The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-07
THE NEW PATROCLUS.

Such seems to be the late Mr.. Edwin M.
Stanton, and Judge Black is his Achilles.
After moping in his tent for the lost Briseis-
for so we may symbolic Alta Vela-the son
of Peleus springs to arms over the dead body
of his friend, and slashes away fearfully in
all directions. With rhetoric, terribly in
cisive, he lacerates the Attorney General and
as ''hectoring" is, we believe, MIR. Hoar's
specially he runs some risk of being dragged
round the walls of our Troy. Judge Black
would do it with q will" The Judges late
letter, SO fierce and unsparing, justifies this
fear. He has had the good taste and good
sense, this time, to put his lucubrations at
the disposal of the respectable press of the
country, and thus secure its perusal by those
whose good opinion, we are sure, he values.
1t is sclever-amaZingly SO. Judge Black is,
as all his literary efforts show, very remark
able writer. He is exceptional in the COM
munity to which he belongs. The blight of
rhetorical mediocrity has always rested on
Pennsylvania; nor can one count dozen clever
writer's whom she has produced since the
days of the founder, and he was not brilliant.
1t does not answer to 'tutOyer" on paper, and
William Penn as a writer fell victim to the
second person singular. John Dickinson was
from Delaware, we believe, Franklin was a
Yankee, and Tom Paine an Englishman. If
this be the rule in the past and the present,
then is Judge Black clearly an exception; for
no one can read the very sparkling letter IN re
Stanton without feeling him to be SO. He
writes with an impulse which finds vent in
vigorous words. He utters clearly his sympa-
thies, and more clearly his antipathies.
Burke's great epitaph on Dowdeswell-al
praise-is less in his line than DR.. Arbuthnot's
! on Colonel Chartres-all satire. One of his
aversions is Puritan, and he loves to de-
nounce them as did South the apocalyptical
pretenders of his day. 1t is the red flag to
the Black bull, and he tosses Hoar with
| JUNCTION.
But we repeat the question, Why was not
all this said and written before? Why is it
| delayed till Mr.. Stanton has followed most of
the Buchanan Cabinet, and Mr.. Buchanan
himself, to the grave? The slander-or, to use
| milder term, the fction-of the President
and Cabinet trembling, like Felix, before the
Stanton st. Paul, is no new story. AS far
| back as 1862, Mr.. Thurlow Weed then driving
| his team of prelates in England, wrote it
home, and it was printed; and there is if we
| mistake not extant correspondence on this
very subject between Judge Black and dis
tinguished gentleman of this city which has
never seen the light, and which would be q
better vindication of historical truth than
those posthumous vituperations. President
Buchanan is and always has been the person
most inculpated by this cruel SANDER. He
sleeps in his silent grave at Wheatland, and
no one has word to say for him. 81 have
some friends" says Judge Black, in
his letter to Mr.. Hoar, 'whose
reputation is deeply involved in the
affairs you pronounce upon with so much
confidence" Would not the preterite be
better here than the present tense? Who are
the inculpated friends Judge Black has? He
is the sole survivor of that scene, unless il
be Holt who Graves no vindication at his
hands. We do not at all wonder that. as
the living one on whom this vile calumny, as
it were, concentrates, he is indignant and
gives utterance to his righteous resentment
but we contend that common duty to the
dead should prompt wider vindioation, ant
that Mr.. Buchanan should be, as we do moi
doubt he can be, exculpated too. We hav,
heard-though of this, as not within ou
direct knowledge, we speak cautiously-tha
there is in the possession of the ex-Presi
dents executors ample evidence that neithe
Stanton nor Holt-those two unhappy fruit
of the Buchanan-Black incubation-had an
other feeling to their chief than that O
affectionate and venerated regard. 1t is tim
, that, while all this outside skirmishing
) going on, this, if it exists, should be give
to the world.