G. Stebbins for its president, and Mr. Green as his most efficient auxiliary; and now both are to go back to the Central Park Commission, as if to complete their own vindication and the retribution of the spoilers. Let us take care to maintain the Philadelphia Park Commission, soon to enter upon a wider field of action, and to act in conjunction with the preparations for the grandest national event of the country, so that, with commensurate dignity and energy, it may fulfill the mission assigned to it.

One suggestion is made in connection with the Centenary of Independence which deserves the consideration of the Fairmount Park Commission. There is not a county in Pennsylvania that can not point to names of national and even worldwide renown. I need not recount a catalogue brilliant with the services of Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, Anthony Wayne, Robert Fulton, Lindley Murray, David Rittenhouse, Peter Muhlenberg, and their contemporaries and successors in war and peace, in science and in statesmanship, in art, in law, in medicine, in religion, in manufactures, and in skilled labor. The suggestion is that every county should select one of these departed worthies, and have a colossal statue to represent him, in bronze, marble, or iron, ready for Fairmount Park in season for the Centenary, there to remain during all time. The tribute would be graceful, and the cost comparatively small. There is not a county in Pennsylvania that could not easily afford to perpetuate the features of one of its illustrious sons. The condition precedent, however, should be that the work itself should be done by an accomplished artist. Save us, O Park Commission! from the effigies and caricatures that have so often disfigured and disgraced our lovely cities, and that still dishonor our nation's capital. "Art is long," says the poet. Art is not the growth of the hour, but of the ages. As it is created to endure, it can not graduate at once. If years of toil, study, and patience are essential to ripen a statesman, a scholar, a philosopher, a

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poet, or a complete mechanic, so are they essential to the creation of an artist, who should be a combination of varied learning. We have some fine specimens of American genius. Our Powers, Story, Rogers, Rothermel, Miss Hosmer, Reade, Ball, Baillie, Miss Stebbins, Church, Bierstadt, etc., are acknowledged leaders. But we should not be ashamed to lay under contribution the best minds of Europe when we come to the preservation of the memorials of those who have done so much for the liberty and the elevation of the whole human race. No crude brain or 'prentice hand should be employed, simply because it is of domestic growth, and no acknowledged master should be excluded because he was born under French, Italian, German, or English skies. As we shall invite the liberal thinkers of all nations to join us on the Fourth of July, 1876—as we shall look for John Bright, Louis Kossuth, Edouard Laboulaye, Guiseppe Garibaldi, Victor Hugo, Emilio Castelar, Guiseppe Mazzini, Alfred Tennyson, Charles Reade, and the republican teachers of Germany, we must extend a welcome, at least as warm, to the ripe and aspiring minds who are beautifying the galleries, churches, and streets of Paris, London, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Brussels, Cologne, Frankfort, Dusseldorf, Florence, Naples, Venice, Turin, and Imperial Rome. Art knows no party and no country. America is eventually and inexorably the chief of civilization. Opening her arms to all the children of men, she will gather to her side with a precious love those fortunate ones whom God has most generously crowned with his richest gifts. An able writer, in a late number of a London magazine, Temple Bar, thus sets forth the verdict of enlightened Europe, in a contrast between this country and France. We can not be unmindful of the duty here taught us in our relations to the rest of mankind:

"America, not France, has been the propagandist of democracy, and has instituted the only successful republic of ancient or modern times-a republic of which the foundations have

been cemented by no unrighteously spilled blood, nor undermined by fantastic social theories; a republic founded on reason, on the unalterable principles of humanity, neither twisted nor forced from their natural channels to harmonize with individual ideas; on the purely normal development of certain conditions of society and their only practical solution. American republicanism means the advancement of the human race ; French republicanism its destruction. Commerce and the arts of peace are the weapons of the one; fire and sword are the weapons of the other."

[November 26, 1871.]

XLVII.

MORE than twenty years ago I made the acquaintance of David Hoffman, of Baltimore, the eminent lawyer and legal writer, who died of apoplexy shortly after in the city of New York, seventy years old. I was introduced to him at the dinner-table of Charles Jared Ingersoll, then living in Walnut Street, near Fifth, in the city of Philadelphia, an equally interesting character, of more experience, if not profounder learning, who was born in 1782, and died on the 14th of May, 1862, at the great age of eighty. Marked deeply in my memory of that afternoon were two anecdotes of General Washington, whom these interesting veterans had known in their youth. Mr. Hoffman, while playfully reminding his contemporary and friend of his ancient Federalism [Mr. Ingersoll was one of the ablest of the Democratic leaders at the time], took special pains to illustrate his own consistent attachment to what he was pleased to call the doctrines and teachings of Washington, by relating how, as a lad of twelve, he had met the Father of his Country at Beltzhoover's Hotel, in Light Street, Baltimore. An immense

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crowd had assembled to greet the patriot. Hoffman, with two other boys, lingered after the concourse had dispersed, for an opportunity to see and converse with the honored guest. Washington had retired to his chamber, but answered the knock of the boys by opening his door and inviting them in. In those days the French republicans had a large class of imitators and followers in the United States, and Hoffman's two companions wore what was known as the Jefferson or French cockade in their caps. After Washington had asked their names, he turned to Hoffman and said, "I see that you have no cockade; will you allow me to make one for you?" And calling a servant, he directed him to purchase a piece of black ribbon, and "with this," said Mr. Hoffman, "he cut out for me a black cockade, which he pinned to my cap with his own hands; and that is why I have remained a Washington Federalist to this day, and why I shall die one." Mr. Ingersoll followed with an incident not less interesting. In his thirteenth year he had seen General Washington in Philadelphia. Playing around his residence in Market Street, near Fifth, with some of the children connected with the Washington family, he was persuaded into the house, and dined at the table with the great man, his wife, Mrs. Martha Washington, and his military aids or secretaries. Mr. Ingersoll described Washington as stately and austere. No conversation took place during the meal. He filled his own glass of madeira silently, passed the decanter to his lady, and then took wine with the guests, the boys inclusive. It was a long and quiet repast, and the boys were glad when it was over. Washington rose first, and passed to his front door, where three horses were in waiting in the hands of the grooms; the General mounted one, the aids the others, and all three rode rapidly out of Fifth Street.

There are not many living who could relate similar experiences. Mrs. Mary Ellet, whose memoir I had the honor of writing, and who lived to be nearly ninety, dying in the city of

Philadelphia about two years ago, was full of these reminiscences. There are doubtless old families whose records and recollections abound in stories of the Revolutionary and ante-Revolutionary heroes and statesmen. As we approach the Centennial Anniversary of American Independence these materials ought to be collected and edited. Our Historical Societies could in no better way honor the day and increase their usefulness than by publishing every thing pertaining to the immortal characters who deliberated at Philadelphia during the early stages of the Revolution, and down to the period when the seat of the National Government was finally removed to the city of Washington, at the beginning of the century. There is hardly an old State, from Maine to South Carolina, that is not instinct with private and personal recollections of these men and their works. In the five years between now and the 4th of July, 1876, much could be gathered from these sources to add to the interest of that auspicious anniversary, and to perpetuate our gratitude for those who first destroyed the British power, and then laid the foundations of American liberty on this continent. [December 3, 1871.]

XLVIII.

FROM the month of December, 1860, to the 19th of April, 1861, we made history like magic. Parties dissolved and sections consolidated. Professed politicians became practical patriots; professed patriots became practical traitors. Andrew Johnson struck the first blow on the 19th of December, 1860, in the Senate, and continued pounding against the Secessionists all through the war, insanely changing his course only when assassination and accident made him President-throwing away the ripest fruits of what seemed to be honest endeavors, and that