'When we won't have no more fighting,' Says I, 'boys,' says I, 'Yet, in our pay delighting, We can loaf at ease, all day, And keep clear of guns affrighting All a feller's nerves,' says I.
Now I blow and bluster bolder, And at home, 'Boys,' says I, 'I used to be a soldier, But I was too brave to fly, And I'm, therefore, a parol-der, Of the noblest kind,' says I.
Blackwood's Magazine, for September, treated the British public to an article on Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS, in which that character is, of course, exalted to the pinnacle of greatness. Of its fairness and truthfulness, the following is a good specimen:
'Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion. _This_ was the torch that lit up the South, and rendered subsequent compromise impossible.'
Was it indeed? when there is no fact in history so directly clear and plain as that secession was a foregone conclusion in the South, from the moment that the possibility of Lincoln's election was conjectured. We are told that it was entirely the fault of the North that this diabolical rebellion burst out! It is always the North that is to blame, now, with John Bull. But we have more of it:
'Had Mr. Davis's warning voice been listened to in January, we believe that instead of passing a year and a half of bloodshed, enormous extravagance and dire calamity, we should have found that the seceding States would have by this time returned to the shadow of the 'Star-spangled Banner;' and that an enduring peace would have ere now been made between the North and the South.'
All our fault, of course! If we had only let them alone--let them go--they would have taken a frisky turn or two, and then come sweetly back to unity! Our _Blackwood_ writer lacks something. He wants manhood, pluck, spirit, common sense, and very common information. He is deficient in enlarged views of humanity; he cannot comprehend a tremendous struggle of principles involving the social progress of thirty millions, half of whose men at least are much more intelligent and larger hearted than himself. With narrow, petty Tory instinct, he clings to 'aristocracy' in whatever form it occurs, and instinctively wars on the masses. The noblest struggle in history--the greatest effort to advance labor in the scale of social dignity and practical value is all as naught in his eyes and in those of his clan; they flippantly ignore all that is noble in this noble war, and repeat, after CARLYLE, his brutal, beastly joke--that America has long been the dirtiest of political chimneys, and requires a good burning out. Take care, Master CARLYLE, that from this burning no sparks are wafted England-ward. You, too, will some day have a chimney on fire, and when it burns the heat will be felt through every brick in Britain.