Chapter IX: Part 9

The Italian crisis is a European crisis; for matters have now reached a pass in which the foreigner must have something to say of Italy's future: and it will be well for the general peace, if he shall use only the words of justice, in giving his decision; for his right to speak at all in the premises is derived only from an act of usurpation, long acquiescence in which has clothed it with a certain show of legality. In all that the Italians have thus far done, since the conclusion of the with Austria, they have not necessarily been brought into conflict with any foreign nation, though they may have terribly offended those legitimate sovereigns who have been accustomed either to give law to Europe or to see public opinion defer considerably to their will. Not a single acquisition thus far made by Victor Emmanuel can be said to have proceeded from any act at which Europe could complain with justice. Lombardy was given to him by his ally of France, whose prize it was, and who had an undid dispose of it in a most righteous manner. That Central Italy was acquired by him was due partly to the cowardice of the old rulers thereof, and partly to intelligence, activity, and patriotism of its people. No foreign rights, conventional or otherwise, were assailed or disregarded, when it passed under the Sardinian sceptre. When go much of the Pope's temporal possessions were taken from him by the people themselves, who had become weary of the worst system of misgovernment known to the west of Bokhara, no doubt many pious Catholics were shocked; but, if they knew anything of the history of the Papal temporal rule and power, they could not complain at what was done, on the score of illegality; and the deeds of Cialdini and Fanti and Persano were performed against foreigners who had intruded themselves into Italy, and who were employed to uphold the political supremacy of a few persons at Rome, while they had no more connection with the religion of the ancient Church than they had with that of Thibet. The King of the Two Sicilies, by his tyranny, and by his persistence in the offensive course of his house, had become an outlaw, as it were, and every _Italian_ at least was fairly authorized to attack him; and in doing so he could not be said to assail European order, nor could any European power send assistance to a monarch who had refused to listen even to the remonstrances of Austria against his cruelties. The stanchest of English conservatives, while they said they must regard Garibaldi as a freebooter, did not hesitate to express the warmest wishes for the freebooter's success. When the Sardinians marched to Garibaldi's aid, they did so in the interest of order, which has been promptly restored to Southern Italy through their energetic course.

Thus far, that which has been done in Italy has been of a local character; but nothing more can be done, in the way of completing the independence and unity of Italy, without bringing the patriots into conflict with Austria. That power still is supreme in Venetia, which is one of the best portions of Italy, and which can be held by no foreign sovereign without endangering the whole Peninsula. Were there no other reason for seeking to redeem Venetia from Austrian oppression, the safety of the rest of Italy would demand that that redemption should be accomplished. Venetia, as she now is, is a place of arms for the chief, we may say the only, foreign enemy that the Italian Kingdom has or can have; and that enemy has a deep and a peculiar interest in seeking occasion to bring about the new kingdom's destruction. If Austria should succeed in conciliating the Hungarians,--which she might do, if she were to act justly toward them,--and a change of government were to take place in France,--and changes in the French government have occurred so often since 1789 as not to be improbable now,--she would, through possession of Venetia, be enabled to commence a new Italian war with the chances of success greatly in her favor. The Italians, therefore, are compelled to round and complete their work, in getting possession of Venetia, by that desire for safety and for self-preservation which actuates all men and all communities. A nobler feeling, too, moves them. They feel the obligation that exists to extend to the Venetians that freedom which is now enjoyed by all Italians except the Venetians and a small portion of the Pope's subjects. They would be recreant to the dictates of duty, and disregardful of those of honor, were they to leave Venetia in the hands of Austria. What their feelings on this momentous subject are may be gathered from Garibaldi's address to his companions-in-arms, when, having completed his immediate work, he withdrew from active service for the time, in November last. His words point as directly to an attack on Venetia as his landing in Sicily indicated his intention to overthrow Francis II.; and that attack, according to the Patriot Soldier, is to be made under the lead of the Patriot King, Victor Emanuel. A million of Italians are called for, that it may be successfully made; and that number ought to be raised, if so vast a host shall be found necessary to perfect the independence of Italy. After what we have seen done by the Italians, we should not distrust their power to do even more, if no delay should be permitted, and full advantage be taken of the spirit of enthusiastic patriotism which now animates them. That Garibaldi means no delay is proved by his naming next March as the date for the renewal of the mighty crusade in the course of which already such miracles have been wrought.

That Italy, as she stands to-day, would be found more than the equal of Austria, no doubt can be felt by any one who is acquainted with the condition of the two powers. Italy would enter upon a contest with Austria under circumstances of peculiar advantage. She would have so decided a naval superiority, that the Austrian flag would disappear from the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, and she would be able to operate powerfully from the sea against Venice. It is a military axiom, that, wherever there is a sea-side, there is a weak side; and Venetia presents this to an assailing force in quite a striking manner. Command of the Adriatic and the neighboring waters would enable the Italians to threaten many points of the Austrian territory, which would require to be watched by large collections of soldiers; and aid could be sent to the Hungarians, should they rise, by the way of Fiume. Italy could raise a larger army to attack Venetia than Austria could employ for its defence, with Hungary on the eve of revolution, Bohemia discontented, Croatia not the loyal land it was in '48, and even the Tyrol no longer a model of subserviency to the Imperial House. The Italians are at any time the equals of the Austrians as soldiers, and at this time their minds are in an exalted state, under the dominion of which they would be found superior to any men who could be brought against them, if well led; and among the Imperial commanders there is no man, unless Von Benedek be an exception, who is to be named with the generals who have led the way in the work we have seen done since last spring. In a military sense, and in a moral sense, Italy is the superior of the beaten, bankrupt monarchy of Austria, and capable of wresting Venetia from the intrusive race, which holds it as much in defiance of common sense as of common right.

But would Italy be permitted to settle her quarrel with her old oppressor without foreign intervention? We fear that she would not. Venetia is held by Austria in virtue of the Vienna settlement of Europe, in the first place, and then under the treaty that followed the war of 1859. Some English statesmen would appear to be of opinion that Venetia must remain among the possessions of Austria, without reference to the interests of Italy, the party most concerned in the business. In his first note to Sir James Hudson, British Minister at Turin, which note was to be read to Count Cavour, Lord John Russell, Foreign Secretary, writes more like an Austrian than an Englishman, going even to the astounding length of declaring that a war to defend her right to Venetia would be on Austria's part a patriotic war,--such a war, we presume the Honorable Secretary of State must have meant, as Wallace waged against Edward I., or that which the first William of Orange carried on against Philip II.! Lord Palmerston seems inclined to indorse his colleague's views: for he referred directly to this very note in terms of approbation, in the speech which he made at the dinner of the "Worshipful Company of Salters," on the 14th of November. It is true, that, in a later note from Lord John Russell to Sir James Hudson, extreme ground in favor of what had been done in Naples by the Sardinians is taken, and sustained with eminent ability; and in the speech of Lord Palmerston referred to, the object of the first note was said to be the prevention of a rash course that "might have blighted all the best hopes of Italian freedom." We do not for a moment suppose that the English people would ever allow their government to do anything to help Austria to maintain possession of Venetia; but the relations between Austria and England are of old date, and an opinion prevails in the latter country that the former should be kept strong, in order that she may be preserved as a counterpoise, on the one side to Russia, and on the other to France. England has a difficult part to play, and her course, or rather that of her government, sometimes makes considerable demand on the charitable construction of the world; but her people are sound, and for a long series of years their weight has been felt on the right side of European contests. The Italian cause is popular with all classes of Englishmen, and their country will never do anything to the prejudice of that cause. But it may refuse aid at a time when such aid shall be much needed, and when even France may stand aloof, and refrain from finishing the business which she commenced.

There is said to be an opinion growing up in France that Italy may be made too strong for the good of her friend and ally. A new nation of twenty-seven million souls--which would be Italy's strength, should Rome and Venetia be gained for her--might become a potent enemy even to one of its chief creators; and the taking of Savoy and Nice has caused ill-feeling between the two countries, in which Garibaldi heartily shares. Napoleon III. might be depended upon, himself, to support Italy hereafter against any foreign enemy, but it is by no means clear that France would support him in such a course; and he must defer to the opinion of his subjects to a considerable extent, despotic though his power is supposed to be. It is opinion, in the last resort, that governs every where,--under an absolute monarchy quite as determinedly as under a liberal polity like ours or England's. There is a large party in France, composed of the most incongruous materials, which has the profoundest interest in misrepresenting the policy of the Imperial government, and which is full of men of culture and intellect,--men whose labors, half-performed though they are, must have considerable effect on the French mind. The first Napoleon had the ground honeycombed under him by his enemies, who could not be suppressed, nor their labors be made to cease, even by his stern system of repression. It may be so with the present Emperor, who knows that one false step might upset his dynasty as utterly as it was twice over-thrown by the armies of combined Europe. What was then done by the lions and the eagles might now be done by the moles. The worms that gnawed through the Dutch dykes did Holland more damage than she experienced from the armies of Louis XIV. Let the French mind become possessed with the idea that the Emperor is helping Italy at the expense of France, and we may see a third Restoration in that country, or even a third Republic. The elder Bourbons were driven out because they were as a monument in Paris to Leipzig and Vittoria and Waterloo, erected by the victors on those fatal fields. The Orléans dynasty broke down because it had become an article in the belief of most Frenchmen that it was disgracing France by the corruption of its domestic policy and the subserviency of its foreign policy. Napoleon III. could no more sustain himself against the belief that he was using France for the benefit of Italy than the King of the French could sustain himself against the conviction that he was abusing the country he ruled over for the advancement of his family. He has already offended the Catholic clergy by what he has done for Italy, which they regard as having been done against their Church; and as they helped to make him, so they may be able to unmake him. To satisfy grumblers, he took Savoy and Nice. For some time past, rumor has been busy in attributing to him the design of demanding the island of Sardinia. If he should ask for Sardinia, and receive it, might he not ask also for Sicily, the country of which he offered to become King in 1848, and did not receive one vote, an incident that may still weigh upon the imperial heart, no man ever forgetting a contemptuous slight? If he should make these demands, or either of them, would the other European Powers permit the Italians to comply with them? These are questions not to be answered hurriedly, but they closely concern the Italian question, a solution of which must soon be had, for the world's peace.

The third act of the drama approaches, and 1861 may be a more important year to Italy than was either 1859 or 1860. The successful antagonist of Austria she can be; but could she, without foreign aid, withstand an alliance that should be formed against her in the name of order, while her former ally should remain quiet and refuse to take any part in the war? Austria, it has been intimated, might be induced to sell Venetia to Italy, and this is possible, though such a settlement of the question in dispute would be an extraordinary confession of weakness on the part of the aristocratical military monarchy of the Lorraines, and a proceeding of which it would be more ashamed than it would be even of a generous action.

* * * * *

A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS.

Having just returned from a visit to this admirable Institution in company with a friend who is one of the Directors, we propose giving a short account of what we saw and heard. The great success of the Asylum for Idiots and Feeble-minded Youth, several of the scholars from which have reached considerable distinction, one of them being connected with a leading Daily Paper in this city, and others having served in the State and National Legislatures, was the motive which led to the foundation of this excellent Charity. Our late distinguished townsman, Noah Dow, Esquire, as is welt known, bequeathed a large portion of his fortune to this establishment,--"being thereto moved," as his will expressed it, "by the desire of _N. Dowing_ some publick Institution for the benefit of Mankind." Being consulted as to the Rules of the Institution and the selection of a Superintendent, he replied, that "all Boards must construct their own Platforms of operation. Let them select _anyhow_ and he should be pleased." N.E. Howe, Esq., was chosen in compliance with this delicate suggestion.

The Charter provides for the support of "One hundred aged and decayed Gentlemen-Punsters." On inquiry if there was no provision for _females_, my friend called my attention to this remarkable psychological fact, namely:--

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FEMALE PUNSTER.

This remark struck me forcibly, and on reflection I found that _I never knew nor heard of one_, though I have once or twice heard a woman make _a single detached_ pun, as I have known a hen to crow.

On arriving at the south gate of the Asylum grounds, I was about to ring, but my friend held my arm and begged me to rap with my stick, which I did. An old man with a very comical face presently opened the gate and put out his head.

"So you prefer _Cane_ to _A bell_, do you?" he said,--and began chuckling and coughing at a great rate.

My friend winked at me.

"You're here still, Old Joe, I see," he said to the old man.

"Yes, yes,--and it's very odd, considering how often I've _bolted_, nights."

He then threw open the double gates for us to ride through.

"Now," said the old man, as he pulled the gates after us, "you've had a long journey."

"Why, how is that, Old Joe?" said my friend.

"Don't you see?" he answered; "there's the _East hinges_ on one side of the gate, and there's the West hinges_ on t'other side,--haw! haw! haw!"

We had no sooner got into the yard than a feeble little gentleman, with a remarkably bright eye, came up to us, looking very seriously, as if something had happened.

"The town has entered a complaint against the Asylum as a gambling establishment," he said to my friend, the Director.

"What do you mean?" said my friend.

"Why, they complain that there's a _lot o' rye_ on the premises," he answered, pointing to a field of that grain,--and hobbled away, his shoulders shaking with laughter, as he went.

On entering the main building, we saw the Rules and Regulations for the Asylum conspicuously posted up. I made a few extracts which may be interesting.

Sect. I. OF VERBAL EXERCISES.

5. Each Inmate shall be permitted to make Puns freely from eight in the morning until ten at night, except during Service in the Chapel and Grace before Meals.

6. At ten o'clock the gas will be turned off, and no further Puns, Conundrums, or other play on words, will be allowed to be uttered, or to be uttered aloud.

9. Inmates who have lost their faculties and cannot any longer make Puns shall be permitted to repeat such as may be selected for them by the Chaplain out of the work of Mr. _Joseph Miller_.

10. Violent and unmanageable Punsters, who interrupt others when engaged in conversation, with Puns or attempts at the same, shall be deprived of their _Joseph Millers_, and, if necessary, placed in solitary confinement.

Sect. III. OF DEPORTMENT AT MEALS.

4. No Inmate shall make any Pun, or attempt at the same, until the Blessing has been asked and the company are decently seated.

7. Certain Puns having been placed on the _Index Expurgatorius_ of the Institution, no Inmate shall be allowed to utter them, on pain of being debarred the perusal of _Punch_ and _Vanity Fair_, and, if repeated, deprived of his _Joseph Miller_.

Among these are the following:--

Allusions to _Attic salt_, when asked to pass the salt-cellar.

Remarks on the Inmates being _mustered_, etc., etc.

Associating baked beans with the _bene_factors of the Institution.

Saying that beef-eating is _befitting_, etc., etc.

The following are also prohibited, excepting to such Inmates as may have lost their faculties and cannot any longer make Puns of their own:--

"----your own _hair_ or a wig"; "it will be _long enough_, "etc., etc.; "little of its age," etc., etc.;--also, playing upon the following words: _hos_pital; _mayor_; _pun_; _pitied_; _bread_; _sauce_, etc., etc., etc. See INDEX EXPURGATORIUS, _printed for use of Inmates_.

The subjoined Conundrum is not allowed:--Why is Hasty Pudding like the Prince? Because it comes attended by its _sweet_;--nor this variation to it, _to wit_: Because the _'lasses runs after it_.

The Superintendent, who went round with us, had been a noted punster in his time, and well known in the business-world, but lost his customers by making too free with their names,--as in the famous story he set afloat in '29 of _four Jerries_ attaching to the names of a noted Judge, an eminent Lawyer, the Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, and the well-known Landlord at Springfield. One of the _four Jerries_, he added, was of gigantic magnitude. The play on words was brought out by an accidental remark of Solomons, the well-known Banker. "_Capital punishment!_" the Jew was overheard saying, with reference to the guilty parties. He was understood as saying, _A capital pun is meant_, which led to an investigation and the relief of the greatly excited public mind.

The Superintendent showed some of his old tendencies, as he went round with us.

"Do you know"--he broke out all at once--"why they don't take steppes in Tartary for establishing Insane Hospitals?"

We both confessed ignorance.

"Because there are _nomad_ people to be found there," he said, with a dignified smile.

He proceeded to introduce us to different Inmates. The first was a middle-aged, scholarly man, who was seated at a table with a Webster's Dictionary and a sheet of paper before him.

"Well, what luck to-day, Mr. Mowzer?" said the Superintendent.

"Three or four only," said Mr. Mowzer. "Will you hear 'em now,--now I'm here?"

We all nodded.

"Don't you see Webster _ers_ in the words cent_er_ and theat_er_?

"If he spells leather _lether_, and feather _fether_, isn't there danger that he'll give us a _bad spell of weather_?

"Besides, Webster is a resurrectionist; he does not allow _u_ to rest quietly in the _mould_.

"And again, because Mr. Worcester inserts an illustration in his text, is that any reason why Mr. Webster's publishers should hitch one on in their appendix? It's what I call a _Conntect-a-cut_ trick.

"Why is his way of spelling like the floor of an oven? Because it is _under bread_.

"Mowzer!" said the Superintendent,--"that word is on the Index!"

"I forgot," said Mr. Mowzer;--"please don't deprive me of _Vanity Fair_, this one time, Sir.

"These are all, this morning. Good day, Gentlemen. Then to the Superintendent,--Add you, Sir!"

The next Inmate was a semi-idiotic-looking old man. He had a heap of block-letters before him, and, as we came up, he pointed, without saying a word, to the arrangements he had made with them on the table. They were evidently anagrams, and had the merit of transposing the letters of the words employed without addition or subtraction. Here are a few of them:--

TIMES. SMITE!
POST. STOP!

TRIBUNE. TRUE NIB.
WORLD. DR. OWL.

ADVERTISER. (RES VERI DAT.
(IS TRUE. READ!

ALLOPATHY. ALL O' TH' PAY.
HOMEOPATHY. O, THE--! O! O, MY! PAH!

The mention of several new York papers led to two or three questions. Thus: Whether the Editor of the Tribune was _H.G. really?_ If the complexion of his politics were not accounted for by his being an _eager_ person himself? Whether Wendell _Fillips_ were not a reduced copy of John _Knocks?_ Whether a New York _Feuilletoniste_ is not the same thing as a _Fellow down East?_

At this time a plausible-looking, bald-headed man joined us, evidently waiting to take a part in the conversation.

"Good morning, Mr. Riggles," said the Superintendent. "Anything fresh this morning? Any Conundrum?"

"I haven't looked at the cattle," he answered, dryly.

"Cattle? Why cattle?"

"Why, to see if there's any _corn under 'em!_" he said; and immediately asked, "Why is Douglas like the earth?"

We tried, but couldn't guess.

"Because he was _flattened out at the polls!_" said Mr. Riggles.

"A famous politician, formerly," said the Superintendent. "His grandfather was a _seize-Hessian-ist_ in the Revolutionary War. By the way, I hear the _freeze-oil_ doctrines don't go down at New Bedford."

The next Inmate looked as if be might have been a sailor formerly.

"Ask him what his calling was," said the Superintendent.

"Followed the sea," he replied to the question put by one of us. "Went as mate in a fishing-schooner."

"Why did you give it up?"

"Because I didn't like working for _two mast-ers_," he replied.

Presently we came upon a group of elderly persons, gathered about a venerable gentleman with flowing locks, who was propounding questions to a row of Inmates.

"Can any Inmate give me a motto for M. Berger?" he said.

Nobody responded for two or three minutes. At last one old man, whom I at once recognized as a Graduate of our University, (Anno 1800,) held up his hand.

"Rem a _cue_ tetigit."

"Go to the head of the Class, Josselyn," said the venerable Patriarch.

The successful Inmate did as he was told, but in a very rough way, pushing against two or three of the Class.

"How is this?" said the Patriarch.

"You told me to go up _jostlin',_" he replied.

The old gentlemen who had been shoved about enjoyed the Pun too much to be angry.

Presently the Patriarch asked again,--

"Why was M. Berger authorized to go to the dances given to the Prince?"

The Class had to give up this, and he answered it himself:--

"Because every one of his carroms was a _tick-it_ to the _ball_."

"Who collects the money to defray the expenses of the last campaign in Italy?" asked the Patriarch.

Here again the Class failed.

"The war-cloud's rolling _Dun_," he answered.

"And what is mulled wine made with?"

Three or four voices exclaimed at once,----

"_Sizzle-y_ Madeira!"

Here a servant entered, and said, "Luncheon-time." The old gentlemen, who have excellent appetites, dispersed at once, one of them politely asking us if we would not stop and have a bit of bread and a little mite of cheese.

"There is one thing I have forgotten to show you," said the Superintendent,--"the cell for the confinement of violent and unmanageable Punsters."

We were very curious to see it, particularly with reference to the alleged absence of every object upon which a play of words could possibly be made.

The Superintendent led us up some dark stairs to a corridor, then along a narrow passage, then down a broad flight of steps into another passage-way, and opened a large door which looked out on the main entrance.

"We have not seen the cell for the confinement of 'violent and unmanageable' Punsters," we both exclaimed.

"This is the _sell!_" he exclaimed, pointing to the outside prospect.

My friend, the Director, looked me in the face so good-naturedly that I had to laugh.

"We like to humor the Inmates," he said. "It has a bad effect, we find, on their health and spirits to disappoint them of their little pleasantries. Some of the jests to which we have listened are not new to me, though I dare say you may not have heard them often before. The same thing happens in general society,--with this additional disadvantage, that there is no punishment provided for 'violent and unmanageable' Punsters, as in our Institution."

We made our bow to the Superintendent and walked to the place where our carriage was waiting for us. On our way, an exceedingly decrepit old man moved slowly towards us, with a perfectly blank look on his face, but still appearing as if he wished to speak.

"Look!" said the Director,--"that is our Centenarian."

The ancient man crawled towards us, cocked one eye, with which he seemed to sec a little, up at us, and said,--

"Sarvant, young Gentlemen. Why is a--a--a--like a--a--a--? Give it up? Because it's a--a--a--a--."

He smiled a pleasant smile, as if it were all plain enough.

"One hundred and seven last Christmas," said the Director. "He lost his answers about the age of ninety-eight. Of late years he puts his whole Conundrums in blank,--but they please him just as well."

We took our departure, much gratified and instructed by our visit, hoping to have some future opportunity of inspecting the Records of this excellent Charity and making extracts for the benefit of our Readers.

* * * * *

THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR.

Dean Swift, in a letter to Lord Bolingbroke, says that he does not "remember to have ever heard or seen one great genius who had long success in the ministry; and recollecting a great many in my memory and acquaintance, those who had the smoothest time were, at best, men of middling degree in understanding." However true this may be in the main,--and it undoubtedly is true that in ordinary times the speculative and innovating temper of an original mind is less safe than the patience of routine and persistence in precedent of a common-place one,--there are critical occasions to which intellect of the highest quality, character of the finest fibre, and a judgment that is inspired rather than confused by new and dangerous combinations of circumstances, are alone equal. Tactics and an acquaintance with the highest military authorities were adequate enough till they were confronted with General Bonaparte and the new order of things. If a great man struggling with the storms of fate be the sublimest spectacle, a mediocre man in the same position is surely the most pitiful. Deserted by his presence of mind, which, indeed, had never been anything but an absence of danger,--baffled by the inapplicability of his habitual principles of conduct, (if that may be called a principle, which, like the act of walking, is merely an unconscious application of the laws of gravity,) --helpless, irresolute, incapable of conceiving the flower Safety in the nettle Danger, much more of plucking it thence,--surely here, if anywhere, is an object of compassion. When such a one is a despot who has wrought his own destruction by obstinacy in a traditional evil policy, like Francis II. of Naples, our commiseration is outweighed by satisfaction that the ruin of the man is the safety of the state. But when the victim is a so-called statesman, who has malversated the highest trusts for selfish ends, who has abused constitutional forms to the destruction of the spirit that gave them life and validity, who could see nothing nobler in the tenure of high office than the means it seemed to offer of prolonging it, who knows no art to conjure the spirit of anarchy he has evoked but the shifts and evasions of a second-rate attorney, and who has contrived to involve his country in the confusion of principle and vacillation of judgment which have left him without a party and without a friend,--for such a man we have no feeling but contemptuous reprobation. Pan-urge in danger of shipwreck is but a faint type of Mr. Buchanan in face of the present crisis; and that poor fellow's craven abjuration of his "_former_ friend," Friar John, is magnanimity itself, compared with his almost-ex-Excellency's treatment of the Free States in his last Message to Congress. There are times when mediocrity is a dangerous quality, and a man may drown himself as effectually in milk-and-water as in Malmsey.

The question, whether we are a Government or an Indian Council, we do not propose to discuss here; whether there be a right of secession tempered by a right of coercion, like a despotism by assassination, and whether it be expedient to put the latter in practice, we shall not consider: for it is not always the part of wisdom to attempt a settlement of what the progress of events will soon settle for us. Mr. Buchanan seems to have no opinion, or, if he has one, it is a halting between two, a bat-like cross of sparrow and mouse that gives timidity its choice between flight and skulking. Nothing shocks our sense of the fitness of things more than a fine occasion to which the man is wanting. Fate gets her hook ready, but the eye is not there to clinch with it, and so all goes at loose ends. Mr. Buchanan had one more chance offered him of showing himself a common-place man, and he has done it full justice. Even if they could have done nothing for the country, a few manly sentences might have made a pleasing exception in his political history, and rescued for him the fag-end of a reputation.

Mr. Buchanan, by his training in a system of politics without a parallel for intrigue, personality, and partisanship, would have unfitted himself for taking a statesmanlike view of anything, even if he had ever been capable of it. His nature has been subdued to what it worked in. We could not have expected from him a Message around which the spirit, the intelligence, and the character of the country would have rallied. But he might have saved himself from the evil fame of being the first of our Presidents who could never forget himself into a feeling of the dignity of the place he occupied. He has always seemed to consider the Presidency as a retaining-fee paid him by the slavery-propagandists, and his Message to the present Congress looks like the last juiceless squeeze of the orange which the South is tossing contemptuously away.

Mr. Buchanan admits as real the assumed wrongs of the South Carolina revolutionists, and even, if we understand him, allows that they are great enough to justify revolution. But he advises the secessionists to pause and try what can be done by negotiation. He sees in the internal history of the country only a series of injuries inflicted by the Free upon the Slave States; yet he affirms, that, so far as Federal legislation is concerned, the rights of the South have never been assailed, except in the single instance of the Missouri Compromise, which gave to Slavery the unqualified possession of territory which the Free States might till then have disputed. Yet that bargain, a losing one as it was on the part of the Free States, having been annulled, can hardly be reckoned a present grievance. South Carolina had quite as long a list of intolerable oppressions to resent in 1832 as now, and not one of them, as a ground of complaint, could be compared with the refusal to pay the French-Spoliation claims of Massachusetts. The secession movement then, as now, had its origin in the ambition of disappointed politicians. If its present leaders are more numerous, none of them are so able as Mr. Calhoun; and if it has now any other object than it had then, it is to win by intimidation advantages that shall more than compensate for its loss in the elections.

In 1832, General Jackson bluntly called the South Carolina doctrines treason, and the country sustained him. That they are not characterized in the same way now does not prove any difference in the thing, but only in the times and the men. They are none the less treason because James Buchanan is less than Andrew Jackson, but they are all the more dangerous.

It has been the misfortune of the United States that the conduct of their public affairs has passed more and more exclusively into the hands of men who have looked on politics as a game to be played rather than as a trust to be administered, and whose capital, whether of personal consideration or of livelihood, has been staked on a turn of the cards. A general skepticism has thus been induced, exceedingly dangerous in times like these. The fatal doctrine of rotation in office has transferred the loyalty of the numberless servants of the Government, and of those dependent on or influenced by them, from the nation to a party. For thousands of families every change in the National Administration is as disastrous as revolution, and the Government has thus lost that influence which the idea of permanence and stability would exercise in a crisis like the present. At the present moment, the whole body of office-holders at the South is changed from a conservative to a disturbing element by a sense of the insecurity of their tenure. Their allegiance having always been to the party in power at Washington, and not to the Government of the Nation, they find it easy to transfer it to the dominant faction at home.

The subservience on the question of Slavery, which has hitherto characterized both the great parties of the country, has strengthened the hands of the extremists at the South, and has enabled them to get the control of public opinion there by fostering false notions of Southern superiority and Northern want of principle. We have done so much to make them believe in their importance to us, and given them so little occasion even to suspect our importance to them, that we have taught them to regard themselves as the natural rulers of the country, and to look upon the Union as a favor granted to our weakness, whose withdrawal would be our ruin. Accordingly, they have grown more and more exacting, till at length the hack politicians of the Free States have become so imbued with the notion of yielding, and so incapable of believing in any principle of action higher than temporary expedients to carry an election, or any object nobler than the mere possession of office for its own sake, that Mr. Buchanan gravely proposes that the Republican party should pacify South Carolina by surrendering the very creed that called it into existence and holds it together, the only fruit of its victory that made victory worth having. Worse than this, when the Free States by overwhelming majorities have just expressed their conviction, that slavery, as he creature of local law, can claim no legitimate extension beyond the limits of that law, he asks their consent to denationalize freedom and to nationalize slavery by an amendment of the Federal Constitution, that shall make the local law of the Slave States paramount throughout the Union. Mr. Buchanan would stay the yellow fever by abolishing the quarantine hospital and planting a good virulent case or two in every village in the land.

We do not underestimate the gravity of the present crisis, and we agree that nothing should be done to exasperate it; but if the people of the Free States have been taught anything by the repeated lessons of bitter experience, it has been that submission is not the seed of conciliation, but of contempt and encroachment. The wolf never goes for mutton to the mastiff. It is quite time that it should be understood that freedom is also an institution deserving some attention in a Model Republic, that a decline in stocks is more tolerable and more transient than one in public spirit, and that material prosperity was never known to abide long in a country that had lost its political morality. The fault of the Free States in the eyes of the South is not one that can be atoned for by any yielding of special points here and there. Their offence is that they are free, and that their habits and prepossessions are those of Freedom. Their crime is the census of 1860. Their increase in numbers, wealth, and power is a standing aggression. It would not be enough to please the Southern States that we should stop asking them to abolish slavery,--what they demand of us is nothing less than that we should abolish the spirit of the age. Our very thoughts are a menace. It is not the North, but the South, that forever agitates the question of Slavery. The seeming prosperity of the cotton-growing States is based on a great mistake and a great wrong; and it is no wonder that they are irritable and scent accusation in the very air. It is the stars in their courses that fight against their system, and there are those who propose to make everything comfortable by Act of Congress.

It is almost incredible to what a pitch of absurdity the Slave-holding party have been brought by the weak habit of concession which has been the vice of the Free States. Senator Green of Missouri, whose own State is rapidly gravitating toward free institutions, gravely proposes an armed police along the whole Slave frontier for the arrest of fugitives. Already the main employment of our navy is in striving to keep Africans out, and now the whole army is to mount guard to keep them in. This is but a trifle to the demands that will be made upon us, if we yield now under the threats of a mob,--for men acting under passion or terror, or both, are a mob, no matter what their numbers and intelligence.

A dissolution of the Union would be a terrible thing, but not so terrible as an acquiescence in the theory that Property is the only interest that binds men together in society, and that its protection is the highest object of human government. Nothing could well be more solemn than the thought of a disruption of our great and prosperous Republic. Even if peaceful, the derangement consequent upon it would cause incalculable suffering and disaster. Already the mere threat of it, assisted by the efforts of interested persons, has caused a commercial panic. But would it be wisdom in the Free States to put themselves at the mercy of such a panic whenever the whim took South Carolina to be discontented? That would be the inevitable result of a craven spirit now. Let the Republican party be mild and forbearing,--for the opportunity to be so is the best reward of victory, and taunts and recriminations belong to boys; but, above all, let them be manly. The moral taint of once submitting to be bullied is a scrofula that will never out of the character.

We do not believe that the danger is so great as it appears. Rumor is like one of those multiplying-mirrors that make a mob of shadows out of one real object. The interests of three-fifths of the Slave-holding States are diametrically opposed to secession; so are those of five-sixths of the people of the seceding States, if they did but know it. The difficulties in the way of organizing a new form of government are great, almost insuperable; the expenses enormous. As the public burdens grow heavier, the lesson of resistance and rebellion will find its aptest scholars in the non-slave-owning majority who will be paying taxes for the support of the very institution that has made and keeps them poor. Men are not long in arriving at just notions of the value of what they pay for, especially when it is for other people. Taxes are a price that people are slowest to pay for a cat in a bag. If matters are allowed to take their own course for a little longer, the inevitable reaction is sure to set in. The Hartford Convention gave more uneasiness to the Government and the country than the present movement in the South, but the result of it was the ruin of the Federal Party, and not of the Federal Union.

Even if the secessionists could accomplish their schemes, who would be the losers? Not the Free States, certainly, with their variety of resources and industry. The laws of trade cannot be changed, and the same causes which have built up their agriculture, commerce, and manufactures will not cease to be operative. The real wealth and strength of states, other things being equal, depends upon homogeneousness of population and variety of occupation, with a common interest and common habits of thought. The cotton-growing States, with their single staple, are at the mercy of chance. India, Australia, nay, Africa herself, may cut the thread of their prosperity. Their population consists of two hostile races, and their bone and muscle, instead of being the partners, are the unwilling tools of their capital and intellect. The logical consequence of this political theory is despotism, which the necessity of coercing the subject race will make a military one. Already South Carolina is discussing a standing army. If history is not a lying gossip, the result of the system of labor will be Jamaica, and that of the system of polity, Mexico. Instead of a stable government, they will have a whirligig of _pronunciamientos_, or stability will be purchased at a cost that will make it intolerable. They have succeeded in establishing among themselves a fatal unanimity on the question of Slavery,--fatal because it makes the office of spy and informer honorable, makes the caprice of a mob the arbiter of thought, speech, and action, and debases public opinion to a muddy mixture of fear and prejudice. In peace, the majority of their population will be always looked on as conspirators; in war, they would become rebels.

It is time that the South should learn, if they do not begin to suspect it already, that the difficulty of the Slavery question is slavery itself,--nothing more, nothing less. It is time that the North should learn that it has nothing left to compromise but the rest of its self-respect. Nothing will satisfy the extremists at the South short of a reduction of the Free States to a mere police for the protection of an institution whose danger increases at an equal pace with its wealth.

It was the deliberate intention of Mr. Calhoun that the compact should be broken the moment the absolute control of Government passed out of the hands of the slaveholding clique. He was willing to wait till we had stolen Texas and paid a hundred millions for Cuba; but if the game seemed to be up, then secede at once. In a hasty moment, he started his revolution, when there was a stronger man than he to confront him. South Carolina was to all appearance as united then as now. But a few months brought a reaction, and no one was more relieved than Mr. Calhoun that matters stopped where they did. Whether the stirrers of the present excitement, which finds vacillation in the Executive and connivance In the Cabinet, will be wise enough to let it go out in the same way, remains to be seen; but the greatest danger of disunion, would spring from a want of self-possession and spirit in the Free States.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Collection of Rare and Original Documents and Relations concerning the Discovery and Conquest of America, chiefly from the Spanish Archives_. Published in the Original, with Translations, Illustrative Notos, Maps, and Biographical Sketches. By K.G. SQUIER, M.A., F.S.A., etc., etc. New York: Charles B. Norton. 1860.

No. I. Carta dirigida al Key de Espana, por el Licenciado Dr. Don DIEGO GARCIA DE PALACIO, Oydor de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala, Ano 1576. Being a Description of the Ancient Provinces of Guazacapan, Izalco, Cuscatlan, and Chiquimula, in the Audiencia of Guatemala: with an Account of the Languages, Customs, and Religion of their Aboriginal Inhabitants, and a Description of the Ruins of Copan. Square 8vo. pp. 132.

This tract is the first number of a series of Rare and Original Documents, relating to the first settlement of America by the Spaniards, which Mr. Squier proposes to edit and publish. The undertaking is one of interest to all students of American history, and deserves a generous encouragement from them. Its success must depend not on the usual machinery of bookselling so much as on the ready support of individuals.

Mr. Squier's proposed collection resembles in its scope the well-known "Recueil des Documents et Memoires Originaux" of M. Ternaux-Compans. Familiar, by long residence and longer study, as few men are or ever have been, with those portions of our continent of which the Spaniards first took possession, acquainted with their antiquities and former condition, and a curious investigator of their present state and prospects, Mr. Squier is peculiarly fitted to select and edit--with judgment such documents of historical interest as his unrivalled opportunities have enabled him to collect.

The Letter of Palacio is now for the first time published in the original, although it was largely used by Herrera in his "Historia General." "To me," says Mr. Squier, "the relation has a special interest. I have been over a great part of the ground that was traversed by its author, and I am deeply impressed with the accuracy of his descriptions.... His memoir will always stand as one of the best illustrations of an interesting country, as it was at the period immediately succeeding the Conquest." It appears, that, under an order from the Crown, Palacio was deputed to visit a number of the Provinces of Guatemala, and to report upon them, especially in respect to the condition of their native inhabitants. The memoir now published relates chiefly to the territory comprised in the present Republic of San Salvador. It shows Palacio to have been an intelligent observer, and a kindly, well-disposed man,--not free from the superstitions of his time and race, but less credulous than many of his contemporaries. His report is full of matter of value to the historical inquirer, and of entertainment for the general reader. His stories of the manners of the people, and his accounts of the animals of the district are brief, but characteristic. But the most interesting part of his narrative is that which relates to the wonderful ruins of Copan. It is a remarkable fact, stated by Mr. Squier in his Prefatory Note, that these ruins do not appear to have been noticed by any of the chroniclers of the country down to the time of Fuentes, who wrote in 1689, more than one hundred years after Palacio. It was not, indeed, until 1841, when Stephens published his account of them, that an accurate description was given to the world of these most interesting and most puzzling remains of a forgotten people and an unknown antiquity. Even in Palacio's time, only vague traditions existed regarding them. His account has a permanent value from being the earliest known, and as proving that within fifty years after the Spanish Conquest they presented very nearly the same appearance as at present.

Mr. Squier has enriched Talacio's Letter with numerous and important notes. He claims a lenient judgment of his translation, which is printed side by side with the original, on account of the obscurities of the manuscript, and the uncertainty as to the meaning of some of the writer's expressions. But, allowing for these difficulties, we regret that Mr. Squier did not bestow a little more pains on this part of his work. He has fallen into some slight errors, which might easily have been corrected, and he has, as we think, lost something of the spirit of the original by too free a version. The book is one which in typographic beauty would meet the demands of the most exacting bibliographer. We regret the more that the pages are disfigured with misprints, many of which are left uncorrected in the long list of _Errata_, while others occur in the very list itself.

1. _Le Panlatinisme, Confédération Gallo-Latine et Celto-Gauloise, Contre-Testament de Pierre le Grand et Contre-Panslavisme_. Paris: Passard, Libraire-Éditeur. 1860. 8vo. pp. 260.

2. _Testament de Pierre le Grand, ou Plan de Domination Européenne laissé par lui à ses Descendants et Successeurs au Trône de la Russie_. Édition suivie de Notes et de Pièces Justificatives. Paris: Passard. 1860. 8vo.

We seem to be living in an age of pamphleteers. More than ever, both in France and Germany, are pamphlets the order of the day. In Paris alone, the year 1860 has given birth to hundreds of these writings of circumstance,--political squibs, visionary remodellings of European states,--vying with each other for ephemeral celebrity. They fill the windows of the book-shops, and are spread by scores along the stands in the numerous galleries which the Parisian population throngs of evenings. Those issued in the early part of the year have gradually descended from the rank of new publications, and may be found on every quay, spread out, for a few _centimes_, side by side with old weather-beaten books, odd volumes, refuse of libraries, which book-lovers daily finger through in the hope of finding some pearl, some rarity, in the worthless mass.

Thus we have seen the interminable Rhine question discussed in its every possible phase,--still more that of Italy. Between come the Druses, the Orient, the Turks. Then Italy again, Garibaldi, Naples, the Pope.

To state in general terms the tendency of these rockets of literature, or to arrive at the spirit which seems to pervade them, is not quite so easy as it would seem. They are written by authors of all party-colors, within certain impassable limits prescribed by the parental restrictions of Government. Still it seems to be the old story of soothing; and many a conclusion--as where England is smoothed down by a few flatteries and told that her most natural ally is France, or where Germany is heartily assured that she has nothing to fear, that all the changes proposed are for the good of the Teutonic race--reminds us very strongly of that widely known verse in child-literature,--

"Will you walk into my parlor," etc.

We have before us, however, a work which, from its size and from the labor bestowed upon it, deserves to be ranked above the various productions that have scarcely called forth more than a passing notice in the daily press.