“O Slavery——
Profuse of woes, and pregnant with distress,
Eternal horrors in thy presence reign;
Pale meagre famine leads thy horrid train;
To each dire load subjection adds more weight,
And pain is doubled in the captive’s fate:
O’er nature’s smiling face thou spreadst a gloom,
And to the grave dost every pleasure doom.”
Years had elapsed since Irving had indited the letters from which we have extracted, and every passing one had seen an increasing tendency to suffer humanity to yield to interest: what had been the practice of official duty, became the actuating principle, and gold, the
“Insidious bane that makes destruction smooth,