A SENSIBLE EPITAPH.
'Reader, pass on: ne'er waste your time
On bad biography or bitter rhyme:
For what I am, this cumbrous clay insures,
And what I was, is no affair of yours.'
THE PELOPONNESUS IN MARCH.
'Fair clime I where every season smiles.
There, mildly dimpling, Ocean's check
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave.
And if, at times, a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That wakes and wafts the odors there!'
It was with thoughts like these running in our heads, that we found ourselves, at about half-past four o'clock, on a dark, cloudy, windy morning, March fifteenth, 18—, rolling slowly along the uneven road that leads from Athens to the Piraeus. Our guide was Dhemetri, of course—who ever heard of a guide that was not named Dhemetri? An excellent guide he was, too, never missing his way, answering correctly all our questions to which he knew the answers, and fabricating answers to the rest as near the truth as his moderate knowledge of antiquity would permit; providing us sedulously with creature comforts, and besieging our hearts daily with delicious omelettes and endless strings of figs. Arrived at the Piraeus, we were transferred, with beds, cooking apparatus, and baggage, to the Lloyd steamer, whose cloud of steam and smoke was seen dimly in the gray morning. At a reasonable time after the hour advertised, we sailed into the open bay, passed near enough the island of Ægina to see the ruined temple on one of its hights—almost to count its columns—then coasted along the rugged shores of Argolis, which we eagerly studied with the aid of a map. Here was the peninsula Methana, and half hiding it, the island Calauria, where Demosthenes put an end to his life, once the seat of a famous Amphictyony. Then the bold promontory which shuts in the fertile valley of Troezer, then the territory of Hermione, stretching between the mountains and the sea. We touched at Hydhra, famed in the history of the Greek Revolution, a strange, rambling town, picturesquely situated on a cleft in a bare island of gray rock, and shortly after at Spetzia, a town of much the same character; then toward night sailed into the beautiful bay of Napoli, or Nauplia, once the capital of Greece.
It had been our intention to procure horses that night, and ride as far as Mycenæ, but we were too late, so contented ourselves with a walk to Tiryus, and a rapid examination of its ruins. The massive walls of this venerable town—they were a wonder in the age of Pericles as in ours—still stand in their whole circuit, and here and there apparently in their whole hight. It is a small, steep, mound-like hill—you can walk around it in fifteen minutes—and within the walls the terraced slope, thickly sprinkled with fragments of ruins, is grown over with the tall purple flowers of the asphodel—a fit monument to the perished city. From the citadel of Tiryus the view over the wide plain of the Inachus, the broad bay beyond, covered with sails, the bold headland of Napoli crowned with the ruined castle, the noble citadel of Argos, and the mountain ranges on every side, made a picture beautiful even under the dull sky of that March evening. Our walk—quickened by the fear that the city gates would be found closed—gave us a hearty appetite, and a classic smack was imparted to our modest viands by the fact that Orestes himself waited on our table. We slept well, notwithstanding the uncomfortable reputation of the inn, and set off early the next morning upon our wanderings.
Traveling in Greece is no child's play. Roads there are none, except between some large towns; indeed, the nature of the country hardly allows of them, as it is made up chiefly of mountain ridges and ravines. Neither would the poverty-stricken inhabitants be able at present to make much use of them. When I expressed to Dhemetri the great benefits I conceived that roads would confer upon the community, he asked contemptuously: 'What good would roads be to them, when they have no carriages?' Inns, too, there are none, or almost none; after leaving Napoli we found none until we returned to Athens. In their stead, each village has its khan, a house rather larger than ordinary, and containing one large unfurnished room for guests. Here a fire is made on the hearth, (the smoke escaping, or intended to escape, through a hole in the roof, for chimneys do not exist,) and the traveler pitches his tent metaphorically in this apartment. The beds, which he carries with him, are spread on the floor, to do double duty as seats during the evening and beds by night. Thus the accommodations are reduced to their lowest terms—shelter and fire; to which add a lamb from the flock, eggs in abundance, or sometimes a chicken, loaf of bread, or string of figs. Wine, too, flavored with resin in true classic style, and tasting like weak spirits of turpentine, is to be had every where. But for any entertainment beyond this, the host is no-way responsible. If you do not choose to sleep on the bare floor, you must bring beds and bedding with you. If you wish the luxury of a knife and fork, you must furnish them yourself. Kettles, plates, saucepans, cups, coffee, sugar, salt, candles, all came from that mysterious basket which rode on the pack-horse with the baggage. Were I visiting Greece again, I would eschew all these vanities—carry nothing but a Reisesack, or travel-bag, as the Germans are wont to call every variety of knapsack—a shawl, and a copy of Pausanias, and live among the Greeks as the Greeks do; but I was inexperienced then.
So we set out with great pomp and circumstance, each on his beast—alogon, the Unreasonable Thing, is the word for horse—while a fifth, with two drivers, carried our goods. A ride of about three hours—passing the silent and deserted Tiryus—brought us to the village of Charváti, the modern representative of the 'rich Mycenae.' Here, while Dehmetri prepared our breakfast, we followed a villager, who led us by rapid strides up the rocky hill toward the angle formed by two mountains. As we rose over one elevation after another, he plucked his hands full of dry grass and brush, and then leading us into a hole in the side of the hill, informed us in good classic Greek that it was the tomb of Agamemnon. It is a large, round apartment, rising to the hight of forty-nine feet, and of about the same width, the layers of masonry gradually approaching one another until a single stone caps the whole; not conical in shape, however, but like a beehive. A single monstrous stone, twenty-seven feet long and twenty wide, is placed over the doorway. The whole is buried with earth, and covered with a growth of grass and shrubs, and a passage leads from it into a smaller chamber hewn in the solid rock, in which our guide lighted the fuel he had gathered. The gloomy walls were lighted up for a moment, then when the fire died away, we returned to the open air. A little further on is the famous gateway with two lionesses carved in relief above—the armorial bearings, we may call it, of the city—and in every direction are seen massive walls, foundation-stones, ruins of gates and of subterraneous chambers like the first we visited, conical hillocks, probably containing others in equally good preservation, and other marks of the busy hand of man—'Spuren ordnender Menschenhand unter dem Gesträuch.' Sidney Smith says: 'It is impossible to feel affection beyond seventy-eight degrees or below twenty degrees of Fahrenheit.... Man only lives to shiver or to perspire.' I think it is so with the sublime and beautiful, and deeply as I felt in the abstract the privilege I enjoyed in standing on the citadel of Agamemnon, and seeing the most venerable ruins that Europe can boast, that keen March wind was too much for me, and I was not sorry to return to the khan, where, sitting cross-legged on the floor, we ate with our fingers a roast chicken dissected with the one knife of the family, and drank a bumper of resinous wine.
After dinner we remounted and rode back through the broad plain to Argos, traversed its narrow, dirty streets, stared at by the Argive youth, examined its grass-grown theatre, cast wistful eyes at the lofty citadel of Larissa, which time forbade us to ascend, then wound along the foot of the mountain-range, saw at a distance on the seashore a spot of green, which we were told was Lerna, where Hercules slew the hydra, and near the road an old ruined pyramid, which we afterward examined more closely, then followed a mountain-path, catching now and then a glimpse of the bay, following the crest of the ridge into the valley beyond. On one of the undulations of the path we passed over the site of an ancient city, evidenced only by that most sure sign, a soil thickly covered with potsherds. No classic writer mentions it, no inscription gives it a name; perhaps the careless traveler would pass without a suspicion that he was treading on the street, or forum, or temple of a once thriving town. Striking soon into the carriage-road from Napoli to Tripolitza, and descending into a charming little valley with the euphonious name of Achladhókamvo, we were not sorry to find a khan, and take up our quarters for the night. We found the family sitting on the floor around a fire blazing on a hearth in the middle of a room, and here we placed ourselves, watching the women spinning and Dhemetri making his preparations for supper. Out of the afore-mentioned basket quickly came all the afore-mentioned articles. A lamb was killed, and shortly an excellent supper was served up to us. Soon the guest-chamber was announced to be ready for us, a large open room having a fire at one end, and containing our beds, spread on the floor, a cricket three inches high, that served as a table, two windows closed by shutters instead of glass, and a large quantity of smoke.
The next morning a steep and picturesque path over Mount Parthenion—the same path, I suppose, on which Phidippides had his well-known interview with the god Pan—brought us to Arcadia. And at the name of Arcadia let not the fond mind revert to scenes of pastoral innocence and enjoyment, such as poets and artists love to paint—a lawn of ever-fresh verdure shaded by the sturdy oak and wide-spreading beech, watered by never-failing springs, swains and maidens innocent as the sheep they tend, dancing on the green sward to the music of the pipe, and snowy mountains in the distance lending repose and majesty to the scene. Nothing of this picture is realized by the Arcadia of to-day, but the snowy mountains, and they, indeed, are all around and near. No, let your dream of Arcadia he something like this: A bare, open plain, three thousand feet above the level of the sea, fenced in on every side by snow-topped mountains, and swept incessantly by cold winds, the sky heavy with clouds, the ground sown with numberless stones, with here and there a bunch of hungry-looking grass pushing itself feebly up among them. Not a tree do you behold, hardly a shrub. You come to a river—it is a broad, waterless bed of cobble-stones and gravel, only differing from the dry land in being less mixed with dirt, and wholly, instead of partly, destitute of vegetation. But your eye falls at last on a sheet of water—there is surely a placid lake giving beauty and fertility to its neighborhood. No, it is a katavothron, or chasm, in which the accumulated waters of the plain disappear. For as these Arcadian valleys are so shut in by mountains as to leave no natural egress to the water, it gathers in the lowest spot it can reach, and there stagnates, unless it can wear a passage for itself, or find a subterraneous channel through the limestone mountain, and come to light again in a lower valley. Such a reäppearance we saw near Argos, a broad, swift stream—the Erasmus—rushing from under a mountain with such force as to turn mills; it is believed to come from a kalavothron in the northern part of Arcadia. And not far from thence a fountain of fresh water bubbles up in the sea a few yards from the shore; this is traced to a similar source. In some parts of Greece the remains may still be seen of the subterranean channels by which in ancient times the katavothra were kept clear, and thus prevented from overflowing. In this way much land was artificially redeemed to agriculture.
If, now, you seek for the dwellers in this paradise, behold them in yon shepherd and his faithful dog—Arcades ambo—the shepherd muffled against the searching wind in hood and cloak, under his arm a veritable crook, while his sheep and goats are browsing about wherever a blade of grass or a green leaf can be found. His invariable companion is—I was about to say a tamed wolf; but in reality, an untamed animal of wolfish aspect and disposition, always eager to make your acquaintance. These creatures are the torment of the traveler throughout Greece, and most of all in Arcadia. If on foot, he can pick up a stone, at sight of which the enemy will beat a hasty retreat. Greece seems to have been bountifully supplied with loose stones of the right size for this very purpose, just as the rattlesnake-plant is said to grow wherever the rattlesnake itself is found. If on horseback, he can easily escape, although the animal will not scruple to hang to the horse's tail or bite his heels. Such was Arcadia in March. No doubt, at another season it is a delightful retreat from the overpowering heat of the Greek summer. It may have a beauty of its own at that season; but there can be little of that quiet rural landscape which we call Arcadian.
After crossing this plain, visiting by the way the ruins of Tegea, which consisted of a potato-field, sprinkled with bits of brick and marble, and a medieval church, with some ancient marble built into its walls, we came to a broad river, the Alpheus, whose water, when it has any, empties in a katavothron which we left on our right; followed it up in a southerly direction until we came to a little water in its bed, then crossing over some rolling land which divides the water-courses of Arcadia from those of Laconia, we found ourselves in a country of a very different character. The land was better, and was covered with a low growth of wood; we could even see extensive forests on the sides of Parnon. The scenery became highly picturesque, and the weather, although still rigorous, was more comfortable than in the morning. Night came on us long before we reached our journey's end, the wayside khan of Krevatá. There was a little parleying at the door, and Dhemetri seemed dissatisfied with what he saw, and disposed to carry us on to another resting-place. But thoroughly benumbed as we were, the blaze of light that fell upon us from the half-open door quite won our hearts, and we felt willing to risk whatever discomforts the place might have rather than go further. As we entered the door, the scene was striking. A large fire was roaring in the middle of the room, filling it with smoke. On cushions and scraps of carpet, disposed about the fire, were crouched six or eight men and women, dressed in their national costume, very dirty and equally picturesque. Two or three children were among them, or lay stretched at random on the floor asleep. A large, swarthy man opposite us held a child of two or three years, now nestling in its father's arms, now climbing over to its mother, now gazing bashfully and curiously at the strangers. Basil, ever ready on occasion, seized his pencil and soon transferred the group to paper, to the admiration of them all. They moved to right and left as we came in, and made room for us on the side next the door, where our faces were scorched, Our backs shivering, and our eyes smarting with the smoke. An old woman who sat next me eyed us inquisitively, and would gladly have entered into conversation; but almost our sole Greek phrase, 'It is cold,' (eeny krió), we had exhausted immediately on entering the room. Basil essayed Italian, having a vague idea that it would pass any where in Greece, as French does in Italy, but with no success. Neither was our conversation among ourselves brilliant. We were tired, cold, sleepy, and hungry, and we thought despairingly on the long miles back that we had last seen our baggage. At length a shout at the door gladdened our hearts; our beds and that ever-welcome basket were handed in, and Dhemetri was soon deeply engaged in preparing supper. Meanwhile, a fire had been built in the upper room, and we went up by a ladder. But here we were worse off than below. Roof, floor, walls, and (wooden) windows, all were amply provided with cracks and knot-holes, through which the wind roved at its will. A wretched fire was smoldering on the hearth, and a candle was burning in a tin cup hanging by its handle on a nail in the wall, which, set it where we would, flickered in the wind. And when our supper came, fricassee, boiled chicken, roast hare, omelette, bread, cheese, figs, and wine—for such a bill of fare had Dhemetri made ready for us—we swallowed it hastily, huddled our beds about the fire, wrapped ourselves in our blankets, and lay down at once. The inquisitive old lady below, on seeing the extensive preparations for the supper of three fellow-mortals, was struck with reverence for us, and expressed her belief that those, who lived on such marvelous and unheard-of delicacies would never die. We, indeed, had requested Dhemetri to cater more simply for us; but his professional pride would not suffer it.
We were right glad when morning came, and after a mug of thick coffee, a bit of bread, and a handful of figs, we bid farewell to Krevatá with no regrets. A short ride brought us to the brow of the range on which we were traveling, and there lay the valley of Sparta at our feet, and beyond it the Taygetus, if not the highest, the boldest and sharpest mountain-range in Greece. Its white and jagged crest was still tipped with clouds, and it appeared to rise from the valley of Sparta in an almost unbroken ascent to its hight of seven thousand feet. This was the finest single prospect of our journey; but we gladly left it, after a short pause, to push on to the warmth and sunshine of the valley below. The precipitous descent was soon accomplished; we forded the Eurotas, a broad, clear, shallow stream, the only real river we saw in Greece, and stood in Sparta, its site marked by a group of low hills and a few unimportant ruins. The ground is good, and was then green with young wheat; the valley was sheltered from the winds which had persecuted us on the highlands, and for a few hours in the middle of the day, the clouds were scattered, and we basked in the sun's rays. It seemed an Elysium. A small and thrifty village has recently sprung up south of this group of hills, still within the limits of the ancient city, and here we dined in a café (kapheterion) kept by one Lycurgus, not on black broth, but on roast lamb, omelette, figs, oranges, and wine. Truly, if national character depended wholly on physical geography, we should be inclined to look in the valley of the Eurotas for the rich and luxurious Athens, and seek its stern and simple rival among the bleak hills and sterile plains of Attica. We had a short ride that afternoon up the valley of the Eurotas, with a keen north wind in our faces, and were not sorry to reach Kalyvia at an early hour.
Dhemetri had sent the pack-horse with our baggage across by a shorter path, and now announced that we were to sleep to-night in a house instead of a khan, that the mayor (demarchos) of Kalyvia had consented to receive us. Great was our exultation at the prospect of spending a night in this aristocratic mansion, and in truth we found the accommodations here much the most comfortable—nay, we reckoned them luxurious—which we had on our journey. We were first shown into a small room with one glass window, with tight walls, and a chimney. A fire was burning cheerfully on the hearth—that is to say, a stone platform slightly elevated above the floor. The floor around the fire was spread with mats, and in one corner the lady of the house was—what shall I say?—squatted upon the floor, engaged in domestic work. Her daughter, a pretty, blue-eyed maiden, of some fourteen years, named Athena, (Γλαυκώπις ‘Αθήνα,) was working by her side, and the demarch himself, with his stalwart son, were similarly seated on the opposite side of the hearth. Three rough, unpainted stools, an extra luxury for guests, were brought in for us, and we at once plunged into conversation.
'Εενυ κριό!' said we.
'Μάλιστα, μάλιστα, εενυ κριό!' was the prompt reply.
Stimulated by our success, we made another attempt, and were overwhelmed by a flood of Romaic, to which we could only nod our heads gratefully, with 'Málista, málista, charí, charí,' (certainly, certainly, thank you, thank you.) When we retired to our room, we found our beds laid on a sort of shelf along the wall, instead of on the floor, and our supper was served on a table instead of in our laps, as we were used. The family shook hands with us cordially when we took leave, in the morning, placing their hands on their hearts.
This day we rode through a rolling country, quite well watered and wooded, separating the waters of the Eurotas from those of the Alpheus, Laconia from Arcadia. As we reached the highest point, and were about to descend, Dhemetri pointed out a village, distinguished by a single tall, slender cypress, with the words; 'There is Megalopolis.' This is the city founded by Epaminondas, almost the only statesman of antiquity who seems to have had a dim conception of the modern policy of the balance of power, as a point of union for the jealous and disunited States of Arcadia, and as a sentinel stationed at a chief entrance to Laconia. The whole of his great project was not realized, and Megalopolis, instead of becoming 'the great city' of Arcadia, was only a mate to Tegea and Mantinea. Even thus, the work was by no means lost; a Spartan army, to reach Messenia, whose independence was to be secured, must pass through the territory of Megalopolis, and even a second-rate city would answer as a guard. But not even Epaminondas could make of Arcadia a first-class power, and a sufficient counterpoise to Sparta. Megalopolis is now wholly deserted, and represented only by the little village of Sinanu, half a mile distant, where we stopped at a khan kept by an old soldier of Colocotroni, and ran, while dinner was preparing, to examine the scanty ruins of the great city—interesting only from their association with a great name.
Reluctantly, we now turned our backs upon Messene, with its renowned fortress of Ithome, the sacred Olympia, and the beautiful temple of Phigalia, and began our homeward journey. Passing over a mountain from which we had a wide and beautiful view, we rode through a barren and uninteresting plain to the lonely khan of Frankovrysi, and early the next day arrived at Tripolitza. We had had a clear sky at Megalopolis and Frankovrysi, but here, in the high table-land of Arcadia, we found the self-same leaden sky and bleak winds we left three days before. This valley or table-land stretches from north to south, nearly divided in two by the approach of the mountains from east and west. Thus the valley takes the shape rudely of the figure eight; the southern part, through one corner of which we had passed before, being occupied by Tegea, the northern by Mantinea. Tripolitza, to the northwest of Tegea, represents the ancient Pallantium, the birthplace of Evander. Here Dhemetri brought us bad news. We had intended to go to Mantinea, thence north through Orchomenus, Stymphalus, and Sicyon, to Corinth; but the passes, we learned, were impracticable for the snow, and we must recross Mount Parthenion, and revisit Achladhokamvo and Argos. First, however, we took a rapid ride to Mantinea, about eight miles through a level, tolerably well-cultivated country. At the narrow passage between the mountains, there stood in ancient times a grove of cork-trees, called 'Pelagus,' the sea. Epaminondas, warned by an oracle to beware of the 'Pelagus,' had carefully avoided the sea. But it was just in this spot that he drew up his troops for the great battle which cost him his life. When mortally wounded, he was carried to a high place called 'Skope'—identified with the sharp spur of Mount Mænalus, which projects just here into the plain, and from this he watched the battle, and here he died, like Wolfe, at the moment of victory. The well-built walls of Mantinea still stand in nearly their entire circuit, built in the fourth century before Christ, after Agesipolis of Sparta had captured the city, by washing away its walls of sun-burnt brick, and had dispersed the inhabitants among the neighboring villages. The restoration of the city was a part of the great system of humbling Sparta, set on foot by Epaminondas after the battle of Leuctra.
After spending the night at Achladhokamvo, where we visited the ruins of Hysiæ close by, we went next day through Argos, passing within sight of Mycenæ, to Nemea, where, in a beautiful little valley, three Doric columns, still standing, testify to the former sanctity of the spot. Then to Kurtissa, the ancient Cleonæ, to pass the night. When Dhemetri pointed it out to us from the hill above, it looked like a New-England farm-house, a neat white cottage peeping out from among the trees, and we rejoiced at the prospect. But lo! the neat white cottage was a guardhouse, and our khan was the rude, unpainted, windowless barn. It was, nevertheless, very comfortable. There was a ceiling to the room, and the board windows were tight. The floor, to be sure, gaped in wide cracks; but as there was a blazing fire in the room beneath, the cracks let in no cold air, nothing but smoke, a sort of compensation, as it seemed, for our having a chimney, lest we should be puffed up with pride and luxury. For we not only had a chimney, but a table and two stools, one sitting on an inverted barrel spread with a horse-blanket. Here Dhemetri concocted for our supper an Hellenic soup, of royal flavor, the recollection of which is still grateful to my palate. And here a youth, named Agamemnon, son of George, came and displayed to us his school-books, a geography, beginning with Greece and ending with America, where Βοσθονια as put down as capital of Μασσαχοντια. Longing to hear a Greek war-song, we requested him to sing, at which he warbled Δεντε παιδες τον Ελλενον to a tune which we strongly suspected he composed for the occasion, following it up with others, with such delight that we were fain at last to plead sleepiness and let him depart.
We were up betimes the following morning, for we had a long day's work before us. We were approaching Corinth, and knew that from the Acrocorinthus, a very high and steep hill over-hanging it, a prospect was to be had inferior to none in Greece. The morning, though not actually unpleasant, was chill and hazy, and Dhemetri tried to dissuade us from wasting the time. But we were determined to see what there was to be seen, and after a ride of two or three hours over a rough country, we entered the fortifications of this chief citadel of Greece. It is now guarded by a handful of soldiers, two or three neglected cannons thrust their muzzles idly over the rampart, and shepherds with their flocks roam at will within. A sharp wind was sweeping over the summit, and the mountains and islands—Parnassus, Cyllene, Helicon, Pentclicon, Salamis, Ægina—were veiled with a dull, opaque haze. While Basil, with stiff fingers, was sketching the view from the top, I wandered about with my other companion, picking spring flowers, reading the descriptions of Pausanias, and studying the distant landscape. There is a thriving town at the bottom of the hill, and hither we descended, asking for the inn (Xenodhekeon) where Dhemetri had told us to meet him. But alas! modern Corinth can not sustain an inn; and we were obliged to eat our dinner in a grocery, stared at by all the youth of Corinth. Half a dozen Doric columns, belonging to a very old temple, are the only considerable relics of ancient Corinth. And as we had a long afternoon's work before us, we set off before twelve. We galloped at good speed across the Isthmus, about an hour's ride; Dhemetri, who understood the management of Greek horses, driving us before him like a flock of sheep. We paused a moment at the Isthmic sanctuary of Poseidon, passed through the village of Kalamáki, whence steamers run to Athens, then continued along the shore between Mount Geroneia and the sea, through a low, uneven country, well grown with pine, heather, arbute, gorse in the full splendor of its yellow blossoms, and sweet-smelling thyme. The afternoon was warm and bright. Here and there were flocks of long-haired sheep and sturdy black goats, cropping the grass and the shrubs, and it was well in keeping with the scene when we passed a shepherd, with his cloak thrown carelessly aside, leaning on his crook, and playing a few simple notes—not a tune—on his flageolet to while away the time. We delayed half an hour at the miserable hamlet of Kineta, to rest one of the horses, exhausted with our fast riding, then began the ascent of our last mountain-pass. A spur of Mount Geroneia runs boldly into the sea, forming a wall between the territories of Corinth and Megara. It is called 'Kake-Scala,' 'Bad Ladder,' an odd mixture of Greek and Italian. Here, as the ancients fabled, dwelt the robber Skiron, plundering and mutilating all wayfarers, and throwing them into the sea; but Theseus subdued him and subjected him to a like treatment, and thereafter traveling was secure. No doubt Theseus crowned his labors by building a road, as we know one existed here in antiquity, but it has long since disappeared, and King Otho was then imitating him, as we found, presently, to our cost. The sun had already set, when the road became impassable, and shouts from two men some distance above, informed us that the building of the new road had rendered the old bridle-path impracticable. We had to urge our horses down a steep, narrow path to the water's edge, then as the beach was blocked up with huge rocks, to ride a rod or two through the water, then climb up the steep rocks on the other side, where one horse slipped and came near tumbling with his rider into the sea below. Ten minutes later, and we must have returned to Kineta, or waited an hour or two for the moon, for as soon as we were over this dangerous spot it became quite dark; but the path was now safe and easy to find. The full moon was up when we reached the top of the cliff, and the valley of Megara, the mountains, the bay, and the islands of Ægina and Salamis lay distinctly before us. We made all speed to Megara, cheered by the fame of its khan as one of the best in Greece, and by the certainty that there was now a good road all the way to Athens.
It was suggested that we should take a carriage the rest of the way, but as our horses were hired to Athens, we decided not to incur the extra expense. Soon after arriving, however, while Dhemetri was making us a soup, and Diomedes was taking care of our horses, and Epaminondas was roasting us a joint of lamb, while we were squatting half-asleep on bolsters on the floor, hugging our knees, looking dreamily at the fire, and longing for supper and bed, the driver of the carriage came in, and addressed us in recommendation of his establishment in his choicest Frank, "Carrozza-very good-ye-e-e-s!' then squatted down on the hearth beside us, hugged his knees, and looked at the fire with infinite self-satisfaction. Whether it was his eloquence that prevailed on our attendants, I know not, but it was determined to provide us with a carriage the next day, at no extra expense. The day was perfect, and the luxury of an easy drive of four hours was very grateful to us after our uncomfortable ride in the Peloponnesus. We dined at Eleusis, and reached Athens early in the afternoon.
[ADONIUM.]
Far dimly back in distant days of eld,
There lived a pretty boy, as parchments tell,
As formed for love and life in lonely dell,
With mien as fair as never eyes beheld;
Because who saw, to love him was compelled
Straightway, so wizardly he wielded Beauty's spell.
His name Adonis—sad of memory!
Whose life, though fair, his death was fairer still,
In dying for a cause, or good or ill;
For he heart-crazed the daughter of the sea,
Who loved him well, though wisely loved not she:
True hearts are never wise, as worldlings selfish will.
Him Venus loved—Love's cherished creatures they!
And Venus wooed with perseverance sore,
Till weary was the lad, the wooing o'er;
And while he, hiding in the forest lay,
O'ershaded from the sun's unfriendly ray,
Ah me! there came to kill a maddened, foaming boar!
Oh! see! from limbs too fair for touch of earth,
As tusk and tusk is savage through them drove,
While rain their dainty power 'fending strove,
The pure red liquid life all wasting forth!
All wasted, lost? Nay! thence, thence took its birth
Adonium, eternal bloom of martyred Love!
Love's martyr is a-bleeding now again;
Sweet Liberty, beloved of earth, doth bleed:
The maddened, foaming boar hath come indeed,
And tears our life on many a gory plain;
But we—as bled the boy—bleed not in vain:
Our blood-drops—our sons—will be Adonium seed!
Who die for Liberty—they never die!
Adonis, dead for Love, doth live anew!
They bloom blood-flowers in the tearful dew,
Forever falling on their memory!
In veins that are and veins that are not to be,
They ever coursing live, the right, the good, the true!
Where sinks the martyr's blood within the sod,
A spirit-plant of universal root,
Divinely radiant, doth upward shoot,
Appealing from a wicked world to God!
And seen for once, down drops the tyrant's rod;
For men at last have tasted of a heavenly fruit.
All good and beautiful of soul thus sprung
From blood, e'en as the Adonium I sing;
And where the blood is purest, thence doth spring
Such flowers as by heavenly bards are sung;
For since from Christ the fierce blood-sweat was wrung,
Have growths of nobler fruit on earth been ripening!
POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTES.
There is positively no class of writers entitled to higher praise, or actuated by nobler motives, than those who are now distinguishing themselves by their labors for Education. They have laid their hands on what is to be the great social motive power of the future—the great subject of the politics of days to come—and are working bravely in the sacred cause.
Yet it can hardly be denied that amid the vast mass of every practical observation and suggestion contained in the educational works with which we are familiar, or even among the really scientific contributors to it, there is very little founded on the great social wants and tendencies of the age. Education is, at present, merely an art; it has a right, in common with every conceivable department of knowledge, to be raised to the rank of a science. This can only be done by putting it on a progressive basis, and placing it in such a position as to aid in supplying some great demand of the age.
The great fact of the time is, the advance from mere art upward to science, from the blossom to the fruit. Practical wants, 'the greatest good for the greatest number,' the fullest development of free labor, the increase of capital, the diminution of suffering, the harmony of interests between capital and labor—all of these are the children of Science and Facts. During the feudal age, nearly all the resources of genius—all the capital of the day—was devoted to mere Art, for the sake of setting off social position and 'idealisms.' As with the nobility and royalty of England at the present day, society enormously overpaid what is, or was, really the police—whose mission it was to keep it in order. But from Friar Bacon to Lord Bacon, a movement was silently progressing, which the present century has just begun to realize. This movement was that of the development of all human ability and natural resources, guided by science. It was a tendency toward the practical, the positive, which is destined in time to bring forth its own new art and literature, is breaking away from the trammels of the old literary or imaginative sway.
At the present day, up to the present hour, Education—especially the higher education, destined to fit men for leading positions—is still under the old literary regime. We laugh when we read of the two first years of medical study at the school of Salerno being devoted to dry logic, yet the four years' course at nearly all our modern Universities, or, in fact, the course of almost any 'high-school,' is as little adapted to the real wants of the practical leading men of this age as a study of the Schoolmen would be. The 'literature' of the past still rules the practical wants of the present. It is not that the study of the thought of the past is not noble, nay, essential, to the highly cultivated man; but it should be pursued on a large, scientific scale. The study of Greek and Latin, as languages, is not so disciplining nor so valuable as that of the science of language, as taught by Max Müller; and if these languages must be learned, (and we do not deny that they should,) they can better be studied in their relations to all languages than simply by themselves. And as if to make bad worse, the genial and strictly scientific use of literal translations, advocated by Milton and Locke, and generally employed at the Revival of Letters, and during the days when Europe boasted its greatest classic scholars, is prohibited. 'A college education' suggests the employment of the best years of life in studies of little practical use in themselves, and seldom revived, save for pleasure, after graduation. And even where such studies are exceptionally practical; nay, where science and a free choice of languages and literature are left to the somewhat advanced student, we still find the shadow of the past—of the old, formal, and rapidly growing obsolete literature—overawing the more enlightened effort. Deny it as we may, the University is still a feudal institution. Within the memory of man, there existed in England positively no school where the would-be engineer or manufacturer could be fitted for his career and at the same time be 'well educated.' George Stephenson was obliged to send his son to an 'University,' where some scraps of practical science—scanty scraps they were—most insufficiently repaid the expense of education.
The great want of the age is the Polytechnic School, or more correctly speaking, of the Technological Institute, in which the labors of the Society of Arts, aided by the Museum and Library, may serve the two-fold object of informing the public on all matters of science and industry and of aiding the School of Industrial Science. Developed on its largest scale, such an institute should be devoted to the acquisition and dissemination of all knowledge, but under strictly scientific guidance and influences. Literature should there be taught historically, in close connection with mental philosophy, a system which, it may be observed, results in interesting the pupil more in details than the old plan devoted to a few mere details ever did. Art should there be taught, not in rhapsodies over Raphael, Turner, and the favorite fancies of an individual, but according to its unfoldings in human culture, based on architecture as an illustrative medium. 'The lines of connection' between these and the exact sciences should be ever kept in sight, so that the student may never forget 'the countless connecting threads woven into one indissoluble texture, forming that ever-enlarging web which is the blended product of the world's scientific and industrial activity.'
The great aim of such an institute should be the aiding of industrial progress, and the application of generous, intelligent culture to practical pursuits—the whole to be based on exact science. When we look into this community, and see the vast demand for talent in its manufactures, and see how many thousands there are who would gladly be 'liberally educated' men, if the education could only be allied to practically useful knowledge, we at once feel that the time has come for the establishment of such institutes. The demand exists on every side; the supply must come, and that speedily. England, France, and Germany are rapidly improving their manufactures by scientifically educating their master-workmen—the Conservatoire des Arts, and Ecole Centrale, of Paris, the art-schools of the British capital and provinces, the many museums devoted to scientic collection, are all keeping up their factories—shall we be behind them? Let Capital consult its interests, and answer.
We have been induced to put the query, from a perusal of two pamphlets, both directly bearing on this subject. The first is the Ninth Annual Announcement of the Polytechnic College of the State of Pennsylvania, Session 1861-1862, and Catalogue of the Officers and Students; while the second sets forth the Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology, including a Society of Arts, a Museum of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science, proposed to be established in Boston.'[C] This latter, it may be added, was prepared by direction of the Committee of Associated Institutions of Science and Arts, and is addressed to 'manufacturers, merchants, agriculturists, and other friends of enlightened industry in the commonwealth.'
The Polytechnic College of Philadelphia, now in its ninth year, is a truly excellent institution, the practical results of which are shown in the fact that its students, immediately on graduating, have generally received appointments as civil and mechanical engineers, or otherwise stepped at once into active and remunerative employment. Its object, as we are told, is to afford to the young civil, mining, or mechanical engineer, chemist, architect, metallurgist, or student of applied science, every facility whereby he may perfect himself in his destined calling. It is, in fact, a collection of technical schools, or schools of instruction in the several departments of learned industry. It comprises the school of mines, for professional training in mine-engineering, in the best methods of determining the value of mineral lands and of analyzing and manufacturing mine products. Also the schools of civil engineering, of practical chemistry, of mechanical engineering, architecture, general science, and agriculture. To these is added a military department, now under superintendence of a former instructor in West-Point, with the use of the State armory near the college, generously granted by the State, with a supply of arms. We are glad to say that in all these schools the instruction is thorough, not only in theory but in actual practice. The course of the school of chemistry, for instance, comprehends the principles of the science and their actual application to agriculture, to the arts, and to analysis; to the examination and smelting of ores; to the alloying, refining, and working of metals; to the arts of dyeing and pottery; to the starch, lime, and glass manufacture; to the preparation and durability of mortars and cements; to means of disinfecting, ventilating, heating, and lighting. Its students are also practiced in manipulations, testing in the arts qualitative and quantitative; in analysis of minerals and soils, and in many other important practical matters.
The students of geology and mining, of machinery and metallurgy, make, with their professors, frequent visits to the many interesting localities in Pennsylvania or New-Jersey, to the many large machine-shops with which Philadelphia abounds, visit mines and furnaces, and are in every way practically familiarized with their future callings. Instruction in languages and literature, in drawing and in the elements of practical law is, we believe, given in common to all. It is the first, we may say, unavoidable, characteristic of a scientific school, that its work is always well done. Other schools may or may not be specious contrivances, well or ill managed; but the very nature of science is to clear itself in whatever it touches, and be honest and practical. Its tendency is to classify and select, to cast away the obsolete and test and adopt the new and true. Such is by no means an exaggerated statement of the real condition of the excellent college to which we refer, which testifies, by its success, to the excellence of its plan and the competency of its teachers, especially to the administrative ability of its worthy President, Dr. Alfred L. Kennedy.
It can not be denied, that for many years, radicals have inveighed against 'Greek and Universities,' but it has been in a narrow, vulgar, and simply destructive manner, with no provision to substitute any thing better in their place. The growth of science, of the knowledge of history, of culture in every branch, has, however, of late, so vastly increased, that the proposition to reform the old system of study is really one not to tear it down, but to build it up, to extend it and develop it on a grand scale. Since, for example, the influence of science has been felt in philology, how inconsiderable do the Bruncks and Porsons of the old school, appear before the Bopps, Schlegels, Burnoufs, and Müllers of the new! For as yet, even where here and there in colleges a liberal and enlightened method is partially attempted, still the old monkish spirit appears, driving away with something like a 'mystery' or 'guild' feeling the merely practical man, and interposing a mass of 'dead vocables,' which must be learned by years of labor, between him and the realization of an education. The young man who is to be a miner, a cotton-spinner, an architect, or a merchant, may possibly find here and there, at this or that college, lectures and instruction which may aid him directly in his future career, but he soon realizes that the general tendency and tone of the college is entirely in favor of abstract studies quite useless out in the world, and apart from preparation for one of 'the three professions.' He himself is as a 'marine' among the regular sailors, a surgeon among 'regular doctors,' or as a dentist among surgeons. And this in an age when we may say that what is not to be studied scientifically is not worth studying. As our principal object in writing these remarks has been to assert that the Polytechnic Institute, in its either partial or entire form, should exist entirely independent of all other influences, we might be held excused from any mention of such scientific schools as are attached to our Universities. That of Cambridge, Massachusetts, would, however, deserve special mention, from the celebrity of its teachers. In this institute, which has between seventy and eighty students, we have a single school divided into the following departments: that of Chemistry, under supervision of Professor Horseford, in which instruction is both theoretical and practical; that of Zoölogy and Geology, in which the teaching consists alternately of a course of lectures by Professor Agassiz, on Zoology, embracing the fundamental principles of the classification of animals as founded upon structure and embryonic development, and illustrating their natural affinities, habits, distribution, and the relations which exist between the living and extinct races, and a course of geology, both theoretical and practical. To this are added the departments of Engineering under Professor Eustis, that of Botany, under Professor Gray, that of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, under Professor J. Wyman, that of Mathematics, under Professor Peirce, and that of Mineralogy, under Professor Cooke. It is needless to speak in praise of a school boasting men of such world-wide names as teachers, or to commend it as affording facilities for bestowing a sound education. We do it no injustice, however, in asserting that its tendency is to develop students of abstract science and teachers, while the aim of the Polytechnic school proper is, in addition to this, to supply the manufactures of the country with working men, and the country at large, including those already engaged in labor, with technological information of every kind. It should be a vast reservoir of practical knowledge, where the man of the 'print-works,' in search of a certain dye or of a new form of machinery, may apply, certain that all the latest discoveries will be found registered there. It should be a place where capitalists may go as to an intelligence-office, confident of finding there the assistants which they may need. It should be, in fact, in every respect, an institute simply and solely for the people, and for the development of manufacturing industry. If, as we have urged, it should embrace eventually thorough instruction in every branch of knowledge, this should be because experience shows that the most commonplace branches require the stimulus of genius, which can only be fairly developed by universal facilities. No young man, however practical, could have his Thätigkeit or 'available energy' other than stimulated by even an extensive familiarity with every detail of philosophy, literature, and art, provided that these were properly scienced, or taught strictly according to their historical development.
It is, therefore, needless to say that we welcome with pleasure the plan of An Institute of Technology, which it is proposed to establish in Boston, and which, to judge from its excellently well prepared prospectus, will fully meet, in every particular, all the requirements which we have laid down as essential to a perfect Polytechnic Institute. Indeed, the wide scope of this plan, its capacity for embracing every subject in the range of science, and of communicating it to the public either by publication, by free lectures, by a museum of reference, or by collegiate instruction, leaves but little to be desired. That there is great need of such an institution in this State is apparent from many causes. In the words of the prospectus, we feel that in New-England, and especially in our own Commonwealth, the time has arrived when, as we believe, the interests of Commerce and Arts, as well as General Education, call for the most earnest cooperation of intelligent culture with industrial pursuits. It is no exaggeration to state that probably no project was ever before presented to the wealthy men of Massachusetts which appealed so earnestly to their aid or gave such fair promise of doing good. The institute in question is one which will in every respect, socially and mentally, elevate the business man or practical man to a level with the college graduate or the practitioner in the three learned professions. It will stimulate progress by still further refining industry, and ally the action of capital to the advance of intellect. It will perform a noble and distinguished part in the great mission of the age and of future ages—that of vindicating the dignity of free labor and showing that the humblest work may be rendered high-toned and raised to a level with the calling of scholar or diplomatist through the influence of science. If we were called on to set forth the noble spirit of the North with all its free labor and all its glorious tendencies, we should, with whole heart and soul, choose this magnificent conception of an institute whose aim is to confer dignity on what the wretched and ignorant slaveocracy believe is cursed into everlasting vulgarity. It is fitting that this practical and eminently intelligent and progressive community should build up, on a grand scale, an institution which will be not only eminently useful and profitable, but serve as a culminating exponent of the great and liberal ideas for which the North has already made in every form the most remarkable sacrifices.
'While the vast and increasing magnitude of the industrial interests of New-England furnishes a powerful incentive to the establishment—within its borders of an institution devoted to technological uses, it can not be doubted that the concentration of these interests in so great a degree, in and around Boston, renders the capital of the State an eligible site for such an undertaking. Indeed, considering the peculiar genius of our busy population for the Practical Arts, and marking their avidity in the study of scientific facts and principles tending to explain or advance them, we see a special and most striking fitness in the establishment of such an Institution among them, and we gather a confident assurance of its preëminent utility and success. Nor can we advert to the intelligence which is so well known as guiding the large munificence of our community, without taking encouragement in the inception of the enterprise, and feeling the assurance, that whatever is adapted to advance the industrial and educational interests of the Commonwealth will receive from them the heartiest sympathy and support.'
As we have stated, the plan proposed is to establish an Institution to be devoted to the practical arts and sciences, to be called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having the triple organization of a Society of Arts, a Museum or Conservatory of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science and Art. Under the first of these three divisions—that of the Society of Arts—the Institute of Technology would form itself into a department of investigation and publication—devoting itself in every manner to collecting and rendering readily available to the public all such information as can in any way aid the interests of art and industry. If our manufacturers will reflect an instant on the vast amount of knowledge relative to their specialties extant in the world, which they have as individuals great difficulty in procuring, and which would be useful, but which an Institute devoted to the purpose could furnish without difficulty, they will at once appreciate the good which may be done by it. For many years the only comprehensive summaries of American Manufactures were a German work by Fleischmann, On the Branches of American Industry, to which was subsequently added Whitworth and Wallis's Report—drawn up for the British government, and Freedley's Philadelphia Manufactures—to which we should in justice add the invaluable series of Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, and the Patent Office Reports. The community needs more, however, than books can furnish. It requires the constant accumulation and dissemination of technological knowledge of every kind. It is proposed in the new Institute to effect this partly by publication and in a great measure by the labor of committees, devoted to the following subjects:
1. Mineral Materials—having charge of all relating to the mineral substances used in building and sculpture, ores, metals, coal, and in fact, all mineral substances employed in the useful arts, as well as what pertains to mining, quarrying, and smelting.
2. Organic Materials—embracing whatever is practically interesting in all vegetable and animal substances used in manufacturing, having in view their sources, culture, collection, commercial importance and qualities as connected with manufacturing. This department presents a vast field of immense importance to every merchant and importer of raw material.
3. On Tools and Instruments—devoted to all the implements and apparatus needed in all processes of manufacture.
4. On Machinery and Motive Powers.
5. On Textile Manufactures.
6. On Manufactures of Wood, Leather, Paper, India-Rubber, etc.
7. On Pottery, Glass, and Precious Metals.
8. On Chemical Products and Processes.
9. On Household Economy. This department would embrace attention to whatever relates to warming, illumination, water-supply, ventilation, and the preparation and preservation of food, as well as the protection of the public health.
10. On Engineering and Architecture.
11. On Commerce, Navigation, and Inland Transport. This department alone, developed in detail, and on the scale proposed, would of itself amply repay any amount of encouragement and investment. To collect and classify for the use of the public all available information on the subject of shipping, the improvement of harbors, the construction of docks, the location and efficiency of railroads, and other channels of inland intercourse; 'keeping chiefly in view the economical questions of trade and exchange, which give these works of mechanical and engineering skill their high commercial value,' is a project as grand as it is useful.
12. On the Graphic and Fine Arts.
Of the importance of the proposed Museum of Industrial Science and Art, it is needless to speak. It would be for the public the central feature of the Institute, and of incalculable value not only to it, but to all engaged in all active industry whatever.
As regards the School of Industrial Science and Art, with its divisions, we see no occasion for material cause of difference between its constitution and that of the excellent Polytechnic College in Philadelphia. New departments of instruction could be added as the means and power of the Institute increased, until it would ultimately form what the world needs but has never yet seen—a thoroughly scientific University, in which every branch of human knowledge should be clearly taught on a positive basis—a school where literature and art would be ennobled and refined by elevation from mysticism, 'rhapsody,' and obscurity, to their true position as historical developments and indices of human progress. We are pleased to see that in the plan proposed, provision would be made for two classes of persons—those who enter the school with the view of a progressive scientific training in applied science, and the far more numerous class who may be expected to resort to its lecture-rooms for such useful knowledge of scientific principles as they can acquire without continually devoted study, and in hours not occupied by active labor.
This whole plan, though in the highest degree practical, has, it will be observed, 'no affinity with that instruction in mere empirical routine which has sometimes been vaunted as the proper education for the industrial classes'—an absurd and shallow system which has been urged by quacks and dabblers in world-bettering, and which has been exhausted without avail in England—the system dear to single-sided Gradgrinds and illiterate men who grasp a twig here and there without knowing of the existence of the trunk and roots. It lays down a perfectly scientific and universal basis, believing that the most insignificant industry, to be perfectly understood and pursued, must proceed from a knowledge of the great principles of science and of all truth.
Under the charge of Professor W.B. Rogers, Messrs. Charles H. Dalton, E.B. Bigelow, James M. Beebee, and other members of a committee embracing some of the most public-spirited men of Boston, this plan has been thus far matured, and now awaits the sympathy, aid, and counsel of the friends of industrial art and general education throughout the community. We have gladly set forth its objects and claims, trusting that it may be fully successful here, and serve as an exemplar for the establishment of similar institutions in every other State.
SLAVERY AND NOBILITY vs. DEMOCRACY.
Few political convulsions have hitherto transpired, which have so much puzzled the world to get at the entire motives of the revolt, as the present insurrection in this country. Were public opinion to be made up from the political literature of Great Britain, or its leading journals, very little certainty would be arrived at as to the merits or demerits of the attempted revolution. The articles of De Bow's Review smack little more of a secession origin than the late dissertations on American politics appearing in the British periodicals. The statements of most of the leading English journals are quite in keeping. Any one accustomed to the 'ear-marks' of secession phraseology and declamation would be at little loss to identify the Southern emissary in connection with the periodicals and press of the British islands. Hence the hypocrisy and studied concealment of those hidden motives necessary to be made apparent, in order to judge of the merits of secession.
The world has known that for thirty years past there has been a feverish and jealous discontent expressed in the cotton States. It had its first ebullition in 1832, when South-Carolina assumed the right to nullify the revenue laws of Congress. Since that time the North has continually been accused of an aggressive policy. Various extravagant pretenses have from time to time been raised up by the South, and urged as causes for dissolving the Union. They have always, until recently, been met by forbearance and compromise.
The extension and perpetuation of slavery has been prominent as the open motive for Southern political activity; and equally prominent as one of the motives for dismembering the Union. There has been another project, however, in connection with the attempted dissolution of the Union, of a most alarming nature: that project was the intended prostration of the democratic principle in Southern politics. While a privileged order in government was made the basis of political ambition by the aspirants or leading spirits, it was also to be made the means of perpetuating the institution of slavery. Whether these adjuncts, slavery perpetuation, and government through a privileged class, were twins of the same birth, is not very material; but whether they existed together as the joint motive to overthrow the national jurisdiction, involves very deeply the present and continuing questions in American politics.
To many gentlemen of intelligence and high standing in the South, the intended establishment of a different order of government, based on privilege of class, has appeared to be the ruling motive. They have set down the expressed apprehension as to the insecurity of slavery as a hypocritical pretext for revolution; believing that the more absorbing motive was to establish an order of nobility, either with or without monarchy. There is some plausibility for giving the ambitious motive the greater prominence; but a more severe analysis of the whole question will, it is believed, place slavery perpetuation in the foreground as the origin of all other motives for the conspiracy.
In classifying slaveholders, it is undoubtedly true that a small portion of them were Democrats in principle, and ardently attached to the National Government—perhaps would have preferred the abolition of slavery to the subversion of its jurisdiction. Another class, composing a majority, though distrusting the National Government, connected as it was and must be with a voting power representing twenty-six or seven millions of free labor, yet more distrusted the attempt at revolution. This class saw more danger in the proposed revolt than from continuing in the Union. Another class were politically ambitious; had ventured upon the revilement of the Democratic principle; had become secessionists per se, and were the instruments and plotters of the treason. This was substantially the condition of public opinion among slaveholders at the time of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency. These three classes, embracing the slaveholders and their families, composed about one million five hundred thousand of the white population of the South.
Of the seven millions non-slaveholding population South, a small portion was engaged in trade and commerce, and naturally inclined to oppose secession; but timid in its apprehensions as to protection, was ready to acquiesce in the most extravagant opinions; in other words, like trade and commerce every where, too much disposed to make merchandise of its politics. The balance of the non-slaveholding population, if we except a venal pulpit and press, had not even a specious motive, pecuniary or political, moral or social, that should have drawn it into rebellion. It was a part and portion of the great brother-hood of free labor, and could not by any possibility raise up a plausible pretense of jealousy against its natural ally—free labor in the North.
In estimating the strength of a cause, we are obliged to take into account the actually existing reasons in favor of its support. Delusion, founded on a fictitious cause of complaint, is but a weak basis for revolution. It may have an apparent strength to precipitate revolt, but has no power of endurance. There is a reflection that comes through calamity and suffering that rises superior to sophistry in the most common minds. If not already, this will soon be the case with the whole Southern population. The slaveholder and the man of trade and commerce who feared the tumult, and would have avoided it, will have seen their apprehensions turned into the fulfillment of prophecy. The non-slave-holding farmer, mechanic, or laborer, will be made to see clearly that his interest did not lie on the side of treason. The political adventurer who planned the conspiracy, is already brought to see the fallacy of his dream. He may now consider the incongruous materials of Southern population. He may view that population in classes. He may contemplate it through the medium of its natural motives of fidelity to the Government on the one hand, and of its artificial delusion on the other. He may now go to the bottom of Southern society, and find in its conflicting elements the antagonistic motives that render the plans of treason abortive. These will be sure to continue, and sure to strengthen on the side of fidelity to the National Government. When the South is made a solid, compact unit in political motive, it will become so, disarmed of all purposes of treason.
It has been repeatedly asserted that the South was a political unit on the question of the attempted revolution. This declaration has been reïterated by the Southern press, by travelers, and by all the influences connected with the rebellion. It is not now necessary to delineate the quasi military organization of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or their operations in cajoling and terrorizing the Southern population into acquiescence. Much unanimity through this process was made to appear on the surface; but it is more palpable to the analytic mind acquainted with Southern society, that the very means employed to enforce acquiescence afforded also the evidence that there was a strong under-current of aversion. Willing apostasy from allegiance to the Union needed no terrorizing from mobs or murders. The ruffianism of the South had been fully armed in advance of the full disclosure of the plot to secede. Loyalty had been as carefully disarmed by the same active influences. It had nothing to oppose to arms but its unprotected sentiments. As soon as the law of force was invoked by the conspirators, the day of reasoning was wholly past. Flight or conformity became the condition precedent of safety, even for life. The bulk of the Southern population was as much conspired against as the Government at Washington; and force against the same population was rigorously called into requisition to consummate what fraud and political crime had concocted. This was the boasted unity of the South.
The inquiry is often made: 'How was it possible to have inaugurated the rebellion, without the bulk of the slaveholders, at least, acting in concert?' This inquiry is not easily answered, unless its solution is found in the fact that slaveholders, through jealousy, had parted with their active loyalty to the National Government. This was generally the case. Whilst the bulk of them hesitated for a little to take the fearful step of revolt, their hesitation was more connected with apprehension of its consequences than with any attachment to the Government. The deceptive idea of peaceable secession first drew them within the lines of the open traitor. The supposed probability of success made them allies in rebellion. As a general sentiment, they made their imaginary adieux to the Government of their fathers without apparent regret.
There has been much misapprehension as to the process of reasoning that brought slaveholders in the main to repudiate their Government. They were influenced by no apprehension of present danger to the institution of slavery. It was something far beyond the power of any party to stipulate against. Their apprehensions were connected with the laws of population and subsistence and the certain motive to political affiliation that underlies the platform of free-labor society. When indulging in the belief of peaceable secession, they expressed their sentiments truly in the declaration that 'they would not remain in the Union, were a blank sheet of paper presented, and they permitted to write their own terms.' This declaration merely characterized the foregone conclusion. It was the evidence of a previous determination, merely withheld for a season, in order to gain time.
But to come to a more definite delineation of the reasons that operated to raise up the conspiracy. There was a partial feud that had long existed in the mutual jealousies between the slaveholders and non-slaveholding population. Nothing very remarkable, however, had transpired to indicate an outbreak. Southern white labor was continually annoyed with the appellation of 'white trash,' and other contemptuous epithets; but still was obliged to toil on under the continuous insult. The habits and usages of slaveholders and their families, indicated by manners toward white labor, that white labor did not command their respect. Too many of the accidental droppings of foolish and stupid arrogance were let fall within the hearing of white labor to make it fully reconciled to the pretended monopoly of respectability by slaveholders. Under this corroded feeling, much of the white labor of the South had emigrated to the free States. In 1850, seven hundred and thirty-two thousand of these emigrants were living. Their communications and intercourse showed to their old friends, relatives, and acquaintances, that they had found homes and friendly treatment on Northern soil; and in addition thereto, a much better and more encouraging condition of society for the industrious white man. The feeling reflected back from the free to the slave States was analogous to that thrown back from the United States to Ireland. Its effect was also the same. Under its influence, nearly two millions are now living in the free States, who are the offshoot and increase of a Southern extraction. Slaveholders merely complained of this flow of population, on the ground that it contributed to overthrow the balance of political power. It would not, perhaps, be amiss to conclude that they saw with equal clearness the incentives that induced the emigration—a silent logic of facts against slavery.
The census statistics, commencing with 1840, have contributed much to play the mischief with the equanimity of slaveholders. They have always known that thorough education in the South was mainly confined to their own families. When, however, the discovery was made public that only one in seven of the aggregate white population of the South was receiving instruction during the year, the disclosure became alarming.[D] It stood little better than the educational progress of the British Islands, which had crept up, under the fight with Toryism, to the alarming extent of one in eight. That one in four and a half of the aggregate population of the free States was receiving school instruction, made the contrast unpleasant to the mind of the slaveholder. He knew that the fact was 'world—wide,' that slaveholders had always controlled the policy of Southern legislation. He was aware that slaveholders had made themselves responsible for this neglect of the children of the South; and knew also that public opinion would visit the blame where it legitimately belonged. Pro-slavery sagacity was quick-sighted in its apprehensions that it could not dodge the inquiry, 'Whence comes this disparity?'
The statistics of the two sections presented a still more obnoxious comparison to the pro-slavery sensibilities, as it respects the physical condition of the respective populations. The cotton States have mostly been the advocates of 'free trade,' some of them tenaciously so. They deemed it impossible to introduce manufacturing, to much extent, into sections where the yearly surpluses in production were wholly absorbed by investment in land and negroes. The consequence has been, want of diversified industry and want of profitable occupation for the poorer classes. In the Northern and in some of the Border States, a different industrial policy has been pursued. Diversified occupation has raised up skilled labor in nearly every branch of industry. Notwithstanding the greater rigor of climate, adult labor on the average, under full and compensated employment, performs nearly three hundred solid days' work in the year. The eight millions of white population in the South, in consequence of this want of profitable occupation, perform much less, perhaps not one hundred and fifty days' work on the average. The following table, published in 1856-1857, by Mr. Guthrie, then Secretary of the Treasury, discloses a condition of things very remarkable; but no wise astonishing to those who have investigated the causes of the disparity. The ratio of annual per capita production to each man, woman, and child, white and black, in the respective States, exclusive of the gains or earnings of commerce, stood as follows:
| Massachusetts, | $166 60 |
| Rhode-Island, | 164 61 |
| Connecticut, | 156 05 |
| California, | 149 60 |
| New-Jersey, | 120 82 |
| New-Hampshire, | 117 17 |
| New-York, | 112 00 |
| Pennsylvania, | 99 80 |
| Vermont, | 96 62 |
| Illinois, | 89 94 |
| Missouri, | 88 66 |
| Delaware, | 85 27 |
| Maryland, | 83 85 |
| Ohio, | 75 82 |
| Michigan, | 72 64 |
| Kentucky, | 71 82 |
| Maine, | 71 11 |
| Indiana, | 69 12 |
| Wisconsin, | 63 41 |
| Mississippi, | 67 50 |
| Iowa, | 65 47 |
| Louisiana, | 65 30 |
| Tennessee, | 63 10 |
| Georgia, | 61 45 |
| Virginia, | 59 42 |
| South-Carolina, | 56 91 |
| Alabama, | 55 72 |
| Florida, | 54 77 |
| Arkansas, | 52 04 |
| District of Columbia, | 52 00 |
| Texas, | 51 13 |
| North-Carolina, | 49 38 |
It is seen by this table that the income, or product of the non-slaveholding population South, mainly disconnected as it is with mechanical industry, is reduced to the extreme level of bare subsistence, while the population of the States which have introduced diversified industry stand on a high scale of production. Contrast Massachusetts and South-Carolina, the two leading States in the promulgation of opposite theories. These two States have often been censured for the contumelious manner in which they have sometimes sought to repel each other's arguments. The one is in favor of 'free trade.' The other says: 'No State can flourish to much extent without diversified industry.' The one says: 'Open every thing to free competition.' The other replies: 'Are you aware that the interest on manufacturing capital in Europe is much lower; that skilled labor there is more abundant; and that it would dash to the ground most of the manufacturing we have started into growth under protection through our revenue laws?' 'Let it be so,' says Carolina; 'what right exists to adopt a national policy that does not equally benefit all sections?' 'The very object of the policy,' replies Massachusetts, 'is, that it should benefit all sections; and the most desirable object of all, in the eye of beneficence, would be, that it should benefit the laboring white population of the cotton States, as well as others.' 'But,' says Carolina, 'this diversified industry can not be introduced, to much extent, where slavery exists.' 'That is an argument by implication,' says Massachusetts, 'that you more prize slavery than you do the interests and welfare of the bulk of your white population.' 'Who set you up to be a judge on the question of the welfare of any part of the population South?' says Carolina. 'I assume to judge for myself,' replies Massachusetts, 'as to that national policy which is designed to affect beneficially the twenty-seven millions of people who are obliged to obtain subsistence through personal industry; theirs is the great cause of white humanity in its shirt-sleeves; and it behooves the National Government to take care of that cause, and to foster it; and not to submit to the narrow selfishness of a few slaveholders.'
It may readily be seen that this controversy, growing out of the opposite theories of selfish slaveholders on the one hand, and a spirit of beneficence, blended with the idea of a wide-spread advantage on the other, not only involves directly the demerits of slavery, in its prejudicial effect on the non-slaveholding population South, but also the great question of raising up skilled labor in all the States. It is thus clearly demonstrated that our national policy should be exempt from the control of an arrogant and selfish class. Slaveholders have had little sympathy with the great bulk of the white people in the Union; at most, they have never manifested it. Few of them can be trusted politically, where a broad industrial policy is concerned. No one is better aware than the political slaveholder of the crushing effect of slavery on the interests of the non-slaveholding population in the slave States: hence their jealousy of this population as a voting, governing power. The Southern political mind, connected with slaveholding, is astute when sharpened by jealousy. There is no phase in political economy, bearing on the disparity of classes in the South, that has not been taken into the account and analyzed. The fear with slaveholders has been, that the great majority, composed of the white laboring population South, would become able to subject matters to the same scrutinizing analysis.
It would be difficult to convince the American people that slavery is not 'the skeleton in their closet.' Any one who has encountered for years the pro-slavery spirit; who has watched it through its unscrupulous deviations from rectitude, morally, socially, and politically, will have been dull of comprehension not to have appreciated its atrocious disposition. Its great instrumentality in the management of Southern masses, consists not only of a disregard, but of a positive interdict of the principles of civil liberty, in all matters wherein the prejudicial effects of slavery might directly, or by implication, be disclosed. It is true, people are permitted to adulate slavery—so they are allowed to adulate kings, where kings reign. No one in recent years has been allowed the open expression of opinion or argument as to the bad effect of a pro-slavery policy on the great majority of Southern white population. This would bring the offender within the Southern definition of an 'incendiary,' and the offense would be heinous. The pro-slavery spirit has always demanded sycophancy where its strength was great enough to enforce it, and has ever been ready to invoke the law of force where its theories were contradicted. Even the fundamental law of the South, contained in Southern State Constitutions in favor of the 'freedom of speech, and freedom of the press,' is mere rhetorical flourish, where slavery is concerned. It means that you must adulate slavery if you speak of it; and woe to the man that gives this fundamental law any broader interpretation. In its amiable moods, the pro-slavery spirit is often made to appear the gentleman. In its angry, jealous moods, it is both a ruffian and an assassin. Mr. Sumner, of the Senate, once sat for its picture—twice in his turn he drew it—each portrait was a faithful resemblance.
Had we been exempt from slavery and its influences, it is difficult to conceive what possible pretense could have been raised up for revolution. What position could have been taken showing the necessity of disenthrallment from oppressive government? There would have existed no element of political discontent that could by any possibility have culminated in rebellion, aside from the active, jealous, and unscrupulous influence of slaveholders. Rebellion and treason required the lead and direction of an ambitious and reckless class; a class actuated by gross and selfish passions, in disconnection with sympathy for the masses. It required a class stripped and bereft by habits of thinking of the spirit of political beneficence, devoid of national honor, national pride, and national fidelity. Nothing less unscrupulous would have answered to plot, to carry forward, and to manage the incidents of the attempted dismemberment of the Union. It required something worse in its nature than Benedict Arnold susceptibility. His might have been crime, springing from sudden resentment or imaginary wrong. The other is the result of thirty years' concoction under adroit, hypocritical, and unscrupulous leaders. The slaveholders' rebellion has assumed a magnitude commensurate only with long contemplation of the subject. Making all due allowance for the honorable exceptions, this is substantially the phase of pro-slavery infidelity to the Union.
Were further argument needed to establish this position, it is found in the fact that the seeds of rebellion are wanting in proportion to the absence of slavery. There is no reason to believe that Kentucky or Maryland, without slavery, would have been less loyal than Ohio. In Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Western North-Carolina, a small portion of Georgia, and Northern Alabama, the Union cause finds a friend's country. These sections, in the main, contain a population dependent upon its own labor for subsistence. Schooled by diligent industry to habits of perseverance, and learning independence and manhood by relying on itself, it has preserved its patriotism and attachment to the Government under which it was born. It saw no cause of complaint, imaginary or real. Six or seven per cent of slave population has not proved sufficient as a slave interest, to prostrate or corrupt its national fidelity, nor to undermine its national pride. It still retains its representation in Congress against the influences of surrounding treason. There is a cheering satisfaction in the belief that this plateau of civil liberty and freedom, even unassisted, could not have been permanently held in subjection by the myrmidons of rebellion. The secessionists themselves bestow a high compliment to the patriotism of this people, when they complain of its 'idolatrous attachment to the old Government.'
The time has come when the American people, from necessity, must analyze to their root the whole aptitudes and incidents of slavery. They are now obliged to deal with it, unbridled by the check-rein of its apologists. Under the best behavior of slaveholders, the institution could not rise above the point of bare toleration. There is so much inherent in the system that will not bear analysis, so much of collateral mischief, so much tending to overturn and discourage the principles of justice that ought to be interwoven into the relationships of society, that it is impossible for the ingenuous mind to advocate slavery per se. It is not, however, to the bare dominion itself, that the objection is exclusively raised up. It is the inevitable result of that dominion, in connection with the worst cultivated passions of human nature, that the exception is more broadly taken. The dominion of the master over the slave involves in a great measure the necessary dominion over the persons and interests of the balance of society where it exists. The lust of power on the part of slaveholders, and on the part of the privileged classes in Europe, in nature, is the same. The determination through the artificial arrangements of power, to subsist on the toil of others, is the same. The arrogant assumption of the right to maintain as privilege what originated in atrocious wrong, is the same. The disposition to crush by force any attempt to vindicate natural rights, or to modify the status of society under the severity of oppression, is the same; and no tyranny has yet been found so tenacious or objectionable as the tyranny of a class held together by the 'bond of iniquity.' Our forefathers had a just conception of the nature of the case, on one hand, when they interdicted by fundamental law the establishment of any order of nobility. Many of them were sorely distressed at the contemplation of slavery on the other hand, in connection with its probable results upon the national welfare. Our calamity is but the fulfillment of their prophecies. They well knew the nature of the evil we have to deal with.
It is matter of astonishment to most minds that slaveholders should have contemplated the bold venture of subordinating the Democratic principle in government. It will be less astonishing, however, when it is duly considered that it is utterly impossible for Democracy and Slavery to abide long together. The one or the other must ere long have been prostrated under the laws of population, and it is not very likely that the twenty-seven millions and their increase would consent to be subordinated to the policy of three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders. Slavery must exist as the ruling political power, or it can not long exist at all. This the slaveholders well knew; hence the necessity of fortifying itself through some political arrangement against the Democratic power of the masses.
The South-Carolina platform for a new government had close resemblance to the ancient Roman—a patrician order of nobility, founded on the interested motive to uphold slavery; but allowing plebeian representation, to some extent, to the non-slaveholding classes. Others in the South had preference for constitutional monarchy, with a class of privileged legislators, and House of Commons, composing a government of checks and balances, analogous to the English government. Whatever the plan adopted, the leading idea was to institute a government that should be impervious, through one branch, to the future influence of the non-slaveholding majority.
It is difficult to make entirely clear the ambitious motives and mixed apprehensions that have combined to precipitate the Southern slaveholders into rebellion. The defectiveness of the educational system of the South, and the known responsibility of slaveholders for such defect and its consequences; the defect in the industrial policy, and the responsibility of slavery itself for the depressing consequences to the non-slaveholding population, were fearful charges. A knowledge that the causes of depression must soon be brought to the examination of Southern masses, in contrast with a better state of things in the North, filled the minds of slaveholders with jealous and fearful apprehensions toward the non-slaveholding population. They knew that its interests were identified with the Northern educational and industrial policy. They appreciated fully that through these interests, free labor in the South had every motive to affinity with the North, educationally, politically, and industrially. They were astute in the discovery that under the operation of the Democratic principle, free discussion, and fair play of reason, the pro-slavery prestige must soon go down in the South before the greater numerical force of Southern masses. It was, therefore, not only necessary, as supposed, to overturn the power of the masses in the South, but also to make them the instruments of their own overthrow as to political power.
The measurable acquiescence of the non-slaveholding population was indispensable to the revolutionary project. Without it, there was but little numerical force. It was, therefore, of entire consequence to make this population hate the North—to hate the National Government, and to train it for the purposes of rebellion. The press was suborned wherever it could be. The pulpit manifested equal alacrity, in order to keep pace with the workings of the virus of treason. Leading men, assuming to be statesmen and political economists, taxed their ingenuity in the invention of falsehood. The effort of the press and politicians was directed to misrepresenting and disparaging the condition of free labor in the North; whilst the Southern pulpit was religiously engaged in establishing the divinity of slavery. It would require a volume to delineate the arts and hypocrisy resorted to, and the false reasoning employed, to impose upon the masses of white labor South, and to make them contented with their disparaged condition. It is needless to say, the work of imposition was too effectually accomplished. It must be confessed that too much of the non-slaveholding population had been induced to follow the political Iagos of the South, and thus to assist the first act in the plan for its own subversion—separation from the North. The next step in the plan of subversion, the 'abrogation of a government of majorities,' was carefully kept from the public view.
The inquiry naturally arises, as to how or why this design for the arrangement of political power in the Southern Confederacy has been confined within such narrow degrees of disclosure. The answer is plain. A bold proposition to change the principles of their government would have alarmed the people of the South into an intensified opposition. The politicians of South-Carolina, more open and frank in the exposition of their views than other leaders in the South, have been obliged to submit the control of their discretion to the more crafty and subtle influences of other States. Policy required that the contemplated new form of government should be confined to the knowledge of the leading spirits only. It would not bear the hazards of submission to the people as a basis of revolution. Its success depended upon secresy and coupling the adoption of the plan with a sudden denouement after revolution. Any one conversant with the pages of De Bow's Review for the last ten years, and who has watched the drift of argument in reviling the masses, and contemning their connection with government; and accustomed also to the 'accidental droppings' from secessionists in their cups, has had little difficulty in determining the ultimatum in the designs of treason. He will have become convinced that it is nothing less than a warfare against the continuation of Democratic government in the South—that this warfare is stimulated by the fixed belief that a government of majorities must be superseded, in order to perpetuate the institution of slavery.
Were argument wanting to force this conclusion on the mind, it would be supplied in the established affinity between the emissaries of secession in Europe and the virulent haters of Democratic government there found. The liberalists of England and elsewhere have been sedulously avoided; not so those who would connive to bring Democratic government into disrepute. With these last-mentioned classes, the secessionists have met with a ready sympathy and encouragement, almost as much so, as if treason in America involved directly the stability of privileged power on that continent. The Tories of England, the Legitimists of France, the nauseous ingredients of the House of Hapsburg, the degenerate nobility of Spain, and from that down to the 'German Prince of a five-acre patch,' have been the congenial allies of secession emissaries in Europe. It mattered not to these haters of enfranchised masses how much misery might be inflicted on the American people. They cared little for the anguish of mind that was being every where felt by the supporters of liberalized opinions. They rejoiced at the supposed calamities of that government whose beneficent policy had always been to keep the peace, to avoid the necessity of standing armies, to foster industry and education, and in addition thereto, to encourage the depressed of Europe to come and accept homes and hospitable treatment on the soil of the country. These revilers of Democracy in Europe were long advised with, were consulted beforehand, and knew the plottings of the pro-slavery spirit, in its preparation for rebellion. They were indifferent as to the character or hateful deformity of the agency to be employed, provided it could be made instrumental in breaking the jurisdiction of a government, heretofore more esteemed by the enlightened liberalists of the world than any other that ever existed. Neither the secessionists nor their co-plotters in Europe required seducing or proselyting. They stood on the same level of affinity, the moment the secessionists proposed the overthrow of the Democratic principle. This was the promise, the condition precedent, and this the basis of alliance between the plotters of treason in free America and their coädjutors abroad. It would be both shallow and useless to charge the origin of sympathy with rebellion projects, expressed by political circles in Europe, to the mercenary motives of commerce, trade, or manufactures. Those were standing on a broad foundation of contented reciprocity, and were the first to dread the tumult that could not fail to prove prejudicial. We shall hunt in vain to find the motive for European sympathy in rebellion, elsewhere than in hatred of Democracy. We shall also search in vain to find the motive for the wide-spread sympathy expressed by the liberalists of Europe in the Union cause, elsewhere than in their attachment to liberalized institutions.
Having glanced at the compound motive for establishing the Southern Confederacy, that is, slavery perpetuation through prostration of the Democratic principle, it may not be amiss to refer to the contemplated management of its politico-economic interests. These were to be built up, of course; but not through a system of diversified industry; for free trade, as is well known, would have the effect to prostrate what little manufacturing had been commenced in the South, and afford a perpetual bar to the success of future undertakings. It was believed that the foul elements North and South, and the illicit traders of the world beside, could be brought together in the business of free trade and smuggling. The immense frontier would render it impossible for the Northern States to protect themselves to much extent from illicit trade, through any preventive service possible to be adopted. The Mexican frontier would be entirely helpless. Thus reasoned Secesh. This was to have been the basis of competition with Northern mechanism. The reasonings of the conspirators were consistent with the merits and morals of the conspiracy. They calculated upon the active coöperation of the mercenary in the North, and actually believed that the temptation to gain would prove predominant over any efforts the Northern Government could make to protect its revenue policy. They boldly ventured upon the assumption that the influences of illicit traffic would soon become too strong to be resisted, and that in this manner, in conjunction with the agency of 'King Cotton,' the commerce of the North would be transferred to the South.
Another item in Southern political economy was the project of reöpening the African slave-trade. The leaders of the secession programme had made this a prominent feature in starting the rebellion into growth. The various phases which this branch of the question afterward underwent, was owing to the opposition of the Border States. So much were the people of the Border States averse to being brought into competition with slave-breeding in Dahomey, that the original conspirators were obliged to forego, for a time at least, this incident in the motives of the earlier revolutionists.
A government founded on the supremacy of a class, and that class to be composed of slaveholders; a political economy founded on slave labor, free trade, illicit trade, and African kidnapping, were associations that would require great strength and influence to sustain them. The strongest military organization was therefore contemplated. In this, much employment could be given to the non-slaveholding masses, while military qualities of supposed superiority would enable the Southern Confederacy to enter into a successful contest with the North for empire. The potency of 'King Cotton' was to be made the powerful agency with which the rest of the civilized world was to be dragooned into acquiescence. On this delusive dream was built the fabric of that mighty empire, whose history, from its origin to its subversion, is nearly ready to be written.
It must be acknowledged that the leading influences of the rebellion were as sharp-sighted as political vice, or political immorality is ever capable of becoming. Like all other vice, however, it based its reasonings and supposititious strength exclusively on its powers of deception, in conjunction with the iniquitous aptitudes of itself and its coadjutors. It found co-plotters in Mozart Hall, in the stockholders of the African Slave-trade Association, scattered from Maine to Texas, and in its suborned press in New-York, Baltimore, Charleston, and New-Orleans. It had bargained with the politically vitiated portion of the Northern Democracy for assistance, and had received a wicked though fallacious assurance from the Northern kidnappers, to the effect, that the Democracy of the North would neutralize any attempt to oppose secession by force. They had arranged for their diplomatic influence on the other side of the Atlantic, and bargained for the subversion of Democracy in the South. It planned beforehand for arming treason and disarming the Union, and most adroitly were its plans in this respect carried into effect. It had gained over to its side most of the Southern material in the little army and navy of the country, and prepared it for perfidy, in committing devastation or theft on the public property. Thus allied and thus equipped, in the confidence of its pernicious strength, it commenced its warfare on society.
'How much injury can we inflict upon the North? How much of the debts owing to Northern citizens can we confiscate? How much property in the South owned by Northern men can we appropriate? How much can we make Northern commerce suffer by depression of business, privateering, or otherwise? To what extent can we paralyze Northern mechanical industry, subvert Northern trade, and lay it under disabilities? How much can we distress the laboring classes in England, in France, in other countries in Europe, whereby we may compel them to clamor for the intervention of their respective governments against the North, and against its attempts to uphold the Union?' The whole reasoning of the conspirators was based on the supposed power, coupled with the intent and effort to inflict wide-spread and common injury. The scheme and all its contemplated and attempted incidents of management were such as the pro-slavery spirit in politics only could engender.
It required many years of gradual development, in connection with the ultimate culmination of treason, to shake the confidence of the North in the disposition of the people of the South. There was, and could be, no possible intelligent motive for the masses of the South to change their form of government, or to enter into rebellion against it. The arguments of the plotters of treason against a 'government of majorities'—the doctrine of 'State rights,' with the right to secede at the option of a State—the quasi repudiation of the 'white trash,' so called, as an element of political equality, were regarded as the ebullitions of a politically vitiated class who would be willing to overthrow the National Government, but who were supposed to be too few in numbers to taint with poisonous fatality the political mind of the South. It is not established as yet that the Southern political mind in the main has become depraved. It is, however, established, that the leading political influences South have cajoled and terrorized the bulk of the Southern population into apparent acquiescence in treason. It yet remains to be seen what disposition will be disclosed by the Southern people, as soon as protection is guaranteed to them against the tyranny and usurpations of the rebel influence. It is prophesied that there will be found a heart in the bulk of the Southern population; that it will still cling with affection and pride to that government which was their guarantee, and which no power now on earth is competent to shake. It is not against the deluded, the timid, or the helpless of the South that we would make the indictment for political crime. It is the perfidious pro-slavery spirit in politics that we seek to arraign.
The analysis of developed motives in which the slaveholders' rebellion had its origin, must naturally excite the inquiry in the American mind, as to how far the slaveholding element can be trusted. As a political force, we find it sowing the seeds of political discontent. As an anti-democratic element, we find it plotting the overthrow of democratic government. In its efforts to denationalize republican government in America, it has not scrupled to seek aid from, and alliance with, the haters of republican institutions every where. Under such calamitous teachings as it has inflicted, can we longer conclude that it can, from its aptitudes and nature, be converted into an element of national strength? There is a South, and a great South, and would continue to be, were there not a negro or slaveholder sojourning there. The seven millions non-slaveholding population in the Southern States have rights, social and political, based on the motive to maintain republican government. The Constitution of the Union, as the highest principle of fundamental law, guarantees in express terms, to every State, the form of a republican government; and not less by implication, the essential qualities of an actual one. It matters not how much the non-slaveholding population of the South may have been deluded, nor how much it may have been incited, under that delusion, to act as the instrument of its own overthrow. This population is not less the object of just political solicitude than any equal number of people North. That its general education has not been advanced to the appreciative point, is its misfortune. That it has been surrounded by a pro-slavery influence, selfish, arrogant, and contemptuous of the interest of the masses, is equally so. That it has been less favored than its brother-hood of free labor in the North—that it has been placed under disabilities in the comparison, are only additional reasons for increased solicitude for the welfare and future advancement of this portion of Southern population. While it has been imposed upon, and much of it deluded in its motives to action, its actual condition is in reality coupled with every natural incentive to alliance and adhesion to the National Government. It has drunk the bitter cup of calamity in rebellion. It has tasted the dregs of treason that lie at the bottom of political vice, and been victimized by destitution, by the diseases of camp-life, by the casualties of the battle-field, and by the widowhood and orphanage that have followed the train of rebellion. This population is a natural element of national strength, having the same incentives as its brotherhood in the North. Arms will soon remove the blockade to its intercourse with the North, and civil liberty once established, will most likely secure it to the side of national patriotism.
There is a question of equal magnitude respecting the colored population, not only of the South, but of the whole country. It is involved in the inquiry: Can the colored population be converted into an element of national strength? Physiologically and mentally, the native negro race stands as the middle-man in the five races—the Caucasian and Malay being above, and the American aborigines and the Alforian below. The mixture of blood with the Caucasian in America, places the negro element of the United States at least upon a level with the Malay race in natural powers, and from association, much the superior in practical intelligence. Notwithstanding the crushing laws designed by slaveholders to perpetuate the ignorance and helplessness of the negro, he would improve. Notwithstanding the brutal and studied policy of slaveholders to slander and disparage the negro capacity for improvement, all the arts of lying hypocrisy have occasionally been set at naught by some convincing exhibition of truth, springing from a fair experiment on the colored man's susceptibilities. The white man's dishonoring inclination to strike the helpless—made helpless by brutal laws—has occasionally recoiled in an exposure of the atrocious practice. The late attempt to introduce a bill into the South-Carolina Legislature, providing for the sale of the free negroes of the State into slavery, led to a disclosure worthy of contemplation. The Committee to whom the bill was referred stated that—
'Apart from the consideration that many of the class were good citizens, patterns of industry, sobriety, and irreproachable conduct, there were difficulties of a practical character in the way of those who advocated the bill. The free colored population of Charleston alone pay taxes on $1,561,870 worth of property; and the aggregate taxes reach $27,209.18. What will become of the one and a half millions of property which belongs to them in Charleston alone, to say nothing of their property elsewhere in the State? Can it enter into the mind of any Carolina Legislature to confiscate this property, and pot it in the Treasury? We forbear to consider any thing so full of injustice and wickedness. While we are battling for our rights, liberties, and institutions, can we expect the smiles and countenance of the Arbiter of all events, when we make war on the impotent and unprotected, enslave them against all justice, and rob them of the property acquired by their own honest toil and industry, under your former protection and sense of justice?'[E]
This slight exhibition in the Carolina Legislature presents an epitome of the whole argument of cultivated brutality on the one hand, and of humane sense and rationality on the other. What were the protection and sense of justice here spoken of; and what the sequences flowing from such protection and justice? The whole question is answered in three words: Improvement, following encouragement. What was the 'robbery' proposed by the bill, other than the concomitants of slavery, that have robbed the colored man from generation to generation, not only of his toil, but of every practical motive To Be a Man? It would be needless, however, to discuss the question of the colored man's capacity to improve, were it not for considerations that now make it necessary, under national calamity, to take it into truthful account. The white man's cultivation of barbarity under the teachings of slaveholders has hitherto proved an overmatch for the colored man's claims in the abstract. Things and conditions are now changed. The slaveholders' rebellion has softened the obduracy of manufactured prejudice, and necessity has become allied with humanity. Tho pro-slavery spirit in politics is now discovered to be little short of a demon—a snake's egg that hatches treason. The American mind is nearly forced to the conclusion, that as long as colored women are compelled to breed slaves, their white mistresses will continue to breed rebels. Slavery, of course, must yield to the necessity of national security. A remnant may exist for a while, and linger through modifications of a broken and hopeless pro-slavery prestige, the duration depending entirely upon the disposition of slaveholders to become subordinated to law. Perpetuation, however, has become a word that has no meaning in connection with the duration of slavery. The word in that sense has become obsolete; and what shall become of the colored man, and how shall he be treated, is, and is to be, the sequence of the conspiracy to overthrow the jurisdiction of the Government. It being established that the pro-slavery spirit, by nature, is the antagonist of the democratic principle—the antagonist of the interests of the masses, the hot-bed for the cultivation of brutality, devoid of fidelity, and a rebel by practice, it has become an intolerable element of national weakness. We can not avoid the inquiry, now to be made on the basis of humanity: Can the colored man, by proper and just encouragement, be converted into an element of patriotism and national strength?
What is the solution of the riddle as it respects the strength of democratic government? It has heretofore been said by the revilers of the masses in America, that 'for two hundred years the scum, the crime, and poverty of Europe have been cast upon the shores of the Atlantic.' It is immaterial to the question of humanity, whether such has been the seed from which a new nation has been raised up in the wilderness. A few months since, 'Democracy on its trial,' was the favorite theme of democracy-haters in Europe. The indictment against our free institutions was freighted with fearful charges. The government of the Union was a 'delusive Utopia.' 'The people of the North had degenerated into a mob.' 'Society was drifting into the maelstrom of anarchy, and law and order becoming extinct.' A little time, and an apparently unwarlike people had changed into an astonishing organization, disciplined for warfare. Seven hundred thousand bayonets, as if by enchantment, bristled in menace to the slaveholders' rebellion. The navy-yards and arsenals resounded with the clang of hammers, and soon the suddenly created armaments appeared on the waters. Power in finance exhibited by the Government, based on the confidence and patriotism of the people, was no less astonishing. New inventions of warfare changed the scoffings in Europe into alarm for their own security. The trans-Atlantic revilers of republicanism in America have discovered a people who had a heart in them. Patriotism in America is reassured of success by the exhibition of a deep-seated attachment on the part of the Northman to his Government. Seven words suffice to solve the riddle of free democratic strength—the masses converted into beings of power. This is the theory, the basis, the strength of free institutions in America. They have no other foundation. They have nothing else to rely on for enduring support.
Let the Southern rebel attempt to disguise it as he may, the colored man of the South is already a patriot on the side of the Union. He has heard of a people in the North who believed that every human being, by nature, was entitled 'to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' He knows that his oppressor hates this people of the North, and for the sole reason that they entertain this generous sentiment. While the Pharisaic theologian of the Southern pulpit is expounding his Bible-doctrine in justification of kidnapping, and appealing to Heaven for assistance, the colored man turns in disgust at the impiety, and turns into secret places to beseech Omnipotence to favor the success of the national arms. Perhaps there is an interfering Providence already manifest in results. If the plagues of Egypt had been visited on the rebellious States by an overruling Power, they would scarcely have afforded a parallel to the calamity which rebel slaveholders have inflicted on their country. They have exhausted and destroyed much of what the long toil of the colored man South had assisted to raise up. Devastation has followed the train of rebellion. The blood of the first and of the second-born has been the sacrifice on the altar of slavery. The brutal ruffianism of the pro-slavery spirit has far enough disclosed its natural aptitudes to have become disgustingly odious in comparison with the positively better characteristics of the colored man. The rebel himself has taught a lesson to the world, which he can never unteach. The twenty-seven millions of free labor in the Union have learned a lesson through the teachings of slaveholders in rebellion, which they can not forget. This teaching is nothing less than that the colored man is capable, by protection and encouragement, of being converted into a better element of national strength and national prosperity than slaveholders, as such, would ever become.
Could any contemplative mind doubt for a moment the ability of the white population of the Union, if justly disposed, to raise the colored population of the country, in a short time, to the platform of a decent respectability? With unjust prejudice laid aside, and the work of beneficence acquiesced in, no one could reasonably doubt it. Who deserves best at the hands of the nation's power, the oppressor or the oppressed? The one that grasps at the throat of the nation and attempts its overthrow merely to perpetuate his power of oppression, or the other who is crying to humanity for protection? The voice of nature, if undefiled, will answer this question on the side of humanity—if not, necessity will.
The democratic theory which seeks to absolve humanity from oppression, is not confined to the resistance of a single despot. It goes in the same degree to a privileged class that arrogates to itself the right to oppress; nor does it stop at the half-way house of mere negative protection. It allows in its onward course the full fruition of 'equality before the law.' In theory, the law is the sovereign, and we seek to attach such qualities to that sovereign as are compatible with the general good of society. That theory places no man above the law, nor any man below its protection. As soon as the individual in society is raised to the point of negative protection, he is in a measure converted into a being of power. He can then appeal to his sovereign, the law, for the vindication of his rights. Experience is continually demonstrating that men are respected in proportion to their power to command respect. The very existence of slavery requires and demands the brutalization of the governing power that upholds it. Were society absolved from this tyranny, matters would begin to mend. Equalized protection would be the consequence. Protection, not only to the colored man, but protection in an almost equal degree to the non-slaveholding white population, hitherto brought under the ban of disability by a depressing pro-slavery policy.
Until recently, when the colored race in the United States was spoken of in connection with the subject of its release from oppression, it was subjected to the same arguments that kept the white men in slavery in olden times. The arguments of slaveholders were never truthful, and only convenient for themselves. They damaged the slave; they damaged every collateral interest; they damaged the strength of nationality; and more than all, they damaged every humane principle of civilization. The whole reasoning in favor of slaveholding has been a vicious fallacy; and perhaps the time has come, attended by sufficient calamity, to set the American population to thinking and acting in the right direction.
The colored people South are better fitted for freedom than is commonly imagined. They are quite well skilled in practical industry, more especially in agricultural pursuits. There are many of them qualified in skilled labor in the coarser mechanic arts. The whole of this population has been trained to diligent labor, under habits of continuous toil. It has acquired patience in performing labor, by the discipline which unremitting labor gives. The colored man South has not been brought up in idleness, or with habits calculated to make him a renegade. Were he permitted to enjoy the fruits of his industry, there can be no doubt of his disposition and patience to toil on. In case his rebel master would not hire him for wages, there would be enough amongst the non-slaveholding population who would. Production in the South, under emancipation of the slaves of rebel masters, would not materially fall off. Give to colored men the fruits of their industry, and many of them would soon set up for themselves. Perhaps in connection with the soil of the South, that yields most abundantly in annual value of product, the rest of the colored population would soon get to emulate the free colored people of Charleston. The law of subsistence would as much compel the South to go on without compulsory labor as it does the North, and there are just as many reasons for it in one section as in the other; that is, just none at all. Under emancipation, there is little doubt that actual production could and would soon be put on the increase, with better distribution of wealth, more widely diffused comforts, and a broader and better public policy. The only things that would be curtailed in their proportions would be slave-breeding, rebel-breeding, and ruffian cultivation.
It may, perhaps, continue to be easier for a time to strike the colored man than to strike off his shackles. There is a mean and low side of humanity, a sort of defiled infirmity, that runs into a disposition to strike the helpless. This is the bravery of ruffianism. There is apt to be a shrinking away from duty, when the contest involves a conflict with arrogant power. This is the cowardice of pusillanimity. The American citizen has been noted for his superior bravery. He has certainly shown himself brave in the battle-field, and more brave and determined than any other nation in the vindication and maintenance of the natural rights of the white man; but he is not done with the business of disenthrallment. His language is the language of liberty. It must not, it will not long continue to be spoken by slaves. This was the meaning of Jefferson, when he penned the text-words of disenthrallment: 'All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Where is to be found the evidence that these rights have been forfeited? Who dare deny the right of the colored man morally, religiously, or politically, to assert them? It is true, we have hitherto acted in defiance of these acknowledged rights. We have outraged them. We have waged a shameful and shameless warfare against them. The sequences of that warfare are now upon us. The sin is now being atoned for in blood. It has not yet been ordained that the principles of injustice should have permanent duration. If not restrained by humane rationality, they will culminate in convulsion. The light is now breaking upon the heretofore obscured vision of the American people. We can now begin to see with clearness that the colored man's disenthrallment is to become the white man's future security. This would almost seem to be the harmony of divine justice in the affairs of men.
No substantial amelioration in the depressed condition of race or class has yet been brought about in disconnection with the powerful agency of such race or class. Human nature forbids it. The selfish tenacity of advantage, resting on what is misnamed 'vested rights,' but having its foundation in vested wrongs, yields only on compulsion. It is only when the depressed race or class, acting in somewhat intelligent concert, exhibits the disposition to aid in the purposes of protection, that the mercenary power succumbs to necessity. History furnishes no examples to the contrary. It may not be impossible that our own times may make history to corroborate the truth of these premises.
When it is asserted that the colored man is wanting in bravery, and is not endowed with the natural courage to assert and maintain his rights, we are apt to forget that physical bravery is a thing of cultivation. There is not the least evidence that, with military discipline and something to fight for, the colored population of the United States would not prove as brave as the black regiment of the Revolution. With such bravery as that regiment exhibited, the four millions and their prospective increase would require a gigantic force to make profitable slaves of them. Again, there is something beyond the protection from domestic violence that demands consideration, in connection with the military discipline of the colored man. We may reasonably expect that a large colonization in some quarter will soon take place, and be carried forward. Education and military discipline, in addition to knowledge in practical industry, are necessary concomitants to successful colonization. With these qualities, the colored man will cease to feel helpless, and be fitted for enterprise, he will have the confidence to go forward, and the aspirations to impel him. It may be the lot of the colored man to encounter in some foreign land powers and influences quite as barbarous as those he has hitherto encountered in the white man's prejudices. If he is armed for the encounter, he will have little inclination to shrink from it. Every humane consideration clusters to the policy of disenthralling the colored man, and of making him a being of power. Nothing can oppose it but the pro-slavery spirit that seeks to enslave the American mind to barbarism and the colored millions and their increase to perpetual bondage.
[WATCHING THE STAG]
[an unfinished poem, by fitz-james o'brien.]
Hela and I lie watching here,
Above us the sky and below the mere.
long
Through distant gorges the blue moors loom
Till the heath looks blue in the endless gloom.
The eagle screams from the misty cliff,
With a quivering lamb in his taloned griff.
And the echoes leap over hill and hollow,
As the old stag bells to the herd to follow.
The purpled heather is wet with mist,
Till it shines like a drownèd amethyst,
And the old, old rocks with furrowed faces
Start up like ghosts in the lonely places.
With forefeet crossed, stanch Hela lies
Watching my face through her half-closed eyes,usBetween—is—is—stretched deer
While ^ I pillow my head on the stiffening stag
LITERARY NOTICES.
Bayard Taylor's Prose Writing's. Vol. V. A Journey to Central Africa, with a Map and Illustrations by the Author. New-York: G.P. Putnam. Boston: A.K. Loring.
This work deservedly ranks as among the best, if not the best, by Bayard Taylor. The East, as we feel in his poems, was full of the scenes of his widely varied travels, that which most aroused his sympathy and stirred his artistic creative powers, and it is of the East that he speaks most freely and brilliantly. It was in Central Africa that he encountered his most thrilling adventures, and forgot, as we can there only do, the civilization of the Western World. Something we would say of the beautiful typography and paper of this series. If the term mise en scène were as applicable to books as to dramas, it might be truely said of Mr. Putnam's that they appear as well between boards as other works do upon them.
El Dorado. Prose Writings of Bayard Taylor. Vol. IV. New-York: G.P. Putnam. Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.
Possibly some twenty years hence 'El Dorado' will be regarded as by far the best of Bayard Taylor's works—certain it is that in it he is among the pioneer describers of a land the early accounts of which will be carefully investigated and duly honored. In picturing lands, where others have been noting and sketching before, he is strong indeed who is not driven into mannerism; but in fresh fields and pastures new there is less danger of seeing through thrice-used spectacles. It is this consciousness of being the first that ever burst into their silent seas that made Herodotus and Tudela and Rubriquis and Mandeville so fresh and vigorous—and there is much of the same peculiar inspiration due to first-ness perceptible in this volume, which we cordially commend to all who would be California-learned or simply entertained. Somewhat we must say however of the fine paper, exquisite typography, and two neat steel engravings with which this 'Caxton' edition is made beautiful and most suitable either for a lady's étagere-book-shelf or the most elegant library.
Les Miserables. I. Fantine. by Victor Hugo. Translated by Charles E. Wilbour. New-York: Carleton. Boston: Crosby and Nichols. 1862.
A novel written twenty-five years ago by Victor Hugo is a curiosity. The present was kept in reserve because the sordid publisher, who had a contract for all of Hugo's works, would not give the sum demanded—the author kept raising his price—it was like Nero and the Sybil, or the converse of the conduct of the damsel who annually reduced her terms to Martial:
'Millia viginti quondam me Galla poposcit;
Annus abit: bis quina dabis sestertia? dixit.'
Finally the publisher died, the work was printed, and its first section now appears in 'Fantine'—a capital picture of life, manners, customs, in fact of almost every thing in France in 1817. It deals with much suffering, many sorrows, as its title indicates—for it is easier to make sensations out of pains than pleasures, and M. Hugo is preëminently and proverbially 'sensational.' Still it is deeply interesting, extremely well managed in all art-details, and above all things, is extremely humane—as a book by Victor Hugo could hardly fail to be. And as every page bears the impress of a certain characteristic originality of thought and of observation, we may safely predict that 'Fantine' will deservedly prove a success. We like the manner in which Mr. Wilbour has translated it—neither too slavishly nor too freely, but in one word, 'admirably.'
Artemus Ward his book. New-York; Carleton. Boston: N. Williams and Company. 1862.
Once in five or six years we have a new humorist—at one time a Jack Downing, then a Doesticks, then again a Phoenix-Derby. Last on the list we have 'Artemus Ward,' as set forth in letters to the Cleveland Plaindealer and Vanity Fair, purporting to come from the proprietor of a 'side-show,' as cheaper, or less than twenty-five cent exhibitions, are called in this country. To say that they are excellent, spirited, and racy—full of strong idioms of language and character, and abounding in novelties in type which are no novelties to those familiar with popular life—would be doing them faint justice. They embody a new and perfectly truthful conception of one of the multitude, and have nothing that is hackneyed in them.
It is a great test of real stuff in a writer when he dashes off, or picks up, phrases which are at once taken up by the people. 'Artemus Ward' has originated many of these, and is perhaps at the present day as much quoted 'in the broad and long' as any man in the country. It is needless to say that all who relish broad eccentric humor will find his Book very well worth reading. We regret that it does not embrace certain other excellent sketches which we know he has written, but trust that these will appear in due time in a second part or in a new edition. The volume before us is very neatly got up, well illustrated, and tastefully bound.
Lyrics for Freedom and Other Poems. Under the Auspices of the Continental Club. New-York: Carleton, 413 Broadway, Boston; Crosby and Nichols.
At a regular meeting of the 'Continental Club,' held at their rooms in New-York, it was resolved and carried that a volume of poems written by certain of the younger members be published 'under its auspices.' As a noted Democratic sheet, the Boston Courier, has declined to notice the volume on the plea that the name of the society from which it sprung suggested too forcibly the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, possibly a favorable mention by us of our young New-York brother-in-literature may seem partial and too en-famille-iar to be fair. Be this as it may, we can not resist the expression of the honest conviction, for which we have many a good indorser, that while it would be a matter of some difficulty to compile a better collection of lyrics from the vast number which the war has thus far called forth, its production by a limited number of a single association is indeed remarkable. There is the right ring and the true feeling perceptible in all of them; earnest enthusiasm flowing bravely on the tide of musical words, and a clear conviction of the justice of our cause springing from liberal and progressive political views. It is enough indeed to say of most of the lyrics that they are written from a principle, and with faith in the necessity of Emancipation, and are not mere war-songs, full of commonplace, as applicable to one cause as another. They are songs of the American war of freedom in 1861, and as such will rank high in our literary history.
The Rejected Stone; or, Insurrection versus Resurrection in America. By a Native of Virginia. Second Edition, Boston: Walker, Wise and Company. 1862.
We are as gratified at the reappearance of this glorious work as we are astonished to learn that it has only reached a second edition. As it is beyond comparison the most remarkable literary result thus far of the war, as it has made a strong sensation in very varied circles, as it is a book which has given rise to anecdotes, and as its wild eloquence, bizarre humor and intense earnestness, have caused it to be read with a relish even by many who dissent from its politics, we had supposed that ere this its sale had reached at least its tenth edition. Meanwhile we commend it to all, assuring them that as a fearless, outspoken work, grasping boldly at the exciting questions of the day, it has not its equal. We should mention that in the present edition we find given the name of its author, the well-known and eloquent Rev. Moncure D. Conway, formerly of Virginia, now of Cincinnati.
Our Flag: A Poem in Four Cantos. By T.H. Underwood. New-York: Carleton. Boston: N. Williams. 1862.
During the past year Mr. Underwood has published several poems of remarkable merit, referring to the war. In the present we have a work of higher ambition, and one which is truly well done. In it the horrors of slavery, the iniquitous abuses to which it so often gives rise—the tortures, vengeances, murders, and fiendish punishments, which in their turn follow the crime—are portrayed with striking truthfulness and real power. The author is evidently no Abolitionist on hear-say—the whole poem gives evidence of practical familiarity with 'the institution,' and the sense of truth has inspired his pen in many passages with wonderful power. The terrible sufferings of an almost white man and slave as here portrayed, his revenge and punishment at the stake, are as moving as they are manifestly true to life. We commend this little pamphlet-poem to every friend of freedom, and sincerely trust that it will attain the large circulation which it deserves.
Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession. With a Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels. By W.G. Brownlow, Editor of the Knoxville Whig. Philadelphia: Geo. W. Childs. 1862.
A decided character this 'Parson Brownlow,' and a representative man; truly and bravely American, very Western in his traits; a man fond of fierce argument and tough antagonisms, and not fearing the death either by halter or revolver, which he will probably meet some day, for the sake of Jehovah and his own stern convictions. Not exactly a man of salons and elegant réunions—yet full of real courtesies and gifted with the kind heart of a true hater of wickedness, which flashes into fury at witnessing deeds of cruelty and shame. And he has seen many such—seen what few have done and lived—he has passed through a life's warfare with men of his own grim obstinacy without his own honesty and stern Puritan-like morality. We have followed his course for years—we have met him 'afore-time,' when quite other subjects of quarrel engaged him, and could have prophesied then with tolerable accuracy what part he would play when it came to a question between bayonets and prisons for the truth.
As we have hinted, he is a splendid hater, and a ferocious antagonist, a prince of vituperators and a very vitriol-thrower of savage sarcasms at his enemies and those of humanity. And why should he not be all of this, when we consider that in the stage whereon his part of life is played a more delicate student of all the proprieties would have about the same chances of success as attended the unfortunate cat which ventured without claws among panthers. Measure such men by their moral worth and by the good they do, and do not require of the hard-shell Methodist preacher and tough polemical grappler with Satan in his most bristly and thick-skinned Western incarnations that he display too much delicacy. Those who will read his book may gather from it, beyond the interesting personal and political narrative of which it consists, many useful and curious hints as to the social development of America and of what men the country is truly made. It is a real work—one of value—interesting to all, and very truly one of the monuments of this war and of the scenes which preceded it in Tennessee.
EDITOR'S TABLE.
The proclamation of President Lincoln in reference to General Hunter, and the bold measures of the latter calling forth Executive interference, form one of the most interesting episodes of the war of Freedom. Regarded from the high standpoint whence acts are seen as controlled by circumstances and formed by events, the conduct of the one public functionary, as of the other, will appear to the future historian in a very different light from that in which it has been presented by either the radical or democratic journals of the day. He will speak of the one as a military chieftain under the influence of worthy motives, cutting a Gordian knot which the higher and controlling diplomatic and executive superior wished should be cautiously untied. The one has acted with a view to promptly settling a great trouble within his own sphere—the other wisely comprehending that the action was premature, has decisively countered it. By attempting to free the slaves, General Hunter has shown himself a friend of freedom and a man of bold measures; by annulling his acts Mr. Lincoln has availed himself of an excellent opportunity of proving to the South and to the world that he is not, as was said, a sectional or an Abolition President, and that with the strongest sympathies for freedom, he is determined to respect the rights even of enemies, and leave behind him a clear record, as one who did nothing wrongly, and who with keen and wide comprehending glance took in the times as they were, and acted accordingly.
Meanwhile to the most prejudiced vision it is apparent that the great cause of Emancipation has gained vastly by this little struggle between the shepherd and that unruly member of the flock who would dash a little too impetuously ahead of his fellows. The proclamation of President Lincoln contains but cold comfort for the pro-slavery democracy, although they affect to rejoice over it. In vain may they declare, as they did of the celebrated 'remunerating message,' that it is very palatable, and vow that it 'creates fresh hope and gives a new and needed assurance to the conservative men of the nation.' The sour faces of their pro-slavery, Southern-adoring, English-ruled, traitorous friends is an effectual answer to their hypocrisy. We have not forgotten how warmly the Democratic press indorsed the message of January 6th, or how the Democratic multitude kicked against it in public meetings.
Let the Democratic tories of the day who find this message so consolatory, duly weigh the following extract from it:
'I further make known that whether it be competent for me as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether at any time or in any case it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which under my responsibility I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decisions of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps. On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows:
"Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with, any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.'
'The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the Nation to the States and people moat immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of those States, I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue, I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time as in the providence of God it is your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.'
If any one can see in this aught save the clearest sympathy with the gradual advance of Emancipation, he must be indeed gifted with a strange faculty of perversion. If, however, the Democrats indorse the President's recommendation and approve the Executive policy of gradual emancipation for the sake of the white man, why do they continue to abuse so fiercely presses which agree exactly with the Administration, and ask for nothing more than a recognition of the great principle and its realization according to circumstance?
A more contemptible and pitiable political spectacle was never yet presented than that which may now be witnessed in the actions and words of the 'Conservative' Democracy. Driven day by day nearer into their true light of sympathizers at heart with the enemy—upholding the institution for which it fights—obliged to bear the odium of its ancient opposition to protection, disgraced by its enmity to American manufacturing interests—apologizing in a thousand shuffling, petty ways for English arrogance—this wretched fragment of a faction, after assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle going on, giving to it those elements of darkness, disgrace, and treason which, unfortunately, are always to be found in the greatest struggles for freedom and right, and which, when history is written, give such grounds to the carper, the sophist, and skeptic to ridicule the noblest efforts of humanity. Such are the self-called Conservatives in this great battle—men hindering and impeding the great cause, eagerly grasping at every little premature advance—as in the case of General Hunter's action, to scream out that all will be lost, and exult over its correction by the leading power as though they had gained a victory!
Meanwhile it is a matter of no small import to observe that there has been a vast increase in the mass of indorsement of General Hunter's conduct compared to what there would have been a few months ago. However it interfered with the general policy of the Executive, no one doubts that as a military and local measure it was eminently wise. Sooner or later it will be adopted—meanwhile what has been done has been productive of results which can not be undone. The great cause is the cause of God—and every struggle only aids it onward.
The London Times of May 10th contained a long editorial leader on American affairs, beginning in the following manner:
'It will have been noticed as a singular feature of the American quarrel, that no intervention is thought probable or practicable, except in favor of the South. Mediation, in whatever form or under whatever name it is to be offered, is universally taken to imply some movement in behalf of the Confederates. So completely, indeed, are the belligerents themselves impressed with this idea, that the South casts it in our teeth as a scandal and a blunder that no European arbitration has been yet interposed; while the President of the Northern States actually proclaims a day of thanksgiving for the deliverance of the country from 'foreign intervention,' which he identifies with nothing less than 'invasion.' The instincts of the combatants have undoubtedly led them to correct decisions on this point, but the fact is not a little curious. We need not dissemble the truth about certain prepossessions current in Europe. It is beyond denial that, in spite of the slavery question, the Southerners have been rather the favorites, partly as the weaker side, partly as conquerors against odds, and partly because their demand for independence was thought too natural to be resisted at the sword's point by a Government founded on the right of insurrection only. To these merely sentimental and not very cogent considerations was added the more potent and weighty reflection that what the Southerners had done no Power, whether American or European, could succeed in undoing.'
The rest of the article, as the reader may recall, was devoted to sneering at the North and in commending intervention; the whole being characterized by an underhand, venomous, and latent treacherous tone, much more becoming a vindictive and vulgar Oriental than a civilized and Christian European.
A little while before the Times leader appeared, the London Morning Herald had informed the world that
France and England suffer more than neutrals ever suffered from any contest, and both begin to regard the war as interminable and atrocious.'
It is singular that the great majority of the British press and people should dare to talk so glibly of intervention in this our civil war, when we consider what their intermeddling may cost them. Cotton they may or may not get, but no intervention can compel us to buy their goods, and, as we have already pointed out in our columns, the entire loss of the free States market involves a disaster which will be permanent and terrible. Apart from the danger attendant upon insolently threatening a nation amply capable of mustering an army of a million on its own soil—two thirds of them practiced in war—there remains to be considered the utter loss of all American custom. We buy much more than any other nation whatever. Worse than this, for Europe, there would follow Such a development of our home-manufactures as would seriously threaten to drive England and France from a hundred markets. Let them think twice ere they intervene. But the people, it is said, are starving; and it may be, for this is one of the occasional and unavoidable results of England's endeavoring to become the workshop of the world. By over-manufacturing, she has brought it to such a pitch that one fourth of her population live on imported food—such as do not starve outright—for be it remembered that in Great Britain one person in eight is buried at the public expense, while one in every twelve or fourteen is a constant pauper. They are starving at present more than usual, simply because the North is buying less; but to turn away any popular opposition to government, and suppress riots, they and the world are told that the trouble all comes from the closing of Southern ports and the want of cotton! This, too, when published facts show that the stock of goods and cotton on hand far exceeds the demand, and is likely to exceed it for a long time to come. It is not cotton that England or France want, but customers. How are they to obtain these? By exasperating their best buyers beyond all reconciliation? The day that witnesses British or French meddling in our war, sees the inauguration of such hostility to their manufactures as they little dream of. There will be leagues formed to enforce this to the letter. It will be treason to wear an inch of English cloth or of French silk, and what lie will they say to their starving operatives then?
Already within the past year, great advances have been made in manufacturing, especially in silks. A little closing of us up would be the worst experiment for England that she ever yet tried. She may possibly get cotton from the South, but not a customer from the North. You may lead a horse to water, but it is another affair to make him drink. And no one who can recall the prompt resolve not to use English goods, and the beginning of leagues to that effect, of which we lately heard so much, can doubt that in case we hear much more of this impertinence of intervention, the American market would immediately be lost to the insolent meddlers. It is only of late that the free States have shaken off their Democratic, pro-slavery, anti-tariff tyrants, and learned to be free. England has groaned and howled at our freedom; now she goes so far as to threaten; but unless she soon stop that, we shall promptly show her where the strength lies. While we were under a half-Southern, half-British tyranny, we could do nothing. And be it remembered that from the days of the New-York Plebeian, when British gold was spent literally by the million in this country, to strengthen the Democratic party and build up free trade, slavery and English interests always went hand in hand to oppress the interests of American free labor. But we shall soon change all that. It is in our power to chastise British impudence most effectually, and we shall probably soon be called upon to do it, by buying nothing from abroad.
The inhuman, inconsistent, and cynically selfish conduct of England toward the North in this war, whenever we have been threatened by reverses, should not be forgotten. It has been literally devilish in its grossness and meanness. Whatever wickedness the South has been guilty of was at least barefaced and bold. The South had not for years labored to build up an Abolition party in the North, as England did. For well nigh half a century has England howled, wailed, whined, and canted over slavery; but at the first pinch of the pocket, away goes the previous philanthropy, and John Bull stands revealed, the brutal, cruel, treacherous, lying savage that he is at heart, under all his aristocratic feudal trash and gilding. Well, we know him at last, and will remember him. His conduct toward us has put hay on his horns—foenum habet in cornu—and we shall avoid him. Let the manufacturers of America watch this intolerably insolent intervention closely, and lose no opportunity to turn it to their own advantage, that is to say, to the advantage of the whole nation. Let them, by means of journal and pamphlet, profusely scattered, explain to the people the enormous wrong which England is seeking to do us, and the deliberate, we may truthfully say, the official falsehood on which it is based. They have it in their power to make our country literally free—will they hesitate to use that power?
The reliance of England is, by returning to her sweet, stale flatteries, after the establishment of the Confederacy, to be friends as of old with the North. It is, she thinks, easily done. Our servants abroad and their friends are to be a little more favored with levee tickets and access to noble society; a few dozen more of the rank and file will be marched along or 'presented' before her Majesty, and thereby sworn in to endless admiration of all that is Anglican; venerable gentlemen in white waistcoats will make sweet speeches, after public dinners, of the beauty of Union, just as they made them here a year ago, in reference to the South, when the tiger was on the spring. The old see-saw of 'nations united in language and customs—brothers at heart,' will be set to vibrating, and all, as they believe, must jog along merrily as of old. For it is with a very little regularly organized stuff of this kind, turned on or off as from a hydrant, and always in dribbling drops at that, that England has, when necessary, pacified and delighted a great number of Americans, semi-insane to be received on terms of equality by the 'higher classes,' whom they worshiped at heart, while they affected all manner of bold Americanisms to hide the truth. It is time to end all this. We have come to serious and terrible days, and must be free from all such flunkeyism. In our hour of trouble, the English press boldly proclaimed that its sympathy was with the South. Let it be remembered!
In our June number we gave the Kansas John Brown song, for the benefit of those who collect the more curious ballads of the war. We are indebted to Clark's School-Visitor for the following song of the Contrabands, which originated among the latter, and was first sung by them in the hearing of white people at Fortress Monroe, where it was noted down by their chaplain, Rev. L.C. Lockwood. It is to a plaintive and peculiar air, and we may add has been published with it in 'sheet-music style,' with piano-forte accompaniment, by Horace Waters, New-York:
OH! LET MY PEOPLE GO.
the song of the contrabands.
The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go;
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go.
Oh! go down, Moses,
Away down to Egypt's land,
And tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go.
No more shall they in bondage toil—Oh! let my people go;
Let them come out with Egypt's spoil—Oh! let my people go.
Haste, Moses, till the sea you've crossed—Oh! let my people go;
Pharaoh shall in the deep be lost—Oh! let my people go.
The sea before you shall divide—Oh! let my people go;
You'll cross dry-shod to the other aide—Oh! let my people go.
Fear not King Pharaoh or his host—Oh! let my people go;
For they shall in the sea be lost—Oh! let my people go.
They'll sink like lead, to rise no more—Oh! let my people go;
An' you'll hear a shout on the other shore—Oh! let my people go.
The fiery cloud shall lead the way—Oh! let my people go;
A light by night and a shade by day—Oh! let my people go.
Jordan shall stand up like a wall—Oh! let my people go;
And the wails of Jericho shall fall—Oh! let my people go.
Your foes shall not before you stand—Oh! let my people go;
And you'll possess fair Canaan's land—Oh! let my people go.
Oh! let us all from bondage flee—Oh! let my people go;
And let us all in Christ be free—Oh! let my people go.
This world's a wilderness of woe—Oh! let my people go;
Oh! let us all to glory go—Oh! let my people go.
Oh! go down, Moses,
Away down to Egypt's land,
And tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go.
Speaking of the interview some weeks since between M. le Comte Henri de Mercier with the extremely 'honorable' J.P. Benjamin, the secession Secretary of State, the Petersburg (Virginia) Express uses the following elegantly accurate language:
'It is said that these two distinguished functionaries spoke the French dialect altogether, the gallant Frenchman not having yet been enabled to master the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.'
What, to begin with, is the French dialect? The Provencal, the Gascon, the Norman, are tolerably prominent French dialects, but which of them is preëminently the dialect we will not decide—nor why the diplomatic gentlemen selected a dialect instead of French itself as a medium of conversation. It is, however, possible that Comte de Mercier having heard of little Benjamin's antecedents, talked to him in argôt or thieves' slang. It may be that in the school of Floyd and Benjamin argôt is the dialect.
Again, we learn that the gallant Frenchman spoke 'the French dialect' because he has not as yet mastered 'the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.' This is even more puzzling than the dialect-question. Why the Anglo-Saxon idiom? Suppose Count Mercier wished to say that he was sorry that his tobacco had been captured by the foe, why should he couch it in such language as, 'Thá mee ongan hréowan thaet mín tobacco on feónda geweald feran sceolde'—which is the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.' We can imagine that thieves' slang would have the place of honor in Secessia, but why the old Anglo-Saxon idiom should be so esteemed, puzzled us for a longtime. At last we hit it. The Southrons have long been told—or told themselves—that they are Normans, while we of the North are Saxon—and hoping to acquire a little Anglo-Saxon intelligence, prudently begin by studying the language which they believe is in common use among our literati.
Seriously, it is not merely to stoop to such small game as the grammar of a secession newspaper that we notice these amusing mistakes. There are many persons-we are sorry to say many clergymen among others—here, even in the free States, who, in attempting to write elegantly, use words very ridiculously. They say 'dialect' and 'idiom' when they mean 'language;' they use 'donate' for 'give;' 'transpired' for 'happened;' 'paper' for 'newspaper,' and describe various events as taking place in 'our midst'—all because they think that these vulgarisms are really more correct than the words or terms in common use.
We wish, however, that Anglo-Saxon—joking apart—were more generally studied. When we remember that the very great majority of good words in English are of Saxon origin, and with them all that is characteristic either in our grammar or modes of expression, it becomes evident that the most certain and shortest method of arriving at a thorough and correct comprehension of English is by the study of its most important element—one which, as a writer has well said, bears the same relation to our mother-tongue as oxygen does to water. It is not fair to speak as some do of the Latin and Saxon wings of the English bird—the bird itself is Saxon—head and tail included. English has been but little benefited by its Latin and Greek additions—the old tongue had excellent synonyms or creative capacity like German—to fully equal every new need of thought.
The reader who has time for study, would do well to obtain the Anglo-Saxon Grammar of Louis Klipstein, published by G.P. Putnam, New-York, which is by far the most practical and easiest work of the kind with which we are acquainted. A few days' study in it will be time well invested by any one desirous of really understanding English. When we reflect that many boys study Latin for years 'because it enables them to understand the structure and derivation of their own language,' while the extremely easy Anglo-Saxon is almost entirely neglected, we smile at the ignorance of the first principles of education which prevails. But we advise the reader who may have a few shillings and a few hours to spare to invest them in a 'KLIPSTEIN,' and know—what very few writers do—something of the roots of English. Our word for it, he will not regret following the advice.
We are indebted to a Dawfuskie Island correspondent for the following details relative to
THE FALL OF PULASKI.
'Come and dine with me next Sunday in Pulaski?' said the commandant of a detachment of the Volunteer Engineer corps located on Tybee Island, one bright morning in the early part of April. As the invitation was given in all sincerity, and the officer who thus spoke was assisting in the erection of the batteries commanding that fort, the question which had so long occupied my mind, as to when the bombardment would begin, was now, I fondly hoped, near its solution. Time and again had rumor fixed the period of that event; but as often were we disappointed. Nor was the day now fixed; at least, if so, it was not communicated to me; but as the coming Friday of that week would be the anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter, the natural inference was, that on the morning of that day, we should witness the opening of the long and anxiously-looked for engagement.
Sad rumors had come to our camp, that eighteen soldiers who had gone out skirmishing within the rebel lines, on Wilmington Island, had been captured, and were prisoners within the walls of Pulaski. How far this event may have hastened the attack, we know not; but on Thursday, the tenth, instead of Friday, the eleventh, the bombardment began, and the thunder of our mortars shook the earth and rent the heavens with their roar. Pulaski returned the fire with a promptness and energy that seemed to bid defiance to our batteries. Throughout the whole day, the storm beat unceasingly upon the doomed fort, raining shot and shell like hail against its walls and upon its ramparts. Solid steel-pointed shot, from columbiads and Parrotts, aimed with a precision that indicated not only great skill but a knowledge of the point of danger in the fort, perforated the walls and buried themselves in the thick and heavy masonry. Once, twice, thrice, four times was the rebel flag shot away; but as often was it replaced. At seven o'clock in the evening, the firing ceased, and there was a lull in the storm, only, however, to be renewed again at midnight, and kept up at regular intervals until sunrise, when the engagement increased in greater vigor than throughout the preceding day.
The morning was clear and beautiful, but not calm. A stiff breeze came from the East, as if to bear the terrific reports of the cannonading to Savannah, whose distant spires and towers gleamed in the sun. Our blockading fleet, with accompanying transports, lay at anchor in Tybee harbor. Here and there a gunboat, firing occasional shots, could be seen moving about in Wilmington sound, while the Unadilla, Hale, and Western World occupied their positions in Wright and Mud rivers. Tatnall's fleet was no where to be seen, and all things in the direction of Savannah seemed as quiet as though that city was peacefully and securely reposing, as in other days, under the broad folds of the American Union.
It was a sad and woful day to the cities of the South, when her rebel princes renounced their allegiance to the government, and raised the traitor arm of rebellion against its authority. Imagined evils, in connection with the Union, were then converted into real ones, and these have been augmented a thousand-fold in the severance from that Union. When the South shall 'come to herself'—if she ever does—like the prodigal son, she will find her condition quite as pitiable, and in rags and wretchedness, she will seek her father's house, willing, no doubt, to occupy a servant's place in the national household. Nor until true and genuine repentance shall come to her, can she hope for a father's forgiveness and a prodigal's reception and restoration.
Boom! boom!! boom!!! as if the last great day of vengeance had come, and you could hear the screeching of a thousand fiends in the air hastening to their destiny, come upon the ear, as Tybee utters her thunders, and pours out her vials of wrath. See that cloud of dust which shoots up like a volcano, and looks as though the whole east side of the fort had fallen in! Bolts of iron, like winged battering-rams, are ploughing fearfully through her belabored side. Before this cloud has passed away, you see, just above it, another, not dark and angry, but in appearance white and spherical as the moon. A shell has exploded, and rained its iron fragments into the fort.
It is now past meridian of the second day. Pulaski still fires her heaviest guns; but at greater intervals. The batteries from Tybee have obtained so exact a range that nearly every shot does execution. At length a breach is made in the vicinity of the magazine. The fate of the fort and all its inmates is now suspended upon a single, well-directed shot. There is but a step between the besieged and death, and as all hope of raising the siege is abandoned, the rebel flag is hauled down, and a white flag of submission waves in its stead. Pulaski falls, and the day is ours. The hope of Georgia is gone. In vain did the citizens of Savannah offer a prize of one hundred thousand dollars for the relief of the fort. Had that sum been increased to a million, it would have been quite as unavailing. The same inevitable doom awaits all the other forts and intrenchments of the rebel confederacy. With some of these, the event may be delayed; but the day of doom will come, and the broad flag of the Union will float over every inch of territory from the hills of the Aroostook to the waters of the Rio Grande.
Just as the fort struck her flag, an incident occurred which was somewhat remarkable. A sloop, which had been at anchor in Tybee harbor, was broken from her moorings by the violence of the wind, and driven by wind and tide, she floated up the Savannah river. With her Union down, she passed immediately in front of Pulaski, and turned into Wright river, where she was run ashore. Twenty minutes earlier, and she would have been blown to atoms by the guns of the fort.
An almost incredible amount of work has been done by our investing army, in accomplishing this glorious result. Rivers and creeks had to be sounded, obstructions removed, roads made through swamps on marshy islands, where our officers and men had to work day and night, often up to their waists in mud and water; heavy Parrotts and columbiads had to be carried by hand across these swamps, and erected on platforms inundated by rising tides; dykes and ditches had to be made, while all the time our men were exposed to the fire of the rebel fleet. When all this was accomplished, and communication was cut off from Pulaski, then the nearest points on Tybee were reached by our forces located on that island, and four or five batteries were planted, which, in turn, have done their work, and the result shows how wise were the plans and how successful was the execution. The stars and stripes now float over Pulaski, and may they never again be polluted by the touch of traitor hands.
Those persons who 'collect' street literature (there be such) may be pleased with the following:
PORTENTOUS PLACARDS.
New-York, May, 1862.
Since the publication of the 'Bill-Poster's Dream,' and of the extracts from Richmond papers containing the prophecies of the handwriting on the wall relative to the accomplice States of America, few things have so generally attracted pedestrian attention in our down-town streets as two enormous placards. The first bore the following legend:
there's
A TEMPEST
BREWING.
Persons given to cryptical studies were inclined to consider this an esoteric form of advertisement, intended to convey to the initiated the information that A. STORM had gone into the beer business. But conjecture was set at naught by its fellow which appeared at its side on the day after its posting, in this shape:
VIDELICIT
Θε Προφεσσορ.
Puncanhed, who was the first to call my attention to the placard, did so with the following statement:
''Tan't spelt right—and why couldn't the feller just as well use the 'good old English' word viz., as 'videlicit?''
The query was unanswerable. But having some doubt as to the first word in the Greek line, by using which instead of the article 'O, the writer has shown not merely unconsciousness of the Greek particle, but ignorance of a particle of Greek, I put the first Hibernian who passed to the test of reading the sentence, which I am forced to say the indignant Milesian scornfully declined. I submit the whole question to the researches of your readers. Hemiplegius.
Nay—we know not. 'The Professor' at the Breakfast-Table we do indeed know, and it is no unwonted thing for us to meet him in Tremont street, merry and wise as ever. But we have never seen him or any other Professor 'driven to the wall' in any way whatever; and albeit we suspect him of a knowledge of whist, we have beheld him pla-carded. We pass.
Do we say too much when we call the following poem truly beautiful?
WITH FLOWERS.
may morning, 1862.
Reject them not! they come to plead for me;
When you are cold, 'tis winter in my heart;
Till you are kind, 'sweet May' 'twill never be,
And if you smile, summer will ne'er depart!
'My heart is weary,—waiting for the May,'
So sad and weary; will you give it rest?
Not love, but rest: it is not much to say:
'Poor, tired child! once more be thou my guest.'
Forgive my wild and wayward words, forgive!
"We are dying of our thirst—'my heart and I!'
Without love's sunshine, who can care to live?
And when love shines, oh I who can bear to die?
'Ah! this love!' 'There is not much of it in life,' says Heine; but that little alone makes life tolerable. Rest, perturbed spirit, rest! In another land, there is love enough for all.
CHIVALRY
by r. wolcott; tenth regiment
Not long ago I happened to be one of a number of fair ladies and brave men assembled at what is called a 'surprise-party.' It was my fortune to be the attendant cavalier, for the time, of a damsel of romantic disposition, and, I fear, of somewhat impaired digestive powers. And she was lamenting, not boisterously, but in a subdued, conversational manner, that the good old days were gone, 'the days of Chivalry,' when my lady had her nice little boo-dwah (for the life of me, I didn't know whether that was something nice to eat or to wear; but I have since learned that it is something French, and spelt, b-o-u-d-o-i-r,) and was waited upon by handsome pages, and took her airing on a dappled-gray palfrey, attended by trusty and obsequious grooms; when Sir Knight, followed by his sturdy henchmen, rode forth in gay and gaudy attire, with glittering helmet and cuirass, and entered the lists, and bravely fought for his fair lady's fame. She spoke with fervid eloquence, and with a glibness that betrayed a very recent perusal of the tournament-scene in Ivanhoe. I was about to reply, and say something in behalf of modern chivalry; but just then a gentleman claimed her hand for a quadrille that was forming, and my remarks were cut short.
If my readers will bear with me, I will attempt to tell them what I was going to say to my romantic young friend. The days of chivalry are not gone. Let me remark that this assertion does not apply to the blatant, nigger-driving article that whilom flourished in Dixie, for that is about 'played out,' though they still rant and prate about the 'flower of chivalry.' At Fort Lafayette, there is an herbarium of choice specimens (rather faded and seedy) of that curious 'yarb;' and at the old Alton Penitentiary, and at Camp Douglas, Chicago, there are collections, not so choice and a great deal more seedy. Though Simon—not he of other notoriety, but another man—Simon Bolivar Buckner, a sweet-scented pink of Southern chivalry; though he must have his little fling at us, and call General Grant 'ungenerous and unchivalrous,' it does not strike me with stunning force that he, ingrate that he is, and traitor to the government that educated him, is exactly the one to teach us what chivalry is, or how it ought to treat vanquished rebels. No, the days of chivalry are not gone. While the base counterfeit that has so often been thrust upon us by Southern braggadocios, and indorsed by Northern sneaks and doughfaces, has been detected, and, thank God! is being thrown out as fast as shot and shell can knock it out, there never was a greater abundance of the genuine metal than there is now and here in this land of ours.
Not alone in war and warlike deeds does modern chivalry show itself. There is a chivalry in religion, that, in spite of the howlings of creed-worshipers, dares to throw off the shackles of antiquated and intolerant dogmas, and believe and teach the religion of humanity, of 'peace on earth and good-will to men.' It is the chivalry in religion that has smitten and is daily smiting with its gleaming lance the host of old prejudices, letting in upon us the glorious golden sunshine, allowing us to revel in it and to see this world as it is, joyous and beautiful. True, some of the old superstitions that burned the witches linger in the path, like grim dragons, to frighten us. But they are weak and toothless, and are fast losing their terrors; and the spirit of chivalry in religion is marching on, and smiting them one by one, and one by one they fall. But while men are emancipating themselves from the ancient errors, it is sad to see that the same bugbears that infested the path of our great grandparents in the pinafore period of their existence, are brought to bear upon our children. Especially in Sabbath-school literature is this manifest. Impossible patterns of piety and propriety are set before a stout, healthy boy, and he, in the flush of his lusty life, is taught to believe that the only road to paradise lies through some pulmonary affection. For the sake of all these dear little ones, and for the sake of the Master who loved them so well, do let them have some more natural and healthy mental and moral food!
And this leads me to speak of literature in general. And have we not a chivalry here that is working a revolution? And who is the bravest knight in the field? Who but our own genial Meister Karl-Mace Sloper? Isn't it glorious though, the way he rides into the lists, and with his diamond-pointed lance pricks the tender skins of the lackadaisical poetasters and lachrymose prosy-scribblers of our day! Again, O gallant leader! smite them again. And fall in, ye who wield the pen! Let the bugles sound the charge, and let our literature be cleared of Laura Matildas and Martin Firecracker Splutters forever!
We approach now a topic that was once nauseating in the extreme, but which is now robbed of many of its disagreeable features—medicine. Let it be understood in the beginning, disciple of Hahnemann, I am not upholding you and your pellets of sugar; by no means. But there have been some knights of the pill-box who, without rushing into folly, have leaped the barriers of ignorance and ancient custom that kept them in an atmosphere odorous of villainous drugs and combinations of drugs, and, untrammeled by old traditions, have sought and are seeking milder means of mitigating our bodily ills. All honor to them. They have driven away the old doctor of our childhood, whose most pleasant smile resembled the amiable leer that a cannibal might be supposed to bestow upon a plump missionary. The old curmudgeon, with his huge bottles of mixtures and his immense boulders—I beg pardon, I should say, boluses of nastiness—has vanished like a surly ghost at the approach of daylight, and in his stead we have a gentleman, placid and self-poised, with a velvet touch and a face beaming with cheerful smiles. And if they have not made the measles a luxury, they have given us a syrup that children are said to cry for.
In the industrial arts, too, there is a spirit of chivalry that is marching bravely on, overthrowing old notions. What knight of the olden time ever did as much for his ladye fayre as he did for all womanity who wrought out the problem of the sewing-machine? How many aching hands and eyes and hearts has that little instrument, with its musical click-click, click-click, relieved! No more songs of the shirt, no more wearying of hands and curving of spines over the inner vestments of mankind. We have changed all that. And every stroke of the pioneer's ax, as he fells the mighty forest-trees, is a blow struck by the honest and earnest chivalry of labor, battling with wild nature, carving a way for civilization's triumphal march. And the cheery whistle of the plowboy, as he drives his team a-field; the ring of the hammer on the anvil; the clatter of the busy loom; the scream of the locomotive, as it sweeps over the land, plunging through the mountains and dashing out across the prairies—all these are the clarion-notes of modern chivalry's bugles, ringing through the world in joyous and triumphant tones.
And this war—who shall tell; what historic pen can record its grand and glorious chivalry? Is not every one, from the pale young student, fresh from the breast of Alma Mater, to the large-handed and larger-hearted rustic, with the hay-seed yet in his hair, and the rugged bod-carrier, redolent of sweat and brick-dust—are not all these, who have come forth from the field and the workshop, the office and the lecture-room, to defend the dear old flag, true and gallant knights? There is a boy out there in the woods, on picket, slowly pacing his lonely beat, with the tender-eyed stars for company. And as the silent hours pass by, slowly he turns the leaves of memory's record, lingering over its cherished pictures, the home-scenes, the fond father and mother, the dear sister, and the dearer some-one-else's sister. The snapping of a twig startles him, and hastily brushing away a tear—fond memory's tribute—he instantly closes the book, and stands, with every sense on the alert, unflinching, though he knows that each moment may be his last, only remembering that it is his duty to be faithful, watch well, and fire low. And though this boy, fair-haired and beardless, may not have passed the stern ordeal of the battle's fierce shock, though his heart softens at the thought of his far-off home in the North, yet his young soul is that of a hero, brave and chivalrous, and in due time his spurs will be nobly won. Yes, this war is bringing out the grand, heroic traits of our American character, traits that years of rapid, busy, money-getting life have thrown into the background, till it really did seem that we were altogether sordid and selfish.
In the year that I have been in the service, I have seen and heard of more individual chivalrous deeds than my romantic and dyspeptic young friend will find in all the books, from Amadis de Gaul down. Every day witnesses them. Private letters speak of them as ordinary incidents; a few get before the public, enjoy a brief newspaper notoriety, and are forgotten—no, not forgotten entirely; for every brave action lives somewhere, though it may not be in an official report. A mother's or a sister's memory cherishes it, and it is handed down to other generations, an example and an incentive to other brave deeds.
Then let us have no more sentimental lamentation over the decadence of chivalry. There is a broad field open to us, for deeds of chivalrous daring, now, upon the battle-field, amid the fierce clashing of arms.
'And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine with the sudden making of splendid names.'
Afterward, when holy peace shall smile again, there are the pulpit and the rostrum, the workshop and the forest; and whether we wield the pen, or the hammer, or the ax, according as we strive to make ourselves and the world better, so shall we bear the palm of chivalry.
The Democratic press made itself convulsively merry over Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, for having called out the militia promptly in the flurry of May 26th. After fairly exhausting its jeering and sneering on this subject, that portion of the Northern Fourth Estate which would be termed Satanic and traitorous were it not too utterly white-livered and cowardly to be complimented with such forcible indices of even bad character, had a cruel extinguisher clapped upon it on May 29th, by a letter to the Boston Journal from Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison Kitchie, A.D.C., in which Governor Andrew is most effectually vindicated by the simple publication of four telegrams received from Secretary Stanton—the first two of which were as follows:
[telegram i.-copy]
'Washington, May 25th, 1862.
'ToGovernor Andrew: Send all the troops forward that you can immediately. Banks is completely routed. The enemy are in large force advancing upon Harper's Ferry.
Edwin M. Stanton,
'Secretary of War.'
[telegram ii.—copy]
'Washington, May 25th, 1862.
'To the Governor of Massachusetts: Intelligence from various quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are advancing on Washington. You will please organise and forward immediately all the volunteer and militia force in your State.
Edwin M. Stanton,
'Secretary of War.'
How Governor Andrew could have been true to his duty and have acted otherwise than he did after receiving such commands, must be settled by those 'gossips of the mob' who, incapable of appreciating the nobility of a prompt fulfillment of duty, measure every thing military by the amount of melo-dramatic denouement to which it leads. We trust that after this effectual 'counter' we may hear a little less carping at Governor Andrew, who has shown from the beginning an energy and perseverance, a promptness in emergency, and a patriotism which, when the history of this war comes to be written, will reflect the highest honor upon his name.
He who sends us the following, is worthy to bear a crow-sier as one of the Faithful:
BOTH BARRELS INTO 'EM:
If old Squire Price had any one bump of phrenology developed more than another, it was corvicide, or, kill-crowativeness. From corn-planting to husking-time, from dewy morn until evening more than due, he might be seen dodging behind fences, crawling around barns, stalking along in the high grass, with a long single-barreled old gun, trying to get a shot at the black thieves of crows that were forever at work on his old, sandy farm.
'What cause have you, my aged friend,' Brother Hornblower once said to him, 'What cause have you to molest these birds, as 'toil not, neither do they spin'?'
'I tell yer what,' answered the Squire, shaking his head with savage jerks, 'come down to my house ary moruin' airly, you'll hear caws!'
Brother Hornblower smiled grimly and walked gently away, after that, to get the evening paper at the grocery-post-office. He set his face against jokes—unless they were serious ones.
Whether it was Brother Hornblower's words, or more crows than usual, the neighbors around Squire Price's farm were regaled for two days after the above talk, with such constant explosions of gunpowder that it was surmised the Squire must have bought 'a hull kag o' powder, and got some feller to help him shoot.' The consequence of this energy was, that the persecuted devil's-canaries flew away to other farms where powder was scarce-first and foremost descending in flocks on Brother Hornblower's lands, and digging up his young corn—it was in the month of May—until even he found cause to go at these birds as don't spin; for he found out that they toiled most laboriously. Being a man of peaceful disposition, and opposed to the use of fire-arms, he thought over a plan by which fire-logs might be used with great advantage to his own benefit, by destroying a large number of crows at one fell blow. How he succeeded in this fell-blow, was told a few evenings afterward in the grocery-post-office, by young Tyler, a promising youth who had not, as they say of other sad dogs, 'quite got his set yet,' that is, attained completion in figure and carriage. Seated on the edge of a barrel half-filled with corn, and cutting a piece of pine-wood to one sharp point only to be followed by another sharp point, he was talking to another youth in a desultory manner, about his intentions 'to go by water,' in old Bizzle's schooner, next trip she took, when Squire Price came in to get his daily newspaper, The Beantown Democrat.
'You bin givin' them crows partikler hail, hain't you, Squire?' asked Tyler the youthful.
'Wal, about as much as they kin kerry,' answered the Squire. 'They hain't bin squawkin' round my prem'ses none to speak of lately.'
'They bin roond Brother Horublower's, thick as pison, though,' said Tyler. 'He counted on killin' 'bout a milyon on 'em yesserday—on-ly he didn't quite come it.'
'Thought he wouldn't never fire no guns at 'em!'
'Put a couple o' barrils into 'em yesserday.'
'Why, how you talk! You don't mean it?'
'Honor bright! He got a big travers on 'em—leastwise, thought he had. His brindle kaow, she got pizened night afore last, down there in the woods; couldn't do nuthin with her, and she died same night. So he goes and skins her, and throws her out into that gully down there, back o' Bizzle's wood, and says he to me—for I was over there workin' for him—says he, 'There'll be a power o'crows onto her t'morrer, and I calc'late I'll fix a few on 'em—I will!' So next mornin'-that was yesserdoy-we went out bright and airly, and rigged up a kind o' blind at the side of the gully, right over the old carcass, Then we got our amminishun all ready—both barrils all loadid.'
'By jing!' said the Squire, rubbing his hands, 'I wish I'd bin there.'
'Got all ready. Purty soon up comes one crow, sails round and round, then two or three more, then a few more; they begun to smell meat. Then they flew lower and lower; bime by one settles onto an old dead cedar and begins cawin' for dear life. Then down he comes, then more and more of 'em. Round they come, cawin' and flappin' their wings, clouds of 'em. Guess there was 'bout two hundred settled onto that old kaow.'
'Wish I'd bin there with my gun!' spoke the Squire, intensely excited. 'A feller could have made the most biggest kind of a shot.'
'Wal, we waited, and waited, till the old kaow was black as pitch with 'em. Then Hornblower he nudges me. We got both barrils all ready—big loads in 'em. 'Fire!' says he. I braced my leg up agin my barril; he braced his leg up agin his barril—'
'W-w-what?' said the Squire.
'We give the most all-firedest shove—and over we went, barrels, stones, dirt, and gravil, head-fo'most, spang into them crows and dead kaow! I tell you, for about five minutes I calc'late I never seed sitch fuss, feathers, dirt, and gravil, and kaow-beef flyin' as I did then. Things was mixed up most promiscussedly, you can bet yer life on it! Bime by I sort o' come to, and when I raised up I found I was sittin' onto four dead, crushed crows, Brother Hornblower, and kaow-meat gin'rally. So I dug out and lifted up the game—Brother Hornblower first off. When he cum round a little, says he:
"T-T-Tyler, I con-ceive somethin's give way 'bout these parts!'
"You air about right in your suppostishuns,' says I; 'the gravil bank's busted, and it's a marcy we an't in kingdom kum!'
"Don't talk that way,' says he; 'let's go up and fire a cupple barrels more into the blastid rebbils, fur vengenz.'
"No yer don't, this mornin', as I knows on,' said I; 'I've got enough shootin craws your fashun. Next time I go shootin' crows 'long any boddy, I'm goin' to do it Christian-fashun, with gun-barrils, and not blastid old flour-barrils filled with gravil. That kind o' shootin' don't suit my style o' bones—'speehally head-fo'most inter a dead kaow!"
'On-ly four crows killt!' said the Squire, with a groan. 'To think what a feller might have done, if he had only have spread his-self judishuslously as he came tumblin' onto 'em spang! Wal!' (looking cheeringly to young Tyler,) 'you couldn't do more'n fire both barrils into 'em, ef they was flour-barrils, could you?'
THE LEGEND OF JESUS AND THE MOSS.
In the desert of Engedi
Lies a valley deep and lone;
Softly there the mild air slumbered,
Lovely there the sunlight shone.
In the bosom of this valley,
By the path that leads across,
Lay a modest velvet carpet
Of the finest, softest moss.
But the careless traveler, passing,
Heedless of it went his way;
Thus this miracle of beauty
Lone in hidden glory lay.
Bloom and sunshine, sweeter, brighter,
Him from distant mountains greet;
On to that the stranger hurries,
Past the moss-bed at his feet.
Then the moss-bed sighed, complaining
To the evening dew that fell;
And its tufted bosom heaving,
Thus its 'plains began to tell:
'Ah! men love you, bloom and sunshine,
Long its rosy glow to see,
Feed their eyes on luring flowers
Whilst their feet tread rude on me!'
Now, when mellow rays of sunset
Lingered golden on the trees,
Came a weary pilgrim slowly
From the bordering forest leas.
This was Jesus, just returning
From his fast of forty days;
Worn by Satan's fierce temptations,
He for rest and comfort prays.
Sore his sacred feet are blistered,
Wandering o'er the desert-sands;
Torn and bleeding from the briers,
Sufferings which the curse demands.
When he came upon the moss-bed,
Soon he felt how cool and sweet
Lay the soft and velvet carpet
'Neath his wounded, bleeding feet.
'Then he paused and spake this blessing:
'Gift of my kind Father's love!
Fret not, little plant, thy record
Shineth in the book above.
By the careless eye unheeded,
Bear thy lowly, humble lot;
Thou hast eased my weary walking,
Thou art ne'er in heaven forgot.'
Scarcely had he breathed this blessing
On the moss that soothed his woes,
When upon its bosom gathered,
Budded, bloomed, a lovely rose!
And its petals glowed with crimson
Like the clouds at close of day;
And a glory on the mosses
Like the smile of cherubs lay.
Then said Jesus to the flower:
'Moss-rose—this thy name shall be—
Spread thou o'er all lands, the sweetest
Emblem of humility.
Out of lowly mosses budding,
Which have soothed a pilgrim's pain,
Thou shalt tell the world what honor
All the lowly, lovely gain.'
Hear his words, ye lonely children,
By the world unseen, unknown;
Wait ye for the suffering pilgrim,
Coming weary, faint, and lone.
Keep your hearts still soft and tender,
Like the velvet bed of moss;
God will bless the love you render,
To some bearer of the cross.
In our May number we spoke old Englishly of the Boston demoiselle. In the present number we have:
YE PHILADELPHIA YOUNGE LADYE.
Ye Philadelphia young ladye 1s not evir of ruddie milke and blonde hew, like unto hir cosyn of Boston, natheless is shee not browne as a chinkapinn or persymon like unto ye damosylles of Baltimore. Even and clere is hir complexioun, seldom paling, and not often bloshing, whyeh is a good thynge for those who bee fonde of kissing, sith that if ther mothers come in sodanely ther checkes wyll not be sinful tell-tayles of swete and secrete deeds. Of whych matter of blushing itt is gretely to the credyt of the Philadelphienne that shee blosheth not muche, sith that Aldrovandus, and as methynketh also, Mizaldus in his Mirabile Centuries, doe affirme thatt not to bloshe is a sign of noble bloods and gentyl lineage—for itt may bee planely seene that every base-borne churle's daughter blosheth, if thatt yee give hir a poke under ye chinn, whereas ye countesse of highe degre only smileth sweetlie and sayth merily, 'Aha! messire—tu voys que mon joly couer est endormy!' for shee well knoweth that a gentyllman, like ye kynge, can doe noe wronge.
The Philadelphienne dressyth not in garments like unto Joseph, his cote of manie colors, nethir dothe shee put on clothes whych look from afar off like geographie-mapps, where the hues are as well assortyd as iff a paint-mill had bursten and scattered the piggments all pele-mele into everlastynge miscellayneous scatteratioun. For shee doth greately go inn for subdued ratt-color, milde mouse-tints, temperate tea-caddy tones, moderate mode—dyes, gentyll gray—shades, tranquill drabb—tinges, temperate tawny, calm graye, sober ashie, pacifyed slate, mitigated dun, lenientlie dingie, and blandlie cinereous chromattics, since shee hadd a Quakir grandmother on the one syde, ande is too superblie proude on the other, 'to make a pecocke of hirselfe,' as shee wyll telle you whann thatt yee be spattered with the water whych is jetted from hose over ye pavementes. Hee thatt woulde see manye of these swete beeings, shoulde walke in Chestnutt strete whyles thatt shee goeth to shopp, or promenade in Walnutt strete, on Sundaye. And if he can telle mee of a citie on earthe where one can see more prettye, tiny feete, in neater shoos or gaytered bootes, thann hee may then beholde, I wolde fayne knowe where itt is, thatt I maye go there too.
Muche loveth shee little tea-parties where onlie girles bee; and to have ye gentylmen come, aske: 'Damsylle, wherefore walke ye nott in gayer garmentes?' Soe thatt itt often comes to passe thatt whenn walkyng in ye Broade Waye of New-Yorke, yee can tell a Philadelphienne by hir sober yet rich garbe, so that ye Cosmopolite sayth: 'Per ma fe! thatt is a ladye, I know shee is, by the waye shee lookes.' And trulie, as Dan Chaucer sayeth, shee is one:
'Well seemed by her apparaile,
She is not wont to great travaile,
And whan she kempt is fetously,
And well arraied and richely.
Then hath shee done all her journée,
Gentyll and faire indede is shee!'
Ye Philadelphia younge ladye loveth to ryde of pleasaunte afternoones out untoe Pointe Breeze, adown ye Necke, in ye Parke, or along ye wynding Wissahickon. Peradventure shee goeth whyles with a beau who speaketh unto hir of love, to whych shee listeneth wyth tendir grace, and replyeth with art, untill thatt they have builded upp betwene them a flirtacioun. From tyme to tyme hee makyth a punn, and shee cryeth, 'Shame!' but itt shames him never a whitt or jott—nay, hee goeth on and maketh yett anothir—ofttimes untill ye horse takyth frighte and runneth awaie. Yett for all this she liketh hym still, so grete is ye love of woman and so enduring hir constancye.
Att other tymes shee ridoth farr and wyde in ye hors-carrs, since in her natyve towne shee can go manye miles for five cents, and two pence whenn shee takes ye other carr. Specially doth shee do this on Saturday forenoons, else weare her neat clothes all in ye evenyng. Then they speke of the newes of ye daye, and praise General! Mac Lellan, and gossipp of ye laste greate partie, where Dorsey dyd serve so well ye terrapines and steamed oysters, and howe thatt itt is verament and trewe thatt Miss Porridge is to live, after hir marriage, in a howse in Locust strete, or peradventure in Spruce, or in Pyne, for in this towne all the stretes are of woode, albeit ye houses are all of bricke.
Ye Philadelphienne spekythe more slowlie in hir speeche than dothe ye New-Yorkere, and ever callyth a calf a cäff, and a laugh a läff, which soundeth far more sweetlie, even like the lingua Toscana in bocca Romana. Shee loveth ye opera even as shee loveth ye ice-creme, whych shee buyeth at Mrs. Burns's, or old Auntie Jackson's, where shee often goeth of warm sumer-nightes. Shee is graceful in hir miene, and gracious in hir manner—trulie, in all ye worlde I know of none sweeter in this laste itemm. And thatt shee may ever keepe up hir pleasante fame for beinge ladyly, gentyll, and fayre, is the herte's prayere of
Clerke Nicholas.
Galli Van T is again active in setting forth the rural trials and troubles of artists—which it seems are many. Listen!
Dear Continental: 'Twas in the merry summer-tide, some seven years since, when I went with a friend catching trout and sketching scenery in the valley of the Connecticut.
We thought we knew the value of a lovely view.
We didn't.
True, we could appreciate it to a dollar, when transferred to canvas. Otherwise we had much to learn.
C. Pia, Esq., and myself were hard at it one morning—making such beautiful sketches, and doing it all with nothing but just a lead-pencil and some paper—as a young admirer of our works was wont to assure her friends. Suddenly appeared a man of great muscle, with pie dish shirt-collar, and a canister-shot-eyed bull-terrier, gifted with seven-tiger power of biting.
'Stop that are!' was his courteous salutation.
'Stop what?'
'Stop making them are d—d picters. I don't have no such doings reound here!'
I looked at C. Pia—he was venomous and unterrified, and I felt encouraged. So I firmly asked the intruder what he meant.
'I mean what I say. There's property there that I'm a goin' to buy. I know what you're arter. You're makin picters of the place for that are in-fernal Kernal Smith who owns the land, so's he can show 'em round and pint out the buildin' lots. And I'll jest lick you like —— if you dror another line!'
'See here, young man,' quoth I, 'I've something to say to you. In the first place you're a scamp who would keep a gentleman from getting a fair price for his own property. Secondly, you're an ignorant fellow and don't know what you're talking about. I never heard of your Colonel Smith—I'm not drawing up real estate lots or plots of any kind. Thirdly, I solemnly swear by Minos, Alianthus, Rhododendron, Nebuchadnezzar, and all the infernal gods, that if you touch a hair of our heads I'll see Colonel Smith—I'll map the whole property and advertise it in every newspaper in New-York and Boston till it brings ten thousand dollars an acre. Now sail in—dog or no dog—we'll settle you, any how.'
The glare of fury in our visitor's eyes died away as he listened to this oration.
'Thunder!' he exclaimed; 'what a lot you city fellers with l'arnin' into you do know! Ten thousand dollars an acre! Ad-ver-ti-sin'! What an idee! I guess I'll buy the land on a morgidge right away. Hee, hee, hee—it's a first-rate notion—and I a-dopt it. Mister, if you want a drink o' cider, you can get it at that are red house you see down yander. Good-mornin'!'
And off he went.
'You've made that fellow's fortune—when you ought to have caved his head in,' remarked C. Pia as the two brutes disappeared.
'It is the mission of the artist to benefit every body except himself,' I rejoined. And refilling my pipe I went on with my 'picter.'
Yours truly,
Galli Van T.
Truly 'Art is—well—a—it's a great thing, and hath its many lights and shadows,' as Phoenix or some body once ascertained. And we trust that Galli Van T. will continue to depict the same in his peculiarly affecting style.
Among the curiosities of literature which the war has brought forth, one of the most piquant is a little pamphlet entitled, Southern Hatred of the American Government, the People of the North, and Free Institutions, recently published by R.F. Wallcut, of Number 221 Washington street, Boston. It consists entirely of selections from the columns of Southern newspapers—all of them rabid, and we may very truly add, ridiculous; especially since the fortunes of war have made so much of their Bobadil bluster appear like the veriest folly. Many of them are old acquaintances—who, for instance, can have forgotten the following, from the Richmond Whig?
'This war will test the physical virtues of mere numbers. Southern soldiers ask no better odds than one to three Western and one to six of the Eastern Yankees. Some go so far as to say that, with equal weapons, and on equal grounds, they would not hesitate to encounter twenty times their number of the last.'
As regards those who go so far, it may be remarked that by this time they have illustrated Father O'Leary's remark of the people who, not 'belaving in Purgathory, wint further and fared worse.' But there is more of this 'chivalric' spirit in the same article. For instance, it doubts 'whether any society since that of Sodom and Gomorrah' [Paris is entirely too mild an example] 'has been more thoroughly steeped in every species of vice than that of the Yankees.' Infanticide is hinted at as prevailing as extensively as in China. The Yankees 'pursue with envy and malignity every excellence that shows itself among them unconnected with money; and a gentleman there stands no more chance of existence than a dog does in the Grotto del Cano!'
The elegance and refinement of the same editorial from the Whig, appears from the following. A portion, which we omit, is too foully indecent for republication:
' ... The Yankee women, scraggy, scrawny, and hard as whip-cord, breed like Norway rats, and they fill all the brothels of the continent.... But they multiply—the only scriptural precept they obey—and boast their millions. So do the Chinese; so do the Apisdæ, and all other pests of the animal kingdom. Pull the bark from a decayed log, and you will see a mass of maggots full of vitality, in constant motion and eternal gyration, one crawling over one, and another creeping under another, all precisely alike, all intently engaged in preying upon one another, and you have an apt illustration of Yankee numbers, Yankee equality, and Yankee greatness.
'We must bring these unfranchised slaves—the Yankees—back to their true condition. They have long, very probably, looked upon themselves as our social inferiors—as our serfs; their mean, niggardly lives—their low, vulgar, and sordid occupations, have ground this conviction into them. But of a sudden, they have come to imagine that their numerical strength gives them power—and they have burst the bonds of servitude, and are running riot with more than the brutal passions of a liberated wild beast. Their uprising has all the characteristics of a ferocious, fertile insurrection.... They have suggested to us the invasion of their territory, and the robbery of their banks and jewelry-stores. We may profit by the suggestion, so far as the invasion goes—for that will enable us to restore them to their normal condition of vassalage, and teach them that cap in hand is the proper attitude of a servant before his master.'
These extracts are from the Richmond Whig—a paper beyond all comparison the most respectable and moderate in the whole South, and by no means of so little weight or character that its remarks can be passed by as mere Southern vaunt and idle bluster signifying nothing. It speaks the deep-seated belief and heartfelt conviction of even the most intelligent secessionists—for the editor of the Whig is not only one of these, but one of the most honest and upright men to be found in Dixie.
'But,' the reader may ask, 'if the man really believes that Yankees are serfs, slaves, vassals of the South, where are his eyes, ears, and common-sense?' Gently, dear reader. When we reflect on the toadying to the South by Northern doughface Democrats in by-gone years—when we recall the abominable and incredible servility with which every thing Southern has been hymned, homaged and exalted—when we remember how vulgar, arrogant, ignorant Southrons have been adored in doughface society where gentlemen whom they were not worthy of waiting on were of but secondary account—when we think of the shallow, pitiful meanness which induces Northern men to rant in favor of that 'institution' which they, at least, know is a curse to the whole country—when we see even now, how, with a baseness and vileness beyond belief, 'democratic' editors continue to lick the hands which smite them, we do not wonder that the Southerner, taking the doughface for a type of the whole North, characterizes all Yankees as serf-like, servile cap-in-hand crawlers and beggars for patronage. For if we were all of the pro-slavery Democracy, and especially of those who even now continue to yelp for Southern rights and grinningly assure patriots that 'under the Constitution they can do nothing to the South,' we should richly deserve all the scorn heaped on us by the 'chivalry.'
We doubt not that, during this bitter war, many incidents have occurred, or will occur, quite like that described in the following simple but life-true ballad:
FRANK WILSON.
'Twas night at the farm-house. The fallen sun
Shot his last red arrow up in the west;
Shadows came wolfishly stealing forth,
And chased the flush from the mountain's crest.
Night at the farm-house. The hickory fire
Laughed and leaped in the chimney's hold,
And baffled, with its warm mirth, the frost,
As he pried at the panes with his fingers cold.
The chores were finished; and farmer West,
As he slowly sipped from his foaming mug,
Toasted his feet in calm content,
And rejoiced that the barns were warm and snug.
Washing the tea-things, with bared white arms,
And softly humming a love refrain;
With smooth brown braids, and cheeks of rose,
Washed and warbled his daughter Jane.
She was the gift that his dear wife left,
When she died, some nineteen Mays before;
The light and the warmth of the old farm-home,
And cherished by him to his great heart's core.
A sweet, fair girl; yet 'twas not so much
The fashion of feature that made her so;
'Twas love's own tenderness in her eyes,
And on her cheeks love's sunrise glow.
Done were the tea-things; the rounded arms
Again were covered, the wide hearth brushed;
Then from the mantle she took some work,
'Twas a soldier's sock, and her song was hushed.
Her song was hushed; for tenderer thoughts
Than ever were bodied in word or sound,
Trembled like stars in her downcast eyes,
As she knit in the dark yarn round and round.
A neighbor's rap at the outer door
Was answered at once by a bluff 'Come in!'
And he came, with stamping of heavy boots,
Frost-wreathed brow and muffled chin.
Come up to the fire! Pretty cold to-night.
What news do you get from the village to-day?
Did you call for our papers? Ah! yes, much obliged.
What news do you get from our Company K?'
'Bad news!—bad news!' He slowly unwinds
His muffler, and wipes his frost-fringed eyes.
'Frank Wilson was out on the picket last night,
And was killed by some cursed rebel spies.'
O God! give strength to that writhing heart!
Fling the life back to that whitening cheek!
Let not the pent breath forever stay
From the lips, too white and dumb to speak!
'Frank Wilson killed? ah! too bad—too bad,
The finest young man, by far, in this town;
Such are the offerings we give to war,
Jane, draw a fresh mug for our neighbor Brown.'
Neither did notice her faltering step;
Neither gave heed to her quivering hand,
That awkwardly fumbled the cellar-door,
And spilled the cider upon the stand.
But the father dreamed, as he slept that night,
That his darling had met some fearful woe;
And he dreamed of hearing her stifled moans,
And her slow steps pacing to and fro.
II.
'Twas an April day, in the balmy spring,
The farmhouse fires had gone to sleep,
The windows were open to sun and breeze,
The hills were dotted with snowy sheep.
The great elms rustled their new-lifed leaves
Softly over the old brown roof,
And the sunshine, red with savory smoke,
Fell graciously through their emerald woof.
Sounds—spring sounds—which the country yields:
Voices of laborers, lowing of herds,
The caw of the crow, the swollen brook's roar,
The sportsman's gun, and the twitter of birds,
Melted like dim dreams into the air;
'Twas the azure shadow of summer,
Which fell so sweetly on plain and wood,
And brought new gladness to eye and ear.
But a face looks out to the purple hills,
A wasted face that is full of woe,
Wan yet calm, like a summer moon
That has lost the round of its fullest glow.
The smooth brown braids still wreathe her head;
Her simple garments are full of grace,
As if, with color and taste, she fain
Would ward off eyes from her paling face.
'Tis a morning hour, but the work is done;
The house so peacefully bright within,
And the wild-wood leaves on the mantel-shelf
Tell how busy her feet have been.
She sits by the window and watches a cloud
Fading away in the hazy sky;
And 'Like that cloud,' she says in heart,
'When summer is over, I too shall die.'
The door-yard gate swings to with a clang,
She must not sadden her father so;
She springs to her feet with a merrier air,
And pinches her face to make it glow.
But ah! no need; for a ruddier red
Than pinches can bring floods brow and cheek;
She stands transfixed by a mighty joy;
For millions of worlds she can not speak.
Frank Wilson gathers her close to his heart,
With brightening glance, he reads that glow,
And draws from the wells of her joy-lit eyes
The secret he long has yearned to know.
'Frank Wilson! living and strong and well;
Were you not killed by the rebels? say!'
'Thank God! I was not. 'Twas another man—
There were two Frank Wilsons in Company K.'
The one church-bell in the distant town
Chimes softly forth for twelve o'clock;
Another clang of the door-yard gate,
A sudden hush in the tender talk.
She flies to meet him—the transformed child!—
Her heart keeps time to her ringing tread;
'O father! he's come!' and she needs no more
To pinch her cheeks to make them red.
Marie Mignonette.
A friend who doth such things has kindly jotted down for us the following 'authentics':
Sometimes I have thought that the reply our Irish girl gave the other day, was of the nature of her usual blunders, and again that it meant a good deal. On her return from a funeral, where a man, who had previously lost his wife, had buried his only child, an infant a few weeks old, I asked her how the father appeared?
'Oh! he was a dale sorry; but I guess he's glad to get rid of it!'
It was only a way he had.—Whiggles, on being told that a boy down-town, only sixteen years old, weighed six hundred and fifty pounds, was further enlightened by the information that he weighed that amount of coal on a platform Fairbanks.
The Southern press has proposed that, even in case of defeat, the wealthy class shall retire to their plantations, 'live comfortably' on what they can raise, let cotton go for two years, and thereby starve Europe and the North into a conviction that Cotton is King.
But how will the poor whites of the South like this? What is to become of them? Or what, indeed, is to become of us, if no cotton be forthcoming? The truth is, and every day makes it more apparent, the raising of cotton must pass into other hands. The army has its rights—the right to land-grants—and the only effectual means of putting an end to our dependence on the South will be found in settling soldiers in the cotton country. Texas would be, perhaps, best suited for the purpose, and other regions may be selected as opportunity may suggest. With this course fully determined on, it would hardly be necessary to further agitate Emancipation, it would come of itself, and slave-labor would yield to the energy of the free Northern farmer.
Very little has been said as yet on this subject of properly rewarding our troops. But it is destined to rise into becoming the great question of the day; and if the Democratic pro-slavery party sets itself in opposition to it, it will be ground to powder. Events are tending to this issue with irresistible and tremendous power, and the days of planterdom are numbered.
FOOTNOTES
[A] This anecdote has frequently gone the rounds in an abbreviated form. It may interest the reader to see it in authentic detail.
[B] Richmond Examiner.
[ [C] To which we add, 'An Account of the Proceedings preliminary to the Organization of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a List of the Members thus far associated, and an Appendix, containing Petitions and Resolutions in aid of the objects of the Committee of Associated Institutions of Science and Art. Boston, 1861.' Also the Objects and Courses of Instruction in the Lawrence Scientific School. In the 'Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Harvard University, for the Academical Year 1860-1861.' The Editor will hold himself greatly indebted to any one who will kindly forward him catalogues or prospectuses relative to any scientific schools or institutes whatever, either in this country or Europe.
[D] EDUCATIONAL CONDITION—CENSUS 1850.
| Maine, | 1 in | 3-1/3 | |
| New-Hampshire, | " | 3-1/2 | |
| Vermont, | " | 3-1/3 | |
| Michigan, | " | 3-1/3 | |
| Ohio, | " | 3-3/4 | |
| New-York, | native-born, | " | 3-3/4 |
| aggregate | " | 4-1/2 | |
| Massachusetts, | native-born | " | 3-1/4 |
| Aggregate, | " | 4-1/2 | |
| Rhode-Island, | " | 4-1/2 | |
| Connecticut, | " | 4-1/2 | |
| Indiana, | " | 4-1/2 | |
| Illinois, | " | 4-1/2 | |
| Iowa, | " | 5-1/2 | |
| Florida, | " | 10 | |
| Louisiana, | " | 8 | |
| Texas, | " | 8 | |
| Virginia, | " | 8 | |
| Alabama, | " | 7 | |
| Arkansas, | " | 7 | |
| Georgia, | " | 7 | |
| Maryland, | " | 7 | |
| South-Carolina, | " | 7 | |
| Mississippi, | " | 6-1/2 | |
| Kentucky, | " | 6 | |
| Missouri, | " | 6 | |
| New-Jersey, | " | 5-1/2 | |
| North-Carolina | " | 5-1/2 | |
| Wisconsin, | " | 5-1/2 | |
| Tennessee, | " | 5 | |
| Delaware, | " | 5 | |
| EUROPEAN | STATES. | ||
| Denmark, | 1 in | 4-1/2 | |
| Sweden, | " | 5-1/2 | |
| Saxony, | " | 6 | |
| Prussia, | " | 6-1/4 | |
| Norway, | " | 7 | |
| Great Britain, | " | 8-1/2 | |
| actually reciving instruction, | " | 7 | |
| Ireland, | " | 14 | |
| Belgium, | " | 8-1/2 | |
| France, | " | 10-1/2 | |
| Austria | " | 13-3/4 | |
| Holland, | " | 14-3/4 | |
| Greece, | " | 18 | |
| Russia, | " | 50 | |
| Portugal, | " | 81 | |
| Spain, | Not known. | ||
| FREE | COLORED POPULATION | —— | UNITED STATES. |
| Maine, | 1 in | 5 | |
| Rhode-Island, | " | 6-1/2 | |
| Massachusetts, | " | 6-1/4 | |
| New-Hampshire, | " | 7 | |
| Vermont, | " | 8 | |
| Connecticut, | " | 6 | |
| Pennsylvania, | " | 8 | |
| New-York, | " | 9 |
It may be seen, by the foregoing table, that a thorough system of education for the masses requires that one third of the aggregate population should be kept at school for a goodly portion of the year. This is essential, under Democratic Government, in order to bring each generation up to the appreciative point.
[ [E] The free colored population of Charleston in 1860, did not vary materially from four thousand. The associated value of their property would give to each $390. Each family or six persons would possess, according to this estimate, $2840. This would be a full average of wealth to the free population of the United States—the amount varying in the different States from $2200 to $2500 to each family of six persons.
DESTINED TO BE THE BOOK OF THE SEASON
As published in the pages of THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, it has been pronounced by the Press to be
"SUPERIOR TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."
"FULL OF ABSORBING INTEREST."
"Whether invented or not, True, because true to Life."—HORACE GREELEY.