CORN IS KING.

'Mr. Kirke, I dislike to trespass on your time, but I would like to confer with you for a moment, on a private matter.'

'Certainly, sir.' And I added: 'Frank, tell your mother I will meet you at the hotel in half an hour.'

'But I must be in Cambridge by eight o'clock,' replied the young man, looking a little chop-fallen.

'Well, don't wait for me—I will see you to-morrow.'

Bidding me 'good-night,' he left; and Mr. Cragin, seeing that his partner would be alone with me, left shortly afterward. As soon as Cragin was gone, Mr. Hallet, opening the door, called:

'David!'

The book-keeper entered, and took a seat beside me.

'Mr. Kirke,' said Mr. Hallet, when the other was seated, 'I want to talk with you and David about Frank. He has entangled himself with that Southern girl, and, I hear, means to marry her. I strongly object to it. I've not a particle of influence with him, andyoumust prevent it.'

'Why should we prevent it?' I asked, rather sharply. 'What is there against the young woman?'

'Nothing against her character, but she'd not be a fit wife for Frank. These Southern women are educated with wrong ideas—they make poor wives for poor men. He must marry a rich girl, or one brought up with New-England habits. This one would bring him nothing, and spend all he made.'

'But she is an only child, and her father is rich.'

'Pshaw! that is bosh! Preston always lived high, and I'll guarantee his estate is bankrupt. I'm sorry for it, for he owes us.'

'Is that so! Largely?' 'No, not largely; how much is he overdrawn, David?'

'Eighty-two hundred and odd.'

'I'm surprised at that,' I said. 'The old house did not allow such things.'

'Neither do we; 'twas Cragin's work. He thought 'twould annoy Frank if the drafts went back, and'—he hesitated a moment—'he insisted upon it.'

'I am opposed to interfering in such matters. I always taught Frank to think for himself,' I remarked.

'You taught him to think too much for himself. He is self-willed and headstrong to a fault.'

'Perhaps his father might have trained him better, if—he had tried,' I replied, with a slight sneer.

'Pardon me, Mr. Kirke, I meant no reflection on your management of him. I only feel that this is a most important step, and he ought to be advised. He should marry rich, for he has nothing, and can not rely upon me.'

'He does not rely upon you; but he is a partner now, and his income ought to enable him to support a wife.'

'His income is uncertain; he may not remain long in the concern,' replied Mr. Hallet coolly.

David started; his face reddened to the roots of his hair, and he asked in a sententious way, showing even in his expenditure of breath the close economy that was the rule of his life: 'Who told you that, Mr. Hallet?'

'No one,' replied that gentleman, seemingly surprised at the abrupt question; 'I am deliberating on it myself. He is sowing dissension between Cragin and me. The lowest boy in the office; even you, David, pay more heed to him than tome.'

'That may be your own fault,' I said, a little sarcastically; 'if you should treat him as Cragin and David do, you might have nothing to complain of.'

'I treat him well, sir; but I make himknow his place.' The last words were emphasized in a hard, wicked tone.

Certain old recollections had been rushing across my memory during the latter part of this conversation, and this last remark brought me to my feet, as I said: 'You treat him like a dog, sir! I have seen it. If he were not your son, he should not stay with you another day! But I warn you, John Hallet—do not go too far. Cast that boy off—harm him to the extent of a hair—and, so help me God, I will strip you of the lying cloak in which you hide your false, hypocritical soul, and show menwhat you are!'

In my excitement, I had crossed the room, and stood then directly before him. His face flushed and his eye quailed before my steady gaze, but he said nothing.

David remarked, in a mild tone: 'Edmund, that an't the right spirit; it an't.'

'You don't know the whole, David; if you did, evenyouwould say he is the basest man living.'

Hallet pressed his teeth together; his eyes flashed fire, and he seemed about to spring upon me; but mastering his passion, he rose after a moment and extended his hand, saying: 'Come, Mr. Kirke, this is not the talk of old friends! Let us shake hands and forget it.'

'Never, sir! I took your hand for the last time when I left this counting-room, twenty years ago. I never touch it again! I shall tell that boyto-nightthat you are his father.'

'You will not do so imprudent a thing. I will do any thing for him—any thing you require. I promise you—on my honor,' and the stately head of the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co., sank into a chair and bent down his face like a criminal in the dock.

'I can not trust you,' I said, as I paced the room,

'You can, Edmund; he means it. He is sorry for the wrong he's done,' said the old book-keeper, in that mild, winning tone which had made me so love him in my boyhood.

'Well, let himprovethat he means it; let him tell you all; let him tell you how much he has had to repent of!'

'Ihavetold him all. I told him years ago.'

'Did you tell him how you cast off that poor girl? how for years on her knees she vainly plead for a paltry pittance to keep her child from starving and herself from sin? Did you tell him how you forced her on the street? how you drove her from you with curses, when she prayed you to save her from the pit of infamy into which you had plunged her? Did you tell him,' and I hissed the words in his ear, while he writhed on his seat in such agony as only the guilty can feel; 'how, at last, after all those wretched years, she died of starvation and disease, with all that mountain of sin on her soul, and all of it heaped on her by YOU!'

'Oh! no! I did not—could not tell him that! I did not know I had donethat!' groaned the stately gentleman.

'You lie, John Hallet! You know you lie! and may God deal with you as you dealt with her,' and I took up my hat and laid my hand on the door.

'Stop, stop, Edmund; don't go with those words. You would not have God do toyouas you have done to others!' said David, in the same mild tone as before.

'True, David. I ought not to wish him harm; but I loathe and detest the hypocritical villain. Frank shall leave him to-night, and forever!' and again I laid my hand on the door.

Mr. Hallet looked up; his face was pale as marble, and his hands clenched tightly the arms of his chair, 'Don't go, Mr. Kirke,' he cried; 'stay one moment. Can't this be arranged?'

'Yes, sir. Sign a dissolution article at once—here—NOW, and give Frank your check for twenty thousand dollars.'

'No, no! You don't mean that! It is too much—you can not askthat!' gasped the great merchant.

'Too much for the son of a man worth a million? Too much to pay for starving his mother, and turning him adrift at six years old? It is not enough! He must havethirtythousand!'

'You are mad, Mr. Kirke!' And he rose, and looked at me with a pleading face. 'I can not pay that amount down. It is impossible.'

'David, how much has he in bank on private account?'

Mr. Hallet cast a beseeching glance at his book-keeper; but without moving a muscle, the old man quietly replied: 'Fifty-three thousand.'

'I knew you lied, Hallet. It is natural to you.'

'But I can't let Frank go without Mr. Cragin's consent.'

'I will arrange with Cragin. Sign the check and draw the paper at once, or I go.'

'But give me time to think—see me to-morrow.'

'I shall never exchange a word with you after to-night. You can have ten minutes—not a second more,' and I took out my watch to count the time.

He seated himself at his desk, and rested his head on his hand for a moment; then turning to me, he said: 'You promise that this interview, and all that has passed, shall never be mentioned by you?'

'I do—never to your injury.'

'David, please write the check,' said the senior partner, as he proceeded himself to draw up the agreement. In a few minutes he handed it to me. It was short, and merely recited that the co-partnership which had theretofore existed between John Hallet, Augustus Cragin, and Henry F. Mandell, under the name and style of Russell, Rollins & Co., was on that day dissolved by mutual consent; said Mandell withdrawing, and assigning the control of all the assets of said firm to said Hallet and Cragin, and releasing to said Hallet any portion of its capital and profits to which he might be entitled.

I read the document, and quietly handed it back. 'That will not do, Mr. Hallet. Thirty thousand dollars settles withyou, his father. I have not, andshallnot make any settlement with the firm. David must pay Frank what is his due—no more, no less.'

'But,' began Mr. Hallet.

'I have nothing more to say on the subject, sir.'

He drew a deep sigh. The parting with an only son, and with thirty thousand dollars, at one and the same time, affected him deeply. He might have borne the loss of the son; but the loss of so much money rent his small, black soul into fragments. However, he rewrote the paper, and passed it to me. It was all right; and when he had signed and David had witnessed it, I placed it in my pocket-book. Then, with a trembling hand, he handed me the check. It was drawn to my order; and I remarked, as I took it: 'This is not what I require, sir. I want your check, indorsed by David.'

'This is most unaccountable, Mr. Kirke. Do you question my check for thirty thousand dollars?' he asked, his face flushing with anger.

'Oh! no, sir, not at all; but you might stop its payment. With David's indorsement, you would notdareto do it.'

'I will indorse it,' said David; and he quietly proceeded to write another.

That cold, hard, soulless man had a wife and children; but that old book-keeper was the only being in all this wide world that he loved!

Placing the check with the other paper, I shook David by the hand, and bidding him 'good-night', passed down the old stairway.

As Frank is the hero of my history, I will, in another chapter, go back some seventeen years, and tell the reader how he came to be under my control, and how he rose to be a partner in the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.

Up among the Granite mountains,By the Bay State strand,Hark! the paean cry is soundingThrough all Yankee land.'Wave the stars and stripes high o'er us,Let every freeman sing,In a loud and joyful chorus:Brave young Corn is King!Join, join, for God and freedom! Sing, Northmen, sing:Old King Cotton's dead and buried: brave young Corn is King.'Southward rolls the cry of gladness,On past Washington;Where the bond-slave stoops no longer,But stands up, a Man!O'er battle-fields of 'Ole Virginny,'Floats the black man's song:'Brudders, God is takin' vengeanceFor de darky's wrong!Shout, shout, for God and Freedom! Sing, darkies, sing!Ole Massa Cotton's dead foreber: Young Massa Corn am King!'Through the Mississippi valley,Down the river's tide,Hosts of patriots rush to rallyOn their Country's side;And across the green savannahsOf the Southern clime,Armies, under Union banners,To this song keep time:'March, march, for God and Freedom! Sing, soldiers, sing!Pallid Cotton's dead and buried: Yellow Corn is King!'Let the tidings swell o'er oceanTo another shore,Till proud England pales and tremblesWhere she scoffed before!Ne'er again shall serpent-friendshipRise to hiss and sting!Cotton leagues no more withTraitors:Honest Corn is King!Jubilate! God and Freedom! Sing, Americans, singTyrant Cotton's dead forever! Honest Corn is King!

Among the Pines. By Edmund Kirke. New-York: J. R. Gilmore, 532 Broadway. 1862.

Perhaps it is not altogether in rule to say much of a work which has appeared in our pages. But we may at least call attention to what others have said. And good authority—plenty of it, such authority as should make a reputation for any book—has declaredThe Pinesto be in truth a work of the highest merit and of a new order. It is a perfectly truthful record of scenes and characters drawn from personal experience in the South; combining the accuracy of Olmstead's works with the thrilling interest ofUncle Tom. It should be fairly stated—as the author desires it should be—that every thing did not occur precisely in the order in which it is here narrated. But all istrue—every page speaks for itself in this particular. No stronger piece of local coloring ever issued from the American press. We seem, in reading it, to live in the South—to know the people who come before us. All of them are, indeed, life-portraits. In one or two instances, the very names of the originals remain unchanged.

In it the author deals fairly and honorably with the South. The renegade Yankee, and not the native planter, is made to bear the heaviest blow. The principal character, Colonel J——, is one of nature's noblemen, struggling through aristocratic education and circumstance with an evil whose evil he cannot comprehend. Very valuable indeed are the sketches of life among the 'mean whites.' No descriptions of them to be compared with these inThe Pineshave ever yet appeared. They rise clear as cameo-reliefs on a dark ground, and we feel that they too are like the slave-holder, victims like the slave, of a system, and not with him, deliberate wretches. Their squalor, ignorance, pride, and dependence—their whole socialstatus, inferior to that of the blacks whom they despise, appear as set forth, we do not say by a master-hand, butby themselves.

This work, tolerant and just, yet striking, has appeared at the right time. While interesting as a novel, it is full of solid, simple facts—it is based on them and built up with them. Without attempting to set forth a principle, it shows beyond dispute that slavery does not pay in the South as well as free labor would, and that the blacks would produce more as free laborers than as slaves. It shows that Emancipation for the sake of the White Man is a great truth, and that the white man would be benefited by raising the sense of independence in the black, and by elevating him in every way in which he is capable of improvement.

It may be said with great truth ofThe Pines, that it would be difficult to find a book in which such striking facts and vivid pictures are set forth with such perfect simplicity of language. There is no effort at fine writing in it, and no consciousness of its absence. The author never seems to have realized that a story could be told for effect, and the natural result has been the most unintentional yet the strongest effect. The practical eye of one familiar with planks and turpentine, building and farming, business and furniture, economy and comfort, betrays itself continually. He sees how things could be bettered not as a mere philanthropist would try to see them, but as one who knows how capital ought to be employed, and he appreciates the fact that the sufferings of the people of every class in the South are really based on thewastefulnessof the present system. That this spirit should be combined with a keen observation of local humor, and in several instances with narratives imbued with deep pathos, is not, however, remarkable. The man who can most vividly set forth facts and transfer nature to paper, seldom misses variety.

We rejoice that this work has met with such favorable reception from the public, and are happy to state that the author will continue his contributions to these columns. He has already, by a single effort, established a wide-spread reputation, and we know that he has that in him which will induce efforts of equal merit and a future which will be honorably recorded in histories of the literature of the present day.

Thomas Hood's Works. Volume IV. Aldine Edition. Edited byEpes Sargent. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K. Loring. 1862.

No better paper, no better type, can be desired than what is lavished upon these beautiful editions of Putnam's works. It is a pleasure to touch their silky, Baskerville-feeling leaves, and think that one possesses in the series one more workde luxe, which 'any one' might be glad to own. The present consists of The Whims and Oddities, with the—originally—two volumes of National Tales: the former piquant and variously eccentric; the latter written in a quaint, old-fashioned style, which the editor compares justly to that ofBoccaccio, yet which was really, till within some fifty years, so very common a form of narration, having so much in common with Spanish and Frenchnouvelettes, that it is hardly worth while to suppose thatHoodfollowed the great. Italian at all. The whole work is one mass of entertainment, none the worse for having acquired somewhat of a game-y flavor of age, and for gradually falling a little behind the latest styles of humor. 'Mass! 'tis a merry book, and will make them merry who read it!'

The Works of Thomas Hood. Edited byEpes Sargent. Vol. V. New-York: G. P. Putnam. 1862.

The present volume of Hood's writings is composed of dramatic sketches, odes, political satires, and miscellaneous pieces not generally contained in former collections of his works. Among these is the long and beautiful 'Lamia' in dramatic form; the 'Epping Hunt;' the poems of sentiment; the inimitable Odes and Addresses to Great People, and some scores of minor poems, mostly humorous, including, however, all of those on which his reputation as a true poet of the highest rank is based. Among these is the 'Lay of the Laborer,' a standing and bitter reproach to England—the England of millions of pounds of capital—the England of piety—the England of morality—the England of 'all the rights of man,' where there are more paupers and more miseries than in any other land on earth, and where there is accordingly the most social tyranny of any country.

'Ay, only give me work,And then you need not fearThat I shall snare his worship's hare,Or kill his grace's deer.''Where savage laws begrudgeThe pauper babe its breath,And doom a wife to a widow's lifeBefore her partner's death.'

When England shall have turned aside the reproach of this poem, it will be time for her to abuse America as 'uncivilized.'

Agnes of Sorrento, By Mrs.Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1862.

If there be, at the present day, an ungrateful task for an intelligent reader or a conscientious reviewer, it is to be obliged to deal with a work whose whole compass is merely that of a second-rate romance inspired by rococo sentimentalism. We regret to speak thus of a book by so eminent a writer as Mrs. Stowe; but when any one at this time undertakes to build up a novel out of such material as cloisters, monks, and nuns,Beato Angelico and frankincense, cavaliers and Savonarola, with the occasional 'purple patch' of a rhyming Latin hymn—in short, when we see the long-exhausted melo-dramatic style, which was years ago thoroughly quizzed in 'Firmilian,' revived in the year 1862 in a work of fiction, we can not refrain from expressing sorrow that a public can still be found to welcome such a bouquet of faded and tattered artificial flowers. There is something, indeed, almost painfully amusing in the liberal use of perfectly exhausted and thoroughly hackneyed elements of popular romance which appear in every page ofAgnes of Sorrento. A writer has said of the heroine, that 'she is one of those ethereal females, only encountered in romance, who dwell on the brink of exaltation, and never eat bread and butter without seeming to fly in the face of Divine Providence.' But this feebly expresses the worn-out ornamental piety of the work. It would require but very little alteration to become one of the most intensely amusing books of the age.

Seventh Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioners of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

An interesting collection of documents, which will be read or examined with great pleasure by all who devote their attention to the rapidly maturing science of insurance, a science which perhaps combines in its range of material as much of the curious and useful as any other known; the whole tending to one great lesson: that every thing should be insured and thatno insurance should be taxed by Government.

Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of The Board of Education. Boston: William White. 1862.

Apart from the vastly important testimony which these works bear to the efforts annually made in our good State in the cause of education—the great source, let us trust, of the politics to be—we seldom fail to find in them many useful hints as to the practical business of teaching, of which any writer on the subject would be glad to avail himself. Many such, at least, we detect in the volume before us, and sincerely trust that all will in due time bear their good fruit.

Concord Fight. ByS. R. Bartlett. Second edition. Concord: Albert Tracy. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 1862.

A poem of thirty-two pages, devoted to setting forth the incidents of Concord and Lexington fights, in the Revolutionary days, and therefore very appropriate to our own time. The 'plan' is excellent; the incidents well devised, while many little lyrical touches here and there are truly admirable. For instance, 'The White Cockade.'

'Firm hearts and true, strong bands to do,For liberty;The fierce old strain rings once again:'Come death or victory!''The lips that woke the dawning noteAre passed away;But theechoesof the 'White Cockade'Ring round our hills to-day.'

Long may they ring, and long may the descendants of the men of '76 prove that they still hear in spirit 'the dawning notes.'

The English journals and statesmen, in their excessive anxiety to regulate every thing for the world in general and for America in particular, quite lose sight of the fact, that before interfering in a neighbor's affairs, it is best to know what the state of affairs may really be. Of late, we have seen these makers of public opinion making mischief through gross ignorance, to a degree well-nigh unparalleled in history. On the strength of flying rumors, unfinished events imperfectly reported, and through Secession slanders, their great leaders, both representative and editorial, have ventured to spread before the masses statements which must unavoidably tend to greatly exasperate and alienate the people of our respective nations. They are blindly running up scores of hatred, which at some day may call for fearful settlement. Their influence is very great on the rank-loving multitude in their own country—a multitude which, after all, is, in the majority, more miserable and nearly as ignorant as that of any realm in Europe, or even the East, for there are fewer paupers in Turkey or Syria than in wealthy England. Yet, quite unheeding this, they continue to express sympathy for the South, declare with Brougham that the bubble of Democracy has at length burst, and chuckle over every Northern defeat. All of which shall be duly remembered.

The grossest error into which these men have fallen, is that of continually regarding our war not as a struggle between two great principles, or as an unavoidable necessity, but simply as a strife between two factions. Nearly every London editorial which we have seen for weeks proves this. 'What will the North gain if it conquers the South? What will the South make? What areWEto benefit by a victory of either?' It is perfectly natural, however, for a monarchy, virtually without 'politics,' devoid of great progressive ideas, and smothered by 'loyalty' and faith in an aristocracy, to see, as men did in the middle ages, nothing but a dispute of rival forces in every battle. It is 'Brownvs. Brown' to them, and nothing more. With the exception of Bright and his friends, no one in England seems to comprehend that our North has in itself the vital, progressive energy whichmustgive it victory—the same spirit which enables English civilization to gain on the Hindoo or the New-Zealander—the spirit of science and intelligence, which conquers ignorance.

The fact that English statesmen can talk so calmly of the possibilities of Southern victory, and weigh with such equanimity the claims of the combatants, simply proves their ignorance of the real condition of the United States. And theyareindeed very ignorant of us. Perhaps ignorance and thoughtlessness were never more decidedly manifested than in Brougham's late rhodomontade on the failure of Democracy in this country. For, in fact, there is not difference enough between the representativepowerof England and that of America to make a question. Between Commons and our House of Representatives—the most influential legislative bodies—there is no such great difference. English writers have asserted that our government is actually the strongest monarchy of the two, because our President possesses far greater power of patronage and personal influence than the Queen. The real difference is not between the forms of government, but between the innate flunkeyism of the Briton and the independence of theAmerican. If we had the British government in every detail, and if John Bull were to adopt our system, the countries would stand where they were, and each gradually 'reform' itself, according to its ideas of reform, back into the old routine. The Englishman, needing 'my Lord' and 'Her Gracious Majesty,' and as unable to live without his golden calves of 'superiors' as bees are to exist without a queen, would soon create them; while the American blood, sprung from the republican Puritan, and developed into strength on a continent, would very soon, after a nine days' féte to his new fétish, kick it over, and instituting caucuses and primary ward-meetings, or 'town-meetings,' (a ceremony which no European in existence, save the Russian, is capable of properly managing,) would soon have all back again in the old road.

Democracy among the 'Yankees' as well as all North-Americans who are free from a servile respect for simple rank and money, is something very different from that mere form which Brougham, and with him nearly all Europe, believe it to be. We are not Frenchmen, or Englishmen, or Orientals, to quietly sit down under any kind of government which chance may impose, and exclaim: 'It is fate.' Democracy with us is not the mere form which they imagine. It is, like the English government, like the German, like the Pachalik of the Oriental, something as much a part of us as our national physiognomy. A very great proportion of the Englishmen who come here, remain flunkeys to the end—an American, other than a soul-diseased disciple of Richmond sociology, or some weak brother or sister dazed by court ball-tickets—quite as generally remain a despiser of men who acknowledge other men as their betters by mere birth. A love of freedom is in our blood, in our life, in our habits. We are fond, it is true, of temporarily lionizing great people, but we soon reduce them to our own level. America has shaken down more eminencies into notorieties than any other country in the world—it is a severe and terrible ordeal for great foreigners. Our eagerness to behold them is simply a keen curiosity and a natural love of amusement which is soon appeased. An American would crowd foremost to see Queen Victoria for the first time in his life—the second opportunity would be neglected. But the London shop-keeper who has seen that lady perhaps hundreds of times, still rushes out in wild haste, with eyes wide open, to behold her when she drives past. 'They can never get enough of it.' As one of their own writers has observed, a London tradesman may have been swindled a hundred times by real or sham noblemen, and yet no sooner does some flaunting cheat with theair nobleenter his shop, than the cockney bows low and implores patronage with a cringing zeal only equaled by his 'uppishness' to humbler customers.

The truth simply is, that English thinkers wrongly judge our people to be like their own, and as capable of promptly submitting to acknowledged superiors. In the same blindness and ignorance, they see only two parties, equal in all respects in this war, and realize nothing of the innate vitality and irresistibly accretive power of free-labor, science, and progress, when brought into opposition with a conservatism which scorns every thing pertaining to the rights of the majority. Misled by their associations, they believe that the 'Aristocratic' party must triumph in the end, forgetting that even in their own country capital is gradually destroying the old land-marks which divided the privileged classes from the masses. We who virtually occupy a higher stand-point in history, though, perhaps, we are newer dwellers in our domain and not as yet as comfortable in it as they in theirs, can, however, afford to laugh at their opinions and threats. A nation, whose utmost effort could not raise above thirty thousand men for a war in which the point of honor between themselves and the French was at stake, is not the one to lay down laws to the American North,which could—probably without drafting—bring its million into the field. It is worth remembering that, had they sent us their Warrior, as they threatened after the Mason and Slidell difficulty, she would have met with the Monitor!

Three hundred thousand men are wanted—and that right early!

Let there be meetings, speeches, subscriptions—let every thing that is vigorous and impulsive and patriotic thrill the people forthwith: Let there be no lagging in the good cause. Never since the war begun was there a time when a fierce rally was more needed. We have it in our power to crush this rebellion to atoms, if the people will but once arouse in their might. Even this draft for three hundred thousand, when we come to portion it off among those remaining in our counties, becomes quite trifling.

'More than shooting goes to making war.' All who are in the North can fight to good purpose, if they will, every man and woman of them,do their bestto raise soldiers, equip them and take care of their families.

Men! rise up and go forth. You will acquire a patent of nobility by serving in this war, which will be worth more to you and yours in coming days than any title on earth. You go to great risks—but not to any thing which can outweigh the good you can do for this truly holy cause. Have you lived lives 'of no great account'—nowis the time to rise to a position—to be some body, and make your mark. Have you been a mere cipher in the great sum of life—a neglected trifle—now is the time to raise yourself to a real value. It can never be said of a man who served in this war that he was of no great account.

Has your life been stained—by misfortune or your own faults? Now is the time to wipe out the old score and begin afresh. What cautious, timid Peace rejects as bad, bold, hearty War grasps at with eagerness and makes good and great.

Are you poor, and dragging out a dull, base life, more sluggishly than your abilities deserve? Go to the war—in God's name, go to the war! Who knows what changes in life you may live through—what new opportunities may open before you! In that wide Southland lie a million homes, and there will be those left behind who—if you fight bravely—will give the matter no rest till you are richly rewarded. There is not a soldier in this war at this instant who is not acquiring what may be a fortune.Somebodymust occupy the lands left vacant in the South!

Are you a lover? Make her proud of you.

Do not fear the risks. That is a poor, wretched life which has never run the chances of death.

'Fast in battle the bullets fly,But many a soldier the bullets pass by.'

Arise all! Up, Guards, and at 'em! Let there be a general up-stirring and a hearty good-will in this matter. The enemy have brought every white man among them into the field—they are kept alive solely by the blacks. One tremendous effort, such as we are capable of making, would sweep them from the face of the earth. Another struggle and we reach the shore.

Many years ago, the South began to alienate itself from the Union, by blindly abusing every thing pertaining to the North as 'Abolition.' They wanted a grievance; they would have one, and so yelled 'Wolf! wolf!' till the wolf came in roaring earnest. In like manner, the Democratic dabblers in mischief are now yelling 'Radical,' abusing emancipation, and doing all in their power to hoist themselves into notoriety. They are determined to force separate parties into existence, and they will end by accomplishing their purpose, by being in a losing reactionary minority, which will bear the brand in later days of having been the most unprincipled, narrow-minded, and desperately selfish faction which this country has ever known.

Gentle reader, accept the following from a friend in the quaint spirit in which it is written, and understand not by bad company aught that is evil—for if we read the word of the enigma, the 'bad' among her 'friends of the future' is indeed goodness-that saving salt which is often found among many who are too hastily banned as lost in the world. So, we pray you, judge it kindly:

'There is no real amusement except in bad company.'—Italian Proverb.

Reprehensible but real sentiment of your humble servant, O dearly beloved reader! Your lips reprove me, but your heart forgives and sympathizes! And that heart rebels with mine against that adverse Past which has given to us so little of 'real amusement' from 'bad company,' and demands, like mine, reparation from the Future for the sufferings we have endured from unexceptionable and perfectly good company!

The representative men and women of that small and select bad company, (who have made the desert of our lives to blossom with roses, violets, strawberries and cream,) how distinctly they stand out on the horizon of memory! I see them—I count them, as easily as those few stately pines on yonder hill-top—one, two, three, four, five, six,seven. No more? What! not a delightful eight? Who has translated the murmur of the summer wind among the pines as 'No more?' 'No more?' Alas! to-day they give that answer to me, as I seek for one other in that bad and beloved company! 'But he cometh'—adveniat—he cometh in the future. O eighth! your morning will yet dawn.

Welcome, O Friend of the Future I whatever thy sex. Welcome! whether in cashmere and graceful crinolineaments, or in gray-suit andgrecio!—only be 'more of the same sort.' Heaven isnotso cruel! to give us five hundred dear twin-friends, on whom one has to tie five hundred different colored bows (I assure you, Monsieur, the ribbon-florists have this season producedfive hundred colors) in order to distinguish one from another! Heaven would not do this cruel wrong without offering some apology—some mitigation.

Ah! you sigh. Your heart, then,doesforgive me—I knew it would. Give me your hand, (such a soft, white hand!) I confess the proverb didsounda little naughty, but it's notreallyso. At all events, it is thetruth—and, you know, we

'Can not tell a lie!' G. W.

Ah! this hand, though soft and white, is no longer plump and unconscious; it hassuffered! You, too, have been bored—ah! Imustkiss it.

'I, too, am human.'

I also have been bored! Come, now, you mistrust me no longer-and I—I love you! Iloveyou, and, therefore, I want to amuse you; perhaps, by Heaven's blessing, I may prove 'bad company' myself!

For I can not but believe that somewhere in the purple Future, or latent amid the green leaves of the possible Fairy-dom, (in which some rich enchanter of an uncle is to lea-re us all an heritage,) there bide, waitingly, certain dear friends—delightful, daring, witty, and wicked creatures—like yourself, O reader I—with whom I am destined to be, spiritually, 'very much married indeed;' or if the expression sound too polygamatical, let me simply saylié.[For Heaven's sake, accept that as French, warm with an accent, and not as English, cold without one.]Liémeans 'bound'—anchored, so to speak, to an intimate in an amicable manner. And it is in their friendship—in their kind and tender words and courteous deeds, and winsome ways, that I most trulylive.

Where these dearmost ones may bide, I know not. Seven—yes—seven I have met, whom I cherish like diamonds of delight in the cotton of memory. It is worth noting, my dear, in this connection, thatsev-enis one of the conjugations in Turkish of the rootsev, or 'loving,' and 'them old Turks,' you know—but I am digressing. Are there not still to come seven—yea, seventy times seven, (I have mislaid my Koran, in which the number is more accurately stated,) of my Friends of the Future!

But I know what they are like. Oh! the charming, delightful wretches, how I enjoy looking at them—in fact, 'I admire to see' them—as they sweep along through the golden halls of my Schloss Dream-berg. Such nice clothes as they wear—the ducks! Such good things as they say—such—such—

It is too warm to-day to attempt superlatives. It were better to drink—say, iced lemonade, in which—for you, dear reader—by some mistake alittlesherry has been cobblered.Sherrare est humanum. The Rabbis, we are told, forbade the children of Israel to puff the fire on the Sabbath with bellows, though they might keep it going by blowing through a straw. Wherefore, to this day, certain of the devout 'keep it a-going' by means of a straw—only by some strange mistake in interpretation, or by some vowel-points getting mislaid, they, instead of blowingfromthem in the straw, sucktowardthem. And their 'society' is a large one.

But we were talking of 'good company,' as they say in 'good society'—not of 'good society,' as they say in 'good company.' And, therefore, althoughnot'a retired clergyman,' and devoutly hoping that my 'sands of life' are not by a very long while 'run out,' (for I want to see my future friends,) I would yet (without these advantages) offer you 'some slight relief,' and would seek to assuage your sufferings resulting from too much good company; and since we have so few friends in the past who have amused us, turn we our 'regards' to the possible

First among whom is

BAGNOLE.Face such as would-be Byron youths all crave,Impenetrable, gloomy as the grave;Voice, a 'French-gray,' the promise of the face,You'd swear he thought tolaugh, a deep disgrace.Behold the mask of a bacchantine soul,Drinking deep draughts from life's enchanting bowl.Whether the bowl be from Cellini's hand.If rude, still crowning it with Fancy's flowers,Laughing at Time, and flirting with her Hours.He is not pious, and to church won't go;He says hecan't—'tis so extremely slow.'Bagnolè! with the 'goats' you're set apart'And yet, howcanwe wish a 'change of heart'In one like thee—great-minded, brave, and true!Ah!whata world, if all were such as you!But I forget—he's tender to the weak:To the sad Magdalene he'll kindly speakWords ofpure gold—not that base metal thingWhich falls like lead and gives no friendly ring;Opening the wound, to see if it is deep,Arousing thought, to see if' tis asleep!'Tendir and treue,' us Douglas was of old,How fartheysee, who call thee 'tame and cold'!Tame! as a tiger: cold! as hot as flame!Wheredoes he board, and what, oh!what'shis name?

L'INCONNUE.Dark Passion-flower, with keen mimosa-leaves,Into my life your fate her shuttle weaves.How long those wistful eyes have haunted mine—Brown eyes of earth—they have no light divine.Brown eyes! ye fill my soul with burning love—No Pantheon soul—lighted from above!O sister mine! you'll come to me at last—Thatshall atone for all our weary past.So pure thou art, with soul so joyous,free.The world could not forgive—and hated thee!To be 'unlike the world,' is thy dark sin.You or 'the world'? the 'you' my heart shall win.Within that shrine, so delicately fair,Burns a bright spirit which 'a world' can dare;She mocks 'the world,' but she woulddieforme.Her heart is fathomed by eternity;And yet she's always 'in the fashion' dressed,And 'wants a cashmere,' (she to me confessed.)Oh! you can see her, almost any day,Hat of pale violet, dress of silver-gray.She goes to parties and the 'Music-Hall;'She eats her dinner, and she gives a ball.You nod and smile: 'We know her now—we see!'Perhaps! Alas! she'squiteunknown to me!

MARIE.How can I tell you if her face be fair,While the gay sunshine of her smile is there?How can I tell you of a brilliant mind,When every word she speaks is angel-kind?Need I describe her voice, so melting sweet?Or the small mouth, which is its passage meet!I only know, while for her voice I wait,I see fair pearls behind that rosy gate.But when she speaks, her diamond-wit's so bright,All other beauties vanish from our sight.No need forherto fear 'the world's rebuff!Too much of Marie's always just enough IShe is 'bad company,' yet e'en 'the good'Can find no flaw in her fair maidenhood.The saints don't doubt that she is intheirfold—It makes me laugh to think how they are 'sold.'Nice,naughtyfolks aresure, she's oftheircreed,Yet she's no hypocrite, in word or deed.Whatisshe, then—this gem without a flaw?She is—she is—a maid-en made of 'straw'!

Reader, have you in your house avivariumoraquarium, or any other variety of animal curiosity-shop, under care of the younger members? If so, the subjoined sketch may awaken in your mind more than one vivid souvenir, We know, at all events, that some of its 'features' were founded on facts; that is, if a 'feature' can be 'founded.' However, we take the phrase from—but no, we are sufficiently abused by the Democratic editors, as it is.

Editor of the Continental: Among the lesser joys of maternity, that of having your children interested in a vivarium is one of the least—in fact, it is an elephantine sorrow.

James, my eldest son, is a genius; before he was twelve years old, he invented a rat-trap, which not only caught rats, but cut off their tails and—let them go. At thirteen, he spoke Italian so fluently that he caused a hand-organ grinder to throw a brick at him. At fourteen, he came home one day with six large panes of glass, some tin and putty, and made a vivarium, a thing full of mud, water, leeches, dirty weeds, and other improvements.

When James had finished his glass case, he placed it in the front drawing-room window, so that the public might behold that exquisite process of nature, tadpoles turning into spring water-chickens, as they call frogs on hotel bill of fares. Unfortunately, the gold fish he put in with them killed the tadpoles while they still wiggled, and a pickerel that he had bought of a fellow-school-boy for half-price, its tail being ragged, ate up the gold-fish.

If at any time vegetables bought for the table were missing, we all knew where they went to; in fact, that vivarium, from the time green peas came until cabbages were ripe, resembled asoupe à la Jardinière, and in summer-time a second course of boiled fish might easily have been found there.

One evening, when I had a little company, and while Fanny Schell was singing an aria, he caused her to conclude with an unusually high scream, by announcing at the top of his voice, while he pointed to the vivarium:

'Ma, the leeches have all crawled out!'

Imagine the feelings my little company had the rest of the evening.

I shall never forget the fright James gave me one hot night in July; it was Saturday, I remember well, for that was one of my son's holidays, and he returned home toward night unusually covered with mud, from a long walk in the country, evidently having been taking practical lessons in ditching. He was so very quiet after he returned, that I might have known he was in mischief. However, when his bed-time came, he kissed me good-night, and said:

'O ma! I have such a surprise for you in the morning.'

Unfortunately, I had the surprise that night. Business called my husband away from the city that morning, and I was alone. Waking up from a sound sleep about midnight, I distinctly heard somebody working on an anvil, like a blacksmith, 'ching-a-ling! ching-a-ling!' It evidently came from the drawing-room, and my fears at once told me it was a thief trying to break into the house. Next I heard some one whistle, like a man calling a dog, 'wheh! wheh! wheh!' Finally a dog barking, 'woo, woo, wooh!' Thoroughly alarmed, I sprang to the front-window, and called: 'Police! thieves!' until I managed to arouse the neighbors. I had the key of the front-door in my chamber; this I threw down to a police-officer, and in company with two others he boldly entered the house, lit the gas, and found—that vivarium full of bull-frogs!

My son banished the frogs and introduced cat-fish, (or, as they call them in Boston, 'horn-pouts.') One night, my great Angora cat, a cat born in the Rue de Seine, educated in the best FrenchÉcole des chattes, and brought to this country by my husband, fell a victim tola gourmandise, by falling into the vivarium while fishing for cat—horn-pout—fish. James found her there in the morning, drowned, and partially eaten up by those she had hoped to eat. She went into theboudoirto Pout, and 'had done it.'

That finished the vivarium. I sincerely hope these trials to mothers will never again become the rage, and that something dry will next tempt our children's mania for home amusements.Cornelia.

'The Kansas John Brown Song,' which lately appeared in these columns, and which we credited to the KansasHerald—following the lead of the newspaper where we found it—was written by the Rev. William W. Patton, of Chicago, for theTribuneof that city.

Though so often trampled down by the heel of patriotism, the old serpent of treason and disunion still keeps lifting his head and hissing venomously. In New-York, Fernando Wood—that incarnation of Northern secession—the man who dared to issue a proclamation recommending the inhabitants of the city of which he was mayor to go off with the South, is plotting and planning (unpunished, of course) with spirits of kindred baseness, to build up the old order and reestablish the rule of corruption. At Washington, all the timid, time-serving, and place-hoping members of Congress have been holding 'Conservative' meetings, at which the most insolent or timid propositions have been put forth; some of the traitors manifesting clear as day their undisguised sympathy for the rebels, others speaking only to preserve their tattered characters as Unionists. The upshot of all was given in a resolution that Congress has no power to deprive a person of his property, unless that person has been duly convicted by a trial by jury.

We are not through the war as yet. Possibly, ere the end come, the country may have something to say as to the propriety of our representatives holding meetings to protect and favor rebels in their 'rights.'

What'sin a name? There was a great puzzle once inonename, as appeareth from the following:

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