Such were the first tidings of the war, received Among ourselves, of late, mysticism has in England in four days, and in Scotland in six, appeared in opposition to scriptural religion. would have brought in as many minutes. The which, had they then been known, electric wires In England, Mr. Newman-in America, author witnessed the effect of the news in EdinTheodore Parker and Emerson, exalt the re-burgh. It met him as he entered the outer hall ligious sentiment above the Bible-question of the courts of law, still called the Parliament the possibility of a written revelation an-House, from having been the hall of the Scottish nounce the doctrine of disinterested love once Parliament, before the Union. The unwonted propose to realize eternity in the words were passing from mouth to mouthpresent, by rising above the meanness of fear, Wellington is defeated! He has retreated to and the selfishness of hope and, in the name a place called Waterloo! The game is up! of the spirit against the letter, defend their The hero of a hundred fights quails before the own opinions as true spirituality, and assail eagles of Napoleon! The Prussian army is those of others as a corrupt literalism. annihilated!" And thus and thus was Pandora's box emptied :

by sympathies. With the novel of Mrs. Stowe many would agree and would sympathize, who will not agree with many of the deductions of her treatise.

man, perish. Had he been found in America, as were the Indians, he would have been extirpated; and in America he can only live as the slave of the white man, whom his slavery injures. The free white States make MYSTERIOUS MUSIC. One Sunday afternoon, a much more rapid progress in knowledge, skill, and power than the slave States. during a pause in a rain-storm which had lasted But for the continued growth of knowledge in the Genevese and I had been fiddling and talking, for six or seven hours, and during which the free States, the slave States would be no and reading and dining together, he took occabetter than the West India Islands. Hence sion to remark upon my fondness for music, and it may be concluded that those who advocate said he could gratify it in an extraordinary way the superiority of the white race as a decree if he thought fit. I begged him to explain himof Providence, counteract its consequences self. He was in no hurry to do so; but, after when they make slaves of the blacks and some coquetting and delay, rose from his seat, preserve them, instead of allowing the white and taking a large cloak from a peg in the wall, race to plough them or eat them, as they laid it open upon the bed, and then locking the have done the Indians, out of the land. On door and closing the window-shutters, to exclude, the admitted principle that there is a differ- as he said, even the slightest sound, seated me ence and a superiority of races, it cannot be upon the cloak, sat himself down as close to me said, as the partisans of abolition say, that heads. Then placing his lips close to my ear he as possible, and pulled the hood over both our the negroes should be placed on an equality said: "You must not speak - you must hardly with the whites. They are not placed on an breathe. Listen!"' I held my breath, and equality in the Northern States, where slavery listened curiously for the best part of a minute does not exist - they are not equal in Eng- before I was aware of any sound, and was just land and Africa and no laws, no institu- going to break the silence, when a small, but tions, no manners, can make them equal. piercingly shrill strain seemed to traverse the To many people, accordingly, what Mrs. very innermost chambers of my brain. I was Stowe has written on the subject will appear not aware of the precise moment when it coman idle tirade. It excites ridicule in the menced, but I perceived instantly that it was States, and weakens her cause. She enlisted accompanied by another note harmonizing with our sympathies by her novel; she will not be it, produced by different mechanical means, and as successful in captivating our reason by her a twelfth lower. The shrill treble ran dancing treatise, political, theological, and philosoph-prehensive gamut, in a kind of fantastic variawith inconceivable rapidity up and down a comical. It is undoubtedly a great storehouse tions upon some popular air, which I could idenof facts showing the bearings of slavery. It tify; while the accompanying bass, which leaves slavery without the shadow of an excuse or defence-it lays bare its horrible cruelties and its manifold vices; but it does not inform the Americans how they are to get rid of slavery, nor satisfy us that the whites and the negroes can coexist in the same space except in that or a similar relation. In Barbadoes, where the two races do exist without nominal slavery, the bulk of the blacks are The notation of the treble, which at the tenants of the whites, and kept in obedifirst hearing had seemed to glide up and down, ence by white power. The alternatives are became by degrees distinct and articulate as slavery of the inferior race, or extirpation, that of a flageolet, to which, however, it bore no or an intermingling of blood, which, with the sort of resemblance, and the sustained notes of Africans, seems not feasible. As negroes the bass assumed a triumphant, pealing tone, have been carried to America and allowed to which thrilled me with delight. When at length increase under the protection of the white the strain suddenly ceased, and the Genevese, races, to extirpate them seems impossible, throwing off the cloak, sprang up and opened the and therefore slavery is, and, we are afraid, window-shutters, it was some time before I could must be, continued. At the same time there recollect where I was. He laughed at my emis no necessity to enforce that by law which barrassment, and, upon my complimenting him exists as fact; and all laws which encourage upon the beauty and delicacy of the performance or protect individual whites in the commission I had heard, asked me whether I could show As he confessed of cruelty ought to be put down. Inequality that, without the precautions we had taken, the him how to turn it to account. is not incompatible with kindness; it implies music would have been inaudible, and that the it, and kindness seems better than extirpa- hum of the smallest fly would have drowned the tion. The slaveholders must be rather en- whole, I was forced to acknowledge that I could couraged to mitigate slavery than terrified see no mode of making such a species of harmony into enforcing it. The question in the United marketable. The Working-man's Way in States is an all-important one, not to be solved the World.

might be compared for continuity to the drone of a bagpipe, but which, unlike that, was " musical as was Apollo's lute," though limited apparently to five or six notes, gave the successive intonations with all the precision and certainty of an instrument. The longer I listened, the more rapturous was the music, or, which was more probable, the more sensitive my perceptions became, and the better was I qualified to appreciate it.

PART III.

CHAPTER X.

dusk, inquiring if anybody had seen her Jenny, the said Jenny being at that time probably loitering in some shady lane, having round her waist an arm in a scarlet sleeve.

The officers had established their mess in a large room of The Bush, the principal hotel of Doddington. Here, at seven o'clock in the evening, the various individual streams of ennui, imprecation, and desire for excitement, that had meandered wearily through the congenial region during the day, were received into one pond, thus fulfilling the great object of that important military institution, the mess, where warriors, who have been all day trying unsuccessfully to kill time in single combat attempting to ride him downpoking at him with billiard cues, and the like feeble efforts at discomfiting himabled to join forces, and fall upon their enemy in a body.

in Doddington. It was not merely that the soldiers consumed a good deal themselves,. No dragoons had been seen in Doddington but the inns where they were billeted were within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, filled every night with those convivial operaunless the reminiscences of that ancient and tives who came to enjoy military company shadowy personage could extend back to Mon- and conversation; while their wives either mouth's rebellion, when Feversham's horse stood resignedly, like mournful caryatides, had marched through. And when it is re- outside the doors, waiting for their lords and membered what a conspicuous feature her maj- masters, or else disturbed the harmony of the esty's troops, especially the mounted and meetings, by entering and forcibly carrying mustachioed portion, form in societies long off their truant spouses from the society that habituated to their presence, it may be sup- so enthralled them. Dissenting ministers posed that the sensation they created in this grew more energetic in their denunciations of secluded spot was immense, and only to be all pomps and vanities, especially such as paralleled by the commotion which those an- appertain to men of the sword, as their flock cient cavalry the Centaurs caused at Pirithous' diminished in number-for many of their wedding. young female disciples had of late ceased They had been detached to Doddington altogether to wrestle with the spirit; and from the nearest garrison town, in consequence many an anxious old lady might be seen, after of disturbances in the surrounding district. All the place was agog to see them march in. It happened to be a very rainy day, and instead of a splendid, dazzling spectacle, they presented to the sight a long row of bedraggled figures in red cloaks, which half-covered their splashed horses, and which quite concealed the glories of their uniform, trotting in none of the best order along the slippery and puddled street. But two days afterwards, the weather being propitious, they shone forth unclouded on the gaze of the inhabitants, and produced a great revolution in Doddington. The town was never very important in a commercial point of view, but now you would absolutely have supposed that the only remunerative pursuit that people of any trade or profession whatsoever could engage in was looking after the dragoons. Servant-maids were discharged at a moment's warning only to be replaced by others just as love-stricken First at the dinner-hour came Tindal, the and inattentive. The millinery business, so major, who lived in the inn. Smart, tightfar as making anything except love went, was built, and standing on the hearth-rug with at a stand-still; and the members of it went his legs apart, as if there were a horse bedown in public estimation towards zero, ex- tween them, one could almost swear, even actly in the same proportion as they rose in when seeing him on foot, that he was a good favor with the officers. Slander was busy rider an accomplishment by no means so with the names of the prettiest, and even an common as might be presumed in the British ordinary countenance was no protection. Miss cavalry. Tindal was a man who liked to live Bonady, who had superintended the education in a large garrison town, with crack regiments of young ladies in the art of bonnet-making in it, among whom might be got up steeplefor full twenty years, found her time-honored chases, wherein he might distinguish himgood name in a fair way to be blasted; for a self, with a pack or two of fox-hounds within jury of matrons had been impanelled and was reach, a well-appointed mess, and a rubber now sitting on her character. Country lov- of whist afterwards, with dollar points, and a ers, who, up to the advent of the soldiery, fellow sitting by to bet about the odd tricks. had been progressing charmingly with their These tastes, it was pretty clear, would not Dulcineas, suddenly turned green or yellow be gratified in Doddington, and the major in color, and savage in disposition, and took accordingly cursed, in a calm, deliberate to poaching, or enlisted for soldiers; and, sort of way, the hour in which he was sent between agitation and tight-lacing, a vast there. number of children came prematurely into the world, many of whom, of both sexes, were reported to have been born with mustachios. The beer trade began to thrive wonderfully CCCCLXXIV. LIVING AGE. VOL. I.

47

are en

Enter to him Cornet Suckling, who has not been long in the service, and whose upper lip looks like a fragment of the body of a young gosling. The cornet, having heard much of

the major's steeple-chasing exploits, and be- | up to-day as I was poking about an old tower ing (though a weak-minded youth) addicted in the neighborhood of the town. He had to hero-worship, has in secret a great venera- found a large fragment of stone, with an iltion for him, and, while speaking of him in legible inscription on it, and, being a great his absence as 66 Tindal," or "old Tindal," or antiquary, was staggering home under his "that fellow Tindal," shows considerable prize, when I offered to carry it for him. In uneasiness as he approaches the hearth-rug, return, he afforded me such a quantity of whereon the formidable major is planted, and curious information about the antiquities of throws himself into wonderful and unnatural the place, that we became quite friendly on attitudes, in his attempts to appear at ease. the spot. First, he seats himself on the top rail of the back of the chair, and, tilting it over on two legs, rocks himself to and fro, in a manner nervous to behold; then he pauses, and punches the pattern of the carpet with his spur; then stooping his long, awkward form, till his elbow rests on the mantelpiece, he puts his splay foot on the fender, thereby upsetting it, and bringing all the fire-irons clattering down upon Tindal's heels, who, as he shifts his position, damns him internally for a stupid young muff. Tindal does n't like him, and seldom says much to him, except on parade, where he "pitches into" the unfortunate cornet (who has a fretting charger, and doesn't know how to manage him) in a way that would render him desperate, if he had spirit enough to become so.

As he spoke, Mr. Titcherly was announced, and a little old gentleman entered, in an antique suit of black, with shoe-buckles and a brown wig. Mr. Titcherly was the literary lion of Doddington; he was, as Bruce said, of the Dryasdust fraternity, and had devoted his long life to collecting information regarding the antiquities of the town, diving into ancient chronicles, deciphering the inscriptions on old tombstones, and occasionally filling up gaps very ingeniously with theories of his own. In this way he had compiled a complete chronicle of Doddington, from the earliest times down to his own, statistical, descriptive, biographical, and historical, with plates, notes, and a voluminous appendix, for which he had begun to collect materials in his early youth, and had got it finished by his sixty-fifth birth-day, and of which five copies had been sold in thirteen years.

Seager. The latter leers at each officer to whom he is introduced as if he had some secret understanding with him, and stares at little Mr. Titcherly, as if he were some curious fossil; but Tindal being a sporting man, and as there exists a free-masonry among sporting men, he and Seager understand one another at the first glance.

Presently hilarious voices are heard laugh- | ing their way up-stairs, and after a short delay, occasioned by their meeting with a Then came Bagot, bringing with him, acchambermaid on the landing-place, Lieuten-cording to previous notice to Tindal, his friend ants Wylde Oates and Harry Bruce make their appearance. Without much in common, except an immense flow of spirits, these two are generally together. Both of them are sharp lads, and though their method of enjoying life is somewhat riotous, yet they do enjoy it, and will be capital fellows by and by, when the effervescence has subsided, and the liquor has got mellow. In the mean time, they are worth a gross, either of languid, irreproachable endurers of existence, or of fast men with low tastes, for they are a pair of gentlemanly scamps. Oates has a florid face, half-hidden in shirt-collar, in which he affects to imitate his deceased parent, who was a noted sporting character, and broke his neck in riding over a dining-table after dinner for a wager, leaving to Oates, junior, a sorely diminished patrimony and a sporting reputation-two things scarcely susceptible of si- "We won't wait for the other fellows," multaneous improvement. Bruce is handsome said Tindal, as they sat down to table. "Fane and dark, with brown curly hair and brown seldom favors us with his company, and Sloeyes, and a face expressive of good-humor and perton 's always late. I believe he takes a intelligence. They immediately communicate couple of hours to dress. Gad, sir, life 's too the adventures of the day to Tindal, who lis-short for that sort of humbug, in my opintens with grim approval; while Suckling, brightening up, hovers round the outskirts of the conversation, and occasionally fills up an interval with an interjection or an admiring laugh.

"There's a queer old boy coming to dine with me, major," said Bruce. "I picked him

The soup was brought in by the head-waiter of the Bush, a man of dignified deportment and mature years-a man who had waited on peers of the realm, county members, judges, of assize, sheriffs, and the like, with perfect composure and considerable credit, but who had, within the last week, been frequently informed that he was a muff, an impostor, a precious slow old coach, with other vituperative epithets, tending greatly to stagger his self-confidence.

ion."

"By the Lord," said Bagot, "if I was sure of living to the age of what-'s-his-name (that old beggar, you know), I would n't spend a minute more in that way than I do at present, and that's not much. And yet I know some old swells (fellows a precious deal older