THE

When Thomas Chalmers, sixty years ago, lecturing at St. Andrews, ventured to announce his conviction that 'the writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe,' he startled and alarmed, to no small degree, the orthodoxy of the day. It was a statement far in advance of the religious thinking of the time. That massive breadth and comprehensiveness of intellect which soon placed him, facile princeps, at the head of the clergy of Scotland, joined with a candor, and ingenuous honesty, which made him admired and beloved by all, could not fail to perceive, and would not hesitate to acknowledge, the force of the evidence then for some time slowly but steadily and surely accumulating from the investigations and discoveries of geological science, which has forced back the origin of the earth to a vast and undated antiquity. But nothing could have been farther from the imagination of the great majority of evangelical, unscientific clergymen of his day. They held that the writings of Moses fixed the antiquity of the globe as surely as they fixed anything else. And it required no little boldness in the lecturer to announce a doctrine which was likely to raise about his ears the hue and cry of heresy. But fortunately for the rising Boanerges of the Scottish pulpit, whatever questions might arise in philology and criticism as to the meaning of the writings of Moses, the evidence adduced in behalf of the fact of the earth's antiquity was of such a nature that it could not be resisted, and he not only escaped a prosecution for heresy, but lived to see the doctrine he had broached almost universally accepted by the religious world.

If now some divine of acknowledged power and position in any branch of the Christian Church were to put forth the statement that 'the writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of man,' he would startle the ear of orthodoxy quite as much, but no more than did Chalmers in the early years of the present century. And if he would fare more hardly than the Scottish divine, and fall under the ban of church censure, which is not unlikely, it would be because the evidence for the fact is still inchoate and resistible by the force of established opinion. But it is quite within the range of possible things that before the close of the present century two things may happen: first, that the evidence for a high antiquity of the human race may accumulate to such an extent as to carry with it involuntarily the consent of mankind; and second, that the sacred writings may be found to adjust themselves as easily to this new finding in the sphere of induction, as they have already done, in the general mind of the Church, to the doctrine of the great age of the earth. The two statements are indeed very much akin in several respects. They both traverse the accepted meaning of the sacred writings at the time of their announcement. Both are considered, when first promulged, as irreconcilable with the plain teaching and consequent inspiration of the Scriptures. Both rest solely, as to their evidence, in the sphere of inductive science, and are determinable wholly by the finding of facts accumulated and compared by the processes of inductive reasoning. And both, if thus established, are destined to be accepted by the general mind of the age, without actual harm to the real interests of civilization and religion. No fact, which is a fact and not an illusion, can do harm to any of the vital interests of mankind. No truth can stand in hopeless antagonism to any other truth. To suppose otherwise would be to resolve the moral government of God into a hopeless enigma, or enthrone a perpetual and hostile dualism, resigning the universe to the rival and contending sway of Ormuzd and Ahriman.

Before proceeding to the merits of Sir Charles Lyell's discussion, we wish to glance at some preliminary matters touching the great debate now pending between science and theology. We wish to review the posture and temper of the parties; and particularly to refer to the tone and spirit of the religious press and the pulpit, respecting the alleged discoveries and claims of science, and their bearing upon the religious opinion of the time.

Moreover, in passing, the present writer begs permission to say that he speaks from the orthodox side of this question; he hails from the orthodox camp; he wears the clerical vesture of the Scottish worthies; and is affiliated theologically with Knox and Chalmers, with Edwards and Alexander, with the New York Observer and the Princeton Review. This much we beg to say, that what follows in these pages may be fully understood.

No one who has been attending to the subject with any degree of interest can have failed to observe that science, in her investigations upon the grand and momentous themes which have absorbed her attention in these latter years, has exhibited, and does still exhibit, a steady and well-defined purpose, and has pursued it with a singularly calm, sober, unimpassioned, yet resolute temper. Its posture is firm, steady, self-poised, conscious of rectitude, and anticipative of veritable and valuable results. Its spirit, though eager, is quiet; though enthusiastic, is cautious; though ardent, is sceptical; though flushed with success, is trained to the discipline of disappointment. Its object is to interrogate nature. It stands at the shrine and awaits the response of the oracle. It would fain interpret and make intelligible the wondrous hieroglyphics of this universe, and specially the mystic characters traced by the long-revolving ages upon the stony tablets of this planet Earth. It has in the first instance no creed to support, no dogmas to verify, no meaning to foist upon nature; its sole and single query is, What does nature teach? What is fact? What is truth? What has occurred in the past annals of this planet? What is the actual and true history of its bygone ages, and of the dwellers therein? These are its questions, addressed to nature by such methods as experience has taught will reach her ear, and it does not hesitate to take nature's answer. It does not shrink, and quake, and grow pale lest the response should overturn some ancient notion. It does not dread to hear the response, lest morals or religion should be thereby imperilled. It boldly and resolutely takes the teaching of nature, whatever it may be. Its conviction is that truth never can be anything else than truth; that fact can never be anything else than fact; and that no two truths or two facts in God's universe can be in hopeless and irreconcilable contradiction.

In this spirit the genuine sons of science have exhibited, what has seemed to some, a heartless indifference whether their discoveries or theories harmonized with the Scriptures or not, or affected the received opinions of Christendom on subjects pertaining to religion or morals. They have been sublimely unconcerned as to results in any such direction. They have investigated, examined, compared, collated, with long-continued and patient toil, to gather from the buried past the actual story of its departed cycles; they have not been troubled lest they should impinge on the creeds of the religious world, or compel important modifications in the lectures of learned Professors. This was no care of theirs. They discovered facts, they did not make them.

Now with all due respect for the opinions and feelings of religious people, we hesitate not to affirm that this spirit is the only true one in scientific men. Conceding, as we must, the supremacy of facts in their own sphere, and granting that, as mundane and human affairs now stand, the evidence of the senses, purged from fraud and illusion, must be held to be conclusive, we cheerfully award to scientific men the largest liberty to pursue their inquiries in matters of fact, utterly regardless of the havoc which may be thereby wrought among the traditional, beliefs of men. In no other way can science be true to herself. She is the child of induction. She can acknowledge no authority but what has been enthroned by inductive reasoning; and were she to adjust her conclusions, and garble her facts, to suit the faiths, beliefs, prejudices, or traditions of men, she would thereby falsify her inmost life, and stultify herself before the world. And in this connection we may premise that we regard as worthy of all commendation the straightforward and unembarrassed manner in which Sir Charles Lyell pursues his inquiries into the geological evidences of the antiquity of man. He could not have been unaware that he was striking a ponderous blow at one of the main traditions of Christendom; nay, that if successful in establishing his conclusions, he must revolutionize, to a large extent, the religious thinking of the civilization amid which he moves; and yet he moves steadily and quietly forward, calm as Marius amid the ruins of Carthage, not stopping to consider what Biblical men will do with his facts; never more than touching upon their religious bearings; intent only on ascertaining what the facts are, and what they teach. This, we say, is the spirit and temper of the true philosopher—this betokens the genuine son of science. As well might we demand of Watt, or Fulton, or Davy, or Brewster, or Faraday, in pursuing their inquiries into the nature and laws of steam, electricity, galvanism, or light, to be careful that their discoveries impinge not on the teachings of religion or the creed of orthodoxy, as to demand of Lyell to investigate the antiquity of man in humble deference to the well-established belief of the whole Christian world that he has no such antiquity. Not a bitter thing is said in the whole book against any traditional belief; the Scriptures are scarcely more than alluded to; he seems scarcely conscious that he is attempting to establish conclusions at variance with the cherished creeds of vast multitudes of men. To some this may seem the callousness of infidelity; to us it seems the sublime composure of science. To him, the fact in the case is everything; and he is content to leave it to work its own results.

What now, on the other hand, have been the spirit and temper of the religious press and the pulpit touching the progress of science, and especially its encroachments upon the ancient landmarks of traditional belief? We are sorry to be compelled to say that, with some honorable exceptions, the spirit manifested by religious journals and clergymen generally, has not been worthy of unqualified admiration. In many instances they have shown a dogged determination to hear nothing on the subject. Assuming, with absolute confidence, not only that the Scriptures are what the Church claims them to be, but that their interpretation of them is infallible, they have affected to ignore all the findings of science, and to treat them, in their bearing on Biblical interpretation, as profane intermeddling with divine things. They seem to imagine that their safety consists in not seeing danger, like the ostrich hiding its head in the sand, and supposing that thereby its whole body is protected. In other instances, while professing a willingness to hear—to seek truth—to not be afraid of the light—to boast of science even as the handmaid of religion—they have shown a disposition to decry the alleged discoveries of science, to ridicule its supposed facts, to make light of a whole concatenation of evidence, to prate of the uncertainties and vacillations of science, to sneer at 'sciolists,' or 'mere men of science,' to warn against the 'babblings of science' and 'philosophy falsely so called,' and meantime they have betrayed a nervous sensitiveness with regard to certain alleged discoveries and facts coming to the popular ear. They affect to sneer at the 'wise week' of the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and to turn the proceedings of that body into ridicule, by caricaturing the importance attached to some minor organ of the human or animal frame, in the determination of specific identity or difference. While absolutely ignorant of the true state of the case as it stands in the scientific world, they thunder from the pulpit in the ears of their people—a position where they are safe from reply—crudities and monstrosities of science at which the humblest member of the aforesaid Association would smile. In other instances, with a most unfortunate or misguided zeal, they would fain compel Christian faith to override and traverse all those great laws of evidence which regulate human belief in other matters. They do not dispute the facts of science when clearly established—they will concede to them an existence as facts in their own sphere—but they hold the Scriptures, as being inspired and infallible, to be transcendent and paramount, and not to be affected by any possible combination of facts. That is to say, if the Scriptures teach the unity of the race, or the universality of the deluge, or the modern origin of man—and if they understand them to teach these things, they do teach them for them—they hold that no amount of evidence which science may adduce can be of any avail, even though it might amount to absolute certainty, did not the Scriptures stand in the way. You may believe the facts of science, if you choose, but the Scriptures must be believed to the contrary notwithstanding. If science does not agree with the Scriptures, so much the worse for science—that is its own affair. This is the sentiment, distinctly uttered not long since by a learned American Professor. Consistently with this view, they maintain that the Scriptures are to be held as an authority in scientific matters; that science must order its conclusions in accordance with them; and that any facts are to be distrusted which conflict with the declarations of the Bible. They would thus place the Scriptures and nature in a posture of antagonism; and require Christian faith to trample upon and triumph over the evidence of the senses, as it is required to triumph over the world, the flesh, and the devil. What must be thought of an otherwise educated body of men who would willingly reduce the faith of the Christian world to such a posture as that?

Furthermore, in the general spirit and temper of the religious press with reference to science and scientific men, there is much to criticize and condemn. It is often snappish, petulant, ill-humored, unfair, and sometimes malicious in the extreme. Such opprobrious terms as infidelity, irreligion, rationalizing tendencies, naturalism, contempt for the Scriptures, etc., are freely used. Scientific men are called infidel pretenders, and are charged with a secret conspiracy to overthrow the faith of the Christian world. A respectable religious weekly paper in this country, in noticing Sir Charles Lyell's work, while carefully withholding from its readers the slightest notion of the array of evidence adduced in the book, is prompt to inform them that the learned author shows his want of respect for the Word of God. Another, in noticing the account of the last hours of Mr. Buckle, is almost ready to exult in the fact that in the wreck and prostration of his great powers he whined out piteously: 'I am going mad!' and intimates that his mental sufferings are to be attributed to the judicial visitation of God, inflicted as a punishment for the employment of those powers in the service of infidelity. An able, though generally absurd quarterly journal, in reviewing Hugh Miller's 'Testimony of the Rocks,' finds in some of his gorgeous speculations premonitions of that mental aberration which ended his life, and does not hesitate to attribute the final catastrophe to the overworking of his powers in the service of pretentious and unsanctified science. Noble and true-hearted son of the Church though he was, and though laboring with herculean strength to set the Bible and science in harmony, he has not escaped the envenomed shafts of a portion of the religious press. By some he has been openly branded as a traitor in the camp.

Now this unseemly heat and this unbecoming spirit and temper may be cloaked under a zeal for religion. It may be said that we are to 'contend earnestly for the faith.' We answer, verily, but never with the weapons of malice and wickedness. This mode of treating science, if persisted in, must end only in chagrin and defeat to the parties employing it, for the simple reason that it does violence to reason, nature, and all the laws of man's being. Science cannot be turned aside in her strenuous and ever-successful progress by any such impediments thrown in her way. The clear, calm, cogent facts and inferences of the philosopher cannot be met successfully by the half-suppressed shriek of the mere Biblicist. And it must be at once perceived that any such treatment of science, any such half-concealed fear of the progress of science, any such unfair and spiteful bearing toward scientific men, argues a secret distrust of the system or doctrine which is assumed to be held and professedly defended. These petulant and much disturbed editors and divines must be really afraid that the ground is being undermined beneath their feet. If a man really believes the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures, he may feel perfectly at ease as to any facts present or past in the wide universe. But if he is not so sure of them, and wishes, for some personal or interested motive, to believe them, he will be easily disturbed by anything which seems to militate against them. If the Scriptures are true, they can never be shown to be false—if they are not true, we ought not to wish to believe them.

The spirit and temper above indicated are wholly out of harmony with the general spirit of Protestant Christianity. It has ever been the boast of Protestantism that it seeks the light, that it seeks discussion, that it asserts the right of private judgment, that it courts investigation, and is willing to expose all its claims to the broad light of day. It claims to be an everlasting protest against priestly tyranny, and monkish authority, and abject spiritual servitude in the laity. Strange, if in this new phase of its history it should fail to be true to itself!

After the Christian world came generally to accept the statement of Chalmers that the writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the world, and before science had begun to moot seriously the questions of the unity of the race, the universality of the Noahian deluge, and the antiquity of man, it was the custom of clergymen generally to reëcho the true Protestant strain. They claimed science. They expected much of her. They wished full and free discussion in order that still stronger ramparts might be erected around the citadel of their faith. Why should the tone be changed now? In the year 1840, the Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, who has long occupied a highly respectable and influential position among the clerical body in this country, in an address on the 'Progress and Tendencies of Science,' delivered before the literary societies of one of the colleges of Pennsylvania, gave utterance to the following noble sentiments:

'It has cost much to overcome this'—that is, the panic fears of Christian people at the amazing progress and discoveries of science—'and to restore confidence to the Christian world that the researches of science will never permanently clash with the doctrines of revelation. But the Christian world has come to that; and science is to receive no more obstruction henceforth from any alarm that its discoveries will contravene the revealed truth of God. No future Galileo is to be imprisoned because he can look farther into the works of nature than other men; and the point which we have gained now, is that no obstruction is to be thrown in the way of science by any dread that any scientific truth will infringe on any theological system. The great truth has gone forth at last, not to be recalled, that the astronomer may point his glass to the heavens as long and as patiently as he pleases, without apprehending opposition from the Christian world; the chemist may subject all objects to the action of the crucible and the blowpipe, 'with none to molest him or make him afraid;' the geologist may penetrate to any part of the earth—may dig as deep as he pleases, and no one may be alarmed.'

This exhibits true Christian courage and confidence, and has the genuine Protestant ring. It is based, however, on the supposition that no possible conflict can arise between science and his understanding of the Scriptures, and it is doubtful whether the same equanimity could be maintained even in the author's mind if the 'progress and tendencies of science' should take an unexpected direction. Thus, in the same address, he says:

'One fact is remarkable. The geologist proves that the world has stood many thousands of years, and we cannot deny it. He points to fossil remains, and tells us of orders of animals that lived many years before the Mosaic period of the creation of man. The Bible tells us that MAN was created about six thousand years ago. Now, the material fact is, that amid all the fossil remains of the geologist, and all the records of past times, there is no proof that man has lived longer than that period; but there is abundant proof to the contrary. Amid all on which the geologist relies to demonstrate the existence of animals prior to the Mosaic account of the creation, he has not presented us with one human bone, or with one indication of the existence of man.'

This is one of the facts, among others, upon which 'the friends of science and revelation have equal cause to congratulate themselves and each other.' But what if the fact should change? What if not only one, but many fossil human bones should be found? How is a divine, who has already said that the Bible teaches the modern origin of man, to avoid panic fears? Science is cumulative in its evidences, and it is somewhat hazardous to undertake to say, at any point, that the ultima thule of discovery has been reached.

We reiterate now, in the conclusion of these preliminary matters, the sentiment of Mr. Barnes that science must be free and untrammelled. No matter what discoveries may be made, what traditions overturned, what faiths unsettled, science must have a free rein and an open course. It must be so; unless we return to mediæval darkness and despotism. Science, to be science at all, must establish its conclusions by its own methods, and its methods must be intact and supreme, no matter what facts they force upon the belief of mankind. It cannot accept any extraneous authority. It cannot admit any foregone conclusions. It cannot accept the statements, for instance, of the first chapter of Genesis as astronomical, meteorological, geological, or ethnological facts, as the able but absurd Review before referred to would insist. It must verify its own facts. It cannot heed the caveat of any number or body of clergymen, or orthodox weekly newspapers, who might come forward and say, respecting the unity of the race, or the antiquity of man: 'Gentlemen, that question is settled. It is put beyond the purview of your science. An absolute and infallible authority has determined it. To moot it is profane.' Any such attempt would be both preposterous and useless. The age will defend the freedom of science; and let all reasonable and right-thinking men take comfort in the conviction that in the long run the conclusions reached will be right, in accordance with fact, in accordance with truth, and that no permanent interest of religion or morals can suffer.

But we beg pardon for holding the reader so long by the button, while Sir Charles Lyell and his book have been kept in the background. These thoughts have been upon our mind for many months, and we have felt impelled to give utterance to them here.

The publication of this work we regard as an eventful matter in the history of modern thought. The time could not have been far distant when what we may call the geological history of man on this planet, must have come before the popular mind; and it is certainly a matter of congratulation that one of the most venerable, indefatigable, cautious, and successful investigators of modern times has undertaken the task of giving to the public a full and labored résumé of the evidence which has accumulated on the subject. Not unfrequently are the bigotry and prejudice of well-meaning religious people intensified by the imprudent zeal of the Hotspurs of science. True science can always afford to bide its time, and make haste slowly.

Respecting the work itself, we begin by saying that the theme proposed is a perfectly legitimate one for science. It is entirely pertinent to science to undertake to search for the hidden traces of man's former history, if there be any. It is no dreamland or cloudland which it proposes to explore. It is no Quixotic adventure which it has gotten up to astonish and alarm the vulgar. If our human ancestors have lived fifty or one hundred thousand years longer on this planet than was generally supposed, it is quite likely they have left some traces behind them. And if so, it is perfectly legitimate for science to gather, collate, and interpret those traces. And from what we know of her past achievements, we may assure ourselves that if man has had such a pre-historic existence, science will most undoubtedly prove it. She has proved beyond all sane contradiction the great age of the earth. She has proved in like manner the vast extent of the universe in space. She has proved the existence of manifold forms of animal life on this planet for countless ages before the incoming of man, according to the popular chronology. She has proved, approximately, the order and succession of animal life as it arose, and the forms it assumed as the long cycles of ages rolled on. All these were legitimate themes for science; and all of them were opposed to the popular belief at the time—as much so as is the antiquity of man now. And further, we say that the mere suspicion that any such thing may be—the mere surmise of any such fact—the merest inkling which scientific men may get of a secret yet hidden beneath the veil, and waiting to be revealed—is a sufficient justification of those tentative efforts of science which often result in the attainment of some grand discovery. Let no timid religionist charge upon scientific men that they are conspiring with malice prepense to undermine the popular creeds and overthrow the Bible. This is sheer nonsense. They follow where nature beckons them. If man has had a high antiquity on this earth, science will find it out and prove it beyond a doubt. If he has not had such antiquity, science will discover that too, and prove it. All we have to do is to let science have her way.

Another remark which we make here, is respecting the power which a single fact may have in this investigation. It is not often that great questions in history, or social polity, or jurisprudence are determined by a single fact. The great results of history, economics, and law are effected by the converging power of many facts. So also in science. Its great results are determined by the accumulated power of multitudinous facts. Its final categories are fixed by abundant certainties and manifold inductions. And yet it may sometimes occur that a single fact may be of such a nature that there is no escaping the conclusion which it forces upon the mind. It may concentrate in itself all the elements of certainty usually obtained from many sources. It may be determinative in its very nature, and admit of scepticism only at the expense of rationality. A single human grave, with its entombed skeleton, discovered in some uninhabited waste, where it was never known the foot of man had trod, would prove conclusively that human footsteps had once trod there. The discovery of a single weapon of the quality and temper of the Damascus blade amid the ruins of a buried city, would prove as fully as would the discovery of a thousand that the people of that age of the world understood the methods of working steel. One canoe found moored to the bank of the Delaware, the Schuylkill, or the Susquehanna, when the white man began to penetrate this continent, would have been sufficient to prove that the aborigines understood, to that extent, the art of navigation. So in science, one fossil of a different species from any found heretofore in a certain deposit is sufficient to add another to the forms of life represented by that deposit. One fossil found lower in the geological scale than life was supposed to have begun on this planet, is sufficient to prove that it had a still earlier beginning. So with regard to contemporary forms of life, one fact may be sufficient to warrant or compel a conclusion. Hugh Miller cites the instance of fossil dung being found as proving to the anti-geologists that these fossils were once real living creatures, and not mere freaks of nature. The instance might not be thought conclusive, for if the Author of nature saw fit to amuse himself by making the semblances of huge iguanodons, elephants, and hippopotami, in the solid rocks, it might readily be supposed that He would extend His amusement to the making of fossil dung.[2] But now, if in the fossil entrails of the cave hyena the bones of a hare should be found, it would prove conclusively to any but an anti-geologist, that the hare lived contemporaneously with the hyena.

These remarks are not thrown in by way of apology for the paucity of facts adduced by Sir Charles Lyell to prove the antiquity of man, but merely to illustrate the force which it is possible, in certain circumstances, for a single fact to have. Thus, for instance, the Scotch fir is not now, nor ever has been in historic times, a native of the Danish isles, yet it has been indigenous there in the human period, for Steenstrup has taken out with his own hands a flint implement from beneath one the buried trunks of that species in the Danish peat bogs. Again, if an implement of human workmanship is found in close proximity to the leg of a bear, or the horn of a reindeer, of extinct species, in an ancient cavern, and all covered by a floor of stalagmite, we see not how the conclusion is to be avoided that they were introduced into the cave before the stalagmite was formed; and in that case the inference that they were contemporaneous, or nearly so, may well be left to take care of itself. The attempt has been made to treat with levity the whole subject of the antiquity of man because of the numerical meagreness of the facts adduced in support of it. But as to this, it need only be observed that as a new theme for investigation, its facts must necessarily be meagre, as must be the facts of any science in its inchoate condition, and that they are steadily growing in volume, so that it is not safe to venture a final verdict against it on that score. The facts in support of the globular form of the earth, or the Copernican theory of the heavens, or the great age of the earth, were at one time meagre—they are not so now. Sir Charles Lyell is a pioneer explorer in a new and mysterious realm: the time may come when, amid the abundance of the treasure gathered from it, the scanty hoard which he opens to his reader may seem meagre enough.

Nevertheless, Sir Charles Lyell is fully a believer in the doctrine of the high antiquity of man. His book is not merely a debating-club discussion of the pros and cons, the probabilities for and against the doctrine, but rather the earnest pleading of the advocate fully persuaded that the truth is on his side. Not that it displays any forensic heat;—it is calm, cautious, dispassionate; but it has the air of one governed by conviction, and he often assumes the entire truth of his conclusions with the quiet nonchalance of a man seemingly unconscious that what he regards as matters of established certainty will be viewed by the great majority of his fellow beings as startling novelties.

The main stream of the geological evidence of the antiquity of man tends to one point, viz., that man coexisted with the extinct animals. There are collateral branches of proof, but this is the main channel. The remains of man and of man's works and the remains of extinct races of animals lie side by side, and claim from the geologist the same meed of antiquity. This is the burden of the book before us. We offer the reader a brief outline of this evidence. In doing so, we will follow the order of Sir Charles Lyell's work, and merely state the leading facts which geological investigations have brought to light.

In the Danish islands there are deposits of peat from ten to thirty feet thick, formed in the hollows or depressions of the northern drift or bowlder formation. These beds of peat have been examined to the bottom, and they reveal the history of vegetation in those localities, and the contemporaneous history of human progress. Beginning at the top, the explorer finds the first layers to contain principally the trunks of the beech tree, along with implements and tools of wood and iron. Below these is a deposit of oak trunks, with implements mainly of bronze. Farther down still he finds the trunks of the Pinus sylvestris, or Scotch fir, together with implements of stone. This clearly indicates that in the lapse of centuries the pine was supplanted by the oak, and the oak by the beech, and that man advanced contemporaneously from the knowledge and use of stone implements to those of bronze and iron. Now the known fact is that in the time of the Romans, as now, the Danish isles were covered by magnificent beech forests, and that eighteen centuries have done little or nothing toward changing the character of the vegetation. How many centuries must have elapsed to enable the oak to supplant the pine, and the beech to supplant the oak, can only be vaguely conjectured. Yet the evidence is clear that man lived in those old pine forests—leaving his implements of stone behind him, as he did his tools of bronze and iron in the succeeding periods. Along the coast of Denmark, also, are found shell mounds mixed with flint knives, hatchets, etc., but never any tools of bronze or iron, showing that the rude hunters and fishers who fed on the oyster, cockle, and other mollusks, lived in the period of the Scotch fir, or, as it has been called, the 'age of stone.'

In many of the Swiss lakes are found ancient piles driven into the bottom, on which were once erected huts or villages, the lacustrine abodes of man. This use of them is proved by the abundance of flint implements and fragments of rude pottery, together with bones of animals, which have been dredged up from among the piles. The implements found belong to the 'age of stone,' or the period of the Scotch fir in Denmark, and the bones of animals are all, with one exception, those of living species.

Passing over the fossil human remains and works of art of the 'recent' period, as found in the delta and alluvial plain of the Nile, in the ancient mounds of the valley of the Ohio, in the mounds of Santos in Brazil, in the delta of the Mississippi, in which, at the depth of sixteen feet from the surface, under four buried forests, superimposed one upon the other, was found, a few years ago, a human skeleton, estimated by Dr. B. Dowler to have been buried at least fifty thousand years—in the coral reefs of Florida, in which fossil human remains were found, estimated by Professor Agassiz to have an antiquity of ten thousand years—in the recent deposits of seas and lakes, in the central district of Scotland, which bears clear traces of an upheaval since the human period, and in the raised beaches of Norway and Sweden—passing over these for want of space for minute detail, we go back to the post-pliocene period, and find the bones of man and works of art in juxtaposition with the fossil remains of extinct mammalia.

In the cavern of Bize, in the south of France, and in the caves of Engis, Engihoul, Chokier, and Goffontaine, near Liége, human bones and teeth, together with fragments of rude pottery, have been found enveloped in the same mud and breccia, and cemented by stalagmite, in which are found also the land shells of living species and the bones of mammalia, some of extinct, and others of recent species. The chemical condition of all the bones was found to be the same. Quite a full account is given of the researches of MM. Journal and Christol in the Bize cavern, and of Dr. Schmerling in the Liége caverns, and every effort made, apparently, by the author, to weigh candidly and honestly the evidence for and against the contemporaneous existence and deposition of the human and mammalian remains. And while he admits that at one time he was strongly inclined to suspect that they were not coeval [3], yet he has been compelled by subsequent evidence, especially in view of the fact that he has had convincing proofs in later years that the remains of the mammoth and many other extinct species, very common in caves, occur also in undisturbed alluvium, imbedded in such a manner with works of art as to leave no room for doubt that man and the extinct animals coexisted, to reconsider his former opinion, and to assign to the proofs derived from caves of the high antiquity of man a much more positive and emphatic character.

In chapter fifth we have a minute and interesting account of such fossil human skulls and skeletons as have been found in caves and ancient tumuli, and a careful endeavor made to estimate their approximate age. In 1857, in a cave situated in that part of the valley of the Düssel, near Düsseldorf, which is called the Neanderthal, a skull and skeleton were found, buried beneath five feet of loam, which were pronounced by Professor Huxley and others to be clearly human, though indicating small cerebral development and uncommon strength of corporeal frame. In the Engis caves, near Liége, portions of six or seven human skeletons were found, imbedded in the same matrix with the remains of the elephant, rhinoceros, bear, hyena, and other extinct quadrupeds. In an ancient tumulus near Borrely, in Denmark, a human skull was discovered which was adjudged by its surroundings to belong to the 'stone period' of Denmark, or the era of the Scotch fir. The careful anatomical examination and comparison to which these skulls have been subjected, have led to important discussions, not only as to their age, but also as to their relation to existing races.

Next comes an extended account of the flint implements and other works of art, found so abundantly in juxtaposition with the bones of extinct mammalia, in various localities—in a cave at Brixham, near Torquay, in Devonshire; in the alluvium of the Thames valley; in the gravel of the valley of the Ouse, near Bedford; in a fresh-water deposit at Hoxne in Suffolk; in the valley of the Lach at Icklingham; in a cavern in Somersetshire; in the caves of Gomer in Glamorganshire, in South Wales; and especially in the gravel beds of Abbeville and Amiens, in France, and various localities of the valley of the Somme. As to these flint implements, they are chiefly knives, hatchets, and instruments of that sort, and they have been found in such large numbers, and such diverse localities, and so uniformly in close proximity with the remains of the same species of extinct mammalia, that the evidence derived from them is, to say the least, of a very weighty character, and in the opinion of Sir Charles Lyell clearly establishes the fact that Elephas primigenius, Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros tichorrhinus, Ursus spelœus, and other extinct species of the post-pliocene alluvium, coexisted with man.

Attempts have been made to throw doubt upon these implements, first upon their nature, and next upon their genuineness; but we think no one who weighs the evidence candidly and carefully, can award to these doubts the merit of respectability. That they are works of art and not native forms, is, we think, as fully established as human observation can establish anything; and though frauds have been recently detected, it would be no more absurd to attribute the whole phenomena of fossil remains to fraudulent manufacture, than to refer to the same source the whole series of flint implements. In many cases the flint tools were taken out of their position by the hands of scientific men themselves, and in others the excavations were made under their immediate supervision. M. Gandry, in giving an account of his researches at St. Acheul, in 1859, to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, says: 'The great point was not to leave the workmen for a single instant.'

But the most remarkable, not to say startling revelations of the whole book, are those pertaining to the discovery of an ancient place of sepulture at Auvignac, in the south of France. Here we seem to be brought, as it were, face to face with the denizens of the departed ages, and to have them start up from their ancient tombs to tell the story of their death and sepulture. We enter this old burial place with feelings of more strange and solemn awe than we could have in threading the catacombs of Rome. An obscure village at the foot of the Pyrenees reveals in its precincts a more astounding history than all the monuments and mausoleums of the 'eternal' city.

In the year 1852, a laborer named Bonnemaison, employed in repairing roads, observed that rabbits, when hotly pursued by the sportsman, ran into a hole which they had burrowed in a talus of small fragments of limestone and earthy matter lodged in a depression on the face of a steep escarpment of nummulitic limestone which forms the bank of a small brook near the town of Auvignac. On reaching as far into the opening as the length of his arm, he drew out to his surprise one of the long bones of the human skeleton; and his curiosity being excited, and having a suspicion that the hole communicated with a subterranean cavity, he commenced digging a trench through the middle of the talus, and in a few hours found himself opposite a heavy slab of rock, placed vertically against the entrance. Having removed this, he discovered on the other side of it an arched cavity, seven or eight feet in its greatest height, ten in width, and seven in horizontal depth. It was almost filled with bones, among which were two entire skulls, which he recognized at once as human. The people of Auvignac flocked in astonishment to the spot, and Dr. Amiel, the mayor, having first ascertained as a medical man and anatomist that the relics contained the bones of seventeen human skeletons of both sexes and all ages, ordered them all to be reinterred in the parish cemetery.

In 1860, M. Lartet, a distinguished French savan, examined thoroughly the remaining contents of the cavern and its surroundings and approaches. He found, on removing the talus which filled up the depression on the face of the rock, a level terrace leading to the mouth of the cave. On this terrace was a layer of charcoal and ashes, eight inches thick, containing fragments of broken, burnt, and gnawed bones of extinct and recent mammalia, in all some nineteen species, and some seventy or eighty individuals. Also in the same deposit were hearthstones, and works of art, flint knives, projectiles, sling-stones, and chips. Many of the bones of the extinct herbivora were streaked, as if the flesh had been scraped off them by a flint instrument, and others were split open, as if for the purpose of extracting the marrow. Inside the grotto were two or three feet of made earth mixed with human and a few animal bones of extinct and recent species. None of them, however, burnt or gnawed; and numerous small flat plates of a white shelly substance made of some species of cockle, perforated in the middle as if for the purpose of being strung into a bracelet; also some mementos and memorials of the chase and the sepulture. Did no opposing traditions stand in the way, we are quite sure the evidence elicited from this examination would at once fix its character as a burial place, of an antiquity coeval with the existence of the great extinct mammalia of the post-pliocene period. It, however, contains some features of special interest. In the words of Sir Charles Lyell:

'The Auvignac cave adds no new species to the list of extinct quadrupeds, which we have elsewhere, and by independent evidence, ascertained to have once flourished contemporaneously with man. But if the fossil memorials have been correctly interpreted—if we have here before us at the northern base of the Pyrenees a sepulchral vault with skeletons of human beings, consigned by friends and relatives to their last resting place—if we have also at the portal of the tomb the relics of funeral feasts, and within it indications of viands destined for the use of the departed on their way to the land of spirits; while among the funeral gifts are weapons wherewith in other fields to chase the gigantic deer, the cave lion, the cave bear, and woolly rhinoceros—we have at last succeeded in tracing back the sacred rites of burial, and, more interesting still, a belief in a future state, to times long anterior to those of history and tradition. Rude and superstitious as may have been the savage of that remote era, he still deserved, by cherishing the hopes of a hereafter, the epithet of 'noble,' which Dryden gave to what he seems to have pictured to himself as the primitive condition of our race:

'As Nature first made man,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.'

The remainder of the book, so far as it relates to the evidences of man's antiquity, is mainly occupied with the consideration of the glacial period, in its relation to the indications of man's first appearance in Europe. It bears evidence throughout of the hand of a master. The gigantic phenomena and wonderful agencies of that marvellous period in geological history—its vast icefields and glaciers, with their movements, drifts, and denudations—its coast ice and glacial lakes and rivers—the risings and sinkings of level of islands and continents, are all considered and discussed in a thoroughly intelligent and scholarly manner. And here, also, amid the debris of this far-distant and inhospitable era, has man left the traces of his existence, as indubitably, according to Sir Charles Lyell, as the great icebergs themselves. Not only is it proven that man coexisted with the extinct animals, but also that he coexisted with the extinct glaciers. We have not space, however, to follow out in detail this evidence.

The last five chapters of the book are devoted to the discussion of certain subjects of vital interest and great moment just now in the scientific world—the theories of progression, development, transmutation, and variation of species. It seems, however, to be the intention of the author to give us, not so much his own views as a general résumé or outline of the tendencies and conclusions of the scientific world upon these subjects. This he does with his usual fulness, candor, and impartiality; and the reader at the same time gathers from him that he is strongly inclined to accept the doctrine of the origin of species by 'variation and natural selection,' and to accord vast periods of time for the workings of that law of development and transmutation which he believes to pervade all mundane affairs. Considerable space is devoted to the consideration of man's place in nature, and especially to the discussions arising out of the comparison of the human and simian brain; and while the author fully admits the vast gulf placed between man and the animal creation below him—a gulf which science cannot bridge—by virtue of the moral and religious nature of man, yet he pointedly protests against confounding distinct orders of ideas, and insists that man as a physical being is clearly of the same order as the gorilla and ape; and he does not shrink from accepting the possibility that they all may have sprung by successive stages or 'leaps' from the same primordial form. His concluding words are, that 'so far from having a materialistic tendency, the supposed introduction into the earth at successive periods of life—sensation, instinct, the intelligence of the higher mammalia, bordering on reason—and lastly the improvable reason of man himself, presents us with a picture of the ever-increasing dominion of mind over matter.'

To our mind one thing is certain. The whole scientific world is drifting slowly, but steadily and surely, to the verification and acceptance—with certain and in some cases important modifications—of the development hypothesis of Maillet, Lamarck, La Place, Owen, and the author of the 'Vestiges [4] of Creation.' The movement reminds one of the motion of one of the great Greenland glaciers, so slow, quiet, almost imperceptible, yet inexorable as fate—heedless of all obstacles. As in the case of all great, genuine revolutionary or formative ideas, it is curious to watch the incidents of its career—to note the alarm, indignation, scorn, and holy horror occasioned by its first announcement—to observe these subsiding gradually into patient endurance and permissive sufferance, and these again giving place to a certain curiosity and wakeful interest, culminating at last in downright advocacy and championship.

We are inclined to think that great injustice has been done the development theory in the name of morals and religion. There has been no end to the railing against it on the part of clergymen, Biblical interpreters, theological Professors, and orthodox editors. It was held to put infinite dishonor upon the Creator, not only to suppose that He should take many millions of years to make a world, but that He should employ the same lengthened period to make man, instead of speaking him into existence by a word. It was held to put infinite dishonor upon the Scriptures to suppose that they should be understood in any but the most literal sense. And it was held to put infinite dishonor upon man to suppose that he was kith and kin with the monkey—bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the unreasoning quadrupeds, over which in his god-like royalty he was to sway his imperial sceptre—and this, too, by a class of teachers who could never have enough of thundering in the ears of men their degradation, their lost, debased, insensate, and damnable condition, worse than that of beasts or devils.

Now, with all deference, we beg to say that this development theory does not strike us as so fraught with dishonor, either to the powers in heaven or the beings upon earth. It has for many years impressed us with its grandeur as an intellectual conception. We doubt whether anything so grand has dawned upon the mind of modern civilization since the days of Sir Isaac Newton. And we cannot see what dishonor it can work to either God or man—especially if it be proved to be true. We regard it, so far as there is truth in it, as one of those great germinant seed-thoughts, which at long intervals are dropped into the soil of the human mind; and though the mind of the age, in its first impulses of joy, may play wild gambols with it, it is destined in the end to mould and control the thinking of the civilized world. But apart from its truth or falsity, in whole or in part, regarded simply as an intellection, it strikes us as one of the grandest of modern times. Spreading itself over almost illimitable space, grasping back through almost illimitable time, claiming for itself the boundless multiplicity of type, and form, and life, and law of the organic world, and unfolding to the wondering gaze the vast prophetic possibilities of the future, it possesses all the attributes of grandeur, magnificence, sublimity, and mystery. If it is a phantasm, it is more gorgeous than the most splendid creations of poetry. If it is a mirage, it is more beautiful than any that ever bewildered the vision of enchanted traveller. If it is an ignis fatuus, it is more potent than any ever raised by the spell of the sorcerer. But whether phantasm, mirage, ignis fatuus, or sober but grand reality, will assuredly be found out by science before another half century. And the ultimate finding of science, whatever it may be, must and will be believed.

It is, of course, not to be expected that the evidence thus adduced by Sir Charles Lyell in behalf of the antiquity of man, will be accepted as conclusive by the religious and thinking world in general without a thorough sifting and an earnest struggle. It is too novel and revolutionary in its tendencies. And indeed it ought to be subjected to the severest ordeal of fact and reason. It is in this way alone that the golden grains of truth are separated from the dross of crude conjecture and hasty generalization. We are not prepared ourselves to say that the evidence itself is final and conclusive. We have sketched it for the purpose of giving the distinguished author a full hearing, and affording the reader an opportunity to judge for himself. We await the logical sequences of time, knowing full well that the laws which regulate the progress of science are as stable and infallible as the laws which control the motions of the solar and planetary systems. One thing, however, we may be excused for saying: All the attempts we have seen to parry the force of this evidence, and to account for the acknowledged phenomena and facts within the schedule of the received chronology, strike us as singularly and painfully feeble. One suggestion is that the bodies of the extinct mammalia may have been preserved in ice until the recent period, and their bones deposited contemporaneously with those of modern species and man. Another is that the geologists may be vastly mistaken as to the date of the extinction of species, and that in fact the mastodon, mammoth, and other species found in juxtaposition with human remains and works of art, have probably survived until a very recent period. Without entering into detail on these points, we would venture the prediction that when weighed in the balance they will be found utterly wanting. One type of discussion will survive, if it survive at all, as a most curious fossil of the layers of modern thought. It is that represented by the book referred to in a note on a former page, by Mr. Davies. Believing that all mineral fossils were never living animals at all, but the types simply of animals that were to be, stamped instantaneously upon the rocks as prophetic symbols of a work of creation to be afterward accomplished, he is prepared to hear without surprise that man should some day be found as a fossil. We refer to it as a most curious mental product. If it is not unanswerable, we presume it will at least remain unanswered.

What now, in conclusion, is to be the effect of this new development of science on the received and traditionary thinking of the time? What readjustments will be necessary in case the doctrine of the antiquity of man comes by and by to take its place, in the creed of science, alongside of the doctrine of the great age of the earth? Can it be made to harmonize with what is now known as orthodox and evangelical Christianity?

That it cannot be made to harmonize with that sort of orthodoxy which asserts that 'the Bible teaches' that man began to exist upon the earth about six thousand years ago, we need hardly aver. Eminent theologians may say, 'if science does not agree with the Scriptures, so much the worse for science,' but we opine that the minds which will be able to stand upon this platform in the face of overwhelming evidence will be few and far between. But it must be remembered that the Scriptures have adjusted themselves, in the popular and orthodox mind, to several things which were once considered opposed to their teachings. The Copernican theory of the solar system was once regarded and treated as a palpable and dangerous heresy; yet now-a-days the boldest literalist would not venture to insist that the Bible teaches a system opposed to that. Within living memory, it is well known that the doctrine of the recent creation of the earth was regarded as indubitably a part of the teaching of the first chapter of Genesis, yet it is now fully conceded in high orthodox quarters that the opposite doctrine does no violence to the letter or spirit of the Mosaic writings. Here the adjustment has been of the interpretation to the fact. It is up to this time largely believed that the Bible teaches the doctrine of a general deluge, yet Hugh Miller could advocate, with all the elegance of his superb intellect, and all the power of his unanswerable science, the opposite doctrine of a partial or limited deluge, without being outlawed for heresy in the Free Church of Scotland. It is now held almost universally that the doctrine of the unity of the race is essential to Christianity; and we, for ourselves, cannot see that it is otherwise than essential to a properly organic Christianity, and yet we begin to see a blinking in certain quarters toward the opposite view;—and we may mention that the curious book of Mr. Davies before mentioned, which is written in the special interest of the most literal orthodoxy, advocating the doctrine of immediate creation in six literal days, and other equally indigestible matters, insists on the doctrine of diversity of origin in the human race, because it is taught in the Scriptures! And he does not fail to find proof texts. He rightly avers that several important assumptions are needed in order to extract the doctrine of unity from the Mosaic record.

We have not adduced these instances of the variations of orthodoxy for the purpose of intimating that the Bible is a nose of wax, which can be twisted into any shape without injury—that it is a book which can be made to mean anything or nothing, as the circumstances of the case may require—but that it has a vital elasticity and power of adjustment to all veritable findings of the human mind in every sphere; as indeed it must have, if it is in any important respect such a communication to mankind as it is claimed to be. Whatever may be said of the infallibility of the Scriptures, it is certain that interpretation is not infallible—a distinction that is not always kept in mind by those zealous defenders of the faith who are ready to make the inspiration of the Scriptures stand or fall with a given interpretation of a particular passage.

But can the doctrine of man's antiquity be made to harmonize with the essentials of Christianity and the inspiration of the Scriptures? If Christianity be a religion for man, as the present writer believes, we answer emphatically in the affirmative. Not the smallest feature that is essential to make Christianity a religion for man, if it be such, will be imperilled by this or any other well-established doctrine of science. But precisely how much modification of existing opinion, how much sepulture of traditionary relics, how much clearing away of rubbish will be indispensable, it is now not easy to say. It is certain that it must be conceded that we have as yet attained to no infallible chronology. And it is equally certain that a larger amount of allegory must be infused into the first chapters of Genesis than would have been digestible by the theologians of the last generation, if we would ever have theology and science stand upon the same plane. The question in the child's catechism, 'Who was the first man?' will by and by be easier asked than answered. If, moreover, the narrative in Genesis refers to some imaginary being supposed to have existed upon the earth about six thousand years ago, it seems clear that this being cannot be regarded as the 'federal head' of the human race, from whom 'all mankind have descended by ordinary generation.' And we strongly suspect that a very large amount of theological machinery will need to be readjusted; and amid many pangs and with much tribulation will not a few canons of orthodoxy pass away to the region of fossil forms.

In conclusion, we take leave of this work of Sir Charles Lyell with the conviction that however obnoxious it may be to orthodox editors and superannuated doctors of divinity, it is destined to stimulate greatly scientific inquiry and active thought. It is impossible that when such a mine has been sprung, and promises to yield such tangible results, it should suddenly cease to work, because the note of alarm is raised by affrighted theologians. We predict for science in this department a rich and rapid progress of discovery. And we are profoundly gratified that the subject has been broken to the popular mind in such a cautious and unexceptionable manner as to the tone and spirit of the work—the author holding with philosophic steadfastness to the subject matter in hand, and, in the true scientific spirit, eschewing all side issues, and exhibiting throughout a candor, impartiality, and honesty, worthy the well-earned fame of this Nestor of geologists.

ÆNONE.

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER III.

The thoughts of Ænone followed her into sleep, and colored her dreams with pleasant memories of the past; and when the morning sun, pouring its beams through the window, awakened her, there was a momentary struggle before she could throw off the fancies of the night and realize that she was no longer in her cottage home. But distinct perception soon returned as she glanced around her and recognized the paintings which adorned her chamber, and the marble goddess still holding forth a welcoming hand, as though in greeting for the return of another day.

Throwing open the window, she sat down for a moment to enjoy the soft breeze, which, laden with perfume, came gambolling fresh from the Alban Hills. The window at which she placed herself looked out upon a central courtyard, formed by the intersection of the main body of the palace at right angles with the two wings. This court was paved from one side to the other with marble flags of different shades, excepting in the middle, where played the fountain—a circular basin of water, upon a rock, in the centre of which two bronze satyrs struggled for a tortoise, from whose mouth the supplying stream poured forth. From the end of each wing of the palace the line of the sides was continued by a straight stone wall of considerable height, leading across the whole breadth of the Cælian Hill to the slope of its farther side, and enclosing an area thickly planted with such flowers, shrubbery, and trees as the taste of the period considered most essential to a well-appointed garden.

For the moment the central court was almost deserted, the only appearance of life being a little Nubian slave, who sat upon the edge of the fountain, and lazily played with a tame stork. But all at once Ænone heard mingled voices, and distinguished among them the tones of her husband—deeper than the others, and marked with that quicker and more decided accent acquired by a long course of undisputed authority. At first the sounds seemed stationary, as though the speakers were tarrying in one place for discussion; but in a moment they approached nearer, and the disputants stood in full sight upon a balcony which ran around the interior wall of the palace and overhung the sides of the court.

Foremost and tallest of the group stood Sergius Vanno, recognizable at once by his athletic and graceful figure, reflective face, commanding eye, bright with intelligence, and his agreeable, refined, and attractive presence, as the leading spirit of the group. At his side leaned the poet Emilius, whose weak and slender figure and mild, girlish expression would hardly appear to sustain the reputation he enjoyed of devoting half his time to the invention and elaboration of new forms of profligacy, and thereby carrying his exploits into realms of vice hitherto undiscovered even in that age of unbridled indulgence. Behind these stood three others—a captain of the prætorian guard, a tribune of the law, and a comedian of the school of Plautus—each probably carrying the palm of excellence in his especial calling, and all of them doubtless endowed with superior capacities as boon companions in a night-long revel. They had evidently but just left the banqueting hall, and bore indications of having passed a somewhat unquiet night, though in different degrees; for while the captain and comedian still staggered confusedly and displayed haggard faces and disordered dresses, the superior tact, constitutional strength, or recuperative powers of the others enabled them to maintain such a demeanor of proper sobriety, that but for a slight flush and the companionship in which they were placed, their late excesses might have passed unnoticed.

'It was the choice of all the slaves, both male and female, I tell you,' said the comedian, evidently resuming an unfinished dispute. 'The choice of all the slaves, Sergius.'

'Hear you now this man!' exclaimed Sergius, turning toward his friend Emilius with a quiet smile. 'Thrice already have I told him the truth of the matter, and still he persists; well knowing that, if now he can scarcely sustain himself from falling over into the area below, he certainly could not, three hours ago, have been able to tell what play he made, or whether he made any play at all. Nay, Bassus, it was only of the male slaves that I spoke.'

'Yet listen to me,' insisted the comedian, placing his hand upon the other's shoulder and leaning heavily upon him, 'You do not deny that we gamed?'

'Of a surety I do not.'

'Nor that I won money of you?'

'Ten sestertia. I acknowledge it.'

'Nay, twenty sestertia, was it not?'

'Twenty sestertia be it, then. What matters the amount, when I paid you upon the moment, and you now have the sum, whatever it may be, in your own purse?'

'True, true,' rejoined the other, nodding his head with an air of sage gravity; 'whatever it was, of a certainty I now have it. And then, Sergius, you offered against the ten—no, the twenty sestertia—to play the choice of all your new slaves.'

'Of my new male slaves, certainly.'

'No, of the slaves both male and female. I will tell you how it is that I so especially recollect. It was because I had heard from our lawgiver here about the beautiful Samian girl you have borne home among your share of the spoils. You did not think, perhaps, that I knew of her; but when I offered to throw the dice, I held her in my mind. And then, when I had won, and told you that I would select her, you said—'

'Exactly what I had said to you before, that you could take your choice from the male slaves,' interrupted the other impatiently. 'And I have brought you directly hither to make your selection, for fear that when you became sober you would forget the matter altogether, and thereby cheat yourself out of a fairly won prize. Am I not right, comrades? Was not the play as I have stated it?'

'Neither more nor less,' the poet answered; and the tribune and the prætorian captain spoke to the same effect. The comedian still looked unconvinced, and, for the moment, gazed inquiringly from one to the other, in the hope that some newer recollection would come to the mind of either of them and lead to a recantation. But in that desire he was disappointed, and at last he reluctantly gave up the contest, not daring to protract it longer for fear of provoking a quarrel, and thereby being thrust out of the society to which he was aware his social talents, counteracting his low birth and calling, were his sole passport. And after all, though he had too carelessly made his wager, he had won twenty sestertia and a male slave, and that was something.

'Well, be it so,' he assented, with a sigh. 'A male slave, since you say it. I had supposed I had spoken more particularly, but it seems that my poor brain was careless and at fault. Only bring the slaves hither quickly, that I may choose and go home, for I must play Castorex this morning, and this head of mine seems likely to split.'

'Let it split, then,' retorted Sergius with a laugh. 'It may save our cracking it some day with a goblet. Ho, there, Drumo!'

He was not obliged to call a second time, for, at the first ring of his voice, the obedient armor bearer emerged from one of the lower entrances into the court. He also, as well as his master, had been convivially celebrating his return, and now bore the evidences of his frolic in a sad combination of inflamed features, tangled hair, and disordered clothing.

'What ho, master?' he cried, stretching his huge limbs in a yawn and looking up. 'Am I wanted?'

'You have been drinking,' said Sergius; 'go to the fountain basin there and cleanse yourself. If there were fish in it, I would feel half inclined to cast you in to feed them. After that, come back to me.'

The giant grinned, knowing that his master placed too high a value upon him ever to make a dinner of him for the carp, though he might now and then inflict a stripe or two in anger upon his broad shoulders. Then kneeling down at the fountain, he quickly splashed the water into his face and eyes, ran one finger from his forehead to the crown of his head in order to part his disordered locks, pulled away a loose straw from behind his neck, gave his tumbled tunic one jerk to straighten it, and, with the air of a person who had made an elaborate toilet, and could afford to be well satisfied with the result, presented himself for inspection.

'So! Were my new slaves sent in last night?'

The armor bearer nodded.

'The whole allotment?'

'I suppose so, master. Fifty there should have been, the lictor said, when he brought them, but one had died, and they had thrown him into the Tiber to the fishes. Ho, ho, master, we shall all go one day to feed the fishes or the dogs or the worms, both you and I alike.'

'Silence, you hound!' said Sergius, more by way of habit than because he really minded a familiarity to which he had gradually grown accustomed.

'The others came a little before midnight, and I locked them up below,' the Gaul added, pointing to a low range of buildings at the foot of the garden. 'They are a well-looking lot, master, but among them all you will not find one to take my place; so, for this time, I am safe, and can yet say and do what I please. Ho, ho! And here is the list of them which the messenger brought.'

'Never mind the list. It is doubtless all correct,' said Sergius, waving the papyrus aside. 'Go, now, and bring the slaves hither.'

The man nodded, and taking a large key from a nail over his head, disappeared down the garden walk, and in a few moments returned, driving before him the whole body of captives which had fallen to the share of his master. As he had reported, they were of good quality, the best of the prisoners of war having naturally been reserved for the commander of the expedition. The men were mostly stout and athletic, while the women were of healthy and properly agreeable appearance. Of the whole number there were none who seemed to be at all sickly or ill favored; while the only one who exhibited any signs of deformity was a dwarf, whose withered and twisted figure imparted to him that peculiar grotesque and ape-like appearance which, at that period, was certain to commend him to the taste of wealthy purchasers, and render him of more value than a man of correct proportions. Moreover, as a general thing, the captives seemed more cheerful than they had been the day before, having had the advantage of several hours' rest and of better food than had fallen to their lot at any time during the journey. There were a few who manifested sorrow at having been separated from relatives or friends with whom they had succeeded in travelling to the very gates of the city; and some others, as yet unbroken to misfortune, maintained a rebellious and intractable demeanor. But the majority had already made up their minds that slavery was henceforth their inevitable fate, and that their highest future happiness must be looked for in its alleviation rather than in its abolition; and they now appeared to take pleasure in the thought that their fortune had led them to a wealthy household, where they would probably experience kind treatment and have easy tasks allotted to them.

Now, having reached the paved court, the captives rested and awaited the inspection of their owner—some sitting upon the marble border of the fountain, some standing by in groups, and through a sort of sympathy holding each others' hands, as though that would give protection. A few gazed moodily upon the ground; and one or two, oppressed with sorrow or nervous apprehension, quietly wept. But the greater portion, impressed with a dim consciousness that their future lot might depend upon their present conduct and appearance, endeavored to assume an air of pleased satisfaction, and thereby possibly win the favorable notice of the group which stood surveying them from the balcony, or at the least the friendly compassion of the older slaves of the household, who began to pour forth from the different doors upon the ground floor of the palace, and join unbidden in the inspection. Most of these, in the early days of their captivity, had stood up in the centre of similar gaping and curious crowds, and now in their turn they sated their curiosity upon the new comers. A few, remembering their own sorrows of those former times, seemed compassionate; others manifested careless indifference; some wondered whether enough of the present reinforcement would be retained to materially lighten their own labors; and others, who had been known to fail in attention to their peculiar departments of industry, trembled lest their places might now be supplied by the new comers, and themselves be again driven off to market. Whatever their thoughts and feelings, however, no one ventured to approach too near or speak aloud, excepting the armor bearer, who, as the privileged slave of the household as well as the marshal of the occasion, moved hither and thither among the captives, encouraging some with rude jokes, shoving others back or forward into suitable positions, and generally endeavoring to set forth the merits of the whole mass in as favorable a light as possible.

'Now stand forward where the noble imperator and his friends can see you,' was his command to a well-featured, strong-limbed Rhodian. 'Do you think to better your lot by slinking out of sight among the women, and so perhaps be sent off unnoticed to the market, and there be purchased for hard labor in the quarry pits? Who knows but that if my master sees you, he may make a gladiator of you; and then you can fight before emperors and consuls.'

'What care I for your master?' retorted the man. 'Let him give me back my wife and my child, whom I yesterday had, and who now are gone.'

The armor bearer shrugged his shoulders.

'Is that all?' he said. 'Wives are plenty in this city of Rome. When I first came from Gaul, I too had a wife, and, like you, lost her. What then? I suppose that she is happy, wherever she may be; and I—I have not allowed myself to be lonely since. But neither did I let myself slink behind, when I stood in the market; but I pressed forward and struck upon my chest, and called to the highborn and the rich to look upon me, and see how a man could be made, and what he could be good for. And here am I now, a slave, indeed—that cannot be helped—but for all that, a ruler over the other slaves, and my master's favorite and companion. By the immortal gods! there is more manliness in yonder dwarf, with his open face, than in you, with your whimpering and your tears. I will call him forward to teach you a lesson how to act.'

At the first beck the dwarf pressed forward with a smile, alternately stretching up to make the most of his diminutive proportions, and then bowing low to crave the good will of the spectators. His appearance brought him instant commendation; and more particularly did the prætorian captain break forth into expressions of appreciation.

'A proper dwarf! a most excellent dwarf! Smaller and more ugly by a quarter than one which I have known to be sold for forty sestertia! And see, Bassus, how he bows and rubs his hands and shows his teeth at yourself. He has perhaps been the buffoon in a Grecian theatre, and in you now recognizes a brother in the art. Take him, therefore, for your choice. At the very least, he will be of value to carry your bag of plays before you, and he may even help you act.'

The comedian forced a sickly smile upon his features, not daring to quarrel with his companion, yet not insensible to the sneering tone with which he was addressed. He had, at the first, been struck with the dwarf, and half inclined to choose him. But now the mocking speech deterred him.

'You are disposed to be merry,' he said; 'nor do you reason well. It is not an ape that an actor wants to carry his plays. There are enough such to listen to them. I will leave the dwarf, therefore, for you to purchase. Perhaps, after all, there may be a place found for him somewhere in your own household. I will make another selection for myself.'

And descending from the piazza, he moved in among the captives for the purpose of entering upon a more careful inspection. Eager as he was at all times to make the best of a bargain, he was the more especially anxious now; for the contemptuous tones of his companions rankled in his heart, and he felt that the more he evinced a capacity to benefit himself, the more he would be likely to disappoint them. Passing deliberately about the slaves, therefore, he scrutinized each face and form before him with the most exact attention; carefully lifting the eyelid of one, and examining the teeth of another—now pressing his knuckles into an expanded chest, then twisting a muscular arm—causing some to stoop, and others to bend back—and generally practising all those arts and expedients which a professional slave dealer would employ to guard himself against imposition. Nor was it until the lapse of many minutes that he settled upon his prize.

'I will take this man,' he said, dragging the Rhodian forth by the shoulder. 'He shall be my slave.'

'It is well; take him,' responded Sergius, in his most courtly tone. And for the moment or two, during which his companions yet tarried, he maintained a demeanor so studied and controlled that it would have required a keen glance to detect in his face his bitter sense of disappointment at the selection which the comedian had made.

CHAPTER IV.

As Sergius turned and entered the house, those who had seen him saluted as the favorite of the emperor and the idol of the crowd, and thence had believed unbounded happiness must be his never-varying lot, would have been astonished to know how many things there were which rankled painfully in his heart, and, for the moment, made him discontented and fretful.

Thoroughly jealous in respect to his military fame, he was suspicious that the cheers of the crowd upon his ovation had been elicited more by the perfection of the pageantry than by a proper appreciation of his own merits; while it was certain that the Senate, though meeting him with the customary congratulations, had delivered them with more form than enthusiasm. And though the emperor had given audience, he had bestowed no new honors upon him. To these disappointments was added the unhappy, self-accusing consciousness of having failed in duty to his own dignity, by having passed the night in wild revelry and among companions, many of whom were beneath him in every quality except their talent for ribald jesting and buffoonery. Moreover, though reputed wealthy, he was at present pressed for money, and had added to his embarrassments by losing at the gaming table during the past night more than he could well afford to part with; while, to add to all other vexations, the comedian Bassus had not only increased the loss by selecting the most valuable slave, but had performed the action in a cool and calculating manner, which was particularly exasperating.

'The low buffoon!' Sergius muttered to himself. 'Who would have thought that, half drunken as he was, he would have had the wit to select a slave worth double the sum which had been staked against him, and one whom I had obtained with such trouble, and for my own purposes? Can it be that he pretended his intoxication the more easily to outwit me? I had no fear, but believed that he would be sure to select some slim youth who could be taught to play the flute before him or act as cupbearer. What demon put it into his head so suddenly to look for bone and muscle rather than for girlish graces?'

This last suspicion of having been made the victim of artful dissimulation added fuel to his vexation, more especially as, turning his head and glancing into the courtyard, he saw the comedian slipping through a side passage, and the Rhodian obediently following at his heels. This filled up the measure of Sergius's wrath. To his excited fancy the actor bore upon his face an insultingly satisfied smirk of triumph, while the Rhodian appeared larger and stronger than ever. With an exclamation of unavailing anger, Sergius pushed open the door, and stood in the presence of his wife.

It was into the dining hall that he had plunged. Upon a small table was placed the wine and bread and fruits which formed the customary morning meal among the richer Romans; and beside the table stood Ænone, in an attitude in which hope and fear and surprise and disappointment were equally blended.

Clad in the manner which she knew had always best pleased his fancy, wearing the adornments which, as his gifts, he would most naturally prefer to see upon her, with her curling locks parted as in former days he had liked her to dress them, even striving to impart to her features the peculiar radiant expression which, in other times, had most won his heart—she had impatiently awaited his approach, with a vague fear whispering poisonous surmises to her soul, but yet with a joyful and hopeful assurance of good predominating over all. As soon as these friends of his had departed—she had said to herself—he would no longer delay coming to her. He would meet her with extended arms and the same joyous welcome as of old. He would utter kind and pleasant words expressive of his happiness, and would fold her to his heart. There would she nestle and forget her foolish fears and suspicions of the past night, and would only remember that she was loved. As, however, she now saw the frown upon his face, her heart and courage failed her; and in proportion as she had previously fortified her mind with hopeful confidence, a terrible reaction of apprehension overcame her. Could it be that the angry look was for her, and that it could be justified by any word that she had ever spoken or any duty that she had neglected? With one hand lightly resting upon the table, her right foot thrown forward in impulsive readiness to spring into his extended arms, but her whole form drooping and shrinking with dismay, her face pale, and the smile which she had called upon it now faintly and painfully flickering in a deathlike manner about her whitened lips, as it glided from her control and began to give place to an utter and undisguised fear, she stood awaiting his first word or action.

'Ha, Ænone!'

'My lord—'

Then remembering what was due to her upon their first meeting, he smoothed the frown from off his face, held out his arms, and tenderly embraced her, uttering kind and loving words. It was the same gesture with which he had parted from her when, six months before, the state had called upon him to arouse from the ease and tranquility of his wedded life and do new service upon the field. Those were the same gentle and affectionate words which he had been wont to utter. And yet to her quickened apprehension, urged on by some secret instinct, it seemed as though the soul of the tender greeting was gone, leaving but the mere form behind. Could it be that during those few months of absence he had learned to think less dearly of her? At the thought, the last faint gleams of the flickering smile died away from her face; while he, unobservant of her distress, and still goaded by the remembrance of his losses, released her from his embrace and threw himself heavily down upon the nearest lounge.

'I am thirsty,' he said. 'Give me some drink.'

She poured some wine into a goblet, and timidly presented it to his lips. The liquid, cooled with snow from the mountains, was refreshing to his palate, and he drank it to the last drop. As he parted with the goblet—rather tossing it away than setting it down—he noticed how she stood before him with whitened face and frightened features, and with the attitude of a shrinking slave rather than of a wife joyous to be of service. His heart smote him for his negligent greeting, and he rose up from the lounge and placed his arm about her.

'Not with you, Ænone, am I vexed,' he said, partly comprehending the cause of her emotion. And drawing her nearer, he commenced toying with her waving locks, telling her how for months he had been longing to meet her, and how her looks more than ever delighted him, and otherwise uttering such pleasant and reassuring words as soonest came into his mind. As she began to perceive that it was not for any fault of hers that he had displayed anger, her face gradually lost its expression of dread. But still she could not fail to notice that the words which he spoke were not such as are commonly prompted by a true and unpremeditated affection; but were rather the labored and soulless result of a mere good-natured desire to make atonement for a neglect, and were uttered in all the careless spirit with which one tries to soothe an improperly aggrieved child; and the old smile but feebly played upon her features, struggle with it as earnestly as she would.

'Nay, not at your sweet face is my anger excited, Ænone,' he said; 'but at that scurvy dog, Bassus. He should himself be a slave and the companion of slaves, were his true station meted out to him.'

'He with whom you passed the night?' suggested Ænone.

'Ay, he was one of us,' Sergius answered, taking a position nearer the table, and commencing to pick off a crumb of bread as the incentive to a more extended repast. 'He was with us, as there always will be some rude and unmannerly intruder in every company; but there were also others, the associates of Emilius. There was Sotus, the Egyptian, a learned astronomer, and Cyope, the renowned Greek dramatist, and Spoletius, who is now writing a history of the empire, and, if what he says is true, has already brought his work down to the time of the Emperor Nero—'

'And will carry it on until he reaches the present day! And will then, in their proper place, tell about your achievements, my lord!' exclaimed Ænone, a flush of expectation glowing upon her face, as she thought that here were her conjectures of the preceding evening about to be realized.

'Ay!' responded Sergius; 'I presume that he will speak of me and of what you dignify as my achievements, foolishly fond child; and therefore it was meet that I should not neglect the opportunity of being in his presence, in order that he might speak well of me rather than the reverse. Otherwise, you well know that I would have preferred to let revelling have the go-by, and to have come at once to gather you to my heart. But we men, whom the world calls celebrated, must be watchful, and learn to resign pleasure to duty, and guard our fame, or else it may go out like a wasted lamp, and leave it in the darkness of oblivion. We cannot spare our time to give free scope to our love, as though we were poor and unknown.'

Ænone reproached herself for her suspicions. Surely she had done wrong in distrusting him for the coldness of his greeting. He may have meant nothing but love and kindness, and have been weighed down by cares and anxieties which she could not comprehend. Had he not said that something had made him angry? He, the great imperator, to have been ruffled by the conduct of a low comedian, whose company his interest obliged him to tolerate! She would yet be patient and wait.

'And not only Spoletius, the historian, but also others, poets and philosophers, whose good will it is proper to secure, and whose conversation would be improving to the gods themselves,' continued Sergius, almost blushing as he remembered how little philosophy had been spoken during the past night, excepting that shallow doctrine which inculcates full enjoyment of the passing pleasure of the world, lest death might come and too suddenly end them; and how little poetry had been recited, except as roared forth in the form of bacchanalian choruses. 'And even this Bassus it were worth my while to condescend to, lest the notion might seize him to satirize me upon the public stage. And it was to conciliate him that I lost to him twenty sestertia and a well-favored slave. May it not be that I paid too high a price for his friendship, and hence have a right to be angry?'

'But let my lord reflect that he has many slaves—more than he well can find use for; and that, therefore, one less may not be of great consequence to him.'

'Nay, but such a slave!' responded Sergius; 'tall, almost, as my armor bearer, and strong as an elephant! A man who was worth to me all those others, thrice over, for the use to which I could have put him. The rest will doubtless be of good account in their way. Some of them will go and dig in my quarries, and a few will be exposed in the market, and will bring their proper price. But this Rhodian—listen! You know that in a few weeks the new amphitheatre of our emperor will be opened with grand spectacles lasting many days. At my audience with him last evening he spoke thereupon, and of the wild beasts he had sent for to give dignity to the occasion; but of this anon. You know that for months all Rome has been preparing for that time?'

Ænone nodded assent. Even had she desired, she could not have remained ignorant that the great colossus of all amphitheatres was approaching completion, since, from her window, she could look down the Appian Way and watch every stone being laid, while, in all societies, the magnitude and magnificence of the approaching games were the theme of universal conversation.

'Well,' continued Sergius, 'months ago—I hardly remember how many—I wagered with the proconsul Sardesus that I would furnish for the games the superior gladiator of the two. Fifteen purses of a hundred sestertia each; a large sum, but the larger the better, since I had my armor bearer in my mind, and felt certain to win. But since then I have become attached to this Drumo. The dog has twice saved my life, and hence has become too precious to be risked; for though he would most likely win the day, yet a chance thrust might destroy him at the end. I therefore looked around for a substitute, and found him—this Rhodian slave. Day after day I marked him in the opposite ranks, fighting against us, and I gave orders to capture him alive. Twice we thought we had secured him, and as often did he break away, killing many of our men. But at last the commander of one of my cohorts obtained possession of his wife and five children, and sent him word that each day, until he delivered himself up, one of them should be put to death.'

'Surely that thing was not done?' exclaimed Ænone, horror struck.

'As I live, it was not ordered by me, nor did I learn of the scheme until it was too late to arrest it,' responded Sergius; 'else would I have forbidden it. But what would you expect? War has its practices, and mercy is not exactly one of them. And cruelties will happen, do what we may. Whatever transpired, therefore, was the work of the commander of my first cohort, to whom I had given directions to take the man alive, and who knew that it must be done, and without troubling me about the process. Perhaps you do not care to hear the rest?'

'Go on,' said Ænone, shuddering with a sickening apprehension of what was to come.

'Well, the first day his oldest child was slain, and the body sent to him; and the next day the second one slain, and in like manner sent to him; and so on until but his wife and one child were left. Then he came in and gave himself up.'

'And this brave man—fighting for his country—you have made a slave of!' exclaimed Ænone, impetuously. 'He has been stripped of his family one by one, and now you would place him in the arena, to be the victim of wild beasts, or at the best, of other slaves!'

'What else would you wish? The man is of a warlike nature; and it were better for him to bravely contend for his life in the presence of the emperor himself, than ignominiously to wear it out in the base labor of the quarries. And I will tell you what I meant to have done. I know where are his wife and remaining child, with whom he yesterday entered Rome; and if in the amphitheatre he had won the victory for me, I would have restored them to him and given him his freedom besides. But all that is past now. In the heat of the moment I forgot him, and suffered this drunken dog, Bassus, to take his choice; and he has had too good an eye for what is valuable not to select the Rhodian. Strange, indeed, that I should have been so careless. But throughout all, I never dreamed that his taste would lead him to do more than choose some slight-built boy, who could assist him in his trade. Once, indeed, I feared for the moment that he would select amiss, and take a rarely precious dwarf, whom, both for his appearance and for his knowledge of armor, I had reserved as a gift for your father; and when that danger was past, I breathed freer, not calculating upon any further mischance.'

Ænone remained silent. Ready as she was at all times to give her utmost sympathy to her husband for the slightest annoyance which he might experience, it seemed to her now that his complaining was puerile and unjust, so utterly had the sense of his disappointment been swallowed up, in her thoughts, by the real and tragic woe of the Rhodian captive. Finding day after day his dead children laid at his very door—then separated rudely from all who were left—and in the end brought chained into the arena, and obliged to fight to the death for the pleasure of his conquerors, and perhaps against his own countrymen: why should such things be? Ænone was no nerveless creature to faint at the sight of blood. The education of all Romans of that day was adapted to a far different result, and she could look with enjoyment upon the contests of wild beasts, or even view without disapprobation the struggles of gladiators trained to their work as to a profession, and, of their own free will and with full knowledge, taking its risks upon themselves. And yet, for all that, she could not but feel that every hour there were being enacted around her, and as a part of the daily workings of the social system, abuses of power, which, like the present, nothing could justify; and she wondered whether it would last forever, or whether, on the contrary, the outraged gods would not some day arise and pour down upon this imperial Rome the vengeance due to the oppressed.

Sergius partially read her thoughts, and set himself to work to reverse their current and turn it into a more cheerful channel. Drawing his seat closer to her, he began to speak to her of more pleasant topics, telling of the enlivening incidents of his campaign, rehearsing the exploits of those about him, and dwelling upon the few occasions in which, by some unusual departure from martial customs, mercy had been shown to the weak and helpless, and captives who were not fit for slaves had not been crucified. The gift of fascination was one of his distinguishing traits; and when he chose, he could charm, with his winning speech, the most obdurate and unloving. Therefore, as he now softly whispered these narrations into Ænone's ears, mingling gentle words of endearment with them, it was not long before she began to yield to the pleasant influence, and was almost ready to believe that she had judged rashly, and that everything upon earth was not so very wrong. Why, after all, should she presume to criticize matters which did not arouse the discontent of the wisest of men? And if the gods felt really outraged, why did they let their thunders sleep so long? At the least, it was not the duty of herself, a weak girl, to strive to right the world. Her only domain must be her lord's heart—her only rule of life, his will.

Leaning upon his shoulder, and looking up into his face as she listened, she thought upon the old times, when she had first met him, and how he had then, as now, so successfully exerted his powers of charming, that it had seemed as though no mere earthly love could be good enough reward for him. Could it be that in her distrust she had been the victim of a momentary delusion, and that he would always exert himself hereafter, as now, to please her? Might it not be, after all, that this great happiness, with its tender whisperings and caresses, would ever continue unbroken, as in past times?

'But, aha!' he suddenly exclaimed, in the tone of one newly awakened to the existence of a fact whose comparative unimportance had led to its forgetfulness by him. 'Let not my own losses make me indifferent to your pleasure, love, for I have not been so. For you, and you alone, I have reserved a gift fit for the palace of the Cæsars.'

'A gift, my lord? And for me?'

'Yes; but ask me no questions now. You shall see it to-morrow. A few hours only of mystery and waiting must yet elapse before I will bring it to you. Until then you can enjoy a woman's pleasure and nurse your greedy curiosity—hopeless of solving the enigma until I myself choose to give the clew.'

THE YOUNG AUTHOR'S DREAM.

'One more Unfortunate.'
Alone in a garret where cobwebs hang thick
Over walls that display the bare mortar and brick,
Whose windows look down on the roofs of back sheds,
From a height that would dizzy the coolest of heads,
A young author sits by a rickety stand,
In a broken-backed chair, with a pen in his hand,
And patiently toils ere the sunlight shall fade
To black the last quire of a ream of 'white laid.'
The shadows have deepened that hang on the wall;
But the Finis is written, the pen is let fall;
And, glad of a respite from labors complete,
His hands and his head press the last written sheet.
Sleep comes not alone; for the goddess of dreams
Is accustomed to visit this blacker of reams.
Like the man that sits under a monster balloon,
And soars o'er the earth halfway up to the moon,
Now stepping at once into Fancy's fair car,
He sails from the dusky old garret afar;
And, leaving the world with its practical crowds,
Such visions as these meet his gaze in the clouds:

THE DREAM.
Forty large editions
Of the 'thrilling tale;'
Forty thousand dollars,
Net proceeds of sale.
Forty smiling critics
Lavishing their praise;
Forty famous florists
Bidding for the bays.
Forty thousand maidens
Sitting up at night,
Poring o'er the volume
With intense delight.
Forty thousand letters
From the country sent,
Blurred by frequent teardrops,
Filled with sentiment.
Forty scheming mothers
Anxious for a match;
Forty blushing daughters,
Each a glorious catch.
Forty generations
Reverence his name;
Forty future ages
Fortify his fame.

THE REALITY.
Forty dunning letters
Coming every day;
Forty cents for washing,
Which he cannot pay.
Forty jokes malicious
Cracked by forty wags;
Forty pert young misses
Sneering at his rags.
Forty old companions
Wondering at his mood;
Forty friends officious
Preaching fortitude.
Forty days of sadness;
Forty nights of sorrow;
Forty dark forebodings
Hanging o'er the morrow.
Forty hempen inches
Borrowed from a friend;
Rafter at the upper,
Neck at lower, end.
Forty earthy spadefuls
On the green hillside;
Forty lines of 'local,'
Telling now he died.

THE GREAT LAKES TO ST. PAUL.

Toward the close of July, 1860, our party gathered at Canaudaigua, that beautiful piece of Swiss overland scenery, transported to Western New York. Its Indian name, signifying 'the chosen place,' was not inapt for our meeting ground.

By the 31st of July we were at Cleveland, Ohio, over the Buffalo and Lake Shore Railway and New York Central. It was a beautiful day's ride, the most of the way skirting the lake, whose broad expanse gleamed in the sunshine, and bore many a sail and propeller to the great havens of its commerce. The railway borders fine towns and farms, formed by the dense settlement of the oak openings and groves of the Western Reserve of Ohio, which was purchased from the Holland Land Company, by a company from Connecticut, of whom General Cleveland, who names the present city, was the agent.

Cleveland city, with about forty thousand population, lies on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, which forms its harbor. It is well built, chiefly of the light graystone of the vicinity, upon a declivity shaded with trees, among which the buckeye hickory abounds, has many fine dwellings, and presents a fair front to the lake view.

On the evening of the 31st July we embarked on the North Star for Superior City. She is of first class, eleven hundred and six tons, and bore an immense freight from the East to the remote peninsula, in exchange for its precious minerals. The entire sail from Cleveland to Superior is nine hundred and sixty-four miles.

As these boats are the only means of commerce and intercourse for the dwellers on the upper lakes above Detroit, very frequent are their stops and calls, taking and leaving much freight, consuming much time on their way. However, our voyage was speedy: we arrived at our distant terminus, Superior City, very early on the morning of the 5th of August, making the running time about seventy-five hours.

Leaving Ohio, one of the earliest settled States of the Western Valley, and organized sixty years since, our course from Cleveland stretched northwesterly across the wide lake, passing the island scene of Perry's splendid triumph, and thence northerly, by its river, to Detroit, a sail of one hundred and twenty miles, arriving early on the 1st of August.

The city lies extended along its beautiful river, at one extremity guarded by its old fort, and at the other are the extensive copper-smelting furnaces, where the ore from the Superior mines, brought by the steamers, flows in liquid copper. It is comparatively an ancient town, settled as early as 1701 as a French frontier post; and some of its land titles, always protected at each national change, with some of its old families, derive their origin from these early French pioneers.

Our afternoon sail was up Detroit River and the St. Clair, threading our way among its many verdant islands and rich shores graced with numerous pretty villages. At 9 p.m. we reached Port Huron and its Canadian opposite neighbor, Sarnia. At this point is the southern outlet of Lake Huron, distant seventy-three miles from Detroit. Sarnia is also the western depot of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, while Windsor, facing Detroit, terminates the Canadian Great Western. From Sarnia, passing old Fort Gratiot, over to Port Huron, the railway ferry boat, propelled by the current only, transfers its passengers to the cars of the Grand Trunk line, on Michigan soil, and by a short branch intersects the Michigan Central Railroad, a few miles west of Detroit. For over twelve hundred miles this iron road, fitly named the Grand Trunk, transports our Western products. Entering Lake Huron, with its innumerable islands and almost wilderness shores, our sail through it, of two hundred and seventy-five miles in all, brought us early, on the 2d of August, off Saginaw and Thunder Bays, its western arms, with Presque Isle, the Great Manitoulin Island, bearing north by east; and by noon, we reached Point de Tour, at the outlet of St. Mary's River, three hundred miles from Detroit, lying opposite to Drummond's Island.

Point de Tour has but a solitary dwelling, from whose roof rises the light tower. Its inmates are said to have preferred this solitude to the crowded refinement of a New England city. Shortly after, and still coasting the western side, we stopped at Church's Landing, where an enterprising New Englander has built his log houses in the forest, amid the Indians, and drives an active commerce in raspberry jam. His trade has prospered, and he had just completed a new and handsome dwelling. Fourteen miles farther brought us to Saut Sainte Marie, or the rapids of the eastern outlet of Lake Superior.

Lake Huron is at an average height of five hundred and seventy-five feet above the sea level, and one hundred feet in depth below Lake Superior, with a length in direct line of two hundred and seventy-five miles, from Port Huron to Saut Sainte Marie. Georgian Bay, to the east of the Great Manitoulin Island, is its broad eastern expansion; while, on the west, the Straits of Mackinaw open into the vast expanse of Lake Michigan, extending a length of four hundred and forty-six miles to Chicago. The borders of Lake Huron are sparsely peopled. The primitive forest bends over the lake's clear waters, and surrounds the log cabin or infant settlement with the wigwam and canoe of the Indian half breeds, who are still fishing and hunting round the graves of their ancestors-once the fiercest of all the warrior races that scarce forty years ago as sovereigns roamed its wilds.

The majestic solitudes of these lakes first received the white man in 1679, when the discoverers La Salle and Hennepin, in the vessel of sixty tons, which they had built with their Indians at Cayuga Creek, sailed up Niagara River, Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, to Mackinaw, and thence through Lake Michigan to the mouth of Green Bay. Entering Lake Erie on the 7th of August, 1691, they arrived at Green Bay on the 2d of September following, encountering many storms and cautiously seeking their untried way. After gathering a rich cargo of furs, the vessel, in charge of the pilot and five men, started to return, and was heard of no more. She doubtless perished with her crew in a gale on Lake Huron. She carried seven cannon, was well manned and armed, adorned with carved griffin and eagle heads, and bore the banner and religion of France amid all the border tribes.

Surely the voyage of Columbus, discovering Hispaniola, while sailing before and obeying the trade winds, did not surpass in real adventure this simple expedition of those half-warrior pioneer voyageurs, Fathers Hennepin and La Salle. The memory of their visit is yet immortal in the local names given by them and still cherished; while the influence of France still lingers at Detroit and many other prominent points in this wide region, once the empire of Louis XIV.

We reached the Saut Sainte Marie about 4 P. M. of the 2d of August. Here the River St. Mary, or the eastern outlet of Lake Superior, after a wide course of fifty miles, gathers the multitude of its waters into a narrow channel of less than a mile in width and length, of swift and impassable rapids.

The grand Ship Canal, with its stone banks of about eighty feet width and three locks, transports the largest tonnage around these rapids. This great work was completed in 1857 by the contractors, Erastus Corning, of New York, Fairbanks, and others, for a contract price of seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, chiefly mineral, in the State of Michigan. During our steamer's canal passage of about two hours, we were interested by the picturesque scenery, untenanted save by the wigwam and the bark canoe. As usual, upon the arrival of the steamer, the long canoe, steadily held by a single boy and paddle, in a current swift as the Niagara, shoots out into the Saut, while the Indian, standing erect in the canoe, poising his harpoon and scrap net, strikes or swoops in the large and delicious white fish, assured of a capacious basketful and more, before the steamer leaves the canal.

And thus we floated onward to the bosom of great Superior.

Our course was along the St. Mary outlet, northwesterly toward White Fish Point, on the main south shore, projecting far out into the lake. We were hence carried miles away from sight of the famed-pictured rocks or of any land. Tending southerly and still westward, we steamed on over the dark waters, during a serene night, until daylight showed us the beautiful town of Marquette. Scarce seven years old, the fruit of the iron mining in its vicinity, it spreads its neat white cottages around the crescent of its bay and river on an amphitheatre of hills. The rail train destined to Bai de Noc, on Green Bay, and finished to Marquette Mines, in all some eighteen miles, was starting upon our arrival. Marquette, though so young, a mere group of cottages, fronting a wilderness, from its rich mines of the best iron, has become at once a scene of industry and large outlay of capital; while the beauty of its position and its unrivalled climate, surpassing all others on Lake Superior, have already made it the most attractive summer resort, as well for the pleasure traveller as the pulmonary invalid. Its climate, without the sea air, has a cool, silken softness, reminding one of Newport, Rhode Island. It is more equable and certain; the summer average is 66°, and the winter 41°; while the lake wind and evaporation secure it from the rapid changes of the sea shores.

Marquette is the lake port and entrepot of the short range of iron mountains which adjoin their sisters, known as the Porcupine Mountains, in whose depths lies the famous copper ore, not unmixed with silver and other precious deposits. This great mountain fortress extends from Marquette to Montreal River, beyond Ontonagon, the western boundary of the State of Michigan, in a line of about twelve to eighteen miles south of the lake, and often approaches two thousand feet in height, lifting its forest sides in constant view for more than two hundred miles. Leaving Marquette and the iron range at 7 A.M., on the 3d of August, we sailed for Portage, the first harbor in the copper mountains, arriving about noon.

Portage is a shallow bay or mouth of the river of the same name, on the east shore of Keewaiwonah Promontory, or, as it is commonly called, Keweenaw Point. The mines and town of Portage lie at the mountains, about sixteen miles inland. A few huts were the only signs of settlement at the bay. Tugs landed the freight and passengers, and we soon left the wooded bank for the broad expanse of the lake, turning the head of the promontory, and at 5 P.M. reaching Copper Harbor on its northwest shore. Here we lay till morning. The village is small, at the base of a lower range of mineral mountains, spurs of the main chain.

The Clarke Copper Mine is within two miles of the wharf. This mine, like many others, has had many owners. It had just gone through the experiments of a French company, which expended its capital, as alleged, in building fine roads, bridges, and residences for its agents, while the mining had scarcely reached one hundred and twenty feet deep, and then employed only six Frenchmen as its miners, whose ore product was little over three per cent. of copper. In other hands, perhaps, it may now yield a better reward.

We were much amused with the description given by these Frenchmen of the mishaps of their ill-directed enterprise. Persistent as Chinese, resembling many others of the French nation in their ignorance of our country, language, or customs, they had passed through many droll blunders, which rendered their narrative highly entertaining.

Copper Harbor, although so small, only then claiming about seventy legal voters in the entire township, including the mines, was promised the unusual treat of a political address that evening, as duly placarded, from a gentleman, who was then candidate for Governor of Michigan, and came in our boat. The apathy and indifference of the free and enlightened electors of Copper Harbor were remarkable. A small, dingy room, adjoining the only store, was the destined arena; and therein, dimly lighted by some tallow candles, long sat the candidate—alone: a rejected Timon, whose reflections were never published. The only interest taken in the meeting (that came under my notice) was an anxious inquiry by the owner of the building for his rent and expense of candles, etc., payment of which was alleged to have been refused by the candidate.

Singularly happy Copper Harbor! your contented equanimity is unruffled by all the stormy strife of politicians.

Its lake front is graced by a fort, now and long since a water-cure establishment. All these Western forts, erected many years ago, seem not intended for offence, but rather as stockades or blockhouses of shelter from the Indians. They are arranged as extensive tenements within, pierced for musketry, and only in some cases with terraces for cannon. These frontier forts, long the dwelling of the hunter or his family in the wilderness, were guarded by the company of troops who protected the settlers and maintained the sovereignty of our flag and nation over these remote wilds. They are always placed in the most eligible and commanding positions, and seem as if by design to have secured the settlement of these points, which in all cases have become the thronged cities or favorite towns of the ever-growing West. Thus, in Europe, the ancient Roman fortified camps on their frontiers founded Cologne, Chester, Vienna, Milan, Verona, and other cities, once their military outposts against barbarism.

About 7 A. M. of the 4th August, we left Copper Harbor on our course, and soon reached Eagle River. This is another copper-mining settlement, straggling along its poor harbor, somewhat larger than Copper Harbor, and more picturesque. Landing a few of our company, we sailed to Ontonagon, the largest of these copper-mine towns (perhaps two thousand in population), and situated upon a sand reach at the mouth of its river, which leads to the Great Minnesota Mine, eighteen miles distant.

Early in the clear morning of the 5th of August, we were moving up Allouez Bay. Sounding slowly over its bar, and passing Minnesota Point and Island, between the mouths of the Rivers St. Louis and Nemadji, we arrived at Superior City, our destined haven.

Superior City, by its pretentious name, great distance, and our expectations, had risen to much importance in our imagination, but the actual scene presented a wide contrast. A large town—or metropolis—on a poor harbor, without interior resources or communications, had been hastily projected. It is called the head of ocean navigation, and the terminus of many proposed but as yet imaginary railroads. While the titles to all the land are still in litigation, the wilderness shades its streets, and, saving the rare arrival of the Indian mail carrier on snow shoes, during six months of intense cold, they are isolated from all humanity. Its grand prospectus, some five years before, had drawn there about three thousand people; and soon afterward, starved and disappointed, nearly all, save perhaps five hundred, had deserted. About two miles of streets, planked from the mud, with frame dwellings, had been constructed, and they had already attained the first municipal blessing—taxes--to the total of $45,000, payable by this feeble remnant of a settlement, mainly of abandoned dwellings. Should the railroads so frequently surveyed and designed to terminate here be really built, Superior City may see, to some extent, in future years, somewhat of that prosperity which its projectors, blinded by their hopes, had thought already realized.

Few positions are more picturesque. In front, the shores of Portland and Minnesota rise in beautiful grandeur, and the bay and harbor, although imperfect, are richly wooded and very graceful; while, all the way thither, from La Pointe, the lake's waters, lying among the mountains, shadowed by their heavy foliage, remind one much of the scenery of the Lower Danube. This ghost of a city had not much left of interest, and we passed our day in arranging for the journey across the country southward to St. Paul.

And here we found ourselves really pioneers. No road or transport was alleged to exist. We persevered. Indians and trappers beset us with their projects of tracking and portage by the St. Croix and other rivers, requiring a camp life with strange companions of nearly a month to accomplish the distance of only one hundred and sixty-three miles, equivalent to that of Albany from New York. A military road direct through the wilderness had been often surveyed, and once cut through, of about eighty feet width, to near Sunrise City, fifty miles from St. Paul; at which point the dense forest spreads into oak openings and beautiful prairies. This single cutting, long overgrown in lofty pines, with the frequent surveys and contracts, from the year 1852 to 1857, had cost the United States Government, for this distance of about one hundred and twelve miles, $150,000; and no actual road had ever yet been made. Fortunately for our enterprise, we met a gentleman who had just groped through safely on horseback. We were reassured, and engaged the only available wagon and team—a small, frail affair, devoid of cover, seats, or springs; and, with ample provisions, perched upon our luggage, we rolled out of Superior City that evening, and, passing its significantly large cemetery, we at once entered the forest. These woods are chiefly of pine, cedar, tamarack, or hemlock, gigantic in size, a dreary solitude, unvisited by any bird or game, save an occasional hawk or owl. They are but the southern outposts of that forest army which begirds Hudson's Bay, and spreads its gloomy barrier of the same trees around the dominions of the Ice King, while it is the only forest to be met with in all the Mississippi Valley.

The width of about eighty feet—that theoretical road for which the United States had paid so often and so well—was seen between the mightiest sentinel trees; but in the midst had sprung up a fresh growth, often nearly one hundred feet high, surrounded by huge stumps, and heavy undergrowth of the renewing forest, varied with hopeless mudholes and swamps, and only at intervals of about twenty miles was there any habitation.

Such was the great military road. Perhaps its progress equalled the actual wants of this region; for population had not yet crowded any of the forest borders. It was then by the adjoining townships, under State laws, feebly commencing to be really made as a road; and frequently we halted at the camps of these hardy sons of toil. Our first twenty-one miles to Twin Lakes, at the best speed, with good horses, occupied eight hours, three of which, in the middle of the night, were passed under deluging rain accompanied by thunder and lightning of the most appalling grandeur, thumping in the shelterless wagon over stumps and bogholes through the dreary woods.

Twin Lakes—or the isthmus between two small lakes, in the depths of the forest—is a solitary log house and stable. Its proprietor and our landlord for the night's shelter was, I believe, named John Smith. With his family he had lived there, keeping this hotel for some years, owning several lots in the paper City of Twin Lakes, rich in the anticipated tide of gain to flow from the crowded thoroughfare of the great military road.

Happy man! we were the first party on wheels that had yet essayed the road. Perhaps his posterity, by patience, may win their reward.

Our rain deluge, with sheeted lightning and pealing thunder, was ceaseless throughout the night. Its echoes amid the forest solitudes were awful; and our fitful sleep was varied by the rain dripping between the logs of our shelter.

However, morning came at last, bright, clear, and calm; and early we resumed our wagon and way-picking among the familiar logs and stumps, contesting as for life with legions of mosquitoes, sandflies, etc. And thus we made thirty miles farther (halting at a camp for dinner) to the City of Chengwatana, which is so named on the large and beautiful map thereof, prepared in New York. It is laid out in Broadways, Fifth Avenues, Lydig Avenue, and, I believe, Daly Square, so named from J. Daly, of New York, with parks, colleges, etc., etc., adequate for a million of inhabitants. This fine imaginary picture proved unavailing to sell the land. It still remains a swamp bordering Snake River, in the bosom of the wilderness; and its entire population was only one German and his family—really indefinite in number of children—and two log houses, between which he vibrated at pleasure.

Our arrival was in another violent rain, lasting far into the night; but we considered ourselves, by this time, road and water proof. On the river shore, by the red glare of the fire light a wigwam and some Indians were visible; and frequently we heard their rifle shots. To our surprise, in the morning, instead of deer, they brought in a large basket of lake trout, each pierced through the head with a bullet when approaching the fire light.

Morning found us early on our hard way to the famed City of Fortuna, whose picture displayed a similar origin and imagination, and its reality was even more doleful.

Fortuna City, on Kettle River, in the woods, contained three log cabins, and no inhabitants. A boy came hither, perhaps from Superior, the day before, to meet our party. After repelling some furious charges of the mosquito cavalry, who displayed their vigor after long starving, we gave up the contest, and attempted sleep.

To our log cabin had come that day several engineers, who formed a surveying party for another railroad project, passing through this forest from St. Paul, whence they had started a month before with an ample wagon train. The Indians had murdered the drivers and captured the wagons with their entire property; and in their destitution they sought this only shelter. We took them forward with us into St. Paul, and were greatly indebted for their intelligent society and kind attentions.

Fortuna City had one peculiar interest to us; it was the last halt and lodging in the forest. Our next day's ride—if such it may be called—brought us to the oak openings at Folsom's, a clearing on the southern skirt of this wilderness, and shortly after to Sunrise City.

Our forest journey to-day was varied by the utter collapse of the wagon in a vain charge upon an obstinate stump; and perforce we walked for miles, till reaching a camp of the road workers on the farther bank of Grindstone River, we joyfully forded and found shelter from the noontide heat and mosquitoes; while the German sutler, who alone remained, busied himself in his primitive al fresco cookery, which we enjoyed, and then, exchanging to another wagon, hastened on to our destination.

The oak openings—those grand parklike expanses and rolls of land, with stately groups of giant oaks—far surpassing all culture of man, set out by the Creator on such a noble forest background, never looked more majestic and beautiful. They were vocal with singing birds, and filled with life; at their foot thronged the grouse or prairie chicken, darting through the high flowering grasses (richer than all garden flowers) in such numbers that but a few feet from our wheels we shot them in great abundance.

Sunrise City—a village but of yesterday (public lands, for sale by proclamation, adjoining)—is beautifully placed on Sunrise River, and might have then contained about five hundred inhabitants, whose neat white cottages and pleasant streets, bordering a romantic river and bridge, made a picture not unlike the scenery of Warwickshire, England.

We reached here—fifty miles still north of St. Paul—to pass the first night of our ride in a comfortable dwelling.

Many a fine farm, just cleared and broken, attracted us here, and hence along the prairie road into St. Paul, where we arrived at the close of the following day, which proved to be, as we kept no calendar, Thursday, the 9th of August.

Our drive this last day led past numerous linked lakes, with their borders of the tall Minnesota rice grass in flower, the home of the canvas back, pelican, and swan. Passing through the village of Little Canada, we rode on to Minnehaha Prairie along its gentle, verdant slope, and lapse of shining waters of Twelve Lakes, graced with the names of Como, Garda, etc., and adorned with many a pretty boat and sail. A few miles further brought us to the upper terrace of beautiful St. Paul.

As pioneers of this wilderness route, we met with marked attention from all, and passed some agreeable days at St. Paul, Fort Snelling, Minneapolis, St. Anthony, and their numerous points of interest. Our homeward route was by the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, where old Fort Crawford, then a mere tenement, commands the confluence of the Wisconsin River with the Father of Waters. This sail of three hundred miles consumed forty-eight hours.

The river banks recede and advance in lake-like expanses along its winding course, and their richly wooded heights, crowned with red sandstone, resemble the ruined Rhine castles. The sail through Lake Pepin, and between the States of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, was varied by frequent and thriving towns and villages.

From Prairie du Chien—a picture of straggling despair—by the Milwaukie and Prairie du Chien Railroad, and the Northwestern Railroad, two hundred and twenty-two miles, we reached Chicago, and passed through a crowd of beautiful towns, in a State scarce a generation since reclaimed from the Indians. Familiar railroads transported us from Chicago to Detroit, Niagara, Albany, and New York.

Our whole distance of travel in three weeks was thirty-four hundred and forty-one miles. It was brief, but spiced with adventure, and over a field of vast interest, present and future.

Our beautiful country, made one and indivisible by the great and good Author of its existence, through its mighty natural features, has, among its chief grandeurs, this water system of the great northern lakes, the frontier of the ever-progressive and patriotic West and North. In dimensions, sublimity, and beauty, by the consent of all, it is without parallel on earth.

A volume of the purest fresh water is gathered in Lake Superior, without visible, adequate supply, to a depth of one thousand feet, with a length of near five hundred miles, and average breadth of one hundred and sixty miles, on a bottom lifted six hundred feet above sea level.

This incalculable mass of water moves its limpid wave through the Saut Sainte Marie into its twin seas, Lakes Michigan and Huron, then by St. Clair and Detroit Rivers is poured through Lake Erie, ever gradually descending, till, at great Niagara, 'The Thunder of the Waters,' it tosses in fury along its rapids, leaps the cataract in glory, at a rate of one hundred millions of tons of water the hour, and then sweeps away into Lake Ontario, to form that northern Mississippi, the River St. Lawrence, which, for over one thousand miles, holds on its ever increasing and widening current, in majesty to the broad Atlantic. By the canals at the Falls and Saut Sainte Marie, direct and continuous ship and steam navigation for sea-going vessels from the Atlantic to Superior City, the extreme Northwest, or Chicago on the Southwest, over three thousand miles through the heart of the continent, is open, while the American coast line along these great waters, exceeds thirty-two hundred miles. Complete in itself, the source of life, health, fine climate, fertility, wealth, and countless blessings to all its shores and valleys, it is divided by lofty barriers from all the other chief water systems of the United States. The Mississippi rises in the highlands of Minnesota at Lake Itasca, more than one hundred miles west of Lake Superior, and gathers in its course all the rivers of its valley. Still loftier mountains separate the sources of the Hudson and Connecticut, and the other rivers of the Atlantic slope.

Blessed with soil and climate unsurpassed, and a Government the nearest to perfection, this region, watered by a mighty inland ocean, is already the chief granary of the world, as well as its great mineral store, although its railway system is not yet extended to its utmost limits; and beyond Michigan it is scarce thirty years since the Americans gained a settlement in its borders.

The greatness of ancient Europe, Asia, and Africa gathered along the shores and harbors of the Mediterranean; all beyond was barbarism, bound to the sovereigns of the Midland Sea only by terror of arms. Even to this day, the laws and literature of those master nations are yet dominant in all the learning and social polity of Europe. This great northern water system is geographically the Mediterranean of the North American continent, and Minnesota, the actual centre, is its omphalos.

The geographical centre of North America in the heart of Minnesota is also the pinnacle of its watershed—the central source of the majestic rivers whose vast basins determine the physical contour, climates, products, commerce, industry, and political destiny of two-fifths of the whole continent.

With such a theatre for development, the future of this great area, in near grasp, surpasses conception. Egypt, with it endless renown, dwindles into insignificance in comparison. The paramount supremacy of any nation depends wholly on its utility to the rest of mankind.

The warrior nation yields in turn to a stronger foe, while all alike are willing tributaries to the natural arbiter of commerce and source of food supply. Wars, by the laws of Providence, attend the convulsions of national change and growth; but all alike ever welcome the white-winged doves of commerce as the ministers and messengers of national glory and prosperity.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN TAXATION.

There have been few more striking circumstances connected with the transcendent changes which have taken place in this country during the past three years than the steady verification, amid every change, of those great principles of political economy which, during the past half century, have been the practical guides of European legislation. In fact, under the pressure of war we are slowly coming to realize our fellowship with the communities of the Old World in the laws of social change. Step by step the nation is now passing through all the changes in its internal and domestic condition that took place in Great Britain in the wars with Napoleon. Struck with the novelty and apparent anomalies of our condition, we have been inclined to feel that it was without parallels in history. But in that period of English history which beheld a suspension of specie payment protracted twenty years, an enormous expansion of the currency—the appreciation of gold—a rise in prices unparalleled in any country—a wild spirit of speculation—and, with all, an appearance of astonishing prosperity in the midst of a most exhausting war, we see the reflection of our own condition, and find the lessons by which we should be governed. We have now, for the first time, become a people conscious of taxation. It is clear that the burdens of the future must be still greater than anything we have yet borne in the past. The questions as to the best modes of taxation have already begun to call forth the anxious deliberation of the nation. The question is asked by some if we have not already reached that limit where taxation ceases to be a contribution from the surplus of society, and beyond which it will become a draught on the vital, productive energies of the country. It cannot be unprofitable, at such a time, to examine the history of English taxation in the great periods of similar trial through which that nation has passed.

The great rebellion marks the era of the adoption of a regular system of taxation in Great Britain. 'From a period of immemorial antiquity,' says Macaulay, 'it had been the practice of every English Government to contract debts; what the Revolution introduced was the practice of honestly paying them.'

The change is significant of the triumph of the people. It was found, on the breaking out of the rebellion, that not even an army of Puritans could be sustained without money. The plan of weekly assessments was at first adopted. It was unequal and frequently oppressive. In 1643 it was proposed, in the republican Parliament, to place a tax on the manufacture of beer and cider. The proposition was not at first favorably received. That solemn body had no objection to checking the abominations of beer drinking, but it hesitated to inaugurate a species of taxation which seemed to infringe upon some of the most cherished rights of Englishmen. After much discussion the bill was carried, though with the express declaration that it was compelled by the necessities of the state, and should not be renewed. The tax was soon found too convenient to be dispensed with. In spite of the good resolutions of Parliament, the act was again and again renewed. As the necessities of the state increased, the list of articles was enlarged, and the rate of duty gradually augmented. Thus the excise was introduced to the English people, and thus, almost before they had ceased to look upon it as an intruder, it had acquired a foothold in the budget, from which it has never since been possible to shake it. The burden of the excise at this period, however, was not oppressive. During the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. a tax, which has since produced to the state an annual income of $90,000,000, did not probably average more than £500,000. It gives us a singular picture of the simplicity of that period that even this small sum made up one third of the whole royal revenue for the year. The other two thirds were drawn in about equal proportions from the customs and crown lands.

We now approach one of the most important eras in the financial history of England. The nation was yet unaccustomed to taxation, and was weighed down by no national debt. In the Revolution of 1688, and the events that grew immediately out of it, we find, however, the origin of nearly every species of tax now in use in Great Britain. In the same agitated period we find also the beginning of the national debt. Louis XIV. espoused the cause of James, and England entered upon a war with France. In a conflict with the greatest monarchy of Europe, the Government soon found itself forced to adopt a scale of national expenditure which the preceding generation would not have conceived possible. At once, as in a night, a harvest of strange taxes sprang up on every hand. The list of excisable articles was increased. The tax on houses and windows, that had been so unpopular in the preceding reign, was again introduced, and a new appraisement was made of all the real estate in the kingdom. A degenerate age might take exceptions to some of the other taxes now instituted. An act was passed placing a tax upon bachelors and widowers, fixing, at the same time, 'certain rules and duties on marriages, births, and burials, for the term of five years, for the carrying on the war against France with vigor.' Men were not even permitted to enjoy the subtile luxury derived from having a title attached to the name without taxation. Persons of the present day, wishing to know the relative value of the titles, will be interested in the following law, passed at this time:

Every person bearing the title of
esquire, or reputed, or owning, or
writing himself such, shall pay	£5

Every gentleman, or reputed gentleman,
or owning himself such,
shall pay	£1

These, however, were by no means the most burdensome forms of taxation. A man would willingly pay for the distinction of writing himself an esquire, who would grumble with dissatisfaction at the duty on his salt. But to meet the increasing expense of the state, and 'carrying on the war with vigor in France and Ireland' (the propitiating clause with which nearly all the acts of taxation of the period close), the most minute articles, both of necessity and luxury, were required to bear a portion of the common burden. The nation bore its unaccustomed load with singular patience. A license duty on hackney coaches, imposed in 1693, called forth, however, opposition from an unexpected quarter. The outraged wives of the hackmen assembled, and, to express their indignation at the tax, mobbed the offending members of Parliament on their way from the House. It should be mentioned, as showing the intrepidity of that body, or, more probably, the great necessities of the state, that the tax remained unchanged. In spite of all these taxes, the greatest difficulty was experienced in procuring funds to carry on the war. A general lack of confidence in the stability of the Government prevented men from taking up readily the loans which the Government was forced to call for. Various expedients were adopted to attract the cupidity of capitalists. Among these the most successful was the custom of receiving loans upon tontines. This was a species of annuity. Twenty or thirty persons united in the purchase from Government of an annuity upon the joint lives of their whole number. At the death of each his share went to those who remained, and was distributed equally among them. The final survivor took the whole annuity. No inducements, however, were sufficient to overcome the popular distrust. The national debt had already begun to accumulate. Exchequer bills sold on the street at forty per cent. discount; while, at the same time, a wild spirit of speculation and adventure, such as is too apt to be produced by the unnatural excitements of a state of war, had seized upon the popular mind, and threatened, in its reaction, to bring the whole nation to ruin.

It was at this time of excitement and danger that the National Bank was established. It was not at first favorably received. But the effect of its steadying influence soon began to be felt in the whole financial condition of the state. It even checked for a time the frenzied spirit of stock jobbing, which was absorbing the strength of the nation, and with which a few years later, when the whole country ran wild with the South Sea Bubble, it was so nearly involved in a mortal struggle. Under the influence of the Bank, the business of the nation gradually acquired an evenness and stability which was unknown to any former age.

But while the establishment of this National Bank supplied the Government with a ready and economical method of procuring funds, it did not do away with the necessity of taxes. A new form of taxation was now furnished by the Dutch. This small and ingenious people, in the defence of their liberty, had been early forced into extraordinary expenditures, and were in advance of every other nation in the perfection of their system of taxation. The English Parliament had, in the preceding age, borrowed from them the excise. They now took from the same source the idea of stamp duties. This species of tax had been invented in a competition for a prize offered by the Dutch Government for the discovery of a new form of tax, which should press lightly on the people, and, at the same time, produce a large revenue to the state. Stamps were introduced in England in the year 1693. The nation was now in possession of the four most important methods of taxation: customs, excise, licenses, and stamps. The first had existed in the island from a period of immemorial antiquity. The second was introduced by the Great Rebellion. The third and fourth came in with the wars attendant upon the accession of William and Mary.

Of these different forms it may be said, that the second is most obnoxious to the people, and the third most unequal. We should add, perhaps, to this list the land tax, which, founded on the new assessment made by William, became from this time a regular source of revenue. In this period, we see, was laid the foundation of the whole system of taxation now in use in this country and in Great Britain. The hundred years that followed produced no new species of tax. The five forms which we have mentioned, however, were diligently cultivated. In the nine years which immediately followed the accession of William and Mary, about forty distinct acts of taxation were passed by Parliament. Still it was impossible for a nation counting less than six million inhabitants to pay the expenses of a vast and protracted war by immediate taxation. In 1697 a debt existed of about one hundred million dollars. This is the foundation of that national debt which, with trifling exceptions, has been constantly increasing for more than two centuries, and which now occupies a position of influence not second to that of the throne itself. The importance of the Bank increased with the growth of the debt, and the effects of their combined influence appeared on every hand. They were the national pledges for the stability of the Government.

Every fresh rumor of preparation on the part of the exiled Stuarts to enter England, filled the people with alarm for the safety of the Bank. And when, in 1745, Charles Edward landed in Scotland, and made his romantic advance into the kingdom, an enormous run was begun on the Bank. It was prevented from doing harm only by the patriotism of the London merchants. In this brief rebellion the people realized the important financial interest which each citizen had acquired in the permanency of the existing Government and the stability of the reigning house.

At first Parliament had proceeded in the imposition of its taxes on the principle that a tax, to be equitable and easy, should be distributed over a great variety of articles. It was argued that a man would pay a small duty on a large number of things with less inconvenience and consciousness of burden than if the same tax was levied upon a few prominent articles. The pettiness of the tax would keep him in a kind of deception as to the total amount he was paying, which not even the frequency with which he was called upon to pay it would entirely remove. This theory, together with a condition of state in which the wants of Government were constantly increasing, produced, in the time of William and Mary, a constant multiplication of petty taxes. In the early part of the following reign many of these were consolidated in separate funds, which were designated to pay specific parts of the national debt.

But the number of articles subject to taxation was not reduced. The restlessness of the people under the numerous exactions of the excise soon, however, suggested the necessity of a change. Government now passed to one of those extremes which were only too common in an age when political economy had not yet risen into a science, and legislation was only an art of shifts and expedients. In 1736 a tax of five dollars upon the gallon was imposed on all English-made spirits, with a corresponding protective tariff on those of foreign manufacture. The result of this extraordinary tax proved the folly of its originators. It failed as a source of revenue, and, so far from removing these articles beyond the reach of the poor, which had been one of the designs of the bill, it was estimated that the business of smuggling was so stimulated by the enormous bounty offered upon its labors, that the amount of spirits consumed in the kingdom during the existence of this tax was not sensibly diminished. After a short trial the tax was removed.

The work of reducing the list of excisable articles was nevertheless begun, and from this time it went slowly, and, except as interrupted by extraordinary demands upon the state, steadily forward. Stamps, however, were governed by a different law. Its inoffensiveness, the economy of its mode of collection, together with its ready availability, caused this species of tax to be brought into more and more extensive use. In fact, a constant increase of taxation in some form had become necessary in order to meet the increasing expenses of the state. After the close of the war in 1697, strong efforts were made to pay off the national debt, the rising greatness of which filled all classes with alarm. No corresponding efforts since have been rewarded with similar results. In the brief period of peace that followed, the national debt was reduced one fifth. Four expensive wars, following each other in rapid succession, overwhelmed the petty labors of the sinking fund, put an end to the work of diminution, and left the nation, at the beginning of the war with her colonies in this country, oppressed with a debt of $600,000,000. It came out from this struggle with $500,000,000 added to the burden of the state. This point of time may be fixed as the close of the second epoch. A new class of changes now begin, which have had, if possible, a greater influence on the financial condition of England, as it exists at the present, than those we have already described.

In 1793, notwithstanding its enormous debt, the country boldly entered upon its great conflict with France. It is impossible to look without admiration upon the obstinate energy displayed by the English nation during this conflict, which lasted, with slight intermissions, for more than twenty years, and by which the annual tax was quadrupled, and the national debt increased beyond a chance of final extinction. In the astonishing revolution which it wrought in the financial condition of the state, as well as in much of the social phenomena with which it was accompanied, this conflict strongly resembles that in which the States of the North are engaged against the South. The first effects of the war appeared in the tax system.

Great changes had taken place in Great Britain since the time of the introduction of a regular system of taxation in 1688. Land was no longer the most important source of income to the citizen. Profits from other sources had sprung up. Commerce had discovered the riches of the Eastern trade, and manufactures, stimulated by new inventions, had begun to assume an importance and exert an influence which already threatened to revolutionize the whole condition of society. Unconsciously to itself, the nation had reached a point where any large increase in the demands of the state must produce a new species of taxation. The war with France supplied the impulse required. In 1797, Government attempted to meet the extraordinary expenses of the year by tripling the tax on houses and windows, etc. The experiment failed. It was found that these taxes, which had been the 'towers of strength' of a preceding generation, could no longer be relied on in the changed circumstances that had been brought about by time.

It was in many respects one of the darkest periods in English history. The Austrian armies, exhausted by repeated defeats, hoped only to be able to defend themselves if attacked. Spain and the Netherlands had joined themselves to France. Against the power of Napoleon England stood up alone. At this critical juncture, a mutiny broke out in the English navy. The whole fleet in the channel refused to do duty. The fleet at the Nore, catching the spirit of revolt, also raised the red flag. The doctrines of the French Revolution were sedulously scattered throughout the kingdom, and in several counties of Ireland actual uprisings had taken place. Added to these were financial difficulties. The enormous outlays demanded for the prosecution of the war were very naturally weakening the public confidence in the final ability of the Government to pay the extravagant sums it was obliged to borrow. Under the influence of the distrust thus engendered stocks fell. Three per cents., which had sold at 98, went down to 53. Many of the loans effected by the Government at this time and during the war were made with a discount of forty per cent. on the nominal value of the stock. Gold was scarce, and rapidly rising. The pressure on the Bank for redemption was greater than it had been since the rebellion of 1745, and threatened, unless corrective measures were at once adopted, to bring that institution to actual bankruptcy.

The undaunted courage and resolution of the Government, in the midst of this accumulation of difficulties, saved the country. The writ of habeas corpus was suspended. By an admirable mingling of firmness and conciliation the mutiny was quelled in the navy without serious consequences resulting to the state. To meet the financial difficulties, an act was passed by Parliament permitting the Bank to suspend specie payment—thus delivering the country, for a period of more than twenty years, over to a wholly inconvertible paper currency. From these strong measures the enemies of the country anticipated the most disastrous results. They were, however, doomed to disappointment. Even Napoleon at length grew weary of prophesying the bankruptcy of a nation which every year, from this time, gave more and more effective proofs of the stability of its finances. It was the singular fortune of Great Britain to have at the head of its finances, at this juncture, a man, who in a different sphere, exhibited a spirit scarcely less bold, indomitable, and comprehensive than that of the First Consul himself. This man was Mr. Pitt. The finances of Great Britain, even at the present day, bear witness to the extraordinary changes instituted by this statesman. The tax on houses, windows, etc., had failed. In 1798, Mr. Pitt, with a characteristic fertility of invention, brought forward a bill laying a tax on incomes. By this bill, which is the foundation of all those that have since followed, no tax was imposed on incomes that were less than $300; on incomes above this sum a small tax was laid, which gradually increased until it became one tenth of all incomes over $1,000. The income tax was designed by Mr. Pitt to be simply a war tax. According to his plan the interest upon the national debt, which he kept funded as far as possible, was to be provided for solely from the indirect taxes, leaving the direct tax to meet the extraordinary expenses of the war. The most original feature of the financial system instituted by this statesman, however, was the sinking fund. To prevent the rapid accumulation of the national debt, Mr. Pitt, even before the breaking out of the war with France, had obtained from Parliament permission to set aside six million dollars, with an addition, afterward made, of one per cent. of all the loans made by Government, as a fund to be expended in the purchase of Government stock. The rapid growth of this fund from the constant compounding of interest would, he declared, be sufficient, ultimately, to consume the entire debt of the state. The result seemed to justify his prediction. Constantly in the market, the sinking fund saved the state, by its timely purchases many times during the war, from the disastrous depreciation to which the public stock was liable at every unfavorable turn of the conflict. In 1815, so enormous had been the financial transactions of the state that this fund amounted to about $75,000,000.

In 1802 the income tax was discontinued; and, in the following year, was renewed under the name of the property tax. The expenses of the state continued to rise, and it became necessary that this tax should be largely increased. During the last ten years of the war the property tax required ten per cent. of all the incomes of the kingdom—with a few exceptions—to be paid into the national treasury every year. Never before had such a burden been laid on Englishmen. All classes groaned under the exactions of a tax every penny of which they were made conscious of by direct collection. In comparison with the property tax all other burdens seemed easy. It is now clear, however, that the nation could never have passed successfully through the great struggle in which it was engaged without the assistance of the tax upon incomes. It stood next in order of productiveness to the excise. In the year 1815 the property tax produced seventy-five millions of dollars. Still the people remembered with pleasure that the word of Parliament had been given that it should not continue longer than the return of peace. The time was eagerly looked forward to when that promise should be redeemed. Early in 1816 the question of the continuance of the tax came up before Parliament. A strong party, impressed with the importance of diminishing the national debt, advocated its continuance. Every night, for two months, the subject was anxiously discussed. The motion for its abolition was at last carried. The vast crowd which had assembled without the Parliament House to await the result, caught the sound of cheering in the chamber, and, receiving it as a signal of success, rent the air with shouts of joy. The enthusiasm spread with the news. Bells were rung as for a great victory, and bonfires in all parts of the kingdom proclaimed the joy of the nation at its release from what was regarded the moat oppressive burden of the war. Twenty-five years later the income tax was again revived.

The national debt at the close of the war with France amounted to a little more than $424,000,000,000. Of this, $300,000,000,000 had been added by the war. During the last years of the contest the annual expenditures of the state were $585,000,000. The population of the island was at this time 13,400,000, from which $360,000,000 was annually collected in taxes. It is important to notice the condition of the people during this epoch. For nearly twenty years the country had been under the uncontrolled influence of a paper currency. It had been a period of remarkable prosperity, coupled with unparalleled changes. And here we find many points of resemblance with the present condition of our own country. The rapidly expanding currency, the enormous demands of the war, and the spirit of speculation engendered by the sharp alternations of hope and fear, and the extraordinary fluctuations of the markets had stimulated in every branch of business a preternatural activity. Manufactures, which the beginning of the war had found just rising into prominence, rapidly developed in an age of financial profusion. No such progress had ever been made in a corresponding period. Exports were doubled. The shipping rose from one to two and a half million tons. The whole nation exhibited the singular spectacle of a country constantly advancing in wealth and prosperity in the midst of one of the most exhaustive wars that the world has ever seen.

To this, however, there was apparently, at least, one exception. Prices rose steadily from the beginning of the war. This was true not merely of unimportant articles, or those which, by the exercise of a more severe economy, could be in part dispensed with. The cost of the necessaries of life doubled. Wheat rose from forty-nine shillings per quarter in 1797 to one hundred and forty shillings in 1813; while the beef which was sold in Smithfield market, at the beginning of the war, at three shillings per stone, constantly advanced in price, until the same quantity in 1814 could only be bought for six shillings. Malt, coal, wages—everything rose proportionately. Few questions have been the subject of more discussion than the cause of this remarkable rise of prices. Two diverse explanations have been given, each put forth by men whose habits of thought and opportunities for observation qualify them to speak on the subject with authority. One large party attribute the rise of prices that took place at this period, entirely to the influence of the suspension of specie payment by the Bank, which, as they say, flooded the country with an inflated and depreciated paper currency, and thus necessitated a corresponding rise in the price of the articles given in exchange for it. So strongly does this reasoning commend itself to the minds of those familiar with the first principles of political economy, that it has been very generally accepted. And it is worthy of notice that these are almost the only arguments which can be heard in explanation of the similar rise of prices now going on in this country. A more subtile but very important class of influences were brought to notice by another party, under the able leadership of Mr. Tooke. By these the rise of prices is, to a large degree, attributed to the excited spirit of speculation produced by the war, which, as they show, twice during this period brought the country to the brink of ruin. In favor of this explanation it may be further said that the fall of prices began immediately on the close of the war, and at no time was greater than in 1817, two years before the resumption of specie payment by the Bank. In 1819 the Bank of England resumed the payment of specie. Gold, which had been at one time at a premium of twenty-five per cent., now fell rapidly, and in 1821 was again at par.

It is difficult to say which has exerted the largest influence on the finances of Great Britain—the Revolution of 1688, or the wars with France in the beginning of this century. The first gave to England its system of taxation, but the last developed the capabilities of that system, and adapted it to the wants of a growing and commercial people.

The nation came out of its long conflict with taxes pressing upon nearly every important branch of industry. In the sixteen years that followed the war with France, taxes to the amount of nearly $200,000,000, were taken off from the country. These changes gave opportunities for many important reforms. While the national debt was slowly reduced, the tax system underwent great changes. Many taxes which had checked the growth of important branches of business were entirely removed. Efforts were made to reduce the excise, which was always an unpopular form of taxation. In carrying forward these changes, it was found that one really productive tax might be made to take the place of a large number of small duties which pressed with peculiar severity upon the people. Government now turned longingly to that 'splendid source of revenue,' as it was aptly called, which it had so reluctantly relinquished in 1816. In 1842, Sir Robert Peel suddenly brought forward a plan for a new tax upon incomes. It was at once adopted. This income tax differed, however, in many important particulars, from the one which the Government had been compelled to make use of in the wars with France. By it incomes under $750 were exempt. A discrimination of very great importance was also made, which has been the occasion since for much refined discussion, and is founded in sound reason, but which has hitherto been wholly overlooked in the legislation in this country. A discrimination was made between salaries and the incomes divided from realized capital. Taxable incomes, partaking of the nature of a salary, and upon which a tax would have the character of a duty on capital, were required by the provisions of this new act to pay only one half as much as those incomes which arose from, and would be therefore added to, wealth already acquired.

The income, or property tax, as it is now called, completes the system of taxation which is now relied upon to supply the varying but always enormous wants of Great Britain. Through these various sources during the past year the English Government has collected an income of three hundred and fifty million dollars—about the same it obtained through the same channels from a population of thirteen million inhabitants in the closing years of the war with Napoleon. With the same system of taxation, our own Government has, during the past year, obtained an income of one hundred and eleven million dollars. If we examine particularly the sources of the English revenue at these two epochs, and compare them with the corresponding branches of taxation with us, we find that in the year closing in 1815, the receipts from customs amounted to about fifty-six million dollars—a sum, it will be noticed, considerably less than that drawn from the same source in this country for the past year, but only about half the amount derived from customs in Great Britain in the year ending September, 1863. From the property tax was obtained about seventy-five million dollars—the modified form of this tax now in use in Great Britain produces about fifty million dollars per annum. Either of these sums is probably much larger than it would be advisable to attempt to produce by a direct tax in this country. Stamps, in 1815, yielded an income of thirty million dollars. During the past year this simple and productive source of revenue produced in Great Britain forty-five million dollars. It seems probable that this species of tax might be extended in this country much farther than it now is, without oppression to the people, and with a handsome increase of the revenue.

But the excise has ever been the most productive fountain of revenue in Great Britain. The income from this tax in that country, during the year ending September, 1863, was eighty-four million dollars. In the year 1815, when, on account of the smaller population, the other sources of revenue were less productive than at the present day, the excise yielded an income of not less than a hundred and thirty-five million dollars. It is worthy of notice that, of this income, the tax upon the various forms of spirituous liquors supplied a large element. English spirits, which, in the experiment of 1736, it had been found could not carry a tax of five dollars per gallon, it was now found easily bore the more moderate but still large tax of ten shillings sixpence sterling. Aside from this tax was the duty on beer, cider, and malt, the last of which alone yielded an income of thirteen million dollars annually.

We have lingered on these details, which to many will be dry and uninteresting, because they supply a kind of guide to the changes which must ultimately take place in the tax laws of this country, and because, further, they furnish an answer to all those objections which periodically disturb the minds of the timid and doubtfully patriotic in our midst. But these lessons we must leave the reader to extract for himself. We close simply with saying that, while excessive and undiscriminating taxation is always a curse, yet taxation, properly imposed, although severe and long continued, may be far from disadvantageous. We have seen the English people slowly arising, through two centuries, from a nation comparatively free from taxation and without a national debt, to one bearing an annual tax of three hundred and fifty million dollars, and holding absorbed in its midst a national debt of nearly four thousand million dollars. We have seen it during this period constantly advancing in prosperity and greatness—the national debt adding stability to the Government, and taxation giving caution and stability to the transactions of private life.

APHORISMS.

NO. I.

One of the most sublime of all facts beneath that of the Divine Being, appears in the existence of an immortal soul. There it stands—once for all, once forever. The earth might be wasted away, at the rate of a single grain in a century, without passing the very infancy of our spirit's life. How insignificant, in the comparison, a world like our own, in all its temporal aspects. What the future duration of the earth may be, we have no means of knowing; but if less than endless, it is of little moment in the presence of the least capacious human soul.

THE LOVE LUCIFER.

CHAPTER II.

I find myself writing upon matters connected, at least, with, religion, with the thought of saying something useful—of presenting a valuable experience, if not a valuable congeries of new ideas. Most readers deeply interested in religion are, by this time, demanding that I show my colors—present my creed; otherwise they will shut themselves up from my influence. As I write, church bells are ringing. I know that many of those who now assemble to hang with a deathly solemnity upon the lips of preachers—while death, hell, heaven, eternity, atonement are the themes—will say: 'He treats lightly the most serious matters: he treads with dancing pumps on holy ground.' Now I claim to be, above all things, an earnest, solemn person. Yet do I verily believe that there is a humorous side to all subjects, that is not ignored by even the loftiest beings; and that, in a restricted sense, it may be said of all well-balanced persons, as a philosopher has said of children: 'Because they are in innocence, therefore they are in peace; and because they are in peace, therefore all things are with them full of mirth.' It must be admitted, however, that if the 'orthodox' creed is wholly correct, we find in the Puritans and their existing imitators the only consistent Christians. In view of the inevitable damnation of a majority of the race, they set their faces against all mirth; would eat no pleasant bread, and wear no beautiful raiment. I followed them to the letter, till, the 'naked eye' not being wholly blinded, nor the ear deafened by theologic din, I saw that nature, in all her guises and voices, was firmly opposed to all such gloomy dogmas.

In a word, then, as to creed, I find no satisfactory platform save that of the broadest eclecticism. The motto of the old Greek, 'Know that good is in all,' is mine. I am aware that the danger accruing from this style of creed is, that one often gets, in the effort at impartiality, into the meshes of pantheism; and then your list of gods many and lords many comprises all the chief divinities, from Brahm and Buddh to Thor; you priding yourself the while upon the consideration shown for 'local prejudices' by your not putting Christ at the end of the list. But, after life-long investigation, I am not ashamed to say, in the words, though not in the spirit of Emperor Julian, 'Galilean, thou hast conquered;' with Augustine, 'Let my soul calm itself in Thee; I say, let the great sea of my soul, that swelleth with waves, calm itself in Thee;' with De Staël, 'Inconcevable énigme de la vie; que la passion, ni la douleur, ni le génie ne peuvent découvrir, vous revelerez-vous à la prière;' with practical Napoleon, 'I know men, and Jesus Christ was not a man;' with a Chevalier Bunsen and a Beecher, 'Jesus Christ is my God, without any ifs or buts.' I can assent more decidedly than does Teuflesdröck, in the 'Everlasting Nay,' to the doctrine of regeneration. I narrow the whole matter down to these plain facts: Of all religions, Christianity is best calculated to elevate man's nature; and of all Christians, they reach the highest spiritual condition who regard Christ as utterly divine.

On this other matter that enters so largely into my narrative—the conjugality of disembodied spirits—I cannot forbear some further discourse before proceeding historically. The absurd idea is still prevalent that there is no sex in heaven. Those who retain this notion, despite the revelations of science concerning the universality of sex throughout creation, cannot reason very candidly. When we find in the earth positives but no negatives, light but no heat, strength but no beauty, action but no passivity, wisdom but no love, intellection but no intuition, reflection but no perception, science but no religion, then, at last, may we expect to see in the heavens men but no women.

Take the conjugal element from human creatures, and you have Hamlet without the ghost. Excepting, perhaps, the religious, it is the most powerful, prominent, exacting part of our nature. In 'man's unregenerate state,' at least, the love story is the most interesting book, marriage the most interesting ceremony, true lovers' dalliance the most interesting sight. For the beloved, one relinquishes all else—performs the greatest prodigies. Marriage is the subject most thought of, most talked about. Around it cluster all the other events of life. Rejoice, then, O 'romantic' youth and maiden, now in the days of thy youth; for this flitting romance—so soon interrupted by care and grief, by shop and kitchen and nursery, by butcher, baker, tailor, milliner, and cordwainer—is about the most genuine experience you will have in this world. Therefore, say I, cultivate romance. Devour a goodly number of the healthier novels. Weep and laugh over them—believing every word. Amadis de Gaul, even, is a better model than Gradgrind. Adore each the other sex—positively worship! Both are worshipful (in the 'abstract').

What healthy-minded person loves not to behold the eye-sparkle of pure admiration between young man and maid? 'They worship, truly, they know not what.' In bowing down to their ideal, they bow to the real human—the purified man or woman of the better land. The recluse is ever the true prophet and seer, in this as in still higher matters. Your modest-eyed student, stealing glances of unfeigned admiration at ordinary maidens, is not such a simpleton as some suppose. His seclusion has cleared his vision. He sees on through the eons—sees things as they will or may be—regards the objects of his adoration as he will in the angelhood. Why will so many decry this admiration?—when they see that, not till the youth passes the purely romantic age—fourteen to sixteen or eighteen—and begins to have commonplace thoughts of the other sex, does mischief arise.

The idea of eternal conjugality should lighten all faces with hope, and should have a most conservative influence in society. Those who are not very well matched, and yet are conscious that the very highest earthly bliss comes of a right mating, are not content to pass through this life without enjoying this bliss, if they suppose that it appertains solely to earth. So, many of them break bounds and bonds. Let these but accept the idea that conjugality is one of the chief features of the heavenly life, and they can settle down steadily to the apparent duties of this sphere, content with 'peace on earth,' since now they feel sure of rapture in heaven—a rapture, too, mind you, of a kind with which they are somewhat acquainted. It is all very well to anticipate the fact which 'eye hath not seen,' etc. But men need the prospect of an eternal joy they know of, as much as they needed that awe-inspiring Jehovah should outwork in love-inspiring Christ. In view of this, among other joys set before him, the extra-earnest worker, in public or private, can more easily deprive himself of that amount of social intercourse with the other sex which he craves. Such can suffice themselves with occasional glances of the complementary portion of mankind; and as they hurriedly pass seraphic faces in the street, they wave the hand of the spirit after them, saying: 'I prithee, O thou wonder, art human or no?' 'O you sweet beautiful! 'the king's business requires haste. Providence has set our lives so far apart we cannot hear each other speak.' But you will be a woman, and I will be a man, forever. In paradise, I will read wonderful things in those and other such eyes, and wonder at you forever. Vale! vale!'

There is a poet claiming to be of the supernal life—especially of the supernal conjugal—who has written 'epics' and 'lyrics,' of which I must honestly say, as Emerson, I believe, once honestly said of some of the writings of Swedenborg: 'I read them with an unction and an afflatus quite indescribable.' They lift one to the empyrean like nothing else I know of outside the Bible. There is such a saintly purity; such a wondrous, rich, mellow joyousness; such bounding elasticity of spirit; such an evidently irresistible gush of song in the heart; such broad catholicity of religion, that, to some, it seems impossible that they could have been written anywhere but under the perpetual midsummer skies of paradise. It may show poor taste, but to me, in those regions of the upper ether wherein Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, and Shelley grow wing-weary, he soars on strong, free pinion. His 'imaginings,' if such they are, of immortal life, as much surpass in plausibility and naturalness those of Milton, Dante, and Virgil, as the acting of a first-class theatre surpasses that seen in the old monkish 'mysteries.' This writer, T. L. Harris, has won much recognition in both hemispheres; would win much more if he appeared simply as a poet, and did not claim a seer faculty, making many positive statements that cannot be verified. He certainly comes up to Aristotle's standard, where he says: 'The object of the poet is not to treat the True as it really happened, but as it should have happened.'

And now the story. I left myself indulging in reveries concerning the expected sight of my invisible charmer. The appointed hour came. I was quite excited. I knew that the land was already full of people who claimed to see the sights of the other world as spirits see them, and fully expected to have my clairvoyant faculty opened. But I saw no 'sudden Ianthe;' and to this day have never seen even a kobold, a wraith, or a döppelganger! This was doubtless fortunate; for I was nearly driven into lunacy by the things I heard before I reached the end of this 'youthful adventure.' I should have gone 'clean daft' if the bugaboo had been permitted to show me the sights they presently promised.

Soon came again my collocutor with explanations.

'You were in such a state of excitement that the united efforts of more than forty of your spirit friends were utterly unavailing for the opening of your sight. We, too, became so excited that we lost all control of ourselves, and could only weep to hear your mournful appeals followed by your surrender of all claims upon me.' ... 'Do not think that I could ever hope to bask beneath the sunshine of your smile after having intentionally deceived you.'

Then followed much similar feminine beguilement; the faculty for which seems to be rather increased by the Jordan bath.

It began to be a noticeable fact that their magnetic power over me was such that they could cast me down to the borders of despair, and raise me thence to rapture at will. Thus a few moments of such ordinary blandishments as the following were the only apparent means of raising my usually slow-moving spirits from a very low to a very high pitch. I was complaining of the waste of paper, in writing words of letters three or four inches high; did not think any law, even a law of nature, justified the imposition of such an expenditure upon a spouse in a separate sphere. 'She' promised to tone down the expressions of attachment until she could talk as largely as she pleased; and to some further suggestions, replied:

'Really, you are quite impertinent, considering the short time we have been married.' ...

Slightly singular as it may seem to those who think that this narration is 'all gammon,' I had gone through the usual course of acquaintanceship with this airy nothing; was first distant and reserved; then slightly thawed, though still horrified at the thought of having all my thoughts read; and finally, after I felt that the invisible eyes had read, in my memory, every page of my history, was perfectly familiar and at ease in the presence this finite searcher of hearts.

I find, next in order, the following:

'So you wish me to prove that we were married, do you? Well, when you become a denizen of this higher, but none the less practical sphere, you may read, if you please, where, with wonder and strange emotion, I read, in the heavenly records of marriages.' ... [It was dated about the time of my birth.] 'Your banter is not so agreeable as your tenderness.' ... 'You are incorrigible. It will take me many a long age to bring you to a due sense of my importance,' etc. 'Some of my friends are beside themselves with mirth, at my vain attempts at taming a spirit so rude.' Then came another promise of opened vision. 'A truly solemn scene is at hand. Spend the interval in prayer.'

But again there was something wrong about the spiritual zinc or acid, and the electrical machinery would not work. The fair or foul deceiver (who knows?) came up very solemn after this failure.

''Though all men forsake thee,' said Peter, 'yet will not I forsake thee.' So now, when the highest spirits of heaven have fled in terror and dismay, your poor darling will not forsake you. Well might I sit, like Job's friends, seven days, ay, seventy times seven, in silent contemplation of him who—woe is me!—fears that I am but another Delilah, commissioned by his enemies to betray him into their hands. What can I say? what do? Oh that I had never seen the glorious light of the sun or the pure myriads of my happy home, rather than I should have beheld that sight last night. How can I explain the fact that he, whom I, at least, believe to be heaven's most supreme (string of adjectives) favorite, is sitting here with his unutterable but unrepining sorrow looking forth from his ... eyes.'

Just here I caught a glimpse of my divinity, and turning in wrath and scorn to my Titania, said, mockingly:

"While I thine amiable cheeks do coy!"

To this she replies: 'Do not heap additional reproaches upon me, by any such awfully ludicrous quotations.' ... 'So you think that your Delilah is striving to gain time by all these pious and otherwise interesting remarks?' ... 'Nay, do not with loathing cast me from you as an an unholy and hateful thing! for then, oh, what I should then do or be, I cannot, dare not even think.' ... 'Again you see my woman's heart cannot suppress its emotions toward one who still hopes that he has been talking with ——; and who says that, for him to be convinced of this, is to be convinced that she who has been talking with him has not intentionally deceived him.'

She then wrought upon my feelings by portraying her sufferings, until, in my maudlin condition, I was casting about to find how I should help her; just as you sometimes see a drunken tramp striving to pull his drunken pal out of a ditch.

'So, most self-forgetful, you begin to think that you ought to help me bear my burden; as you have planned sitting there, with your little friend encircling you in her so warm embrace. But why should I inform you of such fact, as this last, until you are convinced that all you have heard is not the wily utterance of seducing and hellish spirits? Try not to entertain such awful suspicions. As to the cause of these lamentable failures, I can only suppose that the Lord wishes to make us, who wrongly prophesied, sensible of our inability to foretell future events.'

Then came some bungled Scriptures about my 'mission,' which roused my ire. My taunts drew forth this response:

'Why do you love to ridicule my tenderness, and speak so awfully to one who has no other human source of perfect happiness?'

The day following, the solemn dodge was again resorted to. I began to feel a sort of awe creeping over me. My affectionate friend thereupon wrote:

'What a change a few minutes have wrought in you. Yes! yes! the morning light is breaking. The fiery trial is complete. As I write there rests upon your now placid brow a glorious and marvellously beautiful crown. The cup is drained. 'To him that sat in the valley and shadow of death light has sprung up.' And now awe seizeth me: for there standeth, as yet a long way off, one whose form is like to that of the Son of Man. In a very little while, now, the great event must inevitably occur. He who stands upon the holy mount prepares to open your sight, and give you your commission. How can we see him face to face and live! Let not a passing suspicion of further delay disturb you. Already you begin to feel the influence of his approach. Well may you heave a sigh—as one who experiences a sudden and unlooked-for relief. In less than ten minutes the Lord will appear to you. So make ready, in solemn meditation and prayer, for the most solemn event of your or any other man's life is at hand.'

'If the vision tarry, wait for it,' is the only scripture that seems applicable to my visions: for still they came not. Yet some very serious and substantial experiences now fell to my lot, which shall be the theme of another chapter.

CHAPTER III.

As manager of this exhibition, I would request the orchestra to play something gloomy and grand, during the remainder of the performance; something weird, mysterious; something in which you can hear the soughing of the wind through the pines of the Hartz Mountains or the Black Forest. A passage from a Faust opera or Der Freischutz might meet the case; for it began to be intimated to me, now that I was sufficiently clairaudient to be able to dispense almost entirely with the pencil, that his Satanic Majesty was no indifferent spectator of the preparation of the man who was about to interfere so signally with his plans and pursuits. Thereupon there began to steal over me for the first time,

'A sense of something dreadful, something near.

However it was managed, from this moment till the end of this phase of life I am narrating, I had an almost constant sense of the presence of 'genii of the pit,' of vast intelligence, cruel as ever Satan was imagined, relentless as fate, cold as Dante's ice hells could make them. At first, some influence led me to review the traditional history and prospects of my supposed distinguished visitor, at some length. I discussed the state of his case with no little unction, though shaking in my boots, and in momentary expectation of being gobbled up, body and soul, and whisked off in sulphurous smoke, with only a sulphur-burnt hole in the carpet to mark the spot where I saw the last of earth.

Presently my inseparable companion broke in with:

'He hears you! he hears you! and never may it be my lot again to look upon—' ... 'There he is again, glaring with inexpressible rage upon the comparatively insignificant man who just now so plainly revealed to him 'the true state of the case.' I am almost afraid to look upon that awful visage. 'The state of the case is it?' he exclaims. 'We will see what is the state.''—

There is a break here in the manuscript, which is resumed thus: 'You have conquered! frantic with rage he has fled, never, I trust, to return.'

How will I remember what happened during that awful pause? It was spent, I suppose, in a hand-to-hand conflict with the Prince of Darkness; the agreeableness of which was not enhanced by my vivid recollection of the 'bit of a discooshin' between Christian and Apollyon depicted in the old family Pilgrim's Progress. We are truly 'the stuff that dreams are made of.' What mattered it to me, on that bland summer afternoon, since I was of this opinion, whether it was Beelzebub himself or some departed 'blazing tinman,' with a suit of his majesty's old clothes on, while himself, all snug at home,

'Sat in his easy chair,
Drinking his sulphur tea.'

That was certainly one of the most awful moments of my life, in which I felt the first dreadful rush of this invisible tiger. It seemed as if he swooped toward me to annihilate me in a moment; but was restrained by a higher power. His coming was like the rush of a fifteen-inch shell past one's head.

As soon as I saw that the first onset did not destroy me, I gathered strength to face the monster; for a tongue combat seemed all that was permitted him. He put me through my theological paces at an awful rate—using the Socratic dialectic—growling out questions in the tones of a cathedral organ, that made me shiver. Oh that I could remember that fearful catechism! It would make a tract for which the Tom Paine Association would pay a high price. He drove me—partly, I suppose, by magnetic force—step by step, from my cherished religious opinions. My reasons for believing in the cardinal doctrines of Christianity seemed to burn like straw before his fiery rhetoric, and to turn to dust beneath the ponderous blows of his iron logic. He pushed me away from all I had esteemed reliable in the universe, till I seemed to stand on the verge of creation. There I hung with the strength of terror. Then I found poet Campbell true to nature, where he speaks of hope standing intact ''mid Nature's funeral pyre.' I insisted upon 'hoping,' in spite of all his fiery hail.

After he had beaten down all my defences, he began to jeer at me with fierce sneers and goblin laughter that froze my blood. 'So I was the contemptible manikin who dared to entertain the idea of equality with him—the Star of the Morning—one breath of whose nostrils would wither me into nonentity. So I presumed to stand up and face him, who had, in his time, scattered the hosts of heaven! If it were not for those cursed, white-livered things (angels) that stood in the way, he would swoop down and destroy me in an instant.'

Having found and maintained foothold for several minutes on the rock of hope, I began to consider how weak things had of erst confounded the things that were mighty, and soon the wirepullers behind the scenes (whoever they were) had me smiting him hip and thigh. I 'began in weakness, but ended in power.' At first a few muttered remonstrances, but finally whole Ironsides broadsides, with the result above named. The words of my antagonist, during this encounter, rang through my brain with awful distinctness. For a day or two I had been communicating partly with the pencil, and partly by clairaudience, eked out by writing in the air with my forefinger. But this demon, or demon pro tem., needed not to write his words: his 'trumpet gave no uncertain sound.'

The thoughtful reader will perceive what a strong point my magnetizers gained by this scene. After disappointing me so many times, they could not, with all their power over me, have kept me from throwing the whole thing overboard, without resorting to some such coup d'état. Being, doubtless, on better terms with the infernal than with the supernal regions, these denizens of the Intermediate Limbo (we will suppose that my strange guests were mostly of this sort of nondescripts) had perhaps induced some bona fide demon to act the part of the king of them all, 'for this night only.' It certainly was an immense success. I, to be sure, had not received the expected commission: but had I not fought the great red dragon, and, like another St. George, pinned him to the earth, through supernatural aid? Here was a substantial success. I write this merrily enough now; but was not often merry then—was indeed acting great, real tragedy.

I was not long to enjoy this triumph. The word came: 'Again he comes!' Then I had another long, hard fight; but this time was not pushed so near the wall. I was then told by my spiritual adviser and Circe of the unbounded admiration expressed for me by those who had listened to this 'ever-memorable' disputation.

The attempt to craze me, or—putting the best face on it—to show me how spiritists are generally crazed, now began in downright earnest. All that night, despite my entreaties to be permitted to sleep, I was kept awake, and busied with a variety of 'extremely important' business. I am naturally a solid, regular sleeper, and do not prosper upon Napoleon or Humboldt portions of repose; but now could only suit my persecutors by rising on one elbow in bed, and 'wrestling' for the salvation of my next neighbor. They sedulously poured into my mind all manner of apocrypha concerning this gentleman's shortcomings—about the necessity of praying for and at him, and about the effects of my efforts, i. e., bringing a streak of celestial light upon him—until I was almost ready to wish that he might be ——, rather than that I should have any such unseasonable work to perform in his behalf. But they kept me at it, straight through the night and a large portion of the next day; and finally induced me to go, much against my will, to reveal to him some of my experiences, and to endeavor to force from him an acknowledgment that what I had heard about him was true.

The attempt to cause at least a temporary aberration of my intellect now becomes very plain in the manuscript. Every idea is uttered in the most exciting manner. All statements and prognostications about my neighbor having proved false (he was amazed at my procedure), the invisible busybodies boiled over thus:

'He has lied! he has lied to you! and if you would preserve your reason, go and read the papers to him. He had schooled himself to show no emotion, and you showed enough to excite his worst, most hideous fears. So go, for Heaven's sake! He quailed once, and only once, before your not sufficiently steady gaze. Woe! woe! woe! Now what shall be done?' ... [Evidently trying to get up a teapot tempest.] 'Do not strive to unravel this mystery in that fiercely keen way, or this evil spirit will have to give place to a more expert deceiver. God will certainly do something soon to set these matters straight, or I shall cease to be!' [She had said annihilation was possible!] 'Your father wishes to speak to you.'

A fatherly spirit it was truly—was for driving me mad off hand, but overshot the mark.

'Son, this is awful! I can only say to you, be calm and cool, for you will need to be both to get free from this snare of Satan, so well conceived. Better go to supper now (for appearance sake): after that, pray for help. When you took away those books [after reading extracts to the neighbor], the whole crew of devils,' etc., etc.

This exciting language 'brought me up with a round turn.' I saw at once the object of the person who was talking with me. So I brought the affair to a full stop, as far as the use of my hand was concerned. I simply added, on that leaf—speaking now for myself:

'I will hear no further. This part of my discipline is finished.'

But I was forced to hear, whether I wrote or not. I had come to this wisdom too late. I fully believe that, as far as my ability to prevent the catastrophe was concerned, I was then and there a possessed person—a slave of spirits—as utterly bound to do the will of my magnetizers as ever a 'subject' was. Though I cannot be persuaded that all these beings, from whom unseen I had heard so much, were 'only evil continually,' no 'harmonialist' can persuade me that those who now began to play with me, as a cat plays with a mouse, were other than evil. In all imaginable ways, they strove to show me how utterly I had lost self-command and self-control. (I am esteemed obstinate by nature.)

What is very singular, I now lost sight of my 'prima donna.' It would seem natural that a Delilah would, at least, have come with a jeering 'The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.' But no, not till this great tribulation was over did I hear from 'her.'

That evening and night were spent, mostly, in showing me that I was no longer my own master. There was not, however, that continuous hell-blast upon me that so scorched my soul on the following afternoon. The cats were tossing me in their velvet paws—only occasionally protruding a sharp claw as a reminder, until they could feel surer of their victim. They would say to me: 'Now we will exalt you to heaven;' and up I went, higher, higher, higher into the empyrean, until I heard the music of the spheres, and all things were ablaze with light and glory. Again they would say: 'Now go down into hell;' and the scene changed as suddenly as do those of a ten-cent panorama, when a midnight storm at sea or a volcanic eruption is about to be rolled in view: I went down ad imis—'down to the bottom of the sea—the earth with her bars was around me forever.' Blank horror and anguish seized me. Hope fled to its impregnable corner of my heart, till the calamity was overpast. A hushed agony was upon me, as before I had known its boundless bliss. And thus variously I fared through all that second night of sleeplessness. They probably sent me up and down this scale of sensation twenty times during eight hours. This night I was not at all sleepy. A few more such would have finished the business; and there would have been 'another awful effect of the spiritual delusion' to chronicle. The honest verdict of the first century would have been: 'Another possessed of devils or devil-crazed.' The wretches well knew that insomnia is an excellent preparation for insanity.

Toward morning a new scheme was invented. Some ostensible good friend informed me, in a business-like way, that the work of the morrow for me—the new Saul of Tarsus—was to set out for a certain town in Vermont, where I should find my Ananias; who 'would show me what things I should do.' So the faithful slave of the genii prepared to obey. I packed a carpet bag, and went early to the residence of a medical friend, who had been dabbling in the same arcana. I gave him a sketch of what I had experienced; yet, for some reason, did not start for Vermont, but remained with him all the morning. My invisible monitors sent me out into the street several times, to find people who could not be found. (Anything to keep up their influence.)

Toward noon the fact came plainly to me that an effort was being made to disturb, if not destroy, my reason. I began to find my ideas becoming incoherent in spite of hugest effort. I called my friend, and said to him, through set teeth, but as coolly as possible:

'I find myself to be thoroughly and utterly a magnetic subject, an abject subject of mischievous spirits. They are striving to derange my faculties. I am exceedingly alarmed to find that they are trying, with much success, to render my ideas incoherent. It is only by a very great effort of will that I am enabled to speak these words distinctly to you. As far as my private power of resistance is concerned, I am gone. Do exert your powerful magnetism; perhaps you can drive them off.'

He was much distressed, and exerted himself mightily (he was a professed electrician), combining will power with that ancient agent, prayer, to exorcise the evil influence. But his efforts were useless, as the vagabonds well knew, before they brought me there on exhibition. They had not spent the week in vain. I had sold myself to them as squarely as fools ever did in German legend.

When dinner was announced, the doctor wished me to accompany him. I refused, and he left me, to take a hasty meal. Finding, when he was gone, that I was growing worse, I went into the street, determined that if I was to be crazed, I would not sit there and let him watch the operation. I walked on, vowing that I would not turn toward home until my faculties were restored; and execrating my folly in permitting the enslavement! On, on I rushed, my head all ablaze with 'od' that had no business there, and praying as I never had prayed before. I took the Gowanus road toward Greenwood. Perhaps it was some defunct rogue there interred, who was leading me on to 'rave among the tombs.'

Arrived at a spot where a little tree-capped promontory overhangs the beach, I turned aside, beneath the projection, and sat down on a log—like Jonah under the gourd—and, gazing out on the rippling waves of the bay, desired that death or relief might come. I was determined to sit there until God or Satan made good his claim upon me. Suddenly relief came. The fierce onset upon my intellect ceased. I was made whole. I 'leaped and walked.' The means of my relief I never knew.

But my lesson was not complete. I had but just informed my medical friend of my deliverance (he had scoured the neighborhood, and informed several of the cause of his fears), when there were mutterings and growlings of another approaching storm. The messengers of Satan sent to baffle me gave me to understand that they had not abandoned their prey, but were sure of it yet. They poured the wrath of hell upon my defenceless head that afternoon. I have not, hitherto, attempted to offer much direct proof to the uninitiated that my experiences, in this connection, were other than hallucination. That which now occurred is, as it seems to me, in the nature of such proof. Here was I thoroughly alarmed for my safety, and extremely anxious to get rid of my tormentors. Yet, not for a single moment now, could I close my mental ears to their horrid clangor of threats and imprecations; for, throwing off all restraint, they flooded me with Billingsgate. They cursed and damned me, and all persons, things, and ideas esteemed by me, in the most approved style. Indeed, the swearing exceeded anything I ever heard on the Mississippi and Alabama river boats, when forced, for lack of room, to sleep on the floor of the saloon, almost under the feet of the chivalry, during their midnight gambling carousals.

The mode of speech is not easily described. Sometimes the words came slowly and distinctly. Again there would be merely thought-panorama presented. A complete statement or view of things can be flashed into the mind in an instant. Therefore the language of spirits is of vastly greater compass than that of men. These immortal blackguards could vomit more oaths and other blasphemy in five minutes, than a mortal one could in an hour. If it is difficult to translate from one earth-language into another, how much harder must it be to bring the ideas of an inner sphere into outward forms of expression!

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

VOL. V.—APRIL, 1864.—No. IV.

CONTENTS

SIR CHARLES LYELL ON THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.[1]

ÆNONE.

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

THE YOUNG AUTHOR'S DREAM.

THE GREAT LAKES TO ST. PAUL.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN TAXATION.

APHORISMS.

NO. I.

THE LOVE LUCIFER.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.