THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE LOUISIANA BOOK SELECTIONS t FROM THE LITERATURE OF THE STATE. EDITED, WITH A PREFACE, AND WITH BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY NOTES, BY THOMAS MJCALEB, AUTHOR or "ANTHONY MKLGRAVE," ETC. ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS. NEW ORLEANS: R. F. STRAUGHAN, PUBLISHER. 1894. COPTRIGHT, 1894, BY THOMAS M'CALEB. Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York PS PREFACE. THE singular fact that the literature of Louisiana speaks in both the French and English tongue has generally been unnoticed by tr> historians of American letters ; and local scholars are no doubt justi- ^ fied in their complaint that the works of our writers, in French especially, do not enjoy that wide recognition which they deserve. I would remain silent on this point did I not feel obliged to offer , some explanation for having done very scant justice to the French portion, the oldest if not most deserving portion, of our literature. Two circumstances, indeed, have made it desirable, if not necessary, to limit the scope of the present book to productions by our English authors. In the first place, I was not able to procure, within the time which I assigned to myself for the completion of this volume, translations of passages from hundreds of worthy French produc- tions ; and in the next place, I deemed it impracticable to make bilingual a work that is intended for general circulation in Louisiana : for while our Creoles (and by that term I mean native Louisi- .o anians of the Latin race) generally read with equal facility both English and their own maternal tongue, our people of Northern ^J extractions know, as a rule, no language but their own ; and it is to them this book looks for its largest audience. <^ It affords me pleasure, for all that, to be able to give representa- VA tion to a few of our best-known French authors. I have procured, ^ for instance, a good translation of La Chambre d? Amour* by Albert Delpit, whom Louisiana, his mother State, claims as her greatest XA novelist, despite the fact that his fame was won in France. I also ^ present in English dress, and for the first time, an episode f by Dr. Alfred Mercier, who has contributed with honor to every important department of literature except history. I must further call the > reader's attention to an excellent translation of a short story ^ by Edouard Dessommes, a bold literary colorist, to whose genius Auguste Yacquerie, the accomplished French poet, has paid a hand- some tribute. It should be borne in mind, however, that I have not included scores of our Anglo-Louisiana writers and orators who are quite as deserving as some on whom my choice has fallen. More- * Vide p. 343. f Le Banquet, vide p. 373. \ Madeleine et Serthe, vide p. 400. 427.63.? IV PREFACE. over, I have classed as Louisianians many authors whom other States and countries might claim with equal, perhaps, in some instances, with more justice. It is, however, hard to decide ofttimes what must be the criterion in the decision between States or coun- tries making such claims; though it would seem that the prefer- ence should be given to the place of one's birth. I have not merely considered whether the authors represented in this book generallv regarded themselves as Louisianians, but also whether their repu- tation in literature was, in whole or in part, made during their residence in the State. In the construction of my volume, I have been guided, on the whole, by the rules Lord Bacon lays down for the compilation of a book of " Institutions " of the law.* " Principally," he says, " it ought to have two properties the one a perspicuous and clear order or method, and the other an universal latitude or comprehension, that the student may have a little prenotion of everything." I have divided my subject into five parts, to wit: Historical Sketches, Specimens of Oratory, Essays, Fiction, and Poetry. In my endeavor, however, to make the divisions logical, I have encountered the main difficulties of a librarian who seeks to classify his books under special departments. True, I have found little or no difficulty in arranging selections under Part IV., denominated Fiction, and under Part V., denominated Poetry, and subdivided into two sec- tions, respectively styled Dramatic and Miscellaneous. But, on the other hand, some few selections which I have placed under Part II. and Part III. might, with some reason, be assigned to Part I. I have chosen, moreover, for Historical Sketches only such subjects as belong, directly or indirectly, to the history of Louisiana, Part I. and Part II. might also as reasonably, perhaps, be included with Part III., under the general heading Essays, if I limit the definition of that word to mean prose productions treating briefly of a given subject. Yet, though I cannot in general take an elastic view of the term, I have not scrupled to class as essays such passages by our writers as treat of a definite subject in one or many of its aspects. And I am responsible for the titles prefixed to such selections, as well as to many others that come under Part I. and Part II. More- over, in subdividing Part III. into Essays Controversial, and Essays Mixed, I have not restricted the mixed essay to mean an interme- diary between the didactic and the personal essay, a distinction on * Proposal for Amending the Laws of England. Bacon's Works, Bohn's edition, vol. i. p. 669. PREFACE. V which Bulwer-Lytton insists ; * but I have considered the word in its more ordinary and popular sense. In general, whenever I was doubtful as to the character of a piece, I have not regarded abstract definitions so much as the style of each selection, and the expressed or apparent intent of its author. Omissions in the original texts are in this volume noted by dots ; f and words introduced for the sake of continuity are en- closed in brackets, ^ as are also the biographical, critical, and explanatory notes added by me. On the other hand, the notes of the authors are all printed without brackets, and may be found in the original texts. It remains for me to express my gratitude to Professor Robert Sharp and Mr. John Dimitry, for having favored me with many suggestions that I have utilized to advantage in the preparation of this work. I wish also to acknowledge the courtesy of several pub- lishing houses for having permitted me to include extracts from mate- rials on which they respectively own the copyrights. My thanks are especially due to Messrs. Harper & Brothers, G. P. Putnam's Sons, Charles Scribner's Sons, Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, D. Appleton & Company, Ticknor & Company, the J. B. Lippincott Company, and the D. Lothrop Company. T. M'C. NEW ORLEANS, April 10, 1894. * Caxtoniana. Harper Bros., 1864, p. 146. t Thus, .... \ Thus, [ ]. CONTENTS. PART I. HISTORICAL SKETCHES. PAOB LOUISIANA AND HER LAWS Henry J. Leovy 1 THE TREE OF THE DEAD Charles Gayarre 12 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF ACADIA, FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COL- ONY TO THE DISPERSION OF THE INHABITANTS Alcee Fortier 15 THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES John R. Ficklen 23 THE SOUTH'S FIRST CROP OF SUGAR .... Charles Gayarre 41 THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS George W. Cable 43 THE FESTIVITY AFTER THE VICTORY . . . .Alexander Walker 51 THE NEAV ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823 Charles Gayarre 54 THE OAKS John Augustin 71 THE FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT IN ITS DIPLOMACY WITH FOREIGN NATIONS, ESPECIALLY WITH ENGLAND AND FRANCE Alfred Roman 88 THE BATTLE OF SHILOH, AND THE PART PLAYED THEREIN BY HENRY WAT- KINS ALLEN, EX-GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA Sarah A. Dorsey 93 THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE Napier Bartlett 98 vin CONTENTS. PAGE THE DlSBANDMENT OF THE WASHINGTON ARTILLERY IN 1865 William Miller Owen 102 THE CONFEDERATE ADMINISTRATION AND ITS DOWNFALL Alfred Boman 107 ULYSSES S. GRANT AND BADICALISM Richard Taylor 110 PART II. SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. AGAINST THE ELIGIBILITY OF A CITIZEN BOKN OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES, TO THE GOVERNORSHIP OR LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORSHIP OF LOU- ISIANA John R. Grymes 115 THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND Seargent S. Prentiss 118 APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE FAMINE- ' STRICKEN IRISH Seargent S. Prentiss 121 SEARGENT S. PRENTISS Henry A. Bullard 124 VIRTUE THE CORNER-STONE OF REPUBLI- CAN GOVERNMENT Judah P. Benjamin 128 THE COURT A TEMPLE OF JUSTICE Randell Hunt 135 AGAINST THE POLICY OF IMPASSIVENESS. Pierre Soule 137 THE HIGHWAY OF NATIONS Pierre Soule 140 IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICES OF HENRY CLAY Theodore H. M'Caleb 144 COLLEGIATE EDUCATION Christian Roselius 149 EFFECTS OF IGNORANCE AMONG THE MASSES Christian Roselius 152 ON THE QUESTION OF THE ANNEXATION OF CUBA TO THE UNITED STATES . . .Judah P. Benjamin 154 NEGROES AS PROPERTY Judah P. Benjamin 156 THE CONFEDERATE SEAL Thomas J. Semmes 160 CONTENTS. ix PAGE GEORGE WASHINGTON AND EGBERT E. LEE Benjamin M. Palmer 165 THE END OF SECTIONALISM E. John Ellis 168--' DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY . . Kandall L. Gibson 169 GRACE IN WOMAN Benjamin M. Palmer 172 CHIVALRY Emmanuel de la Moriniere. 174 THE ORIGINS OF SOME OF THE COLONIAL FAMILIES OF LOUISIANA Charles Patton Dimitry . . . 180 PART III. ESSAYS. SECTION I. CONTROVERSIAL. THE B ATTURE CASE Edward Livingston 185 SECESSION AND COERCION B. J. Sage 192 MR. CABLE'S FREEDMAN'S CASE IN EQUITY Charles Gayarre 198 MR. CABLE, THE " NEGROPHILIST " B z 203 A PLEA FOR THE MODERN LANGUAGES .. John R. Ficklen 206 PART III. ESSAYS. SECTION II. MIXED. THE HUMMING-BIRD John J. Audubon 215 THE WOOD THRUSH John J. Audubon 218 THE MOCKING-BIRD John J. Audubon 220 THE RELATION BETWEEN THE LITERA- TURES OF GREECE AND HINDOSTAN. .Alexander Dimitry 222 THE PERIOD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS Robert Sharp 226 x CONTENTS. PAGE THE EARLY LITERATURE OF SPAIN J. D. B. de Bow. 239 PETRARCH AND LAURA Eichard Henry Wilde .... 244 MACBETH William Preston Johnston . 247 CERVANTES AND THE DON QUIXOTE Auguste d'Avezac 263 LE SAGE AND THE GIL BLAS Auguste d'Avezac 266 BERNARDIN'S PAUL AND VIRGINIA Auguste d'Avezac 268 LA FONTAINE Charles Gayarr6 270 THE ORIGIN OF MYTH William Preston Johnston. 276 THE BOOK-MEN T. Wharton Collens 286 DUELLING Etienne Mazureau 297 THE JUDICIARY Francois-Xavier Martin. . . 299 THE MODEL JUDGE Gustavus Schmidt 301 OUR ILLUSIONS William H. Holcombe 310 AN OFFICER'S DUTIES IN TIME OF W^AR.P. G. T. Beauregard 318 MAGICIANS AND FEATHER DUSTERS Julia K. AVetherill Baker . 320 QUEEN ANNE FRONTS AND MARY ANNE BACKS Martha E. Field 325 PAET IV. FICTION. THE STORY OF IZANACHI AND IZANANI. Frank McGloin 333 ESTHER'S CHOICE Lafcadio Hearn 338 THE MYSTERIOUS GROTTO Albert Delpit 342 LE TOMBEAU BLANC John Dimitry 347 THE BANQUET Alfred Merrier 373 THE DEVOTION OF MARCELITE Grace King 376 ON THE WATCH Charles Patton Dimitry . . . 389 A MORNING-GLORY M. E. M. Davis 393 MADELEINE AND BERTHA Edward Dessommes 400 LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH JOHNSON. .Euth McEnery Stuart 406 CONTENTS. xi PART V. POETRY. SECTION I. DRAMATIC. PAGE THE MARTYR PATRIOTS ; OR, LOUISIANA IN 1769 T. Wharton Collens 421 PARRHASIUS ; OR, THRIFTLESS AMBITION . Espy W. H. Williams .... 473 PART V. POETRY. SECTION II. MISCELLANEOUS. MY LIFE is LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE . . .Richard Henry Wilde 491 THE POET'S LAMENT Richard Henry Wilde 492 To THE MOCKING-BIRD Richard Henry Wilde 493 ADIEU TO INNISFAIL Richard d' Alton Williams . 494 SISTER OF CHARITY Richard d' Alton Williams . 496 THE FIRST AND SECOND BIRTH James T. Smith 498- THE MOTHER'S SONG James T. Smith 500 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS' FAREWELL William Preston Johnston. 502 EDGAR ALLAN POE John Dimitry 504 THE EXILE TO HIS WIFE Joseph Brennan 505 LORD, KEEP MY MEMORY GREEN! Anna Peyre Dinnies 507 THE WIFE Anna Peyre Dinnies 509 POWERS'S GREEK SLAVE Anna Peyre Dinnies 510 THE WILD LILY AND THE PASSION- FLOWER Adrien Rouquette 511 To NATURE, MY MOTHER Adrien Rouquette 513 To A MINIATURE John W. Overall 514 THE BARDS John W. Overall 516 AT THE THEATRE Henry Lynden Flash 519 xii CONTENTS. PAGE WHAT SHE BROUGHT ME Henry Lynden Flash 521 WHO CAN TELL ? Henry Lynden Flash 523 THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG Harry McCarthy 524 MY MARYLAND James R. Randall 526 JOHX PELHAM James R. Randall 529 IN MEMORIAM John Dimitry 531 ZOLLICOFFER Henry Lynden Flash 533 " STONEWALL " JACKSON Henry Lynden Flash 534 LINES TO THE MEMORY OF FATHER TURGIS. T. Wharton Collens 535 0, TEMPORA ! 0, MORES ! J. Dickson Bruns 537 A RHYME OF MODERN VENICE Charles Fatten Dimitry. . . 540 THE BACKWOODSMAN'S DAUGHTER Mary Ashley Townsend. . . 542 CREED Mary Ashley Townsend . . . 547 To ONE BELOVED Mary Ashley Townsend. . . 549 LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN Mary Ashley Townsend . . . 550 THE PICTURE William H. Holcombe. . . . 551 PERE DAGOBERT M. E. M. Davis 552 THROWING THE WANGA M. E. M. Davis 556 MY LOVE WENT SAILING O'ER THE SEA.M. E. M. Davis 560 SILENCE M. E. M. Davis 561 COUNSEL M. E. M. Davis 562 FOR THEE, MY LOVE, FOR THEE Mark F. Bigney 563 I'VE KISSED HER IN A DREAM Mark F. Bigney 565 HAGAR Eliza J. Nicholson 566 WAITING Eliza J. Nicholson 571 ONLY A HEART Eliza J. Nicholson 572 DREAMS OF THE PAST R. N. Ogden 574 THE LIGHT OF THINE EYES R, N. Ogden 577 THE HOUSE IMMORTAL Richard Nixon 578 SIR WILLIAM THOMSON'S AEROLITH Richard Nixon 579 SWINBURNE Richard Nixon 580 WHEN ALL is SAID. . . .Julia K. Wetherill Baker . 581 INDEX OF AUTHORS. WITH TITLES OF THE SELECTIONS FROM THEIR PRODUCTIONS. AUDUBON, JOHN J. PAGE The Humming-Bird, 215 The Wood Thrush, 218 The Mocking-Bird, . . . . . . 220 AUGUSTIN, JOHN. The Oaks, 71 BAKER, JULIA K. WETHERILL. Magicians and Feather Dusters, 320 When All is Said, 581 BARTLETT, XAPIER. The Battle of Chancellorsville, 98 BEAUREGARD, P. G. T. An Officer's Duties in Time of War, .... . 318 BEXJAMIX, JUDAH P. Virtue the Corner-Stone of ^Republican Government, 128 On the Question of the Annexation of Cuba to the United States, . . 154 Xegroes as Property, 156 BIGNEY, MARK F. For Thee, my Love, for Thee, 563 I've Kissed Her in a Dream, 565 BRENNAN, JOSEPH. The Exile to his Wife, 505 BRUNS, J. DICKSOX. 0, Tempora ! 0, Mores ! 537 BULLARD, HENRY A. Seargent S. Prentiss, 124 B z. Mr. Cable, the "Xegrophilist," 203 CABLE. GEORGE W. The Battle of New Orleans, 43 COLLENS, T. WHARTON. The Book-Men, 286 The Martyr Patriots ; or, Louisiana in 1769, ....... 421 Lines to the Memory of Father Turgis, 535 xiv INDEX OF AUTHORS. D'AVEZAC, AUGUSTS.' PAGE Cervantes and the Don Quixote, . . . - . . ', . . . 263 Le Sage and the Gil Bias . . 266 Bernardin's Paul and Virginia, '. 268 DAVIS, M. E. M. A Morning-Glory , . . . 393 Pere Dagobert, . . . ... . 552 Throwing the Wanga, 556 My Love went Sailing o'er the Sea, 560 Silence, 561 Counsel, . 562 DEBow, J. D. B. The Early Literature of Spain, 239 DE LA MORINIERE, EMMANUEL. Chivalry, . 174 DELPIT, ALBERT. The Mysterious Grotto, . , 342 DESSOMMES, EDWARD. Madeleine and Bertha, 400 DIMITRY, ALEXANDER. The Relation between the Literatures of Greece and Hindostan, . . 222 DIMITRY, CHARLES PATTON. The Origins of Some of the Colonial Families of Louisiana, ... 180 On the Watch, . . . . . . ... ... . 389 A Rhyme of Modern Venice, . . . . . . , . 540 DIMITRY, JOHN. Le Tombeau Blanc, 347 Edgar Allan Poe ...... 504 In Memoriam, '.. . .. ^ . . . 531 DINNIES, ANNA PEYRE. Lord, Keep my Memory Green ! 507 The Wife, . . . ... ...... 509 Powers's Greek Slave, . . ". 510 DORSEY, SARAH A. The Battle of Shiloh and the Part Played therein by Henry Watkins Allen, Ex-Governor of Louisiana, 93 ELLIS, E. JOHN. The End of Sectionalism, 168 FICKLEN, JOHN R. The Revolution of 1768 in Louisiana, and its Consequences, ... 23 A Plea for the Modern Languages, 206 INDEX OF AUTHORS. xv FIELD, MARTHA R. PAGE Queen Anne Fronts and Mary Anne Backs, 325 FLASH, HENRY LYNDEN. At the Theatre, 519 What She Brought me, 521 Who Can Tell ? 523 Zollicoffer, 533 " Stonewall " Jackson, 534 FORTIER, ALCE. A Sketch of the History of Acadia, from the Settlement of the Colony to the Dispersion of the Inhabitants, 15 GAYARR, CHARLES. The Tree of the Dead, . - 12 The South's First Crop of Sugar, . 41 The New Orleans Bench and Bar in 1823 54 Mr. Cable's Freedmari's Case in Equity, 198 La Fontaine, 270 GIBSON, RANDALL L. Discovery of the Mississippi Valley, 169 GRYMES, JOHN R. Against the Eligibility of a Citizen Born outside of the United States, to the Governorship or Lieutenant-Governorship of Louisiana, ... 115 HEARN, LAFCADIO. Esther's Choice, 338 HOLCOMBE, WILLIAM H. Our Illusions, 310 The Picture, 551 HUNT, RANDELL. The Court a Temple of Justice, 135 JOHNSTON, WILLIAM PRESTON. Macbeth, / 247 The Origin of Myth, 276 Mary Queen of Scots' Farewell, 502 KING, GRACE. The Devotion of Marcelite, 376 LEOVY, HENRY J. Louisiana and her Laws, 1 LIVINGSTON, EDWARD. The Batture Case, . . /.^ ....... 185 xvi INDEX OF AUTHORS. MARTIN, FRANCOIS-XAVIER. PAGE The Judiciary, ' ." . . . . 299 MAZUREAU, ETIENNE. Duelling, 297 M'CALEB, THEODORE H. Important Public Services of Henry Clay, 144 MCCARTHY, HARRY. The Bonnie Blue Flag, ,. . . . 524 McGLOiN, FRANK. The Story of Izanachi and Izanani, 333 MERCIER, ALFRED. The Banquet, 373 NICHOLSON, ELIZA J. Hagar, 566 Waiting, 571 Only a Heart, 572 NIXON, RICHARD. The House Immortal, . . , . '. . . . . 578 Sir William Thomson's Aerolith, . . ... . . . . 579 Swinburne, ' . '. . . . . 580 OGDEN, R. N. Dreams of the Past, 574 The Light of Thine Eyes, 577 OVERALL, JOHN W. To a Miniature, 514 The Bards, ... 516 OWEN, WILLIAM MILLER. The Disbandment of the Washington Artillery in 1865, . ... . 102 PALMER, BENJAMIN M. George Washington and Robert E. Lee, 165 Grace in Woman, 172 PRENTISS, SEARGENT S. The Sons of New England, 118 Appeal in Behalf of the Famine-stricken Irish, 121 RANDALL, JAMES R. My Maryland, 526 JohnPelham, 529 INDEX OF AUTHORS. xvii ROMAN, ALFRED. PAGE The Failure of the Confederate Government in its Diplomacy with Foreign Nations, especially with England and France, 88 The Confederate Administration and its Downfall, 107 ROSELIUS, CHRISTIAN. Collegiate Education 149 Effects of Ignorance among the Masses, 152 ROUQUETTE, ADRIEN. The Wild Lily and the Passion-Flower, 511 To Nature, my Mother, 513 SAGE, B. J. Secession and Coercion 192 SCHMIDT, GUSTAVUS. The Model Judge, . ... . 301 SEMMES, THOMAS J. The Confederate Seal, 160 SHARP, ROBERT. The Period of Childhood and Youth among the Anglo-Saxons, . . . 226 SMITH, JAMES T. The First and Second Birth, 498 The Mother's Song, 500 SOULS', PIERRE. Against the Policy of Impassiveness, 137 The Highway of Nations, 140 STUART, RUTH MCENERY. Lamentations of Jeremiah Johnson, 406 TAYLOR, RICHARD. Ulysses S. Grant and Radicalism, 110 TOWNSEND, MARY ASHLEY. The Backwoodsman's Daughter, 542 Creed, 547 To One Beloved, 549 Lake Pontchartrain, 550 WALKER, ALEXANDER. The Festivity after the Victory, 51 WILDE, RICHARD HENRY. ' Petrarch and Laura, 244 My Life is like the Summer Rose, 491 2 xviii INDEX OF AUTHORS. PAGE The Poet's Lament, . . . 492 To the Mocking-Bird, - . . . ' . . . 493 WILLIAMS, ESPY W. H. Parrhasius ; or, Thriftless Ambition, . . . . . . . . 473 WILLIAMS, RICHARD D'ALTON. Adieu to Innisfail, ..'-. 494 Sister of Charity 496 PART I. HISTORICAL SKETCHES. LOUISIANA AND HEK LAWS.* BY HENRY J. LEOVY. [HENRY JEFFERSON LEOVY was born in Augusta, Ga., May 17, 1826. At a tender age he was brought by his family to Louisiana. In 1849 he was admitted to the bar of the State. He owned and published for many years, with the late P. E. Bonford and others, the New Orleans Delta, which was "seized" by General Butler in 1862. Mr. Leovy served with gallantry in the Confederate army (1861-'6o). In 1870 he was elected City Attorney of New Orleans. He is one of the most erudite and prominent lawyers of Louisiana.] WE propose giving as briefly as possible an outline of the legal history of Louisiana. We would premise for the benefit of the unini- tiated that there are two grand systems of law known to the civilized world. The one, the Common law, composed of the Customary and Statutory law of England, is now the law of that country and of twenty-eight of the States of this Union ; f the other, the Corpus juris Oivilis, or Civil law, is now taught and obeyed not only in France, Germany, Holland, and Scotland, but in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and on the banks of the Mississippi and the St. Law- rence. In this we see exemplified the great D'Aguesseau's remark, that " the grand destinies of Rome are not yet accomplished ; she reigns throughout the world by her reason, after having ceased to reign by her authority." The Roman or Civil law is founded upon the royal constitutions of its first kings, on the Twelve Tables, the statutes enacted by the Senate and the People, the Pretorial edicts, the opinions of learned lawyers and the Imperial Decrees. From these numerous sources was formed an immense reservoir of both useful and useless laws, a part of which were first codified by Theo- dosius, then the whole under Justinian, in 533, by Tribonian and others. The body of law thus compiled and finished consists of the Institutes in four books, the Pandects in fifty, the Imperial Code in twelve books, and the Novels or New Constitutions. It is the general belief that this old Roman law, modified and polished by the wisdom of French and Spanish enactments, is the existing system of jurisprudence in Louisiana. This opinion, though true in the main, needs some qualification. Our laws are a texture * [Reprinted from The New Orleans Book (1851).] f [1851.] 2 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. composed of the best materials, from both the English Common and the Roman Civil law. Other States and other nations have contented themselves with adopting, without change or modification, either the one or the oth^r of the>e systems. Our plan is the interweaving of the two, the mingling of both as the colors mingle in the rainbow, and. so imperceptibly, thai, like the verge of the horizon and sea, none but the most experienced eyes can discern the distinctive line between them. Each of the two grand systems has its imperfections, as well as virtues. The Civil law is defective in its public, the Common law in its private relations. There are but few writers, acquainted with the relative merits of the Common and Civil law, that do not unhesi- tatingly declare that in all the relations between man and man the Roman law is infinitely superior to the English law ; while in all the public relations in all that exists between government and man, between society as a whole and man as a part in all that concerns the protection of the property and liberty of the individual, there has been in no country, nor does there anywhere exist, a system at all comparable to the Common law. Brown, speaking of Rome in his work on the Civil law, remarks that " it was the peculiar glory of the nation which subdued the world to furnish mankind with a code of laws containing the most perfect system of justice and equity, between man and man, that has ever been produced by human invention." But, says Montesquieu, " Liberty was in the centre, and slavery in all its extremities," and adds the writer first quoted from, " In the criminal law, in that great palladium of liberty, the jury, we are immeasurably in advance of the Roman code; and here, upon the whole, is the glory of the English system." Kent, too, after express- ing his preference for many parts of the Civil law, concludes that " in everything which concerns civil and political liberty, the Civil law cannot be compared to the free spirit of the English and American Common law." None were more aware of the relative merits and defects of the two systems than the American and French juris- consults who found themselves in Louisiana on its adoption into the Union. The United States, by the act of 1804, left to the people of Louisiana the task of legislating for themselves, and gave them the power to make such changes in their system of laws as they might in their wisdom deem necessary. They found the Civil law with all its unwieldy incumbrances harnessed upon them. They felt that great and many difficulties would arise by engrafting new principles on the political system of the Union. They knew that by adopting the Civil law, without amendment, they would be introducing into the Union a jingling and discordant element. To so model this system as to make LOUISIANA AND HER LAWS. 3 it harmonize with the laws of the Federal Government and neighbor- ing States, was a difficult task. But the legal minds of that day were strong, nor were they bound to ,or prejudiced in favor of or against any system. They took a view of the work before them from a more elevated point than that selected by the strictly Common or Civil lawyer. Hence, they produced, from the more abundant material before them, a code of laws that will vie with the most perfect system the world has yet produced. Almost the very first act made by these legislators, enacted in 1805, declared that all crimes, offences, and mis- demeanors should be taken, intended, and construed according to, and in conformity with, the Common law of England ; then followed, in 1812, the framing and adoption of the State constitution, which was almost in every respect similar to those adopted by the neighboring States, most of whose principles were borrowed from the Common law of England. Here, then, in our fundamental and legislative enact- ments, in all the public relations we recognized and adopted the Com- mon law, and, as may be inferred, almost everything relating to the private relations which had already been engrafted on the country was suffered to remain. It is true that some excrescences were pruned, some redundancies and remnants of the old Roman tyranny in the domestic relations were lopped off, but the whole system worked the better and gave more satisfaction on account of these changes. It will thus be seen by the Bar of other States that, though we consider ourselves governed by the Civil law, there is much in common between themselves and us, and that our laws approximate nearer to the Common law than is generally imagined. Nor is this all. No one who has at all studied the gradual formation of our system can have failed to observe the leaning of our Supreme Court for years past towards the Common law. This is not only perceptible but the com- mon remark of our Bar. After all, the form of proceedings in our courts is the most marked boundary between our law and that of our neighbors. We have often heard Common law lawyers express their sympathy for those Eomans who lived before the age of Justinian, because, though the people were possessed of certain rights, they could not of themselves obtain them, because of the mystery and mummery of the proceedings with which no ordinary individual could become acquainted. They never for a moment reflect, that among themselves the same odious objection exists, and that their people are as much in need of an interpreter as were the old Romans with whom they so much sympathize. Our system is not open to this objection. Our pleadings almost equal in simplicity those of the old Saxons in their Witenagemote, where the parties simply related to the Court the tale of their grievances, without adorning or varnishing, without 4 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. technicality or equivocation. In this great distinctive feature, then, we flatter ourselves, we are in advance of both our neighbors and the Federal Government ; but, at the same time, we think we can perceive in them an inclination to simplify their judicial proceedings as we have done. Besides this there is more of the old Roman law in the very foun- dation of the English jurisprudence than the Common law advocate is willing to admit. There can be no doubt that the Roman law was early introduced into Britain while that country was in possession of the Romans. Chancellor Kent thinks the Civil law was administered there by the illustrious Papinian, aided by Paulus and Ulpian. The elegant Selden is of the same opinion, as is also Crabbe. It must, then, have existed in Britain a long time ; and laws particularly such as the Roman laws thus early introduced and thus long existing, must leave an impress, not easily obliterated, on the manners and customs of a people. Crabbe acknowledges many remnants of the Civil law still existing in England. Again, no three men more aided in the formation of the Common law, than did Bracton, Britton and Fleta ; their opinions were law, their dicta commands. Now, these great jurisconsults all lived and wrote after the twelfth century ; and it must be remembered that it was in 1135, at Amalfl, that the Roman Pandects were discovered, which have greatly influ- enced those writers. Brown, in his work on the Civil law, declares unhesitatingly that those authors shine in the borrowed plumes of the Roman writers. And, besides this, we all know that ever since the time of Stephen, over all matters within the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical and Chancery courts, and over all matters military and maritime, the Civil law has always obtained. Kent says, " It now exerts a very consid- erable influence upon our municipal law, and particularly on those parts of it which are of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, or fall within the cognizance of the surrogate's or consistorial courts." The fact, then, that within the sacred precincts of the Common law many seeds of the Civil are found ; that while the tendencies of the Common law are silently leaning towards us, we are in our decisions and laws inclining towards it, leads irresistibly to the conclusion that ere long, perfected by the hands of able judges and jurists, one system of laws not Roman not English, but AMERICAN, will extend and panoply itself, like the blue arch of heaven, over the whole American continent. We have, we fear, too long indulged in a general view of the philosophy of our law ; we will now discuss the subject proper of this article and briefly touch upon the history of our law. As is well known, the Mississippi River was discovered as early as 1541, by Hernando de Soto. He had been sent by Charles Y. of LOUISIANA AND HER LAWS. 5 Spain to conquer Florida, which having done, and being tempted by extravagant tales of its wealth, he extended his travels far into the interior of Arkansas. The French, in 1673, having become permanently settled in Can- ada, made many excursions to the wilds of the West. Among others was one headed by a priest known as Father Marquette, and a com- panion named Joliet. Hearing, during their excursion, of a mighty river called Meschacebe (Father of Waters) by the Indians, they deter- mined to visit it before ending their journey. Engaging four Indian guides, they with some difficulty reached the Meschacebe on the 7th July, 1673. In 1678 Kobert Chevalier de la Salle offered his services to the Governor of Canada, promising to explore the Mississippi to its mouth, on condition that he should be provided with the proper and necessary means. Obtaining the assistance of Colbert and of the Prince of Conti, he succeeded in acquiring the needed means from Louis XIV. He reached the Mississippi in 1682, and for his protection founded the now flourishing city of St. Louis. He explored this mighty river to its mouth, and in accordance with the then custom, claimed, in the name of France, by right of discovery, the whole of the vast valley through which the river flowed. He took possession of it with the usual formalities, and named it, in honor of his king LOUISIANA. In 1684 La Salle made an attempt to colonize Louisiana; but, landing at the Bay of St. Bernard, through the mismanagement of the naval commander he failed, and with his failure lost his life. During his stay at St. Bernard near Matagorda he took formal possession of the country in the name of France. Through this act France always claimed that Louisiana extended as far as the Eio Grande. La Salle was killed in 1687. His death was a romantic one, but our space will not admit of a description. From this time to 1797 Louisiana was forgotten ; but France in that year, having concluded the Peace of Ryswick, directed her serious attention to the subject of its colonization. D'Iberville was sent to renew the explorations commenced by La Salle. He left his brothers Sauville and Bienville with a small company at the Balize, and returned to France. After succeeding in establishing a small settlement in Louisiana, he died at Havana in 1706. France having become again involved in war, and not being able to devote proper attention to this new colony, sold in 1712 the entire country to Antoine de Crozat, for the term of sixteen years. The Government retained only the prerogative of sovereignty. Crozat failed in his enterprise, and, after ruining himself and his friends, surrendered, in 1717, all his rights and privileges. Crozat was imme- 6 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. diately followed by the Mississippi Company. They obtained from the French Government a charter to continue for tweiity-five years, granting them every possible power, reserving the empty title of sovereign power. Louisiana was then a part of the Diocese of Quebec. In 1718 Bienville, feeling the need of a metropolis, selected the site now covered by NEW ORLEANS. In 1722 Louisiana was divided into nine cantons New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Alabama, Natchez, Natchitoches, Yazoo, Arkansas, and Illinois. Most of these cantons were named from the respective Indian tribes that inhabited them. During the time the Mississippi Company held this territory, many bloody battles were fought between the Indians and the whites, which resulted in their almost complete subjugation. The Mississippi Company, having sustained great loss, concluded in 1732 to abandon their enterprise, and accordingly relinquished to the king the charter he had given them. On the 3d of November, 1762, France concluded with Spain a secret treaty, by which " the former ceded to the latter the part of the province of Louisiana which lies on the western side of the Mississippi, with the city of New Orleans and the island on which it stands." Antonio de IJlloa was appointed by Charles III. in 1766 to take pos- session, in the name of Spain, of the country ; but the people resisted, and Ulloa was compelled to return to Spain. In 1769 Captain-General O'Reilly arrived from Spain with a large force and took possession of the country without resistance. Under the dominion of France, the administration consisted of a Governor, an Intendant, a Commissary, and a Comptroller. In 1790 a Superior Council had been created, composed of two Lord-Lieutenants, four Counsellors, an Attorney-General, and a Recorder ; several judges had likewise been appointed. The Governor was ex officio President of the Council. This organization was set aside by O'Reilly, who established in the King's royal name a City Council, or, as it was termed, a Cabildo, for the administration of justice and preservation of order in the city, aided by six perpetual Regidors, all conformably to the second law of the Recopilacion de las Indias, among whom were distributed the offices of Alferez Royal, Alcalde, Mayor provin- cial, Alguazil Mayor, Depositary General and receiver of penas de camara, or fines for the use of the General Treasury. O'Reilly's proc- lamation, which contained a synopsis of the Spanish law (to be found in Schmidt's Journal of August, 1841), was made because the " limited knowledge which the king's new subjects possess of the Spanish laws might render a strict observance of them difficult ; and as every abuse LOUISIANA AND HER LAWS. 7 is contrary to the intention of his Majesty, it is thought needful and necessary to form an abstract or regulation drawn from the said laws, which may serve for instruction and elementary formulary in the administration of justice, and in the economical government of the city, until a more general knowledge of the Spanish language may enable every one, by the perusal aforesaid, to extend his information to every point thereof." This, therefore, was only temporary law, and soon, fulfilling its purpose, ceased to exist. But a more important question arises : Did O'Reilly's proclamation repeal the old French laws and customs ? By the Fifteenth Article of the Mississippi Com- pany's charter, it is said that the " Judges established in the aforesaid places shall be held to judge according to the Laws and Ordinances of the 'kingdom (of France) ; and to conform themselves to the Provosty and Viscounty of Paris." This provision is also found in Crozat's charter, and is in fact the foundation of the Civil law of Louisiana ; and of this the customs of Paris are the basis. Now, whether these fundamental laws have been repealed by the proclamation of O'Reilly is a question yet disputed and of much interest. Mr. Jefferson seems to have thought the French laws but partially repealed, while Judge Martin in his History inclines to the contrary opinion. Happily, as Judge Martin observes in his History, the Spanish laws and those of France proceed from the same origin ; and, from the similarity, the transition from Spanish to French was scarcely felt by the inhabi- tants, and the existence or non-existence of the old French law is now of not the least practical importance. The Spaniards governed Louisi- ana from 1769 till its return to France on the 30th November, 1803. France held it but twenty days, and made no change in the Spanish laws. The people of Louisiana, under the Spanish regime, were governed by the Fuero Viego, Fuero Juzco, Partidas, Recopilaciones, Leyes de las Indias, Autos Accordados, and Royal Schedules. To explain these, Spanish commentators were consulted, and the Corpus Juris Civilis and its commentators were resorted to, and to eke out any deficiency the lawyers who came from France or Hispaniola read Pothier, D'Aguesseau, Dumoulin, etc. El Fuero Juzco was a compila- tion of the rules and regulations made for Spain by its national coun- cils and Gothic kings as early as A.D. 693. It was the first code made by the Spanish nation ; it consisted of twelve volumes, and was orig- inally published in Latin. It was translated into Spanish in the thirteenth century by order of Ferdinand III. El Fuero Viego was published in the year 992. It is divided into five books, and contains the ancient customs and usages of the Spanish nation. The Partidas " is the most perfect system of Spanish laws, and may be advantageously compared with any code published in the 8 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. most enlightened ages of the world." It is in imitation of the Eoman Pandects, and may be considered a digest of the laws of Spain. It was projected by Ferdinand III., who died before finishing it. In 1256 Alphonso the Wise nominated four Spanish jurisconsults, to whom he committed the execution of the intended work. This they accomplished in seven years. These laws, the result of their labor, they divided into seven parts, and from them, Siete Partidas, the work takes its name. Much of our present system of practice is taken from the Partidas. The Eecopilacion of Castile was published in the year 1567, under the authority and supervision of Philip II. From that time to 1777 many new editions of this work were produced. The Autos Accor dados were edicts and orders in Council sanctioned and published by virtue of a royal decree. It consists of but one volume. The scattered laws made for the Spanish colonies at differ- ent periods, were digested by Philip IY. in the same form as the Recopilacion of Castile, and called in 1661 the Eecopilacion de las Indias* " The return of Louisiana under the dominion of France, and its transfer to the United States, did not for a moment weaken the Spanish laws in that province." The French, during the continuation of their power of twenty days, made no change, and the Government of the United States left the task of legislation to the people of Louisiana them- selves, giving to them the right to make whatever changes they might deem necessary in the existing system of their laws. The L T nited States came in possession of Louisiana in December, 1803. In March, 1804, an act was passed dividing the country into two territories Orleans and Louisiana. In March, 1805, another act was passed provid- ing for the government of Louisiana and Orleans. The present Louisi- ana was then the Orleans Territory. The Supreme Court of said terri- tory was composed of three Judges, one of whom was a quorum. It was vested with original and appellate jurisdiction in civil and criminal causes. The criminal laws of Spain were repealed, and penal statutes adopted, the definitions and intendments of which were left to the Common law of England. The first territorial legislature met in 1806, and one of its acts was the appointing of Messrs. Brown and Lislet, two members of the bar, a committee to prepare a Digest of the laws then in existence in the territory. Instead of complying with their orders and digesting the laws in existence, these gentlemen made a code based principally on the Code Napoleon. This was adopted by the Legislature, and is now known as the " old Civil Code of 1808." This code did not repeal former laws ; " the old Civil Code only repealed such parts * See Preface to the American edition of the Partidas, LOUISIANA AND HER LAWS. of the Civil law as were contrary to or incompatible with it." It did not contain many and important provisions of the Spanish law nor any rules of judicial proceedings. It was therefore decided that the Spanish laws were to be considered as untouched when the Digest or Civil Code did not reach them. The Legislature, therefore, in 1819 ordered the publication of such parts of the Partidas as were still in force. As our old and new codes are based on the Code Napoleon, it will not be improper to here briefly notice that work. The difficulties arising from the various and complicated Customs of France attracted the attention of early kings of France to the necessity of written laws. St. Louis, Philip Le Bel, and John had all vainly sought to effect this object. Charles YII. approached nearest to success. A commencement being made, the Customs were ultimately reduced to writing between the reigns of Louis XII. and Henry IV. In the course of the sixteenth century this work was improved and elabo- rated through the exertions of Dumoulin, Chopin, Bacquet, Pithou and others. Domat in the seventeenth, and Pothier in the eighteenth century, reduced the whole system to comparative utility. To La- moignon and D'Aguesseau, as also to Louis XV. and XVI., we are indebted for those Ordinances which have at once been the pride of France and the resort of all nations. Montesquieu fanned the flame that was purifying the legal atmosphere of France. After the revo- lution, as soon as tranquillity was restored, the French nation devoted itself to the thorough reformation of its laws. The result the CODE NAPOLEOX has proved the wisdom of its compilers and added to the happiness of the people. The commissioners appointed to compile the code consisted of Franchet, Portalis, De Premeneau and Malleville. Thirty-six laws, which constituted the Civil Code actually in force, having been de- creed, a law promulgated the 31st March, 1804, declared the union of all the Civil laws under the title of the " Civil Code of the French." This title was changed in 1807, and again in 1816, but is now gen- erally known as the Code Napoleon. The code has been several times changed since its promulgation ; and the decisions of the Court of Cassation reported by Dalloz and Sirey, as well as those of the sove- reign courts, have interpreted, applied, extended and fixed its princi- ples. Much assistance, too, is derived by the student by reference to treatises and commentaries on the subject, such as those of Duranton and Troplong. This code is the basis of the jurisprudence of Ger- many, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and Belgium. In 1811 Congress raised the Territory of Orleans to the dignity of a State, and restored to it the name of Louisiana. In 1812 the Consti- 10 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. tution was adopted, and in 1813 the Supreme Court was formed, con- sisting of three Judges, Hall, Mathews, and Derbigny. It had appellate jurisdiction only, and in civil cases only where the amount in dispute exceeded three hundred dollars. The " Old Code " requiring amendment, a committee, consisting of Messrs. Livingston, Derbigny, and Lislet, was appointed to revise it. The " Old Code," revised and remodelled, and called the " Civil Code of Louisiana," went into operation in 1825. Its last article repeals all former laws, for which it provided, and an act of 1828 abolished the Roman, French, and Spanish laws previously in existence, and also " all the articles contained in the Old Civil Code which are not reprinted in the New Civil Code, except Chapter III., Title 10." The decision reported in Martin's Report, N". S. vol. 6, p. 90, relating to the Old Code, is of course annulled by this subsequent act of the Legislature ; and the Supreme Court has decided that the Legislature, in abolishing the French and Spanish laws previously in existence, " did not intend to abrogate those principles of law which had been established or settled by the decisions of courts of justice." In 1840 the number of the Judges of the Supreme Court was increased to five. The Code of Practice was enacted on the 12th April, 1824, and promulgated 2d September, 1825. It repeals all former rules of prac- tice, and also those parts of the Civil Code that conflict with it. In 1845 our present Constitution was adopted, changing materially the basis of our laws, and causing a nearer approximation to the principles of the Common law. Though our people, from a love of novelty, and on account of some real defects, are already seeking a change, it can hardly be denied that, with all its faults, it is one of the best Constitutions to be found in the Union. It changed and greatly simplified the judiciary system, creating in place of numer- ous courts but three degrees of jurisdiction the inferior courts, or Justices of the Peace; the District Courts; and the appellate or Supreme Court, consisting of one Chief Justice and three puisne Judges.* We have thus, as we promised, briefly touched upon the most important points in the legal history of Louisiana. It will be found that we have adopted mainly the Civil law. With regard to its merits, in concluding, we cannot better express ourselves than by using the elegant language of Chancellor Kent. " The whole body * [ The Supreme Court at present consists of one Chief Justice and four Associate or puisne Judges. Hon. Francis T. Nicholls is the Chief Justice, and Hons. Lynn B. Watkins, Samuel D. McBnery, Joseph A. Breaux, and Henry C. Miller are the puisne Judges.] LOUISIANA AND HER LAWS. 11 of the Civil law will excite never-failing curiosity, and receive the homage of scholars, as a singular monument of wisdom. It fills such a large space in the eye of human reason ; it regulates so many inter- ests of man as a social, civilized being ; it embodies so much thought, reflection, experience, and labor ; it leads us so far into the recesses of antiquity ; and it has stood so long ' against the waves and weathers of time,' that it is impossible, while engaged in the contemplation of the system, not to be struck with some portion of the awe and ven- eration which are felt in the midst of the solitudes of a majestic ruin." THE TEEE OF THE DEAD. [From History of Louisiana (1866).] BY CHARLES GAYAKKE. [CHARLES ETIENNE ARTHUR GAYARR^, or Charles Gayarre, as he usually signs his name, was born in New Orleans, January 9, 1805. His family is identified with the history of Louisiana from its early colonial period. In youth, Gayarre studied at the College of Orleans. At the age of twenty, he laid before the Legislature of Louisiana a pamphlet in which he opposed some provisions of a criminal code that had been prepared by Edward Livingston at the request of the State. In 1826 he went to Philadelphia, and for two years read law under William Rawle, the author of a work on the Constitution of the United States. Having been admitted to the Pennsylvania bar, he returned to Louisiana, where, in due season, he received a license to practise law. In 1830 he was elected one of the Representatives of New Orleans in the State Legislature. In 1832 Governor Roman appointed him Presiding Judge of the City Court of New Orleans. In 1835 he was elected to the United States Senate ; but some months before the time when he was to take his seat in that body, his health became so undermined that he decided to visit Europe, in the hope of recovery. On his arrival in Paris, however, his physicians having declared that an early return to his native land would endanger his life, he resigned his seat in the United States Senate, and remained in Europe eight years, occupying his time in study and in making historical investigations. In 1844. shortly after his return to Louisiana, he was elected to the State Legislature, and two years later was reelccted to that body; but on the very day of its meeting, he accepted, instead, the appointment of Secretary of St2 ; some went to France, where they formed a settle- ment at Belle Isle ; some went to the Antilles, and some at last found a true home in hospitable Louisiana,* At the peace of 1763, a number of Acadians returned to Nova Scotia ; and their descendants, together with those of the inhabitants who had escaped from the persecution, number now, according to 1'abbe Casgrain, more than one hundred and thirty thousand souls. This fecundity is wonderful, and if we consider the tenacity of those people, their attachment to their fami- lies, to their country, to their religion, we may indeed say with the warm-hearted Canadian abbe, " The Acadians are as astonishing for their virtues as for their misfortunes." * [ " Between the 1st of January and the 13th of May, 1765, about six hundred and fifty Acadians had arrived at New Orleans, and from that town had been sent to form settlements in Attakapas and Opelousas under the command of Andry." Gayarre's History of Louisiana, (1879), Vol. II., p. 121.] THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN" LOUISIANA, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. BY JOHN R. FICKLEN. [JOHN ROSE FICKLEN was born in Falmouth, Va., December 14, 1858. He attended the University of Virginia, where, in due course, he took the degree of Bachelor of Letters. In 1879-80 he was assistant professor of Ancient Languages in the Louisiana State University, at Baton Rouge. He then resigned this position and went to Europe for a stay of one year and a half. He studied Modern Languages in Paris and at the University of Bei'lin. On his return to Louisiana, in 1882, he was elected professor of English in the High School of the University of Louisiana. He filled the chair of History and Rhetoric in Tulane University for a number of years, and in 1893 was appointed professor of History and Political Science in the same University. He has recently published A History of Louisiana, written with Miss Grace Elizabeth King as joint author. The work has been adopted by the Louisiana State Board of Educa- tion for use in the public schools.] RUMORS of the transfer to Spain reached Louisiana in the course of time, but they were so vague and uncertain that the colonists refused to believe them. In October, 1764, however, uncertainty suddenly changed to certainty ; for during this month a letter addressed to the French Governor, M. d'Abbadie, came from his Majesty Louis XV., announcing that the cession had been made, and that M. d'Abbadie must hold himself ready to deliver over to the authorized agent of his Catholic Majesty the whole province of Louisiana. The King expressed a hope, however, that the functions of the religious institu- tions, as well as all the laws and customs of the province, would be continued by the King of Spain, and that the grants of lands made by the French Government would be confirmed. When the contents of this lette'r were made public, the inhabitants were at first over- whelmed with grief ; but soon their patriotism, which had been stirred to its depths by the news of the proposed alienation, found expression in the calling of a great meeting at New Orleans from all the parishes to consider what measures should be taken to keep the colony under the government of their beloved France. A recent writer (George W. Cable, in his Creoles of Louisiana) has declared that the true motive which aroused the Creoles of Louisiana against the Spanish Government in 1768 was " not loyalty to France, but the fear of commercial and industrial annihilation." Anger arising from the Spanish restrictions on trade certainly played its 24 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. part in the expulsion of IJlloa ; but in the great meeting held in New Orleans two years before the Spanish Governor arrived, the first and predominant feeling of the Creoles was their love for France. Any fears that existed of Spanish innovations had been allayed by that passage in the King of France's letter which had expressed the hope that his Catholic Majesty would respect the laws, customs, and institu- tions of the colony. There was no feeling, therefore, but that of burning loyalty to France when the assembled inhabitants unani- mously decided to send to France an ambassador in the person of Jean Milhet, the richest merchant of the city, who should plead at the foot of the throne that France would annul the act of cession ; that Louis the AVell-Beloved would take back a colony which was bound to him by a hundred ties. Jean Milhet, thus chosen by the voice of the people, sailed away to France, and those who had sent him awaited with deep solicitude the result of his mission. In "France, Bienville was still alive. Though the burden of eighty-six years and the vicissitudes of his life had weakened his physical powers, his mind was clear, his spirit was active, and his love for Louisiana was as intense as of old. Sought out by Milhet, Bienville with eagerness agreed to accompany the ambassador to the King's council chamber, and to join his own prayers to those of Milhet for the restoration of Louisiana to France. All petitions, however, must reach the King through his chief minister, the Due de Choiseul. By him the venerable Bienville and Milhet were received with great courtesy, but in this instance diplomatic and political matters were not to be decided by an appeal to sentiment. Choiseul, moreover, had himself been the King's representative in effecting the transfer of Louisiana to Spain, and had given to this act his hearty approval. Through him, therefore, there was no hope of success. He not only refused to carry their petition to the King, but, it is said, skilfully prevented them from gaining access to his Majesty. Such were the sad tidings that Milhet was compelled to send home, but he lingered in France with the vain hope that fortune might yet favor his mission through some change of policy on the part of the French Government. Diplomacy might win where an appeal to the heart had failed. The prolonged sojourn of Milhet in France, together with the delay of the Spanish court in taking possession, kept alive the hopes of the Louisianians. Perhaps, after all, they thought, the transfer of the province to Spain may be but a diplomatic move to deceive England, until France has recovered from the shock of war and can declare once more her old-time enmity to that country. THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA. 25 Months elapsed, the passage of time serving rather to lighten than to increase the fears of the colonists, when finally an unexpected event dashed all hopes to the ground. A letter came from Havana, announc- ing the fact that Don Antonio Ulloa, the newly appointed Spanish Governor, was on his way to take possession of Louisiana. The letter, though brief, was couched in courteous terms ; Ulloa declaring therein that he flattered himself in advance that his coming would give him a favorable opportunity to render to the Superior Council all the services which this body or the colonists could desire. On the 28th of Febru- ary, 1766, Ulloa reached the Balize, and on the 5th of March following, more than four years after the famous act of cession had been passed, his vessel anchored before Xew Orleans. A great storm of rain and thunder announced his arrival; and the inhabitants, while they received him with every mark of respect, were far from enthusiastic. Even in the storm they found an omen of grief and disaster. Ulloa was accompanied by three Spaniards of rank, who were to form his council. These were Juan Loyola, Commissary of AVar; Martin Xavarro, Treasurer ; and Estevan de Gayarre, Royal Auditor and Comptroller. M. d'Abbadie having died during the preceding year, the Governor of Louisiana was at this time Charles Aubry, an officer who had commanded the French forces at Fort Duquesne before it yielded to the arms of George Washington, and Avho had won the Cross of St. Louis for his distinguished services. In spite, however, of the military ability which he had shown in the French army, Aubry was far from possessing a noble, independent spirit. He is said to have been a small, dried-up, insignificant-looking man. His subsequent servility to the Spaniards, and the persistence with which he painted in the blackest colors the actions of the Creoles, won for him the hearty dislike and contempt of all the Louisianians. Ulloa had brought with him only ninety men. He had been led to expect that the French soldiers in Louisiana would pass under his command, but in this expectation he was disappointed. These soldiers, who, it seems, had already served beyond their term, now declared that they were entitled to their release, and that they would enter no other service than that of their own King. As Ulloa feared to use force, he found himself in an awkward predicament. His proper course would have been to show his credentials and appeal to the act of cession signed by the King of France. But Ulloa, who had distinguished himself in the world of letters, was totally lacking in the art of diplo- macy. His humor was that of a scholar rather than that of a states- man, and he pursued a course far different from that which would have been politic. A conciliatory spirit was necessary to calm the natural indignation of the Louisianians thus transferred like serfs from one 2(1 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. master to another. But Ulloa's petulance, his haughty manners, and his total lack of sympathy Avere the theme of every conversation. After his expulsion, however, he wrote an account of his reception in Louisiana, which serves in some measure to explain his conduct. Some days after his arrival, he tells us, the merchants presented him with a memorial, in which they asked him to define the course he intended to pursue, so that they might govern themselves accordingly. In view of the fact that the Spaniard had not shown his credentials, the pres- entation of such a memorial would not seem unnatural ; but Ulloa, accustomed to the homage and respect he had everywhere received, both as an author and a representative of the Spanish Government, regarded the conduct of the inhabitants as "full of insolence and menace." His antipathy had been further increased, he tells us, by a letter from the former French Governor, Kerlerec, who, soured by his own experiences in Louisiana, now wrote from the Bastile to condole with Ulloa for being obliged to live in so wretched a country. The new Governor's first acts, moreover, seemed fated to stir up opposition by wounding the colony in two of its tenderest spots its currency and its commerce. The colonists believed, whether justly or not, that the Spanish Government ought to redeem the depreciated currency of the colony at par. This the French Govern- ment had never done ; this Ulloa, also, refused to do. He, however, bought up at seventy-five per cent, discount as much of it as was offered in the market, and tendered it to his own soldiers in payment of their services, but even these declined to accept it. In September, 1766, moreover, the merchants were astounded to learn that a procla- mation had been issued through Aubry, but emanating from the Span- ish Government, which placed serious restrictions upon the maritime commerce of the colony. In the beginning, some commercial privi- leges had been temporarily granted by Ulloa ; but, on the ground that they had been abused, these were now practically withdrawn by the Spanish King, and a series of vexatious restrictions was substituted. For instance, a maximum price for the sale of all goods was fixed by the Government, and merchants who refused to accept it were forced to sell elsewhere. Under the circumstances, this in itself was enough to cause a revolution among the merchants. Petitions from them and from the captains of vessels were immediately presented to the Superior Council. Before any action was taken, however, Aubry agreed to suspend the effect of the proclamation for a while. But great damage had already been done to commerce, for the fear of changes to be made in the near future almost paralyzed the trade with the French and English colonies. Even Aubry afterwards appealed to the Spanish Government to permit a free exchange of THE REVOLUTION OF 17GS IX LOUISIANA. 27 goods between the colony and the French possessions, declaring that it would be one of the greatest benefits which could be conferred upon Louisiana. Ulloa himself, who had been thus far governing through the ever- subservient Aubry, now left New Orleans and retired to a lonely station at the Balize. Here, in one of the most desolate parts of Louisiana, he remained for seven months. During the cold winter he employed his leisure in superintending the construction of a Span- ish fort, upon which he spent twenty-five thousand pounds sterling. Such eccentric behavior excited much comment in New Orleans. Finally Aubry went down to visit him, and while he was there Ulloa proposed to him that the act of taking possession should be celebrated at the Balize instead of in New Orleans. After some remonstrances Aubry consented to this strange proceeding, and the act of transfer was signed by him, with the understanding that on the following day the Spanish flag should be publicly displayed at the Balize. When the time for this ceremony arrived, however, L'lloa had changed his mind and requested that the public act be deferred till the arrival of the Spanish troops. When Aubry returned to the city he did not inform the inhabitants of the secret act of transfer, but continued to govern the colony as before. Both he and Ulloa forwarded to their respective masters copies of this secret act. In March, 1767, a surprising piece of news reached New Orleans. Ulloa, who was then fifty-one years of age, had lingered at the Balize awaiting the arrival of the Marchioness of Abrado, a rich and beauti- ful Peruvian lady, whom he had wooed in her own country, and who had promised to come to Louisiana as the destined bride of the dis- tinguished Spaniard. When she finally arrived at the Balize she was quickly united to Ulloa by his private chaplain, and the couple came up to New Orleans to spend their honeymoon. The chief colonists held aloof from him, and Ulloa, exasperated by their enmity, made no effort to conciliate public opinion. His persistence in assuming the position of Governor without showing his credentials added rancor to the dislike with which he was regarded. Aubry was still his repre- sentative, and no Spanish troops arrived. At the new fort of the Balize, however, the Spanish flag had been hoisted ; and L'lloa, as a protection against the English, established new posts on the Missouri, on the Eiver Iberville, and opposite Natchez. At these various sta- tions he distributed the ninety soldiers whom he had brought, and took formal possession. To these acts no opposition seems to have been made, though in New Orleans and at other posts on the river as far up as the Illinois district the French flag waved as before. This strange condition of things was announced to the French 28 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Government by Aubry in January, 1768. But during this year the exasperation of the inhabitants was no longer to be restrained. " This province," Aubry wrote, "persists in its desire to remain French/' " I was in hopes," he says elsewhere, " that everything would go on quietly till the arrival of the Spanish troops ; but, unfortunately, a general revolt has broken out against the Spanish Governor and his nation, and upset all our plans. The small amount of money sent hither by the Spanish Government, the debts contracted in the name of the King of Spain, and which have not been paid all this, added to the general misery which reigns in the colony, has reduced the people to a condition of despair." In a previous letter Aubry had declared that his position was anomalous. " I command for the King of France, and at the same time I govern the colony as if it belonged to the King of Spain. The Governor constantly begs me to issue regulations touching the police and the commerce of the colony regulations which are a source of astonishment to every one. It is not a pleasant task," he adds, " to govern a province which for three years has not known whether it is French or Spanish, and which, until the Spaniards take possession, has really no master." If such were the sentiments of Aubry, who was ever ready, in his official acts, to show a servile obedience to Spain, and who a short time afterwards accepted a present of three thousand dollars from the Spanish Government for his services, it may easily be imagined with what indignation the high-spirited Creoles regarded the conduct of Spain. If that country declined to pay the debts contracted in her name, if for more than two years she refused to send Ulloa sufficient troops to take formal possession, it must be because she believed that so insignificant a colony could be held without any just sense of obli- gation, without any show of authority. If, therefore, the colonists wished to escape the imputation of cowardice in the eyes of the world, such contemptuous treatment must be answered by an assertion of rights. This was the general state of feeling among the inhabitants, and during the year 1768 it took shape in the formation of a con- spiracy to expel the Spanish Governor from Louisiana. John Milhet, who had at last returned from France, bringing with him a burden of disappointed hopes, threw himself heart and soul into this movement. Chief among the rest were Lafreniere, the attorney- general ; De Masan, former captain of infantry ; De ISToyan and Bien- ville, his brother, who were both nephews of the celebrated founder of New Orleans ; Marquis, formerly an officer in a Swiss regiment ; De Boisblanc, a councillor ; Doucet, a lawyer ; Joseph Milhet, a merchant ; Caresse, a merchant ; Joseph Villere, an officer on the German coast ; THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA. 29 Petit and Poupet, merchants ; and Foucault, the intendant-commissary of the colony. These conspirators met from time to time, near the limits of the city, at the house of a certain Madame Pradel, where they were secure from discovery. In July, 1768, it was decided that a secret mission should be sent to the English Governor at Pensacola, soliciting his aid in establishing the independence of Louisiana. In a report made afterwards to his own government, Ulloa tells us that the two men chosen for this mission were Bienville and Masan ; and that the English Governor, whose name was Elliott, after considerable reflection, sent them back with a refusal. He could hardly have done otherwise ; for his own government had signed the treaty of Paris with Spain, and could not with any show of justice give aid to her enemies. Moreover, there had already been some signs of disaffection to England among the American colonies ; and if Louisiana were to succeed in establishing an independent government, those colonies might be quick to follow the evil example. Already prophets of a new order of things were not wanting, for had not the Due de Choiseul, in 1765, " foreseeing the coming fortunes of the new world, expressed his regrets for Louisiana, because he foresaw that the American colonies must soon become independent " ? (Bancroft's History of the United States.) L^ndismayed by the unfavorable response from Pensacola, the con- spirators determined to effect the expulsion of the Spaniards and then appeal once more to France. Their secret had been well kept ; but just before all was ready for the outbreak, it was betrayed to Ulloa by a Frenchman, against whom an adverse decision in regard to some property had been rendered by the Superior Council. When Aubry was informed of the movement, he sent for Lafreniere and protested against his conduct, and finally warned him that the chiefs of con- spiracies always come to tragic ends. Nothing, however, could now arrest the course of events. A petition, signed by six hundred of the most influential men in the colony, was presented to the Superior Council, requesting that Ulloa be required to depart from Louisiana. This petition was supported by the Attorney-General in a speech of burning eloquence. Though born of humble parents, Lafreniere had been educated in France, and had developed oratorical powers which gave him great influence among the masses. " With these powers," says Champigny, who knew him in Louisiana, " he combined a noble figure, a majestic port, an open countenance, and an elevated stature." With burning eye and impassioned gesture, Lafreniere now addressed the Council, standing before that body like the famous tribune of the people, Rienzi. He reminded his hearers of the successful resistance 30 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. which, three years before, the American colonies had made to the Stamp Act ; he reminded them of the course taken in 1526 by the people of Burgundy, when they refused to acknowledge the right of the King of France to cede their province, and declared that the last drop of their blood should be spilt in defence of their country. The Council adjourned till the following day, October 29, when Lafreniere addressed that body once more, summing up the charges against the Spanish Governor. One passage from this speech, though it has often been quoted, will bear repetition here: "In pro- portion to the extent both of commerce and population is the solidity of thrones ; both are fed by liberty and competition, which are the nursing mothers of the State, of which the spirit of monopoly is the tyrant and stepmother. Without liberty there are but few virtues. Despotism breeds pusillanimity and deepens the abyss of vices. Man is considered as sinning before God only because he retains his free will." (Quoted from Gayarre.) These words, which have as deep a meaning and as broad a significance in our day as they had then, pro- duced a profound impression an impression which may be likened to the effect of Patrick Henry's famous protest pronounced three years before (1765) in the Virginia House of Burgesses. The Council, responding to Lafreniere's bold appeal, issued a decree declaring that Ulloa was " a usurper of illegal authority," and that he must leave the province in three days. A thousand people had assem- bled in the public square awaiting this decree of the Council. The Acadians and the Germans, armed with such weapons as they could procure on the spur of the moment, had marched down to the city under the leadership of Xoyan and Villere. As soon as the news was known a white flag was unfurled, and the air resounded with cries of " Long live the King of France ! Long live Louis, the Well Beloved ! " The same day a committee of the Council called on Aubry and re- quested him to govern the province in the name of the King of France. Aubry, however, whose sympathies were altogether with the Spaniards, boldly protested against the decree of expulsion ; but the determination of the people nullified his protest. As the city, there- fore, was really in the hands of the revolutionary party, and as Aubry had no adequate force to make resistance, Ulloa and his wife retired on board a French frigate, which was made ready to sail. As to Ulloa's assistants, Messrs. Loyola, Navarro, and Gayarre, the Council had decreed that they should remain in the province as sponsors for the bonds they had issued, unless they produced the orders of the Spanish King. The retention of these officials to secure the payment of Spanish debts was regarded by Spain as no lesser insult than the expulsion of Ulloa. THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA. 31 While Ulloa's frigate was still anchored in the river it happened that there was a wedding in New Orleans. Some young men, flushed with wine, were returning from the festivities at a late hour of the night. Acting under the impulse of the moment, they cut the cables of the frigate and allowed it to float down the river. It was finally stopped by those on board, but the following day the Spanish Gov- ernor, taking the hint, sailed away to Havana. Some hot-headed patriots, acting under the orders of Marquis, prepared to follow him down the river and seize the fort at the Balize ; but after they had embarked, Aubry, who had a small body of troops, threatened to open fire upon them if they persisted in their intention. "For the first time since the beginning of the revolt," says Aubry in his report to the Ministry, " I was obeyed ; and Ulloa departed under the escort of an officer and a detachment sent by myself to accompany him to the sea," When he reached Havana, Ulloa found a body of troops and a large sum of money, which, after years of vacillating policy, the King of Spain was finally sending to Louisiana. If they had been sent sooner, one sad chapter in the history of the colony might perhaps have never been written. Instead of returning to New Orleans, however, Ulloa lingered for a while at Havana, and then sailed for Spain. Thus the colony was rid for the time being of Spanish government. The revolution had been accomplished with the consent and coopera- tion of the Superior Council ; it had been accomplished without shed- ding one drop of blood, but its dire consequences will never be forgotten in Louisiana. When the decree of expulsion was issued against Ulloa, it Avas decided by the Superior Council that deputies should be sent to the French King to solicit his protection. Though Milhet had failed to win a hearing, another mission, it was thought, would surely succeed, now that the colony had shown its determination to reject the Spanish domination. The men chosen for this important mission were Charles le Sassier on the part of the Council, and St. Lette on the part of the inhabitants. When Ulloa departed, however, Aubry had delivered to him a document which was to be shown to the Spanish court and then forwarded to the French minister. In this document Aubry attempted to justify his own course, and at the same time heaped charges on the heads of the revolutionary party. Not content with this, he sent over to France as his representative M. Lapeyriere, who was commissioned to give a full account of the revolution and to counteract any influence that might be exercised by the other deputies. Aubry even warned the French minister that these deputies would tell a different story and were not to be believed. 32 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. On the 8th of November a formal investigation was held touching the conduct of Ulloa while in Louisiana. Witnesses were examined and elaborate testimony was taken. In the full record of the proceed- ings, which has come down to us, there is a long and curious array of charges. Some convict Ulloa merely of petty tyranny in violating the customs of the colony. One of the witnesses, for example, was the famous vicar-general Pere Dagobert, whose career in Louisiana has been celebrated in exquisite verse by one * of our Southern poets. The good father's deposition against Ulloa was simply to the effect that the Spanish Governor had caused to be solemnized in his own house a marriage ceremony, for which no banns had been published, and which was performed by a private chaplain without consent of the vicar- general. " Moreover," added Dagobert, " I have been informed that the contracting parties were a white man and a negress ! Further- more, M. Ulloa, by his own secret marriage to a Spanish lady at the Balize, and by his bringing her in triumph to the city, gave rise to a great deal of scandal ; for the said marriage was marked by a total disregard of the forms prescribed by the civil and canonical authori- ties." The testimony of other witnesses, however, was far more serious, for it showed that Ulloa had arrogated to himself the right to govern the province in an arbitrary manner, while refusing to exhibit any titles or powers from the King his master. Long memorials justifying the revolution were now drawn up and intrusted to Le Sassier and St. Lette, who were to bear to the foot of the French throne the most humble protestations of love and devo- tion on the part of the Superior Council and the inhabitants. The revolutionists had now nothing to do but to await the result of this second mission. It seems strange that any hope of success could have lingered in their hearts. They must have known that the infamous King of France was absorbed in his dissolute pleasures and cared nothing for the fate of Louisiana. Moreover, they saw them- selves confronted with the open hostility of Aubry, which was enough in itself to render fruitless any mission to the French court. Foucault, also, who had acted with them in the beginning, now began to write hypocritical letters to France, justifying his own course and accusing his former friends of being selfish traitors who sought their own aggrandizement. When the deputies, after a long voyage, arrived in Paris, they found that the aged Bienville was dead and that the King's minister was still the inexorable Choiseul. Neither Choiseul'nor his master could * [Mrs. Mollie E. M. Davis. Vide p. 393.] THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA. 33 be moved by the prayers of the far-away colonists ; their hearts were steeled against all such petitions. " It is too late now to change the policy of the French court," was the only answer that the deputies could obtain. St. Lette, who had been a school friend of the minister, was offered a lucrative position and remained in France; while Le Sassier, alone and sad at heart, carried back to Louisiana the tidings of failure. The only result of the mission was an unfortunate one for Louisiana. The memorial from the merchants, of which St. Lette had been the bearer, was published in some of the foreign gazettes, and though it excited the deep sympathy of many who read it, its adverse criticisms of the Spanish Government aroused the indignation and gained the bitter enmity of the Spanish King and his court. While the revolutionary leaders were awaiting the news from France they found it difficult to keep up the enthusiasm of the mass of the people. Many of these were asking themselves what would be the consequences of this uprising against the authority of the Spanish nation. If that nation, famous for its pride and cruelty, should deter- mine to send an army to punish this rebellion, would not the meagre resources of the colony and its insignificant body of troops be power- less to resist ? Would not the annihilation of the colony follow as an inevitable result ? That many should ask themselves this ques- tion was but natural. A recent writer, however (Cable, in his Creoles of Louisiana), taking the revolution of 1768 as a text, has thought proper to declare that " it was the fate of the Creoles pos- sibly a climatic result to be slack-handed and dilatory." "Month after month," he adds, " followed that October uprising without one of those incidents that would have succeeded in the history of an earnest people. Not a fort was taken, though it is probable not one would have withstood assault. The Creoles had not made that study of reciprocal justice and natural rights which becomes men who would resist tyranny." All this criticism seems to the present writer both unkind and un- just. The original intention of the Creoles in the expulsion of Ulloa was simply to rid themselves of the hated Spanish Government, and then return to that which was still very dear to them the milder rule of France. When the Spaniard had departed, they sent ambassadors to France for the purpose of carrying out this second object. It was only natural that they should await the result of this embassy, and in those days of slow travel the result was not known for several months. True, it would have been easy for them to seize the Spanish forts, but a victory over the small garrisons stationed in them would have been a barren victory ; it would not have assisted their cause at the court of France, and if they had at that time intended to establish a repub- 34 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. lie, it would not in any way have furthered that object. They con- tented themselves, therefore, with issuing a decree that the Spanish frigate which Ulloa had left behind him, and which had been laid up for repairs, should depart from the province. They were neither " slack-handed " nor " dilatory " in accomplishing the main objects they had in view.* When, moreover, Le Sassier brought back the news that France had deserted them and practically delivered them over to the vengeance of Spain, then some of the boldest spirits revived the plan of establishing a republic this time without the assistance of England. Marquis, who was a Swiss, and hence had lived under a republic, was afterward accused by the Spaniards of originating this plan ; but he denied it, though he admitted that he had seen a document drawn uj) for the formation of a new government in Louisiana. The author may very well have been Lafreniere ; for we know from Aubry's report that he favored the scheme and presented a petition to the Council requesting that a bank like the one in Amsterdam and Tenice should be established in the colony. But after the Creoles had discussed among themselves the possibility of carrying such a scheme of government to a success- ful issue, they wisely came to the conclusion that for the time being it was absolutely Utopian. They renounced it not because they had failed to make " that study of reciprocal justice and natural rights which becomes men who would resist tyranny," but because they clearly saw that, even if England and France remained neutral, Spain would condemn and crush a republic, the establishment of which would be a dangerous example of successful revolt against monarchical gov- ernment. It is unreasonable to maintain that because the American colonies some years later were successful in their struggle against Eng- land, and even received the overt assistance of Louis XVI., Louisiana might at this period have succeeded in winning her independence. It is unjust, therefore, to maintain that, " had the Creoles made a study of reciprocal justice and natural rights, had they not lacked steadiness of purpose, the insurrection of 1768 might have been a revolution for the overthrow of French and Spanish misrule, and the establishment and maintenance of the right of self-government " (Cable). In fact, this assertion becomes simply preposterous when we remember that at this time the Avhole population scattered through Louisiana was, if we exclude the slaves, only six thousand souls. What could such a population, unaided, accomplish against the forces of one of the most powerful kings in Europe ? It was impossible, therefore, to do otherwise than renounce this * In their campaigns under Galvez and in their defence of New Orleans under Jack- son the Creoles showed that they were neither a " slack -handed " nor a ' dilatory " race. THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA. 35 dream of establishing a free government, but it will ever be a matter of pride to the Louisianians that this bold scheme was nurtured in the brains of the patriotic Creoles of 1769, seven years before Jefferson gave to the world the Declaration of Independence. When the news of the expulsion of Ulloa was announced in Spain, that country was quickly aroused from the state of indifference into which she had fallen with reference to Louisiana. A council of wise men was straightway called to deliberate upon the fate of the province, and with only one dissenting voice it was decided that Louisiana should be kept as a check upon the advance of the English into Mexico. Measures were taken accordingly. In the meantime the colony remained a prey to uncertainty and internal commotion. On the 24th of July, 1769, however, the inhabi- tants were thrown into a state of intense excitement by the an- nouncement that a new Spanish Governor, Don Alexandro O'Keilly, with a fleet and a force of several thousand men, had arrived at the Balize. In the hearts of some there were thoughts of resistance. Marquis himself donned a white cockade and summoned all those who were opposed to the Spanish domination to rally around him. Only a hun- dred men answered his summons. Many who formerly had been willing to follow him now felt that resistance to O'Keilly 's forces could bring to the colony nothing but ruin and disaster. Aubry, moreover, took all possible measures to calm the inhabitants and engage them to submit to Spanish authority. On the 25th, at midnight, a distinguished Spaniard, Francisco Bouligny, arrived in New Orleans. He had come as the official repre- sentative of O'Reilly. Aubry entertained him with every mark of respect, and ordered preparations to be made for the reception of the new Governor. Lafreniere now called upon Aubry, and said that if Aubry would give him a letter to O'Reilly, he, accompanied by Jean Milhet and Pierre Marquis, would go down to meet the Governor at the Balize and render to him the homage of the inhabitants. By this action he hoped to win the clemency of the Spanish authorities and save the colony from a hostile invasion. As this step met with the approval of Aubry, the deputies set off for the Balize. Here they were received by O'Reilly with great courtesy, and invited to dine on board his ship. His conduct was such as to allay apprehensions, though in response to a speech from Lafreniere he declared that as yet he knew neither the province nor its people. " After informing myself of recent events," he added, " I shall be glad to perform all the kind 36 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. offices I can, and I will avoid all acts militating against the peace of the province, except such as may be justifiable and necessary." The return of the envoys served to calm the excitement of the populace, and when, on the 18th of August, O'Eeilly with his forces disembarked at New Orleans, the act of taking possession, as Aubry declares, was celebrated "with all the brilliancy, pomp, and grandeur that befitted the monarch of whom he was the represen- tative." The scene in the old Place d'Armes was calculated to impress every beholder. All the French troops and the militia having been drawn up in the square, Aubry placed himself at their head and advanced to meet O'Reilly as he descended in full uniform from his vessel. Bridges were then thrown from the other vessels to the levee, and three thousand soldiers, in regular columns, marched down to the square. When the two Governors met, O'Reilly announced his name and rank. He then requested Aubry to read to the assembled people the orders of his Most Catholic Majesty, as well as those of the King of France. This was accordingly done, and Aubry, addressing the inhabitants, spoke as follows : " You have just heard the sacred orders of their Majesties the Kings of France and Spain, in regard to the province of Louisiana, which is irrevocably ceded to the Spanish Crown. From this moment you are subjects of his Most Catholic Majesty, and in virtue of the orders of the King, my master, I release you from the oath of fidelity and obedience which bound you to the King of France." Then, amid the sharp reports of musketry, the Spaniards shouted, " Long live the King of Spain ! " while the heavy guns of the ships pealed forth their salutes. After the keys of the city had been deliv- ered to O'Reilly, the two Governors and their officers turned from the parade ground, and, entering the church, listened to a solemn " Te Deum," chanted in honor of these important events. A review of the Spanish veterans brought by O'Reilly completed this impressive cere- mony and announced the close of the French domination in Louisiana. The colonists, knowing that resistance was useless, and only hoping that the past would be forgotten, acquiesced in the new order of things without a murmur. Aubry also may have expected that past events would be forgotten ; but on the day following the ceremony O'Reilly addressed him a let- ter, in which he asked for a full account of the late rebellion, with the names of the leaders, and especially of the authors of the libellous memoir that had been issued by the inhabitants. One would suppose that Aubry would have answered, that, as Ulloa had never taken for- THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA. 37 mal possession of the province, only the King of France could rightly demand such information. On the arrival of O'Reilly he himself had, for the first time, released the inhabitants from their oath of allegiance to the King of France ; how, then, could he accuse them, before a Spanish Governor, of being rebels and traitors ? Nevertheless he immediately made a report to O'Reilly, in which he gave full particulars of the events that led to and followed Ulloa's expulsion. Far from extenuating the faults of the revolutionary party, he painted the whole affair in the darkest colors, declaring, among other things, that the memoir of the inhabitants had originally contained terrible " blasphemies " directed against the Spanish nation, and that these had been omitted only at his earnest solicitation. " I cannot tell your eminence," he continues, " to what point the feeling of indignation and rage against the Spanish government and nation was carried." Not only did he name the chief revolutionists, whom he described as the richest and most distinguished men in the colony, but he also declared that, after the expulsion of Ulloa, they were engaged in the most audacious and rebellious acts to stir up the people and fill them with horror of the Spaniards. Not a word did he add to excuse the rashness of those hot-headed Creoles ; not a word did he add with respect to the conduct of Ulloa, which had precipitated the revolution. The attitude that Aubry assumed, while it won him the gratitude of the Spaniards, sealed the doom of the chief conspirators. It could hardly be expected that O'Reilly, a soldier accustomed to the stern discipline of the Spanish army, would show any mercy to men who were regarded as iniquitous traitors by their own Governor. The subsequent events must be briefly related. On the following day O'Reilly decoyed to his house under various pretexts the greater number of those whom he wished to arrest. Though he had already commanded some of his troops to assemble around the house, he received his visitors courteously and disarmed their suspicions. Pres- ently, however, they were invited into an adjoining room, where, in the presence of Aubry, their swords were demanded. Addressing them, O'Reilly said : " The Spanish nation is venerated and respected throughout the world. Louisiana is the only country which is lacking in the proper sentiments towards that nation. The King of Spain has been offended by the writings that have emanated from the colony and by the insult offered to Ulloa. I have been commanded by his Catho- lic Majesty to arrest and judge according to the laws the authors of the rebellion. All your goods," he concluded, " will be confiscated, but you yourselves will be treated with proper consideration, and needful succor will be afforded to your wives and children." 427833 38 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. The full list of those arrested by O'Reilly's orders is given in Aubry 's report, as follows : De Laf reniere, attorney-general ; De Hasan, a retired captain of cavalry ; De Noyan, a retired captain of cavalry ; Harquis, formerly captain in a Swiss regiment ; De Boisblanc, a councillor ; Doucet, a lawyer ; Joseph and Jean Hilhet, merchants ; Caresse, a merchant ; Villere, a militia officer ; Petit and Poupet, both merchants ; and Foucault, the French King's commissary. When O'Reilly reached New Orleans, Villere was absent on his plantation. He had thought of retiring from the colony and seeking refuge among the English ; but he was, persuaded, it is said, by a letter from Aubry, to repair to the city. Here he was immediately arrested and placed aboard a frigate as a prisoner. There are several accounts of his fate, all of which differ in some particulars. The most probable account declares that while he was being put in confinement he deter- mined to escape, and crying, " Villere was not born to die on a scaf- fold," he attempted to break through his guards. One of these ran a bayonet through his thigh. Overcome with rage and despair, Villere fell upon the deck, and a few days afterwards expired. Foucault, who, as we have seen, had played throughout the revolu- tion the part of an adroit scoundrel, now refused to admit O'Reilly's jurisdiction, and demanded to be sent to France for trial. He had won the contempt alike of the Creoles and the Spaniards, and O'Reilly allowed him to depart. It is some consolation to know that when he reached France the King immediately cast him into the Bastile. According to Champigny, it was hinted to Noyan that, if he chose to make the attempt, his escape would be winked at by the Spanish authorities ; but he had the courageous spirit of his uncle Bienville, and refused to desert his comrades. As he was young and had recently married the daughter of Lafreniere, great sympathy was expressed for his untimely fate. Special indulgence was shown to his brother Bienville ; for, though he was among those against whom Aubry had preferred charges, he was never arrested. As the men imprisoned by O'Reilly were the most prominent and most beloved in the colony, the grief of the Creoles kneAV no bounds. Sympathy with O'Reilly's victims, moreover, was mingled with fears for their own safety. To allay these fears, O'Reilly now informed Aubry that he expected all the inhabitants to take the oath of alle- giance to the Spanish King. If any, however, wished to retire from the colony, and thus avoid the oath, they were free to do so. On the day appointed, the colonists, seemingly reconciled to their fate, came forward and took the oath. Even representatives from the German and Acadian coasts hurried down the river in obedience to THE REVOLUTION OF 1768 IN LOUISIANA. 39 O'Reilly's order, and swore to obey his Catholic Majesty. The Acadians, at least, remembered the fatal consequences of their failure to accept the oath offered them in their native country by the English Government. To demand this oath of allegiance was a practical admission on O'Reilly's part that up to this time all the inhabitants had been sub- jects of the King of France. Hence this act seemed to augur well for the fate of the imprisoned revolutionists. But the whole course of events had already been mapped out by the new Governor. The day for the great trial was soon fixed. It was to be conducted before a number of Spanish officers, with O'Reilly as president. In accord- ance with legal usages in cases of high treason, the accused were not allowed lawyers to plead in their defence. One exception, however, was made : it was permitted that Yillere, who was dead, should have an attorney to defend his memory. On the 20th of October, 1769, Don Felix del Rey, a distinguished advocate, practising in the courts of San Domingo and Mexico, and now appointed the King's attorney-general to conduct this trial, pre- sented to the judges an exhaustive exposition of the case against the prisoners. In the archives of the Louisiana Historical Society the French translation of Del Rey's argument covers sixty-four pages of manuscript. In it he shows what part each of the prisoners had taken in the rebellion, and maintains that while Ulloa had never shown to the Council his titles of authority, nevertheless all departments of the colony the ecclesiastical, the military, and the political had tacitly accepted him as Governor, as was proved by the fact that all the expenses of the colony had been paid by the Spanish commissary department. This was an acknowledgment, he declares, of Ulloa's authority, and all-sufficient to convict the prisoners of treason toward the Spanish Government. If they wished to deny Ulloa's authority they should have done so in the beginning. In truth, their very presence in the colony after France had transferred it to Spain stamped them as subjects of his Catholic Majesty. It was vain for the prisoners to plead that Ulloa's authority had been exercised wholly through Aubry, who was the titular Governor in the service of the King of France ; it was vain for them to deny the jurisdiction of the Spanish judges and to demand a trial conducted in French courts according to French laws. All pleas were overruled, and the judges, convinced by Del Rey's argument of the guilt of the accused, pronounced sentence through O'Reilly as president of the court. It was as follows : Lafreniere, Noyan, Caresse, Marquis, and Joseph Milhet, as chiefs of the rebellion, were to be led to the gallows, with ropes around their necks and mounted on asses ; there to be 40 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. hanged. As Joseph Villere, who was dead, had been proved to be " one of the most persistent of the said conspirators," his memory was declared infamous for all time. The remaining prisoners were con- demned to various terms of confinement in the castle of De Moro, in Cuba. Every effort was made to stir the pity of O'Reilly in behalf of the condemned, but even before the grief and prayers of their relatives he remained inexorable. He was a stern soldier, who doubtless thought he had shown sufficient mercy in not condemning all the prisoners to death. One change in his plans he did make, but this was forced upon him. As he was informed that there was no hang- man in the colony, he ordered that the prisoners should be shot " passes par les armes," as we are told in the old French document. Accordingly, on the day appointed, the five prisoners, their arms securely bound, were conducted to a small square near the quarters of the Lisbon regiment (perhaps where the lower portion of the French market now stands). Here a great number of troops had been assembled, and here the sentence of death was read aloud. Refusing to have their eyes bandaged, the noble five faced death like true patriots. One broad sheet of fire from the guns of the Spanish grenadiers, and all was still. The last act of the tragedy had been played. Upon whom must the responsibility fall for this judicial murder, which casts a dark stain across the annals of Louisiana ? It seems to be clearly proved, by the documents that have come down to us, that O'Reilly acted under the orders of his King, for in the report of his proceedings made to the King of Spain by the Council of the Indies his conduct is eulogized, and these words occur : " The inhabitants of Louisiana rose in rebellion ; for which reason your Majesty com- missioned Don Alexandro O'Reilly to proceed thither, take formal possession, chastise the ringleaders, and establish a suitable form of government." The Spanish King intended to punish severely what in those days was regarded as the greatest of crimes treason. As to Aubry, his conduct, it is true, gained for him the favor of the French court, and when some months later he lost his life in a storm, his family received a pension. In Louisiana, however, he had branded himself in the eyes of the Creoles as a mean-spirited informer. It is upon his disgraceful servility to the Spaniards, therefore, that a share of the responsibility must rest ; while the greater portion must still fall upon the weak acquiescence of the French court, which refused to interfere for the protection of a band of patriots whose only fault was their too great devotion to their King and his government. THE SOUTH'S FIRST CROP OF SUGAR. [From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1887, by Harper and Brothers.] BY CHARLES GAYARRE. INDIGO had been the principal staple of the colony, but at last a worm which attacked the plant and destroyed it, through consecutive years, was reducing to poverty and to the utmost despair the whole population. Jean Etienne de Bore determined to make a bold experi- ment to save himself and his fellow-citizens, and convert his indigo plantation into one of sugar-cane. In these critical circumstances he resolved to renew the attempt Avhich had been made to manufacture sugar. He immediately pre- pared to go into all the expenses and incur all the obligations conse- quent on so costly an undertaking. His wife warned him that her father had in former years vainly made a similar attempt ; she repre- sented that he was hazarding on the cast of a die all that remained of their means of existence ; that if he failed, as was so probable, he would reduce his family to hopeless poverty ; that he was of an age being over fifty years old when fate was not to be tempted by doubt- ful experiments, as he could not reasonably entertain the hope of a sufficiently long life to rebuild his fortune if once completely shat- tered ; and that he would not only expose himself to ruin, but also to a risk much more to be dreaded that of falling into the grasp of creditors. Friends and relatives joined their remonstrances to hers, but could not shake the strong resolve of his energetic mind. He had fully matured his plan, and was determined to sink or swim with it. Purchasing a quantity of canes from two individuals named Men- dez and Solis, who cultivated them only for sale as a dainty in the New Orleans market, and to make coarse syrup, he began to plant in 1794, and to make all the other necessary preparation, and in 1795 he made a crop of sugar which sold for twelve thousand dollars a large sum at that time. Bore's attempt had excited the keenest inter- est ; many had frequently visited him during the year to witness his preparations ; gloomy predictions had been set afloat, and on the day when the grinding of the cane was to begin, a large number of the most respectable inhabitants had gathered in and about the sugar- house to be present at the failure or success of the experiment. Would 42 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. the syrup granulate ? would it be converted into sugar ? The crowd waited with eager impatience for the moment when the man who watches the coction of the juice of the cane determines whether it is ready to granulate. When that moment arrived the stillness of death came among them, each one holding his breath, and feeling that it was a matter of ruin or prosperity for them all. Suddenly the sugar-maker cried out with exultation, " It granulates ! " Inside and outside of the building one could have heard the wonderful tidings fly- ing from mouth to mouth and dying in the distance, as if a hundred glad echoes were telling it to one another. Each one of the bystanders pressed forward to ascertain the fact on the evidence of his own senses, and when it could no longer be doubted, there came a shout of joy, and all flocked around Etienne de Bore, overwhelming him with con- gratulations, and almost hugging the man whom they called their savior the savior of Louisiana. Ninety years have elapsed since, and an event which produced so much excitement at the time is very nearly obliterated from the memory of the present generation. THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. [From The Creoles of Louisiana. Copyright, 1884, by Charles Scribner's Sons.] BY GEORGE W. CABLE. [GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE was born in New Orleans, October 12, 1844. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate Army in the Fourth Mississippi Cavalry. His early literary effusions appeared in the New Orleans Picayune over the pen-name of "Drop Shot." His first stories of "supposed" Creole life were published in Scrib- ner's Monthly, and were so well received by Northern critics that he determined to fol- low the profession of letters. In his political writings he has proposed certain reforms in the convict labor system of the Southern States, and devised plans for ameliorating the condition of the negro. In 1879 he removed to New England, where he has since resided. His works include Old Creole Days (1879-83) ; The Orandissimes (1880) ; Madame Delphine (1881) ; Dr. Sevier (1883) ; The Creoles of Louisiana (1884) ; The Silent South (1885) ; Bonaventure (1888) ; Strange True Stories of Louisiana (1889) ; The Negro Question (1890) ; and Life of William Gilmore Simms (1890). One of his critics says : " Mr. Cable has a marvellously acute ear, a sympathetic heart, an eye far from myopic, an imagination warm and plastic, and much constructive skill ; hence he might have conveyed his impressions of Creole life without coming so perilously near to caricaturing it. The more's the pity ! His feeling for African slaves, octoroons, quad- roons, ran away with him, and led him into by-ways difficult in the extreme for a foreigner to traverse. For Mr. Cable eminent Creoles claim never really knew any- thing about Creole life from the inside. . . . Thus, they say, Mr. Cable goes all astray about the voudous and the use of the charms and amulets, and about Creole customs, manners, music, and cookery. The English, too, into which he translates this French life is often imperfect and ungrammatical, full as it is of blood, of pulse, of thrill and throb and word-picture.''] ONCE more the Creoles sang the "Marseillaise." The invaders hovering along the marshy shores of Lake Borgne were fourteen thousand strong. Sir Edward Packenham,* brother-in-law to the Duke of Wellington, and a gallant captain, was destined to lead them. Gibbs, Lambert, and Kean were his generals of division. As to Jackson, thirty-seven hundred Tennesseeans under Generals Coffee and Carroll, had, when it was near Christmas, given him a total of but six thousand men. Yet confidence, animation, concord, and even gayety filled the hearts of the mercurial people. " The citizens," says the eye-witness, Latour, " were preparing for battle as cheerfully as for a party of pleasure. The streets resounded with ' Yankee Doodle,' ' La Marseillaise,' ' Le Chant du Depart,' and other martial airs. The fair sex presented themselves at the windows * [Spelled PAKEXHAM by some historians.] 44 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. and balconies to applaud the troops going through their evolutions, and to encourage their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers to protect them from their enemies. That enemy, reconnoitring on Lake Borgne, soon found in the marshes of its extreme western end the mouth of a navigable stream, the Bayou Bienvenue. This water flowed into the lake directly from the west the direction of New Orleans, close behind whose lower suburb it had its beginning in a dense cypress swamp. Within its mouth it was over a hundred yards wide, and more than six feet deep. As they ascended its waters, everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, stretched only the unbroken quaking prairie. But soon they found and bribed a village of Spanish and Italian fishermen, and under their guidance explored the whole region. By turning into a smaller bayou, a branch of the first, the Mississippi was found a very few miles away on the left, hidden from view by a narrow belt of swamp, and hurry- ing southeastward toward the Gulf. From the plantations of sugar- cane on its border, various draining canals ran back northward to the bayou, offering on their margins a fair though narrow walking way through the wooded and vine-tangled morass to the open plains on the river shore, just below New Orleans. By some oversight, which has never been explained, this easy route to the city's very outskirts had been left unobstructed. On the 21st of December some Creole scouts posted a picket at the fishermen's village. The traveller on the New Orleans and Mobile Eailroad, as he enters the southeastern extreme of Louisiana, gliding along the low, wet prairie margin of the Gulf, passes across an island made by the two mouths of Pearl River. It rises just high enough above the surround- ing marsh to be at times tolerably dry ground. A sportsmen's station on it is called English Look-out ; but the island itself seems to have quite lost its name. It was known then as Isle aux Poix (Pea Island). Here on December the 21st, 1814, the British had been for days dis- embarking. Early on the 22d General Kean's division reembarked from this island in barges, shortly before dawn of the 23d captured the picket at the fishers' village, pushed on up the bayou, turned to the left, southwestward, into the smaller bayou (Mazant), entered the swamp, disembarked once more at the mouth of a plantation canal, inarched southward along its edge through the wood, and a little before noon emerged upon the open plain of the river shore, scarcely seven miles from New Orleans, without a foot of fortification between them and the city. But the captured pickets had reported Jackson's forces eighteen thousand strong, and the British halted, greatly fatigued, until they should be joined by other divisions. Not, however, to rest. At about two o'clock in the afternoon, THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 45 while the people of the city were sitting at their midday dinner, sud- denly the cathedral bell startled them with its notes of alarm, drums sounded the long-roll, and as military equipments were hurriedly put on, and Creoles, Americans, and San Domingans, swords and muskets in hand, poured in upon the Place d'Armes from every direction and sought their places in the ranks, word passed from mouth to mouth that there had been a blunder, and that the enemy was but seven miles away in force " sur Inhabitation Villere ! " (" on Villere' s plan- tation ! ") But courage was in every heart. Quickly the lines were formed, the standards were unfurled, the huzza resounded as the well- known white horse of Jackson came galloping down their front with his staff Edward Livingston and Abner Duncan among them at his heels, the drums sounded quickstep, and the columns moved down through the streets and out of the anxious town to meet the foe. In half an hour after the note of alarm the Seventh regulars, with two pieces of artillery and some marines, had taken an advanced position. An hour and a half later General Coffee, with his Tennessee and Mis- sissippi cavalry, took their place along the small Kodriguez Canal, that ran from the river's levee to and into the swamp, and which afterward became Jackson's permanent line of defence. Just as the sun was setting, the troops that had been stationed at Bayou St. John, a battal- ion of free colored men, then the Forty-fourth regulars, and then the brightly uniformed Creole battalion, first came into town by way of the old Bayou Road, and swept through the streets toward the enemy on the run, glittering with accoutrements and arms, under the thronged balconies and amid the tears and plaudits of Creole mothers and daughters. Xight came on, very dark. The Carolina dropped noiselessly down opposite the British camp, anchored close in shore, and opened her broadsides and musketry at short range. A moment later Jackson fell upon the startled foe with twelve hundred men and two pieces of artillery, striking them first near the river shore, and presently along their whole line. Coffee, with six hundred men, unseen in the dark- ness, issued from the woods on the north, and attacked the British right, just as it was trying to turn Jackson's left Creole troops, whose ardor would have led them to charge with the bayonet, but for the prudence of the Regular officer in command. A fog rose, the smoke of battle rested on the field, the darkness thickened, and all was soon in confusion. Companies and battalions red coats, blue coats, Highland plaidies, and "dirty shirts" (Tennesseeans), from time to time got lost, fired into friendly lines, or met their foes in hand- to-hand encounters. Out in the distant prairie behind the swamp forest, the second division of the British coming on heard the battle, 46 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. hurried forward, and began to reach the spot . while the low plain, wrapped in darkness, was still flashing with the discharge of artillery. The engagement was soon over, without special results beyond that prestige which we may be confident was, at the moment, Jackson's main aim. Before day he fell back two miles, and in the narrowest part of the plain, some four miles from town, began to make his per- manent line behind Rodriguez Canal. Inclement weather set in, increasing the hardships of friend and foe. The British toiled incessantly in the miry ground of the sugar-cane fields to bring up their heavy artillery, and both sides erected breast- works and batteries, and hurried forward their reinforcements. Skir- mishing was frequent, and to Jackson's raw levies very valuable. Red- hot shot from the British works destroyed the Carolina; but her arma- ment was saved and made a shore battery on the farther river bank. On New Year's day a few bales of cotton, forming part of the Ameri- can fortifications, were scattered in all directions and set on fire, and this was the first and last use made of this material during the cam- paign. When it had been called to General Jackson's notice that this cotton was the property of a foreigner, " Give him a gun and let him defend it," was his answer. On the 4th, two thousand two hundred and fifty Kentuckians, poorly clad and worse armed, arrived, and such as bore serviceable weapons raised Jackson's force to three thousand two hundred men on his main line ; a line, says the Duke of Saxe- Weimar, " the very feeblest an engineer could have devised ; that is, a straight one." Yet on this line the defenders of New Orleans were about to be victorious. It consisted of half a mile of very uneven earthworks stretching across the plain along the inner edge of the canal, from the river to the edge of the wood, and continuing a like distance into the forest. In here it quickly dwindled to a mere double row of logs two feet apart, filled in between with earth. The entire artillery on this whole line was twelve pieces. But it was served by men of rare skill, artillerists of the regular army, the sailors of the burnt Carolina, some old French soldiers under Flaujeac, one of Bonaparte's gunners, and Dominique and Beluche, with the tried cannoneers of their pirate ships. From battery to battery the rude line was filled out with a droll confusion of arms and trappings, men and dress. Here on the extreme right, just on and under the levee, were some regular infantry and a company of " Orleans Rifles," with some dragoons who served a how- itzer. Next to them was a battalion of Louisiana Creoles in gay and varied uniforms. The sailors of the Carolina were grouped around THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 47 the battery between. In the Creoles' midst were the swarthy priva- teers with their two twenty-fours. Then came a battalion of native men of color, another bunch of sailors around a thirty-two-pounder, a battalion of St. Domingan mulattoes, a stretch of blue for some regu- lar artillery and the Forty-fourth infantry, then Flaujeac and his Francs behind a brass twelve-pounder ; next, a long slender line of brown homespun hunting-shirts that draped Carroll's lank Tennes- seeans, then a small, bright bunch of marines, then some more regular artillery behind a long brass culverine and a six-pounder, then Adair's ragged Kentuckians, and at the end, Coffee's Tennesseeans, disappear- ing in the swamp, where they stood by day knee-deep in water, and slept at night in the mud. Wintry rains had retarded everything in the British camp ; but at length Lambert's division came up, Packenham took command, and plans were perfected for the final attack. A narrow continuation of the canal by which the English had come up through the swamp to its head at the rear of Yillere's plantation was dug, so that their boats could be floated up to the river front close under the back of the levee, and then dragged over its top and launched into the river. The squalid negresses that fish for crawfish along its rank, flowery banks, still call it " Cannal Packm'am." All night of the 7th of Janu- ary there came to the alert ears of the Americans across the interven- ing plain a noise of getting boats through this narrow passage. It was evident that the decisive battle was impending. Packenham' s intention was to throw a considerable part of his force across the river to attack the effective marine battery abreast of the American line, erected there by Commodore Paterson, while he, on the hither shore, unembarrassed by its fire on his flank, should fall furiously upon Jackson's main line, in three perpendicular columns. But the river had fallen. Colonel Thornton, who was to lead the movement on the farther bank, was long getting his boats across the levee. The current, too, was far swifter than it had seemed. Eight priceless hours slipped away, and only a third of the intended force crossed. A little before daybreak of the 8th, the British main force moved out of camp and spread across the plain, six thousand strong, the Americans in front, the river on their left, and the swamp-forest on their right. They had planned to begin at one signal the three attacks on the nearer and the one on the farther shore. The air was chilly and obscure. A mist was slowly clearing off from the wet and slippery ground. A dead silence reigned ; but in that mist and silence their enemy was waiting for them. Presently day broke and rap- idly brightened, the mist lifted a little, and the red lines of the British 48 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. were fitfully descried from the American works. Outside the levee the wide river and farther shore were quite hidden by the fog, which now and then floated hitherward over the land. Packenham was listening for the attack of Colonel Thornton on the opposite bank, that was to relieve his main assault from the cross-fire of Paterson's marine battery. The sun rose ; but he heard nothing. He waited till half -past seven; still there was no sound. Meanwhile the Americans lay in their long trench, peering over their sorry breastworks, and wondering at the inaction. But at length Packenham could wait no longer. A British rocket went up near the swamp. It was the signal for attack. A single cannon-shot answered from the Americans, and the artillery on both sides opened with a frightful roar. On Jackson's extreme left, some black troops of the British force made a feint against the line in the swamp, and were easily repulsed. On his right, near the river, the enemy charged in solid column, impetuously, upon a redoubt just in advance of the line. Twice only the redoubt could reply, and the British were over and inside and pressing on to scale the breastwork behind. Their brave and much-loved Colonel Rennie was leading them. But on the top of the works he fell dead with the hurrah on his lips, and they were driven back and out of the redoubt in confusion. Meantime the main attack was being made in the open plain near the edge of the swamp. Some four hundred yards in front of the American works lay a ditch. Here the English formed in close column of about sixty men front. They should have laid off their heavy knapsacks, for they were loaded besides with big fascines of ripe sugar-cane for filling up the American ditch, and with scaling ladders. But with muskets, knapsacks and all, they gave three cheers and advanced. Before them went a shower of Congreve rockets. For a time they were partly covered by an arm of the forest and by the fog, but soon they emerged from both and moved steadily forward in perfect order, literally led to the slaughter in the brave old British way. " Where are you going ? " asked one English officer of another. " I'll be hanged if I know." "Then," said the first, "you have got into what I call a good thing ; a far-famed American battery is in front of you at a short range, and on the left of this spot is flanked, at eight hundred yards, by their batteries on the opposite side of the river." " The first objects we saw, enclosed as it were in this little world of mist," says this eye-witness, " were the cannon-balls tearing up the ground and crossing one another, and bounding along like so many THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 49 cricket-balls through the air, coming on our left flank from the Ameri- can batteries on the right bank of the river, and also from their lines in front." The musketry fire of the Americans, as well as the artillery, was given with terrible precision. Unhappily for the English they had singled out for their attack those homely clad men whom they had nick- named the " Dirty shirts " the riflemen of Kentucky and Tennessee Indian fighters, that never fired but on a selected victim. Flau- jeac's battery tore out whole files of men. Yet the brave foe came on, veterans from the Cape of Good Hope and from the Spanish Peninsula, firmly and measuredly, and a few platoons had even reached the canal, when the column faltered, gave way, and fled precipitately back to the ditch where it had first formed. Here there was a rally. The knapsacks were taken off. Reen- forcements came up. The first charge had been a dreadful mistake in its lack of speed. K"ow the start was quicker and in less order, but again in the fatal columnar form. "At a run," writes the participant already quoted, "we neared the American line. The mist was now rapidly clearing away, but, owing to the dense smoke, we could not at first distinguish the attack- ing column of the British troops to our right. . . . The echo from the cannonade and musketry was so tremendous in the forests that the vibration seemed as if the earth were cracking and tumbling to pieces. . . . The flashes of fire looked as if coming out of the bowels of the earth, so little above its surface were the batteries of the Americans.'' Packenham led the van. On a black horse, in brilliant uniform, waving his hat and cheering the onset, he was a mark the backwoods- men could not miss. Soon he reeled and fell from his horse with a mortal wound; Gibbs followed him. Then Kean was struck and borne from the field with many others of high rank, and the column again recoiled and fell back, finally discomfited. " Did you ever see such a scene ? " cried one of Packenham's staff. " There is' nothing left but the Seventh and Forty-third ! " " They fell," says another Englishman, " like the very blades of grass beneath the scythe of the mower. Seventeen hundred and eighty-one victims, including three generals, seven colonels, and seventy- five lesser officers, were the harvest of those few minutes." At length the American musketry ceased. Only the batteries were answering shot for shot, when from the further side of the Mississippi came, all too late, a few reports of cannon, a short, brisk rattle of fire-arms, a hush, and three British cheers to tell that the few raw American troops on that side had been overpowered, and 4 50 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. that Paterson's battery, prevented from defending itself by the blundering of the militia in its front, had been spiked and aban- doned. The batteries of the British line continued to fire until two in the afternoon ; but from the first signal of the morning to the abandon- ment of all effort to storm the American works was but one hour, and the battle of New Orleans was over at half-past eight. General Lam- bert reported the British loss two thousand and seventeen ; Jackson, the American at six killed and seven wounded. From the 9th to the 18th four British vessels bombarded Fort St. Philip without result ; on the morning of the 19th, the British camp in front of Jackson was found deserted, and eight days later the last of the enemies' forces embarked from the shores of Lake Borgne. THE FESTIVITY AFTER THE VICTORY. [From Jackson and New Orleans (1858).] BY ALEXANDER WALKER. [ALEXANDER WALKER was born in Fredericksburg, Va., October 13, 1819. Thence he removed to New Orleans, where he divided his time between practising law and writ- ing for the press. He was, at different periods, editor of many local newspapers, among them the Picayune. At a mature age, he was for some time a resident of Cin- cinnati, where he edited the Enquirer. He was, for a term or so, judge of the City Court of New Orleans, and in 1861 was a member of the Secession convention of Louisiana. He published Life of Andrew Jackson ; Jackson and New Orleans (1858) ; History of the Battle of Shiloh; and Sutler at New Orleans. He was a lover of words for their own sake, and in building up his sentences was ever ready to sacrifice economy to euphony. In writing history, the most trivial detail received his consideration. He died January 24, 1893.] THE first display of popular feeling [after the battle of New Orleans] was too wild to be controlled by any regular method or system. At Jackson's request the Abbe Dubourg, Apostolic Prefect of the State of Louisiana, appointed the 23d as a day of public thanksgiving to the Almighty, for his signal interposition in behalf of the safety and honor of the country. That day was ushered in by a discharge of artillery, which caused many a citizen and soldier to leap from his pleasant couch, under the delusion that it was all a dream, that his toil was over and the enemy had really departed. New Orleans, never before or since, exhibited so gay and happy a scene, as on that bright 23d of January, 1815. All the contentions, horrors, sufferings, and troubles of the war were forgotten, and a spirit of unrestrained happiness, of cordial harmony and good-will, pervaded the whole population. . . . The old cathedral was burnished up for the occasion. Evergreens decorated the entrance and the interior. The Public Square, or Plaza, blazed with beauty, splendor, and elegance. In its centre stood a graceful triumphal arch, supported by six Corinthian columns, and festooned with evergreens and flowers. Beneath the arch stood two young children on pedestals, holding .a laurel wreath, whilst near them, as if their guardian angels, was a bright damsel representing Liberty, and a more sedate one personifying Justice. From the arch to the entrance of the cathedral the loveliest girls of the city had been ranged in two rows, to represent the various States and Territories. 52 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. They were dressed in pure white, with blue veils and silver stars on their brows. Each bore a small flag, inscribed with the name of the State she represented, and a small basket trimmed with blue ribands and full of flowers. Behind each a shield and lance were stuck in the ground, with the name, motto and seal of each of the States. The shields Avere linked together with verdant festoons, which extended from the arch to the door of the cathedral. Precisely at the appointed time, General Jackson appeared with his staff at the gate of the plaza fronting the river. He was received with salvos of artillery. Entering the square, he was conducted to the arch, where the two little girls, reaching forward with blushing, smiling faces, placed the laurel wreath on his brow. What a benign smile relieved the sternness of that heroic countenance, when the inno- cent faces of the pretty little ones arose to his view, as with so much pride and delight they performed the high task assigned to them! Who would not be stern and heroic in defence of those dear ones ( Who would not incur every peril, as -well against the jealousy and dis- content of friends, as against the open hostilities of foes, in such a cause ? Such were, no doubt, the reflections that passed through a mind, which combined in an extraordinary degree the strong and tender traits of humanity. And now, with the laurel on his brow, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the people, he descends the stairs of the arch, and is met by a lovely young lady, radiant with all the charms of Creole beauty with face, form, manners, and expression, such as the most aspiring artist might have dreamed of as the model for his Venus. Fit representative of Louisiana, this beautiful damsel addresses the laureled chief in a speech glowing with gratitude and eloquence. All the rigor has faded from that stern countenance, and the victorious General humbles himself at the shrine of female beauty and innocence, and replies, in words that thrill with emotion, that his merits have been exalted far, far above their real worth. But the modest confes- sion is drowned by a shower of flowers, amid which, the Hero, sup- ported by his staff, is led to the entrance of the cathedral. Here he is met by the patriotic and revered Abbe Dubourg, clad in pontifical robes and supported by a college of priests. The reverend gentleman addresses him in a speech of more than ordinary eloquence, in which, Avhilst due praise is accorded to the Hero, the ascription of the higher glory is given to that Divine Source of all wisdom and goodness, by whose inspiration and influence those signal services were directed to the salvation of the country and the confusion and defeat of her enemies. Jackson replies briefly, tastefully, and modestly. He is then conducted into the cathedral and escorted to a conspicuous seat THE FESTIVITY AFTER THE VICTORY. 53 near the altar. Te Deictn is then chanted in the grand and impres- sive manner in which that melodious outburst of gratitude is usually rendered by the choirs of the Roman Catholic Church. The people join in the noble hymn. The gallant battalion d'Orleans guards the entrance of the cathedral and fills the aisles. The war-worn counte- nances of the young Creoles next to the person of the General, are objects of warmest regard to the hundreds of mothers, wives, sisters and lovers, who crowd the interior of the cathedral on this joyful occasion. The ceremony being concluded, Jackson retired to his quarters. That night the whole city was illuminated. At last, the people, wearied by the Avild enthusiasm and inexhaustible joyfulness of the great event, sunk into slumbers that were no longer disturbed by dreams of sack, ruin, bloodshed, and devastation. And so concluded the triumphal festivity of New Orleans, which had been so miracu- lously saved from dishonor and destruction. THE NEW OKLEANS BENCH AND BAK IN 1823. [From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1888, by Harper & Brothers.] BY CHARLES GAYABEE. FOE a long while [in Louisiana] it was almost of absolute necessity that the judges should understand both the English and French lan- guages ; and in consequence of the motley composition of our cosmopo- lite population, there was in every court a permanently appointed interpreter, who, as a sworn and regular officer thereof, translated the evidence, the testimony of the witnesses, and, when necessary, the charges of the judge to the jurors. Our jurisprudence was based on the laws of Spain and on the Napoleon Code, which had been adopted by our Legislature with such modifications as had been thought advis- able. The commentaries of French and Spanish jurists, with decis- ions of the tribunals of the two countries of which Louisiana had successively been the colony, were daily and extensively quoted as authorities. The juries being composed of men some of whom did not understand one word of French, and others equally as ignorant of the English, it became imperative on litigants to employ in each case on both sides two lawyers, one speaking French, the other English, and supposed to command individually the sympathies of that portion of the population to which they belonged. Under such circumstances and exigencies the trial of cases was necessarily long and expensive. The petitions and answers, the citations, and all writs whatever, were usually in both languages ; and the records containing the testimony of witnesses, and original documents with their indispensable trans- lations, were oppressively voluminous. Will the reader accompany me to one of the district courts of the old regime ;, and witness some of the judicial proceedings of the epoch ( The presiding judge is Joshua Lewis, a high-minded gentleman, if not a profound jurist, who commands universal esteem in the community where he has come to reside. As irreproachable in his private as in his public life, Judge Lewis was born in Kentucky, and did honor both to his native and to his adopted State. When the British in- vaded Louisiana he hastened to descend from the bench, shouldered his rifle, and bravely met them on the plains of Chalmette. Asso- ciating much with the ancient population, he had learned but a little THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823. 55 of their language, sufficient, however, to state in a few Avords, clearly if not grammatically, to a jury who understood only French, what law was applicable to the case on which they were to decide. The lawyers retained in the case to be tried are Alfred llennen for the plaintiff, an Anglo-Saxon American, and Etienne Mazureau for the defendant, a French Creole. Hennen is from Xew England. He is a tall, well-formed, massive man, with a handsome, benevolent face, glowing with the warm tints of a florid complexion, which denotes his Northern origin. He is invincibly self-possessed, and no provoca- tion can throw him off his guard in his fortress of cold and passionless reserve. Nothing can ruffle his temper ; and if the attempt is made he turns it off with a good-natured laugh, which blunts the edge of his adversary's weapon. He is an erudite, but plain, dry, plodding, practical lawyer, who never aims at any fancy flight of eloquence. He has a large and well-furnished library, which he liberally puts at the disposal of his friends. He is laboriously industrious, and always comes into court with a long string of authorities, which he uses as a lasso to throw round the neck of his opponent. He is not much addicted to urge upon the court argumentative deductions from the broad principles of jurisprudence, but prefers relying on an over- whelming avalanche of precedents and numerous decisions, gathered from far and wide, in cases which he deems similar to his own. His fees amount to a large income, of which he takes thrifty care, although he lives according to the exigencies of his social position. He is a conspicuous and worthy member of the Presbyterian Church. He is abstemious in his habits, very fond of exercise on horseback and on foot, and a strict observer of the rules and prescriptions of hygiene. Like all members of the legal profession from the other States of the Union, he much prefers the common to the civil law, the latter being looked upon by them as an abortive creation of the Latin mind, which they hold, of course, to be naturally inferior to the Anglo-Saxon intellect. The lawyer on the other side is Etienne Mazureau, a native of France, who has emigrated to Louisiana in search of a better fortune, and who in a few years has risen to be one of the magnates of the New Orleans bar. Of a medium size, compactly built, with flashing dark eyes, intensely black hair, and a brown complexion, he is a per- fect specimen of the Southern type, as if to the manner and to the manor born. He is of an ardent temperament, and the sacred tire of the orator glows in his breast. He is an adroit and most powerful logician, but on certain occasions his eloquence becomes tempestuous. He delights in all the studies appertaining to his profession, and pos- sesses a most extensive and profound knowledge of the civil law, from 56 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. the twelve tables of Eome and the Institutes of Justinian to the Napoleon Code. He is also thoroughly familiar with the Spanish jurisprudence, which is derived from the same source. He is deeply versed in the common law, which, however, when the opportunity presents itself, it is his special pleasure to ridicule and treat with spite- ful depreciation. He is not free from a certain degree of arrogance, based on the consciousness he has of his learning and of the superiority of his splendid intellectual powers. When irritated by what he thinks futile contradiction, he has a provoking way of throwing back his head, and of superciliously lifting at a right angle with surrounding objects a nose whose nostrils dilate with contempt. He is particularly elated when in his forensic conflicts he triumphs over an Anglo-Saxon member of the bar to whom he happens to have taken a special dislike. His voice is superb, now calmly argumentative, now tremulous with passion, and frequently derisive, with sneers and sarcasms as sharply pointed as the savagest arrow. Aggressive by nature, he sometimes affects the most dulcet tones of conciliatory placidity, and when he thus transforms himself he is more to be dreaded than when he is apparently in one of his fiercest moods. He is a terror to the wit- nesses of the adverse party, whom he likes to browbeat and to keep broiling on the gridiron of his torturing inquisition. His invectives, when prompted by indignation, wrath, or any other cause of excite- ment, are a sort of tropical hurricane. He is too proud and lofty to ever have recourse to the petty trickeries and snap judgments of the minnows of his noble profession, and never takes any undue and un- gentlemanly advantage of his brethren at law. He is equally great and successful in civil and criminal cases. Hence his income is very large ; but he has a peculiar knack at getting into debt and parting with his money in the most unaccountable manner. He has this characteristic in common with many men of splendid abilities, through whose pockets silver and gold run as through a sieve, much to the mortification of their creditors. These were the two men pitted against each other in the case to which we call the attention of the reader. The plaintiff had bought a tract of land measuring, as stated in the act of sale, twenty arpents, fronting the Mississippi, and running on that line from an oak on the lower limit to a willow on the upper one. After the completion of the sale and payment of the price, it was discovered that the front of the tract measured twenty-five arpents instead of twenty. The pur- chaser claimed these twenty-five arpents, but the defendant was will- ing to surrender only twenty. Hence the suit brought by the plaintiff to be put in possession of what he claimed to have bought and paid for, and therefore his property. THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823. 57 Hennen had made himself acquainted with the French language, and Mazureau spoke English with great fluency, so that, contrary to what habitually took place, there was but one lawyer employed on either side. " Oyez ! oyez ! The honorable First District Court of the State of Louisiana is in session ! " cries the sheriff in a loud and clear voice. " Gentlemen . of the jury summoned in this case," says the clerk, "please answer to your names." After this is clone, the jurors are called to the sacred book. Here a struggle ensues between the two lawyers about the com- position of the jury. Hennen challenges as many of the Creoles and naturalized French as he can, and Mazureau does the same with the Americans. At last the jury is formed nine of the Latin race, and three of the Anglo-Saxon. On Mazureau's lips may be seen a smile of satisfaction. Hennen has a troubled look. Let us give a little of our attention to the manner in which that jury had been sworn. Clerk to the first juror : " You swear that "- First Juror : " Je n'entends pas. Parlez franyais" (I don't understand. Speak French.) Clerk : " All right." And the oath is administered in French. Second juror approaches to qualify. Clerk: " Vomjurezque"- Second Juror : " I don't understand. Speak English." Clerk: " All right." And the second juror, duly sworn in his vernacular, takes his seat ; and so on to the last of the twelve, each one insisting on being addressed in his own maternal tongue. Judge : " Mr. Augustin Macarty, I appoint you foreman of this jury." On hearing which, Mazureau allows again an expression of ap- proval to beam all over his face. Macarty is of an ancient and high- toned family. He has served several years as mayor of the city, and is uncompromisingly conservative in all his views and feelings the very embodiment of the old regime. It was he who, in his official capacity, as reported, and backed by public opinion, had caused the first cargo of ice brought to New Orleans to be thrown into the river as a measure of public safety, because cold drinks in the summer would affect throats and lungs, and would make consumptive the whole popu- lation. He might have added, perhaps with more propriety, that liquor refrigerated by ice might become more tempting, more provoca- tive of thirst, and that the sweet indulgence might lead to a habit injurious to health. Be it as it may, we will venture to say something 58 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. in support of the objection of dear old Macarty to the introduction of this new crystallized luxury. Are we sure that he was as absurdly ridiculous as some people may think, when we recollect that consump- tion, now so common among us, was almost unknown before the arrival of that ill-fated ship with its load of hyperborean product, which was soon succeeded by more welcome importations of the same kind ? But let us return to the trial. Hennen rises, and after a slight bow to the court and jury, reads to them the petition and answer, written in English and French as required. Then he says : " This case, as your honor sees, is founded on Article 2495 of the Civil Code, which reads as follows : " ' There can be neither increase nor diminution of price on account of disagreement in measure when the object is designated by the adjoin- ing tenements and sold from boundary to boimdary? " This is the law on which is based the claim of my client. As to the facts alleged in the plaintiff's petition, they are admitted by the defendant, who demands five thousand dollars more for the five arpents fronting the river, with the usual depth of forty arpents ; but he is not entitled to that increase of price, considering that the extent on the front line was designated by an oak and a willow that clearly marked the boundaries of the tract. If there were between these designated limits only fifteen arpents instead of twenty, the purchaser, my client, would be entitled to no diminution of the price to be paid by him, and on the same principle, when there are twenty-five arpents instead of twenty, the defendant cannot claim an increase of the sum for which the sale has been effected. This is made so plain by the words of the article of the Civil Code cited by me that I cannot con- ceive the object of the defendant in incurring the expenses of this litigation. He cannot but know that the verdict of this jury, con- firmed by your honor, will be against him, and probably he only aims, for some purpose which I cannot imagine, at retaining possession as long as he can of the property for which he has received the stipulated price." Then turning to the jury, he said : " Gentlemen, as the facts in this case are admitted, I have no evidence to introduce. It now becomes your duty to apply the law to those facts, and its text is so plain that its meaning cannot be a matter of doubt in anybody's mind." During this address, which we summarily reproduce, the French and Creole members of the jury had been showing signs of impatience, and it ended in this interrogation from Foreman Macarty : " Mr. Hennen, do you really presume to induce us to grant twenty-five arpents to your client when the act of sale only says twenty ? " THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823. 59 Hennen : " The words of the contract are that the plaintiff- bought a tract of land of twenty arpents, with the usual depth, extending, on the line fronting the river, from a certain oak to a certain willow that indicated the boundaries. As to the law, it says that the designation of visible limits, and not the specification of the number of arpents mentioned, is the criterion to ascertain the area of the land intended to be transferred by the seller to the purchaser." Foreman Macarty, after having exchanged, in a whisper, a few hasty words with his French colleagues, takes a square attitude in his seat, with all the indications of a man who is going to assert an irrev- ocable decision. He fixes a steady eye on Hennen, and says, in a peremptory tone : " Mr. Hennen, we are satisfied that the defendant never intended to sell, nor the plaintiff to buy, more than twenty arpents fronting the river. We don't care for your oak and your willow. It is useless for you to trouble us with such a preposterous claim. Your client is not honest, sir. It is wrong on his part to try to avail himself of an evi- dent mistake of the defendant as to the quantity of land he thought he was selling. He certainly would have asked a larger sum if he had not been deceived on the subject. We are indignant, sir ! " Hennen, blandly : " I regret, Mr. Macarty, your misconception of the case. Allow me to say to you that I regret it for the sake of the two parties to this suit. If you persist in your views, if a verdict is rendered against the plaintiff, I will certainly appeal to the Supreme Court, who will reverse it. Meanwhile you will have done an injury to my client, whose taking possession of the land he has paid for will be delayed to his detriment, and by the prolongation of this litigation you will be the cause of inflicting on the defendant heavier costs than he would otherwise have had to pay. I beg the Court to instruct the jury as to the law which is to govern their final decision." Judge : " Gentlemen of the jury, Mr. Hennen has correctly quoted the law to you. Your duty is to enforce its application in accordance with the legislative will, and not to suit your own individual notions of the just or unjust." Macarty : " We beg leave to remain mindful of a higher law than the one which we are desired to enforce, a law implanted in our hearts by God himself the law of honesty, the law of conscience." Judge : " I feel bound to tell you that I believe the Supreme Court will not sanction your views, and will probably reverse your verdict." Macarty : " That is the affair of the Supreme Court. Ours is to act according to our conscience." This conversation had been carried on in French. All the while the three Anglo-Saxon members of the jury looked vacantly at every 60 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. object in the court-room, and probably were wondering at the cause and meaning of all this hubbub. As to Mazureau, he seemed to be in a satisfactory condition of mind, and had been repeatedly giving nods of approbation whenever Macarty spoke. Raising his spectacles high up on his forehead above his brows, which with him was known to be a sign that he considered his work done, and that he could rest con- tented, he had thrown himself back on his chair, which he caused to tilt on its hind legs, and it was evident that he was keenly enjoying his adversary's prompt defeat, when it had not been necessary for him even to utter a single word to bring about this result. But Hennen was not a man to be easily discouraged, and getting a little more animated than was his habit, he said : " Gentlemen of the jury, allow me, under the pleasure of the Court, to state to you respect- fully that it is the conscience of the law that you are bound to consult here, and not your self-assumed notions of right and wrong, or what you call your conscience, in administering justice in the courts of your country in conformity with the obligations of the solemn oath which you have taken. There is not a lawyer at the bar who will not tell you that this is the correct doctrine to be adopted by you in the dis- charge of your duties as jurors. I even appeal on this point to the eloquent orator, to the profound jurist, to whom we all look as a safe guide in all matters of law. I appeal to Mr. Mazureau himself, who appears here for the defendant." A sneering expression of cynical triumph which had spread over Mazureau' s face immediately vanished ; he put on an air of sympa- thetic compassion for the embarrassment in which his opponent found himself, and in that ominously most dulcet tone of voice which he sometimes assumed, and which was generally indicative of the forth- coming of some fatal thrust, he said : " Mr. Hennen, will you permit me to address you one question ? " Hennen : " Certainly, sir ; at your pleasure." Mazureau : " Are you not from New England ? " Hennen : " Yes, sir." Mazureau : " "Well, in that land of your nativity, was it not lawful to burn old women as witches ? " Hennen, looking somewhat perplexed, stammered out : " It occasion- ally happened in former times." Mazureau sprang up with flashing eyes, shaking his fist dramati- cally at Hennen, and with a loud burst of his sonorous voice he thun- dered out : " Would you have executed that law ? "Would you have burned old women at the stake ? Would you have lighted up the fire I Which of the two authorities would you have obeyed on that occasion that conscience which God has placed in your heart, or the fanatical THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823. 61 dictate of an impious legislation ? I will not insult you by doubting your choice. And now how is it that you expect these high-minded men, these intelligent jurors, to do what you would not yourself have done ? Why should they not in these days follow the example which you would have given them in former times, which is, to trample upon any immoral and nefarious law that violates the most sacred feelings of conscience and the principles of common justice between man and man ? " He paused, as if to take breath and allow his emotion to subside. Then, with calm dignity : " May it please the Court, I have no more to say. The case is closed on my part." And he looked significantly at the French and Creole members of the jury, who could hardly refrain from loudly expressing their applause. Hennen stood bewildered for a minute or two, but recovering him- self, he said : " May it please the Court, I have only a few words to address to those members of the jury who do not understand French." After this had been done, a short charge was delivered by the judge in English and in French, and the jury retired to their room. Every- body present thought that they could not possibly agree. In their chamber, as soon as they entered it, the jurors of the Latin race grouped themselves in a corner, talking excitedly, and looking doggedly determined not to yield an inch to the Yankees, who had sought the opposite corner, and were whispering together. This is what one of those Yankees said to his colleagues : " I cannot stay here long. I have most pressing business to attend to, and you also, I pre- sume." There was an assenting movement of the head from those Avho were thus addressed. " Well," continued he, " this is a plain case. There should be a verdict for the plaintiff. But those French and Creoles have no sense, you know. They are the creatures of prejudice or whim. They are not practical. Besides, they are particularly ob- stinate ; and as they never have anything to do, they will keep us here locked up God knows how long. Had we not better humor them ? It will do no harm to the plaintiff, for, as Hennen says, the Supreme Court will surely reverse our verdict," This suggestion being accepted, the Anglo-Saxon, advancing toward Macarty and pointing to the record which that gentleman held in his hand, said, with a look and tone of interrogation, " Vous, monsieur, for plaintiff, eh ? " Macarty shook his head negatively. " For defendant ? " Macarty gave an affirmative nod. "Eh Uen, nous aussi " (Well, we too), continued the Saxon, calling to his assistance these French words which he recollected, and which he put together as well as he could, whilst he pointed to his two friends as concurring in his opinion. Macarty understood the words and the action. His face became G2 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. radiant, and he exclaimed, " Je vois avec satisfaction, messieurs, que vous avez de 1'honneur et de la conscience, et que vous n'etes pas homines a donner vingt-cinq arpents a qui n'en a achete que vingt. Aliens, c'est bien ; c'est tres bien." (I see with satisfaction, gentlemen, that you are men of honor and have a conscience, and that you are not the men to give twenty-five arpents to one who has bought only twenty. It is well ; it is very well indeed.) Whereupon there was a general shaking of hands, and the jury returned to the court-room. The clerk announced, " Yerdict for the defendant." " Mr. Sheriff, discharge the jury," said the astonished judge. Hennen : " May it please the Court, I beg leave to file my motion of appeal from this extraordinary verdict." The judge nods assent, and descends slowly from the bench. Mazu- reau approaches Hennen, who is handing some papers to the clerk. They look at each other face to face, and both laugh heartily. They seem to be much amused at something. Mazureau pulls out his watch : " Oh, oh ! already four o'clock. It is dinner-time. Hennen, my house is close by. I have to-day a fat turkey aux truffles, and exquisite claret just received from Bordeaux. Suppose you join me ? " Willingly." And the two eminent lawyers went away arm in arm. Let us witness another jury trial, in which it happens that the two races are again divided. This contingency has been provided for, and it has been thought prudent on both sides to employ two lawyers, -one speaking English and the other French. John K. Grymes, of Vir- ginia, and Dominique Seghers, of Belgium, for plaintiff; Edward Livingston, of New York, and Moreau Lislet, of France, for de- fendant. John R. Grymes claims to belong to one of the first families of Yirginia, and of course is not destitute of a coat-of-arms. He is an elegant, distingue looking man, above the middle size, always fashion- ably well dressed, always systematically courteous. He brings to the bar some of the etiquette and forms observed in the saloons of refined society. He is never boisterous, loud, passionate, and rough in his tone and gesticulations. As an orator he could not rise to the altitude where dwell the thunder and lightning of heaven; he remains on earth, where, whatever may be for him the disadvantage of the sandy plain on which he stands, he wields with admirable effect the light, flexible, brightly polished, but cold Damascus steel blade of Saladin. As a lawyer, he has a lucid, logical mind, and speaks with the richest fluency, never being at a loss or hesitating about a word ; but that THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823. 63 word, although presenting itself with the utmost ease and confidence, is not always the proper one. His style is far from being classical, or even grammatical, but it is effective, it is persuasive, and the meaning which it intends to convey is understood without effort, even by the dullest. His pronunciation denotes at once his Virginian origin ; but his voice is musical, and his easy, pleasing flow of speech leaves no time and no desire to the hearer to analyze its constructive elements. There is nothing of the scholar in Grymes ; his collegiate education has been imperfect ; his reading is not extensive as to legal lore, nor anything else. - But there is infinite charm in his natural eloquence, and his powerful native intellect knows how to make the most skilful use of the materials which it gathers at random outside of any regular course of study and research. He has the reputation of never prepar- ing himself for the trial even of important cases, and he seems pleased to favor the spreading of that impression. He affects to come into court after a night of dissipation, and to take at once all his points and all the information which he needs from his associate in the case, and even from what he can elicit from his opponents during the trial. It is when he pretends to be least prepared, and has apparently to rely only on intuition and the inspiration of the moment, that his brightest and most successful efforts are made. Many have some doubts about the genuine reality of this phenomenon, and believe that Grymes works more in secret than he wants the public to know. No man was ever more urbanely sarcastic in words or pantomime. If the Court disagrees with him on any vital point, and lays down the law adversely to his views, he has a way of gracefullv and submis- sively bowing to the decision with a half -suppressed smile of derision, and with an expression of the face which clearly says to the by- standers : " I respect the magistrate, as you see, but what a goose that fellow is ! " There is in his habitual sneers a sort of amiability, a good-natured love of piquant fun, which protects them against the suspicion of malignity ; the shafts of his gilded bow scratch gently the skin with a perfumed steel point. He is a Chesterfield in his deportment toward all his colleagues of the bar ; but if too much chafed by any of them he snorts once or twice, as if attempting to expel some obstruction from his nostrils. This is a sign in him of rising hostility, and without losing his temper he becomes politely aggressive, and his usually edulcorated language assumes a sort of vitriolic pungency. No one possesses better than he does the art of ridiculing without giving positive offence. But he is careful to use it sparingly in court, although profusely addicted to it in social intercourse. He is extremely fond of advocating with the utmost gravity wild paradoxes, which he frequently makes the amusing sub- (i-i HISTORICAL SKETCHES. jects of conversation. lie stands among the highest in his profession, and exercises great influence over judges and jurors. He has a decided taste for luxurious living, for horse-racing, cock- fighting, and card-gambling. He would not brook the shadow of a word of disparagement, and on a point of honor would immediatelv, like all Southern gentlemen, appeal to the arbitration of the duello. Notwithstanding this sensitiveness, and the considerable fees which he annually receives for his services as a very able and popular member of the bar, there are few men known to be more dunned than he is. But he possesses privileges and immunities to Avhich nobody else could aspire; he is the Kichard Brinsley Sheridan of New Orleans. For instance, as an example of the liberties which he takes, if dunned too actively, he will give a check on any bank of which he bethinks him- self at the moment, and the person who presents it becomes an object of merriment. It is looked upon as done in fun. There is not, of course, any idea of swindling or of doing any real impropriety. It is only one of Grymes's practical jokes. He will pay in the end, as everybody knows, with any amount of interest in addition, and with- out questioning the rate. In those days of strongly marked individualities in New Orleans there was a man famous for collecting money from the most obdurate debtors, and he therefore was the favorite agent of creditors. His name was Dupeux. He was a terror to all those who indulged in the fancy that they could escape from the payment of what they owed. It might have been possible if there had been no Dupeux in the world, but as there Avas a Dupeux, it was impossible. He was the constable of one of our justices of the peace, but he never himself resorted to law. He had other means of coercion in his bag. Once on the track of a debtor, he never lost sight of him. That debtor felt at once that he was doomed, for he soon discovered that he was haunted more frightfully than by a ghost. Wherever he was, by day and by night, if there was any imaginable access to him, there suddenly stood in his presence the inevitable Dupeux, with his pale, supplicating face, ex- pressive of the agony of too long deferred hope of payment, and with the same Gorgon bill in his hand. No tempest of curses and threats could frighten him away never to return ; and when his bodily pres- ence could be avoided, still his mournful, piteous face and its mute appeal remained visible through the debtor's imagination. It became an insupportable obsession, and it sometimes happened that, to get rid of it, the persecuted victim of debt would in a fit of desperation start in pursuit of Dupeux to hasten a payment which had been hitherto pertinaciously delayed or absolutely refused. Such was the individual who, one morning very early, met Grymes THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 18S3. 65 sallying from a house where he had gambled with friends during the whole night. Dupeux approached reverentially the great lawyer, and with a pathetic gesture presented the bill for which he had been dun- ning that personage for several months. " Ah, my friend ! " exclaimed Grymes, " what a lucky coincidence ! You happen to meet me when I am flush. By-the-bye, put off that doleful face of yours ; it gives me the chills. Well, how much is the bill, Dupeux my poor Dupeux ? " " Twenty-five dollars, Mr. Grymes." " Is that all ? My conscience smites me for having made you wait so long, and you have been so patient, too ! You are an angel, Du- peux my poor Dupeux ! " And he pulled out of his pocket a very large bundle of bank-notes, from which he extracted one, that he handed over to the collector, saying, " Pay yourself." " This is a one-hundred-dollar note, Mr. Grymes. How can I get change at this hour when all the banks and shops are closed ? " said Dupeux, in a whining tone. " Have you not smaller notes ? " " Trouble not yourself about the change, my friend ; keep it all, Dupeux my poor Dupeux ! Let the balance of seventy-five dollars go toward indemnifying you for all the shoes that you have worn in your perambulations after me. Good-by, and may you have an appe- tite for breakfast, Dupeux my poor Dupeux ! " Such was John R. Grymes, the most careless of men about money, coining it by the bushel, and squandering it in the same way. But toward the end of his life he became more economical, honorably paid all his debts, and left to his family a competency when he died at a ripe old age. Dominique Seghers, his colleague in the suit, was a perfect type of the red-tape old French avoue of the ancient regime. He looked into every case intrusted to his care con amore, almost with paternal affec- tion. For, was he not to give it a legal existence, a judicial shape or form, that would be faultless ? Besides, he loved to handle and manip- ulate the law, so as to show what his skill could do with it. Such is the love of the artist for the instrument to which he is indebted for his fortune and his fame. The very moment a subject of litigation was placed in his hands, he doubted not of its being founded in law, and if that law was not apparent, he felt convinced that by dint of patient researches he would discover in the end that the projected suit could be based on some article of the Civil Code, some special statute, some applicable precedent, some decision of court, if not on the broad principles of jurisprudence. For him professionally there was no right or wrong outside of the text of the law. Everything else was vaporous sentimentality, sheer romance. He was essentially practical. To go to court was to go to war, 5 66 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. and the participants in it were to take the consequences. Strategic manoeuvres ending in a surprise that defeated a too confident or inexperienced adversary were, according to his views, nothing but fair play. As to himself, he went into the conflict armed to the teeth with every offensive and defensive weapon, from the big gun of massive argument to the penknife quibble of the smallest size. For who knows but what the feather may be adjudged of weight, when the granite block will be declared to have none ? Who knew this better than Seghers ? And thus he neglected nothing to insure success. It was his business to gain his case : that of the court or of the jury was 'to decide correctly. If they erred, whose responsibility was it ? Not his surely if in duty to his client he had misled them by some iynits fatuus. Within -the precincts of the court, within the range of his profession, he proceeded with the caution of an Indian creeping stealthily into the territory of a hostile tribe, and looking anxiously for an enemy behind every bush and tree. He gave no quarter, and asked for none. There never was a microscope more effective than the one with which Seghers examined every word, every syllable, every comma, in his adversary's pleadings, and there never was any false step, any negligence, any defect or omission of legal formalities, of \vhich old Seghers hesitated to take immediate advantage. I say " old Seghers," because in my youth I never heard his name mentioned without the addition of that adjective. It seemed as if he had never been sus- pected of ever having been young. Nothing could have been more instructive for a young practitioner than to study attentively every petition or answer that Seghers ever filed in court. They were written with a skill and minute care that defied criticism. It was evident that he had left no loop-hole through which his opponent could stick a pin, and woe to that opponent if he got entangled in the spider's web against which he bumped his head ! As to himself, he never entered any battle-field of litigation unless encased in a double-plated suit of armor ten inches in thickness, and without having protected his position, whenever it was possible, with all sorts of pitfalls and traps. He had to contend against a peculiar and very serious impediment for a man of his profession. It was the extreme difficulty which lie had to express himself. In court he painfully struggled for words. , They stuck in his throat ; and when at last they came out, it was as if they had forced their Avay through an obstructed passage. It was in a jumbling sort of way. There was an elbowing, a pushing, a tramp- ling upon one another, as people generally do when in a too closely packed crowd. But he patiently took his time to evolve order out of THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823. 67 confusion. No interruptions from court or jury, or from the adverse party, however frequently repeated, could put him out of countenance. If continued too long, for the evident purpose of increasing the dis- array of his words, if not of his ideas, and enfeebling his laboriously uttered arguments, he would stop, and phlegmatically show his annoy- ance at it by merely turning up his eyes to heaven, seemingly as a mute appeal for the grant of sufficient patience to support him under the inflicted vexations. But after a while he would start again, in his humdrum style, precisely from the point where the thread of his dis- course had been cut off. I need not mention, for it might be easily inferred, that in his every-day life Seghers was as methodical and precise as in his pro- fessional one. His physical appearance would easily have denoted the inward man to a physiognomist. There was a great deal of character in his features. They were strongly marked a sharp, long face ; a large mouth ; a much-protruding and big nose ; gray eyes partici- pating of the elongated olive shape, with furtive and oblique glances to detect anything suspicious, from whatever part of the horizon it might come ; large flat ears that stuck close to the sides of the head, and for which no approach of a velvet-footed cat would have been noiseless. This gentleman acquired by his profession a considerable fortune. Among the Americans who had come to New Orleans to better their fortune, none was so distinguished as Edward Livingston. He was of an illustrious family, and before emigrating to the extreme South he had been mayor of the city of New York. He had not been long in the place which he had chosen for his new sphere of action before he gave ample evidence of his superb talents. He at once became one of the leading members of the bar, notwithstanding his having enemies who spread evil reports against him, and his having incurred a great deal of unpopularity in consequence of the part , he took in the famous " batture case," which gave rise to riots in New Orleans and to an acrimonious controversy between Thomas Jefferson and himself, in which he showed that he was at least equal, if not superior, to his great adversary. He, however, manfully and success- fully battled against the numerous obstacles which he met in his way. He was possessed of too much genius and firmness of nerve to be kept down and prevented from rising up, eagle-like, to the altitude where he could freely expand his wings and breathe in his native empyreal element. Conquering prejudices, calumnies, and envy, he grew rapidly, as he became better known and appreciated, upon the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens in his newly elected home, and was sent to represent Louisiana in the Senate of the United States. 68 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. His career as such, as Secretary of State under the Presidency of General Jackson, and as Minister Plenipotentiary in France, is well known. For the present I have only to deal with him as a mem- ber of the New Orleans bar, where he towered up as one of its giants. Edward Livingston was tall and spare in body, and with strong, clear-cut features, which denoted his Scotch ancestry. The habitual expression of his face was meditative and rather austere, but his smile was indicative of the benignity of his heart. He was mild in manner, courteous, dignified, and indefatigably laborious. The pleasures of society did not seem to have much attraction for him. To change the nature of his occupation was sufficient relief and rest for his tem- perament, and even a diversion much more to his taste than any other. He was a profound jurist and an accomplished scholar. Which of the two predominated, it would have been difficult to tell. He managed his cases in court with admirable self-possession. It was the calm con- sciousness of strength ; it was the serene majesty of intellect. There was no sparring, no wrangling, no browbeating. When he rose to speak, the attention of the judge, jurors, members of the bar, and everybody in court was instantly riveted. All knew that they were to listen to what was worth hearing. There were no flashy declama- tions, no unbecoming carpings, no hair-splitting, no indecorous clap- trap, no tinsel ornament, no stage thunder, no flimsy sophistical argumentation, no idle straggling words. His discourse was compact and robust ; his language was terse and pure. His eloquence was of the classical order, and uniformly elegant. It would, in forensic debates, flow at first with the modesty of a gentle stream, but by degrees, swelling and rushing like the mighty tide of the ocean, it would overflow far and wide, and leave to opposition not an inch of ground to stand upon. Moreau Lislet, his associate in the case which we have supposed ready for trial, is a rotund Frenchman past the meridian of life. His eyes sparkle with good-natured wit under the large spectacles which bestride his small nose. Everything seems soft in him, even his bones. His flesh is tremulous, like blancmange or a jelly, and as yielding under the touch. His hands are diminutive and plump. He does not look formidable, does he ? No. Well, you had better beware of him. He is an artesian well of legal lore deep, very deep. He is one of those two or three jurists who were intrusted by the Legislature with the work of adapting the Napoleon Code to the wants and circumstances of Louisiana under her new institutions. He has no pretensions to oratory. He addresses the court or the jury in a sort of conversa- tional, familiar way. He is always in a good humor, which is com- THE NEW ORLEANS BENCH AND BAR IN 1823. 69 mimicative. He is a very great favorite with the judges, the clerks, the sheriffs, the jurors, the members of the bar in fact, with every- body. He is so kind, so benevolent, so amiable in all his dealings and sayings ! His bonhomie is so captivating ! Of so sympathizing a nature is he that, for instance, he sometimes takes up his adversary's side of the question, admits that there is a good deal to say in his favor, and says it and shows it too. He will even go so far as to pre- sent it to the court in its very best aspect. But after having thus acted with such kindness and impartiality toward his opponent, he pathetically apologizes for destroying all his hopes and illusions, regrets that his claim is not founded on the "law and evidence appli- cable to the case, demonstrates it beyond the shadow of a doubt, and finally exterminates the poor fellow with a sigh of compassion over his hard fate. Ho, ho ! beware of Moreau Lislet and of his bon- homie ! The case in which these four gentlemen were engaged was a jury one. It was in the latter part of June, and exceedingly hot. When Grymes, for the plaintiff, rose to address the jury in English, one of its members who did not understand a single word of that language, speaking in the name of such of his colleagues as were in the same predicament, begged the judge on that ground to allow them to leave their seats, and be permitted to inhale the fresh air under the arcades of the building in which the court held its session. This was gra- ciously permitted, and during one hour that Grymes spoke the Gallic portion of the jurors enjoyed their promenade and their cigars in the cool breeze that came from the river. When Grymes had done, and Seghers, on the same side, rose in his turn, the voice of the sheriff was heard crying loudly, " Gentlemen of the jury who are outside, please come into court." They immediately filed in and gravely resumed their seats. Seghers had hardly said a few words in French when the Anglo-Saxon jurors, on their application for a similar favor, were also permitted to stretch their legs under the same arcades, and to pass their time as comfortably as they could. The repetition of this scene took place when Livingston and Moreau Lislet spoke alternately. This was of daily occurrence at that epoch. After a little while everybody became reconciled to what at first had been thought an intolerable inconvenience or annoyance. In the course of time the high-spirited and light-limbed Latin genet and the massive, slower-tempered Saxon horse, being both harnessed to the car of justice, learned to pull together, and contrived by some means or other to make its wheels work smoothly, notwithstanding the natural difficulties of the road. The qualifications to be a juror were then of 70 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. a higher order than those which have been since required, and if the echoes which are wafted to me in my retreat from our courts of justice are faithful expressions of the public sentiment on the sub- ject, I must come to the conclusion that trials by jury sixty years ago, notwithstanding certain eccentricities from which they were not free, gave rise to fewer complaints than those of the present day. THE OAKS. THE OLD DUELLING-GROUNDS OF NEW ORLEANS.* BY JOHN AUGUSTIN. [JOHN AUGUSTIN was born in New Orleans, February 11, 1838. His volume, War Flowers (1865), is a collection of poems that were written by him during his service in the Confederate Army. He held, at different times, the city editorship of nearly every newspaper of New Orleans. He died February 5, 1888.] UNDER the wide-spreading oaks of ancient Gaul the consecrated Druids with golden sickle cut the holy mistletoe that sanctified their foreheads in the stern celebration of their rites of blood. Happy was the victim offered in sacrifice ; for to die was to know, and to go for- ward knowing, in that eternity of progressive acquirements and bliss which ended in the perfection of knowledge, the sublime identification with nature on some ultimate star, radiant with omniscience and musical with the rhythmic pulsations of eternal peace. I cannot sit of a calm evening under the pensive oaks, from whose gray beards, waving under the sway of the breeze, comes a murmur as of a prayer and prophecy, without reverting to that stern yet hope- ful creed of Eunic times, which held knowledge to be the supreme good, and pointed to sacrificial death as the first step to its acquire- ment. It is curious that rites of blood should have been the foundation of every religion. Even the meek and divine Jesus found it necessary to die on the cross so that humanity might be saved. There is a prob- lem full of yet unfathomed meaning in this perpetual theory of blood atonement. Else why the traditional sanctity of war and the undying fame which attaches to successful military chieftains, loftier than the apotheosis of saints ? Why the glamour around the heroes of knight errantry, riding alone and full-armed in search of blood to spill for the redressing of wrong ? Why the trial by single combat, introduced by Holy Church and but recently fallen into disfavor ? ##**#-K#-* Where the Metairie Ridge, slightly undulating, barely breaks the monotonous flatness of the hazy landscape, standing near the dilapi- dated tomb of Louis Allard, such thoughts crossed the mind of the * [Written in 1887.] 72 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. writer as he gradually became enveloped in the dark shadows which the rays of the setting sun slanted from the oaks of the Lower City Park. These oaks were formerly known as the " Chenes d'Allard," other- wise called " Metairie oaks." These, also, in their time, witnessed rites of blood, and lent their protecting shade to many a preconcerted, solemn and deadly encounter between man and man. A short walk from the terminus of the Bayou Road street-car line in New Orleans, at the foot of Esplanade Street, after crossing the bridge over Bayou St. John, brings the visitor in front of a magnifi- cent little forest of gigantic live oaks. It is the Lower City Park, in former days a wooded plantation belonging to Louis Allard. This gentleman, who was a man of letters and a poet, owned all that tract of land extending from Bayou St. John to the Orleans Canal, and from the Metairie Road to the old toll-gate. That portion .of it which is now called the Lower City Park was purchased previous to his death by the millionnaire philanthropist, John McDonogh, at a sale made for foreclosure of mortgage by the Citizens' Bank of Louisiana. McDonogh left it by will to the cities of New Orleans and Baltimore, and the city of New Orleans acquired it in full owner- ship at the partition sale. During the latter portion of his life, Allard, who, being a poet, was an indifferent business man, crippled in health and fortune, was per- mitted, after the sale, by special agreement, to continue his occupation of the place. There he would spend all his days, reclining in an arm- chair under his beloved oaks, reading his favorite authors and dream- ing of what might have been. He died not long after the sale of his property, and in compliance with his clying wish lies buried in the old place under the very oak where the last years of his life had been spent. A few bricks, uncared for, a tomb burst open by time and ruthless hands, protected from the sun and rain by the faithful boughs of his favorite oak, mark his resting-place. To one coming from the Metairie Road, this tomb is on a wooded plain in the rear, well to the right of the park proper, from which it is divided by a small, swampy ravine, crossed by a primitive wooden bridge. From its site, glancing obliquely to the left, the legendary oaks rear their majestic heads in solemn grandeur. Scarcely half a century has passed over these centenarians since Louis Allard, in the full vigor of youth, walked under their branches. Allard is dead. McDonogh, who purchased from him, is also gone, leaving behind him, as undying monuments, the public schools with which he has gifted the city. A terrible war between two sections of our great country has changed and revolutionized the entire social sys- THE OAKS. 73 tern of the South. But the grand oaks are still the same, solemnly brooding at night over memories of the past. Perhaps their gnarled trunks are somewhat more rugged ; but they are as majestic and vigor- ous as ever, their green boughs throwing back the sunlight with all the brightness and elasticity of everlasting youth. But the fame of the Metairie oaks does not rest upon the poetry or scholarly accomplishments of their former proprietor, nor upon the memory of the philanthropist who bequeathed them to the city, nor upon the sturdy strength or the perennial youth of their green branches ; the great interest that lingers among them comes from the memories which they recall, and it is the witchery of tradition that makes them immortal. The antithetic lights and shades of their leafy arcades, typical of a state of society where tragedy and gayety walked side by side in chivalrous converse, take back our memories to a period scarcely fifty years remote, when it was an every-day occurrence to see under these very branches a meeting of adversaries in mortal combat, with rapier or pistol, sabre or shotgun. At that time New Orleans, though even then to a degree cosmo- politan, was essentially a Creole city, and under the full influence of the traditions which governed that high-strung and chivalrous race. The descendants of the early possessors of the soil, many of whom were of aristocratic blood, had grown up with the more plebeian sons of the other settlers, and, what with education in common, received in Europe or at the College d' Orleans in this city, what with intermar- riages, the habit of command acquired from the ownership of slaves, and the refining influence of well-employed leisure, formed a sort of aristocracy from which the South derived some of its brightest intel- lects. It was a nobility less of birth than of manners, breeding, edu- cation, and tradition. Besides, life was easy in New Orleans at that time, for the city was not only a great place of import and export from its position near the Gulf, but owing to its river facilities, not yet antagonized by the rail- roads, it controlled with scarcely any competition the whole trade of the West. Money was therefore acquired without the absorbing and deleteri-. ous consequences of incessant labor ; there was time left to merchants and clerks for mental culture, and imagination was not, by the nature of things, excluded from the active world. The women, bred at home, under a mother's jealous surveillance, educated by the best private teachers or at the renowned Convent of the Ursuline Nuns, were versed in arts and letters. Invariably treated with the most deferential gallantry by the men, none of whom were 74 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. ever known to smoke or otherwise demean themselves in the presence of a lady, they had naturally acquired manners of great refinement and distinction. The world and society were therefore of courtly brilliancy. Mer- chants and lawyers were incidentally poets and wits, and the ladies accomplished musicians. Over all this : over men and women, there ruled a supreme sense of dignity and honor, maintained by the strictest and most unflinching public opinion. At that time bankrupts committed suicide, and women fallen from virtue disappeared and were never heard from. There was no compro- mise with honor ; society did not permit it. Under this moral condition of affairs, the punctilio among men was strict even to exaggeration. The least breach of etiquette, the most venial sin against politeness, the least suspicion thrown out of unfair dealing, even a bit of awkwardness, were causes sufficient for a cartel, which none dared refuse. The acceptance, however, did not mean that the quarrel must inevi- tablv be settled on the field. The seconds, two on each side, discussed the quarrel dispassionately, sometimes with the assistance of mutual friends, and often arrived at an amicable and honorable settlement. A blow was strictly forbidden, and sufficient to debar the striker from the privilege of the duello. A gentleman who would so far for- get himself as to strike another, was exposed to the ignominy of being refused a meeting. Some who have so lost their self-possession have been known to submit to the greatest humiliation in order to obtain from their adversary an exchange of shots or a crossing of swords. Nor even was an insult permitted to go beyond a certain decorum of form. Experienced friends, well versed in the law and precedents of the code, settled beforehand every nice point, so that the adversaries met under the oaks in full equality, morally and socially. How many a bloody combat originated in a ballroom, where the cause of the difficulty passed unnoticed by all ! Said a gentleman to a much-courted lady dancing in a brilliant ballroom : " Honor me with half of this dance ? " " Ask monsieur,'' answered the lady ; " it belongs to him." "Never," spoke the dancer, when appealed to, whirling past in the waltz, and just caught the words softly spoken by smiling lips as he passed by : " Ah, vous etes mal eleve." Not a word more was said that night between the two gentlemen, though they subsequently met and bowed ; but early the next morning THE OAKS. 75 the flippant talker received a challenge, and in the evening a neat coup droit under the oaks at the Metairie. So well recognized was the code by all who had any pretensions to good breeding, that even judges on the bench would resent an insult from lawyers at the bar. A typical anecdote of the time is here given as exemplifying the then existing feeling about the duello. Judge Joachim Bermudez, father of the present * Chief Justice of the State, while on the bench, made a ruling against a certain lawyer, who objected in rather unbecoming terms. He was ordered to sit down, and refused ; whereupon the judge ordered the sheriff to take him into custody for contempt of court. Drawing a pistol, the lawyer defied the sheriff, who feared to advance. The judge, leaping from his bench, seized the lawyer by the arm and handed him to a police officer, who led him to prison. The judge soon after ordered his release. That evening he received a challenge from the lawyer, which was promptly accepted. On the field the lawyer offered to apologize ; but that was not permitted by the code. Never, on the field. The judge absolutely refused any apology, and the lawyer had to leave the country. He could not have practised, after this, before the courts of the State. The oaks of the Metairie, or " Chenes d'Allard," did not become a place of rendezvous for duellists until the year 1834. Previous to this the favorite place for fighting was the Fortin property, now the Fair Grounds. The fact is, New Orleans being then but sparsely built in the rear, there were a number of convenient places closer at hand where those who had a stomach for battle could satisfy their cravings to their heart's content, without fear of interference. To say the truth, interference was the exception. It is true that there existed a law against duelling, but the practice was so strongly welded in the customs of the people that the statute served only to add the glamour of mystery and the flavor of forbidden fruit to the other fascinations of the deadly game, and might as well not have existed. Things being so, it is hot astonishing that New Orleans should have been a favorite resort for professors of fence or mattres (Tannes. Most of these, having no further personal value than their skill with the foils, lived in blood, wine, and profligacy their circumscribed lives, between the cafes and salles d'escrime, and even their names are now forever forgotten. Others, who pursued their calling as an honored profession, acquired a certain standing in society, and old residents love to talk over their skill in arms and their other lovable and manly traits. Others, again, have acquired fame for having killed or having been killed in duels. * [1887.] 76 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Among the latter were Marcel Dauphin, who was killed by A. Nora in a duel w r ith shotguns ; Bonneval, who was killed by Reynard, also a professional swordsman ; L'Alouette, who killed Shubra, another professor, and who was Pepe Lulla's teacher of fence and subsequently his associate; Thimecourt, who killed Poulaga, and of whom more hereafter, as also about his confrere Monthiach ; and more of the same sort. Among the former were E. Baudoin, a Parisian, who was very popular and well esteemed ; Emile Cazere, who had quite an aristo- cratic clientele / and Gilbert Rosiere, familiarly called by his pupils Titi Rosiere, perhaps the most popular among all the fencing-masters that ever came to New Orleans. I must not forget Basile Croquere, who, though a mulatto, was such a fine blade that many of the best Creole gentlemen did not hesitate, notwithstanding the strong preju- dice against color, to frequent his salle d'armes, and even cross swords with him in private assauts. Gilbert Rosiere, whose son Gustave, himself an admirable swords- man, followed the Gardes d'Orleans to the plain of Shiloh at General Beauregard's call, is the maitre Cannes who has left the best and cer- tainly the most vivid souvenirs. All of us who were young before the war, remember the gay, whole-souled, though irascible, fencing-master. A native of Bordeaux, he had come to New Orleans when a very young man, to make his fortune at the bar. But he was of a wild disposition and fell in with a wild set : so he dropped the Code Napoleon for the Code of Honor, became a leader in all the escapades and devil-may- care adventures of ihejeunesse doree of that time, and turned fencing- master. During the Mexican war he made a fortune (which he squandered as lightly as made) teaching fencing to officers. Brave and generous to a fault, he was every one's friend, and, contradic- tory as it may seem, this hero of seven duels in one week was, in some respects, of womanly tenderness. He would fight with men to the bitter death, but would not have hurt a defenceless thing, woman, child, or fly. He was passionately fond of music and nervously sensitive to its melting impressions. A great frequenter of the opera, his superb head could be seen almost every night towering above the others in the parquette. On one occasion, deeply touched by the pathos of a well- sung cantilena, he wept audibly. An imprudent neighbor laughed, but his amusement was of short duration, for Rosiere had scarcely noticed it than his tenderness turned to anger. " C'est vrai," he said, " je pleure, mais je donne aussi des calottes." By this time the man's face was already slapped, and the next day a flesh wound had taught him that it is not always good to laugh. THE OAKS. 7? AVell might Rosiere have exclaimed with the old German knight at the close of his career : " I have lived my life, I have fought my fight, I have drunk my share of wine ; From Trier to Koln there never was knight Led a merrier life than mine ! " It was in the spring of 1840. There was a grand assaut d'armes between professors at the old " Salle St. Philipe," which was filled with the gilded youth of old-time New Orleans. None but brevetted experts, who could show a diploma, were allowed to participate. The valorous Pepe Lulla, now famous for a large number of successful duels, then a vigorous young man, skilled in the use of all weapons, was refused the privilege of a bout because he had no papers to show. An Italian professor of counterpoint, named Poulaga, a man of magnificent physique and herculean strength, was there holding his own with the broadsword, and bidding defiance to all comers. Captain Thimecourt, a former cavalry officer, opposed and defeated him. The humiliation was too much for the Italian's pride, and he remarked with a sneer that Thimecourt was a good "tireur de sailed " Qu'a cela ne tienne" at once exclaimed the soldier, " let us adjourn to the field." Without further parley, they took rendezvous for the oaks, and there Thimecourt cut his adversary to pieces. This same assaut d'armes was the cause of Pepe Lulla's challenging a French professor named Grand Bernard, who had insisted upon his producing a diploma before crossing SAVords with him in the salle d'armes. They fought with broadswords, and Pepe with his good blade, though he had no diploma, opened the master's flank in two places. Thimecourt was one of the most noted professors of fence of the period, his favorite weapon being the broadsword, in the management of which he excelled. An admirable expounder of the counterpoint, he was not otherwise highly cultivated in any manner, and delighted principally in broils and battle. Another well-known and contemporaneous professor was a German swordsman named Monthiach. He was tall, fleshy, and muscular, and at the same time the best-natured fellow in the world, but of course always ready for a duel, particularly with a professor. Professors of all kinds have always been, more or less, jealous of each other, but the maitres d'armes of that period were peculiarly and aggressively so. AVell, Thimecourt and Monthiach had some slight difference about 78 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. a coup, and, naturally, as they disagreed completely, the only way to come to an understanding was to light it out. They fought with broadswords, because it was about that weapon that they had disagreed. The duel was short, sharp, and decisive. At the first pass, Monthiach made a terribly vicious cut at his adver- sary, evidently intended to cut off his head at one blow. The coup was admirably conceived and executed. Thimecourt, who had his OAvn idea, did not parry with his sword, but dodged. His hat was cut clear in two, Monthiach' s blade grazing his scalp. At the same time the Frenchman, passing under his adver- sary's sword, opened his breast with a splendid coup de pointe. The seconds interfered. The gash was a frightful one, and the blood flowed freely, yet the German professor insisted upon going on with the fight. The seconds, however, would not permit it. They had taken no surgeon with them, and Monthiach, to the horror of the bystanders, pulled out some tow which he had in his pocket, and packing his wound with it, to stop the flow of blood, walked home in a frenzy of anger, cursing at the seconds who had stopped the fight, for, as he said, it was a beautiful coup, and he would have assuredly chopped off Thimecourt' s head if he had had a chance to renew it. Three days after he was on parade, marching, musket in hand, in the ranks of the " Fusiliers," a German militia company, then commanded by Captain Daniel Friedrich. There was not a day passed without one or two encounters at the oaks or elsewhere. The spirit of the age might have been expressed in Don Ca3sar de Bazan's terse saying in Victor's Hugo's Ruy Bias : " Quand je tiens un bon duel je ne le lache pas." Old citizens who lived in the neighborhood of the oaks say that for a time it was a daily procession of pilgrims to this bloody Mecca. Some of them walked or rode back, others were carried home for burial, but once on the field, honor required that some blood should be spilt. Sometimes it was a drop only, sometimes a draining of the veins. The following double anecdote is typical of the manners and cus- toms of the period : Mr. Hughes Pedesclaux was a tall, muscular, and athletic young man, whole-souled and popular, but somewhat quick-tempered ; brave as all of his race, and skilled in the use of arms. Mr. Donatien Augustin was a tall, slim young lawyer, a great student, fond of his profession, but fond also of the military. Both were attached to the " Canonniers d'Orleans," a crack artillery com- pany of those days. Augustin had just been made a lieutenant, and was rather proud of his uniform and trailing artillery sabre. Parade THE OAKS. 79 had just been dismissed ; Pedesclaux came up to his friend Augustin (a child whom he had bullied and spanked at the "College d'Orleans" 1 ), and jovially, but irreverently, gave a deprecatory kick to the swagger- ing weapon, saying : " What could you do with this thing ? " Quick as a flash came the retort : "Follow me a few paces to some quiet place, and I will show you!" ]S"ot a word more was said ; each man picked up two friends to act as seconds, and forthwith, followed by the delighted crowd, eager for the sight of a scrimmage, marched to the scene of combat. In those days New Orleans \vas not extensively built, and fighters not very particular about time or place. A convenient spot was soon reached, the adversaries doffed their uniforms, stripped to their shirt sleeves, and drew their weapons. The seconds, after placing them in position and enjoining each to do his duty as a gentleman, uttered the sacramental words, " Allez, messieurs" and to it they went with a will. Pedesclaux was in the full vigor of manhood and skilled in sword- play ; Augustin was a mere youth, with little experience in arms, but very active and willing. As luck would have it, after a few passes he cut his redoubtable adversary in the sword-arm. The seconds interfered ; there was a great shaking of hands, and the incident ended in a gay and plentiful dinner at Victor's on Tou- louse Street. Some time afterwards, Pedesclaux had a quarrel with a retired French cavalry officer, reputed as a duellist. The cartel was passed between the parties with due solemnity, and the Frenchman, having the choice of weapons, selected broadswords, on horseback. They fought on a plain in the rear of the second district, known as " La Plaine Raquette," on account of the peculiar game of ball which used to be played there. An eye-witness says : " It was a handsome sight. The adversaries were mounted on spirited horses and stripped to the waist. As they rode up to each other, nerved for the combat, their respective muscu- lar development and the confidence of their bearing gave promise of an interesting fight. The Frenchman was heavy and somewhat un- gainly, but his muscles looked like whip-cord, and his broad, hairy chest gave evidence of remarkable strength and endurance. Pedes- claux, somewhat lighter in weight, was admirably proportioned, and his youthful suppleness seemed to more than counterbalance his adver- sary's brawny but somewhat rigid manhood. " A clashing of the steel, which drew sparks from the blades, and the two adversaries crossed and passed each other by unhurt. In 80 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. a moment, both horses had been vaulted to face each other by the expert riders, and the enemies met again. A terrible head blow from the Frenchman would now have cleft Pedesclaux to the shoulder- blade, if his quick sword had not warded off the death stroke. It was then that, with lightning rapidity, before his adversary could recover his guard, which had been disturbed by the momentum of his blow, the Creole, by a rapid half circle, regained his, and with a well- directed coup de pointe a droite (having taken care to keep his adver- sary to the right) plunged his blade through the body of the French officer, who reeled in his saddle, fell, and was picked up senseless and bleeding by his friends. He died soon afterward." Another duel on horseback, which was much talked about at the time, was fought with cavalry sabres by Alexander Cuvillier and Lieu- tenant Schomberg of the United States Cavalry. They had a quar- rel, which terminated in a street fight, the result of which was that Cuvillier was wounded by Schomberg with a sword cane. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered from his injuries, Cuvillier sent Messrs. Smile Lasere and Mandeville de Marigny with a cartel to Schomberg, who immediately accepted it, choosing broadswords, on horseback. They fought on D'Aquin Green, a little above Carrollton. After the second pass, Cuvillier made a vicious cut at his adversary, which, falling short, or being otherwise miscalculated, severed the jugular vein of Schomberg's horse, that fell and died on the spot. This put a stop to the duel. Sometime afterward Alexander Cuvillier died, and his brother, Adolphe Cuvillier, who had charge of his succession, received a letter from Schomberg. This letter recalled the duel, saying that the horse which had been killed in the fight belonged to his Colonel, that it was worth five hundred dollars, which he had had to reimburse, and hint- ing that it would certainly be proper for Mr. Cuvillier to pay him back at least half that amount. Mr. Adolphe Cuvillier wrote back, saying that his brother was dead, and that he had accepted the suc- cession, and had charge of all his brother's business, this quarrel, of course, included ; that he would cheerfully send a check for two hun- dred and fifty dollars, as testamentary executor of his brother, and as such, would also be exceedingly willing to pay full price for another horse if the lieutenant agreed to renew the fight with him. He never received any answer. It would seem that Donatien Augustin, who was later in his life judge of one of the district courts, General of the Louisiana Legion, and one of the most highly esteemed and conservative of our citizens, was lucky in the few duels in which the temper of the period caused him to be engaged. Two of his adversaries each killed his man in THE OAKS. 81 subsequent encounters : Pedesclaux, as above stated, and Saintmanat, with whom he harmlessly exchanged one or two pistol shots in a slight quarrel, who afterward killed Azenor Bosque in a duel, also with pistols, and subsequently, with similar weapons, grievously wounded Commodore Riebaud. The following affair, which he had with Alexander Grailhe, is told here on account of the interest connected with Grailhe's luck in a subsequent encounter. The cause of the quarrel is at this day of small concern. Suffice it to say that after the insult, or rather provocation, had passed (for in those days gentlemen rarely insulted), and each was sure that a deadly meeting was to follow, the two gentlemen travelled together in a carriage with ladies, who wondered, after the duel, at their mutual affability during the whole trip. They met with colichemardes at the oaks. Grailhe, highly bred, and under, as he deemed, grievous provocation, as soon as the weap- ons had been crossed, and the impressive Allez, messieurs, had been pronounced, lost his temper and furiously charged his antagonist. Augustin, cool, collected, and agile, parried and evaded each savage thrust, till finally, by a temps d'arret, judiciously interpolated into a terrific lunge of Grailhe, pierced him through and through the chest. One of the lungs had been perforated. Grailhe remained for a long time between life and death, and at last came out of his room, but bent forward like an old man. The physicians despaired of his life, for an internal abscess, which could scarcely be reached, had formed ; and it was now for the wounded man only a question of time and chance. The latter divinity came to his rescue in a most remarkable and original manner. He quarrelled with Colonel Mandeville de Marigny, and they met at the oaks. The weapons were pistols at fifteen paces, two shots each, advance five paces, and fire at will. Grailhe advanced three or four steps, Marigny remaining perfectly still, and both fired simulta- neously. Grailhe fell, pierced through the body, exactly in the place of his former and yet unhealed wound, the ball lodging directly against the spinal column. Marigny, pistol in hand, advanced, cool as a piece of marble, to the utmost limit marked out, when Grailhe, who was suffering dire pain, exclaimed : "Achevez moi ! " Marigny lifted his pistol high above his head, and firing into the air, said : " I never strike a fallen enemy ! " Grailhe was carried home more of a corpse than a living being ; but, sooth to say, the ball had pierced the smouldering abscess that threatened his life, had opened an exit for its poisonous accumula- 82 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. tions, and the wounded man, some time afterward, walked out of his room as erect and stately as ever. Thus for once did the mes- senger of death bring life and health. Poor Frank Yat'es was less fortunate in his affair with Joe Chandler, some time in 1859. A lie, reported by an injudicious friend, brought a cartel, and it Avas agreed that the young men should fight with duelling pistols at ten paces. The fight was to take place in the afternoon, under the oaks at the Metairie; but the duellists were interfered with there by the police, so they repaired to a place far- ther on, near Bayou St. John, whence they were again driven away by the officers of the law. It was now getting late ; a drizzling rain had set in, and it was urgent to bring matters to an issue before night ; so principals and seconds jumped out of their carriages at a place somewhere at the foot of Bienville Street, where preparations were promptly made for the fight and the principals placed in position. Night was coming on apace, and the drizzling rain added to the gloomy and desolate appearance of the surroundings. The pistols were loaded, handed to the principals, and the command given to fire. TAVO shots were exchanged with no effect, and an attempt was made by Chandler's seconds to settle the matter ; but this was resisted by the opposite side, and a third shot became necessary. Both fired at the same time, and Frank Yates fell. Chandler's ball had struck him in the side, ranging upward through the bowels. He died a few days afterward. The population of New Orleans has always been fond of music, and particularly of the opera, which in its palmy days it lavishly sustained. The Creoles, extreme in all things, carried this taste to the limits of passion. Many a deadly duel grew out of simple dis- cussions over the merits of individual singers. It would take a vol- ume to recite the various quarrels that were engendered by the opera. Journalistic critics, of course, who published their opinions, had to bear the brunt and be ever ready to back an article with steel or lead. Many still living, and even who would not like to be called old, remember two delightful artistes who flourished here during the season of 1857-58, under Mr. Boudousquie's administration ; namely, Mile. Bourgeois, a contralto of great dramatic talent, and Mine. Colson, one of the wittiest and most fascinating of light soprani. It must be added that Mme. Colson had replaced as chanteuse leyere a Mme. Preti-Baille, who was a very pretty woman, a singer of great technical accomplishments, but cold as an icicle, and therefore not popular with the general public. She was a great friend of Mile. Bourgeois. It is useless to add that there was no love lost between Mme. Colson and the contralto. THE OAKS. 83 This Mile. Bourgeois made it a point to show, on the occasion of her benefit night, for which she had chosen Victor Masse's opera of Galathee, when, instead of asking Mme. Colson, in whose reper- toire the title role undoubtedly was, she went outside of the company, and asked Mme. Preti-Baille, who was then in the city giving music lessons, to sing the part. The announcement created great feeling among opera-goers, and was warmly discussed in the clubs. Mme. Colson was very much liked and admired, and her partisans, feeling outraged at the insult, as they deemed, thus put upon her, swore that Preti-Baille would not be permitted to sing. The friends of Bourgeois swore on their side that it was not, after all, the woman's fault, and that those who hissed her would rue it. That threat was sufficient in those days to create an army of hissers. The matter, as before stated, was largely discussed at the clubs, on the streets, and at the salle d'armes. In one of the latter places Emile Bozonier and Gaston de Coppens, two of the most popular young fellows of the day, were with a number of others practising with foils, or lounging. Of course Bourgeois' benefit night was the topic of conversation. Some said that Preti-Baille should be hissed, others that it would be a shame. Bozonier said nothing (it is probable that he did not care much one way or the other). Suddenly Coppens, turning to him, said : " What do you say about this, Bozonier ? " " I," was the deliberate answer, " think that a man who goes to the theatre for the purpose of hissing a woman is a blackguard and should have his face slapped ! " Coppens grew pale. " Do you know," he retorted, " that I have proclaimed myself one of those who will hiss that woman down ? " " No," Bozonier replied, " but I nevertheless mean what I said." " Would you slap a man's face who hisses on that occasion ? " " If he is close enough to me, I assuredly will," answered Bozonier, now thoroughly aroused and interested. " Well, you will have your hands full," said Coppens, and the mat- ter was dropped. And so the benefit night came on. The opera house on Orleans Street was crowded to suffocation, and it was evident, from the excited and determined looks of the young men present, that a fire was smoul- dering all through that audience. Mile. Bourgeois was the Pygmalion, and nothing special happened until the curtain covering the statue was drawn aside and Galathee began to live and move. Then there arose such an antagonistic cacophony of hisses from, one side, and applause from the other, as has rarely been heard in an 84 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. opera house. Cold as marble and all as white, but apparently unmoved, the singer, amid the growing tumult, which never ceased till the curtain fell, sang all her numbers undaunted, braver than any hero who ever repelled an assault or led a charge. And so on all along, also, during the second act and until the final drop of the curtain. Little, indeed, did anybody that evening hear of Masse's music, most of the ladies, of course, having deserted long before the end. In that encounter of hisses and plaudits several quarrels were picked up by the young bloods, which ended at the oaks or elsewhere, but we are now preoccupied with only one. Coppens had hissed, and Bozonier had seen him, but they were separated by a dense crowd ; only their eyes met and a sign of defi- ance was passed. "A day or so afterward, Bozonier met Coppens, who crossed over the street to him, smiling under a sneer, and accosted him with : " Well, Bozonier, what about those slaps ? " Bozonier was of herculean strength, and his answer was a buffet which sent Coppens sprawling in the street. Quick as lightning, and agile as a cat, Coppens got up and grasped for his weapons, but Bozo- nier was too powerful for him, and soon had placed it out of his power to use either knife or pistol. A few days afterwards, Bozonier had received a challenge, and being skilled neither in the use of rapier nor pistol, chose cavalry sabres. They fought at the oaks, within pistol shot of Allard's tomb. Bozonier was a trifle above the middle height, but remarkably active and muscular. Coppens was small in stature, but wiry and of feline activity. Both were dandies in dress and lions in courage. In a twinkling the coats were on the grass. The principals were placed in position, and the usual recommendations made by the sec- onds, comprising the instructions that the fight was to last till one of the adversaries should be completely disabled. The first pass was terrible ; Bozonier engaged Coppens in tierce, made a feint, then taking advantage of the movement of his adversary to parry, rapidly passed over his sword and made a swinging stroke at him, which would inevitably have severed his head from his body, had not Coppens, by a timely movement, warded off partly the effect of the blow. But there was vigor to spare in the cut, for Coppens fell, the blood spurting like water from a terrible gash on the cheek and a severe cut in the chest. It was lucky for him at that moment that Bozonier' s generous soul prevented him following up his advantage, for he had his foe at his mercy. He paused till Coppens rose. This rise was -the spring of a wounded tiger; a furious coup de pointe penetrated Bozonier's sword- THE OAKS. 85 arm above the elbow, cutting the muscles and disabling him. Then Coppens had it all his own way, though his plucky adversary did -his best, handicapped as he was by his now almost useless arm, which could scarcely hold the weapon. The seconds did not see his terrible position in time, neither could his furious foe appreciate it, and before the former could interfere, Bozonier had received two deep cuts in the chest, a terrible slash in the left arm, and a fearful coup depointe in the side. He was bleeding at every pore. Happily for his many friends, his strong constitution saved him, and he lives yet, though four years of war, superadded to this fearful hashing, have left but a comparative wreck from his once splendid physique. Coppens, who was afterward colonel of the Louisiana Zouaves, died like a soldier at the battle of Seven Pines, flag in hand, forty yards in front of his command, while gallantly leading a Florida regiment, after his own had been cut to pieces. At the period referred to, the opera season lasted six months, and such was the inclination of our people for this kind of music that the interest remained unabated to the end. So a month or so after the duel just narrated, a violent critique from the pen of Emile Hiriart, who was writing for the True Delta, appeared in the columns of that sheet. Hiriart, who was a very trenchant writer, had smote, as it seems, right and left, and spared no one. The very same day he received two challenges one from Mr. Placide Canonge, now the highly polished art and musical critic of the New Orleans Bee, and one from Mr. E. Locquet, both of whom had taken exceptions to the article. He accepted both. Mr. Canonge's challenge having priority, he was first attended to. They fought with pistols at ten yards, and exchanged three shots, each shot of Hiriart's cutting Mr. Canonge's clothes, and that gentle- man receiving those leaden warnings with the utmost composure and the sweetest of smiles. Their seconds thereupon withdrew them, and the matter between them was settled. A few days after, Hiriart was out again with his faithful seconds, this time to answer Locquet's challenge. There was more underlying this meeting than the conventional chivalry of the " point of honor." There was hate between the two, and a deadly purpose, as was evidenced by the choice of weapon double-barrelled shotguns loaded with ball, distance forty paces. In the hands of Creole gentlemen, who were all practised hunters, this weapon was the deadliest. It was rare that both parties survived an encounter of this kind. Often the two adversaries were killed, and almost invariably one was carried away from the field a corpse. 86 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Seconds rarely permitted the use of the shotgun, unless under the gravest provocation. The preliminaries of a duel are always solemn, but here an atmos- phere of awe pervaded the scene, as, in silence, the ground was meas- ured, the principals placed in position, the weapons loaded and handed to them by their seconds. Both were calm and apparently unmoved ; but the set chin, the firm lip, the eye coldly gleaming, told of deadly passion and intent. Hiriart's friends had tossed, as is customary, for the word of com- mand, and won it. In a close contest like this one for both were excellent shots and men of recognized nerve this was considered a great advantage. The word was given : " Fire ! one, two, three ! " Hiriart fired between the command and "one"; Locquet at the word " one," but it was not a second's difference. Locquet turned completely around, leaped in the air, and fell flat on his face, without a word or cry. Hiriart made a half pivot, exclaimed " I am done for," and fell on his hands apparently lifeless. The mutual friends and surgeons rushed to their principals. Loc- quet was dead. The ball had penetrated the brain. Hiriart's life had been saved, it appears, by his quick firing, which did not allow his adversary time enough to raise his weapon to a suffi- cient elevation, for his shot was dead in line. The ball had ploughed the ground Avithin about fifteen feet of Hiriart, then glanced up and struck him in the stomach. A welt of the size of a duck's egg Avas disclosed on his body, black and protruding, Avhile the skin Avas but slightly abrased ; the ball Avas found in the lining of his coat. He recovered after a feAv days' seclusion. Several memorable duels Avith shotguns are chronicled Avith letters of blood, among Avhich are the unfortunate affair in AA^hich John de Buys killed young Castaing ; the one in Avhich Alpuente, fighting also Avith De Buys, Avas saved from death by a tAventy-dollar gold piece Avhich he had forgotten in his vest pocket, and Avhich arrested the too true course of the ball ; the duel in Avhich Kora killed Dauphin ; the affair betAA^een Arthur Guillotte and Piseros, in Avhich the latter had a lung perforated and Avas disabled ; the fatal meeting betAveen George White and Packenham Le Blanc, in Avhich Le Blanc AA r as killed outright ; the meeting in Avhich General SeAvell killed Thomas Cane, and other fatal affairs. A duel Avhich, at the time, created quite a sensation, was the affair betAveen John de Buys and Aristide Gerard, in Avhich the former received fourteen Avounds at Gerard's hands. They fought Avith THE OAKS. 87 colichemardes. De Buys, though the best of fellows, was fearfully quick-tempered and had fought some twenty-four duels, with more or less success, three or four of which with his mortal foe, Octave Le Blanc. The quarrel with Gerard happened at Belanger's Billiard Hall, at the corner of Orleans and Royal Streets. A fatal duel with colichemardes was that in which Amaron Ledoux killed a Frenchman named De Chevremont. It would be possible to go on thus indefinitely, but, for the purposes of this writing, the cases cited are more than sufficient. Whatever modernists may say, with great reason, against the duello, for it led to many deplorable abuses, there was more in the institution than a mere agreement to fight, or even than in that relic of medieval barbarism, the "trial by combat." It was in many instances an impediment to bloodshed. Friends quarrelled in moment- ary excitement, and instead of seeking personal explanation, which, in high-strung people, is impossible under provocation, intrusted mutual friends with the demand of satisfaction. If the seconds were wise, calm explanation would follow, and the trifle was adjusted. The duties of the seconds were of paramount importance, for they assumed every responsibility, and were made answerable for the life or honor of the principals at the bar of public opinion. The duello, however, had a refining influence, for every gentleman was forced to be guarded in his language and behavior, as he well knew that bare brutal courage was not sufficient to carry him trium- phantly through. . It is true that a gentleman was obliged to fight, but he had to fight well that is, for reason, and under plausible and legitimate conditions, stanch enough to hold the current of public opinion. Otherwise he was quickly ostracised, and society sustained all who refused to cross swords or exchange shots with him. The code was very strict. You could not fight a man whom you could not ask to your house. This is not an apology of the duello, which is now out of fashion and even become absurd, if it were only by reason of the almost total indifference of public opinion in its regard. It does not much matter nowadays if a man fights or 'not. We have other ways of proving ourselves gentlemen. The purpose here is only to recall a brilliant, though not altogether faultless epoch of Louisiana history, to show what reason our fathers had in their madness, and point out the lessons that may be profitably gathered by discriminating minds under the leafy shades of the oaks. THE FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT IN ITS DIPLOMACY WITH FOREIGN NATIONS, ESPECIALLY WITH ENGLAND AND FRANCE. [From The Military Operations of General Beauregard. Copyright, 1883, by Harper & Brothers.] BY ALFRED ROMAN. [ALFRED ROMAN, second son of Governor Andre Bienvenu Roman, was born in St. James Parish, La., in 1824. In youth he studied at Jefferson College. At the age of twenty-one he was admitted to the Louisiana bar. He served with honor in the Confederate Army (1861-65). In 1880 Governor Wiltz appointed him Judge of the Criminal Court of New Orleans, Section A, for a term of eight years. Of his well-known work, The Military Operations of General Beauregard. (1883), Charles Gayarre says : "Henceforth, of our Civil War it will be impossible to write the history without taking this valuable contribution into the most serious consideration." Judge Roman died, September 20, 1892.] THE diplomacy of the Confederate administration consisted of arguments as to rights, and appeals to precedent. The arguments set forth the origin, construction, and federal character of the government of the United States under its Constitution, supplemented by the right claimed by all free people, under the Declaration of Independence, to alter or abolish their forms of government, and to institute such new governments " as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." These were expected to justify the secession of the Southern States, and the formation of the new republican government of the Confederate States. On this presentation of the case appeals were made to the monarchical governments of Europe not at all in love with republicanism to recognize the independence of the Con- federate States, at whatever cost, as a matter of moral sentiment. It was further insisted, with confidence, that " cotton is king," and that the nations of Europe were dependent on the South, with its annual crops of cotton. England, especially, with her eight millions of factory hands, could not afford to have our ports closed, and must, of neces- sity, recognize our separate existence and raise the blockade. At the same time it was persistently sought to keep the Confederate States commercially independent of all the nations of Europe, and to confer no advantages in trade. The fact seems to have been wholly lost sight of by the administration, that England had large interests in the cotton culture of her East Indian Empire ; that the ruin of the Con- Al.i'RED ROMAN. THE DIPLOMACY OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT. 89 federate States and the depression of rival cotton production would stimulate and promote British independence of American cotton ; and that, unless compensatory and overbalancing interests in trade were tendered, England might seek commercial freedom by non-interven- tion. The efforts of the Northern States to preserve the Union were not inspired by love of the Southern people. The value of the Union to them was in the great interests developed through the powers of the general government, exercised by the Northern majority and involv- ing Northern prosperity. The war was waged against the South by the North to retain the enormous benefits derivable through discrim- inating and prohibitory tariffs, exclusive navigation laws, and unequal and profligate appropriations from the common treasury. The people of the South had long struggled for ad valorem duties laid for revenue, and against duties discriminating for the benefit of classes at the North. In 1833 the Union was nearly dissolved on the ground of the unconstitutionally, inequality, and oppression of such taxes. And, in framing the Confederate constitution, it was carefully provided that " no duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations shall be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry ; and all duties, imports, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Con- federate States." It should be remembered that, during eighteen months, the question of African slavery was no obstacle to foreign relations. The United States government had declared, in despatches sent to its ambassadors abroad, that the war Avas made to save the Union only, and to main- tain all the rights and institutions of the States unchanged. The United States Congress announced to the Confederate States and to the world the same policy. Thus did the United States government stand before the foreign powers, no less than before the South, as the supporter of African slavery, until September 22d, 1862. Then, as a war measure to cripple the South and assist the North in keeping the seceded States in the Union, President Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Emancipation. When this was done the time for the Confederate States to establish friendly relations with foreign nations had passed. The fact should not be overlooked that the great Conservative party of England which, to a considerable extent, represented the land-holding and agricultural interests of the country, formerly led by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, and latterly by the Earl of Derby and Mr. Disraeli sympathized deeply with the conservative attitude of the people of the Confederate States. Although not in power during the war, the Tory party was strong and vigorous. It retired from control of the government, Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli 90 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. resigning in June, 1859, on account of the question between Austria and Italy, and it came into office again, succeeding the Palmerston- Eussell administration, in June, 1866. The parties were nearly bal- anced, and any blunder on the part of one placed the other in almost immediate power. Soon after the government was organized the Confederate Congress unanimously voted the appointment of commissioners, to be sent to Europe to negotiate for a recognition and, in the event of war, possibly, for assistance. The Constitution ordained that the President " shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Congress, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Congress concur ; and he shall nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Con- gress, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, etc." Thus was the treaty-making power vested in the President ; and Congress had no authority to instruct the commissioners or to shape their negotiations. Statesmen of the South expected that the commissioners would be sent as plenipotentiaries, instructed to propose, as conditions of our recognition and alliance, to England, France, and other nations, that the Confederate States, for twenty years, would lay no higher duties on their productions imported than, say, twenty per cent, ad valorem ; that for the same period no tonnage duties would be laid on their shipping, entering or leaving our ports, except what should be suffi- cient to keep in repair our harbors and rivers ; that the coast naviga- tion between ports of the Confederate States, during this time, should be free to them, subject only to police regulations; that upon the productions and tonnage of all nations refusing to recognize our inde- pendence there should be imposed a discriminating duty of, say, ten per cent, additional ; and that, if necessary but not otherwise the Confederate States government should make a league, offensive and defensive, with special guarantees for instance, a guarantee to Great Britain of British America. The tender of such treaties would have offered immense advantages to England and to France. With their great capital, and cheaper and more skilful labor, low duties for twenty years, with a discrimination of ten per cent, against their competitors for the markets of the Confeder- ate States, would have enabled them to furnish our supplies at enormous profits ; and a tariff of twenty per cent, ad valorem would, according to experience, have yielded to our government the largest obtainable revenue, without in any way oppressing our people. The lucrative carrying trade of the Confederate States on the high seas, and the coasting trade, hardly less remunerative, would have been chiefly theirs, with less cost to our people. THE DIPLOMACY OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT. 91 Would the Palmerston-Russell ministry have ventured to decline such a proffer of mutual benefits, and to persist in the policy of non- intervention ? If it had, then the subject would have been taken straight into Parliament, with almost a certainty that the Whig min- istry would have been speedily voted down, and the Conservative administration of Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli placed in power. And there can be little doubt that that administration would promptly have entered into such a treaty. Even the Whig Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell, openly expressed the opinion that the dissolution of the American Union would be permanent, and the Confederate States successful. John Bright, the Quaker Radical, and Richard Cobden, the Independent Liberal of the Manchester school of politics, then supporting the Whig administration, represented manufacturing constituencies, and were noted advocates of free trade and low duties. It is more than likely that, in view of such benefits, their prejudices against the South and partialities for the North would have been nul- lified and overridden by the calls of unmistakable and gigantic inter- est to the people of England. The Emperor of the French, Louis Napoleon, was friendly in feeling to the South, and would gladly have joined England in such a programme. Without such induce- ments he proposed a mediation in October, 1862. Under the action of the Confederate Congress the President ap- pointed commissioners to Europe, with the Hon. William L. Yancey at the head of the commission, to go to England. But the instruc- tions given him were not such as the past policy and political position occupied by the South naturally suggested ; not such as Mr. Yancey expected ; not such as the Secretary of State, the Hon. Robert Toombs, advocated ; and not such as other leading Southern statesmen deemed of vital importance to the cause. Instead of seeking to use the power of laying duties and passing navigation laws, to conciliate the support of foreign nations; instead of using the treaty-making power, which was paramount to the legislative, to obtain the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States, the President gave no author- ity to the commissioners to make commercial treaties, or to agree to confer special trade or navigation interests. The commission went without powers. It had nothing to propose and, therefore, nothing to treat about. The administration seemed to have no comprehension of the importance of appealing to the interests of foreign nations for the establishment of our independence. In addition to abstract dis- quisition it appeared to rely chiefly on compelling England by her dependence touching the supply of cotton for her manufactories. If there was really superior sagacity in forecasting the magnitude of the struggle in which the South was involved which has been claimed, 92 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. but which plain facts go far to refute then the only explanation of this unexpected and ultimately fatal policy, on the part of President Davis, appears to have been the entertainment of a design by him to foster manufacturing classes in the Confederate States, and for that purpose to hold in the hands of the government the power of dis- crimination in laying duties on foreign commodities to the utmost extent practicable, and free from committals by treaties. This idea has support from the course of the administration in regard to the obtainment of arms and munitions of war, and the procurement of a navy. When the Confederate commission presented itself in London it was received by the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, and inter- views were held between them. But Mr. Yancey, as we have seen, was powerless. He had nothing to propose or to treat about. So when the minister of the United States, Mr. C. F. Adams, on the 12th of June, 1861, expressed the "great dissatisfaction" of his government, coupled with a threat to retaliate, if such interviews continued, the British Minister, having ascertained that it was the policy of the Confederate government to use the commercial dependence of England to obtain compulsory recognition, and to make no treaties conferring advantages in trade or commerce, cut short further official intercourse. Not until November, 1861, were Messrs. Mason, Slidell, Mann, and Rost sent over to Europe. And they, too, had only arguments to offer concerning legal rights and precedents unacceptable to mon- archies ; and they accomplished nothing. Our attempts at diplomacy were an egregious failure. In the language of the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, in the Confederate Senate, from 1862 to 1865 the Hon. James L. Orr "the Confederate States had no diplomacy." THE BATTLE OF SHILOH, AND THE PART PLAYED THEREIN BY HENRY WATKINS ALLEN, EX-GOV- ERNOR OF LOUISIANA. [From Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen (186G).J BY SARAH A. DORSEY. [SARAH ANNE (ELLIS) DORSEY was born in Natchez, Miss., February 16, 1829. Upon her marriage to Samuel W. Dorse y, a planter of Tensas Parish, La., she removed to her husband's home. In 1875, after the death of Mr. Dorsey, she went to live at Beauvoir. Miss. She died in New Orleans, July 4, 1879. Her works include Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen (1866); Lucia Dare (1867); Agnes Graham (1869); Atalie; or, A Southern Villeggiatura (1871); and Panola: a Tale of Louisiana (1877).] THE morning of the 6th of April dawned before Johnston got his lines read} 7 " for battle. Twenty-four hours had been lost through the rain and the difficulty of moving rapidly his undisciplined levies over the heavy roads. The enemy were encamped along a broken country, a succession of hills and valleys filled with woods, interspersed with an occasional open field. Their principal camp was near a log-cabin used as a meeting-house, called " Shiloh." Their line stretched away on the road leading from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth ; their camps generally located in the small open fields, scattered at intervals throughout the forest. The battle was, therefore, necessarily fought in fractions ; giving opportunities for exhibitions of personal courage and deeds of heroic daring, always eagerly welcomed by Southern men. Johnston and Beauregard had formed the army in three parallel lines of battle the first under Hardee, the second under Bragg, the last under Polk and Breckinridge ; each line had its centre and two flanks, protected by artillery and cavalry. Johnston was with the second line under Bragg, and Beauregard was with the third line under Polk and Breckinridge. This resume of events was needful in order to make the reader understand why the battle of Shiloh was fought the first field on which Henry "W. Allen was engaged and was wounded in the service of the country. He commanded his beloved Fourth Louisiana, in the line of Bragg. He was overflowing with military ardor and eager patriotism, and communicated magnetically his ex- cited interest to his regiment. The Fourth Louisiana, as well as its colonel, was ready for anything. The night previous, talking with some of my relatives, in their tent discussing the probabilities of the 94 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. morrow Allen said very gravely, " A man ought always to expect to be killed in battle, and should be willing and prepared for death always before he goes into it ; " then he repeated the beautiful invoca- tion to death, from Halleck's Marco Bozzaris. On the morning of the 6th he was ordered by Bragg to charge a battery of the enemy, stationed in a thicket ; it was a strong position on an eminence, and the guns were very troublesome. The aide-de-camp, who took the order to Allen, says : " I found him near a small copse or bosquet of woods. He received the order in silence ; then turning his head around, he called his servant, Hyppolyte, who was standing near by. 'Hyppolyte,' he said, in his rapid way, 'we are going to charge; stand here in a safe place, but watch that flag,' pointing to the regi- mental colors. ' I shall either be before it or by it. If I fall, search for me, and take me to the rear if wounded ; if dead, bury me decently ; and now, God bless you, you have been a faithful servant,' wringing the hand of his now weeping slave. Allen led his regiment." Twice he charged on the battery ; his men were fearfully cut up, but they heard the rallying voice of their beloved colonel clear and distinct through the noise of battle, and they followed him through the storm of shot and shell unhesitatingly, never faltering an instant. Allen's heart bled to see his men dropping around him wounded, dying. After the second charge he sent to tell General Bragg that his regi- ment was suffering fearfully, and to ask if he must make another charge with them. " Tell Colonel Allen I want no faltering now," was the stern reply. Allen was startled and stung at the unjust insinuation of lack of courage. He never forgot nor forgave it. Rising in his stirrups, without a word of reply, he waved his sword to his men to follow, and charged the guns once more. The men rolled from their saddles like leaves about him. This last charge was as useless and ineffectual as the other two. The enemy's position was too strong. A minie ball struck Allen in the mouth, as he cheered his men on this fruitless ride to death for so many of them. The ball passed out through the cheek. Catching up a handful of cotton lint, Allen stuck it in the wound which, though painful, was not serious tied his handkerchief around his jaws with sangfroid, in the midst of the rain of bullets and shells. His clothes, cloak, and cap were riddled with shot-holes ; but he remained in his saddle all day, never quitting the field, but doing his utmost to the last lingering hours of daylight, before he sought medical relief or repose. The day declined on a glorious victory for the Confederates. Grant was cowering near the river under the protection of his gunboats, when Beauregard, careful of the lives of his men, finding them much wearied and exhausted from the day's work and want of food, discovering, too, that there was THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 95 some difficulty in manoeuvring with his raw, undrilled troops, ordered the pursuit to be checked, the lines re-formed, and the attack to be continued at daybreak on the following day. Grant was still strong behind his batteries along the river, and under the cover of his gun- boats. It is questioned whether Beauregard was right or wrong in checking this pursuit. But there are several points to be considered in viewing Beauregard's conduct at Shiloh. In the first place, his plans owing to circumstances that he could not control were only tardily carried into effect. " Kapidity in war depends as much on the experience of the troops as on the energy of the chief." Beauregard was always careful of the lives of his soldiers. Though an engineer, he would abandon any, the most cherished fortifications, to save his army. And also " It is too common with soldiers, first, to break up the arrange- ments of their generals by want of discipline, and then complain of the misery those arrangements were designed to obviate." So it proved here. Our undisciplined forces became much demoralized by the sight of the rich booty they found spread before their victorious eyes, in the captured tents of the Federal encampments. The costly viands, the splendid accoutrements, were so many golden apples of Atalanta, to our poor, hungry, thirsty, weary boys. In vain the commanders stormed and raged ; the gallant army, " who had rushed," Beauregard said, " like an Alpine avalanche " on the enemy, on the morning of that eventful day, at nightfall were mostly a dissolved, disorganized rabble of soldiers. The 7th of April broke upon Grant, reenforced by Buell. The Confederates had been gathered in some order by their indomitable leaders. Grant attacked them, now strong in his reinforcements. On the centre and right he was steadily repulsed he could make no impression there. The left he attacked obliquely, pouring line after line of fresh, vigorous troops on it, who were as continually repelled by the Confederate phalanx. But, opposed to an enemy who were constantly reenforced, the Confederate ranks were growing thin. A gentleman on Beauregard's staff narrated, with humor, to the writer, how he came unexpectedly on Colonel Allen, with his face still tied up in its improvised dressing of the previous day, trying to rally his broken troops, who were nearly decimated by the hard fighting he had led them into. He said : " There was Allen, his face tied up in a bloody handkerchief, with a bit of raw cotton sticking on his cheek which certainly did not improve his beauty one minute entreating, praying, weeping, tears streaming, as he implored the men to stand ; the next 96 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. moment, swearing, raging at them, abusing them, berating them, giving them every angry epithet he could think of ; then addressing them in the most affectionate words. But he succeeded in gathering together not only his own men, but a number of stragglers from other regiments, whom he coaxed or abused back into the ranks. The last I saw of him, he was off with them like a whirlwind into the thick of the battle. It made me both laugh and cry to watch him. He was a regular Murat ; but instead of the ' white plume] it was the white speck of cotton, and head tied up in the white handkerchief, that was always in the van.'- According to General Beauregard, the number of Confederate troops engaged on the 6th, at the battle of Shiloh, was about 33,000 lost one-third. Grant had 55,000. On the 7th, the Confederate force did not exceed 17,000. The Federals had : Buell 22,000, Lewis Wallace 8,000, Grant 10,000 or 15,000, making nearly 45,000 in all. The battle-ground extended about two miles and a half or three miles. The Federal loss in the two days' fights was nearly 20,000, killed, wounded, and taken prisoners. On the first day of the battle, while the Confederates were pressing Grant down on his gun- boats, the firing was very heavy on the part of the boats' batteries, in order to cover Grant's retreat. The great conical shells were rather alarming to our verdant, unused troops. They would strike and cut down large trees with a neatness and despatch that startled tyros in the art of war. We were all somewhat timid, at that time, about bombard- ments from mortars and howitzers, a timidity that we soon got rid of as the war progressed, especially all of us living on the water-courses, where we were exposed to being shelled every day we got used to it. However, these marine batteries did considerable damage to our troops at Shiloh, killing and wounding the men frightfully, until they got inside the range of the boats' guns. Allen was leading his men in the fight when one of these huge messengers of death demolished a tree in front of him, and lodged in the earth at his horse's feet. Seeing the extremity of danger to his men, Allen spurred his horse, leaped the cavity formed by the unexploded shell, waving his sword and calling to his men to follow him. They obeyed instantaneously, and were all safe beyond when the shell exploded. By his presence of mind and coolness, he thus preserved his men and his own life. ******** After eighteen hours' hard fighting, Beauregard thought it best to withdraw his wearied troops to his camp at Corinth. General Breck- inridge covered with his command the gradual withdrawal of the Confederate army. This retreat is regarded as a remarkable one. It was managed so quietly, so rapidly, so steadily, so skilfully, the enemy were completely deceived. Breckinridge presented a bold, resolute THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 97 front to the last hour, while Beauregard drew back his lines without confusion, and concentrated them again at Corinth. Sydney John- ston had been killed : the news of his death, and his mode of meeting it, sent a pang of regret and bitter remorse through every Southern heart. AVe recognized, too late, the great spirit of the man we had driven to reckless desperation. Colonel Allen had retired at last, his wound growing painful from the twenty-four hours' neglect to have it properly dressed by a surgeon. While under the surgeon's hands, he heard the cry of retreat raised by the wagon-drivers. Jumping up, he rushed among them, mounted on his horse, and aided greatly in restoring order among this portion of the army. Afterwards, when he got time, the dressing of the wound was completed. His careless treatment of this wound in the face, which he regarded so slightly at this time, caused him much unnecessary pain from it ever after. THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLOKSVILLE. [From A Soldier's Story of the War.] BY NAPIER BAKTLETT. [NAPIER BARTLETT was born and brought \\p in Georgia. He changed his residence in early manhood to New Orleans, where he became distinguished as a journalist. During the Civil War, he served with distinction in the Confederate Army. After the war, he was at different times editorially associated with various newspapers of his adopted city. He was the author of Clarimonde, a novelette ; Stories of the Crescent City ; and A Soldier's Story of the War. He died in 1877, in the forty-first year of his age. THE spring of '63 has meanwhile passed, and the roads have com- menced to harden. The men absent from camp have grown weary of cities, and the old soldiers about winter quarters shout lustily when a popular general passes by a sure sign that thev have regained their old combative feeling, and a sign, too, that they will soon be called upon to make use of it. The battery forges are kept constantly busy, and the ringing of Callahan's blacksmith's hammer in his labors for the benefit of the battery horses, and the fl} T ing sparks which gayly shoot upward, begin to intoxicate the blood of men. During the close of April, the rumbling of the artillery wheels and the weary tramp of the infantry are once more heard. Hooker has daringly thrown his army across the Rappahannock, and waded them through the Rapidan, a deep tributary, and has made a move which causes Lee rather to open his eyes. However, the advantage lasts but a moment. The Confederate troops are promptly gathered up, and boldly moved forward ; Jackson being thrust out in the same way, on the enemy's flank, as the one-armed Captain Cuttle would his hook to drag the enemy in. Hooker, meanwhile, has occupied the ground, which, if he only knew it, and would hold on to it, would gain him the battle ; but he becomes timid, with a greatly superior force, as Lee becomes daring, and meanwhile his army is like one of those read of in the classic page, which gets bogged up in a swamp, or trembling prairie, or overwhelmed by the Libyan or Arabian sands ; or as in the Shipwreck, where the whole of the Duke's Court are wandering about on an unknown land, encountering enemies, and coming across friends, in all manner of fantastic ways. At one end of the line Hooker's left, which faces toward Richmond is the old THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. 99 Chancellor House. It will soon be dripping with more blood than ever was put in a sensational tragedy or novel. Against one of its pillars Hooker is leaning in the battle, when stunned by the concussion against it of a shell. On Friday morning (May 1st) the opposing columns began to jostle each other, and Hooker now can emerge from the tangled thicket in which he has been so far groping ; but it is his last chance. It is one thing to mark out a campaign brilliantly, and another to execute it unflinchingly, with new difficulties to be provided for on the battle-field, at every step. As the Irish duellist explained it, to hit the stem of a wine-glass with a bullet is not difficult provided the wine-glass has no pistol. Hooker once had emerged from his dangerous position, where his army could not manoeuvre, but was either driven back, or took up from choice, according to Northern accounts, a line with rising ground in front, and with impenetrable thickets behind, from which the Con- federate attacks could readily be formed. The night which followed passed silently in both armies silently, so far as the guns were con- cerned ; but faint noises told of the shovelling up of rifle-pits ; thou- sands of midnight woodcutters, as if suddenly possessed with a super- stitious fancy for making a clearing, were causing the Wilderness, on both sides, to resound with their blows, or bringing to the ground some of the huge trunks, with a noise equal to cannon. The falling of these trees meant, for Hooker, that he would await an attack ; for Lee, that he knew Hooker's plan, and would go off and make an attack somewhere else. He will act upon Jackson's last and most brilliant idea, and send the latter around by an obscure farm road on Hooker's right, between him and his river communications. This move of Jackson, thought to be a retreat to Eichmond, strikes the Federal right at five o'clock on the afternoon of May 2d, and by dark it has put a whole corps to utter rout. Jackson has got on the reverse side of the enemy, to within half a mile of headquarters. He is now about to deal his finishing blow, and while anxiously seeking the precise situation of the enemy, gets his death-wound in the dark, at the hands of some of his own pickets. His loss left the battle incomplete, in spite of its stunning blow, and the melancholy news affected the Confederates in the same way that the fulfilment of the various omens predicted before Troy could be captured affected that city's defenders. On the other hand, if Jackson had not been wounded, as he said on his dying bed, " the enemy would have been obliged to surrender or cut his way out." On the next day, Stuart, in Jackson's place, bore down and pressed back the Federal right wing, while Lee on the opposite side ham- 100 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. mered away at Hooker's centre and left, forcing back two corps ; or, as a Northern * historian expresses it, " the line melted away, and the front appeared to pass out." Hancock, who alone held out, began to waver at ten A.M., when " the Confederates sprang forward and seized Chancellorsville." Fredericksburg during this time had been left with a small force of five brigades, including the First and Second Louisiana, and three companies of the Washington Artillery, who had been ordered from Chesterfield three days before to the crest of Marye's Hill their old battle-ground. Barksdale was still with us. The latter, Sunday morning, in view of a movement by Sedgwick's corps on this part of the line, were reenforced by Hays's brigade. After three failures in other directions, a powerful assaulting column was formed to carry the hill by storm, which feat was finally achieved, though " under a very severe fire that cost Sedgwick a thousand men. The Confeder- ates made a savage hand-to-hand fight on the crest, and over the eight guns." As there was only, in reality, two regiments (less than two thousand men) assigned to the support of our artillery, and the attack was made by twenty-two thousand of the enemy (according to Sedg- Avick's report), it will not appear surprising that the works were finally captured. The guns were worked desperately to the last, and were faithfully manned by their cannoneers, when six pieces were surrounded, and the guns and cannoneers made prisoners most of them under the command of Captain Squires and Lieutenant E. Owen. A large proportion of the gallant Eighteenth and a part of the Twenty-first Mississippi were taken prisoners at the same time. Sedgwick now commenced moving on the slender brigades who had been retained here by Lee to make up a show before the enemy and retain his line of communications with Eichmond ; Early mean- while retreating slowly toward Lee. He did not do so long. Before the day was over, a sufficient force, McLaw's and Anderson, were promptly sent back to Early's support. The shock occurred at Salem Chapel, and all that need be said about it was that Sedgwick was checked that day, " with a total loss of five thousand men." f Marye's Hill was reoccupied the next day without any difficulty by its former possessors. On Monday night, May 4th, Sedgwick being surrounded on three sides, and hard pressed as to his communications with the river, took advantage of the darkness, and was fortunate enough to safely with- draw his troops. Lee having cleared, as it were, the brushwood from his path, was now (May 6th), with the troops Avhom he had recalled, prepared to * Swinton's History of the Army of the Potomac. f Swinton, p. 299. THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. 101 attend to the case of Hooker ; but that general was found to have lost all stomach for a fight, and had put; the Jlappahannoqk, between himself and the enemy. '.,., !"' < '/ V"^" The result of the matter and this y was- about, >tke, whole result, except that new material for powder 'hatr-tfr.be-' ppd^deci^wks that the Union loss was 17,197, and the Confederate 10,281. All of the spoils, in the way of artillery, prisoners, and twenty thousand stand of arms, fell to the Confederate army. The victory, in short, was a glorious one, but really amounted to nothing, as Jackson disappeared from the scene at the moment when most needed, and the result was incomplete. ISfiAKDMEOT OF THE WASHINGTON ARTILLERY IN 1865. [From In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery (1885).] BY WILLIAM MILLER OWEN. [WILLIAM MILLER OWEN was born in Cincinnati. 0., January 10, 1832. At the opening of the Civil War, he went to Virginia with the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, serving with distinction in that command until Lee's surrender. After the war. he published In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery, a narrative breathing the spirit of the bivouac, the march, and the battle. He contributed various articles to Scribner's Magazine, the Century, and the United States Service. In 1890 he assisted Mrs. Jefferson Davis in the preparation of the military chapters of her Memoir of her husband. He died in New Orleans, January 10, 1893.] ANOTHER night was spent sleeping soundly in the mud and rain, and this A.M. (llth), according to instructions, I had my teams hitched up and moved my three batteries (twelve guns) to the main road, where I turned them over to the Federal officer detailed to receive them. Returning to our " shelter " I was visited by General John G. Hazard, Chief of Artillery of the Second Corps U. S. A., and his Adjutant- General, Captain T. Fred Brown. We couldn't extend to the General much polite attention, but we did the best we could under existing circumstances. Officers and men of the Federal army mingled freely with our officers and men around our camp-fires, and not a harsh word was spoken on either side. In fact, the conduct of the victors was beyond all praise. They sent our starving men provisions, and not a shout of exultation nor the music of a band was heard during all the time we were at Appomattox. A feeling of great and deep sadness filled the breasts of our army, and a feeling of delicate sympathy pervaded the other. Brave men who had looked into each other's eyes for four long years along the shining musket-barrel, and across the deadly, blazing trench, understood and respected one another. Something was said about our joining together under the "old flag " and marching to drive Maximilian out of Mexico, and I believe we would have gladly gone, but nothing came of it. On the morning of the 10th, General Meade called to pay his respects to General Lee. The latter reported to his staff after the visit, that the conversation had naturally turned upon the recent THE DISBANDMENT OF THE WASHINGTON ARTILLERY. 103 events, and that General Meade had asked him how many men he had at Petersburg at the time of General Grant's last assault. He told him in reply that, by the last returns, he had thirty-five thousand muskets (35,000). General Meade then said, " You mean you had thirty-five thousand men on the lines immediately around Petersburg ? " to which General Lee replied, " No, that he had but that number from his left on the Chickahominy River to his right at Dinwiddie Court-House." At this General Meade expressed great surprise, and stated that he then had with him, in one wing of the Federal army which he com- manded, over fifty thousand men. The number of Confederates paroled was between twenty-six thousand and twenty-seven thousand.* On the morning of April 12th, our battalion and the remnants of other battalions to be paroled were assembled for the last time in front of our camp-fire, and I read to them the farewell address of General Lee, as follows : HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE, April 10, 1865. GENERAL ORDERS No. 9 : After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and forti- tude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that must have attended a continuance of the conflict, I determined to avoid useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can go to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and grateful consideration for myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell. R. E. LEE. The men listened with marked attention and with moistened eyes as this grand farewell from our old chief was read, and then receiving each his parole they every one shook my hand warmly and bade me good-by, and breaking up into parties of three and four turned their faces homeward some to Richmond, some to Lynchburg, and some to far-off ruined Louisiana. I watched them until the last man disappeared with a wave of his hand around a curve of the road ; then mounting our horses and tak- ing a sad farewell of Generals Lee, Longstreet, Gordon, and Latrobe, * Four Years ivith Lee. TAYLOR. 104 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Taylor, Cullen, and Barksdale, we rode away from Appomattox. And now "Oh, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner; and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ! And oh, you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit, Farewell ! " We rode forty miles upon our return journey, and bivouacked in a tobacco-barn near Cumberland Court-House, and obtained some corn- bread and milk from a kind-hearted old negro woman. Our party consisted of Captain E. Owen, Lieutenant-Colonel J. Floyd King, Major Thomas Brander, and William Fellowes. Bright and early we resumed our ride until we crossed the James, and halted at the hospitable home of Mr. Logan, in Goochland, where the family gave us a hearty welcome, yet withal a sad one ; they had lost all hope for the future. We rested well frequently falling asleep while talking with our hosts. The night before our lines were broken at Petersburg the boys of the section of the First Company Washington Artillery, under Lieu- tenant Battles, placed in my possession for safe-keeping their old battle-flag, as it was too much torn and riddled by bullets to be any longer used. I took it and hung it up in my quarters at Gregg House. Next morning, when the assaults were being made upon the Fort (Gregg), and the bullets were flying thick and fast, I remembered the flag, and, riding up to the window where it hung, broke in the sash with my sabre and secured it. I carried it in my saddle-pocket as far as Amelia Court-House, where I transferred it to John Logan, who was going home, with instructions to give it to his sisters for safe-keeping. The girls concealed it in a sofa cushion, and after Lee's army had retreated, Federal cavalry came to the house, and officers slept upon the sofa, and laid their heads upon this piece of bunting. The cushion now having been produced, a few cuts with a knife re- vealed the tattered guidon. While it is very wrong to "kiss and tell," it must nevertheless be recorded that Captain Owen bestowed a hearty kiss all round. This little relic now occupies an honored place with other flags in the arsenal of the Washington Artillery, in New Orleans. We ended our journey, and rode into Richmond on the 18th of April ; and as we passed through Main Street furtive glances were THE DISBANDMENT OF THE WASHINGTON ARTILLERY. 105 cast and little white handkerchiefs were waved at us by the ladies at the windows of their houses. Main Street (the business part of it) was in ruins. Officers in blue were lounging about our usual haunts. Soldiers in blue had usurped the places of the boys in gray. At the outpost, when w^e entered the city, we were kindly received by the officer in charge, and were informed by him that President Lincoln had been assassinated. We told him that we sincerely re- gretted that it was so. He said, " Yes, I am sorry for you all ; for it will go hard with you now, and the whole South." The 22d of April found us still in Richmond. We are not allowed " to go to our homes unmolested," on account of the assas- sination. I sold my horse and a mule, and this put us in funds. Fortunately some kind friends had saved my trunk of reserve clothing, but I thought it prudent to purchase a suit of ready-made garments and a round-top hat. Some rows having occurred at the " Spottswood Hotel," between Confederate and German Federal officers, w r e were politely requested to leave ; so we hired apartments on Franklin Street, and from our windows witnessed the army of General Sherman pass through en route for Washington. We finally took the amnesty oath at the State House, and called upon General Halleck at the " White House," to ask permission to leave the city. When I crossed the threshold of that house, how many pleasant memories it brought to mind, what visions and plans of happiness that were never to be realized ! How my heart went out to Mr. Davis and his family, now in so much trouble and distress ! We laid our request before General Halleck, and were refused unceremoniously ; but, nevertheless, the next morning we were, incognito, on board the steamboat Georgiana, bound for Fortress Monroe and Baltimore. We took leave of our friends in Richmond with sincere regret ; all had been so kind to us, we had begun to consider it our home. While we were detained in Richmond, awaiting permission to depart, a delegation of officers called upon General Lee to find out what he would say in regard to a half-formed resolution we had made to go to Brazil and enter the army. The General w r as indisposed, but General Custis Lee told us that it was the expressed wish of his father that everybody should " go home and help build up the country." The Brazilian army obtained no recruits. 106 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. On the 16th of May we arrived at Baltimore, and stopped at " Barnum's Hotel," and were entertained at the " Maryland Club." The 28th of May found us snugly located at the " New York Hotel," in New York City, and dropping in at Brooks's, we arrayed ourselves in swell garments, and felt and looked like gentlemen of elegant leisure once more. I dined with Mr. William Travers, and hunted up my old friends, the Gilmans, all of whom I found, to my unspeakable regret, mar- ried. They had a hearty welcome for me and called me their " rebel friend," and insisted upon my saying, over and over again, " I am so sorry ! " Latrobe joined us here, but stayed but a day. Happening to see an outrageous caricature of Mr. Davis hanging in front of Barnum's Museum, on Broadway, he in great disgust hurried away to Boston, and took a Cunarder for England. On the 3d of June, Captain Hilary Cenas, C. S. Navy, and I, took passage on board the steamship Monterey, bound for New Orleans. On the third day out we learned, through the purser, that a num- ber of " Pelicans " were passengers in the steerage. So both of us, taking a bottle of champagne under each arm, climbed down the com- panion-way into the dimly lighted 'tween-decks, and introducing our- selves to our compatriots we were enthusiastically received, and popped the corks and had a jolly time.* On the 13th of June, 1865, we walked into the "St. Charles Hotel," in New Orleans, where Ave found officiating, as head' clerk, Andy Blakely, an ex-member of the Washington Artillery, who took us in and cared for us, and we slept once more under a Louisiana sky, and were preyed upon and bled by the long since forgotten Louisiana mosquito. In the morning, my last piece of " fractional currency " (twenty- five cents) was invested in a Picayune and a mild refreshing bev- erage, and stepping out upon the broad stone balcony of the hotel, into the warm, delicious June sunshine, I took up again the broken thread of a business life without a dollar in the world, emphatically and completely " busted." * The names of those returning soldiers were as follows: John A. Lafaye, Numa Landry, Ernest Landry, Henry Starr, M. O'Neil, Honore Flotte, Alfred Lamothe, Leon Lamothe, Octave Legier. THE CONFEDERATE ADMINISTRATION AND ITS DOWNFALL. [From The Military Operations of General Beauregard. Copyright, 1883, by Harper & Brothers.] BY ALFRED ROMAN. IN defending the territory, population, and supply resources of the Southern States, the success or failure of the Confederate adminis- tration may be judged by a brief presentment of cardinal points. By the devoted courage and unsurpassed endurance of our volunteers, accepted in insufficient numbers, ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-armed, but led by officers of ability, brilliant victories had been achieved over the invading forces of the North ; and drawn battles, hardly less distin- 'guished, had been fought against heavy odds. But, although the armies of the United States had received terrible repulses on various occasions, they certainly made considerable progress in occupying important portions and positions of the Confederacy. In 1861 were fought the battles of Bethel, June 10th ; Manassas, July 21st ; Ball's Bluff, October 21st in Virginia ; and in Missouri the battles of Spring- field, August 10th ; Lexington, September 21st ; Belmont, November 7th. In 1862 the battle of Seven Pines, May 31st ; Port Republic, June 8th ; the seven days' battles near Richmond, at the end of June ; Cedar Run, July 19th ; second Manassas, July 29th, 30th, 31st in Vir- ginia ; followed by Boonsboro' and Sharpsburg, on the 14th and 17th of September. In the AVest there were fought the battle of Elkhorn, in Arkansas, March 5th ; Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Tenn., on the 5th and 16th of February ; and Shiloh, in North Mississippi, on the 6th and 7th of April. The Confederate States lost the harbor of Port Royal, S. C., November 7th, 1861 ; Norfolk, with its Navy Yard, May, 1862; and also Pensacola these constituting the finest ports on the Southern coast. Of the cities, St. Louis and Louis- ville were lost in 1861 ; Nashville, in February, 1862 ; New Orleans, in April ; Galveston, in May ; Memphis, in June. Besides these, the Mississippi River was lost, and also the three States of Missouri, Ken- tucky, and Tennessee, whose young men, generally, were with the Con- federacy in feeling, and, if they had had encouragement and timely assistance, would have recruited the Southern armies with thousands of brave soldiers. These States were all the more important on account of their large production of grain crops, meat, horses, and mules ; and their loss was a series of severe blows to the Confederacy. . . . 108 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. It is notable that before September, 1862, public opinion concern- ing the management of Confederate affairs had undergone a decided change, and that grave doubts respecting the competency of the Executive to guide the destinies of the South were entertained by many who had the opportunity of knowing what was done and what was omitted. Fearing the result of such a feeling, Congress which, upon the formation of the government, had never resorted to secret sessions except on very important occasions began to transact no small amount of its business with closed doors ; and secret sessions, hereto- fore the exception, now became almost the prevailing rule. There doubtless were circumstances under which it was eminently right to keep the North from knowing what took place in the legislative halls of the South. In war secrecy is often an element of success. But on many other occasions, and when there was no necessity to conceal anything from our enemies, the people of the Confederate States were kept in ignorance of their own affairs, and of the views and' opinions of their representatives. Thus was the formation of public opinion restricted, if not altogether obstructed, and criticism on the conduct of the business of the people, in a degree, suppressed ; thus was the power of the government gradually brought into the hands of the President, who was already possessed of enormous patronage, not to speak of the veto power. The people were cut off from the opportu- nity of finding a remedy for errors, no matter how gross and vital they might be. But there were results so patent that they could not be withheld from sight ; and in some of these the public could not help perceiving a mismanagement which could only lead to disaster. In the war of 1812 with England, and in the Mexican war of 1846, the general government called upon the States for troops needed in addition to the regular army ; and the State authorities organized, officered, and sent forth their respective quotas. During the late war the Federal government again called upon the governors of the States for the soldiers required, and received them, officered, at their hands. But the President of the Confederate States, after declining to accept the services of thousands upon thousands of volunteers ten- dered, and after opposing bills offered in Congress in January, 1862, authorizing him to call for troops from the States to the number of fifty thousand and upward, as late as March, 1862, drove Congress, on the plea of necessity, to pass an act of conscription, which set aside the authority of the States, and gave the Executive power to conscribe the people and appoint the officers. This arbitrary and unwarranted step, taken Avithout the least foresight or sagacity, wholly unneces- THE CONFEDERATE ADMINISTRATION AND ITS DOWNFALL. 109 sary -and unpopular, did not strengthen the administration or the cause with the people of the South. To this was afterward added unjust impressments of private property for the use of the Govern- ment, makeshifts odious to a free people, and resorted to, in a great measure, to assist the notorious incompetency of many appointees of the administration most conspicuous among whom was the well- known and proverbially inefficient Commissary-General of the Con- federate States. As events rolled on, foreshadowing the inevitable effects of per- sistently recurring causes, anxiety and distrust of the Confederate government, which the Executive head had all but absorbed and jeal- ousy controlled, pervaded the minds of all intelligent men who were informed and were not blinded by partiality or warped by personal interest. And the dreaded result at last came. The weight of num- bers though not that weight alone ; the prestige of reputed consti- tuted Federal authority abroad though not that prestige alone ; but, concurring with these, want of sagacity, inefficiency, improvidence, and narrow-mindedness on the part of the administration; egotism and illiberality ; culpable loss of time and of opportunity these, altogether and combined, brought on the annihilation of the hope of Southern independence. At the close of hostilities between the two contending sections the picture was a dark one. Civil strife, whatever be its cause, whatever its purpose, carries with it ruin, and is followed by cruel remem- brances. During nearly six years after the furling of the Confederate battle-flag there was added to the mortification of defeat for the South the disheartening reality of humiliation and distinctive oppres- sion. Power and the sense of victory achieved are not always accom- panied by conciliation, justice, and generosity. Yet the South was earnest in laying down her arms, and accepted the result of the war with a brave and honest spirit. Time, the great soother of all human woes, has begun and is advancing with its work of pacification and obliteration. It is now a fact that the Southern States are as faithful supporters of Federal government as any of the Northern States of the Union. Notwithstanding the cloud that has darkened its political horizon, a great future lies before the whole American Kepublic. Gradually emerging from her ruin, and without slavery, the South possesses her peculiar agricultural advantages, and is becoming both maufacturing and commercial in character. In the days of renewed prosperity to come, [let Southerners recall] to mind and to honor the patriot soldiers and the statesmen who made every sacrifice in what they conscien- tiously believed to be the defence of constitutional liberty. ULYSSES S. GEANT AND KADICALISM. [From Destruction and Reconstruction. Copyright, 1879, by D. Appleton & Company.] BY RICHARD TAYLOR. [RICHARD TAYLOR, only son of General Zachary Taylor, was born in New Orleans, January 27, 1826. In early youth he studied the classics in Edinburgh, Scotland, and in France. On his return to the United States he entered Yale College, from which he was, in due time, graduated. During the Mexican War, he served in the Army under his illustrious father. In 1861 he was elected to the Louisiana Secession Convention, in which he distinguished himself as a debater. During the strife which followed whether as Colonel of the Ninth Louisiana Volunteers, or as Brigadier-General, or as Major- General, or yet as Lieutenant-General he reflected honor on himself and the cause for which he fought. After the war, he sought recreation in Europe. He then returned home, and played no small part in the politics of his State. In his Destruction and Reconstruction (1879) he records his reminiscences of Secession, War, and Reconstruc- tion. His literary style is limpid, vigorous, and entertaining. He was one of the most,remarkable conversationists of his times. He died in New York City, April 12, 1879.] SINCE the spring of 1873, when he gave himself up to the worst elements of his party, I have not seen President Grant ; but his career suggests some curious reflections to one who has known him for thirty- odd years. What the waiting- woman promised in jest, Dame Fortune has seriously bestowed on this Malvolio, and his political cross-garter- ings not only find favor with the Eadical Olivia, but are admired by the Sir Tobys of the European world. Indeed, Fortune has conceits as quaint as those of Haroun al-Raschid. The beggar, from profound sleep, awoke in the Caliph's bed. Amazed and frightened by his surroundings, he slowly gained composure as courtier after courtier entered, bowing low, to proclaim him King of kings, Light of the World, Commander of the Faithful ; and he speedily came to believe that the present had always existed, while the real past was an idle dream. Of a nature kindly and modest, President Grant was assured by all about him that he was the delight of the Eadicals, greatest captain of the age, and savior of the nation's life. It was inevitable that he should begin by believing some of this, and end by believing it all. Though he had wasted but little time on books since leaving West Point, where in his day the curriculum was limited, he had found out to the last shilling the various sums voted by Parliament to the Duke of Wellington, and spoke of them in a manner indicating his opinion that he was another example of the ingratitude of republics. ULYSSES S. GRANT AND RADICALISM. Ill The gentle temper and sense of justice of Othello resisted the insidious wiles of lago ; but ignorance and inexperience yielded in the end to malignity and craft. President Grant was brought not only to smother the Desdemona of his early preferences and intentions, but to feel no remorse for the deed, and take to his bosom the harridan of radicalism. As Phalaris did those of Agrigentum opposed to his rule, he finished by hating Southerners and Democrats. During the struggle for the Presidency in the autumn of 1876, he permitted a member of his Cabinet, the Secretary of the Interior, to become the manager of the Eadicals and use all the power, of his office, established for the public service, to promote the success of his party's candidate. Monsieur Fourtou, Minister of the Interior, removed prefects and mayors to strengthen the power of De Broglie ; whereupon all the newspapers in our land published long essays to show and lament the ignorance of the French and their want of experience in republican methods. One might suppose these articles to have been written by the " seven sleepers," so forgetful were they of yesterday's occurrences at home ; but beams near at hand are ever blinked in our search- of distant motes. The election over, but the result in dispute, President Grant, in Philadelphia, alarmed thoughtful people by declaring that "no man could take the great office of President upon whose title thereto the faintest shadow of doubt rested," and then, with all the power of the Government, successfully led the search for this non- existing person. To insure fairness in the count, so that none could carp, he requested eminent statesmen to visit South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, the electoral votes of which were claimed by both parties ; but the statesmen were, without exception, the bitterest and most unscrupulous partisans, personally interested in securing victory for their candidate, and have since received their hire. Soldiers were quartered in the capitals of the three States to aid the equitable states- men in reaching a correct result by applying the bayonet if the figures proved refractory. With equity and force at work, the country might confidently expect justice ; and justice was done that justice ever accorded by unscrupulous power to weakness. But one House of the Congress was controlled by the Democrats, and these, Herod-like, were seeking to slay the child, the Nation. To guard against this, President Grant ordered other troops to Washing- ton and a ship-of-war to be anchored in the Potomac, and the child was preserved. Again, the 4th of March, appointed by law for the installation of Presidents, fell on Sunday. President Grant is of Scotch descent, and doubtless learned in the traditions of the land o' cakes. The example of Kirkpatrick at Dumfries taught him that it 112 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. was wise to " mak sicker " ; so the incoming man and the Chief Justice were smuggled into the White House on the sabbath day, and the oath of office was administered. If the chair of George Washington was to be filched, it were best done under cover. The value of the loot inspired caution. In Paris, at a banquet, Maitre Gambetta . . . toasted our ex-President " as the great commander who had sacredly obeyed and preserved his country's laws." Whether this was said in irony or ignorance, had General Grant taken with him to Paris his late Secre- tary of the Interior, the accomplished Z. Chandler, the pair might have furnished suggestions to Marshal MacMahon and Fourtou that would have changed the dulcet strains of Maitre Gambetta into dismal howls. PART II. SPECIMENS OF ORATORY AGAINST THE ELIGIBILITY OF A CITIZEN BORN OUT- SIDE OF THE UNITED STATES, TO THE GOVERN- ORSHIP OR LIEUTENANT - GOVERNORSHIP OF LOUISIANA.* BY JOHN K. GRYMES. [JOHN RANDOLPH GRYMES, born in Orange County, Va., in 1786 ; died in New Orleans, December 4, 1854. Vide p. 62.] CAN any one in this Chamber suppose that a foreigner can rid himself of all love for his native land from the moment he comes among us \ For myself, I am free to say that I do not believe this ; and I venture to affirm that a foreigner, whose heart and soul can so easily expatriate themselves, would prove for Louisiana but a poor, a very poor acquisition. An American may acquire either German or French naturalization if his interests demand it ; but if that American should renounce, at the same time, all affection for this happy country which is his natural right, I would prefer that he should continue to deny his mother to the end. Nay, the foreigner who should entertain for our institutions merely a rational attachment would be a hundred-fold, a thousand- fold preferable to such a man. It is the sheerest folly to pretend that the voice of our common nature can be so easily silenced. That nature reigns in us all, acts by us all, speaks through us all, in spite of ourselves ; and each one cherishes in his heart, so long as it beats within his breast, those feelings of family and native land which God at the creation so wisely implanted there. Fancy, if you can, what would be the position of a Governor of foreign birth, if an army formidable in numbers, and carrying the standard of the land in which he first saw the light, should without warning profane the frontiers of Louisiana. We are told that our eyes shall be blasted by no other wars. This is an error. What has been may nay, probably will be again. And in such a case who can fail to see that a native of the invading country, placed at the head of our armies of defence, must be exposed to an almost irresistible temptation to betray the cause of wiiich he is constituted the official champion ? Never will that man * [From remarks delivered in the Senate of Louisiana, February 13, 1845, during the debate on Section 6, as submitted in the Report of the Legislative Committee on the new State Constitution.] 116 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. face upon the field of battle the friends of his boyhood and the com- rades of his youth, with such courage and steadfastness as a soldier of American birth. Even those highest qualities of mind and heart, with which such alien leader might be credited, would become sinister. Within him, higher than honor itself, will speak the voice of Nature ! He will hesitate at the employment of any aggressive measure, and that hesitation will bring disaster in its train, and perhaps the ruin of the country. Ah, we need a native citizen at the head of the phalanxes of the State! The mere sight of the enemy irritates and influences such a man. He advances with head erect and heart palpitating. For him there is no middle ground between victory and death ; while in the heart of the naturalized citizen there would beat a secret scruple, an innate feeling of repugnance, which would paralyze at once his energy in the field and his counsels in the cabinet. In spite of what Mr. Preston may affirm to the contrary, a man's oath is not so strong as nature, and he cannot be born twice. He may be baptized an American, but such political baptism cannot prevent the heart's voice of that man from ever inspiring him unto tenderness, when it repeats the accents, when it recalls the scenes, when it mur- murs the affections of his first country. But suppose we forget the days of war, ever unhappy, and steady ourselves upon those epochs, more or less flourishing, with which our long peace has blessed us. The election of a naturalized citizen to the office of Governor would become a subject of perpetual strife in Louisiana, that rich and fertile land of ours, upon which, with each day, masses of immigrants from all nations, but especially from France, Ireland, and Germany, throw themselves. Beyond doubt, as I have already indicated, future immigrants to our State will harbor those sentiments which lead men to prefer their own countrymen. They will naturally, if the opportunity were accorded them, elevate one of their own countrymen to the highest office of this Eepublic, and if they should succeed in their lofty purpose it is clear that the fortu- nate mortal upon whom their choice may fall will not hesitate to distribute among these friends and compatriots at once the official loaves and fishes, and thus quicken into acute danger the rivalries and murmurs of naturalized citizens from other nations of the globe. " Look at that German," will sneer Irishmen and Frenchmen who are made Americans by our laws, " look at that German ! Since he has become Governor, he cares only for his own people; but patience, our turn will come." Yes; but, in the meantime, there must arise an endless coil of strife, and, worse than strife, of corrup- tion festering upon our body-politic and this is precisely what we, standing here, are commissioned to prevent. ELIGIBILITY TO THE GOVERNORSHIP OF LOUISIANA. 117 And let not the reverse of the medal be turned to tell me that a Governor born under our national flag will, on his side, display partiality toward his own fellow-countrymen. Under the menace of such a fear, I cannot see how any one can be justified in complaining. All things being equal, our native citizens are invested with a natural right to stand in the foremost rank, and to be the recipients of the first favors. The naturalized citizen might be accused of presumption even to wish to compete with them. Who can deny that our native citizens show themselves far more generous ? They permit their Gov- ernor to protect these naturalized citizens, and God knows if experi- ence has not proved that our people have long been accustomed to see our foreign-born citizens occupying most of the profitable offices of our city and State. Why, then, should we heed that fretful voice which tells us that, after we have opened wide the majestic portals of our Commonwealth to all other rights, we dare to draw the distinction contemplated in the clause in question ? This privilege of making sure that a foreigner shall never sit in the highest seat of our State is the sole right which belongs to him whose ancestors founded its Government. And that man must be either very malicious or steeped in ambition, who would attempt to dispute with him this little point of greatness, this slight distinction in the midst of the debris with which, for long years to come, we will be encumbered. THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND.* BY SEARGENT S. PKENTISS. [SEARGENT SMITH PRENTISS was born in Portland, Me., September 30, 1808. In 1826 he was graduated from Bowdoin College. In 1827 he removed to Mississippi, and in 1829 was admitted to the' bar of Natchez. In 1835 he was sent to the Legislature of his adopted State. In 1837, when elected as a Whig to the lower house of Congress, he challenged unsuccessfully the seat of his Democratic competitor, but supported his claim in a speech which established his reputation as a parliamentary debater. De- feated, he returned to Mississippi. After a series of speeches in his district, he gained at the next Congressional election a large majority. From 1840 to 1844 he canvassed the State in opposition to the repudiation of its bonded debt. In 1845, chagrined at the passage of that measure, he removed to New Orleans. In that city he began the study of Civil Law, in the practice of which he sustained his reputation for eloquence and analytic power. He died at Longwood, near Natchez, Miss., July 1, 1850. Vide p. 124.] IT is not for the sons of New England to search for the faults of their ancestors. "We gaze with profound veneration upon their awful shades ; we feel a grateful pride in the country they colonized in the institutions they founded in the example they bequeathed. We exult in our birthplace and in our lineage. Who would not rather be of the Pilgrim stock than claim descent from the proudest Norman that ever planted his robber blood in the halls of the Saxon, or the noblest paladin that quaffed wine at the table of Charlemagne ? Well may we be proud of our native land, and turn with fond affection to its rocky shores. The spirit of the Pilgrims still pervades it, and directs its fortunes. Behold the thou- sand temples of the Most High, that nestle in its happy valleys and crown its swelling hills. See how their glittering spires pierce the blue sky, and seem like so many celestial conductors, ready to avert the lightning of an angry Heaven. The piety, of the Pilgrim patriarchs is not yet extinct, nor have the sons forgotten the God of their fathers. [And] the spirit of the Pilgrims survives, not only in the knowl- edge and piety of their sons, but, most of all, in their indefatigable enterprise and indomitable perseverance. They have wrestled with Nature till they have prevailed against her, and compelled her reluctantly to reverse her own laws. The sterile soil has become pro- * [From an oration delivered December 22, 1845, before the New England Society of New Orleans.] THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND. 119 ductive under their sagacious culture, and the barren rock, astonished, finds itself covered with luxuriant and unaccustomed verdure. Upon the banks of every river they build temples to industry, and stop the squanderings of the spendthrift waters. They bind the naiades of the brawling stream. They drive the dryades from their accus- tomed haunts, and force them to desert each favorite grove ; for upon river, creek, and bay, they are busy transforming the crude forest into stanch and gallant vessels. From every inlet or indenture along the rocky shore swim forth these ocean birds born in the wild wood, fledged upon the wave. Behold how they spread their white pinions to the favoring breeze, and wing their flight to every quarter of the globe the carrier pigeons of the world ! It is upon the unstable element the sons of New England have achieved their greatest tri- umphs. Their adventurous prows vex the waters of every sea. Bold and restless as the old Northern Yikings, they go forth to seek their fortunes in the mighty deep. The ocean is their pasture, and over its wide prairies they follow the monstrous herds that feed upon its azure fields. As the hunter casts his lasso upon the wild horse, so they throw their lines upon the tumbling whale. They " draw out Levia- than with a hook." They " fill his skin with barbed irons," and in spite of his terrible strength they " part him among the merchants." To them there are no pillars of Hercules. They seek with avidity new regions, and fear not to be " the first that ever burst " into unknown seas. Had they been the companions of Columbus, the great mariner would not have been urged to return, though he had sailed westward to his dying day. Glorious New England! thou art still true to thy ancient fame and worthy of thy ancestral honors. We, thy children, have assem- bled in this far-distant land to celebrate thy birthday. A thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused by the spirit of the hour. On thy pleasant valleys rest, like sweet dews of morning, the gentle recollections of our early life ; around thy hills and mountains cling, like gathering mists, the mighty memories of the Eevolution; and far away in the horizon of thy past gleam, like thine own northern lights, the awful virtues of our Pilgrim sires ! But while we devote this day to the remembrance of our native land, we forget not that in which our happy lot is cast. We exult in the reflection that, though we count by thousands the miles which separate us from our birth- place, still our country is the same. We are no exiles meeting upon the banks of a foreign river, to swell its waters with our homesick tears. Here floats the same banner which rustled above our boyish heads, except that its mighty folds are wider and its glittering stars increased in number. 120 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. The sons of New England are found in every State of the broad Republic. In the East, the South, and the unbounded West, their blood mingles freely with every kindred current. We have but changed our chamber in the paternal mansion ; in all its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit it are our brothers. To us the Union has but one domestic hearth ; its household gods are all the same. Upon us, then, peculiarly devolves the duty of feeding the fires upon that kindly hearth ; of guarding with pious care those sacred house- hold gods. We cannot do with less than the whole Union ; to us it admits of no division. In the veins of our children flows Northern and South- ern blood ; how shall it be separated ? Who shall put asunder the best affections of the heart, the noblest instincts of our nature ? We love the land of our adoption ; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true to both, and always exert ourselves in maintaining the unity of our country, the integrity of the Republic. APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE FAMINE-STRICKEN" IKISH.* BY 8EARGBNT S. PRENTISS. IT is no ordinary cause which has brought together this vast assem- blage on the present occasion. We have met not to prepare ourselves for political contests, nor to celebrate the achievements of those gallant men who have planted our victorious standards in the heart of an enemy's country. We have assembled not to respond to shouts of triumph from the West, but to answer the cry of want and suffering which comes from the East. The Old World stretches out her arms to the New. The starving parent supplicates the young and vigorous child for bread. There lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic a beautiful island, famous in story and in song. Its area is not so great as that of the State of Louisiana, while its population is almost half that of the Union. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal ; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos. Into this fair region God has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fear- ful ministers who fulfil his inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to give her increase ; the common mother has forgotten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its strang- ling grasp ; and unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets for a moment the gloomy history of the past. We have assembled to express our sincere sympathy for the sufferings of our brethren, and to unite in efforts for their alleviation. This is one of those cases in which we may, without impiety, assume, as it were, the function of Providence. Who knows but what one of the very objects of this great calamity is to test the benevolence and worthi- ness of us upon whom unlimited abundance has been showered ? In the name, then, of common humanity, I invoke your aid in behalf of starving Ireland. Oh, it is terrible, that in this beautiful world which the good God * [Delivered before the citizens of New Orleans, February 7, 1847.] 122 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. has given us, and in \vhich there is plenty for us all, that men should die of starvation ! In these days, when improvement in agriculture and the mechanical arts have quadrupled the productiveness of labor, when it is manifest that the earth produces every year more than suf- ficient to clothe and feed all her thronging millions, it is a shame and a disgrace that the word starvation has not long since become obso- lete, or only retained to explain the dim legends of a barbarous age. You who have never been beyond the precincts of our own favored country ; you, more especially, who have always lived in this great valley of the Mississippi the cornucopia of the world who see each day poured into the lap of your city food sufficient to assuage the hunger of a nation, can form but an imperfect idea of the horrors of famine of the terror which strikes men's souls when they cry in vain for bread. When a man dies of disease, he alone endures the pain. Around his pillow are gathered sympathizing friends, who, if they cannot keep back the deadly messenger, cover his face and conceal the hor- rors of his visage as he delivers his stern mandate. In battle, in the fulness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he who dies of hunger wrestles alone, day after day, with his grim and unrelenting enemy. He has no friends to cheer him in the terrible conflict ; for if he had friends, how could he die of hunger ? He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain him ; for his foe, vampire like, has exhausted his veins. Famine comes not up like a brave enemy, storming, by a sudden onset, the fortress that resists. Famine besieges. He draws his lines around the doomed garrison ; he cuts off all supplies ; he never summons to surrender, for he gives no quarter. Alas for poor human nature ! hoAV can it sustain this fearful warfare ? Day by day the blood recedes, the flesh deserts, the muscles relax, and the sinews grow powerless. At last the mind, which at first had bravely nerved itself for the con- test, gives way under the mysterious influences which govern its union with the body. Then he begins to doubt the existence of an overruling Providence ; he hates his fellow-men, and glares upon them with the longings of a cannibal, and, it may be, dies blaspheming! Who will hesitate to give his mite to avert such awful results ? Surely not the citizens of New Orleans, ever famed for deeds of benev- olence and charity. Freely have your hearts and purses opened heretofore to the call of suffering humanity. , Nobly did you respond to oppressed Greece and struggling Poland. Within Erin's borders is an enemy more cruel than the Turk, more tyrannical than the Kussian. Bread is the only weapon that can conquer him. Let us APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE FAMINE-STRICKEN IRISH. 123 then load ships with this glorious munition, and in the name of our common humanity wage war against this despot Famine. Let us in God's name " cast our bread upon the waters," and if we are selfish enough to desire it back again we may recollect the promise, that it shall return to us after many days. If benevolence be not a sufficient incentive to action, we should be generous from common decency ; for out of this famine we are adding millions to our fortunes. Every article of food, of which we have a superabundance, has been doubled in value by the very distress we are now called to alleviate. We cannot do less, in common honesty, than to divide among the starving poor of Ireland a portion of the gains we are making out of their misfortunes. Give, then, generously and freely. Eecollect that in so doing you are exercising one of the most godlike qualities of your nature, and at the same time enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. We ought to thank our Maker that he has permitted us to exercise equally with himself that noblest of even the Divine attributes, benevolence. Go home and look at your family, smiling in rosy health, and then think of the pale, fam- ine-pinched cheeks of the poor children of Ireland ; and I know you will give, according to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has given to you not grudgingly, but with an open hand ; for the quality of benevolence, like that of mercy, " Is not strained. It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, Upon the place beneath : It is twice blessed, It blesses him that gives, and him that takes." It is now midnight in Ireland. In a wretched hovel a miserable, half-starved mother presses to her shrivelled breast a sleeping infant, whose little care-worn face shows that the coward Famine spares not age or sex. But lo ! as the mother gazes anxiously upon it and listens to its little moaning, the baby smiles ! The good angel is whispering in its ear that at this very moment, far across the wide sea, kind hearts and generous hands are preparing to chase away haggard hunger from old Ireland, and that ships are already speeding rapidly to her shores, laden with the food which shall restore life to the parent and renew the exhausted fountain of its own young existence. SEARGENT S. PRENTISS.* BY HENRY A. BULLARD. [HEXRY ADAMS BOLLARD was born in Groton, Mass., September 9, 1788. In 180T he took his B. A. degree at Harvard. He began the practice of law in Natchitoches, La. He represented Louisiana in Congress in 1831-32, and then was appointed District Judge, lie was for about twelve years an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and served a few months as Secretary of the State. In 1847 he was elected Professor of Civil Law in the Law Department of the University of Louisiana. " His opinions while on the bench," says his biographer, " are models of judicial rhetoric, brief, perspicuous, and pointed. He wrote without effort, yet with a critical accuracy that defied correc- tion." He died in New Orleans, April 17, 1851.] [OuR departed friend] was a native of the State of Maine the most northern part of the Union. Eeasoning a priori, one would naturally suppose he would have possessed merely an understanding and judg- ment as solid and compact as the granite of her hills, and a tempera- ment as cold as her climate. Who would have expected to find in a child of Maine, the fiery, inventive genius of an Arabian poet ? an imagination as fertile in original and fantastical creations, as the author of the Thousand and One Nights ? Let us not imagine that Nature is so partial in the distribution of her gifts. The flora of more Southern climes is more gorgeous and variegated, but occasionally there springs up in the cold North a flower of as delicate a perfume as any within the tropics. The heavens in the equatorial regions are bright with the golden radiance, and the meteors shoot with greater effulgence through the air ; but over the snow-clad hills of the extreme North flash from time to time the glories of the aurora lorealis. Under the line are found more numerous volcanoes, constantly throwing up their ashes and their flames, but none of them excel in grandeur the Northern Hecla, from whose deep caverns rolls the melted lava down its ice-bound sides. I think I can assert with confidence, that Prentiss possessed the most brilliant imagination of any man of this day. He had more of the talent of the Italian improvisators than any man living, or who ever lived in this country. It is a great error to suppose that he was a mere declaimer. On the contrary, there was found always at the bottom a solid basis of deep thought. He never preached without a text. Even on convivial occasions, when he gave full rein to his fancy, his oratory consisted of something more than merely gorgeous, imagery, sparkling wit, and brilliant periods. He sought to illus- * [ Eulogy delivered at a meeting of the New Orleans bar, December 6, 1850.] SEARGENT S. PRENTISS. 125 trate some great truth. He was not satisfied with stringing together a few smart sentences and commonplace remarks, but that rich pro- fusion of brilliant metaphors Avhich he threw out on such occasions tended to illustrate some great, important principle. Such was his remarkable gift of throwing an attractive beauty over every subject upon which his imagination lighted, that under his hand a truism became a novelty. As a lawyer I can testify that Prentiss was diligent even inde- fatigable in his researches. His arguments were always solid and thorough. It has, indeed, been sometimes objected that he pressed his arguments beyond conviction. He never drove a nail that he did not clinch it, and sometimes, perhaps, by clinching it too tight, broke off the head. For it is, permit me to say, sometimes the fault of lawyers, of great intellectual vigor and fertility of imagination, that they push an argument so far as to produce the impression that their own convictions are not altogether sincere "and satisfactory to themselves. But Prentiss possessed the peculiar faculty of rendering every subject which he treated attractive and interesting. When he attended the courts in the country, and it was given out that he was to speak, it was sure to attract a large audience of ladies and gentle- men. I remember a case in the Supreme Court in the Western Dis- trict in which he was engaged. The court-house was crowded, and a large number of ladies graced the room. It was a simple case of usury, which" most of us would have argued by reference to a few adjudicated cases and upon general principles. In the hands of Prentiss it became a prolific theme for the richest imagery and the most striking novel illustrations. Shy lock became ten times more hideous and revolting in his picture of the modern usurer, while at the same time he argued the legal questions involved with singular vigor and acuteness. Indeed, there was no subject so dry, no chasm so deep, but he could span it over with the .rainbow of his imagina- tiona rainbow in which the most varied hues were beautifully com- mingled in one gorgeous arch of light. The fame of such a man could not be narrowed down to the limits of a single State, or section of our country. It extended over the Union. It shone with splendor in the halls of Congress, in other cities and States, and wherever he passed he was called on to address the people upon the great topics of the day. I have been assured, that even in Faneuil Hall, whose walls reechoed the first cry of Liberty and Independence where the greatest orators of their day thundered forth their noblest efforts where the impassioned elo- quence of the elder, and the silvery tones of the younger Otis had been uttered where the Dexters, the Everetts, and Choate, and Webster, 126 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. and others, had maintained their ascendency over that cool, reflecting, and intellectual people even there, when Prentiss appeared and poured forth the torrent of his gorgeous elocution, his auditors sprang to their feet under the influence of his magic power. I have heard most of the eminent men of the day, and can freely say that I have never heard any man who combined in so eminent a degree the reasoning faculty with brilliancy of fancy, felicity of language, and copiousness of illustration. There are undoubtedly more learned men, more perfect scholars and rhetoricians more skilled in polishing a sentence and taming a metaphor; but none from whom rolled forth, as it were spontaneously, such brilliant thought and startling and novel figures. In this respect his speeches resembled the displays of the skilful pyrotechnist his metaphors thrown up like rockets in the evening sky, and bursting as they rose into a thousand dazzling points of every imaginable color. Poor Prentiss ! what can I say of the noble qualities of his heart ? "Who can describe the charms of his conversation in moments of relaxation and social intercourse ? Old as I am, his society was one of my greatest pleasures. I became a boy again. His conversation resembled the ever-varying clouds that cluster round the setting sun of a summer evening their edges fringed with gold, and the noiseless and harmless flashes of lightning spreading, from time to time, over their dark bosoms. Who would have thought -that I, whose career is ended that I, whose sands are fast dropping away that I, with my age and physical infirmities I, whose children no longer require a father's solicitude should have survived to pay this feeble tribute to his memory ; while he, the young, the noble-hearted, the gifted, in the fulness of fame and usefulness, sinks into an early grave, and leaves behind him a youthful and pious wife, and four orphan chil- dren, to weep for his loss. How inscrutable are the w r ays of Provi- dence ! It is the fate of great wn/promsatori, that, though they exercise a powerful influence over their contemporaries, and their fame is brilliant and extended in their day, they leave behind them but few and faint memorials of their greatness and their genius. Such is eminently the case with Patrick Henry and Seargent S. Prentiss. The effect of their eloquence lives mainly in the memory of those who enjoyed the rare happiness of hearing them. Very little remains of all the power- ful displays of Patrick Henry, except the meagre sketch of a speech or two preserved by his biographer. How many brilliant effusions we have all heard from Prentiss, of which there is no permanent record, and which must pass away with the memories of those who listened to them ! Permit me to allude to one occasion, which many of you SEARGENT 8. PRENTISS. 127 may remember, and which illustrates this remark. Some years ago a public meeting was called at Dr. Clapp's church, with a view to raise a subscription to procure a statue of Franklin, to be executed by the great American artist, Hiram Powers. The occasion called forth all the eloquence and stores of erudition of Richard Henry Wilde, then fresh from the classic scenes of Italian art. It happened that Prentiss had just arrived in the city, without any knowledge of such a meeting. He was dragged into the church by some of his friends, and, to avoid observation, took his seat in a side aisle. As soon as Mr. Wilde had closed, there was a cry for Prentiss, Prentiss! He came forward, obviously surprised and embarrassed ; but, warming with the theme as he advanced, proceeded to pour forth to an enchanted audience one of the most brilliant and remarkable bursts of eloquence, which, I venture to assert, ever fell from any individual so suddenly and un- expectedly called on. A stranger would have supposed that he had done nothing during his life but study the poets and the fine arts, and was familiar with the best models. He exhibited on that occasion an extraordinary familiarity with the poets and the arts, and no one would have supposed he had ever read a law book in his life. And yet, of that speech there remains not the slightest vestige. It could not, indeed, have been well reported. To have caught up its brilliant scintillations would have been as difficult as to sketch the meteors that shoot through the sky. Indeed, I may say that if all the great and brilliant thoughts that fell from Prentiss, in popular and deliberative assemblies, in courts of justice, at convivial parties, and in his social intercourse, could have been faithfully reported by a stenographer, it would form a work truly Shakespearean. There would be found beautifully blended the broad humor and even ribaldry of Falstaif, the keen wit of Mercutio, the subtlety of Hamlet, and the overwhelming pathos of Lear. But, alas! the wand of Prospero is broken. We shall no more hear the eloquent tones of his voice, nor admire the specious miracles produced by the inspiration, of his genius ; for he possessed the only inspiration vouchsafed to man in these latter days. We shall no longer be permitted to laugh over his mirth-provoking wit, nor be melted by his touches of true feeling, nor admire those rich gems which he threw out with such profusion from the exhaustless stores of his imagination. Such is the destiny of earthly things "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind." VIKTUE THE CORNER-STONE OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT.* " BY JUDAH P. BENJAMIN. [JuDAii PHILIP BENJAMIN was born in St. Croix, West Indies, August 11, 1811. In youth, he studied for three years at Yale College. Removing to New Orleans in 1831, he was in due course admitted to the Louisiana bar. In 1842 he was elected to the United States Senate, and in 1857 was reflected to the same seat. On the secession of Louisiana (February 4, 1861), he and his colleague, John Slidell, withdrew from the Senate. On the formation of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States, President Jefferson Davis appointed him Attorney General ; but soon after he resigned this dignity to accept that of Acting Secretary of War. Standing high in the confidence of President Davis, he was later appointed Secretary of State. On the downfall of the Confederacy, he took refuge in flight from the United States authorities ; and in Sep- tember, 1865, he landed in England. Called to the English bar, he wrote A Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property (1868), which is at present the English authority on this subject. In 1872 he was made Queen's Counsel. On the 30th of June, 1883, compelled by failing health to retire from the practice of his profession, the English bench and bar tendered him a " farewell banquet " at Inner Temple, London. On this occasion the Lord Chancellor pronounced him " one of the men who in our own time has most illuminated and adorned the profession of the bar of England." Benjamin died in Paris, May 8, 1884.] ONE of the most eminent philosophers of modern times, who had made the science of government his peculiar study, after investigating what were the principles essential to every mode of government known to man, had announced the great result, that virtue was the very foundation, the corner-stone of republican governments ; that by virtue alone could republican institutions flourish and maintain their strength ; that in its absence they would wither and perish. There- fore it was that the enlightenment of the people by an extended sys- tem of moral education, their instruction in all those great elemental truths which elevate the mind and purify the heart of man, which, in a word, render him capable of self-government, were objects of the most anxious solicitude of our ancestors ; and the Father of his Country, in that farewell address which has become the manual of every American citizen, when bestowing the last counsels of a heart glowing with the purest and most fervent love of country that ever warmed a patriot's breast, urged upon his countrymen the vital neces- sity of providing for the education of the people, in language which * [Reprinted from The New Orleans Boole, 1851.] VIRTUE THE CORNER-STONE OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 129 cannot be too often repeated : " It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free govern- ment. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric ? Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffu- sion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." Recreant indeed should we prove to the duty we owe to our country ; unworthy indeed should we be of the glorious heritage of our fathers, if the counsels of Washington fell disregarded on our ears. But if that great man had so decided a conviction of the absolute necessity of diffusing intelligence amongst the people, in his day, how unspeakably urgent has that necessity become in ours ! In the first attempts then made to organize our institutions on republican princi- ples, the most careful and guarded measures were adopted, in order to confine the powers of the government to the hands of those whose virtue and intelligence best fitted them for the exercise of such exalted duties. The population of the country was sparse ; the men then living had witnessed the Revolution that secured our indepen- dence; its din Avas still ringing in their ears; they had purchased liberty with blood, and dearly did they cherish, and watchfully did they guard, the costly treasure; the noblest band of patriots that ever wielded sword or pen in freedom's holy cause were still amongst them, shining lights, guiding by their example, and instructing by their counsels, to which eminent public services gave added weight. Now, alas ! the latest survivor of that noble band has passed away ! Their light has ceased to shine on our path. The population that then scarce reached three millions now numbers twenty; and the steady and irresistible march of public opinion, constantly operating in the infusion of a greater and still greater proportion of the popular ele- ment into our institutions, has at length reached the point beyond which it can no farther go ; and from the utmost limits of the frozen North to the sunny clime of Louisiana, from the shores washed by the stormy Atlantic to the extreme verge of the flowery prairies of the Far West, there scarce breathes an American citizen who is not, in the fullest and broadest acceptation of the word, one of the rulers of his country. Imagination shrinks from the contemplation of the mighty power for weal or for Avoe possessed by these vast masses of men. If swayed by impulse, passion, or prejudice to do wrong, no mind can conceive, no pen portray, the scenes of misery and desola- 9 130 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. tion that must ensue. But if elevated and purified by the beneficent influence of your free public education, if taught from infancy the lessons of patriotism and devotion to their country's good, if so instructed as to be able to appreciate and to spurn the counsels of those who in every age have been ready to flatter man's worst pas- sions, and to pander to his most degraded appetites, for purposes of self-aggrandizement if, in a word, trained in the school and imbued with the principles of our WASHINGTON, the most extravagant visions of fancy must fall short of picturing tlie vivid colors of the future that is open before us. The page of history will furnish no parallel to our grandeur ; and the great Republic of the Western World, extending the blessings of freedom in this hemisphere, and acting by its example in the other, will reach the proudest pinnacle of power and of greatness to which human efforts can aspire. And for the attainment of this auspicious result, how simple yet how mighty the engine which alone is required ! a universal diffusion of intelligence amongst the people by a bounteous system of free public education. It has been said by the enemies of popular government that its very theory is false that it proceeds on the assumption that the greater number ought to govern : and the records of history, and the common experience of mankind, are appealed to in support of the fact that the intelligence and capacity required for government are confined to a small minority ; that only a fraction of this minority are possessed of leisure or inclination for the study and reflection which are indis- pensable for the mastery of the important questions on which the prosperity and happiness of a country must depend ; and that these men best qualified to be the leaders and guides of their countrymen in the administration of the government have the smallest chances of success for the suffrages of the people, by reason of the secluded habits engendered by application to the very studies required to qualify them for the proper discharge of public duties. Those who are attached to free institutions can furnish but one reply to these arguments : the premises on which they rest must be destroyed ; the foundation of fact must be swept away ; and the majority, nay, the whole mass of the people, must be furnished with that degree of instruction which is required for enabling them to appreciate the advantages which flow from a judicious selection of their public servants, and to distinguish and reward that true merit which is always unobtrusive. Nor is this an Utopian idea ; if not easy of attainment, the object is at least practicable with the means that a kind Providence has supplied for us. The most sanguine advocates for public schools cannot, nor do they, pretend that each scholar is to become a politician or a statesman, any more than it would be practicable or desirable to make of each an VIRTUE THE CORNER-STONE OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 131 astronomer or a chemist. But in the same manner as it would be use- ful to instruct all in the general outlines and striking facts of those sciences, it will not be found difficult to give to the youth of America such instructions in the general outlines and main principles of our government as would enable them to discriminate between the artful demagogue or the shallow pretender, and the man whose true merit should inspire their confidence and respect. This alone would suffice for all purposes connected with the stability and prosperity of our country and its institutions ; for not even the stanchest opponent of free government pretends that the mass of the people are swayed by improper motives, that their impulses are wrong, but only that their ignorance exposes them to be misled by the designing. The same eminent philosopher to whom I have already alluded, Montesquieu, after establishing the principle that virtue is the main- spring of democracies, alludes to this very subject of the education of the people in free governments, and remarks that it is especially for the preservation of such governments that education is indispensable. He defines what he means by virtue in the people, and declares it to be the love of our country and its laws ; the love of country which requires a constant preference of public interest to that of the indi- vidual, and which, to use his own language, is peculiarly affected to republics. In them, says he, the government is confided to all the citizens. Now, government is like all other earthly things : to be pre- served, it must be cherished. Who ever heard of a king that did not love monarchy, or of a despot who detested absolute power? Every- thing, then, depends on establishing this love of country, and it is to this end that education in republics ought specially to be directed. If this distinguished writer be correct in these remarks and who can gainsay them ? how boundless the field for instruction and meditation which they afford ! How is a love of country, that love of country on which our existence as a nation depends, to be preserved, cherished, and made within us a living principle, guiding and directing our actions ? Love of country is not a mere brute instinct, binding us by a blind and unreflecting attachment to the soil, to the earth and rocks and streams that surrounded us at our birth. It is the offspring of early associations, springing up at the period when the infant perceptions are first awakened by the Creator to the beauteous works of his power which surround us, sustained and cherished by the memory of all the warm affections that glow in the morning of life. The reminiscences of our childish joys and cares, of the ties of family and of home, all rush back on the mind in maturer years with irresistible force, and cling to us even in our dying hour. England's noble bard never clothed a more beautiful thought in more poetic language than when 132 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. he depicted the images that crowded into the memory of the Gladiator dying in the Arena of Eome " He recked not of the life lie lost, nor prize But where his rude hut by the Danube lay ; There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother." But although these feelings are natural to man in all climes and ages, how intensely are they felt, how deeply do they become rooted in the hearts of those who, in addition to the early associations peculiar to each, are knit together in one common bond of brotherhood by the recollection of the great and noble deeds of those who have lived before them in the land ; who can point to records of historic lore and show the names of their country and her sons inscribed upon the brightest pages in the annals of the past ! What, then, are the means by which to kindle this love of country into a steady and enduring flame, chaste, pure, and unquenchable as that which vestals for their goddess guarded ? your Free Public Schools. Let the young girl of America be instructed in the history of her country ; let her be taught the story of the wives and mothers of the Revolution ; of their devoted attachment to their country in the hour of its darkest peril ; of that proud spirit of resistance to its oppressors which no persecution could overcome ; of that unfaltering courage which lifted them high above the weakness of their sex, and lent them strength to encourage and to cheer the fainting spirits of those Avho were doing battle in its cause : and when that girl shall become a matron, that love of country will have grown with her growth and become strengthened in her heart, and the first lessons that a mother's love will instill into the breast of the infant on her knee will be devotion to that country of which her education shall have taught her to be justly proud. Take the young boy of America and lead his mind back to the days of Washington. Teach him the story of the great man's life. Follow him from the moment when the youthful soldier first drew his sword in defence of his country, and depict his conduct and his courage on the dark battle- field where Braddock fell. Let each successive scene of the desperate Revolutionary struggle be made familiar to his mind ; let him trace the wintry march by the blood-stained path of a barefooted soldiery winding their painful way over a frozen soil ; teach him in imagina- tion to share the triumphs of Trenton, of Princeton, and of Yorktown. Let him contemplate the Hero, the Patriot, and the Sage, when the battle's strife was over and the victory secured, calmly surrendering to his country's rulers the rank and station with which they had invested him, withdrawing to the retirement of the home that he VIRTUE THE CORNER-STONE OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 133 loved, and modestly seeking to escape the honors that a grateful people were to bestow. Teach him to appreciate the less brilliant but more useful and solid triumphs of the statesman ; tell him how at the people's call, the man that was " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," abandoned the calm seclusion that he cherished, again, at an advanced age, to expose himself to the stormy ocean of public life : first, to give aid and counsel to his countrymen in devising a frame of government that should forever secure their liberties ; and then, by his administration of that government, to fur- nish a model and guide for the Chief Magistrates that were to succeed him. And then lead him at length to the last sad scene, the closing- hour of the career of the greatest man that earth has ever borne, to the death-bed of the purest patriot that ever perilled life in his coun- try's cause ; and let him witness a mighty people bowed down with gorrow, and mourning the bereavement of their friend, their father. And as the story shall proceed, that boy's cheek shall glow and his eye shall kindle with a noble enthusiasm, his heart shall beat with quicker pulse, and in his inmost soul shall he vow undying devotion to that country which, above all riches, possesses that priceless treas- ure, the name, the fame, and the memory of WASHINGTON. Nor is it here that the glorious results of your system of universal education for the people are to be arrested. The same wise Provi- dence which has bestowed on the inhabitant of the New World that restless activity and enterprise which so peculiarly adapt him for extending man's physical domain over the boundless forests, that still invite the axe of the pioneer, has also implanted in his breast a mind, searching, inquisitive, and acute ; a mind that is yet destined to invade the domain of science, and to take possession of her proudest citadels. Hitherto, the absence of some basis of primary instruction has caused that mind, in a great degree, to run riot, for want of proper direction to its energies ; but its very excesses serve but to prove its native strength, as a noxious vegetation proves, by the rank- ness of its growth, the fertility of the soil when yet unsubdued by man. Let this basis be supplied, and instead of indulging in visionary schemes, or submitting to the influence of the wildest fanaticism ; instead of becoming the votary of a Mormon or a Miller, the freeman of America will seek other and nobler themes for the exercise of his intellect ; other and purer fountains will furnish the living waters at which to slake his thirst for knowledge. The boundless field of the arts and sciences will be opened to his view. Emulation will lend strength and energy to each rival in the race for fame. Then shall we have achieved the peaceful conquest of our second, our moral inde- pendence. Then shall we cease morally as well as physically to be 134 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. the tributaries of the Old World. Then, in painting, other Wests and other A listens will arise ; then sculpture will boast of other Green- oughs and Powers ; then the name of Bowditch will not stand alone amongst the votaries of that science which has her home in the heavens ; then other philosophers will take their place by the side of Franklin, and other divines will emulate the fame and follow in the footsteps of Channing. THE COUKT A TEMPLE OF JUSTICE.* BY RAXDELI, HUNT. [RANDELL HUNT, a native of South Carolina, removed as a young man to New Orleans, where, in due time, he played an important part as lawyer and orator. He was an ardent Whig until the collapse of that party; and when the Civil War broke out he took an open stand in defence of the threatened Union. When Louisiana was to decide for herself, he was foremost among those who opposed the expediency of the Secession movement. In 1866 he was chosen United States Senator ; but the seat was refused him on his arrival at Washington. In 1847-88 he was professor of Commercial Law, Constitutional Law, and the Law of Evidence, in the University of Louisiana (Tulane University). In 1867-84 he was, at the same time, President of the institution. He died March 22, 1892, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.] EDUCATED under the wise and liberal institutions of a Eepublic of laws, I look upon the place in which I stand as a Temple of Justice not as a theatre for a vain display of powers of disputation in personal rivalry. I regard this Court not as a weak assembly of individuals who can be easily operated upon and misled by the dictatorial spirit and arrogant airs of certain orators, who, forgetting that they are mere advocates, foolishly imagine themselves to be, and would make others believe them to be, the true and only oracles. of the law; but as an august tribunal, composed of men of good sense, firmness, integ- rity, and learning ; who, uninfluenced by any passion or prejudice, examine the questions properly submitted to them in a calm and patient spirit of investigation, and, after a full and impartial consider- ation, decide upon them, agreeably to the principles of law and justice. True liberty is a practical and substantial blessing. Its existence and its enjoyment depend upon principles which are equally important and should be equally dear to every man. These principles are founded in the laws, and are recognized, protected, and enforced under every social condition and civilized form of government. They are the safe- guards and guarantees of the most invaluable personal rights, of personal security, personal liberty, and the right of private property. In the case now about to be submitted, the last only of these rights is assailed. But this does not diminish the magnitude or interest of the cause itself ; for it would be vain to speak of any other right, if it be once authoritatively proclaimed that the acquisitions of labor shall no longer stimulate, cheer, comfort, and enrich industry, but shall * [Reprinted from The New Orleans Book (1851).] 136 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. be the prize, or rather the prey, of unprincipled, reckless, and rapacious power. Such a proclamation would be a declaration of war against humanity and civilization against those principles which the very savages hold sacred, as essential to the peace, safety, and harmony of society, and even to the support of individual existence. The secure enjoyment of property, under the supremacy of the laws, while it incites to industry and promotes enterprise in all the departments of labor, maintains and strengthens in the bosom of the citizen a sense of personal independence which is the foundation of human happiness, and enables him at once to discharge his obligations to his family, and to the community of which he is a member. This truth is so simple, so self-evident, that it is universally acknowledged, and even forms a part of the most despotic code. Napoleon himself, in the zenith of his power and glory, would not have dared to have laid violent and sacrilegious hands upon the property of the humblest subject of the empire. And what is the spectacle that is now pre- sented ? What could not be done under the despotism of a tyrant is audaciously attempted in this country of republican equality. A rich, unscrupulous, and greedy corporation has insolently appeared before this Court, and calls upon it to strip private individuals of their hard- earned property, the title to which is not only established and con- firmed by every principle of justice and by the special provisions of our own code, but by the uniform opinion and practice of the whole community, and the solemn decisions of our highest courts under the Spanish laws. To such a call this Court will not fail to give the stern rebuke of insulted justice. The jurisprudence of the State, so long settled, will remain under your action as fixed and stable as the eternal principles of truth and equity which form its basis, and the faith of the Court, solemnly pledged in its judgments, will continue to be the surest guarantee for the secure enjoyment of property purchased upon it. No licentious or disorganizing doctrine will be suffered to disturb, or in any manner to affect, the sacredness of a just title ; and the poorest citizen, while he betakes himself to repose under his humble shed, will reflect with pleasure and confidence that the fruits of his honest labors, under the protection of the laws of his country, are beyond the reach of the most unprincipled rapacity, though backed by wealth and acting under the high-sounding name of a CORPORATION. AGAINST THE POLICY OF IMPASSIYENESS.* BY PIERRE SOULE. [PIERRE SOULE was born in Castillon, France, September, 1802. In 1825 he was detected in a plot against Louis XVIII. ; but being subsequently pardoned, he went to Paris where he studied law. While a writer on the staff of Le Nain Jaune, his free expression of revolutionary principles offended Charles X. Paris was no place for the young enthusiast, and in 1826 he went first to Hayti, next to Baltimore, finally settling in New Orleans, where, after being admitted to the bar, he soon rose to distinction. In 1845 he was elected to the State Senate, and in 1847 Governor Johnson appointed him United States Senator to fill a vacancy. In 1849 he was elected to that body for the full term. In all debates on national questions, he was a pronounced Southern man, and a leader of that wing of his party. In 1853 he was appointed Minister to Spain a post which, in 1855, he resigned in consequence of his disappointment at the non-action of his government on the "Ostend Manifesto," which he had helped to frame. In the presi- dential campaigns of 1856 and 1860, he supported the claims of S. A. Douglas. Subse- quently, to the surprise of his friends, he declared himself an opponent to the secession of Louisiana. After the war, he resumed the practice of his profession in New Orleans. In 1868, with broken health, he finally retired to private life. Soule's fame as an orator is national. His addresses before the people were models of majestic and impassioned eloquence. He died in New Orleans, March 26, 1870.] MR. PRESIDENT : Let us not be lulled into slumber by the idea that we are too distant from Europe to be affected by her political convul- sions. Do you not know that violence and oppression are contagious, and that their triumph in any point of time, or on any point of the globe, reacts on the moral world ? Why, moreover, speak of isolation, when you can ride your floating palaces from continent to continent in less time than it took your fathers, fifty years ago, to travel from Buffalo to New York, from Boston to Philadelphia? when every wave of the ocean brings you swift messengers, blown over to these western shores by the same breeze that wafted them from the eastern hemisphere ? when, low as it beats, you can hear every pulsation of the European heart beneath the iron hands that strive to compress and stifle its languid and agonizing energies ? But it is insisted that an expression of our sympathies is more a matter of sentiment than of right and policy. Sir, I pity the states- man who does not know that public sentiment, which sometimes sup- plies and sometimes corrects the law, is always its strongest support. And I believe that it is our duty to keep alive by good offices among the * [From a speech delivered in the Senate Chamber of the United States, March 12, 1852.] 138 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. nations of Europe that reverence for the institutions of our country, that devout faith in their efficacy, which looks to their promulgation throughout the world as to the great millennium which is to close long calendars of wrongs. Let their flame light up the gloom and dispel the darkness that now envelop the peoples of monarchical Europe. Humbled though these peoples be, do not despise them. It was not their choice, but treachery that made them slaves ; and if you should ask why is it that they seem to look with approving smiles and con- tented hearts to the hands that brandish the rod over them, do not forget those deluded wretches, condemned to be devoured by beasts for the entertainment of the Roman Emperors, who could not be persuaded that Caesar was not Eome, and who, upon entering the Coliseum, as they passed his seat, would bow to him in respectful submission, and exclaim : " Caesar, morituri te salutant ! " (Caesar, though doomed to die we salute thee !) I heard, the other day, the honorable Senator from Tennessee, in one of those soul-stirring feats of eloquence so peculiarly his own, dis- claim that there be anything like destiny in the callings of a nation. How could he have thus overlooked that there is not a work of God's wisdom, nor a striving of the human intellect, that bears not the indelible seal of destiny ? Onward ! onward ! is the injunction of God's will, as much as Ahead ! ahead ! is the aspiration of every American heart. We boast exultingly of our wisdom. Do we mean to hide it under the bushel, from fear that its light might set the world in flames ? As well might Christianity have been confined to the walls of a church, or to the enclosures of a cloister. What had it effected for mankind, what had it effected for itself, without the spirit that promulgated it to the world ? Onward ! onward ! To stand still is to be lifeless : inertion is death. Had Mahomet stood still, would he and the mountain have got together ? Had the colonies failed to assert their rights, would this be the Government it is ? Had Jeffer- son and Polk remained impassive, would Louisiana be ours? would Texas, would California, sit here in the bright garments of their sovereignty ? You commend the policy of the fathers of the Republic, as if time, that withers the strength of man, did not " throw around him the ruins of his proudest monuments." Have I not shown how mutable it had been ? Let us not calumniate the past by fastening its usurpa- tions upon the future. I revere its teachings, but cannot submit to make them the measure of present wisdom. Speaking of the sages whose names and authority have so often been invoked in this debate, the elder Adams attempts to exculpate the defects of their views and policy by this remark : " The present actors on the stage have been AGAINST THE POLICY OF IMPASSIVENESS. 139 too little prepared by their early views, and too much occupied with turbulent scenes, to do more than they have done." And with what ardent fervor and hope, with what enthusiasm, he speaks of the scenes which display themselves to his view in the future of his country ! " A prospect into futurity in America is like contemplating the heav- ens through the telescope of Herschel. Objects stupendous in their magnitude and motions strike us from all quarters and fill us with amazement ! " My reverence for opinions consecrated by the authority of the sages who preceded us will not induce me to disintegrate this Kepub- lic, and shear from its domain Louisiana, Texas, Florida, the Califor- nias, and New Mexico, because, forsooth, Washington, Adams, and Hamilton may have held that any accession of new territory to the area embraced by the old States was unconstitutional. I could not vote in favor of rechartering a national bank, because this institution had the assent of the same great men. Nor could I shut my ears, on their account, to those whisperings of the future that betoken the rising of new generations impatient to throw themselves on our lap. Sir, public opinion scorns the presumptuous thought that you can restrain this growing country within the narrow sphere of action origi- nally assigned to its nascent energies, and keep it eternally bound up in swaddles. As the infant grows, it requires a more substantial nour- ishment, a more active exercise. So the lusty appetite of its manhood would ill fare with what might satisfy the soberer demands of its youth. Do not, therefore, attempt to stop it on its onward career ; for as well might you command the sun not to break through the fleecy clouds that herald its advent in the horizon, or to shroud itself in gloom and darkness as it ascends the meridian. THE HIGHWAY OF NATIONS.* BY PIERRE SOULE. ENGLAND has, from time out of mind, attempted to arrogate to herself the supremacy of the ocean. She once ruled it supreme. But the sceptre has fallen from her hands, and the tides have resumed their courses. And now, who dares to claim to be owner of the sea ? Who presumes to have exclusive right to its waves, to its currents, and to its storms ? " The earth," says the Psalmist, " was given to the children of men, but the sea is of God alone." Now, the idea of ownership implies that of exclusive possession, and, of consequence, not only the right of using the thing owned at will, but the right of excluding others from possession, and ofttimes the necessity of so excluding them in order that the possessor may reap all the advantages his property can yield. The sea has no characteristics that could constitute its ownership by any man or nation. Its immensity, its fluidity, must forever prevent its being subject to possession. It may be turned to profit, it is true, by each and by. all of the human species, without its enjoyment by some impairing or diminishing its enjoyment by others. Its capacity is incommensurable, for there is no volume that can exhaust it. Thou- sands of fleets may be sunk in it to-day, and to-morrow it will again engulf millions of others, without ever being filled or notably com- pressed. There are no signs, no marks through which to attest its occupancy. Even those frightful, though majestic, leviathans that now plough it over in all directions, do not leave behind them any trace of their passage, since the rolling waves curl back as they move on, and waft away from its surface the last vestiges of their march. To make a thing yours by possession, you must possess in continu- ity the same thing. Identity in the thing owned constitutes one of the main elements of possession. A field or a forest may be upturned, altered, and transformed ; yet it will be the same field, the same for- est. Not so with the ocean, so unceasingly changing in its form, place, and surface ; now sinking its upper layers in the utmost recesses of the deep, now upheaving others from her lowest bed to the surface, as if to spread them to the light of Heaven in glorious exultancy. Its inexhaustibility renders its exclusive enjoyment not only useless, but * [From a speech delivered August 12, 1852, in the Senate Chamber of the United States.] THE HIGHWAY OF NATIONS. 141 impossible. You may take from it for years and ages, with thousands and millions of men ; you may seize upon its pearls, its corals, its salts, and its fishes ; yet you only develop its powers of production and mul- tiply the yieldings of the mine from which you draw. By the decrees of God, the ocean is of all men. Nations may undertake to explain and interpret those decrees ; they cannot abrogate them. Yet, sir, nations have claimed ownership over it, or such a suprem- acy as seemed to constitute it in a sort of monarchy. They would have other nations call them the queens of the sea. Yes ; they claim to appropriate it to themselves and to subject it to their exclusive dominion. The discovery of America, and the vast development of commerce and navigation incident thereto, gave zest to and became a powerful stimulus for such assumptions. Thus, Venice arrogated to herself the Adriatic ; Genoa, the Ligu- rian Sea ; the Portuguese and the Spanish, the sea of the two Indies ; and in the eighteenth century, England claimed to be the mistress and sovereign of all the seas in communication with those surrounding her coast, which, of course, was no less than to claim sovereignty over all the seas in the world, as they all communicate with each other. But these arrogant assumptions on the part of powerful states never were assented to by those whom they excluded from the common domain. The history of England furnishes us with a striking example of her own susceptibility, whenever such claims were set up against her. At a time when, though powerful on the ocean, she could not yet pretend to rule her rivals out of it, and when Spain, in the palmiest days of her strength and glory, and aided by the bulls of the Pope, was claim- ing titles to all the lands and seas of the two Americas, the nations of this hemisphere sent ambassadors to the English court and loudly complained of the devastations which an illustrious navigator, Sir Francis Drake, was committing on her domains. Elizabeth, the super- cilious and unbending, in answering their complaints, said : " The use of the sea and of the air is common to all. No people nor private person can claim any power over the ocean ; for neither its nature nor its public usage will allow its being occupied." We find, it is true, in all ages, nations who, being more especially addicted to commerce and navigation, obtain, for a time, what the writers on the law of nations would call a prepotency over the sea ; but, even under that prepotency, they never pretended to be the sole tenants of it. Tyre, Khodes, Athens, Lacedaemon, Carthage, and Borne herself never claimed its absolute and exclusive enjoyment, but suffered other nations to enjoy it with them. Though it was said of the Carthaginians that they exercised such a power over the sea as to render its navigation dangerous adeo 142 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. potentes mari, ut omnibus mortalibus namgatio periculosa esset yet they but aimed at a nominal supremacy ; and therefore it is that, according to Strabo, " they carried their commercial jealousy so far as to interdict the nations who contested with her for that supremacy from landing upon their coasts, and to sink all vessels with which her own met directing their course towards Sardinia, or towards what was called afterwards Gibraltar." I read in a most lucid and interesting treatise on the right of prop- erty, by Comte, that though the shores of the sea which formed part of the Roman Empire were considered the property of the Roman people, the use of them was held to be common to all mankind for fishing and navigable purposes ; and that though the authority of the praetor was necessary to warrant the construction thereon of any buildings, the want of such an authority did not involve the destruction of the works, if not injurious to fishing or navigation, or the cause of damage to others ; and the sole object of the authority required seems to have been to ascertain and establish the sovereignty of the Roman people over coasts which formed part of their territories. " The sea and its shores," says the Roman law, " are as common and free to all men as the air itself ; and no person can be prohibited from fishing in it." Accordingly, the Emperor Antoninus, to whom remonstrances were made against the inhabitants of the Cyclades, who interrupted the navigation of their neighbors, appropriately answered, " that he was the lord of the land ; but that law alone was sovereign over the sea." In more modern times, the Dutch gave a remarkable proof of their pertinacity to resist the claims of England over the immediate seas bordering on her coast ; albeit the treaty of 1654 is quoted as con- taining on the part of Holland a full acknowledgment of England's sovereignty over the sea. How impotent must the teachings of his- tory be, that such errors can obtain credit and be received as truth ! Holland had sustained a protracted and most disastrous war against England, and from impending exhaustion had agreed to the main con- dition of a treaty of peace as early as 1561. The Long Parliament insisted upon an article being inserted in the treaty by which Eng- land's sovereignty should be recognized and her flag saluted whenever it might appear on the high seas. This Holland bravely and peremp- torily refused. The war continued three years longer, and the treaty could not be signed, until the obnoxious clause had been stricken out, and another inserted in its place, granting the salute also, it is true, but as a mere mark of deference and courtesy alone. Thus, as it seems, the concurrence of mankind repelled all attempts at transforming the ocean into a thing manageable and compressible, THE HIGHWAY OF NATIONS. 143 capable of being reduced to possession, and therefore susceptible of ownership. Now, the use of the ocean belongs to man and nations in so far only as it is being exercised. It is a right to such alone as exercise it, for the time they exercise it, and within the space over which it is exercised. As soon as it is abstained from, the right ceases it is at an end gone. " Cum igitur nil nisi usus maris et littorum occupari possit, facile constat jus hoc utendi tantum dictare quamdiu quis utitur et quatenus utitur." The ocean, therefore, is free. Yet will some say : May not its dominion be conferred from one nation to another by all men to one ? It is clear that it cannot. Concede this, and what becomes of its freedom ? If its sovereignty can be conferred, it can be conquered : and, if so, it becomes at once the property of the first occupant or of the strongest. Force, in the one case, will be as legitimate as injustice in the other. Even its enjoyment could not be of one man and of one nation, without all other nations and men renouncing the right which nature has given equally to them all. X--55-****** But this is no longer insisted upon. It has grown obsolete ; it is not as much as thought of, unless, indeed, it be by some incorrigible tyro of the school of Selden, or some fanatic and blind admirer of every dictum that ever fell from the fertile pen of Grotius. IMPORTANT PUBLIC SEEVICES OF HENRY CLAY.* BY THEODORE H. M'CALEB. [THEODORE HOWARD M'CAI.EB was born in Pendleton District, S. C., February 10, 1810. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and at Yale College. In 1832 he settled in New Orleans, and was, in due course, admitted to the Louisiana bar. In 1846 President Polk appointed him United States District Judge of Louisiana. This position he held until the secession of the State. He was for three years president of the Univer- sity of Louisiana, and for almost seventeen years professor of International and Admiralty law in the same institution. He died at Hermitage Plantation, Miss., April 29, 1864.] BUT it is rather as citizens of the Union that we love to dwell upon the services of Mr. Clay. We love to recur to that dark period in our history, made glorious by American valor and American genius; a period when the Republic was called upon to vindicate her honor against wrongs committed upon her commerce by England and France, under the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the British orders in council. Under the pretext of prosecuting legitimate hostilities in pursuance of these retaliatory measures, the most atrocious depreda- tions were committed by both nations upon our neutral trade. And while France was induced by our stern remonstrances to abandon her unjust and abominable policy, so far at least as it related to American vessels, England continued to persevere in her course of arrogance and oppression, until an indignant people demanded vengeance for her un- provoked hostilities upon the property of our merchants, and for her barbarous impressment of our mariners while pursuing their peaceful avocations upon the highway of nations. This important crisis in our affairs occurred in 1811, during the administration of Mr. Madison. Mr. Clay was then a member of the House of Representatives, and had been elected its presiding officer. The mind of the amiable President was inclined to peace, though he afterwards proved firm when his resolution was once taken. _A pacific policy was also recommended by Mr. Gallatin, then at the head of the Treasury Department. Against every measure tending to a declara- tion of hostilities were arrayed the powerful talents of Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, and Mr. Quincy, of Massachusetts. It is not difficult, however, to imagine what would be the conduct of Mr. Clay in such an emergency. Like the Antaeus of ancient fable, he rose with renewed and redoubled vigor, under the Herculean pressure of opposition that * [From an oration delivered in Odd Fellows' Hall, New Orleans, December 9, 1852.] IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICES OF HENRY CLAY. 145 attempted to bear him to the earth. He was then in the prime of life, " with the rose of heaven upon his cheek, and the fire of liberty in his eye." He saw that there was but one course to be pursued for the vindication of the insulted honor of the country, and for a prompt and effectual redress of her accumulated wrongs and that course involved a declaration of war. He advocated the embargo laws, because the measure was a direct precursor to war ; he advocated the increase of the army and navy, and every other measure that would lead to the declaration of hostilities. Side by side with Mr. Calhoun he nobly sustained the honor of the country. High above their compeers shone these two young and gallant champions of the Republic the Tancred and Rinaldo of political chivalry. The con- duct of Mr. Clay on that memorable occasion cannot, perhaps, be better described than by adopting the language of a member of Con- gress, w T ho was a personal witness of the effect of his eloquence upon the crowds who daily hung upon his thrilling accents. " On this oc- casion," said he, " Mr. Clay was a flame of fire. He had now brought Congress to the verge of what he conceived a war for liberty and honor, and his voice rang through the Capitol like a trumpet-tone sounding for the onset. On the subject of the policy of the embargo, his eloquence, like a Macedonian phalanx, bore down all opposition, and he put to shame those of his opponents who flouted the Govern- ment on being unprepared for war." His great object was finally accomplished. War was declared. The military and naval resources of the country were called into requisition, and both on the land and on the ocean the honor of the country was gloriously sustained. In consequence of the friendly interposition of the Emperor Alex- ander of Russia, a willingness was expressed by the Ministry of Eng- land to negotiate with our Government a treaty of peace. Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell were appointed by Mr. Madison, Commissioners for this purpose, and accordingly Mr. Clay, on the 19th of January, 1814, resigned his station as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and proceeded on his mission to Ghent. He was there joined by Messrs. Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard, who had left St. Petersburg and repaired to the place appointed for the meeting of the Commissioners, for the purpose of aiding in the arrangement of the terms of peace. The treaty was signed in December, 1814. Afterwards a commercial con- vention, highly advantageous to the trade and navigation of the coun- try, was concluded in London by three of the Commissioners of Ghent ; viz., Messrs. Adams, Clay, and Gallatin. The public career of Mr. Clay was subsequently distinguished by the able, eloquent, and untiring support he gave to the cause of Inter- 10 146 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. nal Improvement, and to the protection of Domestic Industry. Let the mere sectional politician say what he may, these measures were absolutely necessary to enable the country to develop with rapidity her great natural resources, and to secure her independence of the manufactories of Europe. Those who would properly appreciate the services of Mr. Clay must look to the situation of the country while she was yet young and in a comparatively feeble state ; and not to her present prosperous position, with her great facilities for inter- national communication, and for prompt and rapid transportation from State to State ; nor to her splendid manufactories, which are soon destined not only to rival, but to surpass establishments of the same character in the Old World. Nor should we limit our inquiry to the condition of the country in time of peace ; but we should view the subject as the great statesman himself was accustomed to view it, with reference to the contingency of war, and to those calamities which war must inevitably entail upon every great commercial nation. What would be the condition of our country without manufactures, and without the facilities of transportation from one part of the Union to the other, for cannon and other munitions of war, while the fleets of a powerful enemy are sweeping the ocean, and prowling along our coasts ? The policy of Mr. Clay demanded the aid of Government for the prosecution of what individual resources and individual energy in the earlier period of our history were inadequate to accomplish. He aimed at the security of our commercial independence, and of our internal prosperity, at all times, and in every emergency. With the zeal displayed by our great champion of universal liberty in the cause of South American and Grecian independence, you are all familiar. His speech in support of his proposition to send a min- ister to the United Provinces of the Eio de la Plata is one of the ablest and most elaborate arguments which emanated from the illustrious statesman during his whole public career. It is full of historical information and statistical details, and evinces by its laborious research the deep, heartfelt anxiety of its author to secure for the colonies the encouragement of our own Government, in the establishment of that political independence for which they were nobly contending. His speech in support of Mr. Webster's proposition to send a commissioner to Greece is a short but gallant appeal in behalf of a people in whose favor the sympathies of every humane heart would be naturally en- listed. There cannot be presented to the imagination of a friend of liberty a spectacle grander and more imposing than was exhibited in the Congress of our Eepublic, when Clay and Webster, the great ora- tors of America, stood forth the undaunted advocates of the restora- tion of freedom to the land of Pericles and Demosthenes. IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICES OF HENRY CLAY. 147 The exertions of Mr. Clay in behalf of both South America and Greece were zealously continued during the time he was at the head of the Department of State under the administration of Mr. Adams ; and with what success we shall presently have occasion to notice. As a diplomatist, his abilities were displayed to the greatest advantage. In the negotiations which led to the Treaty of Ghent, he wielded " the pen of a ready writer ; " while his excellent judgment, great prudence, and practical intelligence rendered him at all times an efficient coadjutor and a safe councillor of his distinguished associates in the commission. He not only aided in bringing to an honorable close the war of 1812, but subsequently also, in conjunction with Messrs. Adams and Gallatin, as we have already seen, in securing by the Commercial Convention signed in London, on the 3d of July, 1815, those reciprocal advantages for our commerce and navigation, which proved to be so effectual in enabling our enterprising mer- chants to recover from the paralyzing consequences of the war. His easy and conciliatory deportment, his perfect freedom from all duplicity, and from that mysterious, enigmatical style of conducting diplomatic conferences, once so common at the different courts of Europe, gained for him the respect and confidence of the English negotiators. The prudence and wisdom of Mr. Madison were never more hap- pily displayed than in the appointment of the members of the Com- mission to adjust our difficulties with Great Britain. There was Adams, learned on all subjects, and fortified by a thorough knowl- edge of international law ; there was Gallatin, ready in all financial details, and familiar with the commerce of the globe ; and there was Clay, bearing the reputation of an orator of rare abilities, quick to discover an advantage, and prompt in turning it to the interest of his cause, ever active, ever vigilant, looking alike to the present honor and ultimate prosperity of the country. Such an array of talent and ability could not fail to exert a favorable impression on the diploma- tists of the proud nation before whom the rights of our young Eepub- lic were to be vindicated, and her high character maintained. It formed an appropriate sequel to the gallant exploits of our Army and Navy. England learned, for the first time, that she was neither the mistress of the ocean, nor the undisputed arbiter of nations ; that we not only possessed a power to check her progress upon the land and upon the ocean, but also a moral and intellectual ability to teach her the great and immutable principles of international justice. It has been truly said that the diplomacy of our country was never more efficiently conducted than during the time our foreign relations were committed to Mr. Clay. The number of treaties he negotiated 148 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. while at the head of the Department of State, was greater than all that had been previously concluded there, from the adoption of the Constitution.* He concluded and signed treaties with Colombia and Central America, with Denmark, Prussia, and the Hanseatic League. He also effected a negotiation with Russia for the settlement of the claims of American citizens, and concluded a treaty with Austria, but left the Department before it Avas signed. His letters to Mr. Gallatin, while the latter was our Minister at London, upon the subject of our trade with the British colonies, and the navigation of the St. Law- rence, have ever been regarded as documents of rare value in the history of our negotiations, and have deservedly placed the writer among the most accomplished diplomatists of the age. Another state paper, which has probably gained him more reputation than all others which have emanated from his pen, is his letter of instructions to the Delegation to the Congress of Panama. But that which will in all time secure to his memory the veneration of every ardent lover of liberty is his successful appeal to the Emperor of Russia, through our Minister at St. Petersburg (Mr. Middleton), to contribute his exertions towards terminating the war which was then raging between Spain and her South American colonies. He was equally successful in obtaining the acquiescence of the same great power in the recognition of the independence of Greece. His strenuous exertions while he was Secretary of State, in connection with the noble efforts previously made by himself and Mr. Webster, upon the proposition of the latter to send a commissioner to Greece, were mainly instrumental in excit- ing the sympathies of Europe in favor of the struggling people of that ancient home of freedom ; and in securing to them a recognition of those constitutional guarantees for the protection of their rights under a limited monarchy, for which they had long contended. And now, in the musical strains of Whittier : "The Grecian as he feeds his flocks In Tempe's vale, on Morea's rocks, Or where the gleam of bright blue waters Is caught by Scio's white-armed daughters, While dwelling on the dubious strife Which ushered in his nation's life, Shall mingle in his grateful lay Bozzaris with the name of CLAY." * Life of Mr. Clay, by Epes Sargent. COLLEGIATE EDUCATION.* BY CHRISTIAN ROSELIUS. [CHRISTIAN ROSELIUS was born August 10, 1803, in Theddinghausen, Brunswick, Germany. At the age of sixteen, he left his native land for New Orleans on board the bark Jupiter ; and his indigent condition compelled him, in payment of his passage, to pledge his services for a few years after his arrival in port. His contract of apprentice- ship he carried out to the letter, and some time afterwards established and edited The Halcyon. In 1823 he was admitted to the Louisiana bar, and about eight years later was appointed Attorney-General of the State. It was during his term in that office that Daniel Webster invited him to become his law partner in Washington ; but Roselius, out of love for life in New Orleans, declined the invitation. He was for many years Dean of the University of Louisiana, and for the last twenty-three years of his life was Professor of Civil Law in the Law Department of that institution. His lectures on the Civil Code of Louisiana, his opinions as Attorney-General, and his briefs as an advocate before the courts, display a lucid reasoning and grasp of the law, at once profound and philosophic. He died in New Orleans, September 5, 1873.] THE question has been sneeringly asked, Of what practical benefit is the knowledge of Greek and Latin, and the higher branches of mathematics, to those who do not intend to enter the learned profes- sions ? Persons who propound such questions seem to have lost sight of the fact, that the great and paramount object of education is the development and strengthening of the powers of the mind, and that that important end can only be attained by exercising and disciplining the mental faculties. Now, every one who has bestowed the least consideration on the subject must know that nothing is better calcu- lated to fix the attention, and to induce thought and reflection,- than the study of the dead languages and the mathematics. Indeed, it is obvious that not one step can be taken in these studies without bring- ing nearly all the mental powers into active operation. It is therefore manifest that, without insisting, for the present, at all on the manifold other advantages resulting from a proficiency in classic literature, and the mathematical and natural sciences, the study of these branches of knowledge is, at any rate, of incalculable benefit as the means of accomplishing the great end of education the improvement of the mind. It is said that Wisdom does not speak to her followers in Latin, * [Reprinted from Ross's Southern Speaker (1856).] 150 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. Greek, and Hebrew only, but that she teaches her sublime lessons in the pages of Shakespeare, Milton, Jeremy Taylor, and a brilliant con- stellation of other authors, who have all written in our own nervous vernacular. This is true. But let me ask, What class of readers nour- ish their minds with the strong, healthy, and invigorating food set before them by these writers ? Certainly not those whose taste has been cloyed, and whose powers of digestion have been enfeebled, if not entirely destroyed, by feeding on the pap and sweetmeats of most of the popular authors of the day. Not one reader in a thousand who pores with delight over the glittering inanities of Bulwer, or the vapid sentimentalities of James, will ever venture to read a hundred lines of the Paradise Lost or a single scene of Hamlet. There is a craving and insatiable appetite for novelty, which is constantly increased by the trash it feeds on. How can this mental malady be cured, unless it be by forming the taste and judgment of the youthful student by a care- ful study and contemplation of the great models of antiquity? In them alone do we find that wonderful artistic perfection which the moderns have attempted to imitate in vain. Homer as a poet, Demos- thenes as an orator, and Thucydides as an historian, still stand, each in his own department, in solitary grandeur, unrivalled and unapproach- able. " The poems of Homer," says Dr. Johnson, " we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remark- ing that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments." Keference is frequently made, by those who take the opposite view of this subject, to instances of what are called self-made men, for the purpose of proving that a liberal education is not an essential requisite for the attainment of intellectual distinction. We are told that the Bard of Avon " had little Latin, and less Greek ; " that Kobert Burns was a peasant ; that Pope was the best Greek scholar of his age, and has translated the sublime poetry of Homer into English, with all the vigor and freshness of the original, yet he never was inside of a col- lege. All this is true ; and other examples might be added to the list. But, allow me to ask, What does this prove against the correctness of the propositions which we have been endeavoring to establish ? There are exceptions to all general rules, and one of the most familiar maxims of logic is, that the exception proves the rule. Now, that we meet occasionally with a mind so happily organized, and endowed with such a degree of energy and will, as to grapple successfully with the disadvantages of a neglected or stinted education, and " climb the steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar," does surely not prove any- thing against the benefits and necessity of collegiate instruction and COLLEGIATE EDUCATION. 151 discipline. Besides, who can tell, except those that have gone through the ordeal, by what privation, labor, and application such persons have been enabled to travel over the rugged paths to knowledge, and- thereby provide something like a substitute for early and regular training ? And how many have ever been successful in the attempt ? Not one in ten thousand. EFFECTS OF IGNOKANCE AMONG THE MASSES.* BY CHRISTIAN EOSELIUS. WHAT are the amusements of the ignorant ? They must necessarily consist, and be limited, in a great measure, to the gratification of the sensual appetites, the inevitable consequences of an abuse of which are a debilitated body and a depraved heart. Nearly all the avenues to the higher enjoyments of the soul are closed up to the ignorant ; they look with a vacant stare at the wonderful and beautiful works of an all- wise Creator ; their eyes cannot understandingly behold the admir- able harmony of nature ; nay, the greatest of all blessings vouchsafed to man the inestimable comforts and consolations of religion can- not be enjoyed and appreciated by them to the same extent as those whose mental faculties and moral perceptions have been awakened and sharpened by education and religious training. And yet we hear intelligent persons talk of the danger of over-educating the people. Let me ask, What would become of our liberty, our admirable system of government, and our glorious Union, if it was not for the education and intelligence of the people ? Destroy these, and the beautiful fabric will crumble into dust, and like "an insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind." Look at the pages of history ; and by whose instrumentality has human freedom been invariably crushed, and despotism and oppression established in its place ? By the igno- rant masses of the people, led on by designing and unscrupulous demagogues. Take, as an illustration of this position, the last French revolution, or, as it is called, the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. Here we see the president of a republic, electee! by his fellow-citizens, sworn to support that constitution from which alone he derived his power, deliberately commit perjury, murder, and treason, and thereby consti- tute himself the master of the very people whose servant he had been ; and the stupid populace shout, and assist in riveting the chains by which they are enslaved. Would any President of the United States, however daring and ambitious he might be, ever dream of such an act of usurpation, even if he had an army of five hundred thousand * [Reprinted from Ross's Southern Speaker (1856).] EFFECTS OF IGNORANCE AMONG THE MASSES. 153 soldiers at his command ? Certainly not ; for he would know that the majority of the people who had elevated him to the highest office in their gift are too well educated and too intelligent to be made tools of in his hands for the destruction of their own freedom ; that, under- standing and appreciating their liberty, the first act of usurpation would be visited by the most condign punishment, not by the assassin's dagger, but by the awful decree of the violated majesty of the law. ON THE QUESTION OF THE ANNEXATION OF CUBA TO THE UNITED STATES.* BY JUDAH P. BENJAMIN. MR. PRESIDENT, there is one paramount principle affecting this whole question of annexation, which our self-respect requires us to present prominently before the world. It is, that in the expansion of our system, we seek no conquest, subjugate no people, impose our laws on no unwilling subjects. When new territory is brought under our jurisdiction, the inhabitants are admitted to all the rights of self-gov- ernment. Let no attempt be made to confuse this subject by the use of inappropriate terms. It is the fallacy lurking under the use of the word "belongs," of which despots make use. Cuba "belongs" to Spain. True. But in what sense? New York "belongs" to the United States, also ; but in what sense ? Cuba is subject to Spanish sovereignty. Her people now owe alle- giance to Spain ; but the island does not belong to Spain as property belongs to an individual. The Cubans are not the property of the Crown. Nay, the soil of the island belongs to private proprietors. The right of Spain, as a proprietary right, extends only to the public places on the island not disposed of to private individuals, and to such revenues as she can lawfully and legitimately exact from her subjects. But, sir, from the date of our independence, we have had fixed princi- ples on the subject of the true proprietorship of countries. The fun- damental theory of our Government is, that the people of all countries are the true and only owners ; that governments are established for their benefit ; and that whenever governments become subversive of the true ends of their institution, it is the right of the people to alter and abolish them. The island of Cuba belongs, not to Queen Isabella, but to the people who inhabit it, and who alone have the right to decide under what government they choose to live. Now, Mr. President, I desire to say, in a few words, what my view is in relation to the policy of this country. I would propose, as the President proposes, the purchase of the island of Cuba from the gov- ernment of Spain. If that be refused, if it be supposed that Spanish pride or Spanish dignity is involved in the proposition to such an * [ From a speech delivered in the Senate Chamber of the United States, February 12, 1859.] THE ANNEXATION OF CUBA TO THE UNITED STATES. 155 extent as to make it impossible for them to cede it, I would then say to Spain : " If you will not cede the island to us, grant independence to your subjects there, and we will pay you a reasonable equivalent for the abandonment of your revenues, and make settlement hereafter with the people of Cuba for our advances." If this offer be again refused, then let us announce to Spain in advance, that whenever opportunity shall occur we are ready and resolute to offer to the people of Cuba the same aid that England offered to the other Spanish colonies ; the same alliance, offensive and defensive, which France so nobly tendered to us in the hour of our darkest peril. Tell her that we shall repair the wrong by us done to the generation now passing away in Cuba when we impeded their efforts for gaining their independence, by affording to the present gen- eration our aid, countenance, and assistance. Tell her that, when the Cubans shall have conquered their independence, theirs shall be the right of remaining a separate republic, if they so prefer ; that we will cherish, aid, and protect them from all foreign interference, and will draw close the bonds of a mutual, social, and commercial intercourse, that shall be of incalculable benefit to both. Tell her, too, that if the people of the island, with their independence once acquired, and repub- lican institutions established, shall desire to unite themselves with us, they shall be admitted to the equal benefits which our system of gov- ernment secures to each independent State that enters into its charmed circle. She shall unite with us freely, the equal associate of free States ; and when the union shall have been accomplished, the sword of the nation shall smite down any rude hand that shall attempt to sunder those whom the God of freedom has united. NEGROES AS PBOPEKTY.* BY JtTDAH P. BENJAMIN. [Ms. PRESIDENT:] The Senator from Yermont [Mr. Collamer] repeats what I deem the legal heresy of saying that slaves are not prop- erty. I had, some twelve or eighteen months ago, a debate with the honorable Senator from Vermont on that subject, and I do not mean to repeat what was then said any further than I can avoid ; but upon that occasion I assumed to show that, from the time negroes were first known in Europe and America, up to the time that Lord Mans- field made his decision in the Sommersett case, they never had existed except as slaves. I showed that they were treated as slaves, as a matter of course, by all the continental nations of Europe, not only at home, but were forced as such upon the colonies ; I showed that there was no law declaring them to be slaves, but they were treated as such by the open and common consent of mankind; not merely by the tacit consent of the people of England, thus giving origin to the common law, but by the consent of mankind. I showed that negroes existed in England, and were bought and sold in the market. If Senators will look at a number of the Tatler, for the year 1702 I think it is, they will find a complaint of the negro Pompey, ad- dressed to Steele, who wrote the article, in which Pompey complains that his silver collar is not as pretty a one as his mistress gives her dog. The negro slaves were not only held and sold in the English marts, but they had collars around their necks and were treated as animals, and complaint made that they were not treated as well as dogs. If you will look to the London Advertiser of the year 1751, you will find the advertisement of a goldsmith's apprentice, recom- mending himself to the nobility of London as being exceedingly expert in making collars for dogs and blacks. They were unknown in any other capacity than that of menial servants, subject to the wills of their masters. According to the admission in the Sommersett case itself, there were then fourteen to seventeen thousand slaves in Eng- land, bought and sold at the Exchange. They are treated in English * [From a speech delivered in the Senate Chamber of the United States, March 9, I860.] NEGROES AS PROPERTY. 157 Acts of Parliament as merchandise in so many words. They were treated by Sir Philip York, according to the gentleman's own authority, as merchandise, as chattels, many years before Lord Mansfield made his decision ; and then, when you take up Lord Mansfield's decision, what is it ? What is the distinction there made ? Just the distinction that the fanatics of the North are now making in favor of the blacks against the whites. Lord Mansfield said that although slavery was known to and established by the common law of England, it was only white slavery that was so known ; and because in those ancient times, beyond which the memory of man runneth not, there existed no blacks who could be slaves, he held that by the common laAv of England African negroes were not slaves, although white Saxons were. I defy any man to extract anything else from that decision than just what I have stated. It was admitted by the counsel on both sides, admitted by the judge himself in delivering his decision, that the white Saxon was a slave by the common law of England, and it was held that the African savage, brought from remote countries into England, was not a slave, because he had not been known to the common law as a slave. It was because of this decision, which was merely yielded up to the spirit of fanaticism, then as rampant in England as it is now in our Northern and Eastern States it was in relation to this decision that Lord Stowell spoke of Lord Mansfield's having delivered a stump speech, or something equivalent to that, instead of a decision in the Sommersett case. In the case of the slave Grace he declared that negroes Avere slaves in the colonies, not by virtue of statute, but by use and custom, which are the sole origin of the common law ; and whether you choose to speak of the technical common law as it pre- vails in England, or of that enlarged definition of common law which considers it as the rules based on reason and justice, and growing into the authority of law by the common use of mankind whether you speak of it in the one light or the other, certainly you can find no period on this continent when the negro was not a slave, and you can find no statute making him so. They never became so by statute law. How did they ever become so at all ? There was no statute law in these colonies reducing them to slavery. I passed a word the other day with the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Wilson), . . . as to the ground upon which the Indians became slaves to the Puritan fathers. Talk to me of the absence of com- mon law on this subject ; the common law which acknowledged your equals the white Saxon race to be slaves to the Norman lords, sub- ject to barter, subject to purchase and sale, unable to transmit their inheritance to their children, in every sense of the word slaves, just as 158 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. the modern negro is a slave in the Southern States, though, because negroes had not yet been introduced into England, Lord Mansfield had the judicial hardihood to hold that the white Saxon was a slave by the common law, and that the African savage was not. He was rebuked by Lord Stowell for it in a judgment which is a model of judicial clearness and perspicacity. That was not the only case. Did not the English Court of King's Bench give a judgment in favor of the Spanish owner of slaves which had been taken by an English ship on the high seas? On what ground? If negroes were not slaves except by virtue of municipal law, which is the modern heresy, if they were not slaves outside of the limits of the place in which the law bound them down as slaves, on what principle was it that the English Court of King's Bench gave a decree for the pavment of the Spanish owner of the slaves taken and seized by an English frigate ? Mr. President, it is too late for us to continue discussions of this kind. They are, after all, mere legal curiosities mere antiquarian researches. Enough for us to know that that which we claim as prop- erty is recognized as such by the Constitution of the United States ; that it has the sanction of the fathers ; that it lies at the foundation of the compact by which we formed a common government ; and that, without the fullest recognition and protection of that prop- erty, this Government never could have originated. It is not now, in the year 1860, that we are to be driven back to an examination of the origin from which our rights are derived, or the true basis upon which they rest. We treat these questions as no longer open. We treat our rights as conceded in this Government ; and, treating these rights as conceded, we announce, we have announced, we con- tinue to announce, that the Union under which we live is valuable to us only so long as it is governed by the Constitution to which we consented ; that if you change that Constitution, you subvert that Union. In that sense, and in that alone, have you a right to speak of the people of the South as disunionists ; and in that sense you may count them all as disunionists, for I know not a man at the South who is not willing to give up this Union rather than give up the Constitu- tion, which is the basis upon which it was formed. We fight to pre- serve the Constitution, and, in so fighting, fight to preserve the Union. We consider those the true disunionists who lay an unhallowed hand on the ark of the covenant, and try to desecrate it to our loss and dis- honor. Respect it, keep your unholy hands off it, leave it as it was left by the fathers, and you have brethren ready, shoulder to shoulder and side by side with you, to fight in its support. Desecrate it, pollute it, destroy our rights under it, invade the sanctuary with your modern NEGROES AS PROPERTY. 159 ideas in relation to the free rights of man, to the equality of races, to amalgamation, to polygamy, and all the isms that unfortunately pre- vail amongst certain classes at the North prevail with these ideas, break down the Constitution, make your ideas the governing principle by which this country is to be administered, and I say to you, and every Southern man that I know says, that if the Constitution perish, perish the Union with it. THE CONFEDEKATE SEAL.* BY THOMAS J. SEMMES. [THOMAS JENKINS SEMMES was born at Georgetown, D. C., December 16, 1824. He was graduated, first at Georgetown College with the degree of A. B. , then at the Harvard Law School with the degree of LL.B. He practised law in Washington City about five years before removing to New Orleans to engage in the same profession. He has held many political offices in Louisiana, and represented that State, with General Sparrow, in the Confederate Senate. From 1873 to 1879 he occupied the chair of Civil Law in the University of Louisiana. In 1886 he was elected, for the ensuing year. President of the American Bar Association. A writer in Jewell's Crescent City says: "In the subtle game of law, Mr. Semmes is as adroit as a practical general in the field. When he gets into his subject and is warmed with it, he utters words of fire that carry the listener captive along with him. He is renowned for his ability to sway courts by a logic almost irresistible, and juries by a fascinating eloquence. He is called by some of our lawyers ' The Incarnation of Logic.' "] MR. PRESIDENT: I am instructed by the Committee to move to strike out the words duce vincemus in the motto and insert in lieu thereof the words vindice majores cemulamur " Under the guidance and protection of God we endeavor to equal, and even to excel, our ancestors." Before discussing the proposed change in the motto, I will submit to the Senate a few remarks as to the device on the seal. The Committee have been greatly exercised on this subject, and it has been extremely difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusion. This is a difficulty, however, incident to the subject, and all that we have to do is to avoid what Yisconti calls " an absurdity in bronze." The equestrian statue of Washington has been selected in deference to the current of popular sentiment. The equestrian figure impressed on our seal will be regarded by those skilled in glyptics as to a cer- tain extent indicative of our origin. It is a most remarkable fact, that an equestrian figure constituted the seal of Great Britain from the time of Edward the Confessor down to the reign of George III., except during the short interval of the protectorate of Cromwell, when the trial of the king was substituted for the man on horseback. Even Cromwell retained the equestrian figure on the seal of Scotland, but he characteristically mounted himself on the horse. In the reign of * [Speech delivered in the Confederate Senate, April 27, 1864, on the orators motion to strike out the words " seal of," and substitute for the words " Deo duce vincemus" the legend " Deo vindice majores aemulamur. "] THE CONFEDERATE SEAL. 161 William and Mary, the seal bore the impress of the king and queen both mounted on horseback. Washington has been selected as the emblem for our shield, as a type of our ancestors in his character of princeps majorum. In addition to this, the equestrian figure is consecrated in the hearts of our people by the local circumstance that, on the gloomy and stormy 22d of February, 1862, our Permanent Government was set in motion by the inauguration of President Davis under the shadow of the statue of Washington. The Committee are dissatisfied with the motto on the seal as proposed by the House resolution. The motto proposed is as follows : " Deo Duce Yincemus " " Under the leadership of God we will conquer." The word duce is too pagan in its signification, and is degrad- ing to God because it reduces him to the leader of an army ; for scarcely does the word duce escape the lips before the imagination suggests exercitus, an army for a leader to command. It degrades the Christian God to the level of pagan gods, goddesses, and heroes, as is manifest from the following quotation : " Nil desperandurn Teucro duce." This word duce is particularly objectionable because of its connection with the word mncemus " we will conquer." This connection makes God the leader of a physical army, by means of which we will conquer, not must conquer. If God be our leader, we must conquer, or he would not be the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, nor the God of the Christian. This very doubt implied in the word mncemus so qualifies the omnipotence of the God who is to be our " leader," that it imparts a degrading signification to the word duce in its relation to the attributes of the Deity. The word mncemus is equally objectionable, because it implies that the war is to be our normal state ; besides, it is in the future tense " we will conquer." The future is always uncertain, and there- fore it implies doubt. What becomes of our motto when we shall have conquered ? The future becomes an accomplished fact, and our motto thus loses its significance. In addition to this, there are only two languages in which the words " will " and " shall " are to be found the English and the German and in those they are used to qualify a positive condition of the mind and render it uncertain ; they are repugnant to repose, quiet, absolute and positive existence. As to the motto proposed by us, we concur with the House in accepting the word Deo God. We do so in conformity to the expressed wishes of the framers of our Constitution, and the senti- ments of the people and of the army. The preamble of the Provisional Constitution declares that " We, 11 162 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. the deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Caro- lina," etc., "invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain," etc. In this respect both our Constitutions have deviated in the most emphatic manner from the spirit that presided over the construction of the Constitution of the United States, which is silent on the subject of the Deity. Having discarded the word duce the committee endeavored to select in lieu of it a word more in consonance with the attributes of the Deity, and therefore more imposing and significant. They think success has crowned their efforts in the selection of the word vindex which signifies an asserter, a defender, protector, deliverer, liberator, a mediator, and a ruler or guardian, as may be seen from the follow- ing examples: First, a defender: "Habet sane populus tabellam quasi vindicem libertatis." Livy. (The people hold a bond, the defender, as it were, of their liberty.) Second, a protector : " Vin- dicem periculi Curium res suppeditat." Livy. (The circumstances suggest or afford Curius as a protector against danger.) Third, a mediator : " Nee Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus inciderit."- Horace, Ars Poetica. (Let not God intervene, unless the catastrophe be worthy of such a mediator or interposer.*) Fourth, ruler or guardian: "Yindicem eum regni reliquit." Justin's History. (He left him ruler or guardian of the kingdom.) Vindex also means an avenger or punisher. First, " Furiae vin- dices facinorum." Cicero. (The Furies the avengers of crime.) Second, " Me vindicem conjurationis oderunt." Cicero. (They hate me, the punisher of their conspiracy.) No word appeared grander, more expressive or significant than this. Under God as the asserter of our rights, the defender of our liberties, our protector against danger, our mediator, our ruler and guardian, and as the avenger of our wrongs and the punisher of our crimes, we endeavor to equal or even excel our ancestors. What word can be suggested of more power, and so replete with sentiments and thoughts consonant with our idea of the omnipotence and justice of God? At this point the Committee hesitated whether it were necessary to add anything further to the motto " Deo vindice." These words alone were sufficient and impressive, and in the spirit of the lapidary style of composition were elliptical and left much to the play of the imagination. ^Reflection, however, induced us to add the words majores cemulamur, because without them there would be nothing in the motto referring to the equestrian figure of Washington. It was thought best to insert something elucidative or adoptive of the idea intended to be conveyed by that figure. Having determined on this THE CONFEDERATE SEAL. 163 point, the Committee submit to the judgment of the Senate the words majores cemulamur, as best adapted to express the ideas of " our ances- tors." Patres was first suggested, but abandoned because majores signifies ancestors absolutely, and is also more suggestive than patres. The latter is a term applied to our immediate progenitors who may be alive, whereas majores conveys the idea of a more remote genera- tion that has passed away. This distinction is well marked in the following quotation from Cicero against Caecilius : " Patres, majoresque nostri." (Our fathers and forefathers.) That being disposed of, the question arose as to the proper signifi- cation of the word cemulamur. Honorable emulation is the primary signification of the word ; in its secondary sense, it is true, it includes the idea of improper rivalry, or jealousy. But it is used in its primary and honorable sense by the most approved authors, as may be seen from the following examples : First, " Quoniam semulari non licet nunc invides." Plautus, The Boastful Soldier. (Since you cannot equal, you now envy him.) Second, " Omnes ejus instituta laudare facilius possunt quam aemulari." Cicero. (It is easier to praise than to equal his precepts.) Third, " Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari," etc. Horace, Odes. (Whoever endeavors to equal Pindarus is sure to fall.) Fourth, " Virtutes majorum semulari." Tacitus, Life of Agricola. (To equal, to come up to the virtues of our ancestors.) This last example is an exact application of the word in the manner proposed by the Committee. The secondary and improper sense of the word cemulari is excluded in the proposed motto by the relation it bears to " Deo vindice." This relation excludes the ideas of envy or jealousy, because God, as the asserter of what is right, justifies the emulation, and as a punisher of what is wrong, checks the excess, in case the emulation runs into improper envy or jealousy. In adopting the equestrian figure of Washington, the Committee desire distinctly to disavow any recog- nition of the embodiment of the idea of the " Cavalier." We have no admiration for the character of the " Cavalier " of 1640, anymore than for that of his opponent the Puritan. We turn with disgust from the violent and licentious Cavalier, and we abhor the acerb, morose, and fanatic Puritan of whom Oliver Cromwell was the type. In speaking of Cromwell and his character, G'uizot says " that he pos- sessed the faculty of lying at need with an inexhaustible and unhesi- tating hardihood, which struck even his enemies with surprise and embarrassment." This characteristic seems to have been transmitted to the descendants of the Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts Bay to enjoy the liberty of persecution. If the Cavalier is to carry us back 164 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. to days earlier than the American Revolution, I prefer to be trans- ported in imagination to the field of Runnymede, when the Barons extorted Magna Charta from the unwilling John. But I discard all reference to the Cavalier of old, because it implies a division of society into two orders, an idea inconsistent with Confederate institutions. The Committee have discharged their duty and submit the result to the consideration of the Senate. It is true they have labored more than a year, and critics may say, " Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus." ^Esthetical critics, who claim to be versed in glyptics, have, how- ever, failed to suggest anything better. If the proposition be not satisfactory to the Senate, it is hoped the matter will be intrusted to other and more learned hands. GEORGE WASHINGTON AND ROBERT E. LEE.* BY BENJAMIN M. PALMER. [BENJAMIN MORGAN PALMER was born in Charleston, S. C., January 25, 1818. In 1838, after he was graduated from the University of Georgia, he entered upon the study of Divinity in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, S. C. In 1841 he was licensed by the Presbytery of Charleston to preach the Gospel. Having married in the same year, and being soon after ordained, he took charge of the First Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Ga. In 1842 he was transferred to a pastoral charge at Columbia, S. C., and remained with this church for fourteen years. During the most of this period he filled the chair of Church History and Government in the Theological School in the same city. In 1852 Oglethorpe University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity; and in 1870 Westminster (Mo.) College followed with that of LL.D. It was in 1856 that he began his life-work with the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, where he has won for himself the love and reverence of every citizen, irrespective of creed, race, or grade. He wrote TJie Life of James Henley Thornwell (1875). Mr. John Dimitry says: "Through the essential goodness of Dr. Palmer human sin has often been lifted into hope ; through his wonderful words human rebellion has as often been shamed into conviction. In the pulpit he appears like one of the old prophets, with a message to deliver. It is difficult, indeed, to resist the magnetism of his discourse, so stately in speech, so fervid in imagination, so vivid in pictures, so scholarly in illustrations, so spontaneous in gesture, and so supreme in faith. To possess such an orator is a privi- lege for the generation which he honors, and for the city in which his voice has been so long heard in behalf of every good cause."] WHAT is that combination of influences, partly physical, partly intellectual, but somewhat more moral, which should make a particu- lar country productive of men great over all others on earth, and to all ages of time ? Ancient Greece, with her indented coast, inviting to maritime adventures, from her earliest period was the mother of heroes in war, of poets in song, of sculptors and artists, and stands up after the lapse of centuries the educator of mankind, living in the grandeur of her works and in the immortal productions of minds which modern civilization, w r ith all its cultivation and refinement and science, never surpassed and scarcely equalled. And why, in the three hundred years of American history, it should be given to the Old Dominion to be the grandmother, not only of States, but of the men by whom States and empires are formed, it might be curious, were it possible for us, to inquire. Unquestionably, Mr. President, there is in this problem the element of race ; for he is blind to all the truths of history, to all the revelations of the past, who does not * [From an address delivered at a meeting of the citizens of New Orleans, October 15, 1870, the funeral day of General Robert E. Lee.] 106 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. recognize a select race as we recognize a select individual of a race, to make all history. But pretermitting all speculation of that sort, when Virginia unfolds the scroll of her immortal sons not because illustri- ous men did not precede him gathering in constellations and clusters, but because the name shines out through those constellations and clusters in all its peerless grandeur we read first the name of George Washington. And then, Mr. President, after the interval of three- quarters of a century, when your jealous eye has ranged down the record and traced the names that history will never let die, you come to the name the only name in all the annals of history that can be named in the perilous connection of Robert E. Lee, the second Wash- ington. Well may old Virginia be proud of her twin sons ! born almost a century apart, but shining like those binary stars which open their glory and shed their splendor on the darkness of the world. Sir, it is not an artifice of rhetoric which suggests this parallel between two great names in American history ; for the suggestion springs spontaneously to every mind, and men scarcely speak of Lee without thinking of a mysterious connection that binds the two together. They were alike in the presage of their early history the history of their boyhood. Both earnest, grave, studious ; both alike in that peculiar purity which belongs only to a noble boy, and which makes him a brave and noble man, filling the page of a history spot- less until closed in death ; alike in that commanding presence which seems to be the signature of Heaven, sometimes placed on a great soul when to that soul is given a fit dwelling-place; alike in that noble carriage and commanding dignity, exercising a mesmeric influ- ence and a hidden power which could not be repressed upon all who came within its charm; alike in the remarkable combination and symmetry of their intellectual attributes, all brought up to the same equal level, no faculty of the mind overlapping any other all so equal, so well developed, the judgment, the reason, the memory, the fancy, that you are almost disposed to deny them greatness, because no single attribute of the mind was projected upon itself, just as objects appear sometimes smaller to the eye from the exact symmetry and beauty of their proportions ; alike, above all, in that soul-greatness, that Christian virtue to which so beautiful a tribute has been paid by my friend,* whose high privilege it was to be a compeer and comrade with the immortal dead, although in another department and sphere ; and yet, Mr. President, in their external fortune so strangely dis- similar the one the representative and the agent of a stupendous revolution, which it pleased Heaven to bless, and thereby give birth to one of the mightiest nations on the globe ; the other the representa- *[Hon. Thomas J. Serames, who was the first speaker on the occasion.] GEORGE WASHINGTON AND ROBERT E. LEE. 167 tive and agent of a similar revolution, upon which it pleased high Heaven to throw the darkness of its frown ; so that, bearing upon his generous heart the weight of this crushed cause, he was at length overwhelmed ; and the nation, whom he led in battle, gathers with spontaneity of grief over all this land, which is ploughed with graves and reddened with blood, and the tears of a widowed nation in her bereavement are shed over his honored grave. THE END OF SECTIONALISM.* BY E. JOHN ELLIS. [EZEKIEL JOHN ELLIS was born in Covington, La., October 15, 1841. He served in the Confederate array, first as a private, $ien as a captain. In 1866 he was admitted to the New Orleans bar. In 1874 he was elected to Congress, and secured reelection in 1876, 1878, 1880, and 1882. He died in Washington, D. C., April 19, 1889. The late James G. Elaine once said : "Ellis, of Louisiana, is one of the most eloquent and earnest debaters I have ever heard."] MOKE than sixty years ago, the dread gulf of sectionalism yawned by the very altar of our country. No matter, now, whose was the fault. It appeared, it grew, it widened. It brought hatreds, and strifes, and threats, and bitterness, and drew away the hearts of Americans from the love and the trust of the fathers. In vain did heroes bleed, in vain did sages warn. Finally, there came war ; and over and into this gulf, Americans fought, and the blood of Ameri- cans, shed by American hands, was poured. A million of noble lives were offered up. Women wept their husbands, and children mourned their fathers, and yet the gulf would not close. And since the strife and the bloodshed, the gulf has remained until now. To-day, thank God, it is closed ! The warm outburst of sympathy and love that broke from the great heart of the South for the stricken President, who was their enemy in war, and whose political course and theories in peace were with those who seemed against the prejudices and sympathies of the South, has touched the generous heart of the mighty North as it has not been touched before. In the gloom of the common grief, the sec- tions see each other as they have not seen before ; and over the suffer- ing couch, and around the tear-moistened grave of the martyred Pres- ident, they have met and realized, with the old love of our fathers warm in their sad hearts, that they are one one in love, in hope, in sympathy, and destiny forever. And so the gulf of sectionalism closes upon the sacred form of the dead President. God grant that the sacri- fice may prove enough ! God of our fathers, grant that the Union, thus recemented, may grow stronger and stronger as the years roll on, and live, a quickening and animating presence, in the heart of every American. And if this shall be so, then will James A. Garfield's death have accomplished what his life was powerless to achieve, though he wielded the soldier's sword and wrote the statesman's law. * [From an address delivered, September 26, 1881, on the occasion of the funeral obsequies in honor of President James Abrain Garfield.] DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.* BY RANDALL L. GIBSON. [RANDALL LEE GIBSON was born at Spring Hill, Woodford County, Ky., September 10, 1832. In 1853 he took his A. B. degree from Yale College, and about two years after was graduated from the Law Department of the University of Louisiana. He served with honor in the Confederate Army (1861-65), attaining the rank of major-general before the close of the war. Always a sterling Democrat, in 1872 he was elected to Congress from the First Congressional District of Louisiana, but was not allowed to take his seat. He was reflected to the position in 1874, 1876, 1878, and 1880. On the organization of Tulane University he was made President of its Board of Administrators. From March 4, 1883, until his death, which occurred December 15, 1892, he was United States Senator from Louisiana.] MR. SPEAKER : The Spaniards discovered the Mississippi River. In 1528, a century before the French reached its upper tributaries, or the English landed at Jamestown, Cabeza de Vaca passed near the mouth of the great river, but his vessel was tossed away by the strong cur- rent, aided by a wind from the east ; yet he and his companions first tasted and remembered " its sweet waters." Another gallant Spaniard,. Ferdinand de* Soto, who had been the companion of Pizarro in the con- quest of Peru, with a band of faithful followers, courtiers and artisans,, priests and soldiers, like Cortez, bidding adieu to his ships, penetrated the southern forests, and after three years of adventurous wanderings, full of hard struggles and bitter disappointments, in the spring of the year 1541 first planted the banners of Spain and of the Christian Church upon the banks of the Mississippi River, beneath whose turbid waves he found a grave for himself, his ambitions, and his hopes. More than a century after this a century and a half in 16T3, the meek and illustrious Father Marquette, the brave chief Joliet, and Father Hennepin, entered the Valley of the Mississippi. The latter explored it northward nearly to its headwaters, and the former navi- gated it with fearless intrepidity as far south as the Arkansas. But brilliant as these exploits were, they have not obscured the lustre that surrounds the name of La Salle, for it was his happy fortune to excel all his predecessors in the boldness and the extent of his wonderful and successful discoveries. Baffled by no disappointments, surmounting all obstacles by his own indomitable will, and supplying * [Speech delivered in the House of Representatives of the United Stales, March 7, 1882.] 170 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. all deficiencies from the resources of his own matchless genius, the equal of Caesar in fixedness of purpose, and not inferior to Columbus in self-reliance, without supplies or equipments, attended by a band of compatriots few in number but equally ardent in the bold and hazard- ous enterprise, these heroic Frenchmen, coming into the valley by way of the northern lakes, embarked upon the great river, not knowing whither they might be borne by its majestic and ceaseless current, until at length, having mastered the perils of hostile tribes and the still greater perils of the treacherous and relentless floods, on the sixth day of April, 1682, they were greeted by the sight of the dancing white caps, and they heard the soft murmurs of the southern sea. With loyal and pious hearts, at the head of the passes near the mouth of the river, in acknowledgment of their successful discovery, on the 9th of April, 1682, they erected a cross and a column, on which were affixed the arms of France, around which they chanted a hymn that from the seventh century was heard in lonely cloisters, in stately cathedrals, and in every land and on every sea, from the lips of the zealous and holy missionaries of the Christian Church sent forth to the remotest ends of the earth, inspiring the children of the Christian faith with kindling fervor and the sacrifice of self in the work of the Divine Master : " The banners of Heaven's King advance, The mystery of the Cross shine forth." La Salle afterward returned to France to fit out an expedition to enter the Mississippi Kiver by way of the Gulf of Mexico, but by mis- take entered Matagorda Bay in Texas and took possession of the country in the name of his king, and thus Texas became properly a part of that vast empire that under the name of Louisiana in a later age was added to the dominions of the Eepublic. Born in Rouen, France, it was his destiny to have his life terminated, stricken down by conspirators among his own followers, in the prime of manhood, at the age of forty-three, in the midst of his greatest achievements on the banks of the Trinity, while on his way from Texas to Canada, still in search of " the fatal river." It is proposed on the 9th of April to commemorate the two hun- dredth anniversary of his achievements, to celebrate the memory of La Salle, the discoverer of the Ohio and the Mississippi, whose genius consecrated to king and Church, and opened to settlement and civiliza- tion, a territory that to-day embraces two-thirds of our Republic and over twenty-five million of our population. What spot more appro- priate for such a celebration than the head of the passes near the mouth of the river where he and his compatriots first raised the DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 171 emblems of their faith and country, and left the memorials of their successful achievements ? There the celebration will be held. There will be reenacted the scene performed by the great Frenchman and his followers. But how changed the conditions, the circumstances, and the times ! It will be a celebration by the millions who inhabit the great valley, heirs of his labors, citizens of free and enlightened commonwealths, coequal parts of a mighty confederacy, born one hundred years after his discoveries, but already one of the foremost nations of the earth in the magnitude of her dominions, in wealth, power, and population ; in the arts and sciences and letters ; in manners and morals ; in all the resources of civilization ; in the stability and freedom of her institu- tions, and in the intelligence, the genius, and the affections of her citizens. Orators fitly chosen will recite the virtues of the great Pioneer how he was fashioned on the model of Homer's heroes, of Achillean temper. " Irnpiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer." How he breasted famine, disease, and disappointment, the fury of man and of the elements, the southern heat and the rigors of the frozen north ; how with an enthusiasm surpassing that which beat beneath the impenetrable mail of Richard the Lion-hearted, he ever pressed onward, over ocean, lake, and river, among cruel and savage foes in the trackless wilderness, to discover the great West, and to endow America with the richest jewels in her diadem. GKACE IN WOMAN.* BY BENJAMIN M. PALMER. BUT, young ladies, . . . you must not only be competent to meet the engagements of the future, but you must discharge them with the elegance or grace which is the queenly trait of a high womanly career. All the offices she is called to fill require her to be adorned with this beautiful halo. She is the chief element in the refinement and culture of a people, and becomes of necessity the chief exponent of a true civilization. Her position in the social scale indicates, as with the pre- cision of an electrometer, the degree of sensibility and taste which has been reached by the community at large. For this she needs to be clothed with grace as with a robe of honor. She is at once the orna- ment and centre of the domestic circle. Her presence lights the fire upon every hearth-stone ; and her genial presidency, like the soft radiance of the moon, diffuses contentment and peace over the home. The ungraceful woman, who elbows her way with a sort of angular awkwardness through life, may be the moon still, but the moon as she veils her face behind the clouds, shedding but a smothered light and only saving the world from total darkness. The woman too is the world's chief comforter. It is hers to still the sob of the orphan, and to cheer the desolate heart of the widow ; hers to brush away the falling tear, and to hold the drooping head ; hers to wipe the death-damp from the brow, and with plaintive dirge to sing the weary soul to rest. What refinement of feeling and grace of action do not these holy offices of sympathy and affection require ? These illustrations will suffice to show that I do not employ the term grace in any technical and narrow sense, as equivalent only to the mannerism of the fashionable world. Rest assured there is a world-wide difference between the fine lady of fashion and the true- hearted woman in the full development of that nature given her of God ; and the starched elegance of the one is no more the free dignity of the other than is galvanized copper the pure coin which has stood the test of the mint. The grace for which I plead does not reside in < postures and gestures, to be measured by lines and angles ; but it i& / that free carriage of body and soul with which a cultivated woman ' * [From an address delivered to the first graduates of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, of New Orleans, in College Chapel, June 17, 1889.] GRACE IN WOMAN. 173 sweeps on through the commonest duties of life. It is the queenly deportment, as conspicuous amidst the embarrassments of poverty as amidst the blandishments of wealth. For its attainment, a refined sensibility and an improved taste are just as essential as a sound judgment and a true heart. There must be the quick discernment of the beautiful and the true, a ready command of the emotions inspired by both, and the facility of expressing these in appropriate acts. The best illustration of this is furnished in the distinction drawn by that acute metaphysician, Dr. Brown, between the artificial politeness of society and the true politeness of intellectual and moral culture, when he defines the latter as nothing more than " knowledge of the human mind directing general benevolence." " It is," says he, " the art of producing the greatest happiness which, in the mere external courte- sies of life, can be produced by raising such ideas or other feelings in the minds of those with whom we are conversant as will afford the most pleasure, and averting, as much as possible, every idea which may lead to pain. It implies, therefore, when perfect, a fine knowledge of the natural series of thoughts, so as to distinguish not merely the thought which will be the immediate or near effect of what is said or done, but those which will arise still more remotely ; and he is the most successful in this art of giving happiness who sees the future at the furthest distance." Dr. Brown proceeds to illustrate this distinc- tion from the lower orders of society, the most tender of whom have, as he expresses it, " little foresight of the mere pains of thought," and " whose benevolence, so far from fulfilling its real wishes, becomes itself the most cruel of tortures."* To the cultivation of grace in this enlarged sense of the term politeness, all the branches of your education have here been directed ; not only those heavier studies which strengthen the reason and inform the mind, but those lighter accomplishments intended to refine the taste and to polish the enamel of character itself. A cold utilitarian- ism might ask, Why this expenditure of time and money in acquiring mere accomplishments which can seldom form the staple of duty, for the easel and the note-book will soon be pushed aside by the ruder employments of life ? It is sufficient to reply, that these accomplish- ments, if they have not displaced more important studies, form no unimportant part of woman's education. You have been taught music and drawing not merely that you may sing, and paint, but that these polished studies may impart their sweet grace to your character, and that you may be through life more elegant women, by the delicacy of thought and feeling which they are suited to inspire. * Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. 1, pp. 39, 40. CHIYALKY.* BY EMMANUEL DE LA MOKINIERE. [EMMANUEL DE LA MORINIERE was born in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, April 17, 1856. About 1867 his family settled in New Orleans, and he was placed in the Jesuits' College of that city. In 1873 he joined the Society of Jesus, and spent the early part of his religious career at Grand Coteau, La., where the Jesuit Mission of New Orleans had then a novitiate. Since he was ordained priest his life has been chiefly passed with the members of his order in New Orleans. He is one of the most elegant pulpit orators of the South. His delivery is charming, and his language is forcible, vigorous, and picturesque.] To the performance of their duties did the knights of old bind their loyal, heroic hearts, and so gladly and enthusiastically, that in earliest time, and before even Christianity had become the very core of chivalry, and the Church had flung over its warriors' panoply the mantle of a three-fold consecration, for them " Labor in the path of duty Gleamed up like a thing of beauty." And the standard of it was high ; none higher among all the ideals of human conduct. The respect and obedience paid by the young to the old, the essential meaning of which was education for the one part and self -discipline for the other ; the modesty of mien, pure aims, and high morality of the young knights ; the courtesy and protection granted to women ; the loyalty which was as the substance of honor, and the honor which was as the very life of a man's soul ; the horror of falsehood ; the thoroughness of the training in moral purity and physical prowess, and the splendor of the results in certain characters and achievements all make the noblest chapter of history. No wonder that Edmund Burke should have exclaimed in one of the grandest outbursts of his fervid eloquence : " Chivalry is the unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise ; " and that, deploring its loss as a social institution, a military organization, the test of propriety, and the guide of manners in the higher ranks of society all over Europe, he should have let fall from his lips the most pathetic dirge that could be sung over its fall. " Nevermore," he says, " shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex ; that proud submission ; * [From a lecture delivered at Odd Fellows Hall, New Orleans, April 5, 1893.] CHIVALRY. 175 that dignified obedience ; that subordination of the heart, which kept alive even in servitude itself the spirit of an exalted freedom ; that sensibility of principle ; that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched." Lest my words to you to-night prove little more than the mere rehearsing of an oft-told tale, hearkened to patiently and at the dawn forgotten, I must bid you linger awhile on that sense of duty visible, at every turn, in the wonderful fabric of chivalry, and ruling the brains, and firing the hearts, and nerving the arms of its men of iron, in the discharge of their trust at the hour of peril. When Wellington, setting foot on Portuguese soil, simply said, " I came here to perform my duty," he had .given utterance to what gives bone and marrow to every deed of true valor. Indeed, if we were only roused to action by the prospect of immediate gratification and the pressure of immediate pain, virtue alike and enterprise were at an end. We see it daily and hourly in those in whom that feeling is faint or extinguished. Their views are short and indistinct; their hopes and wishes grovelling ; their actions without vigor ; their energies paralyzed by a sullen and indolent content. And if you ask me why families decay, why dynasties crumble, why the world is shaken from central stone to hinge by periodical revolutions, I will tell you it is because men have made a mock of that word duty ; because they have torn from the gospel of practical life that page in which it is written that rational obedience to duty is. the very essence of highest civilized life, its strongest bulwark, its. only hope of perpetuity. We have not in our power to be crowned kings in the proud realms of wealth, or in the prouder realms of intel- lect. The singular inward gifts and outward circumstances which form the well-spring of such boasted royalty are within reach only of the select few; but all, all, from enthroned monarch to lowliest toiler, have it in their power to stamp their deed of hand with the seal of duty. Despite the hot-headed theorists, styling war the eternal need of human kind ; despite the calmer verdict of sober minds, that "War is honorable In those who do their native right maintain, In those whose swords an iron barrier are Between the lawless spoiler and the weak," I own my natural weakness. Like Byron's "Doge of Venice," I have not yet learned to think of indiscriminate murder without "some 176 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. sense of shuddering." When the grim monster's blood-shot eye glares upon me from the pages of history, past or contemporary, I mark it at once as the proof and scourge of man's fallen state. Yet, young gentlemen that listen to me to-night, I am not blinded to the fact, that though reared amid scenes of flourishing peace, though not wedded to the profession of arms by irrevocable choice, though the pursuit of business claims your round of days and com- mands your energies, still you are soldiers, every one of you: nay, more, you are sons and brothers to the bravest men that ever girt sword or shouldered musket ; to the noblest heroes that ever fought, bled, died, in the cause of patriotism or the defence of liberty ; to the most knightly warriors that cannon signal or trumpet flourish ever summoned to bloody fields ; to men whose spirits never faltered, whose hearts never quailed, whose cheeks never blanched, whose resolve never wavered, whose courage never failed, through four bitter years of recurring failure ; to men whose self-sacrifice and mdomitable ardor have no parallel in the history of any nation. Greater in their defeat, a thousand times greater than they might have been in triumph, the boys in gray have taught a conquering foe from the banks of the Potomac to the headwaters of the St. Lawrence, and from Gettysburg to Florida, that the fields drenched with their young blood, and torn by their untimely ago'ny, can never be lost fields so long as the word honor retains its meaning in the lexicon of human speech. Not in bitterness have I spoken these words, O my friends ! Nor with animus or revengeful design, Heaven knows ! For the day is past, irretrievably past, and we bless the God of peace for the boon, when the gleaming blades that so proudly hang at your sides on occa- sions might be made to leap from their scabbards, to flash in the sun of civil broils, and sheathe themselves in the warm hearts of those who, like yourselves, were born in the Union, of States. In brotherly love we now clasp each other's hands across the dark chasm of an unfortunate past. We own allegiance to a united coun- try, since the angels of God have stolen the bitterness of defeat from the beaten, and the memory of victory from the conquerors. " The hands of slain men have soldered the rift ; " and in the soul- stirring words of the Bishop of Wilmington, addressed to the mem- bers of the Grand Army of the Kepublic on Decoration Day, not a month ago : " By a miracle of American patriotism, the riven heart- strings of a nation have again been welded so firm and strong that no future tension can ever force them to snap asunder. North and South have clasped hands in an undying friendship." Why, then, have I awakened to-night the slumbering echoes of by-gono days ? Ah, you know why ! That you might grave them on CHIVALRY. 177 the tablets of your hearts ; that you might bind them like shields about your necks ; that you might be reminded by them to what achieve- ments you are heirs; and that great deeds are to be Avorked for, bled for, died for, to-day as in the days of Gettysburg, Richmond, and Shiloh ; that though war be the dreadful thing and scourge it was meant to be, you might be pardoned for thinking one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name, and for wishing that your brilliant uniforms might be more than a mere parade dress, and your good swords better than glittering toys ; but especially to give point to my assertion that loyal adherence to duty was the true cheva- lier's first and engrossing care. Self-reverence or self-respect is the most powerful and one of the most useful of our mental habits. It is the principle to which the noblest actions of our nature may be most frequently traced ; the nurse of every splendid and every useful quality. How far it may be occasionally abused is a question which has long been disputed with fanatical acrimony. Every human feeling is liable to imperfection ; nor can it be considered a subject of blame, that even our best institu- tions are only a chance of evils. A sense of honor, in its widest meaning, includes the faculty of forming some ideal standard superior to the lower nature of man and recognizing in ourselves some power of approximating to it. The higher the standard the nobler will be the man who cherishes it and tries to attain to it, but it is by no means a rare gift confined to a few select natures. On the contrary, it is the commonest and most uni- versal incentive to good conduct. Even in the rudest and simplest form of admiration for physical courage, it makes heroes of many a common sailor or soldier. It makes a hero of the ship captain who dies with his passengers and leans over the gunwale to give the part- ing boat its course, and who, though conscious that his name shall never be heard above the wash of the fatal waves, still goes down quietly to his grave, rather than break his faith to those few emi- grants. It makes a hero of the poor country clown who, fresh from the plough-tail, stands firm and undismayed in the shattered squares of Waterloo or on the bloody ridge of Inkermann, because he has been brought up in the fixed idea that a Briton must never run from a Frenchman or a Russian. But from those common and universal forms of self-reverence we rise, step by step, to the higher ideals, which give us among gifted natures what may be called "the salt of the earth," the shining examples which guide the world to higher things. Bayard, " fearless and unblamed," bleeds to death amid the ruins of France, because he scorns the help and compassion of the rebel Bourbon. Sidney, dying 12 178 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. on the fields of Zutphen, instead of quenching his own intolerable thirst, hands over the cup of water to the wounded sentinel, because his soul, nourished on noble thoughts, and his fancy fed on the old ballads which, like that of " Chevy Chase," stirred him like a trumpet blast, had led him to conceive the ideal of a perfect knight, which would have been tarnished by any shade of a selfish action. Gordon sacrifices his life at Khartoum not only cheerfully, but almost instinc- tively, because the suggestion that he might save himself by abandon- ing those who had trusted in him seems an absolute impossibility. The grand figure of Lee towers above all others in the history of our own times and of our own country, and will tower still higher when future races of American historians shall record its stirring events with impartiality, because the great Yirginian forsook home, fortune, a certain future, all in his endeavor to choose what was right. Indeed, the creative hand of God cannot fashion a nobler heart than that which takes such a motto for the shaping of its ways ; nor can history record a nobler life than that in which the actual deed is in keeping with such a guiding principle. It has been my good fortune to live in terms of close religious intimacy with a veteran chaplain* who served our gallant bands during those days of trying warfare. From that day in April, 1861 r when the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, to that day in April, 1865, when the heroic struggle ended by the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox Courthouse, in Virginia, his priestly zeal had ministered to our troops. He had shared their exultation in the flitting hours of success. He had cheered their drooping spirits and roused their energies in the brief hours of dark despondency; and whether in closed ambulance, or on open field amid shell, shot, grape, and canister, had shriven the wounded, spoken of duty's crown to the fallen, and made pure for heaven and the land of unbroken peace the parting spirits of the valorous deado When I told him of my purpose to recall in this lecture those scenes of past glory and woe, and the memory of the leader who had wrapped them round with imperishable fame, and shed over them the halo of immortality, the aged priest wrenched himself as if by a mighty effort from the vice-like grasp of the disease which crippled his frame. His voice shook with an emotion which I shall never forget. His hand pressed his brow as if to stir again to life his buried thoughts. His eyes, dimmed by years, sparkled through the large tears that filled them, as after a pause he made reply : " Ah, tell them, the young men of the South, that during four years these eyes have been the daily witnesses of deeds of selfless devotion and * [The late Rev. Darius Hubert, S. J.] CHIVALRY. 179 endurance, which, when written, will dwarf the proudest records of ancient chivalry ; tell them that the chieftain whose hand so often met mine in the warm grasp of friendship, and who, even at the head of a charging column, always paid me, the humble minister of Christ, the courteous homage of a reverential bow which a king might well envy, was a Christian knight, truest of the true, from foot to brow, from heel to crown, all noble. " Tell them that when in open and crowded convention the tall and handsome soldier accepted the position to which he was appointed by the State of Virginia, that of Commander-in-Chief of all her mili- tary forces, his Avas a calm, self-possessed dignity, the like of which I have not seen in other men. When, with the grace of manner which distinguished him, he accepted his new responsibilities, ' trusting in Almighty God, the voice of my approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow-citizens,' he was the picture of the ideal patriot marked as one to be forever remembered by all Americans. " There never was in history a great man whose life was one such blameless record of duty nobly done. " A perfect gentleman of a State long renowned for its chivalry, he was just, gentle, generous, childlike in the simplicity of his char- acter. His amiability of disposition, deep sympathy with those in sorrow and pain, his nice sense of personal honor, and genial courtesy endeared him to all his friends. I shall never forget his sweet, winning smile, and his clear, honest eyes, that seemed to look into your heart while they searched your brain. He is stamped upon my memory as a being apart and superior to all others a man Avith whom feAv of Avhom I have ever read are worthy to be classed." THE ORIGINS OF SOME OF THE COLONIAL FAMILIES OF LOUISIANA * BY CHARLES PATTON DIMITRY. [CHARLES PATTOX DIMITRY, second son of Professor Alexander Dimitry, was born in Washington, D. C., July 31, 1837. He was educated, for the most part, at George- town College. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate Array as a private, in the Louisiana Guards. Since the war he has been connected with the press of Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, and Xew Orleans. He has written several novels, which Mr. J. Wood Davidson, in the Living Writers of the South (1869), has pronounced "distinctly able, and all clearly above the range of the popular novels of the day." Of The House in Balfour Street, which Mr. Dimitry published in 1868, the same critic says: "[It reminds] one, by some vague temper pervading it, of Hawthorne and Dickens, at one and the same time, while it is utterly unlike both. There is as much of the poet as of the romancist in it." Mr. Dimitry's last work, issued in serials in the New Orleans Times Democrat, is Louisiana Families (1892-93).] THE records of Louisiana's colonial families show that while many of their ancestors came hither directly from France, and many from San Domingo by the way of American cities more to the northward of us, the majority, probably (although of French ancestry), arrived in the colony as officers of the Infantry of the Marine (the Louisiana colonial troops) from Canada, There is also the Spanish element, which, from 1T69, when the Spanish rule in Louisiana became estab- lished, added the infusion of Castilian blood to the old population. Ireland, too, sent many branches of her ancient families to give variety to the human mosaic of the peoples whose representatives, gathered together from afar, had laid the foundation of Louisiana society, giving to it its exceptional tone and qualities its elegance, chivalry, and courtesy, and, it may be added, in all truth, its exemplary sense of honor and self-respect. Leading the list of provinces and departments of France which gave to Louisiana the elements of the majority of her old families is Brittany, a land of chivalry, of poetic and romantic memories, of a people pious, of brave soldiers and sailors. Normandy, also, the dwell- ing place of knights and seigneurs of old, whence went with William, their Duke, the barons whose names are read in the roll of Battle Abbey Normandy, forever associated with memories of the rearing *[This selection forms part of the conclusion to the work entitled Louisiana Families, and was read by the author before an appreciative audience in New Orleans, November 13, 1893.] ORIGINS OF SOME COLONIAL FAMILIES OF LOUISIANA. 181 of the structure of English laws and English society, and of the bring- ing to perfection and completeness the English language JSormandy, mingling in the land of conquest with the strong Saxon blood that had preceded the going thither of her sons and producing a people great at home, and not less great in their English-speaking progeny of the United States Normandy sent many families to Louisiana. Others came from Provence, from Dauphine, from Lorraine, from Burgundy, from Champagne, Alsace, Poitou, the Bourbonnais, and some came from the cities of Paris, Marseilles, Nantes, and Bordeaux, and from the towns of Grenoble, La Eochelle, N" oemy, Estampes, and Brie. Some came with titles of ancient nobility, with commissions signed by three Louises of France, as Knights of the Order of St. Louis, as officers of the army ; while others, bearing no titles, came to Louis- iana, breathing the free and ennobling air of which constituted for them and their posterity a liberal and sufficient patent of nobility. In following the lineages of some of our Louisiana families of greater or less antiquity there is a re-opening of doors, as it were, and strange and picturesque historical vistas appear before the mental vision. The characters, men and women, of forgotten days days almost as extinct as if they never had been come trooping before us. The crusader is there with face stern and martial in expression, and yet, in repose, illumined with the light of faith and of a pious zeal. The chatelain looks from castle-turret over his broad domain, and the men-at-arms cross the drawbridge according as the varying trumpet sounds the departure or the return. The inarches of armies are again revealed ; from Italy they return to France singing songs of victory and bringing with them civilizing lessons from Padua and Mantua and Florence, and wonderful tales of the mighty civilizations, the embers of whose great- ness still smouldered on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The mousquetaire gris or the mousquetaire noir, like that Chevalier de la Marjolaine, "toujours gai," crosses the scene with his pretty embroidered cloak, his high russet boots, his perfumed ringletty hair, and his steel-sheathed rapier. Among those who appear and disap- pear, filling the intervals of the generations, are King's Councillors, Councillors of Parliament, officers in the households of kings and in their military and naval services, chevaliers, some so born and some so appointed, men adorning the civil and unofficial walks of life. There are there, also, the glint of jewels, of coronets, of gold and silver decorations and ornaments, and the garbs of silk and satin, velvet and cloth. In a palace of the ancient Scottish Kings a man out of Italy (David Eizzio was his name), with dark, languishing eyes, in his com- position something of the troubadour, the improvisatore, the professor, but most of all the lover, reclines upon a rude flooring, on a damask 182 SPECIMENS OF ORATORY. of the weavery of the looms of Venice, at the feet of a royal patroness, a beautiful queen, the azure of whose eyes, the ruddy hue of whose hair, and the pink and white of whose satin cheeks are repeated in the eyes and hair and cheeks of the fair maids of honor who sur- round her, sitting at their spinning-wheels and listening mute while the troubadour touches with suave fingers the strings of his mandolin, singing for their delectation love songs of the Arno and gay barcaroles of the lagunas of Venice, or relates the legends of spectre-haunted halls of gray Florentine palaces, the story of the riches of the Medicis, the traditions of the Vivaldis, the Grimaldis, and the Dorias, of Genoa, the tale of the two lovers of Verona, Messer Romeo Montesche and sweet Madama Giulietta Capoletto, who died for love and were en- tombed together in the tomb of the Capoletti in the Campo-Santo of the old Italian city, and the quaint sayings of Ser Riggoletto, the Duke's jester of Mantua. And so, as the nearer doors open and the more modern vistas appear, the vistas revealed are vistas of Louisiana fairest scene of all her forests, her prairies, her dark and odorous lagoons. Bienville, with light helmet decked with feathers, and clad in half-armor, walks in the Place d'Armes with his officers, while the rolling of the drums that beat a salute at morn to the flag of the fleur- de-lys blends with the hymn that is sung in the old convent on Conde Street by the pious sisterhood of the Ursuline Nuns. Sometimes a pedestrian wending his way late at night along a city's street will hear, coming from a dwelling, the sounds of music, the murmur of many voices, the echoes of merry laughter. If he will pause for awhile at the window and gaze at the scene, he will behold a goodly company, gallant men and graceful women. But there must come a time when the merriment is over, and when silence and quiet prevail where was bustle and motion. And so the lights are extin- guished, and, like visions wrought by the imagination out of enchanted materials, the company vanishes, the gallant men and the graceful women disappear, and are seen no more. PART III. ESSAYS. SECTION I. CONTROVEKSIAL. THE BATTURE CASE. BY EDWARD LIVINGSTON. [EDWARD LIVINGSTON, bern in Clermont, N. Y., May 26, 1764.; died in Rhinebeck, N. Y., May 23, 1836. Vide page 62.] [ANSWER TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.] "Ah! little knowest thou, who hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide; To lose good days that might be better spent, To pass long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; To fret thy soul with crosses and with care, To eat thy heart through comfortless despair; To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To spend, to give, to want, tp be undone; Unhappy wight ! such hard fate doomed to try ; That fate God send unto mine enemy." SPENSER. WHEN a public functionary abuses his power by an act which bears on the community, his conduct excites attention, provokes popular re- sentment, and seldom fails to receive the punishment it merits. Should an individual be chosen for the victim, little sympathy is created for his sufferings, if the interest of all is supposed to be promoted by the ruin of one. The gloss of zeal for the public is therefore always spread over acts of oppression, and the people are sometimes made to consider that as a brilliant exertion of energy in their favor, which, when viewed in its true light, would be found a fatal blow to their rights. In no government is this effect so easily produced as in a free republic : party spirit, inseparable from its existence, there aids the illusion, and a popular leader is allowed in many instances impunity, and sometimes rewarded with applause for acts that would make a tyrant tremble on Ms throne. This evil must exist in a degree ; it is founded in the natural course of human passions. But in a wise and enlightened nation it will be restrained, and the consciousness that it must exist will make such a people more watchful to prevent its abuse. These reflections occur to one whose property, without trial or any of the forms of law, has been violently seized by the First Magistrate of 186 ESS A YSCONTRO YE RSI A L. the Union, who has hitherto vainly solicited an inquiry into his title, who has seen the conduct of his oppressor excused or applauded, and who, in the book he is about to examine, finds an attempt openly to justify that conduct upon principles as dangerous as the act was illegal and unjust. This book relates to a case which has long been before the public, and purports to be the substance of instructions prepared by Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, for his counsel in a suit instituted by me against him. After a few years' earnest entreaty, I have at length obtained a statement of the reasons which induced him to take those violent and unconstitutional measures of which I have complained. It would perhaps be deemed unreasonable to quarrel with Mr. Jefferson for the delay, when we reflect how necessary Mr. Moreau's Latin and Mr. Thierry's Greek, Poydras' elegant invective and his own Anglo-Saxon researches, were to excuse an act, for which, at the time he committed it, he had no one plausible reason to allege. Such an act is certainly easier to perform than to justify ; and Mr. Jefferson has been right in taking four years to consider what excuse he should give to the world for his conduct, and still more so in laying under contri- bution all writings, all languages, all laws, and in calling to his aid all the popular prejudices which his own conduct had excited against me. He wanted all this, and more, to make a decent defence. But it was rather awkward to press into his service facts which it is confessed he did not know at the time, and something worse than awkward to impose on the public by false translations and garbled testimony. But we must excuse the late President. " His wish had rather been for a full investigation of the merits at the bar, that the public might learn in that way that their servants had done nothing but what the laws had authorized and required them to do " " and precluded now from this mode of justification, he adopts that of publishing what was meant originally for the private eye of counsel." I give the words of the author here, lest in this extraordinary sentence I should be sus- pected of having misrepresented or misunderstood him. An individual holding a tract of land under one whose title has been acknowledged, and whose possession has been confirmed by a court of competent authority, is violently dispossessed by the orders of the President of the United States, without any of the forms of law and in violation of the most sacred provisions of the Constitution. The ruined sufferer seeks redress first by expostulation : he offers to submit to the decision of indifferent men, and he is refused ; he offers to abide by men chosen by the President, and he is refused ; he offers, in the simplicity of his heart, to acquiesce in the opinion of the President himself, and he is refused. He is not even permitted to exhibit his proofs. Fearing the THE BATTURE CASE. 187 conviction they would produce, he is told that, though the President could take, he cannot restore ; that he can injure, but not redress ; and that Congress alone are competent to grant him relief. To Congress then he applies : here the same baneful influence prevails. After two voyages of three thousand miles each, after two years of painful sus- pense and humiliating solicitation, after the attendance of three ses- sions, he finds that no means can be devised for his relief that the friends of that man who " wishes for a full investigation of the merits at the bar " defeat every plan for bringing the case before a court, vote against every law providing for a trial, and effectually, as they think and he hopes, bar all access to any tribunal where the dreaded merits of the case could be shown. Harassed but not dispirited, the injured party, finding that no legislative aid can be expected to restore his property, at length applies for a compensation in damages. He appeals to the laws of his country, and is willing to abide by the decision of a jury, in a country where long residence, great wealth, the influence which had been created by office, and a coincidence of politi- cal opinion gave every advantage to his opponent. Here, then, is an opportunity which a man desirous of open investigation will not neglect. The upright officer who has been unjustly accused of oppres- sion will justify himself to his country, and cover his accuser with confusion. The vigilant guardian of the public rights will defend them before an enlightened tribunal, and expose the rapacity of the intruder. He who stands " conscious and erect ' ? will rejoice in the investigation of his innocence ; he will discard every form, and proudly dare his adversary to a discussion of the merits ! But the man I speak of does not do this ; the man I speak of dare not do this. He feared the learned integrity of a court ; he feared the honest independence of a jury. He entrenched himself in demurrers, sneaked behind a paltry plea to the jurisdiction, and now publishes to the world that he is precluded from this mode of justification, and that " his wish had been for a full investigation of the merits at the ##/." If such indeed were his wish, why was it not gratified ? and by whom was he precluded from this favorite mode of defence ? He does not, indeed, hazard the direct assertion that it was the unsolicited act of the court. His plea to the jurisdiction, his demurrers not to men- tion an attempt to stifle the suit in its birth by a rule to find security for costs all these would too apparently falsify such an assertion. But though not stated in direct terms, is not the idea strongly con- veyed ? Was it not meant to be thus conveyed \ When Mr. Jeffer- son says that the suit was dismissed on the question of jurisdiction, and that " his wish had rather been for a full investigation of the 188 ESS A YSCOXTRO VERSIA L. merits at the bar,*' what are we to conclude ? What, I repeat, did he intend we should conclude, but that the decision of the court Avas unsolicited, and contrary to his wish ? And yet he, the gentle- man who tells us this, had put in a plea to the jurisdiction ; that is to say, prayed the court to dismiss the case without an investigation of the merits. He did more. Fearing that the question might be decided against him, he put in a demurrer to the declaration ; that is to say, he took an exception to its form, and prayed the court a second time that on this account also the case might be dismissed without an investigation of the merits. He did not stop here. A third battery was erected. He pleaded another plea, that he did the act complained of as President of the United States, and therefore he ought not to be made liable in his individual capacity ; and a third time prayed the court that the case might be dismissed without an investigation of the merits. How Mr. Jefferson can reconcile these pleas with his wish to obtain a hearing on the merits, it is difficult to conceive. The coward who, on receiving a challenge, resorts to the interposition of a magistrate, might as well bluster about his desire fairly to face his adversary, and complain that he was precluded from giving him satisfaction. Yet this preclusion is stated by Mr. Jeiferson as his reason for publishing the work which I am now about to exam- ine. He had many advantages in the execution, and promised himself many more in the effects, of this production. The subject has been fully and ably discussed, but the publications on the adverse side were not in many hands. A considerable time had elapsed since the sub- ject engaged the public attention. He had, therefore, only to arrange the arguments in his favor, to suppress or mutilate the conclusive answers which had been given to them, to collect all the quotations which had been issued in the discussion, to give a new dress and the sanction of his name to the calumnies circulated against his opponent ; and he could make a book that should astonish by the polyglot learn- ing of its quotations, amaze by the profundity of its borrowed research, and delight kindred minds by the poignant elegance of its satire. Add to these the advantages of using hearsay testimony, exparte testimony, interested testimony, his own testimony ; of quoting authorities, with an et cetera for those parts which bear against his positions ; of omit- ting a word in the translation of a deed, and founding a long argument on the false reading thus created ; add the facility of gaining over to his party that large portion of mankind who find it much more convenient to be convinced by the reputation of the author than to examine his work ; and, above all, the hope that disappointment and despondence might silence his opponent and we shall have much bet- ter reasons for resorting to a publication of his " instructions to coun- THE BATTURE CASE. 189 sel," than the alleged preclusion of a hearing at the bar. Whatever may have been the causes which produced this work, I rejoice exceed- ingly in the effect. My wish also had rather been for a full investiga- tion of the merits at the bar ; but an appeal to the public is preferred, and I shall not decline it. Causes of less importance have sometimes excited an interest not only in the countries where they originated, but abroad. The despotic King of Prussia could not oppress one of his subjects under the. forms of law, without exciting the indignation of Europe. Lawyers of the greatest eminence took cognizance of the affair ; and the force of public opinion, even in a military monarchy, obliged the Prince to do justice to the vassal. Shall I, then, fear a less beneficial effect, when I can show that the free citizen of a free country has been deprived of his property by its First Magistrate, without even the forms of law ? I do not fear it. However dull may be the discussion, however laborious the research, it will not deter those who have an interest in inquiring whether their " servant has done his duty," or has been guilty of unconstitutional violence. I invite readers of this description to follow me in the investigation I am about to make. So much misrepresentation has been used in the discussion that it will be necessary to begin with a statement of facts, which shall be as brief as may be consistent with a development of material circumstances. The Mississippi flows through a country evidently gained from the sea, for about one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth. On the western side, alluvial country has a much greater extent. As in all lands formed wholly by the deposit of rivers which overflow, the ground is highest near the bank, and slopes in an inclined plane to the level of the waters which receive those of the river, terminating here at irregular distances in cypress swamps or trembling prairies* This conformation of the soil is very evident and uniform on the Mississippi. The surface of the water, when it is not swelled by the rains and dis- solving snows above, is at ^ew Orleans about nine feet below the natural bank. When swelled to its greatest height, it rises about five feet above the level of the bank, and would of course overflow the whole country, unless dykes, there called levees, were raised to con- fine it. These are about the average measures. There are places in which they vary, where the natural bank is not above five or six feet above the surface at low water, and where, of course, an embank- ment of nine feet and upwards is necessary to retain the water in its swell. * Those marshes which have not acquired a sufficient consistency to produce trees, and shake to a considerable distance when trodden on, are, in Louisiana, called prairies tremblantes. 190 ESS A YS CONTR VERSIAL. The Mississippi is a deep, rapid, meandering, and turbid river. From these characteristics it results that, where it flows, as it gener- ally does, through a light soil, it makes frequent encroachments on the one bank ; and wherever the water becomes stagnant behind a point, or at the edge of an eddy, leaves a deposit on the other. Should this deposit be made in the middle of the river, it forms a sandbank, and when it rises above the surface of the water at its natural height, an island. But if the deposit be made, as it generally is, adjacent to the bank, it then becomes what is called in the country a latture, or allu- vion. These battures, low at first, gradually rise, by successive de- posits, above the surface of the water at its natural height ; and when they are increased, so as not to leave more than five or six feet of water upon them at the time of the inundation that is to say, when they attain the height, or nearly the height, of the natural bank the proprietor of the land in front of which they are formed generally raises a new embankment, or levee, so as to include the soil thus created, and protect it from the inundation. The land thus gained becomes incorporated with the original plantation, the old embankment is suf- fered to decay, and the road is generally removed, so as to continue along the course of the old levee. These battures are very common on the banks of the Mississippi, and, as the land is valuable, they are generally reclaimed in the manner I have stated. The only lands in the lower part of the province which were capable of cultivation lie immediately on the river and its branches, here called layous ; the grants therefore were located in an oblong form, extending generally from ten to twenty arpents in front, by forty in depth, except in particular situations, in which the nature of the soil induced the grantee to take a greater extent back. The road was parallel to the river, generally within the embankment, but some- times upon it. This land was acquired by the order of Jesuits in three different purchases one in the year 1726 from Mr. de Bienville, Governor of the Province, another from the same person in 1728, and a third in 1743 from Mr. Breton. In the year 1763 the order of Jesuits was abolished, and all its estates forfeited to the Crown. Although the province had been ceded by France to Spain, yet as the treaty was still secret and was not executed until six years afterwards, the edict of confiscation took place for the benefit of the Crown of France, and under it the estate of the Jesuits of New Orleans was seized. These thirty-two arpents forming a part of it were divided into six lots, and sold at auction by the same usual description, so many acres front. The part of this land adjoining the city was purchased by persons from whom it passed, THE BATTURE CASE. 191 by regular conveyance, to Bertrand Gravier, who cultivated it as a plantation. . . . Having established to his own satisfaction that the United States were not bound by the proceedings in the suit which had been deter- mined, the most natural course to be expected would be for the Presi- dent to institute one to which they should be a party ; but this was too much in the common line. Mr. Jefferson did not like playing at "j?ush-pin" as he elegantly terms it ; the forms of law were too slow to satisfy his eager desire to do justice. There had been a commotion among the people there had been an open opposition to the execution of the laws ; and he seems to have had a natural sympathy for those who were guilty of it. Profaning the sacred exertions of our own [Revolutionary patriots by an assimulation with his own agency in the paltry squabble, his imagination took fire at a striking similarity he discovered between the judgment in the case of the batture and the Massachusetts Port Bill, between the opening of my canal and the " occlusion " of the Boston harbor he pants for the wreaths of Hancock, Adams, and Otis and he bravely determines to hurl all the vengeance of the Government at the unprotected head of an humble individual, who had nothing for his defence but the feeble barriers of Constitution, Treaty, and Laws. SECESSION AND COERCION.* BY B. J. SAGE. [BERNARD JAXIX SAGE, the well-known Louisiana lawyer, was, in 1865, one of the counsel selected to defend Jefferson Davis against the charge of treason. Being at the time in London, he sent from that city the proof-sheets of his Republic of Republics, which purported to be the monograph of P. C. Centz, an English barrister. After care- fully reading this work, Charles O'Conor, chief of the Davis counsel, wrote to the author, who was still in England : "If upon the numerous points that any lawyer can see in the case I could prepare so admirable and overwhelmingly conclusive a brief as the protest, my task (of defending Davis) would be slight indeed."] IT is incontrovertible that the federal system is states united, and that these must always be sovereign, and superior to the governments they create. It is equally plain that the " national unity," the " abso- lute supremacy " of "the government," and the allegiance of the states thereto, which are asserted by the Massachusetts school, are absurd and pernicious, as well as traitorous falsehoods. This "federal system" is precisely what Montesquieu and other publicists happily call a " republic of republics." Natural persons by social compact form the society called the state, which is a republic. Such state is a moral or political person, as contra-distinguished from a natural one. For mutual protection and general government, it joins other such political persons in federal compact, thus forming the "republic of republics," or "union of states," as the federal instrument characterizes the system formed by it. " Community of communities," "confederation of republics," "united states," etc., etc., are other phrases of public writers, signifying the same political system. Natural persons, then, form states, while these, as political persons, form the federation called "the United States." The constitution contemplates these political bodies as solely the sources of power, and of elective right. Every voter acts for the state, and gets his special endowment of authority to vote from her alone. She settles the matter, as a sovereign, in her organic law. Hence we see that the representatives are elected by the states, as are the senators and the President ; and "that all of these, together with the officers they appoint, are u the government of the . . . states" under "the constitution of the . . . states" * [Republic of Republics.} SECESSION AND COERCION. 193 Omitting from the above constitutional phrases the participial adjective which, with the sense of joined or associated, qualifies or describes states, we easily distinguish between the political entities that form the federal system, and their mere qualities ; and see that the only nation we have, or can have, is self-united or associated states the system being properly described as a " republic of republics," or a " union of states." KO COXSnTUnOKAL. OOEECIOX OF STATES. Our states being equal and voluntarily joined, the constitution being the expression of their will, and the federal government being their agency, in the very nature of things no coercive power over them could be derived from the constitution. Moreover, if they were once voluntary parties, they could not have become involuntary ones, without their own action; for they have the sole power of amend- ment,* and, to cap the climax, the fathers were unanimous in exclud- ing the power of coercion from the federal compact, and, out of abundance of caution, guarding against it by amendment, all of which will be hereafter fully shown. Buchanan, Lincoln, and others argued that the recent exertion of federal force against certain states was not coercion of states, but was military coercion of persons banded to oppose the federal laws, or, in other words, the putting down of a rebellion. But such views are dignified by calling them weak soph- istry. For the said states acted as bodies in making the constitution ; they moved as such in seceding ; and they warred as such in resisting coercion. And, in each case, they respectively exercised that right of command over the citizens which results from the social compact, binding each to obey the collective will, and which is sovereignty itself. On the other hand, the federal functionaries were fighting to enforce an ordinance which the state had originally ordained, but had repealed, and made it treasonable to obey ; namely, the ordinance of ratification, which, as to the said state and her citizens, gave to the said constitution, and the resultant government, their only possible validity and warrant. THE OSLT BASIS OF COERCION. To coerce a state is unconstitutional ; but it is equally true that the precedent of coercing states is established, and that it is defensible under the law of nations. If this be correct, all will agree that such ultima ratio should be placed at once on its own ground, and its limits See Art. V. 13 1 94 ESS A YSCONTRO VERSIAL. defined, so that our constitution may be vindicated and held sacred in the future, and the conscience of the people of the victorious states be relieved of the charge of violating the " supreme law of the land," in coercing the states that ordained it, and killing their people for defending them ; for nothing can more demoralize, and finally demon- ize, the people, individually and collectively, than the consciousness of having committed such crimes, the determined enjoyment of the fruits thereof, and the constant making of false excuses to their consciences and to the world. AVhere the constitution does not provide a treaty stipulation or conventional rule, by which to settle a question arising among or between our states, the law of nations is to be resorted to, for the constitution only displaces such law pro tanto. This law would, if the federal compact were annulled, at once govern all questions among our states, just as it now does those arising among the states of Europe. The truth is, the purpose of the federal compact was the settlement of such international questions as it provides for and closes, such questions having been, as long as they were open and debatable, international ones. And it may be well to observe here, that the word " states," used in the constitution to designate the contracting powers that ratify and make it, is used in juxtaposition with, and has the identical meaning of, the word " states " that signifies the powers of Europe ; * and it is absurd to suppose that Massachusetts, New York, or Virginia, in making a constitution of government, deprived herself of statehood or nationality, when she merely declared her will which remained in her, and parted with no portion of her own being ; and when her name, description, and essentials were, after associating, entirely unchanged ; neither the constitution nor history warrants the restricted meaning vulgarly given in our country to the word " states." Accurately speaking, it was nations or states that federated, and thereby formed our "community of communities," or "republic of republics." In seceding, the Southern commonwealths exercised an indisput- able right, though they acted with impolicy, and erred in ignoring the operation of international law. In higher politics those of nations in their dealings with one another acts become precedents, and make rules of law. So, in the case before us, the successful coercion of states made a precedent, and established a law. As secession affected the interest of the adhering states, questions arose for them to con- sider ; and, treating the matter as one in foro conscientice, they could cogently reason that the case of a seceding state, to make her seces- sion justifiable under the jus gentium, should contain the same ingre- *See Art. III., sect. 2 ; Art. XL, Amendments. SECESSION AND COERCION. 195 dient that makes a homicide one of self-defence the previous " retreat to the wall." The Southern commonwealths were really fighting for constitu- tional liberty, which, under the circumstances, they thought seriously imperilled, and likely to be preserved by secession. Earl Russell's assertion was true, that "the South fought for independence, the North for empire." The wish of the former for constitutional liberty and independence was manifested by their adopting the federal con- stitution with scarcely a change. Secession was justifiable if there was no other mode of self-preservation, or remedy for wrongs ; for self-preservation was the first law of nature to states as well as per- sons. But they had not properly come to this last resort, as we shall see, by noting the unpleaded pleas of the states that remained united pleas under the jus gentium. First. These had the right to assume that Providence intended, as our fathers did, that all the territory between British America and Mexico should be under one political system, and they had a right (not under the constitution, which the state voluntarily made and could voluntarily abandon, but) under the jus gentium to prevent or to cure disruption. Second. They had the right to object to the establishment of a contiguous foreign state or federation, with its necessary rivalry, and antagonistic interests and policy, and the inevitable and ever-recurring international troubles. Third. They could complain that, in spite of constitutional engage- ments, as well as in disregard of the respect due to the fathers, seces- sion should be resorted to before exhausting all the remedies con- templated and provided for in the constitution, or arising out of the circumstances ; especially as Congress, the Supreme Court, and a numerical majority of about a million popular votes were on the side of conservatism against a weak President, and could make the remedies efficient. This alone was justification enough under the j us gentium for the adhering states to coerce back the seceding ones. And other pleas might have been made as to the territory occupied by the new states, as to forts, armaments, public property, etc., as well as the federal debt. In all these cases, precision of plead- ing and absolute sufficiency were unnecessary, for states are to judge for themselves, in the last resort, as to subjects of complaint and cases of war ; and our states, in their federal constitution, provided no mode of settlement or tribunal for such matters, so that the law of nations was the only resort for rules of action. And here it is well to observe that while the seceding states acted with impolicy, and were wrong in the respects and to the degree 196 ESSAYS CONTROVERSIAL, mentioned, the coercing ones were gravely to blame for the original causes of the trouble for constant and manifold aggressions and acts of injustice ; and, finally, for their non-conciliatory and uncompromising spirit, and their disinclination to resort to diplomatic expedients under the law of nations to avoid so awful a recourse as war, which, if it can be avoided with honor and integrity, is a most heinous crime. And, moreover, a party demanding justice before any tribunal must have himself sought to do justice. OUE SYSTEM AS THUS MODIFIED. The precedent, then, may be considered as established (not in the constitutional, but) in the international part of our law and politics, that all other means of getting justice and preserving self-government and statehood must be exhausted before secession is allowable. But it is as republics that states are to be held in, or coerced back to, the Union ; for the great end always in view is the preservation of constitutional liberty, as established in the states, under the guidance of the fathers, and this necessitates absolute self-government of the people as organized. These, then, may be considered as the cardinal principles of our system, as it stands at present : (1) We have states self -associated for their self -protection and self-government. (2) Their status is that of sovereign political bodies, known to the law of nations, and described in the constitution, as states. (3) Being republics, or self-governing peoples, they must, according to the law of their nature, govern them- selves, not in any qualified sense, but absolutely. (4) Their govern- ments, state and federal, are agencies, and subordinate to them. (5) The federal agency has the joint authority of the states to govern their citizens within certain limits, and wield the coercive means intrusted to it. But there is but one rule of duty for it ; i. e., the constitution, which each member of the agency *'* sworn strictly to observe, and which cannot be disregarded without perjured usurpation. (6) The states must remain in the Union till the last remedy the constitution affords against injustice and loss of self-government and statehood has been resorted to. (7) When constitutional means are exhausted, or show themselves to be vain, any means of self-preserva- tion is justifiable to a state, for it is according to the first law of nature. (8) If secession be the remedy a state finally determines on, it affords the occasion for diplomacy or war, as among other nations. TWO IMPORTANT IDEAS. 1. Suppose given states, then, to have gone through the forms of secession ; the adhering ones, without denying either the fact or the SECESSION AND COERCION. 197 right of secession, may, for the sake of the argument ('. e., the ultima ratio), concede that the former are out of the Union, proceed to fight them as foreign states amenable to the^'w* gentium, and enforce their return to the Union; while, on the other hand, the coerced states cannot invoke, as against such coercion, the constitution they have abandoned. 2. Upon such basis, the coercion of states is not inconsistent with the federal compact. But the states victorious in the recent war claimed that the acts of secession were null, and that thev resorted to constitutional coercion. By these pleas they simply convicted them- selves of warring upon states in the Union, of violating the constitu- tion, and of causing flagrant usurpation and perjury on the part of their rulers. Xay, more, they have done the infinite mischief of mak- ing these high crimes precedents for the future ; of justifying pleas of necessity for arbitrary acts the very things constitutions were estab- lished to prevent ; of introducing and vindicating unlimited discretion and regal prerogatives in the federal agency ; and, finally, of showing the states that, if aggrieved, their only alternatives are submission or war. Such were not the ideas of the fathers ! As to the right of secession, it [can] ... be shown, by author- ities that no one will venture to gainsay, that it is (not constitutional but) inherent and inalienable ; that it is absolutely essential to, and pro tanto identical with, freedom ; and that it was taken for granted, as expressly stated, by the fathers as indispensable to preserve state- hood and liberty. It is, indeed, a right as absolute and indestructible as the state itself. Without it sovereignty cannot exist, and there can be no self-preservation of the original and only constituents of our " republic of republics." * * Every American ought to read Is Davis a Traitor ? by Professor Bledsoe. Most conclusively does it vindicate the right of secession, and it forms the best criticism ever written of the constitutional expositions of Story and Webster. With great deference, however, I object to his implication that secession is a constitutional right. So with the assumption of Mr. A. H. Stephens and others, in 1868, at the White Sulphur Springs, that the right of secession can be abandoned. Self-preservation is the first law of nature most especially to commonwealths; and God designs a state to secede if her " defence '" and "welfare," which he has charged her with preserving and promoting, require it. MR. CABLE'S FREEDMAN'S CASE IN EQUITY. BY CHARLES GAYAKRE. WE take notice of Mr. Cable's Freedman's Case in Equity published in the December Century* "We depart from the workshop of fiction and caricature, and we enter the solemn temple of justice, where Mr. Cable appears as a self -constituted attorney " in the equity case " which he upholds, on behalf of the colored race, against the systematically oppressing, tyrannically inclined, and perjured white race of the whole South, that continues to be oblivious of its most solemnly sworn obli- gations. We beg Mr. Cable to keep in mind that it is he who attacks, and he who puts us on the defence. We read Mr. Cable's article three times, with extreme fatigue, before we could have a very clear conception of what it meant. In every phrase the words are so unnecessarily and densely crowded, in chaotic confus- ion, round the sense intended to be conveyed ! It reminds us of the artichoke, Avhose eatable substance cannot be reached without- patiently removing the numerous prickly scales that envelop the fleshy base which is sought after. It was not an easy road for us to travel, before arriving at Mr. Cable's conclusions, and tasting on the tip of our tongue the panacea which he trumpets forth to cure our Southern leprosies, and guard us against the social, political, moral, judicial, and legislative iniquities that threaten us with another bloody revolution and final perdition. What beating of the bush it requires to make Mr. Cable's rabbit run out of its shelter of briars ! It is a timid animal. It shows first the tip of its whiskers, or of its long ears ; then one half-concealed foot, or perhaps a peep at its tail may be permitted, before it ventures out in full view of the hunter and dares his shot. We much prefer the open and bold position of the anarchist, the socialist, the communist, and the nihilist. They tell us plainly the extent of destruction which they meditate. They are levellers ; Mr. Cable, the would-be regenerator, is a mere plasterer, or patcher. Mr. Cable delights in raving promulgations of new and startling principles, in the utterances of tempestuous expressions against his supposed antagonists, however respectable they may be for intellect and virtue. But his most violent denunciations, in his epileptic fits of periodical indignation at the condition of our prisons and of the *[Vide Century Magazine, Vol. I., 1885.] MR. CABLE'S FREEDMAN'S CASE IN EQUITY. 199 tortured negro, are generally accompanied by velvety reticences to escape from too perilous responsibilities. He seems to speculate in sensational attitudes and stage effect, on whose financial success he confidently relies. His style is peculiar ; it is emphatically his own in equity, by the right of invention. He cannot be accused of servile imitation. It is not the English to which we have been accustomed, and therefore we solicit his indulgence if we in any way misunder- stand and misstate his premises and the deductions resulting from their acceptance. We are not sure that we can ascertain to our satisfaction the true quality and nature of the driftwood which he hurries on to market, and which floats indistinctly on a foggy stream of illogical reasonings and more than doubtful statements. He evidently aims at a new language to enunciate new principles. Be it so; but we object to its obscurity and to the writer's chronic mania of entangling and twisting every sentence like a cat playing with a spool of cotton. It gives much trouble to the reader, who is anxious to profit, without too much study and a headache, by the discoveries of that learned professor of ethics and Darwinian evolver of equities, on which a new order of society is to be established under his auspices. Mr. Cable is a Louisianian, and has talent. We might be disposed to admire him if he understood the propriety of being less incisive, not to say insult- ing, in his admonitions, and if he had the modesty to assume a less lofty tone of moral and intellectual superiority in his dictations over a vast number of his fellow-citizens, whom, in the face of the world, without the slightest hesitation and without the least sign of regret, he proclaims as guilty of the basest malignancy, the most systematic tyranny, and the most drivelling imbecility. As to imbecility, we personally plead guilty ; for we confess that, while one page of Addi- son's or of Edmund Burke's refreshes and brightens our intellect, the complicated sentences of Mr Cable obscure and fatigue it to the utmost. If we were, as a professional critic, to qualify the style of this author, we would call it Labyrinthine. It imposes too much groping and wandering before discovering the bull in his hiding-place and taking him by the horns. We think, however, that we have at last, after considerable labor, succeeded in obtaining a clear view of the four-footed beast in all its proportions. Mr. Cable begins his article with this assertion : " The greatest problem before the American people to-day is, as it has been for a hundred years, the presence among us of the negro." We fully agree with him on this point, and we do not hesitate to add : That the prob- lem "resulting now from the presence of the freedman entails on us of the white race a question more difficult to solve satisfactorily, than the one which formerly proceeded from his presence as a slave. 200 .ESSA YSCONTRO VERSIAL. We further aver, with the deepest conviction, that the existence in the same country of two races, as different as day and night in their physical and spiritual endowments, and apparently incapable of fusing into a homogeneous whole, is the most dreadful calamity that ever could befall a community. History tells us the terrible struggles that have always resulted from the meeting of even two white races on the same soil, notwithstanding the practicability, in the course of centuries, of their gradually forming a unit by intermarriage. All the various records of mankind contain a long recital of the total annihilation or expulsion of races by races. In many parts of civilized Europe, at this day, where different white races have been inhabiting the same territory for ages, they still entertain toward one another a deadly enmity, which fatally breaks out like the lava of a volcano, whenever the opportunity presents itself. In England it was a disgrace, during a long time, even for a poor Norman knight to marry a rich Saxon princess. At least, so thought the Norman dames. For them she was the mulattress of the epoch, although as white as new-fallen snow. In their eye such a mesalliance could be palliated only by the necessity of complying with the exi- gencies of worldly policy and ambition, if not prompted by sordid interest. But Normans and Saxons could fuse, and they did fuse at last, although the latter had been considered by the former as hardly better than swine. Another striking instance is what happened in Spain. The ancient population of that country and the invading Goths soon merged into an harmonious nationality. The two races had entertained no in- stinctive repugnance for each other. Next came the swarthy Arabs and the darker-hued Moors, very distinct in color from the descendants of the Goths. What followed ? Assimilation ! Fusion ! No. Eight hundred years of bloody conflicts, until one of the races exterminated the other. What is now taking place in Algeria ? Are the Arabs becoming French, or the French turning Arabs? Or are the two races breeding hybrids ? No. It is not long since an Arab chief said to a French officer, his friend : " If a Frenchman and an Arab were boiled down together, so that there remained only their bones, those bones would instantly separate." Therefore, the fact that the popula- tion of our State is about equally divided between the Caucasian race and the African must be considered as presenting a question of an awful nature, if examined by the light of history and of undeniable precedents. Surely it is a question to be anxiously studied with the calm reason, the profound knowledge, the sagacious foresight, of a statesman, and is not to be superficially treated with the unpardon- able flippancy of a sentimental aspirant to notoriety, the arrogant MR. CABLE'S FREEDMAN'S CASE IN EQUITY. 201 superciliousness of an improvised pedagogue, the exorbitant conceit of a self-worshipping censor of public and private morals, or with the . raving imprecations, the howlings, and the maniac gesticulations of an Orlando Furioso. Let us now glance rapidly at the probable future of the freedman in Louisiana, and only glance, because we are to confine ourselves within the limits assigned to this essay. That future will depend on the relative position of inferiority, equality, or superiority which the black race is to occupy toward the white one three things as powerful to settle this question as the three mythological sisters who of yore wove the destinies of man. Should the black race not have been favored by nature with the same letters patent of nobility which it has granted to the Avhite, it will be vain to attempt to remove the inferiority by artificial means. Should this race inferiority be the fiat of Providence, the blacks, although they should be put in possession of all the political, social, and civil rights which they may desire, although given, as equally as to the whites, the same encouragement and advantages for education and for the acquisition of wealth in any department of industry, will not keep pace with their Caucasian competitors. In that case, they will sink to their proper level and become the mudsills of the social edifice. It will be, however, an additional reason for the superior race to assist the inferior with increasing kindness and enlightened humanity. But, in spite of this protection, the negro, in all probability, will grad- ually disappear. As to the hybrids, those in whom the line of color no longer exists apparently will continue, as they do daily, to creep into the Caucasian ranks, where their traces will soon be lost sight of and forever obliterated. It must be kept in mind, in connection with this subject, that the negro hates the hybrid ; and the hybrid, despis- ing the negro, is more averse than the white man to associate with him, except for political purposes. As to the female quadroons, there are few of them that would not belabor with a broomstick the leveller and trader in new principles who should propose to them to marry a negro. Thereby hangs a tale, which we offer to the consideration of Mr. Cable. We cannot admit the possibility of the future superiority and domination of the black race over the white in Louisiana, and the consequent extinction of the latter ; it is too absurd. But let us sup- pose that both races become equal in energy, knowledge, wealth, and number. Should they keep systematically apart and form two dis- tinct camps, with no social intercourse between them, it is fearful to think of the inevitable consequences in the struggle that would ensue for power and government, and from other causes. 202 ESS A YSCONTRO VERSIAL. Probably this is the state of things which Mr. Cable anticipates, as he believes in the equality of the races. For the purpose of averting those anticipated evils, we should be happy to join him heartily, in honest, sincere, and patriotic efforts to provide for the best possible means to increase the kind relations now existing between the two races, and secure their common welfare by the reciprocal exercise of lasting amity, as much as this may be within the reach of human power, outside of miscegenation, which we abhor. We are convinced that those relations are as harmonious as they could be under the con- ditions which the past has created for us, but the way to prolong their existence indefinitely is not by inflammatory and false descriptions of the present intolerable oppression of the negroes in the South an oppression which, in Mr. Cable's opinion, would justify them, if they had Caucasian energy, to inundate the country with blood by cutting the throats of the white devils by whom they are tortured. We could hardly trust in the correctness of our eyesight when we read his furious denunciations. . . . Let Mr. Cable be judged by the evidence furnished by himself. In support of the semi-cloudy position occupied by Mr. Cable, I transcribe the following lines from his December effusion : " We hear much about race instinct. The most of it, I fear, is pure twaddle. It may be there is such a thing. We do not know. It is not proved. And even if it were established, it would not be necessarily a proper moral guide. We subordinate instinct to society's best interests as apprehended in the light of reason." If we have misinterpreted Mr. Cable's oracular dictum, we beg to be corrected. MR. CABLE, THE NEGROPHILIST." THERE are probably some of Mr. Cable's readers who have been suddenly startled by his Freedman's Case in Equity* but to the many who have read carefully his previous works, his " negrophilism " was so apparent that he who ran might read. Throughout his writings crime ceases to be crime when committed by a negro, mulatto, or quadroon. Mme. John, in Tite Poulette, Mme. Delphine and her daughter Olive, even poor Clemence, the calas vendor, victim of the cowardly Grandissimes, as well as every character of " off-white " hue, including those others already mentioned, are drawn with a loving touch. In dealing with these Mr. Cable's peculiar gift of spoiling a lovable and admirable character by some ignoble or, at best, ridiculous trait, as shown in his delineations of the Creoles, is metamorphosed into an entirely opposite peculiarity. Xo ignorance so dense, no guilt so great, but that Mr. Cable finds excuses and palliating circumstances, nay, even absolute virtue in them. Read by the light of this last tur- bid and violent attack on the whole South, Mr. Cable's Freedman's Case in Equity must appear as the apotheosis of his literary labors, the end to which all his writings pointed. If any one questions this, hear Mr. Cable in the Grandissimes : " A slavery which no Legislature can abolish, the slavery of caste." And again : " The quadroons want a great deal more than free papers can secure them. Emancipation before the law, though it may be a right which man has no right to withhold, is to them little more than a mockery until they achieve emancipation in the minds and goodwill of the ruling class." In The Freedman's Case in Equity he makes the startling discovery that three terms of a problem being given, the result will not be a positive quantity, as mathematicians have so long ignorantly affirmed, but one of three, if not one the other, or a little of both. Having arrived at this admirable conclusion, it need not astonish the reader to find that after endeavoring so industriously to belabor the unjust prejudices of the South, Mr. Cable should be guilty of such damaging admissions as the following, taken at random from his various contri- butions to the Century : " Millions of an inferior race." * [Vide Century Magazine, Vol. I., 1885.] 204 ESSA YS CONTRO VERSIAL. " He (the negro) was brought to our shores a naked, brutish savage." " Moreover, twenty-eight thousand slaves and free blacks hampered progress by sheer dead weight." " Their stupid and slovenly eye-service made the introduction of labor-saving machines a farce." " The unintelligent, uneconomical black was unavailable in manu- facture." " The free people of color were unaspiring, corrupt, and feeble." And it is for this people descendants of the " most debased races on the globe," who, according to Mr. Cable, learned all they knew of good under the lash that Mr. Cable demands equality, not only before the law, but in all the social intercourse of the schoolroom and places of public resort, with its natural sequence, miscegenation. Mr. Cable pretends to laugh at this absurd vision, and, while endeavoring to tear down the barriers of caste, raises such puny ramparts as the gauge of decorum, cleanliness, and moral character of the public schools. Mr. Cable is affected with color-blindness, and everything is to him not couleur de rose, but cowleur d 'ebene. He cannot distinguish between the refined and educated descendants of a virtuous Indian princess and the horde of promiscuous parentage, ranging often in the same family through all the shades of black, brown, and yellow. Indeed, his virtuous heart is overpowered at the thought of the social equality that exists in our public schools, and he finds no better remedy for the evil than to introduce the negro of all shades into them, which, like a chemical, will send each social class to itself. It has been asserted that, when urged to further research on the subjects he handled, Mr. Cable replied, in substance, that research would destroy his originality. The originality viz., absurdity of ignorance is not one of Mr. Cable's discoveries, and if he confined that originality to the jargon which he persists in affirming Creoles use in preference to their native tongue, we might laugh and forgive, but when, in his wilful or simulated ignorance, he throws such firebrands as those con- tained in his Freedman's Case in Equity, such ignorance degenerates into criminality. Mr. Cable's sympathetic feelings are deeply moved by the heart- rending case of a brutal assault on a colored brother. Even if Mr. Cable's account is not garbled, does he live in such blissful ignorance of facts as never to have heard of like outrages on white men com- mitted by lawless persons ? When Mr. Cable assures the North for we cannot suppose he could expect such statements to pass current in the South that negroes are not allowed to ride in our cars, even when able and will- MR. CABLE, THE " NEGROPHILIST." ^05 ing to pay for first-class accommodations, did he not fear contradiction from Northern visitors to our Exposition, who must see them sharing in every way the same accommodations furnished the whites, provided their purses permit it ? But public conveyances are not the only subjects in which Mr. Cable strays from the regions of blissful ignorance to those of down- right misrepresentation. Pathetically supposing a change of position in the two races, without, however, a change of skin, Mr. Cable asks the white man how he * T ould relish being always tried by a black jury ; and, having supposed this, triumphantly declares that he has proven his assertion that negroes are never tried except by juries of their masters. Mr. Cable goes further, and asserts that negroes are never put on juries. Can a misstatement for a purpose go further ? Mr. Cable cannot ignore the fact, that in his native city and State the number of colored jurors are one-third in the former and one-half in the latter not merely those of mixed blood and average intellect, but the poorest and most ignorant class ; nor the other well-known fact, that negro prisoners challenge their colored brother far more than the white criminals. And all this, and much more, Mr. Cable says to arrive at the conclusion that if our penitentiaries are filled to over- flowing with the vicious of the once servile race, it is no proof of their guilt, but simply of the white man's injustice and love of gain. Mr. Cable is right in one particular the colored people are becom- ing a great social problem, which it becomes the South to consider wisely ; but when he tries to make us believe that the negro before emancipation was a far more dangerous character, he fails completely. To the eternal honor of the slaves let it be said, that age, childhood, and defenceless womanhood were left to their keeping by soldier hus- bands, fathers, and sons, and that trust was seldom betrayed. But now Avhat have twenty years of freedom brought about ( " Grafted into the citizenship of the most intelligent nation in the world" (Cable), they have lost those better qualities that were their crown of glory, and in their stead has sprung up a rich harvest of crimes almost unknown among them before. A PLEA FOR THE MODERN LANGUAGES. BY JOHN B. FICKLEN. Audi Alteram Pattern. ON the editorial page of a prominent journal, there lately* appeared an interesting and well-written article called A Plea for Greek. If the writer had contented himself with pronouncing a eulogy on the Greek language and literature, no one, perhaps, would have been bold enough to differ with him ; but, directly or indirectly, the article casts a slur on the so-called utilitarian studies French, German, and pre- sumably English which the writer thinks are crowding out the classics. That these studies, together with the " malodorous " sciences, have been pushing the classics to the wall is an unquestionable fact ; but whether this movement is a slavish pandering to the utilitarian time-spirit may well be questioned. It is unnecessary in this essay to discuss the importance of Latin as compared with Greek in a college curriculum. The writer of A Plea for Greek, however, will find it almost impossible to persuade scholars that " Greek is a language that is more easily acquired than Latin." As a student and teacher of both languages, the present writer enters a protest. Waiving this point, however, the question presents itself, whether the student who rejects Latin and Greek in favor even of modern languages (the defence of the sciences may be left to the scientists themselves) has necessarily set up for himself a utilitarian standard ; whether he is neglecting the broad field of culture in order to provide himself with " bread and butter." This question opens two fields of inquiry : First, the value of classical as compared with modern litera- ture ; and, secondly, the methods of instruction that are now pursued by our leading universities in the teaching of these two literatures. As to the first field of inquiry, the reader may be referred to the great controversy which arose in the seventeenth century, and which was discussed by Fontenelle, Perrault, Sir William Temple, and Bentley. Temple maintained that ancient literature was superior, but he passed over without mention the names of Shakespeare, Milton, and Newton among the moderns. Even if a stronger advocate than * [1892.] A PLEA FOR THE MODERN LANGUAGES. 207 Temple now arises to champion his side, such an advocate must not fail to take account of the glorious literature that has been produced since the seventeenth century in England, France, Germany, and other countries. The writer of A Plea for Greek has quoted Macaulay's glorious tribute to the lasting beauty of classical literature ; the present writer thinks it only fair to quote another passage on the same subject from the same author's essay on Bacon. Macaulay is speaking about the boasted classical acquirements of Lady Jane Grey and Elizabeth : " In the time of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. a person who did not read Greek and Latin could read nothing, or next to nothing. ... It was therefore absolutely necessary that a woman should be uneducated or classically educated. . . . This is no longer the case. All polit- ical and religious controversy is now conducted in the modern lan- guages. The ancient tongues are used only in comments on the ancient writers. The great productions of Athenian and Roman genius are, indeed, still what they were. But, though their positive value is un- changed, their relative value, when compared with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been constantly falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could Lady Jane Grey have wept, over what comedy could she have smiled, if the ancient drama- tists had not been in her library ? A modern reader can make shift without (Edipus and Medea while he possesses Othello and Hamlet. We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence toward those great nations to which the human race owes art, science, taste, civil and intellectual freedom, when we say that the stock bequeathed by them to us has been so carefully improved that the accumulated interest now exceeds the principal. We believe that the books which have been written in the languages of Western Europe during the last two hundred and fifty years translations from the ancient languages, of course, included are of greater value than all the books which at the beginning of that period were extant in the world. When, therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane Grey with those of an accomplished young woman of our own time, we have no hesitation in awarding the superiority to the latter." Again, in his essay on Byron, Macaulay declares : " It requires no very profound examination to discover that the Greek dramas, often admirable as compositions, are, as exhibitions of human character and human life, far inferior to English plays of the age of Elizabeth." " In point of composition and adaptation to the stage," says Dr. Price, a life-long student of Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists, " the Othello is superior to any other drama, ancient or modern." 208 ESSA YSCONTRO VERSIAL. As to the historians, it may be conceded to the writer of A Plea for Greek, that Herodotus was a more charming raconteur than any modern historian, though, in the words of Macaulay, " he has not written a good history ; he is, from the first to the last chapter, an inventor." But the moderns are so far superior in the philosophy of history that Macaulay is unwilling to award the ancient historians as a body the palm of general superiority ; he leaves the question open. As to Homer and the Greek orators, it will be well for us always to remember the words of that profound Greek scholar and critic, Thomas de Quincey, " who was an unqualified asserter of the superi- ority of modern to ancient literature." "It is," he said, "a pitiable spectacle to a man of sense and feeling, who happens to be really familiar with the golden treasures of his own ancestral literature, a spectacle which moves alternate scorn and sorrow, to see young people squandering their time and painful study upon writers not fit to unloose the shoes' latchets of many among our own compatriots ; making painful and remote voyages after the drossy refuse, when the pure gold lies neglected at their feet. We engage to produce many scores of passages from Chaucer, not exceeding fifty to eighty lines, which contain more of picturesque simplicity, more tenderness, more fidelity to nature, more felicity of sentiment, more animation of narrative, and more truth of character, than can be matched in all the Iliad or the Odyssey. To our Jeremy Taylor, to our Sir Thomas Browne, there is no approach made in the Greek eloquence. For the intellectual qualities of eloquence, in fineness of understanding, in depth, and in large compass of thought, Burke far surpasses any orator, ancient or modern." " Burke," declared Macaulay, " in apti- tude of comprehension and richness of imagination was superior to other orators both ancient and modern." The great critics have been freely quoted because some of the advocates of classical studies are too prone to belittle the achieve- ments of modern times, and suggest in their arguments that their devotion to the classics has left them no time adequately to appreciate the glory of modern literature. The writer of A Plea for Greek, however, is not guilty of this fault ; he maintains only that in many departments oratory, lyric, poetry, the drama modern literature has not surpassed the ancient or classical. Let us concede that his claim is a just one. The question then rises : Is there time in our modern life for the study of the classics? We are aware that Mr. James Kussell Lowell said truly that the boundaries of languages should not deter the true student from reading the best in every language ; a great work is great in whatever language it is written. But we repeat the question : Is there time in our modern high schools A PLEA FOR THE MODERN LANGUAGES. 209 and colleges for any but special students to spend six or seven years in acquiring enough Greek or Latin to appreciate in the original the works of classical authors ? Let us confine the question to America. However much some may regret the fact, our civilization is cer- tainly a practical one. The life of the average American citizen is full of activity ; America has not yet developed a leisure class. Still there is a great body of students who are seeking culture with no par- ticular intention of turning it into a money-making machine. They expect to become preachers, professors, lawyers, doctors, editors, engi- neers, merchants, etc. Those who intend to adopt the first two pro- fessions have generally in the past studied Latin and Greek, and they will continue to do the same in the future. They are the special students, and for them the colleges will always make provision. Into this class, to a limited extent, come the lawyers, for whose profession a working knowledge of Latin, gained by a two or three years' course, may be considered obligatory. As to the other students, those who intend to become scientists have before them a vast field in the realm of science, for which a life- time of diligent labor seems all too brief. Even so in other professions, the mastery of a wide range of knowledge is the only passport to emi- nence, and in the active practice of his vocation the professional man can hardly hope for any great leisure to devote himself to classical culture. The great mass of our students, then, are to be prepared for the active practice of a profession. What is the best means of accomplish- ing this ? Certainly not by giving them merely a technical or utilita- rian education. Our best colleges have recognized that specialization should be preceded by general culture ; but not all agree as to the character of this general culture. It is conceded, however, by the great majority, that among the necessary studies of a college curriculum are mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, psychology, biology, and geology. To these scien- tific courses the student must add history, ancient and modern, and the study of the development of his own language. Though a great deal of work has been thus mapped out, he may still have time for more. But has he yet touched those works in American literature which constitute its chief glory ? Has he investigated the great master- pieces of English, French, and German literature, which, though they may not be superior, are admitted to be unsurpassed by the classic models ? But, it may still be claimed, there is time for all this, and also for the thorough course of Latin and Greek which shall unlock the treas- ures of the past. Education, it is argued, is chiefly inspiration and 14 210 ESSA YSCONTRO VERSIAL. discipline; in the college and university we must not expect to do more than discipline the mind, and give the student a taste for what is best in literature, leaving him to pursue his work when he has launched out into life. Yet few of us realize how quickly our active lives are passing until we begin to question ourselves on the tasks we set before us on leaving college. Most of us find that a lifetime is all too short to spend upon the master-works of modern literature, espe- cially if we wish in some degree to keep abreast of the progress in science. It may be urged, however, that the quality, not the quantity, of reading is the all-important desideratum. This we readily admit to be a safe rule, for nothing is more dangerous than the omnivorous con- sumption of printed matter. But still we hold that a wide range of reading in various departments of knowledge is absolutely necessary if the student would obtain that philosophic breadth of view which is the only cure for bigotry. " Beware of the one-book man ! " " Yes," it has been well answered, " beware of him, because he is sure to be narrow-minded and bigoted." But the second division of our subject presses upon us : What is the relative discipline to be obtained from Latin and Greek on the one hand, and the modern languages on the other ? Of course, this ques- tion cannot be settled by the mere dictum of one person. But the present writer, who has taught both the classics and English, firmly believes that the discipline acquired in the critical interpretation of Shakespeare and Burke is not inferior to that acquired in a similar study of Sophocles and Cicero. Surely the faculty of interpretation, or even divination, may be exercised on some passages of Shakespeare as thoroughly as on the choruses of Sophocles. Moreover, German, which is now a necessary instrument in the hands of every scholar, may be utilized as a means of comparison ; translations from German into English, under a skilful teacher, will illustrate the power and beauty of both languages. At least, those who maintain the superiority of the classical lan- guages as a means of discipline should examine the methods now pursued in the teaching of French, German, and English. The very methods so long consecrated to the teaching of Latin and Greek have been adopted for the modern languages, and have created a new era. Till within the last twenty years, the teaching of English, at least in our Southern colleges and universities, was what it seems to have been at Oxford in De Quincey's time a dreary farce. Our students, therefore, were compelled to depend upon the classic culture and discipline. So far was this infatuation carried, that many students, when they were graduated, went out into life conversant with Demos- A PLEA FOR TEE MODERN LANGUAGES. 211 thenes, but totally ignorant of Burke ; they wrote Latin better than they did their mother tongue. The present writer was educated at a great Southern university when the course in English was a reproach among all the wise scholars ; and he had the pleasure of witnessing the dawn of a new era, when Thomas R. Price, at Randolph Macon College, became the great pioneer in the scientific and aesthetic teach- ing of English. The teachers of French and German have hastened to fall in line, and to demand a higher place for their specialties in the college curriculum. The " moderns " admit their debt to the classical studies, but they maintain that it was in the necessity of things that they contracted this debt. Their claim now is that the new order of things must receive recognition ; that, even admitting the classical literature to be the equivalent in value of the modern, the present methods of treat- ing the modern languages place these languages in a new position. Under the old regime a full allowance of tune was naturally demanded for the classics even to the manifest neglect of the mother tongue. With the progress of the sciences and with the improved methods of teaching, this time is no longer at the disposal of the classics; it should be consecrated to those noble vehicles of modern thought, the languages of England, Germany, and France, and to that portion -of modern literature which has been unsurpassed in the world's history. As to the discipline, the " moderns " lay stress upon the dictum of James Russell Lowell, " that master of style to whom language courte- sied as to its natural master." In one of his last essays he declares : " I value Shakespeare above all for this : that for those who know no language but their own, there is as much intellectual training to be got from the study of his works as from those of any, I had almost said of all, great authors of antiquity." He who defends the study of the sciences, moreover, is justified in protesting strongly when his defence is dubbed "bread-and-butter theory " or a pandering to the utilitarian. Science, like anything else, may be taught by shallow and superficial methods ; but if we demand the " enlightened methods," there should be no danger of a utilitarian bias. It is now admitted that every true scientist, as a requisite to success, must be possessed of imagination in a high degree. He is ever reclaiming new territory from the realm of the undiscovered. Such a teacher will guide the student beyond secondary causes back to the Deity himself. If this high office per- mits him to stoop to the demands of the practical, it is to alleviate physical conditions and raise his followers to higher planes of thought and life. Ko Stoic, telling his disciples that all misfortunes must be borne with calm fortitude, can be compared in greatness with the 212 ESSAYS CONTROVERSIAL. , modern philosopher who uses science as the handmaid of right living. Modern science, rightly studied, walks hand in hand with philosophy. Its broad reach is exemplified in the immortal and reverent words of Kepler, as he swept the heavens with his telescope : " I read God's thoughts after him." To say, then, that those who advocate the modern languages and science in preference to the classics are pandering to the utilitarian, rather than to the ideal, is to ignore the noble philosophy taught by our modern authors and the aid this philosophy has drawn from science. But it is claimed that any true understanding of modern literature is dependent upon a knowledge of the classics ; for our writers, espe- cially the poets of the nineteenth century, use freely classical allusions and classical terms. As to the allusions, can it be for a moment main- tained that translations of the classics will not furnish all the expla- nations necessary for the study of modern literature ? The apprecia- tion of our literature shown by many a cultivated woman among us, who has never studied either Latin or Greek, can be cited in evidence. Surely the ordinary student may be excused for contenting him- self with translations, when it is remembered that the acquisition of enough Greek to catch the spirit of the dramas of Sophocles and the philosophic history of Thucydides is a matter of some seven years' study (such is Macaulay's estimate), and that so long a devotion to Greek must interfere with his study of either the sciences or the modern languages. As to the use of classical terminology, the present writer joins De Quincey in his admiration of the simplicity of old Dan Chaucer. However happy our modern poets may have been in the use of learned terms, it may be well maintained their true greatness rests, and has always rested, upon the noble simplicity with which they have interpreted the thoughts and feelings of human nature. To the general student, therefore, this advice might well be given : As you must choose between the ancient and the modern languages, choose rather to saturate your mind with the masterpieces of the modern world, remembering always that, though you may not be able to study the language of the ancients, you are not wholly debarred from appreciating their works. William Cullen Bryant is no mean interpreter of Homer, and Jowett no mean interpreter of Plato. The greatest master of thought and expression that England ever pro- duced contented himself with translations, and knew " small Latin and less Greek." PART III. ESSAYS. SECTION II. MIXED. THE HUMMING-BIRD.* BY JOHN J. AUDUBON. [Joex JAMES AUDUBON was born near New Orleans, May 4, 1780. At an early age he was sent to France to be educated. In 1800 on a farm near Philadelphia, given to him by his father he began that series of drawings of birds imperishably connected with his name. From 1811 to 1826, a wanderer from one State to another as his scien- tific needs drew him, he explored the Southern forests for their ornithological treasures. In 1826 he went to England with his sketches, hoping to find in that country the means to publish the Birds of America. Being successful, the initial volume of that work appeared in 1830, the fifth and last in 1839. In 1846 he began the publication of a companion work on the Quadrupeds of America, the last volume of which did not appear until after his death. Europe was, through her highest names, generous to his appeal for recognition. Of his work Cuvier said: " C'est le plus magnifique monument que L'Art ait encore eleve a la Nature." Audubon died near New York, January 27, 1851.] WHERE is the person who, on seeing this lovely little creature moving on humming winglets through the air, suspended as if by magic in it, flitting from one flower to another, with motions as grace- ful as they are light and airy, pursuing its course over our extensive continent, and yielding new delights wherever it is seen ; where is the person, I ask of you, kind reader, who, on observing this glittering fragment of the rainbow, would not pause, admire, and instantly turn his mind with reverence toward the Almighty Creator, the wonders of whose hand we at every step discover, and of whose sublime con- ceptions we everywhere observe the manifestations in his admirable system of creation ? There breathes not such a person ; so kindly have we all been blessed with that intuitive and noble feeling admiration ! Xo sooner has the returning sun again introduced the vernal season, and caused millions of plants to expand their leaves and blossoms to his genial beams, than the little humming-bird is seen advancing on fairy wings, carefully visiting every opening flower-cup, and, like a curious florist, removing from each the injurious insects that otherwise would ere long cause their beauteous petals to droop and decay. Poised in the air, it is observed peeping cautiously, and with sparkling eye, into their innermost recesses, whilst the ethereal motions of its pinions, so rapid and so light, appear to fan and cool the flower, without injuring its fragile texture, and produce a delight- * [Birds of America.] 210 ESSAYS MIXED. ful murmuring sound, well adapted for lulling the insects to repose. Then is the moment for the humming-bird to secure them. Its long, delicate bill enters the cup of the flower, and the protruded double- tubed tongue, delicately sensible, and imbued with a glutinous saliva, touches each insect in succession, and draws it from its lurking place, to be instantly swallowed. All this is done in a moment, and the bird, as it leaves the flower, sips so small a portion of its liquid honey, that the theft, we may suppose, is looked upon with a grateful feeling by the flower, which is thus kindly relieved from the attacks of her destroyers. The prairies, the fields, the orchards and gardens, nay, the deepest shades of the forests, are all visited in their turn, and everywhere the little bird meets with pleasure and with food. Its gorgeous throat in beauty and brilliancy baffles all competition. Now it glows with a fiery hue, and again it is changed to the deepest velvety black. The upper parts of its delicate body are of resplendent changing green ; and it throws itself through the air with a swiftness and vivacity hardly conceivable. It moves from one flower to another like a gleam of light, upwards, downwards, to the right, and to the left. In this manner it searches the extreme northern portions of our country, following with great precaution the advances of the season, and re- treats with equal care at the approach of autumn. I wish it were in my poAver at this moment to impart to you, kind reader, the pleasures which I have felt whilst watching the move- ments, and viewing the manifestation of feelings displayed by a single pair of these most favorite little creatures, when engaged in the demonstration of their love to each other : how the male swells his plumage and throat, and, dancing on the wing, whirls around the delicate female ; how quickly he dives towards a flower, and returns with a loaded bill, which he offers to her to whom alone he feels desirous of being united ; how full of ecstasy he seems to be when his caresses are kindly received ; how his little wings fan her, as they fan the flowers, and he transfers to her bill the insect and the honey which he has procured with a view to please her ; how these attentions are received with apparent satisfaction ; how, soon after, the blissful compact is sealed ; how, then, the courage and care of the male are redoubled ; how he even dares to give chase to the tyrant fly-catcher, hurries the blue-bird and the martin to their boxes ; and how, on sound- ing pinions, he joyously returns to the side of his lovely mate. Header, all these proofs of the sincerity, fidelity, and courage with which the male assures his mate of the care he will take of her while sitting on her nest, may be seen, and have been seen, but cannot be portrayed or described. THE HUMMING-BIRD. 217 Could you, kind reader, cast a momentary glance on the nest of the humming-bird, and see, as I have seen, the newly hatched pair of young, little larger than humble-bees, naked, blind, and so feeble as scarcely to be able to raise their little bill to receive food from the parents ; and could you see those parents, full of anxiety and fear, passing and repassing within a few inches of your face, alighting on a twig not more than a yard from your body, waiting the result of your unwelcome visit in a state of the utmost despair, you could not fail to be impressed with the deepest pangs which parental affection feels on the unexpected death of a cherished child. Then how pleasing is it, on your leaving the spot, to see the returning hope of the parents, when, after examining the nest, they find their nurslings untouched ! You might then judge how pleasing it is to a mother of another kind, to hear the physician who has attended her sick child assure her that the crisis is over, and that her babe is saved. These are the scenes best fitted to enable us to partake of sorrow and joy, and to determine every one who views them to make it his study to contribute to the happiness of others, and to refrain from wantonly or maliciously giving them pain. THE WOOD THRUSH.* BY JOHN J. AUDUBON. THIS bird is my greatest favorite of the feathered tribes of our woods. To it I owe much. How often has it revived my drooping spirits, when I have listened to its wild notes in the forest, after passing a restless night in my slender shed, so feebly secured against the violence of the storm, as to show me the futility of my best efforts to rekindle my little lire, whose uncertain and vacillating light had gradually died away under the destructive weight of the dense torrents of rain that seemed to involve the heavens and the earth in one mass of fearful murkiness, save when the red streaks of the flashing thunderbolt burst on the dazzled eye, and, glancing along the huge trunk of the stateliest and noblest tree in my immediate neighborhood, were instantly fol- lowed by an uproar of crackling, crashing, and deafening sounds, roll- ing their volumes in tumultuous eddies far and near, as if to silence the very breathings of the unformed thought ! How often, after such a night, when far from my dear home, and deprived of the presence of those nearest to my heart, wearied, hungry, drenched, and so lonely and desolate as almost to question myself why I was thus situated ; when I have seen the fruits of my labors on the eve of being destroyed, as the water, collected into a stream, rushed through my little camp, and forced me to stand erect, shivering in a cold fit like that of a severe ague ; when I have been obliged to wait with the patience of a mar- tyr for the return of day, silently counting over the years of my youth, doubting perhaps if ever again I should return to my home and embrace my family! how often, as the first glimpses of morning gleamed doubtfully amongst the dusky masses of the forest-trees, has there come upon my ear, thrilling along the sensitive cords which connect that organ with the heart, the delightful music of this har- binger of day ! and how fervently, on such occasions, have I blessed the Being who formed the wood thrush, and placed it in those soli- tary forests, as if to console me amidst my privations, to cheer my depressed mind, and to make me feel, as I did, that man never should despair, Avhatever may be his situation, as he can never be certain that aid and deliverance are not at hand. The wood thrush seldom commits a mistake, after such a storm as * [Birds of America.] THE WOOD THRUSH. 219 I have attempted to describe ; for no sooner are its sweet notes heard than the heavens gradually clear, the bright, refracted light rises in gladdening rays from beneath the distant horizon, the effulgent beams increase in their intensity, and the great orb of dav at length bursts on the sight. The gray vapour that floats along the ground is quickly dissipated, the world smiles at the happy change, and the woods are soon heard to echo the joyous thanks of their many song- sters. At that moment all fears vanish, giving place to an inspiriting hope. The hunter prepares to leave his camp. He listens to the wood thrush, while he thinks of the course which he ought to pursue, and as the bird approaches to peep at him, and learn somewhat his intentions, he raises his mind toward the Supreme Disposer of events. Seldom, indeed, have I heard the song of this thrush without feeling all that tranquillity of mind to which the secluded situation in which it delights is so favorable. The thickest and darkest woods always appear to please it best. The borders of murmuring streamlets, over- shadowed by the dense foliage of the lofty trees growing on the gen- tle declivities, amidst which the sunbeams seldom penetrate, are its favorite resorts. There it is that the musical powers of this hermit of the woods must be heard to be fully appreciated and enjoyed. THE MOCKING-BIRD.* BY JOHN J. AUDUBON. IT is where the great magnolia shoots up its majestic trunk, crowned with evergreen leaves, and decorated with a thousand beau- tiful flowers that perfume the air around ; where the forests and fields are adorned with blossoms of every hue; where the golden orange ornaments the gardens and the groves; where bignonias of various kinds interlace their climbing stems around the white-flowered stu- artia, and mounting still higher, cover the summits of the lofty trees around, accompanied with innumerable vines that here and there fes- toon the dense foliage of the magnificent woods, lending to the vernal breeze a slight portion of the perfume of their clustered flowers ; where a genial warmth seldom forsakes the atmosphere ; where berries and fruits of all descriptions are met with at every step in a word, it is where Nature seems to have paused as she passed over the earth, and opening her stores to have strewed with unsparing hand the diversified seeds from which have sprung all the beautiful and splendid forms which I should in vain attempt to describe, that the mocking-bird should have fixed its abode, there only that its wondrous song should be heard. But where is that favored land ? It is in that great continent to whose distant shores Europe has sent forth her adventurous sons, to wrest for themselves a habitation from the wild inhabitants of the forest, and to convert the neglected soil into fields of exuberant fertil- ity. It is, reader, in Louisiana that these bounties of Nature are in the greatest perfection. It is there that you should listen to the love song of the 1 mocking-bird, as I at this moment do. See how he flies round his mate, with motions as light as those of the butterfly ! His tail is widely expanded, he mounts in the air to a small distance, describes a circle, and, again alighting, approaches his beloved one, his eyes gleam- ing with delight, for she has already promised to be his, and his only. His beautiful wings are gently raised, he bows to his love, and, again bouncing upwards, opens his bill and pours forth his melody, full of exultation at the conquest which he has made. They are not the soft sounds of the flute or the hautboy that I hear, but the sweeter notes of Nature's own music. The mellowness [* Birds of America.] THE MOCKING-BIRD. 221 of the song, the varied modulations and gradations, the extent of its compass, the great brilliancy of execution, are unrivalled. There is probably no bird in the world that possesses all the musical qualifica- tions of this king of song, who has derived all from Nature's self. Yes, reader, all ! No sooner has he again alighted, and the conjugal contract has been sealed, than, as if his breast was about to be rent with delight, he again pours forth his notes with more softness and richness than before. He now soars higher, glancing around with a vigilant eye, to assure himself that none has witnessed his bliss. When these love scenes are over, he dances through the air, full of animation and delight, and, as if to convince his lovely mate that to enrich her hopes he has much more love in store, he that moment begins anew, and imitates all the notes which Nature has imparted to the other songsters of the grove. ******** The musical powers of this bird have often been taken notice of by European naturalists, and persons who find pleasure in listening to the song of different birds whilst in confinement or at large. Some of these persons have described the notes of the nightingale as occasion- ally fully equal to those of our bird. I have frequently heard both species, in confinement and in the wild state, and without prejudice have no hesitation in pronouncing the notes of the European philomel equal to those of a soubrette of taste, which, could she study under a Mozart, might perhaps in time become very interesting in her way. But to compare her essays to the finished talent of the mocking-bird is, in my opinion, quite absurd. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE LITERATURES OF GREECE AND HINDOSTAK BY ALEXANDER DIMITEY. [ALEXANDER DIMITRY was born in New Orleans, February 7, 1805. Soon after he had taken his B. A. degree at Georgetown College, he became the first English editor of the New Orleans Bee, a paper published up to that time exclusively in French. In 1834 he was appointed clerk in the General Post Office Department at Washington City. In 1842 he returned to Louisiana and organized the free school system in that State, and was for about three years State Superintendent of Public Education. In 1856 he was appointed translator in the State Department at Washington, and three years later accepted the United States Ministership to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In 1861 he resigned this position to embrace the Southern cause, and under the Confederate Govern- ment he was Chief of the Finance Bureau in the Post Office Department. In 1868 he was made Assistant Superintendent of. the New Orleans public schools, and in 1870 he was elected Professor of Ancient Languages in the Christian Brothers' College at Pass Christian, Miss. In the prime of life he had prepared an elaborate History of English Names, the manuscript of which was destroyed by a fire at the St. Charles Institute of St. Charles Parish, La., of which he was at the time principal. Shortly after his death, which occurred Januai-y 30, 1883, his friend James R. Randall, the Southern poet, said : " This country has given birth to few men who could compare with Professor Dimitry in talent, scholarship, and accomplishments. He was a linguist, an orator, and a master of composition. Men with not the hundredth part of his ability have risen in public life and made something of a display. There was something absent from the Professor's nature that meaner creatures possess and utilize, and so his grand Grecian form and intellect pass away almost without a sign, so far as this world is concerned ; but I think he must, in another 'realm, hold high converse with Socrates, and hear from the lips of Homer the undying song of Troy."] THE people of Hindostan, a mild, pliant, and poetic race, charac- terized by deep sympathies with mankind, enacted an important part in the drama of Eastern civilization. Whatever may have been its relations with Egypt and Greece, with Persia and China whether it have modified their ideas, undergone their influences, or benefited by an exchange of thought between those regions and *the Hindostanic peninsula it is now admitted that the earliest sketchings of civilization are traced in the Sanscrit books. A century has scarcely passed by since the labors of Anquetil, enlarged by those of Jones and Cole- brooke, have revealed them to the world ; and their study brings a sense of astonishment and awe over the mind as it explores their mys- teries. Fancy wanders amid those subterranean temples, which the waters of the Ganges threaten with hourly invasion the gigantic monuments of days gone by, of which the living generation know ALEXANDER DIMITRY. THE LITERATURES OF GREECE AND HINDOSTAN. 223 neither the uses nor names monuments reared without order, economy, or rule, lofty creations of art, groaning under a wild luxuriance of artistic ornaments marble riddles which we cannot read, bristling with forests of columns and hosts of statues, which at once recall the idea of Egypt and Persia, Greece and Mexico. Of the architecture of that race, the literature, in its inconceivably vast range, is no unlit counterpart. Epic or tragedy; ode and apologue; sophisms of the school and dreams of the imagination ; the richest manifestations of human intelligence and the most drivelling systems of moral philoso- phy ; the doctrines of materialism, in its naked forms, or its disguise under the many-hued mantle of pantheism; the tenets of a high- reaching materialism or the elevation of the senses into a system of worship ; the application of logic to the purposes of practical life and to the criticism of the arts, a style of narrative composition as terse, lyrical, and sententious as that of the Bible itself all these charac- teristics are wildly, incoherently blended together, and constitute a strangely magnificent body of literature, probably older than that of Greece. There is no form of the human mind, as it revealed itself in antiquity, but what is bound in the mysterious chains of the hundred thousand distichs of the 3faha-baratta, which is the Iliad of Hindo- stan, or in the epic grandeur of the Ramayana, which bears a singular affinity to the Odyssey of Homer. This poetry of Oriental antiquity, is toned to an astonishing grand- eur of ideas and a vigorous power of creation. Luxuriant in its forms and hues, sparkling with the very sunshine of the rich climes in which it grew, it unfolds its beauties with all the splendor and magnificence of the early Edens of the world, and like their deep and mysterious rivers, wheels its broad tide into the shoreless and fathomless oceans of immensity. Its character is one of wonderful variety colossal in its proportions, yet minute in its details. The mind is called not un- frequently to dwell on most singularly striking contrasts. On one page, we linger on a picture of a perishing world beside that of a smiling infant. The poet, on one page, sports with a delicate flower bending its petals under the weight of a single dew-drop ; whilst on the next he marshals all the Hindoo gods to battle in the illimitable fields of space. Whilst legions of spirits of darkness and hosts of monstrous giants attempt to quench the glories of the sun, and to devour the very earth itself, a child comes forth with the magic flower of the lotus in his hand, and the flower rebukes the attempt of the dark spirits, and subdues the mad endeavors of the brood of Titans. This world of poetical illusion and witchcraft is unfolded with matchless ingenuity by the Sanscrit poet. In these battles of the mid-air, in which heaven and earth are witnesses of the giant 224 ESSA YS MIXED. fights, he arms his agents with varied instruments of destruction a thousand spirits dealing round, in their aerial course, lightning and death ; cohorts of elephants, mounted by the followers of Ormuzd, the spirit of light, crushing down the legions of Arimanhes, the spirit of evil. Here, the sense of terror, wound up to its highest expression ; there, the language of feeling and love, appealing in the gentlest tones. Here, deformity in its most ideal hideousness ; there, beauty wrapped up in the gorgeousness of divinity itself everywhere a spirit of religious symbolism, a train of wildest allegories, under which the mind of modern days cowers in vain efforts to unravel the mystic web ! The Maha3>aratta, or, as it means, the Greek war, set forth in that monument of modern erudition, the Asiatic Researches of Calcutta, relates the strife of the gods with the heroes and giants of earth, that common tradition which we find running through the poetical origins of all the nations of antiquity ; while the Ramayana^ or the exploits of the Hero, of a more human character in its concep- tion and execution, though still tinged with symbolism, sings of Rama, the great Hindoo Hero, the conqueror of the southern portion of the peninsula, whose exploits, glory, exile, and woes the poet rehearses in a strain not unworthy of Homer's harp. Still in this wonderful literature of Hindostan, the scholar looks in vain for the severe yet elegant proportions of Grecian art ; though he is compelled to acknowledge the very close relationship which evi- dently exists between them. If he attempt to trace up the historical causes of this intellectual kindred, the mind is suddenly merged in rayless obscurity, and left to the questionable help of suppositions, which, however ingenious, lack the ground of well-established facts. From this period of Brahminic civilization, for the want of records, we pass suddenly, without any gradual transitions or blending of ideas, to the era of Grecian polity. There, like a radiant star, glitters the golden link which binds Asia to Europe the East to the West the newer eras of society to the primitive ages of the world. The traditions of the relation which must have existed between India and the Pelasgic tribes, which first settled Greece, are now irrevocably lost ; the traces of their journey ings have been buried under the accu- mulated dust of centuries ; but we possess the story of our affiliation with ancient Greece and of our connection Avith her splendid system of civilization. Clearly Oriental in her national origin, and half so in her geographical position, Greece lighted the torch of that civilization which through many a trial has passed from Europe to our shores. Though ignorant of what she may have owed earlier nations, we know the amount of our indebtedness to her. However largely she may have borrowed from her predecessors, still her special genius THE LITERATURES OF GREECE AND HINDOSTAN. 2?5 remains undiminished, a genius worthy of the admiration of yet unreckoned centuries. Her literature is one of beauty, of power, and of harmony, resting upon an equilibrium of all the faculties of the intellect, the secrets of which were exclusively her own not to be found in the symbols of Egypt and of India, in the brutal majesty of the Persian and Arabic schools, or in even the high inspiration of the Hebrew books. The temple of pure art she opened, and for the first time opened, to the true worship of intellect. Beauty throws her halo over its creations ; the excesses of Oriental luxuriance are sub- dued ; the narration of facts, the reverses of states, the triumphs of nations, put on a lucid and logical form ; the passions have their own expression of eloquence and speak the language, feelings, and thoughts of humanity ; the precision of history is divorced from the enthusiasm and the vagueness of lyrical composition, in which the early annals of nations were once couched. The forms of intellect, of that which had been abstract intellect, assume a completeness and a purity hitherto unknown. Passing over the first period, barely known through the fragments that have come to us, of Linus, Orpheus, Musseus, and other priestly bards, we find this great development of mind coeval with the advent of old Homer. Homer is, to this day, the sovereign mas- ter of epic poetry, and no hand has been able as yet to discrown this monarch of song in his intellectual reign of thirty centuries ! He was the first representative of the freedom of intellect, upspringing in energy and in power, after having bowed so long to the tyranny of symbolism wielded by the hand of the cunning priesthood ! A more splendid pageant is not spread on the page of history than this specta- cle of the first outburst of purely human will and human power exert- ing its influence on mankind. Where are the Hindoo symbols? Where are the gods in this pageantry ? I see around it men of flesh and blood men of strong individuality towering up into heroic dimen- sions. I hear Ajax praying away the darkness, and daring Olympus itself to the utterance, if it but consents to give him light ! I see the fierce Diomedes, thundering in his war chariot, on the battle-plain of Troy fronting the divinities of Olympus in deadly fight. I s*ee him feed his ruthless lance with the immortal blood of the immortal Mars and I feel, you feel, and every one feels, that Homer, on that day, proclaimed the dignity of human nature, rescued it from the subduing traditions of the past, and foreshadowed, in undying song, the glorious progress of the future ! THE PERIOD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. BY ROBERT SHARP. [ROBERT SHARP was born in Lawrence ville, Va., October 24, 1852. He was gradu- ated from Randolph Macon College, in that State, in 1876, with the degree of A.M., and from the University of Leipsic, in Germany, in 1879, with the degree of Ph.D. In 1880 he was elected Professor of Greek and English in the University of Louisiana, in New Orleans ; and when that institution was merged into the Tulane University, he was elected to the same position. This position he still holds. He is the author of a Treatise on the Use of the Infinitive in Herodotus, written in Latin, and published at Leipsic, and of various articles and book-reviews in journals of education, and of some miscellaneous contributions to the newspapers. He is co-editor with James A. Harrison, of Washington and Lee University, of Beowulf, an old English poem, with Glossary and Notes, now in the fourth edition.] No history of a people can be even approximately complete with- out a delineation, as clear as it may be made, of the every -day life of the individuals and classes that make up that people. A great number of details are necessary to render this picture even nearly adequate. The family life, the house, the mode of dress, the character of the food, the occupations, the education, the civil and social relations, the religion all these and many other things must be reproduced as faithfully as is possible in the circumstances of 'each case. When this has been accomplished, we are able to comprehend what manner of people we have to do with ; and now, first, are we prepared to read and understand their history. Trustworthy information for this description of the early periods of a nation's life is often extremely difficult to obtain. A scrap is found here, and a scrap there ; now in the meagre entries of early chronicles, now in the casual allusions of home contemporary writers, if such exist, or in the observations of outsiders, if such fortunately survive. The pick and shovel of the modern excavator and the researches of the philologist may furnish their quota. These bits of evidence, when severely tested and found reliable, are pieced together, and thus the more or less complete picture unfolds itself to our view. A peculiar interest attends our investigation, when we attempt to discover what was the part played by the young, by the children and youth, of an ancient people. The importance of children to a community is, perhaps, generally recognized. A crusty few may only CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 227 tolerate them ; but the larger number of people, either from the rosy reminiscences of their own childhood, or from loving association with their own or with others' children, have a soft place in their hearts for the little folk, of whatever time, place, or race. There are few in the retrospect of whose lives a child's prattle does not somewhere echo with its simple, sweet, humanizing music. The musty etymolo- gist, as he digs up the bones of dead words, wears a gentler expression when he unearths a specimen which gives him a glimpse into pre- historic child-life. The dusty archa3ologist, when he finds a grotesque terra-cotta doll, worn and broken, looks positively human, as he calls up, in imagination, the chubby young ancient that loved, fondled, and maimed the toy in his hand. If, then, we may assume a general interest in the child, his ways, and his bringing up, in the history of every people, I am sure we must feel a peculiar interest in all that throws any light upon the career of the young people among the Anglo-Saxons, from the time of their entrance upon the stage, through all the scenes and acts sometimes it is comedy, sometimes it is tragedy to the time of their exit into manhood and womanhood, when haply they survive so long. This is a family matter for most of us ; for these same Anglo-Saxon young- sters were, or were to be, our ancestors ; and, when we succeed in calling them up for inspection by the mind's eye, we look upon them with a proprietary interest. We shall not, however, be able to produce a complete delineation of child-life among the Anglo-Saxons. Our authorities fail us at many points in a most disappointing way, and the information that we have refers, for the most part, only to male children and youth. We depend almost entirely upon the writings of the Anglo-Saxons them- selves, and they, of course, did not appreciate the exceeding interest to posterity of the details they omitted. Contemporary foreign writers can help us but little, as, in the earlier period, few or none of them seem to have known anything of the Anglo-Saxons at home. Art has left us no suggestions, either in stone or on canvas, for the excellent reason that there was no Anglo-Saxon art of a character to be of assistance to us. The facts here presented have been collected from many sources. In some parts I have culled from the pages of modern writers, in some instances I have found valuable materials in Anglo-Saxon texts and in the publications of the Early English Text Society. I would men- tion as having been especially helpful, Thrupp's Anglo-Saxon Home, Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, Kemble's Anglo-Saxon Dialogiies, and Bede's writings. Beginning with the child at his earliest appearance, we find that, 228 ESSA YS MIXED. in the opinion of the Anglo-Saxons, it was of the highest importance that he should be born upon a lucky day. The first day of the moon was a most fortunate day ; for the child born upon that day was sure to live long and prosper. The second day was not so propitious ; as the child born on that day would grow fast, but would die young. He who was born on the fourth day of the moon was destined to excel in matters of state ; he who was born on the tenth would be a great traveller. But the twenty-first was the best day of all for a birth- day, since he who began life upon that day would become a bold and successful marauder. Of the week-days, in Christian times, Sunday was most to be recommended as a natal day, and Friday was the most unfortunate of all ; for on the latter day came the crucifixion ; and Adam ate the forbidden fruit, he was expelled from Paradise, and descended into hell all on Friday.* In the earliest times, the Anglo-Saxon parent had absolute power of life or death over the child, or, if life was granted it, of enslaving it. Thus the first dilemma that faced the child after birth was, or might prove to be, a grave one : should it be allowed to live, or not ? The Anglo-Saxons held that it was not only permissible, but even a virtue and a sign of love on the part of the parents, to put to death, directly or indirectly, any child born with physical defects. Thus they and many other peoples of antiquity anticipated and went beyond Malthus of later times. It seems doubtful, indeed, whether infanticide was considered a crime under any circumstances. Michelet, in his Origines du Droit Franqais, says : " ' A child cries,' they said, ' when it conies into the world, for it anticipates its wretchedness. It is well for it that it should die.' " This sinister view of the Franks seems to have prevailed generally among the Northern nations, and was due, it is likely, in a great measure to the rigors of the climate and the many miseries attendant upon the struggle for existence in the barbarous state. With the change from a life of piracy and marauding to one more settled, came a decrease in this custom of murdering the innocents. But at first the change of view was of small advantage to the unfor- tunate little ones ; for it seems that the practice of actually putting the child to death merely gave place to that of exposing it in the forest or upon the heath to take its chance with hunger, cold, wild beast, and passing stranger. If it was useless and perhaps criminal to rear a weakling, it was even worse to bring up a timid child, which later, as a coward among brave men, would bring disgrace upon its kin. To determine, there- * Cp. Kemble's Anglo-Saxon Dialogues : Solomon and Saturn. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 229 fore, whether a child suspected of timidity was entitled to live, he was put to some test. He was, for instance, placed in some dangerous position, as upon the bough of a tree or upon a high roof. If the little one showed by laughing and crowing that he enjoyed his peril- ous position, he was saved ; if he showed signs of fear, he was doomed, and he was exposed without mercy. No comment can add to, nor lessen, the horror of the bare statement of these facts. When once the parent had recognized the child's right to life, especially by the act of giving it food, he might never afterwards slay it. With the progress from barbarism towards enlightenment came the gradual abandonment of this custom in all its forms. Better organized government, and the recognition of sounder principles of political economy, worked together with the humanizing influence of the Church to accomplish this end, and finally put an end to the slaughter of the children. The wise King Ina offered a fixed reward to him who should adopt a child that had been exposed, the amount varying with the rank of the child. For a ceorl's child, the foster-parent received, each year, six shillings, a cow in summer, and an ox in winter. The adoption of the child of the proprietor of ten hides of land brought, for each year, ten pots of honey, three hundred loaves of bread, twelve measures of Welsh ale, thirty of clear ale, two oxen, ten sheep, ten geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, a measure of butter, five salmon, twenty pounds of fodder, and last, but not least, one hundred eels. This appetizing stipend was supposed to repay the new parent for his trouble and ex- pense. Indeed, one would think that such waifs would have been at a premium. This compensation was continued until the child was supposed to be able, by its labor, to contribute an equivalent of the expense of its support.* When the Anglo-Saxons became cultivators of the soil, the adopted children were made to earn their salt, and, it may be, even more ; and farmers were observed to be especially inclined to have pity on the little foundlings, and 'to take them in. Thrupp remarks, with much point : " From this period infanticide became not only a crime but an extravagance." That the adopted children were often cruelly treated goes without saying ; but the Church and the Government were the friends of the little folk, and with time their condition improved. A hideous consequence of the unlimited power of the parent over the child was the practice of selling it into slavery. The Anglo-Saxon father had, at first, the privilege of selling his child whenever he pleased ; but this power was afterwards restricted, and he was allowed to do so only under the pressure of absolute necessity. " In case of * See Ellis : Doomsday Book, vol. i. p. 128, cited by Thrupp. 230 ESSA YS MIXED. extreme want," says an old Frisian law, cited by Thrupp, " when the child is naked as a worm, and without a roof, when the black fog and the cold winter reach her, then may the mother sell her child." The Church steadily opposed this custom from the first, and, with the aid of more humane rulers, eventually abolished it. But at first it could only impose limitations. Theodore, second Archbishop of Canterbury "(668), ruled that a father, if pressed by great difficulties, might sell a son who was under the age of seven, and a daughter in marriage up to the age of fourteen. Beyond this they might not be sold at all. Archbishop Eegbert, about eighty years later, grudgingly renewed the permission, but declared that whoever availed himself of it deserved excommunication. During the earlier period, the child might be sold in payment of penalties incurred by his father. But from the beginning of the tenth century no child under ten could be punished for his father's crimes, nor one over ten unless he had partaken of the offence. King Canute (1020) referred with indignation to the ancient custom of sell- ing the child into slavery for the father's crimes, " as it lay in the cradle, before it had even tasted meat, it being held by the covetous to be equally guilty as if it had discretion." The custom of putting children out to nurse prevailed; and it seems that it was a matter of common occurrence for them to be brutally treated. So much so, that King Alfred found it necessary to decree * that, when a child put out to nurse died, the nurse was to be presumed guilty of its death till she could prove her innocence a stern measure for the prevention of cruelty to children. The domestic nurse was an exceedingly important personage in the Anglo-Saxon household, as well as in other households, ancient and modern. She was often richly rewarded for her services, and justly, it would seem ; for we shall find that some of her duties went far be- yond her modern successor's conception of her obligations. It was her duty, for example, to protect the child from evil spirits. We know something of their methods of accomplishing this, but so little that it must be counted among the lost arts. Certainly the modern nurse seems unable to exorcise the evil spirits that sometimes take possession of her charge at least, so say the cynical bachelors. The details of this interesting performance, as far as they are known, were about as follows : as soon as practicable after the birth of the infant, a ditch, or better, a small tunnel was dug, and then the little one was drawn through this, the opening by which he entered being carefully and effectually closed behind him with brambles and, perhaps, twigs ; for you must know that the evil spirits that possess * Laws of Alfred, c. 17. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 231 children are very sensitive to brambles and to twigs. In process of time it came to be the fashion for the child's nurse to crawl through the tunnel vicariously, for the child, as before shutting out the pursu- ing spirits with the briers. This was found to be just as effective as when the child went through in proper person. This arrangement was satisfactory to all parties, and certainly added to the value and importance of the nurse. There have been various surmises as to the origin of this curious custom. Thrupp suggests that it is a survival of the heathen worship of Frija and Eortha. Another opinion is, that it was intended to typify the descent into the grave and the resurrection. This is proba- ble enough, if the practice belonged exclusively to the Christian period, which cannot be well proved nor disproved. A kind of baptism of infants was practiced in the North of Europe before the introduction of Christianity. Snorri Sturlusen tells, in his chronicle, how a Norwegian noble, who lived in the reign of Harold Harf agra, poured water upon the head of a man and called him Haakon after his father. This may, to some extent, account for the supersti- tion that existed at first in regard to the Christian rite. Soames, in The Anglo-Saxon Church , tells us that Anglo-Saxons regarded it as a magical ceremony for calling in a good spirit to keep out the evil ones. The relations existing between the god-parents, and between them and the god-child, were very close. The god-parents might not be united in marriage after the baptism, and the god-child might collect damages for injury done to the god-parent. The names given Anglo-Saxon children were, in early times, as were, perhaps, all names at first, either descriptive of circumstances connected with their birth, or significant of what it was hoped they might become. Sometimes they were prosaic attempts to condense into a single word some incident occurring at the time of the child's birth, or in its early history ; sometimes they were descriptive of its appearance. Often they were fanciful, sometimes poetic, not infre- quently grotesque. Often the tenderness or gratitude awakened by the advent of the child, as evinced in the name bestowed on it, seems strangely inconsistent when displayed by the people who could even still expose upon the desolate heath, apparently without a pang, their less favored offspring. Of course, their names ultimately became conventional ; but at first they were not so, and the story told by them often gives us a glimpse into the gentler side of the nature of these half-tamed barbarians. It must be admitted, however, that the love of war, and their savage spirit, are more frequently apparent in the names of males, as may be seen, for example, from the great number of names having " wolf " 232 ESSAYS MIXED. as one element. The wolf was evidently a beast of habits most con- genial to the tastes of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors ; and they often gave the young innocents names that showed the proud father's rea- sonable hope that his son might prove to be, in some degree, wolf -like. A few examples out of many are : Sigewulf, Wolf of Victory ; Ethel- wulf , Noble Wolf ; Ealdwulf , Old Wolf ; Ulph, Wolf, pure and simple. Then there were Egberht, Sword's Gleam; Herberht, Glory of the Army, and many other warlike compounds. Of a more pacific character were such as Ethelberht, Noble and Bright ; Alfred, Elf in Council, that is, Good in Council. When there were more than one of the same name, other distin- guishing designations were added, sometimes patronymic, as Alfredson; sometimes denoting the occupation, as in Osgood Stealere. Strange to say, " Stealere " then meant " steward ; " and the resemblance, as we of modern times know, to " stealer," was purely fortuitous. Surnames often grew out of personal characteristics, and such were added in later life. They were often comical and uncomplimentary. We are all familiar with Harold Harefoot, Edmund Ironsides, and Edith Swanneck ; and we meet with Wulfric the Pale, Thurcyl Mares- head, Godwin Towndog, and Ketel Flatnose. Other surnames were : Ugly, Squinteyed, Longbeard, Hognose, Hawknbse, Spoonnose, Torch- nose what a world of suggestion the last name bears ! and Yfelcild, Badboy. The names given to girls are especially interesting as affording evidence of a tender side to the Anglo-Saxon nature. Such are : Deorswithe, Yery Dear ; Deorwyne, Darling Joy ; Edflida, Stream of Happiness ; Elfgif u, Gift of the Elves ; Bertha, Bright ; and many other similar ones.* Certainly such names, before they became conventional, were more picturesque than are our modern meaningless designations, which, in many instances, are scarcely more suggestive or euphonious than, for example, No. 3 or No. 11 would be. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the male child ceased, technically, at the age of eight years to be an infant and became a youth. Allowing for difference in time and environment, I dare say they were pretty much such boys as other boys have been and are ; and our discussion of them might perhaps best begin and end with simply saying that they were boys. As is well known, boys constitute a genus by themselves, sub- divided into two species : good boys some would have it that this species exists only on paper and bad boys. Anglo-Saxon boys, of course, afforded no exception to this classification. We know, from his own evidence, that the Venerable Bede was * Examples mainly from Thrupp's Anglo-Saxon Home. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 233 once one of the boys ; for he tells us that, till his eighth year, he gave his mind alone to such plays and enjoyments as boys delighted in, taking great pleasure in mirth and clamor. He speaks in no very diffident way of his achievements among the other youths, claiming that he could at least hold his own with the best or the worst of them. He tells us that the Anglo-Saxons trained their children from their earliest years in running, wrestling, jumping, and other athletic exer- cises. Fighting and hunting came as additional accomplishments as they grew older. When the Anglo-Saxon child became a youth, he was called a cniht (German, Knecht\ that is, servant. This is the word that after- ward passed into the form and meaning of knight. They seem to have been trained to habits of obedience, and to have served visitors under the parental roof. In the earliest times, the Anglo-Saxon youth, with all their woes, at least never had to submit to the bondage of the schoolmaster ; but with the introduction of Christianity, and the consequent great im- provement in their condition, came, as an offset, the school with its attendant labors and restraints. At first, the only teachers were the priests, and the meagre instruction imparted was confined almost entirely to such as proposed to take holy orders. Alfred had to force his officials to learn to read and write ; and if anything prevented one of them from doing so, he had to send a son or a slave to learn in his stead, much to the substitute's sorrow, perhaps. But as time passed, the courses of study improved very much, and education became more general. Bede (IV. 2) informs us that in the school established by Bishop Theodore, instruction was given under the heads of poetry, astronomy, and arithmetic. In the school at York, where Alcuin was a pupil, grammar, rhetoric, astronomy, poetry, natural philosophy, metaphysics, medicine, and theology were taught. Great progress in education was made in these early times ; but the Norsemen brought confusion and devastation, and the ruin of the schools. Alfred found his people relapsed into dense ignorance. The members of the royal family were no exception. We learn from the biography of Alfred, ascribed to Asser, that Alfred's brothers could neither read nor write, and that their instruction was limited to the singing of psalms and reciting of poetry. The biographer says that Alfred himself, " through the wicked neglect of his parents and nurses, at the age of twelve had not yet learned to read." He then goes on to tell the well-known story how his mother (or step-mother, Judith '(} once displayed to Alfred and his brothers a beautifully illuminated book of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and offered it to the one of them who 234 ESSA YS MIXED. should first be able to recite its contents. Alfred, the youngest, whether attracted by the beauty of the book or of the poetry, undertook the task, and by having it often read to him won the prize. This is said to have given him his first impulse towards learning to read. Alfred, in the course of his strenuous efforts to improve the condi- tion of his people in the matter of education, is said to have brought over to England youths from foreign lands, who were accustomed to study, " to serve as decoy ducks," in order that the reluctant and perhaps somewhat thick-headed Anglo-Saxon boys might be stimu- lated to study, and might see how it was done. In the wars and bloodshed that followed his reign, a great part of the good work done by him for education was again swept away, but some of the effects remained along with its traditions. The Anglo-Saxon youth were never spoilt, if we may trust their own evidence, through the sparing of the rod. They speak repeatedly of the great virtue that lay in this instrument : it was " the quickener of intelligence," " the strengthener of memory," the general panacea, it would seem, for all youthful failings. Their writers refer regularly to their schooldays as the period when they were " under the rod." Alcuin expresses his gratitude to the good brethren of York Minster, for their care of him, as follows : " Ye cherished the weak mind of my infancy with maternal affection; ye sustained my wanton days of childhood with pious patience ; ye brought me to the perfect age of manhood by the discipline of paternal castigation." And again, in illustrating some point, he says : " As scourges teach children to learn the ornament of wisdom, and to accustom themselves to good man- ners," etc. The rod, proper, was reserved for sturdy youth. Infants, who were not yet strong enough to endure it, had the soles of their feet pricked with an instrument, the acra, made for the purpose. It was considered very stimulating. There is extant a dialogue,* in which an Anglo-Saxon pupil in training for holy orders applies to a master for instruction in Latin. The master at once inquires how he wishes to be taught, whether by scourging, or not. This shows that the rod was regarded not simply as a means of accentuating a reproof, but as a method of enlarging the intelligence. To such unsuspected agencies do we owe, in some part, it would seem, the sturdy physique and splendid intellect of the descendants of these much-belabored ancestors. The youth in the above-mentioned dialogue makes a reply which I, in the light of personal experience as schoolboy and with school- boys, must consider as casting some discredit upon the story. He * Wright, Cottoq. Arch. Alfr. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 235 replies that he much prefers being thrashed to not learning. But it must be taken into consideration that this sort of discipline is no nov- elty to him, for he says further on that he has been accustomed to being awakened in the morning, sometimes by the church bell, some- times by his master's rod. The drubbing seems to have been laid on with anything that was handy. It is said that King Ethelred, while yet a child, once angered his mother, and she, not having a rod convenient, used some heavy candles as a substitute, and with such effect that Ethelred could never afterwards endure the sight of a candle.* It was believed, too, that a beating, well administered, would not only stimulate the intellect, but would impress upon the memory any circumstance with which it was associated ; and it was often inflicted with this purpose. To illustrate : the children were flogged at Chil- dermass, with a view to impressing upon their memory the massacre of the innocents by King Herod. Certainly, in this case, cruelty to innocents was illustrated by example, the difference between the thing to be illustrated and the illustration being only in degree. But the much-drubbed schoolboy, like the worm, mav turn ; and we have the evidence of William of Malmesbury and others that the pupils of the school at Malmesbury once fell upon an especiallv cruel master and killed him with their pens. There arose, however, in time, teachers who believed in other methods ; and we read with pleasure of an Abbot of Croyland, Turketel, who rewarded the more industrious pupils with figs, raisins, apples, pears, and the like. The good Abbot should be canonized by the boys as their patron saint. Before the introduction of the so-called Arabic notation and sys- tem in calculation, the Anglo-Saxon youth labored under great diffi- culties in his study of arithmetic. Aldhelm says that the labor of mastering all his other studies was small as compared with that expended on his arithmetic. Following the ancients, they talked of numbers as equally equal, equally unequal, unequally equal, even and odd, simple, composite, and mean ; as superfluous, defective, and per- fect ; and there was much more useless machinery of a like kind. The problems in arithmetic were often quaint and fantastic. The follow- ing is one of several cited by Thrupp : " The swallow once invited the snail to dinner ; he lived just one league from the spot, and the snail travelled at the rate of one inch a day. How long would it be before he dined ? " Their natural philosophy, while in the main erroneous, was, never- theless, a good training, in that it caused the youth to look to nature for the causes of natural occurrences. They thought and taught, for * Thrupp, Anglo-Saxon Home. 236 ESSA YS MIXED. instance, that thunder and lightning resulted from the collision of the clouds, and that earthquakes were caused by winds rushing through caverns in the earth. The astronomy learned by the pupils in these Anglo-Saxon schools was sufficient to puzzle wiser heads than it is likely that they carried. Alfric, quoting Alcuin, tells us that the heavens were of the nature of fire, and always turning the stars from east to west ; and that the motion was so rapid that disaster would result, were it not for the restraining influence of the seven planets, which moved in an opposite direction, and so diminished the rapid movement of the heavens. These crude ideas were taken from Latin works ; but the Anglo-Saxon teachers seem not to have known the best work of the Alexandrine Greeks. Of geography, and of men and manners in other countries, their ideas were equally vague. Sharon Turner quotes from an Anglo- Saxon manuscript in the Cotonian Library the statement, that on the way to the Red Sea there was a place that contained red hens, and if a man touched them he would be at once burned to ashes. The necessary inference seems to be that some ingenious owner of fowls had been imposing upon the credulity of Anglo-Saxon travellers, who even then displayed huge appetites and vague consciences in matters of annexation. The same manuscript tells of men with boar's tusks, dog's heads, and horse's manes, who breathed flames ; of ants as big as dogs, Avhich dug gold, and gave it to men in exchange for young camels, which they devoured evidently an echo from old Herodotus. There were men in Gaul or France, it said further, with heads like those of lions, and mouths like the sails of windmills. They were twenty feet high, but would readily run away. So we see that the detractions of perfidious Albion are not new. An extract from a dialogue * between Alcuin and his pupil, Pepin, son of Charlemagne, will illustrate much of the so-called instruction of the Anglo-Saxon youth ; for Alcuin had brought his methods with him from England. It will be seen that, while passing as a lesson in useful knowledge, it is really a more or less picturesque word-play and exercise in constructing fantastic metaphors, conundrums, and epigrams. The pupil questions, and Alcuin answers : " What is a letter ? The keeper of history. " What is a word ? The betrayer of the mind. " What is the tongue ? The scourge of the air. " What is man ? The slave of death ; a transient traveller ; a local guest. " How is man placed ? As a lamp in the wind. * Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, III. 262. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 237 " What is sleep ? The image of death. " What is man's liberty ? Innocence. " What is the head ? The crown of the body. " What is the body ? The home of the mind. "What are the eyes? The leaders of the body; the vessels of light ; the index of the mind. "What is the sun? The splendor of the world; the beauty of heaven; the grace of nature; the honor of day; the distributer of the hours. " What is the moon ? The eye of the night ; the giver of dew ; the prophet of the weather. " What is the earth ? The mother of the growing ; the nurse of the living ; the storehouse of life ; the devourer of all things. "What is the sea? The path of audacity; the fountain of showers ; the refuge of danger ; the favorer of pleasures." Here the spirit of the sea-rover speaks. " What is fire ? Excess of heat," concise, if not scientific. " What is snow ? Dry water. " What is spring ? The painter of the earth. " What is autumn ? The granary of the year. " What makes a man never weary ? Gain. " What is that which is and is not ? Nothing." This somewhat long quotation contains much that scarcely deserves a better name than trifling, though, in places, the figures themselves are poetic. Indeed, we find here much the same kind of profuse imagery that abounds in the poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. Perhaps, after all, this exercise was intended simply as a rhetorical drill. It would be unfair to leave undisputed the natural inference from the above and what will follow, that Alcuin was only a wordv pedant. He was one of the greatest scholars of his time, and as such was selected by Charlemagne as instructor for himself and his children, and as general organizer of educational institutions in his realm. I shall close with a passage from a letter from this same Alcuin to Charlemagne, which, in spite of its excessively florid style and it would be difficult to find its equal in this respect will serve to show that the facilities for higher education offered at this time to Anglo- Saxon youth were in advance of those to be found on the continent. The library at York referred to was not long afterwards utterly destroyed by the ruthless ^Norsemen. Alcuin, while superintending the studies in the schools which he had established at Tours, found himself sadly in need of books suitable for advanced work. In the letter mentioned above he says : " Accord- ing to your exhortations and kind wish, I endeavor to administer, in 238 ESSAYS MIXED. the schools of St. Martin, to some, the honey of the sacred writings ; I try to inebriate others with the wine of the ancient classics ; I begin to nourish some with the apples of grammatical subtlety ; I strive to illuminate many by the arrangement of the stars, as from the painted roof of a lofty palace. But I want those more exquisite books of schol- arly erudition which I had in my own country. May it, then, please your wisdom that I send some of our youths to procure what we need, and to convey into France the flowers of Britain, that they may not be locked up in York only, but that their fragrance and fruit may adorn at Tours the gardens and streams of the Loire." * * Sharon Turner : History of the Anglo-Saxons, III. 12. THE EARLY LITERATURE OF SPAIN. BY J. D. B. DE BOW. [JAMES DUNWOODY BROWNSON DE Bow was born in Charleston, S. C., July 10, 1820. In 1843 he was graduated from Charleston College, and was later admitted to the'bar of that city. He was, for a while, editor of the Southern Quarterly Review. In 1845 he removed to New Orleans, where he established and edited De Bow's Review. In 1848 he was elected Professor of Political Economy in the University of Louisiana. In 1850-53 he had charge of the Census Bureau of the State, and during part of Pierce's administra- tion he held the office of Superintendent of the Census of the United States. He was the author of The Southern States : their Agriculture, Commerce, etc. (1856). His best edited work is on Mortality Statistics. He died in Elizabeth, N. J., February 27, 1867.] THE Moorish power in Spain was marked by much that was glori- ous in civilization, in luxury and letters ; and, amid the darkness and gloom which had settled upon Europe, shone forth with steady and almost dazzling brightness. Men of letters congregated there from all the world, attracted by its libraries, its schools, and its scholars ; and many of the regenerating influences which, long afterward, dissi- pated the night of the middle ages, may be traced to the intellectual empires of Cordova and Granada. The Gothicized Latin of the Christians, coming now in intimate association with the Arabic, a more polished and refined one, adopted many of its forms, and borrowed copiously from its vocabulary. The change was gradual and continuous, and, about the middle of the twelfth century, the amalgamated elements had risen to the dignity of a written language, known, ever since, as the Castilian, or Spanish. From this period is traced the history of Spanish literature. Here we recognize, according to Mr. Ticknor, the existence, in Spain, of a language, spreading gradually throughout the greater part of the country, different from the pure or the corrupted Latin, and still more different from the Arabic, yet obviously formed by a union of both, modified by the analogies and spirit of the Gothic construc- tions and dialects, and containing some remains of the vocabularies of the Spanish tribes, of the Iberians, the Celts, and the Phoenicians, who, at different periods, had occupied nearly or quite the whole of the peninsula. This language was called, originally, the Romance, because it was so much formed out of the language of the Romans ; later it was called Spanish, and at last, more frequently, called Castilian, from that portion of the country whose political power grew to be so pre- dominant as to give its dialect a preponderance over all others. The 240 ESSAYS MIXED. proportion of all these elements is estimated, by Sarmiento : six-tenths of Latin origin, one-tenth Greek and ecclesiastical, one-tenth Northern, one-tenth Arabic, one-tenth East Indian, American, gypsy, modern German, French, and Italian. The first kno\vn author in the Castilian was one Gonzalo, a priest, who lived about 1240, and wrote an octavo volume, of poems, mostly of the religious order. The following, from his " Mourning of the Virgin at the Cross," is very life-like : " My son, in me and thee life still was felt as one ; I loved thee much, and thou lovedst me in perfectness, my son ; My faith in thee was sure, and I thy faith had won, And doth thy large and pitying fate forget me now, my son ? My son, forget me not, but take my soul with thine The earth holds but one heart that kindred is with mine, John, whom thou gav'st to be my child, who here with me doth pine: I pray thee, then, that to my prayer thou graciously incline." Previously to this, however, there are many anonymous poems, the most celebrated of which is that of the Cid, consisting of about three thousand lines. The Cid was a popular hero of the chivalrous age of Spain ; and the poem narrates, with stirring, graphic, yet rude power, the long series of glorious exploits that marked his eventful and splen- did military career. It is, besides, a faithful and simple picture of the manners, customs, and institutions of that romantic period. The next known author in Castilian literature is Alfonso the Tenth, or, as he is distinguished in history, " Alfonso the wise." A poet and a philosopher, it was said of him, " He was more fit for letters than for the government of his subjects ; he studied the heavens and watched the stars, but forgot the earth and lost his kingdom." To this mon- arch the world is indebted for that code which has had so wide an influence for its wisdom and equity, and which, at this day, constitutes almost the common law of Spain the Partidas. This valuable work was undertaken in 1263 or 1265, and called Las Siete Partidas, or the " seven parts," from the number of divisions it contained. It is dis- tinguished in general for a peaceful and polished style, working upon the materials of the Decretals, the Digest and Code of Justinian, the Fuero Juzgo, a collection of Visigoth laAvs made by St. Ferdinand, the father of Alfonso, and other Spanish and foreign authorities. The Partidas, however, differs very much in nature and character from the Justinian and Xapoleon codes, and is rather a collection of legal, moral, and religious treatises, systematically arranged. It abounds in dis- cussions of various kinds, and presents, according to Mr. Ticknor, a digested result of the readings of a learned monarch and his coadjutors in the thirteenth century, on the relative duty of a king and his sub- THE EARLY LITERATURE OF SPAIN. 241 jects, and on the entire legislation and police, ecclesiastical, civil, and moral, to which, in their opinion, Spain should be subjected ; the whole interspersed with discussions, sometimes more quaint than grave, etc., etc. This code, though it was not for nearly a century recognized as of binding authority in Spain, has ever afterward maintained the high- est rank in that country and her colonies, and, since the annexation of Louisiana and Florida to the United States, has been consulted con- stantly and applied by our jurists. Among the earliest monuments of Spanish literature, the " Ballads " occupy a distinguished place. The first lispings of the muse seem to have taken this form, for which it is not difficult to account, consider- ing the extraordinary character of the times. Those which have been preserved to us in the various collections, and which, no doubt, suf- fered mutilation in their long traditionary passage, are very numerous, breathe a spirit of genuine poetic fervor, religion, patriotism, and chiv- alry, and, being the product of a people more advanced in civilization and refinement, are considered greatly superior in literary excellence to the early Scotch and English ballads. They are purely Castilian, and expressive of the national sympathies and spirit in so high and perfect a degree as to be sung by the muleteers of Spain of the present day precisely as they were heard by Don Quixote in his ad- ventures to Toboso. Love, war, religion, chivalry, and heroism are their subjects ; and, partaking of the spirit of those glorious struggles for God, liberty, and nationality, which for so many hundred years were displayed by the Christians of Spain, they burn with all the fires of a lofty and genuine inspiration. The authors and dates of most of these are unknown, and the collection, as embraced in the Romanceros Generates, consists of above a thousand poems. We conclude, however, unwillingly, with the simple and touchingly beautiful ballad, where an elder sister reproaches the younger, on noticing her first symptoms of love. It would seem that the tender inspiration differed little five hundred years ago and now, and its unmistakable signs are as recognizable in our day, in Laura, Mary, Sally, or Betsy, as in simple " little Jane " in the ballad : Her sister, Miguella, Once chid little Jane, And the words that she spoke Gave a great deal of pain : " You went yesterday playing, A child, like the rest; And now you come out, More than other girls, dressed. 16 ESSA YS MIXED. " You take pleasure in sighs, In sad music delight ; With the dawning you rise, Yet sit up half the night. ' ' When you take up your work, You look vacant and stare, And gaze on your sampler, But miss the stitch there. " You're in love, people say Your actions all show it ; New ways we shall have When mother shall know it. " She'll nail up the windows, And lock up the door ; Leave to frolic and dance She will give us no more. " Old aunt will be sent To take us to mass, And stop all our talk With the girls as we pass. " And when we walk out, She will bid our old shrew Keep a faithful account Of what our eyes do; " And mark who goes by, If I peep through the blind, And be sure to detect us In looking behind. " Thus for your idle follies Must I suffer too, And though nothing I've done, Be punished like you ! " " O sister Miguella, Your chiding pray spare ; That I've troubles, you guess But not what they are. " Young Pedro it is, Old Juan's fair youth ; But he's gone to the wars, And where is his truth ? " I loved him sincerely, I loved all he said ; But I fear he is fickle, I fear he is fled ! THE EARLY LITERATURE OF SPAIN. 243 " He is gone of free choice, Without summons or call, And 'tis foolish to love him Or like him at all." " Nay, rather do thou To God pray above, Lest Pedro return, And again you should love," Said Miguella, in jest, As she answered poor Jane ; " For when love has been bought At cost of such pain, " "What hope is there, sister, Unless the soul part, That the passion you cherish Should yield up your heart ? " Your years will increase, But so will your pains, And this you may learn From the proverb's old strains : " ' If when but a child Love's power you own, Pray what will you do When you older are grown ? ' " PETRARCH AND LAURA. BY RICHARD HENRY WILDE. [RICHARD HENRY WILDE was born in Dublin, Ireland, September 24, 1789. Dur- ing his childhood his parents brought him and their other children to Baltimore, Md. After the death of his father, he removed with his mother to Augusta, Ga., where he studied law. He was barely of age when elected Attorney-General of Georgia, and sub- sequently served, with distinction, for several terms in Congress. In 1834 he went to Europe, where he remained until 1840, devoting himself specially to the study of the various European literatures. Removing to New Orleans in 1843, he was, on the organ- ization of the Law Department of the University of Louisiana, selected to fill the chair of Constitutional Law. His famous poem, Lament of the Captive more popularly known through its opening line, " My life is like a summer rose" gave rise, through a learned friend's mischief, to one of those acrid controversies which rage around dis- puted authorship. In 1842 he published a work in two volumes, on the Love, Madness, and Imprisonment of Torquato Tasso, which, while including choice translations from the Italian poet's Canzones, threw a new light upon one of the vexed questions of ama- tory inspirations of poets. He also contributed to the Southern Review a famous essay on Petrarch and Laura, which questions the claims of the latter to her immortal asso- ciation. He died in New Orleans, September 10, 1847.] OF all the women who have been deified by their poetic adorers, Laura seems to us one of the least interesting. Why, then, did Petrarch love her ? If we consult our own experience and observa- tion, we shall not ask that question, nor its converse Why did she not love him ? Love is commonly the result of accident or caprice, rarely of any intellectual merit. The hope to win it by celebrity, though frequently indulged, is among the vainest of illusions, and Laura may have smiled at such a folly without being unusually stupid or insensible. The greater part of her sex, like the greater part of ours, have no just conception or ardent love of glory. In general, they hold immortality as cheap as the mother of mankind or the widow of Napoleon. There have been remarkable and splendid examples to the contrary, it is true ; but fortunately or unfortunately for us, and for themselves, the mass remains unchanged. Many have indeed been inseparably associated with undying names, often undeservedly, sometimes in their own despite ; but most, being of the earth, earthy, would have lost that privilege, had not the weakness of vanity or tenderness preserved the memorials of their triumph, and thus rescued them from merited oblivion. Nina, who would be called nothing but the Nina of Dante, is the exception, not the rule. Even she, perhaps, was thought very PETRARCH AND LAURA. 245 naughty in her lifetime, and if she sacrificed temporary good repute to long ages of celebrity, had nearly made the sacrifice in vain, since, though a poetess herself, she was so little of a critic as to choose Dante da Maiano, an indifferent versifier. Far be it from us to malign the fairer part of creation, to whom every rhymer is a born bondsman ; but, in truth and prose, the condition of woman excludes her for the most part from these lofty aspirations. Shut up within the narrow circle of petty vanities, household cares, frivolous amuse- ments, devotional exercises, and trivial occupations, she rarely feels inclined to look beyond it, and if she does, is visited with the anger of all her sisterhood. There is little reason to believe that Laura burst the spell, or was in any wise exempted from the common destiny, ex- cept by the fortune of a more illustrious lover. Her long-continued system of alternate encouragement and repulse, so delicately managed and adroitly blended, as always to keep alive his hopes, yet always disappoint them, may not deserve to be stigmatized as the refinement of heartless coquetry, but certainly excludes the idea of warm and sincere attachment. The very ascendency she acquired over him, by her constant self-possession and invariable calmness, indicates the action of a more phlegmatic, on a more impassioned nature. For the rest, discretion, sweetness, good sense, religious faith, and serenity make up the sum of an amiable and tranquil disposition, as feminine as you please, and as remote as possible from all our early romantic conceptions. . . . Could the veil of ages be withdrawn, she might be found either frail or cold, and, whichever the alternative, must lose a portion of her worshippers. Now, on the contrary, those who are not satisfied with either part of this dilemma have still open to their faith the further supposition, that Laura, tenderly loving Petrarch, concealed or governed her affection for one-and-twenty years, never driving him to despair by her rigor, nor betraying the secret of her weakness. But whether she was enamored and virtuous, or only coquettish, pru- dent, or indifferent, it must not be inferred she took no pleasure in her lover's praises. Who is offended by a delicate and well-turned compli- ment ? or what woman, however insensible to the beauties of poetry, ever failed to admire a sonnet to her own eyebrow? Love is not kindled by rhyme, but self-love is fed by it ; nor should we without reflection condemn Laura for not valuing more highly, or making a more grateful return for the offering. We behold in Petrarch the restorer of learning, the creator of a new poetry, the beautifier of a language which is all melody. She saw in him only a persevering sonneteer, who annoyed her with complaints, or soothed her by flat- tery. To us he appears with the glory of five centuries. Could he 246 ESS A TS MIXED. have laid it all at her feet, possibly she might have vielded. With the confidence of genius he often promised her immortality. But how could she believe him i Did he always believe himself ? So far from it, he at one time set little value on his love verses, building his hopes of fame upon his Latin poems. The lady whose apotheosis has been made by the love and poetry of Petrarch, there is every reason to believe, was anything but happy. His devotion, which alone has embalmed her memory, we may readily suppose, brought upon her both envy and censure. The propriety of her conduct is said, indeed, to have been such as to defy the gossips of Avignon. The offence of being beautiful and idolized, however, is rarely expiated even by an abandonment of the heart's affections. Our contemporaries ever judge us harshly. The living rarely get credit for their real AvortlL Xay, they are often hated for the very virtues by which they eclipse others, while in the eyes of posterity every fault and almost every crime is absolved by greatness. Laura, we may believe, if she really loved Petrarch, sacrificed her attachment to duty or to reputation, though she was unable or unwilling to forego the incense offered to her charms. The sacrifice was in vain, save to her own conscience, for Ugo, her husband, was harsh and jealous, and so little attached to her memory that he married shortly after her death ; while her daughter, Ogiera, so far forgot the maternal exam- ple, even in her mothers lifetime, that the honor of the family obliged them to shut her up in a convent. Thus the celebrity of Laura arises from a homage which it was weakness, perhaps worse, to allow, while her virtues were inadequate to insure her domestic happiness, and most certainly alone would never have preserved her from oblivion. So strange are the caprices of fame and fortune, so uncertain and inconsequent the judgments of mankind. MACBETH.* BY WILLIAM PKE8T03f JOHSTSIOSL [ WnxiA * PRESTOS Jonxsioy. son of General Albert Sidney Johnston, was bora in Louisville, Ky., January 5, 1831. In 1852 he was graduated from Yale College, and later received his diploma from the law School of the University of Louisville. In that city he practised law nntfl the beginning of the Civil War, when he entered the Confed- erate Army as Major of the First Kentucky Regiment of Infantry. He was soon pro- moted to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of that: regiment, and latterly seWed as aide-de-camp on the staff of Jefferson Davis. After the war, he practised law for one year in Louis- ville ; then he was called to the chair of History and English Literature in Washington College, Lexington, Va. In 1880 he accepted the presidency of the Louisiana State University, and in January, 1883, when the University of Louisiana was reorganized as the Tulane University, he was elected president of the institution. This position he still holds. He is a Wteratemr and poet of considerable ability. His Life of Albert Sidney Johnston (1858) deserves as high a place in American literature as Partons Life mT Andre* Jackson or Colton's Life of Hemry day. It is written in a style remarkable for its transparency, its earnestness, its elegance : and most critics agree that it is the most " satisfactory" biography of a general of the ex-Confederacy that has yet appeared. Colonel Johnston's Prototype of Hamlet, and Other SAaiaeqiearim PnMtm*tl*W) places him among the first Shakespearian scholars of the times. Commenting upon the work, Professor Lonnsbury of Yale says : " I was glad to find Colonel Johnston entertaining the same feeling about XaebctA that I do. . . . I was much struck by his argument in regard to the first Hamlet. To me ft seems the strongest presentation of the evidence in favor of the Shakespearian authorship of that production with which I am familiar."] WHETHER Madbeth is the greatest of Shakespeare's plays or not, I think there can be no doubt that it is his greatest poem. This is the more remarkable as it is probable from internal evidences that it never received the finishing touches so necessary for the perfection of a work of art* but stands like some colossal statue the dream of a seer the stupendous outline of a great soul-study, conceived in its entirety in the mind of the artist. We discover gaps in the plot, confusion in the metaphor, details half completed, and a lack of those final thoughts which, like sweetest roses before a killing frost, blossomed forth in his last version of JTamftt. But this very incompleteness compels us. as it were, to enter the charmed circle of the poet's imaginings, view the author s mind in the processes of creation, and share with him in the solemn mystery of the production of this grand drama. It may be, as Swinburne suggests,, ** that the sole text we possess of Macbeth has not been interpolated; but mutilated." He describes it * [The Prototype of HamM, a*d Other Skatepearia* PnUtt 2-tS ESSAYS JllXED. as - piteonsly rent and ragged and clipped and garbled in some of its earlier scenes; the rough construction and the poltfoot metre, lame sense and limping verse, each maimed and mangled subject of players' and printers* most treasonable tyranny contending as it were to seem harsher than the other.** Yet, along with the wise and deep-seeing authors before cited, this most musical of critics tells us, "But if Ctthdfo be the most pathetic, King Lear the most terrible, Hamlet the subtlest and deepest, work of Shakespeare, the highest in abrupt and steep simplicity of epic tragedy is Macbeth" In the spirit of this suggestion I am prepared to admit that Macbeth may It (for I dread dogmatism) rather the torso of some masterpiece of our dramatic Phidias than the uncompleted ideal of his tragic muse. But, dropping metaphor, the greatness of the events, the rapidity of the action, the compression of the thought, the fervor of the diction, and the simplicity and directness of the moral movement render it a noble example of tragic art. Macbeth is not only, as Hallam called it, the great epic drama, but also the great heroic drama. The action is shrouded in mysterious gloom, or lurid with an unholy supernatural light ; the persons of the drama move in shadow, vast, sombre, and majestic, like beings of some older and larger creation. As in the Iliad^ Achilles, Ulysses, and Agamemnon deal with the Immortals, give the sword-thrust or receive the wound, so when Banquo and stout Macduff, the saintly Duncan and bloody Macbeth, enter the field of vision, the meaner race of mortals vanishes from sight. Hence the artistic effects of this play are not produced by nice gradations of shade, but by strong contrasts of color in scene, incidents, circum- stance; and character. The elements are in tumult ; and the landscape, black beneath the lowering storm-cloud, is, nevertheless, belted with peaceful bands of sunshine. Fell murder and dire cruelty work out their purposes on innocence and loyalty, and final retribution is met * dareful, beard to beard,** by defiant remorse. Macbetfi is, indeed, a tremendous epic in dramatic form an epic in the rush and swirl of its objective action, but a very paean of subjective evolution struck from the fervid lyre of a heart white hoL But implicit within the folds of its royal drapery of poetry, indeed, at the very heart of its ancient legend, couches one of the problems of destiny a mystery of the human soul which we would do well to pluck forth and lay bare to the scrutiny of our intelligence. I have not selected this tragedy because its problem is the most difficult to solve, for, on the contrary, it is the most obvious ; but it is one of the grandest and most pathetic. It is the old story of tempta- tion, crime, and retributive justice. Hamlet and Jfacbetft were finished almost about the same time; Hamlet^ as an idea which had grown MACBETH. 249 through a series of years and been worked out to its consummation : and Ma&etA, probably suggested by it, hurled from the crater of the author's imagination into the empyrean. Together they constitute the obverse and reverse of the heaven-stamped medal we call the human will They are psychological complements of each other. In Hamlet the renunciation of the human wfll is balanced by the despot- ism of wfll in Macbeth. In Hamlet, " the courtier, soldier, scholar, the expectancy and rose of the fair state," is "quite, quite down" and why ? Because a morbid conscience and irresolute heart keep his subtle intellect in play, until the moment for action has passed, and his vacillation overwhelms with ruin all his house. But the Thane of Glamis, audacious, merciless, and prompt, closes with his opportunity, and on the instant puts his soul past surgery. All must bend or break before the energy of his tremendous will and his lawless lust of domin- ion. But Xemesis follows him too, and his crime works out its inevitable penally. But let us come now to the play itself, and consider the material and web of the plot, and how its moral purpose is evolved. A medi- aeval legend from Holinshed's dry Chronicle furnishes the incidents of the story. Following this outline, but weaving into it striking fea- tures from other similar tales, the author wins the credence of his audience by an apparent adherence to historical fact ; while his perfect dramatic instinct teaches him to produce the prof oundest impressions by conforming these rigid materials to the standard of ideal, universal, essential truth. Here is the story of MacbetA : Duncan, the saintly but feeble King of Scotland, is assailed by rebellion and invasion, which are repelled by his two generals, Macbeth and Banquo, who win public commendation and the rewards of the King. While return- ing from victory, they meet upon a blasted heath the three Weird Sisters, who hail Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King of Scotland hereafter, and predict for Banquo that his offspring shall ascend the throne. Banquo's sturdy honesty rejects the bait, but Macbeth' s restless ambition hovers around the unholy prediction. The messengers of the King meet him, and announce that the King has given him the titles and estates of the rebellious and vanquished Thane of Cawdor. Already, by inheritance, he was Thane of Glamis. Two truths are told. As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme. " A fiendish suggestion has planted in his breast a wicked thought. He entertains it there, and it gathers and grows into a purpose to ful- fil the prophecy. While thisls taking shape, a fatal hint infuses the 250 ESSA YS MIXED. poison of lawless ambition into the veins of his wife, and the " dear partner of his greatness" becomes the partner of his guilt. When he hesitates, she urges him to the execution of the crime, through which he will ascend the throne. He avails himself of a friendly visit of the King to murder him ; and then, to conceal his own guilt, stabs the sleeping chamberlains. Duncan's sons, alarmed for their safety, fly. Macbeth charges them with the murder, and himself ascends the throne. His usurpation now seems established, and all goes well with him ; but he cannot feel secure while Banquo lives, for Banquo wit- nessed his temptation and may profit by his crime, while his stainless integrity stands like a perpetual reproach to Macbeth' s disloyalty and guilt. He must die. Banquo is waylaid and assassinated ; but his " blood-boltered " ghost rises at a royal banquet to shake the soul of Macbeth with horror. In his desperate desire to search out the future, the murderous usurper seeks the witches, and, lured by their infernal lights, he butchers in cold blood the wife and children of Macduff, Thane of Fife, who has fled to the true prince, Malcolm, in England. But this cruelty does not prosper. Suspicion, hatred, and horror follow him. His wife, pursued by remorse, kills herself. And at last, cheated by the fiends he trusted, the tyrant falls in battle by the hand of Mac- duff, and the son of the murdered Duncan ascends the throne. From these simple materials, the skilful hand and informing spirit of the great artist built up a royal palace in the realm of thought. The felicity of Shakespeare's genius shows itself in the selection of the time and place and plot of this tragedy. Surely these are not accidents. The venue is laid in the border-land of fact and fable. Macbeth was a contemporary of that Edward the Confessor whose reign lingered for generations in the fancy of Saxon England as a golden age. It was to Shakespeare a heroic age ; and the figures and events of his creation loom up loftily through twilight and mist, too large and vague perhaps, did not human passions so sharply define them. But the place as well as the time of the drama evoke a vivid inter- est. Scotland, though neighboring, was yet almost unknown to Eng- lishmen of that day, and a series of tragic events and the calamities of kings had just linked its history with that of England. James I. had but just come to the throne ; and, to Southern eyes, Scotland lay like a mountain lake, half robed in romance and half veiled in mystery. Under the enchanter's wand, this gloomy background faded into a land of shadows, the curtain of the unseen world was lifted, and the powers of the air mingled with human actors as persons of the drama. The staple of the story, too, is not without strong parallelisms to events which had recently greatly excited the public mind. Earl MACBETH. 251 Gowrie's conspiracy, aimed at the life of James I., was still fresh in the memories of men. The plots known as " the Main " and " the Bye," for the murder of the king and the enthronement of his cousin, Arabella Stuart, had lately occurred ; and the trials of Sir Walter Kaleigh and others had awakened the liveliest interest touching regi- cide and the breach of a clear title to the crown. If, as best conject- ured, this play was completed early in 1606, then it came just on the heel of the Gunpowder Plot, which had been fixed for November 5, 1605 ; and the trials of the wretched fanatics who had compassed the destruction of King and Parliament had made the popular mind familiar with projects of slaughter and the casuistry of assassination. Shakespeare's treatment of his theme commended itself not only to the prince, but to the people ; and while he adapted it to the spirit of the age, and even to the passing mood of the public, he evinced his trans- cendent genius by producing a poem of perennial interest, the spectacle of a titanic nature utterly cast down and ruined in its great spiritual struggle. Neither in prologue nor in epilogue, nor in the mouth of any interlocutor, does the author announce the moral of the play. Yet he who runs may read. It is the contest for the soul of a man. The powers of darkness wrestle with and vanquish him. We can properly understand this tragedy only by first understand- ing its supernaturalism. To do this aright we must look at it from the author's standpoint. There is scarcely any subject in literature more fascinating than the study of post-media3val supernaturalism as embodied in the plays of Shakespeare. This is an age and country of a skepticism so general and pervading that we find it hard to con- ceive of the immense mass of superstition which overlaid the Chris- tianity of the Middle Ages. Folklore, the hierarchy of angels and demons, the realm of faery, the habits and manners of ghosts ; witch- craft with its laws, customs, cultus, and criminal practices; augu- ries, oracles, sorcery, and other manifestations of occult power ; spells, talismans, elixirs,, and alchemy conjuring with the unknown and unsub- dued forces of nature ; astrology and the influence of the stars ; the meaning of dreams and visions ; in a word, the whole world of the unreal had been systematized into a complete code and body of super- natural mythology, believed alike by peasant and prince, by learned and unlearned, and by all classes of the community. Kelics of this remain imbedded in our earlier literature, like flies in amber ; and other relics still yet crop out in the fancies, the follies, and the crimes of the present generation. This vast machinery of mythology, which then represented to the popular mind the secondary causes through which God governs his universe, seems to us but the kaleidoscopic phases of a disordered dream, a mirage, " an unsubstantial pageant." 252 ESSA YS MIXED. But to our ancestors it was as real and solid as the rock-ribbed earth. In Shakespeare's day, the British people was in the prime of national manhood. The light was breaking, and the emancipated human intel- lect was waking from the dreams of a thousand years. The prophetic soul of Shakespeare accepted the popular beliefs as modes of expres- sion, and employed them as symbols for the unseen forces of nature and spirit, in which dwell activities more potent than even supersti- tion could conjure up. And it was through this high poetic and phil- osophic power, this eminent gift of imagination and understanding working together, that he produced the terrible and highly idealized conception of supernatural agency embodied in the Weird Sisters. These and Banquo's ghost, the apparitions, the omens, the air-drawn dagger, the mysterious voice, are but the signs and formulas through which he represents the problem of evil, with which Macbeth grap- ples, and which he solves to his own temporal and eternal ruin. A canon of Shakespearian criticism, somewhat fanciful, perhaps, has been advanced, that the first scene, or even the first words, of a play, will often strike the keynote of the entire action. In Macbeth, certainly, they have a curious significance. The enchanter waves his wand, and the tragedy begins. Where? "In a desert place," or u open place," as some will have it ; " with thunder and lightning." Is it on land or sea, or do the witches " hover through the fog and filthy air " ? Whether we picture it as a barren heath, or above the ferment of the deep, we know that " the secret, black, and midnight hags " are gathered on the confines of hell, with the gates ajar. Amid the tumult of the elements, and the mutterings of familiar spirits, the ominous question is shrieked forth, "When shall we three meet again ? " This is answered by these " juggling fiends," when they next ap- pear as tempters of Macbeth. The fine, lyrical movement of the scene reaches its highest pitch in the diabolic suggestion of the chorus : " Fair is foul, and foul is fair." This phrase symbolizes the reversal of the divine order of nature, the love of evil for its own sake, the unforgivable sin. That this is not a mere conceit is evinced by the very first words that Macbeth utters : " So foul and fair a day I have not seen." This is the human response to the infernal suggestion, and points to the moral confusion which infects the fairest state of man. This MACBETH. 253 cannot be accidental. It is but one instance among many in Shake- speare where the echo of the mysterious footfall of the future is heard by an inner sense, and the word of unconscious prophecy is uttered. By this I do not mean those omens and prodigies cited after Duncan's death, nor the predictions of the witches, but something subtler, akin to the derided and dreaded presentiment of evil. Attention has been called to Shakespeare's art in opening the play with words that are in fact a prelude to its action. A curious illustration of the ineptitude of much of the comment and emendation of Shakespeare will be seen in the following extract from Story's Conversations in a Studio (Vol. 1, p. 94), showing how another poet can stumble as to this very opening. "Nothing can be more absurd in many respects than Burger's translation of Macbeth. Poet though he was, he seems to have lost all sense of poetry or reason in this translation, in which, in fact, he so ludicrously travesties the original, that one cannot but smile at the absurdities he introduces. The fact is that Burger, who was a very vain man, thought himself far superior to Shakespeare, and kindly assisted him, and eked out his shortcomings. Think of this opening in Macbeth : ' SOLDIER. Hold ! not in such a hurry, good sir. GUARD. Now, then ? SOLDIER. I prithee, what is it you will tell the king ? GUARD. That the battle is won. SOLDIER. But I have been lying. GUARD. Lying rascal! Then thou art indeed with thy wounds a desperate joker.' " This is a literal translation of one of Burger's improvements to Shakespeare." An instance of the dramatic second-sight mentioned above is ex- hibited in Duncan's comment on the account of Cawdor's repentant death : ' ' There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face ; He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust " Just here the new Thane of Cawdor enters with murder and treason in his heart, interrupting the reflection, while the King verifies and exemplifies in his words and conduct the aphorism he has just uttered. Again, where Banquo for the last time leaves the King, he says : "A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep." 254 ESSAYS MIXED. Here there is something more than meets the ear, for the next moment Macbeth, charged with murderous purpose, greets him. In Act I., scene 2, Duncan begins, " What bloody man is this ? " On this Bodenstadt comments, " This word ' bloody ' reappears on almost every page, and runs like a red thread through the whole piece. In no other of Shakespeare's dramas is it so frequent." Again, Macbeth, while plotting Banquo's murder, urges him to attend the banquet. " Fail not our feast," he says. Banquo's promise, " My lord, I will not," is fulfilled in a sense unexpected by either, or by the reader, when his " blood-boltered " ghost rises at the appointed place to shake with horror the marble heart of merciless Macbeth. Our secret sins find us out. Retribution is the debt never repudiated. The devil keeps his appointments. The manner in which our poet has portrayed the Weird Sisters is but a solitary proof among many how far he was superior in real moral insight to the greatest even of the great poets who are sometimes named with him. Milton, most learned and religious, most metaphysical and most musical of poets, conceives Satan as the archangel ruined, who wins our human sympathy by the dazzling sublimity of his super- human pride and despair. But Shakespeare's clearer and nobler per- ception of the essential ugliness and deformity of sin compels him to strike nearer the truth. The Weird Sisters, who embody the idea of evil, are beastly and loathsome, as well as terrible. The beings called in this tragedy " the Weird Sisters " are not the malignant, yet impotent, old witches against whom the royal demon- ologist levelled the statute of 1604. Nor are they mere abstractions, personifications of the wicked promptings of Macbeth's heart. Though " bubbles of the air," they are not " fantastical." Real essences, prompters of sin, ministers of the evil one, and, like the Scandinavian Valkyrias, " posters of the land and sea," they brood over fields of slaughter, stir the elements to strife, and derange the moral and material order of the world. Such tasks are the work of strong fiends ; but, as if in illustration of the essential connection of all evil, they do its drudgery with zeal. They mix the hell-broth of foul, venomous things, inflict and gloat over pain and misery, and yet are full of petty spite and filthiness. They are tempters to sin, and can produce human suffering ; but they have no compulsion for the soul, and recoil baffled from the assault on innocence. When the Weird Sisters struck the chord of unlawful aspiration in the bosom of Mac- beth, it swelled into a symphony of treason and murder. But no irresistible necessity constrained him. Not fate, but his own free will, determined his downward career. And this is shown in that consum- mate touch of art by which Banquo is placed by the side of Macbeth MACBETH. 255 and subjected to similar temptations, yet preserves his integrity un- sullied, and dies a martyr to his loyalty. The mousing owls of Satan, the revolting caricature of humanity in its possible degradation, have merely to offer Macbeth the vast suggestion, and its echoes reverberate through his hollow and arid heart, until unhallowed revery grows into guilty intention, and this ripens into crime. Thomas a" Kempis says well : "For first a bare thought comes to the mind; then a strong imagination ; afterwards delight, and evil motion and consent." So was it with Macbeth. He withstood not the beginnings of evil, and the end was utter ruin. A true conception of the character of Macbeth, in whose soul the strife is waged, is necessary to grasp the real purpose of the play. This we may learn from the estimate put upon him by the popular voice, by his intimates, and by her to whom he had revealed " the naked frailties " of his soul. His soliloquies, too, unlock secret cham- bers into which the observer looks with sidelong glances. There he discerns the difference between this man before and after temptation, which, at the last, is the immeasurable distance between innocence and guilt, between a soul under probation and a soul betrayed and lost. When the play opens he was to his followers and peers, " brave Macbeth," " valor's minion," " Bellona's bridegroom." The King calls him " valiant cousin," " worthy gentleman," " noble Macbeth," " peerless kinsman." In his own words, he had " bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people." His wife, who thought she knew the man, says of him in her first soliloquy : "Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great ; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily ; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win." With full allowance for the energy of the speaker's passion and ambition, this careful analysis portrays a mixed character. Macbeth's own ideal of himself is lofty : " I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." The air-drawn dagger and the voice that " cried to all the house," 258 ESSA YS MIXED. Duncan's innocence casts its beams upon the portals of that grim abode of conspiracy and sudden death. With absolute trust and courtly grace he enters the castle. The confiding gentleness with which he commits himself to the hands of his assassins is very touch- ing. But once within the sepulchral jaws of this treasonable den, and all is changed. Murder lurks in the murky air. No supernatural machinery is needed to show that here the fiends have mastery. The impulse has been given, and man's wickedness works out the plot. In a gray and vaulted hall, dimly we discern two figures whispering in shadow, and an air-drawn dagger " on its blade and dudgeon gouts of blood which were not so before " and then, " Methought I heard a voice cry, ' Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep.' " Duncan lies murdered in his bed. Macbeth had made his choice, and henceforth to him, " Fair is foul, and foul is fair." But he had not done "the deep damnation of his taking off" on kinsman and king without hesitation and debate. The progress and growth of evil is powerfully illustrated in the reaction of guilt by which Macbeth and his wife mutually urge each other onward and downward. He first touched the fatal spring of her ambition, and instantly her whole nature glowed with the cold intensity of the elec- tric light. Then, when he seemed to vacillate before the threats of vanquished virtue and an awakened conscience, the spirit he has raised in the woman's bosom will not down, but lifts its serpent crest to taunt with hissing tongue, and lure and urge him relentlessly to the bloody deed. Her hard, cold, narrow, and direct intellect sees no end but the diadem, no means but the dagger. Her unbending, yet feminine, wickedness employs every stratagem of diabolical rhetoric to hold him to his purpose ; she knows him to be fearless, aggressive, audacious, and, with a purpose once fully formed, prompt and decisive. This was the temper which had made him so dauntless a soldier on the field, and so fortunate a commander. To fix that purpose in the con- test between conscience and will, she combines a tremendous energy with fiendish subtlety. When he seems about to cast aside his dark design, she holds him to it by first suggesting it to him as her work, not his. " He that's coming Must be provided for ; and you shall put This night's great business into my despatch." MACBETH. 259 She knows him well ; for, once resolved, he truly says : " I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat." And so he .is led on and on, down the dark and winding stairway " of death and hell. While the poet's function in Macbeth was, as I have said, the evolution of a moral problem, and not specially the delineation of character, yet Shakespeare's absolute artistic perceptions would not permit him to portray a character inconsistent with itself. Did time permit, I could readily demonstrate this in each person of the drama. It is Shakespeare's special gift to condense a whole character and display it in a few words, as a flash of lightning, in blackest midnight, reveals a landscape. Thus, while in Holinshed's Chronicle Banquo is Macbeth's accom- plice, the poet, ennobling his character and idealizing his integrity, makes him serve a higher purpose. And so we find Banquo described by Macbeth, who says of him, " There's none but he Whose being I do fear." And again, " Our fears in Banquo Stick deep ; and in his royalty of nature Reigns that which would be feared : 'tis much he dares And to that dauntless temper of his mind, He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor To act in safety." Macduff, " noble, wise, judicious," " child of integrity," and full of " noble passion," yet is ever hasty and rash. The gracious and gentle Duncan suffers for his childlike trustfulness, while his son, the wary Malcolm, exhibits in every word and act the caution and worldly wis- dom in which his father is deficient. His prudential virtues receive their proper temporal reward, while Duncan, sacrificed on the altar of his own credulity, wears the crown of martyrdom. Even in the subordinate characters of the play, we find this coherence, as in the queen's gentlewoman, who, in her reticence and propriety, is still ever a gentlewoman indeed. But to my mind the nicest analysis and most careful synthesis could not so truly construct a wicked woman, as Shakespeare has created one in Lady Macbeth. The .whole gamut of criticism has been run by the commentators in characterizing her. From the verdict of 260 ESS A YS MIXED. those who, with the bereaved Malcolm, describe her as " the fiend-like queen," we may pass to the opposite view of the German critic, Leo. This profound pundit says of her, " the wife, on the other hand, at the side of a noble, honorable husband, always faithful to the right, would have been a pure and innocent woman, diffusing happiness around her domestic circle, in spite of some asperities in her temper." Even this genial estimate cannot so far remove prejudice as to enable us to imag- ine Lady Macbeth as a pleasant person to have about the house. She is a typical murderess : yet she is a woman, not a fiend ; a woman and a queen. We have seen her finishing the work of overthrowing Macbeth' s conscience, which the Weird Sisters had begun. She says of Duncan, "I could have stabbed him as he slept." Yet she did not. There is a vast distance between intensity of desire and power of execution. Her feminine nature recoiled from the deed itself, though not from its contriving. Unlike Macbeth, she had seen no daggers, heard no voices ; but she could not actually stab the sleep- ing Duncan. She excuses herself thus, ' ' Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't." Mrs. Siddons, the dark-browed queen of tragedy, fancied that Lady Macbeth was " fair, feminine, nay perhaps even fragile," vaulting ambition kindling " all the splendors of her dark blue eyes." But crime has no special complexion blonde or brunette no more than has female fascination. She is guilty, but a queen, and retains, even under the shadow of her inexpiable sin, the lofty refinement of her birth and rank. In the horror and confusion of Duncan's death, she swoons. This is the turn- ing point in her fate. Then the bubble of ambition bursts. How hollow and delusive it all seems now ! "Nought's had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content ; 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy ' . Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy." At first, clinging to the last plank of human sympathy and love left from the wreck, she bends herself to the task of consoling her husband but in vain. For herself, nothing is left but remorse. The stiff fibre of her pitiless heart had stretched too far and broken ; but MACBETH. 261 not in repentance, only in the agony of a never-dying dread. The hand that a little water was to cleanse bears " a damned spot." She ' ' Is troubled with thick-coming fancies That keep her from her rest." Walking in her troubled sleep, she cries, " What ! will these hands ne'er be clean ? Here's the smell of blood still ; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh ! " Well may the doctor exclaim, " What a sigh is there ! the heart is sorely charged." Well might she wish herself with pious Duncan in his peace. At last there came a cry of women, and the queen was dead. At the point of Duncan's doom, Macbeth trembled, and his wife chided him as " infirm of purpose." But his man's nature was made of the sterner stuff. As he stepped from crime to crime, what with the swing of his sceptre and his angry work of repression, he became " bloody, bold, and resolute." Baffled by juggling friends, betrayed by courtiers and bereft of wife, his heart did not break, nor his brain become frenzied. He opposed himself, like a Titan, to the vengeance of heaven and the dread of hell fear of man he never knew. The props of infernal prophecy sank under him, and yet he would not fly. Then, " championed to the utterance with fate," at the last he falls like a soldier, sword in hand, unrepenting and defiant. The poetic justice which assigns awakened sensibility as a necessary part of the penalty of sin is incorrect. Macbeth displays a more usual form of punishment. A gradual hardening of the heart, a constant moral descent with neither ability nor wish to recall the lost inno- cence, and an increasing catalogue of crimes ensue, until the whip of scorpions and the avenging Furies are needed to shake his obdurate soul. In him we learn that there is no disconnected sin, but that offences are the links in an endless chain, harnessing cause to remotest consequence, and dragging the guilt-burthened soul downward forever. We saw him at first, with " love, honor, obedience, troops of friends." And now, in their stead, " Curses not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not." It is thus that Satan fulfils his promises. Even in the moment of fruition, when success seemed to have justified his usurpation, he received a bitter foretaste of his awful future. Shakespeare does not 262 ESSA YS MIXED. palter with this aspect of crime. He fills the meed of temporal pros- perity for the murderer, crowns him, surrounds his throne with obse- quious courtiers, crushes his enemies, and gives him all " Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weird women promised." But he does not give him one happy moment. Lady Macbeth says to him, " How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making ? " He bewails that they must " Sleep In the affliction of the terrible dreams That shake us nightly ; better be with the dead, Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace." The moral isolation of Macbeth and his wife is marked from the moment of his crime. The fissure gradually widens until it becomes an abyss of distrust, hatred, and revolt. The thanes fall away, the soldiers blench, " And none serve with him but constrained things, Whose hearts are absent too." This moral isolation this segregation from human sympathy ends in the alienation of the guilty pair ; and their mutual aifection, once so tender, closes in cold disregard. Selfishness is the essence of sin, and in absolute selfishness it finds its consummation. Macbeth is a tragedy indeed. It is the spectacle of a human soul, which, under no despotism of destiny, but in the exercise of a lawless will, accepts the bribe of the tempter, and thus makes a destiny for itself the destiny of perdition. We see a man of might, with his feet planted on a rock. To win a gilde,d bauble he plunges into the sea. He is a strong swimmer in the arms of the whirlpool ; but they are arms which will not give up their prey. The lesson of Macbeth is a sad and solemn one. It bids us look into the abysses of our own souls, lest therein may lurk some motive to tempt us to our doom. And it teaches this lesson by exhibiting a human soul a grand, heroic soul tempted, struggling, betrayed, lost. In the words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusa- lem : " Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God, and keep his commandments : for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." CEKVANTES AND THE DON QUIXOTE. BY AI7GUSTE D'AVEZAC. f AUGUSTE GENEVIEVE VALENTIN D'AVEZAC was born in St. Domingo in 1777. Dur- ing his childhood he was brought to Louisiana by his parents, refugees from the massa- cre in that island, and later was sent to France to be educated. Returning to New Orleans, he studied law under his brother-in-law, Edward Livingston. Already noted as a criminal lawyer at the time of the British invasion of 1814-15, he served under General Jackson as Judge Advocate of the Army during the campaign. The friendship resulting from this association influenced D'Avezac's life, and led to an ardent advocacy, on his part, of the political fortunes of Jackson, by whom, after the latter's accession to the Presidency, he was appointed Secretary of the Legation at the Hague in 1829, and Charge d'Affaires at the same post in 1831. D'Avezac shone equally at the bar, on the hustings, and in the lighter walks of literature. He wrote Recollections of Livingston (1840). He died in New York, February 15, 1851.] THE grass had scarcely grown over the humble tumulus under which had been laid all of the rector of Meudon that was not genius, wit, humor, and knowledge, when Spain, like a field allowed for years to lie fallow, and which, skilfully cultivated, yields lavishly the har- vests of its long dormant fruitfulness, after she had given birth to Gonsalvo, Cortez, Pizarro, and Lope, in a last effort of a still happier fecundity brought forth Michael Cervantes Saavedra ! As a young horse, intended for the turf, unconscious of his high blood, wastes, in earlv contests with ignoble rivals, the vigor of his limbs, alike flexible and strong, the youth threw his hands on several instruments ere he found that which nature and genius had willed that he should strike with unrivalled powers. With Galatea, he loitered in shady groves and flowery meadows. Nay, such is the waywardness of genius, Cer- vantes wrote romances of chivalry. On the stage, too, he strode tri- umphant, till Lope de Vega's early laurels taught him, as the strains of Byron's lyre taught Scott, in later days, that the art-made poet must give way to the Heaven-inspired bard. Cervantes left the arena, not ignobly defeated, superior to all mortal champions, he only refused to contend with the god of the Lyre. A spectacle of moral sublimity was twice offered to mankind in the space of three centuries two men destined to undying renown, erring at the start in their choice of the road leading to immortality. But both Cervantes and Scott turned back of their own accord ; and before having been outstripped in the race, both declined the combat 264 ESSA YS MIXED. a rival in whom each had recognized a master-spirit recognized him bv a mystic seal invisible to the crowd, but bright, effulgent, unde- niable to the vision of minds of kindred genius. Xeither, however, felt discouraged or depressed in his own self-appreciation ; each returned to the place whence he had sprung, buoyant with noble aspi- rations ; each looked around with eagle eye, and marked at last his true road to fame; each, bounding in the lists with undiminished vigor, like the god of Homer, in three giant strides, reached the goal. Xeed we say that the Don Quixote appeared? This was the uni- versal book the book which all who could read, read. As for knight- errantry, it had passed away, like a dream of the morning. It fell at the first blow. In fact, the war against giants and necromancers was but the pretence of Cervantes for taking the field. He pursued his triumphant career no rival there ; like the Macedonian youth, he did not lament that he found no more worlds to conquer. His the past, the present ; his, too, the endless future. To Lope he had only yielded the poetry of metre the stage of Madrid. His, still, the poetry of harmonious prose ; his the boundless poetry of nature, the measureless stage where moves the mighty pageant of the world's drama. Cervantes seems to have been under the dominion of two potent spirits, alternately swaying his mind, and modelling its creations to harmonize with their separate and antagonistical nature. One, a bright inhabitant of air, bade him to call forth from the depth of his imaginings the noblest of beings ; and when, obedient to his com- mand, the Knight of La Mancha stood forth, the deluding elf strewed his path with flowers of loveliest hue and sweetest perfume ; peopled the groves, whose shade he sought, with nymphs and dryads of forms divinely fair ; compelled the wind to sigh soft and melodious to his ear; and having persuaded him that the hearts of statesmen beat responsive to the promptings of self-denying patriotism, that the female breast panted with no other feeling but that of chaste love, sent forth the generous champion of virtue, in a world he believed modelled in the resemblance of the ideal beauty and goodness, the image of which shone lustrous within him left him there, to be buffeted by all the harsh realities of the existing society. The other spirit, a gnome kneaded out of the grosser element, as to assert his equal sway and mastery over the mind it was given him to rule with equally divided power, commanded the poet to produce at the same tune, and in the same fulness and distinctness of moral individuality, as the subordinate companion of the gallant knight, another being, differing in every feature, in every propensity, in every thought and action, from the one to whom he was doomed to be inseparably united in an eternity of renown. The great enchanter CERVANTES AND THE DON QUIXOTE. 265 had but to will, and lo! Sancho stood by the side of his valorous master. The one living but in an ideal world, the other without a glimmer of fancy, and with just enough of mind to move about the sluggish embodiment, saw what was gross and inelegant, squalid and absurd; and yet by endowing the Squire with good common-sense, the only quality the Knight had not been gifted with by his Maker, Cervantes rendered Sancho no unworthy companion of the learned, the eloquent, the high-minded lover of Dulcinea. Nay, in their com- munings, the reader knows not which delights him most, whether the warrior, embracing earth and heaven in his sublime aspirations, or the matter-of-fact Squire, bringing incessantly his wandering interlocutor back to the realities of things terrestial. In order to form some idea of the effect of such a book on the generation on which it beamed at once, without a precursor, we need only to recall to our memory the effect which the second reading of it had on ourselves. We say the second reading the first is profanely allowed to children, at an age when they cannot enjoy its beauties, and scarcely its buffooneries, which are only the mask of profound wisdom. The trite anecdote told of Philip II., who divined that the poor, ill-clad student, whom he saw reading and laughing, held Don Quixote in his hands, proclaims at the same time the merit and the contempo- rary fame of the work. Even Philip had read the book of the age, then and now " the book " of Spain. It had made him laugh also not at the quaint sayings of honest Sancho, I wot, but at the credulity of the gallant Knight, who believed in virtue ! LE SAGE AND THE GIL BLAS. BY AUGUSTE D'AVEZAC. THE appearance of two small volumes had thrown Paris into an agitation never witnessed since the wars of the Fronde. A work of fiction, written in the simplest and most unpretending prose, had taken possession of the public mind. Poetry was unattended to, the stage was neglected even science had suspended its unwearied toils. Gil -Bias (such was the unostentatious title of the new book) was the subject of every thought, the theme of every conversation. Poetry ! what was it in France before Hugo, De Beranger, and Lamartine had unbound the young Muse, and set free the beauteous limbs of the fair virgin ? The stage ! what were its stale tragedies, its pygmy heroes, half Greek, half French, and bearing no more resem- blance to either than some hybrid flower does to the parent plants out of whose unnatural union it has sprung, lacking both the perfume of one, and the bright colors of the other ? What was the stage, when compared with that built by Genius, where the complex drama of the human life was acted by actors instinct with all the feelings, the motives of the existing society ? Science ! ever modest, unassuming, she stepped aside when the inspired master came forward the teacher of the age ! The success of Gil Bias was prompt, but, unlike the lives of plants of quick growth, its existence has not been ephemeral ; for as it por- trayed man such as his passions will ever make him, when the same circumstances bring them into action, time, which only changes what is conventional and artificial, has wrought no alterations in the match- less delineations of Le Sage. Countless literary reputations have had their birth, their precocious growth, and arrived to premature senility, and sank into oblivion, even before the pupil of Sangrado had reached the full height of his fame. At that full height of renown, after Gil Bias had attained it, it has remained for a century and a half a bright star, shedding its rays not over France only, but throughout the civil- ized world. Such indeed is the opinion of mankind as to the author of that master-work, that Walter Scott, in his Lives of British Novel- ists, has placed the name of Le Sage first in his book, adducing as the reason of his doing so " that the author of Gil Bias belongs to the world, and not to any one nation." LE SAGE AND THE GIL BLAS. 267 In Spain, where Le Sage has laid the scene of his motley drama, the success of the book was even greater than .in France. The enrap- tured Castilians fancied their own Cervantes risen from the dead, and again making immortal, as Sancho did of old, each village where Gil Bias wandered, was cheated or swindled each city where he cheated or swindled in his turn, where he cringed to the great, pandered to the vile passions of princes, and brow-beat the humble and the poor ! It was not long, however, before Spanish pride suggested the idea that no one but a Spaniard could so faithfully have depicted Spanish manners ; and that, therefore, the French Gil Bias was but a transla- tion of a Spanish original. Absurd as appears the assertion, it has prevailed all over Spain, where the translations in Spanish bear the title " Gil Bias, restored to the Spanish." Instead of attempting a refutation of a paradox so strange, we will close the debate, as Franklin did frequently debates of a graver cast, by telling you an anecdote. Happy, indeed, could we imitate, together with Franklin's practice of using anecdotes instead of syl- logisms in polemics, the graceful simplicity with which he told them. Voltaire, while in England, was at the opera in the box of an old duchess. On the rising of the curtain, a lovely debutante bounded on the stage, but stopped suddenly. Her comb had fallen at her feet, and her hair, descending almost to the ground, covered her like another Danae, with a golden shower. The house rang with loud cheers ; all admired, all applauded all, save the dowager, who, turning to Voltaire, said scornfully, " Poh ! These are not her own hairs." " But are they real hairs ? " exclaimed the poet. " Certainly," replied her grace. " Well ! " resumed young Arouet, " they must have grown on some one's head ; and why not, pray, on that beautiful head which they become and adorn so admirably ? " BERNARDIN'S PAUL AND VIRGINIA. BY AUGUSTE D'AVEZAC. THE most beautiful region of the earth had never yet been described to the inhabitants of Europe. The luxuriant landscape of African isles had found no Ruysdael to mirror them. Their fair maids, born of French parents, had bloomed and faded, like the flowers that adorned their raven locks, unsung on the lyre when a young officer (Bernardin de St. Pierre), in sight of the Indian and African Oceans, whose billows ceaselessly lash the coral rocks of the Isle of France, wrote Paul et Virginie. The scene of the drama, a small island rising out of a boundless sea, like the pyramids out of the sands of the desert the one to proclaim, in smiling loveliness, the sway of God over the rebellious elements, the other to testify of the genius of man; the actors, two friendless widows with each an only child, an old negro man and his wife, and an aged planter at the same time the spectator and narrator of the mournful event. And yet, what scenes of inno- cent loves (loves of angels straying awhile on earth) were ever sent into the heart with greater power to penetrate, fill, and enthrall it ? What poet, of ancient or modern times, ever made tears of deeper sorrow to flow, for real or imaginary woes, than those shed by two generations at the parting of Virginia from her two mothers, and from Paul, whom she still thought that she loved only with a sister's affec- tion ? She is gone a waste of waters roll between the two lovers. How we pity the poor child, now immured within the gloom of a con- vent ; imprisoned, too, in forms, rules, austerities, uncongenial to her nature ! Oh, that we could, through some potent spell, lead by the hand the pining maid to her native land ; give her again to the endear- ments of maternal love, to the enraptured caresses of the aged servants who fostered her infancy ; and seat her by the side of Paul, under the shade of the twin palm-trees, planted as memorials of their birth- day! Letters from France have reached the lone island ; Virginia writes that she will soon return. The vessel by which the letter came had a long passage ; only a few days had elapsed after its arrival, when, lo ! the ship that brings back to her green island the long absent maid is in sight the pilot is already on board in less than an hour it will be safely anchored within the port. But the wind has died away the sea is smooth like glass ; and yet, at long intervals, from the BERNARDINO PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 269 far west, unbroken waves are seen advancing, which, as they slowly lift the ship on their tops, make it to strain its cable as if it already rode in a storm a rumbling noise, distant and vague, like that which precedes an earthquake a solemn, fearful stillness dark, heavy clouds, which no breath of air gives motion to the flight, too, of flocks of sea-birds, even of those with strong pinions, the unwearied journeyers over the ocean, all hurrying in wild flight and with plaintive shrieks to their nests, built in the deep fissures of the towering cliffs which wall the island these dread omens of a fast-coming tempest had brought to the beach, soon after the sun had set in vapors as red as its orb, a crowd of tumultuous and alarmed spectators, and among them Paul, with his friend the aged planter, who sought to inspire him with hopes which his own experience taught him were illusive. Minute- guns, the well-known announcement of perils near at hand, added to the appalling horrors of that fatal night. We dare not to bring a daguerreotype to reflect on this page the shadows only of the sublime picture, where a great master has made both the scene and the actors visible to all, as they were to him, when evoked by his fancy. A loud clap of thunder seemed to have sud- denly unshackled the infuriated winds. They come, after careering long unresisted over a waste of water ! they come ! madly driving before them mountain waves to overwhelm the stately ship, proudly floating, as in defiance of their sway over the sea now battering its solid bow with broken, severed surges in rapid succession and now assailing its swelling sides with the giant strength of mighty billows, gathered from afar. Paul, round whose body his friend had fastened a strong rope, dashes in every receding wave, with the hope of being carried by it towards the ship, still held fast to its mooring by the strong cables ; but every time another wave throws him back on the beach, bruised and bleeding. Virginia is seen, through the glare of the red lightning, on the deck of the St. Geran, clad in a white robe, with her eyes raised up to heaven, like a martyr waiting for a celestial crown. At that moment a bold sailor kneels before the maid ; he entreats her to throw off her encumbering vestments, and trust for safety in his courage and strength. The chaste virgin gently repels him when he attempts to take her in his arms. But, lo ! a dark, swift wave rolls on. . The experienced eye of the sailor has marked its course. It is the coming fate! Eeluctant, he dashes, alone, into the sea. The resistless billow rushes against the ship, impetuous bounds over it, but breaking as it falls, opens under it a bottomless abyss. All eyes are directed to where the St. Geran floated a moment before no vestige is seen of the noble structure darkness descends, like a curtain, over the scene ! LA FONTAINE. BY CHARLES GAYARRE. Louis RACINE [the son of the famous poet of that name] describes the physique of La Fontaine and the singularities which characterized him in social intercourse with the world. He says : " The great fabulist was naturally amiable and gentle in temper, but rough and disagreeable in society from his want of manner and from utter ignorance of its usages. He never cared to contribute to the pleasure of the company he was in ; and on my sisters, who, in early life, had frequently met him at my father's table, he had produced no other impression than that of his being a slovenly and tedious man. He spoke little, or if he spoke at all it was about Plato." This description is corroborated by another from the pen of 1'abbe d' Olivet, who had the fullest opportunity of being well informed on the subject. He says : " The physiognomy of La Fontaine gave no indication of his talents. It \vould have been impossible for the most sagacious to guess at their existence. His smile had a silly expression, his countenance was heavy and dull, his eyes were deadened, and no sign of even common intelligence was apparent in his face. Rarely did he engage in conversation, and when drawn into it, often it was with such absence of mind that evidently he did not know what it was about. He fell into a sort of intellectual somnolence. If he had been interrogated on what he had been dreaming of, he could not have told. If, however, when he happened to be with intimate friends, the conversation became animated and controversial, and if, in taking a part in it, he Avarmed up on some point in dispute, then his dull eyes sparkled with an unusual light, and for a little while the blockhead disappeared and the man of genius was revealed." Another writer of the epoch paints La Fontaine with the same colors. He represents the poet as being fond of accepting invitations to dinner, as eating with voracious appetite and in obstinate silence, notwithstanding the efforts made to draw him out. Even Madame Cornuel, the famous wit, several times struck with her keen and flash- ing blade, without being able to elicit a spark, the rough, unpolished rock within which there was concealed so much intellect. He was in the habit of taking along with him when he went to some convivial entertainment one of his friends named Gaches, and when he was LA FONTAINE. 271 invited to recite some of his fables or tales he invariably answered with the awkward air of a silly boy that he did not remember a single one, but that Gaches did. Gaches always accepted graciously the substitution, and acquitted himself marvelously well of the part im- posed upon him. Meanwhile La Fontaine withdrew into the tortoise- shell of those reveries, during which he became unconscious of all external objects. On one of the three days in the Holy Week, when the tenebrce are sung in all the Catholic churches, Racine took him to witness that religious service, and perceiving that he gave signs of impatience put in his hands a volume of the Bible. La Fontaine opened it at random, and fell on the prayer of the Jews as recorded in the Book of Baruch. It excited his intense admiration. " What a genius that Baruch was ! " he said to Racine. " Who was he?" The next day, and for more than a week afterwards, whenever he met anybody, he never failed to say with much enthusiasm : " Have you read Baruch ? He was a great genius." It was thus his habit to take suddenly a violent liking to something or other and to harp upon it incessantly. On such occasions it was impossible to call his attention to any other subject. It was his hobby to praise Rabelais and to put him above all other writers, modern or ancient, profane or sacred, except Plato. Two singular associates, by the bye ! La Fontaine happening to be at the house of Boileau with Racine and other persons, one of whom was an ecclesiastic, when the conversation turned on Saint Augustin, listened a long time with the air of a man who evidently did not understand one word of the discussion. At last, waking .up as it were from pro- found sleep, he asked the ecclesiastic, with gravity, whether he thought Saint Augustin had as much wit as Rabelais. The priest looked at him from head to foot, and his answer was : " Allow me, M. de la Fontaine, to call your attention to one of your stockings. It is put on wrong side out." And it was true. La Fontaine did not under- stand the sarcasm, and wondered what there could be in common be- between a stocking wrong side out and Rabelais compared to Saint Augustin. It is truly astonishing how unconscious the fabulist was of the proprieties of life ! Once he wrote a tale in which a monk played an unbecoming part. He took it into his head to dedicate it to the famous and austere Arnauld, of Port Royal, the friend of Madame de Sevigne, Larochefoucauld, and other distinguished personages. Arnauld had praised the fables of La Fontaine, who wished to show his sense of gratitude by the dedication. Boileau and Racine, to whom 272 ESSA YS MIXED. he mentioned his intention, were at great trouble to persuade him that his tale was impious, and that his intended dedication was an extrava- gance, to say the least of it. There would be almost no end to the long list of anecdotes relative to La Fontaine if we attempted to recite them all. Probably many were invented and added to the original stock, which is certainly rich enough. But a few more, which are not undeserving of being related, are of an authentic character. For instance : Being at the country seat of one of his friends, and having gone out early in the morning to wander about, according to his custom, he returned long after the dinner was over, notwithstanding the warning which he must have received from his ferocious appetite about the flight of time. When he made his appearance he was asked where he had been and what he had been doing. " I come," he replied, " from the funeral of an aunt. I followed the procession to the cemetery and accompanied the family back to their home." One morning the Duchess de Bouillon, going from Paris to Ver- sailles, saw La Fontaine under a tree, where he seemed to be plunged in one of those reveries which made him insensible and unconscious. On her return in the evening she noticed La Fontaine in the same place and in the same attitude, although it was very cold and it had been raining the whole day. There are two anecdotes which are not to his honor. He had for years lost sight of his completely forgotten son. One day he met in one of the salons of Paris a young man who seemed to attract his attention by his deportment and conversation. The youth having taken leave and retired, La Fontaine praised him for his taste, wit, and erudition. " I am glad to inform you," said one of the company, " that this accomplished gentleman is your son." " Ah ! " exclaimed La Fontaine, " I am quite glad of it," and he thought of something else. On another occasion, La Fontaine having paid a visit to M. Dupin, a theologian of considerable eminence, the latter, on the departure of his visitor, accompanied him to the head of the stairs, where a young man was ascending at the same time. " Sir," said Dupin, to the new-comer, " you find yourself here in familiar company, for this is your father whom I am waiting upon." The young man bowed with grave formality and passed on. " Who is he ? " said La Fontaine. " What ! " exclaimed Dupin, " you have not recognized your son ? " " Ah," replied La Fontaine, with a vacant stare and an expression of dreamy listlessness, " I believe that I once met him somewhere." LA FONTAINE. 273 When the congregation of the Augustins resolved to resist a judi- cial decree against them, and to barricade themselves in their convent, into which an entrance was to be forced, one of La Fontaine's friends met him running in that direction. He was asked whither he was going in such haste. He replied with the utmost composure : " I am going to see the killing of the Augustins." This series of anecdotes is strikingly illustrative of La Fontaine's idiocrasy. The following is the last which we shall mention : In 1661, at the first representation of .his opera Astrea, he was seated behind two ladies who did not know him. As the piece went on, he from time to time exclaimed : " This is detestable ! " " But, sir," said one of the ladies, who lost patience, " this is not detestable. The author is a man of taste and talent. It is M. de la Fontaine." " Well, ladies," continued the unknown, " I assure you that this piece is not worth a sou. This La Fontaine whom you praise is a stu- pid fellow. It is himself who has the honor of addressing you." This is a specimen, among others, of his originality and modesty. He went out after the first act and entered a tavern, coffee-houses having not yet been established. Sitting down in a retired corner, he composed himself to sleep. One of his acquaintances, happening to resort to the same place for some refreshment, woke him up and expressed astonishment at seeing him anywhere else than at the thea- tre where one of his dramatic pieces was being acted for the first time. " I have just come from that representation," said La Fontaine, with a prolonged yawn. " I stood the first act bravely, although it bored me exceedingly. But then I thought that it was time to run away and save myself from the infliction of the second act. I admire the patience of the Parisians." He was an enthusiastic lover of sleep, and could have said with Sancho Panza : " Blessed be he who invented sleep ! " He eulogizes its happy repose and its still happier dreams in his poem entitled La Pa/pimanie that country " where supremely reigns true sleep, of which we have only the semblance." " Ah ! par Saint Jean, si Dieu me prte vie, Je le verrai, ce pays oft Ton dort. On y fait plus : on n'y fait nulle chose. C'est un euiploi que je recherche encore." " Ah ! by Saint John, if God should prolong my life, I will visit that country where man enjoys long sleep, and where, which is still sweeter, he does nothing in his wakeful hours. This is the kind of employ- ment of which I am still in pursuit." To sleep had become to him a passion. 2H ESSAYS-rMIXED. He had been throughout his long career completely indifferent to any kind of religion. It seems that Nature was the only object of his worship. He lived in accordance with what he conceived to be her laws. His conscience must have addressed to him no reproach when he wrote these two lines : ' ' Quand le moment viendra d'aller trouver les morts, J'aurai vgcu sans soins, je mourrai sans remords." " I have lived an easy life, and shall die without remorse when summoned to the habitation of the dead." This was before he had, in his old age, subjected himself to pain- ful austerities, to a systematic mortification of the flesh, and to the wearing of hair-cloth on the skin. There is in man an external and visible life, and an internal and invisible one. Some of our species live more within themselves than outside, being by temperament more addicted to meditation than to action. La Fontaine belonged to this latter class, and carried this natural disposition to an excess. He had cultivated and indulged it to such a degree that he had become almost incapable of meeting effi- ciently the obligations, the realities and positiveness of human existence, particularly when its exigencies and wants are infinitely increased by civilization. His imagination was the enchanted palace of the fairies where he loved to revel, after having bolted all the doors and windows to exclude the intrusion of all that was not ideal. No knocking from without was answered, and it is no wonder, for he was not willing to be disturbed. In this internal world of his own, which was as thoroughly hidden as if it had been buried in the bowels of the earth, he felt himself transformed, and no longer the heavy clod of clay, the simpleton, the dotard, who was laughed at in the prosaic habitations of his fellow-beings. In the diamond-studded halls of his own creation he would become the embodiment of taste, wit, sound sense, judgment, refinement, and delicacy. There he conversed with gods and god- desses and all sorts of supernatural beings, and was ravished into ecstatic beatitude by the harp of Apollo and the songs of the Muses. There he was in communion with all the heroes and noble spirits of ancient and modern times. He summoned them to his presence, and they came. He gave audience to animals, birds, fishes, insects, trees, and plants ; he understood their language, and he drew under the titles of fables, tales, and other names, a sort of proces^erbal of all that occurred in his realm of fancy ; whilst now and then, half opening a window of his magic dwelling, he flung out with a careless hand a few inspired sheets for the delight of mankind. Whenever he came out of these celes- tially illumined halls which he had built for himself, is it strange that he LA FONTAINE. 275 felt dazed, that he talked as if suddenly dropped from the moon, that he acted as if out of his senses and as belonging to another world ? In fact, he did belong to another world, to which he hastened to return as fast as possible. Hence his frequent and long fits of abstraction, during which he was perfectly unconscious and impassible. His body that lump of mortality remained behind, whilst his immortal spirit had gone to parts unknown and to the companions of his predilection. Thus, when he suddenly was recalled from these wanderings, the inco- herence of his speech, the strangeness of his behavior, and his oblivion of the wants, exigencies, and proprieties of civilized life produced sometimes a startling effect. On some occasions he seemed to partake of the nature of the brute and to be guided by instinct rather than by reason. But this was only the outward crust, the coarser material. Within this rough-skinned dreamer was a genius as polished and bright as a Damascus blade. To his contemporaries he was an incomprehens- ible problem, and they called this phenomenon an " inspired idiot." He was also surnamed Le bonhomme. This characteristic designation was given to him by his friends, by those who knew him best, and who con- sidered him the most harmless and helpless of men. " Le fionhomme " La Fontaine is an appellation which will attach to him forever. THE OKIGIN OF MYTH. BY WILLIAM PEESTON JOHNSTON. THOUGH the analogy that maintains a parallel between the develop- ment of society and of an individual man may be strained, still it is not difficult to trace a resemblance between the historical phases of certain races and the successive stages of man's earthly existence. Childhood, whether of men or races, rejoices in the marvellous and finds marvels everywhere ; it sees signs and wonders in heaven and earth, and accepts not the soundest but the most striking or obvious interpretation of all it sees. Curiosity, creativeness, and the didactic instinct are prominent traits in giving impulse to the faculties of the young. When artificial and secondary appetites, passions, and desires have incrusted our minds, Ave are astonished at the restless energy of childhood in exploring, imitating, and repeating the wonders that the world spreads before it. To know, to idealize, and to impart seem the business of life. The eager appetite has not learned to be dainty ; it devours sweet crudities with uncritical palate. So is it with a race whose veins throb with the buoyancy of youth. To the Greeks was given a prime full of surprise and questioning and joy. In the flush- ing dawn of their national life every one shared in the ceaseless demand upon man for the story of the past, and upon nature for an answer to the mysteries of the universe. They were not solicitous for facts or truths, but craved prompt, pleasing, and plausible responses. The deeds of men, the secret forces of nature, and the influences of the stars were the subject of story. The appearance of things was observed with rapid and delighted glance ; while the idea of law, of the regular recurrence of phenomena, did not trouble minds occupied with the gorgeous panorama of nature. The excited imagination revelled in manifold splendors ; the credulous understanding accepted as true all that was told ; the voluble tongue, regardless of the error arising from haste, ambiguity, false inference, and exaggeration, repeated whatever was most startling or interesting. With such elements of variation from sober statement the rapid transformation of a fact is not hard to conceive. But this inveracity was not con- scious falsehood. The primitive mind does not wilfully propagate it, but prefers the truth. Nor does conscious fiction belong to this primary phase of the intellect. It is preceded by lisping accents that THE ORIGIN OF MYTH. 277 mean to be truthful, and are so according to the common standard of speech used by speaker and listener. There is neither falsehood nor fiction, but only the exalted expression of an idealized thought, when Lorenzo says to young Jessica : " How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! " or, " Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ! " Here there is no misconception between the talkers, but its repeti- tion might well involve mistake. In the glow of a young imagination golden ideas and words are showered with Olympian lavishness ; nor is a Danae lacking to receive on bended knees the fruitful rain from which heroes will spring. Soul answers to soul ; heart understands heart ; thought and language, on however high a key, meet sympa- thetic appreciation in minds filled with like emotions. In Greece love of marvel enlisted interest in the improbable, and credulity accepted it. A narrow range of expression and a limited and concrete vocabu- lary gave rise to ambiguity and mistake. Words intended as meta- phorical were taken literally. Mythic expression, with its figurative language and poetic thoughts, was necessarily open to misconstruction. Thus we see present in the mythopceic age the elements of error in the conception of thought and in its embodiment in speech. There is in the Myths internal evidence that the intention of the myth-makers was truthful and historical. The double circumstance that Myth in its earliest form was prose narrative indicates that it meant to record facts ; and the relation of its subject-matter to events shows that it meant to be historical. Poetry is the language of the ideal ; prose, of the real. True, Homer sung ; but it is thereby evinced that, though he pretended to tell the deeds of heroes, he idealized them in the telling. The earliest forms of the Myths are probably found not in these epics, but in the legends told in plain prose at the sanctu- aries. These assumed to be not only true, but literal. Again, the subject-matter of Myth is exactly the same material of which most other nations build their early history. The prowess of heroes and chiefs, the prodigies of priests and prophets, and the exploits of men admirable for strength, courage, and intelligence, have a living interest in every age. The recital of these gratifies the pride, prejudice, and patriotism of families, tribes, and nations, which transmit and exag- gerate the chronicle. The faint line between remarkable and super- natural events is easily overlooked, and they are received as equally authentic. It is the interest and should be the wish of those who 278 ESSA YS MIXED. convey religious knowledge to do so correctly ; and, as a rule, such is the case. In this the Greek did not differ from other men. If, then, the form and subject-matter of Myth are those used in presenting fact, and no intention appears to do otherwise, we may fairly presume that the intention of the myth-maker was. to present fact. It has already been pointed out that two classes of subjects occu- pied the attention of these prehistoric Greeks; the one heroic, the other supernatural. In considering the origin of Myth, it may be well to handle these separately. In order to comprehend the birth of the Heroic Myth, we should recall the earliest known social organization of the Greeks. They were clustered into a multitude of petty, inde- pendent tribes, each under its own king and nobles, who were sup- posed to be of divine or heroic descent. Whether this conviction was the result of conquest, priestcraft, or other cognate causes, avails not here to inquire ; but the fact remains that to their aristocracy was accorded a superiority of race. There is a universal tendency to dwell upon and commemorate the words and deeds of the great, to generalize under their names the efficient causes of remarkable events, and to attribute to them transcendent vigor, wisdom, and virtue. If this be true ordinarily, it is so more markedly in a community governed by an aristocracy of ampler endowments. The intellectual prostration of the Peruvians before their Incas, and the legends of Manco Capac, are familiar illustrations. Now, the early Greeks regarded their royal houses with a similar respect, and employed all their immature but aspiring talents to eulogize their chiefs. As children look with loving and reverential eyes upon their parents, trusting to their unbounded resources, so these simple-hearted people, upon whom skepticism had not laid its blighting finger, paid filial and fervent homage to the father and elders of the nation. To rehearse their exploits, to extol their merits, and to preserve their fame, were the artless themes to which were devoted abilities that in maturer societies spread their energies into every manner of literary production. To hand down a true account of what has actually occurred, to perpetuate real trans- actions, this is the object of history ; and this also was the aim of those primeval Greeks, whose efforts, however, resulted in Myth. The nu- cleus or germ of most Myths originally embodied a heroic biography, as conceived and treated by a credulous, imaginative people. I say germ, because the original shape of a Myth can now scarcely even be guessed at. In the lapse of ages these rude essays at narrative were mingled with so much added falsehood that a minimum only of truth remained. Professor Tyndall has eloquently described the resplendent effects of light displayed through the medium of matter present in the atmosphere, but of a tenuity invisible by the microscope. Somewhat THE ORIGIN OF MYTH. 279 akin to this is matter-of-fact in Myth. It is there, imponderable in human action, undiscernible by scientific research, and yet imparting a depth, a clearness, and a brilliancy of coloring that the rarer medium of fiction does not possess. So close does Myth lie to the purely fabu- lous that it merges into it as twilight into darkness. So hard has it been to discover in Myth any trustworthy facts based upon a solid foundation of evidence that some judicious explorers have refused to search for a historical basis where they believed none to exist. Their critical tests dispel it in vapor. Again Ixion aspires to woo Here, and is cheated by a cloud ; again he seeks the unsullied majesty of truth, and clasps the dissolving mist. It was after such failures that Grote regretfully declared mythology to be " a past that never was present." He declined the attempt to withdraw the curtain and disclose the picture, with the reply of Zeuxis, " The curtain is the picture." He banished Myth to the region of Fancy, whence he thought it had sprung. Yet the amount of error subsequently intruded is sufficient, as will be shown, to account for the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of discovering the underlying truth. Max Miiller, Cox, and their school have rendered service in this at least, that they have shown that some of the Myths are explicable by philology ; and if so, why not others by other processes ? In the contemplation of the im- pressive solar Myths, and of the ingenious allegories of a later age, we must not forget, however, that more than half the Myths afloat in Hellas related to the deeds of heroes. A feature of the Heroic Myth, not to be neglected, is that it was local. It belonged to the place and the tribe. It was of the vicinage, not of the nation. In each little district it was similar to, but not the same as in others. It varied in names and particulars, according to its cradle. Its manifestations in symbol and story differed as individuals of a class, yet the generic resemblance remained. In the palmy clays of the Mythus there was no system of mythology ; and, indeed, none ever existed except in the treatises of philosophers, when it was no longer a faith, but a civil institution. This generic likeness of Myths in places widely apart, with specific discrepancies even among neighbors ; this importance of locality, as an element of diversity, would seem to indi- cate a general cause rather than a common origin of these inconsistent Myths. They seem to have arisen out of a prevalent state of things, rather than to have been modifications of a few legends, to which some theorists would reduce them. In a word, though the position is not indisputable, it may be safely asserted that the recital of early heroic action is the greatest, though not the sole, source of Heroic Myth. The actual deeds of real men were the fountain-head whence flowed a stream of tradition that gradually changed by the mingling 280 ESSAYS MIXED. of many waters, till the pure element of truth was lost in a flood of fable and fiction. But it is too narrow a view of the divine energy of the intellect to suppose that even in its infancy it can rest content with human trans- action as its only food. All the questions that agitate a maturer epoch start unbidden, and must have their answer. The problems of God and Man, of Pain and Evil and Destiny and Death, call out to the heart and understanding for solution. The readiest, most ingenious, and most surprising answer is the most satisfactory. The riddling song of a strolling minstrel, the imported dogma of a foreign priest, or the plausible guess of some inchoate philosopher are adopted as beliefs with equal avidity. The phenomena of day and night and of the revolving seasons had to be accounted for ; the creation of the world and of man invited curiosity ; the power and powerlessness of the human will in collision with invisible influences demanded explana- tion. The unravelling of all these physical and spiritual facts was that of children. Whatever was stirring in the mind of early Greece assumed the form of Myth; that is to say, of childlike thought in childlike speech. Keligious and moral ideas, the works of Nature, cos- mogonic theories, all causes and agencies, found mythic expression. This converted all powers and existences into persons, and all relations into actions.* A complete body of primitive thought, therefore, is con- tained in mythology ; but it has put on a garb of flesh, and is energized into a spurious history of divine and human action. To understand the manner in which the Greeks realized their mythical beliefs we must remember the intensity of their imaginative and personifying powers, and the phase of speech in which these ideas were represented. This undeveloped language, half narrative, half poetic, was the natural and appropriate vehicle for the thoughts it conveyed. I lately saw a girl of five years bring from her garden a bunch of pink morning-glories. " They are all dressed in the fashion- able pink," said she ; " I wonder how they knew it was the fashionable color ; I am sure I didn't tell them." Here was no self-deception, for the child was well aware that she held in her hand inanimate blos- soms ; but there was an actual and perfect personification, a recogni- tion of the mysterious may-be that underlies the whole external world of matter. The activity of the Greek fancy carried this into every object of nature. The circulating sap supplied to the trees not only vegetable life, but conscious existence ; the fountain's spray veiled the spirit of the waters ; the great bosom of the ocean itself heaved with contending passions, and shook its rocky barriers with a purpose. The impulse to wrath or joy or love became the suggestion of an unseen * Vide K. 0. Muller's Scientific Introduction to Mythology. THE ORIGIN OF MYTH. 281 being to whom these qualities were a soul or animating principle. The sun rose and made his daily circuit under the guidance of a pres- ent deity ; and Zeus compelled the cloud and hurled the thunderbolt, while he ruled supreme over gods and men. The idea of Divine causation seems to have been evolved from the pressure of a great want on the minds of these simple folk ; of a great want, and of an unseen presence making itself felt in all the operations of nature. Or is this only another way of saying with St. Paul, " For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead " ? Is it strange that, perceiving the diverse manifestations of the Divine energy, they should have assigned each to a cause which with them became a person ; and yet could not, through the darkness of their " vain imaginations and foolish hearts," look beyond to a First Great Cause ? The personification of the powers of nature and their worship Avere the necessary results of these tendencies. They " changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." It seemed reasonable to them to attribute whatever was unusual or important to a supernatural cause, and to ascribe to their gods a constant intervention in the affairs of men. Whatever was thus ascribed entered into the beliefs of the people and became part of the traditionary mythus. Moreover, though these mythopoeic Greeks desired truth, it was as they loved the beautiful, the wonderful, and other ideas. Hence, with this divided aspiration for truth, with radiant imagination, with vivid personification, and with these tendencies to impute every unwonted incident to super- natural causes, it is not strange that the Greeks peopled land and sea and sky with a host of demons and deities, giving to each " a local habitation and a name," a life of action and a personal biography. This was the supernatural mythus in its inception. At a later day these habits of mind pervading an entire population developed into an allegorizing tendency, a conscious and constructive phase of per- sonification that converted prevalent sentiments or institutions into personal or particular facts, and embodied abstract and general rela- tions and ideas in concrete forms. But these were not the only sources of error, nor the only forces conducing to that transfusion of the fabulous into the pure element of history which replaced its clear light with the prismatic splendors of Myth. The critical faculty that ponders statements, weighs evi- dence, and discriminates relations was as yet unborn. Ko effort was made to define with exactness notions put forth in crude forms of speech. Figurative language was transformed by literal rendering into extravagant stories. I have heard a soldier say, " I tell you, the 282 ESSA YS MIXED. general looked ten feet high." In the lapse of time and tongue and tradition a mythic epoch would have extolled the gallant commander as actually ten feet tall. While mythic expression was the fittest die to stamp the intellectual treasures of that age into current coinage, still its spirit and form tended to render it misleading, especially in case of a want of mental sympathy between speaker and listener. The half- interpreted archaisms and solecisms of bards, reciting in kindred but unfamiliar dialect, entered into prose as literal facts. Such importance, indeed, does Max Miiller's school give to these philological grounds of error, that they have set up as a cardinal formula " that mythology is only a dialect, an ancient form of language." Their theory is that the operations of nature, and especially the solar phenomena, were chanted by primitive poets in bold metaphors ; and that these gradu- ally lost their poetical and finally their radical meanings, and remained imbedded in Myth only as proper names. They assert that the key to the mythological names and stories is found in the Sanskrit tongue, the hymns of the Yedas, and the description of the aspects of nature especially of the sun. An unconscious allegory that may be called the sun epic the Phoebiad is made to occupy almost the whole ground that the fertile fancy of the Greeks has strewn thick with flowers. Doubtless some of the earlier Myths have been thus interpreted cor- rectly ; and some of the later fabricated Myths, which allegorized astronomical ideas, have been thus unveiled : but the great success of these scholars has led them to magnify the importance of this element of myth-generation. They fancy that they hold the clew to the whole labyrinth, forgetting how many of the Myths are only secondary ; out- growths, drawing a sort of plant-life from the decayed organisms of earlier Myths, and hence inscrutable to every kind of analysis. It can- not be that the primal poems of mankind, filtered through ages of migration, conquest, and commercial transfer ; through shif tings of races, confusions of tongues, and kaleidoscopic minstrelsy and story- telling, whether decomposed by the tests of historical credibility or of philological ingenuity, will at the bidding of science rise again restored in its first form. Art cannot renew the rose from its ashes. The palingenesis of the phoenix is altogether fable. Two causes that helped to produce and confirm a belief in appari- tions, and hence in the entire mythology vouched for by them, have been left out of account by the critical mythologists. These are hallu- cination and optical illusion. It is forgotten that men see ghosts. It is not impossible to see things simply because they do not exist. Phan- toms and spectres do appear, and imagination alone will not account for them. The truth is that it is quite common to behold with the eye the image of what subsists in the mind only. The victims of THE ORIGIN OF MYTH. 283 mania a potu, after recovery, distinguish what fantasy imprinted on the retina during the delirium from real objects then seen only by inquiry or the contradiction to their ordinary experience. The eye in such cases, by a retroactive process, sees the picture in the brain. But there are so many well-attested instances of hallucination in the records of modern medical science that it will scarcely be denied as a psycho- logical fact. A sensible man who sees a ghost goes at once to see his physician also, Avho exorcises the intruder with blisters, cathartics, and the like. The doctor does " minister to a mind diseased." But go to the highlands of Scotland, where ancient and popular credence cor- roborates the second-sight of the seer as a veritable vision, and you will find the mental disorder cherished as a fatal gift, and the super- stition systematized into a cultus. So with the Greeks, whose splendid and creative imaginations pictured in clouds and foliage, sea-foam and mountain-mist, the bright beings their hearts desired : when hallucina- tion came it beamed upon them in grand and beautiful dreams, that evinced at the same time the popular belief and the character of the national genius. Distinct from hallucination, the product of mingled mental and physical aberration is optical illusion, which depends upon conditions purely physical and often entirely external. Hiding on the plains of Western' Texas, when a vertical sun was pouring its blaze over the boundless, flower-embroidered expanse, my eyes have caught the sheen of distant waters and the likeness of a lake smiling in the landscape. It was the mirage of the desert, which receded as I approached ; and the dusty trail led through tracts that fantasy had painted with the pencil of the sun. And yet here the beholder is less the artist than Kature herself. Shallow tourists, stolid sailors, and hard scientists concur in bearing witness that the counterpart of ship and headland are lifted by an unseen hand to the clouds and poised in the firma- ment. The Giant of the Brocken mocks alike the gesture of bagman and poet. In a word, optical illusions occur in such number and under such varied conditions as to teach that the eye cannot be trusted. It is notoriously unequal to the detection of legerdemain and other jug- I gling devices, in which the hand out-travels the sight. Vision is an \ arch-deceiver and delights in tricks on the credulous intellect. When the Greeks worshipped Artemis and Dionysus they wove with verdure and sunshine a mantle of waving green for the flitting form of the Xymph, or caught in glimpses of the bounding goat outlines of a pursuing Satyr. Such optical illusions were heightened by the strong emotions and sensitive organizations of the Greeks. Battles in the clouds have been seen by unjaundiced eyes. One such prece- dent might serve a Homer as assurance for the divine machinery 284 ESSAYS MIXED. of the Iliad ; and one Iliad might well mould the faith of a people. I know not of any mythologist who has described more truly or beautifully the birth of Myth than Wordsworth in the Excursion : "In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer's day, With music lulled his indolent repose ; And in some fit of weariness, if he, "When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, A beardless youth who touched a golden lute And filled the illumined groves with ravishment. The nightly hunter, lifting up his eyes Toward the crescent moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed That timely light to share his joyous sport; And hence a beaming goddess with her Nymphs Across the lawn and through the darksome groves (Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes, By echo multiplied from rock or cave) Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked The Naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hills Gliding apace with shadows in their train Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly. The Zephyrs, fanning, as they passed, their wings, Lacked not for love fair objects, whom they wooed With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque, Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age, From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth, In the low vale or on steep mountain-side ; And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood Of gamesome deities ; or Pan himself, The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god ! " It is unnecessary to dwell upon the element of conscious falsehood and imposture in the formation of Myth. It has entered there, of course, as it does into most historical records, and into much of human transaction. In an age and race at once credulous arid not earnestly truthful, lying would often prove successful ; but it would still remain the least interesting, permanent, and coherent part of Myth. THE ORIGIN OF MYTH. 285 If the opinions now advanced are well founded, we are forced to the conclusion that the very origin of Myth was so involved with miscon- ception of fact, of a blending of the real and ideal, and with the vague- ness and inconsistency of a budding language, that if we could hear now the voice of the heroic age and understand its words and phrases, the mental idiom of its speech would puzzle our modern complexity by its directness and candor. In the long centuries that followed, error submerged the mythus with the froth and often with the filth of fable, till the truth in it is as hard to find as a jewel lost in a bog. But the value of the study of mythology as an aid to history fortunately does not depend upon our finding the truth in it. On the contrary, we have effected somewhat when we discover how the error got there ; and again, we have achieved more if, in apprehending the moral and mental phases that revealed the mythus, we realize the psychology of an age and a race. No one can estimate, moreover, the fructifying power of this spring-pollen of the intellect until it has been borne in upon his own thought. Then will he joyfully confess that those young-eyed Greeks had a vigor and stress and reach of imagination and a latent suggestiveness of thought that prefigured their high estate in the domain of mind. Then will he gladly add his voice to the general acclaim that hails them as the vanguard of human progress. THE BOOK-MEK BY T. WHARTON COLLENS. [THOMAS WHARTON COLLENS was born in New Orleans, June 23, 1812. As a very young man he edited the True America. In 1840 he was elected District Attorney of the Orleans District of Louisiana. In 1842-46 he was Judge of the City Court of New Orleans, and in 1856 was elected Judge of the First District Court of the same city. In 1868 he was made Judge of the Seventh District Court of the Parish of Orleans ; this position he held until the court was abolished in 1873. He was the author of Humanics (I860) and the Eden of Labor (1876), two philosophical works which have stood well with judicious critics. While scarcely more than a boy he wrote the Martyr Patriots, or Louisiana in 1769, an historical tragedy which, shortly after its publication, was suc- cessfully performed at the old St. Charles Theatre. (Vide page 421.) Judge Collens died in New Orleans, November 3, 1879.] WHAT a vast difference there is between us and our ancestors who lived three thousand years ago ! What savages they were ! What a polished people are we ! Surrounded by all the glories and lights, blessings and hopes of civilization, we can hardly realize the fact that we are the descendants of men who roamed in forests and deserts, of men as ignorant, superstitious, wild, and brutal as the Comanche Indians. Such, nevertheless, is the fact ; and the question naturally arises : How, through the ages, have our ancestors been able to over- come their abject condition, and rise to the heights of knowledge and art, to survey an immense horizon of truth, and use the magical boun- ties of invention ? Did the light break upon us all at once ; did we get all the superior advantages of science and art we now enjoy from a single hand or from one inspiration, or was the process not only slow and gradual, but difficult and terrible ? To what or to whom do we owe this great change, this wonderful transformation of the mind, manners, and- labors of the human race? We answer at once : The progress of man from the savage to the civilized state of society and to its functions and uses was indeed slow and arduous, and is due to the studies of solitary, thinking book- men, careful theorists, or inquisitive philosophers, who, in each genera- tion, and one after the other, have promulgated the result of their meditations. Understand us we mean what we say : we say hook-men, we say theorists ; and, if humor prompts, it may add contemptuous epithets to the terms. We may say, if we choose, mere book-men, mad theorists, or dreamy philosophers, and still the proposition would be true. T. WHARTON COLLENS. THE BOOK-MEN. 287 To demonstrate this truth we might begin with primeval man, go through ancient history, tracing the march of mind from the mythic Hermes of Egypt, the Pythagoras of Greece, the Zoroaster of Persia, to the grand display of civilization exhibited by the Koman Empire under Aurelius Antoninus, or under Constantine the Great, and thence follow the current in all its vicissitudes down to the present age. But the limits of a single article preclude so extended a review of human progress. Hence, we are compelled to select, if possible, a period of history within which a fair illustration of the march of mind may be found (leaving out former and subsequent ages), to test other periods by the same laws of development. Let us, therefore, begin in the middle of the middle ages, that is to say, in the year 800 after Christ, and finish with the discovery of America, in the fifteenth century. From this first point our premises will be apparent. At the last point our conclusion will be reached ; and then all the consequences, as applicable to modern times, will show themselves as clearly as the landscape in the light of day. In the year 800 after Christ, what was the state of Europe ? The Goths, the Vandals, the Franks, the Huns, the Normans, the Turks,, and other barbarian hordes, had invaded and overthrown the Roman Empire, and had established various kingdoms upon its ruins. These hordes of savages had destroyed not only all the works of civilization, but civilization itself. Ignorant as they were of everything that dis- tinguishes and elevates human nature, they broke up the schools, ruined the monuments, abolished arts and manufactures, prevented commerce, and reduced the conquered nations to their own condition, inaugurating in the completest manner the reign of brute force and mental darkness. If they afterward espoused Christianity, they moulded it to their own savage superstition, till at last naught was left of the divine dispensation but its name, to cover the most degrading idolatry and demonism. At the time we begin our specific examina- tion we find that, in the then so-called Christian nations 1. There existed no science worthy of the name, no schools what- ever. Eeading, writing, and ciphering were separate and distinct trades. The masses, the nobility, the poor and the rich, were wholly unacquainted with the mysteries of the alphabet and the pen. A few men, known as clerks, who generally belonged to the priesthood, monopolized them as a special class of artists. They taught their business only to their seminarists, apprentices ; and beyond themselves and their few pupils no one knew how to read and write, nor was it expected of the generality, any more than it would be nowadays that everybody should be a shoemaker or a lawyer. Kings did not even know how to sign their names, so that when they wanted to subscribe 288 ESSAYS MIXED. to a written contract, law, or treaty, which some clerk had drawn up for them, they would smear their right hand with ink, and slap it down upon the parchment saying, " Witness my hand." At a later date, some genius devised the substitute of the seal, which was im- pressed instead of the hand, but oftener besides the hand. Every gentleman had a seal with a peculiar device thereon. Hence the sac- ramental words now in use, " Witness my hand and seal," affixed to modern deeds, serve at least the purpose of reminding us of the igno- rance of the middle ages. In fact, in those days a nobleman considered it below his dignity to have any knowledge of letters. This was left to persons of inferior rank. The use of arms, horsemanship, and war were the sole avoca- tion of the lords of the land. As all authority, and indeed safety, depended upon force and success in battle, skill at arms was necessa- rily the genteelest of the arts. The nobility knew no other ; and the workmen they admired the most were those who forged their uncouth armor, ungainly shields, and clumsy swords. Society was divided into orders : at the top were the prelates and priesthood, the kings and nobles ; at the bottom the serfs, who were the bulk of the people ; and intermediate were a few free workmen and burgesses, who enjoyed a sort of quasi exemption from personal servitude, but were subject to the despotic rule of the king and lords. All persons were also unmitigated believers in magic, sorcery, witchcraft, enchantments, amulets, astrology, evil-eye, conjuration, fascination, divination, fetichism, charms, evocation of ghosts, spectres and devils, talismans, incantations, fortune-telling, palmistry, cabalistic arts, spells, divining-rods, bargains with the occult powers, and the like. Even in our time vestiges of the like belief exist among us, but then it was universal and denied by none, whether prince, priest, or populace. There is no parallel to this state of things in modern times, except in the interior towns of Africa. It was then universally conceded that the nobles were men of a superior race ; that their blood was different and purer than that of other men. All the land belonged to them. No one doubted their title. The population of every barony considered the baron as their rightful master, holding his authority from God himself. It was next to sacrilege to disobey him. Yet these barons were brutal, extortion- ate, and cruel. They were constantly at war with each other, and therefore lived in fortified castles, whence they now and then sallied to levy contributions among their own serfs, rob passengers and cara- vans on the highway, or plunder and burn the property or massacre the people of neighboring fiefs. They had the right of life and death over their vassals. These could not marry or travel without their THE BOOK-MEN. 289 permission. The maidens of the baronies were obliged to gratify the lusts of the baron whenever he took a fancy to any of them ; and this, so far from being considered as an act of outrageous despotism, was generally accepted as an honor conferred. No Turkish pacha or Eus- sian boiar holds now greater power than the feudal lords possessed and abused during the middle ages. They exacted and took the first, the largest, and the best products of the labor of the people ; and none (not even those who were the victims of unscrupulous tithes, tribute, and pillage) ever suspected that the nobles exceeded their divine and rightful privileges. The people, when robbed, or put to the rack, might think their lord was a hard and cruel master ; but his right to do as he pleased was to every mind unquestionable. The laws which then existed (if indeed the name of law could be justly applied to such an ordination of society) were only such as were calculated to maintain the power and fortune of the tyrants we have just described. Murder was punished only when the culprit was a villain, or a man of inferior rank to that of his victim ; and then the punishment was graded, so that the murder of a noble or priest by a villain or inferior was avenged by the most revolting and agonizing tortures and death ; while if, on the contrary, the victim was a villain and the homicide a nobleman, a few pence was the price of blood. Trials there were none worthy of the name. They tested the guilt or innocence of those who were suspected of offences by various super- stitious practices, such, for instance, as making the supposed offender walk over red-hot ploughshares. If he got burned, he was guilty ; if he passed over unscathed, he was innocent. The favorite mode of decid- ing causes before the courts was the trial by battle. The parties were made to fight it out, but not always with equal arms. The villains Avere 'permitted only to wield the club, while the gentry entered the lists sword in hand, clothed in armor, and on horseback. The result of the combat was religiously believed to be " the judgment of God " between the parties. We have said that in those ages no science existed. Let us add that it was then universally taken for certain truth that the earth was flat ; that the skies were a dome of hard adamant, which enclosed and covered the world like the walls and roof of a building ; that the stars were occult beings having good or evil influences over men ; that the winds and the floods, the rain and the crops, were either special dis- pensations of Providence, independent of any original design or law, or were, when unfavorable, the act of evil spirits or magical operations. The monuments of Eoman architecture were allowed to go to ruin. The art of building had been almost forgotten, and was limited to the erection of rough and uncouth fortresses and walls suited to keep men 19 2 U ESS A YS MIXED. and horsemen at bay. These were usually located on the tops of almost inaccessible rocks. The people lived in huts ; they ate with their hands ; food was cooked without pots or kettles, on the embers, or roasted on spits. Candles were unknown ; stockings were un- known ; clothing was made of dressed skins ; and, though some woven fabrics were made by means of hand-looms, they were so inferior that the ordinary stuffs worn by the people of the present day would have been then considered as luxurious finery fit for a king to wear. We forgot also to mention, in relation to the trial by battle, that the lawyers of those days did not gain their suits by means of evi- dence, authorities quoted out of books, and speeches or arguments addressed to the courts ; but the lawyers were men-at-arms, expert in the use of the sword, the lance, the mace, and the baton ; and the parties, when they were able, would hire them to fight out the case in the arena as gladiators. Thus the case would be decided in favor of him whose lawyer beat, or cut down, or unhorsed his adversary's lawyer. Those were indeed the days when might was right. Our object in giving this sketch of the state of civilization in the eighth and ninth centuries is to contrast the condition of society then with what it is now, and to inquire how mankind could emerge from that order of things to the present stage of human progress. By what means were barbarism, universal ignorance, and superstition to be overcome ? From whom was the first light to come ? Who was to take the first step toward a better order or higher knowledge ? The impediments were of the most formidable character. Every- body was ignorant, except the few clerks, or clergymen, we have men- tioned, and even the range of their knowledge, beyond theology, was very limited. All around them was darkness, and naught indicated even a gleam of light or liberty. By whom or when was the first step taken ? By the very clerks or book-men we have mentioned, during the reign of Charlemagne in France, and that of Alfred in England. Long had they labored in the solitude of their cloisters to enlarge the scope of their learning. Assiduously had they multiplied copies of precious manuscripts and of their own works. Zealously had they striven to find laymen willing to purchase and study those works and listen to their instructions. At last they persuaded Charlemagne to establish a school in Paris, and Alfred to found a university at Oxford, in order to educate aspirants for the priesthood and form doctors of theology. Nothing was thought of but to cultivate the kind and extent of learning then existing. It was natural to procure for these schools copies of all the books then to be found. Few, indeed, were these as brief sketches of Latin grammar, a few Latin vocabularies, a meagre treatise on THE BOOK-MEN. 291 arithmetic and geometr}^, and a stray copy of the philosophical work by Porphyry, and another by Boetius. The rest was all Christian theology and philosophy, such as the works of St. Augustine and other fathers, besides the Bible and the canons of the Church. The savant chosen for Paris was the monk Alcuin, and the scholar selected for Oxford was another monk, Grimbaldus. The deed was done. A school was established. Men were offered a great opportunity of becoming book-worms, and consequently to think and theorize. The result was inevitable. To meditate, they had to exercise their reasoning faculty, while they studied the philos- ophy they found in the few books they had, and pondered over theol- ogy theology and ancient philosophy as harmonized with dogma. One of the teachers who succeeded Alcuin was a doctor of philos- ophy named John Scotus Erigenus, an Irishman by birth. He wrote philosophical treatises in which a new question was raised. This ques- tion was, whether an abstract term or a word such, for instance, as the word " humanity" represented a real being ; an essence in nature ; a real and single thing existing independent of any individual. Not whether there were many individual men included by a process of thought under a general name, but whether that general name " hu- manity " was not the name of a reality, antecedent in creation and in time to the existence of any individual antecedent to Adam himself. Vain as this question would seem, it raised a great debate among the clerks and doctors. Soon parties were formed among them, pro and con. The one party got the name of EEALISTS, the other that of NOMINALISTS. Minds became excited, curiosity was aroused. In order to prove one opinion or the other, information was sought in every direction. Every scrap which could be found of Plato's and Aristotle's works was rescued from oblivion, and quoted as authority by one or the other side. Other ancient books were disinterred. The savants began to investigate natural phenomena, and, above all, to closely scrutinize man himself, physically and intellectually. Though the question in debate might appear at this day quite frivolous and easily answered, yet in those times it was necessary as a first step in the progress of getting rid of the fundamental errors and prejudices prevalent even among the savants. We must not lose sight of the mental condition of all men in those times. If we keep this in view, we shall, instead of despising the men who first put the ques- tion just stated, wonder how at that stage of intellectual progress it could have suggested itself to any mind. Certain it is that the most learned (so small was their amount of science, and so peculiar were the settled opinions of their age) were not ready to discuss other subjects. 292 ESSA YS MIXED. They soon brought their discussions before their pupils, and from among these the debate found its way into society: kings, nobles, and burgesses talked about it, and as a consequence talked about the points of knowledge necessary to solve the question. This was a slow operation indeed. It took eight centuries before the controversy was settled. Yet, in time, hundreds of other questions grew out of this single one, and it became necessary to settle all the minor objections and issues before the main one could be concluded upon. What is soul ? what is mind ? what is reason ? what is feeling ? what is sensation ? what is knowledge ? what is man and his destiny ? what is revelation in contradistinction to science ? how far can science go without re- quiring the aid of revelation ? is man a free agent ? are all men of the same species ? what are the laws of thought ? in one word, what was true or not true in everything then generally held to be true ? We are far from wishing it to be understood that all these ques- tions were immediately suggested or started ; but the book-men (as their sphere of thought became more and more enlarged) by the sharp contradiction of one another, found it necessary to suggest and discuss them all. They did so boldly and conscientiously, in their contestations. They did so, though many among them were, for the anti-Christian opinions they advanced, condemned as heretics. But we are too hasty. We must endeavor to show the different steps of this evolution, and the main instrumentality of the book-men and the theorists in every advance that was made. In the course of the reign of Charlemagne, the doctors of philos- ophy composed a calendar, and proposed the months as we have them now. This calendar they formed by means of their studies of such ancient writings of the Greeks and Romans as they had been able to procure. They prevailed upon Charlemagne to establish this calendar by law. By doing this, Charlemagne got all the credit of the work itself ; but to a certainty he was incapable of performing it. Individually, he was an ignorant man ; but he thirsted for knowledge, glory, and power ; had heard from the scholars of the ancient grandeur, monu- ments, and literature of Rome and Greece ; and his ambition impelled him to carry into effect any suggestion of measures likely to contribute to his glory. He was devout, and sought also the glory of God. Hence he encouraged education, for he found it furnished men capable of serving him effectually in all his aspirations. But who could give education ? None but the clerks or book-men, who were then the only men of science. Passing beyond this reign, we see the effects of this policy gradu- THE BOOK-MEN. 293 ally developing themselves. During the tenth century, the arithmet- ical figures we now use to write down numbers were first introduced into Europe. Previously the Boman letters I, V, X, L, C, etc., had been employed to express numeric quantities. The advantage of the new method we can all appreciate, for it is the method we all use at present. But who first introduced and taught this improvement in arithmetical notation with all the facilities it affords for the calcula- tions ? We owe the importation to the book-men who travelled to acquire knowledge from the Arabs who had conquered Spain, and whose schools at Cordova had acquired great celebrity. Thus we see the advance of science was from one set of book-men to another set of book-men, and from their schools to the people. In this and the preceding century too, we find that it had become a common practice for the doctors of philosophy and theology to challenge each other to public debates ; and that it became fashion- able for the gentry to be present at these intellectual duels, where thought met thought in a struggle to convince of truths or convict of error. From theologians arose the most distinguished philosophers of the times. We could, in our advanced state of knowledge, consider the scientific opinions they advanced as unworthy of our serious considera- tion ; but then they were of the utmost importance, in this, that they were incitements to thought and to further investigation. This was the main thing in an age of intellectual obscurity, to bring forth more and more light from the first sparks of truth. The mind once awakened, curiosity and reflection once aroused, a process of develop- ment of right reason was inaugurated, which in time spread itself from the mind of man over all nature. This takes place in the midst of the first Crusades, by which hun- dreds of thousands were led to perish disastrously ; but restless and curious philosophers followed in the wake of war and rapine, and hovered around the armies to bring back from the East all the science they could gather. We often read of the improvement in science the West of Europe derived from the Crusades ; but the story is always told so as to leave the impression that the plunder the mind brought back from Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, was gathered there by the boorish soldiers and their captains. A moment's thought will, however, set us right on this point. Science could only be gathered by men already partially acquainted with science, by men having a taste for it, by the scholars and the book-men. To them, therefore, must we award all the praise for any scientific advantage which Europe derived from the Crusades. The armies were intent upon booty and power; the philosophers who followed them were 294 ESSA YS MIXED. seeking for new truths ; and the advance of knowledge that they re- turned with is one of the benefits the West of Europe derived from the Crusades. Let us note some of the most important prizes they carried home. At Amalfi, a port in the southern part of Italy, a stopping-place for the Crusaders, they discovered a copy of the Institutes and Pandects of Roman Law, a work which had been long lost to the world. From the Arabians of Spain or Alexandria they procured the works of Plato and Aristotle, as well as other learned treatises of ancient sages. These they studied and commented on with assiduity, each one according to the bent of his mind. Hence, in time we find the learned men not only becoming numerous, but divided into classes. Some follow the study of religion, humanity, and mind ; others devote themselves to history, grammar, and poetry ; others to law ; others to mathematics and astronomy, and others to architecture. But we must keep in view that all these sciences and arts were yet in a crude state, far, far beneath what they are at this day. The book-men, the theorists, the philosophers, had centuries of research, discussion, and reflection to accomplish, and numberless labors to undergo, before producing the good harvest we are now enjoying. Thus, in the thirteenth century the book-men and their disciples, the lawyers, politicians, poets, painters, masons, astronomers, architects, navigators, physicians, and all other seekers and distributors of knowl- edge, had hosts of adherents among the masses. Hence the practical results of the labors of the scholars were becoming more apparent. In religion, St. Thomas produces his Sum of Theology, and brings the scholastic philosophy to its perfection. In politics, the yeomanry of England, instigated by Archbishop Langton, a book-man, demand and obtain Magna Charta that is to say, no taxes without repre- sentation, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and no taxes without the con- sent of Parliament while in Florence a democratic constitution is established by the people. In science, the labors of the alchemists and astrologers are progressing toward the first positive dawn of chemistry and astronomy ; and Roger Bacon, the first of the great prophets of natural science, reveals some of the most important secrets of chemistry. Eoger Bacon, the first of the natural philosophers, who was he ? History answers a book-man, a monk, a solitary student of the works of his predecessors in philosophy and theology. In the arts, Gothic architecture raises a worthy tribute to Heaven. We also find that in this century navigation begins to improve and commerce to be developed, particularly in England and in Italy ; and the learned take advantage of the facilities thus afforded to undertake voyages in search of geographical and other knowledge. Among the rest, Marco Polo, THE BOOK-MEN. 295 a student of languages, travels throughout Asia, finds his way even to China and Japan (a most wonderful feat in those days), and, on his return, writes an acco.unt of his travels ; and his book, at a later day, serves (among other things) to induce the discovery of America by Columbus. We now enter the fourteenth century, and amid the many practical consequences of the dissemination of knowledge from its original source, the book-men and philosophers, we might, unless we consider the necessity of the case, lose sight of the starting-point. In Spain, Alfonso the Wise gives his people the laws of the Seven Partides, compiled by philosophical jurisconsults from the Koman law. In France, the States-General, or Grand Parliament, is convoked by Philip le Bel, and, after him, Louis X. makes the Parliament a per- manent institution for the sanction of all laws. By and by the serfs and peasantry acquire their freedom and gain many valuable rights not, however, without insurrection and bloodshed. Marcel in Paris and the Jacquerie in the provinces strike for liberty. In England, the Commons assert their privileges : no money to government without their consent ; the concurrence of the Commons with the Lords neces- sary for all laws ; and the right of inquiry and impeachment by the Commons established. In Switzerland, William Tell leads his coun- trymen to victory and national independence and republican institu- tions. In Italy, the mariner's compass is invented by Gioja de Amalfi. Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, those first lights of the dawn of polite literature, compose their beautiful romances and poems. In Germany, clocks are invented, and Schwartz first puts gunpowder, invented by Roger Bacon, to practical use, and some scientific mechanic builds the first paper-mill. Previously manuscripts were all written on parch- ment. These were magnificent results, taking place in the midst of terrible persecution ; but we understand it all when we know that in spite of every obstacle and opposition the book-men had, in this and the preceding centuries, unceasingly labored, amid the capricious favors and disfavors of princes and kings, to establish libraries, schools, and universities everywhere. They succeeded admirably, and every gen- eration saw the increase of the number of those to whom the benefits of education had been communicated. Notwithstanding the fears of despots, the trial by ordeal began to fall into disrepute, the influence of the principles of the laws of ancient Rome as Christianized by Jus- tinian was felt. At last we reach the glorious fifteenth century, ever memorable for the invention of printing and the discovery of America, Why was printing invented ? Because the demand for books had directed inven- tive genius to seek a substitute for the laborious and costly process 2 9 G ESS A YS MIXED. of copying. Gutenberg, the inventor, was himself a lover of books and a scientific mechanic. Why was America discovered ? Because schools of mathematics, astronomy, and navigation had been estab- lished at Genoa, in one of which Columbus was educated. Thence, and in subsequent life, he derived the benefits of the labors of Lorenzo of Pisa, who had introduced algebra into the universities of Europe ; and of Miiller and Boehm, who had, by their geometrical researches and theories, demonstrated the rotundity of the earth. With this knowledge, confirmed by observation during his early life as a navi- gator, and the works of Marco Polo, Columbus projected the voyage which resulted in the discovery of the Western Continent. But print- ing and the rotundity of the earth were not the only consequences of the studies of book-men in the fifteenth century. We have already mentioned algebra, and have time only to state that the establishment of the first bank at Genoa, the Hanseatic League, the voyage of Yasco de Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, the first working of coal- mines at Newcastle, Norwich, the first drama, the final systematization of musical notation, all took place in the fifteenth century. We should also have shown how the study of aesthetical principles in this and the preceding century, by the societies and guilds of masons and architects, endowed the world with great painters and architects and sculptors Benvenuto, Raphael, Angelo, Titian, and many more who have left behind them imperishable monuments of their studies and genius. Need we look back to recapitulate and confirm the fact that the highest source, continuous movers, and central custodians of the studies which caused these great events were book-men, school-men, and the- ologists ? Let us rather look forward into succeeding centuries, and merely mention the names of Erasmus, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Descartes, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Dalton, Lavoisier, Shakespeare, Harvey. But no! the names of the studious thinkers who from their cabinets and laboratories have revolutionized the world, and to whom we owe the grand and beautiful civilization and works arts, machines, products, conveniences, political science, lib- erty, commerce, etc. which we now enjoy, would take hours to enu- merate. There is not a development of science or art that cannot be traced back to the " eureka " of some solitary, plodding book-man. Popular Science Monthly, 1882. DUELLING. BY ETIENNE MAZUKEAU. MAZUREAU, born in Rochelle, France, in 1777; died in New Orleans May 25, 1849. Vide p. 55.] DOES reason justify it? "We see two bipeds in human shape stationed opposite to each other, armed with swords, guns, or pistols. Yesterday they were at peace with each other, and with all the world. To-day a prejudice, as ridiculous as it is inhuman, has brought them into mortal conflict. They wish to take each other's lives ! A single word of common sense would reconcile them; they are deaf to its voice they must have Uood ! Turn away your eyes, and fix them upon two dogs who are hun- grily watching a bone which a butcher has cast before them. With bristled hair and flashing eyes and open mouth, they threaten to tear each other to pieces. At a signal given by the witnesses of the bipeds, as at the first instinctive movement of one or other of the dogs, the battle begins, and is only ended when the ground is stained with their blood. "Will you tell us whether it is the dog who is elevated to an equality with the man, or is it the man who has degraded himself to a level with the dog ? What does the duel prove ? Two men are suddenly engaged in a quarrel. Their passions are inflamed ; one insults the other by calling him' a coward or a scoundrel. The man who has been insulted sends the other a challenge, which is accepted. They meet and fight, and the offender triumphs ! Does it result from this that the victim of a false point of honor is either a scoundrel or a coward ? Two individuals are engaged in political discussion. One of them advances a true proposition, which wounds the other's feelings. It is followed by his giving him the lie. From this results a duel, in which the one who gave the lie kills his adversary. Does this prove that the man who was killed did not speak the truth ? Is the duellist a patriot ? To the duellist, a few minutes of what is called courage suffices. The true soldier, who is ready to give his life to his country, must have constant and unwavering fortitude. With a very few exceptions, the professional duellist is as bad a soldier as citizen. 298 ESSA YS MIXED. Formerly the party who was insulted had the choice of weapons. Nowadays a monster, steeped in blood, insults the man who has offended him, or rather the man who he imagines has insulted him, with the hope that he will demand satisfaction of him. He is fully prepared. On receiving the challenge, he answers that he is ready, and will be happy to send a bullet through the brains of his adver- sary. Thus the offender, in insulting his enemy, whom he knows to be inferior in skill or physical force, virtually says to him, " Swallow this insult, or I will kill you ; I have abused you, and I wish to take your life. I constitute myself the judge in settling this difference between us. I have condemned you, and I wish to be your executioner." Does the refusal of a challenge confer disgrace? Mirabeau and the Marquis du Chatelet were both members of the Constituent Assem- bly of France, and leaders of opposite parties. It happened that Mira- beau used some expressions in debate which the Marquis was pleased to consider as somewhat offensive, and sent him a challenge. Mira- beau replied to him in the following words : MONSIEUR LE MARQUIS : It would be very unfair for a man of sense like me to be killed by a fool like you. I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, etc., MIRABEAU. THE JUDICIAKY.* BY FKANQOIS-XAVIER MARTIN. IER MARTIN was born in Marseilles, France, March 17, 1762. At the age of eighteen he emigrated to Martinique ; but little is known of his career in that island. Landing in the United States in 1786, he took up his residence in Newbern, N. C. There he was engaged for many years in the printer's trade. During this period, also, he had been admitted at the age of twenty-seven to the bar of the State. He translated and compiled many useful law- works, and wrote a History of North Carolina. In 1806-7 he served as a member of the State Legislature. In 1809 President Madison appointed him Judge of the Territory of Mississippi ; but the following year he was transferred to the bench of the Superior City Court of the Territory of Orleans. In Louisiana he afterwards filled successively the offices of Attorney-General, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court ; and in 1845 he retired to private life. His History of Louisiana (1827) exhibits, in a marked degree, the legal quality of his mind : it is clear, logical, and critical, but, in the main, barren of ornament. During the latter years of his life he was blind. He died December 10, 1846.] IT is the duty of history to record the virtues and errors of con- spicuous individuals. In free governments, precedents are to be dreaded from good and popular characters only. Men of a different cast can never obtain sufficient sanction for their measures to make their acts an example for others. Hence the necessity of exposing the false grounds of the actions of the former, and pointing out the evil consequences to which they lead. The history of every age and every country shows that the higher man is placed in authority, the greater his necessity of bridling his passions ; lest others should believe that anger and resentment have prompted measures which should have had no other motive but public utility, and that a temper which can bear no contradiction, and a will spurning all control, are the characteristics of a man in power. It teaches us how important it is he should not select for his advisers men who have enlisted themselves in the ranks of those who oppose the measures of government men having private interests to subserve, private enemies to gratify, and private injuries to avenge; that he should abstain from acting personally in cases which present great latitude for the improper indulgence of his feelings, and leave to dis- passionate tribunals the punishment of those who have wounded his pride by setting his authority at defiance ; refraining to become the * [History of Louisiana.} 300 ESS A YS-MIXED. prosecutor and arbiter of his own grievances and to place himself in a situation in which, reason having but little control, he may do great injustice ; and suspicion always, and censure often, attaches to his determination. May the citizens of these States ever find, in the annals of their country, reasons to cherish and venerate that branch of government, without the protection of which it is in vain that the invader is re- pelled ; the benign influence of which man feels before he enters the portals of life ; which guards the rights of the unborn child, throws its broad shield over helpless infancy ; the solicitude of which watches over man's interests \vhenever disease or absence prevents his attention to them ; to which the woodsman commits his humble roof and its inmates, in the morning when, shouldering his axe, he whistles his way to the forest, assured it will guard them from injury, and secure to him the produce of his labor ; from which the poor and the rich are sure of equal justice ; which neither the ardor civiumprava jiibentium, nor the vultus instantis tyranni, will prevent from coming to the relief of the oppressed ; which secures the enjoyment of every domestic, social, and political right, and does not abandon man after he has passed the gates of death leaving him in the grave the consoling hope that the judiciary power of his country will cause him to hover awhile, like a beneficent shade, over the family he reared, directing the disposition of the funds his care accumulated for their support, and thus, by a sort of magic, allow him to continue to have a will after he has ceased to have an existence. THE MODEL JUDGE. BY GUSTAVUS SCHMIDT. [GUSTAVUS SCHMIDT was born in Stockholm, Sweden, of a distinguished family, in 1793. Being of an adventurous disposition, he left home, and went to New Orleans, where he applied himself to the study and practice of law. He soon gained high rank at a bar of exceptional excellence. His briefs were models of legal precision, marked by a style which, while not ornate, abounded in scholarly touches. He died, while on a trip to Virginia, September 21, 1877.] FEW names are to be met with in the judicial annals of any country, entitled to greater respect than that of John Marshall, the late vener- able Chief Justice of the United States ; and there are few lives, which, like his, present such an harmonious assemblage of the best and noblest qualities which adorn public as well as private life. A biography of this distinguished individual would be an impor- tant and instructive acquisition to our literature ; and it is to be hoped, that among the many talented men of his native State, several of whom have had the very best opportunities of appreciating his worth, some one will be found disposed to discharge this debt, which is due to his memory, and which is also due to Virginia and to the United States, as the heirs of his fame, and as participators of the lustre which his talents and his virtues have imparted to the land which gave him birth. That this task will some day be ably accomplished, we cannot for a moment doubt ; and in the meantime we shall attempt to arrange such reminiscences of his life and character as we have treasured up during a residence of about eight years in the city of Richmond, where we had frequent opportunities of seeing him both in public and private life. John Marshall was a man whom no one could approach, while in the discharge of his official duties, without feeling respect, and whom no one ever knew intimately without being inspired with love and reverence for his character. When we first saw Judge Marshall he was in the zenith of his fame, and, though advanced in years, in the full enjoyment of his phys- ical as well' as intellectual faculties. We had already acquired suffi- cient experience of the world to be aware that reputation, like remote objects, often derives its enchantment from the distance, and that 302 ESSA YS MIXED. many an individual whose name has been trumpeted far and wide by renown, and whom our imagination has invested with the attributes of a demi-god, frequently dwindles into a very ordinary mortal upon closer inspection ; and yet we were not disappointed. There was an expression of benevolence, dignity, and reflection in the appearance of Mr. Marshall, calculated to make a highly favorable impression on every one who saw him ; but few persons would be apt to divine, at first glance, that under this calm and sedate exterior dwelt a mind, which, for depth of thought, reach of comprehension, and power of analyzing and of reducing the most complex questions to their simplest expression, had scarcely an equal. And, indeed, the great superiority of his mind consisted rather in the harmonious development of the perceptive and reflective faculties, than in any undue or remarkable preponderance of any one intellectual quality. The extent of Mr. Marshall's legal attainments is sufficiently attested by his decisions while Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Union, among which there are many which, on account of the familiar acquaintance they display with the principles of international, public, and common law, and the perspicuity and elegance of their style, as well as the convincing force of the reasoning, must be viewed as models of judicial eloquence. And yet he can hardly be regarded as a learned lawyer, in the sense in which this word is often employed ; as his acquaintance with the Eoman jurisprudence, as well as with the laws of foreign countries, was not very extensive. He was what is called a common-law lawyer, in the best and noblest acceptation of the term. He was educated for the bar at a period when digests, abridg- ments, and all the numerous facilities which now smooth the path of the law student, were almost unknown, and when you often sought in vain in the Reporters, which usually wore the imposing form of folios, even for an index of the decisions, and when marginal notes of the points determined in a cause was a luxury not to be either looked for or expected. At this period, when the principles of the common law had to be studied in the black-letter pages of Coke upon Littleton, a work equally remarkable for quaintness of expression, profundity of research, and the absence of all method in the arrangement of its very valuable materials ; when the rules of pleading had to be looked for in Chief Justice Saunders's Reports, while the doctrinal parts of a juris- prudence, based almost exclusively on precedents, had to be sought after in the Reports of Dyer, Plowden, Coke, Popham, Leonard, Yelverton, and others it was then no easy task to become an able lawyer, and it required no common share of industry and perseverance to amass sufficient knowledge of the law to make even a decent appearance in the forum. At this time, when the viginti annorum THE MODEL JUDGE. 303 lucubrationes were hardly deemed sufficient to make a respectable lawyer, he succeeded, in a comparatively short time, to master the elements of the common law, and to place himself at the head of the profession in Virginia, and on a level with a Eandolph, a Pendleton, and a Wythe, names which will forever remain illustrious in the legal profession. That this was not achieved without great labor will readily be believed, and it aifords a convincing proof both of the energy of character which he possessed, and of his aptitude for study and reflection ; and there can be little doubt that the habits of labo- rious application which he acquired during this period exercised a beneficial influence on his after life, and paved the way of his future greatness. The study of the common law, with its numerous precedents, when pursued with the enthusiastic love of the science which is requisite to attain distinction in it, is admirably adapted to make us acquainted with the diversity of facts to which the law has to be applied ; to beget readiness and acuteness in distinguishing between the principles of the law, and to train the mind for the practical exercise of the profession. The study of the abstract principles of jurisprudence seems, on super- ficial examination, to afford more certain results, and is certainly more flattering to our habitual indolence and love of generalization. For there appears to be no necessity to study with attention a variety of adjudged cases in search of a principle common to all, when a knowl- edge of the principle itself may be acquired by reading a few lines of an elementary author. But those who reason thus seem to forget that the principles of law are extremely numerous ; that they are, in the course of the administration of justice, to be applied to an infinite variety of facts ; and that it requires great attention and familiarity both with the facts and the law to determine the relative importance of the different rules of law applicable to a given series of facts, and much perspicacity and practice to select the governing principle for the decision of a cause. Now, this familiarity is certainly more likely to be possessed by him who has acquired a knowledge of principles by a laborious analysis of a great number of cases actually decided, than by him who merely knows the same principles from having studied them in the abstract. Besides, the principles acquired by the analyti- cal method are generally more firmly fixed in the mind, and more readily applied. Perhaps the only real danger to be apprehended from the study of the law in the decisions of adjudged cases is, that on account of the multiplicity of adjudications, few minds possess sufficient comprehen- siveness and vigor to grasp the general principles, and that lawyers educated in this school are more apt to become what is called case 304 USSA YS MIXED. hunters, than scientific jurists. It is unfortunately much easier to rely on the authority of others in forming opinions, than to form them for ourselves after laborious investigation ; and it is agreeable to the natural carelessness of most men rather to adopt current opin- ions, than to elaborate any of their own. Judge Marshall's mind was of a very different order, and pos- sessed a vigor and rapidity of analysis which was truly remarkable, and had the appearance of an intuitive and almost instinctive percep- tion of the points on which depended the resolution of the most com- plicated questions. Intimately acquainted with the principles of the common law, and indeed with the whole range of constitutional and public law, no sophistry or argument, how ingeniously soever it might have been prepared, and no matter what array of authorities might be brought to its support, could mislead his judgment, or induce him to give his assent to a proposition which was not intrinsically true. He had a rectitude of the heart as well as of the head, which enabled him to detect all fallacies of an argument, how skilfully soever they were concealed from the eye of an ordinary observer. On the bench the Chief Justice was a model of what a judge ought to be, and though we have seen many judges while in the dis- charge of their functions, both in this and other countries, we have never met with one who approached so near the beau ideal of a per- fect magistrate. In ordinary life his conduct was affable and polite; and when entering the court-room, which was usually before the appointed hour, for he was extremely punctual in the discharge of his duties, his conversation was cheerful, and evinced a remarkable freedom of mind, which in men of eminent attainments in any particular science is almost an invariable criterion of superiority of intellect. In his colloquies on such occasions with the members of the bar, which were frequent, no attempt was ever made to claim superiority, either on account of his age or his great acquirements ; neither was there any effort to acquire popularity ; but his conduct was evidently dictated by a benevolent interest in the ordinary affairs of life, and a relish for social intercourse. The moment, however, he took his seat on the bench, his character assumed a striking change. He still con- tinued the same kind and benevolent being as before ; but instead of the gay aad cheerful expression which distinguished the features while engaged in social conversation, his brow assumed a thoughtfulness and an air of gravity and reflection, which invested his whole appearance with a certain indefinable dignity, which bore, however, not the slight- est resemblance to sternness. The impression made on the beholder was that of a man engaged in some highly important and grave delib- THE MODEL JUDGE. 305 eration, which he apparently pursued with pleasure, but which at the same time seemed to absorb his whole attention, and required the full exercise of his faculties. During the examination of the evidence, as well as on the argument of a cause, he was all attention, and listened to everything that was said on both sides with a patience which was truly extraordinary ; and we do not recollect in the course of the six years that we con- stantly attended the sessions of the Circuit Court of the United States, at Kichmond, ever to have seen him indicate impatience even by a gesture. The remarks of Bishop Burnet with regard to Sir Matthew Hale apply with equal force to Judge Marshall : " Nothing was more admirable in him than his patience. He did not affect the reputation of quickness and despatch by a hasty and captious hearing of the counsel. He would bear with the meanest, and gave every man his full scope, thinking it much better to lose time than patience." We remember on some few occasions, at the close of an argument, to have heard him address a question to the counsel with a view, either to ascertain whether there did not exist some legal adjudications in rela- tion to the points for which he contended, or to be assured that he had correctly understood his propositions; but always in a manner which convinced the person addressed, that his sole object was to obtain, and not to convey, information. He always acted on the principle that a court of justice was a sanctuary, where parties had a right to be heard ; that though the law had wisely interposed a special class of agents, called lawyers, to protect the interests of suitors, not only because they were presumed to be better acquainted with the science of the law, but also to prevent the tribunals from becoming the arena of disputes, which the passions and interests of the parties would not fail to make it, if they were permitted personally to defend their suits, yet the advocates of a cause represented their clients and were entitled to be heard ; not on account of any merit or privilege they possessed as lawyers, but because they acted in behalf of the citizens of the community, for whose benefit the administration of justice was created, and because the highest and the lowest member of society was entitled to equal favor in a court of justice. Few judges seem to have so maturely reflected on the duties of a judge as Mr. Marshall, and few certainly carried into the practical administration of the laws so profound a respect for the rights of the citizen as he did. We doubt much, whether a single example can be adduced, throughout his long judicial career, of a party or his counsel having complained, or of their having had just cause to complain, of his not allowing them full latitude for the defence of a cause. Indeed, so firmly was his love of justice seated, and so desirous was he to "20 306 ESSAYS MIXED. decide correctly and after a full knowledge of all the facts and circum- stances of a cause, that he listened with greater attention to the argu- ments of young lawyers, if possible, than to those that were more experienced. He did this because he seemed to think that the more feebly a cause was defended, the more it was necessary that the experience of the judge should protect the rights of the suitor, who was not justly chargeable with the deficiencies of his advocate ; since his means might possibly not have enabled him to procure a more skilful one, or he may have thought that since his defender had a license to practise the law he must possess sufficient skill for his protection. He probably also believed that clients are not always competent judges of the legal attainments of the members of the bar. Be this as it may, it is certain that his love of justice, his desire to adhere to the rules of law and to understand the nature of a cause in all its bearings, were equally conspicuous, and inspired a respect for his opinions which will hardly be believed by those who have not witnessed the effects of it. This respect was carried so far that, we believe, for many years previous to his death, none of his decisions in the Circuit Court was ever appealed from, unless he had himself advised the party cast to appeal. It is true that in nearly all important causes he expressed a desire that his opinion might be submitted to the revision of the Supreme Court, and this advice was always given with a sincere desire that it should be followed, although in most instances it was inopera- tive, on account of the settled conviction on the part of the suitors that it would be nugatory. But the confidence of the public in the correctness of the decisions of Judge Marshall arose not only from the causes to which we have already adverted ; but likewise from a firm belief not only of the sound- ness of his judgment, but of his ability and great legal learning, of which he had on many occasions given the most satisfactory and con- clusive proofs. Many persons are still alive, who, acting either as jurors, or at- tracted by the trial of some important cause, have listened for days to the eloquent discourses of the eminent lawyers who usually attended the Circuit Court, without being able to fix their opinions as to the decision which ought to be given in the cause, but who, after hearing the charge of the judge or his opinion on the merits of the controversy, felt the utmost astonishment at the apparent simplicity of the question in dispute, and wondered how they could have been so dull as not to perceive what now appeared so obvious. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Judge Marshall's mind was his great facility in analyzing the most complicated questions, and THE MODEL JUDGE. 307 his talent for presenting them to his auditors in a manner at the same time perspicuous, elegant, and striking. He usually began by laying down some general proposition which could not be' controverted, and then showed, by deductions equally clear and logical, its influence on the decision of the cause. His premises once admitted, the conclusions were irresistible ; and then those who were unwilling to yield their assent to the conclusions were unable to point out any error in the reasoning. The celebrated and eccentric John Eandolph is said to have declared in Congress on some occasion, that he was sure that Chief Justice Marshall had interpreted erroneously a certain question of constitutional law, but he defied any gentleman to point out in what the error consisted. This declaration, if it be true, as we have no doubt, proves the extraordinary force and cogency of his arguments, in which even an open and skilful adversary could detect no flaw. It is the happy privilege of master minds to subdue all difficulties, and to acquire at once, and by a vigorous effort of the will, a knowl-. edge which men of less perfect organizations are often unable to attain by long and laborious study. Of this fact, Chief Justice Mar- shall was a most striking example ; and which, we are sorry to add, had in some instances a pernicious influence on many young men of promise, who were studying and afterwards practised the law in Yirginia. He had acquired early in life a reputation for talents and acquirements, which had uniformly increased in all the employments he had successively occupied. On the floor of the Legislature and of Congress ; in the cabinet, as well as when representing his country abroad in every station he was found not only perfectly qualified to fulfil the duties imposed on him, but able to shed lustre on the post he filled. His sociability and fondness for innocent recreations, which rendered him an agreeable and welcome companion in every circle, induced many persons to believe that he devoted little or no time to study ; and hence it became fashionable among the young men of Richmond and elsewhere to affect a contempt for study, and to rely exclusively on what they were pleased to call their native genius. That they completely misunderstood his character cannot be ques- tioned. Endowed by nature with quick conception and uncommon energy, he engaged in everything he undertook with an ardor which seemed to absorb his faculties for the moment ; but as soon as he had accomplished his purpose, the reaction was in proportion to the pre- vious tension of his mind ; and he was never more cheerful than when he had completed some laborious undertaking, and never more ready to engage anew in serious study than when he had just abandoned some gay and festive conviviality. This organization is not uncommon in men of great intellect, who 308 USSA YS MIXED. seem to require constant occupation of some kind, and derive relaxation from what others would consider as fatiguing. Such minds are like the fertile soil of our Mississippi bottoms, which never stands in need of repose ; but only requires a judicious rotation of crops to keep it forever productive. Mr. Marshall, notwithstanding his great ability, was one of the most modest and unassuming men that we have ever known. There is no doubt that he was perfectly conscious of his worth, for he had seen too much of the tworld, and had been too often brought in con- tact with men of acknowledged talents, not to be aware that he also was a man of merit ; but the standard of perfection which he strove to attain was so elevated that he never for a moment supposed that he had approached it near enough to feel the least emotion of pride. He had also a purer and a loftier motive for his conduct ; a motive inde- pendent of all earthly considerations, and which gave to the whole tenor of his life its harmony and grandeur. He had very early in life examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and the result was a firm conviction of the truth and authenticity of its doctrines, which ever after became the guide of his faith, and the rule which governed his conduct. But instead of inspiring him with the austerity which so often characterizes the professors of religion, and which usually ren- ders them so unamiable in the eyes of men of the world, his faith shed a benignant influence over every action of his life. He looked upon the world as the most glorious effort of Supreme power and benefi- cence, and on his fellow-men as the most wonderful production of creation ; and he viewed their foibles, imperfections, and errors with indulgence and charity, which he felt were infinitely inferior to what even the most perfect being would stand in need of when required to render an account of his acts before the Supreme Euler of the Universe. It is impossible to conceive, without having been an eye-witness, the respect and veneration felt for the Chief Justice in the city of Richmond, which was the place of his habitual residence for a great number of years. This respect, which was a spontaneous homage paid to his virtues and talents, exhibited itself frequently in the most affect- ing and flattering forms. Personally known to every man, woman, and child throughout the city, and usually mentioned by the familiar appellation of " the old Chief," his appearance in the streets, which occurred every day, was sure to excite attention. This attention was, however, never importunate or offensive, but mingled with the affec- tionate regard and reverence which the ancient patriarchs are said to have inspired. Passengers never failed to salute him with respect ; noisy disputants ceased their clamors on his approach, and the very THE MODEL JUDGE. 309 children stopped their amusements to take a look at the venerable old man, who continued his road apparently unconscious that his presence was even heeded. The same, and even more marked attention was paid to him on the bench, not only by the bar, but by the public ; and when he uttered any opinion, no matter on what subject, there was no necessity for commanding silence, which was the instantaneous result of an effort on his part to speak, and which was so complete, that a stranger, transported to the scene, might have imagined that his audi- tors had momentarily been deprived of speech as well as motion. Having fulfilled throughout his long and useful life every duty both public and private, he departed for another and a better world, much too soon for the numerous and affectionate friends whom he left to mourn his departure. But the measure of his glory was full. Hav- ing nobly discharged every debt which any man could owe his friends, his family, and his country, he left a name imperishable in the annals of the land which gave him birth, and in whose service he had con- stantly employed the lofty faculties with which he was endowed. We must believe that the Supreme Being, having no longer any use for his ministry on earth, released the imprisoned spirit, and as a reward for its toils permitted it to wing its flight to those bright and happy regions, for which it had long panted, and where alone it could expect to receive an adequate reward. Among that brilliant galaxy of stars Avhich adorns the legal firma- ment the Cokes, the Hales, the Mansfields, and the Eldons none will shine with- a more resplendent, or purer, or more enduring lustre than that of the illustrious JOHN MARSHALL. OTJK ILLUSIONS. BY WILLIAM H. HOLCOMBE. [WILLIAM HENRY HOLCOMBE was born in Lynchburg, Va., May 29, 1825. In youth he pursued a scientific course at Washington College, Lexington, Va. ; and in earliest manhood he took his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. His first three years of professional life were spent, as the partner of his father, in Madison, Ind. Thence he removed to Cincinnati, 0., where he married, and where he became converted to Swedenborgianism and to Homeopathy. Having removed South in 1852, he resided in Natchez, Miss., for five years, and in Waterproof, La., for seven years. In 1864 he settled in New Orleans. In 1869, on the death of two of his children, he wrote Our Children in Heaven, which a great critic has characterized as " a work of genius, sanctified by sorrow." In 1875 he was elected President of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, and in 1878 chairman of the Homoeopathic Yellow Fever Commission. In 1853 he published The Scientific Basis of Homeopathy ; in 1860, Essays on the Spirit- ual Philosophy of African Slavery ; in 1861, Poems; in 1870. The Sexes Here and Hereafter, also In Both Worlds, a romance; in 1871, The Other Life; in 1872, Southern Voices; in 1880, The Lost Truths of Christianity; in 1881, The End of the World; in 1889, The New Life ; and in 1890, Helps to Spiritual Growth. Of his novel, A Mystery of New Orleans (1891), Dr. Garth Wilkinson, of London, says : "Dr. Holcombe has given us a masterpiece of fiction. This book is an achievement for the English-speaking peoples, and sooner or later must go round the world." His latest and posthumous work, The Truth about Homoeopathy, is a valuable contribution to professional liter- ature. Dr. Holcombe died in New Orleans, November 28, 1893.] THOR, the Scandinavian hero, once had three tasks assigned him, which, glorying in his strength, he regarded with contempt. He was to drain a tankard of water, to wrestle with an old woman, and to race with Loke, the runner. He failed in all three. He could not drain the tankard, he could not throw the old woman, he could not eclipse the racer. " What illusions are these ? " indignantly said Thor. The tankard of Avater was the ocean. Who can exhaust it ? The old woman was Time. Who can contend with it ? Loke, the runner, was Thought. Who can outstrip it ? Thus our ancestors, the old Norsemen, taught the great transcen- dental truth, almost forgotten by their descendants, that the evidence of the senses is not to be trusted, and the profoundest mysteries lie concealed under the simplest things. We are surrounded by illusions from the cradle to the grave. We pass from one dream to another, from one air-castle to another. We begin with the illusions of the senses, of which we can never OUR ILLUSIONS. 311 fully divest ourselves until we return to the dust from which we were taken. To these are superadded in childhood and youth the illusions of the imagination, which may change their forms but not their character. In mature life we enter upon the illusions of the under- standing, and pass on to our graves hugging to our breasts a bundle of opinions and beliefs, not one of which, it may be, can stand '.the crucial tests of truth. Thus we live and die in an atmosphere of sen- sory delusions, self-deceptions, false opinions, superstitions, and concrete errors, ever accumulating from age to age. The fundamental cause of our illusions, which are piled one upon another like a tower of Babel aspiring toward heaven, is ignorance ignorance of God, of our own souls, and of our relations to our environ- ment and hence a false interpretation of phenomena. We have lost the inner light. We have turned from the Creator, and see only the creation. We have fallen from the centre which is God down into the circumferences and surfaces, where nothing can be seen in its true relations, and where we burrow like the mole or creep like the serpent. The uninstructed senses tell us that the earth is a solid, immovable mass, the centre of all things, over which a blue sky, with a panorama of creeping sun and stars, is hung in adornment. The truth is that our globe, perpetually moving and vibrating in every atom of its structure, is revolving upon its axis a thousand miles an hour, whirl- ing along upon so enormous an orbit around the sun, and at the same time swept away with the sun and the planets Avith inconceivable velocity upon some vaster orbit through the sidereal spaces, in the midst of which it floats like a speck of dust upon the ocean. Such is a type of the relations which exist between our feeble conceptions and the realities of things. We look around us, and we say that the world is full of sounds and colors, which reveal to our senses the wonderful qualities of the objects about us. It is all an illusion, a false appearance. 'No vibration of the atmosphere becomes a sound until it enters the auditory apparatus of a living creature. No vibration of the luminous ether becomes a color until it strikes upon the brain of men or animals. The world in itself is soundless and colorless. The sounds, the colors, the touch, the taste, the smell, the sensation, the life, are all within ourselves. We know nothing whatever of the world without us, except from the changing states of our own spirit. Condillac, the prince of materialists, exclaimed : " Though we should soar into the heavens, though we should sink into the abyss, we never go out of ourselves ; it is always our own thought that we perceive." 312 ESS A YS MIXED. " The materialist," says Emerson, " secure in the certainty of his sensations, mocks at fine-spun theories, at star-gazers and dreamers, and believes that his life is solid, that he at least takes nothing for granted, but knows where he stands and what he does. Yet how easy it is to shoAV him that he also is a phantom walking and working among phantoms, and that he need only ask a question or two beyond his daily questions to discover that his solid universe grows dim and impalpable to his sense." We say that the nerves of our body feel pain. It is an illusion. Sensation is the consciousness of an impression. Nerves are conduct- ors, but they know nothing of the impressions they conduct : no more than the wire knows of the telegraphic message sent through it. Cut the nerves, and no pain can be felt in the extremities. Then no pain ever was felt in the foot or in the hand. Ah ! you say, it is the brain that feels. No; the nerve centres of the brain have no sensation. They may be cut or stuck in any manner without the victim having the slightest consciousness of it. Where, then, is the pain ? Not in the body at all, but in the spiritual substance which pervades and is concealed within the body. The outcome of this line of thought is the fact that the body has no life, no sensations, no properties of its own. It is merely the spirit of man emblematically represented . in flesh and blood. It is a piano played upon by an invisible performer. It is a chess-board in which the complicated game of life is carried on by unseen hands. What is true of the body, is equally true of nature and all our external environ- ments. They are not created from without, but, as Emerson says, they are pushed forward from within ourselves, as the bark and leaves are pushed forward from the inner substance of the tree. The thoughts of God are externalized in the objects, laws, and phenomena of the universe. This idealistic interpretation of man and nature is not novel. It is venerable with antiquity. It originated in the Garden of Eden, when man, without effort, had dominion over all things, and without experiment knew the qualities of every object presented to his eye. It is the golden key which opens the mysterious depths of the Word of God. It pervades all poetry and art like a subtle perfume. It irradiates the path of philosophy, from the Oriental sages and Plato and the Gnostics, down through Spinoza and Swedenborg and Berkeley, to Hegel and Emerson in our own day. It does not pre- sent itself as a new claimant for the mental throne of the world, but as the original, long unacknowledged, but rightful owner of it. It has been recently discovered that this ancient mine of thought is full of treasures, which can be utilized in the most extraordinary OUR ILLUSIONS. 313 manner. It is claimed that the absolute truths which can be drawn from this idealistic philosophy are the secret springs which control the secret forces of the universe. They can be deployed for the preven- tion and cure of disease, for the spiritual renovation of character, for the suppression of evil and the evolution of good, and for the intro- duction of light, peace, and joy into the hearts and homes of the peo- ple. It is religion idealized and vitalized. Instead of being illusory, it is the cure for all illusions. These enormous pretensions will be scouted by the materialist and skeptic, and long rejected by the eccle- siastic and the physician; but all must eventually surrender to the logic of facts accomplished. How charming are the illusions of the nursery! the miniature world in which our larger world is pictured and predicted ! The babe, ignorant of self, taking its own image in the glass for another babe ; a performance we constantly repeat, for nature is a mirror in which we see only ourselves and yet mistake it for something else. The babe, ignorant of space, reaches out its little hand to clutch the moon. We, conquerors of space, have touched the moon and the stars and the constellations with our eyes, and with that vast artificial eye the telescope which we have constructed to aid our sight. Peep into the nursery and see yourselves, excited and hurried over the idle game of life. The little mother solicitous for her suffering doll ! The little housekeeper worried over her tin kitchen ! The noisy little soldier with his gun and drum ! The little fireman racing with his toy engine ! The little lover, looking with dim foreshadow- ings of sentiment into his lady's eyes! Their joys, their sorrows, their disappointments, are as keen as ours; and to superior intelli- gences our greatest troubles may seem to have no more real signifi- cance than the wail of a child over a lost cake or a broken toy. O youth ! happy transition between childhood and manhood, enchanting aurora of life! What soul from whose hearing "the horns of Elfland faintly blowing " have not died forever, can forget its sweet illusions, its wild ambitions, its incommunicable longings, its transports and its tears ? " Tears from the depths of some divine despair." How readily the little girl clothes herself with illusion as a drapery, and experiences the whole range of feminine thought and sentiment, from Cinderella in the ashes to Cinderella at the ball ! How the little boy gazes with Kobinson Crusoe at the footprint of the savage in the sand, and trembles with Christian at the sight of the lions in the path ! In the dreams, the imaginations, the expectations of youth, what hope, what faith, what audacity ! The young statesman declaims to ap- 314 ESSAYS MIXED. plauding senates which have not yet assembled; the young poet, Avho has not yet sung, listens to his songs as they echo round the world ; the coming soldier keeps step to inaudible drums ; and the born sailor boy hears in his mountain solitudes the music of the sea. And here it may be supposed that I ought to mention "love's young dream" as the most wonderful and beautiful illusion of all. But I cannot do it the supreme injustice to call it by such a name. Love is the sole reality in a world of illusions and shadows. First born of God, it is itself the breath of heaven. Nor have lovers, or poets, or art, or music uttered the whole truth about woman, the pearl of innocence, the rose of joy, the light, the life, the wonder of the world. It is a common opinion among men, that as we advance in life we gradually get rid of our illusions. Education, experience, observation, and reason are supposed to eliminate errors, to separate the unreal from the real, and to establish us at last in the absolute truth. It is all a mistake. Education has delivered us in part from the illusions of the senses. We learn that what seems the course of the sun across the sky is caused by the rotation of the earth. We learn that what seems the blue dome above us is not a dome at all, nor is it blue. But education upon wrong lines of thought only creates, fosters, and con- firms our illusions. Then experience, observation, and reason go almost for nothing ; for, having assumed that we are in the possession of truth, we construe everything into the support of our position. Nothing is more common than to see a man rooted and grounded in false persuasions, impervious to a new idea, incapable of progress or change of opinion, live in the perpetual illusion that he is free from all prejudice, and a candid and liberal investigator of truth. No ! our illusions thicken and deepen and strengthen as we grow older, and darken the evening of life with innumerable shadows. The illusions of egotism and self-conceit, the illusions of pride and family, the illusions of wealth and pleasure, the illusions of ambition and power, the illusions of belief and opinion, are all strange lights, which lead us astray from the true paths, and so confuse our minds with their mingled lights and shadows, that at last we know not where we are going. Illusion is the result of ignorance; a wrong interpretation of phenomena, either natural or spiritual. When the traveller in the desert sees the wonderful mirage in the distance, and leaves the beaten path in search of its green fields and shining waters, he is lost forever. So when human beings construe falsely the problem of life, and start out with wrong motives and wrong aspirations in their pursuit of happiness, they are soon blinded by illusions from which deliverance OUR ILLUSIONS. 315 is exceedingly difficult. They look upon the wine when it is red and showeth its color in the cup, but they cannot see that at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. They yield to the gambling spirit in the illusion of vast and speedy gains, but discern not that the end thereof is deep dissatisfaction, poverty, and disgrace. They listen to the voice of the siren, but the steps which lead down to hell are hidden from their eyes. They rush headlong in the mad pursuit of wealth, constantly contemplating with renewed hope the . supreme satisfaction which its possession will give, until they suddenly hear the voice of God: "Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee ! " It is strange that our illusions should seem to be so real, objective, and permanent. The victim of delirium tremens hides from the assassin who is in close pursuit of him, or recoils in terror from the serpent which is springing upon him. King Eichard, starting up from his vision of those whom he had murdered, falls upon his knees in abject horror : " KING RICHARD. Radcliffe! I fear, I fear! RADCLIFFE. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows! KING RICHARD. Now, by the Apostle Paul, shadows to-night Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers." Just as unreal, just as illusory, as these things, are all the false opinions and beliefs, the self-deceptions, superstitions, and concrete errors of the human race. See the long caravan of pilgrims moving in the shadows of the evening of life. What care-worn faces, what wrinkled brows, what dejected airs, what weary feet, what aching hearts! Their little schemes of vanity, and conquest, and pleasure, and self-aggrandizement have fallen to the ground. Life has been full of wrecked hopes, and quenched aspirations, and cruel disappointments. They have lost or buried almost everything that was dear to them. If they had known the truth, and the truth had made them free indeed, they would greatly rejoice ; for they have lost nothing at all, and have buried only their illusions. The crowning illusion of life is death. This object of terror, which casts such a deep shadow upon our souls, is itself a shadow. We tremble in the shadow of shadow! One day, those who love you will stand around the tenement of clay you once occupied, and will say : " Our friend is dead." From the invisible side you will answer back : " It is not so ; I am not dead. I have lost nothing. I have gained all. Freed from the illusions of time and space, I live forever." 316 ESS A YS MIXED. In all this false interpretation of phenomena, this commingling of lights and shadows, this confusion of truth and falsity, we are led to ask, Is there anything real ? Is there anything genuine, living, un- changeable, and eternal ? Is there any fixed centre from which we can move, with certainty that the circumferences will not slip from our feet or vanish into air ? Yes ; the centre of all life is God. The fixed truth from which we must reason to all truths is, that the goodness of God, and the wisdom of God which flows from and corresponds to it, are infinite, omnipres- ent, and eternal. All that is in God, that flows from God, and reveals or manifests God, is real and indestructible. All that denies God, or counterfeits him, or contradicts and opposes him, is unreal, fantastic, and illusory a mere lie, which has no substance, no reality, but is only a statement of something which does not exist. So far as the goodness and wisdom of God are in you, to that degree are you good and wise ; to that degree are you a child of God, an image and likeness of God, a joint heir with Christ, to that degree are you real and immortal, and subject to no illusions whatever. The treasures of heaven are laid up within you. They cannot be taken from you. They do not rust or vanish. They are your own, and sooner or later you will realize their possession " For everything which is thine own, Flying in air or pent in stone, Shall rive the hills and swim the sea, And, like thy shadow, follow thee." And now we are ready to contemplate one of the greatest and most disastrous illusions under which you labor ; one which has the strongest hold upon you, and from which you can hardly by the greatest effort rid yourselves. This is the illusion : That the self which you know and feel, that thinking, reasoning, working, strug- gling, worrying personality of yours, is your real self and all that there is of you. Of course, you say, it is my real self. What else can there be of me? The prodigal son, when he was in the Valley of Humiliation, feed- ing upon the husks which the swine did eat, thought he was in his real selfhood. But the "Word says : " When he came to himself, he said, I will arise and go to my father." When the Lord cast the evil spirits out of the poor maniac on the mountain, he was found sitting at the feet of Jesus, " clothed and in his right mind." The prodigal passed from the apparent, external self, into the real and spiritual self. When the evil spirits were cast out of the maniac, the OUR ILLUSIONS. 317 " right mind," or true spiritual life, which had only been concealed by their presence, came to the surface and made itself apparent. We are all double. We have an external life of which we are now conscious, and an internal life, or true self, of which we seldom know anything here, but of which we will be conscious hereafter. This interior life is the kingdom of heaven within us, the life of Christ in the soul. It is that which is born of God the new man. It never sinned, it never suffered ; it is immortal. We realize it, or come into a consciousness of it, by faith in Christ. Faith is " the evidence of things not seen." It does not create that interior life ; it simply reveals it to us. No matter how many evil things yourself or others may say against that external self, which seems to be the all of you. It is born in sin, conceived in iniquity ; it is sensual, deceitful, devilish. Acknowl- edge it all. So it is. Then say boldly : It is not I ; that which you speak of is the false, deluded, and illusory part of me, which feeds upon husks, hides in the tombs on the mountains of illusion, and wanders through the world amid a thousand confused and doleful experiences. I repudiate this false self. I lay it down to take up another and higher self. When I lose this shadow I shall find the substance. The fact is, we are lost children born amid royal splendors, who have wandered off from our Father's palace and have forgotten it, and have not yet been led into a recognition of our royal rights and inheritance. When we turn from God, we do not see the Creator but the crea- tion. The selfhood then projects before us its immense shadow, in which innumerable illusions are engendered. These illusions, in turn, beget false interpretations of God, of man, of nature, and of the whole problem of life. But when we turn our faces toward the Divine sun, the shadow of the selfhood with all its brood of phantasms falls behind us, and we interpret all things correctly ; for we see them in the light of God. AN OFFICER'S DUTIES IN TIME OF WAR.* BY T. G. T. BEAUREGARD. [PIERRE GUSTAVE TOUTANT BEAUREGARD was born in St. Bernard Parish, La. t May 28, 1818. He died in New Orleans, February 20, 1893. His career, especially as a commander of the Confederate Army, is too well known to need repetition. He is included among Louisiana's distinguished authors, in virtue of his Commentary on the Campaign and Battle of Manassas, and his Summary of the Art of War (1891). Pro- fessor Alcee Fortier has characterized the literary style of these works as " mathemati- cally precise."] WHEN an officer is on active service in the field, everything con- nected with the daily life of his men should be an object of constant attention ; no detail is beneath him. He must not think the arms and ammunition his most important charge, and that if they be in fighting order he need not trouble himself much about the rest. The arms are the fighting weapons, but the soldier is the machine which wields them ; and it is to him to clothing his back, and feed- ing his belly, and looking after his health and comfort that the great attention is due. The arms and ammunition must of course be always in perfect order, but they are only required when in contact with an enemy. The natural condition of a soldier on service is the line of march. He Avill have at least twenty days of marching to one of fighting ; and he has to be preserved in health and comfort during those twenty days ; otherwise his musket and pouch would do small service on the twenty-first day. An officer should go among his men and himself look after their comfort. No fear of their losing respect for him because he does so. ' At the end of a march he should never feel at liberty to attend to his own wants until he has seen his men engaged in cooking their meals. The rapidity with which a regiment has its fires lighted after a march, and meals cooked, may be regarded as a test of the attention paid by the officers to the comfort of their men. Similarly before a march, an officer should take care that none of his men leave their encampment or bivouac without as good a meal as circumstances permit. As regards equipment for the field, an officer must have as few *[ Summary of the Art of War: G. P. Putnam's Sons, publishers, New York and London.] P. G. T. BEAUREGAR AN OFFICER'S DUTIES IN TIME OF WAR. 319 wants as possible ; and he should carefully study the art of putting up the articles it is necessary he should possess in the smallest possible compass. The line of march must be considered as the natural condi- tion of a soldier, and everything regulated with that view. An officer charged with the arrangement of any military move- ment or operation should on no account trust to the intelligence of subordinates who are to execute it. He should anticipate and provide against every misconception or stupidity it is possible to foresee, and give all the minute directions he would think necessary if he knew the officer charged with the execution of the operation to be the most stupid of mankind. No amount of disapprobation of his general's plans can justify an officer in canvassing those plans with others, and openly finding fault with them, A great many young gentlemen (and old gentlemen, too, for that matter) set up for generals, and habitually ridicule the dis- positions of their superiors. Such a practice is insubordinate and mis- chievous in the highest degree ; the soldiers acquire the habit from those whose duty it is to set an example ; they lose that confidence in their general which is one of the principal elements of success in mili- tary operations, and infinite mischief results. MAGICIANS AND FEATHER DUSTERS. BY JULIA K. (WETHERILL) BAKER. [JULIA KEIM (WETHERILL) BAKER was born in Woodville, Miss., July 18, 1858. She received her education in Philadelphia, Penn. Her husband, Mr. Marion A. Baker, is the literary editor of the New Orleans Times Democrat ; and for the past six years she has been employed as literary critic and editorial writer on the staff of that journal. She is a contributor to Lippincotfs Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the Century, the Critic, et als.] To the eyes of a certain traveller in a tropical land, the long lines of palm-trees looked like row after row of feather dusters. To another they seemed weird magicians, hoary and solemn, grown old, immeasurably old, in all mysterious knowledge, and conning their strange secrets over as the sun shone upon them and the wind passed by. In the one simile we mark something smart and not inapt, the glibness of superficial observation, and the imperturbability which is never afraid to fasten its little price-mark upon anything. Such an observer goes upon his journeys of discovery in an express train, and gathers material for his notes through the car-window. If any shallowness or inaccuracy of comment any omission of details that help to explain the whole is the result, we must blame the rate of speed. It is a fault common enough in our hastening times. As regards the other comparison, it is an expression of that imagination which has a vision of its own. The inward source of living light vivifies the weed, the stone, the wayside pool ; for the aspect of the world depends less upon the things seen than upon the one who sees them. Doubtless the ancient maker of fable and legendary lore was a songless poet whose voice the rude age silenced who could not bend resignedly to the thought that there were no miracles or marvels, and therefore set to work to create some. It was a rebellion, a pathetic revolt, against living in such a prosaic world. If he was never entirely successful in persuading himself of the reliability of his own inventions, he derived a sort of pleasure from noting the credulity of his fellows. It was something, at least, to make others believe. And, after all, his was not so inexcusable a falsification as the rigid moralist may suppose. " Who can foretell to-morrow ? " He lived in hope's land of promise. MAGICIANS AND FEATHER DUSTERS. 321 His eyes never wearied of watching for the haunting naiad of the source. The dragon-fly shimmering with gauzy wings upon the brink might be the forerunner of the fairy-folk. When the tree tossed its boughs and whispered to the wandering breeze, he started about in the eager hope that he might catch a glimpse of the hidden dryad. The glitter of green and gold in the fence-corner must be a fay snared in the spider's mesh and giving battle with his tiny blade. A sudden pattering over the dead leaves of the woodland meant the scurrying feet of trolls, hastening away in terrified remembrance of the days when Thor was wont to throw his hammer at them. Yonder undu- lating line across the pool was not the passing of a water-snake, but a kelpie. The sound of piping from the yellowed summer grass might be the shrilling of elfin trumpets. That sudden gleam of scarlet among the weeds was not the flaunting of some poor wild-flower, but the red cap of a fairy messenger on his way to court. And as this slave and master of fancy continued to multiply marvels about him, all the more devoutly did the simple folk believe. Mentally incapable themselves of a like creative energy of imagina- tion, it could not occur to them to suspect another of possessing such a, gift. Thus his supremacy was established, and they came to him for intelligence of the unseen world, whose mysteries they strained their dull eyes in vain to see. He it was who feigned sleep in the magic ring, and ran home breathless at cock-crow, to tell the gaping neighbors of the brave things he had beheld. Hiding near the cross- roads, upon the stroke of twelve, he spied the fairy procession wend- ing along the highway, headed by the queen herself, mounted on a snow-white palfrey that moved to the music of golden chimings. He heard the wood-sorrel ringing its silver bells to summon the sprites to their nightly revels, but not the shriek of the mandrake plucked up by the roots for that meant madness. The wandering fires of the will-o'-the-wisps lighted up an unknown path he was fain to follow how vainly, he scarce whispered even to his own heart. He parleyed with Eobin Goodfellow, and watched the flight of witches through the murk of the dead hours. When some villager disappeared in the depths of the great gloomy forest and was no more seen, the man of the second sight spoke mystic things, as the light burned blue, and his listeners huddled around him, shuddering b e t w een delight and terror, of mortals lured away to the land of Faery, changed there to birds or beasts, or wrapped in a magic for- getfulness of home and friends. They brought their dreams to him, and he unriddled them, being wise in signs, omens, and portents. He heard the death-watch tick, and knew to a certainty which way the flickering of the corpse-candle pointed. 21 322 ESSA YS MIXED. Treading fearlessly the demesne of the graveyard, his only regret was that the ghostly occupants did not squeak and gibber at his will. He warned his followers that wise men will not stir abroad on Mid- summer Night, when " the world goes a-madding," and told them of weird rites upon which mortal eyes may not gaze unblasted. When one fell sick and wasted beyond the help of the healing juices ex- pressed from herb or flower, he whispered of the casting of spells by those in league with evil spirits. If his inventions proved fatal, now and then, to some poor mumbling goody, we must believe that he was never among the active persecutors of wizardly folk. If he started the hue and cry, it was in all innocence ; for he loved mysteries too well to wish to abolish even the least of them. Sometimes, it is to be supposed, he fell a martyr to his magic creed that he scarce believed himself. The superstitious feelings he had evoked turned traitor to him: his own hand, it may be said, lighted the fagots about his funeral pile, and he perished in smoke and flame, for the sake of those pathetic imaginings with which he had tried to enliven the dull colors of every-day life. The German story of the youth who travelled to learn what shivering means, might be taken as an allegorical allusion to a certain human anxiety to be thrilled. The man of second-sight is still among us, and to-day, as ever, he finds it hard to reconcile himself to commonplace conditions. But modern thought has somewhat clipped his wings ; his flights never range so far or wildly as of old. Though he has not relinquished the secret hope that each day may bring forth a miracle, he has grown wise enough not to confess it. Taught wariness by the mockery of practical people, if one finds him hunting for elves in the grass he avers that he is pursuing the study of botany. To him a telescope is only an excuse for reading his fortune in the stars. He learns the jargon of the market-place, and speaks it as glibly as the best. But there is always something which betrays him. He has a trick of forgetting his surroundings until some ruder jostling than usual startles him awake, and he stands all adaze, with the tattered fila- ments of the dream still hanging about him. Out of the ruins of old beliefs he has striven to build himself a cloudy city of refuge, whither he may flee when the outside toil and strain become too harsh. The child part of his nature has not died. Vain is the effort to console him with the "fairy-tales of science." What he wants is the unexplainable, the unprovable, the legends that taught him of a kingdom where love and youth and beauty are immortal. Is it lost forever, that wonderland to which he sometimes gropes his way back through dreams ? He seems to hear the myriad MAGICIANS AND FEATHER DUSTERS. 323 murmurs of an invisible host attendant upon his steps. The sounds of the pulsing darkness, the sigh of reeds by the stream, the cry of tides that come and go, the viewless wind that bodiless voice of rage and wild laughter and infinite grieving all speak to him as of yore, but the clew to their signification has been snapped off short. What means that shudder before the mystery of infinite beauty ? and what the sudden leap in the heart, as of some captive thing straining at the leash ? Though the dreamer's philosophy bears about the same relation to the sober business of existence as astrology to astronomy, and orni- thomancy to ornithology, and he is not an active helper forward of progress, he has his uses. However light his weight may be, it is needed to preserve the balance of power. His influence prevents the world from becoming hopelessly ugly and brutal and matter-of-fact. His year is full of days that may not be forgotten, marked in memory by the dawn-bright blush of April peach boughs, or the long lights wavering across fields of ripened wheat. The pageant of the seasons is his: autumn's fire-dropping torch, the ghostly silence of winter, summer revels that die in a dazzle of rose and gold, or peaceful even- ings of the springtime, when twilight steals pensively over the dew- wet sward, and one great, bright star points the hour midway between the zenith and the horizon. If we take him from his green fields to the clamorous town, he is no whit poorer. In the foundry fires he hears the chant of singing flame. He notes how the glow of the setting sun transmutes the vol- umes of smoke that roll from the furnace chimneys into a hundred metallic tints and lustres. He sees something more than bricks and mortar. And when the night is full of echoing footsteps, and the vast rumor of life comes to him as to one who stands upon the edge of a storm, he feels that the secret of humanity has touched him in passing, and something inarticulate strives within him for speech. Because he cannot endure that anything should be barren and desolate, he is always covering the arid places of the world with the blossoms of his fancy, and heaping flowers high upon the graves of buried hopes. He can find green grass and fresh water pools even in the infinite thirst of the desert, where the sand-column soars above the burning plain. If we dispossess him of the earth, he smiles and paints the empty sky with the mirage of his dreams. Let those who will preach their gloomy creed, that " heaven is a gas, God a force, the second world a grave ; " death to him means not dust and dull extinc- tion and the conqueror worm, but the flight of an upward-winging soul. Like the bird of night, he can " sing darkling." He needs no day-spring, for an inward impulse bids the song break forth. Not of 324 ESSA YS MIXED. his own will, but through some hidden instinct, rises the strain potent to " witch the heart out of things evil." It is a wandering voice of poesy, giving us back the lost tears and laughter of youth, the thrill of dawn, and the immortal pang of love. Is it but an idle dream a vision vain as bright ? What is life, at best ? Man, surrounded by terrific forces which may destroy him at any moment, plays ignorantly among them like a child, and is some- times pleased at fancying himself their master. To-morrow may disabuse him of the flattering idea ; but still the valorous pygmy con- tinues to rear his puny defences an ant-hill against an avalanche, a cobweb against a whirlwind. Can all his intelligence check the flood or stay the tempest ? Can his cunning prevail against the warfare of blind and enraged Titans ? When the hour of destruction strikes, his utmost wisdom will carry him little farther than the folly of the estray from dreamland, who calls those mighty powers giants and sorcerers and magicians. Lippincott's Magazine. QUEEN ANNE FKONTS AND MARY ANNE BACKS. BY MARTHA R. FIELD. [MARTHA REINHARD (SMALLWOOD) FIELD well known by her pen name of " Catherine Cole "was born in Lexington, Mo., May 25, 1855. Her marriage to Charles W. Field was solemnized in San Francisco, and three years afterwards upon the death of her husband she removed to New Orleans and secured a position on the Times. In 1881 she became associated with the Picayune, to which she still contributes. Her "Corre- spondence Club " in that journal has enlisted her best energies. She writes ably, brightly, and sympathetically upon most subjects that are of interest to her sex,] ONCE upon a time it was my fortune to live across the way from a house that had had a Queen Anne front built onto its plain Mary Anne back. At that time I was not very familiar with legitimate Queen Anne architecture, and I believed the new front on my neigh- bors' house to be pure Queen Anne because they told me so, and they had been so informed by their architect. I am the more inclined to believe that that front was Queen Anne because, nowadays, any style, whether imitated in bedsteads, sideboards, or houses, that cannot be otherwise accounted for, is known by the merest tyro to say nothing of toadies to be Queen Anne. For years and years my neighbors had lived, wholesomely, happily, and comfortably, in one of those big, bleak, angular, and inartistic residences, with a gallery up stairs and down, a hall ditto, a wing in which were located the servants' rooms and cooking apartments. There was not a room that was not made sacred from its sweet associa- tions with the births, deaths, and marriages that are the peaceful prog- ress and fate of every family. All the rooms had their gentle ghosts, or held, like perfume in an incense bowl, the fragrant memories of laughter and of tears. But the girls grew up into young ladyhood, the lads were in demand for germans and opera parties, the sturdy father prospered in his business, and the upshot of it all was that the old house was moved back and aBsthetic carpenters soldered on to it a gorgeous, gabled, shingled anomaly that for purposes of identification was referred to as Queen Anne. The new front was mighty fine. It held a library, a suite of drawing-rooms, a reception-room, a music- room, a dining-room, a breakfast-room, and a feAv accessories in the way of cloak-rooms and lavatories ; so much, in fact, that it has always been a wonder to me why the architect did not also transmogrify and 326 ESSA YS MIXED. fresco the old original homestead, instead of tacking it on as a con- stant, plain, weatherboarded reminder of days that are dead. Nothing in New Orleans was finer than that Queen Anne front, and often in the cool of the evening we used to promenade down the street just to admire its artistic fagade and study in our ignorance its intricate curiosities of architecture. But as we walked home again we were invariably brought cheek by jowl, as it were, with the plain, old, dear and familiar two-story rear building ; and somehow, as the result of a joke, we fell into the way of calling it the house with the Queen Anne front and the Mary Anne back. But it took me a long while to get used to the incongruity. I did not find it easy to adjust the Queen Anne with the Mary Anne. As I passed from the gabled, aBsthetic front to the plain, rain-beaten, weather-worn rear building, now joined on to Queen Anne by a sort of mediaeval lancet-windowed link, I could not but be reminded of a corpse dressed only in front, and who, on resurrection day, will be obliged to persistently back against the pearly walls of the new Jeru- salem in order to hide its deficiencies of costume, for which, poor thing, it is not at all responsible. Or else, when I took the street-car and observed that gorgeous Queen Anne front bulging so importantly on the grand thoroughfare, when I heard people exclaiming over it and admiring it, I could not help for the life of me a sensation of discomfort akin to that experi- enced by the gentleman who complained that he could not live unless the toes of his recently amputated foot were properly straightened out. At last the dismembered limb was unearthed, it was found out the toe really needed straightening, the member was reburied, and the ex- owner had no more trouble. And just so it seemed to me. I never could rest easy in the enjoyment of my neighbors' grandeur until that Mary Anne back was renovated to a proper accordance with the Queen Anne front. I think I wasted a great deal of time over this architectural incon- gruity before it occurred to me that a more serious fault, and far more irremediable, is to be found in people who are permanently afflicted with a sort of mental and moral disproportion, that can be explained by saying they are closely alike to my neighbors' house with the Queen Anne front and the Mary Anne back. Who has not been amused to see a swell carriage at the front door of a swell residence, while an untidy, broken swill-barrel, a disgrace to any neighborhood, stood at the back ? Who has not seen the mistress in a lace tea-gown lolling on the porch of the Queen Anne front, while the slatternly, uncared-for poor relation worked in the ashes under the porch of the Mary Anne back ? QUEEN ANNE FRONTS AND MARY ANNE BACKS. 32? Who has not seen the high art young ladies in tennis gowns play- ing on the lawn before the Queen Anne front, while their ragged lingerie flopped on the clothes-line behind the dreary portals of the Mary Anne back ? Often we have known the hired society hot-house flowers of the florist to come in at the Queen Anne front door, while the unpaid maker of ball-dresses, or the hungry beggar for a slice of bread, went unrewarded from the gate in the shadow of the Mary Anne rear. Who has not heard of the chicken salad and champagne punch reception in the Queen Anne drawing-room ? but who hears of the conjugal quarrel in the Mary Anne bed-room, or of the corn-beef and yellow grits repasts that follow the reception in the Mary Anne breakfast-room ? I have heard of a Queen Anne front and Mary Anne back sort of a lady whose only tea-gown is reserved for reception days, who only uses her nice table-linen when company comes, who even covers up her toilet ornaments on all save her reception days. But I have also heard of the Queen Anne front Christian, who does all his praying in church ; the Queen Anne front philanthropist, who only gives when the gift is certain to be published ; of the Queen Anne clergyman, who only has time to be socially intimate with rich parish- ioners ; and of the Queen Anne socialist, who publishes a fine equality and practises a close exclusiveness, and who snobbishly will have noth- ing to do with people who are not rich and fashionable. Now and again there is put forth by some sharp publisher a book of the biographies of persons of the Queen Anne front and Mary Anne back turn of mind. Each individual writes his own sketch, anony- mously, of course, or if he does not he gets some friend or relative to do the slavering for him. The result is a series of remarkable super- latives of adulation. Not long since a lady who writes exhibited to me a gushing biographical sketch of herself, cut from a magazine and pasted in her scrap-book, but which, unfortunately, I knew she had written herself. Who has not heard of that jovial, beneficent employer who talks of his employees as his "people," who loves them so dearly in public, but has it in for them for every small fault they commit, and is cer- tain, in the end, in a sly, subtle way, to get even with them ; who sets a spy over them, and never forgives them if surprised into any mani- festation of individuality or any expression of independence ? I have known a preacher to talk beautifully of the great, loving heart that should make a man Christ-like, and I have known the same preacher to shut the door on a foolish, friendless girl gone wrong. I have known a philanthropist to spend six weeks getting other people 328 ESSA YS MIXED. to give money to a charity concern, yet send a little child asking bread empty-handed from his gate. I have seen a missionary to the South Sea islanders draw her petticoats away from the clean, guinea-blue gown of an old mammy, hobbling in one of our street-cars. I have seen a rich toady, whose carriage was at the daily disposal of her rich minister's wife, refuse five cents to an old woman who wanted it to go to the poorhouse. On to the plain, modest, everyday-looking Maty Anne structures of daily life, how many people are there who build Queen Anne fronts of stucco and Swiss shingles in which to house sham fashion, sham elegance, sham tastes, sham philanthropies, sham virtues, and sham enterprises. Of these the foremost are the people who scrimp, save, and con- trive to get away for the summer, not into the woods, nor on the sands where the salt waters are, but away, anywhere, to some fashion- able hotel, full of the two types of society, the truly fashionable and the rich, and the people who wish to be thought truly fashionable and rich. The old grinding life at home, lived patiently for the sake of this annual outing, is forgotten ; they are now in occupancy of the Queen Anne front. All is dark and lights are out in that Mary Anne back where the ball-dresses were dyed, the bonnets made over, the servants stood off, and the bills disputed. Mrs. Tomshoddy, who goes away for the summer, refers to her maid, her housegirl, her dining-room servant, and her cook, but for- gets to explain that all these are comprised in the one sad little slat- tern who sleeps in a closet and really does the work of five. Mrs. Hiflyer intimately discusses her friends, the Flats, who share expenses with her at home, and no one guesses it is her way of saying she takes boarders. Now, the only harm in the Queen Anne front and the Mary Anne back is that people will laugh at the apparent incongruity, and that the owner of this combination is likely to grow ashamed of the plainer side. My friends, whose house was the inspiration of this, never, I am happy to say, became disloyal to the old roof. The mother in the family used to say : " The old house big, plain, and easy-going is what we were ; the new part fine, frescoed, and all style and arti- ficial manners is what we are." In fact, I have known whole cities to live with a view to keeping the best foot forward. The front streets were cleaned ; visitors were allowed to see only the show places. A great bluster was made of enterprise, hospitality, and energy. But when visitors came they had to pay double price; immigrants were systematically crowded out; old grudges were visited on innocent victims ; at the first hint of a* QUEEN ANNE FRONTS AND MARY ANNE BACKS. 329 hotel, a railroad, a factory, property was run up to absurdly fictitious values; in fact, the cosey, comfortable-appearing Queen Anne front was all for show, and an ugly, human conflict still festered in the angular halls of the old, half -ruined Mary Anne back, in which the town's morals and the town's real character were contained. In modern American life everything tends to the facade. It is raised high over the roof a pretence of factory carving and carpen- ter's gluing that a good strong wind can easily blow down. Under its shadow may be sickliness, poverty, grimy, dingy rooms. The white marble carriage-step does not always announce a clean kitchen. The clean-swept sward on the front street does not always mean that the alley-way is clear of broken bottles, or that the neighbors in the side streets have no cause to complain of every-day untidiness. A directoire gown has been known to be draped over a ragged or a soiled petticoat. Let us, for truth's sake, be true to ourselves, and when we build Queen Anne fronts remove that suspicion of imitation fine- ness that is inevitably suggested by the Mary Anne back. PART IV. FICTION. THE STOEY OF IZANACHI AND IZANANI. BY FRANK MCGLOIN. [ FRANK McGLOiN was born in Gort, Ireland, February 22, 1846. In his infancy he was brought by his mother to New Orleans. In his youth he studied at the public schools of New Orleans and at St. Mary's College, Perry County, Mo. During the latter part of the Civil War, he served in the Confederate Army. In 1866 he was admitted to the Louisiana bar. In 1880 he was elected one of the judges of the Court of Appeals of New Orleans, and in 1884 was reflected to the same position. During the seven years of its existence, he was editor of the Holy Family, a weekly Catholic journal of New Orleans. The best-known results of his labors in the field of light literature are the Conquest of Europe, a poem (1874), and the Story of Norodom, King of Cambodia: a Romance of ike East (1882).] THE god Izanachi looked down upon the chaos beneath him and was grieved. Then he said unto himself : " My eyes are weary, and can no longer endure this chaos. There shall be a world below, as perfect and well defined as the chaos is shapeless and confused, and as beautiful as the wastes below are hid- eous." Into his counsels then he brought Izanani, the divine companion, and they spoke. And lo ! at the command, a world appeared, floating in the gulf. And this was perfect in form, as Izanachi had said, and subjected to order and law. So beautiful it lay, that ages elapsed before the heav- enly ones withdrew their gaze, even for a single moment. Then a longing came upon Izanachi. " Let us contemplate our work more closely," he said, " and dwell for a time among the beauties our word hath summoned into being." And again the divine companion was gracious, and the expanse of earth was scanned to select a spot most fitting for an abode. Their eyes swept plain and mountain, and no land appeared so verdant as Japan. The waters were surveyed, and none seemed so placid as those of the Inner sea. And of all that formed what has since become the Ocean Empire, no spot was so attractive as the island of Awaji, clad in rich garments of leaves and flowers, and rising from the sea, as though timidly, like a virgin from her bath. " There let us dwell," said Izanachi, " upon yon isle, that seemeth 334 FICTION. like a basket of verdure and bright flowers, floating upon a violet sea." Once again the divine companion assented, and together the heav- enly spouses descended, sinking slowly through space, until at last they stood upon the velvety and blossom-strewn bosom of Awaji. They gazed long upon its loveliness, speaking never a word. Then again was the yearning in their hearts, and they turned with wistful eyes toward each other. " Lo," they said, " our celestial abode is not in glory like to this. Here let us dwell forevermore." Thus it came to pass that Izanachi and Izanani made their home upon Awaji, and they dwelt together, during a period, in perfect bliss. Children were born and grew tall about them, and each, as it came, was a new tie binding the celestial spouses more firmly to their earthly abode. The heart of Izanani was replete with the joys of maternity ; and Izanachi took pride in the grace and beauty of his daughters, and the vigor and symmetry of his sons. It happened, however, in time, that a babe was stricken with dan- gerous illness. Izanani observed its loss of strength, but comprehended not. She was, however, mightily moved and fell to weeping, not knowing why she wept. Then she sought her heavenly consort and found him not until she entered into the groves ; and he too was troubled and in grief. The child, with time, grew strong again, but the parents were not comforted. The joy that had long been theirs was dead ; and . they spoke not even to each other, so heavily lay this uncomprehended woe upon their hearts. Nevertheless, though silent, they were never parted ; but, sitting side by side, they pondered deep thoughts, as when universes are conceived. Despite all, however, the mystery of their sorrow remained inscrutable as ever. At length Izanani broke the silence. " Tell me, O Izanachi," she said, " why we are thus beset with a woe which seemeth without cause ! There has fallen no evil upon us, and yet we suffer ! Why should we, who are Gods of Heaven, in this be without power or comprehension ? " But Izanachi, gazing upon her sadly, gave forth no word, and again the silence was long between them. A time went by, and the celes- tial ones remained yet hand in hand, until at length, turning toward the divine companion, Izanachi spoke : " Thought alone," he said, " will not fathom the depths of this sor- row. Let us rise, and wandering apart through the meadows and the groves, perchance our eyes may see or our ears hear what shall make plain the secret which so resists us." THE STORY OF IZ AN AC HI AND IZANANI. 335 Then the celestial ones arose, and unclasping hands, departed, each upon a different way. And they searched the island of Awaji with diligence, from shore to shore, and up to the very summits of its high- est places. As each succeeding night would fall, the heavenly pair would come together, and their eyes would meet, full of yearning inquiry ; but during many, many days neither spake a word, for their sorrow was deep and dumb. At length, however, the silence was broken, for as they came together one evening in the gathering gloom, in the hand of Izanachi lay a butterfly that was dead. " Behold," he said, " how motionless ! I found it thus, with wings extended, lying among the odorous shrubs that grow upon the hill- side. As I drew near it rose not to fly away, but suffered me to place a hand upon it. And thus I have borne it hither, watching as I came, and yet not a flutter has been upon these golden wings." Izanani cast her eyes upon the moth, and her heart was seized with pity, but why she knew not. And upon the succeeding night it was Izanani who came with out- stretched palm, and upon the palm there lay a tiny fish with silvered sides. " This," she said, " I saw drifting upon the bosom of the streamlet that skirts the camphor groves. It floated so as to almost touch the bank, and as I stooped it made no effort to escape. Hither have I borne it, watching closely, and, like thy butterfly, it made no move- ment." Another night was falling, and again there was something in the- hand of Izanani. Now it was a bird of modest plumage. " Again was I under the camphor trees, when suddenly this bird fell from the branches struggling at my feet. A feAv great gasps it gave, and then others that were more feeble, and at last it lay still as- the silvered fish and the golden butterfly." Another day was passing, and Izanachi was in the groves. At the foot of a great tree he beheld a squirrel, which seemed in deadly fear, but yet incapable of flight. And as the god approached it gazed upon him, as though with appealing eyes. In the heart of Izanachi was a deep compassion, for there came to his mind the suffering babe, whose weakness and pain had been the cause of the uncomprehended woe ; and he raised the animal tenderly from the earth and placed it in his bosom, and sought at once for Izanani. " Lo ! " the divine companion exclaimed, " it was even thus with the babe." And then she placed the squirrel in a bed of softest moss and cared 336 FICTION. for it during many days, as though it had been a child. The creature wasted for a period, but with time began to improve, regaining at last its strength. " Lo ! " Izanani again exclaimed, " it was even thus with our babe." The animal had been won by kindness, so that when its vigor was restored it would not depart, but remained, becoming a playmate to the children. And the heavenly ones, still in darkness, resumed their wandering search. It was but a short while before the squirrel again was seized with illness, wasting as before. Again the celestial ones cared for it ten- derly, as though it had been a child. Their solicitude, however, was now profitless, for after some days the creature died. And as it lay motionless, the heavenly ones remembered the butterfly, and the fish, and the bird. And together they hastened to where the butterfly had been laid away. It was but dust. And of the fish there remained but the bones and the silvered scales ; and of the bird, naught but the sober plumage. And the light dawned upon them at last, and sorrow grew heavier upon their hearts. " This is annihilation," they exclaimed, " and all things that take existence upon this beautiful earth must perish. Alas for the chil- dren that have been born to us ! " A nd, for certain assurance, they laid away the body of the squirrel, as had been done with the butterfly, and the fish, and the bird ; and in time, like them, it, too, wasted and was gone. Now was the misery of the celestial couple become grievous be- yond even the divine endurance. Every smile that now illumined the young and happy faces of their children was a dagger to pierce the parents' hearts ; for were these not the doomed who were smiling thus sweetly upon them ? When Izanani pressed her youngest to her bosom, imagination would picture those soft eyes closed, and the sweet and rosy face pallid in death. Then would she draw the infant closer to herself and moan: " Alas, my beautiful ! whom I must come some day to behold like the butterfly and the fish, the bird and the squirrel. Oh, that we could either clothe thee with our immortality or else share with thee in thy mortality ! " And when, for an instant, the heart of Izanachi swelled with fatherly pride as he looked upon his robust and handsome sons, or upon his beautiful daughters, he would turn quickly away, and sigh profoundly. THE STORY OF IZANACHI AND IZANANI. 337 " Alas ! " he would murmur, " it is only for a time." Thus, for a period, the celestial ones were sorrowful, until at last, Izanani, grieving most for the misery of her heavenly consort, was filled with a yearning to comfort him, and then it was she thus spoke to Izanachi : " Let us no more beget these children of earth," she said, " who are born but to perish, and whose comings are but the precursors of bitter sorrows." And so they begat no more children upon the earth ; but, with those that had been born to them, they remained until even the youngest of them had grown to the fulness of strength and stature. Then, thinking still the most of Izanachi's woe, again Izanani spoke. " Whether soon or late," she said, " some day these stately sons and these beautiful daughters must begin one by one to waste and perish from us. Then shall there be from each a bitter parting. Let us, therefore, withdraw from them now, and bear for once all of sorrow Avhich the future has in store, and returning to our heavenly mansion, there shall we bring forth an offspring that is not of earth, and which shall share with us our immortality." " But shall we not," Izanachi made answer, " witness from above the passing away of this our earthly progeny, and shall not our hearts be left behind to suffer?" " True," responded the divine companion, " but shall not our heaven-born children recall our hearts from earth, and shall not they bring with them a joy that will temper sorrow ? " Then Izanachi saw the wisdom of these words ; and the celestial ones gathered about them all of the children, sons and daughters, that had been born to them upon earth. And when these heard the resolution of their divine parents, their hearts were broken with grief ; yet not one questioned the justice of the determination. During years they wept, and even to this day, the issue of these the sons and daughters of Izanachi and Izanani, who have multiplied over the earth, are prone to tears, and have sorrowful hearts. And sitting in power above, the divine ones have not forgotten their earthly progeny, although surrounded by another that is celestial and imperishable. The frailer offspring of the earlier time have yet their love, and they it is who send them the abundant harvest, and plenteousness of fish in the waters, and of beasts upon the land. And often the divine ones look regretfully upon earth and feel a longing for their first-born children, and the showers that fall from the heavens are but the tears they shed. ESTHER'S CHOICE.* BY LAFCADIO HEAKN. [LAFCADIO HEARN was born at Leucadia, Santa Maura, Ionian Islands, June 27, 1850. He was educated in Great Britain and in France. In 1877 he went to New Orleans as correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial. Liking the climate of New Orleans, he remained there, and in a short time became editorially connected with the Times-Democrat. His ability as a genre writer and translator was at once recognized, and, in Sunday issues of the Times-Democrat, his English versions of French master- pieces were a feature for a long while. These were subsequently published in book-form. Their success led to an engagement with Harper Bros., which resulted in A Mid- Summer's Trip to the West Indies. Among his works are One of Cleopatra's Nights & translation from Theophile Gautier (1882) ; Stray Leaves from Strange Literature (1885) ; Gumbo Zhebes ; Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs (1885) ; Chita; a Memory of Last Island (1890). His style is Oriental in its richness, and his descriptions of Nature are among the most beautiful in our language.] A story of Rabbi Simon ben Yochai, which is related in the holy Midrash Shir- Hasirim of the holy Midrashim. . . . Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is ONE ! . . . IN those days there lived in Sidon, the mighty city, a certain holy Israelite possessing much wealth, and having the esteem of all who knew him, even among the Gentiles. In all Sidon there was no man who had so beautiful a wife ; for the comeliness of her seemed like that of Sarah, whose loveliness illumined all the land of Egypt. Yet for this rich one there was no happiness : the cry of the nurs- ling had never been heard in his home, the sound of a child's voice had never made sunshine within his heart. And he heard voices of reproach betimes, saying : " Do not the Rabbis teach that if a man have lived ten years with his wife and have no issue, then he should divorce her, giving her the marriage portion prescribed by law ; for he may not have been found worthy to have his race perpetuated by her ? " . . . But there were others who spake reproach of the wife, believing that her beauty had made her proud, and that her reproach was but the punishment of vainglory. And at last, one morning, Rabbi Simon ben Yochai was aware of two visitors within the ante-chamber of his dwelling, the richest merchant of Sidon and his wife, greeting the holy man with Salem aleikoum ! The Rabbi looked not upon the woman's face, for to gaze even upon the heel of a woman is forbidden to holy men ; yet he felt the sweetness of her presence pervading all the house like the incense * [Stray Leaves from Strange Literature. Copyright, 1884, by James R. Osgood & Co.] ESTHER'S CHOICE. 339 of the flowers woven by the hands of the Angel of Prayer. And the Rabbi knew that she was weeping. Then the husband arose and spake : " Lo ! it is now more than a time of ten years since I was wedded to Esther, I being then twenty years of age, and desirous to obey the teaching that he who remaineth unmarried after twenty transgresseth daily against God. Esther, thou knowest, O Eabbi, was the sweetest maiden in Sidon ; and to me she hath ever been a most loving and sweet wife, so that I could find no fault with her ; neither is there any guile in her heart. " I have since then become a rich Israelite ; the men of Tyre know me, and the merchants of Carthage 'swear by my name. I have many ships, bearing me ivory and gold of Ophir and jewels of great worth from the East ; I have vases of onyx and cups of emeralds curiously wrought, and chariots and horses even so that no prince hath more than I. And this I owe to the blessing of the Holy One blessed be He ! and to Esther, my wife, also, who is a wise and valiant woman, and cunning in advising. " Yet, O Rabbi, gladly would I have given all my riches that I might obtain one son ! that I might be known as a father in Israel. The Holy One blessed be He ! hath not vouchsafed me this thing ; so that I have thought me found unworthy to have children by so fair and good a woman. I pray thee, therefore, that thou wilt give legal enactment to a bill of separation ; for I have resolved to give Esther a bill of divorcement, and a goodly marriage portion also, that the reproach may so depart from us in the sight of Israel." * * And Rabbi Simon ben Yochai stroked thoughtfully the dim silver of his beard. A silence as of the Shechinah fell upon the three. Faintly, from afar, came floating to their ears the sea-like murmuring of Sidon's commerce. . . . Then spake the Rabbi ; and Esther, look- ing at him, thought that his eyes smiled, although this holy man was never seen to smile with his lips. Yet it may be that his eyes smiled, seeing into their hearts : " My son, it would be a scandal in Israel to do as thou dost purpose, hastily and without becoming an- nouncement ; for men might imagine that Esther had not been a good wife, or thou a too exacting husband ! It is not lawful to give cause for scorn. Therefore, go to thy home, make ready a goodly feast, and invite thither all thy friends and the friends of thy wife, and those who were present at thy wedding, and speak to them as a good man to good men, and let them understand wherefore thou dost this thing, and that in Esther there is no fault. Then return to me on the morrow, and I will grant thee the bill." 340 FICTION. So a great feast was given, and many guests came ; among them, all who had attended the wedding of Esther, save, indeed, such as Azrael had led away by the hand. There was much good wine ; the meats smoked upon platters of gold, and cups of onyx were placed at the elbow of each guest. And the husband spake lovingly to his wife in the presence of all, saying : " Esther, we have lived together lovingly many years; and if we must now separate, thou knowest it is not because I do not love thee, but only because it hath not pleased the Most Holy to bless us with children. And in token that I love thee and wish thee all good, know that I desire thee to take away from my house whatever thou desirest, whether it be gold or jewels beyond price." # * So the wine went round, and the night passed in mirth and song, until the heads of the guests grew strangely heavy, and there came a buzzing in their ears as of innumerable bees, and their beards ceased to wag with laughter, and a deep sleep fell upon them. Then Esther summoned her handmaids, and said to them : " Behold my husband sleeps heavily ! I go to the house of my father ; bear him thither also as he sleepeth." * * And awaking in the morning the husband found himself in a strange chamber and in a strange house. But the sweetness of a woman's presence, and the ivory fingers that caressed his beard, and the soft- ness of the knees that pillowed his head, and the glory of the dark eyes that looked into his own awakening these were not strange ; for he knew that his head was resting in the lap of Esther. And bewil- dered with the grief-born dreams of the night, he cried out, " Woman, what hast thou done ? " Then, sweeter than the voice of doves among the fig-trees, came the voice of Esther : " Didst thou not bid me, husband, that I should choose and take away from thy house whatsoever I most desired ? And I have chosen thee, and have brought thee hither to my father's home, . . . loving thee more than all else in the world. Wilt thou drive me from thee now ? " And he could not see her face for tears of love ; yet he heard her voice speaking on speaking the golden words of Ruth, which are so old yet so young to the hearts of all that love : " Whithersoever thou shalt go, I will also go ; and whithersoever thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. And the Angel of Death only may part us ; for thou art all in all to me." . . . And in the golden sunlight at the doorway suddenly stood, like a statue of Babylonian silver, the grand gray figure of Rabbi Simon ben Yochai, lifting his hands in benediction. ESTHER'S CHOICE. 341 " Schmah Israel ! the Lord our God, who is One, bless ye with everlasting benediction ! May your hearts be welded by love, as gold with gold by the cunning of goldsmiths ! May the Lord, who coupleth and setteth the single in families, watch over ye ! The Lord make this valiant woman even as Rachel and as Lia, who built up the house of Israel ! And ye shall behold your children and your children's children in the House of the Lord ! " Even so the Lord blessed them ; and Esther became as the fruitful vine, and they saw their children's children in Israel. Forasmuch as it is written : " He will regard the prayer of the destitute." THE MYSTERIOUS GROTTO. BY ALBERT DELPIT. [ALBERT DELPIT, poet, playwright, and romancist, was born in New Orleans, January 30, 1849. He was sent by his father to France to be educated at schools in Bordeaux and Paris. He afterwards returned to his native city, remaining there only a few months to settle his personal affairs, finally returning to Paris for his life-work. His success before literary Paris was almost instantaneous. For so young a man, it was remarkable ; for a foreigner, it was without precedent. In 1870 he won the prize offered at the Concours Ballande; by his jfiloge de Lamartine ; in 1872 he won the Montyon prize, by a book of poems entitled L 'Invasion ; in 1873 his poem Le Repen- tir was crowned. His literary fecundity, always of a high order, showed untiring indus- try. From 1873, while competing for the honors of coronation in another field, he wrote for the stage. His acted plays, both in prose and verse, were Robert Pradel, drama (1873) ; Jean nu pied, vaudeville-in-verse (1875) ; Le Message de Scapin, a com- edy-in-verse (1876) : Les Chevaliers de la Patrie (1876) ; Le Fils de Coralie (1880) ; and Maucroix, a comedy (1883). All of these plays were successes ; but his greatest triumphs were secured in the field of romance. His novels include Les Compagnons du Roi (1873) ; Le Vengeresse (1874) ; Le Mystere de Bas-Meunier (1876) ; Les Fils de Joie and Le Dernier Gentilhomme (1877) ; La Famille Cavalie, 2 vols. (1878) ; Le Manage d'Odette (1880) ; Le Pere de Martial, La Marquise (1882) ; Les Amours Cruelles (1884) ; Solange de Croix Saint Luc (1885) ; Mademoiselle de Bressier, Theresine, and Disparu (1888). He died in Paris, January 4, 1893.] ' THIS is the way I happened to be told the story : I was sitting by the seashore, beyond where the lighthouse stands. A storm-wind was blowing. The strong sea-breezes, made tepid by the sun, came to me impregnated with sharp saline odors. Before me the ocean unrolled its waves upon the fine sand, like a green serpent prolonging its shining coils in the sun. Behind me was the cliff, with its gray fissures, whence jutted out here and there the trunks of sickly trees, brambly growths, and meagre furze-plants. Sloping inward, almost at the foot of the cliff, yawned a mysterious cavern, a spacious grotto, dark and cool. I was seized with that unaccountable emotion with which Nature inspires those alone with her, when a hand slapped my shoulder, and a laughing voice exclaimed : " How do you find yourself this morning ? " It was the old college-friend I had unexpectedly met the evening before Gabriel F., a naval lieutenant. " You must have found your way here by instinct," he continued. " Perhaps you never suspected that a tragedy once occurred in this very place where we now are ? " THE MYSTERIOUS GROTTO. 343 " A tragedy here ? " " Yes, in that very grotto. It has become famous. The country folk call it ' The Love-Chamber.' I knew of the romance at the very time when its characters performed their parts. Light a cigarette, and let me tell it you." " I listen." At the time I am telling you about there was a very pretty girl at Biarritz, named Pascaline a Basque about eighteen years of age, tall and slight, with that peculiar grace so characteristic of those lithe mountain women. Her black hair gleamed under the yellow silk kerchief which she always wore fastened about her head in the most coquettish style imaginable. Her ruddy lips, slightly sensuous, showed at every smile rows of delicate white teeth. Pascaline was a great dressmaker, and supported her father, a great big man, half paralyzed, who lived in perpetual revery, and rarely spoke except to reply with some peculiarly vague Spanish proverb to any question put to him. Pascaline adored the old man, and took care of him like a child. So folks used always to say, " Pascaline will certainly do well on account of the way she takes care of her father." Anyhow, she had a chance either way to do well or badly for she had two admirers. One was Moise Dunez, rich, old, and ugly, who offered her a fine social position. The other was Maxime Sarrabeyrous, poor, young, and handsome, who offered her his heart. Maxime was said to be a pro- fessional guide in the Pyrenees. He was really a smuggler ; and, as was only right, Pascaline loved Maxime for love always calls for love. Such was the state of affairs for several months. Moise Dunez would often stop at the store and scratch his nose, and gravely observe : " I can give you a fine social position, Pascaline a fine social position." And she would always reply : " You are very kind and good, M. Moise, but I love Maxime." And old Moise would go off, grumbling to himself : " She'll change her mind after awhile ; she'll change her mind." But things at last came to such a point that some decision had to be made. The two young lovers often took long walks along the cliff, and people gossiped about them a great deal. Unfortunately they were very poor. A dressmaker cannot save very much, espe- cially if she has a father to support, and smugglers have their dull seasons. But it is a very fine profession, for all that. Poor as they 344 FICTION. were, however, they loved each other so much that they went to old Father Pascal one morning, hand in hand, and said : " We love each other, and we want to get married." The old man shook his head a little and slowly responded : " Very well, very well. Semos de los poseos." (Let us be of the few.) The lovers knelt down before him, and he blessed them. The betrothal was accomplished. Pascaline accompanied the youth to the usual scene of their promenade, and that evening they remained out on the cliffs very, very late. As the young Basque girl was returning home full of happiness, with the joy of love swelling in her heart, she met Moise Dunez, who observed very gravely, scratching his nose as usual : " I offer you a fine social position, Pascaline a fine social position." She answered : " You are very good and kind, M. Moise ; but Maxime Sarrabey- rous and I have arranged everything for the best this evening." And old Moise went off, muttering as he always did : " She'll change her mind after awhile ; she'll change her mind." A few days later Maxime was offered a splendid chance to make a snug little sum. A whole cargo of goods was to be smuggled into Guipuzcoa. The young contrabandista was full of confidence ; but the weather was bad. All day and all night a mighty wind was blowing from the sea ; and the sailors muttered in fear, " It is Our Lady of Guadalupe passing by ! " Our Lady of Guadalupe, the pale Madonna with the green eyes, who, when she passeth by, taketh with her in her ghostly flight all who are belated upon the vast gray sea. " I will return in eight days," said Maxime Sarrabeyrous, as he kissed his sweetheart on the mouth. But the eight days passed, and then a month two months three months went by without any news of the handsome contrabandista. Pascaline cried from morning until night. As soon as her work was done she would hurry to the cliff, to remain there for long hours at a time, with eyes fixed upon the Spanish coast. Ah ! had she only been free, how swiftly would she not have departed in search of her be- trothed, beyond the mountains towering between her and love ! But she could not go ; she must support the aged father. One night a cruel rumor came that Maxime had been killed by the custom-house officers the gabelous. And, in fact, a whole year passed without further news of him. Misfortunes never come singly. One night the little store took THE MYSTERIOUS GROTTO. 345 fire and burned down. No one knew how the thing happened. Pas- caline and her father were ruined. Moise Dunez, their neighbor, had escaped with his usual good luck. His house was not even scorched. But he did not dare to approach the pretty Basque any more, knowing she would say to him : " You are very kind, M. Moise, but I shall wait for Maxime Sarrabeyrous. He will come back, I am sure. But if he should not come back, I shall be faithful to him as though I were his widow. And I am a good girl, resolved to make my own living." Yes, she was a good, brave girl, poor Pascaline ; especially brave and good, considering how unhappy her situation. After her little store was burned she could not work for herself any more, but had to work for others much harder than before and for much less money. Now the old man had to remain all alone the whole day, and he was visibly declining. Two years passed, and still no news of Maxime Sarrabey- rous. Finally the misery of the father and daughter became so great that M. Dunez was seized with pity. Besides, he was more in love than ever, excited by the very disdain of the beautiful girl, so fresh and young. He took courage and approached her once more . " Pascaline, I do not now propose to you merely because I can offer you a fine social position. But you are certainly killing yourself with work ; and if anything should happen to you, your father would cer- tainly die of hunger. Maxime is dead, Pascaline. You ought, I think, to marry me and save your father." She never answered a word, but while she cried silently she alloAved the old man to take her hand. So Moise went to Father Pascal and told him all. The old man shook his head and responded slowly : " Good ! good ! No hay pajoros en los nidos de otono ! " (There are no birds in the nests of autumn.) But they did not kneel before the old man, and the old man did not bless them. Three days before the wedding day, just at the moment of the autumn equinox, the pretty Basque was walking along the light- house path, near the grotto, when a voice behind her cried : " Pascaline ! O Pascaline ! " Trembling like a leaf, she murmured, " Maxime ! thee, Maxime ! " and like a wounded bird fell into her lover's arms. It was indeed he ; still handsome, though thin and pale. He pressed her to his breast very, very tightly. "It is not true tell me, it is not true thou wilt marry Moise Dunez?" " It is true. If I do not marry him, my father will die for want of food. Why didst thou not come back ? " 346 FICTION. " Because the Spaniards captured me and kept me in prison. But I am now free, and I can work." "But what would become of father, should they capture thee " Speak not of such things, dearest ; let us not discuss them. I love thee." And he covered her face with kisses, and he drew her gently toward the grotto, and she resisted not ; and in the soft light of the great cave they talked to each other in low, very low tones, each pressed to each other's heart in infinite ecstasy of reciprocal love. But at last, tearing herself from his arms, she said : " "Tis late, late ! Let me go now ; I hear midnight striking." " Nay, 'tis not midnight ; 'tis only a flight of sea-gulls whirring by"- A long time afterward she said : " Oh, how the sea roars ! What if we should be swallowed up ! " " Nay, 'tis not the sea roaring ; 'tis only the chanting of our love." A long time afterward she said once more : " O Maxime, dost not hear how the wind raves ? " " Nay, 'tis not the raving of winds ; 'tis Our Lady of Guadalupe passing by ! The last hours of our life are the first of our night of love. Thou shalt never marry the Other now ! Lo ! love, this is our nuptial chamber; and the wave shall be our vast green winding- sheet ! " And he closed her mouth with kisses of fire. They found the twain next day interlocked in the embrace of death, and that grotto is still called La Chambre d' Amour. The old man is now quite paralyzed. He begs for alms beneath the shadow of the church walls. He seldom speaks, but from time to time men hear him muttering to himself : " "Woe ! woe ! La esperanza era verde, y un borrico la comio ! " (" Hope was green, and an ass devoured it.") [Translated jrom the French.} LE TOMBEAU BLANC. BY JOHN DIMITKY. [JOHN BULL SMITH DIMITRY, or John Dimitry, as he usually signs his name, is the eldest son of Professor Alexander Dimitry. Born at Washington, D. C., December 27, 1835, he was educated at College Hill, near Raymond, Miss. During his father's term as United States Minister to Nicaragua and Costa Rica he was Secretary of the Lega- tion. During the Civil War he served the Confederacy, first as a soldier in the Army of Tennessee, then as chief clerk of the Post Office Department, at Richmond. In 1874-76 he was Professor of English and French in Colegio Caldas, Barranquilla, United States of Colombia. He was, for seven years, dramatic and literary critic of the New Orleans Times. In 1881-89 he was editorially connected with the New York Mail and Express. His History and Geography of Louisiana (1877) was for many years a popular text-book in the public schools of the State. His Atahualpa's Curtain (1888) is a semi-historical novel, treating mainly of the customs of the people of the United States of Colombia. His latest literary production is The Queen's Letters, an historical drama in five acts.] I. THERE was no doubt of it. Fernand Torres had the freshest, pinkest complexion of any man in the great city of the Crescent, wherein those two natural enemies, trade and music, for three-quarters of a century, have worked together in the pleasantest of unions. This Fernand was a man and his type is not met too often whom men could respect without envy, and women love without humiliation. For the men, he had the muscles of Milo and the graces of Juan Giron. It was he who had set the city agog, after a foolish wager, by tooling a six-in-hand pony-trap along the " Shell Koad." It was he who had ridden his own " Lightning " in a famous race won by that more famous horse the proudest victory recorded in the chronicles of the old " Kidge." It was he who had struggled for a brave five minutes with the rushing waters of the Father-stream and brought out all dripping but safe, all pale but heroic, a certain Mademoiselle de Beaumanoir. For the rest, he was a pronounced dandy, affected the fragrant Viuditas of Ambalema, opened the freest of purses, had the readiest ear for needy friends, and the scantiest memory of favors granted. In short, he was the half of a modern Admirable Crichton, one who would have ridden shoulder to shoulder with the marvellous Scotchman at the tilting matches of the Louvre, although he might not have cared particularly to claim brotherhood with him in his bout with the wise heads of the University of Paris. 348 FICTION. " A devilish fine fellow,'' cried the club men ; " but, by Jove ! too much of a prig. Why doesn't Fernand drink and gamble like the rest of us ? " " Isn't he handsome ? " sighed the society girls, " so strong, so noble-looking, so rich ; but, dear me ! just a little too good. Why doesn't he flirt like the rest of them ? " To speak the truth, Fernand' s comrades were not without cause for complaint. He was in his inmost nature something more than they were allowed to know ; a quite other creature than the courtly man. known to society, the stately framer of compliments to fashionable beauties, the breathful swimmer who could cheat even the Mississippi of its prey, and the bold rider who on the Metairie could win heavy stakes and laughingly decline to receive them. Somebody asked lightly, of Fernand's friend, Pere Kouquette, what he thought of him. " Ce cJier Fernand," quietly replied Chahta-Ima,* while he pressed back with both hands his long black curls, " is a veritable modern Saint Christopher. He has broad shoulders, you say ? Eh lien ! so had Saint Christopher." This nut was the very next day presented to Society, which at once tried its teeth on it. " Saint Christopher's shoulders were broad," exclaimed Society ; " Ion ! but what has that to do with Fernand \ " Puzzle or no puzzle, there was one point I wish to make plain, on which everybody agreed. Fernand's complexion was simply perfect. " A surface white as snow touched with the blush of the arbutus," was what a dainty admirer, evidently feminine, had called it. To say the truth, there were some in the circle who were rather envious of that pink blushing in the snow. Who was Fernand, after all ? He was a campaynard, not a city man. He was the heir, as he had been the only child, of a wealthy planter, whose magnificent plantation spread a mile or more along the low banks of Bayou Lafourche in Louisiana. A grave old citizen remembered well that, somewhere about the '30's, Torres pere had taken refuge in this free country from the vengeance of a volcanic government in New Granada. That he was rich was proved by his purchase, cash down, of a splendid estate, house, lands, slaves, and by his subsequent style of living. He recollected perfectly that the wife, a beautiful woman crowned with piety, had died in a few years (he had forgotten how many), and of what disease he had no clear idea. " As to Camille, he died in 1855," said the grave old citizen, exhal- ing, meditatively, the smoke of his cigarette. Of the son, he had known nothing until his appearance in the city. * " Chahta-Ima " (Choctaw-Leader) is a name given by the Indians to Pere Adrien Rouquette, the poet-priest of Louisiana, and their apostle. LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 349 What, between those dates, had really become of him ? That was soon displayed by the youth himself on several open pages before an eager Society, which turned all its eye-glasses upon them. He had gone to Heidelberg, had not come out ill in its student-quarrels, had returned after an extended tour to receive his dying father's blessing, and had come to pass the winter in New Orleans, which, in the two languages of the Mother State, is known as the " city " and la ville." About himself there was no mystery not the smallest. But could the same be said of an old Indian woman, who was his constant com- panionwho had stood by him in student-quarrels at Heidelberg who would not be left behind during his tour in the East who insisted on keeping clean his rooms in Paris, London, New York and who was now doing the same service in his quiet chambers on Eoyal Street ? Some had chanced to meet Confianza, as she was named a tall, lean woman, whose head was persistently muffled in a mantilla ; a woman who, though unbent with the years that had crowned that head with the glory of old age, had a strong-set, many-wrinkled face ; a woman with a swarthy skin, and a wistful look that seemed to tell of inward wrestlings ; a woman, in a word, cursed by one absorbing thought. Here the opened page of Fernand's story came to an end. But there was another page a tender, timid page, which no one could read save Fernand, Confianza, and a certain fair young girl who lived in his own parish. A nutter of interest, as sudden as it was temporary, had some time before centred in this very young lady, Mademoiselle Blanche de Beaumanoir, because, as already told, she had, while crossing the ferry to Algiers, lost her balance and fallen overboard in mid-stream. Her preserver, Fernand himself, was thrown forward, at this supreme moment, into the broad glare that falls upon all gallant saviors of endangered beauty. He did not take over-kindly to the glare. No more did Mademoi- selle Blanche, who, however, had never shone more brightly than when friends trooped around her to congratulate her. At last, con- gratulations ceased perforce. Mademoiselle Blanche, it was given out, had returned to her country home. No one noticed it yet such was the fact that, after this incident, Fernand's visits to his planta- tion were more frequent and more prolonged than before. Fortunately, there was no icy rigueur of Creole domestic life to block the happiness of these two. It had melted before the priceless services of the suitor. I do not say that the good people on Bayou Lafourche did not suspect this happy idyl dropping its roses among them. To the proverbial walls with ears must be added the proverbial servants with tongues. Gossip flew on free wing around the neighbor- 350 FICTION. hood of La Quinta de Bolivar, as Torres pere had named his Southern home, or La Quinte, as the popular ignorance had corrupted it. But it never reached the city. It was in the spring-time. The magnolia grandiflora was slowly baring her white bosom to the eager sun, while the myrtle tossed him, in odorous coquetry, her plumed crest ; the mystic oleander, telling of desert founts and dark-haired Arabian girls, was opening its rosy petals ; and when the sun had left his loves lamenting to seek an unknown couch beyond the cypriere, a great, heavy, pervading per- fume, coming from under the wings of the night, told of the nearness of the jasmine. But above all these scents there stole over the railings on low, broad balconies fronting the bayou, and in the causeries high and low, the gentle odor of orange blossoms blossoms that were not real, but were the gracious prophecies of coming happy hours, a sacred altar, and a holy ring. II. One star-lit night in April, the moon rose clear, full, queenly. She threw the forest into gloom, but touched with silver the broad- spreading fields in front of it. And as the waters of the bayou caught upon their dark and frowning bosom her radiance, they broke into rippling laughter and flowed in smiles gulfward. Beaumanoir itself was all brilliant with light, which blazed through the open doors and windows. M. de Beaumanoir had this evening, through a soiree, made a formal announcement of the engagement of Fernand and Blanche. The spacious rooms were crowded. At every door and window the slaves, with open mouths but tender hearts, were watching that mysterious process which was to usher Mamselle into the dignity of Madame. The vast grounds were filled with a motley crowd, because the poorer neighbors and slaves alike had come to catch that light of joy which, like marriage in the Mother Church, comes but once in a Lifetime. The veranda was here and there lit by colored lanterns. Through the raised windows was to be caught the flitting of the dancers ; and the sound of laughter and music made the outer crowd, under the trees of the avenue, turn round and round in many a fantastic twirl unknown to the guests. While eyes and ears among the open-mouthed servants at the doors and windows, among the uninvited guests in the garden and on the grounds, are fully occupied, two figures leave the brilliant parlors to take the air. " Mais, tfla M'sieu Fernand" cries a voice. " Yes," echoes another. " M'sieu Fernand and Mamselle Blanche ! " LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 351 The lookers-on were right. It was Fernand and Blanche who had appeared on the veranda. The conversation was as brief as, judging from signs, it must have been tender. To the horror of gossips female, and to the chuckles and nudgings of veteran gossips male, the watchers without saw a sudden lifting of Mademoiselle Blanche's face and a bend of M'sieu Fernand's. And there was not one of the unseen observers who would not have said that there had been a kiss given and taken on the broad veranda of Beaumanoir, under the blessing of the full moon. A light form was seen gliding back to the parlors, Fernand remain- ing behind. One old gossip under the trees thus commented : " Tiens, you see M'sieu Fernand. He stay to tank de bon Dieu; Oui-da ! mais il a bon raison" But something else was presently visible ; for at a bound Fernand had left his place and was fighting fire fire that seemed to envelop a woman. A Japanese lantern, hung in the doorway, had caught fire, burnt the cord that upheld it, and had fallen upon the light Spanish wrap worn by Blanche. It was but a moment for Fernand to grasp the filmy lace fastened by a pin, to tear it burning from his darling's form, and with his hands and feet to crush out the leaping flames. All told, he had not been sixty seconds at it. But the guests in alarm were now crowding the Veranda. Mademoiselle Blanche had come out of it well. Her white neck was slightly blistered. By good fortune her face that lovely face had escaped uninjured. And as to Fernand, only his clothes had suffered. " See," he cried, holding out the brave hands which had fought the flames and conquered them, " see, friends, my hands are not even scorched ! " Each guest judged the miracle from his own point of view. " It takes Fernand to be lucky," called out his acquaintances. "Monsieur Torres is surely protected by God," echoed Made- moiselle Blanche. " The most amazing thing I ever heard in my life," shouted that old hero General Yictoire. "Sacre bleu ! What would I not have given to have had that Fernand at Chalmette ! and thou, too, Beaumanoir, wouldst thou not ? Fire enough behind the barricades there for any salamander, eh, mon brwue?" And the veteran chuckled while he took a huge pinch of Perique^w. " There is something abnormal in this," was Dr. Tousage's profes- sional comment, whispered to himself. Once again Fernand's cheery voice was heard. Exhibiting wrist- band and coat-sleeve all charred, leaving the strong muscular arm mocking at the trial by fire, he exclaimed laughingly : 352 FICTION. " I am off. It is early a little past nine o'clock. La Quinte is a bare half-mile away. A sharp gallop, and it will be but a short ten minutes to change my clothes and return. Don't wait for me. Let the dance go on. Au revoir, mesdames" And with the light limbs of young manhood he was away. He reined his horse where he saw a light in a room a light that told of the faithful watch of his old nurse. Crazy with joy he burst upon her. Why not ? He looked upon his last adventure as the crown of his love. Surely it was he who had been destined from creation to be Blanche's savior. He was full of that proud happiness which is born of danger encountered for one beloved. What true lover would not rejoice if, twice, his love had owed her life to him ? " Here, Confianza, another coat and a clean shirt ! I have been fighting fire." " Fightin' de fire ? " " Yes ; see what it has done." He laughed as he showed his coat and shirt, both burned and well- nigh sleeveless. The old woman had no eyes for these. She had crept close to him, and was caressing his hands nervously furtively almost, as it seemed. " An' de poor hands dey must hurt you, no ? " " They ? Not at all. Why, now I come to think of it, that is the most astonishing part of it all. Old General Yictoire was right. I am a real salamander." " Hijo mio, que estd diciendome f " broke forth from the old Indian in her native tongue, as she leaped to her feet, all trembling. She stood as might some Priestess of the Sun, devoted unto death, when the head of royal Atahualpa deluged with its sacred blood the holy Peanan Stone ! Fernand was struck by the old woman's look. Once before had he seen it once, when a round, dull white mark had come upon his forehead, stayed for a month, and then, fought by science, had left the tiniest of scars. That was when he was a student at Heidelberg, and holding his own in the fighting-gardens of Zur Hirschgasse. Once afterward it had appeared this time on his broad breast but he had said nothing of it to Confianza. "Don't be crazy, dear old nurse. Look at my hands. Touch them for yourself ; there is nothing wrong about them. I said that I fought the fire ; I was wrong. I only played with it. Come, kiss your boy, and after that, a clean shirt and another coat ! " She threw her withered arms around Fernand's neck. She pressed her lips to his mouth one looking on might well think with a touch of sublime defiance. She kissed his two hands those hands that were LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 353 so strong and had been so brave. Then she sat on the floor near him still holding them within her own. She tried to smile ; but it was not a smile that would have done one good to see. " Fernand," she said gently, tu remember of dat book which tu papa to you gave, when tu has not more of quince anos ? " " Yes > yes ; I have read it a dozen times or more. B But what has that to do with my going out ? Don't you know Blanche is waiting- forme?" The old woman seemed not to hear him. " No forget what a book dat was dose poor peoples ? " She felt the hands on which her tears were now streaming growing cold. They did not tremble, but the chill of the grave had fallen upon them. Still he said nothing, but shivered as though the cold had really struck him on that balmy April night smiling among its roses and gardenias. " Der' was something 'bout de fire. Dose who sick no can burn 'esef, no can feel notin' oh! hijio mio have calm!" she and he rose to his feet, murmuring : " My God ! not this not this ! " He staggered as he rose, and swayed like some tall tree touched by the tempest's wrath. He understood now his doom too well ; but he threw off the weakness as he began to pace the room, first slowly, then rapidly. The pink did not leave his cheeks ; but his eyes glit- tered piteously, yet half defiantly, like those of a noble animal caught in a trap unaware. The old woman, still seated on the floor, was reciting her rosary. There were words that came unbidden to the sacred beads, words of a personal application, that, through tears, tell of human pity, and better still, of human trust in the Divine pity : " May God have mercy upon my boy ! May God have mercy ! " And from the man treading the floor came, in lugubrious response, the wail of that sorrowful Sister of Human Prayer that Sister, hag- gard, hopeless, tearless, who knows no invocation to Divine Justice save to call it to judgment : " My God ! what have I done to deserve this ? " Suddenly, in his rapid strides, Fernand halted before the table, on which a lamp was burning. Seizing the lamp, he deliberately circled the heated chimney with his right hand. Then he clasped it with his left hand. Removing the chimney, he kept one hand steadily in the flame. After that, the other. " You are right, Confianza," he said coldly ; " I must not go back to Mademoiselle Blanche." " Que Dios tenga piedad de mi hijo ! " (May God have mercy on my boy !) rose again from the praying woman. She knew her boy 23 354 FICTION. well. Whosoever might be deceived by his calmness, it was not she vfho had nursed him oh, no, not she ! " The fire-test is satisfactory," continued Fernand, in a tone that appalled her. " There can be no illusion here. The leper's skin can burn, but the burn leaves no mark ; nor can pain be felt. My hands should have been burned ; I feel no pain ; it is clear, then, / am a leper ! " " Que Dios tenga piedad de mi Jiijo ! Por Dios ! Por su Santis- sima Madre ! Por todos los Santos y Santas del cielo ! " (May God have mercy on my boy ! For Christ's sake ! For His holy Mother's sake ! For the sake of all the saints and angels of Heaven !) wailed once more from the floor, like a prayer for a parting soul. It was unheard by Fernand. A bitter smile passed over his lips as he said : " But come ! Blanche must not be forgotten. She must learn this charming finale to our hopes and our loves." Paper, pen, and ink were before him. Not pausing to cull phrases, much less to think, he wrote a note and put it into an envelope which he sealed. Kinging a bell, a black presented himself. " Baptiste, take this letter at once to Mademoiselle Blanche. Place it in her own hands. You need not report." After Baptiste had left, Fernand said : " My good Confianza, I wish to be alone. -Leave me now. To- morrow, by eight o'clock, let Dr. Tousage be here." He did not leave the chair through the long black night. He was alone alone Avith the sorrowful Sister of Human Prayer. He made no movement, he breathed no sigh, he murmured no word through all the hours, but fell like a death-bell upon the heart of the figure crouched like a faithful dog, on the other side of his chamber door. And so the bright sun found them. III. Baptiste's master had told him that he need not report the result of his visit to Mademoiselle Blanche. But long before noon the next day, Fernand, had he chosen, might have heard his story from a hun- dred tongues. There was not a guest at Beaumanoir, over night, that had not borne it away, through the darkness and gardenia-scented air, a fearful but delicious burden. There was not a passenger on the boat which had left that morning, who was not carrying Fernand's name, and blasted love, a morsel of the juiciest for the delectation of the great city. His tragic story, too, was in the mouths, and had touched the hearts, and had filled the eyes, of rude but sympathetic workers a-field in the early summer sunshine ; and there was a dew that had LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 355 not fallen from the sky upon many a plough-handle and many an axe- helve. For there was not a slave at Beaumanoir or La Quinte'that had not prayed to hear the joyful marriage-bells, which would bring the two plantations under the same master and mistress. Then, too, there were unhappily, not far off men and women whom all avoided ; men and women hobbling on crutches, crawling aground, moaning on pestiferous beds, who, selfish by nature, had for once been brought together, not in cynicism but pity. To them the gossip was not sweet. It was bitter as bitter, as abhorrent, as their own flesh. Fernand had been their truest friend and most fearless neighbor. " Lui, un lepreux f Mon Dieu ! if he has got it from us, we are accursed indeed," old Pere Carancro had said ; and with blurred eyes and shaking hands, all had concurred. After all, what had happened at Beaumanoir ? Obedient to his master, Baptiste had sought Mademoiselle Blanche privately. He had found her seated with two friends, Mademoiselle Diane de Monplaisir and Mademoiselle Marie Bonsecour, in a small room giving on the veranda and opening into the parlor through a curtained door. Baptiste, on presenting the note, had simply said : " Mamselle Blanche, M'sieu Fernand, he tell me to give dis to you." Mademoiselle Blanche had opened the note eagerly. It could not have been long, nor could its contents have been over-pleasant. So afterward affirmed Mademoiselle Diane, who added that Blanche had turned pale, " mais oui, pale comme la mort" had uttered a faint moan, and, in attempting to rise from her chair, had fallen back insensible. What had become of the note itself ? Mademoiselle Diane had kept her black marmoset eyes fixed upon that. She declared dramatically that Mademoiselle Blanche had thrown it haughtily away after reading it. Mademoiselle Marie, however, did not agree with her. She said that the note, if it had fallen at all, had not fallen until Blanche became unconscious. Bad news fills the air like electricity. It was scarce a moment before the curtained doors were torn aside, and a crowd of well-bred, though curious, guests came streaming into the room. At their head was the father. He was about approaching his daughter, but, hearing from a mob of angels in white organdie and tulle that she had re- covered consciousness, he was turning aside when he felt his arm touched gently. It was Mademoiselle Diane who had touched him. She pointed silently to a letter on the floor. Monsieur de Beaumanoir picked it up. It was strange. He was in a white heat of anger, cer- tainly ; but, on reading it, he did not look so much angry as puzzled. " What can this be ? " he muttered. " Vraiment, im mauvais farceur is this Fernand. But come, my friends," he called out, in a loud voice, 356 FICTION. to the crowd of guests who had already thronged the room. " Made- moiselle mafille is in good hands. This note is from Monsieur Torres. She has been somewhat excited by that, and is naturally nervous. The whole affair is a riddle to me. Perhaps some among you may read it for me." The crowd surged back, still curious-eyed, but clearly more anxious than when it had torn away the curtained door. Monsieur de Beaumanoir had stationed himself by the mantel, on which blazed, with their double score of waxen lights, the great golden candelabras that had descended, son to son, from that doughty knight, Sieur Eaoul de Beaumanoir, who had died with Bayard hard by the bloody waters of the Sesia. I do not know how it was, but the fair women in gauze and the white-cravatted men seemed to be a court ; Blanche forced to be the plaintiff ; Fernand, the defendant ; and the owner of the mansion the advocate of the mystery. For mystery in that note there must be, so whispered one to the other, those flurried beauties that circled, in broadening folds, around the mantel, and, as they whispered, turned just a little pale. For his part, M. de Beaumanoir, a trifle puzzled and unmistakably stirred, seemed nowise anxious. He re-opened the note impetuously. No date, no address, no signature. Nothing save these words : " Do not misjudge me ; but I must not go back to-night. You have seen the last of me. Oh, my God ! to think that / have seen the last of you ! I do not know wherein we have offended Heaven ; but God is angry with us. I am what they call I am I dare not write what loathsome creature I have become to myself since a half hour. Read Second Chronicles, chapter xxvi., verse 20. That verse speaks for me who cannot. Read it, and you will know why I have hasted to go out from what to me was not a sanctuary of the Father, but higher still, his Paradise." Nervously removing his spectacles, M. de Beaumanoir turned interrogatively to the brilliant company. " Eh Hen ! " said a pert and petted beauty ; " Jest une question de la Bible. Let us see the Bible." Mademoiselle uttered the voice of Society. " Yes, yes ; where is the Bible ? " cried all. A youth of tender mustache, and with the reddest of roses granted him by the grace of Mademoiselle Diane, had, at that lady's nod, already sought the great Douay Bible, which rested upon a side table immediately under a sword crossed with its scabbard upon the wall. Without a word he put the book into the hands of M. de Beaumanoir. The gray old man, mustached like a veteran of Chalmette, opened the Holy Book gingerly, as though he did not know, gallant gentleman and ex-sabreur that he was, its quiet pages quite so well as the temper of LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 357 his sabre. He had seen the volume certainly, but only accidentally, so to speak, as he might be leaning over it to read for the thousandth time the inscription : " Tribute to hem /by admiring company hum /patriotic services ha /January 8, 1815." Written in French, bound in Kussia, heavily edged with gold, and published in Paris, the Sacred Word, while being little noticed by the master, had brought comfort to the late Madame de Beaumanoir, as it was, without his knowledge, the daily guide of his daughter. The company drew nearer to the father. From the press of loveli- ness, as might a dainty Bourbon rose from a basket of flowers, stepped Mademoiselle Diane de Monplaisir. It was she who crept close to the side of M. de Beaumanoir, and with her jewelled fingers turned the leaves till her index finger rested upon the chapter and the verse which were to reveal the mystery devouring her. With a stately old- fashioned bow, though with no suspicion of the tragic story in verse 20, the old man read these words slowly aloud : "And Azariah, the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous, and they thrust him out from thence ; yea, HIMSELF hasted to go out, because the Lord had smitten Am." At these words, so passionless yet so vivid, so filled with fire yet so death-cold, a great hush fell upon the company. It was as though a breeze laden with the poisonous breath of poppies had passed through the room. Psychologists tell us that a single thought may work in madness upon a crowd, a thought springing not from a visible danger, but from the spur of a hidden terror. Of such must have been the feeling, which swept like a cyclone over the joyful throng that had been drinking in excitement under the golden lights to the sound of voluptuous music. A thought of flight, certain, no matter hoAV or whither, only that it should be that very instant, out of the house, out of the grounds, out into the open road, shining yellow- white under the full moon anywhere, anywhere beyond the evil spirit that had seized upon the princely hospitality of Beaumanoir, and was even then draping, by a mystic and awful hand, its laughing walls in mourning. In the sauve qui pent of an army, pride is thrown aside with the knapsack. In the sauve qui pent of Society, it is courtesy that is dropped with the slippers. One by one the courtly company, with its color and its glitter and its laughter, left the salon. One by one, without even a nod to their old host who stood more dazed than indignant on his threshold, they streamed, with burnous and nubias, and what not, snatched pell-mell on the way, down the broad steps of the front veranda, and into the 358 FICTION. gravelled walk, where were the carriages of the ladies and the horses of their escorts. For once, one may fancy, there was none of that idle talk none of those soft whispers, those empty phrases, those vaporous compliments, given with an air and received with a blush that make up the unwritten literature of carriage-windows. A mighty fear shook all, and the colored coachmen were told in sharp tones, altogether new to those fatted favorites, to drive fast and stop at nothing. Through the noble avenue of live oaks, famous throughout that section, through the Arcadian scene, under Chinese lanterns, by rustic groups at their simple pleasures, the carriages thundered, and the riders rushed by plying whip and spur. Among the last that reached her carriage was Mademoiselle Diane de Monplaisir. She was in no sense excited that young lady was too poised for that, but it had suited her to play with the fears of her friends. Her garments had rustled with the rest down the steps, but, on leaving the salon, she had been particularly careful respectfully to courtesy before her host, as he stood erect at his post like a forgotten sentinel. Having given this lesson of social tact, she thought herself justified in raising her voice to a decorously high pitch, and saying, in the shape of a problem presented to her escorts : " Mafoi, Messieurs, is not this a pretty comedy with which Monsieur Torres has favored us ? " Trained though they were in the young lady's imperious service, none of these gallants answered. The call was too sudden, and the danger altogether too pressing for that. It had not struck eleven o'clock before the mansion, still blazing with the lights of a joyous betrothal, was left to the ghosts destined to haunt its walls so long as they shall stand. Of the hundred who had frou-froued that evening up the carpeted steps, who had opened very promising flirtations of their own, who had envied Blanche while they coveted Fernand, not one remained save Dr. Tousage and Made- moiselle Marie Bonsecour. It was not long after that hour that the doctor himself, having seen that Blanche was recovered and in gentle hands, took leave of the old man, who sat crushed and broken under the wasting lights of the great golden candelabras. As he descended the steps, Dr. Tousage said to himself : " I must refer to my abnormal cases. It was what I suspected. There was something extraordinary in his insensibility to fire. I shall see Fernand to-morrow." For that matter, Dr. Tousage, had he chosen, might have suspected years and years before. He had known Fernand' s mother. He had attended her in her last illness, and had seen with surprise the ante- mortal pallor give place to a post-mortal rosiness. The case had been something beyond his experience. He had contented himself with classing among his " Abnormal Cases " this woman who had looked LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 359 as blooming in her coffin as she had done in her boudoir, and whose roses in death were like the gorgeous blossom plucked from the twin sister of Rappacini's daughter. The good doctor had taken no account, however, of the fact that La Quinte, fronting broad on the bayou, and spreading deep in smiling fields of sugar-cane, back to the great funereal cypriere, bordered perilously on a world ostracized by the world, between which and it there rises a wall broader, deeper, higher, more deadly repellent, than ever Chinese fear raised against Tartar aggression. A world not populous, save in wrecked hopes, harrowing dreams, and mournful shadows. A world of agonized hearts, of putrid ulcers, of flesh drop- ping from rotting bones, of Selfishness holding a Spartan throne with Horror, of the Divine likeness distorted, year by year, till the very semblance of man, born in His gracious image, comes to be blotted out. A world, the men and women in which are players in a life- tragedy, to which Samlet is a comedy, and the Duchess of Malfi a melodrama. A terrible world this in short, a world of LEPERS. In the parish of Lafourche, along Bayou Lafourche, there are lepers as poisonous as Naaman, and as incurable as Uzziah. It is an old story barely touched here, not even surfaced. It is a curse which law- makers, in these later days, are called upon to rub out or to wall around. Practically, there has always been a walling around this curse this blot whatsoever one may choose to call it ; practically, because the neighbors of these unhappy people have lost the sentiment of neighbor- liness. The feeling against them is as old as the first human deformity, and as bitter as the first human prejudice. What has happened to races before them, offending the eye of civilization, has become their fate. Civilization frowns upon her accursed races, her lepers, her Cagots, her Marrons, her Colliberts, her Chuetas. She prescribes for them certain metes and limits, and says to them, " O God-abandoned, pass not beyond these, at your peril." The doctors prop up with their science this feeling. They agree that a peculiar disease is confined to a certain class of the population living along Bayou Lafourche ; declare that disease to be leprosy, and pronounce it cureless. On their side, the sufferers protest vehemently in denial. No one takes their word, while they themselves, when compelled to wander from their fields, creep with furtive look and stealthy step. Like lepers everywhere, those of Bayou Lafourche are the Lemurida3 of mankind. After all, what destroys their case is the single fact which separates them absolutely from their fellows?/ once attacked, these people never get well. Science is not always con- sistent ; but ages ago she pronounced a judgment against herself which 360 FICTION. still stands. She admitted then, as she admits now, that she is power- less to heal a leper. It needs a Christ to say : " Be thou clean, and the leprosy is cleansed." The life of these lepers, if a tragedy, has a plot of sorrow simple enough. There are not many of them. They may now count between twenty-five and fifty families, principally poor, all of whom raise their homes of corruption on Bayou Lafourche. They are not bunched together in one settlement, but stretch out along the stream a distance of thirty or forty miles, scenting, at one end, the soft saccharine smell of growing cane, and at the other the sharp saline odor of a mighty gulf. Their awful malady is an inheritance with them ; their suffer- ings are acute ; their disfigurement becomes, in time, complete ; but their deaths, though from the same disease, do not create an epi- demic. What the Caqueurs were to Bretagne, and the Yaqueros to the Asturias, these lepers are to Bayou Lafourche. Many-sided are the rumors about them ; but a wide-spreading, far-reaching tongue adds that there are among them some who are rich in this world's goods, and yet are forced to take this world's refuse. Xo one knew all this better than Dr. Tousage. He had been prominent among those brave physicians who strive to be healers. But, as it happened, he was not thinking of Leper-Land while riding slowly towards La Quinte. Honest Baptiste was in wait. There was a mystery about his p^tit maitre so much Baptiste knew. Confianza's eyes were filled with tears, and they dumfounded the simple slave. Traditions of any kind, save the peaceful, oftentimes tender gossip of La Quinte, where two generations of kindly masters had made the furrows of labor almost as full of roses as the " path of dalliance," had never turned Baptiste's brain into a race-track; so, on the doctor's arrival, his eyes were full of a terror inviting inquiry, but above all sympathy. The doctor was pre-occupied ; he gave neither. " Where is your master, Baptiste ? " was all he said. " M'sieu Fernand, he ees in la bibliotec," replied Baptiste, with a certain awe crossing his terror at right angles. Baptiste fervently believed that the ghost of his old master walked that particular room at midnight. And, for that matter, it would have been hard to find any slave within five leagues who did not agree with Baptiste. " He is there, is he ? Then I know the way very well." Dr. Tousage found Fernand in a small, well-lighted room, divided from the great wide parlors, sombre even at that early hour, by a falling lace curtain. The sunbeams of the morning streamed through the windows, glinting tenderly the backs of books of great thinkers loved by Don Camilo, and cherished for association's sake by his son. LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 361 It was a chamber rich in windows as it was brilliant in light a chamber for the strong, not for the weak. " Sapristi ! " said the doctor to himself, " open windows are a sign of joy. The case is not so hopeless, after all." The good doctor was wrong for once. Fernand had lost hope ; or, rather, despair had pushed hope from its place, and there brooded. The young man was seated by a table on which were laid two books. One was a copy of the Bible ; the other, Maundrel's work on the Syrian leprosy, a very old book, and as rare as it is old. Rising as his old friend entered, for the first time in his life he did not offer his hand. " Be pleased to take a seat, doctor." "Eh lien! Fernand, what is all this? You, a Hercules, and sick?" The attempt at ease, if intended to deceive, was a failure. The young man faced his visitor. " Stop, doctor. This is no time for comedy. I am still a Hercules, if brawn and muscle and twenty-five years can make one. But there is a plague about me more deadly to bear than Dejanira's robe." " And that plague is ? " " Leprosy ! " " Have you convinced yourself of that ? " " Perfectly ; and you also, you need not deny it. I have not studied that kindly face so long without being able to read it." " To speak frankly, I am not surprised. But does the disease really exist ? It is because I wish to assure myself on this point that I have come. Think over my question quietly." " Look at this, doctor. This may help you to a conclusion." While saying this he was throwing open his shirt, revealing a small white-reddish sore slowly eating into his brawny chest. " I have never been, as you know, doctor, much of what you call a thinking man. At any rate, I have taken this to be the mysterious ' date-mark,' which, at some time in his life, pursues and brands each traveller to Bagdad. It first broke out while I was in Paris, some months ago. My old nurse knows nothing of it. I accepted it gayly enough. I argued something in this way. I had not forgotten Bag- dad why should Bagdad forget me ? " "While he was speaking, the physician had been examining the ulcer. He grew more thoughtful as he looked. " Has this increased in size since it first appeared ? " " Yes ; but very little." " Any pain ? " " No, I cannot say that it has pained me, but it has annoyed me 362 FICTION. considerably. Eemember that, until last night, whenever I thought of it, it was solely in connection with Bagdad. With my physique, what else could give it birth ? But that is over now. It is not the date-mark. What, then, is it ? " Dr. Tousage knew his young friend's courage. He did for him what he would not have done for a weaker soul. He took refuge in that truth, which is more often a kindness shown by this world's healers than they are given credit for. " This," he replied slowly, " represents a leprosy already developed." " And the Salamanderism of last night ? " " Was a strong, although a wholly accidental, proof of its exist- ence." " Accidental, you think it ? I look upon it rather as providential," retorted Fernand, while adding : " You regard my case as hopeless, then?" " Absolutely, though the danger is not immediate." " In other words, cher docteur, one must pay for being Hercules. A long life, and each knotted muscle prolonging the torture which it doubles, that is the story, eh ? " said the young man, bitterly, as he touched a bell on the table. In response, the old Indian nurse appeared and stood, quietly wait- ing, near the door. " Look, and then listen, doctor," said Fernand, as he pointed with his finger to her. "This old woman you know her? has fairly haunted me through life. She was the one to receive me at my birth. She tended me through my babyhood. She protected my boyhood. When my mother died, she became mother and nurse in one. She watched me in my plays. She interfered in my disputes. She made me the laughing-stock of my schoolmates until I fought them into respect. As I grew older, I saw that in her love there was a large leaven of anxiety. She showed it during my years at Heidelberg. She grew thin and more despondent during our stay in the East. She hovered around me in Paris. The Quartier Latin, at a very feverish time, could raise no barricade against her. Mabille had no terrors for her. I found her everywhere on watch, and always with her eyes fixed wistfully on myself. It was then I took to thinking of her as a woman cursed with a single thought that had borrowed the intensity of a mania. It is not three months since I began to believe that that single thought might be for me. Last night I knew that I was right. It was she who prevented my returning to Beaumanoir. Such devo- tion is rare. I say again, look at her, doctor." Wondering a little, Science scanned Devotion. The woman was well worth looking at in her brown-skinned, white- LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 363 haired, brave, honest, faithful old age. A prophetess of evil had she always been, but not of the order of Cassandra. She had foreseen. She had not chosen to foretell. Fernand resumed in a reckless manner, as though he had something to do that hurt him, and of which he wished to be rid : " Would you believe after this, doctor, when I am beaten down to the earth, that she refuses to speak ? She talks to me in the jargon of my childhood. Last night she reminded me of a book containing the story of a leper. That is her way of telling me that I am one. There lies the book on the table. Have you ever read it ? Old Maundrel held a wise pen in his hand. He reports the case of a man in Syria, who knew himself to be leprous by having passed unscorched through flames. Confianza remembered the story, but I wish to know why she recalled it. Nurse, here is the doctor. He is a friend, and a true one. In his presence, tell me why you have feared for me through all these years." The old Indian remained silent. Her tongue was bound by a pledge that it could not break. The dead in their graves forge chains indissoluble. " But I can tell you, Fernand," said the doctor, gravely, " what Confianza, under oath, dares not." " You ! And what what can you tell ? " " Your mother died a leper ! " IV. The small world about La Quinte had soon a tidbit to roll around its tongue more to its taste than even that delicious morsel from Beau- manoir. Workmen, it heard, were busy building a cottage under the ancient live oak that was old when Iberville's ships sailed through the waters of Manchac, and moss-crowned when simple Acadiens from the Northern ice, camping under it, broke out in wild enthusiasm over its knotted knees and spreading boughs, while their children plucked the giant by his frosty beard, and shouted gleefully as they crowned themselves with the mossy theft. The same oak had, for generations, been the pride of the country round. They called it lovingly le Pere Chene, the Father Oak. Superstition had added a special charm to its head, grown gray in the circling rings of a thou- sand years. Lovers' vows, pledged under it, for once ceased to be false, and a happy marriage never failed, it was fervently believed, to follow the kisses for which the old tree had for ages stood sponsor. To build a cottage under the Pere Chene, therefore, was a violent shock given to the love, the pride, the superstition of the entire neighborhood. 364 FICTION. But what could love, pride, or superstition say ? The tree itself was private property ; the old gray beard stood on land belonging to La Quinte. It was quite clear, therefore, that the owner had ordered the erection of the cottage, and that he had a right to do so. Mademoiselle de Monplaisir spoke the voice of a critical circle : " Mafw, tfest bien noble de la part de M. Torres. He wishes to be near his kin." There was always a sting in the honey vouchsafed by this young lady to her friends. The sting in this particular honey was that Leper- Land began within half a league below the lower terminus of La Quinte. A low-roofed, broad-verandaed cottage soon nestled under the pro- tecting branches of the old tree. The roof once reached, farm wagons, filled with furniture, stirred up the white dust of the Bayou highway. Then came carts filled with books. The cottage itself was only a three days' wonder, after all. Something came afterward, that was to prove a plethoric, full-mouthed, nine days' talk. After the last cart had deposited its burden, the workmen reappeared. They came in crowds. In an amazingly short time, a great whitewashed brick wall rose high enough to look down upon the cottage, which it had been built to screen. It loomed up full thirty feet in the air, stretching in a square on all sides of the giant oak, whose head, turbaned in mosses, could be seen behind it from the road and from boats passing swiftly on the Bayou. There was nothing cheerful in this strange pile. In the sunlight it looked like a prison ; in the moonlight, like a grave- yard. The Panteon of Bogota is not more ghost-like. The wall being finished, but one entrance was left to the interior. This was at the lower end, to the rear, where a strong oak door, iron- bound, challenged the way. On the side of that door was a turn- window in the wall, through which could be passed such articles as might be needed for the dweller within. Close to that window and outside of the wall was a small hut. It was the home of Confianza martyr to the child of her love in his weakness, as she had been faith- ful to him in his young strength under the skies of Damascus and on the shining shores of the Mediterranean. And what did Society, that part of it which whispers its wisdom behind summer fans, think of all this ? It only sighed prettily, and itched the more to know all. Fernand's story was an exciting one so- far, but society is never wholly satisfied unless it sees the green curtain fall on a tragedy on which it has seen it rise. For the rest, it had been told that he remained shut up in his rooms and had been seen by no one but the doctor and Confianza. It clamored, however, for the end. Somehow, this did not come to it so soon as expected. It was very^ LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 365 long after Society had retired, so to speak, from the boxes, and the lights had been put out, that it heard that Fernand, on the very night of the day when the strong oak door was hung on its hinges, had passed through it alone. Little by little it came out, that, for that particular night, an order had been given to all the slaves of La Quinte, somewhat in the fashion of that borne by the herald of Coventry, " . . . a thousand summers back." The old Indian had taken the message through the house and the quarters. " The master is going," she said, " to leave La Quinte to- night for his new home. He is very sick and very unhappy. He knows that his people love him, and he begs them all to go to their cabins early to-night, and not to leave them." In the old story of Coventry it was a " shameless noon " that, from its hundred towers, clanged the triumph of a peerless sacrifice. In the new one, it was a pitying midnight which, from its hundred shad- ows, shrouded the sacrifice of a noble life. La Quinte, fertile as she was in sons and daughters, had not bred a " Peeping Tom " among them all ; and by nine o'clock there was not one of her children who was not abed. Fernand had died to the world. So the world, true to its tradi- tions, avenged itself by calling his retreat Le Tombeau Blanc, a ghoulish fancy, which had received its inspiration from a remark accredited to Mme. Diane Dragon (nee Monplaisir), while daintily sipping her orgeat, that, " since M. Torres has chosen to bury himself alive, his home is well called The White Tomb." For the rest, Society had no time for a tragic tale already old. Autumn had laughed with Summer over the richness of their common harvest. Winter, which had passed in storm over the parish, had found time there is a deal of unrecorded kindly blood in these stern old seasons to press a part- ing kiss upon Spring's virgin lips, and to whisper : " Be good, my daughter, and spare not thy sweetest blossoms." It scarcely seemed cause for wonder, then, that Society should have forgotten the hermit as completely as though he lay, indeed, stretched cold and dreamless in his last bed. As to the leper's actual condition, even the old Indian knew but little. He had locked the gate behind him and kept the key with him in his cottage. The turn-window remained the only medium of communication between them. Before burying himself, Fernand had said to her : " You know that I am very sick ; what is worse, I am hopeless. My life may be short or long. Whether long or short, I am forced to suffer. I wish to die, but it is my duty to live. Cook my meals and put them twice a day in the turn-window. I shall call 366 FICTION. for them at eight o'clock in the morning ; then again at four in the afternoon." That was all which had passed between the two. It seemed a sorry exhibit enough, this gratitude smothered in the fumes of a gastronomic edict. But the true old woman took it all to herself, and that night, with her worn rosary in hand, she broke into an extra plea of Paternosters and Ave Marias. In the meantime, and in his bitter solitude, shuddering and sick at heart, Fernand would turn from his mournful future to the compensa- tion which must be his so long as his skilful hands could win music from the strings of his Cremona. This instrument was a gift to him, when a lad, from Duffeyte, that brilliant tenor whose sweet notes had entranced Creoledom somewhere in the '40's. His power over his gift was not unworthy of the donor. His soul was alive with music as a heated forge is with flame. Compositions of the great masters weighted his music-rack ; but memories of Verdi and Donizetti, and melodies of Liszt and Strauss were with him, and through the chords of his Cremona, with an almost human sympatl^, spoke tenderly and consolingly to the leper's heart. The cool and quiet of midnight Avere wont to fall like a dream of peace upon his tortured soul. He had cried with Themistocles, " Give me the art of oblivion ! " But the unpitying sun was not his friend. Its torrid glare already revealed that fatal whiteness which separated him from his fellows. He felt that, for him, the moonlight was better than the sunlight ; and the night's black mantle friendlier than the day's blazing shield. In his isolation, he learned, too, to acknowledge a comradeship, during the short spring and long summer months, with the whippoorwill, that sad brown bird of the cypriere, which, shunning the haunts of happier men, had been won by the mystic shadows and unbroken silence within the wall, and had come to grieve with him through moonlit nights, coyly hidden, but fearless, among the leaves of the ancient oak. For in the meantime, Dr. Tousage's judgment had been verified. Fernand's leprosy was already developed when he fought the flames at Beaumanoir. But when Spring came, in memory of her agreement with Father Winter to drop blossoms on the trees and to fill the black earth with flowers, the second stage was already reached. It was to the credit of the doctor's sincere friendship that not a whisper of this was breathed beyond the old woman's hut. But the fight was held within the wall and under Pere Chene, all the while. The old physician's visits were for a time regular. Then, all at once, his knock ceased to be heard at the oak door. Something had taken place between the two a quarrel, everybody said. Oh, no ! not that ; only a bit of truth from Science, told in a broken voice, and with great tears streaming down from under the gold spectacles of the leech : LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 367 " I can no longer hope to do you good, Fernand, and I may pos- sibly injure others by my visits. The physician does not belong to himself. Your disease, always incurable, has within the last six months become practically contagious. God bless you, my son, and give you courage to bear unto the end." This was, for Fernand, a dismissal that had long been foreseen. There was death in his heart already, and all that he asked was that he might indeed cease to live, and be at rest forever. But of what he suffered, and of the storm that, raging in him, broke out in bitter rain, all this the great wall hid, as a new and sadder secret, among the branches of its monster oak. When Dr. Tousage left him, Fernand was fighting with the second - stage of his disease. The arbutus-like pink of his complexion had faded out. He had become a " leper white as snow." He saw before him a Calvary on whose vid dolorosa he could hope to meet no Cyre- nian to bear his cross. He found himself thinking of a time when the white skin would change into a coarse yellow ; when deep into its sur- face a growth of tubercles would fatten in ulcerous corruption ; when the hand that had grown so warm in love might lose the use of its shapely fingers ; and when even the face hallowed by the first and last kiss of Blanche, might, if seen in its awful disfigurement, come to frighten timid women in mother's labor. He knew himself to be like another Vivenzio in the castle of Tolfi. His own life, in its decaying physical form, measured for him as surely the year-posts to death as the lessening windows of his iron shroud had for the Italian. Behind his wall, perhaps in a bitter spirit, perhaps in resignation^ he had gauged the world and believed it wanting in remembrance. But he was not forgotten. Old Confianza, at his window, sat day and night, as silently and faithfully watching as Mordecai at the Persian's, gate. And there were others. In those dark hours dear to him, there were passers-by along the bayou-road. These were men and women who had learned to make that road a Mecca, because they had loved the kindly man now forced to live a pariah. The road seemed haunted with ghosts. For, as the darkness fell upon bayou and swamp, shadows would come stepping softly out of it to mass a moment in fearful silence in front of Le Tombeau Blanc ; to point out, each to his neighbor, the great ghostly wall, and to raise their black hands in whispered bless- ing over it ; and then, as their creeping-off would drop into a half -trot, they would break out into a wild hymn, which, beginning soft and tremulous, would grow into loudness, drowning the whippoorwill's plaint, and filling the woods with the presence of an uncultured but mighty miserere. 368 FICTION. Following these ghosts, but avoiding always to meet them, would come others. These would creep from the forest depths lower down, stand for a longer time than the rest staring at the wall ; would raise their hands, too, in silent benediction, and, in their turn, retire as noiselessly as the shadows that they were. Lepers in body, the souls of these ghosts were clean. For out of the agony that was Selfishness had bloomed the flower that was Gratitude. But, after a time, these loving ghosts left the bayou-road to its loneliness. Then a ghost, gaunt and tall, assuming a woman's shape, would step out into the road and stand, looking up with patient sad- ness. This shape would appear so suddenly after the lepers' flitting that it was clear it had been lying in wait. Then a special phantom, also a woman, with strange black robes floating around her, would glide quickly in front of the wall, stop, clasp its hands wildly, with face upturned toward it, as though in sup- plication ; lower its head, with hands still clasped, into the dust of the road, to pray and weep, and weep and pray again. After a while, the first ghost would draw near, gently touch the shoulder of the kneeling figure, and together both phantoms would become lost in the deeper shadows of Confianza's hut. Of all these ghosts Fernand knew nothing. Fernand was a prisoner for life. But the world outside had not, for him or his wall, ceased to move. Action had clutched the scab- bard from Argument, and with its right hand drawn the blade. Of the war that had drenched the land in blood, he had heard but once. Men in blue and men in gray had marched past his wall, awed at its height, marvelling at its quaintness, wondering at its use. Then, learning its tragic story, the brave men had turned, somehow, a free and easy route-step into something suspiciously like a double-quick. Confianza herself was mute. A curt order for silence, given by Fer- nand in the beginning of his malady, had been loyally obeyed by the old Indian ; and by long prohibition, no copy of the Picayune had come to tell him that Mars, sword in hand, was sweeping over fields of sugar, corn, and cotton. One day the date thereof is fixed in the war annals, not in these pages a single boom was heard under the branches of le Pere Chene. Faintly but distinctly, the boom soon came to Fernand's ear fast, furious, continuous. Evidently a distant cannonade. He could not hear the wild yell, nor the great answering shout that kept time to its martial challenge. But Battle has a voice of its own, and that spoke in the heavy guns of Labadieville. " What is that, Confianza ? " came hoarsely shouted from the turn- window. " Son las tropas, Senor" LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 369 " Troops ! men playing at soldiers, you mean." " Oh, no, hijo mio ! Dey de troops of the Nort and de Sout. Dey fight demselves togeder. Ya ees old la guerra." Then, with ears alert and eyes distended, she raised herself to listen listening not to the guns, but to a cry that wailed through the silence a cry harsh, sinister, discordant, horrible a cry that was the roar of a wild beast hunted to death in the jungle. " My God ! my God ! why cannot I find death among the fighters yonder ? " This was an episode not the least ghastly among the episodes of that sorrowful time. Years had passed since then. The leper seemed to have forgotten the day when he had heard from within Le Tombeau Blanc the guns of Labadieville. After all, it was time that he should do so. Already he thought of himself as a creature like Moore's " bloodless ghost," speculating bitterly on the day, sure to dawn, when, chained to his bed, he would come to sit by his " . . . own pale corpse, watching it." Bear in mind that it was through all these years from that night at Beaumanoir, through peaceful times, through quiet harvests, through gathering clouds, through deep thunderings, through lightning burst- ing from those clouds, through a great war, through a noble effort, through a mighty liberation, through a peace that was not a calm and a calm that became peace, that Fernand had changed from the figure of a perfect manhood to what he then was. On the whole, his dread disease had been merciful to him. The muscles, once firm as Samson's, had long since betrayed their strength into eating ulcers. But Gan- grene Death's grimmest lieutenant still refrained from striking. It hovered with its scythe over the feet, filled with a growth of pustules. It threatened those hands once so strong, so soft, as instinct with music as with daring ; but ten fingers still remained to be counted between them. His voice had become rauque and broken; but the hair, beard, and eye-brows, although prematurely white, had not yet dropped from their follicles. His features were enlarged, had turned to ghastly grotesqueness, but so far they had escaped the teredo-like borings of leprosy. With all this, he felt himself growing Aveaker day by day. He had ceased to use Dr. Tousage's medicines, left at inter- vals on his window. He could have no faith whatsoever in the phy- sician who had none in himself, and who had told him frankly : " Palliatives, not remedies, Fernand, these are all I can promise you." But even these were now beyond his reach the good old doctor had written his last prescription. 24 370 FICTION. Little by little, Fernand yielded his consolations. A fine dust, settling around the strings of Duffeyte's Cremona, had clogged their melody. Of the wild-beast-like, circular paths around and about the Tombeau, no sign remained. The grass had grown thick over them, as well as over that which, night after night, had so long been his road in the old days, to the lowest rung of a ladder by which he had reached the summit of the great solemn wall, and where, condemned like Moses on Pisgah's height, he would direct yearning glances " westward and northward, and southward and eastward," toward the black waters of the bayou swirling by in the darkness, and the shadowy outlines of fertile fields, once his own, and of dark forests which had been his hunting-ground as boy and man. * * * * & # # * There is now but one path in the Tonibeau Blanc. It was the leper's first, as it will be his last path the walk which leads from the cottage to the turn-window, which holds, each morning and afternoon, his food and drink. There are two parts fairly mixed in our humanity when in extrem- ity. One is animal ; the other, spiritual. The two cannot live apart, so long as the body itself holds together. Fernand feels this keenly. He seeks his .food, as a beast, maimed in the fierce wars of its kind, might crawl to seek it by habit. But unlike the beast, his spirit, which stands for his pleasures, is confined to his cottage, or, in fair sunny weather, to his seat under the Father Oak. He can no longer find solace in his Cremona. He can no longer see to read. He can only think, think, think ! He totters, while he keeps back the groans, as he now makes the daily trips for food. He remembers how, years, years ago, he had firmly planted his feet on that well-beaten path, hopeless then, but self -poised. Now, he can only creep painfully along it, stopping at intervals to gasp, taking a half-hour where once the half-minute had sufficed. Then, he had clutched his food with the appetite which young manhood gives, even when it knows itself doomed to lingering disease. Now, he puts his hand up for it with loathing, and turns aside with a shudder when he draws it down. That terrible path ! This is what he now most fears. His hands are not of the strongest for the carrying of food, none of the safest for bearing a full pitcher. For over their swollen surface the skin has thickened and stretched tight and hard like a drum's head. His fingers are gradually turning within like a harpy's claws. He is far from sure of them. One day he doubts whether they will be able to take the food without dropping it. The next day he fears that they cannot carry drink without spilling it. The sorrowful truth is that he is growing afraid of himself. He trembles as he looks down at his LE TOMBEAU BLANC. 371 pustuled feet, now always bare. At times he holds before his eves in the sunlight his two yellow swollen hands with their curved fingers. Then, indeed, he breaks out into sudden despair ; he bows his head upon those fingers, blotting out the tell-tale sun, while through them trickle the scalding scanty tears which lepers weep. He knows that he is now far in the last stage of his disease ; that the end of all this must be impotence. The certainty of his fate haunts him like a spectre. He has marked with a ? that unknown day, soon to come, when he shall be too weak to leave his room. One way or other, he feels that that day, when it does come, must break the self-will which has grown almost marble under the Pere Chene. The Church has taught him that suicide is a crime. Though in a tomb, whence he can neither see the blaze of altar-candles, nor hear the chimes in steeple-bells, he believes it from his soul to be one. He is utterly alone in these days. Even Nature, the tried ally of solitary man, has neglected, if it have not altogether forgotten him. For years, that wizard of the forest, the mocking-bird, has cheered him with its " lyric bursts " of unmatched melody. But, true to its own instincts, it has set up its throne in the thickets around Confianza's hut. Outside of, not within, the gloomy wall is where the singer chooses to reign ; and there it reigns, day and night, content if it only knows that the leper within gains from its wondrous notes a single hope. Fernand does not doubt his consoler, I think ; or, if he do, his is only the faint shadow of a fainter doubt. Both were bred in the land of the orange and the sugar-cane. In the man's philosophy, born of his old nurse's lullabies, a certain sorcery attaches to this wondrous bird of wondrous song. As he listens in his agony to its joyous bursts, he so bound, it so free, he murmurs half unconsciously, in the wild words of an old Creole hymn of Nature, caught breathing from her by Pere Rouquette : " Ah, mokeur ! Ah, mokeur shanteur ! Ah, ah ! to gagnin giab dan kor ! To gagniii tro 1'espri, mokeur. M6, shantg : in'a koutg ankor ! " * Thus, in its own fashion, is the gray maestro faithful to him. But not so his old shy comrade, the whippoorwill, which has long since left the tree that, in its depths, it haunted, and the master whom, in its coyness, it had seemed to love. The cypriere has sent none other * Ah, mocking-bird ! Ah, mocking songster ! Ah, thou hast the devil in thy heart ! Thou hast too much wit, mocking-bird. But sing on ; I must listen once more ! 372 FICTION. of its songsters ; and even the little twittering birds, that dote on free- dom and space and glitter and company, avoid the mournful Father Oak as though he were a plague. Or, perhaps, these tiny creatures have finer senses than man, and know of the plague that sits and ponders, a breathing corpse, under the grand old tree. Here it is that Fernand passes hours in figuring over and over again what will come of the inevitable invasion. Confianza must, of course, be admitted. And Blanche \ Oh, would that she could ! But how foolish all this is, none knows so well as he. He would not let his darling in, no ! not were she even to knock at the gate and ask that it be opened unto her. Nor can Blanche but I had forgotten, there is no longer a Blanche. There is a S&ur Angelique who once bore her name a fair and sinless woman dedicated to God, of whom her black-robed sisters speak with love and pride. Xothing of all this passes into the Tombeau Blanc. Fernand has not forgotten Blanche, but he has no knowledge of S