GENTLEMEN, My leisure has been so entirely occupied with the hitherto fruitless endeavour to decypher the Runick inscription whose fortunate discovery I mentioned in my last communication, that I have not found time to discuss, as I had intended, the great problem of what we are to do with slavery, -a topick on which the publick mind in this place is at present more than ever agitated. What my wishes and hopes are I need not say, but for safe conclusions I do not conceive that we are yet in possession of facts enough on which to bottom them with certainty. Acknowledging the hand of Providence, as I do, in all events, I am sometimes inclined to think that they are wiser A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the Mephitis. H. W. than we, and am willing to wait till we have made this continent once more a place where freemen can live in security and honour, before assuming any further responsibility. This is the view taken by my neighbour Habakkuk Sloansure, Esq., the president of our bank, whose opinion in the practical affairs of life has great weight with me, as I have generally found it to be justified by the event, and whose counsel, had I followed it, would have saved me from an unfortunate investment of a considerable part of the painful economies of half a century in the Northwest-Passage Tunnel. After a somewhat animated discussion with this gentleman, a few days since, I expanded, on the audi alteram partem principle, something which he happened to say by way of illustration, into the following fable. FESTINA LENTE. ONCE on a time there was a pool Now in this Abbey of Theleme, They don't come on so fast as we did: Old croakers, deacons of the mire, Have left Lablache's out of sight, But vain was all their hoarsest bass, "Lord knows," protest the polliwogs, "No," piped the party of reform, The thing was done, the tails were cropped, And wait the beautiful result. Too soon it came; our pool, so long MORAL. From lower to the higher next, I think that nothing will ever give permanent peace and security to this continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the occasion is nigh; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor presume to jog the elbow of Providence. No desperate measures for me till we are sure that all others are hopeless,flectere si nequeo SUPEROS, Acheronta movebo. To make Emancipation a reform instead of a revolution is worth a little patience, that we may have the Border States first, and then the non-slaveholders of the Cotton States, with us in principle, - a consummation that seems to be nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, ruat cælum, is not to be taken in a literal sense by statesmen, whose problem is to get justice done with as little jar as possible to existing order, which has at least so much of heaven in it that it is not chaos. Our first duty toward our enslaved brother is to educate him, whether he be white or black. first need of the free black is to elevate himself according to the standard of this material generation. So soon as the Ethiopian goes in his chariot, he will find not only Apostles, but Chief Priests and Scribes and Pharisees willing to ride with him. Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridiculos homines facit. The I rejoice in the President's late Message, which at last proclaims the Government on the side of freedom, justice, and sound policy. As I write, comes the news of our disaster at Hampton Roads. I do not understand the supineness which, after fair warning, leaves wood to an unequal conflict with iron. It is not enough merely to have the right on our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have observed in my parochial experience (haud ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may thus take even such a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage. It is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea, and that, while gunpowder robbed land warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give even greater stateliness and sublimity to a sea-fight, armour bids fair to degrade the The comfort an' wisdom o' goin' it blind, To say thet I did n't abate not a hooter O' my faith in a happy an' glorious futur', Ez rich in each soshle an' p❜litickle blessin' Ez them thet we now hed the joy o' possessin'. With a people united, an' longin' to die For wut we call their country, without askin' why, An' all the gret things we concluded to slope for Ez much within reach now ez everto hope for. We've gut all the ellerments, this very hour, Thet make up a fus'-class, self-governin' power: We've a war, an' a debt, an' a flag; an' ef this Ain't to be inderpendunt, why, wut on airth is? An' nothin' now henders our takin' our station By the low Yankee stan'ard o' dollars an' cents: They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved, We 've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' dissolved, An' thet no one can't hope to git thru dissolootion 'Thout some kin' o' strain on the best Constitootion. Who asks for a prospec' more flettrin' an' bright, When from here clean to Texas it's all one free fight? Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret leadin' featurs Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' creaturs? Coz 't would be our own bills we should git for th' insurance; But cinders, no metter how sacred we think 'em, Might n't strike furrin minds ez good sources of income, Nor the people, perhaps, would n't like the eclaw O' bein' all turned into paytriots by law. Some want we should buy all the cotton an' burn it, On a pledge, when we 've gut thru the war, to return it, Then to take the proceeds an' hold them ez security For an issue o' bonds to be met at maturity With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard cash On the fus' Monday follerin' the 'tarnal Allsmash : This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the gold, 'Ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold, An' might temp' John Bull, ef it warn't for the dip he Once gut from the banks o' my own Massissippi. Some think we could make, by arrangin' the figgers, A hendy home-currency out of our niggers; But it wun't du to lean much on ary sech staff, For they're gittin' tu current a'ready, by half. One gennleman says, ef we lef' our loan out Where Floyd could git hold on 't, he'd take it, no doubt; But 't ain't jes' the takin', though 't hez a good look, We mus' git sunthin' out on it arter it's took, An' we need now more 'n ever, with An' onless we can mennage in some way to stop it, Why, the thing's a gone coon, an' we might ez wal drop it. Brag works wal at fust, but it ain't jes' the thing For a stiddy inves'ment the shiners to bring, An' votin' we 're prosp'rous a hundred times over Wun't change bein' starved into livin' on clover. Manassas done sunthin' tow'rds drawin' the wool O'er the green, antislavery eyes o' John Bull : Oh, warn't it a godsend, jes' when sech tight fixes Wuz crowdin' us mourners, to throw double-sixes! I wuz tempted to think, an' it wuz n't no wonder, Ther' wuz reelly a Providence, - over or under, When, all packed for Nashville, I fust ascertained From the papers up North wut a victory we'd gained. 'T wuz the time for diffusin' correc' views abroad Of our union an' strength an' relyin' on God; An', fact, when I'd gut thru my fust big surprise, I much ez half b'lieved in my own tallest lies, An' conveyed the idee thet the whole Southun popperlace Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for Thermopperlies, Thet set on the Lincolnites' bombs till they bust, An' fight for the priv❜lege o' dyin' the fust; But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an' the rest Of our recent starn-foremost successes out West, Hain't left us a foot for our swellin' to |