An admirable woman, Sir, because she does good things, and even kind

things,--takes care of this--this--young lady--we have here, talks like

a sensible person, and always looks as if she was doing her duty with

all her might. I hate her because her voice sounds as if it never

trembled, and her eyes look as if she never knew what it was to cry.

Besides, she looks at me, Sir, stares at me, as if she wanted to get

an image of me for some gallery in her brain,--and we don't love to be

looked at in this way, we that have--I hate her,--I hate her,--her eyes

kill me,--it is like being stabbed with icicles to be looked at so,--the

sooner she goes home, the better. I don't want a woman to weigh me in

a balance; there are men enough for that sort of work. The judicial

character isn't captivating in females, Sir. A woman fascinates a man

quite as often by what she overlooks as by what she sees. Love prefers

twilight to daylight; and a man doesn't think much of, nor care much

for, a woman outside of his household, unless he can couple the idea

of love, past, present, or future, with her. I don't believe the Devil

cares half so much for the services of a sinner as he does for those of

one of these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in a way to make

them unpleasing.--That young girl wants a tender nature to cherish her

and give her a chance to put out her leaves,--sunshine, and not east

winds.

He was silent,--and sat looking at his handsome left hand with the red

stone ring upon it.--Is he going to fall in love with Iris?

Here are some lines I read to the boarders the other day:--

THE CROOKED FOOTPATH.

Ah, here it is! the sliding rail

That marks the old remembered spot,--

The gap that struck our schoolboy trail,--

The crooked path across the lot.

It left the road by school and church,

A pencilled shadow, nothing more,

That parted from the silver birch

And ended at the farmhouse door.

No line or compass traced its plan;

With frequent bends to left or right,

In aimless, wayward curves it ran,

But always kept the door in sight.

The gabled porch, with woodbine green,--

The broken millstone at the sill,--

Though many a rood might stretch between,

The truant child could see them still.

No rocks across the pathway lie,--

No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown,--

And yet it winds, we know not why,

And turns as if for tree or stone.

Perhaps some lover trod the way

With shaking knees and leaping heart,--

And so it often runs astray

With sinuous sweep or sudden start.

Or one, perchance, with clouded brain

From some unholy banquet reeled,--

And since, our devious steps maintain

His track across the trodden field.

Nay, deem not thus,--no earth-born will

Could ever trace a faultless line;

Our truest steps are human still,--

To walk unswerving were divine!

Truants from love, we dream of wrath;--

Oh, rather let us trust the more!

Through all the wanderings of the path,

We still can see our Father's door!

THE MINISTER'S WOOING.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER X.

THE TEST OF THEOLOGY.

The Doctor went immediately to his study and put on his best coat and

his wig, and, surmounting them by his cocked hat, walked manfully out of

the house, with his gold-headed cane in his hand.

"There he goes!" said Mrs. Scudder, looking regretfully after him. "He

is such a good man! but he has not the least idea how to get along in

the world. He never thinks of anything but what is true; he hasn't a

particle of management about him."

"Seems to me," said Mary, "that is like an Apostle. You know, mother,

St. Paul says, 'In simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly

wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the

world.'"

"To be sure,--that is just the Doctor," said Mrs. Scudder; "that's

as like him as if it had been written for him. But that kind of way,

somehow, don't seem to do in our times; it won't answer with Simeon

Brown,----I know the man. I know just as well, now, how it will all seem

to him, and what will be the upshot of this talk, if the Doctor goes

there! It won't do any good; if it would, I would be willing. I feel as

much desire to have this horrid trade in slaves stopped as anybody; your

father, I'm sure, said enough about it in his time; but then I know it's

no use trying. Just as if Simeon Brown, when he is making his hundreds

of thousands in it, is going to be persuaded to give it up! He won't,

--he'll only turn against the Doctor, and won't pay his part of the

salary, and will use his influence to get up a party against him, and

our church will be broken up and the Doctor driven away,--that's all

that will come of it; and all the good that he is doing now to these

poor negroes will be overthrown,--and they never did have so good a

friend. If he would stay here and work gradually, and get his System of

Theology printed,--and Simeon Brown would help at that,--and only drop

words in season here and there, till people are brought along with him,

why, by-and-by something might be done; but now, it's just the most

imprudent thing a man could undertake."

"But, mother, if it really is a sin to trade in slaves and hold them, I

don't see how he can help himself. I quite agree with him. I don't see

how he came to let it go so long as he has."

"Well," said Mrs. Scudder, "if worst comes to worst, and he will do it,

I, for one, shall stand by him to the last."

"And I, for another," said Mary.

"I would like him to talk with Cousin Zebedee about it," said Mrs.

Scudder. "When we are up there this afternoon, we will introduce the

conversation. He is a good, sound man, and the Doctor thinks much of

him, and perhaps he may shed some light upon this matter."

Meanwhile the Doctor was making the best of his way, in the strength of

his purpose to test the orthodoxy of Simeon Brown.

Honest old granite boulder that he was, no sooner did he perceive a

truth than he rolled after it with all the massive gravitation of his

being, inconsiderate as to what might lie in his way;--from which it is

to be inferred, that, with all his intellect and goodness, he would have

been a very clumsy and troublesome inmate of the modern American Church.

How many societies, boards, colleges, and other good institutions,

have reason to congratulate themselves that he has long been among the

saints!

With him logic was everything, and to perceive a truth and not act in

logical sequence from it a thing so incredible, that he had not yet

enlarged his capacity to take it in as a possibility. That a man should

refuse to hear truth, he could understand. In fact, he had good reason

to think the majority of his townsmen had no leisure to give to that

purpose. That men hearing truth should dispute it and argue stoutly

against it, he could also understand; but that a man could admit a truth

and not admit the plain practice resulting from it was to him a thing

incomprehensible. Therefore, spite of Mrs. Katy Scudder's discouraging

observations, our good Doctor walked stoutly and with a trusting heart.

At the moment when the Doctor, with a silent uplifting of his soul to

his invisible Sovereign, passed out of his study, on this errand, where

was the disciple whom he went to seek?

In a small, dirty room, down by the wharf, the windows veiled by cobwebs

and dingy with the accumulated dust of ages, he sat in a greasy,

leathern chair by a rickety office-table, on which was a great pewter

inkstand, an account-book, and divers papers tied with red tape.

Opposite to him was seated a square-built individual,--a man of about

forty, whose round head, shaggy eyebrows, small, keen eyes, broad chest,

and heavy muscles showed a preponderance of the animal and brutal over

the intellectual and spiritual. This was Mr. Scroggs, the agent of a

rice-plantation, who had come on, bringing an order for a new relay of

negroes to supply the deficit occasioned by fever, dysentery, and other

causes, in their last year's stock.

"The fact is," said Simeon, "this last ship-load wasn't as good a one as

usual; we lost more than a third of it, so we can't afford to put them a

penny lower."

"Ay," said the other,--"but then there are so many women!"

"Well," said Simeon, "women a'n't so strong, perhaps, to start

with,--but then they stan' it out, perhaps, in the long run, better.

They're more patient;--some of these men, the Mandingoes, particularly,

are pretty troublesome to manage. We lost a splendid fellow, coming

over, on this very voyage. Let 'em on deck for air, and this fellow

managed to get himself loose and fought like a dragon. He settled one

of our men with his fist, and another with a marlinespike that he

caught,--and, in fact, they had to shoot him down. You'll have his wife;

there's his son, too,--fine fellow, fifteen year old by his teeth."

"What! that lame one?"

"Oh, he a'n't lame!--it's nothing but the cramps from stowing. You know,

of course, they are more or less stiff. He's as sound as a nut."

"Don't much like to buy relations, on account of their hatching up

mischief together," said Mr. Scroggs.

"Oh, that's all humbug! You must keep 'em from coming together, anyway.

It's about as broad as 'tis long. There'll be wives and husbands and

children among 'em before long, start 'em as you will. And then this

woman will work better for having the boy; she's kinder set on him; she

jabbers lots of lingo to him, day and night."

"Too much, I doubt," said the overseer, with a shrug.

"Well, well--I'll tell you," said Simeon, rising. "I've got a few

errands up-town, and you just step over with Matlock and look over

the stock;--just set aside any that you want, and when I see 'em all

together, I'll tell you just what you shall have 'em for. I'll be back

in an hour or two."

And so saying, Simeon Brown called an underling from an adjoining room,

and, committing his customer to his care, took his way up-town, in a

serene frame of mind, like a man who comes from the calm performance of

duty.

Just as he came upon the street where was situated his own large and

somewhat pretentious mansion, the tall figure of the Doctor loomed in

sight, sailing majestically down upon him, making a signal to attract

his attention.

"Good morning, Doctor," said Simeon.

"Good morning, Mr. Brown," said the Doctor. "I was looking for you. I

did not quite finish the subject we were talking about at Mrs. Scudder's

table last night. I thought I should like to go on with it a little."

"With all my heart, Doctor," said Simeon, not a little flattered. "Turn

right in. Mrs. Brown will be about her house-business, and we will have

the keeping-room all to ourselves. Come right in."

The "keeping-room" of Mr. Simeon Brown's house was an intermediate

apartment between the ineffable glories of the front-parlor and that

court of the gentiles, the kitchen; for the presence of a large train

of negro servants made the latter apartment an altogether different

institution from the throne-room of Mrs. Katy Scudder.

This keeping-room was a low-studded apartment, finished with the heavy

oaken beams of the wall left full in sight, boarded over and painted.

Two windows looked out on the street, and another into a sort of

court-yard, where three black wenches, each with a broom, pretended to

be sweeping, but were, in fact, chattering and laughing, like so many

crows.

On one side of the room stood a heavy mahogany sideboard, covered with

decanters, labelled Gin, Brandy, Rum, etc.,--for Simeon was held to be

a provider of none but the best, in his housekeeping. Heavy mahogany

chairs, with crewel coverings, stood sentry about the room; and the

fireplace was flanked by two broad arm-chairs, covered with stamped

leather.

On ushering the Doctor into this apartment, Simeon courteously led him

to the sideboard.

"We mus'n't make our discussions too _dry_, Doctor," he said. "What will

you take?"

"Thank you, Sir," said the Doctor, with a wave of his hand,--"nothing

this morning."

And depositing his cocked hat in a chair, he settled himself into one of

the leathern easy-chairs, and, dropping his hands upon his knees, looked

fixedly before him, like a man who is studying how to enter upon an

inwardly absorbing subject.

"Well, Doctor," said Simeon, seating himself opposite, sipping

comfortably at a glass of rum-and-water, "our views appear to be making

a noise in the world. Everything is preparing for your volumes; and

when they appear, the battle of New Divinity, I think, may fairly be

considered as won."

Let us consider, that, though a woman may forget her first-born, yet a

man cannot forget his own system of theology,--because therein, if he be

a true man, is the very elixir and essence of all that is valuable and

hopeful to the universe; and considering this, let us appreciate the

settled purpose of our friend, whom even this tempting bait did not

swerve from the end which he had in view.

"Mr. Brown," he said, "all our theology is as a drop in the ocean of

God's majesty, to whose glory we must be ready to make any and every

sacrifice."

"Certainly," said Mr. Brown, not exactly comprehending the turn the

Doctor's thoughts were taking.

"And the glory of God consisteth in the happiness of all his rational

universe, each in his proportion, according to his separate amount of

being; so that, when we devote ourselves to God's glory, it is the same

as saying that we devote ourselves to the highest happiness of his

created universe."

"That's clear, Sir," said Simeon, rubbing his hands, and taking out his

watch to see the time.

The Doctor hitherto had spoken in a laborious manner, like a man who is

slowly lifting a heavy bucket of thought out of an internal well.

"I am glad to find your mind so clear on this all-important point, Mr.

Brown,--the more so as I feel that we must immediately proceed to apply

our principles, at whatever sacrifice of worldly goods; and I trust,

Sir, that you are one who at the call of your Master would not hesitate

even to lay down all your worldly possessions for the greater good of

the universe."

"I trust so, Sir," said Simeon, rather uneasily, and without the most

distant idea what could be coming next in the mind of his reverend

friend.

"Did it never occur to you, my friend," said the Doctor, "that the

enslaving of the African race is a clear violation of the great law

which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves,--and a dishonor

upon the Christian religion, more particularly in us Americans, whom the

Lord hath so marvellously protected, in our recent struggle for our own

liberty?"

Simeon started at the first words of this address, much as if some one

had dashed a bucket of water on his head, and after that rose uneasily,

walking the room and playing with the seals of his watch.

"I--I never regarded it in this light," he said.

"Possibly not, my friend," said the Doctor,--"so much doth established

custom blind the minds of the best of men. But since I have given more

particular attention to the case of the poor negroes here in Newport,

the thought has more and more labored in my mind,--more especially as

our own struggles for liberty have turned my attention to the rights

which every human creature hath before God,--so that I find much in

my former blindness and the comparative dumbness I have heretofore

maintained on this subject wherewith to reproach myself; for, though I

have borne somewhat of a testimony, I have not given it that force which

so important a subject required. I am humbled before God for my neglect,

and resolved now, by His grace, to leave no stone unturned till this

iniquity be purged away from our Zion."

"Well, Doctor," said Simeon, "you are certainly touching on a very dark

and difficult subject, and one in which it is hard to find out the path

of duty. Perhaps it will be well to bear it in mind, and by looking at

it prayerfully some light may arise. There are such great obstacles in

the way, that I do not see at present what can be done; do you, Doctor?"

"I intend to preach on the subject next Sunday, and hereafter devote

my best energies in the most public way to this great work," said the

Doctor.

"You, Doctor?--and now, immediately? Why, it appears to me you cannot

do it. You are the most unfit man possible. Whosever duty it may be, it

does not seem to me to be yours. You already have more on your shoulders

than you can carry; you are hardly able to keep your ground now, with

all the odium of this new theology upon you. Such an effort would break

up your church,--destroy the chance you have to do good here,--prevent

the publication of your system."

"If it's nobody's system but mine, the world won't lose much, if it

never be published; but if it be God's system, nothing can hinder its

appearing. Besides, Mr. Brown, I ought not to be one man alone. I count

on your help. I hold it as a special providence, Mr. Brown, that in our

own church an opportunity will be given to testify to the reality of

disinterested benevolence. How glorious the opportunity for a man to

come out and testify by sacrificing his worldly living and business! If

you, Mr. Brown, will at once, at whatever sacrifice, quit all connection

with this detestable and diabolical slave-trade, you will exhibit a

spectacle over which angels will rejoice, and which will strengthen and

encourage me to preach and write and testify."

Mr. Simeon Brown's usual demeanor was that of the most leathery

imperturbability. In calm theological reasoning, he could demonstrate,

in the dryest tone, that, if the eternal torment of six bodies and

souls were absolutely the necessary means for preserving the eternal

blessedness of thirty-six, benevolence would require us to rejoice in

it, not in itself considered, but in view of greater good. And when he

spoke, not a nerve quivered; the great mysterious sorrow with which the

creation groaneth and travaileth, the sorrow from which angels veil

their faces, never had touched one vibrating chord either of body

or soul; and he laid down the obligations of man to unconditional

submission in a style which would have affected a person of delicate

sensibility much like being mentally sawn in sunder. Benevolence,

when Simeon Brown spoke of it, seemed the grimmest and unloveliest of

Gorgons; for his mind seemed to resemble those fountains which petrify

everything that falls into them. But the hardest-shelled animals have a

vital and sensitive part, though only so large as the point of a needle;

and the Doctor's innocent proposition to Simeon, to abandon his whole

worldly estate for his principles, touched this spot.

When benevolence required but the acquiescence in certain possible

things which might be supposed to happen to his soul, which, after all,

he was comfortably certain never would happen, or the acquiescence in

certain supposititious sacrifices for the good of that most intangible

of all abstractions, Being in general, it was a dry, calm subject. But

when it concerned the immediate giving-up of his slave-ships and a

transfer of business, attended with all that confusion and loss which he

foresaw at a glance, then he _felt_, and felt too much to see clearly.

His swarthy face flushed, his little blue eye kindled, he walked up to

the Doctor and began speaking in the short, energetic sentences of a man

thoroughly awake to what he is talking about.

"Doctor, you're too fast. You are not a practical man, Doctor. You are

good in your pulpit;--nobody better. Your theology is clear;--nobody can

argue better. But come to practical matters, why, business has its laws,

Doctor. Ministers are the most unfit men in the world to talk on such

subjects; it's departing from their sphere; they talk about what they

don't understand. Besides, you take too much for granted. I'm not sure

that this trade is an evil. I want to be convinced of it. I'm sure it's

a favor to these poor creatures to bring them to a Christian land. They

are a thousand times better off. Here they can hear the gospel and have

some chance of salvation."

"If we want to get the gospel to the Africans," said the Doctor,

"why not send whole ship-loads of missionaries to them, and carry

civilization and the arts and Christianity to Africa, instead of

stirring up wars, tempting them to ravage each other's territories, that

we may get the booty? Think of the numbers killed in the wars,--of all

that die on the passage! Is there any need of killing ninety-nine men to

give the hundredth one the gospel, when we could give the gospel to them

all? Ah, Mr. Brown, what if all the money spent in fitting out ships to

bring the poor negroes here, so prejudiced against Christianity that

they regard it with fear and aversion, had been spent in sending it to

them, Africa would have been covered with towns and villages, rejoicing

in civilization and Christianity!"

"Doctor, you are a dreamer," replied Simeon, "an unpractical man. Your

situation prevents your knowing anything of real life."

"Amen! the Lord be praised therefor!" said the Doctor, with a slowly

increasing flush mounting to his cheek, showing the burning brand of a

smouldering fire of indignation.

"Now let me just talk common-sense, Doctor,--which has its time and

place, just as much as theology;--and if you have the most theology, I

flatter myself I have the most common-sense; a business-man must have

it. Now just look at your situation,--how you stand. You've got a most

important work to do. In order to do it, you must keep your pulpit, you

must keep our church together. We are few and weak. We are a minority.

Now there's not an influential man in your society that don't either

hold slaves or engage in the trade; and if you open upon this subject as

you are going to do, you'll just divide and destroy the church. All men

are not like you;--men are men, and will be, till they are thoroughly

sanctified, which never happens in this life,--and there will be an

instant and most unfavorable agitation. Minds will be turned off from

the discussion of the great saving doctrines of the gospel to a side

issue. You will be turned out,--and you know, Doctor, you are not

appreciated as you ought to be, and it won't be easy for you to get a

new settlement; and then subscriptions will all drop off from your book,

and you won't be able to get that out; and all this good will be lost to

the world, just for want of common-sense."

"There is a kind of wisdom in what you say, Mr. Brown," replied the

Doctor, naïvely; "but I fear much that it is the wisdom spoken in James,

iii. 15, which 'descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual,

devilish.' You avoid the very point of the argument, which is, Is this a

sin against God? That it is, I am solemnly convinced; and shall I 'use

lightness? or the things that I purpose do I purpose according to the

flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay?' No, Mr.

Brown, immediate repentance, unconditional submission, these are what I

must preach as long as God gives me a pulpit to stand in, whether men

will hear or whether they will forbear."

"Well, Doctor," said Simeon, shortly, "you can do as you like; but I

give you fair warning, that I, for one, shall stop my subscription, and

go to Dr. Stiles's church."

"Mr. Brown," said the Doctor, solemnly, rising, and drawing his tall

figure to its full height, while a vivid light gleamed from his blue

eye, "as to that, you can do as you like; but I think it my duty, as

your pastor, to warn you that I have perceived, in my conversation

with you this morning, such a want of true spiritual illumination and

discernment as leads me to believe that you are yet in the flesh,

blinded by that 'carnal mind' which 'is not subject to the law of God,

neither indeed can be.' I much fear you have no part nor lot in this

matter, and that you have need, seriously, to set yourself to search

into the foundations of your hope; for you may be like him of whom it is

written, (Isaiah, xliv. 20,) 'He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath

turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not

a lie in my right hand?'"

The Doctor delivered this address to his man of influence with the

calmness of an ambassador charged with a message from a sovereign,

for which he is no otherwise responsible than to speak it in the most

intelligible manner; and then, taking up his hat and cane, he bade him

good morning, leaving Simeon Brown in a tumult of excitement which no

previous theological discussion had ever raised in him.

CHAPTER XI

THE PRACTICAL TEST.

The hens cackled drowsily in the barnyard of the white Marvyn-house;

in the blue June-afternoon sky sported great sailing islands of cloud,

whose white, glistening heads looked in and out through the green

apertures of maple and blossoming apple-boughs; the shadows of the trees

had already turned eastward, when the one-horse wagon of Mrs. Katy

Scudder appeared at the door, where Mrs. Marvyn stood, with a pleased,

quiet welcome in her soft, brown eyes. Mrs. Scudder herself drove,

sitting on a seat in front,--while the Doctor, apparelled in the

most faultless style, with white wrist-ruffles, plaited shirt-bosom,

immaculate wig, and well-brushed coat, sat by Mary's side, serenely

unconscious how many feminine cares had gone to his getting-up. He

did not know of the privy consultations, the sewings, stitchings, and

starchings, the ironings, the brushings, the foldings and unfoldings and

timely arrangements, that gave such dignity and respectability to his

outer man, any more than the serene moon rising tranquilly behind a

purple mountain-top troubles her calm head with treatises on astronomy;

it is enough for her to shine,--she thinks not how or why.

There is a vast amount of latent gratitude to women lying undeveloped in

the hearts of men, which would come out plentifully, if they only knew

what they did for them. The Doctor was so used to being well dressed,

that he never asked why. That his wig always sat straight and even

around his ample forehead, not facetiously poked to one side, nor

assuming rakish airs, unsuited to clerical dignity, was entirely owing

to Mrs. Katy Scudder. That his best broadcloth coat was not illustrated

with shreds and patches, fluff and dust, and hanging in ungainly

folds, was owing to the same. That his long silk stockings never had a

treacherous stitch allowed to break out into a long running ladder was

due to her watchfulness; and that he wore spotless ruffles on his wrists

or at his bosom was her doing also. The Doctor little thought, while he,

in common with good ministers generally, gently traduced the Scriptural

Martha and insisted on the duty of heavenly abstractedness, how much of

his own leisure for spiritual contemplation was due to the Martha-like

talents of his hostess. But then, the good soul had it in him to be

grateful, and would have been unboundedly so, if he had known his

indebtedness,--as, we trust, most of our magnanimous masters would be.

Mr. Zebedee Marvyn was quietly sitting in the front summer parlor,

listening to the story of two of his brother church-members, between

whom some difficulty had arisen in the settling of accounts: Jim

Bigelow, a small, dry, dapper little individual, known as general jobber

and factotum, and Abram Griswold, a stolid, wealthy, well-to-do farmer.

And the fragments of conversation we catch are not uninteresting, as

showing Mr. Zebedee's habits of thought and mode of treating those who

came to him for advice.

"I could 'ave got along better, if he'd 'a' paid me regular every

night," said the squeaky voice of little Jim;--"but he was allers

puttin' me off till it come even change, he said."

"Well, 'ta'n't always handy," replied the other; "one doesn't like to

break into a five-pound note for nothing; and I like to let it run till

it comes even change."

"But, brother," said Mr. Zebedee, turning over the great Bible that lay

on the mahogany stand in the corner, "we must go to the law and to the

testimony,"--and, turning over the leaves, he read from Deuteronomy,

xxiv.:--

"Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether

he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers that are in thy land within

thy gates. At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the

sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest

he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee."

"You see what the Bible has to say on the matter," he said.

"Well, now, Deacon, I rather think you've got me in a tight place," said

Mr. Griswold, rising; and turning confusedly round, he saw the placid

figure of the Doctor, who had entered the room unobserved in the midst

of the conversation, and was staring with that look of calm, dreamy

abstraction which often led people to suppose that he heard and saw

nothing of what was going forward.

All rose reverently; and while Mr. Zebedee was shaking hands with the

Doctor, and welcoming him to his house, the other two silently withdrew,

making respectful obeisance.

Mrs. Marvyn had drawn Mary's hand gently under her arm and taken her to

her own sleeping-room, as it was her general habit to do, that she might

show her the last book she had been reading, and pour into her ear the

thoughts that had been kindled up by it.

Mrs. Scudder, after carefully brushing every speck of dust from the

Doctor's coat and seeing him seated in an armchair by the open window,

took out a long stocking of blue-mixed yarn which she was knitting for

his winter wear, and, pinning her knitting-sheath on her side, was soon

trotting her needles contentedly in front of him.

The ill-success of the Doctor's morning attempt at enforcing his

theology in practice rather depressed his spirits. There was a noble

innocence of nature in him which looked at hypocrisy with a puzzled and

incredulous astonishment. How a man _could_ do so and be so was to him

a problem at which his thoughts vainly labored. Not that he was in the

least discouraged or hesitating in regard to his own course. When he

had made up his mind to perform a duty, the question of success no more

entered his thoughts than those of the granite boulder to which we have

before compared him. When the time came for him to roll, he did roll

with the whole force of his being;--where he was to land was not his

concern.

Mildly and placidly he sat with his hands resting on his knees, while

Mr. Zebedee and Mrs. Scudder compared notes respecting the relative

prospects of corn, flax, and buckwheat, and thence passed to the doings

of Congress and the last proclamation of General Washington, pausing

once in a while, if, peradventure, the Doctor might take up the

conversation. Still he sat dreamily eyeing the flies as they fizzed down

the panes of the half-open window.

"I think," said Mr. Zebedee, "the prospects of the Federal party were

never brighter."

The Doctor was a stanch Federalist, and generally warmed to this

allurement; but it did not serve this time.

Suddenly drawing himself up, a light came into his blue eyes, and he

said to Mr. Marvyn,--

"I'm thinking, Deacon, if it is wrong to keep back the wages of a

servant till after the going down of the sun, what those are to do who

keep them back all their lives."

There was a way the Doctor had of hearing and seeing when he looked

as if his soul were afar off, and bringing suddenly into present

conversation some fragment of the past on which he had been leisurely

hammering in the quiet chambers of his brain, which was sometimes quite

startling.

This allusion to a passage of Scripture which Mr. Marvyn was reading

when he came in, and which nobody supposed he had attended to, startled

Mrs. Scudder, who thought, mentally, "Now for it!" and laid down her

knitting-work, and eyed her cousin anxiously. Mrs. Marvyn and Mary, who

had glided in and joined the circle, looked interested; and a slight

flush rose and overspread the thin cheeks of Mr. Marvyn, and his

blue eyes deepened a moment with a thoughtful shadow, as he looked

inquiringly at the Doctor, who proceeded:--

"My mind labors with this subject of the enslaving of the Africans, Mr.

Marvyn. We have just been declaring to the world that all men are born

with an inalienable right to liberty. We have fought for it, and the

Lord of Hosts has been with us; and can we stand before Him with our

foot upon our brother's neck?"

A generous, upright nature is always more sensitive to blame than

another,--sensitive in proportion to the amount of its reverence

for good,--and Mr. Marvyn's face flushed, his eye kindled, and his

compressed respiration showed how deeply the subject moved him. Mrs.

Marvyn's eyes turned on him an anxious look of inquiry. He answered,

however, calmly:--

"Doctor, I have thought of the subject, myself. Mrs. Marvyn has lately

been reading a pamphlet of Mr. Thomas Clarkson's on the slave-trade,

and she was saying to me only last night, that she did not see but the

argument extended equally to holding slaves. One thing, I confess,

stumbles me:--Was there not an express permission given to Israel to buy

and hold slaves of old?"

"Doubtless," said the Doctor; "but many permissions were given to them

which were local and temporary; for if we hold them to apply to the

human race, the Turks might quote the Bible for making slaves of us,

if they could,--and the Algerines have the Scripture all on their

side,--and our own blacks, at some future time, if they can get the

power, might justify themselves in making slaves of us."

"I assure you, Sir," said Mr. Marvyn, "if I speak, it is not to excuse

myself. But I am quite sure my servants do not desire liberty, and would

not take it, if it were offered."

"Call them in and try it," said the Doctor. "If they refuse, it is their

own matter."

There was a gentle movement in the group at the directness of this

personal application; but Mr. Marvyn replied, calmly,--

"Cato is up at the eight-acre lot, but you may call in Candace. My dear,

call Candace, and let the Doctor put the question to her."

Candace was at this moment sitting before the ample fireplace in the

kitchen, with two iron kettles before her, nestled each in its bed of

hickory coals, which gleamed out from their white ashes like sleepy, red

eyes, opening and shutting. In one was coffee, which she was burning,

stirring vigorously with a pudding-stick,--and in the other, puffy

dough-nuts, in shapes of rings, hearts, and marvellous twists, which

Candace had such a special proclivity for making, that Mrs. Marvyn's

table and closets never knew an intermission of their presence.

"Candace, the Doctor wishes to see you," said Mrs. Marvyn.

"Bress his heart!" said Candace, looking up, perplexed. "Wants to see

me, does he? Can't nobody hab me till dis yer coffee's done; a minnit's

a minnit in coffee;--but I'll be in dereckly," she added, in a

patronizing tone. "Missis, you jes' go 'long in, an' I'll be dar

dereckly."

A few moments after, Candace joined the group in the sitting-room,

having hastily tied a clean, white apron over her blue linsey

working-dress, and donned the brilliant Madras which James had lately

given her, and which she had a barbaric fashion of arranging so as to

give to her head the air of a gigantic butterfly. She sunk a dutiful

curtsy, and stood twirling her thumbs, while the Doctor surveyed her

gravely.

"Candace," said he, "do you think it right that the black race should be

slaves to the white?"

The face and air of Candace presented a curious picture at this moment;

a sort of rude sense of delicacy embarrassed her, and she turned a

deprecating look, first on Mrs. Marvyn and then on her master.

"Don't mind us, Candace," said Mrs. Marvyn; "tell the Doctor the exact

truth."

Candace stood still a moment, and the spectators saw a deeper shadow

roll over her sable face, like a cloud over a dark pool of water, and

her immense person heaved with her labored breathing.

"Ef I must speak, I must," she said. "No,--I neber did tink 'twas right.

When Gineral Washington was here, I hearn 'em read de Declaration ob

Independence and Bill o' Rights; an' I tole Cato den, says I, 'Ef dat

ar' true, you an' I are as free as anybody.' It stands to reason. Why,

look at me,--I a'n't a critter. I's neider huffs nor horns. I's a

reasonable bein',--a woman,--as much a woman as anybody," she said,

holding up her head with an air as majestic as a palm-tree;--"an'

Cato,--he's a man, born free an' equal, ef dar's any truth in what you

read,--dat's all."

"But, Candace, you've always been contented and happy with us, have you

not?" said Mr. Marvyn.

"Yes, Mass'r,--I ha'n't got nuffin to complain ob in dat matter. I

couldn't hab no better friends 'n you an' Missis."

"Would you like your liberty, if you could get it, though?" said Mr.

Marvyn, "Answer me honestly."

"Why, to be sure I should! Who wouldn't? Mind ye," she said, earnestly

raising her black, heavy hand, "'ta'n't dat I want to go off, or want to

shirk work; but I want to _feel free_. Dem dat isn't free has nuffin to

gib to nobody;--dey can't show what dey would do."

"Well, Candace, from this day you are free," said Mr. Marvyn, solemnly.

Candace covered her face with both her fat hands, and shook and

trembled, and, finally, throwing her apron over her head, made a

desperate rush for the door, and threw herself down in the kitchen in a

perfect tropical torrent of tears and sobs.

"You see," said the Doctor, "what freedom is to every human creature.

The blessing of the Lord will be on this deed, Mr. Marvyn. 'The steps of

a just man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.'"

At this moment, Candace reappeared at the door, her butterfly turban

somewhat deranged with the violence of her prostration, giving a

whimsical air to her portly person.

"I want ye all to know," she said, with a clearing-up snuff, "dat it's

my will an' pleasure to go right on doin' my work jes' de same; an',

Missis, please, I'll allers put three eggs in de crullers, now; an' I

won't turn de wash-basin down in de sink, but hang it jam-up on de

nail; an' I won't pick up chips in a milkpan, ef I'm in ever so big a

hurry;--I'll do eberyting jes' as ye tells me. Now you try me an' see ef

I won't!"

Candace here alluded to some of the little private wilfulnesses which

she had always obstinately cherished as reserved rights, in pursuing

domestic matters with her mistress.

"I intend," said Mr. Marvyn, "to make the same offer to your husband,

when he returns from work to-night."

"Laus, Mass'r,--why, Cato he'll do jes' as I do,--dere a'n't no kind o'

need o' askin' him. 'Course he will."

A smile passed round the circle, because between Candace and her husband

there existed one of those whimsical contrasts which one sometimes sees

in married life. Cato was a small-built, thin, softly-spoken negro,

addicted to a gentle chronic cough; and, though a faithful and skilful

servant, seemed, in relation to his better half, much like a hill of

potatoes under a spreading apple-tree. Candace held to him with a

vehement and patronizing fondness, so devoid of conjugal reverence as to

excite the comments of her friends.

"You must remember, Candace," said a good deacon to her one day, when

she was ordering him about at a catechizing, "you ought to give honor to

your husband; the wife is the weaker vessel."

"_I_ de weaker vessel?" said Candace, looking down from the tower of her

ample corpulence on the small, quiet man whom she had been fledging with

the ample folds of a worsted comforter, out of which his little head

and shining bead-eyes looked, much like a blackbird in a nest,--"_I_ de

weaker vessel? Umph!"

A whole-woman's-rights' convention could not have expressed more in a

day than was given in that single look and word. Candace considered

a husband as a thing to be taken care of,--a rather inconsequent and

somewhat troublesome species of pet, to be humored, nursed, fed,

clothed, and guided in the way that he was to go,--an animal that was

always losing off buttons, catching colds, wearing his best coat every

day, and getting on his Sunday hat in a surreptitious manner for

week-day occasions; but she often condescended to express it as her

opinion that he was a blessing, and that she didn't know what she should

do, if it wasn't for Cato. In fact, he seemed to supply her that which

we are told is the great want in woman's situation,--an object in

life. She sometimes was heard expressing herself very energetically in

disapprobation of the conduct of one of her sable friends, named Jinny

Stiles, who, after being presented with her own freedom, worked several

years to buy that of her husband, but became afterwards so disgusted

with her acquisition that she declared she would "neber buy anoder

nigger."

"Now Jinny don't know what she's talkin' about," she would say. "S'pose

he does cough and keep her awake nights, and take a little too much

sometimes, a'n't he better'n no husband at all? A body wouldn't seem to

hab nuffin to lib for, ef dey hadn't an ole man to look arter. Men

is nate'lly foolish about some tings,--but dey's good deal better'n

nuffin."

And Candace, after this condescending remark, would lift off with one

hand a brass kettle in which poor Cato might have been drowned, and fly

across the kitchen with it as if it were a feather.

[To be continued.]

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_The Works of Francis Bacon_, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and

Lord High Chancellor of England. Collected and edited by James Spedding,

M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge; Robert Leslie Ellis, M.A.,

late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; and Douglas Denon Heath,

Barrister-at-Law, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Vols.

I.-VI. London: Longman & Co. 1858.

"For my name and memory," said Bacon in his will, "I leave it to men's

charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next ages."

Scarcely was he dead when the first portion of this legacy received some

part of its fulfilment in the touching and often quoted words of Ben

Jonson:--"My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his

place or honors; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that

was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work,

one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been

in many ages. In his adversity, I ever prayed that God would give him

strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in

a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to

virtue, but rather help to make it manifest." But it may fairly be

doubted whether "the next ages" have done fitly by his memory, spite of

the honor that has been indiscriminately lavished upon his name as a

philosopher, and the mass of praise, for the most part ignorant, beneath

which his works have been buried. The world of readers has been content

to take Bacon's greatness upon trust, or to form such imperfect idea of

it as was to be got from acquaintance with his "Essays," the only one

of his works which has ever attained popularity. Even more thorough

students have, for the most part, satisfied themselves with a general

view of Bacon's philosophy, dwelling on disconnected passages of ample

thought or aphoristic wisdom, and rarely attempting to gain an insight

into the real character of his system. Indeed, "the system of Lord

Bacon" became a sort of cabalistic phrase. It meant anything and

everything. It was like the English Constitution, venerable in authority

and prescription, interpreted in contradictory methods, and never

precisely defined. Few men undertook to study it with a zeal like that

of Homer and his friend Lord Webb Seymour, when, in days of enthusiasm,

they read and re-read the "De Augmentis" and the "Novum Organum," and

Homer planned to do what Dr. Whewell seems to suppose he has done, bring

Bacon up to the present time, by writing a work upon the basis of his,

which should furnish a complete review of modern knowledge. Still, it

has been part of an English birthright to hold Bacon as the restorer of

the sciences, the inventor or at least the re-inventor of the inductive

method, and the father of all discovery since his time. These notions

have been held firmly, while more special ones concerning his system and

himself have been, for the most part, vague or unformed.

In great part, this fact is the result of the condition in which Lord

Bacon left his works, the manner of their composition, and their

intrinsic defects. He did not publish them in any systematic order,

but printed one after another, as it was written, or as extraneous

circumstances might induce. Nor did he leave his system complete in any

one treatise. His mind discursive, his imagination easily fired, he

seized subject after subject and discussed each in a separate treatise,

all with more or less reference to a general plan, but not embodied in

any consecutive and harmonious development. The growth of his ideas, the

changes of his views, as his life advanced, are manifest in the want of

connection, as well as in the connection, of these various fragments.

Dr. Rawley, his chaplain, says,--and it is a marvellous illustration of

Bacon's diligence and desire for perfection,--"I myself have seen, at

the least, twelve copies of the 'Instauration,' revised year by year,

one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame

thereof."

Such, then, being the state of Bacon's works at his death, much was left

to the judgment of his editors, and, unfortunately, the labor of editing

his books has, up to the present time, fallen into hands wanting in

competence and discretion. It has consequently been a task of special

difficulty to get from the ill-arranged mass of Bacon's writings a

satisfactory view of the essential elements of his philosophy and a just

knowledge of his final opinions.

But the reproach of non-fulfilment of the trust committed to them will

rest upon "the next ages" no longer; for the edition which is now in

course of publication amply redeems the faults of those that have

preceded it, and is such a one as Bacon himself might have approved. In

the second book of the "Advancement of Learning," in recounting "the

works or acts of merit toward learning," he includes among them "new

editions of authors, with more correct impressions, more faithful

translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annotations, and

the like." In each of these respects the edition before us deserves the

highest praise. The editors have engaged in their task as in a labor of

love. It is the result of many years of study, and it exhibits the fruit

of unwearied care, great learning, and excellent judgment. So far as

it has advanced, it does the highest honor to English scholarship, and

takes its place as one of the most remarkable editions in existence of

any author whose works stand in need of editorial care. The plan upon

which it is arranged is as follows. Bacon's works are divided into three

broad classes:--first, the Philosophical; secondly, the Professional;

thirdly, the Literary and Occasional. Each of these classes was

undertaken by a separate editor. Mr. Robert Leslie Ellis engaged upon

the Philosophical Works, and had advanced far in his task when he was

suddenly compelled to relinquish it some years since by illness which

completely disabled him for labor. What he had already accomplished is

so well done as to excite sincere regret that he was unable to carry his

work forward. But this regret is diminished by the ability with which

Mr. James Spedding, who had taken charge of the Literary and Occasional

Works, has supplied Mr. Ellis's place in the completion of the editing

of the Philosophical. The burden of the edition has fallen upon his

shoulders, and the chief credit for its excellence is due to him. Up to

the present time, the publication of the Philosophical Works is complete

in five volumes, and the first volume of the Literary Works has just

appeared. The separate treatises contained in the completed portion are

distributed into three parts,--"whereby," says Mr. Spedding, "all those

writings which were either published or intended for publication by

Bacon himself as parts of the Great Instauration are (for the first

time, I believe) exhibited separately, and distinguished as well from

the independent and collateral pieces which did not form part of the

main scheme, as from those which, though originally designed for it,

were afterwards superseded and abandoned." Each piece is accompanied

with a preface, both critical and historical, and with notes. It is

in these prefaces that a great part of the value of the new edition

consists; for they are in themselves treatises of elucidation and

illustration of Bacon's opinions, and of investigation concerning the

changes they underwent from time to time. They are written with great

clearness and ability, and, taken together, present such a view of

Bacon's philosophy as is to be found nowhere else, and amply answers the

requirements of students, however exacting.

Far too much credit has been attributed to Bacon, in popular estimation,

as the author of a system upon which the modern progress of science is

based.[A] Whatever his system may have been, it is certain that it has

had little direct influence upon the advance of knowledge. But, perhaps,

too little credit has been given to Bacon as a man whose breadth and

power of thought and amplitude of soul enabled a spirit that has at once

stimulated its progress and elevated its disciples. That Bacon believed

himself to have invented a system wholly new admits of no doubt; but it

is doubtful whether he ever definitely arranged this system in his own

mind. And it is a curious and interesting fact, and one illustrative, at

least, of the imperfection of Bacon's exposition of his own method, that

Mr. Ellis and Mr. Spedding, the two most conscientious investigators of

Bacon's thought, should have arrived at different conclusions in regard

to the distinctive peculiarities of the Baconian philosophy. Mr.

Spedding, in his very interesting preface to the "Parasceve," suggests,

since his own and Mr. Ellis's conclusions, though different, do not

appear irreconcilable, "whether there be not room for a third solution,

more complete than either, as including both." Both he and Mr. Ellis

set out from the position, that "the philosophy which Bacon meant to

announce was in some way essentially different, not only from any that

had been before, but from any that has been since,"--a position very

much opposed to the popular opinion. "The triumph of his [Bacon's]

principles of scientific investigation," said, not long since, a writer

in the "Quarterly Review," whose words may be taken as representative of

the common ideas on the matter, "has made it unnecessary to revert to

the reasoning by which they were established."[B] But the truth seems

to be, that the merits of Bacon belong, as Mr. Ellis well says, "to the

spirit rather than to the positive precepts of his philosophy." Nor does

it appear that Bacon himself, although he indulged the highest hopes and

felt the securest confidence in the results of his perfected system,

supposed that he had given to it that perfection which was required. In

the "De Augmentis Scientiarum," published in 1623, two years and a half

before his death, he says: "I am preparing and laboring with all my

might to make the mind of man, by help of art, a match for the nature

of things, (_ut mens per artem fiat rebus par_,) to discover an art of

Indication and Direction, whereby all other arts, with their axioms

and works, may be detected and brought to light. For I have, with good

reason, set this down as wanting." (Lib. v. c. 2.) Bacon regarded his

method, not only as one wholly new, but also of universal application,

and leading to absolute certainty. Doubt was to be excluded from its

results. By its means, all the knowledge of which men were capable was

to be attained surely and in a comparatively brief space of time. Such a

conviction, extravagant as it may seem, is expressed in many passages.

In the Preface to his "Parasceve," published in 1620, in the same volume

with the "Novum Organum," he says, that he is about to describe a

Natural and Experimental History, which, if it be once provided, (and

he assumes, that, "etiam vivis nobis," it may be provided,) "paucorum

annorum opus futuram esse inquitionem naturae et scientiarum omnium."

Again, in the Protemium of the "Novum Organum": "There was but one

course left, to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and

all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations." And in the

Dedication to the same work, he says, with characteristic confidence,

"Equidem Organum praebui,"--"I have provided the Instrument."

[Footnote A: The tendency of scientific thought had been, for a

considerable period before the time of Bacon, turned in the direction

which he, perhaps, did more than any other single investigator to

follow out and confirm. Leonardo da Vinci, the completest and most

comprehensive genius of Modern Italy, had anticipated, by more than a

century, several of the prominent features of the Baconian system. Too

little of Leonardo's scientific writings has been published to furnish

material for a satisfactory determination of their importance in

promoting the advance of knowledge,--but the coincidence of thought,

in some passages of his writings, with that in some of Bacon's weighty

sentences, is remarkable. "I shall treat of this subject," he says, in

a passage published by Venturi, "but I shall first set forth certain

experiments; it being my principle to cite experience first, and then to

demonstrate why bodies are constrained to act in such or such a manner.

This is the method to be observed in investigating phenomena of Nature.

It is true that Nature begins with the reason and ends with experience;

but no matter; the opposite way is to be taken. We must, as I have said,

begin with experience, and by means of this discover the reason."

Compare with this the two following passages from the "Novum

Organum,"--the first being taken from the Ninety-ninth Axiom of the

First Book. "Then only will there be good ground of hope for the further

advance of knowledge, when there shall be received and gathered together

into natural history a variety of experiments, which are of no use in

themselves, but to discover causes and axioms."--The next passage is

the Twenty-sixth Axiom of the same Book;--"The conclusions of human

reason, as ordinarily applied in matter of nature, I call, for the

sake of distinction, _Anticipations of Nature_ (as a thing rash or

premature). That reason which is elicited from facts by a just and

methodical process I call _Interpretation of Nature_."

The first and famous axiom of the "Novum Organum" contains the phrase

which Bacon constantly repeats,--"man being the interpreter of Nature."

Leonardo uses the same expression,--"li omini inventori e interpreti

tra la natura e gli omini." In another admirable passage of rebuke of

the boastful and empty followers of old teachers, Leonardo says: "Though

I might not cite authors as well as they, I shall cite a much greater

and worthier thing, in citing experience, the teacher of their teachers"

(_Maestra di loro maestri_). "And as for the overmuch credit," says

Bacon, "that hath been given unto authors in sciences, in making them

dictators that their words should stand, and not counsellors to give

advice, the damage is infinite that sciences have received thereby."

Similar parallelisms of thought are to be found in some of Galileo's

sentences, when brought into comparison with Lord Bacon.]

[Footnote B: Article on Whately's Edition of Bacon's Essays. September,

1856.]

The cause of Bacon's error in this regard, an error in spite of which

his philosophical works still remain the crowded repositories of true

wisdom, seems to have arisen, in considerable part, from a defect of

imagination. Knowledge is to be viewed in two aspects: one, that of its

relation to the finite capacities of the human mind; the other, its

relation to the infinity of Nature, that is, to the infinity of the

subjects of knowledge. Bacon regarded it chiefly from the first point of

view,--and, so far as we are aware, there is nowhere in his works any

recognition of the fact, that each advance in knowledge only opens new

and previously unknown regions of what is yet to be known. He supposed

that by his process Nature could be simplified to her few primary

elements, and that from these all other knowledge was to be deduced.

But, although her laws and elementary forms may be few, their

mollifications, as affecting knowledge and consequently human power and

interests, are unlimited. Moreover, in supposing that the discovery of

Nature could be made certain, and that, by a proper collection of facts,

the intellects of men might be brought upon a level of capacity for

discovery,--that is, that the process of discovery could be reduced to

a simple process of correct reasoning upon established facts,--Bacon

omitted to take into account the essential part which the imagination

plays in all discovery.

No discovery, properly so called, is the pure result of observation and

induction. Maury takes the accumulated observations of fifty years,

deduces from them the existence of certain prevailing winds and

currents, and states the fact. It is not properly a discovery, although

a collection of similar facts may lead to the knowledge of a general

law. Newton sees an apple fall; his imagination, with one of the vastest

leaps that human imagination ever made, connects its fall with the

motion of the planets, and makes an immortal discovery. James Watt said,

"Nature has her blind side." True, but it is only the instinct of the

imagination that discovers where the blind side lies. The tops of

kettles had been dancing ever since kettles were first hung over fires,

but no one caught the blind side of the fact till a Scotch boy saw it as

he sat dreaming at his aunt's fireside.

But if Bacon's imagination was imperfect in some directions, it

possessed in others a vision of the largest scope. No man ever saw more

clearly or vindicated more nobly the dignity of knowledge, the capacity

of the human mind, and the glory of God in the works of His hand. The

impulse which he gave to thought is still gathering force, and many of

the recommendations earnestly pressed in his works upon the attention

of men are only now beginning to receive their recognition and

accomplishment. When he sent a copy of the "Novum Organum" to Sir Henry

Wotton, Wotton, in his letter of thanks, said, "Your Lordship hath done

a great and everlasting benefit to the children of Nature, and to Nature

herself in her utmost extent of latitude,"--and his eulogium had more

truth than is common in contemporary compliments.

Great as a student of physical nature, Bacon was a master in the

knowledge of human nature. Pope only chose the epithet which all the

world had applied, when he wrote of the

"Words that _wise_ Bacon or grave Raleigh spake."

And nowhere is his wisdom more apparent than in the book of his

"Essays." The sixth volume of the edition before us contains, beside

the "Essays," the "History of King Henry VII.," with other fragmentary

histories, and the "De Sapienda Veterum," with a translation, which,

like the translations of the principal philosophical works in previous

volumes, is executed with admirable spirit and appropriateness.

All these works give the same evidence of editorial ability and skill

as those in the division of Philosophy. Mr. Spedding's Preface to the

"Henry VII." is not only an interesting essay in itself, but an able and

satisfactory vindication of Bacon's general historic accuracy. Bacon's

view of the true office of history is very different from the theory

which has lately prevailed to a considerable extent, and it would be

well, perhaps, were its wisdom more considered. "It is the true office

of history," he says, (_Advancement of Learning_, Book II.,) "to

represent the events themselves, together with the counsels; and to

leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and

faculty of every man's judgment." And to this he adds, with much pith,

in the "De Augmentis," II. 9,--"Licet enim Historia quaeque prudentior

politicis praeceptis et monitis veluti impregnata sit, tamen scriptor

ipse sibi obstetricari non debet." Bacon wrote history according to his

own rule, and proved its value by the practical exemplification which he

gave of it. There are few better pieces of historic narrative in English

than this "History of Henry VII."

Special thanks are due to Mr. Spedding for having reprinted, in full,

the first three editions of the "Essays,"--the three that were published

by Bacon himself. The first appeared in 1597, and contained but ten

essays; the second in 1612, when Bacon was in the height of prosperity,

and contained thirty-eight; the third appeared in 1625, after his

downfall, less than a year before his death, and contained fifty-eight

essays. The three thus afford, as well by the successive additions of

new essays as by the alterations which are made in the earlier, a most

interesting exhibition of the direction of Bacon's thought at different

periods of his life, and the changes in his style. The comparison is one

of very great interest, but more space is required to develop it than

we have for the present at command. One fact only may be noted in

passing,--that the essay on Adversity, which contains that most

memorable and noble sentence, "Prosperity is the blessing of the Old

Testament, Adversity is the blessing of the New," is one of those

added in the last edition, after Bacon himself had experienced all the

bitterness of adversity.

Mr. Spedding proposes, in the forthcoming volumes of the Occasional

Works of Lord Bacon, to connect his speeches and letters with an

explanatory narrative,--thus presenting, he says, "a biography the most

copious, the most minute, and, by the very necessity of the case, the

fairest that I can produce." He promises "new matter which is neither

little nor unimportant; but," he adds, "more important than the new

matter is the new aspect which (if I may judge of other minds by my own)

will be imparted to the old matter by this manner of setting it forth."

We await this part of Mr. Spedding's work with especial interest, for

in it will unquestionably be afforded, for the first time, the means of

forming a correct judgment of Bacon's character, and just conclusions

concerning those public actions of his which have hitherto stood in

perplexing contradiction to his avowed principles, to the nobility of

his views, to his religious professions, to the reverential love with

which he was regarded by those who knew him best. It is not to be hoped

that his life can be redeemed from stain; but it may be hoped that a

true presentation of the grounds and bearings of his actions may relieve

him from the name of "meanest of mankind," and may show that his faults

were rather those of his time than of his nature. We shall keep our

readers informed of the progress of this invaluable edition, which

should lead to the more faithful and general study of the works of him

whom "all that were great and good loved and honored."

_A New History of the Conquest of Mexico._ In which Las Casas'

Denunciations of the Popular Historians of that War are fully

vindicated. By ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, Counsellor at Law; Author of

"Mexico and its Religion," etc. Philadelphia: James Challen & Son.

Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co.

Before touching on the subject-matter of this book, we have something to

say respecting the spirit in which it appears to have been written, the

style of its execution, and the manner in which it has been introduced

to the world. As it is avowedly an attempt to refute the positions taken

up by Mr. Prescott in his "History of the Conquest of Mexico," and to

destroy the established reputation of that work, we are naturally led

into a comparison between the two writers, that extends beyond the

theories and ideas which they have respectively adopted and maintained.

We cannot but remember, (and such remembrances awaken now other feelings

besides mere respect and admiration,) that, when Prescott was entering

upon his literary career, he labored in silence and retirement; that,

in the prosecution of his researches, in the gradual formation of his

views, and in the preparation of his work, he spared no labor and made

no account of time; that, devoting himself to his chosen pursuit with

the ardor of a scholar and a searcher after truth, he felt a modest

self-reliance, and a just confidence in the utility of his labors,

without anticipating the reward of a wide-spread fame; that he was

prompt to acknowledge every service, or offer of service, which had been

made to him, and communicated to the public not only his information,

but the sources from which it had been derived; that, where he rejected

the conclusions of other writers, he treated those from whom he differed

with the utmost courtesy and candor; and that, when his task was

completed, he left it to the free judgment of the world, without

soliciting approbation or courting any man's applause.

This is not the course which Mr. Robert Anderson Wilson has thought fit

to take. An accidental visit to Mexico, for which he appears to

consider himself entitled to no slight commendation, led him into some

speculations on the origin and civilization of the Aztec race. Without

waiting to inform himself of the ideas entertained on these subjects

by other men, he hastened to put forth his own crude notions in a

work entitled "Mexico and its Religion," and twice reprinted by its

enterprising publishers, with titles varied to suit what was supposed to

be the popular taste. Still entertaining an aversion to laborious study,

(for which, indeed, his previous education, as well as precarious

health, appears to have disqualified him,) he announced his purpose

to write a History of the Conquest of Mexico "from the American

stand-point," and issued what he himself called "a clap-trap

advertisement," for the purpose of enlisting the sympathies of a class

in whom hatred of Romanism preponderates over knowledge and judgment. He

had made some progress in his "History," when he found that the ideas

which he had supposed to be original in his own brain were old and

trite. Being thus precluded from claiming for himself the merits of a

discoverer, he has shown an eagerness, every way praiseworthy, to place

the laurel on the brow to which he supposes it rightfully belongs.

Accordingly, he presents to the world, as his master and pioneer, that

renowned authority on the antiquities of New Spain, the Hon. Lewis Cass,

who, it appears, had published an essay on the subject in the "North

American Review." While his work was passing through the press, Mr.

Wilson wrote what he styles a "Chapter Preliminary," but what we suppose

would have been styled by persons who affect the native idiom when

writing their own language, a "Preliminary Chapter." This "Chapter

Preliminary" he printed and circulated, in advance of the publication

of his book; and though it contains not a single fact in support of

his theory, nor even any clear statement of the theory itself, he was

rewarded, as he expected, with _puffs preliminary_ from a portion of the

press, prompt to recognize the merit of a gentleman who had something

to sell, and consequently something to be advertised. The "advance

notices,"--so he calls them,--thus obtained, are made part of his book,

and may there be read alike by discerning and undiscerning readers. With

equal ingenuity he has prefixed to it a title-page, the grammar of which

is questionable and the punctuation vile, but in which he has contrived

to represent his opinions as identical with those of Las Casas, the

great historian of the Spanish Conquests in America, although, in truth,

this identity of opinion is purely imaginary, being founded on his mere

conjectures in regard to the contents of a work of Las Casas, which, as

he bitterly complains, has been withheld from the world. Then, with his

two supporters, Las Casas on the one side, and Lewis Casas--we beg his

pardon, we mean Lewis Cass--on the other, Mr. Wilson comes before the

public, making first a bow "preliminary" to "Colonel and Mrs. Powell,"

"my dear Uncle," and "my dear Aunt," in a Dedication that reminds us

of a certain form of invitations which our readers may sometimes have

received: "Miss Smith presents her compliments to Mr. Brown, and _I_

hope _you_ will do me the favor to take tea with me to-morrow evening."

But we have omitted to make mention of the letters "preliminary" which

he has printed with the "advance notices." He indulges in frequent

sneers at the "weight of authority" to which Mr. Prescott was accustomed

to attach some importance in the discussion of a doubtful point.

Nevertheless, in his extreme eagerness to obtain for his own opinions

the sanction of an authoritative name, he publishes, as "Mr. Prescott's

estimate of his researches," a letter which he had received from that

gentleman, and, quite incapable of appreciating its quiet irony,

evidently supposes that the historian of the Conquest of Mexico was

prepared to retire from the field of his triumphs at the first blast of

his assailant's trumpet. Next comes a letter from a gentleman whom Mr.

Wilson calls "_Rousseau_ St. Hilaire, author of 'The History of Spain,'

&c., and Professor _of the_ Faculty of Letters in the University of

Paris." This, we suppose, is the same gentleman who is elsewhere

mentioned in the book as Rousseau _de_ St. Hilaire, and as _Rosseau_ St.

Hilaire. Now we might take issue with Mr. Wilson as to the existence of

his correspondent. It would be easy to prove that no person bearing the

name is connected with the University of Paris. Adopting the same line

of argument by which our author endeavors to convert the old Spanish

chronicler, Bernal Diaz, into a myth, we might contend that the

Sorbonne--the college to which M. St. Hilaire is represented as

belonging--has been almost as famous for its efforts to suppress

truth and the free utterance of opinion as the Spanish Inquisition

itself,--that it would not hesitate at any little invention or disguise

for the furtherance of its objects,--and hence, that the professor in

question is in all probability a "myth," a mere "Rousseau's Dream," or

rather, a "Wilson's Dream of Rousseau." But we disdain to have recourse

to such evasions. We admit that there is in the University of Paris

a professor "agrégé à la faculté des lettres," who bears the name of

_Rosseeuw_ St. Hilaire; we admit Mr. Wilson's incapacity to decipher

foreign names or words, even when they stand before him in the clearest

print,--an incapacity of which his book affords numerous examples,--and

that this incapacity, and not any mental hallucination, has been the

cause of the blunder which we have corrected. But we must add that he

does evidently labor under an hallucination when he calls this letter

of M. St. Hilaire a "flattering notice." He has been misled by his

inability to comprehend the employment of courteous language between

persons who differ from each other in matters of opinion. With the

accustomed suavity of a Frenchman and a gentleman, M. St. Hilaire

declines entering into a discussion with Mr. Wilson, and leaves him to

"settle this difference with his learned fellow-citizen," Mr. Prescott,

mildly intimating at the same time that he will probably have "his hands

full."

Something more remains to be said of the use which our author has made

of the learned professor of the Sorbonne. One page of his book Mr.

Wilson devotes to "Acknowledgments." These are few, but ponderous.

"Acknowledgments are made" to the Hon. Lewis Cass, for having

written--without any ulterior view, we imagine, to Mr. Wilson's

advantage--the before-mentioned article in the "North American Review";

to the late Mr. Gallatin, for the publication--also, we suspect, without

any foresight of the tremendous uses to which it was to be turned--of a

paper on the Mexican dialects; to "Aaron Erickson, Esq., of Rochester,

N.Y., for the advantages he has afforded us in the prosecution of our

arduous investigations"; to "Major Robert Wilson, now at Fort Riley,

Kanzas," for no particular reason expressed; and to "M. _Rousseau

de_ St. Hilaire, both for the flattering notice he has taken of our

preliminary work" (why not, "work preliminary?") "on Mexico, and for the

advantages derived from his writings." In regard to the "advantages"

here mentioned, we are going to relieve Mr. Wilson's mind. His

obligations to M. St. Hilaire are really far lighter than he supposes.

It is true that he has picked most of the little information he

possesses in regard to Spanish history out of the professor's work, and

has strewed his pages with copious extracts from this recondite source.

But, in making his acknowledgments, he might have gone still farther

back. M. St. Hilaire is a laborious and enthusiastic scholar.

He has found time, in the midst of his professional duties, to write

a really meritorious work on the history of Spain. But he had not the

time, perhaps not the opportunity, for making a thorough examination of

the original authorities. He was therefore obliged to take for his guide

a modern author, who had made this history the peculiar field of his

researches. The guide whom he selected, and he could have made no better

choice, was William Hickling Prescott. So necessary was it for his

purpose that the latter should precede him in a pathway so obscure,

that he postponed the composition of a portion of his work until the

publication of the first two volumes of the "History of Philip the

Second," then in preparation, should supply him with the requisite

light. His indebtedness to Mr. Prescott was frankly and fully

acknowledged both in public and in private. In letters which now lie

before us, he says, "I am working hard on 'Philip the Second,' and

blessing at the same time the learned pioneer who has traced for me so

easy a road through this confused and difficult period of history." "It

is a piece of good-fortune which I cannot too highly appreciate, that

your studies should have been directed to the most difficult portion of

Spanish history, from which you have thus removed for me all the thorns.

The conscientiousness and the thoroughness of your researches, the

perfect trustworthiness of your conclusions, and the lofty calmness of

your judgments, are the precious supports on which I lean; and I have

now, for the reign of Philip the Second, a guide whom I shall be ever

proud and happy to follow, _as I have before followed him through the

reigns of the Catholic Kings and the Conquests of Mexico and Peru_."

That these expressions are no exaggeration of the facts of the case

might be easily established by a comparison of the "Histoire d'Espagne"

with the writings of the American historian. The passages in the former

work cited by Mr. Wilson would form a portion of the proof; and thus, in

following M. St. Hilaire, he has in fact been indirectly and ignorantly

availing himself of labors which he affects to speak of with contempt.

But directly and knowingly, as we shall hereafter show, he has availed

himself of Mr. Prescott's labors to an extent which demanded the most

ample "acknowledgment." No such acknowledgment is made. But we beg to

ask Mr. Wilson whether there were not other reasons why he should have

spoken of this eminent writer, if not with deference, at least with

respect. He himself informs us that "the most kindly relations"

existed between them. If we are not misinformed, Mr. Wilson opened

the correspondence by modestly requesting the loan of Mr. Prescott's

collection of works relating to Mexican history, for the purpose of

enabling him to write a refutation of the latter's History of the

Conquest. That the replies which he received were courteous and kindly,

we need hardly say. He was informed, that, although the constant use

made of the collection by its possessor for the correction of his

own work must prevent a full compliance with this request, yet any

particular books which he might designate should be sent to him, and, if

he were disposed to make a visit to Boston, the fullest opportunities

should be granted him for the prosecution of his researches. This

invitation Mr. Wilson did not think fit to accept. Books which were got

in readiness for transmission to him he failed to send for. He had,

in the mean time, discovered that "the American stand-point" did not

require any examination of "authorities." We regret that it should also

have rendered superfluous an acquaintance with the customs of civilized

society. The tone in which he speaks of his distinguished predecessor

is sometimes amusing from the conceit which it displays, sometimes

disgusting from its impudence and coarseness. He concedes Mr. Prescott's

good faith in the use of his materials. It was only his ignorance and

want of the proper qualifications that prevented him from using them

aright. "His non-acquaintance with Indian character is much to be

regretted." Mr. Wilson himself enjoys, as he tells us, the inestimable

advantage of being the son of an adopted member of the Iroquois tribe.

Nay, "his ancestors, for several generations, dwelt near the Indian

agency at Cherry Valley, on Wilson's Patent, _though in Cooperstown

village was he born_." We perceive the author's fondness for the

inverted style in composition,--acquired, perhaps, in the course of his

long study of Aboriginal oratory. Even without such proofs, and without

his own assertion of the fact, it would not have been difficult, we

think, to conjecture his familiarity with the forms of speech common

among barbarous nations.

But it is not merely through "his non-acquaintance with Indian

character" that Mr. Prescott was at fault. He was also, it appears, in a

hopeless state of ignorance in regard to the political institutions of

Spain. He knew nothing of the Spanish censorship, and its restrictions

upon the freedom of the press. "He showed his faith," writes Mr. Wilson,

"by the expenditure of a fortune at the commencement of his enterprise,

in the purchase of books and MSS. relating to 'America of the

Spaniards.'" This last phrase is marked as quoted, but we believe it to

be the author's own. "These were the materials out of which he framed

his _two_ histories of the _two_ aboriginal empires, Mexico and Peru. At

the time these works were written _he could not have had the remotest

idea of the circumstances under which his Spanish authorities had been

produced_, or of the external pressure that gave them their peculiar

form and character. _He could hardly understand_ that peculiar

organization of Spanish society through which one set of opinions might

be uniformly expressed in public, while the intellectual classes in

secret entertain entirely opposite ones. He acted throughout in the most

perfect good faith; and if, on a subsequent scrutiny, his authorities

have proved to be the fabulous creations of Spanish-Arabian fancy, he

is not in fault." (p. 104.)--We, also, desire to deal in "perfect good

faith" with our readers, who will naturally inquire what new light has

been thrown on the "peculiar organization of Spanish society," and on

the conditions which limit the expression of opinions in Spain, since

Mr. Prescott made those subjects his especial study. We have looked

carefully through Mr. Wilson's book in the hope of being enabled to

answer this inquiry; but we have found nothing but partial and incorrect

statements of facts with which the public is already familiar,--nothing

that had escaped the notice of Prescott himself,--nothing that Mr.

Ticknor, in his "History of Spanish Literature," had omitted to state,

and that had not been fully discussed between these two distinguished

men during an intercourse that had originated not only in the warmest

personal friendship, but in the similarity of their studies and

pursuits. On this, as on every other topic of which he treats, Mr.

Wilson is reckless and arrogant in assertion; but on this, as on every

other topic, he makes no show of proofs.

His compliment to Prescott's "good faith" seems, after all, to have

been premature. In other parts of his book we find remarks that seem in

conflict with this admission. He makes several severe strictures on Mr.

Prescott's omission to give due credit to General Cass for his valuable

contribution to Aztec history. "Mr. Prescott nowhere refers to the

subject, as we think he ought to have done." (p. 30.) "The ink was

hardly dry on the leaves of the North American Quarterly which contained

the exposure of these fictions, when another contributor to the same

periodical, Mr. Prescott, began his history, founded on authors already

_denounced as fabulous by so high an authority as the Hon. Lewis Cass_!"

Think of the unparalleled audacity of the author of the "History of

Ferdinand and Isabella" in actually exercising his own judgment with

regard to the credibility of the Spanish chroniclers, after so high an

authority had pronounced against them! However, we are not yet prepared

to abandon our own belief in Mr. Prescott's "good faith." We really

believe that he was guilty of no intentional disrespect towards the Hon.

Lewis Cass. It is possible that he may never have seen the article in

question. Contributors to periodicals are sometimes sadly neglectful of

the most brilliant performances of their _confrères_. We doubt whether

the "Autocrat" has ever read with proper attention any of our own

modest, but not, we hope, inelegant effusions.

Mr. Wilson is not without a suspicion that the world may be slow to

surrender its confidence in the veracity and accuracy of a writer

whose works have already stood the test of many a severe and critical

examination. When this idea breaks upon his mind, he manages to lash

himself into a state of considerable excitement. He foresees the

difficulty of convincing "those who take an array of great names for

the foundation of their belief, and those who judge a work only by the

elegance with which its periods are strung together. And, besides these

two,"--meaning, we presume, not two men, but two classes of men,--"we

have to encounter also the opposition of _savans_--men who live and

judge the outside world through the medium of books alone. These hold as

of no account, all but Greece and Rome," [the proof-reader is requested

not to disturb Mr. Wilson's punctuation,] "and receive no idea of

antiquity that does not come through them. For any, then, too wise to

learn or too thoughtless to inquire, this chapter is not designed....

Many there are," [how many, we wonder,] "who have dealt in Spanish

romances, supposing them to be history; and these are slow to abandon

their delusions. At enormous expense they have gathered volumes of

authorities; will they readily admit them to be cheats and counterfeits?

They grudge the time too they have spent in their perusal; and are loth,

as well they may be, to lose it. But individual loss and injury _is_"

[the proof-reader will please not to interfere with Mr. Wilson's

grammar] "perhaps inevitable in the search after truth. Men cannot

be held down to the theories of barbarism. These must give way to

knowledge, _or the intelligent, as in Roman Catholic countries, be

driven to infidelity."_ [The printer may venture to italicize the

closing prediction, as we wish to bring it under the particular notice

of school-committees and superintendents of education, who will see

the fearful responsibility they incur by placing copies of Prescott's

Histories, bound in sheep, in their school-libraries.]

But we interrupt the flow of our author's bile by these irrelevant

remarks. Let him have a full hearing: "Before closing this chapter, the

status of our literature suggests an apology is necessary, for having

opened it in conformity with the, now neglected, rules of history--that

we should try and snatch something from the wreck of antiquity." [We

cheerfully offer a reward of one copy of the present number of the

"Atlantic" to any person who will parse the last sentence, explain the

punctuation of it, and interpret its meaning.] "In other countries, the

standard of history has been steadily rising for centuries; but with

us, it has been so lowered, as to sink every other qualification in the

single one of turning faultless periods; and a gentleman possessing

this, has been adjudged fully capable of purging the annals of Spain and

her quondam colonies, from the mass of modern fable and forgery which

now disfigure them. Incapable of submitting Cortez' statement to

the test, he assumes it to be true, even in those parts where it is

impossible. Unable to detect the counterfeit in Diaz--he pronounces him

the 'child of nature,' but does not on the testimony of this natural

child reject the still more monstrous falsifier, _Gomora_; but adopts

them both, according to the custom of novelists; and not the slightest

objection is raised. Then descending lower and still lower; disregarding

alike the warning of Lord Bacon 'a credulous man is a deceiver,' and

of Tacitus _fingunt simul creduntque_--he rakes up even a devotee,

Boturini, and makes him also an historic authority, without overtaxing

public credulity; though this wretch, as we have seen, out-Munchausens

Pietro himself, and as he may have surpassed every other man in Spain in

drawing the long bow, was justly selected for historiographer, at a time

when death was the penalty for possessing a book not licensed by the

Inquisition. Thus are discarded and disgusting impostures brought up

from the literary cesspools of Spain to form for us the history of

events that, transpired on this continent hardly more than three hundred

years ago!" (pp. 263, 264.) Instead of noticing the blunders and

absurdities with which this paragraph is filled, we shall simply call

attention to the remarkable good taste displayed in its allusions to

a person with whom the writer, as he boasts, had maintained "the most

kindly relations," from whom, as we have seen, he had received friendly

offers of aid, and to whom, but a short time before the occurrence of

that event which has so lately thrown the whole nation into mourning, he

had been indebted, by his own admission, for the warmest encouragement

in the prosecution of his inquiries.

But, though Prescott is the principal object of Mr. Wilson's assaults,

he does not fall, for he has not stood, alone. With the single exception

of the Hon. Lewis Cass, every modern writer who has investigated the

history and former condition of Spanish America, either with the help of

books or of personal observation of the present state of that part

of our continent, shares the same fate. Robertson, Dupaix, Stephens,

Humboldt, are all objects of Mr. Wilson's vituperation or contempt. To

say that Alexander von Humboldt is probably the most learned man in

Europe, and that Robert A. Wilson is undoubtedly one of the most

ignorant men in America, would give but a slight notion of the

contrast between them. Humboldt is not merely a man of science and a

philosopher,--titles which the adopted Iroquois regards with natural

scorn,--he has been also a great traveller, and knows almost every

part of Spanish America from personal examination. Yet his claims to be

considered as an authority on questions which no other living man is

so competent to decide are disposed of by his shallow and conceited

opponent in a single brief paragraph, which ends with a statement that

"the only defect in his work is, that he started from false premises,

_and of course his conclusions amount to nothing_."

Robertson, however, is the especial butt of Mr. Wilson's unwieldy

sarcasms. Robertson, he tells us, was the "principal of the University

High School of Edinburgh,"--an institution of which we do not

remember ever to have heard before. He is especially indignant that

"Robertson--_a Presbyterian minister!_" (the Italics and note of

admiration are Mr. Wilson's own) should have dared even to attempt to

write a history of America. As Roman Catholics are also forbidden to

venture on this ground, we should be glad to know the particular sect or

sects to whose use it is to be appropriated. A principal cause of our

author's spite against Dr. Robertson appears to have been a statement

made by the latter, that the Iroquois are cannibals. This allegation

evidently touches a sensitive point. It is indignantly denied by the

adopted member of the tribe. The Iroquois, he says, like other Indians,

never eat human flesh, unless driven to it by hunger. He turns the

tables (on which this ill-omened repast is spread) against the worthy

Doctor. He charges him (falsely, however) with having represented

Charles the Fifth as "a pattern of abstinence," when he was in fact one

of the greatest of royal _gourmands_. On this point he is willing for

once to accept even the authority of Mr. Prescott, who, he says, has

upset Robertson's reputation as an historian by means of "the _Samanca_

papers."

Mr. Wilson so often returns to these "Samanca" papers, and appears to

labor under so many delusions in regard to them, that, hopeless as the

attempt may seem, we cannot help trying to let a little daylight into

his mind. "Mr. Prescott," he writes, "having obtained copies of the most

important _Simanca_" [the reader must not be surprised at these little

variations of orthography] "papers of Ximenes' collection, supposes them

a new discovery, of great value. _Doubtless they are;_" [then there

could be no great harm in supposing it;] "his agents did not fail to

represent them to him in the most exalted terms, to enhance the value of

their services according to the Spanish custom." Now we can assure Mr.

Wilson that Mr. Prescott had not in his possession a copy of a single

document placed in the Archives of Simancas (for so an excusable

partiality for custom, and not any want of respect for our author,

obliges us to spell this name) by Cardinal Ximenes. He will also, we

trust, be glad to learn, that, for the documents relating to the Emperor

Charles the Fifth which Mr. Prescott did receive from Simancas, he paid

not a _real_ beyond the established charge of the official copyists,--a

charge which is the same in all cases, whatever may be the value of

the originals,--the task of examining the collection and selecting the

letters suitable for the purpose having been a labor of love on the part

of the distinguished scholar by whom it was undertaken.

Mr. Wilson is animated by a fervent hatred against Cardinal Ximenes,--or

"Jimines," as he sometimes calls him. He terms him "a monster," and "a

wretch," and is especially indignant at his having "founded the Samanca

collection of papers." "Any one," he adds, "who will carefully examine

them will see that hardly a single paper has been put into this

collection that does not, in some way, reflect glory on the church, or

show the royal approval of the Inquisition." We cannot undertake to say

what discoveries might be made by a person who should carefully examine

the collection of papers at Simancas. A scholar on whom the antediluvian

length of life necessary for such a labor had been bestowed might also

be endowed with commensurate powers of intellect that might lead to the

most astonishing results. Our own knowledge of the collection is limited

to a very small portion of its contents,--a mere drop in the enormous

bucket. We have been under the impression that explorers who had spent

long periods of time in the examination,--Lembke or Gachard, for

example,--had sunk their shafts but a little way into that great mine.

At all events, we feel particularly certain that Mr. Wilson never in his

life saw a single manuscript, or a single copy of a manuscript, from the

Archives of Simancas.

"The monk Strada," our author goes on to inform us, "must have consulted

them" [the "Samanca papers"] "in the composition of his history of the

Low Country Wars, though he does not call the papers by that name."

[We should hope not.] "The _Glanville_ papers are not alone his

authorities." With regard to the "Glanville papers," we cannot speak

positively, never having seen them, or even heard of them. If an

allusion is intended to the "State Papers of Cardinal _Granvelle_," we

admit that these were not Strada's _only_ authorities; in fact, they

were not his authorities at all; he never had the opportunity of

consulting them. "Robertson's convent life of Charles V.," Mr. Wilson

continues, "is almost literally taken from Strada." Now, if Strada

followed the "Samanca papers," and Robertson has followed Strada, how

is it that these same papers have been the groundwork for a complete

refutation of Robertson? Surely, when brought to light, they ought,

on the contrary, to have confirmed his statements. The truth is, that

Strada, who had access to no other manuscripts than those in possession

of the Farnese family, never saw the "Samanca papers"; and Robertson,

far from following Strada exclusively, relied much more on the authority

of Sandoval and other Spanish writers.

But our readers will naturally inquire what these matters have to do

with the Aztec civilization and the Conquest of Mexico. So far as we

know, nothing at all. We have merely followed our Iroquois foe, and

kept perseveringly upon his track in the jungle to which he has taken.

Whatever course he may take, we are determined to follow him. He shall

not elude us. Through all the windings of his eccentric route, through

pathless forests, across rugged sierras, along the sides of nameless

streams, we shall pursue his trail. On the summit of the great

_teocalli_ of Mexico, dedicated to the fearful deity, _Huitzilopotchli_,

he shall be offered up as a sacrifice, according to the awful customs

in which he affects to disbelieve. We are compelled, indeed, by want of

space, to grant him a respite for a month. Our present notice must be

regarded only as a parboiling "preliminary." At the end of that time,

with all due form and ceremony, we promise that the solemn rite shall be

completed.

Bunsen's _Gott in der Geschichte_. (God in History.) Zweite Theil.

(Second Part.) Leipzig. 1858.

There is, probably, no philosophical author at the present day in

Germany whose works are welcomed by so wide a circle of readers in

America as those of Chevalier Bunsen. Though often more theoretical than

exact in scholarship, and allowing his historical instincts to take the

place of scientific conclusions, he not unfrequently anticipates thus

the laborious efforts of scholars, while his peculiar _suggestiveness_

of thought and his scope of view interest extremely the common student,

and lend a charm to his works such as no other writer in the same

field possesses. He has the art of making other men work for him, and,

perhaps, has thus been tempted to write too much for his own fame.

The great service for which posterity will thank Chevalier Bunsen

is, that, in an age of bigotry and of skepticism, he has especially

represented the union of Philosophy and Christianity, and has shown that

the freest historical criticism and the most open recognition of the

moral principle through all faiths and races are harmonious with the

most devout belief in the divine manifestation of Christ. This book,

"God in History," is written from his most advanced and religious

stand-point, and seems to us the best fruit, thus far, of his studies.

It is compact, consistent, and not marred by his usual defect,--a

certain mysticism or indefiniteness of thought,--but is clear and

philosophical to the close. It is not to be looked upon as a complete

philosophical history, but rather as a suggestive and introductory

treatise on that grandest of all themes, the Progress of the Instinct of

God through Human History. His own definition of his subject is, that

it is a history of the "Consciousness of God in Mankind"; but, as he

unfolds his idea, it is evidently not always the consciousness, but the

unconscious instinct of God, whose progress he is describing.

The first part of the present volume--the Third Book--is occupied with a

brief, but exceedingly instructive investigation of the development of

this instinct in the Aryans of Persia and of India; and in this inquiry

the two prominent historical figures are Zoroaster and Buddha, or, as

our author might have named them, the Moses and the Luther of the

early Aryan religions,--the one the Lawgiver and the Founder of a pure

monotheism in the place of a slavish belief in elementary powers, and

the other the great Reformer of a corrupted faith in behalf of an

oppressed people.

The illustrations which Bunsen gives of these two wonderful expressions

of the instinct of God in the remote past, the religions of Zoroaster

and Buddha, are exceedingly fresh and original. They are contained

mostly in sacrificial and festal hymns and songs which have not hitherto

been much known, even to scholars.

As an introduction to and historical preparation for these two great

forms of belief, he describes also the instinct of Deity as it had

developed itself among the Turanians, the Chinese, and the Egyptians.

The period embraced in the Third Book is about 2500 years, from the

supposed epoch of Zoroaster (3000 B.C.) to that of Buddha (541 B.C.).

The Fourth Book treats of the instinct of God among the Greeks and

Romans, "from the singer of the Iliad (900 B.C.) down to the Baruch of

the Roman world, the prophet of the downfall of the Aryan Ante-Christian

civilization,--Tacitus." This God-consciousness is found first in

the Grecian feeling of the Commonwealth,--the idea of a common good

surpassing a personal good; then in the conception of the Epic, which

assumes a political as well as a physical Kosmos, or order; then in the

grand moral ideas lying at the basis of the Mythology,--the myths, for

instance, of Prometheus, and the picture of Nemesis and the Fates. Next,

the deep sense of God speaks out in Grecian Tragedy and the great works

of Grecian Art; and in the highest degree, in the Philosophy which

culminated in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

The Roman expression of these profound instincts is placed by Bunsen far

below the Grecian. It is manifested especially in their idea of Law, and

even in the doubts and despair of their leading thinkers in the time of

the Emperors.

The closing portion of the volume terminates the history of the progress

of the idea of God before Christianity, among the Aryan races, by a

description of the religious instincts of the Teutonic tribes. In their

respect for woman and for marriage, in their political commonwealths,

in their worship of one God, and their belief in a moral Kosmos, Bunsen

beholds the expression of the Divine idea within them, preparing for the

more full development which is to come through the ideas and spirit

of Christianity. The book closes fitly with the grand prophecy of the

Völuspa in the Scandinavian Edda.

We regret that want of space should prevent us from giving extracts from

this most eloquent and philosophic work. Its glory is, that, breaking

through the formulae of creeds and the external signs of religious

faith, it has the courage to listen to the voice of God all along the

devious course of human history,--hearing that mysterious tone, not

alone in the chants of the Hebrews or the confessions of the Christians,

but in every smallest utterance of _truth_, every syllable of unselfish

patriotism, every groan of offended conscience, every myth springing

from the moral sense, every song, every speech which would exalt the

True, the Beautiful, and the Good over the selfish and false and base.

In Bunsen's philosophy, these, even more than all outward confession and

ceremonial, are the true expression of the workings of the Divine Spirit

in Human History.

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