That afternoon he started for Boston. It was doing something. Edmonson who met him just arrived, need not have feared that he was going to Elizabeth. He was in the city only to prove that the frolic of that summer evening had been frolic merely, and that he was still free to follow that charming face that had passed him by, so reluctantly, he knew, in the woods.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

* * * * *

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

While delivering an address in Faneuil Hall, in 1875, the late distinguished Wendell Phillips declared that he had never cast a ballot in his life.

Such a confession, coming from the liberty-loving champion of the rights and freedom of all people, was not a little startling.

Months later he was requested to explain what seemed to be a serious inconsistency, as bearing on the question—how can an American citizen wilfully refrain from the high prerogative of exercising his right and duty to vote?

The following is a copy of his letter stating the reason why he had not voted.

The letter hitherto has never been made public. It is of historical value.

7 Aug't '76.

DEAR SIR:

I am in receipt of your kind note. This is the explanation: Premising that I entirely agree with you as to the transcendant importance of the vote and the duty of every citizen to use it—to let no slight obstacle prevent his voting.

The few years after I came of age I was moving about and it happened, curiously enough, that I never lived in one town long enough to get the vote there and never could be, at the proper time, in the town where I had the right.

Then soon I became an abolitionist and conscientiously refused to vote or accept citizenship under a constitution which ordered the return of fugitive slaves.

The XVth. amendment was the first release from this bar, as I judged. Since that, I have never voted but once. Absence from the city &c prevented my doing so. I should have taken special care to be at home if living in a ward where my vote would have availed anything, or if candidates were such as I could trust.

Truly,

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

* * * * *

EASY CHAIR.

BY ELBRIDGE H. GOSS.

This is an age of magazines. Every guild, every issue, has its monthly or quarterly. If a new athletic exercise should be evolved to-morrow, a new magazine, in its interest, would follow; and there seems to be a field for every new venture.

Among our older magazines, Harper's "New Monthly" still pursues its popular course. In June, 1850, I bought the first number, and from that day to this it has been one of my household treasures. A complete set, sixty nine (69) volumes, forms a most excellent library in itself; a fair compendium of the world's history for the last thirty odd years. Story, essay, and event, has filled these sixty thousand pages. In October, 1851, the department called the "Editor's Easy Chair," was established by Donald G. Mitchell, the genial "Ik: Marvel." Here are his first words:

"After our more severe Editorial work is done—the scissors laid in our drawer, and the monthly record, made as full as our pages will bear, of history—we have a way of throwing ourselves back into an old red-back Easy Chair, that has long been an ornament of our dingy office, and indulging in an easy, and careless overlook of the gossiping papers of the day, and in such chit chat with chance visitors, as keeps us informed of the drift of the towntalk, while it relieves greatly the monotony of our office hours." Here is the well remembered flavor of the "Reveries of a Bachelor" and "Dream-Life"!

A year or so afterward, George William Curtis became a co-writer of a part of the articles for this department, and soon after he became the sole occupant of the now famous "Easy Chair;" and each month, as regularly as the appearance of the magazine itself, these very interesting, most readable, and instructive notelets upon the current topics of the time have appeared. Their pure style, graceful and delicate humor, and the vast range of culture and observation, give them a distinctively personal characteristic. He would have made one of our first novelists; but he has chosen to give the strength of his powers to journalism, and the study of political affairs.

It is safe to say that each number of the magazine has had an average of at least five pages of "Easy Chair," making very nearly or quite two thousand (2,000) pages in all; or a quantity more than sufficient to fill two and a half volumes of the sixty nine (69) thus far issued, each volume containing eight hundred and sixty four (864) pages. Before beginning to write these delectable tid-bits, he had published "Nile notes of a Howadji," "The Howadji in Syria," and "Lotus Eating;" soon after appeared "Potiphar Papers," "Prue and I," and "Tramps." For twenty years he was constantly on the lecture platform; and for twenty one years he has been the political editor of "Harper's Weekly." Although offered missions to the courts of England and Germany, and other positions of trust and honor, he never accepted; his nearest approach to the holding of any political office was the accepting of an appointment, for a while, of the chairmanship of the "Civil Service Advisory Board." As has been well said by George Parsons Lathrop, "The idea often occurs to one that he, more than any one else, continues the example which Washington Irving set: an example of kindliness and good nature blended with indestructible dignity, and a delicately imaginative mind consecrating much of its energy to public service."

As for the "Easy Chair," with me, its leaves are first cut in each fresh number; and while enjoying the last one, I wondered why some deft hand had not culled some of the choicest specimens, and that the Harpers had not given them to the world in a volume by themselves. They are most certainly worthy of it. A few passages taken here and there, from these rich fields, will prove this assertion. The subjects treated in the whole "Easy Chair" number nearly or quite twenty-five hundred (2,500),—reminiscences of Emerson and Longfellow—first presentation of a new Oratorios—a celebrated painting—the visit of a Lord Chief Justice of England,—a vast range of topics. Consult the nine closely printed octavo pages of their titles in the "Index to the first Sixty Volumes"—from "Abbott, Commodore, xiii. 271," to "Zurich, University of, xlviii. 443," and one will be amazed at the great number and variety of themes upon which the "Easy Chair" has had its say. And it would seem that its occupant has had some similar thoughts to these, for, in a recent number there is a retrospective glance—a wondering as to what future generations may have to say, and wish to know regarding matters and things of this generation about which it has discoursed:

"The Easy Chair, mindful of posterity, and of that future loiterer in the retired alcoves of coming libraries who will turn to the pages of an old magazine to catch some glimpse of the daily aspect and the homely fact of our day, which will be then a kind of quaint remembrance, like the 'Augustan age' of Anne to Victorian epoch, puts here upon record for his unborn reader—whom he salutes with hope and Godspeed—that the winter of 1883-4 in the city of New York was a gray and gloomy season almost beyond precedent, during which the persistent fogs and mists appeared half to have obliterated the sun."

Here are a few excerpts which may be called "Gems for the Easy Chair;" but those given are no better than thousands of others that are scattered through these many volumes.

A Madonna. Once in Dresden the Easy Chair climbed into a little room where an engraver was finishing a picture which is now famous. He had worked long and faithfully upon it. It was truly a work of love, and it had cost him his most precious and essential possession for his art—his eyesight. The engraver was Steinla, and the picture was the Madonna di Sisto.... It can be seen only by those who go to Dresden. Among pictures there is none more justly famous, and the devoted engraver toiled long and patiently, and at such enormous sacrifice to re-produce it, so far as lines could do it, from the same love and instinct that produced the picture.

* * * * *

PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

MIDDLESEX COUNTY MANUAL. By CHARLES COWLEY. LL.D. Penhallow Printing Company, Lowell, Mass.

In this handy volume, the "Historical Sketch of the County of Middlesex," Judge Cowley has made a valuable contribution to the recorded history of our Commonwealth. He has traced in a clear and concise manner the important events of Middlesex County from 1643, the year of its incorporation, down to Shay's Rebellion.

REMINISCENCES OF JAMES COOK AVER AND THE TOWN OF AVER. By CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D.

This work is one of many for which the public are indebted to Judge Cowley. It presents many facts of great historical value, and in the usual pungent and agreeable style of their author.

SHOPPELL'S BUILDING PLANS FOR MODERN LOW COST HOUSES. The Co-operative Building Plan Association, New York. Price, 50 cents.

This book contains a mass of information to builders and would-be home owners. Its many and varied plans are for the construction of neat, comfortable and very attractive buildings at very reasonable cost.

* * * * *

CORRECTION.

In the sketch of Saugus in the December number of the BAY STATE MONTHLY, line 14, on page 149, should read "as early as 1828" instead of 1848.—E.P.R.

THE END