A friendly Chair, dated simply "Home," and speaking tenderly of the late President, reminds us that our great loss is a blow to every home in the country. This peculiar personal affection for Mr. Lincoln was so evident that every orator spoke of it, and with the emotion that attends a private sorrow. No tribute could be so pathetic and so suggestive of the character of the man who had more deeply endeared himself to the heart and fixed himself in the confidence of the American people than any man in our history. Among the inscriptions that were displayed during the days of mourning in the city there was one hung out upon a shop which was touching in its very baldness. "Alas! alas! our father Abraham Lincoln is dead." That was the feeling in all true hearts and homes. It was a feeling which no Cæsar, no Charlemagne, no Napoleon ever inspired. The Netherlands wept with a sorrow as sore for the Prince of Orange, France bewailed with romantic grief the death of Henry Fourth. But the people of Holland and of France were comparatively few, and the relation between the victims and the mourners was that of Prince and subjects. Our leader was one of the poorest of the people. He was great with their greatness. They felt with him and for him as one of themselves; and in his fall more truly than Rome in that of Cæsar, we all fell down. so ro or on that never so calm, so strong, so grand, as in that tumult of emotion. But Every man who has been proud of his country hitherto has now profounder cause for pride. Our system has been tried in every way, and rises purified from the fire. No one man is essential to her, however dearly beloved, however generously trusted. The history of the war from May, 1861, to May, 1865, proves that she can not be hopelessly bereaved. The skeptics who have sneered, the timid who have feared, the shrewd who have doubted, must now see that the principles of popular government have been amply vindicated. We have only clearly to understand and fearlessly to trust those principles, and the future, like the past, is secure. In the earlier days of the war a sagacious foreign observer, resident in the country, said that he feared we were making mistakes perilous to the American principle. The suspension of the habeas corpus he thought was a very dangerous political, however necessary a military experiment it might be. he was answered by another European, who had been a political pupil of Cavour's, that, unlike such an act in other countries, it was here done by the people themselves, and they must be trusted in it, or else the whole American experiment failed. Such power must be used, he said; the crucial test is the way in which it is used. If the people can not use The month of April, 1865, was curiously eventful it in a way which shall be permanently harmless, in the annals of this country. General Grant moved then they are not capable of self-government. O upon the enemy's works, and Petersburg and Rich-wise young judge! In the whole world no heart mond fell. He pursued and fought the retreating army, and the rebel commander-in-chief surrendered. In the very jubilee of national joy the President was murdered. While yet his body was borne across the country by the reverent hands of a nation, his murderer was tracked, brought to bay, shot, and buried in a nameless spot to protect his corpse from wild popular fury. In the midst of the tragical days General Sherman, whom, only last month, the Easy Chair was celebrating as so skillful and resistless a soldier, instead of summoning Johnston to a surrender upon the terms granted to Lee, allowed himself to sign a recognition of the rebel government and to open a future of political discord, while he was yet able to prescribe the simple surrender of an army. The shock of disappointment and regret was universal. The authorities unanimously disapproved his convention. The Lieutenant-General went immediately to the front, and the month which had opened with President Lincoln trusted and beloved, with Davis defended by Lee and his army in the rebel capital, and Sherman confronted by Johnston, and Mobile holding out, closed with the rebel capital in possession of the Government, Lee a paroled prisoner, his army disbanded, Davis a skulking fugitive, Johnston and his army paroled prisoners, Mobile captured, President Lincoln dead, President Johnson at the head of the Government, and the assassin dead and buried. Through such a succession of great events this country had never so rapidly passed. It swept the scale of emotion. From the height of joyful triumph it sank to the very depths of sorrow; from confidence and pride in a military leader it passed to humiliating amazement, yet not for a moment will be more sincerely glad, no face more bright with joy, or sadder with sorrow, at the strange April news from America, than yours! What a May-day! Stricken as all hearts are, what a May-day! Budding and blooming on every hand, hill-side, and meadow, and wood, flushing and glittering with the lavish beauty of the spring, softly gliding over grieving hearts, and with her royal touch healing our varied sorrow, came the Queen of May, for whom the people sighed and the land yearned, came the well-beloved, the long desired, palms in her hand and doves flying before her, and the name of that May-day Queen was Peace. "CROSS the Fulton Ferry and follow the crowd,” was the direction given by one who knew, to an inquirer who asked how to find Mr. Beecher's church in Brooklyn. The Easy Chair remembered it on the Sunday morning after the return of the Fort Sumter party, and crossing at an early hour in the beautiful spring day he stepped ashore and followed the crowd up the street. That at so early an hour the current would set strongly toward the church he did not believe. But he was mistaken. At the corner of Hicks Street (if that is the name) the throng turned and pushed along with hurrying eagerness as if they were already too late. There were perhaps thirty persons, and it was but a little past nine o'clock. The street was disagreeable like a street upon the outskirts of a city, but the current turned from it again in two streams, one flowing to the rear and the other to the front of Plymouth Church. The Easy Chair drifted along with the first, and as he went around the corner observed just before him a low brick tower below which was an iron gate. The gate was open and we all passed rapidly in, going through a low passage smoothly paved and echoing, with a fountain of water midway and a chained mug-a kind thought for the wayfarerand that little cheap charity seemed already an indication of the humane spirit which irradiates the image of Plymouth Church. The low passage brought us all to the narrow walk by the side of the church, and to the back-door of the building. The crowd was already tossing about all the doors. The street in front of the building was full, and occasionally squads of enterprising devotees darted out and hurried up to the back-door to compare the chances of getting in. sat down, and opened the Hymn-Book, while the organ played. The impatient people meantime had climbed up to the window sills from the outside, and the great white church was like a hive, with the swarming bees hanging in clusters upon the outside. The service began with an invocation. It was followed by a hymn, by the reading of a chapter in the Bible, and a prayer. The congregation joined in singing; and the organ, skillfully and firmly played, prevented the lagging which usually spoils congregational singing. The effect was imposing. The vast volume filled the building with solid sound. It poured out at the open windows and filled the The Easy Chair pushed forward, and was wheeled still morning air of the city with solemn melody. by a courteous usher into a convenient seat. The Far upon every side those who sat at home in solichurch is a large white building, with a gallery on tary chambers heard the great voice of praise. both sides, two galleries in front, and an organ loft Then amidst the hush of the vast multitude the and choir just behind the pulpit. It is spacious preacher, overpowered by emotion, prayed ferventand very light, with four long windows on each ly for the stricken family and the bereaved nation. side. The seats upon the floor converge toward the There was more singing, before which Mr. Beecher pulpit, which is a platform with a mahogany desk, appealed to those who were sitting to sit closer, and and there are no columns. The view of the speak- for once to be incommoded that some more of the er must be unobstructed from every part. The crowd might get in; and as the wind blew freshly plain white walls and entire absence of architectur- from the open windows, he reminded the audience al ornamentation inevitably, and not unpleasantly, that a handkerchief laid upon the head would presuggests the bare cold barns of meeting-houses in vent the sensitive from taking cold. Then opening early New England. But this house is of a very the Bible he read the story of Moses going up to cheerful, comfortable, and substantial aspect. Pisgah, and took the verses for his text. There were already dense crowds wedged about all the doors upon the inside. The seats of the pew-holders were protected by the ushers, the habit being, as the Easy Chair understood, for the holders who do not mean to attend any service, to notify the ushers that they may fill the seats. Upon the outside of the pews along the aisles there are chairs which can be turned down, enabling two persons to be seated side by side, yet with a space for passage between, so that the aisle is not wholly choked. On this Sunday the duties of the ushers were very difficult and delicate, for the pressure was extraordinary. There was still more than an hour before the beginning of the service, but the building was rapidly filling; and every body who sank into a seat from which he was sure that he could not be removed, wore an edifying expression of beaming contentment which must have been rather exasperating to those who were standing and struggling and dreadfully squeezed around the doors. Presently the seats were all full. The multitude seemed to be solid above and below, but still the new-comers tried to press in. The platform was fringed by the legs of those who had been so lucky as to find seats there. There was loud talking and scuffling, and even occasionally a little cry at the doors. One boy struggled desperately in the crowd for his life, or breath. The ushers, courteous to the last, smiled pitifully upon their own efforts to put ten gallons into a pint pot. As the hour of service approached a small door under the choir and immediately behind the mahogany desk upon the platform opened quietly, and Mr. Beecher entered. He stood looking at the crowd for a little time, without taking off his outer coat, then advanced to the edge of the platform and gave some directions about seats. He indicated with his hands that the people should pack more closely. The ushers evidently pleaded for the pew-holders who had not arrived; but the preacher replied that they could not get in, and the seats should be filled that the service might proceed in silence. He turned and opened the door. Then he removed his coat, The sermon was written, and he read calmly from the manuscript. Yet at times, rising upon the flood of feeling, he shot out a solemn adjuration or asserted an opinion with a fiery emphasis that electrified the audience into applause. His action was intense but not dramatic; and the demeanor of the preacher was subdued and sorrowful. He did not attempt to speak in detail of the President's character or career. He drew the bold outline in a few words, and leaving that task to a calmer and fitter moment, spoke of the lessons of the hour. The way of his death was not to be deplored; the crime itself revealed to the dullest the ghastly nature of slavery; it was a blow not at a man but at the people and their government; it had utterly failed; and, finally, though dead the good man yet speaketh. The discourse was brief, fitting, forcible, and tender with emotion. It was a manly sorrow and sympathy that cast its spell upon the great audience, and it was good to be there. When words have a man behind them, Emerson says, they are not to be forgotten. There was another hymn, a peal of pious triumph, which poured out of the heart of the congregation, and seemed to lift us all up, up into the sparkling, serene, , inscrutable heaven. THE beautiful new building of the National Academy of Design was opened this spring with the fortieth annual exhibition of pictures. The festival of the opening was one of the most striking spectacles we have ever seen. The white building, even upon the outside, sparkled with the flood of light that poured from the door and windows; and ascending the stately steps and entering at the door, which seems the exquisitely-wrought gateway to a realm of romance, the scene was dazzling and picturesque. A noble staircase-such as we imagine in the finest palaces and see in the most sumptuous paintings of Paul Veronese-occupies the heart of the building, and ascends to a range of columns of various marble, which sustain the centre of the roof. A gallery, with a massive balustrade between the columns, extends around the area of the staircase, and out of this gallery open the exhibition-rooms. There are five of these; one very large and spacious-a truly magnificent room-along the length of the Twenty-third Street side. The others are smaller, but all convenient and full of the best light. The pictures are hung upon the walls of all these, excepting one, which is devoted to sculpture, and the sides of the outer gallery are also covered with them. But the evening of the opening was devoted to other duties than the study of pictures. Here were throngs of the loveliest toilets-for "full dress" was the prescribed rule of the festival-and here were two thousand people constantly moving through the brilliant rooms. If some group paused before a picture it was as picturesque and bright as the canvas upon which it looked; and the occasional bits of Venice, the palaces, the canals, the sunsets, the gondolas, that flashed upon the walls, seemed only the syllabled refrain of the Venetian poem which the evening was. of the tropics and the cold light of icebergs brought into a New York saloon; Italian skies glowing beside them; the wild grandeur of our own Rocky Mountains confronting the majestic scenery of Switzerland; manly faces and the eyes of fair women and fresh-cheeked children looking down upon us; scenes from the domestic fireside; glimpses of camp life and the tumult of war, drawn from our own civil strife; and on pedestals, among the crowd of spectators, the works of the statuary, busts that seem to think, and groups which are tragedies and comedies in miniature. When I look round upon these productions of the genius of our countrymen, and compare them with what we produced forty years since, I can not help imagining to myself what must have been the astonishment of a New Yorker of that day, could he have been transported to a spectacle like this from one of the meagre exhibitions of the old and now forgotten Academy of the Fine Arts, made up mostly of pictures which had appeared on its walls from year to year till they palled upon the eye." Indeed, as you stepped out of the rooms to descend the staircase, the laughing groups in gay dresses coming up and going down, the jeweled la- The audience hummed and buzzed while Mr. dies in airy laces and brilliant silks and satins lean- Bryant was speaking, not from any disrespect or ing upon the balustrades beneath the marble col-indifference, but simply because the throng in the umns, looking over silent, or chatting and laughing, while the band played passionate waltzes below, presented the very scene that the Venetian Paul loved to paint, and which all his lovers so vividly remember. At nine o'clock President Huntington, of the Academy, with Mr. Bryant and the Rev. Dr. Adams, stepped upon a little temporary dais in the large room, immediately opposite the door and in front of Bierstadt's "Yo Semite Valley," and the hum of the crowd was hushed, while in a fervent prayer the clergyman invoked the Divine blessing upon so fair a work accomplished, and upon the beginning of such influences for the future. IIe did not say Amen without a touching reference to the common sorrow, and to the universal love for him who had taken his place among the martyrs. And when he sat down President Huntington delivered the address of inauguration and welcome. It was wisely brief, barely alluding to the circumstances under which the building had been erected; but it was cheerful and bright, and ended with a proper compliment to Mr. Bryant. The poet was greeted warmly as he arose and declared frankly that retorting compliments was an art which had been neglected in his education. He then made a very pleasant response, adorned with references to many of the traditional names of the Academy, and to incidents in the lives of some of the noted dead whom he personally knew. The following passage is a proper introduction to the study of the present exhibition: "I congratulate you all, therefore, on the completion of a building not one stone of which, from the foundation to the roof, was laid, and not one beam or rafter framed into its place, for any other purpose than the glory of Art. A little while since I was here, and admired the spacious halls and saloons, with their lofty ceilings and the pure light admitted only from the zenith, bringing with it no tinge of color from surrounding objects. Since that time Art has entered with the works of the pencil and chisel, covering the bare walls and occupying the floors with imitations of nature which we view this evening with wonder and delight-the spring, the summer, the autumn, the winter of our brilliant climate disputing the palm of splendor; the blaze neighboring rooms were moving and murmuring, and perfect silence was impossible. It was a beautiful scene, and no one who was there will ever forget the spectacle of the poet standing in the spacious pictured hall speaking to the brilliant throng, our venerable high-priest of poetry dedicating this noble temple of art upon the eve of a glorious peace. A CRITIC is a formidable creature, and yet all of us who go to see pictures are really critics. We look at the paintings; we have opinions; we express them. That is criticism. Some of us know very little of nature or art, but we have opinions nevertheless, and the more we do not know, the more vehement we are apt to be. The art-criticisms which we brethren of the pen write for newspapers and magazines are our opinions of the pictures. Some of the artists who do not like what we say tell us gravely that we have no business to have opinions. Alas! alas! that is very probable. But we do have them, and what are we to do? If they tell us not to express them, how are they themselves to become known? how is the excellence of their works to be set forth? Fame is but opinion. That kind familiarity of certain names which the proverb describes as like household words, is only the common consent of good opinion. No, we must speak, we must write, we can not avoid opinions. Criticism is, therefore, a foregone conclusion; and, dear brothers of the pencil and pen, whether we make books or pictures, or merely trace such evanescent lines as these, we must lay our account with favorable or adverse judgments of our work. Let us do all we can to make unfavorable judgments impossible. Then, if they come, our withers are unwrung. These reflections and exhortations are not difficult for an old Easy Chair who comes tugging and blowing up that splendid staircase at the Academy, and who has no pictures upon the walls. If he had-let him pause a moment to take breath and to decide-if he had, which one of all these six hundred and forty-seven pictures and sculptures would he wish to be his? That is a tremendous question to ask as you reach the top of the staircase and peer curiously around you. It is a question so tremendous that no Easy Chair, who does not wish to make six hundred and forty-six enemies, will think of answering aloud. In a very low whisper, then, let us say that the fortieth exhibition is not a remarkably good one. Some of the artists whose names are very familiar appear in great force; but the number of fine works is not large. The number also of works interesting from their subjects simply appears to us to be small. The war, for instance, so fruitful of picturesque incident, has inspired very few; and some of those lack that patient and complete elaboration which distinguishes such a work as that of Gerome, "the Almek," which we have all seen with delight at Goupil's Gallery during the spring. Of the smaller works of this year we recall most pleasantly Mr. William M. Hunt's "Listeners" (204), and "The Singers" (210), and Mr. Eastman Johnson's "ChristInas Time" (376). Mr. Hunt's method is Couture's, which is the very reverse of Gerome's; but the sweetness, the delicacy, the tenderness, the subtle grace of the two works we name are evident to very dull eyes and hearts. They are mellow and rich, and full of imagination. There are no more purely poetic pictures upon the walls. The interior and figures of Mr. Johnson are evidently portraits; but the treatment is so felicitous that there is no sense of figures posing. We see them as Santa Claus might as he peeps through the Christmas-tree. It is a scene of happy, domestic life; and the conscientious care with which the details are wrought is characteristic of the painter of the "Old Kentucky Home." There is another of the smaller pictures which the loiterer will remember. It is Mr. Lambdin's "Love and Loyalty" (224), a scene of the war. It represents a maiden holding her lover's sword to her lips and kissing the blade. He stands by, with a Captain's shoulder-straps, ready to receive it consecrated by her lips; ready to use the sword in the holiest of wars-ready to die rather than yield it. In the outer gallery there is Darley's drawing of "Dahlgren's Cavalry Charge at Fredericksburg" (29). This, too, is admirable. It is full of the wild tumult of the scene. You hear the clatter, the dash, the shouting, the shot. The men and horses live before the eye; yet in all the whirl there is no obscurity or bewilderment for the spectator. It is a thrilling episode of the war from the hand of a master. Zouave trowsers imposes by his melodramatic swagger upon the negroes. An old gray-headed Uncle Tom bows low before him; others are bringing forage to offer to their friends; and the women with lifted hands and glistening eyes are plainly saying, "Bress de Lord ob heaven, de Yanks is come!" The contrast of the group of officers and ladies with that of the soldiers and slaves is most effective. The eye steals away between them to the fields and river meadows beyond, covered with busy little parties of foragers and troops and slaves, and full of characteristic incident and landscape. Even the universal military bustle is evidently temporary. The languor and luxuriance of Southern nature is hardly disturbed, and seems with placid disdain to await the departure of the intruders. There are other delightful pictures, upon which we can not dwell. We expatiate upon Mr. Nast's because he has but the one, and it is entirely impossible for those who have not seen it elsewhere to appreciate its interest here. Mr. Kensett comes out this year in great force. His "Ullswater" (91) is not often surpassed for delicate detail and happy expression. Mr. Cranch's Venetian scenes have a charm for which the romantic city itself may be largely responsible; but his poetic nature is attracted to such subjects by the deepest sympathy. The novelty of form in Mr. Bierstadt's "Looking down Yo Semite Valley, California" (436), and the ease and power of his treatment give the picture an interest which is, however, hardly equal to so large a canvas. The eye and the imagination each ask for a little more. But a garrulous Easy Chair must stop somewhere, and here perhaps as well as any where. "HAPPY the bride the sun shines on," is the pleasant old proverb that the heart utters to friends married in June and summer. And when they are young and fair, and the soft skies and the bright flowers and the singing birds are truly the outward signs of their own lives and temper, what gifts but roses and pearls seem fit for them? That is a question for poets only to answer, and sometimes a poet answers it. Pearls may be bought and roses may be plucked, but a poet who would bring a special offering to a bridal which his whole heart blesses will go beyond gems and flowers. "Love will find out a way." What if he should make robins and bobolinks sing a song of his teaching at the bride's window? Better still, who but he can make other poets sing for her alone? And what would their carols be, peculiar, individual, special, beyond their common singing, but "OverSongs?" Such a poet there was; and once when, in the full flush of June, a bridal bower was built upon the green banks of a tranquil river, far inland, such was the choir with which he sang his epithalamium. Preluding tenderly, with a thoughtful, inward, musing music, as if he played softly upon his own heartstrings, he murmured: But by a curious infelicity the most interesting war picture is hoisted into a panel over the door by which you enter the main hall, and therefore entirely out of sight. From the head of the stairs you look across and see that there is a picture there which is worth attention. You then go to the spot whence you can see it-and it can not be seen. You must stand with your back to the railing, strain your eyes upward, and then you discover that the light glistens across it so as to shut it out from view effectually. If you could possibly see it you would discover it to be a scene in "General Sherman's March through Georgia-his Advance arriving at a Plantation" (86). It is painted by Thomas Nast, and is full of interesting incident and expression. Indeed, its charm is its dramatic expression, and that is entirely invisible in the height and light in which it is placed. At the right of the picture is the mansion-house. The ladies stand upon the piazza and look curiously and disdainfully After a while there followed a strain like that of at the group of officers who approach, cap in hand, the English nightingale-a note that we had all lateevidently full of amused doubt as to their reception. ly heard clear and gushing-now a sweet minor Under the trees upon the right the soldiers and the melody whose sadness was only the unsatisfied longslaves are fraternizing. One brilliant fellow in reding of the heart in spring: VOL. XXXI.-No. 181.-I "Who giveth of his song's estate So might Bayard have sung, hearing afar the hum of battle. And next a singer with heart's-ease in his hand, musing as he sings: "A flower worth all the gardens of the East, A fading flower that hath not long to live- A prayer that God will add the perfect gift." Look high: if it were a bird you might see him Tilt on an upper spray, an independent singer, nor heed the thin treble that comes piping in beside him: "What shall I say? The blithe birds sing And the June air is murmuring A bridal song for thee." Yet forth on thy tongue outfloweth the song o' my soul, And as the epithalamium closes a tender voice sum Chanting, Forego thy strife, The spirit outacts the life, And much is seldom theirs who can perceive the whole. Thou drawest a perfect lot All thine, but holden not; Lie low at the feet of beauty that ever shall bide; Than thine, far-seeing heart, That is a nightingale which has sung in all our hearts and homes for two years past. You have not heard this song before. You will not hear it again. Listen, then, once more, and answer, if the first part of the singer's name be Jean, what is the last? Is it too low and sad for the bridal choir? Yet it is not sombre: it is only the deep, dark red of the rose's heart. But here is manly music in another tone: "Good heart, that ownest all! I ask a modest boon and small: Sweeping the map of Western earth, mons the violets and roses to mingle in the choir: "O Rose-bud, breathe your breath Into the soul of June: And in that fragrant death Strike living Love's true tune; Receiving, high above; And life is love." Might this not be Wordsworth's Lucy who sings? And then the poet who had summoned and led the choir joined hands with them as they surrounded the bower, and sang for them all: "Ah! life is sweeter than life, O lover and friend! for her sharing; -Was it only a dream of summer? Was it only a vision of the Easy Chair?-these lovers and their bridal bower; this poet drawing the singers into a hymeneal choir; these songs of which some strains are here recorded-was it i' the air only? Was the river nameless, in a region never seen? Or did hands of flesh and blood clasp before the altar, and were these "Over-Songs" from the fullness of sympathy actually sung? Perhaps perhaps a delicate, exquisite, illuminated memento of that bower, with all the songs complete, exists, telling no secret but to those who know. Editor's Drawer. T Oskaloosa, Iowa, there is an old gentleman A by the name of Ballard, who for several years had been justice of the peace. He resolved to take one of the many positions open for public service in the army, and enlisted as a private in the cele brated "gray-beard" regiment. He was on duty several months in St. Louis, and was detailed as sentinel in front of General Curtis's head-quarters, where he paced his silent beat faithfully during rain and storm. Afterward the Squire was mustered |