Year: 1876

The rumOrS and speculatlons which the
Washington correspondents of the press of
this city-regular, special and occasional
have. been transmitting for publication
within the last few days, may remind one of
that comparison of Swifts in the dedication
of the Tale of Tub" to prince Pos
terity, in which the great satirist under
takes to inform that renowned patron
and judge of literary merit that the
then present age abounded in works of
genius of all kinds, although to particular
! ize them was a task too slippery for his
| abilities, since the multitude of books fell
! into oblivion almost as soon as published,
many of them "strangled in their cradles
before they had learned their mother tongue
to beg for pity" The author, therefore, told
Prince Posterity that his assertion must not
be discredited, because the literary works of
that age were not to be found. ''IfI should
assure Your Highness that at this instant
there is cloud in the zenith in the shape
of a bear, and another toward the
horizon with the claws Of leopard, and
you should in q few minutes go out to in
spect them, clouds there might be, but you
would say that 1 had mistaken the topog-
raphy and BIOGRAPHY of them" For this
reason he would describe no particular au-
thors or books in 50 shifting.a scene.


| To transfer this satirical comparison from
the literary sky of Queen Anne's reign to the
political sky of our own dear country in its
centennial year. we may venture to assure
posterity that this interesting epoch does
really abound with noted statesmen
and Presidential candidates, although it
| would be hazardous to make out catalogue
of them, lest the names be so soon forgotten
and their pretensions so quickly vanish that
we should put our credibility at hazard by
asserting that they ever existed.


If we had gone out to gaze at the political
sky two nights ago and survey the "topog-
raphy and geography" of those heeting
clouds called Presidential candidates. we
might have found a great number just at
that moment with very distinguishable
shapes. In the zenith there hung dark
Presidential cloud shaped like the swarthy
Vulcan, and lame as that god of the
forge working his heaving bellows and
kindling a lurid red fame, which shot up in
the likeness of bloody shirt Consider
ably lower, toward the northeastern horizon,
was another considerable cloud of yellow
ish tinge, which looked as if sinking ''down
the sunless realms of space" This Presi-
Dental cloud seemed to have been torn by a
recent gust. on which it had striven to rise
and displace the Vulcan of the zenith from
the forge, and stithy where he was
pursuing his ingenious manufactures.
Its shape was like the tawny skin of lion
whose wearer had acted that part in a recent
| great comInotion of the political menagerie.
There were at the hour we mention two
others of these clouds family borne upward
in the western quarter of the sky ; one SEEM
ing to carry in his hand a long-reaching
scourge for the chastisement of all who
have dealings with illicit spirits, and the
other to have been formed out of exhala-
tions from the Ohio, with a prodigiously
inflated paper balloon hanging beneath
| it in lower stratum of the atmosphere, a
recent breeze having waited up the cloud to
a greater height than the paper balloon. At
| the same hour--that is to say, at nine hours
thirty-one minutes eight seconds in the
| evening, JdHudIy bhcIC WAC oCCn dAObIcI
of these clouds, in the likeness of the curled
| Apollo scattering the golden radiance of
his hair" which was made brighter by the
mighty Orion, which seemed to be eclipsed
by this golden, this majestic Presidential
cloud.


| "Orion. hunter Of the beast


| His sword hung cleaning by his side,


And Oh his arm the laforesaid lions hide"


This last surprising phenomenon, how
ever, this new ''occultation of Orion" was
invisible to common eyes, being described
only from the Tall Tower" where young
political astronomer sits with ''looks COM
mercing with the skies" like Melancholy in
Millions I'll Penseroso." 1t was we'll worth
his while to ''outwatch the stars" in the Tall
Tower and win the fame of announcing to q
wondering world so magnificent spectacle
as an eclipsing cloud in the shape of golden
locked Apollo directly the face of
the mighty Orion, whose obstructcd beams
yet made the cloud resplendent. But
Apollos bow pretty long one if we have
not forgotten our classics-seems to have
been borrowed by the tenant of the Tall
Tower" when he made this announcement.


Such was the aspect of the political sky,


such the cloud figures outlined against it,


when the Signal Bureau was beginning to
make up its weather report night before last,
But, as Byron sung IN the Alps-''rhe sky
is changed, and such q change o Night !"
The occultation of Orion hardly lasted
while the astronomer of the "Tall Tower"
in temporary possession of the long bow,
L. IL
haired Apollo-like cloud passed from the