Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The three artists tramped along gayly, until they approached the town, when they assumed the proud, disdainful mood, assuring spectators that they who wear it are of gentle blood, and are tired of life and weary of traveling around with pockets filled with gold. They only looked coldly at the pens filled with cattle for sale; long-horned, mouse-colored oxen were there; groups of patient donkeys, or the rough-maned, shaggy-fetlocked, bright-eyed small horses of the Campagna; countless pigs, many goats; while above all, the loud-singing jackasses were performing at the top of their lungs. Here were knots of country-people, buying provisions or clothing; there were groups of carriages from Rome, which had rolled out the wealthy _forestieri_ or strangers, drawn up by the way-side, in the midst of all sorts and kinds of hucksters. The road leading to the church, shaded by trees, was crowded with country-people, in picturesque costumes, busily engaged in buying and selling hams, bacon, bacon and hams, and a few more hams. Here and there, a cheese-stand languished, for pork flourished. Now a copper-smith exposed his wares, chief among which were the graceful-shaped _conche_ or water-vessels, the same you see so carefully poised on the heads of so many black-eyed Italian girls, going to or coming from so many picturesque fountains, in--paintings, and all wearing such brilliant costumes, as you find at--Gigi's costume-class. Then came an ironmonger, whose wares were all made by hand, even the smallest nails; for machinery, as yet, is in its first infancy around Rome. At this stand, Roejean stopped to purchase a pallet-knife; not one of the regular, artist-made tools, but a thin, pliable piece of steel, without handle, which experience taught him was well adapted to his work. As usual, the iron-man asked twice as much as he intended to take, and after a sharp bargain, Roejean conquered. Then they came to a stand where there were piles of coarse crockery, and some of a better kind, of classical shape.

Caper particularly admired a beautiful white jug, intended for a water-pitcher, and holding about two gallons. After asking its price, he offered a quarter of the money for it; to Bagswell's horror, the crockery-man took it, and Caper, passing his arm through the handle, was proceeding up the road, when Bagswell energetically asked him what he was going to do with it.

'Enter Rome with it, like Titus with the _spolia opima_,' replied Caper.

'Oh! I say, now,' said the former, who was an Englishman and an historical painter; 'you aren't going to trot all over the fair with that old crockery on your arm. Why, God bless me, they'll swear we are drunk. There comes the Duchess of Brodneck; what the deuce will she say?'

'Say?' said Caper, 'why, I'll go and ask her; this is not court-day.'

Without another word, with water-pitcher on arm, he walked toward the Duchess. Saluting her with marked politeness, he said:

'A countryman of yours, madame, has objected to my carrying this _objet de fantaisie_, assuring me that it would occasion remarks from the Duchess of Brodneck. May I have the good fortune to know what she says of it?'

'She says,' replied the lady, smiling and speaking slowly and quietly; 'that a young man who has independence enough to carry it, has confidence enough to--fill it.' She bowed, and passed on, Caper politely raising his hat, in acknowledgment of the well-rounded sentence. When he returned to Bagswell, he found the historical painter with eyes the size of grape-shot, at the sublime impudence of the man. He told him what she had said.

'Upon my honor, you Americans have a face of brass; to address a duchess you don't know, and ask her a question like that!'

'That's nothing,' said Caper, 'a little experience has taught me that the higher you fly, in England, the nearer you approach true politeness and courtesy. Believe me, I should never have asked that question of any Englishwoman whose social position did not assure me she was cosmopolitan.'

'Come,' said Bagswell, 'come, after such an adventure, if there is one drop of any thing fit to drink in this town, we'll all go and get lushy.'

They went. They found a door over which hung a green branch. Good wine needs no bush, therefore Italian wine-shops hang it out; for the wine there is not over good. But as luck was with our three artists, in the shop over the door of which hung the green bough, they found that the _padrone_ was an old acquaintance of Roejean; he had married and moved to Grotto Ferrata. He had a barrel of Frascati wine, which was bright, sparkling, sweet, and not watered. This the _padrone_ tapped in honor of his guests, and at their urgent request, sat down and helped empty a couple of bottles. Moreover, he told them that as the town was overcrowded, they would find it difficult to get a good dinner, unless they would come and dine with him, at his private table, and be his guests; which invitation Roejean accepted, to the tavern-keeper's great joy, promising to be back at the appointed time.

Our trio then sauntered forth to see the fair. Wandering among the crowded booths, they came suddenly on a collection of _Zingare_, looking like their Spanish cousins, the _Gitañas_. Wild black eyes, coarse black locks of hair, brown as Indians, small hands, small feet--the Gipsies, children of the storm--my Rommani pals, what are you doing here? Only one woman among them was noticeable. Her face was startlingly handsome, with an aquiline nose, thin nostrils, beautifully-arched eyebrows, and eyes like an eagle. She was tall, straight, with exquisitely-rounded figure, and the full drapery of white around her bosom fell from the shoulders in large hanging sleeves; over her head was thrown a crimson and green shawl, folded like the _pane_ of the _ciociare_, and setting off her raven-black hair and rich red and swarthy complexion.

Roejean stood entranced, and Caper, noticing his rapt air, forbore breaking silence; while the gipsy, who knew that she was the admiration of the _forestieri_, stood immovable as a statue, looking steadily at them, without changing a feature.

'_Piu bellisima che la madonna!_' said Roejean, loud enough for her to hear. Then turning to Caper, 'Let's _andiammo_,' (travel,) said he, 'that woman's face will haunt me for a month. I've seen it before; yes, seen her shut up in the Vatican, immortal on an old Etruscan vase. Egypt, Etruria, the Saracen hordes who once overrun all this Southern Italy, I find, every hour, among live people, some trace of you all; but of the old Roman, nothing!'

'You find the old Roman cropping out in these church processions, festivals, shrines, and superstitions, don't you?' asked Caper.

'No! something of those who made the seal, nothing of the impression on the wax remains for me. Before Rome was, the great East was, and shall be. The Germans are right to call the East the Morning-Land; thence came light.... The longer you live along the wave-washed shore of the Mediterranean, the more you will see what a deep hold the East once had on the people of the coast. The Romans, after all, were only opulent tradesmen, who could buy luxuries without having the education to appreciate them. So utterly did they ignore the Etruscans, who made them what they were, that you seek in vain to find in Roman history any thing but the barest outline of the origin of a people so graceful and refined that the Roman citizen was a boot-black in comparison to one of them. The Saracens flashed light and life, in later days, once more into the Roman leaven. What a dirty, filthy page the whole Gothic middle-age is at best! It lies like a huge body struck with apoplexy, and only restored to its sensual life by the sharp lancet, bringing blood, of these same infidels, these stinging Saracens. Go into the mountains back of us, hunt up the costumes that still remain, and see where they all come from--the East. Look at the crescent earrings and graceful twisted gold-work, from--the East. All the commonest household ware, the agricultural implements, the manner of cooking their food, and all that is picturesque in life and religion--all from the East.'

'Strikes me,' quoth Caper, 'that this question of food touches my weakest point; therefore, let us go and dine, and continue the lecture at a more un-hungry period. But where is Bagswell?'

'He is seeking adventures, of course.'

'Oh! yes, I sec him down there among the billy-goats; let's go and pick him up, and then for mine host of the Green Bough.'

Having found Bagswell, our trio at once marched to the Green Bough, which they saw was filled to overflowing with country-people, eating and drinking, sitting on rough benches, and stowing away food and wine as if in expectation of being very soon shipwrecked on a desert island, where there would be nothing but hard-shell clams and lemons to eat. The landlord at once took the trio up-stairs, where, at a large table, were half-a-dozen of his friends, all of the cleanly order of country-people, stout, and having a well-to-do look that deprecated any thing like famine. A young lady of twenty and two hundred, as Caper summed up her age and weight, was evidently the cynosure of all eyes; two other good-natured women, of a few more years and a very little less weight, and three men, made up the table. Any amount of compliments, as usual, passed between the first six and the last three comers, prefacing every thing with desires that they would act without ceremony; but Caper and Roejean were on a high horse, and they fairly pumped the spring of Italian compliments so dry, that Bagswell could only make a squeaking noise when he tried the handle. This verbifuge of our three artists put their host into an ecstasy of delight, and he circulated all round, rubbing his hands and telling his six friends that his three friends were _milordi_, in very audible whispers, _milordi_ of the most genial, courtly, polite, complimentary, cosmopolitan, and exquisite description.

After all this, down sat our trio, and for the sake of future ages which will live on steam-bread, electrical beef, and magnetic fish, let us give them the bill of fare set before them:

ALL THE WINE THEY COULD DRINK.

Maccaroni (_fettucia_) a la Milanese--dish two feet in diameter, one foot and a half high.

Mutton-chops, with tomato-sauce, (_pomo d'oro._)

Stewed celery, with Parmesan cheese.

Stewed chickens.

Mutton-chops, bird-fashion, (_Uccélli di Castrato._ They are made of pieces of mutton rolled into a shape like a bird, and cooked, several at a time, on a wooden spit. They are the _kibaubs_ of the East.)

Baked pie of cocks' combs and giblets.

Roasted pig, a twelve-pounder.

Roast squashes, stuffed with minced veal.

Apples, oranges, figs, and _finocchio_.

_Crostata di visciola_, or wild-cherry pie, served on an iron plate the size of a Roman warrior's shield; the dish evidently having been one formerly.

MORE WINE!

The stout young lady rejoicing in the name of Angelucia, or large angel, was fascinated by Roejean's conversational powers and Caper's attentions; the rest of the company, perfectly at ease on finding out that the _milordi_ were not French--Roejean turning American to better please them--and that they were moreover full of fun, talked and laughed as if they were brother Italians. A jollier dinner Caper acknowledged he had never known. One of the Italians was farmer-general for one of the Roman princes; he was a man of broad views, and having traveled to Paris and London, came home with ultra-liberal sentiments, and to Bagswell's astonishment, spoke his mind so clearly on the Roman rulers, that our Englishman's eyes were slightly opened at the by no means complimentary expressions used toward the wire-workers of the Papal government. One Italy, and Rome its capital, was the only platform our princely farmer would take, and he was willing to stake his fortune, a cool one hundred thousand scudi, on regenerated Italy.

Conversation then fell on the fair; and one of the Italians told several stories which were broad enough to have shoved the generality of English and American ladies out of the window of the room. But Angelucia and the two wives of the stout gentlemen never winked; they had probably been to confession that morning, had cleared out their old sins, and were now ready to take in a new cargo. In a little while Roejean sent the waiter out to a café, and he soon returned with coffee for the party, upon which Caper, who had the day before bought some Havana cigars of the man in the Twelve Apostles, in the piazza Dódici Apostoli, where there is a government cigar-store for the sale of them, passed them around, and they were thoroughly appreciated by the diners. The farmer-general gave our three artists a hearty invitation to visit him, promising them all the horses they could ride, all the wine they could drink, and all the maccaroni they could eat. The last clause was inserted for Roejean's benefit, who had played a noble game with the grand dish they had had for dinner, and at which Angelucia had made great fun, assuring Roejean he was Italian to the heart, _e piu basso_.

Then came good-by, and our artists were off--slowly, meditatively, and extremely happy, but, so far, quite steady. They walked to the castellated monastery of San Basilio, where in the chapel of Saint Nilus they saw the celebrated frescoes of Domenichino, and gazed at them tranquilly and not quite so appreciatingly as they would have done before dinner. Then they came out from the gloom and the air heavy with incense of the chapel to the bright light and lively scenes of the fair, with renewed pleasure. They noticed that every one wore in the hat or in the lappel of the coat, if men--in their hair or in their bosom, if women, artificial roses; and presently coming to a stand where such flowers were for sale, our trio bought half-a-dozen each, and then turned to where the crowd was thickest and the noise greatest. Three or four donkeys loaded with tin-ware were standing near the crowd, when one of them, ambitious of distinction, began clambering over the tops of the others in an insane attempt to get at some greens, temptingly displayed before him. Rattle, bang! right and left went the tins, and in rushed men and women with cudgels; but donkey was not to be stopped, and for four or five minutes the whole fair seemed gathered around the scene, cheering and laughing, with a spirit that set Caper wild with excitement, and induced him to work his way through the crowd and present one old woman who had finally conquered the donkey, with two large roses, an action which was enthusiastically applauded by the entire assembly.

'Bravo! bravo! well done, O Englishman!' went up the shout.

A little farther on they came to a large traveling van, one end of which was arranged as a platform in the open air. Here a female dentist, in a sea-green dress, with her sleeves rolled up and a gold bracelet on her right arm, held in both hands a tooth-extractor, bound round with a white handkerchief--to keep her steady, as Caper explained, while she pulled a tooth from the head of a young man who was down in front of her on his knees. Her assistant, a good-looking young man, in very white teeth and livery, sold some patent toothache drops: _Solo cinque baiocchi il fiasco, S'gnore_.

Caper having seen the tooth extracted, cried, '_Bravissima!_' as if he had been at the opera, and threw some roses at the _prima donna dentista_, who acknowledged the applause with a bow, and requested the Signore to step up and let her draw him out. This he declined, pleading the fact that he had sound teeth. The _dentista_ congratulated him, in spite of his teeth.

'But come!' said Bagswell; 'look at that group of men and women in Albano costume; there is a chance to make a deuced good sketch.'

Two men and three women were seated in a circle; they were laughing and talking, and cutting and eating large slices of raw ham and bread, while they passed from one to another a three-gallon keg of wine, and drank out of the bung. As one of the hearty, laughing, jolly, brown-eyed girls lifted up the keg, Caper pulled out sketch-book and pencil to catch an outline sketch--of her head thrown back, her fine full throat and breast heaving as the red wine ran out of the barrel, and the half-closed, dreamy eyes, and pleasure in the face as the wine slowly trickled down her throat. One of the men noted the artist making a _ritratto_, and laughing heartily, cried out: 'Oh! but you'll have to pay us well for taking our portraits!' And the girl, slowly finishing her long draught, looked merrily round, shook her finger at the artist, laughed, and--the sketch was finished. Then Caper taking Roejean's roses, went laughingly up to the girl with brown eyes and fine throat, in Albano costume, and begged that she would take the poor flowers, and putting them next her heart, keep them where it is forever warm--'as the young man on your left knows very well!' he concluded. This speech was received amid loud applause and cheers, and thanks for the roses and an invitation to take a pull at the barrel. Caper waved them _Adio_, and as our trio turned Rome-ward from the fair, the last things he saw as he turned his head to take a farewell look, were the roses that the Italian girl had placed next her heart.

THE TOMBOLA.

The exceedingly interesting amusement known as the Tombola is nothing more than the game of Loto, or _Lótto_, 'Brobdignagified,' and played in the open air of the Papal States, in Rome on Sundays, and in the Campagna on certain saints' days, come they when they may.

The English have made holiday from holy day, and call the Lord's day Sunday; while the Italians call Sunday Lord's day, or _Domenica_. Their way of keeping it holy, however, with tombolas, horse-races, and fire-works, strikes a heretic, to say the least, oddly.

The Roman tombola should be seen in the Piazza Navona democratically; in the Villa Borghese, if not aristocratically at least middle classically, or bourgeois-istically.

In the month of November, when the English drown themselves, and the Italians sit in the sun and smile, our friend Caper, one Sunday morning, putting his watch and purse where pick-pockets could not reach them, walked with two or three friends down to the Piazza Navona, stopping, as he went along, at the entrance of a small street leading into it, to purchase a tombola-ticket. The ticket-seller, seated behind a small table, a blank-book, and piles of blank tickets, charged eleven _baiocchi_ (cents) for a ticket, including one _baioccho_ for registering it. We give below a copy of Caper's ticket:

No. 17 D'ORDINE, LETTERA C.

CARTELLA DA RITENERSI DAL GIUOCATORE.

8 12 32 87 60
20 4 76 30 11
45 3 90 55 63

The numbers on this ticket the registrar filled up, after which it was his duty to copy them in his book, and thus verify the ticket should it draw a prize.

The total amount to be played for that day, the tombola being for the benefit of the Cholera Orphans, was one thousand scudi, and was divided as follows:

Terno,.................... $50
Quaterno,................. 100
Cinquina,................. 200
Tombola,.................. 650
-------
$1000

How many tickets were issued, Caper was never able to find out; but he was told that for a one thousand dollar tombola the number was limited to ninety thousand.

The tickets, as will be seen above, are divided into three lines, with five divisions in each line, and you can fill up the fifteen divisions with any numbers running from one to ninety, that you may see fit. Ninety tickets, with numbers from one to ninety, are put in a revolving glass barrel, and after being well shaken up, some one draws out one number at random, (the slips of paper being rolled up in such manner that the numbers on them can not be seen.) It is passed to the judges, and is then read aloud, and exposed to view, in conspicuous figures, on a stand or stands; and so on until the tombola is won or the numbers all drawn.

Whoever has three consecutive figures on a line, beginning from left hand to right, wins the _Terno_; if four consecutive figures, the _Quaterno_; if five figures, or a full line, the _Cinquina_; and whoever has all fifteen figures, wins the Tombola. It often happens that several persons win the _Terno_, etc., at the same time, in which case the amount of the _Terno_, etc., is equally divided among them. These public tombolas are like too many thimble-rig tables, ostensibly started for charitable objects, and it is popularly whispered that the Roman nobility and heads of the Church purchase vast numbers of these tickets, and never fill them up; but then again, they are not large enough for shaving, and are too small for curl-papers; besides, six hundred and fifty _scudi_! Whew!

The Piazza Navona, bearing on its face, on week-days, the most terrible eruptions of piles of old iron, rags, paintings, books, boots, vegetables, crockery, jackdaws, contadini, and occasional dead cats, wore on the Sunday of the tombola--it was Advent Sunday--a clean, bright, and even joyful look. From many windows hung gay cloths and banners; the three fountains were making Roman pearls and diamonds of the first water; the entire length (seven hundred and fifty feet) and breadth of the square was filled with the Roman people; three bands of military music played uncensurable airs, since the public censor permitted them; and several companies of soldiers, with loaded guns, stood all ready to slaughter the _plebe_. It was a sublime spectacle.

But the curtain rose; that is to say, the tombola commenced. At a raised platform, a small boy, dressed in black, popularly supposed to be a cholera orphan, rolled back his shirt-cuffs--he had a shirt--plunged his hand into the glass barrel, and produced a slip of paper; an assistant carried it to the judges--one resembled Mr. Pecksniff--and then the crier announced the number, and, presto! on a large blackboard the number appeared, so that every one could see it.

Caper found the number on his ticket, and was marking it off, when a countryman at his side asked him if he would see if the number was on his ticket, as he could not read figures. Caper accordingly looked it over, and finding that it was there, marked it off for him.

'_Padrone mio_, thank you,' said the man, evidently determined, since he had found out a scholar, to keep close by him.

'Seventeen!' called out the tombola-crier.

'C----o!' said the contadino, with joy in his face; 'seventeen is always my lucky number. My wife was seventeen years old when I married her. My donkey was killed by the railroad cars the other day, and he gave just seventeen groans before he died. I shall have luck to-day.'

We refrain from writing the exclamation the contadino prefaced his remarks with, for fear the reader might have a good Italian dictionary--an article, by the way, the writer has never yet seen. Suffice it to say, that the exclamations made use of by the Romans, men and women, not only of the lower but even the middling class, are of a nature exceedingly natural, and plainly point to Bacchic and Phallic sources. The _bestémmia_ of the Romans is viler than the blasphemy of English or Americans.

It happened that the countryman had a seventeen on his ticket, and Caper marked it off, at the same time asking him how much he would take for his pantaloons. These pantaloons were made of a goat's skin; the long white wool, inches in length, left on and hanging down below the knees of the man, gave him a Pan-like look, and with the word tombola, suggested the lines of that good old song--save the maledictory part of it:

'Tombolin had no breeches to wear,
So he bought him a goat's skin, to make him a pair.'

These breeches were not for sale; they were evidently the joy and the pride of the countryman, who had no heart for trade, having by this time two numbers in one line marked off, only wanting an adjoining one to win the _terno_.

'If you were to win the _terno_, what would you do with it?' Caper asked him.

'_Accidente!_ I'd buy a barrel of wine, and a hog, and a--'

'Thirty-two!' shouted the crier.

'It's on your paper,' said Caper to him, marking it off; 'and you've won the _terno_!'

The eyes of the man gleamed wildly; he crossed himself, grasped the paper, and the next thing Caper saw was the crowd dividing right and left, as the excited owner of the goat-skin breeches made his way to the platform. When he had climbed up, and stepping forward, stood ready to receive the _terno_, the crowd jeered and cheered the _villano_, making fine fun of his goat-skin, and not a little jealous that a _contadino_ should take the money out of the city.

'It's always so,' said a fat man next to Caper, 'these _villani_ take the bread out of our mouths; but _ecco_! there is another one who has the _terno_; blessed be the Madonna, there is a third! Oh! _diavolo_, the _villano_ will only have one third of the _terno_; and may he die of apoplexy!'

A vender of refreshments passing along, the fat man stopped him, and purchased a _baioccho's_ worth of--what?

Pumpkin-seeds! These are extensively eaten in Rome, as well as the seeds of pine-cones, acorns, and round yellow chick-peas; these supply the place occupied by ground-nuts in our more favored land.

There is this excitement about the tombolas in the Piazza Navona, that occasionally a panic seizes the crowd, and in the rush of people to escape from the square, some have their pockets picked, and some are trampled down, never to rise again. Fortunately for Caper, no stampede took place on Advent Sunday, so that he lived to attend another grand tombola in the Villa Borghese.

This was held in the spring-time, and the promise of the ascension of a balloon added to the attractions of the lottery. To enter the Villa, you had to purchase a tombola-ticket, whereas, in the Piazza Navona, this was unnecessary. At one end of the amphitheatre of the villa, under the shade of the ilex-trees, a platform was erected, where the numbers were called out and the awards given.

Caper, Roejean, and another French artist, not of the French Academy, named Achille Légume, assisted at this entertainment. Légume was a very pleasant companion, lively, good-natured, with a decided penchant for the pretty side of humanity, and continually haunted with the idea that a princess was to carry him off from his mistress in spectacles, Madame Art, and convey him to the land of Cocaigne, where they never make, only buy, paintings--of which articles, in parenthesis, Monsieur Achille had a number for sale.

'Roejean,' said Légume, 'do you notice that distinguished lady on the platform; isn't she the Princess Faniente? She certainly looked at _me_ very peculiarly a few minutes since.'

'It is the Princess,' answered Roejean, 'and I also noticed, a few minutes since, when I was on the other side of the circus, that she looked at ME with an air.'

'Don't quarrel,' spoke Caper,'she probably regards you both equally, for --she squints.'

This answer capsized Achille, who having a small red rose-bud in his button-hole, hoped that at a distance he might pass for a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and had conquered something, say something noble.

A wandering cigar-seller, with _zigarri scelti_, next demanded their attention, and Roejean commenced an inspection of the selected cigars, which are made by government, and sold at the fixed price of one and a half _baiocchi_ each; even at this low price, the stock of the tobacco-factory paid thirteen per cent under Antonelli's direction.

'Antonelli makes a pretty fair cigar,' said, 'but I wish he would wrap the ends a little tighter. I'm sorry to hear he is going out of the business.'

'Why, he would stay in,' answered Caper, 'but what with baking all the bread for Rome, and attending to all the fire-wood sold, and trying to make Ostia a seaport, and having to fight Monsieur About, and looking after his lotteries and big pawnbroker's shop, and balancing himself on the end of a very sharp French bayonet, his time is so occupied, he can not roll these cigars so well as they ought to be rolled.... But they have called out number forty-nine; you've got it, Légume, I remember you wrote it down. Yes, there it is.'

'Forty-nine!'

'I wonder they dare call out '49 in this villa; or have the people forgotten the revolution already, forgotten that this spot was made ready for a battleground for liberty. The public censor knows his business; give the Romans bread, and the circus or tombola, they will be content--forever?'

'_Au diable_ with politics,' interrupted Achille; 'what a very pretty girl that is alongside you, Caper. Look at her; how nicely that costume fits her, the red boddice especially. Where, except in Italy, do you ever see such fine black eyes, and such a splendid head of coal-black hair? This way of having Italian nurses dressed in the Albano costume is very fine. That little boy with her is English, certainly.'

'Och! master Jamey, come in out of that grane grass; d'yiz want ter dirty the clane pinafore I've put on yiz this blissed afthernoon?' spoke the nurse.

'In the name of all that's awful, what kind of Italian is she speaking?' asked Légume of Caper.

'Irish-English,' he answered; 'she is not the first woman out of Old Ireland masquerading as an Albanian nurse. She probably belongs to some English family who have pretensions.'

'Ah bah!' said Légume, 'it's monstrous, perfectly atrocious, ugh! Let us make a little tour of a walk. The tombola is finished. An Irish dressed up as an Italian--execrable!'

_EN AVANT!_

O GOD! let us not live these days in vain,
This variegated life of doubt and hope;
And though, as day leads night, so joy leads pain,
Let it be symbol of a broader scope.

God! make us serve the monitor within;
Cast off the trammels that bow manhood down,
Of form or custom, appetite or sin,
The care for folly's smile or envy's frown.

Oh! that true nobleness that rises up,
And teaches man his kindredship to Thee;
Which wakes the slaveling from the poison cup
Of passion, bidding him be grandly free:

May it be ours, in these the evil days,
That fall upon our nation like a pall;
May we have power each one himself to raise,
And place God's signet on the brow of all!

Not race nor color is the badge of slaves;
'Tis manhood, after all, that makes men free;
Weakness is slavery; 'tis but mind that saves
God's glorious image as he willed it be.

Out of the shadows thick, will coming day
Send Peace and Plenty smiling o'er our land;
And the events that fill us with dismay,
Are but the implements in God's right hand.

Where patriot blood is poured as cheap as rain,
A newer freedom, phoenix-like, will spring;
Our Father never asks for us in vain:
From noble seed comes noble harvesting.

Then let, to-day, true nobleness be ours;
That we be worthy of the day of bliss,
When truth's, and love's, and freedom's allied powers
Shall bind all nations with fraternal kiss.

Would we might see, as did the saint of old,
The heavens opening, and the starry throng
Listening to have our tale of peace be told,
That they may hymn man's resurrection song!

_DESPERATION AND COLONIZATION._

As the war rolls on, and as the prospects of Federal victory increase, the greater becomes the anxiety to know what must be done to secure our conquests. How shall we reestablish the Union in its early strength? How shall we definitely crush the possibility of renewed rebellion? The tremendous taxation which hangs over us gives fearful meaning to these questions. And they must be answered promptly and practically.

The impossibility of Southern independence was from the first a foregone conclusion to all who impartially studied the geography of this country and the social progress of its inhabitants. The West, with its growing millions vigorously working out the problem of free labor, and of Republicanism, will _inevitably_ control the Mississippi river and master the destinies of all soil above the so-called isothermal line, and probably of much below it. The cotton States, making comparatively almost no increase in population, receiving no foreign immigration, and desiring none, have precipitated, by war, their destined inferiority to the North. It has been from the beginning, only a question of time, when they should become the weaker, and goaded by this consciousness, they have set their all upon a throw, by appeal to wager of battle, and are losing. It is not a question of abolitionism, for it would have been brought on without abolition. It is not a question of Southern wrongs, for the South never had a _right_ disturbed; and in addition to controlling our Government for years, and directly injuring our manufactures, it long swallowed a disproportionably great share of government appointments, offices, and emoluments. It is simply the last illustration in history of a smaller and rebellious portion of a community forced by the onward march of civilization into subordination to the greater. The men of the South were first to preach Manifest Destiny and the subjugation of Cuba and Mexico--forgetting that as regarded civilization, they themselves, on an average, only filled an intermediate station between the Spanish Creole and the truly _white_ man of the North. Before manifest destiny can overtake the Mexican, it must first overtake the Southerner.

Despite all its external show of elan, courtesy, and chivalry, 'the South,' as it exists, is and ever must be, in the very great aggregate, inferior to the North in the elements of progress, and in nearly all that constitutes true superiority. They boast incessantly of their superior education and culture; but what literature or art has this education produced amid their thousands of ladies and gentlemen of taste and of leisure? The Northern editor of any literary magazine who has had any experience in by-gone days with the manuscripts of the chivalry, will shrug his shoulders with a smile as he recalls the reams of reechoes of Northern writers, and not unfrequently of mere 'sensation' third-rate writers at that, which he was wont to receive from Dixie. And amid all his vaunts and taunts, the consciousness of this intellectual inferiority never left the Southerner. It stimulated his hatred--it rankled in his heart. He might boast or lie--and his chief statistician, De Bow, was so notoriously convicted of falsifying facts and figures that the assertion, as applied to him, is merely historical--but it was of no avail. The Northern school and the Northern college continued to be the great fountain of North-American intellect, and the Southerner found himself year by year falling behind-hand intellectually and socially as well as numerically. As a last resort, despairing of victory in the _real_, he plunged after the wild chivalric dream of independence; of Mexican and Cuban conquest; of an endless realm and a reopened slave-trade--or at least of holding the cotton mart of the world. It is all in vain. We of the same continent recognize no right in a very few millions to seize on the land which belongs as much to our descendants and to the labor of all Europe and of the world as it does to them. They have _no right_ to exclude white labor by slaves. A Doughface press may cry, Compromise; and try to restore the _status quo ante bellum_, but all in vain. The best that can be hoped for, is some ingenious temporary arrangement to break the fall of their old slaveholding friends. It is not as _we_ will, or as _we_ or _you_ would _like_, that what the Southerners themselves term a conflict of races, can be settled. People who burn their own cities and fire their own crops are going to the dire and bitter end; and the Might which under God's providence is generally found in the long run of history to be the Right--will triumph at last.

As has been intimated in the foregoing passages, the antipathy of the South to the North is deeply seated, springing from such rancor as can only be bred between a claim to social superiority mingled with a bitter consciousness of inferiority in nearly all which the spirit of the age declares constitutes true greatness. It is almost needless to say, that with such motives goading them on, with an ignorant, unthinking mass for soldiers, and with unprincipled politicians who have to a want of principle added the newly acquired lust for blood, any prospect of conciliation becomes extremely remote. We may hope for it--we may and should proceed cautiously, so that no possible opportunity of restoring peace may be lost; but it is of the utmost importance that we be blind to no facts; and every fact developed as the war advances seems to indicate that we have to deal with a most intractable, crafty, and ferocious enemy, whom to trust is to be deceived.

There can be no doubt that the ultimatum of the South is secession or death. We of the North can not contemplate such a picture with calmness, and therefore evade it as amiably as we can. We say, it stands to reason that very few men will burn their own homes and crops, yet every mail tells us of tremendous suicidal sacrifices of this description. The ruin and misery which the South is preparing for itself in every way is incalculable and incredible, and yet there is no diminution of desperation. The prosperity which made a mock of honest poverty is now, as by the retributive judgment of God, sinking itself into penury, and the planter who spoke of the Northern serf as a creature just one remove above the brute, is himself learning by bitter experience to be a mud-sill. Verily the cause of the poor and lowly is being avenged. Yet with all this there is no hint or hope of compromise; repeated defeats are, so far, of little avail. The Northern Doughfaces tell us over and over again, that if we will 'only leave the slave question untouched,' all will yet be right. 'Only spare them the negro, and they, seeing that we do not intend to interfere with their rights, will eventually settle down into the Union.' But what is there to guarantee this assertion? What _proof_ have we that the South can be in this manner conciliated? None--positively none.

There is nothing which the Southern press, and, so far as we can learn, the Southern people, have so consistently and thoroughly disavowed since the war began, as the assertion that a restoration of the Union may be effected on the basis of undisturbed slavery. They have ridiculed the Democrats of the North with as great contempt and as bitter sarcasm as were ever awarded of old to Abolitionists, for continually urging this worn-out folly; for now that the mask is finally thrown off, they make no secret of their scorn for their old tools and dupes. Slavery is no longer the primary object; they are quite willing to give up slavery if the growing prosperity of the South should require it; their emissaries abroad in every _salon_ have been vowing that manumission of their slaves would soon follow recognition; and it was their rage at failure after such wretched abasement and unprincipled inconsistency which, very naturally, provoked the present ire of the South against England and France. They, the proud, chivalrous Southrons, who had daringly rushed to battle as slave lords, after eating abundant dirt as prospective Abolitionists, after promising any thing and every thing for a recognition, received the cold shoulder. No wonder that ill-will to England is openly avowed by the Richmond press as one of the reasons for burning the cotton as the Northern armies advance.

The only basis of peace with the North, as the South declares, is Disunion; and they do most certainly mean it. No giving up the slave question, no enforcing of fugitive slave laws; no, not the hanging of Messrs. Garrison and Phillips, or any other punishment of all Emancipationists--as clamored for by thousands of trembling cowards--would be of any avail. It is disunion or nothing--and disunion they can not have. There shall be no disunion, no settlement of any thing on _any_ basis but the Union. Richmond papers, after the battle of Pittsburgh Landing, proposed peace and separation. They do not know us. The North was never so determined to push on as now; never so eager for battle or for sacrifices. If the South is in earnest, so are we; if they have deaths to avenge, so have we; if they cry for war to the knife, so surely as God lives they can have it in full measure. For thirty years the blazing straw of Southern insult has been heaped on the Northern steel; and now that the latter is red-hot, it shall scorch and sear ere it cools, and they who heated it shall feel it.

We may as well make up our minds to it first as last, that we must at every effort and at _any_ cost, conquer this rebellion. There is no alternative. This done, the great question which remains to settle, is, how shall we manage the conquered provinces? There are fearful obstacles in the way; great difficulties, such as no one has as yet calmly realized; difficulties at home and abroad. We have a fierce and discontented population to keep under; increased expenses in every department of government; but it is needless to sum them up. The first and most apparent difficulty is that involved in the form of government to be adopted. As the rebellious States have, by the mere act of secession, forfeited all State rights, and thereby reduced themselves to territories, this question would seem to settle itself without difficulty, were it not that a vast body of the ever-mischief-making, ever-meddling, and never-contented politicians (who continue to believe that the millennium would at once arrive were Emancipation only extinguished) cry out against this measure as an infringement of those Southern rights which are so dear to them. They argue and hope in vain. Never more will the South come back to be served and toadied to by them as of old; never more will they receive contemptuous patronage and dishonorable honors. It is all passed. Those who look deepest into this battle, and into the future, see a resistance, grim and terrible, to the death; and one which will call for the strictest and sternest watch and ward. It will only be by putting fresh life and fresh blood into Secessia, that union can be practically realized. Out of the old Southern stock but little can be made. A great portion must be kept under by the strong hand; a part may be induced to consult its own interests, and reform. But the great future of the South, and the great hope of a revived and improved Union will be found in colonizing certain portions of the conquered territory with free white labor.

A more important topic, and one so deeply concerning the most vital prosperity of the United States, was never before submitted to the consideration of her citizens. If entertained by Government and the people on a great, enterprising, and vigorous scale, as such schemes were planned and executed by the giant minds of antiquity, it may be made productive of such vast benefits, that in a few years at most, the millions of Americans may look back to this war as one of the greatest blessings that ever befell humanity, and Jefferson Davis and his coadjutors be regarded as the blind implements by which God advanced human progress, as it had never before advanced at one stride. But to effect this, it should be planned and executed as a great, harmonious, and centrally powerful scheme, not be tinkered over and frittered away by all the petty doughfaces in every village. In great emergencies, great acts are required.

It is evident that the only certain road to Union-izing the South is, to plant in it colonies of Northern men. Thousands, hundreds of thousands now in the army, would gladly remain in the land of tobacco or of cotton, if Government would only provide them with the land whereon to live. Were they thus settled, and were every slave in the South emancipated by the chances of war, there would be no danger to apprehend as to the future of the latter. Give a Yankee a fat farm in Dixie, and we may rely upon it that although a Southern nabob may not know how to get work out of a 'free nigger', the Northerner will contrive to persuade Cuffy to become industrious. We have somewhere heard of a Vermonter, who taught ground-hogs or 'wood-chucks' to plant corn for him; the story has its application. Were Cuffy ten times as lazy as he is, the free farmer would contrive to get him to work. And in view of this, I am not sorry that the Legislatures of the border wheat States are passing laws to prevent slaves from entering their territories. The mission of the black is to labor as a free man in the South, under the farmer, until capable of being a farmer on his own account.

The manner and method of colonizing free labor in the South deserves very serious consideration, and is, it may be presumed, receiving it at the hands of Government, in anticipation of further developments in this direction. We trust, however, that the Administration will _lead_, as rapidly as possible, in this matter, and that the President will soon make it the subject of a Message as significant and as noble as that wherein this country first stood committed by its chief officer to Emancipation, the noblest document which ever passed from president or potentate to the people; a paper which, in the eyes of future ages, will cast Magna Charta itself into the shade, and rank with the glorious manumission of the Emperor of Russia.

The primary question would be, whether it were more expedient to scatter free labor all over the South, or simply form large colonies at such points as might serve to effectually break up and surround the confederacy. Without venturing to decide on the final merit of either plan, we would suggest that the latter would be, for a beginning, probably most feasible. Should Virginia, certain points on the Atlantic coast, embracing the larger cities and vicinity of forts, and Texas, be largely or strongly occupied by free men, we should at once throw a chain around the vanquished foe, whose links would grow stronger every year. With slavery abolished--and it is at present abolishing itself with such rapidity that it is almost time lost to discuss the subject--immigration from Europe would stream in at an unprecedented rate, and in a few years, all the old Southern system become entirely a tradition of the past, like that of the feudal chivalry which the present chivalry so fondly ape.

The enormous internal resources of Eastern Virginia, her proximity to free soil, the arrogance and insubordination of her inhabitants, render her peculiarly fitted for colonization. Not less attractive is Texas--a State which, be it remembered, is capable of raising six times as much cotton as is now raised in the whole South, and which, if only settled and railroaded-ed, would, in a few years, become the wealthiest agricultural State in America. But let our army once settle in the South, there will be little danger of its not retaining its possessions. He who can win can wear.

The country has thus far treated very gingerly the question of confiscation, which is, however, destined to thrust itself very prominently forward among the great issues of the day, and which is closely allied to colonization. That the South, after forcing upon us such a war as this, with its enormous losses and expenses, should be subjected to no penalty, is preposterous. Confiscation there must be--not urged inhumanly on a wholesale scale, but in such a manner as to properly punish those who were forward in aiding rebellion. When this war broke out, the South was unanimous in crying for plunder, in speaking of wasting our commerce and our cities on a grand scale. But it is needless to point out that punishment of the most guilty alone would of itself half cover the expenses of the war.

It may be observed that already, since the decree of emancipation in the District of Columbia, a fresh spirit of enterprise has manifested itself there. Within a few days after the signature of the President to that act, Northern men began to prepare for renewed industry and action in the old slave field. The tide of free labor which will rush into Virginia, after the chances of war or other action shall have emancipated that State, will be incalculable. Its worn-out plantations will become thriving farms, its mines and inexhaustible water-powers will call into play the incessant demand and supply of vigorous industry and active capital. We may hasten the movement or we may not, by direct legislation. For the present, it seems advisable to await the rapidly developing chances of war and their results; but the great rush of free labor will come, and that rapidly, and Virginia, disenthralled, become, in all probability, once more the first among the States.

We have spoken of the desperation of the rebels, and of the idleness of expecting from them any peaceable compromise. Those who, in the South, will take the oath of allegiance, and who have probably acted only under compulsion, should be spared. But there is a vast number who are as yet under the dominion of a madness, for which nothing but the most vigorous measures can be of any avail. It is evident that at present, every where except in Halleck's department, government is too indulgent. Traitors flaunt and boast openly in the border States, and publicly scheme with their doughface allies, to defeat the Union cause in every possible way, too often with signal success. The more mercy they receive, the more insolent do they become, and yet every effort has been made, and is making, 'to conciliate.' Let Government be vigorous, and rely only on its strong hand, so far as the management of avowed traitors is concerned; such men hold to no faith, and keep no oaths. With such, a threat of confiscation will be found of more avail than all the lenity in the world.

We may quote, in this connection, from a letter to the Salem _Register_, from Captain Driver, who hoisted 'Old Glory' at Nashville, when our troops took possession of that city. After speaking of the immense amount of property being destroyed through the State, he asks:

'Is there one man North, who now expects to make peace, based on
compromise with such men as lead here? Is there one who expects a
lasting peace in this land, until the armed heel of freedom's
soldiers marks every inch of slave soil? If there is, he knows
little of the South or Southern men and women. One defeat of the
Federal forces, and madness would be rampant here. In the hour of
victory, they would destroy every Union family in the South. We
live on a volcanic mass, which at any moment may upheave and blow
us to glory without the benefit of the clergy, the most of whom are
in the army of Dixie.

'Our enemy is as bitter as death, as implacable as the savage of
the forest; he will do any thing to gain his end. Twice has the
'Black Flag' been flaunted in our faces, and cheered by a portion
of our citizens. Our women are more bitter than the men, and our
children are taught to hate the North, in church, in school, and at
the fireside. Our city still presents a sullen, silent front; it
will take as long time to root treason out of Nashville us it did
the household sins of Egypt out of Israel.