The insolence of Mr. Orr is not merely individual, but representative. It is the result of Mr. Johnson's attempt "to produce harmony between the two sections," by betraying the section to which he owed his election. Had it not been for his treachery, there would have been little difficulty in settling the terms of peace, so as to avoid all causes for future war; but, from the time he quarrelled with Congress, he has been the great stirrer-up of disaffection at the South, and the virtual leader of the Southern reactionary party. Every man at the South who was prominent in the Rebellion, every man at the North who was prominent in aiding the Rebellion, is now openly or covertly his partisan, and by fawning on him earns the right to defame the representatives of the people by whom the Rebellion was put down. Among traitors and Copperheads the fear of punishment has been succeeded by the hope of revenge; elation is on faces which the downfall of Richmond overcast; and a return to the old times, when a united South ruled the country by means of a divided North, is confidently expected by the whole crew of political bullies and political sycophants whose profit is in the abasement of the nation. It is even said that, if the majority of the "Rump" Congress cannot be overcome by fair means, it will be by foul; and there are noisy partisans of the President who assert that he has in him a Cromwellian capacity for dealing with legislative assemblies whose notions of the public good clash with his own. In short, we are promised, on the assembling of the next Congress, a coup d'etat.

Garret Davis, of Kentucky, was, we believe, the first to announce this executive remedy for the "radical" disease of the state, and it has since been often prescribed by Democratic politicians as a sovereign panacea. General McClernand, indeed, proposed a scheme, simpler even than that of executive recognition, by which the Southern Senators and Representatives might effect a lodgment in Congress. They should, according to him, have gone to Washington, entered the halls of legislation, and proceeded to occupy their seats, "peaceably if they could, forcibly if they must"; but the record of General McClernand, as a military man, was not such as to give to his advice on a question of carrying positions by assault a high degree of authority, and, there being some natural hesitation in following his counsel, the golden opportunity was lost. Mr. Montgomery Blair, who professes his willingness to act with any men, "Rebels or any one else," to put down the radicals, is never weary of talking to conservative conventions of "two Presidents and two Congresses." There can be no doubt that the project of a coup d'etat has become dangerously familiar to the "conservative" mind, and that the eminent legal gentlemen of the North who are publishing opinions affirming the right of the excluded Southern representatives to their seats are playing into the hands of the desperate gang of unscrupulous politicians who are determined to have the right established by force. It is computed that the gain, in the approaching elections, of twenty-five districts now represented by Union Republicans, will give the Johnson party, in the next Congress, a majority of the House of Representatives, should the Southern delegations be counted; and it is proposed that the Johnson members legally entitled to seats should combine with the Southern pretenders to seats, organize as the House of Representatives of the United States, and apply to the President for recognition. Should the President comply, he would be impeached by an unrecognized House before an "incomplete" Senate, and, if convicted, would deny the validity of the proceeding. The result would be civil war, in which the name of the Federal government would be on the side of the revolutionists. Such is the programme which is freely discussed by partisans of the President, considered to be high in his favor; and the scheme, it is contended, is the logical result of the position he has assumed as to the rights of the excluded States to representation. It is certain that the present Congress is as much the Congress of the United States as he is the President of the United States; but it is well known that he considers himself to represent the whole country, while he thinks that Congress only represents a portion of it; and he has in his character just that combination of qualities, and is placed in just those anomalous circumstances, which lead men to the commission of great political crimes. The mere hint of the possibility of his attempting a coup d'etat is received by some Republicans with a look of incredulous surprise; yet what has his administration been to such persons but a succession of surprises?

But whatever view may be taken of the President's designs, there can be no doubt that the safety, peace, interest, and honor of the country depend on the success of the Union Republicans in the approaching elections. The loyal nation must see to it that the Fortieth Congress shall be as competent to override executive vetoes as the Thirty-Ninth, and be equally removed from the peril of being expelled for one more in harmony with Executive ideas. The same earnestness, energy, patriotism, and intelligence which gave success to the war, must now be exerted to reap its fruits and prevent its recurrence. The only danger is, that, in some representative districts, the people may be swindled by plausibilities and respectabilities; for when, in political contests, any great villany is contemplated, there are always found some eminently respectable men, with a fixed capital of certain eminently conservative phrases, innocently ready to furnish the wolves of politics with abundant supplies of sheep's clothing. These dignified dupes are more than usually active at the present time; and the gravity of their speech is as edifying as its emptiness. Immersed in words, and with no clear perception of things, they mistake conspiracy for conservatism. Their pet horror is the term "radical"; their ideal of heroic patriotism, the spectacle of a great nation which allows itself to be ruined with decorum, and dies rather than commit the slightest breach of constitutional etiquette. This insensibility to facts and blindness to the tendency of events, they call wisdom and moderation. Behind these political dummies are the real forces of the Johnson party, men of insolent spirit, resolute will, embittered temper, and unscrupulous purpose, who clearly know what they are after, and will hesitate at no "informality" in the attempt to obtain it. To give these persons political power will be to surrender the results of the war, by placing the government practically in the hands of those against whom the war was waged. No smooth words about "the equality of the States," "the necessity of conciliation," "the wickedness of sectional conflicts," will alter the fact, that, in refusing to support Congress, the people would set a reward on treachery and place a bounty on treason. "The South," says a Mr. Hill of Georgia, in a letter favoring the Philadelphia Convention, "sought to save the Constitution out of the Union. She failed. Let her now bring her diminished and shattered, but united and earnest counsels and energies to save the Constitution in the Union." The sort of Constitution the South sought to save by warring against the government is the Constitution which she now proposes to save by administering it! Is this the tone of pardoned and penitent treason? Is this the spirit to build up a "National Union Party"? No; but it is the tone and spirit now fashionable in the defeated Rebel States, and will not be changed until the autumn elections shall have proved that they have as little to expect from the next Congress as from the present, and that they must give securities for their future conduct before they can be relieved from the penalties incurred by their past.



REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Armadale. A Novel. By WILKIE COLLINS. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Except for the fact that there is nothing at all automatic in his inventions, there seems to be no good reason why Mr. Collins should not make a perpetual motion. He has a surprising mechanical faculty, and great patience and skill in passing the figures he contrives through the programme arranged for them. Having read one of his novels, you feel as if you had been amused with a puppet-show of rare merit, and you would like to have the ingenious mechanician before the curtain. So much cleverness, however, seems to be thrown away on the entertainment of a single evening, and you sigh for its application to some work of more lasting usefulness; and the perpetual motion occurs to you as the thing worthiest such powers. Let it be a perpetual literary motion, if the public please. Given a remarkable dream and a beautiful bad woman to fulfil it; you have but to amplify the vision sufficiently, and your beautiful bad woman goes on fulfilling it forever in tens of thousands of volumes. As the brother of De Quincey said, when proposing to stand on the ceiling, head downwards, and be spun there like a whip-top, thus overcoming the attraction of gravitation by the mere rapidity of revolution, "If you can keep it up for an instant, you can keep it up all day." Alas! it is just at this point that the fatal defect of Mr. Collins's mechanism appears. But for the artisan's hand, the complicated work would not start at all, and we perceive that, if he lifted it for a moment from the crank, the painfully contrived dream would drop to pieces, and the beautiful bad woman would come to a jerky stand-still in the midst of her most atrocious development. A perpetual literary motion is therefore out of the question, so far as Mr. Collins is concerned; and we can merely examine his defective machinery, with many a regret that a plan so ingenious, and devices so labored and costly, should be of no better effect.

We think, indeed, that all his stories are constructed upon a principle as false to art as it is false to life. In this world, we have first men and women, with certain well-known good and evil passions, and these passions are the causes of all the events that happen in the world. We doubt if it has occurred to any of our readers to see a set of circumstances, even of the most relentless and malignant description, grouping themselves about any human being without the agency of his own love or hate. Yet this is what happens very frequently in Mr. Collins's novels, impoverishing and enfeebling his characters in a surprising degree, and reducing them to the condition of juiceless puppets without proper will or motion. It is not that they are all wanting in verisimilitude. Even the entirely wicked Miss Gwilt is a conceivable character; but, being destined merely to fulfil Armadale's dream, she loses all freedom of action, and, we must say, takes most clumsy and hopeless and long-roundabout methods of accomplishing crimes, to which one would have thought a lady of her imputed sagacity would have found much shorter cuts. It is amazing and inartistic, however, that after all her awkwardness she should fail. Given a blockhead like Armadale, and a dreamer like Midwinter, there is no reason in nature, and no reason in art, why a lady of Miss Gwilt's advantages should not marry both of them; and the author's overruling on this point is more creditable to his heart than to his head. These three people are the chief persons of the story, and their hands are tied from first to last They are not to act out their characters: they are to act out the plot; and the author's designs are accomplished in defiance of their several natures. Some of the minor persons are not so ruthlessly treated. The Pedgifts, father and son, are free agents, and they are admirably true to their instincts of upright, astute lawyers, who love best to employ their legal shrewdness in a good cause. Their joint triumph over Miss Gwilt is probable and natural, and would be a successful point in the book, if it were conceivable that she should expose herself to such a defeat by so much needless plotting with Mrs. Oldershaw. But to fill so large a stage, an immense deal of by-play was necessary, and great numbers of people are visibly dragged upon the scene. Some of these accomplish nothing in the drama. To what end have we so much of Mr. Brock? Others elaborately presented only contribute to the result in the most intricate and tedious way; and in Major Milroy's family there is no means of discovering that Miss Gwilt is an adventuress, but for Mrs. Milroy to become jealous of her and to open her letters.

It cannot, of course, be denied that Mr. Collins's stories are interesting; for an infinite number of persons read them through. But it is the bare plot that interests, and the disposition of mankind to listen to story-telling is such that the idlest conteur can entertain. We must demand of literary art, however, that it shall interest in people's fortunes by first interesting in people. Can any one of all Mr. Collins's readers declare that he sympathizes with the loves of Armadale and Neelie Milroy, or actually cares a straw what becomes of either of those insipid young persons? Neither is Midwinter one to take hold on like or dislike; and Miss Gwilt is interesting only as the capable but helpless spider out of which the plot of the story is spun. Pathos there is not in the book, and the humor is altogether too serious to laugh at.

Four Years in the Saddle. By COLONEL HARRY GILMORE. New York: Harper and Brothers.

It is sometimes difficult to believe, in reading this book, that it is not the production of Major Gahagan of the Ahmednuggar Irregulars, or Mr. Barry Lyndon of Castle Lyndon. Being merely a record of personal adventure, it does not suggest itself as part of the history of our late war, and, but for the recurrence of the familiar names of American persons and places, it might pass for the narrative of either of the distinguished characters mentioned.

In dealing with events creditable to his own courage and gallantry, Colonel Gilmore has the unsparing frankness of Major Gahagan, and it must be allowed that there is a remarkable likeness in all the adventures of these remarkable men. It is true that Colonel Gilmore does not fire upon a file of twenty elephants so as to cut away all their trunks by a single shot; but he does kill eleven Yankees by the discharge of a cannon which he touches off with a live coal held between his thumb and finger. Being made prisoner, he is quite as defiant and outrageous as the Guj-puti under similar circumstances: at one time he can scarcely restrain himself from throwing into the sea the insolent captain of a Federal gunboat; at another time, when handcuffed by order of General Sheridan, he spends an hour in cursing his captors. The red-hair of the Lord of the White Elephants waved his followers to victory; Colonel Gilmore's "hat, with the long black plume upon it," is the signal of triumph to his marauders. Both, finally, are loved by the ladies, and are alike extravagant in their devotion to the sex. Colonel Gilmore, indeed, withholds no touch that can go to make him the hero of a dime novel; and there is not a more picturesque and dashing character in literature outside of the adventures of Claude Duval. Everywhere we behold him waving his steel (as he calls his sword); he wheels before our dazzled eyes like a meteor; he charges, and the foe fly like sheep before him. And no sooner is he come into town from killing a score or two of Yankees, than the ladies—who are all good Union women and have just taken the oath of allegiance—crowd to kiss and caress him; or, as he puts it in his own vivid language, he receives "a kiss from more than one pair of ruby lips, and gives many a hearty hug and kiss in return." In his wild way, he takes a pleasure in evoking the tender solicitude of the ladies for his safety,—eats a dish of strawberries in a house upon which the Yankees are charging to capture him, and remains for some minutes after the strawberries are eaten, while the ladies, proffering him his arms, are "dancing about, and positively screaming with excitement." At another time, when the bullets of the enemy are hissing about his ears, he puts on a pretty girl's slipper for her. "Such," he remarks, with a pensive air, "are some of the few happy scenes that brighten a soldier's life."

Colonel Gilmore, who has the diffidence of Major Gahagan, has also the engaging artlessness which lends so great a charm to the personal narrative of Mr. Barry Lyndon. He does not reserve from the reader's knowledge such of his exploits as stealing the chaplain's whiskey, and drinking the peach-brandy of the simple old woman who supposed she was offering it to General Lee. "Place him where you may," says Colonel Gilmore, "and under no matter what adverse circumstances, you can always distinguish a gentleman." He has a great deal of fine feeling, and can scarcely restrain his tears at the burning of Chambersburg, after setting it on fire. Desiring a memento of a brother officer, he takes a small piece of the dead man's skull. It has been supposed that civilized soldiers, however brave and resolute, scarcely exulted in the remembrance of the lives they had taken; and it is thought to be one of the merciful features of modern warfare, that in the vast majority of cases the slayer and the slain are unknown to each other. Colonel Gilmore has none of the false tenderness which shrinks from a knowledge of homicide. On the contrary, he is careful to know when he has killed a man; and he recounts, with an exactness revolting to feebler nerves, the circumstances and the methods by which he put this or that enemy to death.

We think we could hardly admire Colonel Gilmore if he had been of our side during the war, and had done to the Rebels the things he professes to have done to us. As it is, we trust he will forgive us, if we confess that we have not read his narrative with a tranquil stomach, and that we think it will impress his Northern readers as the history of a brigand who had the good luck to be also a traitor.



RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

The Structure of Animal Life. Six Lectures delivered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in January and February, 1862. By Louis Agassiz, Professor of Zooelogy and Geology in the Lawrence Scientific School. New York. C. Scribner & Co. 8vo. pp. viii., 128. $2.50.

History of the Life and Times of James Madison. By William C. Rives. Vol. II. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. 8vo. pp. xxii., 657. $3.50.

The Physiology of Man; designed to represent the Existing State of Physiological Science, as applied to the Functions of the Human Body. By Austin Flint, Jr., M. D., Professor of Physiology and Microscopy in the Bellevue Medical College, N. Y., and in the Long Island College Hospital; Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, etc. Introduction; the Blood; Circulation; Respiration. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 502, $4.50.

Poems. By Annie E. Clarke. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 16mo. pp. 146. $1.00.

The Living Forces of the Universe. The Temple and the Worshippers. By George W. Thompson. Philadelphia. Howard Challen. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 358. $1.75.

Jealousy. By George Sand, Author of "Consuelo," &c. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo. pp. 304. $2.00.

Stories told to a Child. By Jean Ingelow. Boston. Roberts Brothers. 18mo. pp. vi., 424, $1.75.

Canary Birds. A Manual of Useful and Practical Information for Bird-Keepers. New York. William Wood & Co. 16mo. paper, pp. 110. 50 cents.

The Origin of the Late War, traced from the Beginning of the Constitution to the Revolt of the Southern States. By George Lunt. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo, pp. xiv., 491. $3.00.

False Pride; or, Two Ways to Matrimony. A Companion to "Family Pride." Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo. pp. 265. $2.00.

The Genius of Edmund Burke. By J. L. Batchelder. Chicago. J. L. Batchelder. 12mo. pp. 50. $1.00

Letters of Life. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 414. $2.50.

The Church of England a Portion of Christ's one Holy Catholic Church, and a Means of restoring Visible Unity. An Eirenicon, in a Letter to the Author of "The Christian Year." By E. B. Pusey, D. D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 395. $2.00.

The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost; or, Reason and Revelation. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 274. $1.75.

The Fortune Seeker. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo, pp. 498. $2.00.

Stonewall Jackson: a Biography. With a Portrait and Map. By John Esten Cooke, formerly of General Stuart's Staff. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 470. $3.50.

The Phenomena of Plant Life. By Leo H. Grindon, Lecturer on Botany at the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester, etc. Boston. Nichols & Noyes. 12mo. pp. 93. $1.00

A History of New England, from the Discovery by Europeans to the Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, being an Abridgment of his "History of New England during the Stuart Dynasty." By John Gorham Palfrey. In Two Volumes. New York. Hurd & Houghton. 12mo. pp. xx., 408; xii., 426. $5.00.

The Story of Kennett. By Bayard Taylor. New York. Hurd & Houghton. 12mo. pp. x., 418. $2.25.

A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, with an Introduction and Notes. By George R. Noyes, D. D., Hancock Professor of Hebrew, etc., and Dexter Lecturer in Harvard University. Third Edition, with a New Introduction and additional Notes. In Two Volumes. Boston. American Unitarian Association. 12mo. pp. xcii., 271; iv., 413. $4.50.

St. Martin's Eve. By Mrs. Henry Wood. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 8vo. pp. 327. $2.00.

The Man of the World. By William North, Author of "The Usurer's Gift," etc. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo. pp. 437. $2.00.

Life of Emanuel Swedenborg. Together with a brief Synopsis of his Writings, both Philosophical and Theological. By William White. With an Introduction by B. F. Barrett. First American Edition. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 272. $1.50.

The Reunion of Christendom. A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy, etc. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. paper. pp. 66. 50 cts.

The Principles of Biology. By Herbert Spencer. Vol. I. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 475. $2.50.

Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts. By George H. Moore, Librarian of the New York Historical Society, and Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. iv., 256. $2.50.

The Miniature Fruit-Garden; or, The Culture of Pyramidal and Bush Fruit-Trees. By Thomas Rivers. First American, from the Thirteenth English Edition. New York. Orange Judd & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 133. $1.00.

New Book of Flowers. By Joseph Breck. New York. Orange Judd & Co. 12mo. pp. 480. $1.75.

The History of Usury, from the earliest Period to the present Time. Together with a brief Statement of General Principles concerning the Conflict of the Laws of different States and Countries, and an Examination into the Policy of Laws on Usury and their Effect upon Commerce. By J. B. C. Murray. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 158. $1.50.

Hidden Depths. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 351. $2.00.

A Historical Inquiry concerning Henry Hudson; his Friends, Relatives, and Early Life, his Connection with the Muscovy Company, and Discovery of Delaware Bay. By John Meredith Read, Jr. Albany. Joel Munsell. 8vo. pp. vi., 209. $5.00.

THE END