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140
LITERARY.
WILLIAn W. MANN, Editor.
The Southern Field and Fireside
IS PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.
TEEMS—*2.OO a year, Invariably In advance. All
Postmasters are authorized agents.
BATUEDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 1559.
TO CORRESPONDENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS
We have to acknowledge the reception, du
ring the week, of the following communications:
An article in Prose, from W. H. P.;
A Poem from same;
Memory—a Sketch, by E. F. P.;
The Fishing Scrape, by J. M. T.;
The Girl with the Azure Eye, by Timotheus;
I Dreamed of my Home, by same ;
The Saxon Mayd, by Indamird ;
A Description of the Aurora Borealis ;
(The friend who communicated the last named
paper, has forgotten to apprize us of the writer’s
name.)
We respectfully decline the following arti
cles :
Lines to J. L. K., by M. J. T.;
Memory, a Poem, by W. D. S.;
“ Down where the Mississippi's Waters ’’ ;
To Virginia ;
Lines to one I knew in former days;
Song for the Montgomery True Blues ;
Religion—the Beautifier ;
The Drunkard's Wife;
“ To Look and Feel, to Sigh and Weep” ;
Lines in answer to ‘‘What is Poetry ?”
To Italy, byC.E. G.;
Lines addressed to Miss L. A. F.;
Our Carrier's Address ;
Verses, composed during a Storm.
Won’t the writer of the lines commencing with
“Eureka! Eureka! our wing is unfurled,” send
another article to our address ? We think that
we would be glad to give welcome to a second
article from that pen.
ty It is with much pleasure that we intro
duce to our readers, with this number, two new
prose contributors. We trust that the acquain
tance will be productive of mutual pleasure.
Mrs. Caroline Hentz Branch, author of the
new novelette, “Saturday Night,” which we com
mence to-day, on our second page, comes to us
from Florida, with a prestige that can hardly
fail to secure for her a most hearty welcome.
She has a family title to the distinction of talent
and popular favor, being the daughter of Mrs.
Caroline Lee Hentz, and the sister of our ac
complished and talented contributor, the author
of the prize poem, A Dream of Locust Dell, Mrs.
Julia L. Keyes, of Montgomery, Ala. All our
readers will, we are sure, peruse the opening
chapters of Mrs. Branch’s story; and will look
with interest for thoso which will follow, con
taining its continuation and conclusion.
Our second new contributor will be hailed
with no less pleasure by all the friends of the
Field and Fireside, and of Southern Literature.
This, too, is a lady: and, we are happy to an
nounce—so much we may say without violation
of editonal discretion and faith—of our own
State, and of our own city. We do hope that for
our paper’s sake, our city’s, and her own, the
writer of the Essay on our third page, “ Charles
Lamb's Suppers, and Dr. Holmes' Breakfasts ,”
will e’er long remove the injunction which now
constrains us, and permit the disclosure of her
name.
THOMPSON’S “POESY.”
We have desired, since its first appearance on
our table, and have weekly intended to gratify
the readers of the Southern Field & Fireside
by reproducing, in part, a poem recently recited
by Mr. John R. Thompson, of Richmond, Va.,
before the Literary Societies of Columbian Col
lege, Washington, D. C., at the Smithsonian In
stitute. We will defer, no longer, this gratifica
tion to our readers, and this justice to one of
our first literary men. Mr. Thompson is a
special favorite of ours. We have long consid
ered him one of the most—nay, why not speak
out our thought at once?—we have long con
sidered him the most graceful and elegant
writer of the South. And to justify*this appre
ciation of him, wo appeal confidently to the
pages of the Southern Literary Messenger, of
which Mr. T. has been for many years the Ed
itor, to the editorial and critical articles, and to
the occasional poetical compositions, w r ith which
he has enriched and adorned the pages of that
able monthly. This last production of his facile
pen, which we are about to introduce to our
readers, is quite worthy of his reputation. It
comprises some three hundred and fifty lines of
chaste, melodious, and classical composition,
which the author has entitled “Poesy; An Es
say in Rhyme." The publishers Bhould, with
out his privity, have placed upon the title-page,
Poesy; A Poetical Essay.
The poem opens with an allusion to the litera
ry festivals, celebrated at Athens, in ancient
Greece, in honor of “ Learning,” when Greece
was in her glory. The very marble of her no
ble sanes has now crumbled into dust; and
Athens owes the immortality she eDjoys, not to
her bronzes and marbles, but to her poets and
her orators. This thought is finely conveyed
by Mr. Thompson, in the following graphic
lines:
“Two thousand changeful years have passed away,
Os cruel havoc and of fell decay—
The polished temples, ‘neath the brilliant sky
Os old Athena now in ruin lie;
And a deep pathos, a most tender pity
Subdues the soul within the ancient city:
The Erechtbeum—how each fragment shines!
What desolate beauty in the broken lines!
The Parthenon— alas, the summer breeze
Kisses no more at morn the perfect frieze
Which once revealed the glory and the Joy,
Panathenaic, to the Grecian boy.
But the great poems of the bards sublime
Remain unwasted by the wreck of Time;
Graceful and caltn, in symmetry severe,
These wondrous temples of the mind appear;
ABd light. In richer flood than that whlct* fills
The smiling circuit of the Athenian hills,
Streams upon shaft and portico and floor,
“The light that never was on sea or shore !’
sacs soimmuß vxs&n sn sxjpbsxuk.
It would be difficult to cite from the whole
range of English literature a finer.burst of well
sustained eulogy to the address of Poesy than
is contained in the following passage from pages
9 and 10 of the pamphlet before us :
*• Would'st know the value of a simple rhyme
Sent down the widening, deepening stream of time ?
Let memory seek, amidst the august scenes
So recent—scarce a lustrum intervenes,
The chamber where the dying Webster lay,
And heard the elegiac melodies of Gray
Mingling with ocean’s everlasting roar
Borne through the casement from the neighb’ring shore,
The deathless music of th’immortal mind
With Nature’s grandest symphonies combined.
Or note the contrast well afforded here
And let the triumph of the bard appear.
Two monumental tributes to the brave
Mark one a famous, one a lonely grave—
Earth's proudest city, gay with gilded spires
And domes which kindle in the sunsets fires,
Guards one, with marble muses looking down
Where sleeps the dust that wore the Ciesars' crown:
Contain the other—lt is everywhere,
As far as mighty England's form of speech.
Blown wide upon the winds of fame, can reach,
Before the mental eye, its shape it rears
Above a turf bedewed with grateful tears;
And when Napoleon’s obsequies, with all
Their georgeous pageantry of plumes and pall.
Have faded quite away from man's esteem.
Like the swift splendors of a passing dream ;
When the proud chapel shall itself display
A shattered monument of sad decay —
And queenly Paris shall have shared the fate
Os Tadmor overthrown and desolate;
That plaintive Monody, whose numbers tell
Os him that bravely at Corunna fell —
IIU silent burial near the midnight camp.
By the pole moonbeam and the glimmering lamp,
Khali still the cruel uaste of years defy,
Enduring cenotaph of I‘oeey !
And again, in the following harmonious lines :
•‘But while the amaranth waits for kingly brows,
Some laurel wreaths our grateful love allows
To him whose sunny genius lifts to light
The meanest objects of our daily sight.
Who seeks to brighten still the links that bind
In blest communion all of human kind;
Or passion’s tempest In the breast would calm
With some sweet, lowly, penitential psalm :
Such poets sow the seeds of truth and beauty
To blossom into holy faith and duty—
And though the tares of selfishness and pride
Spring up to choke them upon every side,
And many a tender shoot the world erases
From the hard pavements of its market-places,
Some fall on friendly soil, warm hearts and true,
Where, watered by affection’s kindliest dew,
They stretch their hows into the upper air,
And In due season richer fruitage bear
Than fabled branches hung with globes of gold,
Some thirty, fifty, some an hundred fold 1”
There are many who contend —right glad are
we that a strong instinct of our nature urges us
to declare that yve are not of the number —there
are many who contend that the days of Poetry,
like the days of Chivalry, are gone. Steamers
and Maury, say they, have driven her from
Ocean ; Briarean Science, with her hammer and
retort, her microscope, and telescope, and loga
rithms, breaking, decomposing, scrutinizing,
computing every thing, lias driven, or is rapidly
driving her from Earth and Air, making the re
mote regions of space, the lactea via itself, as
humdrum, familiar and prosaic as your road to
maruet.
Here are thirty fine lines of our poet, in which
he repels this unwelcome idea. We heartily
sympathize with the indignation that moves
him, though we would be unable to utter our in
dignation in his own harmonious numbers :
“We’ll not believe It. Shall the windy ocean
Stop the careering of its rhythmic motion.
Or’neath the moonlight, when the whirlwinds cease,
No longer woo us to a dream of peace,
Because a Maury, standing at the helm,
Drives the proud bark of Science o’er its realm,
Detects Its viewless currents in their courses.
And brings to measurement its mighty forces ?
Shall not the sun still seek the Jungfrau’s side
To deck with diamonds his majestic bride —
Shall not the glacier's beryl-tinted caves,
Beneath the glittering waste of icy waves,
Still shake with Hallelujahs, peal on peal,
And all Chamouni’s templed valley reel,
From brawling Arve to pinnacled Aiguille,
Because a learned botanist uncloses
The scarlet petals of the Alpine roses,
And some pale student asks the frozen arch
The secret of the glacier's onward march ?
Ah, ‘ star-eyed Science!’ Fancy claims in thee
A loving sister of the Wogld To Be —
Admits each worthy, reverent son of thine
As priest to worship at her radiant shrine,
And comes with tenderest sorrow, in her turn, .
To [dace a garland upon Humboldt's urn.
All, all are poets on whom God confers
The gift of Nature's true interpreters ;
While the eternal hills their anthems raise
And swelling oceans vocalize His praise.”
We conclude our extracts from Mr. Thomp
son’s poem with a reproach. It ill'becomes the
poet who has himself attained so high a degree
of Horatian grace to attack the famous- Horatian
maxim so wrathfully and unjustly, as it seems to
us lie has‘done. Unjustly, we insist upon it.
We are not —’tis true, and pity 'tis, ’tis true—
very fresh from our Latin grammar—and ’tis so
long since we read the Be Arte Poetica that we
ought to have forgiven and forgotten the tyrant
that flogged us over it, (but we hav’nt)—yet we
do timidly suggest that our poet is mistransla
ting Horace. The famous hexameters run thus:
“ Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non dii, non concessere columnce."
Has not our poet-critic censured it as though
it read minoribus instead of mediocribus 1 The
poetas minores write such poems as Gray’s Elegy,
Hoheulinden, The Burial of Sir John Moore, The
Bridge of Sighs,—such lines as these we are
now criticising, and which we are going to quote
presently, Mr. Thompson. Horace did not mean
to say that neither men, nor the gods, nor the
shops could tolerate these. The poetce mediocres
write such poems as encumber heavily our own
editorial shelves —do they not your’s sometimes,
Mr. Thompson ?—such sonnets as are written
by Ah, there are now several proper names
upon our very pen’s tip—but wo must not blow
them off; and we must hasten to give the last
extract promised from Mr. Thompson’s poem.
Horace himself would read it with pleasure,
notwithstanding the injustice done him—and we
are sure our readers will.
.The editor of the stately monthly gives, in the
lines cited below, a very free translation of the
Latin columnce, which, to the ears of us editors of
weeklies, sounds almost like a sneer—but we’ll
let that pass. Here are the lines :
“And here the horrid old Horatian maxim,
Which the poor rhymer's had so long to tax him,
The bard remembers, and may fitly quote,
(Though doubtless many have the line by rote)
That neither gods nor men. in their distress,
Nor yet the columns of the weekly press,
Can view as other than a dreadful wrong
The lowlier offerings of tuneful song—
A line which means, as certain critics think.
That smaller poetß should not deal in ink,
And that until the mighty prophets come
The port of I’oesy is to be dumb.
Dishonoured ever be the narrow rule
Which claims no reverence in kind Nature's school,
Which neither Bummer's birds nor blooms obey
In the glad minstrelsy of rising day.
Your Mi Itons. Goethes, are an age apart.
Meanwhile shall no one touch the world’s sad heart f
The stately aloe's snowy bloom appears
Butonce, we know, within a hundred years;
Because, forsooth, the aloe is the glory
Os Chatsworth’s notable conservatory,
Shall not the modest daisy from the sod
Turn its meek eyes in beauty up to God?
In nature's daily prayer, when comes the dawn
To tell its beads upon the dewy lawn,
Shall the sweet matins of the rosy hours
Miss the pure incense of the little flowers ?
Oh gentle spirits, wheresoe'er you dwell,
On breezy upland or in quiet dell,
Whether you sing in solitude and shade.
Or in the sullen, crowded haunts of trade, —
Whose simple rhyming, in its artless grace,
Has touched some hidden sorrow of the race.
Or tahght the world one humble lesson more
Os subtle beauty all unknown before.
Or soothed one heart, just when its need was sorest,
With harmonies of ocean and of forest, —
To you be ever horn irable meed.
In spite of captious Horace and his creed.
While the great poets soar beyond the ken
Os the worUTstoiling, hearing mass of men.
Like the proud falcon quickly lost to view
In the unde field of Heaven's o'erarching blue,—
You linger round the dwellings of our lore.
As birds that carol in the eates above,
And fill forever a* the days increase.
Our homes with music, and our hearts with peace."
We had the pleasure of publishing, in a late
number, a very graceful little poetic effusion from
the pen of Mr. Thompson ; and we hope it will not
be the last with which we shall be favored. In
deed, a promise to that effect, not limited to the
poetic department, might, we think, by a little
searching, be discovered in our letter files.—
Prose or Poetry, as his humor inclines, from the
pen of this pleasant wyity. will ever find proper
and (while we continue the Editor,) a welcome
place in the Literary Department of The South
ern Field and Fireside.
—
FROM OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT.
Paris, Sept. Ist, 1859.
If ‘‘happy the people that has no history,” be
a true saying, then are the French just now
haviug rather a pleisant time of it—history
being understood, ii. the old orthodox sense of
the word, to bo mack up of wars, treaties, and
“such high politics.” Now the wars are over
and the very rumors of war are nearly. That
large and mistaken c.ass of people, who always
have in their wiseicro mouths, that straws
show which way the wind blows, are not quite
yet done prognosticating a new storm of “leaden
rain and iron hail.” They forget that storms are
not the surest indication of the great atmospheric
currents, but are often whiffled about by little
side eddies, and some times by the puffing of a
fool's breath. An impertinent article in tho
Constitutionel the other day, wherein the Belgi
ans were told that the proposed enlargement
and strengthening of tho fortifications of Ant
werp either meant substantially an offensive
alliance with England against France, or had no
meaning, was an instance of the latter sort, which •
for a moment excited the gaping attention of the
weather-foolish, and the alarm of the imaginative
ly timid. It was written by a member of the
legislative body, and published in a government
paper, they said, wagging their heads with a
knowing or scared air. They forgot that M. do
Cassagnac, has more vigor of style than depth of
judgment, and that his so-called government
journal is not an official organ of government.
This sensation article was purely a voluntary
performance, such as he has startled the public
with from time to time before. The public has
forgotten them, as it is now fast forgetting this,
and will soon be quite ready to be startled afresh.
If the pensive public would use on such occa
sions, I won’t say its judgment, but even its
memory, it would spare itself tho shock. The
making of Lillo the head-quarters of one of the
six military arrondissements in the new territo
rial arrangement of the army, was also caught
at as an indication of coming troubles; as
though, since some new town must be chosen
for the new head-quarters, one should present
itself more naturally than Lille.
But as I said, apprehensions of this sort are
diminishing. Tho talk of war with England lulls
away; of course it will revive again before six
mouths are over—for that space of time can
not pass without offering some text for diplo
matic notes of extraordinary politeness, for bul
lying in the London Times, and fanfaronade in
the Paris press; and then the bickerings will
die away again.
A French war with England would be so insane;
above all, an attempt at French invasion of Eng
land would be such “ red rosed-madness,” that,
I think, Louis Napoleon must become insane
before he undertakes the enterprise. Now, in
sanity is not likely to attack such a tempera
ment ; he certainly has shown no signs of it of
late years, except in the correspondence of the
Manchester Guardian, and other equally ill-in
formed journals. The first Napoleon, whom the
nephew is more apt to follow in his general poli
cy, than in its erroneous details, when he was
preparing his formidable attack, (if, in his mind,
it was ever intended for more than the formi
dable appearance of attack,) upon England, re
marked, that the going thither offered less diffi
culties than the return. There are three peace
preserving causes to be noticed; a commercial, a
political aud a moral cause. England is the best
customer of France. In the year 1850, France
sold to England, of her own products, manufactur
ed and agricultural, to the amount of 47,800,000
dollars, (not francs,)that is, 9,000,000 dollars more
than to our country, her next best customer.
But in 1850 commerce was just beginning to re
cover from the depressing influences of 1848-49.
I cannot put iny hand upon the official figures
of last year; we all know they show a very large
increase. Merchants’ notes and Bankers’ bills of
exchange, unite the two countries far more ef
fectually, than diplomatic paper. An attack upon
Great Britain, would be an attack upon the looms
of Lyons, and the river wine-stores of Bordeaux,
and the shipping of Havre, and —what is even
more serious, both commercially and politically
—on the workshops of Paris.
Turning now from this partial view, for it
by no means covers the whole extent of the
commercial, or financial cause, let us look a mo
ment upon one phase only of the political cause.
Louis Napoleon’s first ambition, nay his first ne
cessity, as Emperor of the French, is to give and
secure to the nation a formidable, if possible, a
commanding position among European States.
If an active English alliance is not necessary to
this end, English enmity would surely be de
structive to this end.
Stronger, perhaps, than either of tho above, is
what I name the moral cause. If your compos
itor prints stranger, instead of stronger, at the
head of this sentence, you may think the typo
graphical error a rhetorical improvement. I
could hardly blame him myself, yet he would be
wrong. Stronger is probably the correct reading
—let me try to tell you why. It is worth telling,
though for the third, as for the two other pa
cific causes, the narrow limits of a letter leaves
room only for indication, not demonstration.
I entered the field as your correspondent
about the time the allied armies entered trium
pliant into Milan, and partook somewhat of the
warlike and exulting mood of those about me.
Great events of the glaring and glorious sort
followed on so fast as to crowd out mainly from
the brief weekly record much notice of other
contemporaneous facts, and left no space at all
for remarks on the state of public opinion as to
the war before its outbreak. And indeed,
while the fighting was going on, furnishing to
the strong French passions of vanity and patri
otism their weekly rations of triumph and glory,
in the weekly report Jof a new victory, the war
was as popular as any war not waged for national
independence. The popularity seemed, indeed,
greater than it was.
The vainly patriotic were noisily exultant;
the wisely patriotic could not find it in their
hearts, naturally somewhat touched by the con
tagious enthusiasm, to damp their ardor; the
discontented, it need not be said, could not find
it" in their interest to give loud voice to their dis
content.
But if the rejoicings over victories were
great, the rejoicings at the peace were greater.
Whatever doubts were felt otherwheres, the first
announcement of the armistice was seized upon
with a sort of greediness, as it were, and instant
ly and almost universally interpreted to be the
necessary preliminary to an approaching peace.
At the Bourse the public funds went up four per
cent, in two days—an almost unexampled rise.
When peace itself was announced, even sooner
than was expected, (that the report of the favor
able reception of the armistice at home had much
to do with it, is highly probable,) the news was
received throughout the city with universal ex
pressions of gladness—people not only hung out
gaily-colored flags from their windows in greater
profusion than after the victory of Solferino, but
they put smiles on their faces and gladness in
the tone of theif voices.
The few ignorant or embittered malcontents
were too few to be noticed by any but the police.
That then and since then, the terms of the Villa
franca preliminaries met and meet with criticism
that is anything but complimentary, is perfectly
true. But excepting those individuals who were
hoping to see the war become general and revo
lutionary in its character, and through the fol
lowing confusion saw their Temple of Liberty
beyond—standing as usual on ruins—excepting
this faction, whose political wisdom you know—
the nation, in the proportion of ninety-nine to a
hundred, without distinction of social class,
nearly without distinction of political class,
would not have had the war prolonged another
day. And from that day to this, scarcely one
has passed that has not brought to light new
proof of popular sentiment in like kind, till their
volume and weight force the conviction that this
military people, however warlike, have grown
sensible enough not to like war.
To note one largo instance or class of in
stances. The departmental Councils General
hold their annual meetings at this season. The
columns of the Moniteur for the past week have
been largely taken up with their loyal addresses
to the Emperor. Os course they are all highly
complimentary to the successful general, but
they are still more complimentary to tho peace
maker, and join to their congratidations on the
peace the declaration that “it had constantly
been the desire and interest of France.” It is
now openly confessed that tho war was unpop
ular in advance. Presidents of Councils General
and others most likely to know the Imperial
purposes, his half-brother M. de Moray among
the number, all preach and promise for the im
mediate future large government encouragement
to the practice of the works of peace. His Ma
jesty preaches in the same strain.
That the discourses of Napoleon and his sub
ordinates are not always to be taken au pied de
la lettre is, unhappily, quite true. Say, then, in
American phrase, this talk of peace is “ all Bun
combe.” Few men understand that sort of rhet
oric and its value, better than his Majesty. The
Buncombe hypothesis, then, rather strengthens
my argument. When Col. Wapshot, pending an
election, raises his eloquent voice from every
stump in the district in favor, say, of reducing
the pay of congressmen, we may be sure that
whatever else the Colonel may really think about
it, he thinks that his hoped for constituents are
thinking very generally and favorably about it.
Now I argue from the Colonel a fortiori to the Em
peror. Col. W. wants to get a seat; L. N. B.
wants to keep his seat.
Apropos of Congress, the European one, the
great probability of which I have always main
tained, becomes more and more probable to
pubhc opinion here. The obstacles in tho way
of a settlement of the Italian Question by the
Zurich conference, have been increased by the
movement of events since its first meeting. The
only point which the plenipotentiaries have
decided as yet, if they have really decided upon
anything, is tho annexation of Lombardy and
the arrangement of the new frontier—the sim
plest of all the points they had to discuss. The
more difficult matter of allotting to Austria and
Piedmont their respective shares of the Lom
bard debt is supposed to bo still in debate. As
for the far graver themes of restoring the runa
way Dukes and constituting the Italian confed
eration, they appear hardly to have approached
them. It is evident they might as well let them
alone. It is hard to see bow a European Con
gress can give a permanent settlement to Italy ;
it is very easy to see that this conference can
not. Meantime the Italians themselves are
working bravely toward a solution of the diffi
culty. They had already surprised the world by
their strength and calmness. If they can con
tinue to hold on in this firm, wise course, mid
way between revolution and reaction, what pow
er would dare impose violence upon them ?
Not Louis Napoleon for one. He has never
bound himself to force back the old rulers updu
the unwilling populations of the Duchies. In
terest, stronger than words, binds him not to
suffer Austria to re-impose those rulers by force.
It was necessary to conciliate Francis Joseph
and secure his signature to the Villafranca pre
liminaries, that he should agree that they might
be re-called ; doubtless, does recommend their
recall in a serai or sub-diplomatic way ; does
not, however, bear the slightest appearance of
getting into a perspiration with the effort in that
direction ; on the contrary, takes his bath very
quietly at St. Sauveur, whence he will go to Biar
ritz and thence to Compiegne, for the autumnal
hunting in the forest there, to which he invited
a number of officers with whom he dined at
theTuileries last May, just bofore their going off
to the war. His policy is that of a “ masterly
inactivity"—letting events have their share,
watching, and as opportunity serves, trying to
guide, but not to stem their course. If he gets
a Congress to share the responsibility of set
tling Italy, he gets what lie wants: a sufficient
excuse to throw on others the blame of what is
bad, and keep to himself the credit of what is
good in it. If ho do not, his position is still
good. lie can well say to Austria, “ settle on
my terms, or let it alone, just as you like;
won’t have any more fighting just now in the
Peninsula ; can’t help it if all the Tuscans and
Modenese will unite themselves to Sardinia ; as
for your relative, the Duko of Modena, must
leave him to the tender mercies of Garibaldi—
seen his letter, perhaps ?’’
These Ducal letters, first published a few days
ago by a committee of'the Modenese government
appointed to examine the Ducal archives aud
edit such MSS. found there as were likely to
tell against the Duke, are now going the rounds
of the French press to the great amusement of
most readers, the Emperor doubtless among the
number. His Imperial Majesty is not much giv
en to laughter, but the perusal of these extraor
dinary specimens of epistolary literature must
have provoked the broadest of grins at the ex
pense of his Ex-ducal majesty. Victor Hugo
could not have written more abusively, nor near
ly as vulgarly of Louis Napoleon, as his little
brother sovereign wrote of him. He styles him
a “brigand,” ( quel lr\gznte). “Mister Bona
parte” ( Signor Bonaparte) and “ soi-disant Em
peror” ; he styles a journal that speaks decently
of him, “ a nasty, stupid ” journal; he styles his
partisans “ scamps ” and the “ Bonapartist gang.”
The date of the most flowery of the letters is
1855.
Pray read (and urge your readers) a very dif
ferent sort of Italian “State paper;” the long
memorandum addressed to Europe and the world
by the provisional Tuscan government. For
eloquence tempered by judgment, supported by
logic based on truth, we need go back in the his
tory of national documents to our own Declara
tion of Independence to find its worthy peer.—
I cannot refrain from quoting one brief passage:
“ The question now at issue between Tuscany
and the reigning dynasty reduces itself to
these terms: whether the vanquished shall lay
down the law to the victors—whetlier a civil
ized people, who have given proof of all the civic
virtues, shall be sacrificed to those who make
no account of such virtues—whether the am
bition and interests of one family shall prevail
over the interests and wishes of two millions of
men. Let Europe and the world’s conscience
answer.”
But here I am at the “ end of my worsted,”
having spun this sombre colored political yarn
to a most unconscionable length. If I give my
word of honor that in my next, I will write of
gayer themes, if not more gaily, will your read
ers pardon and wait ? Os course if some regi
cide bomb or pistol goes off in the interval, they
will release me from my parole— Talking of lire
arms, reminds me that there vnR be a chapter
of accidents to record next week —so I will give
the heading now, and leave it to you to fill up
with wounded Frenchmen: I said last Thurs
day everybody had gone out of town, leaving
only about 1,100,000 humans in Paris; now
every body else has gone for a “ day’s shooting
in the country,” the hunting season having just
commenced. The Parisians have a decided pas
sion for fishing and hunting; they never catch
anything, and next to never shoot anything but
themselves, so it is their fault, not mine, if I
make game of them. It ought to be very sad,
but is, in fact, unaccountably funny to read, as
we shall for the next month in the items column
of the newspapers, how Monsieur Ganache
shot himself in this part, and Monsieur Badaud
shot himself in that part of his sportive body.—
As I came from breakfast this morning, I met
three of these cits with large game bags, and
guns, and other accessories, riding out to a rail
way station on their way to some place where
they had hired a shooting privilege. I laughed
at first, then I observed that they had a dbg
with them, and grew melancholy, for I love dogs,
and they will be sure to shoot that dog by mis
take, and miss the rabbit. It is said that such
men return to the bosoms of their families by
way of the great central market, where they fill
their bags with rabbits and partridges at reason
able rates.
—
The Washington Monument. —Lieut. Ives,
architect and engineer in charge of the Wash
ington Monument, has made an official report to
the Society, in which he says that when raised
to the height of COO feet, the entiro weight of the
shaft and foundation will be 70,000 tons. The
weight of the structure, in its present condition,
is 40,000 tons. lie has been unable to detect
any appearance of settling or indications of in
security. By scientific calculations he has ar
rived at the conclusion that the weight alone of
the monument, at its full height, would offer a
resistance nearly eight times greater than the
overturning efffct of the heaviest tempest to
which it would probably ever be exposed. It
was proposed to the Monument Society, many
years ago, to surround the foot of the obelisk
with a base of a Pantheon form, and an engra
ving was made of the Monument as it would ap
pear if completed in accordance with the plan.
An impression has been in this way created
throughout the country that the engraved de
sign has been adopted, and cannot now be de
viated from without tearing down what lips al
ready been built. But as it has been the inten
tion of the Society to accept the plan referred
to, and as the error which exists seems to have
an injurious effect, Lieut. Ives suggects the ex
pediency of notifying the public officially that
the obelisk is the only portion of the Monument
the form of which is decided upon, and that the
determination of the design for the base is still
open for consideration. In this suggestion of
Lieut. Ives the Society has concurred.
The number of female donors to the “Museum
of Comparative Zoology,” just established, is
noteworthy, as it reveals the interest Fros.
Agassiz has infused into the public mind in Bos
ton on his favorite science, and also shows the
public spirit of the opulent women of Boston.
The subscriptions of this class ure as follows:
Miss Mary Ann Wales, $100; Mrs. Abby L.-
Wales, $100; Mrs. Robert G. Shaw, $300; Miss
Ann Wigglesworth, $500; Mrs. G. H. Shaw,
SSOO ; Miss Abby M. Loring, $500; Miss Mary
Wigglesworth. $500; Miss Sara Greene, $500;
Mrs. Elijah Loring, $500; Mrs. H. F. Sayles,
$1,000; Miss Sarah Pratt, $1,000; Miss Brim
mer, $1,000: Miss Mary Pratt, $1,000; Mrs.
Abbot Lawrence, $2,000. Total from Boston
women, $9,500.
OBITUARY,
Departed this life, on the'l2th August. 1859, at Stone
Mountain, (la., Matilda Anna, wife of George W. Mor
gan, and daughter of William and Martha Micou.
In the death of this amiable, pious, Christian woman,
this community, in which she was bom, and where her
life was spent, partß with one. who, in all the relations of
life that woman usually sustains, was a bright example to
her sex.
The Church, in which for more than a quarter of a cen
tury, she had joined in
14 Sweet Communion’s solemn vows,
Hymns of Love and Praise,” —
mourns the loss of one whose unblemished life, uniform
and consistent piety,commended its “heavenly ways,”
to all who knew her.
The poorpnlways with us,”) will miss in hor a gene
rous friend, prompt to administer to their temporal and
spiritual wants, and ever ready to excuse their many
faults and foibles, knowing the peculiar temptations
which surrounded them.
In her friendship she was constant and sincere—faith
ful and true. The faults that she In others saw, she sought
not to conceal, but when deploring, always plead for
them that charity, which believeth all things; bcareth
all things; hopeth all things.
A warm admirer of what is grand and beautiful in Na
ture, or attractive in Art: all that contributed to expand
the mind, elevate the thoughts, refine and purify the
taste, was unceasingly dear to her heart.
Affliction early claimed her for his own, and the he
roism with which she struggled with her many physical
infirmities, astonished, whilst it commanded the adrnira
t.on of those who knew her best, nnd saw her most.
Her last moments, though moments of intense bodily
anguish, were spent in offering up prayers, the most de
vout and earnest, for those nearest aud dearest the Moth
er’s heart.
Beautiful conclusion, to a life of patient suffering and
self denial I
Her children will rise up and call her blessed.
Augusta, Ga, 12th September, 1859.