sands of the class from Ohio. So, Louisiana passed a law, not long since, expelling all free persons of color, who had removed into their territories subsequently to 1825. And thus, we should add, not only is the evil becoming more notorious, but more flagrant. The colored population is concentrated more and more within circumscribed limits, and made to feel, more and more bitterly, with how much truth they have been called aliens and outcasts. Do all these facts furnish evidence, that public sentiment is meliorated towards them? Do they justify the expectation of any extraordinary advance in morals or in intellect for the future? Just the reverse. The presence of the blacks among us, then, is likely to be, as it is now, "a curse alike to themselves and to us."

The objection against the Colonization Society which we have now to notice, is the most extraordinary of all. "It confines its offices to the free blacks," says the writer, " and, we believe, does nothing for the redemption of slaves. That the Society takes charge of slaves emancipated, for the purpose of being sent off, is granted. "Why, then," he asks, "do they not confer their benefits on those who need them most?" Now, not to say that from ten to twenty free blacks, at the least calculation, and perhaps double that number, can be transported for the round price of one slave, it must be known to every man in this country, that the Society has encountered more opposition from people who have suspected it of an intention of meddling in this very manner, or in any other manner, with the slave-holders and the slaves, than from all other classes of the community put together. A charitable society has a right always, we conceive, to pursue their legitimate objects by any one particular mode of investing their own funds rather than by any other; but in this case it was a matter of necessity. A society could not have been formed in this country with such a professed object in view as the writer proposes. At all events, it would have done infinite evil, instead of the least good. Besides, the Society expected, without meddling with the property in slaves, to benefit the slaves themselves more by indirect than they could by direct efforts. They believed, that of all the methods which could be devised to promote voluntary emancipation, none would be so efficient as the establishment of a free black colony. They knew, that while vast numbers would indignantly resent the slightest appearance of an express intention to procure the emancipation of slaves—as a principle of the institution" thousands were connected with the system of slavery from necessity, and not from choice; and that their own liberal sentiments would prompt them to avail themselves of the earliest opportunity which should offer, of conferring freedom on their slaves, when this would evidently be beneficial to the slaves, and without injury to the public welfare."

This declaration we find in the African Repository for October, 1828. To show the correctness of such reasoning, the editor annexes letters from various parts of the Union, offering large numbers of slaves to the Society gratis, on condition of their being sent off. In August of the same season, a Georgia slaveholder tendered forty-three slaves on a similar condition. Instances of this kind have been multiplying ever since. As we have already stated, two thousand were at one time ready to be emancipated a year or two since, in one state, provided the Society could remove them. It is very clear, then, that if the 37

VOL. II.

emancipation of slaves had been the Society's object, they could have taken no surer course than they have taken to effect it. And not only has the disposition to emancipate conditionally, been manifested, but the Society has made every possible effort to encourage and to meet it. In the nature of things, it would not do to build up their colony of emancipated slaves alone, had there been no other class whose necessities demanded notice. But a large proportion of the emigrants, to the amount of many hundreds, have, nevertheless, been of this description. During the last season, forty-nine slaves, liberated by one gentleman in Georgia, have been sent to Liberia; and, of forty-six emigrants carried out by the Brig Criterion from Norfolk, thirty-nine were manumitted for the purpose. It is not true, then, that the Society does nothing for the redemption of slaves. They have colonized more of this class— freely liberated, in consequence of the establishment of the free black colony, than, upon any other system, all the funds they have ever held would have enabled them to purchase. We need not remark particularly on the writer's query, "whether such liberality as this (on the part of slave-owners) is to be expected?"

Finally, it is alleged that the Society proposes to furnish the means for conveying away the whole black population of the United States, and affirms that this is practicable. This objection we shall notice with great lenity, for we do not consider it a matter of much importance. Suppose that they do entertain views of this kind; and suppose, also, that these views are unreasonable; we do not apprehend that much harm will arise in consequence. Let the Society, then, have credit for the good which it has done, and can do-for the charity administered to thousands, though not to millions,-for the change which its mild and benevolent measures have wrought in the tone of public sentiment at the South,-for the salutary spring it has given to public feeling and discussion throughout the country, upon subjects as delicate as they are difficult, above all, for the preparations they have made for the suppression of the slave-trade on the coast of Africa, and the spread of civilization in the interior of that continent. We deem it superfluous, then, to go into minutiæ upon this point. It is sufficient to observe further, that the Society does not and never did propose what the writer suggests, in the sense which his readers will be likely to put upon his words. Such schemes have, indeed, been discussed, generally by individual friends of the institution; sometimes, perhaps, by the institution itself; but never, in the slightest degree, like a proposal. The constitution speaks for itself on this matter, and it avows no object whatever but the colonization of free blacks, and of such as may become free, the African coast. Any thing further than this is acknowledged to be contingent, and expressly admitted, at all events, to be inconsistent with the means of the institution. The most they have ever hoped for is, that the governments of the Union, or of the states, might hereafter avail themselves of what had been done by the Society for other purposes, in order to promote, by their own resources, the remote national purpose in question. "A private association," say the Managers in their memorial of 1826, 66 can do little more." [Than they had done.] The work now becomes too vast for their powers, &c. So speaks Mr. Clay, a Vice President of the Society, at the annual meeting of 1827. "It is no objection to the scheme, limited as it is, exclusively, to those free

on

people of color who are willing to emigrate, that it admits of indefinite extension and application by those who alone, having the competent authority, may choose to adopt and apply it." This explanation cannot be improved, or we should go on and cite passages to the same effect, ad infinitum. The scheme of emancipation proposed by the writer, need not be discussed in this connexion. His remarks upon the history of the colony, the location, climate, &c. our limits compel us to pass over with the single remark, that he mistakes in asserting that the progress of the colony has been retrograde. Up to November last, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven emigrants only, including recaptured Africans, had been carried out; and the population was then more than two thousand. This fact alone is comment enough upon the climate. T.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.

CHAP. III.

THE VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

DURING my residence in the north of France, I passed one of the summer months at Auteuil—the pleasantest of the many little villages that lie in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis. It is situated on the outskirts of the Bois de Boulogne-a wood of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty cit enjoys the luxury of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in the morning to give each other satisfaction in the usual way. A cross road, skirted with green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall poplars, leads you from the noisy highway of St. Cloud and Versailles, to the still retirement of this suburban hamlet. On either side, the eye discovers old chateaux amid the the trees, and green parks, whose pleasant shades recall a thousand images of La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere; and on an eminence overlooking the windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful though distant view of the domes andgardens of Paris, rises the village of Passy, long the residence of our countrymen, Franklin and Count Rumford.

I took up my abode at a Maison de Santé ; not that I was a valetudinarian, but because I there found society and good accommodations. Behind the house was a garden filled with fruit trees of various kinds, and adorned with gravel walks, and green arbors, furnished with tables and rustic seats, for the repose of the invalid and the sleep of the indolent. Here the inmates of the rural hospital met on common ground, to breathe the invigorating air of morning, and while away the lazy noon or vacant evening with tales of the sick chamber, Most of them were Parisians of good society, and a residence of a month in the same house with them gave me a better insight into the domestic character and customs of the French, than a whole year, passed in the usual style of Parisian life, could have done in the city. The establishment was kept by a Dr. Dardonville, a little dried up fellow, with red hair, a sandy complexion, and the physiognomy and gestures of a monkey. His character corresponded to his outward

lineaments; for he had all Jocko's busy and curious impertinence. Nevertheless, such as he was, this village Esculapius strutted forth the little great man of Auteuil. The peasants looked up to him as to an oracle, and he contrived to be at the head of every thing, and laid claim to the credit of all public improvements in the village. On one occasion he made a great speech to the people. A fountain had been erected in the public square of the village, and the villagers collected to see it throw, for the first time, its crystal jet into the air. Dardonville was busy in the scene, and arrogated to himself the undivided glory of the whole affair. He stood on the edge of the basin, and harangued the crowd; Citoyens!" he began, "Citoyens !—C'est moi, qui ai fait couler l'eau dans vos fontaines !" (Fellow Citizens! It is I, who have made the water flow in your fountains!) And so he proceeded, every paragraph commencing " Citoyens! c'est moi!" The scene was ludicrous in the extreme; but Dr. Dardonville was a great man on a small scale.

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It was within the dingy walls of this little potentate's imperial palace, that I chose my country residence. I had a chamber in the second story, with a solitary window, which looked upon the street, and, besides, gave me a peep into a neighbor's garden. This I esteemed a great privilege; for, as a stranger, I desired to see all that was passing out of doors, and the sight of green trees, though growing on another man's grounds, is always a blessing. Within doors,-had I been disposed to quarrel with my bread and butter,-I might have taken some objection to my neighborhood; for on one side of me was a consumptive patient, whose grave-yard cough drove me from my chamber by day,—and on the other, an English Colonel, whose incoherent ravings in the delirium of a high and obstinate fever, often broke my slumbers by night. But I found ample amends for these inconveniences in the society of those, who were so little indisposed as hardly to know what ailed them, and those, who, in health themselves, had accompanied a friend or a relative to the shades of the country in pursuit of it. To these I am indebted for much courtesy; and particularly to one, who, if these pages should ever meet her eye, will not, I hope, be unwilling to accept this slight memorial of a former friendship. It was, however, to the Bois de Boulogne, that I looked for my principal recreation. There I took my solitary walk, morning and evening; or, mounted on a little mouse-colored donkey, paced demurely along the woodland pathway. I had a favorite seat beneath the shadow of a venerable oak, one of the few hoary patriarchs of the wood, which had survived the bivouacs of the Allied Armies. It stood upon the brink of a little glassy pool, whose tranquil bosom was the image of a quiet and secluded life, and stretched its parental arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed beneath it, for the accommodation of the foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain, whose stillness was no longer broken by the tap of the martial drum, nor the discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered among its branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its venerable cotemporaries, who stooped from the opposite bank of the pool, nodding gravely now and then, and ogling themselves with a sigh in the mirror below.

In this quiet haunt of rural repose, I used to sit at noon,-hear the birds sing, and "possess myself in much quietness." Just at my feet lay the little silver pool, with the sky and the woods painted in its mimic vault, and occasionally the image of a bird, or the soft watery outline of a cloud, floating silently through its sunny hollows. The water-lily spread its broad green leaves on the surface, and rocked to sleep a little world of insect life in its golden cradle. Sometimes a wandering leaf came floating and wavering downward, and settled on the water; then a vagabond insect would break the smooth surface into a thousand ripples, or a green-coated frog slide from the bank, and plump!-dive headlong to the bottom.

I entered, too, with some enthusiasm into all the rural sports and merrimakes of the village. The holidays were so many little eras of mirth and good feeling; for the French have that happy and sunshine temperament-that merry-go-mad character,-which makes all their social meetings scenes of enjoyment and hilarity. I made it a point never to miss any of the Fêtes Champêtres, or rural dances, at the wood of Boulogne; though I confess it sometimes gave me a momentary uneasiness to see my rustic throne beneath the oak usurped by a noisy group of village girls, the silence and decorum of my imaginary realm broken by music and laughter, and, in a word, my whole kingdom turned topsyturvy, with romping, fiddling, and dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle, too, lover of all those innocent amusements, which cheer the laborer's toil, and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride the wooden horse of the carrousal, and the village maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy car; or took my stand on a rising ground that overlooked the dance, an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just where the village touched the outward border of the wood. There a little area had been leveled beneath the trees, surrounded by a painted rail, with a row of benches inside. The music was placed in a slight balcony, built around the trunk of a large tree in the centre, and the lamps, hanging from the branches above, gave a gay, fantastic and fairy look to the scene. How often in such moments did I recall the lines of Goldsmith, describing those "kinder skies," beneath which "France displays her bright domain," and feel how true and masterly the sketch—

Alike all ages; dames of ancient days

Have led their children through the mirthful maze,

And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,

Has frisked beneath the burden of three-score.

I found another source of amusement in observing the various personages that daily passed and repassed beneath my window. The character, which most of all arrested my attention, was a poor blind fiddler, whom I first saw chanting a doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern near the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat, out at elbows, the fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that had long since seen its best days, set off an open, good-humored countenance, bronzed by sun and wind. He was led about by a brisk, middle-aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes;