I cannot pretend to convey a technically accurate idea of this elaborate, though compact piece of machinery; but such a sketch as I can give—from memory of a pleasant hour spent in looking at it—shall here be given as briefly as possible.

The machine stands in a substantial iron framework, five feet by four, within which the mechanism is nicely disposed, so that there may be ample room for the four operations of setting, justifying, leading, and distributing. In front is a key-board of forty keys, which correspond to two hundred and fifty-six characters, arranged in eight cases. A single case consists of thirty-two flat brass tubes, standing perpendicularly, side by side, each one being filled with a certain denomination of type. Seven of the keys determine from which case the desired letter shall be taken. Thus, the small letter a is set by touching the a key; the capital A by touching the "capital key" in connection with the a key; the capital B by touching the "capital key" in connection with the b key; and so on with every letter. There are also keys called the "small capital," the "Italic," and the "Italic capital"; so that the machine contains all the characters known to the compositor. The operation of these "capital" and "small-capital keys" is similar to that of an organ-stop in modifying the effect of other keys.

When the machine is in motion,—and I should here mention that it is worked by steam,—a curious piece of mechanism, called "the stick,"—which is about as large as a man's hand, and quite as adroit,—plays to and fro beneath the cases, and acts obediently to the operator's touch. The spectacle of this little metallic intelligence is amusing. It is armed with pincers, which it uses much as the elephant does his trunk, though with infinite celerity. Every time a key is touched, these pincers seize a type from one of the tubes, turn downward, and, as it were, put it into the mouth of the stick. And so voracious is the appetite of this little creature, that in a few seconds its stomach is full,—in other words, the line is set. A tiny bell gives warning of this fact, and the operator finishes the word or syllabic. He then touches the justifying-key, and the spacer seizes the line and draws it into another part of the machine, to be justified, while the empty stick resumes its feeding. No time is lost; for, while the stick is setting a second line; the "spacer" is justifying the first; so that, in a few moments after starting, the processes are going forward simultaneously. That of justifying is, perhaps, the most ingenious. It is accomplished in this wise. The stick never sets a full line, but leaves room for spaces, and with the last letter of each word inserts a piece of steel, to separate the words. When the line has been drawn into the spacer, the pieces of steel, which are furnished with nicked heads for the purpose, are withdrawn, and ordinary spaces are substituted. All this requires no attention whatever from the operator. The matter, thus set and justified, is now leaded by the machine, and deposited upon a galley ready for the press.

In this machine, distribution is the reverse of composition, and is effected by simply reversing the motion of the shaft. By duplicating certain parts of the machine, both operations are performed at the same time. The process of distributing, and also that of resetting the same matter, may be made automatic by means of the Register. This device, although an original invention with Mr. Felt, is an application of the principle of the Jacquard loom. It consists of a narrow strip of card or paper, in which holes are punched as the types are taken, forming a substitute for the troublesome nicking of the type, which has heretofore been thought indispensable to automatic distribution. By this means the type can be changed in resetting, if desired, so that different editions of the same work can be printed in different sizes of type.

The machine is adapted to the use of combination-types as well as single letters. For this purpose Mr. Felt has developed a new system, based upon an elaborate analysis of the language. In a number of examples of printed matter, embracing a wide range of literature, the frequency of the single and combined letters has been ascertained by careful and accurate computation, and reduced to a percentage. It may interest the reader to know that e is the letter of most frequent occurrence, constituting one-eighth of the language. The, as a word or syllable, is found to be six per cent.; and, four per cent.; in, three per cent., etc.

I have not pretended, in this description of Mr. Felt's machine, to explain every technicality, or to raise and answer possible objections. The great point is, that the labor of setting, justifying, leading, and distributing types by machinery is actually done, by means of his invention. Thus the aspiration of inventive genius, in this department of art, is nobly fulfilled. Thus the links in the chain of progress are complete, from Laurentius Coster, walking in the woods of Holland, in 1430, and winning, from an accidental shower-bath, the art of making movable types, down to the wide-awake Massachusetts Yankee, whose genius will make printing as cheap as writing, and therefore a thousand times more available for all purposes of civilization,—besides lightening the burdens of toil, and blessing the jaded worker with a bright prospect of health, competence, and ease.

* * * * *

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

V.

RAKING UP THE FIRE.

We have a custom at our house which we call raking up the fire. That is to say, the last half-hour before bed-time, we draw in, shoulder to shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our hearth, which we prick up and brighten, and dispose for a few farewell flickers and glimmers. This is a grand time for discussion. Then we talk over parties, if the young people have been out of an evening,—a book, if we have been reading one; we discuss and analyze characters,—give our views on all subjects, aesthetic, theological, and scientific, in a way most wonderful to hear; and, in fact, we sometimes get so engaged in our discussions that every spark of the fire burns out, and we begin to feel ourselves shivering around the shoulders, before we can remember that it is bed-time.

So, after the reading of my last article, we had a "raking-up talk,"—to wit, Jennie, Marianne, and I, with Bob Stephens;—my wife, still busy at her work-basket, sat at the table a little behind us. Jennie, of course, opened the ball in her usual incisive manner.

"But now, papa, after all you say in your piece there, I cannot help feeling, that, if I had the taste and the money too, it would be better than the taste alone with no money. I like the nice arrangements and the books and the drawings; but I think all these would appear better still with really elegant furniture."

"Who doubts that?" said I. "Give me a large tub of gold coin to dip into, and the furnishing and beautifying of a house is a simple affair. The same taste that could make beauty out of cents and dimes could make it more abundantly out of dollars and eagles. But I have been speaking for those who have not, and cannot get, riches, and who wish to have agreeable houses; and I begin in the outset by saying that beauty is a thing to be respected, reverenced, and devoutly cared for,—and then I say that BEAUTY IS CHEAP, nay, to put it so that the shrewdest Yankee will understand it, BEAUTY IS THE CHEAPEST THING YOU CAN HAVE, because in many ways it is a substitute for expense. A few vases of flowers in a room, a few blooming, well-kept plants, a few prints framed in fanciful frames of cheap domestic fabric, a statuette, a bracket, an engraving, a pencil-sketch, above all, a few choice books,—all these arranged by a woman who has the gift in her finger-ends often produce such an illusion on the mind's eye that one goes away without once having noticed that the cushion of the arm-chair was worn out, and that some veneering had fallen off the centre-table.

"I have a friend, a school-mistress, who lives in a poor little cottage enough, which, let alone of the Graces, might seem mean and sordid, but a few flower-seeds and a little weeding in the spring make it, all summer, an object which everybody stops to look at. Her aesthetic soul was at first greatly tried with the water-barrel which stood under the eaves-spout,—a most necessary evil, since only thus could her scanty supply of soft water for domestic purposes be secured. One of the Graces, however, suggested to her a happy thought. She planted a row of morning-glories round the bottom of her barrel, and drove a row of tacks around the top, and strung her water-butt with twine, like a great harpsichord. A few weeks covered the twine with blossoming plants, which every morning were a mass of many-colored airy blooms, waving in graceful sprays, and looking at themselves in the water. The water-barrel, in fact, became a celebrated stroke of ornamental gardening, which the neighbors came to look at."

"Well, but," said Jennie, "everybody hasn't mamma's faculty with flowers. Flowers will grow for some people, and for some they won't. Nobody can see what mamma does so very much, but her plants always look fresh and thriving and healthy,—her things blossom just when she wants them, and do anything else she wishes them to; and there are other people that fume and fuss and try, and their things won't do anything at all. There's Aunt Easygo has plant after plant brought from the greenhouse, and hanging-baskets, and all sorts of things; but her plants grow yellow and drop their leaves, and her hanging-baskets get dusty and poverty-stricken, while mamma's go on flourishing as heart could desire."

"I can tell you what your mother puts into her plants," said I,—"just what she has put into her children, and all her other home-things,—her heart. She loves them; she lives in them; she has in herself a plant-life and a plant-sympathy. She feels for them as if she herself were a plant; she anticipates their wants,—always remembers them without an effort, and so the care flows to them daily and hourly. She hardly knows when she does the things that make them grow,—but she gives them a minute a hundred times a day. She moves this nearer the glass,—draws that back,—detects some thief of a worm on one,—digs at the root of another, to see why it droops,—washes these leaves, and sprinkles those,—waters, and refrains from watering, all with the habitual care of love. Your mother herself doesn't know why her plants grow; it takes a philosopher and a writer for the 'Atlantic' to tell her what the cause is."

Here I saw my wife laughing over her work-basket as she answered,—

"Girls, one of these days, I will write an article for the 'Atlantic,' that your papa need not have all the say to himself: however, I believe he has hit the nail on the head this time."

"Of course he has," said Marianne. "But, mamma, I am afraid to begin to depend much on plants for the beauty of my rooms, for fear I should not have your gift,—and of all forlorn and hopeless things in a room, ill-kept plants are the most so."

"I would not recommend," said I, "a young housekeeper, just beginning, to rest much for her home-ornament on plant-keeping, unless she has an experience of her own love and talent in this line, which makes her sure of success; for plants will not thrive, if they are forgotten or overlooked, and only tended in occasional intervals; and, as Marianne says, neglected plants are the most forlorn of all things."

"But, papa," said Marianne, anxiously, "there, in those patent parlors of John's that you wrote of, flowers acted a great part."

"The charm of those parlors of John's may be chemically analyzed," I said. "In the first place, there is sunshine, a thing that always affects the human nerves of happiness. Why else is it that people are always so glad to see the sun after a long storm? why are bright days matters of such congratulation? Sunshine fills a house with a thousand beautiful and fanciful effects of light and shade,—with soft, luminous, reflected radiances, that give picturesque effects to the pictures, books, statuettes of an interior. John, happily, had no money to buy brocatelle curtains,—and besides this, he loved sunshine too much to buy them, if he could. He had been enough with artists to know that heavy damask curtains darken precisely that part of the window where the light proper for pictures and statuary should come in, namely, the upper part. The fashionable system of curtains lights only the legs of the chairs and the carpets, and leaves all the upper portion of the room in shadow. John's windows have shades which can at pleasure be drawn down from the top or up from the bottom, so that the best light to be had may always be arranged for his little interior."

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in your chemical analysis of John's rooms, what is the next thing to the sunshine?"

"The next," said I, "is harmony of color. The wall-paper, the furniture, the carpets, are of tints that harmonize with one another. This is a grace in rooms always, and one often neglected. The French have an expressive phrase with reference to articles which are out of accord,—they say that they swear at each other. I have been in rooms where I seemed to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and the carpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each article of furniture swearing at the rest. These appointments may all of them be of the most expensive kind, but with such disharmony no arrangement can ever produce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect. On the other hand, I have been in rooms where all the material was cheap, and the furniture poor, but where, from some instinctive knowledge of the reciprocal effect of Colors, everything was harmonious, and produced a sense of elegance.

"I recollect once travelling on a Western canal through a long stretch of wilderness, and stopping to spend the night at an obscure settlement of a dozen houses. We were directed to lodgings in a common frame-house at a little distance, where, it seemed, the only hotel was kept. When we entered the parlor, we were struck with utter amazement at its prettiness, which affected us before we began to ask ourselves how it came to be pretty. It was, in fact, only one of the miracles of harmonious color working with very simple materials. Some woman had been busy there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the common wooden rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, probably made of old soap-boxes, were all covered with American nankeen of a soft yellowish-brown, with a bordering of blue print. The window-shades, the table-cover, and the piano-cloth, all repeated the same colors, in the same cheap material. A simple straw matting was laid over the floor, and, with a few books, a vase of flowers, and one or two prints, the room had a home-like, and even elegant air, that struck us all the more forcibly from its contrast with the usual tawdry, slovenly style of such parlors.

"The means used for getting up this effect were the most inexpensive possible,—simply the following-out, in cheap material, a law of uniformity and harmony, which always will produce beauty. In the same manner, I have seen a room furnished, whose effect was really gorgeous in color, where the only materials used were Turkey-red cotton and a simple ingrain carpet of corresponding color.

"Now, you girls have been busy lately in schemes for buying a velvet carpet for the new parlor that is to be, and the only points that have seemed to weigh in the council were that it was velvet, that it was cheaper than velvets usually are, and that it was a genteel pattern."

"Now, papa," said Jennie, "what ears you have! We thought you were reading all the time!"

"I see what you are going to say," said Marianne. "You think that we have not once mentioned the consideration which should determine the carpet,—whether it will harmonize with our other things. But, you see, papa, we don't really know what our other things are to be." "Yes," said Jennie, "and Aunt Easygo said it was an unusually good chance to get a velvet carpet."

"Yet, good as the chance is, it costs just twice as much as an ingrain."

"Yes, papa, it does."

"And you are not sure that the effect of it, after you get it down, will be as good as a well-chosen ingrain one."

"That's true," said Marianne, reflectively.

"But, then, papa," said Jennie, "Aunt Easygo said she never heard of such a bargain; only think, two dollars a yard for a velvet!"

"And why is it two dollars a yard? Is the man a personal friend, that he wishes to make you a present of a dollar on the yard? or is there some reason why it is undesirable?" said I.

"Well, you know, papa, he said those large patterns were not so salable."

"To tell the truth," said Marianne, "I never did like the pattern exactly; as to uniformity of tint, it might match with anything, for there's every color of the rainbow in it."

"You see, papa, it's a gorgeous flower-pattern," said Jennie.

"Well, Marianne, how many yards of this wonderfully cheap carpet do you want?"

"We want sixty yards for both rooms," said Jennie, always primed with statistics.

"That will be a hundred and twenty dollars," I said.

"Yes," said Jennie; "and we went over the figures together, and thought we could make it out by economizing in other things. Aunt Easygo said that the carpet was half the battle,—that it gave the air to everything else."

"Well, Marianne, if you want a man's advice in the case, mine is at your service."

"That is just what I want, papa."

"Well, then, my dear, choose your wall-papers and borderings, and, when they are up, choose an ingrain carpet to harmonize with them, and adapt your furniture to the same idea. The sixty dollars that you save on your carpet spend on engravings, chromo-lithographs, or photographs of some really good works of Art, to adorn your walls."

"Papa, I'll do it," said Marianne.

"My little dear," said I, "your papa may seem to be a sleepy old book-worm, yet he has his eyes open. Do you think I don't know why my girls have the credit of being the best-dressed girls on the street?"

"Oh, papa!" cried out both girls in a breath.

"Fact, that!" said Bob, with energy, pulling at his moustache. "Everybody talks about your dress, and wonders how you make it out."

"Well," said I, "I presume you do not go into a shop and buy a yard of ribbon because it is selling at half-price, and put it on without considering complexion, eyes, hair, and shade of the dress, do you?"

"Of course we don't!" chimed in the duo, with energy.

"Of course you don't. Haven't I seen you mincing down-stairs, with all your colors harmonized, even to your gloves and gaiters? Now, a room must be dressed as carefully as a lady."

"Well, I'm convinced," said Jennie, "that papa knows how to make rooms prettier than Aunt Easygo; but then she said this was cheap, because it would outlast two common carpets."

"But, as you pay double price," said I, "I don't see that. Besides, I would rather, in the course of twenty years, have two nice, fresh ingrain carpets, of just the color and pattern that suited my rooms, than labor along with one ill-chosen velvet that harmonized with nothing."

"I give it up," said Jennie; "I give it up."

"Now, understand me," said I; "I am not traducing velvet or Brussels or Axminster. I admit that more beautiful effects can be found in those goods than in the humbler fabrics of the carpet-rooms. Nothing would delight me more than to put an unlimited credit to Marianne's account, and let her work out the problems of harmonious color in velvet and damask. All I have to say is, that certain unities of color, certain general arrangements, will secure very nearly as good general effects in either material. A library with a neat, mossy green carpet on the floor, harmonizing with wall-paper and furniture, looks generally as well, whether the mossy green is made in Brussels or in ingrain. In the carpet-stores, these two materials stand side by side in the very same pattern, and one is often as good for the purpose as the other. A lady of my acquaintance, some years since, employed an artist to decorate her parlors. The walls being frescoed and tinted to suit his ideal, he immediately issued his decree that her splendid velvet carpets must be sent to auction, and others bought of certain colors, harmonizing with the walls. Unable to find exactly the color and pattern he wanted, he at last had the carpets woven in a neighboring factory, where, as yet, they had only the art of weaving ingrains. Thus was the material sacrificed at once to the harmony."

I remarked, in passing, that this was before Bigelow's mechanical genius had unlocked for America the higher secrets of carpet-weaving, and made it possible to have one's desires accomplished in Brussels or velvet. In those days, English carpet-weavers did not send to America for their looms, as they now do.

"But now to return to my analysis of John's rooms.

"Another thing which goes a great way towards giving them their agreeable air is the books in them. Some people are fond of treating books as others do children. One room in the house is selected, and every book driven into it and kept there. Yet nothing makes a room so home-like, so companionable, and gives it such an air of refinement, as the presence of books. They change the aspect of a parlor from that of a mere reception-room, where visitors perch for a transient call, and give it the air of a room where one feels like taking off one's things to stay. It gives the appearance of permanence and repose and quiet fellowship; and next to pictures on the walls, the many-colored bindings and gildings of books are the most agreeable adornment of a room."

"Then, Marianne," said Bob, "we have something to start with, at all events. There are my English Classics and English Poets, and my uniform editions of Scott and Thackeray and Macaulay and Prescott and Irving and Longfellow and Lowell and Hawthorne and Holmes and a host more. We really have something pretty there."

"You are a lucky girl," I said, "to have so much secured. A girl brought up in a house full of books, always able to turn to this or that author and look for any passage or poem when she thinks of it, doesn't know what a blank a house without books might be."

"Well," said Marianne, "mamma and I were counting over my treasures the other day. Do you know, I have one really fine old engraving, that Bob says is quite a genuine thing; and then there is that pencil-sketch that poor Schoene made for me the month before he died,—it is truly artistic."

"And I have a couple of capital things of Landseer's," said Bob.

"There's no danger that your rooms will not be pretty," said I, "now you are fairly on the right track."

"But, papa," said Marianne, "I am troubled about one thing. My love of beauty runs into everything. I want pretty things for my table,—and yet, as you say, servants are so careless, one cannot use such things freely without great waste."

"For my part," said my wife, "I believe in best china, to be kept carefully on an upper-shelf, and taken down for high-days and holidays; it may be a superstition, but I believe in it. It must never be taken out except when the mistress herself can see that it is safely cared for. My mother always washed her china herself; and it was a very pretty social ceremony, after tea was over, while she sat among us washing her pretty cups, and wiping them on a fine damask towel."

"With all my heart," said I; "have your best china, and venerate it,—it is one of the loveliest of domestic superstitions; only do not make it a bar to hospitality, and shrink from having a friend to tea with you, unless you feel equal to getting up to the high shelf where you keep it, getting it down, washing, and putting it up again.

"But in serving a table, I say, as I said of a house, beauty is a necessity, and beauty is cheap. Because you cannot afford beauty in one form, it does not follow that you cannot have it in another. Because one cannot afford to keep up a perennial supply of delicate china and crystal, subject to the accidents of raw, untrained servants, it does not follow that the every-day table need present a sordid assortment of articles chosen simply for cheapness, while the whole capacity of the purse is given to the set forever locked away for state-occasions.

"A table-service, all of simple white, of graceful forms, even though not of china, if arranged with care, with snowy, well-kept table-linen, clear glasses, and bright American plate in place of solid silver, may be made to look inviting; add a glass of flowers every day, and your table may look pretty;—and it is far more important that it should look pretty for the family every day than for company once in two weeks."

"I tell my girls," said my wife, "as the result of my experience, you may have your pretty china and your lovely fanciful articles for the table only so long as you can take all the care of them yourselves. As soon as you get tired of doing this, and put them into the hands of the trustiest servants, some good, well-meaning creature is sure to break her heart and your own and your very pet, darling china pitcher all in one and the same minute; and then her frantic despair leaves you not even the relief of scolding."

"I have become perfectly sure," said I, "that there are spiteful little brownies, intent on seducing good women to sin, who mount guard over the special idols of the china-closet. If you hear a crash, and a loud Irish wail from the inner depths, you never think of its being a yellow pie-plate, or that dreadful one-handled tureen that you have been wishing were broken these five years; no, indeed,—it is sure to be the lovely painted china bowl, wreathed with morning-glories and sweet-peas, or the engraved glass goblet, with quaint old-English initials. China sacrificed must be a great means of saintship to women. Pope, I think, puts it as the crowning grace of his perfect woman, that she is

'Mistress of herself, though china fall.'"

"I ought to be a saint by this time, then," said mamma; "for in the course of my days I have lost so many idols by breakage, and peculiar accidents that seemed by a special fatality to befall my prettiest and most irreplaceable things, that in fact it has come to be a superstitious feeling now with which I regard anything particularly pretty of a breakable nature."

"Well," said Marianne, "unless one has a great deal of money, it seems to me that the investment in these pretty fragilities is rather a poor one."

"Yet," said I, "the principle of beauty is never so captivating as when it presides over the hour of daily meals. I would have the room where they are served one of the pleasantest and sunniest in the house. I would have its coloring cheerful, and there should be companionable pictures and engravings on the walls. Of all things, I dislike a room that seems to be kept like a restaurant, merely to eat in. I like to see in a dining-room something that betokens a pleasant sitting-room at other hours. I like there some books, a comfortable sofa or lounge, and all that should make it cozy and inviting. The custom in some families, of adopting for the daily meals one of the two parlors which a city-house furnishes, has often seemed to me a particularly happy one. You take your meals, then, in an agreeable place, surrounded by the little agreeable arrangements of your daily sitting-room; and after the meal, if the lady of the house does the honors of her own pretty china herself, the office may be a pleasant and social one.

"But in regard to your table-service I have my advice at hand. Invest in pretty table-linen, in delicate napkins, have your vase of flowers, and be guided by the eye of taste in the choice and arrangement of even the every-day table-articles, and have no ugly things when you can have pretty ones by taking a little thought. If you are sore tempted with lovely china and crystal, too fragile to last, too expensive to be renewed, turn away to a print-shop and comfort yourself by hanging around the walls of your dining-room beauty that will not break or fade, that will meet your eye from year to year, though plates, tumblers, and tea-sets successively vanish. There is my advice for you, Marianne."

At the same time, let me say, in parenthesis, that my wife, whose weakness is china, informed me that night, when we were by ourselves, that she was ordering secretly a tea-set as a bridal gift for Marianne, every cup of which was to be exquisitely painted with the wild-flowers of America, from designs of her own,—a thing, by-the-by, that can now be very nicely executed in our country. "It will last her all her life," she said, "and always be such a pleasure to look at,—and a pretty tea-table is such a pretty sight!" So spoke Mrs. Crowfield, "unweaned from china by a thousand falls." She spoke even with tears in her eyes. Verily, these women are harps of a thousand strings!

But to return to my subject.

"Finally and lastly," I said, "in my analysis and explication of the agreeableness of those same parlors, comes the crowning grace,—their homeliness. By homeliness I mean not ugliness, as the word is apt to be used, but the air that is given to a room by being really at home in it. Not the most skilful arrangement can impart this charm.

"It is said that a king of France once remarked,—'My son, you must seem to love your people.'

"'Father, how shall I seem to love them?'

"'My son, you must love them.'

"So to make rooms seem home-like you must be at home in them. Human light and warmth are so wanting in some rooms, it is so evident that they are never used, that you can never be at ease there. In vain the house-maid is taught to wheel the sofa and turn chair towards chair; in vain it is attempted to imitate a negligent arrangement of the centre-table.

"Books that have really been read and laid down, chairs that have really been moved here and there in the animation of social contact, have a sort of human vitality in them; and a room in which people really live and enjoy is as different from a shut-up apartment as a live woman from a wax image.

"Even rooms furnished without taste often become charming from this one grace, that they seem to let you into the home-life and home-current. You seem to understand in a moment that you are taken into the family, and are moving in its inner circles, and not revolving at a distance in some outer court of the gentiles.

"How many people do we call on from year to year and know no more of their feelings, habits, tastes, family ideas and ways, than if they lived in Kamtschatka! And why? Because the room which they call a front-parlor is made expressly so that you never shall know. They sit in a back-room,—work, talk, read, perhaps. After the servant has let you in and opened a crack of the shutters, and while you sit waiting for them to change their dress and come in, you speculate as to what they may be doing. From some distant region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from the upholsterer's, a Brussels carpet, a centre-table with four gilt Books of Beauty on it, a mantel-clock from Paris, and two bronze vases,—all these tell you only in frigid tones, 'This is the best room,'—only that, and nothing more,—and soon she trips in in her best clothes, and apologizes for keeping you waiting, asks how your mother is, and you remark that it is a pleasant day,—and thus the acquaintance progresses from year to year. One hour in the little back-room, where the plants and canary-bird and children are, might have made you fast friends for life; but as it is, you care no more for them than for the gilt clock on the mantel.

"And now, girls," said I, pulling a paper out of my pocket, "you must know that your father is getting to be famous by means of these 'House and Home Papers.' Here is a letter I have just received:—

"'MOST EXCELLENT MR. CROWFIELD,—Your thoughts have lighted into our family-circle, and echoed from our fireside. We all feel the force of them, and are delighted with the felicity of your treatment of the topic you have chosen. You have taken hold of a subject that lies deep in our hearts, in a genial, temperate, and convincing spirit. All must acknowledge the power of your sentiments upon their imaginations;—if they could only trust to them in actual life! There is the rub.

"'Omitting further upon these points, there is a special feature of your articles upon which we wish to address you. You seem as yet (we do not know, of course, what you may hereafter do) to speak only of homes whose conduct depends upon the help of servants. Now your principles apply, as some of us well conceive, to nearly all classes of society; yet most people, to take an impressive hint, must have their portraits drawn out more exactly. We therefore hope that you will give a reasonable share of your attention to us who do not employ servants, so that you may ease us of some of our burdens, which, in spite of common sense, we dare not throw off. For instance, we have company,—a friend from afar, (perhaps wealthy,) or a minister, or some other man of note. What do we do? Sit down and receive our visitor with all good-will and the freedom of a home? No; we (the lady of the house) flutter about to clear up things, apologizing about this, that, and the other condition of unpreparedness, and, having settled the visitor in the parlor, set about marshalling the elements of a grand dinner or supper, such as no person but a gourmand wants to sit down to, when at home and comfortable; and in getting up this meal, clearing away, and washing the dishes, we use up a good half of the time which our guest spends with us. We have spread ourselves, and shown him what we could do; but what a paltry, heart-sickening achievement! Now, good Mr. Crowfield, thou friend of the robbed and despairing, wilt thou not descend into our purgatorial circle, and tell the world what thou hast seen there of doleful remembrance? Tell us how we, who must do and desire to do our own work, can show forth in our homes a homely, yet genial hospitality, and entertain our guests without making a fuss and hurly-burly, and seeming to be anxious for their sake about many things, and spending too much time getting meals, as if eating were the chief social pleasure. Won't you do this, Mr. Crowfield?

"'Yours beseechingly,

"'R.H.A.'"

"That's a good letter," said Jennie.

"To be sure it is," said I.

"And shall you answer it, papa?"

"In the very next 'Atlantic,' you may be sure I shall. The class that do their own work are the strongest, the most numerous, and, taking one thing with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any other. They are the anomaly of our country,—the distinctive feature of the new society that we are building up here; and if we are to accomplish our national destiny, that class must increase rather than diminish. I shall certainly do my best to answer the very sensible and pregnant questions of that letter."

Here Marianne shivered and drew up a shawl, and Jennie gaped; my wife folded up the garment in which she had set the last stitch, and the clock struck twelve.

Bob gave a low whistle. "Who knew it was so late?"

"We have talked the fire fairly out," said Jennie.

* * * * *

REENLISTED.

Oh, did you see him in the street, dressed up in army-blue, When drums and trumpets into town their storm of music threw,— A louder tune than all the winds could muster in the air, The Rebel winds, that tried so hard our flag in strips to tear?

You didn't mind him? Oh, you looked beyond him, then, perhaps, To see the mounted officers rigged out with trooper-caps, And shiny clothes, and sashes red, and epaulets and all;— It wasn't for such things as these he heard his country call.

She asked for men; and up he spoke, my handsome, hearty Sam,— "I'll die for the dear old Union, if she'll take me as I am." And if a better man than he there's mother that can show, From Maine to Minnesota, then let the nation know.

You would not pick him from the rest by eagles or by stars, By straps upon his coat-sleeve, or gold or silver bars, Nor a corporal's strip of worsted, but there's something in his face, And something in his even step, a-marching in his place,

That couldn't be improved by all the badges in the land: A patriot, and a good, strong man; are generals much more grand? We rest our pride on that big heart wrapped up in army-blue, The girl he loves, Mehitabel, and I, who love him too.

He's never shirked a battle yet, though frightful risks he's run, Since treason flooded Baltimore, the spring of 'sixty-one; Through blood and storm he's held out firm, nor fretted once, my Sam, At swamps of Chickahominy, or fields of Antietam:

Though many a time, he's told us, when he saw them lying dead, The boys that came from Newburyport, and Lynn, and Marblehead, Stretched out upon the trampled turf, and wept on by the sky, It seemed to him the Commonwealth had drained her life-blood dry.

"But then," he said, "the more's the need the country has of me: To live and fight the war all through, what glory it would be! The Rebel balls don't hit me, and, mother, if they should, You'll know I've fallen in my place, where I have always stood."

He's taken out his furlough, and short enough it seemed: I often tell Mehitabel he'll think he only dreamed Of walking with her nights so bright you couldn't see a star, And hearing the swift tide come in across the harbor-bar.

The stars that shine above the stripes, they light him southward now; The tide of war has swept him back; he's made a solemn vow To build himself no home-nest till his country's work is done: God bless the vow, and speed the work, my patriot, my son!

And yet it is a pretty place where his new house might be; An orchard-road that leads your eye straight out upon the sea:— The boy not work his father's farm? it seems almost a shame; But any selfish plan for him he'd never let me name.

He's reenlisted for the war, for victory or for death; A soldier's grave, perhaps,—the thought has half-way stopped my breath, And driven a cloud across the sun;—my boy, it will not be! The war will soon be over; home again you'll come to me!

He's reenlisted; and I smiled to see him going, too: There's nothing that becomes him half so well as army-blue. Only a private in the ranks; but sure I am, indeed, If all the privates were like him, they 'd scarcely captains need!

And I and Massachusetts share the honor of his birth,— The grand old State! to me the best in all the peopled earth! I cannot hold a musket, but I have a son who can; And I'm proud for Freedom's sake to be the mother of a man!

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

For the first time since the American Presidency was created, the American people have entered upon a Presidential election in time of great war. Even the election of 1812 forms no exception to this assertion, as the second contest with England did not begin until the summer of that year, when the conditions of the political contest were already understood, and it was known that Mr. Madison would be reelected, in spite of the opposition of the Federalists, and notwithstanding the disaffection of those Democrats who took De Witt Clinton for their leader. Mr. Madison, indeed, is supposed to have turned "war man," against his own convictions, in order to conciliate the "Young Democracy" of 1812, who had resolved upon having a fight with England,—and in that way to have secured for supporters men who would have prevented his reelection, had he defied them. The trouble that we had with France at the close of the last century undoubtedly had some effect in deciding the fourth Presidential contest adversely to the Federalists; but though it was illustrated by some excellent naval fighting, it can hardly be spoken of as a war: certainly, it was not a great war. The Mexican War had been brought to a triumphant close before the election of 1848 was opened. Of the nineteen Presidential elections which the country has known, sixteen were held in times of profound peace,—as Indian wars went for nothing; and the other three were not affected as to their decision by the contests we had had with France or Mexico, or by that with England, which was in its first stage when Mr. Madison was reelected. Every Presidential election, from that of 1788 to that of 1860, found us a united people, with every State taking some part in the canvas. Even South Carolina in 1860 was not clearly counted out of the fight until after Mr. Lincoln's success had been announced, and rebellion had been resolved upon.

But all is now changed. The twentieth Presidential election finds us not only at war, but engaged in a civil war of such magnitude that even the most martial nations of Europe are surprised at the numbers who take part in it, and at its cost. The election is to be carried, and perhaps decided, amid the din of arms, with a million of voters in the land and sea forces of the two parties. This is so new to us, that it would seem more like a dream than a reality, but that losses of life and high prices render the matter most painfully real. How to act under such circumstances might well puzzle us, were it not that the path of duty is pointed out by the spirit of patriotism. The election will have much effect on the operations of war, and those operations in their turn will have no light effect on the election. Our political action should be such as to strengthen the arm of Government; and the military action of Government should be such as to strengthen those who shall be engaged in affording it political support. Failure in the field would not lead to defeat at the polls, but it might so lessen the loyal majority that the public sentiment of the country would be but feebly represented by the country's political action. What happened in 1862 might happen again in 1864, and with much more disastrous effect on the fortunes of the Republic. In 1862 there was much discontent, because of the belief that Government had not done all it could have done to bring about the overthrow of the Rebels. Irritated by the reverses which had befallen our arms in Virginia, and knowing that nothing had been withheld that was necessary to the effective waging of the war, thousands of men refrained from voting, half-inclined as they were to see if the Democrats could not do that which others had failed to do. We are not discussing the justice of the opinion which then prevailed, but simply state a fact; and the consequence of the discontent that existed was that the Democrats came very near obtaining control of the popular branch of Congress. They made heavy gains in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other States; but that this result was not the effect of hostility to the national cause was made clearly apparent a year later, when the supporters of that cause won a series of brilliant political victories in the very States which had either pronounced for the Democrats in '62, or had given but small Republican majorities. The loyal majority in Ohio in 1863 was something that approached to the fabulous, because then the violent members of the Opposition, encouraged by what had taken place a year earlier, had the audacity to place Mr. Vallandigham in nomination for the office of Governor. Had that individual been elevated to the post for which he was nominated, Ohio must have been arrayed in open opposition to the Federal Government, almost as decisively so as South Carolina or Virginia. Had he been defeated by a small majority, his party would have taken arms against the State Government, and Ohio, compelled to fight for the maintenance of social order at home, would have done nothing for the national cause. But the majority against Mr. Vallandigham was upward of one hundred thousand; and to attempt resistance to a Government so potently supported as that of which Mr. Brough was the head was something that surpassed even the audacity of the men who had had the bad courage to select Mr. Vallandigham for their leader, in the hope of being able to make him the head of the State. That which was done in Ohio, not seven months since, should be done in the nation not seven months hence, if we would have peace preserved at home, and all our available means directed to the work of destroying the armies of the Southern Confederacy, and to the seizure of its ports and principal towns. The national popular majority should be so great in support of the war as to prevent any faction from thinking of resistance to the people's will as a possibility. The moral effect of a mighty political victory in November would be almost incalculable, both at home and in Europe; and in the Confederacy it would put an end to all such hopes of ultimate success as may rest upon the belief that we are a divided people.

The Democratic party should not be restored to power, happen what may in the course of the present campaign. This we say, not because we believe the Democratic masses wanting in loyalty or patriotism, but because we are of opinion that there should be no change either in the position of parties or in the personnel of the Government. There ought to be no doubt as to the soundness of the views that are held by most Democrats. They love their country, and they desire to see the Rebels subdued. They have the same interest, considered as citizens, in the triumph of the Federal cause that we all have. They have contributed their share of men to the fleets and armies of the Republic, and to the rolls on which are inscribed the names of the gallant dead. Many of our best generals formerly belonged to the Democratic organization, and they may still hold Democratic opinions on common politics. Why, then, object to the Democratic party being replaced in power? Because that would be a restoration, and it is a truism that a restoration is of all things the worst thing that can befall a country in times of civil commotion. If it could be settled beyond controversy that the Democratic party, should it be restored, would be governed by those of its members who have done their duty to their country in every way, no objection could be made to its coming again into possession of the National Government. But we know that nothing of the kind would take place. The most violent members of the Democratic party would govern that party, and dictate its policy and course of action, were it to triumph in the pending political contest. We wish for no better proof of this than is afforded by the conduct of Democratic conventions for some time past. The last convention of the New-Hampshire Democracy gave utterance to sentiments not essentially differing from those which were proclaimed by the supporters of Mr. Vallandigham in Ohio. Unwarned by the fate of the Ohio Democrats, the representatives of the New-Hampshire Democracy assumed a position that virtually pledged their State to make war on the Federal Government, should they succeed in electing Mr. Harrington, their candidate for Governor. The issue was distinctly made, and the people of New Hampshire, by a much larger majority than has usually marked the result of their State elections since the Civil War began, reelected Mr. Gillmore, who owed his first term of office to the Legislature's action: so great was the change wrought in one year. This shows that some of the Democratic voters are not prepared to follow their leaders to destruction. So was it in Connecticut. The Democratic convention in that State exhibited a very strong feeling of disloyalty, but the people rebuked its members by reelecting Governor Buckingham by a majority twice as large as that which he received last year. Here we have proofs, that, while the men who manage the Democratic party are prepared to go all lengths in opposition to the Federal Government, they cannot carry all their ordinary followers with them, when they unhesitatingly avow their principles and purpose. If they are so rabid, when engaged in action that is simply preliminary to local elections, what might not be expected from them, should they find themselves intrusted with the charge of the National Government? They would then behave in the most intolerant manner, and would introduce into this country a system of proscription quite as bad as anything of the kind that was known to the Romans as one of the most frightful consequences of their great civil contests. This would lead to reaction, and every Presidential election might be followed by deeds that would make our country a by-word, a hissing, and a reproach among the nations. There would be an end to all those fine hopes that are entertained that we shall speedily recover from the effects of the war, let peace once be restored. Prosperity would never return to the land, or would return only under the rule of some military despot, whose ascendency would gladly be seen and supported by a people weary of uncertainty and danger, and craving order above all things,—as the French people submitted to the rule of Napoleon III., because they believed him to be the man best qualified to protect themselves and their property against the designs of the Socialists. Our constitutional polity would give way to a cannonarchy, as every quietly disposed person would prefer the arbitrary government of one man to the organization of anarchy. If we should escape from both despotism and anarchy, it would be at the price of national destruction. Every great State would "set up for itself," while smaller States that are neighbors would form themselves into confederacies. There would come to exist a dozen nations where but one now exists,—for we leave the Southern Confederacy aside in this consideration. That Confederacy, however, would become the greatest power in North America. Not only would it hold together, but it would at once acquire the Border States, where slavery would be more than restored, for there it would be made as powerful an interest as it was in South Carolina and Mississippi but four years ago. War has welded the Southern Confederacy together, and in face of our breaking-up its rulers would have the strongest possible inducement to keep their Republic united, because they would then hope to conquer most of the Free States, and to confer upon them the "blessings" of the servile system of labor.

It is sometimes said, that, if the Democratic party should resume the rule of this nation, the Confederates, or Rebels, would signify their readiness to return into the Union, on the simple condition that things should be allowed to assume the forms they bore prior to Mr. Lincoln's election. They rebelled against the men who came into power through the political decision that was made in 1860; and, the American people having reversed that decision by restoring the Democracy, the cause of their rebellion having been removed, rebellion itself would cease as of course. Were this view of the subject indisputably sound, it would ill become the American to surrender to the men who assume that the decision of an election, this way or that, affords sufficient reason for a resort to arms. We should hold our existence as a nation by the basest of tenures, were we to admit the monstrous doctrine that only one party is competent to govern the Republic, and that there is an appeal from the decision of the ballot to that of the bayonet. There never existed a great people so craven as to make such an admission; and were we to set the example of making it, we should justify all that has been said adversely to us by domestic traitors and foreign foes. We should prove that we were unfit to enjoy that greatest of all public blessings, constitutional freedom, by surrendering it at the demand of a faction, merely that we might live in security, and enjoy the property we had accumulated. Ancient history mentions a people who were so fond of their ease that they placed all power in the hands of their slaves, on condition that the latter should not meddle with those pleasures to the unbroken pursuit of which they purposed devoting all their means and time. The slaves soon became masters, and the masters slaves. We should fare as badly as the Volsinians, were we to place all power in the hands of slaveholders, who then would own some millions of white bondmen, far inferior in every manly quality to those dark-faced chattels from among whom the Union has recruited some of its bravest and most unselfish champions. But there is no ground, none whatever, for believing that the Rebels would cease to be Rebels, if there should be a Democratic restoration effected. Not even the election of Mr. Buchanan to a second Presidential term would lead them to abandon their purpose: and he was their most useful tool in 1860, and without his assistance they could not have made one step in the road to rebellion, or ruin. Their purpose is to found a new nation, as they have never hesitated to avow, with a frankness that is as commendable as the cause in which it is evinced is abominable. They would be glad to see a Democrat chosen our next President, because they would expect from him an acknowledgment of their "independence"; but they would no more lay down their arms at his entreaty than they would at the command of a President of Republican opinions. Their arms can be forced from their hands, but there exists no man who could, from any position, induce them to surrender, or come back into the Union on any terms. They mean to abide the wager of battle, and are more likely to be moved from their purpose by the bold actions of General Grant than by the blandest words of the smoothest-tongued Democrat in America. To any mere persuader, no matter what his place or his opinions, they would turn an ear as deaf as that of the adder,—refusing to listen to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.

As there should be no change made in the political character of the Government, so there should be none in the men who compose it. To place power in new hands, at a time like the present, would be as unwise as it would be to raise a new army for the purpose of fighting the numerous, well-trained, and zealous force which the Rebels have organized with the intention of making a desperate effort to reestablish their affairs. There is no reason for supposing that a change would give us wiser or better men, and it is certain that they would be inexperienced men, should they all be as many Solomons or Solons. As we are situated, it is men of experience that we require to administer the Government; and out of the present Administration it is impossible to find men of the kind of experience that is needed at this crisis of the nation's career. The errors into which we fell in the early days of the contest were the effect of want of experience; and it would be but to provide for their repetition, were we to call a new Administration into existence. The people understand this, and hence the very general expression of opinion in favor of the reelection of President Lincoln, whose training through four most terrible years—years such as no other President ever knew—will have qualified him to carry on the Government during a second term to the satisfaction of all unselfish men. Mr. Lincoln's honesty is beyond question, and we need an honest man at the head of the nation now more than ever. That the Rebels object to him is a recommendation in the eyes of loyal men. The substitution of a new man would not dispose them to submission, and they would expect to profit from that inevitable change of policy which would follow from a change of men. As to "the one-term principle," we never held it in much regard; and we are less disposed to approve it now than we should have been, had peace been maintained. Were the President elected for six or eight years, it might be wise to amend the Constitution so as to prevent the reelection of any man; but while the present arrangement shall exist, it would not be wise to insist upon a complete change of Government every four years. To hold out the Presidency as a prize to be struggled for by new men at every national election is to increase the troubles of the country. Among the causes of the Civil War the ambition to be made President must be reckoned. Every politician has carried a term at the White House in his portfolio, as every French conscript carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack; and the disappointments of so many aspirants swelled the number of the disaffected to the proportions of an army, counting all who expected office as the consequence of this man's or that man's elevation to the Presidency. Were there no other reason for desiring the reelection of President Lincoln, the fact that it would be the first step toward a return to the rule that obtained during the first half-century of our national existence under the existing Constitution should suffice to make us all advocates of his nomination for a second term. That the Baltimore Convention will meet next month, and that it will place Mr. Lincoln once more before the American people as a candidate for their suffrages, are facts now as fully established as anything well can be that depends upon the future; and that he will be reelected admits of no doubt. The popular voice designates him as the man of the time and the occasion, and the action of the Convention will be nothing beyond a formal process, that shall give regular expression to a public sentiment which is too strong to be denied, and which will be found of irresistible force.

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Industrial Biography: Iron-Workers and Tool-Makers. By SAMUEL SMILES, Author of "Self-Help," "Brief Biographies," and "Life of George Stephenson." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

The history of iron is the history of civilization. The rough, shapeless ore that lies hidden in the earth folds in its unlovely bosom such fate and fortune as the haughtier sheen of silver, gleam of gold, and sparkle of diamond may illustrate, but are wholly impotent to create. Rising from his undisturbed repose of ages, the giant, unwieldy, swart, and huge of limb, bends slowly his brawny neck to the yoke of man, and at his bidding becomes a nimble servitor to do his will. Subtile as thought, rejoicing in power, no touch is too delicate for his perception, no service too mighty for his strength. Tales of faerie, feats of magic, pale before the simple story of his every-day labor, or find in his deeds the facts which they but faintly shadowed forth. And waiting upon his transformation, a tribe becomes a nation, a race of savages rises up philosophers, artists, gentlemen.

Commerce, science, warfare have their progress and their vicissitudes; but underneath them all, unnoted, it may be, or treated to a superficial and perhaps supercilious glance, yet mainspring and regulator of all, runs an iron thread, true thread of Fate, coiling around the limbs of man, and impeding all progress, till he shall have untwisted its Gordian knot, but bidding him forward from strength to strength with each successive release. No romance of court or camp surpasses the romance of the forge. A blacksmith at his anvil seems to us a respectable, but not an eminently heroic person; yet, walking backward along the past by the light which he strikes from the glowing metal beneath his hand, we shall fancy ourselves to be walking in the true heroic age. Kings and warriors have brandished their swords right royally, and such splendor has flashed from Excalibur and Morglay that our dazzled eyes have scarcely discerned the brawny smith who not only stood in the twilight of the background and fashioned with skilful hand the blade which radiates such light, but passed through all the land, changing huts into houses, houses into homes, and transforming into a garden by his skill the wilderness which had been rescued by the sword. Vigorous brains, clear eyes, sturdy arms have wrought out, not without blood, victories more potent, more permanent, more heroic, than those of the battle-field.

Such books as this under consideration give us only materials for the great epic of iron, but with such materials we can make our own rhythm and harmony. From the feeble beginning of the savage, rejoicing in the fortunate possession of two old nails, and deriving a sufficient income from letting them out to his neighbors for the purpose of boring holes, down to the true Thor's hammer, so tractable to the master's hand that it can chip without breaking the end of an egg in a glass on the anvil, crack a nut without touching the kernel, or strike a blow of ten tons eighty times in a minute, we have a steady onward movement. Prejudice builds its solid breakwaters; ignorance, inability, clumsiness, and awkwardness raise such obstacles as they can; but the delay of a century is but a moment. Slowly and surely the waters rise till they sweep away all obstacles, overtop all barriers, and plunge forward again with ever accelerating force. The record of iron is at once a record of our glory and of our humiliation,—a record of marvellous, inborn, God-given genius, reaching forth in manifold directions to compass most beneficent ends, but baffled, thwarted, fiercely and persistently resisted by obstinacy, blindness, and stupidity, and gaining its ends, if it gain them at all, only by address the most sagacious, courage the most invincible, and perseverance the most untiring. Every great advance in mechanical skill has been met by the determined hostility of men who fancied their craft to be in danger. An invention which enabled a hand of iron to do the work of fifty hands of flesh and blood was considered guilty of taking the bread from the thrice fifty mouths that depended on those hands' labor, and was not unfrequently visited with the punishment due to such guilt. No demonstrated fruitlessness of similar fears in the past served to allay fears for the future; no inefficiency of brute force permanently to stay the enterprise of the mind prevented brute force from making its futile and sometimes fatal attempts. It is no matter that increased facility of production has been attended by an increased demand for the product; it is no matter that ingenuity has never been held permanently back from its carefully conned plans; there have not been wanting men, numerous, ignorant, and ignoble enough to collect in mobs, raze workshops, destroy machinery, chase away inventors, and fancy, that, so employed, they have been engaged in the work of self-protection.

It is such indirect lessons as may be learned from these and other statements that give this book its chief value. The interesting historical and mechanical information contained in its pages makes it indeed well worthy of perusal; yet for that alone we should not take especial pains to set it before the people. But its incidental teachings ought to be taken to heart by every man, and especially every mechanic, who has any ambition or conscience beyond the exigencies of bread and butter. Lack of ambition is not an American fault, but it is too often an ambition that regards irrelevant and factitious honors rather than those to which it may legitimately and laudably aspire. A mechanic should find in the excellence of his mechanism a greater reward and satisfaction than in the wearing of a badge of office which any fifth-rate lawyer or broken-down man-of-business with influential "friends" may obtain, and whose petty duties they may discharge quite as well as the first-rate mechanic. The mechanic who is master of his calling need yield to none. We would not have him like the ironmongers denounced by the old religious writer as "heathenish in their manners, puffed up with pride, and inflated with worldly prosperity"; but we would have him mindful of his true dignity. In the importance of the results which he achieves, in the magnitude of the honors he may win, in the genius he may employ and the skill he may attain, no profession or occupation presents a more inviting field than his; but it will yield fruits only to the good husbandman. Science and art give up their treasures only to him who is capable of enthusiasm and devotion. He alone who magnifies his office makes it honorable. Whether he work in marble, canvas, or iron, the man who is content simply to follow his occupation, and is not possessed by it, may be an artificer, but will not be an artist, nor ever wear the laurel on his brow. He should be so enamored of his calling as to court it for its own charms. Invention is a capricious mistress, and does not always bestow her favors on the most worthy. Men not a few have died in poverty, and left a golden harvest to their successors; yet the race is often enough to the swift, and the battle to the strong, to justify men in striving after strength and swiftness, as well for the guerdon which they bring as for the jubilant consciousness which they impart. And this, at least, is sure: though merit may, by some rare mischance, be overlooked, demerit has no opportunity whatever to gain distinction. Sleight of hand cannot long pass muster for skill of hand. Unswerving integrity, unimpeachable sincerity, is the lesson constantly taught by the lives of these renowned mechanics. "The great secret," says one, "is to have the courage to be honest,—a spirit to purchase the best material, and the means and disposition to do justice to it in the manufacture." Another, remonstrated with for his high charges, which were declared to be six times more than the price his employers had before been paying for the same articles, could safely say, "That may be, but mine are more than six times better." A master of his profession is master of his employers. Maudslay's works, we are told, came to be regarded as a first-class school for mechanical engineers, the Oxford and Cambridge of mechanics; nor can Oxford and Cambridge men be any prouder of their connection with their colleges than distinguished engineers of their connection with this famous school of Maudslay. With such an esprit de corps what excellence have we not a right to expect?

We cannot forbear pointing out the Aids to Humility collected in this book from various quarters, and presented to the consideration of the nineteenth century. Our boasted age of invention turns out, after all, to have been only gathering up what antiquity has let fall,—rediscovering and putting to practical account what the past discovered, but could not, or, with miscalled dignity, would not, turn to the uses of common life. Steam-carriages, hydraulic engines, diving-bells, which we have regarded with so much complacency as our peculiar property, worked their wonders in the teeming brain of an old monk who lived six hundred years ago. Printing, stereotypes, lithography, gunpowder, Colt's revolvers and Armstrong guns, Congreve rockets, coal-gas and chloroform, daguerreotypes, reaping-machines, and the electric telegraph are nothing new under the sun. Hundreds of years ago the idea was born, but the world was too young to know its character or prize its service, and so the poor little bantling was left to shiver itself to death while the world stumbled on as aforetime. How many eras of birth there may have been we do not know, but it was reserved for our later age to receive the young stranger with open arms, and nourish his infant limbs to manly strength. Richly are we rewarded in the precision and power with which he performs our tasks, in the comfort with which he enriches, the beauty with which he adorns, and the knowledge with which he ennobles our daily life.

The Life and Times of John Huss; or, The Bohemian Reformation of the Fifteenth Century. By E.H. GILLETT. 2 vols. Second Edition. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.

The style of Mr. Gillett is clear, manly, and discriminating. If, in respect of show, sparkle, nervous energy, verbal felicity, and picturesqueness, it is not equal to that of our chief American historians, yet it is not deficient in ease, grace, or vigor. He is almost always careful, always unambitious, always in good taste. To complain that the style is not equal to Mr. Motley's, simply on the ground that the book is large and the subject historical, is grossly unfair. Mr. Gillett has not been eager for a place as a writer; his story has more merit in the thing told than in the telling. Even with his want of German he has been thorough in the investigation of authorities; and if he writes without enthusiasm, his judgment carries the greater weight. As a scholar and an historian, as a man of candor and resources, his name is an ornament to the Presbyterian ministry, of which he is a member.

And yet the life of Huss is not adapted to produce popular effect, to show to striking advantage the charm of elaborate style, or to lift the hero himself into that upper light where his commonest deeds are dazzling and fascinating. He had not the acumen, the weight, the learning, the logical irresistibleness of Calvin; nor had he the great human sympathies, the touch of earthiness, yet not grossness, which made Luther so dear to his countrymen, and which have imprinted a cordial geniality on the whole Lutheran Church. John Huss, though a man of learning, the Rector of a great and powerful University, though a true friend, though a man of wide sympathies, though an eloquent preacher, and a most formidable enemy to the corruptions of the Romish Church, was yet a colorless character in comparison with some men who have become the objects of hero-worship. There are few of those grand bursts which will always justify Luther's reputation, nothing of that rich poetical vein of Luther's, finding its twofold course in music and in poetry: Huss was comparatively dry, and unenriched by those overflowings of a deep inner nature. He is, therefore, rather the exponent of an age than a brilliant mark,—rather a type than a great, restless, creative power. His life was almost too saintly to be interesting in the popular sense; and although he does emerge above his age, yet it is not as the advocate of an idea, as Luther was, nor of a great system, as Calvin was, nor as a man fearless of kings and queens, as Knox was; his life, rather, was a continued protest against sin in the high places of the Church. Though in him there appear glimpses of a clearer doctrine than that of his age, yet they do not come to a full expression; it is the pride of pontiffs, the debaucheries of priests, the grasp after place and power and wealth by those who claim to follow the meek and holy One, which provoke his fiercest invective.

Mr. Gillett has, therefore, done a good service in subordinating the story of John Huss to the history of his age. His work is strictly entitled, "The Bohemian Reformation of the Fifteenth Century." That period has heretofore been almost a blank in our ecclesiastical records. The blank is now filled. It was a period of great beginnings. Germany was silent then; but Wycliffe in England, and Huss, with his predecessors, Waldhauser, Milicz, and Peter of Dresden, in Bohemia, were even then causing the Papal power, rent as it was with its internal dissensions, to tremble as before approaching death.

The story of that impotent rage which sought to purchase life and safety for the Romish Church by the murder of Huss and of Jerome of Prague is instructive, if it is not pleasing. The truth was too true to be spoken. Never has the Church of Rome, in its inquisitorial madness, been so blinded with fury and passion as then. Weakened by internal feuds, with two Popes struggling and hurling anathemas at each other, and with a priesthood at its lowest point, not of ignorance, but of carnality, it seemed in peril of utter extinction. Its own boldest and ablest men were among its most outspoken accusers; and no words stronger or more cutting were spoken by Huss than by Gerson and Clemangis. But Huss committed the common mistake of reformers. He put himself outside of the body to be reformed. He allowed his spirit to fret against the evils of his times so madly that he would fain have put himself outside of the circumstances of his age. This wiser men than he, men no loss ardent, but more calculating, never would do. In the city of Constance itself, during the sittings of the great Council which condemned Huss to death, sermons were preached more bitterly reproachful of the pride of the Pontiffs and the corruption of the Church than the words of any of the men who put themselves beyond its pale, and addressed it as "your Church," instead of speaking of it as "ours." And while the dignitaries of that corrupt body dared not lay a finger upon their more pure, prophetic, and sharply accusing brethren, they made men like Huss and Jerome of Prague the doubly burdened and tortured victims of their rage.

Much of the interest of these volumes is owing to the prominence given to Wycliffe, and his contemporaneous work in England. It is strange, indeed, that in those early days, before Europe was crossed with its net-works, not of railways, but of post-roads even, the land which inclosed the fountains that fed the Elbe, eight hundred miles above Hamburg, was closely bound to that distant island, four hundred miles beyond Hamburg, on the western side of the German Ocean. But a royal marriage in England had united that kingdom to Bohemia, and Wycliffe's name was a household word in the lecture-rooms of Prague, and Wycliffe's books were well worn in its libraries. The great work of preparation, the preliminary stirring-up of men's minds, by both of these great reformers, is hardly realized by us. But words had been spoken which could not die in a hundred years, and the public temper had been thrown into a glow which could not cool in a century. The "Morning Star of the Reformation" found its twin lighting up the dark ravines of Bohemia, and when they twain arose the day had begun to break. The Reformation did not begin with Luther. The elements had been made plastic to his touch; all was ready for his skilful hand to mould them into the symmetry of the Great Reformation. The armies of the Lord had enlisted man by man before he came; it was for his clarion blast to marshal them in companies and battalions, and lead them to the battle. We must again thank Mr. Gillett for his timely, serviceable book. It is never unprofitable to look back and see who have kept the sacred fire of Christianity burning when it seemed in danger of extinguishment. And in that fifteenth century its flames certainly burned low. Whenever the Church is on the side of aristocratic power, whenever it is a conservative and not a radical and progressive force in an evil age, when the forces of Satan are in power, the men are truly worthy of immortality who go out to meet death in behalf of Christ and the religion of meekness and purity and universal love. Such was John Huss. He ought never to have suffered himself to be driven from the Church, and when he did so, he committed the unceasing mistake of reformers, among whom Wesley and Zinzendorf stand as the two marked exceptions; but for rectitude, zeal, and a thorough consecration to the great interests of Christ, he merits an even more sumptuous memorial than this excellent book.

Sordello, Strafford, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. By ROBERT BROWNING. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

In his dedication to the new edition of "Sordello," Mr. Browning says,—"I lately gave time and pains to turn my work into what the many might—instead of what the few must—like; but, after all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as I find it."

This, on the whole, he has done; for, though a prose heading runs before every page, with a knowing wink to the reader, the mystery is not cleared up. As the view dissolves with every turn of a leaf, the showman says, confidentially,—"Now you shall see how a poet's soul comes into play,—how he succeeds a little, but fails more,—tries again, is no better satisfied,—

"Because perceptions whole, like that he sought To clothe, reject so pure a work of thought As language: thought may take perception's place, But hardly coexist in any case, Being its mere presentment,—of the whole By parts, the simultaneous and the sole By the successive and the many. Lacks The crowd perception?"

We fear so; at any rate, the exhibition fails, because the showman cannot furnish brains to his commentary. The man who can read "Sordello" is little helped by these headings, and the man who cannot is soon distracted by continual disappointment. We think he will end by reading only the headings. And they doubtless are the best for him. Otherwise, under the cerebral struggle to perceive how the prose interprets the poetry, he might become the idiot that Douglas Jerrold exclaimed that he was at his first trial of "Sordello."

There has been a careful overhauling of the punctuation, with benefit to the text. Many lines have been altered, sometimes to the comfort of the reader; and about a hundred fresh lines have been interpolated here and there, to the weakening, we think, of the dramatic vigor of nearly every place that is thus handled. Many readers will, however, find this compensated by an increased clearness of the sense. On page 131 (page 152, first edition) there is an improved manipulation of the simile of the dwarf palm; and four lines before the last one on page 147 (page 171, first edition) lighten up the thought. So there are eight lines placed to advantage after "Sordello, wake!" on page 152 (page 176). But, on the whole, what Mr. Browning first imagined cannot be tampered with, and he must generously trust the elements of his own fine genius to do justice to his thought with all people who would not thank him to furnish an interpreter.

One day we argued earnestly for Browning with a man who said it was fatal to the poetry that it needed an argument, and that he did not want to earn the quickening of his imagination by the sweat of his brow,—he could gather the same thought and beauty in less break-neck places,—all the profit was expended in mental gymnastics,—in short,

"The man can't stoop To sing us out, quoth he, a mere romance; He'd fain do better than the best, enhance The subjects' rarity, work problems out Therewith: now, you're a bard, a bard past doubt, And no philosopher; why introduce Crotchets like these? fine, surely, but no use In poetry,—which still must be, to strike, Eased upon common sense; there's nothing like Appealing to our nature!"

Find the rest of Mr. Average's argument on page 67.

These objections to the poetry of Mr. Browning, which the dense, involved, and metaphysical treatment of "Sordello" first suggested to the public, are made to apply to all his subsequent writings. We concede that "Sordello" over-refines, and that, after reading it, "who would has heard Sordello's story told," but who would not and could not has probably not heard it. The very time of the poem, which is put several centuries back amid the scenery of the Guelph and Ghibelline feuds, as if to make the struggle of a humane and poetic soul to grow, to become recognized, to find a place and purpose, seem still more premature, puzzles the reader with remote allusions, with names that belong to obscure Italian narrative, with motives and events that require historical analysis. The poem is impatient with those very things which make the environment of the bard Sordello, and treats them in curt lines. A character is jammed into a sentence, like a witch into a snuff-box, the didactic parts grow metaphysical, and the life of Sordello does not fuse the events of the poem into one long rhythm. He thinks and dreams apart, and Palma's ambition for him is an aside, and the events swing their arms and strike fiery and cruel blows with Sordello absent. Considering Mr. Browning's intent, there is a fine poetic success in this very fault of the poem, but it is not a plain one, and is an after-thought of the critic. The numerous splendid pages in "Sordello" do nothing towards making one complete impression which cannot be evaded. Naddo, the genius-haunter, would complain, that, in struggling out towards these aisles of beauty, he had seriously compromised his clothing in the underbrush.

But the faults which characterize "Sordello" are not prevalent in the subsequent writings which are loosely accused of them. They become afterwards exceptional, they vein here and there the surface, and Mr. Average stumbles over them and proceeds no farther. Still, Mr. Browning's verse is not easy reading. He is economical of words to the point of harmony; but what a hypocrite he would be, if he used more! He brings you meaning, if you bring him mind; and there is Tupper outside, if you don't care to trouble yourself. In saying this we are not arrogant at all, for there is a large and widening sympathy with Mr. Browning's thought. Perhaps a whole generation of readers will fretfully break itself upon his style, and pass away, before the mind hails with ease his merits. But is Shakspeare's verse easy reading? Not to this day, in spite of his level of common sense, the artlessness of his passion, and the broad simplicity of a great imagination, that causeth its sun to shine on the evil and the good. It was easy reading to Ben Jonson, to Milton, and to Chapman; it took "Eliza and our James"; it had more theatrical success than the scholarly plays of Jonson: but two or three centuries have exhausted neither his commentators nor the subtile parts that need a comment. A good deal of Shakspeare is read, but the rest is caviare to the multitude. We need not comfort ourselves on the facility with which we take his name in vain. We venture to say that the whole of Shakspeare's thought is inwardly tasted by as many people as enjoy the subtilty of Robert Browning. Shakspeare has broader places over which the waters lie, sweet and warm, to tempt disporting crowds, and places deep as human nature, upon whose brink the pleasure-seekers peer and shudder. But if Mr. Browning had a theatrical ability equal to his dramatic, and were content to exhibit a greater number of the stock-figures of humanity, men would say that here again they had love that maddened and grief that shattered, murdering ambition, humorous weakness, and imagination that remarries man and Nature.

Mr. Browning's literary and artistic allusions prevent a ready appreciation of his genius. "Sordello" needs a key. How many friends, "elect chiefly for love," have spent time burrowing in encyclopaedias, manuals of history, old biographies, dictionaries of painting, and the like, for explanations of the remote knowledge which Mr. Browning uses as if it had been left at the door with the morning paper! On the very first page, who is "Pentapolin, named o' the Naked Arm"? If a man had just read Don Quixote, he might single out Pentapolin. Taurello and Ecelin were not familiar,—nor the politics of Verona, Padua, Ferrara, six hundred years ago. There was not a lively sympathy with Sordello himself. Who were the "Pisan pair"? Lanzi's pages were turned up to discover. And Greek scholars recognized the "Loxian." But any reader might be pardoned for not at once divining that the double rillet of minstrelsy, on page 37, was the Troubadour and the Trouvere, nor for refusing to read pages 155 and 156 without a tolerable outfit of information upon the historical points and personages there catalogued.

There are not a few pages that appear like a long stretch of prose suddenly broken up and jammed in the current; some of the ends stick out, some have gone under, the sense has grown hummocky, and the reader's whole faculty turns to picking his way. Take, for instance, page 95, of which we have prepared a translation, but considerately withhold it.

But turn now to the famous marble font, sculptured afresh in those perfect lines which begin at the middle of page 16, with the picture of the Castle Goito and the maple-panelled room. Here the boy Sordello comes every eve, to visit the marble standing in the midst, to watch the mute penance of the Caryatides, who flush with the dawn of his imagination. Read the description of his childhood, from page 25, and the delights of his opening fancy:—

"He e'er-festooning every interval, As the adventurous spider, making light Of distance, shoots her threads from depth to height, From barbican to battlement; so flung Fantasies forth and in their centre swung Our architect,—the breezy morning fresh Above, and merry,—all his waving mesh Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged."

All these pages are filled with poetry; the reflective element does not dominate severely. Bordello's youthful genius craves sympathy, and he finds it by investing Nature with fanciful forms and attributes. He is Apollo,—"that shall be the name." How he ransacks the world for his youth's outfit, as he climbs the ravine in the June weather, and emerges into the forest, which tries "old surprises on him," amid which he lingers, deep in the stratagems of his own fancy, till

"aloft would hang White summer-lightnings; as it sank and sprang To measure, that whole palpitating breast Of heaven, 't was Apollo, Nature prest At eve to worship."

Then comes a portrait of Palma, done with Titian's brush and manner. As we turn the leaves where favorite passages lie brilliantly athwart the faded politics of an old story, we are tempted to try spinning its thread again for the sake of holding up these lines, which are among the most delicate and sumptuous that Mr. Browning ever wrote. But room is at present dear as paper. Only turn, for instance, to pages 39-45, 72-74, the picturesque scenes on pages 84, 85, the opening of Book IV., Salinguerra's portrait, like an old picture of Florence, on page 127, and lines single and by the half-dozen everywhere.

The tragedy of "Strafford" is one of Mr. Browning's earliest compositions. It was once placed upon the stage by Mr. Macready, but it is no more of an acting play than all the other pieces of Mr. Browning, and is too political to be good reading. The characters seem to be merely reporting the condition of parties under Charles I.; this and the struggle of the King with the Parliament are told, but are not represented, the passions of the piece belong too exclusively to the caucus and the council-chamber, and even the way in which the King sacrifices Strafford does not dramatically appear. In the last act, there is much tenderness in the contrast of Stratford's doom with the unconsciousness of his children, and pathos in his confidence to the last moment that the King will protect him. The dialogue is generally too abrupt and exclamatory. Vane speaks well on page 222, and Hampden on page 231, and there are two good scenes between Charles and Strafford, where the King's irresolution appears against the Earl's devotedness. The closing scene of Act IV. has the dramatic form, but it is interfused with mere civil commotion instead of color, and the motive is a transient one, important only to the historian. But we need not multiply words over that one of all his compositions which Mr. Browning probably now respects the least.