The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863

It must be confessed that for a time these expedients were successful. Like another Cassandra predicting the coming disasters of another Troy, the statesman who foresaw and foretold the perils which threatened the nation addressed a careless or contemptuous public. It was in vain to say that the South was determined to rule or ruin the country, in vain to point out the constantly recurring illustrations of the aggressive spirit of Slavery, in vain to urge that every year of delay was but adding to the difficulty of dealing with the gigantic evil. The merchant feared a financial crisis, the repudiation of Southern debts and his own consequent inability to maintain the social position which his easily earned wealth had secured; the politician, who, at the great auction-sales of Northern pride and principle held every four years, had so often sought to outbid his rivals in baseness, that his party or faction might win the Presidential prize, turned pale at the prospect of losing Southern support; the divine could see no danger threatening his country except from the alleged infidelity of a few leading radicals; the timid citizen, with no fixed political opinions, was overawed by the bluster of Southern bullies, shuddered at the sight of pistol and dirk-knife, and only asked "to be let alone"; while the thoughtless votary of fashion, readily accepting the lordly bearing and imperious air of the planter as the highest evidence of genuine aristocracy, reasoned, with the sort of logic which we should look for in such a mind, that slaveholding was the normal condition of an American gentleman.

I will not allude to the views entertained by those men whose ignorance disqualified them from forming an intelligent opinion about our national affairs, and whose votes were always at the service of the highest bidders. You know perfectly well where they were sure to be found, and they exercised no inconsiderable influence on our public policy from year to year. Leaving this class out of the question, our peril arose largely from the fact, that too many men, sensible on other subjects, were fast settling into the conviction, that their wisest course was to be conservative, and that to be conservative was to act with the party which had longest held the reins of power. Their reasoning, practically, but perhaps unconsciously, was this:—The object of a government is to make a country prosperous and rich; this country has grown prosperous and rich under the rule of the Democratic party; therefore why should we not give it our support, and more especially as all sorts of dreadful results are predicted, if the opposition party comes into power? Why part with a present good, with the risk of incurring a future evil? Above all things, let us discountenance the agitation of exciting topics.—Profound philosophy! deserving to be compared with that of the modern Cockney who does not want his after-dinner rest to be disturbed by even a lively discussion. "I say, look here, why have row? Excessively unpleasant to have row, when a fellow wants to be quiet! I say, don't!"

In fact, this "conservatism" was only another and convenient name for a most dangerous type of moral and political paralysis. Its immediate effect was to discourage discussion, and to induce an alarming apathy as to all the vital questions of the day among men whose abilities qualified them to be of essential service to their country. Their adhesion to the ranks of the Democratic party, while increasing the average intelligence of that organisation, without improving its public virtue or private morals, served simply to give it greater numerical strength. It was still in the hands of unscrupulous leaders, who, intoxicated with their previous triumphs, believed that the nation would submit to any measure which they saw fit to recommend. And who shall say that their confidence was unreasonable? Did not all their past experience justify such confidence? When had any one of their schemes, no matter how monstrous it might at first have appeared, ever failed of final accomplishment? Had they not repeatedly tested the temper and measured the morale of the people? Had they not learned to anticipate with absolute certainty the regular sequence of national emotions,—the prompt recoil as from impending dishonor, the excited public meetings, the indignant remonstrance embodied in eloquent resolutions, then the sober, selfish second-thought, followed by the question, What if the South should carry out its threats and dissolve the Union? then the alarm of the mercantile and commercial interest, then a growing indifference to the very features of the project which had caused the early apprehension, and lastly the meek and cowardly acquiescence in the enacted outrage? Would not these arch-conspirators North and South have been wilfully blind, if they had not seen not only that the nation was sinking in the scale of public virtue, but that it had acquired "a strange alacrity in sinking"?

Meanwhile they had learned a lesson, the value and significance of which they fully appreciated. He must have been an inattentive student of our political history, who has not observed that the successful prosecution of any political enterprise has too often dignified its author in the eyes of the people, in spite of its intrinsic iniquity. The party reaping the benefit of the measure has not withheld the expected reward, and the originator and abettors of the accomplished wrong have found that exalted official position covers a multitude of sins.

Wisely availing themselves of this national weakness, and most adroitly using all the elements of political power with which long practice had made them familiar, the leaders of the Democratic party had every reason to believe that the duration of their political supremacy would be coeval with the life of the Republic. In fact, the peril predicted more than twenty years ago, by one of the purest and wisest men whom this country has ever seen, with a sagacity which, in the light of subsequent events, seems almost inspired, had wellnigh become an historical fact. "The great danger to our institutions," said Dr. Channing, writing to a friend in 1841, "is of a party organization so subtle and strong as to make the Government the monopoly of a few leaders, and to insure the transmission of the executive power from hand to hand almost as regularly as in a monarchy."

But an overruling Providence, building better than we knew, had decreed that the sway of this powerful party should be broken by means of the very element of supposed strength on which it so confidently relied for unlimited supremacy. Losing sight of those cardinal principles which the far-reaching sagacity of Jefferson had enunciated, and faithfully following which the Democracy had, during its early history, so completely controlled the country, the modern leaders, intent only on present success, had based all their political hopes on an intimate alliance, offensive and defensive, with that institution which Jefferson so eloquently denounced, and the existence of which awakened his most lively fears for the future of his country. And what has been the result of this ill-omened alliance? Precisely what might sooner or later have been expected. Precisely what might have been predicted from the attempt to unite the essentially incongruous ideas of Aristocracy and Democracy. For the system of Slavery is confessedly the very essence of an Aristocracy, while the genuine idea of a Democracy is the submission of all to the expressed will of the majority. Take as one of the latest illustrations of the irreconcilable difference between Aristocracy and Democracy, the manner in which the South received the doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty." This doctrine, whatever its ultimate purpose might have been, certainly embodied the idea of a democracy, pure and simple, resting on the right of a people to enact their own laws and adopt their own institutions. It was believed by many to be a movement in the interest of Slavery, and on that ground met with fierce opposition. Was it welcomed by slaveholders? Far from it. The Southern Aristocracy, clear-sighted on every question affecting their peculiar institution, applied their remorseless logic to the existing dilemma, and promptly decided that to admit the correctness of the principle was to endanger the existence of the system which was the corner-stone of their faith. They looked beyond the result of the immediate election. They foresaw the crisis which must ultimately arise. Indeed, they had long appreciated the fact, that the "irrepressible conflict" in which we are now involved was impending, and had been mustering all their forces to meet the inevitable issue. The crisis came. But how? In an evil hour for its own success, but a most-fortunate one for the welfare of the Republic, Slavery, overestimating its inherent power, and underrating the resources and virtue of the nation, committed the fatal error of measuring its strength with a free North. From that moment it lost forever all that it had ever gained by united action, by skilful diplomacy, by dexterously playing upon the "fears of the wise and follies of the brave," and by ingeniously masking its dark designs.

The new policy once inaugurated, however, the career of treason once commenced, its authors can never recede. Their only safety lies in complete success. They must conquer or die. They may in secret confess to themselves that they have been guilty of a stupendous blunder, but that they clearly comprehend and sternly accept their position is abundantly evident. For, if anything is proved in the history of this war, it is, that the chiefs in the Rebellion believe in no middle ground between peace on their own terms and the utter annihilation of their political power and military resources.

Thus, then, my dear Andrew, the insane ambition and wanton treachery of the Southern wing of your party have delivered the North from the danger of white slavery, and, by breaking up the Democratic party, have delivered the nation from the despotism of an organization which had become too powerful for its own good and for the best interests of the country. Do you dare to complain of this deliverance? You ought rather to go on your knees every day of your life, and devoutly thank the kind Providence which gave you such an unexpected opportunity to escape from so demoralizing a servitude.

Do not allow your attachment to party names and party associations to warp your judgment or limit your patriotism. You need have no fear that any one of the sound and beneficent ideas which the Democratic party has ever impressed upon the mind of the nation will perish or be forgotten. Whatever features of the organization, whatever principles which it has labored to inculcate, are essential to the just development of our intellectual activity or our material resources, will survive the present struggle, perhaps to reappear in the creed and be promulgated by the statesmen of some future party; or who shall say that the Democratic party, freed from its corrupting associations, rejecting the leaders who have been its worst enemies, and the political heresies which have wrought its temporary ruin, may not again wield its former power, and once more direct the destinies of the country?

But, returning to considerations of more immediate importance, what, I ask, is the obvious duty of every true and loyal citizen in such a crisis as this? You resent, as insulting, any imputation of disloyalty, and therefore I have a right to infer that you are unwilling to be ranked among the enemies of your country. But who are those enemies? Clearly, those whose avowed intention or whose thinly disguised design is, to divide the Union and to rend the Republic in twain. How are those enemies to be overcome? Only by a hearty and earnest coöperation with the measures devised by our legally constituted Government for the suppression of the Rebellion. I can easily understand that you may not be willing to give your cordial assent to all the measures and all the appointments of the Administration. It is not the Administration which you would have selected, or for which you voted. But, nevertheless, it is our rightful government, and nothing else can save the nation from absolute anarchy. Postpone, therefore, I beseech you, all merely partisan prejudices, and remember only that the Union is in danger. You are a Democrat. Adopt, then, during the continuance of this war, the noble sentiments of a distinguished Western Democrat:[10 - Hon. H.M. Rice, Ex-Senator from Minnesota.]—"The whole object of the Rebellion is to destroy the principle of Democracy. The party which stands by the Government is the true Democracy. Every soldier in the army is a true Democrat. Every man who lifts his head above party trammels is a Democrat. And every man who permits old issues to stand in the way of a vigorous prosecution of the war cannot, in my opinion, have any claims on the party." By such men and such utterances will the Democratic party secure the respect and admiration of mankind; while those spurious Democrats, whose hearts are with the South while their homes are in the North, whose voice is the voice of Jacob while their hands are the hands of Esau, whose first slavish impulse is to kiss the rod which smites them, and who long for nothing so much as the triumph of their Southern masters, have earned, and will surely receive, the contempt and detestation of all honest men, now and forever.

God forbid that I should suspect you of sympathizing with these miscreants! But, my friend, there is still another class of Democrats with whom I should exceedingly regret to see you associated. I mean those who, without any love for Rebels or their cause, are yet so fearful of being called Republicans that they refuse to support the Government. Can you justify yourself in standing upon such a platform? Is this a time in which to permit your old party animosities to render you indifferent to the honor and welfare of the nation? Are you simply in the position of a violent partisan out of office, eager to embarrass the Administration, and keenly on the watch to discover how best to inflame the prejudices of the populace against the Government? Is there nothing more important just now than to devise means of reinstating your party in power at the next Presidential election? Will it not be well first to settle the question, whether, in the month of November, 1864, we shall still be a free people, competent to elect the candidates of any party? May you not be, nay, are you not sure to be, giving substantial aid and comfort to the enemies of your country, while seeking only to cripple the power of your political opponents? Are not the dearest interests, and, indeed, the very life of the nation, of necessity, so dependent upon a cordial and constant support of the Government, that active hostility to its principal measures, or even absolute neutrality, strengthens the hands and increases the confidence of Rebels in arms?

Notwithstanding the notorious virulence of party feeling in this country, it certainly would not seem to require a very large amount of manly principle to rise superior to such a sordid sentiment in view of our common peril. Patriotism, my friend, is an admirable and most praiseworthy virtue. It is correctly classed among the noblest instincts of human nature. It has in all ages been a fruitful theme of poetic fervor; it has sustained the orator in his loftiest flights of eloquence; it has nerved the arm of the warrior to perform deeds of signal valor; it has transformed the timid matron and the shrinking maiden into heroines whom history has delighted to honor. But when patriotism is really synonymous with self-preservation, when small sacrifices are demanded and overwhelming disasters are to be averted, the love of country, although still highly commendable, does not, perhaps, deserve very enthusiastic praise, while the want of it will be sure to excite universal condemnation and scorn. I cannot believe that you will consent to fasten upon yourself, and upon all who are dear to you, the lasting stigma which will inevitably attach to the man who, whether from a mean partisan jealousy or an ignoble indifference to the honor of his country, has failed in an hour of sorest need to defend the land which gave him birth, and the institutions which his fathers suffered and sacrificed so much to establish.

Hoping that the vital importance of the subject which I have so imperfectly considered will induce you to pardon the length of this communication, I remain, as ever,

    Very sincerely yours,
    -– –

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

The History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. By JOHN FOSTER KIRK. Two Volumes. 8vo. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Co.

There is probably no period of European history which has been so thoroughly explored and so richly illustrated as the sixteenth century,—that century of great men, lofty ideas, and gigantic enterprise, of intellectual activity, and of tremendous political and religious struggles. The numerous scholars of Continental Europe who have made this era the subject of their researches have generally been content to dig that others might plant and reap, sending forth in abundance the raw material of history to be woven into forms adapted to popular appreciation. In England, also, but only within a very recent period, much solid labor of the same kind has been performed. But the Anglo-Saxon mind, on some sides comparatively deficient in plastic and inventive power, as well as in that of abstract thought, seems to possess in a peculiar degree the faculty of comprehending, representing, and idealizing the varied phases and incessant motion of human life and character. In science it excels less in the discovery than in the application of laws. In what may be termed "pure art," music, sculpture, painting, except where the representation of the Beautiful is subservient to that of the Real, lyrical and idyllic poetry, and all departments of literature in which fancy predominates over reason, it must yield the palm to the genius of Italy, of Germany, of Spain. But in the drama, in the novel, in history, and in works partaking more or less of the character of these, its supremacy is established. Shakespeare and Chaucer are at once the greatest and the most characteristic of English poets; Hogarth and Wilkie, of English painters; Fielding, Scott, Miss Austen, Thackeray, and others whose names will at once suggest themselves, of English writers of fiction; Gibbon, Macaulay, and Hallam, of English historians. The drama, in its highest forms, belongs to the past, and that past which was at once too earnest in its spirit and too narrow in its development to allow of a less vivid or a more expansive delineation. Fiction, to judge from a multitude of recent specimens, seems at present on the decline, with some threatenings of a precipitate descent into the inane. History, on the other hand, is only at the outset of its career. Its highest achievements are in all probability reserved for a still distant future, when loftier points of view shall have been attained, and the haze that now hangs over even the nearest and most conspicuous objects in some measure dissipated. Its endeavors hitherto have only shown how much is still to be accomplished,—how little, indeed, comparatively speaking, it will ever be possible to accomplish. Not the less, on this account, are the laborers deserving of the honors bestowed upon them. Every fresh contribution is a permanent gain. Even in the same field the results of one exploration do not interfere with or supersede those of another. Robertson has, in many respects, been surpassed, but he has not been supplanted, by Prescott; Froude and Motley may traverse the same ground without impairing our interest in the researches of either.

These four distinguished writers have all devoted their efforts to the illustration of the period of which we have before spoken,—the grand and fruitful sixteenth century. With the men and with the events of that age we have thus become singularly familiar. We have been made acquainted, not only with the deeds, but with the thoughts, of Charles V., Philip II., Elizabeth Tudor, Cortés, Alva, Farnese, William the Silent, and a host of other actors in some of the most striking scenes of history. But we have also been tempted into forgetting that those were not isolated scenes, that they belonged to a drama which had long been in progress, and that the very energy they displayed, the power put forth, the conquests won, were indicative of previous struggles and a long accumulation of resources. Of what are called the Middle Ages the general notion might, perhaps, be comprised in the statement that they were ages of barbarism and ignorance, of picturesque customs and aimless adventure. "I desire to know nothing of those who knew nothing," was the saying, in reference to them, of the French philosophe. "Classical antiquity is nearer to us than the intervening darkness," said Hazlitt. And Hume and Robertson both consider that the interest of European history begins with the revival of letters, the invention of printing, the colonization of America, and the great contests between consolidated monarchies and between antagonistic principles and creeds.

It must be admitted that the greater portion of mediæval history, whatever its true character, is shrouded in an obscurity which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to penetrate. But the same cannot be said of the close of that period,—the transitional era that preceded what we are accustomed to consider as the dawn of modern civilization. For Continental Europe, at least, the fifteenth century is hardly less susceptible of a thorough revelation than the sixteenth. The chroniclers and memoir-writers are more communicative than those of the succeeding age. The documentary evidence, if still deficient, is rapidly accumulating. The conspicuous personages of the time are daily becoming more palpable and familiar to us. Joan of Arc has glided from the luminous haze of legend and romance into the clearer light of history. Philippe de Comines has a higher fame than any eye-witness and narrator of later events. Louis XI. discloses to posterity those features which he would fain have concealed from his contemporaries. And confronting Louis stands another figure, not less prominent in their own day, not less striking when viewed from our day,—that of Charles the Bold, of Burgundy.

The career of this latter prince has generally been regarded as merely a romantic episode in European history. Scott has painted it in vivid colors in two of his most brilliant fictions,—"Quentin Durward," and "Anne of Geierstein." But, perhaps from this very notion in regard to its lack of historical importance, the reality has never been depicted in fulness or with detail, except in M. de Barante's elegant rifacimento of the French chroniclers of the fifteenth century. That the subject was, however, one of a very different character has been apparent to the scholars in France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland, who during the last twenty years have made it a special object of their researches. A stronger light has been thrown upon every part of it, and an entirely new light upon many portions. Charles has assumed his rightful position, as the "Napoleon of the Middle Ages," whose ambition and whose fall exercised, a powerful influence on the destinies of the principal European states.

But the labors through which this has been accomplished are as yet unknown to the general mass of readers. The results lie scattered in quarters difficult of access, and in forms that repel rather than attract the glance. Chronicles written in tough French and tougher German have been published in provincial towns, and have scarcely found their way beyond those localities. Various learned societies and commissions have edited documents which would be nearly unintelligible without a wide comparison and complete elucidation. Single, isolated points have been treated and discussed by those who took for granted a familiarity on the part of the reader with the general facts of the case. To combine this mass of evidence, to sift and establish it, and to weave it into a symmetrical narrative, is the aim of the work before us. The idea was conceived while the author was engaged in assisting the late Mr. Prescott in cognate branches of study. That great and generous writer entered heartily into the project, and made use of the ample facilities which he is well known to have possessed for the collection of the necessary materials. The correspondence which he opened for this purpose led to the belief that he had himself undertaken the task; and great satisfaction was expressed by the eminent Belgian archivist, M. Gachard, that a pen which had already given so much delight and instruction to the world was about to be engaged on so attractive a theme. But Prescott was not more ardent in the prosecution of his own inquiries than in furthering those of others; and he displayed in this, as in many like instances, the same noble spirit which, since his death, has been so gracefully acknowledged by Mr. Motley.

Of the manner in which the work is executed it would be, perhaps, premature to speak. We have no hesitation, however, in assigning to Mr. Kirk's most fascinating narrative a place with the great achievements of genius in the department he has chosen to fill. His advent among the historians will be welcomed the world over. A glance at the copy placed in our hands has enabled us to indicate its nature. The two volumes about to appear bring the story down to the crisis of Charles's fate, the moment when he became involved in a war with the Swiss. A third volume, now in course of preparation, will complete the eventful tale.

We think it not unlikely that to the American reader the first half of the history will seem, at the present time, to possess a peculiar interest. For this part of the work contains the last great struggle between the French crown and the feudal princes,—a struggle involving the question whether France was to form one nation or to be divided into a number of petty states. Such a struggle is now going on in our own country. The question we are debating is whether the nation is to be disintegrated or consolidated. The theory of "State sovereignty" is nothing more than the old theory of feudal independence. "I love France so well," said Charles of Burgundy, "that I would fain see it ruled over by six kings instead of one." "I love the republic founded by our fathers so well," says Jefferson Davis, "that I would fain see it split up into several hostile confederacies." When we see that France, under the direction of a Louis XI., came out of that struggle triumphant, we shall not despair of our own future, trusting rather to the guidance of that Providence which is working out its own great designs than to instruments little cognizant of its plans and too often unconscious of its influence.

Good Thoughts in Bad Times, and Other Papers. By THOMAS FULLER, D.D. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

There certainly never was a greater piece of publishing felicity, in its seasonableness, than this entire reprint. The "Thoughts" are as good, for whatever is bad or trying in our times, as they were hundreds of years ago; so that one might almost suspect the title of the book for an invention, and consider many a passage in it to be new matter, only—after the fashion of some who, in essay or story, try to reproduce the ancients—skilfully put in the manner of the old preacher. To all who would have religious comfort in the distractions of present events we especially recommend this incomparable divine's truly devout and thoughtful pages. None of our authors have succeeded so well in providing for our own wants. The sea of our political agitations might become smooth under the well-beaten oil which he pours out. The divisions made by the sword to-day would heal with the use of his prescriptions. Human nature never grows old; and America, in her Civil War, is the former England over again now.

Sticklers for a style of conventional dignity and smooth decorum may think to despatch Fuller's claims by denominating him a quaint writer. This would be what is vulgarly called a snap-judgment indeed. His quaintness never runs into superficial conceit, but embodies always a deep and comprehensive wisdom. He insinuates truth with a friendly indirectness, and banters us out of our folly with a foreign instance. Plutarch or Montaigne is not more happy in historical parallels, for personal reflection and sober application to actual duty. Never was fancy more alert in the service of piety. His imagination is as luminous as Sir Thomas Browne's, and, if less peculiar and original in its combinations, rises into identity with more child-like and lofty worship. Ever ready to fall on his knees, there is in his adoration no touch of cant, or of that other-worldliness which Coleridge complains of as interfering with the pressing affairs and obligations of the present. No pen ever drew a firmer boundary between sentiment and sentimentality. But never was shrewd knowledge of this world so humane, keen observation so kind, wit so tender, and humor so sanctified, united with resolution by all means to teach and save mankind so invariably strong.

While so much of our religious literature is a weak appeal to shallow feeling and a gross affront to reason, it is refreshing to meet with an author who helps us to obey the great precept of the Master, and put mind and strength, as well as heart and soul, into our love of God. Indeed, this precious treatise, or assemblage of little treatises, so rational without form of logic, so convenient to be read for a moment or all day long, and so harmonious in its diverse headings, should be everywhere circulated as a larger sort of religious tract. We hear of exhortations impressed in letters on little loaves for the soldiers to eat. We wish every military man or civilian, intelligent enough for the relish, could have Fuller's sentences to feed on, as, beyond all rhetoric, bread of life.

So let a welcome go to the old worthy, our hearts' brother, as he seems to rise out of his two-centuries' grave. At a time when Satan appears again to have been let loose for a season, and we know the power of evil, described in the Apocalypse, in the fearful headway made by the rebellious conspiracy of his servants, carried to such a point of success, that statesmen, and scholars, and preachers, even of so-called liberal views, on the farther shore, bow to it the knee, while the frowning cannon at every point shows how remote the Millennium still is,—thanks for the counsels, fit to our need, of a writer still fresh, while the main host of his contemporaries are long since obsolete, with dead volumes for their tombs. How many precious quotations from his leaves we might make, but that we prefer to invite a perusal of the whole!

We add to our criticism no drawbacks, as we like to give to transcendent merit unstinted praise, and have really no exceptions in mind, could we presume in such a case to express any. Looking on the features of Fuller's portrait, which makes the frontispiece of his work as here reproduced for us, we note a weight of prudence strangely blending with a buoyancy of prayer, well corresponding to the inseparable sagacity and ecstasy of his words, teaching us the consistency of immortal aspiration with an infallible good-sense,—a lesson never more important to be learned than now. To be an executive mystic, an energetic saint, is the very ideal of human excellence; and to go forward in the name of the Divinity is the meaning of the book we have here passed in review.

Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. By WENDELL PHILLIPS. Boston: James Redpath.

In vigor, in point, in command of language and felicity of phrase, in affluence and aptness of illustration, in barbed keenness and cling of sarcasm, in terror of invective, in moral weight and momentum, in copiousness and quality of thought, in aggressive boldness of statement, finally in equality to all audiences and readiness for all occasions, Wendell Phillips is certainly the first orator in America,—and that we esteem much the same as saying that he is first among those whose vernacular is the English tongue. That no speeches are made of equal value with his, that he has an intellectual superiority to all competitors in the forum, we do not assert; but his preeminence in pure oratorical genius may now be considered as established and unquestionable. Ajax has the strength, perhaps more than the strength, of Achilles; but Achilles adds to vigor of arm incomparable swiftness of foot. The mastiff is stout, brave, trusty, intelligent, but the hound outruns him; and this greyhound of modern oratory, deep-chested, light-limbed, supple, elastic, elegant, powerful, must be accredited with his own special superiorities. Or taking a cue from the tales of chivalry, we might say that he is the Sir Launcelot of the platform, in all but Sir Launcelot's sin; and woe to the knight against whom in full career he levels his lance!

And yet one is half ashamed to praise his gifts, so superbly does he himself cast those gifts behind him. He is not trying to be eloquent: he is trying to get a grand piece of justice done in the world. No engineer building a bridge, no ship-master in a storm at sea, was ever more simply intent on substantive results. It is not any "Oration for the Crown" that he stands here pronouncing: it is service, not distinction, at which he aims, and he will be crowned only in the gladness of a redeemed race. The story of his life is a tale of romance; he makes real the legends of chivalry. He might have sat at meat with Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, and looked with equal unabashed eyes into theirs; and a thousand years hence, some skeptic, reading the history of these days, will smile a light disdain, and say, "Very well for fiction; but real men are selfish beings, and serve themselves always to the sweetest and biggest loaf they can find."

We praise his gifts and his nobility, not always his opinions. He was once the apostle of a doctrine of disunion; he fervently believes in enforcing "total abstinence" by statute; he is the strenuous advocate of woman-suffrage. We have stood by the Union always; we have some faith in pure wine, notwithstanding the Maine Law; and believing that women have a right to vote, we believe also that they have a higher right to be excused from voting. We are unwilling to consume their delicate fitnesses in this rude labor. It is not economical. We do not believe in using silk for ships' top-sails, or China porcelain for wash-tubs. There are tasks for American women—tasks, we mean, of a social and public, not alone of a domestic nature—which only women can rightly perform, while their accomplishment was never more needed than here.

Mr. Phillips is no "faultless painter." He is given to snap-judgments. The minor element of considerateness should be more liberally present. He forgets that fast driving is not suitable to crowded streets; and through the densest thoroughfares the hoofs of his flying charger go ringing over the pavements, to the alarm of many and the damage of some. Softly, Bucephalus! A little gentle ambling through these social complications might sometimes be well.

Again, while he has the utmost of moral stability and constancy, and also great firmness of intellectual adhesion to main principles, there is in him a certain minor changefulness. He pours out a powerful light, but it flickers. Momentary partialities sway him,—to be balanced, indeed, by subsequent partialities, for his broad nature will not be permanently one-sided; but meantime his authority suffers. Mood, occasion, the latest event, govern overmuch the color of his statement; so that an unsympathetic auditor—and every partiality, by the law of the world, must push some one out of the ring of sympathy—may honestly deem him unfair, even wilfully unfair.

Finally, he relies too much upon sarcasm and personal invective as agents. He has a theory on this matter; and we feel sure that it is erroneous. Not that invective is to be forbidden. Not that personal criticism is always out of place, or always useless. We are among the "all men" whom Thoreau declared to be "enamored of the beauty of plain speech." We ask no man in public or private life to wear a satin glove upon his tongue. We believe, too, in the "noble wrath" of Tasso's heroes, When the heart must burn, let the words be fire. It is just where personal invective begins to be used as matter of theory and system that it begins to be used amiss. Let the rule be to spare it, if it can be spared, and to use it only under the strictest compelling of moral indignation. And were not Mr. Phillips among the most genial and sunny of human beings, really incapable of any malign passion, he would fool the reactive sting of this invective in his own bosom, and so become fearful of indulging it.

Still it must be said that he has the genius and function of a critic. He is the censor of our statesmanship. He is the pruner of our politics. Let his censure be broad and deliberate, that it may be weighty; let his pruning be with care and kindness, that it may be with benefit.

Systems of Military Bridges in Use by the United States Army, those adopted by the Great European Powers, and such as are employed in British India. With Directions for the Preservation, Destruction, and Reestablishment of Bridges. By Brigadier-General GEORGE W. CULLUM, Lieutenant-Colonel, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, Chief of Staff of the General-in-Chief, etc., etc. New York: D. Van Nostrand.

A nation can hardly achieve military success without paying special heed to its material of war. It is the explicit duty of a nation's constituted guardians assiduously to apply all the resources of science and art, of theory and practice, of experience and invention, of judgment and genius, to the systematic production of the best military apparatus. Ordnance and ordnance stores, arms and equipments, commissary and quartermaster supplies, the means of transportation, fortifications and engineer-trains, navies and naval appliances,—these are the material elements of military strength, which decide the fate of nations. If in these we are behind the age, our delinquency must be atoned by disaster and wasted lives. Civilization conquers barbarism chiefly by its superior skill in the construction and use of the material instruments of warfare. Courage and conduct are certainly important factors in all legitimate successes; but they must work through material means, and are emphasized or nullified by the skill or rudeness exhibited in the device and fabrication of those means. The great contest now in progress has taught us afresh the potency of those material agencies through which patriotic zeal must act, and we shall hereafter lack all good excuse for not having the very best attainable system of producing, preserving, providing, and using whatever implements, supplies, and muniments our future may demand.

As an aid in this direction, we welcome the truly valuable book which General Cullum has now supplied on one of the Special brandies of military matériel. We owe him thanks for his treatise on military bridges, which was nearly as much needed as though we had not already the works of Sir Howard Douglas, Drien, Haillot, and Meurdra, and the chapters on bridges by Laisné and Duane. General Cullum's work has more precision and is more available for practical guidance than any other. The absolute thoroughness with which the India-rubber pontoon system is described by him gives a basis for appreciating the other systems described in outline.

It is hardly too much to say that we owe to General Cullum more than to any other person the development in our service of systematic instruction in pontoniering. Before the Mexican War, Cullum and Halleck had ably argued the necessity of organizing engineer troops to be specially instructed as sappers, miners, and pontoniers. In an article on "Army Organization," in the "Democratic Review," were cited a striking series of instances in which bridge-trains or their lack had decided the issue of grand operations. The history of Napoleon's campaigns abounds in proofs of their necessity, and the testimony of the Great Captain was most emphatic on this point. His Placentia and Beresina crossings are specially instructive. The well-sustained argument of the article on "Army Organization" was a most effective aid to General Totten's efforts as Chief Engineer to secure the organization of our first engineer company. This company proved to be the well-timed and successful school in which our pontoon-drill grew up and became available for use in the present war. There are now four regular companies and several volunteer regiments of engineer troops, whose services are too highly valued to be hereafter ignored.

In 1846, General Taylor reported, that, after the victories of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, a pontoon-train would have enabled him to cross the Rio Grande "on the evening of the battle," take Matamoras "with all the artillery and stores of the enemy and a great number of prisoners,—in short, to destroy entirely the Mexican army." This striking evidence of the necessity of bridge-equipages as part of the material of army-trains coincided with the organization of the first engineer company, and led to the preparation of pontoon-trains for General Taylor and General Scott. General (then Captain) Cullum "had the almost exclusive supervision, devising, building, and preparing for service" of these trains, and of that used for instruction at West Point. To him is chiefly due the formation of the system of military bridges with India-rubber pontoons, which was most fully described and illustrated in the original memoir from which the volume now just published has grown. He subsequently, as Professor of Practical Engineering at the Military Academy, aided in developing and perfecting the pontoon-drill,—a department in which G.W. Smith, McClellan, and Duane ably and successfully labored.

We suppose that all profound and sincere students of military operations are agreed in accepting bridge-trains and skilled pontoniers as among the necessities of grand armies. In proportion as the campaigns which an army is to make are to be conducted on theatres intersected by rivers will be the importance of its bridge-service. Our own country, abounding in rivers of the grandest proportions, will need to be always ready for applying the highest skill and the best bridge-equipage in facilitating such movements as may prove necessary. We accept this as an indispensable part of our organized system of war-matériel. Were other evidences lacking, the experiences of the Chickahominy, Rappahannock, Potomac, and Tennessee will perpetually enforce the argument. The generation which has fought the Battle of Fredericksburg, and which has witnessed Lee's narrow escape near Williamsport, is sufficiently instructed not to question the saving virtues and mobilizing influences of bridge-trains.

The chief essentials in a military bridge-system are lightness, facility of transportation, ease of manœuvre in bridge-formation, stability, security, and economy. It necessarily makes heavy demands for transportation; and on this account bridge-trains have frequently been left behind, when their retention would have proved of the utmost importance. Their true use is to facilitate campaign-movements; and while they should be taken only when there is a reasonable prospect of their being real facilites, they should not be left behind when any such prospect exists. It was in response to the demand for easy transportation that the system for India-rubber pontoons was elaborated. Single supporting cylinders of rubber-coated canvas were first experimentally used in 1836 by Captain John F. Lane, United States army, on the Tallapoosa and Chattahoochee Rivers in Alabama. The service-pontoon, as arranged by General Cullum, is composed of three connected cylinders of rubber-coated canvas, each having three compartments. On these pontoons, when inflated, the bridge-table is built, lashed, and anchored. This bridge has remarkable portability, but it has also serious defects. The oxidation of the sulphur in vulcanized rubber produces sulphuric acid in sufficient amount to impair the strength of the canvas-fibres, thus causing eventual decay, rendering it prudent to renew the pontoons after a year's campaigning. The pontoons are required to be air-tight, and are temporarily made partially useless by punctures, bullet-holes, rents and chafings, although they are easily repaired. Hence this bridge, despite its portability, is hardly equal to all the requirements of service, though it was the main dependence in Banks's operations in Louisiana, and was successfully used in Grant's Mississippi campaign.

General Cullum briefly describes the various bridge-systems employed in the different services of the world, including the galvanized iron boat system, the Blanchard metal cylinder system, the Russian and Fowke's systems of canvas stretched over frames, the Birigo system, the French bateau system, the various trestle systems, and many others. The French wooden bateau is the pontoon chiefly used in our service, and it is specially commended by its thoroughly proved efficiency, and by its utility as an independent boat. Its great weight and the consequent difficulty of its transportation are the great drawbacks, and to this cause may well be ascribed much of the fatal delay before the Fredericksburg crossing.

It is a hopeless problem to devise any bridge-equipage which shall overcome all serious objections. All that should be expected is to reduce the faults to a practical minimum, while meeting the general wants of the service in a satisfactory manner. The lack of mobility in any bridge-train which can be pronounced always trustworthy may, perhaps, compel the adoption, in addition to the bateau-train, of a light equipage for use in quick movements. This will, however, create complication, which is nearly as objectionable here as in the calibre of guns. Thus it is that any solution may prove not exactly the best one for the particular cases which may arise under it. All that should be demanded is, that, by the application of sound judgment to the data which experience and invention afford, our probable wants may be as well met as practicable. Some system we must have; and, on the one hand, zeal for mobility, commendable as it is, must not be permitted to invite grand disasters through failures of the pontoons to do their allotted work; while, on the other hand, a morbid desire to insure absolutely trustworthy solidity of construction must be restrained from imposing needless burdens, which may habitually make our crossings Fredericksburg affairs. Between these extremes lies the right road. American skill has hardly exhausted its resources on this problem. The suspension-bridge train, a description of which General Meigs has published, is deserving of consideration for many cases in campaigns. General Haupt's remarkable railroad-bridges thrown over the Rappahannock River and Potomac Creek, the latter in nine working-days, were structures of such striking and judicious boldness as to justify most hopeful anticipations from the designer's expected treatise on bridge-building. Our national eminence in the art of building wooden trussed and suspension bridges is proof enough that whatever can be done to improve on the military bridge-trains of Europe may be expected at our hands. We shall not lack inventiveness; let us be as careful not to lack judgment, and by all means to be fair and honest in seeking for the best system. When the experience of this war can be generalized, a more positive pontoon-system will be exacted for our service. It is fortunate that this matter is in good hands. While hoping that the close of the present war may, for a long time, end the reign of Mars, it behooves us never again to be caught napping when the Republic is assailed.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

The Natural Laws of Husbandry. By Justus von Liebig. Edited by John Blyth, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in Queen's College, Cork. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 388. $1.50.

The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George Third, 1760-1860. By Thomas Erskine May, C.B. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. Boston. Crosby & Nichols. 12mo. pp. 596. $1.50.