dancing school are considered as institutions of Satan. Their features are large and irregular, and though not free from a certain manly beauty in the men, are scarcely redeemed from homeliness in the women by the expression of intelligence and it which lights them up, and fairly spratt es in their grayish blue eyes.

ina

and indignation throughout the land at so sudden and important a defection. Was the Captain the cause or merely the instrument? Had not Walter and Barnes, as well as he, become conscious of the actual impotence and intrinsic feebleness of the Whigs? Already, in the spring of 1834, the paper had declared against the New Poor Law. Walter, who had offered wages without work to his pressmen, and had behaved so handsomely to Dr. Slop, was not the man to approve of the New All of them have the energy of character, Poor Law; and, while he lived, The Times carried restless activity, strong convictions, tenacity on a war against that measure, not only steady, of purpose, deep sympathies, and spirit of selfbut successful, although the success arrived only sacrifice, which are such invaluable qualities when Walter was leaving the world. Honor to in the character of propagandists. It would him for this, and to the Captain for the powerful be impossible for the theologians among them pen, almost whose last journalistic effort was a to be members of any other church than the series of vivid articles in favor of the Factory Bill. church militant. Father and sons, they have Barnes died in 1841; about the same time the been in the thickest of the battles fought in Captain's connection with The Times seems to the church and by it; and always have moved have slackened or almost ceased; and now it is together in solid column. To them questions said to have been that the influence of the present of schoolastic theology are mummeries, dry Mr. Walter, No. III., gave it a slightly Tractarian and Toryish bias, which was not long maintained, and attractionless; they are practical, living The present editorial management of The Times in the real present, dealing with questions is vested in "young Delaine," son of that "old which palpitate with vitality. Temperance, Delaine," who left The Times years ago, under foreign and home-missions, the influence of the auspices of Gladstone and Co., to set The Chronicle on its legs again, it having fallen upon its face, in spite of its support of the New Poor Law! The commercial manager is Mr. Mowbray Morris, a gentlemanly man of dignified demeanor; and the principal writer of the leading articles the one who wields the "present thunder" of The Times-is the Rev. Thomas Mozley, of Guildford Street, near the Foundling Hospital.

MRS. B. STOWE AND HER FAMILY.

commerce on public morality, the conversion of young men, the establishment of theological seminaries, education, colonization, abolition, the political obligations of Christians; on matters such as these do the Beechers expend their energies. Nor do they disdain taking an active part in public affairs; one of them was appointed at New York City to address Kossuth on his arrival. What is remarkable is that, though they have come in violent collision with many of the abuses of American society, their motives have never been seriously attacked. This exemption from the ordinary lot of reformers is owing not only to their consistent disinterestedness, but to a certain Yankee prudence, which prevents their advancing without being sure of battalions behind them; and also to a reputation the family has acquired for eccentricity. As public speakers they are far above mediocrity; not graceful, but eloquent, with a lively scorn of the mean, and perception of the comic, which overflow in pungent wit and withering satire; and sometimes, in the heat of extemporaneous speaking, in biting sarcasm. Their style of oratory would often seem, to a staid, church-going Englishman, to contrast too strongly with the usual decorum of the pulpit.

THE family to which Mrs. Stowe belongs, is as widely and as favorably known as almost any other in the United States, and consists of twelve! the apostolic number. And of the twelve, seven are apostles of the pulpit, and two of the pen, after the manner of the nineteenth century. Of the other three, one has been swept into commerce by the strong current setting that way in America; and the other two, wives of lawyers of respectable standing, and mothers of families, have been absorbed by the care and affections of domestic life. They are said to be no way inferior, in point of natural endowments, to the nine who have chosen to play their parts in life before a larger public. Indeed, persons who know intimately all the twelve, are puzzled to assign Nine of the Beechers are authors. They superiority to any one of them. With the are known to the reading and religious public shades of difference which always obtain of the United States, by reviews, essays, between individual characters, they bear a striking resemblance to each other, not only physically, but intellectually and morally. All of them are about the common size-the doctor being a trifle below it, and some of the sons a trifle above it-neither stout nor slight, but compactly and ruggedly built. Their movements and gestures have much of the abruptness and want of grace common in the New England States, where the opera and

sermons, orations, debates, and discourses on & great variety of subjects, chiefly of local or momentary interest. All of these productions are marked by vigorous thought; very few by that artistic excellence, that conformity to the laws of the ideal, which alone confer a lasting value on the creations of the brain. Many of them are controversial, or wear an aggressive air which is unmistakable. Before Mrs. Stowe's last book, her celebrity was hardly equal to her

maiden sister's. Catherine had a wider reputa- at Andover, he had been appointed Professor, tion as an authoress, and her indefatigable activity in the cause of education had won for her very general esteem. I may add in this connection that it is to her the United States are indebted for thealy extensively useful association for preparings sul sending capable female teachers to the woes iShe had the energy and the tact to organize and put it in successful operation.

Harriet Beecher was born in Lichfield, about the year 1812. After the removal of the family to Boston, she enjoyed the best educational advantages of that city. With the view of preparing herself for the business of instruction, she acquired all the ordinary accomplishments of ladies, and much of the learning usually reserved for the stronger sex. At an early age she began to aid her eldest sister, Catherine, in the management of a flourishing female school, which had been built up by the latter. When their father went West, the sisters accompanied him, and opened a similar establishment in Cincinnatti.

at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, whence he had been called to Lane Seminary. Mrs. Stowe's married life has been of that equable and sober happiness so common in the families of Yankee clergymen. It has been blessed with a numerous offspring, of whom five are still living. Mrs. Stowe has known the fatigues of watching over the sick bed, and her heart has felt that grief which eclipses all others--that of a bereaved mother. Much of her time has been devoted to the education of her children, while the ordinary household cares have devolved on a friend or distant relative, who has always resided with her. She employed her leisure in contributing occa sional pieces, tales and novelettes to the maga zines and newspapers. Her writings were of a highly moral tone, and deservedly popular. Only a small portion of them are comprised in the volume-"The Mayflower "--already well known. This part of Mrs. Stowe's life, spent in literary pleasures, family joys and cares, and the society of the pious and intelligent, would have been of as unalloyed happiness as mortals can expect, had it not been darkened at every instant by the baleful shadow of slavery.

This city is situated on the northern bank of the Ohio. The range of hills which hugs the rive for hundreds of miles above, here recedes from it in a semicircle, broken by a valley The "peculiar institution" was destined to and several ravines, leaving a basin several thwart the grand project in life of Mrs. Stowe's square miles in surface. This is the site of the husband and father. When they relinquished busy manufacturing and commercial town their excellent positions in the East in order to which, in 1832, contained less than forty build up the great Presbyterian Seminary for thousand inhabitants, and at present contains the Ohio and Mississippi valley, they did so more than one hundred and twenty thousand with every prospect of success. Never did a —a rapid increase, which must be attributed, literary institution start under fairer auspices. in a great measure, to the extensive trade it The number and reputation of the professors carries on with the slave States. The high had drawn together several hundred students hill, whose point, now crowned with an obser- from all parts of the United States; not sickly vatory, overhangs the city on the east, cellar-plants of boys sent by wealthy parents, stretches away to the east and north in a long but hardy and intelligent young men, most of sweep of table-land. On this is situated Lane whom, fired by the ambition of converting the Seminary-Mrs. Stowe's home for eighteen world to Christ, were winning their way long years. Near the Seminary buildings, through privations and toil, to education and and on the public road, are certain comforta- ministerial orders. They were the stuff out ble brick residences, situated in yards green of which foreign missionaries and revival with tufted grass, and half concealed from preachers are made. Some of them were view by accacias, locusts, rose-bushes, and known to the public as lecturers: Theodore vines of honeysuckle and clematis. These D. Weld was an oratorical celebrity. For a were occupied by Dr. Beecher, and the Pro-year all went well. Lane Seminary was the fessors. There are other residences more pride and hope of the Church. Alas for the pretending in appearance, occupied by bank- hopes of Messrs. Beecher and Stowe! this ers, merchants and men of fortune. The little prosperity was of short duration. village thus formed is called Walnut Hills, and is one of the prettiest in the environs of Cincinnatti.

The French Revolution of 1830, the agita tion in England for reform, and against colonial slavery, the fine and imprisonment by American For several years after her removal to this courts of justice, of citizens who had dared to place, Harriet Beecher continued to teach in attack the slave trade carried on under the connection with her sister. She did so until federal flag, had begun to direct the attention her marriage with the Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, of a few American philanthropists to the evils Professor of Biblical Literature in the Semi- of slavery. Some years before, a society had nary of which her father was President. This been formed for the purpose of colonizing free gentleman was already one of the most dis-blacks on the coast of Africa. It had been tinguished ecclesiastical sarans in America. patronized by intelligent slaveholders, who After graduating with honor at Bowdoin Col- feared the contact of free blacks with their lege, Maine, and taking his theological degree human chattels; and by feeble or ignorant

persons in the North, whose consciences impelled them to act on slavery in some way, and whose prudence or ignorance of the question led them to accept the plan favored by slaveholders. However useful to Africa the emigration to its shores of intelligent, moral, and enterprising blacks may be, it is now universally admitted that colonization, as a means of extinguishing slavery, is a drivelling absurdity. These were the views of the Abolition Convention, which met at Philadelphia in 1833, and set on foot the agitation which has since convulsed the Union.

The President of that Convention, Mr. Arthur Tappan, was one of the most liberal donors of Lane Seminary. He forwarded its address to the students; and, in a few weeks afterwards, the whole subject was up for discussion amongst them. At first there was little interest. But soon the fire began to burn. Many of the students had travelled or taught in schools in the slave States; a goodly number were sons of slaveholders, and some were owners of slaves. They had seen slavery, and had facts to relate, many of which made the blood run chill with horror. Those spread thro' the pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin, reader, and which your swelling heart and overflowing eyes would not let you read aloud, are cold in comparison. The discussion was soon ended, for all were of accord; but the meetings for the relation of facts were continued night after night and week after week. What was, at first, sensibility grew into enthusiasm; the feeble flame had become a conflagration. The slave owners among the students gave liberty to their slaves; the idea of going on foreign missions was scouted at, because there were heathens at home; some left their studies and collected the colored population of Cincinnatti into churches, and preached to them; others gathered the young men into evening schools, and the children into day schools, and devoted themselves to teaching them; others organized benevolent societies for aiding them, and orphan asylums for the destitute and abandoned children; and others again, left all to aid fugitive slaves on their way to Canada, or to lecture on the evils of slavery. The fanaticism was sublime; every student felt himself a Peter the hermit, and acted as if the abolition of slavery depended on his individual exertions.

nent danger that Lane Seminary, and the houses of Drs. Beecher and Stowe, would be burnt or pulled down by a drunken rabble. These must have been weeks of mortal anxiety for Harriet Beecher. The board of trustees now interfered, and allayed the excitement of the mob by forbidding all further discussion on slavery in the Seminary. To this the students responded by withdrawing en masse. Where hundreds had been, there was left a mere handful. Lane Seminary was deserted. For seventeen years after this, Dr. Beecher and Professor Stowe remained there, endeavoring in vain to revive its prosperity. In 1850 they returned to the Eastern States, the great project of their life defeated. After a short stay at Bowdoin College, Maine, Professor Stowe accepted an appointment to the chair of Biblical literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, an institution which stands, to say the least, as high as any in the United States.

These events caused a painful reaction in the feelings of the Beechers. Repulsed alike by the fanaticism they had witnessed among the foes, and the brutal violence among the friends of slavery, they thought their time for action had not come, and gave no public expression of their abhorrence to slavery. They waited for the storm to subside, and the angel of truth to mirror his form in tranquil waters. For a long time they resisted all attempts to make them bow the knee to slavery, or to avow themselves abolitionists. It is to this period Mrs. Stowe alludes, when she says, in the closing chapter of her book: For many years of her life the author avoided all reading upon, or allusion to, the subject of slavery, considering it too painful to be inquired into, and one which advancing light and civilization would live down." The terrible and dramatic scenes which occurred in Cincinnatti, between 1835 and 1847, were calculated to increase the repugnance of a lady to mingle actively in the melee. That city was the chief battle-ground of freedom and slavery. Every month there was something to attet attention to the strife; either a press destroyed, or a house mobbed, or a free negro kidnapped, or a trial for freedom before the courts, or the confectionary of an English abolitionist riddled, or a public discussion, or an escape of slaves, or an armed attack on the negro quarter, or a At first the discussion had been encouraged negro school-house razed to the ground, or a by the President and Professors; but when slave in prison, and killing his wife and chilthey saw it swallowing up everything like dren to prevent their being sold to the South. regular study, they thought it high time to The abolition press, established there in 1835 stop. It was too late; the current was too by James G. Burney, whom, on account of his strong to be arrested. The commercial interests mildness, Miss Martineau called "the gentleof Cincinnatti took the alarm-manufacturers man of the abolition cause," and continued feared the loss of their Southern trade. Public by Dr. Bailey, the moderate and able editor sentiment exacted the suppression of the dis- of the National Era, of Washington city, in cussion and excitement. Slaveholders came which Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared in over from Kentucky, and urged the mob on to weekly numbers, was destroyed five times. violence. For several weeks there was immi-¡ On one occasion, the Mayor dismissed at mid

night the rioters, who had also pulled down the houses of some colored people, with the following pithy speech: "Well, boys, let's go home; we've done enough." One of these mobs deserves particular notice, as its victims enlisted deeply the sympathies of Mrs. Stowe. In 1840, the slave catchers, backed by the riff-raff of the population, and urged on by certain politicians and merchants, attacked the quarters in which the negroes reside. Some of the houses were battered down by cannon. For several days the city was abandoned to violence and crime. The negro quarters were pillaged and sacked; negroes who attempted to defend their property were killed, and their mutilated bodies cast into the streets; women were violated by ruffians, and soon afterwards died of the injuries received; houses were burnt, and men, women, and children were abducted in the confusion, and hurried into slavery. From the brow of the hill on which she lived, Mrs. Stowe could hear the cries of the victims, the shouts of the mob, and the reports of the guns and cannon, and could see theflames of the conflagration. To more than one of the trembling fugitives she gave shelter, and wept bitter tears with them. After the fury of the mob was spent, many of the coloured peo; le gathered together the little left them of worldly goods, and started for Canada. Hundreds passed in front of Mrs. Stowe's house. Some of them were in little waggons; some were trudging along on foot after the household stuff; some led their children by the hand; and there were even mothers who walked on, suckling their infants, and weeping for the dead or kidnapped husband they had left behind.

enough to come up with him. He sleeps now
in the obscure grave of a martyr. The "gi-
gantic frame," of which the novelist speaks,
was worn down at last by want of sleep,
exposure, and anxiety; and his spirits were
depressed by the persecutions which were
accumulated on him.
Several slave owners,

who had lost their property by his means,
sued him in the United States Courts for
damages; and judgment after judgment strip-
ped him of his farm, and all his property.

During her long residence on the frontier of the slave States, Mrs. Stowe made several visits to them. It was then, no doubt, she made the observations which have enabled her to paint noble, generous, and humane slaveholders, in the characters of Wilson, the manufacturer, Mrs. Shelby and her son George, St. Clair and his daughter Eva, the benevolent purchaser at the New Orleans auction sale, the mistress of Susan and Emeline, and Symes, who helped Eliza and her boy up the river bank. Mrs. Stowe has observed slavery in every phase; she has seen masters and slaves at home, New Orleans markets, fugitives, free coloured people, proslavery politicians and priests, abolitionists, and colonizationists. She and her family have suffered from it; seventeen years of her life have been clouded by it. For that long period she stifled the strongest emotions of her heart. No one but her intimate friends knew their strength. She has given them expression at last. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the agonizing cry of feelings pent up for years in the heart of a true woman.

HYMN ON THE MORNING.

BY RICHARD CRASHAW.

O Thou

Bright Lady of the mern! pity doth lie
So warm in thy soft breast, it cannot die-
Have mercy then, and when he next shall rise,
O meet the angry God, invade his eyes.

This road, which ran through Walnut Hills, and within a few feet of Mrs. Stowe's door, was one of the favourite routes of "the underground railroad," so often alluded to in Uncle Tom's Cabin. This name was given to a line of Quakers and other abolitionists, who, living at intervals of 10, 15, or 20 miles between the Ohio river and the Northern Lakes, had formed themselves into a sort of association to aid fugitive slaves in their escape to Canada.— -So my wakeful lay shall knock Any fugitive was taken by night on horse- On th' oriental gates, and duly mock back, or in covered wagons, from station to The early lark's shrill orisons, to be station, until he stood on free soil, and found An anthem at the day's nativity. the fold of the lion banner floating over him, And the same rosy-fingered hand of thine, and the artillery of the British Empire be- That shuts night's dying eyes shall open mine; tween him and slavery. The first station But thou faint god of sleep, forget that I north of Cincinnatti was a few miles up Mill Was ever known to be thy votary. Creek, at the house of the pious and honest-No more my pillows shall thine altar be, hearted John Vanzandt, who figures in chap- Myself a melting sacrifice; I'm born Nor will I offer any more to thee, ter nine of Uncle Tom's Cabin, as John Van Again a fresh child of the buxom morn. Trompe. Mrs. Stowe must have often been Heir of the Sun's first beams, why threat'st thou so roused from her sleep by the quick rattle of Why dost thou shake thy leaden sceptre? Go, the covered wagons, and the confused gallop- Bestow thy poppy upon wakeful woe, ing of the horses of constables and slave- Sickness and sorrow, whose pale-like lids ne'er catchers in hot pursuit. "Honest John" was always ready to turn out with his team, and the hunters of men were not often adroit

know

Thy downy finger; dwell upon their eyes,
Shut in their tears, shut out their miseries!

SEDERUNT XII.

[SCENE:-The Shanty. Major and Laird sit- sederunt will be most barren; there is nothing,

ting crooning over the fire.]

MAJOR.-What weather! rain, rain, rain. Where is it to end? Did you ever see anything like it, Laird? Oh! there is another twinge. Hang it, man, throw on another log. LAIRD.-Whisht, whisht, Major, ane wad think that ye're 'na ower gratefu' for the meercies o' Providence. The saft weather, though a wee bit cauld, will bring on the grain noo buried in the earth, and the grass and flower o' the forest will rejoice in

MAJOR.-Drat the grass and forest flowers! A week's fair weather and genial sunshine would do more for the fields, and man, too, than all last month's storm, and wind, and rain, and frost, and

LAIRD.-Haud now,-frost? MAJOR.-Frost, as I live! and May more than half gone. [Enter Doctor.] I'll leave it to the Doctor.

DOCTOR.-And what are you two old fogies fighting about, now. The weather, I'd bet a pound, to judge from your positions over the fire.

MAJOR.-Let us have it by all means, or our positively nothing going on at this unhappy season of the year, when the wind and rain and fog and damp combine to render man

DOCTOR.-Stop, Major, for pity's sake. I have been delighted at lately witnessing another instance of the liberality of our publishers in furnishing the public at a moderate rate, with specimens of art, which a few years ago were exclusively the property of the wealthy. I have been inspecting a painting which blends the historical with the poetical, and while intently examining the work, I fancied I could read the whole tale the canvas would portray. LAIRD.-An' what might it be?

DOCTOR.-It is a painting illustrative of fashionable life. To the right may be seen a large and handsome house, decorated externally with unusual magnificence. This house, now, I would suppose to be occupied by some rich' personage, who, after serving, for many years his king and country, retires, on the death of his wife, to this his habitation, accompanied by his secretary, who assists him in winding up his public affairs. The statesman, for so I will call him, has a yonng and beautiful daughter of "sweet seventeen," as all heroines of tales are; the secretary, who is also good-looking, clever, witty, but poor, meets our heroine DOCTOR.-I cannot say, considering I am not and falls in love. It is not to be supposed an early riser, but an application to the Obser- that the father would countenance any such vatoryproceedings, either on the part of the secreMAJOR.-I can observe well enough for my-tary or of his daughter, and to avoid the posself. I was up at day break, and the puddles

MAJOR.-Yes, this infernal, cold, damp, raw and blustering weather. We had frost last night, had we not, Doctor?

were covered with ice.

DOCTOR. Then, Major, you are, doubtless, right; but the weather is a stale subject to talk upon, and I have a little story that I hope will interest you while supper is preparing.

sibility of such a catastrophe he dismisses the secretary on the completion of his duties. But it is too late, they have seen each other and declared their mutual passion.

DOCTOR.-But, before going further, I'll des