e heraldic duality of his Austrian congener by the strife
of contending sections pulling in opposite directions; an innocent
pippin was enough to suggest the apple of discord; and with the
removal of the cloth came a dessert of diagnoses on the cancer that
was supposed to be preying on the national vitals. The only variety
was a cringing compliment, in which Bunker Hill curtsied to King's
Mountain, to any Southern brother who chanced to be present, and who
replied patronizingly,--while his compatriots at the warmer end of the
Union were probably, with amiable sincerity, applying to the Yankees
that epithet whose expression in type differs but little from that of
a doctorate in divinity, but which precedes the name it qualifies, as
that follows it, and was never, except by Beaumarchais and Fielding,
reckoned among titles of honor or courtesy.

A delusion seemed to have taken possession of our public men, that the
people wanted doctors of the body-politic to rule over them, and, if
those were not to be had, would put up with the next best
thing,--quacks. Every one who was willing to be an Eminent Statesman
issued his circulars, like the Retired Physician, on all public
occasions, offering to send his recipe in return for a vote. The
cabalistic formula always turned out to be this:--"Take your humble
servant for four years at the White House; if no cure is effected,
repeat the dose."

Meanwhile were there any symptoms of disease in the Constitution? Not
the least. The whole affair was like one of those alarms in a
country-town which begin with the rumor of ten cases of confluent
small-pox and end with the discovery that the doctor has been called
to a case of nettle-rash at Deacon Scudder's. But sober men, who
loved the Union in a quiet way, without advertising it in the
newspapers, and who were willing to sacrifice everything to the
Constitution but the rights it was intended to protect, began to fear
that the alarmists might create the disease which they kept up so much
excitement about.

This being the posture of affairs, the city of Boston, a twelvemonth
since, chose for their annual orator a clergyman distinguished for
eloquence, and for that important part of patriotism, at least, which
consists in purity of life. This gentleman, being neither a candidate
for office nor the canvasser of a candidate, ventured upon a new kind
of address. He took for his theme the duties consequent upon the
privileges of Freedom, ve