Chapter I (1)

It is a dingy old sign. It has hung there in sun and rain till its letters are faint and its face is furrowed. It has looked down on a generation that has passed away, and seen those who placed it there go out of that doorway never to return; still it clings to that dingy old warehouse, and still Russell, Rollins & Co. is signed in that dingy old counting-room at the head of the stairway. It is known the world over. It is heard of on the cotton-fields of Texas, in the cane-brakes of Cuba, and amid the rice-swamps of Carolina. The Chinaman speaks of it as he sips his tea and handles his chop-sticks in the streets of Canton, and the half-naked negro rattles its gold as he gathers palm-oil and the copal-gum on the western coast of Africa. Its plain initials, painted in black on a white ground, float from tall masts over many seas, and its simple 'promise to pay,' scrawled in a bad hand on a narrow strip of paper, unlocks the vaults of the best bankers in Europe. And yet, it is a dingy old sign! Men look up to it as they pass by, and wonder that a cracked, weather-beaten board that would not sell for a dollar, should be counted 'good for a million.'

It is a dingy old warehouse, with narrow, dark, cobwebbed windows, and wide, rusty iron shutters, which, as the bleak November wind sweeps up old Long Wharf, swing slowly on their hinges with a sharp, grating creak. I heard them in my boyhood. Perched on a tall stool at that old desk, I used to listen, in the long winter-nights, to those strange, wild cries, till I fancied they were voices of the uneasy dead, come back to take the vacant seats beside me, and to pace again, with ghostly tread, the floor of that dark old counting-room. They were ever a mystery and a terror to me; but they never creaked so harshly, or cried so wildly, as on a bleak November night, not many years ago, when I turned my steps, for the last time, up the trembling old stairway.

It was just after nightfall. A single gas-burner threw a dim, uncertain light over the old desk, and lit up the figure of a tall, gray-headed man, who was bending over it. He had round, stooping shoulders, and long, spindling limbs. One of his large feet, encased in a thick, square-toed shoe, rested on the round of the desk, the other, which was planted squarely on the floor, upheld his spare, gaunt frame. His face was thin and long, and two deep, black lines under his eyes contrasted strangely with the pallid whiteness of his features. His clothes were of the fashion of some years ago, and had, no doubt, served long as his 'Sunday best,' before being degraded to daily duty. They were of plain black, and though not shabby, were worn and threadbare, and of decidedly economical appearance. Every thing about him, indeed, wore an economical look. His scant coat-tails, narrow pants, and short waistcoat, showed that the cost of each inch of material had been counted, while his thin hair, brushed carefully over his bald head, had not a lock to spare; and even his large, sharp bones were covered with only just enough flesh to hold them comfortably together. He had stood there till his eye was dim and his step feeble, and though he had, for twenty years--when handing in his semi-annual trial-balances to the head of the house--declared that each one was his last, every body said he would continue to stand there till his own trial-balance was struck, and his earthly accounts were closed forever.

As I entered, he turned his mild blue eye upon me, and taking my hand warmly in his, exclaimed:

'My dear boy'--I was nearly forty--'I am glad to see you.'

'I am glad to see _you_, David.'

'Why, bless me, Mr. Kirke, is that you?' exclaimed a much younger man, springing from his seat near the other, and grasping me by both hands. 'What has brought you to Boston?'

'Business, Frank. I've just arrived, and go back to-morrow. Come! my wife is in the carriage at the door, and wants you to spend the evening with us.'

'I can't--I'm very sorry,' and he added, in a lower tone, '_she_ has just heard of her father's death, and goes home to-morrow. I have engaged to pass the evening with her.'

'Her father dead! how was it?'

'He was thrown from his horse, and died the same day. She knew nothing of it till yesterday. I can not neglect her now. I will spend to-morrow with mother.'

He always called her _mother_, though he was not her son. He had done it when a child, and now that he was a man, hers was the dearest name he knew. He loved her as his mother, and she loved him as her son. But any woman might have loved him. His straight, closely-knit, sinewy frame, dark, deep-set eyes, and broad, open forehead, overhung with thick, brown hair, were only the outshadowing of a beautiful mind, of an open, upright, manly nature, whose firm and steady integrity nothing could shake.

'I'm sorry to hear it,' I replied; 'but go down and see her, while I speak to Mr. Hallet.'

Rapping at the door of an inner office, separated from the outer one by a ground-glass partition, I was admitted by a tall, dark man, who, with a stiff and slightly embarrassed manner, said to me:

'I am glad to see you, Mr. Kirke. Pray, be seated.'

As he pointed to a chair, a shorter and younger gentleman, who was writing at another desk, rose, and slapping me familiarly on the back, exclaimed:

'My dear fellow, how are you?'

'Very well, Cragin, how are you?'

'Good as new--never better in my life--how goes the world with you?'

The last speaker was not more than thirty-three, but a bald spot on the top of his head, and a slight falling-in of his mouth, caused by premature decay of the teeth, made him seem several years older. He had marked but not regular features, and a restless, dark eye, which opened and shut with a peculiar wink that kept time with the motion of his lips in speaking. His clothes were cut in a loose, jaunty style, and his manner, though brusque and abrupt, betokened, like his face, a free, frank, manly character. He was ten or twelve years the junior of the other, and as unlike him as one man can be unlike another.

The older gentleman, as I have said, was tall and dark. He had a high, bold forehead, and wore heavy gray whiskers, trimmed with the utmost nicety, and meeting under a sharp, narrow chin. His face was large and full, and his nose pointed and prominent, but his mouth was small, and gathered in at the corners like a rat's; and, as if to add to the rat-resemblance, its small, white teeth seemed borrowed from the jaws of that animal. There was a stately precision in his manner, and a stealthy softness in his tread, that would have impressed a stranger unfavorably; but _I_ knew him. We had been boys together, and he loved me as he loved his own son. How well he loved _him_, the reader will learn, if he follows the course of my story.

These two gentlemen--Mr. Hallet and Mr. Cragin--were the senior partners in the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.

Replying satisfactorily to the inquiry of Mr. Cragin, I turned to the older partner, and said:

'Well, Mr. Hallet, how does Frank get on?'

'Oh! very well--knows a little too much, like most young men of his age, but he does very well.'

''Very well,' Mr. Ballet! d--d if he don't--he's the smartest boy living--made a clean forty thousand for us not two months ago--forced it on Hallet against his better judgment!' And Mr. Cragin laughed till he showed all that was left of two rows of tobacco-stained teeth.

'How was it Cragin?' I asked, greatly pleased.

A short rap came at the office-door, and Frank entered, his hat in his hand.

'Mother insists on my taking supper with her--will you go now, sir?' he said, addressing me.

Before I could reply, Mr. Hallet, rather sharply, asked:

'Have you finished your letters for the steamer?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What have you said to Maclean, Maris & Co., about the gum-copal?'

'I will show you, sir.'

And going into the other room, Frank returned in a moment with an open letter, still wet from the copying-press. Mr. Hallet took it and read it over slowly and carefully, then handing it back, he said, in the slightly pompous tone which was natural to him:

'That will do--you can go.'

I was rising to bid them 'good-evening,' when the senior said to me:

'Mr. Kirke, I dislike to trespass on your time, but I would like to confer with you for a moment, on a private matter.'

'Certainly, sir.' And I added: 'Frank, tell your mother I will meet you at the hotel in half an hour.'

'But I must be in Cambridge by eight o'clock,' replied the young man, looking a little chop-fallen.

'Well, don't wait for me--I will see you to-morrow.'

Bidding me 'good-night,' he left; and Mr. Cragin, seeing that his partner would be alone with me, left shortly afterward. As soon as Cragin was gone, Mr. Hallet, opening the door, called:

'David!'

The book-keeper entered, and took a seat beside me.

'Mr. Kirke,' said Mr. Hallet, when the other was seated, 'I want to talk with you and David about Frank. He has entangled himself with that Southern girl, and, I hear, means to marry her. I strongly object to it. I've not a particle of influence with him, and _you_ must prevent it.'

'Why should we prevent it?' I asked, rather sharply. 'What is there against the young woman?'

'Nothing against her character, but she'd not be a fit wife for Frank. These Southern women are educated with wrong ideas--they make poor wives for poor men. He must marry a rich girl, or one brought up with New-England habits. This one would bring him nothing, and spend all he made.'

'But she is an only child, and her father is rich.'

'Pshaw! that is bosh! Preston always lived high, and I'll guarantee his estate is bankrupt. I'm sorry for it, for he owes us.'

'Is that so! Largely?' 'No, not largely; how much is he overdrawn, David?'

'Eighty-two hundred and odd.'

'I'm surprised at that,' I said. 'The old house did not allow such things.'

'Neither do we; 'twas Cragin's work. He thought 'twould annoy Frank if the drafts went back, and'--he hesitated a moment--'he insisted upon it.'

'I am opposed to interfering in such matters. I always taught Frank to think for himself,' I remarked.

'You taught him to think too much for himself. He is self-willed and headstrong to a fault.'

'Perhaps his father might have trained him better, if--he had tried,' I replied, with a slight sneer.

'Pardon me, Mr. Kirke, I meant no reflection on your management of him. I only feel that this is a most important step, and he ought to be advised. He should marry rich, for he has nothing, and can not rely upon me.'

'He does not rely upon you; but he is a partner now, and his income ought to enable him to support a wife.'

'His income is uncertain; he may not remain long in the concern,' replied Mr. Hallet coolly.

David started; his face reddened to the roots of his hair, and he asked in a sententious way, showing even in his expenditure of breath the close economy that was the rule of his life: 'Who told you that, Mr. Hallet?'

'No one,' replied that gentleman, seemingly surprised at the abrupt question; 'I am deliberating on it myself. He is sowing dissension between Cragin and me. The lowest boy in the office; even you, David, pay more heed to him than to _me_.'

'That may be your own fault,' I said, a little sarcastically; 'if you should treat him as Cragin and David do, you might have nothing to complain of.'

'I treat him well, sir; but I make him _know his place_.' The last words were emphasized in a hard, wicked tone.

Certain old recollections had been rushing across my memory during the latter part of this conversation, and this last remark brought me to my feet, as I said: 'You treat him like a dog, sir! I have seen it. If he were not your son, he should not stay with you another day! But I warn you, John Hallet--do not go too far. Cast that boy off--harm him to the extent of a hair--and, so help me God, I will strip you of the lying cloak in which you hide your false, hypocritical soul, and show men _what you are!_'

In my excitement, I had crossed the room, and stood then directly before him. His face flushed and his eye quailed before my steady gaze, but he said nothing.

David remarked, in a mild tone: 'Edmund, that an't the right spirit; it an't.'

'You don't know the whole, David; if you did, even _you_ would say he is the basest man living.'

Hallet pressed his teeth together; his eyes flashed fire, and he seemed about to spring upon me; but mastering his passion, he rose after a moment and extended his hand, saying: 'Come, Mr. Kirke, this is not the talk of old friends! Let us shake hands and forget it.'

'Never, sir! I took your hand for the last time when I left this counting-room, twenty years ago. I never touch it again! I shall tell that boy _to-night_ that you are his father.'

'You will not do so imprudent a thing. I will do any thing for him--any thing you require. I promise you--on my honor,' and the stately head of the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co., sank into a chair and bent down his face like a criminal in the dock.

'I can not trust you,' I said, as I paced the room,

'You can, Edmund; he means it. He is sorry for the wrong he's done,' said the old book-keeper, in that mild, winning tone which had made me so love him in my boyhood.

'Well, let him _prove_ that he means it; let him tell you all; let him tell you how much he has had to repent of!'

'I _have_ told him all. I told him years ago.'

'Did you tell him how you cast off that poor girl? how for years on her knees she vainly plead for a paltry pittance to keep her child from starving and herself from sin? Did you tell him how you forced her on the street? how you drove her from you with curses, when she prayed you to save her from the pit of infamy into which you had plunged her? Did you tell him,' and I hissed the words in his ear, while he writhed on his seat in such agony as only the guilty can feel; 'how, at last, after all those wretched years, she died of starvation and disease, with all that mountain of sin on her soul, and all of it heaped on her by YOU!'

'Oh! no! I did not--could not tell him that! I did not know I had done _that!_' groaned the stately gentleman.

'You lie, John Hallet! You know you lie! and may God deal with you as you dealt with her,' and I took up my hat and laid my hand on the door.

'Stop, stop, Edmund; don't go with those words. You would not have God do to _you_ as you have done to others!' said David, in the same mild tone as before.

'True, David. I ought not to wish him harm; but I loathe and detest the hypocritical villain. Frank shall leave him to-night, and forever!' and again I laid my hand on the door.

Mr. Hallet looked up; his face was pale as marble, and his hands clenched tightly the arms of his chair, 'Don't go, Mr. Kirke,' he cried; 'stay one moment. Can't this be arranged?'

'Yes, sir. Sign a dissolution article at once--_here_--NOW, and give Frank your check for twenty thousand dollars.'

'No, no! You don't mean that! It is too much--you can not ask _that_!' gasped the great merchant.

'Too much for the son of a man worth a million? Too much to pay for starving his mother, and turning him adrift at six years old? It is not enough! He must have _thirty_ thousand!'

'You are mad, Mr. Kirke!' And he rose, and looked at me with a pleading face. 'I can not pay that amount down. It is impossible.'

'David, how much has he in bank on private account?'

Mr. Hallet cast a beseeching glance at his book-keeper; but without moving a muscle, the old man quietly replied: 'Fifty-three thousand.'

'I knew you lied, Hallet. It is natural to you.'

'But I can't let Frank go without Mr. Cragin's consent.'

'I will arrange with Cragin. Sign the check and draw the paper at once, or I go.'

'But give me time to think--see me to-morrow.'

'I shall never exchange a word with you after to-night. You can have ten minutes--not a second more,' and I took out my watch to count the time.

He seated himself at his desk, and rested his head on his hand for a moment; then turning to me, he said: 'You promise that this interview, and all that has passed, shall never be mentioned by you?'

'I do--never to your injury.'

'David, please write the check,' said the senior partner, as he proceeded himself to draw up the agreement. In a few minutes he handed it to me. It was short, and merely recited that the co-partnership which had theretofore existed between John Hallet, Augustus Cragin, and Henry F. Mandell, under the name and style of Russell, Rollins & Co., was on that day dissolved by mutual consent; said Mandell withdrawing, and assigning the control of all the assets of said firm to said Hallet and Cragin, and releasing to said Hallet any portion of its capital and profits to which he might be entitled.

I read the document, and quietly handed it back. 'That will not do, Mr. Hallet. Thirty thousand dollars settles with _you_, his father. I have not, and _shall_ not make any settlement with the firm. David must pay Frank what is his due--no more, no less.'

'But,' began Mr. Hallet.

'I have nothing more to say on the subject, sir.'

He drew a deep sigh. The parting with an only son, and with thirty thousand dollars, at one and the same time, affected him deeply. He might have borne the loss of the son; but the loss of so much money rent his small, black soul into fragments. However, he rewrote the paper, and passed it to me. It was all right; and when he had signed and David had witnessed it, I placed it in my pocket-book. Then, with a trembling hand, he handed me the check. It was drawn to my order; and I remarked, as I took it: 'This is not what I require, sir. I want your check, indorsed by David.'

'This is most unaccountable, Mr. Kirke. Do you question my check for thirty thousand dollars?' he asked, his face flushing with anger.

'Oh! no, sir, not at all; but you might stop its payment. With David's indorsement, you would not _dare_ to do it.'

'I will indorse it,' said David; and he quietly proceeded to write another.

That cold, hard, soulless man had a wife and children; but that old book-keeper was the only being in all this wide world that he loved!

Placing the check with the other paper, I shook David by the hand, and bidding him 'good-night', passed down the old stairway.

As Frank is the hero of my history, I will, in another chapter, go back some seventeen years, and tell the reader how he came to be under my control, and how he rose to be a partner in the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.

CORN IS KING.

Up among the Granite mountains,
By the Bay State strand,
Hark! the paean cry is sounding
Through all Yankee land.
'Wave the stars and stripes high o'er us,
Let every freeman sing,
In a loud and joyful chorus:
Brave young Corn is King!
Join, join, for God and freedom! Sing, Northmen, sing:
Old King Cotton's dead and buried: brave young Corn is King.'

Southward rolls the cry of gladness,
On past Washington;
Where the bond-slave stoops no longer,
But stands up, a Man!
O'er battle-fields of 'Ole Virginny,'
Floats the black man's song:
'Brudders, God is takin' vengeance
For de darky's wrong!
Shout, shout, for God and Freedom! Sing, darkies, sing!
Ole Massa Cotton's dead foreber: Young Massa Corn am King!'

Through the Mississippi valley,
Down the river's tide,
Hosts of patriots rush to rally
On their Country's side;
And across the green savannahs
Of the Southern clime,
Armies, under Union banners,
To this song keep time:
'March, march, for God and Freedom! Sing, soldiers, sing!
Pallid Cotton's dead and buried: Yellow Corn is King!'

Let the tidings swell o'er ocean
To another shore,
Till proud England pales and trembles
Where she scoffed before!
Ne'er again shall serpent-friendship
Rise to hiss and sting!
Cotton leagues no more with _Traitors_:
Honest Corn is King!
_Jubilate_! God and Freedom! Sing, Americans, sing
Tyrant Cotton's dead forever! Honest Corn is King!

LITERARY NOTICES.

AMONG THE PINES. BY EDMUND KIRKE. New-York: J. R. Gilmore,
532 Broadway. 1862.

Perhaps it is not altogether in rule to say much of a work which has appeared in our pages. But we may at least call attention to what others have said. And good authority--plenty of it, such authority as should make a reputation for any book--has declared _The Pines_ to be in truth a work of the highest merit and of a new order. It is a perfectly truthful record of scenes and characters drawn from personal experience in the South; combining the accuracy of Olmstead's works with the thrilling interest of _Uncle Tom_. It should be fairly stated--as the author desires it should be--that every thing did not occur precisely in the order in which it is here narrated. But all is _true_--every page speaks for itself in this particular. No stronger piece of local coloring ever issued from the American press. We seem, in reading it, to live in the South--to know the people who come before us. All of them are, indeed, life-portraits. In one or two instances, the very names of the originals remain unchanged.

In it the author deals fairly and honorably with the South. The renegade Yankee, and not the native planter, is made to bear the heaviest blow. The principal character, Colonel J----, is one of nature's noblemen, struggling through aristocratic education and circumstance with an evil whose evil he cannot comprehend. Very valuable indeed are the sketches of life among the 'mean whites.' No descriptions of them to be compared with these in _The Pines_ have ever yet appeared. They rise clear as cameo-reliefs on a dark ground, and we feel that they too are like the slave-holder, victims like the slave, of a system, and not with him, deliberate wretches. Their squalor, ignorance, pride, and dependence--their whole social _status_, inferior to that of the blacks whom they despise, appear as set forth, we do not say by a master-hand, but _by themselves_.

This work, tolerant and just, yet striking, has appeared at the right time. While interesting as a novel, it is full of solid, simple facts--it is based on them and built up with them. Without attempting to set forth a principle, it shows beyond dispute that slavery does not pay in the South as well as free labor would, and that the blacks would produce more as free laborers than as slaves. It shows that Emancipation for the sake of the White Man is a great truth, and that the white man would be benefited by raising the sense of independence in the black, and by elevating him in every way in which he is capable of improvement.

It may be said with great truth of _The Pines_, that it would be difficult to find a book in which such striking facts and vivid pictures are set forth with such perfect simplicity of language. There is no effort at fine writing in it, and no consciousness of its absence. The author never seems to have realized that a story could be told for effect, and the natural result has been the most unintentional yet the strongest effect. The practical eye of one familiar with planks and turpentine, building and farming, business and furniture, economy and comfort, betrays itself continually. He sees how things could be bettered not as a mere philanthropist would try to see them, but as one who knows how capital ought to be employed, and he appreciates the fact that the sufferings of the people of every class in the South are really based on the _wastefulness_ of the present system. That this spirit should be combined with a keen observation of local humor, and in several instances with narratives imbued with deep pathos, is not, however, remarkable. The man who can most vividly set forth facts and transfer nature to paper, seldom misses variety.

We rejoice that this work has met with such favorable reception from the public, and are happy to state that the author will continue his contributions to these columns. He has already, by a single effort, established a wide-spread reputation, and we know that he has that in him which will induce efforts of equal merit and a future which will be honorably recorded in histories of the literature of the present day.

THOMAS HOOD'S WORKS. Volume IV. Aldine Edition. Edited by
EPES SARGENT. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K.
Loring. 1862.

No better paper, no better type, can be desired than what is lavished upon these beautiful editions of Putnam's works. It is a pleasure to touch their silky, Baskerville-feeling leaves, and think that one possesses in the series one more work _de luxe_, which 'any one' might be glad to own. The present consists of The Whims and Oddities, with the--originally--two volumes of National Tales: the former piquant and variously eccentric; the latter written in a quaint, old-fashioned style, which the editor compares justly to that of BOCCACCIO, yet which was really, till within some fifty years, so very common a form of narration, having so much in common with Spanish and French _nouvelettes_, that it is hardly worth while to suppose that HOOD followed the great. Italian at all. The whole work is one mass of entertainment, none the worse for having acquired somewhat of a game-y flavor of age, and for gradually falling a little behind the latest styles of humor. 'Mass! 'tis a merry book, and will make them merry who read it!'

THE WORKS OF THOMAS HOOD. Edited by EPES SARGENT.
Vol. V. New-York: G. P. Putnam. 1862.

The present volume of Hood's writings is composed of dramatic sketches, odes, political satires, and miscellaneous pieces not generally contained in former collections of his works. Among these is the long and beautiful 'Lamia' in dramatic form; the 'Epping Hunt;' the poems of sentiment; the inimitable Odes and Addresses to Great People, and some scores of minor poems, mostly humorous, including, however, all of those on which his reputation as a true poet of the highest rank is based. Among these is the 'Lay of the Laborer,' a standing and bitter reproach to England--the England of millions of pounds of capital--the England of piety--the England of morality--the England of 'all the rights of man,' where there are more paupers and more miseries than in any other land on earth, and where there is accordingly the most social tyranny of any country.

'Ay, only give me work,
And then you need not fear
That I shall snare his worship's hare,
Or kill his grace's deer.'

'Where savage laws begrudge
The pauper babe its breath,
And doom a wife to a widow's life
Before her partner's death.'

When England shall have turned aside the reproach of this poem, it will be time for her to abuse America as 'uncivilized.'

AGNES OF SORRENTO, By Mrs. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1862.

If there be, at the present day, an ungrateful task for an intelligent reader or a conscientious reviewer, it is to be obliged to deal with a work whose whole compass is merely that of a second-rate romance inspired by rococo sentimentalism. We regret to speak thus of a book by so eminent a writer as Mrs. Stowe; but when any one at this time undertakes to build up a novel out of such material as cloisters, monks, and nuns, Beato Angelico and frankincense, cavaliers and Savonarola, with the occasional 'purple patch' of a rhyming Latin hymn--in short, when we see the long-exhausted melo-dramatic style, which was years ago thoroughly quizzed in 'Firmilian,' revived in the year 1862 in a work of fiction, we can not refrain from expressing sorrow that a public can still be found to welcome such a bouquet of faded and tattered artificial flowers. There is something, indeed, almost painfully amusing in the liberal use of perfectly exhausted and thoroughly hackneyed elements of popular romance which appear in every page of _Agnes of Sorrento_. A writer has said of the heroine, that 'she is one of those ethereal females, only encountered in romance, who dwell on the brink of exaltation, and never eat bread and butter without seeming to fly in the face of Divine Providence.' But this feebly expresses the worn-out ornamental piety of the work. It would require but very little alteration to become one of the most intensely amusing books of the age.

SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE INSURANCE COMMISSIONERS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.

An interesting collection of documents, which will be read or examined with great pleasure by all who devote their attention to the rapidly maturing science of insurance, a science which perhaps combines in its range of material as much of the curious and useful as any other known; the whole tending to one great lesson: that every thing should be insured and that _no insurance should be taxed by Government_.

TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Boston: William White. 1862.

Apart from the vastly important testimony which these works bear to the efforts annually made in our good State in the cause of education--the great source, let us trust, of the politics to be--we seldom fail to find in them many useful hints as to the practical business of teaching, of which any writer on the subject would be glad to avail himself. Many such, at least, we detect in the volume before us, and sincerely trust that all will in due time bear their good fruit.

CONCORD FIGHT. By S. R. BARTLETT. Second edition.
Concord: Albert Tracy. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 1862.

A poem of thirty-two pages, devoted to setting forth the incidents of Concord and Lexington fights, in the Revolutionary days, and therefore very appropriate to our own time. The 'plan' is excellent; the incidents well devised, while many little lyrical touches here and there are truly admirable. For instance, 'The White Cockade.'

'Firm hearts and true, strong bands to do,
For liberty;
The fierce old strain rings once again:
'Come death or victory!'

'The lips that woke the dawning note
Are passed away;
But the _echoes_ of the 'White Cockade'
Ring round our hills to-day.'

Long may they ring, and long may the descendants of the men of '76 prove that they still hear in spirit 'the dawning notes.'

EDITOR'S TABLE

The English journals and statesmen, in their excessive anxiety to regulate every thing for the world in general and for America in particular, quite lose sight of the fact, that before interfering in a neighbor's affairs, it is best to know what the state of affairs may really be. Of late, we have seen these makers of public opinion making mischief through gross ignorance, to a degree well-nigh unparalleled in history. On the strength of flying rumors, unfinished events imperfectly reported, and through Secession slanders, their great leaders, both representative and editorial, have ventured to spread before the masses statements which must unavoidably tend to greatly exasperate and alienate the people of our respective nations. They are blindly running up scores of hatred, which at some day may call for fearful settlement. Their influence is very great on the rank-loving multitude in their own country--a multitude which, after all, is, in the majority, more miserable and nearly as ignorant as that of any realm in Europe, or even the East, for there are fewer paupers in Turkey or Syria than in wealthy England. Yet, quite unheeding this, they continue to express sympathy for the South, declare with Brougham that the bubble of Democracy has at length burst, and chuckle over every Northern defeat. All of which shall be duly remembered.

The grossest error into which these men have fallen, is that of continually regarding our war not as a struggle between two great principles, or as an unavoidable necessity, but simply as a strife between two factions. Nearly every London editorial which we have seen for weeks proves this. 'What will the North gain if it conquers the South? What will the South make? What are WE to benefit by a victory of either?' It is perfectly natural, however, for a monarchy, virtually without 'politics,' devoid of great progressive ideas, and smothered by 'loyalty' and faith in an aristocracy, to see, as men did in the middle ages, nothing but a dispute of rival forces in every battle. It is 'Brown _vs_. Brown' to them, and nothing more. With the exception of Bright and his friends, no one in England seems to comprehend that our North has in itself the vital, progressive energy which _must_ give it victory--the same spirit which enables English civilization to gain on the Hindoo or the New-Zealander--the spirit of science and intelligence, which conquers ignorance.

The fact that English statesmen can talk so calmly of the possibilities of Southern victory, and weigh with such equanimity the claims of the combatants, simply proves their ignorance of the real condition of the United States. And they _are_ indeed very ignorant of us. Perhaps ignorance and thoughtlessness were never more decidedly manifested than in Brougham's late rhodomontade on the failure of Democracy in this country. For, in fact, there is not difference enough between the representative _power_ of England and that of America to make a question. Between Commons and our House of Representatives--the most influential legislative bodies--there is no such great difference. English writers have asserted that our government is actually the strongest monarchy of the two, because our President possesses far greater power of patronage and personal influence than the Queen. The real difference is not between the forms of government, but between the innate flunkeyism of the Briton and the independence of the American. If we had the British government in every detail, and if John Bull were to adopt our system, the countries would stand where they were, and each gradually 'reform' itself, according to its ideas of reform, back into the old routine. The Englishman, needing 'my Lord' and 'Her Gracious Majesty,' and as unable to live without his golden calves of 'superiors' as bees are to exist without a queen, would soon create them; while the American blood, sprung from the republican Puritan, and developed into strength on a continent, would very soon, after a nine days' féte to his new fétish, kick it over, and instituting caucuses and primary ward-meetings, or 'town-meetings,' (a ceremony which no European in existence, save the Russian, is capable of properly managing,) would soon have all back again in the old road.

Democracy among the 'Yankees' as well as all North-Americans who are free from a servile respect for simple rank and money, is something very different from that mere form which Brougham, and with him nearly all Europe, believe it to be. We are not Frenchmen, or Englishmen, or Orientals, to quietly sit down under any kind of government which chance may impose, and exclaim: 'It is fate.' Democracy with us is not the mere form which they imagine. It is, like the English government, like the German, like the Pachalik of the Oriental, something as much a part of us as our national physiognomy. A very great proportion of the Englishmen who come here, remain flunkeys to the end--an American, other than a soul-diseased disciple of Richmond sociology, or some weak brother or sister dazed by court ball-tickets--quite as generally remain a despiser of men who acknowledge other men as their betters by mere birth. A love of freedom is in our blood, in our life, in our habits. We are fond, it is true, of temporarily lionizing great people, but we soon reduce them to our own level. America has shaken down more eminencies into notorieties than any other country in the world--it is a severe and terrible ordeal for great foreigners. Our eagerness to behold them is simply a keen curiosity and a natural love of amusement which is soon appeased. An American would crowd foremost to see Queen Victoria for the first time in his life--the second opportunity would be neglected. But the London shop-keeper who has seen that lady perhaps hundreds of times, still rushes out in wild haste, with eyes wide open, to behold her when she drives past. 'They can never get enough of it.' As one of their own writers has observed, a London tradesman may have been swindled a hundred times by real or sham noblemen, and yet no sooner does some flaunting cheat with the _air noble_ enter his shop, than the cockney bows low and implores patronage with a cringing zeal only equaled by his 'uppishness' to humbler customers.

The truth simply is, that English thinkers wrongly judge our people to be like their own, and as capable of promptly submitting to acknowledged superiors. In the same blindness and ignorance, they see only two parties, equal in all respects in this war, and realize nothing of the innate vitality and irresistibly accretive power of free-labor, science, and progress, when brought into opposition with a conservatism which scorns every thing pertaining to the rights of the majority. Misled by their associations, they believe that the 'Aristocratic' party must triumph in the end, forgetting that even in their own country capital is gradually destroying the old land-marks which divided the privileged classes from the masses. We who virtually occupy a higher stand-point in history, though, perhaps, we are newer dwellers in our domain and not as yet as comfortable in it as they in theirs, can, however, afford to laugh at their opinions and threats. A nation, whose utmost effort could not raise above thirty thousand men for a war in which the point of honor between themselves and the French was at stake, is not the one to lay down laws to the American North, which could--probably without drafting--bring its million into the field. It is worth remembering that, had they sent us their Warrior, as they threatened after the Mason and Slidell difficulty, she would have met with the Monitor!

* * * * *

Three hundred thousand men are wanted--and that right early!

Let there be meetings, speeches, subscriptions--let every thing that is vigorous and impulsive and patriotic thrill the people forthwith: Let there be no lagging in the good cause. Never since the war begun was there a time when a fierce rally was more needed. We have it in our power to crush this rebellion to atoms, if the people will but once arouse in their might. Even this draft for three hundred thousand, when we come to portion it off among those remaining in our counties, becomes quite trifling.

'More than shooting goes to making war.' All who are in the North can fight to good purpose, if they will, every man and woman of them, _do their best_ to raise soldiers, equip them and take care of their families.

Men! rise up and go forth. You will acquire a patent of nobility by serving in this war, which will be worth more to you and yours in coming days than any title on earth. You go to great risks--but not to any thing which can outweigh the good you can do for this truly holy cause. Have you lived lives 'of no great account'--_now_ is the time to rise to a position--to be some body, and make your mark. Have you been a mere cipher in the great sum of life--a neglected trifle--now is the time to raise yourself to a real value. It can never be said of a man who served in this war that he was of no great account.

Has your life been stained--by misfortune or your own faults? Now is the time to wipe out the old score and begin afresh. What cautious, timid Peace rejects as bad, bold, hearty War grasps at with eagerness and makes good and great.

Are you poor, and dragging out a dull, base life, more sluggishly than your abilities deserve? Go to the war--in God's name, go to the war! Who knows what changes in life you may live through--what new opportunities may open before you! In that wide Southland lie a million homes, and there will be those left behind who--if you fight bravely--will give the matter no rest till you are richly rewarded. There is not a soldier in this war at this instant who is not acquiring what may be a fortune. _Somebody_ must occupy the lands left vacant in the South!

Are you a lover? Make her proud of you.

Do not fear the risks. That is a poor, wretched life which has never run the chances of death.

'Fast in battle the bullets fly,
But many a soldier the bullets pass by.'

Arise all! Up, Guards, and at 'em! Let there be a general up-stirring and a hearty good-will in this matter. The enemy have brought every white man among them into the field--they are kept alive solely by the blacks. One tremendous effort, such as we are capable of making, would sweep them from the face of the earth. Another struggle and we reach the shore.

* * * * *

Many years ago, the South began to alienate itself from the Union, by blindly abusing every thing pertaining to the North as 'Abolition.' They wanted a grievance; they would have one, and so yelled 'Wolf! wolf!' till the wolf came in roaring earnest. In like manner, the Democratic dabblers in mischief are now yelling 'Radical,' abusing emancipation, and doing all in their power to hoist themselves into notoriety. They are determined to force separate parties into existence, and they will end by accomplishing their purpose, by being in a losing reactionary minority, which will bear the brand in later days of having been the most unprincipled, narrow-minded, and desperately selfish faction which this country has ever known.

Gentle reader, accept the following from a friend in the quaint spirit in which it is written, and understand not by bad company aught that is evil--for if we read the word of the enigma, the 'bad' among her 'friends of the future' is indeed goodness-that saving salt which is often found among many who are too hastily banned as lost in the world. So, we pray you, judge it kindly:

FRIENDS OF THE FUTURE.

'There is no real amusement except in bad company.'--_Italian Proverb_.

Reprehensible but real sentiment of your humble servant, O dearly beloved reader! Your lips reprove me, but your heart forgives and sympathizes! And that heart rebels with mine against that adverse Past which has given to us so little of 'real amusement' from 'bad company,' and demands, like mine, reparation from the Future for the sufferings we have endured from unexceptionable and perfectly good company!

The representative men and women of that small and select bad company, (who have made the desert of our lives to blossom with roses, violets, strawberries and cream,) how distinctly they stand out on the horizon of memory! I see them--I count them, as easily as those few stately pines on yonder hill-top--one, two, three, four, five, six, _seven_. No more? What! not a delightful eight? Who has translated the murmur of the summer wind among the pines as 'No more?' '_No more?_' Alas! to-day they give that answer to me, as I seek for one other in that bad and beloved company! 'But he cometh'--_adveniat_--he cometh in the future. O eighth! your morning will yet dawn.

Welcome, O Friend of the Future I whatever thy sex. Welcome! whether in cashmere and graceful crinolineaments, or in gray-suit and _grecio_!--only be 'more of the same sort.' Heaven is _not_ so cruel! to give us five hundred dear twin-friends, on whom one has to tie five hundred different colored bows (I assure you, Monsieur, the ribbon-florists have this season produced _five hundred colors_) in order to distinguish one from another! Heaven would not do this cruel wrong without offering some apology--some mitigation.

Ah! you sigh. Your heart, then, _does_ forgive me--I knew it would. Give me your hand, (such a soft, white hand!) I confess the proverb did _sound_ a little naughty, but it's not _really_ so. At all events, it is the _truth_--and, you know, we

'Can not tell a lie!' G. W.

Ah! this hand, though soft and white, is no longer plump and unconscious; it has _suffered_! You, too, have been bored--ah! I _must_ kiss it.

'I, too, am human.'

I also have been bored! Come, now, you mistrust me no longer-and I--I love you! I _love_ you, and, therefore, I want to amuse you; perhaps, by Heaven's blessing, I may prove 'bad company' myself!

For I can not but believe that somewhere in the purple Future, or latent amid the green leaves of the possible Fairy-dom, (in which some rich enchanter of an uncle is to lea-re us all an heritage,) there bide, waitingly, certain dear friends--delightful, daring, witty, and wicked creatures--like yourself, O reader I--with whom I am destined to be, spiritually, 'very much married indeed;' or if the expression sound too polygamatical, let me simply say _lié._ [For Heaven's sake, accept that as French, warm with an accent, and not as English, cold without one.] _Lié_ means 'bound'--anchored, so to speak, to an intimate in an amicable manner. And it is in their friendship--in their kind and tender words and courteous deeds, and winsome ways, that I most truly _live_.

Where these dearmost ones may bide, I know not. Seven--yes--seven I have met, whom I cherish like diamonds of delight in the cotton of memory. It is worth noting, my dear, in this connection, that _sev-en_ is one of the conjugations in Turkish of the root _sev_, or 'loving,' and 'them old Turks,' you know--but I am digressing. Are there not still to come seven--yea, seventy times seven, (I have mislaid my Koran, in which the number is more accurately stated,) of my Friends of the Future!

But I know what they are like. Oh! the charming, delightful wretches, how I enjoy looking at them--in fact, 'I admire to see' them--as they sweep along through the golden halls of my Schloss Dream-berg. Such nice clothes as they wear--the ducks! Such good things as they say--such--such--

It is too warm to-day to attempt superlatives. It were better to drink--say, iced lemonade, in which--for you, dear reader--by some mistake a _little_ sherry has been cobblered. _Sherrare est humanum_. The Rabbis, we are told, forbade the children of Israel to puff the fire on the Sabbath with bellows, though they might keep it going by blowing through a straw. Wherefore, to this day, certain of the devout 'keep it a-going' by means of a straw--only by some strange mistake in interpretation, or by some vowel-points getting mislaid, they, instead of blowing _from_ them in the straw, suck _toward_ them. And their 'society' is a large one.

But we were talking of 'good company,' as they say in 'good society'--not of 'good society,' as they say in 'good company.' And, therefore, although _not_ 'a retired clergyman,' and devoutly hoping that my 'sands of life' are not by a very long while 'run out,' (for I want to see my future friends,) I would yet (without these advantages) offer you 'some slight relief,' and would seek to assuage your sufferings resulting from too much good company; and since we have so few friends in the past who have amused us, turn we our 'regards' to the possible

FRIENDS OF THE FUTURE.

First among whom is

BAGNOLE

Face such as would-be Byron youths all crave,
Impenetrable, gloomy as the grave;
Voice, a 'French-gray,' the promise of the face,
You'd swear he thought to _laugh_, a deep disgrace.
Behold the mask of a bacchantine soul,
Drinking deep draughts from life's enchanting bowl.
Whether the bowl be from Cellini's hand.
If rude, still crowning it with Fancy's flowers,
Laughing at Time, and flirting with her Hours.
He is not pious, and to church won't go;
He says he _can't_--'tis so extremely slow.'
Bagnolè! with the 'goats' you're set apart'
And yet, how _can_ we wish a 'change of heart'
In one like thee--great-minded, brave, and true!
Ah! _what_ a world, if all were such as you!
But I forget--he's tender to the weak:
To the sad Magdalene he'll kindly speak
Words of _pure gold_--not that base metal thing
Which falls like lead and gives no friendly ring;
Opening the wound, to see if it is deep,
Arousing thought, to see if' tis asleep!
'Tendir and treue,' us Douglas was of old,
How far _they_ see, who call thee 'tame and cold'!
Tame! as a tiger: cold! as hot as flame!
_Where_ does he board, and what, oh! _what's_ his name?

L'INCONNUE.

Dark Passion-flower, with keen mimosa-leaves,
Into my life your fate her shuttle weaves.
How long those wistful eyes have haunted mine--
Brown eyes of earth--they have no light divine.
Brown eyes! ye fill my soul with burning love--
No Pantheon soul--lighted from above!
O sister mine! you'll come to me at last--
_That_ shall atone for all our weary past.
So pure thou art, with soul so joyous, _free_.
The world could not forgive--and hated thee!
To be 'unlike the world,' is thy dark sin.
You or 'the world'? the 'you' my heart shall win.
Within that shrine, so delicately fair,
Burns a bright spirit which 'a world' can dare;
She mocks 'the world,' but she would _die_ for _me_.
Her heart is fathomed by eternity;
And yet she's always 'in the fashion' dressed,
And 'wants a cashmere,' (she to me confessed.)
Oh! you can see her, almost any day,
Hat of pale violet, dress of silver-gray.
She goes to parties and the 'Music-Hall;'
She eats her dinner, and she gives a ball.
You nod and smile: '_We know her now--we see_!'
Perhaps! Alas! she's _quite_ _un_known to me!

MARIE.

How can I tell you if her face be fair,
While the gay sunshine of her smile is there?
How can I tell you of a brilliant mind,
When every word she speaks is angel-kind?
Need I describe her voice, so melting sweet?
Or the small mouth, which is its passage meet!
I only know, while for her voice I wait,
I see fair pearls behind that rosy gate.
But when she speaks, her diamond-wit's so bright,
All other beauties vanish from our sight.
No need for _her_ to fear 'the world's rebuff!
Too much of Marie's always just enough I
She is 'bad company,' yet e'en 'the good'
Can find no flaw in her fair maidenhood.
The saints don't doubt that she is in _their_ fold--
It makes me laugh to think how they are 'sold.'
_Nice_, _naughty_ folks are _sure_, she's of _their_ creed,
Yet she's no hypocrite, in word or deed.
What _is_ she, then--this gem without a flaw?
She is--she is--a maid-en made of 'straw'!

* * * * *

Reader, have you in your house a _vivarium_ or _aquarium_, or any other variety of animal curiosity-shop, under care of the younger members? If so, the subjoined sketch may awaken in your mind more than one vivid souvenir, We know, at all events, that some of its 'features' were founded on facts; that is, if a 'feature' can be 'founded.' However, we take the phrase from--but no, we are sufficiently abused by the Democratic editors, as it is.

EDITOR OF THE CONTINENTAL: Among the lesser joys of maternity, that of having your children interested in a vivarium is one of the least--in fact, it is an elephantine sorrow.

James, my eldest son, is a genius; before he was twelve years old, he invented a rat-trap, which not only caught rats, but cut off their tails and--let them go. At thirteen, he spoke Italian so fluently that he caused a hand-organ grinder to throw a brick at him. At fourteen, he came home one day with six large panes of glass, some tin and putty, and made a vivarium, a thing full of mud, water, leeches, dirty weeds, and other improvements.