Newspaper Page Text
THE WASHINGTON GAZETTE,
VOLUME I.
JFHE WASHINGTON GAZETTE.
BY JAB. A. WRIGHT, AGENT.
Tcavs—Three Dollars a year, iu advance.
LAM ARTIN E--B YRON-LEG ARE.
It is announced that Lamartine, for a
very large sum—accounts differ as to the
amount—has engaged as to write the life
of Byron".
To exaggeration, false sentiment and ro
mance, Lamartine will give foil rein in
this biography. Not one of his romances,
are venture to say, will contain more ro
mance. Upon the simplest fact be will
hang a garland of artificial sentiment, exotic
and forced, but so perfumed and presented
a9 almost lo soem natural. Byron’s defor
mity will be made a beauty, and we shall
be told over again, even in more exagge
rated phrase than we hare yet beeu told,
that in his limp he resembled ‘an angel
who had tripped against a star.’ Sportive
fancy will be at its wildest tricks in telling
of the playfulness of the Lord of Poets,
and the gloom of a morbid imagination
will darken into fitful changes of the storm
in dwelling‘on his waywardness and domes
tic misery. "We suspect that Lamartine
will find more fault with Lady Byron than
ever Byron himself found. In short, we
have no idea that Lamartine is at all a (it
person to give the world a true biographi
cal presentment of Byroa.
The glorious role which,Ciamartine ex
hibited in bis oratorical displays in French
.Revolution is the great scene in his life.
Even that was melo-dramatic. It suited
the French people. But Lamartine's shame
less indebtedness—his shiftless and reckless
expenditures—his bold and brazen begga
ry, which over and over again has obtain
ed him means to live like ft- prodigal, who
only leaves the ‘corn husks’ to get means
,to wallow in a falter sty —without any les
sons of repentancce or regret, even when
importunity and shamelessly renewed peti
tions of indulgence cannot keep him from
the ‘com busks’ again. Strange that a
man so brilliantly endowed as Lamartine is
should resort to a beggar’s repeated impor
tunities. But he seems to be of opinio n,
according to the phrase so common at tiie
East, that the world owes him a living—a
princely one, by the by—is bis estimate,
and he acts accordingly.
No good life of Byron has yet been
written. It should be written with a keen,
incisive pen, which shouMnot only tell the
truth, but engrave its moral in the page as
if in marble—distinct, impressive, clear.
Moore’s life of Byron is too full of orien
talism. To use one of Byron's phrases, be
bat an oriental ‘twist in his imagination’—
tropes and figures, and especially pet sim
ilies dance in metaphorical mazes through
his imagination like a wanton troupe iu his
own loves of the angels. What Moore
Bays gives us no idea of Byron. ’Tis the
wealth of Byron’s letters, which Moore has
spread so abundantly—like a vein of gold
—through his pages which unfold to us
the true clue to Byron’s character. Moore’s
comments upon them are but mysteries
and metaphysics which darken rather than
elucidate the commonest facts which he is
trying to explain. In the whole range of
Eoglish literature and criticism of English
origin, the best criticism and analysis of
Byron’s character and poems is that of Ma
caulay, in the Edinburg Review, on Moore's
life of Byron. But in our humble estima
tion, the best analysis of the personal
character of Byron, by any critic of tbe
.old or new world, ia. that written by our
countryman, that trne Southron, Hugh
S. Legare, which appeared years ago io the
Southern Review.
Legare himself had physical imperfec
tions which made him sympathize with By
rou—to say nothiog of bis excessive sen
sitiveness which made it a torture to him
in his wayward moods, to be even looked
at. This gave him the key to Byron’s
emotions—thetfiash of lightning io a dark
night which betrays at once to the beholder
flower and tree and broken branch, and
turbid and swollen and rushing water. It
is interesting to one fond of tbe dissection
of character to read this criticism of Le
gare on ByroD. We, as South Carolin
ians, have always been proud of it as we
were of tbe varied, gifted and classic hand
hat wore it—cold in the dust before tbe
WASHINGTON, WILKES COUNTY, GA., FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 18, 1866,
great calamity fell upon his people which
finds us penning this mention of his mem
ory amidst the ruins of tho by tbe
Sea which he so loved.
If we were asked by a foreigner to point
out specimens of American literature—
classical, critical, legal and oratorical—we
believe we should point him to Legare’s
works, published after his death, to which
we have referred.
They speak for themselves. But the or
atory of Legare! All who heard him
can speak of it; but. who enn truly convey
a faithful image of it to tbe reader who
never heard him t In these volumes we
have some specimens of his legal arguments
aed orations—and there are homesteads*
in South Carolina where Sherman’s vandal
torch did not reach nor his barbaric hordes
enter, where they are preserved and held
in reverence, familiar as household words
and precious as household gold—which
present tbe specimens of those utterances
which the living orator used to clothe
in
‘‘Thoughts that breathe and words that
burn.” *
But, alas !
“ Tis Greece, but living Greece no
more
and we look in vain among tho crowd of
living men for a single man who approach
ed him in orntorioal power.
We remember with pride and sorrow
how he stood on tho steps of Reverdy
Johnson’s splendid mansion in Monument
square, in the Harrison contest for the
Presidency, and to a crowd that filled the
whole space, held forth on tho glories of
republics and especially his own. Ilia
bold tones, like shot and shell, seemed to
dash against tbe houses opposite, while tbe
vast multitude listened as one man, until
at some mighty period ( of consummate elo
quence they broke forth with shouts that
echoed far and wide oyer the Monumental
City- . \¥ji could. *eo the waying of the
handkerchiefs of the beautiful women .of
that city of beauty by the flickering torch
lights—homage which Legare loved so
much—as what Southerner does not ?
and then he would commence again and
roll on like tbe dash of Niagara in a deep
er and stronger current of overwhelming
eloquence. There stood Clay, there stood
Webster, there stood,Corwin, there stood
Reverdy Johnson—now Maryland’s true
and great Senator—there stood our own
Preston listening like the wrapt multitude.
llow proud wo felt of South Carolina!
We remember tbe ptessure of Preston’s
generous band, and his proud as he said
to us, “Tho best of them can’t beat him.”
Shall those days ever come again ? We
hope they will. We believe they will.
What Calhoun, Preston, McDuffie and
Legare have said shall keep the prestige of
South Carolina green in our souls.
The City by is sitting like Job in
asbes, and like him may haips false friends
who would makedier renounce her alle
giance to eternal justice. But to her du
ties she will be true as herself. And soon
shall hers be the experience of the old Pa
triarch.
“And tho Lord turned the captivity of
Job when he prayed for bis friends; also
tbe Lord gave Job twice as much as he
had before. There came there unto him all
his brethren, and all his sisters, and all
they that had been of bis acquaintance be
fore, and did eat bread with him in his
house; and they bemoaned him, and com
forted him over all tbe evil that tbe Lord
had brought upon bim ; every man also
gave him a piece of money, and every one
an earring of gold.
“So the Lord blessed the latter days of Job
more than the begionig. * * *
lie had also seven sonß and three daugh
ters. * *
And in all the land were no woman are found
eo fair as daughters of Job.”
Carolinian.
An auctioneer was much anuoyed by
the low bids of one of his customers, and
offered five dollars (o any one who would
put him out. A large,_ ferocious looking
individual approaebed tbe unfortunate
offender and in a whisper loud enough to
be. beard all over tbe room, thus addressed
him: “My friend, you go out with mo
and I will give you half tho moue !’
From the Jiie/iinonJ Examiner.
HOLLYWOOD CEMETRY--OUR DEAD
HEROES—A DUTY WE OWE.i
Any one who’ walks near the hallowed
grounds allotted to our Confederate dead
will feel the pathos and soul-subduing elo
quence that speaks in tbe silence, the drea
riness, the decay and neglect that have
seized the sacred localities for their own,
and are fast, bearing them to melancholy
oblivion. The places that knew them will
soon know them no more forever, unless
an aftection assumes the gracious office of
of conservator of the touching memorials
of the patriots who exhausted themselves
in the comipon effort, and at last fell, far
from home and kindred, to unworthy sep
ulchres. When one tbiuks of tho trials
of these gallant men—how they underwent
all privation and suffering, and how at
length they dared and accepted death—it
is a most affecting spectacle to look upon
the sunken tombs, tbe rotting headboards,
that will soon cease to individualize their
names, their deeds and characters, and will
leave these heroes of a good fight and an
early gravo to an indiscriminate and piti
less forgetfulness. It is not supposed that
any of them were alone iu this world, with
none to think of them or care for them.
Tho father had all tho connections of a
family to mourn his untimely lute; the hus
band lies far from tho wife that would have
died for him ; the sou lias left a mother
that weeps for him and will not be com
forted; and the band of gentle sistors whose
soft lingers would have smoothed tho con
tracted brow that warmed with a thought
of home, and then grew cold forevor.
But solitary let him be, without kith or
kin—
“His is his country’s now anil fame’s;
One of the tew immortal names
That were not bora to die!”
In Hollywood Cemetry twenty thousand
bodies of the dear and devoted crumble to
undistinguished dust; while near by, tbe
Federal dead aro retnembewd and cared
for by national respaot or . pritrato
0 countrymon!—O countrywomen ! what
a mortifying contrast! We are poor iu
pur6o; the whole country is in indigent
circumstances, but our property of heart is
beyond all estimate if we are not ready to
do our duty to the mouldering remains of
our martyred patriots. It is not alone in
Hollywood that our dead lie unchcrished
and unregarded. Thousands lie In Oak
wood and other cemeteries subject to the
remorseless touch of Time’s effacing fin
gers. Is thore no kindly memory of these
men ? Will tbe people of the city of
Richmond let those who died in her de
fense pass from remembrance, like tbe
beasts of the field that perish and are no
more? Never! If the heart of man can
forget, the heart of woman is incapable of
ingratitude. Wo know that we have on
ly to pdint the ladies to the scenes that
ask their care to insure their ceaseless ex
ertion in a noble Enterprise. We propose
that they immediately organize into a so
ciety, or into several co-operative societies,
whose object shall bo the preservation of
every existing memorial of the lamen
ted brave, —the faithful who fell at their
posts, and were hurried into shallow and
ill-keptgraves. Many of the tombs are
without a mark to tell of those whom they
inclose, but others have names and descrip
tions that should stand for tbe guidance of
the search that affection will institute, wheu
prosperity has restored the now lacking
means. Let all the heaps be rounded and
turfed, and where tbe name cannot be re
covered, let a neat and simple board evi
dence that “ A Hero' lies there unknown,
but still mourned and‘honored none tbe
less. It is a small tribute to those who
risked all and lost all in the common cause.
If we are impoverished, the mites that we
are able to contribute will effect the pur
that all should be eager to aid. When
wealth ba3 been regained, we will contract
monuments worthy of us and of those
whose memory we seek to perpetuate.
We trust that the ladies will soon have
committees traversing tbe length and
breath of tbe city, soliciting subscriptions
to this cause. We know that no Southern
men or women will withhold their money
in so holy an undertaking, and when wo
see that we have been anticipated in other
parts of the South, by similar movements,
our efforts should be stimulated and quick
ened by a virtuous emulation. Winches
ter and Staunton have already done much,
and Gordonsville (eovironedby tho glorious
dead) has begun the laudable work. Rich-'
mond should be no laggard in this. .On
every field of strife bersons have fallen, and
!hc should treat those who lie near with a
maternal tenderness:
“Their bodies are dust;
Their good swords are rest.
And their soule are with the jiainta, we
trust I' 1
OUR DEAD.
JY COT. A. M. HOBttr.
“My house shall he called of all natiqQs the
house of prayer; but ye hare made it a den of
thieves.”
“Beware of fiftso prophets which! come to
you io sheep's clothiug; but iuwardjy are
ravening wolves.'’
Our readers will thankee author of the
following noble lines for their beautiful and
affecting defence of tho heroic and immor
tal dead of the South. They am the more
appropriate, as coming from one who gain
ed for himself a high reputation as a sol
dier, under circumstances which make that
fame the equivalent of more even than it
generally implies. —Galveston WrtM.
"It was the worst, work that Satan and ain
over undertook iu this y/orld; and they that
suffered in it were not martyrs in a good cause,
but convicts in a bad one. Who shall comfort
them that sit by dishonored gravest” —Sermon
of IJenry Ward Seeker.
Vile, brutal man! and darest thou
In God’s anointed place to preach—
With impious tongue and brazen brow—
The lessons Hell would blpsti to teach ?
The cruel taunt thy lips hath hisscu
Beneath Religion’s holy sereen.
Is false—as false Iscariot’s kiss;
Js fa)se—as thou art vile and mean.
Are these the lessons which lie taught I
And is His mission hero iu vain ?
Fence and good will seem words of naught—
Hell rules the earth with hate aguiu f
And thou 1 its chosen instrument,
Hyenr-liko, with heartless tread,
Hast dared invade, with blood-houml scout,
d’lie scored precincts of tho dead.
Not such from those, deep oli) Squill,
Who meet thee in.thine hour of might 1
But from the coarse, polluted mouth
Os coward euro who feared fight
! Deal* loved old Sarittt! contemn Itlc- enrso
That those win) hate shall iieap on you;
You’vo wept behind War's bloody hoarse,
That bore away your brave and true !
Their precious blood, though yainly shed—-
Long as thy shore old Occean laves—
We’ll bow with rcyerenco o’er our dead,
And Ibless tho turf that wraps their gravos.
From Mexico to Maryland,
Those graves pre strewn like Autumn leaves—
What though no Mother's tender hand
Upon their tomb a chaplet weaves,
Nor Wives nor Sisters bend above •
The Honored Soldiers’ unmarked mound—
They are objects of eternal Iqye
Iu consecrated Southern ground.
It recks not where their bodies lie—
By bloody hill-side, plain or river—
Their names are bright on Fanis's proud slfy.
Their deeds of valor liye forever ;
The song-birds of the South shall sing
From forest grand, and flowery atem
And gentlest waters murmuring,
Unite to hymn their requiem.
And Spring will fleck their hallowed bed
With types of resurrection’s day;
And silent tears the Night hath shei)
The Morning's beam will kiss away.
Those heroes reef, in solemn fame
On every field where Freemen bled ;
And shall we let the touch of shame
Fall iijtc a blight upon opr dead 1
No—wretch! we scorn thy hatred now,
And hiss thy shame fronq pole to pole,
The brutes are better far than tbqu,
And Hell would blush to own thy souL
“Dishonored graves I take back the lie
That’s breathed by more than humble bate.
Lest, Annanios like, you die,
Not less deserving of his fate,
@ur Spartan women how io dust,
Around their country’s broken shrine;
True—ae their cause was right and just
Pure—as their deeds have beeu divine ;
Their Angels hands—the wounded cheered 1 —
Did all that woman ever dayes—
When wealth and homes bad disappoayed,
They gave us tears, and smiles, and prayers.
They proudly gave their jewels up—
For all they loved—as worthless toys;
Drank to the dregs Want’s bitter cup
To feed opr sick and starving boys.
'pheir glorious flag on high no more
Is borne by that unconquered band;
Tis fiirled upon the “silent shore”—
Its heroes still apound it stand,
No more beneath its folds shall meet
The armies of immortal LEE;
The rolling of their hrums’ last beat
I» echoing iu eternity I
Galveston, Texas, Jan, 1806.
NUMBER i
An Energetic Max.— JCh'e Bible pre
cept, “\yhatever thy hfmd findeth to
do it with thy plight, ’ in tho key-note of
tbe inarch of progress. Bernard Pallimy,
the French potter, to whom we owe the
discovery of enamel, believed in and noted
upon it. For many years—upward* ,pf
twenty—he experimented, regardless of
poverty and reproach, op the substance*
from nhieh he e*pectqd to derive the cov
eted article. He turned hjs tables, chair*
and floors in hisjfurnflces as fuel. Sicknee*
smote hia family, and ajl his children, tip
in number, died. Still he perse,vereij- Hi*
neighbors declared tb*t ‘.‘if, w** fit the old
fool should die of wpnLqince he had
ken his trade to rqn after a chitu.ftra.’ spt
Pallissy continued t<? ply jhi* furnace,
where be sweated tifl ,the garters slid frorp
his attenuated legs, J. n a few simple and
pathetic sentences he described his own for
lorn and persecuted condition; tyy credit
was taken away from me and J. was regar
ded as a madman. Under,these scandals f.
pined pway and stepped yrjth bowed head
through the Btreets like a map put to sfiatne.
Men said, ‘ft is right for him to die ft f hun
ger, seeing lie left off following his trad*/
But when I had dw«lt with my regret* a
little I said to my soul, ‘therefore art
thou saddened ? Labor noy and the de-r
fiuners will live to be ashamed.’ The *pir
it of tho man was as indoiiiitpbje as thaf
of Columbus. Who shall say that be b*d
not premonitions of triumph from above
—for energy finds favor with Him who hf*
said, “Whatever thy hand findeth to do,
do it with thy might.’ Pallissy at laat saw
his long years of determined toil crowned
with complete success, and hia defunct* as
hamed. It seemed perhaps to tbe goetip*
of his neighborhood that the game, eo far
as be was concerned, was not worth the
candle. But could their vulgar minds
judge of that) The hour ia whioh a
great man discovers that tlie grand obicot of
his life has been achieved, i* worth &*
whole iponototioua
place tfriyeller. But for its
the world would stand still. Every branoi{i
of human knowledge has its martys aa welf
as religion, and if the weaker sort cannot
follow their example, they should at least
have the grace to orown them.
How to Make Money. —po you oonf
plain that you have nothing to begin with?
“Tom," yqp sny, “ha* a farip, and Harry
has one thousand <f°|J a r ( ’ hut f have noth
ing.” \y o say to yoq look at your hand*,
and tell us what they are worth. Would
you take one thousand dollars for them, op
for the use of them through life? Ifyoq
can make half a dolltff a day with them, it
would no be a bad bargain, for tftaf sum is
tire interest of mofe than (wo thousand
dollars; so that if yqq are industrious and
Harry is lazy, you are more than twice aa
rich as he, and whet) you esq do a man'*
work and make a dollar a day, yoq are
four times as rich, and are fairly worth
four thousand dollars. Money and land,
therefore, is not the only capital with
which a young man cau begin in tb*
world jf he has good health and js indus
trious. Even the poorest boy ip our coun
try has something to tread upon, and if hp
be vpell educated apd have fikjll in any
kind of work, add tp this mqral jiabits st>d
roligiops principle*, so that bi* employer
may trust him and place confidence in bra*
be may then be paid to set opt in life with
a good chance to bepoipe independent and
respectable, and perhaps rich, as any man
in the country. Let it be reip*pib*n4
that “pyery man is tbe maken of,hit owp
fortune.” All depends oupon spiting out
qpon the right pripscipl**, and they arc
these:
J. Be indpatrious; time and sjtill are yoqf
capital.
2; Be saving; whatever jt bpjteep with*
in your income, i
3. Be prudent; buy not prhpj yop can do
without.
4. Be resolute; let pour ecoppmy be al
ways to-day, and not of to-morrow.
5. Be contented and thankful; a cheer
ful spirit makes labor light, and sleep aweet,
and all around happy—all of which it
much better than only being rich.
The name of a man in Vermont whq
feeds his geese on iron filing*, and gather*
Steel pens from their wing*, ia Sharp.