schools introduced the system of mixed education, the great question of church and state may receive a rational solution in Ireland, where the Establishment is clearly a political evil, and the dominant Church a hopeless minority.

HIGH among the books which we trust are to have an honorable share in toning up the public mind to the pitch of carrying through that hard task of righteousness which is laid upon our nation, we are glad to rate "The Golden Hour."* No symptom of these latter days is more remarkable, to one who watches the drift of general opinion, than the growing conviction, fast coming to be unanimous and intense, that slavery must be destroyed, as the condition of any secure and permanent peace. Questions of method, and questions of expediency as to particular details, are the only questions we are willing to admit in regard to this one way of issue out of our present troubles. We feel bound, indeed, to give serious heed to all such questions in any discussion which seeks either to state the facts of the case fairly, or to lay out a course of public policy to deal with them. But it is with a sense of refreshment and invigoration that we put them all aside, and listen to the downright, earnest talk of one who will look with a single eye only to the end, and treats all timid scruples with a generous and lofty scorn. This is our feeling about Mr. Conway's book. We have to question a statement here and there, made with too positive dogmatism, and to censure the intolerance which hoots at those differences of judgment, which come more from temperament than character, as so many follies and crimes. We are unmoved by the violent lamentations and astonishments, that twenty million people are not wrought all at once to a revolutionary pitch of moral heroism, or that their rulers should be hampered by a sense of official responsibility. And we regret that an argument so pungent with wit, and so eloquent with conviction, should be hurt by puerilities and freaks of style totally unworthy of it. As to these last, we reconcile ourselves to the supposition that they may find favor somewhere in the strange world of the reading public, and so do duty as an entering wedge. And as to the other points of cavil, we are only too glad to forget them, and yield ourselves to the sheer magnetism of the writer's thought. Perhaps it will not do much to instruct those in authority as to the particular measures they ought to follow. Possibly though we hope not-it may offend the discreet reader by such grotesque misstatements as that the million negroes of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida have been reduced to slavery recently, by the act of President Lincoln! But it will do good by the mere vividness and force of conviction with which it is written. It will do good as the incandescence of Northern principle touched with Southern fire. We welcome it as the testimony, brave and sincere, of one whose moral nature has outgrown the conditions of

*The Golden Hour. By MONCURE D. CONWAY. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

his earlier nurture, and who bears eyewitness of the quality of that thing which with a righteous zeal his soul has learned to hate. The testimony is the more valuable, because the writer's birth and experience have put him en rapport with the spirit of slavery, and have given him a comprehension of it different from what is possible to one born in colder latitudes and studying it only afar off.

With the praiseworthy vehemence that belongs to ardent faith, Mr. Conway sees no salvation except in the instant accepting of it. A month's delay in the conversion of our vast population seems to him perilous, almost certainly fatal, to the very existence of our nation. That we have not at the head of the government a man who combines the moral elevation of a Channing with Cæsar's imperial will and the political genius of Napoleon, is to him not simply that ordinary condition of events under which republics suffer and are made strong, but is a calamity of the darkest dye, to be overcome, if it were possible, by some magnificent coup d'état of some saint or hero hitherto unknown. With a cavalier antipathy to legalism, and a transcendental hate of formula, he would (if we understand him rightly) have the republic governed purely by the virtuous emotions of its rulers. And he obligingly offers to relieve the President of all responsibility, by issuing the proclamation of emancipation himself.

While indicating what seems to us the weakness of the book, we copy, in recompense, the admirably condensed statement and argument of the following paragraphs :

"These slaves of the loyal States we take because they are essential to any permanent peace in the country, and if we are compelled to abnormal strife for peace, we have a military right to strive for a permanent peace, and not merely to defeat an army in this or that engagement. We take these slaves as we have taken the houses and stock of loyal men on our march. Let them bring in their bills. Doubtless we shall have to pay more than the number of loyal slaveholders would warrant; for we shall be sure to find, when pay-day comes, that every slaveholder had been all along a very Abdiel for fidelity: but who shall stop to count the money that goes to ransom a race and a nation from the slavery which buys and sells the bodies of the one and

the souls of the other?

"We shall need liberation first in these Border States, not only because we must make a clean sweep of the evil, but because these Border State negroes are to be our guaranties of good faith to the more Southern negroes; they are to be both our banners hung out upon the outer walls, and our telegraph lines along which the electric word of Liberation shall flash.”— pp. 149, 150.

THE new Continental Monthly has, in its half-year's existence, done good service in the cause of emancipation, and perhaps in no way better than in the story of Southern life which has appeared in it.* It is not in novel form, and for some time we supposed it to be, like Olmsted's travels, a genuine account of a tour, a delusion rendered more easy by the occasional digressions upon questions of Southern economy and industry. The reader is a little annoyed at finding that what im

* Among the Pines. By EDMUND KIRKE. New York: J. R. Gilmore.

presses him as entirely truthful is after all fiction, and that what is to him a very persuasive argument against slavery is not sufficiently authoritative to quote as such. Extensively circulated, - as we are glad to learn it is to be, - it can do incalculable good in opening the eyes of those who cannot or will not see the abstract sin of the system to its vile realities and criminal wastefulness, and to the intensity of the passion for freedom in the most intelligent of its victims. It is altogether a most timely publication. Compared with the grandeur of the subject, the details of manner and style are insignificant. But here it need not fear criticism. The incidents are perhaps crowded, but well told, and the author vouches for their individual truth. The various classes of society are depicted with infinite humor, the dialogue is animated and characteristic, the dialects well sustained, the characters very natural, and the tone is throughout kindly. Slavery, as a system, receives no mercy but even the renegade Yankee, Moye, wins at last a gleam of pity from the reader. The two negroes, Scip and Jim, the corncracker Barnes, and the staunch Unionist Andy Jones, are especially noteworthy. Andy's speech and letter are perhaps the richest things in the volume.

*

THE second utterance of the noble Frenchman who dares to vindicate a brave and suffering people against the calumnies of their foreign enemies is a worthy sequel to the first, which told of "the uprising of a great people." In spite of all the untoward events of the war, of Bull Run, and the Trent, and the removal of Fremont, Count Gasparin continues to believe that the cause of the North is just, that it is in the interest of freedom, and that it deserves the sympathy of all enlightened and Christian men. His book now is for rebuke of French and English critics, and for cheer to loyal Americans. With some things, indeed, he is not entirely satisfied, and he points out without acerbity some mistakes that have been made. But in the main he justifies the course that the American President and the American generals have taken, and sees in this year of war a providential year. The tone of his reflections and his advice is hopeful and confident. He does not believe that the North will be defeated, or that the Union will be dissolved, and he exposes admirably the sophisms by which the English have allowed themselves to be deceived.

Count Gasparin's book is in six parts. The First is upon the "Attitude of Europe." This is deplored as a strange and lamentable hallucination. England was wrong at the start in recognizing the South as "belligerent," and in refusing open moral sympathy to the North. The clear-sighted Count sees through that lie by which the English writers have veiled their selfishness, that their "neutral" position required them to treat both parties as "belligerents." He shows that this apparent neutrality was simply encouragement to the guilty and rebellious party.

* America before Europe. Principles and Interests. By COUNT AGÉNOR DE GASPARIN. Translated from advance sheets by MARY L. BOOTH. New York: Charles Scribner.

one

The Second Part is especially devoted to England, its conduct and motives. Count Gasparin discovers in England two nations, cold, selfish, prudent, and sceptical, the other generous, broad, and humane, ready to aid in any cause of human freedom. The first of these nations had voice and way at the beginning, but the second now has come forward to change the course of sentiment, and to say and do better things. We commend Count Gasparin's charitable judgment, but we cannot see so distinctly as he sees that "second" English nation. We are not yet able to discern any considerable change in English opinion concerning American affairs, or to find that the progress of our struggle has brought that rich and conceited Pharisee to any righteous judgment concerning our American affairs. At no time have Americans been less likely to find favor with the aristocrats and cotton-spinners of the English realm than now. The Count's view of the English policy and feeling is too favorable, severe as it may seem to their selfrighteousness. He condemns too mildly, though he condemns very decidedly. He does not allow weight enough to the feeling of national jealousy and the notion of commercial interest.

Part Third deals with five propositions, which have come to pass current in Europe as axioms. These are, that "slavery has nothing to do with the war"; that "civil war ought to be avoided before all things"; that "the South had a right to secede "; that "the South, if conquered, will not be brought back to the Union"; and that "the South will not be conquered." Each one of these axioms is shown to

be weak, unfounded, and delusive, and the first to be a palpable absurdity and falsehood. Count Gasparin affirms that slavery is the sole cause of the war, — that nothing else did cause it or could have caused it; and he scouts, as puerile and preposterous, the talk about Cavalier and Roundhead, patrician and plebeian, two races and separate interests, tariffs, and the like. To him this war is a war suggested, inspired, and sustained by slavery, and sure to cease when slavery is killed. He believes that it is a righteous and holy war on the part of the North, and a wicked and monstrous war on the part of the South, that the South had no right to secede, and that they will be conquered, and will submit when they are conquered. His hope of this result is more sanguine than the hope of most American writers.

Part Fourth, on the "Interests of Europe in America," maintains that it is better for the nations of the Old World that the United States should remain one nation than that it should be divided, and earnestly deprecates the revival of foreign interference in American affairs. Count Gasparin looks with no favor upon the attempt of any European power to establish itself on our side of the Atlantic, and thinks England better off with America powerful than with America weak.

His Fifth Part prophesies the success of the war in abolishing slavery, in purifying the nation, and in setting it in a larger place. He believes that failure is barely possible, while success is next to

certain.

The Sixth Part is upon the course which Christians in England and America ought to take and are taking. It is a source of mortification

that the churches of England have so readily forgotten their antislavery professions, and a source of joy that the American churches have so nobly aided the cause of justice and freedom. A few “documents are appended to the volume.

A work so able and encouraging ought to secure for its author the deepest gratitude of the people whom he vindicates. And the author should be grateful to the translator for giving his thoughts such wide diffusion and such quick publicity. Every one, of course, will read, and probably most have already read, the book. With the exception of a very few trifling errors, (of which the worst is to render communes by "commons," instead of "municipalities,") the translation is entirely faithful to the original.

*

As a writer, a reasoner, and a scholar, M. Carlier is by no means to be compared with Count Gasparin or with Augustin Cochin. The tone of his treatise on Slavery is not high, nor are his views comprehensive; yet there is unfortunately too much truth in his strictures, especially in what he says of the social condition and legal disabilities of free Negroes in the Northern States. He is scandalized by the insults and deprivations to which this race of pariahs are subjected by their white brethren, and he cannot believe that emancipation will be any boon to the inferior race, unless it shall secure to them a better social standing along with the abstract rights of freemen. Of the scheme of colonization M. Carlier has not a favorable opinion. It is expensive, perplexing; and, as a solution of the question in its vast proportions, nothing less than ridiculous. "Liberia” he regards as a failure. What the States ought to do is to stop fighting, and give themselves at once to the work of educating the Negroes and preparing them for freedom. The Abolitionists of the North must consent to be silent about the evils of slavery, and the Southern Secessionists to give up their claim and bend their energies to hinder the violent overturn of their social state. M. Carlier's counsels are well meaning, but they have little chance to be heard in the present stage of proceedings. They are too late by more than a generation.

No reader can have forgotten the unique picture of human life given a few years ago by Mr. Mayhew in the remarkable work whose second volume has lately appeared.† As the Advertisement truly says, "It stands alone as a photograph of life as actually spent by the lower classes of the metropolis." The present volume contains a more distinct exposition than the former did of the plan of treatment which justifies the name Cyclopædia found upon its title-page. The treatment is characteristically English. It is a philosophy whose key-word is industry. Human society, seen from the writer's point of view, is divided into four main classes, those who work, those who cannot,

* De l'Esclavage dans ses Rapports avec l'Union Américaine. Par AUGUSTE CARLIER. Paris: M. Lévy Frères. 8vo. 1862.

† London Labor and the London Poor. MAYHEW. London: Griffin, Bohn, & Co.

Those that will not work. By HENRY