CHAPTER XXII.

Harley L'Estrange is seated beside Helen at the lattice-window in the

cottage at Norwood. The bloom of reviving health is on the child's face,

and she is listening with a smile, for Harley is speaking of Leonard

with praise, and of Leonard's future with hope. "And thus," he

continued, "secure from his former trials, happy in his occupation, and

pursuing the career he has chosen, we must be content, my dear child, to

leave him."

"Leave him!" exclaimed Helen, and the rose on her cheek faded.

Harley was not displeased to see her emotion. He would have been

disappointed in her heart if it had been less susceptible to affection.

"It is hard on you, Helen," said he, "to separate you from one who has

been to you as a brother. Do not hate me for doing so. But I consider

myself your guardian, and your home as yet must be mine. We are going

from this land of cloud and mist, going as into the world of summer.

Well, that does not content you. You weep, my child; you mourn your own

friend, but do not forget your father's. I am alone, and often sad,

Helen; will you not comfort me! You press my hand, but you must learn to

smile on me also. You are born to be the Comforter. Comforters are not

egotists; they are always cheerful when they console."

The voice of Harley was so sweet, and his words went so home to the

child's heart, that she looked up and smiled in his face as he kissed

her ingenuous brow. But then she thought of Leonard, and felt so

solitary--so bereft--that tears burst forth again. Before these were

dried, Leonard himself entered, and obeying an irresistible impulse, she

sprang to his arms, and, leaning her head on his shoulder, sobbed out,

"I am going from you, brother--do not grieve--do not miss me."

Harley was much moved; he folded his arms, and contemplated them both

silently--and his own eyes were moist. "This heart," thought he, "will

be worth the winning!"

He drew aside Leonard, and whispered--"Soothe, but encourage and support

her. I leave you together; come to me in the garden later."

It was nearly an hour before Leonard joined Harley.

"She was not weeping when you left her?" asked L'Estrange.

"No; she has more fortitude than we might suppose. Heaven knows how that

fortitude has supported mine. I have promised to write to her often."

Harley took two strides across the lawn, and then, coming back to

Leonard, said, "Keep your promise, and write often for the first year, I

would then ask you to let the correspondence drop gradually."

"Drop!--Ah, my Lord!"

"Look you, my young friend, I wish to lead this fair mind wholly from

the sorrows of the Past. I wish Helen to enter, not abruptly, but step

by step, into a new life. You love each other now, as do two

children--as brother and sister. But later, if encouraged, would the

love be the same? And is it not better for both of you, that youth

should open upon the world with youth's natural affections free and

unforestalled?"

"True! And she is so above me," said Leonard mournfully.

"No one is above him who succeeds in your ambition, Leonard. It is not

_that_, believe me!"

Leonard shook his head.

"Perhaps," said Harley, with a smile, "I rather feel that you are above

me. For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become

jealous of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to

be henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet, how can she like me as

she ought, if her heart is to be full of you?"

The boy bowed his head; and Harley hastened to change the subject, and

speak of letters and of glory. His words were eloquent, and his voice

kindling; for he had been an enthusiast for fame in his boyhood; and in

Leonard's, his own seemed to him to revive. But the poet's heart gave

back no echo--suddenly it seemed void and desolate. Yet when Leonard

walked back by the moonlight, he muttered to himself, "Strange--strange--so

mere a child, this can not be love! Still what else to love is there

left to me?"

And so he paused upon the bridge where he had so often stood with Helen,

and on which he had found the protector that had given to her a home--to

himself a career. And life seemed very long, and fame but a dreary

phantom. Courage, still, Leonard! These are the sorrows of the heart

that teach thee more than all the precepts of sage and critic.

Another day and Helen had left the shores of England, with her fanciful

and dreaming guardian. Years will pass before our tale reopens. Life in

all the forms we have seen it travels on. And the Squire farms and

hunts; and the parson preaches and chides and soothes. And Riccabocca

reads his Machiavelli, and sighs and smiles as he moralizes on Men and

States. And Violante's dark eyes grow deeper and more spiritual in their

lustre; and her beauty takes thought from solitary dreams. And Mr.

Richard Avenel has his house in London, and the honorable Mrs. Avenel

her opera box; and hard and dire is their struggle into fashion, and

hotly does the new man, scorning the aristocracy, pant to become

aristocrat. And Audley Egerton goes from the office to the Parliament,

and drudges, and debates, and helps to govern the empire on which the

sun never sets. Poor Sun, how tired he must be--but none more tired than

the Government! And Randal Leslie has an excellent place in the bureau

of a minister, and is looking to the time when he shall resign it to

come into Parliament, and on that large arena turn knowledge into power.

And meanwhile, he is much where he was with Audley Egerton; but he has

established intimacy with the Squire, and visited Hazeldean twice, and

examined the house and the map of the property--and very nearly fallen a

second time into the Ha-ha; and the Squire believes that Randal Leslie

alone can keep Frank out of mischief, and has spoken rough words to his

Harry about Frank's continued extravagance. And Frank does continue to

pursue pleasure; and is very miserable, and horribly in debt. And Madame

di Negra has gone from London to Paris, and taken a tour into

Switzerland, and come back to London again, and has grown very intimate

with Randal Leslie; and Randal has introduced Frank to her; and Frank

thinks her the loveliest woman in the world, and grossly slandered by

certain evil tongues. And the brother of Madame di Negra is expected in

England at last; and what with his repute for beauty and for wealth,

people anticipate a sensation; and Leonard, and Harley, and Helen?

Patience--they will all re-appear.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

A SCENE FROM IRISH LIFE.

The moorland was wide, level, and black; black as night, if you could

suppose night condensed on the surface of the earth, and that you could

tread on solid darkness in the midst of day. The day itself was fast

dropping into night, although it was dreary and gloomy at the best; for

it was a November day. The moor, for miles around, was treeless and

houseless; devoid of vegetation, except heather, which clad with its

gloomy frieze coat the shivering landscape. At a distance you could

discern, through the misty atmosphere, the outline of mountains

apparently as bare and stony as this wilderness, which they bounded.

There were no fields, no hedgerows, no marks of the hand of man, except

the nakedness itself, which was the work of man in past ages; when,

period after period, he had tramped over the scene with fire and sword,

and left all that could not fly before him, either ashes to be scattered

by the savage winds, or stems of trees, and carcases of men trodden into

the swampy earth. As the Roman historian said of other destroyers, "They

created solitude and called it peace." That all this was the work of

man, and not of Nature, any one spot of this huge and howling wilderness

could testify, if you would only turn up its sable surface. In its bosom

lay thousands of ancient oaks and pines, black as ebony; which told, by

their gigantic bulk, that forests must have once existed on this spot,

as rich as the scene was now bleak. Nobler things than trees lay buried

there; but were, for the most part, resolved into the substance of the

inky earth. The dwellings of men had left few or no traces, for they had

been consumed in flames; and the hearts that had loved, and suffered,

and perished beneath the hand of violence and insult, were no longer

human hearts, but slime. If a man were carried blindfold to that place,

and asked when his eyes were unbandaged where he was, he would

say--"Ireland!"

He would want no clew to the identity of the place, but the scene before

him. There is no heath like an Irish heath. There is no desolation like

an Irish desolation. Where Nature herself has spread the expanse of a

solitude, it is a cheerful solitude. The air flows over it lovingly; the

flowers nod and dance in gladness; the soil breathes up a spirit of wild

fragrance, which communicates a buoyant sensation to the heart. You feel

that you tread on ground where the peace of God, and not the "peace" of

man created in the merciless hurricane of war, has sojourned: where the

sun shone on creatures sporting on ground or on tree, as the Divine

Goodness of the Universe meant them to sport: where the hunter disturbed

alone the enjoyment of the lower animals by his own boisterous joy:

where the traveler sung as he went over it, because he felt a spring of

inexpressible music in his heart: where the weary wayfarer sat beneath a

bush, and blessed God, though his limbs ached with travel, and his goal

was far off. In God's deserts dwells gladness; in man's deserts, death.

A melancholy smites you as you enter them. There is a darkness from the

past that envelops your heart, and the moans and sighs of ten-times

perpetrated misery seem still to live in the very winds.

One shallow, and widely-spread stream struggled through the moor;

sometimes between masses of gray stone. Sedges and the white-headed

cotton-rush whistled on its margin, and on island-like expanses that

here and there rose above the surface of its middle course.

I have said that there was no sign of life; but on one of those gray

stones stood a heron watching for prey. He had remained straight, rigid,

and motionless for hours. Probably his appetite was appeased by his

day's success among the trout of that dark red-brown stream, which was

colored by the peat from which it oozed. When he did move, he sprung up

at once, stretched his broad wings, and silent as the scene around him,

made a circuit in the air; rising higher as he went, with slow and

solemn flight. He had been startled by a sound. There was life in the

desert now. Two horsemen came galloping along a highway not far distant,

and the heron, continuing his grave gyrations, surveyed them as he went.

Had they been travelers over a plain of India, an Australian waste, or

the Pampas of South America, they could not have been grimmer of aspect,

or more thoroughly children of the wild. They were Irish from head to

foot.

They were mounted on two spare but by no means clumsy horses. The

creatures had marks of blood and breed that had been introduced by the

English to the country. The could claim, if they knew it, lineage of

Arabia. The one was a pure bay, the other and lesser, was black; but

both were lean as death, haggard as famine. They were wet with the speed

with which they had been hurried along. The soil of the damp moorland,

or of the field in which, during the day, they had probably been drawing

the peasant's cart, still smeared their bodies, and their manes flew as

wildly and untrimmed as the sedge or the cotton-rush on the wastes

through which they careered. Their riders, wielding each a heavy stick

instead of a riding-whip which they applied ever and anon to the

shoulders or flanks of their smoking animals, were mounted on their bare

backs, and guided them by halter, instead of bridle. They were a couple

of the short frieze-coated, knee-breeches and gray-stocking fellows who

are as plentiful on Irish soil as potatoes. From beneath their

narrow-brimmed, old, weather-beaten hats, streamed hair as unkemped as

their horses' manes. The Celtic physiognomy was distinctly marked--the

small and somewhat upturned nose; the black tint of skin; the eye now

looking gray, now black; the freckled cheek, and sandy hair. Beard and

whiskers covered half the face, and the short square-shouldered bodies

were bent forward with eager impatience, as they thumped and kicked

along their horses, muttering curses as they went.

The heron, sailing on broad and seemingly slow vans, still kept them in

view. Anon, they reached a part of the moorland where traces of human

labor were visible. Black piles of peat stood on the solitary ground,

ready, after a summers cutting and drying. Presently patches of

cultivation presented themselves; plots of ground raised on beds, each a

few feet wide, with intervening trenches to carry off the boggy water,

where potatoes had grown, and small fields where grew more stalks of

ragwort than grass, inclosed by banks cast up and tipped here and there

with a briar or a stone. It was the husbandry of misery and indigence.

The ground had already been freshly manured by sea-weeds, but the

village--where was it? Blotches of burnt ground; scorched heaps of

rubbish, and fragments of blackened walls, alone were visible.

Garden-plots were trodden down, and their few bushes rent up, or hung

with tatters of rags. The two horsemen, as they hurried by with gloomy

visages, uttered no more than a single word: "Eviction!"

Further on, the ground heaved itself into a chaotic confusion. Stony

heaps swelled up here and there, naked, black, and barren: the huge

bones of the earth protruded themselves through her skin. Shattered

rocks arose, sprinkled with bushes, and smoke curled up from what looked

like mere heaps of rubbish; but which were in reality human habitations.

Long dry grass hissed and rustled in the wind on their roofs (which were

sunk by-places, as if falling in); and pits of reeking filth seemed

placed exactly to prevent access to some of the low doors; while to

others, a few stepping-stones made that access only possible. Here the

two riders stopped, and hurriedly tying their steeds to an elder-bush,

disappeared in one of the cabins.

The heron slowly sailed on to the place of its regular roost. Let us

follow it.

Far different was this scene to those the bird had left. Lofty trees

darkened the steep slopes of a fine river. Rich meadows lay at the feet

of woods and stretched down to the stream. Herds of cattle lay on them,

chewing their cuds after the plentiful grazing of the day. The white

walls of a noble house peeped, in the dusk of night, through the fertile

timber which stood in proud guardianship of the mansion; and broad

winding walks gave evidence of a place where nature and art had combined

to form a paradise. There were ample pleasure-grounds. Alas! the grounds

around the cabins over which the heron had so lately flown, might be

truly styled pain-grounds.

Within that home was assembled a happy family. There was the father, a

fine-looking man of forty. Proud you would have deemed him, as he sate

for a moment abstracted in his cushioned chair; but a moment afterward,

as a troop of children came bursting into the room, his manner was

instantly changed into one so pleasant, so playful, and so overflowing

with enjoyment, that you saw him only as an amiable, glad, domestic man.

The mother, a handsome woman, was seated already at the tea-table; and,

in another minute, sounds of merry voices and childish laughter were

mingled with the jocose tones of the father, and the playful accents of

the mother; addressed, now to one, and now to another, of the youthful

group.

In due time the merriment was hushed, and the household assembled for

evening prayer. A numerous train of servants assumed their accustomed

places. The father read. He had paused once or twice, and glanced with a

stern and surprised expression toward the group of domestics, for he

heard sounds that astonished him from one corner of the room near the

door. He went on--"Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of

judgment, how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.

O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery, yea, happy shall he be who

rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us!"

There was a burst of smothered sobs from the same corner, and the

master's eye flashed with a strange fire as he again darted a glance

toward the offender. The lady looked equally surprised, in the same

direction; then turned a meaning look on her husband--a warm flush was

succeeded by a paleness in her countenance, and she cast down her eyes.

The children wondered, but were still. Once more the father's sonorous

voice continued--"Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our

trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." Again the

stifled sound was repeated. The brow of the master darkened again--the

mother looked agitated; the children's wonder increased; the master

closed the book, and the servants, with a constrained silence, retired

from the room.

"What _can_ be the matter with old Dennis?" exclaimed the lady, the

moment that the door had closed on the household.--"O! what is amiss

with poor old Dennis!" exclaimed the children.

"Some stupid folly or other," said the father, morosely. "Come! away to

bed, children. You can learn Dennis's troubles another time." The

children would have lingered, but again the words, "Away with you!" in a

tone which never needed repetition, were decisive: they kissed their

parents and withdrew. In a few seconds the father rang the bell. "Send

Dennis Croggan here."

The old man appeared. He was a little thin man, of not less than seventy

years of age, with white hair and a dark spare countenance. He was one

of those many nondescript servants in a large Irish house, whose duties

are curiously miscellaneous. He had, however, shown sufficient zeal and

fidelity through a long life, to secure a warm nook in the servants'

hall for the remainder of his days.

Dennis entered with an humble and timid air, as conscious that he had

deeply offended; and had to dread at least a severe rebuke. He bowed

profoundly to both the master and mistress.

"What is the meaning of your interruptions during the prayers, Dennis?"

demanded the master, abruptly. "Has any thing happened to you?"

"No, sir."

"Anything amiss in your son's family?"

"No, your honor."

The interrogator paused; a storm of passion seemed slowly gathering

within him. Presently he asked, in a loud tone, "What does this mean?

Was there no place to vent your nonsense in, but in this room, and at

prayers?"

Dennis was silent. He cast an imploring look at the master, then at the

mistress.

"What is the matter, good Dennis?" asked the lady, in a kind tone.

"Compose yourself, and tell us. Something strange must have happened to

you."

Dennis trembled violently; but he advanced a couple of paces, seized the

back of a chair as if to support him, and, after a vain gasp or two,

declared, as intelligibly as fear would permit, that the prayer had

overcome him.

"Nonsense, man!" exclaimed the master, with fury in the same face, which

was so lately beaming with joy on the children. "Nonsense! Speak out

without more ado, or you shall rue it."

Dennis looked to the mistress as if he would have implored her

intercession; but as she gave no sign of it, he was compelled to speak;

but in a brogue that would have been unintelligible to English ears. We

therefore translate it:

"I could not help thinking of the poor people at Rathbeg, when the

soldiers and police cried, 'Down with them! down with them, even to the

ground!' and then the poor bit cabins came down all in fire and smoke,

amid the howls and cries of the poor creatures. Oh! it was a fearful

sight, your honor--it was, indeed--to see the poor women hugging their

babies, and the houses where they were born burning in the wind. It was

dreadful to see the old bedridden man lie on the wet ground among the

few bits of furniture, and groan to his gracious God above. Oh, your

honor! you never saw such a sight, or--you--sure a--it would never have

been done!"

Dennis seemed to let the last words out, as if they were jerked from him

by a sudden shock.

The master, whose face had changed during this speech to a livid hue of

passion, his eyes blazing with rage, was in the act of rushing on old

Dennis, when he was held back by his wife, who exclaimed--"Oswald! be

calm; let us hear what Dennis has to say. Go on, Dennis--go on!"

The master stood still, breathing hard to overcome his rage. Old Dennis,

as if seeing only his own thoughts, went on--"O, bless your honor! if

you had seen that poor frantic woman when the back of the cabin fell,

and buried her infant, where she thought she had laid it safe for a

moment, while she flew to part her husband and a soldier, who had struck

the other children with the flat of his sword, and bade them to troop

off! Oh, your honor, but it was a killing sight! It was that came over

me in the prayer, and I feared that we might be praying perdition on us

all, when we prayed about our trespasses. If the poor creatures of

Rathbeg should meet us, your honor, at Heaven's gate (I was thinking)

and say--'These are the heathens that would not let us have a poor

hearthstone in poor ould Ireland.' And that was all, your honor, that

made me misbehave so; I was just thinking of that, and I could not help

it."

"Begone! you old fool!" exclaimed the master; and Dennis disappeared,

with a bow, and an alertness that would have done credit to his earlier

years.

There was a moment's silence after his exit. The lady turned to her

husband, and clasping his arm with her hands, and looking into his

darkened countenance with a look of tenderest anxiety, said:

"Dearest Oswald, let me, as I have so often done, once more entreat that

these dreadful evictions may cease. Surely there must be some way to

avert them, and to set your property right, without such violent

measures."

The stern, proud man said, "Then, why, in the name of Heaven, do you not

reveal some other remedy? Why do you not enlighten all Ireland? Why

don't you instruct Government? The unhappy wretches who have been swept

away by force are no people, no tenants of mine. They squatted

themselves down, as a swarm of locusts fix themselves while a green

blade is left. They obstruct all improvement; they will not till the

ground themselves; nor will they quit it to allow me to provide more

industrious and provident husbandmen to cultivate it. Land that teems

with fertility, and is shut out from bearing and bringing forth food for

man, is accursed. Those who have been evicted, not only rob me; but

their more industrious fellows."

"They will murder us!" said the wife, "some day for these things. They

will--"

Her words were cut short suddenly by her husband starting, and standing

in a listening attitude. "Wait a moment," he said, with a peculiar

calmness, as if he had just got a fresh thought; and his lady, who did

not comprehend what was the cause, but hoped that some better influence

was touching him, unloosed her hands from his arm. "Wait just a moment,"

he repeated, and stepped from the room, opened the front door, and

without his hat, went out.

"He is intending to cool down his anger," thought his wife: "he feels a

longing for the freshness of the air." But she had not caught the sound

which had startled his quicker, because more excited ear: she had been

too much engrossed by her own intercession with him: it was a peculiar

whine from the mastiff, which was chained near the lodge-gate, that had

arrested his attention. He stepped out. The black clouds which overhung

the moor had broken, and the moon's light struggled between them.

The tall and haughty man stood erect in the breeze and listened. Another

moment--there was a shot, and he fell headlong upon the broad steps on

which he stood. His wife sprang with a piercing shriek from the door,

and fell on his corpse. A crowd of servants gathered about them, making

wild lamentations, and breathing vows of vengeance. The murdered master

and the wife were borne into the house.

The heron soared from its lofty perch, and wheeled with terrified wings

through the night air. The servants armed themselves; and, rushing

furiously from the house, traversed the surrounding masses of trees.

Fierce dogs were let loose, and dashed frantically through the thickets.

All was, however, too late. The soaring heron saw gray figures, with

blackened faces, stealing away--often on their hands and knees--down the

hollows of the moorlands toward the village; where the two Irish

horsemen had, in the first dusk of that evening, tied their lean steeds

to the old elder bush.

Near the mansion no lurking assassin was to be found. Meanwhile, two

servants, pistol in hand, on a couple of their master's horses, scoured

hill, and dale. The heron, sailing solemnly on the wind above, saw them

halt in a little town. They thundered with the butt-ends of their

pistols on a door in the principal street. Over it there was a

coffin-shaped board, displaying a painted crown, and the big-lettered

words, "POLICE STATION." The mounted servants shouted with might and

main. A night-capped head issued from a chamber casement with--"What is

the matter?"

"Out with you, Police! out with all your strength, and lose not a

moment; Mr. FitzGibbon, of Sporeen, is shot at his own door."

The casement was hastily clapped to, and the two horsemen galloped

forward up the long, broad street; now flooded with the moon's light.

Heads full of terror were thrust from upper windows to inquire the cause

of that rapid galloping; but ever too late. The two men held their

course up a steep hill outside of the town, where stood a vast building

overlooking the whole place. It was the barracks. Here the alarm was

also given.

In less than an hour, a mounted troop of police in olive-green costume,

with pistols at holster, sword by side, and carbine on the arm, were

trotting briskly out of town, accompanied by the two messengers; whom

they plied with eager questions. These answered, and sundry imprecations

vented, the whole party increased their speed, and went on, mile after

mile, by hedgerow and open moorland, talking as they went.

Before they reached the house of Sporeen, and near the village where the

two Irish horsemen had stopped the evening before, they halted, and

formed themselves into more orderly array. A narrow gully was before

them on the road, hemmed in on each side by rocky steeps, here and there

overhung with bushes. The commandant bade them be on their guard, for

there might be danger there. He was right; for the moment they began to

trot through the pass, the flash and rattle of fire-arms from the

thickets above saluted them, followed by a wild yell. In a second,

several of their number lay dead or dying in the road. The fire was

returned promptly by the police; but it was at random, for although

another discharge, and another howl, announced that the enemy were still

there, no one could be seen. The head of the police commanded his troop

to make a dash through the pass; for there was no scaling the heights

from this side; the assailants having warily posted themselves there,

because at the foot of an eminence were stretched on either hand

impassable bogs. The troop dashed forward, firing their pistols as they

went; but were met by such deadly discharges of fire-arms as threw them

into confusion, killed and wounded several of their horses, and made

them hastily retreat.

There was nothing for it, but to await the arrival of the cavalry; and

it was not long before the clatter of horses' hoofs and the ringing of

sabres were heard on the road. On coming up, the troop of cavalry,

firing to the right and left on the hill-sides, dashed forward, and, in

the same instant, cleared the gully in safety; the police having kept

their side of the pass. In fact, not a single shot was returned; the

arrival of this strong force having warned the insurgents to decamp. The

cavalry in full charge ascended the hills, to their summits. Not a foe

was to be seen, except one or two dying men, who were discovered by

their groans.

The moon had been for a time quenched in a dense mass of clouds, which

now were blown aside by a keen and cutting wind. The heron, soaring over

the desert, could now see gray-coated men flying in different directions

to the shelter of the neighboring hills. The next day he was startled

from his dreamy reveries near the moorland stream, by the shouts and

galloping of mingled police and soldiers, as they gave chase to a couple

of haggard, bare-headed, and panting peasants.

These were soon captured, and at once recognized as belonging to the

evicted inhabitants of the recently deserted village.

Since then years have rolled on. The heron, who had been startled from

his quiet haunts by these things, was still dwelling on the lofty tree

with his kindred, by the hall of Sporeen. He had reared family after

family in that airy lodgment, as spring after spring came round; but no

family, after that fatal time, had ever tenanted the mansion. The widow

and children had fled from it so soon as Mr. FitzGibbon had been laid in

the grave. The nettle and dock flourished over the scorched ruins of the

village of Rathbeg; dank moss and wild grass tangled the proud drives

and walks of Sporeen. All the woodland rides and pleasure-grounds lay

obstructed with briars; and young trees, in time, grew luxuriantly where

once the roller in its rounds could not crush a weed; the nimble frolics

of the squirrel were now the only merry things where formerly the feet

of lovely children had sprung with elastic joy.

The curse of Ireland was on the place. Landlord and tenant, gentleman

and peasant, each with the roots and the shoots of many virtues in their

hearts, thrown into a false position by the mutual injuries of ages, had

wreaked on each other the miseries sown broadcast by their ancestors.

Beneath this foul spell men who would, in any other circumstances, have

been the happiest and the noblest of mankind, became tyrants; and

peasants, who would have glowed with grateful affection toward them,

exulted in being their assassins. As the traveler rode past the decaying

hall, the gloomy woods, and waste black moorlands of Sporeen, he read

the riddle of Ireland's fate, and asked himself when an OEdipus would

arise to solve it.

SCOTTISH REVENGE.

A long time ago, when the powerful clan of the Cumyns were lords of half

the country round, the chief of that clan slew a neighboring chieftain,

with whom he had a feud; for feuds in those days were as easily found as

blackberries, and quarrels might be had any day in the year for the

_picking_. He that was slain had, at the time of his death, an only

child, an infant, of the name of Hugh. The widow treasured deep within

her heart the hope of vengeance, which the daily sight of her son,

recalling, by his features, the memory of her slaughtered husband, kept

ever awake. With the first opening of his intellect, he was instructed

in the deed that made him fatherless, and taught to look forward to

avenging his parent as a holy obligation cast upon him; and so, with his

strength and his stature, grew his hatred of the Cumyns, and his

resolution to take the life of him who had slain his father. He spent

his days in the woods practicing archery, till at length he became a

most expert bowman. None could send a shaft with so strong an arm, or so

true an aim, as Hugh Shenigan; and the eagle or the red deer was sure to

fall beneath his arrow, when the one was soaring too high in the air, or

the other fleeing too swiftly on the hill, for ordinary woodcraft. But

it was not the eagle or the deer that kept Hugh in the forest, and upon

the mountains, from the dawn of the morning till the setting of the sun.

He was watching for other prey, and at length chance brought what he

sought within his reach. One day he climbed up the side of Benigloe, and

took his station upon a spot that commanded a view of the glen between

it and the opposite range of hills. He had ascertained that Cumyn would

return to Blair by the glen that evening; and so it happened, that an

hour or so before sun-fall he espied the chieftain, with two of his

clan, wending onwards toward the base of the hill. A few minutes more,

and they would reach a point within the range of his bow. His practiced

eye measured the distance, and his heart throbbed with a fierce, dark

emotion, as he put the shaft to the thong, and drew it, with a strong

arm, to his ear. With a whiz, the arrow sped from the bow, and cleft the

air with the speed of light, while a wild shout burst from the lips of

the young archer. His anxiety, it would seem, did not suffer him to wait

till his foe had come within range of his arrow, for it sank quivering

into the earth at the foot of him for whose heart it was aimed. The

shout and the shaft alike warned the Cumyns that danger was nigh, and

not knowing by what numbers they might be assailed, they plunged into

the heather on the hill side, and were quickly lost to the sight. But

the young man watched with the keenness of an eagle, and his sense

seemed intensified with the terrible desire of vengeance that consumed

him. At length, just where the little stream falls from the crown of the

hill, the form of a man became visible, standing out from the sky, now

bright with the last light of the setting sun. With a strong effort, the

young man mastered the emotion of his heart, as the gambler becomes

calm, ere he throws the cast upon which he has staked his all. The bow

is strained to its utmost, the eye ranges along the shaft from feather

to barb, it is shot forth as if winged by the very soul of him who

impelled it. One moment of breathless suspense, and in the next the

chief of the Cumyns falls headlong into the stream, pierced through the

bowels by the deadly weapon.

POSTAL REFORM--CHEAP POSTAGE.

It is now upward of eleven years since the writer of this commenced

advocating "postal reform and cheap postage." At first it found but

little favor either from the public or the Post-Office Department. Many

considered the schemes Utopian, and if carried into effect would break

down the post-office: but neither ridicule or threats prevented him from

prosecuting his object until Congress was compelled in 1845 to reduce

the rates of postage to five and ten cents the half-ounce.

The success attending even this partial reduction equaled the

expectations of its friends, and silenced the opposition of its enemies.

The friends of cheap postage, in New York and other places, renewed

their efforts to obtain a further reduction, and petitioned for a

uniform rate of two cents prepaid. But such was either the indifference

or hostility of a majority of the members that no definite action was

taken on the subject for six years, nor was it until the last session

that any reduction was made from the rates adopted in 1845.

Notwithstanding this shameful delay in complying with the wishes of the

people, the new law adopted _four_ rates instead of one, leaving the

prepayment of postage optional. Besides this, the new law imposes on

newspapers and printed matter a most unreasonable, burdensome, and

complicated tax, which has created universal dissatisfaction.

The obnoxious features of the present law imperiously demand the

immediate attention of Congress. Neither the rates of postage on

letters, nor the tax on newspapers and printed matter, meet the wishes

of the friends of cheap postage. They have uniformly insisted upon

simplicity, uniformity, and cheapness. But the present law possesses

none of these requisites. On letters the rates in the United States are

three and five, six and ten cents, according to distance. Ocean postage

is enormous and too burdensome to be borne any longer. The rates of

postage on newspapers are so complicated that few postmasters can tell

what they are, and those on transient newspapers and printed matter

generally, are so enormous as to amount to a prohibition. A revision of

this law is rendered indispensable. Other reforms are required, some of

which I shall here notice.

1. Letter postage should be reduced to a uniform rate of _two cents

prepaid_. This rate has been successfully adopted in Great Britain. It

has increased the letters and the income of the post-office. It is the

revenue point, sufficiently low, to encourage the people to write, and

to send all their letters through the post-office; and yet high enough

to afford ample revenue to pay the expenses of the Department. If this

rate is adopted, it will defy all competition, for none will attempt to

carry letters cheaper than the post-office.

2. _Ocean postage_ is enormous and burdensome, especially upon that

class of persons which is least able to bear it. It has been computed by

those who are competent to judge, that about three-quarters of the ship

letters are written by emigrants, and are letters of friendship and

affection. The greater portion of them are from persons in poor

circumstances, and to tax them with _twenty-four_ or _twenty-nine_ cents

for a single letter is cruel. To send a letter and receive an answer,

will cost a servant girl half a week's wages, and a poor man in the

country will have to work a day to earn the value of the postage of a

letter to and from his friends in Europe. Were the postage reduced to a

low rate, _ten_ letters would be written where one now is, and the

revenue, in a short period, would be equal if not greater than under the

present high rates. During the last twelve months, the amount received

for transatlantic postages was not less than _a million of dollars_, and

three-fourths of this sum has been paid by the laboring classes on

letters relating to their domestic relations and friendship.

3. Next to the reduction of inland and ocean postage is the _free

delivery_ of mail letters in all the large towns and cities. An

improvement has been attempted by the Postmaster-general in respect of

letters to be sent by the mails. They are now conveyed to the

post-office free of any charge; and the next step necessary is to cause

them to be delivered without any addition to the postage. A letter is

carried by the mails _three thousand miles_ for three cents, but if it

is sent three hundred yards from the post-office, it is charged _two

cents_! This is not only an unreasonable tax, but is attended with much

inconvenience both to the carrier and receiver of the letter, in the

trouble of making the change, and the delay attending the delivery of

letters. If the prepayment of the postage covered the whole expense, a

carrier could deliver ten letters where he now delivers _one_, and fewer

persons would be able to deliver them. Two cents cover the whole expense

of postage and delivery of letters in London, and there is no reason why

they can not be delivered in New York and other cities as cheaply as

they are in the capital of Great Britain. The expense to the post-office

would be comparatively small, as the income from city letters would be

nearly equal to what would be paid if an efficient city delivery was

adopted. If the free delivery should be adopted, it would be a great

relief to the people, and this like every other facility afforded by the

post-office, would tend to increase the number of letters sent by the

mails.

4. The _franking privilege_ should be wholly abolished. This has been so

much abused, that the people have loudly complained of it, and almost

every Postmaster-general for the last ten years has recommended its

abolition. Instead, however, of diminishing or repealing it, it has been

increased, so that two sets of members can now exercise it, and the

cart-loads of franked matter sent from Washington show that it is a dead

weight upon the Department. At the last session, one member had

twenty-eight large canvas bags of franked matter, weighing not less than

_five thousand pounds_! To say nothing of the vast expense of printing

and binding millions of documents and speeches which are never read, the

burden, and labor, and cost to the post-office are incalculable. When

newspapers were few in number, there might have been a necessity to send

out speeches and documents, but as newspapers are published in all parts

of the Union, every important report and speech is published and read

long before it can be printed and sent from Washington. Let the members

of Congress be furnished with a sufficient number of stamps to cover

their postage, and these be paid for as the other expenses of Congress.

The frank was wholly abolished in Great Britain, when the cheap system

was adopted, so that Queen Victoria herself can not now frank a letter!

5. But the grievance, which is now felt and most complained of by the

people, is the complicated and burdensome tax on newspapers and other

printed matter. It has heretofore been the good policy of Congress to

favor the circulation of newspapers throughout the country, and

accordingly one and a half cents was the highest rate charged to regular

subscribers for any distance, and two cents, prepaid, for transient

papers. These rates were plain and easy to be understood, and few were

disposed to complain of them, although they were much higher than they

should be. The new bill has some _sixty_ or _seventy_ different rates,

and so complicated, depending upon _weight_ and _distance_, that not one

postmaster in twenty can tell what postage should be charged upon

newspapers. Again the rates are enormous. For example, a newspaper in

California, weighing one ounce or under, is charged _five cents_

prepaid, and if not prepaid _ten cents_, and the same for every

additional ounce; hence the Courier and Enquirer or Journal of Commerce,

weighing two and one quarter ounces, is charged to San Francisco

_fifteen cents_ prepaid, and if not prepaid _thirty cents_! What is the

effect of this law? It prohibits the circulation of newspapers through

the post-office entirely, and all that are now sent go by private

expresses. If I understand the subject correctly, it was the object of

those who proposed the "substitute" to the Bill which passed the House

of Representatives, to _exclude_ from the mails _newspapers_ and

_printed_ matter. _Is this right?_

6. Another reform which should be made by Congress, is the payment of

postage entirely by _stamps_. If no money was received at the

post-office except for stamps, and the postage on every thing passing

through the office prepaid, the saving of labor would be immense, both

to the general post-office and local offices. But this is not the only

advantage. The amount lost, by the destruction of post bills, is

incalculable. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are unaccounted for and

lost every year by the Department, by the present loose, inefficient

system of accounting for the postages received on letters and

newspapers. While this system continues there is not, and can not be any

_check_ on the postmasters. Let the payment of postage be made by

stamps, and it would be an effectual check upon every post-office, and

the Department would receive the money for every stamp sold, whether it

was used by the purchaser or not. This is a subject worthy of the

serious consideration of Congress and the Post-Office Department.

7. There is one more improvement which I would recommend before closing

this already long article, and that is the establishment of a

_money-order office_. This would not only be a great convenience to the

people, especially to the poorer class, but it would also prove a source

of revenue to the post-office. During the last year, there were sent

through the money-order office in Great Britain upward of _forty

millions_ of dollars! When it is recollected that each order is limited

to _twenty-five dollars_, the number of letters carrying these orders

must be very large, adding to the receipts of the post-office. The same

results would follow a similar establishment in the United States. There

being no guarantee for the safe delivery of money, transmitted by the

mails, such letters are now sent by private expresses, for which they

receive a remunerating compensation.

I have briefly suggested some of the reforms which I deem necessary for

the improvement of the post-office. It was said last winter by some of

our Senators in Congress, in their places, that "OURS IS THE WORST

MANAGED POST-OFFICE IN THE WORLD." I can not agree with them in this

assertion. But I regret to say that it is not the _best_ managed, nor so

good as it should and _must_ be. The great drawback to its improvement,

and, I may add, the curse that rests upon it, is its being made a

_political_ machine. It was a great and fatal mistake to make the

Postmaster-general a member of the Cabinet. The great personal worth of

Mr. McLean induced President Monroe to take him into his Cabinet, and

the practice has been continued ever since. The consequence is, that the

Postmaster-general is changed under every new administration. In less

than two years we had _three_, and two assistants. How can it be

expected that men, whatever may be their talents, can make themselves

acquainted with the business of the office in the short space of three

or four years? Before they are warm in their seats they are removed.

Besides, after a new administration comes in, it takes six or twelve

months to turn out political opponents and appoint their friends. If,

instead of this, when intelligent and efficient men are in office (no

matter what their political affinities may be), they were continued, it

would be an inducement to make improvements, and an encouragement to

fidelity; but now there is no security to any man that he will be

continued one hour, nor any encouragement to excel in the faithful

discharge of his duty. These things ought not so to be.

There is another practice which greatly retards the improvement of our

post-office, and that is the manner in which the post-office committees

are appointed in Congress. At every session of Congress new committees

are appointed by the Senate and House, a majority of which is composed

of the dominant political party, without much regard to their

qualifications. For a number of years there has been scarcely a single

member selected from any of our large cities, where the principal

portion of the revenue is collected, consequently, they are persons who

have little or no knowledge of post-office business, or the wants of the

people. Their principal business is to obtain new post-routes, but any

improvement of postal concerns is little thought of. Hence the

Post-Office Department may be considered a vast political machine,

wielded for the benefit of the party in power; and there is not an

appointment made, from the Postmaster-general down to the postmaster of

the smallest office, without a special regard to the politics of the

person appointed.

The only correction of this evil, under the present system, is to give

the appointment of all the postmasters to the people. They are the best

qualified to judge of the character and qualifications of the person who

will serve them in the most acceptable manner; and the postmasters,

knowing that they are dependent upon the people for their offices, will

be more obliging and attentive in the discharge of their duties. This

will diminish the patronage of the President and the Postmaster-general,

which I have not a doubt they would gladly part with, as there is

nothing more troublesome and perplexing to a conscientious man, than the

exercise of this power.

In the old world, where monarchy exists, the press is called the "fourth

estate;" but with us, where "_vox populi_, _vox Dei_," the press and the

ballot-box may be considered the sovereign. The press utters the wish of

the people, and the ballot-box confirms that wish. Hence, if the press

speaks out clearly and strongly in favor of postal reform, the people

will sanction it by their votes in selecting men to represent their

wishes in the councils of the nation. Our post-office, instead of being

denounced the "worst," should be made the _best_ managed in the world.

We have no old prejudices or established customs to abolish, no

pensioners or sinecures to support, no jealousy on the part of the

government against the diffusion of knowledge through the mails; but we

have an intelligent, active, liberal gentleman at the head of the

Post-Office Department, who desires to meet the wants and wishes of the

people. Therefore we have reason to hope that in due time our

post-office will be established on such a footing as to secure the

patronage and support of the people, defying all competition, and

superior to any similar establishment in the world.

B.B.

SYRIAN SUPERSTITIONS.

There are some superstitious observances, which are strictly adhered to

by the peasants employed in rearing the silk-worm. Thus, when the eggs

are first hatched, the peasant's wife rises up very early in the

morning, and creeping stealthily to the master's house, flings a piece

of wet clay against the door. If the clay adheres, it is a sign that

there will be a good mousoum or silk harvest: if it do not stick, then

the contrary may be expected. During the whole time the worms are being

reared, no one but the peasants themselves are permitted to enter the

khook or hut; and, when the worms give notice that they are about to

mount and form their cocoons, then the door is locked, and the key

handed to the proprietor of the plantation. After a sufficient time has

elapsed, and the cocoons are supposed to be well and strongly formed,

the proprietor, followed by the peasants, marches in a kind of

procession up to the huts, and, first dispensing a few presents among

them, and hoping for good, to which they all reply, "Inshalla!

Inshalla!--please God! please God," the key is turned, the doors thrown

wide open, and the cocoons are detached from the battours of cane mats,

and prepared for reeling the next day.

Monthly Record of Current Events.

UNITED STATES

The past month has not been one of special interest, either at home or

abroad. None of the great legislative bodies of the country have been in

session, and political action has been confined to one or two of the

Southern States. The annual Agricultural Fair of the State of New York

was held at Rochester on the three days following the 17th of September,

and was attended by a larger number of persons, and with greater

interest than usual. Hon. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, United States Senator from

Illinois, delivered the address, which was a clear and interesting

sketch of the progress and condition of agriculture in the United

States. The number of persons in attendance at the Fair is estimated to

have exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand. The State Agricultural

Society of New York is gaining strength every year. A very interesting

Railroad Jubilee was held in Boston on the 17th of September, to

celebrate the completion of railroad communication between Boston and

Ogdensburg, thus connecting the New England capital with the Western

lakes by two distinct routes. President FILLMORE and several members of

his Cabinet were present, as were also Lord ELGIN and several other

distinguished gentlemen from Canada. An immense multitude of people was

in attendance to celebrate this triumph of business, energy, and

enterprise. Brief public congratulations were exchanged between the

municipal officers of Boston and their guests, and a grand aquatic

excursion down the bay took place on the 18th. The celebration lasted

three days, and was closed by a grand civic feast under a pavilion on

the Common.

No event of the past month has excited more general interest, than the

return of the two vessels sent to the Arctic Ocean a year and a half

ago, by Mr. HENRY GRINNELL of New York, to aid in the search for Sir

JOHN FRANKLIN. The _Advance_ reached New York on the 1st of October; the

_Rescue_ was a few days later. Although unsuccessful in the main object

of their search, the gallant officers and men by whom these vessels were

manned, have enjoyed their cruise, and returned without the loss of a

single life and in excellent health. They entered Wellington Sound on

the 26th of August, 1850, and were at once joined by Capt PENNY, who

commanded the vessel sent out by Lady FRANKLIN. On the 27th, three

graves were discovered, known by inscriptions upon them to be those of

three of Sir JOHN FRANKLIN'S crew. The presence of Sir JOHN at that spot

was thus established at as late a date as in April, 1846. On the 8th of

September, the vessels forced their way through the ice, and on the

10th, reached Griffith's Island, which proved to be the ultimate limit

of their western progress. On the 13th, they started to return, but were

frozen in near the mouth of Wellington Channel, and for nine months they

continued thus, unable to move, threatened with destruction by the

crushing of the ice around them, and borne along by the southeast drift

until, on the 10th of June, they emerged into open sea, and found

themselves in latitude 65 deg. 30', and one thousand and sixty miles from

the spot at which they became fixed in the ice. The history of Arctic

navigation records no drift at all to be compared with this, either for

extent or duration. The intervening season was full of peril. The ice

crushing the sides of the vessels, forced them several feet out of

water. The thermometer fell to 40 degrees below zero. The _Rescue_ was

abandoned, for the sake of saving fuel, and on two occasions, the crews

had left their vessels, expecting to see them crushed to atoms between

the gigantic masses of ice that threatened them on either side, and with

their knapsacks on their backs had prepared to strike off across the ice

for land, which was nearly a hundred miles off. The scurvy made its

appearance, and was very severe in its ravages, especially among the

officers.

After refitting his vessels on the coast of Greenland, Captain DE HAVEN,

who had the command of the expedition, started again for the North.

After passing Baffin's Bay on the 8th of August, he became again

hopelessly entangled in the vast masses of ice that were floating

around, and was compelled to start for the United States. The expedition

is likely to contribute essentially to our knowledge of the natural

history of that remote region of the earth, as Dr. KANE, an intelligent

naturalist, who went in the vessels as surgeon, has very complete

memoranda of every thing of interest especially in this department.

Although unable to find any distinct traces of him later than 1846, the

officers of the expedition think it far from impossible that Sir JOHN

FRANKLIN may be still alive, hemmed in by ice at a point which they were

unable to reach. They agree in the opinion that a steamer of some kind

should accompany any other expedition that may be sent.

A State election took place in GEORGIA, on the 7th of October, which has

a general interest on account of the issues which it involved. The old

political distinctions were entirely superseded, both candidates for

Governor having belonged to the Democratic party--one of them, however,

Hon. HOWELL COBB, late Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,

being in favor of abiding by the Compromise measures of 1850, and his

opponent Mr. MCDONALD being opposed to them, and in favor of secession

from the Union. Up to the time of closing this record, full returns have

not been received; but it is quite certain that Mr. COBB, the Union

candidate, has been elected by a very large majority. Full returns of

the Congressional canvass, which was held at the same time, have not yet

reached us; but it is believed that six Union, and two State Rights

members have been elected.

The Legislature of VERMONT met at Montpelier on the 9th of October. The

House was organized by the election of Mr. Powers, speaker, and Mr. C.

T. Davey, clerk. The message of Gov. Williams treats of national topics

at considerable length. He insists that the laws must be obeyed, and

vindicates the _habeas corpus_ act passed by Vermont at the last session

of its Legislature from many of the censures that have been cast upon

it.

The month has been distinguished by an unusual number of steamboat

explosions, railroad casualties, crimes and accidents of various sorts.

The steamer _Brilliant_, on her way up the Mississippi from New Orleans,

on the 28th of September, while near Bayou Sara, burst her boiler,

killing fifteen or twenty persons, wounding as many more, and making a

complete wreck of the vessel. A brig on Lake Erie, having left Buffalo

for Chicago, sprung a leak on the 30th of September, and sunk within an

hour. About twenty persons were drowned, only one of those on board

escaping. All but he got into the longboat, which capsized; he fastened

himself to the foremast of the brig, which left him, as the vessel

touched bottom, about four feet out of water. He remained there two days

when he was rescued by a passing steamer.

A very severe storm swept over the northeast coast of British America on

the 5th of October, doing immense injury to the fishing vessels, nearly

a hundred of them being driven ashore. About three hundred persons are

supposed to have perished in the wrecks, and great numbers of dead

bodies had been drifted ashore.

The steamer _James Jackson_, while near Shawneetown, in Illinois, on the

21st of September, burst her boiler, killing and wounding thirty-five

persons, and tearing the boat to pieces. The scene on board at the time

of the explosion is described as having been heart-rending.

A duel was fought at Vienna, S.C. on the 27th of September, in which Mr.

Smyth, one of the editors of the Augusta Constitutionalist, was wounded

by a ball through the thigh from the pistol of his antagonist, Dr.

Thomas of Augusta. The meeting grew out of a newspaper controversy,

Smyth taking offense at an article in the Chronicle of which Thomas

avowed himself the author.--Another duel, with a still more serious

result took place in Brownsville, Texas, on the 8th. The parties were

Mr. W.H. Harrison and Mr. W.G. Clarke, who met in the street with

five-barreled pistols. Clarke fell at the second fire, receiving his

antagonist's ball near the heart.--Mr. W. Laughlin, an alderman in the

city of New Orleans, and a very respectable and influential citizen, was

killed by William Silk, another alderman, on the 29th of September: the

affray grew out of political differences.

The great Railroad Conspiracy trials at Detroit terminated on the 25th

of September, by a verdict of guilty against twelve of the prisoners and

acquitting the rest. Two of them were sentenced to the State Prison for

ten years, six for eight years, and four for five years.

Father MATHEW has returned from his visit to the Western States, and has

been spending a few weeks in New York. Some of the most influential

gentlemen of New York city have appealed to the public for contributions

to form a fund of twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars for his aid: it

is seconded by a very strong letter from Mr. CLAY. Father Mathew is soon

to leave the United States for Ireland.

A number of the literary gentlemen of New York have taken steps to

render some fitting tribute to the memory of the late JAMES FENIMORE

COOPER. A preliminary meeting was held at the City Hall, at which

WASHINGTON IRVING presided, and a committee was appointed to consider

what measures will be most appropriate. The delivery of a eulogium and

the erection of a statue are suggested as likely to be fixed upon. At a

meeting of the New York Historical Society, held on the 7th of October,

resolutions upon the subject were adopted.

The Episcopal Convention of the New York diocese was held on the 24th of

September, and the Rev. Dr. CREIGHTON, of Tarrytown, was elected, after

a protracted canvass, Provisional Bishop. He is a native of New York,

graduated at Columbia College in 1812, and has officiated at Grace

Church and St Mark's Church, in New York.

From CALIFORNIA our intelligence is to the 6th of September. San

Francisco and Sacramento have been the scenes of great excitement. The

self-appointed Vigilance Committee, which was organized to supervise,

and, if it should be deemed necessary, to supersede the criminal courts,

has given terrible proofs of its energy. Two men named Whittaker and

McKenzie were in prison at San Francisco awaiting their trial. Fearing

that justice might not be done them, the Vigilance Committee broke in

the prison doors, took the men out during divine service on Sunday, and

hung them both in front of the building. An immense crowd of people was

present, approving and encouraging the proceedings. The regular

authorities made very slight resistance to the mob. At Sacramento three

men had been convicted of highway robbery and sentenced to be hung. One

of them, named Robinson, was respited by the Governor, for a month. The

day for executing the sentence of the law upon the other two arrived. A

large concourse of people was present. The sheriff ordered the two men,

Gibson and Thompson, to the place of execution, and directed Robinson to

be taken to a prison-ship in which he could be secured. The crowd,

however, refused to allow this, but retained him in custody. The two men

were then executed by the sheriff, who immediately left the ground.

Robinson was then brought forward and, after proper religious exercises,

was hung. These occurrences created a good deal of excitement in

California at the time, but it soon subsided. It seems to have been

universally conceded that the men deserved their fate, and that only

justice had been attained, although by irregular means.

The news from the mines continues to be encouraging. The companies were

all doing well, and extensive operations were in progress to work the

gold-bearing quartz. The steamer _Lafayette_ was burned on the 9th, at

Chagres. Marysville, in California, was visited on the night of August

30th, by a very destructive fire. The steamer _Fawn_ burst her boiler

near Sacramento on the 28th of August; five or six persons were killed.

From NEW MEXICO we have news to the end of September. Colonel Sumner's

expedition against the Navajo Indians had reached Cyrality, in the very

heart of the Indian country, and intended to erect a fort there. The

Indians were swarming on his rear, threatening hostilities. News had

reached Santa Fe that five of Colonel Sumner's men had perished for want

of water, before reaching Laguna. The troops were scattered along the

road for forty miles, and horses were daily giving out. Colonel Sumner

will establish a post at St. Juan, one in the Navajo country, and one at

Don Ana.

Quite an excitement had been raised at Santa Fe by the demand of the

Catholic Bishop for the church edifice commonly known as the Military

Church. Under the Mexican Government it was used exclusively as the

chapel of the army. Since the conquest it had been used by the United

States army as an ordnance house. After the departure of the troops,

Chief Justice Baker obtained from Col. Brooks permission to occupy the

house as a court room. The Catholic clergy considered this as a

desecration of the house, and consequently objected to its being thus

appropriated. The commotion was quelled by the Governor's surrendering

the key to the Bishop, formally putting the possession of the building

into the hands of the Church.--Major Weightman is certain to be elected

delegate to Congress.--Much misunderstanding exists between the Judges

in construing the laws in regard to holding the courts, and some fear a

good deal of delay in administering justice in consequence, as the

lawyers are refusing to bring suits until there shall be unanimity among

the Judges.--The difficulty between Mr. Bartlett and Colonel Graham, of

the Boundary Commission, is still unsettled. The former was progressing

with the survey.

Rain had fallen to some extent throughout New Mexico, and vegetation was

consequently beginning to revive.

MEXICO.

Late advices from the City of Mexico state that the Cabinet resigned in

a body on the 2d of September, and much disaffection prevailed

throughout the country, which was in the most deplorable and abject

condition.

The Convention of the Governors of the different States, called for the

purpose of devising some means for the relief of the difficulties under

which the people are now laboring, had met, and, without taking any

decisive action on the subject, adjourned, causing great

dissatisfaction. Don Fernando Ramnez has accepted the appointment of

Minister of Foreign Affairs, and is charged with the formation of a new

Cabinet. The Tehuantepec question engages public attention to a very

great degree. The press represent that if the Americans are allowed to

construct a railroad across the isthmus, the adjoining country will be

colonized, revolutionized, and annexed to the United States, and that

another large and valuable department will thus be lost to Mexico. It is

stated that the Government has sent 3000 men to defend the isthmus

against the Americans, but this we are inclined to doubt.

A revolution has broken out in Northern Mexico which, thus far, has

proved entirely successful. It commenced at Camargo, where the Patriots

attacked the Mexicans. The Patriots came off victorious, having taken

the town by storm, with a loss on the side of the Mexicans of 60. The

Government troops were intrenched in a church, with artillery. The

people of the town had held a meeting, at which it was resolved to

accept the pronunciamiento issued by the Revolutionists. The Mexican

troops stationed there were allowed to march out of the town with the

honors of war. The Revolutionists were determined to defend the place.

The Revolutionists are commanded by Carabajal, who has also with him two

companies of Texans. At the last accounts they were marching on

Matamoras and Reynosa. Gen. Avalos, who is at Matamoras, has only 200

troops. He had made a requisition on the city for 2000, but the city

refused to raise a single man. The plan of the Revolutionists was a

pronunciamiento which was widely circulated. The pronunciamiento

pronounces "death to tyrants." The reasons given for the revolt are:

1st. The utter failure of the Mexican Government to protect the northern

Mexican States from Indian depredations. 2d. The unjust, unequal,

prohibitory system of duties, which operates most destructively on the

interests of the people of the frontier. 3d. The despotic power exerted

by the Federal Government over the rights and representation of several

States. Beside Camargo, Mier, Tampico, and several other towns were in

the hands of the insurgents. A report having reached Matamoras that the

invaders were preparing to march upon them, a large number of the

inhabitants, including all the woman and children, fled, leaving only

two hundred and fifty men in the town.

CENTRAL AMERICA.

This country continues to be in a very disturbed condition. The

revolution started by Munoz is still in progress, the leader being, at

the latest dates, about to march upon Granada with the intention of

taking that city by force if it would not yield. The government,

however, had impressed into its service all the seamen in port, and many

of those in the service of the canal company.

A military disturbance had occurred at San Juan. A company of native

soldiers was sent by the local authorities with orders to take as their

prisoner a certain American, of the name of M'Lean, suspected of being

a political spy. The soldiers surrounded the shanty where M'Lean and a

dozen other Americans on their return from California, had halted, and

fired into it, killing a negro and severely wounding a white man. The

Americans returned the fire, killing one man and dispersing the whole

company. Next day the affair was compromised by an agreement that M'Lean

should leave the country, which he did.

An insurrection has broken out in the States of San Salvador and

Guatemala. General Carrera with 1500 men had attacked the enemy in San

Salvador and defeated them, but he did not follow up his advantage.

Mr. Chatfield, the English consul in Nicaragua, has become involved in

another difficulty with the authorities. His _exequatur_ has been

revoked, on account of his refusal to recognize the Central Government.

SOUTH AMERICA.

We have news from Buenos Ayres to the 18th of August. The war raging in

that country is becoming more and more important, and a brief sketch of

its origin and character may be useful in aiding our readers to

understand the course of events. The contest is properly between Brazil

and Buenos Ayres, and the prize for which the two forces are contending

is the province of Uruguay. Until 1821 Uruguay was a province of Buenos

Ayres; but Pedro I. of Brazil, by the lavish use of bribes and other

agencies, equally potent and equally corrupt, succeeded in

revolutionizing the country and attaching it to Brazil. In 1825 Uruguay

declared itself free, and in 1828 it was recognized as a free government

by the Plata Confederation, in which recognition Brazil was obliged to

concur. Upon the abdication of Pedro, which occurred soon after, Brazil

was governed by a regency of which Louis Philippe obtained complete

control. France, Spain, and Portugal formed a design of re-annexing

Uruguay to Brazil, and they found facile allies in this purpose in the

Brazilian Court, which sought to extend the boundaries of the Empire to

the coasts of the River Plata and the Uruguay, and to occupy the vast

and fertile territory which they include. From that time to this, with

occasional intermissions, the war has been going on. Rosas, dictator of

Buenos Ayres, struggles with the strength of desperation for the

recovery of Uruguay, and he is aided by Oribe, the President of Uruguay,

who resists to the utmost the designs of Brazil, and prefers annexation

to Buenos Ayres. Against them are the Brazilian troops, aided by

Urquiza, formerly a general under Rosas, but subsequently a traitor to

him and his country.

On the 20th of July Urquiza and Garzon crossed the Uruguay with a large

force, which was constantly increased by desertions from the army of

Oribe: they were to be joined by a Brazilian army of 12,000 men, and the

war was to be carried into the heart of Buenos Ayres. On the 26th, Oribe

issued a proclamation against Urquiza, and on the 30th marched with a

large force to meet him. At our latest advices the troops on both sides

were preparing for a grand battle, which must be, to a considerable

extent, decisive of the question at issue. It is very difficult to

acquire accurate and reliable information from the papers which reach

us, as they are without exception partisan prints, and far more

solicitous to magnify the deeds and strength of their respective

parties, than to tell the truth. By the time our next Number is issued

we shall probably receive decisive intelligence.

From Valparaiso our dates are to the 1st of September. Of the loan of

three hundred thousand dollars asked for by the Chilian government, only

seventy thousand had been raised. Two or three shocks of an earthquake

had been felt at Conception, but very little injury was sustained. The

coinage at the National Mint during the first half of this year, up to

July 10th, had amounted to two million dollars and upward, in 127,101

gold doubloons. The Custom House receipts for the year ending 30th June,

1851, exceed those of the previous year $118,389.70. Reciprocity has

been established with Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bremen, Sardinia,

Denmark, United States, France, Great Britain, Hamburg, Oldenburg,

Prussia, and the Sandwich Islands. It is reported that Peru has entered

into a close alliance with Brazil against Rosas. Reciprocity has been

established in Chilian ports for Swedish and Norwegian vessels. The

rails are laid on the Copiaco Railroad, a distance of 26 miles. On the

20th of July, the first locomotive engine ran through from Caldera to

the Valley, and has since been transporting timber and iron for the

extension of the track.

GREAT BRITAIN.

We have intelligence from England to the 30th of September, but there is

very little worthy a place in our Record. The Queen and Court were still

in Scotland, at Balmoral, and of course the public eye was turned

thither for all news of interest. Parliament was not in session, but

several of the members had met their constituents at county gatherings.

Lord PALMERSTON delivered an elaborate speech at Tiverton, on the 24th,

which gave material for a good deal of comment. It was a general review

of the condition of the kingdom, with a vindicatory sketch of the policy

pursued by the government. He dwelt eloquently on the admirable manner

in which the great Exhibition had been conducted, and the excellent

effect it would have upon the various nations whose representatives it

had brought together. The Catholic question, the corn-laws, and the

slave-trade were treated briefly and cogently. The speech was very able,

and very well received. Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, after holding himself

aloof from politics for several years, has again come forward and avowed

his willingness to represent the County of Hertford in Parliament. He

professes a firm belief in protection principles, and expresses the

belief that the present free-trade system is ruining the country. Mr.

DISRAELI addressed the citizens of Buckinghamshire on the 17th, the

occasion being an agricultural dinner. He represented the effect of

free-trade upon the leading interests of England as having been

exceedingly disastrous, but avowed his conviction that the protective

system could not be restored, and urged the importance of reforms in the

financial administration of the country. He referred frequently to the

history of his own course in Parliament, and indicated a suspicion that

the new reform bill of the Ministry would prove to aim rather at

curtailing the influence of the agricultural class, than to effect any

desirable change. Mr. HUME met an assembly of his constituents on the

13th, at Montrose, and addressed them on the necessity of a more

economical administration of public affairs, if England desired to

compete with the United States. The people ought to insist, he said,

upon such a new reform bill as should give every householder a vote in

the national representation. This would increase the number of voters

from nine hundred thousand to between three and four millions.

The vessels sent out by the English government in search of Sir JOHN

FRANKLIN, have returned, without any further discoveries than those

already recorded. The officers assert their belief that Sir JOHN is

still alive and shut up by ice, at a point beyond any which the

expedition was able to reach. They have applied to the government for a

steam propeller, with which, they are confident, they can reach the

region where he is supposed to be confined. No answer to this

application has yet been made.

The Crystal Palace continued to be crowded with visitors. The

approaching close of the Exhibition had caused an increase in the number

in attendance. The close is fixed for the middle of October, and

notwithstanding the strenuous efforts made for its preservation, the

building will probably be taken down soon after.

Hon. ABBOTT LAWRENCE, the American Minister, has been making a tour

through Ireland. He was received every where with great enthusiasm.

Public receptions awaited him at Galway and Limerick, and at both these

cities he made brief addresses, expressing the interest taken by himself

and his countrymen in the affairs of Ireland. The project of a line of

steamers between Galway and the Atlantic coast was pressed upon his

attention.

Emigration from Ireland continues rapidly to increase, and many towns

have been almost depopulated. Every body who can get away seems inclined

to leave. The census returns show that the population of Ireland has

diminished very considerably within the last ten years. The potato crop

promises to be generally good, though the disease has made its

appearance in several localities. In all other crops the returns will be

above the average.

An experiment has been made in England with a steam plow, which proved

highly successful.

Another attempt has been made, with a good degree of success, to

establish telegraphic communication across the Straits of Dover. A large

cable has been prepared and sunk in the Channel from one shore to the

other, and so far as could be perceived, it promised to answer the

purpose. This will bring London into immediate connection with every

part of the Continent.

FRANCE.

The government is pushing to the extreme its measures of severity

against the press. Upon the merest rumor about two hundred foreigners

were suddenly arrested by the authorities, on charge of conspiracy,

though investigation proved the charge to be utterly groundless, and led

to the immediate discharge of most of them. The _Constitutionnel_

lavished the most extravagant eulogiums upon the government for its

action in this case. One of the sons of Victor Hugo in a newspaper

article ventured to protest against these eulogiums, for which he was

condemned to an imprisonment of nine months, and a fine of 2200 francs;

and M. Meurice, the proprietor of the _Evenement_, the paper in which

the article appeared, to imprisonment for nine months, and a fine of

3000 francs. The _Presse_ was condemned in a similar penalty for a like

offense, and several papers in the country districts have been visited

with the utmost severity for reflecting upon the government. Meantime

the official journals are allowed to indulge in the most direct and

emphatic denunciations of the Republic.

The whole tendency of the government is toward an unbridled despotism.

Arrests are made on the slightest suspicion. Police agents are quartered

in cafes. Houses are entered and papers searched, in a style befitting

the worst despotism in the world rather than a nominal Republic. There

have been various rumors of conspiracies and intended insurrection, but

they seem to have been groundless.

The President laid the foundation stone of the great central market

hall, which the city is erecting at a cost of over five million dollars,

near St. Eustache. The ceremony was witnessed by an immense concourse.

The President in his speech took occasion to express the hope that he

might be able to "lay upon the soil of France some foundations whereupon

will be erected a social edifice, sufficiently solid to afford a shelter

against the violence and mobility of human passions."

EASTERN AND SOUTHERN EUROPE.

An important commercial treaty has been concluded in Germany. Hanover

has joined the Prussian Zollverein, having heretofore been the head of a

separate association, called the Steuerverein, which has been by this

movement dissolved. The custom-duties of the Zollverein have been levied

on a protective scale; by this new arrangement, the rates will be

lowered. The conclusion of this treaty has created a marked sensation in

Vienna, as the journals there were loudly predicting the dissolution of

the Zollverein.

The Emperor of Austria has written to Prince Schwartzenberg, urging the

necessity of increased economy in public affairs. The King of Prussia is

about to abolish the Landwehr, and have none but regular troops in his

service.

The Austrian government has exercised its severity upon the humorist,

Saphir, who edited a small paper in Vienna. He has been sentenced to

three months' imprisonment and the suppression of his journal for a

similar period, for having printed a humorous article on the recent

ordinances, which the court-martial declared to be an attempt to excite

popular ill-feeling toward the government. He is over sixty years old,

and quite infirm from disease. The authorities, as if to make their acts

as ridiculous as possible, lately punished a printer and a hatter, the

former for wearing, and the latter for making a Klapka hat. The whole

system of government is oppressive and tyrannical in the extreme. A

writer from Vienna to the London _Daily News_, says that it hampers,

impedes, nay, crushes, every kind of superior talent not of a military

cast. Lawyers of all kinds are suspected of treason, even those whom the

government itself employs; they are watched; their practice is taken

away from them; they are not permitted to plead before the

courts-martial sitting every where; the universities are all placed

under martial law, that of Vienna is entirely suppressed; the professors

and teachers of all kinds are left to their own resources; literature is

closed to them; no one writes books, for a publisher will not publish

any thing but of the lightest character; newspapers can not employ men

of talent; in fine, nothing but soldiering or police spying seems left

to the majority of the educated classes.

The Austrian government have found it necessary to resort to a loan, of

some ten or twelve millions of dollars, of which, at the latest advices,

over half had been taken, mainly on the Continent.

The Neapolitan government has published an official reply to the charges

against it contained in the letters of Mr. Gladstone. These charges were

of the most serious character, implicating the government in acts of

cruelty, which would have disgraced the barbarous tribes of Africa. Mr.

Gladstone solemnly arraigned the government, before the public opinion

of the civilized world, as being an "incessant, systematic, deliberate

violation of law," with the direct object of destroying whole classes of

citizens, and those the very classes upon which the health, solidity,

and progress of the nation depend. A series of special instances was

given to sustain these charges. The reply consists in a denial of the

charges, and in specific refutation of many of the facts alleged. It is

a carefully prepared paper, and has done something to moderate the very

harsh judgment which Mr. Gladstone's letters induced almost every one to

form.

A letter from Rome, published in the Paris _Debats_ states that another

attempt to murder by means of an explosive contrivance, had occurred

there within the last few days. A tube, filled with gunpowder and bits

of iron, had been placed in a passage leading to the laboratory of a

chemist, at whose shop several persons, well-known for their attachment

to the Pontifical Government, usually meet in the early part of the

evening. Fortunately the match fell out of the tube, after having been

lighted, and the explosion did not take place. The police had not

discovered the culprit.

The same letter mentions a new difficulty that has lately arisen between

the French and Papal authorities at Civita Vecchia. The new French

packets of the Messageries having superseded the old _bateaux-postes_,

it appears that the captain of one of the former, claimed for his ship

the privileges of a vessel of war, a claim which the sanitary

authorities of Civita Vecchia would not admit; whereupon Colonel de la

Mare, commandant of the garrison of Civita Vecchia, had two or three of

the _employes_ of the Board of Health arrested. It was believed,

however, that the question will be amicably settled.

In SPAIN public attention has been almost entirely absorbed in the Cuban

question. The Spanish papers were very violent against the United

States, and clamored loudly for war, though the necessity of European

aid in such a contest is very sensibly felt. It is announced with every

appearance of truth, that England and France have entered into

engagements with Spain for the purpose of preventing future attempts

upon Cuba from the United States. To what extent this guarantee goes we

have no precise information; but it is stated in the Paris journals that

a French steamer has been dispatched to the United States for the

express purpose of making representations to our government upon the

subject. Spain has sent reinforcements to her army in Cuba and is taking

active steps to increase her naval strength for an anticipated collision

with the United States.

The usual party struggles agitate the Spanish Capital. It is said that

the Government contemplate decided reforms in the Tariff regulations of

the country, maintaining the protective duties wherever Spanish

manufactures can be aided thereby, and encouraging competition in all

those branches which have been stationary hitherto.

TURKEY.

Intelligence has been received of the departure of KOSSUTH and his

Hungarian companions from Constantinople, in the steamer Mississippi,

for the United States. They arrived at Smyrna on the 12th of September,

and are daily expected at New York as we close this Record of the month.

It is understood that Austria employed her utmost resources of diplomacy

to prevent the release of KOSSUTH, but they were ineffectual. She will

probably now seek to punish Turkey for disregarding her wishes, by

sending the chiefs of the Bosnian rebellion again into Bosnia, to

rekindle the flame. She concentrates her troops on the frontiers of

Bosnia, Servia, and Wallachia. She attempts to gain the leading men in

Servia, and she encourages and patronizes the former princes of Servia,

who are still pretenders. Thus it is tried to kindle a new revolution in

that country. Russia apparently keeps aloof on the question of the

liberation of Kossuth, ready to profit by the opportunity to present

herself either as protecting the Porte, should the revolution succeed,

or as mediator, should the difficulties with Austria lead to the brink

of a rupture.

Omer Pasha, the Sultan's great general, remains in Bosnia, as long as

the difficulties with Austria are not settled. In consequence of the

Austrian movements he had concentrated 30,000 men in this province. The

Servian Government has given orders for the armament of the militia, at

the same time an explanation has been required from Austria as to the

concentration of her troops on the frontier.

The political condition and prospects of Turkey, notwithstanding the

representations of her papers, are represented as very far from

promising. A correspondent of the London Morning Chronicle depicts her

position in gloomy colors. She is tormented, he says, on every side. On

the one hand, France imperiously demands the Holy Sepulchre; on the

other, Russia as imperiously forbids her giving it up. If she gives in

to France, the whole Christian population will rise to a man against

her. The Pasha of Egypt and the Bey of Tunis both refuse to obey her,

and of all the troops with their fine uniforms and arms which parade at

Constantinople, not one dare go against these audacious subjects. The

provinces of the empire are a prey to brigandage on a scale which makes

even all that is said of Greek brigandage appear as nothing. In the mean

time the treasury is empty, nor can all the expedients resorted to

succeed in filling it. The national feeling, always against the system

of reform, which was quite superficial, has broken out openly, and the

people, supported by the clergy, are ready to rise on all sides. Even in

the capital this state of feeling is very prevalent, and shows itself by

the usual barbarous expedient of incendiary fires. There have been

several very severe ones, even within the last few days. One time three

hundred of the largest houses in Constantinople were reduced to ashes;

next fifteen hundred houses in Scutari fell, including all the markets,

magazines, mills, and probably the whole town would have followed, had

it not been for a violent fall of rain, which quelled the fire.

It is, above all, the position of the Christians, which is deplorable

and precarious. The scenes of Aleppo last year are now acting in

Magnesia, and threaten to break out again at Aleppo, where the

Government wants to force the inhabitants to pay an indemnity to the

Christians, which they insolently refuse. The Government, in trying to

maintain her system of progress, is but showing her weakness. She is

obliged to keep an army of observation constantly on foot in Bosnia,

where the revolt is not by any means entirely quelled, and which is

covered with bands of brigands ready to unite and become an insurgent

army. Bagdad is in a state of siege by the Arabs, who fly as soon as

pursued, but quickly return, devastating the country wherever they

appear.

PERSIA.

Important news has been received from Teheran, announcing a serious

coolness between Russia and Persia, and the possibility of a rupture

between these governments. Several months ago some Turcomans are alleged

to have set fire to Russian vessels in the Caspian, near Astrabad, and

massacred the crews. Orders were consequently sent from St. Petersburg

to the Russian embassador at Teheran to demand the immediate dismissal

of the governor of Mazanderan, or to haul down his flag. The dismissal

has been finally granted, but only after difficulties which have brought

about the coolness above mentioned. The same mail from Persia brings

intelligence that the governor of Herat, Yar-Mehemed Khan, having died,

the Shah immediately sent troops to occupy that city, notwithstanding

the opposition of the English minister.

INDIA AND THE EAST.

News from Calcutta has been received to the 1st of September. We

mentioned last month the probable seizure by the English government, of

part of the provinces of the Nizam as security for a debt. We now learn

that he has rescued his territory from seizure by paying part of the

money due, and giving, security for the remainder. He had pledged part

of the Hyderabad jewels. A conspiracy to effect the escape of Moolraj

had been discovered in Calcutta. It was reported that the Arsenal had

been set on fire and the prisoners liberated in the confusion. Twenty

villages round about Goolburgah had been plundered and burned by the

Rohillas. It was mentioned, in the way of a report, that the troops of

Goolab Singh had been beaten in a conflict with the people some four

days' journey from Cashmere. A great many men and a quantity of baggage

were said to have been lost. The Calcutta railroad progresses,

notwithstanding the rainy season; the terminus had been chosen, and the

necessary ground for its erection, and that of the requisite office has

been purchased at Howrah.

In CHINA the rebellion continued to extend. The Imperial troops had not

been able to make any impression upon the rebels. A good deal of alarm

was felt at Canton in regard to the probable result.

In AUSTRALIA the discoveries of gold absorb attention. The reported

existence of the mines is not only confirmed, but it is proved that even

rumor has under-estimated the extent and value of the gold region. The

government itself, satisfied from the official report, has moved in the

matter, and has put forth a claim to the precious metal, prohibiting any

one from taking gold or metal from any property within the territory of

New South Wales, and threatening with punishment any person finding gold

in the uninhabited parts of the said territory which has not yet been

disposed of, or ceded by the Crown, or who shall search or dig for gold

in and upon such territory. The proclamation adds that "upon receipt of

further information upon this matter, such regulations shall be made as

may be considered just and decisive, and shall be published as soon as

possible, whereby the conditions will be made known on which, by the

payment of a reasonable sum, licenses shall be granted." Although this

proclamation was issued on the publication of the discovery, the

government had taken no steps to carry out the licensing system,

apparently sensible that the means at their command were insufficient to

compel parties to abandon their rich and selected spots. The accounts

received from Sydney to June 5th are full of the gold discoveries. There

were about 16,000 to 20,000 persons employed at the diggings, comprising

all classes, from the polite professions to handicraftsmen, runaway

policemen, and seamen from the shipping. Indeed, desertions from the

latter were so numerous and frequent, that vessels were quitting for

fear of similar desertions and the destruction of shipping as occurred

at California, in consequence of whole crews flitting to the mines. At

Sydney labor had advanced fifty per cent., but up to the above date

accounts of the gold-finding had not reached the sister settlements. The

gold range of the Blue Mountains extended nearly 400 miles in length,

and about forty miles wide.

Editor's Table.

Westward--EVER WESTWARD has been the marching symbol of mankind from the

earliest periods to the present. The striking fact is suggested in the

well known line of Bishop Berkeley--

WESTWARD the course of empire takes its way.

"The progress of the race," says the German psychologist Rauch, "has

ever been against the rotation of the earth, and toward the setting

sun;" as though it were in obedience to some natural law common to all

planets that revolve upon their axes. We may reject this as fanciful;

and yet there are some reasons why the primitive roaming tendency, or

spirit of discovery, should have taken one direction rather than

another--reasons grounded, not on any direct physiological magnetism,

but upon the effect of certain outward phenomena on the course of human

thought. Especially may we believe in some such influence as existing in

that young and impressible period, when an unchanging direction may be

rationally supposed to have been derived from the first faintest

impressions, either upon the sense or the intelligence. To the early

musing, meditative mind, the setting, rather than the ascending or

meridian sun, would most naturally connect itself with the ideas of the

vast and the undiscovered--the remote, legendary land, where the light

goes down so strangely behind the mountains, or on the other side of the

seemingly boundless plain, or beyond the deserts' solitary waste, or

away on the ocean wave, as it grows dim in the misty horizon, or

presents in its vanishing outline the far-off, shadowy isle. The

darkness, too, that follows, would nourish the same feeling of

mysterious interest, and thus aid in giving rise to that impulse, which,

when once originated, maintains itself afterward by its own onward

self-determining energy.

But whatever we may think, either of the poetry or the philosophy, there

can be no denying the historical fact. _Westward_, _ever westward_, has

been the course of emigration, of civilization, of learning, and of

religion. It was so in the days of the Patriarchs, and the process is

still going on in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first

express mention of such a tendency we find in one of the earliest

notices of Holy Writ. "_And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the

east, they came to the land of Shinar, and they settled there_"--Gen.

xi. 2. The language would imply that the process had been going on for

some time before. The east there mentioned was the country beyond the

great river Euphrates, whence, as those learned in the sacred language

would inform us, came the name _Hebrews_, the _Trans-Euphratean_

colonists, or those who had come over the great bounding stream that

separated the "old countries," or the "cradle of the race," from the

then new and unexplored western world. The next migration of which we

have a particular account is that of Abraham who journeyed from Ur of

the Chaldees to the promised land. Previous to this, however, the most

extensive movements had taken place. Egypt was already settled by the

stream, which, taking a southwest deflection, was destined to fill the

vast continent of Africa. It was after the dispersion at Babel that the

main current of humanity moved rapidly and steadily onward in the

direction of the original impulse. There was indeed a tendency toward

the east, but it never had the same impetus from the start; and its

movement resembled more the flow of a sluggish backwater, than the

natural progress. It sooner came to a stand, such as we find it

represented in the civilization of India, Thibet, and China, dead and

stagnant as it has been for centuries. But the western flood was ever

onward, onward--a stream of living water, carrying with it the best life

of humanity, and the ultimate destinies of the race. A bare glance at

the map of the world will show what were the original courses of

emigration. Asia must have poured into Europe through three principal

channels--through Asia Minor and the isles of Greece, across the

Hellespont by the way of Thrace and the lower part of Central Europe, or

between the Black and Caspian seas, through the regions afterward

occupied by Gog and Magog, and Meshek, or the Scythian, the Gothic, and

the Muscovite hordes. But light and civilization ever went mainly by the

way of the sea. The intercourse from coast to coast, and from isle to

isle, was more favorable to cultivation of manners, and elevation of

thought, than the laborious passages through the dark forests of the

north, or the torrid deserts of the south; and hence the early

superiority of the sons of Javan, and Kittim, and Tarshish, or in short,

of all whose advance was ever along that great high way of civilization,

the Mediterranean Sea. "By these," to use the language of Scripture,

"were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands." The most

crowded march, however, must have been that taken up by the sons of

Tiras, and Gomer, and Ashkenaz, by way of Thrace, and the mid regions of

Europe. We have one proof of this in the name given to the famous

crossing-place between Europe and Asia. It was called by an oriental

word denoting the _passage of flocks and herds_, and hence, to the

thousands and tens of thousands who constantly gathered on its banks, it

was the _Bosphorus_ (bo-os, poros), the _Ox-ford_ or ox-ferry--a most

notable spot in the world's early emigration, the name of which the

Greeks afterward translated into their own tongue, and then, according

to their usual custom, invented, or accommodated, for its explanation,

the mythus of the wandering Io.

But still, through all these channels, it was _ever westward_, ever from

the rising and toward the setting sun. It may be a matter of curious

interest to note how the word itself seems to have moved onward with the

march of mankind. The far-off, unknown land, for the time being, was

ever _the West_--departing farther and farther from the terminus which

each succeeding age had placed, and continually receding from the

emigrant, like Hesperia (the _West_ of the AEneid) ever flying before the

wearied Trojans--

Oras Hesperiae semper fugientis.

In the very earliest notices of sacred history, Canaan was the _West_.

When Abraham arrived there from Ur of the Chaldees, he found the

pioneers had gone before him. "The Canaanites," it is said, "were

already in the land," although soon to give way to a more heaven-favored

race. Next the coast of the Philistines becomes the _West_. Then the

Great Sea, or the Mediterranean, with its stronghold of Tyre, as it is

called, Joshua xix. 29. Tyre, the ancient Gibraltar, "the entry of the

waters" (Ezek. xxvii. 1), and which was to be "the merchant of the

people for many isles." In this way the language derived its fixed name

for this quarter of the horizon. As the north is called by a word

meaning the _dark or hidden_ place, so the sea ever denotes the west.

Hence the Psalmist's method of expressing the immensity of the Divine

presence; "Should I take the wings of the morning (or the east) and

dwell in the parts beyond the sea," or the uttermost _west_, "even then

shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand still shall hold me." In the

next period, the _west_ is removed to the land of Chittim (Gen. x. 4),

or the modern isle of Cyprus, of which there is a city yet remaining

with the radicals of the ancient name. Among other places it is

mentioned, Isaiah xxiii. 1. "News from the land of Chittim," or, "From

the land of Chittim is it revealed unto them," says the prophet in his

account of the wide-spread commerce of Tyre. It would almost seem like a

modern bulletin from San Francisco and California. Soon, however, the

ever retiring terminus is to be found in the country of Caphtor

(Jeremiah xlvii. 4), or the island of Crete, first settled by the roving

Cretites, or Cherethites, from a more ancient city of the same name on

the coast of Philistia (Deut. ii. 23), and not in a reverse direction,

as some would suppose. Again it recedes rapidly among the "Isles of the

Sea," so often mentioned in the Scriptures, and which becomes a general

name for the remote--the countries beyond the waters, and, in fact, for

all Europe. Proceeding from what was imperfectly known as Cyprus and the

AEgean Archipelago, the early Orientals would seem to have regarded all

this quarter of the world as one vast collection of islands, in

distinction from the main earth, main land, or Continent of Asia. Hence

the contrast, Ps. xcvii. 1:

The Lord is King--Let the _earth_ rejoice

Let the many _isles_ be glad.

Leaving behind us the Jews, and taking Homer for our guide, we next find

the _west_ in Greece as opposed to the Eoian realm of Troy, or the land

toward the morning dawn. In the interval between the Iliad and the

Odyssey, another transition has taken place. The latter poem is separate

from the former in space as well as in time. The Odyssey is west of the

Iliad. It is the "setting sun" in a sense different from that intended

by the critic Longinus, but no less true and significant. Epirus,

Phaecia, and the Ionian isles (as they have been called), are now the

_West_. Sicily is just heard of as the _ultima regio_ of the known

world. It is the mythical land of the cannibal Cyclops, and beyond it

dwells the King of the Winds. To the Trojan followers of AEneas, Italy is

_the West_--the land of promise to the exiles fleeing from the wars of

the older eastern world. The imagination pictured it as lying under the

far distant Hesper, or evening star, and hence it was called _Hesperia_:

Graio cognomine dicta.

But we must travel more rapidly onward. In the noon of the Roman empire,

Spain and Gaul were the West, the _terra occidentalis_. Soon Britain and

Ireland take the place and name. It was to the same quarters, too, on

the breaking up of this immense Roman mass, that the main element of its

strength moved onward, although the mere shadow of empire remained in

the slow decaying East. And now for centuries the march seemed impeded

by the great ocean barrier, until the same original impulse, gathering

strength by long delay, at length achieved the discovery of what, more

emphatically than all other lands, has been called _The Western World_.

Every one knows how rapid has been the same movement since. Scarcely had

the eastern shores been visited, when hardy adventurers brought news of

a _western_ coast, and of a _Western Ocean_, still beyond. This remoter

sea becomes the mythical terminus in the grants and charters of the

first English settlements, as though in anticipation of the future

greatness of the empire of which they were to form the constituent

parts. Since then how swift has been the same march across the new

discovered continent! Rapid as must be our sketch, it is hardly more so

than the reality it represents. Even within the memory of persons not

yet past the meridian of life, a portion of our own State was called the

_West_. The name was given to the land of the Mohawks and the Six

Nations; but like Hesperia of old, it was always flying in the van of

advancing cultivation. Soon Ohio becomes the _West_, along with Indiana,

Illinois, and Kentucky. Then Michigan is the _West_. In a few years

Wisconsin assumes the appellation; then Iowa; then Minnesota; while, in

another quarter, Missouri and Arkansas successively carry on the steady

march toward the setting sun. It is true, there seemed to be a pause in

sight of the obstacles presented by the barren plains of Texas and New

Mexico, but it was only to burst over them with a more powerful impetus.

And California is now the _West_--the land of gold and golden hope. It

is now, to the present age, what Canaan was to the Hebrews (we mean, of

course, geographically), or as the isles of the sea to the sons of Javan

and Tarshish, or as Italy to the Trojan exiles. But is the movement

there to find its termination? The next step mingles it with the remains

of the old Eastern civilization. China and India must yet feel its

revivifying power, and then the rotation will have been complete. Ophir

has been already reached, and soon the long journeying of restless

humanity will come round again to the plain of Shinar, or the region in

which commenced the original dispersion of the race.

Some most serious reflections crowd upon the mind in connection with

such a thought. What, during all this period, has been the real progress

of humanity? In certain aspects of the question the answer is most

prompt and easy. In the supply of physical wants, and in facilities for

physical communication, the advance gained has been immense. But are

men--the mass of men--really wiser in respect to their truest good? Or

are they yet infatuated with that old folly of building a tower, whose

top should reach unto heaven? In other words, are they still seeking to

get above the earth by earthly means, and fancying that through science,

or philosophy, or "liberal institutions," or any other magic name, they

may obtain a self-elevating power, which shall lift them above

_physical_ and moral evil. Will the long and toilsome march be followed

by that true _gnothi seauton_, that real self-knowledge, which is

cheaply obtained even at such a price, or will it be only succeeded by

another varied exhibition of the selfish principle, the more malignant

in proportion as it is more refined, another Babel of opinions, another

confusion of speech, another proof of the feebleness and everlasting

unrest of humanity while vainly seeking to be independent of Heaven?

* * * * *

Marriage has ever been closely allied to religion. It has had its altar,

its offering, its rites, its invocation, its shrine, its mysteries, its

mystical significance. "It is _honorable_," says the Apostle.

"_Precious_," some commentators tell us, the epithet should be

rendered--of _great value_, of _highest price_. In either sense, it

would well denote what may be called, by way of eminence, the

conservative institution of human society, the channel for the

transmission of its purest life, and for this very reason, the object

ever of the first and fiercest attacks of every scheme of disorganizing

radical philosophy. In harmony with this idea there was a deep

significance in some of the Greek marriage ceremonies; and among these

none possessed a profounder import than the custom of carrying a torch,

or torches, in the bridal procession. Especially was this the mother's

delightful office. It was hers, in a peculiar manner, to bear aloft the

blazing symbol before the daughter, or the daughter-in-law, and there

was no act of her life to which the heart of a Grecian mother looked

forward with a more lively interest. It was, on the other hand, a ground

of the most passionate grief, when an early death, or some still sadder

calamity, cut off the fond anticipation. Thus Medea--