omment upon the 'improvement of property.'

If we only had a Napoleon here, some think, his master mind might arrest
this Vandalism, infuse some system into our rag-bag cities, and make
each a Paris. But have we not Public Opinion, stronger than any despot?
Let a little of this current, guided by taste, be turned into the
channels of art, and the results will soon be forthcoming. We seem to be
hampered, as yet, with a kind of feudal system of architecture; this
will presently be done away with, for the American character is
eclectic, and naturally selects and combines the best in art, as in
politics and commerce. To combine English good sense without its
heaviness, French vivacity without its hollowness, and the exuberance of
German fancy without its inertia--to combine and reflect all these
should be the mission of our architecture.

Neither is it too much to say that a genuine love for art may have its
bearing on that part of us which is immortal. Not that any of these
things will exist after this life, but as children are drilled by their
teachers in many studies which have no practical bearing on their after
life, so may we consider ourselves as only at boarding school with
Nature while in this present temporary state; and if she has set us some
lessons which do not appertain directly to our more exalted future, we
should remember that this is her method of _discipline_. But she has
done more; she has made the very tasks delightful. Are not such studies
more beneficial and satisfactory than the idleness and play which fill
up so much of our lives?

No student can succeed, however, who tamely copies his neighbor's work.
Let us hope, then, that our art will soon drop its clumsy costume, and
take to itself something natural and national; that it will become, as
it should, the type of our Western civilization--a civilization that
spreads itself, not by sword or sceptre or crozier, but by life and
liberty and light.

JEFFERSON DAVIS AND REPUDIATION OF ARKANSAS BONDS

LETTER NO. III OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.

London, 10 Half Moon Street, Piccadilly,
_January 28th_, 1864

In two pamphlets, published by me last summer, Mr. Jefferson Davis was
clearly convicted of sustaining the repudiation of the Union Bank bonds,
and the Planters' Bank bonds of the State of Mississippi. These
pamphlets were most extensively circulated throughout the United States,