en the works of Mr. Pollard[2] and Mr. Greeley[3] is
very striking. Though coincident in design, they are the antipodes of
each other in treatment. Mr. Greeley, finding a country beyond measure
prosperous suddenly assailed by rebellion, is naturally led to seek an
adequate cause for so abnormal an effect. Mr. Pollard, formerly an
office-holder under the United States, and now the editor of a Richmond
newspaper, is struck by the same reflection, and, unwilling to state
the true cause, or unable to find a plausible reason, is driven to hunt
up an excuse for what strikes ordinary people as one of the greatest
crimes in history. The difference is instructive.

[2] _The Southern History of the War. The First Year of the
War._ By Edward A. Pollard.

[3] _The American Conflict._ By Horace Greeley. Vol. I.

Mr. Pollard's book, however, is well worth reading by those who wish to
learn something of the motives which originally led the Southern States
into rebellion, and still actuate them in their obstinate resistance.
To any one familiar with the history of the last thirty years, it would
almost seem that Mr. Pollard's object had been to expose the futility
of the pretences set up by the originators of Secession, so utterly
does he fail in showing any adequate grounds for that desperate
measure. As a history, the book is of little value, except as giving us
here and there a hint by which we can guess something of the state of
mind prevailing at the South. In point of style it is a curious jumble
of American sense and Southern _highfaluting_. One might fancy it
written by a schoolmaster, whose boys had got hold of the manuscript,
and inserted here and there passages taken at random from the _Gems
of Irish Oratory_. Mr. Pollard's notions of the "Yankees," and the
condition of things among them, would be creditable to a Chinaman from
pretty well up in the back country. No society could hold together for
a moment in the condition of moral decay which he attributes to the
Northern States. Before writing his next volume he should read Charles
Lamb's advice "to those who have the framing of advertisements for the
apprehension of offenders." We must do him the justice to say, however,
that he writes no nonsense about difference of races, and that, of all
"Yankees," he most thoroughly despises the Northern snob who professes
a sympathy for "Southern institutions" because he believes that a
slaveholder is a better man