organization of his native state; and was one of the delegates excluded from the general council of the party at Philadelphia in June, 1855, on the ground of their position as Roman Catholics. This drew from him a privately printed address, in which, with animation and vigor, he handles the question of religious proscription. As a writer, the prose of Mr. Gayarré is marked by the French and Southern characteristics. It is warm, full, rhetorical, and constantly finds expression in poetical imagery. In his comedy, where the style is restrained by the conversational directness, there are many passages of firm, manly English. As an historian, though his narratives are highly colored, in a certain vein of poetical enthusiasm, they are based on the diligent study of original authorities, and are to be consulted with confidence; the subjects of his early volumes are in themselves romantic, and the story is always of the highest interest. His last volume brings him to the discussion of a most important era in our political history. FATHER DAGOBERT.* The conflict which had sprung up between the Jesuits and Capuchins, in 1755, as to the exercise of spiritual jurisdiction in Louisiana, may not have been forgotten. The Bishop of Quebec had appointed a Jesuit his Vicar-General in New Orleans, but the Capuchins pretended that they had, according to a contract passed with the India company, obtained exclusive jurisdiction in Lower Louisiana, and therefore had opposed therein the exercise of any pastoral functions by the Jesuits. The question remained undecided by the Superior Council, which felt considerable reluctance to settle the controversy by some final action, from fear perhaps of turning against itself the hostility of both parties, although it leaned in favor of the Capuchins. From sheer lassitude there had ensued a sort of tacit truce, when father Hilaire de Géneveaux, the Superior of the Capuchins, who, for one of a religious order proverbially famed for its ignorance, was a man of no mean scholarship and of singular activity, quickened by a haughty and ambitious temper, went to visit Europe, without intimating what he was about, and returned with the title of Apostolic Prothonotary, under which he claimed, it seems, the power to lord it over the Jesuit who was the Vicar-General of the Bishop of Quebec. Hence an increase of wrath on the part of the Jesuits and a renewal of the old quarrel, which ceased only when the Jesuits were expelled from all the French dominions. But the triumph of father Géneveaux was not of long duration; for, in 1766, the Superior Council, finding that he was opposed to their scheme of insurrection, had expelled him as a perturber or the public peace, and father Dagobeit had become Superior of the Capuchins. They lived altogether in a very fine house of their own, and there never had been a more harmonious community than this one was, under the rule of good father Dagobert. He had come very young in the colony, where he had christened and married almost everybody, so that he was looked upon as a sort of spiritual father and tutor to all. He was emphatically a man of peace, and if there was anything which father Da gobert hated in this world, if he could hate at all, it was trouble-trouble of any kind-but particularly of that sort which arises from intermeddling and contradiction. How could, indeed, father Dagobert From the History of the Spanish Domination in Louisiana. not be popular with old and young, with both sexes, and with every class? Who could have complained of one whose breast harbored no ill feeling towards anybody, and whose lips never uttered a harsh word in reprimand or blame, of one who was satisfied with himself and the rest of mankind, provided he was allowed to look on with his arms folded, leaving angels and devils to follow the bent of their nature in their respective departments? Did not his ghostly subordinates do pretty much as they pleased? And if they erred at times-why-even holy men were known to be frail And why should not their peccadilloes be overlooked or forgiven for the sake of the good they did? It was much better (we may fairly suppose him so to have thought, from the knowledge we have of his acts and character), for heaven and for the world, to let things run smooth and easy, than to make any noise. Was there not enough of unavoidable turmoil in this valley of tribulations and miseries? Besides, he knew that God was merciful, and that all would turn right in the end. Why should he not have been an indulgent shepherd for his flock, and have smiled on the prodigal son after repentance, and even before, in order not to frighten him away? If the extravagance of the sinning spendthrift could not be checked, why should not he, father Dagobert, be permitted, by sitting at the hospitable board, to give at least some dignity to the feast, and to exorcise away the ever lurking spirit of evil. Did not Jesus sit at meal with publicans and sinners? Why then should not father Dagobert, when he went out to christen, or to marry at some private dwelling, participate in convivialities, taste the juice of the grape, take a hand in some innocent game, regale his nostrils with a luxurious pinch of snuff, and look with approbation at the merry feats of the dancers? Where was the harm? Could not a father sanctify by his presence the rejoicings of his children? Such were perhaps some of the secret reasonings of the reverend capuchin. By some pedantic minds father Dagobert might have been taxed with being illiterate, and with knowing very little beyond the litanies of the church. But is not ignorance bliss? Was it not to the want of knowledge, that was to be attributed the simplicity of heart, which was so edifying in one of his sacred mission, and that humility to which he was sworn? Is it not written; Is it not written; "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Why should he understand Latin, or so many other musty inexplicable things? Was not the fruit of the tree of knowledge the cause of the perdition of man? Besides, who ever heard of a learned capuchin? Would it not have been a portentous anomaly? If his way of fasting, of keeping the holydays, of saying mass, of celebrating marriages, of christening, of singing prayers for the dead, and of hearing confessions, of inflicting penance, and of performing all his other sacerdotal functions, was contrary to the ritual and to the canons of the church-why-he knew no better. What soul had been thereby endangered? Ilis parishioners were used to his ways? Was he, after fifty years of labor in the vineyard of the Lord, to change his manner of working, to admit that he had blundered all the time, to dig up what he had planted, and to undertake, when almost an octogenarian, the reform of himself and others? Thus, at least, argued many of his friends. They were sure that none could deny, that all the duties of religion were strictly performed by his parishioners. Were not the women in the daily habit of confessing their sins? And if he was so very mild in his admonitions, and so very sparing in the infliction of harsh penance on them, why not suppose that it was because the Saviour himself had been very lenient towards the guiltiest of their sex? It was the belief of father Dagobert, that the faufts of women proceeded from the head and not from the heart, because that was always kind. Why then hurl thunderbolts at beings so exquisitely delicate and so beautifully fragile the porcelain work of the creator-when they could be reclaimed by the mere scratch of a rose's thorn, and brought back into the bosom of righteousness by the mere pulling of a silken string? As to the men, it is true that they never haunted the confessional; but perhaps they had no sins to confess, and if they had, and did not choose to acknowledge them, what could he do? Would it have been sound policy to have annoyed them with fruitless exhortations, and threatened them with excommunication, when they would have laughed at the brutum fulmen? Was it not better to humor them a little, so as to make good grow out of evil? Was not their aversion to confession re them: "I have lived among you for better than half a century: which of you have I ever injured?" Therefore, father Dagobert thought himself possessed of an unquestionable right to what he loved so much: his ease, both in his convent and out of it, and his sweet uninterrupted dozing in his comfortable arm chair. **Mr. Gayarré during the late civil war identified himself with the cause of the seceding States. By an address, publicly read in 1863 though not printed till the following year, he urged the arming of the slaves, and their emancipation on the basis of a treaty to be ratified with England and France recognizing the independence of the Confederate States. Mr. Gayarré in 1866 issued a revised edition of his History of Louisiana, in three octavo volumes, bringing the narrative down to 1861. The volumes refer respectively to the "The French Domination," ending 1769; "The Spanish Domination," from 1769 to 1803; and "The American Domination," from the cession of Claiborne's demonstration in 1815, with a supLouisiana to the United States, in 1803-4, to plementary chapter outlining its history to the rebellion. deemed by manly virtues, by their charity to the poor and their generosity to the church? Was not his course of action subservient to the interest both of church and state, within the borders of which it was calculated to maintain order and tranquillity, by avoiding to produce discontents, and those disturbances which are their natural results? Had he not a right, in his turn, to expect that his repose should never be interrupted, when he was so sedu- In the same year was published his Philip lously attentive to that of others, and so cheerfully II. of Spain, in one volume octavo, with an incomplying with the exigencies of every flitting hour? troductory letter by Hon. George Bancroft, an When the colonists had thought proper to go into able supplement to the work which fell uncoman insurrection, he, good easy soul, did not see why pleted from the lifeless hand of Mr. Prescott. he should not make them happy, by chiming in with It was not the author's aim to present an extheir mood at the time. Did they not, in all sin-haustive chronicle of that eventful reign; but cerity, think themselves oppressed, and were they not contending for what they believed to be their birthrights? On the other hand, when the Spaniards crushed the revolution, he was nothing loth, as vicar general, to present himself at the portal of the cathedral, to receive O'Reilly with the honors due to the representative of royalty, and to bless the Spanish flag. How could he do otherwise? Was it Was it not said by the Master: "render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's?" Why should the new lords of the land be irritated by a factious and bootless opposition? Why not mollify them, so as to obtain as much from them as possible, in favor of his church and of his dearly beloved flock? Why should he not be partial to the Spaniards? Had they not the reputation of being the strictest catholics in the world. : Such was the character of father Dagobert even in his youth. It had developed itself in more vigorous and co-ordinate proportions, as his experience extended, and it had suggested to him all his rules of action through life. With the same harmonious consistency in all its parts it had continued to grow, until more than threescore years had passed over father Dagobert's head. It was natural, therefore, notwithstanding what a few detractors might say, that he should be at a loss to discover the reasons why he should be blamed, for having logically come to the conclusions which made him an almost uni versal favorite, and which permitted him to enjoy "his ease in his own inn," whilst authorizing him to hope for his continuing in this happy state of existence, until he should be summoned to the "bourne whence no traveller returns." Certain it is that, whatever judgment a rigid moralist might, on a close analysis, pass on the character of father Dagobert, it can hardly be denied, that to much favor would be entitled the man, who, were he put to trial, could with confidence, like this poor priest, turn round to his subordinates and fellow-beings, and say unto "a philosophical retrospect of what was most His other works comprise Dr. Bluff in Russia, a comedy in two acts; and Fernando de Lemos, or Truth and Fiction. He has ready for the press, we understand, another work, entitled Aubert Dubayet, in which the principal personage goes through the American Revolution and boldly contrasted. He has recently been apthe French Revolution, those great epochs being pointed Reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Louisiana. exhausted his strength, that he had to be carried about in an arm-chair. That fever produced the dropsy; it tortured him with an unextinguishable thirst, which it was fatal to indulge, and which, to resist, was one of the torments attributed by the imagination to the reprobates of divine justice in the regions of eternal punishment. Eighteen. months before he closed his eyes forever, the malignity of the humors into which his whole body seemed to be transforming itself, had produced sores in his right hand and foot, which gave him the most intense pains, particularly when coming into contact with the sheets of his bed. It was in this condition that he had been transported to the Escorial, where had just arrived in great pomp, and been received with all the solemn ceremonies of the Catholic Church, a precious collection of sacred relics which he had procured from Germany, through the exertions of a commission which had been sent to that country for that special purpose. On hearing of this religious festival, the infirm monarch seemed to revive, and, notwithstanding the advice of his physicians and the remonstrances of the members of his Council, insisted on his being taken to his favorite residence. "I wish," he said, "to be carried alive to the place of my sepulchre." It was impossible to disobey, and a chair was constructed in which he could almost lie down as if in bed. It was thus that he left Madrid on the 30th of June, 1598. The slightest jolt produced in the royal patient the most acute pains; the men, who carried him on their shoulders, had to walk with much precaution, and with such slow and measured steps, that the dismal procession was six days in traversing the twenty-four miles which separate the Escorial from Madrid. At the sight of the austere-looking building, for which he had always entertained the fondest predilection, Philip seemed to rally his spirits and to recover some bodily strength. He was received with the accustomed honors by the monks whom he had established there, and, on the next day, he was carried to the church, where he remained a long time in prayer. Afterward, and for several succeeding days, stretched in his arm-chair, and almost as motionless as a corpse, he was present at the ceremony of depositing the Germian relics in their destined places at the different altars of the church. Still upheld in his chair by the strong arms of his attendants, he visited the libraries, which were in the first and second stories of the edifice, and minutely inspected the vast pile in all its departments, examining all the objects of interest which it contained, like one who enjoyed the completion of his great work, and wished to take final leave of all its magnificence. him their apprehensions. He received this information with great fortitude, and prepared himself by a general confession for what might bappen. He caused some relics to be brought to him, and, after having adored and kissed them with much devotion, he put his body at the disposal of his medical attendants. The operation was performed by the skillful surgeon, Juan de Vergara; it was a very painful one, and all those who were present were amazed at the patience and courage exhibited by Philip. His condition, however, did not improve. The hand of God was upon him who had caused so many tears to be shed during his long life, and no human skill could avail when divine justice seemed bent to enforce its decree of retribution. Above the gash which the operator's knife had made, two large sores appeared, and from their hideous and ghastly lips there issued such a quantity of matter as hardly seems credible. To the consuming heat of fever, to the burning thirst of dropsy, were added the corroding itch of ulcers and the infection of the inexhaustible streams of putrid matter which gushed from his flesh. The stench around the powerful sovereign of Spain and the Indies was such as to be insupportable to the bystanders. Immersed in this filth, the body of the patient was so sore that it could be turned neither to the right nor to the left, and it was impossible to change his clothes or his bedding. So sensitive had he become, that the slightest touch produced the most intolerable agony; and the haughty ruler of millions of men remained helplessly stretched in a sty, and in a more pitiable condition than that of the most ragged beggar in his vast dominions. But his fortitude was greater than his sufferings; not a word of complaint was heard to escape from his lips; and the soul remained unsubdued by these terrible infirmities of the flesh. He had been thirty-five days embedded in this sink of corruption, when, in consequence of it, his whole back became but one sore from his neck downward; so that of him it might have been said with singular appropriateness of Scriptural language, "that Satan had smote him with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown,' if, indeed, the prince of darkness could have been supposed to be so harsh toward one of whom he certainly had no cause to complain. On this occasion, it rather looked like the smiting of God. It seemed scarcely possible to increase the afflictions of Philip, when a chicken broth sweetened with sugar, which was administered to him, gave rise to other accidents, which added to the fetidness of his apartment, and which are represented, besides, as being of an extraordinary and horrible character. He became sleepless, with occasional short fits of lethargy; and, as it were to complete this spectacle of human misery and degradation, the ulcers teemed with a prodigious quantity of worms, which reproduced themselves with such prolific abundance, that they defied all attempts to remove their indestructible swarms. In this condition he remained fifty-three days, without taking anything which could satisfactorily explain the prolongation of his existence. But his fever increased, and assumed an intermittent character. The patient, with the complication of diseases under which he was sinking, became so weak that his physicians were much alarmed. It was a tertian fever, and although it was with much difficulty stopped for some time, it returned with more violence, with daily attacks. and within shortening intervals. At the end of a week, a malignant tumor manifested itself in his But the last act of the drama was to be perright knee, increased prodigiously, and produced formed, and the monarch felt that he must quit the most intense pain. As the last resort, when the stage where he had long acted so conspicuous all other modes of relief had been exhausted, the a part. He begged the Nuncio of his Holiness to physicians resolved to open the tumor; and, as it bestow upon him apostolic benediction in the was feared that the patient, from his debility, name of the Supreme Pontiff. The request was would not be able to bear the operation, the phy- | granted, and a special messenger whom the Nunsicians, with much precaution, communicated to cio sent to Rome with information of what he had done, brought back the confirmation of the Pope before Philip had died. He next required, with a voice which was every moment becoming more feeble, the administration of the extreme unction, the ceremonial text of which he had previously desired his confessor to read to him from the Roman ritual. He sent for his son, the hereditary prince, that he might be present at this solemn religious act. The extreme unction was administered to him by the Archbishop of Toledo; on which occasion he said to his future successor: "I wished you, my son, to be present, that you might see in what way end all things in this world." After having given the prince much wholesome advice as to religion and the principles of good government, he dismissed him, much moved by a scene so full of tender and sad impressions. From that day the dying monarch gave up all thoughts of temporal affairs, to devote himself entirely to the salvation of his soul by preparing for a Christian death. He caused the coffin of the emperor, his father, to be opened, and the body to be examined, in order that his own should be dressed for its sepulture after the same fashion. He ordered two wax candles which his father had used in his last moments to be brought to him, and also the crucifix which Charles had held in his hands when expiring. He further requested that the crucifix be suspended to the curtains of his couch, in front of him, so that his eyes might rest on the image of the Comforter and Saviour. He had his coffin placed alongside of his bed, and directed that, before being deposited in it, his corpse be incased in a leaden box, as he well knew the state of putrefaction to which he had been doomed before death. These commands were issued with the utmost self-possession and the most tranquil precision, amidst agonies which it required superhuman courage to endure in an atmosphere so fetid that it well-nigh stifled the most robust of his attendants-when rottenness was in the flesh and bones of him who spoke so calmly, and when myriads of worms were rioting on his carcass. At the sight of this triumph of the soul over perishing matter, admiration seeks to forget deeds, the memory of which must, however, live as long as the records of history shall last for the instruction of mankind and the terror of evil-doers. On the 11th of September, two days before his death, he called the hereditary prince, his son, and the infanta, his daughter, to his bedside. He took leave of them in the most affectionate manner, and with a voice scarcely audible from exhaustion, he exhorted them to persevere in the true faith, and to conduct themselves with prudence in the government of those States which he would leave to them. He handed to his confessor the cclebrated testamentary instructions bequeathed by St. Louis of France to the heir of his crown, and requested the priest to read them to the prince and princess, to whom he afterward extended his fleshless and ulcered hand to be kissed, giving them his blessing, and dismissing them melting into tears. On the next day, the physicians gave Cristoval de Mora the disagreeable mission of informing Philip that his last hour was rapidly approaching. The dying man received the information with his usual impassibility. He devoutly listened to the exhortations of the Archbishop of Toledo, made his profession of faith, and ordered that the passion of Christ from the Gospel of John be read to him. Shortly after, he was seized with such a fit that he was thought to be dead, and a covering was thrown over his face. But he was not long before coming again to his senses and opening his eyes. He took the crucifix, kissed it repeatedly, listened to the prayers for the souls of the departed which the Prior of the monastery was reading to him, and with a slight quivering passed away, at five o'clock in the morning, on the 13th of September, 1598. Philip had lived seventy-one years, three months, and twenty-two days, and reigned forty-two years. Thus ended the career of this prince, in that place of retirement and meditation from which, with one stroke of the pen, he used to send dismay, dark intrigues, civil commotions, religious perturbations, and direful wars, into many regions of the Old and of the New World. Thus lay low and cold the head which had teemed with so many schemes fatal to Spain and to other countries. Thus was palsied forever the hand which had so long held the manifold threads of the complicated politics and interests of so many empires. The Christian Tiberius was no more. GEORGE W. BETHUNE. DR. BETHUNE, the popular divine, poet, and wit, was born March, 1805, in the city of New York. After receiving a liberal education, he was ordained in 1826 a Presbyterian minister, but in the following year joined the Dutch Reformed communion. His clerical career was commenced at Rhinebeck on the Hudson, from whence he removed to Utica; and in 1834, to Philadelphia. In 1849, he again removed to Brooklyn, where he was for ten years at the head of a large and influential congregation. Dr. Bethune is the author of The Fruit of the Spirit, Early Lost, Early Saved, The History of a Penitent; all popular works of a devotional character. In 1848, he published Lays of Lové and Faith, and other Poems; and in 1850, a volume of Orations, and Occasional Discourses. He has also collected and published a portion of his Sermons. In 1847, he edited the first American edition of Walton's Angler, a work which he performed in a careful and agreeable manner, befitting his own reputation as an enthusiastic and highly celebrated follower of the "contemplative man's recreation,” and as a literary scholar. Gr. W. Bethund Dr. Bethune traced his family descent from the Huguenots, and has frequently spoken on the claims of that devout, industrious, and enterprising class of the early settlers of our country, to the national gratitude and reverence. His efforts as an after-dinner and off-hand extempore speaker, were marked by genial humor and appreciameetings of the National Academy of Design, tion of the subject before him. At the convivial and of the St. Nicholas Society, he was always called out; and his response was usually among the most noticeable features of the evening. The volume of Dr. Bethune's orations com prises funeral discourses on the death of Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patroon, President Harrison and General Jackson; lectures and College addresses upon Genius, Leisure, its Uses and Abuses, the Age of Pericles, the Prospects of Art in the United States, the Eloquence of the Pulpit, the Duties of Educated Men, a Plea for Study, and the Claims of our Country upon its Literary Men. He Dr. Bethune continued pastor of a congregation of the Reformed Dutch Church at Brooklyn till 1859, when he was led by impaired health to resign the charge. He then visited Italy, preached for a time in the American Chapel at Rome, returning to New York in 1860. then became associate pastor of a church in that city, but was. again led by ill health to return to Italy. He resided some months at Florence, and died at that place on the 27th of April, 1862. posthumous collection of his sermons was published in two volumes, in 1864, a series entitled Expository Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism, a subject upon which he had bestowed much attention. A Memoir appeared in 1867 by A. R. Van Nest, D. D. SONG. She's fresh as breath of summer morn, She's fair as flowers in spring, And her voice it has the warbling gush For joy like dew shines in her eye, She knows not of her loveliness, So murmureth laughter on the lips How welcome is the rustling breeze But O how blest is he, THE FOURTH OF JULY. A MAINE, from her farthest border, gives the first exulting shout, And from NEW HAMPSHIRE'S granite heights, the echoing peal rings out; The mountain farms of staunch VERMONT prolong the thundering call; MASSACHUSETTS answers: "Bunker Hill!" a watchword for us all. RHODE ISLAND shakes her sea-wet locks, acclaiming with the free, And staid CONNECTICUT breaks forth in sacred harmony. The giant joy of proud New York, loud as an earthquake's roar, Is heard from Hudson's crowded banks to Erie's crowded shore, NEW JERSEY, hallowed by their blood, who erst in battle fell, At Monmouth's, Princeton's, Trenton's fight, joins in the rapturous swell. Wide PENNSYLVANIA, strong as wide, and true as she is strong, From every hill to valley, pours the torrent tide along. Now to thine ancient glories turn the faithful and the brave; We need not hear the bursting cheer this holy day inspires, To know that, in Columbia's cause," Virginia never tires." Fresh as the evergreen that waves above her sunny soil, NORTH CAROLINA shares the bliss, as oft the patriot's toil; And the land of Sumter, Marion, of Moultrie, Pinckney, must Respond the cry, or it will rise e'en from their sleeping dust. And GEORGIA, by the dead who lie along Savannah's bluff, Full well we love thee, but we ne'er can love thee well enough; From thy wild northern boundary, to thy green isles of the sea, Where beat on earth more gallant hearts than now throb high in thee? On, on, 'cross ALABAMA'S plains, the ever-flowery glades, To where the Mississippi's flood the turbid Gulf invades ; There, borne from many a mighty stream upon her mightier tide, Come down the swelling long huzzas from all that valley wide, As wood-crowned Alleghany's call, from all her summits high, Reverberates among the rocks that pierce the sunset sky, While on the shores and through the swales 'round the vast inland seas, The stars and stripes, 'midst freemen's songs, are flashing to the breeze. The woodsman, from the mother, takes his boy upon his knee, To tell him how their fathers fought and bled for liberty • The lonely, hunter sits him down the forest spring beside, To think upon his country's worth, and feel his country's pride; While many a foreign accent, which our God can understand, Is blessing Him for home and bread in this free, fertile land. Yes! when upon the eastern coast we sink to happy rest, The Day of Independence rolls still onward to the west, Till dies on the Pacific shore the shout of jubilee, That woke the morning with its voice along the Atlantic sea. -O God! look down upon the land which thou hast loved so well, And grant that in unbroken truth her children still may dwell; Nor, while the grass grows on the hill and streams flow through the vale, May they forget their fathers' faith, or in their cove naut fail! |