htnings of the final judgment, in an instant
from west to east, and illumined the whole earth with its glare.

In such an awakening it was inevitable but that literature should share.
And biographies, histories, pictorials, and juveniles, in Europe and
America, testify to the general consciousness. Into this last-named
class the little book at the head of this notice modestly essays to
enter. Had it put on airs and spread itself out into the broad-margined
and large-lettered octavo, it might have stood in libraries as a worthy
compeer of the ablest chronicles. Such a presentation would not have
been beyond its desert, and would have been more consistent with the
author's type of mind. Yet his simplicity, fidelity, and
straightforwardness will make him a better guide to advanced youth than
the too prattling habits of mere child-writers. They ever incline to the
baby-talk style of composition,--"mumming," as the tavern-woman
proposed, the bread and milk which they set before their youthful
readers. "Carleton" ever treats his boy-readers as his intelligent
equals, and considers them capable of understanding the common language
of books and men. It is refreshing to read a book for boys that is not,
as most of this class are, while pretending to be juvenile, actually
senile.

The work opens with the story of the causes of the war, in which the
author gives the old and new counterblasters a quid, or, as they will
doubtless prefer to call it, a crumb of comfort. He traces the origin of
the war, not to Slavery, but to Tobacco. The demand for the new drug was
general throughout Europe. Virginia was the main source of supply. The
vagabondish farmers would not labor. Negroes arrive, and European
appetite creates American Slavery. Two hundred years after, the
descendants of these slaveholders fancy that a like European demand for
another plant will insure this Slavery a national sovereignty. Tobacco
thus verifies Charles Lamb's unwilling execration. It is not Bacchus's
only, but Slavery's "black servant, negro fine," and belongs, after all,
to that Africa which he says "breeds no such prodigious poison." The
Union lovers of "the Great Plant" may be called to decide between their
country and their cigar. Will patriotism or the pipe then prevail? We
tremble for our country in that conflict of duty and desire. It is odd
that the two favorite plants of the South should thus be charged with
our war. These innocent leaves and blossoms,