sides spout cataracts of flame, amidst the pealing thunders of a fatal artillery. They, who had escaped "the dreadful touch of merchant-marring rocks" who had sped on their long and solitary way unharmed by wind or wave whom the hurricane had spared-in whose favor storms and seas had intermitted their immitigable war- now at last fall by the hand of each other. The same spectacle of horror greets us from both ships. On their decks, reddened with blood, the murderers of St. Bartholomew and of the Sicilian Vespers, with the fires of Smithfield, seem to break forth anew, and to concentrate their rage. Each has now become a swimming Golgotha.

At length, these vessels-such pageants of the seaonce so stately7- so proudly built-but now rudely shattered by cannon balls - with shivered masts and ragged sails exist only as unmanageable wrecks, weltering on the uncertain waves, whose temporary lull of peace is now their only safety. In amazement at this strange, unnatural contest-away from country and home — where there is no country or home to defend - we ask again, wherefore this dismal duel? Again the melancholy but truthful answer promptly comes, that this is the established method of determining justice between nations.

MUSIC IN CAMP.

BY JOHN R. THOMPSON.

Two armies covered hill and plain,
Where Rappahannock's waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle's recent slaughters.

The summer clouds lay pitched like tents
In meads of heavenly azure;

And each dread gun of the elements
Slept in its high embrasure.

The breeze so softly blew, it made

No forest leaf to quiver,

And the smoke of the random cannonade
Rolled slowly from the river.

And now where circling hills looked down
With cannon grimly planted,

O'er listless camp and silent town
The golden sunset slanted;

When on the fervid air there came
A strain, now rich, now tender,
The music seemed itself aflame
With day's departing splendor.

A Federal band, which eve and morn
Played measures brave and nimble,
Had just struck up with flute and horn
And lively clash of cymbal.

Down flocked the soldiers to the banks,
Till, margined by its pebbles,

One wooded shore was blue with "Yanks,"
And one was gray with "Rebels."

Then all was still; and then the band
With movement light and tricksy,
Made stream and forest, hill and strand,
Reverberate with "Dixie."

NEW MCGUF. FIFTH -- 20 305

The conscious stream, with burnished glow,
Went proudly o'er its pebbles,

But thrilled throughout its deepest flow
With yelling of the Rebels.

Again a pause, and then again
The trumpet pealed sonorous,

And "Yankee Doodle was the strain
To which the shore gave chorus.

The laughing ripple shoreward flew
To kiss the shining pebbles--

Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue
Defiance to the Rebels.

And yet once more the bugle sang
Above the stormy riot;

No shout upon the evening rang-
There reigned a holy quiet.

The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood
Poured o'er the glistening pebbles:

All silent now the Yankees stood,
All silent stood the Rebels:

No unresponsive soul had heard
That plaintive note's appealing,

So deeply "Home Sweet Home" had stirred
The hidden founts of feeling.

Or blue or gray, the soldier sees,
As by the wand of fairy,

The cottage 'neath the live-oak trees,
The cabin by the prairie.

Or cold or warm, his native skies
Bend in their beauty o'er him :

Seen through the tear mist in his eyes
His loved ones stand before him.

As fades the iris after rain

In April's tearful weather,

The vision vanished as the strain
And daylight died together.

But memory, waked by music's art,
Expressed in simplest numbers,
Subdued the sternest Yankee's heart—
Made light the Rebel's slumbers.

And fair the form of Music shines,
That bright celestial creature,
Who still 'mid war's embattled lines
Gave this one touch of nature.

ON THE RESTORATION OF THE UNION.

Extracts from a speech delivered at Milledgeville, Georgia,
February 22, 1866.

BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

Now that the storm of war has passed, it behooves us all to labor for the establishment of good government, with its resulting prosperity and happiness. I need not assure you, if this can be obtained, that our desolated fields, our barns, our villages and cities, now in ruins, will soon, like the Phoenix, rise from their ashes, and all our waste places will again, at no distant day, blossom as the rose.

Wars, and civil wars especially, always menace liberty. They seldom advance it, while they usually end in its entire overthrow and destruction. Our civil contest stopped just short of such a catastrophe. It is now our duty to retrace our steps and look for the vindication and maintenance of constitutional liberty in the forums of reason and justice, instead of on the arena of arms; in the courts and halls of legislation, instead of on the fields of battle.

I have not lost my faith in the virtue, intelligence, and patriotism of the American people, or in their capacity for self-government.

But for these great essential qualities of human nature to be brought into active and efficient exercise for the fulfillment of patriotic hopes, it is essential that the passions of the day should subside, that the causes of these passions should not now be discussed, that the embers of the late strife should not be stirred.

The most hopeful prospect at this time is the restoration of the old Union, and with it the speedy return of fraternal feeling throughout its length and breadth. These results depend upon the people themselves, upon the people of the North quite as much as the South. The masses everywhere are alike equally interested in the great object. Let old issues, old questions, old differences, and old feuds be regarded as fossils of another epoch.

The old Union was based on the assumption that it was for the best interests of the people of the United States to be united as they were, each State faithfully performing to the people of other States all their obligations under a common compact. I always thought that this assumption was founded on broad, correct, and statesmanlike principles. I think so yet.