FOOTNOTES:

"Very well. I cannot surrender without an order from General Toussaint. If you attack me, I shall be obliged to defend myself."

"I also have my orders; I am forced to obey them."

Maurepas retired, and took his station alone upon a rampart of the works. Humbert's troops, numbering four thousand, opened fire. Maurepas remains awhile in the storm of bullets to reconnoitre, then coolly descends and opens his own fire. He had but seven hundred blacks and sixty whites. The French attacked four times and were four times repulsed, with the loss of fifteen hundred men. Humbert was obliged to retreat, before the reinforcement which had been despatched under General Debelle could reach him. Maurepas's orders were notto attack, but to defend. So he instantly hastened to another post, which intercepted the route by which General Debelle was coming, met him, and fought him there, repulsed him, and took seven cannon.

This was not an encouraging commencement for these children of the French Revolution, who had beaten Suwarrow in Switzerland and blasted the Mameluke cavalry with rolling fire, who had debouched from the St. Bernard upon the plains of Piedmont in time to gather Austrian flags at Marengo, and who added the name of Hohenlinden to the glory of Moreau. Humbert himself, at the head of four thousand grenadiers, had restored the day which preceded the surrender of the Russians at Zürich.

Le Clerc was obliged to say that the First Consul never had the intention of restoring slavery. Humbert himself carried this proclamation to Maurepas, and with it gained admittance to the intrenchments which he could not storm. This single defection placed four thousand admirable troops, and the harbor of Port-de-Paix, in the hands of the French, and exposed Toussaint's flank at Gonaïves; and its moral effect was so great upon the blacks as to encourage Le Clerc to persist in his enterprise.

In the brief period of pacification which preceded this attempt of Bonaparte to reconquer the island, Toussaint was mainly occupied with the organization of agriculture. His army then consisted of only fifteen demi-brigades, numbering in all 22,500, a guard of honor of one thousand infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and an artillery corps. But the military department was in perfect order. There was an État-Major, consisting of a general of division with two aides-de-camp, a company of guides, one of dragoons, and two secretaries,—ten brigadier-generals with ten secretaries, ten aides-de-camp, and an escort,—and a board of health, composed of one chief inspector, six physicians, and six surgeons-general. The commissary and engineering departments were also thoroughly organized. The pay of the 22,500 men amounted to 7,838,400 francs; rations, 6,366,195; musicians, 239,112; uniforming, 1,887,682; officers' uniforms, 208,837. The pay of a non-commissioned officer and private was 55 centimes per day.

In this army there were one thousand mulattoes, and five or six hundred whites, recruited from the various artillery regiments which had been in the colony during the last ten years. Every cultivator was a member of the great reserve of this army, its spy and outpost and partisan.

The chief interest of the campaign against Le Clerc turns upon the obstinate defence of Crête-à-Pierrot. Here the best qualities of black troops were manifested. This was a simple oblong redoubt, thrown up by the English during their brief occupation of the western coast, and strengthened by the negroes. The Artibonite, which is the most important river of the colony, threading its way from the mountains of the interior through themornes, which are not many miles from the sea, passed under this redoubt, which was placed to command the principal defile into the inaccessible region beyond. The rich central plains, the river, and the mountains belonged to whoever held this post. The Mirbalais quarter could raise potatoes enough to nourish sixty thousand men accustomed to that kind of food.

When Toussaint's plan was spoiled by defection and defeat, he transferred immense munitions to the mountains, and decided to concentrate, for the double purpose of holding the place, if possible, and of getting the French away from their supplies. It was a simple breastwork of Campeachy-wood faced with earth, and had a ditch fifteen feet deep. At a little distance was a small redoubt upon an eminence which overlooked the larger work. To the east the great scarped rocks forbade an approach, and dense spinous undergrowth filled the surrounding forest. The defence of this place was given to Dessalines, a most audacious and able fighter. Toussaint intended toharass the investing columns from the north, and Charles Belair was posted to the south, beyond and near the Artibonite. Toussaint would then be between the fortress and the French corps of observation which was left in the north,—a position which he turned to brilliant advantage. Four French columns, of more than twelve thousand men, commenced, from as many different directions, a slow and difficult movement upon this work. The first column which came within sight of it found a body of negroes drawn up, as if ready to give battle on the outside. It was the surplus of one or two thousand troops which the intrenchment would not hold. The French, expecting to rout them and enter the redoubt with them, charged with the bayonet; the blacks fled, and the French reached the glacis. Suddenly the blacks threw themselves into the ditch, thus exposing the French troops to a terrible fire, which was opened from the redoubt. General Debelle was severely wounded, and three or four hundred men were stretched upon the field.

The advance in another quarter was checked by a small redoubt that opened an unexpected fire. It was necessary to take it, and cannon had to be employed. When the balls began to reach them, the blacks danced and sang, and soon, issuing suddenly, with, cries, "En avant! Canons à nous," attempted to take the pieces with the bayonet. But the supporting fire was too strong, they were thrown into disorder, and the redoubt was entered by the French.

Early one morning the camp of the blacks was surprised by one of the columns, which had surmounted all the difficulties in its way. Notwithstanding the previous experience, the French thought this time to enter, and advanced precipitately. Many blacks entered the redoubt, the rest jumped into the ditch, and the same terrible fire vomited forth. Another column advanced to support the attack; but the first one was already crushed and in full retreat. The blacks swarmed to the parapets, threw planks across the ditch, and attacked both columns with drums beating the charge. The French turned, and met just resistance enough to bring them again within range, the same fire broke forth, and the columns gave way, with a loss to the first of four hundred and eighty men, and two or three hundred to the latter.

Upon this retreat, the cultivators of the neighborhood exchanged shots with the flanking parties, and displayed great boldness.

It was plain to the French that this open redoubt would have to be invested; but before this was done, Dessalines had left the place with all the troops which could not be fed there, and cut his way across a column with the loss of a hundred men. The defence was committed to a quarteroon named Lamartinière.

While the French were completing the investment, the morning music of the black band floated the old strains of the Marseillaise within their lines. La Croix declares that it produced a painful sensation. The soldiers looked at each other, and recalled the great marches which carried victory to that music against the tyrants of Europe. "What!" they said, "are our barbarous enemies in the right? Are we no longer the soldiers of the Republic? Have we become the servile instruments ofla politique?" No doubt of that; these children of the Marseillaise and adorers of Moreau had becomede tropin the Old World, and had been sent to leave their bones in the defiles ofPensez-y-bien.[33]

The investment of Crête-à-Pierrot was regularly made, by Bacheiu, an engineer who had distinguished himself in Egypt. Batteries were established before the head of each division, a single mortar was got into position, and a battery of seven pieces played upon the little redoubt above. This is getting to be vastly more troublesome than the fort of Bard, which held in check these veryofficers and men upon their road to Marengo.

Rochambeau thought he had extinguished the fire of the little redoubt, and would fain storm it. The blacks had protected it by an abatis ten feet deep and three in height, in which our gallant ally of the Revolution entangled himself, and was held there till he had lost three hundred men, and gained nothing.

"Thus the Crête-à-Pierrot, in which (and in the small redoubt) there were hardly twelve hundred men,[34]had already cost us more than fifteen hundred in sheer loss. So we fell back upon the method which we should have tried in the beginning, a vigorous blockade and a sustained cannonade."

The fire was kept up night and day for three days without cessation. Descourtilz, a French naturalist, who had been forced to act as surgeon, was in the redoubt, and he describes the scenes of the interior. The enfilading fire shattered the timber-work, and the bombs set fire to the tents made of macaw-tree foliage, which the negroes threw flaming into the ditch. A cannoneer sees a bomb falls close to a sick friend of his who is asleep; considering that sleep is very needful for him, he seizes the bomb, and cuts off the fuse with a knife. In a corner nods a grenadier overcome with fatigue; a bomb falls at his side; he wakes simultaneously with the explosion, to be blown to sleep again. The soldiers stand and watch the bright parabola, in dead silence; then comes the cry, "Gare à la bombe!" Hungry and thirsty men chew leaden balls for relief. Five hundred men have fallen. Some of the officers come for the surgeon's opium. They will not be taken alive. But the excitement of the scene is so great that opium fails of its wonted effect, and they complain of the tardiness of the dose. Other officers make their wills withsang froid, as if expecting a tranquil administration of their estates.

During the last night the little garrison evacuates the upper redoubt, and is seen coming towards the work. Down goes the drawbridge, the blacks issue to meet them, taking them for a storming party of the French. There is a mutual mistake, both parties of blacks deliver their fire, the sortie party retreats, and the garrison enters the redoubt with them. Here they discover the mistake, but their rage is so great that they exhaust their cartridges upon each other at four paces. Descourtilz takes advantage of the confusion to throw himself into the ditch, and escapes under a volley.

The place is no longer tenable, and must be evacuated. A scout apprises Toussaint of the necessity, and it is arranged that he shall attack from the north, while Lamartinière issues from the redoubt. During Toussaint's feint, the black garrison cut their way through the left of Rochambeau's division.

General Le Clerc cannot withhold his admiration. "The retreat which the commandant of Crête-à-Pierrot dared to conceive and execute is a remarkable feat of arms. We surrounded his post to the number of more than twelve thousand men; he saved himself, did not lose half his garrison, and left us only his dead and wounded. We found the baggage of Dessalines, a few white cannoneers, the music of the guard of honor, a magazine of powder, a number of muskets, and fifteen cannon of great calibre."

Toussaint turned immediately towards the north, raised the cultivators, attacked the corps of observation, drove it into Cap Français, ravaged the plain, turned and defeated Hardy's division, which attempted to keep open the communications with Le Clerc, and would have taken the city, if fresh reinforcements from France had not at the same time arrived in the harbor.

After the arrest of Toussaint, Dessalines reorganized the resistance of the blacks, and attacked Rochambeau in the open field, driving him into the city, where Le Clerc had just died: in that infected atmosphere he kept the best troops of France besieged. "Ah! cegaillard," the French called the epidemic which came to complete the work of the blacks. Twenty thousand men reinforced Rochambeau, but he capitulated, after a terrible assault which Dessalines made with twenty-seven thousand men, on the 28th November, 1803.

One more touch of negro soldiery must suffice. There was an intrenchment, called Verdière, occupied by the French, upon a hill overlooking the city. Dessalines sent a negro general, Capoix, with three demi-brigades to take it. "They recoiled," says Schoelcher, "horribly mutilated by the fire from the intrenchment. He rallied them: the grape tore them in pieces, and hurled them again to the bottom of the hill. Boiling with rage, Capoix goes to seek fresh troops, mounts a fiery horse, and rushes forward for the third time; but the thousand deaths which the fort delivers repulse his soldiers. He foams with anger, exhorts them, pricks them on, and leads them up a fourth time. A ball kills his horse, and he rolls over, but, soon extricating himself, he runs to the head of the troops. 'En avant! En avant!' he repeats, with enthusiasm; at the same instant his plumed chapeau is swept from his head by a grape-shot, but he still throws himself forward to the assault. 'En avant! En avant!'

"Then great shouts went up along the ramparts of the city: 'Bravo! bravo! vivat! vivat!' cried Rochambeau and his staff, who were watching the assault. A drum-roll is heard, the fire of Verdière pauses, an officer issues from the city, gallops to the very front of the surprised blacks, and saluting, says,—'The Captain-General Rochambeau and the French army send their admiration to the general officer who has just covered himself with glory.' This magnificent message delivered, he turned his horse, reëntered the city, and the assault is renewed. Imagine if Capoix and his soldiers did new prodigies of valor. But the besieged were also electrified, would not be overcome, and Dessalines sent the order to retire. The next day a groom led a richly caparisoned horse to the quarter-general of the blacks, which Rochambeau offered as a mark of his admiration, and to replace that which he regretted had been killed."

The valor and fighting qualities of the blacks in San Domingo were nourished by the wars which sprang from their own necessities. They were the native growths of the soil which had been long enriched by their innocent blood; more blood must be invested in it, if they would own it. Learning to fight was equivalent to learning to live. Their cause was neither represented nor championed by a single power on earth, and nothing but the hope of making enormous profits out of their despair led Anglo-American schooners to run English and French blockades, to land arms and powder in the little coves of the island. Will the negro fight as well, if the motive and the exigency are inferior?

We make a present to the Southern negro of an excellent chance for fighting, with our compliments. Some of us do it with our curses. The war does not spring for them out of enthusiasm and despair which seize their hearts at once, as they view a degradation from which they flee and a liberty to which they are all hurrying. They are asked to fight for us as well as for themselves, and this asking is, like emancipation, a military necessity. The motive lacks the perfect form and incandescence, like that of a star leaping from a molten sun, which lighted battle-ardors in the poor slaves of San Domingo. And we even hedge about this invitation to bleed for us with conditions which are evidently dictated by a suspicion that the motive is not great enough to make the negro depend upon himself. If the war does not entirely sweep away these poor beginnings and thrust white and black together into the arms of thrilling danger, we need not expect great fighting from him. He may not disgrace himself, but he will not ennoble the republic till his heart's core is the war's core, and the colors of two races run into one.

FOOTNOTES:[25]See Numbers LVI., LVIII., LIX., and LXV. of this magazine.[26]La Cause des Esclaves Nègres et des Habitans de la Guinée, portée au Tribunal de la Justice, de la Religion, de la Politique: I. 335; II. 66.[27]Gros peau, thick skin, was the French equivalent toBozal:peau finwas the Creole negro.[28]Clarkson'sHistory of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol. II. p. 134.[29]Anthropologie der Naturvölker, von Dr. Theodor Waitz. Zweiter Theil: die Negervölker und ihre Verwandten. Leipzig, 1860. Very full, minute, and humane in tone, though telling all the facts about the manners and habits of native Africans.Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Dominique.Par le Lieutenant-Général Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 2 Tom. Generally very fair to the negro soldier: himself a distinguished soldier.Le Système Colonial dévoilé.Par le Baron de Vastey, mulatto. Terrible account of the plantation cruelties.Mémoires pour servir a l'Histoire d'Hayti.Par l'Adjutant-Général Boisrond-Tonnerre. Written to explain the defection of Dessalines from Toussaint, and the military movements of the former. The author was a mulatto.Des Colonies, et particulièrement de celle de Saint-Domingue; Mémoire Historique et Politique.Par le Colonel Malenfant, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, etc. A pretty impartial book, by a pro-slavery man.L. F. Sonthonax à Bourdon de l'Oise.Pamphlet. The vindication of Sonthonax for declaring emancipation.Colonies Étrangères et Haïti.Par Victor Schoelcher. 2 Tom. Valuable, but leaning too much towards the negro against the mulatto.Histoire des Désastres de Saint-Domingue.Paris, 1795. Journalistic, with the coloring of the day.Campagnes des Français à Saint-Domingue, et Réfutation des Reproches faits au Capitaine-Général Rochambeau.Par Ph. Albert de Lattre, Propriétaire, etc., 1805. Shows that Rochambeau could not help himself.Voyages d'un Naturaliste.3 Tom. Par Descourtilz. Pro-slavery, but filled with curious information.Expédition à St. Domingue.Par A. Metral. Useful.The Empire of Hayti.By Marcus Rainsford, Captain in West-Indian Regiment. Occasionally valuable.[30]The independent Congos in the interior are more active and courageous, expert and quarrelsome than those upon the coast, who have been subjected by the Portuguese.[31]When the insurgents evacuated a fort near Port-au-Prince, upon the advance of the English, a negro was left in the powder-magazine with a lighted match, to wait till the place was occupied. Here he remained all night; but when the English came later than was expected, his match had burned out. Was that insensibility to all ideas, or devotion to one?[32]Praloto was a distinguished Italian in the French artillery service. His battery of twenty field-pieces at Port-au-Prince held the whole neighborhood in check, till at length a young negro named Hyacinthe roused the slaves to attack it. In the next fight, they rushed upon this battery, insensible to its fire, embraced the guns and were bayoneted, still returned to them, stuffed the arms of their dead comrades into the muzzles, swarmed over them, and extinguished the fire. This was done against a supporting fire of French infantry. The blacks lost a thousand men, but captured the cannon, and drove the whole force into the city.[33]Think twice before you try me: the name of amorneof extraordinary difficulty, which had to be surmounted by one of the French columns.[34]Negro authorities say 750.

[25]See Numbers LVI., LVIII., LIX., and LXV. of this magazine.

[26]La Cause des Esclaves Nègres et des Habitans de la Guinée, portée au Tribunal de la Justice, de la Religion, de la Politique: I. 335; II. 66.

[27]Gros peau, thick skin, was the French equivalent toBozal:peau finwas the Creole negro.

[28]Clarkson'sHistory of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol. II. p. 134.

[29]Anthropologie der Naturvölker, von Dr. Theodor Waitz. Zweiter Theil: die Negervölker und ihre Verwandten. Leipzig, 1860. Very full, minute, and humane in tone, though telling all the facts about the manners and habits of native Africans.Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Dominique.Par le Lieutenant-Général Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 2 Tom. Generally very fair to the negro soldier: himself a distinguished soldier.Le Système Colonial dévoilé.Par le Baron de Vastey, mulatto. Terrible account of the plantation cruelties.Mémoires pour servir a l'Histoire d'Hayti.Par l'Adjutant-Général Boisrond-Tonnerre. Written to explain the defection of Dessalines from Toussaint, and the military movements of the former. The author was a mulatto.Des Colonies, et particulièrement de celle de Saint-Domingue; Mémoire Historique et Politique.Par le Colonel Malenfant, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, etc. A pretty impartial book, by a pro-slavery man.L. F. Sonthonax à Bourdon de l'Oise.Pamphlet. The vindication of Sonthonax for declaring emancipation.Colonies Étrangères et Haïti.Par Victor Schoelcher. 2 Tom. Valuable, but leaning too much towards the negro against the mulatto.Histoire des Désastres de Saint-Domingue.Paris, 1795. Journalistic, with the coloring of the day.Campagnes des Français à Saint-Domingue, et Réfutation des Reproches faits au Capitaine-Général Rochambeau.Par Ph. Albert de Lattre, Propriétaire, etc., 1805. Shows that Rochambeau could not help himself.Voyages d'un Naturaliste.3 Tom. Par Descourtilz. Pro-slavery, but filled with curious information.Expédition à St. Domingue.Par A. Metral. Useful.The Empire of Hayti.By Marcus Rainsford, Captain in West-Indian Regiment. Occasionally valuable.

Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Dominique.Par le Lieutenant-Général Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 2 Tom. Generally very fair to the negro soldier: himself a distinguished soldier.

Le Système Colonial dévoilé.Par le Baron de Vastey, mulatto. Terrible account of the plantation cruelties.

Mémoires pour servir a l'Histoire d'Hayti.Par l'Adjutant-Général Boisrond-Tonnerre. Written to explain the defection of Dessalines from Toussaint, and the military movements of the former. The author was a mulatto.

Des Colonies, et particulièrement de celle de Saint-Domingue; Mémoire Historique et Politique.Par le Colonel Malenfant, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, etc. A pretty impartial book, by a pro-slavery man.

L. F. Sonthonax à Bourdon de l'Oise.Pamphlet. The vindication of Sonthonax for declaring emancipation.

Colonies Étrangères et Haïti.Par Victor Schoelcher. 2 Tom. Valuable, but leaning too much towards the negro against the mulatto.

Histoire des Désastres de Saint-Domingue.Paris, 1795. Journalistic, with the coloring of the day.

Campagnes des Français à Saint-Domingue, et Réfutation des Reproches faits au Capitaine-Général Rochambeau.Par Ph. Albert de Lattre, Propriétaire, etc., 1805. Shows that Rochambeau could not help himself.

Voyages d'un Naturaliste.3 Tom. Par Descourtilz. Pro-slavery, but filled with curious information.

Expédition à St. Domingue.Par A. Metral. Useful.

The Empire of Hayti.By Marcus Rainsford, Captain in West-Indian Regiment. Occasionally valuable.

[30]The independent Congos in the interior are more active and courageous, expert and quarrelsome than those upon the coast, who have been subjected by the Portuguese.

[31]When the insurgents evacuated a fort near Port-au-Prince, upon the advance of the English, a negro was left in the powder-magazine with a lighted match, to wait till the place was occupied. Here he remained all night; but when the English came later than was expected, his match had burned out. Was that insensibility to all ideas, or devotion to one?

[32]Praloto was a distinguished Italian in the French artillery service. His battery of twenty field-pieces at Port-au-Prince held the whole neighborhood in check, till at length a young negro named Hyacinthe roused the slaves to attack it. In the next fight, they rushed upon this battery, insensible to its fire, embraced the guns and were bayoneted, still returned to them, stuffed the arms of their dead comrades into the muzzles, swarmed over them, and extinguished the fire. This was done against a supporting fire of French infantry. The blacks lost a thousand men, but captured the cannon, and drove the whole force into the city.

[33]Think twice before you try me: the name of amorneof extraordinary difficulty, which had to be surmounted by one of the French columns.

[34]Negro authorities say 750.

Sunshine in Thought.ByCharles Godfrey Leland, Author of "Meister Karl's Sketch-Book," and Translator of "Heine's Pictures of Travel." New York: Charles T. Evans. 16mo.

We do not exactly know how to characterize this jubilant volume. The author, not content to denounce generally the poets of sentimentality and the prophets of despair, has evidently a science of Joy latent in his mind, of which his rich, discursive, and somewhat rollicking sentences give but an imperfect exposition. He is in search of an ideal law of Cheerfulness, which neither history nor literature fully illustrates, but which he still seeks with an undoubting faith. Every transient glimpse of his law he eagerly seizes, whether indicated in events or in persons. And it must be admitted that he is not ignorant either of the great annalists or the great writers of the world. He knows Herodotus as well as he knows Hume, Thucydides as intimately as Gibbon. Xenophon and Plutarch are as familiar to him as Michelet, Thiers, and Guizot. He has studied Aristænetus and Lucian as closely as Horace Walpole and Thackeray,—is as ready to quote from Plato as from Rabelais,—and throws the results of his wide study, with an occasional riotous disregard of prim literary proprieties, into a fierce defiance of everything which makes against his favorite theory, that there is nothing in pure theology, sound ethics, and healthy literature, nothing in the historic records of human life, which can justify the discontent of the sentimentalist or the scorn of the misanthrope.

Engaged thus in an almost Quixotic assault on the palpable miseries of human existence,—miseries which are as much acknowledged by Homer as by Euripides, by Ariosto as by Dante, by Shakspeare as by Milton, by Goethe as by Lamartine,—he has a difficult work to perform. Still he does not bate a jot of heart and hope. He discriminates, with the art of a true critic, between objective representations of human life and subjective protests against human limitations, errors, miseries, and sins. As far as either representation embodies the human principle of Joy,—whether Greek or Roman, ancient or modern, Christian or Pagan,—he is content with the evidence. The moment a writer of either school insinuates a principle or sentiment of Despair, whether he be a dramatist or a sentimentalist, the author enters his earnest protest. Classical and Romantic poets, romancers and historians, when they slip into misery-mongers, are equally the objects of his denunciations. Keats and Tennyson fare nearly as ill as Byron and Heine. Mr. Leland feels assured that the human race is entitled to joy, and there is something almost comical in his passionate assault on the morbid genius of the world. He seems to say, "Why do you not accept the conditions of happiness? The conditions are simple, and nothing but your pestilent wilfulness prevents your compliance with them."

This "pestilent wilfulness" is really the key to the whole position. All objective as well as subjective writers have been impotent to provide the way by which the seeker after perfect and permanent content can attain and embody it. It has been sought through wit, humor, fancy, imagination, reason; but it has been sought in vain. Our author, who, after nearly exhausting all the concrete representatives of the philosophy of Joy, admits that nobody embodies his ideal of happiness, surrenders his ideal, as far as it has been practically expressed in life or thought. Rabelais dissatisfies him; Scarron dissatisfies him; Molière, Swift, Sterne, not to mention others, dissatisfy him. Every ally he brings forward to sustain his position is reduced by analysis into a partial enemy of his creed. But while we cannot concur in Mr. Leland's theory in his exclusive statement of it, and confess to a strong liking for many writers whom he considers effeminate, we cordially agree with him in his plea for "Sunshine in Thought," and sympathize in his vigorous and valorous assault on the morbid elements of our modern literature. We think that poets should be as cheerful as possible; whereassome of them seem to think it is their duty to be as fretful as possible, and to make misery an invariable accompaniment of genius. The primary object of all good literature is to invigorate and to cheer, not to weaken and depress; it should communicate mental and moral life, as well as convey sentiments and ideas,—should brace and strengthen the mind, as well as fill it; and when it whimpers and wails, when it teaches despair as philosophy, especially when it uses the enchantments of imagination to weaken the active powers, its effect is mischievous. Woe, considered as a luxury, is the most expensive of all luxuries; and there is danger to the mental and moral health even in the pensive sadness which, to some readers, sheds such a charm over the meditations of that kind of genius which is rather thoughtful than full of thought. For the melodious miseries which mediocrity mimics, for the wretchedness which some fifth-rate rhymers assume in order to make themselves interesting, there can, of course, be no toleration. Mr. Leland pounds them as with the hammer of Thor, and would certainly beat out their brains, had not Nature fortunately neglected to put such perilous matter into craniums exposed to such ponderous blows.

Apart from the general theory and purpose of the book, there is a great deal of talent and learning exhibited in the illustrations of the subject. The remarks on Aristophanes, Rabelais, Swift, Sterne, and Heine,—half analysis, half picture,—are very striking; and there are, throughout the volume, continual flashes of suggestive thought and vivid portraiture, which both delight and detain the reader. The style is that of animated conversation,—the conversation of a man whose veins are as full of blood as his mind is of ideas, who is hilarious from abounding health, and whose occasional boisterousness of manner proceeds from the robustness of his make and the cheer of his soul. The whole volume tends to create in thought that "sunshine" which it so joyously recommends and celebrates. The reader is warmed by the ardor and earnestness with which propositions he may distrust are urged upon his attention, and closes the volume with that feeling of pleased excitement which always comes from contact with a fresh and original mind.

The Gentleman.ByGeorge H. Calvert. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

Paradoxical as it may appear, we believe there never was a time when the true and pure standard of gentlemanhood could be more impressively raised and upheld in this republic than now. The vast and keen civil conflict which so deeply agitates our political life has laid bare the groundwork and brought to the surface the latent elements of our social life, so that a new, an obvious, and a searching test is instinctively applied to character; as in all times of profound moral excitement,shamsgrow fantastic and contemptible, andprinciplesof action and being rise to superlative worth. The question, What constitutes the Gentleman? suggested at first by the preposterous and exclusive claims thereto arrogantly put forth by a little community, in justification of profane and destructive violence to a nation's welfare, has come to be regarded as embracing all the obligations, responsibilities, and humanities that make up and certify Christian manhood and genuine patriotism; the wide and deep significance of a word too often confounded with mere manners is thus practically found to indicate the most vital elements of personal worth and social well-being. Accordingly, a comprehensive, philosophical definition and illustration of the Gentleman, in the ideal grace and greatness and in the real authority and use of that so much misunderstood and seldom achieved character, is doubly welcome at this hour, the strife and discussion whereof bring out in such strong relief the trueanimusand equipment of statesmen, soldiers, citizens, men and women, and force us to realize the poverty of soul, the inherent baseness, or the magnanimity and rectitude of our fellow-creatures, with a vividness never before experienced. How indispensable to the welfare of the State is a society based on higher motives than those of material ambition, and how impossible is the existence of such a society, except through individual probity and disinterestedness, is a lesson written in blood and tears before our eyes to-day; and thrice welcome, we repeat, is the clear and emphatic exposition of the Gentleman, as an incarnation of the justice, love, and honor, whereon, in the last analysis, rest thehopes and welfare of the nation. No ethical or æsthetical treatise could be more seasonable than this of Mr. Calvert's. We regard it as the best lay-sermon thus far evoked by the moral exigencies of the hour; however appropriate it may also be and is to any and all times and readers of taste and thought, a superficial, merely dilettante essay on such a subject and at such a time would repel instead of alluring.

The charming little volume before us, while made genially attractive by occasional playfulness and anecdote, is yet pervaded by an earnestness born of strong conviction and deep sympathies. It analyzes the springs of character, traces conduct to its elemental source, and follows it to its ultimate influence. To a concise style it unites an expansive spirit; with a tone of rich and high culture it blends the vivacity and grace of the most genial colloquy. From the etymology of the word to the humanity of the character, a full, forcible, frank, and fervent discussion of the Gentleman is given, as he figures in history, in society, in domestic life, and in literature,—and as he lives, a grand and gracious ideal, in the consciousness of the author. Beginning with the meaning, origin, and use of the word Gentleman, Mr. Calvert gives a critical analysis of its historical personation. As a chevalier type, in such men as Sidney and Bayard. Its ethical and æsthetical meaning is finely exemplified in the contrast between Charles Lamb and George IV., Leicester and Hampden, Washington and Napoleon. The Gentleman in St. Paul is well illustrated. The relation of this character to antiquity is defined with a scholar's zest: whatever of its force and flavor is discernible in Socrates and Brutus is gracefully indicated; the deficiency of Homer's heroes, excepting Hector, therein, is ably demonstrated. These and like illustrations of so prolific a theme inevitably suggest episodes of argument, incidental, yet essential to the main question; and the just and benign remarks on the Duel, the Position of Women in Ancient and Modern Society, and the Influence of Christianity upon Manners, are striking in their scope and style, and breathe the lofty and tender spirit of that Faith which inculcatesdisinterestednessas the latent and lasting inspiration of the Gentleman. Perhaps the most delectable illustrations, which give both form and beauty to this essay, are those drawn from modern literature: they are choice specimens of criticism, and full of subtile discrimination in tracing the relation of literature to life. We would instance especially the chapters on Shakspeare's Gentleman; the recognition of the Gentleman in Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and Don Quixote; and the admirable distinction pointed out between the characters of Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. There is no part of the volume more worthy attention than the remarks of a "high-bred tone in writing." The hollowness of Chesterfield's code is keenly exposed; Honor and Vulgarity are freshly and ably defined; Fashion, Pride, and Vanity, the conventional elements of the Gentleman, are treated with philosophical justice; the favorite characters of fiction, and the most renowned poets and heroes, beaux and braves, pass before us, and are subjected to the test of that Christian ideal of the Gentleman so clearly defined and firmly applied by the intrepid author; and many a disguised coxcomb is stripped of his borrowed plumes, imperialparvenusexposed as charlatans in manners as well as morals, and heroic, but modest souls, of whom the world's court-calendar gives no hint, stand forth exemplars of the highest, because the most soulful breeding.

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