Mr.

At the moment the hostile forces met, there was a slight disturbance. It was inevitable. A dozen blows were rapidly exchanged. Here and there, a hat was bruised. Here and there, a sash was torn. Here and there, a flag-staff was savagely grasped and broken. Hodgens threatened the Episcopalian minister. The minister, with his fat hand, waved an anathema on the butcher. Mrs. Cecilia Bunn upbraided the Medical Superintendent. There were groans for Griffin; there were groans for Wagstaff. Cheers and counter-cheers, indescribable excitement, and confusion all round. The Baptist preacher extended his hands, and, with a long neck, implored the spirit of peace and good-will amongst men. The Chief Constable felt disposed for a miscellaneous arrest. Under the impulse, he buttoned his coat and turned up his wrist-bands. The Magistrate became convulsed; the blood rushed from his socks to his wig, and there permanently settled. The windows of the Rainbow, overlooking the platform and the combatants, were occupied by the ladies of the house, and numerous acquaintances, in bonnets, from abroad. The uproar seemed to exhilarate them greatly. They laughed immoderately, occasionally interspersing the merriment with an improvident scream. The candidates, all the while, stood composedly at a short distance from each other; Ethelwood Griffin, with a quiet goodhumor, noting down the sayings and incidents of the scene; Marmaduke Wagstaff, with folded arms, biting his lips, looking stern and invincible. The picture cannot be more effectively described. The reporter of the Launceston Wallaby gave it up in despair.

What was the McGuillicuddy doing all this time? Where was the gallant, sporting, fiery, rollicking old Celt?

In the stable, loosing the girths of Garibaldi, hunting out a feed of oats for him, shaking down some fresh hay-in every possible way insuring the comfort. of his restless, black favorite.

Where was the Medical Superintendent?

In a private parlor of the Rainbow, sitting at a small table, with a government Report, and a glass of thin lemonade before him. The inexorable Woodhouse! He was driving home the last charge in the battery he had vowed to

open in full force that day on the enemies of his Queen.

66

They shall have it-the rebels !-they shall have it," he cadaverously swore, as he finished the lemonade, and shut up the Report with a blow of his sinewy clenched hand upon the volume.

He left the parlor and came upon the platform the precise moment the presiding officer, Josiah Thomas Briggs, Esq., had ventured to open the proceedings. The tumult was not altogether hushed. But it had been to some extent appeased. The most athletic rioters gradually grew exhausted. The pianissimo passage of the overture was now about being played. The Police Magistrate thought he had a favorable chance. Buttoning his coat to the throat -he did it easily, the buttons were familiar with the business-pulling up his shirt-collar, which had completely lost its stiffness from the frequency of the operation, tightening his hat upon his head, a little on one side, opening out his port-folio, clearing his voice and twitching the side-curls of his wig, he began to read the proclamation authorizing the election.

"Read louder," shouted the Blacksmith.

"Peace be with you," interposed the Baptist preacher.

"Remember Austerlitz!" cried Dodd, who had just come upon the platform, supported by Arcole and St. Helena.

The Magistrate resumed. With considerable difficulty he got through reading the proclamation, and, having exhorted the candidates and their respective friends to conduct themselves with decorum, retired to the back of the platform, where a pine-wood bench had been placed by the Chief Constable, for the convenience of his worship. And now commenced the fight in good earnest. Heretofore there had been skirmishing, and on the whole a desultory conflict. But now the combatants stood face to face, closed up together, and delivered their fire at the shortest range.

Benjamin Thorne, Esq., of Hawthorne Lodge, came forward to propose a fit and proper person to represent the influential district of Campbell Town in the Legislative Assembly of the colony. He was an old man-genteel, inarticulate, and imbecile. Forty years ago a merchant in Hamburg, he had seen something of the world-had supped, by-the-by, with Dumouriez and Napper

Tandy-and in the wild wastes and rude society of Van Diemen's Land had scrupulously preserved the urbanity which his early intercourse with genteel society had enabled him to cultivate. But he had little beyond his urbanity to recommend him. A book-case may be very polished and quite empty. Benjamin Thorne was very polished and highly-finished. But Benjamin Thorne had nothing in him. A surly master, an avaricious man, a grim father, his dealings with his servants, the world, and his family, were harsh, mean, and heartless. But from the stranger—from the casual visitor to his house-his urbanity concealed everything-concealed the worst. A satin cloak, edged with the softest ermine-it surely was—which hid the thongs, the iron clasps, the sponge dipped in gall, he had ever ready for his household and dependents. He had married three times. His third

wife was living, and in her young arms he was a babbling and inconvenient child. A magistrate, however, the owner of thirty thousand sheep, an old settler in the colony-one of the very oldest he was a man of decided note. His velvet-cushioned pew in the parish church, his carriage with its silver mountings, his coachman with his drab box-coat and three capes, and the footman with his lean calves sheathed in silk, established his respectability and weight. Moreover, like old Wagstaff of Mona Vale, he gave great dinners; and when he went to Hobart Town, to ship his wool for Liverpool, he played whist and supped at the Union Club, and so nobody denied the purity of his blood.

The

But for all such men, a day of reckoning is sure to come. Within their households they are safe. Their infirmities, insincerities, and tyrannies, encounter there no criticism. very impunity, however, they have reveled in at home, is but a snare which lures them to their proper chastisement. Safe at home-safe and triumphant for many years at home-ignorant that the world outside has been taking notes respecting them, and that as though there had been no walls to screen them —their misdemeanors have been all the while the gossip of the bar-room, the market-stall, the public offices, the highway, the gambling den and stable-yard; they obey their vanity and appear in public. Here the secrets of the household come to light-here the follies, the

falsehoods, the severities or frauds they have been guilty of, meet, in a rude way, their just rebuke. Benjamin Thorne found this to be the case to his utter consternation, shame, and torture.

He came forward to propose Marmaduke Wagstaff, Esq., as a fit and proper person to represent the district of Campbell Town. His bald head was greeted with cheers and groans, as it glistened on the margin of the platform. The cheers were sickly. The groans were vigorous. He put on his spectacles— they were rimmed with gold and lozengeshaped-and drew forth a manuscript from the breast-pocket of his coat. The groans revived and multiplied.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Thorne.

You ain't no gentleman," cried an enemy in the crowd.

"I have attended here," continued Mr. Thorne.

"Go home, then," the enemy continued.

"The fabric of our glorious constitution," the urbane old gentleman went on to say.

"Shut up!" shouted his indefatigable persecutor.

"If there's one thing dearer to my heart than another," the venerable sinner pathetically observed.

"It aint your wife," 'roared the anonymous assailant.

"It is the freedom," continued the speaker, "of this my adopted country."

Loud cheers burst forth, loud groans -intense hisses-cries of " go home,' "don't give kangaroo any more to your men," " pay them their wages,' and many other delicate injunctions of the kind. Mr. Thorne was unable to proceed further. He put on his hat, pocketed his manuscript, and retired, with the most dismal sensations, to the rear of the platform. Had he been dragged through the Macquarie river and drenched to the bone, he could not have been more thoroughly depressed.

Captain Skelton, of Skelton Castlethe Castle was a portentous barn, bythe-by the-by-seconded the nomination of Marmaduke Wagstaff. A sailor for five and thirty years, the gallant captain was limited in his diction. He was no orator. He bluntly confessed it. On the quarter-deck, in a gale, he was thoroughly at home. On a stone platform, defining his position, he was an harpooned porpoise in the chains of the

forecastle. Now, he said his brief word and was silent.

The melancholy stilness produced by the severe appearance of the gallant Captain, was followed, when he put on his hat and fell back, by a vigorous outburst of feeling, partly jovial, partly recriminatory, in both phases absolutely lawless, which neither the presiding officer, Jonathan Briggs, Esq., nor the Chief Constable, old Simeon Grabb, an insolvent truss-maker, late of London; nor the Baptist preacher, one Caleb Whitehead, formerly a sausage manufacturer in the suburbs of Nottingham; nor Hodgens, the Herculean butcher; nor Mrs. Cecilia Bunn, with her brown cotton umbrella and missionary labors; nor the post-master from Ross, with his formidable eyebrows; nor the proprietor of the Scotch Thistle himself, with all his popularity-and it was great, for he had a multitude of debtors, and he was liberal and patient to excess; nor the Rev. Mr. Wilkins, with his inflated waistcoat and voluminous white cravat; nor Mr. Balantine, the Jew, who conducted the largest dry-goods establishment in Campbell Town; nor Captain Skelton, though, with a single revolution of his eye, he might have calmed the troubled elements at any other moment; nor Isaac Napoleon Dodd, with his military reminiscences; nor anybody else, however influential, jocose or stern, pompous or familiar, learned or illiterate, intelleetual or athletic, profane or pious, lovable or terrific he might be, found it possible to compose. The storm had its own way; and, when it had done its best, gave in, gave an expiring throb or two, and then closed up.

And then McGuillicuddy spoke. The fall of Babylon; the submersion of Sodom and Gomorrah; the fate of the legions of Sennacherib; the siege, and sack, and desolation of Jerusalem; the plagues of Smyrna and Venice; the eruption of Vesuvius, and the earthquake of Lisbon; the snows of Siberia and the sands of Zahara; all the woes, catastrophes and tortures that had ever come upon the earth, were invoked and prophesied by him against the island, a considerable section of which he had now the honor to address, should Griffin be returned.

"Who was Griffin?" asked the eloquent old gentleman, flinging down his hat, tearing off his neck-tie, and-pitching

"Who

it in ribbons to the audience. was Griffin?" he would ask. "Privately, a moral, amiable, devout young man. Publicly, an advocate of abominations and a champion of dishonor. [Cheers and uproar.] An Adonis by the fireside, he was little better than a Caligula in the forum. [Immense applause.] Most of them had read Virgil. [Cheers.] In that celebrated book there was a king, Mezentius, mentioned

Three cheers for Murat and Marengo!" shouted Dodd.

ones.

"Mezentius had lashed," the doctor continued, "living bodies to dead The British government did the same. Tasmania was a beautiful, fullgrown child. Convictism was a corpse. The Government had bound the two together." together." [Immense applause and hisses.] The doctor said he would say no more. The cause was safe. would equally defy the seductions of the Treasury and the terrors of the Tower. [Renewed applause.] It was thecause of freedom, of innocence, of free labor, high wages, responsible government, decent living, and voluntary emigration.

It

The Medical Superintendent would wish to say a word.

James McGuillicuddy wouldn't let him say a syllable. The storm broke out afresh. Dodd and Bolton opened precipitately on each other. The Chief Constable, venturing too near the edge of the platform, missed his footing, (some said old Wagstaff hit him,) and tumbled heavily on the drummer. The Brothers of St. Cecilia, on the outskirts of the crowd, over near the railing of the church-yard, struck up the Druids' March in Norma; whilst Cooper, the red-haired carpenter, impetuously waved the banner of the League, violently fanning the Medical Superintendent with its folds, and sweeping off his hat. The robber from Ceylon was in danger of his life. Mrs. Kearney, who had come upon the ground with her cohort of young cherubs clinging to her green satin skirts, called upon the blessed Angels and holy St. Bridget to protect her; whilst Brickells, the saddler, and MacTavish, the druggist, and Hughes, a dealer in valuable odd volumes and broken china-ware, with Leonard, the pound-keeper, appealed in honor of their respective and conflicting sentiments, to the last resort of nations.

After this, James McGuillicuddy,

His

Esq., M. D., could say little that was intelligible. He faced the tumult, or, as he said himself, he "faced the music," and did his best to get the better of it. Yet without avail. concluding words it would be impossible faithfully to transcribe. There were allusions to Clontarf and Garibaldi-to the loveliness of the valleys of Tasmania -to the chastity and beauty of her daughters-to the snowy richness of her perambulating flocks and the salubrity of her encircling sky-to the aromatic sweetness of her umbrageous woods, and the prolific fecundity of her virgin soil. [Laughter and loud cheers.] The remarks were broken, and their effect dissipated, in the buzz and turbulence of the obstreperous audience he addressed. He retired in the midst of a tempest-wishing from the bottom of his soul he had the harp of Carolan, the sword of Sarsfield, the crozier of St. Patrick, the bag-pipe of Ganzy, the patriarchal piper of Killarney, and the tongue of Grattan, to rouse, inspire, direct, redeem and save them!

It is time to throw away the pencil. The light flickers in the socket of the lamp, and the duskiest shadows gather on the canvas. It is time to blow the feeble glow-worm out-time to rest the aching head. Time to set free the mind from the clod and rubbish through which it has been ploughing; time to let it spread its wings, and, along the pathways strewn with the sapphires of the Southern night, betake itself to the solitudes it has loved. Beautiful as Esther -gentle as Ruth among the Reapersthe Queen of the Silent World looks forth upon the mountains, the woods, the waters, the foul prison-houses, the fair white homesteads, the gardens and the golden fields, the countless flocks,

and all that is beautiful and sad, goodly and opprobrious, lost and living within the island of Tasmania.

There's a broad lake on the summit of a mountain-range, stretching away from east to west, in the center of the island, two thousand feet above the sea. Numberless little promontories, piled with rocks, thickly set with shrubs, deeply shadowed with the native oak, blue pine, and gum tree, break the waters into bays and nooks, where the wild dogs come down to drink at sunrise, and the wild birds, burying themselves in the sedge and rushes, close their wings at twilight. Lofty hills, wooded to the topmost peak, darken the waters all along the northern shore. Dense forests, and, here and there, the most desolate of swamps, girt them in upon the south, the east and west. Away, far off in the darkness, a sheep-dog gives forth his melancholy howl, keeping patient watch whilst his rough master sleeps.

Fagged and feverish with the noise and rioting-the squabbles, the cheers, the oaths, the eloquence, the anger, vulgarity and mischief of the day-Marmaduke Wagstaff had ridden up, accompanied by three well-loved friends, to this lonely lake. He had won the fight. The Government party had been defeated. A very large majority of the electors had voted for the young champion of the League. Marmaduke thought he had never seen the stars look half so bright. And there was a softness in the night-wind, and a fragrance from the leaves and blossoms of the Bush, and a grandeur in the shadows of the woods and mountains, he had never known before. In the deep solitude of that mountain lake-amid those waters, those solemn forest shades-his triumph became purified in his eyes of the grossness in which it had been born.

-a

SOME five and twenty years ago, an overgrown, awkward, white-headed, forlorn-looking boy was seen trudging through the streets of New Yorkpack suspended on a staff over his right shoulder-his dress unrivaled in sylvan simplicity since the primitive fig-leaves of Eden-the expression of his face presenting a strange union of wonder and apathy-and his whole appearance giving you the impression of a runaway apprentice in desperate search of employment. Fresh from the forests of Pennsylvania, he had come to seek his fortune in the great metropolis.

The

His

sum of ten dollars in his pocket constituted the extent of his exchequer. An equal amount, perhaps, was invested in his wardrobe, which he carried about his person. Ignorant alike of the world and its ways, he seemed, to the spruce denizen of the city, almost like a wanderer from some other planet. ungainly motions had something so grotesque in their gracelessness, that people stopped in the streets to gaze at him. Upon a nearer view, they found the face of this uncouth lad lighted up with a peculiar beauty. The lines of rare intelligence were discovered beneath the listless expression which masked his features. A high, smooth forehead, rounded with artistic symmetry, seemed made to be the dome of thought. His firm, well-cut lips, combining sweetness and force in harmonious proportions, revealed the workings of an active, vigorous mind, and showed that the strolling adventurer was indeed " no vulgar boy."

Such was HORACE GREELEY, at his entrance upon the career which has since made him a marked man among the celebrities of the day. His progress from obscurity to eminence is full of interest and instruction. He presents an extraordinary illustration both of the spirit of the age and the genius of American institutions. In another country, or at a previous date, his history would have been well-nigh impossible. He was born, it would seem, at the precise epoch which demanded such natural endowments as his, and in a state of society which made them almost in

pp.

stantly available. From the position of a humble mechanic, gaining a scanty supply of bread by his daily toil, he has advanced to the rank of a leader of public opinion. Wielding the resources of a press of signal energy and comprehensiveness, he compels the most intellectual and cultivated classes to listen to the daily words of the self-taught printer from the back-woods. Born in the most obscure class of the New England yeomanry—indebted to no high seats of learning for congenial culture-unaided by the dazzling prestige of wealth or fashion-too fearless and too personal in the expression of his opinions, for the enjoyment of continued party patronage, and too independent in his feelings and his manners to court the caresses of profitable friendships, he affords a conspicuous example of the power of selfrelying ability to conquer the force of circumstances, and to gain breadth of influence and brightness of renown in spite of the most untoward difficulties.

In the present article, we do not appear as the eulogist of Horace Greeley. Only to a limited extent do we share his convictions or enjoy his sympathies. We have not the advantage of his intimacy, though we think we understand his character. With no apology for the indulgence of prejudice, we certainly are not beguiled by any glow of personal enthusiasm. Our admiration of his merits is duly tempered by a sense of his imperfections. We cannot fully adopt either his political principles, or his plans of social reform; but, for that reason, we cannot be prevented from doing justice to the character of a brave, earnest, intelligent, and humane man. Our remarks, therefore, will, perhaps, be too impartial to satisfy the extreme partisans on either side, with whom the position of Horace Greeley is a subject of controversy.

Horace Greeley is a genuine product of the New England soil. He belongs by birthright to the nasal, angular, psalm-singing, pumpkin-growing generation, which, according to Diedrich Knickerbocker's veritable annals, was a source of such infinite annoyance to the primitive Manhattaners. His neg