Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if it be great statesmanship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title.  He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry.  He should remember the old Scandinavian mythus.  Thor was the strongest of gods, but he could not wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake which bound the universe together; and when he smote the Earth, though with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen.  Yet all the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head.

And in old times, doubtless, the giants were stupid, and there was no better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords.  But things have wonderfully changed.  It is the giants, nowadays, that have the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a bygone age.  On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy morning at last.  With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past.—­H.W.]

TO MR. BUCKENAM

MR. EDITER, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took & Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime.  I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun speak thut dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is dreffle backerd up This way

ewers as ushul

HOSEA BIGLOW.

‘Here we stan’ on the Constitution, by thunder! 
  It’s a fact o’ wich ther’s bushils o’ proofs;
Fer how could we trample on ’t so, I wonder,
  Ef ‘t worn’t thet it’s ollers under our hoofs?’
    Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he:—­
      ’Human rights haint no more
      Right to come on this floor,
    No more ‘n the man in the moon,’ sez he.

‘The North haint no kind o’ bisness with nothin,’
  An’ you’ve no idee how much bother it saves; 10
We aint none riled by their frettin’ an’ frothin’,
  We’re used to layin’ the string on our slaves,’
    Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—­
      Sez Mister Foote,
      ’I should like to shoot
    The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon!’ sez he.