EDITOR'S TABLE

Life and Letters of Washington Irving. By Pierre Irving. Vol. II. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K. Loring. 1862.

We have perused this second volume of 'Irving's Life and Letters' with even greater relish than the first, and return sincere thanks to its editor for the zeal and skill shown in his work. Such compilations, when notverywell done, are proverbially dull; it is therefore the highest compliment which we can pay to say that the work thus far is extremely interesting. We have in it, as in the brilliant memoir of some great man of the world, constantly recurring glimpses of world-wide celebrities, pictures of travel, bits of gossip of people in whom every body is interested, the whole interwoven with the kindliest and most genial traits of character. If Irving's works are essential to every library, it may be said with equal truth that the 'Life and Letters' are quite as inseparable from the works themselves.

Bayard Taylor's Works. Northern Travel. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K. Loring.

Within a few years the tide of English and of American travel has flown far more than of old over Scandinavia, a land so little known as to bear a prestige of strange mystery to many. Books of travel describing it are comparatively rare; it has not, like Germany or England, been 'done to death,' and the consequence is, that a good book describing it, like this of Taylor's, has a peculiar charm of freshness and of novelty. In it, as in every volume of his travels, Bayard Taylor gives us the impression that the country in question is his specialty and favorite, the result being a thoroughly genial account of all he saw. Readers not familiar with this series may be pleased to know that as regards typography, illustration, and binding, it is in all respects elegant, though furnished at an extremely moderate price.

Edwin Brothertoft. By Theodore Winthrop. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

To a certain extent novels are like dishes; while there is no dispute as to the surpassing excellence of a few, the majority are prized differently, according to individual tastes. Public opinion has unanimously rated the Winthrop novels highly, some readers preferring 'Cecil Dreeme,' while to judge by the press, it would seem that 'Edwin Brothertoft' best pleases the majority. It is certainly a book of marked character, and full of good local historical color. The author had one great merit—he studied fromlifeand truth, and did not rehash what he had read in other novels, as do the majority of story-tellers at the present day, when a romance which isnotcrammed with palpable apings of 'Jane Eyre' and 'Adam Bede' is becoming a rarity. In 'Edwin Brothertoft' we have a single incident—as in 'John Brent'—the rescue of a captive damsel by a dashing 'raid,' as the nucleus, around which are deftly woven in many incidents, characters, and scenes, all well set forth in the vigorous style of a young writer who was deeply interested in his own work. That he is sometimes rather weakly grotesque, as in his sporting with the negro dialect, which in the person of a servant he affects to discard and yet resumes, is a trifle. That he shows throughout the noblest sympathies and instincts of a gentleman, a philanthropist, and a cosmopolite is, however, something which can not be too highly praised, since it isthese indications which lend a grace and a glory to all that Winthrop wrote.Noblesse obligeseems to have been the great consciousness of his nature, and he therefore presented in his life and writings that high type of a gentleman by birth and culture, who without lowering himself one whit, was a reformer, a progressive, yes, a 'radical' in all things where he conceived that the root to be extracted was a great truth.

In many things 'Edwin Brothertoft' is most appropriate to these our times, since its scenes are laid in that Revolutionary War for the cause of freedom, of which this of the present day is, in fact, a repetition. We feel in its every page the anxiety and interest of war, an American war for the right, sweeping along through trials and sorrows. To characterize it in few words, we may say that in it the author reminds us of Cooper, but displays more genius andlifethan Cooper ever did.

Out of His Head. By T. B. Aldrich. New-York. Carleton.

It is said that the 'grotesque' romance is going out of fashion; if this be so, the beautiful and quaint collection of interwoven fancies before us proves that in literature as in horticulture, the best blooms of certain species are of the latest. Strange, indeed, is the conception of this work—the fancied biography of one literally 'out of his head,' who imagines himself surrounded by a world of people who act very singularly. Madmen are never ordinary; therefore the writer has not, while setting forth the most extraordinary fancies, once transgressed the limits of the probable. This was a bold stroke of genius in the very inception, and it is developed with a subtle tact which can hardly fail to claim the cordial admiration of the most carping critic. It is true that in using the strange aberrations of a lunatic as material for romance, Aldrich has provoked comparison with some of the world's greatest writers; and it is to his credit that he has met them evenly, and that too without in any particular incurring the charge of plagiarism. But had thethemaof the work been less ingenious or striking, its defects would have been unnoticed among the beautiful pictures, the unconscious breathings of poetry, and the sweet caprices which twine around the strange plot, as the tendrils and leaves of the vine cover over, yet indicate by their course the fantastic twinings of the parent vine. It is needless to say, that we commend this most agreeable work to our readers. We are glad to see that 'Père Antoine's Date Palm' which has attained so great a popularity, and several other fascinating tales by Aldrich, are incorporated into the present volume as the 'library' of the hero.

Les Miserables. III. Marius. By Victor Hugo. New-York: Carleton.

'Sure an' didn't I tell ye I was apoorscholar,' said the young Irish sham-student-beggar to the gentleman who refused him alms because he could not read. In the same strain, as it seems to us, Victor Hugo might reply to the wearied readers of these tales: 'Why, do they not call themselves miserable?' Miserable indeed is the 'Marius' installment now before us—a mere sensation plot, brilliantly patched here and there with thepurpureus pannus, or purple rag of a bit of imperial or later history, 'coached' up for display, but falling lamentably into what under any other name would be called a gross imitation of Eugène Sue. The point of the present volume, to which its scenes tend, is, of course, a robber's den—a decoyed victim—the police in waiting, and a tremendous leap from a window—the whole suggesting Mr. Bourcicault's moral sensational drama, or rather its French originals, to an amusing extent. Still thegeniusof the author, always erratic, of course, is shown in more than one chapter. The trials and sufferings of 'Marius,' and his noble independence of character, as well as the peculiar and widely differing traits of his friends the students are set forth with great spirit, and with the intention of a good purpose. Victor Hugo is in all his works unequalunless we except 'Hans of Iceland,' which is completely trashy throughout; but he was never more so than in 'The Miserables.' We have spoken of this third part as though its first title were an illustration of thenomen et omenso much believed in of old. We may add that like theMoisof Alexandre Dumas, it has simply anstoo much,

The Fly-ing Dutchman. By John Q. Saxe. Illustrated. New-York: Carleton. 1862.

An amusing little series of pictures, drawn and written, setting forth the accidents which befell a 'Dutchman' in catching a fly.

The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough. With a Memoir. By Charles Eliot Norton. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

Arthur Hugh Clough was an English gentleman of high university education and honors, and gifted with liberal and progressive views in politics, who, after distinguishing himself somewhat in his native land, resided for one year in this country as an instructor at Cambridge, Mass. On returning to England to take a place in the Education Department of the Privy Council, he wrote: 'I am rather unwilling to be re-Englished after once attaining that higher transatlantic development. However,il faut s'y soumettre, I presume, though I fear I am embarked in the foundering ship. I hope to heaven you'll get rid of slavery, and then I shouldn't fear but you would really 'go ahead' in the long run. As for us and our inveterate feudalism, it is not hopeful.'

It is needless to say that an English poet with such feelings must be, if not vigorous, liberal, and original, at least ambitious of becoming such, and this Clough is. A vigorous naturalism, such as is becoming half the religion and all the art of the scholars and thinkers of the present day, inspires every page. Truthful yet picturesque, he is more than pleasant to read, he is goodto think, and most relishing tofeelwith. Had he been a meaner mind, he would have been a mere Adam Bede-ish pre-Raffaelite in word-painting—'the Bothie of Taber-na-vuolich,' the first poem in this volume is often photographic in its rural views, as well as in its characters. As it is, literal nature is to him material for fresh brave thought. Through all his poems, owing to this simple vigorous truth, and an innate sense of refinement, he rises head and shoulders above the 'sweet-pretty' Miss Nancy Coventry Patmores or spasmodic Alexander Smiths or other cotemporary English stuff of later poetry.

England has of late years deluged and wearied us so much with thousand times told tales of herself and her social life, and her writers have run soexceedinglyin ruts, that there are few really thinking men in America who have not begun to tire woefully of her endless novels and worn-out poetry. We could write against the whole 'connu, connu,' and at the end a 'deliver us'—from evil it might be, certainly from no great temptation. Let the world believe it—itwillsome day—Englishthoughtis at present exhausted, stagnant, and imitative. It is cursed with mannerism, even as the Chinese are cursed, and every honest man of mind knows it. In such a state of national art it is cheerful to open a volume like these poems, in which one hears, as it were, the first lark-notes of an early dawn and sees from afar a few gleams of morning red. It is not the full light nor the great poetry which reforms and awakes nations, but it is the forerunner in many things of such, and will be read with great pleasure by those who long for some faint realization of the great Nature-Art of the future.

It is evident enough that all questions between North and South must settle themselves, should the war onlygo far enough. When it comes to the struggle for life; to the last most desperate effort on either side for political and personal existence, then people will begin to open their eyes to the fact that the one who conquers must conquer effectually, and hold the vanquished at utter will. Very few among us have as yet realized this extreme case as the nations of the Old World have done a thousand times. We who lived at home, have, looking at the late wars of Europe, imagined that 'the army' might beat or be beaten, but that 'the country' and the mass of its in-dwellers would remain unharmed. We have not seen cities captured, farms laid waste, and experienced the horrors of war. When it comes to that, the case becomes desperate, and nothing is left at last but unconditional victory or defeat. Had we done so, we should have 'gone to extremes.'

The South has begun the war, dared its terrors, encountered them, and become desperate. It is win or lose with them. We too, with every loss gather fresh strength. Ere long we shall probably have every man in the Federal Union capable of bearing arms summoned to the field, and that less by Executive command than by an individual sense of duty,or dread. Our people have learned very slowly indeed what disasters may befall them in case of defeat, but they are gradually coming to the knowledge, and are displaying a rapidly advancing energy of interest and of action. They have immediate and terrible disasters from hostile armies to repel, and they have to apprehend in the future such a picture of ruin and disorganization as the result of secession as no one can bear to contemplate. We are coming to it, and may as well make up our minds at once to the fact that it is to be a Southern rule in the North or 'Northern' rule over the South—if we may call that 'Northern' which means simply the principles of the Constitution as applied to all States, and of justice as recognized by all nations. He must be blind who can not see that it is to this extreme stage of war to the knife that we are rapidly advancing, and that its result is far more likely to be complete conquest than reconciliation.

The nations of Europe are waiting for the crisis of the fever to be passed before they intervene. The sympathy of England is in great measure with the South; yet England may well doubt the expediency of any partial interference. This tremendous North can yet send forth another million if needs must be, and still leave those who with tears in their eyes and stern resolve in their hearts would plant and weave and work to sustain the soldiers a-field. When it comes to this death-struggle—when we begin to live in the war and for the war alone—where can the foe be? They have long since sunk in great measure from the social condition of peace into that olden-time state of full war, when as in Sparta, or Rome, in her early days all things in life were done solely with reference to maintaining the army. With us it has been—is as yet—very different. The voice of the highly-paid opera-singer is still heard in our large cities—Newport and Saratoga never saw gayer seasons than those of 1862—splendor and luxury are still the life of thousands, and even yet there exists in the North a large political party whoare so far from feeling that there is any desperation involved as to still dally and coquet with the political principles of the enemy, and talk largely of compromise. When it comes to the bitter end, those trivial, superficial, temporary men will, we believe, in most cases, be changed into good citizens, for necessity is a hard master.

For surely as we live it is approaching; the terrible struggle of rule or ruin, which so few have dared to anticipate. We have ever been so free from tremendous crises of life and death that even with a war devouring scores of thousands of our best men, very few have realized what wemustcome to with a brave and desperate foe. Union victories may defer such a struggle—and God grant that they have such result!—but in case they do not, what hope remains for our foe? They have fought well, they are willing to hang out the black flag; but what then? They have not and can not establish a realsuperiorityof strength, and yet have voluntarily forced upon a stronger opponent a war which must become deadly.

The tremendous enthusiasm which spread over the country on the last day of August, 1862, was after all only an awakening. The extraordinary voluntary response to President Lincoln's calls for six hundred thousand men was merely a beginning. The South, in proportion to its strength did as much long ago. But the ball is rolling on and the storm grows more terrible. We have great trials, probably, still before us, but let no one despair. Out of our agony and our desperationmustcome victory—a dire and terrible victory it may be for us all—but it will be overwhelming, and after that victory there will be left no strength in the South to lift a hand.

And in those days the different principles involved in this war will have forced themselves so fiercely to a result that those who contended for them will seem to have acted almost as vainly as those who were such children as to resist them. What will become of the Negro if the South strives to the death, dragging the North down on and after it! What became of Serfdom during the Thirty Years' War and the other desperate and exhausting wars which followed it? What will become of Cotton if new markets are opened, as they must be? England has not realized, as we are beginning to do, that there is not, can not, and will not be a time, when both combatants, mutually wearied, must let go. Men do not weary of war; the new generation grows up fiercer than its fathers. The sooner England begins to plant her cotton in Jamaica, and Asia Minor and India, the better it will be for her. Unless we gain some extraordinary Union victories this autumn, there will be but little cotton planted next year in Dixie.

We are becoming too strong and fierce for intervention. These be the days of iron-clads and of great armies. Before England and France engage in war with a desperate nation like ours, it will be well to think twice. And we are not at the end yet.

Every man and woman in the North may as well, therefore, be warned betimes, and giveallhis and her aid to forwarding this war. It will not avail to be feeble, or lukewarm, or indifferent, to wish it well and do nothing, to give a little or dribble out mere kind wishes. Every one's property is at stake, or will be, and the sooner we go to work in right earnest the better. Had we one year ago done what we are even now doing—had we sprung up like a grizzly bear on a buffalo, and given it for its insolent kick a sudden, tremendous blow, tearing through its very heart, we should not have dragged out a year of doubt. It is our curse that we are always 'just a little' behind the enemy in enthusiasm. In due time we shall be in the struggle for life—the faster we advance, the better it will be for us.

On and on and on! We are marching on, and will we, nill we, must conquer or perish.

'Ye mountains that see us descend to the shoreMust view us as victors or view us no more!'

It is written that North-America is to rise purified, regenerated, and perfectly free from the most tremendous and probably exhaustive struggle in history. Believe it, you who live in it—premonitus, premunitus—'forewarned is to be forearmed.'

If President Lincoln were to call outeveryman in the North capable of bearing arms—according to medical judgment—between the ages of sixteen and sixty, there would be less difficulty in assembling them than in drafting a minority. If it were once realized thatallmust go, allwouldgo, and with rare exceptions, right cheerfully. It is not so much the dread of battle and the trials of camp-life which keep men back as the idea that there should be any exempt. Unless the six hundred thousand be speedily brought into the field, and unless when once there, they secure us a speedy victory, the voice of the whole country will cry out for a general and unexcepted conscription.

And if so—why, then, hurrah for it! Let us show Europe and history how far a great nation can go for a great truth and for its rights. Why should we notallarise in tremendous power as whole races rose of old, and trample to the dust this insolent, slaveholding, liberty-defying foe to us and to the holiest rights of man? Such an uprising would be worthy of us—it would rank as the noblest deed of history—it would cast fresh lustre on the name, already great, of our noble President—it would be unparalleled in grandeur, in daring, and in majesty. Its very greatness would thrill the people and inspire them to do each man his utmost. Hurrah for the onward march of the millions!

Watch the times well, Father Abraham—and the instant that the time comes, call for usall.Youare not afraid of great measures—neither are your people. What a thing it would be to have led such a movement—what a glory it would be for every man who marched in the great uprising.

Let us continue by singing:

Shall Freedom droop and dieAnd we stand idle by,When countless millions yet unbornWill ask the reason why?If for her flag on high,You bravely fight and die,Be sure that God on his great rollWill mark the reason why.But should you basely fly.Scared by the battle-cry,Then down through all eternityYou'll hear the reason why.

'GreatOnionvictory!' cried a little newsboy, lately, through the streets of a certain village, wherein we were 'over-nighting,' as the Germans say. He had not well learned orthoëpy, and held thatu-n, un, was to be pronounced as in 'unctuous.' Still there are some droll sounds to be extracted from the word—witness the following song in which by a slight modulation of sound the wordUnionis made a war-cry to advance:

U-ni-on—you an' I on!It's time that you and I were gone;Gone to fight with all our might,And drive the rebels left and right;There is Uncle Sam, and I am Sam's Son,And we'll crush the Philistines with you an' I on.CHORUS.U-ni-on—you an' I on!It's time that you an' I were gone.U-ni-on, areyounigh on?It's time we were there, and the fight were won;O Old Samson! you never knewWhatthisSam's son, when he tries, can do;Your jaw-bone made the enemy flee—They shall walk jaw-bone from Tennessee.U-ni-on—you an' I on!It's time that you an' I were gone.

Reader, if the great call should come, drafting the whole North, why, pack up your blankets and travel, light of heart, remembering that whenyouare there, the secession-pool of rebellion must 'dry up' in a hurry.

Much has been said as to the degree of complicity in which the confederates were guilty in stirring up savages against us. In a 'Secesh' poem which 'De Bow' declares to be among the best which belong to the war, we find the following, which seems to have been written in the Indian interest:

'Our women have hung their harps away,And they scowl on your brutal bands,While the nimble poignard dares the dayIn their dear defiant hands;They will strip their tresses to string our bowsEre the Northern sun is set;There's faith in their unrelenting woes,There's life in the old land yet.'

Now it is very evident that if the author of the lyric was not describing Indian squaws when he alluded to the 'scowling' females whose 'nimble poignards dare the day,' he certainlyoughtto have been. But the allusion to 'the bows,' settles the matter. Bows and arrows are not used in the confederate army, though they are by Albert Pike's Indians—enough said.

But if the secessionistswillcome North, and hemp should give out, we may find a new application, with a slight alteration to the verse in question. For then our women of the North may

'Strip their tresses to stringyourbeaux.'

And serve 'em right, too. That's all. But really, if this be, in the opinion of the first magazine of the South, one of thebestof Southern poems, whatmustthe 'common sort' be?'

Gone! the South winds come again,Sweeping over bill and plain,Murmuring through the sombre pines,Singing o'er the budding vines,Bringing with them birds that singAll the glories of the spring;But they bring not back to meThe boy without whose smile earth's smilesI never see.His bed the wood-nymphs strowWith all the flowers that blow,And the sweet tones of their minim harpsHis quiet slumbers lull;For Nature was his joy,And he was Nature's toy:Where sleeps the peerless boy,She scatters with a lavish handThe bright, the beautiful.He reigns, though lost to sight!Through the long day and nightIs his sweet influence shedAround the paths I tread:He is not lost—ah! no—he is not dead.Not dead! his voice I hearWhen South winds murmur near;I feel, when stars arise,His soft and loving eyes,And from the forest flowerHis face at evening hourSmiles on me as of old,And dreamily my neck his tiny arms enfold.Not lost to joy, but lost to pain,Which never shall he feel again;Earth's acrid fruits he shall not taste,And wrong it were to chide the hasteWith which he left this barren field,That with its flowers so few, so many thorns doth yield.I can not mourn my king, for hisStill, still the kingdom is,And the cares which earth-bred kings annoy,No more disturb my king—my boy.

Do you smoke? If so, read the following:

Leaning from the balcony of the old hotel at Stresa, on the Lago Maggiore, the old hotel kept by Papa Bolangaro, and watching the sunset over Isola Bella and the lake, my friend Blome knocked away the ashes from his Vevay segar—wretched segars those—and dreamily gazed at the beautiful scene before him.

Vino Barbera, as they wrote its name in the bill, was not a bad wine; a bottle of it assisted imagination as a percussion-cap does the powder in your rifle. In the present ease it also brought on an explosion, for as Blome knocked off the segar-ashes for the second time, he heard a loud exclamation from a balcony on theprimo pianobelow him. He looked down. You have seen, I have seen, all the world has seen the Italian woman of paintings and engravings—black eyes, black hair, golden and red-peach complexion—there she was.

My friend passed down apologies for hisoversight; an oversight—bowingpreux-chevalier-ly—he was afraid unpardonable, when he saw the object he had overlooked. The beautiful Italian received the apology most charmingly. It proved the overture to a brilliant adventure culminating in Milan.

'You observe,' said Blome to me, 'what real benefits can be derived from smoking. Here have I formed the acquaintance of a very pretty woman, who will fall desperately in love with me, who will call me by my first name within two days, all through segar-ashes. I had a friend in Jena once, the university-town——'

'Where you got that sword-cut over the cheek?'

'Where I received it. Good! My friend in Jena was a theological student, a very steady young man. While others would come reeling home from the beer-kneips, he would be careful always to keep steady and under gentle sail; but he had one weakness, a want of confidence while in the presence of woman—one strong point, pipe-smoking.

'One afternoon he was smoking a pipe at his chamber-window, and regarding the passers-by in the street below. When his pipe was smoked out, he emptied its ashes in the street; as he did so, he looked down,Himmel! The ashes fell on the head of Fräulein Baumann, who dwelt in the same house in the story below him, and who was at that time knitting a pair of stockings and also looking at the passengers in the street.

'The theological student drew his head in from the window with the quickness of a turtle. He sat down and meditated.

'Now Fräulein Baumann was a good-hearted blonde, very well calculated to make a good wife to somebody, and her mother, the widow Baumann, determined that this calculation should become a mathematical certainty the first time there was any opportunity of its becoming a fixed fact. She had for some time regarded our student as the coming man. When he flung ashes at her daughter's head, the mother said to her daughter:

"Angelika, thou must find time to make a potato-salad, and see that the smoked goose is well cooked on thy wedding-day.'

"Ma, when am I going to be married, and who to?'

"Stille!here comes thy husband.'

'With great trembling the student summoned up force enough to descend the stairs, in order to make a humble apology to the Fräulein for the ashes accident. He knocked at the Frau Baumann's door, and asked to see the Fräulein; but lo! her mother stood before him with a very affable air.

"Mad-dad-ame, I have called in—in, in relation to your d—d-daughter. I——'

"Are you not the theological student, Herr Müller, who lives overhead?' asked Frau Baumann.

"I am, Mad-dame. I——'

"Be seated, I pray you, andO mein Herr! I am so glad to learn from your own lips the declaration of your love for my dearest, best, kindest daughter, Angelika. She will make you the best of wives; a nurse in affliction, a companion in distress, a soother in sorrow, a housekeeper in tribulation, a—but here she is! Angelika, my daughter, behold the Herr Müller, who has sought thy hand; give him the betrothal kiss.' Here Frau Baumann bursting into tears, left the room and the young people together.

'I draw a curtain over the thunderstruck theological student. He went in about ashes and was coming out with hymeneal torches! Before he knew where he was, he had given the betrothal kiss, and one year afterward married the blonde Angelika. If you ever meet an old lady who says smoking is beneficial, you may be sure her name is Frau Baumann, mother-in-law of our theological student.'

Shoddy is not so much heard of now. But he still lives—especially in memory and in poetry—videlicet.

Old Shoddy sits in his easy-chair,And cracks his jokes and drinks his ale,Dumb to the shivering soldier's prayer,Deaf to the widows' and orphans' wail.Hiscoat is warm as the fleece unshorn;Of a 'golden fleece' he is dreaming still:And the music that lulls him, night and morn,Is the hum-hum-hum of the shoddy-mill.Clashing cylinders, whizzing wheels,Rend and ravel and tear and pick;What can resist these hooks of steel,Sharp as the claws of the ancient Nick?Cast-off mantle of millionaire,Pestilent vagrant's vesture chill,Rags of miser or beggar bare,Allare 'grist' for the shoddy-mill.Worthless waste and worn-out wool,Flung together—a specioussham!With just enough of the 'fleece' to pullOver the eyes of poor 'Uncle Sam.'Cunningly twisted through web and woof,Not 'shirt of Nessus' such power to kill.Look! how the prints of his hideous hoofTrack the fiend of the shoddy-mill!A soldier lies on the frozen ground,While crack his joints with aches and ails;A 'shoddy' blanket wraps him round,His 'shoddy' garments the wind assails.His coat is 'shoddy,' well 'stuffed' with 'flocks';He dreams of the flocks on his native hill,His feverish sense the demon mocks—The demon that drives the shoddy-mill.Ay! pierce his tissues with shooting pains,Tear the muscles and rend the hone,Fire with frenzy the heart and brain;Old Rough-Shoddy! your work is done!Never again shall the bugle-blastWaken the sleeper that lies so still;His dream of home and glory's past:Fatal's the 'work' of the shoddy-mill.Struck by 'shoddy,' and not by 'shells,'And not by shot, our brave ones fall.Greed of gold the story tells.Drop the mantle and spread the pall.Out! on the vampires! out! on thoseWho of our life-blood take their fill.Nomeaner'traitor' the nation knows,Than the greedy ghoul of the shoddy-mill!

Some years ago, a German writer informed his astonished readers: 'Thieves are so rare in America, that I observe, from reading their journals, that those who are curious in such studies are obliged to offer a reward to find them.' To judge from a recent attempt at imposition in New-York, one might suppose that negroes were so rare in this country that we are obliged to imitate them, by way of keeping up the supply. Not long ago, a young woman, named Perry, and a Dr. Perkins, of Oneida county, engaged with a broker of the curb-stone persuasion to show off the lady as a case of gradual external carbonization; it being asserted that for four years her body had gradually been turning to charcoal! Examination by Dr. Mott and others revealed the fact that 'the supposed epidermis was made of woven cotton, into which charcoal mixed with gum had been worked.' This was tightly gummed to the fair dame, who was to have been exhibited 'in style' in a stylish house in Fourth street; but who was taken to Bellevue Hospital, to be 'ungummed,' as the French say of people who are turned out of place and lose their chances—as this damsel did. The incident will doubtless, at a future day, find a conspicuous place in the history of remarkable impostures. As it is, we conclude with the remark of a friend, to the effect that the lady, by putting the Coal On, had brought herself to a Full Stop!

We are indebted to the Amsterdam (N. Y.)Weekly Dispatchfor remarks to the effect thatThe Continental Magazineis reaching a point in American literature seldom gained at so early a period by any young magazine. 'We hail its independence of thought as the development of a new era in the literature of our land. Its matter is high-toned and interesting, it is themost outspokenprint we know of, and its outspokenness is the result of a fresh and vigorous life that is not warped by petty conventionalities.'

We thank our editorial friend for his compliment, and sincerely trust that those who have followed us in our career will not disagree with him. We honestly and earnestly believe that weareoutspoken and independent, and accountable in no earthly way to any one, or aught save our conscience and the public. We can imagine no measure for the good of the people, which we would not urge heart and soul, and we most certainly know of no public official, in any capacity, whom we should feel bound to spare in the event of his unworthiness becoming patent. We are neither Radical nor Conservative, neither anti-capital nor anti-poor-man's rights, but hold to the great and glorious creed of Labor and Intelligence hand in hand with Capital, and the harmony of their interests. We believe in constantly enlarging the area of human freedom, holding that the freer and more responsible youmake a man, the more, as a rule, will you stimulate him to improve himself. And we detest from our very soul the Southern-planter and Northern-democratic-conservative doctrine that society should consist of two grades, the first being the mudsill poor, to whom certain protections and privileges should be granted, and are due by the second or the 'higher classes;' holding that a free American, beyond a good education (to which every tax-payer contributes) should claim 'nothing from any body,' and that the less use is made of such phrases as 'lower orders,' 'aristocracy,' and 'social nobility,' the more creditable will it be for man or woman, let their 'position' be what it will.

This war has inaugurated a new era when earnest, honest thought, and bold straightforward speech alone can effect any thing. It is the time for fearlessness and straightforwardness if there ever was one in our history. We have a great war in hand, and great political reforms and measures of tremendous importance are crowding thickly around it, while others, not less mighty, are looming dimly behind them. The great principles of Republicanism, of man's capacity for self-government, of freedom and of progress, have been brought to 'the struggle for life,' and it depends upon our national American energy andhonestyto determine whether they shall live. If theyareto live, we shall be first among nations, not in the narrow, wretched sense of old-fashioned diplomacy, but in the high Christian sense of aiding all oppressed humanity in their hopes of attaining their rights. But if these principles are to perish—better would it be for this whole land to become a wilderness, and every life a death, than that we should survive the degradation. We have not yet sunk so low that there is no truth left worth dying for. There was a time when men, women, and children were martyred by countless thousands for their fidelity to the faith that extended the same religious rights to all, and now that time has come again to us, calling for fresh sacrifices to the same principle as regards earthly rights and the common happiness of mankind.

But we believe that the truth will prevail, after a sore trial, and that we shall be rewarded to the full. 'No cross, no crown.' But there is a crown after the cross, and God will give it to us. We are passing through the baptism of fire—and verily we needed it, both South and North. The South had become mad with vanity and aristocracy; the North was, is still, corrupt and rotten beyond all healthy life, with such villainy in 'politics,' and such indifference to all that was noble and honorable through the greed of gold, that honest and able men were cast aside, or at best, used as mere tools by the 'intelligent.' Now we are in the struggle for life, and rascals, whether of the Union or of the confederacy, will sooner or later be tried, tested, and rejected. The people are very patient, and they can be for a long time fooled with this or that man's reputed honesty and ability. But we have come to the time of trial, and the people will soon find who is false and what istrue.

It is not to be expected that in one year, or in two, the country will be rid of all the old, corrupt politicians and demagogues who continually work every subject of public interest into the question of a 'party.' But it is gratifying to observe that, whether Radical or Conservative, such men are beginning to be regarded with contempt. In times like these,we, at least, blame no man for honestly advocating any policy which he thinks will aid the Union cause. But the country was never more disgusted than it is at present, with men who use politics as a mere trade by which to live. The infamy which has attached to the miserable and imbecile Buchanan, that type of degraded, pettifogging diplomacy, is rapidly extending to his whole tribe—and their name is legion. It is significant that a bank, whose notes bore as vignette a portrait of the ex-honorable ex-President, has been obliged to call them in, and substitute anotherdevice, since so many of the bills were marked beneath the picture with such words as 'traitor,' and 'Judas Iscariot.'

Thepeopleare 'all right' in this struggle: but they are awaking very rapidly to the fact that those in powermustbe honest or able. The coming year is to witness either a grand sifting or a tremendous protest, whose thunder-tones will be heard through all history. It is all very well for conservatives to lay the blame on their enemies and yell for their blood; to recommend the assassination of Charles Sumner, as has been done by one Boston journal; or the hanging of all leading Radicals, as recommended time and again by the New-YorkHerald; but this will not satisfy the people who can not see how the country is to be saved by holding up and aiding the enemy. Neither, on the other hand, will the people long regard with favor any persons of the opposite party, who are suspected of having managed the war for their own selfish purposes. The old hacks who can only live for personal preferment and for plunder, will be found out, and their places taken by honester and younger men, whose minds will have been shaped, not in by-gone political pettifogging, but in the great earnest needs of the times—in honor and in truth.

Even before authentic copies of General Butler's famed 'Woman Order' had reached us, it was generally understood that he had really done very little more than enforce an already existing local law; yet 'with the word' there went up a squall from the democratic press, clamoring for his instant removal; so angry were the 'Conservatives' that any thing should be said or done which would in any way injure the 'susceptibilities' of their beloved rebel friends.

If we are reallyat war, it is neither fit nor proper that such expressions of sympathy for the enemy should continually appear, to keep alive in the heart of the foe continual hopes of Northern aid. What does the reader think, for instance, of such a paragraph as the following from the Washington correspondence of the New-YorkHerald—which has been copied with commendation by its colleagues:

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