The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863

It is a marked characteristic of the work that, while omitting nothing necessary to a full elucidation of the past condition of the country, it brings all its statistics up to the latest dates. The United States debt is given to December 1, 1862; the Government receipts and expenditures for the financial year 1862; the issues of the mint to the autumn of 1862; the contributions of each State to the volunteer army to December, 1862; the finances of most of the States to the same date; even the Pacific States being brought up to last autumn; and the condition of the Rebel army and finances to January 1, 1863. Such enterprise deserves, and must achieve success.

Noticeable, too, for its completeness and thoroughness, is the 'Record of Events' of the war, occupying nearly eighty pages, and forming a continuous and admirable journal of the war up to the close of last year. In the States, also, the fulness and variety of detail of the finances, debts, banks, railroads (a new feature), educational institutions, charitable and correctional organizations, agriculture, manufactures, and military organization of each State, possess a deep interest to any man who desires to know the actual condition and resources of his country. We were particularly pleased with a series of diagrams, prepared by Prof. Gillespie of Union College, illustrating at a glance the changes which have taken place in the relative population of the different States, the relative proportion of increase of white and of slave population, and the effect produced by this upon different sections. We have not, at the late hour at which we write, time or room to indicate a tithe of the valuable features of this remarkable book; we can only say, that whoever expends the small sum necessary for its purchase, will most assuredly obtain an ample equivalent for his money.

The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. Second Series. New York: Carleton, 413 Broadway. 1863.

During the present decade the American public has welcomed almost annually a new humorist. Thus we have seen in rapid succession John Phœnix, Doesticks, Fanny Fern, and Artemus Ward enjoying extraordinary popularity, and then new 'lords of misrule' 'reigning in their stead.' The last popular favorite is 'Orpheus C. Kerr'—a name thinly disguising that of Office Seeker, and which is not indeed too well chosen, since in the volume before us little or nothing relative to the very suggestive subject of office-seeking, on the part of the author at least, is to be found. The book itself is, however, marvellously laugh provoking, abounding in the oddest conceits, strangest stories, and drollest extravaganzas in the most ultra American vein. If the men who best ridicule great failures in war and in politics, are the ones most to be dreaded, it must be admitted that 'Orpheus C. Kerr' is the sharpest thorn which has been as yet planted in the side of the 'Young Napoleons' of our army, whose ability seems to consist in building up the strength of the enemy by delay and in canvassing indirectly for the Presidency. There is no cause so good as to be without abuses, and the abuses which have crept into our management of the war are touched off in these papers as merrily as unmercifully. They have done 'yeoman's service' in the press, hitting all sides, but bearing most heavily on 'Young Napoleon' and the status quo Democracy. It cannot be denied that the humor of these sketches is often merely extravagant, sometimes harshly strained, and occasionally bare and thin enough in all conscience, while the stories of the Cosmopolite Club seem like mere 'filling up' to 'make pages;' yet with all this there is more real wit, humor, and life-knowledge in this volume than would give tone and strength to half a dozen ordinary popular essayists of the Country Parson school. Extravagance is however to American narrative what it is to Arab conversation, something much less outré to those who are born to it than to strangers, who are unable to discount like the natives as fast as the sums total are set down. Making every allowance for every defect, there remains in 'Orpheus C. Kerr' a residuum of irresistible humor, provoking scores of hearty laughs, and many indications of a basis of thought and of literary ability which place him far in advance of the later writers of his school. He takes a wider range, too wide indeed at times, since he occasionally becomes 'Cockneyfied.' We wish that 'Villiam' and the Willis-y 'my boy' were less frequently mentioned. Yet as all this is atoned for by abundance of true American fun, we readily pardon such echoes, trusting that in his future writings our humorist will endeavor to be in all things truly original. He can be so by the very simple process of pruning.

Poems. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich. New York: Carleton. 1863.

Most of these very pleasant little strains of word-music and of graceful thought have been frequently brought before the American public, and become familiar favorites. They now reappear to advantage in a delicate blue-and-gold volume, with a medallion portrait of the poet.

Modern War: Its Theory and Practice Illustrated from Celebrated Campaigns and Battles. With Maps and Diagrams. By Emeric Szabad, Captain U. S. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1863.

An excellent work, of an eminently practical nature, which may be read with interest and profit by every one in a time when there are so few who do not assume to be more or less critical in the art of war.

The Pirates of the Prairies; or, Adventures in the American Desert. By Gustave Aimard. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson. New York: Frederic A. Brady. 1863.

A very trashy wildcat romance, highly spiced with sensation sentiment, "r-r-revenge," and other melo-dramatic attributes. Its author is well known as an extensive contributor to what may be called the Sadly-Neglected-Apprentice school of literature and of readers.

Andree de Taverney, or the Downfall of French Monarchy. By Alexander Dumas. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 1863.

When we, on the publishers' authority, inform the reader that this is really 'the final conclusion' of the 'Countess of Charny,' the 'Memoirs of a Physician,' and a small library of other works, we shall doubtless send a thrill of joy to more than one heart. Incredible as it may appear, the Dumas factory, as Maquet termed it, has actually finished one of its valuable historical series—unless indeed the director-in-chief should see fit to republish the long-forgotten first volume, as a subsequent final conclusion to this of 'Andree de Taverney.'

Verner's Pride; a Tale of Domestic Life. By Mrs. Henry Wood. In two volumes. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 1863.

A decidedly English novel, of a type well known to our public, embracing few novelties of character, yet well written, with the story well told. It has, we believe, been so fortunate as to secure a wide circulation.

EDITOR'S TABLE

It is a dangerous task for the editor of a monthly review, in times like these, to comment on what has been or is likely to be done by the army, when no one knows what a day may bring forth. But, as regards those of the enemy among us who are scheming to aid and abet their Southern friends, we may speak more confidently. These traitors, though they have of late cast off the mask, and no longer pretend to aid the Administration and the cause of the Union, are still obliged to move with the caution without which trachery and cowardice would soon perish. It is, however, a bitter and a humiliating thought that they are so openly active among us, that they hold meetings where the ruin of the country is calmly meditated, that they form clubs, that they stir up the mob of their degraded hangers-on to hurrah for Jefferson Davis in our streets, and that finally no amount of exposure and of denunciation in the patriotic press seems to have the slightest effect in attracting to them the punishment they deserve.

The traitors of whom we speak are of two classes, the leaders and the dupes. The latter, careless of the fact that even if a sudden peace could be brought about it must overwhelm the country in financial ruin, believe in a restitution of the status quo ante bellum. They think that their leaders will, in unison with Davis and his colleagues, reunite, annul Emancipation, disavow the acts of the Lincoln Administration, and reëstablish Slavery. Cotton is again to be king, and all go on as of old, save that New England is to be thrown out of the confederacy. They are encouraged in this belief by lying or cunningly managed letters from the South, and by assurances that the confederate leaders are secretly working to this end and aim. 'We got along very well before the war,' is their constant complaint, 'and we could do as well again, were it not for the Emancipationists.' Among the lukewarm, the cowardly, the meanly selfish and avaricious, and the habitual grumblers, such doctrines are readily made plausible. Those especially, who measure the propriety of carrying on a war solely by the amount of success which they desire, and who are incapable of great thoughts and principles, are easily duped by intriguing villany.

The leaders of these dupes have no faith whatever in restoring the Union. They have no desire to restore it. Men like Fernando Wood hope from their very hearts for a complete disintegration—the more thorough, for them, the better. They could never expect to command the ship, and so they are willing to wreck her, in the hope of each securing a fragment. Ruined in character in the eyes of all honest men, their names a byword for treason, and in most cases for literal crimes, political outcasts of the stamp who are said to vibrate between the legislature and the penitentiary, these desperadoes are now working with all their might to mass the cowardice of the North into a body powerful enough to do collectively, that for which an individual has in all countries and in all ages been judged worthy the gallows. But for this war they must have been confined to representing the dangerous classes of our cities—the ignorance and vice which finds in them congenial leaders. As it is, they hope for wider fields and more absolute sway.

There is reason to apprehend that the men who are really true to the Union do not appreciate the extent to which treason is working among us. Worse than all, there are many, who, while believing themselves true to the good cause, are, by constant grumbling and complaint, aiding the very worst form of disunion. Could we prevail with one prayer upon the heart of every Federal freeman, it would be to implore him in this hour of trial not to withold his warmest support from the Administration and to fall into the common weakness of fault-finding and despairing. Such enormous wars as this never have been ended in a few months; wars especially which involve the deepest antagonism of social principles in existence. And our winnings have been neither few nor light. The Southern Border States, with little exception, are now ours, and will inevitably be fully won in time: New Orleans is a pledge, with other important points, and the enemy admit that every Southern seaboard town is destined to be taken. Does this look like the wild boasting of the South two years ago, when the North was to be plundered, Washington taken, and the Free States trampled under the heel of a chivalry fiercely crying, Væ victis!'—'Woe to the conquered!'? There is no danger now from the enemy: as he himself admits, two years more of the war would not, at the rate in which we progress, leave him a single State; and be it borne in mind that a speedy return to peace is only to be purchased at the price of a terrible financial crisis.

But we are in danger from the traitors at home. Jefferson Davis is less deadly to the Federal Union and less to be dreaded than the men who are scheming to make of New York a free city, and of every State and county a feudal principality.

The intentions of Louis Napoleon as regards Mexico are beginning to excite interest. Whatever they may be, there is one thing which it would be well for the French Emperor never to forget. He holds France simply as a pledge to the Revolution. So long as he remains true to the cause of liberty—and, despite names and circumstances, he has been truer to it than many suppose—he will remain in power. When he is false to it he will perish. It was through forgetting this that his uncle died at St. Helena—it was through forgetting this that Louis Philippe quitted Paris in a very citizenly but most un-kingly manner. The bourgeoisie of France and the gossips of Paris may storm at the Federal Union, épiciers may growl for our sugar, and operatives for cotton, but this class—on whom Louis Philippe made the mistake of solely relying, with a little help from the aristocracy—are not the men who guide the storms of revolution in France. The arch spirits of mischief are more secret, and of late years they have learned much. They are no longer so much inclined to Socialism, Père Cabét and 'national ateliérs,' still less to guillotines and noyades. But they are firm as ever, as jealous of despotism as ever, and, for an oppressor, as powerful as ever. And we believe that this class of men are firmly attached to the great cause of progressive freedom as represented by the Federal States and by the present Administration. Every day sees the truth spreading in France, and with its extension goes a deeply seated interest in the abolition of slavery. France—unlike England—feels shame at the idea of being chronicled in history as aiding oppression. The Frenchman is not so enormously conceited, so pitiably vain as to believe, like the Briton, that a crime is a virtue when for his own peculiar interest. Vain as the French may be, they have not quite come to that.

It must be admitted that the French are a shrewd nation. We were wont to think of old that there was more spite than intelligence in the epithet by which they characterized John Bull as 'perfidious.' They were right, for time has shown us that Venice, in the full bloom of her night-shade iniquity and poniard policy, was never falser at heart than this great, brawling, boasting, beef-eating England—this 'merry England' of paupers and prisons, where one man in every eight is buried at public expense—this Mother England, which starves away annually half a million of emigrants—this Honest Old England, which floods the world with pick-pockets, burglars, and correspondents for the Times.

It was a trifling thing which brought on the French Revolution of 1848—the return of foreign refugees to Austria, and other significant indications of joining with the old powers in oppressing freedom. Let Louis Napoleon beware of an anti-American policy—for to every such policy there will be an opposition, with a spectre of the Revolution in the background.

When these remarks meet the eye of the reader, the infamous conduct of the drunken Delaware Southern-ape Senator, Saulsbury, will in all probability have been forgotten. We have for so many years been so familiarized with the ribald or rowdy pranks of the chivalry, and of those more miserable wretches their Northern servants, that the mass of the public seems even yet quite willing to endure, for the poor payment of an apology, conduct which should anywhere have promptly consigned to imprisonment, at least, the guilty one. Not but that the apology of Saulsbury was humble enough in all conscience. But it is time that our halls of legislation were thoroughly purified, now that 'chivalric' brigandage and the Southern system of personal retaliation no longer prevail. The first legislator who shall dare to draw a weapon in a place sacred to the councils of his country, should be permanently expelled from those councils, and made to feel by rigorous imprisonment, and life-long disfranchisement, the enormous infamy of his offence. We wonder that the English press treats us as a nation of boors and fools, and yet permit a representative on the floor of the Senate to set forth in his own person the worst of which a boor or fool is capable, and accept as full reparation a drunken-headaching apology!

These are the days of reform, and we sincerely trust that the reform will extend to the conduct of all our representatives, especially in Congress. The man who shall dare to apply, not merely to the President, but to any fellow member, while in either House, any terms of personal abuse, should incur a punishment which would teach him for the future to keep a civil tongue in his head, and make him endeavor to assume in future, at least the outward deportment of a gentleman. The going armed into such an assembly should however be promptly visited with a penalty of the extremest severity. It is time that the North freed itself entirely of these Southern 'dead rabbits' of the Saulsbury stamp, and indicated by every means in its power its determination to progress in the path of justice, order, and civilization.

All contributions, letters, &c., intended for the editors of The Continental Magazine, should be addressed to the care of John F. Trow, Esquire, No. 50 Greene street, New York. Correspondents directing to Mr. Leland are particularly requested to bear this address in mind, as that gentleman is no longer a resident of Boston.

We publish the poetical tale, The Lady and her Slave, by an American lady, subscribing herself Incognita. This is a poem of great genius and power. Whilst it possesses the inspiration of poetry, it has all the merits of a truthful and most interesting tale, combined with a splendid intellectual argument against slavery. This poem unites the logic of Pope with the genius and poetical inspiration of Goldsmith. It is a tragedy, and might be transferred to the stage. We trust Incognita will continue her favors to The Continental.

    R. J. W.

The rise in specie and in exchange is, we observe, spoken of as 'unprecedented'. The following extract from a work entitled, 'The British Empire in America,' written in 1740, shows that we are as yet far from having attained the differences in these respects:

'As to Money, they have none, Gold or Silver: About 50 Years ago they had some coined at Boston; but there's not enough now for Retailers. All Payments are in Province Bills, even so low as Half a Crown; thus every Man's Money is his Pocket Book. This makes the Course of Exchange so exorbitant, that 100l. in London made out lately 225l. in New-England; and if a Merchant sells his Goods from England at 220l. Advance upon 100l. in the Invoice, he would be a Loser by the Bargain, considering the incidental Charges on his Invoice.'

So that after all, they had as great 'ups and downs' of old as do we of the present day.

Apropos of the old book in question, it abounds in quaint bits of information, given in a dry, free and easy style seldom found at the present day in any work of the kind. Thus it tells us, among the anecdotes of ELLIOT the missionary, that an Indian in a religious conference asked how GOD could create man in his own image, since according to the second commandment it was forbidden to make any such image?

'To qualify him for the Work he was going about, Mr Elliot learnt the Indian Language as barbarous as can come out of the Mouth of Man, as will be seen by these Instances:

'Nummatchekodtantamoonganunnonash, is in English, Our Lusts; a Word that the Reverend Mr Elliot must often have occasion to make Use of. As long as it is, we meet with a longer still:

'Kummogkodonattoottummoooctiteaongannunonash, meaning Our Question.

'Gannunonash' seems to be 'our,' because we find it in the End of the First Word, as well as the second, * * and this appears again in another Word:

'Noowomantammooonkanunnonash, 'Our Loves.'

'The longest of these Indian Words is to be measured by the Inch, and reaches to near half a Foot; and if Mr Elliot did put as many of these Words in a Sermon of his, as Mr Peters put English Words in one of his Sermons, everyone of them must have made a sizeable Book and have taken up three or four Hours in utterance.'

The Peters referred to was the celebrated Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain. Our author vindicates this clergyman from certain scandalous charges, declaring that he had asked of his daughter, Miss Peters, if they were so, which she had utterly denied! Less credulous is he as regarded 'William Pen' (with whom he seems to have been on terms of great personal intimacy), since he hints very broadly in one passage, that he put no faith whatever in a certain assertion of 'Pen' as to his own (Penn's) good behavior when amiably smiled on by a belle sauvage, who, as the French would say, was not savage at all. 'Scandal, scandal all,' we doubt not. There are gossipers in every age, tattlers in every corner of history, and who escapes them? Cato did not, Washington could not, and 'Mr Pen' even must fill his place with the great maligned. Let us trust that our incautious dip from the old work may not, suggest to any novel maker 'Penn and the Princess,—a Tale of the Olden Time.'

The following poem, which we find in the Philadelphia Press, is among the best of the many sad lyrics which the war has inspired. The music of the refrain is remarkable:

DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER

By George H. Boker

Close his eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon, or set of sun,
Hand of man, or kiss of woman?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow:
What cares he? he cannot know:
Lay him low!

As man may, he fought his fight,
Proved his truth by his endeavor;
Let him sleep in solemn night,
Sleep forever and forever.
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow:
What cares he? he cannot know: