The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol II, No IV, by Various.

This has been a pet phrase, in certain quarters, ever since the rebellion broke out. The men who use it are doubtless well aware of the prodigious power of such cries adroitly raised. The history of their influence over the unreflecting masses in all ages would be one of the most curious chapters in the history of human nature.

The phrase has a grand air. Its words are brave words to conjure with. It is susceptible of a good and loyal sense. It may mean, restore the supremacy of the Constitution and the integrity of the Union by crushing this atrocious rebellion to utter extinction by force of arms. It may mean that all the revolted States are to be brought back into the Union and under the authority of the Constitution by military subjugation. It may mean this, though it is certainly not a short or strong way of expressing the only thing which patriotic men have now to think of, to wish done, and to help do; and I do not believe any man of strong, clear head or right loyal heart would take this way of expressing it. Still, it may mean this; but if it does not mean this, it means nothing pertinent to exigency, nothing patriotic, nothing loyal.

But is this what they mean who trade with it now? No—nothing of the sort. They use it to distract and perplex the public mind; to draw it off from the one paramount obligation which the times impose upon the nation—the obligation of saving the national existence by the military extinction of the rebellion, regardless of all other ends and aims. They trade upon the popular reverence for the Constitution—that sense of its sacredness which lies so deep in the heart of the North. They do it to mislead the honest masses, whose hearts are mainly right, but whose heads—some of them, but, thank God! not many now—are not so clear to see the miserable fallacy of its application. They make it a text and pretext for inveighing against the government, and so weakening its hold on the popular confidence and support; for raising seditious outcries against any restriction of the license to talk and print treason—what they call tyrannical oppression of the freedom of speech and of the press. They know perfectly well that not a thousandth part of the toleration which traitorous talking and printing enjoy at the North—through the extraordinary and amazing leniency of the Government—is for one moment granted to Union sympathizers by rebel [Pg 378]authorities in the South. They never have a word to say against the way in which loyalty to the Union is there crushed down by imprisonment, banishment, confiscation, and hanging. They have never a word to say against the brutal and fiendish atrocities of cruelty perpetrated there upon all who are even suspected of Union sentiments. They reserve all their indignation for the moderate repression which our Administration has seen fit, in some cases, to apply to traitorous utterances. They have even risen to the sublime impudence of denouncing it as a monstrous outrage on the constitutional rights of Northern traitors, that our Government has declined, in a few instances, to allow the United States mail to be the agent for transporting and circulating treasonable newspapers. I have quite lately been edified with the tone of lofty, indignant scorn with which one of these papers—published in the city of New-York—cries shame on the Government for refusing to be its carrier; though no man knows better than the editor that a publication at the South as much in sympathy with the Union as his is with the rebellion, would not only not get carried in the rebel mails, but, before twenty-four hours, would be suppressed, and its editor in prison, or more probably hung, by the direction or with the approbation of the rebel authorities; and in such a case, our New-York editor would not have space for a line to chronicle the fact, or for a word to denounce it to Northern indignation. But for our Government to decline carrying his treasonable sheet—that is monstrous! Behold him, a confessor in the sacred cause of freedom of speech and of the press! He will not succumb to unconstitutional tyranny! He will continue to print in spite of Government, and to send his treason through the land by the express companies, until the millennial day of the restoration of 'the Constitution as it is, the Union as it was!'

The men who utter this phrase talk, too, about the constitutional rights of the rebels—just as if those who are waging war for the overthrow of the Constitution had any rights under it! Such talk is an outrage on common-sense and decency. What constitutional rights have rebels in arms to any thing, but to be fairly tried for treason, to the forfeiture of their lives, if they escape merited death on the battle-field?

These out-criers for the Constitution and the Union strive also to confuse the public mind with constitutional questions as to the end or purpose of the war. What has the Constitution to do with that? What constitutional object is there for the nation or the Government to have now in view? This, and this only: the extinction of the rebellion by force of arms. Conventions, negotiations, concessions to rebels in arms—even if they were in arms for rights under the Constitution—would be utterly unconstitutional; much more are they so when the rebels are in arms not to vindicate constitutional rights, but for the overthrow of the Constitution, the destruction of the Government, and the dismemberment of the nation. They must lay down their arms in unconditional submission before they can be constitutionally treated with. Any other doctrine would be subversive of the Constitution, of the principles that lie at its basis, of the principles of all government, all national existence, and all social order.

The Government may be driven, by the victorious pressure of rebel arms, to the overwhelming necessity of treating with them. Necessity has no laws. But until then, to talk of treating with armed rebels is as treasonable as it is absurd. Until then, there is no other object allowed by the Constitution, no other obligation imposed by it on the Government, but the military subjugation of the rebellion. The Constitution gives the Government this power, and no other—puts upon it this duty, and no other.

And as to constitutional modes of conducting the war: are the men who raise questions, and suggest scruples, so stupid as not to know that, so far as the rebels are concerned, such a way of talking is the sheerest of all possible[Pg 379] absurdities? The war power is a power conferred by the Constitution; but it is a power which, in face of an enemy, is above all other constitutional powers. In granting the war power to Government, the Constitution grants to it, without qualification or limitation, all the powers necessary and proper to carry on war; this, of course, even if there were no plain delegation of them. But there is; and the only laws which limit the constitutional powers of Government in the conduct of the war, are the laws of war. These laws lie outside of the Constitution, in the consent and recognition of civilized nations. They are now the supreme laws. All this, for the sufficient reason that the constitutional grant of the war power under any other limitation than the laws of war, would be idle and nugatory; and this for the sufficient reason that the salvation of the republic is that to which every thing else must be sacrificed. The constitutional guaranties of State and personal rights were framed for a condition of union, order, peace—not for one of secession, rebellion, and war. In such a time, they must all give way to the supreme necessity of saving the national existence. Constitution or no Constitution, the nation must not be destroyed. Who but a fool would question the right of a man to strike a dagger to the heart of the assassin whose grasp was on his throat, because there is a law against the private use of deadly weapons? The clutch of a parricidal rebellion is grappling at the national existence, and what shall we think of those men who would stay the arm of Government from stabbing at its vitals by interposing constitutional scruples? Even if the Constitution did stand in the way, who but a fool or a traitor would hesitate to go around it or over it to save the national existence? Salus reipublicæ suprema lex. Was the nation made for the Constitution, or the Constitution for the nation? If both can not stand together, which shall go down? Will you stick to the Constitution, and let the nation be destroyed? Any thing more insanely preposterous than such a putting of the wrong thing foremost, such a preference of the means to the end, is hard to be imagined.

But the Constitution does not stand in the way. Neither in letter nor in spirit does it interpose a feather's resistance to the most summary and effectual extinction of the rebellion. On the contrary, it justifies the use of all the means sanctioned by the laws of war. It justifies, and, if need be, demands, the receiving, employing, and arming of all the loyal inhabitants of the South held in slavery under local laws, whether by rebel or by loyal masters. What the former might think or say, need not be asked or cared for; and the latter can not, in loyalty, object to the taking of their slaves for the defence of the nation, if military reasons make it needful or wise to do it. If employed, these slaves must be freed, and their masters must receive compensation at the hands of Government. To this, if their loyalty be any thing but an empty name, they will consent. If the extinction of slavery should be the ultimate result, what then? Is slavery so sacred and beneficent, that a triumphant rebellion and a dismembered country are to be preferred to its extinction? The loyal people of the North—the great body of the nation—are getting tired of that conditional Unionism, that Border State loyalty, which makes a paramount regard to the interests of slavery the price of adhering to the national cause. Conditional Unionism—what sort of Unionism is that? Loyalty with a price—what is such loyalty worth? The very terms imply threats, and involve the assertion of the very principle of secession itself. To treat with it, to concede to it, is to admit the principle. It has already cost the country too dearly to be longer endured. Six hundred millions of dollars and a hundred thousand lives vainly sacrificed to the foolish policy, are enough. It helps the cause of rebellion, it paralyzes the arm of Government. The people have become sternly impatient of it. The sooner President Lin[Pg 380]coln, in his quality of Commander-in-Chief, understands this, and makes the Border State Unionists understand that every thing must give way to the necessity of putting an end to the rebellion forthwith by the employment of all the means which God and nature have put in our power, the better it will be for him, the better for the nation, and the better for the Border States themselves, if they are wise. I think that when firmly told there must be an end to this conditional Unionism, this loyalty with a price, those States will have the wisdom to see on which side their real interests lie. But, at all events, the question should be settled. Better they should go over to the rebels at once, than prevent the extinction of the rebellion through their conditional Unionism.

But it is with Northern out-criers for the Constitution and the Union that the present inquiry is chiefly concerned. These men want the Union 'as it was.' What was it? What was it, in the only thing that is in their thoughts and wishes when they raise the cry? It was a Union controlled by the South through alliance with a Northern party styling itself Democratic. It was the whole power of the Federal Government wielded for the aggrandizement of slavery, its extension and perpetual maintenance as an element of political domination. This is what the Union was. This is what these Democrats want again—in order that they may again enjoy such a share (never an equal one) in the honors and emoluments of office as their oligarchic masters may allow them. This is all they think of or desire when they cry for the Union as it was—a chance for loaves and fishes again at the hands of those who for thirty years have used them and despised them. They want to be used and despised again. Hence, though they talk about putting an end to the rebellion, they want it put an end to only in such a way as shall secure the restoration of the slave power to its old position, and of themselves to their old relations with it. This would set them up in their business again. They are out of business now.

Hence, while Governor Stanly, in North-Carolina, is telling the people there that the rebellion must be crushed though it involve the destruction 'of every Southern institution,' and that the maintenance of the supremacy of the National Government and the integrity of the national domain is worth more than all the lives and all the property of rebels of whatever sort; and while Andrew Johnson is declaring the same thing in Tennessee, these Northern traitors are speaking tenderly of the rebellion as an 'irregular opposition'—excited and almost justified by Northern aggressions on Southern rights—which ought to be so met on our part as not to preclude the South from a return to its ancient domination. They insist that the struggle shall be conducted with the least possible 'irritation' of rebel feelings and with a sacred regard to their slave rights. They bewail the enormities perpetrated by Congress and the President against the rebels, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the receiving and feeding of fugitive slaves, the employment of negroes as Government teamsters, the repeal in the Senate of the law prohibiting free negroes to carry the mail, the legalizing of the testimony of blacks, the attempt 'to create an Abolition party in the Border States' by the offer of compensation to the owners in such States as may adopt the policy of emancipation, and lastly, the Confiscation Act, which takes away the property of rebels and sets free their slaves. These things they denounce in the bitterest terms—some of them as 'wounding to the sensibilities of the South,' and some of them as atrocious outrages on the rights of the rebels, calculated to drive them to such 'desperation' that they will never consent, on any entreaty of their Northern friends, to accept their old position of political control in the 'Union as it was.'

Some of these men talk, indeed, of putting down the rebellion by the strong[Pg 381] arm; but they talk a great deal more of putting down Abolitionism—which with them means not only hostility to slavery, but even the disposition to acquiesce in the military necessity of its extinction. They sometimes go to the length of talking of 'hanging the secessionists;' but then, you will observe, they always talk of hanging the 'Abolitionists' along with them. They want them to dangle at the other end of the same rope. It is easy, however, to perceive that the hanging of the secessionists is not the emphatic thing—with many not even the real thing, but only an ebullition of vexation at them for having spoiled the old Democratic trade—a figurative hanging—often, indeed, only a rhetorical tub thrown out prudentially to the popular whale, who might not be quite content to hear them talk of hanging only on one side: but the hanging of the Abolitionists, there is no mistaking their feelings about that; there is a hearty smack of malignant relish on their lips when they speak of it.

These men are as foolish as they are traitorous in their cry for the Union as it was. The Union 'as it was' is a thing that never can be again. They say the South wants nothing but guarantee for the security of its constitutional slave rights—if that had been given they would never have taken up arms; give them that and they will lay them down. Nothing more false. Just before the secession of South-Carolina, Pryor telegraphed from Washington: 'We can get the Crittenden Compromise, but we don't want it.' 'No matter what compromise the North offers,' said Mason, 'the South must find a way to defeat it.' These are facts undeniable and undenied. They demonstrate the falsehood and folly of the men who talk of bringing the rebels back into the Union by concessions. The South did not want guarantees; it wanted separation. It determined to set up an independent slave empire, and no concession you can make will lead them to abandon their determination. Undo the recent legislation of Congress, reëstablish slavery in the District of Columbia, and repeal the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, and you make the Union 'as it was,' so far as the North is concerned; but will that bring back the South? No. Go still further, and make the Union more than 'it was' for them; yield them the principle of the Lemmon Case, and so allow them to call the roll of their slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill, and to convert New-York Battery into a slave-mart for the convenience of slave-breeding Virginia and the slave-buying Gulf States; and will these concessions lead the rebels to lay down their arms and return into the Union? No. They will never lay down their arms until they are conquered by overwhelming military force. They will never be in the Union until subjugated. And I think the rebellion will never be extinguished without extinguishing slavery. Then, and not before, will the conditions begin to exist of lasting peace and true union between the South and the North. Then, and not before, will there be genuine prosperity, a true social order, and a decent civilization in the South.

And since 'the Union as it was' is a thing that never can be again, it is not worth while to concern ourselves overmuch about 'the Constitution as it is,' so far as those who raise the outcry for it have any determinate meaning in their cry. For here, too, the reëstablishment of the political power of slavery is the only point in their view.

The Constitution—in its great substance, in its essential principles, in the general frame of government it establishes, in its organization of powers, in its main provisions, and in most of its details—is an instrument which probably few wise and patriotic Americans would care to see altered, and none would wish to see subverted. But the constitutions of all governments, written or unwritten, (and each sort has its special advantages and disadvantages,) are more or less subject to change—must change and should change—with the progress of society. The Constitu[Pg 382]tion of the United States provides for its own amendment by the people by whom and for whom it was framed. Many amendments have already been made; more are likely in time to be found needful. And no one but a fool will swear blindly by 'the Constitution as it is,' if he is thereby to be precluded from voting for such improvements as time and circumstances may make important and desirable.

But these traitorous traders in the phrase have (as before said) but one single point in view. In the whole compass of the Constitution their devotion embraces nothing in their vows for its unchangeable sacredness except its recognition of slavery, its provisions for the rendition of fugitive slaves, and for counting five Southern chattels as three white citizens in the basis for Federal representation. These are provisions that must not be changed. This is what they mean, and all they mean, when they shout for 'the Constitution as it is.' So sacred is the Constitution in this one sole respect, that they have rung every change of protest—from solemn remonstrance to frantic howls of wrath—against the recent law for taking from rebels the slaves that dig trenches and grow food for them while they are fighting for the overthrow of the Constitution. And the only vision of a Constitution 'as it is' which looms up to their views and wishes in the future—'the Mecca of their hearts' fond dream'—is the overthrow of this legislation, and the reinstatement of slaveholders in their old rights fortified and extended by Supreme Court decisions carrying slavery and their slave laws into all the Territories, with the right of transit and sale for slaves in all the free States.

But most wise men believe that in the end of the war there is not likely to be much slavery to need constitutional protection. And since our nation at its very birth solemnly proclaimed the doctrine that of right 'all men are born free and equal' as before the law, and have an equal right 'to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' perhaps these Democrats may be willing to let these provisions in behalf of slavery be dropped out of the Constitution when they shall have become no longer any thing but a dead letter—with no power of political victory and reward in them. As a living contradiction to the Declaration of Independence they have been the source of all our woes. It is not necessary to blame the framers of our Constitution for introducing them. They did it for the best, as they thought. They themselves hoped and believed the necessity for such provisions would long before this time cease to exist. They little dreamed what mighty mischiefs, what long contentions, what bitterness, what crimes, what bloody horrors they were entailing on their descendants. They little dreamed what a terrible Nemesis would so soon avenge the expedient and temporary introduction (as they thought) of a contradiction to the principles of liberty into the organic law of a free nation whose first foundations they themselves had laid in the solemn proclamation of man's inalienable rights.

Is it too much to hope that, by and by, when there shall (as God grant) no longer be any slavery to need protection, these Democrats will be willing that this contradiction should be removed, by making a slight alteration in 'the Constitution as it is'? Let us trust they will. It is true the Democratic party for twenty years has had but one single principle. Its whole life, activity, object, and occupation has centred and turned on the one sole point of upholding slavery, echoing its doctrines, asserting its rights, obeying its behests, extending its area, and aggrandizing its power; and so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of their Southern masters became the members of the party, that in ten years past I have found but few men calling themselves Democrats and acting with the party who were not in mind and heart, in principle and feeling, pro-slavery men! Pro-slavery Democrats! Four-cornered triangles! Square circles! So the sense of contradiction[Pg 383] always struck me. Yet for most of them I could not feel any thing of that intense scorn with which John Randolph of Roanoke more than thirty years ago branded the Northern 'doughface' in Congress, when pointing his skinny finger at his sneaking victim, he exclaimed: 'Mr. Speaker, I envy neither the head nor the heart of the Northern man who rises here to defend slavery on principle.' I remembered the prodigiously demoralizing effect of slavery on the moral sense and sentiments. I remembered that the present generation of Democrats have been subjected to the influence of Southern masters who long ago out-grew and renounced the sentiments prevalent in the early days of John Randolph: and I have been charitable in most cases (not in all) to their inability to see the contradiction between the ideas of Democracy and Pro-Slaveryism. Let us hope for better things in time to come. With their bondage, their love of bondage will go. It has been passing from the hearts of the great, honest masses of them ever since Saint Sumter's Day.

MACCARONI AND CANVAS.

VIII.

A ROMAN VETTURA.

If a man's mind and purse were in such state that he didn't care where he went, and was able to go there; if the weather was fine, and the aforesaid man could eat, drink, and sleep rough, and really loved picturesqueness in all his surroundings for its own sake—that man should travel by vettura. Not one of the vetture advertised by a Roman 'to go to all parts of the world;' not one of those traveling carriages with a seat for milady's maid and milord's man, with courier beside the driver and a vettura dog on top of the baggage, at the very sight of which, beggars spring from the ground as if by magic, and the customhouse officers assume airs of state. No, no, NO! What is meant by a vettura is a broken-down carriage, seats inside for four English or six Italians, a seat outside along with the driver for one American or three Italians, and places to hold on to, for two or three more, Italians. The harness of the horses consists of an originally leather harness, with rope commentaries, string emendations, twine notes, and ragged explanations of the primary work; in plain English, it's an edition of harness with nearly all the original leather expurgated.

Well, you enter into agreement with the compeller of horses, alias vetturino, to go to a certain town a certain distance from Rome. The vehicle he drives is popularly reported to leave regularly for that town; you know that regularly means regularly-uncertainly. You go and see the vetturino, say in that classic spot, the piazza Pollajuólo; you find him, after endless inquiries, in a short jacket, in a wine-shop, smoking a throat-scorcher of a short pipe, and you arrange with him as regards the fare, for he has different prices for different people. Little children and soldiers pay half-price, as you will read on your railroad ticket to Frascati, and priests pay what they please, foreigners all that can be squeezed out of them, and Italians at fixed price.

As for the horses that drag this vettura. Ola! I hope the crows will spare them one day longer. The long-suffering traveler pauses here, reader, wipes the dust from his brow, and exclaims:

'Blessed be bull-fights; for they use up that class of horses which in pious America drag oysters to their graves, and in papal Italy drag the natives to their lairs outside of Rome!'[Pg 384]

You will toil along the dusty plain—hot, weary, worn-out—but anon you begin the ascent of the mountains; then, as you go up, the air grows purer and cooler. You descend from the vettura, and on foot tramp up the road, perhaps beside the driver, who is innately thankful to you for saving his horses a heavy pull; and with him, or a fellow-traveler, joke off the weary feeling you had in the low grounds. Again you are ascending a still steeper part of the mountain. Now oxen are attached to the old rumbling rattle-trap of a carriage, and it is creak, pull, yell, and cheer, until you find yourself above the clouds—serene and calm—away from dust, heat, turmoil, bustle, in an old locanda, in a shaded room, a flask of cool red wine before you, the south wind rustling the leaves in the lattice, the bell of the old Franciscan convent sending its clear silver notes away over valley and mountain from its sleepy old home under the chestnut trees, the crowing of cocks away down the mountain, the hum of bees in the flower-garden under the window—the blessed, holy calm of the country!

It is the end aimed at that makes vettura-traveling jolly, for it can well be imagined, as an Englishman justly said of it: 'It is just as good a vehicle to go to the gallows in, as any I've ever been in, I am sure.' But it is equally certain that the quiet joys revealed to the man who travels by it—always be it understood, the man who don't care where he goes or when he gets there—are many. These quiet joys consist of exquisite paintings, sketches, scenes, landscapes, or whatever else you choose to call them, wherein shrines, asterias or taverns, locandas or inns; costumes; shadow of grand old trees; the old Roman stone sarcophagus turned into a water-trough, into which falls the fountain, and where the tired horses thrust their dusty muzzles, drawing up water with a rattling noise, while the south wind plays through the trees, and they switch the flies from their flanks with their tails; the old priest, accosted by the three small boys—'they are asking his blessing,' said Miss Hicks—'they are asking him for a pinch of snuff,' said Caper—and when she saw him produce his snuff-box, she acquiesced; the wine-carts instead of swill-carts; the Italian peasants instead of Paddies; agriculture instead of commerce; churches and monasteries in place of cotton-mills; Roman watch-towers instead of factory-chimneys; trees instead of board-yards; vineyards and olive-groves in place of blue-grass and persimmon trees; golden oranges in place of crab-apples and choke-pears; zigarri scelti instead of Cabañas—but this is the reverse of the medal; let us stop before we ruin our first position.

It was warm in Rome. The English had fled. The Romans, pure blood, once more wandered toward sunset—not after it—on the Pincian Hill, and trod with solid step the gravel of Il Pincio Liberato. In the Spanish square around the fountain called Barcaccia, the lemonaders are encamped; a hint of lemon, a supposition of sugar, a certainty of water—what more can one expect for a baioccho? From midday until three o'clock in the afternoon, scarcely a place of business, store or shop, is open in Rome. The inhabitants are sleeping, clad as Monsieur Dubufe conceived the original Paradisians should be clad. At sunset, as you turn down the Via Condotti, you see chairs and tables placed outside the Café Greco for its frequenters. The interior rooms are too, too close. Even that penetralia, the 'Omnibus,' can not compare with the unwalled room outside, with its star-gemmed ceiling, and the cool breeze eddying away the segar-smoke; so its usual occupants are all outside.

At one of these tables sat Caper, Rocjean, and their mutual friend, Dexter—an animal painter—the three in council, discussing the question: 'Where shall we go this summer?' Rocjean strongly advocated the cause of a little town in the Volscian mountains, called Segni, assuring his friends that two artists of the French Academy had discovered it the summer before.[Pg 385]

'And they told me,' he said, 'that they would have lived there until this time if they had had it in their power. Not that the scenery around there was any better, if so good, as at Subiaco, or even Gennezzano; but the wine was very cheap, and the cost of boarding at the locanda was only forty baiocchi a day——'

'There were festivals in some of the neighboring towns nearly every week, and costumes——'

'There was good shooting; beccafichi, woodcock, and quails, also red-legged partridges——'

'Say no more,' spoke Caper, 'but let us secure seats in the next stage that starts for such game scenes—immediately!'

Matters were so well arranged by Rocjean, that three days after the above conversation, the three artists, with passports properly viséed, were waiting, toward sunset, in the Piazza Pollajuólo, for the time not advertised, but spoken of, by the vetturino Francesco as his hour for starting for Segni.

Our trio entered from the piazza, (every house in the environs of it being gayly decked outside with flying pennants, banners, standards, flags, in the shape of long shirts, short shirts, sheets, and stockings, hanging out to dry.) They entered the house, resembling a hen-house, where the vettura was reposing, and commenced a rigid examination of the old vehicle, which looked guilty and treacherous enough to have committed all kinds of break-downs and upsets in its day. While they were thus engaged, the driver and an assistant mounted to the top and made fast the baggage, covering it all with a rough reed matting, and tying it carefully on with cords, except a large-sized basket, which they let fall, striking Caper on one side of the head as it descended.

'Accidente!' yelled two voices from the top of the carriage. 'Santa Maria! Madonna mia! it isn't any thing, merely a bread-basket!' cried Francesco, who, delighted to find out he had not killed his passenger and so lost a scudo, at once harnessed in three horses abreast to the vettura, interspersing his performance with enough oaths and vulgarity to have lasted a small family of economical contadine for a week. One of his team, a mare named Filomena, he seemed to be particularly down on. She was evidently not of a sensitive disposition, or she might have revenged sundry defamations of her character with her heels. As it was, she only whinnied, and playfully took off the driver's cap with her teeth, lifting a few hairs with it.

'Signora diavola!' said Francesco, addressing the mare, and grabbing his cap from her teeth, 'this is an insult—an insult to ME! Recollect that when you are going up the mountain!'

'Ecco me qua, Signore, have patience a little minute, (piccolo momento,) and then, whew! but we'll fly!'

The trio were anxious to get off, for every now and then, from some third or fourth-story window, down would come waste water thus emptied into the street, and they were fearful that they might be deluged.

'Jump inside,' said Francesco, when he had the old vettura fairly in the street, 'then you may laugh at the cascades of Pollajuólo, seguro!'

Creak, bang! rumble, rattle; off they went, and were fairly under way, at last, for Segni. They passed out of Rome by the Porta San Giovanni, where their passports received a visto; and this being finished, again started, the vettura soon reaching the Campagna. It looked a fair and winning scene, as they saw far away its broad fields of ripe wheat swayed by the wind, and nodding all golden in the setting sun; herds of horses feeding on the bright green grass;[Pg 386] the large grey oxen, black-eyed and branching-horned, following the mandarina or leading ox with his tinkling bell; the ruined aqueducts and Roman tombs; the distant mountains robed in purple mist; the blue-clothed contadini returning homewards. Yet this was where the malaria raged. As the road, after an hour's drive, gradually ascending, carried them into a purer and clearer air, and they felt its freshness invigorating mind and body, there broke out a merry spirit of fun with our trio, as, descending from the carriage, they walked up the steepest part of the ascent, laughing and joking, or stopping to note the glories of sunset over Rome, above which hung the dome of St. Peter's, grand in the golden haze.

They reached Colonna while the West was still flaming away, and found the red wine there cool, if nothing better, as they drank it by the fountain under the old trees. Then they mounted the vettura refreshed, and pushed on in the shadow of evening, under a long avenue of trees, and late into the night, until they reached Valmontone; and they knew, by the tinkling of mule-bells, and the hoarse shouts of their drivers, with the barking of dogs, and the bars of bright light shooting through darkness from doors and windows, that the Osteria e Locanda was near, and supper not far off. The vettura stopped.

Descending, they entered the large hall of the inn, with its whitewashed walls and brick floor, its ceiling heavy with rough-hewn rafters, and its long wooden tables and rough benches stained nearly black by use. By the oil lights burning in the graceful long-stemmed Roman lamps, they saw three or four countrymen eating eggs fried with olive-oil in little earthenware pipkins—a highly popular dish in the country round Rome, since, by proper management, a great deal of bread, which is not very dear, can be consumed with a few eggs. One of the number was luxuriating in agradolce—meat stewed with preserved prunes or cherries—a dish which many travelers have laughed at in Germany, but have never observed in 'classic Italy.'

'E che volete, Signori?' from the once white-aproned waiter, aroused our artists to a sense of duty; and fried ham, eggs, bread, and wine, with a salad, were ordered, slowly brought, and ham and eggs quickly finished and again furnished, much to the astonishment of a family of peasants who had entered while they were eating, and who watched the plates of ham and eggs disappear as if it were a feat of jugglery. After supper came coffee and segars, and the sight of one of the soldiers of the patrol, who came in to have a glass of sambuca, his blue uniform in good condition, his carbine brightly shining. After the horses were well rested, the vettura again started, as the first faint light of day shone in the east. About two miles from Valmontone, they commenced the ascent of the mountains, and shortly had two oxen attached to help drag their vehicle upward. The road wound along a mountain side—a ravine far below them—and from its base arose a high conical mountain opposite to them, as they slowly toiled upward. Again and again they pulled through heavy clouds of mist hanging around the mountain side, emerging above them only again to enter others. Finally it cleared; and over the mountains, beyond the valley yet white with the morning dews, they saw the red sun rise clear and sparkling; while high above their heads, perched on mountain top and side, loomed out the old, gray, time-worn walls of Segni. The vettura came to a halt under the shade of some old mulberry trees, and our travelers descended to leave it where it was, for the town was not built with a view to the entrance of carriages.

SUNDAY IN THE CAMPAGNA.

Leaving the vettura, they mounted the steep road, seeing above them the ruined walls, once the ramparts of the town, crowned by gray old houses with tiled roofs rising one over the other, and soon entered the Maggiore Gate with its round arch, its architecture noting a[Pg 387] time when Segni was not quite the unknown place it now is. As they entered the gate, seeing the cleanly-dressed country people seated on the stone benches under its shadow—the women with their blue woolen shawls formed into coifs falling over head and shoulders, loose and pendent white linen sleeves, and black woolen boddices tightly laced, calico or woolen skirts, and dark blue woolen aprons with broad bands of yellow or red; while the men wore blue knee-breeches, brown woolen stockings, and blue jackets, with here and there a short scarlet waistcoat, and all with black conical felt hats, sometimes ornamented with a flower—noting all this, our artists knew it was Sunday or a festival. It was both.

The main street was very narrow—the houses so close together that a donkey loaded with brush-wood could hardly scrape through—and so steep that he had hard work to get a foot-hold on the smooth, worn stones serving to pave it. The buildings were all of that sombre gray stone so picturesque in paintings, and so pleasant for the eye to rest on, yet withal suggesting no brilliant ideas of cleanliness or even neatness. The houses were rarely over two stories in hight, the majority only one story, and but very few of them boasted glazed window-frames, board-shutters letting in light or keeping out rain. Two twists through the narrow streets, or rather alleys, a right-angled turn, a wheel to the left, then straight forward thirty steps, and lo! they were in the inn, alias locanda, of Gaetano. As soon as rooms could be given them, our artists, spite of its being daylight, took a long nap, induced by traveling all night without sleep.

About noon the landlord, Gaetano, aroused them with the fact that dinner was ready. They made a hearty meal, the landlord being careful to wish them 'good appetite' before they commenced. When it was over, and they were about to rise and go forth to discover if there was a café in the town, the waiter-girl appeared with two large dishes, on one of which were green peas in the pod, and on the other goat's-milk cheese.

'I know what the cheese is for,' said Caper, 'but it seems to me an odd way, to send in peas for the guests to shell for them.'

'Perhaps,' said Dexter, 'as they've no opera-house here, it's one of their amusements.'

'Can you tell me,' asked Rocjean of the stout waiter-girl, 'what we are to do with those peas?'

In came the landlord, and then and there a bargain was struck. For forty cents a day, he agreed to give them individually:

First. Breakfast, consisting of eggs, bread, butter, fruit in season, one dish of meat, a pint of good wine, and a cup of coffee.

Second. Dinner; soup, boiled meat, roast meat, vegetables, bread, butter, fish occasionally, one pint of wine, salad, dessert.

It was moreover agreed and covenanted, that for the extra sum of two baiocchi each one, he would provide a cup of coffee and sugar after dinner.

This is the Italian mode of proceeding; and when you have done thus, you will rarely find any trouble, either in receiving what you have agreed for, or in being overcharged. Justice to Gaetano Colajamo, keeper of the locanda at Segni, demands that it should be here witnessed that he faithfully and truly kept the agreement thus made; that after six months spent with him by Caper, he found that Gaetano had acted fairly, squarely, honestly, and manfully with him, from the day of his arrival until he[Pg 388] shook hands at parting. May his tribe increase!

Leaving the hotel, they found a café near the Maggiore Gate, and learned that coffee was to be had there only on Sundays and festivals, the demand for it on other days being so small that it would not pay to make it. After coffee, Caper proposed a ramble up-town, and the trio sallied out, succeeding by dint of perseverance, and digging their heels firmly in the pavement, in climbing up the main street, which was about ten feet wide and very steep, an angle of forty-five degrees about describing its inclination, and as it was paved with limestone cubes worn smooth by the iron shoes of clambering horses and donkeys, it was difficult at times to prevent slipping. The irregularity of the front of the houses, and their evident want of repairs, in fact, their general tumble-down look, relieved here and there by a handsome middle-age doorway or window on the first floor, while the second story would show a confused modern wall of rubble-work and poverty-stricken style of architecture generally; all these contrasts brought out the picturesque element in force. As they passed a row of iron-grated windows a rough, hairy hand was thrust nearly into Rocjean's face, with the request that he would bestow a baioccho for charity on the owner.

'Nothing, nothing. Santa Maria! I am an innocent man. I never did any thing; I never will do any thing so long as I live.'

'Never. It's because I have been too active. So, Signor, give me a few baiocchi, for I am tired of being shut up in this old bottle, and if they will let me out I will marry her to-morrow.'

So Rocjean gave him a few baiocchi, asking Caper what he thought of this plan of allowing jail-birds to sit and sing to every one who passed by, permitting the inmates of the prison to converse with and entertain their friends?

They had hardly passed the prison before three horses, sleekly curried, and with ribbons tied to their manes and tails, were led past them. And in answer to a question from Dexter, he learned that they were being led down to the stretch of road at the foot of the town, the spur connecting the conical mountain on which Segni is built, with the Volscian mountains in its rear. This road was about a quarter of a mile in length, quite level, and lined on both sides with fine old elm-trees, giving goodly shade; it was used as a race-course; and the three horses were going down to run a Carriera or race. Four horses were to run bare-backed, their riders being well used to dispense with saddles, and managing to guide them with a rope halter in lieu of bridle. The purse was four scudi, (four dollars.) Two horses were to run at a time, and the race was then to be run off by the two winning horses.

Anxious to conform to the customs of the country, including Sabbath quarter-races, our three artists retraced their steps, and descending the main street, were soon outside the gate of the town. Selecting a good position in the shade where they could see the race to advantage, they quietly waited for the races to begin. At the firing of a gun, down the course came two flying bay horses, ridden by boys, who urged them on to top speed, accelerated by the shouts of the entire population; the smallest horse won that heat. Again the gun was fired, and now the two other horses, a dark bay and a black, came thundering along, the black going ahead by four lengths, and receiving shouts of applause as Il Diavolo Benissimo! Now came the real pull, for the two winners were to try off; and as the last gun sounded, Clatter, whizz! the small bay and the black horse fairly flew by, neck and neck; unfortunately the black bolted from the course before he reached the goal, and the last seen of him he was[Pg 389] somewhere on top of a hill with his legs white with lime, which he had picked up darting through a mortar-bed where a house was building; The bay horse, Mortadella, ridden by a boy named Bruno, won this Sunday quarter-race; and though the horse was not timed, it is safe to say the time was good, taking into account the fact that on week-days he brought wood down the mountain on his back, and consequently had that peculiar corkscrew motion incident to his profession.

The race over, Caper proposed their once more ascending the main street and making a bold endeavor to discover the top of the town, from which he argued there must be a fine view. Sturdily mounting up, they found themselves at last on the summit of the mountain, and passing several houses, an academy and a church, found before them a pleasant walk called the Pianillo, which was the crown of the conical mountain, and from whence, looking over the valley below and around them, they saw far off the Albanian mountains to their front and left, while away to their right hand and fading into the clouds, the chain of the Abruzzi showed them the confines of Naples. From this walk they saw the mountains and towns of San Germano, Santo Padre di Regno, l'Arnara, Frosinone, Torrice, Monte San Giovanni, Veroli, Ferentino, Morino, Agnani, Acuto, Piglio, Serrone, Paliano, Roviate, Civitella, Olevano, San Vito, Capranica, Gennazzano, Cave, Palestrina, Valmontone, Montefortino, Lugnano, Zagarolo, Colonna, Rocca Priora, and the neighboring towns of Sgurgola, Gorga, and Gavignano, with that lovely valley, La Villamagna.

Lost in admiration of the splendid panorama before them, our artists were not at first aware that the Pianillo was fast filling up with the people who had lately attended the horse-race; believing they were attracted here by the lovely scenery, they only admired their good taste, when Rocjean, overhearing two of the Segnians, discovered that they came there to enjoy a very different spectacle—that of La Giostra del Porchetto, or

SMALL-HOG GAME.

What this might be, our artists had yet to learn; it sounded slightly sensual for a Sunday amusement, but as there was a bishop in the town, and nothing could consequently be permitted that would shock, etc., etc., Caper, Rocjean, and Dexter at once agreed to assist the heads of the church in their pious endeavors to celebrate the day—as the Romans do. Not far from where they were standing, at the foot of wild rocks and the ruins of an old Roman watchtower, was a curious basin cut in the solid rock, its sides lined with large blocks, and its circular form preserved entire; its depth was from five to seven feet, and its bottom was like the sides, paved with smooth blocks. It was popularly said to have been anciently a cistern, a fish-tank, etc., but nothing was known definitely as to its original purpose; it now served for the circus, where the Small-Hog Game was annually indulged in.

About twenty-two o'clock, (that is, six in the afternoon,) the audience and spectators—for it was an audible as well as visible entertainment—being assembled and desirous for the performance to commence, whistled and shouted slightly, but not indecorously; for the grand army of the town—seven gendarmes—were around. Our three artists mounted up the rocks overhanging the cistern, and looked down on the heads of the people. They saw a thousand or two female heads, mostly with light hair, all pulled directly back from the forehead, twisted into a knot behind, and tied with a piece of string, while a silver bodkin a foot in length, run in sideways, held it tight. The heads of these silver hair-pins indicated the married or unmarried state of the wearers; the former were fashioned as acorns or flower-buds, while the latter were full-blown flowers with expanded petals. The faces of these women were tanned, but ruddy health was there and robust[Pg 390] forms; and you saw among them all a very happy, contented, ignorant look, showing a satisfied condition of heart, without endless longings for the unattainable and dim—they always had 'the dim' about them in the shape of the one-horse lamps of the country, a saucer of oil with a piece of twine hanging over the edge for a wick. By the way, the Acadiens on Bayou La Fourche in Louisiana have the same 'lampion' light!

The dress of these women was plain, but strong and serviceable. White shirts in full folds covered neck and bosom, the sleeves hanging from the shoulder in large folds, a boddice of dark blue cloth was laced tightly around their waists, while skirts, generally of dark blue cloth, hung in heavy lines to their ankles.

The men, assembled there to the number of about two thousand, were accoutred in blue cloth jackets, (which rarely have the owners' arms in the sleeve, but are worn as cloaks,) red waistcoats of startlingly crimson color, and blue small clothes, while conical black felt hats, adorned here and there with flowers, served for head-coverings. A large assemblage of children, dressed and undressed, filled up the gaps.

Suddenly, Bang, Bangity Bang! and a row of small mortars were fired off in succession, and a small boy with a banner in his hands, and an Irish pennant in his wake, appeared marching slowly along. On the banner was a painting of a small black hog between two men, each armed with brooms, who seemed bent on sweeping it out of existence; over these were the words:

GIOSTRA DEL PORCHETTO.

Then came six contadini, young men and stout, each armed with a broom three or four feet in length, made of rushes tied together, resembling our birch-brooms without their handles. They entered the arena or cistern, and then each one throwing aside his hat, had a large linen bag coming to a point at the top, tied over his head and throat, so that it was impossible for him to see. On each of these bags a comical face was roughly painted. To the right leg of each man a cow-bell was tied; with their brooms swinging a preparatory flourish, the six stood ready to commence the game. The small hog was then turned into the cistern, announcing his presence by sundry squeals. Now the game fairly begins: Whish! sound the brooms as they are whisked here, there, every where, in attempts to strike the hog; one man giving a strong blow, strikes another one who was stooping down to arrange his garters, where he dislikes to be struck, and instantly the one struck runs a muck, hitting wildly left and right. Two or three men charge on one another and brooms fly in splinters all round. One champion got a head-blow and had his wind knocked out by another blow simultaneously; round they go, and at it they go, beating the air and each other, while the wreath of honor, alias small hog, keeps turning up his head, calculating the chances and making fierce rushes every time he sees a broom approaching him; he must have practiced in the game before, he manages so well to avoid being hit. The six men being unable to hit the hog, grew angry, and one of them, unmindful of the fact that his small clothes had burst open at the knee, and his stockings were around his shoes, terribly batters another combatant, who strives in vain to dodge him. Then the six shouted truce, and pulling off their caps, declared that the small hog must have the bell tied to him also, so that like a beacon (or bacon) he might warn the cruisers of his whereabouts. This arranged, and the caps being again tied on, they recommence the game with renewed spirit. One man ignobly raised his helmet, alias nose-bag, to see where the small hog was keeping himself, and then made a rush for him, whereupon one of three umpires, a very lean man with nervous twitches, rushed at the man in a great state of excitement, and collared him amid the disapproving shouts of the spectators; he let him go upon this, and the other two umpires,[Pg 391] who were fat men, jumping into the cistern to take away their lean brother, received several violent blows on the road, finally leading away the thin man in a high state of twitches, communicating themselves to his stove-pipe hat, (only one on the ground,) and to a large cane he tried to hold. A lucky blow from one of the gamesters struck the hog, and there was a cessation of hitting, interrupted by an outside contadino of the tight-built style breaking through the gendarmes and umpires and jumping into the middle of the cistern, beginning a fearful battle of words with the man who hit the hog, interrupted, however, by two of the gendarmes, who collared him and led him off up the steps, his legs very stiff, his body at an angle of forty-five degrees, and his head turned round to give a few last fierce words to the hog-hitter. The man would have made a good bandit, on canvas, with his bronzed, bearded face, flashing eyes, conical hat, savage features, broad shirt-collar, red sash around his waist, and leather gaiters, showing he rode horses and came from down in the plain.

The game recommenced, and by good luck the broom-swinger who hit the hog the first blow, hit him twice more; and the regulation being that whoever first struck the hog three blows should win him, the successful hog-hunter bore off the small hog on his back, having at the same time to carry the standard above described. The cheers of beauty and ugliness accompanied the hog and standard-bearer, as jerking down his head the umpire pulled off his head-bag, showing the face of Bruno, the butcher, who kept a bull-dog. A great many friends surrounded him, patting him on the back—he had a hog to be eaten!

After this was all over, a Tombola came off in front of the church, and our three artists having purchased tickets for this Sunday lottery, in order to keep the day as the rest of the people did, and not render themselves liable to the censure of being eccentric, had an opportunity of seeing its beneficial working—for those who got it up!

The Tombola finished, there was a good display of fire-works; in the still night air of the Sabbath the fiery snakes and red serpents, blue fires and green, darting flames and forked lights, reminded our artists of a large painting over the Maggiore Gate of the town, where a lot of the condemned are expiring in a very vermilion-colored Inferno—condemned, perhaps, for Sabbath-breaking!

Returning to their inn to supper, the landlord handed them a note without address, which he said had been sent them by the Gonfaloniere of the city, who had called upon them as soon as he learned that they were strangers there. Caper opening the envelope, found in it the following printed invitation to attend a concert to be given that night at the Palazzo Comunale, in honor of the day:

'IL GONFALONIERE

'DELLA CITTA' DI SEGNI

'Invita li sigi, Rocjean, Caper e Dexter ad intervenire all' Accademia di Musica che si terrà nella Sala del Palazzo Comunale il giorno 18 Luglio alle ore 9½ pom. per festeggiare la ricorrenza del Protettore S. Bruno.'

'It sounds well,' said Dexter; 'but both of you have seen the tumble-down, ruined look of the old town, or city, as they call it; and the inhabitants, as far as I have seen them, don't indicate a very select audience for the concert.'

'Select audience be hanged! it's this very selectness that is no selectness, that makes your English and a part of our American society a dreary bore,' broke in Caper; 'I've come up here in the mountains to be free, and if the Gonfaloniere bids me welcome to a palace where the nobilitá await me, with music, I shall not ask whether they are select or not, but go.'

'I think,' spoke Rocjean, 'we should go; it will be the easiest way to acknowledge the attention shown us, and probably the pleasantest to the one who sent it. I am going.'

It therefore came to pass that near[Pg 392] the hour noted in the invitation, Rocjean and Caper, inquiring the direction to the Palazzo Comunale of the landlord, went forth to discover its whereabouts, leaving Dexter to hunt scorpions in the sitting-room of the inn, or study the stars from its balcony.

Climbing up the main street, now quite dark save where the lamp of a stray shrine or two feebly lit up a few feet around it, they soon found the palace, the lower story of which held the post-office and various other offices. After passing a gendarme on guard at the door, they found themselves in a not very light hall leading to the second story; mounting a flight of stairs, there stood another soldier on guard; a door suddenly was thrown open, and then a burst of light showed them a large hall with lofty ceilings, the walls hung with red and golden tapestry and with its rich medieval groined arches and gilded cornices, resembling, after all the ruins and decay of the town, a castle-hall in fairy-land rather than a positively real earthly room. Dazzled by the brilliance of the scene, Rocjean and Caper were standing near the door of entrance, when a tall, stout, and very handsome man, leaving a circle of ladies, at once approached them, and introducing himself as the Gonfaloniere of the city, with much courtesy showed them to seats among the 'most reserved of the reserved.' There sat the Bishop of the Commune in purple silk robes, with an inch-wide golden chain over his breast, animatedly conversing with a dashing Roman lady, startingly handsome, with solitaire diamond ear-rings flashing light, while the lace on her dress would have caused deaths of envy in one of our country villages. The Governor of the Province was there, a quiet, grave gentleman, earnest enough in his duties to be respected, and evidently a favorite with several ladies who also shone in diamonds and with the 'air noble' so much adored by Dexter, A warlike looking priest whom Caper afterward found out was the chaplain of a regiment of soldiers, and by no means afraid of grape-juice, was also there; and with numerous distinguished men and beautiful women including one or two of the Stelle d'Anagni, or Stars of Anagni, as the nobility of that town are called, made with their rich dresses and courteous manners such a picture—so startlingly in contrast with the out-door life that our artists had seen, that they have never forgotten it to this day. The concert for which the invitation was given soon commenced. The selection of vocal and instrumental pieces was made with good judgment, and the singers who came from Rome, and had been selected for their ability, sung with a skill and grace that proved they knew that their audience had nice judgment and critical ears.

The concert was over: and having made their acknowledgments to the Gonfaloniere for the pleasure they had received through his invitation, our two artists, lighting segars, walked up to the Pianillo, where the rising moon gave them a splendid view of the Campagna and mountain-bounded horizon. Thus ended their first day in Segni, and their first Sunday in the Campagna.

LA TRIGLIA.

The sickles were flashing in the sunlight, felling the ripened wheat in the valley, when our three artists, having previously arranged the matter with a certain Segnian named Bruno, stood one morning early, waiting his appearance with horses, to carry them down the mountain to a farm belonging to Prince Doria, called the Piombinara. There they were going to see a triglia or threshing of wheat with horses.

'Here he comes,' said Caper, 'with a piebald horse and a bay mare and an iron-gray mule. Let's toss up for a choice.'

The mule fell to Caper: mounting him gayly, and calling to the others to follow, he led the way with their guide down the steep street of the town until they reached the road outside of the gate, when the others coming up, the party ambled along down the mountain[Pg 393] road. In about an hour they reached the plain, and fifteen minutes more brought them to the old, ivy-covered, ruined fortress of the middle ages, called the Piombinara: passing this, they soon reached an open field, in the centre of which, near a small cabin, they found quite a number of harvesters engaged piling up sheaves of wheat in a circle on a spot of ground previously leveled and hardened until it presented a surface as even as a barn-floor.

While they were inquiring of the harvesters as to the time when the threshing would commence, a fine-looking man, mounted on a fiery, full-blooded chestnut horse, rode up, and politely saluting the three artists, inquired of them if they were not desirous of seeing the triglia.

Rocjean answered that it was for that purpose they had come there, having learned in Segni that the horses would begin the threshing that morning.

The horseman then introduced himself as Prince Doria's agent for the Piombinara and farmer of the estate, and gave them a warm welcome; being very glad, he said, that the triglia would not begin until the afternoon, since he hoped it would give him in the mean time the pleasure of showing them the estate, and extending the rough hospitality of the Campagna to them.

Our artists, acknowledging his politeness, accepted the invitation of Signor Ercole, as he was generally called, and upon his proposing a ride around the estate, accompanied him. They first visited the old ruin, riding in through what was formerly its main entrance. Once inside, they found the lower walls sufficiently entire to give them an idea of the size and form of the old fortress. At one end they found the ruins of a small chapel, where even yet the traces of fresco-painting could be seen on its walls; near this arose a tall, square tower, ivy-clad to its very summit, from whence a flock of hawks were flying in and out; the lightning had so shattered its walls that it threatened every moment to fall, yet in this dilapidated state it had remained for years, and was regarded, therefore, as an 'un-tumbling' curiosity. After some time spent here, which Dexter improved by making a pencil-sketch of the valley and adjacent mountains, Signor Ercole leading the way, they rode through a small woods where herds on herds of black hogs were feeding, to the pasture-grounds where the brood-mares and colts of the Prince were seen grazing together. Over a hundred head of the purest blood-stock were here, and Dexter, who was thoroughly conversant with horse-flesh, passed the highest encomiums of praise on many of the animals. Riding on, they next saw quite a number of oxen, but the superintendent informed them that these were only a few kept to perform the farm-work, the large herds belonging to the estate being at this season of the year driven miles away to feed upon other lands of the Prince. Continuing their ride, the party next came to the wheat-fields, extending far and wide, like those of Illinois, for a hundred acres or more: here the harvesters, most of whom were from the Abruzzi, were busily engaged, men and women, in loading the large carts with wheat-sheafs, the grain being all cut, and consequently many of the laborers having returned to their distant homes. Returning from the fields, Signor Ercole now invited them to enter the farmhouse. This was a very large stone house whitewashed, looking as they approached it more like a garrison for several regiments than a residence for a few families, and a store-house for agricultural implements and crops. The lower floor of this long building was taken up with stables and offices, but mounting a wide stone staircase, our artists found themselves in a large room scrupulously neat, with whitewashed walls, very high ceilings, and whips, guns, dogs, tables, account-books, stone floors and rough seats, making a curious mingling of monastery, squire's office, sportsman's chamber, and social hall, for no sooner had Signor Ercole seen his guests comfortably seated, than his serv[Pg 394]ant brought in segars, with a brass dish of live coals to light them, several bottles of wine, and one of capital old Sambuca di Napoli, a liquor that is refreshing, drank, as it should be, with a good allowance of water.

Dinner was served at an early hour, with a profusion of each dish that would have frightened an economical Yankee housewife. Six roast chickens were not considered at all too many for the five persons at table—the fifth being a jolly old gentleman, an uncle to the Signor Ercole. The plate of maccaroni looked as if Gargantua had ordered it—the salad might have been put in a bushel measure, the bread been carried in a donkey-cart, and the wine—ahem! in the expressive language of the Celts, there was 'lashings of it.'

But even a Campagna dinner with a Farmer-General will have an end, and when our friends had finished theirs, they arose and went dreamily forth to the before-mentioned squire's office, where they lighted segars, while they drank small cups of black coffee, and gazed out of the open windows to the distant mountains, rising far above the plain sleeping in the summer sun, and hushed to sleep by the unceasing song of the cicalas sharply crying from leaf and blade of grass.

About three o'clock in the afternoon a man came to inform the Signor Ercole that the mares and colts had been driven into the corral, and our party accordingly walked out to see them lassoed prior to their performance in the ring. As they approached the corral, they saw the blooded animals circling around the inclosure, apparently aware that they would soon be called on to do some work—the only work, in fact, the majority of them had to do the whole year through. Taking a lasso from one of the men, Signor Ercole entered the inclosure and singling out a fine-looking bay mare, he threw the lasso—the noose encircling her neck as she dashed forward, bringing her up all standing. Satisfied with this performance, he handed her over to one of the herdsmen, who fastening her with a halter, again and again swung the lasso, catching at last twelve horses and mares. One long halter was now attached to six of the animals, and a driver taking it in hand, led them toward the spot where the beaten earth was covered with sheafs of wheat standing on end one against the other in a circle of say thirty or forty feet in diameter; another driver fastening six others, horses and mares, to another long halter, led them to the side opposite the first six. As soon as they were stationed, waving long-lashed whips, plunge! ahead went the wild horses, jumping into the wheat-sheaves breast-high, rearing, squealing, kicking, lashing out their hoofs, their eyes starting from their heads, while each driver stood firm in one spot, whirling his whiplash and keeping his team within a circle one half of which was in the wheat and the other half outside. Thus there were three circles, one of wheat and the other two described by the horses as they dashed wildly around, the drivers shouting, the wheat flying and being quickly threshed under the swift-moving hoofs of the twelve four-legged flails!

Caper and Dexter were meanwhile as busy as they could be sketching the scene before them and endeavoring to catch notes of the first plunges and excited motions of the horses. The active motive-power of the foreground finished, with a hasty sketch of the Piombinara at the right hand, in the middle ground the Campagna with its corn-fields and ruined towers, while in the distance the Lepini mountains stretched away into cloud-land—all afforded a sketch from which both Caper and Dexter afterward made two very excellent paintings.

The sketches finished, Signor Ercole insisted upon the artists taking a stirrup-cup with him before they left for Segni, and accordingly accompanying him to the house, they drank success to their hospitable entertainer, and departed highly pleased with this Representative Man. It is his class—the intelligent Producers of the Papal States—to[Pg 395] whom we must look for all the life that will keep that worn-out old body sufficiently animated to last until Regenerated Italy can take it in hand, see it decently buried, and over its tomb achieve a brilliant future.

PAINTING A DONKEY.

Segni might well boast of her hogs and donkeys. As the sun rose, a wild-looking fellow stood by the Maggiore Gate and blew on a long horn many rough blasts; then from all the streets and alleys rushed out black hogs tumultuously, to the number of one hundred or more, and followed their pastor with the horn, to the field or forest. There he guarded them all day, and at sunset brought them back to the town; when as soon as they reached the gate, the herd separated, and right and left, at top-speed, every hog hastened to his own house. Poor as the inhabitants were, yet among the five thousand of them living in the town, besides countless black hogs, they owned over two hundred and fifty donkeys and mules, the majority donkeys of the longest-eared, smallest-body breed you can conceive. Costing little if any thing to support them, they were excellent labor-saving machines, and did three quarters of the work that in our country would have been done by hod and wheelbarrow labor. Very sure-footed, they were well calculated for traveling the mountain-roads around; and with their enormous saddles, a direct copy of those now used in Egypt, of course attracted the attention of the two animal-painters, who determined to secure a good specimen, and make a sketch of donkey and saddle.

The most comical-looking one in the town belonged to a cross, ill-tempered, ugly brute of a hunchback, who, as soon as he learned that the artists wanted to paint him, asked such a price for his loan that they found themselves obliged to give up all hopes of taking his portrait. One morning, as Caper was walking out of the inn-door, he nearly tumbled over a little, sun-burnt, diminutive donkey that had a saddle on his back, resembling, with this on him, a broken-backed rabbit. Caper was charmed; and as he stood there lost in admiration, a poor little lame boy came limping up, and catching Long Ears by the rope halter, was leading him away, when the artist stopped him and asked him whom it belonged to. The small boy, probably not understanding Caper, or afraid of him, made no answer, but resolutely pulled away the donkey to a gateway leading into a garden, at the end of which was a half-ruined old house. Our artist followed him in, when, raising his eyes toward the house, he saw leaning from one of the windows, her figure marked boldly against the dark gray of the house, a strikingly beautiful woman. There was an air of neatness in her dress, a certain care of her hair, that was an improvement over any of the other female Segnians he had yet seen.

'Do you?' replied the beauty, whose name Caper learned was Margarita; and she asked this with a very astonished look.

'No, I don't believe it will. He is very ugly and sun-burnt. I think it will improve him,' said Margarita confidently.

Caper didn't see how the mere taking his portrait would improve the animal; but thinking it might be meant for a compliment, he assented, adding that he would pay a fair price for himself and his friend to be allowed to have the donkey, all saddled, for two or three hours every day when he was not used.

That very day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, Caper and Dexter, having prepared their sketching-paper, with colors on pallet, mall-sticks in hand, and seated on camp-stools in the shade of a[Pg 396] wall, were busy sketching in Margarita's garden, the donkey held by the little lame boy, and fed from time to time with corn-meal in order to keep him steady. Margarita was seated, with a little child in her arms, on a flight of old wooden steps leading to the second story of her house; and with her bright crimson boddice, and white falling linen sleeves, and shirt gathered in folds over her bosom, while her dark blue skirts, and dark apron with brilliant gold and red stripes, were draped around her as she sat on the stairs, looked exactly like one of Raphael's Madonne alla Fornarina. Her large eyes followed seriously every movement of the painters. Caper, learning that she was a widow, did not know but what her affections were straying his way.

'I am sure it's the donkey is next her heart, and it is more than probable she's there on watch to keep us from stealing it. D'ye notice the manner she's eyeing the paints? Every time my brush goes near the vermilion, and I move my stool, her eyes brighten. I wonder what's up around the gate there? Hanged if half the old women and children around town an't assembled there! Look.'

Caper looked, and, sure enough, there was a crowd of heads; and not content with standing at the gateway, they began soon to enter the garden, crowding around our two artists, getting in front of the donkey, and being generally in the way.

Once or twice Dexter drove them off with words, until at last, an unlucky urchin striking his elbow and making him mar his sketch, he laid down his sketching-box, and, clubbing his campstool, made a rush at the crowd. They fled before him, in their hurry tumbling one over the other, and then, scrambling to their feet, were soon out of sight. Returning to his sketch, he was no sooner busily at work than they were all back again, but now keeping at respectful distance.

After about two hours' work, Caper proposed knocking off sketching, and continuing it next day; to which Dexter assenting, they put up their sketches. Caper agreeing to pay Margarita for the afternoon's study, he went up to her, and handing over the amount agreed upon, she seemed by no means satisfied.

'When are you going to paint the donkey? Here I've told all my friends that you were to paint the little old fellow all over, perhaps a nice red color, or bright yellow; and here we've all been waiting hours to see you begin, and you haven't put the first brush to him yet!'

This was too much for the gravity of Caper, who fairly roared with laughter, and Dexter, who had listened to the talk, joining in as chorus, made the garden ring.

'They are crazy,' said one old woman, who was holding a distaff in one hand, while she was making woolen thread with the other.

'Seguro,' said another, who had once been to Rome, and therefore was great authority, 'they are Englis', and all the Englis' is crazy. Didn't I once live with an Englis' family? and they were that mad that they washed themselves every day! And they had white sticks with hair on the end of them, what they scrubbed their mouth and teeth with two and three times a day!'

'Ma, che! I tell you it was so; and their maid told me it was to kill the little devils that are always jumping in and out of the throats of all heretics.'

The next day, after they had finished their sketch of the donkey, Caper proposed that they should oblige Margarita by giving the donkey a little of that painting the owner seemed so anxious to have bestowed on him. Dexter accordingly drew bright yellow circles of cadmium and yellow ochre round his eyes, giving him a peculiarly owly look;[Pg 397] painted white rings round his tail, black streaks round his body, and touched the ends of his ears with vermilion. A more striking-looking object you never saw; and when Margarita proudly led him forth and showed him to the surrounding multitude, there were storms of applause for the Inglese who painted donkeys!

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

Prominent among the gay cavaliers at the court of Charles I. of England, was Sir John Suckling, a dashing, reckless, improvident fellow, who acted the gallant to the ladies, played skillfully at bowls and deeply at cards, was always ready at a frolic and merry-making, and died when scarcely more than thirty years of age; the author of three or four dramas of no more than ordinary merit, and of a few snatches of poetry, chiefly love-songs, betraying talent sufficient to have rendered his name of no inconsiderable interest down to the present day. It is an interest, however, growing not out of a familiarity with the circumstances of his life and character, but from a curiosity to know a little more concerning one of whom, as yet, we know almost nothing at all, albeit his name is of the most familiar.

Materials for his biography are scanty enough, made up for the most part of gossip from such antiquarians as Aubrey, who imitates Herodotus, in a fondness for the marvelous and romantic, to a degree that weakens our faith in him as a trustworthy historian. Not until the middle of the present century were we in possession of a memoir claiming to be in any respect complete. In 1838, there appeared in London an edition of his writings, with a prefatory sketch of his life, by the Rev. Alfred Suckling, LL.B. The editor had access to a few private MSS., which, in our judgment, have not served to modify the previous accounts of Sir John's character, in spite of the labored efforts of his namesake—and, it may be, descendant—to that effect. The memoir and critical remarks appended are well written, though partial; and the work is the more valuable for the reason that only a few hundred copies of it were printed.

All accounts agree in ascribing to Suckling, as an individual and as to his personnel, the same careless and unstudied manner so conspicuous in his literary efforts. He must have expended at least a moderate degree of labor on his dramas; all dramas require it. On the other hand, there is hardly a doubt that he threw off his poems in the mere fancy of an idle moment, with no care for their subsequent revision; indeed, a collected publication was not made until the lapse of four or five years after his death. A certain vivacity and sprightliness is the secret of their popularity, which, from their first appearance to the present day, has never been totally lost, though at no period could they be said to have commanded an extensive range of readers. Previous to the collection of 1838, four or five editions of his poems, dramas, and letters had been published at London, at wide intervals during the last two centuries.

Whether Sir John Suckling was ushered into this world in 1608-9, or in 1613, has never been positively ascertained, though a discrepancy of five years would imply a state of the family record open, to say the least, to a little free criticism. If the poet himself was aware of the correct date, he has not taken the trouble to enlighten the public upon it. It would be well were that public always so good-natured as to err on the side of youth, giving the more credit to success, and accepting inexperience as an excuse in part for mistake and failure. But in doubtful cases, one[Pg 398] is likely to get credit for more years than he is fairly entitled to—a deception we are ready to believe not unpalatable sometimes to active men of early or middle age, though proverbially annoying to spinsters. There is, too, an inherent tendency among scholars toward antiquarianism, which always induces them to take the earliest possible year. In the present instance, at any rate, most authorities favor the first date, fixing his birth at Whitton, in Middlesex, in 1608-9.

Sir John Suckling, the father, had been Secretary of State under James I., and was Comptroller of the Household to Charles I. He was said to have been a quiet, grave, and serious man, of sound judgment and good business habits. Aubrey disposes of him summarily enough, with the remark that 'he was but a dull fellow.' Had his wife been of the same pattern, the worthy couple might well have been astonished at the lively capers of their progeny; but we have reason to believe that the frolicksome courtier and poet drew upon a bountiful store of good 'mother wit.' Quite all that we know of her, however, in an authentic way, is contained in a professional and curious item that the family physician saw fit to jot down in his note-book, as follows, 'Sir John's mother went till the eleventh month with him;' which, to be sure, in popular opinion, betokened a deal of future consequence.

To the subject of our narrative is assigned the customary precocity of intellect; for he is said to have spoken Latin at five, and written it at nine. Add four years to conform with the true date, and the facts assume a little more reasonable aspect. In 1623, he was matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained three or four years, but did not take a degree, probably having shown himself a little more 'progressive' than the laws of that institution allowed. After leaving Cambridge, he traveled over a large part of the Continent, which, besides increasing his knowledge of the world, brought still nearer perfection that easy carriage and polished manner which had already attracted the observation of the court.

While in Germany, he united himself to an expedition of six thousand troops sent by Charles to the aid of Gustavus Adolphus, and was one of forty gentlemen's sons forming the body-guard of the Marquis of Hamilton, who had been commissioned as General in command. He was present at the first great victory over Tilly near Leipsic, and in other battles and sieges. How valuable a military experience accrued from this service we are not informed, but no great amount of it was ever displayed upon his return to England. When the 'League and Covenant' ended in open rebellion, Suckling eagerly espoused the royal cause, and accompanied the King in his expedition against the Scots. It was the custom for each retainer to fit out his men according to his own taste, and at his own expense. Sir John arrayed one hundred horsemen in a gorgeous attire of scarlet and white, to the admiration of the fair sex, and at the expense of twelve thousand pounds. On arriving in sight of the enemy, it seems that they resolved not to soil their attire with such vulgar contact. If they had been told in the early day to follow their gallant leader, they obeyed the order now; for Sir John was making excellent good time away from the field, and, as nearly as he could judge, in the direction of London. This inglorious maneuver was improved by Sir John Mennes, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, and the author of Musarum Deliciæ, (who never suffered an opportunity of this kind to go by without blazing away in a lampoon;) and a jaunty song,

Suckling was of slight figure and middle stature, with a face handsome and full of animation. His fine appearance, due also in part to excellent taste in dress, made him a universal favorite at court. He was no doubt as faithful a[Pg 399] friend as a volatile disposition would allow; a fair specimen, in short, of the elegant gentleman of the times. Aubrey speaks of him as 'incomparable at reparteeing, the bull that was bayted, his witt beinge most sparkling, when most set on and provoked.' His expenditures went beyond liberality; they were extravagant. His credit with the tradesmen soon became worthless. The greater part of his money was made at gaming. He was one of the most skillful men of his age at cards and at bowls. So absorbed would he become in the former, that he would often lie in bed the greater part of the day studying their various changes. He became notorious in an age when every one played to excess. No one 'fought the tiger' (to borrow the modern expression) with more indomitable pluck than Sir John; for, as his friend Will Davenant tells us, 'at his lowest ebb he would make himself glorious in apparel, and said that it exalted his spirits'—a curious philosophy, suggestive not a little of Dickens' Mark Tapley. Pope has accused Suckling of being an 'immoral man, as well as debauched.' One is ready, with Leigh Hunt, to ask for the difference between these qualities of vice. The explanation is, that dissipation in general was excused by the times, but Sir John was suspected of unfair play at cards—a suspicion which appears to have rested upon a mere trifle for its foundation.

In 1641, while a member of the Long Parliament, he was found guilty by the Commons of having assisted Lord Stafford in his attempt to escape from the Tower. Davenant and Jermyn were concerned in the affair. Suckling, as usual, took to his heels, and arrived safe in France. His flight was the signal for the appearance of a number of ballads about London. One, with forty-two wretchedly-conceived stanzas, was entitled: 'A letter sent by Sir John Suckling from France, deploring his sad estate and flight, with a discoverie of the plot and conspiracie intended by him and his adherents against England.' A tolerably well-executed engraving, on a folio sheet, was also circulated, representing two cavaliers lounging among cards, dice-boxes, and drinking-cups, and set off with wholesome Scriptural quotations, and verses in praise of the temperate.

'Hee is a frugal man indeede,
That with a leafe can dine;

'He needes no napkin for his handes,
His fingers for to wipe;
He hath his kitchen in a box,
His roast meat in a pipe.'

THE SUCKLINGTON FACTION;

OR,

SUCKLING'S ROARING BOYES.

Another curiosity in the rare catalogue popular just after Sir John's death, was: 'A copy of two remonstrances brought over the river Stix in Caron's ferry-boate, by the ghost of Sir John Suckling.'

Every thing subsequent to his arrival in France is involved in hopeless obscurity, but the conjecture is pretty well founded that his death occurred some time during that same year. One account says that he poisoned himself at Paris. A more popular story is from letters in Lord Oxford's collection, and is given both by Spence and by Oldys. Sir John arrived late at night in Calais. In the morning, he found that his servant had run away with his money and papers. He called for a horse, and on drawing on his boot, felt a sharp pain, but making nothing of it in his hurry, he mounted and drove off in hot pursuit. The dishonest valet was apprehended, and the property recovered. Then he complained, the tale goes on to say, of pain in one of his feet; his boot was found to be full of blood. The servant had placed a nail in his master's boot, which had been driven into the flesh. He fainted from loss of blood, fell into a violent fever, and died in a few days. This, at least, is believed to be certain: that he perished in early manhood—almost before time was given him to repent of the follies of youth—in miser[Pg 400]able exile from the land of his birth and kindred.

Suckling's literary remains, as we have already stated, consist of poems, letters, and dramas. These last-named productions were four in number. Aglaura, which was presented at the Private House in Blackfriars by his Majesty's Servants, is a tragedy, the scene of which is laid in Persia. This play was brought upon the stage in a style of princely magnificence. The dresses were of rich material, profusely ornamented with gold and silver, the kind indulgence of the audience, for once, not being asked to attribute an extraordinary value to professional tinsel. The author is said to have laid out four hundred pounds for this occasion. Brennoralt, also a tragedy, was first published under the title of The Discontented Colonel, in 1639, as a satire on the Scottish insurgents. The Goblins, a comedy in five acts, is enlivened by the presence of a motley crew of devils, clowns, wenches, and fiddlers; and an unfinished piece, entitled The Sad One, may also be classed as a tragedy, as it opens briskly with a 'murder within' in the very first scene, which undoubtedly would have culminated in wholesale horrors had the author gone on and completed the play.

We will not stop for any minute examination of these dramas. Suffice it to say, that they are devoid of interest at the present day; and from what we have been able to read of them, we question whether the success that is said to have attended their private representation was other than mere compliment. Unfortunately for their dramatic unity, the author is impatient of the restraint which a plot imposes, and the dialogue, in consequence, rambles off hither and thither into passages as foreign to the subject-matter as they are tame and spiritless in expression. There are kings and princes, but they utter very commonplace remarks; and an uncommonly liberal amount of bloodshed and stage-machinery contribute to startling incidents, but they fail to redeem the play from a tiresome monotony.

'Then, gentlemen, be thrifty—save your dooms
For the next man or the next play that comes;
For smiles are nothing where men do not care,
And frowns are little where they need not fear.'

'But as, when an authentic watch is shown,
Each man winds up and rectifies his own,
So, in our very judgments,' etc.

The reader will readily call to mind the oft-quoted couplet in Pope's Essay on Criticism:

''Tis with our judgments as our watches: none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.'

Writing prefaces, it seems, has never been a popular task with book-makers, and playwrights have a no less weighty burden of complaint:

'Now, deuce take him that first good prologue writ:
He left a kind of rent-charge upon wit,
Which, if succeeding poets fail to pay,
They forfeit all they're worth, and that's their play.'

'The richness of the ground is gone and spent.
Men's brains grow barren, and you raise the rent.'

A collection of about thirty letters are addressed, for the most part, to the fair sex, and sparkle with wit and gallantry. The taste that is displayed in them is elegant, and the style, as rapid and flowing as correspondence need be—præterea nihil. When you have perused them, you find that nothing substantial has been said. But Suckling, with pains, might have risen to superior rank as a[Pg 401] prose writer. This is evident from An Account of Religion by Reason, a brochure presented to the Earl of Dorset, wherein his perspicuous style appears to good advantage, joined with well-digested thought and argument.

But it is Suckling's poems that have been best known and most admired. The school that flourished in this age, and devoted its muse to gay and amorous poetry, was but a natural reaction from the stern, harsh views of the Puritan, who despised and condemned belles lettres as the wickedness of sin and folly. Suckling's poems are few in number, and, with rare exceptions, are all brief. The most lengthy is the Sessions of the Poets, a satire upon the poets of his day, from rare Ben Jonson, with Carew and Davenant, down to those of less note—

'Selwin and Walter, and Bartlett both the brothers,
Jack Vaughan, and Porter, and divers others.'

The versification is defective, but the satire is piquant, and no doubt discriminating and just. At any rate, what the poet says of himself hits the truth nearer than confessions commonly do:

'Suckling next was called, but did not appear;
But straight one whispered Apollo i' the ear,
That of all men living he cared not for't—
He loved not the muses so well as his sport;
And prized black eyes, or a lucky hit
At bowls, above all the trophies of wit.'

In Suckling's love-songs we discover the brilliancy of Sedley, the abandon of Rochester, (though hardly carried to so scandalous an extreme) and a strength and fervor which, with care for the minor matters of versification and melody, might have equaled or even surpassed the best strains of Herrick. In a complaint that his mistress will not return her heart for his that she has stolen, he says:

'I prithee send me back my heart,
Since I can not have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?

'Yet, now I think on't, let it lie;
To find it were in vain:
For thou'st a thief in either eye
Would steal it back again.'

The following, which has always been a favorite, was originally sung by Orsames in Aglaura, who figures in the dramatis personæ as an 'anti-Platonic young lord':

'Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?

'Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing do't?
Prithee, why so mute?

'Quit, quit, for shame; this will not move,
This can not take her;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her—
The devil take her!'

We are tempted to add still another, which, to our taste, is the best of his songs. A faulty versification deserves censure in all of them:

'Hast thou seen the down in the air,
When wanton blasts have tossed it?
Or the ship on the sea,
When ruder winds have crossed it?
Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping,
Or the fox's sleeping?
Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride,
Or the dove by his bride,
When he courts her for his lechery?
Oh! so fickle, oh! so vain, oh! so false, so false is she!'

Love has been compared to a variety of objects, all of them with more or less aptness. When some one likened it to a potato, because it 'shoots from the eyes,' was it not Byron who was wicked enough to add, 'and because it becomes all the less by pairing'? One wretched swain tells us that he finds it to be

But no similitude can be more striking or more lasting than that of love to a state of debt. So long as human nature continues materially the same, these[Pg 402] words, of four letters each, will express sensations pretty nearly identical. The ease with which a poor creature falls into one or the other of these snares, is all the more remarkable from the difficulty which he is sure to encounter in his attempts at getting out. Besides, is not love sometimes a real debit and credit account? But, not to pursue the interesting inquiry further, we submit that there is good sense, as well as good poetry, (does the latter always insure the presence of the former?) in the lines we quote, which Sir John has labeled Love and Debt alike Troublesome:

'This one request I make to him that sits the clouds above:
That I were freely out of debt, as I am out of love;
Then for to dance, to drink, and sing, I should be very willing—
I should not owe one lass a kiss, nor ne'er a knave a shilling.
'Tis only being in love and debt that breaks us of our rest,
And he that is quite out of both, of all the world is blest;
He sees the golden age wherein all things were free and common,
He eats, he drinks, he takes his rest, he fears no man nor woman.
Though Crœsus compassed great wealth, yet he still craved more;
He was as needy a beggar still as goes from door to door.
Though Ovid was a merry man, love ever kept him sad;
He was as far from happiness as one that is stark mad.
Our merchant, he in goods is rich, and full of gold and treasure;
But when he thinks upon his debts, that thought destroys his pleasure.
Our courtier thinks that he's preferred, whom every man envies;
When love so rumbles in his pate, no sleep comes in his eyes.
Our gallant's case is worst of all—he lies so just betwixt them:
For he's in love, and he's in debt, and knows not which most vex him!'

The Metamorphose is forcible, perhaps it has more force and wit than elegance. The occasion may be where Sir John has for once shown himself a 'constant lover':

'The little boy, to show his might and power,
Turned Io to a cow, Narcissus to a flower;
Transformed Apollo to a homely swain,
And Jove himself into a golden rain.
These shapes were tolerable; but by the mass,
He's metamorphosed me into an ass!'

There is no hesitancy in pronouncing which of Suckling's poetic pieces should be called the best. It is the Ballad upon a Wedding. For ease and jocoseness of description it stands almost unapproachable. Of course, many other such productions may show equal fidelity to nature; and there is a small class of poems which may boast a vein of the same sparkling humor; but it would be difficult—we were ready to say impossible—to cite another instance of so exquisite a commingling of these two elements.

It requires a master-hand, it must be remembered, to harmonize these touches of playful fancy with what the poet is obliged to recognize as facts in nature. A tyro in the art is likely to transcend nature and alter a little things as he finds them, when he wishes to indulge in sportive recreation. Something well out of the common course must be laid hold on to excite that pleasant feeling of surprise which lies at the foundation of wit, if not of humor. Every one knows how much easier it is to call forth mirth by caricature than by simple truth; nor need it be added that while the former leaves but a momentary impression, the latter abides longer and seldom tires. Broad farce is rewarded by the tremendous applause of the gallery, but the pit and boxes confess to a deal more gratification in the quiet humor of an old comedy. This ballad displays all the vivacity and humor of light comedy, though we miss the virtue-inculcating moral at the close. We fear that we have already trespassed too far over the limits of a magazine article. We append only a part of this chef d'œuvre:

'I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest sights have seen;
Oh! things without compare!
Such sights again can not be found
In any place on English ground,
[Pg 403]Be it at wake or fair.

'At Charing Cross, hard by the way
Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Forty at least, in pairs.

'The maid, and thereby hangs a tale,
For such a maid no Whitsun'-ale
Could ever yet produce:
No grape that's kindly ripe could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice.

'Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light:
But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.

'Her cheeks, so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison;
Who sees them is undone;
For streaks of red were mingled there.
Such as are on a Catherine pear,
The side that's next the sun.

'Her lips were red; and one was thin,
Compared to that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly;
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze,
Than on the sun in July.

'Her mouth so small when she doth speak,
Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,
That they might passage get;
But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit.

'Passion, O me! how I run on;
There's that that would be thought upon,
I trow, beside the bride:
The business of the kitchen's great,
For it is fit that men should eat;
Nor was it there denied.

'Now hats fly off, and youths carouse;
Healths first go round, and then the house,
The bride's came thick and thick;
And when 'twas named another's health,
Perhaps he made it hers by stealth;
And who could help it, Dick?

'O' th' sudden up they rise and dance;
Then sit again and sigh and glance;
Then dance again and kiss.
Thus sev'ral ways the time did pass,
Till every woman wished her place,
And every man wished his.

'By this time all were stolen aside
To counsel and undress the bride;
But that he must not know—
But yet 'twas thought he guessed her mind,
And did not mean to stay behind
Above an hour or so.'

What can be finer than the verse commencing, 'Her feet beneath her petticoat,' or that which follows: 'Her cheeks,' etc.? That Suckling could write like this, proves that there was in him the dawning of no ordinary genius. He challenges our admiration, not so much for what he has done, as for what he might have done, had his life been spared. Or we should say, rather, what he might have done had he devoted half as much of the life that was granted him to literary labors, as he did to pleasure and dissipation.

TO JOHN BULL.

I hear a voice you can not hear,
Which says it will not pay;
I see a hand you can not see,
Which motions t'other way.
The thumb is horizontalized,
The fingers perpendic'lar,
And scorn for you seems giving there
A motion quite partic'lar.
[Pg 404]

LONDON FOGS AND LONDON POOR.

I first saw London on a morning late in November; or, it will be more correct to say that I should have seen it, if a dense fog had not concealed every thing that belonged to it, wharves, warehouses, churches, St. Paul's, the Tower, the Monument, the Custom-House, the shipping, the river, and the bridge that spanned it. We made our dock in the Thames at an early hour, before I was dressed for landing, and by the time I had hurried upon deck to cast the first eager glance around, the fog had descended, shutting all things from view. A big, looming something was receding as I gained the top of the companion-ladder, and faded altogether before I could attach to it any distinct idea. But the great heart of the city was beating, and where I stood its throbbing was distinctly audible. A hum, in which all sounds were blended, a confused roar of the human ocean that rolled around me, fell with strange effect upon my ear, accustomed for nearly five weeks only to the noises peculiar to shipboard.

Certainly the fog did not afford me a cheering welcome. It was denser and dirtier than the fogs we had encountered off the banks of Newfoundland, and more chilling and disagreeable to the human frame. It did not disperse the whole day. What with the difficulty that attended our landing, and the long delay consequent upon the very dilatory movements of the Custom-House officers, the night had fairly closed in—it did not add much to the darkness—before I was en route to an hotel. A Scotch fellow-passenger, who had maintained a sullen reserve throughout the voyage, which ought to have placed me on my guard against him, had attached himself to me during our troubles at the Custom-House, and now joined with us all in loud rebuke of the sluggish motions and rude behavior of the officers. He knew that I was a stranger, and with a show of cordiality, for which I was very thankful, he invited me to accompany him to a quiet, respectable hotel, where the charges were not exorbitant. As his proposal suited my purse and my humor, I acquiesced willingly enough, little suspecting into what hands I had fallen. In less than an hour we were seated at a capital dinner, the best that I ever remembered to have eaten, so exquisite is the relish imparted by a keen appetite to the first meal one gets on shore after a long sea-voyage.

We were wearied with the day's annoyances, and as the streets were very uninviting, we sat smoking segars in the coffee-room of the establishment. As one person after another dropped in, we heard of the increase of the fog outside, and, indeed, it had long since entered and filled the apartment till the outline of the waiter, as he moved to and fro in supplying the wants of the company, became indistinct, and his head, whenever he approached the chandelier, radiated a glory. As I had often read of a London fog in November, I judged this to be an excellent opportunity for seeing one, and accepted my companion's proposal to repair to the door of the hotel. The scene was like nothing else I ever had witnessed. At the distance of five yards the light of a gas-lamp was invisible. We could not distinguish each other's features as we stood side by side. Stages, cabs, and coaches were creeping forward at the rate of twenty yards in a minute, the drivers carrying glaring torches, and leading the horses by their bridles. Even at this pace the danger of a collision was imminent. Pedestrians, homeward bound, were at their wits' end. As they could not have proceeded fifty paces in security without a torch, they were each provided with one, but some of them contrived to lose their way notwithstanding, and seeing us on the steps of the hotel, halted to make inquiries. One man assured us that he had been half an hour looking[Pg 405] for the next street. The better to convince myself of the density of the mist, I extended my arm to its full length and tried to count my fingers. From ocular evidence alone, I certainly could not have told whether I had four, five, or six.

It was an amusing sight to see scores of ragged boys carrying about torches for sale. The cry of 'Links! links!' resounded on all sides. 'Light you home for sixpence, sir,' said one of them, as I stood watching their operations. 'If 'tan't far,' he added, presently, 'I'll light you for a Joey.' A Joey is the flash term for a four-penny piece, or eight cents of our money, and is so called because these silver coins, somewhat larger than a half-dime, are said to owe their origin to Mr. Joseph Hume. We witnessed a bargain struck between one of these urchins and a servant-girl, who imprudently yielded to his demand to have the money in advance. No sooner had the young rogue conveyed it to his pocket than he ran off to seek another customer as simple, leaving the poor girl to strike a wiser bargain on the next occasion.

That I might fairly appreciate the character of the fog, my companion proposed that we should 'put off into the unknown dark.' Not till I had got into the street, and was groping my way among the pedestrians, instead of watching them in security from the topmost of a flight of steps, could I estimate its real nature. To my bewildered eyes it had the appearance of a solid wall constantly opposing our further progress. The blazing torches that we met were invisible at fifty yards' distance. The tradesmen had closed their stores from fear of thieves, who are remarkably active at such seasons. I afterward learned that in one of the leading thoroughfares a vender of hams and bacon, who had a quantity of goods exposed in front of his open store, was robbed in a most daring manner at an early hour of the evening. The thieves drove a cart to his door, and had nearly filled the vehicle with spoil before they were observed. The tradesman rushed into the street, but the villains had urged on the horse, and although he heard the noise of the wheels, pursuit was an utter impossibility. Robberies on the person are of frequent occurrence at such times, even in the most crowded streets, the security with which the thief attacks a single individual rendering his audacity almost incredible. Before assistance can arrive he has darted across the road, and is in safety at a few yards' distance from the scene of his violence.

We were about a quarter of a mile from the hotel, and were on the point of retracing our steps when a cry of 'Fire!' was raised in our vicinity, followed by a rush of several persons in the direction from which the alarm proceeded. In a few minutes all the torches in the street seemed to be collected in one spot, and the crowd grew rapidly. I expected to hear the fire-bell, but I was told that the Londoners have no alarm-bell of any kind. The glare of a conflagration is usually the first warning conveyed to the firemen, when instantly a score of engines are turned out, horses, that are always kept ready harnessed, are fastened to the shafts, and away they go, pell-mell, through the streets, every vehicle, to the Lord Mayor's or Prime Minister's carriage, being compelled to draw aside and give them room to pass. On this occasion their services were not required, the fire being confined to the basement-story of the building in which it had originated, and extinguished by the exertions of the inmates before any material injury was sustained. The crowd that had collected was not a small one, and the congregation of so many torches dispelled in part the oppressive gloom of the fog. But when they had dispersed, and the unnatural darkness was made more palpable by the sudden contrast effected by the withdrawal of such a glare of light, I found that my companion had disappeared. Once I fancied that my name was called, and I thought that he was perhaps searching for me in a wrong direction. I ran, as I conjectured, in pursuit of his re[Pg 406]treating footsteps, but was soon abruptly brought to a halt by a wall, against which I nearly dashed myself with a force that would have stunned me. Of the name of the hotel, or even of the street on which it was situated, I was utterly ignorant, and as the climax of my difficulty, I discovered that all the money I had in my pocket was a fifty-cent piece that I had brought from New-York. I attempted to buy a torch of a boy, but I could not persuade him that my half-dollar, though it was not current money, was worth much more than an English sixpence, valued as old silver. He evidently regarded me as an improper character, and refused to deal with me. I detained the first man I met, and explained my situation, but as I could give him no clue to the whereabouts of the hotel, he could furnish me no assistance. As nearly as I could conjecture, it was within half a mile of the spot where I was standing, but I could not indicate the direction, 'There are fifty hotels,' he said, 'within that distance, taking the sweep of the compass.'

I now began seriously to fear that I should have to pass the night in the streets. My clothes were already moist with the fog, and I knew that before morning they must be saturated. A policeman, who chanced to pass at this juncture, recommended me to obtain a bed at the nearest inn, and to renew my search in the morning. Then arose the difficulty about the money; but as it occurred to me that I could leave my watch in charge of the landlord as security for the payment of my expenses, I decided to accompany him to an inn in the neighborhood, to which he undertook to guide me. It was an indifferent place, being one of the gin-palaces for which London is famous, but I was content, under the circumstances, to remain there. The landlord, having examined my watch, and being satisfied that it would cover all reasonable charges, if I never reappeared to claim it, conferred with his wife respecting her domestic arrangements. It was not usual, he told me, personally, for him to let beds at such a late hour to strangers, but he thought I could be accommodated. The policeman's satisfaction was very cordially expressed, and as he lingered at my elbow, and significantly remarked that the fog had got into his throat, I ordered him a glass of warm brandy and water, for which he bowed acknowledgments. He was dressed, I noticed, in the livery with which the engravings in Punch have made our public familiar. He asked me several questions about the police in New-York, complained that it was impossible for a man to live decently in England, and remarked that 'if it weren't for the knocking-up money, a policeman in London couldn't do it nohow.' I inquired what he meant by 'knocking-up money,' and was informed that it was the custom in London, and in all the large towns, for laboring men, who had to rise to their work at an early hour, to pay a small sum weekly to the policeman in whose 'beat' they resided, for knocking loudly at their doors in the morning to awaken them. It is usual for policemen to add several shillings to their weekly wages by this practice, and it is so far recognized by the regulations of the force, that men who have slightly misconducted themselves are punished by being removed from a 'beat' where there is a great deal of 'knocking-up' to be performed, and transferred to a more respectable quarter of the town, where the inhabitants are not compelled to rise until they choose.

I had leisure before the arrangements for my night's repose were concluded, to contemplate the novel scene which the interior of the gin-palace presented. Many of our Broadway liquor-stores are, in point of gilding and decoration, equally splendid, but there all resemblance ceases. Behind the spacious bar stood immense vats containing whole hogsheads of ardent spirits. These were elevated on a pedestal about four feet from the floor, and reached to the lofty ceiling. Their contents were gin, whisky, rum, and brandy, of various stand[Pg 407]ards. Others of a somewhat smaller size contained port, sherry, and Madeira wines, or the adulterations which pass by their names, with an undiscriminating public. When these vats were empty, they were filled from barrels in the cellars beneath by means of a force-pump.

The customers at the bar were of a motley description. There were many females among them, mostly girls of the town, who were swallowing undiluted drams of gin and peppermint. Pallid mechanics and their wives, the latter sometimes bearing young children in their arms, exhibited varying degrees of drunkenness, from the hilarious or maudlin state to that of rolling intoxication. Even children, whose size was so diminutive that they had to stand on tiptoe to elevate their heads above the counter, demanded and received their liquor, imbibing the burning fluid with eyes that sparkled delight. I was in the temple of the gin-fiend, and the crowd around me were his daily devotees.

The next morning when I awoke I hastened to the window of my room. The opposite houses were visible, and the ordinary traffic of the streets was not impeded. A drizzling rain was falling, and pedestrians waded ankle deep in slush and mud. The fog, though partially dispelled, brooded over the house-tops, and concealed the chimneys. All the stores were lighted with gas, and one could well imagine that the sun had never shone in that dismal climate.

The landlord readily consented to advance me a pound sterling on my watch, and without stopping to take breakfast, I plunged into the miry streets. I was at a loss what course to pursue. The fog of the previous evening had prevented my noticing any of the external features of the hotel in which I had dined with my Scotch acquaintance, and where my trunks, that contained all the money for my travels, and the introductory letters that were essential to the purpose for which I had visited Europe, were deposited. The house in which I had passed the night was situated in St. Martin's Lane, and a radius thrown out from that centre would, in some quarter, touch the hotel at a distance of half a mile or thereabout. I was sure of that, as of one ascertained fact, but I had no other clue to guide my footsteps.

I know not how many hotels I entered during that day. The night, I know, had closed in, and found me a denizen of the streets, splashed with mud to the collar of my coat, and worn out with fatigue. At night I got a bed at a small coffee-house, for I saw that it would be necessary to economize the few shillings that I had in my possession. The sun was really shining the next morning, when I breakfasted, and the landlord spoke of the blue sky, remarking that the day would be a fine one. To my apprehension the sky was gray, which is, indeed, almost always the color of the English sky at all seasons. From the Post-Office Directory, which I found at the coffee-house, I copied a list of all the hotels within half a mile of St. Martin's Lane. Entering one of these about noon—it was situated in Rupert street—I recognized the first waiter who presented himself. I thought it strange that he did not seem surprised at my appearance, or allude to my enforced absence, but upon inquiring for the Scotchman, I was utterly confounded by his reply: 'Oh! the gentleman that dined with you, sir, the day before yesterday. He went away yesterday, sir, and took your trunks with him.'

'Yes, sir; he said that you had gone on to Birmingham, by the mail-train, and that he was to follow with the luggage.'

I almost reeled at the intelligence. The perfidy of the Scotchman was manifest. He had taken me into the fog to lose me, and while I was picturing his dismay at the accident which had separated us, and his anxiety on my account, the scoundrel was appropriating my trunks and valises. I hastened to confer with the proprietor of the hotel respecting the step which it would be best to take. He was a very respectable[Pg 408] man, and was sincerely grieved for my loss.

'We will go to Scotland Yard immediately,' he said, 'and acquaint the Chief of Police.'

My money, my letters, every thing that stood between me and beggary were in the purloined trunks. The landlord told me to regard his house as my home. The police-officer heard my story patiently, but seemed to think that the chance of getting back the trunks was a small one. And the sequel proved he was right.

Altogether, I resided fifteen months in London, and the present record will consist of my later and more matured impressions. An American who has never seen this metropolis can have but a faint idea of it. A fair distribution of the houses would cover Manhattan Island. Two of its parks contain some square miles of pleasure-ground, and the smallest of five would clear New-York of buildings from the City Hall to the Battery. It is indeed a mammoth city. The ancient suburbs of Westminster, Southwark, Lambeth, Chelsea, Islington, Pentonville, Shoreditch, Hackney, Whitechapel, Limehouse, Rotherhithe, with the modern Pimlico, Knightsbridge, Old and New Brompton, Bayswater, Paddington, St. John's Wood, Camden Town, Somer's Town, Kingsland, Camberwell, and many more, are now united with it, and make it by far the largest city in the world. Starting from almost any point of its extreme boundary, and traversing the city till you reach the opposite boundary—as from Brompton to Hackney—you will walk nine miles nearly in a straight line without quitting the pavement. I was disappointed in many of the public buildings; I would be understood, however, to refer to them only as works of architecture, for to the interest attaching to their historical associations I could not be insensible. Protestantism has built no churches. St. Paul's is its best effort, and that is a failure. It is, indeed, a wonderful building, considered per se, but compare it with the Continental cathedrals, or with York Minster. I must own that the shameful exaction of money at the doors created a feeling of dissatisfaction which, perhaps, in some measure transferred itself to the edifice. The English are the only people who are so mercenary as to charge for admission to their temples, and the man who guards the door of St. Paul's is one of the worst specimens of his class. I paid cheerfully a dollar and a quarter to see a play of Shakspeare's performed at the Haymarket Theatre, but I grudged the four cents that I dropped into the exacting palm of the rubicund janitor of St. Paul's, 'Tis a vile system. They sell the memories of their famous heroes, of their philosophers and poets, by making a raree-show of their tombs. A nation should have free access to the hallowed spots where rest the ashes of its mightiest dead. St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and all such buildings, should be free as the streets to decent people, for genius receives inspiration at such altars, and men fresh from the commonplace of every-day life rub off the rust of the world in the holy and awful calm of these and kindred sanctuaries. How venerable would they appear to the American, if they were not markets of gain and greed to their clerical proprietors! The poets whose tombs are the chief attraction in Westminster Abbey are not foreigners to the Anglo-Saxon race of the New World. We, too, claim a property in their works. Our forefathers were cotemporaries with Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, inhabited the same land, breathed the same air, were subject to the same laws; and we speak to-day the language of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Tennyson. We have, I insist, a claim on the glorious memories that give renown to England; and the avarice that bars the gates of her abbeys and cathedrals against the poor, is a disgrace to a great nation.

There has been lately a report that St. Paul's had grown ashamed of its greediness, and Westminster Abbey has at length really admitted the public without demanding its sixpences—ad[Pg 409]mitted, that is, to a large portion of the building, but not to the whole. The mausoleums of the kings are still worthy, in the opinion of the Dean and Chapter, of some silver coins sterling. Let them remain so. We are not especially anxious to do homage to them. The intellectually great of England are worthy of much—sometimes of all reverence; her kings of very little, or of none. But St. Paul's is closed still, notwithstanding the report of free admission which recently agitated the public of London. Nelson's sepulchre is worth some score of pounds sterling per annum. Dr. Johnson's statue can be seen any day for twopence, which is tenpence less than Madame Tassaud charges for admission to her wax effigies, and must therefore be considered cheap.

An American is astonished at the number of beggars in every city of England. Even the small towns and the smallest villages have them. Their numbers in London are roundly estimated at one hundred and twenty thousand. You meet them every where. They are, in some quarters, like the paving-stones of the street—eternally present. There are artists in colored chalks, who limn the heads of Christ and Napoleon on the pavement, with the inscription: 'I am starving.' Very fairly are the portraits executed; very decent artists they are, and they grovel by the side of their handiwork in an attitude of broken-hearted despondency, and pocket the pennies of the charitable. Objects the most decrepit in nature, hideous, half-nude wretches, male and female, creep along the streets, shivering, too evidently starving, till your heart aches at the spectacle, and you deprive yourself of your last cent to administer relief. These are impostors. So are the respectable class—the broken-down tradesmen, who, in a suit of decent black Saxony cloth, and wearing a spotless white kerchief around their necks, offer lead-pencils for sale. So respectable are they, that you start to see them, and are almost ashamed to offer them a dollar; but they will accept a cent, and will ply the same trade for years to come, in a suit equally as respectable. It is one of the mysteries connected with them, that their clothes never wear out. I grew familiar with the features of one of these respectable men, from seeing him almost daily in some quarter of London. During the twelve months that I kept my eye upon him, the condition of his apparel was unchanged. His coat never got old, nor did he ever have a new one. That man is at this moment an unpleasant puzzle to me—a conundrum without a solution. The income of this class of beggars, I was told, is considerable—much better than a clerk's in Lombard or Wall street.

The lodging-houses of the lowest class of professed beggars, who do not trade on assumed respectability, or make a pretense of having once been better off, present to an American a spectacle, or chapter of spectacles, of which he can previously have no conception. They are situated in the most densely crowded and dirtiest quarters of the town, and are approached through lanes of the most noisome filth. No comparison holds good with any quarter of Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, or any city of the Union, for there is nothing in our cities to compare with them. Let us enter one of them. The common boarding-room, in which meals are taken, is about forty feet long by twenty broad. Either the floor has never been paved, or a thick layer of street-soil has hidden the stones for many a day past. Along each side of a long, narrow table, runs a wooden bench of rough construction, which is the only seat the place affords. The knives and forks are chained to the table. Strange implements they are, and a thief, one would think, must be reduced to shifts indeed if they could offer him a temptation. Almost every fork has lost one of its prongs, and every knife has been notched or otherwise abused. The plaster has mostly fallen from the walls of the room, the very laths are cut away, and the naked bricks and rude masonry are exposed. The ceiling is blackened with the tobacco-[Pg 410]smoke of years, ascending every night from a hundred pipes. The filth that accumulates is seldom cleared away, but is swept into heaps in the corners, and remains there perhaps for weeks. A stench pervades the place, and a horrible moisture settles upon the walls. The room every night has the appearance of a market-place, where beggars vend and where beggars are the purchasers. From the roof a dim light is suspended, and candles stuck into glass bottles are placed upon the table. The daily contributions of the benevolent are here disposed of; what one has, another lacks. Old coats, old boots and shoes, old gowns, are freely bartered for tobacco and gin. Women from neighboring rag-shops attend to buy, and candle-makers send their agents to collect fat and grease. Every individual brings his own food, for the proprietor of the house finds lodging only, and not board. The atmosphere reeks with the smell of herrings and fried sausages. After supper is finished, a fiddler—one of their number, paid for his services by contributions of tobacco and beer—strikes up some merry music; dancing commences, and goes on till midnight, and often far into the morning. Save in such houses, such dancing and such dancers were never seen. The lame cast aside their crutches, the blind regain their sight, the paralyzed are alert and nimble, the trampers of every species jig in turn, or altogether, shaking their rags unto the jocund tune; and where is there a blither party? Burns has pictured the scene in his 'Jolly Beggars,' and he is the laureate of the night.

Would you know what kind of dormitories these people resort to when their dancing is finished? I will describe one out of many that I saw, which will serve as a specimen of the rest. Let us ascend the rickety staircase. The atmosphere is intolerably foul, and you feel that a week's confinement in such a den would cause your death. Well, these are the beds; a heap of straw, matted with long service, and a filthily foul rug for a coverlet. The sleepers have no other covering, in summer or winter. These beds change their occupants, perhaps, every night; for a tramper seldom sleeps two consecutive nights in the same place. Do not approach too near, for they are alive with loathsome vermin. There are twenty-five beds in a room thirty feet by fourteen, and in each bed two and sometimes three persons are placed. When the landlord is doing a good business, he puts three lodgers in each bed. Seventy-five sleepers in that confined space! For such accommodation the charge is six cents per night. And this is quite a respectable lodging-house. There are four-cent lodging-houses, where there is only straw without any covering; and there are three-cent houses, where there is no straw even, but only bare boards rotting beneath a crustation of dirt and filth, which is never washed off.

The frequenters of these places are professed beggars; and although their sufferings are at times great, they must not be classed with the deserving poor. You will see the latter lingering at the doors of work-houses. I have seen some two hundred of them on a winter's evening, when the frost has sharply bound up the lakes in the parks and the fountains in Trafalgar Square, shivering in semi-nudity on the bare and bitter pavement, waiting for admission. The houses of the rich—where lap-dogs were fed on hot and savory steaks, or even on daintier poultry—were standing around, and the heavens were as brass to the wails of the wretched crowd. I have been fairly staggered at such sights. I remember that one occasion a man dropped dead in the street where I was, while on his way to the workhouse, and it was found upon inquiry that he was really starved to death.

They sit and lie before the work-houses, at such times, huddled almost upon one another, and forming such groups of hungry, squalid, and degraded human beings, as no painter would venture to transfer from life to canvas. Of the number that apply for admission, one half will be rejected, who must shelter themselves under the dry arches[Pg 411] of the bridges, or creep into hidden doorways, up narrow alleys, where the police are not likely to find them. For if found, they would be seized and taken before a magistrate, to be punished for being homeless and without food. Many of them do not dread this punishment, but will seek to deserve it by more criminal conditions than enforced indigence and helpless hunger. They will break street-lamps and tradesmen's windows, to get a month's imprisonment, with food, and rest, and shelter for that period. Others, and the majority, have a prouder spirit. They will escape a prison, with the help of God. Their number is very great. There are fifty thousand, it is said, in London, who rise every morning without knowing where to procure a breakfast. God be with them!

But all the want, and all the sin produced by want, in London, it would take all the volumes of the Conversations-Lexicon to recount. The streets—every street—is filled with it. Survey the thoroughfares at night. If any modest person is occasionally shocked at the exhibitions in Broadway, what would he say to Regent street, the Haymarket, the Strand, Fleet street, Cheapside, or fifty other streets in London? I have reckoned nearly three hundred unfortunate females, as they call themselves, in the space of one mile, on one side of the street alone, from Charing Cross to Temple Bar. These girls, as records testify, were mostly starved into the life of their adoption. They will tell you, if you converse with them in their serious moments—for they have such—that but for the mad excitement drawn from gin, they could not live. The river that flows sullenly along—what a catalogue of woes, what shame and frenzied despair, it has ended!

I was crossing Waterloo Bridge one night when there was suddenly a shout and a rush of people. A girl had thrown herself off the parapet, and was struggling in the water. The moon shone brightly down, and her figure was distinctly visible as she wrestled with the tide that was bearing her away. She was the third that had jumped into the river within twelve days; the average of such suicides in London being one in eight days. A vain effort was made to save her. Her body drifted down the river to be cast up at Greenwich or Woolwich, or perhaps the tide swept it out to sea, never to be found. I searched the newspapers for many days afterward, but saw no record of the poor creature's miserable end. These things happen so frequently in London, that the press seldom records them, unless they offer some peculiar features of interest.

In treating of the horrid want and misery that prevail among the very poorest class in London, I have as yet only partially uncovered the picture. We will draw the curtain back a little further, not to present the entire truth in all its fidelity, for that would be too harrowing.

In the streets of London I have seen women and children contending for the possession of a bone drawn from the slush of the kennel. I have seen boys fight and bruise each other for a crust of bread dropped upon the pavement, and covered with wet mud, or even unsightlier filth. I have entered the abode of this desperate poverty, led thither by children, who have clamored at my side for alms, and found such misery as I am incompetent to express in words. I have seen the living unable to rise from sickness, in the same bed with the dying and the dead. I have known an instance where a living man in strong health, bating the exhausting effects of privation and sorrow, has been compelled to seek repose in the straw beside the body of his dead wife, his children occupying the floor, and there being in the room neither chair in which he could seat himself, nor table on which he could stretch himself for rest. I have seen an infant crawl for nourishment to its dead mother's breast, and there was not in all the house the value of a cent to buy it food. I have seen a wife, in following her husband's body to[Pg 412] the grave, drop in the road and die before medical assistance could be procured. A post-mortem examination proved that she died from hunger.

Let no one say that there are charitable asylums enough in London to furnish assistance in all deserving cases of extreme distress. If there are, their doors—and I appeal to all Englishmen who know any thing about the workings of the Poor Law System in their country, whether I do not record the truth—are closed in three cases out of five against the applicant. Besides, charity in London is reserved and suspicious. But its reserve is chilling to the deserving poor, who are usually too proud to disclose their sufferings to strangers, and are ashamed to solicit alms with an open hand. They strive as long as they are able; their history, if duly recorded, would swell the roll of martyrs. I have known among them heroes and heroines, as in all nations such, whether apparent to the world or not, are never wanting. Wives, who have been bred in comfort, working for their husbands who were out of employment, and supporting them by the scanty wages of such industry as many men would shrink from. Girls of tender years toiling to support a surviving parent, sisters toiling for their brothers. And all done not only without a murmur, but with cheerfulness and thankfulness to God that their condition was no worse. I have heard hopeful accents from the plodding charwoman, that have made me ashamed, as Wordsworth stood rebuked before the 'leech-gatherer, upon the lonely moor.' Let England look to it. These women, mothers of men, are abandoning her shores for foreign lands. When good and dutiful children desert the maternal home, what provocation must they have had from the parent?

'In the year ending Lady-day 1859,' said the London Times of February 15th, 1860, 'England and Wales spent five million seven hundred and ninety-two thousand nine hundred and sixty-three pounds in the relief of the poor. It is estimated that on July 1st, 1859, nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand seven hundred and ninety-six paupers were receiving relief in or out of the workhouse in this part of the empire. This is near a million of persons, at an average cost of about five pounds sixteen shillings a head, a considerable improvement on the previous year. The computation is, that every sixteenth person, or one person in every three households, is a pauper, hanging like a dead weight on the industry of the other fifteen. This, too, is only one form of charity, beside untold millions spent in endowed alms-houses, hospitals, asylums for every imaginable infirmity, coal-funds, clothing-funds, charity-schools, voluntary labor-rates, church-collections, alms done in secret, and several hundred other species of benevolence.'

Vainly does an American strive to realize such a state of society. Its effects are visible in the hatred of the poor toward the rich, which, if things continue as they are, will ultimately produce a war of classes. The work-houses and other alms-houses are always filled. There may be brief intervals when trade is brisk, and statesmen brag of the prosperity of the country, but these are only as the sane moments of a delirious patient. The general health of the community must not be judged from these. When in a year that it confesses is a favorable one, the leading political journal admits the proportion of paupers subsisting on alms to be one to fifteen, what must be the proportion in periods of great mercantile depression, which recur more frequently as time advances? I can not at all agree with Mr. Emerson, that England has not within her the elements of decay. She has. Her maritime supremacy is gone; her commercial advantages have vanished. In the world's market she possesses a stall, and nothing more. If it is better supplied than the stalls of some nations in the same market, it is, in its turn, inferior to those of others. I can not say, with her enemies, Let her decay. But I do bid her look to it in time, for her present condition is not one of promise.[Pg 413]

A MILITARY NATION.

The Confederates are vastly our superiors in the art of spreading plausible reports. Acting together 'like one man,' a falsehood from head-quarters is at once disseminated from Richmond to New-Orleans, and the North is promptly victimized. At present their game is to make us discredit their own forces, having learned that our belief in the extent of their army is only a stimulus to Northern exertions. The truth is, that the Confederacy never had so large an army as at present, or in such excellent condition. They have been gathering up the odds and ends; they have learned day by day to make better soldiers of them; they have abundant food, are on the whole well armed, and it is rank folly in us to rely on their weakness. Only an overwhelming force—the entire force of the North—can now conquer them, and to make even this available, our Government must have recourse to the most determined and daring measures. It is no longer a question of suppressing rebellion, but of defense; of conquering or being conquered. Were we at this instant to consent to the independence of the Confederacy, it would not be accepted. The Southerner, easily depressed by defeat, becomes arrogant in the hour of victory, and would exact such conditions as we could never endure.

The South, by successful secession, would take with it all our prosperity and all our power. It would take the Border States and the control of the Mississippi, and worse than this, it would establish a war which would rage without intermission until we should be crushed, perhaps into literal tribute and vassalage. Every dispute arising from our entangled neighborhood—and these would be innumerable—would be determined with an insolence and a cruelty far surpassing any thing which we have heretofore experienced; and at every manifestation of unwillingness on our part to submit, we should have the sword tauntingly thrown in the balance. With foreign aid and foreign allies they could soon make our condition more galling than death. We should be the butt of every nation, humiliated and trampled on in every international dispute, and in every such difficulty the South would become the great power of America, and its rising sun would easily find means to abuse us still further.

Is this picture exaggerated? Let the reader shake off the fetters of old custom and see the literal truths of life and what it is capable of becoming. The South seriously proposes to establish itself as a permanently military nation. The blacks are to do all the labor, raise all the food, perform all the menial labor, and, in fact, literally support all the white men. The aristocracy are to govern and fill all higher civil and military functions; the 'mean whites' are to be incorporated in the army. Year by year they will, it is hoped, become more and more identified with their cause and their calling, and firmer in their hatred of the North. Long ago this programme was published, this scheme of a great negro-supported military nation, and it is not difficult to see that recent events have rendered the leaders of the Confederacy sanguine of its success. The whole South is full of crops raised by the slaves—and the Virginia press triumphantly proclaims the success of the first part of the great experiment, a success well worth to them far greater sacrifices than they have already undergone. The negro, it seems, as a slave, can support the Southern Confederacy—feed and clothe it. One year of war has proved this.

'One year ago we might have prevented this,' some furious 'radical' may urge. Let such men be silent. On every hand there are cries for their blood, and it is boldly commended in conservative journals and meetings that[Pg 414] they be hanged. However, the question is not now, what might have been done a year ago. It is, what the enemy hope for and what they are yet capable of doing.

By proving, undisturbed, the fact that the slaves can support them, the Confederates have gained a greater victory than the North dreams of. By forming a permanently military nation, they go a step further, and relieve their communities from the weight of a non-productive, idle, dangerous class of poor whites. When every 'bush-whacker,' 'sand-hiller,' 'Arab,' and other hanger-on shall have become a soldier, with his settled place in society, a few new troubles may be incurred, but much greater ones can not fail to be avoided. The leaders in a military government may preserve that unity which could never be hoped for under other conditions. We already know what unanimity prevails among them; we may imagine what this would become when further experience shall have still more coordinated and consolidated them.

It is not proposed in the South that other than military manufactures shall be encouraged. European goods are to flow in untaxed, and the 'military nation' proposes to do all in its power to smuggle them over the Northern frontier. To effect this darling scheme of vast profits to themselves and of ruin to us, any sacrifice will be made. It is urged that direct taxation will not prove sufficiently profitable to enable the South to dispense with a revenue tariff; but those who urge this, do not know the South. They do not know the infinite depths of hatred to the North and to everything Northern—the venom and vindictiveness with which they would pursue us. They forget that as a military nation whatever the rulers will, must and shall be done. The great planters—and Southern policy of capital tends to develop none save great planters and their adherents—will undoubtedly be taxed, but then they will on the other hand be directly interested in sustaining the government, and share in its power and patronage. Let the reader remember that after all, there are only at present in the South some two hundred thousand slaveholders, or men holding slaves sufficient to fairly rank among those whose interests are seriously allied to 'the institution.' Possibly the chances of war have still further diminished this number; it would be strange indeed, if between runaways and the sacrifices which adversity brings, and which fall most heavily on men of moderate means, the number of slaveholders has not been reduced. In such times negroes are sold at any price. This small number of slaveholders will understand their own political interests sufficiently well to admit foreign goods duty free, and to use every effort to smuggle them into the North.

We, on the other hand, who have no negroes to plant for us, who must pay our farmers far more than the wretched black earns, have no 'mud-sill' whereon to rest. We are manufacturers, and can not form a permanent military nation. We hold in horror the idea of a standing army, and of having our young men who might grow up wealthy and learned—and what Northern youth is there who has not his 'chances'?—become garrison-soldiers for life. We love learning, culture, independence, progress. Year by year sees noble schools rising among us—schools in which every man's son may obtain an excellent free education, and qualify himself for any position in any society. Year by year sees our manufacturers demanding fresh labor, more talent, more youth, more energy, and with them sees the condition of the mechanic becoming more and more ameliorated. Year by year finds the public lecture and library more used by the workman, and the masses rising little by little above their post. In short, we belong to a community whose conditions are those of refinement and of peace; ours is an advanced stage of civilization, and it is our duty to maintain this advance.

'The South' cares nothing for all these things. It 'loathes the very name of free schools,' despises industry and[Pg 415] ingenuity, scorns the mechanic, and is altogether, as a community, behind us: as a merely agricultural and would-be merely military government, must essentially be. There are predicaments when the shrewd brute and cunning brigand has his superior at a disadvantage. Let the South prolong this contest till its military social system acquires sufficient strength, and it will drag us down to its own wretched lord-and-serf level. 'To its level!' rather let us say beneath it; yes, beneath its iron heel, to endless shame and ruin.

It can never be. The man who believes in peaceable secession must be an idiot. Secession means a military nation living side by side with a non-military nation, which it hates and will do its best to crush. It means a successful rebel flashing the sword in our face at every fancied insult, and all the work of war perennially renewed. It means conservative traitors and doughface scoundrels stirring up riot and ruin among us at every corner, with no man to make them afraid; nourishing the South in our faces and intriguing to bring us into the Confederacy. It means the breaking up of the Union into many fragments—for who supposes that Southern hatred will not intrigue to this effect, and that the pro-slavery Northern men of the present day who have worked so hard to secure to the South the successful solution of the first part of its problem will not be found laboring heart and soul to aid their old masters?

Væ victis! If we do not rise in our might and crush this rebellion root and branch, we shall be crushed—and no honest, observant man can deny it. Fire and water may as well mingle as we two hope to inhabit the same continent. It is hammer or anvil with us now, and no escape. They realize with delight that our year of procrastination has been to them more than two years of preparation, and so confident are they of success as to even wish to conceal their numbers.

Reader, this is not an emergency whose evil results may fall on others and not on yourself. There is not one loyal American to whom Southern success does not portend misery, poverty, degradation. We have not yet felt the foot of the enemy on our soil, but if we pour away the life-blood of the nation little by little, why, a day will come when the blood will be exhausted, and the enemy, grown to fearful strength, will come ravaging over the border. Do not fold your hands in fancied security and say of that day: 'It is far off.' When it comes, you will say, as you now say of the past year, that there was time lost and sad negligence. A year ago we 'progressives' cried aloud in bitter earnestness for one great, overwhelming effort, for decisive measures, and after debating, and delaying, and plucking all the feathers from our bird, they threw him, half-starved, at Bull Run, and then cried: There is your victory! A year ago we urged expediency and boldness; but 'Democracy' quibbled at every thing, hindered everything, and then laid the fault on us—as its friend Jeff Davis does when accusing the Federal Government of waging barbarous warfare—so as to excuse his own iniquities. But now we have come to the bitter need, and the country must choose between bold measures and measureless disgrace.

Lo! the country is responding heart and soul. From every township comes the cry of Union or death! What was the waking of Sumter, compared to this of the summer and autumn of eighteen hundred and sixty-two? At last the truth has gone home—we must conquer. Conquer or be conquered, it is, O friends! but if you will it, you shall have victory. You have the strength: in God's name put forth your hand and grasp the golden crown.[Pg 416]

TOM WINTERS' STORY.

I was taking an early walk on the morning after my arrival at the city of C——, in the spring of 186-, in order to sharpen my appetite for breakfast, when I observed a tall and stoutly-built man on the opposite sidewalk proceeding in the same direction with myself. There was something in his gait and his manner of swinging his right arm (he had a common market-basket on his left) that seemed not unfamiliar to me; and I hastened my pace to keep up with him while I observed him further. It was no easy matter; for he had a stride that, if hurried to its beat, would have put me to a run to save being distanced; but I succeeded in heading him off after a rapid walk of several squares, which brought us to the market-place, and I soon had the satisfaction of hearing his voice as he inquired the price of some of the marketing exposed for sale. This decided me, and I immediately threw myself in his way. He recognized me at once, and as he held out his huge hand, which I took in mine, we exclaimed simultaneously: 'How are you, Owen?' 'How are you, Tom?'

The greeting was something more than cordial. We had once been quite intimate, and it was seventeen years since we had met. I had lost sight of him that number of years before, and getting no satisfactory response to any inquiries I had from time to time made after him of mutual acquaintances, I had gradually dropped the subject, and never expected to meet him again.

Tom Winters was a Marylander by birth, and I had known him in Ohio during the Presidential canvass of 1844, when he had supported the gallant son of Kentucky, Henry Clay, with all the ardor of his generous, rash, and passionate nature; while I had supported James K. Polk, because—because he was nominated by the Democratic party.

I can appreciate at its true worth now that political infatuation which led me to reject the 'Mill Boy of the Slashes,' and to 'decline upon' Polk. There was no comparison between the two men.

But that is passed. Polk was elected, and the gallant 'Harry of the West' died of a broken heart. Thence came Texas, the repeal of the Compromise, the Rebellion,

After a few hasty questions and answers on each side, we parted to meet at dinner at Tom's residence, and to sit down then for a general palabre.

I was punctual to my appointment, and after being introduced to Mrs. Winters, (Tom was now married and held an important position under the State government,) and after having been presented to Master Henry Clay Winters, a lad of three years, and being informed—in an aside—that the next was to be named John Fremont Winters, we sat down to the table and accomplished our dinner and our explanations 'by piece-meal simultaneously,'

Having satisfied my quondam friend upon the subject of my various wanderings, successes, and reverses since we parted—which were decidedly too dull and commonplace to interest the reader, although Tom, from a sense of duty, probably, listened to their rehearsal with a great deal of attention—I, in turn, questioned him of the events of his life. He ran them hastily over, and seemed inclined to treat them with so much brevity that I had frequently to call him back upon his narrative by a question on some point where I required more detailed information. But our dinner was over, and Mrs. Winters had retired, with Master Henry Clay Winters, ere he had half satisfied my curiosity.[Pg 417]

Winters had left N——, the little county-town in Middle Ohio, where I had known him, in the spring of 1845, and had begun to travel as agent for a marble dealer of Pittsburgh, Pa. In this capacity he had roamed over all the Western States during several years, had made extensive acquaintances, and been rubbed against the world until he had acquired great knowledge of mankind and habits of self-reliance, without much of that polish of manner which worldly attrition usually gives a man. He was at that time between twenty-five and thirty years of age, in perfect health, and of herculean strength. He was considerably over six feet in height, compactly built, and that consciousness of power which such favored individuals possess, rendered him, in a great measure, indifferent to the opinions of others. Without any of the refinement which careful culture and early training confer, it is not to be wondered at that Tom was not 'over-particular' as to the society in which he ventured, or what profession he followed.

He had also been captain of a canal-packet, a drover, a deputy-sheriff, a general collector, and had first married in Kentucky, and settled at Lexington, where he had spent four years. There his wife died, without leaving children, and Tom was afloat upon the world again. Then he had spent two years in Mississippi; returned to Lexington, went to Cincinnati; 'and since then,' he continued, 'I have lived in every county on this side in succession, and have been here four years since I married my present wife; so that you see the seventeen years is now filled up, and you know my whole history.'

For the first time Tom hesitated; and he answered, with an uneasy expression and a furtive glancing about of his keen hazel eye, that he had been an overseer on a plantation.

'It is a fact,' said the plain-spoken Tom, looking seriously into his empty glass, then adding apologetically:

'What should I care about it? I had lived a long time in Kentucky, and been accustomed to slavery as it existed there. Besides, I am a Marylander by birth. I said slavery was right, and I believed it. My wife was dead; I had little means left, and cared for nothing.

'I had become acquainted with Luke Meminger, the principal negro-dealer at Lexington, who boarded at McGowan's Hotel, where I was then stopping, and he introduced me to a Mississippi planter' who was there buying a few hands for his plantation back of Grand Gulf. Talbot (that was the planter's name) seemed to take a fancy to me, and finally proposed to me to go with him to Mississippi and serve as assistant overseer. He offered me a salary of eight hundred dollars a year; said I should have a horse to ride over the plantation, a servant to wait on me, and an easy time of it generally. I accepted the offer, and accompanied him down the river. We took down fifteen niggars whom he had purchased in Kentucky, mostly at Lexington. I was there two years, and left heartily sick of it.'

'Well, that is an episode in your history, Tom,' I said, 'that I could never have imagined. But now you must tell me something about plantation life. I have heard and read a great deal about it, but never had it from the mouth of an old friend on whose word I could rely, and who possessed the advantage of having been an overseer himself.'

'Oh! there is very little to tell,' said Tom. 'I had to set the niggars at work and see that they performed their tasks; that was all.'

'About seventy-five. There were some hundred and fifty on the plantation, altogether, big and little.

'Women?' said Tom, with a slight note of interrogation. 'We didn't know any thing about women: they were all[Pg 418] hands. When I was driving stock to New-York, I treated oxen and cows all alike; and on our plantation all the able-bodied hands worked together in the field, and no difference was made between them. There were old, decrepit wenches, unable to work, who took care of the children during the day. When the mothers came from the field at night they suckled their picaninies—for nearly all the women have babies. They breed like rabbits,' added Tom, 'in postscript.'

'Nothing, of course,' he replied, 'you must remember that I was second overseer. The head overseer took the chief management of affairs. But when I had been there about three months, Blake died—that was my chief's name—then the whole charge of the plantation then devolved on me. Talbot was North, spending the summer. I wrote to him at Saratoga, informing of the death of Blake, and requesting him to get another head-overseer. But I got no reply, and I supposed he never received the letter. When he came back in the fall, I found that he had, though; but he said he supposed things would go on well enough. And so they did. The supplies were all on hand, and there was nothing to do but to work the place, raise the crop, and gather it.'

'But, after the death of Blake, and in the absence of Talbot, your want of knowledge of the business must have worked you great inconvenience,' I remarked.

'Not at all,' he replied; 'I knew next to nothing about it, it is true; but the niggars did. [Tom would call them niggars.] They understood the business well enough, the most of them. Talbot knew nothing about it himself, and he seemed to care less. These planters put every thing on the overseers. They make them responsible for the crop; and the overseers—they make the hands responsible.'

'Well, tell me something, now, of the operations of each day on the plantation. How early did you get the hands at work in the morning?'

'In summer I called the hands at about four o'clock. They had half an hour to get their feed and reach the field. I divided them into gangs of from fifteen to thirty each, and appointed some one of the most intelligent to oversee each gang. I then set them their tasks for the day; and calling out Dick, or Jeff, or whatever his name might be that I had appointed, I told him, in presence and hearing of his gang, that I made him responsible for the work being done, and being well done; that if the hands did not obey him, he should lick them, and make them do their work. In this way I never had any difficulty in getting the work done which I had set for them.

'When I had got them all at work, I rode from one part of the field to another to see how they were getting along; and when the sun began to get too hot, toward nine o'clock, I would go back to my quarters at the house, get my breakfast, and then lounge about awhile, and finally lie down and sleep through the heat of the day. After four or five o'clock in the afternoon, I had my horse brought up by my servant—I had my own servant, I told you; I had my boots blacked twice a day; had to keep up the dignity of the institution, you know—I had my horse brought up, and rode round to the different gangs.'

'Never touched a one of them, never! 'T wan't no use. Made 'em do just as I wanted without striking a blow.'

'I've told you how I did it. I set some of them to oversee the rest. They thrashed them; I didn't. If they failed in their tasks, I talked to them in this way,' (and he turned his wicked eye on me with a merry twinkle,) 'I called out the overseer, and spoke to him so that the rest could hear me; I said to him: 'Dick,' or 'Jeff,' or whatever his name was, 'how is this? I set you a task[Pg 419] this morning that you could do easy enough. Why isn't it done? Some of your hands have been lazy. Now, mind, this won't do. I don't want to punish you, but I see I'll have to do it.' Then turning to the hands: 'Boys, what have you been so lazy for? You don't want Jeff licked, do you? Why don't you work like men, and finish the tasks I set you? You black devils, you! if you keep on in this way you will always be niggars; but if you work, and do as you ought to, you will get as white as I am, after a while!'

'This course generally had the desired effect; but I clinched the argument by threatening to withhold their whisky rations if they failed in their work.'

'Yes. Every Saturday night, if they had behaved well during the week, I gave them a keg of whisky to keep Sunday with. We locked up the tools, and the supplies, and in fact the houses. My room was bolted and barred like a state's prison, and I had a complete arsenal of guns, swords, and ammunition. And then they had a regular 'drunk' on Sunday. The keg held just enough, and not a drop over. They divided it out among themselves, by measurement, and it was all gone in time for them to get over the effects of it before Monday morning.'

'Don't you think,' I inquired, 'that the expected whisky rations was quite as great a stimulus to their exertions as your philosophical exhortations?'

'Perhaps it was. But you must recollect that the whisky rations formed a part of my lecture, and were always introduced as a clincher. I was the most popular overseer ever on the plantation, and when I left the darkies cried like babies. Talbot raised my wages to twelve hundred dollars, dating from the time I went there, and I performed the whole duties of overseer without any assistance.'

'Well, I'll tell you how it was. Talbot used to get tight; and although he was ordinarily a perfect gentleman in his behavior, when drunk he was the very devil! Then, he would abuse me like a pickpocket, and find all manner of fault with whatever I did. He would curse me for a d—d Yankee, and I would give him as good as he sent. I was no more a Yankee than he was, having been born, as you know, in Maryland.

'Often he drew his bowie-knife, and rushed at me as if he would cut me into mince-meat; but I met him boldly with my 'cheese-cutter,' and backed him down. I could have handled him as I would a child, and he knew it. And if he had ever drawn blood on me, I would have killed him in an instant; and he knew it.

'One day when he was drunk, he got mad at a niggar woman he kept about the house, and ordered me to whip her. I told him to whip her himself. This enraged him terribly. He was just drunk enough to be crazy. Out came the everlasting bowie-knife, and out came mine, as usual. Then he turned from me—whom he feared to attack, drunk and insensate as he was—he turned from me upon the poor black girl. She was standing near, with her eyes cast down, and did not immediately perceive his intention.

'She was a pretty girl—a dark mulatto—and had long been his favorite. But he was then perfectly blind with fury, and dashed at her with his glittering knife raised above his head. She saw him in time to utter a piercing shriek, and while in the act of turning to fly, the weapon fell upon her neck, severed the jugular vein, and prostrated her to the floor.

'The poor girl never spoke again. The blood rushed like water from the wound, her face paled, her limbs stiffened, and, with a few convulsive shudders, she was dead. She was taken to one of the huts, and buried by the blacks on the following night. There was no inquest—no inquiry—it was nobody's business.[Pg 420]

'As for Talbot, as soon as he saw her fall he appeared to be sobered all at once. He looked at her a moment, glanced at the bloody knife, and then cast it from him, as if he were purging himself of the offense, or punishing the offender by the act. He said not a word, but went to his room. I saw him no more that day.

'On the next, I went to him and told him he must get another overseer, for I was about to leave. He seemed incredulous at first, then stormed, then finding me inflexible, he offered to increase my wages if I would remain. I had but one answer for all. I said to him: 'Mr. Talbot, I don't want your money. If I would stay with you at all, I would stay for my present salary. But I will not stay: I never eat my words. If you are ready to settle with me now, say so; if not, say when you will be ready.'

'He said he was ready then, and we settled. I had a few hundred dollars due to me, which he paid, and I was on my way to Grand Gulf within two hours after. The subject of the murder of the mulatto girl was not alluded to between us.'

'Well,' I said to Tom, 'what is your opinion of slavery now? You are able to judge for yourself of the 'institution,' having formed one of its ornaments, and contributed to keep up its 'dignity.' I suppose you have read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and are prepared to give a flat denial to the pretended facts of the author. Of course it is all false about the parting of families—husband and wife, parent and child, etc., and all the instances of that sort of cruelty cited in her appendix are trash and a libel upon the beneficent and patriarchal institution?'

I spoke ironically, and he so understood me. The passions of Tom's great heart had been gradually wrought up by a review of the bloody scene he had himself witnessed, and which had made a strong impression on him, and he now sprung to his feet.

'Uncle Tom's Cabin be d—d!' he cried. 'Owen Glendower, what I've seen with my own eyes I know, don't I? I could tell you things that would make your hair stand straight out, if I was a mind to; but it's no use.

'As to slavery, as it exists in the Sugar and Cotton States, to-day, I have but one fit illustration for it.

'The religious writers of the Jews, and those who follow their ideas, have pictured to us the future condition of the sinner and finally impenitent as the most desperate and deplorable possible to be conceived—as they thought. They had never witnessed American slavery as practiced in the nineteenth century. If they, had, the material fire, the tormenting fiends, and the 'worm that never dies,' would have given place to the natural features of a Mississippi plantation, where the unrestrained passions of avarice, brutality, and lust make a Hell to which the Gehenna of the Hebrews is but a mild sort of purgatory by comparison.

'About parting husband and wife, and parent and child, I will tell you one thing I myself saw in Kentucky; and in Kentucky you know, slavery exists in its mildest form, and the system approaches nearer to that patriarchal character which is most falsely claimed for it by its supporters, than in any of the more Southern States.'

Just then Master Winters returned to the room, and on seeing him Tom's excitement apparently increased. He gesticulated violently, and delivered himself in short, emphatic sentences, interlarded, I am sorry to say, with rather too many of those objectionable expletives that an ex-slave-overseer may be supposed to be addicted to. Swearing is a vulgar practice, and one for which there is no sort of justification; and yet, I must confess, it is calculated to give a certain savage energy to one's language when he has not a very copious vocabulary of choicer epithets and synonyms at command. Of course I can not do justice to Tom's colloquial style in print, but he proceeded:

'I was, as I told you before, well ac[Pg 421]quainted with the slave-dealer, Meminger, at Lexington. We boarded together at M'Gowan's; and after my wife died I went about with him considerable.

'One day, in the winter before I left there to go to Mississippi, he and I were coming over from Danville. It was the coldest day I ever knew in Kentucky. Kentucky has a mild climate, and the winters are short and not very severe. Still the weather is very variable, and there will occasionally occur a day in January which is as cold as any where else, and which is felt all the more for being an exception.

'This day, when Meminger and I were coming over from Danville, was one of those days. It was cold; I tell you, it was almighty cold! We were on horseback, and were bundled up with any amount of clothes and mufflers, and had leggins on—as they always wear them in Kentucky when they go on horseback. We had got—you know where the turnpike forks south of the Kentucky river. One branch runs this way, to Danville; the other, that way to Lancaster and Stanford. Right here in the forks—that is the identical spot where Camp 'Dick Robinson' now is; but there was no camp there then, by a long shot. Then as you approach the river, you come down a long hill, a mile long, at least, you know.

'Well, we had got nearly to the bottom of this hill, and were coming along at a pretty good jog, when we heard some body hallooing after us, and we held up. Looking around, we saw a man running down from the house standing upon the side-hill, a little away from the road. May be you remember the house up there? Well, he was hallooing like a loon, and we waited till he came up. Soon as he got near enough to talk, he says:

''My name's Meminger,' said my companion, 'and I sometimes buy niggars. What do you want?'

''Well, fotch her down, then. You don't suppose I'm going up there for any d—d niggar woman, such a day as this, do you? And be quick about it, for I don't intend to stand here in the cold.'

'The man started back for the house on the run, and kept hallooing and motioning to some one who met him on the way; and he returned to where we stood on the 'pike with as fine, healthy a looking young black girl as I have often seen. She was dressed with a single garment, which hardly covered her; and she carried in her arms a child, apparently about two or three months old, which she had wrapped up in some rags to keep it warm.

''D—n the child!' said Meminger; 'do you suppose I want two months children in my pen? If you do, you are cursedly mistaken. What will you take for the woman alone?'

''I don't very well like to part them,' said the man hesitatingly, 'and I promised my wife I wouldn't. But if you won't buy the child—'

'Meminger threw his bridle-rein to me, and slid down from his horse to look at the girl. He stepped up to her, caught her upper lip with one hand and her lower with the other, and opened her mouth, and examined her teeth in the same manner that you or I, Owen, would a horse. Then he took her by the arm, twirled her round, struck her roughly on her back, felt the muscle of her fore-arm, her thigh, and calf; then stood back and examined her all over a moment, and said:

''I suppose she is all right? I don't want her, but I am going right home,[Pg 422] and I can take her along as well as not, and I'll give you six hundred dollars for her. If you want it, say so at once, for I an't going to stand here talking all day!'

'The man seemed reluctant to take the sum offered—said she was worth more, and he ought to give six hundred and fifty for her.

'Meminger cut him short with a savage oath, telling him that if he wasn't going to accept the six hundred, to say so, for he would not stand there in the cold any longer for the six hundred dollars, niggar and all, and he moved toward his horse as if to remount.

''Well, then,' said the man, who seemed determined to sell her at some price, 'take her at six hundred if that's all you'll give.'

'Meminger drew out a blank bill of sale—that's the way they do it, you know, have to have it in writing—and said to me:

''Here, Tom, you fill out this for me, for my hands have got so cold I can't write.'

'He took a pen and ink from his pocket, and I filled out the bill of sale while he counted down six hundred dollars in bills on the Northern Bank of Kentucky, and paid them over. By the time the man had signed the bill the ink was frozen solid.

'The man having received his money, caught the child from its mother's arms and started for the house without saying another word.

'The woman had all this time been shivering with the cold, and apparently wholly occupied with the child in endeavoring to keep it warm. She pressed it to her bosom, examined the ragged covering with care and tenderness, and strove to draw her own scanty garment over it. She seemed, in fact, so engrossed with her care of the child that she had not comprehended that part of the negotiation which threatened to part her from it. Perhaps she did not, in her blind maternal confidence, conceive such a thing possible!

'When the child was roughly snatched from her, she paused an instant, as if collecting her thoughts, and then, awakening to the reality of the case, she started wildly after it. But Meminger was too quick for her. He was used to such scenes. He caught her before she had gone three steps, and rudely threw her down. She uttered scream after scream, and implored him not to part her from her child. Turning alternately from the unfeeling and repulsive countenance of the slave-trader to the retreating form of her late master, who bore away farther and farther from her all that she knew of love or hope on earth, her impassioned entreaties touched every key-note of human agony from frenzy to despair. It was of no use. Meminger regarded her feelings no more than I regarded the lowings of my stock when I was in the droving business.

'He mounted his horse, brought him up alongside of a low bank, and ordered the woman to get up behind him. This she did as one accustomed to obey, groaning and crying piteously. He placed her behind his saddle, astride of the horse as if she were a man. In this position, what dress she had on, and it was not much, was necessarily drawn up above her knees. She had an old pair of scuffs of shoes on, the rest of the limbs were bare. And in this way we went on through the cold, she shivering, sobbing, and clinging to the negro-trader, all the way to Lexington. Only at Nicholasville, I persuaded Meminger to alight and get some clothes to wrap up the girl's legs to prevent them from being frosted before he got her home.'

'And do you really think she had a mother's affection for her child, and felt its loss as acutely as other mothers—white mothers?' I asked him.

'Do I think so?' he asked, almost fiercely. 'Come here, Henry Clay!' and he reached down and lifted his boy up into his huge arms and kissed him with fervor.

'And I tell you, Owen Glendower,'[Pg 423] he resumed, 'that just as my wife, Mrs. Winters, loves this boy, did that black mother love her child. More strongly, more firmly did she love it; more frantically did she bewail its loss, because her reason did not suggest any hope of its ultimate recovery, such as might be entertained by an intelligent white woman. And when it was suddenly snatched from her bosom, on that cold day, by the Kentucky River, it was as much lost to her as if it had been snatched by the hand of death instead of that of her inhuman master.'

'This was a single instance, you may say; but if I've seen one, I've seen fifty such. Not all alike, but varying with circumstance, locality, and occasion; and yet all due alike to the essential elements of human slavery, and inseparable from the institution.'

My time was up. I bade adieu to my hostess, shook Tom Winters' hand, and started for the cars with a feeling of satisfaction at having encountered him again, even if it should be for the last time.

THE WHITE HILLS IN OCTOBER.

Our town friends, who fly from the heat and dust, and menacing diseases and insupportable ennui, of their city residence during the months of July and August, may have an escape, but they have little enjoyment. We admire the heroism with which they endure, year after year, the discomforts of a country hotel, or the packing in the narrow, half-furnished bed-rooms and rather warm attics of rural lodging-houses, and the general abatement and contraction of creature-comforts, in such startling contrast to the abounding luxuries of their own city palaces. But they are right. The country, at any discount, is better, in the fearful heats of July and August, than the town with its hot, unquiet nights and polluted air. Any hillside or valley in the country, and a shelter under any roof in or upon them, with the broad cope of heaven above, (not cut into patches and fragments by intervening walls and chimney-tops,) and broad fields, and grass, and corn, and woodlands, and their flowers and freshening dews and breezes, and all Nature's infinite variety, is better than every appliance and contrivance of luxury, with the din, the suffocation, and unrest of city life.

but they must not flatter themselves that their mere glimpse of country life—their mere snatch at its midsummer beauty, the one free-drawn breath of their wearied spirit—is acquaintance with it. As well might one who had seen Rosalind, the most versatile of Shakspeare's heroines, only in her court-dress at her uncle the duke's ball, guess at her infinite variety of charm in the Forest of Ardennes. Nature holds her drawing-room in July and August. She wears her fullest and richest dresses then; if we may speak flippantly without offense to the simplicity of her majesty, she is then en pleine toilette. But any other of the twelve is more picturesque than the summer months: blustering March, with its gushing streams tossing off their icy fetters; changeful April, with its greening fields and glancing birds; sweet, budding, blossoming May; flowery June; fruitful September; golden, glorious October; dreary, thoughtful November; and all of Winter, with its potent majesty and heroic adversity.

But let our citizens come to our rural districts; the more, the better for them! Only let them not imagine they get that 'enough' which is 'as good as a feast.'[Pg 424]

This preamble was naturally suggested by our autumnal life in the country, and by a recurrence to a late delightful passage through the 'White Hills of New Hampshire.'

during the intense months of July and August, we found in October so free from visitors, that we might have fancied ourselves the discoverers of that upland region of beauty, unparalleled, so far as we know, in all the traveled parts of our country. And for the benefit of those who shall come after us, for all who have their highest enjoyment, perhaps their best instruction, in Nature's 'free school,' we intended to give some brief notices of our tour, in the hope of extending the traveling season into October by imparting some faint idea of the startling beauty of this brilliant month in the mountains; but what we might have said was happily superseded.

At a little inn in a small town, after we came down from the 'high places,' we met a party of friends who had preceded us along the whole route by a day. A rain came on, and we were detained together for twenty-four hours. We agreed to pass the evening in a reciprocal reading of the brief notes of our journey. It came last to the turn of my friend, a very charming young person, whom I shall take the liberty to call Mary Langdon. She blushed and stammered, and protested against being a party to the contribution.

'Mine,' she said, 'is a long letter to my cousin, which I began before we left home.'

At last, driven to the wall, she threw a nice morocco letter-case into my lap, saying:

'Take it and read it to yourself, and you will see why I positively can not read it aloud.'

So we gave up our entreaties. I read the letter-journal after I went to my room. The reading cheated me of an hour's sleep; perhaps because I had just intensely enjoyed the country my friend described; and in the morning I begged Miss Langdon's permission to publish it. She at first vehemently objected, saying it would be in the highest degree indelicate to publish so much of her own story as was inextricably interwoven with the journey.

'But, dear child,' I urged, 'who that reads The Continental knows you? And besides, when this is published, (if indeed the Messrs. Editors of that popular journal graciously permit it to see the light,) you will be on the other side of the Atlantic; and before you return, this record will be forgotten, for, alas! we contributors to Monthlies do not write for immortality.'

I rather smiled at the novelty of one hesitating to write for the public because not fitted for the task; and, thinking of 'the fools that rushed in,' (there is small aptness in the remainder of the familiar quotation,) I continued to urge till my young friend yielded, on my promising to omit passages which relate to the emotions and rites of the inner temple; Mary Langdon not partaking that incomprehensible frankness or child-like hallucination which enables some of our very best writers—Mrs. Browning, for instance—to impart, by sonnets and in various vehicles of prose and verse, to the curious and all-devouring public those secrets from the heart's holy of holies that one would hardly confess to a lover or a priest.

It is to our purpose, writing, as we profess to do, pour l'utile, that our young friend indulged little in sentiment that her circumstances rendered dangerous to her peace, and that, being a country-bred New-England girl, she conscientiously, set down the coarser realities essential to the well-being of a traveler—breakfasts, dinners, etc. But before proceeding to her journal, I must introduce[Pg 425] my debutante, if she who will probably make but a single appearance before the public may be so styled.

Mary Langdon is still on the threshold of life; at least those who have reached threescore would deem her so, as she is not more than three-and-twenty. The freshness of her youth has been preserved by a simple and rather retired country-life. A total abstinence from French novels and other light reading has left the purity and candor of her youth unscathed by their blight and weather-stain. Would that this tree of the knowledge of evil—not good and evil—were never transplanted into our New World. 'If ye eat of it,' your love of what is natural and simple 'will surely die;' ye will lose your perception of the sweet odors of the flowers Providence has sown along your path, and the vile exhalations from these fruits of corrupted genius will hide from you the star of duty—perhaps Nature's sternest light, but her best.

Mary Langdon's simplicity is that of truth, not of ignorance. Her father has given her what he calls 'a good old-fashioned English education;' that means, he says, that 'she thoroughly knows how to read, write, and cipher, which few girls brought up at French boarding-schools do.' As might be suspected from the practical ideas in her narrative, our young friend has had that complete development of her faculties which arises out of the necessities of country-life in its best aspects. There is hardly a position in our country, now, so isolated but one may 'follow the arts' if one chooses, foreign artists and accomplished exiles pervading our country parts. Mary has availed herself of the facilities thus afforded to cultivate a musical talent and temperament, and acquire enough of the foreign languages to open their literature to her. Strangers do not call Mary Langdon handsome; but her friends do, and they marvel that her fair oval face, her spirited expression, tempered by the sweetest mouth and most pearly and expressive teeth, do not strike all eyes. And then she is so buoyant, so free of step and frank of speech, that while others are slowly winding their way to your affections, she springs into your heart.

With due respect to seniority, we should have presented Mr. Langdon before his daughter. On being called on for his journal, he said he was not 'such a confounded fool as to keep one for any portion of his life. He should as soon think of crystallizing soap-bubbles. He had dotted down a few memoranda in his memorandum book, as warnings to future travelers, and we were welcome to them; though he thought we were too mountain-mad to profit by them, if indeed any body ever profited by any body else's experience!' The fact was, the dear old gentleman had left home in a very unquiet state of mind. He hated at all times leaving his home, abounding in comforts. He detested travel under what he termed 'alleviating circumstances.' He was rather addicted to growling; this English instinct came over with his progenitor in the Mayflower, and half a dozen generations had not sufficed to subdue it. But Mr. Langdon's 'bark is worse than his bite.' In truth his 'bite' is like that of a teething child's, resulting from a derangement of sweet and loving elements.

We found our old friend's memoranda so strongly resembling the grumbling of our traveling cousins from over the water, that we think it may be edifying to print it in a parallel column, as a per contra, illustrating the effects of the lights or shadows that emanate from our own minds. Providence provides the banquet; its relish or disrelish depends on the appetite of the guest.

But to Mary Langdon's letter, which, as it was begun before she left home, bears its first date there:

'Lake-Side, 28th September.—My Dear Sue: I have not much more to tell you than my last contained. Carl Heiner left our neighborhood last week, determined to return by the next steamer to Dusseldorf. We were both very wretched at this final parting. But as I have often seen people making great sacrifices to others, and then letting them lose all[Pg 426] the benefit of the sacrifice, by the manner of it, I summoned up courage, and appeared before my father calm and acquiescing, and—you will think me passionless, perhaps hard-hearted—I soon became so. I read, over and over again, your arguments, and I confess I was willing to be persuaded by them. But, after all, my point of sight is not yours, and you can not see objects in the proportions and relations that I do. You say I have exaggerated notions of filial duty, that I have come to mature age and ripe judgment, and that I should decide and act for myself; that in the nature of things the conjugal must supersede the filial relation, and that I have no right to sacrifice my life-long happiness to the remnant of my father's days; and above all, that I am foolish to give in to his prejudices, and selfishness, you added, dear, and did not quite efface the word. Now I see there is much reason in what you say, and I have only to answer that I can not leave my father with a shadow of his disapprobation. I can not and I will not. Our hearts have grown together. God forms the bond that ties the child to the parent, and we make the other, and rotten it often proves. Susy, you lost your parents when you were so young, that you can not tell what I feel for my surviving one. Since my mother's death and Alice's marriage, he has lived in such dependence on me, that I can't tell what his life would be if I were to leave him; and I will not. You tell me this is unnatural, and a satisfactory proof to you that I do not love Carl Heiner. O Sue——'

'Here must be our first hiatus. We can only say that the outpouring of our young friend's heart satisfied us that beneath her serene surface there was an unfathomable well of feeling, and that her friend must have been convinced that 'love's reason' is not always without reason. The letter proceeds:

'I very well know that my father is prejudiced, Sue, but old men's prejudices become a part and parcel of themselves, and they can not be cured of them. My father's do not spring from any drop of bitterness, for he has not one—nor from egotism, for he has none of it; but, as you know, his early life was in Boston, and his only society is there, and he naturally partakes the opinions of his cotemporaries, who—the few surviving—believe all foreigners to be a sort of 'outside barbarians,' and especially regard those who have participated in the revolutionary movements of Europe as impertinent invaders of our exclusive birthright to 'liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness.' Artists, in the creed of these good old gentlemen, are mere vagrants; and so my father comes to look upon Carl's intense love of his art, and his confidence in his future success, justified as it is by that already achieved, as a mere hallucination. So it is all ended—for the present. How subtle is hope! it still lurks in my heart in spite of the strongest probability that all is ended forever.'

Glen-House, White Hills, October 3d.—I am resuming my unfinished letter to you, my dear Sue, much nearer heaven than I began it. The day of Carl's sailing from New-York, my father proposed to me to go to Boston, take up Alice there, and come up to the hill-country. Dear father! he was offering me a lump of sugar after the bitter medicine, and I accepted it, sure at least of a momentary sweet sensation, and very sure that my poor father felt comforted by the self-complacency flowing from the enormous sacrifice he was making in coming up to the highlands at this cold season. My sister was glad enough to get a holiday from her nursery, so, on Monday, the second of October, a mellow, beautiful day, we came into Boston to take the two o'clock cars for Portland. We had three hours upon our hands, which were pleasantly filled up by visits to a studio and a picture-shop, and finally to refresh our mortal part, which had been running down while we were feasting the immortal, to a restaurateur's.

We groped our way up-stairs into a little back-room in School street, where, if we did not find luxuries and elegance, we did wholesome fare and civility. The rail-ride to Portland was dusty but brief, and we arrived there in time to see its beautiful harbor while the water reflected the roses thrown by the last rays of the sun upon the twilight clouds. We eschewed the hotel, and were kindly received at the boarding-house of a Miss Jones, a single woman somewhere between thirty and forty, who so blends dignity with graciousness, that she made us feel more like guests than customers. One might well mistake her reception for a welcome. Her house is a model, adding variety and abundance to the perfection, in all but these attributes, of the table of an English inn, and having the quiet and completeness, neatness and elegance, that have made the English tavern a classic type of comfort. It seems this house with its high repute, was the inheritance of two sisters from their mother, of whom we were told an anecdote which may be apocryphal, but which certainly would not be discordant with the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. The old lady finished her patriarchal days serenely, and when she was dying, begged that the order of her house might be in no wise disturbed by the event of her decease, but that 'the gentlemen would play their evening game of whist as usual'!

Miss Jones's morning face was as benign as her evening countenance had been. No lady could have administered hospitality with more refinement. We were to be at the station before seven, and just as our carriage-door was closing, it was reopened, and a rough but decent country-woman was shoved in, the driver muttering something about there being no other conveyance for her. My father looked a little awry, not with any thought of remonstrating against the procedure—no native American would do that, you know—but he was just lighting his after-breakfast segar, and he shrunk from the impropriety of smoking in such close quarters, with even such a woman-stranger. 'I hope, madam,' he said, 'a segar does not offend you?' 'La! no, sir,' replied our rustic friend most good-naturedly, 'I like it.' My father's geniality is always called forth by the touch of his segar. He said, with a smile at the corners of his mouth: 'Perhaps, madam, you would try one yourself.' 'I would!' she answered eagerly. My father hospitably selected his best segar, which she took, saying: 'Thank you kindly, sir. I s'pose I can light it at the end of yours.' My dear, fastidious father heroically breasted this juxtaposition, and the good woman, unconscious of any thing but her keen enjoyment of the unlooked-for boon, smoked away vigorously. Alice, who never loses sight of her duty to avert a possible mischance from any human being, rather verdantly suggested, 'that the segar might make her sick.' 'Mercy, child! I am used to pipes,' she replied; which, indeed, we might have inferred from her manner of holding the segar. Her rapid puffs soon resulted in the[Pg 428][Pg 427] necessity usually engendered by smoking, and half-rising from her seat it was too evident that she mistook the pure plate-glass for empty space. My father let down the glass as if he had been shot, but she, no wise discomposed, even by our laughing, (for Alice and I could not resist it,) merely said, coolly: 'Why, I didn't calculate right, did I?' There are idiosyncrasies in Yankeedom, there is no doubt of it. We had a long drive to the cars, but there our close companionship, and our acquaintance, too, ended, except that the woman's husband—for she had a husband, some Touchstone, whose 'humor' it was to 'take that no other man would,' came to me, and asked me to put my window down, for his 'wife was sick.' But as I had just observed the good woman munching a bit of mince-pie, I thought that, coming so close upon the segar might possibly offend her stomach more than the fresh, untainted air, so I declined, as courteously as possible, with the answer I have always ready for similar requests, 'that I keep my window open to preserve the lives of the people in the car.' 'That's peculiar!' I heard her murmur; but her serenity was no wise discomposed by my refusal, or her sickness. Surely the imperturbable good-nature of our people is national and peculiar.

By the way, there were notices posted up in these cars, which reminded us that we were near the English Provinces, and under their influence. The notices ran thus: 'Gentlemen are requested not to put their feet on the cushions, and not to spit on the floor, and to maintain a respectable cleanliness. The Conductors are required to enforce these requests.' Must we wait for the millennium to see a like request and like enforcement in our own cars?

We found ourselves surrounded by intelligent people of the country—habitués who gave us all the local information we asked, told us when we came to 'Bryant's Pond,' and that the poor little shrunken stream that still brawled and fretted in its narrowed channel, along which we were gliding, was the Androscoggin. At Gorham, but seven miles from the Glen-House, we found a wagon awaiting passengers, 'the last of the season,' we were told. 'The houses are all closed,' (he spoke technically) added our driver, 'and the cold has already been so tedious that the bubble has burst on Mt. Washington.' 'What! the bubble! What means the man?' exclaimed my father. 'Oh!' said I, 'it is only a poor joke upon some 'nothing venture, nothing have' people who have come here since the company season is past, they have told them the bulb had burst.' 'Oh! the bulb! the bulb!' exclaimed my father; 'oh! that's it, and I don't in the least doubt it' And as we went on slowly making the long ascent, he looked 'sagely sad.' However, Alice was, as she always can be, 'bright without the sun,' and my father kindly protested that the slight sprinkling that, ever and anon, reminded us of our exposure in an open wagon, was no annoyance to him, and he even responded to our exclamations of delight at the wreaths of mist that floated around the mountains, and dropped over their summits, so that our imaginations were not[Pg 429] kept in abeyance by definite outlines, and we were at liberty to fancy them just as high as we wished them. The air was as soft as in the early days of September, and our steeds very considerately lingered, thus prolonging our pleasure, so that we came into the Glen-House with keen appetites, a needful blessing, we thought, when Mr. Thompson, its host, said: 'We are not prepared for company in October, and I don't know that we shall find any thing but pork and beans to give you!' My father looked blank, and blanker yet when we were ushered into a parlor where, instead of finding the crackling wood-fire that we had fancied indigenous in these mountains, there was one of those frightful black stoves that have expelled from our life all the poetry of the hearthstone—but, courage, we can open the stove-door, and see a sparkle of light and life.

10 P.M.—Before bidding you good night, dear Sue, I must tell you 'pour encourager les autres' who may come after us that our scrupulous host performed so much better than he promised, that when we were summoned to our dinner it was served in a cosy little room, as neatly as a home dinner, and hot, which a hotel meal, in the season, never is, and that the ghost of the pork and beans which had terrified us, was exorcised by actual tender chickens, fresh eggs, and plentiful accessories of vegetables and pies; and our man, William, the driver, was converted into a waiter, doing his part as if he were 'native to the manner.'

[N.B.—Our old friend's memorandum was scanty, and so we publish but a small extract from it. We smile at his infirmities—more in love than ridicule—and are not fond of proclaiming them, and only do so in this brief extract to justify our assertion that his traveling temper reminded us of English tourists, who would seem to make it a point to turn their plates bottom-side upward. The father's and daughter's records of the same scenes are both true. The one is the right, the other the wrong side of the tapestry. Strange, that any eye should make the fatal mistake of looking at the last rather than the first.]

September 29th, Anno Domini 18—. —— Left my comfortable lowland home for unknown parts, and known mountain regions of snow and ice. The Lord willing, I am sure of one pleasure—coming home!

Monday Evening.—We had three mortal hours on our hands this morning in Boston. I called on my dear old surviving friends of the —— family. Not one of them, they tell me, has yet risked his life in a rail-car. Wisdom is not extinct! Called on dear Widow O——, who gave me a nice lunch of pickled oysters, rolls and butter, and a glass of old Madeira. Meantime the girls were ranging round studios(?) and picture-shops. This rage for art has come in with the foreign tongues, since my time. Picked them up at a restaurateur's. What a misnomer! What refreshment could be found in the little back-parlor of a shop, with herds coming in and herd going out, and a few faint rays of light stealing in between the windows and the walls of back-buildings surrounding them? Came in the cars to Portland. Dust disgusting! Shall never again see the original color of my coat! Dust laid on inches deep, the continual presence of a mob, and peril to life and limb; death staring you in the face, ready to grab you at any moment. This is what we get by the modern improvement of rail-cars over a gentleman's carriage, with select and elect friends, and leisure to look at a beautiful country! Travelers now are prisoners under sentence of probable death—their jailer being called a conductor. Oh! I cry with my old friend Touchstone: 'When I was at home, I was in a better place!'

Rather a nice house, this of the Misses Jones—old-fashioned, neatness, and comfort. But the lady should not favor us with the company of her guest! Bad butter for tea. And my daughters pronounce the house perfect!

Tuesday Morning.—Bad butter again! could eat nothing.

Tuesday Afternoon.—Happy illustration from a smoking old woman, this morning, of the pleasant accessories of railroad traveling. Found only an open wagon at Gorham, and a rain impending. Convenience of travelers much talked of, but in my opinion, the convenience of those who transport them is alone consulted.

The approach to the mountain, dreary. The girls—Lord, help us!—call it beautiful, sublime! Not very cold, but the driver says the bulb has already burst on Mount Washington! What an arrant old fool I was to propose coming up here! The 'Glen-House closed!' But the landlord graciously, as a favor, 'took us in'—a 'take in' to the tune of his summer-prices, no doubt. Fried salt-ham at dinner, and mince-pie for a supplement!

Went with the girls to walk, and plunged into forest-paths, where, instead of our broad, smiling, home meadows, and orchards, and gardenspots, we could see nothing but the ghostly mountains in their fog-shrouds, and precipices, and uprooted trees, and that plague of our Egypt—Paddies—who are making a road to the summit of Mount Washington, that men, women, and much cattle may be dragged up to see a savage view—ninety-nine times out of a hundred befogged!

Wednesday.—Well, here we are! raining all night, and when I could sleep, haunted by dire mischances, torrents, slides, etc. Waked by a devilish gong! Hot biscuits, potatoes, and corn-bread, on the breakfast-table; could eat none of them. Villainous tea! Raining and sunshining alternately, so that no mortal can tell whether to go or stay; and meantime here am I, sitting by a gloomy window where I can see nothing but these useless mountains. Lord, forgive me! The angels do hover about me, even here, in the shape of my children! Etc., etc., etc.!

The cloudy evening has closed in upon us early. It has been long, but not tedious. We began it with reading aloud The Heir of Redcliffe. It is one of those novels of the day that seem to me to preach, as few preachers do, the true Gospel doctrine. It is so cleverly, so charmingly written, that one is persuaded of the Christian truths of forgiveness and self-sacrifice, vitalized in the lives of Guy and Amy, without one thought or argument bristling up against them, as they sometimes do against the ordained preacher. I will try to imitate Amy in her cheerful submission to a disappointment far heavier than mine—for the husband must be dearer than the lover.

You think me cool, dear friend; I am only trying to be so, and how far I shall succeed I doubt, as a cold shivering runs through my veins as I hear the winds and think of Carl on the ocean.

I laid down my pen. I perceive my father watches me very narrowly. 'My child,' he said, 'you are shaking with cold,' (not with 'cold,' I could have answered;) 'these confounded stoves,' he added, 'keep one in an alternate ague and fever; come, waltz round the room with your sister, and get into a glow.' So, singing our own music, we waltzed till we were out of breath; and Alice has seated herself at picquet with my father, who has a run of luck, 'point! seizieme! and capote!' which puts him into high good humor—and I may write unmarked, and let my thoughts, unbridled, fly off after Carl. He was to write me once more before his embarkation, but I can not get the letter till we return, and I have not the poor consolation of looking over the list of the steamer's passengers and seeing the strange names of those who would seem to me happy enough to be in the same ship with him—and yet, what care they for that! Poor fellow! he will be but sorry company, I know. I find support in the faith that I am doing my duty. He could not see it in that light, and had neither comfort for himself nor sympathy for me. I almost wish now, when I think of him in his desolation, that I could receive the worldly philo[Pg 430]sophy my old nurse offered me when, as Carl drove away, she came into my room and found me crying bitterly. She hushed me tenderly as she was used to do when I was a child; and when I said, 'Hannah, it is for him, not for myself, I feel'—'Oh! that's nothing but a nonsense, child,' she said, 'men an't that way; they go about among folks and get rid of feelings; it's women that stay at home and keep 'em alive, brooding on 'em!' Will he soon 'get rid' of them?

Why should I thus shrink from a consequence I ought to desire? and yet, in my secret soul, I do shrink from it. But perhaps it will be easier as I go on, if it be true that

'Each goodly thing is hardest to begin;
But entered in a spacious court, they see
Both plain, and pleasant to be walked in.'

Wednesday Morning.—My father happened to cast his eye across the table as I finished my last page, and he saw a tear fall on it. Throwing down his cards he said, 'Come, come, children, it's time to go to bed;' and stooping over me, he kissed me fondly, and murmured: 'Dear, good child, I can not stand it if I see you unhappy.' He shall not see me so; I have risen to-day with this resolution.

The rain has been pouring down all night, but at this glorious point of sight, directly under Mount Washington, we are 'equal to either fate,' going on or staying.

Mr. Thompson has again surprised us with a delicious breakfast of tender chickens, light biscuit, excellent bread, fresh eggs, and that rarest of comforts at a hotel, delicious coffee, with a brimming pitcher of cream. We wondered at all these domestic comforts, for we have not heard the flutter of a petticoat in the house till we saw our respectable landlady in spectacles gliding out of the room. We learned from her that she was the only womankind on the 'diggings.' Every thing is neatly done, so we bless our October star for exempting us from the tardy and careless service of chambermaids. While it rains, we walk on the piazza, enjoying the beautiful and ever-varying effects of the clouds as they roll down the mountains, and roll off—like the shadows on our human life, dear Susan, that God's love does often lift from it.

The Glen-House is on the lowest ridge of the hill that rises opposite to Mount Washington, which, as its name indicates, stands head and shoulders above the other summits, having no peer. Madison and Monroe come next, on the left, and then Jefferson, who appears (characteristically?) higher than he is. In a line with Mount Washington, on the other side, are Adams, Clay, etc. These names (excepting always Washington) do not, with their recent political associations, seem quite to suit these sublime, eternal mounts, but as time rolls on, the names will grow to signs of greatness, and harmonize with physical stability and grandeur. Jefferson's head seems quite consistently modeled after an European pattern. It runs up to a sharp point, and wants but accumulated masses of ice to be broken into Alpine angles. My father says there are other passes in the mountains more beautiful than this—none can be grander.

My father has been most sweet and tender to me to-day, dear Susan. Whenever he lays his hand upon my head or shoulder, it seems like a benediction; and Alice is so kind, projecting future pleasures and sweet solaces for me. You know how I love her little girl. To-day, while we were walking, she heard me sigh, and putting her arm around me, she said: 'Will you let Sara come and pass the winter with you and father?' I trust my look fully answered her. I can not yet talk even with her as I do on paper to you—a kind of confidential implement is a pen.

We have all been walking, in the lowering twilight, on the turnpike, which is making by a joint-stock company, up Mount Washington, The road, by contract, is to be finished in three years;[Pg 431] the cost is estimated at sixty-three thousand dollars. The workmen, of course, are nearly all Irishmen, with Anglo-Saxon heads to direct them. The road is, as far as possible, to be secured by frequent culverts, and by macadamizing it, from the force of winter torrents. But that nothing is impossible to modern science, it would seem impossible to vanquish the obstacles to the enterprise, the inevitable steepness of the ascent, the rocky precipices, etc. We amused ourselves with graduating the intellectual development of the Celtic workmen by their answers to our questions: 'When is the road to be finished?' 'And, faith, sir, it must be done before winter comes, down below.' The next replied: 'When the year comes round.' And another: 'Some time between now and niver.' 'Friend,' said I to one of them, 'have you such high mountains in Ireland?' 'Yis, indeed, that we have, and higher—five miles high!' Paddy is never over-crowed. 'Straight up?' I asked. 'By my faith and troth, straight up, it is.' 'In what part of Ireland is that mountain?' 'In county Cork.' 'Of course, in county Cork!' said my father, and we passed on through the débris of blasted rocks, stumps of uprooted trees, and heaps of stones, till we got far enough into the mountain to feel the sublimity of its stern, silent solitude, with the night gathering its shroud of clouds about it, and we were glad to pick our way back to our cheerful tea-table at Mr. Thompson's. We had a long evening before us, but we diversified it (my father hates monotony, and was glad of 'something different,' as he called it) by bowling—my father pitting Alice against me. She beat me, according to her general luck in life.

Thursday Morning, October 6th.—The weather still uncertain, but more beautiful in its effects on these grand mountains, in their October glory, than I can describe to you. They are grand—Mount Washington [A] being higher than Mount Rhigi and Mount Rhigi is majestic even in the presence of Mont Blanc and of the Jungfrau. The rich coloring of our autumnal foliage is unknown in Europe, and how it lights up with brilliant smiles the dark, stern face of the mountains! Even when the sun is clouded, the beeches that skirt the evergreens look like a golden fringe, radiant in the sun; and wherever they are seemingly rippling adown the mountain's side, they make 'sunshine in a shady place.' The maples are flame-colored, and in masses so bright that you can scarcely look steadily on them; and where they are small, and stand singly, they resemble (to compare the greater to the less) flamingos lighted on the mountain-side. Then there is the infinite diversity of coloring—the soft brown, the shading off into pale yellow, and the delicate May-green. None but a White of Selborne, with his delicately-defining pen, could describe them. While we stood on the piazza admiring and exclaiming, the obliging Mr. Thompson brought out a very good telescope, and adjusted it so that our eyes could explore the mountains. He pointed out the foot and bridle-path to the summit of Mount Washington. Various obstacles have prevented our attempting the ascent. If my father would have trusted us to guides, there are none in October, nor trained horses; for as the feed is brought from below, they are sent down to the lowlands as soon as the season is over. Besides, the summits are now powdered with snow, and the paths near the summits slippery with ice. And though I like the scramble, and the achievement of attaining a difficult eminence, I much prefer the nearer, better defined, and less savage views below it. Guided by my landlord, my eye had followed the path past two huge, out-standing rocks which look like Druidical monuments, to the summit of Mount Washington, where I had the pleasure of descrying and announcing the figure of a man. My father and Alice both looked, but could not make it out. I referred to Mr. Thompson, and[Pg 432] his accustomed eye confirmed the accuracy of mine. Mr. Thompson was much exercised with conjectures as to where the traveler came from. He had seen none for the last few days in the mountains except our party, and he naturally concluded the man had made his ascent from the Crawford House. My eye seemed spell-bound to the glass. I mentally speculated upon the character and destiny of the pilgrim who, at this season, and alone, could climb up those steeps. My imagination invested him with a strange interest. He had wandered far away from the world, and above it. There was something in his mind—perhaps in his destiny—akin to the severity of this barren solitude. The spell was broken by a call from my father: 'Come, Mary; are you glued to that glass?' he exclaimed; 'the rain is over, and we are off in half an hour.' And so we were—with Thompson, Jr., for our driver, one of our young countrymen who always make me proud, dear Susan, performing well the task of your inferior, with the capacity and self-respect of your equal. Long live the true republicanism of New-England!

My father had been rather nettled in the morning by what he thought an attempt, on the part of Mr. Thompson, to take advantage of our dependence, and charge us exorbitantly for conveying us thirty-three miles to the Mountain-Notch; but, on talking the matter over with our host, he found that his outlay, with tolls, and other expenses, was such that he only made what every Yankee considers his birthright, 'a good business' out of us; so, my father being relieved from the dread of imposition, was in happy condition all day, and permitted us, without a murmur of impatience, to detain him, while we went off the road to see one of the two celebrated cascades of the neighborhood. It was the Glen Ellis Fall. We compromised, and gave up seeing the Crystal Fall, a half-mile off the road on the other side; and enjoyed the usual consolation bestowed on travelers on like occasions, of being told that the one we did not see was far best worth seeing. However, we hold all these wild leaps of mountain streams to be worth seeing, each having an individual beauty; and advise all who may follow in our traces, to go to the top and bottom of the Glen Ellis.

I have often tried to analyze the ever fresh delight of seeing a water-fall, and have come to the conclusion that it partly springs from the scramble to get at the best and all the points of view, setting the blood in the most sluggish veins to dancing, and, as you know, 'tout depend de la manière que le sang circule.'

I can not describe to you, my dear Susan, the enjoyment of this day's ride. As heart to heart, my father's serenity answered to my cheerfulness, and rewarded it. Our cup was brimming and sparkling. There was a glowing vitality in the western breeze that blew all the clouds from our spirits, and shaped those on the mountain-sides into ever-changing beauty, or drove them off the radiant summits. We laughed, as the vapor condensing into the smallest of hailstones, came pelting in our faces as if the elements had turned boys and threw them in sport! What may not Nature be to us—play-fellow, consoler, teacher, religious minister! Strange that any one wretch should be found to live without God in the world, when the world is permeated with its Creator!

Our level road wound through the Pinkham woods in the defiles of the mountains, and at every turn gave them to us in a new aspect. It seemed to me that the sun had never shone so brightly as it now glanced into the forest upon the stems of the white birches—Wordsworth's 'ladies of the wood'—and danced on the mosaic carpet made by the brilliant fallen leaves. We missed the summer-birds, but the young partridges abounded, and, hardly startled by our wheels, often crossed our path. We saw a fox, who turned and very quietly surveyed us, as if to ask who the barbarians were that so out of season invaded his homestead. One of[Pg 433] us—I will not tell you which, lest you discredit the story—fancying, while the wagon was slowly ascending, to make a cross-cut on foot through some woodland, saw a bear—yes, a bear! face to face, and made, you may be sure, a forced march to the highway. The mountaineers were not at all surprised when we recounted what we fancied a hair-breadth 'scape, but quietly told us that 'three bears had been seen in that neighborhood lately, but bears did no harm unless provoked, or desperately hungry!' It was not a very pleasant thought that our lives depended on the chances of Bruin's appetite.

This meeting with the fox—the Mercury of the woods—and with the bear—the hero of many a dramatic fable—would, in the forests of the Old World, and in prolific Old World fancies, have been wrought into pretty legends or traditions for after-ages. I might have figured as the

set on by the 'ramping beast;' and for the knight? why, it would be easy to convert the wanderer I descried on the summit of Mount Washington, into a lover and deliverer, whose 'allegiance and fast fealty' had bound him to my trail. But, alas! there is no leisure in this material age for fancy-weaving; and all our way was as bare of tradition or fable as if no human footstep had impressed it, till we came to a brawling stream near Davis's, crossing the way, which we were told was called 'Nancy's Brook.' We heard various renderings of the origin of the name, but all ended in one source—man's perjury and woman's trust. A poor girl, some said, had come with a woodsman, a collier, or tree-feller, and lived with him in the mountains, toiling for him, and 'singing to him,' no doubt, 'when she his evening food did dress,' till he grew tired, and one day went forth and did not come back; and day after day she waited, but her Theseus did not return, and she was starved to death on the brink of the little brook that henceforward was to murmur her tragic tale.

The sun was set to us behind the ridge of Mount Willard, when we reached the 'Willey Slide,' and Alice and I walked the last two miles to the 'Mountain Notch.' Just after we alighted from the wagon, and while we were yet close to it, at a turn in the road I perceived a pedestrian traveler before us, who, seeming startled by the sound of our wheels, sprang lightly over the fence. I involuntarily withdrew my arm from Alice's, and stood still, gazing after him for the half-instant that passed before he disappeared in the forest.

'Are you frightened?' said Alice; 'this is a lonely road; shall I hail the wagon?'

'No,' she saw nothing 'but that he was light of foot, and anxious to escape observation.'

I had seen more; I had seen, or my mind being prepossessed by one image, I had shaped the reality to the imagination, as ghost-seers do, and in the pedestrian had seen that form that henceforward is to me as if it had passed the bourne whence no traveler returns. It was a mere fancy. Alice—she is a cautious little woman—was continually looking back, from fear; and I—I may as well confess it—from hope; but we saw nothing more of the traveler. He was truly a fugitive from us—or, more probably, in spite of the gentlemanly graces my imagination had lent him, a collier returning to his shanty in the forest. The apparition had spoiled our twilight walk. The brief twilight of October was shortened by the mountains that rise like walls on either side of the road, and Alice hurried forward, so that we had no time to look for the cascades, and forms of animals, and profiles of men, that we had been forewarned we should see on the hill-sides. The stars were coming out, and the full moon—indicated by the[Pg 434] floods of silver light it sent up from behind Mount Webster—when we passed through the portal of the 'Notch' and came upon the level area where the 'Crawford House' now stands.

Here we found my father, already seated in a rocking-chair by a broad hearthstone and a roaring, crackling fire. And beside these cheering types of home-contentments, he had found a gentleman from the low-country, with whom he was already in animated discourse. The stranger was a fine, intelligent, genteel-looking person, who proved to be a clergyman whom Alice had once before met at the Flume-House. He is a true lover of nature and explorer of nature's secrets, a geologist, botanist, etc., etc., and he most wisely comes up to the high places at all seasons, whenever he feels the need of refreshment to his bodily and mind's eye. Perhaps he finds here an arcana for his theology; and I am sure that after a study here he may go hence a better as well as a wiser man, and better able, by his communings here, to inform and mold the minds of others. No teachers better understood the sources and means of mental power and preparation than Moses and Mohammed; and their studies were not in theological libraries, but in the deepest of nature's solitudes.

Perhaps our friend has no direct purpose beyond his own edification in his rambles in the mountains. He is familiar with every known resort among them, and most kindly disposed to give us thoroughfare travelers information. He made for us, from memory, a pencil-sketch of the peaks to be seen from Mount Willard, with their names. We verified them to-day, and found the outline as true as if it had been daguerreo-typed. An observation so keen, and a memory so accurate, are to be envied.

This house, at the Mountain Notch, is called the Crawford House. The old Crawford House, familiar to the pioneer travelers in this region, stands a few rods from it, or rather did, till the past winter, when it was burned, and its site is now marked by a few charred timbers. Old Crawford's memory will live, as one of these eternal hills bears his name. He lived to a good old age, and for many years in rather awful solitude here, and at the last with some of the best blessings that wait on age, 'respect, and troops of friends.' His son—whose stature, broad shoulders, and stolid aspect bring to mind the Saxon peasant of the middle ages—is driver, in the season, and sportsman in and out of it. He stood at the door this morning as we were driving off to the Falls of the Ammonoosuck, with his fowling-piece in hand, and asked leave to occupy a vacant seat in the wagon. My father was a sportsman in his youth—some forty years ago; his heart warms at the sight of a gun, and besides, I fancy, he had some slight hope of mending our cheer by a brace of partridges; so he very cheerfully acquiesced in Crawford's request. Alice and I plied him with questions, hoping to get something out of an old denizen of the woods. But he knew nothing, or would tell nothing; the 'tongues in trees' were far more fluent than his. But even so stony a medium had power, afterward, to make my heart beat. I was standing near him at the Falls, and away from the rest, and I asked him (Sue, I confess I have been either thinking or dreaming of that 'fugitive' all night) if he had seen a foot-traveler pass along the road last evening or this morning. 'No; there was few travelers any way in October.' He vouchsafed a few more words, adding: 'It's a pity folks don't know the mountains are never so pretty as in October, and sport never so smart!' Was there ever a sportsman the dullest, the most impassive, but he had some perception of woodland beauty? While we were talking, and I was seemingly measuring with my eye the depth of the water, as transparent as the air, my father and sister had changed their position, and come close to me. 'Oh!' said the man, 'I recollect—I did see a stranger on Mount Willard this morning, when I went out with my gun—he was drawing the mountains; a great many of the[Pg 435] young folks try to do it, but they don't make much likeness.'

Perhaps this timely generalization of friend Crawford, prevented my father and Alice's thought following the direction of mine. I know this youth is not Carl Heiner, it is not even possible he should be; and yet, the resemblance that in my one glance I had fancied to perceive to him, and the coincidence of the sketching, had invested him with a power to make my cheeks burn, and my hands cold as ice. I stole off and looked at the deep, smooth cavities the water had welled in the rocks, but I did not escape my sister's woman's eye.

'Mary, dear,' she whispered, when she joined me, 'you are not so strong as you think yourself.'

Dear Susan, if I am not strong, I will be patient; patience, you will say, implies a waiting for something to come; well, let it be so; can a spark of hope live under the ashes I have heaped upon it?

The rocks are very beautiful at these Falls of the Ammonoosuck. The stream which never here can be a river, is now, by the unusual droughts of the summer, shrunken to a mere rill, but even now, and at all seasons, it must be worth the drive to see it. Worth the drive! a drive any where in these hills 'pays'—to borrow the slang of this bank-note world—for itself. It is a pure enjoyment. On our return we repeatedly saw young partridges in our path, nearly as tame as the chickens of the Casse-cour. The whir-r-ing of their wings struck a spark even from our sportsman's eye, and—a far easier achievement—started the blood in my father's veins. The instinct to kill game is, I believe, universal with man, else how should it still live in my father, who, though he blusters like Monkbarns, is very much of an Uncle Toby in disposition. He sprang from the wagon, borrowed Crawford's gun, and reminding Alice and me so much of Mr. Pickwick, that we laughed in spite of our terror lest he should kill, not the partridge, but himself; but, luckily, he escaped unhurt—and so did the bird. Crawford secured two or three brace of them in the course of the morning's drive. I fear we shall relish them at breakfast, to-morrow, in spite of our lamentations over their untimely loss of their pleasant mountain-life. I asked our driver how they survived the winter (if haply they escaped the fowler) in these high latitudes? 'Oh!' he said, 'they had the neatest way of folding their legs under their wings and lying down in the snow.' They subsist on berries and birchen-buds—dainty fare, is it not?

We found a very comfortable dinner awaiting us, which rather surprised us, as our landlord, Mr. Lindsay, a very civil, obliging person, and a new proprietor here, I believe, had promised us but Lenten entertainment; but 'deeds, not words,' seems the motto of these mountaineers.

In the afternoon we drove up Mount Willard; 'straight up Ben Lomond did we press,' but our horses seemed to find no difficulty for themselves, and made no danger for us in the ascent. I shall not attempt to describe the view. I have never seen any mountain prospect resembling that of the deep ravine (abyss?) with its convex mountain-sides. The turnpike-road, looking like a ribbon carelessly unwound, the only bit of level to be seen, and prolonged for miles. The distant mountains that bound the prospect you may see elsewhere, but this ravine, with the traces of the 'Willey Slide' on one side of it, has no parallel. Don't laugh at me for the homeliness of the simile—it suggested a gigantic cradle. Here, as elsewhere, we were dazzled by the brilliancy of the October foliage, and having found a seat quite as convenient as a sofa, though being of rock, not quite so easy, we loitered till the last golden hue faded from the highest summit. And we should have staid to see the effect of the rising moon on the summits, contrasting with the black shadows of night in the abyss, but my father had observed that our driver had neglected the pre[Pg 436]caution of blanketing his horses; and as a mother is not more watchful of a sucking-child than he is of the well-being of animals, it matters not whether they are his own, he begged us to sacrifice our romance to their safety. Alice and I walked down the mountain; it was but a half-hour's easy walk.

I have forborne talking with Alice on the subject that haunts me in spite of myself. I know I have her sympathy and her approval; and that should satisfy me. But this evening, as we were returning, she said:

'Did you feel any electric influence as we sat looking at the view Crawford's 'stranger' sketched this morning?'

Profile House, Saturday Evening.—We have again, to-day, experienced the advantage of these open mountain-vehicles, which are quite as 'roomy' and as easy as the traveling-jails called stagecoaches, which always remind me of Jonah's traveling accommodations. Again, to-day, we have been enchanted with the brilliancy of the foliage. It is just at the culminating point of beauty, and I think it does not remain at this point more than three or four days when you perceive it is a thought less bright. Why is it that no painting of our autumnal foliage has succeeded? It has been as faithfully imitated as the colors on the pallet can copy these living, glowing colors; but those who have best succeeded—even Cole, with his accurate eye, and faithful, beautiful art—have but failed. The pictures, if toned down, are dull; if up to nature, are garish to repulsiveness. Is it not that nature's toning is inimitable, and that the broad overhanging firmament with its cold, serene blue, and the soft green of the herbage, and brown of the reaped harvest-fields, temper to the eye the intervening brilliancy, and that, within the limits of a picture, there is not sufficient expanse to reproduce these harmonies?

Saturday Evening.—We have driven some twenty-three miles—from the Mountain Notch to the Franconian Notch—to-day; the weather has been delicious. The drive has been more prosaic, more commonplace, or approaching to it, than we have before traveled in this hill country. This October coloring would make far tamer scenery beautiful, but I can fancy it very bleak and dismal when 'blow, blow November's winds,' whereas here, at the Franconian Notch, you feel as it were housed and secured by nature's vast fortresses and defences. The 'Eagle's Cliff' is on one side of you, and Mount Cannon (called so from a resemblance of a rock on the summit to a cannon) on the other, and they so closely fold and wall you in, that you need but a poetic stretch of the arms to touch them with either hand; and when the sun glides over the arch in the zenith above—but a four hours' visible course in mid-winter—you might fancy yourself sheltered from the sin and sorrow that great Eye witnesseth.

You will accuse me, I know, dear, rational friend, of being 'exalté,' (vernacular, cracked,) but remember, we are alone in these inspiring solitudes, free from the disenchantment of the eternal buzzing and swarming of the summer-troops that the North gives up, and the South keeps not back.

We were received at the Profile House with a most smiling welcome by Mr. Weeks, the pro tem. host, who promises to make us 'as comfortable as is in his power,' and is substantiating his promise by transferring his dinner-table from the long, uncarpeted dinner-saloon with its fearful rows of bare chairs and tables, to a well-furnished, home-looking apartment, where a fire-place worthy of the middle ages, is already brightened with a hospitable fire. The great rambling hotel is vacant, and its silence unbroken, save by the hastening to and fro of our willing host, who unites all offices of[Pg 437] service in his own person, and the pattering of his pretty little boy's feet—the little fellow following him like his shadow, and, perchance, running away from other shadows in this great empty house. The little fellow makes music to my ear; there is no pleasanter sound than the footsteps of a child.

I left Alice dressing for dinner—I think Alice would perform the ceremonial of a lady if she were shipwrecked on a desert island—and my father awaiting dinner. Dear father is never the pleasantest company at these seasons, when 'time stands still withal,' or rather, to him, keeps a snail's fretting pace. Well, I left them both and went down to the lake, a short walk, to greet the 'Old Man of the Mountain,' as they prosaically call the wonderful head at the very summit of the Headland Cliff, upreared on high over the beautiful bit of water named 'The Old Man's Punch-bowl.' The nomenclature of our country certainly does not indicate one particle of poetry or taste in its people. There are, to be sure, namesakes of the old world which intimate the exile's loving memories, and there are scattered, here and there, euphonious and significant Indian names, not yet superseded by Brownvilles or Smithdales, but for the most part, one would infer that pedagogues, sophomores, and boors, had presided at the baptismal-font of the land. To call that severe Dantescan head, which it would seem impossible that accident should have formed, so defined and expressive is its outline, like the Sphynx, a mystery in the desert—to call it the Old Man of the Mountain, is irreverence, desecration! I and this exquisite little lake, lapped amid the foldings and windings of the mountains, whose 'million unseen spirits' may do the bidding of that heroic old Prospero who presides over it—to call this gem of the forest a 'Punch-bowl,' is a sorry travesty. I paid my homage to him while his profile cut the glowing twilight, and then sat down at the brim of the lake.

——'the leanings
Of the close trees o'er the brim,
Had a sound beneath their leaves.'

I was startled from my musings by a rustling of the branches behind me, and I turned, expecting—not to see a bear or a fox, but my fancies incorporate. The leaves were still quivering, but I saw no apparent cause for so much disturbance. I probably had startled a brace of partridges from their roost. They brought me back to the actual world, and I came home to an excellent dinner, which I found my father practically commending.

Sunday.—My father has brought us up to so scrupulous an observance of the Puritan Sabbath, that I was rather surprised, this morning, by his proposition to drive over to the Flume. His equanimity had been disturbed by finding one of the horses that had brought us here, seemingly in a dying condition. He was one of the 'team' that had taken us on to Mount Willard, and my father had then prophesied that he would suffer from the driver's neglect to blanket him. He was in nowise comforted by the verification of his 'I told you so!' but walked to and fro from the stable, watching the remedies administered, and vituperating all youth as negligent, reckless, and hard-hearted. I think it was half to get rid of this present annoyance that he proposed the drive to the Flume, saying, as he did so: 'These mountains are a great temple, my children; it matters not much where we stand to worship.'

We stopped for a half-hour at a little fall just by the roadside, called by the mountain-folk 'The Basin,' and by fine people, 'The Emerald Bowl,' a name suggested by the exquisite hue of the[Pg 438] water, which truly is of as soft and bright a green as an emerald's. The stream has curiously cut its way through a rock, whitened, smoothed, and almost polished by its fretting, which overhangs the deep, circular bowl like a canopy, or rather, like a half-uplifted lid, its inner side being mottled and colored like a beautiful shell. The stream glides over the brim of its sylvan bowl and goes on its way rejoicing. We loitered here for a half-hour watching the golden and crimson leaves that had dropped in, and that lay in rich mosaics in the eddies of the stream.

The morning was misty, and the clouds were driven low athwart the mountains, forming, as Alice well said, pedestals on which their lofty heads were upreared. No wonder that people in mountainous and misty regions become imaginative, even superstitious. These forms, falling, rising, floating, over the eternal hills, susceptible of heavenly brightness, and deepening into the gloomiest of earth's shadows, spur on fancy and fear to act at will.

I shall not attempt, my friend, to describe this loveliest of all five-mile drives, from the Profile House to the Flume under the Eagle's Cliff, and old 'Prospero,' and beside his lake, and the Emerald Bowl, and then finished by the most curious, perhaps the most beautiful passage we have yet seen in the mountains—'The Flume'—thus called, probably, from a homely association with the race-way of a mill. The ravine is scarcely more than a fissure, probably made by the gradual wearing of the stream. I am told the place resembles the Bath of Pfeffers, in Switzerland. That world's wonder can scarcely be more romantically beautiful than our Flume.

The small stream, which is now reduced to a mere rill by the prolonged droughts, forces its way between walls of rock, upheaved in huge blocks like regular mason-work. Where you enter the passage, it may be some hundred yards wide, but it gradually contracts till you may almost touch either side with your outstretched arms. I only measured the height of the rock-walls with my eye—and a woman's measure is not very accurate—it may be one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet. Tall trees at the summits interlace, and where they have fallen, bridge the passage from one side to the other. Rich, velvety mosses cover the rocks like a royal garment, and wild vines, almost glittering in their autumnal brightness, lay on them like rich embroidery, so that we might say, as truly as was said of the magnificence of oriental nature, that 'Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.'

But how, dear Susan, am I to show the picture to you—the sun glancing on the brilliant forest above us, and the indescribable beauty of the shrubs—golden, and crimson, and fine purple—that shot out of the crevices of the rocks? It is idle to write or talk about it; but only let me impress on you that this enchanting coloring is limited to the first days of October. I am afraid it may be said of scenery as has been said of lover's tête-à-tête talks, that it resembles those delicate fruits which are exquisite where they are plucked, but incapable of transmission. As my father can never enjoy any thing selfishly, he was particularly pleased with the nice little foot-path won from the mountain-side, and the frequent foot-bridges that indicate the numbers that have taken this wild walk before us. My father fancies he enjoys our security from the summer swarms, but the social principle born in him masters his theories.

Alice and I were amused this morning, just at the highest access of our enthusiasm, while we stood under a huge rock wedged in between the two walls, on looking back, to see my father sitting on a bench arranged as a point of sight, not gazing, but listening profoundly, his graceful person and beautiful old head inclined in an attitude of the deepest attention to a loafer who had unceremoniously joined us, and who, as my father afterwards rather reluctantly confessed, was recounting to him the particulars of[Pg 439] his recent wooing of a third Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Brown, or whatever might be her name. And when we returned to our quarters at the Profile House, and came down to dinner, we met our landlord at the door, his face even more than usually effulgent with smiles.

'There has a lady and gentleman come in,' he said, 'and your father has no objection to their dining at table with you?'

His voice was slightly deprecatory; I think he didn't quite give us credit for our father's affability. Of course we acquiesced, and were afterwards edified by our brief acquaintance with the strangers, a mother and son, who had come up from the petty cares of city life for a quiet ramble among the hills to find here

The mother wears widow's weeds, and has evidently arrived at the 'melancholy days.' As we just now sat enjoying our evening fire, 'My hearthstone,' she said, 'was never cold for seventeen years, but there is no light there now. My children are dispersed, and he who was dearest and best lies under the clods. My youngest and I hold together—I can not let him go.'

The loving companionship of a mother and a son who returns to her tenderness the support of his manly arm, never shrinking from the shadows that fall from her darkened and stricken heart, or melting those shadows in his own sunny youth, is one of the consoling pictures of life.

This poor lady seems to have the love of nature which never dies out. It is pleasant to see with what patience her son cares for the rural wealth she is amassing in her progress through the hills, the late flowers and bright leaves and mosses, though I have detected a boyish, mischievous smile as he stowed them away.

We had something approaching to an adventure this evening on Echo Lake, the loveliest of all these mountain lakes, and not more than half a mile from our present inn—the Profile House. Our dear father consented to go out with us, and let Alice and me, who have been well trained at that exercise on our home-lake, take our turns with him in rowing. This lake is embosomed in the forest, and lies close nestled under the mountains which here have varied shape and beautiful outlines. It takes its name from its clear echoes; we called, we sang, and my father whistled, and from the deep recesses of the hills our voices came back as if spirit called to spirit, musical and distinct. You know the root of fascination there is in such a scene. The day had continued misty to the last, the twilights at this season are at best short, and while my father was whistling, one after another, the favorite songs of his youth, we were surprised by nightfall. My father startled us with 'Bless me, girls, what are you about?' (it was he who was most entranced,) 'I can not see our landing-place!'

Neither, with all possible straining, could our younger eyes descry it. We approached as near the shore as we dared, but could go no nearer without the danger of swamping our boat, when suddenly we perceived a blessed apparition, a long white signal flying, made quite obvious in the dim light by a background of evergreens. We rowed toward it with all our might, wondering what kind friend was waving it so eagerly. As we approached near the shore it suddenly dropped and hung motionless, and when we landed we saw no person and heard no footstep. I untied the signal, and finding it a man's large, fine linen handkerchief, I eagerly explored the corner for the name, but the name had evidently just been torn off. Strange! We puzzled ourselves with conjectures. My father cut us short with:

But it was not he; we found him reading to his mother, who said she was just about sending him to look after us.

Thus abruptly ended Mary Langdon's[Pg 440] journal-letter. The reason of its sudden discontinuance will be found in our own brief relation of the experience of the following morning, (Monday,) which we had from all the parties that partook in it.

Our friends were to leave the Profile House on Monday, on their return to the lowlands, to go from there to the Flume House, visit 'the Pool,' and then down to the pretty village of Plymouth, in New-Hampshire.

Mary and her sister rose early, and having a spare half-hour before breakfast, went down to take a last look of Prospero and his 'Bowl.' There they found a crazy, old, leaky boat, with a broken oar, and Mary, spying some dry bits of board on the shore, deftly threw them in and arranged them so that she and her sister could get in dry-shod. Alice looked doubtfully at the crazy little craft and hung back—the thought of husband and children at home is always a sedative—but her eager sister overcame her scruples, and they were soon fairly out from shore in deep water. They went on, half-floating, half-rowing, unconscious of the flying minutes. Not so their father, who after waiting breakfast 'an eternity,' (as he said, possibly some five minutes,) came to the lake to recall them. Just as he came within fair sight of them—for they were not two hundred yards from him—the boat suddenly began whirling round. An eddying wind had sprung from the mountain upon them. The poor father saw their dilemma, and could not help them. He could not swim. He screamed for help, but what likelihood that any one should hear or could aid him?

Alice prudently sat perfectly still. The oar was in Mary's hand. She involuntarily sprung to her feet; her head became giddy; not so much, she afterward averred, with the whirling of the boat as with the sight of her poor old father, and the sense that she had involved Alice in this peril. She plunged the oar into the water in the vain hope, by firmly holding it, of steadying the boat; but she dropped it from her trembling hand, and in reaching after it, she too dropped over into the water, and in her struggle she pushed the boat from her, and thus became herself beyond the possibility of her sister's reach. Her danger was imminent; she was sinking. Her father and sister shrieked to Him—who they believed heard them and sent his Messenger; for a plash in the water, a strong man with wonderful—it seemed superhuman—strength and speed, was making his way toward Mary. In one moment more he had grasped her with one hand. She had still enough presence of mind not to embarrass him by any struggles, and shouting a word of comfort to Alice, he swam to the shore and laid Mary in her father's arms. He then returned to the boat, and soon brought it to shore.

There are moments of this strange life of ours not to be described—feelings for which language is no organ. While such a moment sped with father and daughters, their deliverer stood apart. The father gazed upon his darling child, satisfying himself that 'not a hair' had perished, but she was only 'fresher than before;' and, as he afterward said, 'fully recovering his wits,' he turned to thank the preserver of his children. He was standing half-concealed behind a cluster of evergreens.

'Come forward, my dear fellow,' he said, 'for God's sake, let me grasp your hand!'

'Oh! come,' urged Mr. Sandford, 'never mind your shirt-sleeves—it's no time to be particular about trifles.'

What immediately followed was not told me. But there was no after-coldness or reluctance on the part of the good father. His heart was melted and fused in affection and gratitude for his daughter's lover. His prejudices were vanquished, and he was just as well satisfied as if they had been overcome by the slower processes of reason and conviction.[Pg 441]

The truth was, the old gentleman was not to be outdone in magnanimity. Mary's filial devotion had prepared him to yield his opposition, and he confessed that he had, in his own secret counsel with himself, determined to recall Heiner at the end of another year, if he proved constant and half as deserving as his foolish girl thought him. But Prospero—as Mary called the Old Man of the Mountain—had seen fit to take the business into his own hands, and setting his magic to work, had stirred up a tempest in his Punch-Bowl, just to bring these young romancers together. But by what spell had he conjured up the lover, just at the critical moment?

Heiner confessed, that not being able to get off in the steamer of the twenty-ninth, as he had purposed, he had delayed his embarkation for ten days, and the magic of love—really the only magic left in our prosaic world—had drawn him to the White Mountains, where he might have the happiness (a lover, perhaps, only could appreciate it) of breathing the same atmosphere with Mary, and possibly of now and then getting a glimpse of her. Thus he had stood on the summit of Mount Washington when, by some mysterious magnetism, she was gazing through the glass; thus he narrowly escaped detection near the Willey Slide; and preceding her by a few hours on Mount Willard, he was in time at the Echo Lake to signalize her, and by a good providence had been present at her hour of need on the magic domain of 'The Old Man of the Mountain.'

It was flood-tide in the old gentleman's heart. Mary's affairs ripened rapidly. They seemed to me well typified by one of my Malmaison rose-buds that I have watched slowly growing through the ungenial May-days, drooping under a cold rain, suddenly expand into luxurious perfection with a half-day's June sunshine. The happy future was already arranged. The thrice-blessed October sun was to shine upon the bridal festival, and then Mary was to go with her husband, and accompanied by her father, to pass a year in Europe. 'Mary and I are already wedded,' said he to me, with a smile of complete satisfaction; 'we only take this young fellow into the partnership.'

It was a bright day in the outer and inner world when we separated. And thus ended our October visit to the White Hills of New-Hampshire, but not our gratitude to Him who had held us

If our young friend has imperfectly sketched the beauties of the mountains, she has exaggerated nothing. We hope our readers—though, alas! perchance over-wearied now—may make the complete tour of these White Hills, including, as it should, the enchanting sail on Lake Winnipiseogee, the beautiful drive by North-Conway, and the ascents of Kiarsarge, Chicoma, Mount Moriah, and the Red Mountain.

THE LAST TOAST.

'Quick! fill up our glasses, comrade true!
I hear the reveille,' he fainting said;
'O brave McClellan! I drink to you!'
His glass lay broken—the soldier was dead.
[Pg 442]

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-TWO.

Alone at her window a maiden sat,
And toward the South looked she,
Over the field, over the flood,
Over the restless sea.
My Love, she said, he wanders far,
He may not come to me.
To and fro, to and fro,
Sweeps the tide in ebb and flow:
You and I, ah! well we know
How hope and fear may come and go.

With folded hands the maiden sat;
Her work beside her lay;
She saw the dusty, lengthening miles,
A weary, weary way,
Dullest links of a leaden chain,
Unfolding, day on day.
To and fro, to and fro,
Breaking waves in restless flow:
You and I, ah! well we know
How hope and fear may come and go.

My Love, she said, he wanders far
Over the Southern sea;
Nor Paris gay, nor ancient Rome,
Could keep my love from me.
The good ship drives through the misty night
With the black rocks under the lea.
To and fro, to and fro,
Winter storms may come and go:
You and I, ah! well we know
Hope of good and fear of woe.

I would, she said, I were by his side,
Fighting on sea and land;
Harder by far the folded hands,
Than in battle light to stand—
Stand with the faithful knights of God,
Afar on the Southern sand.
To and fro, to and fro,
Spring may come, but spring must go:
You and I, ah! well we know
Change is stamped on all below.

My Love, she said, is every man
Who girds him for the fight,
By fortressed coast or Western wood,
[Pg 443]To battle for the Right.
Be still, my heart, the end is sure;
From darkness cometh light.
To and fro, to and fro,
The watchful sentries come and go:
You and I, ah! well we know
Rifle-shot of unseen foe.

I glory with my Love, she said,
My heart beats quick and high
When captured fort or well-fought field
Echoes the victor cry
Of those who know 'like men to live,
Or hero-like to die.'
To and fro, to and fro,
Summer's smiles and winter's snow:
You and I, ah! well we know
Faith may fail and doubt may grow.

I mourn my Love with bitter tears,
Lying on many a plain;
Above him sighs the winter wind
And weeps the summer rain—
The nation's holy ground, where low
Her martyr sons are lain.
To and fro, to and fro,
Man must reap as well as sow:
You and I, ah! well we know
Grain shall to the ripening grow.

Though long miles lie between, I stand
Beside my Love, she said;
No couch of roses, wet with dew,
The wounded soldier's bed,
When fever-flushes, crown of thorns,
Rest on the martyr's head.
Soft and low, soft and low,
Woman's footsteps come and go:
You and I, ah! well we know
Woman's love and woman's woe.

With folded hands the maiden sat,
And toward the South looked she,
Over the field, over the flood,
Over the restless sea.
And I shall go to my love, she said,
Though he may not come to me.
To and fro, to and fro,
Sweeps the tide in ebb and flow:
You and I, ah! well we know
Death brings peace to all below.
[Pg 444]

FLOWER-ARRANGING.

I want to speak of the art of arranging flowers. Of the art, I say, for it is one. Do any of my readers comprehend the fact? They certainly would, had they dawdled away hours more than grave moralists would approve, fussing with me over the darlings of garden and greenhouse.

Don't come to the conclusion now, that I am in the habit of making up those small, round, or flat, stiff bouquets to be obtained for a compensation (not slight) from market-gardeners and the like. I repudiate the artificialities! Who wants camellias tied on false stems? Who would be thankful for such a mosaic of 'nature's gems'? Mosaic, that's the word exactly for such French bouquets. And gems, in truth, far too stony in their setting for blithe springing blossoms! I'll have nothing to do with such abominations.

No; I mean by the 'art of flower-arranging' that process by which the various characteristics of flowers are brought out and combined according to artistic rules. Does this sound metaphysical or—æsthet-i-cal? Why is the effect produced by the 'bunch of posies' stuck clumsily into a broken-nosed pitcher on the kitchen window-sill, different from that of the same carefully disposed in an elegant receptacle on the drawing-room table? The nosegay is bright and fragrant in either place. Why then do not the plebeian and patrician bouquets equally please? In the one case, you say, the charms are inharmoniously dispersed, and nearly neutralized by meaner surroundings, while in the other they are enhanced by every advantage of position and appropriate accessories. Should you not be grateful, then, for the working of my theory of development and manifestation? Would you now like to understand a little its operation?

Welcome, then, to whatever benefit can be derived from my limited experience. I am a humble student in floral architecture, and I offer my few suggestions to fellow-pupils, to those who aim unsuccessfully at home adornment, whose utmost skill often only attains sublime failures—not to the geniuses in the art.

Frankly, submissively I acknowledge there are persons who, guided only by native taste and sense of harmony, accomplish beautiful results without hesitation or thought. Their flowers obey the slightest touch with nice subservience, falling into their most exquisite combinations of color and form.

It would be superfluous to dictate to those thus gifted, but some of the unfortunates destitute of the divine intuition may be aided by the plain directions following. I may venture to hope that the judicious application of them will prevent the appearance of, perhaps, several ugly bouquets in the world.

My first maxim has reference to vases. They should, for the most part, be simple in design and uniform in tint. Avoid 'fishy' mouths, too wide for their (the vases') hight. Never put Lilliputian flowers, in no matter how large a quantity, into Brobdignagian vessels. In other respects, endeavor to adapt your boxes to the character of your flowers. For dahlias, flat dishes will be found very convenient, spread with broad, green leaves.

Secondly. Do not put flowers of different shades of the same color side by side, any more than you would wear hues as discordant together on your person.

Thirdly. Be very careful with the foliage employed. Too much hides the flowers; too little does not relieve them. Drooping green vines, etc., are always available.

Last, but by no means least, mass your colors. This rule is now often adopted on a larger scale in laying out flower-beds, and it is very important. It gives concentration and force to bou[Pg 445]quets, and effectually prevents their not uncommon patchwork appearance.

If these dicta seem to any one ridiculously self-evident, he may take it for granted he is one of the geniuses, for whose service they are not promulgated. For their efficacy, behold some bouquets.

A small, plain Parian pitcher, bearing sprays of orange-leaves and blossoms, one full-blown, deep red camellia, solid, heavy, looking as if carved from coral-stained ivory, many pendent abutilus, and some graceful vine curled negligently round the handle. How like you le tout ensemble!

Look again: A small vase, light buff in color, holding roses—red and white—relieved by pansies, of intermingled purple and golden dyes, and by sprigs of the lemon verbena, of dainty heaths, mignonette, heliotrope, and geranium-leaves.

See this, also: A ground-glass vase, containing a perfect white camellia, the daphneodora, and fuchsias, crimson and white.

And this: A slender, tall vase of the ruby Bohemian glass, with varieties of the colceolaria, their tiny purses specked with brown, from light tan to velvety maroon.

These, it will be seen, are all medium-sized bouquets. Larger ones, requiring more material, are not so easy to describe. Some summer flowers found in every garden—the double stocks (gilli-flowers) blend their varied shades finely with the glittering coreopsis, the sombre mourning-bride, and the violet cerulean Canterbury bells.

In winter, with ample resources, one can produce masterpieces. What think you of callas—their frozen calm kindled by the ruddy flush of azaleas, and their superb stateliness opposed by the flexile vivacity of the feathery willow acacia? The same white lilies, or their deliciously sweet July representatives, are contrasted well with scarlet geranium, vivid and glowing, or with the flames of the cactus, and toned down by the bluish lavender of the wistaria. This makes a bouquet eminently suited for church—its colors forming Ruskin's sacred chord, and typifying the union of purity, love, and faith.

Flowers on the altar are most appropriate and significant, but strict attention should be paid to their symbolism. For the communion-table there are lilies of the valley, and in its season, the rosy snow of the blooming fruit-trees. Nor must the passion-flower be forgotten—and against its mystic darkness set the china pink clusters of the oleander. If they are not procurable, substitute great half-opened rose-buds, deepest pink and cream-color, and add the broken stars of the stephanotis. This last, twined among the glossiest and darkest leaves of the rhododendron, forms a fitting crown for the gray hairs of the dead, passing away in fullness of years and of honors.

Chrysanthemums brought by November, and half-faded, as it were, in the waning light, are most meet offerings for the departing year to lay at the holy shrine.

Thus much for spiritual flowers. Others there are in contrast, material merely, hearty, substantial, and robust. I take singularly to all such, calumniated as vulgar. And why not keep a corner in our souls for the common and every-day, as for the elegant and rare?

There is a noon of sharp, bustling matter-of-fact, as well as a morn of high, noble aspiration, and an eve of hushed and solemn reverie. It is in the noon, too, that our active life takes place; why not enjoy ourselves then, as only it is possible? So why not allow certain lower faculties of our nature to delight in what are called the grosser flowers? Why not cultivate their acquaintance, as we would that of motherly, kind, portly, and phlegmatic old ladies, rustling in their silks and satins, with a comfortable complacency, satisfied with their own share of fortune's goods, and benevolently disposed toward their less favored neighbors?

To be sure much can not be said of the artistic capabilities of some of these[Pg 446] cronies. One does not care to transfer marigolds, poppies, lilacs, phlox, cockscomb, and cabbage-roses from their own garden-homes to the more elevated sphere of domestic life. But snow-balls, 'flaunting' petunias, double hollyhocks, China asters, and tulips, they certainly are available. By the way, what business have the juvenile story-books to stigmatize tulips as vain and proud? The splendid things have a right to be conscious of their glorious clothing. Who gave it them? And dahlias, what purples, crimsons, and oranges they boast! Formal they may be, but, at least in Yankee parlance, handsome, and when arranged with woodbine-leaves October's earliest frosts have painted, can there be a finer expression of the season of autumn?

In this connection one remembers Miss Mitford and her charming history of the loss of her yellow pride—the Apollo among dahlias. Lovable Miss Mitford! how pleasant would have been a flower-talk with her!

Now, having owned to so many shockingly low tastes, no one would, I presume, be surprised to hear me avow a penchant for sun-flowers and peonies, dear old-fashioned creatures that they are! Shall I plead in excuse for my weakness for the coarsest of the flowers yet another reason? They form to me, in their extent of surface and fullness of color, the nearest approach our chilly New-England can make to the blaze and vitality of the Southern flora. And I so long for the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics, the gorgeous magnificence I have never seen—even the magnolia has only been disclosed to my dreams.

I would not disparage delicate and fragile flowerets, though I am so infatuated by their brilliant sisters. They are lovely to examine, and, as individuals, very precious, but in my opinion useless for decorative purposes. In a body they confuse one another, and you can not mass their colors.

This remark is also very applicable to wild flowers, which, moreover, be they large or small, possess additional disqualifications for proper arrangement. They are not at ease in cultivated atmospheres. Violets and anemones—their sacredness, innocence, and peace—require the soothing airs of woodland solitudes. Drawn from secret nooks and haunts into the garish day, they droop and pine, they cry forlornly: 'We are weary, we are dying; take us home to rest again!' There is the blood-red cardinal-flower. Bold enough surely, you say. Wade, stretch, and leap, and seize at last in triumph the coveted prize. A new difficulty! The spikes are so rough, jagged, and stiff, there is no welding of them together. You wish them back in their burning bush. The fringed blue gentian, too, has very troublesome appendages. It is prettiest in its pasture-built place, opening to the welcome breezes its azure petals. Besides, there is where Bryant wishes it to remain, and certainly his desire should have some weight with us.

Some mortifications, therefore, it has been seen, attend on the pursuit of the art of flower-arranging. These are but the beginning of sorrows, nevertheless. Many others might be mentioned, vexations consequent on the constitution of the subjects themselves.

It is a melancholy fact that life and beauty can not be preserved in them without water. On grand, temporary occasions it may answer for the artist to disregard this natural law, but it would be an excess of barbarity to do thus often. There ought to be no more martyrs for the sake of effect than can be helped.

But now ensues the tug of war. How make stems of all lengths stand in the most desirable position and yet all touch the water? Sometimes a shorter one must stand above a longer one, when it is impossible to bathe its feet in the refreshing liquid. Sink the longer then; cut it off. Each experiment will bring annoyance, as the tyro may find as he plods on in his task. Short-stemmed flowers make 'chunky' bouquets, every one knows. Another trouble is occasioned by the froward behavior of flow[Pg 447]ers. Never a woman among the sex could be at times so fickle and perverse. I am not prepared to maintain the theory of a higher nature in plants than the merely physical. It is enough for me to cling to an enormous heresy with respect to animals. Against the fiat of Christendom I will persist in granting them the semblance of a soul. I will swallow the old creed about flowers. Still, wherever they get them, they do exhibit tantalizing qualities. Perverse? That verbena knows perfectly where she ought to go, where, in the goodness of your heart, you are striving to place her, but how obstinately she resists, slipping finally, in utter rebellion, from your fingers. Fickle? How docile was the same verbena yesterday. Nay, it was of her own accord she assumed the pretty position you want to see again. You did not think or care about it then.

With all one's minor trials, who would regret time spent in such delightful labors? I have tasted so many pleasures in my devotion hitherto, that perhaps I should be content. Yet to look upon grand floral decorations; to behold wreath-encircled pillar and arch in lordly halls, and baskets piled and pyramids raised from the wealth of fairy-land conservatories!—on spectacles like these I hope to feast my senses some future day.

Some one may ask: 'You who enjoy so fully flowers, who hang over them in such transport when gathered, have you no interest in their cultivation? no care to watch their growth? no love for gardening, in short?' No! I reply; very little. I am satisfied to take the results of others' exertions. I have no wish to plod i' the mold,' not the slightest objection to others doing that business for me. I am too indolent to like out-door work very well; much too fond of late rising to enjoy weeding, digging, etc., in the early morning air. I think likely I ought to feel differently, but I don't. Suffer me to inquire why people insist on peeping behind the scenes of nature's stage, when she seems to take such pains to conceal her 'modus operandi'? Let me not be too sweeping, however. There is one kind of floriculture I could fancy. Plants reared in winter in the house, snatched from the biting cold, must be so caressingly tended! Vines, too, how precious they become—every tiny tendril regarded with such tenderness, and as the clinging branches wind in light festoons round parent shell or basket, so do they grasp the cords of the affections and twine exultingly around them.

Hyacinths also are pleasant to sight and smell in warm, cheerful rooms when fast without fall drifting snows. It is the happiness of education, of association, of possession, that such plants afford. They are endeared inversely to their number, it may be—the solitary shrub being as the one ewe lamb. This joy in flowers differing thus materially from my pleasure in their artistic elements.

Ah! when shall I stop? The civil public will be wearied out ere long, and so much has been left unsaid on my inexhaustible theme! When was a lover ever known to tire—himself? A lover! Here conscience has a word of reproach, 'Thou a lover, so unjust in thy self-conceit? Bringing down thy goddesses to be in truth very idols, the work of thy own hands—prating presumptuously of thy power over their immortal glories!'

Can eloquence be mine to fitly tell of the mighty influence of the flowers? Shall I say that, without their 'laughing light,' this world would be a dreary, lonesome place? It is a trite and tedious exclamation—an axiom past disputing.

Shall I join in the grateful song resounding over every land; in homage to the blessing-laden blossoms? Lips long used to wailing swell that chorus loudest, for it was the sunshine caught in buttercup or dandelion that turned so many darkened faces in sudden smiles to heaven. Ah! they are the forms wasted[Pg 448] and bowed down by anguish, that stoop most meekly, thankfully, only to lie where the daisies can grow over them.

Shall I strive to spell the lesson written by the green earth's flowery tracery?

Long, long ago One read that lore in love, and the lilies of the field but give it back to us to-day.

Here pondering, one thought of awe, yet rapture, thrills through my soul. If to our poor humanity such honeyed drops of healing do earth's frailest flower-cups yield, how cool, how crystal-clear the nectar from amaranth and asphodel distilled for those

'Who walk in soft white light, with kings and priests abroad;
Who summer high in bliss upon the hills of God!'

SOUTHERN HATE OF THE NORTH.

A fact which stands broadly out on the page of our current history is the intense and peculiar hatred wherewith the people of the North are generally regarded by those engaged in the Southern rebellion. That it is a fact, is established by the concurrent testimony of the whole insurgent press and of our soldiers returned from Southern captivity, and nearly all those, whether in civil or military life, who have visited the States deeply infected with the virus of Secession. Probably never before were prisoners of war in a civilized country subjected to so much obloquy and vituperation from women and children as our captured volunteers in the South during the past year. Hate of the abhorred 'Yankees,' scorn and the loathing of 'Lincoln's hirelings,' detestation of the mean, sordid, groveling, mercenary spirit of the Northern masses, have been the burden of Southern oratory and journalism for the last eighteen months. No devilish hate expressed in Milton's magnificent epic surpasses in intensity, however it may in dignity and genuine force, that which is breathed through every oracle of Southern popular sentiment. And this is insisted on by Southern letter-writers and journalists as demonstrating the impossibility of 'reconstruction.' 'How can those who hate each other so implacably ever again be one people? What use in seeking to restore a Union which hereafter can, at best, be but the result of overwhelming force on the one side, and utter subjugation on the other?'

But the assumption of mutual hate between the Northern and the Southern masses is utterly groundless. Nothing in the attitude, the bearing, the utterances, of the loyal millions affords it any justification or countenance. So far are they from cherishing any such aversion to the Southern people, that they can with difficulty, and but inadequately, comprehend the malignity wherewith they are regarded by the revolters, without feeling the smallest desire to reciprocate it. That the Rebellion itself should be regarded with general reprobation throughout the Free States was inevitable, for, in the first place, it involves a most flagitious breach of faith. Republican liberty rests on an implied but essential compact that the result of a fair election shall be conclusive. If those who lose an election are thereupon to rush to arms for a reversal of the decision of the ballot-box, then elections are a stupid sham, whereon no earnest person will waste his breath or his suffrage. Why should any one devote his time and effort to secure a political result which those overborne by it will set at defiance the next hour? It is not merely Jefferson or Adams, Jackson or Lincoln, who is defied by a revolt like that now raging in this coun[Pg 449]try; it is the principle of Popular Elections—it is the right of a constitutional majority to govern. Concede that the Southern States were justifiable in seceding from the Union because Lincoln (with their connivance) was chosen President, and it were absurd ever to hold another Presidential Election, or ask any man to vote hereafter. The North certainly feels that the principle of government by constitutions and majorities is assailed by this rebellion, and that to concede its rightfulness is to displace the very corner-stone of republican liberty.

The North feels also that commercial dishonesty was potent among the influences which fomented this rebellion. Bankruptcy almost universal—planters immersed in debt for lands, for negroes, for food, for fabrics—merchants overhead in debt to the importers and jobbers of the Northern sea-ports—every one owing more or less, and few able or willing to pay: such was the general pecuniary condition of the South at the outset of this subversion. It is no libel on the South to say that relief from the pressure of over-due obligations was primarily sought by an immense number, in plunging into the abyss of revolution. And a great proportion of the Southern merchants, with full intent to defraud their creditors, by lighting the flames of civil war, in 1860 swelled their indebtedness to their Northern friends to the utmost. This was low knavery seeking protection behind the black mantle of treason. If the facts could be fully laid bare, it would be found that disinclination to pay their honest debts has transformed vast numbers from Unionists into traitors. The North can never respect those who seek to slay their creditors, that they may evade their moral as well as legal obligation to pay them.

Nor can the loyal millions respect those who, in setting forth the grounds of their rebellion, and essaying to justify themselves in the eyes of the civilized world, do not hesitate to deny the most palpable truths. The rebel who rests on the inherent or reserved right of each State to secede from the Union at her sovereign pleasure, is a bad logician, and unsound in his constitutional theories; but he is not necessarily a knave. But the rebel apologist who says to Europe, 'This revolt was not impelled by Slavery, but by hostility to the policy of Protection, Internal Improvements, etc., which the North had power in the Union to fasten upon us in defiance of our utmost opposition,' he shows himself a dissembler and a liar. There was no tariff when the Cotton States seceded—there had been none for many years—which those States had not heartily aided to enact. For not more than ten years of the eighty-odd of our existence as a nation, has there been a tariff in operation that South-Carolina did not help enact and sustain. The tariffs which are now trumped up as an excuse for Secession, not only had no existence when that Secession was inaugurated, but could have had none had the Cotton States remained faithful to their constitutional obligations. When, therefore, such men as Lieutenant Maury assure Europe that Slavery did not incite the Southern Rebellion—that it had but a remote and subordinate relation to that outbreak—they betray their own recklessness of truth, and their knowledge that their case is one which can not abide the scrutiny and the dispassionate judgment of Christendom.

But the Southern Whites hate us vehemently. That is unfortunately true of what would seem to be a large majority of them. Misled by artful demagogues—excited by charges of Northern rapacity, perfidy, outrage, and venom, to which no contradiction in their hearing is permitted—the Poor Whites of the South really believe that the North is waging against them an unprovoked and fiendish, war of subjugation and rapine. Of course, they abhor us, and invoke all manner of curses on our heads. But their hatred rests upon and is impelled by egregious falsehoods, and will vanish when those falsehoods shall have been exposed and their influence dissipated.[Pg 450] The Whisky Rebels of Western Pennsylvania intensely hated the rule of George Washington; but their rebellion being crushed, all trace of the bitterness it engendered soon faded away.

As to the aristocracy of the South, it understands the case far better, though individuals among its members are misled. The majority are fighting for the extension and perpetuation of that Heaven-defying system which is at once the idol and the bane of the South—for that 'peculiar institution' which makes one half the community helpless victims to the pride, indolence, avarice, and lust of the other half. The aristocracy are fighting for Slavery—neither less nor more—and they fight bravely, desperately. Their existence as a privileged order has been recklessly staked on the issue of the contest, and they mean to triumph at any cost. To suppose that they can be vanquished yet leave their bloody idol intact—that they can be compelled to reënter 'the Union as it was,' and send their Slidells, Hammonds, Howell Cobbs, and Masons, back to a Union Congress—is one of the wildest dreams that ever flitted through a sane mind. Reunion or Disunion is possible; a restoration of 'the Union as it was,' is as impracticable as a return of the Eleventh Century or a replacement of the New World in the condition wherein Columbus found it.

The Southern aristocracy must triumph or cease as an aristocracy to exist. A flogged slaveholder is an anomaly that can not endure; he can not rule his chattels if they know that he has succumbed to a force that he would gladly have defied but could no longer resist. 'Poor White trash' may endure and repay the contempt of their servile neighbors, but a man-owning aristocracy that has fought and been vanquished, can no longer command the respect or the obedience of its chattels.

The issue of our present struggle must be Disunion or Emancipation. And, assuming it to be Emancipation, the hate wherewith the North is regarded at the South would soon die out. New social and industrial relations and interests, new activities, new ambitions, would speedily efface all painful recollections of our desperate struggle. The late slaveholders, having ceased to be such, would no longer be controlled by the impulses nor plastic to the influences which impelled them to rush upon the thick bosses of the Union. They would find in the rapid peopling of their section by immigration from the North and from Europe, and the consequent increase in current value of the lands, timber, mines, water-power, etc., of their Section, new avenues to wealth, new incitements to activity and energy. Shays' rebellion engulfed the greater part of Western Massachusetts; but ten years passed, and it had sunk into a mere tradition. La Vendée was more unanimous and more intense in its hostility to the French Republic than any Southern State now is to a restoration of the Union; yet La Vendée soon after responded meekly to the conscriptions of Napoleon. War alienates and inflames; but Peace speedily re-links the golden chain of mutual interests, and all is kindly again.

Let Slavery disappear, and all incitement to alienation or bitterness between the North and the South will have vanished. God has made them for parts of the same country; their diverse topographies, climates, productions, render them the natural complement of each other. The Cotton, Sugar, Tobacco, etc., of the South will be freely exchanged, as of yore, for the Manufactures, Machinery, and Implements of the North: the former gradually learning to supply her own essential wants to an extent hitherto unknown; but the rapid increase of her population, industry, and wealth, will render her a wider and steadier market for the products of the latter and of Europe than she has ever yet been. The South will soon realize that the death of Slavery has awakened her to a new and nobler life—that what she at first regarded as a great calamity and a downfall, was in truth her beneficent renovation and her chief[Pg 451] blessing. So shall North and South, at length comprehending and appreciating each other, walk hand in hand along their common pathway to an exalted and benignant destiny, admonished to mutual forbearance and deference by mournful yet proud recollections of their great struggle, and realizing in their newly established and truly fraternal concord the opening of a long, bright vista of reciprocal kindness and inviolable peace.

A MERCHANT'S STORY.

CHAPTER IV.

It was five years after the events recorded in the previous chapter, when, one day late in October, I started on my annual tour among the Southern correspondents of the mercantile-house of which I was then a member. Arriving at Richmond shortly after noon, I took a hasty meal at the wretched restaurant near the railway-station, and, with a segar in my mouth, seated myself on a trunk in the baggage-car, to proceed on my journey. As the train moved off from the depot, a hand was placed on my arm, and a familiar voice said:

Looking up, I saw Mr. Robert Preston—or, as he was known among his acquaintance, 'Squire Preston of Jones'—a gentleman whose Northern business I had transacted for several years. He had been on a visit to some Virginia relatives, and was returning to his plantation on the Trent, about twenty miles from Newbern. Though I had never been at his home, he had often visited mine, and we were well—in fact, intimately acquainted. I soon explained that I was on the way to New-Orleans, and mentioned that I might, on my return, find the route to his plantation. He urged me to visit it at once, and I finally consented to do so. We rode on by the cars as far as Goldsboro, and there, after a few hours' rest, and a light breakfast of corn-cake, hominy, and bacon, took seats on the stage, which then was the only public conveyance to Newbern.

Preston was an intelligent, cultivated gentleman, and, at that time, appeared to be about thirty-three years of age. He was tall, athletic, and of decidedly prepossessing appearance; and, though somewhat careless in his dress, had a simple dignity about him that is not furnished by the tailor. The firm lines about his mouth, his strong jaw, wide nostrils, and large nose—straight as if cut after a bevel—indicated a resolute, determined character; but his large, dreamy eyes—placed far apart, as if to give fit proportion to his broad, overhanging brows—showed that his nature was as gentle and tender as a woman's. He spoke with the broad Southern accent, and his utterance was usually slow and hesitating, and his manner quiet and deliberate; but I had seen him when his words came like a torrent of hot lava, when his eyes flashed fire, his thin nostrils opened and shut, and his whole frame seemed infused with the power and the energy of the steam-engine.

Educated for the ministry, in early life he had been a popular preacher in the Baptist denomination, but at the date of which I am writing, he was devoting himself to the care of his plantation, and preached only now and then, when away from home, or when the little church at Trenton was without a pastor. Altogether he was a man to be remarked upon, A stranger casually meeting him, would turn back, and involuntarily ask: 'Who is he?'

Only five of the nine seats inside the stage were occupied, but as the day,[Pg 452] though cold, was clear and pleasant, we mounted the box, and took the vacant places beside the driver. That worthy was a rough, surly character, with a talent for profanity truly wonderful. His horses were lean, half-starved quadrupeds, with ribs protruding from their sides like hoops from a whisky-barrel, and he accounted for their condition, and for the scarcity of fences on the highroad, by saying that the stage-owners fed them on rails; but I suspected that the constant curses he discharged at them had worried the flesh off their bones, and induced the fences to move to a more godly latitude.

On the top of the coach, coiled away on a pile of horse-blankets, was a woman whose skin and dress designated her as one of the species of 'white trash' known in North-Carolina as 'clay-eaters.' She was about thirty years of age, and if her face had been bleached, and her teeth introduced to a scrubbing-brush, might have passed for being tolerably good-looking. After a number of preliminary cracks of the whip, and sundry oaths and loud shouts administered to the 'leaders,' the driver got under way, and we were soon jolting—at a speed of about four miles an hour—over the 'slews' and ruts made by the recent rains. Shortly after we started the woman said to me:

I was about to say I had none, when Preston handed her a paper of 'Richmond Sweet.' Without pausing to thank him, she coolly stuffed nearly a half of it into her mouth. My companion did not seem at all surprised, but I remarked:

'Let me give you a segar,' I said, taking one from my pocket, and slyly winking at Preston.

'I never smokes them sort o' things; I takes nat'rally ter pipes—did when I'se a gal,' she replied, ejecting a mouthful of saliva of the same color as her skin.

'This gentleman,' said the Squire, smiling, 'isn't fully up to our ways. He thinks it queer that women chew tobacco.'

'Quar thet wimmin chaws! Han't the' as much right ter as ye? I reckon what's good fur th' gander'll do fur th' goose!

The woman kept on expectorating for a time, when she again spoke to my companion:

'Ye doan't know a feller down thar called Mulock, I doan't s'pose—Bony Mulock?'

'Yas. He put eöut nine year ago, and I han't heerd nor seed nary a thing on him sence, till a spell back. But I'll stick ter him this time, like a possum ter a rail. He woan't put eöut no more, ye kin bet high on thet!'

'Wall, I thort he moight hev—but she'll lean, raather sudden, I reckon. What is she—white or nigger?'

'Wall, I goes for a 'ooman's hevin' har own. When he put eöut I swore ter gol I'd foller 'im as soon as I got on his trail, ef I hed ter go to h—ll fur it!'

The low vulgarity of the woman disgusted me, and it seemed to have the[Pg 453] same effect on the Squire, for he turned his back on her when she made the last remark. Not appearing to notice his manner, she said, after a moment:

'Bony was taken up a while back, for buying turpentine of the negroes. I reckon he's in jail yet.'

'Yas, I heerd uv thet—thet's how I treed 'im. Cunnel Lamsin—nigh on ter me—he seed it in the paper. I know'd 'im by th' Bonaparty. "When'll he be mauled?'

'It'll do 'im good; I'd given 'im more'n thet. He war allers up ter dealin' with nigs.'

The road, when we started, was in a very bad condition, and as we proceeded it grew gradually worse, till, in the vicinity of the runs where we then were, it had become almost impassable. We frequently turned off into the woods and open fields to avoid the worst places, but even there the jolting of the coach was so violent that I momentarily expected our 'lady' passenger would roll off into the mud. Seeing that she was in absolute danger, and being also willing to dispense with her refined society, I finally said to her:

'Yas, I would; but I han't th' money fur't. The' axed so like durnation fur totein' me in thar, I couldn't stan' it, no how.'

'Karn't, stranger, 'tan't 'lowed, (d'rot yer dirty hide—you, Jake—g'up!) the old man would raise 'tic'lar (wha 'bout—g'lang, ye lazy critter) music ef I done thet.'

'I will see that Dibble finds no fault, and you shall 'moisten up' at the doctor's,' said Preston.

'Wall, Squire, (d——n yer rotten pictur, why don't ye g'lang?) ef ye says thet, (whoa—whoa, thar, ye all-fired rockabone—whoa!) it's a trade.'

We arrived at Kinston about an hour after noon, and stopped to dine. The village was composed of about twenty dingy, half-painted dwelling-houses, and a carriage manufactory—the latter establishment being carried on by an enterprising Yankee, a brother to the stage proprietor. He told me that he furnished large numbers of vehicles to the planters in all parts of the State, and took in pay, cotton, tar, and turpentine, which he shipped to another brother doing business in New York. There were, if I remember aright, five of these brothers, living far apart, but all in co-partnership, and owning every thing in common. They were native and natural Yankees, and no disgrace to the species.

After a meagre meal at 'the doctor's' (that gentleman eked out a dull practice among his neighbors by a sharp practice on his guests,) we again mounted the stage. We had proceeded to within eighteen miles of Newbern, when suddenly, as the Squire and I were lighting our second after-dinner segars, 'kerchunk' went one of the forward wheels, and over went the coach in a twinkling. I saved myself by clinging to the seat, but Preston was not so fortunate. The first I saw of him he was immersed in a pool of water some ten feet distant. Luckily the ground was soft, and he escaped personal injury. When he rose to his feet, his coat, like Joseph's, was of many colors, a dull clayey-red predominating.

It was fortunate for the clay-eating feminine that her conversation had disgusted me. Had she remained outside she might have sighed for her 'Bonaparty' in the torrid region of which she had spoken.

The other passengers escaped with a few bruises, and after an hour's exer[Pg 454]cise with rails and saplings, we succeeded in prying the wheels out of the mire. Then the driver discovered that one of the horses had lost his shoes, and insisted on having them replaced before he proceeded. We were midway between two 'relay-houses,' each being six miles distant, and the Jehu decided on taking the shoeless horse back to the one we had passed. As he was unharnessing the animal, I said to him:

'You say there is a blacksmith at each station—why not go on to the one ahead? It will save time.'

'The boy at Tom's Store's ran off. Thar an't nary a nig thar to hold the critter's huff.'

'Can not the blacksmith do that himself? I never heard of it's taking two men to shoe one horse!'

'I do it! My bisness ar drivin' hosses, not shoein' on 'em. When I takes ter thet I'll let ye know!'

'Come, come, my good fellow, don't go back for that. Go on, and I'll hold the horse's feet.'

'Ye hold 'em! I reckon ye wull! I'd like to see a man uv yer cloth a holdin' a critter's fut! Ha! ha!' Then throwing his leg over the horse's bare back, he added: 'We doan't cum it over trav'lers thet way, in these diggin's—we doan't. We use 'em like folks—we do. Ye can bet yer pile on thet!'

Preston had been quietly enjoying the dialogue, and as the driver rode away, said to me:

'I knew you wouldn't make any thing out of him. Come, let us walk on; a little exercise, after our warm work, will do us good.'

Leaving the other passengers to await the motions of the driver, the blacksmith, and the black 'huff'-holder, we trudged on through the mud, and in about two hours reached the next station.

The reader will find the spot which bears the dignified cognomen of 'Tom's Store,' if he looks on the map of North-Carolina. It is there destitute of a name, but is plainly designated by the circular character which is applied by geographers to villages. It is situated on the bank of a small tributary of the Neuse, and consists of a one-story building about twenty feet wide, and forty feet long, divided into two apartments, and built of pine slabs. One half of the village is sparsely filled with dry-goods, groceries, fish-hooks, log-chains, goose-yokes, tin-pans, cut-nails, and Jews'-harps, while the other is densely crowded with logwood, 'dog-leg,' strychnine, juniper-berries, New-England rum, and cistern-water, all mixed together. This latter region is the more populous neighborhood; and at the date of my visit it was absolutely packed with thirsty natives, who were imbibing certain fluids known 'down South' as 'blue-ruin,' 'bust-head, 'red-eye,' 'tangle-foot,' 'rifle-whisky,' and 'devil's-dye,' at the rate of a 'bit' a glass, and of four 'bits' for 'as much as one could carry.'

I was introduced by the Squire to Tom himself, the illustrious founder of the village. He was a stout, bloated specimen of humanity, with a red, pimpled face, a long grizzly beard, small inflamed eyes, and a nose that might have been mistaken for a peeled beet. His whole appearance showed that he was an habitué of the more fashionable quarter of his village, (the groggery,) and a liberal imbiber of his own compounds. He informed me that he did a 'right smart' business; bought dry-goods in 'York,' 'sperrets' in 'Hio, and rum in Bostin', and he added: 'Stranger, I never keeps none but th' clar juice, th' raal, genuwine critter, d——d ef I do. Come, take a drink.'

I declined, when a bystander who seemed to know—he could scarcely keep his feet—overhearing the remark, confirmed it by saying with a big oath:

'It's so, stranger, Tom do keep th' reg'lar critter, th' genuwine juice! Thar's no mistake 'bout thet, fur it gets tight[Pg 455] itself ev'ry cold snap—d——d if it doan't!'

The village, at the date of my visit, had a population of about one hundred men, women, and children, and they were all assembled on the cleared plot in front of the store, witnessing a 'turkey-match.' Wishing to avoid the noisy crowd, and being fatigued with our long tramp over the muddy road, my companion and I entered the more reputable portion of Tom's Store in quest of a seat. It was nearly deserted. A lazy yellow boy was stretched at full length on a pine counter, which kept customers at an honest distance from the rows of half-filled shelves, occupying three sides of the room, and on a low bench in front of him sat a woman and two children. These four were the only persons in the apartment. The woman seemed to be not more than twenty-five, and was dressed in a neat calico gown, and had a tidy appearance. A thin woolen shawl was thrown over her shoulders, and she wore on her head a clean red and yellow kerchief, tied as a turban, and on her feet white cotton stockings and coarse untanned shoes. These last were nearly new, and very clumsy, and, like the rest of her costume, travel-stained and bespattered with mud. She had evidently walked a long distance that morning.

Her figure was slight and graceful, and her face very beautiful. She had long, black, glossy hair, straight, regular features, a rich olive complexion, and large, dark lustrous eyes, which, as she sat opposite the open door, were fixed on the thick, gloomy woods with an earnest, almost agonizing gaze, as if they were reading in its tangled depths the dark, uncertain future that lay before her. Never shall I forget the expression of her face. Never have I seen its look of keen, intense agony, and its full, perfect, utter despair.

One of the children was a little girl of about seven years, with a sweet, hopeful face, a clear rosy skin, and brown, wavy hair; and the other, a little mulatto boy, a few years older. They each held one of the woman's hands, and something peculiar in their attitudes made me look closely at them. A thin piece of iron, called by slave-traders a 'bracelet,' encircled their wrists, and fastened their arms to the woman's! They were slaves!

I entered the cabin a few steps in advance of Preston, who paused in the doorway as he caught sight of the group. The woman did not notice him, but his face turned to a marble white, and his voice trembled with emotion as he exclaimed:

The woman looked up, sprang to her feet, took one step forward, and then sank to the floor. Stretching out her shackled arms, bound to the children as they were, she clasped his knees and cried out:

'O Master Robert! dear Master Robert, save me! Oh! save me; for the love of the dear children, save me!'

The little boy and girl took hold of his skirts, and both crying hard, turned their faces up to his. The youngest said:

'Oh! do, massa! take us 'way from dis man; he bery bad, massa. He whip you' little Rosey 'case she couldn't walk all de way—all de way har, massa!'

'Missus went to you, Master Robert, but you warn't to home. Master had to have the money right off. The trader was thar. Master couldn't wait till you come back. Oh! save me! He's takin' me to Orleans, to Orleans, Master Robert. Do save me! Think of the chil'ren, Master Robert. Oh! think of the chil'ren!' And she loosened her hold of his limbs, and wept as if her very heart was breaking.

Preston's words came thick and broken, his frame shook, he almost groaned as he said:

'I would to God that I could, Phyllis; but I am in debt—pressed on every side. I could not raise the money to save my soul!'[Pg 456]

'O my God! what will become of us?' exclaimed the woman. 'Think of little Lule, Master Robert! They've taken me 'way from her! Oh! what will become of her, Master Robert? What will become of her?' and she moaned and wept harder than before.

He stood like a man on whom the sentence of death had fallen. A cold, glassy look came into his eyes, a thick, heavy sweat started from his forehead, his iron limbs seemed giving way under him. Placing my hand gently on his shoulder, I said:

'I don't know,' he replied, pressing his head with his hands as if to keep it from bursting. 'How much, Phylly?'

'Well, well, my good woman, don't feel badly any more. I'll let Master Robert have the money.'

The woman stared at me incredulously for a moment; then, while the children came and clung to my coat as if I were an old friend, she said:

'Oh! bless you, sir! bless you! I will love you, sir! the children will forever love you for it.'

A struggle seemed to be going on in Preston's mind. He was silent for some moments; then in a slow, undecided voice he said:

'It an't right; I can't take it, Kirke. I owe you now. I'm in debt elsewhere. A judgment has been got against me. My crops have turned out poorly, I've been to Virginia for money, and can't get a dollar. It would not be honest. I can't take it.'

'Oh! do take it, Master Robert! Do take it. I'll work. I'll make it. I can make it very soon, Master Robert. Oh! do take it!'

'Only six hundred; but old —— has it, and he has no mercy. He'll have the money at once, or sell every thing—the negroes—every thing!' and he choked down the heavy groan which half-escaped his lips.

'Yes, about a thousand barrels of rosin; but the river is low. I can't get it down.'

'That's three hundred more. Consider it ours, and draw at ninety days for the whole, judgment and all.'

The woman had risen during this conversation, and stood with her eyes riveted on his face and mine as if her eternal destiny hung on our words. When I made the last remark she staggered toward me and fell, as if dead, at my feet. I brought water from the stream hard by, and we soon restored her to herself. Preston then lifted her from the floor, and placing her tenderly on the bench, said, taking my hand:

'She and her children are very dear to me. You can not understand how much you have done for me. Words are weak—they can not tell you. I will pay you out of the next crop. Meanwhile, I will re-draw and keep it afloat.'

'Outside, dear master. You'll know him. He's more of us poor creatures with him.'

'Come, Preston, let's see him at once—we've no time to lose—the stage will be along soon.'

He lingered behind, and when I left the cabin was speaking in a low tone to the slave-woman. Thinking he would follow in a moment, I went in quest of the trader.[Pg 457]

THE UNION.

Our rebellion is the most stupendous in history. It absorbs the attention and affects the material interests of the world. The armies engaged outnumber those of Napoleon. Death never had such a carnival, and each day consumes millions of treasure. Great is the sacrifice, but the cause is peerless and sublime. If God has placed us, as in 1776, in the van of the great contest for the rights and liberties of man; if he has again assigned us the post of danger and of suffering, it is that of unfading glory and of imperishable renown. The question with us is that of national unity and existence, and compromise is treason. To acknowledge the doctrine of secession, to abdicate the power of self-preservation, and permit the Union to be dissolved or disintegrated, is ruin, disgrace, and suicide. We must fight it out to the last. If necessity requires, we can live at home, and reverses or intervention should only increase our efforts. If need be, all—all who can bear arms, must take the field, and leave to those who can not, the pursuits of industry. If we count not the cost of the struggle in men or means, it is because the value of the Union can not be estimated. If martyrs from every State, and from nearly every nation of Christendom, have fallen in our defense, never, in humble faith, we trust, has any blood, since that of Calvary, been shed in a cause more holy.

Our armies, eventually, must triumph, but to restore, throughout the revolted States, the supremacy of the Constitution, we must continue to maintain the just distinction between the loyal and disloyal; the deluded masses and the rebel leaders. We must also remember, that the reign of terror has long been supreme in the South, and that thousands have been forced into apparent support of the rebellion by threats, by spoliation, by conscription, by the ruin of their homes, and the loss of their means of subsistence.

With the exception of South-Carolina, whose normal condition for more than thirty years before she struck down our flag at Sumter, was that of incipient treason and revolt, no other State really desired to destroy the Union. A secret association and active armed conspiracy, and an organized system of falsehood and misrepresentation, drove the masses, by sudden action, violence, and terror, into this rebellion; but a large majority of the aggregate popular vote of the South was against secession.

It was a Northern President, yielding to secession leaders, in opposition to the patriots of the South, who, by the whole power of Executive influence and patronage, attempted to force slavery into Kansas, by the crime, heretofore without a name or an example, the forgery of A Constitution. This was the tolling of the first bell, alarming to patriots, but the concerted signal for the grand movement of the assassins, then conspiring the death of the Union. It was also a Northern President who urged the Lecompton forgery upon Congress, thus mainly contributing to the downfall of the Union; yet, when the vote was taken in the fall of 1860, a majority of the popular suffrage of the South was given to those candidates for the Presidency who had denounced and opposed this measure, over the candidate, (now in the traitor army,) who gave it his support. Thus, on this, as on every other occasion, where the people of the South have not been overborne by violence and terror, they have rejected at the polls the action of the secession leaders.

But the disaster was precipitated, when the same President, rejecting the advice of the patriot Scott, refused to reinforce our forts, when menaced or beleaguered by traitors, and announced, in his mes[Pg 458]sages, to our country and all the world, the secession heresy, fatal to all government, that we had no right to repel force by force, on the part of a State seeking, by armed secession, to destroy the Union. The absurd political paradox was then announced by the President, that a State has no right to secede, but that the Government has no right to prevent its secession. It was this wretched dogma, that paralyzed our energies when they were most needed, gave immunity to treason, and invited rebellion, rendered our stocks unsalable, and induced thousands, at home and abroad, to believe that the Federal Government was a phantom, which existed only in name.

If Andrew Jackson had then been President, the rebellion would have been crushed by him in embryo, as it was in 1833, without expenditure of blood or treasure.

Surely, it is some palliation of the course of the deluded masses of the South, that they heard such pernicious counsels, and from such a source.

If, as our army advances, there has not been an open, general return of the masses to the Union, we must recollect, that when we did occupy parts of the South, and then withdrew, how soon the resurging tide of the rebellion swept over the devoted region, what scenes of horror and desolation ensued, how the homes of those who had welcomed our flag were given to the flames, whilst death was the portion of others. But let us crush out the very embers of this rebellion, cherish the devoted patriots of the South, drive out to other lands the rebel leaders, give to the ruined and deluded masses ample assurance of permanent protection, and they will resume their allegiance to the Union.

As a final result, we should not desire to hold the Southern States as provinces, for that would fatally exasperate, and tend to perpetuate the contest, increase our expenses, destroy our wealth and revenue, render our taxes intolerable, and endanger our free institutions. When the rebellion is crushed, we should seek a real pacification, the close of the war and its expenses, a cordial restoration of the Union, and return of that fraternal feeling, which marked the first half century of our wonderful progress. To insure these great results, the policy of the Government must be firm, clear, unwavering, and marked by discriminating justice and perfect candor. The country is in imminent peril, and nothing but the truth will avail us. The North and South must understand each other. The South must know that we realize the evident truth, that slavery caused the rebellion. Efforts were made on other questions to shake the Union, but all had proved impotent in the past, as they must in the future, until we were divided by slavery, the only issue which could produce a great rebellion. Nor will angry denunciations of the discordant elements of slavery and abolition now save us, for still the fact recurs, that without slavery there would have been no abolition, and, consequently, no secession. Slavery, therefore, was the cause, the causa causans, and whilst we should use all wise and constitutional means to secure its gradual disappearance, yet we should act justly, remembering how, when, and under what flag slavery was forced upon the protesting and opposing South, then feeble colonies of England. And yet, for nearly thirty years past, England has constantly agitated this question here, with a view to dissolve our Union, and has thus been mainly instrumental in sowing here the seeds of discord, which fructified in the rebellion.

And then, when the tide of battle seemed adverse, England, giving her whole moral aid to the rebellion, demanded from us restitution and apology in the case of the Trent, for an act, which had received the repeated sanction of her own example. Her press then teemed with atrocious falsehoods, insulting threats, and exulting annunciations of our downfall. Her imperious ultimatum, excluding arbitrament, was accompanied by fleets and armies, her cannon thundered on our coast, and she became the moral ally of that very slave[Pg 459]ry which she had forced upon the South, but which, for nearly thirty years past, she made the theme of fierce denunciation of our country, and constant agitation here, with one ever-present purpose, the destruction of this Union. And now let not England suppose, that there is an American, who does not feel the insult and understand the motive. England beheld, in our wonderful progress, the ocean's scepter slipping from her grasp, our grain and cotton almost feeding and clothing the world, our augmenting skill and capital, our inventive genius, and ever-improving machinery, our educated, intelligent, untaxed labor, the marvelous increase of our revenue, tonnage, and manufactures, and our stupendous internal communications, natural and artificial, by land and water. The last census exhibited to her, our numbers increasing in a ratio, making the mere addition, in the next twenty-five years, equal to her whole population, and our wealth augmenting in a far greater proportion. She saw our mines and mountains of coal and iron, (her own great element of progress,) exceed hers nearly twenty times, our hydraulic power, incalculably greater than that of Great Britain; a single American river, with its tributaries, long enough to encircle the globe, and that England might be anchored as an island in our inland seas. She witnessed Connecticut, smaller than many English counties, and with but one sixth the population of some of them, appropriating more money for education in that State, than the British Parliament for the whole realm; that we had more heads at work among our laboring classes than all Europe, and she realized the great truth, that knowledge is power, reposing on common schools for the whole people. She measured our continental area, laved by two oceans, as also by the lakes and the gulf, with a more genial sun, and a soil far more fertile and productive than that of England, and nearly thirty times greater in extent. She saw us raise within the loyal States a volunteer army of three fourths of a million, without a conscript, the largest, and far the most intelligent and effective force in the world, and millions more ready, whenever called, to rush to the defense of the Union, whilst a great and gallant navy rose, as if by enchantment, from the ocean. She marked the rapid transfer of the command of the commerce of the world from London to New-York. She observed the transcendent success of our free institutions, and with that 'fear of change, perplexing monarchs,' she dreaded the moral influence of our republican system. But why should any friend of his country, or of mankind, object to this, if it promoted the welfare of the people? We reject all force or intervention. Our only influence is that of our example. If our system was a failure, the institutions of England were not endangered, but strengthened by such a result. It was their success only that made them dangerous, not to the people of England, but to dynastic ambition, to aristocratic rule, and to selfish interests. To insure our permanent division, was to destroy us. Hence, she encouraged the South, acknowledged her as a belligerent, welcomed the rebel flag and war vessels into her ports, protected them there, enabled them to elude our cruisers, and prepared to aid and sustain slavery. For a time, with the exception of Cobden and Bright, we seemed to have had scarcely an influential friend in England. Her masses favored us, but five sixths of them are excluded from the polls by restricted suffrage. For a time, King Cotton never had more loyal subjects, than those who then controlled the press and government of England. Our Union was to be severed, the Southern confederacy acknowledged, the blockade broken, free trade between the South and England established, cotton given her, and refused us; we were to be forever cut off from the gulf and the lower Mississippi; Portland (the star of the East) was to become a British city, and Maine, always loyal and patriotic, was to be wrested from us, and reannexed to the British crown. It was the carnival of despots, exulting over our anticipated[Pg 460] ruin, in our death-struggle in the great cause of human liberty and human progress.

And yet it was England that forced slavery upon the South against its earnest protest, and colonial acts vetoed by the British crown. Then, during our colonial weakness and dependence, the kings, and queens, and parliaments of England, not only legalized and encouraged the African slave-trade, but gave charters and monopolies for the wretched traffic. Then the lords and noble ladies, the blood royal, the merchant-princes, and even the mitred prelates of England, engaged most extensively in this accursed commerce, and thousands of the rich and noble of England enjoy now, by inheritance, fortunes thus accumulated. British vessels, sailing from British ports, openly displayed there upon their decks the shackles that were to bind the victims, thousands of whom, in the horrors of the middle passage, found unshrouded in an ocean grave, a happy escape from sufferings and misery indescribable. It was to these, our then infant, feeble, and dependent, but protesting colonies of the South, most of these slaves were forced by British avarice, and royal vetoes on colonial acts of the South prohibiting the traffic. Most justly then did Mr. Jefferson, in the original of our Declaration of Independence, announce the terrible truth as follows:

'He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.'

The flag of England was then the flag of slavery, and not of slavery only, but of the African slave-trade; and wherever slavery now exists, England may look upon it and say, This is the work of my hands—mine was the price of blood, and mine all the anguish and despair of centuries of bondage.

This war, then, is mainly the work of England. She forced slavery here, and then commenced and inflamed here the anti-slavery agitation, assailing the Constitution and the Union, arresting the progress of manumission in the Border States, and finally culminating in the rebellion. Here, then, in the South are slavery and rebellion, branches of that Upas tree, whose seeds were planted in our soil by England.

England, then, should never have reproached us with slavery. The work was hers, and hers may yet be the dread retribution of avenging justice. Had the contest she provoked in the Trent affair then happened, the result might have been very different from her expectations. Instead of a ruined country, and divided Union, and God save the King played under the cross of St. George in Boston, New-York, and Philadelphia, she might have heard the music of Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, and the Star-Spangled Banner on the heights of Quebec, reëchoed in fraternal chorus over the Union intended by God, under one government, of the valley of the lakes and the St. Lawrence. Looking nearer home, she might have beheld that banner, whose stars she would have extinguished in blood, floating triumphantly, in union with the Shamrock, over that glorious Emerald Isle, whose generous heart beats with love of the American Union, and whose blood, now as ever heretofore, is poured out in copious liba[Pg 461]tions in its defense. Indeed, but for the forbearance of our Government, and the judgment and good sense of Lord Lyons, the conflict was inevitable.

The hope was expressed by me in England that 'those glorious isles would become the breakwater of liberty, against which the surges of European despotism would dash in vain.' This was her true policy, justice to Ireland, successive reforms in her system, a further wise extension of the suffrage, with the vote by ballot, a cordial moral alliance with her kindred race in America, and a full participation, mutually beneficial, in our ever enlarging commerce. But her oligarchy has chosen coalition with the South and slavery, and war upon our Union and the republican principle. Divide and conquer is their motto, suicide will be their epitaph.

England is now playing her part in the fourth act of the drama of slavery. During the first act, for more than a century, she was actively engaged in the African slave-trade, and in forcing the victims, as slaves, upon the colonies, against their protest.

With the close of the first act came the American Revolution, when, in the truthful language of Mr. Jefferson, before quoted, England 'excited the slaves to rise in arms among us, and to purchase the liberty of which she had deprived them, by murdering the people on whom she had obtruded them.'

The third act, from 1834 to 1861, presented England engaged in fierce denunciations of American slavery. The British pulpit, press, and hustings, her universities, literature, courts, bar, statesmen, and orators, were all devoted to assaults on American slavery, and upon our Constitution, for tolerating the system, even for a moment. Her Parliament most graciously favored us with one of its own members, to denounce in the North, the slavery of the South, inflaming sectional passions and hatred, with the fixed purpose of dissolving the Union. As all the slaves whom England had sent to Boston, had been manumitted in 1780, and there was no slavery there, the object was, not to abolish slavery, or the mission would have been to the South, where the institution and the power over it existed, but the movement was made in the North, not to destroy slavery, but to dissolve the Union. England having failed to accomplish our overthrow in the two great wars of 1776 and 1812, she commenced the third war upon us, not from the mouths of her cannon, but in zealous efforts, continued now for more than a fourth of a century, to divide the Union, by the agitation of this question. We are indebted to England for the curse of slavery, and then for the slavery agitation. In this she has been but too successful North and South; but if slavery should perish in the conflict, she will mourn the result, because it removes our only dangerous element of discord.

And now the curtain has risen on the fourth act, and England, as always heretofore, is the chief actor. And where now is the great anti-slavery agitator? Why, England has reversed her position, and suddenly discovered the surpassing beauty and perfection of secession and slavery. Secession, an anarchical absurdity, destructive of all law, and all government, she kindly adopts as the true theory of our system. This heresy was discarded by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and all the illustrious founders of the Constitution. It was exposed, in all its deformity, by Jackson, Clay, and Webster, in 1833, when it was rejected by every State, except South-Carolina. But England repudiates the doctrine at home, and abroad also, except for our country. Substituting her wishes for the fact, she declares we are not a nation, and that any State has a legal and moral right to secede and dissolve the Union. Deplorable would have been the folly of such a system, and well then might England have exulted over the failure of republics. Nothing but her intense desire for this failure could have induced England to adopt this absurd doctrine. The whole world[Pg 462] perceives the motive for so false a pretense, and history will expose and denounce it.

And now, as to slavery, let us compare the England of 1834 and 1860, and all the intermediate period, with the England of 1861 and 1862. What a revolution? Where now are her daily denunciations of slavery? Where now is Exeter Hall, so lately teeming with anti slavery harangues, but now cheering the slavery rebellion? Where are the abolition lords and ladies of England; where the reverend clergy; where the public press, and Parliament? Has England been struck dumb in a moment, that she can no longer denounce a system which, up to the hour of pro-slavery secession, she had, from day to day, during more than a fourth of a century, declared to combine all the crimes of the decalogue? Where now are the compliments that were lavished upon Uncle Tom's Cabin and its gifted writer? Where are the notices in England, of our recent great anti-slavery work, Among the Pines, by the celebrated Edmund Kirke, 'who awoke one morning and found himself famous'? The book is read and circulated here by thousands, but none will notice or take it now in England.

But England is not silent. Her press, her statesmen, and even members of her cabinet, declare that the rebellion has dissolved our Union, and destroyed our Government. They say we can never conquer the rebellion; that we should abandon the contest, acknowledge the South as an independent power, give it all the Gulf, two thirds of the Atlantic, all the Chesapeake, half the Ohio, all the lower Mississippi and its mouth, cut our territory into two parts, acknowledge the right of secession, and the absolute dissolution of the Union. Such is the assurance of rightful and certain success by which England encourages the rebels, while surrender, is the advice she gratuitously urges upon us, from day to day. But England is not the only false prophet whose predictions were based only on her wishes. Indeed, many of her presses and statesmen openly avow their belief and desire that the Union should be overthrown. Our area, they say, is too large, although all compact and connected by the greatest arterial river-system of the globe. But England is not large enough, and new possessions are constantly added by the sword, although her territory is double our own, and scattered over all the continents, and many of the isles of the world. If, before or shortly after this struggle began, England had spoken a word of friendship and sympathy for us—if she had but repeated her former denunciations of slavery, and given us the moral weight of her opinion—the rebellion would have been crushed long since. If—claiming to be our mother—she had only, in this crisis, acted as such, in her hour of need a kindred race would have rallied to her rescue. But now, so long as this wicked oligarchy rules her destiny never—never! It was England forced slavery upon us. It was England fastened upon our feeble, youthful limbs, this poisoned shirt of Nessus, and then, when we were tearing it from us, even though the vitals and the life-blood might follow, England exulted in what she believed to be our dying agonies.

This is no fancy sketch, but a dread reality. It has filled our cup with sorrow; it is mingled with every tear that falls upon the dying patriot's couch; it is wafted with every agonizing sigh that follows the departed spirit; it is felt in every house of mourning, and is seared, in letters of fire and blood, upon the memory of every American.

But England now says that Slavery was not the cause of the war. Yet it was so avowed in every secession ordinance, and in the confederate constitution. None but a slave State revolted; none but a slave State can be admitted into the rebel confederacy; and slavery is extended by their constitution over all existing or after-acquired territory. If England should ever form a part of slavedom, slavery would be extended there, and slaves could be bought and sold in London. Other revolts have been against tyranny, but this is a re[Pg 463]bellion of slavery against freedom, of the few against the many, of the bayonet against the ballot, of capital invested in man as a chattel, against free labor and free men. The tariff was scarcely referred to in the contest at the South. The tariff then existing was a free-trade measure, prepared by the leaders of this rebellion, and passed in 1856, by the aid of their votes. That tariff was twenty per cent lower than the revenue act of 1846. The tariff of 1846 was proposed in the Treasury Report of December, 1845, which report was quoted by Sir Robert Peel in his speech of January, 1846, and made the basis of his motion to repeal the corn laws. But the free-trade bill of 1856 (duties on exports being prohibited) was the law of the land when the Cotton States seceded in December, 1860, and January and February, 1861, and inaugurated the rebel government. It was not until after all this, that this measure was repealed, in March, 1861. This repeal could never have occurred but for the prior withdrawal of the Cotton States from Congress. The great agricultural and exporting North-west was opposed to high tariffs; so also was New-York, the great mart of foreign commerce. The South has always been greatly divided on this question, and, since the act of 1846, the aggregate popular vote of the North has always been nearly double that of the South against high tariffs. The author of the tariff of 1846, is now, as always heretofore, devoting all his energies to the support of the Union. So is the distinguished Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, the author of the celebrated anti-slavery Wilmot Proviso, who, with many other Republican Senators and members supported the tariff of 1846. So is the eminent ex-Vice-President, (who gave the celebrated casting vote for the tariff of 1846,) supporting the Union. But it is enough that a majority of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet supported the tariff of 1846. No, the tariff had nothing to do with the rebellion. It was slavery alone that produced the revolt. There are, however, thousands who favored the act of 1846, and even of 1856, desiring enlarged trade between friendly nations, who regard England now, as the enemy of our Union, the champion of secession, and the friend of this infernal pro-slavery rebellion.

I have stated that the South must know what course we intend to pursue in regard to slavery. But not only the South, but our friends and enemies, and all the world must also know, that the American Union shall never be dismembered. It is the great citadel of self-government, intrusted to our charge by Providence, and we will defend it against all assailants until our last man has fallen. The lakes can never be separated from the Gulf, nor the Eastern from the Western Ocean. As the sun high advanced in the heavens illumes our flag on the Atlantic, its first morning beams shall salute our kindred banner-stars on the shores of the Pacific, the present western limit of this great republic. Already the telegraphic lightning flashes intelligence from ocean to ocean, and soon the iron horse, starting from the Atlantic on his continental tour, shall announce his own advent on the shores of the Pacific, The lakes of the North are united by railroads and canals with the Atlantic, the Gulf, the Ohio, and Mississippi, and our iron gunboats, bearing aloft in war and in peace the emblems of our country's glory, are soon to perform their great circuit from the Albemarle, the Potomac, the Chesapeake, the Susquehanna, the Delaware, and the Hudson, to the Lakes and the Mississippi. Above all, the valley of the Mississippi was ordained by God as the residence of a united people. Over every acre of its soil must forever float the banner of the Union, and all its waters, as they roll on together to the Gulf, proclaim that what 'God has joined together, man shall never put asunder.' The nation's life-blood courses this vast arterial system, and to sever it is death. No line of latitude or longitude shall ever separate the mouth from the centre or sources of[Pg 464] the Mississippi. All the waters of the imperial river, from their mountain springs and crystal fountains, shall ever flow in commingling currents to the Gulf, uniting evermore in one undivided whole, the blessed homes of a free and happy people. The Ohio and Missouri, the Red River and the Arkansas, shall never be dissevered from the Mississippi. Pittsburgh and Louisville, Cincinnati and St. Louis, shall never be separated from New-Orleans, or mark the capitals of disunited and discordant States. That glorious free-trade between all the States (the great cause of our marvelous progress) shall in time, notwithstanding the present suicidal folly of England, go on in its circuit among accordant peoples throughout the globe, the precursor of that era of universal and unrestricted commerce, whose sceptre is peace, and whose reign the fusion and fraternity of nations, as foretold by the holy prophets in the Scriptures of truth.

This great valley, one mighty plain, without an intervening mountain, contains, west of the Mississippi, seven States and Territories of an area sufficient for thirteen more of the size of New-York. East of the Mississippi, it embraces all the remaining States except New-England, New-Jersey, Delaware, South-Carolina, and Florida. New-York is connected with the great valley by the Alleghany River; and Maryland by the Castleman's River and the Youghiogany, and Alabama, North-Carolina, and Georgia, by the Tennessee and its tributaries. Nearly one half the area of Pennsylvania and Virginia is within its limits. Michigan is united with it by the Wisconsin River, and Texas by the Red River; whilst Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, Wisconsin, Illinois, Tennessee, and Mississippi, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Louisiana, and Arkansas own almost exclusively its sway.

And who will dare erect the feeble barriers designed to seclude the great valley and its products from either ocean, the Lakes, or the Gulf, or persuade her to hold these essential rights and interests by the wretched tenure of the will of any seceding State? No line but one of blood, of military despotisms, and perpetual war, can ever separate this great valley. The idea is sacrilege. It is the raving of a maniac. Separation is death. Disunion is suicide. If the South presents the issue that the Union or slavery must perish, the result is not doubtful. Slavery will die. It will meet a traitor's doom, wherever it selects a traitor's position. The Union will still live. It is written on the scroll of destiny, by the finger of God, that 'neither principalities nor powers' shall effect its overthrow, nor shall 'the gates of hell prevail against it.'

Nor will we ever surrender the grave of Washington. There, upon the Potomac, on whose banks he was born and died, the flag of the Union must float over his sacred sepulchre, until the dead shall be summoned from their graves by the trump of the resurrection.

The Fourth of July, 1776, when our name was first inscribed upon the roll of nations, shall be forever commemorated under one flag, and as the birthday of one undivided Union. The memorable declaration of American Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the United States, all subscribed upon that consecrated ground at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, shall ever mark the noble commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the keystone of the arch of a perpetual and unbroken Union.

Nor shall any but the same banner be unfolded over the graves of the patriots and statesmen of the Revolution, or the battle-fields of the mighty conflict.

And around the graves of Washington and Jackson, and in memory of their solemn farewell appeals in favor of the Union, how could Virginia or Tennessee ever have been disloyal? No, they were not disloyal, but were torn, by rebel fraud and violence, from that banner round which they will again rejoice to rally.

We must not despair of the Republic. All is not lost. The Union yet lives. Its restoration approaches. The calm[Pg 465] will soon follow the storm. The golden sunlight and the silver edging of the azure clouds will be seen again in the horizon. The bow of promise will appear in the heavens, to mark the retiring of the bitter waters, proclaiming from on high, that now, henceforth, and forever, no second secession deluge shall ever disturb the onward, united, and peaceful march of the Republic.

OUR WOUNDED.

As loftier rise the ocean's heaving crests,
Ere they sink, tempest-driven, on the strand;
So do these hearts and freedom-beating breasts,
Sublimed by suffering, fall upon our land.

Wounded! O sweet-lipped word! for on the page
Of this strange history, all these scars shall be
The hieroglyphics of a valiant age,
Deep writ in freedom's blood-red mystery.

What though your fate sharp agony reveals!
What though the mark of brother's blows you bear!
The breath of your oppression upward steals,
Like incense from crushed spices into air.

Freedom lies listening, nor as yet averts
The battle horrors of these months' slow length;
But as she listens, silently she girts
More close, more firm, the armor of her strength.

Then deem them not as lost, these bitter days,
Nor those which yet in anguish must be spent
Far from loved skies and home's peace-moving ways,
For these are not the losses you lament.

It is the glory that your country bore,
Which you would rescue from a living grave;
It is the unity that once she wore,
Which your true hearts are yearning still to save.

Despair not: it is written, though the eye,
Red with its watching, can no future scan:
The glow of triumph yet shall flush the sky,
And God redeem the ruin made by man.
[Pg 466]

A SOUTHERN REVIEW.

A friend 'down South' has kindly sent us a number of 'De Bow's Review, Industrial Resources, etc.,' as its elegantly worded title-page proclaims. It is true that the number in question is none of the freshest, it having appeared at Charleston, in December last. Yet, as a Southern magazine published during the war, and full of war matter, it is replete with interest.

Its first article on Privateers and Privateersmen, by George Fitzhugh of Virginia—as arrogant, weak, and Sophomorical as Southern would-be 'literary' articles usually are—is written in a vein of reasoning so oddly illogical as to almost induce suspicion as to the sanity of the author. Let the reader take, for instance, the following extracts:

'To show how untenable and absurd are the doctrines of the writers on the laws of war, we will cite the instance of pickets. According to their leading principle that in war 'only such acts of hostility are permissible as weaken the enemy and advance and promote the ends and purposes of the war,' pickets are the very men to be killed, for the death of one of them may effect a surprise and victory, and do more injury to the enemy than the killing of a thousand men in battle. According to their doctrine, it is peculiarly proper and merciful to shoot pickets; yet they propose to interpolate on the laws of war a provision that pickets shall not be shot. This provision is, in accordance with our philosophy, founded on Christian principles and the dictates of healthy humanity, for pickets are not active belligerents, and can oppose no force to the stealthy attacks made on them by unseen enemies. To kill a picket is like fighting an unarmed man, a child or a woman. It is eminently right according to the selfish and silly philosophy of writers on national law, but inhuman, and therefore wrong, according to our philosophy, which is founded on Christian injunctions and natural feelings.

'Yet, as a matter of necessity, we would encourage the shooting of pickets. We of the South are accustomed to the use of arms, are individually brave and self-reliant, can creep upon their pickets and shoot them in the night, and thus carry out our defensive policy of exhausting in detail the superior numbers of the invading North. We must be conquered and subjugated unless we take advantage of all our peculiarities of habits, customs, localities, and institutions. We have to make a choice of evils; either shoot pickets, or by neglecting to do so, cut off one of our most available arms of defense. We must fight the 'devil with fire.' Our enemy professes no allegiance to the laws of morality nor to the laws of God. We must deal with them as Moses dealt with the people of Canaan, so long as they invade our territory. But we are not God's chosen people, not his instruments to punish Canaanites, and we will not follow them when they retreat to their barren Northern homes. There a just and avenging God is already punishing them for their crimes. Left to themselves, and our real enemies—those of the North-east—will perish, for they have little means of support at home, and have not learned to avail themselves of those means, trusting that a generous and confiding South would continue to feed and clothe them.

'In old countries, where there are few trees, forests, or other hiding-places, and where the country people are unused to firearms, an invaded country gains little by shooting pickets; but in a new, rough country like ours, where pickets can be approached furtively, and where all the country people are first-rate marksmen, there is no better means of harassing and exhausting an invading army than by cutting off its outposts in detail.

'It is the obvious interest of the North to make the persons of pickets sacred; and equally our obvious policy to shoot them down at every opportunity.'

In the midst of these slightly confused arguments on war, the writer suddenly introduces a very out of place eulogy of 'De Bow's Review, Industrial Resources, etc.,' as a periodical 'which occupies a much wider range than any English periodical, and which, as an Encyclopedia, would be more valuable than any other Review, were equal pains and labor bestowed upon its articles.' We suspect this bit to be office-made—it has the heavy, clumsy ring of the great cracked bell of De Bow. For instance:

'I know, Mr. Editor, you intend, so soon as the war is over, to enlarge the Review, without increasing the subscription-price ...[Pg 467] and then if Southern patronage ceases to be bestowed chiefly on the flimsy and immoral literature of the North, and Southern pens cease to prostitute themselves for pay by ministering to the vile and sensual literary appetites of the Yankees, then, we say, this Review will rank with the ablest for ability, and far above them for usefulness. But this result can be attained only when we cease to be Yankee-worshipers, and when the semi-traitorous imbeciles of the Virginia Convention and of Kentucky are remembered only to be detested and despised. Already hundreds of scientific and philosophic minds who have thrown off the debasing influence of Yankee authority have contributed learned and valuable articles to your pages.'

Unfortunately the character of De Bow as a deliberate and accomplished liar, and the exposure of his infamous falsification of statistics, have somewhat sunk the character of his 'Review, Industrial Resources, etc.,' out of Dixie, where, only, due honor is paid to those who are like him

'Art. II.' or Article the Second, in this magazine, 'which only needs equal pains and labor' [we might add paper, ink, and a Yankee Grammar and Dictionary] to be made equal to 'any other Review'—treats of 'The Bastile—Tyranny, Past and Present.' All the doleful stories of prisoners of earlier or later ages, in the Bastile, including much sentimental balderdash, are drawled out by a very stupid and would-be effective writer, for the purpose of proving that the imprisonment of political offenders and captives by the North is precisely on a par with that of 'Bastiling' them, and that Abraham Lincoln is only a revival of the worst kings of France in an American form. We of the North have, according to this writer, 'reached the goal of despotism at a single leap. In a few months the government has achieved eternal infamy.' We commend to the reader the following superbly Southern conclusion:

'With all these evils comes the inevitable Bastile. It is an inseparable part of the system. A philosophical Cuvier, from one act or condition of tyranny, will supply the rest of the organism. Wherever despotism exists, we look for the Bastile as naturally as we do for the character of a robber in an Italian story. Like the ponderous step of the statue of the commander in the Don Juan of Molière, its approach is audible above civil commotion, above the shrieks of frenzied orators, the howlings of a demoralized clergy, and the sound of battle. It brings with it the destruction of civil liberty, and darkens all the perspective.'

To us, to whom the approach of despotism with all its horrors is not quite so apparent as the heavy footfall 'in the Don Juan of Molière,' this all sounds as if Dixie would very much like to have the little privilege of keeping all the prisoners to itself. Nothing is said, by the way, of Southern Bastiles—of tobacco-factories, in which mere boys are allowed to die of wounds in utter solitude, to which officers come for the purpose of spitting upon and kicking the 'Yanks,' and where sentinels in wanton fiendishness were allowed to daily shoot through the windows at those within. No word is spoken of officers thrown into a common dungeon with negroes and thieves, nor is there any allusion to the ingenious system of keeping Northern prisoners as long as possible, so that they may die and thereby diminish the numbers of the enemy, in accordance with the Southern plan of Fitzhugh, already cited, as 'our defensive policy of exhausting in detail the superior numbers of the invading North.'

'Article III.' gives us a rehash of the views of Dr. Cartwright on 'The Serpent, the Ape, and the Negro.'

'Article IV.' by E. Delony, of Louisiana, is the great political gun of the magazine, and inquires: 'What of the the Confederacy—the Present and the Future?' It is of course full of hope, bluster, and self-praise. 'Our armies,' says Delony, 'are not like the miserable hirelings of Lincoln—the scum of infamy and degradation—hunted up from the dens, sewers, and filthy prisons of the North, with the low vandalism of foreign importations, picked up wherever they can be found. Yet such are the[Pg 468] creatures our brave soldiers have to meet. Our armies are composed of men who have not volunteered for pay, nor for food or clothing!'

Since copying this paragraph, it was recalled to us—within a few hours—by meeting some half-dozen of the 'scum of sewers' in question, in the persons of half-a-dozen young gentlemen, privates in a Massachusetts regiment, several of them college graduates—all of them sons of wealthy citizens and gentlemen. It would be interesting to ascertain, taking man for man, what proportion of the Southern and Northern armies are respectively able to read, or are otherwise personally familiar with the decencies and proprieties of civilized life. From this assumption of superiority Mr. Delony argues victory, asks, 'What about the peace?' and inquires if the Federal Government will offer to negotiate for it?

'We can propose no terms, but we must demand them. We desire nothing that is not right and just, and we will submit to nothing that is wrong. But no peace will be acceptable to the people that permits the Lincoln Government to hold its Abolition orgies and fulminate its vile edicts upon slave territory. Much valuable property of our citizens has been destroyed, or stolen and carried off by the invaders; this should be accounted for, and paid. The Yankees were shrewd enough to cheat us out of the navy, but we must have half of the war-vessels and naval armament in possession of the North at the commencement of this war. We should enter into no commercial alliances or complications with them, but assume the entire control of our commercial policy and regulations with them, to be modified at our own discretion and pleasure. They have closed against us all navigation and trade on the Mississippi, Missouri, and other rivers; it is our right and duty hereafter so to regulate the navigation of these streams as may best conform to our own interests. It can not be expected that we should permit the free navigation of the Lower Mississippi to the West after they have closed it against us above, without the most stringent regulations. There is no palliation in the pretense that the blockade above was a war measure; they can not so claim it unless we had been acknowledged as belligerents, and hence they have forfeited all right to free navigation as a peace measure. If, then, permission be given to the Free States of the West to navigate the Lower Mississippi, it should be under such restrictions as to afford a commensurate revenue to the confederacy, and the strictest rules regulating the ingress and egress of passengers, officers, and hands. The West is learning us how to do without her, and we thank her for it; we shall have but little need of her produce, as we shall soon have a plentiful supply among our own people. An absolute separation from all the North, with the sole and independent control of all regulations with its people, are our best and safest terms of peace.'

EXTENT OF THE CONFEDERACY.

'We have conquered an outlet to the Pacific which must be maintained, though we can desire no dominion on the Pacific coast, but such as may be sufficient to secure the terminus of our great Pacific railroad through Texas and Arizona. Toward the north and east, the Maryland and Pennsylvania line, including Delaware, is our true landmark. Kansas, on the other side, must be conquered and confiscated to pay for the negroes stolen from us, abolitionism expelled from its borders, and transformed into a Slave State of the confederacy. Perhaps, after we have done with Lincoln, this arrangement may be very acceptable to a majority in Kansas, without force. We will have no desire to disturb Mexico so long as she conducts herself peaceably toward us, and, as a neighbor, maintains good faith in her dealings with us. Central America must remain as a future consideration; and, instead of the acquisition of Cuba, she has become our friendly ally, identified with us in interests and institutions, and, so long as she continues to hold slaves, connected with us by the closest ties.'

But the strong point of the article consists in a fierce onslaught on foreigners, all of whom, save those now resident in the South, are to be excluded from citizenship and office. 'With the exception of these, and after that time, no more votes should be allowed, and no' more offices be held, except by native-born citizens of the confederacy.'

'The naturalization law of the old Government has proved of little benefit to the Southern States. Whilst our Southern adopted citizens have proven themselves reliable,[Pg 469] faithful, and true to our institutions of the South, those of the North, who outnumber them twenty to one, have universally arrayed themselves foremost and in front of Lincoln's hordes in the work of rapine, murder, and destruction against the South. Hereafter then, we can make no distinction between the Yankee and the foreigner, and both must necessarily be debarred of the privilege of citizenship in this confederacy.'

Delony, it seems, has 'viewed this question in all its bearings,' 'foremost and in front' of course included, and deems its adoption eminently essential to the future stability and welfare of the confederacy. The abolition of all impost duties and a system of direct taxation, are of course warmly advocated—meaning thereby the ruin of Northern manufactures by smuggling European goods over our border. In short, he sets forth plainly what is as yet far from being felt or generally understood, that the independence of the Southern confederacy must inevitably bring with it the total ruin of the North, and the entire exclusion from its citizenship and offices of all persons other than native-born Southerners.

'Article V.' is one of those intensely snobbish, sickening, self-conscious essays on 'Gentility,' which none but a Southerner is capable of writing. The innate vulgarity of its author, 'J. T. Wiswall, of Alabama,' is shown in such expressions as 'a pretty Romeo of seventeen, that looks as charming as sweet sixteen, gallused up in tight unmentionables,' and in artless confessions that he—J. T. Wiswall—belongs to a class above the snob, but still to one 'whose conversation stalks as on stilts,' and which is foppish, effeminate, and ostentatious. The conclusion is, of course, the worship of 'aristocracy,' a worship of which, as J.T. Wiswall infers from his own shallow reading and flimsy experience, exists 'in every heart.' The wants of the rich, their 'toys and gauds,' 'were made to relieve the sufferings of the poor,' and the 'ceaseless abuse of aristocracy is therefore absurd.' Without the great truths, based on these relations of rich and poor, J. T. W., the apostle of 'Gentility,' thinks that 'society is a murderous anarchy; without these, revolution follows revolution, and barbarism closes the hideous drama of national existence. On these alone hang all the law and prophets.'

The remaining articles of 'De Bow's Review, Industrial Resources, etc.,' are devoted to Free Trade, the Progress of the War, and the Coal-Fields of Arkansas, none of them, with the exception of the latter, presenting aught like an approach to a useful truth. The magazine is, however, as a whole both curious and characteristic. It shows, as in a mirror, the enormous ambition, the uneasy vanity, the varnished vulgarity of the Southerner, his claims to scrupulous honor, outflanked and contradicted at every turn by an innate tendency to exaggerate and misrepresent, and his imperfect knowledge employed as a basis for the most weighty conclusions. And it is such writers and thinkers who accurately set forth the ideas and principles on which the great experiment of the Southern aristocratic confederacy is to be based—in case of its success. A tremendous Ism, fringed with bayonets! There is strength in bayonets, but what stability is there in the Ism which supports them?

EAST AND WEST.

In the far East the imperial rule
Is aided by the British rod;
While in the West the rebel school
Receives full many a friendly nod.
Can no new Mithra ever be
To slay this Bull of tyranny?
[Pg 470]

WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Everyone lives it—to not many is it known; and seize it where you will, it is interesting.'—Goethe.

'Successful.—Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or intended.'—Webster's Dictionary.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW HIRAM MEEKER FLOURISHED AT BURNSVILLE.

Hiram entered on his new duties—I was about to say with zeal and activity; such are not the words I would employ to describe his conduct or character, but rather earnestness and fidelity. Neither do these terms precisely convey my meaning, but none better occur to me. He was quiet and unobtrusive, at the same time alert and ready. Absolutely negative in his manner, he did not leave a salient point for Mr. Burns to lay hold of. His first object was to learn exactly the situation of his employer's affairs, and that without manifesting the least curiosity on the subject.

Of course, such an event as the introduction of a young man into Mr. Burns's private office was soon known all over town. The appearance of the new-comer was scrutinized, and every word and gesture watched. This Hiram knew very well, and bore himself accordingly. Wherever he went, whether on some business to Slab City with Mr. Burns's horse and wagon, or into the store, or about the village, he carried with him the careful, considerate air of one who is charged with affairs of the greatest importance.

Do not think Hiram was so foolish as to assume a consequential air—not he. His manner appeared quite involuntary; produced necessarily by the grave matters he had in charge. He was by no means reserved. He was always ready to enter into conversation and to answer questions, provided the questions did not refer to his employer's business. Thus he soon gained the reputation in Burnsville which he had in Hampton, of being a very agreeable young man. At first his presence rather puzzled the good people, and some would inquire of Hiram what he was 'hired for;' his answer was ready and explicit: 'To act as confidential clerk for Mr. Burns.' This would be pronounced in a tone so decided, that while it only stimulated the curiosity of the inquirer, it checked further questioning.

In this way, without appearing conceited, arrogant, or consequential, our hero managed to impress every body with the importance and responsibility of his position. Wherever he appeared, folks would say: 'There goes Meeker.' As Mr. Burns's representative, he was noticed more than Mr. Burns himself. Hiram knew very well how to manage all this, and he did so to perfection.

It would have done you good to see Hiram on Sunday, elaborately dressed, going to church with the Widow Hawkins on his arm, followed by the two Miss Hawkins. Walking up the aisle, his countenance composed and serious, he would open the pew-door and wait reverently for Mrs. H. and the young ladies, to pass in. They, 'the young ladies,' would flutter along and enter the pew with a pleased, satisfied air—they were already in love with Hiram—and after the usual turnings and twistings and adjustments, would take their seats, the one next our hero giving him a little bit of a smile or a brief whisper ere she settled down into the ordinary church decorum.

Hiram all the while would not move a muscle. He never cast his eyes around the congregation—he never looked any where except at the clergyman, to whom he paid profound attention. When the services were over, he escorted Mrs. Hawkins back to her house, while the young ladies sometimes stopped to say a few words to their companions.

In a fortnight Hiram had taken a class[Pg 471] in the Sunday-school, of which Mr. Burns was superintendent, and on the next communion Sabbath he joined the church by letter.

For some time Hiram confined himself in the office to following implicitly the instructions of Mr. Burns, without venturing to ask any questions or make any suggestions. He carried out these instructions to the letter. He wrote a beautiful hand. He was, as the reader knows, an admirable accountant. For several days Mr. Burns seemed disposed to ascertain his capabilities by putting a variety of matters into his hands. He gave him a contract to copy, and then asked for an abstract of it. He submitted several long accounts to him for arrangement. He sent him to the mill or factory, sometimes to deliver a message simply, sometimes to look after a matter of consequence. Mr. Burns found Hiram on all these occasions to be intelligent, accurate, and prompt. He invariably manifested this single characteristic, to wit, undivided attention to the matter in hand.

'He is an invaluable fellow, I declare,' said Mr. Burns to himself; 'I wish I could feel differently toward him. Strange how a first prejudice will stick to one!'

'I think I am gaining ground,' soliloquized Hiram. 'Let him try me—the more the better. I shall do him good in spite of himself.'

During this period, which we may term Hiram's novitiate, he had been careful, without appearing to avoid her, not to come in contact with Sarah Burns. Mr. Burns was a very hospitable man, but he had omitted to ask Hiram to visit him. The latter was not slow to perceive and appreciate the neglect. He did not mind it much, though. He had gained his position, and felt he could take care of himself.

Meantime Sarah frequently inquired of her father how he liked his new clerk. At first, as we have stated, she felt jealous that any one should share his business confidences with her, but soon she resigned herself to this, and learning who was to enter her father's service, she hoped that she would find an agreeable acquaintance in the young man with whom—if the truth be told—she was really much pleased when they met at Mrs. Crofts'. We have already described the wrath of young Meeker at receiving, as he supposed, the cut direct from Sarah Burns the first day he visited the place. Sarah, entirely unconscious of having given offense, began to wonder how it happened that she never encountered him on any occasion. They attended the same church, each had a class in the Sunday-school, they met in the lecture-room, but never where an opportunity was afforded for them to speak. At last, one Sunday, after he had finished with his class, Hiram started to go to the library to procure some books for his pupils, and perceived, when it was too late, that Miss Burns herself was making choice of some. Another moment, and Hiram was close at her side, but intent on his selections.

'He is diffident,' said Sarah to herself, 'and thinks I do not recognize him because I did not when we met so unexpectedly. It is proper I should speak to him.'

'Very well, I thank you,' he replied, with polite formality; 'I hope you are quite well;' and barely waiting for her bow of assent, he busied himself with the books again.

'How he has altered! What can be the matter with him?' thought Sarah as she turned to resume her place.

'Pretty well for encounter Number two,' muttered Hiram, as he walked back to his class. 'Wait a little, young lady, and we will see who comes off second best.'

Louisa and Charlotte Hawkins were both very pretty girls. Their mother, now several years a widow, was an estimable lady, who had by no means lost[Pg 472] her good looks. Possessing excellent health, she made a very youthful appearance, and seemed more like an elder sister than the mother of her daughters. Her husband left her a moderate income, which an unforeseen occurrence had the last season diminished. It was this circumstance which induced her to listen to Hiram's application to become a member of her family. His recommendations were so ample, what Mr. Burns said about him was so satisfactory, and the price which Hiram volunteered to pay for his accommodations so generous, that Mrs. Hawkins found it impossible to refuse him. I will not say that Hiram's manner and address did not serve to turn the scale. The widow was gratified with the extraordinary deference paid to her, with which was mingled a species of admiration, while the young ladies, who were of course brought into the consultation, were somehow severally impressed with the idea that Hiram must be perfectly charming in a private tête-à-tête with mamma and sister out of the room.

Hiram's plan with the ladies was literally to divide and conquer. Mrs. Hawkins had too much good sense to take matters seriously, but she could not help being flattered by the assiduous and persevering attentions of so young and handsome a fellow. In fact, she looked five years younger herself, after Hiram came to her house. These attentions, however, were not out of the common course. They were apparently just what it was eminently proper and polite to render; but we have already explained that Hiram had a delicate and most insinuating way of giving force and meaning to them.

Ah! well, after all, we would not intimate that the widow Hawkins, now forty years of age, ever entertained any other thought toward Hiram than that he would make a most delightful son-in-law, or if she did experience feelings which people take for granted belong only to the young, (people are much mistaken,) it is not for me to betray or expose them.

But the young ladies, Miss Louisa and Miss Charlotte—here was a more difficult task, to render equal justice to each. Candidly, however, I think Hiram accomplished it. Louisa was already one-and-twenty, but she had glossy dark hair which she wore in curls down her neck, and served to give her a very youthful appearance. Charlotte, who was nearly two years younger than her sister, was always taken by strangers to be the eldest. She was a blonde, and wore her light brown hair plain over her face. Both these young ladies soon had their private impression that there were peculiar confidences between them and Hiram. It was the old story again. Our hero had lost none of his powers of fascination in removing from Hampton to Burnsville.

You see, reader, how pleasantly Hiram was quartered. I do not suppose that a thought of Mary Jessup ever entered his brain (to say nothing of his heart, if he had any) after he came to Mrs. Hawkins's. He attended to his business devotedly, and never in a single instance sacrificed it to his pleasure, his comfort, or his inclinations. When it was finished, he found solace and enjoyment in the society of these ladies, much as he would enjoy his dinner, though in a higher degree, and with a keener zest.

After the meeting with Miss Burns at the Sunday-school, Hiram no longer avoided her. Still, he confined himself to courteous salutations, in which he appeared perfectly at his ease, and unrestrained, without getting into conversation or alluding to a previous acquaintance. But pray, understand, if Sarah Burns had had the slightest idea that Hiram's course was premeditated, she would have cut his acquaintance instanter, for she was a girl of spirit, with a vein of her father's impetuosity of character. As it was, she imagined every reason for Hiram's reserve but the right one, and so was anxious he should do away with it. To this end she always returned his greeting in a manner calculated to give him confidence if he were[Pg 473] diffident, and courage if he were timid. It seemed to little purpose. 'What can be the matter with the fellow?' she said to herself. She was piqued; she was puzzled; she felt annoyed.

Young ladies must excuse me for letting the public into some of their secrets, but as a faithful historian, I am forced to record precisely how Sarah Burns felt, as well as just what she did during the early part of her acquaintance with my hero—an acquaintance which led, as the reader may remember, to an engagement of marriage.

Meantime, Hiram began to gain in Mr. Burns's regard. He soon discovered how very capable his new clerk was. He certainly had never had any such person in his employment before. He found himself by degrees leaving many things for Hiram to attend to which he supposed no one but himself was capable of transacting. In such cases he was astonished with what facility Hiram performed the work; how apt and ready he was. What a comfort for a man with as much on his hands as Mr. Burns, to have such a person near him!

Yet, somehow, with all his readiness, and capability, and actual value to his employer, he was not a comfort to him. Despite all, Hiram's presence cast a shadow across the soul of Mr. Burns. While he approved of every thing he did, while he appreciated his extraordinary business abilities, while he could not but feel satisfied and pleased with his competency, his assiduity, and his untiring devotion, the quick, sensitive nature of this truthful, genuine man felt magnetically the malign force working in the brain of the subtle and calculating schemer.

It was remarked after a while about the village, that Hiram never visited. It was soon understood though, what a moral, pious youth he was. The Rev. Mr. Baker said he never conversed with a young person whose religious experience was so interesting, and who manifested such implicit trust in Providence.

Hiram was quick-witted enough to perceive that his situation with Mr. Burns was enough of itself to give him a prominent position in the village. The girls were crazy to be introduced to him, and one young lady who had hitherto held out against it, took a class in Sunday-school so as to make young Meeker's acquaintance at the meetings of the teachers. I have said Hiram never visited; I will tell you why. So long as he made no visits, it would not appear singular that he did not call at Mr. Burns's, otherwise his omission to do so would certainly attract attention. True, Hiram did not, perhaps, require an invitation to justify his going to see Miss Burns, but he resolved he would not go without one. He was careful, however, that not a soul should know he felt slighted, and this led him to spend his time at home, and devote himself to the widow Hawkins and her daughters. It is true he rapidly made the acquaintance of the whole church. Some very pleasant seasons he enjoyed with the young ladies at the various gatherings connected with it. He was rallied on his being so much of a recluse. Arch hints were conveyed that doubtless his home was specially agreeable. Was it Louisa or Charlotte? Both these young ladies would simper and look conscious when they were attacked on the subject; for both candidly believed they were liable to the innuendoes.

Thus matters went on during the first six months of Hiram's career at Burnsville. In that time he managed to make himself fully acquainted with Mr. Burns's affairs. In fact, he knew more about them with reference to value and availability than did Mr. Burns himself. For with the latter life possessed higher objects than the mere acquisition of property; while with Hiram it was the great earthly good, and not a thought or a fancy entered his brain which did not have reference to it. We can see how very useful such a person would be to Mr. Burns. Indeed, after a while he found himself listening to occasional[Pg 474] suggestions which Hiram modestly put forth about this or that matter.

The liberal terms allowed to every one in his service was a matter of great annoyance to the confidential clerk. But here he touched a vital principle in Mr. Burns's course of action, which was, to regard all who served him as entitled to share according to their usefulness in the benefits of the business or enterprise in which they were engaged. The result was, that their wages or salaries were on a generous scale. A further result appeared in the pleasing aspect of the village, betokening a more diffused prosperity than is ordinarily observed.

Now, Hiram had early mastered the doctrine of making the many contribute to the success and fortunes of the few. It had already become one of his cardinal ideas. The reader will recollect that about the first thing which impressed our hero on coming to Burnsville, was the fact that Mr. Burns was not as rich as he ought to be considering the facilities he had to make money. Here was a point beyond Hiram Meeker's comprehension. Turn it whichever way he would, he failed to understand Mr. Burns in this. You see, Hiram could have no more idea of his employer's large and humanizing views than a blind man of colors. He could not attribute it to lack of sagacity, for he saw such abundant proofs as compelled his admiration and respect. It did not appear to grow out of any strict religious theories, for Mr. Burns held mere professions in such low esteem that he never spoke of an act or of a course as dictated or regulated by a sense of duty, so called. Since his wife died, he had tried to obey her dying injunction, 'to live right,' which he soon discovered had reference to the state of his heart, and thus to his motives, while his actions were such as would naturally flow from such a condition of the 'inner man.' Hiram, on the other hand, practiced on the philosophical principle of 'means to ends.' He had two ends in view, namely: To be SUCCESSFUL here, and to be SUCCESSFUL hereafter. He was determined to omit nothing which could further these ends. But since these (as we have before stated) had no reference to or connection with any thing except self, the reader will readily see how Hiram failed to understand Mr. Burns.

On other points there was no difficulty. And on his part, Mr. Burns could not help being struck with the clear, rapid, comprehensive business mind of the young man. Despite his prejudices, Hiram advanced daily in his confidence.

There was one matter, and that an important one, in Mr. Burns's affairs which was going wrong. I refer to the paper-mill. Mr. Burns had undertaken the enterprise in connection with an excellent man, an old friend and an extensive paper-dealer, residing in New-York. Each furnished half the capital for the erection of the mill and for the machinery, and they were, therefore, joint owners of the property. The season after it went into operation, his friend failed and felt himself obliged, without having time to consult Mr. Burns, to convey his portion of the mill to a Mr. Joslin—Mr. Elihu Joslin, one of the largest paper-merchants in the city, to whom he owed a heavy confidential debt. This Joslin was a very rich man and also very unscrupulous—such was his reputation with the trade. Not a few thought he was the means of forcing his brother-merchant into bankruptcy, having first lent him considerable sums of money on a pledge that it should be considered confidential in any event. In this way Elihu Joslin came to be owner of one half the paper-mill with Joel Burns. At the first interview every thing passed pleasantly between the two. Joslin was planning how to get the other in his power, and so finally possess the whole of the property. It was arranged, as was very proper, that Mr. Joslin should act as merchant for the mill, as his predecessor had done. He was to purchase and forward rags of which to manufacture paper, and should receive on consignment all paper produced at the mill. He sounded Mr. Burns on his own wants for money, and[Pg 475] was disappointed to find him in no need whatever. On the rendering of the first accounts, Mr. Burns was much chagrined at the state of things which they discovered. True, every thing was correct on paper. Rags were entered at the market price; consignments when sold were properly credited. But there were charges for all sorts of commissions, for accepting, and paying, and accepting again, because paper remained unsold, and for a variety of things hitherto unheard of in ordinary dealings, and which the previous correspondent of Mr. Burns had never made, which were positively startling. Mr. Burns remonstrated by letter. It did not do the least good. He was dealing with a bold, daring, unscrupulous man, who, in the language of his acquaintances, always practiced the grab-game.

Mr. Burns finally made the best settlement of the account in his power, determining, before another six months should pass, that he would make a change of some sort. Unfortunately, he was at that time rather short of money, for he was expending considerable sums in other enterprises, and supposed the paper-mill could not fail of taking care of itself. So he continued to send forward to Mr. Joslin the consignments of paper, and to draw on him as usual. The next rendering of accounts showed affairs in a sad plight. Paper was very dull, so Joslin wrote. The lots sent forward were not as good as usual, (which was a falsehood,) so that much that had been sold was returned to him, (another lie,) and he had been forced to sell the most of it at auction to cover his advances, and the last cargo of rags still remained unpaid.

Mr. Burns was thunderstruck. He saw at once that he had fallen into the hands of a knave; but what was to be done? The idea of going to New-York to obtain satisfaction and thus encounter the scoundrel on his own ground was not pleasant; but what else could be done? He decided, after some reflection, as he could not just then leave the place, to send the superintendent of the mill to Mr. Joslin for the purpose of investigating the account, and all the circumstances connected with the business. He prepared a strong letter to Joslin, in which he spoke with great severity of the course pursued by that individual.

At this juncture Hiram was taken into the consultation. He begged Mr. Burns to write no letter, but to send any message he chose. 'The man will accomplish nothing,' he rather curtly added, 'still, it is well enough to send him.' Mr. Burns thought Hiram's suggestion a prudent one, so the head man of the paper-mill was dispatched with his instructions. He returned in three days very well satisfied with his journey. He had been received by Mr. Elihu Joslin with the utmost politeness. He expressed entire willingness to go over the account and correct any mistakes in it. Indeed, he had succeeded in convincing Mr. Joslin of one error of thirty-one dollars and twenty-six cents, which the latter at once made right. As to the main points at issue, however, Mr. Joslin could not alter the amount. There were the advances, here the sales, there the charges, here the credits. As to the commissions for buying, for selling, and guaranteeing, and for accepting, why, let him consult the very first houses in the city, the very first. He would leave it to Mr. Burns to select the house, and abide by its decision.

The man came back to Burnsville completely bamboozled. Hiram was present in Mr. Burns's office when this report was made. Mr. Burns received it in silence. He saw at once how his messenger had been over-reached.

Mr. Burns started to leave the office; he opened the door and was half out; then he turned.

'By the way, Meeker, come and take tea with me; we will then be ready to go at once into the accounts.'

The door closed and Hiram was left alone. What a moment of triumph, as he regarded it!

'Invited to the house at last! I knew I should fetch it. Let us see ... very good.... Now, young lady....'

The murmurings finally became inaudible as Hiram rose and walked up and down the room, stopping occasionally, and then starting rapidly on.

Mr. Burns proceeded homeward, quite unconscious of the excitement he had raised in Hiram's breast. Always considerate and just, it occurred to him since he had requested the young man to come to his house on business, thus breaking over his usual rule, that he ought to ask him to tea, and accordingly he did so. He announced the fact to Sarah as he entered the house. He was too much preöccupied to observe a slight flush rise to her cheeks as he spoke. She, however, only replied:

'Yes; Stevens has returned from New-York, accomplishing nothing. I am going to send Meeker. We are to look over matters this evening.'

'Perhaps it does; but I confess I have a great deal of confidence that he will bring something about.'

That evening the appearance of the table was slightly changed—not enough to attract Mr. Burns's attention, but there was a greater display of silver than usual, and a nicer regard to arrangement. The same might be said of Sarah herself. The casual observer would not notice it, one of her own sex would.

One minute past the appointed time master Hiram arrived, direct from the office, where he had been so immersed in accounts, head and hands so full of business, as almost to forget the tea-hour.

Yes, he came direct from the office. But previously he had stepped to his room, and without 'dressing up,' or apparently disturbing the usual arrangement of his wardrobe, managed to make himself especially presentable. In short, he had done just what Sarah Burns had done.

I wish you could have witnessed the meeting between them. You would have thought Hiram in the habit of going all his life to the house, instead of entering it for the first time. No forwardness, though, no assumption, yet entire freedom from awkwardness or embarrassment.

Sarah, on her part, received him with a pleasant lady-like greeting, quite unconscious, as we have already intimated, of having given Hiram any cause of offense.

Various topics were discussed: the condition of the Sunday-school, the health of the clergyman, the high water at Slab City, the lecture of the celebrated Charles Benjamin Bruce, the prospects of the Lyceum, the new town-hall.

Mr. Burns said but little. It was very unusual to see him engrossed with any business matter to the exclusion of social enjoyments. Was he thinking of business altogether? Occasionally and unconsciously his eye would glance from his daughter to Hiram and then back again. Little did he know, little could he guess what was passing in that crafty, scheming brain—else....

'How do I know it? Are you not aware that I know every thing going on? I was very jealous of you at first.'

'Indeed I did not. If I had, I should never have presumed to offer my services.'

'I suppose it was well you did. Some time I will tell you what I used to do. But father talks to me about every thing just as ever. Oh! I hope you can do something with that Mr. Joslin. Do you think you can?'

'I hope so; I shall try, and—(he hesitated, looked down, and blushed—consummate actor that he was)—'and all the harder now that I find you take such an interest in it.'

[There was the slightest perceptible hauteur in her tone, and the slightest perceptible drawing in from her previous pleasant, free manner—only the slightest.]

'For,' continued Hiram, lifting his eyes and looking at her boldly, as if not noticing the remark, 'if you take so much interest in my mission, you will be forced to feel some sort of interest in me.'

'If you succeed, why, I will say yes,' replied Sarah, with entire good humor. 'If you do not—'

Here Mr. Burns came in, and the two proceeded at once to business. He did not see Sarah again.

It was at a late hour that Hiram left the house. With Mr. Burns's aid he had mastered the whole subject, accounts and all. He was happy. Once as he walked along he turned and cast his eyes up at the window. I do not like to think of the look which flitted across his face. He nodded significantly, and went on his way.

'Where have you been?' she whispered, 'I was so frightened. I persuaded them to go to bed. Did you think I would be waiting for you?'

They went in and sat half an hour in the parlor together. But Hiram gave her no inkling of where he passed the evening.

The next day our hero started for New-York. Of his adventures there, and the result of his interview with Elihu Joslin, we will speak in another chapter.

KENTUCKY.

The Dark and Bloody Ground of yore,
Kentucky, thou art that once more.
But where is he who gave the name—
The Indian? Lost like meteor's flame!
Gone, as the bandits soon shall be,
Who brought the name again to thee!
[Pg 478]

LITERARY NOTICES

Life and Letters of Washington Irving. By Pierre Irving. Vol. II. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K. Loring. 1862.

We have perused this second volume of 'Irving's Life and Letters' with even greater relish than the first, and return sincere thanks to its editor for the zeal and skill shown in his work. Such compilations, when not very well done, are proverbially dull; it is therefore the highest compliment which we can pay to say that the work thus far is extremely interesting. We have in it, as in the brilliant memoir of some great man of the world, constantly recurring glimpses of world-wide celebrities, pictures of travel, bits of gossip of people in whom every body is interested, the whole interwoven with the kindliest and most genial traits of character. If Irving's works are essential to every library, it may be said with equal truth that the 'Life and Letters' are quite as inseparable from the works themselves.

Bayard Taylor's Works. Northern Travel. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K. Loring.

Within a few years the tide of English and of American travel has flown far more than of old over Scandinavia, a land so little known as to bear a prestige of strange mystery to many. Books of travel describing it are comparatively rare; it has not, like Germany or England, been 'done to death,' and the consequence is, that a good book describing it, like this of Taylor's, has a peculiar charm of freshness and of novelty. In it, as in every volume of his travels, Bayard Taylor gives us the impression that the country in question is his specialty and favorite, the result being a thoroughly genial account of all he saw. Readers not familiar with this series may be pleased to know that as regards typography, illustration, and binding, it is in all respects elegant, though furnished at an extremely moderate price.

Edwin Brothertoft. By Theodore Winthrop. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

To a certain extent novels are like dishes; while there is no dispute as to the surpassing excellence of a few, the majority are prized differently, according to individual tastes. Public opinion has unanimously rated the Winthrop novels highly, some readers preferring 'Cecil Dreeme,' while to judge by the press, it would seem that 'Edwin Brothertoft' best pleases the majority. It is certainly a book of marked character, and full of good local historical color. The author had one great merit—he studied from life and truth, and did not rehash what he had read in other novels, as do the majority of story-tellers at the present day, when a romance which is not crammed with palpable apings of 'Jane Eyre' and 'Adam Bede' is becoming a rarity. In 'Edwin Brothertoft' we have a single incident—as in 'John Brent'—the rescue of a captive damsel by a dashing 'raid,' as the nucleus, around which are deftly woven in many incidents, characters, and scenes, all well set forth in the vigorous style of a young writer who was deeply interested in his own work. That he is sometimes rather weakly grotesque, as in his sporting with the negro dialect, which in the person of a servant he affects to discard and yet resumes, is a trifle. That he shows throughout the noblest sympathies and instincts of a gentleman, a philanthropist, and a cosmopolite is, however, something which can not be too highly praised, since it is[Pg 479] these indications which lend a grace and a glory to all that Winthrop wrote. Noblesse oblige seems to have been the great consciousness of his nature, and he therefore presented in his life and writings that high type of a gentleman by birth and culture, who without lowering himself one whit, was a reformer, a progressive, yes, a 'radical' in all things where he conceived that the root to be extracted was a great truth.

In many things 'Edwin Brothertoft' is most appropriate to these our times, since its scenes are laid in that Revolutionary War for the cause of freedom, of which this of the present day is, in fact, a repetition. We feel in its every page the anxiety and interest of war, an American war for the right, sweeping along through trials and sorrows. To characterize it in few words, we may say that in it the author reminds us of Cooper, but displays more genius and life than Cooper ever did.

Out of His Head. By T. B. Aldrich. New-York. Carleton.

It is said that the 'grotesque' romance is going out of fashion; if this be so, the beautiful and quaint collection of interwoven fancies before us proves that in literature as in horticulture, the best blooms of certain species are of the latest. Strange, indeed, is the conception of this work—the fancied biography of one literally 'out of his head,' who imagines himself surrounded by a world of people who act very singularly. Madmen are never ordinary; therefore the writer has not, while setting forth the most extraordinary fancies, once transgressed the limits of the probable. This was a bold stroke of genius in the very inception, and it is developed with a subtle tact which can hardly fail to claim the cordial admiration of the most carping critic. It is true that in using the strange aberrations of a lunatic as material for romance, Aldrich has provoked comparison with some of the world's greatest writers; and it is to his credit that he has met them evenly, and that too without in any particular incurring the charge of plagiarism. But had the thema of the work been less ingenious or striking, its defects would have been unnoticed among the beautiful pictures, the unconscious breathings of poetry, and the sweet caprices which twine around the strange plot, as the tendrils and leaves of the vine cover over, yet indicate by their course the fantastic twinings of the parent vine. It is needless to say, that we commend this most agreeable work to our readers. We are glad to see that 'Père Antoine's Date Palm' which has attained so great a popularity, and several other fascinating tales by Aldrich, are incorporated into the present volume as the 'library' of the hero.

Les Miserables. III. Marius. By Victor Hugo. New-York: Carleton.

'Sure an' didn't I tell ye I was a poor scholar,' said the young Irish sham-student-beggar to the gentleman who refused him alms because he could not read. In the same strain, as it seems to us, Victor Hugo might reply to the wearied readers of these tales: 'Why, do they not call themselves miserable?' Miserable indeed is the 'Marius' installment now before us—a mere sensation plot, brilliantly patched here and there with the purpureus pannus, or purple rag of a bit of imperial or later history, 'coached' up for display, but falling lamentably into what under any other name would be called a gross imitation of Eugène Sue. The point of the present volume, to which its scenes tend, is, of course, a robber's den—a decoyed victim—the police in waiting, and a tremendous leap from a window—the whole suggesting Mr. Bourcicault's moral sensational drama, or rather its French originals, to an amusing extent. Still the genius of the author, always erratic, of course, is shown in more than one chapter. The trials and sufferings of 'Marius,' and his noble independence of character, as well as the peculiar and widely differing traits of his friends the students are set forth with great spirit, and with the intention of a good purpose. Victor Hugo is in all his works unequal[Pg 480] unless we except 'Hans of Iceland,' which is completely trashy throughout; but he was never more so than in 'The Miserables.' We have spoken of this third part as though its first title were an illustration of the nomen et omen so much believed in of old. We may add that like the Mois of Alexandre Dumas, it has simply an s too much,

The Fly-ing Dutchman. By John Q. Saxe. Illustrated. New-York: Carleton. 1862.

An amusing little series of pictures, drawn and written, setting forth the accidents which befell a 'Dutchman' in catching a fly.

The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough. With a Memoir. By Charles Eliot Norton. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

Arthur Hugh Clough was an English gentleman of high university education and honors, and gifted with liberal and progressive views in politics, who, after distinguishing himself somewhat in his native land, resided for one year in this country as an instructor at Cambridge, Mass. On returning to England to take a place in the Education Department of the Privy Council, he wrote: 'I am rather unwilling to be re-Englished after once attaining that higher transatlantic development. However, il faut s'y soumettre, I presume, though I fear I am embarked in the foundering ship. I hope to heaven you'll get rid of slavery, and then I shouldn't fear but you would really 'go ahead' in the long run. As for us and our inveterate feudalism, it is not hopeful.'

It is needless to say that an English poet with such feelings must be, if not vigorous, liberal, and original, at least ambitious of becoming such, and this Clough is. A vigorous naturalism, such as is becoming half the religion and all the art of the scholars and thinkers of the present day, inspires every page. Truthful yet picturesque, he is more than pleasant to read, he is good to think, and most relishing to feel with. Had he been a meaner mind, he would have been a mere Adam Bede-ish pre-Raffaelite in word-painting—'the Bothie of Taber-na-vuolich,' the first poem in this volume is often photographic in its rural views, as well as in its characters. As it is, literal nature is to him material for fresh brave thought. Through all his poems, owing to this simple vigorous truth, and an innate sense of refinement, he rises head and shoulders above the 'sweet-pretty' Miss Nancy Coventry Patmores or spasmodic Alexander Smiths or other cotemporary English stuff of later poetry.

England has of late years deluged and wearied us so much with thousand times told tales of herself and her social life, and her writers have run so exceedingly in ruts, that there are few really thinking men in America who have not begun to tire woefully of her endless novels and worn-out poetry. We could write against the whole 'connu, connu,' and at the end a 'deliver us'—from evil it might be, certainly from no great temptation. Let the world believe it—it will some day—English thought is at present exhausted, stagnant, and imitative. It is cursed with mannerism, even as the Chinese are cursed, and every honest man of mind knows it. In such a state of national art it is cheerful to open a volume like these poems, in which one hears, as it were, the first lark-notes of an early dawn and sees from afar a few gleams of morning red. It is not the full light nor the great poetry which reforms and awakes nations, but it is the forerunner in many things of such, and will be read with great pleasure by those who long for some faint realization of the great Nature-Art of the future.[Pg 481]

EDITOR'S TABLE

It is evident enough that all questions between North and South must settle themselves, should the war only go far enough. When it comes to the struggle for life; to the last most desperate effort on either side for political and personal existence, then people will begin to open their eyes to the fact that the one who conquers must conquer effectually, and hold the vanquished at utter will. Very few among us have as yet realized this extreme case as the nations of the Old World have done a thousand times. We who lived at home, have, looking at the late wars of Europe, imagined that 'the army' might beat or be beaten, but that 'the country' and the mass of its in-dwellers would remain unharmed. We have not seen cities captured, farms laid waste, and experienced the horrors of war. When it comes to that, the case becomes desperate, and nothing is left at last but unconditional victory or defeat. Had we done so, we should have 'gone to extremes.'

The South has begun the war, dared its terrors, encountered them, and become desperate. It is win or lose with them. We too, with every loss gather fresh strength. Ere long we shall probably have every man in the Federal Union capable of bearing arms summoned to the field, and that less by Executive command than by an individual sense of duty, or dread. Our people have learned very slowly indeed what disasters may befall them in case of defeat, but they are gradually coming to the knowledge, and are displaying a rapidly advancing energy of interest and of action. They have immediate and terrible disasters from hostile armies to repel, and they have to apprehend in the future such a picture of ruin and disorganization as the result of secession as no one can bear to contemplate. We are coming to it, and may as well make up our minds at once to the fact that it is to be a Southern rule in the North or 'Northern' rule over the South—if we may call that 'Northern' which means simply the principles of the Constitution as applied to all States, and of justice as recognized by all nations. He must be blind who can not see that it is to this extreme stage of war to the knife that we are rapidly advancing, and that its result is far more likely to be complete conquest than reconciliation.

The nations of Europe are waiting for the crisis of the fever to be passed before they intervene. The sympathy of England is in great measure with the South; yet England may well doubt the expediency of any partial interference. This tremendous North can yet send forth another million if needs must be, and still leave those who with tears in their eyes and stern resolve in their hearts would plant and weave and work to sustain the soldiers a-field. When it comes to this death-struggle—when we begin to live in the war and for the war alone—where can the foe be? They have long since sunk in great measure from the social condition of peace into that olden-time state of full war, when as in Sparta, or Rome, in her early days all things in life were done solely with reference to maintaining the army. With us it has been—is as yet—very different. The voice of the highly-paid opera-singer is still heard in our large cities—Newport and Saratoga never saw gayer seasons than those of 1862—splendor and luxury are still the life of thousands, and even yet there exists in the North a large political party who[Pg 482] are so far from feeling that there is any desperation involved as to still dally and coquet with the political principles of the enemy, and talk largely of compromise. When it comes to the bitter end, those trivial, superficial, temporary men will, we believe, in most cases, be changed into good citizens, for necessity is a hard master.

For surely as we live it is approaching; the terrible struggle of rule or ruin, which so few have dared to anticipate. We have ever been so free from tremendous crises of life and death that even with a war devouring scores of thousands of our best men, very few have realized what we must come to with a brave and desperate foe. Union victories may defer such a struggle—and God grant that they have such result!—but in case they do not, what hope remains for our foe? They have fought well, they are willing to hang out the black flag; but what then? They have not and can not establish a real superiority of strength, and yet have voluntarily forced upon a stronger opponent a war which must become deadly.

The tremendous enthusiasm which spread over the country on the last day of August, 1862, was after all only an awakening. The extraordinary voluntary response to President Lincoln's calls for six hundred thousand men was merely a beginning. The South, in proportion to its strength did as much long ago. But the ball is rolling on and the storm grows more terrible. We have great trials, probably, still before us, but let no one despair. Out of our agony and our desperation must come victory—a dire and terrible victory it may be for us all—but it will be overwhelming, and after that victory there will be left no strength in the South to lift a hand.

And in those days the different principles involved in this war will have forced themselves so fiercely to a result that those who contended for them will seem to have acted almost as vainly as those who were such children as to resist them. What will become of the Negro if the South strives to the death, dragging the North down on and after it! What became of Serfdom during the Thirty Years' War and the other desperate and exhausting wars which followed it? What will become of Cotton if new markets are opened, as they must be? England has not realized, as we are beginning to do, that there is not, can not, and will not be a time, when both combatants, mutually wearied, must let go. Men do not weary of war; the new generation grows up fiercer than its fathers. The sooner England begins to plant her cotton in Jamaica, and Asia Minor and India, the better it will be for her. Unless we gain some extraordinary Union victories this autumn, there will be but little cotton planted next year in Dixie.

We are becoming too strong and fierce for intervention. These be the days of iron-clads and of great armies. Before England and France engage in war with a desperate nation like ours, it will be well to think twice. And we are not at the end yet.

Every man and woman in the North may as well, therefore, be warned betimes, and give all his and her aid to forwarding this war. It will not avail to be feeble, or lukewarm, or indifferent, to wish it well and do nothing, to give a little or dribble out mere kind wishes. Every one's property is at stake, or will be, and the sooner we go to work in right earnest the better. Had we one year ago done what we are even now doing—had we sprung up like a grizzly bear on a buffalo, and given it for its insolent kick a sudden, tremendous blow, tearing through its very heart, we should not have dragged out a year of doubt. It is our curse that we are always 'just a little' behind the enemy in enthusiasm. In due time we shall be in the struggle for life—the faster we advance, the better it will be for us.

On and on and on! We are marching on, and will we, nill we, must conquer or perish.[Pg 483]

'Ye mountains that see us descend to the shore
Must view us as victors or view us no more!'

It is written that North-America is to rise purified, regenerated, and perfectly free from the most tremendous and probably exhaustive struggle in history. Believe it, you who live in it—premonitus, premunitus—'forewarned is to be forearmed.'

If President Lincoln were to call out every man in the North capable of bearing arms—according to medical judgment—between the ages of sixteen and sixty, there would be less difficulty in assembling them than in drafting a minority. If it were once realized that all must go, all would go, and with rare exceptions, right cheerfully. It is not so much the dread of battle and the trials of camp-life which keep men back as the idea that there should be any exempt. Unless the six hundred thousand be speedily brought into the field, and unless when once there, they secure us a speedy victory, the voice of the whole country will cry out for a general and unexcepted conscription.

And if so—why, then, hurrah for it! Let us show Europe and history how far a great nation can go for a great truth and for its rights. Why should we not all arise in tremendous power as whole races rose of old, and trample to the dust this insolent, slaveholding, liberty-defying foe to us and to the holiest rights of man? Such an uprising would be worthy of us—it would rank as the noblest deed of history—it would cast fresh lustre on the name, already great, of our noble President—it would be unparalleled in grandeur, in daring, and in majesty. Its very greatness would thrill the people and inspire them to do each man his utmost. Hurrah for the onward march of the millions!

Watch the times well, Father Abraham—and the instant that the time comes, call for us all. You are not afraid of great measures—neither are your people. What a thing it would be to have led such a movement—what a glory it would be for every man who marched in the great uprising.

'TRELAWNEY.'

Shall Freedom droop and die
And we stand idle by,
When countless millions yet unborn
Will ask the reason why?

If for her flag on high,
You bravely fight and die,
Be sure that God on his great roll
Will mark the reason why.

But should you basely fly.
Scared by the battle-cry,
Then down through all eternity
You'll hear the reason why.

'Great Onion victory!' cried a little newsboy, lately, through the streets of a certain village, wherein we were 'over-nighting,' as the Germans say. He had not well learned orthoëpy, and held that u-n, un, was to be pronounced as in 'unctuous.' Still there are some droll sounds to be extracted from the word—witness the following song in which by a slight modulation of sound the word Union is made a war-cry to advance:

DE-CAMPING SONG.

U-ni-on—you an' I on!
It's time that you and I were gone;
Gone to fight with all our might,
And drive the rebels left and right;
There is Uncle Sam, and I am Sam's Son,
And we'll crush the Philistines with you an' I on.

CHORUS.

U-ni-on—you an' I on!
It's time that you an' I were gone.

U-ni-on, are you nigh on?
It's time we were there, and the fight were won;
O Old Samson! you never knew
What this Sam's son, when he tries, can do;
Your jaw-bone made the enemy flee—
They shall walk jaw-bone from Tennessee.
U-ni-on—you an' I on!
It's time that you an' I were gone.

Reader, if the great call should come, drafting the whole North, why, pack up your blankets and travel, light of heart, remembering that when you are there, the secession-pool of rebellion must 'dry up' in a hurry.[Pg 484]

Much has been said as to the degree of complicity in which the confederates were guilty in stirring up savages against us. In a 'Secesh' poem which 'De Bow' declares to be among the best which belong to the war, we find the following, which seems to have been written in the Indian interest:

'Our women have hung their harps away,
And they scowl on your brutal bands,
While the nimble poignard dares the day
In their dear defiant hands;
They will strip their tresses to string our bows
Ere the Northern sun is set;
There's faith in their unrelenting woes,
There's life in the old land yet.'

Now it is very evident that if the author of the lyric was not describing Indian squaws when he alluded to the 'scowling' females whose 'nimble poignards dare the day,' he certainly ought to have been. But the allusion to 'the bows,' settles the matter. Bows and arrows are not used in the confederate army, though they are by Albert Pike's Indians—enough said.

But if the secessionists will come North, and hemp should give out, we may find a new application, with a slight alteration to the verse in question. For then our women of the North may

And serve 'em right, too. That's all. But really, if this be, in the opinion of the first magazine of the South, one of the best of Southern poems, what must the 'common sort' be?'

GONE.

BY H. L. SPENCER.

Gone! the South winds come again,
Sweeping over bill and plain,
Murmuring through the sombre pines,
Singing o'er the budding vines,
Bringing with them birds that sing
All the glories of the spring;
But they bring not back to me
The boy without whose smile earth's smiles
I never see.

His bed the wood-nymphs strow
With all the flowers that blow,
And the sweet tones of their minim harps
His quiet slumbers lull;

For Nature was his joy,
And he was Nature's toy:
Where sleeps the peerless boy,
She scatters with a lavish hand
The bright, the beautiful.

He reigns, though lost to sight!
Through the long day and night
Is his sweet influence shed
Around the paths I tread:
He is not lost—ah! no—he is not dead.

Not dead! his voice I hear
When South winds murmur near;
I feel, when stars arise,
His soft and loving eyes,
And from the forest flower
His face at evening hour
Smiles on me as of old,
And dreamily my neck his tiny arms enfold.

Not lost to joy, but lost to pain,
Which never shall he feel again;
Earth's acrid fruits he shall not taste,
And wrong it were to chide the haste
With which he left this barren field,
That with its flowers so few, so many thorns doth yield.

I can not mourn my king, for his
Still, still the kingdom is,
And the cares which earth-bred kings annoy,
No more disturb my king—my boy.

IS SMOKING BENEFICIAL?

Leaning from the balcony of the old hotel at Stresa, on the Lago Maggiore, the old hotel kept by Papa Bolangaro, and watching the sunset over Isola Bella and the lake, my friend Blome knocked away the ashes from his Vevay segar—wretched segars those—and dreamily gazed at the beautiful scene before him.

Vino Barbera, as they wrote its name in the bill, was not a bad wine; a bottle of it assisted imagination as a percussion-cap does the powder in your rifle. In the present ease it also brought on an explosion, for as Blome knocked off the segar-ashes for the second time, he heard a loud exclamation from a balcony on the primo piano below him. He looked down. You have seen, I have seen, all the world has seen the Italian woman of paintings and engravings—black eyes, black hair, golden and red-peach complexion—there she was.

My friend passed down apologies for his[Pg 485] oversight; an oversight—bowing preux-chevalier-ly—he was afraid unpardonable, when he saw the object he had overlooked. The beautiful Italian received the apology most charmingly. It proved the overture to a brilliant adventure culminating in Milan.

'You observe,' said Blome to me, 'what real benefits can be derived from smoking. Here have I formed the acquaintance of a very pretty woman, who will fall desperately in love with me, who will call me by my first name within two days, all through segar-ashes. I had a friend in Jena once, the university-town——'

'Where I received it. Good! My friend in Jena was a theological student, a very steady young man. While others would come reeling home from the beer-kneips, he would be careful always to keep steady and under gentle sail; but he had one weakness, a want of confidence while in the presence of woman—one strong point, pipe-smoking.

'One afternoon he was smoking a pipe at his chamber-window, and regarding the passers-by in the street below. When his pipe was smoked out, he emptied its ashes in the street; as he did so, he looked down, Himmel! The ashes fell on the head of Fräulein Baumann, who dwelt in the same house in the story below him, and who was at that time knitting a pair of stockings and also looking at the passengers in the street.

'The theological student drew his head in from the window with the quickness of a turtle. He sat down and meditated.

'Now Fräulein Baumann was a good-hearted blonde, very well calculated to make a good wife to somebody, and her mother, the widow Baumann, determined that this calculation should become a mathematical certainty the first time there was any opportunity of its becoming a fixed fact. She had for some time regarded our student as the coming man. When he flung ashes at her daughter's head, the mother said to her daughter:

"Angelika, thou must find time to make a potato-salad, and see that the smoked goose is well cooked on thy wedding-day.'

'With great trembling the student summoned up force enough to descend the stairs, in order to make a humble apology to the Fräulein for the ashes accident. He knocked at the Frau Baumann's door, and asked to see the Fräulein; but lo! her mother stood before him with a very affable air.

"Mad-dad-ame, I have called in—in, in relation to your d—d-daughter. I——'

"Are you not the theological student, Herr Müller, who lives overhead?' asked Frau Baumann.

"Be seated, I pray you, and O mein Herr! I am so glad to learn from your own lips the declaration of your love for my dearest, best, kindest daughter, Angelika. She will make you the best of wives; a nurse in affliction, a companion in distress, a soother in sorrow, a housekeeper in tribulation, a—but here she is! Angelika, my daughter, behold the Herr Müller, who has sought thy hand; give him the betrothal kiss.' Here Frau Baumann bursting into tears, left the room and the young people together.

'I draw a curtain over the thunderstruck theological student. He went in about ashes and was coming out with hymeneal torches! Before he knew where he was, he had given the betrothal kiss, and one year afterward married the blonde Angelika. If you ever meet an old lady who says smoking is beneficial, you may be sure her name is Frau Baumann, mother-in-law of our theological student.'

Shoddy is not so much heard of now. But he still lives—especially in memory and in poetry—videlicet.

'SHODDY.'

BY J. IVES PEASE.

Old Shoddy sits in his easy-chair,
And cracks his jokes and drinks his ale,
Dumb to the shivering soldier's prayer,
Deaf to the widows' and orphans' wail.
His coat is warm as the fleece unshorn;
Of a 'golden fleece' he is dreaming still:
And the music that lulls him, night and morn,
Is the hum-hum-hum of the shoddy-mill.

Clashing cylinders, whizzing wheels,
Rend and ravel and tear and pick;
What can resist these hooks of steel,
Sharp as the claws of the ancient Nick?
Cast-off mantle of millionaire,
Pestilent vagrant's vesture chill,
Rags of miser or beggar bare,
[Pg 486]All are 'grist' for the shoddy-mill.

Worthless waste and worn-out wool,
Flung together—a specious sham!
With just enough of the 'fleece' to pull
Over the eyes of poor 'Uncle Sam.'
Cunningly twisted through web and woof,
Not 'shirt of Nessus' such power to kill.
Look! how the prints of his hideous hoof
Track the fiend of the shoddy-mill!

A soldier lies on the frozen ground,
While crack his joints with aches and ails;
A 'shoddy' blanket wraps him round,
His 'shoddy' garments the wind assails.
His coat is 'shoddy,' well 'stuffed' with 'flocks';
He dreams of the flocks on his native hill,
His feverish sense the demon mocks—
The demon that drives the shoddy-mill.

Ay! pierce his tissues with shooting pains,
Tear the muscles and rend the hone,
Fire with frenzy the heart and brain;
Old Rough-Shoddy! your work is done!
Never again shall the bugle-blast
Waken the sleeper that lies so still;
His dream of home and glory's past:
Fatal's the 'work' of the shoddy-mill.

Struck by 'shoddy,' and not by 'shells,'
And not by shot, our brave ones fall.
Greed of gold the story tells.
Drop the mantle and spread the pall.
Out! on the vampires! out! on those
Who of our life-blood take their fill.
No meaner 'traitor' the nation knows,
Than the greedy ghoul of the shoddy-mill!

Some years ago, a German writer informed his astonished readers: 'Thieves are so rare in America, that I observe, from reading their journals, that those who are curious in such studies are obliged to offer a reward to find them.' To judge from a recent attempt at imposition in New-York, one might suppose that negroes were so rare in this country that we are obliged to imitate them, by way of keeping up the supply. Not long ago, a young woman, named Perry, and a Dr. Perkins, of Oneida county, engaged with a broker of the curb-stone persuasion to show off the lady as a case of gradual external carbonization; it being asserted that for four years her body had gradually been turning to charcoal! Examination by Dr. Mott and others revealed the fact that 'the supposed epidermis was made of woven cotton, into which charcoal mixed with gum had been worked.' This was tightly gummed to the fair dame, who was to have been exhibited 'in style' in a stylish house in Fourth street; but who was taken to Bellevue Hospital, to be 'ungummed,' as the French say of people who are turned out of place and lose their chances—as this damsel did. The incident will doubtless, at a future day, find a conspicuous place in the history of remarkable impostures. As it is, we conclude with the remark of a friend, to the effect that the lady, by putting the Coal On, had brought herself to a Full Stop!

We are indebted to the Amsterdam (N. Y.) Weekly Dispatch for remarks to the effect that The Continental Magazine is reaching a point in American literature seldom gained at so early a period by any young magazine. 'We hail its independence of thought as the development of a new era in the literature of our land. Its matter is high-toned and interesting, it is the most outspoken print we know of, and its outspokenness is the result of a fresh and vigorous life that is not warped by petty conventionalities.'

We thank our editorial friend for his compliment, and sincerely trust that those who have followed us in our career will not disagree with him. We honestly and earnestly believe that we are outspoken and independent, and accountable in no earthly way to any one, or aught save our conscience and the public. We can imagine no measure for the good of the people, which we would not urge heart and soul, and we most certainly know of no public official, in any capacity, whom we should feel bound to spare in the event of his unworthiness becoming patent. We are neither Radical nor Conservative, neither anti-capital nor anti-poor-man's rights, but hold to the great and glorious creed of Labor and Intelligence hand in hand with Capital, and the harmony of their interests. We believe in constantly enlarging the area of human freedom, holding that the freer and more responsible you[Pg 487] make a man, the more, as a rule, will you stimulate him to improve himself. And we detest from our very soul the Southern-planter and Northern-democratic-conservative doctrine that society should consist of two grades, the first being the mudsill poor, to whom certain protections and privileges should be granted, and are due by the second or the 'higher classes;' holding that a free American, beyond a good education (to which every tax-payer contributes) should claim 'nothing from any body,' and that the less use is made of such phrases as 'lower orders,' 'aristocracy,' and 'social nobility,' the more creditable will it be for man or woman, let their 'position' be what it will.

This war has inaugurated a new era when earnest, honest thought, and bold straightforward speech alone can effect any thing. It is the time for fearlessness and straightforwardness if there ever was one in our history. We have a great war in hand, and great political reforms and measures of tremendous importance are crowding thickly around it, while others, not less mighty, are looming dimly behind them. The great principles of Republicanism, of man's capacity for self-government, of freedom and of progress, have been brought to 'the struggle for life,' and it depends upon our national American energy and honesty to determine whether they shall live. If they are to live, we shall be first among nations, not in the narrow, wretched sense of old-fashioned diplomacy, but in the high Christian sense of aiding all oppressed humanity in their hopes of attaining their rights. But if these principles are to perish—better would it be for this whole land to become a wilderness, and every life a death, than that we should survive the degradation. We have not yet sunk so low that there is no truth left worth dying for. There was a time when men, women, and children were martyred by countless thousands for their fidelity to the faith that extended the same religious rights to all, and now that time has come again to us, calling for fresh sacrifices to the same principle as regards earthly rights and the common happiness of mankind.

But we believe that the truth will prevail, after a sore trial, and that we shall be rewarded to the full. 'No cross, no crown.' But there is a crown after the cross, and God will give it to us. We are passing through the baptism of fire—and verily we needed it, both South and North. The South had become mad with vanity and aristocracy; the North was, is still, corrupt and rotten beyond all healthy life, with such villainy in 'politics,' and such indifference to all that was noble and honorable through the greed of gold, that honest and able men were cast aside, or at best, used as mere tools by the 'intelligent.' Now we are in the struggle for life, and rascals, whether of the Union or of the confederacy, will sooner or later be tried, tested, and rejected. The people are very patient, and they can be for a long time fooled with this or that man's reputed honesty and ability. But we have come to the time of trial, and the people will soon find who is false and what is true.

It is not to be expected that in one year, or in two, the country will be rid of all the old, corrupt politicians and demagogues who continually work every subject of public interest into the question of a 'party.' But it is gratifying to observe that, whether Radical or Conservative, such men are beginning to be regarded with contempt. In times like these, we, at least, blame no man for honestly advocating any policy which he thinks will aid the Union cause. But the country was never more disgusted than it is at present, with men who use politics as a mere trade by which to live. The infamy which has attached to the miserable and imbecile Buchanan, that type of degraded, pettifogging diplomacy, is rapidly extending to his whole tribe—and their name is legion. It is significant that a bank, whose notes bore as vignette a portrait of the ex-honorable ex-President, has been obliged to call them in, and substitute another[Pg 488] device, since so many of the bills were marked beneath the picture with such words as 'traitor,' and 'Judas Iscariot.'

The people are 'all right' in this struggle: but they are awaking very rapidly to the fact that those in power must be honest or able. The coming year is to witness either a grand sifting or a tremendous protest, whose thunder-tones will be heard through all history. It is all very well for conservatives to lay the blame on their enemies and yell for their blood; to recommend the assassination of Charles Sumner, as has been done by one Boston journal; or the hanging of all leading Radicals, as recommended time and again by the New-York Herald; but this will not satisfy the people who can not see how the country is to be saved by holding up and aiding the enemy. Neither, on the other hand, will the people long regard with favor any persons of the opposite party, who are suspected of having managed the war for their own selfish purposes. The old hacks who can only live for personal preferment and for plunder, will be found out, and their places taken by honester and younger men, whose minds will have been shaped, not in by-gone political pettifogging, but in the great earnest needs of the times—in honor and in truth.

Even before authentic copies of General Butler's famed 'Woman Order' had reached us, it was generally understood that he had really done very little more than enforce an already existing local law; yet 'with the word' there went up a squall from the democratic press, clamoring for his instant removal; so angry were the 'Conservatives' that any thing should be said or done which would in any way injure the 'susceptibilities' of their beloved rebel friends.

If we are really at war, it is neither fit nor proper that such expressions of sympathy for the enemy should continually appear, to keep alive in the heart of the foe continual hopes of Northern aid. What does the reader think, for instance, of such a paragraph as the following from the Washington correspondence of the New-York Herald—which has been copied with commendation by its colleagues:

'All conservative men here are shocked at the sweeping measures of confiscation proposed by the radicals. They provide substantially for the abolition of slavery, because slaveholders, for the most part, are considered as rebels by these bills. There are a quarter of a million of slaveholders, and a quarter of a million of other property-holders in the South, that would be made beggars by the execution of this programme. It is pretended that this wholesale confiscation is for the purpose of compensating for the expenses of the war; but none will dare to go into the Africanized South among an infuriated people to purchase estates. It is proposed, also, to arm the negroes, and in effect make them superior to the million of whites, who are to be deprived of their property. Of course, under such circumstances, there will be no cotton or other crops, nor any demand for Northern manufactures from the South.'

Really! and so legislation at Washington is to be conducted with special reference to protecting the property of the rebels! No confiscation, forsooth, because the half million of rebels who have plunged us into this iniquitous and horrible war, in the hope of utterly ruining us, might thereby be reduced to poverty! Northern men may pay a million a day in taxes, but the select slaveholding few who caused the taxation are to be exempted. How shallow is the concluding 'of course, under such circumstances there will be no demand for Northern manufactures from the South.' Will there not? Wait until the South has been well subdued, thoroughly Butlered and vigorously Northed; wait till the Yankee is at home there, and then see if there will be 'no demand for Northern manufactures.' Quite as tender to the rebels is the spirit of the following from the Boston Post of May 31st:

'Senator Sumner,' a correspondent writes, 'in an argument against the proposed tax on cotton, not only opposed it as an act of injustice to the unrepresented South—for grain, hemp, and flax are left untouched—but as oppressive on manufacturers.' Mr. Sumner's sense of justice is called into exercise only[Pg 489] when it suits its owner's convenience. He has no thought of 'injustice to the unrepresented South,' when he wishes to tax negroes, emancipate slaves, and confiscate Southern property.'

Such remarks require no comment. If a rebel in arms, disgraced by every infamy of treason, is only to be treated as his representatives would like, then it is indeed time for the honest friends of the Union to inquire what safeguard we have in the future against national ruin?

MY MOCKING-BIRD.

With wings a-quiver, eyes irate,
He watched me coming near,
Each plume upon his panting breast
Astir with kindling fear.

My hand, though always kindly stretched,
He would not think it good;
And as I placed some sugar in,
He pecked, and drew my blood.

So have I seen the souls caged here,
To learn celestial speech
From angels chanting love so near
They seemed within arm reach;

When closer to them drew God's power,
In wrath or terror stand;
And while he dropped the sweet, dart up
And rend His dear, warm hand.

The London Times is becoming malignantly consistent, and has declared that there should be at present nothing more said of intervention in American affairs, because it would have the effect to immediately strengthen the Federal army.

'If we wish to give the Civil War a new impetus, to recruit for the North with a vigor with which they never can again recruit for themselves, we have only to take some step, we do not say what step, but any step which can be represented as being an interference on our part in the quarrel. The spirit of conquest is worn out, but we know the Americans too well to doubt that the spirit of national independence is as strong as ever. If we interfere at all, we assist Mr. Lincoln to raise his three hundred thousand men, we give a new impetus to the war, and postpone indefinitely the chances of peace, which will never come till the North has been convinced that it is useless to prosecute the war any further. To do nothing is often the wisest, but generally the most difficult policy. We hope that, unless some complete change in the conditions of the problem take place, our government will on no account allow itself to be tempted out of its present policy of expressive silence and masterly inaction.'

The Times speaks too late. One year ago it did not express the sentiments of all England—now unfortunately we find that it has not only poisoned all Great Britain, but is rapidly stirring up Europe against us. The steady stream of falsehood; the reports of Federal defeats which never occurred, and of confederate victories more unfounded, are gradually weakening the faith even of Americans abroad in the great cause of freedom. Let our people arm and out, in all their strength. England and France are only waiting for reverses to our Government to attack us right and left.

We clip the following in reference to a popular eccentric phrase from a note by a friend:

'By the way, do you know that the phrase, 'Or any other man,' can be found in Byron's Letter to my Grandmother's Review? He writes:

"Charley Incledon's usual exordium when people came into the tavern to hear him sing, without paying their share of the reckoning: 'If a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' etc., etc.''

That settles it. After all, there is nothing original in this world, or, as we presume, 'any other world.'

If the steamers for Europe take every week gold from this country, there is at least some comfort in the reflection that we received and continue to receive something for it. If American securities are returning to us from abroad, we are at least getting them back cheap and shall some day sell them again dear. There is some comfort and common-sense in the following from one of 'Hallett and Co.'s' circulars:

'We certainly ought not to complain. We had their money at the right time. It has done for the nation all that money could do—by giving the highest possible value to all our resources and products. Having reaped[Pg 490] the full advantage of the investment, which has increased our means more than five-fold, we were never in a better position to commence its return. The securities are still very low; on an average from ten to fifty per cent below what they were originally sold for. To this discount is to be added something over twenty per cent in the present price of exchange. We are getting back our securities at about one half what we parted with them for. As money is plenty, the foreigner paying the premium on gold, we are certainly driving a very good bargain. We can, without the least inconvenience, part with one hundred million dollars in specie, which is lying idle in the vaults of our banks and the hands of our people, and get back nearly twice the amount of interest-paying securities, which is equivalent to the payment of a debt too, and stopping the interest on an equal amount, assuming securities of this country to a similar amount were held abroad, which is an excessive estimate, the aggregate not probably exceeding one hundred million dollars.'

We have heard of a German, who having been strung up in jest and cut down, declared it was 'a fery pad choke.' The best 'choke' of the season was issued by our friend the Boston Traveller, who in commenting on the remark of the London Times, to the effect that Mr. Lincoln is eating his artichoke, the South, leaf by leaf, but thinks it will not agree with him, said: 'It will not trouble him a thousandth part so much as Jeff Davis will be troubled when he shall, by and by, take his 'heartychoke with caper sauce.''

Hon Robert J. Walker knows the South well, and he has of late written well on it and on the present state and future prospects of our country. Those who have read Mr. Atkinson's instructive pamphlet upon 'Cheap Cotton,' will be interested in the strong confirmation of his arguments given by Hon. Robert J. Walker, late of Mississippi, in the following statement contained in one of his recent letters:

'From long residence in the South, and from having traversed every Southern State, I know it to be true that cotton is raised there most extensively and profitably by non-slaveholders, and upon farms using exclusively white labor. In Texas, especially, this is a great truth, nor is there a doubt that skilled, educated, persevering, and energetic free labor, engaged voluntarily for wages for its own use, would in time, especially when aided by improved culture and machinery, produce much larger crops and better cotton than is now raised by the forced and ignorant labor of slaves, and at a much cheaper rate and a far greater profit than any crop now produced in the North.'

With this great truth before us, will Government hesitate to seize on and settle Texas, as soon as circumstances admit? We have urged Texas from the beginning as the great stone of resistance which must eventually, by means of free labor be employed to stem the progress of cotton-ocracy in the other Southern States. On this subject Hon. Robert J. Walker's letter of June 28th is one of the most instructive and remarkable documents issued since the beginning of the free-labor agitation, and it is to be desired that it should be read by every freeman in the Union. Colonization, voluntary but effective, is, as he holds, the only remedy for the terrible evil of slavery, and the only basis of the peaceful restoration of the Union.

It was urged, months ago, against The Continental by a radical Abolition organ, that while favoring Emancipation, we were quite willing 'to colonize the negro out of the way.' And if it could promote the real welfare of both black and white, why should he not be colonized, even 'out of the way'? 'But it is impossible,' say the Conservatives; to which we reply that this is an age of great conceptions and great deeds, and it would be strange indeed if we, with steamboats, could not effect as much as was done of old by the most primitive races of both hemispheres. The Incas of Peru had no difficulty in moving hundreds of thousands of a conquered race to fresh fields and pastures new—why should we find it impossible? Let the same enthusiasm which has been displayed on the bare subject of freeing the black, be devoted to freeing and placing him at the same time in a climate con[Pg 491]genial to his nature, and we should soon witness a solution of our great national difficulty.

TOM JOHNSON'S BEAR.

A STORY WITH A MORAL.

To Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, this poem is dedicated with the 'distinguished consideration' of

Tom Johnson he lived on the Western border,
Where he went to escape from 'law and order,'
For Tom was a terrible fellow, was he,
He drunk, and he swore, and he fou't [B] like the
Old Harry—and Tom he had a wife:
Fit partner she was of his backwoods life.

Tom lived on the border for divers years,
Where he fou't the red-skins, and he fou't the bears
And there wasn't a thing that could bite or scratch
For which Tom Johnson wasn't a match,
Excepting his wife, and she was the better
Half by all odds—he'd often get her
In a tight place, and give her a strapping.
But somehow or other 'twould always happen,
In every tussle and every bout,
In every 'scrimmage' and every rout,
She'd come out ahead of the cross-grained old wizzard,
And by hook or crook manage to 'give him a blizzard.'
Sometimes from a brawl of which Tom was the hero,
Returning at midnight, the weather at zero,
His wife snug in bed, and the door safely barred,
Long time would elapse ere his shouts could be heard;
And sometimes she'd catch him dead drunk or asleep,
When he'd find himself suddenly 'all of a heap,'
And open his eyes on his bellicose bride,
Hot mush in his mouth and his under-pins tied.
So she managed to keep just inside of the law,
While he ever would find himself 'hors du combat.'

As Johnson was one day exploring the wood,
To replenish the meat-tub—then empty—with food,
While a tree-top near by he was leisurely viewin''
He spied the short ears and sharp eyes of old Bruin,
Peering out 'mid the branches—a sight worth a dollar
When the rifle is charged and the stomach is hollow;
So he drew a bead on him, and sent him a missile,
Which Brain perceived, by an ominous whistle,
Was very near taking him plump in the eye,
But he dodged just in time, and the bullet went by.

Now bears are pugnacious—as much so as wives,
And whenever assaulted will fight for their lives;
So seeing that Tom's ammunition was spent,
He determined at once on a hasty descent;
For knowing that he or Tom Johnson would eat,
The question arose which should furnish the meat;
For although the bullet had wrought some confusion,
A moment's reflection produced the conclusion,
That he at the foot of the tree with the gun,
Minus powder and bullet, must needs be the one;
So he slid down the tree, with much scratching and clawing,
Designing to give poor Tom's carcass a gnawing.

But Thomas, intent upon saving his life,
And calling to mind a sharp trick of his wife,
As Bruin came down, his legs clasping the tree,
Caught a paw in each hand and held tight as could be:
He put on a grip unto Bruin quite new,
Like a vice when the blacksmith is turning the screw.

But now what to do there arose a great doubt,
For Bruin and Johnson had both just found out
What neither had thought of until 'twas too late,
That each was exposed to a merciless fate
At the hands, or the teeth, or the claws of the other,
At which neither could his astonishment smother,
And neither knew what it was safest to do;
[Pg 492]'Twas hard to hold on, but 'twas worse to let go!

Now Johnson still being not far from his house,
Bethought him in time of his excellent spouse,
So he hooted and hallooed and made such a noise
She distinguished at last his affectionate voice,
Calling loudly for help as it rose on the breeze,
Like the panther's wild scream in the tops of the trees:
'O Julee, dear Julee! come, help me this time,
And I never again—will—(oh! bother the rhyme,)
Will bite you, or scratch you, or whip you, not I,
But love and protect you till you or I die.'

Now good Mistress Johnson, dear soul, when she heard
The piteous cries of her penitent lord,
Got herself to the wood with broom-stick in hand.
'I am, most respectfully, yours to command,'
Said the wife, as she came and found Tom and the bear
Both hugging a tree with the grip of despair.
'O Julee, dear Julee! How can you?—now come,
Do help me, or quickly-confound it!—our home
Won't have any master!—dear Julee, consider—
The children no daddy, and you a lone widow!'
An unlucky hint for poor Tom, by the by,
'For worse things might happen!' thought she with a sigh.

But good mistress Johnson, though love was but scant,
Had a heart never hewn from the worst adamant;
It softened apace, so with broom-stick in air
And ire in her eye she advanced on the bear,
Who seeing the enemy thus reënforced
Tried to get his fore-paws from Tom's clutches divorced.

O woman, poor woman! dear woman! sweet thing!
O light of earth's darkness! O treasure supernal!
Thy fond heart, though crushed, win unceasingly cling
To a loved one, though fallen, degraded, infernal!

Thrice Bruin's tough hide from the broom-stick now had a cut;
Quoth Johnson: 'My darling, that weapon's inadequate—
Hold a bit—let me see—now we'll fix him—here, Mother—
Reach your hand—take this paw—hold it tight—now the other.
There, I will dispatch him—ah! where is my gun?
And bullets? dear me!—ah!—why, what have I done?
I will run to the house, and be back in a trice—
Hold on, my beloved! be 'still as a mice!''
'Quick! quick!' the wife shouted. 'Be off—get away!
Make tracks, Mr. Johnson! don't stand there all day!'

So Tom started off in pursuit of assistance,
And leisurely walking a very short distance,
Turned, paused to reflect, then addressed her: 'My dear,
My conscience upbraids me concerning this bear;
A very great doubt has arisen in my mind—
I am not quite sure—but am rather inclined,
Indeed—I may say—I have reached the conclusion
That bears have been made a Divine Institution;
This is plainly deduced from the Scriptures of truth,
Which frightened me much in the days of my youth,
With the story of forty of ages quite tender,
Torn to strings by two gears of the feminine gender:
And not only so, but you see, Mistress Julia,
This same institution is very 'peculiar;'
I found it somewhat inconvenient to hold,
(The cubs are quite harmless, but this one is old,)
He is gentle at first, but as muscle increases,
Shows some disposition to tear one in pieces.
Then hold him the tighter, and keep up good heart,
As it's all in the family, you'll do your part.'

Tom closed his oration with actions to suit,
Then went to his house, where the reprobate brute
Whipped the children and kicked his old mother out-door,
Got tipsy as Bacchus and rolled on the floor,
While his wife held the bear, fast tied to the spot,
And how long she staid there, deponent says not.

Secesh has a bear, and has had many years,
At first, a mere pet, he engendered no fears;
But now he's grown strong and can fight like a major,
[Pg 493]And has like his master become an old stager;
He has taught him to work, and has trained him to fight,
Adding strength to his hands and increasing his might;
Albeit if free he would turn on his master,
Who knows it full well, and hence holds him the faster;
But not only so, he insists we shall help
While he fights to destroy us, at holding his whelp!
And strangely enough, we obey his command,
While he strikes at our vitals and plunders the land!
He has murdered the son and led captive the brother,
Has broke up the home and made war on his mother;
And now while our sons by the thousand are slain
The nation to save and its life to maintain,
When the patriot's eyelids are closing in death,
While a prayer for his country inspires his last breath,
Or bleeding he lies as the foul traitor's dart
Is caught in the folds of the flag round his heart,
While freedom's bright bow, for the millions unborn,
No longer encircles the brow of the storm,
While the sun of our glory grows dim in our sight,
And the star of our destiny's shrouded in night;
Still our paralyzed hands, to our country untrue,
Are stretched out to succor the traitorous crew,
As they strike for our lives, fully bent on our ruin,
We lend them assistance by holding their Bruin,
And tell all the world that our national wars
Shall be waged to protect constitutional bears.

And now let us know, my dear sir, in conclusion,
How long must continue this monstrous delusion,
(If not a state secret, so sacred a one
That it may to the Cabinet only be known,)
While being destroyed by a traitorous war,
How long we must aid them by holding their bear?
Or how long shall we flourish our broom-stick, and say,
To one who would help us: 'Keep out of the way!
Go home to your master, your Samaritan neighbor;
Return all his kindness and give him your labor,
Plant corn, hoe the cotton, and keep things all bright,
Give him plenty to eat and more leisure to fight;
For we mean to protect him in every 'RIGHT;'
And the best way of keeping the 'whole Constitution'
Is to help those who fight for its whole dissolution,
(Though this proposition may seem somewhat strange,)
While we dig our own ditches and fire at long range,
For our duty is plain, when the traitor makes war,
To give aid and comfort by holding his bear.'

We find the following in the notice of The Continental Monthly by a contemporary:

'The Continental looks upon Slavery through blood and murder eyes. It sees in the institution nothing but lashes, salt-rubbed wounds, bloodhounds, and iron-hearted taskmasters. It looks upon the war as solely for the freedom of the nigger; and judging from its tone for the past six months would undoubtedly go in for an entire separation, if its editors and contributors thought at the end of the conflict the rebellious States would be restored to the Union with the 'peculiar institution' still in force.'

Ab uno disce omnes. This, reader, is the manner in which every democratic-conservative journal which has undertaken to notice our Magazine speaks of it. And the reader who has followed us—who has fairly and equitably appreciated our views of the war and of Emancipation—will not hesitate for an instant in pronouncing it as perfectly false a verdict as was ever yet given against any one. We have never in any way looked upon the war as 'solely for the freedom of the nigger,' and we have been chid by the regular Abolition press because we did not look more to the welfare of the negro, or, as the Liberator accused us, of being willing to 'colonize the slave out of the way.' It was in the Knickerbocker and in these pages, and editorially, that the principle of the true Republican, Free White Labor Emancipationists, in the words, 'Emancipation for the sake of the White Man,' first appear[Pg 494]ed. And while we advocate ultimate emancipation, it is not as the matter of primary importance that we do so. Slavery has inextricably entangled itself with the war, and no one who takes a broad, comprehensive view of the struggle, or of contemporary history, can fail to see that slavery must ultimately go, because it makes bad citizens of the masters, wastes soil, represses manufactures, neutralizes the proper development of capital, and, worst of all, degrades labor—man's noblest prerogative—and inflicts grievous wrong on the white working man. And does not every Southern journal and every Southern 'gentleman' prove what we say? 'Aristocrat,' 'Norman gentleman,' 'Yankee serf,' 'vile herd'—is it not enough to make the heart sick and the brain burn to hear the poor sons and daughters of toil, those whom God has appointed to be truly good and useful, cursed and reviled in this manner by the few owners of black labor? Is there not enough in the wrongs of the white man to inspire all the headlong zeal and boldness with which the press credit us, without making the miserable negro the chief aim? Not but that we pity the latter, God knows! But it is the elevation of the dignity of white labor that we have in hand, and while we advocate 'emancipation to come' sooner or later, it is as a means of doing justice to the white man. Let us emancipate white labor from the comparison with slavery and from the sneers of an aristocracy which will be 'Cæsar or nothing' among us.

The South has sinned against man and God by voluntarily, boldly, shamelessly reviling the poor, who are the chosen children of God. And for all this they shall be judged by those whom they have cursed and ridiculed. The most crushing tread of destiny is reserved for those who impertinently aid her in trampling the lowly. Does Christ, think you, whose whole teaching was one upholding of the poor and the hard-working, approve this scorn of the 'laboring scum'? So surely as this thing has been fevered to a war, so surely shall there be one last moment when dying Southern sin shall exclaim: 'Vicisti Galilæ!'

But what are we to think of the hangers-on and parasites and shadows and 'shadows of shadows,' as Plautus calls the vilest toadies to sycophants, who, hard-working men themselves, try to catch some faint reflection of sham gentility by 'talking pro-slavery because they think it aristocratic,' as Winthrop says? What of an editor—the one who of all men works hard for indifferent reward—who forgets the nobility which should surround all who speak for and to the people, and beslabbers the meanest and most contemptible of even sham aristocracies, that which is self-conscious, self-glorifying by comparison and forgetful that noblesse oblige? Or what of him when he cunningly and with the vulgar 'cuteness which characterizes the most degraded snobbery, takes pains to make it appear that the labor of another on behalf of the poor white man is meant solely for the negro, and that the former is to be sacrificed to the latter!

We know, see, and feel clearly what we want and what we believe. It is the progress of the rights of free white labor, which correctly considered means all that is right. And if this were understood and felt, as it should be by those most deeply interested, our police would be amply sufficient to punish the soi-disant Normans of the South.

If we could speak a word to all men in or about to enter the army, it would be: 'Don't drink.' We know the fever and ague country, and assure our readers that all advice to the contrary notwithstanding, he who lets liquor alone will fare best in the end. Apropos of which we clip the following:

'Hall's Journal of Health recommends to those writing to soldier friends to inclose a little capsicum (in the vulgar, simply strong cayenne pepper) in the letter. The editor declares that the effect of the slightest pinch in a glass of water, is better than quinine whisky. It prevents thirst, and wards off miasma; it protects from chills, and does not induce too much animal heat. It stimu[Pg 495]lates without leaving any depressing effect; all of which we most firmly believe. The weight is so small that enough to do a great deal of good may be put in tissue-paper and be inclosed in a single letter without cost additional to the regular postage rates.'

Every mail brings fresh proof of English antipathy to the Federal Union. It is now only a question of time when we are to be attacked by the great Abolition nation. John Bull is hammering away at his iron-clads and doing his best in every direction to aid the aristocratic and despotic principle, so dear to his soul—nay, which is his very soul and self. In China he is helping the Imperialists, whose awful and heart-rending atrocities go beyond all belief—in the West, the slaveholder meets with his warmest sympathy. How well—how human—how Christian he looks now with his sheepskin thrown aside—this selfish, brutal savage, howling for cotton and trade and gold as though all truth, honor, and nobility were as dirt before them.

For all this, England will have its reward. In the history of nations, 1862 shall be marked as the year of British falsehood, infamy, and guilt. Upharsin!

Do you remember Holman Hunt's picture of the Light of the World? I remember that one evening at the Century, among a cheerful group of Leutze, Durand, Gifford, Mignot, and others, you once called it a pre-Raphaelight of the World!

Well, 'twas far away in Switzerland, tilly hi ho—tilly i o! all in the mountains high, several years ago, and I was touring and sketching somewhere along in the Oberland. I found at last a retired village without English. No—not without them altogether—there was one little man with a barba rossa, and he was pre-Raphaeliting round for a subject.

He found it at last in a small rock about nine inches by twelve—full of sentiment, tone, color, piety, feeling, reality, child-like faith and trustingness.

Day after day he painted. When it rained he worked under an umbrella; when it sun-shone on him he toiled in the heat.

I pitied him. 'Smith,' said I, 'what do you do that for? Why don't you pick your stone up and take it home with you? Put it in your trunk and carry it back to London. It isn't a landscape, you know.'

'By Jove!' quoth he, 'I never thought of that. So I will, d'ye know. 'Ow very hodd! Vell! you Yankees are werry hinwentive, I must hadmit.'

And he did; and the portrait of the rock went into the 'Annual Exhibish,' and was thought to be the deepest-toned thing 'out.'

It is odd, but after all, the world seldom sees a real original letter. Letters of business, old letters, love-letters, and letters written for print, the world sees enough. But the real life-descriptive gossiping letter is rarely en-typed. More's the pity.

Here is one—from a never-seen friend—which has been lying for months in The Continental his drawer. Shall we be pardoned for publishing it? We hope so, for we remember that it pleased us well when we received it, and what is good for the editor must be good for the reader. Let it go!

Dear Friend: Appearances—to make a very original remark—are deceitful. To the traveler who may chance to cast his eyes upon this little brown, house, a little brown house it will be to him, 'and nothing more.' He will not even notice the woodbines that are flinging their arms around the windows, nor will he dwell for an instant upon the thrifty cotton-woods that guard the door, or bestow more than a casual glance on the artistically arranged garden-beds, wherein I have anxiously watched tulips and radishes sprouting into existence. Anxiously—for winter has been writing a somewhat lengthy postscript to his annual message, and the modest, gentle-mannered spring retreats in lady-like fright before his furious blasts.

Now we are having an interval of hazy warmth—the really royal weather of the year—red sunshine, the hills purple and blue[Pg 496] in the distance, and the still air savory with the smoke of brush-burnings and the wild breath of new-lifed vegetation. Lovelier than the Indian summer, for mingled with all things is the consciousness of the flowering and fruiting to come. The Indian summer has a sweet sadness. The spring is full of hope and promise, and the heart buds with the flowers.

Out in the midst of all this country springtime freshness, our 'Hermitage' looks up from its shrubberies and rejoices within itself, and does not care for the traveler's careless glances. The traveler may call it stupid and ugly, if he calls it at all; our Hermitage still patiently wears its havelock of weather-beaten shingles, for it knows that beneath its lowly roof—radiant with whitewash and fresh paper—are cozy, coolly curtained rooms, where friendly books look down from the wall, and drowsy arm-chairs woo from the corners.

Yes, many Wisconsin banks have yielded up their lives in the past year, and in one of these fatal safes our little pile of 'ready' irrevocably evaporated! Ah! the palmy days! when we had rooms at the ——; when our tables were marble-topped and our mirrors presented full-length portraits of us; when every dinner was a feast for epicures; when servants awaited our nod or beck; when Davis's best turn-out bowled us away to the purple bluffs yonder, at every sunset, and bowled us back again happy in pocket and in heart! Those days have gemmed themselves in the past.

We find it necessary to 'put in for repairs,' as they say of a steamboat when her smoke-stacks are snapped off by a Lake Pepin gale, and she goes ashore. At no distant day we will again go out into the tide. From any quantity of 'wild lands'—which we have the felicity of paying taxes on—we have selected a ten-acre patch in the neighborhood of the city, and are living something after the style of Thoreau, except that we have a better cook!

From our modestly architectured porch we look out upon the broad, far-stretching valley of the Mississippi. It is a vast view—so that a shower becomes a part of the landscape, and it is delightful to watch it trailing over the hills. Alexander Smith is ahead of me in this idea, but no matter. East and west the picturesque bluffs mingle in hazy softness with the sky; the roofs and steeples of the city glimmer in the sunny distance; now and then, away through the wooded banks we see columns of pearly steam, as some stately boat goes gliding by. I shall always have a weakness for these proud, screeching steamboats, for there is one among them—the dear old 'Milwaukee'—for which I entertain a confirmed infirmity! We went honey-mooning in the 'Milwaukee.' Its musical and far-heard whistle is doomed for evermore to deluge my soul in a 'sea of soft-blue memories.'

Our carpets are of matting and oil-cloth, islanded here and there with a choice bit of rug. My little kitchen is exultant in shining tins, a glittering 'Hotspur,' patented 1860, and a capacious cupboard, through the glass doors of which shines forth a complete set of 'Ironstone.' On Mondays a little Bohemian—with surprising strength in her diminutive person—comes, and out from the fury of suds and steam issues a line of snowy, flapping clothes. She receives her 'tri shealing' and trots home. Aside from washing, I am addicted to that unpoetical, homely, dry, and utterly plebeian practice of doing my own work. Think you I could endure to have a poetic mood burst in upon by a red-faced girl, smelling of dish-water, exclaiming, 'The tay's out'? Besides, I never was born to, had thrust upon me, or achieved, any surplus amount of 'greatness,' consequently my laurels will not suffer from being in contact with sauce-pans and toasting-forks. (But fancy the idea of Mrs. Browning a-frying flapjacks!) I have lived for the most part in the country, you know, and at the old home I was applauded on by an appreciative mamma to rare feats in this department of humble life. I combine the artist with the cook—the ideal with the material. I consult color and the nice shades of taste. Indeed, I make cooking and furniture-arranging an art. The emerald lettuce I mingle with the ruby radish; the carefully browned trout I surround with a wall of snowy and hot potatoes; the roseate shavings of beef and ham flank the golden butter, which is stamped in a very superior manner, I may say, with the American Eagle; the amber honey sides with the royal purple of grape-jelly; and the creamy biscuit contrasts with the deep chrome of the sponge-cake beside it, etc., etc. Of various pastries and entrees—of which I alone hold the original recipes—I will not speak. Suf[Pg 497]fice to say, that it may be of interest to some housekeepers to send me a prepaid envelope!

Should you go Minnehahaing this summer, I shall hope that you may fail to make connections with the St. Paul Packet Company, so that while waiting a boat you may find it convenient to immortalize 'The Hermitage' by breaking fast beneath its humble roof.

We would that we could. Alas! there is very little 'ha-ha-ing' of any kind this serious 'battle-summer'—least of all for us toward the rosy West. Well, a time may come, and when it does, of a verity the Hermitage shall become well known to 'Esquire Continental.'

A correspondent, whose style, by the way, is quaint enough to be printed with black-letter, thus favors us with his protest against certain merely 'bread-and-butter' notions of Woman:

I object to the current newspaper 'Advice for Girls.' A woman may know how to cook, sweep, sew, tend babies; but is this what a young man—Spanish, virgen—most looks, or cares for, or thinks of, when he seeks life-companionship—a Somebody to get him dinner, tidy his room, fasten his shirt-buttons, and bear him children? 'Tis not for spread tables, kept house, mended clothes, nor pleasure, that the young man's soul thirsts. For sympathy, for love, for the object of his manliness, for its complement, for his wife—and not a servant, nor a mistress.

He does indeed holily choose the mother of their little ones, but newspaper-notice hints nothing of that; it teaches bodily, not spiritually, and simply trains up a female able to bear offspring of healthy flesh.

However, the husband requires a lover fit to join with him in spirit also, for the total benefit of posterity.

The education which best suits a woman, then, is it carnal or soulful? to make a kitchen-drudge or a soft-eyed maiden? a prudent housewife or a thoughtful heartsweet? 'a special breeder' (Pope) or a trusted bosomer? Cattle and machinery are for this labor-saving. The true end of woman is feminity. Therefore, if she is any brighter and heartsomer for playing in the fields, any more pensive and sober for meditating there, who shall deny her God's free air and sunshine?

If she is more delicate and softer to handle the light embroidery, or plan the curious patchwork, who shall restrict her busy ingenuity to garments of wear—coarse jackets, trowsers, shirts?

If she is more earnest and devoted for loving and suffering through a romance, who shall hinder from reading and writing, or limit the one to Pilgrim's Progress, the other to a letter, or confine her pity to street-beggars, for whom alms-giving is act of charity not more than tears are for imagined woes?

If she is more winning and tender by dwelling with old friendships and memorable passages of trial or happiness, who shall fetter her thoughts to the selfish indifference of the present, or the dull routine of daily toil called duty?

If she is gentler and meeker, purer and loftier, Christlier, for contemplating God and the angels, who can bind her conscience to worship her husband or 'God in him'? (Milton.)

Summarily and concisely, if she is more womanly, in any sort, for doing, saying, thinking, whatsoever, howsoever, whithersoever, is not what she ought the term and measure of what she may? or else who shall presume to prescribe other bounds to her nature, and undertake to restrain its ongoings in this or that direction?

Is female determined by male? woman's mind by the wind of man's caprice? or both mutually interdetermined by the law of their correlation, his wants and her capacities, her wants and his abilities? And if he preaches utility, but she follows taste, whether is to be concluded, that he needs more of practicality in her, or she more of æstheticality in him? Is it that women lack usefulness or that men lack beautifulness?

The sterner sex, by assuming to itself superior desires, can stigmatize the other because the female disposition does not meet its own; but truth and right may be much upon the other side. Women may be nearer standard, just in this land and age, than men; and their unsatisfied longings for handsome, chaste, and noble men are swifter witnesses than all the low complaint about feminine finery and extravagance. When men can seem to better understand that it is not necessarily madness to prefer (as Ne[Pg 498]ro) a fortune in marble to a fortune in gold, or a Raphael's painting to 'money in the bank,' when they shall come to recognize the utility of beauty and holiness, then will not women be slow to acknowledge the use and usefulness of so much utility.

Honor to Sigel! honor to Heintzelman! Whatever may have been said or sung against others, there is no doubt as to the ability, faithfulness, perseverance, and courage of these gallant Deutschers, and with them of many others of their glorious nation who have followed their national and instinctive hatred of tyranny, and taken part with us in battle against the South. Hurrah then for our German Generals. Sigel soll leben, vivat hoch!

Wir geh'n die Waffen in der Hand,
Zu retten unser Vaterland,
Und unser Kampf ist Sieg.
Wir tragen nicht Erober-Schwerdt,
Wir schützen Weib und Kind und Heerd,
Gerecht ist unser Krieg.

(ENGLISH.)

'We go with weapon in our hand,
And all to free our Father-land,
A victory is our fight.
We seek to win no foreign earth,
We fight for wife and child and hearth:
God knows our cause is right.'

How many hundreds of thousands of Germans are there to whom these lines have become as applicable in this our 'Trans-Atlantic Germany' as when sung of old under the oaks of the Teuton father-land. When this battle shall be over, let every one bear in mind the good and faithful aid they gave us. Nor shall the Irish be forgotten, who with such desperate courage have contributed so largely to swell our armies. They are in every regiment, they have been foremost in every battle, their dead lie on every field. Let those deny it who will, we should have fared badly enough had it not been for the Irish. They have shown themselves from the beginning as presenting

They gave us the poet-warrior O'Brien, and the brave and generous Kearney, and the noble Corcoran—but the list is too long. Honor to them all.

There are many very good sort of people who will tell you, 'I don't like Germans,' or 'I don't like Irish!' We trust that this war will drive all such dislikes among us out of existence. Those who indulge in them are generally narrow-minded, un-cosmopolite sort of people. The principles of our day and of our war—the Republican principles—are opposed to all such illiberality. The Southerner, indeed, proposes to exclude all foreigners—it is his 'policy'—the Republican would give to the brain and muscle of every living being the fullest chance for development every where. Free Soil and Free Labor forever!

Literature and religion have of late sustained a great loss in the death of Benjamin J. Wallace, D.D., which took place in Philadelphia August first. The deceased was a descendant of the great Harris family, which may be almost said to have founded Western Pennsylvania, and which gave a name to its largest city. Originally educated at West-Point, he subsequently studied divinity at Princeton, distinguished himself as a New-School clergyman in many States, especially in the West, was at one time a professor at Delaware College, Newark, and was well known during the later years of his life as editor of and contributor to that very able magazine, the Presbyterian Quarterly Review.

We had frequent opportunities of becoming familiar with the scope of Mr. Wallace's abilities, and can testify that they were truly remarkable. Apart from his theological learning he was a thorough and extremely varied student of general literature; one familiar to a degree rare in this country with Greek genius; a most able and ready writer; and above all, a man of strong belief; one who touched no subject on which he did not write with sincerest interest.

Mr. Wallace left a large circle of friends[Pg 499] and a family to mourn a loss which all the friends of religion and of culture share in common with them. It is seldom that the journalist is called on to record the death of any one who to natural gifts, aided by most excellent education, added such a life of conscientious and modest industry. He was a true Christian and gentleman in all things.

The writer of the letter excerpted from in the following story, will accept our sincere thanks for the 'De Bow,' which, as he will find 'other wheres,' has been turned to account by us:

Dear Continental: Let me give you a true version of an anecdote touching the 'contraband' question: it may do for the Drawer.

A rascally slave-jockey of this habitat procured an order for the rendition of a fugitive, who was supposed to be in the Quartermaster's employ at the Custom-House, addressed to that functionary. Meanwhile the negro, who had doubtless been there, had taken refuge in the hospital, whither Jew pursued him with the same order, not doubting that the Major-General's order was as good for one place as another. But Dr. Smith, it seems, thought otherwisely, for he coolly informed the applicant that he was not Quartermaster, and declined to pay any attention to an order on that officer. Back to head-quarters travels 'Shylock,' with his dishonored order and his complaint. The paper is forthwith returned with a curt indorsement and the assurance that 'that will make it all right.' Thus fortified, he returned to the charge, and triumphantly displaying the back of the paper only to Dr. Smith, demanded his 'nigger.' Dr. Smith looked at the writing presented to him and read:

Then to the Jockey: 'Here, I am ordered to turn you out of my house. Get out, sir, get out; get out of my house!' And as he stood petrified with astonishment at the apparent disrespect shown to the General's order, Dr. Smith called out to the guard: 'Orderly, put this man out at the door, and see that he is not admitted again.' The fellow found his tongue at length, but the Doctor, who is no admirer of slave-hunters, would not hear a word of remonstrance, and the discomfited trader was hustled down the stairs, shaking his order behind him, and spluttering out his wrath and disappointment.

'Grasp thy happiness and bear it with thee.' Is that Sanscrit or Persian? He who said that, had grasped a great truth. The Beautiful never perishes to him that wills.

ONCE.

No matter when: enough that moon and stars
Shone as they shine to-night;
That tales of desolation and of wars,
Of struggle and of blight,
Like the low mutterings of a troublous dream,
Flitting across the still and peaceful night,
Glanced o'er my heart and thine!
The music of the pine—
The silver, witching stream
An impress deeper, left upon our hearts.
The murmuring song fell soothing on our ears;
The silver stream with beauty charmed our eyes;
And so we bade the tales of spears and darts,
With all their train of agony and tears,
Go to the winds; and leave us golden skies,
And brooks, and reaching hills, and 'lovers' leaps,'
With bold and rugged steeps;
And all the romance of 'enchanting scenes;'
For thou and I were—midway in our teens!

Once! breathe it softly, softly, O my heart!
And thou—my waiting one!
My unforgotten! wheresoe'er thou art—
My heart's unfading sun!
My guiding light beneath the storms and clouds;
My solace when the woods and hills are lone;
And the dark pine breathes out its saddening moan;
And when the night the misty mountain shrouds,
Breathe it still gently, wheresoe'er thou art,
Light of my fainting heart!

'Once!' stop, O wheels of time! upon the word!
Gather it in a knot of silken blue;
Bind it all fondly—with a nuptial cord,
Unto the widowed present! bear it through
All change—all chance! Love, friendship! hold it fast:
Let it no more be wedded to the past!
And human hearts through all life's checkered scenes,
[Pg 500]Shall ever tarry 'midway in their teens'!

'The venerable John J. Crittenden was in town to-day, preparing to start for home. I am sorry to hear that he speaks, to intimate friends, very despondingly of our future prospects. This is not as it should be. Public men, occupying seats in the high councils of the nation, ought never to despair of the republic.'—N. Y. Letter.

And how else could the venerable compromiser be expected to speak? The man who dallies with death and destruction to the last moment—who is only anxious to yield to an insolent and unscrupulous foe, is just the one of all others who, when the struggle comes, wails and howls despair. Their hearts were always with Southern aristocracy, these venerable Sweetsops who would have gladly compromised Northern dignity and manliness down to its very face in the mud before the devil himself, and then have explained their course by referring to Christian example, as though Christ himself had not dared death time and again, and finally suffered it as an example that there is a limit where it is better to perish than that evil should prevail over the truth.

They are all Southrons at heart. Did not the venerable John Bell, only the other day, when he was offered a safe conduct by Federal forces out of Dixie, prefer to remain there? Of course he did. Ubi bene ibi patria. We feel and know instinctively where they belong and what they are, these men whose inordinate vanity of respectability so far outweighs their sense of truth, honor, and manhood. Very well taken off are they in a happy hit—author to us unknown—setting forth what they would have agreed on in convention had they lived at the time of the first murder:

'Resolved, That we are equally opposed to the pretended piety and evident fanaticism of Abel and the authorized violence of the high-toned and chivalrous Cain.

'Resolved, That the 'Ultras' who are clamoring for the hanging of Cain, which would only exasperate him, desire to destroy the domestic happiness and peace of the family, and have no other purpose in view.

'Resolved, That we are in favor of punishing both parties, and invite all conservative men to unite with us in frowning down this whole business.

'Resolved, That nobody has a right to provoke murder, and if Abel had exhibited less fanaticism this one never would have occurred.'

Apropos of which subject and which men, we are reminded of a rough and ready poem by William Higgins:

THE COMPROMISER.

A cross between a man and slave
This mongrel thing produces,
Who deems himself ordained to save
The Union by sham truces.

In strife between the Wrong and Right
To hold the nation's border,
Ashamed to run, afraid to fight,
He faintly squeaks out 'Order!'

The boasted friend of quiet, peace,
He'd quell all agitation,
By giving Satan longer lease
Of earth, to damn the nation.

No matter, though the Scriptures teach
The golden rule of action,
He says 'tis but a fancy speech,
And proves it to a fraction!

He knows no 'Higher Law,' but thinks
State Rights the Catechism;
Which having learned by rote, he links
His practice to his schism.

And thus is fitted to proclaim,
With all his might and vigor,
Nor feel a single blush of shame,
'That chains become a nigger!'

With him, Religion is a boon,
That Slavery may diddle;
God's laws to those of John Calhoun,
Play only second-fiddle!

The faith for which his fathers bled,
And died to make him heir to,
He quite ignores, and takes instead
That leading God knows where to.

O compromiser! what a gleam
Of glory hangs about you!
No wonder that you proudly deem
The world would spoil without you!

With supple knees to slavery bent,
Your conscience hangs on hinges,
And gives mild treason easy vent,
Despite compunction's twinges!

The New-York Evangelist:

A RELIGIOUS AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER

OF THE LARGEST CLASS.

PROSPECTUS FOR 1863.

This long-established paper has now nearly completed its thirty-second volume, and notwithstanding the severe calamities in which the country is involved, and which tax most heavily in men and money those States in which its circulation is largest, it is nearing the close of another eventful year with its circulation unimpaired—a matter of special gratification, as showing that its course, in these trying times, has been generally approved, and that it has been more widely useful than ever the past year, by its firm and cordial support of the Government when assailed by a wicked rebellion.

ITS COURSE OF EVENTS,

carefully compiled from original and other sources, furnishes from week to week a current

HISTORY OF THE PRESENT CIVIL WAR,

which has been highly prized, for its fullness and accuracy, by all its readers.

While it has aimed never to overstep the limits of a religious journal by violence of language or the discussion of merely political questions, it has constantly held up the cause in which we are engaged as

THE CAUSE OF OUR COUNTRY AND OF LIBERTY,

and for which it was the sacred duty of every Christian citizen to be ready to sacrifice his property and his life.

Terms—Two Dollars, in advance.

As the Proprietors wish to extend the circulation of The Evangelist more widely and rapidly than ever, they are induced to make the following unusual offer to those who obtain new subscribers:

FIELD & CRAIGHEAD, Editors and Proprietors,
No. 5 BEEKMAN ST., NEW-YORK.[Pg 502]

EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!

MAY BE PROCURED

At FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,

Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of Civilization.

1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America.

ILLINOIS.

Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666, and a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great staples, Corn and Wheat.

CLIMATE.

Nowhere can the Industrious farmer secure such immediate results from his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200 miles, is well adapted to Winter.

WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.

Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (a distance of 115 miles on the Branch, and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising portion of the State.

THE ORDINARY YIELD

of Corn is from 60 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147 miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are produced in great abundance.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels, while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco, Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.

STOCK RAISING.

In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to enter with the fairest prospects of like results. Dairy Farming also presents its inducements to many.

CULTIVATION OF COTTON.

The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in the growth and perfection of this plant.

THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD

Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.

CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS.

There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.

EDUCATION.

Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the Great Western Empire.

PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT—ON LONG CREDIT.

80 acres at $10 per acre, with interest at 6 per ct. annually on the following terms:

THE

CONTINENTAL

MONTHLY

DEVOTED TO LITERATURE and NATIONAL POLICY

NOVEMBER, 1862.

NEW YORK:

JOHN F. TROW, 50 GREENE STREET

(FOR THE PROPRIETORS).
HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.[Pg 504]

CONTENTS—No. XI.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

The Proprietors of The Continental Monthly, warranted by its great success, have resolved to increase its influence and usefulness by the following changes:

The Magazine has become the property of an association of men of character and large means. Devoted to the National Cause, it will ardently and unconditionally support the UNION. Its scope will be enlarged by articles relating to our public defences, Army and Navy, gunboats, railroads, canals, finance, and currency. The cause of gradual emancipation and colonization will be cordially sustained. The literary character of the Magazine will be improved, and nothing which talent, money, and industry combined can achieve, will be omitted.

The political department will be controlled by Hon. Robert J. Walker and Hon. Frederic P. Stanton, of Washington, D.C. Mr. Walker, after serving nine years as Senator, and four years as Secretary of the Treasury, was succeeded in the Senate by Jefferson Davis. Mr. Stanton served ten years in Congress, acting as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and of Naval Affairs. Mr. Walker was succeeded as Governor of Kansas by Mr. Stanton, and both were displaced by Mr. Buchanan, for refusing to force slavery upon that people by fraud and forgery. The literary department of the Magazine will be under the control of Charles Godfrey Leland of Boston, and Edmond Kirke of New York. Mr. LELAND is the present accomplished Editor of the Magazine. Mr. Kirke is one of its constant contributors, but better known as the author of "Among the Pines," the great picture, true to life, of Slavery as it is.

The Continental, while retaining all the old corps of writers, who have given it so wide a circulation, will be reënforced by new contributors, greatly distinguished as statesmen, scholars, and savans.

Cash payment		$48 00
Payment	in one year	48 00
"	in two years	48 00
"	in three years	48 00
"	in four years	236 00
"	in five years	224 00
"	in six years	212 00

Cash payment		$24 00
Payment	in one year	24 00
"	in two years	24 00
"	in three years	24 00
"	in four years	118 00
"	in five years	112 00
"	in six years	106 00

The Causes of the Rebellion. Hon. F. P. Stanton,	513
Word-Murder,	524
Stewart, and the Dry Goods Trade of New York. W. Frothingham,	528
Unheeded Growth, John Neal,	534
Red, Yellow, and Blue,	535
One of the Million. Caroline Cheesebro,	541
Las Oraciones. C. K. Tuckerman,	557
A Merchant's Story. Edmund Kirke,	560
The Union. Hon. Robert J. Walker,	572
The Wolf Hunt. Chas. G. Leland,	580
The Poetry of Nature. Chas. G. Leland,	581
Maccaroni and Canvas. Henry P. Leland,	591
The Proclamation. Chas. G. Leland,	603
The Press in the United States. Hon. F. P. Stanton,	604
Was He Successful? Richard B. Kimball,	610
Aurora. Horace Greeley,	622
From Mount Lafayette, White Mountains,	626
The Homestead Bill. Hon. Robert J. Walker,	627
Literary Notices,	636
Editor's Table,	638

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy

Vol. II.—SEPTEMBER, 1862.—No. IV.

CONTENTS

'THE CONSTITUTION AS IT IS—THE UNION AS IT WAS.'