The dear, but infatuated old gentleman! He had never seen me do anything

of the kind. He hardly knew me by sight. He thought only of coming to the

rescue of an unfortunate lecturer, prostrated on the very threshold of his

career; and a friendly hallucination made him for the moment really

believe what he said. His unpremeditated assertion must have been set down

by the recording angel on the same page with Uncle Toby's oath, and then

obliterated in the same manner.

Ten days after the above-mentioned catastrophe, having engaged the largest

hall in Boston, (the Music Hall,) I delivered my lecture--in the words of

the newspapers--"with _éclat_." The illustrations of strength which I

exhibited on the occasion, though far inferior to subsequent efforts, were

looked on as most extraordinary. The weight I lifted before the audience,

with my hands alone, was nine hundred and twenty-nine pounds. This was

testified to by the City Sealer of Weights and Measures, Mr. Moulton. My

success induced me to repeat my lecture in other places. Invitations and

liberal offers poured in upon me from all directions; and during the

ensuing seasons, I lectured in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati,

Albany, and many of the principal cities throughout the Northern States

and the Canadas.

To return to my lifting experiments. I had promised my father to "stop at

a thousand pounds." In the autumn of 1859 I had reached ten hundred and

thirty-two pounds. An incident now occurred that induced me to reconsider

my promise and get absolution from it. One day, while engaged in lifting,

I had a visit from two powerful-looking men who asked permission to try my

weight. One of them was five feet ten inches in height, and a hundred and

ninety-two pounds in weight. The other was fully six feet in his

stockings, and two hundred and twelve pounds in weight,--a fearful

superiority in the eyes of a man, under five feet seven and weighing less

than a hundred and fifty pounds. The smaller of these men failed to lift

eight of my iron disks, which, with the connections, amounted to eight

hundred and twenty-seven pounds. The larger individual fairly lifted them

at the second or third trial, but declined to attempt an increase. They

left me, and I soon, afterward heard that they were practising with a view

of "outlifting Dr. Windship."

My father had incautiously remarked to me, "Those huge fellows, with a

little practice, can lift your weight and you on top of it. You can't

expect to compete with giants." This decided me to test the question

whether five feet seven must necessarily yield to mere bulk in the

attainment of the maximum of human strength. I had the start of my

competitors by some two hundred pounds, and I determined to preserve that

distance between us. In the autumn of that year I advanced to lifting with

the hands eleven hundred and thirty-three pounds, and in the spring of

1860 to twelve hundred and eight. I have had no evidence that my

competitors ever got beyond a thousand pounds; though I doubt not, if they

had had my leisure for practice, they might have surpassed me.

In July, 1860, I commenced lifting by means of a padded rope over my

shoulders,--my body, during the act of lifting, being steadied and partly

supported by my hands grasping a stout frame at each side. After a few

unsuccessful preliminary trials, I quickly advanced to fourteen hundred

pounds. The stretching of the rope now proved so great an annoyance, that

I substituted for it a stout leather band of double thickness, about two

inches and a half wide, and which had been subjected to a process which

was calculated to render it proof against stretching more than half an

inch under any weight it was capable of sustaining. But on trial, I found,

almost to my despair, that it was of a far more yielding nature than the

rope, and consequently the rope was again brought into requisition. A few

weeks of unsatisfactory practice followed, when it occurred to me that an

iron chain, inasmuch as it could not stretch, might be advantageously

used, provided it could be so padded as not to chafe my shoulders. After

many experiments I succeeded in this substitution; but the chain had yet

one objection in common with the rope and the strap, arising from the

difficulty of getting it properly adjusted. I contented myself with its

use, however, until the spring of 1861, when I hit upon a contrivance

which has proved a complete success. It consists of a wooden yoke fitting

across my shoulders, and having two chains connected with it in such a

manner as to enable me to lift on every occasion to the most advantage.

With this contrivance my lifting-power has advanced with mathematical

certainty, slowly, but surely, to _two thousand and seven pounds_, up to

this twenty-third day of November, 1861.

In my public experiments in lifting, when I have not used the iron weights

cast for the purpose, I have, as a convenient substitute, used kegs of

nails. It recently occurred to me, that, if, instead of these kegs, I

could employ a number of men selected from the audience, the spectacle

would he still more satisfactory to the skeptical. Accordingly I contrived

an apparatus by means of which I have been able to present this convincing

proof of the actual weight lifted. I introduced it after my lecture at the

Town-Hall in Brighton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of October, 1861; and the

following account of the result appeared in one of the city papers:--

"Standing upon a staging at an elevation of about eight or ten feet from

the floor, the Doctor lifted and sustained, for a considerable time and

without apparent difficulty, a platform suspended beneath him on which

stood twelve gentlemen, all heavier individually than the Doctor himself,

and weighing, inclusive of the entire apparatus lifted with them, _nearly

nineteen hundred pounds avoirdupois_. In the performance of this

tremendous feat, Dr. W. employed neither straps, bands, nor

girdle,--nothing in short but a stout oaken stick fitting across his

shoulders, and having attached to it a couple of rather formidable-looking

chains. At his request, a committee, appointed by the audience, and

furnished with one of Fairbanks's scales, superintended all the

experiments."

The exact weight lifted on this occasion was eighteen hundred and

thirty-six pounds. A few evenings after, I lifted, in the same way, in

Lynn, eighteen hundred and sixty; in Brookline, eighteen hundred and

ninety; in Medford, nineteen hundred and thirty-four; in Maiden, nineteen

hundred and two; and in Charlestown, nineteen hundred and forty.

As my strength is still increasing in an undiminished ratio, I am fairly

beginning to wonder where the limit will be; and the old adage of the

camel's back and the last feather occasionally suggests itself. I have

fixed three thousand pounds as my _ne plus ultra_.

* * * * *

FREMONT'S HUNDRED DAYS IN MISSOURI.

I.

The narrative we propose to give of events in Missouri is not intended to

be a defence of General Fremont, nor in any respect an answer to the

charges which have been made against him. Our purpose is the more humble

one of presenting a hasty sketch of the expedition to Springfield,

confining ourselves almost entirely to the incidents which came under the

observation of an officer of the General's staff.

General Fremont was in command of the Western Department precisely One

Hundred Days. He assumed the command at the time when the army with which

Lyon had captured Camp Jackson and won the Battle of Booneville was on the

point of dissolution. The enemy, knowing that the term for which our

soldiers had been enlisted was near its close, began offensive movements

along their whole line. Cairo, Bird's Point, Ironton, and Springfield were

simultaneously threatened. Jeff Thompson wrote to his friends in St.

Louis, promising to be in that city in a month. The sad, but glorious day

upon Wilson's Creek defeated the Rebel designs, and compelled McCulloch,

Pillow, Hardee, and Thompson to retire.

Relieved from immediate danger, General Fremont found an opportunity to

organize the expedition down the Mississippi. Won by the magic of his name

and the ceaseless energy of his action, the hardy youth of the Northwest,

flocked into St. Louis, eager to share his labors and his glory. There was

little time for organization and discipline. They were armed with such

weapons as could be procured against the competition of the General

Government, and at once forwarded to the exposed points. History can

furnish few parallels to the hasty levy and organization of the Army of

the West. When suddenly required to defend Washington, the Government was

able to summon the equipped and disciplined militia of the East, and could

call upon the inexhaustible resources of a wealthy and skilful people. But

in the West there was neither a disciplined militia nor trained mechanics.

Men, indeed, brave, earnest, patriotic men, were plenty,--men who

appreciated the magnitude and importance of the task before them, and who

were confident of their ability to accomplish it. But to introduce order

into their tumultuous ranks, to place arms in their eager hands, to clothe

and feed them, to provide them with transportation and equipage for the

march, and inspire them with confidence for the siege and the

battle,--this labor the General, almost unaided, was called upon to

perform. Like all the rest of our generals, he was without experience in

military affairs of such magnitude and urgency, and he was compelled to

rely chiefly upon the assistance of men entirely without military training

and knowledge. The general staff and the division and brigade staffs were,

from the necessity of the case, made up mainly of civilians. A small

number of foreign officers brought to his aid their learning and

experience, and a still smaller number of West-Point officers gave him

their invaluable assistance. In spite of all difficulties the work

proceeded. In six weeks the strategic positions were placed in a state of

defence, and an army of sixty thousand men, with a greater than common

proportion of cavalry and artillery, stood ready to clear Missouri of the

invader and to open the valley of the Mississippi. At this time the sudden

appearance of Price in the West, and the fall of Lexington, compelled the

General to take the field.

We will now confine ourselves to the narrative of the incidents of the

march to Springfield, as it is given in the journal which has been placed

in our hands.

FROM ST. LOUIS TO WARSAW.

_St. Louis, September 27th, 1861._ For four days the head-quarters have

been ready to take the field at an hour's notice. The baggage has been

packed, the wagons loaded, horses have stood saddled all through the day,

and the officers have been sitting at their desks, booted and spurred,

awaiting the order for their departure. It is not unlikely that the

suspense in which they are held and the constant condition of readiness

which is required of them are a sort of preliminary discipline to which

the General is subjecting them. Yesterday the body-guard left by the

river, and the staff-horses went upon the same steamer, so that we cannot

be detained much longer.

_Jefferson City, September 28th._ Yesterday, at eleven o'clock, we were

informed that the General would leave for Jefferson City at noon; and that

those members of the staff who were not ready would be left behind, and

their places filled in the field. At the appointed hour we were all

gathered at the depot. The General drove down entirely unattended. Most of

the train was occupied by a battalion of sharp-shooters, but in the rear

car the General and his staff found seats. The day was cloudy and damp;

there was no one to say farewell; and as the train passed through the cold

hills, a feeling of gloom seemed to pervade the company. Nature was in

harmony with the clouded fortunes of our General, and the laboring

locomotive dragged us at a snail's pace, as if it were unwilling to assist

us in our adventure.

Those who were strangers in the West looked out eagerly for the Missouri,

hoping to find the valley of the river rich in scenery which would relieve

the tedium of the journey. But when we came out upon the river-bank and

looked at the dull shores, and the sandy bed, which the scant stream does

not cover, but through which it creeps, treacherous and slimy, in half a

dozen channels, there was no pleasure to the eye, no relief for the

spirit. Late in the afternoon we approached a little village, and were

greeted with music and hearty cheers,--the first sign of hospitality the

day had furnished. It was the German settlement of Hermann, famous for

good cheer and good wines. The Home-Guard was drawn up at the station,

files of soldiers kept the passage clear to the dining-room, and through

an avenue of muskets, and amidst the shouts of an enthusiastic little

crowd, the General passed into a room decorated with flowers, through the

centre of which was stretched a table groaning under the weight of

delicious fruits and smoking viands. With little ceremony the hungry

company seated themselves, and vigorously assailed the tempting array,

quite unconscious of the curious glances of a motley assemblage of men,

women, and children who assisted at the entertainment. The day had been

dark, the journey dull, and the people we had seen silent and sullen; but

here was a welcome, the hearty, generous welcome of sympathizing friends,

who saw in their guests the defenders of their homes. They were Germans,

and our language came broken from their lips. But they are Germans who

fill the ranks of our regiments. Look where you will, and the sturdy

Teuton meets your eye. If Missouri shall be preserved for the Union and

civilization, it will be by the valor of men who learned their lessons of

American liberty and glory upon the banks of the Rhine and the Elbe. We

think of this at Hermann, and we pledge our German hosts and our German

fellow-soldiers in strong draughts of delicious Catawba,--not such Catawba

as is sent forth from the slovenly manufactories of Cincinnati, for the

careful vintners of Hermann select the choice grapes, and in the quiet

cellars of Hermann the Catawba has time to grow old and to ripen.

We at length extricate ourselves from the maze of corn-cakes and pancakes,

waffles and muffins and pies without number, with which our kind friends

of Hermann tempt and tantalize our satiated palates, and once more set

forth after the wheezing, reluctant locomotive, over the rough road,

through the dreary hills, along the bank of the treacherous river.

At ten o'clock, in ten weary hours, we have accomplished one hundred and

twenty miles, and have reached Jefferson City. The train backs and starts

ahead, halts and backs and jerks, and finally, with a long sigh of relief,

the locomotive stops, and a gentleman in citizen's dress enters the car,

carrying a lantern in his hand. It was Brigadier-General Price, commanding

at Jefferson City. He took possession of the General, and, with us closely

following, left the car. But leaving the train was a somewhat more

difficult matter. We went along-side the train, over the train, under the

train, but still those cars seemed to surround us like a corral. We at

length outflanked the train, but still failed to extricate ourselves from

the labyrinth. Informed, or rather deluded, by the "lantern dimly

burning," we floundered into ditches and scrambled out of them, we waded

mud-puddles and stumbled over boulders, until finally the ever-present

train disappeared in the darkness, we rushed up a steep hill, heard the

welcome sound as our feet touched a brick walk, and, after turning two or

three corners, found ourselves in the narrow hall of the "principal

hotel." We were tired and disgusted, and no one stood upon the order of

his going, but went at once to sleep upon whatever floor, table, or bed

offered itself.

This morning we are pleased to hear that the General has resolved to go

into camp. Of course the best houses in the place are at our disposal, but

it is wisely thought that our soldier-life will not begin until we are

fairly under canvas.

All day we have had an exhibition of a Missouri crowd. The sidewalk has

been fringed with curious gazers waiting to catch a glimpse of the

General. Foote, the comedian, said, that, until he landed on the quays at

Dublin, he never knew what the London beggars did with their old clothes.

One should go to Missouri to see what the New-York beggars do with their

old clothes. But it is not the dress alone. Such vacant, listless faces,

with laziness written in every line, and ignorance seated upon every

feature! Is it for these that the descendants of New England and the

thrifty Germans are going forth to battle? If Missouri depended upon the

Missourians, there would be little chance for her safety, and, indeed, not

very much to save.

_October 4th._ We have been in camp since Sunday, the 29th of September.

Our tents are pitched upon abroad shelf half-way down a considerable hill.

Behind us the hill rises a hundred feet or more, shutting us in from the

south; in front, to the north, the hill inclines to a ravine which

separates us from other less lofty hills. Our camp is upon open ground,

but there is a fine forest to the east and west.

In a few days we have all become very learned in camp-life. We have found

out what we want and what we do not want. Fortunately, St. Louis is near

at hand, and we send there to provide for our necessities, and also to get

rid of our superfluities. The troops have been gathering all the week.

There are several regiments in front of us, and batteries of artillery

behind us. Go where you will, spread out upon the plain or shining amidst

the trees you will see the encampments. Head-quarters are busy providing

for the transportation and the maintenance of this great force; and as

rapidly as the railway can carry them, regiment after regiment is sent

west. There is plenty of work for the staff-officers; and yet our life is

not without its pleasures. The horses and their riders need training. This

getting used to the saddle is no light matter for the civilian spoiled by

years of ease and comfort. But the General gives all his officers plenty

of horseback discipline. Then there is the broadsword exercise to fill up

the idle time. Evening is the festive hour in camp; though I judge, from

what I have seen and heard, that our camp has little of the gayety which

is commonly associated with the soldier's life. We are too busy for

merrymaking, but in the evening there are pleasant little circles around

the fires or in the snug tents. There are old campaigners among us, men

who have served in Mexico and Utah, and others whose lives have been

passed upon the Plains; they tell us campaign stories, and teach the green

hands the slang and the airs of the camp. But the unfailing amusement is

the band. This is the special pride of the General, and soon after

nightfall the musicians appear upon the little _plaza_ around which the

tents are grouped. At the first note the audience gather. The guardsmen

come up from their camp on the edge of the ravine, the negro-quarter is

deserted, the wagoners flock in from the surrounding forest, the officers

stroll out of their tents,--a picturesque crowd stands around the huge

camp-fire. The programme is simple and not often varied. It uniformly

opens with "The Star-Spangled Banner," and closes with "Home, Sweet Home."

By way of a grand _finale_, a procession is organized every night, led by

some score of negro torch-bearers, which makes the circuit of the camp,--a

performance which never fails to produce something of a stampede among the

animals.

Last night we had an alarm. About eleven o'clock, when the camp was fairly

asleep, some one tried to pass a picket half a mile west of us. The guard

fired at the intruder, and in an instant the regimental drums sounded the

long roll. We started from our beds, with frantic haste buckled on swords,

spurs, and pistols, hurried servants after the horses, and hastened to

report for duty to the General. The officer who was first to appear found

him standing in front of his tent, himself the first man in camp who was

ready for service. Presently a messenger came with information as to the

cause of the alarm, and we were dismissed.

At two o'clock in the morning there was another alarm. Again the

body-guard bugles sounded and the drums rolled. Again soldiers sprang to

their arms, and officers rushed to report to the General,--the first man

finding him, as before, leaning upon his sword in front of his tent. But,

alas for the reputation of our mess, not one of its number appeared. In

complete unconsciousness of danger or duty, we slept on. Colonel S. said

he heard "the music, but thought it was a continuation of the evening's

serenade," and went to sleep again. It was not long before we discovered

that the General knew that four members of his staff did not report to him

when the long roll was sounded.

There are several encampments on the hill-sides north of us which are in

full view from our quarters, and it is not the least of our amusements to

watch the regiments going through the afternoon drill. In the soft light

of these golden days we see the long blue lines, silver-tipped, wheel and

turn, scatter and form, upon the brown hill-sides. Now the slopes are

dotted with skirmishers, and puffs of gray smoke rise over the kneeling

figures; again a solid wall of bayonets gleams along the crest of the

hill, and peals of musketry echo through the woods in the ravines.

Colonel Myscall Johnson, a Methodist exhorter and formidable Rebel

marauder, is said to be forty miles south of us with a small force, and

some of the Union farmers came into camp to-day asking for protection.

Zagonyi, the commander of the body-guard, is anxious to descend upon

Johnson and scatter his thieving crew; but it is not probable he will

obtain permission. The Union men of Missouri are quite willing to have you

fight for them, but their patriotism does not go farther than this. These

people represent that three-fourths of the inhabitants of Miller County

are loyal. The General probably thinks, if this be true, they ought to be

able to take care of Johnson's men. But a suggestion that they should

defend their own homes and families astonishes our Missouri friends.

General Lyon established Home-Guards throughout the State, and armed them

with several thousand Springfield muskets taken from the arsenal at St.

Louis. Most of these muskets are now in Price's army, and are the most

formidable weapons he has. In some instances the Rebels enlisted in the

Home-Guards and thus controlled the organization, carrying whole companies

into Price's ranks. In other cases bands of Rebels scoured the country,

went to the house of every Home-Guard, and took away his musket. In the

German settlements alone the Guards still preserve their organization and

their arms.

A few days ago it fell to the lot of our mess to entertain a Rebel officer

who had come in with a flag of truce. Strange to say, he was a New-Yorker,

and had a younger brother in one of the Indiana regiments. He was a

pleasant and courteous gentleman, albeit his faded dress, with its

red-flannel trimmings, did not indicate great prosperity in the enemy's

camp. We gave him the best meal we could command. I apologized because it

was no better. He replied,--"Make no apology, Sir. It is the best dinner I

have eaten these three months. I have campaigned it a good deal this

summer upon three ears of roast corn a day." He added,--"I never have

received a cent of pay. None of us have. We never expect to receive any."

This captain has already seen considerable service. He was at Booneville,

Carthage, Wilson's Creek, and Lexington. His descriptions of these

engagements were animated and interesting, his point of view presenting

matters in a novel light. He spoke particularly of a gunner stationed at

the first piece in Totten's battery, saying that his energy and coolness

made him one of the most conspicuous figures of the day. "Our

sharp-shooters did their best, but they failed to bring him down. There he

was all day long, doing his duty as if on parade." He also told us there

was no hard fighting at Lexington. "We knew," said he, "the place was

short of water, and so we spared our men, and waited for time to do the

work."

_Camp Lovejoy, October 7th._ For the last two days the troops have been

leaving Jefferson City, and the densely peopled hills are bare. This

morning, at seven o'clock, we began to break camp. There was no little

trouble and confusion in lowering the tents and packing the wagons. It

took us a long time to-day, but we shall soon get accustomed to it, and

become able to move more quickly. At noon we left Jefferson City, going

due west.

Out little column consists of three companies of the body-guard, numbering

about two hundred and fifty men, a battalion of sharp-shooters (infantry)

under Major Holman, one hundred and eighty strong, and the staff. The

march is in the following order. The first company of the guard act as

advance-guard; then comes the General, followed by his staff, riding by

twos, according to rank; the other two companies of the guard come next.

The sharp-shooters accompany and protect the train. Our route lay through

a broken and heavily wooded region. The roads were very bad, but the day

was bright, and the march was a succession of beautiful pictures, of which

the long and brilliant line of horsemen winding through the forest was the

chief ornament.

We reached camp at three o'clock. It is a lovely spot, upon a hill-side,

with a clear, swift-running brook washing the foot of the hill. Presently

the horses are tied along the fences, riders are lounging under the trees,

the kitchen-fires are lighted, guardsmen are scattered along the banks of

the stream bathing, the wagons roll heavily over the prairie and are drawn

up along the edge of the wood, tents are raised, tent-furniture is hastily

arranged, and the camp looks as if it had been there a month. Before dark

a regiment of infantry and two batteries of artillery come up. The men

sleep in the open air without tents, and innumerable fires cover the

hill-sides.

We are upon land which is owned by an influential and wealthy citizen, who

is an open Secessionist in opinion, though he has had the prudence not to

take up arms. By way of a slight punishment, the General has annoyed the

old man by naming his farm "Camp Owen Lovejoy," a name which the Union

neighbors will not fail to make perpetual.

_California, October 8th._ This morning we broke camp at six o'clock and

marched at eight. The road was bad, for which the beauty of the scenery

did not entirely compensate. To-day's experience has taught us how

completely an army is tied to the wheels of the wagons. Tell a general how

fast the train can travel and he will know how long the journey will be.

We passed our wagons in a terrible plight: some upset, some with balky

mules, some stuck in the mud, and some broken down. The loud-swearing

drivers, and the stubborn, patient, hard-pulling mules did not fail to

vary and enliven the scene.

A journey of eighteen miles brought us to this place, where we are

encamped upon the county fair-ground. California is a mean, thriftless

village; there are no trees shading the cottages, no shrubbery in the

yards. The place is only two or three years old, but already wears a

slovenly air of decay.

I set out with Colonel L. upon a foraging expedition. We passed a small

house, in front of which a fat little negro-girl was drawing a bucket of

water from the well, the girl puffing and the windlass creaking.

"Will Massa have a drink of water?"

It was the first token of hospitality since Hermann. We stopped and drank

from the bucket, but had not been there a minute before the mistress ran

out, with suspicion in her face, to protect her property. A single

question sufficed to show the politics of that house.

"Where is your husband?"

"He went off a little while ago."

This was the Missouri way of informing us that he was in the Rebel army.

A little farther on we came to what was evidently the chief house of the

place. A bevy of maidens stood at the gate, supported by a pleasant

matron, fair and fat.

"Can you sell us some bread?" was our rather practical inquiry.

"We have none baked, but will bake you some by sundown," was the answer,

given in a hearty, generous voice.

The bargain was soon made. Our portly dame proved to be a Virginian, who

still cherished a true Virginian love for the Union.

_Tipton, October 9th._ The General was in the saddle very early, and left

camp before the staff was ready. I was fortunate enough to be on hand, and

indulged in some excusable banter when the tardy members of our company

rode up after we were a mile or two on the way. We have marched twelve

miles to-day through a lovely country. We have left the hills and stony

roads behind us, and now we pass over beautiful little prairies, bordered

by forests blazing with the crimson and gold of autumn. The day's ride has

been delightful, the atmosphere soft and warm, the sky cloudless, and the

prairie firm and hard under our horses' feet. We passed several regiments

on the road, who received the General with unbounded enthusiasm; and when

we entered Tipton, we found the country covered with tents, and alive with

men and horses. Amidst the cheers of the troops, we passed through the

camps, and settled down upon a fine prairie-farm a mile to the southwest

of Tipton. The divisions of Asboth and Hunter are here, not less than

twelve thousand men, and from this point our course is to be southward.

_Camp Asboth, near Tipton, October 11th._ For the last twenty-four hours

it has rained violently, and the prairie upon which we are encamped is a

sea of black mud. But the tents are tight, and inside we contrive to keep

comparatively warm.

The camp is filled with speculations as to our future course. Shall we

follow Price, who is crossing the Osage now, or are we to garrison the

important positions upon this line and return to St. Louis and prepare for

the expedition down the river? The General is silent, his reserve is never

broken, and no one knows what his plans are, except those whose business

it is to know. I will here record the plan of the campaign.

Our campaign has been in some measure decided by the movements of the

Rebels. The sudden appearance of Price in the West, gathering to his

standard many thousands of the disaffected, has made it necessary for the

General to check his bold and successful progress. Carthage, Wilson's

Creek, and Lexington have given to Price a prestige which it is essential

to destroy. The gun-boats cannot be finished for two months or more, and

we cannot go down the Mississippi until the flotilla is ready; and from

the character of the country upon each side of the river it will be

difficult to operate there with a large body of men. In Southwestern

Missouri we are sure of fine weather till the last of November, the

prairies are high and dry, and there are no natural obstacles except such

as it will excite the enthusiasm of the troops to overcome. Therefore the

General has determined to pursue Price until he catches him. He can march

faster than we can now, but we shall soon be able to move faster than it

is possible for him to do. The Rebels have no base of operations from

which to draw supplies; they depend entirely upon foraging; and for this

reason Price has to make long halts wherever he finds mills, and grind the

flour. He is so deficient in equipage, also, that it will be impossible

for him to carry his troops over great distances. But we can safely

calculate that Price and Rains will not leave the State; their followers

are enlisted for six months, and are already becoming discontented at

their continued retreat, and will not go with them beyond the borders.

This is the uniform testimony of deserters and scouts. Price disposed of,

either by a defeat or by the dispersal of his army, we are to proceed to

Bird's Point, or into Arkansas, according to circumstances. A blow at

Little Rock seems now the wisest, as it is the boldest plan. We can reach

that place by the middle of November; and if we obtain possession of it,

the position of the enemy upon the Mississippi will be completely turned.

The communications of Pillow, Hardee, and Thompson, who draw their

supplies through Arkansas, will be cut off, they will be compelled to

retreat, and our flotilla and the reinforcements can descend the river to

assist in the operations against Memphis and the attack upon New Orleans.

This campaign may be difficult, the army will have to encounter hardships

and perils, but, unless defeated in the field, the enterprise will be

successful. No hardships or perils can daunt the spirit of the General, or

arrest the march of the enthusiastic army his genius has created.

Our column is composed of five divisions, under Generals Hunter, Pope,

Sigel, McKinstry, and Asboth, and numbers about thirty thousand men,

including over five thousand cavalry and eighty-six pieces of artillery, a

large proportion of which are rifled. The infantry is generally well,

though not uniformly armed. But the cavalry is very badly armed. Colonel

Carr's regiment has no sabres, except for the commissioned and

non-commissioned officers. The men carry Hall's carbines and revolvers.

Major Waring's fine corps, the Fremont Hussars, is also deficient in

sabres, and some of the companies are provided with lances,--formidable

weapons in skilful bands, but only an embarrassment to our raw troops.

Lane and Sturgis are to come from Kansas and join us on the Osage, and

Wyman is to bring his command from Rolla and meet us south of that river.

Paducah, Cairo, Bird's Point, Cape Girardeau, and Ironton are well

protected against attack, and the commanders at those posts are ordered to

engage the enemy as soon as we catch Price; and if the Rebels retreat,

they are to pursue them. Thus our expedition is part of a combined and

extended movement, and, instead of having no purpose except the defeat of

Price, we are on the road to New Orleans.

Next Monday we are to start. Asboth will go from here, Hunter by way of

Versailles, McKinstry from Syracuse, Pope from his present position in the

direction of Booneville, and Sigel from Sedalia. We are to cross the Osage

at Warsaw; and as Sigel has the shortest distance to march, he is expected

to reach that town first.

Precious time has already been lost because of a lack of transportation

and supplies. Foraging parties have been scouring the country, and large

numbers of wagons, horses, and mules have been brought in. This property

is all appraised, and when taken from Union men it is paid for. In

doubtful cases a certificate is given to the owner, which recites that he

is to be paid in case he shall continue to be loyal to the Government. We

thus obtain a hold upon these people which an oath of allegiance every day

would not give us.

_Camp Asboth, October 13th._ Mr. Cameron, Senator Chandler of Michigan,

and Adjutant-General Thomas arrived at an early hour this morning; and at

eight o'clock, the General, attended by his staff and body-guard, repaired

to the Secretary's quarters. After a short stay there, the whole party,

except General Thomas, set out for Syracuse to review the division of

General McKinstry. The day was fine, and we proceeded at a hand gallop

until we reached a prairie some three or four miles wide. Here the

Secretary set spurs to his horse, and we tore across the plain as fast as

our animals could be driven. Passing from the open plain into a forest,

the whole cortege dashed over a very rough road with but little slackening

of our pace; nor did we draw rein until we reached Syracuse. A few moments

were passed in the interchange of the usual civilities, and we then went a

mile farther on, to a large prairie upon which the division was drawn up.

McKinstry has the flower of the army. He has in his ranks some regular

infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and among his subordinate officers are

Totten, Steele, Kelton, and Stanley, all distinguished in the regular

service. There was no time for the observance of the usual forms of a

review. The Secretary passed in front and behind the lines, made a short

address, and left immediately by rail for St. Louis, stopping at Tipton to

review Asboth's division. The staff and guard rode slowly back to camp,

both men and animals having had quite enough of the day's work. It is

said, that Adjutant-General Thomas has expressed the opinion that we shall

not be able to move from here, because we have no transportation. As we

are ordered to march to-morrow, the prediction will soon be tested.

_Camp Zagonyi, October 14th._ We were in the saddle this morning at nine

o'clock, A short march of eleven miles, in a south-westerly direction, and

through a prairie country, brought us to our camp. As we came upon the

summit of a hill which lies to the west of our present position, our

attention was directed to a group standing in front of a house about a

mile distant. We had hardly caught sight of them when half a dozen men and

three women mounted their horses and started at full speed towards the

northeast, each man leading a horse. The General ordered some of the

body-guard to pursue and try to stop the fugitives. We eagerly watched the

chase. A narrow valley separated us from the elevation upon which the

farm-house stood, and a small stream with low banks ran through the bottom

of the valley. The pursuit was active, the guardsmen ran their horses down

the slope, leaped the pool, and rushed up the opposite hill; but the

runaways were on fresh horses, and had no rough ground to pass, and so

they escaped. One of them lost the horse he was leading, and it was caught

by a guardsman. This was the first exhibition we have seen of a desire on

the part of the inhabitants to avoid us.

The General established head-quarters along-side the house where we first

discovered the Rebel party. Our position is the most beautiful one we have

yet found. To the west stretches an undulating prairie, separated from us

by a valley, into which our camping-ground subsides with a mild declivity;

to the north is a range of low hills, their round sides unbroken by shrub

or tree; while to the south stretches an extensive tract of low land,

densely covered with timber, and resplendent with the colors of autumn.

Before dark the whole of Asboth's division came up and encamped on the

slopes to the west and north: not less than seven thousand men are here.

This evening the scene is beautiful. I sit in the door of my lodge, and as

far as the eye can reach the prairie is dotted with tents, the dark forms

of men and horses, the huge white-topped wagons,--and a thousand fires

gleam through the faint moonlight. Our band is playing near the General's

quarters, its strains are echoed by a score of regimental bands, and their

music is mingled with the numberless noises of camp, the hum of voices,

the laughter from the groups around the fires, the clatter of hoofs as

some rider hurries to the General, the distant challenges of the sentries,

the neighing of horses, the hoarse bellowing of the mules, and the

clinking of the cavalry anvils. This, at last, is the romance of war. How

soon will our ears be saluted by sterner music?

_Camp Hudson, October 15th._ We moved at seven o'clock this morning. For

the first four miles the road ran through woods intersected by small

streams. The ground was as rough as it could well be, and the teams which

had started before us were struggling through the mire and over the rocks.

We dashed past them at a fast trot, and in half an hour came upon a high

prairie. The prairies of Southern Missouri are not large and flat, like

the monotonous levels of Central Illinois, but they are rolling, usually

small, and broken by frequent narrow belts of timber. In the woods there

are hills, rocky soil, and always one, often two streams, clear and rapid

as a mountain-brook in New England.

The scenery to-day was particularly attractive, a constant succession of

prairies surrounded by wooded hills. As we go south, the color of the

forest becomes richer, and the atmosphere more mellow and hazy.

During the first two hours we passed several regiments of foot. The men

were nearly all Germans, and I scanned the ranks carefully, longing to see

an American countenance. I found none, but caught sight of one

arch-devil-may-care Irish face. I doubt whether there is a company in the

army without an Irishman in it, though the proportion of Irishmen in our

ranks is not so great as at the East.

Early in the afternoon we rode up to a farm-house, at the gate of which a

middle-aged woman was standing, crying bitterly. The General stopped, and

the woman at once assailed him vehemently. She told him the soldiers had

that day taken her husband and his team away with them. She said that

there was no one left to take care of her old blind mother,--at which

allusion, the blind mother tottered down the walk and took a position in

the rear of the attacking party,--that they had two orphan girls, the

children of a deceased sister, and the orphans had lost their second

father. The assailants were here reinforced by the two orphan girls. She

protested that her husband was loyal,--"Truly, Sir, he was a Union man and

voted for the Union, and always told his neighbors Disunion would do

nothing except bring trouble upon innocent people, as indeed it has," said

she, with a fresh flood of tears. The General was moved by her distress,

and ordered Colonel E. to have the man, whose name is Rutherford, sent

back at once.

A few rods farther on we came to another house, in front of which was

another weeping woman afflicted in the same way. Several little

flaxen-haired children surrounded her, and a white-bearded man, trembling

with age, stood behind, leaning upon a staff. Her earnestness far

surpassed that of Mrs. Rutherford. She wrung her hands, and could hardly

speak for her tears. She seized the General's hand and entreated him to

return her husband, with an expression of distress which the hardest heart

could not resist. The General comforted the poor woman with a few kind

words, and promised to grant what she asked.

It is very difficult to refuse such requests, and yet, in point of fact,

no great hardship or sacrifice is required of these men. They profess to

be Union men, but they are not in arms for the Union, and a Federal

general now asks of them that they shall help the army for a day with

their teams. To those who come here from all parts of the nation to defend

these homes this does not appear to be a harsh demand.

We arrived at camp about five o'clock. Our day's march was twenty-two

miles, and the wagons were far behind. A neighboring farm-house afforded

the General and a few of his officers a dinner, but it was late in the

evening before the tents were pitched.

_Warsaw, October 17th._ Yesterday we made our longest march, making

twenty-five miles, and encamped three miles north of this place.

It is a problem, why riding in a column should be so much more wearisome

than riding alone, but so it undeniably is. Men who would think little of

a sixty-mile ride were quite broken down by to-day's march.

As soon as we reached camp, the General asked for volunteers from the

staff to ride over to Warsaw: of course the whole staff volunteered. On

the way we met General Sigel. This very able and enterprising officer is a

pleasant, scholarly-looking gentleman, his studious air being increased by

the spectacles he always wears. His figure is light, active, and graceful,

and he is an excellent horseman. The country has few better heads than

his. Always on the alert, he is full of resources, and no difficulties

daunt him. Planter, Pope, and McKinstry are behind, waiting for tea and

coffee, beans and flour, and army-wagons. Sigel gathered the ox-team and

the farmers' wagons and brought his division forward with no food for his

men but fresh beef. His advance-guard is already across the Osage, and in

a day or two his whole division will be over.

Guided by General Sigel, we rode down to the ford across the Osage. The

river here is broad and rapid, and its banks are immense bare cliffs

rising one hundred feet perpendicularly from the water's edge. The ford is

crooked, uncertain, and never practicable except for horsemen. The ferry

is an old flat-boat drawn across by a rope, and the ascent up the farther

bank is steep and rocky. It will not answer to leave in our rear this

river, liable to be changed by a night's rain into a fierce torrent, with

no other means of crossing it than the rickety ferry. A bridge must at

once be built, strong and firm, a safe road for the army in case of

disaster. So decides the General. And as we look upon the swift-running

river and its rocky shores, cold and gloomy in the twilight, every one

agrees that the General is right. His decision has since been strongly

supported, for to-day two soldiers of the Fremont Hussars were drowned in

trying to cross the ford, and the water is now rising rapidly.

This morning we moved into Warsaw, and for the first time the staff is

billeted in the Secession houses of the town; but the General clings to

his tent. Our mess is quartered in the house of the county judge, who says

his sympathies are with the South. But the poor man is so frightened, that

we pity and protect him.

Bridge-building is now the sole purpose of the army. There is no saw-mill

here, nor any lumber. The forest must be cut down and fashioned into a

bridge, as well as the tools and the skill at command will permit. Details

are already told off from the sharp-shooters, the cadets, and even the

body-guard, and the banks of the river now resound with the quick blows of

their axes.

_Warsaw, October 21st._ Four days we have been waiting for the building of

the bridge. By night and by day the work goes on, and now the long black

shape is striding slowly across the stream. In a few hours it will have

gained the opposite bank, and then, Ho, for Springfield!

Our scouts have come in frequently the last few days. They tell us Price

is at Stockton, and is pushing rapidly on towards the southwest. He has

been grinding corn near Stockton, and has now food enough for another

journey. His army numbers twenty thousand men, of whom five thousand have

no arms. The rest carry everything, from double-barrelled shot-guns to the

Springfield muskets taken from the Home-Guards. They load their shot-guns

with a Minié-ball and two buck-shot, and those who have had experience say

that at one hundred yards they are very effective weapons. There is little

discipline in the Rebel army, and the only organization is by companies.

The men are badly clothed, and without shoes, and often without food. The

deserters say that those who remain are waiting only to get the new

clothes which McCulloch is expected to bring from the South.

McCulloch, the redoubtable Ben, does not seem to be held in high esteem by

the Rebel soldiers. They say he lacks judgment and self-command. But all

speak well of Price. No one can doubt that he is a man of unusual energy

and ability. McCulloch will increase Price's force to about thirty-five

thousand, which number we must expect to meet.

Hunter and McKinstry have not yet appeared, but Pope reported himself last

night, and some of his men came in to-day.

_Camp White, October 22d._ The bridge is built, and the army is now

crossing the Osage. In five days a firm road has been thrown across the

river, over which our troops may pass in a day. The General and staff

crossed by the ferry, and are now encamped two miles south of the

Pomme-de-Terre.

* * * * *

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW.

_Letter from the REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, A.M., inclosing the

Epistle aforesaid._

Jaalam, 15th Nov., 1861.

It is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person with undue

prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen upon the present

occasion. _Juniores ad labores._ But having been a main instrument in

rescuing the talent of my young parishioner from being buried in the

ground, by giving it such warrant with the world as would be derived from

a name already widely known by several printed discourses, (all of which I

maybe permitted without immodesty to state have been deemed worthy of

preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed friend Mr.

Sibley,) it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to the

genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it, the

more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of absolute

oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authourship (_vix ea

nostra voco_) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but merely

take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the office of

taster, (_experto crede_,) who, having first tried, could afterward bear

witness,--an office always arduous, and sometimes even dangerous, as in

the ease of those devoted persons who venture their lives in the

deglutition of patent medicines (_dolus latet in generalibus_, there is

deceit in the most of them) and thereafter are wonderfully preserved long

enough to append their signatures to testimonials in the diurnal and

hebdomadal prints. I say not this as covertly glancing at the authours of

certain manuscripts which have been submitted to my literary judgment,

(though an epick in twenty-four books on the "Taking of Jericho" might,

save for the prudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just

as I had arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of the

various horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous in longanimity of

Homer's list of ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate any hope I

could entertain _vacare Musis_ for the small remainder of my days,) but

only further to secure myself against any imputation of unseemly

forthputting. I will barely subjoin, in this connection, that, whereas Job

was left to desire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary had

written a book, as perchance misanthropically wishing to indite a review

thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as to send Bildad,

Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in his wallet to be

submitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were I in need of other

excuse, I might add that I write by the express desire of Mr. Biglow

himself, whose entire winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, in

answering demands for autographs, a labour exacting enough in itself, and

egregiously so to him, who, being no ready penman, cannot sign so much as

his name without strange contortions of the face (his nose, even, being

essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed Saint-Vitus-dance

of every muscle in his body. This, with his having been put in the

Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governour (_O, si sic omnes!_)

immediately on his accession to office, keeps him continually employed.

_Haud inexpertus loquor,_ having for many years written myself J.P., and

being not seldom applied to for specimens of my chirography, a request to

which I have sometimes too weakly assented, believing as I do that nothing

written of set purpose can properly be called an autograph, but only those

unpremeditated sallies and lively runnings which betray the fireside Man

instead of the hunted Notoriety doubling on his pursuers. But it is time

that I should bethink me of Saint Austin's prayer, _Libera me a meipso,_

if I would arrive at the matter in hand.

Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am

informed that the "Atlantic Monthly" is mainly indebted for its success to

the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose excellent

"Annals of America" occupy an honoured place upon my shelves. The journal

itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it should seem that the

recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though _par magis quam similis_)

would carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a department for

historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed desirable, to

forward for publication my "Collections for the Antiquities of Jaalam" and

my (now happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur family from _fons et

origo_, the Wild-Boar of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the active duties of my

profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun

Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Corners, I might find time for further

contributions to general literature on similar topicks. I have made large

advances toward a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wilbur's family, the

Pilcoxes, not, if I know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole

desire of rendering myself useful in my day and generation. _Nulla dies

sine lineâ._ I inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births,

deaths, and marriages, and a few _memorabilia_, of longevity in Jaalam

East Parish for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period

of more than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or

abatement of my natural vigour, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory

and a necessity of recurring to younger eyesight for the finer print in

Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for declining

years from the emoluments of my literary labours. I had intended to effect

an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom by a circular from one

of the offices, in which the sudden deaths of so large a proportion of the

insured was set forth as an inducement, that it seemed to me little less

than a tempting of Providence. _Neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus

potest, ne sapienti quidem._

Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow; and so much seemed needful (_brevis esse

laboro_) by way of preliminary, after a silence of fourteen years. He

greatly fears lest he may in this essay have fallen below himself, well

knowing, that, if exercise be dangerous on a full stomach, no less so is

writing on a full reputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he could

not refrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again have

"got the hang" (as he calls it) of an accomplishment long disused. The

letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time in last June, and others have

followed which will in due season be submitted to the publick. How largely

his statements are to be depended on, I more than merely dubitate. He was

always distinguished for a tendency to exaggeration,--it might almost be

qualified by a stronger term. _Fortiter mentire, aliquid hæret_, seemed to

be his favourite rule of rhetorick. That he is actually where he says he

is the post-mark would seem to confirm; that he was received with the

publick demonstrations he describes would appear consonant with what we

know of the habits of those regions; but further than this I venture not

to decide. I have sometimes suspected a vein of humour in him which leads

him to speak by contraries; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse of

private life, I have never observed in him any striking powers of

invention, I am the more willing to put a certain qualified faith in the

incidents and the details of life and manners which give to his narratives

some of the interest and entertainment which characterize a Century

Sermon.

It may be expected of me that I should say something to justify myself

with the world for a seeming inconsistency with my well-known principles

in allowing my youngest son to raise a company for the war, a fact known

to all through the medium of the publick prints. I did reason with the

young man, but _expellas naturam furcâ, tamenusque recurrit_. Having

myself been a chaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of war

had sprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my Benjamin,

the child of my old age; but after the discomfiture of Manassas, I with my

own hands did buckle on his armour, trusting in the great Comforter for

strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in

his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a coward,

though his days might be long in the land and he should get much goods. It

is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess

the treasure that was laid up in them. _Migravi in animam meam_, I have

sought refuge in my own soul; nor would I be shamed by the heathen

comedian with his _Nequam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit_.

During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspired book of Job, which

I believe to contain more food to maintain the fibre of the soul for right

living and high thinking than all pagan literature together, though I

would by no means vilipend the study of the classicks. There I read that

Job said in his despair, even as the fool saith in his heart there is no

God,--"The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are

secure." _Job_ xii. 6. But I sought farther till I found this Scripture

also, which I would have those perpend who have striven to turn our Israel

aside to the worship of strange gods:--"If I did despise the cause of my

man-servant or of my maid-servant when they contended with me, what then

shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer

him?" _Job_ xxxi. 13-14. On this text I preached a discourse on the last

day of Fasting and Humiliation with general acceptance, though there were

not wanting one or two Laodiceans who said that I should have waited till

the President announced his policy. But let us hope and pray, remembering

this of Saint Gregory, _Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdam

importunitate vinci_.

We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have been unusually

backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred in this town on the

20th October, in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. On the previous

evening, a few moments before family-prayers,

* * * * *

[The editors of the "Atlantic" find it necessary here to cut short the

letter of their valued correspondent, which seemed calculated rather on

the rates of longevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They

have every encouragement to hope that he will write again.]

With esteem and respect,

Your obedient servant,

HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't writ no letters,

An' ther' 's gret changes hez took place in all polit'cle metters:

Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' some hez ben defeated,

Which 'mounts to pooty much the same; fer it's ben proved repeated

A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once ain't goin' to rise agin,

An' it's jest money throwed away to put the emptins in:

But thet's wut folks wun't never larn; they dunno how to go,

Arter you want their room, no more 'n a bullet-headed beau;

Ther' 's ollers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet can't see pea-time's past,

Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads down an' tails half-mast:

It ain't disgraceful bein' beat, when a holl nation doos it,

But Chance is like an amberill,--it don't take twice to lose it.

I spose you're kin' o' cur'ous, now, to know why I hain't writ.

Wal, I've ben where a litt'ry taste don't somehow seem to git

Th' encouragement a feller'd think, thet's used to public schools,

An' where sech things ez paper 'n' ink air clean agin the rules:

A kind o' vicyvarsy house, built dreffle strong an' stout,

So 's 't honest people can't git in, ner t' other sort git out,

An' with the winders so contrived, you'd prob'ly like the view

Better a-lookin' in than out, though it seems sing'lar, tu;

But then the landlord sets by ye, can't bear ye out o' sight,

And locks ye up ez reg'lar ez an outside door at night.

This world is awfle contrary: the rope may stretch your neck

Thet mebby kep' another chap frum washin' off a wreck;

An' you will see the taters grow in one poor feller's patch,

So small no self-respectin' hen thet vallied time 'ould scratch,

So small the rot can't find 'em out, an' then agin, nex' door,

Ez big ez wut hogs dream on when they're 'most too fat to snore.

But groutin' ain't no kin' o' use; an' ef the fust throw fails,

Why, up an' try agin, thet's all,--the coppers ain't all tails;

Though I _hev_ seen 'em when I thought they hed n't no more head

Than'd sarve a nussin' Brigadier thet gits some ink to shed.

When I writ last, I'd ben turned loose by thet blamed nigger, Pomp,

Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you'd took an' dreened his swamp:

But I ain't o' the meechin' kind, thet sets an' thinks fer weeks

The bottom's out o' th' univarse coz their own gillpot leaks.

I hed to cross bayous an' criks, (wal, it did beat all natur',)

Upon a kin' o' corderoy, fust log, then alligator:

Luck'ly the critters warn't sharp-sot; I guess't wuz overruled

They'd done their mornin's marketin' an' gut their hunger cooled;

Fer missionaries to the Creeks an' runaway's air viewed

By them an' folks ez sent express to be their reg'lar food:

Wutever 't wuz, they laid an' snoozed ez peacefully ez sinners,

Meek ez disgestin' deacons be at ordination dinners;

Ef any on 'em turned an' snapped, I let 'em kin' o' taste

My live-oak leg, an' so, ye see, ther' warn't no gret o' waste,

Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they'd ben to college

'T warn't heartier food than though 't wuz made out o' the tree o'

knowledge.

But _I_ tell _you_ my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant,

An' var'ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement,

An' all o' me thet wuz n't sore an' sendin' prickles thru me

Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin' Montezumy:

A usefle limb it 's ben to me, an' more of a support

Than wut the other hez ben,--coz I dror my pension for 't.

Wal, I gut in at last where folks wuz civerlized an' white,

Ez I diskivered to my cost afore 't wuz hardly night;

Fer 'z I wuz settin' in the bar a-takin' sunthin' hot,

An' feelin' like a man agin, all over in one spot,

A feller thet sot opposite, arter a squint at me,

Lep up an' drawed his peacemaker, an', "Dash it, Sir," suz he,

"I'm doubledashed if you ain't him thet stole my yaller chettle,

(You're all the stranger thet's around,) so now you've gut to settle;

It ain't no use to argerfy ner try to cut up frisky,

I know ye ez I know the smell o' ole chain-lightnin' whiskey;

We're lor-abidin' folks down here, we'll fix ye so 's 't a bar

Wouldn' tech ye with a ten-foot pole; (Jedge, you jest warm the tar;)

You'll think you'd better ha' gut among a tribe o' Mongrel Tartars,

'Fore we've done showin' how we raise our Southun prize tar-martyrs;

A moultin' fallen cherubim, ef he should see ye, 'd snicker,

Thinkin' he hedn't nary chance. Come, genlemun, le' 's liquor;

An', Gin'ral, when you 've mixed the drinks an' chalked 'em up, tote

roun'

An' see ef ther' 's a feather-bed (thet's borryable) in town.

We'll try ye fair, Ole Grafted-Leg, an' ef the tar wun't stick,

Th' ain't not a juror here but wut'll 'quit ye double-quick."

To cut it short, I wun't say sweet, they gi' me a good dip,

(They ain't _perfessin'_ Bahptists here,) then give the bed a rip,--

The jury 'd sot, an' quicker 'n a flash they hetched me out, a livin'

Extemp'ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a Feejee Thanksgivin'.

Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it's nat'ral to suppose,

When poppylar enthusiasm hed furnished me sech clo'es;

(Ner 't ain't without edvantiges, this kin' o' suit, ye see,

It's water-proof, an' water's wut I like kep' out o' me;)

But nut content with thet, they took a kerridge from the fence

An' rid me roun' to see the place, entirely free 'f expense,

With forty-'leven new kines o' sarse without no charge acquainted me,

Gi' me three cheers, an' vowed thet I wuz all their fahncy painted me;

They treated me to all their eggs; (they keep 'em, I should think,

Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they wuz mos' distinc';)

They starred me thick 'z the Milky-Way with indiscrim'nit cherity,

For wut we call reception eggs air sunthin' of a rerity;

Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce wuth a nigger's getherin',

But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer treatin' Nothun bretherin:

A spotteder, ringstreakeder child the' warn't in Uncle Sam's

Holl farm,--a cross of stripèd pig an' one o' Jacob's lambs;

'T wuz Dannil in the lions' den, new an' enlarged edition,

An' everythin' fust-rate o' 'ts kind, the' warn't no impersition.

People's impulsiver down here than wut our folks to home be,

An' kin' o' go it 'ith a resh in raisin' Hail Columby:

Thet's _so_: an' they swarmed out like bees, for your real Southun

men's

Time isn't o' much more account than an ole settin' hen's;

(They jest work semioccashnally, or else don't work at all,

An' so their time an' 'tention both air et saci'ty's call.)

Talk about hospitality! wut Nothun town d' ye know

Would take a totle stranger up an' treat him gratis so?

You'd better b'lieve ther' 's nothin' like this spendin' days an'

nights

Along 'ith a dependent race fer civerlizin' whites.

But this wuz all prelim'nary; it's so Gran' Jurors here

Fin' a true bill, a hendier way than ourn, an' nut so dear;

So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight 'n' snug,

Afore a reg'lar court o' law, to ten years in the Jug.

I didn' make no gret defence: you don't feel much like speakin',

When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart o' tar will leak in:

I _hev_ hearn tell o' wingèd words, but pint o' fact it tethers

The spoutin' gift to hev your words tu thick sot on with feathers,

An' Choate ner Webster wouldn't ha' made an A 1 kin' o' speech,

Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper 'n a baby's screech.

Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent,

They jest oncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent

To see how _he_ liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin',

An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin.

When I come out, the folks behaved mos' gen'manly an' harnsome;

They 'lowed it wouldn't be more 'n right, ef I should cuss 'n' darn

some:

The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, "I'll du wut 's right,

I'll give ye settisfection now by shootin' ye at sight,

An' give the nigger, (when he's caught,) to pay him fer his trickin'

In gittin' the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin',--

It's jest the way with all on 'em, the inconsistent critters,

They're 'most enough to make a man blaspheme his mornin' bitters;

I'll be your frien' thru thick an' thin an' in all kines o' weathers,

An' all you'll hev to pay fer 's jest the waste o' tar an' feathers:

A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, tu, Miss Shennon;

It wuz her mite; we would ha' took another, ef ther 'd ben one:

We don't make _no_ charge for the ride an' all the other fixins.

Le' 's liquor; Gin'ral, you can chalk our friend for all the mixins."

A meetin' then wuz called, where they "RESOLVED, Thet we respec'

B.S. Esquire for quallerties o' heart an' intellec'

Peculiar to Columby's sile, an' not to no one else's,

Thet makes Európean tyrans scringe in all their gilded pel'ces,

An' doos gret honor to our race an' Southun institootions":

(I give ye jest the substance o' the leadin' resolootions:)

"RESOLVED, Thet we revere in him a soger 'thout a flor,

A martyr to the princerples o' libbaty an' lor:

RESOLVED, Thet other nations all, ef sot 'longside o' us,

For vartoo, larnin', chivverlry, ain't noways wuth a cuss."

They gut up a subscription, tu, but no gret come o' _that_;

I 'xpect in cairin' of it roun' they took a leaky hat;

Though Southun genelmun ain't slow at puttin' down their name,

(When they can write,) fer in the eend it comes to jest the same,

Because, ye see, 't 's the fashion here to sign an' not to think

A critter'd be so sordid ez to ax 'em for the chink:

I didn't call but jest on one, an' _he_ drawed toothpick on me,

An' reckoned he warn't goin' to stan' no sech dog-gauned econ'my;

So nothin' more wuz realized, 'ceptin' the good-will shown,

Than ef 't had ben from fust to last a reg'lar Cotton Loan.

It's a good way, though, come to think, coz ye enjy the sense

O' lendin' lib'rally to the Lord, an' nary red o' 'xpense:

Sence then I've gut my name up for a gin'rous-hearted man

By jes' subscribin' right an' left on this high-minded plan;

I've gin away my thousans so to every Southun sort

O' missions, colleges, an' sech, ner ain't no poorer for 't.

I warn't so bad off, arter all; I needn't hardly mention

That Guv'ment owed me quite a pile for my arrears o' pension,--

I mean the poor, weak thing we _hed_: we run a new one now,

Thet strings a feller with a claim up tu the nighest bough,

An' _prectises_ the rights o' man, purtects down-trodden debtors,

Ner wun't hev creditors about a-scrougin' o' their betters:

Jeff's gut the last idees ther' is, poscrip', fourteenth edition,

He knows it takes some enterprise to run an oppersition;

Ourn's the fust thru-by-daylight train, with all ou'doors for deepot,

Yourn goes so slow you'd think 't wuz drawed by a last cent'ry

teapot;--

Wal, I gut all on 't paid in gold afore our State seceded,

An' done wal, for Confed'rit bonds warn't jest the cheese I needed:

Nut but wut they're ez _good_ ez gold, but then it's hard a-breakin'

on 'em,

An' ignorant folks is ollers sot an' wun't git used to takin' on 'em;

They're wuth ez much ez wut they wuz afore ole Mem'nger signed 'em,

An' go off middlin' wal for drinks, when ther' 's a knife behind 'em:

We _du_ miss silver, jest fer thet an' ridin' in a bus,

Now we've shook off the despots thet wuz suckin' at our pus;

An' it's _because_ the South's so rich; 't wuz nat'ral to expec'

Supplies o' change wuz jest the things we shouldn't recollec';

We'd ough' to ha' thought aforehan', though, o' thet good rule o'

Crockett's,

For 't 's tiresome cairin' cotton-bales an' niggers in your pockets,

Ner 't ain't quite hendy to pass off one o' your six-foot Guineas

An' git your halves an' quarters back in gals an' pickaninnies:

Wal, 't ain't quite all a feller 'd ax, but then ther' 's this to say,

It's on'y jest among ourselves thet we expec' to pay;

Our system would ha' caird us thru in any Bible cent'ry,

'Fore this onscripted plan come up o' books by double entry;

We go the patriarkle here out o' all sight an' hearin',

For Jacob warn't a circumstance to Jeff at financierin';

_He_ never 'd thought o' borryin' from Esau like all nater

An' then cornfiscatin' all debts to sech a small pertater;

There's p'litickle econ'my, now, combined 'ith morril beauty

Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in'my's, tu) to dooty!

Wy, Jeff'd ha' gin him five an' won his eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it,

An', slid o' wastin' pottage, he'd ha' eat it up an' owed it.

But I wuz goin' on to say how I come here to dwall;--

'Nough said, thet, arter lookin' roun', I liked the place so wal,

Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy 'em,

By bein' proofs o' prophecy an' cirkleatin' medium,

Where a man's sunthin' coz he's white, an' whiskey's cheap ez fleas,

An' the financial pollercy jest sooted my idees,

Thet I friz down right where I wuz, merried the Widder Shennon,

(Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, part in the curse o' Canaan,)

An' here I be ez lively ez a chipmunk on a wall,

With nothin' to feel riled about much later 'n Eddam's fall.

Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we made an even trade:

She gut an overseer, an' I a fem'ly ready-made,

(The youngest on 'em's 'most growed up,) rugged an' spry ez weazles,

So's 't ther' 's no resk o' doctors' bills fer hoopin'-cough an'

measles.

Our farm's at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River,

Wal located in all respex,--fer 't ain't the chills 'n' fever

Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm; a Southuner'd allow I'd

Some call to shake, for I've jest hed to meller a new cowhide.

Miss S. is all 'f a lady; th' ain't no better on Big Boosy,

Ner one with more accomplishmunts 'twixt here an' Tuscaloosy;

She's an F.F., the tallest kind, an' prouder 'n the Gran' Turk,

An' never hed a relative thet done a stroke o' work;

Hern ain't a scrimpin' fem'ly sech ez _you_ git up Down East,

Th' ain't a growed member on 't but owes his thousuns et the least:

She _is_ some old; but then agin ther' 's drawbacks in my sheer;

Wut's left o' me ain't more 'n enough to make a Brigadier:

The wust is, she hez tantrums; she is like Seth Moody's gun

(Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp Ole Dot an' Kerry One);

He'd left her loaded up a spell, an' hed to git her clear,

So he onhitched,--Jeerusalem! the middle o' last year

Wuz right nex' door compared to where she kicked the critter tu

(Though _jest_ where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew);

His brother Asaph picked her up an' tied her to a tree,

An' then she kicked an hour 'n' a half afore she'd let it be:

Wal, Miss S. _doos_ hev cuttins-up an' pourins-out o' vials,

But then she hez her widder's thirds, an' all on us hez trials.

My objec', though, in writin' now warn't to allude to sech,

But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech,--

I want thet you should grad'lly break my merriage to Jerushy,

An' ther' 's a heap of argymunts thet's emple to indooce ye:

Fust place, State's Prison,--wal, it's true it warn't fer crime, o'

course,

But then it's jest the same fer her in gittin' a disvorce;

Nex' place, my State's secedin' out hez leg'lly lef' me free

To merry any one I please, pervidin' it's a she;

Fin'lly, I never wun't come back, she needn't hev no fear on 't,

But then it 's wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear

on 't;

Lastly, I've gut religion South, an' Rushy she's a pagan

Thet sets by th' graven imiges o' the gret Nothun Dagon;

(Now I hain't seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treasury Loan,

Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o' flown;)

An' ef J. wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated,

Wy, she's an aliun in'my now, an' I've ben cornfiscated,--

For sence we've entered on th' estate o' the late nayshnul eagle,

She hain't no kin' o' right but jest wut I allow ez legle:

Wut _doos_ Secedin' mean, ef't ain't thet nat'rul rights hez riz, 'n'

Thet wut is mine's my own, but wut's another man's ain't his'n?

Bersides, I couldn't do no else; Miss S. suz she to me,

"You've sheered my bed," [Thet's when I paid my interdiction fee

To Southun rites,] "an' kep' your sheer," [Wal, I allow it sticked

So's 't I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,]

"Ner never paid no demmiges; but thet wun't do no harm,

Pervidin' thet you'll ondertake to oversee the farm;

(My eldes' boy is so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers

An' settin' in the Jestice-Court for welcomin' o' strangers";)

[He sot on _me_;] "an' so, ef you'll jest ondertake the care

Upon a mod'rit sellery, we'll up an' call it square;

But ef you _can't_ conclude," suz she, an' give a kin' o' grin,

"Wy, the Gran' Jury, I expect, 'll hev to set agin."

Thet's the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du,

But jest to make the best on't an' off coat an' buckle tu?

Ther' ain't a livin' man thet finds an income necessarier

Than me,--bimeby I'll tell ye how I fin'lly come to merry her.

She hed another motive, tu: I mention of it here

T' encourage lads thet's growin' up to study 'n' persevere,

An' show 'em how much better 't pays to mind their winter-schoolin'

Than to go off on benders 'n' sech, an' waste their time in foolin';

Ef 't warn't for studyin', evening, I never 'd ha' ben here

An orn'ment o' saciety, in my approprut spear:

She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste an' cultivation,

To talk along o' preachers when they stopt to the plantation;

For folks in Dixie th't read an' write, onless it is by jarks,

Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' oridgenal patriarchs;

To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higherarchy,

All thet you've gut to know is jest beyund an evrage darky;

Schoolin' 's wut they can't seem to stan', they're tu consarned

high-pressure,

An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy for bein' a Secesher.

We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner ministeril taxes;

The min'ster's only settlement 's the carpet-bag he packs his

Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his hymbook an' his Bible,--

But they _du_ preach, I swan to man, it's puf'kly indescrib'le!

They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hoss-power coleric ingine,

An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' squirm, for all he's used to

singein';

Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' primin' to the innards

To hearin' on 'em put free grace t' a lot o' tough old sin-hards!

But I must eend this letter now: 'fore long I'll send a fresh un;

I've lots o' things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun:

I'm called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in

To Cynthy's hide: an' so, till death,

Yourn,

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

* * * * *

OLD AGE.

On the last anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, the

venerable President Quincy, senior member of the Society, as well as

senior alumnus of the University, was received at the dinner with peculiar

demonstrations of respect. He replied to these compliments in a speech,

and, gracefully claiming the privileges of a literary society, entered at

some length into an Apology for Old Age, and, aiding himself by notes in

his hand, made a sort of running commentary on Cicero's chapter "De

Senectute." The character of the speaker, the transparent good faith of

his praise and blame, and the _naïveté_ of his eager preference of

Cicero's opinions to King David's, gave unusual interest to the College

festival. It was a discourse full of dignity, honoring him who spoke and

those who heard.

The speech led me to look over at home--an easy task--Cicero's famous

essay, charming by its uniform rhetorical merit; heroic with Stoical

precepts; with a Roman eye to the claims of the State; happiest, perhaps,

in his praise of life on the farm; and rising, at the conclusion, to a

lofty strain. But he does not exhaust the subject; rather invites the

attempt to add traits to the picture from our broader modern life.

Cicero makes no reference to the illusions which cling to the element of

time, and in which Nature delights. Wellington, in speaking of military

men, said,--"What masks are these uniforms to hide cowards! When our

journal is published, many statues must come down." I have often detected

the like deception in the cloth shoe, wadded pelisse, wig and spectacles,

and padded chair of Age. Nature lends herself to these illusions, and adds

dim sight, deafness, cracked voice, snowy hair, short memory, and sleep.

These also are masks, and all is not Age that wears them. Whilst we yet

call ourselves young, and all our mates are yet youths and boyish, one

good fellow in the set prematurely sports a gray or a bald head, which

does not impose on us who know how innocent of sanctity or of Platonism he

is, but does not less deceive his juniors and the public, who presently

distinguish him with a most amusing respect: and this lets us into the

secret, that the venerable forms that so awed our childhood were just such

impostors. Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young

shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscore winters.

For if the essence of age is not present, these signs, whether of Art or

Nature, are counterfeit and ridiculous: and the essence of age is

intellect. Wherever that appears, we call it old. If we look into the eyes

of the youngest person, we sometimes discover that here is one who knows

already what you would go about with much pains to teach him; there is

that in him which is the ancestor of all around him: which fact the Indian

Vedas express, when they say, "He that can discriminate is the father of

his father." And in our old British legends of Arthur and the Round-Table,

his friend and counsellor, Merlin the Wise, is a babe found exposed in a

basket by the river-side, and, though an infant of only a few days, he

speaks to those who discover him, tells his name and history, and

presently foretells the fate of the by-standers. Wherever there is power,

there is age. Don't be deceived by dimples and curls. I tell you that babe

is a thousand years old.

Time is, indeed, the theatre and seat of illusion. Nothing is so ductile

and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to

an hour. Saadi found in a mosque at Damascus an old Persian of a hundred

and fifty years who was dying, and was saying to himself, "I said, coming

into the world by birth, 'I will enjoy myself for a few moments.' Alas! at

the variegated table of life I partook of a few mouthfuls, and the Fates

said, '_Enough!_'" That which does not decay is so central and controlling

in us, that, as long as one is alone by himself, he is not sensible of the

inroads of time, which always begin at the surface-edges. If, on a winter

day, you should stand within a bell-glass, the face and color of the

afternoon clouds would not indicate whether it were June or January; and

if we did not find the reflection of ourselves in the eyes of the young

people, we could not know that the century-clock had struck seventy

instead of twenty. How many men habitually believe that each chance

passenger with whom they converse is of their own age, and presently find

it was his father, and not his brother, whom they knew!

But, not to press too hard on these deceits and illusions of Nature, which

are inseparable from our condition, and looking at age under an aspect

more conformed to the common sense, if the question be the felicity of

age, I fear the first popular judgments will be unfavorable. From the

point of sensuous experience, seen from the streets and markets and the

haunts of pleasure and gain, the estimate of age is low, melancholy, and

skeptical. Frankly face the facts, and see the result. Tobacco, coffee,

alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions: the surest

poison is time. This cup, which Nature puts to our lips, has a wonderful

virtue, surpassing that of any other draught. It opens the senses, adds

power, fills us with exalted dreams, which we call hope, love, ambition,

science: especially, it creates a craving for larger draughts of itself.

But they who take the larger draughts are drunk with it, lose their

stature, strength, beauty, and senses, and end in folly and delirium. We

postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write,

and we one day discover that our literary talent was a youthful

effervescence which we have now lost. We had a judge in Massachusetts who

at sixty proposed to resign, alleging that he perceived a certain decay in

his faculties: he was dissuaded by his friends, on account of the public

convenience at that time. At seventy it was hinted to him that it was time

to retire; but he now replied, that he thought his judgment as robust, and

all his faculties as good as ever they were. But besides the

self-deception, the strong and hasty laborers of the street do not work

well with the chronic valetudinarian. Youth is everywhere in place. Age,

like woman, requires fit surroundings. Age is comely in coaches, in

churches, in chairs of state and ceremony, in council-chambers, in courts

of justice, and historical societies. Age is becoming in the country. But

in the rush and uproar of Broadway, if you look into the faces of the

passengers, there is dejection or indignation in the seniors, a certain

concealed sense of injury, and the lip made up with a heroic determination

not to mind it. Few envy the consideration enjoyed by the oldest

inhabitant. We do not count a man's years, until he has nothing else to

count. The vast inconvenience of animal immortality was told in the fable

of Tithonus. In short, the creed of the street is, Old Age is not

disgraceful, but immensely disadvantageous. Life is well enough, but we

shall all be glad to get out of it, and they will all be glad to have us.

This is odious on the face of it. Universal convictions are not to be

shaken by the whimseys of overfed butchers and firemen, or by the

sentimental fears of girls who would keep the infantile bloom on their

cheeks. We know the value of experience. Life and art are cumulative; and

he who has accomplished something in any department alone deserves to be

heard on that subject. A man of great employments and excellent

performance used to assure me that he did not think a man worth anything

until he was sixty; although this smacks a little of the resolution of a

certain "Young Men's Republican Club," that all men should be held

eligible who were under seventy. But in all governments, the councils of

power were held by the old; and patricians or _patres_, senate or _senes_,

_seigneurs_ or seniors, _gerousia_, the senate of Sparta, the presbytery

of the Church, and the like, all signify simply old men.

This cynical lampoon is refuted by the universal prayer for long life,

which is the verdict of Nature, and justified by all history. We have, it

is true, examples of an accelerated pace, by which young men achieved

grand works; as in the Macedonian Alexander, in Raffaelle, Shakspeare,

Pascal, Burns, and Byron; but these are rare exceptions. Nature, in the

main, vindicates her law. Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by

eyes always open, and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not

power. And if the life be true and noble, we have quite another sort of

seniors than the frowzy, timorous, peevish dotards who are falsely

old,--namely, the men who fear no city, but by whom cities stand; who

appearing in any street, the people empty their houses to gaze at and obey

them: as at "My Cid, with the fleecy beard," in Toledo; or Bruce, as

Barbour reports him; as blind old Dandolo, elected Doge at eighty-four

years, storming Constantinople at ninety-four, and after the revolt again

victorious, and elected at the age of ninety-six to the throne of the

Eastern Empire, which he declined, and died Doge at ninety-seven. We still

feel the force of Socrates, "whom well-advised the oracle pronounced

wisest of men"; of Archimedes, holding Syracuse against the Romans by his

wit, and himself better than all their nation; of Michel Angelo, wearing

the four crowns of architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry; of

Galileo, of whose blindness Castelli said, "The noblest eye is darkened

that Nature ever made,--an eye that hath seen more than all that went

before him, and hath opened the eyes of all that shall come after him"; of

Newton, who made an important discovery for every one of his eighty-five

years; of Bacon, who "took all knowledge to be his province"; of

Fontenelle, "that precious porcelain vase laid up in the centre of France

to be guarded with the utmost care for a hundred years"; of Franklin,

Jefferson, and Adams, the wise and heroic statesmen; of Washington, the

perfect citizen; of Wellington, the perfect soldier; of Goethe, the

all-knowing poet; of Humboldt, the encyclopædia of science.

Under the general assertion of the well-being of age, we can easily count

particular benefits of that condition. It has weathered the perilous capes

and shoals in the sea whereon we sail, and the chief evil of life is taken

away in removing the grounds of fear. The insurance of a ship expires as

she enters the harbor at home. It were strange, if a man should turn his

sixtieth year without a feeling of immense relief from the number of

dangers he has escaped. When the old wife says, "Take care of that tumor

in your shoulder, perhaps it is cancerous,"--he replies, "What if it is?"

The humorous thief who drank a pot of beer at the gallows blew off the

froth because he had heard it was unhealthy; but it will not add a pang to

the prisoner marched out to be shot, to assure him that the pain in his

knee threatens mortification. When the pleuro-pneumonia of the cows raged,

the butchers said, that, though the acute degree was novel, there never

was a time when this disease did not occur among cattle. All men carry

seeds of all distempers through life latent, and we die without developing

them: such is the affirmative force of the constitution. But if you are

enfeebled by any cause, the disease becomes strong. At every stage we lose

a foe. At fifty years, 't is said, afflicted citizens lose their

sick-headaches. I hope this _hegira_ is not as movable a feast as that one

I annually look for, when the horticulturists assure me that the rose-bugs

in our gardens disappear on the tenth of July: they stay a fortnight later

in mine. But be it as it may with the sick-headache,--'t is certain that

graver headaches and heart-aches are lulled, once for all, as we come up

with certain goals of time. The passions have answered their purpose: that

slight, but dread overweight, with which, in each instance, Nature secures

the execution of her aim, drops off. To keep man in the planet, she

impresses the terror of death. To perfect the commisariat, she implants in

each a little rapacity to get the supply, and a little over-supply, of his

wants. To insure the existence of the race, she reinforces the sexual

instinct, at the risk of disorder, grief, and pain. To secure strength,

she plants cruel hunger and thirst, which so easily overdo their office,

and invite disease. But these temporary stays and shifts for the

protection of the young animal are shed as fast as they can be replaced by

nobler resources. We live in youth amidst this rabble of passions, quite

too tender, quite too hungry and irritable. Later, the interiors of mind

and heart open, and supply grander motives. We learn the fatal

compensations that wait on every act. Then,--one mischief at a time,--this

riotous time-destroying crew disappear.

I count it another capital advantage of age, this, that a success more or

less signifies nothing. Little by little, it has amassed such a fund of

merit, that it can very well afford to go on its credit when it will. When

I chanced to meet the poet Wordsworth, then sixty-three years old, he told

me, "that he had just had a fall and lost a tooth, and, when his

companions were much concerned for the mischance, he had replied, that he

was glad it had not happened forty years before." Well, Nature takes care

that we shall not lose our organs forty years too soon. A lawyer argued a

cause yesterday in the Supreme Court, and I was struck with a certain air

of levity and defiance which vastly became him. Thirty years ago it was a

serious concern to him whether his pleading was good and effective. Now it

is of importance to his client, but of none to himself. It is long already

fixed what he can do and cannot do, and his reputation does not gain or

suffer from one or a dozen new performances. If he should, on a new

occasion, rise quite beyond his mark, and do somewhat extraordinary and

great, that, of course, would instantly tell; but he may go below his mark

with impunity, and people will say, "Oh, he had headache," or, "He lost

his sleep for two nights." What a lust of appearance, what a load of

anxieties that once degraded him, he is thus rid of! Every one is sensible

of this cumulative advantage in living. All the good days behind him are

sponsors, who speak for him when he is silent, pay for him when he has no

money, introduce him where he has no letters, and work for him when he

sleeps.

A third felicity of age is, that it has found expression. Youth suffers

not only from ungratified desires, but from powers untried, and from a

picture in his mind of a career which has, as yet, no outward reality. He

is tormented with the want of correspondence between things and thoughts.

Michel Angelo's head is full of masculine and gigantic figures as gods

walking, which make him savage until his furious chisel can render them

into marble; and of architectural dreams, until a hundred stone-masons can

lay them in courses of travertine. There is the like tempest in every good

head in which some great benefit for the world is planted. The throes

continue until the child is born. Every faculty new to each man thus goads

him and drives him out into doleful deserts, until it finds proper vent.

All the functions of human duty irritate and lash him forward, bemoaning

and chiding, until they are performed. He wants friends, employment,

knowledge, power, house and land, wife and children, honor and fame; he

has religious wants, aesthetic wants, domestic, civil, humane wants. One

by one, day after day, he learns to coin his wishes into facts. He has his

calling, homestead, social connection, and personal power, and thus, at

the end of fifty years, his soul is appeased by seeing some sort of

correspondence between his wish and his possession. This makes the value

of age, the satisfaction it slowly offers to every craving. He is serene

who does not feel himself pinched and wronged, but whose condition, in

particular and in general, allows the utterance of his mind. In old

persons, when thus fully expressed, we often observe a fair, plump,

perennial, waxen complexion, which indicates that all the ferment of

earlier days has subsided into serenity of thought and behavior.

For a fourth benefit, age sets its house in order, and finishes its works,

which to every artist is a supreme pleasure. Youth has an excess of

sensibility, to which every object glitters and attracts. We leave one

pursuit for another, and the young man's year is a heap of beginnings. At

the end of a twelvemonth, he has nothing to show for it, not one completed

work. But the time is not lost. Our instincts drove us to hive innumerable

experiences, that are yet of no visible value, and which we may keep for

twice seven years before they shall be wanted. The best things are of

secular growth. The instinct of classifying marks the wise and healthy

mind. Linnæus projects his system, and lays out his twenty-four classes of

plants, before yet he has found in Nature a single plant to justify

certain of his classes. His seventh class has not one. In process of time,

he finds with delight the little white _Trientalis_, the only plant with

seven petals and sometimes seven stamens, which constitutes a seventh

class in conformity with his system. The conchologist builds his cabinet

whilst as yet he has few shells. He labels shelves for classes, cells for

species: all but a few are empty. But every year fills some blanks, and

with accelerating speed as he becomes knowing and known. An old scholar

finds keen delight in verifying all the impressive anecdotes and citations

he has met with in miscellaneous reading and hearing, in all the years of

youth. We carry in memory important anecdotes, and have lost all clue to

the author from whom we had them. We have a heroic speech from Rome or

Greece, but cannot fix it on the man who said it. We have an admirable

line worthy of Horace, ever and anon resounding in our mind's ear, but

have searched all probable and improbable books for it in vain. We consult

the reading men: but, strangely enough, they who know everything know not

this. But especially we have a certain insulated thought, which haunts us,

but remains insulated and barren. Well, there is nothing for all this but

patience and time. Time, yes, that is the finder, the unweariable

explorer, not subject to casualties, omniscient at last. The day comes

when the hidden author of our story is found; when the brave speech

returns straight to the hero who said it; when the admirable verse finds

the poet to whom it belongs; and best of all, when the lonely thought,

which seemed so wise, yet half-wise, half-thought, because it cast no

light abroad, is suddenly matched in our mind by its twin, by its

sequence, or next related analogy, which gives it instantly radiating

power, and justifies the superstitious instinct with which we had hoarded

it. We remember our old Greek Professor at Cambridge, an ancient bachelor,

amid his folios, possessed by this hope of completing a task, with nothing

to break his leisure after the three hours of his daily classes, yet ever

restlessly stroking his leg, and assuring himself "he should retire from

the University and read the authors." In Goethe's Romance, Makaria, the

central figure for wisdom and influence, pleases herself with withdrawing

into solitude to astronomy and epistolary correspondence. Goethe himself

carried this completion of studies to the highest point. Many of his works

hung on the easel from youth to age, and received a stroke in every month

or year of his life. A literary astrologer, he never applied himself to

any task but at the happy moment when all the stars consented. Bentley

thought himself likely to live till fourscore,--long enough to read

everything that was worth reading,--"_Et tunc magna mei sub terris ibit

imago_." Much wider is spread the pleasure which old men take in

completing their secular affairs, the inventor his inventions, the

agriculturist his experiments, and all old men in finishing their houses,

rounding their estates, clearing their titles, reducing tangled interests

to order, reconciling enmities, and leaving all in the best posture for

the future. It must be believed that there is a proportion between the

designs of a man and the length of his life: there is a calendar of his

years, so of his performances.

America is the country of young men, and too full of work hitherto for

leisure and tranquillity; yet we have had robust centenarians, and

examples of dignity and wisdom. I have lately found in an old note-book a

record of a visit to Ex-President John Adams, in 1825, soon after the

election of his _son_ to the Presidency. It is but a sketch, and nothing

important passed in the conversation; but it reports a moment in the life

of a heroic person, who, in extreme old age, appeared still erect, and

worthy of his fame.

----, _Feb._, 1825. To-day, at Quincy, with my brother, by

invitation of Mr. Adams's family. The old President sat in a large

stuffed arm-chair, dressed in a blue coat, black small-clothes,

white stockings, and a cotton cap covered his bald head. We made

our compliment, told him he must let us join our congratulations

to those of the nation on the happiness of his house. He thanked

us, and said, "I am rejoiced, because the nation is happy. The

time of gratulation and congratulations is nearly over with me: I

am astonished that I have lived to see and know of this event. I

have lived now nearly a century: [he was ninety in the following

October:] a long, harassed, and distracted life."--I said, "The

world thinks a good deal of joy has been mixed with it."--"The

world does not know," he replied, "how much toil, anxiety, and

sorrow I have suffered."--I asked if Mr. Adams's letter of

acceptance had been read to him.--"Yes," he said, and added, "My

son has more political prudence than any man that I know who has

existed in my time; he never was put off his guard: and I hope he

will continue such; but what effect age may work in diminishing

the power of his mind, I do not know; it has been very much on the

stretch, ever since he was born. He has always been laborious,

child and man, from infancy."--When Mr. J.Q. Adams's age was

mentioned, he said, "He is now fifty-eight, or will be in July";

and remarked that "all the Presidents were of the same age:

General Washington was about fifty-eight, and I was about

fifty-eight, and Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Madison, and Mr.

Monroe."--We inquired, when he expected to see Mr. Adams.--He

said, "Never: Mr. Adams will not come to Quincy, but to my

funeral. It would be a great satisfaction to me to see him, but I

don't wish him to come on my account."--He spoke of Mr. Lechmere,

whom "he well remembered to have seen come down daily, at a great

age, to walk in the old town-house,"--adding, "And I wish I could

walk as well as he did. He was Collector of the Customs for many

years, under the Royal Government"--E. said, "I suppose, Sir, you

would not have taken his place, even to walk as well as

he."--"No," he replied, "that was not what I wanted."--He talked

of Whitefield, and "remembered, when he was a Freshman in college,

to have come in to the _Old South_, [I think,] to hear him, but

could not get into the house;--I, however, saw him," he said,

"through a window, and distinctly heard all. He had a voice such

as I never heard before or since. He cast it out so that you might

hear it at the meeting-house, [pointing towards the Quincy

meeting-house,] and he had the grace of a dancing-master, of an

actor of plays. His voice and manner helped him more than his

sermons. I went with Jonathan Sewall."--"And you were pleased with

him, Sir?"--"Pleased! I was delighted beyond measure."--We asked,

if at Whitefield's return the same popularity continued.--"Not the

same fury," he said, "not the same wild enthusiasm as before, but

a greater esteem, as he became more known. He did not terrify, but

was admired."

We spent about an hour in his room. He speaks very distinctly for so old a

man, enters bravely into long sentences, which are interrupted by want of

breath, but carries them invariably to a conclusion, without ever

correcting a word.

He spoke of the new novels of Cooper, and "Peep at the Pilgrims," and

"Saratoga," with praise, and named with accuracy the characters in them.

He likes to have a person always reading to him, or company talking in his

room, and is better the next day after having visitors in his chamber from

morning to night.

He received a premature report of his son's election, on Sunday afternoon,

without any excitement, and told the reporter he had been hoaxed, for it

was not yet time for any news to arrive. The informer, something damped in

his heart, insisted on repairing to the meeting-house, and proclaimed it

aloud to the congregation, who were so overjoyed that they rose in their

seats and cheered thrice. The Reverend Mr. Whitney dismissed them

immediately.

When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well

spare,--muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that

belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is

young in fourscore years, and, dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy

subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in

no condition old. I have heard, that, whenever the name of man is spoken,

the doctrine of immortality is announced; it cleaves to his constitution.

The mode of it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes to us from the other

side. But the inference from the working of intellect, hiving knowledge,

hiving skill,--at the end of life just ready to be born,--affirms the

inspirations of affection and of the moral sentiment.

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Lectures on the Science of Languages_, delivered at the Royal

Institution of Great Britain in April, May, and June, 1861. By MAX

MÜLLER, M.A., Fellow of All-Souls College, Oxford; Corresponding

Member of the Imperial Institute of France. London: Longman,

Green, Longman, & Roberts. 1861. 8vo. pp. xii., 399.

The name of Mr. Max Müller is familiar to American students as that of a

man who, learned in the high German fashion, has the pleasant faculty,

unhappily too rare among Germans, of communicating his erudition in a way

not only comprehensible, but agreeable to the laity. The Teutonic

_Gelehrte_, gallantly devoting a half-century to his pipe and his locative

case, fencing the result of his labors with a bristling hedge of

abbreviations, cross-references, and untranslated citations that take

panglottism for granted as an ordinary incident of human culture, too

hastily assumes a tenacity of life on the part of his reader as great as

his own. All but those with whom the study of language is a specialty pass

him by as Dante does Nimrod, gladly concluding

"Che così è a lui ciascun linguaggio,

Come il suo ad altrui, che a nullo è noto."

The brothers Grimm are known to what is called the reading public chiefly

as contributors to the literature of the nursery; and as for Bopp, Pott,

Zeuss, Lassen, Diefenbach, and the rest, men who look upon the curse of

Babel as the luckiest event in human annals, their names and works are

terrors to the uninitiated. They are the giants of these latter days, of

whom all we know is that they now and then snatch up some unhappy friend

of ours and imprison him in their terrible castle of Nongtongpaw, whence,

if he ever escape, he comes back to us emaciated, unintelligible, and with

a passion for roots that would make him an ornament of society among the

Digger Indians.

Yet though in metaphor giants of learning, their office seems practically

rather that of the dwarfs, as gatherers and guardians of treasure useless

to themselves, but with which some luck's-child may enrich himself and his

neighbors. Other analogies between them and the dwarfs, such as their

accomplishing superhuman things and being prematurely subject to the

dryness of old ago, ("_Der Zwerg ist schon im siebenten Jahr ein Greis_,"

says Grimm,) will at once suggest themselves.

Mr. Müller is one of the agreeable luck's-children who lay these swarthy

miners under contribution for us, understand their mystic sign-language,

and save us the trouble of climbing the mountain and scratching through

the thickets for ourselves. Happy the man who can make knowledge

entertaining! Thrice happy his readers! The author of these Lectures is

already well known as not only, perhaps, the best living scholar of

Sanscrit literature, (and by scholar we mean one who regards study as a

means, not an end, and who is capable of drawing original conclusions,)

but a _savant_ who can teach without tiring, and can administer learning

as if it were something else than medicine. Whoever reads this volume will

regret that Mr. Müller's eminent qualifications for the Boden

Professorship at Oxford should have failed to turn the scale against the

assumed superior orthodoxy of his competitor. Was it in Sanscrit that he

was heterodox? or in Hindoo mythology?

The Lectures are nine in number. The titles of them will show the range

and nature of Mr. Müller's dissertations. They are, (1.) On the science of

language as one of the physical sciences; (2.) On the growth of language

in contradistinction to the history of language; (3.) On the empirical

stage in the science of language; (4.) On the classificatory stage in the

same; (5.) On the genealogical classification of languages; (6.) On

comparative grammar; (7.) On the constituent elements of language; (8.) On

the morphological classification of languages; (9.) On the theoretical

stage in the science of languages and the origin of language. An Appendix

contains a genealogical table of languages; and an ample Index (why have

authors forgotten, what was once so well known, that an index is all that

saves the contents of a book from being mere birds in the bush?) makes the

volume as useful on the shelf as it is interesting and instructive in the

hand. Of the catholic spirit in which Mr. Müller treats his various topics

of discussion and illustration, his own theory of the true method of

investigation is the best proof.

"There are two ways," he says, in discussing the origin of

language, "of judging of former philosophers. One is, to put aside

their opinions as simply erroneous, where they differ from our

own. This is the least satisfactory way of studying ancient

philosophy. Another way is, to try to enter into the opinions of

those from whom we differ, to make them, our a time at least, our

own, till at least we discover the point of view from which each

philosopher looked at the facts before him and catch the light in

which he regarded them. We shall then find that there is much less

of downright error in the history of philosophy than is commonly

supposed; nay, _we shall find nothing so conducive to a right

appreciation of truth as a right appreciation of the error by

which it is surrounded_." (p. 360. The Italics are ours.)

A mere philologist might complain that the book contained nothing new. And

this is in the main true, though by no means altogether so, especially as

regards the nomenclature of classification, and the illustration of

special points by pertinent examples. In this last respect Mr. Müller is

particularly happy, as, for instance, in what he says of "Yes 'r and Yes

'm." (pp. 210 ff.) And as regards originality in the treatment of a purely

scientific subject, a good deal depends on the meaning we attach to the

term. If we understand by it striking conclusions drawn from theoretic

premises, (as in Knox's "Races of Man,") clever generalizations from

fortuitous analogies and coincidences insufficiently weighed, (as in

Pococke's "India in Greece,") or, to take a philologic example,

speculations suggestive of thought, it may be, but too insecurely based on

positive data, (as in Rapp's "Physiologie der Sprache,") we shall vainly

seek for such originality in Mr. Müller's Lectures. But if we take it to

mean, as we certainly prefer to do, safety of conclusion founded on

thorough knowledge and comparison, clear statement guarded on all sides by

long intimacy with the subject, and theory the result of legitimate

deduction and judicial weighing of evidence, we shall find enough in the

book to content us. Mr. Müller does not now enter the lists for the first

time to win his spurs as an original writer. The plan of the work before

us necessarily excluded any great display of recondite learning or of

profound speculation. Delivered at first as popularly scientific lectures,

and now published for the general reader, it seems to us admirably

conceived and executed. Easily comprehensible, and yet always pointing out

the sources of fuller investigation, it is ample both to satisfy the

desire of those who wish to get the latest results of philology and to

stimulate the curiosity of whoever wishes to go farther and deeper. It is

by far the best and clearest summing-up of the present condition of the

Science of Language that we have ever seen, while the liveliness of the

style and the variety and freshness of illustration make it exceedingly

entertaining.

We hope that a book of such slight assumption and such solid merit, a

model of clear arrangement and popular treatment, may be widely read in

this country, where the ignorance, carelessness, or dishonest good-nature

even of journals professedly literary is apt to turn over the unlearned

reader to such blind guides as Swinton's "Rambles among Words," compounds

of plagiarism and pretension. Philology as a science is but just beginning

to assert its claims in America, though we may already point with

satisfaction to several distinguished workers in the field. The names of

Professor Sophocles, at Cambridge, and Professor Whitney, at New Haven,

rank with those of European scholars; and we have already borne the

warmest testimony in these pages to the value of Mr. Marsh's contributions

to the study of English, a judgment which we are glad to see confirmed by

the weighty authority of Mr, Müller.

* * * * *

1. _On Translating Homer_. Three Lectures given at Oxford by

MATTHEW ARNOLD, M.A., Professor of Poetry in the University of

Oxford, and formerly Fellow of Oriel College. London: Longmans.

1861. pp. 104.

2. _Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice_. A Reply to

Matthew Arnold, Esq., Professor of Poetry at Oxford. By FRANCIS W.

NEWMAN, a Translator of the Iliad. London: Williams & Norgate.

1801. pp. 104.

MR. F.W. NEWMAN, Professor of Latin in the University of London, probably

without much hope of satisfying himself, and certain to dissatisfy every

one who could read, or pretend to read, the original, did nevertheless

complete and publish a translation of the "Iliad." And now, unmindful of

Bentley's _dictum_, that no man was ever written down but by himself, he

has published an answer to Mr. Arnold's criticism of his work. Thackeray

has said that it is of no use pretending not to care if your book is cut

up by the "Times"; and it is not surprising that Mr. Newman should be

uneasy at being first held up as an awful example to the youth of Oxford

in academical lectures, and then to the public of England in a printed

monograph, by a man of so much reputation for scholarship and taste as the

present incumbent of Thomas Warton's chair.

Mr. Arnold's little book is, we need scarcely say, full of delicate

criticism and suggestion. He treats his subject with great cleverness, and

on many points carries the reader along with him. Especially good is all

that he says about the "grand style," so far as his general propositions

are concerned. But when he comes to apply his criticisms, he instinctively

feels the want of an absolute standard of judgment in aesthetic matters,

and accordingly appeals to the verdict of "scholars,"--a somewhat vague

term, to be sure, but by which he evidently understands men not merely of

learning, but of taste. Of course, his reasoning is all _a posteriori_,

and from the narrowest premises,--namely, from an unpleasant effect on his

own nerves, to an efficient cause in the badness of Mr. Newman's

translation.

No quarrels, perhaps, are so bitter as those about matters of taste:

hardly even is the _odium theologicum_, so profound as the _odium

æstheticum_. A man, perhaps, will more easily forgive another for

disbelieving his own total depravity than for believing that Guido is a

great painter or Tupper an inspiring poet. The present dispute, therefore,

tenderly personal as it is on the part of one of the pleaders, is

especially interesting as showing a very decided and gratifying advance in

the civilization of literary men to-day as compared with that of a century

or indeed half a century ago. If we go back still farther, matters were

still worse, and we find Luther and even Milton raking the kennel for dirt

dirty enough to fling at an antagonist. But even within the memory of man,

the style of the "Dunciad" was hardly obsolete in "Blackwood" and the

"Quarterly." It is very pleasant, in the present case, to see both attack

and defence conducted with so gentlemanlike a reserve,--and the latter,

which is even more surprising, with an approach to amenity.

In Mr. Newman the Professor of Poetry finds an able and wary antagonist,

and one who, in point of learning, carries heavier metal than himself. The

dispute turns partly on the character of Homer's poetry, partly on the

true method of translation, (especially Homeric translation,) and partly

on the particular merits of Mr. Newman's attempt as compared with those of

others. Of course, many side-topics are incidentally touched upon, among

others, the English hexameter, Mr. Newman's objections to which are

particularly worthy of attention.

Mr. Newman instantly sees and strikes at the weak point of his adversary's

argument. "You appeal to scholars," he says in substance; "you admit that

I am one; now you _don't_ like my choice of words or metre; I _do_; who,

then, shall decide? Why, the public, of course, which is the court of last

appeal in such cases." It appears to us, that, on most of the points at

issue, the truth lies somewhere between the two disputants. We do not

think that Mr. Newman has made out his case that Homer was antiquated,

quaint, and even grotesque to the Greeks themselves because his cast of

thought and his language were archaic, or strange to them because he wrote

in a dialect almost as different from Attic as Scotch from English. The

Bible is as far from us in language and in the Orientalism of its thought

and expression as Homer was from them; yet we are so familiar with it that

it produces on us no impression of being antiquated or quaint, seldom of

being grotesque, and what is still more to the purpose, produces that

impression as little on illiterate persons to whom many of the words are

incomprehensible. So, too, it seems to us, no part of Burns is alien to a

man whose mother-tongue is English, in the same sense that some parts of

Béranger are; because Burns, though a North Briton, was still a Briton, as

Homer, though an Ionian, was still a Greek. We think he does prove that

neither Mr. Arnold nor any other scholar can form any adequate conception

of the impression which the poems of Homer produced either on the ear or

the mind of a Greek; but in doing this he proves too much for his own

case, where it turns upon the class of words proper to be used in

translating him. Mr. Newman says he sometimes used low words; and since

his theory of the duty of a translator is, that he should reproduce the

moral effect of his author,--be noble where he is noble, barbarous, if he

be barbarous, and quaint, if quaint,--so he should render low words by

words as low. But here his own dilemma meets him: how does he know that

Homer's words _did_ seem low to a Greek? We agree with him in refusing to

be conventional; so would Mr. Arnold; only one would call conventional

what the other would call elegant, the question again resolving itself

into one of personal taste. We agree with him also in his preference for

words that have it certain strangeness and antique dignity about them, but

think he should stop short of anything that needs a glossary. He might

learn from Chapman's version, however, that it is not the widest choice of

archaic words, but intensity of conception and phrase, that gives a poem

life, and keeps it living, in spite of grave defects. Where Chapman, in a

famous passage, ("Odyssey," v. 612,) tells us, that, when Ulysses crawled

ashore after his shipwreck, "_the sea had soaked his heart through_," it

is not the mere simplicity of the language, but the vivid conception which

went before and compelled the simplicity, that is impressive. We believe

Mr. Newman is right in refusing to sacrifice a good word because it may be

pronounced mean by individual caprice, wrong in attempting the fatal

impossibility of rescuing a word which to all minds alike conveys a low or

ludicrous meaning, as, for example, _pate_, and _dopper_, for which he

does battle doughtily. Mr. Newman is guilty of a fallacy when he brings up

_brick, sell_, and _cut_ as instances in support of his position, for in

these cases Mr. Arnold would only object to his use of them in their

_slang_ sense. He himself would hardly venture to say that Hector was a

_brick_, that Achilles _cut_ Agamemnon, or that Ulysses _sold_ Polyphemus.

It is precisely because Hobbes used language in this way that his

translation of Homer is so ludicrous. Wordsworth broke down in his theory,

that the language of poetry should be the every-day speech of men and

women, though he nearly succeeded in finally extirpating "poetic diction."

We think the proper antithesis is not between prosaic and poetic words,

nor between the speech of actual life and a conventionalized diction, but

between the language of _real_ life (which is something different from the

actual, or matter-of-fact) and that of _artificial_ life, or

society,--that is, between phrases fit to express the highest passion,

feeling, aspiration, and those adapted to the intercourse of polite life,

whence all violent emotion, or, at least, the expression of it, is

excluded. This latter highly artificial and polished dialect is

accordingly as suitable to the Mock-Heroic (like "The Rape of the Lock")

as it is inefficient and even distasteful when employed for the higher and

more serious purposes of poetry. It was most fortunate for English poetry

that our translation of the Bible and Shakspeare arrested our language,

and, as it were, crystallized it, precisely at its freshest and most

vigorous period, giving us an inexhaustible mine of words familiar to the

heart and mind, yet unvulgarized to the ear by trivial associations.

The whole question of Homeric translation in its entire range, between

Chapman on the one hand and Pope and Cowper on the other, is opened afresh

by this controversy. The difficulty of the undertaking, and still more of

dogmatizing on the proper mode of executing it, is manifest from the fact

that Mr. Newman is quite as successful in turning some specimens of Mr.

Arnold's into ridicule as the latter had been with his. Meanwhile we

commend the two little books to our readers as containing an able and

entertaining discussion on a question of general and permanent interest,

and as showing that the "Quarrels of Authors" may be conducted in a

dignified and scholarly way.

* * * * *

OBITUARY.

The last English steamer brings us the sad news of the death of Arthur

Hugh Clough. Mr. Clough had so many personal friends, as well as warm

admirers, in America, that his death will be felt by numbers of our

readers both as a private grief and a public loss. The earth will not soon

close over a man of more lovely character or more true and delicate

genius. This is not the place or the occasion to do justice to the many

eminent qualities of his heart and mind, and we only allude to his death

at all because in him the "Atlantic" has lost one of its most valued

contributors.