The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-05-27

lnere was q Time In this century Wnen youun
and manly activity entered largely into all
conditions of success. But that was in the
fippant salad days of our generation and we
see where they led us We are now in a more
serious time and we are controlled by the
aspects of wisdom and experience. We see
where Young America drifted-into Mexican
wars and wars against the Southern
Confedeeracy into Tammany rings and
Custom House rings into novels like
Mark Twain's, which everybody buys,
but no one praises into poems like those
of our young writer's, like John Hay and
Bret Harte, who never see how much vir-
tue hero possesses until he spends a term
in prison or is hanged for highway robbery.
Over the water the pranks of the young men
have also led to revolutions and wars. That
beardless youth, Olivier, insisted upon war
until he was satisfied by the venerable Kaiser.
Gladstone, with his boyish ways, has been sup
planted by the time-honored Disraeli, who
looks as if he were thousand years old. We
see what the young men did in the Com
mune, and especially what one youth, Henri
Rochefort, accomplished, the same Rochefort
who now studies polygamy in the light of
Partisan education.
In our local politics the sprightly Hall,
who can scarcely remember the Mexican
war, and who can waltz six hours without a
pause, has been succeeded by the illustrious
Havemeyer who saw the stormy scenes OF the
Revolution, and would take six hours to shuttle
through the measures of o minuet. The Gov
ernorship has passed from the Hoffman, with
his Romeo, peach-bloom complexion, to the
Dix, who was q warrior over sixty years since,
and whose face looks like gnarled and
rugged oak. O'Brien, the leader of s'the Gus
tom House and Reform Ring alliance" with
his beardess chin, has been supplanted by
Thurlow Weed, who remembers the battle of
Waterloo. In craftsmanship abroad the most
active spirits in affairs are nearly eighty, ex-
cepting the Pope, who is eighty-three and only
awaits the arrival Of the tribute laden pilgrims
to send us our much coveted Cardinals hat.
M. Theirs has showed the STRIPPING Gambetta
to the wall, and is anxious for the Presidency,
as the patriarchal Havemeyer is for third
term; and the force of comparison can go no
further. In literature the young poets. with
their irreverence and doubts about the Trinity,
and piety that takes form in profane swear
ing, have been put aside for the dear old mas
tiers, for Upper and Bryant and Whittier, who
delight and instruct us even as they did our
grandfathers. In England the Swinburnes
c<h Or hyo1y
commandments are forgotten in renewed
reverence for Proctor and Tennyson and
Monckton Mines. Our young historians are
forgotten in the honor we pay Bancroft, and
we revere the ablest in the oldest living
author in our admiration for Carlyle.
Speaking of historians like Bancroft and
Carlyle we are naturally attracted to the
remarkable work of the Chevalier Henry
Wikoff elsewhere reviewed. For some time
the Chevalier has been in seclusion, and we
had rumors that he had died, or gone into q
monastery, or that he was planning some ire
mendous Bonaparte restoration which required
absolute secrecy. This would have been in
telligible, knowing the marvellous career
of the Chevalier, his attachment to
the house of Bonaparte from the beginning,
how he followed the first Napoleon to
Elba, how he held the feverish hand Of the
second in Schonbrunn, how he visited the
third in his Ham prison and welcomed him
as President 10 the Elysee, how he has been
the Mentor and guiding star of Chisleburst,
wise in counsel, fertile in expedient, bold in
action. Knowing this we say it would not
have surprised us to have learned that the
Chevalier, who, in addition to other honors,
is knight of the order Of Charles Ill in
Spain and on confidential terms with Serrano,
was in seclusion maturing grand plot, which
would save France and bring him before the
world as the protector Of Napoleon the Fourth.
But instead of grand plot the Chevalier
has been engaged upon great history. The
wisdom Of years and ripened experience have
taught him the immense value of book en-
bodying the learning of all the ages. So, with
q sense of the fitness of men to events-and
especially of his own position in the universe
the Chevalier begins with the creation of the
world and its four civilizations, which
he sums up In historical retro
spect- AL countries and all sections of
the globe are sketched. The first
volume, which we review elsewhere, brings
US from the Garden of Eden down to the
French Revolution. The volumes to come
will bring the narrative from the Revolution
down to the Chevalier himself We do not
know how many volumes it will require to
complete the work, but, considering the space
the Chevalier has occupied in this generation,
we do not see how he can write less than ten,
how he can escape work as large as "Gib-
bon's Decline and Fall of the Roman EN-
pire" This book has the advantage of Glib
bon, however that it treats of oil ages and
classes, and not merely Of one civilization.
So the appearance OF the Chevalier as an
author only shows the immense vitality and