master spirit of the frolic, and as 'Tushy' approached with almost the certainty of capturing him, he would glide gracefully aside and let him pass on. He had almost caught up with a group of the smaller boys who were going at full speed, when 'Phil' shouted out the word 'Bully.' In an instant the contents of handkerchiefs and caps was deposited on the glaring ice, the boys continuing their flying course. 'Tushy,' elated with the prospect of capturing at least one of the urchins, increased his speed with lunger strides, and was in the act of grasping one, when the sparks from his steel runners, the sudden arrest of his feet and the onward movement of his body, convinced him that _he_ was caught. The impetus he had acquired with the few last strokes on the smooth ice, and the sudden check his feet had received from the sand, sent him sliding headlong many yards towards an air-hole,--one of those dangerous places on ponds suddenly frozen,--and soon the ice began to crack around him. The water in the pond was not deep, but the ice continued to break with his efforts to extricate himself. He found that the boys had successfully entrapped him, and it was not until he had made a promise not again to interfere with their sport that they consented to assist him out. He kept his promise, and the boys ever after, when they designed any extra sport on the ice, had his nick-name for a by-word.

JAY G. BEE.

* * * * *

'Salt,' according to MORESINUS, 'is sacred to the infernal deities,'--for which reason, we presume, those who were seated 'below the salt' at the banquets of the Middle Ages were always 'poor devils.' Attic salt is always held to be more pungent when there is a touch of the diabolical and caustic in it,--and therefore caustic itself is known as _lapis infernalis_. 'Poor Mr. N----,' said a country dame, of a recently deceased neighbor who was over-thrifty, 'he always saved his salt and lost his pork.' 'Yes,' replied a friend, 'and now the salt has lost its Saver.' The reader has doubtless heard of the lively young lady, named Sarah, whom her friends rechristened Sal Volatile. Apropos--a New Haven friend writes us that--

My chum, Dr. B., is not a little of a wag. At a social gathering, shortly after he had received his diploma, the young ladies were very anxious to put his knowledge of medicine to the test. 'Doctor,' queried one of the fair, 'what will cure a man who has been hanged?' 'Salt is the best thing I know of,' replied the tormented, with great solemnity.

* * * * *

According to a cotemporary--the Boston _Herald_--the best Christians may be known by the pavements before their houses being cleaned of ice and snow. This reminds us of a spiritual anecdote. A deceased friend having been summoned through a medium and asked where he had spent the first month after his decease, rapped out,--

'I-n--p-u-r-g-a-t-o-r-y.'

'Did you find it uncomfortable?'

'Not very. While I lived I always had my pavements cleared in winter, and all the ice and snow shoveled away was given back to me in orange-water ices, Roman punch, vanilla and pistachio creams, frozen fruits, cobblers, juleps, and smashes.'

Somebody has spoken in an Arctic voyage of the musical vibrations of the ice. There is certainly music in the article. 'Take care,' said a Boston girl to her companion, as they were navigating the treacherously slippery pavement of our city a few days since; 'it's See sharp or Be flat.'

* * * * *

Somebody once wrote a book on visiting-cards. There is a great variety of that article; an English ambassador once papered his entire suit of rooms with that with which a Chinese mandarin honored him. MICHAEL ANGELO left a straight line as a card, and was recognized by it. Our friend H---- once distributed blank pasteboards in Philadelphia, and everybody said, 'Why, H---- has been here!' Not long since, a lady dwelling in New York asked her seven-year-old GEORGY where he had been.

'Out visiting.'

'Did you leave your card?'

'No; I hadn't any, so I left a marble!'

GEORGY'S idea was that cards were playthings. And _cartes de visite_ are most assuredly the playthings for children of an older growth, most in vogue at the present day. Go where you will, the albums are examined, nay, some collectors have even one or two devoted solely to children, or officers, or literary men, or young ladies. The following anecdote records, however, as we believe, 'an entirely new style' of visiting-card:--

Madam X. was busy the other morning. Miss Fanny Z. 'just ran in to see her' _en amie_, without visiting-cards.

The waiter carried her name to Madam X. Meanwhile Miss Fannie, circulating through the parlors, saw that there was dust on the lower shelf of an étagére, so she delicately traced the letters

_Smut_

thereon and therefore. Waiter enters, and regrets that Madam X. is so very much engaged that she is invisible. Miss Fanny flies home.

In the evening she meets Madam X., who is 'perfectly enchanted' to see her. 'Ah, Fanny, dear, I am charmed to see you; the waiter forgot your name this morning, but I was delighted to see your ingenuity. Would you believe it, the first thing I saw on entering the parlor was your card on the étagére!'

* * * * *

The Naugatuck railroad, according to a friend of the CONTINENTAL,

Is in many places cut through a rugged country, and the rocks thereabout have an ugly trick of rolling down upon the track when they get tired of lying still. So the company employ sentinels who traverse the dangerous territory before the morning train goes through. One of these,--Pat K. by name,--while on his beat, met Dennis, whose hand he had last shaken on the 'Green Isle.' After mutual inquiries and congratulations, says Dennis, 'What are you doin' these days, Pat?' 'Oh, I'm consarned in this railroad company. I go up the road fur the likes o' four miles ivry mornin' to see is there ony rocks on the thrack.' 'And if there is?' 'Why, I stops the trains, sure.' 'Faith,' said Dennis, 'what the divil's the good o' that--_wouldn't the rocks stop 'em?_'

* * * * *

The Hibernian idea of a meeting is, we should judge, peculiar, and not, as a rule, amicable. 'What are ye doing here, Pat?' inquired one of the Green Islanders who found a friend one morning in a lonely spot. 'Troth, Dinnis, and it's waiting to mate a gintleman here I'm doing.' 'Waiting for a frind is it?' replied Dennis; 'but where is yer shillaly thin?' This was indeed a misapprehension, and of the kind which, as a benevolent clergyman complained, who was actively engaged in home mission work, was one of the most constant sources of his frequent annoyances. 'Why,' he remarked, 'it was only the other morning that I heard of a poor girl who was dying near the Five Points, and went to administer to her such comfort as it might be in my power to render. I met an impudent miss leaving the room, who, when I inquired for the sufferer by name, replied, "It's no use; you're too late, old fellow,--she's give me her pocket-book and all her things."'

* * * * *

A friend has called our attention to the following extract from an advertisement in a New York evening paper, and requests an explanation:--

STRABISMUS, OR CROSS-EYE, IN ITS WORST STAGES, CURED IN ONE MINUTE. READ!

NEWARK, August 14th, 1861.

Dear Doctor: I write to express my thanks for the great difference you have made in my appearance by your operation on my eye. I have had a _squint_, or _cross-eye_, since birth, and in less than one minute, and with VERY LITTLE PAIN, you have made my eyes perfectly straight and natural. Having consulted in Europe the greatest _Aurists_, I, therefore, can testify that your system of restoring the _hearing_ to the deaf is at once scientific, safe and sure; and I confidently recommend all deaf to place themselves under your care. W.T.

There's a nut to crack. Having had a cross-eye cured in one minute, Mr. T. can _therefore_ testify that the system by which he was enabled to see is just the thing to enable the deaf to hear! But an instant's reflection convinced us of the true state of the case. There is an old German song which translated saith:

'I am the Doctor Iron-beer, The one who makes the blind to hear, The man who makes the deaf to see:-- Come with your invalids to me.'

We evidently have a Doctor Iron-beer among us. 'He still lives,' and enables people to outdo the clairvoyants, who read with their fingers, by qualifying his patients to peruse the papers with their auricular organs.

* * * * *

Walter will receive our thanks for the following æsthetic communication:--

DEAR CONTINENTAL:

Do you know the superb picture of Judith and Holofernes, by ALLORI? Of course. But the legend?

The painter ALLORI was blessed and cursed with a mistress, one of the most beautiful women in an age of beauty. He loved her, and she tormented him, until, to set forth his sufferings, he painted _la belle dame sans mercy_ as Judith, holding his own decapitated head by the hair.

'She was more than a match for her lover,' said a young lady, who--between us--I think is more beautiful than the 'Judith.'

'Yes,' was the answer; 'the engraving proves that she got a-head of him.'

Of course it was Holofernally bad. I once heard a better one on the same subject, of scriptural be-head-edness. Where is a centaur first mentioned? John's head on a charger. The postage stamp on your lawyer's bill--mine especially--represents the same thing, with the substitution of General Washington for John. Rarey tamed Cruiser--I wonder if he could do anything by way of 'taking down' this legal 'charger' of mine.

Yours truly, WALTER

* * * * *

Much has been written on oysters. There was a time when England sent nothing else abroad. 'The poor Britons--they are good for something,' says SALLUST, in 'The Last Days of Pompeii;' 'they produce an oyster.' In these days, they export no oysters, but in lieu thereof give us plenty of pepper-sauce. But to the point,--we mean to the poem,--for which we are indebted to a Philadelphia contributor:--

OYSTERS!

He stood beside the oysters. Near him lay A dozen raw upon the half-shell: he With fork stood ready to engulf them all, When to his side a reverend gray-beard came. Pointing his index finger to the Natives, Slowly he spoke, with measured voice and low:-- 'They are the same, THE SAME! I've eaten them In London, small and coppery; at Ostend, A little better; and in the Condotti, Yea, in the Lepré--'tis an eating-house Frequented by the many-languaged artists Of great imperial Rome. At Baiæ: also I've tasted that nice kind described by MARTIAL, Who calls them ears of Venus;--there I've had 'em. Also at Memphis--now I'm coming to it: I've seen amid the desert sands of Egypt, Exposed among the hieroglyphs, these Natives. (The hieroglyphs, you know, are outward forms Of things or creatures which unfold strange myths, Read by the common eye in vulgar way, But to the learned are types of truths gigantic.) Thus unto you those oysters are but bivalves; But unto me they're--P'raps you'll stand a dozen?' 'Well, I will, old hoss; it seems to me you need 'em!' 'Good! Then to me they are as hieroglyphs Of our poor human state; as PLATO says, "The soul of man, a substance different from The body as the oyster from the shell, Does stick to it, and is imprisoned in it. Its weight of shell doth keep it down and force it To stay upon its muddy bottom. So does Man's body hold his soul in these dark regions, Keeping it ever steadily from rising To those superior heights where are abodes More fitting its serene and noble nature." Good as a quarter-dollar lecture. Boy! fork over.' 'Another "doz." to this old gentleman; For I perceive he plainly hath it in him To swallow down two dozen oysters' souls. See what it is to be a philosopher!'

This is indeed finding sermons in 'shells.'

* * * * *

'Punning is a power,' according to somebody, and, like most power, is sadly abused. Take, for illustration, the following specimen of the 'narrative pun:'

The reader knows that BYRON once punned on the word Bullet-in, and was proud of it; distinctly proud, be it remembered. After which comes the following:--

Some years ago it was summer time, and in the office of the Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_, one, as the French say, was preparing the daily paper. Along Third Street streamed Shinners, Bulls, Bears, and Newsboys,--in the sanctum, Editors wrote and clipped,--proof rose up and down in the dumb waiter,--there was the shrill scream of the whistle calling to the foreman far on high,--

Suddenly there was a tremendous run in the front office.

A maddened cow,--an infuriate, delirious, over-driven animal,--breaking loose from the cow-herdly creature who had her in charge,--careered wildly past the _Ledger_ building.

One would have thought that the straw paper on which that sheet was then printed might have tempted her to repose.

It didn't.

Past FORNEY'S paper:--he was proprietor of the _Pennsylvanian_ in those days. Those days!--when he was Warwick, the king-maker, and carried Pennsylvania for Old Buck. Bitter were the changes in aftertimes, and bitterly did Forney give fits where he had before bestowed benefits. On went the cow.

Right smack into the office of the evening paper, then engineered by ALEXANDER CUMMINGS, now held by GIBSON PEACOCK.

Rush! went the cow. Right into the next door--turn to the left, oh, infuriate--charge into the newsboys! By Santa Maria, little DUCKEY is down--ha! Saint Joseph! the beast gains the front office--she faceth streetwards--she jaculates herself outwards--she is gone.

By the door stood a Philadelphia punster.

The cow switched him with her tail; he heeded it not. His soul felt the morning gleam of a revelation,--the flash of a Boehmic Aurora,--

Far, far above the world, oh dreamer!--in the pure land of Pun-light, where the silent Calembergs rise in the sunset sea.

And he spake,--

'_I see you have_ A COW LET OUT _there, and a_ BULL LET IN HERE!'

This is going through a great deal to get at a pun, says some over-heated and perspiring disciple.

Well--and why not?

Have you never heard of the clergyman who preached an entire sermon on the slave-trade, and gave a detailed account of its head-quarters, the kingdom of Abomi?

And why?

Merely that he might ring it into them bitterly, fiercely, with this conclusion:

'My hearers, let us pray that this Abomi-Nation may be rooted out from the face of the earth.'

That was so. _Consummatum est_.

No wonder we hear so much of the sufferings and sorrows of the Third Estate--which is the editorial.

* * * * *

'Wine is _sometimes_ wine, but not very often in these days:' what it very often is not when labelled 'Heidsick' and 'Rheims.' 'But then the _cork_ proves it, you know,'--for, by a strange superstition, it is assumed that when the cork is correct the wine is not less so; a theory which is exploded by a revelation in the following by no means Bacchanalian lyric:--

BOGUS CHAMPAGNE.

Fill up your glass with turnip-juice, And let us swindled be; Except in England's cloudy clime Such trash you may not see. With marble-dust and vitriol, 'Twill sparkle bright and foam,-- Who will not pledge me in a cup Of champagne--made at home?

We do not heed the label fair That's stuck upon the glass; It's counterfeit,--an ugly cheat, That takes in many an ass. The cork is branded right, and we Know that it once corked wine; They give the hotel-waiters tin To save the genuine!

Think of this when you next 'wish you had given the price of that last bottle of champagne to the Tract Society,' as _Cecil Dreeme_ hath it.

* * * * *

One of the best repartees on record is that of WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, who, having been reproached with inconsistency for having taken from his journal the old motto, 'The Constitution is a league with Death and a covenant with Hell,' replied that 'when he hoisted that motto, he had no idea _that either death or hell intended to secede_. Circumstances alter cases, and definitions modify both. Slavery, it now appears, is death, as every political economist claims, while the South is--the other place.

* * * * *

The following is from one who was not 'well off for soap:'--

DEAR CONTINENTAL:

It was my fortune, some time ago, while traveling through the New England States, to lose my trunk, on my way to a very thriving manufacturing village. Arrived at the principal hotel a few minutes before the dinner hour, I was shown up to my room, every article of furniture in which sparkled with newness,--its carpet shining like fireworks, curtains painfully stiff, and the air redolent of novelty.

One article of furniture, which I took to be a cottage piano or melodeon, turned out, on raising the lid, to be a wash-stand, amply munitioned with water, towels, and a new piece of soap. Having noticed that the article had never been used, and my own being lost with my trunk, I determined to put it to its legitimate destination.

I commenced rubbing it between my hands, immersing it in water, passing it quickly from one hand to the other, and using all other persuasive attempts to solve it into lather. Useless; it was _un-lather-able_, and hearing the gong sound for dinner, I gave it up as a hopeless job.

After dinner, in conversation with the landlord, he asked me how I liked my room. I told him that it pleased me very well, and that I had but one fault to find,--that was, that the soap in the wash-stand was the hardest I had ever seen, and I believed it was made of iron.

'Well,' said he, with a diabolical smile, 'it _is_ hard soap, and it ort to be--it's iron-y--for it's Cast-Steel!'

* * * * *

The annexed may be read with profit by the charitable:--

H---- has never yet been known to give one cent in charity. A Christian called on him, the other day, and begged him to give something to a soup society.

'Ah-h-h!' said H., 'war times, now. Can't give anything.'

'The soup society is very poor, and would be thankful for the _smallest sum_.'

'Would it?' said H., cheerfully. 'Why, then, twice one are two. Good-morning.'

This, we presume, may be called figuring as a benefactor.

* * * * *

Our Arabic-studying friend has supplied us with a fresh batch of oriental proverbs:--

'A monkey solicited hospitality from devils. "Young gentleman," they replied, "the house is quite empty of provisions."'

'Eat whatever thou likest, but dress as others do.'

'Like a needle, that clothes people, and is itself naked.'

'He who makes chaff of himself the cows will eat.'

'Give me wool to-day, and take sheep to-morrow.'

'He is high-minded but empty-bellied.'

'Easier to be broken than the house of a spider.'

'He descends like the foot of a crow, and ascends (like) the hoof of a camel.'

But all yield in grim drollery to the last given:--

'There are no fans in hell.'

Which, as our friend declares, 'sounds as Western as Eastern.' Verily, extremes meet.

* * * * *

Many of our exchanges have spoken of the series entitled 'Among the Pines,' now publishing in this Magazine, as being written by FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED. In justice to Mr. OLMSTED we would state that he is not the author of the articles in question, and regret that the unauthorized statement should have obtained such general credence.

A statement has also appeared in many journals declaring that the literary matter of the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY is the same with that published in the KNICKERBOCKER Magazine. We need not say that it is _entirely false_, as any reader may ascertain for himself who will take the pains to compare the two publications. Not one line has ever appeared in common in the Magazines. The _Knickerbocker_ is printed and PUBLISHED in New York, at No. 532 Broadway, the CONTINENTAL in Boston, at No. 110 Tremont Street.

* * * * *

The editor of the CONTINENTAL begs leave to repeat that as the principal object of the Magazine is to draw forth such views as may be practically useful in the present crisis, its pages will always be open to contributions even of a widely varying character, the only condition being that they shall be written by friends of the Union. And we call special attention to the fact that while holding firmly to our own views, as set forth under the Editorial heading, we by no means profess to endorse those of our contributors, but shall leave the reader to make his own comments on these.

* * * * *

Readers will confer a favor by forwarding to us any pamphlets, secession or Union, on the war, which they may be disposed to spare.

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 STATES 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 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 B. Kimball's great work, "THE REVELATIONS OF WALL STREET," to be published by G.P. Putnam, early in February next, (price $1.) Subscribers remitting Four Dollars will receive the KNICKERBOCKER and the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY for one year. As but one edition of each number of the Knickerbocker is printed, those desirous of commencing with the volume should subscribe at once.

The publisher, appreciating the importance of literature to the soldier on duty, will send a copy _gratis_, during the continuance of the war, to any regiment in active service, on application being made by its Colonel or Chaplain. Subscriptions will also be received from those desiring it sent to soldiers in the ranks at _half price_, but in such cases it must be mailed from the office of publication.

J.R. GILMORE, 532 Broadway, New York.

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

All communications and contributions, intended for the Editorial department, should be addressed to CHARLES G. LELAND, Editor of the "Knickerbocker," care of C.T. EVANS, 532 Broadway, New York.

Newspapers copying the above and giving the Magazine monthly notices, will be entitled to an exchange.

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 crimes 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. 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, (postage 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] _Journey in the Back Country_. By Frederick Law Olmsted.

[B] The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, _Sentinel_, of June 3, contained a confirmation of these statements in regard to Northern Alabama. A gentleman returned from 'a prolonged tour through the cotton States' communicated a narrative, which demonstrated that the people of Huntsville and vicinity were very hostile to secession in January, that 'at Athens the stars and stripes floated over the court house long after the State had enacted the farce of secession,' and that, even in May, open opposition to secession existed '_in the mountain portion of Alabama, a large tract of country, embracing about one-third of the State, lying adjacent to and south of the Tennessee valley_.' The writer added, 'IN THEIR MOUNTAIN FASTNESSES THEY DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY, OR THE POWER OF ITS RULERS.'

[C] It is proved, by the great increase of the cotton crop during this period, that the surplus increase of slaves was mainly composed of field hands purchased in the border States.

[D] 'The Edwards Family;' page 11.

[E] 'If some learned philosopher who had been abroad, in giving an account of the curious observations he had made in his travels, should say he had been in _Terra del Fuego_, and there had seen an animal, which he calls by a certain name, that begat and brought forth itself, and yet had a sire and dam distinct from itself; that it had an appetite and was hungry before it had a being; that his master, who led him and governed by him, and driven by him where he pleased; that when he moved he always took a step before the first step; that he went with his head first, and yet always went tail foremost, and this though he had neither head nor tail,' etc. etc.--_Freedom of the Will_, part 4 .

[F] Sismondi's History of the French.

[G] Benôit, Hist. Rev. Edict of Nantes,