There is no bad news, is there, about short. You gave me a terrible fright, Agnes? Give me the letter." Lady Cumnor read, half aloud, though." "Lord Cumnor is so fond of joking," "How are Clare and Gibson getting on? said Mrs. Kirkpatrick, a little flurried, yet You despised my advice to help on that quite recognizing the truth of his last affair; but I really think a little match- words, "I cannot conceive any marriage making would be a very pleasant amuse- more suitable." She wondered what Lady ment now that you are shut up in the Cumnor thought of it. Lord Cumnor house; and I cannot conceive any marriage wrote as if there was really a chance. It more suitable." was not an unpleasant idea; it brought a faint smile out upon her face, as she sate by Lady Cumnor, while the latter took her afternoon nap. "Oh!" said Lady Cumnor, laughing, "it was awkward for you to come upon that, Clare: I don't wonder you stopped THE JOY-GUN. BY LIEUTENANT RICHARD BEALE. ["Soon after the occupation of Wilmington by the United States forces a negro called at the head-quarters of General Schofield, to whom, being introduced, he made known his errand. He had gathered together hundreds of men and women, escaped slaves, marching them from the interior by night. Not knowing whether our forces were yet in possession of the city, he had left his people behind him and scouted through alone, promising them that if ral to fire a joy-gun,' when they were all to come in and join him. The General ordered one of the heaviest pieces of artillery in the fort to be fired."Army Letter.] he found the Union soldiers he would ask the Gene BORNE on the wings of the Northern breeze, The word of the Lord by his servant's mouth With the dread of his old life shuddering through With the hope of his new life beckoning to him, He was only a black man; grim and gaunt, Sees that the heavens are clear, and thence With the ache in his breast which dumb souls have. But as he stood there bare of head, How his people arose and fled Through terrible leagues of mortal flight, Past forest and thicket, swamp and flood, won, And the General said it should be done: - How, o'er his black and stolid face, An august look in his lifted eyes, Tranced with a vision through which there To the dead Lazarus, saying, Arise! The self-same Infinite Voice which spake To where archangels might woo and win him, In Oh, gun of Freedom! that then and there Till the whole earth, Lord, lies pure in Thee. Harper's Weekly. From the Spectator, 27th May, THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND. THE English ruling class have made one great blunder about the power and temper of the United States of which even its greatest organs are obviously conscious. Public opinion "in the educated classes' pronounced decisively on the merits and issue of the great conflict there, and is now conscious that it pronounced wrong. It sees no such conflict à l'outrance as it predicted, and none of that disposition in the South to prolong the war by those desperate methods familiar in history by which the passionate sentiment of genuine patriotism manifests itself to the last in the teeth of far more formidable difficulties than the South now sees. On the other hand, even the most prejudiced of English Southerners can detect little or nothing of that bloodthirsty feeling in the conquerors by which they expected to be stirred in spirit if what they thought the wrong cause should win. They are beginning to understand that they have been blinded by prejudice to both the spirit and the power of the Free States of the North, and to realize somewhat more distinctly how disastrous a blunder they might have made had they been governed by the impulses of the more violent among them, how grave a blunder, involving serious danger, though we trust not calamity, they have made as it is. The public mind is ripe for a great change of attitude, and even The Times, with more tardy sagacity than usual, is, though with some preliminary vibrations, coming slowly round. At the same time the danger—for it is a great danger of persistent injustice and misinterpretation of motives between one great people and another speaking the same tongue, is by no means passed; and in the last few days it has been again threatening mischief. The English middle class, though not a very acute class in judging the affairs of other countries, though wanting in scope of imagination and elasticity of sympathy, would, however, never have made this farstretching and terrible blunder, and given its deliberate sympathy to a principle and system which it has repeatedly and passionately condemned, without very strong predisposing causes. As those causes are again at work to do mischief in relation to the new aspect of affairs, and are already breeding new misinterpretations of the United States foreign policy, let us point out what they are. Our own feeling of course is primarily for our own country, and in any issue like that of the Trent affair, or the unreasonable demand for confiscation on account of the depredations of the Alabama, we have been the first to point out the encroaching tendencies of the United States and approve the firmness of our own Government. But we believe that the radical injustice of our public opinion has done far more to render the popular feeling of the United States sensitive and encroaching than any presumptuous disposition on their own part; and if England is to take the mote out of the eye of America it would be well for her to prepare herself for the operation by first taking the beam out of her own eye. The great sources of the radical perversion of English public opinion bitherto on American affairs sources again showing signs of fresh activity-have been two, the excessive tact, secrecy, and activity of the Confederate agents in this country in poisoning the sources of opinion, and the immense vantage-ground given to them by the predisposing dread felt in England of the growing power of the Union and the wish to see it broken up. The latter, or selfish ground, has far too much hold on the comfortable classes of this country, but it would not have twisted the English estimate of everything as it has done without a mocking Confederate Mephistopheles to pre-occupy the middle-class ear with his interpretations of the past and anticipations of the future. It is because we hear his voice asserting its influence again with respect to the Federal foreign policy that we are now warning the public against it. We have not indeed for nearly six weeks had any letter from Mr. Spence in The Times proving (as he has so often proved on the morrow of one great reverse for the South and the eve of another) that the Government of the United States has lost ground steadily in its attempt to put down the rebellion ever since the beginning of the war. But though Mr. Spence is either silent or utters his oracles without his name, and though even "Our NewYork correspondent" is bridled and tame, the duty of representing this cause in influential English circles is not neglected, and appears to have devolved upon the writers in a journal which has the tactical advantage of neither itself distinguishing, nor giving any clue to its readers to distinguish, between its comic and serious statements, The Owl. Whether the earliest possible news of the promotion of junior officers in the Civil Service, or the assertion that a serious breach with the Govern -- ment of the United States is imminent, be considered as the more telling joke in the last number, it is not easy to say, but the latter, and certainly fictitious piece of information has unfortunately inspired a good deal of that easy belief which anxiety always tends to promote. Quoted on all sides and half credited everywhere, the very unpleasant statement that "within the last few days we have been definitely asked by the Cabinet at Washington to pay an indemnity for the depredations of the Alabama, and other vessels" of the same class, is rather an unpleasant practical joke than a witticism. We need not explain that it is wholly false, as it has been explicitly contradicted by an official journal certainly not Northern in sympathy The Globe-a journal which only last Tuesday dived into history to find a historical parallel for Mr. Jefferson Davis, and presented him to us with a pathos too deep for tears as a pure "virgin" whose honour President Johnson is attempting before he executes his victim. We need only point out the motive which causes the diffusion of these falsehoods, and the danger under which England lies of being checked midway in a wholesome revolution of opinion by these groundless and irritating rumours. The Owl, like numbers of more influential journals, has evidently a Confederate counsellor close at hand, whose purpose it is to re-excite the angry feelings between England and the Union which the murder of President Lincoln had for the moment dispersed. Now we are not for a moment denying that the sleeping claims of the United States Government against us on account of the Alabama, untenable as we believe them to be, will be revived. But in truth, as the Confederates too well know, the result wholly depends on the moment and the manner of their revival. If they are revived, as Mr. Seward wished that they should be, in some time of calm, when the mutually injurious misrepresentations on both sides of the Atlantic are forgotten, and they can be tranquilly discussed as a question of precedent and international law only, no one would fear for the result. But if peremptorily pressed at a moment when the United States have still large and highly-disciplined armies and fleets ready to their hands, and while the cordial sympathy of England in their national grief is still sounding in their ears, every Englishman would feel the demand a menace, and be disposed not to discuss but to resent it. And this is precisely why this false rumour - is now circulated. The Confederates see that English eyes are beginning to open to the true state of the political issues between North and South, and accordingly they strike again the old chords of national fear and pique, and try to push us back into the old unjust frame of thought towards the Union by persuading us that we are palpably threatened and stirring us to defiance. But Mr. Mason, or whoever the adviser of this darkly-comic English journal may be, goes too far. He counsels us to rely on joint action with France in American affairs, in other words, to mix ourselves up in the Mexican imbroglio in order that France may support us in resisting a demand for compensation. This is scarcely a course that will recommend itself to a sagacious middle class. England has never understood the merits of the Mexican case, and has always been heartily glad that we withdrew in time from the French expedi tion. To purchase an alliance with France in resisting an action for damages, by offering her an alliance in resisting the invasion by another of a vast territory so recently invaded and conquered by herself, would be indeed to copy the conduct of Glaucus to Diomede, "to give gold for brass, that which is worth a hundred oxen for that which is worth nine." But in truth the true policy, on the resolute adoption of which by the English public issues of immeasurable importance depend, is to resist steadily this temptation to discuss a difference with America for which neither the time nor the temper has yet come. England has a great, though we trust in great measure an involuntary, injury to repair. Let her do justice first to the great cause which she has been covering with obloquy through four years of doubtful struggle. Let her recognize adequately the clearness of conviction and the steadiness of purpose which have marked the policy of the Federal Administration. Let her do justice to the sincerity of the emancipation policy. Let her recognize the magnanimity and absence of all vindictive sentiment in the mass of the Northern people; and let her attempt to keep back selfish issues till they are put fairly before us by the United States. We feel confident that Mr. Lincoln's and Mr. Seward's promise will be kept, and that it will be the new Government's wish to press this question, if it be pressed at all, at a moment when all mutual irritation has subsided, and it can be discussed as what it is -a legal claim. If we can only do justice to the American nation before we enter on the theme of our personal differences, neither party will have much to fear, but this is precisely what the Confederates desire to prevent. It is not the nature of the controversy, it is the significance lent it by a long course of irritating misinterpretation of the Republican Government, which makes it so delicate and dangerous a subject. The object of forcing it on for discussion at the present moment is not to come to an understanding with the United States, but to prevent one. A LETTER FROM JOHN STUART MILL. The following letter from that most distinguished and accomplished friend of the United States, Mr. John Stuart Mill, was received a few days since by a gentleman in New York. It was written in the course of private correspondence, and not intended for the public eye; but its spirit is so generous and sympathetic, and its suggestions so wise, that the Evening Post gave it publicity: AVIGNON, May 13, 1865. ment or peace-offering. I have never believed there was any real danger of a quarrel between the two countries; but it is of immense importance that we should be firm friends; and this is our natural state, for, though there is a portion of the higher and middle classes of Great Britain who so dread and hate democracy that they cannot wish prosperity and power to a democratic people, I sincerely believe that this feeling is not general, even in our privileged classes. Most of the dislike and suspicion which have existed towards the United States were the effect of pure ignorance; ignorance of your history, and ignorance of your feeling and disposition as a people. It is difficult for you to believe that this ignorance could be as dense as it really was. But the late events have begun to dissipate it; and if your government and people act as I fully believe they will in regard to the important questions which now await them, there will be fear of their being ever again so grossly ent generation. misunderstood, at least in the lives of the pres As to the mode of dealing with these great questions, it does not become a foreigner to advise those who know the exigencies of the case so much better than he does. But as so many of my countrymen are volunteering advice to you at this crisis, perhaps I may be forgiven if I offer mine the contrary way. Every one is eager in calculating gentleness, and only gentleness, as if you had shown any signs of a dispobeen afraid of one thing only - that sition to take a savage revenge. I have always be too gentle. I should be sorry to see any life you would taken after the war is over (except those of the asbut one thing I hope will be considered absolutesassins), or any evil inflicted in mere vengeance; ly necessary to break altogether the power of the abolition of slavery will be merely nominal. the slaveholding case. Unless this is done, If an aristocracy of ex-slaveholders remain able effectually to nullify a great part of the remasters of the State Legislature, they will be gult which has been so dearly bought by the blood of the free States They and their dependants must be effectualy outnumbered at the polling cession of full equality of political rights to places; which can only be effected by the connegroes, and by a large immigration of settlers from the North; both of them being made independent by the ownership of land. With these things, in addition to the constitutional amendment (which will enable the Supreme Court to In England, horror of the crime, and sym- back slavery in disguise), the cause of Freedom sat aside any State legislation tending to bring pathy with your loss; seem to be almost universal, even among those who have disgraced their is safe, and the opening words of the Declaracountry by wishing sucess to the slaveholders. tion of Independence will cease to be a reproach to the nation founded by its authors. *** I am, dear sir, yours very truly, J. S. MILL. Dear Sir: I had scarcely received your note of April 8, so full of calm joy in the splendid prospect now opening to your country, and through it to the world, when the news came that an atrocious crime had struck down the great citizen who had afforded so noble an example of the qualities befitting the first magistrate of a free people, and who, in the most trying circumstances, had gradually won not only the admiration, but almost the personal affection, of all who love freedom or appreciate simplicity and uprightness. But the loss is ours, not his. It was impossible to have wished him a better end than to add the crown of martyrdom to his other honors, and to live in the memory of a great nation as those only live who have not only labored for their country, but died for it. And he did live to see the cause triumphant, and the contest virtually over. How different would our feelings now be if this fate had overtaken him, as it might so easily have done, a month sooner! I hope the manifestations which were instantaneously made there in almost every quarter may be received in America as some kind of atone If you love her best speak up like a man; Love was pleasant enough, and the days went fast; Pleasant while it lasted, but it needn't last; Was it pleasant to you? to me it was: As a goodly rainbow that fades away, As the first spring day, or the last summer day, Good luck to Kate and good luck to you: Hate you? not I, my very good friend; But let broken be broken; I put no faith Just my love and one word to Kate: THE NEGRO'S PLACE IN NATURE. (To the Ethnological Society.) SAGES of that zetetic band Who, with discussion free, Which few Societies will stand, Pursue Ethnology; You have been looking up of late. The Negro's wool, the Negro's skin, His facial angle, too, DISRAELI'S option, widely known With you that question hangs. The Negro's and Gorilla's shape What kin is that anthropoid ape If any, the Gorilla's proved And angels QUASHEE takes his stand; Punch. |