^.i^^^^sS^ iKis?^.-. LIBRARY or CONGRESS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE Southern Student's Hand-Book OF SELECTIONS FOR Readingme Oratory. BY/ JOHN G. JAMES, Superintendent Texas Military Institute^ Austin. A. S. BARNES &> CO., NEW YORK, CHICAGO AND NEW ORLEANS. iSyq. r £^ Copyright, 1879. A. S. Barnes & Co. CONTENTS, Subjt-ct. A uihor. Page ANTONIO ORIBONI Margaret J. Preston 27 AUTUMN IN THE SWANNANOA VALLEY Zebulon B. Vance 42 AGAINST REPUDIATION B. Puryear 51 ART AND ITS INFLUENCE Alexander Dimitry 85 ADDRESS BEFORE EMORY COLLEGE SOCIE- TIES Alexander H. Stephens. . .. -«4 AFTER THE RAIN Mrs. S. R. Allen 126 ADDRESS TO THE WHITE LEAGUE OF NEW ORLEANS J. Dickson Bruns 138 ADDRESS ON FREEMASONRY V. O. King 183 EMMONS vs. ARNOLD D. C. Allen 400 ACCEPTING A GOLD SEAL OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA Charles J. Jenkins 48 ADDRESS TO GEORGIA LEGISLATURE, 1864. . ..Alexander H. Stephens. .. .326 ALABAMA, TH E Henry Timrod 131 ARCTIC VOYAGER, THE Henry Timrod 310 BIBLE, THE J. W. Miles 61 BALAKL.WA Alexander B. Meek 95 BURNS' CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, CHARLESTOWN, 1859 George S. Bryan 153 BURNING OF THE CAPITOL AT RALEIGH. . .Kemp P. Battle 270 BENNY Mrs. Chambers Ketchum... 283 BARGAIN AND SALE R. B. Mayes 340 BABY POWER Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey 351 BOSTON LECTURE ON SLAVERY Robert Toombs 390 BARE OF THE ALAMO, THE Guy M. Bryan 41 BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD, THE Theodore O'Hara 122 BAGGAGE SMASHER, THE Southern Magazine 133 BONNY BROWN HAND, THE Paul H. Haves 208 BACK LOG, THE .Innes Randolph 322 BA LL, THE Mrs Mollie E.Mooke DAVis.325 BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS, THE N. C. Brooks 346 BAND IN THE PINES, THE John Esten Cooke 370 BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, THE Sidney Lanier 140 BLUE ROBBER OF THE PINK MOUNTAIN, THE 317 CAUSE OF STATE LOYALTY AT THE SOUTH, THE William Henry Trescott. .403 CONFEDERATE DEAD, THE William Preston JoHNSTON.348 CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA, THE James Barron Hope 388 CENTENNIAL OF AMERICAN INDEPEND- ENCE, THE T. M. Norwood 396 CAUCASIAN RACE MUST RULE AMERICA, THE J. T. Morgan 161 72- iv CONTENTS. Subject. A uthor. Page CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW Paul H. Hayne 4 CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY Mrs. M. J. Yourc 56 CENTENNIAL BILL John Randolph Tuckek. ... 64 COMMENCEMENT DAY VV. D. Porter 168 COMANCHE BOY Fanny A. D. Darden 182 CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN.. . .James H. Hammond 185 CARCASSONNE John R. Thompson 313 CHRISTMAS NIGHT OF '62 W. Gordon McCabe 321 CLAY AND CALHOUN CONTRASTED B. Johnson Barbour 368 CHANGES WROUGHT BY THE WAR John S. Preston iin CONQUERED BANNER, THE Father Ryan 54 CHRISTIAN RELIGION THE ONLY SURE BASIS FOR CIVIL FREEDOM, THE D. J. L. M. Curray 393 DIFFICULTIES ESSENTIAL TO COMPLETE EDUCATION W. M. Grier 279 DEFENSE BEFORE THE HOUSE OF REPESEN- TATIVES Sam Houston 285 DUTY OF SOUTHERNERS AFTER THE WAR, THE Z. B. Vance 175 DEADOF MOBILE, THE W. T.Walthall 229 DREAM OF THE SOUTH WIND, THE Paul H. Hayne 291 DUTY LOUISIANA OWES TO THE COLORED RACE, THE R. M. Lushier 76 DEATH OF MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE E. PICKETT, THE Robert Stiles 78 DEATH OF PLINY THE ELDER, THE William H. Taylor 163 -DUTY OF THE HOUR, THE A. H. Stephens 159 EAST TENNESSEE L. C. Haynes 30 EVERY YEAR Albert Pike 46 ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL R. Q. Mills 68 EX PARTE RODRIGUEZ A. W. Terrall 148 EULOGY ON JOHN C. CALHOUN - James W. Miles 250 EULOGIUM ON ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON. .Jefferson Davis. 263 ESSENTIALS OF TRUE REPUBLICAN GOV- ERNMENTS, THE Alexander H. Stephens. .. .116 FRANCIS MARION J. P. K. Bryan 75 FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON, THE. . .Moses D. Hodge 171 FAWN, THE James Maurice Thompson. ..345 FEDERAL DESPOTISM IN MARYLAND Henry May 366 FEDERAL PROTECTION ON THE RIO GRANDE D. B. Culberson 371 FLORENCE VANE Philip Pendleton Cooke. . 374 FITZ LEE W. H. Payne 24 FUTURE OF THE RESTORED UNION, THE,... F. W. M. Holliday 338 GEORGIA LEADERS AFTER THE WAR, THE..R. M. Johnston loi GONE FORWARD Margaret J. Preston 105 GEORGIA Henry R. Jackson 128 GOING OUT .A.ND COMING IN Mollie E. Moore Davis. ... 174 GARRET, THE John R. Thompson 180 GEORGI.A. VOLUNTEER, A Mrs MaryAshleyTownsend 216 GREAT VIRGINIAN, THE S. T. Wallis 2,3 CONTENTS. V Subject. A utkor. Page GRAY NORTHER OF TEXAS. THE Mrs. Marv Bavard Cl.\rke.33i GENERAL JAMES JOHNSTON PETTIGREW. . .William Henry Trescoit..337 GENERAL LEES FAREWELL TO HIS COM- >L\ND R. E. Lee, General 82 GREENMOUNT CEMETERY G.W. Archer 260 HEART'S CONTENT G.Herbert Sass 63 HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINL\N George W. Bagley 119 HABIT OF READING. AND THE LOVE OF GOOD BOOKS. THE Tho.m.\s R. Price 134 HAND-WASHING MAGISTRATES Stl.\rt Robinson 156 HYMN OF THE ALAMO R. M. Potter 202 HISTORIC RECORD OF NORTH CAROLINA, THE J. M. Leach 306 HONORS TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE PEA- BODY S. Te.\ckle W.allis 328 HOMAGE TO THE DEAD OF KENTUCKY- JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE Albert Pike 103 HERO OF THE COMMUNE M.\rg.\ret J. Preston 354 INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON'S EXAMPLE UPON LEE T. M. Log.^n 146 IN FAVOR OF PEACE AND RECOGNITION. . Henry M.\y 253 INAUGURATION OF STONEWALL JACKSON'S STATUE J.\.MEs L. Kemper 294 I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS AND PINE Samuel Henry Dickwn 389 IDEA OF A SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY DE- LUSIVE, THE J. Morrison Harris 99 IS A TURTLE A FISH Alex-^vn-ber Hl-nter 235 JOAN OF ARC AND THE TAX ON DOMREMY.John Dimitry 280 JOHN PELHAM j^„^ r. r.^vdai;l. ■.■;.■ .".■.■.■. "301 KENTUCKY George W. Ranck 303 ^^^'^r^" >IE>IORIES.THE Alexanbhr H.Stephens... x LET US END SECTION.AL STRIFE M..tt. W. R..nsom 66 t'-^'J-'^'^L''''^'^'^''^'™'^ W.G.lmore SIMMS xxr ^^l^JJ^^r.'^^^'^^'^^^ -^^'^ "ER PEOPLE. .R. J. Breckinridge X70 ^ll^L'^'''''^''^^ "^'^ PREJUDICES ALEX..NDER H.STEPHEXS...2 5 LETTER TO JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE R.J. Breckinribge 28^ LOOKING FOR THE FAIRIES Miss Jllia B..cov 305 LITTLE GIFFIN... tt r> t ^ TnVP F.O.TlCKNOR 365 ^Zlr John S. Holt 382 \Z^.^ Z?^"^ ^""^ "^"^ FUTURE H. A. M. Henoerso.v 399 LEGISLATIVE INSTRUCTIONS OFFICIAL DUTY T o n T , .,.„ L. O. C. La.m.\r X42 LAND OF THE SOUTH A. B. Meek 273 MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. THE.. C S West 22 MATURNUS .\DDRESS TO HIS B.\ND Edw..rd Spencer .' 70 MY MOTHER'S GRAVE A. W. M.vnglm X45 MATT. F. WARDS TRIAL FOR MURDER John J. Crittenden X78 MEMORIAL ADDRESS W.^e Hampton 220 VI CONTENTS. Suhject. A uthor. Page MOTHER AND CHILD, THE N. C. Brooks 224 MUSIC IN CAMP John R. Thompson 256 M Y CASTLE S. Newton Berrvhill 280 MATURNUS BEFORE THE EMPEROR COM- MODUS Edward Spencer 307 MOUNTAIN SCENERY OF NORTH CAROLINA.Zebulon B. Vance 222 MODERN KNIGHT, THE Sidney Lanier 325 NO SAFETY FOR ANY PEOPLE IN ARBI- TRARY POWER Severn Teackle Wallis. .315 ON THE BILL TO REPAVE PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE J. Proctor Knott 94 ON THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAIL- ROAD BILL J. Pkoctor Knott 197 ON THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAIL- ROAD BILL (Continued) J. Proctor Knott 200 ON ELOQUENCE William C. Preston 228 O'HARA'S BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD G. W. Ranck 242 OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE, THE W. C. Richardson 249 OLD AGE AND DEATH Albert Pike 271 OREGON QUESTION, THE Jefferson D.wis 330 OUR DUTY AS PATRIOTS T. B. Kingsbury 344 OUR LANGUAGE M. Schele De Vere 349 OLD CANOE, THE Anonymous 81 ORATION AT THE FUNERAL OF JOHN A. WHARTON David G. Burnett 318 OLD FIELD SCHOOL, THE F. R. Farrar 342 OLD PIONEER, THE Anonymous 376 OLD DOMINION, THE ....W. C. P. Breckinridge 203 PINEVILLE BALL.A F. A. Porcher 57 PROTEST AGAINST MODERN MATERIALISM. T. D. AVitherspoon 107 PRESENT CRISIS AND ITS ISSUES, THE B. M. Palmer ' 210 PLANTATION LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA... William J. Grayson 213 PROFESSORS AND BOOKS W. D Porter 252 PROSPERITY OF THE UNION UNDER VIR- GINIA'S INFLUENCE R. M. T. Hunter 278 PRINCE OF SPLENDOR, THE Mrs. A. M. Holbrook 316 FLEA FOR HONORABLE PEACE, A T. G. C. Davis 165 POWER OF PRAYER; OR THE FIRST STEAM- BOAT UP THE ALABAMA, THE Sidney andClifford Lanier 355 PROSECUTION OF SANTANTA AND BIG TREE S. W. T. Lanham 274 ROBERT E. LEE John Janney 3 RICHARD HENRY LEE MOVES THE RESO- LUTION OF INDEPENDENCE William Wirt Henry 37 RE-UNION OF VIRGINIA DIVISION ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA W. Gordon McCabe 39 RECOLLECTION OF HIS YOUTH, A Linton Stephens 378 REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES SENATE TO THE NEW HALL John C. Breckinridge 114 RED MEN OF ALABAMA, THE.... A. B. Meek 144 CONTENTS. vii Subject. A uthor. Page RED OLD HILLS OF GEORGL\, THE Henry R.Jackson i66 RESULT OF HIGHER EDUCATION, THE H. A. M. Henderson 176 RELIEF FOR THE SUFFERING POOR OF IRE- LAND John J. Crittenden 258 RESISTING PROBATE OF THE WILL OF HES- TER GOLDSMITH, UPON THE GROUNDS OF INSANITY Henrv R. Jackson 293 RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE THE LIFE OF THE NATION, THE W. Archer Cocke 304 RIP VAN WINKLE F. R. Farrar 311 RELIGION NECESSARY TO GREATNESS OF CHARACTER Whitefoord Smith 372 REPEAL OF THE TENNESSEE DOG LAW Lee Head 18 ROBERT E. LEE THETEACHER OF SOUTHERN YOUTH T. M. Jack 60 READY FOR DUTY Southern Magazine 265 RE-INTERMENT OF THE CAROLINA DEAD FROM GETTYSBURG John L. Girardeau 358 SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION, THE E. H. Hill 9 SOUTH ACCEPTS THE RESULT IN GOOD FAITH, THE W. C. P. Breckinridge 20 SPRING Henry Timrod 34 SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION John B. Gordon 49 SOUTH IS RISING UP, THE John W. Daniel 73 SOUTHERN VIEW OF SLAVERY James P. Holcombe 87 SURREY'S DREAM John Esten Cooke. 117 SOLID SOUTH, THE Samuel McGowan 125 SOUTH CAROLINA'S LOVE FOR CONSTITU- TIONAL LIBERTY Robert \. Hayne 155 SOUTH CLAIMS ITS RIGHTS UNDER THE CON- STITUTION, THE J. F. H. Claiborne 268 SATANTA'S DEFENSE 277 SOUTH CAROLINA SPORTS-A BEAR HUNT AT CHEE-H A WiLLi.\M Elliot 359 SOUTH FAITHFUL TO HER DUTIES, THE Matt. W.Ransom 404 SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION Linton Stephens 8 SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE GREEKS Lawrence M. Keitt 12 SHAKESPEARE George S. Bryan 13 STATE OF THE UNION, THE A.J. Hamilton 89 SEAW'EEDS Annie Chambers Ketchum..i5i SUNSET CITY, THE Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey. 159 SINKING OF THE MONITOR MILWAUKEE BY A TORPEDO Will Wallace Harney 191 SHADE OF THE TREES, THE Marg.iret J. Preston 597 SOUTHERN CHIVALRY Matt. W. Ransom 298 SOUTHERN SOCIETY AND DOMESTIC SLA- VERY Robert Toombs 333 SENTIMENTS OF THE SOUTH IN i860, THE J. F. H. Claiborne 398 SLAVES OF MADISON AT HIS GRAVE, THE. .. .James Barbour 53 SALLY JONES W. T. G. Weaver 143 SOLILOQUY OF COLUMBUS Sidney Lanier 189 Vlll CONTENTS. Subject. Author. Page STARS AND STRIPES, THE B. H. Hill 244 SOUTH ACCEPTS THE SITUATION, THE L. Q. C. Lamar 380 SENSE OFTHE BEAUTIFUL, THE W. Gilmore Simms 193 SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION Linton Stephens 207 SUSAN GARTH WAITE'S WEDDING-DAY John S. Holt 211 THRIFTLESS FARMER, THE Sidney Lanier 15 TEMPERANCE PLEDGE, THE Thomas F. Marshall 44 TERRITORIES COMMON PROPERTY OF THE PEOP LE Robert Toombs 106 TEST OF A TRUE GENTLEMAN, THE Robert E. Lee 189 TEXAS CENTENNIAL ORATION R. B. Hubbard 204 TO THE MOCKING-BIRD Albert Pike 205 TO TIME, THE OLD TRAVELLER William H. Timrod 219 TAKING LEAVE OF THE SENATE Jefferson Davis 231 TRUE GREATNESS IN A PEOPLE F. W. Pickens 241 TRUE GREATNESS PERFECTED BY UNMER- ITED MISFORTUNES Albert Pike 262 THERE IS NO CONQUEROR BUT GOD John W. Daniel 267 TEXAS BESTOWED ON THE PRINCE OF PEACE. Ashbel Smith 387 TINTORETTO'S LAST PAINTING Margaret J. Preston 394 TRIBUTE TO VIRGINIA Matt. W. Ransom 100 UNITY OF TEXAS, THE Guy M. Bryan 287 VIVE LA FRANCE "Christian Reid" (Miss Frances Fisher) 136 VINDICATION OF THE RECONSTRUCTED SOUTH ...• John B. Gordon 226 VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY F. O. Ticknor 230 VETO OF INTERNATIONAL R. R. BILL Richard Coke 391 VINDICATION OF THE ARMY Robert Stiles 375 VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, A John Esten Cooke 31 WASHINGTON THE ARTIFICER OF HIS OWN CHARACTER W. D. Porter 109 WE WILL STAND OR FALL WITH CAROLIN A. Robert Y. Hayne 264 YOUNG WIDOW, THE Robert Josselyn , . . . 90 INDEX TO AUTHORS. ALABAMA. Meek, A. B 95, 144. 273 Morgan, J. T 161 Richardson, W. C 249 Ryan, Father 54 Walthall, W. T 299 ARKANSAS. Allen, Mrs. S. R 46, 1 26 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. Pike, Albert.. .103, 205, 262, 271 FLORIDA. Cocke, \V. A 304 Harney, W.W iqi GEORGIA. Gordon, J. B 49, 226 Hayne, Paul H. . .4, 208, 291, 407 Hill, B. H 9,244 Jackson, H. R......128, 166,293 Jenkins, C. J 48 Norwood, T. M 396 Randall, J. R 301 Stephens, A. H., i ^' 92, 116 ) 159, 215, 326 Stephens, Linton 8, 207, 378 Thompso.n, J. M 345 TicKNOR. F. O 230, 365 Toombs, R 106, 333, 390 KENTUCKY. Breckinridge, J. C 1 14 Breckinridge, R. J 170, 283 Breckinridge, W. C. P. . . .20, 203 Crittenden, J. J 178, 258 Henderson, H. A. M ... .176, 399 Jeffrey, Mrs. Rosa V...159, 351 Knott, J. Proctor. . .94, 197, 200 Marshall, T. F 44 O'Hara, Theo 122 Ranck, G. W 242, 303 Robinson, Stuart 156 LOUISIANA. Bruns, J. D 138 Dimitry, a 85 DiMITRY, J 289 Lusher, R. M 76 Palmer, B. M 210 Townsend, Mrs. M. A 216 MARYLAND. Archer, G. W 260 Brooks, N. C 234, 346 Harris, J. M 99 Johnston, R. M loi Lanier, S..15, 189, 240, 325, 355 May, Henry 253, 366 Spencer, E 70, 307 Wallis, S. T 223, 315, 328 MISSISSIPPI. Berryhill, S. N 280 Claiborne, J. F. H 268, 398 Davis, Jefferson 231, 263 Holt, J. S 211, 382 Lamar, L. Q. C 142, 380 Mayes, R. B 340 MISSOURI. Allen, D. C 400 Davis, T. G. C 165 ix X INDEX TO AUTHORS. NORTH CAROLINA. Battle, K. P 270 Clarke, Mrs. M. B 330 Fisher, Miss F 136 Kingsbury, T. B 344 Leach, J. M 306 Mangum, a. W 145 Ransom, M. W. . .66, 100, 298, 404 Vance, Z. B 42, i75. 222 SOUTH CAROLINA. Bryan, Geo. S 13, i53 Bryan, J. P. K 75. 240 Crofts, W 84 Dickson, S. H 389 Elliott, William 359 Girardeau, J. L 358 Grayson, W. J 213 Grier, W. M 279 Hammond, J. H 185 Hampton, Wade 220 Hayne, R. Y 155, 264 Keitt, L. M 12 McGowAN, S 125 Miles, J. W 61, 250 Pickens, F W 241 Preston, J. S 127 Preston, W. C •. , 228 Porcher, F. A 57 Porter, W. D 109, 168, 252 Sass, G. H 63 SiMMS, W. G Ill, 193 Smith, W 372 Timrod, H 34, 131, 247, 310 TiMROD, W. H 219 Trescot, W. H 337, 403 TENNESSEE. Haynes, L. C 30 Head, Lee 18 Ketchum, Mrs. A. C 151, 283 TEXAS. Bryan, G. M 41,287 Burnet, D. G 318 Coke, R 391 Culberson, D. B 371 Darden, Mrs. F. A. D 182 Davis, Mrs. M. E. M 174, 333 Hamilton, A. J 89 Houston, Sam 285 Hubbard, R. B 204 Jack, T. M 60 Josselyn, R 90 King, V. O. . . ; 183 Lanham, S. W. T 274 Mills, R. Q. 68 Potter, R. M 202 Satanta 277 Smith, Ashbel 387 Terrell, A. W 148 Weaver, W. G. T... 143 West, C. S 22. Young, Mrs. M. J 56 VIRGINIA. Bagby, G. W 119 Barbour, Jas 53 Barbour, B. J 368 Bledsoe, A. T 195 Cooke, J. Esten 31, 117, 370 Cooke, P. P 374 Curry, J. L. M 393 Daniel, J. W • 72, 267 De Vere, M. Schele 349 Farrar, F. R 311, 342 Holliday, F. W. M 338 Hunter, R. M. T 278 Hunter, A 235 Hoge, Moses D 171 Holcombe, J. P 87 Henry, W.W 37 Hope, J. B 383 Janney, John 3 Johnston, W. P 348 Kemper, James L 294 Lee, R. E 82, 189 Logan, T. M 34. 146 INDEX TO AUTHORS. XI VIRGINIA. McCabe, W. G 39, 321 Payne, W. H 24 Preston, Mrs.M. T. \ ^^' ^°^' ^^^' •* i 354, 394 Price, T. R 134 PuRYEAR, B 51 Randolph, Innes 322 Stiles, R 78, 375 Taylor, W. H 163 Thompson, Jno. R...180, 256, 313 Tucker, J. R 64 WiTHERSPOON, T. U. 107 WEST VIRGINIA. Lucas, D. B 234 SOUTHERN SELECTIONS FOR READING AND ORATORY. "THE LAND OF MEMORIES." IF the worst is to befall us; if our most serious apprehen- sions and gloomiest forebodings as to the future are to be realized; if Centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions, as established by our common an- cestors, is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene in the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but by the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so ter- rible a catastrophe, and from all the guilt of so great a crime against humanity! Amidst our own ruins, bereft of fortunes and estates, as well as Liberty, with nothing remaining to us but a good name, and a Public Character unsullied and untar- nished, we will, in the common misfortunes, still cling in our affections to "The Land of Memories," and find expression for our sentiments when surveying the past, as well as of our distant hopes when looking to the future, in the grand words of Father Ryan, one of our most eminent Divines, and one of America's best poets: "A land without ruins is a land without memories — a land without memories is a land without liberty! A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see, but twine a few sad cypress leaves around the brow of any land, and be that land beautiless and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow, and it wins the sympathy of the heart and history! Crowns of I 2 READING AND ORATORY. roses fade — crowns of thorns endure! Calvaries and crucifixes take deepest hold of humanity, the triumphs of Might are tran- sient, they pass away and are forgotten — the sufferings of Right are graven deepest on the chronicles of nations ! "Yes! give me a land where the ruins are spread, And the Hving tread hght on the hearts of the dead; Yes, give me a land that is blest by the dust. And bright with the deeds of the down-trodden just! Yes, give me the land that hath legend and lays Enshrining the memories of long-vanished days ; Yes, give me a land that hath story and song, To tell of the strife of the Right with the Wrong; ^ Yes, give me the land with a grave in each spot, And names in the graves that shall not be forgot! Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb. There's a grandeur in graves — there's a glory in gloom! For out of the gloom future brightness is bom, As after the night looms the sunrise of morn ; And the graves of the dead, with the grass overgrown, May yet form the footstool of Liberty's throne ; And each single wreck in the war-path of Might Shall yet be a 7-ock in the Temple of Right!" ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. Alexander Hamilton Stephens was born in Taliaferro Co., Ga., February ii, 1812. He was left an orphan at a very early age, but with the assistance of friends, and a small patrimony, was well educated, graduating at the University of Georgia in 1832. He taught school eighteen months, and was admitted to the bar in 1834, and soon dis- played such talent and ability that in 1836 he was elected to the Legislature, in which he served— in House and Senate— until 1843, when he was elected to Congress by the Whig party. He advocated the admission of Texas in 1845 ; took part in the exciting Kansas and Nebraska debates of 1854 ; and in 1859 retired to private life, declining a re- election. From this retirement he was soon called, by the voice of his people, to discuss the grave questions which then agitated the country. He took active part against secession, which he did not believe to be a remedy for existing evils, though a right belonging to Sovereign States, and in the Georgia Convention of 1861 he voted agamst the Ordinance of Secession. Some of the ablest and most eloquent efforts of his life were in behalf of union and peace. But secession once accomplished, he went with his State, and prepared to share the destinies of her people. He was elected a delegate to the Montgomery Convention, assisted there in organizing the Confederate Congress, and was unanimously elected provisional Vice-President of the Confederacy ; and under the permanent constitution was elected by the people to the same position for a term of six years. In 1865 he was one of the commissioners to the famous Hamp- ton Roads Conference. After the fall of the Confederacy, he was arrested by the Fed- eral Government and confined in Fort Warren for five months, when he was released without trial He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1866, but was not permitted to take his seat ; after the reconstruction of Georgia, he was elected to Congress and has been, a member of that body ever since. ; In person Mr. Stephens is very thin and frail, but in intellect and moral excellence he ROBERT E. LEE. 3 combines masculine strength and power with feminme gentleness and purity. Nothnig is more remarkable in his history than the independence with which he has steadily pursued his own way in the choice or conduct of public measures. He has sometimes acted with one party, sometimes with another, as they conformed to his views of right ; but in spite of party and in indifference to it, he has always been ab'e bv the grandeur and goodness of his character to carry with him his own people and secure tiieir ap- proval and generally to demonstrate the justness of his positions. Harassed by sick- ness and often withdrawn by 1; for months at a time from his work, he yet stands to- day in the front rank of American statesmen and orators. His published works are School History 0/ the United States and A Constitutional View 0/ the War betxvcen the States (2 volumes.) ROBERT E. LEE INVESTED WITH THE COMMAND OF VIRGINIA'S FORCES. MAJOR-GENERAL LEE,— In the name of the people of your native State here represented, I bid you a cor- dial and heartfelt welcome to this hall, in which we may almost yet hear the echo of the voices of the statesmen, the soldiers, and sages of bygone days, who have borne your name, and whose blood now flows in your veins. We met in the month of February last, charged with the solemn duty of protecting the rights, the honor, and the inter- ests of the people of this Commonwealth. We differed for a time as to the best means for accomplishing that object ; but there never was, at any moment, a shade of difference among us as to the great object itself. When the necessity became apparent of having a leader for our forces, all hearts and eyes, by the impulse of an instinct which is a surer guide than reason itself, turned to the old county of Westmoreland. We knew how prolific she had been, in other days, of heroes and statesmen. We knew she had given birth to the Father of his Country, to Richard Henry Lee, to Monroe, and last though not least, to your own gallant father; and we knew well by your deeds, that her productive power was not yet exhausted. Sir, we watched with the most profound and intense interest the triumphant march of the army led by General Scott, to 4 READING AND ORATORY. which you were attached, from Vera Cruz to the Capital of Mexico. We read of the sanguinary conflicts and the blood- stained fields, in all of which victory perched upon our own banners. We knew of the unfading lustre that was shed upon the American name by that campaign, and we knew, also, what your modesty has always disclaimed, that no small share of the glory of those achievements was due to your valor and your military genius. Sir, one of the proudest recollections of my life will be the honor that I yesterday had of submitting to this body confirma- tion of the nomination made by the Governor of this State, of you as Commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of the Commonwealth. I rose to put the question, and when I asked if this body should advise and consent to that appoint- ment, there rushed from the hearts to the tongues of all the members, an a>fhrmative response, told with an emphasis that could leave no doubt of the feeling whence it emanated. I put the negative of the question, for form's sake, but there was an unbroken silence. Sir, we have, by this unanimous vote, expressed our convic- tions that you are at this day among the living citizens of Vir- ginia, "first in war." We pray to God most fervently that you may so conduct the operations committed to your charge, that it will soon be said of you, that you are "first in peace" ; and when that time comes, you will have earned the still prouder distinction of being "first in the hearts of your countrymen." JOHN JANNEY. CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW. ONE morn, hard by a slumberous streamlet's wave, The plane-trees stirless in the unbreathing calm, And all the lush-red roses drooped in dream, Lay King Cambyses, idle as a cloud That waits the wind, — aimless of thought and will, — But with vague evil, like the lightning's bolt CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW. I Ere yet the electric death be forged to smite, Seething at heart. His courtiers ringed him round, Whereof was one who to his comrades' ears, With bated breath and wonder-arched brows, Extolled a certain Bactrian's matchless skill Displayed in bow-craft: at whose marvellous feats, Eagerly vaunted, the King's soul grew hot With envy, for himself erewhile had been Rated the mightiest archer in his realm. Slowly he rose, and pointing southward, said, ' See'st thou, Prexaspes, yonder slender palm, A mere wan shadow quivering in the light, Topped by a ghostly leaf-crown ? Prithee, now. Can this, thy famous Bactrian, standing here. Cleave with his shaft a hand's-breadth marked thereon ? ' To which Prexaspes answered, " Nay, my lord ; I spake of feats compassed by mortal skill, Not of gods' prowess." Unto whom, the king : — ** And if myself, Prexaspes, made essay, Think'st thou, wise counsellor, I too should fail ? " 'Needs must I, sire," — albeit the courtier's voice Trembled, and some dark prescience bade him pause, — " Needs must I hold such cunning more than man's ; And for the rest, I pray thy pardon. King, But yester-eve, amid the feast and dance. Thou tarried'st with the beakers over-long. " The thick, wild, treacherous eyebrows of the King, That looked a sheltering ambush for ill thoughts Waxing to manhood of malignant acts, — These treacherous eyebrows, pent-house fashion, closed O'er the black orbits of his fiery eyes, — Which, clouded thus, but flashed a deadlier gleam On all before him : suddenly as fire Half-choked and smouldering in its own dense smoke, Bursts into roaring radiance and swift flame. READING AND ORATORY. Touched by keen breaths of Hberating wind, — So now Cambyses' eyes a stormy joy Stormily filled ; for on Prexaspes' son, His first-born son, they lingered, — a fair boy (Midmost his fellow-pages flushed with sport), Who, in his office of King's cup-bearer, — So gracious and so sweet were all his ways, — Had even the captious sovereign seemed to please ; While for the court, the reckless, revelling court, They loved him one and all : "Go," said Cambyses now, his voice a niss, Poisonous and low, " go, bind my dainty page To yonder palm-tree ; bind him fast and sure. So that no finger stirreth ; which being done. Fetch me, Prexaspes, the Macrobian bow." Thus ordered, thus accomplished : — fast they bound The innocent child, the while that mammoth bow, Brought by the spies from Ethiopian camps, Lay in the King's hand ; slowly, sternly up, He reared it to the level of his sight. Reared, and bent back its oaken massiveness Till the vast muscles, tough as grapevines, bulged From naked arm and shoulder, and the horns Of the fierce weapon groaning, almost met. When, with one lowering glance askance at him — His doubting Satrap, — the King coolly said, " Prexaspes, look, my aim is at the heart ! " Then came the sharp twang, and the deadly whirr Of the loosed arrow, followed by the dull. Drear echo of a bolt that smites its mark; And those of keenest vision shook to see The fair child fallen forward across his bonds. With all his limbs a-quivering. Quoth the King, Clapping Prexaspes' shoulder, as in glee, " Go thou, and tell me how that shaft hath sped ! " CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW. J Forward the wretched father, step by step, Crept, as one creeps whom black Hadean dreams, Visions of fate and fear unutterable. Draw, tranced and rigid, towards some definite goal Of horror ; thus he went, and thus he saw What never in the noontide or the night, Awake or sleeping, idle or in toil, 'Neath the wild forest or the perfumed lamps Of palaces, shall leave his stricken sight Unblasted, or his spirit purged of woe. Prexaspes saw, yet lived * saw, and returned Where still environed by his dissolute court, Cambyses leaned, half-scornful, on his bow: The old man's face was riven and white as death ; But making meek obeisance to his King, He smiled (ah, such a, smile!) and feebly said, "What a7n I, mighty master, what am /, That I durst question my lord's strength and skill } His arrows are like arrows of the god, Egyptian Horus, — and for proof, but now, I felt a child's heart Tonce the child was mine. 'Tis my lord's now, and Death's), all mute and still. Pierced by his shaft, and cloven, ye gods! in twain!" Then laughed the great King loudly, till his beard Quivered, and all his stalwart body shook With merriment; but Avhen his mirth was calmed, "Thou art forgiven," said he, "forgiven, old man; Only when next these Persian dogs shall call Cambyses drunkard, rise, Prexaspes, rise! And tell them how, and to what purpose, once, — Once, on a morn which followed hot and wan A night of monstrous revel and debauch, — Cambyses bent this huge Macrobian bow." PAUL H. HAYNE. Paul Hamilton Hayne, the poet,— son of Lieut. H. Haj^ne of the Navy, and nephew ol the Hon. Robert V . Hayne,— was born January i, 1830, in Charleston, S C. He 8 READING AND ORATORY. graduated at the College of Charleston, read law, and was admitted to the profession, but early abandoned it to devote himself with enthusiasm to a life of letters. For twenty-fave years he has patiently striven to cultivate in the South a love of art literature. His poetical works embrace: Poems (1854); Sonnets and other Poems (iSs6}\ A votto. a Le- gend 0/ the Island of Cos; -with Poems Lyrical^ Miscellaneous, and Dramatic (i860); Le- gends and Lyrics (1872); The Mountain 0/ the Lovers^ with Poems of Nature and Tra- dition '1875). In 1857-60 he edited RusselPs, a monthly magazine he was instrumental in starting at Charleston, which soon failed for want of popular support, though its con- tributors were among the ablest men in the South. He has published Biographies of Hugh S. Legars^ and Robert Y. Hayne, and in 1872 edited, with a memoir, the collected poems of Henry Timrod. His contributions to the magazine and review literature of the day would fill many volumes. During the recent war he was for a time on the staff of Gov. F. W. Pickens, but chronic ill health compelled his resignation. By the bom- bardment of Charleston his house and library were destroyed, and in 1866, to escape negro domination, he left his native State and purchased his present country retreat — Copse /////— near Augusta, Ga. In delicacy of imagination, sweetness, simplicity, and grace of style, melodious movement, purity and elevation of thought, exquisite sensi- bility to the manifestaUr)ns of beauty under all its forms, and in sympathetic interpreta- tion of Nature, he is not behind any singer in the modern American choir. SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. THERE has been much said, sir, about issues that are "dead" ; surely here is one that is not only alive, but vetj lively. Let Americans hear and mark it ! The Constitution of the United States can be changed, can be subverted by Presidential proclamation ! ! I once knew a man whose motto was that a lie well told was better than the truth, because, he said, truth was a stubborn, unmanageable thing, but a lie in the hands of a genius could be fitted exactly to the exigencies of the case. But even he admitted that the lie must be well told, or it would not serve. If it should appear to be a lie, it would be turned from a thing of power into a thing for contempt. There has been progress, sir, since that man taught. It is now discovered that a knoimi, proven lie is as good as the truth, provided it can only get "proclaimed" by a power having ''jurisdiction" to proclaim it!! I, sir, know of no person— either on the earth, or above it, or under it— that has "juris- diction", to "proclaim" Lies ! ! Nay, sir, I know of no power which has jurisdiction to proclaim Amendments to the Consti- tution ; according to my reading of that instrument, amend- THE SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION. 9 ments constitutionally proposed "shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Con- ventions of three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress." The rati- fication by three-fourths of the States, acting through their Legislatures or their Conventions, sets the seal of validity on the amendment and makes it a part of the Constitution. Nothing else can do it. It must be a true ratification, by a true Legislature, or a true Convention of the State. A false ratification by a true Legislature of the State will not do. A true ratification by a spurious Legislature will not do. The validity of the amendment, and its authority as a part of the Constitution, are made to depend upon the historic truth of its ratification as required by the Constitution. Proclamations of falsehoods from Presidents, or from anybody else, have nothing to do with the subject. This is plain doctrine, drawn from the Constitution itself. The validity of the Constitution in all its parts depends upon the facts of their history. But, according to this new discovery, the President of the United States can subvert the whole Constitution, and make himself a legal and valid autocrat, by simply "proclaiming" that an amendment to the Constitution to that effect has been proposed by two-thirds of each house of Congress, and rati- fied by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States; although it may be known of all men that there is not one word of truth in the proclamation. The President of the United States can legally convert himself into an autocrat by his own procla- mation. Theories are quickly put into practice in these days. Let the country beware ! ! linton Stephens. THE SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION. I DO not doubt that I am the bearer of unwelcome messages to the gentleman from Maine and his party. He says that there are Confederates in this body, and that they are going to lO READING AND ORATORY. combine with a few from the North for the purpose of controll- ing this Government. If one were to listen to the gentlemen on the other side he would be in doubt whether they rejoiced more when the South left the Union, or regretted most when the South came back to the Union that their fathers helped to form, and to which they will forever hereafter contribute as much of patrotic ardor, of noble devotion, and of willing sacri- fice, as the constituents of the gentleman from Maine. O, Mr. Speaker, why cannot gentlemen on the other side rise to the height of this great argument of patriotism? Is the bosom of the country always to be torn with this miserable sec- tional debate whenever a presidential election is pending ? To that great debate of half a century before secession there were left no adjourned questions. The victory of the North was absolute, and God knows the submission of the South was com- plete. But, sir, we have recovered from the humiliation of de- feat, and we come here among you and we ask you to give us the greetings accorded to brothers by brothers. We propose to join you in every patriotic endeavor, and to unite with you in every patriotic aspiration that looks to the benefit, to the ad- vancement, and the honor of every part of our common coun- try. Let us, gentlemen of all parties, in this centennial year, indeed have a jubilee of freedom. We divide with you the glories of the Revolution and of the succeeding years of our national life before that unhappy division — that four years' night of gloom and despair — and so we shall divide with you the glories of all the future. Sir, my message is this: There are no Confederates in this House; there are now no Confederates anywhere; there are no Confederate schemes, ambitions, hopes, desires, or purposes here. But the South is here, and here she intends to remam Go on and pass your qualifying acts, trample upon the Consti- tution you have sworn to support, abnegate the pledges of your fathers, incite rage upon our people, and multiply your infidelities until they shall be like the stars oi heaven or the sands of the seashore, without number: but know this, for all your iniquities, the South will never again seek a remedy in the THE SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION. II madness of another secession. We are here; we are in the house of our fathers, our brothers are our companions, and we are at home to stay, thank God. We come to gratify no revenges, to retaliate no wrongs, to resent no past insults, to reopen no strife. We come with a patriotic purpose to do whatever in our poUtical power shall lie to restore an honest, economical, and constitutional adminis- tration of the Government. We come charging upon the Union no wrongs to us. The Union never wronged us. The Union has been an unmixed blessing to every section, to every State, to every man of every color in America. We charge all our wrongs upon that "higher law" fanaticism, that never kept a pledge nor obeyed a law. The South did seek to leave the association of those who, she believed, would not keep fidelity to their covenants ; the South sought to go to herself ; but, so far from having lost our fidelity to the Constitution which our fathers made, when we sought to go we hugged that Constitution to our bosoms and carried it with us. Brave Union men of the North, followers of Webster and Fillmore, of Clay, and Cass, and Douglas — you who fought for the Union for the sake of the Union ; you who ceased to fight when the battle ended and the sword was sheathed — we have no quarrel with you, whether republicans or demo- crats. We felt your heavy arm in the carnage of battle ; but above the roar of the cannon we heard your voice of kindness, calling, " Brothers, comeback." And we bear witness to you this day that that voice of kindness did more to thin the Con- federate ranks and weaken the Confederate arm than did all the artillery employed in the struggle. We are here to co-operate with you ; to do whatever we can, in spite of all sorrows, to re- build the Union; to restore peace; to be a blessing to the country, and to make the American Union what our fathers intended it to be : the glory of America and a blessing to humanity. B. H. HILL. Benjamin Harvey Hill, statesman, was born in Jasper Co., Ga., September 14, 1823; graduated at the University of Georgia, 1844 ; studied law and commenced practice at 12 READING AND ORATORY. Lagrange, Ga.; was a member of the State House of Representatives in 1847. He was a member of the Georgia Convention of 1861 and advocated the Union until the ordi- nance of Secession was adopted, then sided with his State, and was a delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress, and subsequently Confederate State Senator. In 1865 the Federal authorities arrested and imprisoned him in Fort Lafayette. Since the war he has been twice elected a member of Congress, and in 1877 was elected U. S. Senator. SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE GREEKS, THE student who will take the trouble to examine the records of ancient wisdom, will wonder to find how much they con- tain of modern invention and discovery. In speculative philoso- phy ancient genius exhausted everything; at least, modern times have added nothing. In every age there is a universal spirit which concentrates and fastens itself upon some particular de- partment of intellect, and explores and illustrates it with what- ever of energy and enlightenment it may possess. Speculative science arrested the Greek mind in its noon of brightness, and a succession of splendid intellects, thronging into the heavens, till the whole firmament was in a blaze, swept ihe broad realm of naked mind, planted flags of discovery on every continent and isle, and bravely trod on to the last barrier of unaided thought. Longinus is the master of Burke. Logic and rhetoric, di- gested into sciences or softened down into arts, trace back their history to Athens, and antedate the Gospel. Logic, since the death of Socrates^ has never owned such a master. This si- lenic giant of the market-place wielded a colloquial elenchus which clove down and shattered the dogmas and fallacies of the sophists, and covered these "corrupters of Athenian youth ' with public derision and scorn, but it lies buried in his grave The greatest of his own successors and pupils were too weak to handle it, and the moderns have shrunk from the effort Soc- rates won philosophy from the clouds, made it his companion in the market-place, and throwing into it so much ot earth as to make it kindred to the mass, infused it into the concerns of SHAKSPEARE. 1 3 everyday life. Dying, he bequeathed his mantle to Plato. Well and worthily bestowed was the precious gift. Socrates had clothed speculative philosophy in the garments of common life. Plato stripped it of its soiled and earthly vestments, and, bear- ing it back to the heaven it was born in, bathed it in native ef- fulgence and beauty. Chastened and supported by the lessons ot his great master, he pursued his eagle flight through the broad realms of thought, captured richest spoil from the whole circle of learning, and urged on by the strong impulses of genius, fanned even the very curtains of revelation with the wafture of his wings. It was but a single bound between " This to the unknown God," and a knowledge of that God Himself. But this bound no mortal could take without divine interposi- tion. In the lapse of time, Aristotle came to take his place in the bright constellation of Grecian genius. Superb in intellect, af- fluent in knowledge, finished in scholastic training, and with unrivalled powers of analysis and generalization, he swept in magnificent convolutions across the intellectual firmament, scat- tering on every side light and lustre, beauty and beneficence. His school has been corrupted by ignorant sophists and big- oted theologians, and mystified by the cunning and multitudi- nous distinctions of oriental metaphysics ; but in its original simplicity and grandeur — as it came fresh from the hand of the Stagyrite — it towers aloft like some proud column in old Rome, erect and massive amid surrounding ruins. LAWRENCE M. KEITT. SHAKSPEARE. THE poet thus shut out from the busy world — denied a part, or having no proper part, in the great drama of life, like Shakspeare — with sympathies wide as creation, and sensibility deep as old ocean, and susceptible to all objects of universal nature as its watery mirror — becomes its painter and dram- 14 READING AND ORATORY. atist — and reveals the heart of man, for all time, to his fellows. In opening his works — the Bible of nature — the eye meets his gentle countenance. Open it is and placid as some sum- mer's sea, but it bears no painful trace of passion, no deep line of thought; it smiles upon us as if its quiet surface had never been swept by a storm of feeling, and its tranquil depths never agitated by the tumults of emotion. Its smooth mask makes no revelation. And when, passing from his portrait, we turn over his pages, we seem not to be conversing with an in- dividual mind, or to come in contact with an individual char- acter. The works of the god are before us, but they are so varied, and all so perfect, that they give no sign of their parent. The creator of this rich and boundless world is lost in his works; we cannot detect him, we cannot trace him. We hear the passionate voice of Juliet; the gentle tones of Desdemona; the despairing wail of Ophelia; the freezing whis- pers of Lady Macbeth; the merry notes of Beatrice; the beguiling music of Antony; the savage cries of Shylock; the kindling utterances of Marcus Brutus; the jolly laugh of Falstaff; the devilish sneer of lago; all voices of man or woman, witch or fairy, salute us. But which is the voice of Shakspeare ? Like the principle of life, which is everywhere, but nowhere to be seen ; which crowds the world with its ten thousand shapes of deformity and beauty, of terror, gladness, and glory; yet, is itself shrouded in impenetrable darkness, — the mystery of mys- teries, — such is Shakspeare amidst his works, — he is everywhere and nowhere. Mimic and painter of universal nature, he paints all charac- ters with equal truth, and seemingly with equal relish. The wild and romantic love of Juliet; the saintly tenderness and meek devotion of Desdemona ; the ambitious, worldly, licen- tious, yet weak and womanly passion of the Egyptian sorceress, find equal sympathy. Each has a perfect spell for him, and he is the proper soul of each. He bodies forth the sacred love of Desdemona, as if he were himself a saint, and had found in her a helpmate to his virtue; he decorates the girlish Juliet, he lavishes all virgin sweets and glories upon her, as if he were an THE THRIFTLESS FARMER. I 5 ardent, dreaming boy, and she the very mistress of his soul and idol of his worship; and Cleopetra, the serpent of old Nile I — how does he dote upon her — how does he paint her to the very taste of flesh and blood — how does his imagination run riot, and teem like another Nile, with all the images of dissolving luxury and seductive beauty; and when he contemplates her, how like another Antony does he hang upon her, and drink in in- toxication from her unchaste eyes! Who of these was, in truth, the mistress of Shakspeare's soul? Who shall tell us? For all his works disclose, Cleopatra may have had as much of his love and approbation as Juliet or Desdemona; and he was perfectly indifferent which of the three you might give your heart to, or whether you were saint or sinner — Romeo or Antony. He was content to paint, and happy alike, if Leonatus or lachimo, Othello or lago, were the sitters. Which of these you might make the man of your counsel and the model of your life, was no concern of his. His sym- pathies were so universal that he seemed to have lost entirely his own individuality in the character of others, and, like the mocking-bird, to have had no song which could be recognized as his own. His distinctive self and the processes of his thought alike lie hidden in a darkness as profound as the great womb of nature itself; and amidst the multitudinous and won- drous masquerade which he has, with wizard power, conjured up for your amusement, his fortn — the master of this princely revel — is not detected, and his face alone among the maskers remains forever masked. george s. bryan. THE THRIFTLESS FARMER. [ From Corn.] LOOK, thou substantial spirit of content! Across this little vale, thy continent, To where, beyond the mouldering mill, Yon old deserted Georgian hill l6 READING AND ORATORY. Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest And seamy breast, By restless-hearted children left to lie Untended there beneath the heedless sky, As barbarous folk expose their old to die. Upon that generous-rounding side, With gullies scarified Where keen neglect his lash hath plied, Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil, And gave to coquette cotton soul and soil. Scorning the slow reward of patient grain, He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain, Then sat him down and waited for the rain. He sailed in borrowed ships of usury — A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea, Seeking the Fleece and finding misery. Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance Should plough for him the stony field of Chance. Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell, And turned each field into a gambler's hell. Aye, as each year began. My farmer to the neighboring city ran ; Passed with a mournful, anxious face Into the banker's inner place ; Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace ; Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass ; With many an oh and if, and but alas, Parried or swallowed searching questions rude. And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood. At last, small loans by pledges great renewed, He issues smiling from the fatal door And buys with lavish hand his yearly store. Till his small borrowings will yield no more. THE THRIFTLESS FARMER. 17 Aye, as each year declined, With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind, He mourned his fate unkind. In dust, in rain, with might and main, He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain. Fretted for news that made him fret again. Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail — In hope or fear alike forever pale. And thus from year to year, through hope and fear. With many a curse and many a secret tear. Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, And all his best-of-life the easy prey Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way With vile array. From rascal statesman down to petty knave ; Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, He fled away into the oblivious West, Unmourned, unblest. Old hill ! old hill ! thou gashed and hairy Lear, AVhom the divine Cordelia of the year. E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer — King, that no subject man nor beast may own. Discrowned, undaughtered, and alone — Yet shall the great God turn thy fate. And bring thee back into thy monarch state And majesty immaculate. Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn Visions of golden treasuries of corn — Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart That manfully shall take thy part X8 READING AND ORATORY, And tend thee, And defend thee, With antique sinew and with modern art. SIDNEY LANIER. Sidney Lanier, the poet, is a descendant of a Huguenot family from the South of France, whence they tied to England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The first ancestor in America, Thomas Lanier, came over with a party of Welshmen and others who had obtained a grant of land, embracing the present site of Richmond, Va. On the maternal side, he is descended from a Virginia family of Scotch origin, that supplied members of the House of Burgesses of that State for more than one generation, and was highly gifted in poetry, music, and oratory. Mr. Lanier was born at Macon, Ga., February 3, 1842, and graduated at Oglethorpe College; he served in the Confederate army as a private, and after the war practised law several years, but his health failing, he decided to devote himself exclusively to literature. Corn, The Symphony ., and Psalm of the West, which appeared in Lippincotf s Magazine in 1875, — and are his longest poems,^at once made his genius known. In 1876 he was chosen by the Com- mission to write the text for the Centennial Cantata. Since then he has written much for the magazines, but no complete collection of his poems has been published. Lip- pincott & Co. issued a little volume in 1876, containing a few of his best. In origi- nality of thought and treatment, ideality, and spirituality he is not exceeded — if equalled — by any American poet; while his poetry will ever charm the cultivated reader by the beauty and novelty of its figures, wide range of metrical and rhythmical effects, rare felicity of expression, and artistic finish. REPEAL OF THE TENNESSEE DOG LAW. NOTHING, ladies and gentlemen, that I have said is in- tended to apply in the most remote degree to the last Legislature of Tennessee. I would not for one moment have you think me so ungrateful, or so unmindful of the welfare of our be- loved State, as to cast the slightest reflection upon that noble band of patriots, who, for the insignificant sum of four dollars a day, devoted three long months of their valuable time and talents to legislating for the peace and happiness of the dogs of our Com- monwealth. While much has been said against them; while they have been assailed and abused by people of all classes and from all quarters, yet, in my humble judgment, the members of the last General Assembly are entitled to the lasting admiration and gratitude of every dog within the limits of the great State of Tennessee. And I am proud to know that, while the legisla- tures of other States were consuming their time and wasting REPEAL OF THE TENNESSEE DOG LAW. 1 9 the people's money in devising schemes of retrenchment, and in adopting measures of relief for their constituents; while even the Congress of the United States was frittering away its time on the insignificant question of the electoral count; our own Legislature had the manhood to throw aside these minor con- siderations, and devote their time and attention to the interests of our dogs. What mattered it whether Tilden or Hayes was declared President, or whether in fact we had any President at all, so long as our dogs remained under the oppression of the odious and infamous dog-law? Or what mattered it whether our debt was great or small, whether our taxes were high or low, or whether the expenses of our Government were increased or diminished, while this important element of our population was being hunted from one end of the State to the other, and the poor and oppressed dogs of the country were fleeing from the tax- gatherer as if from the wrath to come? What would a State be without dogs? What is home — what is man — in fact, what is life, without a doge* What is more delightful, more fascinating, more ennobling than the companionship of a dog? Take him in his infancy, even before his little eyes have opened upon the beauties of nature: watch him in his innocent childhood, as he playfully tears the leg of your pants, or hides your Sunday hat under the house; see him in his mature manhood, as he gently leads your Berkshire sow up and down the lot by the ear, or gallantly chases your favorite milch cow around the barnyard by the tail; listen to the melancholy music of his voice, as he sits beneath your window, in his old age, and, at the still and solemn hour of midnight, constantly bays the moon. If there be a man under the sound of my voice to-night, whose bosom does not swell with admiration for these noble traits of the canine character, that man is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils. Had this odious dog-law not been repealed, who can foretell the fate which awaited us? Civil and religious liberty would have gone glimmering through the gloom of things that were; your republican institutions would soon have become a myth and a shadow; the voice of the faithful watch-dog would no 20 READING AND ORATORY. longer have been heard in the land; the trail of the raccoon and the opossum would have desecrated your highways, and the cunning fox would have pillaged your henroosts at noonday. But now, with the oppressive law repealed — with the limbs of our dogs loosed from the fetters of this infamous measure — peace will again reign throughout our land, and our beloved State will start upon a march of progress and improvement, unsurpassed in the history of any civilized country. All honor, then, to the members of the last Legislature for the repeal of the dog-tax. It will insure them the prayers and bless- ings of a grateful race, while they journey through life, and will shed a halo of giory around their declining years. And when they are dead, let their epitaph be written, that in life they were the champions of canine rights, and that, true to their noble instincts, they stood by the interests of the dogs. LEE HEAD. THE SOUTH ACCEPTS THE RESULT IN GOOD FAITH. *'"T~^HE South" is dead. The Southern Confederacy is for- X ever gone. There is no hope — nay, I own, here in the presence of the living and the dead — there is no desire to renew a struggle for it. We recognize the utter, irrevocable failure; the complete, crushing defeat. We submitted to it without unmanly repinings, and with a true determination to do our full part in the home we chose as become her citizens. We recognize the obligations of allegiance and obedience. We exercise with fidelity our rights, and perform with true allegiance our duties as citizens. In good faith we accepted the results, and abide by the consequences. We keep alive no personal enmities, no old antagonisms, no feuds. We know that the destiny of our children is enwrapt in that of this mother commonwealth of ours and this great imperial republic. Her flag is ours, her liberties ours, her glory ours, her shame ours. For us and our children's children it must be so. We fret not at it. We take THE SOUTH ACCEPTS THE RESULT IN GOOD FAITH. 21 up the duty of American citizenship, and desire to perform it. Aye, we would fain feel the patriotic love for a common coun- try, and the sweet interchange of equal fraternity over the great republic. But we put not our hands over our mouths, and our mouths in the dust and cry. " Unclean, unclean ! " We turn not our backs on our dead comrades, nor do we cast obloquy upon the cause we fought for. Nay, we keep in our hearts an intense love for that liberty for which we fought. If God will smile upon us, we will have our children, and their country, free. We will aid with all our might to preserve from sea to sea, from Lakes to Gulf, that freedom of person and State autonomy that we fought to maintain from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. That liberty is our birthright; our children will have it by in- heritance or by conquest. The eternal spirit of liberty is un- quenchable and unconquerable. History is but the narrative of the struggles of man to be free, and of the conquests of freedom. She made Greece glorious and fled from her crimes and fall. She gave Rome a world, and survived her shame and lust. She led the hosts of the Northmen.and escaped their subsequent conquest. Amid the long ages of darkness and doubt, she found a home among the fastnesses of the Alps, and the wilds of Scotland. She came forth to lead her soldiers to victory in the struggles of the forum and amid the carnage of battle. She gave cour- age on the scaffold and constancy in the dungeon. She con- quered Holland; she regained Britain; she has led France through blood; she is struggling in Germany. Her banners are high advanced in Italy, and in the mountains of Spain her voice rallies to victory. In the trackless forests of America she found a home, and gave to mankind a Washington, Jefferson, and Henry; a Con- stitutional Congress and an American Republic of States. We are her children — true to her lineage, and faithful to her high behests. For a time in her home outrages may be committed and crimes perpetrated, but the result is certain. Stand in our places and do our duty as becomes citizens, and we can confi- dently trust the result to the future. 2.-2 READING AND ORATORY. The day will come when this great country will recognize the wondrous glory of the late war, when the names of our dead will be inscribed on the common roll of illustrious sons, — not as traitors worthy of death, but sons worthy of love and rever- ence. Hampden and Cromwell are dear to every English heart, and if from English history every English traitor was stricken, the glory of the past would be lost. Our Lee will be hereafter what Cromwell is, but more; for to him no crimes will be imputed, no unmeasured ambition charged. Our dead will be honored and our heroes loved. God speed the day ! I want my country to be at true peace; I yearn for a country of brothers, where to do right is the whole compulsion — to pre- vent wrong the sole restraint; where our Realty is because Ave love, and our obedience an act of the heart; where there are no discussions about rights, because there is no trespass, and no complaints of wrongs, because there is no oppression. W. C. p. BRECKINRIDGE. William Campdell Preston Breckinridge, LL.D., the second son of Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge and Ann Soplionisba Preston (who was a daughter of Gen. Francis Pres- ton, of Virginia, and grand-daughter of Gen. William Campbell, who commanded at Kings Mountain), was born near Baltimore, Md., August 28, 1837; graduated at Centre College, and then in Law Department of University of Louisville. He entered the Confederate service as Captain in Gen. John H. Morgan's command, and at the close of the war was colonel of the gth Kentucky cavalry, and acting brigader-general in Wheeler's corps. Resumed the practice of law, and for two years edited Lexington Observer and Reporter. For some years he has been Professor of Law in Kentucky University. As scholar, jurist, orator, and debater, he upholds worthily the fame which for genera' ions has made his house distinguished, yet he has never been a candidate for political office. THE MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. IT has been my purpose to impress upon you the power and the value of mental training and education, in a practical point of view, as affording the means by which the everyday work of life— let it be what it may— can be wisely and profitably done. I have told you that in this land all the prizes of this mortal life—stars, and ribbons, and decorations, and place, honors, and titles— are all within the grasp of him who is thoroughly trained THE MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 23 and educated, so as to be able to keep step to the onward prog- ress of the age. But in placing before you thus prominently these temporary advantages to arise from the right cultivation of the intellect, do not understand me as teaching that these are the only or the noblest objects of mental culture. On the contrary, it has far higher aim:,, and nobler purposes ; and I have presented the subject to you from its lowest plane, its mere earthly level only. It was no part of my plan to discuss it with reference to its higher moral aspects, or its relations to eternal things. This much it may be proper, however, even for me to add : that science in its truest and largest meaning is nothing less than a right interpretation of nature, — a comprehension of the work- ings of law, wherever law prevails. It matters not whether the subjects are stones or stars, human souls or the complications of social relations, that most perfect knowledge of each which reveals its uniformities constitutes its special science ; and that comprehensive view of the relations which each sustains to all in the universal system realizes the broadest import of the con- ception. Science is, therefore, said to be the revelation to reason of the policy by which God administers the affairs of the world. The careful student of Nature's purposes will necessarily be averse, then, to leading a life without a purpose. Watching the evidences of design in everything around him, he cannot fail to reflect on the object of his own creation. And doing so, if his mind were imbued with the knowledge of the mutual fitness in which all the members of his body and all the parts of the whole organic world subsist and minister to each other's good, he could not conclude that he exists for his own sake alone ; or that happiness would be found separate from the offices of mutual help, and oi universal good-will. One who has become daily conversant with things that have a purpose in the future higher than that which they have yet fulfilled, would never think that his own highest destiny is yet achieved. Nor would he suppose that with this existence ended, his ulti- mate purpose would be attained. Conscious of the possession 24 READING AND ORATOkV. of an immortal nature, and of desires and capacities for knowl- edge which cannot be satisfied in this world, he would be sure that the great law of progress, which he had traced through ail sublunary movements from a lower to a higher state, would not be abrogated in the Divine Government and disposition of that part of him which can never perish, and yet can never attain absolute perfection here. In him, in aid of a living and abounding faith, his trained and cultivated infellect would assure him that : " As we have borne in this life the image of the earthly, so we shall also, in the life to come, bear the image of the heavenly." This is the last, the true lesson of a perfect development of the human mind. Never forget that true science, so far from being an enemy to religious truth, will al- ways stand as the mediator in the ever-pending conflict be- tween Religious Faith and Human Reason. In old times, in a church in Lucca, whenever Popes or Em- perors or mighty Conquerors passed, a priest would stand in the door and burn before their eyes, as the gorgeous pageant swept by, a small bundle of flax, as a fit symbol of all human fame, accompanied with the cry. Sic transit gloria niimdil In the wise study of nature and of ourselves, we see such a symbol and daily hear the cry. Remember that all earthly fame is but as a little cloud of dust that the wind raises and disperses, why, or how, or whither, who can tell ? Then, so live as to secure that 'immortal honor hereafter that shall survive, in another world, the dissolution of the entire system of Nature herself. C. S. V^^EST. FITZ LEE. IT is not alone as a soldier that I commend Fitz Lee to your favor, for it was not alone as a soldier that those who knew him loved him best. It was rather for the modest good sense and the warm, honest heart which beat beneath his ragged uni- form ; a heart that never brought a blush to the cheek or a tear to the eye of any soldier. His was no hard, ascetic temper, FITZ LEE. -D which substituted harshness for courage and reserve for wisdom, but a Hght and buoyant spirit which " Ever with a frolic welcome took The sunshine and the storm." I commend him to your favor because under all the fierce light which beats upon high names, "he has ever worn the white flower of a blameless life." How could it be otherwise ? Honor beats with his blood, and all things high come easy to him. He " fetches his life from men of royal liege." The very Government under which he lives, nay, the very office to which he aspires, was fashioned into shape and usefulness by his maternal ancestor, George Mason, whose brazen image in yonder yard keeps watch and ward over Virginia's great son. Upon the sire's side what a pedigree! From the hour when our race first planted foot upon Virginia's soil, some Lee has made her annals illustrious, and one has made her name to flame over the earth with such fierce light as to blind the stars. Amongst a race of brave people — a people whose common schools were once beneath the father's roof, where they were taught to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth — a people who believe in nobility of blood, and ever boast the purity of their own ; such a people will be ready to believe that a man so fathered and so mothered is worthy to wear Virginia's highest honors, unless his own great kinsmen have flung them beyond his reach. I well know your intriguing politicians and smoother cour- tiers please you best, and that the strong men who lay up and hoard thought rather than squander it in loose-flowing speech, are too often ignored and undervalued. I well know how eager you ever are to array your lilies of the valley in more than Solomon's glory; but before you close the doors of ambition upon the silent farmer, I pray you look over the scarred and naked bosom of our beloved — our beloved — and say who is the physician to heal her wounds. Look abroad and see how and by whom lost States have been 20 READING AND ORATORY. redeemed. Look to Louisiana, the Andromeda of States, and say who was the Perseus who burst her fetters and delivered her from the embrace of her black Calibans. It was Nichols, planter, and school-fellow of Fitz Lee. Look to Carolina, the star-eyed belle of the South — she who once " set us the path to Stygian horrors with the splendor of her smile"; she who has been so long moaning with the knife at her proud and beautiful neck, and say who was her redeemer; Wade Hampton, planter, and comrade of Fitz Lee. Nay, in our own agony and bloody sweat, when Virginia was " A looming bastion fringed with fire," when her people were besieging heaven with prayers, and the world with entreaties, and finding alas ! that France was too far, and God too high to hear us, to whom did we turn in that supreme hour for counsel and comfort ? Was it to the Congress which prattled and babbled in this city or to yonder flaming frontier — " Where the ranks were rolled in vapors. And the winds were laid with sound." Was it to the Orrs and Wigfalls, the Footes and Pryors ? — or to that " Good grey head which all men knew — That iron nerve, to true occasion true — That tower of strength, Which stood four square to all the winds that blew." It is an interesting fact in Virginia's history that whenever she is assailed with danger, or stricken with suffering, she has ever beckoned these Lees to her side, and been happier when her hand was in theirs. Her eye ever " marks their coming and grows brighter when they come." And during our terri- ble strife, in the days of her deepest and darkest despon- dency, it was upon the broad bosom of Robert Lee, her greatest son, that Virginia laid her weary head, and " with her sweet eyes slowly brightening close to his," gathered inspiration from the beating of that mighty heart. It is a glorious fact in the history of this family that no dis- tance could be so great that the voice of Virginia's sorrow did ANTONIO ORIBONI. 2f not reach and recall them. No fortune could be so great, and no rank so high that they would not surrender them at her call. They have ever loved her with a love far brought from out the historic past. There has been no pulse in their ambition whose beatings were not measured from her heart. And now, whni Peace has spread its white wings over the land and a Lee for the first time within the living memory asks something from a people for whom Lees have done so much, am I to be answered that Virginia remembers not in prosperity those upon whom she leant in adversity ? She can forbear to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, but can she show no mercy to those who have loved her and kept her com- mandments ? W. H. PAYNE. ANTONIO ORIBONI. I. IN gray Spielburg's dreary fortress buried from the light of day, From the bounteous, liberal sunshine, and the prodigal breeze's play,— Where no human sounds could reach him, save the mocking monotones Of the sentinel whose footsteps trod the dismal courtyard stones — Lay the young and knightly victim of the Austrian despot's law, Worn with slow, consuming sickness, on his meagre bed of straw. 11. Oft he strove to press his forehead with his pallid hand in vain, — For the wrist so thin and pulseless could not lift the burdening chain : Though his lips were parched to frenzy, while the quenchless fever raged, 28 READING AND ORATORY. They had halved the stint of water, lest his thirst might be as- suaged : And because his morbid hunger loathed the mouldy food they thrust Through the gratings of his dungeon, they had even with- held the crust. III. Snatched from country, home and kindred, from his imme- morial sky Rich with summer's lavish leafage, they had flung him here to die ; Not because through perjur'd witness they had stained his noble name. Not because their jealous malice could adduce one deed of shame : — But he learned to think that freedom was a guerdon cheaply bought By the lives of slaughter'd heroes and — he dared to speak the thought ! IV. And for this, — for this they thrust him where no arm might reach to save, And with youth's hot pulses thronging, sunk him in a living grave : Strove to stifle in a dungeon, under piled centurial stone, Titan-thoughts whose heaving shoulders might upturn the ty- rant's throne ; — Motherland ! thou heard'st his groaning, and for every tear he poured. Thou hast summoned forth a hero, armed with Freedom's vengeful sword ! v. Through the dragging years he wasted, — for the flesh will still succumb, Though the inexorable spirit hold the lips sublimely dumb, — ANTONIO ORIBONI. 29 And he yearned to clasp his brothers, — enter the old trellised door, — Fall upon his mother's bosom, — kiss his father's hand once more. Till he murmured, as the vision swam before his feverish eye,— ' O to hear their pitying voices break in blessings ere I die ! VI. "Thou who shrank'st with human shrinking, even as I, and thrice didst pray, If 'twere possible the anguish from Thy lips might pass away — Lift this maddening, torturing pressure, seal this struggling, panting breath, — Let Thy mercy cheat man's vengeance, — lead me out to peace through death : Rend aside this fleshy fastness, shiver this soul-cankering strife, Turn the key. Thou Blessed Warder, — break the cruel bolt of life ! " In the deep and ghostly midnight, as the lonely captive lay Gasping in the silent darkness, longing for the dusk of day. Burst a flood of light, celestial through the rayless prison cell. And an angel hovering o'er him, touched his shackles, — and they fell; And the wondering, tranced spirit, every thrall of bondage past, Dropt the shattered chains that held it, and sprang upward, — freed at last. Margaret j. preston. Mrs. Margaret Jinkin Preston, the leading female poet of Americans a daughter of tr.e late Rev. George Junkin, D. D., a former President of Washinsjlon College, Lex- ington, Va. She comes of an ancient and honorable Philadelphia family, but the greater part of her life has been spent in Virginia, and for the past twenty years she has been the wife ol Col. John T. L. Preston, of the \'irginia Military Institute. Her literary and artistic tastes early manitested themselves, and fortunately circumstances have per- mitted their fullest cultivation, from her earliest childhood, by study, foreign travel, and surroundings. In the classics, as well as in the languages and literatures of 30 READING AND ORATORY. modem Europe, her education has been complete and crxical. But with all her gen- ius and culture, she has never stepped out before the reading public to fill the role of the purely literary ivoman. Her life-aim seems to be, first of all, to do worthily a woman's truest and most legitimate work — that which confines itself to the province of home ; the High Art of wifehood and motherhood she places infinitely beyond all others, and to attain its ideal has occupied her j^ears. The contributions she has made to the literature of the country are recreations, simply, from the duties of life. She has published, in prose, Silveriuood; a Book of Memories (1856) : and in poetry, Beech- enbrook : a Rhym^ of the War (1865) ; Old Song and New (1870) ; and Cartoons (1876). The last two volumes were received with great favor in both Europe and America, and widely extended her reputation. Her writings display true poetic feeling, dramatic power, high cuiture and womanly tenderness, combined with masculine strength, breadth of vision, and restraint of passion and utterance. EAST TENNESSEE. MR. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I plead guilty to the " soft impeachment." I was born in East Tennessee, on the banks of the Wautauga, which, in the Indian vernacular, is " beautiful river," — and beautiful river it is. I have stood upon its banks in my childhood, and looked down through its glassy waters, and have seen a heaven below, and then looked up and beheld a heaven above, reflecting, like two mirrors, each in the other its moons, and planets, and trembling stars. Away from its banks of rock and cliff, hemlock and laurel, pine and cedar, stretches back to the distant mountains a vale as beautiful and exquisite as any in Italy or Switzerland. There stand the Great Unicorn, the Great Black, and the Great Smoky Mountains — among the loftiest in the United States of North America — on whose summits the clouds gather of their own accord, even in the brightest day. There I have seen the Great Spirit of the storm, after noon-tide, go take his nap in the pavilion of darkness and of clouds. I have then seen him arise at midnight as a giant refreshed by slumber, and cover the heavens with gloom and darkness, have seen him awake the tempest, let loose the red lightnings that run among the mountain-tops for a thousand miles, swifter than eagles' flight in heaven. Then I have seen them stand up and dance like angels of light in the clouds, to the music of that grand A VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION. 31 organ of nature whose keys seemed touched by the fingers of Divinity in the hall of eternity, that responded in notes of thun- der that resounded through the universe. Then I have seen the darkness drift away beyond the hori- zon, and the morn get up from her saffron bed, like a queen, put on her robes of light, come forth from her palace in the sun,- and stand tip-toe on the misty mountain-tops ; and while night fled from before her glorious face to his bed-chamber at the pole, she lighted the green vale and beautiful river where I was born, and played in my childhood, with a smile of sun- shine. O! beautiful land of the mountains, with the sun painted cliffs, how can I ever forget thee ! L. C. HAYNES. A VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS. WHAT a good time and place it was — the old Hall in the days of my youth ! And the "sweet fields" of that far- away time are even sweeter now, I think, in the retrospect^, than then in actual reality. But they were surely charming. The sun shone so brightly then; the bloom of the flowers was so enthralling; the youths and maidens were so rosy and laughing ! — Ah ! I go back in memory to Oaktree Hall with de- light. It was in summer that the Hall was in its glory. A great host of relations gathered there — for never was clan more clan- nish than ours — and a thousand divertisements sent the hours and days upon their way with mirth and pleasure. If you wished to ride, there were excellent saddle-horses in the stable; if the ladies wished to drive, the sleek and very dogmatic old coachman was promptly at the door with the roomy old car- riage and the glossy old horses, if you chose to row or fish, there was a little boat balanced lightly beneath the willow, on the bright waters of the stream from the hills, which you as- cended easily with a paddle, the banks on either hand fringed 32 READING AND ORATORY. with foliage of tender green, or every tint of the rainbow, as the season was summer or autumn. In the neighboring hills there were wild turkeys, partridges, and a stray deer now and then — how often I have hunted them, albeit the most unworthy of the representatives of Nimrod ! and how well I remember the fat doe, just under whose left eye my dear brother planted his rifle-ball ! If you preferred in-door amusement, there was an old book- case containing a long array of volumes of the £di?iburgh and other reviews ; the Waverly novels, with a great collection of (odd) volumes of the old-time, Laura-Matilda style of romance ; Charles Lamb, the English poets and orators, Pierce Egan, works on farriery^ farming, and much modern literature, to fill up. If you desired to combine enjoyment of Nature, literature, and laziness, you could take a book, drag out a capacious split-bottomed chair to the grassy circle beneath the great oak, and, leaning luxuriously back there, with a cigar or a pipe, lounge, idly and dreamily, hour after hour, lulled to pleasant reverie by the sound of the piano from the drawing-room. . I cannot help repeating Avhat a charming place the old Hall was in summer. It was the resort of uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, children and grandchildren, and cousins and friends — everybody connected with the hospitable family drifted thither as though borne on some friendly tide to the most peaceful and delightful of harbors. One year I remem- ber there were forty-four children staying at the Hall, and I leave the worthy reader to draw for himself the picture of that little army of bright faces on the grassy lawn. How lovely they were! With their curls, and rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, they made it a fairy time, dotting the expanse beneath the century oaks, Hke flowers of the spring. And the little ones, take notice, were but one class of the population. Young maidens wandered slow in the distance, attended assiduously by their boy-lovers; elderly mademoiselles and cavaliers of eighteen or twenty decorously promenaded and discoursed: younger urchins ran, played, raced on colts, or wrestled; dim- pled little ones staggered or tripped with uneven steps on the A VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION. 33 grass and in the arms of the old negro nurse, with her head in a white handkerchief and her consequential gait, you saw the chubby-faced, curly-haired, open-and-staring-eyed darling of all, decked out by mamma in all the colors of the rainbow, the wonderful, unheard-of, most remarkable of created beings, the paragon of paragons — in a single word, the baby ! I grow uncommonly young again as I think of these sighing lovers, toddling little ones, and that extraordinary baby, for whose notice the maidens violently contended. I see the blue of the sky and the bloom of the flowers again, and the summer birds sing in my memory. john esten cooke. John Esten Cooke has done for the historical traditions of Virginia what Simms did for those of the Carolinas, and Cooper for those of the North and West. Some of his historical novels, such as the Virginia Comedians^ and Henry St. John^ are the best and truest pictures anywhere to be found of Virginia in the olden time. He has shown himself an able biographer also by his Lives of Stonewall Jackson and Lee, and he contributed actively in other ways to the literature of the War. He was born at Winchester, Va., in 1830, and spent the first years of his life at Glen- gary, his father's estate in Frederick County, whence on the burning of his house there, he removed to Richmond, as the place of session of the higher courts of the Commonwealth. His father, John R. Cooke, was a lawyer of the highest order of ability, a man of much sweetness of disposition, elegance of manner, and was greatly beloved and respected by his eminent associates, among whom were Chief-Justice Marshall, Judge Tucker, Watkms Lee, and Judge Stannard. His mother was Maria Pendleton, a grandniece of Judge Edmund Pendleton. He was educated at an ordinary Virginia school, and finished at sixteen under Dr. Burke, a very excellent teacher of languages, at Richmond. He studied law with his father, beginning the practice at twenty-one, but discontinuing it three or four years afterwards, for literary pursuits, writing for the Southern Literary Messenger and the New York magazines until the war. During the war, he served in the Virginia cam- paigns, for the most part on Gen. J. E. B. Stuart's staff, from April 10, 1861, to April 10, 1865. Since the war he has resided in Clark County, Va. He was married in 1867 to Miss Page. The following are his publications written before the vi'ar: Leather Stocking and Sitk ; The Virginia Comedians^ 2 vols.; The Youth of Jefferson: The Last 0/ the Foresters, Elite, or the Hutnan Comedy: Henry St. John^ Gentleman: Fair/ax. His war books are Surry 0/ Eagle's Nest : Mohtin: Hilt to Hilt; Hanimer and Rapier: IVearingof the Gray: A Life 0/ General Lee : Stoneivall Jackson^ a Biography. Mr. Cooke has a fine imagination, he is exceedingly well read in the old Virginia traditions, and he knows how to carry his readers with him in the scenes that he creates. — Hart's Manual of A merican Literature. He is one of the most prolific of American writers, and since the war has produced: Out of the Foam: The Heir of Gaymount: Dr. Vandyke: Her Majesty the Queen: Pretty Mrs. Gaston: Justin Harley : Cary of Hunsdon ; Canolles: besides innumerable short sketches, tales, reviews, and poems contributed to the leading periodicals. 34 READING AND ORATORY, EQUAL PROTECTION TO ALL CLASSES. THE Southern people should not simply promise, but should insure equal protection to all classes: and let us, fellow- citizens, do this, not because it is politic, but because it is right. It was not policy that guided Wade Hampton in redeeming South Carolina. His sense of right, his sense of justice, his sense of honor — his true manhood — inspired his statesmanship. The path of honesty was the way of wisdom, and it led to vic- tory. Hampton urged his people to accord equal rights, equal justice — equality under the law — to all classes; these he prom- ised on behalf of his party, and thereto pledged his honor. He was believed, because of his honor; and his cause prevailed, because it was honest. Those promises he is now redeeming; and he will redeem them all. Wade Hampton leads: let us follow. Be true to our professions; be true to our honor; be true to ourselves; and the American people will be true to us. T. M. LOGAN. SPRING. SPRING, with that nameless pathos in the air Which dwells with all things fair, Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain, Is with us once again. Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns Its fragrant lamps, and turns Into a royal court with green festoons The banks of dark lagoons. In the deep heart of every forest-tree The blood is all a-glee. And there's a look about the leafless bowers As if they dreamed of flowers. Yet still on every side we trace the hand Of Winter in the land, SPRING 35 Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, Flushed by the season's dawn. Or where, like those strange semblances we find That age to childhood bind. The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn, The brown of Autumn corn. As yet the turf is dark, although you know That, not a span below, A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, And soon will burst their tomb. Already, here and there, on frailest stems Appear some azure gems, Small as might deck, upon a gala day. The forehead of a Fay. In gardens you may note amid the dearth The crocus breaking earth; And near the snow-drop's tender white and green, The violet in its screen. But many gleams and shadows needs must pass Along the budding grass, And weeks go by, before the enamored South Shall kiss the rose's mouth. Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn In the sweet airs of morn; One almost looks to see the very street Grow purple at his feet. At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, And brings, you know not why, A feeling as when eager crowds await Before a palace gate Some wondrous pageant ; and you scarce would start, If from a beech's heart, 36 READING AND ORATORY. A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth should say, "Behold me! I am May!" Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crime With such a blessed time! Who in the west wind's aromatic breath Could hear the call of death! Yet not more surely shall the Spring awake The voice of wood and brake, Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms, A million men to arms. There shall be deeper hues upon her plains Than all her sunlit rains, And every gladdening influence around. Can summon from its ground. Oh! standing on this desecrated mould, Methinks that I behold. Lifting her bloody daisies up to God, Spring kneeling on the sod. And calling, with the voice of all her rills, Upon the ancient hills To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves Who turn her meads to graves. henry timrod. The sweetest singer of the South, Henry Timrod, was bom in Charleston, S. C, December 8, 1S29, and died of consumption, in Columbia, S. C, October 6, 1867. He spent some time in the University of Georgia, then read law in the office of Hon. James L. Pettigru, but finding the profession distasteful, became tutor for children of Carolina planters. Early in 1863 he joined the Confederate army of the West as war correspondent of Charleston Mercury^ and the next year was editor of the Columbia South Carolinian. A small volume of his poems was Dublished by Ticknor & Fie.ds, Boston, i860; and, in 1872, E. J. Hale & Son. New York, published his collected poems, editea, with an admirab\e memoir of the poet, by his friend Paul H. Hayne Though denied recognition during his lifetime, Jiis a^enius is now futy acknowledged, and his works are a part of the permanent literature of America. " Were one to sum up the idiosyncrasies of Timrod' s genius and poetic manner, I think it would be just to notice, in the first place, the simplicity, clearness, purity, and straightforward force of his imagination, which within its appointed bounds .... is always a true enchanter. His productions do not appeal, like too many of Edgar Foe's, to our sense of rhyth- mic harmony alone, nor are they charming but mystic utterances, which here and RICHARD HENRY LEE. 37 there may strike a vaguely solemn echo in the heart of the visionary dreamer. No! beneath the surface of his delicate imagery, and rhythmic sweetness of numbers, rest deeply embedded the 'golden ores of wisdom.' As an artist, he fulfilled one of Cole- ridge's many definitions of poetry (' the best words in the best order,') with a tact as ex- quisite as it was unerring. And /us style is literally himself. 'His compositions — with all their elegance, finish, and superb propriety of diction — always leave the im- pression of having been borit^ not manufactured or made.' His morale is perfect. What can speak more emphatically for the native soundness, wholesomeness, and untainted virility of his genius, than the absence from his works of all morbid arraignments of the Eternal justice or mercy; all blasphemous hardihood and whining complaint — in a word, all Byronisin of sentiment, despite the ceaseless trials of his individual experi- ence, his sorrows, humiliations, and corroding want?" — Paul H Haync. RICHARD HENRY LEE MOVES THE RESOLU- TIONS OF INDEPENDENCE. THE Virginia Convention entrusted her command to Thomas Nelson, one of her delegates to Congress, and upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Richard Henry Lee was se- lected to make the motion. Nor could this honor have been more worthily bestowed. Of honored ancestry, large fortune, splendid intellect, and ample learning, from the time he offered his youthful sword to the unfortunate- Braddock he had been conspicuous for his public spirit, and had early taken rank with the foremost of the American patriots. Tall and commanding in person, with the noble countenance of a Roman, the courage of a Csesar, and the eloquence of a Cicero, at the bidding of Virginia, he arose on the 7th day of June, 1776, and in her name urged his countrymen no longer to hesitate, but pressing forward, to cross the Rubicon, and secure to themselves and to their posterity those inalienable rights bestowed upon them by their Creator. He moved, in the language of the Virginia Convention, " That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States ; that they are ab- solved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; that it is e.\- pedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for form- ing foreign alliances; that a plan of Confederation be prepared 3^^ READING AND ORATORY. and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their considera- tion and approbation." The motion was seconded by " glorious old John Adams," and Massachusetts stood by the side of Virginia. Her ardent and eloquent son proved himself the colossus of the debate which followed and continued though several days. Nor was Pennsylvania content to be represented by her halting Dickinson, but her ardent patriotism found utterance through her profound philosopher and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, whose words of distilled wisdom fell from his lips like proverbs from the pen of Solomon. Of the eloquent speech with which Mr. Lee intro- duced the resolution of independence only a faint outline has been preserved. It is claimed by the historian, however, to be substantially correct. Of this I will only detain you with an extract. " The question," said he, "is not whether we shall acquire an increase of territorial dominion, or wickedly wrest from others their just possessions, but whether we shall preserve or lose for- ever that liberty which we have inherited from our ancestors, which we have pursued across tempestuous seas, and which we have defended in this land against barbarous men, ferocious beasts, and an inclement sky. And if so many and distin- guished praises have always been lavished upon the generous de- fenders of Greek and Roman liberty, what shall be said of us who defend a liberty which is founded, not on the capricious will of an unstable multitude, but upon immutable statutes and titulary laws; not that which was the exclusive privilege of a few patricians, but that which is the property of all; not that which was stained by iniquitous ostracisms, or the horrible deci- mation of armies, but that which is pure, temperate, and gen- tle, and conformed to the civilization of the age? Animated by liberty, the Greeks repulsed the innumerable army of Per- sians; sustained by the love of independence, the Swiss and the Dutch humbled the power of Austria by memorable defeats, and conquered a rank among nations. But the sun of America also shines upon the heads of the brave; the point of our weapons is no less formidable than theirs; here also the same RE-UNION OF VIRGINIA DIVISION. 39 union p'-evails, the same contempt of danger and of death, in asserting the cause of country. Why then do we longer de- lay? Why still deliberate ? Let this happy day give birth to the American Republic. Let her arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to re-establish the reign of peace and of law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us ; she demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast, in the felicity of the citizen, to the ever-increasing tyranny which deso- lates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum, where the unhappy may find solace and the persecuted repose. She invites us to cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous plant, which first sprang and grew in England, but is now with- ered by the poisonous blasts of Scottish tyranny, may revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable shade all the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of American legislators of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been and forever will be dear to virtuous men ! " WILLIAM WIRT HENRY. RE-UNION OF VIRGINIA DIVISION OF ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. HERE in this battle-crowned capital of our ancient Com- monwealth, shall the men who wore the gray yearly gather and recall the names of those who went forth to battle at the bidding of Virginia — who now lie sleeping on the bosom of this Mother, that, not unmindful of their valor, not ungrateful for this filial devotion, shall keep forever bright the splendor of their deeds, 'till earth, and seas, and skies are rended." No " Painted Porch" is hers, like that of Athens, where, for half a thousand years, the descendants of the men who had followed Miltiades to victory might trace the glories of their Marathon — no gleaming Chapelle des Invalides, with the light 40 READING AND ORATORY. flaming through gorgeous windows on tattered flags of battle — no grand historic Abbey, like that of England, where hard by the last resting-place of her princes and her kings sleep the great soldiers who have writ glorious names high upon their country's roll with the point of their stainless swords. Nay, none of this is hers. Only the frosty stars to-night keep solemn watch and ward above the wind-swept graves of those who, from Potomac to James, from Rapidan to Appomattox, yielded up their lives that they might transmit to their children the heritage of their fathers. Weep on, Virginia, weep these lives given to thy cause in vain; The stalwart sons who ne'er shall heed thy trumpet-call again; The homes whose light is quenched for aye; the graves without a stone; The folded flag, the broken sword, the hope forever flown. Yet raise thy head, fair land! Thy dead died bravely for the Right; The folded flag is stainless still, the broken sword is bright; No blot is on thy record found, no treason soils thy fame, Nor can disaster ever dim the lustre of thy name. Pondering in her heart all their deeds and words, Virginia calls us, her surviving sons, " from weak regrets and womanish laments to the contemplation of their virtues," bidding us, in the noble words of Tacitus, to " honor them not so much with transitory praises as with our reverence, and, if our powers per- mit us, with our emulation." Reminding her children, who were faithful to her in war, that "the reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another," she points to the tasks left unfinished when the " nerveless hands drooped over the spotless shields," and with imperious love claims a fealty no less devoted in these days of peace. I claim no vision of seer or prophet, yet I fancy that even now I descry the faint dawn of that day, which thousands wait on with expectant eyes; when all this land, still the fairest on the globe — this land, which has known so long" what old Isaiah termed the " dimness of anguish" — shall grow glad again in the broad sunlight of prosperity, and from Alleghany to Chesapeake shall resound the hum and stir of busy life; when yonder noble THE BABE OF THE ALAMO. 41 roadstead, where our ironclad Virginia revolutionized the naval tactics of two continents, shall be whitened by many a foreign sail, and you, her children, shall tunnel those grand and hoary mountains, whose every pass Lee and " Old Stonewall" have made forever historic by matchless skill and daring. Thus, comrades, assured of her heroic Past, stirred by a great hope for her Future, may we to-night re-echo the cry of Richmond on Bosworth Field: Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again; That she may long live here, God say amen! W. GORDON McCABK. THE BABE OF THE ALAMO. I INTENDED, Mr. Speaker, to be silent on this occasion, but silence would now be a reproach, when to speak is a duty. No one has raised a voice in behalf of this orphan child ; several have spoken against her claim. I rise, sir, in be- half of no common cause. Liberty w^as its foundation, heroism and martyrdom consecrated it. I speak for the orphan child of the Alamo. No orphan children of fallen patriots can send a similar petition to this House — none save her can say, "I am the Child of the Alamo." Well do I remember the consternation which spread through- out the land, when the sad tidings reached our ears that the Alamo had fallen! It was here that a gallant few, the bravest of the brave, threw themselves betwixt the enemy and the set- tlements, determined not to surrender nor retreat. They re- deemed their pledge with the forfeit of their lives — they fell, the chosen sacrifice to Texan freedom! Texas, unapprised of the approach of the invader, was sleeping in fancied security, when the gun of the Alamo first announced that the Atilla of the South was near. Infuriated at the resistance of Travis and his noble band, he marshalled his whole army beneath the walls, and rolled wave after wave of his hosts against those battle- ments of freedom. In vain he strove — the flag of liberty, the 42 READING AND ORATORY. Lone Star of Texas, still streamed out upon the breeze, and floated proudly from the outer wall. Maddened and persistent, he reared his batteries, and after days of furious bombardment and repeated assaults, he took a blackened and ruined mass — the blood-stained walls of the Alamo. The noble, the martyred spirits of all its gallant defenders, had taken their flight to another fortress, not made with hands. — But for this stand at the Alamo, Texas would have been desolated to the Sabine. Sir, I ask this pittance, and for whom? For the only living witness, save the mother, of this awful tragedy — "This blood- iest picture in che book of time" — the bravest act that ever swelled the annals of any country. Grant the boon! She claims it as the Christian child of the Alamo — baptized in the blood of a Travis, a Bowie, a Crockett, and a Bonham. To turn her away would be a shame! Give her what she asks, that she may be educated, and become a worthy child of the State — that she may take that position in society to which she is entitled by the illustrious name of her martyred father — illus- trious because he fell in the Alamo! guy m. bryan. Guv M. Bryan was bom January 12, 1821, in Missouri, emigrated to Texas in 1831, served as orderly to Col. Somerville in the Revolution of 1836, and graduated at Kenyon College, 1842. In 1847 he was elected a member of the Texas Legislature and served ten consecutive years — six in the House and four in the Senate ; and in 1857 was elected to U. S. Congress. He entered the Confederate army upon the secession of Texas, and served through the war. In 1873, his disabilities having been removed, he was re- turned to the Texas Legislature and elected Speaker of the House of Representativ'es. He is a nephew of Stephen F. Austin—" The Father of Texas"— and like his illustrious kinsman, has devoted life and fortune to the service and defence of the people of his adopted State. AUTUMN IN THE SWANNANOA VALLEY. A CHARMING feature in these mountain ranges is the coves or glens scarped out of the sides of the ridges which enclose the viUeys. Short, steep ribs rise from the brooks, and, running straight up, join the main ridge at right angles. Between these are the basin-shaped coves, down through the centres of which trickle branches of pure, sweet water. The crests of these bi- AUTUMN IN THE SWANNANOA VALLEY. 43 secting ridges and the main tops are usually covered with moun- tain-pines, whilst the bosom of the cove, rich in the soils of disintegrating feldspar and hornblende-slates, is heavily laden with the noblest forest-trees. Poplars, beeches, hickories, many kinds of the oak, chestnut, linn, buckeye, ash, maple, sour-wood, walnut, wild cherry, locust, wild cucumber, and many others, flourish and attain great size. Close along the border of the same stream, and tracing its meanders, runs a narrow ribbon of silver spruces, lifting their dark, rich, conical tops through the paler canopy of their deciduous neighbors, like spearmen in battle array. Now, say we stand facing such a glen as this in the beautiful valley of the Swannanoa — as I have often done, and hope to do again — in the mellow mid-autumn season. A sharp, biting frost or so has already fallen, the decreasing days and the lengthening hours of the darkness have begun that mysterious chemical change in the vegetable world which we term decay, and which notifies the glory of the forest that it must die. But there is neither haste nor despair, nor any unseemliness in the dying of nature; and these children of the forest, as if in grati- tude to their Creator for the magnificence which had been vouchsafed to them for a season, receive the summons gladly, and prepare to worship Him even in the splendor of their going out. Verily, it would seem as if they knew that resurgam was written on all things. Each puts on its funeral attire after his kind. The oaks and the beeches turn to a pale russet, the maple and sour-woods to a deep shining purple, the red-oak to a pale yellow with iron-shot specks, the poplars, walnuts, ashes, and locusts to the light gold of the hollyhock, and the wild cucum- bers and the hickories put on the flaming gold of the sunflower. And so they "all do fade as a leaf," except the spruces and the mountain- pines, which, like immortal spirits, die not. Oh, ye dwellers within cities and among the prosaic haunts of men, there is a scene which might kindle your souls with a strange, inexplicable fire! Behold that wondrous sea of foliage spread over the landscape as a mantle; see that multitude of gorgeous colors, and consider the unspeakable splendors of their delicate 44. READING AND ORATORY. intermingling, as they revel in the yellow beams of the setting sun, who smiles lovingly upon them and kisses his darlings good- night! Verily, it would seem that such magnificence was the joint work of both the celestial and the terrestrial powers, "As when some great painter dips His brush in hues of earthquake and eclipse ;" and that some truant rainbow, based on either mountain, had bestridden the glen with its radiant arch, and whilst in the zenith of its glory had been smitten by a thunderbolt into small, glowing dust, whose shining atoms had been scattered down upon the outstretched arms of the waiting forest! ZEBULON B. VANCE. THE TEMPERANCE PLEDGE. SIR, if there be within this hall an individual man who thinks that his vast dignity and importance would be low- ered, the laurels which he has heretofore won be tarnished, his glowing and all-conquering popularity at home be lessened, by an act designed to redeem any portion of his colleagues or fellow-men from ruin , and shame, all I can say is, that he and I put a very different estimate upon the matter. I should say, sir, that the act was not only the most benevolent, but, in the present state of opinion, the most politic, the most popular, the very wisest thing he ever did in his life. Think not, sir, think not that I feel myself in a ridiculous situation, and, like the fox in the fable, wish to divide it Avith others, by converting deformity into fashion. Not so; my honor as a gentleman, not so! I was not what I was represented to be. I had, and I have shown that I had, full power over myself. But the pledge I have taken renders me secure forever from a fate inevitably following habits like mine — a fate more terrible than death. That pledge, though confined to myself alone, and with refer- ence to its effect upon me only, my mind, my heart, my body, I would not exchange for all earth holds of brightest and THE TEMPERANCE PLEDGE. 45 best. No, no, sir; let the banner of this temperance cause go for- ward or go backward — let the world be rescued from its degrad- ing and ruinous bondage to alcohol or not — I for one shall never, never repent what I have done. I have often said this, and I feel it every moment of my existence, waking or sleeping. Sir, I would not e.xchange the physical sensations — the mere sense of animal being which belongs to a man who totally re- frains from all that can intoxicate his brain or derange his nervous structure — the elasticity with which he bounds from his couch in the morning — the sweet repose it yields him at night — the feeling with which he drinks in, through his clear eyes, the beauty and grandeur of surrounding nature; — I say, sir, I would not exchange my conscious being as a strictly tem- perate man — the sense of renovated youth — the glad play with which my pulses now beat healthful music — the bounding vi- vacity with which the life-blood courses its exulting way through every fibre of my frame — the communion high which my healthful ear and eye now hold with all the gorgeous universe of God — the splendors of the morning, the softness of the evening sky — the bloom, the beauty, the verdure of earth, the music of the air and the waters — with all the grand associa- tions of external nature reopened to the fine avenues of sense; — no, sir, though poverty dogged me — though scorn pointed its slow finger at me as I passed — though want and destitution and every element of earthly misery, save only crime, met my waking eye from day to day; — not for the brightest and the noblest wreath that ever encircled a statesman's brow — not, if some angel commissioned by heaven, or some demon, rather, sent fresh from hell, to test the resisting strength of virtuous resolution, should tempt me back, with all the wealth and all the honors which a world can bestow; not for all that time and all that earth can give, would I cast from me this precious pledge of a liberated mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again into the dangers and the horrors which once beset my path ; — so help me Heaven ! sir, as I would spurn be- neath my very feet all the gifts the universe could offer, and live and die as I am, poor but sober. THOMAS F. MARSHALL. 46 READING AND ORATORY. EVERY YEAR. THE Spring has less of brightness, Every year; And the snow a ghastlier whiteness, Every year; Nor do Summer flowers quicken. Nor the Autumn fruitage thicken, As they once did, for they sicken, Every year. It is growing darker, colder. Every year; As the heart and soul grow older, Every year; I care not now for dancing, Or for eyes with passion glancing, I^ove is less and less entrancing, Every year. Of the loves and sorrows blended, Every year; Of the charms of friendship ended. Every year; Of the ties that still might bind me, Until Time to Death resign me My infirmities remind me, Every year. Ah ! how sad to look before us, Every year; While the cloud grows darker o'er us, Every year; When we see the blossoms faded, That to bloom we might have aided, And immortal garlands braided, Every year. EVERY YEAR. 47 To the past go more dead faces, Every year; As the loved leave vacant places, Every year; Everywhere the sad eyes meet us, In the evening's dusk they greet us, And to come to them entreat us, Every year. "You are growing old," they tell us, " Every year; "You are more alone," they tell us, " Every year; " You can win no new affection. You have only recollection. Deeper sorrow and dejection, Every year." Yes ! the shores of life are shifting, Every year; And we are seaward drifting, Every year; Old places, changing, fret us. The living more forget us. There are fewer to regret us. Every year. But the truer life draws nigher. Every year; And its Morning-Star climbs higher Every year; Earth's hold on us grows slighter. And the heavy burden lighter. And the dawn Immortal brighter. Every year. albert pike. Albert Pike, soldier, poet,and jurist, was born in Boston, December 29, 1809; passed his examination and entered Harvard, but was unable to remain, taught school at Gloucester six months and during the year went through the studies of two years, returned to Har- 48 READING AND ORATORY. vard to enter Junior class, was required to pay tuition there for Freshman and Sopho- more years, which he refused to do, and went home to educate himself. The College afterward conferred the degree of A. TNI. on him. After teaching, awhile in Fairhaven and Newburyport, Mass., he went West, in 1831, to Tennessee and Missouri, thence to Santa Fe, New Mtxico, thence to Little Rock, Ark., in 1833, where he edited the Arkansas Advocate and practised law. In 1836 he supervised the publication of the re- vised statutes of Arkansas. He gained distinction in the Mexican war, and in the late war was brigadier-general in the Confederate service. Considering that his life has been one of action mainly, the amount and quality of literary labor performed by him is remarkable: Prose Sketches and Poems (1834), Reports of Cases in Si//>renie Court of Arkansas (5 vols. 1840-45), TJte Arkansas Form Book (1845), and for private dis- tribution several editions of two volumes of poems, Nugce^ and Hymns to the Gods. He is Sovereign Grand Commander of Supreme Council, Thirty-third Degree, for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States— the highest dignitary in Masonry — and has prepared for the craft seventeen volumes of Rituals, Offices, etc. His editions of the Grand Constitutions, Institutes, etc., are the only collection of the laws of the Rite ever published in the world. He edits the Official Bulletin of the Supreme Council, and has now m course of publication, Materials for the History of Freemasonry in France, from i-jiSto /5)9— a monument of Masonic learning and historic research. A number of works,— legal, philological, and Masonic,— he holds in manuscript, declining to pub- lish. No edition of his poems has ever been permitted by him to be published for the public. He resides at present in Washington, and practises in the Supreme Court of the United States. ACCEPTING A GOLD SEAL OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA. THE preamble and resolutions have made for me, in the archives of the State, a record I had not hoped to merit, but trust never to dishonor. The medal, having engraved \\\QXQ.o\\ ^ facsimile oi the seal of the Executive Department once entrusted to me with words of domination from the State of Georgia, and a legend embodying the spirit of the resolu- tions, I proudly accept as a memorial possession for life and a testimonial certificate for all time. In itself a thing of beauty, wrought by the skilful hand of the artisan, in the most pre- cious and imperishable metal of nature, it has for me a value derived neither from nature nor art — a moral significance im- parted by the fiat of a noble constituency — a popular sovereignty. I would not exchange it for Star or Garter, or other badge of knighthood — nor yet for highest patent of nobility ever bestowed by king upon subject. In view of the high position of each department of their SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. 49 government in which my fellow-citizen i have heretofore placed me, and of this unique testimonial, I may truly say that the measure of my ambition is full to overflowing; and that through the same channel of communication my heart sends back to the State of Georgia, measure for measure, a swelling tide of filial gratitude and devotion. Would to God I had remaining enough of life and vigor to do more for her. But having nearly filled my span of three- score years and ten, in the retirement of my quiet home it is a cheering reflection that the noble Commonwealth numbers not by scores only, but by hundreds, sons younger, more vigorous, and no less devoted, who will achieve for her a larger material prosperity, a grander civilization, and a higher renown than she has yet enjoyed. Charles j. jenkins. 9^ SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION, MR. PRESIDENT, my humble belief is, and I say it with no asperity of feeling, that no people in the history of the world have ever been so misunderstood, so misjudged, and so cruelly maligned as the people I represent on this floor. It is known to this country and to this body that since the war not a solitary arm has been raised throughout the extent of Southern territory against the power and authority of the Fed- eral Government by a solitary white man of the South, and yet we are charged, because of riots at elections, with manifesta- tions of hostility to the Government of the United States ! A State government is overthrown; a committee of the Senate report that the powers which hold it are usurpers; the people attempt to assert their rights with the broad declaration that they mean no war upon the United States Government, and will acquiesce in its demands; the Federal soldiery, who have no interest in the support of any political party, cheer the people as they move upon the usurpers; a conflict ensues; men are killed;— and the Southern people are branded as mur- diiers ! 50 READING AND ORATORY. A band of misguided, deluded, ignorant negroes march upon converging lines in the dark hours of the night, with arms to murder, with hearts for plunder, and wagons and sacks to bear away their spoils from a peaceful city; the whites arm for defence; a conflict ensues; men are killed; — and the South is branded as a land of murderers and assassins ! An armed black militia rides in arrogance over a country in the midst of a disarmed people; rob, pillage, insult, drag inno- cent citizens from their beds at night, and perpetrate crimes not to be described on this floor; and when men resist, when they defend themselves, their wives, and their daughters, and con- flict ensues, — the South is branded as a land of murderers and assassins ! Men are sent among us — I do not care otherwise to charac- terize them — who have no permanent habitation, no interest, no property, no sympathy with us, and whose sole purpose is to hold the offices, to levy our taxes, to gather our taxes, to dis- burse our taxes, to make our laws, to govern our people, and then to malign our people. We protest; we strive by all the powers given us, under the laws of the land, to overthrow their power and recover our rights; riots ensue, — and we are charged with disloyalty to the Government of the United States, and outrage, and murder ! How long is this thing to last ? How long are we thus to be the subjects of misrule and of misrepresentation — the foot- ball with which political adventurers play ? How long is the American Senate to be the stage for such scenes as this? How long are the material interests of every section to suffer by bankrupting the South, and the very existence of our free institutions endangered by the military support of political usurpers ? JOHN b. cordon. The distinguished soldier, orator, and statesman, John B. Gordon, was torn in Up- son Co. , Ca. , February 6, 1832, and received his higher education at the University of that State; was admitted to the bar and practised law for a time; entered the Confederate army as Captain of Infantry, was promoted regularly through all the intermediate grades until he became Lientenant-General, and when Gen. Lee surrendered at Appo- mattox commanded one wing ot his army; was eight times wounded in battle. Accepting the issue of the war in good faith, he at once exerted the whole of his great influence to restore his State and people to their former harmonious relations with the general AGAINST REPUDIATION. 5 I government; in 1873, he was elected to the U. S. Senate, where, by his ability, wisdom, and patriotic devotion to the true interests of the whole country, he soon gained a national reputation as statesman. AGAINST REPUDIATION. A STATE that will not pay its honest debts has lived too long. The very existence of a State, so dishonored, is a crime, and the prolific parent of crime. The State is to its citi- zens the rule of right, the very embodiment of inviolable jus- tice. To enforce among its subjects a just regard for mutual rights, the State imposes fines and forfeitures, uses chains and manacles, builds jails and penitentiaries, constructs the gallows and the guillotine. But when the State becomes itself an evil- doer, commits those acts which it punishes in its subjects, tram- ples under foot the eternal justice which it professes to enforce and to dispense, then it debauches the morals of its subjects, who have been taught to look to it for inspiration and for guidance. There is among us in this latter half of the nineteenth century, a laxity about debts, public and private, which would have dis- graced the ethics of pagan Rome. They called a debt as ali- emim, another's money; with us, when a man gets another's money, by borrowing or otherwise, it is, in many cases, most effectually his own. Stay laws and bankrupt acts, at once the evidence and the means of corruption, enable him in many ways to bar payment. Nor does he lose caste by his ill-gotten wealth. Luxurious parlors open to receive him, and are hon- ored by his presence; his wife and daughters flaunt in silks and flutter in brocade; his splendid equipage flings mud from its whirring wheels on the obscure pedestrian with whose money, perchance, it was bought. When, even in the corrupt days of the Roman commonwealth, Cicero was approached with a proposition for new tablets — obliteration of debts — the indignant Consul answered he would give new tablets, but under the auc- tioneer's hammer. Nor is it difficult to find the cause of this 52 READING AND ORATORY. woful putridity of morals. The two Governments under which we Hve have, for fifteen years, shown an utter disregard, have affected, on the grand scale, an utter annihilation of the prop- erty rights of the citizen; have themselves committed, over and over, those crimes which just governments always punish in their subjects. Is it strange that the individual should for- get the distinction between mine and thine, should have his sensibilities utterly obtunded, when the State, to which he has been taught to look as the impersonation of justice, as his ex- emplar in morals and in conduct, abuses the confidence re- posed in its honor, and denies the obligations of its plighted faith? If the State, upon which rests supremely the obligation of immutable justice, can plunder and rob on the grand scale, why not he in feeble imitation on the small? And so, descending step by step, we have learned to entertain the idea of repudiation. Calmly we walk to the edge of that awful chasm and look down into its dismal depths. Shall Virginia take that fatal plunge? No sacrifice would be too great to prevent it. But none is required. It is only necessary to be content to live as we lived in our purer and happier days. If we do this guilty thing, it will be the blackest picture in the book of time. The act will have no extenuation. For one, I say it deliberately: I prefer the annihilation of her sovereignty, the obUteration of her name from history, and from the memory of men. If Virginia is to commit this crowning infamy, I trust it will appear that they who can justly claim the proud heritage of her glory were guiltless of the sin ; that Virginia, brave in war and wise in peace, renowned in history and in romance, the lofty idol of gallant and knightly sons, preserved, so long as she was free, her honor unsullied; that the noble mother, convulsed with mortal agony — herself no longer — stooped to this last disgrace only after she had been bound and manacled, and a baser blood had been injected, at a tryant's bidding, into her indig- nant veins. b. puryear. Bennett Purvear is a native of Mecklenburg Co., Va., and graduated with dis- tinction at Randolph Macon College and the ITniversity of Virginia. He was Pro- THE SLAVES OF MADISON AT HIS GRAVE. 53 fessor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in Richmond College (1850-58); and filled the same chair in Randolph Macon (1858-66). In i866 he returned to Richmond College, where as Professor and Chairman of the Faculty he has contributed very largely to its growing reputation and success. THE SLAVES OF MADISON AT HIS GRAVE. MADISON was distinguished for a serenity of temper, which, under no circumstances, in public or private, did I ever see disturbed. Cheerfulness was a predominant feature in his character ; and frequently he indulged in a play- ful Attic wit, always without a sting ; it was the rose without the thorn. And, above all, as partaking of the Divine purity, I never heard him speak ill of any one. With these personal quali- fications, and most happy in his domestic relations, he per- formed every duty of life with a scrupulous fidelity, as well from a sense of duty as the kindness of his nature; distinguished for his filial piety, whose amiable offices, fortunately for his affec- tionate spirit, were prolonged to the ninety-seventh year of his venerable mother, and were richly repaid by her repeated declarations that he had never given her cause of regret. He was a devoted husband, a kind brother, a warm friend, a good neighbor, and an indulgent master. Many of you were at his funer.^1; you must have seen his ;laveF, decently attired, in attendance, and their orderly deportment; the profound silence was now and then broken by their sobs — they attended the procession to the grave. There are none of us, I fear, who have not drunk of the cup of affliction, heavily drugged by the untimely bereavement of a dear child or affectionate compan- ion; such will but too well remember, that, so long as the re- mains continued on earth, the tie that connected us seemed not entirely dissolved ; but, while standing on the verge of the grave, and seeing the corpse deposited, and hearing the pious man give utterance to the fearful sentence " dust to dust," whose fulfilment by some friendly hand flung back its hollow and mournful sound, how it i)icrccd our souls, how we felt that the separation was now final — that all was gone! 54 READING AND ORATORY. At this part of the service it was not only the body servant, who was standing directly by me, that, by his sobs and sighs, showed how severely he felt his bereavement in the loss of a kind and indulgent master, but the hundred slaves gave vent to their lamentations in one violent burst that rent the air; me- thought it ascended to Heaven, and was heard with joy by the heavenly host, as a redeeming item in that great account which he, in common with all the sons of' Adam, had to meet. And I derived consolation at the moment from a belief that if, in that great account, slight blemishes here and there, from the in- exorable law of our nature, were to be found, this alone would, in the eye of mercy, be sufficient to "blot out the unfriendly characters that bore record of his infirmity, to be remembered no more." james barbour. THE CONQUERED BANNER. FURL that Banner, for 'tis weary, Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary: Furl it, fold it, it is best: For there's not a man to wave it, And there's not a sword to save it, And there's not one left to lave it In the blood which heroes gave it; And its foes now scorn and brave it; Furl it, hide it — let it rest. Take that Banner down, 'tis tattered, Broken is its staff and shattered. And the valiant hosts are scattered, Over whom it floated high; Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it. Hard to think there's none to hold it, Hard that those who once unrolled it, Now must furl it with a sigh. THE CONQUERED BANNER. 55 Furl that Banner — furl it sadly — Once ten thousands hailed it gladly, And ten thousands wildly, madly, Swore it would forever wave — Swore that foeman's sword could never Hearts like theirs entwined dissever, 'Till that flag would float forever O'er their freedom or their grave. Furl it, for the hands that grasped it, And the hearts that fondly clasped it, Cold and dead are lying low; And the Banner, it is trailing, While around it sounds the wailing Of its people in their woe; For though conquered, they adore it, Love the cold, dead hands that bore it, Weep for those who fell before it — Pardon those who trailed and tore it — And oh! wildly they deplore it. Now to furl and fold it so. Furl that Banner: true, 'tis gory. Yet 'tis weathed around with glory, And 'twill live in song and story. Though its folds are in the dust: For its fame on brightest pages, Penned by poets and by sages. Shall go sounding down the ages — Furl its folds though now we must. Furl that Banner, softly, slowly. Treat it gently — it is holy — For it droops above the dead; Touch it not — unfold it never. Let it droop there furled forever. For its people's hopes are dead. FATHER RYAN. 56 READING AND ORATORY. CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY. PRUSSIA and England stand to-day in the fore-front of the world's development, with banners inscribed with those words of strength, "Freedom secured by law." The principles that seem yet with us floating in solution, are there crystallized into those political gems of declared rights, which, carried to England by our Saxon forefathers, first began to congeal and shine on Magna Chafta upon the memorable day of the meadow council; and have, by the slow accretion of the world's progress in truth and moral rights, become the crown jewels of the lands just named. We owe much to the German race. From them have we in- herited that idea of personal liberty which makes such con- trast to the centralization, unified power, peculiar classes with peculiar privileges, which is the outgrowth of the Latin race,- — and which is to be as clearly seen operating this day as when the Roman eagle met the banner of the White Horse in Saxony. There is no harmonizing these two ideas ; every effort to combine them has only resulted in an increase of antagonism, leading to convulsive outbreaks of bloodshed and ruin. No nation has oftener made the attempt than France. And see the result. Look at Spain and Rome! to-day they are as far removed from England, Prussia, and those northwestern king- doms of Europe, as when the freemen — according to Motley, ihe frcetc'omen — of Saxony gave the legions of Caesar the first check in their onward course of universal dominion, amid the morasses and pme-forests of Germany. This assertion of personal freedom — this adoration of liberty guaranteed by law — so dear to the Saxon heart, caused our an- cestors to struggle with the hydra of despotism from the days of Alfred to Runnemede; led to the overthrow of feudalism brought in by the Norman conquest, and to a victorious combat with all those ideas of a "one man's rule" introduced by the foreign marriages of their sovereigns; reddened a hundred plains where the rival Roses contended; and upheld the ban- A PINEVILLE BALL. 57 ner of the rights of the people upon the fields of Otterbourn, Shrewsbury, Bosworth, Flodden Field, and Marston Moor. Through all the woof of the past this brave Saxon principle is seen running like a thread of gold— bright, strong, and power- ful. In every struggle this has been maintained, in every con- flict this has ultimately triumphed — individual responsibility, whether o; Kaiser, King, or beggar; individual liberty, as well for him who toils in the hut, as for him who feasts in the hall; the right to do as seemed to us good, so long as it interferes with no other man's liberty or rights; — a freedom so based upon eternal justice as to seem an original emanation from the source of all justice itself. mrs. m. j. young. A PINEVILLE BALL. NOTHING can be imagined more simple or more fascinat- ing than those Pineville balls. No love of display, no vain attempt to outshine a competitor in the world of fashion, governed the preparations. Refreshments of the simplest char- acter were provided; such only as the unusual exercise would fairly warrant, nothing to tempt a pampered appetite. Cards w^ere furnished to keep the old men quiet, and the music was such only as the gentlemen's servants could give. The company assembled early — no one ever thought of waiting until bedtime to go to the ball — and the dancing al- ways began with a country-dance. The lady who stood at the head of the column called for the figures, and the old airs of Ca ira. Money-musk, Haste to Weddhtg, and La Belle Catherine were popular and familiar in Pmeville, even long after they had been forgotten in the city. Ah! well do we remember with what an exulting step would the young man who had secured the partner of his choice, exhibit his powers of the poetry of motion when his partner called for the air La Belle Catherine. How proudly would he perform the pas seul on one side of the column while his partner did the same on the other side; how 58 READING AND ORATORY. gracefully would they come up to the top of the column to cross hands ; how gallantly would he lead her down the column; and, when the strain was closing and the leader commenced with his bow the prolonged rest on the final note, how full of sentiment, of grace, and of courtesy was the bow with which he would salute his fair lady ! But these are scenes to be lived over in thought : no untutored imagination can conceive them. Even in Pineville they have become things which were, time cannot restore them; but so long as an old Pineville heart beats, so long will be embalmed in the most fragrant memory the recollection of a Pineville country- dance. The staple dance of the evening was the cotillion, which has in these degenerate days given way for the quadrille. And now, when a country-dance and one or two cotillion sets had greatly stirred up the spirit of the dancers, the signal would be given for the exhilarating reel. A six-handed reel! Come back for a moment, thou inexorable Past, and bring again be- fore me that most fascinating of movements! No lover now claims the hand of his beloved — here is no room for sentiment, for soft whispers, for the gentle pressure of the thrilling hand. No; this is a dance. Let none venture on it but a real lover of dancing. Your partner must be a lively, merry, laughter-loving girl, brisk, animated, and active. Here is no room for affected display — you must be self-possessed, for the movement is brisk, but with self-possession no danger is to be feared. The reel is called, the sets are formed, three couple in each; the music begins, and off the merry dancers bound ! In rapid succession we have the chace, the hey, the figure of eight, right and left, cross hands, down the middle, grand round, cross again, and off the whole party darts, to recommence the intoxi- cating reel. If your dress become disordered, let it alone; you have no time to put it to rights, for the hands must move as quickly as the feet. And as your pulse quickens with intense delight, hark! how the fiddlers catch the inspiration and sym- pathize with your joy. Their stamps become quicker. The music runs on in accelerated time — and bow and fingers move A PINEVILLE BALL. 59 with a rapidity which Paganini might envy, but could never hope to emulate. The powers of endurance are taxed to the uttermost, and set after set retire exhausted. The last set gen- erally contains some unlucky wight of middle age, who has ventured once more to enjoy the luxury of the dance. How wickedly do his young companions (his partner the instigator) persevere. How gayly do they strive, by keeping him on his feet, to punish his presumption in venturing among them. But they know not that men of that age possess powers of endur- ance beyond their tender years, and, after a protracted contest, they find that they have caught a tartar. The company look on in pleased sympathy, and the young are at last obliged to acknowledge themselves vanquished. The evening's entertainment was always concluded with the JBoulanger, a dance whose quiet movement came in appropri- ately to cool off the revellers before exposure to the chilly air. It was a matter of no small importance to secure a proper partner for this dance, for, by old custom, whoever danced last with a lady had a prescriptive right to see her home. No car- riages ever rolled in the village streets after night; a servant with a lantern marshalled the way, and the lady, escorted by her last partner, was conducted to her home. And as the sea- son drew towards a close, how interesting became those walks! how many words of love were spoken! how many hearts sad- dened by the discovery of the hopelessness of an attachment ! How many persons are yet alive whose destiny depended upon one of these walks. To many a dancer the Boiilanger was a season of consciousness, of apprehension, of delight reined in, of hope, and of fear ; and numbers still live, in whose memo- ries this dance is indelibly fixed. f. a. porcher. F. A. Porcher was born in Charleston, S. C, in 1809 ; graduated at Yale College, and returning home, studied law, but abandoned it for planting ; in 1848, was appointed Professor of History and Belles Lettres in the College of Charleston, where he still remains ; is President of the South Carolina Historical Society. Besides his Ski-tch 0/ Craven County (from which the above is extracted), which gives very graphic and interesting glimpses of bygone country life in Carolina, he has written numerous his- torical and literary essays. 6o READING AND ORATORY. ROBERT E. LEE TKE TEACHER OF SOUTHERN YOUTH. THE culture and elevation of the youth of the South — what a fascinating field, what a grand enterprise! Whose eye does not kindle at the thought, and whose heart does not sympathize with the sentiment? What is required to stimulate us to the noble work? Where shall we look for an example fit to be followed and worthy of imitation? There is one, an illustrious example to all Southern men, — without a parallel in history — the Ohristian knight, whose white plume waves before us in whatever direction we cast our eyes, — the commander of armies in war; in peace, "the guide, philo- sopher, and friend of Southern youth." You know his name. His image has a home in all your hearts. Who shall paint the picture of his lofty life — -who portray lineaments of his moral manhood ? He drew his sword, not in wrath, but in defence of his native State, which he loved better than life. Upon its point for years he carried the destiny of his people, baffling the chosen and skilful leaders of the enemy, beating back their hosts from field to field, and securing the safety of the capital which sat shaking under their guns. The struggle was vain. The contest closed. The dark curtain fell. But the white plume of the Christian knight did not go down — "the light which led him on was light from Heaven." High above those dark and desolate fields arose a single and sublime figure — the figure of Lee. Yielding to destiny, he called about him his war-worn veterans, his old guard, the companions of his toils, his feelings, and his fame; delivered to them his farewell order; confided them to the keeping of his God and theirs; and, turning from those fatal fields forever, re- paired to his own mountains of Virginia. There he dedicated all the energies of his heroic nature to the advancement of the elite of Southern youth. There the splendid sunset of his life lit up their minds with the light of knowledge, and inspired their hearts with the love of country. Cicero, in the Roman forum, pleading for virtue and patriotism; THE BIBLE. 6l Plato, in academic groves teaching the Athenian youth lessons of philosophy and good-will — hold no higher place. There death found him. There with dying lips he ordered: " Let the tent be struck!" and passed to the front above. The great heart of the South is still bleeding over his grave. History claims him, and will surround his name with its most lasting lustre. T. M. JACK. THE BIBLE. LET us contemplate the Bible, in contrast with the hoary and venerable lore of ages; and for this purpose enter with me, in imagination, some well-stored library, and glance around upon the stately array of tomes in which the wisdom and the mighty thoughts of the dead are garnered up. They are immortal. There they stand, so calm and solemn, as if conscious of their imperishable glory. Dare we hope that we, too, will one day be numbered among those ranks, and leave thoughts for which the wise will barter their gold? And yet, what matters it? Those creations, it is true, are great, noble, deathless; the instruction, the incitement, the very echo of the heart of humanity. But they can tell us nothing of the mys- teries most necessary to be known; and which, curtained by death, and dreadly palled by futurity and retribution, agitate and oppress the inquiring. They can only inform us that those mysteries have also darkened other spirits, awakened fears, doubts, and fruitless speculations; and the collected wisdom of the world leaves us only more deeply conscious of the ignorance of man. But, amidst the grand array, the eye of the weary and unsatis- fied inquirer turns to one small and ancient volume. It has passed through a more fiery ordeal of criticism than all the writings collectively of India, Greece, and Rome, and it holds enthralled the faith and homage of millions of the civilized world. Strange, venerable, awful, terrible Book! It is folly to ridicule you, it is madness to reject you; with all your hard 62 READING AND ORATORY. sayings, and dark riddles, and dim traditions, and bloody stories, you have triumphed over the literature of Greece, and, what is more, over some of the noblest intellects and the finest hearts which have regalized humanity. What a triumphant, though silent concession, have you extorted from your enemies, in that they have deemed you sufficiently formidable to elicit almost everything which learning, assiduity, genius, weariless research, and the most polished intellectual armory, could furnish to combat you. One book in barbarous dialects, against the glorious language and unrivalled genius of a library of Grecians! The true Olympian Eagle of Song — the fiery Master of the Lyric torrent — the enthroned Triad of action and passion — the lute-voiced old Chronicler — the Promethean thief of Clio's Stylus — the pure-tongued Annalist of the Immortal Retreat — the thunder- bolt of winged eloquence — the mighty genius of that subtle Encyclopaedist — the polished Censor and Panygerist of de- clining Athens — the genial Essayist and Biographer, and even the sublimely attuned soul whose thoughts and language roll on like the everlasting harmony of the spheres; yes, all, — poet, orator, historian, philosopher, — you must all doff your starry well-earned crowns, before the awful diadem of that authoritative volume. Old Grecians, your glory is Hke the glitter of the starry fir- mament, your majesty like that of ''the old rolling heavens"; but the Bible is like floods of sunshine, and stormy night, and lurid fire, and balmy morn, and life and death, and heaven and hell, in the rapidly-shifting scenes of a universal panorama. Masters of the heart and intellect as you Grecians are, your pages have no such pathos as the story of Joseph; — no psalms like the strains of David; — no sublime conceptions of the Om- nipotent Jehovah like the Hebrew Prophets; — no grandeur like the empyrean-piercing flights of Pauline eloquence, an eloquence which neither the intricacies of bad Greek, nor the peculiar method of Rabbinic logic, can degrade or obscure. Your pages present nothing equal to the magnificent book of Job — nothing at all comparable with the wild sublimity of the heart's content. 63 Apocalyptic epic, and your loftiest and most brilliant concep- tions fade into insignificance and the dimmest twilight before the Divine majesty of the simple gospels. What is the sacrifice of a raving Hercules, that he might speedily reach the blessed abodes, through the sharp, self-in- flicted agonies, which swallowed up in their fiery haste the slow torments of the gnawing vest ; what is Agamemnon's touch- ing, compulsory sacrifice of the self-devoted Iphigenia ; what is the grand suffering of Prometheus for the temporal benefit of the human race; what is the affecting self-sacrifice of Al- kestis, for her husband's life; what all the voluntary sacrifices of Grecian story, compared with the overwhelming tenderness, the unspeakable awe and sublimity, of the loving sacrifice of the Son of God for the everlasting salvation of a sinful world? The genius and learning of centuries have been kindled by and lavished upon the literature of Greece; but it never brought comfort to the penitent spirit, it never softened remorse into repentance, and transformed repentance into the hope of faith; it never poured balm into the broken heart, nor consola- tion into the bosom of the afflicted and desolate; it never took away the sting of sin, or threw a halo of triumph around the gloom of death; it never extorted from a glorious crowd of genius and learning the confession that " this is the word of God," as that same old Bible has mightily done. And after every concession is made, which true science can extort or de- mand, the spiritual truths of that Book will still shine, a golden chain, linking the deepest and holiest hopes of man with the heavenly throne of the Eternal God. j. w. miles. HEART'S CONTENT. THERE is an isle far over troublous seas. Above whose valleys bluest skies are bent, Where sweetest flowers perfume the pleasant leas — Men call it Heart's Content. 64 READING AND ORATORY. And every prow that rides the sea of hfe Toward that dear, distant isle is turned for aye, Through treacherous calms and stormy shoals of strife, Holding its doubtful way. Oft in the midmost ocean bark meets bark, And as they pass, from each the challenge sent Comes back the same across the waters dark, " We steer for Heart's Content ! " For many an isle there is so like, so like The mystic goal of all that travail sore, That oft the wave-worn keels on strange sands strike And find an alien shore. But ever, as the anchor drops, and sails From off the storm-strained yards are all unbent, From the tall mast-head still the watcher hails, " Lo yonder! Heart's Content!" And so once more the prow is seaward set; Hearts still hope on, tho' waves roll dark around; And on the stern men write the name Regret, And fare forth, outward bound. G. HERBERT SASS. CENTENNIAL BILL. I HAVE done with the constitutional question, as my time will not allow me to go into it further. I put it upon this ground: Show me the granted power, or how this bill is neces- sary and proper to carry into effect an expressly granted power, or, before God and under my oath, I cannot vote for it. Talk about sentimental patriotism! I have as much of it as most people, but my sentimental patriotism will not allow me to trifle with the solemn obligation I took at the Speaker's desk when I was sworn in as a member of this House. CENTENNIAL BILL. 65 Now, sir, I put it on another ground — and I beg my demo- cratic friends around me to hear me, and I beg the gentlemen on the republican side of this chamber to hear me — I put it on the ground that the only limit to this grooving corruption in the country is a limitation upon the porver of the Government. If you would advertise to this country that any scheme that a plausible committee or commission can induce gentlemen to strain them- selves up to the point of believing to be for the general welfare is open to the exercise of power by this Congress, I tell you, sir, it will be an advertisement for jobbers; and the lobby will be so filled that its agents "will push us from our stools," and drive its members from this House. But whenever it comes to that, the people of the country will say, thank God, they shall not sit here any longer! Whenever you claim power to do anything which you may judge for the general welfare, you proclaim to the country and to all its schemers and jobbers this invitation: "Have any of you any scheme you think for the general welfare? If so, bring it for- ward!" There will be no lack of them, sir, and the lobbyists out there will corrupt this body, if it is corruptible. Your credit mobiliers, your railroad schemes, and all your thousand plans for plunder upon the public treasury and upon the tax-paying and the tax-burdened people of the land will be without remedy. There is only one remedy, and that is to limit power ; but there is no limitation of power, if this Government can do anything it pleases, upon the ground of "the general welfare." You have declared in a late resolution, with great unanimity on the other side of the chamber, and with some dissension on this, that subsidies to private corporations are a thing we are too pure to indulge in. But yet, sir, 30 soon as a private cor- poration comes here and asks a subsidy for its enterprise, because it calls itself a centennial corporation, and talks spread-eagle and sentimental patriotism, we say: "O, it would be unpatriotic to refuse it!" There is logic for you! Now, sir, I am opposed altogether to splendid governments. It is old-fashioned, sir, to say it; but I am old enough to be old- fashioned. I am opposed to a splendid government and to a (£ READING AND ORATORY. squalidly poor people. I am opposed to seeing the tax-consumer revelling in palaces and in luxury while I hear the wail of woe that comes from the tax-burdened people all over the land. I am opposed to it. It is the mission of this House, it is the mis- sion of my political friends around me here, to say: This thing must and shall cease. Right here and now, upon the altar of what we believe to be our duty to our people, we will immolate even this sentimental patriotism, and in doing it we will go back to the simple virtues and habits and customs of our forefathers a hundred years ago. john Randolph tucker. LET US END SECTIONAL STRIFE. FROM the summit of Bunker Hill the voice of American history and patriotism spoke to the heart of Mr. Sumner, the great apostle of emancipation, and commanded him to re- member the devotion and sacrifices of the South in the " times that tried men's souls," and he could not sleep under the shadow of that eloquent stone until he had made an effort to extinguish the hostile memories of war. From every battle of the Revolution arise the shades of im- mortal martyrs and command us to end the strife. From the bloody and honorable fields on the northern lakes, around this capital, and from the plains of New Orleans, from the gallant decks of the proud Navy that proclaimed that the universal seas should be free, and from the yet fresh victories in Mexico,— from all comes an appeal for peace. Ah, Mr. President, does not the same appeal with more tender and touching pathos speak to us from Manassas, Fredericksburg, Sharpsburg, and Gettysburg? The great spirits who fell there, and passed from the shadows of earth amid the roar of artillery and the red blaze of war, have long since made peace on the camping-grounds of the brave and the just; over the scenes of their last mortal combat the green grass and the sweet flowers of Nature have returned with the beautiful Spring, and from their united ranks on that LET US END SECTIONAL STRIFE. dj august field of review before which all human actions must pass, there descends to their countrymen the white flag of a final and unending truce, with the message that their blood has been suf- ficient atonement for the sins of the nation, and that over their peaceful graves their countrymen must shake hands and for- ever be friends. Then, Senators, in the name of our great forefathers who for civil and religious liberty braved the ocean, the tempest, the forest, and the savage, to rescue freedom from its fate in Europe and plant it in this new world; by the memory of those patriots who one hundred years ago gave their blood and treasure like water to establish our independence; by the names of those who have fallen on every field from Lexington to Appomattox, let us be friends, countrymen, brothers. I invoke the Senators of Massachusetts by the memory of North Carolina's succor in her darkest hour. I invoke the Senators from^ New York, Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware by the memories of their united struggle with Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; I invoke the Senators from every State — from the great daugh- ters of Virginia and North Carolina, from those mighty Com- monwealths that sprang from the Louisiana purchase by Jeffer- son, and were saved by the valor and partriotism of Southern men, under Jackson — I invoke all, this day and this hour to gather around the family altars, and end forever and forever this fratricidal strife. And we shall rear upon the ruins of our errors and follies, over the prejudices, passions, and hates of the past, a grander and nobler temple of wisdom, justice, and liberty than the sun has yet shone upon, and all over and through that temple, from its foundation to its dome, we shall behold arrayed side by side the virtues, the valor, the sacrifices, and the immortal achievements of the North and the South. And then, as the sun rises in the east and makes his daily revo- lutions until he sinks to rest in the west, his beams will spread the light of American liberty and the glory of a happy and united people over the whole earth as a blessing to all mankind. And now, Senators, I conclude with the sentiments with which I began: I thank a merciful Providence that I have been 68 READING AND ORATORY. spared to see this day, and inspired with the courage and truth to vindicate the character of the South and make a faithful ef- fort to restore and preserve the American Union. I thank God that, if I do nothing else, I can at least leave to my sons this record, that when they shall remember that the people of the South, animated by patriotic courage, undertook, in obedience to the principles handed down to them by their fathers, to sepa- rate the Union, arrayed themselves in arms to accomplish that end, and they shall see the names of their ancestors among those whose bright bayonets on the 12th day of July, 1864, re- flected the beams of the morning sun back on the dome of the nation's Capitol, my children shall also behold the name of their father, when that sad war was over, enrolled in the same Capi- tol among those who were striving with unalterable and un- changeable devotion to cherish and perpetuate forever the Union of the States, the Constitution, and liberty And may God bless me with the strength and patriotism to do so much for the peace, happiness, and honor of my country that no human being can doubt the sincerity of my attachment and love for her. matt w. ransom. Matt W. Ransom is a native of North Carolina, and was born in 1826. He graduated at the University of his State in 1847, studied law, and rapidly gained distinction in his profession, being elected Attorney-General in 1852; in 1861 he was a Peace Commis- sioner from his State to the Congress of Southern States at Montgomery, but finding war inevitable, he entered the Confederate army as Lieutenant-Colonel, rose to the grade of Major-General, and surrendered at Appomattox. He now represents North Carolina in the U. S. Senate. ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL. LET me ask my friends what answer they will make when they return to their homes, and their constituents shall ask them, why they surrendered the rights of the people repre- sented in this House? When they shall ask you if the House of Representatives do not possess an equal power with the Senate in counting the electoral vote and determining who is President, you will ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL. 69 answer, "A committee of this House have so reported to it at this session, and that no vote can be constitutionally counted without its concurrence", when they shall ask you what has been the practice of the Government on that subject, you will answer them " No vote for President has ever been counted without the concurrence of the House since the Government was formed"; when they shall ask you if the Constitution does not confer on you the power to elect a President if no candidate has received a majority of all the electors appointed, you will answer, yes, when they ask you if you did not have a democratic majority, both of members and States, in the House, and the ability to elect a democratic President, you will answer, yes ! What, then, will be your answer when they ask you why you abandoned a certainty for an uncertainty — why you did not discharge the duty imposed upon you by the Constitution, instead of creating a tribunal for that purpose, whose deter- mination was to be confessedly a game of chance? What an- swer can you make for putting up to lottery the Presidency of forty millions of people? The only answer you can make is that you were afraid of the present Executive; the assembling of soldiers and artillery here, and the open menaces of the friends and supporters of the Executive, had filled your bosoms with apprehensions of civil war. Grant it. But is it v.-ise statesmanship to encourage intrigues and conspiracies by making concessions to them^ Is it not rather our duty to stand by the Constitution and laws, and declare him President whom the people have elected? It is our duty to stand by the ballot-box, not the dice-box! If in this game of chance the dice should fall against the people's choice, and elect a man reprobated by them at the ballot-box; if it should reinstate an administration which they have condemned and renounced, and continue over them the misrule that has banished their prosperity and paralyzed their industries; if, to maintain by force what they have won by fraud, they shall annihilate the political power of the South, by remanding her States to territorial vassalage, as that party is •JO READING AND ORATORY. now proposing in the Senate and House; if arbitrary power, and the swarm of vultures which follow its shadow to prey upon the victims of its lusts, shall be given again to an oppressed and suffering people, what answer will you, — what answer can you give for surrendering the keys to their fortress which they have entrusted to your faithful keeping? For myself, I will stand by the Constitution and the sover- eignty of the people, and leave it to them to determine whether or not they will abandon their Government to a bold, insolent, and palpable fraud. Concession to fraud never added strength to the right, and only defers the evil we would avoid, and, while deferring, increases its strength. If we are right, then let us stand by the right, for the sake of the right. If the Constitu- tion is assailed by a powerful combination for its overthrow, we can best do our duty by rising to the highest courage in its de- fence. In the language of a great American statesman, let us "cling to the Constitution as the mariner clings to the last plank in the shipwreck, when night and tempests gather round him." Let us imitate the high courage of that other great American name, and adopt his motto, "Ask nothing but what is right, and submit to nothing that is wrong." These, sir, are the lights that fall along my pathway, and these are the lamps by which my feet are guided; and I will follow them with the faith and devotion that the philosophers followed the star that led them to the Author of truth. r. q. mills. MATURNUS' ADDRESS TO HIS BAND. MEN — not slaves ! — I speak to you ! This creature tells the truth: We did not taste Rome's power until we turned To fight the legions! That power I knew full well. And knowing made the venture — took all risks — And now approve them — thus: I frankly tell you, we are hard bested! MATURNUS' ADDRESS TO HIS BAND. 71 We've lost three battles, and will lose another If we must fight to-morrow — and the last! Say we may chance escape from here — break through These serried lines — what then? 'Twere but exchange Of dungeons, for Rome's prison is the world! That sleepless tigress, once she tastes our blood, Must lap it every drop! We have defied The sacred majesty of Rome, proud sitting Upon her seven hills! Whither shall man fly When Rome pursues, or how escape when Rome Says he shall cease! If we flee to the desert, Rome's arm will reach us there! Across the sea — On pathless wilds — in dungeons — in the grave — There is no sanctuary for us anywhere — No refuge for us — no escape from out Rome's ghastly thraldom of ubiquity! You all have heard How proud Achilles was made safe from wounds, Except in one small spot! — An arrow probed it, And proud Achilles died! And so proud Rome, Steel-crusted, shaking off assaults like spray Of raindrops dashed on granite, bears within A heart so wrung by passion's fiery thrills. So flushed, so overcome, so weak, subdued By pleasure's mad fruitions, idle ease And pampered luxury and cankering lust — So dastard in effeminate wantonness — That every touch afflicts it — every blow — Though but an infant with his bauble dealt it — Brings agonies! There is the spot to strike — Beneath the armor, past the shield, right through The palpitating heart! Great Jove! Rome's heart! Our swords are whetted! Comrades, we have borne these toils Not all in vain! The deed that is to do Pales all our past deeds to a feeble shadow In its heroic glory ! Day and night 72 READING AND ORATORY. Blend softly with each other, year on year, When, sudden, 'thwart the startled face of night, A flaming wonder, some great comet, bursts, Waving her sword, and all the nations tremble! So what we plan shall flash upon the world, And strike Rome palsied with astonishment! I know a path — it leads o'er yonder crag. And through dim valleys, where the banished sun Ne'er dreams of shining, till it finds the rills That flow to the Adrian sea! Along that path We steal away, to-night, unseen, until We cross the mountains! Then, disbanding, creep Like peaceful travellers, one by one, to Rome. There will I meet you — there complete the plot That gives us Rome to spoil! To Rome, then, soldiers! Follow swift my steps! Tread quick and bold — yet light! Wake not the foe Who slumbers there beneath us; nor the snow That trembles there above us! Guard each breath! Above, below, around us, lurks swift death! EDWARD SPENCER. Edward Spencer, the brilliant magazinist and journalist, was born in Baltimore, June 23, 1834, graduated at Princeton in 1855, and has been a professional litterateur ever since. He contributes to all the leading magazines and reviews, and is the author of numerous plays, including the well-known A"/V, and the tragedy oi Maturnus Since 1866 he has been connected with the editorial staff of Richvtond Enquirer^ Washington Patriot, Neiu York World, and AVw York Sun. At present he is editor-in-chief of Baltimore Evening Bulletin. A rare scholar and philosophic thinker, he is, at the same time, master of a style brilliant and polished, yet logical and perspicuous, which renders all his productions most attractive to cultured readers. THE SOUTH IS RISING UP. LET us rejoice, now, that our people are marching abreast of the spirit of the age. Let gallant South and gener- ous North rejoice alike that the South is rising up. Aye, forth from dust and ashes, forth from humiliation and defeat, she is rising up! The cotton-blossoms are again resplendent in THE SOUTH IS RISING UP. y^ our fields. They are the robes of our ascension; we are ris- ing up. The waters ( f our rivers are being taught to turn the wheel, and I hear them chant as they murmur on to the ocean; We are rising up! we are rising up! The blades of the boun- tiful corn stand in serried ranks in many a field, and the winds that toy with the tassels of these foemen of labor, seem to whisper as they pass by : We are rising up! we are rising up! From the dark recess of the mine comes the merry click of pick and spade — iron and coal seem to smg m chorus: We are rising up! In the myriad public schools, I hear the myriad voices of the young — the citizens of the time to come are there: They are rising up ! Old men of the conquered South, I salute you reverently! You saw — you were a part of the past glory of the South — you shared her downfall. God be thanked that you have lived to see her thus rising up so valiantly. Your work was not in vain. Confederate bonds, wherein your fortunes took their flight, will be forever worthless on the Stock Exchange, but they will pass current in Heaven; there will they be redeemed when the Great Cashier of human accounts reads upon them the sig- nature of your patriotism, their makers — your self-sacrifice and valor, their endorsers. Your wisdom is your country's pride, your virtue her glory; your deeds her fame. Serene be the evening of your days, and hopeful. For age is opportunity no less Then youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away, The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. Women of the conquered South, God bless you! Two traits, conspicuous and pre-eminent, have ever characterized the old Germanic stock — the Saxon race: firm adherence to the right of local government, "home rule"; reverence for woman, the chief of all "home rulers." Let these traits be cherished. Let not man forget that, of all the altars of relig- ion ever reared, whether under the dome of St. Peter's or the spire of St. Paul's, there is no shrine of God so sacred as the mother's knee, that of all the schools, academies, anduniversi- 74 READING AND ORATORY. ties that open their doors to learning, there can be none whose light so fructifies the mind, or kindles the heart as that which radiates from the hearthstone of home. The " drum and trumpet" histories of the world have no place for you- in "the sequestered vales of life" your mission lies; there nobly, through hardship and suffering and adversity you have performed it. I cannot, I need not if I could, your story tell. It is writ on high. It is remembered here. And long may the sons of the South revere and guard its mothers and daughters. Young men of the conquered South, to you I bring special message! "Young men," said a wise Caliph of Arabia, "young men are more like the age they live in than they are like their fathers." Profound is the reflection. It must be so; it is well that it is so. Our fathers had their work to do. None did their work better. In their successes they were gracious; in their fail- ure? grand. We have another and different work to do, and are not called to do their's over again, or to reattempt the things which they and we together failed at. Their true glory lay in the fact that they did not tread in their fathers' footsteps, but kept on in the course where their fathers left off — not run- ning around in a groove like the holiday race-horse; but like the battle-steed moving steadily to the front. Had they fol- lowed their fathers, America would have remained a British colony; had we followed ours, the South would have remained a Northern province. Imitating their examples, but not repeating their acts, let us breathe the spirit of the advancing age in Avhich we live, yet, clinging to home-right, town-right, county-right, state-right, country-right — yet clinging to those essential principles of free- dom which died not in England when Harold fell at Senlac, nor died yet in America when Lee sheathed his sword at Appo- mattox. Revere the past; but remember that we cannot live in it. Sacred be it as a Sabbath of the soul; but let it not prevent us from gathering the corn-ears that grow around us; for as Christ FRANCIS MARION. 75 said of -the Sabbath, so may we say of the past: "It was made for man, not man for it." Take no lot or share with " the little hearts that know not how to forgive." Be not like the perishing worms which "bite each other here in the dust." Think for yourselves, act for yourselves, and speak out right boldly that which you do think, maintaining dignity and conscience, whether conquering or conquered, echoing in your conduct the grand words of St. Paul- "Stand up; I myself am also a man." JOHN W. DANIEL. FRANCIS MARION, IT is with a grateful sense of your kindness, and the honor done me, that I rise to respond to the sentiment that for you is enwrapped in '' The Memory of Francis Marion," that great citizen-soldier of the State, one of the master- workers of the Revolutionary struggle, whose name is the common heritage of his countrymen. That name you have enshrined here; to that memory you have set up an altar of continual remembrance, and invoked it as the inspiration of your civic and martial life. It is well for me that that name speaks always for itself; that it needs no interpreter; that its spell is as subtile as it is univer- sal, living in tradition and romance and poetry, where it has eluded the slower grasp of sober history. The memories that cluster around it recall some of the noblest feeling and highest living that has ever illustrated the majesty of manhood, and ennobled the dignity of human nature. It recalls the self-sacrifice and heroism of the Huguenots — those grand exiles for con- science — the force and fervor of their creed, their deathless love of liberty and virtue. It recalls a strong character, high senti- ments, simple and noble manners, the flower and fruit of a noble mind. It recalls right thinking and plain living, personal honor, undaunted courage and whole-souled devotion to the common weal. It recalls a military insight that was genius, and a mar- tial fire that was inspiration. It recalls all the dangers and 76 READING AND ORATORY. daring of a partisan warfare on which hung the destiny of an oppressed people, and the cause of civil liberty in the modern world. It recalls the historic fame of Fort Sullivan, our own Fort Moultrie, on yonder sea-girt island — Eutaw, Savannah, and the nameless and countless battles in the forest-fortress, where, with a handful of faithful followers, he baffled or dis- persed the armies sent to destroy him, and kept alive the fire of patriotism in a State that was well-nigh overwhelmed in despair. On the very threshold of our life as a people, there is set up a great historical picture that must ever stir the heart, exalt and inspire the mind of all the children of this Niobe of States, whom we call Mother. When Charleston was taken and Moul- trie was a prisoner of war, and his companions in arms were his fellow-captives — and Sumpter, sick and wounded, had re- tired from the field — and Gates defeated and broken — and the State garrisoned from seaboard to mountains by the foe — and her Governor was in a sister Colony pleading with his eloquence for aid for a stricken people — Marion alone led the forlorn hope, led it heroically and cheerfully, in the face of almost certain ruin, with the quenchless hope and dauntless courage of a prophet. These are the memories that make a people great. These are the memories — familiar but immortal — that make this land, even in its ruin and desolation, a land of hope. These are the memories which, as a people, we cannot forget, which in late years, amid the perils of war and the sterner hardships of peace, have made us men. J. p. K. BRYAN. THE DUTY LOUISIANA OWES TO THE COLORED RACE. LOUISIANA must see to it that the statesmanship, which so lately ushered in the victory of Conservative princi- ples, shall lead directly to the establishment of as absolute a THE DUTY LOUISIANA OWES THE COLORED RACE. "JJ harmony as possible between the two races that make up her population. Legislation is possessed of multiplied agencies for the public good; but it must be remembered that education is by far the most potent of them all. Legislation can, with wise foresight, provide for a homogeneous population; but it is through education alone that that homogeneousness can be made at once strong and cohesive. It is education alone that can harmonize factions ; reconcile differences , foster affections ; create sympathies ; encourage brotherhood ; and call under one common banner, those who, under its own vivifying influence, shall have been made earnest and intelligent co-workers in the civilization of a great Common- wealth. It is with the aid of education alone, finally, that patriots can hope to see the vexed question of the harmonious relation between the two races settled — with no humiliation to the higher, with no degradation to the humbler. This question is indeed one that trenches upon the imminent Present. For good or evil, a race equal to the whites — at least in numbers, passing suddenly from a condition of slavery to a condition of freedom, continuing and needed to continue in its former home — must assert itself. It should be the duty — and it is clearly the interest — of the State, to see that that race shall assert itself in knowledge — not in ignorance; in a loyal understanding of its obligations — not in a blind dis- regard of them; in an intelligent participation, hereafter, in the responsible duties of American citizenship — not in a dogged adherence to those prejudices which can flourish only in the Saharan Desert of moral and intellectual aridity. It is impossi- ble to disregard the legitimate love of this race for their native State. It is equally impossible to overlook or make light of the logic of their numbers. Political partisanship, it should be remembered, is begotten of intellectual darkness. A shining and harmonious citizen- ship is born only of intellectual brightness. If the next colored generations, then, are to consist of good citizens, not weak tools for designing politicians, they should be educated. If they are to be conservative American citizens, lending their aid 78 READING AND ORATORY. alike to the progress of the State and to the advancement of the public, they should be educated. If they are to make common accord with the whites, only recognizing in the latter the superiority that lies in lineage and in noble memories, indis- solubly connected with the history of the world's most exalted civilization; and if they are to work with these, with good heart and earnest endeavor, to a common patriotic end, they must be taught that their State has no preferences, but that, like a kindly mother, she gathers in her tender bosom all the children who owe their existence to her. r. m. lusher. Robert Mills Lusher was born in Charleston, S. C. He graduated with distinction at Georgetown College, D. C, and emigrated soon after to New Orleans, where for some years he actively engaged in teaching, and for awhile was editor of the Louisiana Courier. As a director of the public schools of that city, he contributed largely to their successful development. In 1865, Mr. Lusher, to whom, during the war, had been confided important and delicate trusts by the Confederate Government, was elected State Superintendent of Public Education; was removed, in 1S67, by General Mower, as " an impediment to Reconstruction," but restored by General W. S. Hancock when he assumed command of the District. He was appointed in 1868 agent for Louisiana, of the Peabody Fund. In 1872 he was re-elected State Superintendent, but through the intervention of the Federal Government did not fill the. office; but in 1876 he was again elected, and once more assumed control of the educational system of the State, to which he has given shape and efficiency. THE DEATH OF MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE E. PICKETT. WE have met to pay the last sad tribute to one of the most gallant and modest of soldiers and gentlemen. Who ever heard of General Pickett's appropriating even that pub- lic attention which^ since the war, was justly his due and would have been so freely accorded him? So reticent and retiring was he in his daily life among us, that we had well-nigh forgotten this quiet gentleman had been the gallant commander of perhaps the most illustrious division of infantry that ever charged a foe in modern battle — a division that deserved to rank with " The Terrible" of Marshal Victor, or the "Tenth Legion'' of Caesar. DEATH OF MAJOR-GENERAL PICKETT. 79 It were idle to speak of the courage of one who Uved and moved and had his being in an atmosphere of personal intre- pidity. All the world were familiar with this characteristic of George Pickett; but many were ignorant of that finer kindred trait — his lofty and delicate sense of personal honor. I mean not so much the honor that is ever ready to resent an insult to oneself, as that loftier honor ever careful to refrain from in- jury to another; that clear, delicate, unwavering perception and grasp of the right. But there is another proof of Pickett's greatness, — another fact in his experience and feature in his example — to which I would call special attention. Who was the quiet man who kept his quiet ofifice just beneath my own? He was born and bred and lived a soldier — from his seventeenth to his fortieth year trained for and in the profession of arms — till in his fully-matured man- hood, when all the flexibility of youth was ^one and his entire being had become hard-cast in this one mould, suddenly this simple- hearted soldier and gentleman, educated to a sure dependence for the supply of every want, found himself hurled out of his place, and into the world — the world of craft and guile, of money-loving and money-getting — the world of push and drive and clutch and scrape for wealth, — aye, for bread. Nor was this the whole or even the worst of the change. Oh! what was the life and what the place he left behind him! You know what that was to which he came. Would you realize the extent and violence of the transition? Turn back, then, just twelve years, and see him riding like a demi-god at the head of his five thousand up that slope of death at Gettysburg, — riding in that fearful hush, with lightning and thunder, death and hell, locked in the barrels of his muskets, to be loosed at his word — riding on with life and death, States and Constitutions, liberty and destiny and history flickering in the gleam of his bayonets — riding on when the tempest burst, and death and hell were loosed — on and on into the awful carnage and horror, while his undaunted soul soared above the tempest it evoked, and, calm and clear, directed the storm. From such a life and such a scene as this. General Pickett and his brothers turned and fol- 80 READING AND ORATORY. lowed their noble leader into the quiet, humdrum, uncongenial world of daily toil, setting us all an example of manly struggle with adversity that has never, no, never been surpassed. Right sure that no one will question the mettle of his man- hood, it remains only to say to those who knew George Pickett but as the iron man of Gettysburg, that his soul was not lacking in the womanly softness that offsets and graces the true knightly ideal. Not only genial and generous and kindly, but tender was our knight; tender and loving, not in his family relations only — oh, Jt? tender, ji? loving! — but affectionate and soft-hearted as a girl to his friends also. I wish I dared call for a letter that is in this house now, resting against a man's heart, whence I saw it reverently removed this morning and read with tear- ful eye and heaving breast and quivering voice by one who, just before our hero died, received this last sweet token of his sympathy in a great sorrow. I assure you, I have seldom, if ever, read or heard such a letter: its gentle, loving sympathy brought fresh to mind the exquisite figure of Holy Writ for the Divine ministries of consolation, — "as one whom his mother comforteth." I trust I am not tearing aside the veil too far — I know I am not doing it with irreverent hand — but I fain would show you the man I see lying on his bed of pain and death — but two short hours from death itself — stretching forth his weak arms and throwing them about the neck of a beloved relative, who had just arrived, and drawing him down till the two hearts and faces met, and the two soldiers kissed each other, while the watchers about his couch were melted in uncontrollable emo- tion. And then, if you could hear, as I have heard, of his firm, sweet command of himself and of all his surroundings — no flicker of intellect, no terror of soul, but deepening calm as the shadows deepened, until at last the man we mourn this evening turned him gently over, and saying "Good-night," was gone. ROBERT STILES. READING AND ORATORY. 8l THE OLD CANOE. WHERE the rocks are gray, and the shore is steep, And the waters below look dark and deep; Where the rugged pine in its lonely pride Leans gloomily over the murky tide; Where the reeds and rushes are long and lank, And the weeds grow thick on the winding bank; Where the shadow is heavy the whole day through — There lies at its moorings the old canoe. The useless paddles are idly dropped, Like a sea-bird's wing that the storm has lopped, And crossed on the railing one o'er one, Like the folded hands when the work is done; While busily back and forth between, The spider stretches his silvery screen, And the solemn owl, with its dull tu-whoo, Settles down on the side of the old canoe. The stern half-sunk in the slimy wave Rots slowly away in its living grave, And the green moss creeps o'er its dull decay, Hiding its mouldering dust away, Like the hand that plants o'er the tomb a flower. Or the ivy that mantles the falling tower; While many a blossom of loveliest hue Springs up o'er the stern of the old canoe. The currentless waters are dead and still. The twilight-wind plays with the boat at will, And lazily in and out again It floats the length of its rusty chain; Like the weary march of the hands of Time That meet and part at the noontide chime. As the shore is kissed at each turn anew, By the dripping bow of the old canoe. 82 READING AND ORATORY. Oh, many a time, with careless hand, I have pushed it away from the pebbly strand! And paddled it down where the stream runs quick, Where the whirls are wild, and the eddies thick. And laughed, as I leaned o'er the rocky side, And looked below in the broken tide, To see that the faces and boats were two That were mirrored back from the old canoe. But now, as I lean o'er the crumbling side And look below in the sluggish tide, The face that I see there is graver grown, And the laugh that I hear has a sober tone, And the hands that lent to the light skiff wings Have grown familiar with sterner things. But I love to think of the hours that sped As I rocked where the whirls their white spray shed. Ere the blossom waved or the green grass grew O'er the mouldering stern of the old canoe. ANONYMOUS, GEN. LEE'S FAREWELL TO HIS COMMAND. Headquarters Army Northern Virginia, [ April lo, 1865. ) AFTER four years of arduous service, marked by unsur- passed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but, feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuation of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. GENERAL LEE'S FAREWELL. 83 By the terms of agreement, officers and men can return to their homes, and remain there until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you His blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devo- tion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell. r. e. lee, General. A country which has given birth to men like him, and those who followed him, may- look the chivalry of Europe in the face without shame; for the fatherlands of Sidney and of Bayard never produced a nobler soldier, gentleman, and Christian, than General Robert Edmund Lee —London Standard. This illustrious man was born at Stratford, on the Potomac, in Westmoreland Co., Va., on the 19th of January, 1807. Of pure Norman blood, the long line of the Lees may be traced back to a certain Launcelot Lee, of Loudon, in France, who accompanied William the Conqueror upon his expe dition to England, and, after the battle of Hastings, was rewarded for his services by an estate in Essex. From that memorable date the name of Lee occurs continually iq English annals, and always in honorable connection. There is Lionel Lee, who fought by Coeur de Lion's side in Palestine, and who for his gallantry at Acre and in other battles with the inhdel was on his return home made the first Earl of Litchfield, and presented by the king with the estate of Ditchlcy; subsequently held, as all the readers of Walter Scott must remember, by that indomitable old knight, Sir Henry Lee, who figures so conspicuously in Woodstock. Then comes Richard Lee, who accompanied the unfortunate Earl of Surrey against the Scotch Borders in 1542 Two of the family were Knights Companions of the Garter, and so distinguished themselves as to have their banners suspended in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, with the Lee coat-of-arms emblazoned thereon, and the significant family motto, Non incautus futuri. Coming down to the time of the first Charles, we find the Lees in Shropshire, all staunch cavaliers. Then it was that the accomplished Richard Lee came over to the colony of Virginia as secretary of the king's privy council. He is described as " a man of good stature, comely visage, enter- prising genius, a sound head, and generous nature," words we may apply literally to the person and character of his world-renowned descendant. With this gentleman the noble stock of the V'irginia Lees originated. Robert E. Lee was the son of Henry Lee, the celebrated cavalry leader of the Revolution— better known as " Light-Horse Harry"— and Anne Hill Carter, daughter of Charles Carter, of Shirley, on the James. After a thorough classical and mathema- tical training, he was admitted into the U S. Military .Academy at West Point in 1825, and graduated in 1S29, second in his class, and without ever having received a demerit; was assigned to duty as Second Lieutenant of Engineers; married in 1832 Mary Custis, daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of General Washington, promoted to First Lieutenant 1836, and to Captain 1838; served in Mexican War (1846- 47) as Chief Engineer of General Scott's army with such distinction that he was brevet- ted Colonel; was Superintendent of West Point from 1852 to 1855; commanded in per- son the detachment of U. S. Marines which captured the notorious John Brown at Harper's Ferry, in 1859; appointed Colonel of Cavalry March, 1861, butresifjned .\pril 84 READING AND ORATORY. 20, to offer his services to Iiis native State, which had seceded April 17, i86t, he was immediately appointed by Virginia Major-General and Commander-in-Chief of all her forces. His military career need not here be traced further than to say he entered the Confederate service as Brigadier-General, and surrendered at Appomattox, April 9, 1865, Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the Confederacy. He carried the des- tiny of the Confederacy on the point of his sword, and with his surrender it fell. Refusing all gifts of houses, estates, and money, which were offered him in this country and Europe, and declining positions of princely salary, he accepted, in the summer of 1865, the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), Lex- ington, Va., having resolved to consecrate the remainder of his life to the great work of training the youth of the land he had loved and served so well. Thus again did he illustrate that precept which he early gave his sons, and which had been the leading factor in his own character — that " Duty is the sublimest word in the English language." He died in Lexington, October 12, 1870, and his remains were buried in the college chapel, where they still rest. Just before his death he edited the third edition of his father's Memoirs of the War ofjb^ to which he prefixed a life of the author. Transcendent as was his military genius — ranking him among the greatest captains of the world— it was as a man that he was truly great. For he possessed all those virtues and graces which dignify and adorn human nature, and which are essential to moral grandeur and sublimity of character. MANNER IN DEBATE. CONCILIATION is the great art of debate. In a delibera- tive assembly, where the majority of wills is to be obtained, it is astonishing that any man, having the reputation of talents, should so far mistake his aim and his object, as to be deficient in courtesy to his associates. The authority of intellect is dif- ficult enough to be sustained, even with all the blandishments of rhetoric. It is not like personal strength and majesty, pal- pable to the eye — nor like the soul-subduing fascination of beauty, thrilling the fibres, it is an authority fou7ided 07i opinio7i, on the opinion of your associates, as impalpable as the thoughts which cherish and support it; an ideal supremacy which men readily deny when they choose, and always acknowledge with reluctance. Therefore, is it an authority which can only per- manently and happily rest upon the affections of discerning men, who are your contemporaries. You can gain the affection of no man by insulting him; you impress no idea of your superiority by rudeness. Frowns are the arguments, and threats are the persuasives, of bullies. The ART AND ITS INFLUENCE. 8$ brave despise, and the wise ridicule them. They are invariable symptoms of surrender and defeat. An angry, supercilious speaker, on a legislative floor, is a posi- tive injury to his constituents. Invest him with what renown you please, let his praise for mind be trumpeted from the forest to the sea-shore, it avails nothing; place him in a situation where he may be rude with impunity, and without the danger of impeachment, but do not send him to a deliberative assembly, to mar the beautiful art of persuasion with the very weapons of rhetoric. william crofts. ART AND ITS INFLUENCE. ART is the exponent of the best of our feelings and the highest of our thoughts. It is, in its more perfect results, an outburst of that divine afflatus, which has been breathed into every human soul, to go back to the eternal source of all beauty; and no really great people ever lived without leaving some crea- tions of art as testimonials to posterity. The site of Sparta, the ideal of republican simplicity, the exemplar of devoted patriotism in Greece, is sought for in vain by the traveller to that Holy Land of genius and of art. A stolid herdsman, shepherding his few straggling goats, may point you to the place where she is supposed to have stood. But no monument, no ruin even, of Art, is there to tell you that on that spot Sparta once had lived, had fought, had sacri- ficed to freedom and to patriotism. And why this irredeemable death? Why, but because Sparta despised and rejected all arts save the bootless art of war? Why, but because she had nothing — painting, sculpture, or architecture — to entitle her to thelifeof centuries after her material life had passed away! Noth- ing out of which she could build herself a monument to speak for her to the after-ages of the world, and to point a glorious answer to their inquiry. 86 READING AND ORATORY. On the other hand, look at Athens, her rival in political and military power, and her mistress in all the supremacies of states- manship and eloquence, of poetry and of art. Like her own Niobe in her" voiceless woe," with her children stricken round her by the shafts of the angry god, Athens fell, and with her fell the goodly progeny of arts which she had fostered for the wonderment of the world. She fell; but falling left behind her, even in those ruins of beauty which challenge the perfections of modern art, a monument to her high glories which will live forever. Time itself has worked its worst on her devoted head. The brutal Roman plundered the hoards of artistic magnifi- cence which eight centuries of civilization had industriously gathered. The barbarian Gaul gleaned where the Roman had pillaged. Nay, the stupid Turk, in a supreme violation of the holiness of art, profaned the sanctuaries in whch God through the plastic hand of the artist had deposited his best specimens of the Beautiful. Yet Athens still lives — lives the life of even ruined art. Still lives in the shattered beauties of the Venus of Milo; still lives in the triglyphs of her Parthenon; still lives in the gay acanthus of her marble shafts! And yet there are some, the sceptic and the detractor, who will seriously tell us that the reign of art has either passed, or is passing away. If it be so, it must be a renewed utterance of the voices of the Janiculum which once declared that the " gods were passing away." It must be that God himself is passing away under the dissolving torch of our material interests. But He is not passing — He cannot pass away. He is the ever-Hving Author of the Beautiful, and the artist must come up more pow- erful, more holy than ever, in His conquering and sovereign train. The altar still stands, and the sacred fire still burns be- fore the shrine. Though in discouragement, though in derision, it may be, faithful Levites will still think, create, and work under its better influences. True that, in our days of utilita- rian influences, men skulk away from the worship of the Beauti- ful as if it were a loathsome infirmity; but the day is near at hand when we will fall back on the due realities of things: to the detractor, the realities of the dust and the worm; to the SOUTHERN VIEW OF SLAVERY. 87 artist, who dreams dreams, and then gives them the subtance of beauty, the realities of mind. Alexander dimitry. Alexander Dimitry, LL.D., linguist and scholar, was born in New Orleans, Feb- ruary 7, 1805. His father was a Greek, and his grandmother an Indian woman of the Alibamon Tribe. At ten years of age his knowledge of Classic Greek and Latin was marvellous, while he spoke Modern Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, and English. He graduated with distinction at Georgetown College, D. C; was first English editor of Aew Orleans Bee: in 1847, as Superintendent of Public Instruction, organized the admirable ante-bellum system of Free Schools of Louisiana; appointed in 1854 translator in U. S. De- partment of State, Washington; in 1859, sent as Minister to Central America by Presi- dent Buchanan; upon commencement of hostilities came South and filled during the war a high position in Postoffice Department, Richmond. His numerous essays, lectures and tales, though of great merit have never been collected and published. SOUTHERN VIEW OF SLAVERY. IF I have at all comprehended the elements which should en- ter into the determination of this momentous problem of social welfare and public authority, the existence of African Slavery amongst us furnishes no just occasion for self-reproach; much less for the presumptuous rebuke of our fellow-man. As individuals, we have cause to humble ourselves before God, for the imperfect discharge of our duties in this, and in every other relation of life; but for its justice and morality as an element of our social polity, we may confidently appeal to those future ages, which, when the bedimming mists of passion and preju- dice have vanished, will examine it in the pure light of truth, and pronounce the final sentence of impartial History. Beyond our own borders there has been no sober and intelligent esti- mate of its distinctive features; no just apprehension of the nature, extent, and permanence of the disparities between the races, or of the fatal consequences to the slave of a freedom which would expose him to the unchecked selfishness of a su- perior civilization, no conception approaching to the reality of the power which has been exerted by a public sentiment, spring- ing from Christian principle, and sustained by the universal in- stincts of self-mterest, in tempering the severity of its restraints, 88 READING AND ORATORY. and impressing upon it the mild character of a patriarchal re- lation; no rational anticipation of the improvement of which the negro would be capable under our form of servitude, if those who now nurse the wild and mischievous dream of peace- ful emancipation should lend all their energies to the mainte- nance of the only social system under which his progressive amelioration appears possible. African slavery is no relic of barbarism to which we cling from the ascendency of semi-civilized tastes, habits, and prin- ciples; but an adjustment of the social and political relations of the races, consistent with the purest justice, commended by the highest expediency, and sanctioned by a comprehensive and en- lightened humanity. It has no doubt been sometimes abused by the base and wicked passions of our fallen nature to pur- poses of cruelty and wrong: but where is the school of civili- zation from which the stern and wholesome discipline of suf- fering has been banished ? or the human landscape not sad- dened by a dark flowing stream of sorrow? Its history, when fairly written, well be its ample vindication. It has weaned a race of savages from superstition and idolatry, imparted to them a general knowledge of the precepts of the true religion, im- planted in their bosoms sentiments of humanity and principles of virtue, developed a taste for the arts and enjoyments of civi- lized life, given an unknown dignity and elevation to their type of physical, moral, and intellectual man, and for two centuries, during which the humanizing process has taken place, made for their subsistence and comfort a more bountiful provision than was ever before enjoyed in any age or country of the world by a laboring class. If tried by the test which we apply to other institutions, — the whole sum of its results, — there is no agency of civilization which has accomplished so much, in the same time, for the happiness and advancement of mankind. JAMES p. HOLCOMBE. READING AND ORATORY. 89 THE STATE OF THE UNION, 1861. I AM solemnly impressed, Mr. Speaker, with the condition in which I actually find myself. In travelling hither from my home, more than two thousand miles distant, for this Capitol, for the discharge of a public duty, my foot pressed no spot of foreign territory; my eye rested upon not one material object, during my journey, that was not a part and parcel of my coun- try, as I fondly deemed it. When we assembled together, so far as I know, every State and Territory was represented upon this floor. The great fabric of the Government was then com- plete; but now how changed! When I go hence, it will be to find my pathway intercepted by new and strange nationalities. With- out ever having wandered from my native land, I must traverse foreign countries, if I would return. I might be excused for doubting my own identity. Surely I may be pardoned for having involuntarily prayed that this might prove a troubled and protracted dream. Yet it is too true — too many evidences force conviction of the sad reality. But a few days past, Mr. Speaker, the noble temple of American liberty stood complete in all its parts — stood in all the majesty of its vast proportions, and in the glory of its apparent strength and beauty of construction; not a pillar missing or a joint dis- severed. And its votaries were gathered about the altar, worship- ping, as was their wont, with hopeful hearts. Forebodings were felt, and predictions made of the coming storm and the destruc-- tion of the temple. And the storm has come and still rages — the temple still stands, but shorn of its fair proportions and marred in its beauty. Pillar after pillar has fallen away. And though its proud dome still points to heaven, it is reeling in mid-air like a drunken man, while its solid foundations are shaken as with an earthquake. Yet there are worshippers about the shrine, and I am among them. I have been called by warning voices to come out and escape the impending danger — I have been wooed by entreaties and plied with threats. But, sir, neither entreaties nor threats, hope of reward nor dread of danger, 90 READING AND ORATORY. shall tear me away until I lay hold of the horns of the altar of my country, and implore Heaven in its own good time to still this storm of civil strife, and through such human agency as may be best again uprear the fallen pillars to their original position, that they may, through long ages, contribute to the strength and beauty of the noblest structure yet devised by man. A.J.HAMILTON. Andrew Jackson Hamilton was born in Madison Co., Ala., January 28, 1815, and received only a common-school education; read law and was admitted to the bar in 1841. In 1846 he emigrated to Texas, practised his profession successfully, and in 1850 was appointed Attorney-General of the State by Gov. P. H.Bell; in 1858 he was elected to Congress as an independent candidate on the platform of the Union and the Constitu- tion, and in 1861 strenuously opposed the secession of Texas — denying both the right and the policy of secession. When martial law was declared and the oath of alle- giance to Confederate States demanded, he went North, and in 1862 was appointed Mil- itary Governor of Texas with the rank of Brigadier-General of Volunteers, an empty honor, as the Federals did not occupy the State. President Johnson appointed him Provi- sional Governor in 1865, and to him Texas owes the reorganization of her civil govern- ment. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1867, and for two years a Judge of the Supreme Court. He died at Austin. As a popular orator he had no equal in Texas; and to his influence is mainly due the mitigation in that State of those evils of Reconstruction which so sorely afflicted other Southern States. THE YOUNG WIDOW. SHE is modest but not bashful, Free and easy but not bold, Like an apple, ripe and mellow. Not too young and not too old. Half inviting, half repulsing, Now advancing, and now shy; — There is mischief in her dimple — There is danger in her eye. She has studied human nature, She is schooled in all her arts. She has taken her diploma As the Mistress of all Hearts. THE YOUNG WIDOW. 9I She can tell the very moment When to sigh, and when to smile — O a maid is often charming, But a widow all the while! Are you sad? How very serious Will her smiling face become. Are you angry? She is wretched. Drooping, sighing, tearful, dumb. Are you mirthful? How her laughter, Silver-sounding, will ring out : — She can lure, and catch, and play you, As the angler does the trout. Ye old bachelors of forty! Who have grown so bald and wise — Young Americans of twenty! With the love-locks in your eyes: — You may practise all the lessons Taught by Cupid since the fall, But I know a little widow Who can win and fool you all! ROBERT JOSSELYN. Robert Josselyn, poet,was born in Massachusetts, December 16, 1810, educated in Ver- mont, and admitted to the bar at Winchester, Va., 1831; then emigrated to Mississippi, where he practised law, served in the Legislature, was District Attorney, and for awhile engaged in journalism. Entered Mexican War as private in ist Mississippi Rifles, Col. Jefferson Davis, but was appointed Captain and Commissary by President Polk. At expiration of term of service resigned; was State Commissioner of Mississippi, 1850-58: and clerk in Treasury Department, Washington, i860, but resigned when Mississippi seceded. President Davis appointed him his private secretary at Mont- gomery, but he resigned after a year's service, on account of ill-health, and was made Secretary of Arizona Territory, as organized under the Confederacy. Since the war he has resided at Austin, Texas. His published works are: The Faded Flower^ and Other Poems: Boston, 1848; A Satire on the Times -St. Louis, 1875; and The Co- quette; A Drama in Five Acts: Austin, 1878. He is the author of many fugitive poems, two of which, The Girl with the Calico Dress and The i'oung ll'ido7v, have kept their places in the newspapers for more than twenty-five years, though rarely credited to the author. 92 READING AND ORATORY. ADDRESS BEFORE EMORY COLLEGE SOCIETIES. IT is amongst the first order of men that Henry Clay will be assigned a place: that great man to whom we have had such frequent allusion during these exercises, and whose recent loss the nation still mourns. Mr. Clay's success, and those civic achievements which will render his name as lasting as the history of his country, were the result of nothing so much as that element of character which I have denominated energy. Thrown upon life at an early age, without any means or resources save his natural powers and abilities, and without the advantages of anything above a com- mon-school education, he had nothing to rely upon but himself, and nothing upon which to place a hope but his own exertions. But, fired with a high and noble ambition, he resolved, young as he was, and cheerless as were his prospects, to meet and surmount every embarrassment and obstacle by which he was surrounded. His aims and objects were high and worthy the greatest efforts; they were not to secure the laurels won upon the battle-field, but those wreaths which adorn the brow of the wise, the firm, the sagacious, and far-seeing statesman. The honor and glory of his life was — " Th' applause of list'ning- senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read his history in a nation's eyes!" This great end he most successfully accomplished. And if he had aspirations for a position, in his own estimation, even higher, yet no one now, or hereafter, can ever indulge the opinion that its attainment would have added anything to that full measure of fame with which he has descended to the tomb! In his life and character you have a most striking example of what energy and indomitable perseverance can do, even when opposed by the most adverse circumstances. Young gentlemen, I have given you this brief sketch of some ADDRESS BEFORE EMORY COLLEGE SOCIETIES. 93 of those elements of character which may be deemed essential for success in those exciting scenes and uncertain conflicts, through which life's journey will lead you. One word, in con- clusion, by way of application. It is the reply of Cardinal Richelieu upon a memorable occasion, as we have it in the play. In one of the most critical points in the fortunes of the Cardinal, as well as of France, it became a matter of the utmost importance that a particular paper should be obtained by him to be presented to the King. The Cardinal was prime minister, as he had been for a number of years. A conspiracy had been formed on the part of some of the nobles, not only against him, but against the throne itself. These nobles had succeeded, as part of their plan, in alienating the King from his minister. The paper con- tained the positive evidence of the conspiracy and treachery of his and the King's enemies. His fate, and the fate of his sovereign, depended upon his getting immediate possession of the paper. He was a man of energy, and had never before been thwarted, or unsuccessful in any enterprise. For years he had ruled France with almost absolute sway. At this juncture, when nothing could save his fortune but the paper in question, Richelieu called to his assistance a young man of spirit and courage, and enjoined upon him the arduous and difficult task of securing and bringing to him the packet. But the young man, being duly impressed with the importance of his mission, and providing in his mind for the various contingencies that might happen, says, " If I fail" — Richelieu, not allowing the sentence to be finished, and stopping the utterance of a possibility of a doubt touching his success, replies: ''Fail! Fail! In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserv^es For a bright manhood, there is no such word Ks—Fail!'' So say I to you in entering upon that career that lies before you. If, at any time, fears and doubts beset you as to your success; if the world grows cold; if friends forsake and enemies combine; if difficulties multiply, and even environ you; if the 94 READING AND ORATORY. future assume its darkest robes, without a ray of light or hope, — never despair. Never give up. Banish your apprehensions. Rely upon yourselves. And recollect that to the man who knows himself thoroughly, who governs himself properly, who stands firmly on principle, who has a fixed purpose to do some- thing worthy of future remembrance, and who applies himself with energy in its execution, there is no such word as Fail! ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. ON THE BILL TO REPAVE PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. BUT, Mr. Chairman, I have heard one reason very fre- quently urged for the passage of this bill, which candor compels me to admit almost convinced me that we ought to appropriate not only this sum of $180,000, but any other amount that might be necessary to repave Pennsylvania Avenue at the very earliest possible period of time; and that is, that it is so much used by the horde of office-holders that throng the thor- oughfares of this city, in numbers almost equal to the hosts which were hurled with Lucifer from the battlements of heaven. For, sir, if there is a being on this earth for whose comfort and convenience I entertain the profoundest solicitude, if there is one whose smallest want stirs my sympathetic soul to its se- renest depths, it is your ofiice-holder, your public functionary. When I see one of that noble army of martyrs bidding adieu to his home and all the sweets of private life, for which he is so pre-eminently fitted by nature, to immolate himself upon the altar of his country's service for four long years, Homer's touching picture of the last sad scene between the noble Hec- tor and his weeping family rises before my sympathetic imag- ination. When I see him plunging recklessly into an office, of the duties of which he is profoundly and defiantly ignorant, I am reminded of the self-sacrificing heroism of Curtius when he leaped into the yawning gulf which opened in the Roman BALAKLAVA. 95 forum. When I behold him sadly contemplating his majestic features in one of those gorgeous and costly mirrors, fur- nished him aLthe public expense, my heart goes out to him in sympathy. When I see him seated sorrowfully at a miserable repast of sea-rterrapin and champagne, my very bowels yearn for him. And when I see him performing perhaps the only duty for which he is fully competent — signing his monthly pay- receipt — I am so overwhelmed with pity for his miserable con- dition, that I wish I were in his place. When such considerations as these, sir, have come crowding upon my mind, appealing to every generous sentiment of my better nature; when I have thought how the official nerves of our poor neglected public servants are racked by " the car rat- tling o'er the stony street," I have felt, under the sudden im- pulse of the moment, that we ought to tear up the old cobble- stone pavement on the Avenue and supply its place with one of the new-fashioned patent wooden ones, over which the splendid carriages of our government officials, with their coats- of-arms and liveried outriders might glide as smoothly and noiselessly as the aerial car of the fairy queen through the rose- tinted clouds of the upper ether. j. proctor knott. BALAKLAVA. OTHE charge at Balaklava! O that rash and fatal charge! Never was a fiercer, braver, Than that charge at Balaklava, On the battle's bloody marge! All the day the Russian columns. Fortress huge, and blazing banks. Poured their dread destructive volumes On the French and English ranks, - On the gallant allied ranks! Earth and sky seemed rent asunder 96 READING AND ORATORY. By the loud incessant thunder! When a strange but stern command- Needless, heedless, rash command — Came to Lucan's little band, — Scarce six hundred men and horses Of those vast contending forces: — ** England's lost unless you save her! Charge the pass at Balaklava!" O that rash and fatal charge, On the battle's bloody marge! Far away the Russian Eagles Soar o'er smoking hill and dell, And their hordes, like howling beagles, Dense and countless, round them yell! Thundering cannon, deadly mortar, Sweep the field in every quarter! Never, since the days of Jesus, Trembled so the Chersonesus! Here behold the Gallic Lilies — Stout St. Louis' golden Lilies — Float as erst at old Ramillies! And beside them, lo! the Lion! With her trophied Cross, is flying! Glorious standards ! — shall they waver On the field of Balaklava? No, by Heavens! at that command — Sudden, rash, but stern command — Charges Lucan's little band! Brave Six Hundred! lo! they charge On the battle's bloody marge! Down yon deep and skirted valley, Where the crowded cannon play, — Where the Czar's fierce cohorts rally, Cossack, Calmuck, savage Kalli, — Down that gorge they swept away! Down that new Thermopylae, BALAKLAVA. 97 Flashing swords and helmets see! Underneath the iron shower, To the brazen cannon's jaws, Heedless of their deadly power, Press they without fear or pause, — To the very cannon's jaws! Gallant Nolan, brave as Roland At the field of Roncesvalles, Dashes down the fatal valley, Dashes on the bolt of death, Shouting with his latest breath, "Charge, then, gallants! do not waver, Charge the pass at Balaklava!" O that rash and fatal charge, On the battle's bloody marge! Now the bolts of volleyed thunder Rend that little band asunder. Steed and rider wildly screaming, Screaming wildly, sink away; Late so proudly, proudly gleaming, Now but lifeless clods of clay, — Now but bleeding clods of clay! Never, since the days of Jesus, Saw such sight the Chersonesus! Yet your remnant, brave Six Hundred, Presses onward, onward, onward. Till they storm the bloody pass, — • Till, like brave Leonidas, They storm the deadly pass! Sabering Cossack, Calmuck, Kalli, In that wild shot-rended valley, — Drenched with fire and blood, like lava. Awful pass at Balaklava! O that rash and fatal charge, On that battle's bloody marge! 98 READING AND ORATORY. For now Russia's rallied forces. Swarming hordes of Cossack horses, Trampling o'er the reeking corses, Drive the thinned assailants back. Drive the feeble remnant back, O'er their late heroic track! Vain, alas! now rent and sundered, Vain your struggles, brave Two Hundred! Thrice your number lie asleep. In that valley dark and deep. Weak and wounded you retire From that hurricane of fire, — That tempestuous storm of fire, — But no soldiers firmer, braver. Ever trod the field of fame, Than the Knights of Balaklava, — Honor to each hero's name! Yet their country long shall mourn For her ranks so rashly shorn, — So gallantly, but madly shorn In that fierce and fatal charge. On the battle's bloody marge. ALEXANDER B. MEEK. Alexander Beaufort Meek, jurist and poet, was born in Charleston, S. C, July 17, 1814, and died in Columbus, Miss., November 30, 1865. He moved to Alabama in 1819, and graduated at the University of that State in 1833. In the Seminole War he was Lieutenant of Volunteers: at its close became Attorney-General of Alabama; was Judge of County Court, 1842-44; member of the Legislature and Speaker of the House in 1859. He was the father of the public school system of the State. In letters he be- came no less distinguished, his chief productions being Red Eagle^ a heroic poem of considerable length: Romantic Passages in Southwesiern History; and a volume en- titled Songs and Poems of the South. Researches in the early history of the South- west engaged much of his attention, and he left a manuscript /^zj^^ry 0/ Alabama ^ nearly completed, which it is hoped will yet be published. READING AND ORATORY. 99 THE IDEA OF A SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY DELUSIVE. I have never been able, Mr. Speaker, to regard with any favor this idea of a Southern Confederacy, even in its merely economic aspects, and I am not able with any complacency to consider the possibility of my own State being its frontier line. I cannot hope for its permanency, based, as it must be, upon the recognized right of secession, and the consequent ability of any of its component parts at any moment to destroy it. Nor do I desire to see the great mechanical and industrial interests of my State and city subjected to the policy of the Cotton States, which are so likely to be its element of controlling power. Free trade and direct ta.xation do not harmonize with the interests, nor accord with the temper of Maryland; and I have little faith in it. Born in revolt, cradled in passion, nurtured upon excitement; overriding freedom of opinion; disregarding indi- vidual rights; burdened with taxation; environed by fearful perils in the present, and destined to encounter more terrible troubles in the future; based, as its foundation stone, upon the right of any one of its component parts at any moment to secede from the structure, and thus break it up, I regard its promises as delusive, and its results as " Dead Sea fruits, that turn to ashes on the lips"; and to me the " gorgeous palaces and cloud-clapped towers" that it presents to the dazzled gaze of the youthful and ambitious, are as the sunlit battlements and lengthening vistas of some treacherous mirage, that flees into airy nothing before the straining gaze and the advancing step of the desert traveller. Rather give to me, and to my people, the government that has been tested by eighty years of success- ful trial. Let not my ears be greeted with the music of the Mar- seillaise, that stirs no pulse of my American blood. Flaunt not before my eyes the flag of a divided nationality, that rouses no emotion of my American heart; but let me and my people, I pray you, go down to our graves with the consecrated melodies 100 READING AND ORATORY. of the nation ringing in our ears, and over us the dome of the Union, glorious with all its constellated stars. J. MORRISON HARRIS. J. Morrison Harris, one of the most popular living orators of Baltimore, was born in that city about fifty years ago, and educated at Lafayette College. Hp made law his profession and soon acquired prominence. In 1854 he entered Congress and served six years — his term closing in the stormy session of i860, in which he took the strongest grounds, on right and policy, against secession, and in favor of a peaceful settlement of difficulties. After the war he resumed the practice of law, and in 1875 was the Citizens' Reform candidate for Governor of Maryland, but was defeated. TRIBUTE TO VIRGINIA. THE honorable Senator from Illinois says, that "it would not interfere materially with Virginia, whether certain resolutions presented to her Legislature were constitutional or not." I cannot restrain my astonishment at this expression. My knowledge that the Senator is eminently patriotic increases my surprise. Virginia indifferent to the Constitution, while she holds in her bosom the ashes and cherishes in her heart the memories of Madison and Marshall! The Mother of Washing- ton, Jefferson, Monroe, Tyler, Taylor, Scott, Maury, Thomas, the theme for a jest, the subject of a taunt! When the Senator or myself, or thousands like us, shall have achieved for liberty and glory a shadow of what Virginia has, then a jeer or slur upon her great name may have some grace. Has the Senator forgotten how much this nation owes to Virginia? He must for the moment have forgotten that she had given to the Union the States of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Had the Senator reflected that his own State was one of the monuments of Virginia's patriotism, these words could never have fallen from his lips. Nor, sir, are these a tithe of her contributions to the Republic. She has borne seven Presidents, who at the head of the Government have illustrated her devotion to liberty. She has nurtured on her breast the soldiers who have covered your arms with renown, the sailors who have brightened your flag with honor, the THE GEORGIA LEADERS AFTER THE WAR. lOI scholars who have extended the conquest of science from the bottom of the sea to the verge of the stars. Her trophies, her memories, her great names, her priceless virtues are before the world; they are the brightest jewels of the Republic — they are the noblest heritages of humanity. I pray the day may never come when the great spirit at Mount Vernon shall not protect her from insult and avert her from error. Her proud sorrows are sublime, and, like her glories, will be immortal. When she sheathed her sword and returned to the Union, her constancy to her national duties and her loyalty to her sister States were renewed with all their original vigor and truth. Her care for the Constitution and her devotion to the rights of man had never slumbered. Great State I Whatever is grand and patriotic and excel- lent should be compared to thee. When thy name does not inspire the respect, excite the admiration, and kindle the affec- tions of American patriots, the love of liberty and of country will be expiring in our hearts. MATT. w. ransom. THE GEORGIA LEADERS AFTER THE WAR. THE Georgia of to-day, in some respects, is not the Georgia she was. Her living men are the equals of those of any former time ; but having expended their greatest endeavors in be- half of a cause that was as unfortunate as it was dear, overcome, impoverished, bereft of many things without which life seems of little value, and, after four years of such bereavement, yet proscribed and persecuted, they are away from public places, and, like Achilles in his tent, view from afar the actions of those who appear to be heroes only because the truly heroic are with- out their armor and absent from the field. Not that it is profit- less to contemplate these living men in their quiet lives. For an important lesson may be learned in beholding what a brave mind may suffer, and yet, instead of losing any of its virtue, become braver through affliction. The lives that some of them I02 READING AND ORATORY. are leading now will be compared hereafter with the best of any period. The dignity with which they endure proscription, the serenity with which they contemplate the loss of all but honor, the fidelity with which they observe the pledges exacted by those to whom they surrendered under promises of peace and security; their deep grief, not for themselves, not so much for their children and friends, whether living or dead; but for their country — their whole country — which they long to see re- united and at peace upon the principles of right and justice, — aill these are a lesson which we may study with ever-increasing profit. Some of them, like Fabricius and Cincinnatus, are following the plough and eking a frugal living from their wasted fields. Some, like Camillus and Cicero, aie travelling in foreign coun- tries and anxiously waiting the time when they may return to the service of their people. Some, like Sallust and Varro, have betaken themselves to literary labors and are making for pos- terity the records of their times. Some have returned from the Forum to the Bar, and men may sometimes hear the old ring which was wont to move them to rapture in happier days. Some are yet ministering to the sick, now more numerous and neces- sitous because of the wastings of a protracted war. Some are reopening the long-obstructed channels of trade and commerce. Some are rebuilding and rehabilitating the nurseries of educa- tion. And some yet stand on Sabbath mornings in holy tem- ples, and from having shared, like Daniel, in all the afflictions of their people, have come to a better trust in God, and can draw from His oracles truer and more consoling interpretations. We may look upon such men in these, their less exalted estates, and admire the more the virtue which grows purer in those fires through which it is passing; but we may not obtrude upon their privacy, nor disturb their labors and meditations. To them even the voice of praise would bring little pleasure while they are brooding over an unhappy country which they have not the power to serve, and, in the knowledge that the active days of their careers are over, are solemnly waiting for the end. Their eulogy will be best pronounced hereafter. HOMAGE TO THE DEAD OF KENTUCKY. IO3 They have appealed to the next ages for their vindication, and they neither fear their judgment nor doubt that the honors which are now withheld will hereafter come and cluster around their graves. r. m. johnston. Richard Malcolm Johnston was born in Hancock Co., Ga., March 8, 1822. He was educated at Mercer University, and practised law in partnership with Judges Baxter, Thomas, and Linton Stephens, successively; and was afterwards (1858-1862) Professor of English Literature in the State University at Athens. During the war he was aide~ de-camp to Governor Brown, with the rank of Colonel. In 1867 he removed to Waverly, Md., and established the Penn Lucy school lor boys. Dukesborough Tales. By Fhilevion Perck^ Baltmore: Turnbull Brothers, 1871, established his reputation as one of the leading humi rists of the South. It is a faithful picture of " the grim and rude, but hearty old times in Georgia," and their racy spirit is embalmed in a humor as innocent as it is quaint " Even in the slight sketches the reader can see that ' Philemon Perch' has that rare gift, the power of dramatic presentation of characters. By this power things in them- selves trivial become invested with strange interest, and we follow the persecutions of a hardly-used schoolboy (in Tlie Goose-pond School) with as rapt attention, and exult as triumphantly in the perlpateia, when he thrashes his brute of a master, as if we had been vvitnessmg some grand drama of heroic suffering and heroic victory." — Southern I^Iagaziiie. In connection with William Hand Browne he published in 1872, English Literature: New York: University Publishing Co.; and the same authors have now in press. Life and Speeches 0/ Alexander H. Stephens. HOMAGE TO THE DEAD OF KENTUCKY- JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE. IT was the faith of our ancient Aryan ancestors that the spirits of their great wise bards and teachers ascended to the sky at their death, and became stars, immortal revealings of that universal light, the life of the universe, which they called the great god Indra. If that were still our creed, and if we, like our ancestors, kindled our sacrificial fires, at early dawn, upon the summits of the mountains, and worshipped Mitra, the glorious morning star, and the stars that had been great and good men, none of those that look benignly down upon the fair fields and woods of Kentucky would shine with a brighter and purer radiance than the star-spirit of our Illustrious Brother Breckinridge. Then monuments and statues were not needed to perpetuate the names and memories of Aryan sages I04 READING AND ORATORY. and heroes; for, as often as the stars ascended into the sky, the herdsman upon the steppes, and the husbandman upon the al- luvial plains of Samarkand or the Oxus, saw the benefactors of his race shining in the heavens, and revered them as guides protectors, and defenders. Neither will the people of Kentucky need the monument or the statue to perpetuate his name and memory. His monu- ment, more durable than marble, is builded in the people's heart, and when we who are men and women shall have been long gathered to our fathers, those who come after us, sitting of autumn eventides under the branching arms of the old oaks, or of winter nights around the hearths of the old home- steads, will talk of the eloquent advocate, the great statesman, the heroic soldier, and the noble gentleman, whom their fathers and grandfathers knew and loved and honored, as in France they talked, in after ages, of Bayard, and in Spain of Ruy Diaz and Pelayo. He won, almost at a bound, the highest civic honors, while others toiled slowly after him up the rugged and difficult paths that lead to the summit of fame; and, deserving all the honors that he attained, he was not found unequal to the duties of any station, and wore no laurels that he did not nobly win. I knew him well when the great civil war was about to begin. Reluctant to believe in the necessity of a separation of the States, he put aside, when at last convinced, all other consid- erations than that of duty, and turned away from the higher places that he might have reached, to become the Paladin of the weaker cause, an illustrious leader, peer in everything of the old knights loyal and true, whose virtues and excellences lived again in him. Brave as Ney, and generous as brave, be- loved by his men and the idol of his State, nothing was want- ing to his fame; and, like Bayard, he needed not more years of life to be immortal. "We live in deeds, not years; in thoug^hts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on the dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." GONE FORWARD. 10$ In the loving bosom of his mother-land, Kentucky, his body lies, and there his brain and heart will moulder into dust and become a part of her; but his influences live after him, and will be eternal. Always the past is the lawgiver of the present and the future. The past of Kentucky has been great, illus- trious, and fortunate. Her future will be no less so, if, stand- ing upon the old ways, she thence makes progress, obeying the legislation which the past has enacted for her in the wise thoughts, the great examples, and the beneficent influences of the generous and gallant sons who have lived and died in her service, crowning her with honor and glory. ALBERT PIKE . GONE FORWARD. YES, "Let the tent be struck:" Victorious morning Through every crevice flashes in a day Magnificent beyond all earth's adorning: The night is over; wherefore should he stay? And wherefore should our voices choke to say, « "The General has gone forward?" Life's foughten field not once beheld surrender, But with superb endurance, present, past, Our pure Commander, lofty, simple, tender, Through good, through ill, held his high purpose fast, Wearing his armor spotless, — till at last. Death gave the final *" Forward!" All hearts grew sudden palsied: Yet what said he Thus summoned? — * '^Lct the tent be struck!" — For when Did call of duty fail to find him ready Nobly to do his work in sight of men, For God's sake and for his country's sake — and then. To watch, wait, or go forward? * Dying words of General R. E. Lee. I06 READING AND ORATORY. We will not weep, — we dare not' Such a story As his large life writes on the century's years Should crowd our bosoms with a flush of glory, That manhood's type, supremest that appears To-day, he shows the ages. Nay, no tears Because he has gone forward! Gone forward? — Whither? — Where the marshall'd legions, Christ's well-worn soldiers, from their conflicts cease, — ■ Where Faith's true Red-Cross Knights repose in regions Thick-studded with the calm, white tents of peace, — Thither, right joyful to accept release, The General has gone forward! MARGARET J. PRESTON. THE TERRITORIES COMMON PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE. THE Territories are the common property of the people of the United States, purchased by their common blood and treasure. You are their common agents; it is your duty, while they are in a Territorial state, to remove all impediments to their free e ijoyment by all sections and people of the Union, the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder. You have given the strongest indications that you will not perform this trust — that you will appropriate to yourselves all this Territory, perpetrate all these wrongs which I have enumerated, yet, with these declarations on your lips, when Southern men refused to act in party caucuses with you in which you have a con- trolling majority — when we ask the simplest guarantee for the future — we are denounced out of doors as recusants and fac- tionists, and in doors we are met with the cry of " Union, Union!" Sir, we have passed that point. It is too late. I have used all my energies, from the beginning of this question, to save the country from this convulsion. I have resisted what I deemed PROTEST AGAINST- MODERN MATERIALISM. 107 unnecessary and hurtful agitation. I hoped against hope, that a sense. of justice and patriotism would induce the North to settle these questions upon principles honorable and safe to both sections of the Union. I have planted myself upon a National platform, resisting extremes at home and abroad, will- ingly subjecting myself to the aspersions of enemies, and, far worse than that, the misconstruction of friends, determined to struggle for, and accept any fair and honorable adjustment of these questions. I have almost despaired of any such, at least from this House. We must arouse and appeal to the Nation. We must tell them, boldly and frankly, that we prefer any calamities to submission to such degradation and injury as they would entail upon us, that we hold that to be the consummation of all evil. I have stated my positions. I have not argued them. Give me securities that the power of the organization which you seek will not be used to the injury of my constitu- ents, then you can have my co-operation, but not till then. Grant them, and you prevent the recurrence of the disgrace- ful scenes of the last twenty-four hours, and restore tranquility to the country. Refuse them, and, as far as I am concerned, "let discord reign forever!" Robert toombs. Robert Toombs, jurist, orator, and statesman, was born in Washington, Wilkes Co., Ga., July 2, 1810. He graduated at Union College, N. Y , in 1828, studied law at the University of Virginia, and began the practice in his native town. In 1836 he was Cap- tain of \'olunteers in the Creek War. He served several terms in the Georgia Legisla- ture, and in both Houses of Congress, being in the Senate from 1853 to 1861, when on the secession of Georgia, he withdrew. .\s a member of the Montgomery Congress he helped to organize the Confderate Government, and for a time was Secretary of State of the Confederacy, but preferring active service he was given a brigade in the field. PROTEST AGAINST MODERN MATERIALISM. AGAINST that system of Materialism whose advocates are found in the highest walks of literature and science to-day, and which is boldly put forward by them as the " new faith," be- fore which all our old faiths, as things effete and worn out, are to disappear, I enter my solemn protest. As one who stands upon I08 READING AND ORATORY. the dyke which protects fair cultivated fields from the en- croachment of devastating floods, and detects the oozing of the tiny drops which are heralds of the incipient crevasse, so stand I to-day between a civilization the fairest on which the sun ever shone, and a turbid, encroaching flood whose waters are dark as Erebus, and deadly as the fabled vapors of the Asphaltic Sea. Between this civilization and the desolating flood, the great bulwark under God is that spiritualistic philosophy which Materialism seeks to undermine. I protest against that system because of the dishonor which it puts upon human nature. It degrades man to the level of the brute. It profanes all the sanctities of his nature. It pol- lutes all the fountains of his life. My nature resents, Avith an infinite scorn, such an insult to its dignity and such a libel upon its birth. I protest again because of the coarse utilitarianism which it engenders. It exalts the material above the spiritual, makes more of the body than of the soul, and in its rude march of labor-saving, wealth-accumulating, resource-developing prog- ress, tramples under foot everything which cannot be immedi- ately applied to the practical business of life. Material prosperity is its highest goal. Civilization is estimated by the length of a nation's railways, the extent of its commerce and manufactures, and the number of its arms-bearing men; and thus, under the rough granite of a simply material civilization, is buried all that is most beautiful in art, most true in philosophy, and most sacred in religious faith. I protest against it because of the wrecks with which its his- toric pathway is strewn. Whenever a nation has become in- fected with this philosophy, it has yielded to disintegration and decay. Ancient Assyria in the time of her greatest splendor seemed possessed of a civilization that would never decay. But intoxi- cated with her wealth, her numbers, her resources, she wor- shipped at the shrine of Materialism, and soon all her private virtue had decayed, all true heroism and nobility of character WASHINGTON THE ARTIFICER OF HIS CHARACTER. IO9 had evaporated, and a people of higher intellectual culture and hardier virtue laid her in the dust. Greece, so long as she remained under the dominant influ- ence of those systems of philosophy which taught the personal- ity of the gods and the spirituality of the men who worshipped them, wielded resistless empire in the world of nations and the world of thought. But the day came when the Epicurean philoso- phy was supreme, and, then as has been plaintively said, " for lack of light and for want of hope, everything of beauty in the literature of Greece, everything of grace in its art, all of truth in its philosophy, all of heroism in its character, withered and vanished away." It was when honeycombed by this materialistic philosophy that the vast fabric of the Roman empire crumbled to pieces, when, as the same writer has said, " Art expired, letters were lost, and for a thousand years the genius of barbarism brooded over the melancholy ruin." It was under the baleful influence of Materialism that the awful drama of the French Revolution was enacted. Introduce it here, and it will not be long until all civil and social order will be upheaved, and anarchy and sedition run riot in blood. T. D. WITHERSPOON. WASHINGTON THE ARTIFICER OF HIS OWN CHARACTER. I SHALL not speak now of the merely intellectual qualities of Washington. I rise to higher ground, and maintain that his character, the habitual tenor and manifestation of his act- ive being — as displayed in his life, public and private — is of it- self and in a true sense, one of the highest achievements of what is called the creative power. This power displays itself in the discovery of new truths and principles, or in new applica- tions of old ones. It does not literally create anything: it dis- covers, modifies, or reproduces. The character of Washington presented combinations of na- no READING AND ORATORY. ture and discipline: of intellect, knowledge, and virtue, of men- tal qualities and moral excellencies such as had never before been embodied in the person of any great actor on the theatre of public affairs. Particular parts of it, doubtless, had their counterparts in other persons, but the complete, rounded whole was new, fresh, and original. In its production, nature, inspira- tion, the divine afflatus, or whatever else we may call it, had much to do, but self-culture also played a most conspicuous part. Born in a country which was then regarded as almost a wilderness, untaught in the schools of learning; coming into rough contact at an early age, first as a surveyor, and then as an officer, with outward nature in her wildest forms, and with human beings still more wild; thrown upon the bare resources of his judgment in untried situations, and compelled to pro- vide against hunger and thirst, wind and rain, savage ambus- cades and all the privations and perils incident to pioneering and campaigning life on hostile forest frontiers, he drew from the depths of his own soul, and from the lessons of a hard and stern experience, that self-reliance and self-control — that activ- ity and decision of character, and coolness in the presence of danger — those rules of military prudence, and, above all, those maxims of moral and civil conduct, which pointed him out in advance as a man designed by Providence to render some im- portant service to his country, and which fitted him, when the time came, to be her natural and consummate leader in war and in peace. No man was ever more truly the artificer of his own charac- ter, as well as of his own fame and fortunes. And if to the philosopher who drags to light some hidden law of nature; — if to the inventor who, combining skill with knowledge, constructs some new machine for the economy of labor and the multiplica- tion of power; — if to the poet who calls up to life the beings of his fancy and robes them with forms of beauty and qualities of excellence, to excite the delight and the imitation of men — if to these be attributed the God-like faculty of creation, — on what principle, and with what justice, shall it be denied to him who, working in all faithfulness and truth with the elements of THE LIONS OF MVCEN.^. I 1 1 nature within him and with the outward facts and influences around him, made conquest after conquest in his own bosom, till he possessed his soul in patience — and then, adding knowl- edge to knowledge, and duty to duty, and virtue to virtue, built up within that soul — fit temple for such ministry — a real, vital, living character, clothed with all attributes of physical and mental and moral power — grand in repose and grand in action — till he stood, confessed before men, a type and a pattern of that true, heroic, and world-embracing manhood, of which poets had sung and philosophers dreamed, and which the good of all ages had longed to behold ! w. d. PORXiiR. W. D. Porter is a native of Charleston, S. C, a lawyer by profession, and was for twenty-five consecutive years a member of the General Assembly — a large portion of the time President of the Senate. He was elected Li jutenant-Governer by the people at the first election after the war, but, under the Reconstruction Act, was removed from office by the U S. Military Commander of the District of South Carolina. He took a very active and prominent part m the redemption of his State from negro rule, and upon the election of Governer Hampton accepted the appointment of " Master in Common Pleas and Chancery.' As orator, scholar, and jurist, he ranks among the lead- ing men of the South. THE LIONS OF MYCENAE. There they rise, The Lions of Mycenoe — rampant, stern, — Gigantic triumphs of an elder art That shames the best of ours; — though Ruin works Ruthlessly on them, with a mocking smile, Through lichen and green mosses to persuade All colors from the rainbow and the sky, To garnish fondly the gray hurts of Time! Still stand these famous Lions as of yore, Guardians of dwellings that no more demand Protection from without. No foe assails The City of the Atridae; nor, within. Clamor those warrior-hosts that once went forth, Following the king of men' In vain we seek 112 READING AND ORATORY. The tomb of Agamemnon! Could we find, We doubtless should behold at dawn of day, The filial shade of his avenging son, Close tended by the faithful Pylades; And hear, from out the sepulchre, the cry Of sorrowful Electra, with her urn! The tragedy, without a parallel, Which made this Gate of Lions, and these Courts — Now shapeless ruins — a dread monument, Rises to vision as we gaze upon them. There Clytemnestra comes, the terrible queen, With horrid hands, still reeking with red gore, — While yet she pleads for poor humanity. In fond excuse, for that her husband slew Her daughter, to "appease the winds of Thrace":— That child, o'er all beloved, Iphigenia, "For whose dear sake she bore a mother's pains!" The Lady Macbeth of Mycenae, she Had but one human sentiment to plead To justify her passions in her lust; — Even as the Scottish woman stayed the stroke By her own hands, for that the destined victim "Resembled her own father as he slept.' The passions sleep at last! The criminals Lie in their several dungeons of deep earth, Resolved to dust, and what is living of them Gone to their dread account Another fate Works on the crumbhns Cyclopean walls: That worst destroyer. Time! As fell his stroke As that which in his chamber smote the king, Great Agamemnon! That a tale should live, While temples perish I That a poet's song Should keep its echoes fresh for all the hills THE LIONS OF MYCEN^. II3 That could not keep their cities! — should preserve The fame of those, thrice honored in their lives, And at their dying, and in mightiest tombs. While the tombs perish! What a moral's this! — That the mere legend of a blind old man, A beggar, outcast, wanderer — all in one — A chanter by the sea-side to poor sailors, Weaving his wanton fancies, skein by skein, • So that no man shall need to weave anew, — That his mere tale, his name and fame should live, While cities waste away, and temples blasted Leave bare the mortal greatness with no tomb! W. GILMORE SIMMS. William Gilmore Simms, LL. D., poet, novelist, and historian, was bom in Charles- ton, S. C, April 17, 1806. He began to write verses at the age of eight years; unable to obtain a collegiate education, he mastered such books as he had access to, and when nineteen years old published his first important poem, A Monody on Gen. C. C. Pinckney. In the nullification troubles he espoused the cause of the Union with much ardor, be- came editor and proprietor of the City Gazette^ the chief organ of his party, and in its failure lost his small patrimony. About the year 1832 he entered fairly upon his career as a professional author. Attention was first called to his merits by a sea-tale in verse, Atalantis, which was favorably reviewed even in Europe. After this appeared South- ern Passages a>id Pictures, 1839; Donna Florida, 1843; Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies, and Areytos, or Songs 0/ the South, 1846; Lays 0/ the Palmetto, 1848; The Eye and the Wing, and Cassique 0/ Accabee, 1849; The City of the Silent, delivered at the consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, 1850. These are all poems. Besides, he has writ- ten two dramas, Nortnan Maurice, and Michael Bonhain, or The Fall 0/ the Alamo, with a great number of fugitive verses. In fiction he has been the most prolific of American writers: an enumeration of his novels and tales would fill a page. Many of his romances present characters and incidents of Revolutionary times, or life upon the border: Guy Rivers, The Yonassce, The Partisan, Mellichampe, Katherine Walton, and The Scout are regarded as the best of this class. In history he has given us a His- tory of South Carolina, and South Carolina in the Revolution. Four volumes of Bi- ography — Lives of Marion, John Smith, Green, and Chevalier Bayard — are from his pen. Besides all these, he has contributed a vast number of critical, historical, biograph- ical, etc., papers to various magazines and reviews. In his last years he was oppressed with great calamities— the death of his wife, and the destruction by the Federals of his country home. Woodlands, and his large library, together with manuscripts whose loss was irreparable. With unfailing resouhition, however, he continued to work, and died, as he had wished, " in harness," June n, 1870. 114 READING AND ORATORY. REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES SENATE TO THE NEW HALL. THE Senate is assembled for the last time in this Chamber. Henceforth it will be converted to other uses, yet it must remain forever connected with great events, and sacred to the memories of the departed orators and statesmen who here en- gaged in high debates, and shaped the policy of their country. Hereafter the American and the stranger, as they wander through the Capitol, will turn with instinctive reverence to view the spot on which so many and great materials have accumulated for history. They will recall the images of the great and the good, whose renown is the common property of the Union; and chiefly, perhaps, they will linger around the seats once occupied by the mighty three, whose names and fame, associated in life, death has not been able to sever; illustrious men, who in their generation sometimes divided, sometimes led, and some- times resisted public opinion — for they were of that higher class of statesmen who seek the right and follow their convictions. There sat Calhoun, the Senator, inflexible, austere, oppressed, but not overwhelmed by his deep sense of the importance of his public functions; seeking the truth, then fearlessly following it — a man whose unsparing mtellect compelled all his emotions to harmonize with the deductions of his rigorous logic, and whose noble countenance habitually wore the expression of one en- gaged in the performance of high public duties. This was Webster's seat. He, too, was every inch a Senator, Conscious of his own vast powers, he reposed with confidence on himself; and scorning the contrivances of smaller men, he stood among his peers all the greater for the simple dignity of his senatorial demeanor. Type of his Northern home, he rises before the imagination, in the grand and granite outline of his form and intellect, like a great New England rock, repelling a New England wave. As a writer his productions will be cherished by statesmen and scholars while the English tongue is spoken. As a senatorial orator, his great efforts are historic- REMOVAL OF U. S, SENATE TO NEW HALL. 1 15 ally associated with this Chamber, whose very air seems yet to vibrate beneath the strokes of his deep tones and his weighty words. On the outer circle sat Henry Clay, with his impetuous and ardent nature untamed by age, and exhibiting in the Senate the same vehement patriotism and passionate eloquence that of yore electrified the House of Representatives and the country. His extraordinary personal endowments, his courage, all his noble qualities, invested him with an individuality and a charm of character which, in any age, would have made him a favorite of history. He loved his country above all earthly objects. He loved liberty in all countries. Illustrious man! — orator, patriot, philanthropist — whose light, at its meridian, was seen and felt in the remotest parts of the civilized world, and whose declining sun as it hastened down the west, threw back its level beams, in hues of mellowed splendor, to illuminate and to cheer the land he loved and served so well. All the States may point with gratified pride to the services in the Senate of their patriotic sons. Crowding the memory, come the names of Adams, Hayne, Wright, Mason, Otis, Ma- con, Pinckney, and the rest — I cannot number them — who, in the record of their acts and utterances, appeal to their succes- sors to give the Union a destiny not unworthy of the past. What models were these, to awaken emulation or to plunge in despair! Fortunate will be the American statesmen who, in this age or in succeeding times, shall contribute to invest the new Hall to which we go with historical memories like those which cluster here. And now, Senators, we leave this memorable Chamber, bear- ing with us unimpaired the Constitution we received from our forefathers. Let us cherish it with grateful acknowledgment to the Divine Power who controls the destinies of empires and whose goodness we adore. The structures reared by men yield to the corroding tooth of time. These marble walls must moulder into dust; but the principles of constitutional liberty, guarded by wisdom and virtue, unlike material elements, do not de- cay. Let us devoutly trust that another Senate, in another Il6 READING AND ORATORY. age, shall bear to a new and larger Chamber this Constitution vigorous and inviolate, and that the last generation of posterity shall witness the deliberations of the Representatives of American States still united, prosperous, and free. JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE. John Cabell Breckinridge was bom at Lexington, Ky., January i6, 1S21. His grandfather, Jolin Breckinridge, was Attorney-General under Jefferson and author of the famous Kentucky Resolutions of 1798; his mother was a daughter of President Smith, of Princeton, and a descendant of John Knox. He graduated from Centre College in 1838, was one year at Princeton, and was then admitted to the bar. He emigrated to Iowa, but soon returned, married Miss Mary Burch, and practised law at Lexington. As Major of Kentucky Volunteers he went with Gen. Scott to the City of Mexico. Re- turning after the war, he entered the Legislature, but was soon elected over Gen. Leslie Combs to the U. S. Congress, and was re-elected. In this new field of politics his reputation as an orator and debater soon became national. He was offered by Pres- ident Pierce the mission to Spain, and declined ; and in 1856 he was elected Vice-Presi- dent of the United States, having barely attained the constitutional age, and was the youngest man who has ever held that high office. The Convention which met at Charles- ton to nominate a successor to President Buchanan, after adjourning to Baltimore, chose him to be the Presidential candidate of the States' Rights wing of the Democ- racy. He was at this time in the U. S. Senate, having succeeded Mr. Crittenden. After the election of Lincoln, he remained some time in the Senate, endeavoring with great boldness to promote constitutional measures and to preserve peace; but finding his ef- forts vain, he retired to his home, whence he was soon driven by threats of arrest. A brigade was given him in the Confederate army, and in 1862 he was made Major- General. He became as distinguished in war as he had been in statesmanship, and in 1865 he became Secretary of War. At the close of the war he escaped through Florida to Cuba— thence to Canada and Europe, but he returned in a year to his old home, where he lived, proscribed by the Federal powers, until his death, May 17, 1875. THE ESSENTIALS OF TRUE REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. • A YOUNG man starting out in life on his majority, with health, talent, and ability, under a favoring Providence, may be said to be the architect of his own fortunes. His destinies are in his own hands. He may make for himself a name, of honor or dishonor, according to his own acts. If he plants himself upon truth, integrity, honor, and uprightness, with industry, patience, and energy, he cannot fail of success. So it is with us. We are a young republic, just entering upon the arena of nations; we will be the architects of our own fortunes. Our destiny, surrey's dream. 117 under Providence, is in our own hands. With wisdom, prudence, and statesmanship on the part of our public men, and intelli- gence, virtue, and patriotism on the part of the people, success, to the full measure of our most sanguine hopes, may be looked for. But if unwise counsels prevail — if we become divided — if schisms arise — if dissensions spring up — if factions are en- gendered — if party spirit, nourished by unholy personal ambi- tion, shall rear its hydra head, I have no good to prophesy for you. Without intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism on the part of the people, no republic or representative govern- ment can be durable or stable. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. SURREY'S DREAM. THE Rappahannock flows serenely yonder through the hills, as in other years; the autumn forests burn away in blue and gold and orange, as they did in the days of my youth, the winds whisper, the sunshine laughs, — it is only we who laugh no more. Was that a real series of events, I say, or only a drama of the imagination? Did I really hear the voice of Jackson and the laughter of Stuart in those glorious charges on those bloody fields? Did Ashby pass before me on his milk-white steed, and greet me by the camp-fire as his friend? Was it a real figure, that stately form of Lee, amid the swamps of the Chickahominy, the fire jof Malvern Hill, the appalling din and smoke and blood of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville — of Gettysburg, Spottsylvania, and Petersburg? Jackson, that greater than the leader of the Ironsides, — Stuart, more fiery than Rupert — Ashby, the pearl of chivalry and honor — Lee, the old Roman, fighting with a nerve so splendid to the bitter end — these were surely the figures of some dream, the forms of an excited imagination! Did Pelham press my hand, and fight and fall in that stubborn charge on Averill? Did Farley smile and fight and die near the very same spot? And was it Il8 READING AND ORATORY. really the eyes of Stuart that dropped bitter tears upon the pallid faces of these youths dead on the field of honor? It is like a dream to me that I looked upon these faces, that I touched the honest hand of Hood, gave back the friendly smile of Ambrose Hill, spoke with the hardy Longstreet, the stubborn Ewell, Hampton the fearless, and the chivalric Lees! Souls of fire and flame! with a light how steady burned these stately names! — how they fought, these hearts of oak! But did they live their lives, these heroes and their comrades, as I seem to remember? It was surely a dream — was it not — that the South fought so stubbornly for those four long years, and bore the blood-red battle-flag aloft in so many desperate encounters? But the dream was glorious — not even the i77wiedicabile vulnus of surrender can efface its splendor. Still it moves me and possesses me, and I live forever in that past. As I awake at morning, the murmur of the river breeze is the low roll of drums from the forest yonder, where the camps of infantry are aroused by the reveille. In the moonlight nights when all is still, a sound comes borne upon the breeze from some dim land — I seem to hear the bugles. As the sunlight falls now on the landscape of field and wood and river, a tem- pest gathers on the shores of the Rappahannock. The sun- shine disappears, sucked in by the black and threatening clouds which sweep from the far horizon; the lightnings flicker like quick tongues of flame; and as these fiery serpents play around the ebon mass, a mighty wind arises, swells, and roars on through the splendid foliage. Is it only a storm? — No! yonder varie- gated colors of the autumn leaves are the flaunting banners of an army drawn up there in line of battle, and about to charge. Listen! — that murmur of the Rappahannock is the muffled tramp of a column on the march. Hush! there is the bugle! and that rushing wind in the trees of the forest is the charge of Stuart and his horsemen! How the hoof-strokes tear along! — how the phantom horsemen shout as they charge! — how the ghost of Stuart rides! See the banners yonder, where the line of battle is drawn against the autumn woods — how their splendid colors burn, HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINIAN. 1 19 how they flaunt, and wave, and ripple in the wind, proud and defiant! Is that distant figure on horseback the man of Port Republic, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, with his old faded cap, his dingy coat, and his piercing eyes? — and is that the cheering of the "foot cavalry," as they greet him? Look how the leafy banners, red as though dyed in blood, point for- ward, rippling as they come! See that dazzling flash! Is it lightning, or the glare of cannon? Hear that crash of thunder, like the opening roar of battle! — Jackson is advancing! A quick throb of the heart — a hand half reaching out to clutch the hilt of a battered old sword upon the wall — then I sink back in my chair. — It was only a dream! JOHN ESTEN COOKE. HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINIAN. THERE is a connection between diet and the ethnological characteristics of the human race, and I take it for granted, first, that a Virginian could not be a Virginian without bacon and greens; and second, that in every Virginian traces of bacon and traces of greens are distinctly perceptible. How else can you account for the Virginia love of good eating, the Virginia indifference to dress and household economy, and the incurable simplicity of the Virginia head? It has been affirmed by certain speculative philosophers that the Virginian persists in exhausting his soil with tobacco, because the cabbage he eats is itself ex- haustive of the soil; and that, because the hog is fond of wal- lowing in mud-puddles, therefore the Virginian takes naturally to politics. I am not prepared to dispute these points, but I am tolera- bly certain that a few other things besides bacon and greens are required to make a true Virginian. He must, of course, begin on pot-liquor, and keep it up until he sheds his milk-teeth. He must have fried chicken, stewed chicken, broiled chicken, and chicken-pie; old hare, butter-beans, new potatoes, squirrels, cymblins, snaps, barbecued shoat, roas'n I20 READING AND ORATORY. ears, buttermilk, hoe-cake, ash-cake, pancake, fritters, pot-pie, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, June apples, waffles, sweet milk, pars- nips, artichokes, carrots, cracklin-bread, hominy, bonny-clabber, scrambled eggs, gooba-peas, fried apples, pop-corn, persimmon beer, apple-bread, milk and peaches, mutton-stew, dewberries, batter-cakes, mus'melons, hickory nuts, partridges, honey in the honeycomb, snappin'-turtle eggs, damsom-tarts, cat-fish, cider, hot lightbread, and cornfield peas all the time. But he must not intermit bacon and greens. He must butt heads with little negroes, get the worst of it, and run crying to tell his ma about it. Wear white yarn socks with green toes, and yarn gallowses. Get the cow-itch, and live on milk and brimstone for a time. Make frog-houses over his feet in the wet sand, and find woodpecker nests. Meddle with the negro men at hog-killing time, and be in every body's way generally. Upset beehives, bring big wasps'-nests into the house, and get stung over the eye by a yellow-jacket. Watch setting turkeys, and own a bench-leg fice and a speckled shoat. Wade in the branch, eat too many black-heart cherries, try to tame a cat-bird, call doodle-bugs out of their holes, — and keep on eat- ing bacon and greens. He must make partridge traps out of tobacco-sticks, set guns for " Mollie-cottontails," mash-traps and dead-falls for minks, fish for minnows with a pin hook, and carry his worms in a cymlin; tie June-bugs to strings, and sing 'em under people's noses ; stump his toe and have it tied up in a rag ; wear patched breeches, stick thorns in his heel, and split his thumb open slicing horse-cakes with a dog-knife, sharpened contrary to orders on the grindstone. At eight years old he must know how to spell b a, ba, b e, be, and so on; and be abused for not learning his multiplication table, for riding the sorrel mare at a strain to the horse-pond, and for snoring regularly at family prayers. — Still he must continue to eat bacon and greens. About this time of life — or a little later — he must get his first suit of " store-clothes," and be sorely afflicted with freckles, stone bruises, hang-nails, mumps and warts, which last he de- lights in trimming with a Barlow knife, obtained by dint of HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINIAN. 121 hard swapping. He must now go to old-field school, and carry his snack in a tin bucket, with a little bottle of molasses, stop- ped with a corn-cob stopper, and learn how to play marbles " for good," and to tell lies about getting late to school, because he fell in the branch. Also, to steal June apples, and bury them that they may ripen the sooner for his big sweetheart, who sits next to him. He must have a pop-gun, made of elder, and cut up his father's gum-shoes to make trap-balls, composed of equal parts of yarn and India-rubber. — At the same time he must keep steadily eating bacon and greens. He must now learn to cut jackets, play hard ball, choose partners for " cat" and "cherminy," be kept in, fight every other day, and be turned out for painting his face with poke- berry juice and grinning at the schoolmaster. After a good whipping from his father, who threatens to apprentice him to a carpenter, he enjoys his holiday by breaking colts and shooting field-larks in the daytime, and by 'possum hunting, or listening to ghost stories from the negroes, in the night. Returning to school, he studies pretty well for a time, but the love of mis- chief is so strong within him, that for his life he can't refrain from putting crooked pins on the benches where the little boys sit, and even in the schoolmaster's chair. The result is a severe battle with the schoolmaster, and his permanent dismis- sal. Thrown upon the world, he consoles himself with bacon and greens, makes love to a number of pretty girls, and pre- tends to play overseer. Failing at that, he tries to keep somebody's country store, but will close the doors whenever the weather is fine to " ketch chub" or play knucks. Tired of store-keeping, he makes a trip, sometimes all the way on horseback, to the far South, to look after his father's lands. Plays poker on the Mississippi, gets cheated, gets strapped, returns home, eats bacon and greens, and determines to be a better man. But the first thing he knows, he is off on a frolic in Richmond, where he loses all his money at faro, borrows enough to carry him home and buy a suit to go courting in. He next gets re- ligion at a camp-meeting, and loses it at a barbecue or fish-fry. 122 READING AND ORATORY. Then he thinks he will teach school, or ride Deputy Sheriff, or write in the Clerk's office, and actually begins to study law, on the strength of which he becomes engaged to be married and runs for the Legislature. Gets beaten, gets drunk: reforms all of a sudden; eats plenty of bacon and greens; marries, much to the satisfaction of his own, and greatly to the honor of his wife's family; — and thus becomes a thorough-going Virginian. GEORGE W. BAGBY. Perhaps the best known of all living Southern humorists is George William Bagby, M. D., who was born in Bucliingham Co., Va., August 13, 1828. He attended Edgehill School, Princeton, N. J. (1838-41), Delaware College (1843-4), and graduated in medi- cine at University of Pennsylvania in 1849, but has never practised. Began his literary career as editor of Lynchburg Daily Express in 1853, and since then has been a constant correspondent and contributor of the leading journals and magazines. North and South. In i86q he succeeded John R. Thompson as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger^ and edited it until 1864. His principal productions are My Wife and my Theory about Wives ^ in Harper'' s Maga- zine ; Letters to Mozis Addums and Billy Ivvins: Blue Eyes and Buttermilk; John M. DanieFs Latch-Key: pamphlet, 1867; What I Did with my Fifty Millions, Philadelphia: 1875; Meekin^s Tivinses, Richmond: 1877. He began his.humorous lectures in 1865, and met with great success. In graphic and truthful delineation of old-time Southern life and character, in all their lights and shades, he is unexcelled. The most popular of his lectures are: Bacon and Greens, or the Native Virginian; Womenfolks; An Apology for Fools; The Disease called Love; The Virginia Negro, Past and Present; and The Old Virginia Gentleinan. Since 1870 he has been First Clerk to the Seoretary of State, and State Librarian at Richmond. THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. THE muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on life's parade shall meet The brave and daring few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead. No answer of the foe's advance Now swells upon the wind. THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. I23 No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms: No braying horn nor screaming fife At dawn shall call to arms. Their shivered swords are red with rust; Their plumed heads are bowed; Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, Is now their martial shroud; And plenteous funeral tears have washed The red stains from each brow, And their proud forms, in battle gashed, Are free from anguish now. The neighing steed, the flashing blade, . The trumpet's stirring blast. The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout, are past; No war's wild note, nor glory's peal, Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that never more shall feel The rapture of the fight. Like the dread northern hurricane That sweeps the broad plateau. Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, Came down the serried foe. Our heroes felt the shock, and leapt To meet them on the plain; And long the pitying sky hath wept Above our gallant slain. Sons of our consecrated ground, Ye must not slumber there, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Along the heedless air. 124 READING AND ORATORY. Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave: She claims from war his richest spoil — The ashes of her brave. So 'neath their parent turf they rest, Far from the gory field; Borne to a Spartan mother's breast, On many a bloody shield. The sunshine of their native sky Smiles sadly on them here, And kindred hearts and eyes watch by The heroes' sepulchre. Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! Dear as the blood you gave; No impious footsteps here shall tread The herbage of your grave. Nor shall your glory be forgot While fame her record keeps. Or honor points the hallowed spot Where valor proudly sleeps. Yon marble minstrel's voiceless tone In deathless songs shall tell, When many a vanquished age hath flown, The story how ye fell. Nor wreck, nor change, or winter's blight, Nor time's remorseless doom. Shall dim one ray of holy light That gilds your glorious tomb. THEODORE OTiaK.-.. The soldier-poet, Theodore O'Hara, was born in Danville, Ky., February ii, 1820. A child of misfortune and disappointment, the pressure of a narrow fortune, combined with the aspirations of a noble ambition, conspired to make his life singularly erratic. After receiving a thorough classical education at Bardstown, he read law, but in 1845 accepted a position in the Treasury Department at Washington, from which he was ap- pointed to a Captaincy in the U. S. regular army, and served through Mexican War with such distinction as to be brevetted Major. Resigning his commission, he practised law "THE SOLID SOUTH." I25 in Washington until the breaking out of the Cuban fever, when he embarked in that ill-starred enterprise as colonel of one of the regiments, and was badly wounded in the battle of Cardenas. He now turned his attention to journalism, and as editor of the UTo- bile Register^ the Louisville Ti/nes^anA the Frankfort i'eoman displayed signal ability. He was often called on by the Government to conduct diplomatic negotiations of im- portance with foreign nations, and his services were specially valued in the Tehuantepec Grant business. Entering the Confederate service as Colonel of 12th Alabama Regi- ment, he was subsequently on the staff of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, and it was into his arms that his great chief fell when he received his death-wound at Shiloh. He was then made Chief-of-Staff to Gen. John C. Breckinridge, his old fellow-student in law. The close of the war left him penniless, but he struggled bravely against pov- erty until his death in Alabama, June 6, 1867. In 1874 the Legislature of Kentucky caused his remains to be brought to Frankfort and there reinterred with appropriate honors in the State Cemetery. Like Gray, his fame rests chiefly upon one poem — The Bivouac 0/ the Dead^ which alone is sufficient to make his name immortal. " The hold of this elegy upon the popular heart grows stronger and more enduring. It is creep- ing into every scrap-book; it is continually quoted upon public occasions. Every year or two it makes the round of the American press, and recently it has excited en- thusiastic admiration in England. One stanza of it was inscribed upon a rude memo- rial nailed to a tree upon the battle-field of Chancellorsville; another was engraved upon a military monument at Boston, Mass., and still another adorns a memorial col- umn that marks the place where occurred one of the most bloody contests of the Cri- mean AVar. It will gain the high place in literature that it merits, and there it will re- main." — G. VV. Ranch's ''^ O^Hara and His Elegies^ Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers. "THE SOLID SOUTH." IT has sometimes been charged as a matter impugning the good citizenship of the Southern people, that since the war they have been identical in political opinion and action. The complaint, as made, takes the form of an arraignment of " The Solid South." Whether the unanimity of a people be a just ground of reproach against them depends entirely upon the prin- ciples on which they are united. It is hoped that all are united for virtue in the abstract. If by this complaint it is implied that the people of the Southern States, morbid from misfortune, are united in opposition to measures, right or wrong, and for purposes of obstruction and revenge, it is a great injustice, and one calculated to produce the very state of affairs it deplores. A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind. The calamities and sufferings of the Southern States being the same, it would be strange indeed if they were not unanimous in seeking relief, and upon all questions touching their common condition. There is 126 READING AND ORATORY. nothing unpatriotic — nothing inconsistent with duty as good citizens, in being united — "soUd," if you please — for deliver- ance, for equal rights, and for honest government; and "solid!" too, against all opposed thereto — against injustice, extortion, oppression, and especially against all that make it their business to preach the gospel of hate, and to perpetuate strife between the sections and the races. SAMUEL McGOWAN. AFTER THE RAIN. BUT yesterday the vines hung bare; O work of rain and night! See where these morning-glories swing Their bells of blue and white. But yesterday the thirsty corn Its tasselled banners furled; The misty fingers of the rain Have every leaf uncurled. Stay! Spirit of the sun and rain, Thy silent lessons teach; Bid juices purple in the grape; And crimson in the peach. Aye, stay till gen'rous Plenty comes To sit at Labor's feet; And mark the emerald of her corn, The golden of her wheat. Stay, for thy smile makes glad the earth, Thy breath perfumes the air; Thy unseen presence fills our hearts — Thy peace is everywhere. MRS. S. R. ALLEN. READING AND ORATORY. 12; CHANGES ^VROUGHT BY THE WAR. THE forms, the deep convictions, the very life of ages dis- solve like fading dreams. The vestiges of human energy, worn deepest, and most gilded by the proudest civilizations, are levelled, overgrown, hidden, lost. Time itself seems but a graduated scale to mark inexorable change. The earth be- neath us, with its forests and mountains and seas, is hourly changing; the wide expanse around us dawns, glows, and fades; the heavens over us, with all their soaring worlds, change. ' No mountain or wave, no radiance or star, is the same to-day and to-morrow — all is change; but nothing of God's making can perish, death itself is but a change of form, nature passes from shape to shape, but its element, its primal principle is the same. The hardest granite, the purest diamond, may be crushed, pul- verized, sublimated, but new crystallizations will gather around the imperishable nucleus. Now it is a grievous and pitiable spectacle to contemplate the mouldering vestiges of our own departed greatness and lost liberty, the rolling and pestilential fragments which are left to us. It is too heart-rending to see the dreary desolation which has invaded our pleasant places, the homes of our industry, our opulence, and our happiness. Indeed, it seems unnatural that a land so young, so vigorous, and seemingly so blessed of ^God, should thus early sink into decrepitude and exhaustion; our fields, our vines, and our flowers, so soon encroached upon by the forest and jungle, from which, but the other day, our fathers had conquered them, and to see, too, the cedars and the palms, which were the pillars of our temples and the shelter of our people, prostrate; and the inner and the upper places at our altars held by the robber, the Pharisee, and the hypocrite. To you this change is terrible; it is so to my old eyes, now growing too dim to see even the bright things of earth, but must look beyond for their visions. You are just entering on the veiled path of life. What living light is before you, what sun-capped mountain, what beacon in the skies to guide your darkling 128 READING AND ORATORY. Steps? You look along the dead waste and level, disturbed only by the dust of the earth. Like the lost wanderer of the desert, you gaze before you and see no living thing. You may sink in blank despair, but from your knees look upward, behold, deep- shining in the heavens, those bright eternal spheres which will give you light to guide your way, and cheer your heart with their divine melodies. Then, young men, rise up! make one more effort. Draw from the funeral pyre of Virginia the memory of her transcendent past, and like the Eastern Magi, it will reveal visions of a new life, and gladden your souls with dreams of a bright enduring future. In that past you will see a noble Commonwealth, reared by wisdom and valor on the granite of Truth and Right, and building thereon a pure system of national liberty, with insti- tutions the fruit of that liberty, and illustrated by men who guarded that fruit with the courage, and the deep, clear wisdom of unspotted patriotism, men who looked straight into the bright countenance of Truth, and drew from her all their inspiration. There, too, you will find the stern sublimity of that true love of country which was incarnate in the dust now reposing at Mount Vernon and Monticello. And if, with the drawn sword over us, the chains on our arms, the lash at our back, and the torch at our chamber doors, we dare draw from a still nearer past, and speak of a people whose name is now blood-blotted from the rolls of nations, we might say, in God's hearing, that the records of those nations will be hunted in vain for a people, who, in devotion to their rights, in stern resolve, in heroic valor, in calm endurance, in meek submission to and humble reli- ance on a God of Truth, in the very piety of patriotism, sur- passed that people who five years ago called themselves Vir- ginians. JOHN S. PRESTON. GEORGIA. I WOULD that I had the power of presenting, with the brevity which becomes an occasion like this, a worthy ideal of Georgia, the land of my love. But not as she lies upon the geo'rgia. 129 map, stretching from the mountains to the ocean, dear as she must be to her sons in all of her variegated features; — in her mountains and her valleys, in her rivers and her cataracts, in her bare red hills and her broad fields of rustling corn and of cotton snowy white, in her vast primeval forests that roll back in softer cadence the majestic music of the melancholy sea; and, last but not least, in our own beautiful but modest Savannah, smiling sweetly through her veil of perennial, and yet of diversified green. It is not the Georgia of the map I would invoke before you to-night. I would conjure up, if I could, the Georgia of the soul — majestic ideal of a Sovereign State, at once the Mother and the Queen of a gallant people; — Georgia as she first placed her foot upon these western shores and beckoned hitherward from the elder world the poor but the virtuous, the oppressed but the upright, the unfortunate but the honorable; adopting for herself a sentiment far nobler than all the armorial bearings of "starred and spangled courts, where low-born baseness wafts perfume to pride"; — taking for her escutcheon the sentiment. Poverty and Virtue! Toil and be Honest! Next I would present you the Georgia who assumed to her- self, in companionship with her sister colonies, the right to the exclusive exercise of original sovereign power, declaring and achieving her independence of the British Crown. And next the Georgia who, through the lapse of nearly a century, was illustrated in a Union of Confederate Sovereignties, by the gallantry of her soldiers on the field of battle, by the wisdom of her statesmen in public council, by the virtue and self-abnegating devotion to the discharge of duty of her daughters in the modest seclusion of domestic life. And when I speak of her sons and daughters, I do not mean those simply who were born upon her bosom. I mean also, and I mean em- phatically, those who, like Crawford, and Berrien, and Forsythe, and Wilde, came to her from abroad, and added the rich bloom of their genius, learning, and eloquence to the pure wreath with which her children have encircled her regal brow — the only crown she cares to wear! I mean also, and I mean emphatically, 130 READING AND ORATORY. those like the distinguished commander of the gallant corps whose guests we are to-night {^Captain IVkeaton, of the Chathajn Artillery], who brought to her his whole heart, to plant it and to root it here: ever ready to take his place among the foremost in repelling her enemy, whether he come, with streaming ban- ners, amid the thunders of war, or steal silently upon the poisoned currents of the midnight air. When the winter of our discontent was resting heavily, gloomily, upon us, at the holiest hour of the mysterious night a vision of surpassing loveliness rose before me: Georgia, my native State, with manacled limbs, and dishevelled locks, and tears streaming from weary eyes over a mangled form which she clasped, though with convulsed and fettered arms, to her bosom. And as I gazed, the features of the blood-stained soldier rapidly changed. First I saw Bartow, and then I saw Gallic, and then I saw Cobb, and there was Walker, and Willis, and Lamar; more rapid than light itself successively flashed out the wan but intrepid faces of her countless scores of dying heroes; and she pressed them close to her bosom, and closer still, and yet more close, until, behold, she had pressed them all right into her heart! And quickly, as it were in the twinkling of an eye, the fetters had fallen from her beautiful limbs, and the tears were dried upon her lovely cheeks, and the wonted fire had returned to her flashing eyes, and she was all of Georgia again; an equal among equals in a Union of Confederate Sovereignties. Yes! the Georgia of Oglethorpe, the Georgia of 1776, the Georgia of i860, is the Georgia of to-day; — is Georgia now, with her own peculiar memories, and her own peculiar hopes, her own historic and heroic names, and her own loyal sons and devoted daughters; — rich in resources, intrepid in soul, defiant of wrong as ever she was. God save her! God save our liege Sovereign! God bless Georgia, our beloved Queen! God save our only Queen! HENRY R. JACKSON. Henry R. Jackson, soldier, orator, poet, and jurist, was born m Athens, Ga., June 24, 1820. He attended Princeton College; graduated at Yale College, 1839; and was ad- THE ALABAMA. I31 mitted to the bar of Georgia, 1840. He practised at Savannah, and, in 1843, was ap- pointed U. S. District Attorney; distinguished himself in Mexican War and was Colonel of Volunteers; was Judge of Circuit Court, 1849-53, when he was appointed U.S. Minister to Austria, a position he held until 1S59, when he resigned and resumed the practice of his profession in Savannah, conducting this year for the U. S. Govennent the prosecu- tion of the celebrated case against the slaver Wam^erer, which had landed a cargo of^ Africans on the coast of Georgia. In the civil war he served (by appointment of the" Governor) as Major-General of the military forces of Georgia, and then as Brigadier- General of Volunteers in the Confederate army until captured in the disastrous Ten- nessee campaign. He has ever had a fondness for letters— contributing numerous articles to the reviews and other periodicals of the day, and publishing m 1850 a volume, Talhtlahy and Other Poems, \\'\\\<:\i was very popular; and is now President of Georgia Historical Society. He resides still in Savannah, actively engaged in his profession. THE ALABAMA. THE bones of the noble Alabama, full fathom five under the English channel, have, perchance, long ere this, suffered "a sea change into something rich and strange." Precious jewels these bones would be if they could be fished up now — yet not, thank Heaven, of that sort of value which would make our De- structive friends think it worth while to bring them into the Admiralty courts. A Southron might possibly be permitted to treasure a shell-covered rib, without fear of having it torn from him by the myrmidons of the law. And well might that Southron — well, indeed, might the citizen of any section of the United States, if he would consider the matter magnanimously — cherish any relic that could be recovered of this dead lioness of the seas. For what a wonderful history was hers. A single ship matched against one of the mightiest navies of the world, yet keeping the ocean in defiance of all pursuit for — we forget — how many years! Flitting like a phantom across the waters, appearing at astonishingly short intervals in the most opposite quarters of the globe, we used to follow her track with some- thing of ihat weird interest which was wont to thrill us in our boyhood when pouring over a tale of the ghostly Dutchman of the Cape. At one time lost in the fogs of the Northern Atlan- tic, at another popping up in the region of the trade winds, scattering dismay among the clippers; and anon, far away in 132 READING AND ORATORY. the direction of the ciawn, where much more precious spoil might be reaped, or, if not reaped, then consigned to that vast locker of which the mythic " Davy" of the sailor is said to keep the key — such were the reports that reached us from month to month of this almost ubiquitous vessel. Now we heard, perhaps, that, in the neighborhood of the Golden Chersonesus, or under the rich shores of that " utmost Indian isle Toprobane," some homeward-bound Englishman had been startled by the dull boom of guns across the billows, while a red light upon the horizon informed him that the Alabama was illuminating those remote seas with the fires of Confederate revenge; and, again a little later, it was bruited from port to port that she was speeding across the main — haply amazing the gentle islanders of the Pacific with the gleam of her beautiful but unfamiliar flag — to complete the circuit of her awful mission with the destruction of a few treasure ships of the Ophir of the West. The repeated achievement of the adventure has rendered the circumnavigation of the globe in these modern days a com- monplace thing; but there was that in the errand upon which the Alabama was bound, which reinvested the voyage with its old romance; so that, in accompanying the Southern cruiser upon her various paths, we used to experience a feeling some- what resembling that imaginative one which Wordsworth has expressed in these deep-toned lines: "Almost as it was when ships were rare, From time to time, Hke pilgrims, here and there, Crossing- the waters, doubt and something dark, Of the old sea some reverential fear, Were with us as we watched thee, noble bark." The career of the Alabama was worthily closed. Challenged by a foe more powerful than herself, she sallied forth bravely to battle and went down in the sight of the coast of one people and of the ships of another, who each knew how to admire the valor which she had displayed. What a pity and what a won- der it is that the same generous appreciation of her glorious story, and its not less glorious end, is not shared in the country THE BAGGAGE SMASHER. 1 33 which enshrines the name of Lawrence! Who could believe, that did not know it, that we Southrons are expected by those who call us brethren to remember this gallant ship only as a corsair, and its venerated commander as a pirate! HENRY TIMROD. THE BAGGAGE SMASHER. SOMETIMES, by luck, at dock or train, When helping, I have found The baggage of a long campaign Snug in a'n iron bound, A monstrous trunk, a high three-decked, Stout linen-wrapped affair. Some belle's or widow's wardrobe packed With most painstaking care. Ah, blessed vision! in a trice Upon that trunk I dash. And toss, bang, twist, and ne'er desist Till all within is mixed to hash ! How sweet the ladies' looks that see Me handle thus a trunk; The cry, half rage, half agony: "Oh, Charles, the man is drunk!" My heart beats high within me then, I slam the baggage worse and worse; My strength grows as the strength of ten To hear their husbands curse. The husband swears, the lady weeps. And should the trunk wide open spring, And silks, lace, flowers, fly out in showers, For rapture I could sing! Sometimes in Dodd's great wagon borne Through all the town I go; 134 READING AND ORATORY. .1 ring some bell at early morn, Plunging through slush and snow; And whf^n the door is oped to me, Into the nice, clean hall I tramp, And everywhere, on floor and stair. My muddy footprints stamp: I mount the steps, I snatch the trunks, I wrench and jerk them half apart; I bump them down, I sling them round, And chuck them in the cart. With glee I lift each parcel high, And fling it down again; To smash the biggest trunks I try With all my might and main. Their wretched insides I shake up. And mix and stir in endless coil, Till boxes shiver and bottles pop, And silks and cambrics soil. And when the nice and costly things Are all besmirched and mussed, Like a schoolboy I laugh with joy Till I am fit to bust ! —SOUTHERN MAGAZINE. THE HABIT OF READING AND THE LOVE OF GOOD BOOKS. FOREMOST among all the means of education, highest among all the duties of the teacher, stands the pleasant privilege of reading with his classes the great English authors. For this, if skilfully managed, will serve not only to give solid- ity to young men's knowledge of their language, but also, what is even more weighty, to stimulate their love of reading and to shape their principles of taste. In doing this, or in failing to do it, lies after all the true criterion of education. With a love of books formed into the habits of his life, a young man, how- THE HABIT OF READING. I35 ever small his stock of knowledge, goes into the world with his grasp upon all the possibilities. For him life becomes a long schooling in wisdom. Succeeding years, in spite of all their sorrows, will bring a deeper peace to his soul, a nobler outlook to his mind. But without this love of reading, all ef- forts at education are efforts thrown away, pearls before swine. If we cannot waken in our pupils love for the knowledge that lies in books, if we cannot guide that love to worthy objects, and lift the character by means of it into the regions of intel- lectual delights, then all our work is vain. For amid the dis- tractions and the sensualities of life, the habit of reading is the only ballast of character. Teachers, therefore, must develop strength for noble living by love of noble reading. They must fight the influences of the present by weapons bequeathed from the past. They must match the charms of books against the charms of the world, the power that flo.'.s from the page of Shakspeare against the power that flows from vulgar men's wealth or from knaves' success. If education fail to result in this, such education is a failure; for, in a few years, the scanty knowledge gained at school will be scraped off like veneering, and the soul be left naked against the world. Such was the thought in the mind of the Greek philosopher when he uttered his famous adage, that "the habit of using books is the instrument of education." For this habit lifts the mind above the contagion of vulgarity in language and in opinion. It lifts the soul above what is sensual or sordid in its surroundings. It strengthens the heart and the brain of the worker in his struggle for bread; it enables him to do his daily work without losing the glow of his humanity. It is, in fact, the only means of keeping the young from the vulgar contamina- tions and from the ignoble rust of the world; the only means of keeping alive a reverence for knowledge, the only means, there- fore, of leading our people upward to true culture. Hence I should rather see a scholar of mine leave college with the habit of daily reading and with the love of good reading, than to see him, without that, decked with the sheepskin of all the faculties, THOMAS R. PRICE. 136 READING AND ORATORY. Thomas R. Price, born in Richmond, Va., March 18, 1839. Entered University o(- Virginia in 1856, and graduated with the master's degree in two years, a very rare thing; studied lavs', and went to Europe in 1859, where he changed line of study from Law to Greelt Philology, studying at Berlin, Keil, and Athens till 1862, when he returned to enter Confederate army as private; was promoted to Capiain of Engineers and served until close of the war. In 1868 he was elected Professor of Ancient Languages in Ran- dolph Macon College, and in 1870 transferred to the Chair of English Philology in that College — the first attempt ever made in a Southern institution to place the philological study of the English language as a part of the regular curriculum^ — the inception and successflil conduct of which added greatly to his reputation. He was elected, in 1866, to the Professorship of Greek in the University of Virginia, to succeed Dr. Basil L. Gil- dersleeve. His published writings— besides a few short poems— have been essays en philological and educational subjects, never collected into book form. VIVE LA FRANCE! A THOUSAND hearts beat fast to-day, A thousand hopes burn high, A thousand prayers like incense rise Toward the bending sky! Across the wave our blessings go, To find some ear, perchance, Not deafened quite by grief and pain, In distant, bleeding France. O fairest land of Art and Song, Hushed is thy music now! O land of Glory, not the bay, But cypress wreathes they brow! O brighest home of Chivalry! O land of fair Romance! Our hopes, our prayers are all for thee, God bless thee, sunny France! The music of thy Song is mute. But nobler strains are thine! All trampled lie thy vintage fields, But thou hast rarer wine! Thy music is the tramp of hosts Who rush to arms for thee, VIVE LA FRANCE. 1 37 Thy wine the blood of gallant hearts, Who die to keep thee free! They have one voice, those patriot hosts, One cry as they advance, A million lips catch up the strain And echo, Vive la France! A million hands are clasped in prayer, That fain would use the lance — Ah, could another Joan rise To bid thee hope, O France! O eldest daughter of the Church! O land of saintly Kings! O land, where once the Cross stood first Before all earthly things! How has thy valor been abased, How has thy glory died. How has thine ancient honor waned, How fallen is thy pride! Land of St. Louis, turn thy gaze To where the Tiber flows. See that old man who stands alone, Begirt by countless foes: Take up the sword of Charles Martel, Which drove the Paynim home, Then bid thy sons to fight for thee, And after thee for Rome! O land of Bayard and De Foix, Brave hearts are thine at need, From every side warm voices rise To bid thy cause God-speed! Turn thee to Him from whom alone Triumph and glory are. Then win thine ancient name and fame Upon the fields of war! "CHRISTIAN REID" (Miss Frances Fisher). READING AND ORATORY. ADDRESS TO WHITE LEAGUE OF NEW- ORLEANS. NOT in martial guise, not with draped ensigns, nor arms reversed, nor sobbing drums, nor long-drawn wail of mournful bugles, nor volleyed thunders of farewell, but with hearts full of a tender and proud regret, you have assembled to-night to do reverence to the memory of those martyred patriots who fell in our streets, one year ago, fighting for freedom. If from the height where their valor planted our standard on that memorable day we have given ground by so much as one foot; if time has dulled the edge of our high purpose, or worn into slovenry our set resolve; if the principles which they illus- trated by their courage and sealed with their blood have been shaken from their steadfast roots by any wind of popular ca- price or storm of hostile menace, if the guile of traitors' prom- ises or the fear of tyrants' threats have turned us from the straight and narrow way by which they moved^over yawning graves — to one fixed end, then, burying in the tomb which holds their ashes our memories and our hopes, nothing remains, henceforward, but for them tears, and for us silence and eternal shame. Not so do I interpret the meaning of this vast concourse. In the solemn purpose for which it has spontaneously gathered; in the influence which rains from the brimming eyes of matron and virgin; in the calm, grave faces of the sons and husbands and lovers whom they sent to battle without a tear; in the un- bending mien of the citizen-soldier who led your arms then, as he holds your affections now, and who crowned his consummate victory with a prudence and moderation unexampled in the history of civil war; in the presence of your chief magistrate elect, that loyal and unselfish patriot who has laid everything he had, or was, or hoped — fortune, home, the best and bright- est years of his chivalrous manhood — upon the ahar of Louis- iana; and in yonder hatchment, blazoned with the names of I ADDRESS TO WHITE LEAGUE OK N. O. 1 39 our dead heroes, for whom to-night we lift up our hearts, and whose dauntless spirits still rule us from their urns, I read the .same unaltered and unalterable determination that Louisiana "is of right, ought to be, and means to b^ Free!" If you have bowed, perforce, to the usurpation which still broods over us like some hideous nightmare, you at least have not consented to it. If you have been dumb under the mock- ery of a so-called "adjustment," it has been the silence of in- dignation, and not of acquiescence. If you have submitted to the odious sway of alien adventurers, set up and sustained by Federal power, as taskmasters over a people whom they insult and plunder, it has been solely in the interests of civil peace and domestic order. Never to such a government will you give your confidence or support; never to such a pact, I am sure, will you set your hands, and to-day, as through all your past, you will continue to resist, by every rightful means, the intolerable despotism under which we groan. You surely will take no step backward. To the maintenance of this resolve you are pledged, not less by the memory of the dead than by the hopes of the living. Unseduced where others waver, un- terrified where others quail, you will still oppose to the threat- ening front of the tyrant, free hearts and free foreheads; still will you stand, the bulwark of your people, still give to the State the cheap defence of your unbought service, " And if some dreadful need should rise, Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke." J. DICKSON BRUNS. John Dickson Bruns, M. D., was born in Charleston, S. C, in 1836. In 1857 he became editor of the Charleston Medical Jcurnal^mwaedSsXeVy after having gradu- ated in medicine with the highest honors. He was chosen Professor of Physiology in the New Orleans School of Medicine in 1866. Besides having written much pertain- ing to his profession, he has distinguished himself in general literature; his best-known productions being his successful lectures on Tennyson and Henry Timrod, and his poems. The Christmas Hymn, Schiller, Charleston, U'reckeil, and The Legend of Santa Clatis. He is a polished scholar, a brilliant talker, and an eloquent and impas- sioned public speaker. I40 READING AND ORATORY. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. [ From Psalm of the Wist ] THEN haste ye, Prescott and Revere! Bring all the men of Lincoln here; Let Chelmsford, Littleton, Carlisle, Let Acton, Bedford, hither file — Oh, hither file, and plainly see Out of a wound leap Liberty. Say, Woodman April! all in green, Say, Robin April I hast thou seen In all thy travel round the earth Ever a morn of calmer birth? But morning's eye alone serene Can gaze across yon village-gi-een To where the trooping British run Through Lexington. Good men in fustian, stand ye still; The men in red come o'er the hill. Lay domm your arms, damned rebels! cry The men in red full haughtily. But never a grounding gun is heard. The men in fustian stand unstirred; Dead calm, save may be a wise bluebird Puts in his little heavenly word. O men in red! if ye but knew The half as much as bluebirds do, Now in this little tender calm Each hand would out, and every palm With patriot palm strike brotherhood's stroke Or ere those lines of battle broke. O men in red! if ye but knew The least of the all that bluebirds do, Now in this little godly calm, THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I4T Yon voice might sing the Future's Psahn — The Psalm of Love with the brotherly eyes Who pardons and is very wise — Yon voice that shouts, high-hoarse with ire, Fire! The red-coats fire, the homespuns fall- The homespuns' anxious voices call, Brother^ art hurt ? and IV/iere /lit, John ? And JVipe this blood, and Men, come on, And Neighbor, do but lift my head. And JVho is wounded? IVho is dead? Seven are killed. My God ' my God! Sez'en lie dead on the village sod — T^vo Harringtons, Parker, Hadley, Brown, Monroe and Porter, — these are down. Nay, look! Stout Harrington not yet dead! He crooks his elbow, lifts his head. He lies at the step of his own house-door; He crawls and makes a;path of gore. The wife from the window hath seen, and rushed; He hath reached the step, but the blood hath gushed; He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door, But his head hath dropped: he will crawl no more. Clasp, Wife, and kiss, and lift the head: Harrington lies at his doorstep dead. But, O ye Six that round him lay And bloodied up that April day! As Harrington fell, ye likewise fell — At the door of the House wherein ye dwell; As Harrington came, ye likewise came And died at the door of your House of Fame SIDNEY LANIER. 142 READING AND ORATORY, LEGISLATIVE INSTRUCTIONS AND OFFICIAL DUTY. MR. PRESIDENT, — Having already expressed my delib- erate opinions at some length upon this very important measure now under consideration, I shall not trespass further upon the attention of the Senate. I have, however, one other duty to perform, a very painful one, I admit, but one which is none the less clear. I hold in my hand certain resolutions of the Legislature of Mississippi, which I ask to have read. * * * Mr. President, between these resolutions and my convictions there is a great gulf I cannot pass it. Of my love to the State of Mississippi I will not speak. My life alone can tell it. My gratitude for all the honors her people have done me, no words can express. I am best approving it by doing to-day what I think their true interest and their character require me to do. During my life in that State it has been my privilege to assist in the education of more than one generation of youth; to have given the impulse to wave after wave of young man- hood that has passed into the troubled sea of personal and political life; upon them I have always endeavored to impress the belief that truth is better than falsehood, honesty better than policy , courage better than cowardice. To-day my lessons confront me. I must be true or false, honest or cunning, faithful or unfaithful, to my people. Even in tills hour of their legislative displeasure and disapprobation I cannot vote as these resolutions direct. I cannot and will not shrink the responsibility which my position imposes. My duty, as I see it, I will do, and will vote against this bill. When that is done, my responsibility is ended. My reasons for my vote shall be given to my people. Then it will be for them to determine if adherence to honest convictions has dis- qualified me from represen ing them , whether a difference of opinion on a difificult and complicated subject, to which I have given patient, continued, conscientious study, to which I have brought entire honesty and singleness of purpose, arid upon SALLY JONES. 1 43 which I have spent whatever abihty God has given me, is now to separate us. Whether the difference is to override that complete union of thought, sympathy, and hope which on all other, as I believe, even important subjects, binds us together, I must stand or fall, be the present decision what it may. I know the time is not far off when they will recognize my action wise and just, and armed with honest convictions of duty, I shall calmly await results, believing in the utterance of a great American, who never trusted his honored countrymen in vain, that " truth is omnipotent and public justice certain." L. Q. C. LAMAR SALLY JONES. I ENVY not the monarch's lot, His crowns and golden thrones; I'd rather share an humble cot With pretty Sally Jones! I'd tread the tropic's burning lands, Or seek the icy zones. Or wander o'er the desert sands. For little Sally Jones. Yes, had I Europe's proudest thrones, And Bonaparte's renown, I'd give them all for Sally Jones, And throw away my crown! Were I the laurelled bard of earth, With all that Rothschild owns, I'd count it all as nothing worth, Compared with Sally Jones! W. T. G. WEAVER. 144 REAPING AND ORATORY. THE RED MEN OF ALABAMA, THE Red Men of Alabama, if properly reviewed, would be found to present more interesting facts and features, upon a more extended scale, than any other American tribes. The peculiarities which had ever invested the character of the In- dian with so much romantic interest, making him the chosen child of fable and of song, were here exhibited in bolder relief than elsewhere. In numbers; in the extent of their territories, all converging to the heart of our State; in their wide and ter- rific wars; in intercourse and traffic with the whites; in the mystery of their origin and migration; in the arts, rude though they were, which gradually refine and socialize man; in their political and religious forms, arrangements, and ceremonies; in manifestations of intellectual power, sagacity, and eloquence; in all those strange moral phenomena, which marked " the stoic of the woods, the man without a tear," — the native inhabitants of our soil surpassed all the other primitive nations, north of Mexico. The study of their history is peculiarly our province, — for they are indissolubly connected not only with the past, but the present and future of the State. Yes ! ' 'though they all have passed away,— That noble race and brave, Though their light canoes have vanished From off the crested wave; Though, 'mid the forest where they roved. There rings no hunter's shout, — Yet their names are on our waters. And we may not wash them out I Their memory liveth on our hills, Their baptism on our shore, — Our everlasting rivers speak Their dialect of yore!" 'Tis heard where ChattaJioocTtee pours His yellow tide along: It sounds on Tallapoosa's shores. And Coosa swells the song; Where lordly Alabama sweeps. The symphony remains; MY MOTHER S GRAVE. I45 And young Cahaivba proudly keeps The echo of its strains; Where Tuscaloosa's waters glide, • From stream and town 'tis heard, And dark Tombeckbee's winding tide Repeats the olden word; Afar where nature brightly wreathed Fit Edens for the free, Along Tuscumbia's bank 'tis breathed By stately Tennessee; And south, where, from Conecuh's springs Escambia' s waters steal, The ancient melody still rings, — From Tensaw and Mobile! A. B. MEEK. MY MOTHER'S GRAVE. I AM kneeling by my mother's grave. How holy the influ- ence that sinks upon my heart! Memory carries me back to the days when she was with me, and tells me of a thousand pleasures her sacred presence gave me — pleasures I shall never know again — and sadness is upon my heart, and a tear is in my eye, but still it is sweet to be here. I feel her love as I felt it in my childhood — and all around is musical in its silence, like the language of affection that speaks in the voiceless glance and smile of tenderness. Ah, grave! thou hast a precious treasure! Within thee are the hands that led me, the arms that embraced me, the tongue that gently taught me, and the face that smiled in holiest sym- pathy upon me. Alas! and shall I never see them any more? Be still' my soul: dost thou not hear spirit-echoes? This is, indeed, holy ground. I am nearer Heaven here than at any other spot on earth. I feel that she is near me, and yet I know that she is in Heaven. Oh! it is sweet to be here. The Father is strangely kind, and my heart is full of melting love. There's a mighty eloquence proving to my spirit, as I kneel by thy grave, dear mother, that we shall meet again! Glorious hopes appeal to thee, my soul, to cheer thee in thy sorrows and 145 READING AND ORATORY. make thee faithful unto death. Thou still hast her blessing and love; for the prayers of a mother do not die when she dies, and the real heart and its sinless sympathies are never buried in the tomb. Her love is purer and warmer now, for it comes from the " sainted spirit shore." Thou shalt find her again in " the bosom of bliss." ^ ^. mangum. A. W. Mangum, A. M., was born in Orange Co., N. C, April i, 1834; graduated with first-honor grade at Randolph Macon College, 1854; entered the ministry of the M. E. Church, South, in 1856, and has been a member of the North Carolina Conference ever since. In 1875 he was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy and English Literature in the State University at Chapel Hill. His published writings are: Myrtle Leaves^ 1858; and The Safety Latnp. or Light for the Narro-jn Il'ay, 1866 — both religious works which met with a gciierous welcome, and were eminently successful in their mission. THE INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON'S EX- AMPLE UPON LEE. LORD BACON has told us that success was the blessing of the Old Testament, but adversity that of the New, and that the virtues of adversity are of a higher order than the virtues of success. While Washington represents in the history of this country the virtues of success, Lee represents the virtues of adversity. The classic matron was wont to study the lives of great heroes, hoping thus to transmit to her sons their virtues and their valor; and in one sense there was deep philosophy in the idea, as the mother must herself have become fully imbued with the spirit of those virtues she would impart to her son. Lee's parents reverenced and venerated Washington, and the happiest of maternal influences presided over his infancy and youth. Their love for Washington naturally impressed itself upon the son, who adopted him as the ideal of his youth, as the model by which he sought to mould his own character. It is not surprising, therefore, that the good seed of Washington's example, sown in such soil, should have yielded an abundant harvest of virtue and of valor; and that wc should accordingly WASHINGTON'S INFLUENCE ON LEE. 147 have, in Lee, a greater even than Washington for our matrons to admire and honor, and tor our youth to imitate. Lee himself, then, is the choice fruit of Washington's exam- ple, and furnishes a distinguished illustration of the value of great examplars in forming the character of youth. When we recollect that Lee, lavishly endowed by nature, was reared under these hallowed influences; that duty (which he styled the sublimest word in our language' was the "keynote" of his life, the pole-star of his every thought and action, and that he was ever sustained by his religion in this unwavering and conscien- tious adherence through life to the call of duty, we recognize the presence of every essential for developing the most ex- alted of mankind. We had accordingly in Lee that rare com- bination, the highest order of genius, with the purest morality of its day; the supreme valor of an Alexander, with the un- swerving justice of an Aristides; the brilliant talents of a Caesar, with the stern virtues of a Cato; the transcendent genius of a Napoleon, with the unselfish patriotism of a Washington: "A combination and a form indeed, Where ever)' god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man." We have accordingly in Lee the last, best gift of the Mother of States and Statesmen, uniting the valor of the warrior with the gentleness of the woman, the wisdom of the sage with the purity of the saint; the virtue of the patriot with the humility of the Christian; the brilliancy of genius with the simplicity of faith. We have accordingly in Lee the most perfect embodiment yet developed of the ideal manhood of our Christian civiliza- tion — nature, birth, home influence, and social advantages, with his own aspirations for moral and Christian excellence, all com- bining most happily to produce in him the purest and greatest man of all the ages. ALay his grand character, as a bright ex- ample, a shining light, bless his countrymen to remotest generations. T. M. LOG.\N. 148 READING AND ORATORY. EX PARTE RODRIGUEZ; CONCLUSION OF ARGUMENT BEFORE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS. COURTS as well as Legislatures derive their authority from the constitution; and if that instrument be superior to an act of the Legislature, it also limits and prescribes the powers of this court. If, by the terms of the constitution, the election of the people's representatives and of their governor is to be judi- cially ascertained and announced by another department and not by yours, then you have no more right to exercise original jurisdiction of that question than had the money-changers and those who sold doves to ply their vocation in the temple. Any other construction of your powers would violate the genius of our government, and inflict a fatal stab on the freedom of the people. It was well said by an able jurist, that a constitution grants no rights to the people, " but is the creature of their power, the instrument of their convenience^ It is the creature of the people's power, and you are but the creatures of that constitu- tion, which limits your power in the very sentence which con- fers it. It declares that "no person or collection of persons, being of one department, shall exercise any power properly at- tached to another," except in the instances "herein expressly permitted." It makes each House the judge of the election of its members; and wherein does it expressly permit you to in- vade their power by anticipating that judgment, or revising their action? From the days of James I. until now, no king or judge in England has dared to treat as a judicial question, before the courts, the legality of an election at which a House of Commons was chosen. If such was the right of our ancestors— - boldly asserted and fearlessly maintained as their traditional right, under the very shadow of the throne, and in defiance of the royal order which claimed jurisdiction for the judges — upon what pretence can this court invade and curtail like privileges of a legislative body to-day, which are solemnly secured to it EX PARTE RODRIGUEZ. I49 by a written constitution? Truly was it said by the British Commons, in the case to which I have referred, that "our rights, once lost, are not recovered but with much disquiet"; and if lost, can the fact that they are usurped by a court in- stead of a king afford consolation? I have attempted to show that the courts, in an unbroken series of decisions from the days of Chief-Justice Marshall to the case of Georgia vs. Staunton, in deciding upon questions which are political fer se in their character, adopt and follow the construction of the political department, — that the jurisdic- tion over the question is not here but elsewhere, because the people, in making their constitution, wrote it down in language so plain that one must understand, that " each House shall be the judge of the election and qualification of its members." It will not do, in the face of these authorities, to say that this court is charged with the duty of passing on the constitution- ality of all acts of the Legislature. Let us contemplate the future, if the jurisdiction which you are invited to assume be exercised. If you discharge Rod- riguez, on the ground that the election was illegal, you cannot control the Legislature elect, which will assemble, organize, and inaugurate a governor The various county officers elect will be commissioned, and it requires no j)roi>het to foresee that, under the auspices of a majority of forty thousand, they will enter on the discharge of their official duties. You will, of course, be consistent, and regard them as criminals, for we have a statute which punishes with imprisonment those who assume the functions of public office to which they are not entitled; and the district judges will enforce your construction. We will then have the spectacle of a Supreme Court filling the prisons with officers of co-ordinate departments, from governor down — this court remaining the sole surviving representative of the sovereign power in the State. Contemplating such a contin- gency, pardon me if I ask your honors, in the language of a dis- tinguished jurist who once presided here, "Who administers the government, the governor or this Court?" In the division of the powers of the government, some checks 150 READING AND ORATORY. were placed, also, on the courts. They have no power to usurp the functions, or destroy the existence, of co-ordinate branches of the government. If the Federal Government, instead of suffering but yesterday a shipload of her citizens, who were seized under her flag on the high seas by a third rate-power, and murdered without form of trial in sight of our coast, had declared war to avenge the outrage, would her courts, while her navy was thundering on the ocean in vindication of her flag, entertain, on habeas corpus, a plea that no just cause for war had occurred, or decide that none in their judgment existed? No! because that question was committed by the Constitution to the judgment of another department, and placed beyond the control of the judiciary. Should the sergeant-at-arms be ordered by the House of Repre- sentatives to seize and hold in confinement a member for an in- dignity to the House, could you inquire, on habeas corpus, into the cause of his confinement, and reversing the judgment of th^ House, release the prisoner? No, because each House " may punish members for disorderly conduct." Though the action might be despotic and flagrantly wrong — that would deprive whole counties of representation by expelling their members — ■ who but the House shall jndge of it? — for of this also they are made exclusive judges by the constitution. If one single case can be found, from the earliest dawn of American jurisprudence until now, in which any court has ever held illegal an act under which a Legislature was chosen, and under a constitution like ours, I will admit that I have mis- understood the theory of this government. The power of the Legislature to pass on its election is final and conclusive; — can there be two final and distinct judgments on the same question, by two separate and independent departments in one govern- ment? Rather, did not the people intend to place forever be-. yond the grasp of the judiciary and the executive their right to elect their representatives, by denying to those departments all discretion over that question? Thus, and thus only, can their voice be heard through a free ballot. I will be pardoned for reminding your honors of a fact not SEA WEEDS. 151 before referred to by any one, namely; that you have, more than most men, a direct, personal interest in the (juestion we are considering. It is known to all that one of the effects of the late election, if valid, was, by ratifying a constitutional amendment, to change the tenure of your office. Your official existence is directly involved, and I may be permitted to indulge the hope that you will imitate the pure example of Lords Thur- low and Ellenborough, and that you will not, without due reflec- tion, pronounce a judgment against the people, in which your own interests are so clearly involved. Three times have the people of Texas, since the surrender, attempted to establish civic government. Once they were re- manded by the Federal powers to a condition of territorial vassalage; once, if we may believe the eloquent adversary, they were defrauded of their choice by a military commander; and now he himself leads the van in the third assault, and attempts by the more insidious approaches of judicial construction, to stifle again the popular voice, and substitute a reign of anarchy. By as much as the blessings of social order, now in jeopardy, are the dearest man can enjoy on earth, by so much I earnestly ask you to consider well the judgment you are about to render. Your province is to preserve and build up, not to destroy Let not anarchy take the place of order, and violence supplant quiet and security. You must at least doubt the existence of the jurisdiction claimed. Let me, in the name of the people, ask you to resolve that doubt, as it is your duty to do, in their favor. Do this, and from the people of Texas, who have been sorely tried, will go up a voice of gratitude that should be more pleasing to your honors than any benefit that can come to you from beyond the borders of this State. A. W. TERRELL. SEA WEEDS. FRIEND of the thoughtful mind and gentle heart, Beneath the citron-tree — Deep calling to my soul's profounder deep — I hear the Mexique Sea. 152 READING AND ORATORY. White through the night rides in the spectral surf, Along the spectral sands, And all the air vibrates, as if from harps Touched by phantasmal hands. Bright in the moon the red pomegranate-flowers Lean to the yucca's bells. While with her chrism of dew sad midnight fills The milk-white asphodels. W^atching all night — as I have done before — I count the stars that set, Each writing on my soul some memory deep Of pleasure or regret; Till, wild with heartbreak, toward the east I turn, Waiting for dawn of day; And chanting sea, and asphodel, and star, Are faded, all, away. Only within my trembling, trembling hands — Brought unto me by thee — I clasp these beautiful and fragile things, Bright sea-weeds from the sea. Fair bloom the flowers beneath these northern skies. Pure shine the stars by night, And grandly sing the grand Atlantic waves In thunder-throated might; Yet, as the sea-shell in her chambers keeps The murmur of the sea. So the deep echoing memories of my home Will not depart from me. Prone on the page they lie, these gentle things. As I have seen them cast Like a drowned woman's hair along the sands When storms were overpast; BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 153 Prone, like mine own affections, cast ashore In battle's storm and blight. Would they could die, like sea-weed! Bear with me, But I must weep to-night. Tell me again, of summers fairer made By spring's precursing plough; Of joyful reapers gathering tear-sown sheaves; Talk to me — will you? — now ANNIE CHAMBERS KETCHUM. Mrs. Annie Chambers Ketchum is a native of Kentucky, and the child of Vuginia parents. Her mother's family are the Bradfords of Devonshire, England; her father's, the Chambers family, of Kent, England. Through her grandmother she is a Scotch Stuart, and on the father's side has French and Spanish blood. Her family has been in America only since 1750. Composed verses at a very early age, and published a romance, AV/Zy BracA-en^ Philadelphia: 1855, highly praised by the critics. In 1S78 ap- ])eared Lotos Floivers , a. coWeciwn of her poems published by Appleton & Co., New York. She has now in press Gypsying in Europe^ and will publish soon a romance, enti- tled Casta Diva. For writing the stirring battle-songs Nee Temere, Nee Timide, and The Bonny Blue Flag, she was banished from Memphis when the Federals captured that city. She has been twice married, and is now a widow, her last husband, Mr. Leonidas Ket- chum, of Memphis, having been killed in the battle of Shiloh. BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, CHARLESTON, 1859. IT is something, indeed, for a country to have produced a great poet — it is the rarest of all distinctions. He is of those who give rank to nations, not of those to whom a nation can give rank. Like the sun in the heavens — a fountain of- original light — he is sufficient to himself. In the fullness of his rays his country is glorified, and humanity itself is brighter in his beams. He is of all times and all countries, and, like our Burns, is the companion of David, and Homer, and Virgil; of Shakspeare and Gray, and Schiller and Dante, and Gold- smith, and Moore, and Bryant. All men in all times repeat his words, all hearts in all times will echo to his piercing notes of nature. We have all loved, and who has told the tale of love like T54 READING AND ORATORY. Burns? We are all lovers of our country, and who has sung the sacred transports of patriotism like Burns? We are social all, and love as now to gather round the festive board; whose heart more than his was the seat of all good fellowship, of all social delight and jollity? We are all proud of our country's arms and the brave deeds of our fathers; where are the war songs which, like his, fired as by the souls of Washington or Wallace in the fury of battle, are terrible as the clash of arms, fierce and shrill and piercing as the cry of victory? Creatures of sympathy — craving it as the light, needing it as the vital air — all men turn to the poet as the heart's universal confessor and friend, companion and comforter, and find, as in Burns, a charmed echo to all our feelings, sadness for our sor- rows, gladness for our mirth, and triumph for our victories! But in doing homage to the poet, and to Burns as a genius, let us not forget Burns the man. Let us not forget his glorious manhood. Gifted as he was, and famous for all time as he will be, let us to-day remember that, faithful as he was to the " ten talents" — the largest measure of mind with which his Maker had distinguished him — he was faithful also to a still nobler trust, more valuable than the treasure of genius, higher than the pre- rogatives of birth or the distinction of office — he was faithful to truth. He never betrayed her. His was the ardent soul to love her, his the herioc soul to defend her, his the sympathetic soul to celebrate in deathless strains all who had done, or suf- fered, or triumphed in her cause. He was truthful and natural and faithful in all things, in all relations. He reverenced his Maker with the humility of the publican. He loved his country as if she wielded the sceptre of universal empire; he honored his peasant father as if born to a kingdom, and he respected him- self and his class as if of the noblest of the earth. Peasant as he was, he was too proud to be jealous of a peer, and he gloried in his order as the very pith and bulwark of his country, and in the plough as the symbol of heroic independence, the very type of an unstinted manhood. He was content in his "hum- ble sphere to shine," and preserved " the dignity of man with soul erect." In him there was no guile, no pretence, no assump- I LOVE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY. I 55 tion, no deceit. It was, this nature, so simple, loving, truthful, and brave, that made him the poet that he was, and sent his every word straight to the hearts of all men; and it is this na- ture, too, that makes us love the man as much as we adniire the genius, and that enshrines his memory in the hearts of his countrymen and the world. ' GEORGE S.-I5RVAN. SOUTH CAROLINA'S LOVE OF CONSTITU- TIONAL LIBERTY. IF such, fellow- citizens, should be our lot — if the sacred soil of Carolina should be polluted by the footsteps of an invader, or be stained with the blood of her citizens, shed in her defence — I trust in Almighty God that no son of hers, native or adopted, who has been nourished at her bosom, or been cherished by her bounty, will be found raising a parricidal arm against our com- mon mother. — And even should she stand alone in this great struggle for constitutional liberty, encompassed by her enemies, that there will not be found in the wide limits of the State one recreant son, who will not fly to the rescue, and be ready to lay down his life in her defence. South Carolina cannot be drawn down from the proud enimence on which she has now placed herself, except by the hands of her own children. Give her but a fair field, and she asks no more. Should she succeed, hers will be glory enough, to have led the way in the noble work of Reform. And if, after making those efforts due to her own honor and the greatness of the cause, she is destined utterly to fail, the bitter fruits of that failure — not to herself alone, but to the entire South, nay to the whole Union — will attest her virtue. The speedy establishment, on the ruins of the rights of the States and the liberties of the people, of a great CoNSOLrD.A.TED Government, " riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry" of our once happy land — our glorious confederacy broken into scattered and dishonored fragments — • 156 READING AND ORATORY. the light of liberty extinguished, never perhaps to be relumed — these — these will be the melancholy memorials of that wisdom which saw the danger while yet at a distance, and of that patriot- ism which struggled gloriously to avert it; — memorials over which repentant though unavailing tears will assuredly be shed by those who will discover, when too late, that they have suffered the last occasion to pass away, when the liberties of the coun- try niight have been redeemed, and the Union established upon a foundation as enduring as the everlasting rocks. ROBERT V HAYNE. Robert Young Hayne was born in Colleton District, S. C, November 10, 1791. In early youth he gave little promise of unusual ability, though remarkable for energy of purpose and steadiness of character. He entered the law office of the Hon. Langdon Cheves in Charleston, in his eighteenth year; and upon that gentleman's election to the U. S. Senate his extensive practice fell into the hands of young Hayne, who soon es- tablished his reputation as a most able lawyer. As Captain of a militia company he served in the war of 1812, and after the close of hostilities was elected to the Legisla- ture of his native State, where he soon became prominent and was elected Speaker of the House. In 1823 he was elected U. S. Senator, and became famous as the antagonist of Clay and Webster during the exciting debates on the Tariff and State Sovereignty. He reported the Ordinance of Nullification in the State Convention; and soon after its passage was elected Governor, in which, at that time, difficult position, he displayed great executive ability and singular tact. At the expiraton of his term of office, in December, 1834, he retired to private life, and until his death, September 25, 1839, de- voted his energies to schemes of internal improvement. Mr. Hayne's style is remarkable for logical force and vigor, as well as for impassioned glow and a tone of profound sincerity which inspired his hearers with irrepressible enthusiasm. He was a worthy contemporary of the great statesmen who made his times illustrious; and few public men, indeed, have left behind them reputations for such lofty morality and purity of private life as that which attaches to his name. HAND -WASHING MAGISTRATES. LET us endeavor to transfer ourselves back to that mem- orable Friday morning in Jerusalem, and study the scenes which are enacted there, after this formal act of apostasy by the representatives of the nation in shouting, " No king but Caesar!" We shall find in them rich lessons of instruction, both on the human and the divine side of the gospel system. Attracted toward the court by this shout, "No king but Caesar," we find the judge just in the act of yielding, under the HAND -WASHING MAGISTRATES. 1 57 popular cry, "If thou let this man go, thou — art not Caesar's friend", for he dreads the utterance of such a charge, how- ever absurd, in the ears of the irritable Tiberius, his master. Therefore he gives sentence as they demand; but "he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person." Singular paradox; a magistrate innocent of the blood of one whom judicially he murders, while declaring him just in the same breath! No, no! Pilate, think not with water to wash off that stain of blood from thy hands. For, falling upon the official hand that pretends to weigh justice in the balance, its stain hath struck too deep for any water's cleansing. The un' titled, powerless, private man, forced by the mob to deeds of cruelty, might perhaps with the tears of ingenuous sorrow wash out the blood spot! But thou art imperial Cossar's legate, Pilate. Thine is the strong arm of the law, flashing its gleam- ing sword, by God's ordmance, in the defence of innocence, as well as in vengeance on guilt. Thy gorgeous ermine is full wide to shelter in its ample folds this torn and bleeding lamb that the fierce dogs of bigotry are thus savagely pursuing. With all thy pompous pretence to dignity and chivalrous Roman honor, thou art but a miserable pedler in blood! Baser than Judas, whose narrow soul thought thirty pieces of silver a worthy price, thou art selling him over again for a worthless smile from these ecclesiastical bloodhounds, whom every manly instinct of thy nature loathes and abhors! Thou art a poor coward, Pilate, that thou fearest such a mob, with the strong arm of Caesar to defend thee, and the broad shield of eternal justice to hold before thee! No, Pilate, no! Not all the waters of Jordan, that washed leprous Naaman clean; not all the waters that ever gushed from the rills of Siloam; not all the tears of sorrow that shall flow through eternity for thy sin, shall ever wash off that stain of blood! Yet how common seems this mistake of Pilate, that the un- righteous judgment of an official, given under pressure of strong temptations from personal consideration, — -either of desire to win popular favor; or avaricious hankering after gain; or the 158 READING AND ORATORY. impulses of partisan malice or party obligations, — may be atoned for by giving the innocent the benefit of one's personal convic- tions and professions as an offset against the damage to him of one's villanous official deed; and that it is enough to perform a little penitential hand-washing for the filthy job done to popu- lar order! How little do men seem to comprehend the solemn truth that, as in the Church, under His revealed law, God hath appointed his ministers to be his representatives, and will surely punish the corrupt and unfaithful servants, so in the State, under that natural law which He hath revealed to all men alike. "The powers that be are ordained of God," and will likewise be held accountable to God. That the magistrate, called by the^public voice to office, is, in his sphere, "the min- ister of God for good," to the upright citizen, and "a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." And every curse threatened against official unfaithfulness in the Church, lies with all its force, in the other sphere also, against the magistrate who misrepresents and caricatures God's essential justice. Ye cowardly hand-washers! If ye have not the manly courage to breast the billows of popular fury, and make your official voice heard above all the howls of the mob, then why thrust yourself into places to which, obviously, God hath not called you? If Tiberius, moved by the popular clamor, threaten you, then tell Tiberius and the mob, " we ought to obey God rather than men," and go into exile with a clear conscience for your companion. To the sort of men whom God calls to represent him, the passion of Tiberius and the curses of the mob are sweet music compared with the accusings of con- science! Beware how ye make light of bartering justice, either for the popular smile, or for place, or for gold. If by a right- eous Providence ye be not driven to Pilate's doom of exile, and suicide, like Judas; yet, be assured that, amid the curses of the ruined, the wails of the heartbroken, and the moans of the murdered ringing in your ears, ye shall wash, and wash in vain, at that blood-spot throughout eternity! STUART ROBINSON. READING AND ORATORY. 159 THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. THE first step toward local or general harmony is the ban- ishment from our breasts of every feeling and sentiment calculated to stir the discords of the past. Nothing could be more injurious or mischievous to the future of this country, than the agitation, at present, of questions that divided the people anterior to or during the existence of the late war. On no occasion, and especially in the bestowment of office, ought such differences of opinion in the past ever to be mentioned, either for or against any one, otherwise equally entitled to con- fidence. These ideas or sentiments of other times and circum- stances are not the germs from which hopeful organizations can now arise. Let all differences of opinion, touching errors, or supposed errors, of the head or heart, on the part of any, in the past, growing out of these matters, be at once and forever in the deep ocean of oblivion buried. Let there be no crimina- tions or recriminations on account of acts of other days. No canvassing of past conduct or motives. Great disasters are upon us and upon the whole country, and without inquiring how these originated, or at whose door the fault should be laid, let us now, as common sharers of common misfortunes, on all occasions, consult only as to the best means, under the circum- stances as we find them, to secure the best ends toward future amelioration. Good government is what we want. This should be the leading desire and the controlling object with all; and I need not assure you, if this can be obtained, that our desolated fields, our towns, and villages, and cities, now in ruins, will soon — like the Phoenix — rise again from their ashes; and all our waste places will again, at no distant day, blossom as the rose. a. h. Stephens. THE SUNSET CITY. I SAW a strange, beautiful city arise On an island of light, in the sapphire skies, When the sun in his Tyrian drapery drest. l6o READING AND ORATORY. Like a shadow of God floated down to the west. A city of clouds, — in a moment it grew On an island of pearl, in an ocean of blue, And spirits of twilight enticed me to stray Through these palaces reared from the ruins of day. In musical murmurs, the soft sunset air, Like a golden-winged angel was calling me there, And my fancy sped on, till it found a rare home — A palace of jasper, Avith emerald dome. On a violet strand, by a wide azure flood, And where this rich city of sunset now stood, Methought some stray seraph had broken a bar From the gold gates of Eden, and left them ajar! There were amethyst castles whose turrets were spun Of fire drawn out from the heart of the sun; With columns of amber, and fountains of light. With their warm aureolas, so changingly bright. That Hope might have stolen such exquisite sheen To weave in her girdle of rainbow, I ween. And arches of glory grew over me there. As these fountains of sunset shot up through the air. Looking out from my cloud-pillared palace afar, I saw night let fall one vast, tremulous star On the calm brow of Even — who then in return, For the gem on her brow, and the dew in her urn, Seemed draping the darkness and hiding its gloom With the rose-colored curtains that fell from her loom. All bordered with purple, and violet dyes, Floating out like a fringe, from this veil of the skies. And lo! far away on the borders of night Rose a chain of cloud mountains as wondrously bright As if built from those atoms of splendor that start Through the depths of the diamond's crystalline heart, When light with a magical touch has revealed THE CAUCASIAN RACE MUST RULE. l6l The treasure of beams in its bosom concealed, While torrents of azure, all graceful and proud, Swept noislessly down from these mountains of cloud. But the tides of the darkness came on with its flood, And broke o'er the strand where my frail palace stood, While far in the distance the moon seemed to lave Like a silver-winged swan in night's ebon wave, And then, — like Atlantis, that isle of the blest, — Which in olden time sank with the billows to rest — Which now the blue water in mystery shrouds — Dropped down in the darkness this city of clouds. MRS. ROSA VERTNER JEFFREY. Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey — nee Griffith — was born at Natchez, and being adopted by maternal aunt, Mrs. V^ertner, took her name. She lived with her adopted parents at Port Gibson, Miss., then in Lexington, Ky., where she was educated, and still resides. While but a girl she contributed poems to Louisville Journal^ Home Journal^ and other papers. Her first volume. Poems by Rosa^ appeared in 1857. She has also contributed to Southern literature U'ooMurn: A Novel: New York, 1864; Daisy Dare, and Baby Power, Philadephia: 1871; and many tales, plays, and poems to the periodicals. She has now in her hands ready for publication several novels. At the age of seventeen she mar- ried Mr. Claude M. Johnson, by whom she had six children. After his death she married Mr. Alexander Jeffrey, a Scotchman of great culture and refinement. Mrs. Jeffrey's rare social attractions and literary genius have given her a place in Queens 0/ American So- ciety, Court Circles 0/ the Republic, IFomen of the South distinguished in Literature, and other notable volumes. THE CAUCASIAN RACE MUST RULE AMERICA. WITHOUT peace, permanent and assured beyond the least probability of interruption by internal strife, the State and the people cannot venture upon any course of devel- opment and improvement which requires more than a year, or two, to sow the seed and gather the harvest. And with this uncertainty every valuable and permanent establishment is so affected that it is impossible to prescribe for them a settled policy. It therefore must be necessary, as a cardinal rule of political and social economy, in Alabama, that the white race must rule in the government of the State. There can be no 1 62 READING AND ORATORY. higher public duty than the firm and consistent support of this doctrine, because, without it we can neither progress, nor re- tain the ground we now hold. Without it, we must retrograde and perish. I do not design to present this argument in aid of any polit- ical party, but to prove that a great personal duty is resting upon every white man, to assert the rightful supremacy of his race in this State, and thereby remove the most dangerous obstacle to all improvement in our most important social and material in- terests. The danger is not that the negro race will be able, by the exercise of its own abilities, to usurp the government of the State, but that its power, cemented by race prejudice into an unbroken mass, will be easily controlled by white men who will barter away the best interests of the whole State for the op- portunity to control it. Hence the necessity, now more ex- treme and imperious than ever before, that white men should unite in covenants sealed in the sacredness of the common blood of our race, to uphold, by all lawful means, the creed of the rightful supremacy of the Caucasian in the control of our State Government. This secured, all is well with us, and the negro race will receive the most careful and ample protection in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This supremacy we have practically achieved, and through it peace and happiness pervade the land. It is our first duty to secure these blessings by a firm and unfaltering support of the great principle that enabled us to acquire them. We have no right to abdicate the authority of the Caucasian race over inferior races, established in all the traditions and historic records«of the past, and marked by im- perishable monuments in all the countries of the world. The right of the Caucasian to rule is in his blood; his commission is imprinted on his person with the signet of Divine authority and command; while one lives in the world he will be found exercis- ing his inherited dominion and authority. ® JOHN T. MORGAN. John T.Morgan was born at Athens, Tenn., June 20, 1824; emigrated when nine years old to Alabama, in which State he was educated, and has since resided there; studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1845. He was a member of the Convention of his State, and signed the Ordinance of Secession; entered the Confederate army as private and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General; became a member of the U. S. Senate in 1877. READING AND ORATORY. 163 THE DEATH OF PLINY THE ELDER. POMPEII was overwhelmed on vVugust 24, a. d. 79, by showers of ashes accompanying an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which occurred at that time. Sixteen years before it came near going down under the operation of an earthquake which engulfed six hundred sheep and ran several citizens crazy, — as Seneca circumstantially records. The eruption which finally destroyed it is minutely described by Pliny the Younger, who saw it. His uncle, old Pliny, also saw it; and I may be doing a service to .some of my readers who have an itching for looking into things, by recalling to their minds what he saw, how he saw it, and what came of his seeing it. This old man was an extraordinary person. He. rose before other people went to bed, and himself frequently never went to bed at all. When he took his meals, instead of eating he read; and when he took his bath, instead of washing himself he read also. When he was so broken down that he could no longer hold his book before his eyes, he made somebody read to him. It made no difference to him what the book was, for it was a maxim of his that no book can be so bad as not to have some good in it. When he was not reading he was writing, and when his fingers became so cramped that they refused to wrig- gle, he ordered up an amanuensis. He never went out of the house without his note-book, and took down every bird, beast, and fish, stratum of brick-bats, ash formation, and bilge-water current that he set eyes on. What it was impossible for him to find out by his individual researches he got from anybody that he thought ought to know, and hence consulted much with the country people and sea-faring men, whose accounts of natural phenomena he carefully recorded. By proceeding in this man- ner he accumulated an awful amount of inestimable facts, com- ing at last to be steeped to the very eye-brows in wisdom, and knowing more or less of everything. One day while on duty with the Roman fleet at Misenum — for he was a great office-holder as well as man of science — he 164 READING AND ORATORY. espied a good-sized cloud of vapor, shaped like a pine-tree, is- suing from some mountain on shore A common man in such a neighborhood, seeing such a sight, would have jumped at the conclusion that it portended a dangerous outbreak of Vesuvius, and run away. Not so this uncommon man. Nothing short of close and minute ocular inspection could satisfy the rigid re- quirements of his practical mind. This thing must be looked into, said he; and gathering up his note-book, he ordered a vessel to take him on the expedition. His nephew, young Pliny, was at that time a student of his, and the old man wishing to afford him every opportunity of improving himself in knowledge, kindly invited him to go along. This youth subsequently be- came extremely erudite himself, and even at this early age showed that he was rather wiser than his uncle, for on the pres- ent occasion he declined the offer with thanks, — ingeniously alleging that he wished to do some studying, — a plea than which none upon earth could have been more satisfactory to the old man. Pliny the Elder accordingly put off alone, courageously poking about in places into which his crew begged him for Heaven's sake not to venture. But like any man of superemi- nent talent, he had a proper contempt of these illiterate igno- ramuses, and heartily despising their fears pushed along till he reached a point where even his strong and sappy head began to crack and bake under the hot ashes and big rocks that came down upon it by the cart-load. And now for a moment he had a mind to shut up his note-book and go back, especially as the land seemed to be turning inside out, and the sea to be flowing away, and probably he would have done so, had not the unlet- tered ass of a pilot strenuously urged it upon him. As it was, however, the intrepid old philosopher concluded to make the best of his way to the house of Pomponianus, a friend of his residing at Stabise. "Fortune favors the brave," screamed he, though the event proved him to have been something too credu- lous in this aphorism, for he was suffocated that self-same night. He appears to have maintained his philosophical equanimity A PLEA FOR IIONORABI E PEACF. 165 to the last, for on reaching Pomponianus's premises he very coolly lay down and went fast asleep, which no one else dared to do, and was getting very comfortably blocked in and buried alive by the stones which were constantly falling around the en- trance to his chamber, when his friends ventured to wake him up. A crisis being thought to have now arrived, a council of war was held to determine what was best to be done, old Pliny assisting. It was resolved to take to the fields — a resolution which, says Pliny the Younger point-blank, the council was scared into — " except my uncle," says he, " who embraced it upon cool and deliberate consideration." And here his uncle was peremptorily obliged by the force of circumstances to sacrifice somewhat of the dignity of mien characteristic of the sage, for he had to surmount his head with a pillow tied thereupon to save it from being staved in by the descending stones. Thus arrayed, he proceeded with the rest to the sea-shore, where he lay down again — being, it should seem, in these stirring times, most remarkably sleepy for a man commonly so wide-awake. A great burst of sulphurous vapor compelled him to rise im- mediately, and at that moment he died. So ended Pliny the Elder — a martyr to science, say we men — a victim to curiosity, will say the women. william h. taylor. A PLEA FOR HONORABLE PEACE. I AM for peace, gentlemen. There is nothing on eartl* which I so much desire. I pray for peace. The Saviour 0/ mankind was the Prince of Peace. His mission among men* was to establish peace and good-will upon earth. The spirit of peace is the foundation of all true happiness and greatnes;? among men. It mangles no bodies — it desolates no fields — • burns no towns — sends up no wail fl"om fields of carnage. Disease, famine, and pestilence are not the attendants of peace. The war may be continued for months and for years; but peace must ultimately come. Will you have an honorable 1 66 READING AND ORATORY. peace now, while it may be obtained, or wait till the spirit of desolation itself cries for peace; and the ghost of a once great and prosperous nation, pale and emaciated with loss of blood, shall remain the scorn and contempt of all wise and magnani- mous people? Your Government may pass, without right, acts of confisca- tion, and execute them by the sword; but such acts will neither restore the Union nor conquer the free spirit of the South. The British Parliament, between the reign of Edward I. and the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII., passed no less than fifteen acts of confiscation against the little principality of Wales, without producing the slightest change in the minds of the Welsh people. The first-named King caused the Bards — the poets of the ancient Cymri — to be murdered, from policy, because by the songs and hymns of freedom which they com- posed and sang they kept the fire of public liberty burning in the hearts of the people. It was hoped that when the voice of freedom was thus stifled, the Welsh would yield their necks to the yoke which the King wished to impose, renounce their ancient Celtic tongue, and blend with the English. But neither force nor fraud could conquer and enslave them. "No! spite of the massacres of Bards and the burning of records — spite of political extinction — there are a million of these Cymri in Wales and its marshes; and nine out often of these speak their old tongue — follow their old customs — sing the songs which the sleepers upon Snowden made — have their religious rites in Cymric, and hate the Logrian as much as ever their fathers did." T. G. C. DAVIS. THE RED OLD HILLS OF GEORGIA. THE red old hills of Georgia! So bold, and bare, and bleak — Their memory fills my spirit With thoughts I cannot speak. THE RED OLD HILLS OF GEORGIA. 167 They have no robe of verdure, Stript naked to the blast; And yet of all the varied earth I love them best at last. The red old hills of Georgia! My heart is on them now; Where, fed from golden streamlets, Oconee's waters flow! I love them with devotion, Though washed so bleak and bare; — How can my spirit e'er forget The warm hearts dwelling there? I love them for the living, — The generous, kind, and gay; And for the dead who slumber Within their breast of clay 1 love them for the bounty Which cheers the social hearth; I love them for their rosy girls, The fairest on the earth. The red old hills of Georgia! Where, where, upon the face Of earth is freedom's spirit More bright in any race? — In Switzerland and Scotland Each patriot breast it fills. But sure it blazes brighter yet Among our Georgia hills! And where, upon their surface. Is heart to feeling dead? — And when has needy stranger Gone from those hills unfed? There bravery and kindness For aye go hand in hand, Upon your washed and naked hills, "My own, my native land!" 1 68 READING AND ORATORY. The red old hills of Georgia! I never can forget; Amid life's joys and sorrows, My heart is on them yet; — And when my course is ended, When life her web has wove, Oh! may I then, beneath those hills. Lie close to them I love! HENRY. R. JACKSON. COMMENCEMENT DAY. COMMENCEMENT DAY! All hail the one great college holiday and festival! The Independence Day of Bacca- laureates, the Saturnalia of under- graduates! How many hearts have bounded to this day! How many bound every year, and will bound to the end of the chapter! To-day Seniors are transformed into Alumni, students into men of the world; and all collegians, of whatever class and degree, are jubilant, and pour forth heart and voice in joyous greetings; for what is it but a foretaste of the felicity that is in reserve for each one in his turn? Who that has participated can ever forget the acces- sories of the occasion? The day, is it not always, by express bespeaking, "the very bridal of the^arth and sky" ? The/rc- cessiofj, so hilarious, so irrepressible, that the young Alumnus, annually chosen as marshal, seldom fails to declare, at the close of his official duty, that the keeping of the ranks in'order was his hardest day's work yet! And the brilliant audience, that spreads itself out, like some beautiful garden, variegated and flushed with flowers of every kind, shape, and hue, at the very feet of the heroes of the day. Upon the platform, crowded with the virtue and learning of" the city and State, stands forth the young candidate for college honors and public favor, modest but unabashed, trembling with sensibility, but not with doubt or fear. And he is worthy to be observed and honored. Few persons know the price of distinc- COMMENCEMENT DAY. 1 69 tion. Accident, self-indulgence, or fitful application cannot win it. By patient study through laborious days and long and silent watches of the night, at peril of health, with many a sacri- fice of pleasure to duty, but with an unflinching determination to win the palm of excellence, he has worked his way up to this honorable position. And his hour of triumph is come. Faces that he never saw before, that never saw him before, are turned upon him with curious and admiring gaze. Friends look and listen with rapt attention. The eye of the father kindles, and his manly pride is aroused, as he beholds, in the inheritor of his name, an object of general admiration, a rising hope and expectancy of the State. But who shall depict the feelings of the gentle mother! Her meek and glad surprise; her ill-disguised efforts to keep back the tears of joy that will spring in spite of her! Her rich and full over-payment of delight for every loving care and anxious foreboding, for nights of weariness and days of sorrow cheerfully borne for his sake, and for all the manifold trials, sacrifices, and ministcrings of that great and abounding affection, that wondrous, holy love, without all parallel or com- pare, that has its well-spring in the maternal breast! And, perchance, deep down in the recesses of the heart of some fair maiden, there stirs a feeling of conscious sympathy, that makes no sign, save that it trembles in the half-averted eye and paints itself in the faintest of blushes on her delicate cheek, and which, though" it brings upon her spirit a sort of trouble new and strange, fills it with emotions of pleasure that she does not care to repress, and hopes that may not be confessed. Collegians! It is a noble thing to deserve and win the ap- plause of the wise and good, and the approving smiles of the gentle and fair; and you may take with you the assurance, which one day, perhaps, you will realize, that although after-life may have its noble ambitions, and its brilliant and solid rewards, you will find none sweeter or purer than that which first woke a father's pride, and recompensed a noble mother's self-denying cares, and challenged the coy and innocent cham- pionship of charming Sixteen! W. D. PORTER. 170 READING AND ORATORY LOVE FOR KENTUCKY AND HER PEOPLE. I HAD no thought, my countrymen, of being called before you again after so long an interval; and it is, if possible, still less likely that I shall ever again take part in one of your popular as- semblies. If God had so willed, it had been my happiness to have lived and labored amongst you; to have mingled my dust with yours; and to have cast the lot of my children in the same heritage with yours. Wherever I live or wherever I die, I shall live and die a true Kentuckian. With me, the first of all appel- lations is Christian, after that Gentleman, and then Kentuckian. The foundations of Society in this unparalleled region were laid by hands dear to me as they can be to you; and throughout the whole history of the Commonwealth, there is not one scene of glory, one monument of success, one proof of advancement, one evidence of greatness, one day of trial with which my kin- dred and my friends have not been associated; so your fame is precious to my heart as the warm currents which gush through it. The fields of battle where our forefathers fought, I know them all. Every green hillock over which your flocks graze dwells in my memory; and the running streams, along which your noble boys stray, are clear and fresh in my imagina- tion and my heart as when my youthful feet traversed them, when your land was almost a wilderness. And am I the man to conspire against a land and a people like this? Are you the judges who are expected to convict me? No, my friends, no! Not a blade of grass on your luxuriant fields shall wither forever, if it stands till some act of mine brings danger or shame nigh to your habitations. No, my friends, no! May God bless you and yours, with his richest benedictions, to the thousandth generation; yea, may He forgive even those who have sought to do me this great damage of robbing me of your good will. r. j. Breckinridge. Robert J. Breckinridge, D. D., LL. D., son of John Breckinridge (author of the Kentucky Resolutions of '98, U. S. Senator from Kentucky, and Attorney-General under Jefferson) and Mary Hopkins Cabell, was born at Cabell's Dale, Fayette Co., Ky., March 8, 1800. He was highly educated, attending Princeton and Yale, and graduating at Upion FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 171 College in 1819; studied law, and was member of Kentucky Legislature 1825-26-27-28. In the winter of 1828-29 a protracted attack of fever wrecked his constitution, making him for the remainder of his life an almost constant invalid. Abandoning law, he joined the Presbyterian Church, and entered the ministry; was pastor of a church in Balti- more from 1832 to 1845, when he resigned to accept the Presidency of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania; in 1847 became pastor of church in Lexington, Ky., and Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State, both of which positions he resigned in 1853, 'o accept a chair in the Danville Theological Seminary, where he remained until 1869. He died December 27, 1871. Dr. Breckinridge was peculiarly an extemporaneous debater, lecturer, and platform orator; and on the floor of his church courts never met his superior. He was a man of wonderful versatility and the widest range of information, and had all the physical gifts of the orator: a clear, melodious, and flexible voice, distinct articulation, brilliant and expressive black eye under a full, iron-gray brow, a mobile countenance, attractive and forcible manner, and a tall, graceful, though frail person. He was master of a pure, simple, and chaste English style, which expressed his thoughts with remarkable clear- ness and elegance, and was at times in the highest degree impassioned. He was early in life an emancipationist, and some of his greatest efforts were made on the stump to induce Kentucky to adopt some plan of gradual emancipation. He opposed secession, and during the war was an intense L'^nion man, establishing a magazine — the Danville Rez'iezv — to be his organ, which he made so able that its articles were republished and distributed over the whole country. His published writings would fill many volumes, while his unwritten sermons, lectures, speeches, and debates were multitudinous. It has been said of him that, " Though the son of a distinguished statesman, and connected by blood and marriage with the Prestons, Cabells, Hopkinses, Blairs, Campbells, and other well-known historic families, yet it is, perhaps, not too much to say that, taking him all in all, he was the greatest of his blood." THE FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON. IT was in the noontide of Jackson's glory that he fell; but what a fall of darkness suddenly shrouded all the land in that hour. If any illustration were needed of the hold he had acquired on the hearts of our people, on the hearts of the good and brave and true throughout all the civilized world, it would be found in the universal lament which went up everywhere when it was announced that Jackson was dead — from the little girl at the Chandler house, who, " wished that God would let her die in his stead, because then only her mother would cry; but if Jackson died, all the people of the country would cry" — from this humble child up to the Commander-in-Chief, who wept as only the strong and brave can weep, at the tidings of his fall: from the weather-beaten sea captain, who had never seen his face, 1/2 READING AND ORATORY. but who burst into loud, uncontrollable grief, standing on the deck of his vessel, with his rugged sailors around him, wonder- ing what had happened to break that heart of oak, up to the English Ea'rl, honored on both sides of the Atlantic, who ex- claimed, when the sad news came to him, " Jackson was in some respects the greatest man America ever produced." The impressive ceremonies of the hour will bring back to some here present the memories of that day of sorrow, when at the firing of a gun at the base of yonder monument, a proces- sion began to move to the solemn strains of the Dead March in Saul — the hearse on which the dead hero lay, preceded by a portion of the command of Gen. Pickett, whose funeral ob- sequies you have just celebrated, and followed by a mighty throng of weeping citizens, until, having made a detour of the city, it paused at the door of the Capitol, when the body was borne within by reverent hands and laid on an altar erected be- neath the dome. The Congress of the Confederate States had adopted a device for their flag, and one emblazoned with it had just been com- pleted, which was intended to be unfurled from the roof of the Capitol. It never fluttered from the height it was intended to grace. It became Jackson's winding-sheet. Oh! mournful pro- phecy of the fate of the Confederacy itself! The military authorities shrouded him in the white, red, and blue flag of the Confederacy. The citizens decked his bier with the white, red, and blue flowers of spring until they rose high above it, a soft floral pyramid; but the people everywhere embalmed him in their hearts with a love sweeter than all the fragrance of spring, and immortal as the verdure of the trees under which he now rests by the river of life. And where in all the annals of the world's sorrow for departed worth, was there such a pathetic impersonation of a nation's grief, as was embodied in the old mutilated veteran of Jackson's division, who, as the shades of evening fell, and when the hour for the closing of the doors of the Capitol came, and when the lingering throng was warned to retire, was seen anxiously pressing through the crowd to take his last look 1 FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 1 73 at the face of his beloved leader. " They told him he was too late; that they were closing up the coffin for the last time; that the order had been given to clear the hall. He still strug- gled forward, refusing to take a denial, until one of the mar- shals of the day was about to exercise his authority to force him back; upon this the old soldier lifted the stump of his right arm toward the heavens, and with tears running down his bearded face, exclaimed, ' By this arm, which I lost for my country, I demand the privilege of seeing my General once more.' Such an appeal was irresistible, and at the instance of the Governor of the commonwealth, the pomp was arrested until this humble comrade had also dropped his tear upon the face of his dead leader." MOSES D. HOGE. Thomas Jonathan Jackson the world-renowned General, was born at Clarksburg, Va.,Jaunary 21, 1824. He graduated at West Point 1846, was assigned to the artil- lery branch of the service, and at once placed on duty with the army in Mexico, where he gained great distinction, being successively brevetted Captain and Major. In 1851 he resigned his commission in the army, and was appointed Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, and Instructor in Artillery, in the Virginia Military Insti- tute at Lexington, and here he remained until civil war began. Entering the Confed- erate service as Colonel, he rapidly passed through the intermediate grades, and became Lieutenant-General. His sobri(}uet of " Stonewall " originated at the battle of Ma- nassas : Gen. Bee, in rallying his men, pointed to Jackson and his brigade, and shouted : '^ Look! there is yackson^ standing like a stone ■wall!''' In a reconnoissance between the hostile lines, after nightfall, at the battle of Chancellorsville, he and his staff were mistaken for Federal scouts and fired on by the Confederates. Nearly the entire staff were killed and wounded, and Jackson's left arm so shattered as to necessitate amputa- tion; pneumonia set in, and he died at Guirei's Station, near Fredicksburg, Va., May 10, 1863. " Jackson died before he reached the age of forty, and had but two years of life for the display of his great faculties. But this period was long enough. In that contracted space of time he accomplished results which will render his name and fame immortal. Few human beings ever equalled him in the great art of making war,^ fewer still in purity of heart and life. It was a nature almost altogether lovely which lay under that faded uniform of the great soldier. No stain of insincerity, or mean- ness, or vaingloriousness marred a character which combined the loftiest virtues of the gentleman, the soldier, and the Christian."— John Esten Cooke. In 1875 some English gentlemen, "as a tribute of admiration for the soldier and patriot," presented to the State of Virginia a bronze statue of Jackson— heroic size— by Foley, which was erected on the Capital Square at Richmond. 1/4 READING AND ORATORY. GOING OUT AND COMING IN, GOING out to fame and triumph, Going out to love and light; Coming in to pain and sorrow, Coming in to gloom and night. Going out with joy and gladness. Coming in with woe and sin; — Ceaseless stream of restless pilgrims Going out and coming in! Through the portals of the homestead, From beneath the blooming vine; To the trumpet-tones of glory, Where the bays and laurels twine; From the loving home-caresses To the chill voice of the world — Going out with gallant canvas To the Summer breeze unfurled. Through the gateway, down the footpath, Through the lilacs by the way; Through the clover by the meadow. Where the gentle home-lights stray; To the wide world of ambition. Up the toilsome hill of fame, Winning oft a mighty triumph, Winning oft a noble name. Coming back all worn and weary — Weary with the world's cold breath; Coming to the dear old homestead, Coming in to age and death. Weary of its empty flattery. Weary of its ceaseless din. Weary of its heartless sneering — Coming from the bleak world in. THE DUTY OF SOUTHERNERS. 175 Going out with hopes of glory, Coming in with sorrows dark; Going out with sails all flying, Coming in with mastless barque; — Restless stream of pilgrims, striving Wreaths of fame and love to win, From the doorways of the homestead Going out and coming in! MOLLIE E. MOORE DAVIS. THE DUTY OF SOUTHERNERS AFTER THE WAR. AN officer leading his men into battle, himself going first and charging home upon the enemy, with the high and lofty daring of a hero, rallying his troops when they waver, cheering when they advance, applauding the brave, and sus- taining the faint-hearted, bearing aloft the colors of his com- mand, and struggling with all the strength and spirit of manhood, resolving to conquer or to perish, is esteemed one of the noblest exhibitions of which man is capable. We thrill and burn as we read the glowing story, exhaust the language of praise, in extolling his virtues. But not less glorious, not less worthy the commendations of his countrymen, is he who in an hour like this bravely submits to fate, and scorning alike the promptings of despair, and the unmanly refuge of expatriation, rushes to the rescue of his perishing country, inspires his fellow-citizens with hope, cheers the disconsolate, arouses the sluggish, lifts up the helpless and the feeble, and by voice and example, in every possible way, urges forward all to the blessed and bloodless and crowning victories of peace. It is a noble thing to die for one's country; it is a higher and a nobler thing to live for it. The best test of the best heroism now, is a cheerful and loyal submission to the powers and events established by our defeat, and a ready obedience to the Constitution and laws of our country. Being denied the immortal distinction of dying for 176 READING AND ORATORY. your country, as did your fathers and your eldest brothers, you may yet rival their glory, by living for it, if you will live wisely, earnestly and well. The greatest campaign for which soldiers ever buckled on armor is now before you. The drum beats, and the bugle sounds to arms to repel invading poverty and destitution, which have seized our strongholds and are waging war, cruel and ruthless, upon our women and children. The teeming earth is blockaded by the terrible lassitude of exhaus- tion, and we are required, through toil and tribulation, to retake as by a storm, that prosperity and happiness, which were once our own, and to plant our banners firmly upon their everlasting ramparts, amid the plaudits of a redeemed aud regenerated people. The noblest soldier, now, is he that, with axe and plough, pitches his tent against the waste places of his fire- blasted home, and swears that from its ruins there shall arise another like unto it, and that from its barren fields there shall come again the gladdening sheen of dew-gemmed meadows, in the rising, and the golden waves of ripening harvests, in the setting sun! This is a besieging of fate itself; a hand-to-hand struggle with the stern columns of calamity and despair. But the God of nature hath promised that it shall not fail, when courage, faith, and industry sustain the assailant; and this vic- tory, won without one drop of human blood, unstained by a single tear, imparting and receiving blessings on every hand, will be such as the wise and good of all the earth may applaud, and over which even the angels might unite in rejoicing. Z. B. VANCE. THE RESULTS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. THE results of higher education cannot always be weighed, but neither can gravitation, and gravitation is weight itself. Culture, by broadening the intellect, assists to a fit estimate of the aims and ends of virtuous life; by affording themes of pleasing thought it allays the heat of anger and of passion, rebukes a fretful anxiety, and, by its sublimating and joy-giving enter- THE RESULTS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 177 tainments, abates or removes the ennui oi existence, and soothes the spirit when smitten by the rod of adversity; it refines the sensibiUties, cultivates the taste, prepares for rational pleasures, and thereby causes a protesting disgust of denobling pursuits and licentious appetites and desires. Ah, is there not a soul-wealth more to be coveted than silver or gold — a higher communion than that which springs up in the market-place! The mere money-monger has no conception of the ravished mood in which Newton approached the solution of his great problem of the Cosmos; or in which Copernicus, with the measuring rod of mathematics, marshalled worlds into order, and mapped their mighty paths; or in which Coleridge's heart "leaped up" when he beheld "a rainbow in the sky." Higher education, while productive of material wealth, tran- scends in purpose a mere worldly, craven, pig-iron philosophy, and though it respects the earth and harnesses its draft horses, it also mounts upon wings, like eagles, and cuts a path through the starry zodiac. When a man has ascended the ladder whose foot rests on the earth, and whose topmost round leans on a star, though every intervening rung should slip from its socket, he would retain his altitude, and yet be not dizzy at the depths beneath, nor dazed at the sunny heights above. Learning lifts the mind into the ether region of the imagination and to the starry summits of taste and reason, and though the ascending may not be traceable, its devotee lingers, the enraptured be- holder of revolving and glittering constellations. H. A. M. HENDERSON. Howard A. M. Henderson was born in Paris, Ky., August 13, 1836. He received a university education, studied law, but abandoned it for theology and joined the Ken- tucky Conference in 1857. Entered the Confederate service as Captain, but was pro- moted to Lieutenant-Colonel and Commissioner for excliange of prisoners. In 1871, elected Superintendent of Public Instruction of Kentucky, re-elected in 1874; and his State owes him a debt of gratitude for his masterly development of an almost perfect plan of public education. He is Grand Master of Kentucky of I. O. O. F., and edits the Odd Fellow and the Kentucky Freemason. His sermons, speeches, lectures, and contributions to current literary periodicals have been very numerous and popular. 178 READING AND ORATORY. MATT. F. WARD'S TRIAL FOR MURDER. C"^ ENTLEMEN, my task is done, the decision of this case T — the fate of this prisoner — is in your hands. Guilty or innocent — life or death — whether the captive shall joyfully go free, or be consigned to a disgraceful and ignominious death — all depend on a few words from you. Is there anything in this world more like Omnipotence, more like the power of the Eternal, than that you now possess ? Yes, you are to decide; and, as I leave the case with you, I implore you to consider it well and mercifully before you pro- nounce a verdict of guilty, — a verdict which is to cut asunder all the tender cords that bind heart to heart, and to consign this young man, in the flower of his days and in the midst of his hopes, to shame and to death. Such a verdict must often come up in your recollections — must live forever in your minds. And in after-days, when the wild voice of clamor that now fills the air is hushed — when memory shall review this busy scene, should her accusing voice tell you you have dealt hardly with a brother's life, — that you have sent him to death, when you have a doubt whether it is not your duty to restore him to life, — oh, what a moment that must be — how like a cancer will that remembrance prey upon your hearts! But if, on the other hand, having rendered a contrary ver- dict, you feel that there should have been a conviction, — that sentiment will be easily satisfied; you will say, "If I erred, it was on the side of mercy; thank God I incurred no hazard by condemning a man I thought innocent." How different the memory from that which may come in any calm moment, by day or by night, knocking at the door of your hearts, and re- minding you that in a case where you were doubtful, by your verdict you sent an innocent man to disgrace and to death! Oh, pronounce no such, I beseech you, but on the most certain, clear, and solid grounds! If you err, for your own sake, as well as his, keep on the side of humanity, and save him from so dis- honorable a fate — preserve yourselves from so bitter a memory. MATT. F. WARD S TRIAL FOR MURDER. 1 79 I am no advocate, gentlemen, of any criminal licentiousness, — I desire that society may be protected, that the laws of my coun- try may be obeyed and enforced. Any other state of things I should deplore; but I have examined this case, I think, carefully and calmly; I see much to regret — much that I wish had never happened; but I see no evil intentions and motives — no wicked malignity, and, therefore, no murder — no felony. There is another consideration of which we should not be unmindful. We are all conscious of the infirmities of our na- ture — we are all subject to them. The law makes an allow- ance for such infirmities. The Author of our being has been pleased to fashion us out of great and mighty elements, which make us but a little lower than the angels, but he has mingled in our composition, weakness and passions. Will He punish us for frailties which nature has stamped upon us, or for their necessary results? The distinction between these and acts thai proceed from a wicked and malignant heart is founded on eternal justice, and in the words of the Psalmist, "He know- eth our frame — He remembereth that we are dust." Shall not the rule He has established be good enough for us to judge by? Gentlemen, the case is closed. Again I ask you to consider it well, before you pronounce a verdict which shall consign this prisoner to a grave of ignominy and dishonor. These are no idle words you have heard so often. This is your fellow-citi- zen — a youth of promise — the rose of his family — the possessor of all kind, and virtuous, and manly qualities. It is the blood of a Kentuckian you are called upon to shed. The blood that flows in his veins has come down from those noble pioneers who laid the foundations for the greatness and glory of our State; it is the blood of a race who have never spared it when demanded by their country's cause. It is his fate you are to decide. I excite no poor, unmanly sympathy — I appeal to no low, grovelling spirit. He is a man — you are men — and I only want that sympathy which man can give to man. I will not detain you longer. But you know, and it is right you should, the terrible suspense in which some of these hearts must beat during your absence. It is proper for you to con- l8o READING AND ORATORY. sider this, for, in such a case, all the feelings of the mind and heart should sit in council together, Your duty is yet to be done; perform it as you are ready to answer for it, here and hereafter. Perform it calmly and dispassionately, rememlier- ing that vengeance can give no satisfaction to any human be- ing. But if you exercise it in this case, it will spread black mid- night and despair over many aching hearts. May the God of all mercy be with you in your deliberations, assist you in the performance of your duty, and teach you to judge your fellow- being as you hope to be judged hereafter! JOHN J. CRITTENDEN. John Jordan Crittenden, eminent as jurist and statesman, was born in Woodford Co., Ky., September lo, 17S7. His education was such only as could be obtained at a school in that then wild region; read law under Judge G. M. Bibb, completed his legal studies at William and Mary College, Virginia, and returned to his native county to practice his profession; was aide-de-camp to Governor Shelby in the vi^ar of 1812, and took part in the battle of the Thames; acquired great fame as a criminal lawyer, in 1816 became Speaker of the House in the Kentucky Legislature, and in 1817 was elected U, S. Senator,— an honor repeated in 1835, 1843, and 1855; appointed Attorney-General of United States in 1841, and again in 1850; elected Governor of Kentucky in 1848. He was ardently attached to the Union, and did all in his power to avert its disruption, offer- ing the famous Crittenden Compromise Resolutions, which were rejected by Congress. Great, without ambition for place or prominence; brave, virtuous, and self-deny- ing, from the instincts of his nature, he was the model of a citizen, a patriot, and a gen. tleman, He died July 26, 1863. THE GARRET. [ From the French of Beranger. ] THE asylum once more I behold where my youth Learned the lessons to Poverty's self that belong— I was twenty — I had a fond mistress, forsooth, A few trusty friends, and a liking for song. The world then I braved, both its wits and its wights With no thought of the future, but rich in my May — Light, joyous, I climbed up the stairway six flights^ O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! 'Tis a Garret, that fact I wish none to forget! There once stood my bed, hard and shabby withal, THE GARRET. l8l My table stood there, and I find there are yet, In charcoal, some fragments of verse on the wall. Come back! O ye joys at life's beautiful dawn, Whom Time, with a flap of his wing, beat away — How often for you has my watch been in pawn! O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay' Lisette, above all, should appear to our view, Blithe, lovely, in freshly-trimmed hat as of yore, At the window her hand has already, in lieu Of a curtain, suspended the shawl that she wore — My bed, too, is prettily decked with her dress, Its folds loose and flowing, Love spare them, I pray! Who paid for it all? I have heard, I confess! O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! At the table one day when abundant the cheer, And the voice of my comrades in chorus rang high, A shout of rejoicing mounts up even here, At Marengo Napoleon is victor! they cry — ■ Hark, the thunder of guns! — a new stave loudly rings, As to deeds so resplendent our homage we pay; Never, never, shall France be invaded by kings! O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! Let us go! — for my reason is drunk as with wine — How distant those days, so regretted, appear! What is left me to live I would gladly resign For one month such as Heaven has allotted me here — Of Glory, Love, Pleasure, and Folly to dream, The whole of existence to spend in a day — And Hope to illumine that day with her beam — O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! JOHN R. THOMPSON. John R. Thompson, poet, was born in Richmond, Va., October 23, 1825, received his education at the University of Virginia, studied law, but abandoned it for literature. For sixteen years he was editor of the Southern Literary Messenger^ and contributed many poems and prose articles to the current periodicals, but never published a book. He yisjted Europe in f8s4, and made wamj friend^ of Djckgns, Thackeray, Bulwer, l82 READING AND ORATORY. Macaulay, the Brownings, Tennyson, and other literary celebrities. In 1866 he became one of the editorial staff of the New York E7>ening Post, in whose service he died April 30, 1873. His remains were interred in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, and in 1876, from the joint contributions of Southern and Northern friends, a monument was erected over the grave, " To the graceful poet, the brilliant writer, the steadfast friend, the loyal Virginian, the earnest and consistent Christian." COMANCHE BOY. Sweet child of the forest and prairie, Say, where have thy dusky tribe gone? Have they silently passed as the shadows That flit 'neath the cloud-veiled moon? Have they folded their tents neath the greenwood- Have they gone to some far hunting-ground, Where the buffalo roameth at pleasure, And the fleet-footed dun deer is found? Or on the red trail of the war-path. Do thy stern chieftains seek for the foe? And the songs of their gay plumed warriors. Are they breathing out vengeance and woe? They are gone to the land of the West Wind: In the mountain's rock-caverns, a home They have found, where the voice of the torrent Roars loud from its white bed of foam. As the lingering rays of the sunset O'er woodland and prairie are thrown, As the soft, hazy Indian Summer Is a dream of the summer that's gone: — So the day of their glory is over, And out on the desolate waste The far-scattered remnants yet hover. Like shades of the long-vanished past. ADDRESS ON FREEMASONRY. 1 83 Do you sigh for your green forest bowers, For your playmates, the gentle-eyed fawns — For the sweet buds that change to bright flowers, And smile as the young morning dawns? Come, rest in the home of the pale-face. And turn not, to sigh and to weep For the wandering tribe of Ishmael That shall fade as a vision of sleep. FANNIE A. D. DARDEN. ADDRESS ON FREEMASONRY. WE are assembled to-night under circumstances of peculiar and profound interest to the Mason. On the anniver- sary of St. John, we are met together to assist in the ceremonies of an Order that was inspired by King Solomon, more than ten centuries before the birth of the Evangelist. The Old and the New Dispensations are thus united on this memorial occasion by the arch that spans this interval of time. The lessons of virtue and wisdom that were taught nearly three thousand years ago in the Temple on Mount Moriah, and that have been promul- gated through the appointed instrumentalities of Jehovah Him- self, are repeated in the pious exhortations of the Apostle. The spirit of Freemasonry that warmed the hearts of both blends their memories in one, as in the living, it joins together the affec- tions in a common brotherhood. The motto of our ancient fraternity is Brotherly Love, Re- lief, AND Truth; and the conflicts of thirty centuries have de- monstrated that its beautiful maxim is no boastful and meaningless inscription. The Brotherly Love of the brethren is founded in their common faith, it is perpetuated by their mutual covenants, and it is kept aglow by their reciprocal kindness; it creates the bond of union unknown to men except that they " have love one to another"; it instills into their hearts the sublime and unselfish doctrine that "we ought to lay down our lives for the 184 READING AND ORATORY. brethren"; it excites the holiest emulation — "provoking unto love and good works"; it begets a multitude of pleasures, and it averts the pangs of a thousand ills. Such is the brotherly love of the Freemason. More pure than the Odyssean friendship that Homer sung, more gentle than the loves embalmed by Virgil in his immortal verse, and more inviolable than the attachment that united Damon and Pythias, it combines the higher quali- ties of them all. It fears not to offend in the solemn discharge of duty It reproves the follies of those who are the objects of its watchfulness, but its frankness of reproval is softened by gentleness; it admonishes, but its admonitions are tempered by a spirit of kindness; it exhorts to acts of public and private duty, but its exhortations are clothed in the language of meek- ness. Like the love of David and Jonathan, it knits the souls of men in a wedlock that human passion cannot divorce. The second Masonic virtue in the trinity of attributes is Relief. Every country in the civilized world contains enduring monu- ments of Masonic beneficence and philanthropy. The poor and the infirm, the widow and the orphan, the sick and the sorrowing, the forsaken and the outcast, have all pillowed their heads on the bosom of Masonry, and there wept the tears of gratitude or repentance. The third virtue in this triune motto of the Mason, and the very Paraclete of the trinity, is Truth. All other things are mortal and transitory. Truth alone is immutable and eternal; it is the attribute of Him whose pure mind knows no dissimula- tion. It belongs to the noblest type of man, and signalizes its possessor as the highest ideal of his kind. The truthful mind escapes from communion with deceit and falsehood as the sound body flies from contact with physical pollution and dis- ease. The foul and ignoble character of a lia'r is tainted with a leprosy that neither position nor power can cure, and that all the gold of Ophir cannot make respectable. The good Mason must love truth as St. John loved it, he must scorn every artifice that would conceal it; he must despise every subterfuge or eva- sion by which it can be perverted. As St. John greatly re- joiced that the children of Electa " walked in the truth,' and CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN. 1 85 as he commended Gaius because "the truth was in him," so should every Mason, hke this patron of his craft, commend in his walk and conversation the Godlike attribute of Truth. The motto of Freemasonry thus reveals the virtues its dis- ciples are to practise. In its symbolic language, Brotherly Love may be called the column of strength which binds us as one family in the bond of fraternal affection; Relief, the column of beauty, whose adornments are the widow's tear of joy and the orphan's prayer of gratitude; and Truth, the column of wisdom from whose alabaster surface are reflected the pure white rays that illumine the understanding and chase away the lingering shades of folly and deceit. V. O. KING. CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN. MR. CALHOUN'S moral character, as exhibited to the public, was of the Roman stamp. Lofty in his senti- ments, stern in his bearing, inflexible in his opinions, there was no sacrifice he would not have made without a moment's hesitation, and few that he did not make, to his sense of duty and his love of country. As a Consul, he would have been a Publicola, — as a Censor, Cato, — as a Tribune, Gracchus. He was often denounced for his ambition, but his integrity was never questioned. "Ambition is," as Mr. Burke justly said, "the malady of very extensive genius." Mr. Calhoun's ene- mies believed that it infected him to an extraordinary and dan- gerous degree. But the enemies of every distinguished man have said the same. He undoubtedly desired power. But there is no evidence to be found, either in his conduct or in his words, that he ever stooped to any mean compliance to ob- tain it, or that when obtained, he ever used it but in the purest manner and for the welfare of his whole country. The nature of his ambition was well tested. Eight years Vice-Pres- ident; for as long a period a Minister of State; six years in the House of Representatives, and fifteen in the Senate of the 1 86 READING AND ORATORY. United States, he enjoyed all the power of the highest offices of our Government save the very highest, and that he would in all human probability have attained, but that his aspirations were subordinate to his principles, and these led him to repudi- ate his party, and throw himself into opposition to its corrup- tions when it was at the zenith of its power. That he did not reach the Presidency, and that no other statesman of the first rank has had the slightest prospect of reaching it for the last five-and-twenty years, are among the most striking proofs of the downward tendency of our Federal institutions. The intellect of Mr. Calhoun was cast in the Grecian mould: intuitive, profound, original — descending to the minutest details of practical affairs; and soaring aloft with balanced wing into the highest heaven of invention. He appreciated wit and humor, the flights of fancy and the keen shafts of sarcasm; but he either did not possess or entirely failed to cultivate the facul- ties which lead to distinction in these lines. He admired and valued high-toned declamation on appropriate occasions; and sometimes, though rarely, attempted it himself, and not without success. The force of his imagination, his command of lan- guage, his nobility of sentiment, and his enthusiastic tempera- ment eminently qualified him for declamation of the highest order, and his themes were as well adapted to it as those of Demosthenes himself. But the audience to which he com- monly addressed himself could not hear his voice, or see his action, or decide his cause, under the spell of eloquence. It covered millions of square miles,and reached far down the stream of time. And his keen judgment and deep earnestness would not often permit him to use weapons that could reach effectively those only who were near at hand. His intellectual power was due mainly to the facility and accuracy with which he re- solved propositions into their elementary principles: and the astonishing rapidity with which he deduced from these principles all their just and necessary consequences. The mo- ment a sophism was presented to him he pierced it through and through, and plunging into the labyrinth, brought truth from the remote recesses where she delights to dwell, and placed her I CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN. 18/ in her native simplicity before the eyes of men. It was in these pre-eminent faculties that Mr. Calhoun's mind resembled the antique, and particularly the genuine Greek mind, which re- coiled from plausibilities, and looked with ineffable disgust on that mere grouping of associated ideas which so generally passes for reasoning. It was in conformity with these great intellectual endowments that he created all his speeches and state papers. . In private life Mr. Calhoun was remarkably accessible. Open, unsuspicious, mild in his manners, and uniformly warm, cheer- ful, and hopeful, he was interesting, instructive, and agreeable to all who had the happiness to know him, while in every do- mestic relation his conduct approached as near perfection as we can suppose human nature capable of doing. But it is on his character as a Statesman that the fame of Mr. Calhoun will chiefly rest. Posterity, with a knowledge of events yet concealed from us, will analyze it closely. It is be- lieved that it will stand the most rigid scrutiny. Coming into the public councils at a period when twenty years of successful experiment had, it was thought, fully tested our Federal Con- stitution, and established the permanence of the Federal Gov- ernment — when a vigorous effort to convert it into a central despotism had been signally defeated, and all sectional jeal- ousies and apprehensions had been lulled, — Mr. Calhoun devoted himself wholly and enthusiastically to the grand purpose of de- veloping all the mighty resources of his country, and raising her to the highest pitch of prosperity and greatness. His views were large — far-reaching — noble. And his measures were in full accordance with them. Whenever, in war or in peace, an exigency occurred, his active and inventive genius promptly sug- gested a provision for it, always ample, and usually the best that could be adopted. He had an ineffable scorn for what- ever was mean or contracted in legislation; and having an abiding confidence, not only in truth and justice, but in the power of reason, and the capacity of the people to appreciate what" was right and comprehend the arguments in favor of it, he never for a moment yielded to the current popular opinion, 1 88 READING AND ORATORY. when it differed from his own. He expected to restrain it by his logic, and ultimately reverse it by the benefits his measures would confer. The genius of Mr. Calhoun was essentially active, and ever looking forward to the improvement of mankind. He sought, therefore, earnestly, to discover the principles and theory of Movement that might be onward and unfailing — yet regular and safe. In accomplishing this task, he sounded anew the depths of human nature; he reviewed the whole science of • politics; he analyzed the Constitution word by word — its letter and its spirit; and he studied thoroughly the workings of our Government. The result was that he lifted himself above all parties, and became a philosophical, progressive Statesman — the only true and real statesman. And it was in the wide and ex- haustless field now opened to him, that he gathered those im- mortal laurels, whose verdure shall delight, whose blossoms shall refresh, whose fruit shall be the food of the latest poster- ity. In short, he so thoroughly elucidated all the checks and balances of free Constitutions — simple and confederated — that henceforth, in the long tide of time, no Republic will be erected or reformed on a durable foundation, without a constant re- currence to the theories he has discussed and the measures he has proposed, and a profound observance of the precepts he has taught. james h. hammond. James Hamilton Hammond, an American statesman, born at Newberry, S. C, Novem- ber IS. 1807 ,■ died at Beach Island, S.C, November 13, 1864. His father, Elisha Hammond, a native of Massachusetts, became in 1802 professor of languages in South Caro- lina College, and afterward President. The son graduated there m 1825, was admitted to the bar, and in 1830 became editor of the Soidhcrn Times, at Columbia. He married a lady of large fortune, and devoted himself to agriculture and politics. He wrote much, made many public addresses in behalf of nullification, and took an active part in or- ganizing the military force which South Carolina raised in 1833 to resist the Federal Government. In 1835-37 he was a member of Congress, and m 1842 Governor of South Carolina. In 1844 he published a letter to the Free Church of Glasgow, Scotland, on slavery in the United States, and in 1845 two others in reply to an anti-slavery circular by Thomas Clarkson; these with other essays on the same subject were collected in a volume. The Pro-Slavery Argument, Charleston : 1858. Besides essays on agriculture, manufactures, railroads, and finance, he published an elaborate review of the life, character, and public services of John C. Calhoun. In November, 1857, he was elected to the Senate of the United States to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of A. P. Butler. In March, 1858, he made a speech in the Senate in which he called the laboring classes " mudsills," a phrase which provoked much comment. In the same speech he SOLILOQUY OF COLUMBUS. 189 said, " Cotton is King, and no power upon earth dares make war upon it." On the se- cession of South Carolina in December, i860, he withdrew from the Senate, but during the civil war, ill health compelled him to remain quietly at home. — The American Cyclopmdia. THE TEST OF A TRUE GENTLEMAN. THE forebearing use of power does not only forma touch- stone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys cer- tain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the magis- trate over the citizen, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confid- ing, even the clever over the silly — the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily re- mind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He can not only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character Avhich impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself tuhen he cannot help humbling others. Robert e. lee. SOLILOQUY OF COLUMBUS. [From Psalm of the West.] ERE we Gomera cleared, a coward cried, Turn., turn: here be three caravels ahead, From Portugal, to take us: ive are dead! — Hold Westward, pilot, calmly I replied. So when the last land down the horizon died, Go back, go back! they prayed: our hearts are lead.- Friends, we are bou?td into the West, I said. Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side. 1 90 READING AND ORATORY. See (so they wept) God's warning! Admiral, turn! — Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. Then down the night we saw the meteor burn. So do the very Heavens in fire protest: Good Admiral, put about! O Spain, dear Spain! — Hold straight into the West, I said again. Next drive we o'er the sUmy-weeded sea. Lo! herebeneath (another coward cried) Thz cursed land of sunk Atlatttis lies: This slime will suck us down — titrn while thou' rt f reel- But no! I said, Freedom bears West for me! Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise, And day by day the keel to westward flies, My Good my people's 111 doth come to be: Ever the winds into the West do blow. Never a ship, once turned, might ho??ieward go; Meanwhile tve speed into the lonesome ?nain. For Chrisfs sake, parley. Admiral! Turn, before We sail outside all botmds of help from Spain! — Our help is in the West, I said once more. So when there came a mighty cry of Land! And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong Salve Regina! all the ropes along. But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band Of level clouds had aped a silver strand; So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song, And all the people cried, A hellish throng To tempt us onward, by the devil planned. Yea, all froTn hell — keeji heron, fresh green weeds, Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds. Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die Ln clouds of nothing round the ef?ipty sky. Tired Admiral, get thee from this hell and rest! — Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. SINKING OF THE MONITOR MILWAUKEE. I9I I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night, From its big circling ever absently Returns, thou large low Star, to fix on thee. Maria! Star? No star: a Light, a Light! Wouldst leap ashore. Heart ? Yonder burns — a Light. Pedro Gutierrez, wake! come up to me. I prithee stand and gaze about the sea: What seest? Admiral, like as land — a Light! Well! Sanchez of Segovia, come and try: What seest? Admiral, fwi/g/it but sea and sky! Well! But /saw It. Wait! the Pinta's gun! Why, look, tis dawn, the land is clear; 'tis done! Two dawns do break at once from Time's full hand — God's, East — mine. West: good friends, behold my Land! SIDNEY LANIER. SINKING OF THE MONITOR MILWAUKEE BY A TORPEDO. PERHAPS the most singular and venturesome exploit ever performed in submarine diving was that of searching the sunken monitor Milwaukee during the bay-fight in Mobile har- bor. This sea-going fortress was a hugedouble-turretted moni- tor, with a ponderous, crushing projectile force in her. Her battery of four fifteen-inch guns, and the tough, insensible solidity of her huge wrought-iron turrets and heavy plated hulk, burdened the sleepy waters of the bay. Upon a time she braced her iron jacket about her, girded her huge sides with fifteen-inch pistolry, and went rolling her clumsy volume down the bay to mash Fort Taylor to rubbish. The sea staggered under her ponderous gliding and groaned about her massive bulk as she wended her awkward course toward the bay-shore over against the fort. She sighted her blunderbusses, and roll- ing, grunting, wheezing in her revolving towers like a Falstaff ill at ease, spat her gobbets of flame and death. The poor little water-spaniel fort ran down to the shore and barked at her of 192 READING AND ORATORY. course. Cui bono or t7ialol Why, like Job's mates, fill its poor belly with the east wind, or try to draw out leviathan with a hook, or his tongue with a cord thou lettest down? Yet who reads of the fight between invulnerable Achilles and heroic Hector, and admires Achilles? The admiral of the American fleet, sick of the premature pother, signaled the lazy solidity to return. The loathly monster, slowly, like a bull-dog wrenched from his victim, rolled, snarling, lazily, leisurely down the bay, not obeying and yet not disobeying the signal. All along the sunny coast, like flowers springing up in a bat- tle-field, were rows of little white cottages, tenanted by women and children — love, life, and peace in the midst of ruin and sudden death. At the offending spectacle of homely peace among its enemies, the englutted monster eased its huge wrath. Tumbling and bursting among the poor little pasteboard shells of cottages, where children played, and women gossiped of the war, and prayed for its end, no matter how, fell the huge globes and cones of murder. Shrieks and cries, slain babes and wounded women on shore; surly, half-mutinous officers and crew on that iron hulk, shocked at the fell work they were set to do; and the glimmer and wash of the bay-water below — that sweet, tranquil, half- transparent liquid, with idle weeds and chips upon it, empty crates and boxes of dead merchandise, sacked of their life and substance by the war, as one might swallow an oyster; the soft veils of shadowy ships and the dis- tant city spires; umbrageous fires and slips of shining sand — all mirrored in the soft and quiet sea, while this devilish pother went on. There is a buoy adrift! No, it is a sodden cask, perhaps of spoiling meat, while the people in the town yonder are starving; and still the huge iron, gluttonous monster bursts its foam of blood and death, while the surly crew curse and think of moth- ers and babes at home. Better to look at the bay, the idle, pleasing summer water, with chips and corks and weeds upon it; better to look at the bubbling cask yonder — much better, Captain, if you only knew it! But the reluctant, heavy iron turret groans and wheezes on its pivotal round, and it will be a THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. I93 minute "or half a minute before the throated hell speaks again. But it ivill speak; machinery is fatally accurate to time and place. Can nothing stay it, or stop the tumbling of those bursting iron spheres among yon pretty print-like homes? No: look at the buoy, wish-wash, rolling lazily, bobbing in the vvater, a lazy, idle cask, with nothing in the world to do on this day of busy mischief. What hands coopered it in the new West? what farmer filled it? There is the grunting of swine, lowing of cattle in the look of the staves. But the turret groans and wheezes and goes around, whether you look at it or not. What cottage this time? The soft lap, lap of the water goes on, and the tedious cask gets nearer: it will slide by the counter. You have a curious interest in that. No: it grates under the bow; it — Thunder, and wreck, and ruin! Has the bay burst open and swallowed us? The huge, invulnerable iron monster — not in- vulnerable after all — has met its master in the idle cask. It is blind, imprisoned Samson pulling down the pillars of the tem- ple. The tough iron plates at the bow are rent, and torn, and twisted like wet paper. A terrible hole is gashed in the hull. The monster wobbles, rolls, gasps, and drinks huge gulps of water like a Avounded man — desperately wounded, and dying in his thirsty veins and arteries. The swallowed torrent rushes aft, hissing and quenching the fires; beats against the stern, and comes forward with the rush of that repulse to meet the incoming wave. Into the boats, the water! — anywhere but here. She reels again and groans; and then, as a desperate hero dies, she slopes her huge warlike beak at the hostile water, and rushes to her own ruin with a surge and convulsion. The a ictorious sea sweeps over it and hides it, laughing at her work. She will keep it safely. will wa llace harney. THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. THE Sense of the Beautiful once actively developed in man, he loses nothing in nature which his senses should absorb within themselves as so much aliment. He recognizes, 194 READING AND ORATORY. with each day's consciousness, new and increasing powers of perception in himself. The sounds issuing from the great for- ests, or the mountain gorges, are no longer mere gusts and mur- murs of a senseless force in Nature, but they resolve themselves into a song of the winds, telling the story of their capricious wanderings over land and sea. The solitude is no longer com- panionless. There are those who walk beside him, who speak with numerous voices to his newly-developed faculties. He finds the Beautiful in all her retreats; his ear opens with a new capacity for music, which enables him to hear the Spring-time chant from earth, in the murmur of the infinite tribes that toil below for extrication from the seed and the bondage of the soil. All the senses grow in turn, and triumph in the fresh delight of that wondrous fountain, newly welling in the soul, now first made capable to feel all the glory that harbors in the grass, all the splendor that blushes and bourgeons in the flower. We become sensible of the majesty, the dignity, and the frankness, as well as the magnificent beauty in the rose, and it glows be- fore us with the charm of an exquisite and perfect woman. We linger with delight to survey the fearless, yet pleading innocence which looks to us from the virgin lily. The delicate appeal which is made to us in the equal beauty and odor of the pink moves us to place it in our bosom; and, briefly, we discover, with our own developed sense of the beautiful, that, in the cul- tivation of the flower of the valley, we have cultivated a very rose of Sharon, blossoming for immortality in each loving heart and soul. It is not a mere shrub or flower which we nurture with so much care, it is a sentiment, a song, a virtue. It is our own best nature which we thrs train to beauty, through every agency of sense, sentiment, and sensibility, to the full develop- ment of that greatest of all human virtues — a perfect manhood. It is not merely eye, and ear, and nose which are the satisfied feeders among these flowers. But here thought broods with new discoveries, which bring new hopes; fancies spring with fresh desires that take all their aspects from innocence; love i WONDERS WORKED BY THE SUN'S RAYS. I95 glows with generous and sweet emotions, and the man becomes complete in the exercise of all his fulness of quality, in beauty, majesty, and strength. Studying well the art of the cultivator, he has read from those books of Nature which practise no frauds upon the intellect; assail no moral in his soul; teach no errors; beguile to no crimes or vices; and sensibilities, thus tutored, minister lovingly to all his moods, whether in joy or sorrow, whether it be care or triumph, pain or pleasure, that is looking, meanwhile, over his shoulder. \V. GILMORE SIMMS. THE WONDERS WORKED BY THE SUN'S RAYS. THE great sun above us pours down his golden floods over all, as quietly and gently as a sleeping infant breathes. And yet, by their pervasive force it is that all the mighty changes of the earth are wrought, and all its wondrous harmonies produced. The winds are raised, and, in their rapid flight, obey this sub- tile force; and the deep seas, shaken by the feet of the mighty winds, do the bidding of the sun, and, with all their ever-rolling waves, resound his praise. By his touch the electric equi- librium of the air is disturbed, and the lightnings proclaim his power; and the magnificent sparks thus kindled, ploughing vast regions of the atmosphere, engender material to enrich the earth, and feed the green herb. The sun's rays are, indeed, his ministering angels, sent forth to minister to all things on earth. By their mysterious ministry it is that the waters of the great deep are spread in vapor through the air: that the secret fountains of the dews and rains are replenished: and that the dryland is gladdened with springs and rivers. As from the waters of the ocean they fertilize the dry land and cool the hot air, so, from elements of the crude and formless air itself, they construct the living plant. They build the giant oak over our heads, and weave the sweet violet at our.feet. The forests of a thousand years, no less than the flowers of a day, are the work of their delicate fingers. The 196 READING AND ORATORY. endless variety of rich grains also, and the delicious fruits of every clime, are but so many transmutations of the invisible air, wrought and matured by these ever-busy alchemists of the sun, by these shining ministers of material good, who, under God, fill the earth with food and gladness. The fabled wonders of Aladdin's lamp are, indeed, as nothing, when compared with the real wonders of the great lamp of nature — the all-beholding sun. Nor is the solid globe itself exempt from the transforming power of the sun's rays. All the stupendous coal strata of the globe — all those inexhaustible sources of power and wealth and comfort, laid up for human use in the bosom of the earth — are but so many entombed vegetable kingdoms of the past, all of which were reared- and ruled by the mighty sun. Again, the slow transformations of earth's solid crust, in which its great geological changes consist, are mainly due to the abrasion of winds and rains, to the alternations of heat and frost, and to the everlasting lashing of the sea-waves — all of which are produced and set in motion by the sun. In like manner, the great oceanic currents, by which the mat- ter thus abraded is transferred from place to place, are owing to the sun. And when we consider the immense masses of mat- ter which, through the long lapse of ages, are thus transferred, we can well understand the declaration of scientific men, that it has more than once effected an entire change in the surface of the globe. New channels and beds have been scooped out for old ocean, and new continents have been formed. More than once, in the history of our globe, have continents changed places with seas, and seas with continents; so that a new dis- tribution of land and water, mountain and valley, has super- seded the old. The ultimate cause of this has been the sun. Nor is this all. For, by adding to the thickness of certain portions of the earth's crust, and by thinning out certain other portions, the rays of the sun have bound down the elastic force of the subterranean fires in some places, and prepared the way for their upheaval in others, either in the form of -mountain ranges, or in the outburst of active volcanoes; thus THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD R. R. BILL. 197 bringing even these stupendous phenomena under the same great law of solar influence. The Alps and the Apennines were determined by the sun. Nay, when the primeval waters first rolled away, and the dry land rose to view, it was the sun which had appointed the place of its emergence, and the form with which it should appear. Thus, by the silent, all-pervading, and eternal action of the sun, are the valleys exalted and the very hills brought low; the foundations of continents are laid, their outlines and features determined, and their surfaces adorned with ten thousand times ten thousand forms of animal and vegetable life. A. T. BLEDSOE. Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL. D., was born in Kentucky in 1808, and died at Alexan- dria, Va., December 8, 1877. He graduated at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1830, served two years in the army, and then resigned; was Prof. Mathematics in Kenyon College (1833-34), and in Miami University (1835-36); practised law in Spring- field, 111., (1840-48); Prof. Mathematics and Astronomy in University of Mississippi (1848-53); Prof. Mathematics University of Virginia (1853-61). During the civil war he was for a time Assistant Secretary of War of the Confederate States, and was sent on a special mission to Europe by his Government. At the close of the war he removed to Baltimore, editing the Southern Kevieiv until his death. Dr. Bledsoe's published works are: An Examination of Edwards on the IVill; A Theodicy^ or Vindication of the Divine Glory as Manifested in the Constitution and Goz'ernvtent of the Moral World; An Essay on Liberty and Slaziery; The Philosophy of Mathematics: Is Davis a Traitor? or Was Secession a Constitutional Right? His essays and review articles would fill many volumes. He left several important manuscript treatises on the higher mathematics, and, uncompleted, his Christian Cosmos^ and IVar bet^vccn the States. He was an intellectual giant, and America has produced no thinker of greater versatility and power. As metaphysician, theologian, constitutionalist, mathematician, and reviewer, he was equally distinguished, while there was no field of human knowledge which he seemed to have left unexplored. ON THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAILROAD BILL. SIR, I have been satisfied for years that if there was any portion of the inhabited globe absolutely in a suffering con- dition for want of a railroad, it was these teeming pine barrens of the St. Croix. At what particular point on that noble stream such a road should be commenced, I knew was immaterial; and so it seems to have been considered by the draughtsman of this 198 READING AND ORATORY. bill. It might be up at the spring, or down at the foot-log, or the water-gate, or the fish-dam, or anywhere along the bank, — no matter where. But in what direction should it run, and where it should terminate, were always to my mind questions of the most painful perplexity. I could conceive of no place on "God's green earth" in such straitened circumstances for railroad facilities as to be likely to desire or willing to accept such a connection. I knew that neither Bayfield nor Superior City would have it, for they both indignantly spurned the mu- nificence of the Government when coupled with- such igno- minious conditions, and let this very same land-grant die on their hands years and years ago rather than submit to the degradation of a direct communication by railroad with the piny woods of the St. Croix; and I knew that what the enter- prising inhabitants of those giant young cities would refuse to take would have few charms for others, whatever their neces- sities or cupidity might be. Hence, as I have said, sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where the terminus of this great and indispensable road should be, until I accidentally overheard some gentlemen the other day mention the name of "Duluth." Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with a peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an angel's whisper in bright, joy- ous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! 'Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the waterbrooks. But where was Duluth? Never, in .all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print. And I felt a profounder humiliation in my ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my delighted ear. I was certain the draughtsman of this bill had never heard of it, or it would have been desig- nated as one of the termini of this road. I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing of it. I rushed to the Library, and examined all the maps I could find. I discovered in one of them a delicate hair-like line, diverging from the Missis- sippi near a place marked Prescott, which I supposed was in- THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD R. R. BILL. 1 99 tended to represent the river St. Croix, but I could nowhere find Duluth. Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the pres- ent century, if not of all modern times. I knew it was bound to exist, in the very nature of things; that the symmetry and per- fection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it; that the elements of material nature would long since have re- solved themselves back into original chaos, if there had been such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from leaving out Duluth. In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the convic- tion that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but that wherever it was, it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. I was certain that Herodotus had died a miserable death, be- cause in all his travels, and with all his geographical research, he had never heard of Duluth. I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer could look down from another heaven than that created by his own celestial genius upon the long lines of pil- grims from every nation of the earth to the gushing fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand, if he could be permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon the fall of Ilium, it had not been his more blessed lot to crystallize in deathless song the rising glories of Duluth. Yet, sir, had it not been for this map, kindly furnished me by the Legislature of Minnesota, I might have gone down to my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair, because I could nowhere find Duluth. Had such been my melancholy 20C; READING AND ORATORY. fate, I have no doubt that with the last feeble pulsation of my breaking heart, with the last faint exhalation of my fleeting breath, I should have whispered, '''' W-h-e-r-e is D-u-l-ti-t-h?" J. PROCTOR KNOTT. ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAILROAD BILL. [continued.] HERE, sir, recurring to this map which I hold in my hand, I find in the immediate vicinity of the Piegans " vast herds of buffalo" and " immense fields of rich wheat lands." The idea of there being these immense wheat-fields in the very heart of a wilderness, hundreds and hundreds of miles beyond the utmost verge of civilization, may appear to some gentlemen as rather incongruous, — as rather too great a strain on the blankets of veracity. But to my mind there is no difficulty in the matter whatever. The phenomenon is very easily accounted for. It is evident, sir, that the Piegans sowed that wheat there, and ploughed it in with buffalo bulls. Now, sir, this fortunate combination of buffaloes and Piegans, considering their relative positions to each other and to Duluth, as they are arranged on this map, satisfies me that Duluth is destined to be the beef market of the world. Here, you will observe, are the buffaloes, directly between the Piegans and Duluth; and here, right on the road to Duluth, are the Creeks. Now, sir, when the buifaloes are sufficiently fat from grazing on those immense wheat-fields, you see it will be the easiest thing in the world for the Piegans to drive them on down, stay all night with their friends, the Creeks, and go into Duluth in the morning. I think I see them now, sir, a vast herd of buffaloes, with their heads down, their eyes glar- ing, their nostrils dilated, their tongues out, and their tails curled over their backs, tearing along toward Duluth, with about a thousand Piegans on their grass-bellied ponies, yelling at their heels! On they come! And as they sweep past the Creeks, they join in the chase, and away they all go, yelling, THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD R. R. BILL. 201 bellowing, ripping, and tearing along, amid clouds of dust, until the last buffalo is safely penned in the stock-yards of Duluth! Sir, I might stand here for hours and hours, and expatiate with rapture upon the gorgeous prospects of Duluth, as de- picted upon this map. But human life is too short, and the time of this House far too valuable, to allow me to linger longer upon the delightful theme. I think every gentleman on this floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth is destined to be- come the commercial metropolis of the universe, and that this road should be built at once. I am fully persuaded that no patriotic Representative of the American people, who has a proper appreciation of the associated glories of Duluth and the St. Croix, will hesitate a moment to say that every able-bodied female in the land, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, who is in favor of " women's rights" should be drafted and set to work upon this great road without delay. Nevertheless, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to say that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in this bill. Ah! sir, you can have no conception of the poignancy of my anguish that I am deprived of that blessed privilege! There are two insuperable obstacles in the way. In the first place, my constituents, for whom I am acting here, have no more interest in this road than they have in the great question of culinary taste now, perhaps, agitating the public mind of Dominica, as to whether the illustrious commissioners, who re- cently left this capital for that free and enlightened republic, would be better fricasseed, boiled, or roasted; and, in the sec- ond place these lands, which I am asked to give away, alas, are not mine to bestow! My relation to them is simply that of trustee to an express trust. And shall I ever betray that trust? Never, sir! Rather perish Duluth! Perish the paragon of cities! Rather let the freezing cyclones of the bleak North- west bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of the raging St. Croix! J. PROCTOR KNOTT. 202 READING AND ORATORY. HYMN OF THE ALAMO. RISE! man the wall — our clarion's blast Now sounds its final reveille, — This dawning morn must be the last Our fated band shall ever see. To life, but not to hope, farewell! Yon trumpet's clang and cannon's peal, And storming shout and clash of steel. Is ours, but not our country's knell. Welcome the Spartan's death, — 'Tis no despairing strife; — We fall — we die — but our expiring breath Is Freedom's breath of life! "Here, on this new Thermopylae, Our monument shall tower on high. And, Alamo! hereafter be On bloodier fields the battle-cry." Thus Travis from the rampart cried; And when his warriors saw the foe Like whelming billows move below, At once each dauntless heart replied: "Welcome the Spartan's death, — 'Tis no despairing strife; We fall — we die — but our expiring breath Is Freedom's breath of life!" They come — like autumn's leaves they fall, Yet hordes on hordes they onward rush; With gory tramp they mount the wall. Till numbers the defenders crush — Till falls their flag, when none remain! Well may the ruffians quake to tell How Travis and his hundred fell i THE OLD DOMINION. 203 Amid a thousand foemen slain! They died the Spartan's death, But not in hopeless strife: Like brothers died — and their expiring breath Was Freedom's breath of life. R. M. POTTER. THE OLD DOMINION. THE mother of the Gracchi has been embalmed in Ro. man history, and inspiration has immortalized the grand- mother and mother of Timothy. But Virginia has given birth to an army of nobler freemen than the Gracchi, and to hundreds of soldiers of the Cross as pure as Timothy. All Rome cannot match her Washington; all the world cannot surpass her Lee; and yet they were but types — elder brothers of her sons, who at her breast imbibed truth and courage, from her heart drew the blood of martyrs and heroes, and in her schools learnt the lessons of a simple faith and an ex- alted patriotism. Immortal mother of mrtrons purer than Lucretia; of daughters more devoted than Iphigenia; daughter of liberty, for whose defence her heart was always interposed, I bow my head in grateful thanksgiving for all thou hast done for mankind; and then with unutterable pride I lift my face and challenge all mankind to match thee! Who hath served God better; who loved truth more; who fought for liberty as valiantly; who given so much to country; who borne sorrow with such majestic patience as this matchless mother of heroes! God bless thee, Virginia! wherever God has a follower, or truth a worshipper, or liberty a defender, there thou wilt have a lover, and the story of thy life will nerve the arm and inspire the heart of all who strike for right, W. C. P. BRECKINRIDGE. 204 READING AND ORATORY. TEXAS CENTENNIAL ORATION. SIRS, you have been told that we are demons in hate, and gloat at the thought of war and blood. Men of New England — men of the great North! will you believe me when, for two millions of people whom I represent, and for the whole South as well, I denounce the utterance as an inhuman slander, an unpardonable falsehood, against a brave, and, God knows, a suffering people? Want war! want bloodshed! — Sirs, we are poor, broken in fortune, and sick at heart. Had you stood by the ruined hearthstones, by the wrecks of fortune, which are scattered all along the shore; had you seen, as I have seen, the wolf howl- ing at the door of many a once happy home — widowhood and orphanage starving, and weeping over never-returning sires and sons, who fell with your honored dead at Gettysburg and Ma- nassas; could you hear, as I have heard, the throbbing of the great universal Southern heart — throbbing for peace, and long- ing for the old and faithful love between the States; could you have seen, and felt, and heard all these things, my countrymen, you would take me by the hand, and swear that the arm thus uplifted against us should wither at the socket, and the tongue which utters the great libel on our name become palsied at its root forever! With each returning Spring let us scatter flowers over the resting-place alike of Federal and Confederate dead; as we en- shrine with immortelles of memory your Sumner, and Thomas, and McPherson, with our Sidney Johnston, Stonewall Jack- son, and the great Lee, forever. Let universal amnesty crown the closing of the century. Our brothers died not in vain in the last great struggle. Standing, long ago, in the capitol of Texas, with my oath to support the Constitution fresh upon my lips, I uttered these words, and from a full heart I repeat them here to-day: "They died not in vain." Whether wearing the gray or the blue, their lives were offered freely, like libations of water, for right — as each dying soldier deemed — and for native •TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. 205 land. In their graves, made immortal by the same ancestral heroism of race and blood, let us bury the feuds of that stormy hour of our history. In this generous and knightly spirit, Texas to-day sends fra- ternal greeting to all the States of the Union. R. B. HUBBARD. Richard B. Hubbard is a Georgian, but emigrated to Texas at an early day. His education was received at Yale College and the University of Virginia,and his profession has been the law, in which he has been eminently successful. He has served in both Houses of the Legislature; was Colonel in the Confederate army; elected Lieutenant- Governor of Texas, and on Governor Coke's resignation became Governor. He was the orator for Texas at the Centennial. TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. THOU glorious mocker of the world! I hear Thy many voices ringing through the glooms Of these green solitudes; and all the clear, Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear, And floods the heart. Over the sphered tombs Of vanished nations rolls thy music-tide: No light from History's starlit page illumes The memory of these nations: they have died: None care for them but thou; and thou mayst sing O'er me, perhaps, as now thy clear notes ring Over their bones by whom thou once wast deified. Glad scorner of all cities! Thou dost leave The world's mad turmoil and incessant din. Where none in others' honesty believe. Where the old sigh, the young turn gray and grieve, Where misery gnaws the maiden's heart within; Thou fleest far into the dark green woods, Where, with thy flood of music, thou canst win Their heart to harmony, and where intrudes No discord on thy melodies. Oh, where, Among the sweet musicians of the air. Is one so dear as thou to these old solitudes? 206 READING AND ORATORY. Ha! what a burst was that! The ^olian strain Goes floating through the tangled passages Of the still woods; and now it comes again, A multitudinous melody, like a rain Of glassy music under echoing trees, Close by a ringing lake. It wraps the soul With a bright harmony of happiness, Even as a gem is wrapped, when round it roll Thin waves of crimson flame, till we become, With the excess of perfect pleasure, dumb, And pant like a swift runner clinging to the goal. I cannot love the man who doth not love, As men love light, the song of happy birds; For the first visions that my boy-heart wove, To fill its sleep with, were that I did rove Through the fresh woods, what time the snowy herds Of morning clouds shrunk from the advancing sun. Into the depths of Heaven's blue heart, as words From the Poet's lips float gently, one by one, And vanish in the human heart; and then I' revelled in such songs, and sorrowed when, With noon-heat overwrought, the music-gush was done. I would, sweet bird, that I might live with thee. Amid the eloquent grandeur of these shades, Alone with Nature! — but it may not be: I have to struggle with the stormy sea Of human life until existence fades Into death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar Through the thick woods and shadow-chequered glades. While pain and sorrow cast no dimness o'er " The brilliance of thy heart; but I must wear, As now, my garments of regret and care, As penitents of old their galling sackcloth wore. Yet, why complain? What though fond hopes deferred Have overshadowed Life's green paths with gloom? SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. 207 Content's soft music is not all unheard: There is a voice sweeter than thine, sweet bird, To welcome me, within my humble home; There is an eye, v.dth love's devotion bright, The darkness of existence to illume. Then, why complain? When death shall cast his blight Over the spirit, my cold bones shall rest Beneath these trees; and from thy swelling breast Over them pour thy song, like a rich flood of light. ALBERT PIKE. SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. IT was one of the wisest sayings of a very wise man, that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." This maxim of wisdom is peculiarly applicable to the present time. Ten States of this Union are to-night under revolutionary govern- ments, originated and imposed upon them by an external power, and supported only by the bayonet. These revolutionary gov- ernments displace, repress, and, for the time, suppress the reg- ular, republican, constitutional governments which have existed here all the while with an unbroken succession. These revolu- tionary governments are in the hands of carpet-baggers and scalawags, who treat the laws of their own origination with disgraceful contempt; and, under the forms of official authority, heap upon our people injuries and insults which never before were borne by men born and bred and educated in the princi- ples of Liberty. Shameless plunder, malignant slander, corrupt favoritism, impunity for crimes when committed by partisans of the Government, gigantic extension of the credit of the States to penniless adventurers who come among us under the false and fraudulent plea of "developing our resources," robbery of the very negroes who are sought to be used as the chief instru- ment of upholding this gigantic system of revolutionary fraud and force — these are the fruits of these revolutionary govern- ments. These are the products of reconstruction. This is the 208 READING AND ORATORY. "Situation"! And yet there are those who say: " Let us accept the situation." In the last Presidential campaign we heard the potent words: "Let us have Peace!" They had their effect. They carried the Presidential election. Yet wise men then knew, as all men now know, that they were a delusion and a snare. — " Let us have Peace!" — It meant that freemen, with their necks under the heel of despotism, should remain submissive and quiet. Such a peace Turkey has! Such a peace Poland has! Such a peace, thank God, Ireland refuses to have! No people trained in the principles of liberty will ever accept of any peace that is not founded on liberty. Tyrants and despots may reconstruct, and r^-reconstruct, and r(?-/r-reconstruct ad infinitum; but they will never have peace from American-born freemen until they give them their rights! LINTON STEPHENS. THE BONNY BROWN HAND. OH, drearily, how drearily, the sombre eve comes down! And wearily, how wearily, the seaward breezes blow! But place your little hand in mine — so dainty, yet so brown! For household toil hath worn away its rosy-tinted snow; But I fold it, wife, the nearer. And I feel, my love, 'tis dearer. Than all dear things of earth, As I watch the pensive gloaming. And my wild thoughts cease from roaming. And birdlike furl their pinions close beside our peaceful hearth; Then rest your little hand in mine, while twilight shimmers down, — That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny brown, — The hand that holds an honest heart, and rules a happy hearth. Oh, merrily, how merrily, our children's voices rise! And cheerily, how cheerily their tiny footsteps fall! THE BONNY BROWN HAND. 209 But, hand, you must not stir awhile, for there our nestling lies, Snug in the cradle at your side, the loveliest far of all; And she looks so arch and airy, So softly pure a fairy, — She scarce seems bound to earth; And her dimpled mouth keeps smiling As at some child-fay's beguiling, Who flies from Ariel realms to light her slumbers on the hearth. Ha, little hand, you yearn to move, and smooth the bright locks down! But, little hand, — but, trembling hand, — but, hand of bonny brown. Stay, stay with me! — she will not flee, our birdling on the hearth. Oh, flittingly, how flittingly, the parlor-shadows thrill. As wittingly, half wittingly, they seem to pulse and pass! And solemn sounds are on the wind that sweeps the haunted hill. And murmurs of a ghostly breath from out the graveyard grass. Let me feel your glowing fingers In a clasp that warms and lingers With the full, fond love of earth, Till the joy of love's completeness In this flush of fireside sweetness, Shall brim our hearts with spirit-wine, outpoured beside the hearth. So steal your little hand in mine, while twilight falters down, — That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny brown, — The hand which points the path to heaven, yet makes a heaven of earth. PAUL H. HAYNE. 2IO READING AND ORATORY. THE PRESENT CRISIS AND ITS ISSUES. YOUNG gentlemen of the University, I have delivered the message with which I felt myself charged. I have not been able to address you with the fopperies of rhetoric. I have done you the higher honor of supposing you capable of sympa- thizing with the deep emotions of my own heart. When your note of invitation reached me some months ago, it touched me with the solemnity of a call from the grave. I felt, as I turned my steps hither, that I was making a pilgrimage to my country's shrine. I should be permitted to stand un- covered at the tomb of the immortal Chief, who sleeps in such grand repose beneath the academic shades where he found rest after heroic toils. Should I look upon it as the emblem of my country's death? or should I prophesy beside it the birth of a new career? Memories holy as death have been throwing their shadows upon my spirit; and I have spoken in the interest of country, of duty, and of truth. The dim forms of Washington and of Lee — twin names upon American History, as well as upon your own walls — appear before me, the Rhadamanthus and the Minos who shall pronounce judgment upon every sen- timent uttered here. If aught said by me should draw the frown of their disapproval, may the Angel of Pity drop a tear and blot it out forever! Standing upon the soil which gave birth to a Washington, a Madison, a Jefferson, a Henry, a Randolph, a Marshall, a Jack- son, and a Lee; and lifting the scroll which hangs around the ensign of my native State, the names of Pinckney, Laurens, Rutledge, Lowndes, McDuffie, Hayne, Calhoun — I summon their immortal shades around his tomb whom a nation has so lately mourned. In their dread presence I solemnly declare that the principles of our fathers are our principles to-day; and that the stones upon which the temple of American liberty was first built, are the only stones upon which it should ever be able to stand. And you, gentlemen, representing the young thought and hope which must shortly deal with these mighty SUSAN GARTHWAITES WEDDING DAY. 211 issues, — I swear each of you by an oath more solemn than that of Hannibal, not that you will destroy Rome, but that you will save Carthage. I charge you, if this great Republic, like a gal- lant ship, must drive upon the breakers, that you will be upon the deck, and with suspended breath await the shock. Per- chance she will survive it, but if she sink beneath the destiny which has devoured other great kingdoms of the past, that you save from the melancholy wreck our Ancestral Faiths, and work out yet upon this continent the problem of a free, con- stitutional, and popular government. And may the God of destinies give you a good issue! B. M. PALMER. SUSAN GARTH WAITE'S WEDDING DAY. IT was in early Spring that the wedding took place. The wintry winds which whirled about the dead leaves, heaping them here, there leaving bare the ground, had been driven to their northern caves by the fair maid. Spring, who came upon the scene from more southern lands, heralded by warm rains and a more genial glow of the sun; bland zephyrs floating mingled with the sheen; and an emerald carpet spangled with modest star-flowers rose to her tread as she advanced. The gray and russet buds, fast swelling big, burdened with joyous load each slender spray, and here and there branches and trees were seen with yellow, silvery green, and crimson, dotting the wood. The beeches had begun to wave their banners, the red- buds clothed themselves in rose color, and the dogwood blos- soms, growing fast from green to white, gave notice to the rustic fishermen to prepare their tackle. The wild violets, blue and white, covered the mossy banks along the gurgling rills; pendent honeysuckles, gemmed with dew, fringed the bottoms; yellow jessamines, wild pea, spiderwort, and daisies covered the slopes, and bright verdure and many-colored flowers began to clothe the vales and crown each hill. And every nook in earth and air was filled with busy life. 212 READING AND ORATORY. The hooping cranes circled high in noisy consultation, or, with necks and legs outstretched, took straight their northern flight. In the fields the pitiless ploughshare, upturning the mellow earth, wrenched to the light the nest of the timid field- mouse, and crows and prying blackbirds, heedless of the loud woa! and haw! of the ploughinen, scanned narrowly each furrow to seize the unearthed worm and sluggish snail; and the feathered songsters sent their notes from every hill and brake, as they searched about with tender care where each might build its nest. From some lowly bush the gentle thrush poured forth his song of love with bated voice; the gallant partridge, strutting on a stump or fence, gave out his loudest challenge; in the clumps of hazels and dwarfed oaks the gay redbird flaunted his bright plumage, and the noisy jay delighted his soul with discord; twittering swallows skimmed the verdant meads; noisy martens and trustful wrens peered business-like around the eaves of every house ; doves cooed softly, deep in the wood, and, from the topmost twig of some bush growing in the hedge, the mocking-bird repeated in ecstasy every note he bad ever heard or could invent. The white- winged gnats in the sun's first glances weaved their mazy dance in mystic circle. The ants, bound upon industry, commenced to excavate, and bore with unwearied patience their mighty loads of loam and grains of sand; here a scout sped his zigzag course, and there a long, dark, moving throng took its way in devious line to some new enterprise. Here on these weeds, with cunning SKill, last night A spider wove her web, which, misty, bright, Like frosted silver, sparkles now with dew. These gems will soon exhale and leave to view A trembling, frail, attenuated thread, To snap by wayward vrinds or passer's tread. So when youth's freshness gems man's hopes, they take A misty radiance, tremble thus, thus break. ^ ^ JOHN S. HOLT. John Saunders Holt, the novelist, was bom in Mobile, December 5, 1826, received a finished education, and made law his profession. He served in the Mexican War and the War between the States, at the close of the latter taking up his residence at Natchez, Miss. His literary reputation rests chiefly \i\>oxi Abraham Pase^Esq.,z.TxA What PLANTATION LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 213 I Know about Ben Ecciesy Philadelphia: Lippincott& Co., novels having for their object the portrayal of Southern manners and the elevation of the literature of fiction above the debasing and sensational character which it has so generally assumed. In purity of style, refined humor, originality, and power of characterization Mr. Holt is not surpassed by any modern American writer of fiction. He has now in manuscript a third novel, The Quines. Among his best magazine articles are his \.\iO%tx\^s^ Spider' i-\Veb Papers y'i.w^k Sotne 0/ our Local Great Men. PLANTATION LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA. AND yet the life, so imassailed by care, So blessed with moderate work, with ample fare, With all the good the starving pauper needs, The happier slave on each plantation leads. Safe from harassing doubts and annual fears, He dreads no famine in unfruitful years; If harvests fail from inauspicious skies. The master's providence his food supplies; No paupers perish here for want of bread, Or lingering live, by foreign bounty fed; No exiled trains of homeless peasants go. In distant climes, to tell their tale of woe: Far other fortune, free from care and strife, For work, or bread, attends the Negro's life. And Christian slaves may challenge as their own The blessings claimed in fabled States alone — The cabin home, not comfortless, though rude, Light daily labor, and abundant food, The sturdy health that temperate habits yield, The cheerful song that rings in every field. The long, loud laugh, that freemen seldom share, Heaven's boon to bosoms unapproached by care, And boisterous jest and humor unrefined, That leave, though rough, no painful sting behind; While, nestling near, to bless their humble lot, Warm social joys surround the Negro's cot: The evening dance its merriment imparts. 214 READING AND ORATORY. Love, with his rapture, fills their youthful hearts And placid age, the task of labor done, Enjoys the summer shade, the winter sun. And, as through life no pauper want he knows, Laments no poor-house penance at its close. Safe, in Ambition's trumpet-call to strife, No conscript fears harass his quiet Hfe, While the crushed peasant bleeds — a worthless thing, The broken toy of emperor or king. Calm in his peaceful home, the slave prepares His garden-spot, and plies his rustic cares; The comb and honey that his bees afford, The eggs in ample gourd compactly stored, The pig, the poultry, with a chapman's art. He sells or barters at the village mart. Or, at the master's mansion, never fails An ampler price to find and readier sales. There, when December's welcome frosts recall The friends and inmates of the crowded hall, To each glad nursling of the master's race He brings his present, with a cheerful face And offered hand; — of warm, unfeigning heart, In all his master's joys he claims a part, And, true as clansman to the Highland chief. Mourns every loss, and grieves in all his grief. When Christmas, now, with its abundant cheer And thornless pleasure, speeds the parting year, He shares the common joy — the early morn Wakes hunter, clamorous hpund, and echoing horn, Quick steps are heard, the merry season named. The loiterers caught, the wonted forfeit claimed, In feasts maturing busy hands appear, And jest and laugh assail the ready ear; Whose voice, than his, more gayly greets the dawn, Whose foot so lightly treads the frosty lawn, Whose heart as merrily, where mirth prevails, On every side the joyous season hails? LET US CONQUER OUR PREJUDICES. 21$ Around the slaughtered ox, a Christmas prize, The slaves assembling stand with eager eyes, Rouse, with their dogs, the porker's piercing cry, Or drag its squealing tenant from the sty; With smile and bow receive their winter dues, The strong, warm clothing and substantial shoes, Blankets adorned with stripes of border red, And caps of wool that warm the woollier head; Then clear the barn, the ample area fill, In the gay jig display their vigorous skill; No dainty steps, no mincing measures here — Ellsler's trained graces — seem to float in air, But hearts of joy and nerves of living steel On floors that spring beneath the bounding reel; Proud on his chair, with magisterial glance And stamping foot, the fiddler rules the dance; Draws, if he nods, the still unwearied bow; And gives a joy no bearded bands bestow. The triple holiday, on angel wings, With every fleeting hour a pleasure brings; No ennui clouds, no coming cares annoy. Nor wants nor sorrows check the Negro's joy. WILLIAM J. GRAYSON. William J. Grayson, statesman and poet, was born in Beaufort, S. G., in 1788. He was a member of Congress from 1833 to 1837. The Hireling and the Slave and Chicora^ an Indian Tale, are considered Ms best poetical works. LET US CONQUER OUR PREJUDICES. MAN by nature is ever prone to scan closely the errors and defects of his fellow-man — ever ready to rail at the mote in his brother's eye, without considering the beam that is in his own. This should not be. We all have our motes or beams. We are all frail; perfection is the attribute of none. Prejudice or prejudgment should be indulged toward none. 2l6 READING AND ORATORY. Prejudice? What wrongs, what injuries, what mischiefs, what lamentable consequences, have resulted at all times from nothing but this perversity of the intellect! Of all the obstacles to the advancement of truth and human progress, in every department — in science, in art, in government, and in religion — in all ages and climes, not one on the list is more formidable, more diffi- cult to overcome and subdue, than this horrible distortion of the moral as well as intellectual faculties. It is a host of evils within itself. I could enjoin no greater duty upon my country- men now, — North and South — than the exercise of that degree of forbearance which would enable them to conquer their pre- judices. One of the highest exhibitions of the moral sublime the world ever witnessed was that of Daniel Webster, when, in an open barouche in the streets of Boston, he proclaimed in substance, to a vast assembly of his constituents — unwilling hearers — that "they had conquered an uncongenial clime; they had conquered a sterile soil; they had conquered the winds and currents of the ocean; they had conquered most of the ele- ments of nature; but they must yet learn to conquer their pre- judices!" I know of no more fitting incident or scene in the life of that wonderful man, " Clams et vir fortissimus" for per- petuating the memory of the true greatness of his character, on canvas or in marble, than a representation of him as he then and there stood and spoke! It was an exhibition of moral gran- deur surpassing that of Aristides when he said, "Oh, Athenians, what Themistocles recommends would be greatly to your interest, but it would be unjust!" ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. A GEORGIA VOLUNTEER. FAR up the lonely mountain side My wandering footsteps led; The moss lay thick beneath ray feet, The pine sighed overhead. A GEORGIA VOLUNTEER. 217 The trace of a dismantled fort Lay in the forest nave, And in the shadow near my path I saw a soldier's grave. The bramble wrestled with the weed Upon the lowly mound, The simple headboard, rudely writ, Had rotted to the ground; I raised it with a reverent hand, From dust its words to clear. But time had blotted all but these^ "A Georgia Volunteer!" I saw the toad and scaly snake From tangled covert start, And hide themselves among the weeds Above the dead man's heart; But undisturbed, in sleep profound, Unheeding, there he lay; His coffin but the mountain soil. His shroud Confederate gray. I heard the Shenandoah roll Along the vale below, I saw the Alleghanies rise Towards the realms of snow. The "Valley Campaign" rose to mind — Its leader's name — and then I knew the sleeper had been one Of Stonewall Jackson's men. Yet whence he came, what lip shall say— Whose tongue will ever tell What desolated hearths and hearts Have been because he fell? What sad-eyed maiden braids her hair. Her hair which he held dear? 2l8 READING AND ORATORY. One lock of which, perchance, lies with The Georgia Volunteer! What mother, with long watching eyes And white lips cold and dumb. Waits with appalling patience for Her darling boy to come? . Her boy! whose mountain grave swells up But one of many a scar, Cut on the face of our fair land. By gory-handed war. What fights he fought, what wounds he wore, Are all unknown to fame; Remember, on his lonely grave There is not e'en a name! That he fought well and bravely too, And held his cou"ntry dear, We know, else he had never been A Georgia Volunteer. He sleeps — what need to question now If he were wrong or right? He knows, ere this, whose cause was just In God the Father's sight. He wields no warlike weapons now, Returns no foeman's thrust — Who but a coward would revile An honest soldier's dust? Roll, Shenandoah, proudly roll, Adown thy rocky glen, Above thee lies the grave of one Of Stonewall Jackson's men. Beneath the cedar and the pine, In solitude austere, Unknown, unnamed, forgotten, lies A Georgia Volunteer. MRS. MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND. READING AND ORATORY. 219 TO TIME -THE OLD TRAVELLER. THEY slander thee, Old Traveller, Who say that thy delight Is to scatter ruin, far and wide, In thy wantonness of might: For not a leaf that falleth Before thy restless wings, But in thy flight thou changest it To a thousand brighter things. Thou passest o'er the battle-field, Where the dead lie stiff and stark, Where naught is heard save the vulture's scream, And the gaunt wolf's famished bark; But thou hast caused the grain to spring From the blood-enriched clay. And the waving corn-tops seem to dance To the rustic's merry lay. Thou hast strewed the lordly palace In ruins o'er the ground, And the dismal screech of the owl is heard Where the harp was wont to sound; But the self-same spot thou coverest With the dwellings of the poor, And a thousand happy hearts enjoy What one usurped before! 'Tis true thy progress layeth Full many a loved one low, And for the brave and beautiful Thou hast caused our tears to flow; But always near the couch of death Nor thou, nor we can stay, And the breath of thy departing wings Dries all our tears away! WILLIAM H. TIMROD. 220 READING AND ORATORY. William Henry Timrod, — the father of Henry Timrod, the poet, — was bom near Charleston, S. C, 1792, of German and Scotch parentage. When eleven years of age he ran away from school and apprenticed himself to a bookbinder, fancying that he could thus have access to innumerable books and stores of untold learning. Though soon undeceived, he did not return to his studies, but made himself a skilled mechanic, rather proud than otherwise of his useful and honest craft. So great was his thirst for knowledge that, as he had no time in the day and no light at night, he would climb on to the leads of the house when the moon was full, and there, by the lunar rays, read late into the night. The variety and extent of his information, his brilliant conversational powers, and the vigor and originality of thought he displayed attracted attention, and he was admitted, a welcome guest, to the highest intellectual and social circles of Charles- ton. That he possessed poetic talent of no mean order the few songs and sonnets he has left us clearly demonstrate. But what he regarded as the great literary labor of his life was a drama in five acts— the manuscript of which was lost. In the nullification controversy of 1832-33, he warmly espoused the cause of the Union, and wrote a stir- ring campaign song. Sons 0/ the Union, rise! He was elected Captain of the German Fusileers in 1835, and marched with them to garrison St. Augustine, in Florida, against the Seminoles. Exposure, hardship, and protracted labor brought on a disease of which, about two years after his return to Charleston, he died. His literaiy remains have never been collected and published. MEMORIAL ADDRESS. DO not allow yourselves, my friends, to be misled by that false teaching, — false to your faith, to your country, and to your God, — which tells you, that, as your cause has failed, the principles which gave life and light and truth to that cause are forever obliterated. Any human undertaking, how just soever it may be, may fail, but settled principles cannot die. A great truth, like the Godhead whence it emanated, is eternal, and it must and will live till the last syllable of recorded time. The evil times upon which we have fallen are prolific of these teach- ings and dangerous heresies, and the press in some portions of this country offers a ready and willing channel for their dis- semination. You are told daily through this medium that our cause was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword, and that the verdict against which no appeal lies has been rendered in favor of our enemies. This doctrine is pernicious; and if we fall in with it we shall brand the heroic dead as well as the liv- ing as traitors, and cover all alike with deserved infamy. Why should we admit we are in the wrong? Shall we do so because our cause has gone down covered with the funeral pall MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 221 that military disaster has thrown over it? When the torture wrung a recantation of the truth from GaHleo, did the earth cease to revolve on its axis? Did the waves that swept the ashes of Huss to the sea bury forever the truth he had proclaimed? When our Divine Master perished on the cross, did the doc- trines for which he died perish with him? We believe we have truth on our side; let us then assert and maintain our faith, and God will in His own good time make it manifest that we are right. If we were wrong in our struggle, then was the Declaration of Independence in '76 a terrible mistake, and the revolution to which it led a palpable crime; Washington should be stigmatized as a traitor, and Benedict Arnold canonized a patriot. If the principles which justified the first revolution were true in 1776. they were no less true in that of 1861. The success of the former can add not one jot or tittle to the abstract truth of the principles which gave it birth, nor can the failure of the latter destroy one particle of those ever-living principles. If Washington was a patriot, Lee cannot have been a rebel; if the grand enunciation of the truths of the Declaration of In- dependence made Jefferson immortal, the observance of them cannot make Davis a traitor. It has been urged by our enemies that the Constitution of the United States did not recognize explicitly the right of se- cession; but does that compact between sovereign States, which was entered into with such solemnity, forbid the exercise of this right in any clause, directly or by implication? Does it give to any of the parties to it the right or the semblance of a right to coerce the others? Does it permit any State or States to wage a war of extermination on the others? If it does not, or rather did not, allow any of these things, how comes it that we are gathered here to-day around the graves of Southern men who were slain only because they believed that the principles of 1776, which gave birth to our Republic, were equally true in 1 86 1? It is because the people of the North have never studied and do not comprehend that Constitution about which they have raved so madly; because they have not consulted the fathers of the Republic; because their great teachers — blind 222 READING AND ORATORY, leaders of the blind — have ignored and often falsified the records of the Convention of 1787, and have led their deluded followers into that downward and crooked path that leads to the destruction of the Republic, and to the subversion of con- stitutional liberty under republican institutions in the New World. WADE HAMPTON. Wade Hampton, soldier and statesman, was born at Columbia, S. C, in 1818; gradu- ated at Soath Carohna College, read law, and served in both branches of the State Legislature. Entering the Confederate service in command of the " Hampton Legion," a body of cavalry which he raised for the war, he displayed consummate military skill and genius, and became, by successive promotions, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all the Cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was afterwards sent to South Carolina, and in February, 1865, commanded the rear-guard of the army which evacuated Columbia— the burning of which city Gen. Sherman attempted in vain to fix upon him. In 1876 Gen. Hampton received the Democratic nomination for Governor of State of South Carolina. The contest was a close one, as between himself and Chamberlin, the opposing candidate. He was elected, and duly installed in the Gubernatorial chair. MOUNTAIN SCENERY OF NORTH CAROLINA. AT every season of the year there is a charm about these splendid woodlands of the Appalachians. Sometimes in midwinter, a cloud, laden with the sharp, ice-cold moisture of a January storm, drags lazily against a sharp-pointed pinnacle, where it hovers as a pall. It can scarcely be said to rain; its moisture seems gently to dissolve itself upon the earth, and is immediately fixed by the cold. This gives rise to what is often termed a frozen cloud. Every rock, tree, twig, and blade of grass upon that mountain-top is instantly transformed into translucent silver. Now, if that mountain be due east of you, and if you will rise next morning in time to see the sun come forth as a bride- groom from his chamber, you will see a picture such as no man in this world has seen surpassed, and such as might have been in the mind of the vision-wrapped Apostle, when flitted before him the sublime semblance of the rainbow of emerald enclos- THE GREAT VIRGINIAN. 223 ing the throne of shining gold in the midst of the crystal sea! The storm has disappeared, the winds are mute, the heavens have assumed their deep, solemn azure. Sharp-pointed spears of golden fire come up from the east and dart among and through the translucent warp of that silver bridal veil which covers the mountain-top with its ineffable glories. As the God of Day mounts higher and higher towards his throne, showers of shim- mering radiance are scattered in whirling waves over the out- stretched arms of the giant oaks and upon the emerald cones of the pines, leaping from branch to branch, until their rays meet and mingle in a crown of corruscating glory. And then, in a maze of wonder and delight which is almost agony, you feel that you are gazing upon the Crystal Palace of God, whose splendors mortal man may be happy that he can see and live; and that ten thousand polished diamonds, the largest and the brightest that ever glittered in a monarch's diadem, would not compare with the glory which is made manifest in a single tree on that mountain-top " wherewith it is clothed." ZEBULON B. VANCE. THE GREAT VIRGINIAN. I HAVE spoken of our hero's character and life, as they at- tract the admiration of mankind — of the qualities which enemies and friends may venerate alike. It would be unmanly affectation in me to pretend that, here in Maryland, we loved him and remember him chiefly for these. We are proud of the great name — as proud as any — but the household word is dearer far to us. His story and his memory are linked with all the hopes and triumphs, the exultation and despair, which made a century of those four bitter, bloody, torturing years. He was to us the incarnation of his cause — of what was noblest in it, and knightliest, and best. Whatever of perplexity beset his path before he chose it, he knew no doubts when it was chosen. He followed where it led him, knowing no step back- ward. Along it, through victory and defeat, our sympathies 224 READING AND ORATORY. and prayers went with him. Around him gathered the fresh, valiant manhood of our State, and many a brave young heart that ceased to beat beside him drew him but closer to the bleeding hearts in all our saddened homes. These are the ties that bind him to us. These are the memories that troop around us here to-night — not of the far-off hero, belonging to the world and history — but memories of our hero — ours — the man that wore the gray! Not in the valley where he sleeps, not among the fields he made immortal, lives he, or will he live, in fonder recollection, than where Calvert planted freedom. "And far and near, through vale and hill, Are faces that attest the same; The proud heart flashing through the eyes, At sound of his loved name." And when they tell us, as they do, those wiser, better brethren of ours — and tell the world, to make it history — that this, our Southern civilization, is half barbarism, we may be pardoned if we answer: Behold its product and its representative! " Of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes." Here is Robert Lee — show us his fellow! S. T. WALLIS. THE MOTHER AND CHILD. THE flowers you reared repose in sleep, With folded bells where the night-dew weeps. And the passing wind like a spirit grieves In a gentle dirge through the sighing leaves. The sun will kiss the dew from the rose, Its crimson petals again unclose, And the violet ope the soft blue ray Of its modest eye to the gaze of day; But when shall the deAvs and shades that lie So cold and damp on thy shrouded eye. Be chased from the folded lids, my child, And thy glance break forth so sweetly wild? THE MOTHER AND CHILD. 22$ The fawn, thy partner in sportive play, Has ceased his gambols at close of day. And his weary limbs are relaxed and free In gentle sleep by his favorite tree. He will wake ere long, and the rosy dawn Will call him forth to the dewy lawn, And his sprightly gambols be seen again Through the parted boughs and upon the plain; But oh, when shall slumber cease to hold The limbs that lie so still and cold? When wilt thou come with thy tiny feet That bounded my glad embrace to meet? The birds you tended have ceased to sing, And shaded their eyes with the velvet wing; And, nestled among the leaves of the trees, They are rocked to rest by the cool night-breeze. The morn will the chains of sleep unbind, And spread their plumes to the freshening wind; And music from many a warbler's mouth Will honey the grove, like the breath of the south; But when shall the lips, whose lightest word Was sweeter far than the warbling bird. Their rich wild strain of melody pour? They are mute! they are cold! they will ope no more'. When Heaven's great bell, in a tone sublime, Shall sound the knell of departed Time, And its echoes pierce, with a voice profound. Through the liquid sea and the solid ground. Thou wilt wake, my child, from the dreamless sleep Whose oblivious dews thy senses steep, And then shall the eye, now dim, grow bright In the glorious rays of Heaven's own light; The limbs that an angel's semblance wore. Bloom 'neath living trees on the golden shore; And the voice that's hushed, God's praises hymn 'Mid the bands of the harping seraphim. N. C. BROOKS. 226 READING AND ORATORY. The poet and scholar, Nathan Covington Brooks, LL. D., was born in Cecil Co., Md., August 12, 1819, and graduated at St. John's College, Annapolis. He entered at once upon his career as a teacher, and has followed it without interruption to the pres- ent time. He was Principal of the Baltimore High School, 1839-1848; and President of the Baltimore Female College since 1848. He was the first head of each of these im- portant institutions and gave to each its tone and character. His publications have been numerous and varied. Those by which he is best known are his classical series, grow- ing out of his wants'and profession as a teacher. They are the following: jEneid oj Virgil; Ovid^s Metamorphoses; Ccesar^s Conutientaries ; Historia Sacra; Viri Illustres Americani; First Latin Lessotis: First Greek Lessons; Greek Collectanea Evangelica; Scripture Manuals containing Religious Exercises for Morning and Evening, for Schools and Families. While all these books aie admirable in design and execution, that whicTi nas gained the greatest credit for the richness and variety of its scholarship, and for its abundant helps in the way of illustrations, is his edition of Ovid. Besides these works in the line of his profession. Dr. Brooks published in 1865 A Cotnplete His- tory of the Mexican War. He has written a good deal of miscellaneous matter, and in 1840 issued a neat volume. The Literary A maranth., a collection of pieces in prose and poetry. — Harfs Atnerican Literature. VINDICATION OF THE RECONSTRUCTED SOUTH. MR. PRESIDENT, — I do not propose to reply to the speech just delivered. I am quite willing that it shall go to the country and be its own answer. It was not my purpose origin- ally to participate in this debate, although repeatedly urged to do so by friends around me with whom I am united in senti- ment and sympathy of feeling. Fearing that the cause of truth, of justice, and of a distressed people would suffer rather than be benefited when defended by those of my class, against whom there exists in this chamber so much of prejudice and ani- mosity, I felt that^my duty to the people I represent required that I should suffer in silence the insults which Senators on the other side of this chamber deemed themselves authorized to utter here. But, sir, when the people of my section are held up to the gaze of the civilized world as murderers, assassins, and semi-barbarians, I feel that further silence will subject them to a more cruel misconstruction than can be extorted from any perversion, however gross and unjust, of my utterances here. And if my voice now betrays, as I fear it does, undue ex- citement, it is not the excitement of anger, but that of a man VINDICATION OF THE RECONSTRUCTED SOUTH. 22/ aggrieved at the unjust assaults upon the reputation of his people, conscious that they deserve a vindication which he feels him- self inadequate to make. Sir, I was appalled at the spectacle yesterday presented in this chamber of American Senators — the spectacle of a body of men with a common ancestry, proud of a common history, inheritors of a common birthright of freedom, confronted by a common destiny, seeking to pillory the reputation, the honor, the fair name, and, of consequence, the rights and the liberties of one large section of this country, before the civilized world. To say that I am surprised at such a spectacle would not express my emotion. I am utterly amazed that there should be found in the hearts of men with whom I daily associate in this chamber on terms of pleasant intercourse, so much of hate and vindic- tiveness and of the spirit of vengeance as has been exhibited in this debate. I was totally unprepared for it; and if to-day I believed that the expressions which I have heard from Senators' lips on this floor reflected the sentiments of the Northern people, I would be overcome with despair, and feel that the time had come for republican government to die. If the utter- ances which I have heard are indicative of the policy which is in future to be pursued by this powerful Government toward the disarmed people of my section, then, sir, let us have done with this farce of local self-government at once and forever. But I do not believe it. Sir, I do not believe that a majority of the Northern people entertain the sentiments expressed upon this floor. I do not believe that the brave men with whom we were threatened on yesterday, or any considerable portion of them, cherish any such sentiments. I believe that an overwhelming majority of the American people, North and South, East and West, utterly abhor the spirit of animosity, of hate, and oppres- sion manifested in this debate. I believe that the day is com- ing when this fact will be made manifest. I believe that the movement inaugurated in 1872, under the lead of that large- headed and large-hearted man of New York, intended to destroy this spirit, to produce a better state of feeling between the sec- tions, to enable the people better to know each other, to bring fra- 228 READING AND ORATORY, ternity to the once opposing soldiers, and to inaugurate an era of peace, of good-will, and of law, will go on to its final consumma- tion, in spite of all the efforts to prevent it. JOHN B. GORDON. ON ELOQUENCE. IN the art of speaking, as in all other arts, a just combination of those qualities necessary to the end proposed is the true rule of taste. Excess is always wrong. Too much ornament is an evil — too little, also. The one may impede the progress of the argument, or divert attention from it, by the introduc- tion of extraneous matter — the other may exhaust attention, or weary by monotony. Elegance is in a just medium. The safer side to err on is that of abundance — as profusion is better than poverty; as it is better to be detained by the beau- ties of a landscape than by the weariness of the desert. It is commonly, but mistakenly, supposed that the enforcing of truth is most successfully effected by a cold and formal logic; but the subtilties of dialectics and the forms of logic may play as fantastic tricks with truth as the most potent magic of Fancy. The attempt to apply mathematical precision to moral truth is always a failure, and generally a dangerous one. If man, and especially masses of men, were purely intellectual, then cold reason would alone be influential to convince — but our nature is most complex, and many of the great truths which it most concerns us to know are taught us by our instincts, our sentiments, our impulses, and our passions. Even in regard to the highest and holiest of all truths, to know which concerns us here and hereafter, we are not permitted to approach its in- vestigation in the confidence of proud and erring reason, but are taught to become as little children, before we are worthy to receive it. It is to this complex nature that the speaker ad- dresses himself, and the degrees of power with which all the ele- ments are evoked is the criterion of the orator. His business, to be sure, is to convince, but more to persuade; and most of all, to inspire with noble and generous passions. THE DEAD OF MOBILE. 229 It is the cant of criticism, in all ages, to make a distinction between logic and eloquence, and to stigmatize the latter as declamation. Logic ascertains the weight of an argument, Eloquence gives it momentum. The difference is that between the vis inertia of a mass of metal, and the same ball hurled from the cannon's mouth. Eloquence is an argument alive and in motion— the statue of Pygmalion, inspired with vitality. WILLIAM C. PRESTON. William Campbell Prestok, statesman, was born in Philadelphia, December 27, 1794, while his father, who was a member of Congress from Virginia, was attending a ses- sion of that body. He graduated at South Carolina College, read law in Virginia, spent several years in Europe, and attended lectures in the University of Edinburgh. In 1819 he returned to \'irginia, and the next year was admitted to the bar. He now settled in South Carolina, and rapidly gained distinction as a public speaker, was sent to the Legislature, and became one of the leaders of the nullification party; in 1836 was elected to the U. S. Senate, but differing from his colleague and his constituents in re- gard to supporting Van Buren, he resigned and resumed the practice of law. He was President of South Carolina College (1845-51), and established the Columbia Lyceum, giving it his library of 3,000 volumes. His death occurred at Columbia, S. C, May 22, i86o. THE DEAD OF MOBILE. ROBINSON, Lude, Armistead, Summers, Jewett, O'Brien, Kennedy, Drummond, Booth! Friends, brethren, com- rades, and countrymen! Shining marks for the arrows of Death! Men who combined, in various degrees and proportions, the knightly virtues of the cavalier with the cultivated tastes of the scholar and the unselfish heroism of the patriot! They were all cut off in the bloom of youth, or the vigor of early manhood; but let us not lament their fate too deeply. They were spared — most of them — the spectacle of a conquered, crushed, and prostrate country; the experience of broken hopes, blighted homes, and shattered fortunes. They have not lived to witness, as we have, the subversion of sound and wholesome social order, and the ///version of all correct ideas of truth, honor, loyalty, and duty; to see the lowest of the land in lofty station, and the high-hearted and the faithful trodden in the dust; to learn that success is the test of truth, diVid penitence the fit atone- 230 READING AND ORATORY. ment for failure; that fidelity to the principal is foul treason to the agent; and that loyalty to the mother is rank rebellion against the nurse. They have not been called — harder and sadder still — to meet, in time of trial, averted looks and cold and formal courtesy from familiar friends in whom they trusted; or to see others, who had bravely borne the perils of fire and sword, yielding to the trials of poverty or the temptations of pelf, and bartering their own glorious birthright and their children's heritage of honor for a platter of dirty pottage I Their memory is not branded with the mockery of pay-don — pardon for duty faith- fully done! No, sir, they have gone, with Sidney Johnston, and Stonewall Jackson, and Polk, and Rhodes, and Hill, and our own Gracie, and a long array of others, to swell the shining host of the Unpardoned! W. T. WALTHALL. THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY. THE knightliest of the knightly race, Who, since the days of old, Have kept the lamp of chivalry Alight in hearts of gold; The kindliest of the kindly band. Who, rarely hating ease. Yet rode with Spottswood round the land, And Raleigh round the seas: Who climbed the blue, embattled hills, Against uncounted foes, And planted there in valleys fair The lily and the rose; Whose fragrance lives in many lands. Whose beauty stars the earth, And lights the hearths of happy homes . With loveliness and worth; TAKiNc; i.K.wi; (»i niK si:\ati:. 231 : We thought tht-y slept! — the sons who kept The names of noble sires — And shimhered while the darkness crept Around their vigil (ires. But still the Golden Horseshoe Knights Their Old Dominion keep, Whose foes have found enchanted ground, lUit not a knight asleep! k. o. ticknor. Dr. Francis Ohki'.kv Ticknor was born in Haldwin Co., Georgia, in 1823, antl cllcfl in t^olumbus, (ia., where he had resii)^frx, Siiiihldiit scul tiiiir la < ltaiiif