cumstances should occur likely to endanger the welfare and good order of the Club, to call a general meeting, giving fourteen days' notice; and, in the event of its being voted at that meeting, by two thirds of the persons present, to be decided by ballot, that the name of any member or members should be removed from the Club, their subscriptions for the current year shall be returned, and he or they shall cease to belong to the Club.

"XXIX. The members of the Club are expected to communicate their addresses, from time to time, to the Secretary.

"XXX. These Rules and Regulations shall be printed, and a copy of them transmitted to every member of the Club, by the Secretary."

ART. II. The Republican Court: or American Society in the Days of Washington. By R. W. GRISWOLD. With Twentyone Portraits of Distinguished Women engraved on Steel, from Original Pictures by Woolaston, Copley, Gainsborough, Stuart, Pine, Malbone, and others. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1855.

It is gratifying to mark the improvement, both artistic and literary, so obvious, of late years, in that large and popular class of books designed as holiday gifts. Instead of materials gathered at random embellished at a cost quite out of proportion to their value, illustrated editions of standard poets, and other works of permanent interest, have come into vogue. "The Republican Court" is the most beautiful specimen in this department that has yet appeared, and has the peculiar merit of a national subject. It consists of a fluent narrative, intended to convey an authentic and picturesque idea of social life in this country in the days of Washington. His leavetaking, both of the army and of Congress, his triumphal progress at the close of the war, his inauguration, and the ceremonies and fêtes incident to these public events, are elaborately described. The distinguished members of the Convention that adopted the Federal Constitution are portrayed, together with the eminent foreigners then visitors to our

shores. The party warfare, the domestic habits, the costume, and even the visiting lists of the prominent ladies of the time, are graphically revived. Indeed, the ostensible purpose of this costly memorial of the early days of the republic is to exhibit the charms and the agency of woman, during the momentous era described; and whoever is capable of appreciating her legitimate influence as a social being, will here find a more eloquent vindication of her rights, as maintained in the honored exercise of latent power, than in the direct pleas of the most gifted of her sex. The volume contains twenty-one engravings of American women, eminent from their association with Revolutionary statesmen and heroes, or on account of intrinsic graces of character. In the preparation of this elegant quarto, the memoirs and correspondence of the period have been searched, the diaries of leading members of society gleaned, the reminiscences of survivors drawn upon, and such works as Sullivan's "Letters on Public Characters," Duer's "Recollections of New York," the autobiographies of French officers engaged in the war, the Letters of Mrs. Adams, and Graydon's Memoirs, carefully examined. Whoever is even partially familiar with the scattered domestic and personal annals of the era included in these sketches will recall incidents, descriptions, and anecdotes that might have still further illustrated the attractive theme. We trust that the example will induce those who have the custody of family documents which throw light on the life and manners of this partially explored, yet deeply interesting period, and that those who can elicit from the few lingering witnesses oral testimony as to facts historically significant, yet with no repository but frail human memory, will be incited by the popularity of this national souvenir to garner up for American biography the materials thus attainable. Even within the limits of this work, devoted as it is to a brief space and few localities, there is enough to renew our hallowed associations with the golden age of America, and to bring home to our fond remembrance its men, women, manners, and spirit. It is an auspicious coincidence, that such a work should appear when efforts are in progress to secure Mount Vernon as national property. As the landmarks of the Revolution fade, every consecration of

its genius, in marble, colors, or type, every attempt to reawaken the echo of its voice, should be gratefully welcomed; as the living representatives of that epoch depart, their testimony should be carefully recorded; as the precedents of those days are superseded, its noblest examples should be reinvoked.

Those of us who have, for a brief space, stood within this fast vanishing circle, feel the more keenly the moral need which exists for prolonging its conservative spell by all the means that art and letters can afford. A few summers past, it was our lot to sit beside an ancient dame at the hospitable board of a family of manorial celebrity, on one of the most beautiful domains that adorn the banks of the Hudson. The bowed and silent figure was the personification of comfortable old age; listless, inert, and mechanical, yet serene, the torch of life seemed flickering towards gradual extinction, and awaiting only a breath to disappear. Through the open window played the breeze of June, and the swaying tendrils of a venerable and lofty elm made a checkered and shifting light on the smooth oak floor; the trill of a locust resounded in the warm hush of noon; massive plate of antique mould gleamed on the high sideboard; portraits of Revolutionary heroes were arranged on the wall; and the entire scene, the atmosphere, and the tranquillity concurred to induce that mood when the sense of Nature's glory is chastened by a feeling of human vicissitude. Suddenly a strain of martial music rose on the air. The old lady quivered, raised her eyes, clasped her hands, and exclaimed: "Ah! all intercession is vain; André must die!" The chords of memory had been struck; she was thinking of the execution of the gallant British spy. Our host made signs for us to listen, and with nervous rapidity her colorless lips breathed the names of English officers who had paid their devoirs to her maiden beauty, renowned in its day; she described her lofty head-dress of ostrich feathers which caught fire at the theatre, and repeated the verses of her admirer who was so fortunate as to extinguish the flames; she dwelt upon the majestic bearing of Washington, the elegance of the French, and the dogmatism of the British officers; the bywords, the names of gallants, belles, and

heroes, the incidents, the questions, the etiquette, of those times seemed to live again in her tremulous accents, which gradually became feeble until she fell asleep. It was like a voice from the grave; and we could not but feel how precarious was the tenure and how imperative the duty by which the personal details that give such life to history are to be rescued from oblivion. The same conviction subsequently rose to our minds on a winter evening at the fireside of Mrs. Madison; and more recently at the funeral of Mrs. Hamilton.

The memorial before us inevitably suggests a comparison between the past and present of American society. The whole philosophy of social life in the days of Washington is hinted by an incidental remark in one of his familiar letters : "Mrs. Washington's wishes coincide with my own as to simplicity of dress and everything which can tend to support propriety of character without partaking of the follies of luxury and ostentation"; and an enthusiastic admirer of the candid manners of the New York Colonists observed, that among them there were "no degrees excepting those assigned to worth and intellect"! It was indeed the prevalence of the modest virtues that insured the triumph of the republican cause, and distinguished the character of our ancestors. The two central figures in the immortal group, Washington and Franklin, are grand through consummate prudence and practical wisdom; and it is, perhaps, the most noticeable disparity between the present and past moral life of the country, that these very qualities are as deficient now as they were prominent then. The physical and financial catastrophes - the legitimate results of reckless enterprise-which have so often sent a thrill of dismay through the land, during the last twenty years, have obtained for our civilization, from the French writers, the significant adjective, effrayante. We are deemed, as a people, the least prudent on earth. The self-control which gave such dignity and promise at the starting-point abandons us in the race of gain and ambition, so that more and greater alterations of individual fortune mark our brief national career in peace, than older countries have known even amid the exigencies of foreign war and internal revolution. To be satisfied with a competency, to retire from affairs

when secure in means and reputation, to enjoy with serene gratitude the exercise of private taste, to retain social confidence and respect, and to find in a tranquil meridian compensation for the anxiety and toil of early life, is a common and delightful spectacle in England and Southern Europe, but an anomaly in the United States. The ideal of success has totally changed with the blandishments of prosperity; it has been transferred from the realm of consciousness to that of the world, from the domain of content to that of display, from the resources of character to the artifices of wealth. In American life, when its aims, however personal, were sublimated by patriotism and made clear and noble through simplicity and earnestness, there was a "daily beauty" which renders the conventional bustle of our day "ugly," and soon reduces the dreams of youth to the level commonplace of selfish utility. To succeed, with our fathers, was to maintain integrity of manners, of action, and of sentiment, to harmonize the elements of life by self-reliance, and to acquire social distinction through natural force of mind. Success, as a general rule, with us, is external and material. With the great increase of travel there has been a diminution in that local and family attachment which is the best guaranty of public spirit; as the population of our cities has enlarged, municipal negligence and corruption have been developed; as the area of the national territory has spread, enterprise has manifested itself in a reckless disregard of both economical and honest principles; with the advance of material prosperity, culpable indifference to life and to legitimate industry is displayed; as we have become more known to foreign nations, the character of our representatives has been less considered in diplomatic appointments; and in the ratio of our mechanical triumphs has been the decline of our moral superiority.

It is the cant of the day to repudiate the past; but the law of compensation prevails in the social as well as in all other aspects of human destiny. We perceive that the limited horizon of daily existence, in former years, by concentrating the attention, enhanced the efficiency of our progenitors. If they had fewer appliances for social enjoyment, they had more of its true spirit. Genial companionship atoned for homely