The Chautauquan, April 1884

Transcriber’s Note: This cover has been created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

The Chautauquan.

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. IV. APRIL, 1884. No. 7.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President—Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.

Superintendent of Instruction—Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn.

Counselors—Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.

Office Secretary—Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

General Secretary—Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Contents

Transcriber’s Note: This table of contents of this periodical was created for the HTML version to aid the reader.

REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4.
APRIL.

READINGS FROM FRENCH HISTORY.

By Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

IX.—LOUIS XVI.

About twenty years of age, amiable, irresolute, of simple tastes and earnest piety, Louis XVI. succeeded to the throne at a time when these qualities of gentleness could avail but little against the crowning evils of the age, and when the supreme genius and iron will of a Cromwell or a Napoleon could alone have averted the destruction by which the state was menaced. Signs of dissolution and prophecies of woe were already abroad. Long wars and the lavish expenditure of the last century and a half, had reduced the finances of the kingdom to a deplorable condition. The public credit was at its lowest ebb. The treasury presented a deficit of forty millions. The people, over-taxed, restless, half-savage, and dangerously intelligent, abandoned agriculture and sought a precarious subsistence by smuggling and spoliation. A spirit of political and religious infidelity pervaded the middle and lower classes. The throne had too long been degraded by excess, and tarnished by scandal, to command the affection of the multitude. The nobles were scorned rather than reverenced, and not even the ancient stronghold of terror remained. The clergy, by their cruelties, their ignorance, and their debaucheries had alienated the great body of the people, and brought down upon themselves the satire and indignation of the enlightened. In Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and D’Alembert, the new opinions had found their chief advocates and leaders. Before their sweeping censures Christianity, loyalty, tradition had trembled, and sunk away. They were speedily reinforced by all the intelligence of the age. A host of distinguished men hastened to their support, and the innovators carried all before them—leveling good as well as evil, trampling upon much that was pure in their reckless hatred of that which was foul, and sapping the foundations of truth, mercy and chivalry, while compassing the necessary destruction of falsehood, despotism, imposition and vice.

To the government of this crumbling edifice and this murmuring people came Louis, with his good heart, his boyish timidity, and his woful inexperience. His queen, Marie Antoinette, was a daughter of Maria Theresa, fair, generous and impetuous. Surrounded by eager courtiers, and saluted for the first time as king and queen, they fell upon their knees, and cried, weeping, “Oh God, guide us! Protect us! We are too young to reign!”

The king’s first act was to reëstablish the parliament, and place the financial department in the hands of the impartial and provident Turgot. Unfortunately for himself and the country, Louis suffered his mind to be prejudiced against this able minister, and, dismissing him in 1776, gave his office to M. Necker, a less efficient but a less unpopular politician. A war with England was now proposed by the king’s ambitious statesmen, who beheld at this juncture an opportunity of wresting from their ancient rival a large proportion of her foreign commerce. England and her American colonies were at variance. Not much more than a year had elapsed since the great battles of Lexington and Bunker’s Hill, and the American independence was but just declared. It now became the obvious policy of France to foment this war, to support the rebellious colonists, and to transfer to the navies of Louis XVI. that maritime superiority which had so long been the bulwark of the English liberties. The king, from motives of forbearance, was unwilling to commence this war; but, being overruled by his ministry, signed a treaty of alliance with the United States in the commencement of the year 1778. This treaty was equivalent to a declaration of war, and the first important action took place by sea off the isle of Ushant on the 27th of July. The fleets numbered thirty sail each; not a ship was captured or sunk on either side; and the fortune of the day was indecisive. In the following year, an alliance with Spain doubled the naval strength of Louis XVI. The French and Spanish admirals united their fleets, and hovered about the coasts of England without making any descent; whilst the Count d’Estaings, with twelve ships of the line, took the islands of Granada and St. Vincent, and made an unsuccessful attack upon St. Lucia, which had been lately conquered by the English. On the 16th of January, 1780, Admiral Rodney, then on his way to the relief of Gibraltar, encountered and defeated a Spanish fleet commanded by Don Juan de Langara. He then sailed on, unopposed, to Gibraltar, and next proceeded to the West Indies. While there he thrice engaged with the Count de Guichen, who had succeeded to the command of the French fleet. None of these actions were productive of important results. The Count de Guichen was replaced in 1781 by the Count de Grasse, a man of great skill and courage, who defeated the English admiral, Hood, on the 28th of April, and added Tobago to the conquests of France. In this year another enemy rose against England. The Dutch declared war, and George III. was involved at one time, by sea and land, in four great contests, namely, with France, Spain, America and Holland. In the month of October, however, the surrender of Yorktown by Lord Cornwallis virtually ended the contest between England and the United States; and the four European powers alone carried on hostilities. The month of April, 1782, was signalized by a hard-fought and sanguinary engagement between the Count de Grasse and Admiral Rodney. They met on the 12th, off the island of Dominique, with nearly equal forces, and the French were disastrously defeated with a loss of eight ships, a terrible sacrifice of life, and the captivity of the Count de Grasse. England was not, however, destined to profit much by the victory; for, as Admiral Rodney was sailing back with his well-won captures, a fearful storm arose, and most of the prizes were lost. Among these was the Ville de Paris, a fine ship of 110 guns, lately presented to the king by the citizens of Paris. On the 13th of October, in the same year, the fortress of Gibraltar was made the scene of a formidable assault, which failed utterly. The besiegers were commanded by the Duke de Crillon, an officer in the Spanish service; the Count d’Artois, brother to Louis; and the Duke de Bourbon. Negotiations for peace were now commenced, and her late successes by sea enabled England to treat at a less disadvantage than might have been expected, considering the circumstances of the war. The preliminaries were signed at Versailles on the 20th of January, 1783. France restored to England all her conquests, with the exception of St. Lucia, Tobago, the establishments on the river Senegal, and some trifling possessions in Africa and the East Indies. England relinquished all that she had captured. Spain acquired the island of Minorca.

More embarrassed than ever by the cost of the late war, the finances of France had now fallen into a worse state than before. The public debt was increased. The people exasperated by a system of taxation which spared the wealthy and oppressed the poor, and imbued, moreover, with those democratic principles which had found their way from America to France, became still louder in the expression of their discontent. M. De Calonne had by this time succeeded M. Necker. He was brilliant, fluent, ready with expedients. Dreading the recriminations and plain-speaking that must have attended a meeting of the States-general, this minister proposed to convene the Notables—that is to say, an assemblage of persons gathered from all parts of the kingdom, and chiefly from the higher ranks of society. This measure had been taken by Henry IV. and by Louis XIII.; it was not, therefore, without precedent, and much was hoped by the nation. They met, to the number of 137, in February, 1787. M. De Calonne laid before them the condition of the exchequer, and proposed to submit to taxation all the landed property of the kingdom, including that of the privileged classes. But he addressed an assembly composed almost exclusively of the privileged classes, and they would not hear his arguments. On the 9th of April, finding his position untenable, he resigned his office, and was succeeded by M. De Brienne. Still the notables refused to abate their ancient immunities, and were in consequence dissolved on the 25th of May. The absolute necessity of procuring money now compelled the king arbitrarily to register a royal edict, which met with strong opposition from the parliament. This body was then banished to Troyes, but again recalled in the month of September. In 1788, M. de Brienne, weary of combating the difficulties of his office, resigned in favor of M. Necker. This gentleman, as the first act of his second ministry, proposed to convoke the states-general, and on the 5th of May, 1789, that august assembly filled the Hall de Menus in the Palace of Versailles. The king, in a brief speech, spoke hopefully of the present and the future, trusted that his reign might be commemorated henceforth by the happiness and prosperity of his people, and welcomed the states-general to his palace. Unforeseeing and placid, he beheld in this meeting nothing but the promise of amelioration, nor guessed how little prepared for usefulness or decision were its twelve hundred. It soon became evident that the real strength of the states-general lay in the commons. They formed the third estate, and numbered as many members as the clergy and noblesse together. They took upon themselves to decide whether the deliberations of the Assembly should be carried on in three chambers or one—they covered their heads in presence of the king—they constituted themselves the “National Assembly,” and invited the clergy and aristocracy to join them. The timid sovereign sanctioned these innovations, and the Assembly proceeded to exercise its self-conferred functions. Supplies were voted for the army; the public debt was consolidated; a provisional collection of taxes was decreed; and the inviolability of the members proclaimed. In the meantime the nobles, headed by the king’s second brother, the Count d’Artois, were collecting in the neighborhood of the court and capital such troops as they could muster from every quarter of the kingdom. Necker was exiled, and it became evident that the king’s imprudent advisers had counselled him to have recourse to violence. Paris, long prepared for insurrection, rose en masse. Necker alone had possessed the confidence of the citizens, and his dismissal gave the signal for arms. Camille Desmoulins, a young and enthusiastic patriot, harangued the populace at the Palais Royal.

The guards, when called out to disperse the mobs, refused to fire. The citizens formed themselves into a national guard. The foodless multitude attacked and pillaged in various quarters. The barriers were fired; and on the 14th of July, this wild army appeared before the walls of the Bastile. Stanch in his principles of military honor, the aged Marquis de Launay, then governor of the prison, refused to surrender, raised the drawbridge, and fired upon the multitude. His feeble garrison, consisting of eighty-two invalids and thirty-two Swiss, was menaced by thousands. The siege lasted four hours. The besiegers were joined by the French guards—cannon were brought—De Launay capitulated—the drawbridge was lowered, and the Bastile taken. Taken by a lawless sea of raging rebels, who forthwith massacred the governor, his lieutenant, and some of the aged invalids—set fire to the building, and razed it to the ground—freed the few prisoners found in the cells—garnished their pikes with the evidences of murder, and so paraded Paris. From this moment the people were supreme. The troops were dismissed from Versailles—Necker was recalled—the king visited Paris, and was invested at the Hotel de Ville with the tri-colored emblem of democracy.

Then began the first emigration. The Count d’Artois, the Prince of Condé, the Polignacs, and other noble and royal families, deserted in the moment of peril, and from beyond the frontiers witnessed the revolution in ignoble safety. The king and his family remained at Versailles, sad at heart amid their presence-chambers and garden-groves, just four leagues from volcanic Paris. Hither, from time to time, during the few days that intervened between the 14th of July and the 4th of August, came strange tidings of a revolution which was no longer Parisian, but national—tidings of provincial gatherings—of burning chateaux—of sudden vengeances done upon unpopular officials, intendants, tax-gatherers, and the like. It was plain that the First Estate must bow its proud head before the five-and-twenty savage millions, make restitution, speak well, smile fairly—or die. The memorable 4th of August came, when the nobles did this, making an ample confession of their weakness. The Viscount de Noailles proposed to reform the taxation by subjecting to it every order and rank; by regulating it according to the fortune of the individual; and by abolishing personal servitude, and every remaining vestige of the feudal system. An enthusiasm, which was half fear and half reckless excitement, spread throughout the Assembly. The aristocrats rose in their places and publicly renounced their seignorial dues, privileges, and immunities. The clergy abolished tithes and tributes. The representative bodies resigned their municipal rights. All this availed but little; and should have been done many months before to have weighed with the impatient commons. The people scorned a generosity which relinquished only that which was untenable, and cared little for the recognition of a political equality that had already been established with the pike. The Assembly was at this time divided into three parties—that of the aristocracy, composed of the greater part of the noblesse and clergy; that of the moderate party, headed by M. Necker; and that of the republicans, among whom the most conspicuous were Lafayette, Sièyes, Robespierre, and the great, the impetuous, the profligate Mirabeau. But theirs was not the only deliberative body. A minor assembly, consisting of one hundred and eighty electors; a mass of special assemblies of mechanics, tradesmen, servants, and others; and a huge incongruous mob at the Palais Royal, met daily and nightly for purposes of discussion. These demonstrations, and the extreme opinions to which they hourly gave rise, alarmed the little court yet lingering around the king. They persuaded him that he must have military assistance, and the troops were, unhappily, recalled to Versailles.

The regiment of Flanders and a body of dragoons came, and on the 1st of October the newly-arrived officers were invited to a grand banquet by their comrades of the royal body-guard. After the dinner was removed and the wine had begun to circulate, the queen presented herself with the Dauphin in her arms, and her husband at her side. Cries of loyalty and enthusiasm burst forth—their healths were drunk with drawn swords—the tri-colored cockades were trampled under foot, and white ones, emblematic of Bourbon, were distributed by the maids of honor. The news of this fatal evening flew to Paris. Exasperated by the arrival of the soldiery—by the insult offered to the tri-color—by the fear of famine and civil war—the mob rose in fury, and with cries of “Bread! bread!” poured out of Paris and took the road to Versailles. Here, sending messages, threats, and deputations to the king and to the Assembly, the angry thousands encamped for the night, in inclement weather, round about the palace. Toward morning a grate leading into the grand court was found to be unfastened, and the mob rushed in. On they went, across the marble court and up the grand staircase. The body-guards defended themselves valiantly and raised the alarm—the queen fled, half-dressed, to the king’s chamber—the “living deluge” poured through galleries and reception-rooms, making straight for the queen’s apartments. On this terrible day, Marie Antoinette was, above all, the object of popular hatred. Separated now from the revolutionists by the hall of the Œil-de-Bœuf, where the faithful remnant of body-guards had assembled to defend them to the last, the royal family listened tremblingly to the battering of the axes on the yet unbroken doors. At this moment of peril came Lafayette, with the national guard of Paris, and succeeded in clearing the palace, in pacifying the multitude, and in rescuing, for the time, the hapless group in the king’s apartments. The mob, now driven outside, demanded that Louis should show himself, and go to Paris with his family. Refusal and remonstrance were alike useless. The royal carriage was brought out, the king and his family took their places, the mob thronged round, and so, with the defeated body-guards in the midst, and some bloody trophies of the struggle carried forward upon pikes, the mournful procession went from Versailles to Paris. Lodged thenceforth in the Tuileries, treated with personal disrespect, and subjected to all the restrictions of imprisonment, Louis and his queen supported indignities with dignity, and insult with resignation.

On the 4th of September, M. Necker relinquished his office. He had been so courageous as to oppose the decree of the 16th of June, by which all distinctions of titles, armorial bearings, and other hereditary honors were abolished. From having been the idol of the republicans he now found himself dangerously unpopular, and so retired in safety to Geneva. During all this time the emigration of the noblesse went on. Assembling upon the German frontier toward the spring-time of the year 1791, they formed themselves into an army under the command of the Prince of Condé, and adopted for their motto, “Conquer or die.” Fearful, however, of endangering the king’s personal safety, they took no measures to stay the tide of rebellion, but hovered by the Rhine, watchful and threatening. Soon the king and queen, their two children, and the Princess Elizabeth, sister to the king, were the only members of the royal family left in Paris. Flight had long been talked of and frequently delayed; but at last everything was arranged, and Monday night, June 20, 1791, was fixed for the attempt. Eluding the vigilance of the guards, they stole out of the palace in disguise, and after numerous delays and misapprehensions, during which the queen lost her way in the Rue de Bac, they entered a hackney-coach driven by the Count de Fersen, and exchanged it, at the gate St. Martin, for a carriage and four. Thus, never pausing, they passed Chalons, and arrived at St. Menehould. Here they were to have been met by some cavalry, commanded by the Marquis de Bouillé; but the time fixed for their arrival was so long gone by that the escort, weary of waiting, had given them up, and gone on to Varennes. Stopping to change horses at St. Menehould, the king was recognized; and at Varennes, within reach of Bouillé’s soldiers, he was stopped and questioned. The national guard flew to arms—an aid-de-camp came up in breathless haste, seeking the fugitives and bearing the decree of arrest—the horses’ heads were turned toward Paris, and the last chance for life and liberty was past! After a return-journey of eight days, the king and his family reëntered the capital, and were received in profound silence by an immense concourse. More closely guarded, more mistrusted than ever, he was now suspended by the National Assembly from those sovereign functions which he had so long ceased to exercise or possess. In the meantime the articles of a new Constitution had been drawn up, and were publicly ratified by the royal oath and signature on the 14th of September. The National Assembly, having completed this work, dissolved itself on the 30th, and the members of the new, or legislative assembly, took their seats on the 1st of October, 1791.

And now the violences of late committed, and the anarchy existing not only in Paris, but in all districts of France, had roused the indignation of Europe. Francis II., Emperor of Austria, entered into an alliance with the king of Prussia, hostilities were threatened, and the Assembly declared for war, on the 20th of April, 1792. An invasion of the Austrian Netherlands was attempted; but the French soldiers fled upon the first sight of the Prussian columns, and General Rochambeau laid down his command. On the 25th of July, the Duke of Brunswick, who commanded the allies, issued a violent and imprudent manifesto, declaring himself authorized to support the royal authority in France; to destroy the city of Paris; and to pursue with the extremity of military law all those who were disposed to resist the policy of Europe. He at the same time put his immense army in motion, and advanced over the frontier with 70,000 Prussians and 68,000 Austrians and emigrant French. Perhaps no effort on the part of his most eager enemy could have so injured the cause and periled the safety of Louis XVI. The Assembly replied by fitting out an army of 20,000 national volunteers, and giving the command to General Dumouriez. Brunswick took Verdun and Longwy, and advanced toward the capital, confident of victory; but, being met by the active and sagacious Dumouriez, was forced to retreat. Verdun was won back again on the 12th, and Longwy on the 18th of October. An Austrian army, engaged in the siege of Lille, was compelled to abandon the attempt; and Custine on the Rhine took possession of Trèves Spires, and Mayence. War having also been declared against the King of Sardinia, Savoy was taken; and the great victory of Jemappes, won by General Dumouriez, on the 6th of November, subjected the whole of the Austrian Netherlands, with the exception of Luxembourg, to the power of France. On all sides the national troops repelled the invaders, resumed the offensive, and asserted the independence of a victorious revolution.

In the meantime, enraged at this interference of the foreign powers, and fluctuating (according to the reports from the scene of war) between apprehension and exultation, the Parisian mob and the extreme republican party came to regard the king with increased enmity. He was named in the Assembly with violent opprobrium; the mob, incited to fury by Robespierre and his associates, demanded the abolition of the royal authority; and on the 10th of August the palace of the Tuileries was attacked. The national guards, who had been appointed to the defence of the courtyards, went over to the insurgents, and pointed their cannon against the chateau. Only the gallant Swiss were left, and they, overpowered by numbers and fighting gallantly to the last, were literally cut to pieces. The king and his family escaped to the National Assembly, and on the 14th were removed to the old Temple prison. From this time the reign of terror may properly be said to have begun. The chronicles of September are written in blood. Supreme in power as in crime, the party of the Fédérés, or Red Republicans, secured the barriers, sounded the tocsin, and proceeded to clear the prisons by an indiscriminate massacre. Nobles and priests, aged men and delicate women, all who were guilty of good birth, loyalty, or religion, were slain without distinction. The inmates of the Abbaye, the Conciergerie, the Carmes, La Force, and the Bicêtre were all murdered, after a hideous mockery of trial, at which neither innocence nor evidence availed. The head of the beautiful and hapless Princess de Lamballe was paraded about Paris on a pike, and displayed before the eyes of the wretched prisoners in the Temple, whose confidential friend and companion she had been. Mademoiselle de Sombreuil only saved her father’s life by drinking a goblet of blood. Mademoiselle Cazotte flung herself between her father and the murderers. Instances of the sublimest resignation, of the loftiest courage, are abundant amid the records of this appalling period. Thirteen thousand souls are said to have been sacrificed in Paris alone, and similar massacres were perpetrated at Orleans, at Rheims, at Lyons, and at Meaux. On the 21st of September, the legislative assembly, having presided for the allotted space of one year, was succeeded by a new body of representatives, chiefly consisting of the extreme republican party, and known by the name of the National Convention. To abolish the statutes of the kings, to leave the offices of government open to men of every condition, to persecute the members of the more moderate faction, and to impeach the king before the bar of the convention, were among the first acts of the new government.

On the 11th of December, 1792, Louis, still placid and dignified, appeared before the tribunal of his enemies. He was accused of plots against the sovereignty of the people—of intrigues with the European powers—of tampering with Mirabeau, since dead—in short, of everything that might be construed into an effort for life, liberty, or prerogative. His trial lasted for more than a month, and during that time he was separated from his family. Hitherto Louis and his wife had at least shared their sorrows, and, by employing themselves in the education of the Dauphin, had beguiled somewhat of the tedious melancholy of prison life. Now it was over, and they were to meet but once again—to bid farewell. On Christmas day the king drew up his will, and on the following morning was summoned to the Convention for the purpose of making his defense. This paper was read by his counsel, and, at its conclusion, Louis spoke a few simple words relative to his own innocence and the affection which he had always felt toward his people. He was then conducted back to the Temple, and the discussions went on till the 15th of January, 1793, when it was resolved to put to the vote the three great questions of culpability, of the expediency of an appeal to the people, and of the nature of the punishment to be inflicted. On Tuesday, the 15th, the first two questions were put, and the replies recorded. By all the king was voted guilty, and by a majority of two to one the appeal to the people was negatived. On Wednesday, the 16th, the question of punishment was in like manner propounded. The agitation of Paris was something terrible to witness. A savage mob gathered about the doors of the Assembly, heaping threats upon all who dared to be merciful. Even those who most desired to save the king became intimidated, and some who had spoken bravely in his favor the day before now decreed his death. From Wednesday to Sunday morning this strange scene lasted. Seven hundred and twenty-one members, in slow succession, with trembling, with confidence, with apologetic speech, or fierce enforcement, mounted the tribune one by one, gave in their “Fate-word,” and went down to hear the judgment of their successors. Paine, the English democrat, entered his name on the side of mercy. Louis Égalité, Duke of Orleans, and father to the late Louis Philippe, had the unparalleled infamy to vote for death. Even the brave President Vergniaud, who had pleaded for Louis with passionate earnestness only a day or two before, wavered in his allegiance at the last, and spoke the fatal word. At length, when all had voted, death was found to be decreed by a majority of twenty-six voices. The king’s counsel appealed against the sentence; but the appeal was rejected, and the Assembly recommenced voting, to fix the time of execution. Death without delay—death within four-and-twenty hours, was the result. On Sunday morning, January the 20th, the messengers of the Convention told Louis he must die. A priest, a delay of three days, and an interview with his family, was all that he asked. They granted him the first and last request; but the delay was refused. In the evening he was permitted to see his wife, sister and children. They met in a chamber with glass doors, through which the municipal guards watched all the cruel scene. Falling into each other’s arms, they were for some time speechless with sorrow, and the conversation that ensued was interrupted by cries and sobs. Then the king rose, promising to see them again on the morrow, and so ended this agony of two hours. About midnight, having recovered his serenity, and prayed with his confessor, the Abbé Edgeworth, he went to bed and slept soundly. Waking at five, he heard mass and received the sacrament. At eight the municipals summoned him to execution, and, willing to spare the feelings of those whom he loved, he left without a second farewell. There was a silence of death upon all the city. Silent were the lines of soldiers—silent the gazing multitudes—silent the eighty thousand armed men who guarded with cannon the space around the scaffold. Through all these rolled the solitary carriage, and to these the king, advancing suddenly as the last moment came, said in an agitated voice, “Frenchmen, I die innocent. I pardon my enemies, and I hope that France.…” At this moment he was seized by the executioners, the drums beat and drowned his voice, and in a few seconds he was no more. All at once the strange silence was broken—the executioner upheld the severed head—the shouts of the wild populace filled the air—and then they gradually cleared off, and the business of the day went on in Paris as if no unusual thing had been done. Such was the end of Louis XVI., a virtuous and well-intentioned sovereign, on the 21st of January, 1793.—Edwards.

X.—THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION (1792-1796).

The government, after the king (Louis XVI.) was deposed, was placed in the hands of the National Assembly—or Convention, as it now called itself—of deputies chosen by the people.

There is nothing but what is sad and terrible to be told of France for the next four or five years, and the whole account of what happened would be too hard for you to understand, and some part is too dreadful to dwell upon.

The short account of it is that, for years and years before, the kings, the nobles, and some of the clergy too, had cared for little but their own pride and pleasure, and had done nothing to help on their people—teach, train, or lead them. So now these people were wild with despair, and when the hold on them was a little loosened, they threw it off, and turned in furious rage upon their masters. Hatred grew, and all those who had once been respected were looked on as a brood of wolves, who must be done away with, even the young and innocent. The king, queen, his children, and sister (Madame Elizabeth), were shut up in a castle called the Temple, because it had once belonged to the Knights Templar, and there they were very roughly and unkindly treated. A national guard continually watched them, and these men were often shockingly rude and insulting to them, though they were as patient as possible. Great numbers of the nobles and clergy were shut up in the other prisons; and when news came that an army of Germans and emigrant nobles was marching to rescue the king, a set of ruffians was sent to murder them all, cutting them down like sheep for the slaughter, men and women all alike. The family in the Temple were spared for the time, but the emigrant army was beaten at Jemappes; and the brave nobles and peasants who had risen in the district of La Vendée, in hopes of saving them, could not make head against the regular French army, all of which had joined in the Revolution, being angered because no one not of noble birth could be an officer. All his friends did for the king only served to make his enemies hate him trebly; and three men had obtained the leadership who seemed to have had a regular thirst for blood, and to have thought that the only way to make a fresh beginning was to kill every one who had inherited any of the rights that had been so oppressive. Their names were Marat, Danton, and Robespierre; and they had a power over the minds of the Convention and the mob which no one dared resist, so that this time was called the Reign of Terror. A doctor named Guillotin had invented a machine for cutting off heads quickly and painlessly, which was called by his name; and this horrible instrument was set up in Paris to do this work of cutting off the old race. The king—whom they called Louis Capet, after Hugh, the first king of his line—was tried before the Assembly, and sentenced to die. He forgave his murderers, and charged the Irish clergyman, named Edgeworth, who was allowed to attend him in his last moments, to take care that, if his family were ever restored, there should be no attempt to avenge his death. The last words of the priest to him were: “Son of St. Louis, ascend to the skies.”

The queen and her children remained in the Temple, cheered by the piety and kindness of Madame Elizabeth until the poor little prince—a gentle, but spirited boy of eight—was taken from them, and shut up in the lower rooms, under the charge of a brutal wretch (a shoemaker) named Simon, who was told that the boy was not to be killed or guillotined, but to be “got rid of”—namely, tormented to death by bad air, bad living, blows and rude usage. Not long after, Marie Antoinette was taken to a dismal chamber in the Conciergerie prison, and there watched day and night by national guards, until she too was brought to trial, and sentenced to die, eight months after her husband. Gentle Madame Elizabeth was likewise put to death, and only the two children remained, shut up in separate rooms; but the girl was better off than her brother, in that she was alone, with her little dog, and had no one who made a point of torturing her.

Meanwhile the guillotine was every day in use. Cart-loads were carried from the prisons—nobles, priests, ladies, young girls, lawyers, servants, shopkeepers—everybody whom the savage men who were called the Committee of Public Safety chose to condemn. There were guillotines in almost every town; but at Nantes the victims were drowned, and at Lyons they were placed in a square and shot down with grape shot.

Moreover, all churches were taken from the faithful. A wicked woman was called the Goddess of Reason, and carried in a car to the great cathedral of Notre Dame, where she was enthroned. Sundays were abolished, and every tenth day was kept instead, and Christianity was called folly and superstition; in short, the whole nation was given up to the most horrible frenzy against God and man.

In the midst, Marat was stabbed to the heart by a girl named Charlotte Corday, who hoped thus to end these horrors; but the other two continued their work of blood, till Robespierre grew jealous of Danton, and had him guillotined; but at last the more humane of the National Convention plucked up courage to rise against him, and he and his inferior associates were carried to prison. He tried to commit suicide with a pistol, but only shattered his jaw, and in this condition he was guillotined, when the Reign of Terror had lasted about two years.

There was much rejoicing at his fall; prisons were opened, and people began to breathe freely once more. The National Convention governed more mildly and reasonably; but they had a great deal on their hands, for France had gone to war with all the countries round; and the soldiers were so delighted at the freedom they had obtained, that it seemed as if no one could beat them, so that the invaders were everywhere driven back. And thus was brought to light the wonderful powers of a young Corsican officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been educated, at a military school in France, as an engineer. When there was an attempt of the mob to rise and bring back the horrible days of the Reign of Terror, Colonel Bonaparte came with his grape shot, and showed that there was a government again that must be obeyed, so that some quiet and good order was restored.

Some pity had at last been felt for the poor children in the Temple. It came too late to save the life of the boy, Louis XVII., as he is reckoned, who had for the whole ninth year of his life lain alone in a filthy room, afraid to call any one lest he should be ill-used, and without spirit enough to wash himself, so that he was one mass of sores and dirt; and he only lingered till the 8th of June, 1795, when he died, thinking he heard lovely music, with his mother’s voice among the rest. In the end of the same year his sister was released, and went to Russia to join her uncle, who had fled at the beginning of the Revolution, and was now owned by the loyal among the French as Louis XVIII.

In the meantime the French army had beaten the Germans on the frontier, and had decided on attacking their power in the north of Italy. Bonaparte made a most wonderful passage of the Alps, where there were scarcely any roads but bridle-paths, and he gained amazing victories. His plan was to get all the strength of his army up into one point, as it were, and with that to fall upon the center of the enemy; and as the old German generals did not understand this way of fighting, and were not ready, he beat them everywhere, and won all Lombardy, which he persuaded to set up for a republic, under the protection of the French.

All this time, the French were under so many different varieties of government, that you would not understand them at all; but that which lasted longest was called the Directory. People were beginning to feel safe at last; the emigrants were coming home again, and matters were settling down a little more.—Yonge.

XI.—NAPOLEON I. (1796-1814.)

When Bonaparte had come back from Italy, he persuaded the Directory to send him with an army to Egypt to try to gain the East, and drive the English out of India. He landed in Egypt, and near Grand Cairo gained the battle of the Pyramids, and tried to recommend himself to the people of Egypt by showing great admiration for Mahomet and the Koran. But his ships, which he had left on the coast, were attacked by the English fleet, under Sir Horatio Nelson, and every one of them taken or sunk except two, which carried the tidings home. This was the battle of the Nile.

The Sultan of Turkey, to whom Egypt belonged, fitted out an army against the French, and Bonaparte marched to meet it half way in the Holy Land. There he took Jaffa, cruelly massacred the Turkish garrison, and beat the Sultan’s army at Tabor: but Acre was so bravely and well defended, under the management of a brave English sailor, Sir Sidney Smith, that he was obliged to turn back without taking it. He led his troops back, suffering sadly from hunger and sickness, to Egypt, and there defeated another Turkish army in the battle of Aboukir. However, he there heard news from home which showed him that he was needed. The French had, indeed, gone on to stir up a revolution both in Rome and Naples. The pope was a prisoner in France, and the king of Naples had fled to Sicily; but the Russians had come to the help of the other nations, and the French had nearly been driven out of Lombardy. Beside, the Directory was not able to keep the unruly people in order; and Napoleon felt himself so much wanted, that, finding there were two ships in the port, he embarked in one of them and came home, leaving his Egyptian army to shift for themselves.

However, he was received at home like a conqueror; and the people of France were so proud of him, that he soon persuaded them to change the Directory for a government of three consuls, of whom he was the first. He lived in the Tuileries, and began to keep something very like the old court; and his wife, Josephine, was a beautiful, graceful, kind lady, whom every one loved, and who helped very much in gaining people over to his cause. Indeed, he gave the French rest at home, and victories abroad, and that was all they desired. He won back all that had been lost in Italy; and the battle of Marengo, on the 14th of June, 1800, when the Austrians were totally routed, was a splendid victory. Austria made peace again, and nobody was at war with France but England, which conquered everywhere by sea, as France did by land. The last remnant of the French army in Egypt was beaten in Alexandria, and obliged to let the English ships transport them to France; and after this there was a short peace called the peace of Amiens, but it did not last long; and as soon as Bonaparte had decided on war, he pounced without notice on every English traveler in his dominions, and kept them prisoners till the end of the war.

He had made up his mind to be Emperor of the French, and before declaring this, he wanted to alarm the old royalists; so he sent a party to seize the Duke d’Enghien (heir of the princes of Condé), who was living at Baden, and conduct him to Vincennes, where, at midnight, he was tried by a sham court-martial, and at six in the morning brought down to the courtyard, and shot, beside his own grave.

After this every one was afraid to utter a whisper against Bonaparte becoming emperor, and on the second of December, 1804, he was crowned in Notre Dame, with great splendor. The pope was present, but Bonaparte placed the crown on his own head—a golden wreath of laurel leaves; and he gave his soldiers eagle standards, in memory of the old Roman Empire. He drew up an excellent code of laws, which have been used ever since in France, and are known by his name; and his wonderful talent did much to bring the shattered nation into order. Still, England would not acknowledge his unlawful power, and his hatred to her was very great. He had an army ready to invade England, but the English fleet never allowed him to cross the Channel; and his fleet was entirely destroyed by Lord Nelson, at the great battle of Trafalgar, on the 21st of October, 1805.

But Napoleon was winning another splendid victory at Ulm, over the Austrians; and not long after, he beat the Prussians as entirely at Jena, and had all Germany at his feet. He was exceedingly harsh and savage to the good and gentle queen Louisa, when she came with her husband to try to make better terms for her country, thus sowing seeds of bitter resentment, which were to bear fruit long after. The Russians advanced to the aid of Germany, but the battles of Eylau and Friedland made them also anxious for peace. There never, indeed, was a much abler man than Napoleon; but he had no honor, honesty or generosity, and had very little heart amid all his seeming greatness. He made his family kings of conquered countries. His brother Louis was King of Holland; Jerome, of Westphalia, and the eldest brother, Joseph, King of Naples; but in 1808, he contrived to cheat the King of Spain of his crown, and keep him and his son prisoners in France, while Joseph was sent to reign in Spain, and General Murat, the husband of his sister Caroline, was made King of Naples. The Portuguese royal family were obliged to flee away to Brazil; but the Spaniards and Portuguese would not submit to the French yoke, and called the English to help them. So year after year the Duke of Wellington was beating Napoleon’s generals, and wearing away his strength; but he still went on with his German wars, and in 1809, after two terrible battles at Aspern and Wagram, entered Vienna itself. Again there was a peace; and Napoleon, who was grieved to have no child to leave his empire to, had the wickedness and cruelty to decide on setting aside his good, loving Josephine, and making the Emperor Francis, of Austria, give him his young daughter, Marie Louise. In 1810, the deed was done; and it was said that from that time all his good fortune left him, though he had one little son born to him, whom he called King of Rome.

He set out with what he named the Grand Army, to conquer Russia; and after winning the battle of Borodino, he entered Moscow; but no sooner was he there than the whole town was on fire, and it burnt on, so that it was not possible to stay there. Winter was just coming on, the Russian army was watching everywhere, and he could only retreat; and the unhappy Grand Army, struggling in the snow, with nothing to eat, and beset by the enemy everywhere, suffered the most frightful misery. Napoleon left it in the midst, and hurried home; but no sooner had this blow been given him, than the Germans—the Prussians especially, to whom he had been so harsh—rose up and banded together against him. France was worn out with the long wars; and though Napoleon still showed wonderful skill, especially at the battle of Leipsic, he was driven back, inch by inch, as it were, across Germany, and into France, by the Emperors of Austria and Russia and King of Prussia; for though each battle of his was a victory, force of numbers was too much for him. He went to the palace of Fontainebleau, and tried to give up his crown to his little son, but the Allies would not accept this; and at last, in the spring of 1814, he was forced to yield entirely, and put himself into the hands of the English, Prussian, Russian, and Austrian sovereigns. They decided on sending him to a little isle called Elba, in the Mediterranean Sea, where he was still to be treated as a prince. His deserted wife, Josephine, loved him so much that she died of grief for his fall; but Marie Louise returned to her father, and did nothing to help him.—Yonge.

COMMERCIAL LAW.

By EDWARD C. REYNOLDS, ESQ.

III.—AGENCY.

Agency is one of the most common relations of individual to individual. It is a delegation of power that few can avoid, in a greater or less degree of importance. The wife who purchases goods for household purposes in her husband’s name, is acting purely as his agent; and the clerk who sells the articles to her acts, in the transaction, as agent for the merchant in whose employment he is.

The legal maxim, Qui facit per alium, facit per se, which we will make read here, “What one does by another he does himself,” is the essential idea of agency; that is, it places on sure foundation the question of responsibility, at least, as to where it belongs. This is the whole doctrine so far as responsibility or liability is concerned.

That it is particularly necessary in business life to have this delegation of power, and this centralization of responsibility, needs no explanation. The publisher of this magazine could be a publisher only in imagination without it, for he would have no influence in his own sanctum, except with himself; and we should feel no security in dealing with a company with no recognized and responsible manager.

We have to deal with a fixed fact. Agency exists. The owners of magnificent stores, the stockholders in the railroad and steamship lines are all indebted to an army of agents whose active brains and eager efforts keep cars and steamers in motion, purchase and sell goods, and keep the accounts of the business world in proper balance.

How is an agency established? Our readers probably could answer this question in part; try it and see if we are not right.

We must answer by remarking that it depends somewhat upon what is wanted of an agent. Thus, if one be possessed of real estate, situated in some distant place, and is desirous of making a sale, and of selecting and commissioning some one to represent him in such a transfer of property, the appointment would be by a power of attorney, executed as described in our later article on real estate, “to which reference is hereby made.”

To represent another in ordinary business transactions one may act by virtue of a written or verbal agreement. Thus, if A places goods in B’s hands for the purpose of selling through B, this will be sufficient to constitute an agency, and for the purposes of this business B is A’s agent, and all would be protected in dealing with him in such capacity. A bookkeeper in the counting room of his employer is fairly presumed to have authority to receipt bills, to pay bills, render accounts, and in some cases to make purchases, particularly if such part by him done has been sanctioned by the merchant in the past. But he has no authority to sign his employer’s name to notes, bills or checks unless specially authorized.

A minor, though not capable of being a party to a contract himself, may do so for an employer, and thus be an agent, and his principal is responsible for his acts in such capacity, unless they be tortious, or wrongs in themselves. There would obviously be no security for innocent parties in fixing upon any other solution of the question of liability, because if A permits B, though a minor, to act for him and thereby takes advantage of his services in that capacity when they are favorable to his interests, it would be inequitable for him to shift the responsibility when it becomes onerous.

While the principal is responsible for the acts of his agent, when not beyond the authority given, it is the duty of the agent to obey the instructions of his principal. This he is always to do unless some unforeseen situation presents itself, which requires the exercise of a discretionary power and immediate action. And then, an agent would be justified in acting contrary to instructions, or without instructions only when reasonable foresight and experience would approve of the course pursued by him. This for legitimate pursuits, our readers always remembering that an agent is not justified in doing an illegal or immoral act, and that, even though specially instructed so to do. The agency must be apparent and known to exist, that third parties may know themselves to be dealing with one in such capacity, and that agents may not be made to assume responsibilities which do not belong to them. This may be accomplished by advertising in and transacting all business in the principal’s name; or where the name of the principal is not necessarily made use of in the course of the business, the fact of the agent’s business employment being known as such would doubtless be sufficient.

A clerk having occasion, in the course of business, to sign his employer’s name to letters, in receipting bills and such routine business, does it in this manner:

E. E. Emmons,
Per S.

Where special authority is given to sign checks, notes and accept bills in his principal’s or employer’s name, the agent will add his own name, with the word “Attorney.”

It must be remembered that an agency, so far as an agency transaction is concerned, must stand by itself, and not be associated with agent’s private business; that principal’s and agent’s property should be kept entirely distinct.

A commission merchant, although an agent so far as his dealings with his principal or consignor, is not such in relation to other parties, since he does business in his own name, and is recognized as a merchant and not an agent, although his business may be largely a commission business. He is bound to obey instructions of his principal or consignor, whom he charges a percentage for the handling of the goods consigned, incidental expenses, and, in cases where he assumes the indebtedness resulting from the sales, an extra commission.

Since mention has been made of commission merchants, we must individualize once more, and mention brokers. A broker simply effects a sale or purchase, as of merchandise or stocks. Unlike commission merchants they neither have, for the purpose of effecting the one, nor acquire by the accomplishment of the other, absolute possession of the chattels bought or sold.

In whatever capacity as special agent for another, one is acting, he is ever bound to keep and render proper account of the business entrusted to his care; to keep his principal properly informed regarding it; to use due diligence in business; to treat the property of his principal with same care and handle with same prudence, as a man of ordinary carefulness and forethought would his own. All this means only, that he should act with ordinary skill, and should render to his principal fair and honest service.

What terminates the agency? Death or insanity of either party; completion of work undertaken; expiration of time agreed upon; by express declaration of either party at pleasure, the other having due notification, and by such action acquiring a valid claim for whatever damages result on account thereof.

Partnership.

It is of constant occurrence that persons deem it advisable to unite themselves together for the prosecution of some general or particular business, paying their respects, by such act, to the old saw, “In union there is strength.” They agree by such an association to undertake the business, which induced them to unite their efforts with the hope of attaining to better results. The partners may or may not equally participate in the activities of the business to be undertaken, and may or may not stand on equal footing so far as relates to the sharing of the gains and losses. All of this is governed by their agreements at the outset, and its subsequent mutually agreed upon changes.

Like other species of contracts, the conditions of partnerships may be agreed upon verbally, may be in writing, and may result by implication. Of the three, which? Regarding this and all other engagements, establish a rule to which adhere rigidly. The rule: Have a thorough understanding with all parties with whom you contract; reduce it to writing, and have all interested parties sign. In this way the difficulties of misunderstandings and convenient forgetfulness will be less troublesome. It is worth all it costs to bear this precaution in mind.

Partners assume different relations and responsibilities as regards the partnership and the business world. There are the ostensible partners who boldly advertise themselves as such, and as such assuming the hazards incident to commercial enterprises; then the nominal partner who seeks to help a partnership by lending it his name, and thereby holding himself out as a member of it and making himself liable to creditors for partnership debts, providing credit was given, because of his supposed connection with the firm, as a regular partner; secret partners, who keep their names from the public, seeking by this means to avoid liability, but at same time sharing with the other partners the profits arising from the business. If such partnership becomes known to creditors, they may enforce collection of claims due from the partnership, as against the property of the secret partner; and the special partner, recognized by the laws of some of the states, which limit his liability to the amount of his investment, on condition that he gives public notice of such partnership agreement in a manner prescribed.

The partnership is organized, the partners assuming such relation to the partnership as they mutually agree upon, bearing in mind the above description of liabilities.

The element agency becomes quite conspicuous here, for each partner is an agent of the partnership and invested with plenary power to bind the other partners by his acts, when within the business sphere of the firm. It will be observed that we say in the line of the copartnership business, because otherwise it would not be sanctioned. As an illustration: A member of a partnership engaged in the flour trade would not have authority to bind his partners, if he attempted to involve them in stock speculations, unless previous similar enterprises by him had been approved by them, in which case there might be a fair presumption that such authority existed. This leads us to the question of liability; and liable they are, each and every partner, unless by virtue of exception previously mentioned, exempted. Their individual property, in the event of there being insufficient partnership assets to liquidate the indebtedness of the firm, must respond to the creditors’ call.

Now, since the acts of a partner may result in a manner disastrous to all associated with him, it is his duty to act with all fidelity and perfect good faith; to give his attention carefully to the business, acting as his best judgment may advise for the benefit of all. While, however, a breach of these obligations creates a liability for such misfeasance or wrong act as a partner may be guilty of, it does in no way affect outside parties, unless cognizant of and participating in same.

Gains and losses how shared? The object of our partnership is the hope of gain; its effect may be the realization of loss.

This question of division ought to be solved by reference to the articles of agreement, which should have expressed the whole partnership contract, and have been signed by all the partners. This not done? Well then, we say, all should share in equal proportions the gains or losses, first making unequal investments equal by an allowance of interest on net investments, and equalizing individual ability and experience by allowing each partner that salary to which, measuring his services by comparison with those rendered by other partners, he seems to be fairly entitled. Where capital and skill are equal, an equal sharing in the gains or losses is equitable.

Dissolution.

The following conditions serve to dissolve a partnership:

The expiration of the time for which the partnership was organized; ordinarily the completion of the business for the purpose of accomplishing which the partnership was formed;

The misfeasance of a partner; whenever a partner fails to act in harmony with his associates, or disposes of his interest in the partnership affairs;

By the death of any one of the partners;

By decree of the court ordering the same;

By the consent of all the partners at any time.

After the dissolution, a partner acts no longer for his former copartners to the extent of entering into or incurring new obligations. Each partner however has full power to collect debts due the firm, signing the firm name to receipts, and also to liquidate outstanding obligations of the firm, unless by special agreement these powers are conferred on one partner alone. This is an arrangement which affects the partners only, third persons being protected in a settlement with any member of a late partnership dissolved.

After the business is wholly settled, all liabilities being paid, and not till then, is a partner entitled to his share of the partnership funds.

Notice of the dissolution of a partnership should be publicly given, it being necessary in the case of one or more retiring from the firm, in order to secure them from future liability. Individually this notice is given by mail to all with whom the firm has been dealing. This, in addition to ordinary publication of notice in newspaper, is sufficient.

SALES—Personal Property.

A sale is the transfer of certain property from one to another for a certain sum paid or to be paid, those being parties to it, to make it valid, who are competent to enter into a contract.

A sale effected entitles the purchaser to possession of the goods on payment of price agreed upon; or, if purchaser be given credit, at once, unless there be some special agreement to the contrary.

In the case of goods shipped to a purchaser who becomes insolvent before they have been delivered, the vendor may order the carrier to hold them subject to his (vendor’s) order, thereby exercising a privilege given him by law, and called the right of stoppage in transitu.

All sales are not made with an actual knowledge on the part of the vendee of the quality of his purchase, some being by sample. Sales in this manner give credence to the inference that the samples constitute a part of the goods sold, and therefore the goods must be of same quality as the samples, else the vendor does not comply with the conditions of the contract to which he is a party, and the purchaser may refuse to complete the sale by acceptance of the goods.

The quality of goods sold must be as represented by the vendor, if he warrants them by such representation, in order to secure a sale. In sales each one is supposed to be on his guard. “Let the purchaser beware,” is the maxim. And if, without actual fraud, concealment or misrepresentation on the part of the vendor, the vendee is deceived in a purchase because of poor judgment, he alone must suffer the consequences and take the loss. A warranty of an article puts the vendor under the necessity of making compensation to vendee, if the article is defective wherein warranted.

A purchase of stolen property gives to the purchaser no title as against the true owner, or the one from whom the property was stolen, even though the purchase be made in good faith, and for a full consideration. “Let the purchaser beware.”

There is but one species of personal property to which this will not apply, and that negotiable commercial paper.

Some contracts regarding sales must be in writing, and signed by the party to be charged, or his agent. What are they? See article on contracts.

READINGS IN ART.

I.—ITALIAN PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS.

The present paper has been abridged from “Italian Paintings,” by Edward J. Poynter, R. A., and Percy R. Head.

Italian painting is divided into a number of schools, each of which has some illustrious artist as its founder, and a train of skillful and exact workmen following his methods. To study the style and methods of the master is to study the school. The most famous of these artists have been selected to represent the Art of Italy, the first of whom, the father of Italian painting, is

GIOTTO.

Giotto was born near Florence, in 1266. Employed as a boy in watching sheep, he is said to have been one day discovered by the artist Cimabue, as he was sketching one of his flock upon a stone. The painter, surprised at the promise shown by the boy, who was not more than ten years old, took him to Florence, and made him his pupil. Giotto’s earliest works were executed at Florence, and at the age of thirty he had already attained such fame that he was invited to Rome by Pope Boniface VIII., to take part in the decoration of the ancient Basilica of Saint Peter. The Navicella mosaic which he there executed, representing the Disciples in the Storm, is preserved in the vestibule of the present Saint Peter’s. The famous story of “Giotto’s O” belongs to this episode in his career. When the envoy sent by the pope to engage his services begged for some drawing or design which might be shown to his holiness in proof of the artist’s talent, Giotto, taking an ordinary brush full of color, and steadying his arm against his side, described a perfect circle on an upright panel with a sweep of the wrist, and offered this manual feat as sufficient evidence of his powers. The story shows the importance attached by a great artist to mere precision in workmanship, and teaches the useful lesson that genius, unsupported by the skill only to be acquired by discipline and labor, is wanting in the first condition which makes great achievements possible. This visit to Rome took place about 1298; soon afterward we find Giotto engaged on his frescoes in the church of Saint Francis at Assisi, a series of allegorical designs illustrating the saint’s spiritual life and character. In 1306 he was working at the fine series of frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua, which represent thirty-eight scenes from the lives of the Virgin and of Christ. We here see Giotto in the fulness of his powers; the incidents are treated with a charming simplicity and sentiment for nature, and he rises to great solemnity of style in the more important scenes. Important works by Giotto are found in many other places beside those mentioned above, including especially Naples, Ravenna, Milan, Pisa and Lucca. Perhaps the finest are those which have been discovered of late years in the Church of Santa Croce at Florence under coats of whitewash which happily had preserved them almost intact; the “Last Supper,” in the refectory of the convent attached to the church, is in remarkable preservation, and is a magnificent example of the style of the time. The twenty-six panels which he painted for the presses in the sacristry of the same church are good illustrations of his method of treatment; natural and dignified with the interest concentrated on the figures; the background and accessories being treated in the simplest possible manner, and hardly more than symbols expressing the locality in which the scene is enacted. Giotto was the first of the moderns who attempted portrait-painting with any success, and some most interesting monuments of his skill in that branch of art have been preserved to us. In 1840, discovery was made, in the chapel of the Podestà’s palace at Florence, of some paintings by Giotto, containing a number of portraits, among them one of his friend, the poet Dante; the portraits being introduced, as was usual among the early painters, and indeed frequent at all periods, as subordinate actors in the scene represented. Giotto was not only a painter; as a sculptor and architect he was also distinguished. Giotto died at Florence in January, 1337, and was buried with public solemnities in the cathedral. His style, though marked by the hardness and quaintness of a time when chiaro-scuro and perspective were very imperfectly understood, displays the originality of his genius in its thoughtful and vigorous design, and shows how resolutely the artist relied, not on traditions, but on keen and patient observation of nature.

FRA ANGELICO.

The earliest of the great fifteenth-century painters belongs in the character of his works rather to the preceding century. The monk Guido di Pietro of Fiesole, commonly called Fra Angelico from the holiness and purity which were as conspicuous in his life as in his works, was born in 1387 at Vicchio, in the province of Mugello. At the age of twenty he entered the order of the Predicants at Fiesole, and took the name of Giovanni, by which he was afterward known. His first art work was the illumination of manuscripts. Quitting the monastery in 1409, he practiced as a fresco-painter in various places until 1418, when he returned to Fiesole, and continued to reside there for the next eighteen years. In 1436 he again quitted his retreat, to paint a series of frescoes on the history of the Passion for the convent of San Marco in Florence. This work occupied nine years, and on its completion Angelico was invited to Rome. The chief work which he undertook there was the decoration of a chapel in the Vatican for Pope Nicholas V. In 1447 he went to Orvieto to undertake a similar task, but returned in the same year, having done only three compartments of the ceiling, and leaving the rest to be afterward completed by Luca Signorelli. He then continued to reside in Rome, where he died and was buried in 1455. The most striking characteristics of Angelico’s art spring from the temper of religious fervor with which he practiced it. He worked without payment; he prayed before beginning any work for the Divine guidance in its conception; and believing himself to be so assisted, he regarded each picture as a revelation, and could never be persuaded to alter any part of it. His works on panel are very numerous, and are to be found in many public and private galleries; of the finest of these are, a “Last Judgment,” belonging to the Earl of Dudley, and the “Coronation of the Virgin” in the gallery of the Louvre. After his death he was “beatified” by the church he had served so devotedly—a solemnity which ranks next to canonization; and Il Beato Angelico is the name by which Fra Giovanni was and is most fondly and reverently remembered. His style survived only in one pupil who assisted him at Orvieto.

LEONARDO DA VINCI.

Leonardo da Vinci belonged to the Florentine school, the fifteenth century, of which he was the first great example. Leonardo was the son of a notary of Vinci, near Florence, and was born at that place in the year 1452. He became the pupil of Andrea Verrocchio, the Florentine sculptor and painter, and progressed so rapidly that he soon surpassed his master, who is said to have thereupon given up painting in despair. Leonardo’s studies at this time ranged over the whole field of science and art; beside being a painter and a sculptor, he was a practiced architect, engineer, and mechanician; profoundly versed in mathematics and the physical sciences; and an accomplished poet and musician. The famous letter in which he applied to the Duke of Milan for employment, enumerates only a few of his acquirements; he represents himself as skilled in military and naval engineering, offensive and defensive, and the construction of artillery, and as possessing secrets in these matters hitherto unknown; he can make designs for buildings, and undertake any work in sculpture, in marble, in bronze, or in terra-cotta; and “in painting,” he says, “I can do what can be done as well as any man, be he who he may.” He concludes by offering to submit his own account of himself to the test of experiment, at his excellency’s pleasure. He entered the Duke’s service about the year 1482, receiving a yearly salary of 500 scudi. Under his auspices an academy of arts was established in Milan in 1485, and he drew round him a numerous school of painters. Of the many works executed by Leonardo during his residence at Milan, the greatest was the world renowned picture of the “Last Supper,” painted in oil upon the wall of the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Whether it was the fault of the wall or the medium used by the painter, the great picture rapidly faded, and by the end of fifty years had virtually perished. It is still shown, but decay and restoration have left little of the original work of Leonardo. The best idea of it is to be got from the old copies, taken while the picture was yet perfect; of these the most valuable is the one executed in 1510 by Marco d’Oggione, now in the possession of the Royal Academy of London. His other important achievement, while at Milan, was a work of sculpture, which unfortunately perished within a few years of its completion. It seems to have occupied him at intervals for eleven years, for the completed model was first exhibited to the public in 1493. All that we now know of it is from the numerous sketches in the Royal Collection at Windsor. The model was still in existence in 1501, after which nothing more is recorded of it. He also at this time made a model for the cupola of Milan Cathedral, which was never carried out. In 1499 Leonardo left Milan and returned to Florence. He received a commission in 1503 to paint the wall at one end of the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, the decoration of the other end being at the same time entrusted to Michelangelo. Leonardo’s picture was never completed, and Michelangelo’s apparently never begun; but the cartoons for their two compositions, known respectively as the “Battle of the Standard” and the “Cartoon of Pisa,” excited the greatest admiration, and were termed by Benvenuto Cellini “the school of the world;” both have been lost or destroyed; all that we know of Leonardo’s composition is gained from a drawing of it by Rubens in black and red chalk in the gallery of the Louvre, to which, though spirited enough, he contrived to impart the coarse Flemish character with which all his work is disfigured. In 1514 Leonardo visited Rome, and was to have executed some work in the Vatican, had not an affront put upon him by the pope given him offence and caused him to leave Rome. He went to the King of France, Francis I., who was then at Pavia, took service with him, and accompanied him to France, in the early part of 1516. He was, however, weakened by age and in bad health, and did little or no new work in France. In a little more than three years’ time, in May 1519, he died, at Cloux, near Amboise, at the age of sixty-seven.

Those pictures of Leonardo, which we may regard with confidence as the work of his own hand, fully justify the exceptional admiration with which he has always been regarded. He was excessively fastidious in his work, “his soul being full of the sublimity of art,” and spent years over the execution of some of his works. The painting of the portrait of Madonna Lisa is said to have extended over four years, and to have been then left incomplete. His mind also was at times equally bent on scientific matters, and for long periods he was entirely absorbed in the study of mathematics. For these reasons he produced but few pictures; if, however, he had left none, his drawings, which fortunately exist in large numbers, would suffice to account for the enthusiasm which his work has always excited. It is certain that we do not see his pictures in the state in which they left his easel; from some causes, unnecessary to discuss, they have blackened in the shadows, and the colors have faded. Vasari praises beyond measure the carnations of the Mona Lisa, which, he says, “do not appear to be painted, but truly flesh and blood;” but no trace of these delicate tints now remains.

Leonardo was the author of many treatises, some of which only have been published. The most celebrated is the “Trattato della Pittura,” still a book of high authority among writings on art.

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

Was born at Castel Caprese, near Arezzo, in 1475. In 1488 he entered the school of Ghirlandaio, the master giving a small payment for the boy’s services. His precocious abilities soon attracted the notice of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and until the death of that prince in 1492, Michelangelo worked under his especial patronage. His earliest drawings show a spontaneous power which made Fuseli say that “as an artist he had no infancy;” but for many years he confined himself almost entirely to sculpture; and some of his greatest achievements in that kind of art were executed before he undertook his first considerable work with the pencil. This was the “Cartoon of Pisa,” finished in 1505, and intended as a design for a mural picture to face that of Leonardo in the Council Hall at Florence. This cartoon is lost, but a copy in monochrome, containing probably the whole of the composition, exists in England. During its progress he had broken off to visit Rome, and execute some sculptural work for the pope; and in 1508 he went to Rome again to begin the great achievement of his life, the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. The paintings of the ceiling illustrate the Creation and the Fall of Man, together with other scenes and figures typical of the Redemption. The middle part of the ceiling is divided into nine compartments, containing the “Creation of Eve” (placed in the center, as symbolizing the woman of whom the Messiah was born), the “Creation of Adam,” the “Temptation, Fall and Expulsion” in one composition, the “Separation of Light from Darkness,” the “Gathering of the Waters,” the “Creation of the Sun and Moon,” the “Deluge,” the “Thanksgiving of Noah,” and the “Drunkenness of Noah.” At the corners of the ceiling are four designs of the great deliverances of the children of Israel, the Brazen Serpent, David and Goliath, Judith with the head of Holofernes, and the punishment of Haman. There are six windows on each side of the chapel; the lunettes which surround them, and the spaces above them, are occupied by groups of the ancestors of Christ. Between the windows, at the springing of the vault, are colossal seated figures of the Prophets and Sibyls who foretold the coming of the Savior. They are arranged alternately as follows:—Jeremiah, Persian Sibyl, Ezekiel, Erythræan Sibyl, Joel, Delphic Sibyl, Isaiah, Cumæan Sibyl, Daniel, Libyan Sibyl; Jonah and Zachariah are placed one at each end of the chapel, between the historical compositions at the angles of the ceiling. These single figures are the most striking features of the design, and calculated skilfully to help the architectural effect. The side walls of the chapel, below the springing of the vault, had already been decorated with frescoes executed by Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli, and Perugino. Michelangelo’s frescoes were finished toward the end of the year 1512. Vasari’s statement that he painted them all in twenty months without any assistance is undoubtedly exaggerated; it possibly refers to the completion of the first half of the ceiling.

For the next twenty years Michelangelo did little or nothing in painting; but in 1533, at the age of fifty-nine, he began the cartoons for the fresco of the “Last Judgment” on the wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel. This celebrated composition is entirely of nude figures, no accessories being introduced to add to the terror of the scene. Each figure throughout this vast composition has its appropriate meaning, and the power of design and mastery of execution are unsurpassed and unsurpassable. The picture was finished in 1541. Two frescoes in the neighboring Pauline Chapel, the “Conversion of Saint Paul,” and the “Crucifixion of Saint Peter,” which were finished in 1549, were his last paintings. He had accepted, in 1547, the position of architect of Saint Peter’s, stipulating that his services should be gratuitous. He continued to carry the building forward, altering materially the original design of Bramante, until his death, which took place in February, 1564. His body was taken to Florence, and buried in Santa Croce.

Although the genius of Michelangelo has exercised a vast and widely diffused influence over all subsequent art, yet this master, unlike Raphael, formed no school of his own immediate followers. It must be admitted that Raphael owes him much, for he never found his full strength until he had seen Michelangelo’s works at Rome, when his style underwent immediate improvement. None of those who worked under Michelangelo dared to walk directly in his steps; there is in his style, as there was in the character of the man himself, a certain stern individuality which gives the impression of solitary and unapproachable greatness. Of his assistants, the most eminent was Sebastiano del Piombo.

RAFFAELLO SANZIO,

Always called Raphael, was born at Urbino in 1483. His father died when he was eleven years old, and the boy was placed by his uncles, who became his guardians, with Perugino. His handiwork at this time is no doubt to be traced in many of Perugino’s pictures and frescoes; and, as may be seen, he was an important coadjutor with Pinturicchio at Siena. The earliest picture known to be painted entirely by himself is a “Crucifixion,” in the collection of Lord Dudley, done at the age of seventeen, which closely resembles the style of Perugino. In 1504 he first visited Florence, where he enjoyed the friendship of Francia and Fra Bartholommeo, and made acquaintance with the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo—new influences which considerably affected his style. With the exception of short visits to Perugia, Bologna, and Urbino, he was resident in Florence until 1508. In that year he went to Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II., and was for the rest of his life continually in the employment of that pontiff and his successor, Leo X. Raphael died on his birthday, the 6th of April, 1520, aged exactly thirty-seven years.

Raphael’s manner as a painter is divided into three styles, corresponding with the broad divisions of his life’s history. Unlike Michelangelo, whose genius and individuality is stamped on the earliest works from his hand, Raphael gained, as his experience of what had been done by his contemporaries was enlarged, a deeper and further insight into his own powers. His first, or Peruginesque style, characterizes those works which he produced while still the companion of his master, before his first visit to Florence; of these pictures the most important are the “Sposalizio” (or “Marriage of the Virgin,”) at Milan, and the “Coronation of the Virgin,” in the Vatican. His second, or Florentine, style covers the four years from his arrival in Florence in 1504, to his departure for Rome in 1508; here the manner of Fra Bartholommeo had great influence upon him; to this period belong the “Madonna del Cardellino” (“of the Goldfinch,”) in the Uffizi, “La Belle Jardinière,” of the Louvre, the “Madonna del Baldacchino,” in the Pitti (which was left incomplete by Raphael, and finished by another hand), and the “Entombment” in the Borghese Gallery, at Rome, his first attempt at a great historical composition. It is in his third, or Roman, style that Raphael fully asserts that sovereignty in art which has earned him the name of Prince of painters, and appears as the head of his own school, which, generally called the Roman School, might perhaps, as he collected round him followers from all parts of Italy, more fitly be termed the Raphaelesque. This third period includes all his great frescoes in the Vatican, with a host of easel pictures; for, short as Raphael’s life was, his works are wondrously numerous, and our space permits mention of only a few of even the most celebrated.

It has been questioned whether Raphael’s art gained by what he learnt from Michelangelo, some critics affirming that his earlier style is his best. This, however, must be considered to be entirely a matter of taste. Most painters—unless, like Fra Angelico, so entirely absorbed in the mystical side of their art as never to change their style—as they gain in power of expression, lose something of their youthful emotional fervor; and it is possible to assert that in the magnificent design of the “Incendio del Borgo” the dramatic element is more in evidence than in the “Disputa.” But what is lost on the emotional and religious side is compensated for by the gain in power of representation; and it is difficult to stand before the cartoon of “The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,” and not to confess that Giotto himself could not have imparted a more implicit trustfulness and childlike belief in the power of the Redeemer to the look and gesture of St. Peter; and while the magnificent simplicity of the youths drawing the net is conceived in an equal spirit of truthfulness to nature, the grandeur of style and the knowledge displayed in the drawing is so much pure gain on his earlier manner.

The Loggie, or open corridors of the Vatican, were also adorned by Raphael’s scholars with a series of fifty-two paintings of Biblical subjects from his designs; the whole series was known as “Raphael’s Bible.”

In 1515 he was commissioned to design tapestries for the Sistine Chapel; of the ten cartoons (distemper paintings on paper) for these tapestries three have been lost; the other seven after many dangers and vicissitudes came into the possession of Charles I. of England. They are perhaps the most remarkable art treasures belonging to England, and are at present exhibited, by permission of Her Majesty, in the South Kensington Museum.

Among the greatest oil pictures of Raphael’s third period may be enumerated the “Madonna di Foligno” in the Vatican; the “Madonna della Sedia” in the Pitti Palace at Florence; the “Saint Cecilia” at Bologna; the “Madonna of the Fish,” and the picture of “Christ Bearing His Cross,” known as the “Spasimo,” in the splendid collection at Madrid; the “Madonna di San Sisto” at Dresden, which obtained for the artist the name of “the Divine;” and finally the “Transfiguration” at the Vatican, the sublime picture on which his last working hours were spent, and which was carried at his funeral before its colors were dry.

TIZIANO VECELLIO,

Commonly called by the anglicised form of his Christian name, Titian, was born at Cadore, near Venice, in 1477. His studies in art began at the age of ten, under a painter named Zuccato, from whose studio he passed to Gentile Bellini’s, and from his again to that of his brother Giovanni. Space forbids us to do more than indicate the chief landmarks in Titian’s long, eventful, and illustrious life. When his reputation as a great artist was new, before he was thirty years old, he visited the court of Ferrara, and executed for the duke two of his earliest masterpieces, the “Tribute Money,” now at Dresden, and the “Bacchus and Ariadne,” in the National Gallery of London. In 1516 he painted his great altarpiece, the “Assumption,” now removed from its church to the Accademia at Venice, and was at once placed by this incomparable work in the highest rank of painters. The “Entombment” of the Louvre was painted about 1523; and in 1528 he executed another magnificent altarpiece, the “Death of St. Peter Martyr,” in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, which was destroyed in the fire of 1867. In 1530 Titian was invited to Bologna, to paint the portrait of the Emperor Charles V.; and he is supposed by some writers to have accompanied the emperor shortly afterward to Spain. Owing to the patronage which Charles V. and his son Philip II. liberally conferred on the artist, Madrid possesses a collection of his works second in number and importance only to the treasures of Venice. The “Presentation in the Temple,” in the Accademia at Venice, dates from about 1539, and the “Christ at Emmaus,” in the Louvre, from about 1546. In 1545 he painted at Rome the celebrated portrait of “Pope Paul III.,” in the Naples Museum. Titian continued active in his art even up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1576, at the great age of ninety-nine. His style, as is to be expected, changed considerably in the course of his long life, and the pictures painted in his last years, though full of color, are infirm in drawing and execution; in the full vigor of his powers he was a draughtsman second to none, though never aiming at the select beauty of form attained by the Florentine school, and by Raphael. It was this that led Michelangelo to say that, with a better mode of study, “This man might have been as eminent in design as he is true to nature and masterly in counterfeiting the life, and then, nothing could be desired better or more perfect;” adding, “for he has an exquisite perception, and a delightful spirit and manner.”

The splendid artistic power of Titian may perhaps be better discerned in his portraits than in the more ambitious works of sacred art. He stands unquestionably at the head of portrait painters of all ages and of all schools; not even Velasquez equaling him at his best. Beside religious pictures and portraits he painted a great number of subjects from classical mythology. Among the most famous, beside the “Bacchus and Ariadne,” mentioned above—the pride of the English collection—may be named the “Bacchanals” of Madrid, the two of “Venus” in the Uffizi, at Florence, the “Danae,” at Naples, and the often repeated “Venus and Adonis,” and “Diana and Callisto.” He is seen at his very best in the “Venus” of the Tribune, at Florence, perhaps the only work of his which has escaped retouching, and in the exquisite allegory called “Sacred and Profane Love,” at the Borghese Palace, at Rome. As a landscape painter, he possessed a sentiment for nature in all its forms which had never before been seen, and his backgrounds have never been equaled since. The mountains in the neighborhood of his native town, Cadore, of which, as well as of other landscape scenes, numerous pen and ink drawings by his hand are in existence, inspired him, doubtless, with that solemn treatment of effects of cloud and light and shade and blue distance for which his pictures are conspicuous.

It is unnecessary to deal with the school of painting which exists in Italy at the present day. It would be paying it too high a compliment to regard it as the legitimate successor of the art of those great epochs whose course we have tried to sketch. The modern Italian school is little more than an echo of the modern French. And seeing that there is no principle clearer or more certain than this, that a great national school of art can flourish only when it springs from a sane and vigorous national existence, it is not to be wondered at if a country so convulsed by the political passions and so vulgarized by the social triviality and meanness of modern times, should be in this respect cast down further than her more fortunate neighbors by the same causes which have soiled even the best art of the nineteenth century with something of dilettantism and affectation.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[April 6.]
THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him.—I. John, ii:15.

There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world—either by a demonstration of the world’s vanity, so that the heart will be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it, or by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment, so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon not to resign an old affection, which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one. My purpose is to show that from the constitution of our nature, the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual, and that the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that sometimes domineers over it. After having accomplished this purpose, I shall attempt a few practical observations.

Love may be regarded in two different conditions. The first is when the object is at a distance, and then it becomes love in a state of desire. The second is when its object is in possession, and then it becomes love in a state of indulgence. Under the impulse of desire, man feels himself urged onward in some path or pursuit of activity for its gratification. The faculties of his mind are put into busy exercise. In the steady direction of one great and engrossing interest, his attention is recalled from the many reveries into which it might otherwise have wandered; and the powers of his body are forced away from an indolence in which it else might have languished; and that time is crowded with occupation, which but for some object of keen and devoted ambition, might have driveled along in successive hours of weariness and distaste, and though hope does not enliven, and success does not always crown this career of exertion, yet in the midst of this very variety, and with the alternations of occasional disappointment, is the machinery of the whole man kept in a sort of congenial play, and upholden in that tone and temper which are most agreeable to it. Insomuch, that if through the extirpation of that desire which forms the originating principle of all this movement, the machinery were to stop, and to receive no impulse from another desire substituted in its place, the man would be left with all his propensities to action in a state of most painful and unnatural abandonment.

A sensitive person suffers, and is in violence, if, after having thoroughly rested from his fatigue, or been relieved from his pain, he continues in possession of powers without any excitement to these powers; if he possess a capacity of desire without having an object of desire; or if he have a spare energy upon his person, without a counterpart, and without a stimulus to call it into operation. The misery of such a condition is often realized by him who is retired from business, or who is retired from law, or who is even retired from the occupations of the chase and of the gaming table. Such is the demand of our nature for an object in pursuit, that no accumulation of previous success can extinguish it, and thus it is that the most prosperous merchant, and the most victorious general, and the most fortunate gamester, when the labor of their respective vocations has come to a close, are often found to languish in the midst of all their acquisitions, as if out of their kindred and rejoicing element. It is quite in vain with such a constitutional appetite for employment in man, to attempt cutting away from him the spring or the principle of one employment, without providing him with another. The whole heart and habit will rise in resistance against such an undertaking. The else unoccupied female, who spends the hours of every evening at some play of hazard, knows as well as you, that the pecuniary gain, or the honorable triumph of a successful contest, are altogether paltry. It is not such a demonstration of vanity as this that will force her away from her dear and delightful occupation. The habit can not so be displaced as to leave nothing but a negative and cheerless vacancy behind it—though it may be so supplanted as to be followed up by another habit of employment to which the power of some new affection has constrained her. It is willingly suspended, for example, on any single evening, should the time that was wont to be allotted to gaming require to be spent on the preparation of an approaching assembly.

The ascendant power of a second affection will do what no exposition, however forcible, of the folly and worthlessness of the first, ever could effectuate. And it is the same in the great world. You never will be able to arrest any of its leading pursuits, by a naked demonstration of their vanity. It is quite in vain to think of stopping one of these pursuits in any way else, but by stimulating to another. In attempting to bring a worldly man, intent and busied with the prosecution of his objects, to a dead stand, you have not merely to encounter the charm which he annexes to these objects, but you have to encounter the pleasure which he feels in the very prosecution of them. It is not enough, then, that you dissipate the charm by your moral, and eloquent, and affecting exposure of its illusiveness. You must address to the eye of his mind another object, with a charm powerful enough to dispossess the first of its influence, and to engage him in some other prosecution as full of interest, and hope, and congenial activity, as the former. It is this which stamps an impotency on all moral and pathetic declamation of the insignificance of the world. A man will no more consent to the misery of being without an object, because that object is a trifle, or of being without a pursuit, because that pursuit terminates in some frivolous or fugitive acquirement, than he will voluntarily submit himself to the torture because that torture is to be of short duration. If to be without desire and without exertion altogether, is a state of violence and discomfort, then the present desire, with its correspondent train of exertion, is not to be got rid of simply by destroying it. It must be by substituting another desire, or another line of habit or exertion in its place, and the most effectual way of withdrawing the mind from one object, is not by turning it away upon desolate and unpeopled vacancy, but by presenting to its regards another object still more alluring.

These remarks apply not merely to love considered in the state of desire for an object not yet attained. They apply also to love considered in its state of indulgence, or placid gratification, with an object already in possession. It is seldom that any of our tastes are made to disappear by a process of natural extinction. At least, it is very seldom that this is done by the instrumentality of reasoning. It may be done by excessive pampering, but it is almost never done by the mere force of mental determination. But what can not be thus destroyed may be dispossessed, and one taste may be made to give way to another, and to lose its power entirely as the reigning affection of the mind. It is thus that the boy ceases, at length, to be the slave of his appetite, but it is because a manlier taste has now brought it into subordination, and that the youth ceases to idolize pleasure, but it is because the idol of wealth has become the stronger, and gotten the ascendency—and that even the love of money ceases to have the mastery over the heart of many a thriving citizen, but it is because drawn into the whirl of city politics, another affection has been wrought into his moral system, and he is now lorded over by the love of power. There is not one of these transformations in which the heart is left without an object. Its desire for one particular object may be conquered; but as to its desire for having some one object, or other, this is unconquerable. Its adhesion to that on which it has fastened the preference of its regards, can not willingly be overcome by the rending away of a single separation. It can be done only by the application of something else, to which it may feel the adhesion of a still stronger and more powerful preference. Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have something to lay hold of—and which, if wrested away, without the substitution of another something in its place, would leave a void and a vacancy as painful to the mind as hunger is to the natural system. It may be dispossessed of one object or of any, but it can not be desolated of all. Let there be a breathing and a sensitive heart, but without a liking and without affinity to any of the things that are around it, and in a state of cheerless abandonment, it would be alive to nothing but the burden of its own consciousness, and feel it to be intolerable. It would make no difference to its owner, whether he dwelt in the midst of a gay and goodly world, or placed afar beyond the outskirts of creation, he dwelt a solitary unit in dark and unpeopled nothingness. The heart must have something to cling to—and never, by its own voluntary consent, will it so denude itself of all its attachments that there shall not be one remaining object that can draw or solicit it.

[April 13.]

The misery of a heart thus bereft of all relish for that which is wont to minister to its enjoyment, is strikingly exemplified in those who, satiated with indulgence, have been so belabored, as it were, with the variety and the poignancy of the pleasurable sensations that they have experienced, that they are at length fatigued out of all capacity for sensation whatever. The disease of ennui is more frequent in the French metropolis, where amusement is more exclusively the occupation of higher classes, than it is in the British metropolis, where the longings of the heart are more diversified by the resources of business and politics. There are the votaries of fashion, who, in this way, have at length become the victims of fashionable excess, in whom the very multitude of their enjoyments has at last extinguished their power of enjoyment—who, plied with the delights of sense and of splendor even to weariness, and incapable of higher delights, have come to the end of all their perfection, and, like Solomon of old, found it to be vanity and vexation. The man whose heart has thus been turned into a desert can vouch for the insupportable languor which must ensue, when one affection is thus plucked away from the bosom, without another to replace it. It is not necessary that a man receive pain from anything in order to become miserable. It is barely enough that he looks with distaste at everything—and in that asylum which is the repository of minds out of joint, and where the organ of feeling as well as the organ of intellect, has been impaired, it is not in the cell of loud and frantic outcries where you will meet with the acme of mental suffering. But that is the individual who outpeers in wretchedness all his fellows, who throughout the whole expanse of nature and society, meets not an object that has at all the power to detain or interest him; who neither in earth beneath, nor in heaven above, knows of a single charm to which his heart can send forth one desirous or responding movement; to whom the world, in his eye a vast and empty desolation, has left him nothing but his own consciousness to feed upon—dead to all that is without him, and alive to nothing but to the load of his own torpid and useless existence.

We hope that by this time you understand the impotency of a mere demonstration of this world’s insignificance. Its sole practical effect, if it had any, would be to leave the heart in a state which to every heart is insupportable, and that is a mere state of nakedness and negation. You may remember the fond and unbroken tenacity with which your heart has often recurred to pursuits, over the utter frivolity of which it sighed and wept but yesterday. The arithmetic of your short-lived days, may on Sabbath make the clearest impression upon your understanding, and from his fancied bed of death may the preacher cause a voice to descend in rebuke and mockery on all the pursuits of earthliness, and as he pictures before you the fleeting generations of men, with the absorbing grave, whither all the joys and interests of the world hasten to their sure and speedy oblivion, may you, touched and solemnized by his argument, feel for a moment as if on the eve of a practical and permanent emancipation from a scene of so much vanity.

But the morrow comes, and the business of the world, and the objects of the world, and the moving forces of the world, come along with it, and the machinery of the heart, in virtue of which it must have something to grasp, or something to adhere to, brings it under a kind of moral necessity to be actuated just as before, and in utter repulsion toward a state so unkindly as that of being frozen out both of delight and of desire, does it feel all the warmth and the urgency of its wonted solicitations, nor in the habit and history of the whole man can we detect so much as one symptom of the new creature, so that the church, instead of being to him a school of obedience, has been a mere sauntering place for the luxury of a passing and theatrical emotion; and the preaching which is mighty to compel the attendance of multitudes, and which is mighty to still and to solemnize the hearers into a kind of tragic sensibility, and which is mighty in the play of variety and vigor that it can keep up around the imagination, is not mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

The love of the world can not be expunged by a mere demonstration of the world’s worthlessness. But may it not be supplanted by the love of that which is more worthy than itself? The heart can not be prevailed upon to part with the world by a single act of resignation. But may not the heart be prevailed upon to admit into its preference another, who shall subordinate the world, and bring it down from its wonted ascendancy? If the throne which is placed there must have an occupier, and the tyrant that now reigns has occupied it wrongfully, he may not leave a bosom which would rather detain him than be left in desolation. But may he not give way to the lawful sovereign, appearing with every charm that can secure his willing admittance, and taking unto himself his great power to subdue the moral nature of man, and to reign over it? In a word, if the way to disengage the heart from the positive love of one great and ascendant object, is to fasten it in positive love to another, then it is not by exposing the worthlessness of the former, but by addressing to the mental eye the worth and excellence of the latter, that all things are to be done away, and all things are become new.

To obliterate all our present affections by simply expunging them, so as to leave the seat of them unoccupied, would be to destroy the old character, and to substitute no new character in its place. But when they take their departure upon the ingress of others, when they resign their sway to the power and the predominance of new affections, when, abandoning the heart to solitude, they merely give place to a successor who turns it into as busy a residence of desire, and interest, and expectation as before—there is nothing in all this to thwart or to overthrow any of the laws of our sentient nature—and we see how, in fullest accordance with the mechanism of the heart, a great moral revolution may be made to take place upon it.

This, we trust, will explain the operation of that charm which accompanies the effectual preaching of the gospel. The love of God, and the love of the world, are two affections, not merely in a state of rivalship, but in a state of enmity—and that so irreconcilable that they can not dwell together in the same bosom. We have already affirmed how impossible it were for the heart, by any innate elasticity of its own, to cast the world away from it, and thus reduce itself to a wilderness. The heart is not so constituted, and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one. Nothing can exceed the magnitude of the required change in a man’s character, when bidden, as he is in the New Testament, not to love the world; no, nor any of the things that are in the world, for this so comprehends all that is dear to him in existence as to be equivalent to a command of self-annihilation. But the same revelation which dictates so mighty an obedience, places within our reach as mighty an instrument of obedience.

It brings for admittance, to the very door of our heart, an affection which, once seated upon its throne, will either subordinate every previous inmate, or bid it away. Beside the world, it places before the eye of the mind Him who made the world, and with this peculiarity, which is all its own—that in the gospel do we so behold God, as that we may love God. It is there, and there only, where God stands revealed as an object of confidence to sinners—and where our desire after Him is not chilled into apathy by that barrier of human guilt which intercepts every approach that is not made to Him through the appointed Mediator. It is the bringing in of this better hope whereby we draw nigh unto God—and to live without hope is to live without God, and if the heart be without God, the world will then have the ascendancy. It is God apprehended by the believer as God in Christ, who alone can disport it from this ascendancy. It is when He stands dismantled of the terrors which belong to Him as an offended lawgiver, and when we are enabled by faith, which is his own gift, to see His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and to hear His beseeching voice, as it protests good will to men, and entreats the return of all who will, to a full pardon and a gracious acceptance—it is then that a love paramount to the love of the world, and at length expulsive of it, first arises in the regenerating bosom. It is when released from the spirit of bondage, with which love can not dwell, and when to the number of God’s children, through the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the spirit of adoption is found upon us; it is then that the heart, brought under the mastery of one great and predominant affection, is delivered from the tyranny of its former desires, and in the only way in which deliverance is possible. And that faith which is revealed to us from heaven, as indispensable to a sinner’s justification in the sight of God, is also the instrument of the greatest of all moral and spiritual achievements on a nature dead to the influence, and beyond the reach of every other application.

[April 20.]

Thus may we come to perceive what it is that makes the most effective kind of preaching. It is not enough to hold out to the world’s eye the mirror of its own imperfections. It is not enough to come forth with a demonstration, however pathetic, of the evanescent character of all its enjoyments. It is not enough to travel the walk of experience along with you, and speak to your own conscience and your own recollection of the deceitfulness of the heart, and the deceitfulness of all that the heart is set upon. There is many a bearer of the gospel message who has not shrewdness of natural discernment enough, and who has not power of characteristic description enough, and who has not the talent of moral delineation enough, to present you with a vivid and faithful sketch of the existing follies of society. But that very corruption which he has not the faculty of representing in its visible details, he may practically be the instrument of eradicating in its principle. Let him be but a faithful expounder of the gospel testimony; unable as he may be to apply a descriptive hand to the character of the present world, let him but report with accuracy the matter which revelation has brought to him from a distant world, unskilled as he is in the work of so anatomizing the heart, as with the power of a novelist to create a graphical or impressive exhibition of the worthlessness of its many affections—let him only deal in those mysteries of peculiar doctrine, on which the best of novelists have thrown the wantonness of their derision. He may not be able, with the eye of shrewd and satirical observation, to expose to the ready recognition of his hearers the desires of worldliness—but with the tidings of the gospel in commission, he may wield the only engine that can extirpate them. He can not do what some might have done, when, as if by the hand of a magician they have brought out to view, from the hidden recesses of our nature, the foibles and lurking appetites which belong to it. But he has a truth in the possession, which, into whatever heart it enters, will, like the rod of Aaron, swallow up them all—and unqualified as he may be, to describe the old man in all the nicer shading of his natural and constitutional varieties, with him is deposited that ascendant influence under which the leading tastes and tendencies of the old man are destroyed, and he becomes a new creature in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us not cease, then, to ply the only instrument of powerful and positive operation, to do away from you the love of the world. Let us try every legitimate method of finding access to your hearts for the love of Him who is greater than the world. For this purpose, if possible, clear away that shroud of unbelief which so hides and darkens the face of the Deity. Let us insist on His claims to your affection, and whether in the shape of gratitude or in the shape of esteem, let us never cease to affirm that in the whole of that wondrous economy, the purpose of which is to reclaim a sinful world unto Himself, He, the God of love, so sets Himself forth in characters of endearment, that naught but faith, and naught but understanding are wanting, on your part, to call forth the love of your hearts back again.

And here let me advert to the incredulity of a worldly man; when he brings his own sound and secular experience to bear upon the high doctrines of Christianity, when he looks upon regeneration as a thing impossible, when feeling as he does the obstinacies of his own heart, on the side of things present, and casting an intelligent eye, much exercised, perhaps, in the observations of human life, on the equal obstinacies of all who are around him, he pronounces this whole matter about the crucifixion of the old man, and the resurrection of a new man in his place, to be in downright opposition to all that is known and witnessed of the real nature of humanity. We think that we have seen such men, who, firmly trenched in their own vigorous and homebred sagacity, and shrewdly regardful of all that passes before them through the week, and upon the scenes of ordinary business, look on that transition of the heart by which it gradually dies unto time, and awakens in all the life of a new felt and ever growing desire toward God, as a mere Sabbath speculation; and who thus, with all their attention engrossed upon the concerns of earthliness, continue unmoved to the end of their days, amongst the feelings and the appetites, and the pursuits of earthliness.

If the thought of death, and another state of being after it, comes across them at all, it is not with a change so radical as that of being born again, that they ever connect the idea of preparation. They have some vague conception of its being quite enough that they acquit themselves in some decent and tolerable way of their relative obligations; and that upon the strength of some such social and domestic moralities as are often realized by him in whose heart the love of God has never entered, they will be transplanted in safety from this world, where God is the Being with whom it may almost be said that they have had nothing to do, to that world where God is the Being with whom they will have mainly and immediately to do throughout all eternity. They admit all that is said of the utter vanity of time, when taken up with as a resting place. But they resist every application made upon the heart of man, with the view of so shifting its tendencies that it shall not henceforth find in the interests of time, all its rest and all its refreshment. They in fact regard such an attempt as an enterprise that is altogether aerial, and with a tone of secular wisdom caught from the familiarities of every-day experience, do they see a visionary character in all that is said of setting our affections on the things that are above, and of walking by faith, and of keeping our hearts in such a love of God as shall shut out from them the love of the world, and of having no confidence in the flesh, and of so renouncing earthly things as to have our conversation in heaven.

Now, it is altogether worthy of being remarked of those men who thus disrelish spiritual Christianity, and, in fact, deem it an impracticable acquirement, how much of a piece their incredulities about the doctrines of Christianity are with each other. No wonder that they feel the work of the New Testament to be beyond their strength, so long as they hold the words of the New Testament to be beneath their attention. Neither they nor any one else can dispossess the heart of an old affection, but by the impulsive power of a new one, and, if that new affection be the love of God, neither they nor any one else can be made to entertain it, but on such a representation of the Deity as shall draw the heart of the sinner toward Him. Now, it is just their unbelief which screens from the discernment of their minds this representation. They do not see the love of God in sending His Son into the world. They do not see the expression of his tenderness to men, in sparing him not, but giving him up unto the death for us all. They do not see the sufficiency of the atonement, or of the sufferings that were endured by him who bore the burden that sinners should have borne. They do not see the blended holiness and compassion of the Godhead, in that He passed by the transgressions of His creatures, yet could not pass them by without an expiation. It is a mystery to them how a man should pass to a state of godliness from a state of nature—but had they only a believing view of God manifest in the flesh, this would resolve for them the whole mystery of godliness. As it is, they can not get quit of their old affections, because they are out of sight from all those truths which have influence to raise a new one. They are like the children of Israel in the land of Egypt, when required to make bricks without straw—they can not love God, while they want the only food which can aliment this affection in a sinner’s bosom—and however great their errors may be, both in resisting the demands of the gospel as impracticable, and in rejecting the doctrines of the gospel as inadmissible, yet there is not a spiritual man (and it is the prerogative of Him who is spiritual to judge all men) who will not perceive that there is a consistency in these errors.

[April 27.]

But if there be a consistency in the errors, in like manner is there a consistency in the truths which are opposite to them. The man who believes in the peculiar doctrines will readily bow to the peculiar demands of Christianity. When he is told to love God supremely, this may startle him to whom God has been revealed in grace, and in pardon, and in all the freeness of an offered reconciliation. When told he should shut out the world from the heart, this may be impossible with him who has nothing to replace it—but not impossible with him who has found in God a sure and a satisfying portion. When told to withdraw his affections from the things that are beneath, this was laying an order of self-extinction upon the man who knows not another quarter in the whole sphere of his contemplation, to which he could transfer them—but it were not grievous to him whose view has been opened up to the loveliness and glory of the things that are above, and can there find, for every feeling of his soul, a most ample and delighted occupation. When told to look not at the things that are seen and temporal, this were blotting out the light of all that is visible from the prospect of him in whose eye there is a wall of partition between guilty nature and the joys of eternity—but he who believes that Christ has broken down this wall, finds a gathering radiance upon his soul, as he looks onward in faith to the things that are unseen and eternal. Tell a man to be holy—and how can he compass such a performance, when his alone fellowship with holiness is a fellowship of despair? It is the atonement of the cross, reconciling the holiness of the lawgiver with the safety of the offender, that hath opened the way for a sanctifying influence into the sinner’s heart, and he can take a kindred impression from the character of God now brought nigh, and now at peace with him.

Separate the demand from the doctrine, and you have either a system of righteousness that is impracticable, or a barren orthodoxy. Bring the demand and the doctrine together, and the true disciple of Christ is able to do the one through the other strengthening him. The motive is adequate to the movement, and the bidden obedience of the gospel is not beyond the measure of his strength, just because the doctrine of the gospel is not beyond the measure of his acceptance. The shield of faith, and the hope of salvation, and the Word of God, and the girdle of truth—these are the armor that he has put on; and with these the battle is won, and the eminence is reached, and the man stands on the vantage ground of a new field and a new prospect. The effect is great, but the cause is equal to it—and stupendous as this moral resurrection to the precepts of Christianity undoubtedly is, there is an element of strength enough to give it being and continuance in the principles of Christianity.

The object of the gospel is both to pacify the sinner’s conscience, and to purify his heart; and it is of importance to observe that what mars one of these objects, mars the other also. The best way of casting out an impure affection is to admit a pure one; and by the love of what is good, to expel the love of what is evil. Thus it is, that the freer the gospel, the more sanctifying the gospel; and the more it is received as a doctrine of grace, the more will it be felt as a doctrine according to godliness. This is one of the secrets of the Christian life, that the more a man holds of God as a pensioner, the greater is the payment of service that he renders back again. On the tenure of “Do this and live,” a spirit of fearfulness is sure to enter; and the jealousies of a legal bargain chase away all confidence from the intercourse between God and man; and the creature striving to be square and even with his Creator, is, in fact, pursuing all the while his own selfishness instead of God’s glory, and with all the conformities which he labors to accomplish, the soul of obedience is not there, the mind is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed under such an economy ever can be. It is only when, as in the gospel, acceptance is bestowed as a present, without money and without price, that the security which man feels in God is placed beyond the reach of disturbance, or that he can repose in him, as one friend reposes in another, or that any liberal and generous understanding can be established betwixt them—one party rejoicing over the other to do him good—the other finding that the truest gladness of his heart lies in the impulse of a gratitude, by which it is awakened to the charms of a new moral existence. Salvation by grace—salvation on such a footing is not more indispensable to the deliverance of our persons from the hand of justice, than it is to the deliverance of our hearts from the chill and the weight of ungodliness.

Retain a single shred or fragment of legality with the gospel, and you raise a topic of distrust between man and God. You take away from the power of the gospel to melt and to conciliate. For this purpose, the freer it is, the better it is. That very peculiarity which so many dread as the germ of Antinomianism, is in fact the germ of a new spirit, and a new inclination against it. Along with the light of a free gospel, does there enter the love of the gospel, which in proportion as you impair the freeness, you are sure to chase away. And never does the sinner find within himself so mighty a moral transformation, as when under the belief that he is saved by grace, he feels constrained thereby to offer his heart a devoted thing, and to deny ungodliness.

To do any work in the best manner, you would make use of the fittest tools for it. And we trust that what has been said may serve in some degree for the practical guidance of those who would like to reach the great moral achievement of our text—but feel that the tendencies and desires of nature are too strong for them. We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of our heart, than to keep in our heart the love of God—and no other way by which to keep our hearts in the love of God, than building ourselves up on our most holy faith. That denial of the world which is not possible to him that dissents from the gospel testimony, is possible, even as all things are possible to him that believeth. To try this without faith, is to work without the right tool or the right instrument. But faith worketh by love; and the way of expelling from the heart the love that transgresseth the law, is to admit into its receptacles the love which fulfilleth the law.

Conceive a man to be standing on the margin of this green world; and that, when he looked toward it, he saw abundance smiling upon every field, and all the blessings which earth can afford scattered in profusion throughout every family, and the light of the sun sweetly resting upon all the pleasant habitations, and the joys of human companionship brightening many a happy circle of society—conceive of this as being the general character of the scene upon one side of his contemplation; and that on the other, beyond the verge of the goodly planet on which he was situated, he could descry nothing but a dark and fathomless unknown. Think you that he would bid a voluntary adieu to all the brightness and all the beauty that were before him on earth, and commit himself to the frightful solitude away from it? Would he leave its peopled dwelling places, and become a solitary wanderer through the fields of nonentity? If space offered him nothing but a wilderness, would he abandon the homebred scenes of life and of cheerfulness that lay so near, and exerted such a power of urgency to detain him? Would not he cling to the regions of sense, and of life, and of society?—and shrinking away from the desolation that was beyond it, would not he be glad to keep his firm footing on the territory of this world, and to take shelter under the silver canopy that was stretched over it?

But if, during the time of his contemplation, some happy island of the blest had floated by; and there had burst upon his senses the light of its surpassing glories, and its sounds of sweeter melody; and he clearly saw that there a purer beauty rested upon every field, and a more heartfelt joy spread itself among all the families; and he could discern there a peace, and a piety, and a benevolence, which put a moral gladness into every bosom, and united the whole society in one rejoicing sympathy with each other, and with the beneficent Father of them all. Could he further see that pain and mortality were there unknown, and above all, that signals of welcome were hung out, and an avenue of communication was made for him, perceive you not, that what was before the wilderness, would become the land of invitation; and that now the world would be the wilderness? What unpeopled space could not do, can be done by space teeming with beatific scenes and beatific society. And let the existing tendencies of the heart be what they may to the scene that is near and visible around us, still, if another stood revealed to the prospect of man, either through the channel of faith, or through the channel of his senses—then, without violence done to the constitution of his moral nature, may he die unto the present world, and live to the lovelier world that stands in the distance, away from it.

SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.

Quiet and fair in tone; condensed to the last point, and still perfectly clear; written in such pure English that the youngest reader can understand, yet free from an affectation of baby talk, which is often considered indispensable in children’s books—the “Young Folks’ History of the United States” makes a refreshing contrast to the kind of school book with which Abbott and Loomis, and men of their stamp have inundated the country. Not that these latter, in spite of bombast and dryness, may not have served a purpose in their day and generation, no better men having come forward heretofore, but that a more thoughtful and scientific age demands better work.—Scribner’s Monthly.

Criticism on “Back-Log Studies.”

In “Back-Log Studies” there are, no doubt, some essentially inartistic things—some long episodes; for example, such as the “New Vision of Sin” and the “Uncle in India,” which are clearly inferior in texture to the rest, and not quite worth the space they occupy; but, as a whole, the book is certainly a most agreeable contribution to the literature of the Meditative school. And it is saying a great deal to say this. To make such an attempt successful there must be a lightness of touch sustained through everything; there must be a predominant sweetness of flavor, and that air of joyous ease which is often the final triumph of labor. There must also be a power of analysis, always subtle, never prolonged; there must be description, minute enough to be graphic, yet never carried to the borders of fatigue; there must also be glimpses of restrained passion, and of earnestness kept in reserve. All these are essential, and all these the “Back-Log Studies” show. If other resources were added—as depth of thought, or powerful imagination, or wide learning, or constructive power—they would only carry the book beyond the proper ranks of the Meditative school, and place it in that higher grade of literature to which Holmes’ “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” belongs. Yet it may be better not to insist on this distinction, for it is Mr. Warner himself who wisely reminds us that “the most unprofitable and unsatisfactory criticism is that of comparison.”

It is as true in literature as in painting that “it is in the perfection and precision of the instantaneous line that the claim to immortality is made.” The first and simplest test of good writing is in the fresh and incisive phrases it yields; and in this respect “Back-Log Studies” is strong. The author has not only the courage of his opinions, but he has the courage of his phrases, which is quite as essential. What an admirable touch, for instance, is that where Mr. Warner says that a great wood-fire in a wide kitchen chimney, with all the pots and kettles boiling and bubbling, and a roasting spit turning in front of it, “makes a person as hungry as one of Scott’s novels!” Fancy the bewilderment of some slow and well-meaning man upon encountering that stroke of fancy; his going over it slowly from beginning to end, and then again backward from end to beginning, studying it with microscopic eye, to find where the resemblance comes in, until at last it occurs to him that possibly there may be a typographical error somewhere, and that, with a little revision, the sentence might become intelligible! He does not know that in literature, as in life, nothing venture, nothing have; and that it often requires precisely such an audacious stroke as this to capture the most telling analogies.

There occurs just after this, in “Back-Log Studies,” a sentence which has long since found its way to the universal heart, and which is worth citing, as an example of the delicate rhetorical art of under-statement. To construct a climax is within the reach of every one; there is not a Fourth-of-July orator who can not erect for himself a heaven-scaling ladder of that description, climb its successive steps, and then tumble from the top. But to let your climax swell beneath you like a wave of the sea, and then let it subside under you so gently that your hearer shall find himself more stirred by your moderation than by your impulse; this is a triumph of style. Thus our author paints a day of winter storm; for instance, the wild snow-drifts beating against the cottage window, and the boy in the chimney-corner reading about General Burgoyne and the Indian wars. “I should like to know what heroism a boy in an old New England farm-house, rough-nursed by nature, and fed on the traditions of the old wars, did not aspire to—‘John,’ says the mother, ‘you’ll burn your head to a crisp in that heat.’ But John does not hear; he is storming the Plains of Abraham just now. ‘Johnny, dear, bring in a stick of wood.’ How can Johnny bring in wood when he is in that defile with Braddock, and the Indians are popping at him from behind every tree? There is something about a boy that I like, after all.”

I defy any one who has a heart for children to resist that last sentence. Considered critically, it is the very triumph of under-statement—of delicious, provoking, perfectly unexpected, moderation. It is a refreshing dash of cool water just as we were beginning to grow heated. Like that, it calls our latent heat to the surface by a kindly reaction; the writer surprises us by claiming so little that we concede everything; we at once compensate by our own enthusiasm for this inexplicable lowering of the demand. Like him! of course we like him—that curly-pated, rosy-cheeked boy, with his story books and his Indians! But if we had been called upon to adore him, it is very doubtful whether we should have liked him at all. And this preference for effects secured by quiet methods—for producing emphasis without the use of italics, and arresting attention without resorting to exclamation points—is the crowning merit of the later style of Mr. Warner.

HENRY JAMES, Jr.

Mr. Henry James, Jr., inherits from his father a diction so rich and pure, so fluent and copious, so finely shaded, yet capable of such varied service, that it is, in itself, a form of genius. Few men have ever been so brilliantly equipped for literary performance. Carefully trained taste, large acquirements of knowledge, experience of lands and races, and association with the best minds have combined to supply him with all the purely intellectual requisites which an author could desire.—Bayard Taylor.

As a story-teller, we know of no one who is entitled to rank higher, since Poe and Hawthorne are gone, than Mr. James. His style is pure and finished, and marked by the nicety of expression which is so noticeable among the best French writers of fiction.—Louisville Courier-Journal.

The “Portrait of a Lady” is a very clever book, and a book of very great interest. We do not know a living English novelist who could have written it.—Pall Mall Gazette.

Carlyle’s Letters to Emerson.

Carlyle takes his place among the first of English, among the very first of all letter-writers. All his great merits come out in this form of expression; and his defects are not felt as defects, but only as striking characteristics and as tones in the picture. Originality, nature, humor, imagination, freedom, the disposition to talk, the play of mood, the touch of confidence—these qualities, of which the letters are full, will with the aid of an inimitable use of language—a style which glances at nothing that it does not render grotesque—preserve their life for readers even further removed from the occasion than ourselves, and for whom possibly the vogue of Carlyle’s published writings in his day will be to a certain degree a subject of wonder.

Carlyle is here in intercourse with a friend for whom, almost alone among the persons with whom he had dealings, he appears to have entertained a sentiment of respect—a constancy of affection untinged by that humorous contempt in which (in most cases) he indulges when he wishes to be kind, and which was the best refuge open to him from his other alternative of absolutely savage mockery.

It is singular, indeed, that throughout his intercourse with Emerson he never appears to have known the satiric fury which he directed at so many other objects, accepting his friend en bloc, once for all, with reservations and protests so light that, as addressed to Emerson’s own character, they are only a finer form of consideration.… Other persons have enjoyed life as little as Carlyle; other men have been pessimists and cynics; but few men have rioted so in their disenchantments, or thumped so perpetually upon the hollowness of things with the idea of making it resound. Pessimism, cynicism, usually imply a certain amount of indifference and resignation; but in Carlyle these forces were nothing if not querulous and vocal. It must be remembered that he had an imagination which made acquiescence difficult—an imagination haunted with theological and apocalyptic visions. We have no occasion here to attempt to estimate his position in literature, but we may be permitted to say that it is mainly to this splendid imagination that he owes it. Both the moral and the physical world were full of pictures for him, and it would seem to be by his great pictorial energy that he will live.

Anthony Trollope.

His great, his inestimable merit was a complete appreciation of reality. This gift is not rare in the annals of English fiction; it would naturally be found in a walk of literature in which the feminine mind has labored so fruitfully. Women are delicate and patient observers; they hold their noses close, as it were, to the texture of life. They feel and perceive the real (as well as the desirable), and their observations are recorded in a thousand delightful volumes. Trollope therefore, with his eyes comfortably fixed on the familiar, the actual, was far from having invented a genre, as the French say; his great distinction is that, in resting there, his vision took in so much of the field. And then he felt all common, human things as well as saw them; felt them in a simple, direct, salubrious way, with their sadness, their gladness, their charm, their comicality, all their obvious and measurable meanings.

Du Maurier.

He is predominantly a painter of social, as distinguished from popular life, and when the other day he collected some of his drawings into a volume, he found it natural to give them the title of “English Society at Home.” He looks at the “accomplished” classes more than at the people, though he by no means ignores the humors of humble life. His consideration of the peculiarities of costermongers and “cadgers” is comparatively perfunctory, as he is too fond of civilization and of the higher refinements of the grotesque. His colleague, the frank and as the metaphysicians say, objective, Keene, has a more natural familiarity with the British populace. There is a whole side of English life, at which du Maurier scarcely glances—the great sporting element, which supplies half of their gayety and all their conversation to millions of her Majesty’s subjects. He is shy of the turf and of the cricket field; he only touches here and there upon the river. But he has made “society” completely his own—he has sounded its depths, explored its mysteries, discovered and divulged its secrets. His observation of these things is extraordinarily acute, and his illustrations, taken together, form a complete comedy of manners, in which the same personages constantly re-appear, so that we have the sense, indispensable to keenness of interest, of tracing their adventures to a climax. So many of the conditions of English life are picturesque (and, to American eyes, even romantic), that du Maurier has never been at a loss for subjects. We mean that he is never at a loss for pictures. English society makes pictures all round him, and he has only to look to see the most charming things, which at the same time have the merit that you can always take the satirical view of them.

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.

He is equal as an artist to the best French writers. His books are not only artistically fine, but morally wholesome.—Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes.

The great body of the cultivated public has an instinctive delight in original genius, whether it be refined or sensational. Mr. Howells’s is eminently refined. His humor, however vivid in form, is subtle and elusive in its essence. He depends, perhaps, somewhat too much on the feelings of humor in his readers to appreciate his own. He has the true Addisonian touch; hits his mark in the white, and instead of provoking uproarious laughter, strives to evoke that satisfied smile which testifies to the quiet enjoyment of the reader. His humor is the humor of a poet.—E. P. Whipple.

Mr. Howells has been compared to Washington Irving for the exquisite purity of his style, and to Hawthorne for a certain subtle recognition of a hidden meaning in familiar things. A more thoroughly genial writer, certainly, we have not, nor one more conscientious in the practice of his art.—Scribner’s Monthly.

The Young Editor, from “A Modern Instance.”

“Hullo!” he cried, with a suddenness that startled the boy, who had finished his meditation upon Bartley’s trowsers, and was now deeply dwelling on his boots. “Do you like ’em? See what sort of a shine you can give ’em for Sunday-go-to-meeting-to-morrow-morning.” He put out his hand and laid hold of the boy’s head, passing his fingers through the thick red hair. “Sorrel-top!” he said with a grin of agreeable reminiscence. “They emptied all the freckles they had left into your face—didn’t they, Andy?”

This free, joking way of Bartley’s was one of the things that made him popular; he passed the time of day, and would give and take right along, as his admirers expressed it from the first, in a community where his smartness had that honor which gives us more smart men to the square mile than any other country in the world. The fact of his smartness had been affirmed and established in the strongest manner by the authorities of the college at which he was graduated, in answer to the reference he made to them when negotiating with the committee in charge for the place he now held as editor of the Equity Free Press.… They perhaps had their misgivings when the young man, in his well-blacked boots, his grey trowsers neatly fitting over them, and his diagonal coat buttoned high with one button, stood before them with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and looked down over his mustache at the floor, with sentiments concerning their wisdom which they could not explore; they must have resented the fashionable keeping of everything about him, for Bartley wore his one suit as if it were but one of many; but when they understood that he had come by everything through his own unaided smartness, they could no longer hesitate. One, indeed, still felt it a duty to call attention to the fact that the college authorities said nothing of the young man’s moral characteristics in a letter dwelling so largely upon his intellectual qualifications. The others referred this point by a silent look to ’Squire Gaylord. “I don’t know,” said the ’Squire, “as I ever heard that a great deal of morality was required by a newspaper editor.” The rest laughed at the joke, and the ’Squire continued: “But I guess if he worked his own way through college, as they say, that he hain’t had time to be up to a great deal of mischief. You know it’s for idle hands that the devil provides, doctor.”

“That’s true, as far as it goes,” said the doctor. “But it isn’t the whole truth. The devil provides for some busy hands, too.”

“There’s a good deal of sense in that,” the ’Squire admitted. “The worst scamps I ever knew were active fellows. Still, industry is in a man’s favor. If the faculty knew anything against this young man they would have given us a hint of it. I guess we had better take him; we shan’t do better. Is it a vote?”

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

Humor he has, and of the very highest order. It is as delicate as Washington Irving’s, and quite as spontaneous. But humor is hardly his predominant quality. He has all the wit of Holmes, and all the tenderness of Ik Marvel. He is often charmingly thoughtful, earnest and suggestive.—San Francisco Bulletin.

There is only one other pair of microscopic eyes like his owned by an American, and they belong to W. D. Howells. These two men will ferret out fun from arid sands and naked rocks, and in one trip of a league, less or more, over a barren waste, see and hear more that is amusing and entertaining than the rest of the world will discover in crossing a continent. Such men should do our traveling for us.—Chicago Tribune.

From “Back-Log Studies.”

The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in New England; the hearth has gone out; the family has lost its center; age ceases to be respected; sex is only distinguished by the difference between millinery bills and tailors’ bills; there is no more toast-and-cider; the young are not allowed to eat mince pies at ten o’clock at night; half a cheese is no longer set to toast before the fire; you scarcely ever see in front of the coals a row of roasting apples, which a bright little girl, with many a dive and start, shielding her sunny face from the fire with one hand, turns from time to time; scarce are the grey-haired sires who strop their razors on the family Bible, and doze in the chimney corner. A good many things have gone out with the fire on the hearth.

I do not mean to say that public and private morality have vanished with the hearth. A good degree of purity and considerable happiness are possible with grates and blowers; it is a day of trial, when we are all passing through a fiery furnace, and very likely we shall be purified as we are dried up and wasted away. Of course the family is gone as an institution, though there still are attempts to bring up a family round a “register.” But you might just as well try to bring it up by hand as without the rallying-point of a hearth-stone. Are there any homesteads now-a-days? Do people hesitate to change houses any more than they do to change their clothes? People hire houses as they would a masquerade costume, liking, sometimes, to appear for a year in a little fictitious stone-front splendor above their means. Thus it happens that so many people live in houses that do not fit them. I should almost as soon think of wearing another person’s clothes as his house; unless I could let it out and take it in until it fitted, and somehow expressed my own character and taste.

From “Being a Boy.”

It is a wonder that every New England boy does not turn out a poet, or a missionary or a peddler. Most of them used to. There is something in the heart of the New England hills to feed the imagination of the boy and excite his longing for strange countries. I scarcely know what the subtle influence is that forms him and attracts him in the most fascinating and aromatic of all lands, and yet urges him away from all the sweet delights of his home to become roamer in literature and in the world a poet and a wanderer. There is something in the soil and in the pure air, I suspect, that promises more romance than is forthcoming, and that excites the imagination without satisfying it, and begets the desire of adventure.

What John said was, that he didn’t care much for pumpkin pie; but that was after he had eaten a whole one. It seemed to him then that mince would be better. The feeling of a boy toward pumpkin pie has never been properly considered.… His elders say that the boy is always hungry; but that is a very coarse way of putting it. He has only recently come into a world that is full of good things to eat, and there is on the whole a very short time in which to eat them; at least he is told, among the first information he receives, that life is brief. Life being brief, and pie and the like fleeting, he very soon decides on an active campaign. It may be an old story to people who have been eating for forty or fifty years; but it is different with a beginner. He takes the thick and thin as it comes—as to pie, for instance. Some people do make them very thin.

UNITED STATES HISTORY.

SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK.

The most favorably situated, and, for its extent, the most valuable region of the country was first settled by the Dutch, Hollanders and Swedes.

For some ten years there had been a trading post and small village on Manhattan Island; and, in 1623 the “Dutch West India Co.,” with a charter covering the whole coast from the Strait of Magellan to Hudson’s Bay, landed a colony of thirty families at New Amsterdam.

The first colonists were mostly Protestant refugees from Belgium, who came to America to escape the persecutions endured in their own country. A part of the colonists took up their abode at New Amsterdam; others went down the New Jersey coast, and landed on the eastern shore of the Bay of Delaware. The same year a colony of 18 families ascended the Hudson, and located at or near Albany. This was the most northern post, and was called Fort Orange.

A civil government was established for New Netherlands, in 1624, Cornelius May being the first governor.

In 1626 Peter Minuit was appointed governor, and during his administration he purchased of the native inhabitants the whole of Manhattan Island, containing more than 20,000 acres, for forty dollars.

Some settlements were also made on Long Island. The Dutch of New Amsterdam and the Pilgrims of New England were early friends, and helped each other. Both enjoyed a good degree of prosperity, and the population steadily increased.

For more than ten years the Indians, with few exceptions, received the strangers who came among them kindly and in good faith. When injured and wronged their resentment was kindled, and terribly did they avenge themselves on their enemies. The first notable instance was at Lewistown, on Delaware Bay, where Hosset, a governor of violent temper and little sagacity, seized and put to death a chief, who in some way offended him. The tribe was aroused, and assailed the place with such violence that not a man was left alive. When the next ship-load of colonists arrived, instead of a thrifty town, and friends eagerly waiting to receive them, they found but the bones of the slain, and the ashes of the homes that had sheltered them. Afterward there was not, for many years, the same sense of security; and in 1640 New Netherlands became involved in a general war with the Indians of Long Island and New Jersey, a war that, on both sides, was far from honorable, and marked with treachery, cruelty, and murders most revolting. If the whites were surprised and massacred by the Indians, there were as terrible massacres of Indians by the whites, who were, too often, the aggressors. An impartial historian says: “Nearly all the bloodshed and sorrow of those five years of war may be charged to Governor Kief. He was a revengeful, cruel man, whose idea of government was to destroy whatever opposed him.” For his headstrong course and cruelty he lost his position, and, to the great relief of the colonists, who had suffered much on his account, sailed for England. But the ship was wrecked on the coast of Wales, and the guilty governor found a grave in the sea. He was succeeded by Peter Stuyvesant, a resolute man, of more ability than most who preceded him. He, for seventeen years, managed the affairs of the colonists successfully. He conciliated the savages, settled the boundaries of his territory, and enforced the surrender of New Sweden, which became a part of his dominion. There was afterward some difficulty with the Indians, but more from a quarter whence no danger was expected. Lord Baltimore, of Maryland, claimed, under his charter, all the territory between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay. Berkley claimed New Sweden, while Connecticut and Massachusetts were equally aggressive on the territories adjacent to their lines.

In 1664 the unscrupulous king of England, Charles II., issued patents to his brother, the Duke of York, covering the territory called New Netherlands, and more beside. It was in utter disregard of the rights of Holland, and of the West India Co., who had settled the country. No time was given for protest against the outrage. An English squadron soon appeared before New Amsterdam, and demanded the immediate surrender of the country, and the acknowledgment of the sovereignty of England. No effectual resistance could be made, and the indignant old governor, his council ordering it, had to sign the capitulation; and, on the 8th of September, 1664, the English flag was hoisted over the fort and town. The Swedish and Dutch settlements likewise capitulated, and the conquest was complete. From Maine to Georgia, in every settlement near the coast, the British flag was unfurled. This high-handed injustice, which robbed a sister state of her well earned colonial possessions, was but slightly mitigated by the fact that the armament was insufficient to enforce submission without the shedding of blood. The capitulation was on favorable terms, and with fair promises, that were never fulfilled. The government was despotic, and the people were sorely oppressed. The policy of the tyrannical governor was to tax the people till they could do nothing but think how possibly to pay the amount assessed.

In 1673, England and Holland being at war, the latter sent a small squadron to recover the possessions wrested from her in America. When the little fleet appeared before New York, the governor was absent, and his deputy, either from cowardice, or, knowing the people preferred to have it so, at once surrendered the city, and the whole province yielded without a struggle.

But the re-conquest of New York by the Dutch, gave them no permanent possession, as the war was soon closed by a treaty of peace, in which all the rights of Holland in America were surrendered.

The Dutch and Swedes again became subject to English authority. Popular government was overthrown, and the officers appointed by the crown, directly or otherwise, with few exceptions, were unjust and tyrannical. Their oppressive measures were met with resistance, and, so intense was the hatred excited, that obstructions were thrown in the way of everything that was attempted. The people, when not repelling the attacks of the French and the Indians, or carrying the war into the territory of the invaders—campaigns in which much was sacrificed and nothing gained—were in a constant struggle with the royal governors, intent on collecting the revenues and enriching themselves, but careless of the best interests of the people.

PENNSYLVANIA.

In 1681 William Penn, a man of convictions, who, with other Quakers, had suffered persecution on account of his religious convictions, obtained a charter with proprietary rights, for a large tract of American territory. Geographically its position was nearly central as regards the original colonies, but at first somewhat indefinitely bounded. In the final adjustment of colonial limits it was made a regular parallelogram, a small addition being made to give access to Lake Erie, and a good harbor. The average length is 310 miles; the width, 160 miles. In naming his territory the proprietor modestly omitted any allusion to himself. He suggested Sylvania, because of the extensive and almost unbroken forest. The clerk prefixed “Penn.” From this he appealed to the king, who decided the prefix should be retained; but, as a relief to the wounded modesty of the Quaker, said it would be in honor of the Admiral, his friend, and the deceased father of William. For whomever the compliment was intended, the citizens of the commonwealth have always liked the name.

The liberal plan for the government of West New Jersey, previously drawn up by Penn, was adopted, and the colonists encouraged to govern themselves. The powers conferred on him personally were never used in selfishness, or to advance his personal interests, but only to further the complete establishment of freedom, justice, and the best interests of the people.

To the Swedes and others who had settled within his territory before he took possession, he introduced himself in a way so conciliatory and assuring that their friendship was at once won. His first message as governor was an admirable document—plain, honest, sensible in its every utterance. Its brevity allows it to be printed in full. “My friends, I wish you all happiness here and hereafter. These words are to let you know that it hath pleased God, in his providence, to cast you in my lot and care. It is a business that though I never undertook before, yet God hath given me an understanding of my duty, and an honest heart to do it uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at your change and the king’s choice; for you are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great. You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free, and if you will, a sober, industrious people.…”

Before the proprietor’s arrival, with three shiploads of Quaker colonists, his deputy, as instructed, had respected the rights of all the settlers, of whatever nationality or religious faith, and had been specially careful to cultivate friendly relations, and form treaties with the Indian tribes located in or near the territory. The offers of friendship, honestly made, were received in the same kindly spirit that prompted them, and neither fraud nor violence was feared. Not long after Penn came, a general council was called of the chiefs and sachems, anxious to see him of whom they had heard, and whose promises, reported to them, they had believed. He met them, with a few friends, unarmed as they all were, and spoke kind words by an interpreter.

It was not his object to purchase lands, or to lay down rules to govern them in trading, but honestly to assure the untutored children of the forest of his friendly purposes and brotherly affection.

The covenant then made, not written with ink, nor confirmed by any oath, was sacredly kept. No deed of violence or injustice ever marred the peace or interrupted the friendly relations of the parties. For more than seventy years, during which time the province remained under the control of the Friends, the peace was unbroken. Not a war-whoop was heard, nor any hostile demonstration witnessed in Pennsylvania.

In December, 1682, a convention was held of three days’ continuance, and all needful provision made for territorial legislation.

The generous concessions of the proprietor harmonized the views of the assembly, and the results of the convention were eminently satisfactory.

After a month’s absence, during which there was a visit to the Chesapeake, and an amicable conference with Lord Baltimore, about the boundaries of their respective provinces, Penn returned, and busied himself in locating and making a plot of his proposed capital. The beautiful neck between the Schuylkill and Delaware was wisely chosen; the land purchased of the Swedes, who had begun a settlement there, and map of the city provided. Three or four cabins were the only dwellings on the site, and the lines of the streets were indicated by marks on the trees. Thus in the woods was founded Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

From the inception of his American enterprise, Penn showed himself a true philanthropist, not seeking his own aggrandizement, but the good of others. The oppressed and persecuted trusted him and were not disappointed. He promised them freedom, the love of which was a master passion with him, and the charter of their liberties dated at Philadelphia, and adopted by the first General Assembly, was even more generous than they expected. He conceded all the rights of legislation to the representatives of the people, reserving for himself only the right to veto any hasty and objectionable enactments of the council. His administration as executive met with much favor, and the tide of prosperity was for years unabated. Such was the condition of affairs in Pennsylvania when King James II. abdicated his throne. Penn, being a friend of the Stuarts, and having received his liberal charter from Charles II., sympathized with the fallen monarch, and, though loyal, had less confidence in William and Mary. For his sympathy and supposed adherence to the cause of the exiled king, he was persecuted, several times arrested and cast into prison. But investigations showed the suspicions of disloyalty unfounded; and his rights, so unjustly and to the great grief of his colonists, wrested from him, were fully restored. The new sovereign was a Catholic, and his fellow-communicants, like other dissenters from the Establishment, had suffered much. His anxiety to restore to them all the immunities of citizenship disposed him to listen to the logic and eloquence of the accomplished Quaker, who boldly contended for the toleration of all creeds, and the unlimited freedom of conscience. His influence during these years, in keeping up the tide of immigration to America, and especially to Pennsylvania, was something wonderful.

In 1699 he again visited his American colony, now grown into a state—the increase in population and all the resources of a prosperous community far exceeding his expectations.

In 1701, having carefully and satisfactorily arranged all his affairs in America, Penn bade a final adieu to his many friends, and returned to England. He left them, largely through the influence of his teaching and example and spirit, at peace among themselves and with all their neighbors.

About this time a measure was proposed in England that, if passed, would seriously affect the colonists in all parts of the country. The ministers formed the design of abolishing all the proprietary estates, with the view of establishing royal governments in their stead. The presence of Penn was greatly needed in England to prevent the success of this scheme, and not without much effort was the purpose defeated. It required a man of power and influence in the king’s court to do it. From this time the government, though still in Penn’s right, was administered by his deputies, some of whom disappointed him. John Evans, an ambitious man, and not true to the peace principles of the Friends, greatly troubled the province by purchasing military equipments, and attempting to organize a regiment of militia. The council and citizens protested so strongly against his proceedings as irreconcilable with the policy of Penn, that Evans was removed from the office, and another appointed. His charge to the deputies appointed had been, “You are come to a quiet land; rule for him under whom the princes of this world will one day esteem it an honor to govern in their places.” Those who heeded the charge had peace and prosperity in their borders. As proprietor of his vast possessions in America, Penn was not faultless; but his mistakes bore an amiable character. Conscious of his own integrity and freedom from cupidity, he placed too much confidence in the untried virtue of others, and exposed inferior men in the way of temptation to dishonesty that they were not able to resist. The rascality of his agent, Ford, whose false accounts involved the honest proprietor in debt to a large amount, well nigh accomplished his financial ruin. He was imprisoned, and after weary months of confinement was released by influential friends, who compounded with the creditors in whose power the crafty agent had placed him.

The simplicity of his Quaker habits and enthusiasm for religion seemed inconsistent with his great influence in the corrupt court of the king, and he was suspected of acting a double part—was thrice arrested, charged with treasonable intentions, and as often acquitted. But the strain was too great. His natural force abated, and the infirmities of age came on him rapidly. His acquittal, and the complete vindication of his character cast a bright light on the clouds, and its radiance gave a kind relief for the six years of feebleness and suffering that remained after life’s mission seemed mostly accomplished. The attacks of enemies and contemporary rivals are more readily condoned. But the abortive attempt of Lord Macaulay to asperse the character of the deceased governor, whose enterprise in the New World eclipsed all others, reflects little honor on the name of the great historian. Certainly the great Quaker’s record on this side of the Atlantic can never be tarnished, and his principles of liberty and equality are better understood and appreciated by American freemen.

The colonial possessions of Penn were bequeathed to his three sons, by whom, and their deputies, the government was administered until the American Revolution. Afterward, in 1779, the entire claim of the Penn family to the soil and jurisdiction of the state, was purchased by the legislature for a hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling. The early history of the Keystone state is one of special interest and pleasure. The reader lingers over it because it recounts bloodless victories, and the triumph of kindness and right over violence and wrong.

When nations grow mercenary and grasping, the strong justifying their aggressions and conquests by the false plea that success, and the probable hereafter of the conquered races justify their assaults, the early annals of Penn’s state will stand a perpetual protest against fraud and violence, however successful for a time. Might does not make right, even when the highest civilization confronts the lowest barbarism. Even savages had rights that the most cultured Englishmen were bound to respect.

The brotherhood of man includes those of lowest estate. So thought the founder of the great state that bears his name. With his charter in hand he fearlessly plunged into the vast wilderness, saying, “I will here found a free colony for all mankind.” The words had the true ring, and the asylum was opened for men of every nation who loved liberty and hated the oppressor’s wrongs. And it was a most fitting thing that the “bells of his capital should ring out the first glad notes of American independence.”

GEORGIA.

Every philanthropist must take satisfaction in the founding of the colony in Georgia; for, perhaps beyond any other, it had its origin in the spirit of pure benevolence. The unfortunate debtor in England was by the laws liable to imprisonment; and thousands were, for this cause alone, languishing in prisons. The miserable condition of debtors and their desolate families, was at length thrust on the attention of Parliament. In 1728 a commission was appointed to inquire into the state of the poor, and report measures of relief. The work was accomplished, the jails thrown open, and the prisoners returned to their families. But, though liberated, they and their friends were in no condition to maintain themselves respectably in the land of their birth. There was a land beyond the sea where debt was not a crime, and poverty not necessarily a disgrace. To provide somewhere a refuge for the poor of England, and the distressed Protestants of other countries, the commission appealed to George II. for the privilege of planting a colony of such persons in America. A charter was issued giving the desired territory to a corporation, for twenty-one years, to be held in trust for the poor. In honor of the king the new province was named Georgia. The high-souled philanthropist who initiated and went steadily forward in this enterprise was James Oglethorpe. Born a loyalist, educated at Oxford, a high churchman, a soldier, a member of Parliament, benevolent, generous, full of sympathy, and far-sighted in comprehending the results of his enterprise, he sacrificed much, giving the best position of a life so full of energy and promise to the noble charity of providing homes for the poor, under such conditions that the largest benefit could be received by them without any sense of degradation. Ridpath says: “The magnanimity of the enterprise was heightened by the fact that he did not believe in the equality of men, but only in the duty of the strong to protect the weak, and sympathize with the lowly. Oglethorpe was the principal member of the corporation, and to him the personal leadership of the first colony planted on the banks of the Savannah was naturally intrusted. His associations were with cultured people, and his refined tastes would be subjected to some crucial tests by the rude scenes in the wilderness, and his association with unlettered men. But he was not a man to shirk responsibility, and promptly determined to share the privations, hardships, and dangers of his colony.

“With one hundred and twenty emigrants, in January, 1735, he safely reached the coast, proceeded up the river, and selected, for the site of his first settlement, the high bluff on which Savannah was built. There, amidst the pines, was soon seen a village of tents and rude dwellings, the nucleus of the fine city, intended for the capital of a new commonwealth, in which there would be freedom of conscience and no imprisonment for debt.”

[End of Required Reading for April.]

LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.

By E. G. CHARLESWORTH.

I met an old man in my way;

For many years the light of day

Had been to him but memory;

Poor, blind, half-deaf, and lame was he:

My heart was bent to sympathize,

I looked toward the dead closed eyes,

Hopeful, by some apt words, a light

To bring to mingle with his night.

A falling tide was on the sand.

Slowly, that he might understand,

I said,

“The ebbing tide, and then the flood;

The darkest hour, then the dawn;

Death, then——”

Some inner sun’s streaks in his face

Shone on this image of his case,

And twice, with Faith and Hope’s sunshine,

He brightly filled my shortened line—

Death, then the morn—Death, then the morn!

For though you might not be able to break or bend the power of genius—the deeper the sea, the more precipitous the coast—yet in the most important initiatory decade of life, in the first, at the opening dawn of all feelings, you might surround and overlay the slumbering lion-energies with all the tender habits of a gentle heart, and all the bands of love.—Richter.

THE COOPER INSTITUTE.

By the Rev. J. M. BUCKLEY, D.D.

Among the monuments and illustrations of the spirit of philanthropy—the noblest distinction between ancient and modern civilization—the Cooper Institute has stood for a quarter of a century, an object of interest proportionate to the intellectual and moral elevation of those who behold it.