Chapter 4 No.4

Lo, where Hyperion, through the glowing air

Approaching, drives! Fresh from his banquet-meats,

Flushed with Olympian nectar, angrily

He guides his fourfold span of furious steeds,

Convoyed by that bold Hour whose ardent torch

Burns up the dew, toward the narrow beach,

This long, projecting spit of cloudy gold

Whereon I wait to greet him when he comes.

Think not I fear thine anger: this day, thou,

Lord of the silver bow, shalt bring a guest

To sit in presence of the equal Gods

In your high hall: wheel but thy chariot near,

That I may mount beside thee!

--What is this?

I hear the crackling hiss of singéd plumes!

The stench of burning feathers stifles me!

My loins are stung with drops of molten wax!-

Ai! ai! my ruined vans!-I fall! I die!

* * * * *

Ere the blue noon o'erspanned the bluer strait

Which parts Icaria from Samos, fell,

Amid the silent wonder of the air,

Fell with a shock that startled the still wave,

A shrivelled wreck of crisp, entangled plumes,

A head whence eagles' beaks had plucked the eyes,

And clots of wax, black limbs by eagles torn

In falling: and a circling eagle screamed

Around that floating horror of the sea

Derision, and above Hyperion shone.

* * * * *

WALKER.

I confess to knowledge of a large book bearing the above title,-a title which is no less appropriate for this brief, disrupted biographical memorandum. That I have a right to act as I have done, in adopting it, will presently appear,-as well as that the honored name thus appropriated by me refers neither io the dictionary nor the filibustero, both of which articles appear to have been superseded by newer and better things.

At the first flush, Fur would seem to be rather a sultry subject to open either a store or a story with, in these glowing days of a justly incensed thermometer.

And yet there is a fine bracing mountain-air to be drawn from the material, as with a spigot, if you will only favor your mind with a digression from the tangible article to the wild-rose associations in which it is enveloped.

Think of the high, wind-swept ridges, among the clefts of which are the only homesteads of the hardy pioneers by whose agency alone one kind of luxury is kept up to the standard demand for it in the great cities. It might not be so likely a place to get fancy drinks in as Broome Street, certainly, we must admit, as we picture to ourselves some brushy ravine in which the trapper has his irons cunningly set out for the betrayal of the stone-marten and the glossy-backed "fisher-cat,"-but the breeze in it is quite as wholesome as a brandy-smash. The whirr of the sage-hen's wing, as she rises from the fragrant thicket, brings a flavor with it fresher far than that of the mint-julep. It is cheaper than the latter compound, too, and much more conducive to health. Continuing to indulge our fancy in cool images connected with fur and its finders, we shall see what contrasts will arise. The blue shadow of a cottonwood-tree stretching over a mountain-spring. By the edge of the sparkling water sits, embroidering buckskin, a red-legged squaw, keeper of the wigwam to the ragged mountain-man who set the traps that caught the martens which furnished the tails that mark so gracefully the number of skins of which the rich banker's wife's fichu-russe is composed. Here is a striking contrast, in which extremes meet,-not the martens' tails, but the two men's wives, the banker's and the trapper's, brought into antithetical relation by the simple circumstance of a fichu-russe, the material of which was worn in some ravine of the wilderness, mayhap not a twelvemonth since, by a creature faster even than a banker's wife. Great is the hereafter of the marten-cat, whose skin may be looked upon as the soul by which the animal is destined to attain a sort of modified immortality in the Elysian abodes of Wealth and Fashion,-the place where good martens go!

The men through whose intervention eventual felicity is thus secured to the fur-creature are as much a race in themselves as the Gypsies. No genuine type of them ever approaches nearer to the confines of civilization than a frontier settlement beckons him. Old Adams, the bear-tutor, might have been of this type once, but he is adulterated with sawdust and gas-light now, with city cookery and spurious groceries. Many men of French Canadian origin are to be found trading and trapping in the Far West; although, taken in the aggregate, there are no people less given to stirring enterprise than these colonial descendants of the Gaul. The only direction, almost, in which they exhibit any expansive tendency is in the border trade and general adventure business, in which figure the names of many of them conspicuously and with honor. The Chouteaus are of that stock; and of that stock came the late Major Aubry, renowned among the guides and trappers of the southwestern wilderness; and if J.C. Fremont is not a French Canadian by birth, the strong efforts made about the time of the last Presidential election to establish him as one had at least the effect of determining his Canadian descent.

Pierre La Marche was a Franco-Canadian of the spread-eagle kind referred to. Departing widely from the conservative prejudices of his race, his wandering propensities took him away, at an early age, from the primitive colonial village in which he first saw the light of day. He was but fourteen years old when he left his peaceful and thoroughly whitewashed home on the banks of the St. Fran?ois, in company with a knot of Canadian voyageurs, whose principles tended towards the Red River of the North. Leaving this convoy at Fond-du-Lac, he pushed his way on to the Mississippi, alone and friendless, and, falling in with a party of trappers at St. Louis, accompanied them when they returned to the mountain "gulches" in which their business lay.

After six years of trapper and trader life, but little trace of the simple young Canadian habitant was left in Pierre La Marche. He spoke mountain English and French patois with equal fluency. There was a decision of character about him that commanded the respect of his comrades. When the other trappers went to St. Louis, they used to drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon "bluff" or squandering it upon deteriorating drinks.

About this time of his life, Pierre began to think that the fact of his being "only a French Canadian" was likely to be a bar to his advancement. He despised himself greatly for one thing, indeed,-that his name was La Marche, and not Walker,-which patronymic he made out to be the nearest Anglo-Saxon equivalent for his French one. He adopted it,-calling himself Peter Walker,-and had an adventure out of it, to begin with.

While trading furs at St. Louis, on one occasion, he offered a remnant of his stock to a dealer with whom he was not acquainted. They had an argument as to prices. The dealer, a man of hasty temper, asked him his name.

"Walker," was the reply.

When La Marche arose from the distant corner into which he was projected in company with the bundle of furs levelled at his head, revenge was his natural sentiment. Drawing his heavy knife from its sheath, he flung it away: the temptation to use it might have been too much for him. Small in stature, but remarkable for muscular strength, and for inventive resource in the "rough-and-tumble" fight, La Marche clenched with the burly store-keeper, who was getting the worst of it, when some of his employés interfered. This led to a general engagement. Several of La Marche's companions now rushed in, and in five minutes their opponents gave out, succumbent to superior wind and sinew.

Next morning, when the trappers took their way out of St. Louis, La Marche was a leader among them for life. But the reason of the store-keeper's rage was for many years a mystery to him. He knew not the enormity of "Walker," as an exponent of disparagement; he simply thought it a nicer name than La Marche, while it fully embodied the sentiment of that name. He adopted it, then, as I said before, and went on towards posterity as Peter Walker.

I heard many strange anecdotes of Peter Walker at the residence of a retired voyageur, who used to sing him Homerically to his chosen friends. These voyageurs are professional canoe-men; adventurers extending, sparsely, from the waters of French Canada to those of Oregon,-and sometimes back. Honest old Quatreaux! I mentioned his "residence" just now, and the term is truly grandiloquent in its application. The residence of old Quatreaux was a log cabane, about twenty feet square. Planks, laid loosely upon the cross-ties of the rafters, formed the up-stairs of the building: up-ladder would be a term more in accordance with facts; for it was by an appliance of that kind that the younger and more active of the sixteen members composing the old voyageur's family removed themselves from view when they retired for the night. A partition, extending half-way across the ground-floor, screened off the state or principal bed from outside gaze; at least, it was exposed to view only from points rendered rather inaccessible by tubs, with which these Canadian families are generally provided to excess. This apartment was strictly assigned to me, as a visitor; and although I firmly declined the honor,-chiefly with reference to certain large and very hard fleas I knew of in its dormitory arrangements,-it was kept religiously vacant, in case my heart should relent towards it, and the family in general slept huddled together on the outer floor, without manifest classification: the two old people; son and wife; daughter and husband; children; the extraordinary little hunch-backed and one-eyed girl, whom nobody would marry, but everybody liked; dogs. I used to stretch myself on a buffalo-robe before the wood-fire, in company with a faithful spaniel, who was as wakeful on these occasions as if he suspected that the low-bred curs of the establishment might pick his pockets.

Quatreaux's cabane was situated on the edge of an extensive tract of marsh,-lagoon would be a more descriptive word for it, perhaps,-a splashy, ditch-divided district, extending along the borders of a lake for miles. Snipe-shooting was my motive there; and dull work it was in those dark, Novembry, October days, with "the low rain falling" half the time, and the yellow leaves all the time, and no snipe. But whether we poled our log canoe up to some stunted old willow-tree that sat low in the horizontal marsh, and took shelter under it to smoke our pipes, or whether we mollified the privation of snipe in the cabane at night with mellow rum and tobacco brought by me, still was Walker the old voyageur's favorite theme.

Old Quatreaux spoke English perfectly well, although his conservatism as a Canadian induced him to prefer his mother tongue as a vehicle for general conversation. But I remarked that his anecdotes of Walker were always related in English, and on these occasions, therefore, for my benefit alone: for but little of the Anglo-Saxon tongue appeared to be known to, or at least used by, any member of his numerous family. Indeed, I can recall but two words of that language which I could positively aver to have heard in colloquial use among them,-poodare and schotte. And why should the old voyageur have thus reserved his experiences from those who were near and dear to him? Simply because most of his adventures with Walker were not of the strictly mild character becoming a family-man. But it was all the same to these good people; and when I laughed, they all took up the idea and laughed their best,-the little hunch-backed girl generally going off into a kind of epilepsy by herself, over in the darkest corner of the room, among the tubs.

When divested of the strange Western expletives and imprecations with which the old man used to spice his reminiscences, some of them are enough. I remember one, telling how Peter Walker "raised the wind" on a particular occasion, when he got short of money on his way to some distant trading-post, in a district strange to him. It is before me, in short-hand, on the pages of an old, old pocket-book, and I will tell it with some slight improvements on the narrator's style, such as suppressing his unnecessary combinations of the curse.

Mounted on a two-hundred-dollar buffalo-horse, for which he would not have taken double that amount, Peter Walker found himself, one afternoon, near the end of a long day's ride. He had but little baggage with him, that little consisting entirely of a bowie-knife and holster-pistols,-for the revolver was a scarce piece of furniture then and there. Of money he was entirely destitute, having expended his last dollar upon the purchase of his noble steed, and of the festive suit of clothes with which he calculated upon astonishing people who resided outside the limits of civilization. The pantaloon division of that suit was particularly superb, consisting principally of a stripe by which the outer seam of each leg was made conducive to harmony of outline. He was about three days' journey from the trading-post to which he was bound. The country was a frontier one, sparsely provided with inns.

The sun was framed in a low notch of the horizon, as he approached a border-hostelry, on the gable of which "Cat's Bluff Hotel" was painted in letters quite disproportioned in size to the city of Cat's Bluff, which consisted of the house in question, neither more nor less. In that house Peter Walker decided upon sojourning luxuriously for that night, at least, if he had to draw a check upon his holsters for it.

Having stabled his horse, then, and seen him supplied with such provender as the place afforded, he looked about the hotel, which he found to be an institution of very considerable pretensions. It seemed to have a good deal of its own way, in fact, being the only house of entertainment for many miles upon a great south-western thoroughfare, from which branched off the trail to be taken by him tomorrow,-a trail which led only to the trading-post or fort already mentioned.

The deportment of the landlord was gracious, as he went about whistling "Wait for the wagon," and jingling with gold chains and heavy jewelry. Still more exhilarating was the prosperous confidence of the bar-keeper, who took in, while Walker was determining a drink, not less than a dozen quarter-dollars, from blue-shirted, bearded, thirsty men with rifles, who came along in a large covered wagon of western tendency, in which they immediately departed with haste, late as it was, as if bound to drive into the sun before he went down behind the far-off edge. Walker used to say, jocularly, that he supposed this must have been the wagon for which the landlord whistled, and which came to his call.

Everything denoted that there was abundance of money in that favored place. Even small boys who came in and called for cigars and drinks made a reckless display of coin as they paid for them, and then drove off in their wagons,-for they all had wagons, and were all intent upon driving rapidly in then toward the west.

But, as night fell, travel went down with the declining day; and Walker felt himself alone in the world,-a man without a dollar. Nevertheless, he called for good cheer, which was placed before him on a liberal scale: for landlords thereabouts were accustomed to provide for appetites acquired on the plains, and their supply was obliged to be both large and ready for the chance comers who were always dropping in, and upon whom their custom depended. So he ate and drank; and having appeased hunger and thirst, he went into the bar, and opened conversation with the landlord by offering him one of his own cigars, a bunch of which he got from the bar-keeper, whom he particularly requested not to forget to include them in his bill, when the time for his departure brought with it the disagreeable necessity of being served with that document.

Western landlords, in general, are not remarkable for the reserve with which they treat their guests. This particular landlord was less so than most others. He was especially inquisitive with regard to Walker's exquisite pantaloons, the like of which had never been seen in that part of the country before. His happiness was evidently incomplete in the privation of a similar pair.

"Them pants all wool, now?" asked he, as he viewed them with various inclinations of head, like a connoisseur examining a picture.

"All except the stripes," replied Walker;-"stripes is wool and cotton mixed; gives 'em a finer grain, you see, and catches the eye."

The landlord respected Walker at once. Perhaps he might be an Eastern dry-goods merchant, come along for the purpose of making arrangements to inundate the border-territory with stuffs for exquisite pantaloons. He proceeded with his interrogatories. He laid himself out to extract from Walker all manner of information as to his origin, occupation, and prospects, which gave the latter an excellent opportunity of glorifying himself inferentially, while he affected mystery and reticence with regard to his mission "out West." At last the landlord set him down for an agent come on to open the sluices for a great tide of foreign emigration into the territory,-an event to which he himself had been looking for a long time, and the prospect of which had guided him to the spot where he had established his hotel, which he now looked upon as the centre from which a great city was destined immediately to radiate. And the landlord retired to his bed to meditate upon immense speculations in town-lots, and, when sleep came upon him, to dream that he had successfully arranged them through the medium of an angel with a speaking-trumpet, whose manifest wardrobe consisted of a pair of fancy pantaloons with stripes on the seams and side-pockets, exactly like Walker's.

Walker, too, retired to rest, but not to sleep, for his mind was occupied in turning over means whereby to obtain some of the real capital with which people here seemed to be superabundantly provided. He had speculations to carry out, and money was the indispensable element. Had he only been able to read the landlord's thoughts, he might have turned quietly over and slept; for so held was that person's mind by the idea that his ultimate success was to be achieved through the medium of his unknown guest, that he would without hesitation have lent him double the sum necessary for his financial arrangements.

There was a disturbance some time about the middle of the night. People came along in wagons, as usual, waking up the bar-keeper, whose dreams perpetually ran upon that kind of trouble. Walker, who was wide awake, gathered from the conversation below that the travellers had only halted for drinks, and would immediately resume their way westward with all speed. He arose and looked out at the open window, which was about fifteen feet from the ground. Something white loomed up through the darkness: it was the awning of one of the wagons, which stood just under the window, to the sill of which it reached within a few feet. Walker, brought up in the rough-and-ready school, had lain down to rest with his trousers on. A sudden inspiration now seized him: he slipped them rapidly off, and dropped them silently on to the roof of the wagon, which soon after moved on with the others, and disappeared into the night. This done, he opened softly the door of the room, and, leaving it ajar, returned to bed and slept.

Morning was well advanced when Walker arose, and began operations by moving the furniture about in an excited manner, to attract the attention of those in the bar below, and convey an idea of search. Presently he went to the door of the room, and, uttering an Indian howl, by way of securing immediate attendance, cried out,-

"Hullo, below! where's my pants?-bar-keeper, fetch along my pants!-landlord, I don't want to be troublesome, but just take off them pants, if you happen to have mistook 'em for your own, and oblige the right owner with a look at 'em, will you?"

Puzzled at this address, which was couched in much stronger language-according to old Quatreaux's version of it-than I should like to commit to paper, the landlord and bar-keeper at once proceeded to Walker's room, where they found him sitting, expectantly, on the side of the bed, with his horse-pistols gathered together beside him. Of course, they denied all knowledge of his pantaloons,-didn't steal nobody's pants in that house, nor nothin'.

Walker looked sternly at them, and, playing with one of his pistols, exclaimed, with the usual redundants,-

"You lie!-you've stole my pants between you; you've found out what they were worth by this time, I guess; but I'll have 'em back, and that in a hurry, or else my name a'n't Walker,-Peter Walker."

He added his Christian name, because a reminiscence of the mystery belonging to his patronymic by itself flashed upon him.

Now the name of Pete Walker was potent along the frontier, because of his influence with the wild mountain-men, who did reckless deeds on his account, unknown to him and otherwise. Another vision than that of last night overcame the landlord,-a vision of Lynch and ashes.

"So you're Pete Walker, be you?" asked he, in a tone of mingled respect and admiration, slightly tremulous with fear. "How do you do, Mr. Walker?-how do you find yourself this morning, Sir?"

"I didn't come here to find myself," retorted Walker, fiercely. "I found my door open, though, when I woke up,-but I couldn't find my pants. You must get 'em, or pay for 'em, and that right away."

"Them cusses that passed through here last night!" exclaimed the landlord. "I guess the pants is gone on the sundown trail, stripes and all."

Walker thought it was quite probable that they had; but they were stolen from that house, and the house must pay for them.

Lynch and ashes again blazed before the landlord's eyes.

"How much might the pants be worth, now, at cost price?" asked he. "All wool, you say, only the stripes; but, as they was nearly all stripes, you needn't holler much about the wool, I reckon. How much, now?"

"Two hundred and ten dollars," replied Walker, with impressive exactness.

"Thunder!" exclaimed the landlord. "I thought they might be fancy-priced, sure-ly, but that's awful!"

"Ten dollars, cash price, for the pants," proceeded Walker, "and two hundred for that exact amount in gold stitched up in the waistband of em."

"The Devil has got 'em, anyhow!" said the landlord,-"for I saw a queer critter, in my sleep, flying about with 'em on. Wings looks kinder awful along o' pants with stripes. There'll be no luck round till they're paid for, I guess. Couldn't you take my best checkers for 'em, now, with fifty dollars quilted into the waistband,-s-a-ay?"

"My name's Walker,-Peter Walker," was the reply.

The landlord was no match for that name, so disagreeably redolent of Lynch and ashes. Thorough search was made upon the premises, and to some distance around, in the wild hope that the missing trousers might have walked off spontaneously, and lain down somewhere to sleep; but, of course, nothing came of the investigation, although Walker assisted at it with his usual energy. All compromise was rejected by him, and it was not yet noon when he rode proudly away from the lone hostelry, in the landlord's best checkers, for which he kindly allowed him five dollars, receiving from him the balance, two hundred and five dollars, in gold.

I forget now what Walker did with that money, although Quatreaux knew exactly, and told me all about it. Suffice it to say that he made a grand coup with it, in the purchase of a mill-privilege, or claim, or something of the kind. Less than a year after the events narrated, he again rode up to the lone hostelry, which was not so lonely now, however; for houses were growing up around it, and it took boarders and rang a dinner-bell, and maintained a landlady as well as a landlord, besides. The landlord was astonished when Walker counted out to him two hundred and five dollars in gold,-surprised when to that was added a round sum for interest,-ecstatic, on being presented with a brand-new pair of pantaloons, of the same pattern as the expensive ones formerly so admired by him. But his features collapsed, and for some time wore an expression of imbecility, when he learned the details of the adventure, and found out that "some things"-landlords, for example-"can be done as well as others."

It was with little reminiscences like the one just narrated that old Quatreaux used to wile away the time, as we threaded the intricate ditches of the marsh in his canoe, so hedged in by the tall reeds that our horizon was within paddle's length of us. With that presumptive clairvoyance which appears to be an essential property of the French raconteur, he did not confine himself to external fact in his narratives, but always professed to report minutely the thoughts that flashed through the mind of such and such a person, on the particular occasion referred to. He was a master of dialects,-Yankee, Pennsylvanian Dutch, and Irish.

"Where did you get your English, old man?" I asked him, as we scudded across the lake in our canoe, with a small sail up, one red October evening.

"In Pennsylvania," replied he. "I went there on my own hook, when I was about twelve year old, and worked in an oil-mill for four year."

"In an oil-mill? Perhaps that accounts for the glibness with which language slips off your tongue."

"'Guess it do," said the old voyageur, with ready assent.

We nearly got foul of a raft coming down the lake, manned with a rugged set of half-breeds, who had a cask of whiskey on board, and were very drunk and boisterous.

"Ugly customers to deal with, those br?lés," remarked I, when we had got clear away from them.

"Some on 'em is," replied the old voyageur. "Did you notice the one with the queer eye,-him in the Scotch cap and shupac moccasons?"

I had noticed him, and an ill-looking thief he was. One of his eyes, either from natural deformity or the effect of hostile operation, was dragged down from its proper parallel, and planted in a remote socket near the corner of his mouth, whence it glared and winked with super-natural ferocity.

"That's Rupe Falardeau," continued my companion. "His father, old Rupe, got his eye taken down in a deck-fight with a Mississippi boatman; and this boy was born with the same mark,-only the eye's lower down still. If that's to go on in the family, I guess there'll be a Falardeau with his eye in his knee, some time."

In the deck-fight in which old Rupe got his ugly mark Pete Walker had a hand; and the part he took in it, as related to me by old Quatreaux, who was also present, affords a good example of the tact and coolness which gave him such mastery over the wild spirits among whom he worked out his destiny.

Walker was coming down a lumbering-river-I forget the name of it-on board a small tug-steamboat, in which he had an interest. He had gone into other speculations beside furs, by this time, and had contracts in two or three places for supplying remote stations with salt pork, tea, and other staple provisions of the lumbering-craft.

Stopping to wood at the mouth of a creek, a gang of raftsmen came on board,-half-breed Canadians of fierce and demoralized aspect,-men of great muscular strength, and armed heavily with axes and butcher-knives. The gang was led by Rupe Falardeau, a dangerous man, whether drunk or sober, and one whose antecedents were recorded in blood. These men had been drinking, and were very noisy and intrusive, and presently a row arose between them and some of the boat-hands. Fisticuffs and kicks were first exchanged, but without any great loss of blood. Knives were then drawn and nourished, and matters were beginning to assume a serious aspect, when Walker made his appearance forward of the paddle-box, pointing a heavy pistol right at the head of the ringleader.

"Rupe!" shouted he, in a voice that attracted immediate attention, "drop that knife, or else I shoot!"

The crowd parted for a moment, and Rupe, standing alone near the bows, wheeled round with a yell, and glared fiercely at the speaker.

"Drop that knife!" repeated Walker.-"One, two, three!-I'll give you a last chance, and when I say three again, I shoot, by thunder!"

The last word had not rolled away, when the gleaming knife flashed from the hand of Rupe, glanced close by Walker's ear, and sped quivering into the paddle-box, just behind his head.

"Good for you, Rupe!" exclaimed Walker, lowering his pistol, with a pleasant smile,-"good for you!-but, sacré bapteme! how dead I'd have shot you, if you hadn't dropped that knife!"

The forbearance of Walker put an end to the row. Rupe, disarmed at once by the loss of his knife and the coolness of Walker, was seized by a couple of the deck-hands, and might have been secured without injury to his beauty, had not a Mississippi boatman, who owed him an old grudge, struck him on the face with a heavy iron hook, lacerating and disfiguring him hideously for life.

"But why didn't Walker shoot Falardeau, old man?" asked I of the voyageur, wishing to learn something of the etiquette of life and death among these peculiar people, who appear to be so reckless of the former and fearless of the latter.

"Ah!" replied he, "Rupe was too valuable to be shot down for missing a man with a knife. Such a canoe-steersman as Rupe never was known before or since: he knew every rock in every rapid from the Ottawa to the Columbia."

Some time after this I again fell in with young Rupe, under circumstances indicating that his life was not considered quite so valuable as that of the old gentleman from whom he inherited his frightful aspect.

In company with a friend, one day, I was beating about for wild-fowl in a marshy river, down which small rafts or "cribs" of timber were worked by half-breeds and Canadians.

About dark we came to a small, flat island in the marsh, where we found an Iroquois camp, in which we proposed to pass the night, as we had no camping-equipage in our skiff. The men were absent, hunting, and there was nobody in charge of the wigwam but an ugly, undersized squaw, with her two ugly, undersized children.

We were much fatigued, and agreed to sleep by watches, knowing the sort of people we had to deal with. It was my watch, when voices were heard as of men landing and pulling up a canoe or boat. Presently three men came into the wigwam, railing-men, dressed in gray Canada homespun and heavy Scotch bonnets. The light of the fire outside flashed on their faces, as they stooped to enter the elm-bark tent, and in the foremost I recognized the hideous Rupe Falardeau, Junior. This man carried in his hand a small tin pail full of whiskey. He was very drunk and dangerous, and greatly disgusted at the absence of the Iroquois men, with whom he had evidently laid himself out for a roaring debauch.

I woke up my companion, and a judicious display of our double-barrelled guns kept the three scoundrels in check. They insisted on our tasting some of their barbarous liquor, however, and horrible stuff it was,-distiller's "high-wines," strongly dashed with vitriol or something worse. No wonder that men become fiends incarnate on such "fire-water" as that!

By-and-by they slept,-two of them outside, by the fire,-Falardeau inside the wigwam, the repose of which was broken by the hollow rattle of his drunken breath.

In the dead of the night something clutched me by the arm. It was the ugly squaw, who forced a greasy butcher-knife into my hand, pointing towards where the raftsman lay, and whispering to me in English,-"Stick heem! stick heem!-nobody never know. He kill my brother long time ago with this old knife. Kill heem! kill heem now!"

I did not avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me for the improvement of river society: nay, worse, I connived at the further career of the redoubtable Rupert Falardeau, Junior; for, on leaving in the morning, I roused him with repeated kicks, thus saving him for that time, probably, from the Damoclesian blade of the vengeresse.

L'été de Saint Martin!-how blue and yellow it is in the marshes in those days! It is the name given by the French Canadians to the Indian Summer,-the Summer of St. Martin, whose anniversary-day falls upon the eleventh of November; though the brief latter-day tranquillity called after him arrives, generally, some two or three weeks earlier. Looking lakeward from the sedgy nook in which we are waiting for the coming of the wood-ducks, the low line of water, blue and calm, is broken at intervals by the rise of the distant masquallongé, as he plays for a moment on the surface. But the channels that separate the flat, alluvial islets are yellow, their sluggish waters being bedded heavily down with the broad leaves of the wintering basswood-trees, which, in some places, touch branch-tips across the narrow straits. The muskrat's hut is thatched with the wet, dead leaves,-no thanks to him; and there is a mat of them before his door,-a heavy, yellow mat, on which are scattered the azure shells of the fresh-water clams to be found so often upon the premises of this builder. Does he sup on them, or are they only the cups and saucers of his vegeto-aquarian ménage? Blue and yellow all,-the sky and the sedge-rows, the calm lake and the canoe, the plashing basswood-leaves and the oval, azure shells.

Also Marance, the voyageur's buxom young daughter, who came with us, today, commissioned to cull herbs of wondrous properties among the vine-tangled thickets of the islands. Blue and yellow. Eyes blue as the azure shells; hair flashing out golden gleams, like that of Pyrrha, when she braided hers so featly for the coming of some ambrosial boy.

"I must marry you, Marance," said I, jocularly, to the damsel, as I jumped her out of the canoe,-"I shall marry you when we get back."

It is good to live in a marsh. No fast boarding-house women there, lurking for the unwary; no breaches of promise; "no nothing" in the old-man-trap line. Abjure fast boarding-houses, you silly old bachelors, and go to grass in a marsh!

Marance laughed merrily, as she tripped away; then, turning, she said,-

"But what if I never get back? I may lose myself in these lonely places, and never be heard of again."

"Oh, in that case," replied I, hard driven for a compliment, "in that case, I must wait until Gilette"-a younger sister-"grows up. She will be exactly like you: I must only wait for Gilette."

"You remind me of Pete Walker," said the old man, as we shot away up the channel, our canoe ripping up the matted surface like the cue of a novice, when he runs a fatal reef along the sere and yellow cloth of some billiard-table erewhile in verdure clad. "You are as bad as Pete Walker, who thought one sister must be as good as another, because they looked so much alike."

And then, as we loitered about in the bays, the old man told me the story of Walker's honeymoon, which was a sad and a short one. This is the story.

Near that wild rapid of the Columbia River known as the "Dalles," there was, years ago, a Jesuit mission, established in a small fort, built, like that at Nez-Percés, of mud. The labors of the holy men composing the mission involved no inconsiderable amount of danger, devoted as they were to the hopeless task of reforming such sinners as the Sioux, the Blackfeet, the Gros-Ventres, the Flat-Heads, the Assiniboines, the Nez-Percés, and a few other such.

Some of these missionaries had sojourned for a long time with a branch of the Blackfoot tribe, among whom they found two young white girls, remarkable for their exact resemblance to each other, and therefore supposed to be twins. I say supposed, because of their origin there was no trace. All that was known about them was, that they were the sole survivors of a train of emigrants, attacked and murdered by the Nez-Percés, who, actuated by one of those whims characteristic of the red men, spared the lives of the two children, and adopted them into the tribe. Subsequently, in a skirmish with the Blackfeet, they fell into the hands of the latter, among whom they had lived for some time, when they were ransomed by the missionaries, at the price of certain trading-privileges negotiated by the latter for the tribe.

When adopted by the Jesuits, the children had lost all remembrance of their parentage; nor had they any names except the Indian ones bestowed upon them by their captors. The good fathers christened them, however, arranging them alphabetically, by the names of Alixe and Bloyse, and confiding them to the especial charge of the wife of a trader connected with the station, who had no family of her own. They were fair-haired children, probably of German or Norwegian origin, and had grown up to be robust young women of seventeen, when Walker saw them for the first time, as he stopped at the Dalles on his way from Fort Nez-Percés about one hundred and twenty-five miles higher up the Columbia.

Walker, whose business detained him for some time at the mission, decided upon marrying one of the fair-haired sisters,-he did not much care which, they were so singularly alike. Alixe happened to be the one, however, to whom he tendered a share in his fortunes, which she accepted in the random manner of one to whom it was of but little consequence whether she said "Yes" or "No." Bloyse would have followed him, and him only, to the end of all; but he never knew it at the right time, though the women of the fort could have told him.

It was late one afternoon when he was married to Alixe, in the chapel of the mission. That was the night of the massacre. Two hours after the wedding, the Blackfeet, combined with some allied tribe, came down like wolves upon the fort. There was treachery, somewhere, and they got in. In the thick of the fight, and when all seemed hopeless, Walker shot down a tall Indian who was dragging his bride away to where the horses of the tribe were picketed. In a second he had leaped upon a horse, and, holding the young girl before him, galloped away in the direction of a stream running into the Columbia,-a stream of fierce torrents, navigable only at one place, and that by flat-bottomed boats or scows, in which passengers warped themselves across by a grass rope stretched from bank to bank. Once over this river, he could easily reach a friendly camp, where he and his bride would have been in safety.

The moon had risen when he reached the ferry. Turning the horse adrift, he lifted the young woman into the scow, and began to warp rapidly across by the rope with one hand, while he supported his fainting companion close to him with the other. Suddenly, a sharp click sounded from the opposite bank: the rope gave way, and Walker and his companion were precipitated violently into the water, the boat shooting far away from beneath their feet. It ran a strong current there, culminating in a furious rapid not two hundred yards lower down. Retaining his grasp of the young woman, Walker fought bravely against the stream, down which he felt they were sweeping, faster and faster, until a violent concussion deprived him, for a moment, of consciousness. When he came to himself, he was still swimming, but his companion was gone. The current had driven them forcibly against a rock, throwing her from his grasp. The wild rapid was just below them. She was never heard of again; but Walker managed to reach the shore, where he must have lain long in an exhausted condition, for it was daylight when he awoke to any recollection of what had happened.

The ferry-rope had been cut, as he afterwards discovered, by an Indian, in whose brother's removal by hanging he had been instrumental, and who had been watching him, day and night, for the purpose of wreaking a bitter vengeance.

Returning to reconnoitre, with some of his friends, Walker found the mission a heap of ruins,-blackened walls, charred rafters, and unrecognizable human remains.

Long afterwards, he learned that his bride was again living among the Blackfeet;-for it was Bloyse, and not Alixe, with whom he had galloped away to the fatal ferry, in the confusion of that terrible night. It was poor Bloyse who went away from his arms down those crushing rapids. It was Alixe, his bride, who shot back the bolts for the entrance of the Blackfeet. She was secretly betrothed in the tribe, and it was her betrothed whom Walker shot down as he was rushing away in triumph with his supposed fiancée of the pale-faces. She married another Indian of the tribe, however; for she was a savage woman at heart, and could live among savages only.

"Sisters may be as like as two walnuts, to look at," said the old voyageur, when he had finished his narration. "Take any two walnuts from a heap, at random, though, and, like as not, you'll find one on 'em all heart and the other all hollow."

"True," replied I; "but these be wild adventures for one whose boyhood was passed in a peaceful and thoroughly whitewashed home on the banks of the St. Fran?ois."

"'Guess they be," said the old voyageur.

* * * * *

THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER AND ITS EDITORS.

The families of Gales and Seaton are, in their origin, the one Scotch, the other English. The Seatons are of that historic race, a daughter of which (the fair and faithful Catherine) is the heroine of one of Sir Walter Scott's romances. It was to be supposed that they whose lineage looked to such an instance of devoted personal affection for the ancient line would not slacken in their loyalty when fresh calamities fell upon the Stuarts and again upset their throne. Accordingly, the Seatons appear to have clung to the cause of their exiled king with fidelity. Henry Seaton seems to have made himself especially obnoxious to the new monarch, by taking part in those Jacobite schemes of rebellion which were so long kept on foot by the lieges and gentlemen of Scotland; so that, when, towards the close of the seventeenth century, the cause he loved grew desperate, and Scotland itself anything but safe for a large body of her most gallant men, he was forced, like all others that scorned to submit, to fly beyond the seas. Doing so, it was natural that he should choose to take refuge in a Britain beyond the ocean, where a brotherly welcome among his kindred awaited the political prescript. It is probable, however, that a special sympathy towards that region which, by its former fidelity to the Stuarts, had earned from them the royal quartering of its arms and the title of "The Ancient Dominion," directed his final choice. At any rate, it was to Virginia that he came,-settling there, as a planter, first in the county of Gloucester, and afterwards in that of King William. From one of his descendants in a right line sprang (by intermarriage with a lady of English family, the Winstons) William Winston Seaton, the editor, whose mother connected him with a second Scotch family, the Henrys,-the mother of Patrick Henry being a Winston. These last had come, some three generations before, from the old seat of that family in its knightly times, Winston Hall, in Yorkshire, and had settled in the county of Hanover, where good estates gave them rank among the gentry; while commanding stature, the gift of an equally remarkable personal beauty, a very winning address, good parts, high character, and the frequent possession among them of a fine natural eloquence, gave them as a race an equal influence over the body of the people. In William (popularly called Langaloo) and his sister Sarah, the mother of Patrick Henry, these hereditary qualities seem to have been particularly striking; so that, in their day, it seemed a sort of received opinion that it was from the maternal side that the great orator derived his extraordinary powers.

The Galeses are of much more recent naturalization amongst us,-later by just about a century than that of the Seatons, but alike in its causes. For they, too, were driven hither by governmental resentment. Their founder, (as he may be called,) the elder Joseph Gales, was one of those rare men who at times spring up from the body of the people, and by mere unassisted merit, apart from all adventitious advantages, make their way to a just distinction. Perhaps no better idea of him can be given than by likening him to one, less happy in his death, whom Science is now everywhere lamenting,-the late admirable Hugh Miller. A different career, rather than an inferior character, made Joseph Gales less conspicuous. He was born in 1761, at Eckington, near the English town of Sheffield. The condition of his family was above dependence, but not frugality.

Be education what else it may, there is one sort which never fails to work well: namely, that which a strong capacity, when denied the usual artificial helps, shapes out to its own advantage. Such, with little and poor assistance, became that of Joseph Gales, obtained progressively, as best it could be, in the short intervals which the body can allow to be stolen between labor and necessary rest.

Now the writer is thoroughly convinced, that, after this boy had worked hard all the day long, he never would have sat down to study half the night through, if it had not been a pleasure to him. In short, no sort of toil went hard with him. For he was a fine, manly youngster, cheerful and stalwart, one who never slunk from what he had set about, nor turned his back except upon what was dishonest. He wrought lightsomely, and even lustily, at his coarser pursuits; for, in that sturdy household, to work had long been held a duty.

Thus improving himself, at odd hours, until he was fit for the vocation of a printer, and looked upon by the village as a genius, our youth went to Manchester, and applied himself to that art, not only for itself, but as the surest means of further knowledge. Of course he became a master in the craft. At length, returning to his own town to exercise it, he grew, by his industry and good conduct, into a condition to exercise it on his own account, and set up a newspaper,-"The Sheffield Register."

Born of the people, it was natural that Joseph Gales should in his journal side with the Reformers; and he did so: but with that unvarying moderation which his good sense and probity of purpose taught him, and which he ever after through life preserved. He kept within the right limits of whatever doctrine he embraced, and held a measure in all his political principles,-knowing that the best, in common with the worst, tend, by a law of all party, to exaggeration and extremes. Beyond this temperateness of mind nothing could move him. Thus guarded, by a rare equity of the understanding, from excess as to measures, he was equally guarded by a charity and a gentleness of heart the most exhaustless. In a word, it may safely be said of him, that, amidst all the heats of faction, he never fell into violence,-amidst all the asperities of public life, never stooped to personalities,-and in all that he wrote, left scarcely an unwise and not a single dishonest sentence behind him.

Such qualities, though not the most forward to set themselves forth to the public attention, should surely bring success to an editor. The well-judging were soon pleased with the plain good sense, the general intelligence, the modesty, and the invariable rectitude of the young man. Their suffrage gained, that of the rest began to follow. For, in truth, there are few things of which the light is less to be hid than that of a good newspaper. "The Register," by degrees, won a general esteem, and began to prosper. And as, according to the discovery of Malthus, Prosperity is fond of pairing, it soon happened that our printer went to falling in love. Naturally again, being a printer, he, from a regard for the eternal fitness of things, fell in love with an authoress.

This was Miss Winifred Marshall, a young lady of the town of Newark, who to an agreeable person, good connections, and advantages of education, joined a literary talent that had already won no little approval. She wrote verse, and published several novels of the "Minerva Press" order, (such as "Lady Emma Melcombe and her Family," "Matilda Berkley," etc.,) of which only the names survive.

Despite the poetic adage about the course of true love, that of Joseph Gales ran smooth: Miss Marshall accepted his suit and they were married. Never were husband and wife better mated. They lived together most happily and long,-she dying, at an advanced age, only two years before him. Meantime, she had, from the first, brought him some marriage-portion beyond that which the Muses are wont to give with their daughters,-namely, laurels and bays; and she bore him three sons and five daughters, near half of whom the parents survived. Three (Joseph the younger, Winifred, and Sarah, now Mrs. Seaton) were born in England; a fourth, at the town of Altona, (near Hamburg,) from which she was named; and the rest in America.

To resume this story in the order of events. Mr. Gales went on with his journal, and when it had grown quite flourishing, he added to his printing-office the inviting appendage of a book-store, which also flourished. In the progress of both, it became necessary that he should employ a clerk. Among the applicants brought to him by an advertisement of what he needed, there presented himself an unfriended youth, with whose intelligence, modesty, and other signs of the future man within, he was so pleased that he at once took him into his employment,-at first, merely to keep his accounts,-but, by degrees, for superior things,-until, progressively, he (the youth) matured into his assistant editor, his dearest friend, and finally his successor in the journal. That youth was James Montgomery, the poet.

On the 10th of April, 1786, Mrs. Gales gave birth, at Eckington, their rural home, to her first child, Joseph, the present chief of the "Intelligencer." [Mr. Gales has since died.] Happy at home, the young mother could as delightedly look without. The business of her husband throve apace; nor less the general regard and esteem in which he was personally held. He grew continually in the confidence and affection of his fellow-citizens; endearing himself especially, by his sober counsels and his quiet charities, to all that industrious class who knew him as one of their own, and could look up without reluctance to a superiority which was only the unpretending one of goodness and sense. Over them, without seeking it, he gradually obtained an extraordinary ascendancy, of which the following is a single instance. Upon some occasion of wages or want among the working-people of Sheffield, a great popular commotion had burst out, attended by a huge mob and riot, which the magistracy strove in vain to appease or quell. When all else had failed, Mr. Gales bethought him of trying what he could do. Driven into the thick of the crowd, in an open carriage, he suddenly appeared amongst the rioters, and, by a few plain words of remonstrance, convinced them that they could only hurt themselves by overturning the laws, that they should seek other modes of redress, and meantime had all better go home. They agreed to do so,-but with the condition annexed, that they should first see him home. Whereupon, loosening the horses from the carriage, they drew him, with loud acclamations, back to his house.

Such were his prospects and position for some seven years after his marriage, when, of a sudden, without any fault of his own, he was made answerable for a fact that rendered it necessary for him to flee beyond the realm of Great Britain.

As a friend to Reform, he had, in his journal, at first supported Pitt's ministry, which had set out on the same principle, but which, when the revolutionary movement in France threatened to overthrow all government, abandoned all Reform, as a thing not then safe to set about. From this change of views Mr. Gales dissented, and still advocated Reform. So, again, as to the French Revolution, not yet arrived at the atrocities which it speedily reached,-he saw no need of making war upon it. In its outset, he had, along with Fox and other Liberals, applauded it; for it then professed little but what Liberals wished to see brought about in England. He still thought it good for France, though not for his own country. Thus, moderate as he was, he was counted in the Opposition and jealously watched.

It was in the autumn of 1792, while he was gone upon a journey of business, that a King's-messenger, bearing a Secretary-of-State's warrant for the seizure of Mr. Gales's person, presented himself at his house. For this proceeding against him the following facts had given occasion. In his office was employed a printer named Richard Davison,-a very quick, capable, useful man, and therefore much trusted,-but a little wild, withal, at once with French principles and religion, with conventicles, and those seditious clubs that were then secretly organized all over the island. This person corresponded with a central club in London, and had been rash enough to write them, just then, an insurrectionary letter, setting forth revolutionary plans, the numbers, the means they could command, the supplies of arms, etc., that they were forming. This sage epistle was betrayed into the hands of the Government. The discreet Dick they might very well have hanged; but that was not worth while. From his connection with the "Register," they supposed him to be only the agent and cover for a deeper man,-its proprietor; and at the latter only, therefore, had they struck. Nothing saved him from the blow, except the casual fact of his absence in another country, and their being ignorant of the route he had taken. This his friends alone knew, and where to reach him. They did so, at once, by a courier secretly despatched; and he, on learning what awaited him at home, instead of trusting to his innocence, chose rather to trust the seas; and, making his way to the coast, took the only good security for his freedom, by putting the German Ocean between him and pursuit. He sailed for Amsterdam, where arriving, he thence made his way to Hamburg, at which city he had decided that his family should join him. To England he could return only at the cost of a prosecution; and though this would, of necessity, end in an acquittal, it was almost sure to be preceded by imprisonment, while, together, they would half-ruin him. It was plain, then, that he must at once do what he had long intended to do, go to America.

Accordingly, he gave directions to his family to come to him, and to Montgomery that he should dispose of all his effects and settle up all his affairs. These offices that devoted friend performed most faithfully; remitting him the proceeds. The newspaper he himself bought and continued, under the name of the "Sheffield Iris." Still retaining his affection for the family, he passed into the household of what was left of them, and supplied to the three sisters of the elder Joseph Gales the place of a brother, and, wifeless and childless, lived on to a very advanced age, content with their society alone. The last of these dames died only a few months ago.

At Hamburg, whence they were to take ship for the United States, the family were detained all the winter by the delicate health of Mrs. Gales. This delay her husband put to profit, by mastering two things likely to be needful to him,-the German tongue and the art of short-hand. In the spring, they sailed for Philadelphia. Arrived there, he sought and at once obtained employment as a printer. It was soon perceived, not only that he was an admirable workman, but every way a man of unusual merit, and able to turn his hand to almost anything. By-and-by, reporters of Congressional debates being few and very indifferent, his employer, Claypole, said to him,-"You seem able to do everything that is wanted: pray, could you not do these Congressional Reports for us better than this drunken Callender, who gives us so much trouble?" Mr. Gales replied, with his usual modesty, that he did not know what he could do, but that he would try.

The next day, he attended the sitting of Congress, and brought away, in time for the compositors, a faithful transcript of such speeches as had been made. Appearing in the next morning's paper, it of course greatly astonished everybody. It seemed a new era in such things. They had heard of the like in Parliament, but had scarcely credited it. Claypole himself was the most astonished of all. Seizing a copy, he ran around the town, showing it to all he met, and still hardly comprehending the wonder which he himself had instigated. It need hardly be said that here was something far more profitable for Mr. Gales than type-setting.

But to apply this skill, possessed by none else, to the exclusive advantage of a journal of his own was yet more inviting; and the opportunity soon offering itself, he became the purchaser of the "Independent Gazetteer," a paper already established. This he conducted with success until the year 1799, making both reputation and many friends. Among the warmest of these were some of the North Carolina members, and especially that one whose name has ever since stood as a sort of proverb of honesty, Nathaniel Macon. By the representations of these friends, he was led to believe that their new State capital, Raleigh, where there was only a very decrepit specimen of journalism, would afford him at once a surer competence and a happier life than Philadelphia. Coming to this conclusion, he disposed of his newspaper and printing-office, and removed to Raleigh, where he at once established the "Register." Of his late paper, the "Gazetteer," we shall soon follow the fortunes to Washington, where it became the "Intelligencer": meantime, we must finish what is left to tell of his own.

At Raleigh he arrived under auspices which gave him not only a reputation, but friends, to set out with. Both he soon confirmed and augmented. By the constant merit of his journal, its sober sense, its moderation, and its integrity, he won and invariably maintained the confidence of all on that side of politics with which he concurred, (the old Republican,) and scarcely less conciliated the respect of his opponents. He quickly obtained, for his skill, and not merely as a partisan reward, the public printing of his State, and retained it until, reaching the ordinary limit of human life, he withdrew from the press. In the just and kindly old commonwealth which he so long served, it would have been hard for any party, no matter how much in the ascendant, to move anything for his injury. For the love and esteem which he had the faculty of attracting from the first deepened, as he advanced in age, into an absolute reverence the most general for his character and person; and the good North State honored and cherished no son of her own loins more than she did Joseph Gales. In Raleigh, there was no figure that, as it passed, was greeted so much by the signs of a peculiar veneration as that great, stalwart one of his, looking so plain and unaffected, yet with a sort of nobleness in its very simplicity, a gentleness in its strength, an inborn goodness and courtesy in all its roughness of frame,-his countenance mild and calm, yet commanding, thoughtful, yet pleasant and betokening a bosom that no low thought had ever entered. You had in him, indeed, the highest image of that stanch old order from which he was sprung, and might have said, "Here's the soul of a baron in the body of a peasant." For he really looked, when well examined, like all the virtues done in roughcast.

With him the age of necessary and of well-merited repose had now come; and judging that he could attain it only by quitting that habitual scene of business where it would still solicit him, he transferred his newspaper, his printing-office, and the bookstore which he had made their adjunct in Raleigh, as in Sheffield, to his third son, Weston; and removed to Washington, in order to pass the close of his days near two of the dearest of his children,-his son Joseph and his daughter Mrs. Seaton,-from whom he had been separated the most.

In renouncing all individual aims, Mr. Gales fell not into a mere life of meditation, but sought its future pleasures in the adoption of a scheme of benevolence, to the calm prosecution of which he might dedicate his declining powers, so long as his advanced age should permit. A worthy object for such efforts he recognized in the plan of African colonization, and of its affairs he accepted and almost to his death sustained the management in chief; achieving not less, by his admirable judgment, the warm approval and thanks of that wide-spread association, than, by the most amiable virtues of private life, winning in Washington, as he had done everywhere else, from all that approached him, a singular degree of deference and affection.

But the close of this long career of honor and of usefulness was now at hand. In 1839, he lost the wife whose tenderness had cheered the labors and whose gay intelligence had brightened the leisure of his existence. She had lived the delight of that intimate society to which she had confined faculties that would have adorned any circle whatever; and she died lamented in proportion by it, and by the only others to whom she was much known,-the poor. Her husband survived her but two years,-expiring at his son's house in Raleigh, where he was on a visit, in April, 1841, at the age of eighty. He died as calm as a child, in the placid faith of a true Christian.

Still telling his story in the order of dates, the writer would now turn to the younger Joseph Gales. As we have seen, he arrived in this country when seven years old, and went to Raleigh about six years afterwards. There he was placed in a school, where he made excellent progress,-profiting by the recollection of his earlier lessons, received from that best of all elementary teachers, a mother of well-cultivated mind. His boyhood, as usual, prefigured the mature man: it was diligent in study, hilarious at play; his mind bent upon solid things, not the showy. For all good, just, generous, and kindly things he had the warmest impulse and the truest perceptions. Quick to learn and to feel, he was slow only of resentment. Never was man born with more of those lacteals of the heart which secrete the milk of human kindness. Of the classic tongues, he can be said to have learnt only the Latin: the Greek was then little taught in any part of our country. For the Positive Sciences he had much inclination; since it is told, among other things, that he constructed instruments for himself, such as an electrical machine, with the performances of which he much amazed the people of Raleigh. Meantime he was forming at home, under the good guidance there, a solid knowledge of all those fine old authors whose works make the undegenerate literature of our language and then constituted what they called Polite Letters. With these went hand in hand, at that time, in the academies of the South, a profane amusement of the taste. In short, our sinful youth were fond of stage-plays, and even wickedly enacted them, instead of resorting to singing-schools. Joseph Gales the younger had his boyish emulation of Roscius and Garrick, and performed "top parts" in a diversity of those sad comedies and merry tragedies which boys are apt to make, when they get into buskins. But it must be said, that, as a theatric star, he presently waxed dim before a very handsome youth, a little his senior, who just then had entered his father's office. He was not only a printer, but had already been twice an editor,-last, in the late North Carolina capital, Halifax,-previously, in the great town of Petersburg,-and was bred in what seemed to Raleigh a mighty city, Richmond; in addition to all which strong points of reputation, he came of an F.F.V., and had been taught by the celebrated Ogilvie, of whom more anon. He was familiar with theatres, and had not only seen, but even criticized the great actors. He outshone his very brother-in-law and colleague that was to be. For this young gentleman was William Seaton.

Meantime, Joseph, too, had learnt the paternal art,-how well will appear from a single fact. About this time, his father's office was destroyed by fire, and with it the unfinished printing of the Legislative Journals and Acts of the year. Time did not allow waiting for new material from Philadelphia. Just in this strait, he that had of old been so inauspicious, Dick Davison, came once more into play,-but, this time, not as a marplot. He, strange to say, was at hand and helpful. For, after his political exploit, abandoning England in disgust at the consequences of his Gunpowder Plot, he, too, had not only come to America, but had chanced to set up his "type-stick" in the neighboring town of Warrenton, where, having flourished, he was now the master of a printing-office and the conductor of a newspaper. Thither, then, young Joseph was despatched, "copy" in hand. Richard-really a worthy man, after all-gladly atoned for his ancient hurtfulness, by lending his type and presses; and, falling to work with great vigor, our young Faust, with his own hands, put into type and printed off the needful edition of the Laws.

He had also, by this time, as an important instrument of his intended profession, attained the art of stenography. When, soon after, he began to employ it, he rapidly became an excellent reporter; and eventually, when he had grown thoroughly versed in public affairs, confessedly the best reporter that we ever had.

He was now well-prepared to join in the manly strife of business or politics. His father chose, therefore, at once to commit him to himself. He judged him mature enough in principles, strong enough in sense; and feared lest, by being kept too long under guidance and the easy life of home, he should fall into inertness. He first sent him to Philadelphia, therefore, to serve as a workman with Birch and Small; after which, he made for him an engagement on the "National Intelligencer," as a reporter, and sent him to Washington, in October, 1807.

To that place, changing its name to the one just mentioned, the father's former paper, "The Gazetteer," had been transferred by his old associate, Samuel Harrison Smith. Its first issue there (tri-weekly) was on the 31st of October, 1800, under the double title of "The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser." The latter half of the title seems to have been dropped in 1810, when its present senior came, for a time, into its sole proprietorship.

More than twice the age of any other journal now extant there,-for the "Globe" came some thirty, the "Union" some forty-five years later,-the "Intelligencer" has long stood, in every worthy sense, the patriarch of our metropolitan press. It has witnessed the rise and fall around it of full a hundred competitors,-many of them declared enemies; not a few, what was more dangerous far, professed friends. Yet, in the face of all enmity and of such friendship, it has ever held on its calm way, never deserting the public cause,-as little extreme in its opposition as in its support of those in power; so that its foes never forgot it, when they prevailed, but its friends repeatedly. To estimate the value of its influence, during its long career, would be impossible,-so much of right has it brought about, so much of wrong defeated.

Though it came hither with our Congress, a newspaper had once before been set up here,-either upon the expectation created by the laying of certain corner-stones, in 1792, that the Government would fix itself at this spot, or through an odd local faith in the dreams of some ancient visionary dwelling hard by, who had, many years before, foretold this as the destined site of a great imperial city, a second Rome, and so had bestowed upon Goose Creek the name of Tiber, long before this was Washington. The founder of this Pre-Adamite journal was Mr. Benjamin Moore; its name, "The Washington Gazette"; its issue, semi-weekly; its annual price, four dollars; and the two leading principles which, in that day of the infancy of political "platforms," his salutatory announced, were, first, "to obtain a living for himself," and, secondly, "to amuse and inform his fellow-mortals." How long this day-star of our journalism shone, before night again swallowed up the premature dawn, cannot now be stated. It must have been published at what was then expected to be our city, but is our penitentiary, Greenleaf's Point.

To the "Intelligencer" young Mr. Gales brought such vigor, such talent, and such skill in every department, that within two years, in 1809, he was admitted by Mr. Smith into partnership; within less than a year from which date, that gentleman, grown weary of the laborious life of the press, was content to withdraw and leave him sole proprietor, editor, and reporter. An enormous worker, however, it mattered little to him what tasks were to be assumed: he could multiply himself among them, and suffice for all.

In thus assuming the undivided charge of the paper, the young editor thought it becoming to set forth one main principle, that has, beyond a question, been admirably the guide of his public life: he said to his readers,-"It is the dearest right, and ought to be cherished as the proudest prerogative of a freeman, to be guided by the unbiassed convictions of his own judgment. This right it is my firm purpose to maintain, and to preserve inviolate the independence of the print now committed into my hands." Never was pledge more universally made or more rarely kept than this.

It was towards the close of Mr. Jefferson's Presidency that Mr. Gales had entered the office of the "Intelligencer"; and it was during Mr. Madison's first year that he became joint-editor of that paper. Of these Administrations it had been the supporter,-only following, in that regard, the transmitted politics of its original, the "Gazetteer," derived from the elder Mr. Gales. Bred in these, the son had learnt them of his sire, just as he had adopted his religion or his morals. Sprung from one who had been persecuted in England as a Republican, it was natural that the son should love the faith for which an honored parent had suffered.

The high qualities and the strong abilities of the young editor did not fail to strike the discerning eye of President Madison, who speedily gave him his affection and confidence. To that Administration the "Intelligencer" stood in the most intimate and faithful relations,-sustaining its policy as a necessity, where it might not have been a choice. During the entire course of the war, the "Intelligencer" sustained most vigorously all the measures needful for carrying it on with efficiency; and it did equally good service in reanimating, whenever it had slackened at any disaster, the drooping spirit of our people. Nor did its editors, when there were two, stop at these proofs of sincerity, nor slink, when danger drew near, from that hazard of their own persons to which they had stirred up the country. When invasion came, they at once took to arms, as volunteer common-soldiers, went to meet the enemy, and remained in the field until he had fallen back to the coast. And during the invasion of Washington, moreover, their establishment was attacked and partially destroyed, through an unmanly spirit of revenge on the part of the British forces. In October, 1812, proposing to himself the change of his paper into a daily one, as was accordingly brought about on the first of January ensuing, Mr. Gales invited Mr. Seaton, who had by this time become his brother-in-law, to come and join him. He did so; and the early tie of youthful friendship, which had grown between them at Raleigh, and which the new relation had drawn still closer, gradually matured into that more than friendship or brotherhood, that oneness and identity of all purposes, opinions, and interests which has ever since existed between them, without a moment's interruption, and has long been, to those who understood it, a rare spectacle of that concord and affection so seldom witnessed, and could never have come about except between men of singular virtues.

The same year that brought Gales and Seaton together as partners in business witnessed an alliance of a more interesting character; for it was in 1813 that Mr. Gales married the accomplished daughter of Theodorick Lee, younger brother of that brilliant soldier of the Revolution, the "Legionary Harry."

But, at this natural point, the writer must go back for a while, in order to bring down the story of William Seaton to where, uniting with his associate's, the two thus flow on in a single stream.

He was born January 11th, 1785, on the paternal estate in King William County, Virginia, one of a family of four sons and three daughters. At the good old mansion passed his childhood. There, too, according to what was then the wont in Virginia, he trod the first steps of learning, under the guidance of a domestic tutor, a decayed gentleman, old and bedridden; for the only part left him of a genteel inheritance was the gout. But when it became necessary to send his riper progeny abroad, for more advanced studies, Mr. Seaton very justly bethought him of going along with them; and so betook himself, with his whole family, to Richmond, where he was the possessor of houses enough to afford him a good habitation and a genteel income. Here, then, along with his brothers and sisters, William was taught, through an ascending series of schools, until, at last, he arrived at what was the wonder of that day,-the academy of Ogilvie, the Scotchman. He, be it noted, had an earldom, (that of Finlater,) which slept while its heir was playing pedagogue in America: a strange mixture of the ancient rhapsodist with the modern strolling actor, of the lord with him who lives by his wits. Scot as he was, he was better fitted to teach anything rather than common sense. The writer must not give the idea, however, that there was in Lord Ogilvie anything but eccentricity to derogate from the honors of either his lineage or his learning. A very solid teacher he was not. A great enthusiast by nature, and a master of the whole art of discoursing finely of even those things which he knew not well, he dazzled much, pleased greatly, and obtained a high reputation; so that, if he did not regularly inform or discipline the minds of his pupils, he probably made them, to an unusual degree, amends on another side: he infused into them, by the glitter of his accomplishments, a high admiration for learning and for letters. Certainly, the number of his scholars that arrived at distinction was remarkable; and this is, of course, a fact conclusive of great merit of some sort as a teacher, where, as in his case, the pupils were not many. Without pausing to mention others of them who arrived at honor, it may be well enough to refer to Winfield Scott, William Campbell Preston, B. Watkins Leigh, William S. Archer, and William C. Rives.

The writer does not know if it had ever been designed that young Seaton should proceed from Ogilvie's classes to the more systematic courses of a college. Possibly not. Even among the wealthy, at that time, home-education was often employed. The children of both sexes were committed to the care of private tutors, usually young Scotchmen, the graduates of Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, sent over to the planter, upon order, along with his yearly supply of goods, by his merchant abroad. Or else the sons were sent to select private schools, like that of Ogilvie, set up by men of such abilities and scholarship as were supposed capable of performing the whole work of institutions.

At any rate, our youth, without further preparation, at about the age of eighteen, entered earnestly upon the duties of life. He fell at once into his vocation,-impelled to it, no doubt, by the ambition for letters and public affairs which the lessons of Ogilvie usually produced. Party ran high. Virginia politics, flushed with recent success, had added to the usual passions of the contest those of victory.

Into the novelties of the day our student accordingly plunged, in common with nearly all others of a like age and condition. He became, in short, a politician. Though talent of every other sort abounded, that of writing promptly and pleasingly did not. Young Seaton was found to possess this, and therefore soon obtained leave to exercise it as assistant-editor of one of the Richmond journals. He had already made himself acquainted with the art of printing, in an office where he became the companion and friend of the late Thomas Ritchie, and it is more than probable that many of his youthful "editorials" were "set up" by his own hands. Attaining by degrees a youthful reputation, he received an invitation to take the sole charge of a respectable paper in Petersburg, "The Republican," the editor and proprietor of which, Mr. Thomas Field, was about to leave the country for some months. Acquitting himself here with great approval, he won an invitation to a still better position,-that of the proprietary editorship of the "North Carolina Journal," published at Halifax, the former capital of that State, and the only newspaper there. He accepted the offer, and became the master of his own independent journal. Of its being so he proceeded at once to give his patrons a somewhat decisive token. They were chiefly Federalists; it was a region strongly Federal; and the gazette itself had always maintained the purest Federalism: but he forthwith changed its politics to Republican.

There can be no doubt that he who made a change so manly conducted his paper with spirit. Yet he must have done it also with that wise and winning moderation and fairness which have since distinguished him and his associate. William Seaton could never have fallen into anything of the temper or the taste, the morals or the manners, which are now so widely the shame of the American press; he could never have written in the ill spirit of mere party, so as to wound or even offend the good men of an opposite way of thinking. The inference is a sure one from his character, and is confirmed by what we know to have happened during his editorial career among the Federalists of Halifax. Instead of his paper's losing ground under the circumstances just mentioned, it really gained so largely and won so much the esteem of both sides, that, when he desired to dispose of it, in order to seek a higher theatre, he easily sold the property for double what it had cost him.

It was now that he made his way to Raleigh, the new State-capital, and became connected with the "Register." Nor was it long before this connection was drawn yet closer by his happy marriage with the lady whose virtues and accomplishments have so long been the modest, yet shining ornament and charm of his household and of the society of Washington. After this union, he continued his previous relationship with the "Register," until, as already mentioned, he came to the metropolis to join all his fortunes with those of his brother-in-law. From this point, of course, their stories, like their lives, become united, and merge, with a rare concord, into one. They have had no bickerings, no misunderstanding, no difference of view which a consultation did not at once reconcile; they have never known a division of interests; from their common coffer each has always drawn whatever he chose; and, down to this day, there has never been a settlement of accounts between them. What facts could better attest not merely a singular harmony of character, but an admirable conformity of virtues?

The history of the "Intelligencer" has, as to all its leading particulars, been for fifty years spread before thousands of readers, in its continuous diary. To re-chronicle any part of what is so well known would be idle in the extreme. Of the editors personally, their lives, since they became mature and settled, have presented few events such as are not common to all men,-little of vicissitude, beyond that of pockets now full and now empty,-nothing but a steady performance of duty, an exertion, whenever necessary, of high ability, and the gradual accumulation through these of a deeply felt esteem among all the best and wisest of the land. Amidst the many popular passions with which nearly all have, in our country, run wild, they have maintained a perpetual and sage moderation; amidst incessant variations of doctrine, they have preserved a memory and a conscience; in the frequent fluctuations of power, they have steadily checked the alternate excesses of both parties; and they have never given to either a factious opposition or a merely partisan support. Of their journal it may be said, that there has, in all our times, shone no such continual light on public affairs, there has stood no such sure defence of whatever was needful to be upheld. Tempering the heats of both sides,-re-nationalizing all spirit of section,-combating our propensity to lawlessness at home and aggression abroad,-spreading constantly on each question of the day a mass of sound information,-the venerable editors have been, all the while, a power and a safety in the land, no matter who were the rulers. Neither party could have spared an opposition so just or a support so well-measured. Thus it cannot be deemed an American exaggeration to declare the opinion as to the influence of the "Intelligencer" over our public counsels, that its value is not easily to be overrated.

Never, meantime, was authority wielded with less assumption. The "Intelligencer" could not, of course, help being aware of the weight which its opinions always carried among the thinking; but it has never betrayed any consciousness of its influence, unless in a ceaseless care to deserve respect. Its modesty and candor, its fairness and courtesy have been invariable; nor less so, its observance of that decorum and those charities which constitute the very grace of all public life.

From the time of their coming together, down to the year 1820, Gales and Seaton were the exclusive reporters, as well as editors, of their journal,-one of them devoting himself to the Senate, and the other to the House of Representatives. Generally speaking, they published only running reports,-on special occasions, however, giving the speeches and proceedings entire. In those days they had seats of honor assigned to them directly by the side of the presiding officers, and over the snuff-box, in a quiet and familiar manner, the topics of the day were often discussed. To the privileges they then enjoyed, but more especially to their sagacity and industry, are we now indebted, as a country, for their "Register of Debates," which, with the "Intelligencer," has become a most important part of our national history. As in their journal nearly all the most eminent of American statesmen have discussed the affairs of the country, so have they been the direct means of preserving many of the speeches which are now the acknowledged ornaments of our political literature. Had it not been for Mr. Gales, the great intellectual combat between Hayne and Webster, for example, would have passed into a vague tradition, perhaps. The original notes of Mr. Webster's speech, now in Mr. Gales's library, form a volume of several hundred pages, and, having been corrected and interlined by the statesman's own hand, present a treasure that might be envied. At the period just alluded to, Mr. Gales had given up the practice of reporting any speeches, and it was a mere accident that led him to pay Mr. Webster the compliment in question. That it was appreciated was proved by many reciprocal acts of kindness and the long and happy intimacy that existed between the two gentlemen, ending only with the life of the statesman. It was Mr. Webster's opinion, that the abilities of Mr. Gales were of the highest order; and yet the writer has heard of one instance in which even the editor could not get along without a helping hand. Mr. Gales had for some days been engaged upon the Grand Jury, and, with his head full of technicalities, entered upon the duty of preparing a certain editorial. In doing this, he unconsciously employed a number of legal phrases; and when about half through, found it necessary to come to a halt. At this juncture, he dropped a note to Mr. Webster, transmitting the unfinished article and explaining his difficulty. Mr. Webster took it in hand, finished it to the satisfaction of Mr. Gales, and it was published as editorial.

But the writer is trespassing upon private ground, and it is with great reluctance that he refrains from recording a long list of incidents which have come to his knowledge, calculated to illustrate the manifold virtues of his distinguished friends. That they are universally respected and beloved by those who know them,-that their opinions on public matters have been solicited by Secretaries of State and even by Presidents opposed to them in politics,-that their journal has done more than any other in the country to promote a healthy tone in polite literature,-that their home-life has been made happy by the influences of refinement and taste,-and that they have given away to the poor money enough almost to build a city, and to the unfortunate spoken kind words enough to fill a library, are all assertions which none can truthfully deny. If, therefore, to look back upon a long life not uselessly spent is what will give us peace at last, then will the evening of their days be all that they could desire; and their "silver hairs," the most appropriate crown of true patriotism,

"Will purchase them a good opinion,

And buy men's voices to commend their deeds."

* * * * *

SONNET.

WRITTEN AFTER A VIOLENT THUNDER-STORM IN THE COUNTRY.

An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay,

Like some sore-smitten creature, nigh to death,

With feverish, pallid lips, with laboring breath,

And languid eyeballs darkening to the day;

A burning noontide ruled with merciless sway

Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath,

The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath,

Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray:

When, sudden, like a cheerful trumpet blown

Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind,

Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder's tone

Swells into wrath, the rainy cataracts fall,-

But pausing soon, behold creation shrined

In a new birth, God's covenant clasping all!

* * * * *

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD.

There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not need counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have. That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which win their way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks and clean-shaped limbs of a panther.

There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with reproof or counsel. "This is one of her days," old Sophy would say quietly to her father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to herself. These days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, concentrated watchfulness had taught her, at certain periods of the year. It was in the heats of summer that they were most common and most strongly characterized. In winter, on the other hand, she was less excitable, and even at times heavy and as if chilled and dulled in her sensibilities. It was a strange, paroxysmal kind of life that belonged to her. It seemed to come and go with the sunlight. All winter long she would be comparatively quiet, easy to manage, listless, slow in her motions; her eye would lose something of its strange lustre; and the old nurse would feel so little anxiety, that her whole expression and aspect would show the change, and people would say to her, "Why, Sophy, how young you're looking!"

As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and lie there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season warmed, the light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep would grow restless again,-for she knew, that, so long as the glitter was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or movements.

At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures that feed upon them had grown thick and strong,-about the time when the second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were following up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, (falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers dropping as the grass-flowers drop,-with sharp semivowel consonantal sounds,-frsh,-for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all pure vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to the unyielding earth,)-about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts. This was the period of the year when the Rockland people were most cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base of The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots, whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much given to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and as she had grown more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take the night as the day for her rambles.

At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament came out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never so superb as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. The barred skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous muslins; the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if for her own pleasure rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly left her arm. Without some necklace she was never seen,-either the golden cord she wore at the great party, or a chain of mosaics, or simply a ring of golden scales. Some said that Elsie always slept in a necklace, and that when she died she was to be buried in one. It was a fancy of hers,-but many thought there was a reason for it.

Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but there was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe just so far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain enough to him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the first thing was to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, or with others interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in a hurry.

He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have got a foot-hold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession against him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and the court he had paid her. These were the only persons on the place of much importance to gain over. The people employed about the house and farmlands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey her without questioning her commands.

Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he had lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system of operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more he had convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. If he suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could hardly, in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only one life between Elsie and her fortune,-and lives are so uncertain! The girl might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after he had got her. In short, he must have the property, and Elsie Venner, as she was to go with it,-and then, if he found it convenient and agreeable to lead a virtuous life, he would settle down and raise children and vegetables; but if he found it inconvenient and disagreeable, so much the worse for those that made it so. Like many other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue were a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there might be contingencies in which the property would be better without its incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the light of all its possible solutions.

One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With the acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own interest gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd where real lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young man up at the school where the girl had been going of late, as probably at the bottom of it.

"Cousin Elsie in love!" so he communed with himself upon his lonely pillow. "In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? Let him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between us. What makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking with him. Don't like her looks and ways;-she's thinking about something, anyhow. Where does she get those books she is reading so often? Not out of our library, that's certain. If I could have ten minutes' peep into her chamber now, I would find out where she got them, and what mischief she was up to."

At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a shape which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of moonlight into the shadow of the the trees. She was setting out on one of her midnight rambles.

Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks flushed with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to invade a young girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful hour, and tell him some little matters he wanted to know. The chamber he slept in was over the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at this season. There was no great risk of his being seen or heard, if he ventured down-stairs to her apartment.

Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. The young lady had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, carrying the key with her, no doubt,-unless, indeed, she had got out by the window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in at this window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving his footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his own chamber, and held a council of war with himself.

He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It was open. He then went to one of his trunks, wich he unlocked, and began carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not stop to mention,-only remarking that there were dresses of various patterns, which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in certain contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few of these, he thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile and drew out a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending in a noose,-a tough, well-seasoned lasso, looking as if it had seen service and was none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of this and fastened it to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end out of the window so that it should hang by the open casement of Elsie's room. By this he let himself down opposite her window, and with a slight effort swung himself inside the room. He lighted a match, found a candle, and, having lighted that, looked curiously about him, as Clodius might have done when he smuggled himself in among the Vestals.

Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It was a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to those who have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few could hope to reach, even if they knew where to look for them. Crows' nests, which are never found but in the tall trees, commonly enough in the forks of ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a quick eye and hard climb to find and get hold of, mosses and ferns of unusual aspect, and quaint monstrosities of vegetable growth, such as Nature delights in, showed that Elsie had her tastes and fancies like any naturalist or poet.

Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of trees does not always require clipping to make it look like an image of life. From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we could see all summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and General Jackson on horse-back, done by Nature in green leaves, each with a single tree. But to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and smaller vegetable growths there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, and her humor not always refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence of animal life in her rude caricatures, which sometimes actually reach the point of imitating the complete human figure, as in that extraordinary specimen which nobody will believe to be genuine, except the men of science, and of which the discreet reader may have a glimpse by application in the proper quarter.

Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, that one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of his fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, as if a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the bark until the parasite becomes almost identified with its support. With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of them not less singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in form and color, such as a girl of fine organization and nice culture might naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, in adorning her apartment.

All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not detain Mr. Richard Venner very long, whatever may have been his sensibilities to art. He was more curious about books and papers. A copy of Keats lay on the table. He opened it and read the name of Bernard C. Langdon on the blank leaf. An envelope was on the table with Elsie's name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was empty, and he could not find the note it contained. Her desk was locked, and it would not be safe to tamper with it. He had seen enough; the girl received books and notes from this fellow up at the school,-this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;-he was aspiring to become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he?

Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers, whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to reward his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it. There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it might have been often read;-what the diablo had Elsie to do with hymns?

Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the innocent betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, some human tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the question,-but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way of putting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could think over more safely in his own quarters. So he stole softly to the window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his own chamber and drew in the lasso.

It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was his rival in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of securing her for himself. There was no time to be lost. He must come into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of her affections, if she had any. So he began to court her company again, to propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her whenever she was strolling about the grounds, to make himself agreeable, according to the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in every way which seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in that amiable effort.

The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the moment. Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon him. This he soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she could exercise a kind of fascination over him,-though there were times in which he actually felt an influence he could not understand, an effect of some peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still centring in those diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so curiously to look into.

Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity with the girl,-not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature was like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part of his plan. He was at liberty to prolong his visit at his own pleasure. This was not strange; these three persons, Dudley Venner, his daughter, and his nephew, represented all that remained of an old and honorable family. Had Elsie been like other girls, her father might have been less willing to entertain a young fellow like Dick as an inmate; but he had long outgrown all the slighter apprehensions which he might have had in common with all parents, and followed rather than led the imperious instincts of his daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, but of life and death, or more than that,-some dark ending, perhaps, which would close the history of his race with disaster and evil report upon the lips of all coming generations.

As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of looking at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional in the law of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of her as a girl to be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, when others court their female relatives; they know them as good young or old women enough,-aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, whatever they may be,-but never think of anybody's falling in love with them, any more than of their being struck by lightning.

But in this case there were special reasons, in addition to the common family delusion,-reasons which seemed to make it impossible that she should attract a suitor. Who would dare to marry Elsie? No, let her have the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the wholesome excitement, of companionship; it might save her from lapsing into melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a kind of superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent idea, her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from her birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind and feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought of any other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to become her suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at that happy period when interested motives are least apt to influence the choice; and his single idea of marriage was, that it was the union of persons naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual attraction. Very simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many years since his wife's death, and judged the hearts of others, most of all of his brother's son, by his own. He had often thought whether, in case of Elsie's dying or being necessarily doomed to seclusion, he might not adopt this nephew and make him his heir; but it had not occurred to him that Richard might wish to become his son-in-law for the sake of his property.

It is very easy to criticize other people's modes of dealing with their children. Outside observers see results; parents see processes. They notice the trivial movements and accents which betray the blood of this or that ancestor; they can detect the irrepressible movement of hereditary impulse in looks and acts which mean nothing to the common observer. To be a parent is almost to be a fatalist. This boy sits with legs crossed, just as his uncle used to whom he never saw; his grandfathers both died before he was born, but he has the movement of the eyebrows which we remember in one of them, and the gusty temper of the other.

These are things parents can see, and which they must take account of in education, but which few except parents can be expected to really understand. Here and there a sagacious person, old, or of middle age, who has triangulated a race, that is, taken three or more observations from the several standing-places of three different generations, can tell pretty nearly the range of possibilities and the limitations of a child, actual or potential, of a given stock,-errors excepted always, because children of the same stock are not bred just alike, because the traits of some less known ancestor are liable to break out at any time, and because each human being has, after all, a small fraction of individuality about him which gives him a flavor, so that he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a court of justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these fatal oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after all. We make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our eyes. That is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, and the physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the principle of selection which would disinherit all the weaker children. The magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made up,-the people without biographies, whose lives have made a clear solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of being precipitated in the opaque sediment of history--

But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition.

CHAPTER XX.

FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN.

There were not wanting people who accused Dudley Venner of weakness and bad judgment in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of opinion that the great mistake was in not "breaking her will" when she was a little child. There was nothing the matter with her, they said, but that she had been spoiled by indulgence. If they had had the charge of her, they'd have brought her down. She'd got the upperhand of her father now; but if he'd only taken hold of her in season! There are people who think that everything may be done, if the doer, be he educator or physician, be only called "in season." No doubt,-but in season would often be a hundred or two years before the child was born; and people never send so early as that.

The father of Elsie Venner knew his duties and his difficulties too well to trouble himself about anything others might think or say. So soon as he found that he could not govern his child, he gave his life up to following her and protecting her as far as he could. It was a stern and terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility, and not without force of intellect and will, and the manly ambition for himself and his family-name which belonged to his endowments and his position. Passive endurance is the hardest trial to persons of such a nature.

What made it still more a long martyrdom was the necessity for bearing his cross in utter loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. He could not talk of them even with those who knew their secret spring. His minister had the unsympathetic nature which is common in the meaner sort of devotees,-persons who mistake spiritual selfishness for sanctity, and grab at the infinite prize of the great Future and Elsewhere with the egotism they excommunicate in its hardly more odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. How could he speak with the old physician and the old black woman about a sorrow and a terror which but to name was to strike dumb the lips of Consolation?

In the dawn of his manhood he had found that second consciousness for which young men and young women go about looking into each other's faces, with their sweet, artless aim playing in every feature, and making them beautiful to each other, as to all of us. He had found his other self early, before he had grown weary in the search and wasted his freshness in vain longings: the lot of many, perhaps we may say of most, who infringe the patent of our social order by intruding themselves into a life already upon half-allowance of the necessary luxuries of existence. The life he had led for a brief space was not only beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious process of the tuning of two souls to each other, string by string, not without little half-pleasing discords now and then when some chord in one or the other proves to be over-strained or over-lax, but always approaching nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at last as two instruments with a single voice. Something more than a year of this blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him when he found himself once more alone,-alone, save for the little diamond-eyed child lying in the old woman's arms, with the coral necklace round her throat and the rattle in her hand.

He would not die by his own act. It was not the way in his family. There may have been other, perhaps better reasons, but this was enough; he did not come of suicidal stock. He must live for this child's sake, at any rate; and yet,-oh, yet, who could tell with what thoughts he looked upon her? Sometimes her little features would look placid, and something like a smile would steal over them; then all his tender feelings would rush up into his eyes, and he would put his arms out to take her from the old woman,-but all at once her eyes would narrow and she would throw her head back; and a shudder would seize him as he stooped over his child,-he could not look upon her,-he could not touch his lips to her cheek; nay, there would sometimes come into his soul such frightful suggestions that he would hurry from the room lest the hinted thought should become a momentary madness and he should lift his hand against the helpless infant which owed him life.

In those miserable days he used to wander all over The Mountain in his restless endeavor to seek some relief for inward suffering in outward action. He had no thought of throwing himself from the summit of any of the broken cliffs, but he clambered over them recklessly, as having no particular care for his life. Sometimes he would go into the accursed district where the venomous reptiles were always to be dreaded, and court their worst haunts, and kill all he could come near with a kind of blind fury that was strange in a person of his gentle nature.

One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt of his. It frowned upon his home beneath in a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams and fissures that looked ominous;-what would happen, if it broke off some time or other and came crashing down on the fields and roofs below? He thought of such a possible catastrophe with a singular indifference, in fact with a feeling almost like pleasure. It would be such a swift and thorough solution of this great problem of life he was working out in ever-recurring daily anguish! The remote possibility of such a catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers beneath The Mountain to other places of residence; here the danger was most imminent, and yet he loved to dwell upon the chances of its occurrence. Danger is often the best counter-irritant in cases of mental suffering; he found a solace in careless exposure of his life, and learned to endure the trials of each day better by dwelling in imagination on the possibility that it might be the last for him and the home that was his.

Time, the great consoler, helped these influences, and he gradually fell into more easy and less dangerous habits of life. He ceased from his more perilous rambles. He thought less of the danger from the great overhanging rocks and forests; they had hung there for centuries; it was not very likely they would crash or slide in his time. He became accustomed to all Elsie's strange looks and ways. Old Sophy dressed her with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up the red coral branch with silver bells which the little toothless Dudleys had bitten upon for a hundred years. By an infinite effort, her father forced himself to become the companion of this child, for whom he had such a mingled feeling, but whose presence was always a trial to him and often a terror.

At a cost which no human being could estimate, he had done his duty, and in some degree reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of filial feeling for him, such as her nature was capable of. She never would obey him; that was not to be looked for. Commands, threats, punishments, were out of the question with her; the mere physical effects of crossing her will betrayed themselves in such changes of expression and color that it would have been senseless to attempt to govern her in any such way. Leaving her mainly to herself, she could be to some extent indirectly influenced,-not otherwise. She called her father "Dudley," as if he had been her brother. She ordered everybody and would be ordered by none.

Who could know all these things, except the few people of the household? What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons laid the blame on her father of those peculiarities which were freely talked about,-of those darker tendencies which were hinted of in whispers? To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was supremely indifferent, not only with the indifference which all gentlemen feel to the gossip of their inferiors, but with a charitable calmness which did not wonder or blame. He knew that his position was not simply a difficult, but an impossible one, and schooled himself to bear his destiny as well as he might and report himself only at Headquarters.

He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just beginning to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of habitual sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, to turn to, who did not know either too much or too little. He had no heart to rest upon and into which he might unburden himself of the secrets and the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, wide-open eyeballs through all the weary hours of the night.

It was understood between Dudley Venner and old Doctor Kittredge that Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection of her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been in the mind of either. But Dudley Venner had studied Elsie's case in the light of all the books he could find which might do anything towards explaining it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical science for a special purpose, having no previous acquaintance with it, his imagination found what it wanted in the books he read, and adjusted it to the facts before him. So it was he came to cherish those two fancies before alluded to: that the ominous birthmark she had carried from infancy might fade and become obliterated, and that the age of complete maturity might be signalized by an entire change in her physical and mental state. He held these vague hopes as all of us nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for the world would he have questioned his sagacious old medical friend as to the probability or possibility of their being true. We are very shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes we live on.

In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself surprised at the extent of Dudley Venner's information. Doctor Kittredge found that he was in advance of him in the knowledge of recent physiological discoveries. He had taken pains to become acquainted with agricultural chemistry; and the neighboring farmers owed him some useful hints about the management of their land. He renewed his old acquaintance with the classic authors. He loved to warm his pulses with Homer and calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his neighbors, nor ever churlish towards them, but on the other hand not cultivating any intimate relations with them.

He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth, indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost something of its poignancy, the light of earlier and happier memories had begun to struggle with and to soften its thick darkness, and even that duty which he had confronted with such an effort had become an endurable habit.

At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of their acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities until their intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier than they were at twenty, Dudley Venner was stronger in thought and tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he counted but half his present years. He was now on the verge of that decade which marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in knowledge and strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. At the entrance of this decade his inward nature was richer and deeper than in any earlier period of his life. If he could only be summoned to action, he was capable of noble service. If his sympathies could only find an outlet, he was never so capable of love as now; for his natural affections had been gathering in the course of all these years, and the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life were softened and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling, as the wreck left by a mountain-slide is covered over by the gentle intrusion of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the stronger vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the peaceful slopes around it.

Perhaps Dudley Venner had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if he had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence with which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man more in the habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded with a person with Dick's questionable story and unquestionable physiognomy. But he was singularly unsuspicious, and his natural kindness was an additional motive to the wish for introducing some variety into the routine of Elsie's life.

If Dudley Venner did not know just what he wanted at this period of his life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who thought they did know. He had been a widower long enough,-nigh twenty year, wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,-there wa'n't anything to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other folks. What was the reason he didn't go abaout to taown-meetin's, 'n' Sahbath-meetin's, 'n' lyceums, 'n' school-'xaminations, 'n' s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,-and other entertainments where the still-faced two-story folks were in the habit of looking round to see if any of the mansion-house gentry were present?-Fac' was, he was livin' too lonesome daown there at the mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She was genteel enough for him and-let's see, haow old was she? Seven-'n'-twenty,-no, six-'n'-twenty,-Born the same year we buried aour little Anny Marí.

There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But "Portia," as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not happen to awaken the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He met her once in a while, and said to himself that she was a good specimen of the grand style of woman; and then the image came back to him of a woman not quite so large, not quite so imperial in her port, not quite so incisive in her speech, not quite so judicial in her opinions, but with two or three more joints in her frame and two or three soft inflections in her voice which for some absurd reason or other drew him to her side and so bewitched him that he told her half his secrets and looked into her eyes all that, he could not tell, in less time than it would have taken him to discuss the champion paper of the last Quarterly with the admirable "Portia." Heu, quanta minus! How much more was that lost image to him than all it left on earth!

The study of love is very much like that of meteorology. We know that just about so much rain will fall in a season; but on what particular day it will shower is more than we can tell. We know that just about so much love will be made every year in a given population; but who will rain his young affections upon the heart of whom is not known except to the astrologers and fortune-tellers. And why rain falls as it does, and why love is made just as it is, are equally puzzling questions.

The woman a man loves is always his own daughter, far more his daughter than the female children born to him by the common law of life. It is not the outside woman, who takes his name, that he loves: before her image has reached the centre of his consciousness, it has passed through fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been churned over by ten thousand pulse-beats, and reacted upon by millions of lateral impulses which bandy it about through the mental spaces as a reflection is sent back and forward in a saloon lined with mirrors. With this altered image of the woman before him his pre?xisting ideal becomes blended. The object of his love is half the offspring of her legal parents and half of her lover's brain. The difference between the real and the ideal objects of love must not exceed a fixed maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite them stereoscopically into a single image, if the divergence passes certain limits. A formidable analogy, much in the nature of a proof, with very serious consequences, which moralists and match-makers would do well to remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart is a dangerous physiological state, and may lead to missteps and serious falls.

Whether Dudley Venner would ever find a breathing image near enough to his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, was very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence would steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that interval of silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler forms of public worship, gliding into his consciousness without hurting its old griefs, herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and subdued into sweet acquiescence with the Divine will,-some such woman as this, if Heaven should send him such, might call him back to the world of happiness, from which he seemed forever exiled. He could never again be the young lover who walked through the garden-alleys all red with roses in the old dead and buried June of long ago. He could never forget the bride of his youth, whose image, growing phantom-like with the lapse of years, hovered over him like a dream while waking and like a reality in dreams. But if it might be in God's good providence that this desolate life should come under the influence of human affections once more, what an ecstasy of renewed existence was in store for him! His life had not all been buried under that narrow ridge of turf with the white stone at its head. It seemed so for a while; but it was not and could not and ought not to be so. His first passion had been a true and pure one; there was no spot or stain upon it. With all his grief there blended no cruel recollection of any word or look he would have wished to forget. All those little differences, such as young married people with any individual flavor in their characters must have, if they are tolerably mated, had only added to the music of existence, as the lesser discords admitted into some perfect symphony, fitly resolved, add richness and strength to the whole harmonious movement. It was a deep wound that Fate, had inflicted on him; nay, it seemed like a mortal one; but the weapon was clean, and its edge was smooth. Such wounds must heal with time in healthy natures, whatever a false sentiment may say, by the wise and beneficent law of our being. The recollection of a deep and true affection, is rather a divine nourishment for a life to grow strong upon than a poison to destroy it.

Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his early bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle between natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary tendencies these had to overcome, on the other,-between hope and fear, so long in conflict that despair itself would have been like an anodyne, and he would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the heavy sleep of a bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas! some new affection might perhaps rekindle the fires of youth in his heart; but what power could calm that haggard terror of the parent which rose with every morning's sun and watched with every evening star,-what power save alone that of him who comes bearing the inverted torch, and leaving after him only the ashes printed with his footsteps?

* * * * *

THE ELECTION IN NOVEMBER.

While all of us have been watching, with that admiring sympathy which never fails to wait on courage and magnanimity, the career of the new Timoleon in Sicily,-while we have been reckoning, with an interest scarcely less than in some affair of personal concern, the chances and changes that bear with furtherance or hindrance upon the fortune of united Italy, we are approaching, with a quietness and composure which more than anything else mark the essential difference between our own form of democracy and any other yet known in history, a crisis in our domestic policy more momentous than any that has arisen since we became a nation. Indeed, considering the vital consequences for good or evil that will follow from the popular decision in November, we might be tempted to regard the remarkable moderation which has thus far characterized the Presidential canvass as a guilty indifference to the duty implied in the privilege of suffrage, or a stolid unconsciousness of the result which may depend upon its exercise in this particular election, did we not believe that it arose chiefly from the general persuasion that the success of the Republican party was a foregone conclusion.

In a society like ours, where every man may transmute his private thought into history and destiny by dropping it into the ballot-box, a peculiar responsibility rests upon the individual. Nothing can absolve us from doing our best to look at all public questions as citizens, and therefore in some sort as administrators and rulers. For, though during its term of office the government be practically as independent of the popular will as that of Russia, yet every fourth year the people are called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs. Theoretically, at least, to give democracy any standing-ground for an argument with despotism or oligarchy, a majority of the men composing it should be statesmen and thinkers. It is a proverb, that to turn a radical into a conservative there needs only to put him into office, because then the license of speculation or sentiment is limited by a sense of responsibility,-then for the first time he becomes capable of that comparative view which sees principles and measures, not in the narrow abstract, but in the full breadth of their relations to each other and to political consequences. The theory of democracy presupposes something of these results of official position in the individual voter, since in exercising his right he becomes for the moment an integral part of the governing power.

How very far practice is from any likeness to theory a week's experience of our politics suffices to convince us. The very government itself seems an organized scramble, and Congress a boys' debating-club, with the disadvantage of being reported. As our party-creeds are commonly represented less by ideas than by persons, (who are assumed, without too close a scrutiny, to be the exponents of certain ideas,) our politics become personal and narrow to a degree never paralleled, unless in ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. Our Congress debates and our newspapers discuss, sometimes for day after day, not questions of national interest, not what is wise and right, but what the Honorable Lafayette Skreemer said on the stump, or bad whiskey said for him, half a dozen years ago. If that personage, outraged in all the finer sensibilities of our common nature, by failing to get the contract for supplying the District Court-House at Skreemeropolisville City with revolvers, was led to disparage the union of these States, it is seized on as proof conclusive that the party to which he belongs are so many Cat_a_lines,-for Congress is unanimous only in misspelling the name of that oft-invoked conspirator. The next Presidential Election looms always in advance, so that we seem never to have an actual Chief Magistrate, but a prospective one, looking to the chances of re?lection, and mingling in all the dirty intrigues of provincial politics with an unhappy talent for making them dirtier. The cheating mirage of the White House lures our public men away from present duties and obligations; and if matters go on as they have gone, we shall need a Committee of Congress to count the spoons in the public plate-closet, whenever a President goes out of office,-with a policeman to watch every member of the Committee. We are kept normally in that most unprofitable of predicaments, a state of transition, and politicians measure their words and deeds by a standard of immediate and temporary expediency,-an expediency not as concerning the nation, but which, if more than merely personal, is no wider than the interests of party.

Is all this a result of the failure of democratic institutions? Rather of the fact that those institutions have never yet had a fair trial, and that for the last thirty years an abnormal element has been acting adversely with continually increasing strength. Whatever be the effect of slavery upon the States where it exists, there can be no doubt that its moral influence upon the North has been most disastrous. It has compelled our politicians into that first fatal compromise with their moral instincts and hereditary principles which makes all consequent ones easy; it has accustomed us to makeshifts instead of statesmanship, to subterfuge instead of policy, to party-platforms for opinions, and to a defiance of the public sentiment of the civilized world for patriotism. We have been asked to admit, first, that it was a necessary evil; then that it was a good both to master and slave; then that it was the corner-stone of free institutions; then that it was a system divinely instituted under the Old Law and sanctioned under the New. With a representation, three-fifths of it based on the assumption that negroes are men, the South turns upon us and insists on our acknowledging that they are things. After compelling her Northern allies to pronounce the "free and equal" clause of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence (because it stood in the way of enslaving men) a manifest absurdity, she has declared, through the Supreme Court of the United States, that negroes are not men in the ordinary meaning of the word. To eat dirt is bad enough, but to find that we have eaten more than was necessary may chance to give us an indigestion. The slaveholding interest has gone on step by step, forcing concession after concession, till it needs but little to secure it forever in the political supremacy of the country. Yield to its latest demand,-let it mould the evil destiny of the Territories,-and the thing is done past recall. The next Presidential Election is to say Yes or No.

But we should not regard the mere question of political preponderancy as of vital consequence, did it not involve a continually increasing moral degradation on the part of the Nonslaveholding States,-for Free States they could not be called much longer. Sordid and materialistic views of the true value and objects of society and government are professed more and more openly by the leaders of popular outcry, if it cannot be called public opinion. That side of human nature which it has been the object of all lawgivers and moralists to repress and subjugate is flattered and caressed; whatever is profitable is right; and already the slave-trade, as yielding a greater return on the capital invested than any other traffic, is lauded as the highest achievement of human reason and justice. Mr. Hammond has proclaimed the accession of King Cotton, but he seems to have forgotten that history is not without examples of kings who have lost their crowns through the folly and false security of their ministers. It is quite true that there is a large class of reasoners who would weigh all questions of right and wrong in the balance of trade; but-we cannot bring ourselves to believe that it is a wise political economy which makes cotton by unmaking men, or a far-seeing statesmanship which looks on an immediate money-profit as a safe equivalent for a beggared public sentiment. We think Mr. Hammond even a little premature in proclaiming the new Pretender. The election of November may prove a Culloden. Whatever its result, it is to settle, for many years to come, the question whether the American idea is to govern this continent, whether the Occidental or the Oriental theory of society is to mould our future, whether we are to recede from principles which eighteen Christian centuries have been slowly establishing at the cost of so many saintly lives at the stake and so many heroic ones on the scaffold and the battle-field, in favor of some fancied assimilation to the household arrangements of Abraham, of which all that can be said with certainty is that they did not add to his domestic happiness.

We believe that this election is a turning-point in our history; for, although there are four candidates, there are really, as everybody knows, but two parties, and a single question that divides them. The supporters of Messrs. Bell and Everett have adopted as their platform the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the Laws. This may be very convenient, but it is surely not very explicit. The cardinal question on which the whole policy of the country is to turn-a question, too, which this very election must decide in one way or the other-is the interpretation to be put upon certain clauses of the Constitution. All the other parties equally assert their loyalty to that instrument. Indeed, it is quite the fashion. The removers of all the ancient landmarks of our policy, the violators of thrice-pledged faith, the planners of new treachery to established compromise, all take refuge in the Constitution,-

"Like thieves that in a hemp-plot lie,

Secure against the hue and cry."

In the same way the first Bonaparte renewed his profession of faith in the Revolution at every convenient opportunity; and the second follows the precedent of his uncle, though the uninitiated fail to see any logical sequence from 1789 to 1815 or 1860. If Mr. Bell loves the Constitution, Mr. Breckinridge is equally fond; that Egeria of our statesmen could be "happy with either, were t'other dear charmer away." Mr. Douglas confides the secret of his passion to the unloquacious clams of Rhode Island, and the chief complaint made against Mr. Lincoln by his opponents is that he is too Constitutional.

Meanwhile the only point in which voters are interested is,-What do they mean by the Constitution? Mr. Breckinridge means the superiority of a certain exceptional species of property over all others, nay, over man himself. Mr. Douglas, with a different formula for expressing it, means practically the same thing. Both of them mean that Labor has no rights which Capital is bound to respect,-that there is no higher law than human interest and cupidity. Both of them represent not merely the narrow principles of a section, but the still narrower and more selfish ones of a caste. Both of them, to be sure, have convenient phrases to be juggled with before election, and which mean one thing or another, or neither one thing nor another, as a particular exigency may seem to require; but since both claim the regular Democratic nomination, we have little difficulty in divining what their course would be after the fourth of March, if they should chance to be elected. We know too well what regular Democracy is, to like either of the two faces which each shows by turns under the same hood. Everybody remembers Baron Grimm's story of the Parisian showman, who in 1789 exhibited the royal Bengal tiger under the new character of national, as more in harmony with the changed order of things. Could the animal have lived till 1848, he would probably have found himself offered to the discriminating public as the democratic and social ornament of the jungle. The Pro-slavery party of this country seeks the popular favor under even more frequent and incongruous aliases; it is now national, now conservative, now constitutional; here it represents Squatter-Sovereignty, and there the power of Congress over the Territories; but, under whatever name, its nature remains unchanged, and its instincts are none the less predatory and destructive. Mr. Lincoln's position is set forth with sufficient precision in the platform adopted by the Chicago Convention; but what are we to make of Messrs. Bell and Everett? Heirs of the stock in trade of two defunct parties, the Whig and Know-Nothing, do they hope to resuscitate them? or are they only like the inconsolable widows of Père la Chaise, who, with an eye to former customers, make use of the late Andsoforth's gravestone to advertise that they still carry on the business at the old stand? Mr. Everett, in his letter accepting the nomination, gave us only a string of reasons why he should not have accepted it at all; and Mr. Bell preserves a silence singularly at variance with his patronymic. The only public demonstration of principle that we have seen is an emblematic bell drawn upon a wagon by a single horse, with a man to lead him, and a boy to make a nuisance of the tinkling symbol as it moves along. Are all the figures in this melancholy procession equally emblematic? If so, which of the two candidates is typified in the unfortunate who leads the horse?-for we believe the only hope of the party is to get one of them elected by some hocus-pocus in the House of Representatives. The little boy, we suppose, is intended to represent the party, which promises to be so conveniently small that there will be an office for every member of it, if its candidate should win. Did not the bell convey a plain allusion to the leading name on the ticket, we should conceive it an excellent type of the hollowness of those fears for the safety of the Union, in case of Mr. Lincoln's election, whose changes are so loudly rung,-its noise having once or twice given rise to false alarms of fire, till people found out what it really was. Whatever profound moral it be intended to convey, we find in it a similitude that is not without significance as regards the professed creed of the party. The industrious youth who operates upon it has evidently some notion of the measured and regular motion that befits the tongues of well-disciplined and conservative bells. He does his best to make theory and practice coincide; but with every jolt on the road an involuntary variation is produced, and the sonorous pulsation becomes rapid or slow accordingly. We have observed that the Constitution was liable to similar derangements, and we very much doubt whether Mr. Bell himself (since, after all, the Constitution would practically be nothing else than his interpretation of it) would keep the same measured tones that are so easy on the smooth path of candidacy, when it came to conducting the car of State over some of the rough places in the highway of Manifest Destiny, and some of those passages in our politics which, after the fashion of new countries, are rather corduroy in character.

But, fortunately, we are not left wholly in the dark as to the aims of the self-styled Constitutional party. One of its most distinguished members, Governor Hunt of New York, has given us to understand that its prime object is the defeat at all hazards of the Republican candidate. To achieve so desirable an end, its leaders are ready to coalesce, here with the Douglas, and there with the Breckinridge faction of that very Democratic party of whose violations of the Constitution, corruption, and dangerous limberness of principle they have been the lifelong denouncers. In point of fact, then, it is perfectly plain that we have only two parties in the field: those who favor the extension of slavery, and those who oppose it,-in other words, a Destructive and a Conservative party.

We know very well that the partisans of Mr. Bell, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Breckinridge all equally claim the title of conservative: and the fact is a very curious one, well worthy the consideration of those foreign critics who argue that the inevitable tendency of democracy is to compel larger and larger concessions to a certain assumed communistic propensity and hostility to the rights of property on the part of the working classes. But the truth is, that revolutionary ideas are promoted, not by any unthinking hostility to the rights of property, but by a well-founded jealousy of its usurpations; and it is Privilege, and not Property, that is perplexed with fear of change. The conservative effect of ownership operates with as much force on the man with a hundred dollars in an old stocking as on his neighbor with a million in the funds. During the Roman Revolution of '48, the beggars who had funded their gains were among the stanchest reactionaries, and left Rome with the nobility. No question of the abstract right of property has ever entered directly into our politics, or ever will,-the point at issue being, whether a certain exceptional kind of property, already privileged beyond all others, shall be entitled to still further privileges at the expense of every other kind. The extension of slavery over new territory means just this,-that this one kind of property, not recognized as such by the Constitution, or it would never have been allowed to enter into the basis of representation, shall control the foreign and domestic policy of the Republic.

A great deal is said, to be sure, about the rights of the South; but has any such right been infringed? When a man invests money in any species of property, he assumes the risks to which it is liable. If he buy a house, it may be burned; if a ship, it may be wrecked; if a horse or an ox, it may die. Now the disadvantage of the Southern kind of property is,-how shall we say it so as not to violate our Constitutional obligations?-that it is exceptional. When it leaves Virginia, it is a thing; when it arrives in Boston, it becomes a man, speaks human language, appeals to the justice of the same God whom we all acknowledge, weeps at the memory of wife and children left behind,-in short, hath the same organs and dimensions that a Christian hath, and is not distinguishable from ordinary Christians, except, perhaps, by a simpler and more earnest faith. There are people at the North who believe, that, beside meum and tuum, there is also such a thing as suum,-who are old-fashioned enough, or weak enough, to have their feelings touched by these things, to think that human nature is older and more sacred than any claim of property whatever, and that it has rights at least as much to be respected as any hypothetical one of our Southern brethren. This, no doubt, makes it harder to recover a fugitive chattel; but the existence of human nature in a man here and there is surely one of those accidents to be counted on at least as often as fire, shipwreck, or the cattle-disease; and the man who chooses to put his money into these images of his Maker cut in ebony should be content to take the incident risks along with the advantages. We should be very sorry to deem this risk capable of diminution; for we think that the claims of a common manhood upon us should be at least as strong as those of Freemasonry, and that those whom the law of man turns away should find in the larger charity of the law of God and Nature a readier welcome and surer sanctuary. We shall continue to think the negro a man, and on Southern evidence, too, as long as he is counted in the population represented on the floor of Congress,-for three-fifths of perfect manhood would be a high average even among white men; as long as he is hanged or worse, as an example and terror to others,-for we do not punish one animal for the moral improvement of the rest; as long as he is considered capable of religious instruction,-for we fancy the gorillas would make short work with a missionary; as long as there are fears of insurrection,-for we never heard of a combined effort at revolt in a menagerie. Accordingly, we do not see how the particular right of whose infringement we hear so much is to be made safer by the election of Mr. Bell, Mr. Breckinridge, or Mr. Douglas,-there being quite as little chance that any of them would abolish human nature as that Mr. Lincoln would abolish slavery. The same generous instinct that leads some among us to sympathize with the sorrows of the bereaved master will always, we fear, influence others to take part with the rescued man.

But if our Constitutional Obligations, as we like to call our constitutional timidity or indifference, teach us that a particular divinity hedges the Domestic Institution, they do not require us to forget that we have institutions of our own, worth maintaining and extending, and not without a certain sacredness, whether we regard the traditions of the fathers or the faith of the children. It is high time that we should hear something of the rights of the Free States, and of the duties consequent upon them. We also have our prejudices to be respected, our theory of civilization, of what constitutes the safety of a state and insures its prosperity, to be applied wherever there is soil enough for a human being to stand on and thank God for making him a man. Is conservatism applicable only to property, and not to justice, freedom, and public honor? Does it mean merely drifting with the current of evil times and pernicious counsels, and carefully nursing the ills we have, that they may, as their nature it is, grow worse?

To be told that we ought not to agitate the question of Slavery, when it is that which is forever agitating us, is like telling a man with the fever and ague on him to stop shaking and he will be cured. The discussion of Slavery is said to be dangerous, but dangerous to what? The manufacturers of the Free States constitute a more numerous class than the slaveholders of the South: suppose they should claim an equal sanctity for the Protective System. Discussion is the very life of free institutions, the fruitful mother of all political and moral enlightenment, and yet the question of all questions must be tabooed. The Swiss guide enjoins silence in the region of avalanches, lest the mere vibration of the voice should dislodge the ruin clinging by frail roots of snow. But where is our avalanche to fall? It is to overwhelm the Union, we are told. The real danger to the Union will come when the encroachments of the Slave-Power and the concessions of the Trade-Power shall have made it a burden instead of a blessing. The real avalanche to be dreaded, are we to expect it from the ever-gathering mass of ignorant brute force, with the irresponsibility of animals and the passions of men, which is one of the fatal necessities of slavery, or from the gradually increasing consciousness of the non-slaveholding population of the Slave States of the true cause of their material impoverishment and political inferiority? From one or the other source its ruinous forces will be fed, but in either event it is not the Union that will be imperilled, but the privileged Order who on every occasion of a thwarted whim have menaced its disruption, and who will then find in it their only safety.

We believe that the "irrepressible conflict"-for we accept Mr. Seward's much-denounced phrase in all the breadth of meaning he ever meant to give it-is to take place in the South itself; because the Slave-System is one of those fearful blunders in political economy which are sure, sooner or later, to work their own retribution. The inevitable tendency of slavery is to concentrate in a few hands the soil, the capital, and the power of the countries where it exists, to reduce the non-slaveholding class to a continually lower and lower level of property, intelligence, and enterprise,-their increase in numbers adding much to the economical hardship of their position and nothing to their political weight in the community. There is no home-encouragement of varied agriculture,-for the wants of a slave population are few in number and limited in kind; none of inland trade, for that is developed only by communities where education induces refinement, where facility of communication stimulates invention and variety of enterprise, where newspapers make every man's improvement in tools, machinery, or culture of the soil an incitement to all, and bring all the thinkers of the world to teach in the cheap university of the people. We do not, of course, mean to say that slaveholding states may not and do not produce fine men; but they fail, by the inherent vice of their constitution and its attendant consequences, to create enlightened, powerful, and advancing communities of men, which is the true object of all political organizations, and which is essential to the prolonged existence of all those whose life and spirit are derived directly from the people. Every man who has dispassionately endeavored to enlighten himself in the matter cannot but see, that, for the many, the course of things in slaveholding states is substantially what we have described, a downward one, more or less rapid, in civilization and in all those results of material prosperity which in a free country show themselves in the general advancement for the good of all and give a real meaning to the word Commonwealth. No matter how enormous the wealth centred in the hands of a few, it has no longer the conservative force or the beneficent influence which it exerts when equably distributed,-even loses more of both where a system of absenteeism prevails so largely as in the South. In such communities the seeds of an "irrepressible conflict" are purely, if slowly, ripening, and signs are daily multiplying that the true peril to their social organization is looked for, less in a revolt of the owned labor than in an insurrection of intelligence in the labor that owns itself and finds itself none the richer for it. To multiply such communities is to multiply weakness.

The election in November turns on the single and simple question, Whether we shall consent to the indefinite multiplication of them; and the only party which stands plainly and unequivocally pledged against such a policy, nay, which is not either openly or impliedly in favor of it, is the Republican party. We are of those who at first regretted that another candidate was not nominated at Chicago; but we confess that we have ceased to regret it, for the magnanimity of Mr. Seward since the result of the Convention was known has been a greater ornament to him and a greater honor to his party than his election to the Presidency would have been. We should have been pleased with Mr. Seward's nomination, for the very reason we have seen assigned for passing him by,-that he represented the most advanced doctrines of his party. He, more than any other man, combined in himself the moralist's oppugnancy to Slavery as a fact, the thinker's resentment of it as a theory, and the statist's distrust of it as a policy,-thus summing up the three efficient causes that have chiefly aroused and concentrated the antagonism of the Free States. Not a brilliant man, he has that best gift of Nature, which brilliant men commonly lack, of being always able to do his best; and the very misrepresentation of his opinions which was resorted to in order to neutralize the effect of his speeches in the Senate and elsewhere was the best testimony to their power. Safe from the prevailing epidemic of Congressional eloquence as if he had been inoculated for it early in his career, he addresses himself to the reason, and what he says sticks. It was assumed that his nomination would have embittered the contest and tainted the Republican creed with radicalism; but we doubt it. We cannot think that a party gains by not hitting its hardest, or by sugaring its opinions. Republicanism is not a conspiracy to obtain office under false pretences. It has a definite aim, an earnest purpose, and the unflinching tenacity of profound conviction. It was not called into being by a desire to reform the pecuniary corruptions of the party now in power. Mr. Bell or Mr. Breckinridge would do that, for no one doubts their honor or their honesty. It is not unanimous about the Tariff, about State-Rights, about many other questions of policy. What unites the Republicans is a common faith in the early principles and practice of the Republic, a common persuasion that slavery, as it cannot but be the natural foe of the one, has been the chief debaser of the other, and a common resolve to resist its encroachments everywhen and everywhere. They see no reason to fear that the Constitution, which has shown such pliant tenacity under the warps and twistings of a forty-years' proslavery pressure, should be in danger of breaking, if bent backward again gently to its original rectitude of fibre. "All forms of human government," says Machiavelli, "have, like men, their natural term, and those only are long-lived which possess in themselves the power of returning to the principles on which they were originally founded." It is in a moral aversion to slavery as a great wrong that the chief strength of the Republican party lies. They believe as everybody believed sixty years ago; and we are sorry to see what appears to be an inclination in some quarters to blink this aspect of the case, lest the party be charged with want of conservatism, or, what is worse, with abolitionism. It is and will be charged with all kinds of dreadful things, whatever it does, and it has nothing to fear from an upright and downright declaration of its faith. One part of the grateful work it has to do is to deliver us from the curse of perpetual concession for the sake of a peace that never comes, and which, if it came, would not be peace, but submission,-from that torpor and imbecility of faith in God and man which have stolen the respectable name of Conservatism. A question which cuts so deep as the one which now divides the country cannot be debated, much less settled, without excitement. Such excitement is healthy, and is a sign that the ill humors of the body politic are coming to the surface, where they are comparatively harmless. It is the tendency of all creeds, opinions, and political dogmas that have once defined themselves in institutions to become inoperative. The vital and formative principle, which was active during the process of crystallization into sects, or schools of thought, or governments, ceases to act; and what was once a living emanation of the Eternal Mind, organically operative in history, becomes the dead formula on men's lips and the dry topic of the annalist. It has been our good fortune that a question has been thrust upon us which has forced us to reconsider the primal principles of government, which has appealed to conscience as well as reason, and, by bringing the theories of the Declaration of Independence to the test of experience in our thought and life and action, has realized a tradition of the memory into a conviction of the understanding and the soul. It will not do for the Republicans to confine themselves to the mere political argument, for the matter then becomes one of expediency, with two defensible sides to it; they must go deeper, to the radical question of Right and Wrong, or they surrender the chief advantage of their position. What Spinoza says of laws is equally true of party-platforms,-that those are strong which appeal to reason, but those are impregnable which compel the assent both of reason and the common affections of mankind.

No man pretends that under the Constitution there is any possibility of interference with the domestic relations of the individual States; no party has ever remotely hinted at any such interference; but what the Republicans affirm is, that in every contingency where the Constitution can be construed in favor of freedom, it ought to be and shall be so construed. It is idle to talk of sectionalism, abolitionism, and hostility to the laws. The principles of liberty and humanity cannot, by virtue of their very nature, be sectional, any more than light and heat. Prevention is not abolition, and unjust laws are the only serious enemies that Law ever had. With history before us, it is no treason to question the infallibility of a court; for courts are never wiser or more venerable than the men composing them, and a decision that reverses precedent cannot arrogate to itself any immunity from reversal. Truth is the only unrepealable thing.

We are gravely requested to have no opinion, or, having one, to suppress it, on the one topic that has occupied caucuses, newspapers, Presidents' messages, and Congress, for the last dozen years, lest we endanger the safety of the Union. The true danger to popular forms of government begins when public opinion ceases because the people are incompetent or unwilling to think. In a democracy it is the duty of every citizen to think; but unless the thinking result in a definite opinion, and the opinion lead to considerate action, they are nothing. If the people are assumed to be incapable of forming a judgment for themselves, the men whose position enables them to guide the public mind ought certainly to make good their want of intelligence. But on this great question, the wise solution of which, we are every day assured, is essential to the permanence of the Union, Mr. Bell has no opinion at all, Mr. Douglas says it is of no consequence which opinion prevails, and Mr. Breckinridge tells us vaguely that "all sections have an equal right in the common Territories." The parties which support these candidates, however, all agree in affirming that the election of its special favorite is the one thing that can give back peace to the distracted country. The distracted country will continue to take care of itself, as it has done hitherto, and the only question that needs an answer is, What policy will secure the most prosperous future to the helpless Territories, which our decision is to make or mar for all coming time? What will save the country from a Senate and Supreme Court where freedom shall be forever at a disadvantage?

There is always a fallacy in the argument of the opponents of the Republican party. They affirm that all the States and all the citizens of the States ought to have equal rights in the Territories. Undoubtedly. But the difficulty is that they cannot. The slaveholder moves into a new Territory with his institution, and from that moment the free white settler is virtually excluded. His institutions he cannot take with him; they refuse to root themselves in soil that is cultivated by slave-labor. Speech is no longer free; the post-office is Austrianized; the mere fact of Northern birth may be enough to hang him. Even now in Texas, settlers from the Free States are being driven out and murdered for pretended complicity in a plot the evidence for the existence of which has been obtained by means without a parallel since the trial of the Salem witches, and the stories about which are as absurd and contradictory as the confessions of Goodwife Corey. Kansas was saved, it is true; but it was the experience of Kansas that disgusted the South with Mr. Douglas's panacea of "Squatter Sovereignty."

The claim of equal rights in the Territories is a specious fallacy. Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. For what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,-that their local law be made the law of the land, and coextensive with the limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges no unqualified or interminable right of property in the labor of another; and the plausible assertion, that "that is property which the law makes property," (confounding a law existing anywhere with the law which is binding everywhere,) can deceive only those who have either never read the Constitution or are ignorant of the opinions and intentions of those who framed it. It is true only of the States where slavery already exists; and it is because the propagandists of slavery are well aware of this, that they are so anxious to establish by positive enactment the seemingly moderate title to a right of existence for their institution in the Territories,-a title which they do not possess, and the possession of which would give them the oyster and the Free States the shells. Laws accordingly are asked for to protect Southern property in the Territories,-that is, to protect the inhabitants from deciding for themselves what their frame of government shall be. Such laws will be passed, and the fairest portion of our national domain irrevocably closed to free labor, if the Non-Slave-holding States fail to do their duty in the present crisis.

But will the election of Mr. Lincoln endanger the Union? It is not a little remarkable, that, as the prospect of his success increases, the menaces of secession grow fainter and less frequent. Mr. W.L. Yancey, to be sure, threatens to secede; but the country can get along without him, and we wish him a prosperous career in foreign parts. But Governor Wise no longer proposes to seize the Treasury at Washington,-perhaps because Mr. Buchanan has left so little in it. The old Mumbo-Jumbo is occasionally paraded at the North, but, however many old women may be frightened, the pulse of the stock-market remains provokingly calm. General Cushing, infringing the patent-right of the late Mr. James the novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on the edge of the horizon. The exegesis of the vision has been various, some thinking that it means a Military Despot-though in that case the force of cavalry would seem to be inadequate,-and others the Pony Express. If it had been one rider on two horses, the application would have been more general and less obscure. In fact, the old cry of Disunion has lost its terrors, if it ever had any, at the North. The South itself seems to have become alarmed at its own scarecrow, and speakers there are beginning to assure their hearers that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do them no harm. We entirely agree with them, for it will save them from themselves.

To believe any organized attempt by the Republican party to disturb the existing internal policy of the Southern States possible presupposes a manifest absurdity. Before anything of the kind could take place, the country must be in a state of forcible revolution. But there is no premonitory symptom of any such convulsion, unless we except Mr. Yancey, and that gentleman's throwing a solitary somerset will hardly turn the continent head over heels. The administration of Mr. Lincoln will be conservative, because no government is ever intentionally otherwise, and because power never knowingly undermines the foundation on which it rests. All that the Free States demand is that influence in the councils of the nation to which they are justly entitled by their population, wealth, and intelligence. That these elements of prosperity have increased more rapidly among them than in communities otherwise organized, with greater advantages of soil, climate, and mineral productions, is certainly no argument that they are incapable of the duties of efficient and prudent administration, however strong a one it may be for their endeavoring to secure for the Territories the single superiority that has made them what they are. The object of the Republican party is not the abolition of African slavery, but the utter extirpation of dogmas which are the logical sequence of the attempts to establish its righteousness and wisdom, and which would serve equally well to justify the enslavement of every white man unable to protect himself. They believe that slavery is a wrong morally, a mistake politically, and a misfortune practically, wherever it exists; that it has nullified our influence abroad and forced us to compromise with our better instincts at home; that it has perverted our government from its legitimate objects, weakened the respect for the laws by making them the tools of its purposes, and sapped the faith of men in any higher political morality than interest or any better statesmanship than chicane. They mean in every lawful way to hem it within its present limits.

We are persuaded that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do more than anything else to appease the excitement of the country. He has proved both his ability and his integrity; he has had experience enough in public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a politician. That he has not had more will be no objection to him in the eyes of those who have seen the administration of the experienced public functionary whose term of office is just drawing to a close. He represents a party who know that true policy is gradual in its advances, that it is conditional and not absolute, that it must deal with facts and not with sentiments, but who know also that it is wiser to stamp out evil in the spark than to wait till there is no help but in fighting fire with fire. They are the only conservative party, because they are the only one based on an enduring principle, the only one that is not willing to pawn tomorrow for the means to gamble with today. They have no hostility to the South, but a determined one to doctrines of whose ruinous tendency every day more and more convinces them.

The encroachments of Slavery upon our national policy have been like those of a glacier in a Swiss valley. Inch by inch, the huge dragon with his glittering scales and crests of ice coils itself onward, an anachronism of summer, the relic of a bygone world where such monsters swarmed. But it has its limit, the kindlier forces of Nature work against it, and the silent arrows of the sun are still, as of old, fatal to the frosty Python. Geology tells us that such enormous devastators once covered the face of the earth, but the benignant sunlight of heaven touched them, and they faded silently, leaving no trace but here and there the scratches of their talons, and the gnawed boulders scattered where they made their lair. We have entire faith in the benignant influence of Truth, the sunlight of the moral world, and believe that slavery, like other worn-out systems, will melt gradually before it. "All the earth cries out upon Truth, and the heaven blesseth it; ill works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing."

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

History of Flemish Literature. By OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, LL. D. 8vo. London. John Murray. 1860.

"When I write in Danish," says Oehlenschl?ger, "I write for only six hundred persons." And so, in view of this somewhat exaggerated statement, he himself translated his best works into the more favored and more widely spread Germanic idiom. It requires a certain amount of courage in an author to write in his own native tongue only, when he knows that he thereby limits the number of his readers. We see in our own days, among the Sclavonic races, men whose writings breathe the most ardent patriotism, whose labors and researches are all concentrated within the sphere of their nationality, publishing, not in their own Polish, Czechish, or Serbian, but in German or French.

The history of language shows us a two-fold tendency,-one of divergence from some common stem, followed by one of concentration, of unity, in the literature. Thus, in France, the Langue d'O?l superseded the richer and more melodious Proven?al; in Spain the Castilian predominated; while for several centuries it has been the steady tendency of the High-German to become the language of letters and of the upper classes among the various Teutonic races. Since the Bible-translation of Luther, this central dialect has not only become the medium in which poet and philosopher, historian and critic address the nation, but it may be said to have entirely superseded the Northern and Southern forms. Whatever local or linguistic interest may be manifested for the works of Groth in the Ditmarsch Platt-Deutsch, or for the sweet Alemannic songs of Hebel, the centralizing tongue is that in which Schiller and Goethe wrote.

The allied Danish and Dutch have escaped this ingulfing process. The former, instead of retreating, seeks in the present to enlarge its circuit; and great are the complaints in Schleswig-Holstein of the arbitrary and despotic imposition of Danish on a State of the German Confederation. The present government of Holland has not remained inactive. Much has been done to encourage men of letters and counteract the Gallic influences which prevailed in the early part of the century.

But the Flemings speaking nearly the same language as their Protestant neighbors, where is their literature now? The language itself, in which are handed down to us some of the masterpieces of the Middle Ages, as "Reynard the Fox" and "Gudrun," is disregarded, even discountenanced, by Government. It is with a feeling of sadness that we read the annals of a literature which met so many obstacles to its progress. Despised by foreign rulers, thrust back by the Spanish policy of the Duke of Alva, its authors exiled and seeking refuge in other lands, its very existence has been a constant battling against the inroads of more powerful neighbors.

Surely, "if words be made of breath, and breath of life," there is nothing a nation can hold more dear than its own tongue. Its laws, its rulers, may change, its privileges and charters be wrenched from it, but that remains as an heirloom, the first gift to the child, the last and dearest treasure of the man. Perhaps nowhere more than in Flanders do we meet with a systematic oppression of a vernacular idiom. From the days of the contests with France, through the long Spanish troubles and dominion, the military occupation of the country by the troops of Louis XIV., the Austrian rule, the levelling tendency of the French Revolution, and the present aping of French manners by the higher powers of the land,-through all this there has been but one long, continuous struggle, and the ultimate result is now too plain.

We find the Flemish spoken by nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of Belgium, divided from the Walloon or Rouchi-Fran ais by a line of demarcation running from the Meuse through Liege and Waterloo, and ending in France, between Calais and Dunkirk. It differs in no material points from the Dutch, being essentially the same, if we except slight differences in spelling, as ae for aa, ue for uu, y for ij. Both should bear but one common name, the Netherlandish. That differences should be sought can be accounted for only by the petty feeling of jealousy that exists between the neighboring states, their literary productions varying in grammatical construction scarcely more than the writings of English and American authors.

Mr. Octave Delepierre, who since 1830 has published some ten or twelve monographs relating to the antiquities and history of Flanders, has presented the English public during the course of the present year with a history of Flemish literature. With an evident predilection for authors south of the Meuse, Mr. Delepierre has nevertheless given us the first clear and connected account we possess of the history of letters in the Netherlands. Without careful or minute critical research, he has shown little that is new, nor has he sought to clear one point that was obscure. His work is pleasant reading, interspersed with occasional translations, though scarcely answering the requisites of literary history in the nineteenth century. Having followed the older work of Snellaert [Histoire de la Littérature Flamande. Bruxelles. 1654.], in the latter half of the volume, page for page, he has not even mentioned by name the authors of the last quarter of a century.

Let us glance at that portion of literature more particularly belonging to Flanders and Brabant.

The first expressions of the Germanic mind, the song of "Hildebrand," "Gudrun," the "Nibelungen," have been handed down to us in a form which shows their origin to have been Netherlandish. The first part of "Gudrun" is evidently so; and we find, as well in many of the older poems of chivalry, as "Charles and Elegast," "Floris and Blanchefloer," as in the national epos, intrinsic proofs that the unknown authors were from the regions of the Lower Rhine. These elder remnants, however, can scarcely be claimed by any one of the Teutonic races, as they are the common property of all; for we find the hero Siegfried in the Scandinavian Saga, as well as in the more southern tradition. Mr. Delepierre has translated the following song, almost Homeric in its form, which belongs to this early period, when Christianity had not obliterated the memories of barbarous days:-

"The Lord Halewyn knew a song: all those

who heard it were attracted towards him.

"It was once heard by the daughter of the

King, who was so beloved by her parents.

"She stood before her father: 'O father,

may I go to the Lord Halewyn?'

"'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to

him never come back again.'

"She stood before her mother: 'O mother,

may I go to the Lord Halewyn?'

"'Oh, no, my child, no! They who go to

him never come back again.'

"She stood before her sister: 'O sister, may

I go to the Lord Halewyn?'

"'Oh, no, sister, no! They who go to him

never come back again.'

"She stood before her brother: 'O brother,

may I go to the Lord Halewyn?'

"'Little care I where thou goest, provided

thou preservest thine honor and thy crown.

"She goes up into her chamber; she clothes

herself in her best garments.

"What does she put on first? A shift finer

than silk.

"What does she gird round her lovely

waist? Strong bands of gold.

"What does she put upon her scarlet petticoat?

On every seam a golden button.

"What does she set on her beautiful fair

hair? A massive golden crown.

"What does she put upon her kirtle? On

every seam a pearl.

"She goes into her father's stable, and takes out his best charger. She mounts him proudly, and so, laughing and singing, rides through the forest. When she reaches the middle of the forest, she meets the Lord Halewyn.

"'Hail!' said he, approaching her, 'hail, beautiful virgin, with eyes so black and brilliant!'

"They proceed together, chatting as they go.

"They arrive at a field in which stands a gallows. The bodies of several women hang from it.

"The Lord Halewyn says to her: 'As you are the loveliest of all virgins, say, how will you die? The time is come.'

"'It is well: as I may choose, I choose the sword.

"'But, first of all, take off your tunic; for the blood of a virgin gushes out so far, that it might reach you, and I should be sorry.'

"But before he had divested himself of his tunic, his head rolled off and lay at his feet: his lips still murmured these words:

"'Go down there into that corn-field, and blow the horn, so that my friends may hear it.'

"'Into that corn-field I shall not go, neither shall I blow the horn. I do not follow the counsel of a murderer.'

"'Go, then, down under the gallows, and

gather the balm which you shall find there,

and spread it over my bloody throat.'

"'Under the gallows I shall not go; on your bloody throat I shall spread no balm. I do not follow the counsel of a murderer.'

"She took up the head by the hair, and washed it at a clear fountain.

"She mounted her charger proudly, and, laughing and singing, she rode through the forest.

"When she reached the middle of the forest, she met the mother of Halewyn. 'Beautiful virgin, have you not seen my son?'

"'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is gone hunting: you will never see him again.

"'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is dead. I have his head in my apron, which is red with his blood.'

"And when she arrived at her father's gate,

she blew the horn like a man.

"And when her father saw her, he rejoiced

at her return.

"He celebrated it by a feast, and the head

of Halewyn was placed on the table."

Flemish writers claim as entirely their own that epic of the people, "Reynard the Fox." Their right to it was long contested; nor has anything been done since the labors of Willems, who, in opposition to the opinion of William Grimm, settles the authorship of the "Reinaert de Vos" on Utenhove, a priest of Aerdenburg. It seems natural to suppose that this most popular of Middle-Age productions should have originated in the very region which later gave to the world a school of painting that incarnated on canvas the phases of animal life, taking its delight and best inspirations in the burlesque side of human passions.

In its first period, Flemish literature found some encouragement from its princes. John I. of Brabant fostered it, and even took, himself, the title of Flemish Troubadour. Under Guy of Dampierre, who neither in heart nor mind was sympathetic with the people he ruled, we find Maerlant, still revered by his country; his name is ever coupled with the epithet of Father of Flemish Poets. Didactic rather than poetical, his influence was great in breaking down the barriers which separated the people from the higher classes, by adapting to their own home-idiom the best productions of the age. About this period we find prevalent those Northern singers corresponding to the Trouvères, Troubadours, and Jongleurs. They are in Flanders the Spreker, Segger, and Vinder, who, when travelling through the country, took the name of Gezel, received in town or village, court or hamlet, as the wandering minstrel of the South. The golden age when sovereigns doffed their royal robes to lay them on the shoulders of some sweet-singing poet, as the old chronicles tell us, was of short duration in the North, if ever the Sproken or erotic poems may be said to have brought their authors into such favor. On the other hand, we find some of the wanderers arrested for theft and other crimes.

Little light has been thrown on their first ante-historical attempts. Until the late labors of German philologers, little had been done to clear up the confusion resting on this period of literary history. As yet the field has scarcely been explored beyond the regions not immediately connected with the literature of Germany. We have long historical poems of little interest, arranged without order,-interminable productions of thousands and ten thousands of lines of uncertain date, didactic and encyclopedia-like, besides unmistakable remnants of a Netherlandish theatre.

The battle of Roosebeke, where the second Artevelde and his companions succumbed to superior numbers, was the last great enterprise of the Flemings against the French. Half a century earlier, a strong league had been formed against these powerful neighbors. In the interior, the country was divided into factions,-the partisans and enemies of France. Prominent were the Clauwaerts and the Leliarts, from the lion's claw and the fleur-de-lis which they respectively wore on their badges. The country, which has ever been one of the battle-fields of Europe, was abandoned to all the horrors of civil war. The Duke of Brabant was childless. The Count of Flanders gave his daughter, his only legitimate child, in marriage to the Duke of Burgundy; and the provinces soon came into the hands of those ambitious and restless enemies of the Court of France. It may easily be imagined that these events were not without their influence on a language deteriorated on the one hand by constant contact with a Romanic idiom, and in Holland by the transmission of the sovereign crown to the House of Avesnes.

The "Chambers of Rhetoric," an institution peculiar to the Low Countries, reached their highest point of prosperity under the Burgundian rule. The wandering life of poets and authors had nearly ceased. The Gezellen, settled in towns, and moved by the prevalent spirit which prompted men of one calling to unite into bodies, naturally fell into corporations analogous to the Guilds. Without attaching any very definite or clear idea to the term Rhetoric which they employed, these associations exerted great influence upon the whole literature of the Netherlands. Many would date their origin as far back as the early part of the twelfth century. In Alost, the Catherinists claimed to have existed as early as 1107, on the mere strength of their motto, AMOR VINCIT. At any rate, we are left entirely to conjecture with regard to the first beginnings of these literary guilds, which seem in many respects an imitation of the poetical societies of Provence. Every poet of note was a participant in them. In Flanders there was scarcely a town or village that did not possess its Chamber. Brabant, Holland, Zealand soon followed in the movement. One of the principal, the Fountain of Ghent, seems to have exercised a certain supremacy over the other confraternities of art.

The proceedings of these companies, protected at first by princes, were carried on with great magnificence. They were in constant communication with each other throughout the country. Their facteurs or poets composed songs and theatrical pieces, which were performed by the members. They had a long array of officers, with princely names; and none was complete without a jester. Their larger assemblies were accompanied with long festivities, the solemn entry into a town or village being styled Landjuweel (Landjewel). The nobility mingled in them, incited by the example of Henry IV. of Brabant or Philippe-le-Bel. The wealth of the Netherlands was displayed on these solemnities, and the citizens rivalled their monarchs in magnificence. The burghers of Ghent and Bruges and Antwerp shone, on these occasions, in the gaudy pomp of princely patricians. All were invited to take part and dispute the prizes awarded by fair hands.

It can scarcely be expected that these guilds, composed in many cases of mechanics, should give rise to works of the highest order of merit. Their dramatic representations were rather gorgeous than tasteful, their attempts at wit little better than buffoonery, their humor mere personal vituperation. Yet even in matters of taste they are not much inferior to the then more pretentious academies of other lands. It was an age of long religious dramas, of tortured rhymes and impossible metres, when strange and new versification imported from France found favor among a people whose silks and linens and rich tapestries were destined to reach a wider circulation than all the poetical effusions of their guilds, the "Lily," the "Violet," and the "Jesus with the Balsam Flower."

It was Philip the Fair who, wishing to centralize the scattered efforts of these societies, established at Malines, in 1493, a sovereign chamber, of which he appointed his chaplain, Pierre Aelters, sovereign prince. With an admixture of religion, in accordance with the spirit of the Middle Ages, the sacred number was fifteen. There were fifteen members. Fifteen young girls were to form part of it, in honor of the fifteen joys of Mary. Fifteen youths were instructed in the art of rhetoric, and the assemblies were held fifteen times a year. Charles V. was the last chief of this assembly, which had previously been removed to Ghent. In 1577 it greeted the arrival of the Prince of Orange, but this was its last sign of vitality.

The Chambers of Rhetoric reached their climax in a time of fermentation. The impatience, the feeling of uneasiness and restraint, is felt in the drama of these days, which was wholly under the control of the Chambers. The stage, that "mirror of the times," is often the first manifestation of the unquiet heaving and subsequent up-bubbling in the fluid compost of the mass that constitutes a nation. When freely developed, it is the pulse-beat of the people. And so, throughout the Netherlands, at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, we find the allegorical drama giving way to more definite and direct personations. Those cold representations of vices and virtues, of vice in its nakedness, such as to render the reading, when not absolutely tedious, distasteful, to say the least, to our modern ideas,-all such aimless productions were giving way to the conscious expression of satire. Diatribes against prevalent abuses, personal invectives scarcely veiled, were fast becoming the order of the day. It is no wonder, then, that the guilds, which had found favor formerly, should gradually be crushed, in proportion as the rulers sought to check the spirit of reform. Among the authors of this period may be mentioned Everaert and Machet. The refrain was much cultivated, and not, like the drama, for the expression of dissatisfaction. Anna Byns, an oracle with the Catholic party, wrote when the language was in its most degenerate state, under Margaret of Austria. She was styled the Sappho of Brabant, though her poems are all religious. They were translated into Latin, and were read as masterpieces till the middle of the last century.

A taste for religious writing prevailed in the Netherlands throughout the sixteenth century. William van Zuylen van Nyevelt first published a collection of the Psalms of David. These, in imitation of the French Calvinists, were sung to the most popular melodies. Zuylen found many imitators. The Catholic party composed songs in opposition to the Reformers; and we have psalms and songs by Utenhove, the painters Luc de Heere and Van Mander, by Van Haecht and Fruytiers. A long list of obscure names, if we except those of Marnix and Houwaert, is mentioned as belonging to this period,-their works mostly didactic or controversial. Houwaert, a Catholic, one of the avowed friends and partisans of the Prince of Orange, courted the Muses in the hottest days of civil strife. He published a poem, in sixteen cantos, entitled "The Gardens of the Virgins," tending to show the dangers to which the fair sex is exposed, and condemning as unreal all love not centred in God. With a remarkable fertility of composition he possesses an uncommon smoothness of versification, combined with a power, so successful in his age, of illustration from history or romance, from the sacred writings or the legendary lore of the people. The work was received in those days of trouble with unbounded enthusiasm. Brabant was thought to have given birth to a new Homer. His praises resounded in verse and song, and the young girls of Brussels crowned him with laurel.

The government of the Duke of Alva, and the succeeding years of revolution, were a period of desolation for Flanders. The Guilds of Rhetoric were dispersed; town after town was depopulated; Ghent, the loved city of Charles V., lost six thousand families; Leyden, Amsterdam, Haerlem, Gouda, afforded refuge to the emigrants. The golden age of literary activity is about to dawn in the Dutch republic. In the other provinces the national language is more and more neglected. It gives umbrage to the foreign chiefs who act as sovereigns. With it they identify all the opposition that has prevailed against them. Archduke Albert carries his condescension no farther than to address in High-German such of his subjects as can speak only Flemish. His Walloons he treats with no more civility, answering them but in Spanish or Latin. Ymmeloot, lord of Steenbrugge, a native of Ypres, endeavors in 1614 to stem the current of opposition and reawaken a love for letters. He suggests many reforms in the versification, and gives the example. He is followed by many, and Ypres becomes for a time a centre of versifiers. But the spirit of originality has flown, and the literature of Holland is enriched with the name of many a Fleming who preferred exile to the new rule.

In 1618, the General Synod of Dordrecht decreed that a new translation of the Bible should be undertaken. Two Flemings, Baudaert and Walaeus, and two Dutchmen, Bogerman and Hommius, completed it. Like the work of Luther, this tended in a great measure to fix the language, preventing the preponderance of one dialect over the other.

Foreign imitation begins to prevail in Flanders. Frederic de Conincq constructs dramas on the models of Lope de Vega, with the necessary quota of nocturnal visits, abductions, dagger-thrusts, and bravado. An action entirely Spanish is conducted in the veriest patois of Antwerp. Ogier follows in his footsteps, introducing upon the stage the coarsest language. He represents vice in its most revolting forms. His theory, as he himself explains it, is, that "it is necessary to represent vice on the stage, as the Romans formerly on certain days intoxicated their slaves and showed them to their children, in order that they might at an early age become inspired with a disgust for debauchery." Yet his comedies enjoyed the highest favor, and have been pronounced by native critics among the most remarkable and meritorious productions of the epoch. They are ever distinguished by vivacity, truth, and fidelity, in depicting the many-sided life of the people. He seems to have been a literary Ostade or Teniers, with less of ingenuousness and good-nature in the portraiture.

In the mean time the French language continues to gain ground every day. In Brussels, native authors seek in vain to oppose the encroachments of the "Fransquillon," as Godin first styles them; but, save the feeble productions of Van der Borcht, the Jesuit Poirtiers, and the Dominican Vloers, we find but translations and imitations. Moons versifies some hundreds of fables. A half-sentimental, sickly style, consisting only of praises, of self-abnegation, of pious ejaculations, prevails. It is the worst of reactions;-the country, after its first outburst, had sunk into quietude, the lethargy of inaction.

Holland, on the other hand, is active and doing. Its poets and historians are at work, the precursors of Bilderdyk and Tollens, the poet of the people. Bruges, in the eighteenth century, produces two writers of merit,-Smidts and Labare. In French Flanders, De Swaen adapts from Corneille, and publishes original dramas. Many songs are composed both in the northern and southern provinces, mostly of a religious character. Philologers seek to revive the neglected idiom with little success. But the century is blank of great names. The Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres, established at Brussels by Maria Theresa, was composed of members totally unacquainted with the Flemish. It took no notice of the language beyond publishing a few prize-memoirs in its annals. The German barons who ruled cared little for their own tongue: how should they have manifested interest in that of their Belgian subjects? The subsequent French domination was no improvement. On the 13th of June, 1803, it was decreed by the Republic,-"In a year, reckoning from the publication of this present ordinance, the public acts, in the departments once called Belgium, ... in those on the left bank of the Rhine, ... where the custom of drawing up acts in the language of those countries may have been preserved, are henceforth to be written in French." The Bonaparte rule was not of a nature to restore former privileges. In spite of the feeble remonstrances that were urged against such arbitrary measures, an imperial decree of 1812 enjoined that all Flemish papers should appear with a French translation.

Under the rule of King William, vigorous measures were employed to reinstate the native idiom. At first warmly seconded, Government soon met with an unaccountable opposition even from its subjects. The Dutch was combated by those connected with education. It was ridiculed by the Walloon population. Since the independence of Belgium, the mouvement flamand has been felt more than once by the would-be French rulers. In 1841, a Congress was held in Ghent, where all the members of the Government spoke in Flemish; energetic protests were addressed to the Chamber of Representatives, all with little avail. At present, though the language is nominally on a par with French, it meets with little encouragement. The philological labors of Willems entitle him to a place among the greatest of the present century; he was until his death the leader of the intellectual movement of his country.

Of later authors, we may mention the laureate Ledeganck, Henri Conscience, whose works have now been translated into English, French, German, Danish, and Swedish, Renier Snieders, Van Duyse, Dantzenberg. Modern literature seems to have taken a new flight; it is animated by the purest love of country, by an ardent desire in its authors to revive the use of their native tongue. The tendency is rather Germanic. At the Singers' Festival, held in Ghent a short time ago, the songs sung breathed a spirit of union and love for the sister languages. As a fair sample, we may quote the following:-

"Welaen, Germaen en Belg tezaem ten stryd

Voor vryheid, tael en vaderland!

De vaen van't du?tsch en vlaemsche zangverbond

Prael op't gentsch eeregoud!

Wy willen vry zyn, als de adelaer

Die stout op eigen wieken dryft,

Voor wien er slechts een koestring is, de zon.

Alom waer der Germanen tael

Zich heft en bloeid en't volk,

Daer is ons vaderland!"

* * * * *

The Glaciers of the Alps. Being a Narrative of Excursions and

Ascents, an Account of the Origin and Phenomena of Glaciers, and an

Exposition of the Physical Principles to which they are related. By

JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S., etc., etc. With Illustrations. London: John

Murray. 1860. pp. xx., 444.

Our readers are probably aware that the question of the causes of glacier formation and motion, cool as the subject may seem in itself, has demonstrated the existence of a great deal of latent heat among scientific men. In England, the so-called viscous theory of Professor J.D. Forbes held for a long while undisputed possession of the field. According to him, "a glacier is an imperfect fluid, or viscous body, which is urged down slopes of a certain inclination by the mutual pressure of its parts." With that impartial superciliousness to all foreign achievement which not seldom characterizes the British mind, the credit of all the results of observation and experiment on the glaciers was attributed to Professor Forbes, who seems to have accepted it with delightful complacency. But presently doubt, then unbelief, and at last downright opposition began to show themselves. The leader of the revolt was Professor Tyndall, whose book is now before us. The controversy has begotten no little bitterness of feeling; but none is shown in Mr. Tyndall's volume, which is throughout written in the truest spirit of science,-with the earnest frankness that becomes a seeker of truth, and the dignity that befits a lover of it.

Not content with any theoretic antagonism to the Forbes explanation of the phenomena, Mr. Tyndall devoted all the leisure of several years to an examination of them on the spot. At the risk of his life, he verified the previous observations of others and made new ones himself. At home, he made experiments upon the nature of ice, especially upon its capacity for regulation and the effect of pressure upon it. He satisfied himself that snow may be changed to ice by pressure, that crumbled ice may in like manner be restored to its original condition, and that solid ice may be forced to take any form desired. Under proper conditions, lamination may be produced by the same means. The result of his investigations is, that the glacier is a solid body, and that pressure answers all the requirements of the glacier-problem, and is the only thing that will.

The book is one of uncommon interest, and discusses many topics beside the glaciers, though nothing that is not in some way related to them. Mr. Tyndall does justice to former investigators,-especially to M. Rendu, who, though imperfectly supplied with demonstrated facts, theorized the phenomena with the happiest inspiration,-and to Agassiz, of whose important observations, establishing for the first time the fact of more rapid motion in the middle of the glacier, Professor Forbes had appropriated the credit. The style is remarkably agreeable, in description vivid, and in its scientific parts clear. Indeed, we do not know whether we have enjoyed the narrative or the science the most. Professor Tyndall has the uncommon gift of being able to write science so that the unscientific can understand it, without descending to the low level of science made easy. The Royal Institution may well congratulate itself on having in him a man every way qualified to succeed Faraday, whenever (and may it be long first!) his chair is vacant.

* * * * *

ART.

MR. JARVES'S COLLECTION.

It seems an odd turn in the kaleidoscope of Fortune that associates a Prime Minister of the Sandwich Islands-where the only pictorial Art is a kind of illumination laboriously executed by the natives on each other's skins, thus forming a free peripatetic gallery-with a collection of pictures by early Italian masters. It is certainly a striking illustration of American multifariousness. From the dawning civilization of Hawaii Mr. Jarves withdraws to Italy, where culture has passed far beyond its noon, and finds himself equally at home in both. From Italy he has returned to America with by far the most important contribution to historical Art that has ever reached us. It is not easy to overestimate its value, whether intrinsically, or as an aid to intelligent and refining study. We can hardly expect, it is true, ever to form such collections of Art in this country as would save our students the necessity of visiting Europe. This, indeed, would be hardly desirable; since a great deal of the refining and enlightening influence of foreign travel and observation is not received directly from the special objects that may have drawn us abroad, but incidentally and unexpectedly, by being brought into contact with strange systems of government and new forms of thought. But what we might have is such a collection as would enable those of us who cannot travel to enjoy some of the highest aesthetic advantages of travel, and would send our students to the galleries of the Old World already in a condition to appreciate and profit by them. Mr. Jarves's pictures afford the opportunity for an excellent beginning in such an undertaking.

Mr. Jarves's object has been to form a gallery that should exhibit the origin, progress, and culmination of Italian Art from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, in such chronological order as should show the sequence and affiliation of the various schools and the various motive and inspiration that were operative in them. To quote his own language, Mr. Jarves began his undertaking with no "expectation of acquiring masterpieces, or many, if any, of those specimens upon which the reputation of the great masters is based. These are in the main either fixtures in their native localities or permanently absorbed into the great galleries of Europe; and America may scarcely hope ever to possess such. He did propose, however, to get together a collection which should fairly represent the varied qualities of the masters themselves, and the phases of inspiration, religious, aesthetic, or naturalistic, by which they were actuated. And he claims now to have succeeded in this to an extent which in the outset he did not dare to hope, and to have secured for the collection the approving verdict of European taste and connoisseurship in the recognition of it as a valuable historical gallery of original paintings of the epochs and schools they claim to represent.

"In putting forward this claim, he does it in full view of the character of the criticism and doubts such an assumption naturally begets. The public are right in doubting; and they should not be convinced except upon sound evidence. Therefore, while he unhesitatingly claims for the collection the foregoing character, he expects and invites from the public the fullest measure of impartial and intelligent criticism.

"The object of the collection is a nucleus for an American Gallery, to be established in the most fitting place and upon a broad basis, sufficient to gratify and improve every variety of taste and to advance the aesthetic culture of the people.

"With this aim, he has declined repeated overtures pecuniarily advantageous to divert it in whole or part to other purposes; and in bringing it to America at his own risk and expense, it is solely to test the disposition of the public to second such a project. If it meet their approbation, the means best adapted for the purpose are to be maturely considered; but if otherwise, it is his intention to return the gallery to Europe.

"It is a simple question, whether, after having had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the collection and his object in making it, the American public will sustain perfect this humble beginning of a Public Gallery of Art, or abandon the formation of one to future chances, when the difficulties will be much greater and the opportunities for success much fewer. It must be considered, that, at this moment, while genuine works of Art are growing more and more difficult to be procured, the rivalry of public and private collectors is rapidly increasing. It is true that the existing great galleries come into the market only for pictures specially wanted to fill some important gap in their series, for which they pay prices that would startle our public economists. America will have to undergo the competition, even if she now enters this field, of several important foreign galleries in the process of formation, among which are those of Manchester, with a subscribed capital, as a beginning, of ￡100,000; of the Association of St. Petersburg, for the same purpose, under the patronage of the Imperial Family; and of one even in Australia."

Mr. Jarves's collection is not confined by any means to what may be called the curiosities of Art. It contains one hundred and twenty-five pictures; and, rich as it is in works that mark the successive stages of development in Italian painting, it possesses also specimens of its later and most perfect productions. Examples of the pure Byzantine bring us to those of the Greco-Italian school, and these to the early Italian, represented (in its Umbrian branch) by Cimabue, by Giotto and his followers, the Gaddi, Cavallini, Giottino, Orgagna, and others; while of the Sienese we have Duccio, Simone di Martino, and Lorenzetti, with more of less note. Of the Ascetics we have, among others, Frà Angelico, Castagno, and Giovanni di Paolo. The Realists are ushered in by Masolino, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, and go on in an unbroken series through Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Cosimo Roselli, to Domenico Ghirlandajo, Leonardo, Raffaello, and a design of Michel Angelo, painted by one of his pupils. Nor does the succession end here; Andrea del Sarto, R. Ghirlandajo, Vasari, Bronzino, Pontormo, and others, follow. Of the Religionists, there are Lorenzo di Credi, Frà Bartolommeo, Perugino, and their scholars. The progress of landscape, history, and anatomical drawing may be traced in Paolo Uccello, Dello Delli, Piero di Cosimo, Pinturicchio, the Pollajuoli, and Luca Signorelli. Here also is Gentile da Fabriano. Venice gives us G. Bellini, M. Basaiti, Giorgione, and Paul Veronese. And of the later Sienese, there are Sodoma, Matteo da Siena, and Beccafumi. The list includes, also, Domenichino, Sebastian del Piombo, Guido, Salvator Rosa, Holbein, Rubens, and Lo Spagna.

The names we have cited will be enough to show those familiar with the subject the scope of the collection and its value as a consecutive series, embracing a period which few galleries in any country cover so completely, since few have been gathered on any historical plan.

The chief question, of course, is as to the authenticity of the pictures. This cannot be decided till they are exhibited and Mr. Jarves's proofs are before the public. It is mainly to be decided on internal evidence, and it is on such evidence that a great part of the very early pictures in foreign collections have been labelled with the names of particular artists. The weight of such evidence is to be determined by the judgment of experts, and we are informed that Mr. Jarves has a mass of testimony from those best qualified to decide in such cases,-among it that of Sir Charles Eastlake, M. Rio, and the directors of the two great public galleries of Florence. After all, however, this appears to us a matter of secondary consequence. If the pictures are genuine productions of the periods they are intended to illustrate, if they are good specimens of their several schools of Art, the special names of the artists who may have painted them are a matter of less concern. The money-value of the collection might be lessened without affecting its worth in other more considerable respects, as an illustration of the rise and progress of the most important school of modern Art.

Every year it becomes more difficult to obtain pictures of the class of which Mr. Jarves's collection is mainly composed. The directors of European galleries have become alive to their value, and are sparing no effort to fill the lacuna left by the more strictly virtuoso taste of a former generation. As far as the general public is concerned, such pictures must, no doubt, create the taste by which they will be appreciated. The style of the more archaic ones among them may be easily ridiculed, and the cry of Pre-Raphaelitism may be turned against them; but we should not forget that these earlier efforts, however they might fail in grace of treatment and ease of expression, are sincere and genuine products of their time, and very different in spirit and character from the productions of the modern school, which aims to reproduce a phase of Art when the thought and faith that animated it are gone past recall.

Mr. Jarves is desirous that the gallery should remain in his native city of Boston, and to that end is willing to part with it on very generous terms. We cannot but hope that there will be taste and public spirit enough to realize his design. By the side of the Museum of Natural History under the charge of Agassiz, we should like to see one of Art that would supply another great want in our culture. The Jarves Collection gives the opportunity for a most successful beginning, and we trust it will not be allowed to follow the Ninevite Marbles.

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RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Rosa; or the Parisian Girl. From the French of Madame de Pressensé. By Mrs. J.C. Fletcher. New York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. 371. 60 cts.

The Sunny South; or the Southerner at Home. Embracing Five Years'

Experience of a Northern Governess in the Land of the Sugar and the

Cotton. Edited by Professor J.H. Ingraham of Mississippi.

Philadelphia. George G. Evans. 12mo. pp. 526. $1.25.

A Greek Grammar, for Schools and Colleges. By James Hadley, Professor in Yale College. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 366. $1.25.

Life of William T. Porter. By Francis Brinley. New York. D. Appleton &

Co. 12mo. pp. 273. $1.00.

Virgil's Aeneid; with Explanatory Notes. By Henry S. Frieze, Professor of Latin in the State University of Michigan. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 598. $1.25.

What may be Learned from a Tree. By Harland Coultas, Author of

"Organic Life the same in Animals as in Plants," etc. New York. D.

Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 190. $1.00.

Wilkins Wylder; or the Successful Man. By Stephen F. Miller, Author of "The Bench and Bar of Georgia." Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 420. $1.00.

Italy in Transition. Public Scenes and Private Opinions in the Spring of 1860. Illustrated by Official Documents from the Papal Archives of the Revolted Legations. By William Arthur, A.M., Author of "The Successful Merchant." New York. Harper & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 429. $1.00.

Chapters on Wives. By Mrs. Ellis, Author Of "Mothers of Great Men."

New York. Harper & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 358.

The Woman in White. A Novel. By Wilkie Collins, Author of "The Queen of Hearts," "After Dark," etc. Illustrated by John McLenan. New York. Harper & Brothers. 8vo. pp. 260. $1.00.

American History. By Jacob Abbott. Illustrated with Numerous Maps and Engravings. Vol. II. Discovery of America. New York. Sheldon & Co. 18mo. pp. 288. 60 cts.

The German University in America. By J. Gambs, late Professor of the German University in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. New York. Sheldon & Co. 16mo. pp. 22. 15 cts.

The Eighth Commandment. By Charles Reade. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 276. 75 cts.

A Treasury of Scripture Stories. Beautifully illustrated with Colored

Plates, from Original Designs, by the first of American Artists. New

York. Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 50. 75 cts.

A Man. By Rev. J.D. Bell. Philadelphia. James Challen & Son. 12mo. pp. 462. $1.25.

The Wild Sports of India. With Remarks on the Breeding and Rearing of

Horses, and the Formation of Light Irregular Cavalry. By Captain Henry

Shakespear, Commandant Nagpore Irregular Force. Boston. Ticknor &

Fields. 16mo. pp. 282. 75 cts.

Reminiscences of an Officer of Zouaves. Translated from the French.

New York. D. Appleton & Co. 16mo. pp. 317. 75 cts.

The Lost Principle; or the Sectional Equilibrium: how it was created, how destroyed, how it may be restored. By "Barbarossa." Richmond, Va. James Woodhouse & Co. 8vo. pp. 266. $1.50.

The Political Text-Book for 1860. Comprising a Brief View of

Presidential Nominations and Elections, including all the National

Platforms ever yet adopted. Compiled by Horace Greeley and John F.

Cleveland. New York. Tribune Association. 8vo. pp. 248. $1.00.

The New American Cyclopaedia; a Popular Dictionary of General

Knowledge. Edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana. Vol. X. New

York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 788, viii. $3.00.

French, German, Spanish, Latin, and Italian Languages without a Master, whereby any one or all of these Languages can be learned by any one, without a Teacher, with the Aid of this Book. By A.H. Monteith. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 374. $1.25.

The Kangaroo-Hunters: or Adventures in the Bush. By Anne Bowman.

Boston. Crosby, Nichols, Lee, & Co. 18mo. pp. 463. 75 cts.

Studies of the Earth. An Essay on the Figure and Surface-Divisions of

the Earth, its Geological and Meteorological Phenomena, and its

Astronomical Elements. By Samuel E. Cones. Washington. Philip &

Solomons. Large 4to. pp. 100. $1.00.