Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1857-10-29
MR.. GEORGE VIM. CURTIS'S RECENT
sfpsfe5 ADDRESS ON PATRIOTISM.

! Some three or four years since MIR. Geo.
William Curtis amused the readers of light
literature with some clever sketches Of New
York society, in the manner of Thackeray,
first published in Putnam''s Monthly, and
then collected into little book under the
title Of the g Potiphar Papers" Mr.
Curtis had previously to this appeared be-
fore the public with his "Hocao!ji IN
Syria," adreamy book Of travel, not alto
gether without merit Of certain kind,
though wanting substance, and, like the
sound of bells, wearying the ear with its
monotonous music. Subsequently to this
he printed his g Lotos Eating," "Sun,-
naer Book; !" why 50 called we could never
ii espsrss with the
sleepiness of the dog-days. We always
regarded the dollar we paid for it as SO
much lost capital, and all our neighbors
who bought it slept over its pages and sor-
rowed for their cash just as we did. The
latest of Mr.. Curtis's literary efforts is a
little book Of sketches entitled ssPrue and
I, which are very good in their way, and
much better in every respect than anything
the = Summer Book" contained. This, we
confess, is rather small praise.
With all their faults, however, these
early efforts of Mr.. Curtis gave generous
promise of an honorable career in the world
of letters. Their faults of imitation were
faults common to young authors and likely
tobe outgrown and left behind in the course
Of years. Their merits lay in scholarly
choice Of words, in certain musical adap-
tation of the sound to the sense, and a
charming continuation of the music when
the sense fell short; with, here and there a
passage of clear, manly, vigorous writing
on which our hopes Of Mr.. Cs future chiefly
hung. But it was the sad misfortune of
of this young man to become connected with
Putnam's Monthly. A certain little COM
pany of Yankee scholars, poets, and college
professors conceived the idea of ruling Ame-
RIGA through the columns of that magazine.
They ascended to so large a conception of
theirown power, and of the plastic softness
of the American public, that they fancied
that theories Of society, elaborated in col
1ege closets, and smelling all over Of the
lamp, could be made, to supplant the organ
Hed wisdom Of the sages who framed our
constitution. Instead Of con6ning them
selves to a province which, by virtue of
their scholarly strength, they might have
swayed as lords, they crept into fields of
discussion, where their poverty of practical
wisdom made them rank as beggars.
yarT The magazine, which it was boldly avow-
ed at the start was to be the exponent of
the American power Of thought and speech,
became the organ Of mere political clique
Of clique small in numbers, small in infu-
ence, wanting patriotism, hungering for
power. Everybody remembers the wretched
essays which these artifcers of folly ham
inered out month after month; We have not
forgotten their fippant attack upon ssou,.
near I President" when Mr.. Pierce came in
to.poWer, in which they gravely reproached
him, in making his foreign appointments,
with having passed over .syoung men of
the old families ia charge, in country
Recognising no such thing as an old family,
arrogant and supercilious beyond tolerance.
fss1t sis needless to say that the sentiment
which united these philosophers with hooks
of steel was an intense hatred to the insti-
tutiops Of slavery--to the master, to the
States which sanctioned it, TO, the national
government, which recognised the right of
the master to reclaim his fugitive In all
possible disguises, and often openly, they
gave their views upon this darling topic.
Then aim evidently was to broaden the