Read Ebook: The Atlantic Monthly Volume 11 No. 65 March 1863 A Magazine of Literature Art and Politics by Various

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

CHRISTOPHER NORTH.

Plutarch, when about to enter upon the crowded lives of Alexander and Caesar, declares his purpose and sets forth the true nature and province of biography in these words:--"It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore, as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others."

Christopher North--Heaven be praised!--was not an "historic force." He was a good many things, but not that. And so it was always pleasant to read him and about him. He was so completely vital and individual, that nothing that concerned him ever lacked in human interest. The world has known him for a long time, and has lost nothing by the acquaintance. Latterly it has come to know him better than before in his character of citizen, son, husband, and father; and it has come to the sage conclusion that even as a family-man he was not quite so bad, after all. It is a great relief to know at last that Christopher was throughout consistent,--that the child was father to the man. One of his first exploits was fishing with a bent pin. Another was to preach a little sermon on a naughty fish. The "application," though brief, was earnest. To the infant expounder, the subject of his discourse doubtless appeared in the guise of a piscatorial Cockney. After many other the like foreshadowings, and after draining dry his native village, he went, when twelve years of age, to Glasgow University. Professor Jardine, who then held the chair of Logic, was fully alive to the rare promise of his pupil, and said of him subsequently,--"He lived in my family during the whole course of his studies at Glasgow, and the general superintendence of his education was committed to me; and it is but justice to him to declare, that during my long experience I never had a pupil who discovered more genius, more ardor, or more active and persevering diligence." But his ardor was not limited to philosophy and the humanities; his powers required a larger field than the curriculum. He walked, ran, wrestled, boxed, boated, fished, wrote poetry, played the flute, danced, kept a careful diary, and read largely. Even at this early age, he felt the merit of the then unappreciated Wordsworth, and, on the appearance of the "Lyrical Ballads," wrote the author a letter expressive of his admiration.

In 1803, Wilson, now eighteen, was transferred to Oxford as a Gentleman Commoner of Magdalen. And surely never lighted on the Oxford orb so glorious a vision, or such a bewildering phenomenon. He was, indeed,

"Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno."

Never were such "constitutionals" known, even at old Oxford. He would wander away alone, sometimes for many days, tramping over the country leagues and leagues away, making the earth tremble with his heavy tread, and distancing everything with his long, untiring stride. Then, on his return, he would be the prince of good-fellows once more, and fascinate the merry revellers with the witchery of his tongue. Even when a boy, he had won a bet by walking six miles in two minutes less than an hour. He once dined in Grosvenor Square, and made his appearance at Oxford at an early hour the next morning, having walked the fifty-eight miles at a tremendous pace. In his vacations, he walked over all the Lake region of England, the North of Scotland, and the greater part of Wales. On finishing his course at Oxford, he went on foot to Edinburgh,--more than three hundred miles. He was equally remarkable as a leaper, surpassing all competitors. He once jumped across the Cherwell--twenty-three feet clear--with a run of only a few yards. This is, we believe, the greatest feat of the kind on record. General Washington, it is known, had great powers in this way; but the greatest distance ever leaped by him, if we remember right, was but twenty-one feet.

The many vagaries into which he was led, and the innumerable odd pranks he played, would be sufficient, in the case of any one else, to prove that he was not a reading man. But not so with Wilson. One of his contemporaries at Oxford thus described him:--"Wilson read hard, lived hard, but never ran into vulgar or vicious dissipation. He talked well, and loved to talk. Such gushes of poetic eloquence as I have heard from his lips,--I doubt whether Jeremy Taylor himself, could he speak as well as he wrote, could have kept up with him. Every one anticipated his doing well, whatever profession he might adopt, and when he left us, old Oxford seemed as if a shadow had fallen upon its beauty." Wilson himself confessed that he yielded, for a short time, to "unbridled dissipation," seeking solace for the agony he experienced from the conduct of his stern mother, who ruthlessly nipped in the bud his affection for a bonny lass at Dychmont. He might have used the very words of Gibbon, whose father nipped, in a similar way, his attachment for Mademoiselle Susan Curchod, afterward Madame Necker:--"After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate: I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son; my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life." It is difficult to conceive of Gibbon's wound as a deep one, or of his struggle as painful. But Wilson, whose affections were far stronger, suffered much. He almost made up his mind to run away to Timbuctoo, with Mungo Park; and his deep gloom showed how the iron had entered his soul. But time and absence and new habits healed his wound, as well as Gibbon's, without a journey to Africa.

We mentioned above that Wilson carried off the Newdigate prize for the best poem, in 1806. His subject was, "Painting, Poetry, and Architecture." He professed, in general, to put a very low estimate on college prize-poems, and rated his own so low that he would not allow it to be published with his subsequent poems. But in the "Noctes Ambrosianae" for October, 1825, he was not above saying a good word in favor of these much-berated effusions, as follows:--

Heber was a contemporary and friend of Wilson at Oxford; as was also Lockhart, among others. The distant See of Calcutta interrupted the intercourse of the former, in after-life, while Maga and party bound the latter still closer to his old college-friend. One of Wilson's college-mates has given an odd anecdote descriptive of his appearance at their social gatherings:--

"I shall never forget his figure, sitting with a long earthen pipe, a great tie-wig on. Those wigs had descended, I fancy, from the days of Addison, and were worn by us all, when smoking commenced after supper; and a strange appearance we made in them."

"And yet, with his creed, what might not a great poet have done? That the language of poetry is but the language of strong human passion! ... And what, pray, has he made out of this true and philosophical creed? A few ballads, two or three moral fables, some natural description of scenery, and half a dozen narratives of common distress or happiness. Not one single character has he created, not one incident, not one tragical catastrophe. He has thrown no light on man's estate here below; and Crabbe, with all his defects, stands immeasurably above Wordsworth as the Poet of the Poor ... I confess that the 'Excursion' is the worst poem, of any character, in the English language. It contains about two hundred sonorous lines, some of which appear to be fine, even in the sense, as well as the sound. The remaining seven thousand three hundred are quite ineffectual. Then what labor the builder of that lofty rhyme must have undergone! It is, in its own way, a small Tower of Babel, and all built by a single man."

Christopher was surely in the dumps, when he wrote thus: he was soured by an Edinburgh study. After a run in the crisp air of the moors, he would never have written such atrabilious criticism of a poet whom he admired highly, for it was not honestly in the natural man. Neither his postulates nor his inferences are quite correct. It is incorrect to say that the poet's creed was a true one; that, with it, he might have been a great poet; but that, from not making the most of it, he was a bad one. De Quincey's position, we think, was the only true one: that Wordsworth's poetic creed was radically false,--a creed more honored in the breach than the observance,--a creed good on paper only; that its author, though professing, did in fact never follow it; that, with it, he could never have been a great poet; and that, without it, he was really great.

In 1811, he married Miss Jane Penny, of Ambleside, described as the belle of that region,--a woman of rare beauty of mind and person, gentle, true, and loving. She was either a pedestrian by nature, or converted by the arguments of her husband; for, a few years after marriage, they took a long, leisurely stroll on foot among the Highlands, making some three hundred and fifty miles in seven weeks. The union of these two bright spirits was singularly happy and congenial,--a pleasing exception to the long list of mismated authors. Nought was known between them but the tenderest attachment and unwearied devotion to each other. For nearly forty years they were true lovers; and when death took her, a void was left which nothing could fill. The bereaved survivor mourned her sincerely for more than seventeen years,--never, for an instant, forgetting her, until his own summons came. Some one has related the following touching incident. "When Wilson first met his class, in the University, after his wife's death, he had to adjudicate on the comparative merits of various essays which had been sent in on competition for a prize. He bowed to his class, and, in as firm voice as he could command, apologized for not having examined the essays,--'for,' said he, 'I could not see to read them in the darkness of the shadow of the Valley of Death.' As he spoke, the tears rolled down his cheeks; he said no more, but waved his hand to his class, who stood up as he concluded and hurried out of the lecture-room."

The joys of Elleray were destined to be fleeting. The fortune of its master was melted away by the mismanagement of others, leaving him but a slender pittance. He bore his loss like a man, sorrowing, but not repining. The estate was given up, and a new home found with his mother, in Edinburgh. This was in 1815. Four years later, fortune had smiled on his cheerful labors, and given him the wherewithal to provide a home of his own for his wife and little ones,--the well-known house in Anne Street, which was for so many years the abode of domestic joys, the shrine of literature, the centre of friendship and hospitality. On his arrival at Edinburgh, Wilson, already famous, though young, finding fame an unsubstantial portion for a man with a family, looked about him for something more tangible, and determined to get his livelihood by the law. Kit North a lawyer, eating bread earned by legal sweat! The very idea seems comical enough. Yet it cannot be doubted, that, with his intellect, energy, eloquence, and capacity for work, he would, when driven to concentration and persistence by the spurs of necessity, duty, and affection, have run his race manfully, and reached the goal with the very foremost. Happily the question is an open one, for his affairs took another turn, which may have given Scotland one legal lord the less. For some time the briefless barrister diligently frequented the Edinburgh courts, on the lookout for business. If he had few cases, he had excellent company in another "limb," of his own kidney, John Gibson Lockhart. These two roystering pundits, having little to do, filled up their moments mainly with much fun, keeping their faculties on the alert for whatever might turn up. The thing that soon turned up was "Blackwood."

The "Edinburgh Review"--the first in the field of the modern politico-literary periodicals--commenced its career in 1802, under the leadership of Brougham, Sydney Smith, Jeffrey, and Horner, all stanch Whigs. At first, literature had the second place, while politics occupied the chief seat; though in later years their relative positions have been reversed. Then, the one great thing in view was to have an able party-organ, the fearless champion of a certain policy in matters of State. The Whigs must be glorified, and the Tories put down, at all events, whatever else might be done. The rejoicings of the former, and the discomfiture of the latter, soon bore witness to the ability and success of this new-fledged champion. But this one-sided state of things could not continue always. The Tories, too, must have a mouth-piece to testify of their devotion to "the good old cause," and silence the clamors of their opponents. Accordingly, in 1809, appeared the "Quarterly Review," with Gifford as editor, and Scott, Southey, Croker, Canning, and others, as chief contributors. Under the conduct of such men, it became at once an organ of great power, yet still not quite what was wanted. It did not seem to meet entirely the demands of the case. It had not the wit, pungency, and facility of its rival, and failed of securing so general a popularity. Its learning and gravity made it better suited to be the oracle of scholars than the organ of a party. Compared with its adversary across the Tweed, it was like a ponderous knight, cased in complete steel, attacking an agile, light-armed Moorish cavalier; or, to use Ben Jonson's illustration, like a Spanish great galleon opposed to the facile manoeuvres of a British man-of-war. For such an enemy there were needed other weapons. Well might the Tories say,--

"Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis Tempos eget."

Though never really the editor of "Blackwood," Wilson was from the first its guiding spirit,--the leaven that leavened the whole lump. The way in which he threw himself into his work he described as follows:--"We love to do our work by fits and starts. We hate to keep fiddling away, an hour or two at a time, at one article for weeks. So off with our coat, and at it like a blacksmith. When we once get the way of it, hand over hip, we laugh at Vulcan and all his Cyclops. From nine of the morning till nine at night, we keep hammering away at the metal, iron or gold, till we produce a most beautiful article. A biscuit and a glass of Madeira, twice or thrice at the most,--and then to a well-won dinner. In three days, gentle reader, have We, Christopher North, often produced a whole magazine,--a most splendid number. For the next three weeks we were as idle as a desert, and as vast as an antre,--and thus on we go, alternately laboring like an ant, and relaxing in the sunny air like a dragon-fly, enamored of extremes." Of all his contributions, we think the "Noctes Ambrosianae" give by far the best idea of their author. They are perfectly characteristic throughout, though singularly various. Every mood of the man is apparent; and hardly anything is touched which is not adorned. Their pages reveal in turn the poet, the philosopher, the scholar, and the pugilist. Though continued during thirteen years, their freshness does not wither. To this day we find the series delightful reading: we can always find something to our taste, whether we crave fish, flesh, or fowl. Whether we lounge in the sanctum, or roam over the moors, we feel the spirit of Christopher always with us.

It has been attempted, on Wilson's behalf, to excuse the fierce criticism and violent personality of Maga in its early days, on the plea that his influence over that periodical was less then than afterwards,--and that, as his control increased, the bitterness decreased. This is a special plea which cannot be allowed. The magazine was moulded, from the beginning, more by Wilson than by all others. If personalities had been offensive to him, they would not have been inserted, except in a limited degree. Lockhart, it is true, was far more bitter, but his influence was less. He could never have been successful in running counter to Wilson. Besides, though Wilson's nominal power might have been greater in the control of the magazine in later years, it was virtually but little, if at all, increased. The fact is, these onslaughts were perfectly congenial to his nature at that time.

Much allowance must be made for the altered spirit of the times. A generation or two ago, there was everywhere far more of rancor and less of decorum in the treatment of politics and criticism than would now be tolerated. All the world permitted and expected strong partisanship, bitter personality, and downright abuse. They would have called our more sober reticence by the name of feebleness: their truculence we stigmatize as slander and Billingsgate. Wilson was an extremist in everything; yet he strained but a point or two beyond his fellows. When the tide of party began gradually to subside, he fell with it. Mrs. Gordon has given a very correct picture of the state of things in those days:--

In 1820 Wilson was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh,--an office which he held for more than thirty years. The rival candidate was his friend, Sir William Hamilton, a firm Whig; and the canvass, which was purely a political one, was more fiery than philosophic. Wilson's character was the grand object of attack and defence, and round it all the hard fighting was done. Though it was pure and blameless, it offered some points which an unscrupulous adversary might readily misconstrue, with some show of plausibility. His free, erratic life, his little imprudences, his unguarded expressions, and the reckless "Chaldee MS.," might, with a little twisting, be turned to handles of offence, and wrested to his disadvantage. But the fanatic zeal of his opponents could not rest till their accusations had run through nearly the whole gamut of immoralities. He was not only a blasphemer towards God, but corrupt to wife and children. It seems comical enough at this day that he was obliged to bolster up his cause by sending round to his respectable acquaintances for certificates of good moral character. When at last he triumphed by a greater than two-thirds vote, an attempt was made to reconsider; but the new Professor held his own, and the factious were drowned in hisses.

His personal relations to his pupils were singularly happy. A strange charm went out from his presence at all times, which fascinated all, and drew them to him. Their enthusiasm and love for him have been spoken of as "something more to be thought of than the proudest literary fame." "As he spoke, the bright blue eye looked with a strange gaze into vacancy, sometimes darkening before a rush of indignant eloquence; the tremulous upper lip curving with every wave of thought or hint of passion; and the golden gray hair floating on the old man's mighty shoulders,--if, indeed, that could be called age which seemed but the immortality of a more majestic youth." In his lecture-room utterances, there was an undue preponderance of rhetoric, declamation, and sentiment over logic, analysis, and philosophy. Yet he once said of himself, that he was "thoroughly logical and argumentative; not a rhetorician, as fools aver." Whether this estimate was right or wrong in the main may be a matter of question: we think it wrong. His genius, in our view, lay rather in pictorial passion than in ratiocination. At all events, as a teacher of philosophy, it appears to us that his conception of the duties of his office, and his style of teaching, were far inferior to those of his competitor and subsequent associate, Sir William Hamilton. The one taught like a trumpet-tongued poet, and the other like an encyclopaedic philosopher. The personal magnetism of the former led captive the feelings, while the sober arguments of the latter laid siege to the understanding. The great fact which impressed Wilson's students was his overpowering oratory, and not his particular theory, or his train of reasoning. One of them compares the nature of his eloquence with that of the leading orators of his day, and thinks that in absolute power over the hearers it was greater than that of any other. The matter, too, as well as the manner of the lectures, receives commendation at the hands of this enthusiastic disciple. He says,--"It was something to have seen Professor Wilson,--this all confessed; but it was something also, and more than is generally understood, to have studied under him. Nothing now remains of the Professor's long series of lectures save a brief fragment or two. Here and there some pupil may be found, who has treasured up these Orphic sayings in his memory or his note-book; but to the world at large these utterances will be always unknown."

We have been considerably disappointed in Wilson's "Letters." We looked for something racy, having the full flavor of the author's best spirits. We found them plain matter-of-fact, not what we should term at all characteristic. Perhaps it was more natural that they should be of this sort. Letters are generally vent-holes for what does not escape elsewhere. Literary men, who are at the same time men of action, seldom write as good letters as do their more quiet brethren. And this is because they have so many more ways open to them of sending out what lies within. They are depleted of almost all that is purely distinctive and personal, long before they sit down to pen an epistle to a friend. The formula might be laid down,--Given any man, and the quality of his correspondence will vary inversely as the quantity of his expression in all other directions. If, Wilson being the same man, fortune had hemmed him in, and contracted his sphere of action,--or if, as author, he had devoted himself to works of solid learning, instead of to the airy pages of "Blackwood,"--the sprightly humor and broad hilarity that were in him would have bubbled out in these "Letters," and the "Noctes" and the "Recreations" would have been a song unsung.

An anecdote of De Quincey, given by Wilson's biographer, is worth repeating. He and Wilson were warm friends during many long years, and innumerable were the sessions in which they met together to hold high converse. One stormy night the philosophic dreamer made his appearance at the residence of his friend the Professor, in Gloucester Place. The war of the elements increased to such a pitch, that the guest was induced to pass the night in his new quarters. Though the storm soon subsided, not so with the "Opium-Eater." The visit, begun from necessity, was continued from choice, until the revolving days had nearly made up the full year. He bothered himself but little with the family-arrangements, but dined in his own room, often turning night into day. His repast always consisted of coffee, boiled rice and milk, and mutton from the loin. Every day be sent for the cook, and solemnly gave her his instructions. The poor creature was utterly overwhelmed by his grave courtesy and his "awfu' sicht of words." Well she might be, for he addressed her in such terms as these:--"Owing to dyspepsia affecting my system, and the possibility of an additional disarrangement of the stomach taking place, consequences incalculably distressing would arise, so much so, indeed, as to increase nervous irritation, and prevent me from attending to matters of overwhelming importance, if you do not remember to cut the mutton in a diagonal, rather than a longitudinal form."

The picture of the aged Christopher, sitting by his own fireside, and surrounded by his grandchildren, is a charming one. He always loved to be with and to play with children,--a trait which he had in common with Agesilaus, Nelson, Burke, Napoleon, Wellington, and many others to whom was given the spirit of authority. As he grew old, he became passionately fond of the little men and women, and his affection was reciprocated. It was rare sport, when grandpapa kept open doors, and summoned the youthful company into his room. There were games, and stories, and sweetmeats, and presents. Sometimes notable feasts were set out, to which the little mouths did large justice, while the stalwart host took the part of waiter, and decorously responded to every wish. Of course, he played at fishing; for what would Christopher be without a hook? When an infant, he fished with thread and pin: when age had crippled him, the ruling passion still led him to limp into deep waters on a crutch, and cast out as of yore. So he and the youngsters angled for imaginary trouts, with imaginary rods, lines, and flies, out of imaginary boats floating in imaginary lochs. And whether there were silly nibbles or sturdy bites, all agreed that they had glorious sport.

"With sports like these were all their cares beguiled; The sports of children satisfy the child."

And--the poet might have added--they often do much to satisfy the child of larger growth. It was thus that the old man kept alive the embers of his youth.

Charles Lamb once, considering whom of the world's vanished worthies he would rather evoke, singled out Fulke Greville, and also--if our memory is correct--Sir Thomas Browne. He thought, very sensibly, that any reasonable human being, if permitted to summon spirits from the vasty deep, would base his choice upon personal qualities, and not on mere general reputation. There would be an elective affinity, a principle of natural selection, by which each would aim to draw forth a spirit to his liking. One would not summon the author of such and such a book, but this or that man. Milton wrote an admirable epic, but he would be awful in society. Shakspeare was a splendid dramatist, but one would hardly ask him for a boon-companion. Who could feel at ease under that omniscient eye? But, if the Plutonian shore might, for a few brief moments, render to our call its waiting shades, there are not very many for whom our lips would sooner syllable the word of resurrection than for Christopher North. Only to look upon him in his prime would be worth much. To have a day with him on the moors, or an ambrosial night, would be a possession forever.

Even now we can almost see him standing radiant before us, illuminated and transfigured by the halo streaming round him. A huge man, towering far above his fellows; with Herculean shoulders, deep chest, broad back, sturdy neck, brawny arms, and massive fists; a being with vast muscle and tense nerve; of choicest make, and finest tone and temper,--robust and fine, bulky and sinewy, ponderous and agile, stalwart and elastic; a hammer to give, and a rock to receive blows; with the light tread of the deer, and the fell paw of the lion; crowned with a dome-like head, firm-set, capacious, distinctive, cleanly cut, and covered with long, flowing, yellow hair; a forehead broad, high, and rounded, strongly and equally marked by perception and imagination, wit and fancy; light blue eyes, capable of every expression, and varying with every mood, but generally having a far, dim, dreamy look into vacancy,--the gaze of the poet seeing visions; a firm, high, aquiline nose, indicating both intellect and spirit; flexile lips, bending to every breath of passion; a voice of singular compass and pliancy, responding justly to all his wayward humors and all his noble thoughts, now tremulous with tender passion, now rough with a partisan's fury; a man of strange contradictions and inconsistencies every way; a hand of iron with a glove of silk; a tiger's claw sheathed in velvet; one who fought lovingly, and loved fiercely; champion of the arena, passionate poet, chastiser of brutes, caresser of children, friend of brawlers, lover of beauty; a pugilistic Professor of Moral Philosophy, who, in a thoroughly professional way, gayly put up his hands and scientifically floored his man in open day, at a public fair; sometimes of the oak, sometimes of the willow; now bearing grief without a murmur, now howling in his pain like the old gods and heroes, making all Nature resonant with his cries; knowing nothing of envy save from the reports of others, yet never content to be outdone even in veriest trifles; a tropical heart and a cool brain; full of strong prejudices and fine charities, generous and exacting, heedless and sympathetic, quick to forgive, slow to resent, firm in love, transient in hate; to-day scaling the heavens with frantic zeal, to-morrow relaxing in long torpor; fond of long, solitary journeys, and given to conviviality; tender eyes that a word or a thought would fill, and hard lips that would never say die; a child of Nature thrilled with ecstasy by storm and by sunshine, and a cultured scholar hungering for new banquets; dreamer, doer, poet, philosopher, simple child, wisest patriarch; a true cosmopolitan, having largest aptitudes,--a tree whose roots sucked up juices from all the land, whose liberal fruits were showered all around; having a key to unlock all hearts, and a treasure for each; hospitable friend, husband-lover, doting father; a boisterous wit, fantastic humorist, master of pathos, practical joker, sincere mourner; always an extremist, yielding to various excess; an April day, all smiles and tears; January and May met together; a many-sided fanatic; a universal enthusiast; a large-hearted sectarian; a hot-headed judge; a strong sketch full of color, with neutral tints nowhere, but fall of fiery lights and deep glooms; buoyant, irrepressible, fuming, rampant, with something of divine passion and electric fire; gentle, earnest, true; a wayward prodigal, loosely scattering abroad where he should bring together; great in things indifferent, and indifferent in many great ones; a man who would have been far greater, if he had been much less,--if he had been less catholic and more specific; immeasurably greater in his own personality than in any or all of his deeds either actual or possible;--such was the man Christopher North, a Hercules-Apollo, strong and immortally beautiful,--a man whom, with all his foibles, negligences, and ignorances, we stop to admire, and stay to love.

"CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE."

Yes, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you hate The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne-shaking State! The night-birds dread morning,--your instinct is true,-- The day-star of Freedom brings midnight for you!

Why plead with the deaf for the cause of mankind? The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is blind! "We ask not your reasons,--'t were wasting our time,-- Our life is a menace, our welfare a crime!

"We have battles to fight, we have foes to subdue,-- Time waits not for us, and we wait not for you! The mower mows on, though the adder may writhe And the copper-head coil round the blade of his scythe!

"No sides in this quarrel," your statesmen may urge, Of school-house and wages with slave-pen and scourge!-- No sides in the quarrel! proclaim it as well To the angels that fight with the legions of hell!

They kneel in God's temple, the North and the South, With blood on each weapon and prayers in each mouth. Whose cry shall be answered? Ye Heavens, attend The lords of the lash as their voices ascend!

So pleads the proud planter. What echoes are these? The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the breeze, And, lost in the shriek of his victim's despair, His voice dies unheard.--Hear the Puritan's prayer!

"O Lord, that didst smother mankind in Thy flood, The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as blood, The stars fall to earth as untimely are cast The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in the blast!

"All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is breath, Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with Death! Lord, strangle the monster that struggles to birth, Or mock us no more with Thy 'Kingdom on Earth'!

"If Ammon and Moab must reign in the land Thou gavest Thine Israel, fresh from Thy hand, Call Ba?l and Ashtaroth out of their graves To be the new gods for the empire of slaves!"

Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men? Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder's den? Or bow with the children of light, as they call On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All?

Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace,-- Each day is an age in the life of our race! Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle the sphere!

THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.

INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY--THE SLAVE-TRADE--AFRICAN TRIBES--THE CODE NOIR--THE MULATTOES.

It will be necessary for the present to omit the story of the settlement and growth of the French Colony, and of the pernicious commercial restrictions which swelled the unhappy heritage of the island, in order that we may reach, in this and a succeeding article, the great points of interest connected with the Negro, his relation to the Colony and complicity with its final overthrow.

The next task essential to our plan is to trace the entrance of Negro Slavery into the French part of the island, to describe the victims, and the legislation which their case inspired.

The first French Company which undertook a regular trade with the west coast of Africa was an association of merchants of Dieppe, without authority or privileges. They settled a little island in the Senegal, which was called St. Louis. This property soon passed into the hands of a more formal association of Rouen merchants, who carried on the trade till 1664, the date of the establishment of the West-India Company, to which they were obliged to sell their privileges for one hundred and fifty thousand livres. This great Company managed its African business so badly, that it was withdrawn from their hands in 1673, and made over as a special interest to a Senegal Company. The trade, in palm-oil, ivory, etc., was principally with France, and negro slaves for the colonies do not yet appear in numbers to attract attention. But in 1679 this Company engaged with the Crown to deliver yearly, for a term of eight years, two thousand negroes, to be distributed among the French Antilles. This displaced a previous engagement, made in 1675, for the delivery of eight hundred negroes. The Company had also to furnish as many negroes for the galleys at Marseilles as His Majesty should find convenient. And the Crown offered a bounty of thirteen livres per head for every negro, to be paid in "pieces of India."

This is a famous phrase in the early annals of the slave-trade. Reckoning by "pieces" was customary in the transaction of business upon the coast of Africa. Merchandise, provisions, and presents to the native princes had their value thus expressed, as well as slaves. If the negro merchant asked ten pieces for a slave, the European trader offered his wares divided into ten portions, each portion being regarded as a "piece," without counting the parts which made it up. Thus, ten coarse blankets made one piece, a musket one piece, a keg of powder weighing ten pounds was one, a piece of East-India blue calico four pieces, ten copper kettles one piece, one piece of chintz two pieces, which made the ten for which the slave was exchangeable: and at length he became commercially known as a "piece of India." The bounty of thirteen livres was computed in France upon the wholesale value of the trinkets and notions which were used in trade with Africa.

The traffic by pieces is as old as the age of Herodotus; it was originally a dumb show of goods between two trading parties ignorant of each other's language, but at length it represented a transaction which the parties should have been ashamed to mention.

So a free-trade in negroes became at last a national necessity. Various companies, however, continued to hold or to procure trading privileges, as the merchants were not restrained from engaging in commerce in such ways as they preferred. The Cape-Verde, the South-Sea, the Mississippi or Louisiana, and the San-Domingo Companies tried their fortunes still. But they were all displaced, and free-trade itself was swallowed up, by the union of all the French Antilles under the great West-India Company of 1716. This was hardly done before the Government discovered that the supply of negroes was again diminishing, partly because so extensive a company could not undertake the peculiar risks and expenses of a traffic in slaves. So in the matter of negroes alone trade was once more declared free in 1741, burdened only with a certain tax upon every slave imported.

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