The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-06 00:00:00

SEPT. 6, 1856. and hopes, the other that of the slave's. It is a melancholy fact in the history of the human race as yet that there have been multitudes who follow the triump'ial march of life only as captives, to whom the voice of the trumpet, the waving of the banners, the shouts of the people, only add to the bitterness of their enthralment. At page 326 there is a notice of the approach of cholera, something like that to be found in Euc,fetie Sue, but less open to the charge of exaggeration. Young Clayton, on his way to visit Nina, for whose safety he has fears, hears the voice of Dred crying " Woe, woe, woe," in the wilderness. Spiiitual sentiment and poetic description are happily blended in the account of the close of the lover's journey : The tones of the voice, and the wild style of the speaker, recalled the strange incident of the camp meeting ; and though he endeavoured strenuously to reason with himself that probably some wild and excited fanatic, made still more frantic ty the presence of death and destruction all around, was the author of these fearful denunciations, still he could not help a certain weight of fearful for& This life may be truly called a haunted house, built as it is on the very confines of the land of darkness and the shadow of death. A thousand living fibres connect us with the unknown and unseen state; and the strongest hearts, which never stand still for any mortal terror, have sometimes hushed their very beating at the breath of • whisper from within the veil. Perhaps the most resolute unbeliever in spiritual things has hours of which he would be ashamed to tell, when he, too, yields to the powers of those awful affinities which hind us to that unknown realm. It is not surprising that Clayton, in spite of himself, should have felt like one mysteriously warned. It was a relief to him when the dusky dimness of the solemn dawn was pierced by long shafts of light from the rising sun, and the day broke gbidsome and jubilant, as if sorrow, sighing, and death were &dream of the night. During the whole prevalence of this fearful curse it was strange to witness the unaltered regularity, splendour, and beauty, with which the movements of the natural world went on. Amid fears, and dying groans, and wailings, and sobs, and broken hearts, the sun rose and set in splendour, the dews twinkled, and twilight folded her purple veil heavy with stars; birds sang, waters danced and warbled, flowers bloomed, and everything in nature was abundsnt, and festive, and joyous. When Clayton entered tbe bounda ries of the plantation, he inquired eagerly of the first per son he met for the health of its mistress. " Thank God, she is yet alive !" said he. "It was but a dream, after all !" We might quote many other passages equally indicative of intellectual power of the highest order, but with one more we close this portion of our review. It again concerns Dred It is difficult to fathom the dark recesses of a mind so powerful and active as his, placed under a pressure of ignorance and social disability so tremendous. In those desolate regions which he made his habitation, it is said that trees often, from the singularly•unnatural and wildly stimulating properties of the slimy depths from which they spring, assume a strange and goblin growth, entirely different from their ncrrnal habit. All sorts of vegetable monsters stretch their weird fantastic forms among its shadows. There is no principle so awful through all nature as this principle of growth. It is a mysterious and dread condition of existence which, place it under what impedi ment or disadvantage you will, is constantly forcing on, and when unnatural pressures hinder, it develops in forms portentous and astonishing. The wild dreary belt of swamp land which girds in those states scathed by the fires of despotism, is an apt emblem in its rampant, and we might say delirious, exube rance of vegetation to that darkly-struggling wildly-vege tating swamp of human souls—cut off like it from the usages and improvements of cultivated life. beneath that fearful pressure, souls, whose energy well directed might have blessed mankind, start out in preter- natural and fearful developments, whose strength is only a portent of dread. The action of the narrative is never, we think, quite equal to its descriptive power. One of the most forcible scenes is the merciless assault on Father Dickson, the abolitionist preacher. There is also great tragic power in that portion of the romance where Cora Gordon, the sister of Harry, murders her children to prevent their falling into Tom Gordon's hands, and defends her deed in open court : "Yes!" she said again, "I killed them; and oh how glad lam that I have done it! Do you want to know what I killed them for? 13ecause I loved them—loved them so well that I was willing to give up my soul to save theirs. I have heard some persons -ay that I was in a frenzy, excited, and didn't know what I was doing. They are mistaken—l was not in a fteney, I was not excited, and I did know what I was doing, and I bless God that it is done. I was born the slave of my own father. Your old proud Virginia blood is in my veins, as it is in half of those you whip and sell. I was the lawful wife of a man of honour, who did what he could to evade your cruel laws and set me free. My children were born to libetty—they were brought up to liberty till my father's son entered a suit for us and made us slaves. Judge and jury helped him—all your laws and your officers helped him to take away the rights of the widow and the la;herless The judge said that my son, being a slave, could no more hold property than the mule before his plough, and we were delivered into Tom Gordon's hands. I shall not say what ha is; it is not >lt to be said. God will show at the judgment day. But I escaped with my children to THE PRESS. Cincinnatti. He followed me there, and the laws of your country gave me back to him. Tomorrow I was to have gone in a c.dile and leave these children. My son a slave for life. My daughter—" She looked round the courtroom with an expression which said more than words could have spoken. "So I heard them say their prayers and sing their hymns, and then, while they were asleep and didn't know it, I aen: them to lie down in green pi.stures with the Lord. They say this is a dreadful sin. It may be so. am willing to lose my soul to have theirs saved. I have no more to hope or fear. It's all nothing now where Igo or what becomes of me. But at any rate they are safe. And now, if any of you mothers in my place wouldn't have done the same, you either don't know what slavery is, or you don't love your children as I have loved mina. T , is is all." She sat down, folded her arms, Sled her eyes on the floor, and seemed like a person entirely indifferent to the further opinions and proceedings of the court. Tb. death of Dred is more conspicuous for poetic reflection than for dramatic effect. A tine chapter opens with a notice of his burial at night:— He in whom they trusted was dead ! The splendid athletic form so full of wild vitality, the powerful arm, the trained and keen•seeing eye. all struck down at once ! The grand and solemn voice hushed, and all the splendid poetry o. olden time, the inspiring symbols and prophetic dreams which had so wrought upon his own soul, and with which he had wrought upon the souls of others, seemed to pass away with him and recede into the distance, and become unsubstantial, like the remembered sounds of mighty winds, or solemn visions of evening clouds, in times long departed. On that night, when the woods had ceased to reverberate the brutal sounds of baying dogs, and the more brutal profanity of drunken men—when the leaves stood still on the trees, and the forest lay piled up in the darkness like black clouds, and the morning star was standing like a calm angelic presence above them, there might have been heard in the little clearing a muffled sound of footsteps, treading heavily. and voices of those that wept with a repressed and quiet weeping, as they bore the dark chit.f.ain to his grave beneath the blasted tree. Our surmise that Mrs. Stowe has been largely assisted in the composition of these works is founded on internal evidence alone. We suspect that there is a.t American Junius behind the curtain, exulting in his impene trable secrecy, and in the sensation he has excited. We should like to know something more of Mr Beecher Stowe than we do at pre sent. Is he a man of vigorous talent, or is he only Mrs. Stowe's husband 9 In the hubbub of her notoriety he has modestly kept himself in the shade. Mrs. Stowe is, no doubt, a very clever, intelligent writer, and possessed of that talent, natural to feminine minds, of quickly seizing prominences of character• and of delineating manners. But we cannot so easily believe that she possesses the imagina tive power, the muscular energy of sentiment, the logical sense, the perception of funda mental truth, and the mastery of the English tongue, which are found in parts of this re markable book. If the whole be hers, she is gifted with genius rarely, indeed, accorded to woman. The appearance of diversity of style is so strong that we incline to the opinion that two pens, at least, have been engaged in the composition. As Dred does not appear until the narrative is far advanced, and as he has then little con nection with the other personages of the story, the book is rather a collection of sketches than a regularly-constructed tale. It reflects various scenes of southern life, the negro characters, as in " Uncle Tom," appear ing to be drawn with great fidelity. Though always amusing, the parts of the book want cohesion, and hence it is somewhat patchy. We must not put it down without giving an extract, in which the negro coachman of Nina —Old Hundred—appears to advantage : " Uncle John," said Nina, " 1 want you to get the car• riage out for me right away. 1 want to take a ride over the cross•rnn." " Laws bless your sweet face, honey, chile, I's dreadful sorry ; but you can't do it dis per day." " Can't do it! why not?" " Why, bless you, chile, it ain't possible, no wsy. Can't have the carriage and hosses dis yer afternoon." " But I must go over to cross•run to the post-office. I must go this minute." _ _ _ " Law, chile, you can't do it, fur you can't walk, and it's sartin you can't ride, because dese ver horses, nor dis yer carriage, can't stir nut dis yer afternoon ; no way yon can fix it. Mout go, perhaps, to-morrow, or next week." " Oh, uncle John, I don't believe a word of it. I want them this afternoon, and I say I most have them." " No, you can't chile," said Old Hundred, in a tender condescending tone, as if he was speaking to a baby. " I tell you dat ar is impossible. Why, bless your soul, Miss Nina, de curtains is all off de carriage!" " Well, put them on again, then." "Ah, Miss Nina, dat ar an't all. Pete was desperate sick last night ; took with the thumps powerful bad. Why, Miss Nina, he was dat sick I bad to be up with him most 857 all night." And while Old Hundred adroitly issued this little work of fiction, the raven nodded waggishly at Nina, as much as to say, " You hear that fellow, now I" Nina stood quite perplexed, biting her lips, and Old Hundred seemed to go into a profound slumber. " I don't believe but what the horses can go to-day. I mean to go and look." " Laws, honey, chile, ye can't now ; de dors is all locked, and l'se got de key in my pocket. Every one of dem critturs would have been killed forty times over 'fore now. I think everybody in dis yer world is arter dem dare critturs. Miss Lo,, she's wanting 'em to go one way, and Harry's tillers min' de critturs. Got one out die yer arternoon, riding over to see his wife. Don't see no use in his riding round so grand, no way. Laws, Mi a Nina, your pa used to say to me, says he, ' Uncle John, you knows more about dem critturs din I do; and now I tell you what it is, uncle John, you take care of dem critturs; don't you let nobody kill 'ern for nothing.' Now, Miss Nina, l's always walking in the steps of the colonel's 'rections. Now, good, clar bright weather, over good roads, 1 likes to trot the critturs out. Dat ar is reason able. But, den, what roads is over the cross-run, I want to know? Dem dare roads is de most mis'ablest things you ever did see. Mud! Hi! ought for to see de mud down dar by the creek. Why, de bridge all tared off ! Man drowned in dat dar creek once ! Was so ! It an't no sort of road for young ladies to go over, tell you, Miss Nina; why don't you let Harry carry your letter over? If he must be ridin' round de country, don't see why he couldn't do some good wid his ridin' Why, de carriage wouldn't get over before ten o'clock dis yer night ! Now, mine, I tell you. Besides, it's gwine for to rain. l's been feeling dat ar in my corns all ills yer morning ; and Jeff, he's been acting like the bery debil hisself—de way he always does 'fore it rains. Never knowed dat ar sign to fail." " The short of the matter is, uncle John, you are deter. mined not to go," said Nina. But 1 tell you you shall go !—there, now. Now, du you get up immediately; and get out those horses." OM Hundred still sat quiet, smoking ; and Nina, after reiterating her orders till she got thoroughly angry, began at last to ask herself the question how she was going to carry them into execution. Old Hundred appeared to have descended into himself in a profound reverie, and betrayed not the smallest sign of hearing anything she said. " 1 wish Harry would come back quick," she said to herself, as she pensively retraced her steps through the garden; but Tomtit had taken the commission to go for him in his usual leisurely way, spending the greater part of the afternoon on the road. " Now, an't you ashamed of yourself, you mean old nigger !" said aunt Rose, the wife of Old Hundred, who had been listening to the conversation, " talking 'bout de creek, and de mud, and de critturs, and for knows what all, when we all knows it's nothing but your laziness !" "Well," said Old Hundred, " and what would come o' the critturs if I wasn't lszy, I want to know ? Laziness ! it's the bery best thing for the critturs, can be. Where'd dem horses a been now, if I had been one of your highfalutin sort, always driving round ? Where'd dey a been, and what would dey a been, hey? Who wants to are bosses all skin and bone ? Lord, if I had been like some o' de coachmen, de buzzards would have had de picking of dem critturs long ago!" " I rally believe that you've told dem dar lies till you begin to believe them youaelf !" said Rose. " Telling our dear, sweet young lady, about your being up with Pete all night, when de Lord knows yon laid here snoring fit to tar de roof off I" " Well, must say something! Folks must be 'spectful to de ladies. Course I couldn't tell her I wouldn't take de critturs out ; so I just trots out 'sense. Ah ! lots of dem 'senses I keeps! I tell you, now, 'senses is excellent things. Why, 'senses is like die yer grease that keeps the wheels from creaking. Lord bless you, de whole world turns round on 'senses. Whar de world be if everybody was such fools to tell the real reason for everything they are gwine fur to do, or an't gwine fur to." We have noticed the work at such unusual length because it is something more than an ordinary fiction. It is a political manifesto. It shows to what extreme lengths the quarrel between the pro and anti slavery parties is proceeding in the States. There is even more than energy, there is ferocity, in the denun ciations of the slavery advocates. The sword is drawn, the scabbard cast away; and if this book may be taken as any indication of the sentiments prevailing on one side and the other, the quarrel is rapidly becoming mortal. It is true that in a society so naturally robust as that of the United States, and so accustomed to the freest style of expression, there may bo hot discussion and great dis turbance without danger of a convulsion that would rend the Union asunder. But it is si peculiarity of this dispute that it does not now admit of adjustment. Compromises have been tried and tailed The warmest pat tisans on each side are making up their minds that separation would be better than a union which threatens each with the subversion of interests it holds dearest. It is impossible that the irritation can continue to grow as it has done of late years without soon breaking out into open hostility. The approaching Presidential election may probably be attended with important results. In the preface to this book the triumph of the free-soil party is