'We's h'ar, massa, and de prayin' am gwine on.'

Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered the latter fact some time previous to our arrival at the church-door, for the preacher was shouting at the top of his lungs. He evidently thought the good Lord either a long way off, or very hard of hearing. Not wishing to disturb the congregation at their devotions, we loitered near the doorway until the prayer was over, and in the mean time I glanced around the premises.

The 'meeting-house,' of large unhewed logs, was a story and a half in hight, and about large enough to seat comfortably a congregation of two hundred persons. It was covered with shingles, with a roof projecting some four feet over the wall, and was surmounted at the front gable by a tower, about twelve feet square. This also was built of logs, and contained a bell 'to call the erring to the house of prayer,' though, unfortunately, all of that character thereabouts dwelt beyond the sound of its voice. The building was located at a cross-roads about equally distant from two little hamlets, (the nearest nine miles off,) neither of which was populous enough to singly support a church and a preacher. The trees in the vicinity had been thinned out, so that carriages could drive into the woods, and find under the branches shelter from the rain and the sun, and at the time of my visit, about twenty vehicles of all sorts and descriptions, from the Colonel's magnificent barouche to the rude cart drawn by a single two-horned quadruped, filled the openings. There was a rustic simplicity about the whole scene that charmed me. The low, rude church, the grand old pines that towered in leafy magnificence around it, and the soft, low wind, that sung a morning hymn in the green, wavy woods, seemed to lift the soul up to Him who inhabiteth eternity, but who also visits the erring children of men.

The preacher was about to 'line out' one of Watts' psalms, when we entered the church, but he stopped short on perceiving us, and, bowing low, waited till we had taken our seats. This action, and the sycophantic air which accompanied it, disgusted me, and turning to the Colonel, I asked jocosely:

'Do the chivalry exact so much obsequiousness from the country clergy'? Do you require to be bowed up to heaven?'

In a low voice, but high enough, I thought, for the preacher to hear, for we sat very near, the Colonel replied:

'He's a renegade Yankee—the meanest thing on earth.'

I said no more, but entered into the services as seriously as the strange gymnastic performances of the preacher would allow me to do, for the truth is, he was quite as amusing as a circus clown.

With the exception of the Colonel's and a few other pews in the vicinity of the pulpit, all of the seats were mere rough benches, without backs, and placed so closely together as to interfere uncomfortably with the knees of the sitters. The house was full, and the congregation as attentive as any I ever saw. All classes were there; the black serving-man away off by the doorway, the poor white a little higher up, the small turpentine-farmer a little higher still, and the wealthy planter, of the class to which the Colonel belonged, on 'the highest seats of the synagogue,' and in close proximity to the preacher.

The 'man of prayer' was a tall, lean, raw-boned, angular-built individual, with a thin, sharp, hatchet-face, a small sunken eye, and long, loose hair, brushed back and falling over the collar of a seedy black coat. He looked like nothing in the world I have ever seen, and his pale, sallow face, and cracked, wheezy voice, were in comic keeping with his discourse. His text was: 'Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.' And addressing the motley gathering of poor whites and small-planters before him as the 'chosen people of God,' he urged them to press on in the mad course their State had chosen. It was a political harangue, a genuine stump-speech, but its frequent allusion to the auditory as the legitimate children of the old patriarch, and the rightful heirs of all the promises, struck me as out of place in a rural district of South-Carolina, however appropriate it might have been in one of the large towns, before an audience of merchants and traders, who are, almost to a man, Jews.

The services over, the congregation slowly left the church. Gathered in groups in front of the 'meeting-house,' they were engaging in a general discussion of the affairs of the day, when the Colonel and I emerged from the doorway. The better class greeted my host with considerable cordiality, but I noticed that the well-to-do, small planters, who composed the greater part of the assemblage, received him with decided coolness. These people were the 'North county folks' on whom the overseer had invoked a hanging. Except that their clothing was more uncouth and ill-fashioned, and their faces generally less 'cute' of expression, they did not differ materially in appearance from the rustic citizens who may be seen on any pleasant Sunday gathered around the door-ways of the rural meeting-houses of New-England.

One of them, who was leaning against a tree, quietly lighting a pipe, was a fair type of the whole, and as he took a part in the scene which followed, I will describe him. He was tall and spare, with a swinging, awkward gait, and a wiry, athletic frame. His hair, which he wore almost as long as a woman's, was coarse and black, and his face strongly marked, and of the precise color of two small rivulets of tobacco-juice that escaped from the corners of his mouth. He had an easy, self-possessed manner, and a careless, devil-may-care way about him, that showed he had measured his powers, and was accustomed to 'rough it' with the world. He wore a broadcloth coat of the fashion of some years ago, but his waistcoat and nether garments of the common, reddish homespun, were loose and ill-shaped, as if their owner did not waste thought on such trifles. His hat, as shockingly bad as Horace Greeley's, had the inevitable broad brim, and fell over his face like a calash-awning over a shop-window. As I approached him he extended his hand with a pleasant 'How are ye, stranger?.'

'Very well,' I replied, returning his grasp with equal warmth, 'how are you?'

'Right smart, right smart, thank ye. You're—' the rest of the sentence was cut short by a gleeful exclamation from Jim, who, mounted on the box of the carriage, which was drawn up on the cleared plot in front of the meeting-house, waved an open newspaper over his head, and called out, as he caught sight of the Colonel:

'Great news, massa, great news from Charls'on!'

(The darky, while we were in church, had gone to the post-office, some four miles away, and got the Colonel's mail, consisting of letters from his New-York and Charleston factors, the Charleston Courier and Mercury and the New-York Journal of Commerce. The latter sheet, at the date of which I am writing, was in wide circulation at the South, its piety (!) and its politics being then calculated with mathematical precision for secession latitudes.)

'What is it, Jim?' shouted his master. 'Give it to us.'

The darky had somehow learned to read, but holding the paper at arm's length, and throwing himself into a theatrical attitude, he belched out, with any amount of gesticulation, the following:

'De news am, massa, and gemmen and ladies, dat de ole fort fore Charls'on hab hen devacuated by Major Andersin and de sogers, and dat dey hab stole 'way in de dark night and gone to Sumter, whar dey can't be took; and dat de ole Gubner hab got out a procdemation dat all dat don't lub de Aberlishen Yankees shill cum up dar and clar 'em out; and de paper say dat lots ob sogers hab cum from Gorgia and Al'bama and 'way down Souf, to help 'em. Dis am w'at de Currer say,' he continued, holding the paper up to his eyes and reading: 'Major Andersin, ob United States army hab 'chieved de 'stinction ob op'ning de cibil war 'tween American citizens; he hab desarted Moulfrie, and by false fretexts hab took de ole Garrison and all his millinery stores to Fort Sumter.'

'Get down, you d——d nigger,' said the Colonel, laughing, and mounting the carriage-box beside him. 'You can't read. Old Garrison isn't there—he's the d——d Northern Abolitionist.'

'I knows dat, Cunnel, but see dar,' holding the paper out to his master, 'don't dat say he'm dar? It'm him dat make all de trubble. P'raps dis nig' can't read, but ef dat ain't readin' I'd like to know it!'

'Clear out,' said the Colonel, now actually roaring with laughter; 'it's the soldiers that the Courier speaks of, not the Abolitionist.'

'Read it yoursef, den, massa, I don't seed it dat way.'

Jim was altogether wiser than he appeared, and while he was equally as well pleased with the news as the Colonel, he was so for an entirely different reason. In the crisis which these tidings announced, he saw hope for his race.

The Colonel then read the paper to the assemblage. The news was received with a variety of manifestations by the auditory, the larger portion, I thought, hearing it, as I did, with sincere regret.

'Now is the time to stand by the State, my friends,' said my host as he finished the reading. 'I hope every man here is ready to do his duty by old South-Carolina.'

'Yes, sar! if she does har duty by the Union. We'll go to the death for har just so long as she's in the right, but not a d——d step if she arn't,' said the long-legged native I have introduced to the reader.

'And what have you to say about South-Carolina? What does, she owe to you?' asked the Colonel, turning on the speaker with a proud and angry look.

'More, a darned sight than she'll pay, if ye cursed 'ristocrats run her to h—— as ye'r doing. She owes me, and 'bout ten as likely niggers as ye ever seed, a living, and we've d——d hard work to get it out on her now, let alone what's comin'.

'Don't talk to me, you ill-mannered cur,' said my host, turning his back on his neighbor, and directing his attention to the remainder of the assemblage.

'Look har, Cunnel,' replied the native, 'if ye'll jest come down from thar and throw 'way yer shootin'-irons, I'll give ye the all-firedest thrashing ye ever did get.'

The Colonel gave no further heed to him, but the speaker mounted the steps of the meeting-house and harangued the natives in a strain of rude and passionate declamation, in which my host, the aristocrats, and the Secessionists came in for about equal shares of abuse. Seeing that the native (who, it appeared, was quite popular as a stump-speaker) was drawing away his audience, the Colonel descended from the driver's seat, and motioning for me to follow, entered the carriage. Turning the horses homeward, we rode off at a brisk pace.

'Not much Secession about that fellow, Colonel,' I remarked, after a while.

'No,' he replied, 'he's a North-Carolina 'corn-cracker,' one of the meanest specimens of humanity extant. They're as thick as fleas in this part of the State, and about all of them are traitors.'

'Traitors to the State, but true to the Union. As far as I've seen, that is the case with the middling class throughout the South.'

'Well, it may be, but they generally go with us, and I reckon they will now, when it comes to the rub. Those in the towns—the traders and mechanics—will, certain; it's only these half-way independent planters that ever kick the traces. By the way,' continued my host, in a jocose way, 'what did you think of the preaching?'

'I thought it very poor. I'd rather have heard the stump-speech, had it not been a little too personal on you.'

'Well, it was the better of the two,' he replied, laughing, 'but the old devil can't afford any thing good, he don't get enough pay.'

'Why, how much does he get?'

'Only a hundred dollars.'

'That is small. How does the man live?'

'Well, he teaches the daughter of my neighbor, Captain Randall, who believes in praying, and gives him his board. Randall thinks that enough. The rest of the parish can't afford to pay him, and I won't.'

'Why won't you?'

'Because he's a d——d old hypocrite. He believes in the Union with all his heart—at least, so Randall, who's a sincere Union man, says—and yet, he never sees me at meeting but he preaches a red-hot secession sermon.'

'He wants to keep you in the faith,' I replied.

A few more miles of sandy road took us to the mansion, where we found dinner in waiting. Meeting 'Massa Tommy'—who had staid at home with his mother—as we entered the doorway, the Colonel asked after the overseer.

'He seems well enough, sir; I believe he's coming the possum over mother.'

'Ill bet on it, Tommy; but he won't fool you and me, will he, my boy?' said his father, slapping him affectionately on the back.

After dinner I went with my host to the room of the wounded man. His head was still bound up, and he was groaning piteously, as if in great pain; but I thought there was too fresh a color in his face to be entirely natural in one who had lost so much blood, and been so severely wounded as he affected to be.

The Colonel mentioned our suspicions to Madam P——, and suggested that the shackles should be put on him.

'Oh! no, don't do that; it would be inhuman,' said the lady; 'the color is the effect of fever. If you fear he is plotting to get away, let him be watched.'

The Colonel consented, but with evident reluctance, to the arrangement, and retired to his room to take a siesta, while I lit a cigar, and strolled out to the negro-quarters.

Making my way through the woods to the scene of the morning's jollification, I found about a hundred darkies gathered around Jim, on the little plot in front of Old Lucy's cabin. Jim had evidently been giving them the news. Pausing when I came near, he exclaimed:

'Har's Massa K——, he'll say dat I tells you de trufh;' then turning to me, he said: 'Massa K——, dese darkies say dat Massa Andersin am an ab'lisherner, and dat none but de ab'lisherners will fight for de Union; am dat so, sar?'

'No, I reckon not, Jim; I think the whole North would fight for it if it were necessary.'

'Am dat so, massa? am dat so?' eagerly inquired a dozen of the darkies; 'and am dar great many folks at de Norf—more dan dar am down har?'

'Yas, you fools, didn't I tell you dat?' said Jim, as I, not exactly relishing the idea of preaching treason, in the Colonel's absence, to his slaves, hesitated to reply. 'Hain't I tole you,' he continued, 'dat in de big city ob New-York dar'm more folks dan dar am in all Car'lina? I'se been dar, and I knows; and Massa K——'ll tell you dat dey—'most on 'em—feel mighty sorry for de brack man.'

'No he won't,' I replied, 'and besides, Jim, you should not talk in this way before me; I might tell your master.'

'No! you won't do dat; I knows you won't, massa. Scipio tole us he'd trust his bery life wid you.'

'Well, perhaps he might; it's true I would not injure you.' Saying that, I turned away, though my curiosity was greatly excited to hear more.

I wandered farther into the woods, and a half-hour found me near one of the turpentine distilleries. Seating myself on a rosin barrel, I quietly finished my cigar, and was about lighting another, when Jim made his appearance.

'Beg pardon, Massa K——,' said the negro, bowing very low, 'but I wants to ax you one or two tings, ef you please, sar.'

'Well,' I replied, 'I'll answer any thing that I ought to.'

'Der yer tink, den, massa, dat dey'll git to fightin' at Charls'on?'

'Yes, judging by the tone of the Charleston papers you've read to-day, I think they will.'

'And der yer tink dat de rest ob de Souf will jine wid Souf Car'lina, if she go at it fust?'

'Yes, Jim, I'm inclined to think so.'

'I hard you say to massa, dat ef dey goes to war,'twill free all de niggers—der you raily b'lieve dat, sar?'

'You heard me say that; how did you hear it?' I exclaimed, in surprise.

'Why, sar, de front winder ob de carriage war down jess a crack, and I hard all you said.'

'Did you let it down on purpose?'

'P'r'aps so, massa. Whot's de use ob habin' ears, ef you don't h'ar?'

'Well, I suppose not much; and you tell all you hear to the other negroes?'

'I reckon so, massa,' said the darky, looking very demure.

'That's the use of having a tongue, eh?' I replied, laughing.

'Dat's it 'zaxly, massa.'

'Well, Jim, I do think the slaves will be finally freed; but it will cost more white blood to do it than all the niggers in creation are worth. Do you think the darkies would fight for their freedom?'

'Fight, sar!' exclaimed the negro, straightening up his fine form, while his usual good-natured look—passed from his face and gave way to an expression that made him seem more like an incarnate fiend than a human being; 'FIGHT, sar; gib dem de chance, and den see.'

'Why are you discontented? You have been at the North, and you know the blacks are as well off as the majority of the poor laboring men there.'

'You say dat to me, Massa K——; you don't say it to de Cunnel. We are not so well off as de pore man at de Norf! You knows dat, sar. He hab his wife and children, and his own home; what hab we, sar? No wife, no children, no home; all am de white man's. Der yer tink we wouldn't fight to be free?' and he pressed his teeth together, and there passed again over his face the same look it wore the moment before.

'Come, come, Jim, this may be true of your race; but it don't apply to yourself. Your master is kind and indulgent to you.'

'He am kind to me, sar; he orter be,' said the negro, the savage expression coming again into his eyes. For a moment he hesitated; then, taking a step toward me, he placed his face down to mine, and hissed out these words, every syllable seeming to come from the very bottom of his being. 'I tell you he orter be, sar, FUR I AM HIS OWN FATHER'S SON!'

'Your brother!' I exclaimed, springing to my feet, and looking at him in blank amazement. 'It can't be true.'

'It am true, sar—as true as there's a hell! His father had my mother: when he got tired of her, he sold her Souf. I was too young den eben to know her!'

'This is horrible, too horrible!' I said.

'It am slavery, sar! Shouldn't we be contented?' replied the negro with a grim smile. Drawing, then, a large spring-knife from his pocket, he waved it above his head, adding: 'Ef I had all de white race dar—right dar under dat knife, don't yer tink I'd take all dar lives—all at one blow—to be FREE!'

'And yet you refused to run away when the Abolitionists tempted you, at the North. Why didn't you go then?'

''Cause I had promised, massa.'

'Promised the Colonel before you went?'

'No, sar, he neber axed me; but I can't tell you no more. P'raps Scipio will, ef you ax him.'

'Oh! I see; you're in that league, of which Scip is a leader. You'll get into trouble, sure,' I replied, in a quick, decided tone, which startled him.

'You tole Scipio dat, sar, and what did he tell you?'

'That he didn't care for his life.'

'No more do I, sar,' said the negro, as he turned on his heel with a proud, almost defiant gesture, and started to go.

'A moment, Jim. You are very imprudent; never say these things to any other mortal; promise me that.'

'You'se bery good, massa, bery good. Scipio say you's true, and he'm allers right. I ortent to hab said what I hab; but sumhow, sar, dat news brought it all up har,' (laying his hand on his breast,) 'and it wud come out.'

The tears filled his eyes as he said this, and turning away without another word, he passed from my sight behind the trees.

I was almost stunned by this strange revelation, but the more I reflected on it, the more probable it appeared. Now, too, that my thoughts were turned in that direction, I called to mind a certain resemblance between the Colonel and the negro that I had not heeded before. Though one was a high-bred Southern gentleman, claiming an old and proud descent, and the other a poor African slave, they had some striking peculiarities which might indicate a common origin. The likeness was not in their features, for Jim's face was of the unmistakable negro type, and his skin of a hue so dark that it seemed impossible he could be the son of a white man, (I afterward learned that his mother was a black of the deepest dye,) but it was in their form and general bearing. They had the same closely-knit and sinewy frame, the same erect, elastic step, the same rare blending of good-natured ease and dignity—to which I have already alluded as characteristic of the Colonel—and in the wild burst of passion that accompanied the negro's disclosure of their relationship, I saw the same fierce, unbridled temper, whose outbreaks I had witnessed in my host.

What a strange fate was theirs! Two brothers—the one the owner of three hundred slaves, and the first man of his district—the other, a bonded menial, and so poor that the very bread he ate, the clothes he wore, were another's! How terribly on him had fallen the curse pronounced on his race!

I passed the remainder of the afternoon in my room, and did not again meet my host until the family assembled at the tea-table. Jim then occupied his accustomed seat behind the Colonel's chair, and my host was in more than his usual spirits, though Madam P——, I thought, wore a sad and absent look.

The conversation rambled over a wide range of subjects, and was carried on mainly by the Colonel and myself; but toward the close of the meal the lady said to me:

'Mr. K——, Sam and young Junius are to be buried this evening. If you have never seen a negro funeral, perhaps you'd like to attend.'

'I will be happy to accompany you, Madam, if you go,' I replied.

'Thank you,' said the lady.

'Pshaw! Alice, you'll not go into the woods on so cold a night as this!'

'Yes, I think I ought to. Our people will expect me.'

* * * * *

It was about an hour after nightfall when we took our way to the burial-ground. The moon had risen, but the clouds which gathered when the sun went down, covered its face, and were fast spreading their thick, black shadows over the little collection of negro-houses. Near two new-made graves were gathered some two hundred men and women, as dark as the night that was setting around them. As we entered the circle the old preacher pointed to the seats reserved for us, and the sable crowd fell back a few paces, as if, even in the presence of death, they did not forget the difference between their race and ours.

Scattered here and there among the trees, torches of lightwood threw a wild and fitful light over the little cluster of graves, and revealed the long, straight boxes of rough pine that held the remains of the two negroes, and lit up the score of russet mounds beneath which slept the dusky kinsmen who had gone before them.

The simple head-boards that marked these humble graves chronicled no bad biography or senseless rhyme, and told no false tales of lives that had better not have been, but 'SAM, AGE 22;' 'POMPEY;' 'JAKE'S ELIZA;; 'AUNT SUE;' 'AUNT LUCY'S TOM;' 'JOE;' and other like inscriptions, scratched in rough characters on those unplaned boards, were all the records there. The rude tenants had passed away and 'left no sign;' their birth, their age, their deeds, were alike unknown—unknown, but not forgotten; for are they not written in the book of His remembrance—and when He counteth up his jewels, may not some of them be there?

The queer, grotesque dress, and sad, earnest looks of the black group; the red, fitful glare of the blazing pine, and the white faces of the tapped trees, gleaming through the gloom like so many sheeted-ghosts gathered to some death-carnival, made up a strange, wild scene—the strangest and the wildest I had ever witnessed.

The covers of the rude coffins were not yet nailed down, and when we arrived, the blacks were one by one passing before them, taking a last look at the faces of the dead. Soon, Junius, holding his weeping wife by the hand, approached the smaller of the two boxes, which held all that was left of their first-born. The mother kneeling by its side, kissed again and again the cold, shrunken lips, and sobbed as if her heart would break; while the strong frame of the father shook convulsively, as, choking down the great sorrow which welled up in his throat, he turned away from his boy forever. As he did so, old Pompey said:

'Don't grebe, June, he'm whar de wicked cease from trubbling, whar de weary am at rest.'

'I knows it; I knows it, Uncle. I knows de Lord am bery good to take 'im 'way; but why did he take de young chile, and leab de ole man har?'

'De little sapling dat grow in de shade may die while it'm young; de great tree dat grow in de sun must lib till de ax cut him down.'

These words were the one drop wanting to make the great grief which was swelling in the negro's heart overflow. Giving one low, wild cry, he folded his wife in his arms, and burst into a paroxysm of tears.

'Come now, my chil'ren,' said the old preacher, kneeling down, 'let us pray.'

The whole assemblage then knelt on the cold ground, while the old man prayed, and a more sincere, heart-touching prayer never went up from human lips to that God 'who hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth.' Though clothed in rags, and in feeble old age, a slave, at the mercy of a cruel task-master, that old man was richer far than his master. His simple faith, which looked through the darkness surrounding him into the clear and radiant light of the unseen land, was of far more worth than all the wealth and glory of this world. I know not why it was, but as I looked at him in the dim, red light which fell on his upturned face, and cast a strange halo around his bent form, I thought of Stephen, as he gazed upward and saw heaven open, and 'the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the throne of God.'

Rising from his knees, the old preacher turned slowly to the black mass that encircled him, and said:

'My dear bredderin and sisters, de Lord say dat 'de dust shill return to de earth as it war, and de spirit to Him who gabe it,' and now, 'cordin' to dat text, my friends, we'm gwine to put dis dust (pointing to the two coffins) in de groun' whar it cum from, and whar it shill lay till de blessed Lord blow de great trumpet on de resumrection mornin'. De spirits of our brudders har de Lord hab already took to hisseff. 'Our brudders,' I say, my chil'ren, 'case ebery one dat de Lord hab made am brudders to you and to me, whedder dey'm bad or good, white or brack.

'Dis young chile, who hab gone 'way and leff his pore fader and mudder suffrin' all ober wid grief, he hab gone to de Lord, shore. He neber did no wrong; he allers 'bey'd his massa, and he neber said no hard word, nor found no fault, not eben w'en de cruel, bad oberseer put de load so heaby on him dat it kill him. Yes, my bredderin and sisters, he hab gone to de Lord; gone whar dey don't work in de swamps; whar de little chil'ren don't tote de big shingles fru de water up to dar knees. No swamps am dar; no shingles am cut dar; dey doan't need 'em, 'case dar hous'n haint builded wid hands, for dey'm all built by de Lord, and gib'n to de good niggers, ready-made, and for nuffin'. De Lord don't say, like as our massa do, 'Pomp, dar's de logs and de shingles,' (dey'm allers pore shingles, de kine dat woant sell; but he say, 'dey'm good 'nuff for niggers, ef de roof do leak.) De Lord doan't say: 'Now, Pomp, you go to work and build you' own house; but mine dat you does you task all de time, jess de same!' But de Lord—de bressed Lord—He say, w'en we goes up dar, 'Dar, Pomp, dar's de house dat I'se been a buildin' for you eber sence 'de foundation ob de worle.' It'm done now, and you kin cum in; your room am jess ready, and ole Sal and de chil'ren dat I tuk 'way from you eber so long ago, and dat you mourned ober and cried ober as ef you'd neber see dem agin, dar dey am, all on 'em, a waiting for you. Dey'm been fixin' up de house 'spressly for you all dese long years, and dey'be got it all nice and comfible now.' Yas, my frens, glory be to Him, dat's what our Heabenly massa say, and who ob you wouldn't hab sich a massa as dat? a massa dat don't set you no hard tasks, and dat gibs you 'nuff to eat, and time to rest and to sing and to play. A massa dat doan't keep no Yankee oberseer to foller you 'bout wid de big free-lashed whip; but dat leads you hisseff round to de green pastures and de still waters; and w'en you'm a-faint and a-tired, and can't go no furder, dat takes you up in his arms, and carries you in his bosom. What pore darky am dar dat wudn't hab sich a massa? What one ob us, eben ef we had to work so hard as we does now, wudn't tink hisseff de happiest nigger in de hull worle, ef he could hab sich hous'n to lib in as dem? dem hous'n 'not made wid hands, eternal in de heabens!'

'But glory, glory to de Lord! my chil'ren, wese all got dat massa, ef we only knowd it, and he'm buildin' dem housn up dar, now, for ebery one ob us dat am tryin' to be good and to lub one anoder. For ebery one ob us, I say, and we kin all git de fine hous'n ef we try.

'Recolember, too, my brudders, dat our great Massa am rich, bery rich, and He kin do all he promise. He won't say, w'en wese worked ober time to git some little ting to comfort de sick chile, 'I knows, Pomp, you'se done de work, and I did 'gree to gib you de pay; but de fact am, Pomp, de frost hab come so sudden dis yar, dat I'se loss de hull ob de sebenfh dippin', and I'se pore, so pore, de chile must go widout dis time.' No, no, brudders, de bressed Lord He neber talk so. He neber break, 'case de sebenfh dip am shet off, or 'case de price of turpentime gwo down at de Norf. He neber sell his niggers down Souf, 'case he lose his money on de hoss-race. No, my chil'ren, our HEABENLY Massa am rich, RICH, I say. He own all dis worle, and all de odor worles dat am shinin' up dar in de sky. He own dem all; but he tink more ob one ob you, more ob one ob you—pore, ignorant brack folks dat you am—dan ob all dem great worles! Who wouldn't belong, to sich a Massa as dat? Who wouldn't be his nigger—not his slave—He don't hab no slaves—but his chile; and 'ef his chile, den his heir, de heir ob God, and de joint heir wid Christ.' O my chil'ren! tink of dat! de heir ob de Lord ob all de earth and all de sky! What white man kin be more'n dat?

'Don't none ob you say you'm too wicked to be His chile; 'ca'se you an't. He lubs de wicked ones de best, 'ca'se dey need his lub de most. Yas, my brudders, eben de wickedest, ef dey's only sorry, and turn roun' and leab off dar bad ways, he lub de bery best ob all, 'ca'se he'm all lub and pity.

'Sam, har, my children, war wicked, but don't we pity him; don't we tink he had a hard time, and don't we tink de bad oberseer, who'm layin' dar in de house jess ready to gwo and answer for it—don't we tink he gabe Sam bery great probincation?'

'Dat's so,' said a dozen of the auditors.

'Den don't you 'spose dat de blessed Lord know all dat, and dat He pity Sam too? If we pore sinners feel sorry for him, an't de Lord's heart bigger'n our'n, and an't he more sorry for him? Don't you tink dat ef He lub and pity de bery worse whites, dat He lub and pity pore Sam, who warn't so bery bad, arter all? Don't you think He'll gib Sam a house? P'r'aps 'twon't be one ob de fine hous'n, but won't it be a comfible house, dat hain't no cracks, and one dat'll keep out de wind and de rain? And don't you s'pose, my chil'ren, dat it'll be big 'nuff for Jule, too—dat pore, repentin' chile, whose heart am clean broke, 'ca'se she hab broughten dis on Sam—and won't de Lord—de good Lord—de tender-hearted Lord—won't He touch Sam's heart, and coax him to forgib Jule, and to take her inter his house up dar? I knows he will, my chil'ren. I knows—'

Here the old negro paused abruptly; for there was a quick swaying in the crowd—a hasty rush—a wild cry—and Sam's wife burst into the open space around the preacher, and fell at the old man's feet. Throwing her arms wildly around him, she shrieked out:

'Say dat agin, Uncle Pomp! for de lub ob de good Lord, oh! say dat agin!'

Bending down, the old man raised her gently in his arms, and folding her there, as he would have folded a child, he said, in a voice thick with emotion:

'It am so, Juley. I knows dat Sam will forgib you, and take you wid him up dar.'

Fastening her arms frantically around Pompey's neck, the poor woman burst into a paroxysm of grief, while the old man's tears fell in great drops on her upturned face, and many a dark cheek near was wet, as with rain.

The scene had lasted a few minutes, and I was turning away to hide the emotion that was fast filling my eyes, and creeping up, with a choking feeling, to my throat, when the Colonel, from the farther edge of the group, called out:

'Take that d——d —— away—take her away, Pomp!'

The old negro turned toward his master with a sad, grieved look, but gave no heed to the words.

'Take her away, some of you, I say,' again cried the Colonel. 'Pomp, you mustn't keep these niggers all night in the cold.'

At the sound of her master's voice the metif woman fell to the ground as if struck by a Minie-ball. Soon several negroes lifted her up to bear her away; but she struggled violently, and rent the woods with her wild cries for 'one more look at Sam.'

'Look at him, you d——d ——, then go, and don't let me see you again.'

She threw herself on the face of the dead, and covered the cold lips with her kisses; then rose, and with a weak, uncertain step, staggered out into the darkness.

'The system' that had so seared and hardened that man's heart, must have been begotten in the lowest hell.

The old preacher said no more, but four stout negro men stepped forward, nailed down the lids, and lowered the rough boxes into the ground. Turning to Madam P——, I saw her face was red with weeping. She rose to go just as the first earth fell, with a dull, heavy sound, on the rude coffins; and giving her my arm, I led her from the scene.

As we walked slowly back to the house, a low wail—half a chant, half a dirge—rose from the black crowd, and floated off on the still night air, till it died away amid the far woods, in a strange, wild moan. With that sad, wild music in our ears, we entered the mansion.

As we seated ourselves by the bright wood-fire on the library hearth, obeying a sudden impulse which I could not restrain, I said to Madam P——:

'The Colonel's treatment of that poor woman is inexplicable to me. Why is he so hard with her? It is not in keeping with what I have seen of his character.'

'The Colonel is a peculiar man,' replied the lady. 'Noble, generous, and a true friend, he is also a bitter, implacable enemy. When he once conceives a dislike, his feelings become even vindictive; and never having had an ungratified wish, he does not know how to feel for the sorrows of those beneath him. Sam, though a proud, headstrong, unruly character, was a great favorite with him; he felt his death much; and as he attributes it to Jule, he feels terribly bitter toward her. She will have to be sold to get her out of his way, for he will never forgive her.'

It was some time before the Colonel joined us, and when he at last made his appearance, he seemed in no mood for conversation. The lady soon retired; but feeling unlike sleep, I took down a book from the shelves, drew my chair near the fire, and fell to reading. The Colonel, too, was deep in the newspapers, till, after a while, Jim entered the room:

'I'se cum to ax ef you've nuffin more to-night, Cunnel?' said the negro.

'No, nothing, Jim,' replied his master; 'but, stay—hadn't you better sleep in front of Moye's door?'

'Dunno, sar; jess as you say.'

'I think you'd better,' returned the Colonel.

With a 'Yas, massa,' the darky left the apartment.

The Colonel shortly rose, and bade me 'good night.' I continued reading till the clock struck eleven, when I laid the book aside and went to my room.

I slept, as I have said before, on the lower floor, and was obliged to pass by the door of the overseer's apartment as I went to mine. Wrapped in his blanket, and stretched at full length on the ground, Jim lay there, fast asleep. I passed on, thinking of the wisdom of placing a tired negro on guard over an acute and desperate Yankee.

I rose in the morning with the sun, and had partly donned my clothing, when I heard a loud uproar in the hall. Opening my door, I saw Jim pounding vehemently at the Colonel's room, and looking as pale as is possible with a person of his completion.

'What the d—-l is the matter?' asked his master, who now, partly dressed, stepped into the hall.

'Moye hab gone, sar; he'm gone and took Firefly (my host's five-thousand-dollar thorough-bred) wid him.'

For a moment the Colonel stood stupified; then, his face turning to a cold, clayey white, he seized the black by the throat, and hurled him to the floor. Planting his thick boot on the man's face, he seemed about to dash out his brains with its ironed heel, when, at that instant, the octoroon woman rushed, in her night-clothes, from his room, and with desperate energy pushed him aside, exclaiming: 'What would you do? remember WHO HE IS!'

The negro rose, and the Colonel, without a word, passed into his apartment. What followed will be the subject of another chapter.



PICAYUNE BUTLER.

'General Butler was a barber,' So the Pelicans were raving; Now you've got him in your harbor, Tell us how you like his shaving?



LITERARY NOTICES.

LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. Delivered at the royal Institution of Great Britain in April, May, and June, 1861. By MAX MULLER, Fellow of All Souls College, etc. From the second London edition, revised. New-York: Charles Scribner, Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.

Within the memory of man one could in England or America be 'very well educated,' as the word went, and yet remain grossly ignorant of the simplest elements of the history of language. In those days Latin was held by scholars to be derived from Greek—where the Greek came from nobody knew or cared, though it was thought, from Hebrew. German was a jargon, Provencal a 'patois,' and Sanscrit an obsolete tongue, held in reverence by Hindoo savages. The vast connections of language with history were generally ignored. Hebrew was assumed, as a matter of course, to have been the primeval language, and it was wicked to doubt it. Then came Sir William Jones, Carey, Wilkins, Forster, Colebrooke, and the other Anglo-Indian scholars, and the world learned what it ought to have learned from the Jesuits, that there was in the East a very ancient language—Sanscrit—'of wonderful structure, more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, more exquisitely refined than either; bearing to both a strong affinity,' and stranger still, containing a vast amount of words almost identical with many in all European and many Oriental tongues. This was an apocalypse of truth to many—but a source of grief to the orthodox believers that Greek and Latin were either aboriginal languages, or modifications of Hebrew. Hence the blind, and in some cases untruthful warfare made on the Sanscrit discoveries, as in the case of Dugald Stewart.

'Dugald Stewart was too wise not to see that the conclusions drawn from the facts about Sanscrit were inevitable. He therefore denied the reality of such a language as Sanscrit altogether, and wrote his famous essay to prove that Sanscrit had been put together, after the model of Greek and Latin, by those arch forgers and liars, the Brahmins, and that the whole of Sanscrit literature was an imposture.'

But it was all of no avail. In 1808 Frederick Schlegel's work, On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians, first 'boldly faced the facts and conclusions of Sanscrit scholarship, and became,' with all its faults, the 'foundation for the science of language.' Its great result may be given in one sentence—it embraced at a glance the languages of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and Northern Europe, and riveted them by the simple name 'Indo-Germanic.' Then in this school, begun by English industry and shaped by German genius, came Franz Bopp, with his great comparative grammar of the Indo-Germanic tongues, and the enormous labors of Lassen, Rosen, Burnouf, and W. von Humboldt—a man to whose incredible ability of every kind, as to his secret diplomatic influence, history has never done justice. Grimm, and Rask—the first great Zend scholar—were among these early explorers, who have been followed by so many scholars, until some knowledge not merely of Greek and Latin, but of the relations of all languages, has become essential to a truly good education.

Yet after all, Sanscrit, it was soon seen, was not the parent, but 'the elder sister' of the Indo-Germanic languages. Behind Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit, Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic tongues, lurks a lost language—the mysterious Aryan, which, reechoed through the tones of those six remaining Pleiades, its sisters, speaks of a mighty race which once, it may be, ruled supreme over a hundred lands, or perchance sole in the Caucasus. It is strange to see philologists slowly reconstructing, here and there, fragments of the Aryan,

'And speak in a tongue which man speaks no more.'

Among the many excellent elementary and introductory works on philology which have appeared of late years, this of Mueller's is on several accounts the best. It is clearly written, so as to be within the comprehension of any reader of ordinary intelligence, and we can hardly conceive that any such person would not find it an extremely entertaining book. Its author is a genial writer—he writes with a relish and with real power—he loves knowledge, and wishes others to share it with him. Language, he holds—though the idea is not new with him—springs from a very few hundred roots, which are the phonetic types produced by a power inherent in human nature. Every substance has its peculiar ring when struck—man, under the action of certain laws, must develop first onomato-poietic sounds, and finally language. With this we take leave of this excellent work, trusting that the public will extend to it the favor which it so amply deserves.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. By his Nephew, PIERRE M. IRVING. Vol. I. New-York: G.P. Putnam. Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.

This work has a strong, we might say an extraordinary claim to the interest of the most general reader, in its very first paragraph, since in it we are told that Washington Irving, on committing to his nephew Pierre the vast mass of papers requisite to his biography, remarked: 'Somebody will be writing my life when I am gone, and I wish you to do it. You must promise me that you will.' So with unusual wealth of material, gathered together for the purpose by the subject of the biography himself, the work has been begun, by the person whom Irving judged best fitted for it.

And a delightful work it is, not a page without something of special relish, as might be anticipated in the chronicle of a life which is thickly studded with personal association or correspondence with almost every intellectual eminence either of Europe or America during the past half-century. But apart from this, there is a racy Irving-y flavor from the very beginning, long before the wide world had incorporated Irving into its fraternity of great men, in the details of life, of home travel and of homely incident, as set forth in extracts from his letters, which is irresistibly charming. Full as this portion of the life is, we can not resist the hope that it will be greatly enlarged in subsequent editions, and that more copious extracts will be given from those letters, to the humblest of which the writer invariably communicates an indefinable fascination. In them, as in his regular 'writings,' we find the simplest incident narrated always without exaggeration—always as briefly as possible, yet told so quaintly and humorously withal, that we wonder at the piquancy which it assumes. It is the trouble with great men that they are, for lack of authentic anecdotes and details of their daily life, apt to retire into myths. Such will not be the case with Irving. The reality, the life-likeness of these letters, and of the ana drawn from them, will keep him, Washington Irving the New-Yorker, alive and breathing before the world to all time. In these chapters a vail seems lifted from what was growing obscure in our knowledge of social life in the youth of our fathers. Our only wish, in reading, is for more of it. But the life gathers interest as it proceeds. From America it extends to Europe, and we meet the names of Humboldt, De Stael, Allston, Vanderlyn, Mrs. Siddons, as among his associates even in early youth. So through Home Again and in Europe Again there is a constant succession of personal experience and wide opportunity to know the world. Did our limits permit, we would gladly cite largely from these pages, for it is long since the press has given to the world a book so richly quotable. But the best service we can render the reader is to refer him to the work itself, which is as well worth reading as any thing that its illustrious subject ever wrote, since in it we have most admirably reflected Irving himself; the best loved of our writers, and the man who did more, so far as intellectual effort is concerned, to honor our country than any American who ever lived.

BEAUTIES SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS DE QUINCKY. With a Portrait. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

We are not sure that this is not the very first book of other than pictorial beauties which we ever regarded with patience. Books of literary 'beauties' are like musical matinees—the first act of one opera—the grand dying-scene from another—all very pretty, but not on the whole satisfactory, or entitling one to claim from it alone any real knowledge of the original whole. Yet this volume we have found fascinating, have flitted from page to page, backwards and forwards, [it is a great advantage in a book of 'unconnections' that one may conscientiously skip about,] and concluded by thanking in our heart the judicious Eclectic, whoever he may be—who mosaicked these bits into an enduring picture of De Quincey-ism. For really in it, by virtue of selection, collection, and recollection, we have given an authentic cabinet of specimens more directly suggestive of the course and soul-idioms of the author than many minds would gather from reading all that he ever wrote. Only one thing seems needed—the great original commentary or essay on De Quincey, which these Beauties would most happily illustrate. It seems to rise shadowy before us—a sort of dead-letter ghost of a glorious book which craves life and has it not. We trust that our suggestion may induce some admirer of the Opium-Eater to have prepared an interleaved copy of these Beauties, and perfect the suggestion.

THE CHURCH IN THE ARMY; OR THE FOUR CENTURIONS. By Rev. WM. A. SCOTT, D.D., of San Francisco. New-York: Carleton, No. 413 Broadway. Boston: Crosby and Nichols. 1862.

Since every one is doing their 'little utmost' for the army, Mr. Scott hath contributed his mite in a work on the four captains of hundreds mentioned in the Bible—the first whereof was he of Capernaum; the second, the one commanding at the crucifixion; the third, that of Cesarea; and the fourth, Julius, the centurion who had Paul in charge during his voyage to Rome. We are glad to learn, from the close researches and critical acumen of Rev. Mr. Scott, that there is very good ground for concluding that all of these centurions were so impressed by the thrilling scenes which they witnessed, and the society with which they mingled, as to have eventually been converted and saved, a consummation which may possibly have escaped the observation of most readers, who, absorbed in their contemplation of the great dramatis personae, seldom give thought as to what the effect on the minor characters must have been. It is worth observing that our author is thoroughly earnest in his exhortations—at times almost naively so. If he be often rather over-inclined to threaten grim damnation to an alarming majority, and describe with a relish the eternal horrors which hang around the second death, in good old-fashioned style, still we must remember that he sincerely means what he says, and is a Puritan of the ancient stamp.



EDITOR'S TABLE.

There is something intensely American in such phrases as 'manifest destiny,' 'mission,' and 'call,' and we may add, something very vigorous may be found in the character of him who uses them. They are expressions which admit no alternative, no second possibility. The man of a 'mission,' or of a 'manifest destiny,' may be a fanatic, but he will be no flincher; he will strive to the bitter end, and fall dead in the traces; but he will succeed.

We are glad to learn that there is growing up in the army, and of course from it in all the homes of the whole country, a fixed impression that the South is inevitably destined to be 'Northed' or 'free-labored,' as the result of this war. The intelligent farmer in the ranks, who has learned his superiority to 'Secesh,' as a soldier, and who knows himself to be superior to any Southern in all matters of information and practical creative power, looks with scorn at the worn-out fields, wasteful agriculture, and general shiftlessness of the natives, and says, with a contemptuous laugh: 'We will get better crops out of the land, and manage it in another fashion, when we settle down here.' Not less scornfully does the mechanic look down on the clumsy, labor-wasting contrivances of the negro or negro-stupified white man, and agree with his mate that 'these people will never be of much account until we take them in hand.'

Master-mechanic, master-farmer, you are right. These people are your inferiors; with all their boasts and brags of 'culture,' you could teach them, by your shrewder intelligence, at a glance, the short cut to almost any thing at which their intellects might be employed; and you indulge in a very natural feeling, when, as conquerors, in glancing over their Canaan, you involuntarily plan what you will do some day, if a farm should by chance be your share of the bounty-money, when the war is over. For it is absurd to suppose that such a country will continue forever a prey to the wasting and exhaustive disease of the plantation-system, or that the black will always, as at present, inefficiently and awkwardly fulfill those mechanic labors which a keen white workman can better manage. Wherever the hand of the Northman touches, in these times, it shows a superior touch, whether in improvising a six-action cotton-gin, in repairing locomotives, or in sarcastically seizing a 'Secesh' newspaper and reediting it with a storm of fun and piquancy such as its doleful columns never witnessed of old. In this and in a thousand ways, the Northern soldier realizes that he is in a land of inferiors, and a very rich land at that. At this point, his speculations on manifest destiny may very appropriately begin. There is no harm in suffering this idea to take firm hold. Like ultimate emancipation, it may be assumed as a fact, all to be determined in due time, according to the progress of events, as wisely laid down by President Lincoln, without hurry, without feverish haste, simply guided by the firm determination that eventually it must be.

We can not insist too strongly on this great truth, that when a nation makes up its mind that a certain event must take place, and acts calmly in the spirit of perfect persuasion, very little is really needed to hasten the wished-for consummation. Events suddenly spring up to aid, and in due time all is accomplished. Those who strive to hurry it retard it, those who work to drag it back hasten it. Never yet on earth was a real conviction crushed or prematurely realized. So it is, so it will be with this 'Northing' of the South. Let the country simply familiarize itself with the idea, and the idea will advance as rapidly as need be. In it lies the only solution of the great problem of reconciling the South and the North; the sooner we make up our minds to the fact, the better; and, on the other hand, the more deliberately and calmly we proceed to the work, the more certain will its accomplishment be. Events are now working to aid us with tremendous power and rapidity—faith, a judicious guiding of the current as it runs, is all that is at present required to insure a happy fulfillment.

* * * * *

The degree to which a vindictive and malignant opposition to every thing for the sake of 'the party' can be carried, has been well illustrated in the amount and variety of slander which has been heaped by the Southern-rights, sympathizing Democratic press on the efforts of those noble-hearted women who have endeavored to do something to alleviate the condition of the thousands of contrabands, who are many without clothes, employment, or the slightest idea of what they are to do. It would be hard to imagine any thing more harmless or more perfectly free from any thing like sinister or selfish motives than have been the conduct and motives of the noble women who have assumed this mission. Florence Nightingale undertook nothing nobler; and the world will some day recognize the deserts of those who strove against every obstacle to relieve the sufferings and enlighten the ignorance of the blacks—among whom were thousands of women and little children. Such being the literal truth, what does the reader think of such a paragraph as the following, which we find going the rounds of the Boston Courier and other journals of the same political faith?

'On dit, that some of the schoolmarms who went to South-Carolina several weeks ago, are not so intent upon 'teaching the young ideas how to shoot,' as upon flirting with the officers, in a manner not entirely consistent with morality. General Hunter is going to send some of the misbehaving misses home.'

If there is a loathsome, cowardly, infamous phrase, it is that of on dit, 'they say,' 'it is said,' when used to assail the virtue of women—above all, of women engaged in such a cause as that in question. We believe in our heart, this whole story to be a slander of the meanest description possible—a piece of as dirty innuendo as ever disgraced a Democratic paper. The spirit of the viper is apparent in every line of it. Yet it is in perfect keeping with the storm of abuse and falsehood which has been heaped on these 'contraband' missionaries, teachers, and nurses, since they went their way. They have been accused of pilfering, of lying, of doing nothing, of corrupting the blacks, of going out only to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the unfailing resort of the lying coward—a dirty hint as to breaking the seventh commandment—all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of, 'Calumniare fortiter aliquis koerebit'—'Slander boldly, something will be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of degradation—to the hinting away the characters of young ladies because they try to teach the poor contrabands—can men descend 'for the sake of the party'!

* * * * *

Of late years, those soundest of philanthropists, the men of common-sense who labor unweariedly to facilitate exchanges between civilized nations, have endeavored to promote in every possible manner the adoption of the same system of currency, weights and measures among civilized nations. It has been accepted as a rule beyond all debate, that if such mediums of business could be adopted—nay, if a common language even were in use, industry would receive an incalculable impulse, and the production of capital be enormously increased.

Not so, however, thinks John M. Vernon, of New-Orleans, who, stimulated by the purest secession sentiments, and urged by the most legitimate secession and 'State rights' logic, has developed a new principle of exclusiveness by devising a new system of decimal currency, which he thus recommends to the rebel Congress:

'We are a separate and distinct people, influenced by different interests and sentiments from the vandals who would subjugate us. Our manners and customs are different; our tastes and talents are different; our geographical position is different; and in conformity with natural laws, nature and instinct, our currency,—weights and measures, should be different.

'The basis of integral limit of value proposed for our currency, is the star, which is to be divided into one hundred equal parts, each part to be called a centime, namely: 10 centimes—1 tropic; 10 tropics—1 star; 10 stars—1 sol.

'These denominations for our currency have been selected for three reasons: first, they are appropriate to ourselves as a people; second, they are emblems of cheerfulness, honor, honesty of purpose, solidity, and stability; and third, the words used are simple, easily remembered, and are common to several languages. I will, in addition, observe that similar characteristics distinguish the proposed tables of weights and measures.'

'Stars'—'centimes'—'tropics,' and 'sols.' Why these words should be more significant of cheerfulness, honor, honesty, and solidity, than dollars and dimes, cents and mills, is not, as yet, apparent. As set forth in this recommendation, it would really appear that the root of all evil would have its evil properties extracted by giving the radical a different name. To be sure, the wages of sin thus far in the world's history, have generally been found equivalent to death, whether they are termed guineas, francs, thalers, cobangs, pesos, sequins, ducats, or dollars. But in Dixie—happy Dixie!—they only need another name, and lo! a miracle is to be wrought at once.

There is something in this whole proposition which accurately embodies the whole Southern policy. While the rest of the world is working to assimilate into civilization, they are laboring to get away and apart—to be different from everybody else—to remain provincial and 'peculiar.' It is the working of the same spirit which inspires the desire to substitute 'State rights' or individual will, or, in plain terms, lawlessness and barbarism for enlightenment and common rights. It is a craving for darkness instead of light, for antiquated feudal falsehood instead of republican truth; and it will meet with the destiny which awaits every struggle against the great and holy cause of humanity.



KYNG COTEN.

A 'DARK' CONCEIT.

(Being an ensample of a longe poeme.)

O muse! that did me somedeal favour erst, Whereas I piped my silly oaten reede, And songs in homely guise to mine reherst, Well pleased with maiden's smilings for my meed; Sweet muse, do give my Pegasus good speede, And send to him of thy high, potent might, Whiles mortalls I all of my theme do rede, Thatte is the story of a doughty knight, Who eftsoons wageth war, Kyng COTEN is he hight.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race, Though black it was, as records sothly tell; But thatte is nought, which only is the face, And ne the hart, where alle goode beings dwell; For witness him the puissant Hannibal, Who was in veray sooth a Black-a-Moor; And Cleopatra, Egypt's darksome belle, And others, great on earth, a hundred score; Howbeit, ilke kyng was white, which doth amaze me sore.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race, As born of fathers clean as many as The sands thatte doe the mighty sea-shore grace, But black, as sayde, as dark is Erebus. His rule the Southron Federation was, Thatte was a part of great Columbia, Which was as fayre a clyme as man mote pass; And situate where Vesper holds his swaye, But habited wilome by men of salvage fray.

Farre in the North he had an enimie, Who certes was the knight's true soveraine, Who liked not his wicked slaverie, Which 'cross God's will was counter-wisely laine, Whiles he himself, it seemeth now right playne, Did seek to have a kyngdom of his kynde, Where he, as tyrant-like, mote lonly raine; So to a treacherie he fetched his mynde, Which soon was rent in four, and sent upon each wynde.

His enimie thatte liveth in the North, Who, after all, was not his enimie, Ydeemed he was a gentilman of worth, Too proud to make so vile a villianie, And, therefore, did ne tent his railerie, But went his ways, as was his wont wilome; Goliah, he turned out eftsoons, ah! me, Who leaned upon his speare when David come, And laughed to scorn the sillie boy his threat'ning doom.

But when his stronghold in ye Southron land, Of formidable front, Forte Sumter hight, Did fall into Kyng Coten's rebell hand, Who coward-wise did challenge to the fight, Some several men again his host of might; Then Samuel, for so was he yclipt, Begun in batail's gear himself to dight, As being fooled by him with whom he sippt, And hied him out, loud crying, 'Treason must be nippt!'

O ye who doe the crusades' musters tell, In wise that maketh myndes incredulous, And paynte how like Dan Neptune's sweeping swell The North bore down on the perfidious! Ne nigh so potent thatte as was with us; Where men, like locusts, darkened all the land, As marched they toward the place that's treacherous, And shippes, that eke did follow the command, Like forests, motion-got, doe walk along the strand.

Fierce battails ther were fought upon the ground, Thatte rob'd the heavens alle in ayer dunne; And shoke the world as doth the thunder's sound, Till, soth to say, it well-nigh was undone: But of them alle, ther is an one That frayle pen dispairs for to descrive, Which mortalls call the Battail of Bull Run; But why I mote ne tell, as I'm alive, Unless it haply he ther running did most thrive.

LAWRENCE MINOT.



'Our Orientalist' appears this month with

EGYPT IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.

BY A FAST TRAVELER.

'You ought to go to the East,' said Mr. Swift, with a wave of his hand; 'I've been there, and seen it under peculiar circumstances.'

'Explain, O howaga! Give us the facts.

'Immediately. Just place the punch-pitcher where I can reach it easily. That's right! Light another Cabanas. So; now for it. In 1858, month of December, I was settled in comfortable quarters in the Santa Lucia, Naples, and fully expected to winter there at my ease, when, to my disgust, I received letters from England, briefly ordering me by first steamer to Alexandria, thence per railroad to Cairo, there to see the head of a certain banking-house; transact my business, and return to Naples with all possible dispatch. No sooner said than done; there was one of the Messagerie steamers up for Malta next day; got my passport visaed, secured berth, all right. Next night I was steaming it past Stromboli, next morning in Messina; then Malta, where I found steamer up for Alexandria that night; in four days was off that port, at six o'clock in the morning, and at half-past eight o'clock was in the cars, landing in Cairo at four o'clock in the afternoon. Posted from the railroad-station to the banker's, saw my man, arranged my business, was to receive instructions at seven o'clock the next morning, and at eight o'clock take the return train to Alexandria, where a steamer was to sail next day, that would carry me back to Naples, presto! as the jugglers say.

'There, breathe a little, and take another glass of punch, while I recall my day in the East.

'Through at the banker's, he recommended me to the Hotel ——, where I would find a good table, clean rooms, and none of my English compatriots. I love my native land and my countrymen in it, but as for them out of it, and as Bohemians—ugh! I am too much of a wolf myself to love wolves. Arrived at the hotel, with my head swimming with palm-trees, railroad, turbans, tarbooshes, veiled women, camels, pipes, dust, donkeys, oceans of blue calico, groaning water-wheels, the Nile, far-off view of the Pyramids, etc., I at once asked the headwaiter for a room, water, towels; he passed me into the hands of a very tall Berber answering to the name of Yusef, who was dressed in flowing garments and tarboosh, and who was one of the gentlest beings entitled to wear breeches I have ever seen; he had feet that in my recollection seem a yard long, and how he managed to move so noiselessly, unless both pedals were soft-shod, worries me to the present time. Well, at six o'clock the gong sounded for dinner, and out I went over marble floors to the dining hall, where I found only three other guests, who saluted me courteously when I entered, and at a signal from Yusef, a compromise between a bow and a salaam, we seated ourselves at table. Of the three guests, one was particularly a marked man, apart from his costume, that of a cavalry officer in the Pacha's service; there was something grand in his face, large blue eyes, full of humor and bonhommie, a prominent nose, a broad forehead, burned brown with the sun, his head covered with the omnipresent tarboosh, a mustache like Cartouche's; such was my vis-a-vis at the hotel-table.

'In conversation with this officer, it turned up that one of my most intimate friends was his cousin, and so we had a bottle of old East-India pale sherry over that; then we had another to finally cement our acquaintance; I said finally—I should say, finally for dinner.

'I have seen the interiors of more than three hundred hotels in Europe, Africa, and America; but I have yet to see one that appeared so outrageously romantic as that of the Hotel ——, at Cairo, after that second bottle of sherry! The divans on which we reposed, the curious interlacing of the figures on the ceiling, the raised marble floor at the end of the room overlooking the street, the arabesques on the doors, and finally the never-ending masquerade-ball going on in the street under the divans where we sat and smoked.

'I can't tell you how it happened, but after very small cups of very black coffee and a pousse cafe, in the officer's room, of genuine kirschwasser and good curacoa, I was mounted on a bay horse; there was a dapple-gray alongside of me; and running ahead of us, to clear the way, the officer's sais afoot, ready to hold our horses when we halted. We were quickly mounted and off like the wind, past turbans, flowing bournouses, tarbooshes, past grand old mosques, petty cafes, where the faithful were squatting on bamboo-seats, smoking pipes or drinking coffee-grounds, while listening to a storyteller, possibly relating some story in the Arabian Nights; then we were through the bazaars, all closed now and silent; then up in the citadel, and through the mosque of Yusef; then down and scouring over the flying sand among the grand old tombs of the Mamelukes and of the caliphs; then off at break-neck speed toward the Mokatamma mountains, from a rise on the lower spur of one of which we saw, in the shadow of the coming night, the Pyramids and the slow-flowing Nile.

'Again we were in Cairo, and now threading narrow street after street, the fall of our horses' hoofs hardly heard on the unpaved ways, as we were passing under overhanging balconies covered with lace-work lattices. As it grew darker, our sais preceded us with lighted lantern, shouting to pedestrians, blind and halt, to clear the road for the coming effendis.

'Halte la!

'My foaming bay was reined in with a strong hand, I leaped from the saddle, and found the sais at hand to hold our horses, while we saw the seventh heaven of the Koran, and by no means al Hotama.

'With a foresight indicating an old campaigner, the officer produced a couple of bottles of sherry from the capacious folds of the sais' mantle, and unlocking the door of the house in front of which we stood, invited me to enter. Two or three turns, a court-yard full of rose-bushes, and an enormous palm-tree, a fountain shooting up its sparkling waters in the moonlight, a clapping of hands, chibouks, sherry cooled in the fountain.

'Then, in the moonlight, the gleam of white flowing garments, the nervous thrill breathed in from perfumes filling the evening air; the great swimming eyes; the kiss; the ah!—other bottles of sherry. The fingans of coffee, the pipe of Latakiah tobacco, the blowing a cloud into dreamland, while Fatima or Zoe insists on taking a puff with you.

'But as she said, 'Hathih al-kissah moaththirah, which, in the vernacular, is. 'This history is affecting,' so let us pass it by. We finished those two bottles of sherry, and if Mohammed, in his majesty, refuses admittance to two Peris into paradise, because they drank sherry that night, let the sins be on our shoulders, WE are to blame.

* * * * *

'Next morning, at seven o'clock, I was at the banker's, and received his orders, and at six o'clock that evening was steaming out of Alexandria, bound to Naples via Malta. A little over twenty-four hours, and I had SEEN THE ORIENT THROUGH SHERRY—pale, golden, and serenely beautiful!

'Pass the punch.'

* * * * *

Very welcome is our pleasant contributor—he who of late discoursed on 'honeyed thefts' and rural religious discipline—and now, in the present letter, he gives us his views on meals, feeds, banquets, symposia, or by whatever name the reader may choose to designate assemblies for the purpose of eating.

Please make room at this table, right here, for me. Surely at a table of such dimensions, there should be plenty of room. Many a table-scene do I now recall, in days gone by, 'all of which I saw, and part of which I was,' but nothing like this. Tables of all sorts and sizes, but never a CONTINENTAL table before. I suppose the nearest approach to it was the picnic dinner the wee youngsters used to eat off the ground! A CONTINENTAL table! The most hospitable idea imaginable. Give place! Do you demand my credentials, my card, my ticket? Here we have it all; a little note from mine host, Mr. LELAND, inviting the bearer to this monthly repast, and requesting, very properly—it was the way we always did, when we used to get up picnics—that the receiver of the note bring some sort of refreshments along. Thank you. This seat is very comfortable. What more appropriate, at such a time, than the discussion of the Meal?

I protest I am no glutton; in fact, I despise the man whose meal-times are the epochs of his life; yet I frankly confess to emotions of a very positive character, in contemplating the associations of the table, and I admit farther, that I take pleasure in the reality as well as in the imagination. I like to be 'one of the company,' whether in palace or in farm-house. I always brighten up when I see the dining-room door thrown open to an angle hospitably obtuse, and am pleased alike with the politely-worded request, 'Will the ladies and gentlemen please walk out and partake of some refreshments?' or the blunt, kindly voice of mine host, 'Come, friends; dinner's ready.' Still I assert my freedom from any slavish fondness for the creature comforts. It is not the bill of fare that so pleases me. In fact, some of the best meals of which I have ever partaken, were those the materials of which I could not have remembered twenty minutes after. Exquisite palatal pleasures, then, are not a sine qua non in the enjoyment of table comforts. No, indeed. There is a condiment which is calculated to impart a high relish to the humblest fare; but without this charmed seasoning, every banquet is a failure. Solomon was a man of nice observation, even in so humble a matter as a meal. Let him reveal the secret in his own words: 'Better is a dinner of herbs, where LOVE is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'

By a merciful arrangement of Providence, man is so constituted that he may think, talk, and eat, all at one and the same time. Hence, the table is often the scene of animated and very interesting conversations, provided love is there. Many of our Saviour's most interesting and instructive discourses were delivered while 'sitting at meat,' and the 'table-talk' of some authors is decidedly the most meritorious of all their performances.

But the truth is, there are not many meals where love is entirely absent. Cheerfulness is naturally connected with eating; eating begets it probably. It is difficult for a man to eat at all, if he is in a bad humor. Quite impossible, if he is in a rage; especially if he is obliged to sit down to his dinner in company with the man he hates. There are so many little kind offices that guests must perform for each other at table, so many delicate compliments may be paid to those we love or revere, by polite attentions to them, and so necessary, indeed, have these become to our notion of a satisfactory repast, that to banish such amiable usages from our tables would be not only to degrade us to the level of the brute, but would deprive us of a most humanising and refining means of enjoyment. How beautiful and necessary, then, is the arrangement by which, morning, noon, and night, (I pity folks who only eat twice a day,) the members of the household are brought together in such kindly intercourse around the family board! How seldom would they assemble thus pleasantly, were it not for the meal!

The little wounds and scratches which the sharp edges of our characters will inflict upon each other, when brought together in the necessary contact of daily intercourse, would otherwise be suffered to fret and vex us sorely; but before they have had time to fester and inflame, meal-time comes, and brings with it the magic, mollifying oil.

It is meet, then, (we spell the word with two e's, mind you,) that, on any occasion of public rejoicing, the banquet should be an indispensable accompaniment. The accomplishment of some important public enterprise, the celebration of the birth-days of great and good men, a nation's holidays, the reuenions of friends engaged in a common cause, are occasions in which the dinner, very properly, constitutes one of the leading features.

And what can be more exhilarating than the innocent mirthfulness, the unaffected kindnesses, the witty speeches, the sprightly conversations which are universally incident to such occasions? No wonder Lycurgus decreed that the Spartans should eat in public. Ostensibly, it was for the sake of the grave conversations of the elders at such times, but really, I imagine, it was to keep the citizens (who had been at swords' points with each other) in a good humor, by bringing them around a common table.

He knew that if any thing would soften their mutual asperities and cultivate mutual good feeling, such a measure would. Would it not be well for modern times to take a hint here? Had I been appointed architect of the Capitol, I think I could have saved the feuds which long ago sprang up, and which have resulted in, and will yet bring about, alas! we know not how much bloodshed. I would have constructed a couple of immense dining-rooms, with all the necessary appurtenances. Just to think how different would have been the aspect of things in the chamber where Sumner once lay bleeding, and in the hall where a gentleman, in a melee, 'stubbed his toe and fell!' There would have been Mr. Breckinridge, in a canopied seat at the head of one of the tables, rapping the Senate to order with his knife-handle, and Mr. Orr at the head of the other, uncovering an immense tureen, with the remark that 'the House will now proceed to business!' How strange it would be to hear any angry debate at such a time! Imagine a Congressman helping himself to a batter-cake and at the same time calling his brother-member a liar! or throwing down his napkin, by way of challenge to 'the gentleman on the opposite side of the table!' Think of Keitt politely handing Grow the cream-pitcher, and attempting to knock him down before the meal was dispatched. Had the discussion of the Lecompton Constitution been carried on simultaneously with that of a couple of dozen roast turkeys, I sometimes think we might have avoided this war.

Not only in public but in private rejoicings, is the table the scene of chief enjoyment. When was it that the fatted calf was killed? On what occasion was the water turned into wine? What better way to rejoice over the return of a long-absent one than to meet him around the hospitable table? Ye gods! let your mouths water! There's a feast ahead for our brave soldiers, when they come home from this war, that will make your tables look beggarly. I refer to that auspicious moment when the patriot now baring his bosom to the bloody brunt of war, shall sit down once more to the table, in his own dear home, however humble, and partake of the cheerful meal in peace, with his wife and his little ones about him. Oh! for the luxury of that first meal! I almost feel as if I could endure the hardships of the fierce campaign that precedes it.

There is no memory so pleasant to me as that of the annual reuenion of my aunts and uncles, with their respective troops of cousins, at the house of my dear grandmother of blessed memory. It was pleasant to watch the conveyances one by one coming in, laden with friends who had traveled many a weary mile to be present on the great occasion. It was pleasant to witness the mutual recognitions of brothers and sisters with their respective wives and husbands; to observe the transports of the little fellows, in their hearty greetings, after a twelve months' separation, and to hear their expressions of mingled surprise and delight on being introduced to the strange little cousins, whose presence increased the number considerably above the preceding census. But the culminating point was yet to come. That was attained when all the brothers and sisters had gathered around the great long table, just as they did when they were children, with their dear mother at the head, surveying the scene in quiet enjoyment, and one of the 'older boys' at the foot, to ask a blessing. There were the waffle-cakes, baked in the irons which had furnished every cake for that table for the last quarter of a century. There was the roast-turkey, which grandma had been putting through a generous system of dietetics for weeks, preparatory to this occasion. It rested on the same old turkey-plate, with its two great birds sitting on a rose-bush, and by its side was the great old carving-knife, which had from time immemorial been the instrument of dissection on such occasions. And there was maple-molasses from Uncle D——'s 'sugar-camp,' and cheese from Aunt N——'s press, and honey from Uncle T——'s hives, and oranges which Aunt I——, who lived in the city, had provided, and all contained in the old-fashioned plates and dishes of a preceding generation.

I discover I am treating my subject in a very desultory manner. Perhaps I should have stated that under the head of the complete genus, meal, there are three distinct species, public, social, and private. That the grand banquet, celebrating some great man's birth, or the success of some noble public enterprise, with its assemblages of the great and the good from every part of the country; the Fourth of July festival, in honor of our nation's independence, with its speeches, its drums, its toasts, and its cannon; the 'table d'hote,' or in plain English, the hotel dinner-table, so remarkable for the multitude of its dishes and the meagreness of their contents; the harvest-feast, the exact opposite of the last-named, even to the mellow thirds and fifths that come floating over the valleys from the old-fashioned dinner-horn, calling in the tired laborers; its musical invitation in such striking contrast with the unimagined horrors of the gong that bellows its expectant victims to their meals; the family repast, where one so often feels gratified with the delicate compliment of a mother, a sister, or a wife, in placing some favorite dish or flower near his plate; the annual gatherings of jolly alumni; the delightful concourse of relatives and friends; the gleesome picnic lunch, with its grassy carpet and log seats; the luxurious oyster-supper, with its temptations 'to carry the thing too far;' the festival at the donation-party, which, in common parlance, would be called a dish of 'all sorts;' the self-boarding student's desolate corn-cake, baked in a pan of multifarious use: all these are so many modifications under their respective species.

Let me remark, in conclusion, that there are some meals from which I pray to be delivered. There is the noisy dinner of the country-town tavern or railroad station, where each individual seems particularly anxious that number one should be provided for, and where, in truth, he is obliged often to make pretty vigorous efforts, if he succeeds. Again, have you ever observed how gloomy is the look of those who for the first time gather around the table, after the departure of a friend? The breakfast was earlier than usual, and the dishes were suffered to stand and the beds to go unmade, and housemaid, chamber-maid, cook, and seamstress, all engaged in the melee of packing up, and of course came in for their share of 'good-bys.' After the guests were fairly off, 'things took a stand-still' for a while. All hands sat down and rested, and looked very blank, and didn't know just where to begin. Slowly, confusion began to relax his hold, and order, by degrees, resumed her sway; (for the life of me, I can't bring myself to determine the genders in any other way.) But when, at last, the dinner-hour came, how strangely silent were the eaters! Ah! if the departed one have gone to his long home, how solemn is this first meeting of the family, after their return to their lonely home! It may be the sire whose place at the head of the table is now vacant, and whose silvery voice we no longer hear humbly invoking the divine blessing; or perhaps the mother, and how studiously we keep our eye away from the seat where her generous hand was wont to pour our tea. Perhaps the little one, the idol of the household, whose chirruping voice was wont to set us all laughing with droll remarks, expressed in baby dialect. How we miss the little high-chair that was always drawn up 'close by papa!' How our eyes will swim and our hearts swell up and choke us when we see it pushed back into the corner, now silent and vacant! Hast thou not wept thus? Be grateful. Thou hast been spared one of life's keenest pangs.

Thou speakest well. Dr. Doran has pleased us with his Table Traits, but a great book yet remains to be written on the social power of meals. The immortals were never so lordly as when assembled at the celestial table, where inextinguishable laughter went the rounds with the nectar. The heroes of Valhalla were most glorious over the ever-growing roast-boar and never-failing mead. Heine suggests a millennial banquet of all nations, where the French are to have the place of honor, for their improvements in freedom and in cookery, and Master Rabelais could imagine nothing more genial than when in the Moyen de Parvenir, he placed all the gay, gallant, wise, brave, genial, joyous dames and demoiselles, knights, and scholars of all ages at one eternal supper. Ah! yes; it matters but little what is 'gatherounded,' as a quaint Americanism hath it, so that the wit, and smiles, and good-fellowship be there.

* * * * *

It is stated in the newspapers—we know not on what authority—that Charles A. Dana, late of the New-York Tribune, will probably receive an important appointment in the army. A man of iron will, of indomitable energy, undoubted courage, and of an inexhaustible genius, which displays itself by mastering every subject as by intuition, Dana is one whom, of all others, we would wish to see actively employed in the war. We have described him in by-gone days as one who was 'an editor by destiny and a soldier by nature,' and sincerely trust that his career will yet happily confer upon him military honors. No man in America—we speak advisedly—has labored more assiduously, or with more sterling honest conviction in politics, than Charles A. Dana. The influence which he has exerted has been immense, and it is fit that it be recognized. Men who, like him, combine stern integrity with vigorous practical talent, have a claim to lead.

* * * * *

Among the most striking songs which the war has brought forth, we must class that grim Puritanical lyric, 'The Kansas John Brown,' which appeared originally in the Kansas Herald, and which is, as we are informed, extensively sung in the army. The words are as follows:

THE KANSAS JOHN BROWN SONG.

Old John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, While the bondmen all are weeping whom he ventured for to save; But though he lost his life a-fighting for the slave, His soul is marching on. Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! His soul is marching on.

John Brown was a hero undaunted, true and brave, And Kansas knew his valor when he fought her rights to save; And now, though the grass grows green above his grave, His soul is marching on.

He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so few, And frightened Old Virginia till she trembled through and through; They hung him for a traitor—themselves a traitor crew, But his soul is marching on.

John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see; CHRIST, who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be; And soon through all the South the slaves shall all be free, For his soul goes marching on.

John Brown he was a soldier—a soldier of the LORD; John Brown he was a martyr—a martyr to the WORD; And he made the gallows holy when he perished by the cord, For his soul goes marching on.

The battle that John Brown begun, he looks from heaven to view, On the army of the Union with its flag, red, white and blue; And the angels shall sing hymns o'er the deeds we mean to do, As we go marching on!

Ye soldiers of JESUS, then strike it while you may, The death-blow of Oppression in a better time and way, For the dawn of Old John Brown is a-brightening into day, And his soul is marching on. Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! His soul is marching on.

There! if the soldiers of Cromwell and of Ireton had any lyric to beat that, we should like to see it. Among its rough and rude rhymes gleams out a fierce fire which we supposed was long since extinct. Verily, old Father Puritan is not dead yet, neither does he sleep; and to judge from what we have heard of the effects of this song among the soldiers, we should say that grim Old John Brown himself, far from perishing, is even now terribly alive. There is something fearful in the inspiration which can inspire songs like this.

* * * * *

'GALLI VAN T' is welcome, and will be 'welcomer' when he again visits us in another letter like this:

DEAR CONTINENTAL: I have a friend who is not an artful man, though he be full of art; and yesterday evening he told me the following:

'In my early days, when I took views of burly farmers and their bouncing daughters in oil, and painted portraits of their favorite horses for a very moderate honorarium, and in short, was the artist of a small country town—why, then, to tell the truth, I was held to be one of the greatest painters in existence. Since studying abroad, and settling down in New-York—'

'And getting your name up among the first,' I added.

'Never mind that—I'm not 'the greatest painter that ever lived' here. But in Spodunk, I was. Folks 'admired to see me.' I was a man that 'had got talent into him,' and the village damsels invited me to tea. There were occasional drawbacks, to be sure. One day a man who had heard that I had painted Doctor Hewls's house, called and asked me what I would charge to paint his little 'humsted.' I offered to do it for twenty dollars.

'He gave me a shrewd gimlet-look and said:

'Find your own paint—o' course?'

''Of course,' I replied.

''What color?'

''Why, the same color you now have,' was my astonished answer.

''Wall, I don't know. My wife kind o' thinks that turtle-color would suit our house better than Spanish brown. You put on two coats, of course?'

'I now saw what he meant, and roaring with laughter, explained to him that there was a difference between a painter of houses and a house-painter.

'One morning I was interrupted by a grim, Herculean, stern-looking young fellow—one who was manifestly a man of facts—who, with a brief introduction of himself, asked if I could teach 'the pictur business.' I signified my assent, and while talking of terms, continued painting away at a landscape. I noticed that my visitor glanced at my work at first as if puzzled, and then with an air of contempt. Finally he inquired:

'''S that the way you make your pictures?'

''That is it,' I replied.

''Do you have to keep workin' it in, bit by bit, slow—like as a gal works woosted-patterns?'

''Yes, and sometimes much slower, to paint well.'

''How long 'll it take to learn your trade?'

''Well, if you've any genius for it, you may become a tolerable artist in two years.'

''Two—thunder! Why, a man could learn to make shoes, in that time!'

''Very likely. There is not one man in a hundred, who can make shoes, who would ever become even a middling sort of artist.'

''Darn paintin'!' was the reply of my visitor, as he took up his club to depart—his hat had not been removed during the whole of the visit. 'Darn paintin'! I thought you did the thing with stencils, and finished it up with a comb and a scraper. Mister, I don't want to hurt your feeling—but 'cordin' to my way o' thinkin', paintin' as you do it, an't a trade at all—it's nothin' but a darned despisable fine art!'

'And with this candid statement of his views, my lost pupil turned to go. I burst out laughing. He turned around squarely, and presenting an angry front not unlike that of a mad bull, inquired abruptly, as he glared at me:

''Maybe you'd like to paint my portrit?'

'I looked at him steadily in the eyes, as I gravely took up my spatula, (I knew he thought it some deadly kind of dagger,) and answered:

''I don't paint animals.

'He gave me a parting look, and 'abscondulated.' When I saw him last, he was among the City Fathers! GALLI VAN T.'

* * * * *

A SONG OF THE PRESENT.

BY EDWARD S. RAND, JR.

Not to the Past whose smouldering embers lie, Sad relics of the hopes we fondly nursed, Not to the moments that have hurried by, Whose joys and griefs are lived, the best, the worst.

Not to the Future, 'tis a realm where dwell Fair, misty ghosts, which fade as we draw near, Whose fair mirages coming hours dispel, A land whose hopes find no fruition here.

But to the Present: be it dark or bright, Stout-hearted greet it; turn its ill to good; Throw on its clouds a soul-reflected light; Its ills are blessings, rightly understood.

Prate not of failing hopes, of fading flowers; Whine not in melancholy, plaintive lays, Of joys departed, vanished sunny hours; A cheerful heart turns every thing to praise.

Clouds can not always lower, the sun must shine; Grief can not always last, joy's hour will come; Seize as you may, each sunbeam, make it thine, And make thy heart the sunshine's constant home.

Nor for thyself alone, a sunny smile Carries a magic nothing can withstand; A cheerful look may many a care beguile, And to the weary be a helping hand.

Be brave—clasp thy great sorrows in thy arms; Though eagle-like, they threat, with lifted crest, The dread, the terror which thy soul alarms, Shall turn a peaceful dove upon thy breast.

* * * * *

A STRANGE STORY—ITS SEQUEL.

PREFACE.

The often expressed wish of the American Press for an explanation of the meaning of 'A Strange Story,' shall be complied with. It is purely and simply this: Many novels, most of them, in fact, treat of the World; the rest may be divided into those vaguely attempting to describe the works of the Flesh and the Devil. This division of subjects is fatal to their force; there was need to write a novel embracing them all; therefore 'A Strange Story' was penned. Mrs. Colonel Poyntz personated the World, Doctor Fenwick the Flesh, and Margrave, alias Louis Grayle, certainly, I may be allowed to say, played the Devil with marked ability. To give a fitting morale to all, the character of Lilian Ashleigh was thrown in; the good genius, the conqueror of darkness, the positive of the electrical battery meeting the negative and eliciting sparks of triumphant light—such was the heroine.

Man, conscious of a future life, and endowed with imagination, is not content with things material, especially if his brain is crowded with the thoughts of the brains of ten thousand dead authors, and his nervous system is over-tasked and over-excited. In this condition he rushes away—away from cool, pure, and lovely feature—burying himself in the hot, spicy, and gorgeous dreams of Art. He would adore Cagliostro, while he mocked Doctor Watts! Infatuated dreamer! Returning at last, by good chance—or, rather, let me say, by the directing hand of Providence—from his evil search of things tabooed, to admiration of the Real, the Tangible, and the True; he will show himself as Doctor Fenwick does in this sequel, a strong, sensible, family-man, with a clear head and no-nonsense about him.