of the Cotton States, with us in principle, --a consummation that seems to be nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, ruat calum, 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. The 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. 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 latter into a squabble between two iron-shelled turtles. Yours, with esteem and respect, HOMER WILBUR, A. M. P. S.I had wellnigh forgotten to say that the object of this letter is to enclose a communication from the gifted pen of Mr. Biglow. I SENT you a messige, my friens, t' other day, To tell you I'd nothin' pertickler to say: 't wuz the day our new nation gut kin' o' stillborn, Things look blacker 'n thunder. Ther' 's no use denyin' We're clean out o' money, an' 'most out o' lyin' ; Two things a young nation can't mennage without, Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin' out; For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second Gives a morril edvantage thet 's hard to be reckoned: For this latter I'm willin' to du wut I can; For the former you'll hev to consult on a plan, Though our fust want (an' this pint I want your best views on) Is plausible paper to print I. O. U.s on. Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers In the way o' finance, ef we jes' hanged the bankers; An' I own the proposle 'ud square with my views, Ef their lives wuz n't all thet we'd left On a pledge, when we 've gut thru the For an issue o' bonds to be met at ma. With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard On the fus' Monday follerin' the 'tarnal This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand. Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins, Where ther' ollus is critters about with long pins A-prickin' the bubbles we've blowed with sech care, An' provin' ther''s nothin' inside but bad air: They 're all Stuart Millses, poor-white trash, an' sneaks, Without no more chivverlry 'n Choctaws or Creeks, Who think a real genuleman's promise to pay Is meant to be took in trade's ornery But ef Lincoln would ha' hanged Mason an' Slidell ! For would n't the Yankees hev found they'd ketched Tartars, Ef they'd raised two sech critters as them into martyrs? Mason wuz F. F. V., though a cheap card to win on, But t' other was jes' New York trash to begin on ; They ain't o' no good in Európean pellices, But think wut a help they'd ha' ben on their gallowses! They'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfillin' their mission, An', oh, how dog-cheap we'd ha' gut Reecognition! But somehow another, wutever we've tried, Though the the'ry 's fust-rate, the facs wun't coincide : Facs are contrary 'z mules, an' ez hard in the mouth, An' they allus hev showed a mean spite to the South. Sech bein' the case, we hed best look about For some kin' o' way to slip our necks out: Le''s vote our las' dollar, ef one can be found, (An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good sound,). Le''s swear thet to arms all our people is flyin', (The critters can't read, an' wun't know how we 're lyin',)— Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cincinnater, With a rovin' commission to pillage an' slahter, Thet we 've throwed to the winds all re gard for wut's lawfle, An' gone in for sunthin' promisen'sly awfle. Ye see, hitherto, it's our own knaves an' fools Thet we've used, (those for whetstones, an' t' others ez tools,) An' now our las' chance is in puttin' to test The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out West, Your Belmonts, Vallandighams, Woodses, an' sech, eevacooated! C'lumbus neglect the monuments of preterite history because what shall be history is so diligently making under our eyes. Cras ingens iterabimus aquor; to-morrow will day let me engage the attention of your be time enough for that stormy sea; toreaders with the Runick inscription to whose fortunate discovery I have heretofore alluded. Well may we say with the poet, Multa renascuntur quæ jam cecidere. And I would premise, that, although I can no longer resist the evidence of my own senses from the stone before me to the ante-Columbian discovery of this continent by the Northmen, gens inclytissima, tion, written fortunately in a less debataas they are called in a Palermitan inscrip ble character than that which I am about to decipher, yet I would by no means be understood as wishing to vilipend the merits of the great Genoese, whose name will never be forgotten so long as the inspiring strains of "Hail Columbia" shall continue to be heard. Though he must be stripped also of whatever praise may belong to the experiment of the egg, which I find proverbially attributed by Castilian I mus run down an' hev the thing prop-authors to a certain Juanito or Jack, erly stated, An' show wut a triumph it is, an' how lucky To fin❜lly git red o' thet cussed Kentucky, An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' the day Consists in triumphantly gittin' away. No. V. SPEECH OF HONOURABLE PRESERVED DOE IN SECRET CAUCUS. (perhaps an offshoot of our giant-killing mythus,) his name will still remain one of the most illustrious of modern times. But the impartial historian owes a duty likewise to obscure merit, and my solicitude to render a tardy justice is perhaps quickened by my having known those who, had their own field of labour been less secluded, might have found a readier acceptance with the reading publick. I could give an example, but I forbear: forsitan nostris ex ossibus oritur ultor. Touching Runick inscriptions, I find that they may be classed under three general heads: 1. Those which are understood by the Danish Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, and Professor Rafn, their Secretary; 2°. Those which are comprehensible only by Mr. Rafn; and 3°. Those ΤΟ THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC which neither the Society, Mr. Rafn, nor MONTHLY. JAALAM, 12th April, 1862. GENTLEMEN, As I cannot but hope that the ultimate, if not speedy, success of the national arms is now sufficiently ascertained, sure as I am of the righteousness of our cause and its consequent claim on the blessing of God, (for I would not show a faith inferior to that of the Pagan historian with his Facile evenit quod Dis cordi est,) it seems to me a suitable occasion to withdraw our minds a moment from the confusing din of battle to objects of peaceful and permanent interest. Let us not anybody else can be said in any definite sense to understand, and which accordingly offer peculiar temptations to enucleating sagacity. These last are naturally deemed the most valuable by intelligent antiquaries, and to this class the stone now in my possession fortunately belongs. Such give a picturesque variety to ancient events, because susceptible oftentimes of as many interpretations as there are individual archæologists; and since facts are only the pulp in which the Idea or eventseed is softly imbedded till it ripen, it is of little consequence what colour or flavour we attribute to them, provided it be |