THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
Literature and National Policy.
VOL. V.
FEBRUARY, 1864—No. II.
CONTENTS
THOMAS JEFFERSON, AS SEEN BY THE LIGHT OF 1863. THE ENGLISH PRESS. PART II. THE TREASURY REPORT AND MR. SECRETARY CHASE. ASPIRO.—A FABLE. THE RED MAN'S PLEA. BUCKLE, DRAPER, AND A SCIENCE OF HISTORY.—THIRD PAPER DIARY OF FRANCES KRASINSKA. PETROLEUM. THE ANGELS OF WAR. A TRAGEDY OF ERROR. CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. 'NOS AMIS LES COSAQUES!' WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?—PART THE LAST. CHAPTER II.—continued. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. THE ANDES. NATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS. NORTH AND SOUTH. LITERARY NOTICES. EDITOR'S TABLE.THOMAS JEFFERSON, AS SEEN BY THE LIGHT OF 1863.
Mr. Jefferson, in his lifetime, underwent the extremes of abuse and of adulation. Daily, semi-weekly, or weekly did Fenno, Porcupine Cobbett, Dennie, Coleman, and the other Federal journalists, not content with proclaiming him an ambitious, cunning, and deceitful demagogue, ridicule his scientific theories, shudder at his irreligion, sneer at his courage, and allude coarsely to his private morals in a manner more discreditable to themselves than to him; crowning all their accusations and innuendoes with a reckless profusion of epithet. While at the same times and places the whole company of the Democratic press, led by Bache, Duane, Cheetham, Freneau, asserted with equal energy that he was the greatest statesman, the profoundest philosopher, the very sun of republicanism, the abstract of all that was glorious in democracy. And if Abraham Bishop, of New Haven, Connecticut, compared him with Christ, a great many New Englanders of more note than Bishop, pronounced him the man of sin, a malignant manifestation of Satan. On one or the other of these two scales he was placed by every man in the United States, according to each citizen's modicum of sense and temper. We say, every man—because in that war of the Democrats against the Federalists, no one sought to escape the service. Every able-tongued man was ready to fight with it, either for Jefferson or against him.
When Jefferson passed away triumphant, toleration set in. His enemies dropped him to turn upon living prey. They came to acquiesce in him, and even to quote him when he served their purpose. But the admiration of his followers did not abate. They canonized him as the apostle of American democracy, and gave his name to the peculiar form of the
These misguided Democrats owe to Jefferson the war cries they shout and the arms they are using against the Government. His works are an arsenal where these weapons of sedition are arranged ready for use, bright and in good order, and none of them as yet superseded by modern improvements. He first made excellent practice with the word 'unconstitutional,' an engine dangerous and terrible to the Administration against which it is worked; and of easy construction, for it can be prepared out of anything or nothing. Jefferson found it very effective in annoying and embarrassing the Government in his campaigns. But as he foresaw that the time must come when the Supreme Court of the United States would overpower this attack, he adapted, with great ingenuity, to party warfare the theory of States' Rights, which in 1787 had nearly smothered the Constitution in its cradle. This dangerous contrivance he used vigorously against the alien and sedition law, without considering that his blows were shaking the Union itself. Mr. Calhoun looked upon the Kentucky Resolutions (Jefferson's own work) as the bill of rights of nullification, and wrote for a copy of them in 1828 to use in preparing his manifesto of the grievances of South Carolina. It is unnecessary to allude to the triumph of these doctrines at the South under the name of secession.
As Jefferson soon perceived that a well-disciplined band of needy expectants was the only sure resort in elections, he hit upon rotation in office as the cheapest and most stimulating method of paying the regular soldiers of party for their services (if successful) on these critical occasions. But as a wise general not only prepares his attack, but carefully secures a retreat in case his men push too far in the heat of conflict, Jefferson suggested the plan of an elective judiciary, which he foresaw might prove of great advantage to those whose zeal should outrun the law. He even recommended rebellion in popular governments as a political safety valve; and talked about Shay's War and the Whiskey Insurrection in the same vein and almost the same language that was lately used to the rioters of New York by their friends and fellow voters. And he and his followers shouted then, as their descendants shout now, 'Liberty is in danger!' 'The last earthly hope of republican institutions resides in our ranks!' Jefferson is also entitled to the credit of naturalizing in the United States the phrases of the French Revolution: virtue of the people; reason of the people; natural rights of man, etc.—that Babylonish dialect, as John Adams called it, which in France meant something, but in this country was mere cant. Jefferson knew that here all were people, and that no set of men, whether because of riches or of poverty, had the right to arrogate to themselves this distinction. But he also knew that in Europe this distinction did exist, and that the emigrants who were coming in such numbers all belonged to the lower class, there called people. Of course these flattering phrases would win their ears and their votes for the people's ticket, against an imaginary aristocracy. Thus might be secured an army of obedient voters, knowing nothing but their orders, and thinking of nothing but the pleasing idea that they were the rulers.
These useful inventions are enough to immortalize any man. His theory, that the rich only should be taxed, as an indirect form of agrarianism, ought not to be forgotten, for we see it daily carried out; and his darling doctrine, that no generation can bind its successors, will come to light again and life whenever a party may think the repudiation of our war debt likely to be a popular measure. Indeed, there is scarcely a form of disorganization and of disorder which Jefferson does not extract from some elementary principle or natural right. We do not mean to accuse him of doing wrong deliberately. Jefferson was an optimist. All was for the best—at least, all that he did; for he was naturally predisposed to object to any measure which did not originate with himself or had not been submitted to his judgment. His elementary principles were always at his call. They were based upon reason: how could they be wrong? His mind grasped quickly all upon the surface that suited his purpose; deeper he did not care to go. In deciding whether any political doctrine was consistent or inconsistent with natural reason, he generally judged of it by his reason—and this varied with his position, his interest, his feelings. He probably was not aware of the extent of his mutations; his mind was fixed on the results to be obtained—always the same: the gratification of his wishes. His was a Vicar-of-Bray kind of logic. The ultimate results of his dealings, as affecting others and the nation at large, he apparently was unable to consider, or put them aside for the time; taking it for granted, in a careless way, that all must come well.
Thus as times changed, he changed with them. Laws, measures, customs, men, that seemed useful and praiseworthy when he was a private individual, appeared pernicious and wicked to the Secretary of State or to the President. His life and writings are full of self-contradictions, or rather of self-refutations, for he seems to forget that he had ever thought differently. Men of sense modify their opinions as they advance in years and in wisdom, but very few men of sense have held diametrically different opinions on almost every important question that has come before them.
Jefferson satisfied himself early in life that slavery was wrong, morally and economically. On no subject has he expressed himself more decidedly. When a very young member of the Assembly of Virginia, he seconded Colonel Bland's motion to extend the protection of the laws to slaves. Bland was treated roughly, and the matter dropped. From Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence a long passage on the iniquity of slavery and the slave trade was stricken out by Congress. In 1778 he introduced a bill prohibiting the importation of slaves into Virginia. Two years later he wrote the well-known pages in the
His chief objection to the new constitution, when he first saw it, was the omission in it of a bill of rights providing for the 'eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus act'—and for the freedom of the press. When Colonel Burr was arrested, Jefferson, who, by the way, showed a want of dignity and self-respect throughout the affair, was eager to suspend the habeas corpus act, and got a bill to that effect passed by one branch of Congress; it was lost in the other. This was the first instance in the history of the United States. The many fine things he had said on the integrity and independence of judges did not prevent him from finding bitter fault with Chief-Justice Marshall for not convicting Burr. He accused Marshall and the whole tribe of Federalists of complicity in Burr's conspiracy. Poor old Paine, then near his end, who was one of Jefferson's jackals of the press, informed the Chief-Justice, through the Public Advertiser, that he was 'a suspected character.' When Jefferson had felt the pricking of the Federal quills, he began to think differently of the freedom of the press. Once, in the safety of private station, he had got off this antithesis: if he had to choose between a government without newspapers, and newspapers without a government, he should prefer the latter. But when in his turn he felt the stings that previously, under his management, had goaded even Washington out of his self-control, Jefferson could not help saying that 'a suspension of the press would not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.'
Before September, 1791, Mr. Jefferson thought that our affairs were proceeding in a train of unparalleled prosperity, owing to the real improvements of the Government, and the unbounded confidence reposed in it by the people. Soon a jealousy of Hamilton came upon him, and the displeasure of playing a second part: he began to look for relief in the ranks of the malcontents. He then perceived monarchical longings in the Administration party, and prophesied corruption, despotism, and a loss of liberty forever, if they were to be allowed to interpret the Constitution in their way. Washington was the Atlas whose broad shoulders bore up the Federalists. Bache, of the Aurora, with whom Jefferson's word was law, and Freneau, of the Gazette, who had received from Jefferson a clerkship in the Department of State, accused the General of a desire to subvert the Constitution: the reserve of his manners was said to proceed from an affectation of royalty; they even ventured to charge him with perverting the public money. Jefferson refused to check these base attacks, and wrote in the same vein himself in the famous letter to Mazzei. But after the battle had been fought, he perceived that Washington had a hold stronger than party feelings on the affections of Americans. It would never do to leave his name and fame in the custody of Federalists. And so Mr. Jefferson turned about and denied that he had ever made any charges against General Washington. On the contrary, he felt certain that Washington did not harbor one principle of Federalism. He was neither an Angloman, a monarchist, nor a separatist. Bache he (Jefferson) knew nothing about; over Freneau he had no control; and the Mazzei letter had been misprinted and misinterpreted. In spite of his hatred of England, and his fears lest the English 'form' should be adopted in the United States, Jefferson, in 1788, had recommended the English form to Lafayette for the use of France. And in spite of the admiration for France, which with him and the Democrats was an essential article of the party faith, he took offence with the French Government because they sided with Spain in the dispute on the boundary line between Louisiana and Florida, and proposed to Madison an alliance with England against France and Spain. But Madison kept him steady. Six months later he accused John Randolph, who had abandoned the party, of entertaining the intolerable heresy of a league with England.
Mr. Jefferson once thought it necessary that the United States should possess a naval force. It would be less dangerous to our liberties than an army, and a cheaper and more effective weapon of offence. 'The sea is the field on which we should meet a European enemy.' 'We can always have a navy as strong as the weaker nations.' And he suggested that thirty ships, carrying 1,800 guns, and manned by 14,400 men, would be an adequate force. But the New Englanders, those bitter Federalists, loved the sea, lived by foreign trade, and wanted a fleet to protect their merchantmen. Mr. Jefferson's views became modified. He took a strong dislike to the naval service. He condemned the use of the navy by the late President, and wished to sell all the public armed vessels. Finding, however, that the maritime tastes of the nation were too strong for him, he hit upon the plan of a land navy as the nearest approximation to no navy at all. Gunboats were to be hauled out of the water, and kept in drydocks under sheds, in perfect preservation. A fleet of this kind only needed a corps of horse marines to complete its efficiency. The Federalists laughed at these 'mummy frigates,' and sang in a lullaby for Democratic babes this stanza:
'In a cornfield, high and dry,
Sat gunboat Number One;
Wiggle waggle went her tail,
Pop went her gun.'
The pleasantry is feeble; but the inborn absurdity of this amphibious scheme was too great even for the Democrats. Mr. Jefferson was forced, in the teeth of theory, to send a squadron against the Barbary pirates. He consoled himself by ordering the commodore not to overstep the strict line of defence, and to make no captures. It was to be a display of latent force. Strange as it may seem, he once doubted the expediency of encouraging immigration. Emigrants from absolute monarchies, as they all were, they would either bring with them the principles of government imbibed in early youth, or exchange these for an unbounded licentiousness. 'It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.' Would it not be better for the nation to grow more slowly, and have a more 'homogeneous, more peaceable, and more durable' government? But when it was found at a later day that the new comers placed themselves at once in opposition to the better classes and voted the Democratic ticket almost to a man, Jefferson proposed that the period of residence required by the naturalization laws to qualify a voter should be shortened. He had no objection to coercion before 1787. Speaking of the backwardness of some of the colonies in paying their quota of the Confederate expenses, he recommends sending a frigate to make them more punctual. 'The States must see the rod, perhaps some of them must be made to feel it.' His somersets of opinion and conduct are endless. Once he talked of opening a market in the neighboring colonies by force; at another time he advised his countrymen to abandon the sea and let other nations carry for us; in 1785 we find him going abroad to negotiate commercial treaties with all Europe. He objected to internal improvements, and he sanctioned the Cumberland road. He proclaimed all governments naturally hostile to the liberties of the people, until he himself became a government. He made the mission to Russia for Mr. Short, regardless of repeated declarations that the public business abroad could be done better with fewer and cheaper ambassadors. The unlucky sedition law was so unconstitutional in his judgment that he felt it to be his duty, as soon as he mounted the throne, to pardon all who had been convicted under it. But before he left the White House he attempted to put down Federal opposition in the same way. Judges were impeached; United States attorneys brought libel suits against editors, and even prosecuted such men as Judge Reeve and the Rev. Mr. Backus of Connecticut. It was a pet doctrine of Jefferson that one generation had no right to bind a succeeding one; hence every constitution and all laws should become null and every national debt void at the end of nineteen years, or of whatever period should be ascertained to be the average duration of human life after the age of twenty-one. He adhered to this notion through life, although Mr. Madison, when urged by him to expound it, gently pointed out its absurdity. When the news of the massacres of September reached the United States at an unfortunate moment for the Francoman party, Jefferson forgot this elementary principle and his logic. He professed that he deplored the bloody fate of the victims as much as any man, but they had perished for the sake of future generations, and that thought consoled him. Finally, the man who had announced in a public address, that he considered it a moral duty never to subscribe to a lottery, nor to engage in a game of chance, petitioned the Legislature of Virginia for permission to dispose of his house and lands in a raffle, and in his memorial recapitulated his services to the country to strengthen his claim upon their indulgence.
Jefferson professed great faith in human nature; but he meant the human nature of the uneducated and the poor. Kings, rulers, nobles, rich persons, and generally all of the party opposed to him, were hopelessly wrong. The errors of the people, when they committed any, were accidental and momentary; but in the other class, they were proofs of an ineradicable perversity. His faith in human reason as the only power for good government must have been shaken by the students of his university in Virginia. Their lawless conduct seemed to indicate that the time had hardly yet come when the old and vulgar method of authority and force could be dispensed with. The University of Virginia was a favorite project of Jefferson and an honorable memorial of his love of education and of letters. Although it may be considered a failure, it has failed from no fault of his. But we may judge of the real extent of Jefferson's toleration, when we read in a letter written about this university: 'In the selection of our law professor we must be rigorously attentive to his political principles.'
It is easy to know what would be Jefferson's position if by some miracle of nature he were living in these times. If at the South, he would be a man of brave words—showing it to be a natural right of the white man to own and to chastise his negro—and proving, from elementary principles, that slavery is the result of the supremacy of reason and the corner stone of civilized society. Had the advantages of the North led him to desert Monticello for the banks of the Hudson, he would have opposed the Administration, acting and talking much like a certain high official, 'letting I dare not wait upon I would'—for Jefferson was not a bold man, was master of the art of insinuating his opinions instead of stating them manfully, and never advanced so far as to make retreat impossible.
The truth is that there was nothing great nor even imposing in Jefferson's mental nor in his moral qualities. He expressed himself well in conversation and on paper, although a little pedagogical in manner, and too much given to epithet in style. The literary claims of the author of the Declaration of Independence cannot be passed over lightly. His mind was active; catching quickly the outlines of a subject, he jumped at the conclusion which pleased his fancy, without looking beneath the surface.[B] He was curious in all matters of art, literature, and science, but his curiosity was easily appeased. He raves about Ossian, gazes for hours on the Maison Carrée at Nismes, writes letters to Paine on arcs and catenaries, busies himself with vocabularies, natural history, geology, discourses magisterially about Newton and Lavoisier, and studies nothing thoroughly. One can see by the way in which he handles his technical terms that he does not know the use of them. He was a smatterer of that most dangerous kind, who feel certain they have arrived at truth. Like so many other children of the eighteenth century, he rejected the past with disdain, but was blindly credulous of the future; and was ready to embrace an absurdity if it came in a new and scientific shape. The marquises and abbés he met in France had dreamed over elementary principles of society and government, until they had lost themselves in wandering mazes like Milton's speculative and erring angels. He believed that those gay philosophes had discovered the magical stone of social science, and that misery and sin would be transmuted into virtue and happiness. It was only necessary to kill all the kings and to confide in the reason and virtue of the people, and the thing was done. The scenes of 1789 stimulated Jefferson's natural tendency beyond the bounds of common sense. He asserted that Indians without a government were better off than Europeans with one, and that half the world a desert with only an Adam and Eve left in each country to repopulate it would be an improvement in the condition of Europe. He became a bigot of liberalism. Luckily he had his American blood and practical education
On most subjects, Jefferson's opinions were dictated by his feelings. He takes so little pains to conceal this weakness, that we can hardly suppose he was aware of it. Contradiction he could not bear. Opposition of any kind produced a bitter feeling. Vanity, latent perhaps, but acrid, corroded his judgment of his adversaries. In France Governeur Morris remarked that he was too fond of calling fools those who did not agree with him; a sure sign of want of strength. Great minds are essentially tolerant of the opinions of others. They know how easy it is to err. There was a good deal, too, of the Pharisee about Jefferson. 'He was of no party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. If he could not go to heaven but with a party, he would not go there at all.' But he thanked God he was not as the Federalists were: Anglomen, monarchists, workers of corruption! nor even as this Washington! He boasted, too, that he had never written a line for the public press; his method was to suggest his views to others, and employ them to put them into print.
Careful not to speak out too boldly when it was not altogether safe to do so, and wanting rather in moral courage, he was a persevering man, pursuing his plans with the eagerness of women, who always have a thousand excellent reasons, however illogical and inconsistent they may be, for doing as they please—and like women, he was not over scrupulous as to the means he employed to reach his object.
The same envious vanity and inability to resist his feelings which warped his judgment into so many contradictions, led him into actions that have damaged his character as a gentleman. For instance, his behavior to Washington. When a member of Washington's cabinet, protesting the warmest friendship to him, his confidential adviser by virtue of the office he held, he permitted, not to say encouraged, those attacks in Freneau's paper which were outrages on common decency. His intimacy with the President enabled him to judge of the effect of the blows. He noticed, with the cool precision of an experimental observer, the symptoms of pain and annoyance which Washington could not always conceal. Freneau was Jefferson's clerk; a word would have stopped him. 'But I will not do it,' Jefferson says; 'his paper has saved our Constitution, which was galloping forth into monarchy.' Jefferson's underhand attack upon Vice-President Adams, in the note he wrote by way of preface to the American publisher of Paine's 'Rights of Man,' is a domestic treachery of the same kind, though very much less in degree. That note might have been written on the impulse of the moment; but what shall we say of his practice of committing to paper Hamilton's sayings in the freedom of after-dinner conversation—a time when open-hearted men are apt to forget that there may be a Judas at table—and of saving them up to be used against him in the future? Jefferson explains away these and other dubious passages in his life with great ingenuity. He had to make such explanations too often. An apology implies a mistake, wilful or accidental. Too many indicate, to say the least, a lack of discretion. What a difference between these explanations, evasions, excuses, denials, and the majestic manliness of Washington, who never did or wrote or said anything which he hesitated to avow openly and without qualification!
Another dissimilarity between these two worth heeding, is Jefferson's want of that thrift which produces independence, comfort, and self-respect. He lived beyond his means, and died literally a beggar.
Jefferson was deficient in that happy combination of courage, energy, judgment, and probity, which mankind call character, for want of a more distinctive word—but which, in fact, in its highest expression, is genius on the moral side. It commands the respect of mankind more than the most brilliant faculties—and it accomplishes more. We have only to look at Washington's life to see what can be done by it.
When Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson showed a want of spirit and of action; the same deficiency was more painfully conspicuous in his dealings with the Barbary pirates and in the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake. The insults and spoliations of the English and French under the orders in council and the Berlin and Milan decrees were borne with equal meekness. He was for peace at all hazards, and economy at any price. When at last he found he had exhausted his favorite method, and that neither 'time, reason, justice, nor a truer sense of their own interests' produced any effect upon the obstinate aggressors, he could desire no better means of checking their depredations upon our trade than to order our merchants to lay up their ships and shut up their shops. It was a Japanese stroke of policy—to revenge an insult by disembowelling oneself—hari kari applied to a nation.
His was indeed a brilliant theory of government, if we take him at his word. At home, freedom was to be invigorated by occasional rebellions, not to be put down too sharply, for fear of discouraging the people—the tree of liberty was to be watered with blood. Abroad, custom-house regulations would keep the peace of the seas. Embargo and non-intercourse must bring France and England to their good behavior.
Mr. Jefferson had his political panacea: all disorders would infallibly be cured by it. He puffed it in his journals and extolled its virtues in his state papers. He congratulated his countrymen upon his election; he called it the revolution of 1800. Now at length they could try the panacea. What wonders did it work? The Federalists can point to the results of their twelve years of power: credit created out of bankruptcy; prosperity out of union; a great nation made out of thirteen small ones—an achievement far beyond that Themistocles could boast of. Jefferson added the Louisiana Territory to the Union; but this, the only solid result of his Administration, was totally inconsistent with his principles. Did he render any other service to the country? We know of none. His 'Quaker' theories and 'terrapin' policy increased the contempt of our enemies, cost the nation millions of money to no purpose, and made the war of 1812 inevitable.
No one can deny that Jefferson was a monster of party tactics and strategy. He knew well how to get up a cry, to excite the odium vulgare against his antagonists, to play skilfully upon the class feeling of poor against rich, and to turn to profit every popular weakness and meanness. He drilled and organized his followers, and led them well disciplined to victory. But on the grander field of statesmanship he was wanting. He was what Bonaparte called an ideologist. A principle, however true, may fail in its application, because other principles, equally true, may then come into action and vitiate the result. These collateral principles Jefferson never deigned to consider. He had no conception of expediency, of which a wise statesman never loses sight. Results he thought must be advantageous, provided processes were according to his principles. His object appears to have been rather a government after his theories than a good government. And in this respect he is the type of the impracticable and mischief-making class of reformers numerous in this country.
Jefferson seems to have been unable to grasp the real political character of the American people, the path they were destined to tread, the shape their institutions must necessarily take. He was possessed with the idea that liberty was in danger, and that the attempt was made to change the republic into a monarchy, perhaps a despotism. This
THE ENGLISH PRESS.
II.
It has become the fashion to sneer at the Long Parliament: but for all this it cannot be denied that that assemblage rendered services of incalculable importance to the state. Extreme old age forms at all times an object of pity, and, with the thoughtless and inconsiderate, it is but too often an object of ridicule and contempt. Many a great man has, ere now, survived to reach this sad stage in his career; but it does not therefore follow that the glorious deeds of his prime are to be ignored or forgotten. As it has been with the distinguished warrior or statesman or author, so it is with the Long Parliament. England owes it a great debt of gratitude on many accounts, but the one with which we have more especially to do on the present occasion is, that with it originated the custom of making public proceedings in Parliament. By this act was the supremacy of the people over the Parliament acknowledged, for the very publication of its transactions was an appeal to the people for approval and support. This printed record of parliamentary affairs came out in 1641, and was entitled The Diurnal Occurrences, or Daily Proceedings of both Houses in this great and happy Parliament, from the 3d of November, 1640, to the 3d of November, 1641. The speeches delivered from the first date down to the following June were also published in two volumes, and in 1642 weekly instalments appeared under various titles, such as The Heads of all the Proceedings of both Houses of Parliament—Account of Proceedings of both Houses of Parliament—A perfect Diurnal of the Passages in Parliament, etc., etc. There was no reporter's gallery in those days, and the Parliament only printed what they pleased; still this was a step in the right direction. After Parliaments occasionally evinced bitter hostility toward the press, but that which boasted Sawyer Lenthal for its speaker was its friend (at all events, at first, though afterward, as we shall notice by and by, it displayed some animosity against its early protegé), and from this meagre beginning took its rise that which is beyond doubt one of the most important domestic functions of the press at the present day.
The abolition of the great bugbear and tyrant of printers—that infamous mockery of a legal tribunal, the Star Chamber—was another gigantic obstacle cleared away from the path of journalism. The Newes Bookes, which, in spite of all difficulties, had already become abundant, now issued forth in swarms. They treated de rebus omnibus et quibusdam aliis. Most of them were political or polemical pamphlets, and boasted extraordinary titles. There is a splendid collection of these in the British Museum, collected by the Rev. W. Thomason, and presented to the nation by King George III. We will mention a few of them. A controversial religious tract rejoices in the title of A fresh bit of Mutton for those fleshy-minded Cannibals that cannot endure Pottage. A political skit upon Prince Rupert is styled An exact Description of Prince Rupert's malignant She-Monkey, a great Delinquent, and has a comical woodcut upon the title page of the animal, in a cap and petticoat and with a sword by its side. This pamphlet is printed partly in ordinary modern type and partly in black letter. Another pamphlet in the form of dialogue is directed against the abuses of the laws, especially at one of the infamous 'comptoirs' of the time. It is called Wonderfull Strange Newes from Wood Street Countor—yet not so Strange as True, being proved by lamentable Experience, the relation of which
'Will make you laugh, 'twill make you cry;
'Twill make you mad, 'twill make you try.'
Another is Newes, true Newes, laudable Newes, Citie Newes, Countrie Newes, the World is Mad or it is a Mad World, my Masters, especially in the Antipodes, these Things are come to passe. This is a satirical description of manners and customs on 'the other side of the world,' the writer asserting that in those regions everything is the exact opposite of what takes place among us, so that there beggars ride in carriages and are highly esteemed, men of title are of no account, lawyers take no fees, and bailiffs decline to arrest debtors, etc., etc. There is also a very quaint woodcut of the world and the heavens, the four winds, etc., with an astrologer and other persons looking at them. Very many of these pamphlets are actual relations of occurrences in different parts of the kingdom and in foreign countries. Thus we find, Victorious Newes from Waterford; The joyfullest Newes from Hull that ever came to London of the Proceedings of the Earl of Warwick's Shipps; The best and happiest Newes from Ireland, from the Army before Kildare; Newes from Blackheath concerning the Meeting of the Kentish Men; Exceedingly joyfull Newes from Holland; The best Newes that ever was Printed, consists of, 1. Prince Rupert's Resolution to bee gone to his Mother, who hath sent for him; 2. His Majestie's royall Intentions declared to joyne with the Parliament in a treaty of Peace; 3. The Particulars of the High Court of Parliament drawn up to be sent to his Majesty for Peace; 4. Directions from the Lords and Commons directed