Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863

Presently said Pidgeon:

'We are following to the grave the remains of a splendid writer.'

'Uncommon,' said the large man. 'Sech a man with a pen I never see – ekalled by few, and excelled by none; copperplate wasn't nowhere.'

'Indeed,' replied Pidgeon, 'I wasn't aware his chirography was so unusually elegant; but his books were magnificent, weren't they? So equable, too, and without that bold speculation that we too often meet with, nowadays.'

'Ah, you may well say so,' returned the large man. 'He always kept them himself; had 'em sent up to his house whenever he was sick, likeways; but he wasn't without his bold speculations neither. Look at that there operation of his into figs, last year.'

'Figs!'

'Figs, yes; and there was dates into the same cargo.'

'Dates! figs! My good friend, do you mean to say that the great Washington Irving speculated in groceries?'

'Lord, no, not that I know of. This here is Josh Irving, whose remains' —

Pidgeon opened the carriage door, and, being agile, got out without stopping the procession. Arriving at his office, where the boy was diligently occupied in sticking red wafers over the velvet of his desk lid, he took down 'Sugden on Vendors,' to ascertain if there was any legal remedy for the manner in which he had been sold, and at the latest dates had unsuccessfully travelled nearly half through that very entertaining volume.

There is no time to be lost. Either the Union is to be made stronger, or it is to perish; and the sooner every man's position is defined, the better. If you are opposed to the war, say so, and step over to Secession, but do not falter and equivocate, croak and grumble, and play the bat of the fable. The manly, good, old-fashioned Democrats, at least, are above this, and are rapidly dividing from the copperheads. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, a staunch patriotic journal, says:

'The sooner that the fact is made clear that the mass of the Democrats, as well as of all other parties, are loyal and opposed to the infamous teachings of Vallandigham, Biddle, Reed, Ingersoll, Wood, and their compeers, the sooner will the war be brought to an end and the Union be restored.'

Show your colors. Let us know at once who and what everybody is, in this great struggle.

LOVE-LIFE

 
In a forest lone, 'neath a mossy stone,
Pale flowrets grew:
No sunlight fell in the sombre dell,
Raindrop nor dew.
 
 
Bring them to light, where all is bright,
See if they grow?
Yes, stem and leaf are green,
While, hid in crimson sheen,
The petals glow.
 
 
Girl blossoms, too, love the sun and dew,
And the soft air:
Hidden from love's eye they fade and die,
In city low or cloister high,
Yes, everywhere.
 
 
Give them but love, the fire from above,
And they will grow,
The once cold children of the gloom,
Rich in their bloom, shedding perfume
On high and low.
 

We beg leave to remind our readers that Mr. Leland's new book, Sunshine in Thought, retail price $1, is given as a premium to all who subscribe $3 in advance to the Continental Monthly. Will the reader permit us to call attention to the following notice of the work from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin:

'A beautiful volume, entitled Sunshine in Thought, by Charles Godfrey Leland, has just been published by Charles T. Evans. No work from Mr. Leland's pen has afforded us so much pleasure, and we recommend it to all who want and relish bright, refreshing, cheering reading. It consists of a number of essays, the main idea of which is to inculcate joyousness in thought and feeling, in opposition to the sickly, sentimental seriousness which is so much affected in literature and in society. That a volume based on this one idea should be filled with reading that is never tiresome, is a proof of great cleverness. But Mr. Leland's varied learning, and his extensive acquaintance with foreign as well as English literature, combine with his native talent to qualify him for such a work. He has done nothing so well, not even his admirable translation of Heine's Reisebilder. He is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his motto, 'Hilariter,' and in expressing his bright thoughts, he has been peculiarly felicitous in style. Nothing of his that we have read shows so much elegance and polish. Every chapter in the book is delightful, but we especially enjoyed that on 'Tannhæuser,' with the fine translation and subsequent elucidation of the famous legend.' But the boldest and most original chapter is the concluding one, with its strange speculations on 'The Musical After-Life of the Soul,' and the after-death experience of 'Dione' and 'Bel-er-oph-on,' which the author characterizes in the conclusion as 'an idle, fantastic, foolish dream.' So it may be, but it is as vividly told as any dream of the Opium-Eater or the Hasheesh-Eater. Mr. Leland is to be congratulated on his Sunshine in Thought. It is a book that will be enjoyed by every reader of culture, and its effect will be good wherever it is read.'

The aim proposed in this work is one of great interest at the present time, or, as the Philadelphia North American declares, 'is a great and noble one' – 'to aid in fully developing the glorious problem of freeing labor from every drawback, and of constantly raising it and intellect in the social scale.' 'Mr. Leland believes that one of the most powerful levers for raising labor to its true position in the estimation of the world, is the encouragement of cheerfulness and joyousness in every phase of literature and of practical life.' 'The work is one long, glowing sermon, the text of which is the example of Jesus Christ.'

E. K.

BUST-HEAD WHISKEY

For two days the quiet of the Rising Sun Tavern, in the quaint little town of Shearsville, Ohio, was disturbed by a drunken Democratic member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, who visited the town in order to address what he hoped would turn out to be the assembled multitude of copperheads, but which proved after all no great snakes!

For two days this worthless vagabond insulted travellers stopping at the tavern, until at last the landlord's wife, a woman of some intelligence, determined to have her revenge, since no man on the premises had pluck enough to give the sot the thrashing he so well merited.

On the third day, after a very severe night's carouse on bust-head whiskey, the Pennsylvanian appeared at the breakfast table, looking sadly the worse for wear, and having an awful headache. The landlady having previously removed the only looking glass in the tavern – one hanging in the barroom – said to the beast as he sat down to table:

'Poor man! oh, what is the matter with your face? It is terribly swollen, and your whole head too. Can't I do something for you? send for the doctor, or' —

The legislator, who was in a state of half-besottedness, listened with sharp ears to this remark, but believing the landlady was only making fun of him, interrupted her with —

'There ain't nothin' the matter with my head. I'm all right; only a little headache what don't 'mount to nothing.'

But a man who sat opposite to him at table, and who had his clue from the landlady, said with an alarmed look —

'I say, mister, I don't know it's any of my business, but I'll be hanged for a horse thief, if your head ain't swelled up twicet its nat'ral size. You'd better do something for it, I'm thinking.'

The drunken legislator! (Legislator, n. One who makes laws for a state: vide dictionary) believing at last that his face must in fact be swollen, since several other travellers, who were in the plot, also spoke to him of his shocking appearance, got up from the table and went out to the barroom to consult the looking glass, such luxuries not being placed in the chambers. But there was no glass there. After some time he found the landlady, and she told him that the barroom glass was broken, but she could lend him a small one; which she at once gave him.

The poor sot, with trembling hand, held it in front of his face, and looked in.

'Well,' said he, 'if that ain't a swelled head I hope I may never be a senator! or sell my vote again at Harrisburg.'

'Poor man!' exclaimed the bystanders.

'Fellers,' said the legislator, 'wot d'ye think I'd better do?' Here he gave another hard look in the glass. 'I ought to be back in Harrisburg right off, but I cant go with a head like that onto me. Nobody'd give me ten cents to vote for 'em with such a head as that. It's a' —

'Big thing,' interrupted a bystander.

'Fellers,' said the blackguard, 'I'll kill a feller any day of the week, with old rye, if he'll only tell er feller how to cure this head of mine.'

'Have it shaved, sir, by all means,' spoke the landlady: 'shaved at once, and then a mild fly blister will draw out the inflammation, and the swelling will go down. Don't you think so, doctor?'

The doctor thus addressed was a cow doctor, but, accustomed to attending brutes, his advice was worth something in the present case; so he also recommended shaving and blistering.

'I'll go git the barber right off the reel, sha'n't I?' asked the doctor, to which the legislator assenting, it chanced that in fifteen minutes his head was as bald as a billiard ball, and in a few more was covered with a good-sized fly blister.

'Ouch – good woman – how it hurts!' he cried. But that was only the beginning of it.

'Ee-ea-ah!' he roared, as it grew hotter and hotter. One might have heard him a mile. The neighbors did hear it, and rushed in. The joke was 'contaminated' round among them, and they enjoyed it. He had disgusted them all.

'Golly! what a big head!' cried a bystander.

The legislator took another look at the glass. They held it about a yard from him.

'It's gittin' smaller, ain't it?' he groaned.

'Yes, it's wiltin',' said the landlady. 'Now go to bed.'

He went, and on rising departed. Whether he ever became an honest man is not known, but the legend says he has from that day avoided 'bust-head whiskey.'

Don't you see it, reader? The landlady had shown him his face in a convex mirror – one of those old-fashioned things, which may occasionally be found in country taverns.

WAR-WAIFS

The chronicles of war in all ages show us that this internecine strife into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.' The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call up from the memory of past readings, was one in which Theodebert, king of Austria, took the field against his own brother, Thierri, king of Burgundy. Historians tell us that, so close was the hand-to-hand fighting in this battle, slain soldiers did not fall until the mélée was over, but were borne to and fro in an upright position amid the serried ranks.

Although many and many of England's greatest battles have been won for her by her Irish soldiers, it is not always that the latter can be depended upon by her. With the Celt, above all men, 'blood is thicker than water;' and, although he is very handy at breaking the head of another Celt with a blackthorn 'alpeen,' in a free faction fight, he objects to making assaults upon his fellow countrymen with the 'pomp and circumstance of war.' A striking instance of this occurred during the Irish rebellion of 1798. The 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons refused to charge upon a body of the rebels when the word was given. Not a man or horse stirred from the ranks. Here was a difficult card to play, now, for the authorities, because it would have been inconvenient to try the whole regiment by court martial, and the soldiers were quite too valuable to be mowed down en masse. The only course left was to disband the regiment, which was done. The disaffected men were distributed into regiments serving in India and other remote colonies, and the officers, none of whom, we believe, were involved in the mutiny, were provided for in various quarters. The circumstance was commemorated in a curious way. It was ordered that the 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons should be erased from the records of the army list, in which a blank between the 4th and 6th Dragoons should remain forever, as a memorial of disgrace. For upward of half a century this gap remained in the army list, as anybody may see by referring to any number of that publication of half-a-dozen years back. The regiment was revived during, or just after, the Crimean war, and the numbers in the army list are once more complete.