Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1860-02-09

for these crimes on the scaAold. lis impossible
for man to stand upon the verge Of eternity,
Into which he must be launched by Q violent
death, without filing every good heart with grie'
and compassion. But when he Is brave-When
his path of blood has been lighted by the luric
torch Of fanaticism or insanity-such minds as
yours. afiuent, earnest, and poetical, may be
expec.ed to clothe his crimes in white garments,
and, forgetting the murderer in the brave man,
sing paeans to the martyr of vivid imagination
only.
Iam Of sex and Of o nature TO whom these
feelings are kindred cannot think Of Old John
Brown upon the scaffold without q shudder
through all my being. cannot think Of man
made in the image of his God, suffering an ig-
nominious death, without thrills of pain. But
find it impossible to fix my mind upon the
scaffold of this old man. It goes back to his
victims atj Harper's Ferry-to the women made
widows by the heoutbreak Of single morning
to the orphans, who had never wronged him, SO
cruelty berea7ed by his crime. see him strug-
Cling desperately in front of his doomed follow.
ers reeling to and fro in the lurid smoke, while
his eyes half blinded by rage, measure the hot
barrel Of his rifle, and seek new victims for its
deadly aim. see the two SONS, who blindly
followed his lead. fall martyrs to his rebellious
spirit, and, as they writhe in the death-agony at
his feet, hear him rebuke their anguish and
command them ito die like men, No look Of
lpity, no throb Of regret, no fatherly tenderness
softened these terrible words, the last on record
that the old man uttered to his dying sons"
She extends the picture, looking to the terrible
slaughter throughout the lovely South, intended
by the insurrecionist. She elsewhere af6rms
that probably twenty-nine millions and nine
hundred thousand Of our people look upon this
execution (of BROWN as full and solemn atone.
ment for crimes in which they have no sympa.
thy
| In reference to what the Frenchman says oi
the trial, she replies: your picture Of JOIN
BRowN's trial is painful one. It must be q
hard heart which does not swell with compas.
sion as it presents itself. Upon wretched
pallet, with six half-gaping wounds-scarcsly
conscious of surrounding sounds-bathing his
mstrass with blood, and with the ghostly pres.
ence of his two dead sons forever before him.
Thus you place the unhappy man before the
world, forgetting that these CHASTITY wounds are
but the evidence of more ghastly orime-the
fearful witnesses by which his guilt was con.
Rrmed. It is indeed q terrible picture you have
drawn; but the streets of Harper's Ferry had
one more terrible still. There innocent men all
unconscious of danger, were shot down like wild
animals There widows, newly bereaved, knelt
moaning over their dead, and orphan children
cried aloud for parents that JOHN BRowN had
so ruthlessly murdered. This picture You have
forgotten to place side by side with the other
but we who love our couutrymen have sympathy
for the innocent as well as pity for the guilty
You complain that his trial was hurried ths,
the jury sat only forty minutes, aud that all the
proceedings were indecorously urged forward
but were they so swift as the life balls tina. shot
down unarmed men in the streets Of Harper g
Ferry? Were they so ruthless as JOHN BRowN't
midnight descent upon sleeping village in Kan
sas, where husbands and sons were dragged out
of their beds, and shot down within hearing O.
their wives and mothers Is this the man yoS
speak Of as 'pious, austere, animated with th'
old Puritan spirit of the Gospel : while you cal
his companions, sacred Martyrs? This, sir, il
the blasphemy of highly wrought imagination
excuse me for saying-not original with you
for wilder and more irreligious men than trus
you are, have gone to greater lengths, and bias
phemed more eloquently than this They have
pronouced JOHN BRows's galows holier than
the cross, and held up his rebellion as o rebuke
to the unfinished mission of our Lord and Saw
our r in those places when
you call JOHN Brown the champion Of Christ,
it may be considered meek and holy language I;
but the great mass Of our American people will
turn from such impiety with shuddsr.'
There! We have done. We bid long adieu
to John Brown. We have devoted so much space
not to him or his doings; but to beautiful lite.
rary blunder of V1cToR HUGO, and an equally
beautiful and infinitely more noble Reply by an
American lady. Her large heart embraces all,
and speaks for US of the South as well as for
them.
Henry Timrod.
We had the pleasure of meeting this young poet
from the sea-board, a few days ago. BE is on
visit to Columbia, to spend but short tim
with us. Like his volume of Poems which Is
just out, he wins his way to favor and esteem
wherever he goes. In person, he is small ir
poetic genius, large. His presence is more win.
ming than commanding. He is q Charlestonian
and in his feelings and affections he vindicstes hi
claim to his locus besides, in all other respects
he is, eminently Charlestonian. We shall have
some future occasion Of speaking of Mr.. TIM
RODS book. For the present, we have only tc
note that it has had more rapid sale in Charles
ton than books of that kind usually have in th'
South. In Columbia, our friend GLASS is selling
it quite feely.. Mr.. TIMRoD's popularity ii
Charleston shows that q poet need not, as al
invariable rule, be without honor in his Owl
land. We point you, friends, to .
ga Trihc,"
In another column of to-day's paper. 1t is
brisk, living little songlet, bright and fresh from
the poets own brain aud pen. We point you
with one contributorial finger to this gemmy
fancy. We know that you will join with US il
hoping that We shall have more gems from th
same mine. We reserve word for Mr.. T1RoD'
book one of these days. In the meantime VI
advise everybody to get it, so as to glance owe
its points with US, when We come to it. GLAs
has it for sale.
Poetry that Paws.