with each succeeding year? When the chemists of the last century observed the discoloration and degradation which certain metallic salts undergo in the sunlight, who could possibly read, in a circumstance so apparently trivial though occasionally troublesome, the intimation that the sun himself was about to place in the hands of Niepce, and Daguerre, and Talbot, a pencil whose magical powers of delineation should cause the highest achievements of human pictorial art to seem poor and rude in the comparison? When Malus, in 1810, watching the glare of the sun's rays reflected from the windows of the Luxembourg to his own, noticed for the first time the curious phenomena attendant on that peculiar condition of light which has since been known by the name of polarization, what prescience could have connected a fact so totally without any perceptible utility, with the manufacture of sugar in France; or have anticipated that an instrument founded in principle on this very property would, forty years later, effect an annual saving to the French people to the extent of hundreds of thousands of francs? When Ersted, in 1819, observed the disturbance of the magnetic needle by the influence of a neighboring galvanic current, how wild and visionary would not that man have been pronounced to be who should have professed to read in an indication so slight the grand truth that science had that day stretched out the sceptre of her authority over a winged messenger, whose fleetness should make a laggard even of Oberon's familiar sprite, and render the velocity which could "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes" tardy and unsatisfying?

Questions of this kind, suggested by the history of scientific progress, might be multiplied to fill a volume. Indeed, it has almost come to be a dogma in science, that there is no new truth whatever, no matter how wide a space may seem, in the hour of its discovery, to divide it from any connection with the material interests of man, which carries not within it the latent seeds of a utility which further discovery in the same field will reveal and cause to germinate. And it has also almost come to be a rule, that new discoveries in regard to the properties of material things, or of the laws that govern them, shall belong to the class of seemingly useless truths. For the obvious applications of known natural laws, the obvious utilities inherent in familiar physical qualities, have, under the untiring scrutiny of myriads of penetrating eyes, been long since brought to light, and, inwrought into the endlessly varied operations of the human art, have been made tributary to the service of mankind. The superficial placers have all been overrun and exhausted; the golden sands of the pleasant river valleys have yielded up their dazzling and easily won treasures; the rifled surface presents no longer anything to recompense the labor of the eager adventurer; but deep in the everlasting rocks, and locked in an adamantine prison, lies yet the pre

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cious object of desire; still attainable, but attainable only at the price of a toil that never tires, as the conquest of an energy which difficulties only stimulate, and as the reward of a patience which no discouragements can exhaust.

A PROPHETIC WARNING.

[An Oration delivered before the Citizens of Tuscaloosa, Ala., 4 July, 1851.]

DECREE our separation! On this unwelcome theme permit me for

one moment to dwell.

Permit me, before I conclude, to add one word of warning, one word of entreaty, one word of deep, earnest, most certainly patriotic, conviction. For what should we decree our separation? That the broad barrier of the Constitution, which now forms our impregnable rampart against the rabid abolitionism of England, and the no less dangerous socialism of France, may be broken down, and leave us exposed to formidable assaults upon all our boundaries, and vexatious annoyances in all our intercourse with the world? That the combined fanaticism of all Christendom may plot unmolested against our peace, may harass all our borders with marauding incursions, and instigate servile war in the very heart of our quiet land? That the obligation to respect, protect, and restore our property, which now shields our widely exposed Northern frontier—an obligation not cheerfully fulfilled, if you please, but still an obligation, and still-mark that-fulfilled, nevertheless may be utterly swept away, to give place to a never-ceasing border war expanding at frequent intervals into general hostilities? Is it for these things that we are to decree our separation? If not, then for what other, and for what better?

What was it I heard? A foreign alliance? Did some one seem to say that Britain, in terror of her operatives, and dependent on the cotton-growing States for her only security against convulsion, would gladly receive us under the shadow of her wing? Did I hear the remark that this all-powerful mistress of the waves would eagerly seize the proffered privilege of fighting for us our battles against the North, and that a British line-of-battle ship off the harbor of Charleston would blow the revenue-cutters of the Union-aye, and the frigates too-like so many fishing smacks, out of the water? If I did not hear that language here I have heard it elsewhere. And shall we yield ourselves up to so fatal a delusion as this? Great Britain needs your cotton, you say, and therefore she will help you. And this remark you make of the grand robber of the civilized world-a nation whose career has been signalized by depredation wherever her adventurers have penetrated and wherever

her flag has flown, whose cry, like that of the daughters of the horseleech, has been everywhere, "Give, give”—a nation whose track over India and the farthest East has been marked by bloodshed, rapine and plunder, the gripe of whose covetous hand your own fathers felt at their throats, and who would now be fattening herself upon your life-blood also, but for that devoted heroism in them which we are assembled this day to commemorate. And this nation it is which you expect to give you something. Deceive not yourselves, fellow-citizens. Great Britain never gives where she has the power to take. She needs your cottongranted. You need her manufactures-she knows it. If she must buy or perish, you must sell or starve. And which, in a contest of this kind, do you think has power to hold out the longest? Certainly not you. But suppose you have; will this bring her to your terms? You seem to imagine that if you will not willingly give her your cotton she cannot get it. Inconceivable error! You tell us that her very existence is at stake if you stop her mills. Grant this to be true, and I tell you that you cannot stop them. Instead of coming to your terms, she will force you to hers. You say she fears the rabble of her unemployed operatives. What is to prevent her turning that rabble loose upon you? Do I hear you say that you will never be wanting to the vindication of your independence and the defence of your firesides? I hope not; yet my heart sickens when I meet, at every turn, still the same trumpet-cry of conflict, still the same menace of blood!

But you answer, triumphantly, England will sooner make terms than fight. War is fearfully expensive, and England totters on the verge of national bankruptcy. True-and therein lies the very hopelessness of the case. England cannot come to terms with you without fighting an enemy more formidable than you will be--the confederated States from which you will have torn yourselves away. Unfortunately the army, the navy, all the stores and munitions of war, the custom-houses of the great seaports, and, more than all, the immense superiority of numbers, will remain on the side of the confederacy. You propose that England shall become your ally in the war. Mercenary England always counts the cost, the more especially since she has no money to throw away. What is to prevent her becoming the ally of the North against you? Certainly this would be her cheapest, her surest, her most direct route to the object of her wishes. And the cotton which you expect her to buy on your terms she will force you to sell on her own. Nor will it constitute the slightest objection to such a proceeding in her eyes, that while with one hand she grasps your cotton, with the other she may liberate your slaves.

These remarks may not be acceptable, but are they not true? And if they are, is it not necessary that such truths should be plainly spoken

and deeply pondered? Decree our separation! If it is for this, or anything like this, that we are to be delivered from our present grievances, better, far better, is it that we

"Bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of."

And are we to consider ourselves alone? Is nothing due to that sublime mission which has been confided to us, the propagation and universal diffusion of free principles throughout the world? Shall we esteem as of no account the prayers of the manacled thousands in other and less happy lands who are stretching out their hands to us and imploring us not to extinguish the fires upon the only altars of pure liberty beneath the arch of heaven? Is this peaceful asylum of the persecuted of all countries to be converted into a pandemonium of anarchy and carnage, where life is even less secure than in the blood-stained domains of despotism whence they have fled?

Decree our separation! For any cause that has yet arisen be the thought cast out with loathing and horror! Decree our separation! While the Constitution still continues to throw over us its sheltering shield let not the suggestion dare again to intrude upon our minds! Decree our separation! God in his infinite mercy forbid!

IT

Frances Ann Kemble.

BORN in London, England, 1809.

A FIRST APPEARANCE.

[Records of a Girlhood. 1879.]

T was in the autumn of 1829, my father being then absent on a professional tour in Ireland, that my mother, coming in from walking one day, threw herself into a chair and burst into tears. She had been evidently much depressed for some time past, and I was alarmed at her distress, of which I begged her to tell me the cause. "Oh, it has come at last," she answered; "our property is to be sold. I have seen that fine building all covered with placards and bills of sale; the theatre must be closed, and I know not how many hundred poor people will be turned adrift without employment!" I believe the theatre employed regularly seven hundred persons in all its different departments, without reckoning the great number of what were called supernumeraries, who

were hired by the night at Christmas, Easter, and on all occasions of any specially showy spectacle. Seized with a sort of terror, like the Lady of Shalott, that "the curse had come upon me," I comforted my mother with expressions of pity and affection, and, as soon as I left her, wrote a most urgent entreaty to my father that he would allow me to act for myself, and seek employment as a governess, so as to relieve him at once at least of the burden of my maintenance. I brought this letter to my mother, and begged her permission to send it, to which she consented; but, as I afterward learned, she wrote by the same post to my father, requesting him not to give a positive answer to my letter until his return to town. The next day she asked me whether I seriously thought I had any real talent for the stage. My school-day triumphs in Racine's "Andromaque" were far enough behind me, and I could only answer, with as much perplexity as good faith, that I had not the slightest idea whether I had or not. She begged me to learn some part and say it to her, that she might form some opinion of my power, and I chose Shakespeare's Portia, then, as now, my ideal of a perfect woman -the wise, witty woman, loving with all her soul and submitting with all her heart to a man whom everybody but herself (who was the best judge) would have judged her inferior; the laughter-loving, lighthearted, true-hearted, deep-hearted woman, full of keen perception, of active efficiency, of wisdom prompted by love, of tenderest unselfishness, of generous magnanimity; noble, simple, humble, pure; true, dutiful, religious, and full of fun; delightful above all others, the woman of women. Having learned it by heart, I recited Portia to my mother, whose only comment was, "There is hardly passion enough in this part to test any tragic power. I wish you would study Juliet for me." Study to me then, as unfortunately long afterward, simply meant to learn by heart, which I did again, and repeated my lesson to my mother, who again heard me without any observation whatever. Meantime my father returned to town and my letter remained unanswered, and I was wondering in my mind what reply I should receive to my urgent entreaty, when one morning my mother told me she wished me to recite Juliet to my father; and so in the evening I stood up before them both, and with indescribable trepidation repeated my first lesson in tragedy.

They neither of them said anything beyond "Very well,—very nice, my dear," with many kisses and caresses, from which I escaped to sit down on the stairs half-way between the drawing-room and my bedroom, and get rid of the repressed nervous fear I had struggled with while reciting, in floods of tears. A few days after this my father told me he wished to take me to the theatre with him to try whether my voice was of sufficient strength to fill the building; so thither I went. That strange-looking place, the stage, with its racks of pasteboard and