Not long after, the twins were christened at the meeting-house, a great crowd attending to witness the ceremony. To the elder girl was given the name of Amelia. Upon the other was bestowed the equally desirable appellative of Cornelia. While they were babies, both were considered remarkably pretty children; at least, so everybody told Mrs. Bugbee; but as they grew in years and stature, it became more and more apparent, that, although each resembled the other in figure, features, and expression, so strongly that you could not see one without being reminded of the other, none would ever be at a loss to distinguish between them; for Amelia promised to be as extremely handsome as her sister seemed likely to be homely. Indeed, Amelia was a beautiful counterpart of Cornelia, resembling her in the same wise that a flattered portrait, painted by some shrewd and skilful limner, will sometimes resemble the rich and ugly original, in which, while the likeness is faithfully portrayed, all the harsh lines are softened, and even blemishes are transformed into beauty-spots, or made to serve as foils.

Besides these twins, other children, from time to time, were born to the Doctor and his spouse, all of whom died in infancy. The love of the parents for their first-born seemed to redouble at each of these bereavements. The mother, especially, would scarcely suffer her darlings to be absent from her sight; and when, at last, after infinite persuasion, she was induced to let them go to the Misses Primber's great boarding-school at Hartford, she used to ride over to see them as often as she could invent a pretext. It was with the greatest reluctance that she consented to this separation; but in those days it was indispensable that a young woman of good family should spend at least a twelve-month at the Misses Primber's famous establishment, where all the rough hewing of less skilful teachers was shaped and polished, so to speak, according to the most fashionable models then in vogue. It was while the twins remained at this notable seminary that they executed those wonderful landscapes, in Reeves's best water-colors, which used to decorate the walls of the parlors in the Bugbee mansion, and which, I dare say, still hang in tarnished gilt frames in some of the bedchambers. It was there they filled the copybooks of French exercises from Levizac's Grammar, which Miss Cornelia still carefully preserves in a bureau drawer. There they learned to play and sing "Days of Absence," "I'm A Merry Swiss Boy," and many other delightful melodies, the which, even now, Miss Cornelia will sometimes hum softly to herself. Besides acquiring these and sundry other accomplishments, Miss Amelia found time to carry on a secret epistolary correspondence with a good-looking young law-student, (of whom more extended mention will presently be made,) and also to contrive many meetings and walks with him, of which nobody was cognizant but her sister and some five or six other bosom friends and faithful confidants. But Miss Cornelia, though as well inclined thereto as her sister, having, nevertheless, been able to find no lover to occupy her thoughts, and with whom to hold amatory interviews to fill her leisure, was fain to devote all her spare moments to the reading of romances and novels, of which, though rigorously interdicted, a great number were in the house, in possession of the Misses Primber's pupils; and when this supply was exhausted, she had recourse to a circulating library near by; being often put as nearly to her wits' end to devise expedients whereby to smuggle the contraband volumes into her chamber, as Amelia was to fulfil, at the time and place of tryst, the frequent engagements which she made to meet her lover.

Accordingly it came to pass, that Amelia's heart became affected in such a way and to that degree that she was never heart-whole again so long as she lived; and Cornelia's head was filled with such an accumulation of romantic rubbish, that, to this very day, a mighty heap of it remains,—mingled, to be sure, with ideas of a more solid and useful quality. For when a woman lives a maid during those years in which most of her sex are busy with the cares attendant upon the matronly estate, fantastic notions, such as I have mentioned, are not so apt to be excluded from the mind, and in this way many girls of good natural parts are spoiled, merely for lack of husbands. With the exception of this inordinate liking for the romantic and mysterious,—by which she was sometimes betrayed into follies and absurdities that provoked a little harmless scandal or ridicule,—Miss Cornelia has ever been held in good repute among her neighbors as a kind-hearted, obliging, sentimental little woman.

At last, at the end of a year, the young ladies came home from the seminary, having fully completed their education; an event which filled Mrs. Bugbee's heart with ineffable satisfaction. When the loving mother reflected, that, for a long time, if it pleased God to spare their lives, she should now enjoy the pleasure of her children's presence, her bosom overflowed with happiness. Though she looked forward to their being married as to something quite likely to happen in the course of time, yet such events are always uncertain, and they appeared to her to lie so far ahead in the vague distance of the future, that these anticipations caused her no serious disquiet. For the girls were but eighteen years of age, and it seemed hardly a twelvemonth since the time when they used to wear their hair curling in their necks, and to go hand in hand to the district school in pinafores and pantalets.

The good lady's chagrin, therefore, was excessive, when, the next Saturday morning but one after her daughters' return, Amelia came into her bedroom, where she sat darning a stocking by the window, and after so much hesitation that her mother began to wonder, suddenly put her arms about her neck, hid her blushing face upon her shoulder, and in that position softly whispered a confession, that a certain young gentleman, with whom she had become acquainted in Hartford, had told her he was very much attached to her indeed; that she was not wholly indifferent with respect to him, and that, in fact, she loved him. While Mrs. Bugbee remained speechless with surprise, Miss Amelia proceeded to say, that it was highly probable the young gentleman would that very afternoon take it into his head to ride out from Hartford to Belfield; and perhaps he would also request permission to visit her regularly, with the ultimate purpose of asking her hand in marriage; in which case, she said, it was to be hoped her parents would not refuse his modest petition; for that the young gentleman was a very good and worthy young gentleman, a law-student of extraordinary promise, of as old and respectable a family as any other in the State, and, withal, a young gentleman in no wise given to bad habits of any kind whatsoever, but, on the contrary, distinguished for his exemplary morals and sober conduct. All this Amelia uttered very earnestly; but, strange to say, made no mention of the quality which, as much as all the rest, had attracted her regards; namely, the young gentleman's good looks, for which he was somewhat noted, and of which he was not a little vain.

When the Doctor returned that day from his morning ride among his patients, his wife took him aside into their bedroom and related what has just been set forth. The Doctor listened with grave attention till his wife concluded her story; but when, at the end of it, she began to lament, he turned the thing off with a laugh, and giving her a hearty kiss, endeavored to soothe her disquiet. "Well, well, mother," said he, "why, let him come, let him come. It's only a year or two sooner than I expected, and may be it'll be a flash in the pan after all. I think I must have seen the young fellow in at Squire Johnson's; and at any rate, I'm pretty sure I know his father. When he comes, we'll just invite him right over here to spend the Sabbath, and by the time he goes away on Monday we'll know the twist of every thread in his jacket. If he's the right one to make our girl happy, we ought to be glad she's found him; and if he a'n't, it'll be all the harder to make her listen to reason, unless we show reason ourselves; and, surely, it would be unreasonable to be set against him, before we've even seen him or heard him say a word."

When Mr. Edward Talcott (for that was the young gentleman's name) came over from the tavern, where he had left his horse and portmanteau, and with much secret trepidation and assumed boldness had walked up the wide flagstones which led from the street to the green front door of Doctor Bugbee's mansion, it was opened, at the summons of the brass knocker, by a little black girl, who vainly strove to hide a grin behind a corner of her long check apron. Before the visitor had time to utter a word, Amelia, blushing like a rose and looking handsomer than ever, came tripping into the hall, and after a whisper, which Dinah, who tried, failed to overhear, and the purport of which, therefore, I cannot relate, ushered him into the parlor, and presented him in due form to her mother, and also to her grandmother, Madam Major Bugbee, as she was styled by the townsfolk,—a stately old lady in black silk, who, being hard of hearing, and therefore incapable of mingling in the conversation that ensued, regarded the new comer through her gold-bowed spectacles, during the remainder of the afternoon, with a furtive, but earnest attention which was quite embarrassing to the object of it.

Presently a sulky came dashing up the drive, and soon afterwards the Doctor came in, who, being made acquainted with Mr. Talcott by the blushing Amelia, fell into a lively conversation with his visitor, which finally turning upon the subject of politics, both gentlemen agreed cordially in lauding the wisdom displayed in Mr. Adams's administration, and congratulating each other and the country upon the defeat of General Jackson. After tea, the hired man was sent to fetch Mr. Talcott's horse and luggage from the inn, and then, it being near sundown, the Doctor put on as solemn an expression as his merry visage was capable of assuming, took up the big quarto Bible from its place, on a stand in the corner of the room, and read a chapter from the New Testament. Then, standing up behind his arm-chair, he made a hurried prayer, which was evidently one he had got by heart; for when he endeavored to interpolate an apt allusion to the young "stranger within his gates," he made such a piece of work of it, that everybody but the dowager had to bite his lips to keep from smiling. The brief remainder of the evening was spent in sober conversation. Soon after nine o'clock the little black girl showed Mr. Talcott up the broad stairway into the best front chamber, a spacious apartment directly over the parlor, where he went to bed under a lofty tester canopy, with embroidered curtains trimmed with lace. After a long reverie, coming to the conclusion that the downright courtship of a young lady in her father's house was a much more serious affair than a mere clandestine flirtation with a pretty school-girl, the young gentleman turned over upon his side and went to sleep.

The next day, being Sunday, everybody went to meeting, except the Doctor, who was obliged to ride away upon his round of visits. Accordingly, Mr. Talcott walked twice to and fro across the green, with Miss Amelia tripping demurely by his side, and served as the target for a thousand eyeshots as he stood up at the head of the Doctor's pew during the long prayers.

In the evening, after supper, the Doctor put off his grave Sabbath face and invited his young guest to walk over to the store, which stood in the corner of the yard, a little distance off. Presently, Miss Amelia, peeping from behind her bedroom window-curtain, beheld them sitting together upon the broad back-stoop of the store, talking and smoking in a most amicable manner, the fragrant incense of their cigars being wafted across the intervening space, which was quite too wide, however, to enable her to hear the words of their earnest conversation. But that night, as she and her lover sat together alone in the front parlor, after the family had gone to bed, he told her that her father had consented to his courtship.

But if I am so circumstantial in relating these events, which are merely introductory to my story, I shall have neither time nor space left for the story itself. So I will hasten to say, that the upshot of Mr. Edward Talcott's frequent visits, as might have been expected, was a very splendid wedding, which took place in the front parlor of the Bugbee mansion, one evening during the winter after Amelia came nineteen, the bridegroom being then twenty-three, and just admitted to practice as an attorney-at-law. In pursuance of a condition which Mrs. Bugbee had proposed, in order to avoid the pangs of a separation from her child, the young couple remained members of the Doctor's household; and Mr. Talcott, who, through the influence of his wife's father, had been taken into partnership with a well-established attorney, commenced the practice of law at the Hillsdale bar. His partner, Squire Bramhall, had for many years been clerk of the courts, and was a sage and prudent counsellor, noted for the careful preparation bestowed upon his causes before they came to trial. But, in spite of his learning and industrious painstaking, he used to cut a poor figure at the bar; for being, though a lawyer, an exceedingly modest and bashful man, he failed to acquire the habit of addressing either court or jury with ease, fluency, or force. On the other hand, Squire Talcott, as he soon came to be called, was a young man of fine appearance and good address, in no wise troubled with an undue degree of doubt touching the excellence of his own abilities. His first argument before a jury was a showy and successful effort in behalf of a person for whom the sympathies of the public were already warmly enlisted. By this, of course, he won considerable applause. His subsequent attempts sustained the popular expectation. He began to acquire distinction as a fluent, persuasive, and even eloquent speaker. A lawyer haranguing a jury in a densely crowded courtroom fills a much larger space in the public eye than when, in the solitude of his back-office, he is preparing a brief; and, as young Squire Talcott used to argue all the cases which his plodding partner elaborately prepared to his hand, his fame as a wonderfully smart young lawyer soon began to extend even beyond the limits of the county. The judges, in other places upon their circuit, spoke of his quick and brilliant parts, and his apparent learning and familiar acquaintance with authorities, so unusual at his age. These flattering commendations, returning to Belfield, came to young Talcott's ears. It would have been strange if he had not been too much elated by his sudden success in the practice of a profession in which so very few win a speedy renown. Forgetful how much of the praise he received was due to his partner's laborious researches and unobtrusive learning, he suffered his vanity to lead him astray; becoming discontented with his position, and secretly repining at the necessity by which he was compelled to remain in an obscure country town, when, as he imagined, his talents were sufficient to win for him, unaided, an easy and rapid promotion even at the metropolitan bar.

The Doctor and his wife, as was to be expected, soon got to be proud of their clever son-in-law. In fact, after the birth of a little girl, an event by which the honors of grand-paternity were conferred upon the Doctor when he was but a year or two past forty, Mrs. Bugbee could scarcely tell which she loved best, her daughter, the baby, or its father.

When little Helen, as the child was named, was just coming three years old, Mrs. Talcott, being in childbed again, was taken with a fever, and, in spite of everything which was done to save her, died, and was buried with her infant on her bosom. I do not need to relate what a grievous stroke this sad event was to all the household,—nay, I might say to the whole village as well; for all who knew Amelia loved her, and the praise of the dead was in everybody's mouth. As for poor Mrs. Bugbee, she sorrowed like one in despair. Even the worthy parson's pious words, to which she appeared to listen with passive attention, fell unheeded upon her ear. People began to shake their heads when her name was mentioned, and to predict that ere long she would follow her daughter to the grave. At last, however, after many weeks of close seclusion, she grew more cheerful, and seemed to transfer all the affection she had borne the dead to the child who survived her.

Not long after Amelia's death, the secret discontent existing in her husband's mind, which, if she had lived, would in time, perhaps, have abated, began instead to increase, and at length he came to talk openly of departure. The Doctor, perceiving that he was firmly resolved upon the step, did not seriously endeavor to dissuade him; and even Mrs. Bugbee could not withhold her consent, when the young widower said, with a trembling voice, he could not endure to stay in a spot endeared to him by no other associations than those which continually reminded him of his grievous loss. One stipulation only the good couple insisted on; namely, that Amelia's child should be given to them, to be adopted as their own daughter. Knowing not whither he should go, the father yielded; reflecting that he could not better promote the welfare of his little girl than by consenting.

So, a few weeks afterwards, when Edward Talcott bade farewell to Belfield, the relation of parent and child between him and his little daughter was completely severed. For though since their first sorrowful parting they have met more than once, and though long after that mournful day she used to wear in her bosom a locket containing his miniature and a lock of his hair, which she used to kiss every night and morning, yet Helen seldom remembers that the distant stranger is her father, and he forgets to reckon his first-born among the number of his children.

When he was gone, the child was told that the name of Bugbee was thereafter to be appended to those she already bore; and being quite pleased with the notion, she forthwith adopted her new appellative, retaining it for several years, until (such is the fickle nature of women) she took a fancy to change it for another which she liked better still. She was also taught to call her grandparents papa and mamma; and though, while a child, she continued to address Miss Cornelia by the title of "Aunty," this respectful custom, as the relative difference between her age and the elder spinster's gradually diminished, was suffered, at the latter's special request, to fall into disuse, and give place to the designation of sister. The few new-comers to Belfield, therefore, were never apt to suspect that Helen Bugbee was not really the Doctor's own daughter; and even the neighbors forgot that her name had ever been changed, except when the gossips sometimes put each other in mind of it.

The older she grew the more Helen resembled her mother, as the ladies always used to exclaim when they came to take tea with Mrs. Bugbee. Some of the village folks, who were in the habit, so common with old people, of thinking that the race is continually degenerating, I have heard express the opinion that Helen was never so handsome as her mother had been. But I have seen a portrait of Miss Amelia Bugbee, for which she sat just before her wedding, and which, I am assured, was, in the time of it, called a wonderful likeness; I also knew Miss Helen Talcott Bugbee when she was not far from her mother's age at the time the picture was taken; and though Miss Amelia must have been a very sweet young lady, of extraordinarily good looks, I used to think, for my part, that Helen was much handsomer than the portrait; although people of a different taste might very properly have preferred the less haughty expression of the face depicted on the canvas.

It was not strange that Helen was petted and humored as much as was well for her. But her disposition being naturally docile and amiable, she was not to be easily spoiled. Be that as it may, however, when she had grown to be a woman, there were, I dare say, no less than fifty young men who knew her well, any one of whom would have jumped at the chance to get her for a wife, and made but little account of the risk of her turning out a shrew. To be sure, when I first knew her, she had rather a high and mighty way with her, at which some people took offence, calling her proud and disdainful; but those whom she wished to please never failed to like her; and I used to observe she seldom put on any of her lofty airs when she spoke to unpresuming people, especially if they were poor or in humble circumstances.

Though the indulgence of all her whims and fancies by her doting grandparents was a danger of no small magnitude, Helen encountered a still greater peril in the shape of a vast store of novels, poems, and romances, which Miss Cornelia had accumulated, and to which she was continually making additions. In that young lady's bedchamber, where Helen slept, there was a large bookcase full of these seductive volumes; even the upper shelves of the wardrobe closet, and a cupboard over the mantel, were closely packed with them; and there was not one of them all which Helen had not read by the time she was fifteen. Thus, in spite of natural good sense, strengthened and educated by much wise and wholesome instruction, she grew up with an imagination quite disproportioned to her other mental faculties; so that, in some respects, she was almost as romantic in her notions as her Aunt Cornelia, who, at forty, used to prefer moonlight to good honest sunshine, and would have heard with an emotion of delight that the mountains between Belfield and Hartford were infested by a band of brigands, in picturesque attire, with a handsome chief like Rinaldo Rinaldini, or haunted by two or three dashing highwaymen, of the genteel Paul-Clifford style. Indeed, the ideal lover, to whom for many years Miss Cornelia's heart was constant as the moon, was a tall, dark, mysterious man, with a heavy beard and glittering eyes, who, there is every reason to suspect, was either a corsair, a smuggler, or a bandit chief.

I am loath to have it supposed that Helen turned out a silly young woman. Indeed, it would be wrong to believe so; for she possessed many good parts and acquirements. But I must confess that her fancy, being naturally lively, was unduly stimulated by reading too many books of the kind I have mentioned; and that seeing but little of the world in her tender years, she learned from their pages to form false and extravagant notions concerning it. She used to build castles in the air, was subject to fits of tender melancholy, and, like Miss Cornelia, adored moonlight, pensive music, and sentimental poetry. But she would have shrunk from contact with a brigand, in a sugar-loaf hat, with a carbine slung across his shoulder, and a stiletto in his sash, with precisely the same kind and degree of horror and disgust that would have affected her in the presence of a vulgar footpad, in a greasy Scotch-cap, armed with a horse-pistol and a sheath-knife. Her romantic tastes differed in many respects from her Aunt Cornelia's. She, too, had an ideal lover; (and for that matter the fickle little maid had several;) but the special favorite was a charming young fellow, of fair complexion, with blue eyes, and a light, elegant moustache, his long brown hair falling down his neck in wavy masses,—tall in stature, athletic, and yet slim and graceful,—gifted with many accomplishments, with a heart full of noble qualities, and a brain inspired by genius,—a poet, or an author, or an artist, perhaps a lawyer merely, but of rare talents, at any rate a man of superior intellect,—in a word, a paragon, who, when he should appear upon the earth, incarnate, she expected would conceive a violent passion for her, in which case, she should take it into consideration whether to marry him or not.

My inexperience in the art of story-telling must be manifest to everybody; for here I am talking of Helen, as of a young lady of sixteen or more, with shy notions of beaux and lovers in her head,—whereas, in point of time, my story has not advanced by regular stages beyond the period of her childhood, when she thought more of a single doll in her baby-house, and held her in higher estimation, than the whole rising generation of the other sex. I shall resume the thread of my narrative by relating, that, some two or three years before Miss Cornelia Bugbee, in her journey across the sands of time, came to the thirtieth mile-stone, she arrived at an oasis in the desert of her existence; or, to be more explicit, she had the rare good-fortune to find a heart throbbing in unison with her own,—a tender bosom in whose fidelity she could safely confide even her most precious secret; namely, the passion she entertained for the aforementioned corsair,—a being of congenial soul, whose loving ears could hear and interpret her lowest whisper and most incoherent murmur, by means of the subtile instinct of spiritual sympathy,—in fine, a trusty, true, and confidential friend.

All this, and more, was Miss Laura Stebbins, the youngest sister of Mrs. Jaynes, who, being suddenly left an orphan, dependent on the charity of her kindred, came to reside at the parsonage in Belfield. An intimacy forthwith commenced between the Doctor's daughter and the Parson's sister-in-law, which ripened speedily into the enduring friendship of which mention has just been made. There were some who affected to wonder at the ardent attachment which sprung up between the two young ladies, because, forsooth, one was but sixteen, and the other eight-and-twenty; as if this slight disparity in years must necessarily engender a diversity of tastes, fatal to a budding friendship.

I would fain describe the person of Miss Laura Stebbins, if I could call to mind any similitudes, whereunto to liken her charms, which have not been worn out in the service of other people's heroines. To use any but brand-new comparisons to illustrate graces like hers would be singularly inappropriate; for she herself always had a bright, fresh look, like some piece of handiwork just finished by the maker. Her hair was black, glossy, and abundant. She had large, hazel eyes, full of expression, shaded by long, black eyelashes, a clear, light-brown complexion, rosy cheeks, small, even teeth, as white as cocoanut meat, and lips whose color was like the tint of sealing-wax. There was not a straight line or an angle about her plump and well-proportioned figure. Her waist was round and full, and yet appeared so slim between the ravishing curves of her shapely form, above and below it, that it seemed as if it were fashioned so on purpose to be embraced.

If Laura had been as wise as she was handsome, some pen more worthy than mine would have celebrated her wit and beauty. But she was nothing more than a wild, merry, frolicsome girl, whom, if you knew her, it was very hard not to like; even her reverend brother-in-law, a very grave personage, of whom, at first, she stood in no little awe, learned to smile at some of her very giddiest nonsense, and Mrs. Bugbee's sober reserve, which had been increased by her domestic afflictions, thawed in the sunshine of Laura's presence, like snow in the warmth of a bright spring morning. Helen, also, grew to be extremely fond of Laura, who returned the child's regard in twofold measure, at least, and yet had love enough to spare wherewith to answer the immense draughts upon her heart by which Miss Cornelia's romantic affection was repaid.

It was more than even Miss Cornelia Bugbee could do to transform this gay creature into a lackadaisical young lady; though, as she tried her very best to do so, none ought to blame her because she failed of success. All her stock of novels she lent to Laura, who read them, every one, in secret, skipping only the dull and didactic pages. That she was not spoiled by this experiment was due less to the strength of Laura's understanding than to the liveliness of her temper, which, in this strait, stood her in very good stead of more solid qualities and a wiser experience. As it was, she learned to talk in a romantic fashion, longed, above all things, to grow thin, pretended to sigh frequently, and affected, at times, an air of pensive thoughtfulness. Her imagination began to be haunted by the apparition of a brave, gallant, and exceedingly graceful and good-looking young officer, of rank and high renown, who, she confidently hoped, would some day appear before her, arrayed in full uniform, with a sword by his side, and, with all the impetuous ardor of a soldier, throw himself at her feet and pour forth a declaration of inextinguishable love.

Until Laura was nearly twenty, this phantom in regimentals held exclusive possession of her bosom, and reigned in that sweet domain without a rival; for, strange as it may appear, she never had a suitor of real flesh and blood, until a certain young divinity-student from East Windsor Seminary, who sometimes of a Sunday when Mr. Jaynes was absent came over to Belfield to try his hand at preaching, perceived, by sly and stealthy glances at Laura over the rim of his blue spectacles, how exceeding comely the damsel was, and firmly resolved to win her for a helpmeet. And even Mr. Elam Hunt (for that was the pious student's name) seemed scarcely more substantial than a ghost, so very pale and bloodless was his meagre face, and so lean and spare his stooping, narrow-chested figure.

This youthful saint was well esteemed by Laura's sister, Mrs. Jaynes, a sharp-visaged little woman, to whose energetic control her absent-minded, studious husband surrendered the parsonage and all it contained. Nay, she even shared his labors in the moral vineyard of his parish; for while he remained at home among his favorite volumes, she used to go about from house to house, collecting donations in aid of some one of the great eleemosynary corporations, whose certificates attesting her life-membership, all framed and glazed, covered the walls of the parsonage parlor. Her zeal in this good work was untiring, and she levied tribute to her favorite charities upon all classes and conditions of her neighbors with strict impartiality. The poorest widow was not suffered to withhold her mite, and, wherever she went, the pouting children of the household were forced to open their money-boxes and tin savings-banks, and bring forth the hoarded pence with which they had hoped to purchase candy and toys at Christmas and New Year. The village folks reckoned the cost of her visits among their annual expenses, and, when she was seen approaching, made ready, as if a sturdy beggar or a tax-gatherer was at the door.

To have heard this estimable lady, when in private she sometimes rebuked the failings of her reverend spouse, one would not have supposed that she regarded him with awful veneration; nevertheless, she magnified his office greatly. The dignity conferred by ordination she held to be the highest honor to which a mortal man can possibly attain. Herself adorning the elevated station of a pastor's wife, she resolved to secure for Laura a position of equal eminence. When, therefore, she perceived that her sister had found favor in the eyes of Mr. Elam Hunt, she gave the bashful student frequent opportunities to speak his mind; and when, at last, he ventured in private to tell her of the flame which warmed his breast with a gentle glow, quite unlike that fervent heat by which the hearts of more impassioned, worldly-minded swains are apt to be tortured and consumed, she assuaged his pangs of doubt by encouraging assurances of her countenance and favor. In the mean time she resolved to guard against every misadventure by which the successful termination of his suit might be prevented or imperilled.

This was by no means an easy thing to do; for Laura, at twenty, though an orphan, without a penny to buy even so much as a dozen teaspoons for a setting-out, was not a girl that would have been apt to lack for lovers, if she had had a fair chance to get them. As I have already told you, she was as sweet and as pretty as a pink full of dewdrops, and might have picked out a sweetheart from as many beaux as she had fingers and thumbs, but that her vigilant duenna, Mrs. Jaynes, kept the young fellows beyond courting distance. It was impossible, even for this shrewd and discreet lady, so to manage, without danger of giving offence, as to prevent Laura from associating with the other young folks of the parish; and indeed, to do her justice, she was not so austerely strict that she desired her sister to abstain from all social intercourse with those of her own age, sex, and condition. On the contrary, as the reader already knows, she was permitted to cherish a tender and devoted friendship for Miss Cornelia Bugbee; and there were several other young ladies, whose brothers were only little boys, with whom she was on the most amicable and familiar terms.

But by means of various arts and devices Mrs. Jaynes contrived to keep the young men from becoming too intimate with her pretty sister; although some of them had vainly endeavored to be more than neighborly. If one ventured to call at the parsonage, Mrs. Jaynes was always in the parlor, with Laura, to receive him, and sat there, grimly, on the sofa, as long as he staid; taking a part in the conversation, which she generally managed to turn upon the most grave and serious topics. The benighted condition of the heathen was a favorite subject of discourse with her, upon these occasions; and the visitor was a lucky youth, if he escaped without making, upon the spot, a cash contribution to the worthy cause of foreign missions. If Laura was invited to ride or to walk with a gentleman, Mrs. Jaynes always had a plausible pretext for objecting. It was either too hot, or too cold, or too damp, or too dusty, or there was sure to be some other reason, equally sufficient, for withholding her consent. As for balls and cotillon parties, the most enterprising and audacious youngster of them all would have quailed at the idea of facing the parson's wife with a request to take her sister to such a place. At last the report got wind that Mrs. Jaynes was saving Laura for Mr. Elam Hunt, until such time as, having finished his course of study at East Windsor, he should be ordained and settled in a parish of his own, and ready to take to himself a wife. To be sure, it did not seem that Laura was of the right sort of temper for a minister's sober helpmeet; nevertheless, this rumor gained credit, and very soon came to be believed by many of the neighbors. Mrs. Jaynes, it was noticed, would never contradict the story, though, to be sure, Laura herself always did, whenever she had a chance to do so. Indeed, she was often heard to declare, with great vehemence and apparent sincerity, that she would as lief be buried alive as marry that living skeleton,—by which scandalous epithet she designated the lean and reverend youth from East Windsor. Some people who heard these protestations let them go for naught, giving them all the less heed on account of their violence, or, perhaps, being even confirmed in the belief of what she so earnestly denied. For it is a very common artifice with young women to pretend a strong aversion for their most favored lovers, and to feign an utter dislike and abhorrence for the very persons whom they love most fondly. Others, however, gave credit to her passionate declarations, and believed that she recoiled from the idea of marrying the lank young student with unfeigned repugnance and disgust. Between people holding these diverse opinions discussions would sometimes arise, especially at meetings of the Dorcas Society, when neither Laura nor Mrs. Jaynes was present. But, just at this juncture, an event occurred which gave a new direction to the current of village gossip, setting every member of the Dorcas sisterhood all agape with wonder and surprise, and all agog with excitement and curiosity. Of this strange and memorable affair I will presently give a veritable account, and even show the reader how it came to pass. But in the mean time the fortunes of the Bugbee family demand my brief attention.

[Continued in the next Number.]



THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY

When wise Minerva still was young And just the least romantic, Soon after from Jove's head she flung That preternatural antic, 'Tis said to keep from idleness Or flirting,—those twin curses,— She spent her leisure, more or less, In writing po—, no, verses.

How nice they were! to rhyme with far A kind star did not tarry; The metre, too, was regular As schoolboy's dot and carry; And full they were of pious plums, So extra-super-moral,— For sucking Virtue's tender gums Most tooth-enticing coral.

A clean, fair copy she prepares, Makes sure of moods and tenses, With her own hand,—for prudence spares A man-(or woman)-uensis; Complete, and tied with ribbons proud, She hinted soon how cosy a Treat it would be to read them loud After next day's Ambrosia.

The Gods thought not it would amuse So much as Homer's Odyssees, But could not very well refuse The properest of Goddesses; So all sat round in attitudes Of various dejection, As with a hem! the queen of prudes Began her grave prelection.

At the first pause Zeus said, "Well sung!— I mean—ask Phoebus,—he knows." Says Phoebus, "Zounds! a wolf's among Admetus's merinos! Fine! very fine! but I must go; They stand in need of me there; Excuse me!" snatched his stick, and so Plunged down the gladdened ether.

With the next gap, Mars said, "For me Don't wait,—naught could be finer; But I'm engaged at half-past three,— A fight in Asia Minor!" Then Venus lisped, "How very thad! It rainth down there in torrinth; But I mutht go, becauthe they've had A thacrifithe in Corinth!"

Then Bacchus,—"With those slamming doors I lost the last half dist—(hic!) Mos' bu'ful se'ments! what's the Chor's? My voice shall not be missed—(hic!)" His words woke Hermes; "Ah!" he said, "I so love moral theses!" Then winked at Hebe, who turned red, And smoothed her apron's creases.

Just then Zeus snored,—the Eagle drew His head the wing from under; Zeus snored,—o'er startled Greece there flew The many-volumed thunder; Some augurs counted nine,—some, ten,— Some said, 'twas war,—some, famine,— And all, that other-minded men Would get a precious ——.

Proud Pallas sighed, "It will not do; Against the Muse I've sinned, oh!" And her torn rhymes sent flying through Olympus's back window. Then, packing up a peplus clean, She took the shortest path thence, And opened, with a mind serene, A Sunday-school in Athens.

The verses? Some, in ocean swilled, Killed every fish that bit to 'em; Some Galen caught, and, when distilled, Found morphine the residuum; But some that rotted on the earth Sprang up again in copies, And gave two strong narcotics birth,— Didactic bards and poppies.

Years after, when a poet asked The Goddess's opinion, As being one whose soul had basked In Art's clear-aired dominion,— "Discriminate," she said, "betimes; The Muse is unforgiving; Put all your beauty in your rhymes, Your morals in your living."



THE FINANCIAL FLURRY.

"Break, break, break, On thy cold, gray crags, O Sea!"

"I remember a day," said a friend not long since, "a day as sweet, calm, cool, and bright as that whose wedding and funeral song the poet sings in the same verse, when I stood upon the white sea-coast near Naples, and looked far away across the blue, silent waters, and up the gray, flowery steeps, to where the towering cone of Vesuvius cleaves the skies. It was in the spring-time; luxuriant nature seemed to have nothing to do but to grow and bloom, and the huge mountain itself was profoundly at peace,—smiling a welcome, apparently, to the delicate bean-plants and wild vines which clambered up its sides, and wearing a light curl of smoke, like a gay coronal, around its brow. The bay was alive with red-capped fishermen, each one intent on fishing up his inverted brother below him; the beach was thronged with women, who chattered cheerfully over their baskets; and along the road scampered soldiers in bright uniforms, as if they had no conceivable purpose in life but to bathe in that clear sunshine, and breathe that soft, delicious air.

"A few hours later," continued he, "I stood not far from the same spot, and saw that mountain angrily belching forth pitch and flames; the earth beneath my feet groaned with sullen, suppressed rage, or as if it were in pain; vast volumes of lurid smoke rolled through the sky, and streams of melted brimstone coursed down the hill-sides, burning up the pretty flowers, crushing the trees, and ruthlessly devouring the snug farms and cottages of the loving Philemons and Baucises who had incautiously built too near the fatal precinct. The poor contadini, who lately chaffered so vivaciously over their macaroni and chestnuts, were flying panic-smitten in all directions; some clasped their crucifixes, and called wildly upon the saints for protection; others leaped frantically into boats and rowed themselves dead, in the needless endeavor to escape death; while the general expression of the people was that of a multitude who, the next minute, expected to see the skies fall to crush them, or the earth open to swallow them up forever. But I was myself unmoved," our friend concluded, in his usual vein of philosophy, "though, I trust, not unsympathizing; because I saw, through those dun clouds of smoke, the stars still shining serenely aloft, and because I felt that after that transient convulsion of nature the great sun would rise as majestically as ever on the morrow, to show us, here and there, no doubt, a beautiful tract now desolate, here and there a fruitful vale now filled with ashes,—but also, the same glorious bay breathing calmly in its bed, the same cloudless sky holding the green and peaceful earth in its complacent embrace."

We could not, as we listened to the story of the traveller, help considering it an illustration of that great convulsion of finance which has visited us during the last month. We do not mean to call this an eruption, which would scarcely be appropriate,—inasmuch as the characteristic of it was not a preternatural activity, but rather a preternatural stagnation and paralysis; but there is certainly a striking similarity in the contrasts presented by the two pictures just painted, and the contrasts presented in the condition of the commercial world as it is now, and as it was only a few weeks since. Then all nature smiled, and we scarcely thought of the future in the happy consciousness of the present; whereas now all nature seems to frown, and we eagerly long for the future to escape the endless vexations and miseries of the present. Our trade, which lately bloomed like a Neapolitan spring-day, is now covered with clouds and sifted with ashes, as if some angry Vesuvius had exploded its contents over us and shot the hot lava-tides among our snug vineyards and cottages. May we not also, in this case, as in that, draw some consolation from the knowledge that the stars are still shining behind the smoke, and that the sun will assuredly come up to-morrow, as it has come up on so many morrows, for so many thousands of years? Convulsions, by the very fact of their violence, show that they are short-lived; and though we, who suffer by them directly, are apt to derive the slenderest solace from the philosophy which demonstrates their transientness, or their utility in certain aspects, it is nevertheless profitable, for various reasons, to make them a subject of remark.

In a season of great public calamity, moreover, everybody feels that he ought to participate in it in some way, if not as a sufferer, then as a sympathizer, and, in either capacity, as a speculator upon its causes and probable effects. The learned historian, Monsieur Alcofribas, who preserves for our instruction "the heroic deeds and prowesses" of the great king of the Dipsodes, tells us how that once, when Philip of Macedon threatened Corinth, the virtuous inhabitants of that city were thrown into mortal fear; but they were not too much paralyzed to forget the necessity of defence; and while some fortified the walls, others sharpened spears, and others again carried the baskets, the noble Diogenes, who was doubtless the chief literary man of the place, was observed to thwack and bang his tub with unmerciful vehemence. When he was asked why he did so, he replied, that it was for the purpose of showing that he was not a mere slug and lazy spectator, in a crowd so fervently exercised. In these times, therefore, when Philip of Macedon is not precisely thundering at our walls, but nibbling at every man's cupboard and cheese-press, it behooves each Diogenes to rattle his tub at least, in order to prove, in the spirit of his prototype and master,

"Though he be rid of fear, He is not void of care."

If the noise he makes only add to the general turbulence and confusion, the show of sympathy will at least go for something.

The same authority, whom we have just quoted, has a piece of advice with which we intend to set our tub in motion. "Whatsoever," he says, "those blindfolded, blockheady fools, the astrologers of Louvain, Nuremberg, Tubingen, and Lyons, may tell you, don't you feed yourselves up with whims and fancies, nor believe there is any Governor of the whole universe this year but God the Creator, who by his Word rules and governs all things, in their nature, propriety, and conditions, and without whose preservation and governance all things in a moment would be reduced to nothing, as out of nothing they were by him created." It is a most sound and salutary truth, not to be forgotten in times of commercial distress, nor even in discussing financial questions, remote as they may seem to be from the domain of ethics. God rules in the market, as he does on the mountain; he has provided eternal laws for society, as he has for the stars or the seas; and it is just as impossible to escape him or his ways in Wall Street or State Street as it is anywhere else. We do not wish to suggest any improper comparisons, but does not the Psalmist assert, "If I make my bed in sheol, behold Thou art there"?

In other words, commerce, the exchange of commodities, banking, and whatever relates to it, currency, the rise and fall of prices, the rates of profits, are all subject to laws as universal and unerring as those which Newton deduces in the "Principia," or Donald McKay applies in the construction of a clipper ship. As they are manifested by more complicated phenomena, man may not know them as accurately as he knows the laws of astronomy or mechanics; but he can no more doubt the existence of the former than he can the existence of the latter; and he can no more infringe the one than he can infringe the other with impunity. The poorest housekeeper is perfectly well aware that certain rules of order are to be observed in the management of the house, or else you will have either starvation or the sheriff inside of it in a little time. But what means that formidable, big-sounding phrase, Political Economy, more than national housekeeping? Can you manage the immense, overgrown family of Uncle Sam with less calculation, less regard to justice, prudence, thrift, than you use in your own little affairs? Can you sail that tremendous vessel, the Ship of State, without looking well to your chart and compass and Navigator's Guide?

When the "Central America" sinks to the bottom of the sea with five hundred souls on board, though it is in the midst of a terrible tempest, the public instinct is inclined to impute the disaster less to the mysterious uproar of wind and wave than to some concealed defect in the vessel. Had she sunk in a tranquil ocean, while the winds were idle and the waves asleep, the incident would have produced a burst of indignation, above the deeper wail of sorrow, strong enough to sweep the guilty instruments of it out of existence. The world would have felt that some great law of mechanics had been wilfully violated. But here is a whole commercial society suddenly wrecked, in a moment of general peace, after ten years of high, but not very florid or very unwholesome prosperity, on the heel of an abundant recompense to the efforts of labor,—when there has occurred no public calamity, no war, no famine, no fire, no domestic insurrection, scarcely one startling event, and when the interpositions of the government have been literally as unfelt as the dropping of the dew, a whole commercial society is wrecked; values sink to the bottom like the California gold on the "Central America"; great money-corporations fall to pieces as her state-rooms and cabins fell to pieces; the relations of trade are dislocated as her ribs and beams were dislocated; and the people are cast upon an uncertain sea, as her passengers were cast,—not to struggle for physical existence like them, but to endure an amount of anguish and despair almost equal to what was endured by those unhappy victims.

How can this have happened arbitrarily, capriciously, mysteriously, without some gross and positive violation of social law, some wilful and therefore wicked departure from the known principles of science? Every random conjecture as to the causes of the prevailing distress implies an answer to the question, and it need not be repeated. It is more important to inquire what those violations and departures have been, than to reiterate the general principle. What has led to the lamentable results under which we suffer? What has rendered the winds so tempestuous that they must needs blow down our noble ship? What has provoked the ire of those big bully waves so that they advance to demolish us? Ah! hark just here how the Diogenid tumble and thump their tubs! each one rapping out his own tune; each one screaming to boot, to be heard above the din!

One cries, that we Americans are an unconscionably greedy people, ever hasting to get rich, never satisfied with our gains, and, in the frantic eagerness of accumulation, disregarding alike justice, truth, probity, and moderation. Under this impulse our trade becomes an incessant and hazardous adventure, like the stakes of the gambler upon the turn of the dice, or upon the figures of the sweat-cloth; a feverish impatience for success pushes everything to the verge of ruin, and only after it has toppled over the brink, and we have followed it, does the danger of the game we had been playing become apparent.—A second qualifies this view, and shouts, that our vice is not so much greed, which is the vice of the miser, as extravagance, which is the vice of the spendthrift; and that as soon as we get one dollar, we run in debt for ten. We must have fine houses, fine horses, fine millinery, fine upholstery, troops of servants, and give costly dinners, and attend magnificent balls. Our very shops and counting-houses must resemble the palaces of the Venetian nobility, and our dwellings be more royally arrayed than the dwellings of the mightiest monarchs. When the time comes—as come it will—for paying for all this glorious frippery, we collapse, we wither, we fleet, we sink into the sand.—A third Diogenes, of a more practical turn of mind, vociferates, that the whole thing comes from the want of a high protective tariff. These subtle and malignant foreigners, who are so jealous of our progress, who are ever on the watch to ruin us, who make any quantity of goods at any time, for nothing, and send them here just at the right moment, to swamp us irrecoverably, are the authors of the mischief, and ought to be kept outside of the nation by a triple wall of icebergs drawn around each port. They pour in upon us a flood of commodities, which destroys our manufactures; they carry off all our gold and silver, which eviscerates the banks; the banks squeeze the merchants, to the last drop of blood; and the merchants perish in the process, carrying with them hosts of mechanics, farmers, and professional men.—Not so, bellows a fourth philosopher, perhaps a little more seedy than the rest; it is all the work of "the infernal credit system,"—of the practice of making money out of that which is only a promise to pay money,—out of that which purports to have a real equivalent in some vault, when no such equivalent exists, and is, therefore, a fraud on the face of it,—and which, deluging the community, raises the price of everything, begets speculation, stimulates an excessive and factitious trade, and is then suddenly withdrawn from the system, at the height of its inflation, like wind sucked from a bladder, to leave it a mere flaccid, wrinkled, empty, worthless old film of fat!

Now, for our part, we think all the Diogenid right, but not precisely in the way in which they state the matter; and we think the seedy Diogenes the rightest of all,—because he has struck nearest to the centre, to the organic fact which controls the other facts,—yet, without sharing his prejudice against credit, one of the blessedest of inventions. As a very long and a very dull treatise, however, would scarcely suffice to explain all the reasons for our thinking so, we must devote the one or two pages that are given us to a few simple, elementary, frontal principles, familiar, no doubt, to every one, and therefore the more important to be recalled, when every one seems to have forgotten them. Nothing is better known than the laws of gravitation; nothing staler in the repetition; but if the folk around us are building their houses so that they all fall down upon our heads, it behooves us to remind them of those laws.

1. Human wisdom has discovered nothing clearer than this,—that in all the operations of trade above a primitive barter, you must have a standard or measure of values; and human ingenuity has never been able to devise any standard more perfect, in essential respects, than the precious metals. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the choice of these metals for currency is a result of human ingenuity. Paley and his school of theologians demonstrate the existence, intelligence, and goodness of God from the evidences of design in creation,—from that nice adaptation of means to ends which shows an infinite knowledge and infinite benevolence at work; but no one of the instances in which they found their argument, from the watch, which affords the primal illustration, to the human body, which furnishes the most complex confirmations, is a more astonishing or exquisite proof of pre-arrangement than is the adaptedness of gold and silver to the purposes of currency. Your standard or measure, for instance, must, in the first place, possess a certain uniformity; if it be a measure of capacity, it must not be of the size of a thimble in the morning, and as big as a haystack at night, like the mystic bottle of the fairy tale; if a measure of length, it must not be made of caoutchouc, as long as your finger to-day, and as long as the Atlantic Cable to-morrow; and so, if a measure of value, it must not equal one thousand at ten o'clock, and equal zero at three. But the precious metals do possess this uniformity; they are not scarce, as diamonds are, so that a pinch of them might measure the value of a city; nor are they as plenty as blackberries, so that a wagon-load could scarcely buy a fat goose for dinner. They cannot be washed away like a piece of soap, nor wear out like a bit of wampum, nor crumble like agate or carnelian in dividing. In short, they combine all the advantages that are needed, with few or none of the disadvantages that would be troublesome, in a substance which is used for money. They possess intrinsic utility, they are equably supplied, they may be easily divided and then fused again, they take a stamp, and they retain the same qualities everywhere and at all times. Accordingly, all the civilized nations, from the time of great-great-great-grandfather Moses down to the time of President Buchanan, have used the precious metals for their standard of values; while your barbarians only, your silly Sandwich-islanders, your stupid troglodytes of interior Africa, your savage red men, have used for that purpose fish-bones, beaver-skins, cowries, strings of beads, or a lump of old rags. Q.E.D., then, on Paley's principles, the precious metals were meant by Divine Providence for use as money, at least more than anything else, because nothing else is so well adapted to the end. Intelligent man everywhere has been glad to recognize the Divine teaching; and the American man—holding himself the most intelligent of all men—has incorporated the lesson in his fundamental law. Nothing can be money for him, constitutionally, but metal which has a genuine ring in it.

2. Being the established standard, the precious metals, so long as they continue unchanged in amount, have a precise and definite relation to all other commodities. But they do not continue unchanged; and neither do other commodities continue unchanged. There is more gold at one time than another, and more wheat at one time than another; so that the relation between the two is not a determinate, but a variable one; and it is this variation which causes or constitutes the fluctuation of prices. If wheat increases in quantity, more of it will be given for the same money; and if it decreases, less of it will be given for the same money; on the other hand, if money increases, more of it will be given for a specific quantity of wheat, and if it decreases, less will be given; while if they increase or decrease together, a relative equilibrium will be maintained. But the beauty of the precious metals, as we have said, is that they are not liable to very sudden or considerable increase or decrease; only twice in the course of history, on the occasion of the discovery of the South American mines by the Spaniards, and of the California mines by the Americans, has there been recorded an unusual production of gold and silver; and in both cases, it is important to note, the same effect followed,—a very considerable enhancement of prices; that is, all other articles seemed to grow dear, although the real fact was that money had only grown cheap. In Spain every commodity rose; everybody experienced that delicious feeling, which we sometimes enjoy in dreams, of going up without spring or effort; and Spain was considered to be enviably prosperous and happy. As for San Francisco, we all remember the fabulous prices which ruled in that vicinity. An acquaintance of ours wrote us then, that he gave five dollars for a dinner consisting of half a pullet and two potatoes, and when he added a pint of champagne, it came to five dollars more. He allowed his washerwoman one hundred and fifty dollars a month, paid fifty dollars for a pair of second-hand cow-hide boots, and hired a cellar, seven feet by nine, and six feet under ground, at the rate of fifteen thousand dollars a year. But both in Spain and in San Francisco this ludicrous exaggeration of values cured itself. The manufacturers and merchants of all the world sent their goods of all sorts to such tempting markets; and it was not long before the goods, not the money, were in excess. Prices came down, as sailors say, by the run, and Spain and San Francisco were reduced once more to rationality and comfort. These were exceptional cases, but they illustrate the general principle, that the increase of money raises prices, and the decrease of money lowers them, which is all we wish to state. In ordinary cases, however, when the currency is in its normal condition, this rise and fall of prices is like the rise and fall of the tides, the mere pulsations of the great sea, which drown and damage nobody, and rather keep the waters more clear and wholesome by their gentle agitation.

3. The same law is observed to operate, whenever anything is made, either by the decrees of government or the usages of society, to take the place of the precious metals as money. Paper, in the shape of bank-bills, promising to pay money on demand, is the most frequent, because the most cheap and convenient substitute; accordingly, when convertible paper-money is increased, it raises prices, and when it is diminished, it depresses prices, just as in the case of a metallic currency. But there are these two signal points of distinction between a paper and a metallic currency: first, that paper money may be increased or diminished much more easily than metallic money; and, second, that any excess or deficiency of the former is not so easily corrected by the natural operations of trade. The sudden or large increase of the metals is prevented by their scarcity and the laborious processes necessary to produce them, and a sudden or large decrease of them could be brought about only by some great public calamity which should destroy them or cause them to be hoarded. But paper money, whether made by a government or made by authorized corporations, may be issued and put in circulation almost at will, and again be withdrawn at will. We do not mean that the issue and withdrawal of it are wholly unchecked, but that the checks, as the entire history of banking would seem to prove, are comparatively inefficient and delusive. If the rise and fall of prices, caused by the fluctuations of metallic money, are to be compared to the rise and fall of the tides, the rise and fall of paper prices are more like the increase and decrease of steam in a boiler, which is an admirable agent, but demanding an incessant and scientific control. The sea-tides, even after a tempest, will regulate themselves, because they have all the oceans and all the rivers of the globe to draw upon; but the steam in a boiler is a thing confined, and yet capable of immense and destructive expansion. A metallic currency runs from nation to nation, and has its perturbations corrected from nation to nation; but a paper currency is local, and cannot be so well corrected by the great interchanges of the globe. Let us make this clearer in another way.

4. It is universally conceded, by all the writers on finance, that any unusual production of currency occasions a rise of prices; the relative value of money is less than it was before, while the relative value of other articles is greater; a greater quantity of money is given for other articles, and fewer of other articles are given for the same amount of money. This rise has the double effect of provoking the importation of foreign commodities, and of preventing the exportation of domestic commodities; inasmuch as the same enhancement of rates, which opens a good domestic market for the former, closes the foreign market to the latter; and thus an unfavorable balance accumulates rapidly against the country where the rise occurs, in respect to other countries where it has not occurred. Now sooner or later this balance must be paid; and as products cannot be profitably shipped abroad to furnish a fund whereupon to draw bills of exchange, it must be paid in coin. The coin is therefore abstracted from circulation; and if coin were the only currency, such an abstraction would of itself induce a fall of prices, which would operate as a check upon importations until the old relation of equilibrium should be restored. But where the government, or where individuals, whether organized or alone, have the power to replace the departed coin by issues of paper money, prices are for a while maintained, and importations continued as vigorously as ever. All this, however, is but a postponement of the day of settlement. The balance to be extinguished is a substantial balance, which can be discharged only by substantial means; a mere promise to pay, a mere sign and representative of debt, will not extinguish it, any more than the smell of a cook-shop will extinguish a ravenous appetite. The insatiable creditor will have money; and the depositories of that essential become, under his assaults, more and more meagre and tenuous. The managers of them at last get alarmed, and begin to withhold their issues of paper; which means that they begin to reduce their loans to the community. The money-market grows "tight," as it is phrased; the money-world feels generally as if it had taken an overdose of persimmons. Merchants and dealers, shorn of their usual accommodations, are compelled to borrow at ruinous usuries, or to fail to meet their payments. Their default involves others; others fail, and others again. The bowels of the banks, with us the great money-lenders, close with the snap and tenacity of steel-traps; and then a general panic, or want of commercial confidence, brings on a paralysis of the domestic exchanges, and wide-spread bankruptcy and ruin. Importations are checked, of course; but they are checked in a sharp, rapid, and violent way, accompanied by the most painful embarrassments and convulsions.

This we believe to be an outline of the history of all our commercial catastrophes, stripped of those local and incidental circumstances which vary from time to time: over-issues of money,—speculative prosperity,—all the world getting rich in the most agreeable manner,—fairy palaces rising on all sides, without the sound of trowel or hammer; then,—the day of adjustment,—the rapid contraction of the currency,—all the world getting poor in the most drastic and disagreeable manner,—and those fairy palaces, which rose under our very eyelids over-night, vanishing, like the palace of Aladdin from the vision of the Grand-Seignior after he awoke in the morning. But, alas! the revulsion does not stop with the overthrow of the palaces which had been reared without labor; it is not satisfied with the dissipation of mere fancies and dreams; but, being itself a most real thing, it carries with it many a stately structure, which the toil, the economy, the self-denial of years had hardly raised. Extraneous causes,—a short crop,—a reduced tariff,—a peculiar mania of enterprise,—may hasten or retard the various steps of the process which has been described; but its cause and its course are almost always the same, and the discerning eye may easily detect them, from the beginning to the end of our modern commercial experience. In the existing difficulties, in this country, the railroad speculations have had much to do with producing and aggravating the effect; but the primary source of it, we think, is to be found in the ease with which our currency is inflated, under a banking system which varies from State to State, and which, outside of New England and New York, where it is by no means perfect, is as bungling a contrivance, for the ends to be answered, as was ever inflicted on the patience of mankind. Much of the trouble is due also to the extravagance and reckless waste of our people, which, though owing in some degree to our want of good manners and good taste, are directly traceable to the stimulus given to expense by the over-issue of artificial money. While the paper which passes for money is plenty, and every man can easily get "accommodations" from the banks, we squander without thought. No matter how costly the articles we buy; the expansion of the currency is greater than the rise in market values; and it is only when the contraction comes that we see how foolishly lavish we have been.

What, then, is the remedy? "Why, away with paper currency altogether!" says one. Yes,—tear up your Croton-water-pipes, because the breaking of a main sometimes submerges your dwellings; destroy your railroads, because the trains sometimes run off the track; arrest your steamships, because an "Arctic" and a "Central America" go disastrously down into the deep, deep sea! That were not wise, surely; that were very unwise, even were it possible, which it is not.—"Give us a high protective tariff," says another. Most certainly, friend, if we are to be perpetually flooded with paper, a high tariff is needed;—your theory is at least consistent, however it may have worked in practice. But a high protective tariff is an impossibility, because it can be attained only by favor of the Federal legislature; and, as we all know, at the door of that legislature stands the inexorable shape of the Slave Power, which consults no interest but its own in the management of government, and which will never make a concession to the manufacturers or the merchants of the North, unless it be to purchase some new act of baseness, or bind them in some new chains of servility.—But have you inquired whether that flood of paper is necessary? We frankly tell you that we do not believe it is; we believe that a better system is possible,—to be brought about, not by greater restrictions on banking, but by greater freedom; and we only regret that we have not now space to discuss that faith with you in all its reasons and results. We hope to be permitted to do so at some other time. Meanwhile, let us rejoice that the whole subject is in a position to be frankly discussed. A few years ago, when the question of the currency was a question of party politics, there was no aspect in which it could be presented, which did not arouse all the restless jealousies of party prejudice. If you talked of hard-money, you were denounced as a Benton bullionist; if you talked of credit, you were called a Whig banker, plotting to devour the poor; and the calmest phrases of science were turned into the shibboleths of an internecine warfare. A better hour has come, and let us improve it to our mutual edification.



SONNET.

The Maple puts her corals on in May, While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling, To be in tune with what the robins sing, Plastering new log-huts 'mid her branches gray; But when the Autumn southward turns away, Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring, And every leaf, intensely blossoming, Makes the year's sunset pale the set of day. O Youth unprescient, were it only so With trees you plant, and in whose shade reclined, Thinking their drifting blooms Fate's coldest snow, You carve dear names upon the faithful rind, Nor in that vernal stem the cross foreknow That Age may bear, silent, yet unresigned!



THE ROUND TABLE.

It was said long ago, that poets, like canaries, must be starved in order to keep them in good voice, and, in the palmy days of Grub Street, an editor's table was nothing grander than his own knee, on which, in his airy garret, he unrolled his paper-parcel of dinner, happy if its wrapping were a sheet from Brown's last poem, and not his own. Now an editorial table seems to mean a board of green cloth at which literary broken-victuals are served out with no carving but that of the editorial scissors.

La Maga has her table, too, and at fitting times invites to it her various Eminent Hands. It is a round table,—that is, rounded by the principle of rotation,—for how could she settle points of precedence with the august heads of her various Departments without danger of the dinner's growing cold? Substantial dinners are eaten thereat with Homeric appetite, nor, though impletus venter non vult studere libenter, are the visits of the Muse unknown. At these feasts no tyranny of speech-making is allowed, but the bonbons are all wrapped in original copies of verses by various contributors, which, having served their festive turn, become the property of the guests. Reporters are not admitted, for the eating is not done for inspection, like that of the hapless inmates of a menagerie; but La Maga herself sometimes brings away in her pocket a stanza or so which she esteems worthy of a more general communication. Last month she thus sequestered the following Farewell addressed by Holmes to the historian of William the Silent.

Yes, we knew we must lose him,—though friendship may claim To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, 'Tis the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.

As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel,— As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,— As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time, Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!

Let us hear the proud story that time has bequeathed From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!

* * * * *

The stream flashes by, for the west-winds awake On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed: THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,—the world holds him dear,— Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career!

Aug. 8, 1857.



LITERARY NOTICES.

The Greyson Letters, Selections from the Correspondence of R.E.H. GREYSON, ESQ. Edited by HENRY ROGERS, Author of "The Eclipse of Faith," &c. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.

We are assured in the American preface to this volume, that while it exhibits Henry Rogers as the peer of Butler as a reasoner, it also shows him not inferior to Lamb as a humorist. Much as we are inclined to echo the critical decisions of prefaces, we regret being unable to indorse this confident statement. In amplitude, vigor, and fertility of thought we must think the author of the "Analogy" holds some slight advantages over the author of "The Eclipse of Faith"; and we seriously doubt if the lovers of Charles Lamb will be likely to rush into mirthful ecstasies over the humor of "The Greyson Letters." But we suppose that Henry Rogers himself would make no pretensions to the rank of a writer, or reasoner, or humorist of the first class. Far from being a great man, he occasionally slips into the prejudices of quite a little one, and he never wholly puts off the pedagogue and puts on the philosopher. Without much original force of nature, and never unmistakably stamping his own image and superscription either on his arguments or his language, he is still a well-trained theological scholar, a skilful logician, and one of that class of elegant writers who neither offend the taste nor kindle the soul. As a controversialist on themes which are now engaging popular attention, he grasps the questions he discusses at one or two removes from their centre and heart, where they pass out of the sphere of ideas and pass into the region of opinions; and in this region he is candid to the extent of his perceptions, quick to detect the weak points in the formal statements of his opponents, and, without touching the vitalities of the matter in controversy, is always hailed as victor by those who agree with him, but rarely convinces the doubters and deniers he aims to convert. "The Greyson Letters" are evidently the work of an amiable, learned, accomplished, and able man, interested in a wide variety of themes which especially attract the attention of thinkers, but in his treatment of them indicating a lack of deep and wide experience, and of that close, searching thought which pierces to the core of a subject, and broods patiently over its living elements and relations, before it assumes to take them as materials for argumentation. This broad grasp of premises, which implies a penetrating and interpretative as well as dialectic mind, is the distinguishing difference between a great reasoner and an able logician. In regard to the form of the work, we can see no reason why its essays should be thrown into the shape of letters. The epistolary spirit vanishes almost as soon as "Dear Sir" and "Dear Madam" create its expectation. The author's mind is grave by nature and culture, and is sprightly, as it seems to us, by compulsion and laborious levity. His nature has none of the richness and juiciness, none of the instinctive soul of humor, which must have vent in the ludicrous. Occasionally an adversary or adverse dogma is demolished with excellent logic, and then comes a dismal grin or chuckle at the feat, which hardly reminds us of the sly, shy smile of Addison, or the frolic intelligence which laughs in the victorious eyes of Pascal. Still, with all abatements, "The Greyson Letters" make a book well worthy of being read, contain much admirable matter and suggestive thought, and might be allowed to pass muster among good books of the second class, did they not come before us with professions that seemed to invite the tests applicable to the first.

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Essays in Biography and Criticism. By PETER BAYNE, M.A., Author of "The Christian Life, Social and Individual," &c. First Series. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.

This volume contains essays on De Quincey, Tennyson and his Teachers, Mrs. Barrett Browning, Glimpses of Recent British Art, John Ruskin, Hugh Miller, The Modern Novel, and Currer Bell. Though of various degrees of merit, they all evince careful study and patient thought, and are written with considerable brilliancy and eloquence. As a critic, Mr. Bayne is generally candid, conscientious, and intelligent, with occasional remarks evincing delicacy and depth of thought; but his perceptions are not always trustworthy, and his judgments are frequently of doubtful soundness. Thus when we are told that Wordsworth owed his fame to his moral elevation rather than to his "intellectual or sthetic capacities," and that there is hardly an instance of the highest creative imagination in the whole range of his poetry,—when we are informed that since Shakspeare no one "has laid bare the burning heart of passion" so perfectly as Byron,—and when the question is triumphantly asked, "Where, out of Shakspeare, can we find such a series of female portraits as those" in Bulwer's "Rienzi,"—we feel inclined, in this association of Byron and Bulwer with Shakspeare, and this oversight of Wordsworth's claim to represent the highest original elements in the English poetry of the present century, to dispute Mr. Bayne's right to assume the chair of interpretative criticism. But still there are so many examples in his book of fine and true perception, and so evident a sympathy with intellectual excellence and moral beauty, that we do not feel disposed to quarrel with him on account of the apparent erroneousness of some of his separate opinions. Besides, his work is written in a style which will recommend it to a class of readers who are not especially interested in the subjects of which it treats, and it cannot fail to stimulate in them a desire to know more of the great writers of the century.

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White Lies. A Novel. By Charles Reade. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1 vol. 12mo.

The early chapters of this novel lack the brisk movement, the sparkling compactness, the stinging surprises of Mr. Reade's usual style, but he kindles and condenses as he proceeds. As a whole, the work compares favorably with his most brilliant compositions. He is a writer difficult to criticize, because his defects are pleasing defects. Dogmatism is commonly offensive, and Mr. Reade's dogmatism is of the most uncompromising, not to say insulting character; yet it is exhibited in connection with insight so sure and vivid, that we pardon the positiveness of the assertion for the truth of what is asserted. Then he has a way of forcing Nature, much against her wish, to be epigrammatic,—of producing startling effects by artifices almost theatrical; and though his devices are obvious, they are more than forgiven for the genuine power and real naturalness behind the rhetorical masquerade. Other men's freaks and eccentricities lead to the distortion of truth and the confusion of relations, but Mr. Reade has freaks of wisdom and eccentricities of practical sagacity. Occasionally he has a stroke of observation that comes like a flash of lightning, blasting and shattering in an instant a prejudice or hypocrisy which was strong enough to resist all the arguments of reason and all the appeals of humanity. "White Lies" is full of examples of his power, and of the peculiarities of his power. Blunt and bold and arrogant as his earnestness often appears, it is capable of the most winning gentleness, the most delicate grace, and the most searching pathos. The delineation of the female characters in this novel is especially admirable. Josephine and Laure are exquisite creations, and the Baroness and Jacintha, though different, are almost as perfect, considered as examples of characterization. In the invention and management of incidents, the author exhibits a sure knowledge of the means and contrivances by which expectation is stimulated, and the interest of the story kept from flagging. We hope to read many more novels from the same pen as delightful as "White Lies."

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Brazil and the Brazilians. Portrayed in Historical and Descriptive Sketches. By Rev. D.P. Kidder, D.D., and Rev. J.C. Fletcher. Illustrated by one hundred and fifty Engravings. Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson. 1 vol. 8vo.

Brazil is a country but little known to the majority of readers, and the little that is known is so fragmentary that it is as likely to convey a false idea as an incomplete one. The writers of this volume combine two qualifications for the work of dissipating this ignorance. They have a direct personal knowledge of Brazil, gained during a long residence in the country, and they have carefully studied every valuable book on its history and resources. The manners, customs, laws, government, productions, literature, art, and religion of the people have all been carefully observed under circumstances favorable for accurate investigation. The result is a valuable, interesting, and attractive volume, well worthy of being extensively read. The elegance of its mechanical execution, and the profusion of engravings illustrating the text, will add to its popularity, if not to its value.

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The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt. Now first entirely collected. Revised by himself, and edited, with an Introduction, by S. ADAMS LEE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 2 vols. 18mo.

Leigh Hunt has outlived all the enmities and enemies provoked either by his merits or his demerits, and is especially interesting as the sole survivor of the illustrious company of poets with whom the mind instinctively associates him. Some burnt out; some died out; some dried up; but he remains the same cosey, chirping, fine-natured, and self-pleased singer, who won the love of Shelley and Keats, and roused the wrath of Gifford and Wilson. We are glad to welcome his collected poems in their appropriate attire of "blue and gold," and trust they will have a wide circulation in the United States, as the genial poet is himself to be a participant in the profits of the publication. We wish that a word of ours could be influential in assisting this veteran of letters to reap from the publication something more substantial than fame, yet in some degree the expression of it,—something which shall give him assurance that his volumes are on thousands of parlor tables, because the proofs of it are palpable in the increased comforts afforded to his old age. And certainly the poet deserves a wide circle of readers. Though he does not succeed in the delineation of the great and grand passions of our nature, he is very successful in the sphere of its humane and tender sentiments; and though open to criticism for the jaunty audacity with which he coins dainty sweetnesses of expression rejected by all dictionaries, and for an occasional pertness in asserting opinions of doubtful truth, he is so lovable a creature that we pardon his literary foibles as we would pardon the personal foibles of a charming companion and friend. He has a genuine love for all cheerful and cheering things, and power enough to infuse his cheer into other minds. Disliking all internal and external foes to human comfort, he is equally the enemy of evil, and of the morbid discontent which springs from the bitter contemplation of evil. His nature is essentially sprightly and sensuous, with here a bit of Suckling and there a bit of Fletcher, carrying us back to an elder period of British poetry by the careless grace and freedom of his movement, and proving his connection with the present by the openness of his mind to all liberal thought and philanthropic feeling. Good-humor and benevolence are so dominant in his nature, that they prevent him from having any deep perceptions of evil and calamity. He is personally affronted when he sees the thunder-cloud push away the sunshine from life; and God, to him, is not only absolute Good, but absolute Good Nature.

It would be easy to quote passages from these volumes illustrative of his acute observation, his largeness of sympathy, his delicacy and daintiness of touch, his sweetness, humor, pathos, and fancy. As a specimen of the playful and beautiful ingenuity of his mind, we extract a portion of his little poem on "Love-Letters made of Flowers."

"An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss, This art of writing billets-doux In buds and odors and bright hues! In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks; In puns of tulips; and in phrases, Charming for their truth, of daisies; Uttering, as well as silence may, The sweetest words the sweetest way. How fit, too, for the lady's bosom! The place where billets-doux repose 'em.