The most striking evidence, in my opinion, that at times the whole mass of the glacier actually freezes, is drawn from the fact, already alluded to, that, while the surface of the glacier loses annually from nine to ten feet of its thickness by evaporation and melting, it swells, on the other hand, in the spring, to the amount of about five feet. Such a dilatation can hardly be the result of pressure and the packing of the snow and ice, since the difference in the bulk of the ice brought down, during one year, from a point above to that under observation, would not account for the swelling. It is more readily explained by the freezing of the water of infiltration during spring and early summer, when the infiltration is most copious and the winter cold has been accumulating for the longest time. This view of the case is sustained by Elie de Beaumont, who states his opinion upon this point as follows:—

"Pendant l'hiver, la temperature de la surface du glacier s'abaisse a un grand nombre de degres au-dessous de zero, et cette basse temperature penetre, quoique avec un affaiblissement graduel, dans l'interieur de la masse. Le glacier se fendille par l'effet de la contraction resultant de ce refroidissement. Les fentes restent d'abord vides, et concourent an refroidissement des glaciers en favorisant l'introduction de l'air froid exterieur; mais an printemps, lorsque les rayons du soleil echaffent la surface de la neige qui couvre le glacier, ils la remenent d'abord a zero, et ils produisent ensuite de l'eau a zero qui tombe dans le glacier refroidi et fendille. Cette eau s'y congele a l'instant, en laissant degager de la chaleur qui tend a ramener le glacier a zero; et la phenomene se continue jusqu'a ce que la masse entiere du glacier refroidi soit ramene a la temperature de zero."[H]

But where direct observations are still so scanty, and the interpretations of the facts so conflicting, it is the part of wisdom to be circumspect in forming opinions. This much, however, I believe to be already settled: that any theory which ascribes the very complicated phenomena of the glacier to one cause must be defective and one-sided. It seems to me most probable, that, while pressure has the larger share in producing the onward movement of the glacier, as well as in the transformation of the snow into ice, a careful analysis of all the facts will show that this pressure is owing partly to the weight of the mass itself, partly to the pushing on of the accumulated snow from behind, partly to its sliding along the surface upon which it rests, partly to the weight of water pervading the whole, partly to the softening of the rigid ice by the infiltration of water, and partly, also, to the dilatation of the mass, requiting from the freezing of this water. These causes, of course, modify the ice itself, while they contribute to the motion. Further investigations are required to ascertain in what proportion these different influences contribute to the general result, and at what time and under what circumstances they modify most directly the motion of the glacier.

That a glacier cannot be altogether compared to a river, although there is an unmistakable analogy between the flow of the one and the onward movement of the other, seems to me plain,—since the river, by the combination of its tributaries, goes on increasing in bulk in consequence of the incompressibility of water, while a glacier gradually thins out in consequence of the packing of its mass, however large and numerous may be its accessions. The analogy fails also in one important point, that of the acceleration of speed with the steepness of the slope. The motion of the glacier bears no such direct relation to the inclination of its bed. And though in a glacier, as in a river, the axis of swiftest motion is thrown alternately on one or the other side of the valley, according to its shape and slope, the very nature of ice makes it impossible that eddies should be formed in the glacier, and the impressive feature of whirlpools is altogether wanting in them. What have been called glacier-cascades bear only a remote resemblance to river-cascades, as in the former the surface only is thrown into confusion by breaking, without affecting the primitive structure;[I] and I reiterate my formerly expressed opinion that even the stratification of the upper regions is still recognizable at the lower end of the glacier of the Rhone.

The internal structure of the glacier has already led me beyond the limits I had proposed to myself in the present article. But I trust my readers will not be discouraged by this dry discussion of various theories concerning it, and will meet me again on the glacier, when we will examine together some of its more picturesque features, its crevasses, its rivulets and cascades, its moraines, its boulders, etc., and endeavor also to track its ancient course and boundaries in earlier geological times.

* * * * *

IN AN ATTIC.

This is my attic-room. Sit down, my friend; My swallow's-nest is high and hard to gain; The stairs are long and steep, but at the end The rest repays the pain.

For here are peace and freedom; room for speech Or silence, as may suit a changeful mood;— Society's hard by-laws do not reach This lofty altitude.

You hapless dwellers in the lower rooms See only bricks and sand and windowed walls; But here, above the dust and smoky glooms, Heaven's light unhindered falls.

So early in the street the shadows creep, Your night begins while yet my eyes behold The purpling hills, the wide horizon's sweep, Flooded with sunset gold.

The day comes earlier here. At morn I see Along the roofs the eldest sunbeam peep,— I live in daylight, limitless and free, While you are lost in sleep.

I catch the rustle of the maple-leaves, I see their breathing branches rise and fall, And hear, from their high perch along the eaves, The bright-necked pigeons call.

Far from the parlors with their garrulous crowds I dwell alone, with little need of words; I have mute friendships with the stars and clouds, And love-trysts with the birds.

So all who walk steep ways, in grief and night, Where every step is full of toil and pain, May see, when they have gained the sharpest height, It has not been in vain:

Since they have left behind the noise and heat,— And, though their eyes drop tears, their sight is clear; The air is purer, and the breeze is sweet, And the blue heaven more near.

* * * * *

LONGFELLOW.

The preface of "Outre-Mer," Longfellow's first book, is dated 1833. The last poem in his last volume is published in 1863. In those thirty years what wide renown, what literary achievement, what love of friends in many lands, what abounding success and triumph, what profound sorrow, mark the poet's career! The young scholar, returning from that European tour which to the imaginative and educated American is the great romance, sits down in Bowdoin College in Maine, where he is Professor, and writes the "Epistle Dedicatory" to the "worthy and gentle reader." Those two phrases tell the tale. The instinct of genius and literary power stirring in the heart of the young man naturally takes the quaint, dainty expression of an experience fed, thus far, only upon good old books and his own imagination. The frolicking tone of mock humility, deprecating the intrusion upon the time of a busy world, does not conceal the conviction that the welcome so airily asked by the tyro will at last be commanded by the master.

Like the "Sketch-Book" of the other most popular of our authors, Irving, the "Outre-Mer" of Longfellow is a series of tales, reveries, descriptions, reminiscences, and character-pieces, suggested by European travel. But his beat lies in France, Spain, and Italy. It is the romance of the Continent, and not that of England, which inspires him. It is the ruddy light upon the vines and the scraps of old chansons which enliven and decorate his pilgrimage, and through all his literary life they have not lost their fascination. While Irving sketches "Rural Life in England," Longfellow paints "The Village of Auteuil"; Irving gives us "The Boar's Head Tavern," and Longfellow "The Golden Lion Inn" at Rouen; Irving draws "A Royal Poet," Longfellow discusses "The Trouveres," or "The Devotional Poetry of Spain." It is delightful to trace the charming resemblance between the books and the writers, widely different as they are. There is the same geniality, the same tender pathos, the same lambent humor, the same delicate observation of details, the same overpowering instinct of literary art. But Geoffrey Crayon is a humorist, while the Pilgrim beyond the Sea is a poet. The one looks at the broad aspects of English life with the shrewd, twinkling eye of a man of the world; the other haunts the valley of the Loire, the German street, the Spanish inn, with the kindling fancy of the scholar and poet. The moral and emotional elements are quite wanting in Irving; they are characteristic of Longfellow. But the sweetness of soul, the freedom from cynicism or stinging satire, which is most unusual in American, or in any humorous or descriptive literature, is remarkable in both. "I have no wife, nor children, good or bad, to provide for," begins Geoffrey Crayon, quoting from old Burton. But neither had he an enemy against whom to defend himself. It was true of Geoffrey Crayon, down to the soft autumn day on which he died, leaving a people to mourn for him. It is true of the Pilgrim of Outre-Mer, in all the thirty years since first he launched forth "into the uncertain current of public favor."

In this earliest book of Longfellow's the notable points are not power of invention, or vigorous creation, or profound thought, but a mellowness of observation, instinctively selecting the picturesque and characteristic details, a copious and rich scholarship, and that indefinable grace of the imagination which announces genius. The work, like the "Sketch-Book," was originally issued in parts, and it was hardly possible for any observer thirty years ago not to see that its peculiar character revealed a new strain in our literature. Longfellow's poems as yet were very few, printed in literary journals, and not yet signalizing his genius. It was the day when Percival Halleck, Sprague, Dana, Willis, Bryant, were the undisputed lords of the American Parnassus. But the school reading-books already contained "An April Day" and "Woods in Winter," and all the verses of the young author had a recognition in volumes of elegant extracts and commonplace-books. But the universal popularity of Longfellow was not established until the publication of "Hyperion" in 1839, followed by "The Voices of the Night" in the next year. With these two works his name arose to the highest popularity, both in America and England; and no living author has been more perpetually reproduced in all forms and with every decoration.

If now we care to explain the eager and affectionate welcome which always hails his writings, it is easy to see to what general quality that greeting must be ascribed. As with Walter Scott, or Victor Hugo, or Beranger, or Dickens, or Addison in the "Spectator," or Washington Irving, it is a genial humanity. It is a quality, in all these instances, independent of literary art and of genius, but which is made known to others, and therefore becomes possible to be recognized, only through literary forms. The creative imagination, the airy fancy, the exquisite grace, harmony, and simplicity, the rhetorical brilliancy, the incisive force, all the intellectual powers and charms of style with which that feeling may be expressed, are informed and vitalized by the sympathy itself. But whether a man who writes verses has genius,—whether he be a poet according to arbitrary canons,—whether some of his lines resemble the lines of other writers,—and whether he be original, are questions which may be answered in every way of every poet in history. Who is a poet but he whom the heart of man permanently accepts as a singer of its own hopes, emotions, and thoughts? And what is poetry but that song? If words have a uniform meaning, it is useless to declare that Pope cannot be a poet, if Lord Byron is, or that Moore is counterfeit, if Wordsworth be genuine. For the art of poetry is like all other arts. The casket that Cellini worked is not less genuine and excellent than the dome of Michel Angelo. Is nobody but Shakspeare a poet? Is there no music but Beethoven's? Is there no mountain-peak but Dhawalaghiri? no cataract but Niagara?

Thirty years ago almost every critic in England exploded with laughter over the poetry of Tennyson. Yet his poetry has exactly the same characteristics now that it had then; and Tennyson has gone up to his place among English poets. It is not "Blackwood," nor any quarterly review or monthly magazine, (except, of course, the "North American" and the "Atlantic,") which can decree or deny fame. While the critics are busily proving that an author is a plagiarist or a pretender, the world is crowning him,—as the first ocean-steamer from England brought Dr. Lardner's essay to prove that steamers could not cross the ocean. Literary criticism, indeed, is a lost art, if it ever were an art. For there are no permanent acknowledged canons of literary excellence; and if there were any, there are none who can apply them. What critic shall decide if the song of a new singer be poetry, or the bard himself a poet? Consequently, modern criticism wisely contents itself with pointing out errors of fact or of inference, or the difference between the critic's and the author's philosophic or aesthetic view, and bitterly assaults or foolishly praises him. When Horace Binney Wallace, one of the most accomplished and subtile-minded of our writers, says of General Morris that he is "a great poet," and that "he who can understand Mr. Emerson may value Mr. Bancroft," we can feel only the more profoundly persuaded that fame is not the judgment of individuals, but of the mass of men, and that he whose song men love to hear is a poet.

But while the magnetism of Longfellow's touch lies in the broad humanity of his sympathy, which leads him neither to mysticism nor cynicism, and which commends his poetry to the universal heart, his artistic sense is so exquisite that each of his poems is a valuable literary study. In this he has now reached a perfection quite unrivalled among living poets, except sometimes by Tennyson. His literary career has been contemporary with the sensational school, but he has been entirely untainted by it, and in the present volume, "Tales of a Wayside Inn," his style has a tranquil lucidity which recalls Chaucer. The literary style of an intellectually introverted age or author will always be somewhat obscure, however gorgeous; but Longfellow's mind takes a simple, child-like hold of life, and his style never betrays the inadequate effort to describe thoughts or emotions that are but vaguely perceived, which is the characteristic of the best sensational writing. Indeed, there is little poetry by the eminent contemporary masters which is so ripe and racy as his. He does not make rhetoric stand for passion, nor vagueness for profundity; nor, on the other hand, is he such a voluntary and malicious "Bohemian" as to conceive that either in life or letters a man is released from the plain rules of morality. Indeed, he used to be accused of preaching in his poetry by gentle critics who held that Elysium was to be found in an oyster-cellar, and that intemperance was the royal prerogative of genius.

His literary scholarship, also, his delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all languages and times, must rank Longfellow among the learned poets. Yet he wears this various knowledge like a shining suit of chain-mail, to adorn and strengthen his gait, like Milton, instead of tripping and clumsily stumbling in it, as Ben Jonson sometimes did. He whips out an exquisitely pointed allusion that flashes like a Damascus rapier and strikes nimbly home, or he recounts some weird tradition, or enriches his line with some gorgeous illustration from hidden stores, or merely unrolls, as Milton loved to do, the vast perspective of romantic association by recounting in measured order names which themselves make music in the mind,—names not musical only, but fragrant:—

"Sabean odors from the spicy shore Of Araby the blest."

In the prelude to the "Wayside Inn," with how consummate a skill the poet graces his modern line with the shadowy charm of ancient verse, by the mere mention of the names!

"The chronicles of Charlemagne, Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure, Mingled together in his brain With talcs of Flores and Blanchefleur, Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour, Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain."

A most felicitous illustration of this trait is in "The Evening Star," an earlier poem. Chrysaor, in the old mythology, sprang from the blood of Medusa, armed with a golden sword, and married Callirrhoe, one of the Oceanides. The poet, looking at evening upon the sea, muses upon the long-drawn, quivering reflection of the evening star, and sings. How the verses oscillate like the swaying calm of the sea, while the image inevitably floats into the scholar's imagination:—

"Just above yon sandy bar, As the day grows fainter and dimmer, Lonely and lovely a single star Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.

"Into the ocean faint and far Falls the trail of its golden splendor, And the gleam of that single star Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.

"Chrysaor rising out of the sea Showed tints glorious and thus emulous, Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe, Forever tender, soft, and tremulous.

"Thus o'er the ocean faint and far Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly: Is it a god, or is it a star, That, entranced, I gaze on nightly?"

The blending of the poetical faculty and scholarly taste is seen, also, in his translations; and would not a translation of Dante's great poem be the crowning work of Longfellow's literary life?

But while we chat along the road, and pause to repeat these simple and musical poems, each so elegant, so finished, as the monk finished his ivory crucifix, or the lapidary his choicest gem, we have reached the Wayside Inn. It is the title of Longfellow's new volume, "Tales of a Wayside Inn." They are New-England "Canterbury Tales." Those of old London town were told at the Tabard at Southwark; these at the Red Horse in Sudbury town. And although it is but the form of the poem, peculiar neither to Chaucer nor to Longfellow, which recalls the earlier work, yet they have a further likeness in the sources of some of the tales, and in the limpid blitheness of the style and the pure objectivity of the poems.

The melodious, picturesque simplicity of the opening, in which the place and the persons are introduced, is inexpressibly graceful and masterly:—

"One autumn night in Sudbury town, Across the meadows bare and brown, The windows of the wayside inn Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves Of woodbine hanging from the eaves, Their crimson curtains rent and thin. As ancient is this hostelry As any in the land may be, Built in the old colonial day, When men lived in a grander way, With ampler hospitality: A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled, and tall."

The autumn wind moans without, and dashes in gusts against the windows; but there is a pleasant murmur from the parlor, with the music of a violin. In this comfortable tavern-parlor, ruddy with the fire-light, a rapt musician stands erect before the chimney and bends his ear to his instrument,—

"And seemed to listen, till he caught Confessions of its secret thought,"

—a figure and a picture, as he is afterward painted,—

"Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe, His figure tall and straight and lithe,"—

which recall the Norwegian magician, Ole Bull. He plays to the listening group of friends. Of these there is the landlord,—a youth of quiet ways, "a student of old books and days,"—a young Sicilian,—"a Spanish Jew from Alieant,"—

"A theologian, from the school Of Cambridge on the Charles,"—

then a poet, whose portrait, exquisitely sketched and meant for quite another, will yet be prized by the reader, as the spectator prizes, in the Uffizi at Florence, the portraits of the painters by themselves:—

"A poet, too, was there, whose verse Was tender, musical, and terse: The inspiration, the delight, The gleam, the glory, the swift flight Of thoughts so sudden that they seem The revelations of a dream, All these were his: but with them came No envy of another's fame; He did not find his sleep less sweet For music in some neighboring street, Nor rustling hear in every breeze The laurels of Miltiades. Honor and blessings on his head While living, good report when dead, Who, not too eager for renown, Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown."

The musician completes the group.

When he stops playing, they call upon the landlord for his tale, which he, "although a bashful man," begins. It is "Paul Revere's Ride," already known to many readers as a ballad of the famous incident in the Revolution which has, in American hearts, immortalized a name which this war has but the more closely endeared to them. It is one of the most stirring, ringing, and graphic ballads in the language,—a proper pendant to Browning's "How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix."

The poet, listening with eager delight, seizes the sword of the landlord's ancestor which was drawn at Concord fight, and tells him that his grandfather was a grander shape than any old Sir William,

"Clinking about in foreign lands, With iron gauntlets on his hands, And on his head an iron pot."

All laughed but the landlord,—

"For those who had been longest dead Were always greatest in his eyes."

Did honest and dull "Conservatism" have ever a happier description? But lest the immortal foes of Conservatism and Progress should come to loggerheads in the conversation, the student opens his lips and breathes Italy upon the New-England autumn night. He tells the tale of "The Falcon of Sir Federigo," from the "Decameron." It is an exquisite poem. So charming is the manner, that the "Decameron," so rendered into English, would acquire a new renown, and the public of to-day would understand the fame of Boccaccio.

But the theologian hears with other ears, and declares that the old Italian tales

"Are either trifling, dull, or lewd."

The student will not argue. He says only,—

"Nor were it grateful to forget That from these reservoirs and tanks Even imperial Shakespeare drew His Moor of Venice and the Jew, And Romeo and Juliet, And many a famous comedy."

After a longer pause, the Spanish Jew from Alieant begins "a story in the Talmud old," "The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi." This is followed after the interlude by the Sicilian's tale, "King Robert of Sicily," a noble legend of the Church, whose moral is humility. It is told in a broad, stately measure, and with consummate simplicity and skill. The attention is not distracted for a moment from the story, which monks might tell in the still cloisters of a Sicilian convent, and every American child hear with interest and delight.

"And then the blue-eyed Norseman told. A Saga of the days of old."

It is the Saga of King Olaf, and is much the longest tale in the volume, recounting the effort to plant Christianity in Norway by the sword of the King. In every variety of measure, heroic, elegiac, lyrical, the wild old Scandinavian tradition is told. Even readers who may be at first repelled by legends almost beyond modern human sympathy cannot escape the most musical persuasion of the poem which wafts them along those icy seas.

"And King Olaf heard the cry, Saw the red light in the sky, Laid his hand upon his sword, As he leaned upon the railing, And his ships went sailing, sailing Northward into Drontheim fiord.

* * * * *

"Trained for either camp or court, Skilful in each manly sport, Young and beautiful and tall; Art of warfare, craft of chases, Swimming, stating, snow-shoe races, Excellent alike at all."

There is no continuous thread of story in the Saga, but each fragment of the whole is complete in itself, a separate poem. The traditions are fierce and wild. The waves dash in them, the winds moan and shriek. There are evanescent glimpses of green meadows, and a swift gleam of summer; but the cold salt sea and winter close round all. The tides rise and fall; they eddy in the sand; they float off and afar the huge dragon-ships. But the queens pine for revenge and slaughter; the kings drink and swear and fight, and sail away to their doom.

"Louder the war-horses growl and snarl, Sharper the dragons bite and sting! Eric the son of Hakon Yarl A death-drink salt as the sea Pledges to thee, Olaf the King!"

Whoever has heard Ole Bull play, or Jenny Lind sing, the weird minor melodies of the North, will comprehend the kind of spell which these legends weave around the mind. Nor is their character lost in the skilful and symmetrical rendering of Longfellow. The reader has not the feeling, as in Sir William Jones's translations, that he is reading Sir William, and not the Persian.

"'What was that?' said Olaf, standing On the quarter-deck; Something heard I like the stranding Of a shattered wreck.' Einar, then, the arrow taking From the loosened string, Answered, 'That was Norway breaking From thy hand, O King!'"

But the battle which Thor had defied was not to end by the weapons of war. In the fierce sea-fight,

"There is told a wonderful tale, How the King stripped off his mail, Like leaves of the brown sea-kale, As he swam beneath the main;

"But the young grew old and gray, And never by night or day In his kingdom of Norroway Was King Olaf seen again."

The victory must be won by other weapons. In the convent of Drontheim, Astrid, the abbess, hears a voice in the darkness:—

"Cross against corslet, Love against hatred. Peace-cry for war-cry!"

The voice continues in peaceful music, forecasting heavenly rest:—

"As torrents in summer, Half dried in their channels, Suddenly rise, though the Sky is still cloudless, For rain has been falling Far off at their fountains;

"So hearts that are fainting Grow full to o'erflowing, And they that behold it Marvel, and know not That God at their fountains Far off has been raining."

With this exquisitely beautiful strain of the abbess the Saga ends.

The theologian muses aloud upon creeds and churches, then tells a fearful tragedy of Spain,—the story of a father who betrays his daughter to the fires of Torquemada. It chills the heart to think that such unspeakable ruin of a human soul was ever wrought by any system that even professed to be Christian. Moloch was truly divine, compared with the God of the Spanish Inquisition. But the gloom of the tragedy is not allowed to linger. The poet scatters it by the story of the merry "Birds of Killingworth," which appears elsewhere in the pages of this number of the "Atlantic." The blithe beauty of the verses is captivating, and the argument of the shy preceptor is the most poetic plea that ever wooed a world to justice. What an airy felicity in the lines,—

"'Tis always morning somewhere, and above The awakening continents from shore to shore Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."

And so, amid sunshine and the carolling of birds, the legendary rural romance of the Yankee shore, we turn the page, and find, with real sorrow, that the last tale is told in the Wayside Inn. The finale is brief. The guests arose and said good night. The drowsy squire remains to rake the embers of the fire. The scattered lamps gleam a moment at the windows. The Red Horse inn seems, in the misty night, the sinking constellation of the Bear,—and then,

"Far off the village-clock struck one."

So ends this ripe and mellow work, leaving the reader like one who listens still for pleasant music i' the air which sounds no more. Those who will may compare it with the rippling strangeness of "Hiawatha," the mournfully rolling cadence of "Evangeline," the mediaeval romance of "The Golden Legend." For ourselves, its beauty does not clash with theirs. The simple old form of the group of guests telling stories, the thread of so many precious rosaries, has a new charm from this poem. The Tabard inn is gone; but who, henceforth, will ride through Sudbury town without seeing the purple light shining around the Red Horse tavern?

The volume closes with a few poems, classed as "Birds of Passage." It is the "second flight,"—the first being those at the end of the "Miles Standish" volume. Some of these have a pathos and interest which all will perceive, but the depth and tenderness of which not all can know. "The Children's Hour" is a strain of parental love, which haunts the memory with its melody, its sportive, affectionate, and yearning lay.

"They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his mouse-tower on the Rhine.

"Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old moustache as I am Is not a match for you all?"

Here, too, is the grand ballad of "The Cumberland," and the delicate fancy of "The Snow-Flakes," expressing what every sensitive observer has so often felt,—that the dull leaden trouble of the winter sky finds the relief in snow that the suffering human heart finds in expression. Then there is "A Day of June," an outburst of the fulness of life and love in the beautiful sunny weather of blossoms on the earth and soft clouds in the sky.

"O life and love! O happy throng Of thoughts, whose only speech is song! O heart of man! canst thou not be Blithe as the air is, and as free?"

To this poem the date is added, June, 1860.

And here, at length, is the last poem. We pause as we reach it, and turn back to the first page of "Outre-Mer." "'Lystenyth, ye godely gentylmen, and all that ben hereyn!' I am a pilgrim benighted on my way, and crave a shelter till the storm is over, and a seat by the fireside in this honorable company. As a stranger I claim this courtesy at your hands, and will repay your hospitable welcome with tales of the countries I have passed through in my pilgrimage." It is the gay confidence of youth. It is the bright prelude of the happy traveller and scholar, to whom the very quaint conceits and antiquated language of romance are themselves romantic, and who makes himself a bard and troubadour. Hope allures him; ambition spurs him; conscious power assures him. His eager step dances along the ground. His words are an outburst of youth and joy. Thirty years pass by. What sober step pauses at the Wayside Inn? Is this the jocund Pilgrim of Outre-Mer? The harp is still in his strong hand. It sounds yet with the old tenderness and grace and sweetness. But this is the man, not the boy. This is the doubtful tyro no longer, but the wise master, honored and beloved. To how many hearts has his song brought peace! How like a benediction in all our homes his music falls! Ah! not more surely, when the stretched string of the full-tuned harp snaps in the silence, the cords of every neighboring instrument respond, than the hearts which love the singer and his song thrill with the heart-break of this last poem:—

"O little feet, that such long years Must wander on through doubts and fears, Must ache and bleed beneath your load! I, nearer to the wayside inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin, Am weary, thinking of your road."

* * * * *

LETTER TO A PEACE DEMOCRAT.

ADDRESSED TO ANDREW JACKSON BROWN.

MY DEAR ANDREW,—You can hardly have forgotten that our last conversation on the national questions of the day had an abrupt, if not angry, termination. I very much fear that we both lost temper, and that our discussion degenerated into a species of political sparring. You will certainly agree with me that the great issues now agitating the country are too grave to be treated in the flippant style of bar-room debate. When the stake for which we are contending with immense armies in the field and powerful navies on the ocean is nothing less than the existence of our Union and the life of our nation, it ill becomes intelligent and thoughtful men to descend to personal abuse, or to be blinded for one moment by prejudice or passion to the cardinal principle on which the whole controversy turns.

In view of these considerations, therefore, as our previous discussions have left some vital questions untouched, and as our past experience seems to have proved that we cannot, with mutual profit, compare our opinions upon these subjects orally, I have decided to embody my sentiments on the general points of difference between us in the form of a letter. Knowing my personal regard for you, I am sure that you will not believe me guilty of intentional discourtesy in anything I may say, while you certainly will not be surprised, if I occasionally express myself with a degree of warmth which finds its full justification in the urgent importance of the questions to be considered.

I have not the vanity to believe that anything I can say on subjects that have so long engrossed the attention of thoughtful Americans will have the charm of novelty. And yet, in view of the unwelcome fact, that there exists to some extent a decided difference at the North about questions in regard to which it is essential that there should be a community of feeling, it certainly can do no harm to make an attempt, however feeble, to enlist in the cause of constitutional liberty and good government at least one man who may have been led astray by a too zealous obedience to the dictates of his party. As the success of our republican institutions must depend on the morality and intelligence of the citizens composing the nation, no honest appeal to that morality and that intelligence can be productive of serious evil.

Permit me, then, at the outset, to remind you of what, from first to last, has formed the key-note of all your opposition to the war-policy of the Administration. You say that you have no heart in this struggle, because Abolitionists have caused the war,—always adding, that Abolitionists may carry it on, if they please: at any rate, they shall have no support, direct or indirect, from you. I have carefully considered all the arguments which you have employed to convince me that the solemn responsibility of involving the nation in this sanguinary conflict rests upon Abolitionists, and these arguments seem to me to be summed up in the following proposition: Before Abolitionists began to disseminate their dangerous doctrines, we had no war; therefore Abolitionists caused the war. I might, perhaps, disarm you with your own weapons, by saying that before Slavery existed in this country we had no Abolitionists; but I prefer to meet your argument in another manner.

Not to spend time in considering any aspect of the question about which we do not substantially differ, let us at once ascertain how far we can agree. I presume you will not deny that this nation is, and since the twelfth of April, 1861, has been, in a state of civil war; that the actively contending parties are the North and the South; and that on the part of the South the war was commenced and is still waged in the interest of Slavery. We should probably differ toto coelo as to the causes which led to the conflict; but, my excellent Andrew, I think there are certain facts which after more than two years' hard fighting may be considered fairly established. Whatever may be your own conclusions, as you read our recent history in the light of your ancient and I had almost said absurd prejudices, I believe that the vast majority of thinking men at the North have made up their minds that a deliberate conspiracy to overturn this government has existed in the South for at least a quarter of a century; that the proofs of such a conspiracy have been daily growing more and move palpable, until any additional evidence has become simply cumulative; that the election of Abraham Lincoln was not the cause, but only marked the culmination of the treason, and furnished the shallow pretext for its first overt acts. That you are not prepared to admit all this is, I am forced to believe, mainly because you dislike the conclusions which must inevitably follow from such an admission. I say this, because, passing over for the present the undoubted fact, that this nation would have elected a Democratic President in 1860 but for the division of the Democratic party, and the further fact, equally indisputable, that Southern politicians wilfully created this division, I think you will hardly venture to deny that even after the election of Abraham Lincoln the South controlled the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. And to come down to a still later period, you can have no treasonable doubt that the passage of the Corwin Amendment disarmed the South of any cause for hostilities, based on the danger of Congressional interference with Slavery wherever existing by force of State laws. There remains, then, only one conceivable excuse for the aggressive policy of the South, and that is found in the alleged apprehension that the slaves would be incited to open rebellion against their masters. But, I ask, can any intelligent and fair-minded man believe, to-day, that slaveholders were forced into this war by the fear that the anti-slavery sentiment of the North would lead to a general slave-insurrection? Nine-tenths of the able-bodied Southern population have been in arms for more than two years, far away from their plantations, and unable to render any assistance to the old men, women, and children remaining at home. The President's Emancipation Proclamation was made public nearly a year ago, and subsequent circumstances have conspired to give it a very wide circulation through the South. And yet there has not been a single slave-insurrection of any magnitude, and not one that has not been speedily suppressed and promptly punished. This fact would seem to be a tolerably conclusive answer to all apologies for the wicked authors of this Rebellion, drawn from their alarm for their own safety and the safety of their families. But the persistent Peace Democrat has infinite resources at command in defence of the conduct of his Southern allies.

"Destroy his web of sophistry in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again."

We are now told that the obedient and unresisting submission of the slaves proves that they are satisfied with their condition, and have no desire to be free. And we are asked to admit, therefore, that Slavery is not a curse, but an absolute blessing, to those whom it affects most nearly! Or we are pointed to the multitude of slaves daily seeking the protection of the United States flag, and are informed that slaveholders are contending for the right to retain their property. As if the Fugitive-Slave Law—of which Mr. Douglas said, in one of his latest speeches, that not one of the Federal statutes had ever been more implicitly obeyed—did not afford the South most ample protection, so long as it remained in the Union!

Another grievance of which you bitterly complain, another count in the long indictment which you have drawn up against the Administration, is what you denominate its anti-slavery policy. You disapprove of the Emancipation Proclamation, you denounce the employment of armed negroes; and therefore you have no stomach for the fight.

But has not the President published to the world that the Proclamation was a measure of military necessity? and has he not also said that its constitutionality is to be decided and the extent and duration of its privileges and penalties are to be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States? If, as you are accustomed to assert, the Proclamation is a dead letter, it certainly need not give you very serious discomfort. If it exercises a powerful influence in crippling the energies of the South, it surely is not among Northern men that we should look for its opponents. As to its future efficacy and binding force, shall we not do well to leave this question, and all similar and at present purely speculative inquiries, till that time—which may Heaven hasten!—when this war shall terminate in the restoration of the Union and the acknowledged supremacy of the Constitution?

And now a word about that formidable bugbear, the enlistment of negro soldiers. For my own part, I candidly confess that I am utterly unable to comprehend your unmeasured abuse of this expedient. If slaves are chattels, I can conceive of no good reason why we may not confiscate them as Rebel property, useful to the Rebels in their armed resistance to Federal authority, precisely as we appropriate their corn and cattle. And when once confiscated, why should they not be employed in whatever manner will make them most serviceable to us? But you insist that they shall not be armed. You might with equal show of reason contend that the mules which we have taken from the Rebels may be rightfully used in ambulances, but must not be used in ammunition-wagons.

But if slaves are not chattels, they are human beings, with brains and muscles,—brains at least intelligent enough to comprehend the stake they have in this controversy, and muscles strong enough to do good service in the cause of constitutional liberty and republican institutions. Is it wise to reject their offered assistance. Will not our foes have good cause to despise our folly, if we leave in their hands this most efficient element of their power? You have friends and relatives fighting in the Union armies. If you give the subject a moment's reflection, you must see that all slaves labouring on the plantations of their masters not only are feeding the traitors who are doing their utmost to destroy our country, but by relieving thousands upon thousands of Southern men from the necessity of remaining at home and cultivating the soil, are, to all practical purposes, as directly imperilling the lives of our Union soldiers as if these same slaves with sword or musket were serving in the Rebel ranks. And again, while you object to the enlistment of negroes, you are unwilling that any member of your family should leave your household and expose himself to the many hazards of war. Now is it not too plain for argument, that every negro who is enrolled in our army prevents, by just that unit, the necessity of sending one Northern soldier into the field?

But will the slaves consent to enlist? Let the thousands who have forced their way to Union camps,

"Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire,"

tracked by blood-hounds, and by their inhuman oppressors more savage than blood-hounds, answer the insulting inquiry. Are they brave? Will they fight for the cause which they have dared so many dangers to espouse? I point you to the bloody records of Vicksburg, Million's Bend, Port Hudson, and Fort Wagner; I appeal to the testimony of every Union officer under whom black soldiers have fought, as the most fitting reply to such questions. Shame on the miserable sneer, that we are spending the money and shedding the blood of white men to fight the battles of the negro! Blush for your own unmanly and ungenerous prejudices, and ask yourself whether future history will not pronounce the black man, morally, not only your equal, but your superior, when it is found recorded, that, denied the rights of citizenship, long proscribed, persecuted, and enslaved, he was yet willing, and even eager, to save the life of your brother on the battle-field, and to preserve you in the peaceable enjoyment of your property at home. Is the efficient aid of such men to be rejected? Is their noble self-sacrifice to be slighted? Shall we, under the contemptible pretext, that this war must be waged—if waged at all—for the benefit of the white race, deprive negroes of an opportunity to risk their lives to maintain a government which has never protected them, and a Constitution which has been practically interpreted in such a manner as to recognize and sanction their servitude? Do not, I implore you, answer these inquiries by that easy, but infamous taunt, so constantly on the lips of unscrupulous politicians in your party,—"Here comes the inevitable nigger again!" It is precisely because the awful and too long unavenged sufferings of the slave must be inevitable, while Slavery exists, that these questions must sooner or later be asked and answered, and that your political upholding of such a system becomes a monstrous crime against humanity.

After all, my dear Andrew, why are you so sensitive on the subject of Slavery? You certainly can have no personal interest in the peculiar and patriarchal institution. You are too skilful a financier ever to have invested a single dollar in that fugacious wealth which so often takes to its legs and runs away. Nor does your unwillingness to listen to any expression of anti-slavery sentiment arise from affection for or real sympathy with Slavery, on moral grounds. Indeed, I have more than once been exceedingly refreshed in spirit at observing the sincere and hearty contempt with which you have treated what is blasphemously called the Biblical argument in favor of human bondage. The pleading precedent of Abraham has not seduced you, nor has the happy lot of the more modern Onesimus quieted all your conscientious scruples. You have never failed, in private conversation, to condemn the advocates of Slavery on whatever grounds they have rested its defence, nor have you ever ceased to deplore its existence in our country.

At the same time I must admit that you have invariably resisted all attempts to apply any practical check or remedy to the great and growing evil, stoutly maintaining that it was a local institution, and that we of the North had no right to meddle with it. I am well aware that you have stigmatized every effort to awaken public attention to its nature and tendency, or to point out methods, more or less available, of abolishing the system, as unconstitutional, incendiary, and quixotic. I concede that your indignation has always been in the abstract, and your zeal eminently conservative. Yet, as a moral man, with a New-England training, and a general disposition to indorse those principles which have made New England what she is, you will not deny, that, in a harmless and inoffensive way, you have been anti-slavery in your opinions.

But, once more, my friend, have you any reason to be attached to Slavery on political grounds? You have always been an earnest and uncompromising Democrat. You have always professed to believe in the omnipotence of political conventions and the sacred obligation of political platforms. You have never failed to repudiate any effort to influence party action by moral considerations. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that you must have selected as your model that sturdy old Democratic deacon in New Hampshire, who said that "politics was one thing, and religion was another." You have never hesitated to support any candidate, or to uphold any measure, dictated by the wisdom or the wickedness of your party. Although you must have observed, that, with occasional and infrequent eddies of opinion, the current of its political progress has been steadily carrying the Northern Democracy farther and farther away from the example and the doctrines of Jefferson, you have surrendered yourself to the evil influence without a twinge of remorse or a sigh of regret. You have submitted to the insolent demands of Southern politicians with such prompt and easy acquiescence, that many of your oldest friends have mourned over your lost manhood, and sadly abandoned you to the worship of your ugly and obscene idol. A Northern man, descended from the best Puritan stock, surrounded from childhood by institutions really free, breathing the atmosphere of free thought, enjoying the luxury of free speech, you have deliberately allied yourself to a party which has owed its long-continued political supremacy to the practical denial of these inestimable privileges. Yet, on the whole, Andrew, what have you gained by it? Undoubtedly, the seed thus sown in dishonor soon ripened into an abundant harvest of fat offices and rapid promotions. But winter—the winter of your discontent—has followed this harvest. Circumstances quite beyond your control have utterly demolished the political combination which was once your peculiar pride. You have lived to see the Dagon before which you and your friends have for so many years cheerfully prostrated yourselves fall to the ground, and lie a helpless, hopeless ruin on the very threshold of the temple where it lately stood defiant and dominant.

Have you ever had the curiosity to investigate the causes of this disaster? It is a curiosity which can be easily gratified. The Democratic party was killed in cold blood by Southern traitors. There never was a more causeless, malicious, or malignant murder. The fool in the fable who gained an unenviable notoriety by killing the goose which laid golden eggs, Balaam, who, but for angelic interposition, would have slain his faithful ass, were praiseworthy in comparison. Well might any one of the Northern victims of this cruel outrage have exclaimed, in the language of Balaam's long-eared servant, "Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto to this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee?" And the modern, like the ancient Balaam, must have answered, "Nay."

But, alas for Northern manhood, alas for human nature corrupted by long possession of political power, after a short-lived, though, let us hope, sincere outburst of indignation, followed by protests and remonstrances, growing daily milder and more moderate, the Northern Democracy now begs permission to return once more to its former servitude, and would gladly peril the permanence of the Union, to hug again the fetters which it has so patiently and so profitably worn.

Lay aside party prejudice, for one moment, my dear Andrew, and tell me if the world ever saw a more humiliating spectacle. Slighted, spurned, spit upon by their ancient allies, compelled to bear the odium of an aggressive and offensive pro-slavery policy, tamely consenting to a denial of the dearest human rights and the plainest principles of natural justice, rewarded only by a share in the Federal offices, and punished by the contempt of all who, at home or abroad, intelligently and unselfishly studied the problem of our republican institutions, the Northern Democracy found themselves, at the most critical period of our national history, abandoned by the masters whom they had faithfully served, and whom many were willing to follow to a depth of degradation which could have no lower deep. And yet, when thus freed from their long slavery by the voluntary act of their oppressors, we hear them to-day clamoring for the privilege of wearing anew the accustomed yoke, and feeling again the familiar lash! Are these white men, with Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins, and the fair fame of this country in their keeping? Why, if the most abject slave that ever toiled on a Southern plantation, cast off by his master and compelled to claim the rights of a freeman, should, of his own deliberate choice, elect to return to his miserable vassalage, who would not pronounce him unfit to enjoy the priceless boon of liberty? who would hesitate to say that natural stupidity, or the acquired imbecility of long enslavement, had doomed him to remain, to the day of his death, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water?

But, as if to render the humiliation of these Democratic leaders still more fruitless and gratuitous, mark how their overtures are received by their Southern brethren. Having sold their birthright, let us see what prospect our Northern Esaus have of gaining their mess of pottage. Perhaps no better illustration can be given of the state of feeling among the chiefs of the Southern Rebellion than is found in a letter from Colonel R.C. Hill to the Richmond "Sentinel," dated September 13th, 1863. It had been stated by a correspondent of the New York "Tribune," that, during a recent interview between General Custer (Union) and Colonel Hill (Confederate), at Fredericksburg, Virginia, Colonel Hill had assured General Custer that "there would soon be peace." After giving an explicit and emphatic denial to this statement, Colonel Hill (who, it would seem, commands the Forty-Eighth North-Carolina Volunteers) closes by saying, "I am opposed to any terms short of a submission of the Federals to such terms as we may dictate, which, in my opinion, should be, Mason and Dixon's line a boundary; the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi below Cairo; full indemnification for all the negroes stolen and destroyed; and the restoration of Fortress Monroe, Jefferson, Key West, and all other strongholds which may have fallen into their possession during the war. If they are unwilling to accede to these terms, I propose an indefinite continuance of the war until the now existing fragment of the old Union breaks to pieces from mere rottenness and want of cohesion, when we will step in, as the only first-class power on the Western Hemisphere, and take possession of the pieces as subjugated and conquered provinces."

To the same effect is a letter from Robert Toombs, who had been charged with a leaning towards a reconstruction of the Union. A short extract will suffice to show the spirit of the whole communication. "I can conceive of no extremity to which my country can be reduced in which I would, for a single moment, entertain any proposition for any union with the North on any terms whatever. When all else is lost, I prefer to unite with the thousands of our own countrymen who have found honorable deaths, if not graves, on the battle-field." And the recently elected Governor of Alabama puts to rest all doubts as to his desire for Southern independence, by saying, "If I had the power, I would build up a wall of fire between Yankeedom and the Confederate States, there to burn for ages."

The tone and temper of these extracts—and similar quotations might be made indefinitely—are exactly in keeping with everything that comes from the pens or the lips of the leaders of this Rebellion. And even those Southern statesmen who at the outset were opposed to Secession, and have never ceased to deplore the fruitless civil war into which the South has plunged the nation, are compelled to admit, with a distinguished citizen of Georgia, that "the war, with all its afflictive train of suffering, privation, and death, has served to eradicate all idea of reconstruction, even with those who made it the basis of their arguments in favor of disunion."

Rely upon it, this tone and temper will never be changed so long as the Rebels have any considerable armed force in the field ready for service. Unless we are willing to consent to a divided country, a dissevered Union, and the recognition of a Southern Confederacy,—in a word, unless we are prepared to acquiesce in all the demands of our enemies, we have no alternative but a vigorous prosecution of the war.

Fernando Wood and his followers ask for an armistice. An armistice to whom, and for what purpose? The Rebels, represented by their Government, ask for no armistice, except upon their own terms, and what those terms are we have already seen. It is idle to say that there are men at the South who crave peace and a restoration of the Union. Assume the statement to be true, and you have made no progress towards a satisfactory result. Such men are powerless in the hands of the guiding and governing minds of the conspiracy. The treason is of such magnitude, its leaders so completely control the active forces of the whole community, that the passive strength of Union sentiment cannot now be taken into the account. It would be a farce too absurd to be gravely considered, to treat with men who, whatever their disposition or numbers may be, are utterly helpless, unable to make any promise which they can fulfil, or to give any pledge which can bind any but themselves.

We must deal with an armed and powerful rebellion; and so long as it is effectively armed, and powerful enough to hold in subjection the whole Southern population, it is moral, if not legal, treason for a Northern man to talk of peace. What avails it to talk of the blessings of peace and the horrors of war? It is a fearful thing to take the life of a human being; but we can easily conceive of circumstances when homicide is not only justifiable, but highly commendable.

Permit me here to quote, as most pertinent to this view of the subject, an extract from a speech of Mr. Pitt in 1797, defending his refusal to offer terms of peace to the Directory of France. Alluding to some remarks of Sir John Sinclair, in the House of Commons, deprecating war as a great evil, and calling on ministers to propose an immediate peace, Mr. Pitt says,—"He began with deploring the calamities of war, on the general topic that all war is calamitous. Do I object to that sentiment? No. But is it our business, at a moment when we feel that the continuance of that war is owing to the animosity, the implacable animosity, of our enemy, to the inveterate and insatiable ambition of the present frantic government of France,—not of the people of France, as the honorable baronet unjustly stated,—is it our business, at that moment, to content ourselves with merely lamenting, in commonplace terms, the calamities of war, and forgetting that it is part of the duty which, as representatives of the people, we owe to our government and our country, to state that the continuance of those evils upon ourselves, and upon France, too, is the fruit only of the conduct of the enemy, that it is to be imputed to them and not to us?" Now does not this correctly describe our position? We make no question about the calamities of war; but how are these calamities to be avoided? This war has been forced upon us, and we must wage it to the end, or submit to the dismemberment of the Union, and acknowledge, in flat contradiction of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, the right of Secession. The true motto for the Government is precisely and preeminently the motto of the State of Massachusetts, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem," which, freely, but faithfully, translated, means, "We must conquer a just and abiding peace."

And now, my dear Andrew, I am curious to know what answer you will make to the general views which I have advanced on these vital questions. Will you say that I have misrepresented the record of the Northern Democratic party? that I have charged them with a submission and subserviency to the dictates of their Southern allies, which truthful history will not confirm? You surely remember the uncontradicted assertion of Mr. Hammond, Senator from South Carolina, made on the floor of the Senate in 1856, at a time when fears were entertained by the Democracy that Mr. Fremont might be elected:—"The South has now ruled the country for sixty years." Do you believe that this rule could have been maintained for so many years without the connivance and cooeperation of Northern Democrats? Will you venture to say that Texas could have been annexed, the Fugitive-Slave Law passed, the Missouri Compromise Bill repealed, without the consent and active assistance of Northern Democrats? In fact, my friend, when, in our frequent conversations, you have repeatedly charged Southern Democrats with ingratitude and want of good faith, have you not intended to assert, that, having complied with all the demands of the South, you looked upon their deliberate destruction of the Democratic party as a wanton act of political treachery?

Do you deny that I have presented a truthful picture of the present position of your party? Can there be any doubt about the issue now offered to the North by Peace Democrats? I say Peace Democrats, because all War Democrats are acting heartily and zealously with the Administration. Is not the policy which the Peace Democracy support in their papers, platforms, and public addresses, an immediate cessation of hostilities on the part of the North? And do they not select, as the exponents of this policy, men who have, from the commencement of the war, sympathized with the South, and denounced the military measures of the Government as unjustifiable, oppressive, and iniquitous? Open any newspaper of "Copperhead" complexion, and tell me, candidly, if you can approve of the manner in which the all-engrossing questions of the day are discussed.

You know, in advance, as well as I know, that you will find both open and insidious attacks upon whatever feature of the war-policy of the Administration chances at the moment to be uppermost in the public mind, a liberal collection of incidents illustrating the horrors of war, abundant abuse of army-contractors, appalling estimates of our probable national debt, enthusiastic commendation of the skill of Southern officers and the bravery of Southern soldiers, extravagant laudation of some Federal commander who has disobeyed the orders of his superior and conducted a campaign in such a manner as not to annoy or alarm the enemy, eloquent denunciation of all attempts to fetter free speech or limit the liberty of the press, indignant complaint that the rights of the citizen are disregarded, an ostentatious parade of historical parallels to prove that an earnest and united people fighting for independence has never been subjugated, a bitter paragraph attributing to Abolitionists all the evils of the existing controversy, the inevitable sneer at negro soldiers in spite of the bloody baptism which they have so heroically borne,—all this, but (mark the significant circumstance!) not one word in condemnation of Southern treason, not a single sentiment that can by possibility alienate old friends, or can ever be quoted as evidence that the editor had dared to assert his manhood. Is this loyalty to the Constitution and the Union? Is this the allegiance which a citizen owes to his country? Away with the mischievous sophistry, that the Government is not the country, and does not represent the people! Can any sane man doubt that an Administration legally chosen, and rightfully in power, and receiving the emphatic indorsement of decisive majorities in Congress, does, during its constitutional term of office, and while so supported, speak the mind and embody the will of the nation? Is there any show of reason for saying that such an Administration is an irresponsible despotism, governing the country without the moral countenance of its citizens, and in defiance of their declared sentiments?

But the views of Peace Democrats are not to be ascertained alone by consulting the newspapers which are their acknowledged organs. Listen to the speeches of their prominent leaders. I will not stop to call your attention to their bold treason after a Union reverse, or their non-committal platitudes after a Union victory. Let me rather ask you to consider the prevailing tone of their public addresses. Remember, meanwhile, that our Government is grappling with an active and resolute enemy, whose avowed and persistent purpose is to divide the Union, and by means unconstitutional and treasonable to erect on the ruins of our once happy Republic an independent and necessarily hostile power. Bear in mind that this enemy, with an intense and inflexible determination which would be most commendable in a better cause, is summoning all its strength to accomplish its wicked designs, and tell me if it does not find among Peace Democrats most efficient allies and adherents.

Can you discover in the speeches of your political friends one sentence that would give a future student of the history of this struggle a correct idea of the principles for which we are contending? Would not such a student, accepting these speeches as authentic, reasonably infer that the Central Government, invested by a sad accident with supreme power, was using its accidental authority for the sole and sinister purpose of abridging the constitutional rights of the citizen, by withholding the privilege of free speech, and preventing the expression of popular sentiment at the polls? And yet, methinks, an intelligent posterity will somewhat wonder how such speeches could be made with impunity, and such candidates receive unchallenged votes, in the face of such unscrupulous tyranny. In fact, was there ever so wicked a farce as this "Copperhead" complaint about the denial of the right of free speech and free votes, from the lips of men whose daily exemption from punishment proves the falsity of their appeals to popular prejudice? Do they not say what they please, and vote as they choose, without molestation or hindrance? Why, a many-wived Mormon, surrounded by the beauties of his harem, inveighing against the laws of the United States which prohibit polygamy,—a Roman Catholic priest, openly and safely carnivorous during Lent, denouncing that regulation of his church which denies him the luxury of meat during the forty days immediately preceding Easter,—a cannibal, with a tender morsel of young missionary in his mouth, complaining that he cannot gratify his appetite for human flesh,—these would be models of reason and common sense, compared with the factious demagogues whose conduct we are considering.

In point of fact, their real unhappiness arises from their impunity. They are gasping for a substantial grievance. Their highest ambition is to become political martyrs. Now and then one of them, like Vallandigham, deliberately transcends the bounds of a wise forbearance, and receives from the Government a very mild rebuke. Straightway he is placed on the bad eminence to which he has so long aspired. Already dead to all feeling of patriotism, he is canonized for his crimes, with rites and ceremonies appropriate to such a priesthood. And, unhappily, he finds but too many followers weak enough or wicked enough to recognize his saintship and accept his creed. To all true and loyal men, he resembles rather the veiled prophet of Khorassan, concealing behind the fair mask of a zealous regard for free speech and a free press the hideous features of Secession and civil war, despising the dupes whom he is leading to certain and swift destruction, and clinging fondly to the hope of involving in a common ruin, not only the party which he represents, but the country which he has dishonored.

That such political monsters are possible in the Free States, at such a time as this, sufficiently demonstrates towards what an abyss of degradation we were drifting when this war began. They are the legitimate and necessary fruits of the numerous compromises by which well-meaning men have sought to avert a crisis which could only be postponed. The North has been diligently educated to connive at injustice and wink at oppression for the sake of peace, until there was good reason to fear that the public sense of right was blunted, and the public conscience seared as with a hot iron. While the South kept always clearly in view the single object on which it had staked everything, the North was daily growing more and more absorbed in the accumulation of wealth, and more and more callous to all considerations of humanity and all claims of natural justice. The feeblest remonstrance against the increasing insolence of Southern demands was rudely dismissed as fanatical, and any attempt to awaken attention to the disloyal sentiments of Southern politicians was believed to be fully met and conclusively answered by the cry of "Abolitionist" and "Negro-Worshipper."

It must be confessed that for a time these expedients were successful. Like another Cassandra predicting the coming disasters of another Troy, the statesman who foresaw and foretold the perils which threatened the nation addressed a careless or contemptuous public. It was in vain to say that the South was determined to rule or ruin the country, in vain to point out the constantly recurring illustrations of the aggressive spirit of Slavery, in vain to urge that every year of delay was but adding to the difficulty of dealing with the gigantic evil. The merchant feared a financial crisis, the repudiation of Southern debts and his own consequent inability to maintain the social position which his easily earned wealth had secured; the politician, who, at the great auction-sales of Northern pride and principle held every four years, had so often sought to outbid his rivals in baseness, that his party or faction might win the Presidential prize, turned pale at the prospect of losing Southern support; the divine could see no danger threatening his country except from the alleged infidelity of a few leading radicals; the timid citizen, with no fixed political opinions, was overawed by the bluster of Southern bullies, shuddered at the sight of pistol and dirk-knife, and only asked "to be let alone"; while the thoughtless votary of fashion, readily accepting the lordly bearing and imperious air of the planter as the highest evidence of genuine aristocracy, reasoned, with the sort of logic which we should look for in such a mind, that slaveholding was the normal condition of an American gentleman.

I will not allude to the views entertained by those men whose ignorance disqualified them from forming an intelligent opinion about our national affairs, and whose votes were always at the service of the highest bidders. You know perfectly well where they were sure to be found, and they exercised no inconsiderable influence on our public policy from year to year. Leaving this class out of the question, our peril arose largely from the fact, that too many men, sensible on other subjects, were fast settling into the conviction, that their wisest course was to be conservative, and that to be conservative was to act with the party which had longest held the reins of power. Their reasoning, practically, but perhaps unconsciously, was this:—The object of a government is to make a country prosperous and rich; this country has grown prosperous and rich under the rule of the Democratic party; therefore why should we not give it our support, and more especially as all sorts of dreadful results are predicted, if the opposition party comes into power? Why part with a present good, with the risk of incurring a future evil? Above all things, let us discountenance the agitation of exciting topics.—Profound philosophy! deserving to be compared with that of the modern Cockney who does not want his after-dinner rest to be disturbed by even a lively discussion. "I say, look here, why have row? Excessively unpleasant to have row, when a fellow wants to be quiet! I say, don't!"

In fact, this "conservatism" was only another and convenient name for a most dangerous type of moral and political paralysis. Its immediate effect was to discourage discussion, and to induce an alarming apathy as to all the vital questions of the day among men whose abilities qualified them to be of essential service to their country. Their adhesion to the ranks of the Democratic party, while increasing the average intelligence of that organisation, without improving its public virtue or private morals, served simply to give it greater numerical strength. It was still in the hands of unscrupulous leaders, who, intoxicated with their previous triumphs, believed that the nation would submit to any measure which they saw fit to recommend. And who shall say that their confidence was unreasonable? Did not all their past experience justify such confidence? When had any one of their schemes, no matter how monstrous it might at first have appeared, ever failed of final accomplishment? Had they not repeatedly tested the temper and measured the morale of the people? Had they not learned to anticipate with absolute certainty the regular sequence of national emotions,—the prompt recoil as from impending dishonor, the excited public meetings, the indignant remonstrance embodied in eloquent resolutions, then the sober, selfish second-thought, followed by the question, What if the South should carry out its threats and dissolve the Union? then the alarm of the mercantile and commercial interest, then a growing indifference to the very features of the project which had caused the early apprehension, and lastly the meek and cowardly acquiescence in the enacted outrage? Would not these arch-conspirators North and South have been wilfully blind, if they had not seen not only that the nation was sinking in the scale of public virtue, but that it had acquired "a strange alacrity in sinking"?

Meanwhile they had learned a lesson, the value and significance of which they fully appreciated. He must have been an inattentive student of our political history, who has not observed that the successful prosecution of any political enterprise has too often dignified its author in the eyes of the people, in spite of its intrinsic iniquity. The party reaping the benefit of the measure has not withheld the expected reward, and the originator and abettors of the accomplished wrong have found that exalted official position covers a multitude of sins.

Wisely availing themselves of this national weakness, and most adroitly using all the elements of political power with which long practice had made them familiar, the leaders of the Democratic party had every reason to believe that the duration of their political supremacy would be coeval with the life of the Republic. In fact, the peril predicted more than twenty years ago, by one of the purest and wisest men whom this country has ever seen, with a sagacity which, in the light of subsequent events, seems almost inspired, had wellnigh become an historical fact. "The great danger to our institutions," said Dr. Channing, writing to a friend in 1841, "is of a party organization so subtle and strong as to make the Government the monopoly of a few leaders, and to insure the transmission of the executive power from hand to hand almost as regularly as in a monarchy."

But an overruling Providence, building better than we knew, had decreed that the sway of this powerful party should be broken by means of the very element of supposed strength on which it so confidently relied for unlimited supremacy. Losing sight of those cardinal principles which the far-reaching sagacity of Jefferson had enunciated, and faithfully following which the Democracy had, during its early history, so completely controlled the country, the modern leaders, intent only on present success, had based all their political hopes on an intimate alliance, offensive and defensive, with that institution which Jefferson so eloquently denounced, and the existence of which awakened his most lively fears for the future of his country. And what has been the result of this ill-omened alliance? Precisely what might sooner or later have been expected. Precisely what might have been predicted from the attempt to unite the essentially incongruous ideas of Aristocracy and Democracy. For the system of Slavery is confessedly the very essence of an Aristocracy, while the genuine idea of a Democracy is the submission of all to the expressed will of the majority. Take as one of the latest illustrations of the irreconcilable difference between Aristocracy and Democracy, the manner in which the South received the doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty." This doctrine, whatever its ultimate purpose might have been, certainly embodied the idea of a democracy, pure and simple, resting on the right of a people to enact their own laws and adopt their own institutions. It was believed by many to be a movement in the interest of Slavery, and on that ground met with fierce opposition. Was it welcomed by slaveholders? Far from it. The Southern Aristocracy, clear-sighted on every question affecting their peculiar institution, applied their remorseless logic to the existing dilemma, and promptly decided that to admit the correctness of the principle was to endanger the existence of the system which was the corner-stone of their faith. They looked beyond the result of the immediate election. They foresaw the crisis which must ultimately arise. Indeed, they had long appreciated the fact, that the "irrepressible conflict" in which we are now involved was impending, and had been mustering all their forces to meet the inevitable issue. The crisis came. But how? In an evil hour for its own success, but a most-fortunate one for the welfare of the Republic, Slavery, overestimating its inherent power, and underrating the resources and virtue of the nation, committed the fatal error of measuring its strength with a free North. From that moment it lost forever all that it had ever gained by united action, by skilful diplomacy, by dexterously playing upon the "fears of the wise and follies of the brave," and by ingeniously masking its dark designs.

The new policy once inaugurated, however, the career of treason once commenced, its authors can never recede. Their only safety lies in complete success. They must conquer or die. They may in secret confess to themselves that they have been guilty of a stupendous blunder, but that they clearly comprehend and sternly accept their position is abundantly evident. For, if anything is proved in the history of this war, it is, that the chiefs in the Rebellion believe in no middle ground between peace on their own terms and the utter annihilation of their political power and military resources.

Thus, then, my dear Andrew, the insane ambition and wanton treachery of the Southern wing of your party have delivered the North from the danger of white slavery, and, by breaking up the Democratic party, have delivered the nation from the despotism of an organization which had become too powerful for its own good and for the best interests of the country. Do you dare to complain of this deliverance? You ought rather to go on your knees every day of your life, and devoutly thank the kind Providence which gave you such an unexpected opportunity to escape from so demoralizing a servitude.

Do not allow your attachment to party names and party associations to warp your judgment or limit your patriotism. You need have no fear that any one of the sound and beneficent ideas which the Democratic party has ever impressed upon the mind of the nation will perish or be forgotten. Whatever features of the organization, whatever principles which it has labored to inculcate, are essential to the just development of our intellectual activity or our material resources, will survive the present struggle, perhaps to reappear in the creed and be promulgated by the statesmen of some future party; or who shall say that the Democratic party, freed from its corrupting associations, rejecting the leaders who have been its worst enemies, and the political heresies which have wrought its temporary ruin, may not again wield its former power, and once more direct the destinies of the country?

But, returning to considerations of more immediate importance, what, I ask, is the obvious duty of every true and loyal citizen in such a crisis as this? You resent, as insulting, any imputation of disloyalty, and therefore I have a right to infer that you are unwilling to be ranked among the enemies of your country. But who are those enemies? Clearly, those whose avowed intention or whose thinly disguised design is, to divide the Union and to rend the Republic in twain. How are those enemies to be overcome? Only by a hearty and earnest cooeperation with the measures devised by our legally constituted Government for the suppression of the Rebellion. I can easily understand that you may not be willing to give your cordial assent to all the measures and all the appointments of the Administration. It is not the Administration which you would have selected, or for which you voted. But, nevertheless, it is our rightful government, and nothing else can save the nation from absolute anarchy. Postpone, therefore, I beseech you, all merely partisan prejudices, and remember only that the Union is in danger. You are a Democrat. Adopt, then, during the continuance of this war, the noble sentiments of a distinguished Western Democrat:[J]—"The whole object of the Rebellion is to destroy the principle of Democracy. The party which stands by the Government is the true Democracy. Every soldier in the army is a true Democrat. Every man who lifts his head above party trammels is a Democrat. And every man who permits old issues to stand in the way of a vigorous prosecution of the war cannot, in my opinion, have any claims on the party." By such men and such utterances will the Democratic party secure the respect and admiration of mankind; while those spurious Democrats, whose hearts are with the South while their homes are in the North, whose voice is the voice of Jacob while their hands are the hands of Esau, whose first slavish impulse is to kiss the rod which smites them, and who long for nothing so much as the triumph of their Southern masters, have earned, and will surely receive, the contempt and detestation of all honest men, now and forever.

God forbid that I should suspect you of sympathizing with these miscreants! But, my friend, there is still another class of Democrats with whom I should exceedingly regret to see you associated. I mean those who, without any love for Rebels or their cause, are yet so fearful of being called Republicans that they refuse to support the Government. Can you justify yourself in standing upon such a platform? Is this a time in which to permit your old party animosities to render you indifferent to the honor and welfare of the nation? Are you simply in the position of a violent partisan out of office, eager to embarrass the Administration, and keenly on the watch to discover how best to inflame the prejudices of the populace against the Government? Is there nothing more important just now than to devise means of reinstating your party in power at the next Presidential election? Will it not be well first to settle the question, whether, in the month of November, 1864, we shall still be a free people, competent to elect the candidates of any party? May you not be, nay, are you not sure to be, giving substantial aid and comfort to the enemies of your country, while seeking only to cripple the power of your political opponents? Are not the dearest interests, and, indeed, the very life of the nation, of necessity, so dependent upon a cordial and constant support of the Government, that active hostility to its principal measures, or even absolute neutrality, strengthens the hands and increases the confidence of Rebels in arms?

Notwithstanding the notorious virulence of party feeling in this country, it certainly would not seem to require a very large amount of manly principle to rise superior to such a sordid sentiment in view of our common peril. Patriotism, my friend, is an admirable and most praiseworthy virtue. It is correctly classed among the noblest instincts of human nature. It has in all ages been a fruitful theme of poetic fervor; it has sustained the orator in his loftiest flights of eloquence; it has nerved the arm of the warrior to perform deeds of signal valor; it has transformed the timid matron and the shrinking maiden into heroines whom history has delighted to honor. But when patriotism is really synonymous with self-preservation, when small sacrifices are demanded and overwhelming disasters are to be averted, the love of country, although still highly commendable, does not, perhaps, deserve very enthusiastic praise, while the want of it will be sure to excite universal condemnation and scorn. I cannot believe that you will consent to fasten upon yourself, and upon all who are dear to you, the lasting stigma which will inevitably attach to the man who, whether from a mean partisan jealousy or an ignoble indifference to the honor of his country, has failed in an hour of sorest need to defend the land which gave him birth, and the institutions which his fathers suffered and sacrificed so much to establish.

Hoping that the vital importance of the subject which I have so imperfectly considered will induce you to pardon the length of this communication, I remain, as ever,

Very sincerely yours,

—— ——

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

The History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. By JOHN FOSTER KIRK. Two Volumes. 8vo. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Co.

There is probably no period of European history which has been so thoroughly explored and so richly illustrated as the sixteenth century,—that century of great men, lofty ideas, and gigantic enterprise, of intellectual activity, and of tremendous political and religious struggles. The numerous scholars of Continental Europe who have made this era the subject of their researches have generally been content to dig that others might plant and reap, sending forth in abundance the raw material of history to be woven into forms adapted to popular appreciation. In England, also, but only within a very recent period, much solid labor of the same kind has been performed. But the Anglo-Saxon mind, on some sides comparatively deficient in plastic and inventive power, as well as in that of abstract thought, seems to possess in a peculiar degree the faculty of comprehending, representing, and idealizing the varied phases and incessant motion of human life and character. In science it excels less in the discovery than in the application of laws. In what may be termed "pure art," music, sculpture, painting, except where the representation of the Beautiful is subservient to that of the Real, lyrical and idyllic poetry, and all departments of literature in which fancy predominates over reason, it must yield the palm to the genius of Italy, of Germany, of Spain. But in the drama, in the novel, in history, and in works partaking more or less of the character of these, its supremacy is established. Shakespeare and Chaucer are at once the greatest and the most characteristic of English poets; Hogarth and Wilkie, of English painters; Fielding, Scott, Miss Austen, Thackeray, and others whose names will at once suggest themselves, of English writers of fiction; Gibbon, Macaulay, and Hallam, of English historians. The drama, in its highest forms, belongs to the past, and that past which was at once too earnest in its spirit and too narrow in its development to allow of a less vivid or a more expansive delineation. Fiction, to judge from a multitude of recent specimens, seems at present on the decline, with some threatenings of a precipitate descent into the inane. History, on the other hand, is only at the outset of its career. Its highest achievements are in all probability reserved for a still distant future, when loftier points of view shall have been attained, and the haze that now hangs over even the nearest and most conspicuous objects in some measure dissipated. Its endeavors hitherto have only shown how much is still to be accomplished,—how little, indeed, comparatively speaking, it will ever be possible to accomplish. Not the less, on this account, are the laborers deserving of the honors bestowed upon them. Every fresh contribution is a permanent gain. Even in the same field the results of one exploration do not interfere with or supersede those of another. Robertson has, in many respects, been surpassed, but he has not been supplanted, by Prescott; Froude and Motley may traverse the same ground without impairing our interest in the researches of either.

These four distinguished writers have all devoted their efforts to the illustration of the period of which we have before spoken,—the grand and fruitful sixteenth century. With the men and with the events of that age we have thus become singularly familiar. We have been made acquainted, not only with the deeds, but with the thoughts, of Charles V., Philip II., Elizabeth Tudor, Cortes, Alva, Farnese, William the Silent, and a host of other actors in some of the most striking scenes of history. But we have also been tempted into forgetting that those were not isolated scenes, that they belonged to a drama which had long been in progress, and that the very energy they displayed, the power put forth, the conquests won, were indicative of previous struggles and a long accumulation of resources. Of what are called the Middle Ages the general notion might, perhaps, be comprised in the statement that they were ages of barbarism and ignorance, of picturesque customs and aimless adventure. "I desire to know nothing of those who knew nothing," was the saying, in reference to them, of the French philosophe. "Classical antiquity is nearer to us than the intervening darkness," said Hazlitt. And Hume and Robertson both consider that the interest of European history begins with the revival of letters, the invention of printing, the colonization of America, and the great contests between consolidated monarchies and between antagonistic principles and creeds.

It must be admitted that the greater portion of mediaeval history, whatever its true character, is shrouded in an obscurity which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to penetrate. But the same cannot be said of the close of that period,—the transitional era that preceded what we are accustomed to consider as the dawn of modern civilization. For Continental Europe, at least, the fifteenth century is hardly less susceptible of a thorough revelation than the sixteenth. The chroniclers and memoir-writers are more communicative than those of the succeeding age. The documentary evidence, if still deficient, is rapidly accumulating. The conspicuous personages of the time are daily becoming more palpable and familiar to us. Joan of Arc has glided from the luminous haze of legend and romance into the clearer light of history. Philippe de Comines has a higher fame than any eye-witness and narrator of later events. Louis XI. discloses to posterity those features which he would fain have concealed from his contemporaries. And confronting Louis stands another figure, not less prominent in their own day, not less striking when viewed from our day,—that of Charles the Bold, of Burgundy.

The career of this latter prince has generally been regarded as merely a romantic episode in European history. Scott has painted it in vivid colors in two of his most brilliant fictions,—"Quentin Durward," and "Anne of Geierstein." But, perhaps from this very notion in regard to its lack of historical importance, the reality has never been depicted in fulness or with detail, except in M. de Barante's elegant rifacimento of the French chroniclers of the fifteenth century. That the subject was, however, one of a very different character has been apparent to the scholars in France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland, who during the last twenty years have made it a special object of their researches. A stronger light has been thrown upon every part of it, and an entirely new light upon many portions. Charles has assumed his rightful position, as the "Napoleon of the Middle Ages," whose ambition and whose fall exercised, a powerful influence on the destinies of the principal European states.

But the labors through which this has been accomplished are as yet unknown to the general mass of readers. The results lie scattered in quarters difficult of access, and in forms that repel rather than attract the glance. Chronicles written in tough French and tougher German have been published in provincial towns, and have scarcely found their way beyond those localities. Various learned societies and commissions have edited documents which would be nearly unintelligible without a wide comparison and complete elucidation. Single, isolated points have been treated and discussed by those who took for granted a familiarity on the part of the reader with the general facts of the case. To combine this mass of evidence, to sift and establish it, and to weave it into a symmetrical narrative, is the aim of the work before us. The idea was conceived while the author was engaged in assisting the late Mr. Prescott in cognate branches of study. That great and generous writer entered heartily into the project, and made use of the ample facilities which he is well known to have possessed for the collection of the necessary materials. The correspondence which he opened for this purpose led to the belief that he had himself undertaken the task; and great satisfaction was expressed by the eminent Belgian archivist, M. Gachard, that a pen which had already given so much delight and instruction to the world was about to be engaged on so attractive a theme. But Prescott was not more ardent in the prosecution of his own inquiries than in furthering those of others; and he displayed in this, as in many like instances, the same noble spirit which, since his death, has been so gracefully acknowledged by Mr. Motley.

Of the manner in which the work is executed it would be, perhaps, premature to speak. We have no hesitation, however, in assigning to Mr. Kirk's most fascinating narrative a place with the great achievements of genius in the department he has chosen to fill. His advent among the historians will be welcomed the world over. A glance at the copy placed in our hands has enabled us to indicate its nature. The two volumes about to appear bring the story down to the crisis of Charles's fate, the moment when he became involved in a war with the Swiss. A third volume, now in course of preparation, will complete the eventful tale.

We think it not unlikely that to the American reader the first half of the history will seem, at the present time, to possess a peculiar interest. For this part of the work contains the last great struggle between the French crown and the feudal princes,—a struggle involving the question whether France was to form one nation or to be divided into a number of petty states. Such a struggle is now going on in our own country. The question we are debating is whether the nation is to be disintegrated or consolidated. The theory of "State sovereignty" is nothing more than the old theory of feudal independence. "I love France so well," said Charles of Burgundy, "that I would fain see it ruled over by six kings instead of one." "I love the republic founded by our fathers so well," says Jefferson Davis, "that I would fain see it split up into several hostile confederacies." When we see that France, under the direction of a Louis XI., came out of that struggle triumphant, we shall not despair of our own future, trusting rather to the guidance of that Providence which is working out its own great designs than to instruments little cognizant of its plans and too often unconscious of its influence.