'A fresh silence followed this outburst of the outraged husband, a silence which was only broken by the heavy, rapid breathing of the two adversaries.

''You must indeed have passionately loved that woman, or you, Arthur, could never have been led to forswear your word of honor. O Arthur, Arthur! be warned; I swear to you before heaven, that woman, with all her beauty—a beauty that I once deemed angelic—is possessed by devils whose name is legion; her heart is the receptacle of a monstrous, hideous crowd of vices—vices the most opposite, there nestle together: brazen effrontery and cringing cowardice; sordid cupidity and the most lavish, reckless prodigality. With her, every act is the result of deep, cool calculation. No generous impulse ever beat within her breast; and love, except for self, never yet was awakened from its deathlike torpor. She married me because I was reputed rich; she deserted me because she deemed me ruined. What motive impelled her to follow you to Mexico, I know not. But of this I warn you, rest assured it is not love for you—you perchance, may be useful to her; the necessary instrument to further some new scheme. But remember General Ramiro's fate, and take heed lest you be the next dupe—the next victim.'

'I turned involuntarily toward the youthful creature beside me, as her husband's voice ceased to ring on my ears. Despite the mastery she exercised over her feelings, I nevertheless perceived she trembled; but who, save the Judge of all, can tell whether it arose from fear, rage, or the first emotion of repentance.

''Mr. Percival,' replied my neighbor, in a constrained voice, 'this interview, after the violence which commenced it, must naturally be most painful to me, and I presume equally so to you. Allow me, in as few words as possible, to bring it to a close. I own that I was wrong in pledging my word of honor to what was not wholly true. Until you claimed Adele here this night, as your wife, I had for months supposed you had abandoned all title to the name of husband; that you had mutually consented to a divorce, and under that impression I denied that Adele was my mistress, for in February last, I was married to her at Baton Rouge. In presence of the proofs you possess, it were useless to deny that Adele is at this moment in this city. I have seen her this very day, and I own that I know where she resides. More than this, it will be useless for you to attempt to extort from me. I refuse beforehand to answer any further interrogatory. I can fully conceive the hatred my presence must inspire within your breast; I will not even pretend to regret it; for this hatred, springing from a sense of dishonor, will preclude the possibility of any thing save the death of one of us, terminating the appeal for satisfaction which I have already claimed. I have done, sir, and wait your reply.'

'Some seconds elapsed ere Adele's husband replied. His voice had grown calmer and more restrained, and I imagined that he had recovered his self-control.

''Arthur,' said he, 'I shall not challenge you, neither will I accept a challenge from you.'

''You refuse to meet me,' said my neighbor, 'and for what reason?'

''Because I do not hate, I merely pity you; because he who first defiled my home, lies in his sandy grave beside the waters of Lake Ponchartrain; because beside that grave I vowed to my Maker and my God never again to dare to take into these blood-stained hands the holy scales of justice. Yes, Arthur, it is four long years since I sent that wretched victim of that woman to his last solemn reckoning. Look at me to-day; my locks are white; 'tis not with age: I have not yet lived out the half of man's allotted span on earth. But that bleeding corpse; the trickling, oozing drops from out that breast; the gurgling sound of the unuttered death-words of Adele's first seducer—these have made me prematurely old. Oh! woe to him who dares to seek and takes revenge. Vengeance has been claimed as Heaven's sole, supreme prerogative. Arthur, I must, I do refuse your challenge.'

''Sir, I shall not deign to notice your calumnies about Adele, for I am anxious to terminate this interview. May I ask why you seek to prolong it, and why, if you so loathe Adele, you persecute me by following her?'

''Because I am resolved on two points—to see her, and to learn from her where she has secreted our child.'

''Unless you pledge yourself, Mr. Percival, not to make any further attempt to see Adele, you shall not, if I can prevent, leave this room alive.'

''Oh! oh! finding I won't fight, you fancy you can frighten me by threats of assassination. It is rather creditable to your ingenuity, Mr. Livermore, but I had provided for such a contingency. The United States Minister has been apprized of my arrival, and I left certain papers with his Secretary to be opened to-morrow, in case I should not return by noon, explaining our mutual relations very concisely yet definitely. Now you know that the Mexican idea of justice, though lenient in the extreme to natives, is just as extremely severe to foreigners, so that I would hardly advise you to tempt the gallows, unless, indeed, you have less objection to suicide, for I really think that is the only way you can possibly cheat the hangman, unless you condescend to allow me to pay my respects to the American Legation to-morrow, in the forenoon.'

'On the stage, especially in the sanguinary melodrama, it is astonishing how little respect is paid to the gallows; but somehow in the humbler walks of every day life, it exercises a very salutary, deterring influence on a very large class of minds; and I was, therefore, in no way surprised to hear my neighbor resume the conversation in a tone decidedly an octave or two lower.

''You have entirely misinterpreted my meaning. I may have thought of here forcing a quarrel on you, but the commission of the crime you dare insinuate, never entered my brain. But, now, sir, one last question: Why do you persist in seeking an interview with the woman you pretend to hate?'

''Pretend to hate! nay, there is no pretense, I hate, detest, and loathe her; not because she betrayed me; not because she stained an honorable name; not because she made me kill her lover; not because she has ruined my happiness; but because knowing—feeling all this, and more than words have power to convey—because knowing her infamy and shame, I still, still love her.'

''You love her still!' cried Arthur. 'Oh! thanks for that one avowal; that explains fully the bitterness with which you calumniate her.'

''Calumniate her! oh! that were impossible for the very basest fiend to do. But I was wrong to desecrate the word, and say I love her. No, no; I tell you I hate her, I loathe her; but in spite of hatred, in spite of loathing, she exercises over my imagination an irresistible fascination—a fascination you can never feel in that intensity which haunts my dreams of early manhood. You knew her not a guileless, artless girl just blooming into early maidenhood. But enough of these maddening memories of the past. It were better, doubtless, that I never see her more, for in my hatred I might kill her. But mark you, Arthur, I will find my child; she is now the only tie that binds me to humanity; the only link that chains me to this mortal coil which men call life. I must have my darling child. The day after to-morrow I will return here to know where she is secreted; if that be divulged to me, I swear by all that men hold as sacred, whether in heaven or earth, to depart in peace, and leave you to your fate, and Adele to the vengeance of the Most High. Adieu.'

''Farewell. You shall be told all that you require,' said my neighbor.

''Oh! excuse me,' said Percival, returning, 'where does this door lead to?'

''To some room to which I have never had access.'

''Occupied by whom?'

''I do not know.'

'A violent blow, which we had not expected, was given on the door, close to which we were standing, listening. I instantly retreated to my bed. Adele remained motionless as a statue; and when the second blow fell upon the panels, I cried out most lustily:

''Who the deuce is there?' mingling therewith, moreover, sundry forcible Spanish expletives.

''No one. Excuse me, Senor, I mistook the door.'

''Well, clear out, and don't do it again!' I retorted.

''Please show me the way out of this house, Mr. Livermore,' was all we heard, until after a painful pause the street-door was closed, and Arthur's footstep sounded returning up-stairs. I looked fixedly at my companion; her face wore a deathlike pallor, but a soft, melancholy smile played upon her lips.

''Poor Edmund!' said she, in a sad, soft tone, 'despite the wrongs I have endured at his hands, the jealousy he has now evinced is such a proof of his undying love, that I am almost constrained to forgive his former cruelty.' Adele gave vent to a sigh, and added, with downcast eyes:

''The world, doubtless, will blame me; they will believe every charge, scout every palliative plea. For a season, I must endure its frown, and resign my will to drink the bitter cup of scorn and contumely; for I have gone astray, I have sinned against the judgment of my fellow-mortals; and yet, oh! it were so easy to gain sympathy, were I to disclose the secrets of the inner dungeons of my prison-house—that spot which poets sing as blessed—Home! O man, man! there is no place like home, but how readily may it be turned into a hell—for—a wife!'

'I was still weak—nervous; and her words breathed such tones of bitter anguish, and her whole frame evinced such tokens of emotion, that in spite of all that I had overheard, tears welled up to my eyelids, and compassion overcame my still lurking distrust; her sobs alone broke the silence which ensued, and I was never in my life more painfully embarrassed. Fortunately the return of my neighbor relieved me from my peculiar predicament. No sooner did Adele hear him enter the adjoining room, than she opened the door of communication, and threw herself upon his breast.

VII.

''Dearest Arthur,' said she, the tears still running down her cheeks, 'how fearfully you must have suffered throughout this long interview!'

''Oh! fear not, Adele, all will yet be well. I will protect you and avenge your wrongs.'

''Fear not?' said she, 'do you think that I dread death for my own sake? No, Arthur, death is nothing terrible to me now.'

'Then suddenly appearing to become conscious of my presence, they both seized me by the hands and overwhelmed me with the profusion of their thanks.

''Any one would have acted precisely as I have, under similar circumstances. I therefore beg you to spare me from further thanks. But, my dear sir, do you feel ill? Madame, allow me to support Mr. Livermore.'

'A sudden change came over his features; a deathlike paleness overspread his countenance, his eyelids became half-closed, his breathing grew short, his hands clenched, and a nervous tremor shook his entire frame. For a few moments I feared he was at the point of death. I promptly assisted him to his couch.

''Are you surgeon enough to bleed him?' inquired Adele.

''Yes, I will not hesitate if you desire me to do so.'

'We soon divested Arthur of his coat, stripped his arm, and while I went in search of an impromptu lancet, Adele prepared the needful bandages.

''Be quick, I implore you,' said she. 'Once before I saw him as he now is; there is not a moment to be lost.'

'Need I confess that the entrance of a guardian angel in the shape of a skillful disciple of Esculapius would have been hailed by me as an especial joy? However, no such angel came, neither was he within call; so as the danger struck me as imminent, and his condition appeared growing every moment more critical, I argued, without bleeding he would undoubtedly die, whereas by my attempt, however clumsy, he might rally. I plucked up my courage to the sticking-point, and stuck my patient. I drew several ounces of blood. My fair assistant displayed the most undeniable, I can hardly say irreproachable, coolness, for really, to my fancy, she was a little too much self-possessed. As soon as the bandages were applied, Arthur's consciousness returned.

''Ah! thanks, thanks,' said he, addressing me in a low, faltering tone. 'The crisis has now passed.'

''Over-excitement, doubtless, produced it?'

''Yes,' said he, 'any excitement is dangerous for one like me. You see in me a man condemned to death by every member of the faculty that I have ever consulted. I dare say you mean kindly, and by that look of incredulity, you would seek to comfort me.'

''Well, doctors are often mistaken,' I said.

''True; but I am convinced their predictions in my case will be literally fulfilled, for when this terrible disease of the heart once lays its hold upon a man, it never relaxes its deadly grasp. But,' said he, raising himself to a sitting posture, 'but I will not die, I must live. One fixed purpose, one great aim sustains me, and I feel that till I have accomplished this, the thread of life, frail as I know it is, strained as I feel it oft to be, still, still I have a firm presentiment it will hold out.'

''Arthur, dear Arthur!' broke in the voice of Adele, as she leaned over his shoulder, 'you know after such a paroxysm, repose is necessary. No more conversation to-night; strive to calm your nerves, and to enjoy the tranquil influence of sleep. Do this, I beg, I implore you.'

'With the docility of a petted child he yielded, and reclining his head upon his pillow, soon sank into a deep sleep. It was now verging upon three o'clock, and at my solicitation Adele retired to my apartment, while I kept watch beside my patient's couch.

'The mysterious individual whose conduct had so puzzled me, and to whom I had been so strangely introduced, seemed to be a man of about thirty, decidedly handsome, and of striking mien, of elegant manners, and evidently accustomed to refined society. His hair, which curled naturally, was, however, growing thin; a few deep lines were furrowed on his brow, and the corners of his mouth wore, as it were, unconsciously, at times, a disdainful air, and as he slept I could trace how the fire of youthful passion had brought his manhood to premature decay.

'Although the veil of mystery had been rent, my curiosity was only whetted, by no means gratified. Who could this man be for whose arrival, according to my hostess' account, he had been waiting with such feverish impatience? What journey could he have returned from, in such shattered health; and finally, what was this great purpose, on the successful issue of which, he seemed to stake his all, on which he declared his life to hang?

'Again the undefinable spell that seemed to attach to the fascinating Adele, filled my mind with reveries of wondrous interest. What was her part in this drama that was enacting so close beside me? Was she the victim or the enchantress? During the long vigils of that night, I asked this question of myself many a time and oft, and yet could arrive at no solution of my doubts. The soft, regular sound, produced by her breathing, in the next room, the door of which remained ajar—for she had thrown herself upon my bed, without removing her apparel—fell upon my ear, and proved she slept in all the tranquillity of innocence. And yet the very tranquillity of that sleep almost excited my displeasure; for it seemed to evince a listless, reckless indifference to danger, a lack of tender, womanly sympathy for suffering and sickness, that might indeed arise from a heart untouched by any love, save that of self.

'I was just rolling up another cigarette, when, as the day dawned, Adele entered. She was lovely, and radiant with smiles. The closest and most sagacious observer would have failed to discern the slightest trace of the excitement through which she had passed but a few short hours before. She thanked me for my kind assistance, with a bewitching grace, almost girlish in its simplicity, and begged me to retire, and take the rest she felt assured I must need. Before so doing, however, it was agreed that the door leading to my room should in future remain unfastened, in case of a recurrence of the danger that had menaced her the previous night.

'Feeling no drowsiness, but rather a desire for fresh air, I mounted to the cupola that adorned the roof of our house, and for a couple of hours I sat there, enjoying the delicious breeze and the picturesque panorama that lay beneath my feet, and the motley groups that swarmed to early prayers up the Cathedral steps.

'At last, I felt like strengthening the inner man, and determined to step down as far as Veroley's, the fashionable cafe of the city, and there to take a right good breakfast. I returned to my room to replenish my purse, and to take my dagger and revolver. I found the purse and revolver on the shelf where I had left them, untouched, but my search for the dagger proved fruitless. Yet with it I had wrenched out the staples that fastened the door, and to my knowledge no one had had access to my room since that time, save Adele.

'After taking my breakfast, and calling for my letters, I paid one or two visits, and ere I returned home, it was well nigh three in the afternoon.

'I had not been seated long, ere Mr. Livermore entered. He appeared to have completely recovered from his attack.

''Of two evils, the adage advises us to choose the lesser. I would, therefore, prefer to appear intrusive rather than ungrateful; so excuse me if I trespass on your time or your patience. After the generous devotion you displayed last night, and after what Adele moreover has told me, I feel I am bound to inform you whom you have thus befriended; for, as you have already learned, Albert Pride is not my real name.'

'I hastened to offer to my neighbor the seat of honor, my magnificent rocking-chair, not only as a mark of politeness, but thinking that as he was about to tell me something, if he were only comfortably ensconced, very interesting, he might find himself so much at his ease that he would make a much cleaner breast of it.

'My little surmise proved correct; he accepted my proffered civility, and proceeded to give me a long and very interesting account of his parentage and youth. Suffice it to say, that he was a native of Tennessee, and being left an orphan at an early age, had, like thousands of others, passed through a brief career of folly and extravagance. He had become acquainted with Adele and her family some two years previously, and had been married to her about four months, under the impression, as he had told her husband on the previous night, that a divorce had been obtained.

'What most excited my surprise, in his recital, was, that while Percival had accused her of having deserted him because she deemed him ruined, Arthur told me that she married him, knowing him to be almost penniless. But I will give you his own words:

''I explained to her my desperate position, when she replied: 'It matters not; in return for the fortune you have squandered, I will give you that which shall produce an income far beyond your boyish dreams.'

''A horrible suspicion flashed across my mind; I feared her reason was impaired.

'''Adele,' I exclaimed, 'in mercy, jest not; but explain yourself.'

'''I will, Arthur; but first of all, I must exact from you the most solemn vow, that under no circumstances will you divulge to mortal man or woman, the secret I am about to confide to you.''

'At this point, Mr. Livermore checked himself suddenly, as if he had said too much, and then added:

''I regret, my dear sir, that I can merely add, that I gave Adele the solemn pledge she required, and that my presence here, in the city of Mexico, to-day, is merely the result of the secret then intrusted to me.'

'I was still under the impression that this narrative had produced, when Adele softly entered the apartment.

''Arthur,' said she, in a low whisper, 'there is some one knocking at the door of the ante-chamber.'

''Remain here,' said he, rising from his seat, 'I will go and open it.'

''Do not let him go alone, I beg of you,' said Adele. 'Who knows of what service your presence may be to-day, or of what value your testimony may be hereafter? Possibly, it may save money, if not life; but why go without your hat and gloves?' she added, as I was leaving the room bare-headed, 'you must pass for a visitor, not for a fellow-lodger.'

'Lost in admiration of her ready tact and coolness, I reached Arthur Livermore's sitting-room, just as he opened the door.

''Pepito,' exclaimed he.

''Ay, Caballero, Pepito himself, in perfect health, and ever your most devoted servant.''

[TO BE CONCLUDED.]

* * * * *

CHANGED.

I can not tell what change has come to you, Since when, amid the pine-trees' murmurous stir, You spoke to me of love most deep and true: I only know you are not as you were.

It is not that you fail in tender speech; You speak to me as kindly as of old; But yet there is a depth I do not reach, A doubt that makes my heart grow sick and cold.

True, there has been no anger and no strife; I only feel, with dreary discontent, That something bright has vanished from my life; I know not what it is, nor where it went.

You chide my grief, and wipe my frequent tears; But to my pain what art can minister? Oh! I would give all life's remaining years If you would be again as once you were!

As, dipped in fabled fountains far away, All living things are hardened into stone, So strange and frozen seems your love to-day, Its sweet, spontaneous growth and life are gone:

And it is changed into a marble ghost, Driving away all happiness and rest; In whose chill arms I shiver faint and lost, Bruising my heart against its rocky breast.

Nay, no regrets, no vows: it is too late, Too late for you to speak, or me to hear: We can not mend torn roses: we must wait For the new blossoms of another year.

* * * * *

HAMLET A FAT MAN.

I have seen on the stage several Hamlets, more or less successful in that sublime dramatic creation of Shakspeare, to say nothing of small-calfed personifications at private fancy balls. Young Booth, in these days, is doubtless the most ideal and accurate interpreter of the great Dane; although Mrs. Kemble's rendition is certainly beyond the reach of hostile criticism.

In this paper I propose to consider Hamlet not as he is represented on the stage, but as he is described in the original text. At the theatre, he usually appears as a dark-complexioned, black-haired, beetle-browed, and slender young man, wearing an intensely gloomy wig, eyebrows corked into the blackness of preternatural bitterness, while on thin and romantic legs, imprisoned in black silk tights, he struts across the stage, the counterfeit presentment of the veritable prince.

I once read a brief line or two in a work by Goethe, alleging that Hamlet was 'a fat man.' At first I was inclined to regard this as a joke of the majestic German. Later reflection induced me to examine this surmise in detail, and to conclude finally that the theory is true, and that the enigma of Hamlet's character can be solved through calculations of pinguitude.

Eureka. Perfect tense, indicative mood, 'I have found it!' In fact, the whole Hamlet problem must be regarded in an obese, or adipose point of view. The Prince of Denmark is not the conventional Hamlet of the theatre, nor the Hamlet of Shakspeare. He was a Northman, and like the greater number of the inhabitants of Northern Europe, was, doubtless, a blue-eyed and flaxen-haired blonde. My lord was far from appearing thin or delicate; on the contrary, he carried on his belly a large portmanteau well-rounded by the swell of the digesting nutriment.

That our honored prince was a fat man, is proved by his own confession, as well as by the evidence of the queen. Tossed about in a hot desert of doubt and despair, he exclaims in one of his incomparable soliloquies:

'Oh! that this too, too solid flesh WOULD MELT!'

What thin man would melt away even in the hot solstice of June? In the fencing scene, (Act IV.,) his flabby muscles are soon fatigued, and the queen exclaims:

'He's fat, and scant of breath: Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.'

However, to be serious, it must be confessed that there are splendid traits in the mental character of the prince; every grandeur or folly can be found in him. From the lowest pit of despair, his soul debates the question of suicide as a logical proposition, forgetting the divine prohibition against 'self-slaughter.' Eloquence, genius, and brilliant fancies, are constantly manifested, and also a gorgeous imagination.

It may be mentioned, incidentally, that Hamlet's character has been contrasted with that of Orestes, the Greek, who, when he arrived at years of manhood, avenged his father's death by assassinating his mother, Clytemnestra, and her adulterer, OEgisthus. In other words, he avenged a crime by a crime.

And now let us drop these serious comments, and return to the more humorous side of our theory—the plumpness of the prince, overlooked as a mere accident, by critics and actors. It is a physiological propriety that he should be of a phlegmatic temperament—a temperament often united to an acute intellect, but also, to a sluggish and heavy person. A weak, wavering inactivity, fickleness of purpose, a keen sensibility, or sensitiveness, are also noticeable; while the subtlety of his theories is sharply penetrating, and forms the keystone to the arch of his character.

Truly, Hamlet's intellect is that of a giant; his strength of will, that of a child. He has, so to speak, no executive talent. He is the doubting philosopher, the subtle metaphysician, the self-analyzer, always 'thinking too precisely upon the event.' He sees so far into the consequences of human action that he is fearful of taking decided steps. He has the nerve to kill neither his uncle nor himself, although he debates the latter question with great dexterity. He never effected any one of the plans upon which he had deliberated. Any one who reads Hamlet, under the influence of this theory, will see that it is confirmed by every incident in the tragedy.

A series of accidents hurried the prince to the final catastrophe. His was a lovely, great, and noble nature; but it lacked one element of heroism—strength of will. It was an exquisite touch in the mighty poet to make Hamlet gross in figure, as he was phlegmatic, inactive, and irresolute in temperament. Had he been a thin, brown, choleric, and nervous man, the tragedy would have ended in the first Act. Had he been a fiery Italian, instead of a doubting, deliberating Dane; had he been of a passionate, or yellow complexion, instead of a calm blonde; had he possessed a wiry, high-strung, and nervous constitution; had he, in a word, proved himself a man of action, and not a man of metaphysical tendencies, his sword would have soon cut the perplexing meshes which surrounded him, and he would have executed instant vengeance upon the authors of his misfortune and disgrace. Else he would have put an end to a life too wretched to be endured.

The conventional critic may smile at the conceit of a fat Hamlet, but I am satisfied that my theory is amply sustained by the text, as well as by the true solution of the alleged knotty points of Shakspeare's mental character, over which the ponderous but inflated brain of Dr. Johnson stultified itself. He accuses the Avon bard of introducing spirits, ghosts, myths, and fairies; of being guilty of exaggerations, absurdities, vulgar expressions, and other naughtiness. (Boswell's Johnson, Vol. IV. pp. 258, etc.) All of which proves that the Doctor was sometimes prejudiced, ill-natured, jealous, and ponderously silly on certain points.

But they who have cracked the kernel of this grand tragedy, and formed a just conception of the real disposition and peculiarities of the true hero, must admire and appreciate the marvelous skill of the great bard who understands the relations between physiology and the passions, and can analyze the temperament physical, as well as dissect the soul immortal.

* * * * *

THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE.

Within a very few years, the friends of Emancipation in the North and West, as well as all opposed to the increase of 'Southern power' in our national policy, have been from time to time interested by rumors of a secret association termed that of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or as it is familiarly described, 'the K.G.C.' It was understood to be a secret society, instituted for the purpose of extending, by the most desperate means and measures, the institution of slavery, and with it, of Southern Secession and all those social and political principles which have been of late years so unscrupulously advocated by Southern statesmen. It is, however, only of late that any thing definite relative to this order has been published.

In July, 1861, the Louisville Journal gave a full expose of the order, which has been recently republished in a pamphlet, by 'the U.S. National U.C.,' a copy of which now lies before us. 'Of the authenticity of this exposition,' says the introduction, 'there can be no doubt.' George D. Prentice, Esq., the editor of the Journal, gives his solemn assurance, as an editor and as a man, that the documents from which he derived his information are authentic. He asserts, moreover, that he received them from a prominent Knight of the Third Degree. The genuineness of these documents has never yet been denied by any man whose word can be regarded as valid testimony in the case. Corroborative testimony was furnished in a violent newspaper quarrel which occurred soon after the first publication was made, in which several 'Knights of the Third Degree' were participants, the question in dispute being as to the authorship of the revelations made to Mr. Prentice. After the warfare had subsided, he informed them that they were all mistaken, and that each one of the parties implicated was equally guiltless.

On the first page of the introduction referred to, the editor, after a succinct statement that the K.G.C. is the direct descendant of the order of the Lone Star and other secret fillibustering societies, and that many of the 'old landmarks' of those unions may be traced in its organization, quotes from an article in the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY for January, 1862, as follows:

'This organization, which was instituted by John C. Calhoun, William L. Porcher, and others, as far back as 1835, had for its sole object the dissolution of the Union and the establishment of Southern Empire—Empire is the word, not Confederacy or Republic—and it was solely by means of its secret but powerful machinery, that the Southern States were plunged into revolution, in defiance of the will of a majority of their voting population. Nearly every man of influence at the South, (and many a pretended Union man at the North,) is a member of this organization, and sworn, under the penalty of assassination, to labor, 'in season and out of season, by fair means and by foul, at all times and on all occasions, for the accomplishment of its object.'

The editor of the pamphlet in question declares that he knows not upon what evidence the above statement from the CONTINENTAL is based, but admits that there can be no reasonable doubt that these men and their associates did resort to secret and powerful means for the spread of their views and for the instruction of the Southern mind in the doctrines of disunion and treason which they originated.

As regards our source of information, let it suffice to say that we derived it from a gentleman who was himself a K.G.C., who was familiar with its history, and of whose character for honor and veracity strict inquiries made by us of men of high standing in the community left no shadow of room for doubt. From his statements, it was transferred by one of our establishment to the author of the article in question.

To the eye of the student of history, who has closely traced in many ages and countries the vast action of secret societies in events, the whole Southern movement bears, however, intrinsic evidence of that peculiar form of hidden political power. The prompt and vigorous action of the whole Secession movement, by which States with a majority attached to the Union were hurled, scarce knowing how, into rebellion, would never have been accomplished save by a long established and perfectly drilled organization. It is not enough to sway millions that the leaders simply know what they wish to do, or that they have the power to do it. There must be organization and subordination, if only to control the independent action of demagogues and of selfish politicians, who abound in the South as elsewhere. Had the existence of the K.G.C. never been revealed, the historian would have detected it by its results, and been compelled in fairness to admit that it was admirably instituted to fulfill its ends—evil as they were—and that its work was well done.

The editor of the pamphlet has good grounds for asserting that the K.G.C. embraces among its members thousands of secretly disloyal men in the North, and that these are of all grades of society. Let it, however, be remembered that previous to the breaking out of this war there were many who did not see Disunion as they now view it, and that their ties with the South were often of the most brotherly kind. Indeed, when Secession was first openly agitated, and until Sumter fired the Northern heart, myriads who would now gladly disown those words were wont to say: 'Well, if they are determined to go, I suppose we must lose them.' Would Fernando Wood have ever dared at that time to publish a proclamation recommending the secession of New-York as a free city had there not then existed a singular apathy, or rather a strange blindness, to the horrible results which must flow from disunion? In those days the country was blind—it has seen many an old error and delusion dispelled since then—unfortunately too many among us have still much to learn! Let those who still oppose Emancipation remember that a day will come when they, too, will unavoidably appear as the tories of the great Revolution now in progress!

Our informant declared that should he write an exposition of the K.G.C., it would differ in many respects from that given in the Journal, forgetting apparently, that Mr. Prentice had already explicitly stated that since the great question of Disunion sprung up, the K.G.C. had materially changed its character, and must unavoidably, from its very nature, continue to change and modify details to suit new exigencies. The whole history of secret society, whether in its forms Masonic, Templar, Illuminee, Carbonari, Philadelphian, or Marianne; whether universal, political, social, military, or revolutionary, is a history of modifications of mere detail, compelled by circumstances. The mere forms of initiation, the Ritual of the Order, pass-words, grips, and signs, are of comparatively small importance, in fact, they appear supremely silly; and were it not undoubtedly true that the mass of the initiated were correspondingly silly, though very wicked, fellows, we might almost wonder that such rococo nonsense should be deemed essential to the management of a powerful political organization. The weaker brethren, unable to penetrate by the strong will and by 'spontaneous secresy,' to cooeperation with the leaders and to the arcana, have always required the tomfoolery of ceremony, and among the K.G.C. it has not been spared. Those desirous of learning what the forms were or are in which the action of the Order has been enveloped, we refer to pamphlet itself, premising that, of its kind, it is quite curious, ingenious, and interesting. The formula of the Obligation of the First Degree, as given by Mr. Prentice, shows that the first field of operation, as originally intended, was Mexico, but that it is also held to be a duty to offer service to any Southern State to aid in repelling a Northern army. 'Whether the Union is reconstructed or not, the Southern States must foster any scheme having for its object the Americanization and Southernization of Mexico, so that, in either case, our success will be certain.' The initiation of the Second Degree is unimportant, save that it declares that the head-quarters of the Organization are at Monterey. From the Third Degree we learn that 'candidates must be familiar with the work of the two former degrees; must have been born in '58,' (meaning a slave State,) or if in 59, (a free State,) he must be a citizen; 60, (a Protestant,) and 61, (a slaveholder.) A candidate who was born in 58, (a slave State,) need not be 61, (a slaveholder,) provided he can give 62, (evidence of character as a Southern man.)' The 'object' of it all is 'to form a council for the K.G.C., and organize a government for Mexico.' It is to be remarked that a stanch '57,' or knight of the Golden Circle, is made to swear that he will never dishonor the wife or daughter of a brother K.G.C., knowing them to be such, that he be made to kneel and say his prayers to God, and immediately after is requested to pay ten dollars, and to declare that he will to the utmost of his ability oppose the admission of any confirmed drunkard, professional gambler, rowdy, convict, felon, abolitionist, negro, Indian, minor, or foreigner to membership in any department of the Circle.

Abolitionists are to be found out, and reported to George Bickley, a miserable quack and 'confidence man,' a person long familiarly spoken of by the press as a mere Jeremy Diddler, but who has been a useful tool to shrewder men in managing for them this precious Order. The member is to do all in his power to 'build up a public sentiment in his State favorable to the K.G.C., and to aid in the expulsion of free negroes from the South, that they may be sent to Mexico.' Roman Catholics, foreigners, abolitionists, and Yankee teachers are all to be watched and reported. In ease of success in conquering Mexico, every thing possible is to be done in order to prevent any Roman Catholic from being appointed to any office of profit or trust. 'I will endeavor to cause to be opened to the public all nunneries, monasteries, or convents. Any minister, holding any place under government, must be Protestant.' When we reflect on the fact that the Southern system aims at a perfectly oligarchic unity and consolidation of power, this dread of any external possible influence, whether religious or civic, will appear natural enough. Mexico is, however, to be the great field of future action, and Mexico must be cleared of its priests. The peon system is to be reduced to '89,' (perpetual slavery.) The successor of 'quack and confidence Bickley' has a most unenviable task. For this Coming Man—the present incumbent being occupied with other duties—is expected to extend slavery over the whole of Central America, with the judicious saving clause, 'if it be in his power;' to, acquire Cuba, and to control the Gulf of Mexico. Having sworn himself to all this, and much other nonsense, and last—not by any means least—also taken oath to forward to Confidence Bickley all the fees of every candidate whom he may initiate, the new Knight listens to the following specimen of elegant oratory from the Secretary:

'You had better hear the whole degree, and then sign; for unless we have your entire approbation, we do not wish to commit you to any thing. I am well aware that this whole scheme is a bold and daring one, that can but surprise you at first, as it did me, and for this reason I beg to state a few facts for your consideration. In the rise and progress of democracy in America, we have seen its highest attainment. In the very outset it was based on high religious principles, and adopted as a refuge from despotism. In the North, Puritanism molded it, and went so far as to leave out the natural conservative element of all democracies—domestic slavery. As a result, we have presented now social, religious, and domestic anarchy. From Millerism, and Spiritualism, every Utopian idea has numerous advocates. The manufacturer is an aristocrat, while the working-man is a serf. The latter class, constantly goaded by poverty, seek a change—they care not what it may be. Democracy unrestrained by domestic slavery, multiplies the laboring classes indefinitely, but it debases the mechanic. Whoever knew a practical shoemaker, or a maker of pin-heads, to have a man's ambition? They own neither land nor property, and have no ties to the institutions of the country. The Irishman emigrates, and the Frenchman stays at home. The one hates his country, the other adores his. The Frenchman, is a slaveholder and a man—the Irishman is a serf and an outcast. The South is naturally agricultural; and the farmer being most of the time in the midst of his growing crops, seeing the open operation of nature, his mind expands, he grows proud and ambitious of all around, and feels himself a man. He wants no change, either in civil, religious, or political affairs. He cultivates the soil, and it yields him means to purchase labor. He becomes attached to home and its associations, and remains forever a restrained Democrat, restrained by moral and civil laws from any and all overt acts. He needs and makes a centralized government, because his property is at stake when anarchy prevails.'

The reader is doubtless by this time well weary of this vulgar trash of the K.G.C., which is only not absolutely ridiculous, because so nearly connected with most sanguinary aims. Be it borne in mind that the Southern character has always been eminently receptive of the puerile and nonsensical, while the vast proportion of semi-savage, semi-sophomorical minds in Dixie, half-educated and altogether idle and debauched, has made their land a fertile field for quack Bickleys, brutal and arrogant Pikes, and other petty tools of greater and more powerful knaves. The Order becomes, however, a matter for more serious consideration, when we reflect on the number of Northern men who, to testify their Southern principles, have become 'Knights,' 'There is ample and positive proof that the order of K.G.C. is thoroughly organized in every Northern State as auxiliary to the Southern rebellion.' It has acted here, as is well known, directly or indirectly, under different names, such as the Peace Society, the Union Party, the Constitutional Party, the Democratic Society, Club, or Association, the Mutual Protection and Self Protection. For much information relative to these traitors among us, who, whether sworn to the K.G.C. or not, are working continually to further its aims, we refer our readers to the pamphlet itself. There can be little doubt that those self-styled democrats who continually inveigh against Emancipation in every form, even to the condemning of the moderate and judicious Message of President Lincoln, are all either the foolish dupes or allies of this widespread Southern league, many being desirous of directly reinstating the old Southern tyranny, while the mass simply hope to keep their record clear of accusation as Abolitionists, in case Secession should succeed. 'I was a K.G.C. during the war,' would in such case be a most valuable evidence of fidelity for these bat-like birds-among-birds and beasts-among-beasts. Deluded by the hope of being all right, no matter which side may conquer, thousands have sought to pay the initiation fee, and we need not state have been most gladly received. It is at least safe to beware of all men who, in times like these, impudently avow principles identically the same with those which constitute the real basis of Secession. We refer to all who continually inveigh against Abolition as though that were the great cause of all our troubles, who cry out that Abolitionists must be put down ere the war can come to an end, and clamor for the immediate imprisonment of all who are opposed to slavery.

And while on this subject, we venture to speak a few words on this oft-reiterated accusation, that the Abolitionists have directly caused this war, and from which they themselves by no means shrink. Whatever influence or aid they may have given, it is now becoming clear as day that no opposition to slavery was ever half so conducive to Secession and rebellion as Slavery itself. Had there never been an Abolitionist in the North, the self-generated arrogance of the 'institution' must have spontaneously impelled the Southern party to treason. The exuberant insolence which induced the most biting expressions of contempt for labor and serfs, was fully developed in the South long before the days of Garrison; long even before the Quakers of Pennsylvania put forth their protest against slavery, a full century ago. The North was accused by the Southern wolf of troubling the stream, though its course was directly toward the wished-for victim. It is time that the absurd cry ceased, and that the South be made to bear its own load of guilt. Ever arrogant, chafing at the intellectual supremacy of the North, envious of its prosperity, despising with all the rancor of a lawless 'chivalry' our regard for the rights of persons, prone to dissipation, and densely ignorant of the great tendencies to progress which characterize the civilization of the nineteenth century, the Southerner has ever felt the same tendency to break away, and be off, which a raw, fiery, conceited youth feels to sunder wholesome domestic ties. The stimulus was within, not from without.

It is to be regretted that the editor of this, in so many respects valuable, pamphlet, in speaking of Northern men of influence who belong to the K.G.C., or its other aids, should have cited under the vague heading of 'said to be,' the New-York Herald, Journal of Commerce, Express, 'and a French newspaper' in New-York City, the Boston Courier and Post, the Hartford Times, the Albany Atlas and Argus, the Rochester Union, the Buffalo Courier, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Detroit Free Press, the Chicago Times, and the Milwaukee News. While we entertain no doubt that among the editors of these newspapers are men who are at heart as traitorous and as Southern as their colleagues of any Richmond journal, [we have ourself seen a small Secession flag paraded on the desk of an editor of one of the above-mentioned publications,] we must still protest against any other than definite charges, even against men whose daily deeds and utterances of treason have been of more real service to the South than all the trash and trickery of Quack Bickley himself. It is indeed charged that 'these are the principal names on the lists of traveling messengers for those States,' but it should be remembered that such accusation requires clear proof. With this single exception, we commend the pamphlet in question as a document well worth perusal and investigation. The subject, as it stands, appears trashy and melodramatic; but be it remembered the Southern mind is prone to trash and romance, and quacks and adventurers would be more likely to be found actively working to aid treason founded on folly than would men of real ability.

* * * * *

COLUMBIA'S SAFETY.

Where lies thy strength, my Country—where alone? Let ages past declare— Nay, let thine own brief history make known, Thy sure dependence, where.

'Tis not in boasting—that's the poltroon's wit, The coward's shield of glass, A coin whose surface, silver's counterfeit, With fools alone shall pass.

'Tis not in threats—these are the weapons light Of brutes, and not of men: A barking dog's despised; but if he bite, Wo to his clamors then!

'Tis not in bargains made to cover wrong! There open weakness lies; A righteous cause is in itself most strong, And needs no compromise.

Ten thousand bulwarks which should mock the might Of armies compassing, Secure not those, who hold one human right A secondary thing.

There are some souls so fearful to offend, They lay their courage low; And sooner trample o'er a prostrate friend, Than fail t' embrace a foe.

Safety proceeds from Him alone who lays Foundations formed to last: This simple truth concentres all the rays Of all the ages past.

Th' omnipotence of right, its own shall save, Though hell itself oppose; One faithful Abdiel may fearless brave Unnumbered rebel foes.

Faith, Freedom, Conscience—these are words which give The true metallic ring! For these to die, were evermore to live— Man's noblest offering.

Rise, then! Columbia's sacred rights restore! Bid all her foes to flee, Or perish! Then shall Washington once more His country's Father be.

* * * * *

URSA MAJOR.

'Once, I went with a giant and a dwarf, to see a bear.'

'Fiddlestick! what a story to tell!' retorted Aunt Hepsibah, 'and these children, just as like's not, will believe every word of it.'

'O cousin Dick!' chirped those innocents, [strepitu avido, multum nido minuriente], 'tell us all about it; it sounds just like a fairy-tale!'

'Why, there isn't much to tell. Late one evening, not in a great wood, but a great city, I fell in with an old couple, a huge, hulking fellow, nearly eight feet high, with a heavy, loutish air, and the most pitiful little woman you ever saw, hardly taller than his knee. Her arms were not longer, than a baby's, and her poor little legs trotted along as fast as they could, to keep up with his sluggish stride. In a clownish, lubberly sort of way, he seemed to be taking good, kind care of her. They were on exhibition, it appeared, and (their own show being over for the night) were going, poor things, to see a certain famous performing bear.

'Of course, I went with them. We found the showroom nearly deserted. The bear, a monstrous fellow, bigger than Samson by half, lay on his back, his huge, hairy chest heaved up like a bullock's, and a great paw, holding lazily on to one of his bars. His owner, quite fatigued, and apparently a trifle in liquor, brightened up when he saw his strange audience, and at once volunteered to repeat the performance.

''This animal, gentlemen,' said he, 'is considerable tired, for I've been a workin' on him mighty hard to-day. He knows that he's done his work for the night, and I wouldn't go in with him again for a fifty-dollar bill, but I shall do it, seeing I've got such distinguished company,' and he made a sweeping obeisance, comprehending the giant, the dwarf, and my humble person.

'The performance was really quite remarkable; but I was more interested in observing my fellow visitors. The dwarf looked up with her bright little eyes, and the giant looked down with his great leaden ones, while the bear jumped over the man's head, and pretended to fight him and hug him, and finally, walking on his hind-feet, stooped down, and took his head into the horrid cavern of those great jaws. Out of breath, and red in the face, the enthusiastic operator wound up by plucking a handful of long hair from the flank of the much-enduring creature, and presented it to us, as a souvenir of our visit.'

'I say, when he had him in his mouth, it was 'bear and forbear,' wasn't it?' put in that scapegrace, Tom, who is always doing something of the sort.

'Silence! and don't interrupt the court, unless you can say something better than that. Well, let me tell you, I have been in very genteel society, without feeling any thing so human, so catholic, so pantheistical, (in the right sense,) as I did in making one of that queer company. The great lout of a giant, with not soul enough in him to fill out his circumference; the sad little dwarf, with not room enough for hers; the poor, patient, necromanted savage of a bear; the smart, steely, grog-loving, praise-loving keeper; the curious, bookish, indolent traveler. Expressions, all of the grand, never-weary Life-Intention, how widely variant! yet all children, and equally beloved, of the Infinite Father.

'In four of the five cases, it should seem, the creative energy had set about to fashion its supposed ultimate and perfect work, and with what result? At first blush, the failure seemed most conspicuous in my companions, especially the big and the little one; but a small introspection might, perhaps, have disclosed a deeper disappointment in a nobler aim. The bear was the only success among us. He was perfect in his line, though sadly at a disadvantage; ravished from his forest-world, and bedeviled with alien civilization. And note (as that splendid prig, Ruskin, would say) with what mathematical accuracy nature, in her less ambitious essays, goes to the proposed end. The bee's flight—a specimen wonder—is not straighter than her course. In her lower business, she needs no backers. Meddling only monsters her. It is only when she comes to the grand, resulting combination, for which she has so long been fussing and preparing—when she tries her hand ('her 'prentice han', I fear,) on man, that she falters, hesitates, and lastly compromises for something lamentably less than she bargained for.

'Her apparent purpose seems almost inevitably thwarted by some influence—shall we call it malign? or rather shall we consider (as perhaps we should in all short-comings) that 'tis only a matter of time and the comparative degree? a piece of circuition needed for variety of development, and, of necessity, to eventuate in forms fresher, more prononces, nearer perfect than any thing we now wot or conceive of.

'To my thinking, the hitch is, that just at this point, she has got complicated with the wills and motions of intelligences already individualized and eliminated, and forever alienated from her immediate impulse. And if this be so, depend on it, the onus of the attempted perfection comes a good deal upon us. The mighty Mother, unsatisfied in her fantastic longings, and troubled generally [Greek: dia to tiktein], should be helped and not bothered by her children. We can remove vexations, can arrange conditions, keep the house quiet generally. At any rate, we can take such care as may be of the smaller young ones, help them up-stairs, or at least keep them from tumbling down again—we bigger babies that have crawled or been pushed a few steps up the awful stairway of the Inconceivable Ascending-Spiral.'

'I say, Dick, stop your metaphysics.'

'You are quite right, Tom, they are threadbare enough; but these happen to be physics. I don't mean such as you had to take last week, after that sleigh-ride. Well, I remember feeling this intense communism, this voltaic rapport with nature in a like way once before, on seeing a covey of strange creatures, Aztecs, Albinos, wild Africans, busied, by chance, in a game of romps together, the pure overflow of animal spirits. It was a curious scene. They made eerie faces at each other; they feigned assaults; they wove a maze, more fantastic and bizarre than any thing in Faust or Freysehutz. It was the mirth of Fauns, the mischief of Elves and Brownies. The glee, that lighted up those strange faces was not of this earth; but a thrill, pulsated through infinitude, of that joy of life which wells forever from the exhaustless fountain of the Central Heart; a scintillation, from how afar off! of the Immeasurable Love, of the Eternal Pity; though it seemed hardly more human than the play of kits and puppies, or than the anerithmon gelasma (the soulless, uncontrollable titter) of the tossed spring spray, or the blue, breezy ripple, for which overhaul your Prometheus, master Tom, and when found, make a note of it.'

'Well, that's not so bad,' allowed Hepsibah, a good deal mollified. Greek, I have observed, always has an excellent effect upon her.

'And it has a good moral, my dears,' said grandmother, 'I always like a good moral.'

'And was the bear always good to him?'

'Well, my dear, I am sorry to say that he had once bitten off three of his fingers. You may think this was proceeding to extremities; but, on the whole, I give him credit for great moderation. They will bite sometimes, however—me teste, who once in my proper person verified the old proverb, which I had always taken for a bit of unnatural history.'

'I know; 'been a bear, 'twould a bit you,' eh?'

'Your customary sagacity, Tom, is not at fault. Yes, the bear bit me.'

'Dick,' said my uncle, 'it strikes me, all this wouldn't make a bad magazine article, if you'd only leave out your confounded speculations; and Tom, as your cousin says, I wish you would stick a little closer to your classics.'

'Cousin Dick!'

'Well, little No-no!'

'You tell a real good story.'

'Do I? then come and pay me for it.'

'No-o! you sha-a-ant! aeou!! there now, tell us another; tell us about the bear that bit you?'

'There isn't much to tell about that either. It was on a steamer, in the Gulf. On the forecastle lay a stout oaken box, and in it—all his troubles to come—was a young bear. In the top of it was an inch auger-hole, and at this small port the poor devil used to keep his eye all day so pitifully, that I had compassion on him, saw he would get etiolated, and besought the captain to let him out.

''Not if I know it,' responded Dux, severely, 'he'd clear the decks in a minute! We had one aboard once before—a big rascal, in a cage, 'tween decks—and one dark, stormy night, he broke adrift and stowed himself away so snug that we never found him till next day. You may judge what a hurrah's nest there was, every body knowing this d——d bear was somewhere aboard, and afraid of running foul of him in the dark. No, no, better let him alone!'

'Howbeit, I over-persuaded him. We managed to get hold of a bit of chain fastened to his collar, bent a line on to it, gave him reasonable scope, belayed the bight, and knocked off one end of his box. Out he bolted! It was a change from that dark den to the glaring tropical sunshine, the blue sea foaming under the trades, the rolling masts, and the hundreds of curious eyes that surrounded him. Sensible to the last, he tried to go aloft, but the line soon brought him up. Down he came, and steered for'ard. The cooks and stewards, their hands on the combing, filled the fore-hatch. He made a dive for them, and they tumbled ignominiously down the hatchway. We laughed consumedly. Then he cruised aft, the dress-circle considerately widening. He came up to me, as if knowing his benefactor by instinct, looking curiously about him, and curling and retracting his flexile snout and lip, after the manner of his kind. Now, I had often dealt with bears, tame and semi-tame, had 'held Sackerson by the chain,' as often as Master Slender, had known them sometimes to strike or hug, (which they always do standing,) but had never known one to bite. So I didn't take the trouble to move, and—the first I knew—the villain had me by the leg!'

'Sarved yer right, for lettin' on him out,' interposed that grim utilist Jonas, our hired man. He had entered, pending the narrative, and stood, arrectis auribus, by the door.

'Mercy on us! didn't it hurt?'

'Yes; but not more than might easily be borne. It didn't seem like biting—more like the strong, hard grip of a vice than any thing else—puncture quite lost in constriction. My viznomy, I am told, was a study: supreme disgust, tempered with divine philosophy.'

'And how on earth did you get away from him?'

'By not trying to; kept as still as a mouse, till he had bitten all he wanted to, which took about a minute. Then he let go, and walked quietly off, to see if he couldn't bite somebody else. I afterward improved our acquaintance by giving him sugar-cane and a licking or two; but he was always an ill-conditioned brute, not amenable to reason, and when we came to New York, gave no end of trouble, by getting over the side and running up the North River on the ice—I dare say he scented the Catskills—the whole waterside whooping and hallooing in chase after him. Ah! I could tell you a better story than that, of a wild beast aboard a ship!'

'Do, then.'

'It was told me by an ancient mariner, who knows how many years ago? for I'm getting to be an old fellow myself, children.'

'What nonsense, Dick! talk about your being old.'

'Well, never mind. I'll try to give it to you in his own words. Said he:

"I never see a nigger turn white but once, and that was aboard of the old 'Emperor.' We was bound from Calcutta, to Boston, and had aboard an elephant, a big Bengal tiger, and a lot of other wild creturs, for a menagerie. Well, one forenoon, blowing a good topsail breeze, as it might be to-day, but more sea than wind, we was going large, and I up on the main-yard, turning in a splice. All to once, I heerd a strange noise, and looked down. There was the black cook, shinning of it up, making a great hullibaloo, and shaking the tormentors behind him—that's a big iron fork he has in the galley. His face was as white as a table-cloth. Close behind him was the tiger, who had got out of his cage somehow, and, snuffing the grub, had made tracks for the coppers.

"All the watch, by this time, was tumbling up the rigging, fore and aft. The tiger he tried two or three of the ratlins, but thought it onsafe, so he let himself down, mighty careful, to the deck. The companion-way was open, and he dived into the cabin. The captain lay asleep on the transom, and never waked up. The cretur didn't touch him, but come up agin, and poked his nose into, the door of the mate's room, that was a little on the jar. The mate see him, and gin him a kick in the face, and slammed the door agin him. That made him mad, and he tried to get in at the little window; but his head was so big, he couldn't begin. Did you ever mind what eyes them devils has? They've got a kind of cruel, murderin' look that no other beast has, that I ever see. Well, he give it up, and went aft. Then, a kind of a sick feelin' come over me; for, d'ye see, there was one man that couldn't leave no way!'

"The man at the wheel?'

"Ay, shipmet! He saw the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death; but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, and actually snuffed at him. You may judge what a relief it was to us when he left him, at last, and come for'ard. There was a sheep in the long-boat, and, as he was cruising about decks, he smelt it, and grabbed it, and was suckin' its blood in a jiffy; so we managed to get a slip-knot over him, and hauled taut on it from aloft. Then a young fellow went down with a line, and wound it round and round him, till he couldn't stir, and at last, with a heap of trouble, we got him stowed in his cage again, sheep and all; for he never let go on it.'

"And what was done for the man at the wheel?'

"Well, sir, nothing; he was only doing his duty."

'That was too bad! Now tell us another—tell us some more about shows?'

'Shows, chickabiddy? I've not seen any of late. The last was the What-Is-It.'

'Well, and what was it?'

'That is more than I can tell you. The proprietor is constantly asking the question, and has even gone to the expense of repeatedly advertising. I shouldn't wonder if, by this time, he had gotten a satisfactory response. I went and listened to the customary description. The silence that ensued was broken by a miserable skeptic, whose ill-regulated aspirations betrayed his insular prejudice, 'Vot is it? arf hanimal, eh? t'other day, I stuck a pin into him, and ses he, 'Dam yez!' Vot is it, eh?'

'Thus did this wretch, by implication, endeavor to unsettle the opinions of the audience, none too definite, perhaps, before.

'It is singular the distrust with which a thankless public has long come to regard the efforts of one whose aim it has ever been to combine instruction with amusement. Do you remember an itinerant expedition sent forth, years ago, by the same grand purveyor? There was a Car of Juggernaut, you may recollect, drawn by twenty little pigs of elephants. That show I also attended, and was well repaid for going. Near the entrance of the tent was a large cage, peopled with the gayest denizens of tropic life, macaws, cockatoos, paroquets—what know I?—a feathered iridescence, that sulked prehensile or perched paradisiacal in their iron house. Two youths entered; one paused admiringly. 'Come along, Jack,' remonstrated the other, hurrying him on by the arm, 'them darned things is only painted.' He wasn't going to see his friend imposed upon and his admiration extorted under false pretenses. Not if he knew it! Mr. B—— couldn't do him!

'Painted! Ay, Jonathan—and if Church or Kensett, look you, could only get at those pigments! could find the oil-and-color men that filled that order! ah me! what opaline skies! what amethystine day-breaks! what incarnadine sunsets we should have! The palette for that work was laid by angels, from tubes long hidden in the choicest crypts of the vast elaboratory, and those transcendent tints.

'Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on,'

Painted! to be sure.

'For this wicked specimen of infidelity, I was presently overpaid by a charming bit of belief. At the further end of the great tent was a case, containing divers wax effigies of eminent personages; the Czar, Prince Albert, General Spitzentuyfel—what know I? You may see them any day, (if you happen to have two York shillings,) at the sumptuous home to which they have returned from those travels. There they stood, side by side, an imposing company, forever shiny in the face, like Mrs. Wittitterly's page, and with eyes magnificently superior to any thing so sordid as speculation. All were finely befrogged, and ruched, and epauletted, and, for the most part, they sported moustaches. It happened that I had the latter adornment—a variety then—on my own mug.

While recognizing them—they were old acquaintances—I felt a gentle pull at my skirt, and looking down, was aware of a little tot, some three years old, who asked, pointing to the counterfeit presentments in the show-case: 'Did you come out o' there?' The innocent! he little knew what an extinguisher he was clapping on me. 'No, sonny,' said I, looking down on the little nose, itself a bit of wax, between two peaches. The soft impeachment proceeded—'Well, where do yer belong? do yer belong in with the bear?' for there was a plantigrade there too. But I reckon that will do for bears, this time.'

'I should think so! They'll be dreaming about 'em all night.'

'Dick, how much of all this is true?'

'The whole, barring a few verbal interpolations.'

'Wal, I've seed shows,' moralized Jonas, 'a good many on 'em; but I couldn't tell the yarns about 'em that Mr. Richard, here, does. He figurs on 'em considerable, I 'xpect.''

* * * * *

FUGITIVES AT THE WEST.

A distinguished French writer once remarked, that the position of the colored race in America includes in itself every element of romance. The fortunes of this great human family; its relations to the white race, with which it is growing up side by side; its developments, its struggles, and its coming destiny, must hold in the future an historic interest of which it would be difficult beforehand to form an intelligent appreciation. The political events of the last few months have fairly opened this new historic page; and though, for the most part, its recording lines still lie behind the cloud, the first few words, charged with deep import to us and to all men, are becoming legible to every eye.

We can no longer view the colored race as a mere mass of ignorance and degradation lying quiescent beneath the white man's foot, and, except as a useful species of domestic animal, of little consequence to us or to the world. We see to-day, its fortunes and those of our own race blended together in a great struggle based on political, moral, and religious questions, and leading to a series of events of which not one of us as yet can foretell the conclusion.

The collective romance of the race is now but just opening to us; but its individual romance dawned upon us years ago. Long as we can remember, we have heard of one and another of that depressed people struggling to escape from an overwhelming bondage. We have known that such attempts were marked by scenes of thrilling interest, by intense earnestness of purpose, by the most powerful emotions of hope and fear, by startling adventures, ending sometimes in hopeless tragedy, sometimes in a dearly-bought success. Before the fugitive lay on one hand death, or worse than death; on the other, liberty beneath the cold North-star.

Some years ago, these elements of romance, with the moral principles lying at their root, were laid hold of by Mrs. Stowe. The wonderful enthusiasm with which her work was received, the avidity with which it was read all the world over, showed how wide and deep was the sympathy which the position of the colored race in America was calculated to excite.

I suppose there are few people living on the border-line dividing the North from the South, who can not recall exciting incidents and scenes of painful interest connected with the fugitive slave, occurring within their own knowledge, and often beneath their own eyes. During the few years when I grew from childhood to youth, in the neighborhood of Cincinnati, I can recall many such incidents. I remember being startled, from time to time, by sorrowful events of this nature that so frequently occur in Western cities, owing to their close proximity to the South, and to the continual arrival of steamboats from the slaveholding States. Once I remember, it was a family of half-caste children, brought to the very levee by their white father. He had made the journey during his death-struggle, hoping to leave his children free men upon free ground: but just as he approached the levee, he died; and his heir, in eager pursuit, seized the children around their father's lifeless form, before they had time to land, and hurried them away, his hopeless, helpless slaves. Then it was a woman with a child in her arms, flying through the great thoroughfares of the city, with her pursuers behind her—a mad, wild, brutal chase. Then it was a pretty mulatto child, the pride and delight of its parents, abstracted in the evening by prowling thieves, from a colored family in our immediate vicinity. Lost forever! never more to be heard of by its terrified and sorrowing parents! Then came the terrible tragedy of that poor mother who, being seized as she was escaping with her children, and thrown into jail, 'preferred for her dear ones the guardianship of angels to the oppression of man,' and killed them in the prison with her own hands, one by one, the jailer only entering in time to arrest the knife as she was about to strike it into her own despairing heart.

But though from time to time circumstances such as these were noised abroad and made known to all, I knew that there were innumerable thrilling stories, often less tragic in their conclusion, known only to the more successful fugitive and his own immediate friends. I heard rumors of an underground railway, as it was termed, a mysterious agency keeping watch for fugitives, and assisting them on their journey, passing them on secretly and speedily from point to point on their way to Canada. I knew that such a combination existed on my right hand and on my left, and under my very eyes; but who might be concerned in it, or how it might be managed, I could not in the least divine. One day a gleam of light came to me upon the subject. Our minister, a good old man, who preached with great eloquence on the subject of human depravity, and pointedly enough upon many of the sins of the age, but who had never taken any clear and open ground on the subject of slavery, had a daughter who was warmly and avowedly anti-slavery in principle. We became friends; and as my intimacy with her increased, we sometimes spoke of the fugitives.

One day she owned to me that she had some connection with this underground railway, principally in the way of providing with old clothing the destitute creatures who were arriving—generally at unexpected moments—barefoot, and with scarce a rag upon their backs to protect them from the bitter cold of the Canadian winter, which even under the best circumstances is so sadly trying to the negro constitution.

She told me that as the agents in the neighborhood were few and poor, and as these sudden calls admitted of no delay, they were sometimes unable to provide the required clothing; and she asked me, in case of such an emergency, if she might sometimes apply to me for some of the articles of which they might be in especial need. From that time Canada became the ultimate destination of all my old clothes. I could imagine superannuated cloaks and shawls wrapped around dusky and shivering shoulders, and familiar bonnets walking about Canada in their old age on the woolly heads of poor fugitive negro women.

It was but a short time after our conversation that the first call came. One bitter winter's night, word was sent me that a family had arrived—father, mother, and several young children, all utterly destitute. The articles which their friends were least able to provide, and which would therefore be particularly acceptable, were shoes for the boys, and warm clothing of every kind for the woman. The latter requirement was soon provided for. An old purple bonnet that had already seen good service in the world, a quilted skirt, and sundry other articles were soon looked up and repaired to meet the poor creature's necessities—but shoes for the boys! The message had been very urgent upon that point. Shoes! shoes! any sort of shoes! Now our boys had, for the most part, grown up and departed, and in vain I rummaged through the garret—that receptacle of ancient treasures—for relics of the past, in the way of masculine shoes and boots. I was giving it up in despair, when suddenly an idea occurred to me. It had happened, in days long past, that a French lady of our acquaintance had broken up housekeeping, and we had stored a part of her furniture in our spacious garrets. Ere long it had all been reclaimed except two articles, which had somehow or other remained behind. The first was a handsomely mounted crayon drawing, representing a remarkably ugly young man with heavy features and a most unprepossessing expression of countenance. Below this drawing, maternal pride and affection had caused to be inscribed in clear, bold letters, these two words: 'My Son.' The second piece of property remaining behind with 'my son's portrait, were 'my son's elegant French boots—a wonderful pair, shiny as satin, and of some peculiar and exquisite style, long and narrow, with sharp-pointed and slightly turned-up toes. They were of beautiful workmanship, but being made of a firm and unaccommodating material, and in form utterly unadapted to any possible human foot, they had probably pinched 'my son's feet so unendurably that no amount of masculine vanity or fortitude could long support the torture, and with a sigh of regret he had no doubt been forced to relinquish them ere their first early bloom had departed, or the beautiful texture of the sole-leather had lost its delicate, creamy tint. These two articles had long lain in a corner of the garret, to the infinite amusement of the children of the family, who were never weary of allusions to 'my son,' and 'my son's boots. In process of time the portrait also was reclaimed, but the deserted boots still occupied their corner of the garret, year after year, until there were no children left to crack their jokes at their comical and dandified appearance. Upon these elegant French boots I pounced, in this sore dilemma, and as my messenger was waiting, without time for a moment's reflection, I bundled them in with the rest of the articles, and dispatched them at once to their destination.

Scarcely had the messenger departed than I sat down to laugh. I thought of the brother, who had especially distinguished himself in his boyish days, by witticisms upon those famous boots, and I recalled to mind, also, a slightly exaggerated description of the negro foot, with which he had been wont to indulge his young companions. This foot he would describe as very broad and flat, with the leg planted directly in the centre, leaving an equal length for the toes in front and for the heel behind.

Now, although I had never given credence to these exact proportions, I still remained under the impression that there was a peculiarity in the negro foot, that the heel was somewhat more protuberant than in the European foot, and rather broad, it might also well be supposed to be, in its natural and unpinched condition. The whole scene came vividly before my imagination; the unfortunate family handing round in dismay those exquisite French boots, vainly striving, one after another, to insert their toes into them, but finding among their number no Cinderella whom the wonderful shoe would fit. I figured them at last descending to a little fellow six years old, or thereabouts, whose poor little feet might possibly be planted in the centre of the boots, and thus, in default of any other protection, be saved for a time from frost and snow. My mind was divided between amusement at the final destination of these celebrated relics, and regret that I had nothing more suitable to send. I could only hope that this part of the poor fugitives' outfit might be more successfully provided for from some other quarter.

Winter passed by; spring came, succeeded by long, hot mid-summer days of the western summer. Our neighbors, for the most part, were scattered to the North and East—gone to the lakes, to New-York, to Boston, or to some summer resort upon the Atlantic coast—all who could, breaking the long-continued and oppressive heat by a pleasant excursion to some cooler clime. My friend, the minister's daughter, and most of our own family, had gone like the rest, and I was left in a somewhat solitary state to while away the long hours of those burning summer days, in the monotony of a large and empty country-house.

One day at noon, I strolled to the door, seeking a breath of air. I stood within the doorway, and looked out. Before me extended a level tract of green grass, thinly planted with young shade-trees. At some distance beyond, melting away in haze beneath the glowing sun, a little wood extended toward the north-east, meeting at its extremity another and denser wood of much greater extent. This first little wood had been in our young days our favorite resort. We had explored every turn in it again and again; we knew well every tree upon its outskirts, beneath whose shade some little patch of green grass might serve for a resting-place, or a pic-nic ground; we were familiar with every old trunk with wide-extending roots, in whose protecting cavities that little, speckled, pepper-and-salt-looking flower, the spring harbinger, nestled, peeping forth toward the end of March, ere the ice and snow had well melted, or any other green thing dared show itself. Deeper in the shade lay the soft beds of decaying leaves, where somewhat later the spring beauties would start forth, clothing the brown and purple tints of the ground with touches of delicate pink. With them would come that fair little wind-flower, the white anemone, and the blue and yellow violets, soon to be followed by that loveliest of all Ohio wild flowers, called by the country people, 'Dutchman's breeches,' but in more refined parlance, denominated 'pantalettes,' looking for all the world as if the fairies had just done a day's washing and hung out their sweet little nether garments to dry, suspended in rows from the tiny rods that so gracefully bend beneath the pretty burden. Pure white are they, or of such a delicate flesh-tint, the fairy washerwoman might well be proud of her work. Other spots were sacred to the yellow lily, with its singular, fierce-looking leaf, spotted like a panther's hide, growing in solitary couples, protecting between them the slender stalk with its drooping yellow bell. Later in the season come the larger and more brilliantly tinted flowers, the wild purple larkspur, the great yellow buttercup, and the lilac flox. There were dusky depths in the wood, too, into which, book in hand, we sometimes retreated from the mid-summer heat into an atmosphere of moist and murky coolness. There we found the Indian pipe, or ghost-flower—leaf, stem, and flower, all white as wax, turning to coal-black if long brought into light, or if pressed between the leaves of a book.

This first little wood, then, though somewhat dark and damp, had its pleasant and cheerful associations; but the wood beyond was weird and dismal, with its dense shade, its fallen trees rotting in dark gullies, its depth of decaying leaves, into which your feet sank down and down, until in alarm you doubted whether there were really any footing beneath, or if it would be possible ever to extricate yourself again. These two woods touched only at one point, included in an angle between a little burying-ground, whose solemn associations increased the gloom of the farther wood. As children, we had been wont, in adventurous moods, to cross one corner of the burying-ground, and striking into a ravine within this wood, down which trickled a little dark stream, wade up it barefoot, with grave, half-awe-stricken faces, until the stream sank again beneath the dead leaves, emptying itself I know not where. We had given wild and fantastic names to some of the ways and places about this ravine, but the rest of the wood was so little attractive and enjoyable that we generally avoided it, unless in some ramble of unusual length, we wished to strike across one portion of it, making thereby a somewhat shorter cut into the turnpike road a mile or two beyond.

As I stood this hot summer-day looking toward the woods, suddenly there stood before me a strongly-made middle-aged negro woman. Whether she had glided round the house, or in what way she had come so suddenly and quietly before me, I do not know; but there she stood, bare-headed, and humbly asking for a piece of bread, or any cold food that I could spare. Her appearance struck me with surprise; her skin was of a deep, rich, yellow brown, her face soft and kindly in expression, but wonderfully swollen, and with the appearance of being one mass of bruises. Her red, inflamed eyes seemed to weep incessantly and involuntarily; whatever might be the expression of her mouth, so inflamed and suffering were they, that they were pitiful to see; and to complete the picture, the stump of one of her arms, which had been severed at some former period, close to the shoulder, was but partially hidden by her ragged, low-necked dress. Her whole appearance struck me as the most pathetic I had ever beheld.