The condition of Virginia for the period immediately preceding the Revolution was one which well merits the consideration of political philosophers. For many years the extent of the territory of the Old Dominion was undecided, no lines being fixed between that State and Ohio and Pennsylvania. Virginia claimed a large part of both these States as hers; and, indeed, there seems to be in that State an hereditary unconsciousness of the limits of her dominion. The question of jurisdiction superseded every other for the time, and the formal administration of the law itself ceased. There is a period lasting through a whole generation in which society in the western part of the State went on without courts or authorities. There was no court but of public opinion, no administration but of the mob. Judges were ermined and juries impanelled by the community when occasion demanded. Kercheval, who grew from that vicinity and state of things, and whose authority is excellent, says,—"They had no civil, military, or ecclesiastical laws,—at least, none were enforced; yet we look in vain for any period, before or since, when property, life, and morals were any better protected." A statement worth pondering by those who tell us that man is nought, government all. The tongue-lynchings and other punishments inflicted by the community upon evil-doers were adapted to the reformation of the culprit or his banishment from the community. The punishment for idleness, lying, dishonesty, and ill-fame generally, was that of "hating the offender out," as they expressed it. This was about equivalent to the [Greek: atimia] among the Greeks. It was a public expression, in various ways, of the general indignation against any transgressor, and commonly resulted either in the profound repentance or the voluntary exile of the person against whom it was directed: it was generally the fixing of any epithet which was proclaimed by each tongue when the sinner appeared,—e.g., Foultongue, Lawrence, Snakefang. The name of Extra-Billy Smith is a quite recent case of this "tongue-lynching." It was in these days of no laws, however, that the practice of duelling was imported into Virginia. With this exception, the State can trace no evil results to the period when society was resolved into its simplest elements. Indeed, it was at this time that there began to appear there signs of a sturdy and noble race of Americanized Englishmen. The average size of the European Englishman was surpassed. A woman was equal to an Indian. A young Virginian one day killed a buffalo on the Alleghany Mountains, stretched its skin over ribs of wood, and on the boat so made sailed the full length of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. But this development was checked by the influx of "English gentry," who brought laws and fashions from London. The old books are full of the conflicts which these fastidious gentlemen and ladies had with the rude pioneer customs and laws. The fine ladies found that there was an old statute of the Colony which read,—"It shall be permitted to none but the Council and Heads of Hundreds to wear gold in their clothes, or to wear silk till they make it themselves." What, then, could Miss Softdown do with the silks and breastpins brought from London? "Let her wear deer-skin and arrow-head," said the natives. But Miss Softdown soon had her way. Still more were these new families shocked, when, on ringing for some newly purchased negro domestic, the said negro came into the parlor nearly naked. Then began one of the most extended controversies in the history of Virginia,—the question being, whether out-door negroes should wear clothes, and domestics dress like other people. The popular belief, in which it seems the negroes shared, was, that the race would perish, if subjected to clothing the year round. The custom of negro men going about in puris naturalibus prevailed to a much more recent period than is generally supposed.

One by one, the barbarisms of Old Virginia were eradicated, and the danger was then that effeminacy would succeed; but a better class of families began to come from England, now that the Colony was somewhat prepared for them. These aimed to make Virginia repeat England: it might have repeated something worse, and in the end has. About one or two old mansions in Maryland and Virginia the long silvery grass characteristic of the English park is yet found: the seed was carefully brought from England by those gentlemen who came under Raleigh's administration, and who regarded their residence in these Colonies as patriotic self-devotion. On one occasion, the writer, walking through one of these fields, startled an English lark, which rose singing and soaring skyward. It sang a theme of the olden time. Governor Spottswood brought with him, when he came, a number of these larks, and made strenuous efforts to domesticate them in the neighborhood of Fredericksburg, Virginia. He did not succeed. Now and then we have heard of one's being seen, companionless. It is a sad symbol of that nobler being who tried to domesticate himself in Virginia, the fine old English gentleman. He is now seen but little oftener than the silver grass and the lark which he brought with him. But let no one think, whilst ridiculing those who can now only hide their poor stature under the lion-skin of F-F-V-ism, that the race of old Virginia gentlemen is a mythic race. Through the fair slopes of Eastern Virginia we have wandered and counted the epitaphs of as princely men and women as ever trod this continent. Yonder is the island, floating on the crystal Rappahannock, which, instead of, as now, masking the guns which aim at Freedom's heart, once bore witness to the noble Spottswood's effort to realize for the working-man a Utopia in the New World. Yonder is the house, on the same river, frowning now with the cannon which defend the slave-shamble, (for the Richmond railroad passes on its verge,) where Washington was reared to love justice and honor; and over to the right its porch commands a marble shaft on which is written, "Here lies Mary, the Mother of Washington." A little lower is the spot where John Smith gave the right hand to the ambassadors of King Powhatan. In that old court-house the voice of Patrick Henry thundered for Liberty and Union. Time was when the brave men on whose hearts rested the destinies of the New World made this the centre of activity and rule upon the continent; they lived and acted here as Anglo-Saxon blood should live and act, wherever it bears its rightful sceptre; but now one walks here as through the splendid ruins of some buried Nineveh, and emerges to find the very sunlight sad, as it reveals those who garnish the sepulchres of their ancestors with one hand, whilst with the other they stone and destroy the freedom and institutions which their fathers lived to build and died to defend.

And this, alas! is the first black line in the sketch of Virginia as it now is. The true preface to the present edition of Virginia, which, unhappily, has been for many years stereotyped, may be found in a single entry of Captain John Smith's journal:—

"August, 1619. A Dutch man-of-war visited Jamestown and sold the settlers twenty negroes, the first that have ever touched the soil of Virginia."

They have scarcely made it "sacred soil." A little entry it is, of what seemed then, perhaps, an unimportant event,—but how pregnant with evil!

The very year in which that Dutch ship arrived with its freight of slaves at Jamestown, the Mayflower sailed with its freight of freemen for Plymouth.

Let us pause a moment and consider the prospects and opportunities which opened before the two bands of pilgrim. How hard and bleak were the shores that received the Mayflower pilgrims! Winter seemed the only season of the land to which they had come; when the snow disappeared, it was only to reveal a landscape of sand and rock. To have soil they must pulverize rock. Nature said to these exiles from a rich soil, with her sternest voice,—"Here is no streaming breast: sand with no gold mined: all the wealth you get must be mined from your own hearts and coined by your own right hands!"

How different was it in Virginia! Old John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas, writing to the King in 1616, said,—"Virginia is the same as it was, I meane for the goodness of the scate, and the fertilenesse of the land, and will, no doubt, so continue to the worlds end,—a countrey as worthy of good report as can be declared by the pen of the best writer; a countrey spacious and wide, capable of many hundred thousands of inhabitants." It must be borne in mind that Rolfe's idea of an inhabitant's needs was that he should own a county or two to begin with, which will account for his moderate estimate of the number that could be accommodated upon a hundred thousand square miles. He continues,—"For the soil, most fertile to plant in; for ayre, fresh and temperate, somewhat hotter in summer, and not altogether so cold in winter as in England, yet so agreable is it to our constitutions that now 't is more rare to hear of a man's death than in England; for water, most wholesome and verie plentifull; and for fayre navigable rivers and good harbors, no countrey in Christendom, in so small a circuite, is so well stored." Any one who has passed through the State, or paid any attention to its resources, may go far beyond the old settler's statement. Virginia is a State combining, as in some divinely planned garden, every variety of soil known on earth, resting under a sky that Italy alone can match, with a Valley anticipating in vigor the loam of the prairies: up to that Valley and Piedmont stretch throughout the State navigable rivers, like fingers of the Ocean-hand, ready to bear to all marts the produce of the soil, the superb vein of gold, and the iron which, unlocked from mountain-barriers, could defy competition. But in her castle Virginia is still, a sleeping beauty awaiting the hero whose kiss shall recall her to life. Comparing what free labor has done for the granite rock called Massachusetts, and what slave labor has done for the enchanted garden called Virginia, one would say, that, though the Dutch ship that brought to our shores the Norway rat was bad, and that which brought the Hessian fly was worse, the most fatal ship that ever cast anchor in American waters was that which brought the first twenty negroes to the settlers of Jamestown. Like the Indian in her own aboriginal legend, on whom a spell was cast which kept the rain from falling on him and the sun from shining on him, Virginia received from that Dutch ship a curse which chained back the blessings which her magnificent resources would have rained upon her, and the sun of knowledge shining everywhere has left her to-day more than eighty thousand white adults who cannot read or write.

It was at an early period as manifest as now that a slave population implied and rendered necessary a large poor-white population. And whilst the pilgrims of Plymouth inaugurated the free-school system in their first organic law, which now renders it impossible for one sane person born in their land to be unable to read and write, Virginia was boasting with Lord Douglas in "Marmion,"

"Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine Could never pen a written line."

Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia for thirty-six years, beginning with 1641, wrote to the King as follows:—"I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels upon the best governments. God keep us from both!" Most fearfully has the prayer been answered. In Berkeley's track nearly all the succeeding ones went on. Henry A. Wise boasted in Congress that no newspaper was printed in his district, and he soon became governor.

It gives but a poor description of the "poor-white trash" to say that they cannot read. The very slaves cannot endure to be classed on their level. They are inconceivably wretched and degraded. For every rich slave-owner there are some eight or ten families of these miserable tenants. Both sexes are almost always drunk.

There is no better man than the Anglo-Saxon man who labors; there is no worse animal than the same man when bred to habits of idleness. When Watts wrote,

"Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do,"

he wrote what is much truer of his own race than of any other. This law has been the Nemesis of the young Virginian. His descent demands excitement and activity; and unless he becomes emasculated into a clay-eater, he obtains the excitement that his ancestors got in war, and the New-Englander gets in work, in gaming, horse-racing, and all manner of dissipation. His life verifies the proverb, that the idle brain is the Devil's workshop. He is trained to despise labor, for it puts him on a level with his father's slaves. At the University of Virginia one may see the extent of demoralization to which eight generations of idleness can bring English blood. There the spree, the riot, and we might almost say the duel, are normal. About five years ago we spent some time at Charlottesville. The evening of our arrival was the occasion of witnessing some of the ways of the students. A hundred or more of them with blackened or masked faces were rushing about the college yard; a large fire was burning around a stake, upon which was the effigy of a woman. A gentleman connected with the University, with whom we were walking, informed us that the special occasion of this affair was, that a near relative of Mrs. Stowe's, a sister, perhaps, had that day arrived to visit her relative, Mrs. McGuffey. The effigy of Mrs. Stowe was burned for her benefit. The lady and her friends were very much alarmed, and left on the early train next morning, without completing their visit.

"They will close up by all getting dead-drunk," said our friend, the Professor.

"But," we asked, "why does not the faculty at once interfere in this disgraceful procedure?"

"They have got us lately," he replied, "where we are powerless. Whenever they wish a spree, they tackle it on to the slavery question, and know that their parents will pardon everything to the spirit of the South when it is burning the effigy of Mrs. Stowe or Charles Sumner, or the last person who furnishes a chance for a spree. To arrest them ends only in casting suspicion of unsoundness on the professor who does it."

Virginia has had, for these same causes, no religious development whatever. The people spend four-and-a-half fifths of their time arguing about politics and religion,—questions of the latter being chiefly as to the best method of being baptized, or whether sudden conversions are the safest,—but they never take a step forward in either. Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, stated to us, that, once being in Richmond, he resolved to give a little religious exploration to the surrounding country. About seven miles out from the city he saw a man lying down,—the Virginian's natural posture,—and approaching, he made various inquiries, and received lazy Yes and No replies. Presently he inquired to what churches the people in that vicinity usually went.

"Well, not much to any."

"What are their religious views?"

"Well, not much of any."

"Well, my friend, may I inquire what are your opinions on religious subjects?"

"The man, yet reclining," said the Archbishop, "looked at me sleepily a moment, and replied,—

"'My opinion is that them as made me will take care of me.'"

The Archbishop came off discouraged; but we assured him that the man was far ahead of many specimens we had met. We never see an opossum in Virginia—a fossil animal in most other places—but it seems the sign of the moral stratification around. There are many varieties of opossum in Virginia,—political and religious: Saturn, who devours his offspring, has not come to Virginia yet.

Old formulas have, doubtless, to a great extent, lost their power there also, but there is not vitality enough to create a higher form. For no new church can ever be anywhere inaugurated in this world until the period has come when its chief corner-stone can be Humanity. Till then the old creeds in Virginia must wander like ghosts, haunting the old ruins which their once exquisite churches have become. Nothing can be more picturesque, nothing more sad, than these old churches,—every brick in them imported from Old England, every prayer from the past world and its past need: the high and wide pews where the rich sat lifted some feet above the seats of the poor represent still the faith in a God who subjects the weak to the strong. These old churches, rarely rebuilt, are ready now to become rocks imbedding fossil creeds. In these old aisles one walks, and the snake glides away on the pavement, and the bat flutters in the high pulpit, whilst moss and ivy tenderly enshroud the lonely walls; and over all is written the word DESOLATION. Symbol it is of the desolation which caused it, even the trampled fanes and altars of the human soul,—the temple of God, whose profanation the church has suffered to go on unrebuked, till now both must crumble into the same grave.

* * * * *

AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.

A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is found,—a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape, a cannibal, an eater of pounded snails, worms, and offal,—a certain degree of progress from this extreme is called Civilization. It is a vague, complex name, of many degrees. Nobody has attempted a definition. Mr. Guizot, writing a book on the subject, does not. It implies the evolution of a highly organized man, brought to supreme delicacy of sentiment, as in practical power, religion, liberty, sense of honor, and taste. In the hesitation to define what it is, we usually suggest it by negations. A nation that has no clothing, no alphabet, no iron, no marriage, no arts of peace, no abstract thought, we call barbarous. And after many arts are invented or imported, as among the Turks and Moorish nations, it is often a little complaisant to call them civilized.

Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its own. The Chinese and Japanese, though each complete in his way, is different from the man of Madrid or the man of New York. The term imports a mysterious progress. In the brutes is none; and in mankind, the savage tribes do not advance. The Indians of this country have not learned the white man's work; and in Africa, the negro of to-day is the negro of Herodotus. But in other races the growth is not arrested; but the like progress that is made by a boy, "when he cuts his eye-teeth," as we say,—childish illusions pricing daily away, and he seeing things really and comprehensively,—is made by tribes. It is the learning the secret of cumulative power, of advancing on one's self. It implies a facility of association, power to compare, the ceasing from fixed ideas. The Indian is gloomy and distressed, when urged to depart from his habits and traditions. He is overpowered by the gaze of the white, and his eye sinks. The occasion of one of these starts of growth is always some novelty that astounds the mind, and provokes it to dare to change. Thus there is a Manco Capac at the beginning of each improvement, some superior foreigner importing new and wonderful arts, and teaching them. Of course, he must not know too much, but must have the sympathy, language, and gods of those he would inform. But chiefly the sea-shore has been the point of departure to knowledge, as to commerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most. The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.

Where shall we begin or end the list of those feats of liberty and wit, each of which feats made an epoch of history? Thus, the effect of a framed or stone house is immense on the tranquillity, power, and refinement of the builder. A man in a cave, or in a camp, a nomad, will die with no more estate than the wolf or the horse leaves. But so simple a labor as a house being achieved, his chief enemies are kept at bay. He is safe from the teeth of wild animals, from frost, sunstroke, and weather; and fine faculties begin to yield their fine harvest. Invention and art are born, manners and social beauty and delight. 'T is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin grammar, and one of those towhead boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates take heed! for here is one, who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands.

When the Indian trail gets widened, graded, and bridged to a good road,—there is a benefactor, there is a missionary, a pacificator, a wealth-bringer, a maker of markets, a vent for industry. The building three or four hundred miles of road in the Scotch Highlands in 1726 to 1749 effectually tamed the ferocious clans, and established public order. Another step in civility is the change from war, hunting, and pasturage, to agriculture. Our Scandinavian forefathers have left us a significant legend to convey their sense of the importance of this step. "There was once a giantess who had a daughter, and the child saw a husbandman ploughing in the field. Then she ran and picked him up with her finger and thumb, and put him and his plough and his oxen into her apron, and carried them to her mother, and said, 'Mother, what sort of a beetle is this that I found wriggling in the sand?' But the mother said, 'Put it away, my child; we must begone out of this land, for these people will dwell in it.'" Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy, augmented by cheapness, and guarded by a certain religious sentiment in mankind, so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea, over land, and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine metre of civilization.

The division of labor, the multiplication of the arts of peace, which is nothing but a large allowance to each man to choose his work according to his faculty, to live by his better hand, fills the State with useful and happy laborers,—and they, creating demand by the very temptation of their productions, are rapidly and surely rewarded by good sale: and what a police and ten commandments their work thus becomes! So true is Dr. Johnson's remark, that "men are seldom more innocently employed than when they are making money."

The skilful combinations of civil government, though they usually follow natural leadings, as the lines of race, language, religion, and territory, yet require wisdom and conduct in the rulers, and in their result delight the imagination. "We see insurmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition to their strongest passions, the restraints of a power which they scarcely perceive, and the crimes of a single individual marked and punished at the distance of half the earth."[A]

[Footnote A: Dr. Thomas Brown.]

Right position of woman in the State is another index. Poverty and industry with a healthy mind read very easily the laws of humanity, and love them: place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and a severe morality gives that essential charm to woman which educates all that is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing, breeds courtesy and learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate; so that I have thought it a sufficient definition of civilization to say, it is the influence of good women.

Another measure of culture is the diffusion of knowledge, overrunning all the old barriers of caste, and, by the cheap press, bringing the university to every poor man's door in the newsboy's basket. Scraps of science, of thought, of poetry are in the coarsest sheet, so that in every house we hesitate to tear a newspaper until we have looked it through.

The ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and compend of a nation's arts: the ship steered by compass and chart, longitude reckoned by lunar observation, and, when the heavens are hid, by chronometer; driven by steam; and in wildest sea-mountains, at vast distances from home,

"The pulses of her iron heart Go beating through the storm."

No use can lessen the wonder of this control, by so weak a creature, of forces so prodigious. I remember I watched, in crossing the sea, the beautiful skill whereby the engine in its constant working was made to produce two hundred gallons of fresh water out of salt water, every hour,—thereby supplying all the ship's want.

The skill that pervades complex details; the man that maintains himself; the chimney taught to burn its own smoke; the farm made to produce all that is consumed on it; the very prison compelled to maintain itself and yield a revenue, and, better than that, made a reform school, and a manufactory of honest men out of rogues, as the steamer made fresh water out of salt: all these are examples of that tendency to combine antagonisms, and utilize evil, which is the index of high civilization.

Civilization is the result of highly complex organization. In the snake, all the organs are sheathed: no hands, no feet, no fins, no wings. In bird and beast, the organs are released, and begin to play. In man, they are all unbound, and full of joyful action. With this unswaddling, he receives the absolute illumination we call Reason, and thereby true liberty.

Climate has much to do with this melioration. The highest civility has never loved the hot zones. Wherever snow falls, there is usually civil freedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent and pampered at the cost of higher qualities: the man is grasping, sensual, and cruel. But this scale is by no means invariable. For high degrees of moral sentiment control the unfavorable influences of climate; and some of our grandest examples of men and of races come from the equatorial regions,—as the genius of Egypt, of India, and of Arabia.

These feats are measures or traits of civility; and temperate climate is an important influence, though not quite indispensable, for there have been learning, philosophy, and art in Iceland, and in the tropics. But one condition is essential to the social education of man,—namely, morality. There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name, but sometimes the point of honor, as in the institution of chivalry; or patriotism, as in the Spartan and Roman republics; or the enthusiasm of some religious sect which imputes its virtue to its dogma; or the cabalism, or esprit du corps, of a masonic or other association of friends.

The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral; it must run in the grooves of the celestial wheels. It must be catholic in aims. What is moral? It is the respecting in action catholic or universal ends. Hear the definition which Kant gives of moral conduct: "Act always so that the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for all intelligent beings."

Civilization depends on morality. Everything good in man leans on what is higher. This rule holds in small as in great. Thus, all our strength and success in the work of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid of the elements. You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad-axe chopping upward chips and slivers from a beam. How awkward! at what disadvantage he works! But see him on the ground, dressing his timber under him. Now, not his feeble muscles, but the force of gravity brings down the axe; that is to say, the planet itself splits his stick. The farmer had much ill-temper, laziness, and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers, until, one day, he bethought him to put his saw-mill on the edge of a waterfall; and the river never tires of turning his wheel: the river is good-natured, and never hints an objection.

We had letters to send: couriers could not go fast enough, nor far enough; broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in spring, snow-drifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the horses out of a walk. But we found out that the air and earth were full of electricity; and it was always going our way,—just the way we wanted to send. Would he take a message? Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in no time. Only one doubt occurred, one staggering objection,—he had no carpet-bag, no visible pockets, no hands, not so much as a mouth, to carry a letter. But, after much thought and many experiments, we managed to meet the conditions, and to fold up the letter in such invisible compact form as he could carry in those invisible pockets of his, never wrought by needle and thread,—and it went like a charm.

I admire still more than the saw-mill the skill which, on the sea-shore, makes the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which thus engages the assistance of the moon, like a hired hand, to grind, and wind, and pump, and saw, and split stone, and roll iron.

Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day, and cost us nothing.

Our astronomy is full of examples of calling in the aid of these magnificent helpers. Thus, on a planet so small as ours, the want of an adequate base for astronomical measurements is early felt, as, for example, in detecting the parallax of a star. But the astronomer, having by an observation fixed the place of a star, by so simple an expedient as waiting six months, and then repeating his observation, contrived to put the diameter of the earth's orbit, say two hundred millions of miles, between his first observation and his second, and this line afforded him a respectable base for his triangle.

All our arts aim to win this vantage. We cannot bring the heavenly powers to us, but, if we will only choose our jobs in directions in which they travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure. It is a peremptory rule with them, that they never go out of their road. We are dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that way superserviceably; but they swerve never from their fore-ordained paths,—neither the sun, nor the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote of dust.

And as our handiworks borrow the elements, so all our social and political action leans on principles. To accomplish anything excellent, the will must work for catholic and universal ends. A puny creature walled in on every side, as Donne wrote,—

———"unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"

but when his will leans on a principle, when he is the vehicle of ideas, he borrows their omnipotence. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas are impregnable, and bestow on the hero their invincibility. "It was a great instruction," said a saint in Cromwell's war, "that the best courages are but beams of the Almighty." Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. No god will help. We shall find all their teams going the other way,—Charles's Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo, Hercules:—every god will leave us. Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote,—justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.

If we can thus ride in Olympian chariots by putting our works in the path of the celestial circuits, we can harness also evil agents, the powers of darkness, and force them to serve against their will the ends of wisdom and virtue. Thus, a wise Government puts fines and penalties on pleasant vices. What a benefit would the American Government, now in the hour of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village, and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good patriots?—"he got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

These are traits, and measures, and modes; and the true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops,—no, but the kind of man the country turns out. I see the vast advantages of this country, spanning the breadth of the temperate zone. I see the immense material prosperity,—towns on towns, states on states, and wealth piled in the massive architecture of cities, California quartz-mountains dumped down in New York to be re-piled architecturally along-shore from Canada to Cuba, and thence westward to California again. But it is not New-York streets built by the confluence of workmen and wealth of all nations, though stretching out towards Philadelphia until they touch it, and northward until they touch New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, and Boston,—not these that make the real estimation. But, when I look over this constellation of cities which animate and illustrate the land, and see how little the Government has to do with their daily life, how self-helped and self-directed all families are,—knots of men in purely natural societies,—societies of trade, of kindred blood, of habitual hospitality, house and house, man acting on man by weight of opinion, of longer or better-directed industry, the refining influence of women, the invitation which experience and permanent causes open to youth and labor,—when I see how much each virtuous and gifted person whom all men consider lives affectionately with scores of excellent people who are not known far from home, and perhaps with great reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue, and in the symmetry and force of their qualities, I see what cubic values America has, and in these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or enormous wealth.

In strictness, the vital refinements are the moral and intellectual steps. The appearance of the Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh,—in Greece, of the Seven Wise Masters, of the acute and upright Socrates, and of the Stoic Zeno,—in Judea, the advent of Jesus,—and in modern Christendom, of the realists Huss, Savonarola, and Luther, are causal facts which carry forward races to new convictions, and elevate the rule of life. In the presence of these agencies, it is frivolous to insist on the invention of printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or gas-light, percussion-caps and rubber-shoes, which are toys thrown off from that security, freedom, and exhilaration which a healthy morality creates in society. These arts add a comfort and smoothness to house and street life; but a purer morality, which kindles genius, civilizes civilization, casts backward all that we held sacred into the profane, as the flame of oil throws a shadow when shined upon by the flame of the Bude-light. Not the less the popular measures of progress will ever be the arts and the laws.

But if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests,—a country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law and statute-law,—where speech is not free,—where the post-office is violated, mail-bags opened, and letters tampered with,—where public debts and private debts outside of the State are repudiated,—where liberty is attacked in the primary institution of their social life,—where the position of the white woman is injuriously affected by the outlawry of the black woman,—where the arts, such as they have, are all imported, having no indigenous life,—where the laborer is not secured in the earnings of his own hands,—where suffrage is not free or equal,—that country is, in all these respects, not civil, but barbarous, and no advantages of soil, climate, or coast can resist these suicidal mischiefs.

Morality is essential, and all the incidents of morality,—as, justice to the subject, and personal liberty. Montesquieu says,—"Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free"; and the remark holds not less, but more, true of the culture of men than of the tillage of land. And the highest proof of civility is, that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.

Our Southern States have introduced confusion into the moral sentiments of their people, by reversing this rule in theory and practice, and denying a man's right to his labor. The distinction and end of a soundly constituted man is his labor. Use is inscribed on all his faculties. Use is the end to which he exists. As the tree exists for its fruit, so a man for his work. A fruitless plant, an idle animal, is not found in the universe. They are all toiling, however secretly or slowly, in the province assigned them, and to a use in the economy of the world,—the higher and more complex organizations to higher and more catholic service; and man seems to play a certain part that tells on the general face of the planet,—as if dressing the globe for happier races of his own kind, or, as we sometimes fancy, for beings of superior organization.

But thus use, labor of each for all, is the health and virtue of all beings. ICH DIEN, I serve, is a truly royal motto. And it is the mark of nobleness to volunteer the lowest service,—the greatest spirit only attaining to humility. Nay, God is God because he is the servant of all. Well, now here comes this conspiracy of slavery,—they call it an institution, I call it a destitution,—this stealing of men and setting them to work,—stealing their labor, and the thief sitting idle himself; and for two or three ages it has lasted, and has yielded a certain quantity of rice, cotton, and sugar. And standing on this doleful experience, these people have endeavored to reverse the natural sentiments of mankind, and to pronounce labor disgraceful, and the well-being of a man to consist in eating the fruit of other men's labor. Labor: a man coins himself into his labor,—turns his day, his strength, his thought, his affection into some product which remains as the visible sign of his power; and to protect that, to secure that to him, to secure his past self to his future self, is the object of all government. There is no interest in any country so imperative as that of labor; it covers all, and constitutions and governments exist for that,—to protect and insure it to the laborer. All honest men are daily striving to earn their bread by their industry. And who is this who tosses his empty head at this blessing in disguise, the constitution of human nature, and calls labor vile, and insults the faithful workman at his daily toil? I see for such madness no hellebore,—for such calamity no solution but servile war, and the Africanization of the country that permits it.

At this moment in America the aspects of political society absorb attention. In every house, from Canada to the Gulf, the children ask the serious father,—"What is the news of the war to-day? and when will there be better times?" The boys have no new clothes, no gifts, no journeys; the girls must go without new bonnets; boys and girls find their education, this year, less liberal and complete. All the little hopes that heretofore made the year pleasant are deferred. The state of the country fills us with anxiety and stern duties. We have attempted to hold together two states of civilization: a higher state, where labor and the tenure of land and the right of suffrage are democratical; and a lower state, in which the old military tenure of prisoners or slaves, and of power and land in a few hands, makes an oligarchy: we have attempted to hold these two states of society under one law. But the rude and early state of society does not work well with the later, nay, works badly, and has poisoned politics, public morals, and social intercourse in the Republic, now for many years.

The times put this question,—Why cannot the best civilization be extended over the whole country, since the disorder of the less civilized portion menaces the existence of the country? Is this secular progress we have described, this evolution of man to the highest powers, only to give him sensibility, and not to bring duties with it? Is he not to make his knowledge practical? to stand and to withstand? Is not civilization heroic also? Is it not for action? has it not a will? "There are periods," said Niebuhr, "when something much better than, happiness and security of life is attainable." We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another word for Opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race; and a literal slavish following of precedents, as by a justice of the peace, is not for those who at this hour lead the destinies of this people. The evil you contend with has taken alarming proportions, and you still content yourself with parrying the blows it aims, but, as if enchanted, abstain from striking at the cause.

If the American people hesitate, it is not for want of warning or advices. The telegraph has been swift enough to announce our disasters. The journals have not suppressed the extent of the calamity. Neither was there any want of argument or of experience. If the war brought any surprise to the North, it was not the fault of sentinels on the watch-towers, who had furnished full details of the designs, the muster, and the means of the enemy. Neither was anything concealed of the theory or practice of slavery. To what purpose make more big books of these statistics? There are already mountains of facts, if any one wants them. But people do not want them. They bring their opinions into the world. If they have a comatose tendency in the brain, they are pro-slavery while they live; if of a nervous sanguineous temperament, they are abolitionists. Then interests were never persuaded. Can you convince the shoe interest, or the iron interest, or the cotton interest, by reading passages from Milton or Montesquieu? You wish to satisfy people that slavery is bad economy. Why, the "Edinburgh Review" pounded on that string, and made out its case forty years ago. A democratic statesman said to me, long since, that, if he owned the State of Kentucky, he would manumit all the slaves, and be a gainer by the transaction. Is this new? No, everybody knows it. As a general economy it is admitted. But there is no one owner of the State, but a good many small owners. One man owns land and slaves; another owns slaves only. Here is a woman who has no other property,—like a lady in Charleston I knew of, who owned fifteen chimney-sweeps and rode in her carriage. It is clearly a vast inconvenience to each of these to make any change, and they are fretful and talkative, and all their friends are; and those less interested are inert, and, from want of thought, averse to innovation. It is like free trade, certainly the interest of nations, but by no means the interest of certain towns and districts, which tariff feeds fat; and the eager interest of the few overpowers the apathetic general conviction of the many. Banknotes rob the public, but are such a daily convenience that we silence our scruples, and make believe they are gold. So imposts are the cheap and right taxation; but by the dislike of people to pay out a direct tax, governments are forced to render life costly by making them pay twice as much, hidden in the price of tea and sugar.

In this national crisis, it is not argument that we want, but that rare courage which dares commit itself to a principle, believing that Nature is its ally, and will create the instruments it requires, and more than make good any petty and injurious profit which it may disturb. There never was such a combination as this of ours, and the rules to meet it are not set down in any history. We want men of original perception and original action, who can open their eyes wider than to a nationality, namely, to considerations of benefit to the human race, can act in the interest of civilization. Government must not be a parish clerk, a justice of the peace. It has, of necessity, in any crisis of the State, the absolute powers of a Dictator. The existing Administration is entitled to the utmost candor. It is to be thanked for its angelic virtue, compared with any executive experiences with which we have been familiar. But the times will not allow us to indulge in compliment. I wish I saw in the people that inspiration which, if Government would not obey the same, it would leave the Government behind, and create on the moment the means and executors it wanted. Better the war should more dangerously threaten us,—should threaten fracture in what is still whole, and punish us with burned capitals and slaughtered regiments, and so exasperate the people to energy, exasperate our nationality. There are Scriptures written invisibly on men's hearts, whose letters do not come out until they are enraged. They can be read by war-fires, and by eyes in the last peril.

We cannot but remember that there have been days in American history, when, if the Free States had done their duty, Slavery had been blocked by an immovable barrier, and our recent calamities forever precluded. The Free States yielded, and every compromise was surrender, and invited new demands. Here again is a new occasion which Heaven offers to sense and virtue. It looks as if we held the fate of the fairest possession of mankind in our hands, to be saved by our firmness or to be lost by hesitation.

The one power that has legs long enough and strong enough to cross the Potomac offers itself at this hour; the one strong enough to bring all the civility up to the height of that which is best prays now at the door of Congress for leave to move. Emancipation is the demand of civilization. That is a principle; everything else is an intrigue. This is a progressive policy,—puts the whole people in healthy, productive, amiable position,—puts every man in the South in just and natural relations with every man in the North, laborer with laborer.

We shall not attempt to unfold the details of the project of emancipation. It has been stated with great ability by several of its leading advocates. I will only advert to some leading points of the argument, at the risk of repeating the reasons of others.[B]

[Footnote B: I refer mainly to a Discourse by the Rev. M.D. Conway, delivered before the "Emancipation League," in Boston, in January last.]

The war is welcome to the Southerner: a chivalrous sport to him, like hunting, and suits his semi-civilized condition. On the climbing scale of progress, he is just up to war, and has never appeared to such advantage as in the last twelve-month. It does not suit us. We are advanced some ages on the war-state,—to trade, art, and general cultivation. His laborer works for him at home, so that he loses no labor by the war. All our soldiers are laborers; so that the South, with its inferior numbers, is almost on a footing in effective war-population with the North. Again, as long as we fight without any affirmative step taken by the Government, any word intimating forfeiture in the rebel States of their old privileges under the law, they and we fight on the same side, for Slavery. Again, if we conquer the enemy,—what then? We shall still have to keep him under, and it will cost as much to hold him down as it did to get him down. Then comes the summer, and the fever will drive our soldiers home; next winter, we must begin at the beginning, and conquer him over again. What use, then, to take a fort, or a privateer, or get possession of an inlet, or to capture a regiment of rebels?

But one weapon we hold which is sure. Congress can, by edict, as a part of the military defence which it is the duty of Congress to provide, abolish slavery, and pay for such slaves as we ought to pay for. Then the slaves near our armies will come to us: those in the interior will know in a week what their rights are, and will, where opportunity offers, prepare to take them. Instantly, the armies that now confront you must run home to protect their estates, and must stay there, and your enemies will disappear.

There can be no safety until this step is taken. We fancy that the endless debate, emphasized by the crime and by the cannons of this war, has brought the Free States to some conviction that it can never go well with us whilst this mischief of Slavery remains in our politics, and that by concert or by might we must put an end to it. But we have too much experience of the futility of an easy reliance on the momentary good dispositions of the public. There does exist, perhaps, a popular will that the Union shall not be broken,—that our trade, and therefore our laws, must have the whole breadth of the continent, and from Canada to the Gulf. But, since this is the rooted belief and will of the people, so much the more are they in danger, when impatient of defeats, or impatient of taxes, to go with a rush for some peace, and what kind of peace shall at that moment be easiest attained: they will make concessions for it,—will give up the slaves; and the whole torment of the past half-century will come back to be endured anew.

Neither do I doubt, if such a composition should take place, that the Southerners will come back quietly and politely, leaving their haughty dictation. It will be an era of good feelings. There will be a lull after so loud a storm; and, no doubt, there will be discreet men from that section who will earnestly strive to inaugurate more moderate and fair administration of the Government, and the North will for a time have its full share and more, in place and counsel. But this will not last,—not for want of sincere good-will in sensible Southerners, but because Slavery will again speak through them its harsh necessity. It cannot live but by injustice, and it will be unjust and violent to the end of the world.

The power of Emancipation is this, that it alters the atomic social constitution of the Southern people. Now their interest is in keeping out white labor; then, when they must pay wages, their interest will be to let it in, to get the best labor, and, if they fear their blacks, to invite Irish, German, and American laborers. Thus, whilst Slavery makes and keeps disunion, Emancipation removes the whole objection to union. Emancipation at one stroke elevates the poor white of the South, and identifies his interest with that of the Northern laborer.

Now, in the name of all that is simple and generous, why should not this great right be done? Why should not America be capable of a second stroke for the well-being of the human race, as eighty or ninety years ago she was for the first? an affirmative step in the interests of human civility, urged on her, too, not by any romance of sentiment, but by her own extreme perils? It is very certain that the statesman who shall break through the cobwebs of doubt, fear, and petty cavil that lie in the way, will be greeted by the unanimous thanks of mankind. Men reconcile themselves very fast to a bold and good measure, when once it is taken, though they condemned it in advance. A week before the two captive commissioners were surrendered to England, every one thought it could not be done: it would divide the North. It was done, and in two days all agreed it was the right action. And this action which costs so little (the parties injured by it being such a handful that they can very easily be indemnified) rids the world, at one stroke, of this degrading nuisance, the cause of war and ruin to nations. This measure at once puts all parties right. This is borrowing, as I said, the omnipotence of a principle. What is so foolish as the terror lest the blacks should be made furious by freedom and wages? It is denying these that is the outrage, and makes the danger from the blacks. But justice satisfies everybody,—white man, red man, yellow man, and black man. All like wages, and the appetite grows by feeding.

But this measure, to be effectual, must come speedily. The weapon is slipping out of our hands. "Time," say the Indian Scriptures, "drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action which ought to be performed, and which is delayed in the execution."

I hope it is not a fatal objection to this policy that it is simple and beneficent thoroughly, which is the attribute of a moral action. An unprecedented material prosperity has not tended to make us Stoics or Christians. But the laws by which the universe is organized reappear at every point, and will rule it. The end of all political struggle is to establish morality as the basis of all legislation. It is not free institutions, 't is not a republic, 't is not a democracy, that is the end,—no, but only the means. Morality is the object of government. We want a state of things in which crime shall not pay. This is the consolation on which we rest in the darkness of the future and the afflictions of to-day, that the government of the world is moral, and does forever destroy what is not.

It is the maxim of natural philosophers, that the natural forces wear out in time all obstacles, and take place: and 't is the maxim of history, that victory always falls at last where it ought to fall; or, there is perpetual march and progress to ideas. But, in either case, no link of the chain can drop out. Nature works through her appointed elements; and ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

* * * * *

Since the above pages were written, President Lincoln has proposed to Congress that the Government shall cooeperate with any State that shall enact a gradual abolishment of Slavery. In the recent series of national successes, this Message is the best. It marks the happiest day in the political year. The American Executive ranges itself for the first time on the side of freedom. If Congress has been backward, the President has advanced. This state-paper is the more interesting that it appears to be the President's individual act, done under a strong sense of duty. He speaks his own thought in his own style. All thanks and honor to the Head of the State! The Message has been received throughout the country with praise, and, we doubt not, with more pleasure than has been spoken. If Congress accords with the President, it is not yet too late to begin the emancipation; but we think it will always be too late to make it gradual. All experience agrees that it should be immediate. More and better than the President has spoken shall, perhaps, the effect of this Message be,—but, we are sure, not more or better than he hoped in his heart, when, thoughtful of all the complexities of his position, he penned these cautious words.

* * * * *

COMPENSATION.

In the strength of the endeavor, In the temper of the giver, In the loving of the lover, Lies the hidden recompense.

In the sowing of the sower, In the fleeting of the flower, In the fading of each hour, Lurks eternal recompense.



A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION.

CONJECTURALLY REPORTED BY H. BIGLOW.

To the Editors of the ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Jaalam, 10th March, 1862.

GENTLEMEN,—My leisure has been so entirely occupied with the hitherto fruitless endeavour to decypher the Runick inscription whose fortunate discovery I mentioned in my last communication, that I have not found time to discuss, as I had intended, the great problem of what we are to do with slavery, a topick on which the publick mind in this place is at present more than ever agitated. What my wishes and hopes are I need not say, but for safe conclusions I do not conceive that we are yet in possession of facts enough on which to bottom them with certainty. Acknowledging the hand of Providence, as I do, in all events, I am sometimes inclined to think that they are wiser than we, and am willing to wait till we have made this continent once more a place where freemen can live in security and honour, before assuming any further responsibility. This is the view taken by my neighbour Habakkuk Sloansure, Esq., the president of our bank, whose opinion in the practical affairs of life has great weight with me, as I have generally found it to be justified by the event, and whose counsel, had I followed it, would have saved me from an unfortunate investment of a considerable part of the painful economies of half a century in the Northwest-Passage Tunnel. After a somewhat animated discussion with this gentleman, a few days since, I expanded, on the audi alteram partem principle, something which he happened to say by way of illustration, into the following fable.

FESTINA LENTE.

Once on a time there was a pool Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool And spotted with cow-lilies garish, Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish. Alders the creaking redwings sink on, Tussocks that house blithe Bob o' Lincoln. Hedged round the unassailed seclusion, Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian; And many a moss-embroidered log, The watering-place of summer frog, Slept and decayed with patient skill, As watering-places sometimes will.

Now in this Abbey of Theleme, Which realized the fairest dream That ever dozing bull-frog had, Sunned on a half-sunk lily-pad, There rose a party with a mission To mend the polliwogs' condition, Who notified the selectmen To call a meeting there and then. "Some kind of steps." they said, "are needed; They don't come on so fast as we did: Let's dock their tails; if that don't make 'em Frogs by brevet, the Old One take 'em! That boy, that came the other day To dig some flag-root down this way, His jack-knife left, and 't is a sign That Heaven approves of our design: 'T were wicked not to urge the step on, When Providence has sent the weapon."

Old croakers, deacons of the mire, That led the deep batrachiain choir, Uk! Uk! Caronk! with bass that might Have left Lablache's out of sight, Shook knobby heads, and said, "No go! You'd better let 'em try to grow: Old Doctor Time is slow, but still He does know how to make a pill."

But vain was all their hoarsest bass, Their old experience out of place, And, spite of croaking and entreating, The vote was carried in marsh-meeting.

"Lord knows," protest the polliwogs, "We're anxious to be grown-up frogs; But do not undertake the work Of Nature till she prove a shirk; 'T is not by jumps that she advances, But wins her way by circumstances: Pray, wait awhile, until you know We're so contrived as not to grow; Let Nature take her own direction, And she'll absorb our imperfection; You mightn't like 'em to appear with, But we must have the things to steer with."

"No," piped the party of reform, "All great results are ta'en by storm; Fate holds her best gifts till we show We've strength to make her let them go: No more reject the Age's chrism, Your cues are an anachronism; No more the Future's promise mock, But lay your tails upon the block, Thankful that we the means have voted To have you thus to frogs promoted."

The thing was done, the tails were cropped, And home each philotadpole hopped, In faith rewarded to exult, And wait the beautiful result. Too soon it came; our pool, so long The theme of patriot bull-frogs' song, Next day was reeking, fit to smother, With heads and tails that missed each other,— Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts: The only gainers were the pouts.

MORAL.

From lower to the higher next, Not to the top, is Nature's text; And embryo Good, to reach full stature, Absorbs the Evil in its nature.

I think that nothing will ever give permanent peace and security to this continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the occasion is nigh; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor presume to jog the elbow of Providence. No desperate measures for me till we are sure that all others are hopeless,—flectere si nequeo SUPEROS, Acheronta movebo. To make Emancipation a reform instead of a revolution is worth a little patience, that we may have the Border States first, and then the non-slaveholders of the Cotton States with us in principle,—a consummation that seems to me nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum, is not to be taken in a literal sense by statesmen, whose problem is to get justice done with as little jar as possible to existing order, which has at least so much of heaven in it that it is not chaos. I rejoice in the President's late Message, which at last proclaims the Government on the side of freedom, justice, and sound policy.

As I write, comes the news of our disaster at Hampton Roads. I do not understand the supineness which, after fair warning, leaves wood to an unequal conflict with iron. It is not enough merely to have the right on our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have observed in my parochial experience (haud ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may thus take even such a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage. It is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea,—and that, while gunpowder robbed land-warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give even greater stateliness and sublimity to a sea-fight, armour bids fair to degrade the latter into a squabble between two iron-shelled turtles.

Yours, with esteem and respect,

HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

P.S. I had wellnigh forgotten to say that the object of this letter is to inclose a communication from the gifted pen of Mr. Biglow.

I sent you a messige, my friens, t' other day, To tell you I'd nothin' pertickler to say: 'T wuz the day our new nation gut kin' o' stillborn, So't wuz my pleasant dooty t' acknowledge the corn, An' I see clearly then, ef I didn't before, Thet the augur in inauguration means bore. I needn't tell you thet my messige wuz written To diffuse correc' notions in France an' Gret Britten, An' agin to impress on the poppylar mind The comfort an' wisdom o' goin' it blind,— To say thet I didn't abate not a hooter O' my faith in a happy an' glorious futur', Ez rich in each soshle an' p'litickle blessin' Ez them thet we now hed the joy o' possessin', With a people united, an' longin' to die For wut we call their country, without askin' why, An' all the gret things we concluded to slope for Ez much within reach now ez ever—to hope for. We've all o' the ellermunts, this very hour, Thet make up a fus'-class, self-governin' power: We've a war, an' a debt, an' a flag; an' ef this Ain't to be inderpendunt, why, wut on airth is? An' nothin' now henders our takin' our station Ez the freest, enlightenedest, civerlized nation, Built up on our bran'-new politickle thesis Thet a Guv'ment's fust right is to tumble to pieces,— I say nothin' henders our takin' our place Ez the very fus'-best o' the whole human race, A-spittin' tobacker ez proud ez you please On Victory's bes' carpets, or loafin' at ease In the Tool'ries front-parlor, discussin' affairs With our heels on the backs o' Napoleon's new chairs, An' princes a-mixin' our cocktails an' slings,— Excep', wal, excep' jest a very few things, Sech ez navies an' armies an' wherewith to pay, An' gittin' our sogers to run t' other way, An' not be too over-pertickler in tryin' To hunt up the very las' ditches to die in.

Ther' are critters so base thet they want it explained Jes' wut is the totle amount thet we've gained, Ez ef we could maysure stupenjious events By the low Yankee stan'ard o' dollars an' cents: They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved, We've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' dissolved, An' thet no one can't hope to git thru dissolootion 'Thout sonic kin' o' strain on the best Constitootion. Who asks for a prospec' more flettrin' an' bright, When from here clean to Texas it's all one free fight? Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret leadin' featurs Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' creaturs? Hain't we saved Habus Coppers, improved it in fact, By suspending the Unionists 'stid o' the Act? Ain't the laws free to all? Where on airth else d' ye see Every freeman improvin' his own rope an' tree?

It's ne'ssary to take a good confident tone With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own Things looks blacker 'n thunder. Ther' 's no use denyin' We're clean out o' money, an' 'most out o' lyin',— Two things a young nation can't mennage without, Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin' out; For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second Gives a morril edvantage thet's hard to be reckoned: For this latter I'm willin' to du wut I can; For the former you'll hev to consult on a plan,— Though our fust want (an' this pint I want your best views on) Is plausible paper to print I.O.U.s on. Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers In the way o' finance, ef we jes' hanged the bankers; An' I own the proposle 'ud square with my views, Ef their lives wuzn't all thet we'd left 'em to lose. Some say thet more confidence might be inspired, Ef we voted our cities an' towns to be fired,— A plan thet 'ud suttenly tax our endurance, Coz 't would be our own bills we should git for th' insurance; But cinders, no metter how sacred we think 'em, Mightn't strike furrin minds ez good sources of income, Nor the people, perhaps, wouldn't like the eclaw O' bein' all turned into paytriots by law. Some want we should buy all the cotton an' burn it, On a pledge, when we've gut thru the war, to return it,— Then to take the proceeds an' hold them ez security For an issue o' bonds to be met at maturity With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard cash On the fus' Monday follerin' the 'tarnal Allsmash: This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the gold, 'Ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold, An' might temp' John Bull, ef it warn't for the dip he Once gut from the banks o' my own Massissippi. Some think we could make, by arrangin' the figgers, A hendy home-currency out of our niggers; But it wun't du to lean much on ary sech staff, For they're gittin' tu current a'ready, by half. One gennleman says, ef we lef' our loan out Where Floyd could git hold on 't, he'd take it, no doubt; But 't ain't jes' the takin', though 't hez a good look, We mus' git sunthin' out on it arter it's took, An' we need now more 'n ever, with sorrer I own, Thet some one another should let us a loan, Sence a soger wun't fight, on'y jes' while he draws his Pay down on the nail, for the best of all causes, 'Thout askin' to know wut the quarrel's about,— An' once come to thet, why, our game is played out. It's ez true ez though I shouldn't never hev said it Thet a hitch hez took place in our system o' credit; I swear it's all right in my speeches an' messiges, But ther' 's idees afloat, ez ther' is about sessiges: Folks wun't take a bond ez a basis to trade on, Without nosin' round to find out wut it's made on, An' the thought more an' more thru the public min' crosses Thet our Treshry hez gut 'mos' too many dead hosses. Wut's called credit, you see, is some like a balloon, Thet looks while it's up 'most ez harnsome 'z a moon, But once git a leak in 't an' wut looked so grand Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand. Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins, Where ther' ollus is critters about with long pins A-prickin' the globes we've blowcd up with sech care, An' provin' ther' 's nothin' inside but bad air: They're all Stuart Millses, poor-white trash, an' sneaks, Without no more chivverlry 'n Choctaws or Creeks, Who think a real gennleman's promise to pay Is meant to be took in trade's ornery way: Them fellers an' I couldn' never agree; They're the nateral foes o' the Southun Idee; I'd gladly take all of our other resks on me To be red o' this low-lived politikle 'con'my!

Now a dastardly notion is gittin' about Thet our bladder is bust an' the gas oozin' out, An' onless we can mennage in some way to stop it, Why, the thing's a gone coon, an' we might ez wal drop it. Brag works wal at fust, but it ain't jes' the thing For a stiddy inves'ment the shiners to bring, An' votin' we're prosp'rous a hundred times over Wun't change bein' starved into livin' on clover. Manassas done sunthin' tow'rds drawin' the wool O'er the green, anti-slavery eyes o' John Bull: Oh, warn't it a godsend, jes' when sech tight fixes Wuz crowdin' us mourners, to throw double-sixes! I wuz tempted to think, an' it wuzn't no wonder, Ther' wuz reelly a Providence,—over or under,— When, all packed for Nashville, I fust ascertained From the papers up North wut a victory we'd gained, 'T wuz the time for diffusin' correc' views abroad Of our union an' strength an' relyin' on God; An', fact, when I'd gut thru my fust big surprise, I much ez half b'lieved in my own tallest lies, An' conveyed the idee thet the whole Southun popperlace Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for Thermopperlies, Thet set on the Lincolnites' bombs till they bust, An' fight for the priv'lege o' dyin' the fust; But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an' the rest Of our recent starn-foremost successes out West, Hain't left us a foot for our swellin' to stand on,—

We've showed too much o' wut Buregard calls abandon, For all our Thermopperlies (an' it's a marcy We hain't hed no more) hev ben clean vicy-varsy, An' wut Spartans wuz lef' when the battle wuz done Wuz them thet wuz too unambitious to run.

Oh, ef we hed on'y jes' gut Reecognition, Things now would ha' ben in a different position! You'd ha' hed all you wanted: the paper blockade Smashed up into toothpicks,—unlimited trade In the one thing thet's needfle, till niggers, I swow, Hed ben thicker 'n provisional shinplasters now,— Quinine by the ton 'ginst the shakes when they seize ye,— Nice paper to coin into C.S.A. specie; The voice of the driver'd be heerd in our land, An' the univarse scringe, ef we lifted our hand: Wouldn't thet be some like a fulfillin' the prophecies, With all the fus' fem'lies in all the best offices? 'T wuz a beautiful dream, an' all sorrer is idle,— But ef Lincoln would ha' hanged Mason an' Slidell! They ain't o' no good in European pellices, But think wut a help they'd ha' ben on their gallowses! They'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfillin' their mission, An', oh, how dog-cheap we'd ha' gut Reecognition!

But somehow another, wutever we've tried, Though the the'ry's fust-rate, the facs wun't coincide: Facs are contrary 'z mules, an' ez hard in the mouth, An' they allus hev showed a mean spite to the South. Sech bein' the case, we hed best look about For some kin' o' way to slip our necks out: Le''s vote our las' dollar, ef one can be found, (An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good sound,)— Le''s swear thet to arms all our people is flyin', (The critters can't read, an' wun't know how we're lyin',)— Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cincinnater, With a rovin' commission to pillage an' slarter,— Thet we've throwed to the winds all regard for wut's lawfle, An' gone in for sunthin' promiscu'sly awfle. Ye see, hitherto, it's our own knaves an' fools Thet we've used,—those for whetstones, an't' others ez tools,— An' now our las' chance is in puttin' to test The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out West. I——But, Gennlemen, here's a despatch jes' come in Which shows thet the tide's begun turnin' agin,— Gret Cornfedrit success! C'lumbus eevacooated! I mus' run down an' hev the thing properly stated, An' show wut a triumph it is, an' how lucky To fin'lly git red o' thet cussed Kentucky,— An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' the day Consists in triumphantly gittin' away.



REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

The Sisters, Inisfail, and other Poems. By AUBREY DE VERE. London.

Whatever Mr. De Vere writes is welcomed by a select audience. Not taking rank among the great masters of English poetry, he yet possesses a genuine poetic faculty which distinguishes him from "the small harpers with their glees" who counterfeit the true gift of Nature. In refined and delicate sensibility, in purity of feeling, in elevation of tone, there is no English writer of verse at the present day who surpasses him. The fine instinct of a poet is united in him with the cultivated taste of a scholar. There is nothing forced or spasmodic in his verse; it is the true expression of character disciplined by thought and study, of fancy quickened by ready sympathies, of feeling deepened and calmed by faith. As is the case with most English poets since Wordsworth, he invests the impressions received from the various aspects of Nature with moral associations, and with fine spiritual insight he seeks out the inner meaning of the external life of the earth. No one describes more truthfully than he those transient beauties of Nature which in their briefness and their exquisite variety of change elude the coarse grasp of the common observer, and too frequently pass half unnoticed and unfelt even by those whose temperament is susceptive of their inspiring influences, but whose thoughts are occupied with the cares and business of living. But it is especially as the poet of Ireland, and of the Roman Church, that Mr. De Vere presents himself to us in this last volume; and while, consequently, the subject and treatment of many of the poems contained in it give to them a special rather than a universal interest, the patriotic spirit and the fervor of faith manifest in them appeal powerfully to the sympathies of readers in other countries and of other creeds. "'Inisfail' may be regarded as a sort of National Chronicle, cast in a form partly lyrical, partly narrative.... Its aim is to record the past alone, and that chiefly as its chances might have been sung by those old bards, who, consciously or unconsciously, uttered the voice which comes from a people's heart." In this attempt Mr. De Vere has had an uncommon measure of success. The strings of the Irish harp sound with the cadences of fitting harmonies under his hand, as he sings of the sorrows and the joys of Ireland, of the wild storms and the rare sunshine of her pathetic history,—as he denounces vengeance on her oppressors, or blesses the saints and the heroes who have made the land dear and beautiful to its children. The key-note of the series of poems which form this poetic chronicle is struck in the fine verses with which it begins, entitled "History," and of which our space allows us to quote but the opening stanza:—

"At my casement I sat by night, while the wind far off in dark valleys Voluminous gathered and grew, and waxing swelled to a gale; An hour I heard it, or more, ere yet it sobbed on my lattice: Far off, 't was a People's moan; hard by, but a widow's wail. Atoms we are, we men: of the myriad sorrow around us Our littleness little grasps; and the selfish in that have no part: Yet time with the measureless chain of a world-wide mourning hath wound us; History but counts the drops as they fall from a Nation's heart."

One of the most vigorous poems in the volume is that called "The Bard Ethell," and which represents this bard of the thirteenth century telling in his old age of himself and his country, of his memories, and of the wrongs that he and his land had alike suffered:—

"I am Ethell, the son of Conn; Here I live at the foot of the hill; I am clansman to Brian, and servant to none; Whom I hated, I hate; whom I loved, love still."

Here is a passage from near the end of this poem:—

"Ah me, that man who is made of dust Should have pride toward God! 'T is an angel's sin! I have often feared lest God, the All-Just, Should bend from heaven and sweep earth clean, Should sweep us all into corners and holes, Like dust of the house-floor, both bodies and souls; I have often feared He would send some wind In wrath, and the nation wake up stone-blind! In age or youth we have all wrought ill."

But a large part of the volume before us is made up of poems that do not belong to this Irish series, and the readers of the "Atlantic" will find in it several pieces which they will recognize with pleasure as having first appeared in our own pages, and which, once read, were not to be readily forgotten. Mr. De Vere has expressed in several passages his warm sympathy in our national affairs, and his clear appreciation of the great cause, so little understood abroad, which we of the North are engaged in upholding and maintaining. And although in these days of war there is little reading of poetry, and little chance that this volume will find the welcome it deserves and would receive in quieter times in America, we yet trust that it will meet with worthy readers among those who possess their souls in quietness in the midst of the noise of arms, and to such we heartily commend it.

A Book about Doctors. By J. CORDY JEAFFRESON, Author of "Novels and Novelists," "Crewe Else," etc., etc. New York: Rudd & Carleton. 12mo.

Mr. Jeaffreson is not usually either a brilliant or a sensible man with pen in hand, albeit he dates from "Rolls Chambers, Chancery Lane." He is apt to select slow coaches, whenever he attempts a ride. His "Novels and Novelists" is a sad move in the "deadly lively" direction, and his "Crewe Rise" has not risen to much distinction among the reading crew. In those volumes of departed rubbish he sinks very low, whenever he essays to mount; but his dulness is innoxious, for few there be who can say, "We have read him." His "Book about Doctors" is the best literary venture he has yet made. It is not a dull volume. The anecdotes so industriously collected keep attention alert, and one feels inclined to applaud Mr. Jeaffreson as the leaves of his book are turned.

Everything about Doctors is interesting. Here are a few Bible verses which it will do no harm to quote in connection with Mr. Jeaffreson's volume:—

"Honor a physician with the honor due unto him for the uses which you have made of him: for the Lord hath created him."

"For of the Most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honor of the king."

"The skill of the physician shall lift up his head; and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration."

"The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them."

It was no unwise thing in Mr. Jeaffreson to bring so many noble men together, as it were into one family. What "names embalmed" one meets with in the collection! Here are Sydenham, Goldsmith, Smollett, Sir Thomas Browne, and a golden line of other Doctors, nearly all the way down to our own time. (Our well-beloved M.D. [Monthly Diamond] contributor is too young to be included.) Keats is among the worthies, although he got no farther into the mysteries than the apothecary's counter. Meeting with this interesting series of splendid medicine-men leads us to muse a good deal about the Faculty, and to re-read several good anecdotes about the great symptom-watchers of the past and the present day.

When Sir Richard Blackmore asked the great Sydenham, "Prince of English physicians," what he would advise him for medical reading, he is said to have replied, "Read Don Quixote, Sir." Sensible and witty old man!

We are struck with the cheerful character of nearly all the M.D.s mentioned in the volume, and are constantly reminded of the advice we once read of an old Doctor to a young one:—"Moreover, let me tell you, my young doctor friend, that a cheerful face, and step, and neckcloth, and button-hole, and an occasional hearty and kindly joke, a power of executing and setting a-going a good laugh, are stock in our trade not to be despised."

"I may give an instance," says the same good-natured physician, "when a joke was more and better than itself. A comely young wife, the 'cynosure' of her circle, was in bed, apparently dying from swelling and inflammation of the throat, an inaccessible abscess stopping the way; she could swallow nothing; everything had been tried. Her friends were standing round the bed in misery and helplessness. 'Try her wi' a compliment,' said her husband, in a not uncomic despair. She had genuine humor, as well as he; and an physiologists know, there is a sort of mental tickling which is beyond and above control, being under the reflex system, and instinctive as well as sighing. She laughed with her whole body, and burst the abscess, and was well."

Mr. Jeaffreson's book might be better, but it might be worse. We cannot forgive him for his "Novels and Novelists" and his "Crewe Rise," two works which go far to prove their author a person of indefatigable incoherency; but we thank him for the industry which brought together so much that is very readable about Doctors.

John Brent. By THEODORE WINTHROP, Author of "Cecil Dreeme." Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.

It is probable that we have not yet completely appreciated the value of the bright and noble life which a wretched Rebel sharp-shooter extinguished in the disastrous fight of Great Bethel. "John Brent" is a book which gives us important aid in the attempt to form an adequate conception of Winthrop's character. Its vivid pages shine throughout with the author's brave and tender spirit. "Cecil Dreeme" was an embodiment of his thoughts, observations, and imaginations; "John Brent" shows us the inbred poetry and romance of the man in the grander form of action. The scene is placed in the wild Western plains of America, among men entirely free from the restraints of conventional life; and the book has a buoyancy and brisk vitality, a dashing, daring, and jubilant vigor, such as we are not accustomed to in ordinary romances of American life. Sir Philip Sidney is the type of the Anglo-Saxon hero; but we think that Winthrop was fully his match in delicacy and intrepidity, in manly courage, and in sweet, instinctive tenderness. As to style, the American far exceeds the Englishman. A certain conventional artifice and dainty affectation clouded the clear and beautiful nature of Sidney, when he wrote. The elaborate embroidery of thought, the stiff and cumbrous Elizabethan dress of language, with all its ruffles and laces, make the "Arcadia" an imperfect exponent of Sidney's nature. His intense thoughts, delicate emotions, and burning passions are half concealed in the form he adopts for their expression. But Winthrop is as fresh, natural, strong, and direct in his language as in his life. He used words, not for ornament, but for expression. Every phrase is stamped by a die supplied by reflection or feeling, and not a paragraph in "John Brent" differs in spirit from the practical heroism which urged the author to expose himself to certain death at Great Bethel. The condensed, lucid, picturesque, and sharp-cut sentences, flooded with will, show the nature of the man,—a man who announced no sentiments and principles he was not willing to sacrifice himself to disseminate or defend. A living energy of soul glows over the whole book,—swift, fiery, brave, wholesome, sincere, impatient of all physical obstacles to the operation of thought and affection, and eager to make stubborn facts yield to the impatient pressure of spiritual purpose.