"greeted each other in the most cordial manner," and ever after were the best of friends.

The fifth act of any serious criminal cause, resulting in the acquittal of the accused, seems frequently to have taken the shape of a glorious carouse in a neighboring tavern or in some lawyer's office. Counsel and client, lawyers and judges, mingled somewhat incongruous ly in the hilarious celebration; and perhaps the alluring prospect of such a glorious night may more than once have softened a juror's heart and alleviated a verdict. As in the novels of Dickens, a sort of festal rill of liquors glides merrily through the pages, and the curse of the Anglo-Saxon race evidently lay heavy on those old Mississippians. OcOccasionally a glimpse of its deadly work is apparent. There is the story of McClung, a colonel of course, who, in the frenzy of delirium tremens, emptied a restaurant not only of guests but of attendants, and then seated himself in the banquet hall deserted, at the head of one of the long tables, with a bottle, a bowie-knife, and two dueling-pistols in quasi-military array before him. Unaware of this inconvenient status, Mr. Davis, Governor Clark, and Governor Alcorn entered, upon an innocent quest for oysters. A frightful scene ensued, and they narrowly escaped with their lives, and without the oysters. The exciting tale is most dramatically narrated, and it is with extreme regret that we find so racy and stirring an incident too long to be repeated. Certain it is that half a dozen skeletons at a feast would be more welcome than one McClung. It seems that the peril of the occasion was augmented by the memory of an occurrence at a ball-room, where Alcorn had kicked down-stairs a young man who had taken too much wine and was showing undue attention to a lady. McClung thought that the prior right to do this kicking inhered in him, and he never forgave Alcorn for

getting ahead of him. Yet Davis liked McClung; the alcoholized colonel was a candidate for Congress and was defeated, and Davis tenderly says, "Very possibly it is from this defeat, which he took much to heart, that we may date the first symptoms of that deep melancholy which afterwards clouded the noble spirit of McClung, and which culminated in the awful tragedy of his self-inflicted death."

It is astonishing to see our author, who indeed "flatters himself that he is a patient man and disposed to peace," but who evidently never shunned a fight with a foe or shirked a drinking bout with a friend, surviving all these perils, hale and snorting in his old age. How any Southerner of spirit ever lived long amid such risks is a puzzle; whiskey must have been wholesome in the good days of yore! Our jovial old gentleman still chuckles with glee over the spectacle which he saw once a Jackson. 'In the dead of the night he was "wakened by a confusion of sounds in the street, music predominating." He looked out, and "beheld a long line of well-dressed gentlemen proceeding in single file down the middle of the street, and loudly singing the then popular melody of Buffalo Bull came down the meadow.' It was the legislature of Mississippi indulging in an airing, after having spent an evening in the worship of Bacchus. The chorus was given with a will, and the streets fairly resounded with the lively ditty. It was a sight long to be remembered!"

The book, however, is by no means solely a collection of such stories as these. It is written in seriousness, and holds much good thought and observation. Mr. Davis was drawn at times into political life, and his descriptions of canvassing and electioneering at the South are singularly picturesque. The barbecue, "only those who can remember the old South in its glory can have an adequate idea of a big barbecue

in 1844," the personal pitting of candidate against candidate in a tour through all the villages and settlements of the district, the matching of quick wit, the rivalry of fiery oratory on the green, the mad revelry at the tavern afterward, are all vividly portrayed, and constitute a method very different from the ward-room caucuses with which we are familiar. The old Southern customs stand the comparison pretty well; they were boisterous, rough, and crude, but were sufficiently in keeping with the spirit of free institutions and popular suffrage in an agricultural community. Men measured their candidates face to face, and voted for him who seemed the taller man. Mr. Davis admits that the "rigid moralist may be scandalized by the spectacle of whole communities given up to wild days of feasting, speech-making, music, dancing, and drinking, with perhaps rough words now and then, and an honest hand-to-hand fight when debate was angry and the blood hot." But he boasts that there was then "little trickery and no corruption," and "a man who had dared to tamper with a ballot-box, or who had been detected in any fraud by the people, would have been torn in pieces without a moment's hesitation." He thinks that political ways have changed for the worse, and there is too much reason to fear that he is right. What he has to say in this connection deserves to be read and pondered.

The campaign of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" gave rise to royal doings in Mississippi. It was decided to have a grand political caravan traverse the State, with an hundred chosen canvassers, of whom Davis was one. A new wagon was fitted up, with the log cabin, the barrel of hard cider, and the coonskins; six horses drew it, and the band of one hundred rode on horseback, with tents and provisions, music and negroes. Thus they advanced "on a journey that was one long frolic;" making fifteen

miles a day, halting at the cross-roads, collecting the people, dealing out music and speeches, and gathering in from the surrounding country the best liquors and the choicest dainties. All along the route houses were bedecked, and ladies of dazzling beauty appeared, decorated with every ingenious patriotic device. "There were numbers of beautiful women all along that enchanted road. Do wayfarers find that road brilliant with beauty and delight nowadays, I wonder?" Amid such scenes the gallant array drew reluctantly to the journey's end at Nashville, the bright summer days seeming "too few and too short for all the merriment crowded into them." In that town there were grand entertainments, and stirring mass-meetings with ringing harangues by Tom Corwin and Henry Clay; and then at last the fun was over. So picturesque and so vivid were Southern politics in the days gone by.

It is impossible not to be attracted towards Mr. Davis personally, as we read his book; a frank, fearless, generous gentleman, a conscientious and high-minded citizen according to the light of his generation, if ever there was one. He belongs to the past as much as Noah does, but he is a good fellow and an honest man; and doubtless his quarter held many more like him. His childhood dates back to the pioneer days of his State, when life was wild and hard and advantages were few; when "there were no laws, no schools, and no libraries," and "every man did what was right in his own eyes." His father was a clergyman, with a cardinal faith "that lawyers were wholly given up to the devil, even in this world, and that it was impossible for any one of them ever to enter the kingdom of heaven;" and who "also entertained strong doubts as to the final welfare of medical men in general," though admitting "that some few might be saved, provided they used their best endeavors not to kill their patients, and resisted all temptation to prolong ill

nesses with a view to pecuniary profit." The lad, in boyhood, hunted with Indians, and got scant schooling. He married young and penniless, and the beginning in life of the young couple shows fine mettle in both. He abandoned medicine, which he had studied, for law, which he had hardly studied at all; but his spirit was strong and his brain was good, and in time, by that miraculous process of development witnessed in our pioneer communities, he became not only an able advocate, but a leading man in public affairs both in his State and in Congress, while we now find him in old age writing with considerable literary skill. With all the versatility of a Yankee, if he will pardon a comparison probably little to his taste, he combined war with medicine, law, and politics. He was in command of a regiment in Mexico; and though he happened not to be engaged in any of the great battles, he gave evidence of an executive capacity, energy, and judgment to be afterward much more conspicuously displayed during the rebellion. There are some rare touches in his military experience; subordination came hard to him, and flashes of the fiery Southern temperament occasionally illumine these chapters. Very amusing is the picture of one of the young Southern braves, who, at the battle of Buena Vista, envious of the wound received by Colonel Jefferson Davis, and thirsting for the glorious decoration of a scar, "absolutely heart-broken because a bullet failed to hit him," "charged up and down the line, waving his arms in the air, and exclaiming, My God! Can't one bullet hit me!'' And, says Mr. Davis, "it is an actual fact that for the rest of his life his spirit was wounded because his body was whole."

There are pleasant glimpses, too, of the reckless and prodigal quality of Southern generosity. It is a pretty story of the burning of the house of an estimable old gentlewoman in the village.

The fire was over and the crowd dispersing, when a gentleman sprang upon the steps of a neighboring house and harangued the people, headed a subscription list with five hundred dollars, and raised four thousand dollars for the poor lady on the spot. Credit was "universal," and fortunes were quickly made and lost. He who would not risk his own property and the welfare of his family to help a hard-pushed neighbor was no better than a sorry niggard. "To put your name on a friend's paper was as much a matter of course as to sit up with him when he was ill, take care of him when he was merry, or fight for him if he got into a row."

The last part of the book is devoted to the secession period. But it is the scope of this paper to deal rather with the picturesque than the historical traits, and, moreover, it would be difficult to cull amid pages so thickly sown with matter of the greatest interest and value. In the last Congress which sat before the outbreak of the hostilities, Mr. Davis represented his district. He was a man of note and influence, and occupied responsible positions upon committees charged to avert, if possible, the press

ing crisis. He tells much that is important about the feelings and expectations, the plans and the plots, of the Southern leaders, and he pauses to sketch Joshua Giddings with a force and vividness most striking; it is a portrait not to be forgotten.

He was a secessionist with regret, but with sincere heartiness. On the other hand, his independent way of thinking, his sound judgment, and indomitable integrity prevented his yielding to the chiefs of the movement that quasi-military obedience which they demanded, and at intervals he angered them and incurred their distrust. He especially crossed them by the frank honesty of his speeches and career in Mississippi. It was their policy to induce the people to believe that disruption would be sub

stantially peaceable. Too intelligent to be hoodwinked, too honest to join in a scheme of deception, Mr. Davis reiterated to many an audience that "secession would prove to be only another name for bloody revolution." For this embarrassing behavior he was taken sharply to task; but he refused to mend his ways, and told the remonstrants that he "had always found the straightest path the safest," and that he would rather be "accused falsely of alarming the people than deserve the accusation of misleading them." Thus he drew down upon himself the extreme indignation of the chief promoters. But events justified him, and the assistance of one so able and so trustworthy could not be dispensed with; he was therefore retained in important positions of high responsibility. He magnifies Jefferson Davis

with glowing eulogy, and after all his eloquent praise declares his inability to find words adequate to express the glory and greatness of that leader. After the fall of Fort Donelson he took up the cudgels for General Johnston, then seriously discredited, and, foreseeing the disastrous end, he "denounced the whole policy of the war and the stupendous folly of the provisional Congress." Thus he "gave great offense to the administration," and "had afterwards no influence, nor indeed much personal intercourse, with heads of government." He felt that his usefulness was over, and that he was "a mere spectator in the final acts of our tragedy." At this point he drops the curtain, and brings to a close one of the most entertaining books that has been given to the public for a long while. John T. Morse, Jr.

III.

AFTER the reading of the paper which was reported in the preceding number of this record, the company fell into talk upon the subject with which it dealt.

The Mistress. "I could have wished you had said more about the religious attitude of old age as such. Surely the thoughts of aged persons must be very much taken up with the question of what is to become of them. I should like to have The Dictator explain himself a little more fully on this point."

My dear madam, I said, it is a delicate matter to talk about. You remember Mr. Calhoun's response to the advances of an over-zealous young clergyman who wished to examine him as to his outfit for the long journey. I think the relations between man and his Maker grow more intimate, more confidential, if I

may say so, with advancing years. The old man is less disposed to argue about special matters of belief, and more ready to sympathize with spiritually minded persons without anxious questioning as to the fold to which they belong. That kindly judgment which he exercises with regard to others he will, naturally enough, apply to himself. The caressing tone in which the Emperor Hadrian addresses his soul is very much like that of an old person talking with a grandchild or some other pet: —

"Animula, vagula, blandula, Hospes comesque corporis." "Dear little, flitting, pleasing sprite, The body's comrade and its guest." How like the language of Catullus to Lesbia's sparrow!

More and more the old man finds his pleasures in memory, as the present becomes unreal and dreamlike, and the