[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes moved to end of document. ]

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. 

VOL. XII. --OCTOBER, 1863. --NO. LXXII. 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by TICKNOR ANDFIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts. 

 * * * * *

CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS. [1]

SECOND PAPER. 

Readers of Lamb's "Life and Letters" remember that before "Mr. H. " waswritten, before Kemble had rejected "John Woodvil, " Godwin's tragedy of"Antonio" had been produced at Drury-Lane Theatre, and that Elia waspresent at the performance thereof. But perhaps they do not know (atleast, not many of them) that Elia's essay on "The Artificial Comedy ofthe Last Century, " as originally published in the "London Magazine, "contained a full and circumstantial account of the cold and statelymanner in which John Kemble performed the part of Antonio in Godwin'sunfortunate play. For some reason or other, Lamb did not reprint thispart of the article. Admirers of Charles Lamb and admirers of the dramawill be pleased--for 'tis a very characteristic bit of writing--withwhat Elia says of

 * * * * *

JOHN KEMBLE AND GODWIN'S TRAGEDY OF "ANTONIO. "

"The story of his swallowing opium-pills to keep him lively upon thefirst night of a certain tragedy we may presume to be a piece ofretaliatory pleasantry on the part of the suffering author. But, indeed, John had the art of diffusing a complacent equable dulness (which youknew not where to quarrel with) over a piece which he did not like, beyond any of his contemporaries. John Kemble had made up his mind earlythat all the good tragedies which could be written had been written, andhe resented any new attempt. His shelves were full. The old standardswere scope enough for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute, and'fair in Otway, full in Shakspeare shone. ' He succeeded to the oldlawful thrones, and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir EdwardMortimer, or any casual speculator that offered. 

"I remember, too acutely for my peace, the deadly extinguisher which heput upon my friend G. 's 'Antonio' G. , satiate with visions of politicaljustice, (possibly not to be realized in our time, ) or willing to letthe skeptical worldlings see that his anticipations of the future didnot preclude a warm sympathy for men as they are and have been, wrote atragedy. He chose a story, affecting, romantic, Spanish, --the plotsimple, without being naked, --the incidents uncommon, without beingoverstrained. Antonio, who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitiveyoung Castilian, who, in a fit of his country honor, immolates hissister--

"But I must not anticipate the catastrophe. The play, reader, is extantin choice English, and you will employ a spare half-crown notinjudiciously in the quest of it. 

"The conception was bold, and the _dénouement_--the time and place inwhich the hero of it existed considered--not much out of keeping; yet itmust be confessed that it required a delicacy of handling, both from theauthor and the performer, so as not much to shock the prejudices of amodern English audience. G. , in my opinion, had done his part. John, whowas in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken to playAntonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first play wasa new era. The night arrived. I was favored with a seat in anadvantageous box, between the author and his friend M. G. Sat cheerfuland confident. In his friend M. 's looks, who had perused the manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, atlength appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, andin most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokinglycorrect on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. Assured M. , exactly as the opening act of apiece--the _protasis_--should do. The cue of the spectators was to bemute. The characters were but in their introduction. The passions andthe incidents would be developed hereafter. Applause hitherto would beimpertinent. Silent attention was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. Acquiesced, --but in his honest, friendly face I could discern a workingwhich told how much more acceptable the plaudit of a single hand(however misplaced) would have been than all this reasoning. The secondact (as in duty bound) rose a little in interest; but still John kepthis forces under, --in policy, as G. Would have it, --and the audiencewere most complacently attentive. The _protasis_, in fact, was scarcelyunfolded. The interest would warm in the next act, against which aspecial incident was provided. M. Wiped his cheek, flushed with afriendly perspiration, --'tis M. 's way of showing his zeal, --'from everypore of him a perfume falls. ' I honor it above Alexander's. He had onceor twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavor to elicita sound; they emitted a solitary noise without an echo; there was nodeep to answer to his deep. G. Repeatedly begged him to be quiet. Thethird act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the pieceprogressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. Aphilosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G. , as it approached. The lips of M. Quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, andthere was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on thisextraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to makea ring, --when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning thetables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman, (who, by the way, shouldhave had his sister, ) balks his humor, and the pit's reasonableexpectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the newphilosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairlycaught, --their courage was up, and on the alert, --a few blows, _dingdong_, as R----s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might havedone the business, --when their most exquisite moral sense was suddenlycalled in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own pleasure. They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would not condemn, formorality's sake. The interest stood stone-still; and John's manner wasnot at all calculated to unpetrify it. It was Christmas time, and theatmosphere furnished some pretext for asthmatic affections. One began tocough, his neighbor sympathized with him, till a cough becameepidemical. But when, from being half artificial in the pit, the coughgot frightfully naturalized among the fictitious persons of the drama, and Antonio himself (albeit it was not set down in the stage-directions)seemed more intent upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses ofthe author and his friends, --then G. 'first knew fear, ' and, mildlyturning to M. , intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. Kemblelabored under a cold, and that the performance might possibly have beenpostponed with advantage for some nights further, --still keeping thesame serene countenance, while M. Sweat like a bull. 

"It would be invidious to pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. In vain did the plot thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain thedialogue wax more passionate and stirring, and the progress of thesentiment point more and more clearly to the arduous development whichimpended. In vain the action was accelerated, while the acting stoodstill. From the beginning, John had taken his stand, --had wound himselfup to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence ofdialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of hisrising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous;for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on aneminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level tothe end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon theunder-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt. There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would receiveit, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence againstdecorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an irreverentsymptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of verbiage stalkedon through four and five acts, no one venturing to predict what wouldcome of it, when, towards the winding-up of the latter, Antonio, with anirrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira herself, --for she had beencoolly arguing the point of honor with him, --suddenly whips out aponiard, and stabs his sister to the heart. The effect was as if amurder had been committed in cold blood. The whole house rose up inclamorous indignation, demanding justice. The feeling rose far abovehisses. I believe at that instant, if they could have got him, theywould have torn the unfortunate author to pieces. Not that the actitself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion different from what theythemselves would have applauded upon another occasion in a Brutus or anAppius, --but, for want of attending to Antonio's _words_, which palpablyled to the expectation of no less dire an event, instead of beingseduced by his _manner_, which seemed to promise a sleep of a lessalarming nature than it was his cue to inflict upon Elvira, they foundthemselves betrayed into an accompliceship of murder, a perfectmisprision of parricide, while they dreamed of nothing less. 

"M. , I believe, was the only person who suffered acutely from thefailure; for G. Thenceforward, with a serenity unattainable but by thetrue philosophy, abandoning a precarious popularity, retired into hisfast hold of speculation, --the drama in which the world was to be histiring-room, and remote posterity his applauding spectators, at once, and actors. "

 * * * * *

"The least shavings of gold are valuable, men say, " says ArchbishopLeighton, in his masterly Commentary on Peter; and the veriest triflefrom the pen of such a writer as Charles Lamb should be highly prized byall readers that are readers. Therefore I think it would be unwise in menot to print Elia's Postscript to his "Chapter on Ears, " and hisAnswers to Correspondents. Indeed, I do not know but that they containsome of the most racy sentences Lamb ever wrote. At any rate, they docontain some delightful banter and "most ingenious nonsense. " In theirpleasantry, archness, and good-natured raillery, these two littlearticles of Elia's remind me of some of Addison's happiest papers in the"Spectator. "

Better than anything in Southey's "Doctor" concerning the authorship ofthat queer, quaint, delightful book are Elia's affected anger andindignation against the author of the "Indicator" for attributing theessays of Elia to their right author. Leigh Hunt must have "laughedconsumedly, " as he read the P. S. To the "Chapter on Ears. " And in hisAnswers to Correspondents how many delightful changes Elia rings uponthe name of the unlucky Peter Bell! How cavalierly he answers"Indagator, " and the others, who are so importunate about the truelocality of his birth, --"as if, forsooth, Elia were presently about tobe passed to his parish "!

 * * * * *

P. S. TO THE "CHAPTER ON EARS. "

"A writer, whose real name, it seems, is _Boldero_, but who has beenentertaining the town for the last twelve months with some very pleasantlucubrations under the assumed signature of _Leigh Hunt_, [2] in his'Indicator' of the 31st January last has thought fit to insinuate thatI, _Elia_, do not write the little sketches which bear my signature, inthis Magazine, but that the true author of them is a Mr. L----b. Observethe critical period at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!--onthe very eve of the publication of our last number, --affording no scopefor explanation for a full month, --during which time I must needs liewrithing and tossing under the cruel imputation of nonentity. --Goodheavens! that a plain man must not be allowed _to be!_

"They call this an age of personality: but surely this spirit ofanti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse. 

"Take away my moral reputation, --I may live to discredit that calumny. Injure my literary fame, --I may write that up again. But when agentleman is robbed of his identity, where is he?

"Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing trifleat the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very essence, --whonot only forbids us _to be_ any longer, but _to have been_ at all. Letour ancestors look to it. 

"Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes Street, Cavendish Square, where we saw the light six-and-forty years ago, nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, where we flourishedfour centuries back, before the barbarous name of Boldero[3] was knownto a European mouth, nothing? Was the goodly scion of our name, transplanted into England in the reign of the seventh Henry, nothing?Are the archives of the steelyard, in succeeding reigns, (if haply theysurvive the fury of our envious enemies, ) showing that we flourished inprime repute, as merchants, down to the period of the Commonwealth, nothing?

 "'Why, then the world, and all that's in't is nothing, The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing. '

"I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to move me so. 

"ELIA. "

 * * * * *

"ELIA TO HIS CORRESPONDENTS. 

"A correspondent, who writes himself Peter Ball, or Bell, --for hishand-writing is as ragged as his manners, --admonishes me of the oldsaying, that some people (under a courteous periphrasis I slur his lessceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers ofthe Inner Temple, ' I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. Bell clamors upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seemsthat in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had calledmy good identity in question, (see P. S. To my 'Chapter on Ears, ') Iprofess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish Square, deducing myremoter origin from Italy. But who does not see, except this tinklingcymbal, that in that idle fiction of Genoese ancestry I was answering afool according to his folly, --that Elia there expresseth himselfironically, as to an approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, and can be no fit recipient of it? Such a one it is usual to leave tohis delusions, --or, leading him from error still to contradictory error, to plunge him (as we say) deeper in the mire, and give him line till hesuspend himself. No understanding reader could be imposed upon by suchobvious rodomontade to suspect me for an alien, or believe me other thanEnglish. 

"To a second correspondent, who signs himself 'A Wiltshire Man, ' andclaims me for a countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase inmy 'Christ's Hospital, ' a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over theGenoese fable, which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely detects amore subtle discrepancy, which Bell was too obtuse to strike upon. Referring to the passage, I must confess that the term 'native town, 'applied to Calne, _primâ facie_ seems to bear out the construction whichmy friendly correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context, too, Iam afraid, a little favors it. But where the words of an author, takenliterally, compared with some other passage in his writings, admitted tobe authentic, involve a palpable contradiction, it hath been the customof the ingenuous commentator to smooth the difficulty by the suppositionthat in the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chieflyintended. So by the word 'native' I may be supposed to mean a town whereI might have been born, --or where it might be desirable that I shouldhave been born, as being situate in wholesome air, upon a dry, chalkysoil, in which I delight, --or a town with the inhabitants of which Ipassed some weeks, a summer or two ago, so agreeably, that they and itbecame in a manner native to me. Without some such latitude ofinterpretation in the present case, I see not how we can avoid fallinginto a gross error in physics, as to conceive that a gentleman may beborn in two places, from which all modern and ancient testimony is alikeabhorrent. Bacchus cometh the nearest to it, whom I remember Ovid tohave honored with the epithet 'twice-born. '[4] But not to mention thathe is so called (we conceive) in reference to the places _whence_ ratherthan the places _where_ he was delivered, --for by either birth he mayprobably be challenged for a Theban, --in a strict way of speaking, hewas a _filius femoris_ by no means in the same sense as he had beenbefore a _filius alvi_, for that latter was but a secondary andtralatitious way of being born, and he but a denizen of the second houseof his geniture. Thus much by way of explanation was thought due to thecourteous 'Wiltshire Man. '

"To 'Indagator, ' 'Investigator, 'Incertus, ' and the rest of the pack, that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth, --as if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his parish, --to allsuch church-warden critics he answereth, that, any explanation heregiven notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his nativity (like a rustyvane) to one dull spot, but that, if he seeth occasion, or the argumentshall demand it, he will be born again, in future papers, in whateverplace, and at whatever period, shall seem good unto him, --

 "'Modò me Thebis, modò Athenis. '

"ELIA. "

 * * * * *

Lamb excels as a critic. His article on Hogarth is a masterly specimenof acute and subtile criticism. Hazlitt says it ought to be read byevery lover of Hogarth and English genius. His paper on "The Tragediesof Shakspeare, considered with Reference to their Fitness forStage-Representation, " is, in the opinion of good judges, the noblestcriticism ever written. The brief, "matterful" notes to his Specimens ofthe Old English Dramatists are the very quintessence of criticism, --theflower and fruit of years of thoughtful reading of the old Englishdrama. Nay, even his incidental allusions to his favorite old poets andprose-writers are worth whole pages of ordinary criticism. 

Therefore I do not see what reason or excuse Talfourd could have for notpublishing the critical paper on De Foe's Secondary Novels, which Lambcontributed to Walter Wilson's Life of De Foe. The author of "RobinsonCrusoe" was a great favorite with Lamb, and his criticism of "ColonelJack, " "Moll Flanders, " etc. , was written _con amore_, and is, perhaps, the very best thing ever said about those remarkable works. Those whohave read Lamb's letter to Wilson, dated December, 1822, and thereforeknow how admirably he could write of the author of the best and mostpopular book for boys ever written, will be right glad to read his

 * * * * *

ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS. 

"It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has sotranscendently surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, thatthe world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter, and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely inthis, not to suffer the contemplation of excellencies of a lowerstandard to abate or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed toreceive from the master-piece. 

"Again, it has happened, that, from no inferior merit of execution inthe rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject, some single work shall have been suffered to eclipse and cast into shadethe deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with moreor less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, inwhich the beautiful and Scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer, (weare all such upon earth, ) addressing itself intelligibly and feelinglyto the bosoms of all, has silenced, and made almost to be forgotten, themore awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the 'Holy War made byShaddai upon Diabolus, ' of the same author, --a romance less happy in itssubject, but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in noinstance has this excluding partiality been exerted with more unfairnessthan against what may be termed the secondary novels or romances of DeFoe. 

"While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over the'Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, ' and shall continue to do so, we trust, while the world lasts, how few comparatively will bear to be told thatthere exist other fictitious narratives by the same writer, --four ofthem at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a lessfelicitous choice of situation! 'Roxana. ' 'Singleton, ' 'Moll Flanders, ''Colonel Jack, ' are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bearthe veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would notswear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye of every one of them! They arein their way as full of incident, and some of them every bit asromantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that hasbewitched the world, of the striking solitary situation. 

"But are there no solitudes out of the cave and the desert? or cannotthe heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton onthe world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than thecreatures of any howling wilderness, --is he not alone, with the faces ofmen about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through themists of educational and habitual ignorance, or a fellow-heart that caninterpret to him the new-born yearnings and aspirations of unpractisedpenitence? Or when the boy Colonel Jack, in the loneliness of the heart, (the worst solitude, ) goes to hide his ill-purchased treasure in thehollow tree by night, and miraculously loses, and miraculously finds itagain--whom hath he there to sympathize with him? or of what sort arehis associates?

"The narrative manner of De Foe has a naturalness about it beyond thatof any other novel or romance writer. His fictions have all the air oftrue stories. It is impossible to believe, while you are reading them, that a real person is not narrating to you everywhere nothing but whatreally happened to himself. To this the extreme _homeliness_ of theirstyle mainly contributes. We use the word in its best and heartiestsense, --that which comes _home_ to the reader. The narrators everywhereare chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore theytell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark, )as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, orhave forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence theemphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type;and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding oldcolloquial parenthesis, 'I say, ' 'Mind, ' and the like, when thestory-teller repeats what, to a practised reader, might appear to havebeen sufficiently insisted upon before: which made an ingenious criticobserve, that his works, in this kind, were excellent reading for thekitchen. And, in truth, the heroes and heroines of De Foe can neveragain hope to be popular with a much higher class of readers than thatof the servant-maid or the sailor. Crusoe keeps its rank only by toughprescription; Singleton, the pirate--Colonel Jack, the thief, --MollFlanders, both thief and harlot, --Roxana, harlot and somethingworse, --would be startling ingredients in the bill-of-fare of modernliterary delicacies. But, then, what pirates, what thieves, and whatharlots is _the thief, the harlot_, and _the pirate_ of De Foe? We wouldnot hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the livesof such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made lessseductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the commission, or the penitence more earnest or more bleeding, or the interveningflashes of religious visitation upon the rude and uninstructed soul moremeltingly and fearfully painted. They, in this, come near to thetenderness of Bunyan; while the livelier pictures and incidents in them, as in Hogarth or in Fielding, tend to diminish that fastidiousness tothe concerns and pursuits of common life which an unrestrained passionfor the ideal and the sentimental is in danger of producing. "

 * * * * *

Lamb, in a letter to one of his correspondents, says, after speaking ofhis recent contributions to the "London Magazine, "--"In the next numberI shall figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late brethren, theUnitarians. What Jack-Pudding tricks I shall play next I know not; I amalmost at the end of my tether. " Talfourd, of course, does not publishthe article, or even give its title, which is, "Unitarian Protests. "Those who would see how well or how ill Elia figures as a theologianshould read

 * * * * *

"UNITARIAN PROTESTS: IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF THAT PERSUASION NEWLYMARRIED. 

"Dear M----, --Though none of your acquaintance can with greatersincerity congratulate you upon this happy conjuncture than myself, oneof the oldest of them, it was with pain I found you, after the ceremony, depositing in the vestry-room what is called a Protest. I thought yousuperior to this little sophistry. What! after submitting to the serviceof the Church of England, --after consenting to receive a boon from her, in the person of your amiable consort, --was it consistent with sense, orcommon good manners, to turn round upon her, and flatly taunt her withfalse worship? This language is a little of the strongest in your booksand from your pulpits, though there it may well enough be excused fromreligious zeal and the native warmth of Non-Conformity. But at thealtar, --the Church-of-England altar, --adopting her forms, and complyingwith her requisitions to the letter, --to be consistent, together withthe practice, I fear, you must drop the language of dissent. You are nolonger sturdy Non-Cons; you are there Occasional Conformists. You submitto accept the privileges communicated by a form of words exceptionable, and perhaps justly, in your view; but so submitting, you have no rightto quarrel with the ritual which you have just condescended to owe anobligation to. They do not force you into their churches. You comevoluntarily, knowing the terms. You marry in the name of the Trinity. There is no evading this by pretending that you take the formula withyour own interpretation (and so long as you can do this, where is thenecessity of protesting?): for the meaning of a vow is to be settled bythe sense of the imposer, not by any forced construction of the taker:else might all vows, and oaths too, be eluded with impunity. You marry, then, essentially as Trinitarians; and the altar no sooner satisfiedthan, hey, presto! with the celerity of a juggler, you shift habits, andproceed pure Unitarians again in the vestry. You cheat the Church out ofa wife, and go home smiling in your sleeves that you have so cunninglydespoiled the Egyptians. In plain English, the Church has married you inthe name of so and so, assuming that you took the words in her sense;but you outwitted her; you assented to them in your sense only, and tookfrom her what, upon a right understanding, she would have declinedgiving you. 

"This is the fair construction to be put upon all Unitarian marriages, as at present contracted; and so long as you Unitarians could salve yourconsciences with the _équivoque_, I do not see why the EstablishedChurch should have troubled herself at all about the matter. But theProtesters necessarily see further. They have some glimmerings of thedeception; they apprehend a flaw somewhere; they would fain be honest, and yet they must marry notwithstanding; for honesty's sake, they arefain to dehonestate themselves a little. Let me try the very words ofyour own Protest, to see what confessions we can pick out of them. 

"'As Unitarians, therefore, we' (you and your newly espoused bride)'most solemnly protest against the service, ' (which yourselves have justdemanded, ) 'because we are thereby called upon, not only tacitly toacquiesce, but to profess a belief, in a doctrine which is a dogma, aswe believe, totally unfounded. ' But do you profess that belief duringthe ceremony? or are you only called upon for the profession, but do notmake it? If the latter, then you fall in with the rest of your moreconsistent brethren, who waive the Protest; if the former, then, I fear, your Protest cannot save you. 

"Hard and grievous it is, that, in any case, an institution so broadand general as the union of man and wife should be so cramped andstraitened by the hands of an imposing hierarchy, that, to plight trothto a lovely woman, a man must be necessitated to compromise his truthand faith to Heaven; but so it must be, so long as you choose to marryby the forms of the church over which that hierarchy presides. 

"'Therefore, ' say you, 'we protest. ' O poor and much fallen word, Protest! It was not so that the first heroic reformers protested. Theydeparted out of Babylon once for good and all; they came not back for anoccasional contact with her altars--a dallying, and then a protestingagainst dalliance; they stood not shuffling in the porch, with a Popishfoot within, and its lame Lutheran fellow without, halting betwixt. These were the true Protestants. You are--Protesters. 

"Besides the inconsistency of this proceeding, I must think it a pieceof impertinence, unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrudethese papers upon the officiating clergyman, --to offer to a publicfunctionary an instrument which by the tenor of his function he is notobliged to accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it donein his clerical capacity? He has no power of redressing the grievance. It is to take the benefit of his ministry, and then insult him. If inhis capacity of fellow-Christian only, what are your scruples to him, solong as you yourselves are able to get over them, and do get over themby the very fact of coming to require his services? The thing you call aProtest might with just as good a reason be presented to thechurch-warden for the time being, to the parish-clerk, or thepew-opener. 

"The Parliament alone can redress your grievance, if any. Yet I see nothow with any grace your people can petition for relief, so long as, bythe very fact of your coming to church to be married, they do _bonâfide_ and strictly relieve themselves. The Upper House, in particular, is not unused to these same things called Protests, among themselves. But how would this honorable body stare to find a noble Lord conceding ameasure, and in the next breath, by a solemn Protest, disowning it! AProtest there is a reason given for non-compliance, not a subterfuge foran equivocal occasional compliance. It was reasonable in the primitiveChristians to avert from their persons, by whatever lawful means, thecompulsory eating of meats which had been offered unto idols. I dare saythe Roman Prefects and Exarchates had plenty of petitioning in theirdays. But what would a Festus or Agrippa have replied to a petition tothat effect, presented to him by some evasive Laodicean, with the verymeat between his teeth, which he had been chewing voluntarily ratherthan abide the penalty? Relief for tender consciences means nothing, where the conscience has previously relieved itself, --that is, hascomplied with the injunctions which it seeks preposterously to be ridof. Relief for conscience there is properly none, but what by betterinformation makes an act appear innocent and lawful with which theprevious conscience was not satisfied to comply. All else is but relieffrom penalties, from scandal incurred by a complying practice, where theconscience itself is not fully satisfied. 

"But, say you, we have hard measure: the Quakers are indulged with theliberty denied to us. They are; and dearly have they earned it. You havecome in (as a sect, at least) in the cool of the evening, at theeleventh hour. The Quaker character was hardened in the fires ofpersecution in the seventeenth century, --not quite to the stake andfagot, but little short of that: they grew up and thrived againstnoisome prisons, cruel beatings, whippings, stockings. They have sinceendured a century or two of scoffs, contempts; they have been a by-word, and a nay-word; they have stood unmoved: and the consequence of longconscientious resistance on one part is invariably, in the end, remission on the other. The legislature, that denied you the tolerance, which I do not know that at that time you even asked, gave them theliberty which, without granting, they would have assumed. No penaltiescould have driven them into the churches. This is the consequence ofentire measures. Had the early Quakers consented to take oaths, leavinga Protest with the clerk of the court against them in the same breathwith which they had taken them, do you in your conscience think thatthey would have been indulged at this day in their exclusive privilegeof affirming? Let your people go on for a century or so, marrying inyour own fashion, and I will warrant them, before the end of it, thelegislature will be willing to concede to them more than they at presentdemand. 

"Either the institution of marriage depends not for its validity uponhypocritical compliances with the ritual of an alien church, and then Ido not see why you cannot marry among yourselves, as the Quakers, without their indulgence, would have been doing to this day, --or it doesdepend upon such ritual compliance, and then in your Protests you offendagainst a divine ordinance. I have read in the Essex-Street Liturgy aform for the celebration of marriage. Why is this become a dead letter?Oh! it has never been legalized: that is to say, in the law's eye it isno marriage. But do you take upon you to say, in the view of the gospelit would be none? Would your own people, at least, look upon a couple sopaired to be none? But the case of dowries, alimonies, inheritances, etc. , which depend for their validity upon the ceremonial of the churchby law established, --are these nothing? That our children are notlegally _Filii Nullius_, --is this nothing? I answer, Nothing; to thepreservation of a good conscience, nothing; to a consistentChristianity, less than nothing. Sad worldly thorns they are indeed, andstumbling-blocks well worthy to be set out of the way by a legislaturecalling itself Christian; but not likely to be removed in a hurry by anyshrewd legislators who perceive that the petitioning complainants havenot so much as bruised a shin in the resistance, but, prudentlydeclining the briers and the prickles, nestle quietly down in the smoothtwo-sided velvet of a Protesting Occasional Conformity. 

"I am, dear Sir, "With much respect, yours, etc. , "ELIA. "

 * * * * *

Lamb once said, of all the lies he ever put off, --and he put off a goodmany, --indeed, he valued himself on being "a matter-of-lie man, "believing truth to be too precious to be wasted upon everybody, --of allthe lies he ever put off, he valued his "Memoir of Liston" the most. "Itis, " he confessed to Miss Hutchinson, "from top to toe, every paragraph, pure invention, and has passed for gospel, --has been republished in thenewspapers, and in the penny play-bills of the night, as an authenticaccount. " And yet, notwithstanding its incidents are all imaginary, itsfacts all fictions, is not Lamb's "Memoir of Liston" a truer and moretrustworthy work than any of the productions of those contemptiblebiographers--unfortunately not yet extinct--so admirably ridiculed inthe thirty-fifth number of the "Freeholder"? In fact, is not this "lyingLife of Liston" a very clever satire on those biographers who, like themonkish historians mentioned by Fuller, in his "Church History ofBritain, " swell the bowels of their books with empty wind, in default ofsufficient solid food to fill them, --who, according to Addison, ascribeto the unfortunate persons whose lives they pretend to write works whichthey never wrote and actions which they never performed, celebratevirtues which they were never famous for and excuse faults which theywere never guilty of? And does not Lamb, in this work, very happilyridicule the pedantry and conceit of certain grave and dignifiedbiographers whose works are to be found in most gentlemen's libraries?

Therefore, as a piece of most admirable fooling, as a bit of harmless, good-natured pleasantry, as a specimen of pleasant satire, of subtileirony, this "Memoir of Listen" is well worthy of a place in all editionsof Charles Lamb's writings. 

 * * * * *

"BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON. 

"The subject of our Memoir is lineally descended from Johan deL'Estonne, (see 'Domesday Book, ' where he is so written, ) who came inwith the Conqueror, and had lands awarded him at Lupton Magna, in Kent. His particular merits or services Fabian, whose authority I chieflyfollow, has forgotten, or perhaps thought it immaterial, to specify. Fuller thinks that he was standard-bearer to Hugo de Agmondesham, apowerful Norman baron, who was slain by the hand of Harold himself atthe fatal Battle of Hastings. Be this as it may, we find a family ofthat name flourishing some centuries later in that county. JohnDelliston, Knight, was high sheriff for Kent, according to Fabian, _quinto Henrici Sexti_; and we trace the lineal branch flourishingdownwards, --the orthography varying, according to the unsettled usage ofthe times, from Delleston to Leston or Liston, between which it seems tohave alternated, till, in the latter end of the reign of James I. , itfinally settled into the determinate and pleasing dissyllabicarrangement which it still retains. Aminadab Liston, the eldest malerepresentative of the family of that day, was of the strictest order ofPuritans. Mr. Foss, of Pall Mall, has obligingly communicated to me anundoubted tract of his, which bears the initials only, A. L. , and isentitled, 'The Grinning Glass: or Actor's Mirrour, wherein thevituperative Visnomy of vicious Players for the Scene is as virtuouslyreflected back upon their mimetic Monstrosities as it has viciously(hitherto) vitiated with its vile Vanities her Votarists. ' A strangetitle, but bearing the impress of those absurdities with which thetitle-pages of that pamphlet-spawning age abounded. The work bears date1617. It preceded the 'Histriomastix' by fifteen years; and as it wentbefore it in time, so it comes not far short of it in virulence. It isamusing to find an ancestor of Listen's thus bespattering the players atthe commencement of the seventeenth century:--

 "'Thinketh He, ' (the actor, ) 'with his costive countenances, to wry a sorrowing soul out of her anguish, or by defacing the divine denotement of destinate dignity (daignely described in the face humane and no other) to reinstamp the Paradice-plotted similitude with a novel and naughty approximation (not in the first intention) to those abhorred and ugly God-forbidden correspondences, with flouting Apes' jeering gibberings, and Babion babbling-like, to hoot out of countenance all modest measure, as if our sins were not sufficing to stoop our backs without He wresting and crooking his members to mistimed mirth (rather malice) in deformed fashion, leering when he should learn, prating for praying, goggling his eyes, (better upturned for grace, ) whereas in Paradice (if we can go thus high for His profession) that devilish Serpent appeareth his undoubted Predecessor, first induing a mask like some roguish roistering Roscius (I spit at them all) to beguile with Stage shows the gaping Woman, whose Sex hath still chiefly upheld these Mysteries, and are voiced to be the chief Stage-haunters, where, as I am told, the custom is commonly to mumble (between acts) apples, not ambiguously derived from that pernicious Pippin, (worse in effect than the Apples of Discord, ) whereas sometimes the hissing sounds of displeasure, as I hear, do lively reintonate that snake-taking-leave, and diabolical goings off, in Paradice. '

"The Puritanic effervescence of the early Presbyterians appears to haveabated with time, and the opinions of the more immediate ancestors ofour subject to have subsided at length into a strain of moderateCalvinism. Still a tincture of the old leaven was to be expected amongthe posterity of A. L. 

"Our hero was the only son of Habakkuk Liston, settled as an anabaptistminister upon the patrimonial soil of his ancestors. A regularcertificate appears, thus entered in the Church-Book at LuptonMagna:--'_Johannes, filius Habakkuk et Rebecccæ Liston, Dissentientium, natus quinto Decembri_, 1780, _baptizatus sexto Februarii sequentis;Sponsoribus J. Et W. Woollaston, unâ cum Maria Merryweather_. ' Thesingularity of an Anabaptist minister conforming to the child-rites ofthe Church would have tempted me to doubt the authenticity of thisentry, had I not been obliged with the actual sight of it, by the favorof Mr. Minns, the intelligent and worthy parish-clerk of Lupton. Possibly some expectation in point of worldly advantages from some ofthe sponsors might have induced this unseemly deviation, as it must haveappeared, from the practice and principles of that generally rigid sect. The term _Dissentientium_ was possibly intended by the orthodoxclergyman as a slur upon the supposed inconsistency. What, or of whatnature, the expectations we have hinted at may have been, we have now nomeans of ascertaining. Of the Woollastons no trace is now discoverablein the village. The name of Merryweather occurs over the front of agrocer's shop at the western extremity of Lupton. 

"Of the infant Liston we find no events recorded before his fourth year, in which a severe attack of the measles bid fair to have robbed therising generation of a fund of innocent entertainment. He had it of theconfluent kind, as it is called, and the child's life was for a week ortwo despaired of. His recovery he always attributes (under Heaven) tothe humane interference of one Doctor Wilhelm Richter, a German empiric, who, in this extremity, prescribed a copious diet of _sauer-kraut_, which the child was observed to reach at with avidity, when other foodrepelled him; and from this change of diet his restoration was rapid andcomplete. We have often heard him name the circumstance with gratitude;and it is not altogether surprising that a relish for this kind ofaliment, so abhorrent and harsh to common English palates, hasaccompanied him through life. When any of Mr. Listen's intimates invitehim to supper, he never fails of finding, nearest to his knife and fork, a dish of _sauer-kraut_. 

"At the age of nine we find our subject under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Goodenough, (his father's health not permitting him probably toinstruct him himself, ) by whom he was inducted into a competent portionof Latin and Greek, with some mathematics, till the death of Mr. Goodenough, in his own seventieth, and Master Liston's eleventh year, put a stop for the present to his classical progress. 

"We have heard our hero, with emotions which do his heart honor, describe the awful circumstances attending the decease of this worthyold gentleman. It seems they had been walking out together, master andpupil, in a fine sunset, to the distance of three-quarters of a milewest of Lupton, when a sudden curiosity took Mr. Goodenough to look downupon a chasm, where a shaft had been lately sunk in a mining speculation(then projecting, but abandoned soon after, as not answering thepromised success, by Sir Ralph Shepperton, Knight, and member for thecounty). The old clergyman leaning over, either with incaution or suddengiddiness, (probably a mixture of both, ) suddenly lost his footing, and, to use Mr. Listen's phrase, disappeared, and was doubtless brokeninto a thousand pieces. The sound of his head, etc. , dashingsuccessively upon the projecting masses of the chasm, had such an effectupon the child that a serious sickness ensued, and even for many yearsafter his recovery he was not once seen so much as to smile. 

"The joint death of both his parents, which happened not many monthsafter this disastrous accident, and were probably (one or both of them)accelerated by it, threw our youth upon the protection of his maternalgreat-aunt, Mrs. Sittingbourn. Of this aunt we have never heard himspeak but with expressions amounting almost to reverence. To theinfluence of her early counsels and manners he has always attributed thefirmness with which, in maturer years, thrown upon a way of lifecommonly not the best adapted to gravity and self-retirement, he hasbeen able to maintain a serious character, untinctured with the levitiesincident to his profession. Ann Sittingbourn (we have seen her portraitby Hudson) was stately, stiff, tall, with a cast of features strikinglyresembling the subject of this memoir. Her estate in Kent was spaciousand well-wooded; the house, one of those venerable old mansions whichare so impressive in childhood, and so hardly forgotten in succeedingyears. In the venerable solitudes of Charnwood, among thick shades ofthe oak and beech, (this last his favorite tree, ) the young Listencultivated those contemplative habits which have never entirely desertedhim in after-years. Here he was commonly in the summer months to be metwith, with a book in his hand, --not a play-book, --meditating. Boyle's'Reflections' was at one time the darling volume, which in its turn wassuperseded by Young's 'Night Thoughts, ' which has continued its holdupon him through life. He carries it always about him; and it is nouncommon thing for him to be seen, in the refreshing intervals of hisoccupation, leaning against a side-scene, in a sort ofHerbert-of-Cherbury posture, turning over a pocket-edition of hisfavorite author. 

"But the solitudes of Charnwood were not destined always to obscure thepath of our young hero. The premature death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, at theage of seventy, occasioned by incautious burning of a pot of charcoal inher sleeping-chamber, left him in his nineteenth year nearly withoutresources. That the stage at all should have presented itself as aneligible scope for his talents, and, in particular, that he should havechosen a line so foreign to what appears to have been his turn of mind, may require some explanation. 

"At Charnwood, then, we behold him thoughtful, grave, ascetic. From hiscradle averse to flesh-meats and strong drink; abstemious even beyondthe genius of the place, and almost in spite of the remonstrances of hisgreat-aunt, who, though strict, was not rigid; water was his habitualdrink, and his food little beyond the mast and beech-nuts of hisfavorite groves. It is a medical fact, that this kind of diet, howeverfavorable to the contemplative powers of the primitive hermits, etc. , isbut ill adapted to the less robust minds and bodies of a latergeneration. Hypochondria almost constantly ensues. It was so in the caseof the young Liston. He was subject to sights, and had visions. Thosearid beech-nuts, distilled by a complexion naturally adust, mounted intoan occiput already prepared to kindle by long seclusion and the fervorof strict Calvinistic notions. In the glooms of Charnwood he wasassailed by illusions similar in kind to those which are related of thefamous Anthony of Padua. Wild antic faces would ever and anon protrudethemselves upon his sensorium. Whether he shut his eyes or kept themopen, the same illusions operated. The darker and more profound were hiscogitations, the droller and more whimsical became the apparitions. They buzzed about him thick as flies, flapping at him, flouting him, hooting in his ear, yet with such comic appendages, that what at firstwas his bane became at length his solace; and he desired no bettersociety than that of his merry phantasmata. We shall presently find inwhat way this remarkable phenomenon influenced his future destiny. 

"On the death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, we find him received into the familyof Mr. Willoughby, an eminent Turkey merchant, resident in Birchin Lane, London. We lose a little while here the chain of his history, --by whatinducements this gentleman was determined to make him an inmate of hishouse. Probably he had had some personal kindness for Mrs. Sittingbournformerly; but however it was, the young man was here treated more like ason than a clerk, though he was nominally but the latter. Differentavocations, the change of scene, with that alternation of business andrecreation which in its greatest perfection is to be had only in London, appear to have weaned him in a short time from the hypochondriacalaffections which had beset him at Charnwood. 

"In the three years which followed his removal to Birchin Lane, we findhim making more than one voyage to the Levant, as chief factor for Mr. Willoughby at the Porte. We could easily fill our biography with thepleasant passages which we have heard him relate as having happened tohim at Constantinople, such as his having been taken up on suspicion ofa design of penetrating the seraglio, etc. ; but, with the deepestconvincement of this gentleman's own veracity, we think that some of thestories are of that whimsical, and others of that romantic nature, which, however diverting, would be out of place in a narrative of thiskind, which aims not only at strict truth, but at avoiding the veryappearance of the contrary. 

"We will now bring him over the seas again, and suppose him in thecounting-house in Birchin Lane, his protector satisfied with the returnsof his factorage, and all going on so smoothly that we may expect tofind Mr. Liston at last an opulent merchant upon 'Change, as it iscalled. But see the turns of destiny! Upon a summer's excursion intoNorfolk, in the year 1801, the accidental sight of pretty Sally Parker, as she was called, (then in the Norwich company, ) diverted hisinclinations at once from commerce; and he became, in the language ofcommonplace biography, stage-struck. Happy for the lovers of mirth wasit that our hero took this turn; he might else have been to this hourthat unentertaining character, a plodding London merchant. 

"We accordingly find him shortly after making his _début_, as it iscalled, upon the Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being thenin the twenty-second year of his age. Having a natural bent to tragedy, he chose the part of Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother, ' to SallyParker's Hermione. We find him afterwards as Barnwell, Altamont, Chamont, etc. ; but, as if Nature had destined him to the sock, anunavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated him for tragedy. Hisperson, at this latter period of which I have been speaking, wasgraceful, and even commanding; his countenance set to gravity; he hadthe power of arresting the attention of an audience at first sightalmost beyond any other tragic actor. But he could not hold it. Tounderstand this obstacle, we must go back a few years to those appallingreveries at Charnwood. Those illusions, which had vanished before thedissipation of a less recluse life and more free society, now in hissolitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon feelingincident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vividness. Inthe midst of some most pathetic passage, the parting of Jaffier with hisdying friend, for instance, he would suddenly be surprised with a fit ofviolent horse-laughter. While the spectators were all sobbing beforehim with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces would peep outupon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse once ortwice served his purpose; but no audiences could be expected to bearrepeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describesthem (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and paralyzingevery effect. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquyin 'Hamlet, ' even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome he hadgood sense enough to turn into emolument, and determined to make acommodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for thesock, and the illusions instantly ceased; or, if they occurred for ashort season, by their very cooperation added a zest to his comicvein, --some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) littlemore than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata. 

"We have now drawn out our hero's existence to the period when he wasabout to meet for the first time the sympathies of a London audience. The particulars of his success since have been too much before our eyesto render a circumstantial detail of them expedient. I shall onlymention, that Mr. Willoughby, his resentments having had time tosubside, is at present one of the fastest friends of his old renegadofactor; and that Mr. Listen's hopes of Miss Parker vanishing along withhis unsuccessful suit to Melpomene, in the autumn of 1811 he married hispresent lady, by whom he has been blest with one son, Philip, and twodaughters, Ann and Angustina. "

 * * * * *

"Ask anybody you meet, " writes Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, then visitingsome friends in Cambridge, "who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, andI'll hold a wager they'll say Mrs. ----. She broke down two benches inTrinity Gardens, --one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned alitigation between the societies as to repairing it. In warm weather sheretires into an ice-cellar, (literally, ) and dates from a hot Thursdaysome twenty years back. She sits in a room with opposite doors andwindows, to let in a thorough draft, which gives her slenderer friendstoothaches. She is to be seen in the market every morning at ten, cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge poulterers are notsufficiently careful to stump. "

On the person thus briefly sketched Elia wrote an article for the"London Magazine. " As it is not to be found in the standard editions ofits author's works, we herewith present it to our readers. They willfind it to be a clever specimen of Lamb's peculiar and delightful humor. In truth, it is one of the very best things he ever conjured up. Weobserve he has changed the locality of the stout woman, and places herin Oxford, instead of Cambridge. 

 * * * * *

"THE GENTLE GIANTESS. 

"The widow Blacket, of Oxford, is the largest female I ever had thepleasure of beholding. There may be her parallel upon the earth, butsurely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from themaid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such uneasiness. Shehath Atlantean shoulders; and as she stoopeth in her gait, --with as fewoffences to answer for in her own particular as any of Eve'sdaughters, --her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all thepeccadilloes that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth herwaist--or what she is pleased to esteem as such--nearly up to hershoulders, from beneath which that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainousdeclivity, emergeth. Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, whofollow her about in shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting upand riding. But her presence infallibly commands a reverence. She is, indeed, as the Americans would express it, something awful. Her personis a burden to herself, no less than to the ground which bears her. 

"To her mighty bone she hath a pinguitude withal which makes the depthof winter to her the most desirable season. Her distress in the warmersolstice is pitiable. During the months of July and August she usuallyrenteth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, whereinto she descendethwhen Sirius rageth. She dates from a hot Thursday, some twenty-fiveyears ago. Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Twodoors in north and south direction, and two windows fronting the risingand the setting sun, never closed, from every cardinal point catch thecontributory breezes. She loves to enjoy what she calls a quadrupledraught. That must be a shrewd zephyr that can escape her. I owe apainful face-ache, which oppresses me at this moment, to a cold caught, sitting by her, one day in last July, at this receipt of coolness. Herfan in ordinary resembleth a banner spread, which she keepethcontinually on the alert to detect the least breeze. 

"She possesseth an active and gadding mind, totally incommensurate withher person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises andpastimes. I have passed many an agreeable holiday with her in herfavorite park at Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightfulambulatory excursions by the aid of a portable garden-chair. She settethout with you at a fair foot-gallop, which she keepeth up till you areboth well breathed, and then she reposeth for a few seconds. Then she isup again for a hundred paces or so, and again resteth, --her movement, onthese sprightly occasions, being something between walking and flying. Her great weight seemeth to propel her forward, ostrich-fashion. In thiskind of relieved marching I have traversed with her many scores of acreson those well-wooded and well-watered domains. 

"Her delight at Oxford is in the public walks and gardens, where, whenthe weather is not too oppressive, she passeth much of her valuabletime. There is a bench at Maudlin, or rather, situated between thefrontiers of that and ----'s College, --some litigation, latterly, aboutrepairs, has vested the property of it finally in ----'s, --where at thehour of noon she is ordinarily to be found sitting, --so she calls it bycourtesy, --but, in fact, pressing and breaking of it down with herenormous settlement; as both those Foundations, who, however, aregood-natured enough to wink at it, have found, I believe, to their cost. Here she taketh the fresh air, principally at vacation times, when thewalks are freest from interruption of the younger fry of students. Hereshe passeth her idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with abook, --blest, if she can but intercept some resident Fellow, (as usuallythere are some of that brood left behind at these periods, ) or strayMaster of Arts, (to most of whom she is better known than theirdinner-bell, ) with whom she may confer upon any curious topic ofliterature. I have seen these shy gownsmen, who truly set but a veryslight value upon female conversation, cast a hawk's eye upon her fromthe length of Maudlin Grove, and warily glide off into anotherwalk, --true monks as they are, and ungently neglecting the delicacies ofher polished converse, for their own perverse and uncommunicatingsolitariness!

"Within doors her principal diversion is music, vocal and instrumental, in both which she is no mean professor. Her voice is wonderfully fine;but, till I got used to it, I confess it staggered me. It is for all theworld like that of a piping bulfinch, while from her size and statureyou would expect notes to drown the deep organ. The shake, which mostfine singers reserve for the close or cadence, by some unaccountableflexibility, or tremulousness of pipe, she carrieth quite through thecomposition; so that her time, to a common air or ballad, keeps doublemotion, like the earth, --running the primary circuit of the tune, andstill revolving upon its own axis. The effect, as I said before, whenyou are used to it, is as agreeable as it is altogether new andsurprising. 

"The spacious apartment of her outward frame lodgeth a soul in allrespects disproportionate. Of more than mortal make, she evinceth withala trembling sensibility, a yielding infirmity of purpose, a quicksusceptibility to reproach, and all the train of diffident and blushingvirtues, which for their habitation usually seek out a feeble frame, anattenuated and meagre constitution. With more than man's bulk, herhumors and occupations are eminently feminine. She sighs, --being sixfoot high. She languisheth, --being two feet wide. She worketh slendersprigs upon the delicate muslin, --her fingers being capable of mouldinga Colossus. She sippeth her wine out of her glass daintily, --hercapacity being that of a tun of Heidelberg. She goeth mincingly withthose feet of hers, --whose solidity need not fear the black ox'spressure. 

"Softest and largest of thy sex, adieu! By what parting attribute may Isalute thee?--last and best of the Titanesses!--Ogress, fed with milkinstead of blood!--not least, or least handsome, among Oxford's statelystructures!--Oxford, who, in its deadest time of vacation, can neverproperly be said to be empty, having thee to fill it!"

 * * * * *

MY PALACE. 

 Wound round and round within his mystic veil The poet hid a noble truth; The Soul's Art-Palace then he named the tale Of those far days in youth. 

 I sought that palace on its haughty height, And came to know its starry joys, Its sudden blackness, and the withering blight Of all its mortal toys. 

 At length the soul took lesson from her past, And found a vale wherein to dwell, With no Arcadian visions overcast Or history to tell. 

 My fellows tended wandering flocks and herds, Or tilled and nursed their scanty corn; Little they heeded life that grew to words, Yet gave no man their scorn. 

 Like them I wrought my task and took its gain, That one might serve their homely need, When skies were dark, and every cloud a pain, And there were mouths to feed. 

 Thus labored day by day these unskilled hands, Whose only master was a willing heart, Till barren space smiled into garden-lands Where roses shone apart. 

 Half faint with toil from morn to set of sun, One night I watched the shadows creep With stealthy footstep, when the day was done, Toward my encastled steep. 

 The palace gleamed upon my dazzled sight, -- From long estrangement grown more fair: I sank and dreamed my feet were mounting light Over each golden stair. 

 Once more there came the voice of waters low On cooling breezes perfume-fed: It seemed I followed a grand leader, slow Through marble galleries led. 

 Then sad I wakened in the vale, but found The stately guide still drew me on: Her name was Charity; her voice a sound Of pure compassion. 

 She said, --"Beside thee every day I stood To keep false memories aloof; To-night I sorrowed for thy labor rude, And put thee to the proof. 

 "Ascend again to yon high palace-towers, With brothers share its plenitude, And gather up with all thy princely powers Joys to infinitude. "

 "Ay me!" I cried, "bid me not go afar, While yet these little children call, Lest life grow pallid as the morning star In that cold shining hall!

 "All shall be theirs: my lot is here below To minister the goods I hold, While suffering ones shall watch the torrent flow In waves of amber gold. 

 "There childhood shall be laid on gleaming beds, A saintly-eyed prophetic band, And tinted oriels flame above their heads To picture the new land. 

 "And dusky men shall press the snowy lawn, Shall feel those tears that ease all pain, Then wake to greet the free earth's noble dawn And turn to rest again. 

 "There tired soldiers wash their bleeding feet, Who gave for us their ripening youth To earn pure freedom, dared all danger meet, Content to die for truth. 

 "There, in the sleepless watch the organ's tone Shall bear them on its swelling wing To dreamful space, while star-fires one by one In vibrant chorus sing. "

 Sudden there came a thought, --Thou hast no home, No shaded haunt, or mansion wide, No refuge after toil in which to roam, Where silence may abide. 

 And then I saw a palace broad as earth, Built beautiful of land and seas, -- Its eastern gate shone in the morning's birth, The west o'ertopped the trees. 

 Free as wild waves upon an autumn day, A world of brothers through its space Might wander up and down, and sunbeams play Even on Sorrow's face. 

 Here in the broad sunned silence of the noon Peace waiteth to salute the worn, And ever crowneth with her tender boon Those who have nobly borne. 

 Like shafted light dropped in a sunset sea, The radiant pillars of my home Send from their glowing swift mortality Great voices crying, "Come!"

 * * * * *

THE DEACON'S HOLOCAUST. 

I

A First-class old lady is the most precious social possession of aNew-England town. I have been in places where this office of SelectWoman had languished for want of a proper incumbent, --that is, where thefeminine element was always supplicatory, never authoritative. In such aplace you may find the Select Men as vulgar and unclean as are some ofthe more pretentious politicians of State or nation; the variety-storesands its sugar quite up to the city-standard; and the parson is astimid a timeserver as the Bishop of Babylon. No rich local tone andcharacter are to be found in such a place. 

This deplorable state of things had never existed in Foxden. Whenstrangers took a carriage at the depot and asked to be shown whateverwas noteworthy in the town, they were driven to a many-gabled houseshaded by a majestic oak, and informed that there lived Mrs. Widesworth, the grand-daughter of Twynintuft, the famous elocutionist. They werealso assured that the oak was no other than the Twynintuft Oak, celebrated in the well-known sonnet of a distinguished American poet. Moreover, they were instructed that the room just to the right of theporch was a study added by Twynintuft himself in the year '87, and thatthe shattered shed in the background was originally an elocutionarylaboratory which had seen the forming of many Congressional orators. 

In so confident a way was this information imparted, that visitors werecompelled to receive it in all humbleness, and as a matter of course. They could only feign that Twynintuft had been a household word fromtheir tenderest infancy, and that they have made pilgrimage to Foxden togaze upon the earthly abiding-place of this remarkable man. Accordingly, young ladies sent their best respects from the hotel, and "Would dearMrs. Widesworth spare them a few leaves from her grandfather's oak?" Andsimple young gentlemen, with a morbid passion for notorieties and moralsentiments, forwarded little books, bound in sheepskin heavily gilt, inscribed, "World-Thoughts of My Country's Gifted Minds, " and "Mrs. Widesworth is requested to write any maxim which her experience of lifemay have suggested on page 209 of this volume, just between the remarksof the Living Skeleton and the autograph of the Idiot Albino. "

If invited to visit any one of consideration in Foxden, you would nosooner have deposited your travelling-bag and subsided into thearm-chair than you would perceive a curious nervous twitching about thefeatures of your host, which would finally culminate in these, accentsof patronizing triumph:--"My dear Sir, I shall be glad to take youacross the street to pay your respects to Mrs. Widesworth!" Everyhouseholder quivered with anxiety until this rite had been solemnlyperformed. 

Mrs. Widesworth, the actual, was a plump, well-to-do widow, ofthreescore years. She lived among her fellow-creatures, but not ofthem, --and that in a sense far more comfortable than Byronic misanthropycould imagine. She managed to keep all the tumult and competition ofthis rough world just outside the little whitewashed fence whichinclosed her premises. No solitary saint of the Middle Ages floated in amore lofty independence of the foolish heresies of vulgar humanity. Themission of woman must, of necessity, be identical with the mission ofMrs. Widesworth, --and this was, to bestow a mellow patronage upon allcreation. That whatever is is right, and that this is the best possibleof worlds, were to Mrs. Widesworth propositions which her perfect healthand unmitigated prosperity continually proved. That, in a theologicalpoint of view, everything was wrong, she considered an esotericcondiment to add piquancy to the loaves and fishes which Providence hadset before her. 

Concerning the eminent Twynintuft, it may be remarked that he haddevoted a long life to elocution, and produced a bulky manual full ofillustrative quavers. And as it happened that his work was the first ofthe sort published in America, it obtained a pretty general circulationin schools and colleges, and was even patronisingly noticed in a BritishReview, --at that time the apotheosis of our native authorship. But, alasfor the perishable nature of literary productions! "Twynintuft on theHuman Voice" had long been superseded, and lay comfortably buried inthat cemetery of dead textbooks from which there is no resurrection. Yet, as he had once been one of the notables of Foxden, the inhabitantsof the town indulged themselves in the soothing fiction that his memorywas still verdant among men, and did pious homage to his representative. 

Until the correspondence of Colonel Prowley had drawn Miss Hurribattleto Foxden, Mrs. Widesworth reigned by divine right. All quilting-beesand charitable fairs seemed but manifestations of her pervadingvitality. Every social detail was submitted to her arbitrament. Shehovered over the gossips of the town like Fate in a Greek tragedy, --butit was a reformed Fate, with a wholesome respect for family andcondition. 

An entertainment widely famous as "Mrs. Widesworth's SemiannualSinging-School" brought forth every spring and fall the entire strengthof this excellent lady. The origin of this festivity was of ancientdate. The early settlers in Foxden, while holding decided opinionsconcerning the mischief of church-organs, were unusually tolerant ofvocal music. They doubted not that a preached gospel might be worthilyseconded by a vigorous psalmody. Weekly meetings of the young men andmaidens were allowed for practice, and the pot of beans, surmounted byits crisp coronal of pork, closed the evening in simple conviviality. This singing-school had descended through the generations, and in solemnrotation visited the families of all church-members. Under the fosteringcare of Mrs. Widesworth, the occasion grew to a musical festival ofconsiderable importance. When the meeting was at her house, there wereinvited many citizens of distinction from the neighboring towns; also, there was summoned all that was lively, pretty, or profound in Foxden. From three in the afternoon until nine in the evening the old housebroke out into singing, chatting, love-making, and sermonizing in richvariety. The ancient bean-pot gave place to a tea-table loaded witheverything which might be baked or fried or stewed. Upon that day peoplein wise foresight made but slender dinners. The hostess was known topossess a culinary experience of no ordinary scope, and the air of thehouse was heavy with the delicate incense of waffles and dough-nuts. When the evening happened to be mild, and that comfortable estate offulness whose adjectives the Latin Grammar tells us require the ablativehad been attained, there was more music, secular, but highly decorous, beneath the rustling boughs of the oak. Then the merriment grew hearty, and mocked the sombre night. In vain the crickets chirped their shrilljeer at fallen humanity; the crackling leaves whispered, --but no moreaudibly than to the painted Indians who once danced beneath the treewhich the unborn Twynintuft was to monopolize. 

Perhaps you think Mrs. Widesworth a kind-hearted, charitable, respectable old lady, --in short, a model citizeness! Many Foxden peoplethought so, until, in the fulness of time, they were drugged withiconoclastic logic, ghastly and fierce. Then this worthy person suddenlyloomed before them as a patron and upholder of every social abuse. Shewas a trampler upon the rights of her sex, and deeply involved in theguilt of baby-selling at Charleston. Above all, she was a _ModerateDrinker_, (half a glass of Sherry with her dinner, you know, ) and, assuch, could be proved to be the bulwark of the bar-room, and directlyresponsible for the ruin of the most talented graduates of HarvardCollege. The brutalities of every wife-beating drunkard just landed uponour shores might be logically credited to Mrs. Widesworth, and to those_respectable_ (with great sarcasm) _church-members_ (sarcasm moreintense) who countenanced the moderate use of intoxicating drinks. 

For now there had come upon Foxden that political, sanatory, anti-everything revival, which, in those days, thrilled through ourriver-towns and took the place of the theological revival, which thechurches seemed too feeble to produce. And--but this is addressed onlyto simple souls who think that Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, and Lutherinstituted the Reformation--the settlement of Miss Patience Hurribattlein a Foxden boarding-house produced the social upheaval which shook theplace. Of course, the enlightened reader of the "Atlantic" is well awarethat the mighty personages of history may be philosophically bejuggledout of all claim to the admiration or reprobation of men. What did theydo but react on the society which created them?--what were they but theaverage tendencies of an age clad in petticoats or top-boots, as thecase might be? So let it be written, that the great Cosmos-machine hadground itself to the precise point which necessitated a reformatorytumult in Foxden, and it mattered little who happened to be there topatronize it. 

For several previous years Miss Hurribattle had borne about her anuncomfortable turbulence of heroic effort. She had gradually accustomedherself to regard our crooked humanity as something capable of beingcaught up and reformed by a rapacious philanthropist. She had reached amental condition to which the time was as thoroughly out of joint as itever appeared to Hamlet, although, unlike that impracticable character, she took great comfort in the belief that she was especially born to setit right. The choice varieties of _men_ know that truth as it is andtruth as it appears to them are very different matters. But, thankHeaven, the feminine nature is bound by no such doleful barrier! The manwho thinks is limited; the woman who feels may expand indefinitely. MissHurribattle's mission was to attract the world's capital of unemployedsentiment, and to set it to work in the mills of society. Let it be saidof this woman, that, without wealth of talent or any exact culture, shepossessed the sweetest accompaniments of the highest masculinegenius, --enthusiasm and simplicity. 

The questioning spirit gradually took form in various radical clubs andassociations. Pleasing themselves with shining symbols, andcomplimenting each other with antique titles of nobility, a largemajority of the Foxden shop-keepers enlisted in the sacred crusade. Thisnew physical revival, like the old religious revivals, soon got into theschools, and processions of children, fluttering many-colored ribbons, paraded the streets. There was an Anti-Spirit League and anAnti-Tea-and-Coffee League; also an Anti-Tobacco League was in hopefulprocess of formation. And soon professional reformers of mostdestructive character were attracted to the place, and, having onceattached themselves, hung like leeches upon the community. Thecelebrated Mrs. Romulus, and the great socialist, Mr. Stellato, snuffingtheir victims afar off, left their work unfinished in towns of lessimportance, and hurried to Foxden. Shrewd wasps were these, bent upongetting up beehives of cooperative activity. Less and less grew thestanch garrison who must defend the conservative citadel against thedaring hordes. Nevertheless, some boldly stood out, and showed aspirit--or shall it be said an obstinacy?--which cowed unpractisedassailants. Deacon Greenlaw had not yet been persuaded to burn hiscider-mill, --although committees of matrons had visited him to ascertainwhen he proposed to do so, --although bevies of children had been dressedin white and set upon Mrs. Greenlaw, --although Mr. Stellato, as Chiefof the Progressive Gladiators, had called in person to demand a publicdestruction of that accursed instrument for the ruin of men. The Deacondefied the moral sentiment of the town. Doctor Dastick sturdilymaintained that tea and coffee were not injurious, and had got hold ofthe preventing-waste-of-tissue theory in respect to more potentbeverages. The old-fashioned hospitable soul of Colonel Prowley tookcognizance of the fact that the Odes of Horace made no unkindly mentionof ripe Falernian, and that the most admirable heroes of Plutarch do notappear to have been teetotalers. Mrs. Widesworth, good lady, rode like acork upon the deep unrest of society: she thought the whole businessinfidel as well as absurd, and, so thinking, did not trouble herselfmuch about it. Mr. Clifton had preached a sermon in which he took theground that morality could be best promoted by regulating, instead ofextirpating, human propensities. 

Then the rising tide of reform beat heavily upon the church-doors. Bystiff, inexorable logic, those clergymen who refused to join the popularcharge against the outworks of Evil were declared to be in intimatealliance with its very Essence. Although the Bible, as a whole, was heldin little regard by the leading reformers, they were wonderfully expertin plucking out texts here and there, and dove-tailing them intoscaffolding to sustain their platform. The grand denunciations ofJeremiah were shown to have been shot point-blank at our poor littleNew-England meeting-houses. It was _their_ fasts and _their_ new moonswhich the prophet (his prophetic claims were here generously admitted)aimed at. Some churches stood the shock of the angry elements. But manyyoung ministers were borne away before the storm, and carried theirside-aisles and galleries along with them. What! had a theological_simulacrum_ of Satan excited their fathers to doughty deeds, --andshould they hold back, when challenged to meet him in proper person, hand to hand? Thus persuading themselves, these ardent divines caught upbitter words which had drifted out of the dictionary, and laid aboutthem with a spirit not wholly removed from the old ecclesiastical rancorwhich would kill where it could not convince. And taking it for grantedthat it is the mission of the intellect to rectify what is wrong in theworld, fruition seemed to answer their efforts. Society was put to itspurgation in very plausible fashion. Songs about Temperance and variousdesirable perfections of the outward man were shouted in bar-rooms hiredfor the purpose at considerable expense. Then there was dimly seen afurther "progress, " of which certain movers of the people were the warmadvocates. Having got the machinery well to work, might it not betwitched and pulled to effect a wider purification? It began to behinted that the use of wine in the sacred offices of religion could notbe countenanced, if its employment elsewhere were the monster iniquityit was shown to be. That philosophical friend of humanity, Mr. Stellato, began to denounce the consumers of animal food with every unpleasantillustration the shambles could be made to supply. In very selectcompanies of sympathizers, as well as in the Graduating Circle ofProgressive Gladiators, it was known that Mrs. Romulus maintained ahideous doctrine subversive of that sacrament of the family which raisesthe life of man above the life of the wolf and ape. 

Yet of the views and endeavors of the great mass of these earnest peoplewe may speak only with honor and gratitude. Much good work done in thatdistant year of grace remains with us to-day. Who is more practical thanthe idealist? If I read history aright, it is only the white-heat offanaticism which brands a true word into the tough hide of society. Asupreme pursuit of one virtue by the few can alone neutralize a supremedevotion by the many to the opposite vice. Let us rejoice that some menand women are under the necessity of thinking no good thought whichthey do not attempt to utilize at all hazards. Also, it is well not torepine overmuch because many conscientious citizens cannot induce aconcentration of vision which directs all feeling, hissing-hot, into onechannel. They save us from the intolerable monotony of a whole world ofheroes, and leave you and me, good reader, in blessed freedom to demandthe theoretically right and ignore the practically expedient. 

To the beginnings of this angry perturbation the Reverend CharlesClifton had returned, after abandoning the Vannelle manuscript undercircumstances detailed in the last number of this magazine. To one inhis position of mind it was of the highest importance to come upon somework that he was fitted to do. It was his unhappy destiny to be placedjust where such power as he had could accomplish nothing. Timid bynature, a cautious lover of compromise, self-baffled in a brilliantflutter for truth, what had he to do in a vulgar conflict of opinion, ina common, healthy play of free thought and speech? Peering off intoimmensity until he had become utterly adrift in theology, the ministerfound himself too feeble to stand upon the moral basis of some practicalcreed. His regular parish duties afforded but slender occupation; he hadthe gift of speaking extemporaneously, or from such notes as might bemade upon the back of a letter half an hour before church; he was notcalled upon to do more catechizing or visiting than was agreeable to hismood. He accordingly yielded to an indolence of disposition whichdetained his vanishing illusions, and indulged in such studies as servedto prolong the barren contemplation which had wasted his youth. Myknowledge of the secret committed for eighty years to the Mather Safemade me the only person to whom Clifton could freely write. At someprivate inconvenience, I admitted a tolerably full intercourse with mynew correspondent. He declared that the sympathy of a man in activeaffairs was invaluable to a solitary student like himself: he hoped, sohe said, to see through my eyes the facts of life. It was not difficultto discern the cause of the sad indecision which afflicted him. To statethe case roughly, he had too much knowledge for his will. Busy peoplereason by instinct with sufficient accuracy, but with this man noconviction was for five minutes free from the probe of a metaphysicalargument. Yet from glimpses I had obtained of that overwhelming Systemof Things elaborated by the two Vannelles, I could understand thecondition in which its partial apprehension had left Clifton. The more Iconsidered certain statements, authoritatively made in the portion ofthe manuscript I had dared to read, the firmer grew my belief that yearsof concentrated thought and fervent speculation had indeed illuminated, to these men, dim outlines of most august truths, --truths which somepossible, although very distant, advancement of physical science mightinductively realize. But I had made out to dismiss the matter, with theconsideration that whatever it concerned me to know could be tied to noone method of pursuit, --and, so reflecting, returned contentedly to themultiplex concerns with which I was then occupied. Clifton, on thecontrary, having always struggled loftily along the same narrow sunbeam, was utterly unable to accept such available knowledge of a principle asis sufficient to direct our activity, --he must ever soar skyward to gazeupon the origin of its authority, until, entangled in a web ofcontradictions, he fell impotent to earth. 

Week by week, in my city-home, through letters from the minister andColonel Prowley, I had been kept informed of the progress of that wildferment going on in Foxden. At length the contentious spirit thereevoked seemed ready to summon to trial all ancient and reputable things. My friends of the protesting minority were surely to be credited withgood Puritan pluck; though there was also something admirable in thevigor which had marshalled a party for their discomfiture. I began tothink it my duty to visit Clifton; moreover, I was curious to see thetown at the height of its effervescence. A note from Mrs. Widesworthsupplied me with the needed excuse. The singing-school was to hold itssemiannual meeting at her house on Thursday next; would I not come downfor a day and meet many old friends?

II. 

The fragrance of perfected harvests pervaded Foxden. The air was full ofthose sweet remembrances of summer which are better than her radiantpresence. The sky overhead was flooded with rich autumnal sunshine. Farto the north lay glimmering a heavy bank of clouds. There might be rainbefore night. 

I entered the familiar parsonage and inquired for its occupant. He hadwalked to the end of the garden with Miss Hurribattle, who had been withhim for some hours. I was at liberty to await his return in a depressingtheological lumber-room, called the study. The First Church hadliberally supplied its former ministers with the current literature oftheir craft. Current literature! are not the words a mockery? could theyever have applied to those printed petrifactions? One would sooner lookfor vitality among the frozen denizens of the Morgue on St. Bernard! YetI doubt if these stately authors, wrapped in the cerements of theirprosiness, may reasonably reproach a forgetful world. They ministered tothe wants of _their_ present, and by so doing were privileged to fashiona future which they might not enter and possess. Complain indeed! Why, their progeny had a good ten, twenty, or fifty years' life of it, as thecase might be, --and here about us are men of greater enterprise andgrasp doomed to work off paragraphs that perish on the day of printing. Well, no earnest soul can fail to modify the character of his age, andthus of all ages. So, if our generation demands ministry in newspapersinstead of folios, a man may still win an honest immortality without thebiography and the bother of it. 

I looked up from the books to see the clergyman part with MissHurribattle at the gate, and then turn his steps towards the house. 

There was something like embarrassment as we exchanged greetings, yetthere was hardly time to mark this before it had passed. 

"Ah, Heaven!" exclaimed Clifton, passionately, "how I envy that woman'sfaith in the omnipotence of a trifle! Suppose you or I can attain ajudicial largeness of view, is it any compensation for that intense glowof the sympathies as they crowd into one specious channel? Why thisman's yearning after intellectual satisfaction, when we only want alittle fragment of truth to hang our sentiments upon?"

There was bitterness in the tone in which Clifton spoke. It hinted ofthe living death of a proud, disappointed man, who has renounced hisyouth of high motives and warm ideas, who has learned to contemn hisboyish ambition to do some great thing for the world. Truly it is betterto consume in the flame of a fierce sectarianism than to permit thespirit of youth to die when the gray hairs come. 

"Nay, Sir, " said I, "it is for you to be heartily thankful for thisexuberant enthusiasm which has come to town. The complaint of the dayis, that the doctrines of Christianity have either dissolved intoabstractions or hardened into formalisms; and here you have a crop offresh insights to direct aright, and to keep from degenerating intofanatical clamor. "

"But how satisfy or control these crazy people who begin by ignoring thecreeping pace of Time? Why, here is Miss Hurribattle, who has been thesetwo hours beating into me, as with logical sledge-hammers, that it is myduty to denounce Deacon Greenlaw from the pulpit. The argument, to hermind, is overwhelming, as thus: Intoxicating fluids cause the breakingof all the commandments; cider, if one drinks enough of it, isintoxicating; Deacon Greenlaw presses apples, and sells the juice; hetherefore upholds and encourages the aforesaid commandment-breaking;--itis the business of the pulpit to denounce sinners persisting in theirsin, therefore, etc. , etc. , --you perceive the conclusion. In short, if Ido not instantly take the ruts of their narrow logic, and go aboutpounding into some and propounding unto others their pet scheme ofregeneration, --why, I am a wolf in the sheep-fold, the Antichrist ofprophecy, and I know not what other accursed thing. And here is trulythe alternative, --to stagnate in a lifeless church, or to join theseravers in their breakneck leap at the Millennium. "

"There is a noble element in this one-sided pertinacity, " I suggested, "and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead ofattempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot youurge the church forward to comprehend their position? Thisimpulse, --fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are, --mightit not be constrained, or at least directed?"

"Never by me!" exclaimed Clifton, haughtily. "I should have to commitmyself to all the wild Saturnalia of their moralities before it would bepossible to acquire any power over them. "

"But surely you might go as far as any one in the advocacy ofTemperance. "

"Temperance! Why, you forget that I must denounce Temperance as thedeadliest of sins, and proclaim Abstinence to be the only virtue. Thereis a grand State Convention of Progressive Gladiators at present insession in Foxden; all the neighboring towns have sent delegates. Well, it was only yesterday afternoon that Stellato, in behalf of one of thecommittees, denounced the clergy of New England as gross flesh-eaterswho had made themselves incapable of perceiving any spiritual truth. AndI happen to know that Mrs. Romulus so successfully manipulated Chepunic, not a hundred miles up the river, that before leaving that town shepublicly delivered her lecture entitled, 'Marriage a Barbarism, ' andprofessed to have discovered something far higher and holier than thechain of wedlock. "

"I am sure that Miss Patience Hurribattle is ignorant of any suchtendency in these new doctrines, " I exclaimed, indignantly. 

"Doubtless she is, " assented Clifton. "There is a hopeful, simple-hearted gleam in her eye, a fine simplicity in her speech, whichbetokens enthusiasm of a purely religious type. But she is banded withthose who would use religion only as a fiery stimulant to the intellect, never as a balm to the heart. "

A crunching upon the gravel-walk. A man and a woman were hurrying up tothe parsonage. The woman short, sharp, lean; the man unctious andfoxy, --yet also representing a chronic state of gelatinous bewilderment. The Great Socialists, --I knew them at once. 

"Triumph! triumph!" cried Mr. Stellato, bursting into the study. "DeaconGreenlaw has been converted at last! He will make a holocaust of hiscider-mill!"

"He will signalize his submission to the Gladiators by a great Act ofFaith!" exclaimed Mrs. Romulus. "His cider-mill will be publicly burnedthis afternoon at five o'clock. All the delegate Gladiators will marchin procession to the ground. Invitations have been sent to the Order ofFrugivorous Brothers, the Infants' Anti-Tobacco League, "--

"Two drops of the oil of tobacco will kill a tomcat of the largestproportions, " murmured Mr. Stellato, in choral parenthesis. 

--"the Principal and Patients of the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure, the Childrenof the Public Schools, the Millennial Choir, and Progressive Citizensgenerally, " said Mrs. Romulus, finishing her sentence. 

"It is the afternoon of Mrs. Widesworth's semiannual supper to thesinging-school, " hissed Mr. Stellato, maliciously. "The Deacon'scider-mill stands on the hill just before Mrs. Widesworth's house: theprocession may be expected to pass before her windows about fouro'clock; it will then make the circuit of the town, and reach the top ofthe hill a little before five, when the exercises will commence. "

Some petulant reply seemed ready to spring from the lips of theclergyman, but he checked it, and said, --

"You will have more water than fire: those clouds drifting up over theriver mean rain. "

"Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather!"responded Stellato, with great contempt. "Sunshine and storm are alikewholesome to the purified seekers for truth!"

"But there is no time to lose, " cried Mrs. Romulus. "We have come to askyou, as pastor of the first church in this place, to make the prayerbefore the torch is applied. You will doubtless decline; but we shallthen be able to assure the people that the Gladiators are rejected by anapostate church, which has been cordially invited to become theirfellow-worker. "

"You had really better think of it, " urged Stellato, in a seductivewhisper. "The fact is, there is a great excitement, and we are gettingon famously. We are bound to carry the county at the next election, andin a year or two we shall sweep the State. We have already enrolled someof the best members of your parish, and you see the Deacon is added tothe list. Influential men who join us now will be well provided for whenwe come into power. We want funds to carry on the cause. Think how muchyou might do with such men as Prowley and Dastick! Ah, those abominableold sinners, it would be a charity to get something out of them torepair a little of the mischief they have done in the world. "

I protested at the way in which these gentlemen were mentioned: theywere friends of mine, and highly esteemed citizens. 

"Sir, they are _Moderate Drinkers_, " said Mrs. Romulus, with an emphasiswhich claimed the settlement of the whole question. "The Gladiators arefull of pity for the poor lost inebriate. They propose to convert theirbar-keeping brothers by a course of moral suasion. But they will everproscribe and defy those relentless Moderate Drinkers who admit thewine-cup into their families, and--and--why, Sir, did you ever see thestomach of a Moderate Drinker?"

I never had. 

"Mr. Stellato has one fourteen times the size of life, colored afterNature by a progressive artist. It is a fearful sight!"

I did not question it. 

"Once more, there is not a moment to spare, " said Mrs. Romulus, turningsuddenly upon the clergyman. "The question is, Shall we put you upon ourOrder of Exercises?"

"It would not sound badly, " insinuated Stellato, perusing the documentin imagination: "'Chant, by the Choir; Recitation of Original Verses, byJane Romulus; Prayer, by the Reverend Charles Clifton'"--

"Stop!" cried the clergyman. "I decline all connection with thisbusiness. I have no sympathy with its promoters, and I will never cowerbefore the mob-tyranny they evoke. If I have yet any influence in theFirst Church, it shall be used in solemnly counselling all youths andmaidens of the congregation to report themselves at Mrs. Widesworth'ssinging-school. The feverish paroxysms of these public meetings aredoubtless more stimulating than the humble duties of home, or the modestpleasures at which a lady of Mrs. Widesworth's character is willing topreside; but it is not the wholesome activity which a wise man maypromote. And I know that to the children of our public schools suchexcitement is far more fatal than the cup they never coveted: theirminds should be nurtured in moderation and simplicity, even as theirbodies are best nourished upon bread and milk. "

"Bread and milk!" echoed Mrs. Romulus in shrill falsetto; "say ratherloaves of plaster and alum crumbed into bowls of chalk-mixture! This isthe sort of bread and milk furnished by your barbarous civilization!But the beginning of the end of this priestridden world has at lengthcome. A new era is dawning upon earth. Much-oppressed Woman asserts herentire freedom; she insists upon her passional independence, and demandsharmonial development. She is going to get it, too! Stellato, comealong!"

We watched them up the gravel-walk, and then off upon the dusty road. 

The minister meditated in silence, as one who had the gift ofpenetrating beyond his fellows into the mystery of sin. Now he wasdistrustful: the time might soon come when he would be desperate. Ithink he almost longed for the power to become a proselyte to any activecommunion, even if it proposed but a new whitewashing of the sepulchrewhich hides the corruptions of society. Notwithstanding the vigorouswords he had spoken, I knew him for one who could never take heartysatisfaction in denouncing any form of Error, because always fated todiscern behind it the muffled figure of Truth. More than most men hefelt the pressure of an awful fact which weighs upon such as are giftedwith any fine apprehension of these worlds of spirit andmatter, --namely, the impossibility of drawing anywhere in Nature thosedefinite lines of demarcation which the mind craves to limit and fortifyits feeble beliefs. If the boundaries of the animal and vegetablekingdoms are hopelessly interlaced, it is only an image of the confusionin which our blackest sins are shaded off into the sunlight of virtue. 

"But why am I here?" exclaimed Clifton, suddenly starting to his feet. "I can at, least swim a few desperate strokes against this current, before sinking beneath it forever! I can do something to save a fewardent maidens from this whirling water of Reform!

"And yet, " he continued, after a pause, "yet many, perhaps most of thesewretched people, drained dry by their one idea, are devoted withabsolute singleness of purpose to the pursuit of an honest thing. Let usconsider whom and what we may be found fighting against. If thesesubverters do not altogether prove the truth of their own opinions, dothey not at least demonstrate the error of those who totally opposethem? Here is Miss Hurribattle, --who will not acknowledge her noblecontempt for the accidental and the transitory? I believe that womandesires Truth as earnestly as men desire wealth or reputation!"

"It is so, indeed, " I assented. "Her large nature will assimilatewhatever grandeur of idea may be found among this acid folk. After alittle time she will reproduce in saintly form whatever gives its realvitality to this movement. "

"Never!" said the clergyman; "they will put upon her the strait-jacketof their system, and carry her off to doom. "

Soon after this we went in different ways through the town. 

I called upon Mrs. Widesworth, who had a culinary engagement, and couldnot appear, and then walked to the top of the hill, where a number ofthe faithful were heaping tar-barrels and shavings about the solitarycider-mill. Regarding their operations from a little distance stoodDeacon Greenlaw; his face wore an expression of grim humor, underlaid bya shrewd intelligence of the true position of affairs. 

"They are making lively preparations for your holocaust, " said I. 

"Well, 't isn't exactly that long word neither, " replied the Deacon. Fact is, I just looked it out in the dictionary, and there they call it'a whole burnt-offering'; but it won't mean all that with me, I can tellyou!"

"But, my dear Sir, surely you mean to go under the Juggernauthandsomely, and not squirm in the process?"

The Deacon indulged in an interrogative whistle, and jerked his thumb inthe direction of a corn-barn which stood near the base of the hill. 

I requested explanation. 

"The floor of that corn-barn, " observed its proprietor, "is covered withhusks about four foot deep. Under those husks is my patent screw and alot of cider-fixins. That old mill's a rattle-trap, any way. There's aplace at the other end of the orchard a sight more handy for a new one. So, when folks get to reading their Bible without leaving out themarriage in Cana, why"--

"Then you have been badgered into this, " I said, seeing that the Deaconwas not disposed to finish his sentence. 

"Well, they've been pecking at me pretty hard; and when Mis' Greenlawand the girls went over, of course I couldn't hold out. I kept telling'em that the Lord gave us apples, and I didn't believe He cared whetherwe eat 'em or drank 'em. But you see I had to knock under. "

I questioned if it was going to rain, after all; for the clouds werescudding off to the east. 

"They're just following the bend of the river, " asserted the Deacon, elevating his chin to bring them within range, and giving them asignificant nod, as if to recall an appointment. "These apple-trees willbe dripping well before night. I know the weather-signs in Foxden. It_is_ going to rain, --and, what's more, when it does rain, it'll rainartichokes, --and, what's more than that, I don't care if it does!"

III. 

A wretched fragment of the singing-class met at the house of Mrs. Widesworth. Professor Owlsdarck had kindly come over from Wrexford tohelp fill up the rooms; but the pressure of his ponderous attainmentsseemed only to compress yet more that handful of miscellaneousmiserables in the front-parlor. Eight or ten elderly people, one or twoundergraduates at home for the college-vacation, --these were the guests. The precautions of Mrs. Romulus had not been taken in vain, --there couldbe no singing: none, unless--but I trust that this evil suggestionoccurred to nobody--we were so lost to shame as to call upon thecollege-boys to supply the place of our absent psalmody with some ofthose Bacchanalian choruses with which they were doubtless too familiar. We felt rather wicked. We knew that we were stigmatized by that terriblecompound, "_Pro-Rum_"; we were held up as the respectable abettors ofdrunkenness, the _dilettanti_ patrons of pot-houses, the cold-bloodedconnoisseurs in wife-beating and _delirium tremens_. That we reallyappeared all this to many honest, enthusiastic people could not bedoubted. 

Certain perplexing questions, which had fifty times been answered anddismissed, were ever returning to worry the general consciousness of thecompany:--Is it not best to scourge one's self along with a popularenthusiasm, when, by many excellent methods, it would sweep society to adefinite good? Are not the ardors of the imagination betterworking-powers than the cold judgments of the reason? Should we ever becarping at controlling principles, when much of their presentmanifestation seems full of active worthiness? Above all, have we notlistened to contemptible fallacies of self-indulgence and indolence, andthen cheated ourselves into believing them the sober testimonies ofconscience?

That some such melancholic refinements were restless in the brains ofmany I have no doubt. Probably only Mrs. Widesworth and theundergraduates were wholly undisturbed by them. Yet, in spite of thissecret uneasiness, there was common to the company a stiff recognitionof its own virtue, which seemed to impart a certain queer rigidity tothe bodily presence of the guests. Dr. Dastick, for the first and onlytime in my remembrance, appeared with his trousers bound with straps tothe bottoms of his boots. Colonel Prowley had thrust his neck into astock of extraordinary stiffness, which seemed to proceed from someantique coat-of-mail worn beneath the waistcoat. The collar and cuffs ofMiss Prowley were wonderful in their dimensions, and fairly creaked withthe starch. The clergyman, indeed, wore his dress and manners in relaxedand even slouchy fashion; but this seemed not due to lightness ofheart, but only to weariness of mind. I knew that something had causedhim to feel acutely the limitations of his office. One might attributesuch feelings to the bass-viol player in an orchestra, who, in whateverwhirl of harmony, is permitted to scrape out only a few gruff notes. Butthere was dear Mrs. Widesworth, so deliciously drugged by the anodynesof Authority that she could shake the chains of custom till they jingledlike sleigh-bells. 

"Come, come, " said this good lady; "why, you all seem to be followingthe advice of my grandfather Twynintuft, --which was, to let the mindmuddle after dinner. He thought it strengthened the voice, --gave it_timber_, as he called it. But, ah, dear! in these days so littleattention is paid to elocution that it's of no consequence whatever!"

"I have endeavored, Madam, " said Professor Owlsdarck, with greatprecision of utterance, "I have endeavored to impress upon my scholarsthat Socratic wisdom which condemned books as silent: a testimony, as Itake it, of great importance to those who would perfect the instrumentof oral instruction. "

"There is no great elocutionist at the present day, " said Mrs. Widesworth with pious regret. 

"And little could we profit by him, if there were, " rejoined thePrincipal of the Wrexford Academy. "For, in the present excitedcondition of our river-towns, men do not strive to copy the moderatevirtues of the Ancients, but only to exaggerate their heathenishextispicy. "

"Ah, very true, very true, " sighed Mrs. Widesworth; "only I forget whatthat last word means. "

"Extispicy, " defined the Professor, "is properly the observation ofentrails and divination thereby. "

"Yet more is to be learned from bones, " said Dr. Dastick, decidedly. "Ihold that the performances of Cuvier alone are conclusive upon thatpoint. "

Colonel Prowley looked doubtful: it would hardly do to question thuslightly the wisdom of Antiquity. 

Here Professor Owlsdarck experienced a queer twitching about the cornersof his mouth, --an affection which since his poetical address before theWrexford Trustees had occasionally troubled him. 

"At any rate, Colonel, " he observed, "we can agree, that, whateveramount of wisdom the Ancients may have shown in observing the digestiveapparatus of animals, it certainly exceeded that of our modernphilosophers, who are always contemplating their own. "

"Truly, I believe you are right, " responded Colonel Prowley. "There ismy dear friend Miss Hurribattle, who is always coming to me with somenew cure for people who are perfectly well. At one time Mrs. Romulustold her that everybody should live on fruits which ripen at least sixfeet above-ground, --all roots having an earthy and degrading tendency. The last recipe for the salvation of society is, to take a little gravelwith our meals, like birds. "

Dr. Dastick partly closed his eyes, and said, with some effort, --

"I think that men are befooled with these new explanations of sin andits bitter fruits because the pulpit has done talking of the abidingsinfulness of our inherited nature. When I was a boy, the ministeroffered us the good old remedies of Baptismal Regeneration or PrevenientGrace, instead of bidding us drench our flesh with water or crack ourbones with gymnastics. "

At that moment Mr. Clifton turned towards me a half-startled, half-triumphant look. I felt that the idea had been working in his mind, but that he had used another's lips for its utterance. Underundetermined conditions certain minds are capable of employing aphysical organization alien to themselves. If I had doubted this before, a foreign influence in my own person would have made it clear at thatmoment. For I felt a reply uttered from my lips which came not from myconsciousness. 

"The moral, perhaps, is, that the pendulum has reached the otherextremity of the arc of oscillation, and that neither spiritual norphysical regeneration can walk in the fetters of a system. "

Some one called out that the procession was passing. All crowded to thewindows. 

A few musical instruments. Plenty of ribbons and rosettes; also, emblemsof mysterious device. Banners inscribed with moral texts. MissHurribattle. The school-children in white. Members of theSchool-Committee in demi-toilet. More banners. Mr. Stellato, as chief ofthe Gladiators, covered with a pasteboard helmet, and bearing a shieldinscribed "TRUTH. " (N. B. The inscription in German text by theschool-children. ) The Progressive Guard with javelins, --_papier-maché_tips gummed over with shiny paper. A Transparency, --at least it could beused as such in lecturing emergencies, --representing the interestingmedical illustration to which Mrs. Romulus had alluded in the morning. The choir singing a progressive anthem, accompanied by extravagantgestures. Other banners waved in cadence with progressive stanzas. Mrs. Romulus and the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure Establishment. Progressivecitizens generally; these in various stages of exaltation, and cheeringfervently. 

"The old infectious hysteria of religious revivals, limited by fresh airand gentle exercise, is it not, Dr. Dastick?"

The Doctor answered my inquiry with a non-committal "humph" of the mostprofessional sort. 

"Plato tells us that the Greek Rhapsodists could not recite Homerwithout falling into convulsions, " said Professor Owlsdarck. 

"That is very remarkable, " said Colonel Prowley, deeply impressed. 

"I had no idea that these youths and maidens could justify theireccentric proceedings by so high an authority, " observed his sister. 

The brother objected. He thought that the same effects could not rightlybe attributed to a modern song-writer and the Blind Old Poet. 

"Blind Old Poet!" exclaimed one of the undergraduates, verythoughtlessly. "Why, my dear Colonel Prowley, you are blinder than everhe was! Don't you know that recent scholarship has demonstrated Homer tobe nobody in particular? The 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' are mereagglomerations of the poetical effusions of a variety of persons; anddoubtless all of them could see as well as you and I can. "

It was distressing to mark the grief and indignation which suddenlyclouded the countenance of my old friend. Was not the last noticeablepublication in post-classical literature the "Rasselas" of Dr. Johnson?Had not all those well-disposed people who hailed it as the brightestcombination of literary and moral excellence which a mere modern couldproduce, --had they not lived and died in respectable allegiance to theHomeric personality? To say nothing of a mystical admiration of theGreek hexameters which he could not construe, Colonel Prowley was adiligent reader of Pope's sonorous travesty. He felt like some simplebeliever in the divine right of kings, when the mob have broken into thepalace, and stand in no awe of the stucco and red velvet. Yes, of courseI admire original minds, --but then I love those which are not original. And truly there was a stately echo about the old gentleman which alwayswent to my heart. 

"Our friend spoke incautiously, " I said. "I make no doubt that ProfessorOwlsdarck will tell us that the preponderant evidence is in favor ofHomer the individual, notwithstanding a few troublesome objections. "

"He was buried, " replied the Professor, "perhaps at Smyrna, perhaps atCos, perhaps at neither. It is not easy to decide what ancient city mayrightly claim his bones. "

"He should have shown a sense of their value by writing some versesabout them, " urged Dr. Dastick. "There was Shakspeare, whose geniusculminated in those important osteological observations inscribed uponhis tombstone!"

At this point the undergraduate murmured something about "Wolf'sProlegomena, " which was lost in a dull rumble of thunder, --as if somegiant outside the house had taken up the title and was gruffly repeatingit. 

And now the storm was coming. 

The sky darkened rapidly. 

The atmosphere lay thick and yellow. 

Where was the procession? Would it not be necessary to omit thetriumphal progress through the town, and come to the hill at once?

Windy whiffs--fledgling stormlets--practised in the branches of theTwynintuft oak. The great tree lunged and croaked at them. Suddenly thelilac-bushes were fanned into fantastic shapes. The sumach perked itsred _pompon_ like a holiday soldier, and then flung skyward its crimsonbattle-flag. The wind blustered among the fallen leaves, and slammed aloose blind or two. It grew darker, --still darker. 

The procession, at last, --a straggling remnant of it, --was seen pushingup the hill. A remnant indeed! The children, and those having charge ofthem, had withdrawn. The Committee-men had sought shelter. TheProgressive Guard was decimated. Every moment men and women were fallingout of rank and hurrying away. 

It was a little group that at length collected about the cider-mill. Little at first, --less every instant. It would be necessary to abridgethe exercises. We saw Mrs. Romulus mount a barrel and harangue theseceders with furious gesticulation. A book was passed up to her, andshe apparently gave out some hymn or ode suitable to the occasion. Alas!there remained no choir to give it vocal expression. 

A hurricane-gust struck the town, and drove clouds of dust along thestreet. Perhaps it was five minutes before the hill was again visible. Then there stood by the Deacon's cider-mill three figures. Mr. Stellatowaved a torch about his head, and flung it into the combustibles. Asheet of flame shot madly up. Mrs. Romulus seized one of the abandonedbanners and flourished it in triumph. 

Again the Twynintuft oak ground its great branches together, and threwthem heavenward for relief. The relief came. The dry agony of Natureburst in a flood of tears. 

The rain came beating down. It came with a sudden plunge upon the earth, drenching all things. And then, the sharp, curt rattle of hail. 

"Come to the middle of the room, the lightning is straight above us!"

We crouched together as the thunder crashed over the house. Rain, --nothing but rain. No ever-varying light and shade, as in commonsqualls. One great cascade poured down its awful monotony. 

A bursting noise at the door. There stood before us Mrs. Romulus, MissHurribattle, and Mr. Stellato. Soaked, dripping, reeking, --take yourchoice of adjectives, or look into Worcester for better. The ladiesmight have passed for transcendental relatives of Fouqué's Undine. Stellato, with his hair and face bedaubed with a glutinous substanceinto which his helmet had been resolved, did not strongly resemble one'sidea of a Progressive Gladiator. Truly, a deplorable contrast betweenthat late triumphant march before the house, and this present estate ofthe leaders, so reduced, so pitiable!

"Oh, dear, dear, what can I do for you?" cried good Mrs. Widesworth, forgetting all resentment in a gracious gush of sympathy. 

"'Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather, '"murmured the clergyman, in bitter quotation, "'Storm and sunshine arealike wholesome to the purified seekers for truth. '"

"Seekers for truth!" echoed Professor Owlsdarck; "one would say that ourfriends must have been seeking it in its native well. "

"As a medical man, " said Dr. Dastick, "I shall direct Mrs. Widesworth toprovide some dry garments for her unexpected guests. Also, I think it myduty to mention that a glass of hot brandy-and-water would be butcommon prudence. "

"The first part of your advice shall be complied with, " assented ourhostess, --"that is, if I can find anything to put on to them. As to thelast suggestion, --I have, to be sure, a decanter of fine old Cognac inthe closet, but it would be almost an insult to offer it. "

"The pledge has its important exceptions, " observed Mr. Stellato, shivering perceptibly. "'Except when prescribed by a medicalattendant, '--I believe I quote the exact language, Mrs. Romulus, --andDr. Dastick has a diploma. "

"Come up-stairs, then, " said Mrs. Widesworth, taking the decanter fromthe closet; "you will all catch your deaths of cold, if you stay anotherminute. "

When the three patrons of Progress again appeared among us, they reallyseemed to have accomplished their transference to an unconventional andpastoral era. The ladies were quite lost in the spacious habits providedfor them. Likewise, they were curiously swathed in shawls and scarfs ofvarious make and texture, and might be considered representatives of anyage, past, present, or future, to which the beholder might take a fancy. Mr. Stellato had been got into the only article of male attire which theestablishment afforded. This was an ancient dressing-gown, very small inthe arms, and narrow in the back: it had belonged to Twynintuft himself, who was six feet two, and as thin as a bean-pole. The thickly waddedskirts swept the ground, or clung heavily about the lower limbs. Thegarment combined every disadvantage of a Roman toga and a fashionableswallow-tail. 

Mrs. Romulus and Mr. Stellato, who had not scrupled to avail themselvesof the Doctor's prescription, were still noisily progressive. They atonce led a moral charge against Professor Owlsdarck and Colonel Prowley. 

Miss Hurribattle, refusing such warmth as might be administeredinternally, was pale and chilly. She separated herself from hercompanions, and crossed the room to where I stood. Her face was radiantwith devout simplicity. To a soul so pure and brave and feminine may Inever be guilty of applying a hard and technical criticism! He is littleto be envied who reads Don Quixote's assault upon the windmills as achapter of mad buffoonery. An ideal knight, without fear or reproach, subject to disaster and ridicule, august from his faith in God and themanly consecration of his life, --is he not rather the type of aChristian sanity? No doubt, such a character seems altogether mad toyou, my friend, who pass the window as I write these words. You havehuckstered away opportunity just upon the edge of indictable knavery;your ambition has been to be well with the wealth and sleekrespectability of the day, to make your son begin life the sordidworldling that you end it, to marry your daughter to the richestfool, --and this you call sanity and common sense! Is it not some Devil'ssubtlety that deludes you? If Man is an immortal soul, to be saved ordamned forever, then he only is sane who welcomes privation, toil, contempt, for a spiritual idea. "Attacking windmills!" you say. That is, they seem so to you. But it may be that your brother's clearer eye andpractised intelligence show them the giants which they truly are. But, be they giants or windmills, mark you this: his life illustrates somegrade of manly worthiness which the world would be poorer without, whileto himself the gain of an unselfish activity is a certain blessedness. Ihold it, then, of small matter, that, for a time, Miss Hurribattlemistook two charlatans, three-fifths knavery, the rest fanaticism, forhonest workers in the Lord's vineyard. Far better such over-faith thanthe fatal languor which seemed to terminate Clifton's too close scrutinyof life. A buoyant and never-failing enthusiasm is the divine requitalof faithful service. "The reward of virtue is perpetual drunkenness!"exclaims the half mythic Musæus; "_Crucem hanc inebriari_, " the Churchhas responded. It has a flavor as of Paradise when a woman brims overwith some fine excitement, --and that among godless, unrepentant men. 

"The storm has not prevented the accomplishment of our purpose, " saidMiss Hurribattle, pleasantly; "we have this day made our protest againstthe most dangerous form of evil. "

"One of the most obvious forms, certainly, " I replied; "we might notquite agree about its being the most dangerous. "

"I must demand all those republican virtues which should be the fruit ofour New-England liberty, --I must be strictly consistent. "

I jestingly pleaded the familiar proverb about fools and dead men, andobserved that there was great obscurity surrounding the real sources ofevil in our social life. 

"I once thought as you do, " said the lady; "but, from my constantassociation with philosophical minds like those of Mrs. Romulus and Mr. Stellato, much has been made clear to me. They have devoted their livesto the study of modern civilization, and are skilful in the niceadaptation of remedies to all public disorders. "

"How long have you known these two persons?" I asked. 

"They came to Foxden about a month ago. I had then organized theTemperance movement among the school-children, and devised a scheme forfurnishing employment to drunkards who would make an effort to reform. But these more worthy guides of humanity soon reduced matters to firstprinciples. They showed that all Moderate Drinkers and the Church whichsustains them must be exposed and denounced. They have done a greatwork, as you see. Only a few people in Foxden have dared to standagainst them. Deacon Greenlaw, one of the most obstinate cases, has justyielded to their persevering treatment. "

The rain at length stopped. 

Many persons who had appeared in the procession straggled in, lookingrather sheepish. The singing, indeed, had failed; but the supper was inprospect. 

Stellato was at high-pressure, and ready to lead his adventurousGladiators into the very camp of the enemy. Mrs. Romulus, wholly abovethe prejudices of the toilet, would stay and bear him company. 

Miss Hurribattle, not having cast out that "clothes-devil" against whichthe old theologians used to warn her sex, wished to return to herboarding-house. It being by this time dark, or nearly so, I offered tosee her home. Mr. Clifton volunteered to accompany us. 

"The Deacon's cider-mill is smoking after all this drenching!" exclaimedMrs. Widesworth. 

"The torches of the Bacchantes, when flung into the Tiber, were saidstill to burn, " observed Professor Owlsdarck, after rummaging about alittle for an historical parallel. "And here we seem to find a pointwhere the modern enthusiasm for water and the ancient fervor for winetend to like results. "

Colonel Prowley was peculiarly interested, --so much so, indeed, that heshook hands with us absently. Mrs. Widesworth was profuse in entreaties, and then in hearty farewells. 

We walked up the street. 

A spring freshness was in that autumn evening. The air was purified bythe storm, as society is purified after a tempestuous feeling has blownthrough it. 

I think that both of her companions felt abased by the vivid faith whichsparkled in Miss Hurribattle's conversation. We were both rebuked by herlife-effort for what was high and positive and real. The clergyman, examining the depths of his own sensitive spirit, felt keener contemptfor that theoretical good-will, that indefinite feeling of profounddesire, which might not be concentrated upon any reality. And it cameover me, how mean was the thirst and struggle for a merely professionaleminence which filled my common days. As in a mental _mirage_, whichloomed above the thickening twilight, I saw how our paths diverged, andwhither each must surely tend. No doubtful way was hers, thesingle-hearted woman of lofty aims, of restless feminine activity, ofholy impatience with sin. She might, indeed, miss the clue which guidesthrough the labyrinth; but then her life would teach mankind even betterthan she designed. On the other hand, --supposing the position attainedwhich too constantly occupied my own thoughts, --there was an admirationof men, a market-salutation from reputable Commonplace, a seat in afashionable church, a final lubrication with a fat obituary, --and then?But it was no part of my design to invite the reader into the innerchambers of my own personality, and I forbear. 

After a half-mile walk, we left Miss Hurribattle, and turned our stepstowards the parsonage. 

"I sometimes feel that her instinct reasons more accurately than my poorlogic, " said Clifton, bitterly; "yet it is a hard necessity to sacrificeour individual faculties of comparison and judgment for theworking-power of a fervid organization!"

"No doubt it is a matter for serious question, " I replied. "For, as soonas we grow out of our languid and feeble maladies, we grow into theviolent inflammatory disorders which troubled our forefathers. Thedoctors will tell you that this is true of our bodies; and surely thesoul's physician may pursue the analogy. "

"I can no longer hope to heal any man's soul, " exclaimed the clergyman;"it is enough if my own be not wholly lost. I shall to-morrow formallyresign the sacred office of teacher in this place. With the finalrenunciation of the great purpose which once swayed my life, I mustrenounce every symbol less profound, less poetic. I must make my boastof an intellect which will never let any affection pass the line ofdemonstrable truth. I once knew how grand it was to stand alone in theworld of an inward faith; but now I have renounced all belief in anideal human being inclosed in this poor body whom it was my business toliberate. "

As we stopped at the broad path leading to the parsonage, I ventured tosay a few words which I will not set down. 

More and more I was drawn towards the high and intense life of the womanin whom all that was wrong seemed but an excess of virtue. I could havebesought some fanatical warlike spirit to take possession of Clifton andmake him capable of hate, and so, perhaps, of love. Anything to arousethis personator of our human mutability, this vacillator between doingand letting alone!

The wild future of the minister I did not anticipate. Hereafter it maypossibly be written, to show such lessons as it has. But on that autumnnight he walked up the gray pathway a broken man. The spiritual part wasdead; he had lost faith in the invisible. He walked as one in a funeralprocession, --ever doomed to follow a dead idea. 

 * * * * *

THE UNITED STATES ARMORY. 

The United States Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, is the largest, best appointed, and altogether the most productive establishment for themanufacture of small arms in the world, --those belonging to the AustrianGovernment at Vienna, and to the British at Enfield, being greatlyinferior both in size and appointments; while the quality of the gunsmanufactured here is very superior to that at either of those importantestablishments. Indeed, the Springfield rifled musket is justly regardedas the most perfect arm of its kind which has ever been produced. Toattain this desirable point of excellence has required the skill andperseverance of the best mechanical minds which this country--alwaysprolific in inventive genius--has produced during a period of more thanhalf a century. It would be impossible to estimate the value of theseworks during the existence of the present Rebellion; but some idea maybe formed of their usefulness from the fact that twenty-five thousandrifled muskets of the most approved pattern are manufactured at thisestablishment every month, and the number will soon be increased tothirty thousand. There are at the present time one hundred andseventy-five thousand of these muskets in the arsenal, awaiting theorders of the War Department, and the works are daily turning out enoughto arm an entire regiment. 

When the Rebels fired upon Fort Sumter, the armory was making about onethousand muskets per month, and three months afterwards the increaseamounted only to three thousand, so little preparation had been made bythe Government of Mr. Buchanan to meet the great struggle which Southerndemagogues were precipitating upon us. Indeed, the number of musketsmanufactured during the last year of his administration was less byseveral thousand than these works turned out during the year 1815;while, during this same period, the residents of streets leading to therailway-station witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a dailyprocession of wagons laden with boxes of Government arms on their way toSouthern arsenals!

Twenty-six hundred workmen are now constantly employed, --theestablishment being run day and night, --and none but the most expert andindustrious artisans are to be found among them. 

The original site of this armory was occupied during the Revolution as amilitary recruiting-post, afterwards as a depot for military stores, andthen as a place for repairing arms. The first shops were on Main Street, and among them was a laboratory for cartridges and various kinds offireworks. The oldest record in the armory relates to the work done inthis laboratory during the month of April, 1778, showing that aboutforty men were then engaged in the business. Not far from the date ofthis document the works were removed to the hill, where, enlarged andperfected, they are legitimately the object of admiration and pride. Theact establishing the armory was passed by Congress in April, 1794. 

The arsenal, storehouse, offices, and principal manufacturing buildingsare situated on Springfield Hill, and overlook the Connecticut valley ata commanding elevation. The heavier operations of the armory are carriedon in another part of the city, about a mile distant, in buildings knownas the water-shops. These are situated upon a small stream which flowsinto the Connecticut River at this point. 

The armory-grounds on the hill cover an area of seventy-two acres, andare surrounded, with the exception of a small square detached from themain grounds, by an ornamental iron fence, nine feet in height. Thesegrounds are exceedingly beautiful, and present every variety oflandscape. A beautiful slope to the south and west, covered withluxuriant verdure, and crowned with groves of deciduous trees andevergreens, affords the eye peculiar gratification. The grounds combinealso the useful with the ornamental, supplying hay enough to feed ascore of horses belonging to the establishment. 

There are fifteen buildings used in the manufacture of muskets at theworks on the hill, and about the same number occupied as residences bythe various officers and head-clerks of the armory. Some of thebuildings are spacious and elegant in their construction, particularlythe quarters of the commanding officer, and the arsenal, and arearranged in a picturesque and symmetrical manner within the square. Thegrounds are shaded by ornamental trees, and the dwellings are adornedwith gardens and shrubbery. Broad and neatly kept walks, some gravelledand others paved, bordered by finely clipped hedges, extend across thegreen or along the line of the buildings, opening charming vistas inevery direction. Four venerable pieces of artillery, all betokeninggreat age, if not service, standing in the centre of the square, furnishthe only outward and visible show of the military character of thisimmense establishment. 

The principal building, as regards size and architectural beauty, is thearsenal, which is two hundred feet long by seventy wide, and threestories high, --each story being sufficiently capacious to contain onehundred thousand muskets. The muskets, when stored in this arsenal, arearranged in racks, set up for the purpose, along the immense halls, where they stand upright in rows of glittering steel, and so closelyresemble the pipes of an organ that the propriety of Longfellow's similesuggests itself at once to every observer:--

 "This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. "

Unhappily, the last two lines of this beautiful stanza no longerappropriately describe the quiet and peaceful condition of these thenharmless arms, --one hundred and fifty thousand of them having beenliterally stolen from this arsenal by Floyd during the last year of hissecretaryship at Washington, and sent South in anticipation andfurtherance of the Rebellion, and the remainder issued to the loyaltroops raised for the defence of the Union. Thus these grim messengersof death, of whom the poet so sweetly sings, have forced

 "The cries of agony, the endless groan, "

from Northern and Southern warriors alike, and rung the

 "loud lament and dismal Miserere"

within the homes of every part of our once happy and peaceful land. 

The arsenal has another charm for visitors besides the beauty of theburnished arms within, in the magnificent panorama of the surroundingcountry seen from the summit of the tower. This tower, which occupiesthe middle of the front of the building, is about ninety feet high bythirty square, affording space upon the top for a large party ofvisitors. Nothing can be imagined more enchanting than the viewpresented from this point during the spring and summer months. At yourfeet are the beautiful armory-grounds, mingling with the treeskirtedstreets of the city; while beyond, the broad and luxuriant valley of theConnecticut is spread out to view, with its numerous villages, fields, groves, bridges, and railways, and the whole landscape framed by bluemountain-ranges, among which Mounts Tom and Holyoke rise in toweringmajesty. 

The arsenal is used for the storage of the muskets during the intervalthat elapses from the finishing of them to the time when they are sentaway to the various permanent arsenals established by Government indifferent parts of the country, or issued to the troops. This edificewas constructed about a dozen years ago, and has, until recently, beendesignated as the new arsenal, there being two or three other buildingswhich were formerly used for the storage of finished muskets, called theold arsenals, but which, since the Rebellion, have been relieved oftheir contents and supplied with machinery for the manufacture of arms. A portion of the new arsenal is now used for finishing barrels andassembling muskets, and other parts for storing ordnance-supplies. 

The storehouse, offices, and workshops are extensive buildings, --theformer being eight hundred feet long, and one of the latter six hundredfeet long and thirty-two feet wide. 

In a description of the armory printed in 1817, the grounds aredescribed as a perfectly level, elevated plat, situated about half amile east of the village, from which there is a gradual ascent, flankedon the north by a deep ravine and on the south by a less considerableone, with an extensive plain spreading in the rear, the adjoining partsbeing uncovered, fronting on the brow of the declivity, and commandingan extensive and beautifully variegated landscape. At the present time, the armory is not only in the city, but the streets at the north, south, and east of the grounds are as thickly inhabited as any other portion ofthe town. There has, however, been an increase in the population ofSpringfield since 1817, from two to twenty-six thousand souls. A largernumber of workmen are employed within the armory-grounds at the presenttime than the entire population of the place amounted to fifty yearsago. 

The water-shops formerly occupied three different sites, beingdenominated the upper, middle, and lower water-shops, on a stream calledMill River, which exhibits, in a distance of less than half a mile, fouror five of the most charming waterfalls to be seen in the State. In 1817these works comprised five workshops, twenty-eight forges, tentrip-hammers, eighteen water-wheels, nine coal-houses, three stores, andfive dwellings. 

These buildings were all constructed in the most substantial manner, ofstone and brick, and yet remain in an excellent state of preservation. The trouble and expense attending the transportation of the variousparts of the musket from one series of shops to another, however, rendered it desirable to assemble them all in one place, and thelocation of the upper shops was decided upon as the most advantageous. About eight years ago the work of constructing the new shops was begun. Extensive excavations were made for a new dam, the bed of the stream waschanged, the sides being laid for a distance of half a mile withfreestone, and the basin raised five feet above its former level. Someidea of the magnitude of these works may be formed from the fact thatover one million dollars was expended upon the foundations alone, beforea brick was laid in the superstructure. 

A beautiful and extensive series of buildings has since been erectedupon these foundations, covering an area of about two acres, in whichthe forging, boring, welding, rolling, grinding, swaging, and polishingare done for the entire establishment. The buildings are, for the mostpart, two stories high, and yet so immense are the operations carried onhere that numerous temporary sheds have been erected about the grounds, in which machinery is placed in order to increase the facilities, which, when the works were constructed, were supposed to be sufficient for alltime to come. 

Since the construction of the new dam, the water has a fall ofthirty-four feet. Three immense turbine water-wheels, having a unitedpower equal to three hundred horse, were put in when the consolidatedworks were first constructed here, which it was supposed would proveamply sufficient for all emergencies; but, since the breaking out of theRebellion, and the marvellous enlargement of these works, it has beenfound necessary to put in a steam-engine of two hundred horse-power, toact in conjunction with the water-wheels. 

Having thus given a general description of the exterior of theestablishment, let us now enter the works and witness the entireoperations of manufacturing the musket, _seriatim_. 

The first operation is the formation of the barrel. Formerly these weremade from plates of iron called scalps, about two feet long and threeinches wide, which were heated to a white-heat and then rolled up overan iron rod, and the edges being lapped were welded together, so as toform a tube of the requisite dimensions, --the solid rod serving topreserve the cavity within of the proper form. This welding wasperformed by tilt-hammers, which were carried by the water-wheels. Underneath the hammer was an anvil containing a die, the upper surfaceof which, as well as the under surface of a similar die inserted in thehammer, formed a semicylindrical groove, producing, when the twosurfaces came together, a complete cylindrical cavity of the proper sizeto receive the barrel to be forged. The workman, after heating a smallportion of the barrel in his forge, placed it in its bed upon the anvil, and set his hammer in motion, turning the barrel round and roundcontinually under the blows. Only a small portion of the seam is closedby this process at one heat, eleven being required to complete the work. To effect by this operation a perfect junction of the iron, so that itshould be continuous and homogeneous throughout, without the least flaw, seam, or crevice, required unremitting attention, as well as greatexperience and skill. The welders formerly received twelve cents foreach barrel welded by them, but if, in proving the barrels, any of themburst, through the fault of the welders, they were charged one dollarfor each barrel which failed to stand the test. This method has now, however, been abandoned, and a much more economical and rapid processadopted in its place. Instead of plates of two feet in length, those ofone foot are now used. These are bent around an iron rod as before; butin place of the anvil and tilt-hammer, they are run throughrolling-machines, analogous in some respects to those by whichrailway-iron is made. The scalps are first heated, in the blaze of abituminous coal furnace, to a white-heat, --to a point just as near themelting as can be attained without actually dropping apart, --and thenpassed between three sets of rollers, each of which elongates thebarrel, reduces its diameter, and assists in forcing it to assume theproper size and taper. The metal by this process is firmly compacted, becoming wholly homogeneous through its entire length. 

This operation of rolling the barrel is not only a very important andvaluable one, but very difficult of acquisition, the knowledgeappertaining to its practical working having been wholly confined to oneperson in this country previously to the breaking out of the Rebellion. The invention is English, and has been used in this country but a fewyears. Only one set of rollers was used at this armory until the presentemergency demanded more. About half a dozen years ago the superintendentof the works here sent to England and obtained a set of rollers, and aworkman to operate it, bargaining with him to remain one year at astipulated salary. At the expiration of the time engaged for, theworkman demanded, instead of a salary, to be paid eleven cents for eachbarrel rolled by him. As he had allowed no one to learn the art ofrolling the barrel in the mean time, his demand was acceded to; butafter the breaking out of the Rebellion four additional rolling-millswere imported, and of course new men had to be taught, or imported, towork them. The art is now no longer a secret. There are forty menemployed, day and night, running the rolling-mills, but, instead oftwelve cents, which was paid for welding, they now receive but fourcents for rolling a barrel, with the same contingency of a dollarforfeiture for each one that bursts. Four persons are employed at eachmill, namely: the foreman, who sees to the heating of the scalps andbarrels; the straightener, who straightens the barrel after it passesthrough the roller; the catcher, who stands behind the roller to catchthe barrel when it has passed through; and the fireman. The rollersweigh two tons apiece, and the five sets turn out one thousand barrelsper day, one per cent. Of which burst in the proving-house. 

The barrel when rolled is left much larger in the circumference, andsmaller in the bore, than it is intended to be when finished, in orderto allow for the loss of metal in the various finishing-operations. Whenit passes into the roller, the scalp weighs ten pounds; when it comesfrom the roller, the barrel weighs a little over seven; when completed, it weighs but four and a half: so that more than one half of the metaloriginally used is lost in the forging, or cut away by the subsequentprocesses. 

The first of these latter is the boring-out of the interior by machinescalled boring-banks, of which the water-shops contain a large number, inconstant operation day and night. These machines consist of square, solid frames of iron, in which the barrel is fixed, and bored out by asuccession of operations performed by augers. These augers are squarebars of steel, highly polished, and ground very sharp at the edges, andterminating in long, stout rods to enable them to pass through thebarrel. The barrels are fixed very firmly in the boring-banks, the shankof the auger inserted into the centre of a wheel placed at one end ofthe bank, and a slow rotary motion given to the auger, together with astill slower progressive motion at the same time. By this means theauger gradually enters the hollow of the barrel, and enlarges the cavityas it advances. After it has passed through, another auger, a triflelarger, is substituted in its place, and thus the calibre of the barrelis gradually enlarged to nearly the required size. Formerly, six boringswere given to each barrel, but at the present time only four arepermitted, aside from the rifling, which is a distinct operation, performed at the works on the till, and will be described hereafter. 

After the boring of the barrel, it is placed in a lathe, and the outsideturned down to the proper size. The piece is supported in the lathe bymeans of mandrels inserted into the two ends, and there it slowlyrevolves, bringing all parts of its surface successively under theaction of a tool fixed firmly in the right position for cutting the workto its proper form. The barrel has a slow progressive as well as rotarymotion during this process, and the tool advances or recedes veryregularly and gradually, forming the proper taper from the breech to themuzzle, but the main work is performed by the rotation of the barrel. Inthe boring, it is the tool which revolves, the piece remaining at rest;but in the turning, the barrel must take its part in action, beingrequired to revolve against the tool, while the tool itself remainsfixed in its position in the rest. 

A curious and interesting part of the operation of manufacturing musketsis the straightening of the barrel. This straightening takes placecontinually in every stage of the work, from the time the barrel firstemerges from the chaotic mass produced by heating the scalp, until itreaches the assembling-room, where the various parts of the musket areput together. As you enter the boring and turning rooms, you are struckwith surprise at observing hundreds of workmen standing withmusket-barrels in their hands, one end held up to their eyes, and theother pointing to some one of the innumerable windows of the apartment. Watching them a few moments, however, you will observe, that, afterlooking through the barrel for half a minute, and turning it around intheir fingers, they lay it down upon a small anvil standing at theirside, and strike upon it a gentle blow with a hammer, and then raise itagain to the eye. This is the process of straightening. 

In former times, a very slender line, a hair or some similar substance, was passed through the barrel. This line was then drawn tight, and theworkman, looking through, turned the barrel round so as to bring theline into coincidence successively with every portion of the innersurface. If there existed any concavity in any part of this surface, theline would show it by the distance which would there appear between theline itself and its reflection in the metal. This method has not, however, been in use for over thirty years. It gave place to a systemwhich, with slight modification, is still in practice. This methodconsisted in placing a small mirror upon the floor near the anvil of thestraightener, which reflected a diagonal line drawn across a pane ofglass in a window. The workman then placed the barrel of the musket upona rest in such a position that the reflected line in the mirror could beagain reflected, through the bore of the barrel, to his eye, --the innersurface of the barrel being in a brilliantly polished condition from theboring. When the barrel is placed at the proper angle, which practiceenables the person performing this duty to accomplish at once, there aretwo parallel shadows thrown upon opposite sides of the inner surface, which by another deflection can be made to come to a point at the lowerend. The appearance which these shadows assume determines the questionwhether the barrel is straight or not, and if not, where it requiresstraightening. Although this method is so easy and plain to theexperienced workman, to the uninitiated it is perfectlyincomprehensible, the bore of the barrel presenting to his eye only asuccession of concentric rings, forming a spectacle of dazzlingbrilliancy, and leaving the reflected line in as profound a mysteryafter the observation as before. 

At present, the mirror is discarded, and the workman holds the barrel updirectly to the pane of glass, which is furnished with a transparentslate, having two parallel lines drawn across it. The only purposesubserved by the mirror was that of rendering the operation of holdingthe barrel less tiresome, it being easier to keep the end of the musketpresented to the line pointing downwards than upwards. Formerly, thismeans of detecting the faults, or want of straightness in the barrel, was, like the working of the rolling-mill, the secret of one man, and hewould impart it to no one for love or money. He was watched with themost intense interest, but no clue could be obtained to his secret. Theygazed into the barrel for hours, but what he saw they could not see. Finally, some fortunate individual stumbled upon the wonderfulsecret, --discovered the marvellous lines, --and ever since it has beencommon property in the shop. Each workman is obliged to correct his ownwork, and afterwards it is passed into the hands of the inspector, whoreturns it to the workman, if faulty, or stamps his approval, ifcorrect. The next process is that of grinding, for the purpose ofremoving the marks left upon the surface by the tool in turning, and ofstill further perfecting its form. For this operation immensegrindstones, carried by machinery, are used, which rotate with greatrapidity, --usually, about four hundred times in a minute. These stonesare covered with large, movable wooden cases, to keep the water fromflying about the room, or over the workmen. 

An iron rod is inserted into the bore of the barrel, and is fitted veryclosely. The rod is furnished with a handle, which is used by theworkman for holding the barrel against the stone, and for turning itcontinually while he is grinding it, and thus bringing the action of thestone upon every part, and so finishing the work in a true cylindricalform. In the act of grinding, the workman inserts the barrel into asmall hole in the case in front of the stone, and then presses it hardagainst the surface of the stone by means of an iron lever which isbehind him, and which he moves by the pressure of his back. The work isvery rapidly and smoothly done. 

There are twelve sets of stones in the grinding-room in constantoperation day and night. These stones, when set up, are about eight feetin diameter, and are used to within twelve inches of the centre. Theylast about ten days. 

The operation of grinding was formerly regarded as a very dangerous one, from the liability of the stones to burst in consequence of theirenormous weight and the velocity with which they revolve; but, abouttwenty years since, a new method of clamping the stone was adopted, bymeans of which the danger of bursting is much diminished. The lastexplosion which took place in this department occurred about nine yearsago. The operation of grinding, however, is objectionable also from thevery unhealthy nature of the work. Immense quantities of fine dust fillthe air, and the premises are always drenched with water, making theatmosphere damp and unwholesome. 

In former times, it was customary to grind bayonets as well as barrels;but the former are now milled instead, thus making an important savingin expense, as well as gain in the health of the establishment. No mode, however, has yet been devised for dispensing with the operation ofgrinding the barrel; but the injury to the health, in this case, is muchless than in the other. 

When the barrels are nearly finished, they are proved by an actual testwith powder and ball. To this purpose a building at the water-shops, called the proving-house, is specially devoted. It is very stronglybuilt, being wholly constructed of timber, in order to enable it toresist the force of the explosion within, and contains openings in theroof and at the eaves for the escape of the smoke, a very large numberof barrels being proved at once. 

The barrels are subjected to two provings. In the first, they are loadedwith a double charge of powder and two balls, thus subjecting them to afar greater strain than they can ever be exposed to in actual service. In the second proving, only the ordinary charge is used. 

The interior of the proving-house is very happily arranged for thepurpose to which it is put. On the right-hand end of the building as youenter, and extending across it, is a platform of cast-iron, containinggrooves in which the muskets are placed when loaded. A train ofgunpowder is then laid on the back side of this platform, connectingwith each barrel, and passing out through a hole in the side of thebuilding near the door. A bank of clay is piled up on the opposite sideof the room, into which the balls are thrown. Only one fatal accidenthas occurred at the armory during the last two years, and this occurredin the proving-house. When the muskets are brought in, they are placedupright in frames, which, when full, are laid down upon the platform. Five barrels are placed in a frame, and these five exploded while theman was putting them in the proper position for laying them down, andten balls were plunged into him. No satisfactory explanation could everbe obtained of the cause of the premature explosion. 

About one per cent. Of the barrels burst under this trial, althoughunder the old process of welding there was a loss of nearly two percent. , or one in sixty. 

The pieces that fail are all carefully examined, to ascertain whetherthe giving-way was owing to a defect in the rolling, or to some flaw orother bad quality in the iron. The appearance of the rent made by thebursting will always determine this point. The loss of those whichfailed from bad rolling is then charged to the operative by whom thework was done, at a dollar for each one so failing. The name of themaker of each is known by the stamp which he put upon it at the timewhen it passed through his hands. As the workman gets but four cents forrolling a barrel, he loses the work done upon twenty-five for each onethat fails through his negligence. The justice of this rule will beapparent, when it is taken into account that that amount of cost hasbeen expended upon the barrel prior and subsequent to the work done bythe roller, all of which has been lost through his remissness. Besides, he is paid so liberally for his work, that he can well afford to standthe loss. This system of accountability runs through the entire work, and tends greatly to the promotion of care and fidelity in the variousdepartments of labor. 

There are forty-nine pieces used in making up a musket, which have to beformed and finished separately; only two of these, the sight andcone-seat, are permanently attached to any other part, so that themusket can, at any time, be separated into forty-seven parts, by simplyturning screws and opening springs. Most of these parts are struck indies, and then finished by milling and filing. The process of thismanufacture is called swaging, --the forming of irregular shapes in ironby means of dies, one of which is inserted in an anvil in a cavity madefor the purpose, and the other placed above it, in a trip-hammer, or ina machine operated in a manner analogous to that of a pile-driver, called a drop. Cavities are cut in the faces of the dies, so that, whenthey are brought together, with the end of a flat bar of iron, out ofwhich the article is to be formed, inserted between them, the iron ismade to assume the form of the cavities, by means of blows of thetrip-hammer, or of the drop, upon the upper die. About one hundred andfifty operations upon the various pieces used in the construction of themusket are performed by these dies. Some of the pieces are struck out byone operation of the drop, while others, as the butt-plate, require asmany as three, and others a still larger number. The hammer is firstforged, and then put twice through the drop. Four men are keptconstantly at work forging hammers in the rough, while but two arerequired to put them through the two operations under theswaging-machine. Sometimes, however, the work presses upon the droppers, and they have the alternative either to work double time--that is, nightand day--or to allow other hands to work with them; and as they work bythe piece, and are anxious to earn as much as possible each month, theywill frequently work night and day for several consecutive days. I haveknown instances where workmen have worked from Monday until Thursday, night and day, without any intermission, excepting the hour and a halfat the morning change of hands, one hour at noon, one at tea-time, andhalf an hour at midnight, --four hours out of the twenty-four. By thismeans they will sometimes earn as much as one hundred and fifty dollarsper month, although this would be an extraordinary case. The average payin the dropping-department is about three dollars per day. 

There are twenty-four simple and seven compound dropping-machines inconstant operation. Some of the pieces are pressed into shape underthese drops when cold, --this being the case with the triggers, whichwere found to use up the dies too rapidly when they were swaged whileheated; but, as a general rule, the swaging is done while the piece isat a red or white heat. The operations of the various dropping-machinesare exceedingly interesting, and the amount of labor they save isperfectly marvellous. 

A large number of men are kept constantly at work making dies for thevarious pieces required. 

When the pieces come out of the swaging-machines, they have more or lessof surplus metal about them, which is cut off or trimmed by passing themthrough machines designed for this purpose. 

The bayonet-blade is first forged under a trip-hammer, and then rolledto the proper shape, by an operation similar to the barrel-rolling. Thesocket is forged separately, and afterwards welded to the blade under atrip-hammer. It is then passed twice under the drop, then milled andpolished, when it is ready for use. The ramrod is cut from steel rodsabout the size required. It is then ground in the same manner as thebarrel, and the hammer is swaged on by two operations under the drop. The screw-cutting and polishing are very simple, and executed with greatrapidity. 

The cone-seating, like every other part of the work done upon themusket, is very interesting. The barrel, after it comes from therolling-mill, is placed in a forge and heated to a white-heat. A smallsquare block of iron, cut under a trip-hammer to the proper size, isalso heated to a white-heat, and then welded to the barrel by half adozen strokes under the trip-hammer, --the whole operation occupying lesstime than is required to describe it. An iron rod is meanwhile insertedwithin the barrel to maintain the continuity of the bore. 

The sights are struck in dies, and placed upon the barrel in slots cutfor the purpose. They are then brazed upon the barrel, pieces of brasswire, half an inch long, being used for this purpose. Three men areemployed in brazing on the sights for the establishment. 

The rolling, forging, and swaging rooms are all connected, and form, asit were, one extended apartment. In this are placed hundreds of forges, furnaces, trip-hammers, rolling-mills, dropping-machines, andtrimming-machines, --besides scores of sledge-hammers, wielded bystalwart arms. The noise here is so great that no effort of the voiceavails to make itself heard, and I doubt if even the loudest thunderwould make any appreciable addition to the general clangor. Small ironcarts, filled with hot iron, are incessantly whirling around you;red-hot sparks, or melting drops of iron, are flying about the room inall directions; the air is hot to suffocation, and sulphurous from theburning of bituminous coal; while hundreds of swarthy faces, begrimedwith grease and dirt, are dripping with sweat: so that you can scarceavoid the suspicion that you have at last stumbled into the infernalregions, and are constantly wondering why some of Pluto's imps do notseize you and plunge you into some horrible furnace, or chop you upunder a trip-hammer. 

Having survived the examination of this department, you follow yourguide from the forging-room down a winding flight of iron steps to thewater-wheels, which are situated forty feet under ground. These wheelsare so arranged that they can be run together or separately; they aregenerally run together, and in connection with the immense low-pressureengine. 

After the barrels are bored, turned, milled, and straightened, they arenext to be polished. For this purpose they are placed in upright frames, each frame containing five barrels. The polishing is done by means ofhard, wooden rubbers, provided with a plentiful supply of lard-oil andemery. The rubbers are placed horizontally, with their grooved endspressing by means of springs against the barrels, which are drawnbetween them by a very regular and rapid vertical motion. The barrelsare also turned around slowly and continuously by a lateral movement, which insures a uniform polish. They are allowed to remain in the firstpolishing-machines fifteen minutes, and are then placed in a similarmachine and go through a second polishing, differing from the firstsimply in the absence of the pulverized emery, --oil only being used uponthe rubbers during this finishing operation. The musket is nowcompleted, with the exception of the rifling, and some slight polishingto be done by hand at the muzzle and breech. 

Two polishing-machines are used for ramrods, similar in construction tothose above described, --ten rods being polished at once. The bayonet ispolished upon emery-wheels. These wheels are made of wood bound withleather, upon which there is placed a sizing composed of glue andpulverized emery. The polishing by this process is very rapid. 

The number of workmen employed at the water-shops is ten hundred andforty. The last time the writer had occasion to visit them was upon therecurrence of an important occasion to the workmen employed there, namely, pay-day. A temporary wooden structure has been erectedcontiguous to the shops for the purpose of paying-off, and upon thisoccasion it bore, from time to time, various placards, announcing whichshop was being paid, according as the paymaster arrived in succession atthe various departments. Within the densely thronged shops, and amidstthe deafening noise of hundreds of trip-hammers, perambulated a herald, with bell in hand, and placard raised upon a pole, upon which waspainted a huge capital letter, thus designating, in alphabetical order, the names of the workmen whose turn had arrived to affix theirsignatures to rolls for a month's work, and receive in exchange a sheafof Uncle Sam's greenbacks. 

The works at the water-shops are surrounded by a high wooden fence, andguarded by a small force of watchmen armed with muskets. Should occasionrequire, however, a force of five thousand men, armed with the best ofsmall arms, could be mustered at once from among the workmen in thearmory and the citizens of the town. Ammunition of all kinds is storedwithin the establishment, sufficient for all emergencies. 

I stated the number of pieces used in the construction of a musket to beforty-nine; but this conveys no idea of the number of separateoperations which are performed upon it. The latter amount to over fourhundred, no two of which are by the same hand. Indeed, so distinct arethe various processes by which the grand result is obtained, that anartisan employed upon one part of a musket may have no knowledge of theprocess by which another part is fabricated. This, in fact, is the caseto a very large extent. Many persons employed upon particular parts ofthe work in this establishment have never even seen other partsmanufactured, and in general the workmen understand only the process ofmaking the portions upon which they are engaged. The different parts areof various grades in respect to character and price, and are regularlyrated, and the work done upon them is paid for by the piece. It willscarcely be expected that I should describe all the processes includedin the four hundred separate operations performed in the manufacture ofthe musket, and I shall therefore content myself with alluding to a fewof the most important or curious among them. 

The gun-barrel, after it arrives at the works on the hill from thewater-shops, is taken to the old armory buildings to be rifled. For thispurpose it is placed in a horizontal position in an iron frame, and heldthere very firmly. The instruments which perform the rifling are shortsteel cutters placed within three apertures situated near the end of aniron tube which is carried through the bore of the barrel by a slowrotary and progressive motion. The cutters are narrow bars of steel, having upon one side three diagonal protuberances of about one-sixteenthof an inch in height and half an inch in width, ground to a very sharpedge at the top. It is these which produce the rifling. The threecutters, when inserted within the iron cylinder, form upon their innersurface a small cavity which decreases towards the top. Into this isinserted a small iron rod attached to the machine and revolving with it, but so controlled by a connecting cog-wheel that the rod is pressed atevery revolution a little farther into the cavity between the cutters. The effect of this operation is to increase the pressure of the cuttersupon the inner surface of the barrel, and thus gradually deepen thecorrugations produced by the rifling. The rods make twelve revolutionsin a minute, and it occupies thirty minutes to rifle a barrel. There aretwenty-seven of these rifling-machines in constant operation day andnight. This process is the last which takes place within the barrel, andit leaves the bore in a highly polished and brilliant condition. 

Among the innumerable machines which arrest the attention of the visitorby the beauty and grace of their operations is the broaching-machine. This is designed to cut out and polish the inner surface of the bandswhich encompass the barrel and stock. These bands are irregular inshape, and cannot, therefore, be bored out as the barrel is. When theyemerge from the drop, or swaging-machine, they are somewhat rough bothinteriorly and exteriorly, and then undergo a series of operations whichleave them in a highly finished condition. The first of these is calledbroaching. A cavity is made under a huge press in which the band isplaced. The broach consists of a steel tool about ten inches in length, and of the exact diameter and form of the interior of the band, and isarmed upon its entire length with concentric rings composed of veryshort and sharp knives. The broach, being placed over the cavity of theband, is slowly subjected to the pressure of the two-ten press, and isthus forced completely through the band, cutting it out as smoothly andeasily as if it were composed of lead. The bands are then milled uponthe outside by a process called profiling, drilled for the rings, placedupon mandrels to insure the exact shape required, filed, polished, case-hardened, and thus finished. 

The hammer passes through a great number of processes before it iscompleted. It is first forged, then dropped, trimmed, punched, drifted, milled, turned, filed, and lastly case-hardened. 

The cone, although one of the smallest pieces in the musket, is yet oneof the most important, and requires a great many separate operations inits manufacture. It is first struck in a die, thenclamp-milled, --passing through a machine having clamps which hold shortknives that shave the entire outer surface of this very irregular-shapedpiece; then the thread is cut upon the screw, and both ends aredrilled, --this process alone requiring fourteen separate operations. Itis then squared at the base and case-hardened. 

All the various portions of the lock are made by machines which performtheir multitudinous operations with the most wonderful skill, precision, and grace; but it would be impossible to convey to the reader by asimple description upon paper the various processes by which theseresults are obtained. 

Every portion of the musket is subjected to tests different incharacter, but equally strict and rigid in respect to the qualitieswhich they are intended to prove. The bayonet is very carefully gaugedand measured in every part, in order that it may prove of precisely theproper form and dimensions. A weight is hung to the point of it to tryits temper, and it is sprung by the strength of the inspector, with thepoint set into a block of lead fastened to the floor, to prove itselasticity. If it is tempered too high, it breaks; and if too low, itbends. In either case it is condemned, and the workman through whosefault the failure has resulted is charged with the loss. 

The most interesting process, perhaps, in the manufacture of the musketis the operation of stocking. This is done in the old arsenal-building, which, with the exception of one floor, is wholly devoted to thispurpose. 

The wood from which the stocks are made is the black walnut. This wasformerly obtained in Pennsylvania, and was kept on hand in thestorehouse in large quantities for the purpose of having it properlyseasoned. During the last two years, however, Ohio and Canada havefurnished the greater part. 

The wood is sawn into a rough semblance of the musket-stock before it issent to the armory. It then passes through seventeen different machines, emerging from the last perfectly formed and finished. 

A gun-stock is, perhaps, as irregular a shape as the ingenuity of mancould devise, and as well calculated to bid defiance to every attempt atapplying machinery to the work of fashioning it. The difficulties, however, insurmountable as they would seem, have all been overcome, andevery part of the stock is formed, and every perforation, groove, cavity, and socket is cut in it, by machines that do their work withsuch perfection as to awaken in all who witness the process a feeling ofastonishment and delight. 

The general principle on which this machinery operates may perhaps bemade intelligible to the reader by description; but the great charm inthese processes consists in the high perfection and finish of themachines, the smoothness, grace, and rapidity of their motions, and inthe seemingly miraculous character of the performances which theyexecute. 

The entire action of the various machines is regulated and guided bypatterns, which are models in iron of the various parts of the stockwhich it is intended to form. 

The first machine in the stocking-room cuts the sides of the stock tothe proper form for turning. The second saws off the butt-end, and cutsa diagonal line at the breech. The third is armed with two circularsaws, which cut the upper part of the stock to the form of the finishedarm. An iron pattern of the stock is placed in the machine directlyunder the stock to be turned, upon which rests a guide-wheel, corresponding in size and shape to the two saws above. The whole is thenmade to revolve very rapidly, the guide-wheel controlling the action ofthe cutters, the result being an exact wooden counterpart of the ironpattern. The fourth machine forms the butt of the stock in the samemanner. The next simply planes three or four places upon the sides ofthe stock, for the purpose of affording the subsequent machines certainfixed and accurate points for holding it in the frames. This operationis called spotting. The next machine performs six separate operations, namely, grooving for the barrel, breechpin, and tang, heading-down, milling, and finish-grooving. These various operations complete thestock for the exact fitting-in of the barrel. The next machine planesthe top, bottom, and sides of the stock, and the succeeding two areoccupied in shaping and bedding for the butt-plates. The next machine isdesigned for fitting in the lock, and is the most wonderful of all. Itcontains two bits and three cutters pendent from a movable steel framesituated above the stock. These cutters, or borers, are made to revolvewith immense velocity, and are susceptible of various other motions atthe pleasure of the workman. The inevitable iron pattern--the exactcounterpart of the cavity which is designed to be made for the receptionof the lock--is situated in close proximity to the stock, and a guide inthe form of the borer is inserted within the pattern, and controls themovements of the borer. This is ejected by causing the tool to revolveby means of small machinery within the frame, while the frame and allwithin it move together, in the vertical and lateral motions. All thatthe workman has to do is to bring the guide down into the pattern andmove it about the circumference and through the centre of it, thecutting tool imitating precisely the motions of the guide, entering thewood and cutting its way In the most perfect manner and with incrediblerapidity, forming an exact duplicate of the cavity in the pattern. It ison this principle, substantially, that all the machines of thestocking-shop are constructed, --every process, of course, requiring itsown peculiar mechanism. The next machine cuts for the guards and boresfor the side-screws of the lock, and the two succeeding cut places forbands and tips. The next operation is called the second turning, finishing the stock in a very smooth and elegant manner. The nextmachine grooves for the ramrod, and the following and last in thisdepartment is designed for boring for the ramrod from the point wherethe groove terminates. This latter work has always been done by handuntil the past winter, and there is as yet but one machine for thepurpose in operation at the armory, which, running night and day, isable to bore only six hundred stocks. The remainder have still to bedone by hand, until more machines are constructed. 

The history of the Springfield armory would be incomplete without someallusion to the inventor of the machinery for turning irregular formsadapted to the manufacture of gun-stocks. This was the invention ofThomas Blanchard, then a citizen of Springfield and now ofBoston, --whose reputation as a mechanic has since becomeworld-wide, --and was first introduced into the armory about the year1820. Before this the stocks were all worked and fitted by hand; butthe marvellous ingenuity of this machinery made a complete revolution inthis department, and contributed to a very large increase in therapidity and economy of gun-making all over the world. 

The same invention has been applied to other branches of manufacture, such as shoe-lasts, axe-helves, etc. ; and Mr. Blanchard has successfullyused it in multiplying copies of marble statuary with a degree ofaccuracy and beauty which is truly wonderful. 

Eight years ago the English Government obtained permission of the thenSecretary of War--Jefferson Davis--to make draughts of this entireestablishment for the purpose of obtaining duplicate machinery for theworks at Enfield, and copies of the most novel and important parts ofthe machinery were manufactured for them in the neighboring town ofChicopee; an American machinist being employed to superintend theiroperation at Enfield. 

These works were the especial favorites of the late Prince Albert, whotook great pleasure in exhibiting them to his Continental visitors; butno portion of the works received so much attention from him as thatoccupied by the stocking-machines. In this department he wouldfrequently spend hours, watching the operations of these incomparablemachines with the greatest interest and pleasure. 

As all of these ingenious and valuable machines are American inventions, and nearly all of them designed by the various expert artisans who havebeen employed at the armory during the last half-century, it would seemproper and desirable that their peculiar construction should haveremained a secret within our national works, and, at any rate, not beenfreely given to a rival government like that of Great Britain, who mightuse the arms manufactured by American machinery against the very nationthat furnished it. It is probable, however, that the arch-traitor whothus furnished the governments of Europe with draughts of these valuableworks had then in contemplation the monstrous rebellion which nowdesolates our beautiful land, and took this means of weakening us by theuniversal dissemination of the valuable secrets whereby we were enabledto surpass the rest of the world in the rapidity of construction, andthe beauty and executive power of our rifled musket. 

When the several parts are finished, they are taken to an apartment inthe arsenal to be put together. This operation is called assembling themusket. There are a large number of workmen whose occupations areconfined to the putting together of the various parts of themusket, --each one having some distinct part to attend to. Thus, one manputs the various parts of the lock together, while another screws thelock into the stock. Another is occupied in putting on the bayonet, andso on. Each workman has the parts upon which he is employed before himon his bench, arranged in compartments, in regular order, and puts themtogether with marvellous dexterity. The component parts of the musketare all made according to one exact pattern, and thus, when taken up atrandom, are sure to come properly together. There is no special fittingrequired in each individual case. Any barrel will fit any stock, and ascrew designed for a particular plate or band will enter the proper holein any plate or band of a hundred thousand. There are many advantagesresulting from this exact conformity to an established pattern in thecomponents of the musket, such as greater facility and economy inmanufacturing them, and greater convenience in service, --spare screws, locks, bands, springs, etc. , being easily furnished in quantities, andsent to any part of the country where needed, so that, when any part ofa soldier's gun becomes injured or broken, its place can be immediatelysupplied by a new piece, which is sure to fit as perfectly into thevacancy as the original occupant. Each soldier to whom a musket isserved is provided also with a little tool, which, though very simplein its construction, enables him to separate his gun into itsforty-seven parts with the greatest facility. 

The most costly of the various parts of the musket is the barrel, which, when completed, is estimated at three dollars. From this the partsdescend gradually to a little wire called the ramrod-spring-wire, thevalue of which is only one mill. 

A complete percussion-musket weighs within a small fraction of tenpounds. 

Besides the finished muskets fabricated here, there are many parts offoreign arms duplicated at these works, for the use of our armies in thefield, --the most numerous of which are parts for the Enfield rifle, andfor a German musket manufactured from machinery made after our patternsand models. 

In the arsenal there is a case of foreign arms, containing specimensfrom nearly every nation in Europe. None among them, however, equal ourown in style or finish, while all of them--excepting the Enfieldrifle--are very inferior in every respect. The French arm comes next tothe English in point of excellence, while the Austrian is the poorest ofall. 

There are three steam-engines in operation at the works on the hill, oneconnected with the stocking-department, and two with the otheroperations carried on here. 

Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of oil is used yearly in lubricatingthe machinery, and the various pieces of iron and steel, as they arebeing turned, bored, milled, broached, etc. 

At the water-shops there are five miles of leather belting in use, whileat the works on the hill the quantity greatly exceeds this amount. 

In this establishment there are employed at the present time, as alreadyremarked, twenty-six hundred workmen, who complete, on an average, aboutone thousand muskets daily, and the works may be increased to almost anyextent, --a large square cast of the present works on the hill, andbelonging to the Government, being admirably situated for theconstruction of additional shops. 

This extensive manufactory is under the direction of a principal who isstyled Superintendent, and who has the chief management of the businessof the armory, --contracting for and purchasing all tools and materialsnecessary for manufacturing arms, engaging the workmen, determiningtheir wages, and prescribing the necessary regulations for the localgovernment of the establishment. To aid him in the important duties ofthe armory, there is allowed a master-armorer, who manages themechanical operations, and is held accountable for all stock and toolsput under his charge for the use of the armory, and for the properworkmanship of the muskets, --also a paymaster and storekeeper, whoseduty it is to liquidate and pay all debts contracted for the armory bythe superintendent, and to receive the finished arms, for which he isheld accountable, as well as for all other public property deliveredhim. Each of these officers is allowed a numerous corps of clerks, toaid in keeping the accounts. There is also a foreman, or assistantmaster-armorer, to each principal branch of the work, and under him aforeman over every job. These are severally held accountable for allstock, tools, and parts of work delivered them for their respectivedepartments, and they in their turn severally hold the individualworkmen responsible for all stock, tools, or parts of work delivered tothem. The assistant master-armorers, or foremen, are inspectors in theirseveral branches, and are responsible for the faithful and correctperformance of the work. Each individual artisan puts his own privatemark on the work he executes, as do the inspectors likewise, when theyexamine and approve of the various parts of the musket. Thus, in case ofany defect, the delinquent may readily be found. Monthly returns aremade to the superintendent, and from these returns the monthly pay-rollsare made up. 

Since the establishment of the armory in 1794-5, there have beenfourteen superintendents, all but two of whom are classed as civilians, although a few of these had seen some military service. The armory hasbeen under military rule but fifteen years out of the sixty-eight whichhave elapsed since it was established: namely, from April, 1841, toAugust, 1854; and from October, 1861, until the present time. A standingdispute on the subject of the government of the armory, which was keptup with much heat and acrimony for many years, culminated, in 1854, inthe passage of a law by Congress, in favor of the civil administration. This continued until after the breaking out of the Rebellion, whenCongress restored the military superintendency. The question of civil ormilitary government, however, is of no practical importance to anyperson other than the aspirant for the place. The same rules andregulations governing the workmen employed at the armory, as well as themode of payment, and the manner of doing the work, which wereinaugurated by Benjamin Prescott, the superintendent from November, 1805, to May, 1815, are substantially in operation now, and havecontinued through all the changes which have occurred during more thanhalf a century. 

At the end of December, 1817, there had been completed in thismanufactory 141, 761 muskets. The expenditures for land and mill-seats, and for erecting machinery, water-shops, work-shops, stores, andbuildings of every description, together with repairs, were estimated at$155, 500. The other expenses, exclusive of the cost of stock and partsof work on hand, amounted to $1, 553, 100; stock and parts of muskets onhand, $111, 545; and the total expenditures, from the commencement of theworks, to December, 1817, $1, 820, 120. 18. 

From the establishment of the armory to the present date there have beenmanufactured 1, 097, 660 muskets, 250 rifles, 1, 000 pistols, 1, 202carbines, 8, 660 musketoons, 4, 806 cadets' arms, 18 model muskets, and 16model pistols and rifles. The reader will be surprised, perhaps, tolearn, that there were 1, 020 more muskets manufactured at these worksduring the year 1811 than in the year 1854. In 1850 and 1851, 113, 406muskets were altered in their locks, from flint to percussion, involvingan amount of labor equal to the manufacture of 7, 630 muskets. From 1809to 1822, inclusive of those years, and exclusive of 1811 and 1812, nearly 50, 000 muskets were repaired, involving labor equal to themanufacture of 11, 540 muskets. 

In addition to the large number of muskets manufactured at theGovernment works in Springfield, and which amount to upwards of threehundred thousand per annum, there are a vast number of privateestablishments throughout the Northern States, which turn out from twoto five thousand muskets per month each. These various manufactories aresituated at Hartford, Norfolk, Windsor Locks, Norwich, Middletown, Meriden, and Whitneyville, Ct. , Providence, R. I. , Manchester, N. H. , Windsor, Vt. , Trenton, N. J. , Bridesburg, Pa. , and New York City, Watertown, and Ilion, N. Y. Besides these, there are more than fiftyestablishments where separate parts of the musket are manufactured inlarge quantities, and purchased by Government to supply the places ofthose injured or destroyed in the service. It is estimated that theprivate armories alone are manufacturing monthly upwards of sixtythousand rifled muskets. The Government contracts for these arms extendto January next, and the total number which will then have been producedwill be enormous. The cost of manufacturing a musket at the Governmentworks is estimated at about nine dollars; but the contract-price to theprivate arms-companies is twenty dollars for those which equal theGovernment standard in every respect, nineteen dollars and ninety centsfor those which lack a little in finish, nineteen dollars for the nextgrade, eighteen for the next, and sixteen for the lowest and poorestwhich are accepted. 

As the arms are finished, they are sent away to the various Governmentarsenals, --those made in New England to Watertown, Mass. , --where theyremain until the exigencies of the service require them. At the presenttime, there is a sufficient number of new rifled muskets of the bestqualify stored in the various arsenals to arm the entire levy about tobe called into the field, --and should the war continue so long, therewill be enough manufactured during the next twelve months for a new levyof over one million of men. These arms, it must be remembered, areentirely independent of those ordered by the respective Stategovernments, which would swell the amount very largely. 

 * * * * *

THE PEWEE. 

 The listening Dryads hushed the woods; The boughs were thick, and thin and few The golden ribbons fluttering through; Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods The lindens lifted to the blue: Only a little forest-brook The farthest hem of silence shook: When in the hollow shades I heard-- Was it a spirit, or a bird? Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, Some Feri calling to her mate, Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? "Pe-ri! Pe-ri! Peer!"

 Through rocky clefts the brooklet fell With plashy pour, that scarce was sound, But only quiet less profound, A stillness fresh and audible: A yellow leaflet to the ground Whirled noiselessly: with wing of gloss A hovering sunbeam brushed the moss, And, wavering brightly over it, Sat like a butterfly alit: The owlet in his open door Stared roundly: while the breezes bore The plaint to far-off places drear, -- "Pe-ree! pe-ree! peer!"

 To trace it in its green retreat I sought among the boughs in vain; And followed still the wandering strain, So melancholy and so sweet The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. 'Twas now a sorrow in the air, Some nymph's immortalized despair Haunting the woods and waterfalls; And now, at long, sad intervals, Sitting unseen in dusky shade, His plaintive pipe some fairy played, With long-drawn cadence thin and clear, -- "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"

 Long-drawn and clear its closes were, -- As if the hand of Music through The sombre robe of Silence drew A thread of golden gossamer: So sweet a flute the fairy blew. Like beggared princes of the wood, In silver rags the birches stood; The hemlocks, lordly counsellors, Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, In beechen jackets patched and gray, Seemed waiting spellbound all the day That low entrancing note to hear, -- "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"

 I quit the search, and sat me down Beside the brook, irresolute, And watched a little bird in suit Of sober olive, soft and brown, Perched in the maple-branches, mute: With greenish gold its vest was fringed, Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, With ivory pale its wings were barred, And its dark eyes were tender-starred. "Dear bird, " I said, "what is thy name?" And thrice the mournful answer came, So faint and far, and yet so near, -- "Pe-wee! Pe-wee! Peer!"

 For so I found my forest-bird, -- The pewee of the loneliest woods, Sole singer in these solitudes, Which never robin's whistle stirred, Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. Quick darting through the dewy morn, The redstart trills his twittering horn, And vanisheth: sometimes at even, Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, The high notes of the lone wood-thrush Fall on the forest's holy hush: But thou all day complainest here, -- "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"

 Hast thou too, in thy little breast, Strange longings for a happier lot, -- For love, for life, thou know'st not what, -- A yearning, and a vague unrest, For something still which thou hast not?-- Thou soul of some benighted child That perished, crying in the wild! Or lost, forlorn, and wandering maid, By love allured, by love betrayed, Whose spirit with her latest sigh Arose, a little winged cry, Above her chill and mossy bier! "Dear me! dear me! dear!"

 Ah, no such piercing sorrow mars The pewee's life of cheerful ease! He sings, or leaves his song to seize An insect sporting in the bars Of mild bright light that gild the trees. A very poet he! For him All pleasant places still and dim: His heart, a spark of heavenly fire, Burns with undying, sweet desire: And so he sings; and so his song, Though heard not by the hurrying throng, Is solace to the pensive ear: "Pewee! pewee! peer!"

 * * * * *

MRS. LEWIS. 

A STORY IN THREE PARTS. 

PART II. 

VI. 

In due time we found our way, through deafening clatter, to Miss Post'sdoor, a little below the Astor House, and in the midst of all thatfemale feet the soonest seek. In Maiden Lane and on Broadway it was easyto find all that a Weston fancy painted in the shape of dry goods; and Idid my errands up with conscientious speed before indulging in afashionable lounge on the Battery. 

The first twenty-four hours were full of successive surprises, whichought to have been chronicled on the spot and at the time. They affectedme like electric shocks; but in a day or two I forgot to be surprised atthe queer Dutch signs over the shops and the swine in the streets. Now Ionly remember the oddity of Miss Post's poverty in the water-line; andthat she had to buy fresh water by the gallon and rain-water by thebarrel. Also, the faithlessness of the two brilliant black boys whowaited on table and at the door, and who couldn't be depended on totake up a bundle or carry a message to your room, so unmitigatedlywicked were they. 

"If I owned 'em, " said Miss Post to me, confidentially, "I would have'em whipped every day of their lives. It's what they need, and can't dowithout. They're just like bad children!"

That was true enough. However, she didn't own them, and got very littleout of them but show; and they looked like princes, with their whiteaprons and jackets, and their glittering, haughty eyes. They played withtheir duties, and disdained all directions. I used to follow them withmy eyes at the table with amused astonishment. It was very grand, and, as the Marchioness says, "If you made believe a good deal, " reminded oneof barbaric splendor, and Tippoo Saib. But poor Miss Post couldn't orderan elephant to tread their heads off, or she would have extinguished herhousehold twice a day. I looked back with a feeling of relief to Weston, and my good Polly, who would scorn to be an eye-servant or men-pleaser. 

At the long table, where sat Mr. And Mrs. Jones, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, Mr. And Mrs. Bennett, Babbit, and so on, I looked sharply for Mr. And Mrs. Lewis. But neither was there the first day. All the people werechildless and desolate-looking, though much bedecked with braids andcurls, which ladies wore at that time without stint. Nobody looked as ifshe could be Mr. Lewis's wife. However, the ladies all treated me withso much cordiality and politeness that I set New York down at once as adelightful spot. 

Happening to speak of Mrs. Lewis, I saw that the corners of Mrs. Jones'smouth went immediately down, and Mrs. Smith's eyebrows immediately up. Of course, no woman is going to stand that; and I inquired minutelyenough to satisfy myself either that Mrs. Lewis was very peculiar, orthat a boarding-house was not a favorable atmosphere for character. Myhusband, to whom I told all they said, considered "the abundant leisurefrom family-cares which these ladies enjoyed as giving themopportunities for investigation which they carried to excess. "

"But think of Gus not being Mr. Lewis's child!" said I, after faithfullyrelating all I had heard. 

"He looks like an Italian. I always thought so. But Lewis seems veryfond of him. "

"Yes, they said so. But that the mother cared nothing for him, nor forher other children, who are off in Genesee County somewhere. "

"For health, doubtless, " said my "he, " dryly. 

"And the way they talked of Mr. Remington! calling him George, and morethan insinuating that she likes too well to be at the Oaks, --that is hisplace. They say she has been there all the time Mr. Lewis has beengone!"

"Mr. Remington has been gone too, as you and I can testify, " more dryly. 

"So he has. I wish I had thought to tell them so. "

I hadn't been in a boarding-house for nothing. 

"It was like Lewis to take her as he did. Very noble and generous, too, even supposing he loved her. I dare say he does. Is Montalli dead?"

"I don't know. I think so. At all events, they were divorced, and forhis cruelty. Only think of a lady, a young lady, not sixteen, and thedarling and idol at home, being beaten and pounded! Ugh! what horridcreatures Italians are!"

"And you say Lewis happened to be in Mobile at the time?"

"Yes, and fell in love with her, --she, scarcely eighteen, and to havehad this shocking experience! I don't like to tell you how much theseladies have hinted about her, but enough to make me feel as if I werereading the "Mysteries of Udolpho, " instead of hearing of a live woman, out of a book, and belonging to our own time. "

"Very likely she may have amused herself at the expense of theircredulity. I have seen women do that, just for sport, and to see howmuch people would believe. It is a dangerous game to play. "

Mr. Lewis came to dinner, and brought me a little three-cornered notefrom his wife, written with much grace and elegance, so far as thecomposition was concerned. It was sealed with a dove flying, andexpressed her thanks for my bringing the "sweet remembranser" from herbeloved child, and so on, expecting to see me the next day at the Oaks. 

The surprising part of the note was, that the writing was scrawled, andthe words misspelt in a manner that would have disgraced the youngestmember of a town-school in Weston. She had "grate" pleasure, and spokeof my "truble" in a way that made me feel as if I should see a child. 

The next day brought Mr. Remington himself, fresh and handsome as ever, saying that a carriage was waiting, and his tulips were at their best, and the ladies expecting to see us, --adding, with an informality which Ihad not associated with New York, that the day was all planned out forus, --tulips and lunch at the Oaks, Hoboken in the afternoon. 

That was a white day, and one long to be remembered. First of all, forHoboken, which, whatever it may be now, was then a spot full ofpicturesque beauty and sweet retirement, relieving and contrasting theroar and tumult of the city; second, for the tulips, which were the mostglorious things I ever saw, and still remain the pattern of exceedingbeauty, though I have since seen wealth of floral splendor, but nonethat came up to the Royal Adelaide, --nothing so queenly and so noble asthe large white cup, fit for Hebe to bear and the gods to drink out of, and holding at least a pint within the snowy radiance of its ample brim. I did not wonder Mr. Remington had a passion for tulips. He flittedabout among his brilliant brigade like a happy butterfly, rejoicing inour delight and exulting in our surprise like a pleased child. 

"And is each of these different?"

"Not a duplicate among them. Fifteen hundred varieties. "

If he had said fifteen thousand, it would not have added to myastonishment. To be sure, no king was ever arrayed like one of these. And fifteen hundred! each gorgeous enough for a king's ransom! It tookmy breath away to look at the far-reaching parterre of nodding glories, moved by the breath of the south-wind. 

"I am satisfied. I see you are sufficiently impressed with my tulips, Mrs. Prince, " said Mr. Remington, gleefully, "and I shall send you noend of bulbs for your Weston garden. "

Mr. Remington had taken us directly to the garden on our arrival, andnow led the way, through large evergreens, and by a winding path, to thehouse. The land was not half an acre in size, yet I was sure that I hadbeen over a large estate. The same delusion clung to the house, whichwas in looks like one of Gainsborough's cottages, and ought to have beenat least two hundred years old, instead of two. But Downing's advent hadalready wrought miracles here and there in our land; and a little whilebefore Mr. Remington had been bitten with an architectural mania. Sounder the transplanted trees, and beneath trailing vines of Virginiacreeper and Boursault roses, there peeped the brown gables of a cottage, which arose and stood there as reposeful and weather-stained as if ithad been built before the Revolution. Mr. Remington showed us twentyunexpected doors, and juttings-out here and there, to catch a view, orto let in the sun, and rejoiced in our pleasure, as he had in thegarden, like a child. In the library, Mrs. Remington received us, looking pale, and being very silent. 

I sat down by her without being attracted at all--rather repelled by thefaint sickliness of everything connected with her appearance. Butneither her pale blue eyes, nor her yellow hair, nor her straw-coloredgown and blue ribbons would have repelled me; I could not make her talkat all. I never saw such reticence before or since. As if she weredetermined "to die and make no sign, " she sat, bowing and smiling, andamounting to nothing, one way or another, --giving no opinion, if asked, and asking no question. She was passively polite, but so very nearnothing that I was rejoiced when Mr. Remington entered with my husband, and proposed that we should go into the dining-room. He carelesslyintroduced Mrs. Remington, but further than that seemed not to know shewas in existence; and I must confess, I did not wonder. While my husbandmade, or tried to make, some conversation with her, Mr. Remington showedme an exquisite Clytie in marble, and a landscape by Cole, which hung ina good light, and showed its wonderful wild beauty. And now for thethird reason that this was a white day. 

VII. 

In a little room connected with the refreshment-room there stood beforea large mirror somebody winding a red scarf about her head. I had onlytime to see that the head was small and shapely, and the figure full offlexible grace, when it turned and nodded to the party. Of course, itcould only be Mrs. Lewis, as she at once said, in a honey-sweet voice, and with what seemed to me a foreign accent; but then I had never heardthe Southern accent, which is full of music, and seems somehow to avoidthe sibilant tone as well as the nasal drawl characteristic of Northerntongues. 

I was attracted to her, not by her beauty, though that was marked, butby her cordial, unaffected manner of placing her two hands in ours, andby her infantine sweetness of expression. Whatever she might have gonethrough, I saw she had not suffered. There was no line or track ofexperience, on her broad, tranquil brow, nor was there the hushed, restrained expression left in all eyes that have deeply mourned andbitterly wept. The look was serene and youthful, with such happiness asmight come from health and elemental life, --such as a Dryad might havein her songful bowers, or a Naiad plunging in the surf. But it was ashallow face, and pleased only as the sunshine does. For my part, Iwould rather listen to the sorrowful song of the pine-tree: that is thetune of life. 

So, after the first five minutes, the face of Mrs. Lewis ceased toattract me, and I only wondered how she came to attract her husband. 

At Miss Post's, our rooms were quite near each other; and I frequentlypassed an hour in the morning with Mrs. Lewis, chatting with her, andlooking about her fanciful apartment. She had dozens of birds of all gaycolors, --paroquets from Brazil, cockatoos, ring-doves, and canaries;fresh flowers, in vases on the mantel-pieces, and a blue-ribboned guitarin the corner. No books, no pictures. A great many scarfs, bonnets, anddrapery generally, fell about on the chairs and tables. 

She never asked about Auguste, nor talked of her children. Once she saidthey were at Madam somebody's, she couldn't think of the name, but avery nice school, she believed. Everything was "very nice" or "veryhorrid. " Much of the time she passed in draping herself in variousfinery before the mirror, and trying the effects of color on hercomplexion. I could think of nothing but field-lilies, that toil not, and yet exceed Solomon in glory; sometimes it seemed gaudiness ratherthan glory, only that her brilliant complexion carried off the brightesthues, and made them only add to the native splendor of lip and eye. Thenshe had a transparent complexion, where the blood rippled vividly androseately at the least excitement. This expressed a vivacity oftemperament and a sensitiveness which yet she had not, so that I wasconstantly looking for more than there was in her, and as constantlydisappointed. The face suggested, and so did the conversation, far moreboth of native sensibility and of culture than she had of either. Thiswas apparent during the first twenty-four hours. 

It may seem strange that I should cultivate such a disappointingacquaintance as Mrs. Lewis. But, first, I liked Mr. Lewis, and he wasmuch of the time in their parlor; and, secondly, Mrs. Lewis took adecided fancy to me, and that had its effect. I could not deem herinsensible to excellence of some sort; besides, she was a curious studyto me, and besides, I had occasion, as the time wore on, to think moreof her. Our lives are threaded with black and gold, not of our ownselecting, and we feel that we are guided by an Unseen Hand in many ofour associations. 

There was a want of arrangement of material in her mind, which preventedher from using what she knew, to any advantage; and what she knew, though it had the originality of first observation, and a grace ofexpression so great that more met the ear than was meant, was still sowanting, either in insight or reflection, as to be poor and vapid assmall-beer after the first sparkle is gone. The manner was all in Mrs. Lewis, but that was ever varying and charming. 

One day she had been wrapping some green and gold gauzes about her, anddraping herself so that you could think of nothing but sunsets andtulip-beds, when, in pulling over her finery, she came across aminiature of herself. She handed it to me. 

"This was what made William dead in love with me, before he saw me. Iused to wear my hair so for years after I married him; he liked me to. "

It was a very delicately painted miniature, by Staigg, I think. Still avery good likeness, and with the perpetual childhood of the large browneyes, and the clusters of chestnut curls over brow and neck, that gavean added expression of extreme youth to the face. 

"Will she never mature?" I thought. 

But always there was the same promise, the same expectation, and thesame disappointment. I used to think I would as soon marry Hoffman'smachine, who looked so beautiful, and said, "Ah! ah!" and the husbandthought her very sensible. But Hoffman's husband thought he had anadmiring wife, and her "ah! ah-s!" were appreciative, whereas Mr. Lewiscould be under no such delusion. Once I heard him say, "he cared onlyfor love in a wife: intellect he could find in books, but the heart onlyin woman. " "Eyes that look kindly on me are full of good sense, --lipsthat part over pearls are better than wisdom, --and the heart-beat is themeasure of true life. "

He liked to talk in this proverb-fashion, and would often turn towardshis wife, giving his remarks point and affectionate direction bysmoothing her curls or gently touching her shoulder. He was very happyin her beauty. 

Notwithstanding this, he often brought in books of an evening, to readto us, leaving Lulu to get her entertainment as she could, and wouldsometimes sit a whole hour, discussing literary points with me, andmetaphysical ones with the Dominie, who was only too happy to pull theScotch professors over the coals, and lead to condign execution Brown, Reid, and Stewart, in their turn. Sometimes Lulu would come in, with abird on each hand, and sit at our feet. She then never mingled in theconversation, but just smoothed the birds' plumage, or fed them withcrumbs from her own lips, like a child, or a princess trifling in theharem. 

Once we were at Hoboken, where we had passed most of the warm day, and, being weary with strolling among the trees, had seated ourselves on abank, whence we had a good view of the water and the vessels in the hazydistance. Mr. Lewis took Wordsworth from his pocket, and read aloud the"Ode to Immortality. " It was so beautiful, and the images of "the calmsea that brought us hither" so suggestive, that we listened withrapture. Lulu twined oak-leaves into wreaths, sitting at her husband'sfeet. I don't know whether she heard or not, but, as we discussedafterwards the various beauties of the expression, and the exquisitethoughts, Mr. Lewis leaned over and laid his hand lightly on his wife'shair. He had done it a hundred times before. But to-day she shook herhead away from him, blushed angrily, and said, "Don't, William! I am nota baby!"

VIII. 

We stayed in New York over ten days. In that time we seemed to haveknown the Lewises ten years. In the last three days I had some newviews, however, and puzzled myself over manners which were apparentlycontradictory. 

Lulu had told me in the morning that her husband was going toPhiladelphia, and wouldn't be back for two days. I asked her if she werenot going with him. She said, no, --that she wouldn't encounter the dustof those Jersey wagons again; and then described, with much vivacity, the method of transportation which was soon after succeeded by thepresent railroad. 

"There were a hundred horses, at least, " said she, "to drag us. Magnificent creatures, too. But nothing pays for having one's mouth andeyes full of grit. "

As she spoke, Mr. Lewis passed by the door, and looked at her. She wentto him at once, put up her lips to be kissed, and I heard his lovinggood-bye, as they went along the entry to the top of the stairway. 

When she came back to my room, which was half an hour after, she wasdressed to go out, in a new hat and pelisse of green silk, with a plumeof the same. With her bright color, it was very becoming to her. 

"I have just got these home. William just hates me in green, but I wouldhave them. They make one think of fern-leaves and the deep woods, don'tthey?" said she, standing before the mirror with childish admiration ofher own dress. 

She turned slowly round, and faced me. 

"Now I suppose you would dress up in a blue bag, if your husband likedto see you in it?"

I said I supposed so, too. 

"That's because you love him, and know that he loves you!"

"I am sure, you may say one is true of yourself, " said I, surprised ather knitted brow and flushed cheek. 

"What was that you were reading last night in Plato's Dialogues? Whatdoes he say is real love? for the body or the soul?"

I was confounded. For I had never supposed she listened to a word thatwas read. 

"If any one has been in love with the body of Alcibiades, that personhas not been in love with Alcibiades, " said she, reciting from memory. 

"Yes, I remember. "

"But one that loves your soul does not leave you, but continues constantafter the flower of your beauty has faded, and all your admirers haveretired. "

I nodded, as much nonplussed as if she had been Socrates. 

"That is a love worth having, is it not, which will continue, though thecheek be white and furrowed, and the eye dim?"

I nodded again, staring at her. 

"And what is that worth, " said she, stamping her foot, "which does notrecognize a soul at all? If he ever encouraged me to improve, --if heever read to me, or talked to me as he does to you, I might makesomething of myself! I am in earnest. I do want to be something, --tothink, to learn, if I only knew how!"

Childish tears ran down her face as she spoke. Presently she went intoher room and brought me a set of malachite, in exquisite cameo-cuttings. I took up a microscope, and began admiring and examining them, recognizing the subjects, which were taken from Raphael's History ofPsyche. 

"Beautiful! where did they come from?"

"William bought them of Lloyd, who had them long ago of the Emperor'sjeweller. They had been ordered for Marie Louise. "

"And why didn't she have them, pray?"

"Just the question I asked. He said, 'Oh, because the Emperor was downand the Allies in Paris, and the Emperor's jeweller nobody, and glad tosell the cameos for one-third their cost, when they were finished. '"

"Oh, yes! I see, --at the time of Waterloo. "

Mrs. Lewis looked at me again with the same knitted brow and flushedcheek as before. 

"All you say is Greek to me. I don't know what malachite is, nor whoRaphael is, nor who Psyche is, nor who Marie Louise is, scarcely whoNapoleon, and nothing about Waterloo. A pretty present to make to me, isit not? I could make nothing of it. To you it is a whole volume. "

I said, with some embarrassment, that it was easy to learn, and that ifshe--that is, that women should endeavor to improve themselves, and soon. She heard me through, and then said, dryly, --

"How old were you when you were married?"

"I was nearly twenty. "

"Were you well-informed? had you read a great deal?"

"What one gets in a country-school, --and being fond of reading;--butthen I had always been in an atmosphere of books; and one takes in, oneknows not how, a thousand facts"--

I stopped; for I saw by her impatient nodding that she understood me. 

"Yes, yes. I knew it must be so. Now, if William would ever bring mebooks, instead of jewels, or talk to me and with me, I might have been arational being too, instead of being absolutely ashamed to open mymouth!"

She clasped the jewel-case and went out; and I heard her chatting aminute after with some gentlemen in the house, as if she were perfectlyand childishly happy. 

IX. 

How I wished I could give Mr. Lewis some hint of what had passed betweenhis wife and myself! But that I could not do. Besides that it was alwaysbest to let matrimonial improvements originate with the partiesthemselves, I had an inability to interfere usefully. I could talk toher a little, --not at all to him. He seemed fond and proud of her as shewas, and her dissatisfaction with herself was a good sign. It wasstrange to me, accustomed to intellectual sympathy, that he could dowithout that of his wife. But I suppose he had come to feel that shewould not understand him, and so did not try to hit her apprehension, much less to raise or cultivate her intellect. He had lived too long atthe South. 

Her moral nature was very oddly developed, showing how starved andstunted some of the faculties, naturally good, become without theirproper nourishment. As, intellectually, she seemed not to comprehendherself, except that she had a vague sense of want and waste, so, fromthe habit of occupying herself with the external, she had not only akeen sense of the beautiful in outward form, but as ready a perceptionof character as could consist with a want of tact. Adaptation shecertainly had. Tact she could not have, since her sympathies were solimited and her habit so much of external perception and appreciation. All this desolate tract in her nature might yet possibly be cultivated. But thus far it had never been. Beyond a small circle of thoughts andfeelings, she was incapable of being interested. She didn't say, "Anan!"but she looked it. 

There was the same want of comprehension, I may call it, in reference topropriety of conduct. A certain nobleness, and freedom from all that waspetty and cold, kept her from coquetry. At the same time she had awomanish vanity about her admirers, and entire freedom in speaking ofthem. In vain I endeavored to insinuate the unpleasant truth, that thefervency of her adorers was no compliment to her. She could notunderstand that she ought to shrink from the implied imputation of suchmanifestations. 

Somewhat out of patience, one day, at her pleasure in receiving abouquet of rare flowers from one of these adorers, I said, --

"Isn't this the person who you said professed an attachment to you, orrather sent heliotrope to you and told you it meant _je vous aime?_"

"The very man!" said she, smiling. 

"Then I am sure you are, as I should be, sadly mortified at hiscontinuing these attentions. "

"I don't see why I should be mortified, " said she, "He may be, if helikes. "

"You know what the poet says, Lulu, and it is excellent sense, --

 'In part she is to blame that has been tried, He comes too near that comes to be denied. '"

The crimson tide rippled over her forehead at this, but it was only apassing disturbance, and she answered sweetly, --

"I don't think you are quite fair, " as if she had been playing at somegame with me. 

Apparently, too, she had as little religious as moral sense, though shecalled herself a member of the Church, and said she was confirmed attwelve years old. 

But once, in speaking of Mr. Lewis's going to church, she told me, "William has no religion at all. " Much in the same way she would havesaid he had not had luncheon. A strange responsibility, if he felt it, had this William, a man nearly forty years old, for this young creaturenot yet twenty-three, and with powers so undeveloped and a character sounbalanced!

In the ten days we passed together I often wished I could have known herearly, or that I now had a right to say to her what I would. However, perhaps I overestimated the influence of outward circumstances. 

We parted rather suddenly, and in the next three years they were mostlyin Cuba, while my husband was called to leave Weston for a larger fieldof usefulness. 

We had lived more than a year in Boston, and it was in the autumn of1833 that I sat alone by a sea-coal fire, thinking, and making out facesin the coal. I was too absorbed to hear the bell ring, or the door open, till I felt a little rustle, and a soft, sudden kiss on my lips. I wasno way surprised, for Lulu's was the foremost face in the coals. Mr. Lewis was close behind her, with my husband. As soon as the astral waslighted, we gazed wistfully for a few moments at each other. Each lookedfor possible alteration. 

"You have been ill!"

"And you have had something besides Time. "

We had had grief and bereavement. Mr. Lewis had been very ill, and verynear death, with the fever of the country. It had left traces on hisworn face, and thinned his already thin enough figure. 

But a greater change had come over Mrs. Lewis. Personally, she wasfuller and handsomer than ever. She had the same grace in every motion, the same lulling music in her sweet voice. But a soul seemed to be borninto that fine body. The brown eyes were deeper, and the voice hadthrills of feeling and sentiment. For all that, she had the sameincompleteness that she had when I last saw her, and an inharmoniousnessthat was felt by the hearer whenever she spoke. It was very odd, thisimpression I constantly had of her; but they were to remain in Bostonthrough the winter, and I supposed time would develop the mystery to me. 

X. 

One evening, soon after Lulu's return, for she soon took up her oldhabits of intimacy, she sat listlessly by the fire, holding her twohands in her lap, as usual, and not even dawdling at netting. Perhapsthe still evening and the quiet room induced confidence, or she may havefelt the effect of my "receptivity, " as she called it. (She alwaysinsisted that she could not help telling me everything. ) She turned awayabruptly from the fire, saying, --

"Do you know I don't love William a particle, --not the smallest atom?"

"I hope you are only talking nonsense, " said I, rising, and ringing forlights; "but it is painful for me to hear you. Don't! I beg!"

"No, it isn't nonsense. It is the simple truth. And it is best youshould know it. Because, --you don't want me to be a living lie, do you?To the world I can keep up the old seeming. But it is better you shouldknow the truth. "

"There I differ from you entirely, Lulu. If you are so sadlyunfortunate, so wretched, as not to love your husband, it is too painfuland serious a matter lightly to be talked of. It is a matter forgrievous lamentation, --a matter between your conscience and your God. Idon't think any friend can help you; and if not, of course you can haveno motive in confiding it. "

She had the same old look, as if she would say, "Anan!" but presentlyadded, --

"He cares only for himself, --not at all for me. Don't I see that everyday? Am I but the plume in his cap? but the lace on his sleeve? but thejewel in his linen? Whatever I might have felt for him, I am sure I haveno need to feel now; and I repeat to you, I should not care at all if Iwere never again to lay my eyes on him!"

I shuddered to hear this talk. It was said, however, without anger, andwith the air rather of a simple child who thought it right not to havefalse pretences. Her frankness, if it had been united with deep feeling, would have touched me exceedingly. As it was, I was bewildered, yet onlyanxious to avoid explanations, which it seemed to me would only increasethe evil. 

Thoughts of the ill-training that had made such a poor piece oflife-work out of the rich materials before me made my heart ache. Shesat still, looking in the fire, like a child, rebuked and chidden forsome unconscious fault. So many fine traits of character, yet such ahopeless want of balance, such an utter wrongheadedness! I turned, anddid what I very seldom do, yielded to my impulses of compassionatetenderness and kissed her. To my surprise, she burst into a hearty fitof crying. 

"If I had known you early! or if my mother had lived!" she sobbed; "butnow I am good for nothing! I don't know what is right nor what iswrong!"

"Don't say so, --we can always try. "

"Not this. I could at first. But to be always treated like a baby, --andif I express any contrary opinion, or show that I've a mind of myown, --a sick baby! I can tell you this comes pretty hard three hundredand sixty-five days in a year! Oh, I wish I were a free woman! There! Iam going to stop now. But you know. "

I was only too glad to be interrupted by our two husbands. Lulu ranup-stairs, --I supposed, to bathe her eyes and compose herself. She, however, was down again in a minute, with some drapery which she woundabout her after the fashion Lady Hamilton was said to do, andrepresented, like her, the Muses, and various statues. With the curtainand one light she managed to give a very statuesque effect. Mr. Lewiswas evidently very proud of her grace and talent, and she had a pretty, wilful, bird-like way with him, that was fascinating, and did not seem, as I thought it must really be, mechanical. I felt, more than ever, howidle it must be to talk with her. The affectionate respect, the joyfuluplooking of wifehood, was not to be taught by words, nor to be taught, in fact, any way. Mr. Lewis's manner to his wife, which I criticizedcarefully, was always tender and dignified. And, from my knowledge ofhim, I felt sure that his expression was that of genuine feeling. Evidently he did not understand her feelings at all. She longed forencouragement and improvement. He looked at her as a lovely child only. 

Being a minister's wife, I felt called on to labor in my vocation, andfrom time to time watch the pliant moment, and endeavor to lead Lulu'smind to the foundation of all truth. But, surely, never fell seed onsuch stony ground. To be sure, the flowers sprang up. Dewy, rich, andrunning, they climbed over the rocks beneath; but they shed theirperfume, and shrank dead in a day, leaving the stones bare. I wasdiscouraged about sowing seed. 

The Lewises had been but a few weeks in Boston, when Lulu brought Mr. Remington in one morning to make a call. He was dressed in black, andtold me he had been a widower six months. His bright, genial face andhealthful nature seemed not to have sustained any severe shock, however, and he spoke with great composure of his loss. 

He was at Mr. Lewis's a great deal. It seemed as a matter of course. Asan accomplished man, with great powers of entertaining, he mustnaturally be acceptable there; but we were too much occupied with familyand parish matters to see much of him, and about that time went on ajourney of some weeks. 

 * * * * *

THE CONQUEST OF CUBA. 

One hundred years ago the people of America were as much moved bymartial ardor as are the American people of to-day. The year 1762 was, indeed, a far more warlike time than was 1862. "Great war" is nowconfined to the territory of the United States, and exists neither inAsia, Africa, nor Europe. Garibaldi's laudable attempt to get it up inItaly failed dismally. There was a flash of spirit, and there were a fewflashes of gunpowder, and all was over. "The rest is silence. " There arenumerous questions unsettled in the Old World, but the disputants areinclined to wait for settlement, it would seem, until our affairs shallhave been brought into a healthful state. Europeans complain that ourquarrel has wrought them injury, and very great injury, too. They areright as to the fact. England has suffered more from the consequences ofthe Southern Rebellion than have the Free States of the Union, andFrance quite as much, and Spain as severely as any one of our States. InGermany, in Switzerland, and in Belgium, thousands of families have hadbitter reasons for joining in the cry that Americans do not know how tomanage their politics. We have heard of riots in Moravia, not far fromthe scene of Lafayette's imprisonment and that of Napoleon's greatestvictory, caused by the scarcity of cotton. Yankee cloths that used to gointo remote and barbarous regions, through the medium of thecaravan-commerce, will be known no more there for some time. Perhapsthose African chiefs who had condescended to shirt themselves, thustaking a step toward civilization, will have to fall back upon theirskins, because Mr. Jefferson Davis and some others of the SouthernAmericans chose to make war on their country, and so stop the supply ofcotton. The "too-many-shirts" cry, which so revolted the benevolentheart of Mr. Carlyle twenty years since, has ceased to be heard. Thesupply is getting exhausted. The old shirts are vanishing, and the newones, instead of being of good stout cloth, are of such stuff as dreamsare made of. There might be a new version of "The Song of the Shirt"published, specially adapted to the state of the times, and which wouldcome home to the bosoms and backs of many men. Mr. Davis's war may beconsidered as a personal one against all civilized men, for it affectsevery one's person. The great civil war between Charles I. And theEnglish Parliament was in part caused by soap, which the monopolistsmade of so bad a quality that it destroyed the clothes which it shouldhave cleaned. Of "the monopolers and polers of the people, " as he calledthem, Sir John Culpeper said, "We find them in the dye-fat, thewash-bowl, and the powdering-tub. " As a monarchy was made to fallthrough the monopoly of soap and other ordinary articles, so was itpurposed that a republic should be crushed through the monopoly of thematerial from which the sheets and shirts of laborers are manufactured. There was not much chivalry in the basis of Southern power, but mostgrand revolutions are brought about by acting on the lives of themasses, who are more easily moved by appeals to their sense of immediateinterest than by reference to the probable consequences of a certainkind of political action. Our party-men know this, and hence it is, that, while they have not much to say about the excellence of slavery, they ask the Irish to oppose the overthrow of that institution, on theground, that, if it were to cease to exist, all the negroes of the Southwould come to the North, and work for a dime a day, --which nonsensethere are some persons so ignorant as to believe. 

To return to 1762: the people of the Colonies were as martially disposedas are the people of the States in these days. "In the heat of the OldFrench War, " says Mr. Hawthorne, speaking of the inhabitants of NewEngland, "they might be termed a martial people. Every man was asoldier, or the father or brother of a soldier; and the whole landliterally echoed with the roll of the drum, either beating up forrecruits among the towns and villages, or striking the march toward thefrontier. Besides the provincial troops, there were twenty-three Britishregiments in the northern colonies. The country has never known a periodof such excitement and warlike life, except during theRevolution, --perhaps scarcely then; for that was a lingering war, andthis a stirring and eventful one. " There has not been so much movementin the Secession War as characterized that in which our ancestors wereengaged a century ago, and which was fought in America and in India, inGermany and in Portugal, in Italy and in Africa, in France and inBohemia. As the great Lisbon earthquake had been felt on the shores ofOntario, so had the war which began the year of that earthquake'soccurrence shaken the world that lay on the American lakes. Forty yearsago, old men talked as much of the Old French War--the Seven Years' Warof European historians--as of the War of the Revolution. It was acontest but for the happening of which there could have been no AmericanRevolution, at least none of the character that now occupies so high aplace in history. Or, had it happened, and had the event been different, our annals would have been made to read differently, and the Fourth ofJuly could never have become an institution. It opened well for theFrench, and, had not fortune changed, the colonists, instead of lookingto Paris for aid, only a dozen years after its conclusion, might havebeen ruled by proconsuls sent from that "centre of civilization, " as itdelights to call itself. And even if the terms of the treaty which putan end to that war had been a little differently arranged, England mighthave triumphed in the war that she carried on against our ancestors. Both the war itself, and the manner of concluding it, were necessary tothe creation of that American empire which, according to Earl Russell, we are fighting to maintain, --as unquestionably we are, though not inthe ignoble sense in which the noble Earl meant that his words should betaken and understood. 

Of the many conquests which were made by the English in the Seven Years'War, no one was more remarkable than that which placed the Havana andits neighborhood in their hands, virtually giving them possession of theisland of Cuba; and the manner in which they disposed of theirmagnificent prize, when George III. Forced peace upon his unwillingsubjects, was among the causes of their failure to conquer the ThirteenStates in the War for Independence. 

That England should have been favored with the opportunity to seize Cubawas not the least singular of the incidents of a contest that was wagedwherever Christians could meet for the pious purpose of cutting oneanother's throats. The English owed it to the hatred for them that wasfelt by one man, who assailed them in their hour of triumph, in the hopeof gratifying his love of revenge, but who reaped only new humiliationsfrom his crusade. He had better luck in after days; but in 1762 he musthave entertained some pretty strong doubts as to the wisdom of hatinghis neighbors, and of allowing that sentiment to get the better of hisjudgment. Charles III. , King of the Spains, the best of all the SpanishBourbons, had, when he was King of Naples, been most grossly insulted bya British naval commander, and he had had to swallow the affront. "Beinga good Christian, and vindictive, " though he swallowed the affront, hecould not digest it. He cherished the hope of being able to repay theEnglish with that usurious interest with which men of all grades love todischarge their debts of the kind. He little thought that he was to waitnear forty years for the settlement of his account, and that ageneration was to pass away before he should be able to feel as Loredanofelt when he heard of the death of Francesco Foscari. 

The fortunes of France have seldom been lower than they were in 1759, when the energy of William Pitt had imparted itself to the whole of thealliance which was acting against Louis XV. That year, Charles III. Ascended the Spanish throne. For some time he was apparently disposed tocontinue the judicious system of neutrality which had been adopted andpursued by his predecessor; but in 1760, partly from his fear of Britishpower, and partly because of the insulting conduct, of England, whichrevived his recollection of her officer's action at Naples in 1742, hewas induced to enter into that arrangement which is known as the FamilyCompact, (_Pacte de Famille_, ) which was destined to have the mostmemorable consequences, --consequences that are far from being nowexhausted. By the terms of this treaty, the sovereign princes of theHouse of Bourbon agreed to support each other against all enemies. Thewisdom of this compact, on the part of France, cannot be doubted, forher condition was so bad that it could not be made much worse, happenwhat would, and it might be changed for the better through theassistance of Spain; but it is not so clear that they were as wise atMadrid as were the statesmen at Paris. Mr. Pitt obtained intelligence ofthis treaty's existence, though it was "a profound secret, " of course;but then Mr. Pitt always had good intelligence, because he was ready topay roundly for it, knowing that it was the best article for which awar-minister could lay out his money. The object of keeping secret anarrangement that depended for its usefulness upon open action was, thattime might be gained for the arrival of the Spanish treasure-ships fromAmerica. Mr. Pitt, who was as wise as he was arrogant, was for takingimmediate measures against Spain. He would have declared war at once, and have seized the plate fleet. Had George II. Still lived, thisjudicious course--all boldness is judicious in war, in which there isnothing so imprudent as prudence--would have been adopted. But thatmonarch died on the 25th of October, 1760, and his grandson andsuccessor, George III. , had domestic objects to accomplish with whichthe continuance of the war was incompatible. His intention was to makepeace with France, and he must have deemed it the height of folly tomake war on Spain. Pitt, finding his advice disregarded, resigned hisoffice, much to the joy of most of his colleagues, whom he had treatedas if they had been the lackeys of his lackeys. How they ever got alongwith him through one month is among the mysteries of statesmanship. President Jackson was not the mildest of men, but he was meekness itselfin comparison with the first William Pitt. 

But if Pitt was offensive to his colleagues, he was even more offensiveto the enemies of his country. In a few weeks after he left theMinistry, the justice of his views became clear even to the young Kingand to Lord Bute, the latter personage having virtually made himselfPremier. The Spanish Government, in compliance with the terms of theFamily Compact, made war on England, and that country lost most of theadvantages which would have been hers, if the King had been governed byPitt's advice. The treasure-ships reached Spain in safety, and theircargoes furnished the new belligerent with the sinews of war. So far asthey could, the English Ministers resolved to carry on the war withSpain in conformity with the plan which Pitt had formed. One of hisprojects was to send a force to seize the Havana, which, though not theimportant place that it now is, in itself, was nevertheless one of themost valuable of the commmanding points of the Spanish Indies. At thattime the colonial dominion of Spain embraced the greater part ofAmerica, and the Havana was regarded as the key to the Occidentalpossessions of Charles III. [5] This key Secretary Pitt had meant toseize; and his successors, forced to act, availed themselves of thepreparations which he had made. An expedition sailed from Spithead onthe 5th of March, 1762, which was joined by other forces, the wholenumber of vessels being almost two hundred, of which about a fifth wereships of war. The total of the land-forces, including those sent fromNorth America, was 14, 041. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Sir GeorgePocock, and the army by General the Earl of Albemarle. Lord Albemarlewas descended from that Arnold van Keppel who came into England, notwith William the Conqueror, but with William of Orange, and who, throughthe favor of the Dutch King of England, founded one of the mostrespectable of British patrician houses. He was a good soldier, and inCuba he showed considerable energy; but his name is not high in the listof commanders. 

It is uncertain whether the Spaniards had knowledge of the intentions ofthe English, who, in those days, did not announce their points of attackto the enemy; but the Captain-General, Don Juan de Prado Porto Carrero, found it so very difficult to believe that the English would attack hisGovernment, that even so late as the 6th of June, when the invaders werewithin a few hours of landing, he insisted that their fleet was ahomeward-bound convoy from Jamaica; and he found fault with one of hisofficers who had taken some precautionary measures. The next day he wascompelled to admit that he was mistaken, for then the British troops hadlanded. He could not have been more blind to the coming storm, had helived in 1861, and held a high post in the Government of the UnitedStates. Once convinced of his error, he went vigorously to work, andprepared for defence. He had 27, 610 men, including soldiers, seamen, marines, militia, and negroes, --for, in those days, it was not thoughtwise to refuse the services of black men, and even slaves were allowedthe honor of being slain in the service of their masters. There were, however, but few regular troops at the command of theCaptain-General, --only 4, 610; but the seamen and marines, who numbered9, 000, helped to make the deficiency good. The Spaniards were situatedsomewhat as were the Russians, the other day, at Sebastopol. Their navalforce was too small to have any chance whatever against that of theEnglish, and the men who belonged to it were employed on land, wherethey behaved bravely. The best officers among the defenders were fromthe fleet. The Morro was put under the charge of Don Luis de Velasco, captain of a line-of-battle ship, who maintained the credit of hisancient name; and he was well supported by the Marques de Gonzales, another naval officer. Don Manuel Brizeñio, also from the fleet, with abrother-officer for his lieutenant, had charge of the Punta castle. Thearmy-officers did not like these arrangements, but it was argued thatseamen were better qualified than either cavalry or infantry to defendfortified places; and of regular artillerists there were but threehundred in the whole Spanish force. These considerations had theirweight with the soldiers, and the conduct of the seamen fully justifiedthe conduct of the Captain-General. 

The English troops were landed on the 7th of June, and ColonelCarleton--the Sir Guy Carleton of our Revolutionary history--repulsed acavalry attack that was made upon a detachment under his command. Thisso disheartened the Spaniards, that they abandoned the position whichthey had taken up at Guanabacoa for the purpose of impeding the advanceof the invaders, and fell back on the Havana. The women and children, with the monks and nuns, were all sent out of the town, and the suburbsdestroyed. On the 11th, the Cabaña fortress, which commands the Morro, was taken by Colonel Carleton. The Spaniards also abandoned the Chorrerafort, on the other side. Operations against the Morro were then begun. The English suffered much from the heat, and a little from the assaultsof the defenders; and, though greatly aided by the fleet, it was notuntil the 1st of July that they were able to open fire on the Morro. Among their laborers were five hundred black slaves, purchased atAntigua and Martinique. Fatigue and sickness had reduced the army'sstrength more than one-third, without counting the soldiers who haddied, or been slain by the Spanish fire; and three thousand seamen alsowere unfit for duty. Water was procured with difficulty, and freshprovisions were almost unknown. 

The land-batteries opened on the Morro July 1st, and were supported by afire from several ships. The latter were roughly received by theSpaniards, and lost one hundred and eighty-two men, besides beinggreatly damaged in hull, masts, and rigging, so that they were forced toabandon the conflict, without having made any impression on thefortress, though they had effected an important diversion in favor ofthe land-batteries, the fire from which had proved most injurious. Onthe 2d there were but two guns in condition to bear upon the besiegers. The latter, however, had a worse enemy than the Spaniards to contendagainst, the heat causing fires in their works that neither earth norwater could extinguish; and they had to remove their mortars from theleft parallel, and substitute cannon. This was the crisis of the siege;and had a hurricane occurred, as was expected, the fleet would have beendriven off, and the army probably captured. But no storm came, and theEnglish, with characteristic stubbornness, repaired their damaged works, and erected others. On the 9th they renewed their fire, having twelveguns, and the Spaniards but nine. The English increased the strength oftheir batteries, while the Spanish guns were reduced to two by the 16th;and on the 17th the castle made no reply to the fire of the Valiant, aline-of-battle ship. Sapping-operations began that evening, and on the18th a small lodgment was effected. The Spanish commander made a morningsally against the besiegers in three columns, which, if successful, would have necessitated the abandonment of the siege; but the first andsecond columns were driven back with heavy loss, and the third retreatedwithout firing a shot. In this action a battalion of North Americansbore a prominent part, aiding to drive the first Spanish column to thewater, where one hundred and fifty men were drowned. The total loss ofthe assailants was four hundred, besides those wounded who returned intothe town. 

The result of this action decided the fate of the Morro. The work ofsapping went on. Reinforcements arrived from New York; and on the 30tha practicable breach was made. Lord Albemarle had previously summonedDon Luis de Velasco to surrender, in the most complimentary terms; butthe gallant Spaniard declined to abandon his duty, preferring death todishonor. On the afternoon of the 30th, the English storming-party, headed by Lieutenant Forbes, of the Royals, mounted the breach, takingthe defenders by surprise, and dispersing them. Don Luis disdained tofly, and was mortally wounded. He lived until the afternoon of the 31st, receiving every possible attention from the victors, who sent him overto the Havana, where he was buried with military honors. His son wascreated Vizconde del Morro, and it was ordered that in the Spanish navythere should always be a ship named Velasco. 

The storming of the castle cost the English but two officers and thirtymen. The Spaniards lost five hundred and thirty men, besides those whowere drowned in seeking to reach the town. During the siege the Spanishloss exceeded a thousand men. The conquerors found a large number ofcannon, mortars, muskets, and hand-grenades, and great quantities ofpowder and ball, and fixed ammunition, in the castle. 

As soon as the fortress had fallen, the Spaniards opened fire on it, which was directed principally against the water-tank. The Englishcarried on their works on both sides of the city, and on the 10th ofAugust Lord Albemarle summoned the Governor to capitulate. After a longdetention, the flag was sent back without an answer. It was not untilthe forenoon of the 11th that the English opened fire upon the city, their batteries containing forty-five guns. That regard for "unoffendinginhabitants" with which the English of 1847 were afflicted, whenAmerican guns fired on Vera Cruz, was not felt by their ancestors of1762. Judging from the language of English writers, we should infer thatEngland has a vested right to pound and pulverize all places that refuseto acknowledge her supremacy but that such conduct as distinguished hertroops at Copenhagen and elsewhere is wanton butchery when imitated bythe military of other nations. Be that as it may, it is a fact that theBritish batteries pounded the Havana savagely on the 11th of August, onehundred and one years ago, without causing any alarm to either LordAlbemarle or his army as to the opinion of their countrymen; and thepounding-match was so pronouncedly in favor of the English, that by twoo'clock in the afternoon the Spaniards offered to surrender. Asuspension of hostilities followed, and the negotiations ended in thecapitulation of the place on the 13th of August. At ten o'clock on the14th, the Punta was taken possession of by General Keppel; and two hourslater, the city gate and battery of that name. The landward gate washeld by Colonel Howe, the Sir William Howe of our Revolutionary War. Thenumber of regular troops who became prisoners was nine hundred andninety-three, without counting the sick or wounded, and including bothmen and officers. They were sent on board the English ships. 

The terms granted by the English were honorable to both parties. TheSpanish troops marched out with all the honors of war. The officers wereallowed to preserve all their personal effects. Civil officers werepermitted to remain on the island, or to leave it, as they should elect. Everything that belonged to the Spanish army or navy, that was withinthe limits of the territory surrendered, became prize of war. TheCatholic religion was to be maintained in all its force, but thenomination of all religious functionaries was to be subject to theapproval of the English Governor. The inhabitants were to be protectedin all their rights, and might go or stay, as they should think best fortheir interest. There were other liberal provisions made, indicative ofa desire on the part of the conquerors to behave handsomely toward theconquered. The only portion of the property of the King of Spain whichthe victors allowed him to retain consisted of his slaves, of which hewas left at liberty to dispose as he might think proper. England wasthen a slave-holding and a slave-trading nation, and she could notafford to set the example of disregarding the right of man to holdproperty in men. Though the age of cotton had not then dawned, the ageof conscience was quite as far below the moral horizon. 

Besides the Havana and its immediate territory, the terms of thesurrender placed in the hands of the English as much of the island ofCuba as extended one hundred and eighty miles to the west, whichbelonged to the government of the place. This was a great conquest, andit was in the power of the conquerors to become masters of the wholeisland. 

The most remarkable fact connected with the conquest of Cuba was thesuccess with which the English contended, not only against a valiantenemy, but against the difficulties of climate. No severer trial wasever presented to troops than that which they encountered and overcameon the Cuban coast at a time of the year when that coast is at itsworst; and it was a much more unhealthy quarter then than it is to-day. They had to bear up against drought, heat, hunger, thirst, sickness, andthe fire of the Spaniards; and they stood in constant danger of beingseparated from their supporting fleet, which had no sufficient shelter, and might have been destroyed, if a tropical hurricane had set in. Yetagainst all these evils they bore up, and, with very inferior means, succeeded in accomplishing their purpose, and in making one of thegreatest conquests of the most brilliant war in which their country everwas engaged. All this they did with but little loss, comparativelyspeaking. They had 346 men and officers killed or mortally wounded; 620wounded; 691 died from sickness or fatigue; and 130 were missing. Thisloss, 1790 in all, exclusive of the casualties on shipboard, cannot beconsidered large, for it could not have been above one-eighth part ofthe invading force, counting the reinforcements that arrived while thesiege was going on. Compared with the enormous losses of life and limbthat characterize our war, it is a mere bagatelle; and the magnitude ofthe prize is to be set off in contrast to the price which it cost. Someof the regiments employed, however, were destined to suffer severelyfrom the effects of their visit to Cuba; for, being sent to New York, the severity of a North-American winter was too much for constitutionsthat had been subjected for months to the heats of the tropics. Theywere Irishly decimated, losing about nine-tenths of their men. [6]

If we can believe the Spaniards, --and we see no reason for doubting thesubstantial correctness of their assertions, --Lord Albemarle'sgovernment was one of much severity, and even cruelty. He ruled theHavana with a bundle of _fasces_, the rods being of iron, and the axesharp, and which did not become rusty from want of use. It was enoughthat a man was "guilty of being suspected" to insure him a drum-headcourt-martial, which tribunal sent many men to the scaffold, sometimesdenying them religious consolations, an aggravation of punishmentpeculiarly terrible to Catholics, and which seems to have been wantonlyinflicted, and in a worse spirit than that of the old persecutors, forit had not even fanaticism for its excuse. The spirit of thecapitulation seems to have been quite disregarded, though its letter mayhave been adhered to. There may be some exaggeration in the Spanishstatements, too, --men who are subject to military rule generally lookingat the conduct of their governors through very powerful glasses. It isimpossible for them to do otherwise; and the mildest proconsul that everruled must still be nothing but a proconsul, even if he were an angel. Every man thus placed is entitled to as charitable construction of hisconduct as can conscientiously be made; but this the English do notappear to understand, when the conduct of men of other races iscanvassed. With their own history blotched all over with cruel actsperpetrated by their military commanders, they set themselves up tojudge of the deeds of the generals of other peoples, as if they alonecould furnish impartial courts for the rendering of historical verdicts. Their treatment of some American commanders, and particularly GeneralButler, is not decent in a people whose officers have wantonly pouredout blood, often innocent, in nearly every country under the sun. Therewas more cruelty practised by the English in any one month of the SepoyWar than has disgraced both sides of the Secession contest for the twoyears through which it has been waged. The English are not a cruelpeople, --quite the reverse, --but it is a fact that their militaryhistory abounds more in devilish acts than that of any other people ofcorresponding civilization. The reason of this is, that they look uponall men who resist them in some such spirit as the Romans regarded theirfoes, and as being in some sense rebels. It is only with those who rebelagainst other Governments that those who live under the EnglishGovernment ever sympathize. 

The capture of the Havana produced a "sensation" in the North-Americancolonies. The news was a month in reaching this part of the country, andPhiladelphia, the most important place in British America, had thepleasure of first hearing it in fourteen days from the seat of war. Itwas "expressed" to New York, which town got it on the 11th of September;and it was published in the Boston "Gazette" of Monday, September 13th, the same day on which our ancestors were gratified by the publication ofthe London "Gazette" Extraordinary giving a detailed account of PrinceFerdinand's victory at Wilhelmsthal, on the 24th of June. There is not aline of editorial comment, but the news is clearly and vigorously given, special mention being made of the spoil, which included, according toone authority, fourteen million milled dollars. It is stated, inconclusion, that "the Spanish families that had withdrawn from the cityto the country were all returned with their baggage, and were inpossession of their habitations; and some soldiers and English Negroeswere hanged for committing some small thefts on them. " In the "Gazette"of September 20th there are published some details of the operations inCuba; and under the "Boston head" is a brief account of the rejoicingsthat took place in Boston, on the 16th, in honor of the great event, andof British successes in Germany. "In the morning, " says the account, "His Excellency, [Governor Bernard, ] accompanied by the two Houses ofAssembly, attended divine service at the Old Brick Meeting House, and asermon well adapted to this joyful occasion was preached by the Rev. Dr. SEWALL: At 12 o'clock the cannon at Castle William and the batteries inthis town and Charlestown were discharged: In the afternoon the Bellsrang; and His Excellency with the two Houses was escorted by his Companyof Cadets to Concert Hall, where a fine piece of music was performed, tothe satisfaction of a very large assembly; and in the evening there werebeautiful illuminations, and a great variety of fire works in many partsof the town.... We hear there has also been great rejoicings on the latesuccess of the British arms in most of the neighboring towns, particularly at Charlestown, Salem, and Marblehead, where wereilluminations, bonfires, and other demonstrations of joy. " Oldnewspapers, letters, and pamphlets show that "demonstrations of joy"were far from being confined to New-England towns. They extended overthe whole of the thirteen colonies, every man in which was proud ofbelonging to a nation which had achieved such great things in a war thathad opened most gloomily, as do most English and American contests. Theconquest of Canada had removed a weight from the colonial mind that hadpreyed upon it for generations; and though not one man in a hundred, itis probable, thought of the vast consequences that were to follow fromthe victories of Wolfe and Amherst, it is certain that those victorieshad greatly exalted the American heart; and now that they were followedby the conquest of Cuba, made at the expense of a great nation withwhich England was at peace when Quebec and Montreal had passed into herpossession, it is not strange that our ancestors should have become moreimpressed than ever with the honor of belonging to the British empire. They were not only loyal, but they were loyal to a point that resembledfanaticism. It has been said of them that they were "as loyal to theirprince and as proud of their country as the people of Kent orYorkshire, "--and these words do not exaggerate what was the generalsentiment of the colonists in 1762. England was still "home" to them, though more than a hundred and fifty years had gone by since the firstpermanent English colony was founded in America; and to the feeling thatbelonged to the inhabitants of England the colonists added thatreverence which is created for the holders of power by remoteness fromtheir presence and want of familiarity. Such was the condition ofAmerica a century ago, but soon to be changed through conduct on thepart of George III. , conduct that amounted to a crime, and for which nodefence can be made but that of insanity, --a defence but too wellfounded in this instance. The sense of the colonists, therefore, waswell expressed by Governor Bernard, when, on the 23d of September, heput forth a proclamation, at the request of the Assembly, for a PublicThanksgiving on the 7th of October. After enumerating various causes forthankfulness that existed, all of which relate to victories won indifferent parts of the world, His Excellency proceeds to say, --"Butabove all, with hearts full of gratitude and amazement, we mustcontemplate the glorious and important conquest of the Havana; which, considering the strength of the place, the resolution of the defendants, and the unhealthiness of the climate, seems to have the visible hand ofGod in it, and to be designed by His Providence to punish the pride andinjustice of that Prince who has so unnecessarily made himself a partyin this war. "

Thus did our fathers rejoice over a great military success which gaveadditional glory to a country to which they were proud to belong. Norwere they insensible to the solid gains of that success, which, indeed, they overrated, not only because they supposed the conquered territorywould be retained by the conquerors, but because they believed theimmediate fruits of victory were far greater than they proved to be. Inthe Boston "Gazette" of September 20th it is stated that one of thecaptured Spanish ships had five million dollars on board, that almostforty million dollars in specie had already been counted, and that theshare of Lord Albemarle would give him an income of twelve thousandpounds per annum, and Admiral Pocock was to have an equal amount. 

In our time, politicians have the advantage of all other men in thematter of spoils. Such was not the state of things one hundred yearsago. The politicians were as well off in those times as they are inthese, --perhaps they were bettor off, for things could then be openlydone by civilians, in the way of plundering, that the men of to-day haveto do as secretly as good Christians say their prayers. There were alsomany lucrative offices then in existence which have since disappearedunder the labors of those economical reformers of whom Edmund Burke wasthe first in every respect. But in 1762 military men had "rights" whichthis modern world has ceased to regard as utterly as if all soldierswere Negroes. One hundred years ago it was not an uncommon thing for asuccessful general to win as much gold on a victorious field as glory. It was the sunsetting time of the age of plunder; and the sun set verybrilliantly. The solid gains of heroes were then so great that theirmere statement in figures affects the reader's mind, and perverts hisjudgment of their actions. Not quite twenty years earlier, the gallantAnson made his famous cruise round the world; and when he took theManila galleon, he found in her, besides other booty, silver of thevalue of a million and a half of dollars, to defend which the Spaniardsfought as men generally fight for their money. Five years beforeAlbemarle took the Havana, Clive took, for his own share of SurajahDoulah's personals, over a million of dollars, from the treasury ofMoorshedabad. That was the prize of Plassey. A little later, he accepteda present in land that must have been worth over two million of dollars, as the annual income it yielded was twenty-seven thousand pounds, orabout one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Other British proconsulswere also fortunate in India. The same year that saw the English flagflying over so much of Cuba saw another English force, commanded by SirWilliam Draper, reduce the Philippine Islands, taking possession of thewhole group by virtue of a capitulation. The naval force thataccompanied Draper captured the Acapulco galleon, which had a cargo ofthe value of three million dollars. The English attacked Manila withoutthe Spanish garrison's having had any official notification of theexistence of hostilities. The town was defended by the Archbishop, whobehaved with bravery, and showed considerable skill in war; but aftersome days' fighting the English got into the town by storming it, andthen gave it up to the rough mercies of a hardened soldiery, some ofwhom were Sepoys, a description of warriors of whom the English now askus to believe all that is abominable. Manila was most savagely treatedby heathen soldiers led by Christian chiefs, a fact to be commended tothe consideration of those humane Englishmen who can with difficultybreathe while reading General Butler's arrangement for the maintenanceof order in New Orleans. The Archbishop and some of the officers gotinto the citadel, and there they negotiated a capitulation. They agreedto ransom their property by paying down two million dollars, and bydrawing bills for a like sum upon the Spanish treasury, which billsDraper was green enough to accept. The Spanish Government refused to paythe bills when they had matured, and though Draper entreated the EnglishMinisters to interpose in behalf of himself and his comrades, nointerposition could he induce them to make. When Sir William was sounwise as to run a course of pointed pens with "Junius, " that freelancer, who upset men of all degrees as easily as Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoeunhorsed the knights-challengers in the lists at Ashby, brought up theManila business, and, with his usual hardihood, charged his antagonistwith having most dishonorably given up the ransom, and with having soldhis comrades. Sir William, who had volunteered in defence of his friend, Lord Granby, (the same gentleman who used to figure on sign-boards, andwhose name was then as much in English mouths as General Meade's is onAmerican tongues to-day, ) soon had to fight in his own defence, and hemade a very poor figure in the contest. In a letter from Clifton, to theprinter of the "Public Advertiser, " he wrote, --"I here most solemnlydeclare, that I never received either from the East India Company, orfrom the Spaniards, directly or indirectly, any present or gratificationor any circumstance of emolument whatsoever, to the amount of fiveshillings, during the whole course of the expedition, or afterwards, mylegal prize-money excepted. The Spaniards know that I refused the sum offifty thousand pounds offered me by the Archbishop, to mitigate theterms of the ransom, and to reduce it to half a million, instead of awhole one; so that, had I been disposed to have basely sold the partnersof my victory, Avarice herself could not have wished for a richeropportunity. " Sir William's language is valuable, as showing what sortof prizes were then in the wheel of Fortune, with military men only totake tickets. More than one British house of high consideration owes itsaffluence to the good luck of some ancestor in the noble art of pillage. Yet how often do we come across, in English books, denunciations of thedeeds of plunder done by the French in Spain and Portugal! Shall we everhear the last of Maréchal Soult's Murillos? It was but yesterday thatthe Koh-i-Noor was stolen by the English, and added to the crown-jewelsof Great Britain; and it was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1851, where it must have been regarded as a proof of the skill of the_Chevaliers d'Industrie_. Why it should be lawful and honorable to seizediamonds, and unlawful and improper to seize pictures, we cannot say;but Mr. Stirling, in his "Annals of the Artists of Spain, " says, "Soultat Seville, and Sebastiani at Granada, collected with unerring taste andunexampled rapacity, and, having thus signalized themselves as robbersin war, became no less eminent as picture-dealers in peace. " Was it moreimmoral in Maréchal le Due de Dalmatie to take Murillos than it was inField-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to take the lead in cutting theKoh-i-Noor, the pictures as well as the diamond being spoil of war?There is something eminently absurd in English morality, when Englishmenseek to lay down rules for the governance of the world. It amounts tothis: that they shall be at liberty to plunder everybody, but that allother men shall stay their hands, no matter how great may be thetemptation, to help themselves to their enemies' goods. 

The conquerors of the Havana had no scruples on the subject of plunder. They obtained, in treasure and other property, about fourteen millionsof dollars, --a great sum, though not a third part so large as had beenassigned them by the newspapers. Not content with this, they sought toget a donation from the citizens, to the amount of two hundred thousanddollars; but the attempt failed, and was not persisted in, when it wasfound that the Spaniards were utterly averse to giving on compulsion. Ademand was made, through Colonel Cleveland, who commanded the artillery, "on the Bishop and the clergy, requiring an account of the bells of thechurches, convents, and monasteries of the Havana and the other towns inthe district, as well as of the _ingenios_ in the neighborhood, and ofall such metal as is used in the making of bells, in order that thevalue might be adjusted, and the amount paid, according, as he asserted, to the laws and customs of war, when a city after a siege hassurrendered by capitulation. " The astonished Bishop wrote to LordAlbemarle, and had the satisfaction of learning from that eminentauthority, that, "when a city was besieged and taken, the commander ofthe artillery receives a gratification, and that Colonel Cleveland hadmade the demand with his Lordship's concurrence. " This mode of kissingthe rod was not at all to the taste of the worthy prelate, excellentChristian though he was. It was bad enough to give "a gratification" toan enemy because he had pounded them with balls until they had beenforced to surrender; but it was an aggravation of the original evil tohave to redeem "blessed bells" from the heretics who had come fourthousand miles to disturb the repose of the Spanish Indies. Butnegotiation was unavoidable. What would the Colonel take, and close thetransaction? The Colonel said he would take such a sum as the capturedchurches could reasonably contribute to his purse. He was offered onethousand dollars; but that he treated as a mistake, and to assist thereverend and venerable negotiators to a conclusion, he named thirtythousand dollars. To this they objected, and appealed to Lord Albemarleagainst the demand of his officer. His Lordship, with his pocketscrammed with Spanish gold, was disposed to act handsomely in thisinstance, and cut down the Colonel's bill to ten thousand dollars. Buteven this sum the clergy professed themselves utterly unable to pay. According to their own showing, they were genuine successors of theApostles, being without a penny in their purses. They began to beg foraid; but, either because the Spaniards were sulky with the Saints forhaving allowed the heretics to succeed, or that they did not wish toattract the attention of those heretics to their property, the beggingbusiness did not pay. Only one hundred and three dollars could becollected. This failure was made known to Lord Albemarle, but he kept aprofound silence, sending no reply to the clergy's plaintivecommunication. They, however, had not long to wait for an answer. Colonel Cleveland waited upon them again, and said, that, as the cashwas not forthcoming, he should content himself with taking the bells, all of which must be taken down, and delivered to him on the 4th ofSeptember. After this there was no further room for negotiation with agentleman who commanded great guns. The Bishop handed over the tenthousand dollars, and the Colonel departed from his presence. The bellsremained in their proper places, and some of them, no doubt, remainthere to this day, the bell being long-lived, and making sweet musicyears after Albemarle, Cleveland, and the rest of the spoilmen have goneto their account. 

Lord Albemarle had a correspondence with the Bishop respecting the useof one of the churches as a place of Protestant worship, and laid downthe cannon law so strongly and clearly, that the prelate, after makingsuch resistance as circumstances admitted of, --and he would not havebeen a good Catholic, if he had done less, --told him to take whicheverchurch he chose; and he took that of the Franciscans. His Lordship, however, was much more devoted to the worship of Mammon than to theworship of God, and, accordingly, on the 19th of October, he wrote tothe Bishop concerning the donation-dodge, in the following polite andperemptory terms;--"Most Illustrious Sir, I am sorry to be under thenecessity of writing to your Lordship what ought to have been thought ofsome days ago, namely, a donation from the Church to theCommander-in-Chief of the victorious army. The least that your Lordshipcan offer will be one hundred thousand dollars. I wish to live in peacewith your Lordship and with the Church, as I have shown in all that hashitherto occurred, and I hope that your Lordship will not give me reasonto alter my intentions. I kiss your Lordship's hand. Your humbleservant, Albemarle. " The Bishop, though a clever and clear-sighted man, could not see this matter in the light in which Lord Albemarle lookedupon it. He thought the demand a violation of the terms of surrender;and he sought the mediation of Admiral Pocock, but without strengtheninghis position. To a demand for the list of benefices, coupled with thedeclaration that non-compliance would lead to the Bishop's beingproclaimed a violator of the treaty, the prelate replied, that he wouldrefer the matter, and some others, to the courts of Spain and England. Upon this the British General lost all patience, and issued aproclamation, declaring "that the conduct of the Bishop was seditious;that he had forgotten that he was now a subject of Great Britain; andthat it was absolutely necessary he should be expelled from the island, and sent to Florida in one of the British ships of war, in order thatpublic tranquillity might be maintained, and that good correspondenceand harmony might continue between the new and the old subjects of theKing, which the conduct of the Bishop had visibly interrupted. " Thewhole of this business presents the English commander in a mostcontemptible light. Not content with the six hundred thousand dollarswhich he had already pocketed, as his share of the spoil, he assumed thepart of Bull Beggar toward the Bishop, in the hope that he might extortone hundred thousand dollars more from the Church, for his own personalbenefit, for the "donation" was not to go into the common stock; andwhen his threats failed, he turned tyrant at the expense of a venerableofficer of the most ancient of Christian churches. What an outcry wouldbe raised in England, if an American commander were to make a similardisplay of avarice and cruelty!

The manner in which the spoil was divided among the conquerors causedmuch ill-feeling, and not unnaturally. Lord Albemarle took to himself£122, 697 10_s. _ 6_d. _, and an equal amount was bestowed upon AdmiralPocock. Lieutenant-General Elliot and Commodore Keppel had £24, 53910_s. _ 1_d. _ each. To a major-general was given £6, 816 10_s. _ 6-1/2_d. _and to a brigadier-general £1, 947 11_s. _ 7_d. _ A captain in the navy had£1, 600 10_s. _ 10_d. _, and an army-captain, £184 4_s. _ 7-1/4_d. _ And sothe sums went on decreasing, until there were paid to the privatesoldier, £4 1_s. _ 8-1/2_d. _, and to the ordinary seaman £3 14_s. _9-3/4_d. _ The profit as well as the honor of the expedition all went tothe leaders. What made the matter worse was, that the distribution wasmade in violation of rules, which were not formed to favor "the commonfile, " but which would have done them more justice than they received atthe hands of Pocock and Albemarle. After all, no worse was done thanwhat we see daily happen in the world, and the distribution appears tobe a practical satire on the ordinary course of human life. 

Lord Albemarle was severely censured in England for his manner ofassailing the Havana, it being held that he should have attacked thetown, which was in an almost defenceless condition, whereas the Morrowas strong, and made a good defence, which might have led to the failureof the expedition, and would have done so but for the circumstance thatno hurricane happened. But the general public was satisfied with thevictory, and did not trouble itself much about the manner in which ithad been gained. It was right. Had General McClellan taken Richmond, howmany of us would have listened to the military critics who should havebeen so kind as to show us how he ought to have taken it? Judging fromsome observations in Horace Walpole's "Correspondence, " the English, though surfeited with victory, were much pleased with their Cubanconquest. Sir Joseph Yorke, writing on the 9th of October, ten daysafter the news had reached England, says, --"All the world is struck withthe noble capture of the Havana, which fell into our hands on the Princeof Wales's birthday, as a just punishment upon the Spaniards for theirunjust quarrel with us, and for the supposed difficulties they haveraised in the negotiations for peace. " Those negotiations had beenopenly commenced in less than a month after the fall of the Havana, andsome weeks before news of that brilliant event had reached Europe. Theterms of the treaty of peace were speedily settled, one of thestipulations being, that Spain should preserve her old limits; and, "moreover, " says Earl Stanhope, "it was agreed that any conquests thatmight meanwhile have been made by any of the parties in any quarter ofthe globe, but which were not yet known, (words comprising at thatperiod of the negotiation both the Havana and the Philippines, ) shouldbe restored without compensation. " Had the preliminary articles beensigned at once, the Spaniards would have recovered all they had lost inCuba, without further trouble or cost; but their negotiator, thecelebrated Grimaldi, was so confident that the invaders of Cuba would bebeaten, that he played the waiting game, and was beaten himself. Whenintelligence of English success arrived at Paris, where the treaty wasmaking, Grimaldi was suddenly found as ready to sign as formerly he hadbeen backward; but now the English negotiator, the Duke of Bedford, became backward in his turn, as representing the unwillingness of hisGovernment to give up the Havana without an equivalent. Lord Bute wouldhave given up the conquest without a word said, but all his colleagueswere not so blind to the advantages which that conquest had placed atthe command of England; and finally it was agreed that the Duke ofBedford should demand the cession of Florida or Porto Rico as the priceof the restoration of that portion of Cuba which was in English hands. The Spaniards gladly complied with the British demand, and gave Floridain exchange for Cuba. At one time it was supposed that the victory ofAlbemarle and Pocock would lead to the continuance of the war. HoraceWalpole wrote to his friend Conway that the Havana was more likely tobreak off the peace than to advance it, and that the English were not ina humor to give up the world, but were much more disposed to conquer therest of it. He added, "We shall have some cannonading here, I believe, if we sign the peace. " But the King and the Premier werepeace-at-any-price men, and the way to their purpose was smoothedcompletely; yet Lord Bute wrote to the Duke of Bedford, on the 24th ofOctober, "Such is the change made here by the conquest of the Havana, that I solemnly declare, I don't meet with one man, let his attachmentbe never so strong to the service of the King, his wishes for peacenever so great, that does not positively affirm, this rich acquisitionmust not be ceded without satisfaction in the fishery, and some materialcompensation: this is so much the opinion of all the King's servants, that the greatest care has been taken to soften every expression, " etc. In July, 1763, the English restored their acquisitions in Cuba to theSpaniards, and their soldiers returned to Europe. 

In a few years it was seen that the Bute arrangement, so far asconcerned the Havana, was, for England, thoroughly a Glaucian bargain. She had obtained Florida, which was of no worth to her, and she hadgiven up the Havana, which might have been made one of her most usefulacquisitions. That place became the chief American port of the greatalliance that was formed against England after she had become committedto war with the new United States. Great fleets and armies were thereassembled, which did the English much mischief. Florida was reconqueredby an expedition from the Havana, and another expedition was successfulin an attack on Nassau; and Jamaica was threatened. Had England notgiven up the place to the Spaniards, not only would these things havebeen impossible, but she might have employed it with effect in her ownmilitary operations, and have maintained her ascendency in theWest-Indian seas. Or, if she had preferred that course, she might havemade it the price of Spain's neutrality during the American War, returning it to her on condition that she should not assist the UnitedStates; and as the Family Compact then existed in all its force, Spain'sinfluence might have been found sufficiently powerful to prevent Francefrom giving that assistance to our fathers which undoubtedly securedtheir independence. All subsequent history has been deeply colored bythe surrender of the Havana in 1763. But for that, Washington and hisassociates might have failed. But for that, the French Revolution mighthave been postponed, as that Revolution was precipitated through theexistence of financial difficulties which were largely owing to the partFrance took in the war that ended in the establishment of ournationality. But for that, England might have secured and consolidatedher American dominion, and the House of Hanover at this moment have beenruling over the present United States and Confederate States. GeorgeIII, and Lord Bute could not foresee any of these things, and theycannot be censured because they were blind to what was invisible to allmen; but their reckless desire for peace led them to regret thesuccesses of the English arms, and they were ready to make anysacrifices that could be named, not because they loved peace for itself, but because, while the war should last, it would not be possible for themonarch to follow his mother's advice to "be a king" in fact as well asin name, --advice that was destined to cost the King much, and his realmfar more. 

 * * * * *

EQUINOCTIAL. 

 The Sun of Life has crossed the line: The summer-shine of lengthened light Faded and failed, --till, where I stand, 'Tis equal Day and equal Night. 

 One after one, as dwindling hours, Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away, And soon may barely leave the gleam That coldly scores a winter's day. 

 I am not young, I am not old; The flush of morn, the sunset calm, Paling, and deepening, each to each, Meet midway with a solemn charm. 

 One side I see the summer fields Not yet disrobed of all their green; While westerly, along the hills, Flame the first tints of frosty sheen. 

 Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm Make battle-ground of this my life! Where, even-matched, the Night and Day Wage round me their September strife!

 I bow me to the threatening gale: I know, when that is overpast, Among the peaceful harvest-days, An Indian-summer comes at last!

 * * * * *

THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO. 

The cautious reader will detect a lack of authenticity in the followingpages, I am not a cautious reader myself, yet I confess with someconcern to the absence of much documentary evidence in support of thesingular incident I am about to relate. Disjointed memoranda, theproceedings of _ayuntamientos_ and early departmental _juntas_, withother records of a primitive and superstitious people, have been myinadequate authorities. It is but just to state, however, that, thoughthis particular story lacks corroboration, in ransacking the Spanisharchives of Upper California I have met with many more surprising andincredible stories, attested and supported to a degree that would haveplaced this legend beyond a cavil or doubt. I have, also, never lostfaith in the legend myself, and in so doing have profited much from theexamples of divers grant-claimants, who have often jostled me in theirmore practical researches, and who have my sincere sympathy at theskepticism of a modern hard-headed and practical world. 

For many years after Father Junipero Serro first rang his bell in thewilderness of Upper California, the spirit which animated thatadventurous priest did not wane. The conversion of the heathen went onrapidly in the establishment of Missions throughout the land. Sosedulously did the good Fathers set about their work, that around theirisolated chapels there presently arose _adobe_ huts, whose mud-plasteredand savage tenants partook regularly of the provisions, and occasionallyof the Sacrament, of their pious hosts. Nay, so great was their process, that one zealous Padre is reported to have administered the Lord'sSupper one Sabbath morning to "over three hundred heathen Salvages. " Itwas not to be wondered that the Enemy of Souls, being greatly incensedthereat, and alarmed at his decreasing popularity, should havegrievously tempted and embarrassed these Holy Fathers, as we shallpresently see. 

Yet they were happy, peaceful days for California. The vagrant keels ofprying Commerce had not, as yet, ruffled the lordly gravity of her bays. No torn and ragged gulch betrayed the suspicion of golden treasure. Thewild oats drooped idly in the morning heat, or wrestled with theafternoon breezes. Deer and antelope dotted the plain. The water-coursesbrawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting theirregular tide. The wonders of the Yo-Semite and Calaveras were as yetunrecorded. The Holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond thebarbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing. A newconversion, the advent of a Saint's day, or the baptism of an Indianbaby, was at once the chronicle and marvel of their day. 

At this blissful epoch, there lived, at the Mission of San Pablo, FatherJosé Antonio Haro, a worthy brother of the Society of Jesus. He was oftall and cadaverous aspect. A somewhat romantic history had given apoetic interest to his lugubrious visage. While a youth, pursuing hisstudies at famous Salamanca, he had become enamored of the charms ofDoña Cármen de Torrencevara, as that lady passed to her matutinaldevotions. Untoward circumstances, hastened, perhaps, by a wealthiersuitor, brought this amour to a disastrous issue; and Father Joséentered a monastery, taking upon himself the vows of celibacy. It washere that his natural fervor and poetic enthusiasm conceived expressionas a missionary. A longing to convert the uncivilized heathen succeededhis frivolous earthly passion, and a desire to explore and developunknown fastnesses continually possessed him. In his flashing eye andsombre exterior was detected a singular commingling of the discreet LasCasas and the impetuous Balboa. 

Fired by this pious zeal, Father José went forward in the van ofChristian pioneers. On reaching Mexico, he obtained authority toestablish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompaniedonly by an acolyth and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky_cañon_, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages--a peaceful, inoffensive, and inferior race--presently flocked around him. Thenearest military post was far away, which contributed much to thesecurity of these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness andamiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of anarmed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father José saidmatins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of Sin and Heathenism, taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the HolyChurch. Conversions soon followed, and, on the 7th of July, 1760, thefirst Indian baby was baptized, --an event which, as Father José piouslyrecords, "exceeds the richnesse of gold or precious jewels or thechancing upon the Ophir of Solomon. " I quote this incident as bestsuited to show the ingenuous blending of poetry and piety whichdistinguished Father José's record. 

The Mission of San Pablo progressed and prospered until the piousfounder thereof, like the infidel Alexander, might have wept that therewere no more heathen worlds to conquer. But his ardent and enthusiasticspirit could not long brook an idleness that seemed begotten of sin; andone pleasant August morning, in the year of grace 1770, Father Joséissued from the outer court of the Mission building, equipped to explorethe field for new missionary labors. 

Nothing could exceed the quite gravity and unpretentiousness of thelittle cavalcade. First rode a stout muleteer, leading a pack-mule ladenwith the provisions of the party, together with a few cheap crucifixesand hawks' bells. After him came the devout Padre José, bearing hisbreviary and cross, with a black _serapa_ thrown around his shoulders;while on either side trotted a dusky convert, anxious to show a propersense of their regeneration by acting as guides into the wilds of theirheathen brethren. Their new condition was agreeably shown by the absenceof the usual mud-plaster, which in their unconverted state they assumedto keep away vermin and cold. The morning was bright and propitious. Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and theprotection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, butespecially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemedto cherish an unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. 

As they wound through the _cañon_, charming birds disported upon boughsand sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowywater-courses gave a musical utterance, and the long grass whispered onthe hill-side. On entering the deeper defiles, above them towered darkgreen masses of pine, and occasionally the _madroño_ shook its brightscarlet berries. As they toiled up many a steep ascent, Father Josésometimes picked up fragments of scoria, which spake to his imaginationof direful volcanoes and impending earthquakes. To the less scientificmind of the muleteer Ignacio they had even a more terrifyingsignificance; and he once or twice snuffed the air suspiciously, anddeclared that it smelt of sulphur. So the first day of their journeywore away, and at night they encamped without having met a singleheathen face. 

It was on this night that the Enemy of Souls appeared to Ignacio in anappalling form. He had retired to a secluded part of the camp, and hadsunk upon his knees in prayerful meditation, when he looked up andperceived the Arch-Fiend in the likeness of a monstrous bear. The EvilOne was seated on his hind legs immediately before him, with his forepaws joined together just below his black muzzle. Wisely conceiving thisremarkable attitude to be in mockery and derision of his devotions, theworthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebuse, heinstantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from theeffects of the terrible discharge, the apparition had disappeared. Father José, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time tochide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with onewhom a single _ave_ would have been sufficient to utterly discomfit. What further reliance he placed on Ignacio's story is not known; but, incommemoration of a worthy Californian custom, the place was called _LaCañada de la Tentacion del Pio Muletero_, or "The Glen of the Temptationof the Pious Muleteer, " a name which it retains to this day. 

The next morning, the party, issuing from a narrow gorge, came upon along valley, sear and burnt with the shadeless heat. Its lower extremitywas lost in a fading line of low hills, which, gathering might andvolume toward the upper end of the valley, upheaved a stupendous bulwarkagainst the breezy North. The peak of this awful spur was just touchedby a fleecy cloud that shifted to and fro like a banneret. Father Joségazed with mingled awe and admiration. By a singular coincidence, themuleteer Ignacio uttered the simple ejaculation, "_Diablo_!"

As they penetrated the valley, they soon began to miss the agreeablelife and companionable echoes of the _cañon_ they had quitted. Hugefissures in the parched soil seemed to gape as with thirsty mouths. Afew squirrels darted from the earth, and disappeared as mysteriouslybefore the jingling mules. A gray wolf trotted leisurely along justahead. But whichever way Father José turned, the mountain alwaysasserted itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and aridvalley, it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernousshadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of itselevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy rootsfrom a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled witha majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity, he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Fardifferent were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awfulsolitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and break-neck trails. Theconverts, Concepcion and Incarnation, trotting modestly beside thePadre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of their former weirdmythology. 

At nightfall they reached the base of the mountain. Here Father Joséunpacked his mules, said vespers, and, formally ringing his bell, calledupon the Gentiles within hearing to come and accept the Holy Faith. Theechoes of the black frowning hills around him caught up the piousinvitation, and repeated it at intervals; but no Gentiles appeared thatnight. Nor were the devotions of the muleteer again disturbed, althoughhe afterward asserted, that, when the Father's exhortation was ended, amocking peal of laughter came from the mountain. Nothing daunted bythese intimations of the near hostility of the Evil One, Father Josédeclared his intention to ascend the mountain at early dawn; and beforethe sun rose the next morning he was leading the way. 

The ascent was in many places difficult and dangerous. Huge fragments ofrock often lay across the trail, and after a few hours' climbing theywere forced to leave their mules in a little gully, and continue theascent afoot. Unaccustomed to such exertion, Father José often stoppedto wipe the perspiration from his thin cheeks. As the day wore on, astrange silence oppressed them. Except the occasional pattering of asquirrel, or a rustling in the _chimisal_ bushes, there were no signs oflife. The half-human print of a bear's foot sometimes appeared beforethem, at which Ignacio always crossed himself piously. The eye wassometimes cheated by a dripping from the rocks, which on closerinspection proved to be a resinous oily liquid with an abominablesulphurous smell. When they were within a short distance of the summit, the discreet Ignacio, selecting a sheltered nook for the camp, slippedaside and busied himself in preparations for the evening, leaving theHoly Father to continue the ascent alone. Never was there a morethoughtless act of prudence, never a more imprudent piece of caution. Without noticing the desertion, buried in pious reflection, Father Josépushed mechanically on, and, reaching the summit, cast himself down andgazed upon the prospect. 

Below him lay a succession of valleys opening into each other likegentle lakes, until they were lost to the southward. Westerly thedistant range hid the bosky _cañada_ which sheltered the Mission of SanPablo. In the farther distance the Pacific Ocean stretched away, bearinga cloud of fog upon its bosom, which crept through the entrance of thebay, and rolled thickly between him and the North. Eastward, the samefog hid the base of the mountain and the view beyond. Still, from timeto time the fleecy veil parted, and timidly disclosed charming glimpsesof mighty rivers, mountain-defiles, and rolling plains, sear withripened oats, and bathed in the glow of the setting sun. As Father Joségazed, he was penetrated with a pious longing. Already his imagination, filled with enthusiastic conceptions, beheld all that vast expansegathered under the mild sway of the Holy Faith, and peopled with zealousconverts. Each little knoll in fancy became crowned with a chapel; fromeach dark _cañon_ gleamed the white walls of a Mission building. Growingbolder in his enthusiasm, and looking farther into futurity, he beheld anew Spain rising on these savage shores. He already saw the spires ofstately cathedrals, the domes of palaces, vineyards, gardens, andgroves. Convents, half-hid among the hills, peeped from plantation ofbranching limes; and long processions of chanting nuns wound through thedefiles. So completely was the good Father's conception of the futureconfounded with the past, that even in their choral strain thewell-remembered accents of Cármen struck his ear. He was busied in thesefanciful imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect thefaint, distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the_Angelus_. Father José listened with superstitious exaltation. TheMission of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been somemiraculous omen. But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did thesweet seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strangesignificance. With the last faint peal, his glowing fancy seemed tocool; the fog closed in below him, and the good Father remembered he hadnot had his supper. He had risen and was wrapping his _serapa_ aroundhim, when he perceived for the first time that he was not alone. 

Nearly opposite, and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, agrave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of anelderly _hidalgo_, dressed in mourning, with moustaches of iron-graycarefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstroushat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggeratedtrunk-hose, contrasting with a frame shrivelled and wizened, allbelonged to a century previous. Yet Father José was not astonished. Hisadventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the look-out forthe marvellous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical andmaterial minded. He instantly detected the diabolical quality of hisvisitant, and was prepared. With equal coolness and courtesy he met thecavalier's obeisance. 

"I ask your pardon, Sir Priest, " said the stranger, "for disturbing yourmeditations. Pleasant they must have been, and right fanciful, Iimagine, when occasioned by so fair a prospect. "

"Worldly, perhaps, Sir Devil, --for such I take you to be, " said the HolyFather, as the stranger bowed his black plumes to the ground; "worldly, perhaps; for it hath pleased Heaven to retain even in our regeneratedstate much that pertaineth to the flesh, yet still, I trust, not withoutsome speculation for the welfare of the Holy Church. In dwelling uponyon fair expanse, mine eyes have been graciously opened with propheticinspiration, and the promise of the heathen as an inheritance hathmarvellously recurred to me. For there can be none lack such diligencein the True Faith, but may see that even the conversion of these pitifulsalvages hath a meaning. As the blessed St. Ignatius discreetlyobserves, " continued Father José, clearing his throat and slightlyelevating his voice, "'the heathen is given to the warriors of Christ, even as the pearls of rare discovery which gladden the hearts ofshipmen. ' Nay, I might say"--

But here the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting hismoustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratoricalpause to observe, --

"It grieves me, Sir Priest, to interrupt the current of your eloquenceas discourteously as I have already broken your meditations; but theday already waneth to night. I have matter of serious import to makewith you, could I entreat your cautious consideration a few moments. "

Father José hesitated. The temptation was great, and the prospect ofacquiring some knowledge of the Great Enemy's plans not the leasttrifling object. And if the truth must be told, there was a certaindecorum about the stranger that interested the Padre. Though well awareof the Protean shapes the Arch-Fiend could assume, and though free fromthe weaknesses of the flesh, Father José was not above the temptationsof the spirit. Had the Devil appeared, as in the case of the pious St. Anthony, in the likeness of a comely damsel, the good Father, with hiscertain experience of the deceitful sex, would have whisked her away inthe saying of a paternoster. But there was, added to the security ofage, a grave sadness about the stranger, --a thoughtful consciousness asof being at a great moral disadvantage, --which at once decided him on amagnanimous course of conduct. 

The stranger then proceeded to inform him, that he had been diligentlyobserving the Holy Father's triumphs in the valley. That, far from beinggreatly exercised thereat, he had been only grieved to see soenthusiastic and chivalrous an antagonist wasting his zeal in a hopelesswork. For, he observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evilhad been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wantsbut a few moments of night, " he continued, "and over this interval oftwilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to theWest. "

As the Padre turned, the stranger took his enormous hat from his head, and waved it three times before him. At each sweep of the prodigiousfeather, the fog grew thinner, until it melted impalpably away, and theformer landscape returned, yet warm with the glowing sun. As Father Joségazed, a strain of martial music arose from the valley, and, issuingfrom a deep _cañon_, the good Father beheld a long cavalcade of gallantcavaliers, habited like his companion. As they swept down the plain, they were joined by like processions, that slowly defiled from everyravine and _cañon_ of the mysterious mountain. From time to time thepeal of a trumpet swelled fitfully upon the breeze; the cross ofSantiago glittered, and the royal banners of Castile and Aragon wavedover the moving column. So they moved on solemnly toward the sea, where, in the distance, Father José saw stately caravels, bearing the samefamiliar banner, awaiting them. The good Padre gazed with conflictingemotions, and the serious voice of the stranger broke the silence. 

"Thou hast beheld, Sir Priest, the fading footprints of adventurousCastile. Thou hast seen the declining glory of old Spain, --declining asyonder brilliant sun. The sceptre she hath wrested from the heathen isfast dropping from her decrepit and fleshless grasp. The children shehath fostered shall know her no longer. The soil she hath acquired shallbe lost to her as irrevocably as she herself hath thrust the Moor fromher own Granada. "

The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the sametime, Father José, whose sympathising heart yearned toward the departingbanners, cried, in poignant accents, --

"Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou, Nuñez de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable LasCasas! Farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!"

Then turning to the stranger, Father José beheld him gravely draw hispocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier, and apply itdecorously to his eyes. 

"Pardon this weakness, Sir Priest, " said the cavalier, apologetically;"but these worthy gentlemen were ancient friends of mine, and have doneme many a delicate service, --much more, perchance, than these poorsables may signify, " he added, with a grim gesture toward the mourningsuit he wore. 

Father José was too much preoccupied in reflection to notice theequivocal nature of this tribute, and, after a few moments' silence, said, as if continuing his thought, --

"But the seed they have planted shall thrive and prosper on thisfruitful soil?"

As if answering the interrogatory, the stranger turned to the oppositedirection, and, again waving his hat, said, in the same serious tone, --

"Look to the East!"

The Father turned, and, as the fog broke away before the waving plume, he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams throughthe passes of the snowy mountains beyond, appeared a strange and motleycrew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last phantomtrain, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and flaxenhair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical utterance, there rose upon the ear a strange din of harsh gutturals and singularsibilation. Instead of the decorous tread and stately mien of thecavaliers of the former vision, they came pushing, bustling, panting, and swaggering. And as they passed, the good Father noticed that gianttrees were prostrated as with the breath of a tornado, and the bowels ofthe earth were torn and rent as with a convulsion. And Father Josélooked in vain for holy cross or Christian symbol; there was but onethat seemed an ensign, and he crossed himself with holy horror as heperceived it bore the effigy of a bear!

"Who are these swaggering Ishmaelites?" he asked, with something ofasperity in his tone. 

The stranger was gravely silent. 

"What do they here, with neither cross nor holy symbol?" he againdemanded. 

"Have you the courage to see, Sir Priest?" responded the stranger, quietly. 

Father José felt his crucifix, as a lonely traveller might his rapier, and assented. 

"Step under the shadow of my plume, " said the stranger. 

Father José stepped beside him, and they instantly sank through theearth. 

When he opened his eyes, which had remained closed in prayerfulmeditation during his rapid descent, he found himself in a vast vault, bespangled overhead with luminous points like the starred firmament. Itwas also lighted by a yellow glow that seemed to proceed from a mightysea or lake that occupied the centre of the chamber. Around thissubterranean sea dusky figures flitted, bearing ladles filled with theyellow fluid, which they had replenished from its depths. From this lakediverging streams of the same mysterious flood penetrated like mightyrivers the cavernous distance. As they walked by the banks of thisglittering Styx, Father José perceived how the liquid stream at certainplaces became solid. The ground was strewn with glittering flakes. Oneof these the Padre picked up and curiously examined. It was virgin gold. 

An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father's face at thisdiscovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor satisfaction in thestranger's air, which was still of serious and fateful contemplation. When Father José recovered his equanimity, he said, bitterly, --

"This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure forthe weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the Christiangrace of holy Spain!"

"This is what must be, " returned the stranger, gloomily. "But listen, Sir Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a time. Leave mehere in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, yourimages, and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitateresults. Stay! promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack thatwhich will render your old age an ornament and blessing"; and thestranger motioned significantly to the lake. 

It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed--as healways shows sooner or later--his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre, sorelyperplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told, alittle nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanishdiscovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the Enemyof Souls touched his Castilian spirit. Starting back in deep disgust, hebrandished his crucifix in the face of the unmasked Fiend, and, in avoice that made the dusky vault resound, cried, --

"Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diabolus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou bribeme, --me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus, Licentiateof Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to buy me withthy sordid treasure? Avaunt!"

What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete mighthave been the triumph of the Holy Father over the Arch-Fiend, who wasrecoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the flourishing symbol, wecan never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped through hisfingers. 

Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and Holy Fathersimultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clenched, and the pious José, who was as much the superior of his antagonist inbodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversaryto a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of thestranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbingchillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, butin vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the late and cavern dancedbefore his eyes and vanished; and with a loud cry he sank senseless tothe ground. 

 * * * * *

When he recovered his consciousness he was aware of a gentle swayingmotion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw that it was high noon, and that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He feltstiff, and, looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged tohis side. 

He closed his eyes, and, after a few words of thankful prayer, thoughthow miraculously he had been preserved, and made a vow of candlesticksto the blessed Saint José. He then called in a faint voice, andpresently the penitent Ignacio stood beside him. 

The joy the poor fellow felt at his patron's returning consciousness forsome time choked his utterance. He could only ejaculate, "A miracle!Blessed Saint José, he lives!" and kiss the Padre's bandaged hand. Father José, more intent on his last night's experience, waited for hisemotion to subside, and then asked where he had been found. 

"On the mountain, your Reverence, but a few _varas_ from where heattacked you. "

"How?--you saw him, then?" asked the Padre, in unfeigned astonishment. 

"Saw him, your Reverence! Mother of God, I should think I did! And yourReverence shall see him too, if he ever comes again within range ofIgnacio's arquebuse. "

"What mean you, Ignacio?" said the Padre, sitting bolt-upright in hislitter. 

"Why, the bear, your Reverence, --the bear, Holy Father, who attackedyour worshipful person while you were meditating on the top of yondermountain. "

"Ah!" said the Holy Father, lying down again. "Chut, child! I would beat peace. "

When he reached the Mission, he was tenderly cared for, and in a fewweeks was enabled to resume those duties from which, as will be seen, not even the machinations of the Evil One could divert him. The news ofhis physical disaster spread over the country; and a letter to theBishop of Guadalaxara contained a confidential and detailed account ofthe good Father's spiritual temptation. But in some way the storyleaked out; and long after José was gathered to his fathers, hismysterious encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whisperednarrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that SeñorJoaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of themountain; but as the Señora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant, half-breed, the Señor was not supposed to be over-fastidious. 

 * * * * *

Such is the Legend of Monte del Diablo. As I said before, it may seem tolack essential corroboration. The discrepancy between the Father'snarrative and the actual climax has given rise to some skepticism on thepart of ingenious quibblers. All such I would simply refer to that partof the report of Señor Julio Serro, Sub-Prefect of San Pablo, beforewhom attest of the above was made. Touching this matter the worthyPrefect observes, --"That although the body of Father José doth showevidence of grievous conflict in the flesh, yet that is no proof thatthe Enemy of Souls, who could assume the figure of a decorous, elderly_caballero_, could not at the same time transform himself into a bearfor his own vile purposes. "

 * * * * *

LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE. 

At a lyceum, not long since, I felt that the lecturer had chosen a themetoo foreign to himself, and so failed to interest me as much as he mighthave done. He described things not in or near to his heart, but towardhis extremities and superficies. There was, in this sense, no trulycentral or centralizing thought in the lecture. I would have had himdeal with his privatest experience, as the poet does. The greatestcompliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what _I thought_, and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, whenthis happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he wereacquainted with the tool. Commonly, if men want anything of me, it isonly to know how many acres I make of their land, --since I am asurveyor, --or, at most, what trivial news I have burdened myself with. They never will go to law for my meat; they prefer the shell. A man oncecame a considerable distance to ask me to lecture on Slavery; but onconversing with him, I found that he and his clique expectedseven-eighths of the lecture to be theirs, and only one-eighth mine; soI declined. I take it for granted, when I am invited to lectureanywhere, --for I have had a little experience in that business, --thatthere is a desire to hear what _I think_ on some subject, though I maybe the greatest fool in the country, --and not that I should say pleasantthings merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They havesent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that theyshall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent. 

So now I would say something similar to you, my readers. Since _you_ aremy readers, and I have, not been much of a traveller, I will not talkabout people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. Asthe time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all thecriticism. 

Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives. 

This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awakedalmost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts mydreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind atleisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easilybuy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled fordollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossedout of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, orscared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly becausehe was thus incapacitated for--business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to lifeitself, than this incessant business. 

There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts ofour town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along theedge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep himout of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging therewith him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money tohoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, mostwill commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I chooseto devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, thoughbut little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler. Nevertheless, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor toregulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praise-worthy in thisfellow's undertaking, any more than in many an enterprise of our own orforeign governments, however amusing it may be to him or them, I preferto finish my education at a different school. 

If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is indanger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day asa speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before hertime, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if atown had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!

Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them inthrowing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely thatthey might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. For instance: just after sunrise, one summer morning, I noticed one ofmy neighbors walking beside his team, which was slowly drawing a heavyhewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an atmosphere ofindustry, --his day's work begun, --his brow commenced to sweat, --areproach to all sluggards and idlers, --pausing abreast the shoulders ofhis oxen, and half turning round with a flourish of his merciful whip, while they gained their length on him. And I thought, Such is the laborwhich the American Congress exists to protect, --honest, manlytoil, --honest as the day is long, --that makes his bread taste sweet, andkeeps society sweet, --which all men respect and have consecrated: one ofthe sacred band, doing the needful, but irksome drudgery. Indeed, I felta slight reproach, because I observed this from the window, and was notabroad and stirring about a similar business. The day went by, and atevening I passed the yard of another neighbor, who keeps many servants, and spends much money foolishly, while he adds nothing to the commonstock, and there I saw the stone of the morning lying beside a whimsicalstructure intended to adorn this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and thedignity forthwith departed from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In myopinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this. I may add, that his employer has since run off, in debt to a good part of the town, and, after passing through Chancery, has settled somewhere else, thereto become once more a patron of the arts. 

The ways by which you may get money almost without exception leaddownward. To have done anything by which you earned money _merely_ is tohave been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than thewages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. Ifyou would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, whichis to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community willmost readily pay for it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid forbeing something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward agenius any more wisely. Even the poet-laureate would rather not have tocelebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe ofwine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gaugethat very pipe. As for my own business, even that kind of surveyingwhich I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. Theywould prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, notwell enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not whichis most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cord-wood, andtried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told me that thesellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly, --that he wasalready too accurate for them, and therefore they commonly got theirwood measured in Charlestown before crossing the bridge. 

The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a goodjob, " but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniarysense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well thatthey would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for alivelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire aman who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. 

It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much totheir minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them offfrom their present pursuit. I see advertisements for _active_ young men;as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. Yet I have beensurprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, toembark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtfulcompliment this is to pay me! As if he had met me half-way across theocean beating up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to meto go along with him! If I did, what do you think the underwriters wouldsay? No, no! I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. Totell the truth, I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen, when Iwas a boy, sauntering in my native port, and as soon as I came of age Iembarked. 

The community has no bribe that wilt tempt a wise man. You may raisemoney enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough tohire a man who is minding _his own_ business. An efficient and valuableman does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. Theinefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and areforever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that theywere rarely disappointed. 

Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. Ifeel that my connection with and obligation to society are still veryslight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to mycontemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not oftenreminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But Iforesee, that, if my wants should be much increased, the labor requiredto supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both myforenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust thatI shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish tosuggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his timewell. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greaterpart of his life getting his living. All great enterprises areself-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by hispoetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings itmakes. You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of themerchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of mengenerally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may besurely prophesied. 

Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, or a government-pension, --provided you continue to breathe, --by whateverfine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into thealmshouse. On Sundays the poor debtor goes to church to take an accountof stock, and finds, of course, that his outgoes have been greater thanhis income. In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into Chancery, make a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus menwill lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never makean effort to get up. 

As for the comparative demand which men make on life, it is an importantdifference between two, that the one is satisfied with a level success, that his marks can all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other, however low and unsuccessful his life may be, constantly elevates hisaim, though at a very slight angle to the horizon. I should much ratherbe the last man, --though, as the Orientals say, "Greatness doth notapproach him who is forever looking down; and all those who are lookinghigh are growing poor. "

It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be rememberedwritten on the subject of getting a living: how to make getting a livingnot merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious;for if _getting_ a living is not so, then living is not. One wouldthink, from looking at literature, that this question had neverdisturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it that men are too muchdisgusted with their experience to speak of it? The lesson of valuewhich money teaches, which the Author of the Universe has taken so muchpains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As for the meansof living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are aboutit, even reformers, so called, --whether they inherit, or earn, or stealit. I think that society has done nothing for us in this respect, or atleast has undone what she has done. Cold and hunger seem more friendlyto my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise toward them off. 

The title _wise_ is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one bea wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than othermen?--if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdomwork in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed _by her example_?Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life? Is she merely themiller who grinds the finest logic? It is pertinent to ask if Plato gothis _living_ in a better way or more successfully than hiscontemporaries, --or did he succumb to the difficulties of life likeother men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely byindifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live, because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways in which most menget their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking ofthe real business of life, --chiefly because they do not know, but partlybecause they do not mean, any better. 

The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely ofmerchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation toit, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready tolive by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of othersless lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that iscalled enterprise! I know of no more startling development of theimmorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. Thephilosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth thedust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirringup the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command thewealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay _such_ aprice for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this world injest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful ofpennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle! Asubsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for! What acomment, what a satire on our institutions! The conclusion will be, thatmankind will hang itself upon a tree. And have all the precepts in allthe Bibles taught men only this? and is the last and most admirableinvention of the human race only an improved muck-rake? Is this theground on which Orientals and Occidentals meet? Did God direct us so toget our living, digging where we never planted, --and He would, perchance, reward us with lumps of gold?

God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food andraiment, but the unrighteous man found a _facsimile_ of the same inGod's coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment likethe former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeitingthat the world has seen. I did not know that mankind were suffering forwant of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is verymalleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild agreat surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. 

The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as much a gambler ashis fellow in the saloons of San Francisco. What difference does itmake, whether you shake dirt or shake dice? If you win, society is theloser. The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whateverchecks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell me thatyou worked hard to get your gold. So does the Devil work hard. The wayof transgressors may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer whogoes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character ofa lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wagesof honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for hehas seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, wherethe fact is not so obvious. 

After reading Hewitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings oneevening, I had in my mind's eye, all night, the numerous valleys, withtheir streams, all cut up with foul pits, from ten to one hundred feetdeep, and half a dozen feet across, as close as they can be dug, andpartly filled with water, --the locality to which men furiously rush toprobe for their fortunes, --uncertain where they shall break ground, --notknowing but the gold is under their camp itself, --sometimes digging onehundred and sixty feet before they strike the vein, or then missing itby a foot, --turned into demons, and regardless of each other's rights, in their thirst for riches, --whole valleys, for thirty miles, suddenlyhoney-combed by the pits of the miners, so that even hundreds aredrowned in them, --standing in water, and covered with mud and clay, theywork night and day, dying of exposure and disease. Having read this, andpartly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my ownunsatisfactory life, doing as others do; and with that vision of thediggings still before me, I asked myself, why _I_ might not be washingsome gold daily, though it were only the finest particles, --why _I_might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. _There_ is a Ballarat, a Bendigo for you, --what though it were asulky-gully? At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary andnarrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence. Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way inthis mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinarytravellers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary pathacross-lots will turn out the _higher way_ of the two. 

Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to befound in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extremeto where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from thetrue lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves mostsuccessful. Is not our _native_ soil auriferous? Does not a stream fromthe golden mountains flow through our native valley? and has not thisfor more than geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles andforming the nuggets for us? Yet, strange to tell, if a digger stealaway, prospecting for this true gold, into the unexplored solitudesaround us, there is no danger that any will dog his steps, and endeavorto supplant him. He may claim and undermine the whole valley even, boththe cultivated and the uncultivated portions, his whole life long inpeace, for no one will ever dispute his claim. They will not mind hiscradles or his toms. He is not confined to a claim twelve feet square, as at Ballarat, but may mine anywhere, and wash the whole wide world inhis tom. 

Howitt says of the man who found the great nugget which weighedtwenty-eight pounds, at the Bendigo diggings in Australia:--"He soonbegan to drink; got a horse, and rode all about, generally at fullgallop, and, when he met people, called out to inquire if they knew whohe was, and then kindly informed them that he was 'the bloody wretchthat had found the nugget. ' At last he rode full speed against a tree, and nearly knocked his brains out. " I think, however, there was nodanger of that, for he had already knocked his brains out against thenugget. Howitt adds, "He is a hopelessly ruined man. " But he is a typeof the class. They are all fast men. Hear some of the names of theplaces where they dig:--"Jackass Flat, "--"Sheep's-HeadGully, "--"Murderer's Bar, " etc. Is there no satire in these names? Letthem carry their ill-gotten wealth where they will, I am thinking itwill still be "Jackass Flat, " if not "Murderer's Bar, " where they live. 

The last resource of our energy has been the robbing of graveyards onthe Isthmus of Darien, an enterprise which appears to be but in itsinfancy; for, according to late accounts, an act has passed its secondreading in the legislature of New Granada, regulating this kind ofmining; and a correspondent of the "Tribune" writes:--"In the dryseason, when the weather will permit of the country being properlyprospected, no doubt other rich '_guacas_' [that is, graveyards] will befound. " To emigrants he says:--"Do not come before December; take theIsthmus route in preference to the Boca del Toro one; bring no uselessbaggage, and do not cumber yourself with a tent; but a good pair ofblankets will be necessary; a pick, shovel, and axe of good materialwill be almost all that is required": advice which might have been takenfrom the "Burker's Guide. " And he concludes with this line in Italicsand small capitals: "_If you are doing well at home_, STAY THERE, " whichmay fairly be interpreted to mean, "If you are getting a good living byrobbing graveyards at home, stay there. "

But why go to California for a text? She is the child of New England, bred at her own school and church. 

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moralteachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men. Mostreverend seniors, the _illuminati_ of the age, tell me, with a gracious, reminiscent smile, betwixt an aspiration and a shudder, not to be tootender about these things, --to lump all that, that is, make a lump ofgold of it. The highest advice I have heard on these subjects wasgrovelling. The burden of it was, --It is not worth your while toundertake to reform the world in this particular. Do not ask how yourbread is buttered; it will make you sick, if you do, --and the like. Aman had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process ofgetting his bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not anunsophisticated one, then he is but one of the Devil's angels. As wegrow old, we live more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, and, to some extent, cease to obey our finest instincts. But we shouldbe fastidious to the extreme of sanity, disregarding the gibes of thosewho are more unfortunate than ourselves. 

In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true andabsolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has plantedits hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whetherthe stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it. Why must wedaub the heavens as well as the earth? It was an unfortunate discoverythat Dr. Kane was a Mason, and that Sir John Franklin was another. Butit was a more cruel suggestion that possibly that was the reason why theformer went in search of the latter. There is not a popular magazine inthis country that would dare to print a child's thought on importantsubjects without comment. It must be submitted to the D. D. S. I would itwere the chickadee-dees. 

You come from attending the funeral of mankind to attend to a naturalphenomenon. A little thought is sexton to all the world. 

I hardly know an _intellectual_ man, even, who is so broad and trulyliberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom youendeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in whichthey appear to hold stock, --that is, some particular, not universal, wayof viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, withits narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is theunobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with yourcobwebs, wash your windows, I say! In some lyceums they tell me thatthey have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I knowwhat their religion is, and when I am near to or far from it? I havewalked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast ofwhat religion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected whatI was about. The lecture was as harmless as moonshine to them. Whereas, if I had read to them the biography of the greatest scamps in history, they might have thought that I had written the lives of the deacons oftheir church. Ordinarily, the inquiry is, Where did you come from? or, Where are you going? That was a more pertinent question which Ioverheard one of my auditors put to another once. --"What does he lecturefor?" It made me quake in my shoes. 

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a worldin themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter andstudy effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for theunderpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but wedo not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowestprimitive rock. Our sills are rotten. What stuff is the man made of whois not coexistent in our thought with the purest and subtilest truth? Ioften accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity; for, whilethere are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach oneanother the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or ofsteadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other. 

That excitement about Kossuth, consider how characteristic, butsuperficial, it was!--only another kind of politics or dancing. Men weremaking speeches to him all over the country, but each expressed only thethought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stood ontruth. They were merely banded together, as usual, one leaning onanother, and all together on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world reston an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on aserpent, and had nothing to put under the serpent. For all fruit of thatstir we have the Kossuth hat. 

Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinaryconversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inwardand private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet aman who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, orbeen told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only differencebetween us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or beenout to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, wego more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend onit, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number ofletters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard fromhimself this long while. 

I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I havetried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dweltin my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not somuch to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day'sdevotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. 

We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in ourday. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, --considering whatone's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be sopaltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition. You are often tempted to ask, why suchstress is laid on a particular experience which you have had, --that, after twenty-five years, you should meet Hobbins Registrar of Deeds, again on the sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is thedaily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere, insignificantas the sporules of fungi, and impinge on some neglected _thallus_, orsurface of our minds, which affords a basis for them, and hence aparasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of whatconsequence, though our planet explode, if there is no characterinvolved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosityabout such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not runround a corner to see the world blow up. 

All summer, and far into the autumn, perchance, you unconsciously wentby the newspapers and the news, and now you find it was because themorning and the evening were full of news to you. Your walks were fullof incidents. You attended, not to the affairs of Europe, but to yourown affairs in Massachusetts fields. If you chance to live and move andhave your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make thenews transpire, --thinner than the paper on which it is printed, --thenthese things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or divebelow that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. Really tosee the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to auniversal fact, would preserve us sane forever. Nations! What arenations? Tartars, and Huns, and Chinamen! Like insects, they swarm. Thehistorian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of aman that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate theworld. Any man thinking may say with the Spirit of Lodin, --

 "I look down from my height on nations, And they become ashes before me;-- Calm is my dwelling in the clouds; Pleasant are the great fields of my rest. "

Pray, let us live without being drawn by dogs, Esquimaux-fashion, tearing over hill and dale, and biting each other's ears. 

Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near Ihad come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivialaffair, --the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe howwilling men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, --to permit idlerumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on groundwhich should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chieflyare discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, --an hypæthraltemple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it so difficultto dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitateto burden my attention with those which are insignificant, which only adivine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news innewspapers and conversation. It is important to preserve the mind'schastity in this respect. Think of admitting the details of a singlecase of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely throughtheir very _sanctum sanctorum_ for an hour, ay, for many hours! to makea very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long thedust of the street had occupied us, --the very street itself, with allits travel, its bustle, and filth had passed through our thoughts'shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? When I havebeen compelled to sit spectator and auditor in a court-room for somehours, and have seen my neighbors, who were not compelled, stealing infrom time to time, and tiptoeing about with washed hands and faces, ithas appeared to my mind's eye, that, when they took off their hats, their ears suddenly expanded into vast hoppers for sound, between whicheven their narrow heads were crowded. Like the vanes of windmills, theycaught the broad, but shallow stream of sound, which, after a fewtitillating gyrations in their coggy brains, passed out the other side. I wondered if, when they got home, they were as careful to wash theirears as before their hands and faces. It has seemed to me, at such atime, that the auditors and the witnesses, the jury and the counsel, thejudge and the criminal at the bar, --if I may presume him guilty beforehe is convicted, --were all equally criminal, and a thunderbolt might beexpected to descend and consume them all together. 

By all kinds of traps and sign-boards, threatening the extreme penaltyof the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground whichcan be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse thanuseless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it beof the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of theattentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stalerevelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fittedto receive both communications. Only the character of the hearerdetermines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believethat the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending totrivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged withtriviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were, --itsfoundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over;and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only tolook into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatmentso long. 

If we have thus desecrated ourselves, --as who has not?--the remedy willbe by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make oncemore a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and becareful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at lengthas bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust the mind bytheir dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each morning, orrather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledgedoes not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tearit, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evincehow much it has been used. How many things there are concerning which wemight well deliberate, whether we had better know them, --had better lettheir peddling-carts be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, overthat bridge of glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from thefarthest brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity! Have we noculture, no refinement, --but skill only to live coarsely and serve theDevil?--to acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, andmake a false show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with notender and living kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like thosechestnut-burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick thefingers?

America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to befought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense thatis meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from apolitical tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moraltyrant. Now that the republic--the _res-publica_--has been settled, itis time to look after the _res-privata_, --the private state, --to see, asthe Roman senate charged its consuls, "_ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenticaperet_, " that the _private_ state receive no detriment. 

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from KingGeorge and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be bornfree and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or afreedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is ourchildren's children who may perchance be really free. We tax ourselvesunjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxationwithout representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattleof all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poorsouls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance. 

With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentiallyprovincial still, not metropolitan, --mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards, --because we do not worshiptruth, but the reflection of truth, --because we are warped and narrowedby an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufactures andagriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end. 

So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country-bumpkins, theybetray themselves, when any more important question arises for them tosettle, the Irish question, for instance, --the English question why didI not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "goodbreeding" respects only secondary objects. The finest manners in theworld are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finerintelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days, --merecourtliness, knee-buckles and small-clothes, out of date. It is thevice, but not the excellence of manners, that they are continually beingdeserted by the character; they are cast-off clothes or shells, claimingthe respect which belonged to the living creature. You are presentedwith the shells instead of the meat, and it is no excuse generally, that, in the case of some fishes, the shells are of more worth than themeat. The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were toinsist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished tosee himself. It was not in this sense that the poet Decker called Christ"the first true gentleman that ever breathed. " I repeat that in thissense the most splendid court in Christendom is provincial, havingauthority to consult about Trans-alpine interests only, and not theaffairs of Rome. A prætor or proconsul would suffice to settle thequestions which absorb the attention of the English Parliament and theAmerican Congress. 

Government and legislation! these I thought were respectableprofessions. We have heard of heaven-born Numas, Lycurguses, and Solons, in the history of the world, whose _names_ at least may stand for ideallegislators; but think of legislating to _regulate_ the breeding ofslaves, or the exportation of tobacco! What have divine legislators todo with the exportation or the importation of tobacco? what humane oneswith the breeding of slaves? Suppose you were to submit the question toany son of God, --and has He no children in the nineteenth century? is ita family which is extinct?--in what condition would you get it again?What shall a State like Virginia say for itself at the last day, inwhich these have been the principal, the staple productions? What groundis there for patriotism in such a State? I derive my facts fromstatistical tables which the States themselves have published. 

A commerce that whitens every sea in quest of nuts and raisins, andmakes slaves of its sailors for this purpose! I saw, the other day, avessel which had been wrecked, and many lives lost, and her cargo ofrags, juniper-berries, and bitter almonds were strewn along the shore. It seemed hardly worth the while to tempt the dangers of the sea betweenLeghorn and New York for the sake of a cargo of juniper-berries andbitter almonds. America sending to the Old World for her bitters! Is notthe sea-brine, is not shipwreck, bitter enough to make the cup of lifego down here? Yet such, to a great extent, is our boasted commerce; andthere are those who style themselves statesmen and philosophers who areso blind as to think that progress and civilization depend on preciselythis kind of interchange and activity, --the activity of flies about amolasses-hogshead. Very well, observes one, if men were oysters. Andvery well, answer I, if men were mosquitoes. 

Lieutenant Herndon, whom our Government sent to explore the Amazon, and, it is said, to extend the area of Slavery, observed that there waswanting there "an industrious and active population, who know what thecomforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out thegreat resources of the country. " But what are the "artificial wants" tobe encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and slaves of, I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice and granite and othermaterial wealth of our native New England; nor are "the great resourcesof a country" that fertility or barrenness of soil which produces these. The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high andearnest purpose in its inhabitants. This alone draws out "the greatresources" of Nature, and at, last taxes her beyond her resources; forman naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of aworld are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men, --those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers. 

In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institutionsprings up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and atlength blows it down. 

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial andinhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that itconcerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of theircolumns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and tosome extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. Ido not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to answerfor having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the worldthis, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a privateman's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up anewspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hardpushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, tovote for it, --mere importunate than an Italian beggar; and if I have amind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolentmerchant's clerk, or the skipper that brought it over, for it cannotspeak a word of English itself, I shall probably read of the eruptionof some Vesuvius, or the overflowing of some Po, true or forged, whichbrought it into this condition. I do not hesitate, in such a case, tosuggest work, or the almshouse; or why not keep its castle in silence, as I do commonly? The poor President, what with preserving hispopularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered. The newspapersare the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marinesat Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, Government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the onlytreason in these days. 

Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics andthe daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functionsof the physical body. They are _infra_-human, a kind of vegetation. Isometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as aman may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in amorbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. It is as if athinker submitted himself to be rasped by the great gizzard of creation. Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit andgravel, and the two political parties are its two oppositehalves, --sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on eachother. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmeddyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort ofeloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas!to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have beenconscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as_eu_peptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? Ido not make an exorbitant demand, surely. 

 * * * * *

BARBARA FRIETCHIE. 

 Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn, The clustered spires of Frederick stand Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. 

 Round about them orchards sweep, Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep, Fair as a garden of the Lord To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, On that pleasant morn of the early fall When Lee marched over the mountain-wall, --

 Over the mountains winding down, Horse and foot, into Frederick town. 

 Forty flags with their silver stars, Forty flags with their crimson bars, Flapped in the morning wind: the sun Of noon looked down, and saw not one. 

 Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

 Bravest of all in Frederick town, She took up the flag the men hauled down;

 In her attic-window the staff she set, To show that one heart was loyal yet. 

 Up the street came the rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 

 Under his slouched hat left and right He glanced: the old flag met his sight. 

 "Halt!"--the dust-brown ranks stood fast "Fire!"--out blazed the rifle-blast. 

 It shivered the window, pane and sash; It rent the banner with seam and gash. 

 Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;

 She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will. 

 "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag, " she said. 

 A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, Over the face of the leader came;

 The nobler nature within him stirred To life at that woman's deed and word:

 "Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!" he said. 

 All day long through Frederick street Sounded the tread of marching feet:

 All day long that free flag tossed Over the heads of the rebel host. 

 Ever its torn folds rose and fell On the loyal winds that loved it well;

 And through the hill-gaps sunset light Shone over it with a warm good-night. 

 Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, And the Rebel rides on his raids no more. 

 Honor to her! and let a tear Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. 

 Over Barbara Frietchie's grave Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

 Peace and order and beauty draw Round thy symbol of light and law;

 And ever the stars above look down On thy stars below in Frederick town!

 * * * * *

A LETTER TO THOMAS CARLYLE. 

SIR, --You have Homered it of late in a small way, one sees. You professto sing the purport of our national struggle. "South chooses to hire itsservants for life, rather than by the day, month, or year; Northbludgeons the Southern brain to prevent the same": that, you say, is theAmerican Iliad in a Nutshell. In a certain sense, more's the pity, itmust be supposed that you speak correctly; but be assured that this isthe American Iliad in no other nutshell than your private one, --in thosetoo contracted cerebral quarters to which, with respect to our matters, your powerful intelligence, under such prolonged and pitiless extremesof dogmatic compression, has at last got reduced. 

Seriously, not in any trivial wilfulness of retort, I accuse you of anarrowness and pettiness of understanding with regard to America. Giveme leave to "wrestle a fall" with you on this theme. And as I can withbut twoscore years match your threescore and five, let me entreat ofyour courtesy to set that circumstance aside, and to constitute me, forthe nonce, your equal in age and privilege of speech. For I must wrestleto-day in earnest!

You are a great nature, a great writer, and a man of piercing intellect:he is a jack or a dunce that denies it. But of you, more than of mostmen at all your equals in intellectual resource, it may be said thatyours is not a spherical or universal, but a special and linearintelligence, --of great human depth and richness, but specialnevertheless. Of a particular order of truths you are an incomparablechampion; but always you are the champion and on the field, always yourgenius has its visor down, and glares through a loop-hole withstraitened intentness of vision. A particular sort of errors andfalsities you can track with the scent of a blood-hound, and with aspeed and bottom not surpassed, if equalled; but the Destinies have putthe nose of your genius to the ground, and sent it off for good and allupon a particular trail. You sound, indeed, before your encounter, sucha thrilling war-note as turns the cripple's crutch to an imaginarylance; you open on your quarry with such a cry as kindles a huntsman'sheart beneath the bosoms of nursing mothers. No living writer possessesthe like fascination. Yet, in truth, we should all have tired of yournarrow stringency long ago, did there not run in the veins of yourgenius so rich and ruddy a human blood. The profoundness of yourinterest in man, and the masterly way in which you grasp character, giveto your thought an inner quality of centrality and wholeness, despitethe dogmatic partiality of its shaping at your hands. And so yourenticement continues, intensely partial though it be. 

Continues, --but with growing protest, and growing ground for it. For, tospeak the truth, by your kind permission, without reserve, you arebeginning to suffer from yourself. You are threatening to perish of toomuch Thomas Carlyle, I venture to caution you against that tremendousindividual. He is subduing your genius to his own special humors; he isalloying your mental activity, to a fearful degree, with dogmaticprepossession; he is making you an intellectual _routinier_, causingthereby an infiltration of that impurity of which all routine at lastdies. For years we that love you most have seen that you were ceasingmore and more to hold open, fresh relations with truth, --that you werestraitening and hardening into the linear, rigid eagerness of the merepropagandist. You have, if I may so speak, been turning all yourfront-head into back-head, giving to your cerebral powers the charactersof preappointed, automatic action, which are proper to the cerebellum. It cannot be denied that you have thus acquired a remarkable, machine-like simplicity, force, and constancy of mental action, --yourbrain-wheels spinning away with such a steam-engine whirr as one cannotbut admire; but, on the other hand, as was inevitable, you have becomeastonishingly insensitive to all truths, save those with which you areestablished in organic connection; nor could the products of Manchestermills be bargained for beforehand with more certainty than the resultsof your intellectual activity. You can be silent, --I venture to assertso much; but if you speak at all, we know perfectly well whatdescription of fabric _must_ come from your loom. 

It does not, therefore, surprise us, does not clash with our sense ofyour native greatness, that for our particular Iliad you prove a verynutshell Homer indeed. For I must not disguise it from you that this isexactly the case. It was _Homerus in nuce_ first; and the pitifulpurport of the epic results less from any smallness in the actioncelebrated than from that important law, not, perhaps, wholly new toyour own observation, which forbids a pint-measure to contain more thana pint, though you dip it full from the ocean itself. 

You are great, but not towards us Americans. Towards us you are littleand insignificant and superfluous. Your eyes, though of wondrousefficacy in their way, blink in our atmosphere like those of an owl inbroad sunlight; and if you come flying here, it is the privilege of thesmallest birds--of which you are quite at liberty to esteem me one--topester you back into your medieval twilight. 

Shall I try to tell you why you can have no right to judge us and ouraffairs? By your leave, then, and briefly. 

There is a spiritual nature of man, which is ever and everywhere thesame; and, through the necessary presence of this in every human being, there is a common sense and a common conscience, which make each man onewith all others. Here in America we are seeking to give the force ofpolitical sovereignty to this common and unitive nature, --assuming thatall political problems are at last questions of simple justice, courage, good sense, and fellow-feeling, which any sound heart and healthyintelligence may appreciate. 

On the other hand, there is the truth of spiritual Rank or Degree, --thatone man may be immensely superior in human quality to another. This isthe truth that is most powerfully present to your mind, and you wouldconstitute government strictly, if not solely, in the light of it. Tothis you are impelled by the peculiar quality of your genius, which isso purely _biographical_, so inevitably drawn to special personalities, that you can hardly conceive of history otherwise than as a record ofpersonal influence. 

We assume, then, as a basis, common sense; you, uncommon sense. Weassume Unity or Identity; you assume Difference, and seek toreconstitute unity only through mastership on the one hand and reverentobedience on the other. We do not deny Difference; we recognize thetruth of spiritual Degree; we merely _elect the common element as thematerial out of which to constitute, and the force by which to operate, the State. _

Now my judgment is, that either the truth of a common Manhood or thetruth of spiritual Rank may be made primary in a State, and that withadmirable results, provided it be duly allied and tempered with itsopposite. For these opposites I hold to be correlative and polaric, eachrequired by the other. But chasm is worse than indistinction; and hethat breaks the circle of human fellowship is more mischievous than hewho blurs the hues of gradation. 

I affirm, then, that America has a grand spiritual fact at the base ofher political system. But you are the prophet of an opposite order oftruths. And you are so intensely the partisan of your pole, that youhave not a moment's patience with anything else, above all with anopposite partiality. And wanting sympathy and patience with it, youequally want apprehension of its meaning. 

But this is not all. An awful shadow accompanies the brilliant day ofyour genius. That dark humor of yours, that woful demon from whosecompanionship, by the law of your existence, you cannot be free, tollsfuneral-bells and chants the dirges of death in your ears forever. Whatyour faith does not take with warmth to its bosom it must spurnviolently away; where you cannot hope strongly, you must vehementlydespair; what your genius does not illumine to your heart it must buryas in shadows of eternal night. It being, therefore, of the nature ofyour mind to shine powerfully on the eminences of mankind, it became inconsequence no less its nature to call up over the broad levels a blackfog that even its own eye could not penetrate. Thus with you, if Iunderstand you rightly, the _common_ and the _fateful_ are nearly oneand the same; the Good is to you an exceptional energy which strugglesup from the level forces of the universe. Is not your conception ofhuman existence nearly this: a perpetual waste deluge, and here andthere some Noah in his ark above it?

There is noble truth to be seen from this point of view, --truth to whichAmerica also will have to attend. But being intensely limited to thissole point of view, you are _utterly_ without eye for the wholesignificance of our national life. You are not only _at_ the oppositepole from us, but your whole heart and intelligence are _included in_the currents of that polaric opposition. 

Still further. I think, that, having made out its scheme of thought, your mind soon contracts a positive demand _even for the evilconditions_ which, in your estimation, made that scheme necessary. Toillustrate. A man is roused at night, and sent flying for a physician insome sudden and terrible emergency. He returns, broken-winded, to learnthat it was altogether a false alarm. It is quite possible that hisfirst emotion, on receiving this intelligence, will not be pleasure, butindignation; he may feel that somebody ought to _be_ sick, since he hasbeen at such pains. Pardon me, if I think your position not whollydissimilar. It seems to me to have become an imperative requisition ofyour mind that nine-tenths of mankind should be fools. They _must_ beso; else you have no place for them in your system, and know not what todo with them. As fools, you have full arrangements made for theiraccommodation. Some hero, some born ruler of men, is to come forth (outof your books) and reduce them to obedience, and lord it over them in amost useful manner. But if they will not be fools, if theycontumaciously refuse to be fools, they disturb the necessaryconditions of kingship, and, of course, deserve much reprobation. I donot, therefore, feel myself unjust to you in saying, that, the betterthe American people behave, _in consistency with their politicaltraditions and customary modes of thought_, the less you are able to bepleased with them. If they demean themselves as fools and incapables, (as they sometimes do, ) they bring grist to your mill; but if they showwisdom, courage, and constancy, they leave you to stand at yourmill-doors and grumble for want of toll, --as in the nutshell-epicaforesaid. 

Well, there are many foolish and some wise, and I, for one, couldheartily wish both classes more justly placed; for he who styles me anextreme intrepid democrat pays me a compliment to which I have no claim. While, then, by "kingship" you meant something human and noble, while Icould deem the command you coveted for strong and wise men to besomewhat which should _lift the weak and unwise above the range of theirown force and intelligence_, I held your prophesying in high esteem, andreadily pardoned any excesses of expression into which your prophetic_afflatus_ (being Scotch) might betray you. 

But your appetite for kingship seems to have gained in strength while itlost in delicacy and moral significance, till it has become aninsatiable craving, which disdains not to batten on very vile garbage. If one rule, and another be ruled, and if the domination be open, frank, and vigorous, you seem to feast on the fact, be this domination asselfish in its nature and as brutal in its form as it may. Whether itsaim be to uplift or to degrade its subjects, whether it be clean orfilthy, of heaven or of hell, a stress of generous purpose or a mereemphasis of egotism, --what pause do you make to inquire concerning this?The appearance is, that any sovereignty, in these democratic days, isover-welcome to your hunger to admit of pause; and a rule, whoseundisguised aim is, not to supplement the strength of the weak, but topillage them of its product, not to lend the ignorant a wisdom abovetheir own, but to make their ignorance perpetual as a source ofpecuniary profit to their masters, may reckon upon your succors wheneversuccors are needed. 

Hence your patronage of our slavery. Hence your effort to commend it bya description so incomparably false, that, though one should laughderision at it from Christmas to Candlemas, he would not laugh enough. "Hiring servants for life, "--that is the most intrepid _lucus a nonlucendo_ of the century. It fairly takes one's breath away. It isstunning, ravishing. One can but cry, on recovering his wind, --Hear, OCaucus, and give ear, O Mock-Auction! ye railway Hudsons, tricksters, impostors, ye demagogues that love the people in stump-speeches at $----per year, ye hired bravos of the bar that stab justice in the dark, yeJesuit priests that "lie for God, " listen all, and learn how to do it!What are your timid devices, compared with this of benumbing youradversary at the start by an outright electric shock of untruth? But aman must be supported by a powerful sense of sincerity to be capable ofa statement so royally false that the truth itself shall look tame andrustic beside it. 

You have spoken ill of a certain sort of German metaphysic; but Iperceive that you have now become a convert to it. The final _arcanum_of that, I think, is, Something = Nothing. You give this abstraction aconcrete form; your axiom is, No Hire = Hire for Life. To deny thatlaborers have any property in their own toil, and to allow them theirpoor peck of maize and pound of bacon per week, not at all as a wage fortheir work, but solely as a means of converting corn into cotton, andcotton into seats in Congress and summers at Saratoga, --that, accordingto the Chelsea metaphysic, is "hiring them for life"! To deny laborersany legal _status_ as persons, and any social _status_ as humansouls, --to give them fodder for food, and pens for homes, --to withholdfrom them the school, the table, and the sanctities of marriage, --ifthat is not "hiring them for life, " what is it? To affirm, byconsistent practice, that no spiritual, no human value appertains to thelife of laboring men and women, --to rate them in their very persons ascommercial values, measuring the virtue of their existence with coin, ascloths are measured with a yardstick, --this, we all see, is "hiring themfor life"! To take from women the LEGAL RIGHT to be chaste, --to make ita _capital offence_ for a woman of the laboring caste to defend her ownperson by blows, for any "husband" or father of the laboring caste todefend wife or daughter with blows, against the lust of another caste, and, having made them thus helpless before outrage, to close thejudicial tribunals against their testimony, and refuse them the faintestshow of redress, --truly, it is very kind of you to let us know that thisis the simplest piece of "hiring for life, " for without that charitableassistance the fact would surely have eluded our discovery. How could wehave found it out without your assistance, when, after that aid has beenrendered, the fact continues to seem so utterly otherwise as to reflecteven upon your generous information the colors of an unexampled untruth?

No-Hire + Dehumanization of the Laborer = Life-Hire? We never shouldhave dreamt of it!

Within the past year, a document has come into my hands which they maythank their stars who are not required to see. It is the private diaryof a most eminent and respectable slaveholder, recently dead. Thechances of war threw it into the hands of our troops, and the virtue ofa noble surgeon rescued it from defiling uses, and sent it to me, as onewhose duty bound him to know the worst. Of its authenticity there is nota shadow of question. And such a record of pollution, --of wallowing, towhich the foulness of swine is as the life of honey-bees harboring inthe bosoms of roses, --I deliberately suppose can never have got intoblack and white before. Save in general terms, I can hardly speak of it;but one item I must have the courage to suggest more definitely. Havingbidden a young slave-girl (whose name, age, color, etc. , with theshameless precision that marks the entire document, are given) to attendupon his brutal pleasure, and she silently remaining away, hewrites, --"Next morning ordered her a dozen lashes for disobedience. "[7]For disobedience, observe! She had been "hired for life"; the greatCarlyle had witnessed the bargain; and behold, she has broken thecontract! She must be punished; Mr. Carlyle and his co-cultivator of thevirtue of obedience (_par nobile fratrum_) will see to it that she isduly punished. She shall go to the whipping-post, this disobedientvirgin; she shall have twelve lashes, (for the Chelsea gods are severe, and know the use of "beneficent whip, ")--twelve lashes on the nakedperson, --blows with the terrible slave-whip, beneath which the skinpurples in long, winding lines, then breaks and gushes into spirts ofred blood, and afterwards cicatrizes into perpetual scars; fordisobedience is an immorality not to be overlooked!

Yes, Thomas Carlyle, I hold you a party to these crimes. _You_, YOU arethe brutal old man who would flog virgins into prostitution. You approvethe system; you volunteer your best varnish in its commendation; andthis is an inseparable and _legal_ part of it. Legal, I say, --legal, andnot destructive of respectability. That is the point. In ordering suchlashes, that ancient miscreant (for old he already was) neither violatedany syllable of the slave-code, nor forfeited his social position. Hewas punishing "disobedience"; he was admministering "justice"; he wasillustrating the "rights of property"; he was using the lawful"privileges of gentlemen. "

No doubt, deeds of equal infamy are done in the dens of New York. Butin New York they _are_ infamous. In New York they are indeed done in_dens_, by felons who flee the eye of the policeman, --unless, to besure, the police have been appointed by a certain _alter ego_ of yoursin negro-hatred, whilom chief magistrate and disgrace of thatunfortunate city. But under your life-service _régime_ things aremanaged in a more enlightened way. There they who have liberty--and_sometimes_ use the liberty--to torture women into beastly submissions, do not hide from the laws, they make the laws. There such a personage asthe one mentioned may be a _gentleman_, a man of high standing, " one ofthe most respectable men in the State" (Florida). 

And this, just _this_, --for surely you will not be a coward, and dodgeconsequences, --you name a scheme of life-hire. This you esteem so muchsuperior to our democratic way of holding each man and woman to be theshrine of rights which have an infinite sanctity, and of adjudging itthe chief duty of the State to annex to these rights the requisite forcefor their practical assertion. 

Is it, then, You, or is it some burglarious Devil that has broken intoyour bosom and stolen your soul, who is engaged in plastering over thisinfernal fester with smooth euphemisms? Are You verily the mechanic whois engaged in veneering these out-houses of hell with rosewood? Is ityour very and proper Self that stands there sprinkling _eau-de-Cologne_on the accursed reek of that pit of putrescence, so to disguise andcommend it to the nostrils of mankind? Is it in very deed ThomasCarlyle, Thomas the Great, who now volunteers his services as malelady's-maid to the queen-strumpet of modern history, and offers to hersceptred foulness the benefit of his skill at the literary rouge-pots?You? Yes? I give you joy of your avocations! Truly, it was worth thewhile, having such a cause, to defame a noble people in the very hour oftheir life-and-death struggle!

Well, you have made your election; now I make mine. It is my deliberatebelief that no man ever gave heartier love and homage to another than Ito you; but while one woman in America may be _lawfully_ sent to thewhipping-post on such occasion, I will hold your existence and name, ifthey come between me and her rescue, but as the life of a stinging gnat!I love you, --but cannot quite sacrifice to you the sanctity ofwomanhood, and all the honor and all the high hopes of a great nation. Your scheme of "life-hire" will therefore have to undergo very essentialmodifications, such as will not only alter, but _reverse_, its mostcharacteristic features, before I can esteem either it or the advocacyof it anything less than abominable. 

But where are you now with relation to that Thomas Carlyle whose "SartorResartus" I read twenty years ago afoot and on horseback, sleeping withit under my pillow and wearing it in my pocket till pocket and it wereworn out, --I alone there in the remote solitudes of Maine? We have bothtravelled far since then; but whither have you been travelling? Thewhole wide heaven was not too wide for you then; but now you can bejolly in your "nutshell. " Then, you held spiritual, or human, values tobe final, infinite, absolute, and could gibe in your own incomparableway at the besotted conventionalism which would place commercial valuesabove them; now, who chants with such a roaring, pious nasal at thatapotheosis of Property which our modern commercial slavery essentiallyis? Then, with Schiller, you desired, as a basis of political society, something better than a doctrine of personal _rights_, something morenoble, human, unitary, something more opposed to egoisticself-assertion, namely, a doctrine of _powers_ and their consequent_duties_; now, a scheme of society which is the merest riot orinsurrection of property-egotism reckons you among its chiefestadvocates. Then, you struck heroically out for a society more adequateto the spiritual possibilities of man; now, social infidelity _plus_cotton and polite dining would seem to suffice for you. 

Ah, Heaven! is anything sadder than to see a grand imperial soul, longworthy and secure of all love and honor, at length committing suicide, not by dying, but by living? Ill it is when they that do deepest homageto a great spirit can no longer pray for the increase of his days; whenthere arises in their hearts a pleasure in the growing number of hisyears expressly as these constitute a deduction from the unknown sumtotal of those which have been appointed him; and when the utmostbravery of their affection must breathe, not _Serus_, but CITO _in cadumredeas!_ O royal Lear of our literature, who have spurned from your lovethe dearest daughter of your thought, is it only left us to say, "Howfriendly is Death, --Death, who restores us to free relations with thewhole, when our own fierce partialities have imprisoned and bound ushand and foot"?

Royal you are, royal in pity as in purpose; and you have done, nay, Itrust may still be doing, imperishable work. If only you did not hatedemocracy so bitterly as to be perpetually prostrated by the recoil ofyour own gun! Right or wrong in its inception, this aversion has nowbecome a chronic ailment, which drains insatiably at the fountains ofyour spiritual force. I offer you the suggestion; I can do no more. 

To have lost, in the hour of our trial, the fellowship of yourself, andof others in England whom we most delighted to honor, is a loss indeed. Yet we grieve a thousand times more for you than for ourselves; and arenot absorbed in any grief. It is clear to us that the Eternal Providencehas assigned us our tasks, not by your advice, nor by vote ofParliament, --astonishing to sundry as that may seem. Your opinion of thematter we hold, therefore, to be quite beside the matter; and drivel, like that of your nutshell-epic, by no means tends to make us wish thatProvidence had acted upon European counsel rather than upon His Own!Moreover, we are _very_ busy in these days, and can have small eye tothe by-standers. We are busy, and are likely to be so long; for thepeace that succeeds to such a war will be as dangerous and arduous asthe war itself. We have as little time, therefore, to grieve as to bragor bluster; we must work. We neither solicit nor repel your sympathy; wemust work, --work straight on, and let all that be as it can be. 

We seek not to conceal even from _you_ that our democracy has greatweaknesses, as well as great strength. Mean, mercenary, and stolid menare not found in England alone; they are ominously abundant here also. We have lunatic radicalisms as well as sane, idiotic conservatisms aswell as intelligent. Too much for safety, our politics are purulent, ourgood men over-apt to forget the objects of government in a besotteddevotion to the form. It is possible we may yet discover that universalsuffrage can be a trifle too universal, --that it should pause a _little_short of the state-prison. New York must see to it that the thief doesnot patronize the judge, and sit in the prisoner's box as on the benchof a higher court. Our democracy has somewhat to learn; it _knows_ thatit has somewhat to learn, and says cheerfully, "What is the use ofliving without learning?"

What can we do but meet the future with an open intelligence and a stoutheart? And this I say, --I, who am almost an extreme dissenter fromextreme democracy, --if our people bring to all future emergencies thosequalities of earnestness, courage, and constancy which they have thusfar contributed to the present, they will disgrace neither themselvesnor their institutions; and it will be their honor more than once toextort some betrayal of dissatisfaction from those who, like yourself, are happiest to see a democracy behaving, not well, but ill. 

"Peter of the North, " then, has made up his mind. He is resolved onhaving three things:--

First, a government; a real government; a government not to be whistleddown the wind by any jack (or Jeff) who chooses to secede: a governmentthat will not dawdle with hands in pockets while this continent isconverted into a maggot-swarm of ten-acre empires;

Secondly, a government whose purpose, so far as it can act, shall be toforward _every_ man on the path of his proper humanity;

Thirdly, a government constituted and operated, so far as shall finallyprove possible, by the common intelligence and common conscience of thewhole people. 

This is Peter's business at present: he is intently minding hisbusiness; and has been heard to mutter in his breast that "it might beas well if others did the same. " What "others, " pray?

 * * * * *

VOLUNTARIES. 

 I. 

 Low and mournful be the strain, Haughty thought be far from me; Tones of penitence and pain, Moanings of the Tropic sea; Low and tender in the cell Where a captive sits in chains, Crooning ditties treasured well From his Afric's torrid plains. Sole estate his sire bequeathed-- Hapless sire to hapless son-- Was the wailing song he breathed, And his chain when life was done. 

 What his fault, or what his crime? Or what ill planet crossed his prime? Heart too soft and will too weak To front the fate that crouches near, -- Dove beneath the vulture's beak;-- Will song dissuade the thirsty spear? Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, Displaced, disfurnished here, His wistful toil to do his best Chilled by a ribald jeer. Great men in the Senate sate, Sage and hero, side by side, Building for their sons the State, Which they shall rule with pride. They forbore to break the chain Which bound the dusky tribe, Checked by the owners' fierce disdain, Lured by "Union" as the bribe. Destiny sat by, and said, "Pang for pang your seed shall pay, Hide in false peace your coward head, I bring round the harvest-day. "

 II. 

 Freedom all winged expands, Nor perches in a narrow place, Her broad van seeks unplanted lands, She loves a poor and virtuous race. Clinging to the colder zone Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down, The snow-flake is her banner's star, Her stripes the boreal streamers are. Long she loved the Northman well; Now the iron age is done, She will not refuse to dwell With the offspring of the Sun Foundling of the desert far, Where palms plume and siroccos blaze, He roves unhurt the burning ways In climates of the summer star. He has avenues to God Hid from men of northern brain, Far beholding, without cloud, What these with slowest steps attain. If once the generous chief arrive To lead him willing to be led, For freedom he will strike and strive, And drain his heart till he be dead. 

 III. 

 In an age of fops and toys, Wanting wisdom, void of right, Who shall nerve heroic boys To hazard all in Freedom's fight, -- Break sharply off their jolly games, Forsake; their comrades gay, And quit proud homes and youthful dames, For famine, toil, and fray? Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, The youth replies, _I can_. 

 IV. 

 Oh, well for the fortunate soul Which Music's wings infold, Stealing away the memory Of sorrows new and old! Yet happier he whose inward sight, Stayed on his subtile thought, Shuts his sense on toys of time, To vacant bosoms brought. But best befriended of the God He who, in evil times, Warned by an inward voice, Heeds not the darkness and the dread, Biding by his rule and choice, Feeling only the fiery thread Leading over heroic ground, Walled with mortal terror round, To the aim which him allures, And the sweet heaven his deed secures. 

 Stainless soldier on the walls, Knowing this, --and knows no more, -- Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore, Justice after as before, -- And he who battles on her side, --God--though he were ten times slain-- Crowns him victor glorified, Victor over death and pain; Forever: but his erring foe, Self-assured that he prevails, Looks from his victim lying low, And sees aloft the red right arm Redress the eternal scales. He, the poor foe, whom angels foil, Blind with pride, and fooled by hate, Writhes within the dragon coil, Reserved to a speechless fate. 

 V. 

 Blooms the laurel which belongs To the valiant chief who fights; I see the wreath, I hear the songs Lauding the Eternal Rights, Victors over daily wrongs: Awful victors, they misguide Whom they will destroy, And their coming triumph hide In our downfall, or our joy: Speak it firmly, --these are gods, All are ghosts beside. 

 * * * * *

OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS;

OR, HOW TO TREAT THE REBEL STATES. 

At this moment our Domestic Relations all hinge upon one question: _Howto treat, the Rebel States?_ No patriot citizen doubts the triumph ofour arms in the suppression of the Rebellion. Early or late, thistriumph is inevitable. It may be by a sudden collapse of the bloodyimposture, or it may be by a slower and more gradual surrender. Forourselves, we are prepared for either alternative, and shall not bedisappointed, if we are constrained to wait yet a little longer. Butwhen the day of triumph comes, political duties will take the place ofmilitary. The victory won by our soldiers must be assuredly wisecounsels, so that its hard-earned fruits may not be lost. 

The relations of the States to the National Government must be carefullyconsidered, --not too boldly, not too timidly, --in order to see in whatway, or by what process, _the transition from Rebel forms may be mostsurely accomplished_. If I do not greatly err, it will be found that thepowers of Congress, which have thus far been so effective in raisingarmies and in supplying moneys, will be important, if not essential, infixing the conditions of perpetual peace. But there is one point onwhich there can be no question. The dogma and delusion of State Rights, which did so much for the Rebellion, must not be allowed to neutralizeall that our arms have gained. 

Already, in a remarkable instance, the President has treated thepretension of State Rights with proper indifference. Quietly and withoutmuch discussion, he has constituted military governments in the RebelStates, with governors nominated by himself, --all of which testifiesagainst the old pretension. Strange will it be, if this extraordinarypower, amply conceded to the President, is denied to Congress. Practically the whole question with which I began is opened here. Therefore to this aspect of it I ask your first attention. 

CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT _vs. _. MILITARY GOVERNMENT. 

Four military governors have been already appointed: one for Tennessee, one for South Carolina, one for North Carolina, and the other forLouisiana. So far as is known, the appointment of each was by a simpleletter from the Secretary of War. But if this can be done in fourStates, where is the limit? It may be done in every Rebel State, and ifnot in every other State of the Union, it will be simply because theexistence of a valid State government excludes the exercise of thisextraordinary power. But assuming, that, as our arms prevail, it will bedone in every Rebel State, we shall then have _eleven_ militarygovernors, all deriving their authority from one source, ruling apopulation amounting to upwards of nine millions. And this imperatorialdominion, indefinite in extent, will also be indefinite in duration; forif, under the Constitution and laws, it be proper to constitute suchgovernors, it is clear that they may be continued without regard totime, --for years, if you please, as well as for weeks, --and the wholeregion which they are called to sway will be a military empire, with allpowers, executive, legislative, and even judicial, derived from one manin Washington. Talk of the "one-man power. " Here it is with a vengeance. Talk of military rule. Here it is, in the name of a republic. 

The bare statement of this case may put us on our guard. We may wellhesitate to organize a single State under a military government, when wesee where such a step will lead. If you approve one, you must approveall, and the National Government may crystallize into a militarydespotism. 

In appointing military governors of States, we follow an approvedexample in certain cases beyond the jurisdiction of our Constitution, asin California and Mexico after their conquest and before peace. It isevident that in these cases there was no constraint from theConstitution, and we were perfectly free to act according to the assumedexigency. It may be proper to set up military governors for a conqueredcountry beyond our civil jurisdiction, and yet it may be questionable ifwe should undertake to set up such governors in States which we allclaim to be within our civil jurisdiction. At all events, the two casesare different, so that it is not easy to argue from one to the other. 

In Jefferson's Inaugural Address, where he develops what he calls "theessential principles of our government, and consequently those whichought to shape its administration, " he mentions "_the supremacy of thecivil over the military authority_" as one of these "essentialprinciples, " and then says:--

"These should be the creed of our political faith, --the text of civilinstruction, --the touchstone by which to try the services of those wetrust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, letus hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leadsto peace, liberty, and safety. "

In undertaking to create military governors of States, we reverse thepolicy of the republic, as solemnly declared by Jefferson, and subjectthe civil to the military authority. If this has been done, in patrioticardor, without due consideration, in a moment of error or alarm, it onlyremains, that, according to Jefferson, we should "hasten to retrace oursteps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, andsafety. "

There is nothing new under the sun, and the military governors whom weare beginning to appoint find a prototype in the Protectorate of OliverCromwell. After the execution of the King and the establishment of theCommonwealth, the Protector conceived the idea of parcelling the kingdominto military districts, of which there were _eleven_, --being preciselythe number which it is now proposed, under the favor of success, toestablish among us. Of this system a great authority, Mr. Hallam, in his"Constitutional History of England, " speaks thus:--

"To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but canseldom be in his power. The Protector abandoned all thought of it. Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each amajor-general, as _a sort of military magistrate_, responsible for thesubjection of his prefecture. These were _eleven in number_, menbitterly hostile to the Royalist party, and insolent towards all civilauthority. "[8]

Carlyle, in his "Life of Cromwell, " gives the following glimpse of thismilitary government:--

"The beginning of a universal scheme of major-generals: theLord-Protector and his Council of State having well considered and foundit the feasiblest, --'if not _good_, yet best. ' 'It is an arbitrarygovernment, ' murmur many. Yes, arbitrary, but beneficial. _These arepowers unknown to the English Constitution, I believe; but they are verynecessary for the Puritan English nation at this time. _"[9]

Perhaps no better words could be found in explanation of the Cromwellianpolicy adopted by our President. 

A contemporary Royalist, Colonel Ludlow, whose "Memoirs" add to ourauthentic history of those interesting times, characterizes thesemilitary magistrates as so many "bashaws. " Here are some of his words:--

"The major-generals carried things with unheard-of insolence in theirseveral precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, andinterrupting the proceedings at law upon petitions of those whopretended themselves aggrieved, _threatening such as would not yield amanly submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica or someother plantation in the West Indies_. "[10]

Again, says the same contemporary writer:--

"There were sometimes bitter reflections cast upon the proceedings ofthe major-generals by the lawyers and country-gentlemen, who accusedthem to have done many things oppressive to the people, in interruptingthe course of the law, and _threatening such as would not submit totheir arbitrary orders with transportation beyond the seas_. "[11]

At last, even Cromwell, at the height of his power, found it necessaryto abandon the policy of military governors. He authorized hisson-in-law, Mr. Claypole, to announce in Parliament, "that he hadformerly thought it necessary, in respect to the condition in which thenation had been, that the major-generals should be intrusted with theauthority which they had exercised; but in the present state of affairshe conceived it inconsistent with the laws of England and liberties ofthe people to continue their power any longer. "[12]

The conduct of at least one of our military magistrates seems to havebeen a counterpart to that of these "bashaws" of Cromwell; and there isno argument against that early military despotism which may not be urgedagainst any attempt to revive it in our day. Some of the acts ofGovernor Stanley in North Carolina are in themselves an argument againstthe whole system. 

It is clear that these military magistrates are without any directsanction in the Constitution or in existing laws. They are not even"major-generals, " or other military officers, charged with the duty ofenforcing martial law; but they are special creations of the Secretaryof War, acting under the President, and charged with universal powers. As governors within the limits of a State, they obviously assume theextinction of the old State governments for which they are substituted;and the President, in appointing them, assumes a power over these Stateskindred to his acknowledged power over Territories of the Union; but, inappointing governors for Territories, he acts in pursuance of theConstitution and laws, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. 

That the President should assume the vacation of the State governmentsis of itself no argument against the creation of military governors; forit is simply the assumption of an unquestionable fact. But if it be truethat the State governments have ceased to exist, then the way isprepared for the establishment of provisional governments by Congress. In short, if a new government is to be supplied, it should be suppliedby Congress rather than by the President, and it should be according toestablished law rather than according to the mere will of anyfunctionary, to the end that ours may be a government of laws and not ofmen. 

There is no argument for military governors which is not equally strongfor Congressional governments, while the latter have in their favor twocontrolling considerations: first, that they proceed from the civilrather than the military power; and, secondly, that they are created bylaw. Therefore, in considering whether Congressional governments shouldbe constituted, I begin the discussion by assuming everything in theirfavor which is already accorded to the other system. I should not dothis, if the system of military dictators were not now recognized, sothat the question is sharply presented, which of the two to choose. Evenif provisional governments by Congress are not constitutional, it doesnot follow that military governments, without the sanction of Congress, can be constitutional. But, on the other hand, I cannot doubt, that, ifmilitary governments are constitutional, then, surely, the provisionalgovernments by Congress must be so also. In truth, there can be noopening for military governments which is not also an opening forCongressional governments, with this great advantage for the latter, that they are in harmony with our institutions, which favor the civilrather than the military power. 

In thus declaring an unhesitating preference for Congressionalgovernments, I am obviously sustained by reason. But there is positiveauthority on this identical question. I refer to the recorded opinion ofChancellor Kent, as follows:--

"Though the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, anddeclares him Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the UnitedStates, _these powers must necessarily be subordinate to the legislativepower in Congress_. It would appear to me to be the policy or trueconstruction of this simple and general grant of power to the President, not to suffer it to interfere with those specific powers of Congresswhich are more safely deposited in the legislative department, and that_the powers thus assumed by the President do not belong to him, but toCongress_. "[13]

Such is the weighty testimony of this illustrious master with regard tothe assumption of power by the President, in 1847, over the Mexicanports in our possession. It will be found in the latest edition of his"Commentaries" published during the author's life. Of course, it isequally applicable to the recent assumptions within our own territory. His judgment is clear in favor of Congressional governments. 

Of course, in ordinary times, and under ordinary circumstances, neithersystem of government would be valid. A State, in the full enjoyment ofits rights, would spurn a military governor or a Congressional governor. It would insist that its governor should be neither military norCongressional, but such as its own people chose to elect; and nobodywould question this right. The President does not think of sending amilitary governor to New York; nor does Congress think of establishing aprovisional government in that State. It is only with regard to theRebel States that this question arises. The occasion, then, for theexercise of this extraordinary power is found in the Rebellion. Withoutthe Rebellion, there would be no talk of any governor, whether militaryor Congressional. 

STATE RIGHTS. 

And here it becomes important to consider the operation of the Rebellionin opening the way to this question. To this end we must understand therelations between the States and the National Government, under theConstitution of the United States. As I approach this question ofsingular delicacy, let me say on the threshold, that for all thoserights of the States which are consistent with the peace, security, andpermanence of the Union, according to the objects grandly announced inthe Preamble of the Constitution, I am the strenuous advocate, at alltimes and places. Never through any word or act of mine shall thoserights be impaired; nor shall any of those other rights be called inquestion by which the States are held in harmonious relations as wellwith each other as with the Union. But while thus strenuous for all thatjustly belongs to the States, I cannot concede to them immunitiesinconsistent with that Constitution which is the supreme law of theland; nor can I admit the impeccability of States. 

From a period even anterior to the Federal Constitution there has been aperverse pretension of State Rights, which has perpetually interferedwith the unity of our government. Throughout the Revolution thispretension was a check upon the powers of Congress, whether in respectto its armies or its finances; so that it was too often constrained tocontent itself with the language of advice or persuasion rather than ofcommand. By the Declaration of Independence it was solemnly declaredthat "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free andindependent _States_, and that, as such, they have full powers to levywar, to contract alliances, to establish commerce, and to do all otheracts which independent _States_ may of right do. " Thus by this originalcharter the early colonies were changed into independent States, underwhose protection the liberties of the country were placed. 

Early steps were taken to supply the deficiencies of this government, which was effective only through the generous patriotism of the people. In July, 1778, two years after the Declaration, Articles ofConfederation were framed, but they were not completely ratified by allthe States till March, 1781. The character of this new government, whichassumed the style of "The United States of America, " will appear in thetitle of these Articles, which was as follows:--"Articles ofConfederation and Perpetual Union _between the States_ of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, NorthCarolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. " By the second article it wasdeclared, that "_each State retains its sovereignty_, freedom, andindependence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not bythis Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congressassembled. " By the third article it was further declared, that "the said_States_ hereby severally enter into _a firm league_ of friendship witheach other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare. " By another article, a "committeeof the _States_, or any nine of them, " was authorized in the recess toexecute the powers of Congress. The government thus constituted was acompact between _sovereign States_, --or, according to its preciselanguage, "a firm league of friendship" between _these States_, administered, in the recess of Congress, by a "committee of _theStates_. " Thus did State Rights triumph. 

But its imbecility from this pretension soon became apparent. As earlyas December, 1782, a committee of Congress made an elaborate report onthe refusal of Rhode Island, one of the States, to confer certain powerson Congress with regard to revenue and commerce. In April, 1783, anaddress of Congress to _the States_ was put forth, appealing to theirjustice and plighted faith, and representing the consequence of afailure on their part to sustain the Government and provide for itswants. In April, 1784, a similar appeal was made to what were called"the several States, " whose legislatures were recommended to vest "theUnited States in Congress assembled" with certain powers. In July, 1785, a committee of Congress made another elaborate report on the reason whythe States should confer upon Congress powers therein enumerated, in thecourse of which it was urged, that, "unless _the States_ act together, there is no plan of policy into which they can separately enter, whichthey will not be separately interested to defeat, and, of course, alltheir measures must prove vain and abortive. " In February and March, 1786, there were two other reports of committees of Congress, exhibitingthe failure of _the States_ to comply with the requisitions of Congress, and the necessity for a complete accession of _all the States_ to therevenue system. In October, 1786, there was still another report, mostearnestly renewing the former appeals to _the States_. Nothing could bemore urgent. 

As early as July, 1782, even before the first report to Congress, resolutions were adopted by the State of New York, declaring "that thesituation of _these States_ is in a peculiar manner critical, " and "thatthe radical source of most of our embarrassments is _the want ofsufficient power in Congress_ to effectuate that ready and perfectcooperation of _the different States_ on which their immediate safetyand future happiness depend. " Finally, in September, 1786, at Annapolis, commissioners from several States, after declaring "the situation of theUnited States delicate and critical, calling for an exertion of theunited virtue and wisdom of all the members of the Confederacy, "recommended the meeting of a Convention "to devise such furtherprovision as shall appear necessary to render the Constitution of theFederal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union. " Inpursuance of this recommendation, the Congress of the Confederationproposed a Convention "for the purpose of revising the Articles ofConfederation and Perpetual Union between the United States of America, and reporting such alterations and amendments of the said Articles ofConfederation as the representatives met in such Convention shall judgeproper and necessary to render them adequate to the preservation andsupport of the Union. "

In pursuance of the call, delegates to the proposed Convention were dulyappointed by the legislatures of the several States, and the Conventionassembled at Philadelphia in May, 1787. The present Constitution was thewell-ripened fruit of their deliberations. In transmitting it toCongress, General Washington, who was the President of the Convention, in a letter bearing date September 17, 1787, made use of thisinstructive language:--

 "It is obviously impracticable in the Federal Government of _these States to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each_, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty will be increased by a difference _among the several States_ as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests. In all our deliberations we kept steadily in view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, --THE CONSOLIDATION OF OUR UNION, --in which is involved our prosperity, safety, perhaps our national existence. 

 "GEORGE WASHINGTON. "

The Constitution was duly transmitted by Congress to the severallegislatures, by which it was submitted to conventions of delegates"chosen in each State by the people thereof, " who ratified the same. Afterwards, Congress, by resolution, dated September 13, 1788, settingforth that the Convention had reported "a Constitution _for the peopleof the United States_" which had been duly ratified, proceeded toauthorize the necessary elections under the new government. 

The Constitution, it will be seen, was framed in order to remove thedifficulties arising from _State Rights_. So paramount was this purpose, that, according to the letter of Washington, it was kept steadily inview in all the deliberations of the Convention, which did not hesitateto declare _the consolidation of our Union_ as essential to ourprosperity, safety, and perhaps our national existence. 

The unity of the government was expressed in the term "Constitution, "instead of "Articles of Confederation between the States, " and in theidea of "a more perfect union, " instead of a "league of friendship. " Itwas also announced emphatically in the Preamble:--

"_We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfectunion_, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for thecommon defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings ofliberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish thisConstitution for the United States of America. "

Not "we, the States, " but "we, the people of the United States. " Such isthe beginning and origin of our Constitution. Here is no compact orleague between States, involving the recognition of State rights; but agovernment ordained and established by the people of the United Statesfor themselves and their posterity. This government is not established_by the States_, nor is it established _for the States_; but it isestablished _by the people_, for themselves and their posterity. It istrue, that, in the organization of the government, the existence of theStates is recognized, and the original name of "United States" ispreserved; but the sovereignty of the States is absorbed in that moreperfect union which was then established. There is but one sovereigntyrecognized, and this is the sovereignty of the United States. To theseveral States is left that special local control which is essential tothe convenience and business of life, while to the United States, as a_Plural Unit_, is allotted that commanding sovereignty which embracesand holds the whole country within its perpetual and irreversiblejurisdiction. 

This obvious character of the Constitution did not pass unobserved atthe time of its adoption. Indeed the Constitution was most strenuouslyopposed on the ground that the States were absorbed in the Nation. Patrick Henry protested against consolidated power. In the debates ofthe Virginia Convention he exclaimed:--

"And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters whocomposed a part of the late Federal Convention. I am sure they werefully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidatedgovernment, instead of a confederation. _That this is a consolidatedgovernment is demonstrably clear_; and the danger of such a governmentis to my mind very striking. I have the highest veneration for thosegentlemen; but, Sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they tosay, '_We, the people'?_ Who authorized them to speak the language of'_We, the people_, ' instead of '_We, the States_'?"[14]

And again, at another stage of the debate, the same patriotic opponentof the Constitution declared succinctly:--

"The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing, the expression, 'We, _the people_, ' instead of _the States_ of America. "[15]

In the same convention another patriotic opponent of the Constitution, George Mason, following Patrick Henry, said:--

"Whether the Constitution is good or bad, the present clause clearlydiscovers that it is a National Government, and no longer aConfederation. "[16]

But against all this opposition, and in the face of this exposure, theConstitution was adopted, in the name of the people of the UnitedStates. Much, indeed, was left to the States; but it was no longer intheir name that the government was organized, while the miserablepretension of State "sovereignty" was discarded. Even in the discussionsof the Federal Convention Mr. Madison spoke thus plainly:--

"Some contend that States are _sovereign_, when, in fact, they are onlypolitical societies. The States never possessed the essential rights ofsovereignty. These were always vested in Congress. "

Grave words, especially when we consider the position of their author. They were substantially echoed by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, afterwards Vice-President, who said:--

"It appears to me that the States never were independent. They had onlycorporate rights. "

Better words still fell from Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania, knownafterwards as a learned judge of the Supreme Court, and also for hisLectures on Law:--

"Will a regard to State rights justify the sacrifice of the rights ofmen? If we proceed on any other foundation than the last, our buildingwill neither be solid or lasting. "

The argument was unanswerable then. It is unanswerable now. Do notelevate the sovereignty of the States against the Constitution of theUnited States. It is hardly less odious than the early pretension ofsovereign power against Magna Charta, according to the memorable wordsof Lord Coke, as recorded by Rushworth:--

"Sovereign power is no Parliamentary word. In my opinion, it weakensMagna Charta and all our statutes; for they are absolute without anysaving of sovereign power. And shall we now add it, we shall weaken thefoundation of law, and then the building must needs fall. Take we heedwhat we yield unto. _Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have nosovereign. _"[17]

But the Constitution is our Magna Charta, which can bear no sovereignbut itself, as you will see at once, if you will consider its character. And this practical truth was recognized at its formation, as may be seenin the writings of our Rushworth, --I refer to Nathan Dane, who was amember of Congress under the Confederation. He tells us plainly, thatthe terms "sovereign States, " "State sovereignty, " "State rights, ""rights of States, " are not "constitutional expressions. "

POWERS OF CONGRESS. 

In the exercise of its sovereignty Congress in intrusted with large andpeculiar powers. Take notice of them, and you will see how little of"sovereignty" is left to the States. Their simple enumeration is anargument against the pretension of State Rights. Congress may lay andcollect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and_provide for the common defence and general welfare of the UnitedStates_. It may borrow money on the credit of the United States;regulate commerce with foreign nations, and _among the several States_, and with the Indian tribes; establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, _throughout the UnitedStates_; coin money, regulate the value thereof, and fix the standard ofweights and measures; establish post-offices and post-roads; promote theprogress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times toauthors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writingsand discoveries; define and punish piracies and felonies committed onthe high seas, and offences against the law of nations; declare war;grant letters of marque and reprisal; make rules concerning captures onland and water; raise and support armies; provide and maintain a navy;make rules for the government and regulation of the land and navalforces; provide for calling forth the militia to execute _the laws ofthe Union_, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; provide fororganizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing suchpart of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of officers and theauthority of training the militia _according to the disciplineprescribed by Congress_; and make all laws necessary and proper forcarrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vestedin the Government of the United States. 

Such are the ample and diversified powers of Congress, embracing allthose powers which enter into sovereignty. With the concession of theseto the United States there seems to be little left for the severalStates. In the power to "declare war" and to "raise and support armies, "Congress possesses an exclusive power, in itself immense and infinite, over persons and property in the several States, while by the power to"regulate commerce" it may put limits round about the business of theseveral States. And even in the case of the militia, which is theoriginal military organization of the people, nothing is left to theStates except "the appointment of the officers, " and the authority totrain it "according to the discipline _prescribed by Congress_. " It isthus that these great agencies are all intrusted to the United States, while the several States are subordinated to their exercise. 

Constantly, and in everything, we behold the constitutionalsubordination of the States. But there are other provisions by whichthe States are expressly deprived of important powers. For instance: "NoState shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; coinmoney; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin atender in payment of debts. " Or, if the States may exercise certainpowers, it is only with the consent of Congress. For instance: "No Stateshall, _without the consent of Congress_, lay any duty of tonnage, keeptroops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement orcompact with another State or with a foreign power. " Here is a magistralpower accorded to Congress, utterly inconsistent with the pretensions ofState Rights. Then, again: "No State shall, _without the consent of theCongress_, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except whatmay be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and thenet produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports orexports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; _andall such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of theCongress_. " Here, again, is a similar magistral power accorded toCongress, and, as if still further to deprive the States of their muchvaunted sovereignty, the laws which they make with the consent ofCongress are expressly declared to be subject "to the revision andcontrol of the Congress. " But there is another instance still. Accordingto the Constitution, "Full faith and credit shall be given in each Stateto the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every otherState": but here mark the controlling power of Congress, which isauthorized to "prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, andproceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. "

SUPREMACY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

But there are five other provisions of the Constitution by which itssupremacy is positively established. 1. "The citizens of each Stateshall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in theseveral States. " As Congress has the exclusive power to establish "anuniform rule of naturalization, " it may, under these words of theConstitution, secure for its newly entitled citizens "all privileges andimmunities of citizens in the several States, " in defiance of StateRights. 2. "New States may be admitted _by the Congress_ into thisUnion. " According to these words, the States cannot even determine theirassociates, but are dependent in this respect upon the will of Congress. 3. But not content with taking from the States these important powers ofsovereignty, it is solemnly declared that the Constitution, and the lawsof the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties underthe authority of the United States, "SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THELAND, _anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrarynotwithstanding_. " Thus are State Rights again subordinated to theNational Constitution, which is erected into the paramount authority. 4. But this is done again by another provision, which declares that "_themembers of the several State legislatures_, and all executive andjudicial officers of _the several States_, shall be bound by oath oraffirmation to support this Constitution"; so that not only State lawsare subordinated to the National Constitution, but the makers of Statelaws, and all other State officers, are constrained to declare theirallegiance to this Constitution, thus placing the State, alike throughits acts and its agents, in complete subordination to the sovereignty ofthe United States. 5. But this sovereignty is further proclaimed in thesolemn injunction, that "the United States shall guarantee to everyState in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protecteach of them against invasion. " Here are duties of guaranty andprotection imposed upon the United States, by which their position isfixed as the supreme power. There can be no such guaranty without theimplied right to examine and consider the governments of the severalStates; and there can be no such protection without a similar right toexamine and consider the condition of the several States: thussubjecting them to the rightful supervision and superintendence of theNational Government. 

Thus, whether we regard the large powers vested in Congress, the powersdenied to the States absolutely, the powers denied to the States withoutthe consent of Congress, or those other provisions which accordsupremacy to the United States, we shall find the pretension of Statesovereignty without foundation, except in the imagination of itspartisans. Before the Constitution such sovereignty may have existed; itwas declared in the Articles of Confederation; but since then it hasceased to exist. It has disappeared and been lost in the supremacy ofthe National Government, so that it can no longer be recognized. Perverse men, insisting that it still existed, and weak men, mistakingthe shadow of former power for the reality, have made arrogant claims inits behalf. When the Constitution was proclaimed, and George Washingtontook his oath to support it as President, our career as a Nation began, with all the unity of a nation. The States remained as living parts ofthe body, important to the national strength, and essential to thosecurrents which maintain national life, but plainly subordinate to theUnited States, which then and there stood forth a Nation, one andindivisible. 

MISCHIEFS IN THE NAME OF STATE RIGHTS. 

But the new government had hardly been inaugurated before it wasdisturbed by the pestilent pretension of State Rights, which, indeed, has never ceased to disturb it since. Discontent with the treaty betweenthe United States and Great Britain, negotiated by that purest patriot, John Jay, under instructions from Washington, in 1794, aroused Virginia, even at that early day, to commence an opposition to its ratification, _in the name of State Rights_. Shortly afterwards appeared the famousresolutions of Virginia and those of Kentucky, usually known as the"Resolutions of '98, " declaring that the National Government was foundedon a compact between the States, and claiming for the States the rightto sit in judgment on the National Government, and to interpose, if theythought fit; all this, as you will see, _in the name of State Rights_. This pretension on the part of the States increased, till, at last, onthe mild proposition to attach a prospective prohibition of Slavery as acondition to the admission of Missouri into the Union as a new State, the opposition raged furiously, even to the extent of menacing theexistence of the Union; and this, too, was done _in the name of StateRights_. Ten years later, the pretension took the familiar form ofNullification, insisting that our government was only a compact ofStates, any one of which was free to annul an act of Congress at its ownpleasure; and all this _in the name of State Rights_. For a successionof years afterwards, at the presentation of petitions againstSlavery, --petitions for the recognition of Hayti, --at the question ofTexas, --at the Wilmot Proviso, --at the admission of California as a FreeState, --at the discussion of the Compromises of 1850, --at the KansasQuestion, --the Union was menaced; and always _in the name of StateRights_. The menace was constant, and it sometimes showed itself onsmall as well as great occasions, but always _in the name of StateRights_. When it was supposed that Fremont was about to be chosenPresident, the menace became louder, and mingling with it was the hoarsemutter of war; and all this audacity was _in the name of State Rights_. 

But in the autumn of 1860, on the election of Mr. Lincoln, the casebecame much worse. Scarcely was the result of this election known bytelegraph before the country was startled by other intelligence, to theeffect that certain States at the South were about to put in executionthe long-pending threat of Secession, of course _in the name of StateRights_. First came South Carolina, which, by an ordinance adopted in aState convention, undertook to repeal the original act by which theConstitution was adopted in this State, and to declare that the Statehad ceased to be one of the States of the Union. At the same time aDeclaration of Independence was put forth by this State, which proceededto organize itself as an independent community. This example wasfollowed successively by other States, which, by formal acts ofSecession, undertook to dissolve their relations with the Union, always, be it understood, _in the name of State Rights_. A new Confederation wasformed by these States, with a new Constitution, and Jefferson Davis atits head; and the same oaths of loyalty by which the local functionariesof all these States had been bound to the Union were now transferred tothis new Confederation, --of course, in utter violation of theConstitution of the United States, but always _in the name of StateRights_. The ordinances of Secession were next maintained by war, which, beginning with the assault upon Fort Sumter, convulsed the wholecountry, till, at last, all the States of the new Confederation are inopen rebellion, which the Government of the United States is nowexerting its energies, mustering its forces, and taxing its people tosuppress. The original claim, _in the name of State Rights_, has swollento all the proportions of an unparalleled war, which, _in the name ofState Rights_, now menaces the national life. 

But the pretensions in the name of State Rights are not all told. Whilethe ordinances of Secession were maturing, and before they were yetconsummated, Mr. Buchanan, who was then President, declined tointerfere, on the ground that what had been done was done by States, andthat it was contrary to the theory of our government "to coerce aState. " Thus was the pretension of State Rights made the apology forimbecility. Had this President then interfered promptly and loyally, itcannot be doubted that this whole intolerable crime might have beentrampled out forever. And now, when it is proposed that Congress shallorganise governments in these States, which are absolutely without loyalgovernments, we are met by the objection founded on State Rights. Thesame disastrous voice which from the beginning of our history hassounded in our ears still makes itself heard; but, alas! it is now onthe lips of our friends. Of course, just in proportion as it prevailswill it be impossible to establish the Constitution again throughout theRebel States. State Rights are madly triumphant, if, first, in theirname Rebel governments can be organized, and then, again, in their nameCongressional governments to displace the Rebel governments can beresisted. If they can be employed, first to sever the States from theUnion, and then to prevent the Union from extending its power over them, State Rights are at once a sword and buckler to the Rebellion. It wasthrough the imbecility of Mr. Buchanan that the States were allowed touse the sword. God forbid that now, through any similar imbecility ofCongress, they shall be allowed to use the buckler!

SHALL CONGRESS ASSUME JURISDICTION OF THE REBEL STATES?

And now, in this discussion, we are brought to the practical questionwhich is destined to occupy so much of public attention. It is proposedto bring the action of Congress to bear directly upon the Rebel States. This may be by the establishment of provisional governments under theauthority of Congress, or simply by making the admission or recognitionof the States depend upon the action of Congress. The essential featureof this proposition is, _that Congress shall assume jurisdiction of theRebel States_. A bill authorizing provisional governments in theseStates was introduced into the Senate by Mr. Harris of the State of NewYork, and was afterwards reported from the Judiciary Committee of thatbody; but it was left with the unfinished business, when the lateCongress expired on the fourth of March. The opposition to thisproposition, so far as I understand it, assumes two forms: first, thatthese States are always to be regarded as States, with State rights, andtherefore cannot be governed by Congress; and, secondly, that, if anygovernment is to be established over them, it must be simply a militarygovernment, with a military governor, appointed by the President, as isthe case with Tennessee and North Carolina. But State rights are as muchdisturbed by a military government as by a Congressional government. Thelocal government is as much set aside in one case as in the other. Ifthe President, within State limits, can proceed to organize a militarygovernment to exercise all the powers of the State, surely Congress canproceed to organize a civil government within the same limits for thesame purpose; nor can any pretension of State Rights be effectiveagainst Congress more than against the President. Indeed, the powerbelongs to Congress by a higher title than it belongs to the President:first, because a civil government is more in harmony with ourinstitutions, and, wherever possible, is required; and, secondly, because there are provisions of the Constitution under which this poweris clearly derived. 

Assuming, then, that the pretension of State Rights is as valid againstone form of government as against the other, and still further assuming, that, in the case of military governments, this pretension ispractically overruled by the President at least, we are brought again toconsider the efficacy of this pretension when advanced againstCongressional governments. 

It is argued that the Acts of Secession are all inoperative and void, and that therefore the States continue precisely as before, with theirlocal constitutions, laws, and institutions in the hands of traitors, but totally unchanged, and ready to be quickened into life by returningloyalty. Such, I believe, is a candid statement of the pretension forState Rights against Congressional governments, which, it is argued, cannot be substituted for the State governments. 

In order to prove that the Rebel States continue precisely as before, weare reminded that Andrew Johnson continued to occupy his seat in theSenate after Tennessee had adopted its Act of Secession, and embarked inrebellion, and that his presence testified to the fact that RebelTennessee was still a State of the Union. No such conclusion isauthorized by the incident in question. There are two principles ofParliamentary law long ago fixed: first, that the power once conferredby an election to Parliament is _irrevocable_, so that it is notaffected by any subsequent change in the constituency; and, secondly, that a member, when once chosen, is _a member for the whole kingdom_, becoming thereby, according to the words of an early author, not merelyknight or burgess of the county or borough which elected him, but knightor burgess of England. [18] If these two principles are not entirelyinapplicable to our political system, then the seat of Andrew Johnsonwas not in any respect affected by the subsequent madness of his State, nor can the legality of his seat be any argument for his State. 

We are also reminded that during the last session of Congress twoSenators from Virginia represented that State in the Senate; and theargument is pressed, that no such representation would be valid, if theState government of Virginia was vacated. This is a mistake. Two thingsare established by the presence of these Senators in the NationalSenate: first, that the old State government of Virginia is extinct, and, secondly, that a new government has been set up in its place. Itwas my fortune to listen to one of these Senators while he earnestlydenounced the idea that a State government might disappear. I could notbut think that he strangely forgot the principle to which he owed hisseat in the Senate, --as men sometimes forget a benefactor. 

It is true, beyond question, that the Acts of Secession are allinoperative and void against the Constitution of the United States. Though matured in successive conventions, sanctioned in various forms, and maintained ever since by bloody war, these acts--no matter by whatname they may be called--are all equally impotent to withdraw an acre ofterritory or a single inhabitant from the rightful jurisdiction of theUnited States. But while thus impotent against the United States, itdoes not follow that they were equally impotent in the work ofself-destruction. Clearly, the Rebels, by utmost efforts, could notimpair the National jurisdiction; but it remains to be seen if theirenmity did not act back with fatal rebound upon those very State Rightsin behalf of which they commenced their treason. 

STATE SUICIDE. 

It is sometimes said that the States themselves committed _suicide_, sothat as States they ceased to exist, leaving their whole jurisdictionopen to the occupation of the United States under the Constitution. Thisassumption is founded on the fact, that, whatever may be the existinggovernments in these States, they are in no respect constitutional, andsince the State itself is known by the government, with which its lifeis intertwined, it must cease to exist constitutionally when itsgovernment no longer exists constitutionally. Perhaps, however, it wouldbe better to avoid the whole question of the life or death of the State, and to content ourselves with an inquiry into the condition of itsgovernment. It is not easy to say what constitutes that entity which wecall a State; nor is the discussion much advanced by any theory withregard to it. To my mind it seems a topic fit for the old schoolmen or amodern debating society; and yet, considering the part it has alreadyplayed in this discussion, I shall be pardoned for a brief allusion toit. 

There are well-known words which ask and answer the question, "Whatconstitutes _a State_?" But the scholarly poet was not thinking of a"State" of the American Union. Indeed, this term is various in its use. Sometimes it stands for civil society itself. Sometimes it is thegeneral name for a political community, not unlike "nation" or"country, "--as where our fathers, in the Resolution of Independence, which preceded the Declaration, spoke of "the _State_ of Great Britain. "Sometimes it stands for the government, --as when Louis XIV. , at theheight of his power, exclaimed, "The _State_, it is I"; or when SirChristopher Hatton, in the famous farce of "The Critic, " ejaculates, --

 "Oh, pardon me, if my conjecture's rash, But I surmise--_the State_-- Some danger apprehends. "

Among us the term is most known as the technical name for one of thepolitical societies which compose our Union. Of course, when used in thelatter restricted sense, it must not be confounded with the same termwhen used in a different and broader sense. But it is obvious that somepersons attribute to the one something of the qualities which can belongonly to the other. Nobody has suggested, I presume, that any "State" ofour Union has, through rebellion, ceased to exist as a _civil society_, or even as a _political community_. It is only as a _State of theUnion_, armed with State rights, or at least as a _local government_, which annually renews itself, as the snake its skin, that it can becalled in question. But it is vain to challenge for the technical"State, " or for the annual government, that immortality which belongs tocivil society. The one is an artificial body, the other is a naturalbody; and while the first, overwhelmed by insurrection or war, maychange or die, the latter can change or die only with the extinction ofthe community itself, whatever may be its name or its form. 

It is because of confusion in the use of this term that there has beenso much confusion in the political controversies where it has beenemployed. But nowhere has this confusion led to greater absurdity thanin the pretension which has been recently made in the name of StateRights, --as if it were reasonable to attribute to a technical "State" ofthe Union that immortality which belongs to civil society. 

From approved authorities it appears that a "State, " even in a broadersignification, may lose its life. Mr. Phillimore, in his recent work onInternational Law, says:--"A State, like an individual, may die, " andamong the various ways, he says, "by its submission and the donation ofitself to another country. "[19] But in the case of our Rebel Statesthere has been a plain submission and donation ofthemselves, --_effective, at least, to break the continuity ofgovernment_, if not to destroy that immortality which has been claimed. Nor can it make any difference, in breaking this continuity, that thesubmission and donation, constituting a species of attornment, were toenemies at home rather than to enemies abroad, --to Jefferson Davisrather than to Louis Napoleon. The thread is snapped in one case as muchas in the other. 

But a _change of form_ in the actual government may be equallyeffective. Cicero speaks of a change so complete as "to leave no imageof a State behind. " But this is precisely what has been done throughoutthe whole Rebel region: there is no image of a _constitutional_ Stateleft behind. Another authority, Aristotle, whose words are alwaysweighty, says, that, _the form of the State being changed, the State isno longer the same_, as the harmony is not the same when we modulate outof the Dorian mood into the Phrygian. But if ever an unlucky peoplemodulated out of one mood into another, it was our Rebels, when theyundertook to modulate out of the harmonies of the Constitution intotheir bloody discords. 

Without stopping further for these diversions, I content myself with thetestimony of Edmund Burke, who, in a striking passage, which seems tohave been written for us, portrays the extinction of a politicalcommunity; but I quote his eloquent words rather for suggestion than forauthority:--

"In a state of _rude_ Nature there is no such thing as a people. Anumber of men in themselves have no collective capacity. The idea ofpeople is the idea of a corporation. It is wholly artificial, and made, like all other legal fictions, by common agreement. What the particularnature of that agreement was is collected from the form into which theparticular society has been cast. Any other is not _their_ covenant. _When men, therefore, break p the original compact or agreement whichgives its corporate form and capacity to a State, they are no longer apeople; they have no longer a corporate existence_; they have no longera legal coactive force to bind within, nor a claim to be recognizedabroad. They are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more. With them all is to begin again. Alas! they little know how many a wearystep is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass whichhas a true politic personality. "[20]

If that great master of eloquence could be heard, who can doubt that hewould blast our Rebel States, as senseless communities who havesacrificed that corporate existence which makes them living, componentmembers of our Union of States?

STATE FORFEITURE. 

But again it is sometimes said, that the States, by their flagranttreason, have _forfeited_ their rights as States, so as to be civillydead. It is a patent and indisputable fact, that this gigantic treasonwas inaugurated with all the forms of law known to the States; that itwas carried forward not only by individuals, but also by States, so faras States can perpetrate treason; that the States pretended to withdrawbodily in their corporate capacities;--that the Rebellion, as it showeditself, was _by_ States as well as _in_ States; that it was by thegovernments of States as well as by the people of States; and that, tothe common observer, the crime was consummated by the severalcorporations as well as by the individuals of whom they were composed. From this fact, obvious to all, it is argued, that, since, according toBlackstone, "a traitor hath abandoned his connection with society, andhath no longer any right to the advantages which before belonged to himpurely as a member of the community, " by the same principle the traitorState is no longer to be regarded as a member of the Union. But it isnot necessary, on the present occasion, to insist on the application ofany such principle to States. 

STATE ABDICATION. 

Again it is said, that the States by their treason and rebellion, levying war upon the National Government, have _abdicated_ their placesin the Union; and here the argument is upheld by the historic example ofEngland, at the Revolution of 1688, when, on the flight of James II. Andthe abandonment of his kingly duties, the two Houses of Parliamentvoted, that the monarch, "having violated the fundamental laws, andhaving withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, _had abdicated thegovernment_, and that the throne had thereby become vacant. "[21] But itis not necessary for us to rely on any allegation of abdication, applicable as it may be. 

RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT IN THE REBEL STATES VACATED. 

It only remains that we should see things as they are, and not seek tosubstitute theory for fact. On this important question I discard alltheory, whether it be of State suicide or State forfeiture or Stateabdication, on the one side, or of State rights, immortal andunimpeachable, on the other side. Such discussions are only endlessmazes in which a whole senate may be lost. And in discarding all theory, I discard also the question of _de jure_, --whether, for instance, theRebel States, while the Rebellion is flagrant, are _de jure_ States ofthe Union, with all the rights of States. It is enough, that, for thetime being, and _in the absence of a loyal government_, they can take nopart and perform no function in the Union, _so that they cannot berecognized by the National Government_. The reason is plain. There arein these States no local functionaries bound by constitutional oaths, sothat, in fact, there are no constitutional functionaries; and since theState government is necessarily composed of such functionaries, therecan be no State government. Thus, for instance, in South Carolina, Pickens and his associates may call themselves the governor andlegislature, and in Virginia, Letcher and his associates may callthemselves governor and legislature; but we cannot recognize them assuch. Therefore to all pretensions in behalf of State governments in theRebel States I oppose the simple FACT, that for the time being no suchgovernments exist. The broad spaces once occupied by those governmentsare now abandoned and vacated. 

That patriot Senator, Andrew Johnson, --faithful among the faithless, theAbdiel of the South, --began his attempt to reorganize Tennessee by anAddress, as early as the 18th of March, 1862, in which he made use ofthese words:--

"I find most, if not all, of the offices, both State and Federal, _vacated, either by actual abandonment, or by the action of theincumbents in attempting to subordinate their functions_ to a power inhostility to the fundamental law of the State and subversive of hernational allegiance. "

In employing the word "vacated, " Mr. Johnson hit upon the very termwhich, in the famous resolution of 1688, was held to be most effectivein dethroning King James. After declaring that he had abdicated thegovernment, it was added, "that the throne had thereby become _vacant_"on which Macaulay happily remarks:--

"The word _abdication_ conciliated politicians of a more timid school. To the real statesman the simple important clause was that _whichdeclared the throne vacant_; and if that clause could be carried, hecared little by what preamble it might be introduced. "[22]

And the same simple principle is now in issue. It is enough that theRebel States be declared _vacated_, as _in fact_ they are, by all localgovernment which we are bound to recognize, so that the way is open tothe exercise of a rightful jurisdiction. 

TRANSITION TO RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT. 

And here the question occurs, How shall this rightful jurisdiction beestablished in the vacated States? Some there are, so impassioned forState rights, and so anxious for forms even at the expense of substance, that they insist upon the instant restoration of the old Stategovernments in all their parts, through the agency of loyal citizens, who meanwhile must be protected in this work of restoration. But, assuming that all this is practicable, as it clearly is not, itattributes to the loyal citizens of a Rebel State, however few innumbers, --it may be an insignificant minority, --a power clearlyinconsistent with the received principle of popular government, that themajority must rule. The seven voters of Old Sarum were allowed to returntwo members of Parliament, because this place, --once a Roman fort, andafterwards a sheepwalk, --many generations before, at the early castingof the House of Commons, had been entitled to this representation; butthe argument for State Rights assumes that all these rights may belodged in voters as few in number as ever controlled a rotten borough ofEngland. 

Pray, admitting that an insignificant minority is to organize the newgovernment, how shall it be done? and by whom shall it be set in motion?In putting these questions I open the difficulties. As the originalgovernment has ceased to exist, and there are none who can be its legalsuccessors, so as to administer the requisite oaths, it is not easy tosee how the new government can be set in motion without a resort to somerevolutionary proceeding, instituted either by the citizens or by themilitary power, --unless Congress, in the exercise of its plenary powers, should undertake to organize the new jurisdiction. 

But every revolutionary proceeding is to be avoided. It will be withinthe recollection of all familiar with our history, that our fathers, while regulating the separation of the Colonies from the parent country, were careful that all should be done according to the forms of law, sothat the thread of _legality_ should continue unbroken. To this end theContinental Congress interfered by a supervising direction. But the Toryargument in that day denied the power of Congress as earnestly as itdenies this power now. Mr. Duane, of the Continental Congress, madehimself the mouthpiece of this denial:--

"_Congress ought not to determine a point, of this sort aboutinstituting government_. What is it to Congress how justice isadministered? You have no right to pass the resolution, any more thanParliament has. How does it appear that no favorable answer is likely tobe given to our petitions?"[23]

In spite of this argument, the Congress of that day undertook, by formalresolutions, to indicate the process by which the new governments shouldbe constituted. [24]

If we seek, for our guidance, the principle which entered into thisproceeding of the Continental Congress, we shall find it in the idea, that nothing must be left to illegal or informal action, but that allmust be done according to rules of constitution and law previouslyordained. Perhaps this principle has never been more distinctly orpowerfully enunciated than by Mr. Webster, in his speech against theDorr Constitution in Rhode Island. According to him, this principle is afundamental part of what he calls our American system, requiring thatthe right of suffrage shall be prescribed by _previous law_, includingits qualifications, the time and place of its exercise, and the mannerof its exercise; and then again, that the results are to be certified tothe central power by some certain rule, _by some known public officers_, in some clear and definite form, to the end that two things may be done:first, that every man entitled to vote may vote; secondly, that his votemay he sent forward and counted, and so he may exercise his part ofsovereignty, in common with his fellow-citizens. Such, according to Mr. Webster, are the minute forms which must be followed, if we would impartto the result the crowning character of law. And here are other positivewords from him on this important point:--

"We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, norfrom tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, theprudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are notAmerican modes of signifying the will of the people, and they neverwere.... 

"Is it not obvious enough, that men cannot get together and countthemselves, and say they are so many hundreds and so many thousands, andjudge of their own qualifications, and call themselves the people, andset up a government? _Why, another set of men, forty miles off, on thesame day, with the same propriety, with as good qualifications, and inas large numbers, may meet and set up another government_.... 

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to ascertainthe will of the people on a new exigency, or a new state of things, orof opinion, _the legislative power provides for that ascertainment by anordinary act of legislation_. 

"What do I contend for? I say that the will of the people must prevail, when it is ascertained; but there must be _some legal and authentic modeof ascertaining that will_; and then the people may make what governmentthey please.... 

"All that is necessary here is, that the will of the people should beascertained by some regular rule of proceeding, _prescribed by previouslaw_.... 

"But the law and the Constitution, the whole system of Americaninstitutions, do not contemplate a case in which a resort will benecessary to proceedings _aliunde_, or _outside of the law and theConstitution_, for the purpose of amending the frame of government. "[25]

CONGRESS THE TRUE AGENT. 

But, happily, we are not constrained to any such revolutionaryproceeding. The new governments can all be organized by Congress, whichis the natural guardian of people without any immediate government, andwithin the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States. Indeed, with the State governments already _vacated_ by rebellion, theConstitution becomes, for the time, the supreme and only law, bindingalike on President and Congress, so that neither can establish any lawor institution incompatible with it. And the whole Rebel region, deprived of all local government, lapses under the exclusivejurisdiction of Congress, precisely as any other territory; or, in otherwords, the lifting of the local governments leaves the whole vast regionwithout any other government than Congress, unless the President shouldundertake to govern it by military power. Startling as this propositionmay seem, especially to all who believe that "there is a divinity thatdoth hedge" a State, hardly less than a king, it will appear, on carefulconsideration, to be as well founded in the Constitution as it is simpleand natural, while it affords an easy and constitutional solution to ourpresent embarrassments. 

I have no theory to maintain, but only the truth; and in presenting thisargument for Congressional government, I simply follow teachings which Icannot control. The wisdom of Socrates, in the words of Plato, has aptlydescribed these teachings, when he says:--

"These things are secured and bound, even if the expression be somewhattoo rude, with iron and adamant; and unless you or some one morevigorous than you can break them, it is impossible for any one speakingotherwise than I now speak to speak well; since, for my part, I havealways the same thing to say, that I know not how these things are, butthat out of all with whom I have ever discoursed, as now, not one isable to say otherwise and to maintain himself. "[26]

Show me that I am wrong, --that this conclusion is not founded in theConstitution, and is not sustained by reason, --and I shall at oncerenounce it; for, in the present condition of affairs, there can be nopride of opinion which must not fall at once before the sacred demandsof country. Not as a partisan, not as an advocate, do I make thisappeal; but simply as a citizen, who seeks, in all sincerity, to offerhis contribution to the establishment of that policy by which Union andPeace may be restored. 

THREE SOURCES OF CONGRESSIONAL POWER. 

If we loot at the origin of this power in Congress, we shall find thatit comes from three distinct fountains, any one of which is ample tosupply it. Three fountains, generous and hospitable, will be found inthe Constitution ready for this occasion. 

First. From the necessity of the case, _ex necessitate rei_, Congressmust have jurisdiction over every portion of the United States _wherethere is no other government_; and since in the present case there is noother government, the whole region falls within the jurisdiction ofCongress. This jurisdiction is incident, if you please, to thatguardianship and eminent domain which belong to the United States withregard to all its territory and the people thereof, and it comes intoactivity when the local government ceases to exist. It can be questionedonly in the name of the local government; but since this government hasdisappeared in the Rebel States, the jurisdiction of Congress isuninterrupted there. The whole broad Rebel region is _tabula rasa_, or"a clean slate, " where Congress, under the Constitution of the UnitedStates, may write the laws. In adopting this principle, I follow theauthority of the Supreme Court of the United States in determining thejurisdiction of Congress over the Territories. Here are the words ofChief-Justice Marshall:--

"Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the UnitedStates, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means ofself-government, _may result necessarily from the facts that it is notwithin the jurisdiction of any particular State_ and is within the powerand jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be thenatural consequence of the right to acquire territory. "[27]

If the right to govern may be the natural consequence of the right toacquire territory, surely, and by much stronger reason, this right mustbe the natural consequence of the sovereignty of the United Stateswherever there is no local government. 

Secondly. This jurisdiction may also be derived from the _Rights ofWar_, which surely are not less abundant for Congress than for thePresident. If the President, disregarding the pretension of StateRights, can appoint military governors within the Rebel States, to servea temporary purpose, who can doubt that Congress can exercise a similarjurisdiction? That of the President is derived from the war-powers; butthese are not sealed to Congress. If it be asked where in theConstitution such powers are bestowed upon Congress, I reply, that theywill be found precisely where the President now finds his powers. But itis clear that the powers to "declare war, " to "suppress insurrections, "and to "support armies, " are all ample for this purpose. It is Congressthat conquers; and the same authority that conquers must govern. Nor isthis authority derived from any strained construction; but it springsfrom the very heart of the Constitution. It is among those powers, latent in peace, which war and insurrection call into being, but whichare as intrinsically constitutional as any other power. 

Even if not conceded to the President, these powers must be conceded toCongress. Would you know their extent? They will be found in theauthoritative texts of Public Law, --in the works of Grotius, Vattel, andWheaton. They are the powers conceded by civilized society to nations atwar, known as the Rights of War, at once multitudinous and minute, vastand various. It would be strange, if Congress could organize armies andnavies to conquer, and could not also organize governments to protect. 

De Tocqueville, who saw our institutions with so keen an eye, remarked, that, since, in spite of all political fictions, the preponderatingpower resided in the State governments, and not in the NationalGovernment, a civil war here "would be nothing but a foreign war indisguise. "[28] Of course the natural consequence would be to give theNational Government in such a civil war all the rights which it wouldhave in a foreign war. And this conclusion from the observation of theingenious publicist has been practically adopted by the Supreme Court ofthe United States in those recent cases where this tribunal, after themost learned argument, followed by the most careful consideration, adjudged, that, since the Act of Congress of July 13th, 1861, theNational Government has been waging "a _territorial_ civil war, " inwhich all property afloat belonging to a resident of the _belligerentterritory_ is liable to capture and condemnation as lawful prize. Butsurely, if the National Government may stamp upon all residents in this_belligerent territory_ the character of foreign enemies, so as tosubject their ships and cargoes to the penalties of confiscation, it mayperform the milder service of making all needful rules and regulationsfor the government of this territory under the Constitution, so long asmay be requisite for the sake of peace and order; and since the objectof war is "indemnity for the past and security for the future, " it maydo everything necessary to make these effectual. But it will not beenough to crush the Rebellion. Its terrible root must be exterminated, so that it may no more flaunt in blood. 

Thirdly. But there is another source for this jurisdiction which iscommon alike to Congress and the President. It will be found in theconstitutional provision, that "the United States shall guarantee toevery State in tins Union a republican form of government, and shallprotect each of them against invasion. " Here, be it observed, are wordsof guaranty and an obligation of protection. In the original concessionto the United States of this twofold power there was an open recognitionof the ultimate responsibility and duty of the National Government, _conferring jurisdiction above all pretended State rights_; and now theoccasion has come for the exercise of this twofold power thus solemnlyconceded. The words of twofold power and corresponding obligation areplain and beyond question. If there be any ambiguity, it is only as towhat constitutes a republican form of government. But for the presentthis question does not arise. It is enough that a wicked rebellion hasundertaken to detach certain States from the Union, and to take thembeyond the protection and sovereignty of the United States, with themenace of seeking foreign alliance and support, even at the cost ofevery distinctive institution. It is well known that _Mr. Madisonanticipated this precise danger from Slavery, and upheld this precisegrant of power in order to counteract this danger_. His words, whichwill be found in a yet unpublished document, produced by Mr. Collamer inthe Senate, seem prophetic. 

Among the defects which he remarked in the old Confederation was what hecalled "want of guaranty to the States of their constitutions and laws_against internal violence_. " In showing why this guaranty was needed, he says, that, "according to republican theory, right and power, beingboth vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous; according tofact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be anovermatch for the majority"; and he then adds, in words of wonderfulprescience, "_where Slavery exists the republican theory becomes stillmore fallacious_. " This was written in April, 1787, before the meetingof the Convention that formed the National Constitution. But here wehave the origin of the very clause in question. The danger which thisstatesman foresaw is now upon us. When a State fails to maintain arepublican government _with officers sworn according to the requirementsof the Constitution_, it ceases to be a constitutional State. The verycase contemplated by the Constitution has arrived, and the NationalGovernment is invested with plenary powers, whether of peace or war. There is nothing in the storehouse of peace, and there is nothing in thearsenal of war, which it may not employ in the maintenance of thissolemn guaranty, and in the extension of that protection againstinvasion to which it is pledged. But this extraordinary power carrieswith it a corresponding duty. Whatever shows itself dangerous to arepublican form of government must be removed without delay orhesitation; and if the evil be Slavery, our action will be bolder whenit is known that the danger was foreseen. 

In reviewing these three sources of power, I know not which is mostcomplete. Either would be ample alone; but the three together are threetimes ample. Thus, out of this triple fountain, or, if you please, bythis triple cord, do I vindicate the power of Congress over the vacatedRebel States. 

But there are yet other words of the Constitution which cannot beforgotten: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union. "Assuming that the Rebel States are no longer _de facto_ States of thisUnion, but that the territory occupied by them is within thejurisdiction of Congress, then these words become completely applicable. It will be for Congress, in such way as it shall think best, to regulatethe return of these States to the Union, whether in time or manner. Nospecial form is prescribed. But the vital act must proceed fromCongress. And here again is another testimony to that Congressionalpower which, under the Constitution, will restore the Republic. 

UNANSWERABLE REASONS FOR CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENTS

Against this power I have heard no argument which can be called anargument. There are objections founded chiefly in the baneful pretensionof State Rights; but these objections are animated by prejudice ratherthan reason. Assuming the impeccability of the States, and openlydeclaring that states, like kings, can do no wrong, while, like kings, they wear the "round and top of sovereignty, " politicians treat themwith most mistaken forbearance and tenderness, as if these Rebelcorporations could be dandled into loyalty. At every suggestion of rigorState Rights are invoked, and we are vehemently told not to destroy theStates, when all that Congress proposes is simply to recognize theactual condition of the States and to undertake their temporarygovernment, by providing for the condition of political syncope intowhich they have fallen, and, during this interval, to substitute its ownconstitutional powers for the unconstitutional powers of the Rebellion. Of course, therefore, Congress will blot no star from the flag, nor willit obliterate any State liabilities. But it will seek, according to itsduty, in the best way, to maintain the great and real sovereignty of theUnion, by upholding the flag unsullied, and by enforcing everywherewithin its jurisdiction the supreme law of the Constitution. 

At the close of an argument already too long drawn out, I shall not stopto array the considerations of reason and expediency in behalf of thisjurisdiction; nor shall I dwell on the inevitable influence that it mustexercise over Slavery, which is the motive of the Rebellion. To my mindnothing can be clearer, as a proposition of constitutional law, thanthat everywhere within the exclusive jurisdiction of the NationalGovernment Slavery is impossible. The argument is as brief as it isunanswerable. Slavery is so odious that it can exist only by virtue ofpositive law, plain and unequivocal; but no such words can be found inthe Constitution. Therefore Slavery is impossible within the exclusivejurisdiction of the National Government. For many years I have had thisconviction, and have constantly maintained it. I am glad to believe thatit is implied, if not expressed, in the Chicago Platform. Mr. Chase, among our public men, is known to accept it sincerely. Thus Slavery inthe Territories is unconstitutional; but if the Rebel territory fallsunder the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government, thenSlavery will be impossible there. In a legal and constitutional sense, it will die at once. The air will be too pure for a slave. I cannotdoubt that this great triumph has been already won. The moment that theStates fell, Slavery fell also; so that, even without any Proclamationof the President, Slavery had ceased to have a legal and constitutionalexistence in every Rebel State. 

But even if we hesitate to accept this important conclusion, whichtreats Slavery within Rebel States as already dead in law andConstitution, it cannot be doubted, that, by the extension of theCongressional jurisdiction over the Rebel States, many difficulties willbe removed. Holding every acre of soil and every inhabitant of thesestates within its jurisdiction, Congress can easily do, by properlegislation, whatever may be needful within Rebel limits in order toassure freedom and to save society. The soil may be divided amongpatriot soldiers, poor-whites, and freedmen. But above all things, theinhabitants may be saved from harm. Those citizens in the Rebel States, who, throughout the darkness of the Rebellion, have kept there faith, will be protected, and the freedmen will be rescued from the hands thatthreaten to cast them back into Slavery. 

But this jurisdiction, which is so completely practical, is grandlyconservative also. Had it been early recognized that Slavery dependsexclusively upon the local government, and that it falls with thatgovernment, who can doubt that every Rebel movement would have beenchecked? Tennessee and Virginia would never have stirred; Maryland andKentucky would never have thought of stirring. There would have been notalk of neutrality between the Constitution and the Rebellion, and everyBorder State would have been fixed in its loyalty. Let it be establishedin advance, as an inseparable incident to every Act of Secession, thatit is not only impotent against the Constitution of the United States, but that, on its occurrence, both soil and inhabitants will lapsebeneath the jurisdiction of Congress, and no State will ever againpretend to secede. The word "territory, " according to an old and quaintetymology, is said to come from _terreo_, to terrify, because it was abulwark against the enemy. A scholiast tells us, "_Territorium estquicquid hostis terrendi causâ constitutum_, " "A territory is somethingconstituted in order to terrify the enemy. " But I know of no way inwhich our Rebel enemy would have been more terrified than by being toldthat his course would inevitably precipitate him into a territorialcondition. Let this principle be adopted now, and it will contributeessentially to that consolidation of the Union which was so near theheart of Washington. 

The necessity of this principle is apparent as a restraint upon thelawless vindictiveness and inhumanity of the Rebel States, whetheragainst Union men or against freedmen. Union men in Virginia alreadytremble at the thought of being delivered over to a State governmentwielded by original Rebels pretending to be patriots. But the freedmen, who have only recently gained their birthright, are justified in akeener anxiety, lest it should be lost as soon as won. Mr. Saulsbury, aSenator from Delaware, with most instructive frankness, has announced, in public debate, what the restored State governments will do. Assumingthat the local governments will be preserved, he predicts that in 1870there will be more slaves in the United States than there were in 1860, and then unfolds the reason as follows, --all of which will be found inthe "Congressional Globe"[29]:--

"By your acts you attempt to free the slaves. You will not have themamong you. You leave them where they are. Then what is to be theresult?--I presume that local State governments will be preserved. Ifthey are, if the people have a right to make their own laws, and togovern themselves, they will not only reënslave every person that youattempt to set free, but they will reënslave the whole race. "

Nor has the horrid menace of reënslavement proceeded from the Senatorfrom Delaware alone. It has been uttered even by Mr. Willey, the mildSenator from Virginia, speaking in the name of State Rights. Newspapershave taken up and repeated the revolting strain. That is to say, nomatter what may be done for Emancipation, whether by Proclamation of thePresident, or by Congress even, the State, on resuming its place in theUnion, will, in the exercise of its sovereign power, reënslave everycolored person within its jurisdiction; and this is the menace fromDelaware, and even from regenerated Western Virginia! I am obliged toSenators for their frankness. If I needed any additional motive for theurgency with which I assert the power of Congress, I should find it inthe pretensions thus savagely proclaimed. In the name of Heaven, let usspare no effort to save the country from this shame, and an oppressedpeople from this additional outrage!

"Once free, always free. " This is a rule of law, and an instinct ofhumanity. It is a self-evident axiom, which only tyrants andslave-traders have denied. The brutal pretension thus flaminglyadvanced, to reënslave those who have been set free, puts us all on ourguard. There must be no chance or loop-hole for such an intolerable, Heaven-defying iniquity. Alas! there have been crimes in human history;but I know of none blacker than this. There have been acts of baseness;but I know of none more utterly vile. Against the possibility of such asacrifice we must take a bond which cannot be set aside, --and this canbe found only in the powers of Congress. 

Congress has already done much. Besides its noble Act of Emancipation, it has provided that every person guilty of treason, or of inciting orassisting the Rebellion, "shall be disqualified to hold any office underthe United States. " And by another act, it has provided that everyperson elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under theGovernment of the United States shall, before entering upon its duties, _take an oath_ "that he has not voluntarily borne arms against theUnited States, or given aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement topersons engaged in armed hostility thereto, or sought or accepted orattempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under anyauthority, or pretended authority, in hostility to the UnitedStates. "[30] This oath will be a bar against the return to _Nationaloffice_ of any who have taken part with the Rebels. It shuts out inadvance the whole criminal gang. But these same persons, rejected by theNational Government, are left free to hold office in the States. Andhere is another motive to further action by Congress. The oath, is wellas far as it goes; more must be done in the same spirit. 

But enough. The case is clear. Behold the Rebel States in arms againstthat paternal government to which, as the supreme condition of theirconstitutional existence, they owe duty and love; and behold alllegitimate powers, executive, legislative, and judicial, in theseStates, abandoned and vacated. _It only remains that Congress shouldenter and assume the proper jurisdiction. _ If we are not ready toexclaim with Burke, speaking of Revolutionary France, "It is but anempty space on the political map, " we may at least adopt the responsehurled back by Mirabeau, that this empty space is a volcano red withflames and overflowing with lava-floods. But whether we deal with it as"empty space" or as "volcano, " the jurisdiction, civil and military, centres in Congress, to be employed for the happiness, welfare, andrenown of the American people, --changing Slavery into Freedom, andpresent chaos into a Cosmos of perpetual beauty and power. 

 * * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. 

_The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus. _ Translated byGEORGE LONG. London: Bell & Daldy. 

Dulness is usually reckoned the prescriptive right of kings; at least, they are supposed to be officially incapable of literary eminence. Andyet it is a curious fact, that, of those idiomatic works whichliterature will not "let die, " of those marked productions which surviveby their individuality, three, at least, bear the impress of royalnames. 

Devotion has found, in the contributions of three thousand years, noutterance so fit as the lyrics of a Hebrew king; satiety has breathed nosigh so profound as "The Words of the Preacher, the Son of David, Kingof Jerusalem"[31]; and the wisdom of the Stoics has no worthier exponentthan the meditations of a sovereign who ruled the greatest empire knownto history, and glorified it with his own imperial spirit, --the noblestthat ever bore the burden of state. 

Our third example, unlike the other two, has not been adopted byecclesiastical authority, and is not incorporated in any Vulgate ofsacred lore; but its place in the canon of philosophy has long beenestablished, and is often confirmed by fresh recognition. A newtranslation of this celebrated work, of which several versions alreadyexisted, has just been given to the English public by Mr. George Long, awell-known scholar and critic, with the title above named. We shouldhave preferred the old title, "Meditations, " so long endeared; but weare none the less grateful to Mr. Long for this needful service, forwhich no ordinary qualifications were required, and which has neverbefore been performed by such competent hands. 

Gibbon has said, that, "if a man were called to fix the period in thehistory of the world during which the condition of the human race wasmost happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that whichelapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. " Thisperiod comprises, together with the four concluding years of the firstcentury of the Christian era, four-fifths of the second. The last ofthese fifths, deducting one year, (A. D. 161-180, ) was occupied by thesupreme rule of Annios Verus, better known by his assumed name of MarcusÆlius Aurelius Antoninus, fifteenth emperor of the Romans, nephew andsuccessor of another Antoninus, whose virtues, and especially hisgrateful remembrance of his predecessor and benefactor, procured him the_agnomen_ of "Pius. " In a line of sovereigns which numbers a largerproportion of wise and good men than most dynasties, perhaps than anyother, M. Antoninus ranks first, so far as those qualities areconcerned. A man of singular and sublime virtue, whose imperial station, so trying to human character, but served to render more conspicuous hisrare and transcendent excellence. With an empire such as never before orsince the Augustan dynasty has fallen to the lot of an individual, lordof the civilized earth, he lived simply and abstemiously as the poorestcitizen in his dominions, frugal with unlimited means, humble withunlimited sway. Not a Christian by profession, in piety toward God andcharity toward man he was yet a better Christian in fact than any of theChristian emperors who succeeded him. He governed his life by the Stoicdiscipline, the most hardy, in its practical requirements, of ancientsystems, so rigorous in its ethic that Josephus is proud to claim anaffinity with it for the "straitest" of the Jewish sects, and so pure inits spirit that St. Jerome ranks its best-known writer as aChristian, --a philosophy which taught men to consider virtue as the onlygood, vice as the only evil, all external things as indifferent. "Hislife, " says Gibbon, "was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, justand beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, whohad excited a rebellion in Syria, had by a voluntary death deprived himof the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend. War he detested asthe disgrace and calamity of human nature; but when the necessity of ajust defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily exposed hisperson to eight winter campaigns on the frozen banks of the Danube, theseverity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a centuryafter his death there were many who preserved the image of MarcusAntoninus among their household gods. "

The learned Casaubon, after placing him above Solomon, "as being lordand master of more great kingdoms than Solomon was of towns, " speaks ofhim as a man "who, for goodness and wisdom, was had by all men duringhis life in such honor and reputation as never man was either before himor after him. " "There hath ever been store enough of men, " he says, "that could speak well and give good instructions, but great want ofthem that could or so much as endeavored to do as they spake or taughtothers to do. Be it therefore spoken to the immortal praise andcommendation of Antoninus, that as he did write so he did live. Neverdid writers so conspire to give all possible testimony of goodness, uprightness, innocence, as they have done to commend this one. Theycommend him, not as the best prince only, but absolutely as the best manand best philosopher that ever lived. "

Merivale, who concludes with the reign of M. Antoninus his "History ofthe Romans under the Empire, " adds his testimony to that of the cloud ofwitnesses who have trumpeted the great _Imperator's_ praise. "Of all theCæsars whose names are enshrined in the page of history, or whosefeatures are preserved to us in the repositories of art, one alone seemsstill to haunt the Eternal City in the place and the posture mostfamiliar to him in life. In the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, which crowns the platform of the Campidoglio, Imperial Rome livesagain.... In this figure we behold an emperor, of all the line thenoblest and the dearest, such as he actually appeared; we realize in oneaugust exemplar the character and image of the rulers of the world. Westand here face to face with a representative of the Scipios and Cæsars, the heroes of Tacitus and Livy. Our other Romans are effigies of thecloset and the museum; this alone is a man of the streets, the forum, and the capitol. Such special prominence is well reserved, amid thewreck of ages, for him whom historians combine to honor as the worthiestof the Roman people. "

Mr. Long, in his biographical introduction, examines at length theevidence for Marcus's alleged persecution of the Christians. Lardner, and other writers in the Christian ecclesiastical interest, assuming thefact, denounce it as a blot on the Emperor's fame. The translatordevotes more space to the consideration of this matter than, perhaps, inthe judgment of the historical critic at this day, it will seem todeserve. That Christians, in the time of M. Antoninus, in Asia Minor andin Gaul, suffered torture and death on account of their faith, admits ofno reasonable doubt. That Marcus authorized these persecutions, in anysense implying the responsibility of an original decision, does notappear. The imperial power, it must be remembered, was not absolute, butconstitutionally defined. The Augusti, for the most part, were but theexecutors of existing laws. The punishment of Christians, who refused tosacrifice, and persisted in contravening the religion of the State, wasone of those laws. In some places, especially at Lyons and Vienne, theChristians were the victims of popular riots; but where they suffered bylegal authority, in the name of the imperial government, it was underthe well-known law of Trajan, a law which had been sixty years inoperation when Marcus came upon the throne. The only blame that can beimputed to him in this relation (if blame it be) is that of failing todiscern and acknowledge the divine authority of the new religion whichwas silently undermining the old Roman world. But no one who putshimself in the Emperor's time and place will think the worse of him fornot adopting a view of this subject which educated and serious mindswere precisely the least likely to adopt. To such, Christianitypresented itself simply as a novelty opposed to religion and threateningthe State. The case of Justin may be cited as an instance of athoughtful and philosophic mind embracing Christianity in spite of thestrong presumption against it in minds of that class. But, not to speakof the very wide difference between the steady, conservative Roman andthe volatile Greek, all the life-circumstances of Justin, a Palestinianby birth, favored his adoption of the Christian faith; everything in thelife of Antoninus tended in the opposite direction. Justin embraced thereligion first on its philosophic side, where Antoninus was especiallyfortified against it, having early come to an understanding with himselfon the deepest questions of the soul. His decisions on these questionsdid not differ materially from those of the Gospel; they might, unknownto himself, have been modified by a subtile atmospheric influencederived from that source and acting on a nature so receptive of itsspirit. But the very fact, that he had in a measure anticipated theteachings of the Gospel, precluded the chance of his being surprisedinto acquiescence with the new religion by its moral beauty, if broughtfairly before him, which perhaps it never was; for it does not appearthat he read the Christian apologies framed in his day. What was best inChristianity, as a system of doctrine, --its ethical precepts, --he hadalready embraced; its substance he possessed; its external form he knewonly as opposition to institutions which he was bound by all thesanctities of his office, by all the dignity of a Roman patrician, andby all the currents of his life, to uphold. For the rest, the relationof a mind like his to polytheism could be nothing more than the formalacceptance of its symbols in the interest of piety, implying nointellectual enslavement to its myths and traditions. 

De Quincey calls attention to one merit of Antoninus, which, he says, has been "utterly unnoticed hitherto by historians, but which willhereafter obtain a conspicuous place in any perfect record of the stepsby which civilization has advanced and human nature been exalted. It isthis: Marcus Aurelius was the first great military leader who allowedrights indefeasible, rights uncancelled by misfortune in the field, tothe prisoner of war. Others had been merciful and variously indulgent, upon their own discretion, and upon a random impulse, to some, orpossibly to all of their prisoners; ... But Marcus Aurelius firstresolutely maintained that certain indestructible rights adhered toevery soldier simply as a man, which rights capture by the sword, or anyother accident of war, could do nothing to shake or diminish.... Here isan immortal act of goodness built upon an immortal basis; for so long asarmies congregate and the sword is the arbiter of internationalquarrels, so long will it deserve to be had in remembrance that thefirst man who set limits to the empire of wrong, and first translatedwithin the jurisdiction of man's moral nature that state of war whichhad heretofore been consigned by principle no less than by practice toanarchy, animal violence, and brute force, was also the firstphilosopher who sat upon a throne. In this, and in his universal spiritof forgiveness, we cannot but acknowledge a Christian byanticipation.... And when we view him from this distant age, as headingthat shining array, the Howards and the Wilberforces, who have sincethen, in a practical sense, hearkened to the sighs of 'all prisoners andcaptives, ' we are ready to suppose him addressed by the great Founder ofChristianity in the words of Scripture, 'Thou art not far from thekingdom of God. '"[32]

Born to be a thinker rather than an actor, by nature framed for the lifeof a recluse, by temperament inclined to private study andcontemplation, this best of emperors and of men by Providential destinywas doomed to spend the greater part of his days in the tumult ofaffairs, and, like a true Roman, died at last a soldier's death in hiscamp on the banks of the Danube, where, in after years, another line of"Roman Emperors, " the sovereigns of the "Holy Roman Empire of Germany, "had their seat. For more than a century after his death, and so long asRome retained a remnant of her old vitality, a grateful people adoredhim as a saint, and he who "had no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus inhis house was looked upon as a profane and irreligious man. " To thisday, beside the equestrian statue named by Merivale, in the heart ofmodern Rome, a few steps from her principal thronged thoroughfare, acolumn which time has spared still commemorates the last of the Romans. The Emperor's statue which once surmounted it was destroyed, andcenturies after the statue of St. Paul exalted to the vacant place, asif to show that the "height of Rome" is not quite the perfection of allhumanity, and that even the purest of ancient philosophies is incompletewithout the supplement of a more humane and universal wisdom. 

Mr. Long's preliminary dissertation on "The Philosophy of Antoninus" isthorough and satisfactory, so far as that specific subject is concerned, but presents a very inadequate view of the Stoic philosophy in general, and strikes us as unjust in its incidental disparaging notice (in afootnote) of Seneca, who, after all, will ever be regarded as thegreatest literary product of that school. 

The book itself to which this essay introduces us is one of the fewmonuments that remain to us, and by far the best monument that remainsto us, of the interior spiritual life of the better class of thatGræco-Roman world of whose exterior life we know so much. Not to haveread it is not to know the deepest mind of the ancients. Two things init are prevailingly prominent: first, a noble nature; secondly, anextreme civilization, already faltering, turned to decline, expectingits fall. On every page lies the shadow of impending doom; on every pageshines forth the great, heroic soul equal to every fate. The work--ifwork it can be called--is entirely aphoristic, with no apparent plan; infact, a note-book or diary of thoughts and fancies, set down as theyoccurred from time to time, and as leisure favored the record. In itsstructure, or rather want of structure, and in some of its suggestions, it reminds one of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Yet the difference betweenthem is immense. The prevailing tone of Ecclesiastes is skepticism, thatof the "Thoughts" is faith. The one is morbid, the other sane; the onerelaxes, the other braces; the one is steeped in despondency and gloom, the other is redolent of manly courage and cheerful trust. The Emperor, like the Preacher, has much to say about death; but he views the subjectfrom a higher plane, and envisages the final event with a better hope. He does not think that a living dog is better than a dead lion. 

"What, then, is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing, and onlyone, philosophy. [33] But this consists in keeping the dæmon within a manfree from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doingnothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, ... Andbesides accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as comingfrom thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came, and finallywaiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than adissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves, in each continuallychanging into the other, why should a man have any apprehension aboutthe change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according toNature, and nothing is evil which is according to Nature. "[34]

"Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore;get out. If, indeed, to another life, there is no want of gods, not eventhere. But if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease to be heldby pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel which is as muchinferior as that which serves it is superior; for the one isintelligence and deity, the other is earth and corruption. "[35]

"Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world]; whatdifference does it make to thee whether for five years or three? forthat which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is thehardship, then, if no tyrant or unjust judge sends thee away from thestate, but Nature who brought thee into it? The same as if a prætor whohas employed an actor dismisses him from the stage. 'But I have notfinished the five acts, --only three of them. ' Thou sayest well; but inlife the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a completedrama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and now of its dissolution; but thou art the cause of neither. Depart, then, satisfied, for he who dismisses thee is satisfied. "[36]

The book is one which scarcely admits of analysis, and of which it isimpossible to convey an idea by any discussion of its contents. Incharacterizing the man we have characterized the "Thoughts" as thecommentary of personal experience on the virtues of fortitude, patience, piety, love, and trust. They have a history, and have been the chosencompanion of many and very different men of note. Our own native Stoic, the latest, and, since Fichte, the best representative of that school, fed his youth at this fountain, and shows, in his earlier writingsespecially, the influence of his imperial predecessor. Mr. Long remindsus that this was one of the two books which Captain John Smith, the heroof young Virginia, selected for his daily use. Unlike the generality ofJohn Smiths and of modern Virginians, the brave soldier found here akindred spirit. 

The Christian world possesses in its Bible a record of Semitic pietywhose genuine utterances will never be surpassed; but when the Vulgateof the Aryan races shall be published, these confessions of a noble soulwill claim a prominent place among its scriptures. 

_Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education. _ Translated from the German ofJEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 

We call to mind certain phrases wherein the critic may honestly expresssatisfaction that a portion of the world's plastic stock of usefulknowledge has been skilfully manipulated into a volume. Truly, none ofthem will do for this sweetest household blossom of a commandingintellect. We have poetry too discursively brilliant for the trammels ofverse, eloquence which has drawn its materials from the purest sources, and instructiveness running into sparkling effusions or soaring inaërial fancies. It is hard to speak adequately of this delicious, accidental "Levana. " It is no schoolmaster's manual, no elaboratedsystem set to snap like a spring-trap upon the heads of incautiousmeddlers, --it is only the very aroma of the married life of a wise andtender poet. 

Those early years which held Richter in the grasp of their miseries andperplexities had passed away. Bravely had he struggled throughtemptations which at all times and in all places beset young men, addedto such as are peculiar to one of the highest inspirations steeped tothe lips in poverty. Through all perils he had borne the purity of hisyouth, the freedom and simplicity of his deep soul. And so he isprivileged to bring to marriage and the delicate nurture of children thefine insights of a man of genius who has been wholly true to the costlygift he possessed. Of the domestic fragrance of a well-ordered family nosavor eludes him. The wife and children, the vigorous and rich lifewhich they offer to a good man, --those are touched with keenest analysisand in festal spirit. Most thoroughly does the author possess that rarecombination of mind which seeks speculative truth no less than idealbeauty; with him emotion is nothing, unless it leads to principle. 

"Levana, " as we have said, is no iron system for the education ofchildren; it is rather a most readable text-book for the education ofparents. It sustains a relation of spiritual fathership to commonfathers, and offers choicest counsel to those who would assume theoffice of family-teacher honestly and in the fear of God. And it seemsto us that of these subtle influences of home-culture, whose gospelRichter here declares, our American parents have been too neglectful. The world knows that we are proud, and justly so, of our publiceducational apparatus. But that our legislation in this directionproduces nothing but good, no observing man can admit. This elaboratereading-and-writing machine of which the State turns the handle, whileit induces a certain average sharpness in the children, leaves rustingsome of the noblest privileges as well as the highest duties of theparent. Yet citizens will cry that they feel their responsibilities foreducating, and, to their better fulfilment, work daily for dollars. Thisis well; but let us not throw our dollars in a parabolic curve over thehouse, on the chance of their making a happy descent in some distantschool-room. The bringing-up of children is something very differentfrom pickling cucumbers or salting fish, --it cannot be done by contractand in the gross. But, ah, there is no time for anything else! Thenreduce your way of living to anything above the food-and-shelter point, and so make time. Richter was always poor, always a man of great laborand great performance, and here is what he says:--"I deny myself myevening meal in my eagerness to work; but the interruptions by mychildren I cannot deny myself. "

"Levana" is peculiarly adapted to cause those who have to do withchildren to feel all the emancipating and renovating power of theirtrust. It cannot leave us satisfied with any conventional arrangementwhich brings to plausible maturity a limited per cent. There are, indeed, minds strong enough to pass through the bitter years ofunlearning what has been taught amiss, and then, bating no jot of heartor courage, to begin education for themselves in middle life. But oftenit is far otherwise. Too often, owing to the indolence or immaturity ofthose who assume the responsibility of parents, the child is cast into aterrible moral perplexity, which is at last moral corruption. Our dutiestoward different children are as eclectic and irregular as Natureherself. There is a need to study and respect the individual character, which claims from parents the daily use of their mental powers, --andthis without a compelling external stimulus. Now it is easy and notunpleasant to work in a routine. Schiller used to say that he found thegreat happiness of life to consist in the discharge of some mechanicalduty. He was in the right. Nevertheless, for the worth and blessednessof life we must look to the discharge of duties which are notmechanical. Of mechanical teaching the highest result proposed is themultiplication of photographs from the teacher's negative, or, in thewords of Richter, "to fill our streets with perpetual stiff, feeblecopies of the same pedagogue type. " But the parent's office demandscourage, --courage not so much to originate as to accept the wisdom ofthinking men, some of whom have spoken more than a hundred years ago. The folly of cramming a child with words representing no ideas, insteadof giving him ideas to find themselves words, is no new discovery. Milton, in his letter to Master Hartlib, assails that "scholasticgrossness of barbarous ages" from which we nineteenth-century citizenshave by no means escaped. "We do amiss, " exclaims the eloquent scholar, "to spend seven or eight years in scraping together so much miserableLatin and Greek as might otherwise be learned easily and pleasantly inone year. " He denounces this "misspending our prime youth at schools anduniversities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such thingschiefly as were better unlearned. " We quote the words of Milton ratherthan those of other eminent men to the same effect, because the poetcannot be accused of objecting to Latin and Greek taught at the righttime and in the right way. A man whose mighty English was always fastanchored to classic bottoms had surely no sentimental preference formodern sciences. Indeed, in this very essay he seems to demand what atpresent we must consider as a too early initiation into the ancientlanguages, no longer the exclusive keys to knowledge. But Miltonrealized that there was a natural development to the imitative andperceptive powers of man, and he knew that a mere tasking of the verbalmemory blighted the diviner faculties of comparison and judgment. Wehold that the ideal system of education, to which through comingcenturies men can only approximate, must present to the child theprecise step in knowledge which he waits for, and upon which he is ableto raise himself with that glow of pleasurable activity which God givesto exertion directed to a comprehensible end. The feeblest mind iscapable of assimilating knowledge with a satisfaction the same in kindas that which rewarded the maturest labors of Humboldt or Newton. Thereare sequences of facts every one of which, imparted in its naturalorder, brings an immediate interest. It is no nebulous scheme ofcombining instruction with amusement which is to be sought. One might aswell look after the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. Goodthings are to be had upon no easier terms than privation and work. Butthere is a wide difference between a man toiling to gain materialcomforts for those who are dear to him, or laboring to enlighten andreform his own spirit that he may give good gifts to his generation, anda beast whipped round a treadmill to the din of its own everlastingclatter. It is only work whose end shall, in some faint degree, beintelligible, which is demanded for the child; and with this sort ofwork we believe that it is very possible to furnish him. But ourphilanthropies in this direction may not be wrought by deputy; they mustbe aimed at the few, and not at once at the many. 

The reader of "Levana" will find much incidental commendation of thosetrue relations of intellectual sympathy and confidence between parentsand children which in this country are far rarer than they should be. Seldom do we hear the average American citizen speak of either parent inthat tone of tender and respectful companionship with which the averageFrenchman pronounces "_ma mère_" or "_mon père_. " Seldom do we see thatrelation between an eminent man and his mother which, in the Old World, has been exemplified from Augustine to Buckle. Some of the causes ofthis have been admirably set forth in a recent essay in these pages. Thearticle by Gail Hamilton in the April number of the "Atlantic" containsmuch _uncommon_ sense, which our lady-readers cannot ponder too often. All honor to those mothers who, meeting extreme and unexpected poverty, turn themselves into drudges that their children may be decently clothedand wholesomely fed! But dishonor to those women who stunt their ownintellectual powers, which should educate and accompany the immortalsouls of their sons and daughters through this world and perhapsanother, --and this, in order that their bodies may be fed luxuriously, or dressed in lace and ruffles to vie with the children of richerneighbors! There can be no tolerance for the _indolence_--we emphasizethe word--which elects a mechanical routine instead of those hardermental efforts through which a mother's highest duties may becomprehended and performed. And what shall be said for the despicablevanity which would barter opportunities of forming and directing a humancharacter for the sake of trimmings and fancy buttons? We cannot possessthe confidence and friendship of our children without taking pains todeserve them. If the father chooses to be "the governor" of his family, then the _ex-governor_, and nothing more, can he be to his grown-upchildren, --an official once set over them by some Know-Nothing or otherfatality, at length happily shelved with the rubbish of the nursery. Nowhere are the external sanctities of domestic life more respected thanin our Northern States, and here should its fairest promises bebountifully fulfilled. Above all things, it is to be remembered thatwhatever moral power a man would have his children possess, that must heespecially demand and exercise in himself. The Law of the household mustafford the luxury of a Conscience; for if ever the maxim "_Summum jus, summa, injuria_" be worthy of remembrance, it is in the management ofchildren. Well for those who realize that education is no merely linealadvancement, but a spreading and flowering in many directions! well forthose who cultivate all the capabilities of love and trust in theirchildren! "When I think, " says Jean Paul, "that I never saw in my fathera trace of selfishness, I thank God!" There comes the time when youngmen go forth to battle in the world, and the father prays bitterly forthe power to endow them with the results of his own experience. But onlyto him who has borne himself truthfully and honorably before his familycan that good gift be given. 

Upon the subject of religious education "Levana" is finely suggestive. All cobweb-makeshifts which obscure the beautiful substance of a holylife are swept aside. To the young, not what others say, but what theydo, is right. Children, like their elders, will resist all merereasoning upon the disadvantages, whether temporal or spiritual, ofactions to which they are tempted. But they are ever ready to absorb thefaith of the household, and to be nourished by it. "For those who wishto give anything, " exclaims our author, "the first rule is, that theyshall have it to give; no one can teach religion who does not himselfpossess it; hypocrisy and mouth-religion will bring forth only theirlike. " The hardly noticeable habits of unrestrained intercourse, theindulgence of petty selfishness not acknowledged to ourselves, --theseare seeds of evil quick to germinate in a virgin soil. No iteration ofpedagogical maxims can annul the influence of some little mean orgraceless act. Let every parent take heed lest, through his own weaknessand folly, he lose the divine privilege of obedience through confidence. In the world, obedience through discipline must indeed come; but let itbe unknown in the family as long as it may. And of "mouth-religion" whatfatal abundance! To a child, it is no more than the creaking andrattling of a vehicle, which is of a certain worth, doubtless, to theweary, sinful adult, --but to one who feels his life in every limb, incomprehensible, and an offence. Of the vulgar superstition which wouldconfuse the nursery with creeds and vain prayer-repetitions of theheathen there is far too much. We have known parents, reputed pious andchurch-going, who delighted to pour crushing enigmas into infant ears, and then to make a sorry household jest of the feeble one's grotesqueattempts to extend or limit the Unspeakable. As the highest concerns ofman can be known only by the spirit, so they can be taught only by thespirit. It is not the words we repeat, but the temper in which we dailylive, that moulds the family to honor or dishonor. It is the spirit ofthe father and mother which produces results mistaken for intuitions bythe superficial. And, truly, youth, thus warmly rooted in generosity andnobility, will, in its own good time, stretch tender leaves up to theHigher Light. And when Nature is ready for worship, mark how wiselyRichter directs it:--"The sublime is a step to the temple of religion, as the stars are to that of infinity. Let the name of God be heard bythe child in connection with all that is great in Nature, --the storm, the thunder, the starry heavens, and death, --a great misfortune, --agreat piece of good-fortune, --a great crime, --a greatly noble action:these are the sites on which to build the wandering church ofchildhood. "

In conclusion, we can only repeat, that the greatest charm of "Levana"is its suggestion of a possible household, from what the reader feelswas once an actual household. The cheap sentimentalism of parentalrelations has often been a favorite property with men of imaginativegenius. Rousseau and Byron knew how to use it as a fictitious backgroundbefore which they might posture with effect. But, until the world'sliterature shall mercifully forget them, the "Enfants Trouvés" and theVenetian bagnio strip these writers of their fine words, and hold thembefore the generations in scandal and disgrace. No reader of "Levana"can miss the refutation of that poisonous lie, that men of genius, because of their mental endowments, have a natural inaptitude fordomestic relations, or are unhappy therein from any other cause thantheir own foolishness or guilt. We hear the tender strains of a deeppoet, privileged by acquired worthiness to return to those divineinstincts which were vivid in the simplest condition of the family. Toall who can bring the writings of Richter within their range we commendthis book. Those who have learned to enjoy his strong-darting language, his complex constructions, his kindly humor, will find these workingtogether with noblest aim. In these times of our country's peril, thereis some sanative virtue outside of treatises upon strategy or Unionpamphlets. It is well to print and circulate the literature of war. Butit is also a sweet and a timely mission to impart a new inspiration intothat life of the family to-day which shall become the life of the nationto-morrow. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See Atlantic Monthly, May Number. ]

[Footnote 2: "Clearly a fictitious appellation; for, if we admit thelatter of these names to be in a manner English, what is _Leigh_?Christian nomenclature knows no such. "]

[Footnote 3: "It is clearly of transatlantic origin. "]

[Footnote 4:

 "'Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum) Insuitur femori ... Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi. '

_Metamorph_. Lib. 3. "]

[Footnote 5: It was Philip II. Who gave to the Havana a coat of arms, inwhich was a golden key, to signify that it was the key of the Indies. The house being lost, the key has, oddly enough, become more valuablethan ever to Spain. ]

[Footnote 6: The "Annual Register" states that but 2, 500 of theconquerors were fit for duty when the Havana surrendered. The Boston"Gazette" says 3, 000, and that the arrival of reinforcements wascritical. Even disease could not break down armies in those days. TheSpaniards had 6, 000 sick. ]

[Footnote 7: The writer is known to the publishers of the "AtlanticMonthly": he is one whose word is not and cannot be called in question;and he pledges his word that the above is exact and _proven_ fact. Horace Mann, years ago, made public some similar cases. ]

[Footnote 8: _Constitutional History of England_, Vol. II. P. 340. ]

[Footnote 9: Carlyle's _Life of Cromwell_, Part IX. Vol. II. P. 168. ]

[Footnote 10: Ludlow's _Memoirs_, p. 559. ]

[Footnote 11: Ibid. P. 580. ]

[Footnote 12: Ibid. P. 582. ]

[Footnote 13: Kent's _Commentaries_, Vol. I. P. 292, note b. ]

[Footnote 14: Elliott's _Debates_, Vol. III, p. 22. ]

[Footnote 15: Elliott's _Debates_, Vol. III. P. 44. ]

[Footnote 16: _Ibid. _ p. 29. ]

[Footnote 17: Rushworth's _Historical Collections_, Vol. I. P. 609. ]

[Footnote 18: See Cushing, _Parliamentary Law_, p. 284. ]

[Footnote 19: Phillimore's _International Law_, Vol. I. P. 147. ]

[Footnote 20: Burke's _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_. ]

[Footnote 21: Macaulay's _History of England_, Vol. II. P. 623. ]

[Footnote 22: Macaulay's _History of England_, Vol. II. P. 624. ]

[Footnote 23: John Adams's _Works_, Vol. II. P. 490. ]

[Footnote 24: _Ibid_. Vol. III. Pp. 17, 19, 45, 46. ]

[Footnote 25: Webster's _Works_, Vol. VI. Pp. 225, 226, 227, 228, 231. ]

[Footnote 26: The _Gorgias_ of Plato. ]

[Footnote 27: _American Insurance Company_ v. _Carter_, 1 Peters, p. 542. ]

[Footnote 28: _Democracy in America_, Vol. II. Ch. 25, p. 343. ]

[Footnote 29: Thirty-Seventh Congress, Second Session, 2d May, 1862, Part III. P. 1923. ]

[Footnote 30: Act of Congress, July 2, 1862, ch. 123. ]

[Footnote 31: Jewish tradition, in spite of German criticism, stillascribes the Book of Ecclesiastes to Solomon. ]

[Footnote 32: _The Cæsars_, p. 170, Boston edition. ]

[Footnote 33: This word, as Marcus uses it, is equivalent to religion. ]

[Footnote 34: p. 25. ]

[Footnote 35: p. 29. ]

[Footnote 36: p. 217. ]