"We regret to say, that a strong memorial, recently transmitted from the United States, praying our Admiralty to send the Resolute out on a final searching expedition, has failed to arouse official sympathy with a cause now stirring all England. This is the more surprising as the work which remains to be done is extremely small, and Arctic experience shows that the probable risk is slight. The rate of mortality of all the Arctic Expeditions since 1818 (exclusive of that of the missing Expedition) is less than one and a half per cent. Sir Charles Wood, therefore, as the oracle of the Admiralty, has no foundation for saying that he does not feel justified in exposing to the risks inseparable from such explorations the lives of further officers and men.' Previous searching expeditions, which were necessarily dispatched to unknown regions, have, as we have seen, been singularly fortunate in regard to the slight mortality, and the proposed Expedition, which will have the advantage of being within easy reach of the large dépôts of stores and provisions at Beechey Island and Port Leopold, will certainly not be attended with greater risk than those which have preceded it. Great scientific interest attaches, moreover, to Lady Franklin's final search, as it will be carried on in the neighborhood of the North Magnetic Pole. Let us, then, hope that the appeal of Lady Franklin will meet a ready response. 'I have cherished the hope,' says Lady Franklin, in her letter to Lord Palmerston, in common with others, that we are not waiting in vain. Should, however, that decision unfortunately throw upon me the responsibility and the cost of sending out a vessel myself, I beg to assure your lordship that I shall not shrink either from that weighty responsibility or from the sacrifice of my entire available fortune for the purpose, supported as I am in my convictions by such high authorities as those whose opinions are on record in your lordship's hands, and by the hearty sympathy of many more.'-'Surely, then, I may plead that a careful search be made for any possible survivor; that the bones of the dead be sought for and gathered together; that their buried records be unearthed, or recovered from the hands of the Esquimaux; and above all, that their last written words, so precious to their bereaved families and friends, be saved from destruction. A mission so sacred is worthy of a Government which has grudged and spared nothing for its heroic soldiers and sailors in other fields of warfare, and will surely be approved by our gracious Queen, who overlooks none of her loyal subjects suffering and dying for their country's honor.'-'This final and exhausting search is all I seek in behalf of the first and only martyrs to Arctic discovery in modern times, and it is all I ever intend to ask.'" Who can fail to cry God-speed! Do you know, though the ointment might have been sold and given to the poor, it was better to waste it upon those precious feet! MATTHEW ARNOLD, the poet, of whom we have more than once spoken in the Monthly, has been appointed Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. He worthily sustains the honor of the name is a scholar, a poet, a gentleman, and he has inherited from his father, Dr. Arnold of Rugby, the historian. It is an appointment in which every lover of literature will heartily sympathize. In our last number we regaled our readers with a savory ballad of '77, and this month we have another, singularly suitable for the season, although a little prerevolutionary. THE REPULSE. A BALLAD. In 1693, The Charter of our embryo state It bore a front, the like of which The king, though claiming right divine, Against encroachments from the throne. So, when the Royal Duke of York And thus the Charter circumvent, This fact caused young Connecticut And yet, pursuant to his wish, The men were mustered under arms; And stalwart troops they were to see, With sturdy limbs and horny palms. Their captain, Wadsworth, was a man Of slender build and modest mien, But who a loftier spirit bore Than many a belted knight, I ween. The line was formed. And Bayard then, In voice sonorous, loud, and clear, Began; but, e'er a page was read, No word could any listener hear. "Beat drums!" the irate captain cried, And drum it was, with right good will, Until one might as well have tried To hearken in a fulling mill. "Silence!" the colonel thundered forthAnd straight the drummers ceased their play; Till Bayard raised his voice again, When Wadsworth shouted- 'Drum, I say!" "Silence, you rebels!" shrieked the chiefThe dauntless captain answered "drum !" And drumsticks flew till Fletcher ceased, And then the music, too, was dumb. The little captain's spunk was up While Fletcher's face grew red with rage, To find his aid was baffled thus In reading the initial page. "Stand back!" the fearless soldier cried, As Fletcher glared with looks of fury; "Another word, and this good sword,. By Jove! shall let the daylight through ye!" He did stand back; and, hot with wrath, Behind the neighboring tavern door. And thus the chief, who warrant held Was most incontinently snubbed. Of largest size, for some time after. In gallant trim the troops moved on, With lofty step, to Court-house Square, Where Captain Wadsworth made a speech That stirred each soldier's heart and hair. Then, with three cheers for chartered rights, And three for their unsullied flag, They filed away, as fife and drum Struck up the vigorous "double drag." The heirs of that determined band, Our Governor's Guards, are living yet; And the same spirit nerves their arms That nerved the men whom Fletcher met: Bear witness each election day, When their tight-gaitered legs we see March to the tune their fathers marched, In 1693. It seems we are all in the wrong about "Toby." Toby was neither a valet nor a man Friday, but a sailor and adventurer like all others. We have been put right by the following communication from the veritable Toby. It is, indeed, a most perplexing question for ourselves--for how if somebody else should claim to be the original Toby? Nay-how if some other Herman should suddenly claim to be the original Melville! There is no foreseeing the end of such doubts and controversies. To the Editor: 66 In the April number of Putnam, I saw an article on our authors-among others Herman Melville is spoken of. As I am the veritable "Toby" of which he wrote in "Typee," I would like to correct an error which many have fallen into respecting myself. I am often spoken of as Melville's valet, his "man Friday," etc., and by some as a myth. Now that I exist is true, and the book "Typee" is true, but I was not Herman Melville's valet, man Friday, or anything of the sort. I stood on the same footing with Melville. We both shipped as foremast hands on board a whale ship, in one of the whaling ports in Massachusetts, and from there made the romantic trip from which he wrote his "Typee." I was his companion from the time of our entering on board the whaler, until our separation on the Marquise islands, as related by himself in "Typee." A friendly communication exists between us, and I presume it is amusing to him to see "Toby" spoken of as his valet. Amid all the summer reading on green lawns under spreading trees, there will hardly be a more exquisitely melodious and melancholy strain than the love-song of George Darley, which we insert for the benefit of all who are, who will be, or who have been, lovers. "Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, Lulled by the faint breezes sighing through her hair! Sleeps she, and hears not the melancholy numbers Breathed to my sad lute amid the lonely air? "Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming 1 To wind round the willow-banks that lure him from above O, that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming, I, too, could glide to the bower of my love! "Ah, where the woodbines, with sleepy arms, have wound her, Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay, Listening, like the dove while the fountains echo round her, To her lost mate's call in the forests far away! "Come, then, my bird! for the peace thou ever bearest, Still heaven's messenger of comfort to meCome, this fond bosom, my faithfulest, my fairest, Bleeds with its death-wound-but deeper yet for thee!" Punch is the wittiest and freshest It critic of society in our literature. is the type of the best of the contemporary novels of society. To read it, from week to week, is like turning over the portfolio of studies from which the authors are going to paint their great novels. Lately we find something so apposite to American "society" as well as to English, that we quote it, for its goodhumor and sharp, just sarcasm, for the benefit of all sufferers by this dreadful social institution of "calling :" "MR. PUNCH--What holds society together? Mutual services, acts of kindness done in moments of need or sorrow, selfinterest, the pleasure of conversation, the love of scandal, weariness of ourselves, enjoyment of the company of others, or mere instinctive gregariousness? "None of these, so far as I can gather from my experiences as a married man, and a London householder. Society here seems to me to be built up of pasteboarda veritable house of cards. "Nine-tenths of the social intercourse of this metropolis appears to be carried on either as a solemn and costly ceremonial, or as a dreary penance. "Dinners, routs, balls, breakfasts--wedding and others--belong to the first, or ceremonial order of social rites. "Calling is the principal form of social penance. It is against this penance I wish to pour out my feelings. "It is only married men who know at what cost of time, money, and temper this penance is performed. A bachelor's calls are seldom penal. Your bachelor, if he ever makes calls, does it because he likes it. What more natural than that Jack Easy, on his stroll from the Club to the Park, should drop in of an afternoon on pretty Mrs. Bellairs in May Fair? The chances are ten to one he will find Mrs. Bellairs at home, for he knows her hours, and wants to see her. And he is certain to come in for a bright face, a pretty morning-dress, an elegant little boudoir, and a lively half-hour's gossip-with, perhaps, a cup of tea, at the end of it--Jack has treated himself to a pleasure. He called with that object. Mrs. Bellairs will have half-a-dozen such calls, this afternoon, most of them from her male acquaintance. The ladies purse their lips, when Mrs. Bellairs is mentioned. She is too agreeable. She has flung off the ceremonies, and refuses to perform the penances of society. Her dinners are unpretending and proportioned to her kitchen and her establishment. She does not swell her household with green-grocers, or have her entrées from the pastry-cook's. When you call, as I have said, you find her at home. She has arranged her house and ways for enjoyment, and not as if for the discharge of a painful duty. Hence, perhaps, the undeniable fact, that she counts, in her circle, three bachelors for one wedded-pair. The married couples you do meet at her house are apt to be young ones, and of the unceremonious or off-hand kind, who take life as if it concerned themselves more than their neighbors. "Women, too, have their non-penal calls. When two young ladies for example-dear friends-meet to exchange patterns or experiences-to talk over the triumphs and trials of last night's ballto compare notes as to husbands, and house-keeping--to bewail the backslidings of butlers, the contrariness of cooks, or the high-flyings of housemaids, I do not doubt that they really enjoy themselves. I can readily imagine two vicious old maids, keenly relishing a good go in' at the reputation or cricumstances of their friends. I can conceive their bitter pleasure in tearing to pieces some fair young fame-or in routing out some grim skeleton from its closet in the house of a common acquaintance; or in letting loose from its bag some cat, likely to run about freely, and to bite and scratch a great many people in the neighborhood. There is enjoyment in a call on an artist in his studio, provided you know him well enough to rummage his portfolios, or turn his canvases from the wall while he continues at work. Unless you are on these terms with him, you have no business to interrupt an artist, except on invitation, and on ceremonial or penal occasions; as, for instance, when Podgers, A. R. A., has expressed in writing the pleasure it will give him to see you for inspection of his pictures intended for the Academy on the 3rd, 4th, or 5th of April. That is one of the penal performances. If you go, you must make one of a shoal of people, who flock into the place on each other's heels the whole day through, most of them knowing nothing of art. The few who do, are de barred by politeness from speaking their mind on the works before them, where they cannot honestly approve; but they are all pouring out the same commonplaces of compliment to Podgers's face, and venturing on 'shys' of criticism whenever the poor man's back is turned, while poor Podgers is beaming about, full of himself, feeding on honey and butter, and believing all the compliments sincere in spite of his better judgment--so sweet is praise-till the Times comes out, the day after the Private View, and omits all mention of Podgers, or damns him with faint praise, or cuts him up, perhaps, root and branch. . "But the real penance of penances is that social performance called 'leaving cards. Every day, when I come home from my office, I find my hall-table littered with these pieces of pasteboard. There is a physiognomy about them. Take the newly-married card, for instance, on which Mr. and Mrs. Coobiddy always figure in couples, a sort of connubial four-poster among the pack; or Captain Blunderbore's card--the most tiny and lady-like square of glazed pasteboard, with letters so small, they almost require the help of a magnify. ing glass to make them out; or Lady Mangelwurzel's solid and substantial ticket, heavy as her ladyship's jointure, the letters square as her bank-account, and as firmly impressed on the paper as her ladyship's dignity and importance on her mind. Here is the pasteboard representative of lively Mrs. Marabout-limp, light, spider-charactered, engraved in Paris; and here mediævally-minded Mr. Pyxon has stamped himself in Gothic characters as difficult to decipher as the directions to strangers in the New Houses of Parliament. "But what is the meauing of this pack of pasteboard from the Juggernauts ? Why has Mr. Juggernaut left two cards, and Mrs. Juggernaut two cards, and Miss Juggernaut two cards, and Mr. Frederick Juggernaut two cards? And why are they all turned up at one corner? The Juggernauts are the most determined doers of social penance I know. This shower of cards is meant to represent a visit from every individual member of their family to every individual member of mine. Well, if it have saved us from an affliction of the Juggernauts in person, let us be thankful. These pasteboard proxies are blessed inventions, after all. There could be only one thing better: to get rid of the printed pasteboard-even as we have got rid of the human buckram it represents. Why call upon each other--O my brethren and sisters-you who bore me-you whom I bore--even in pasteboard! Why not drop it altogether--and live apart? People who care for each other will find time and opportunity to meet, I will answer for it. Why should those who do not pine in a self-inflicted and superfluous suffering? Think what you are exposing yourselves and me to. I or my wife might be at home when you call. We might all have to endure half-an-hour of each other-a constrained, unhappy half-hour, of baffled attempts at keeping our mask from slipping on one side, and showing the yawns, and flat melancholy behind them. "Then this penance is not merely painful in itself. It costs time and money. "One morning in every three weeks or so, I find my wife at her writing-table, struggling with the Red-Book and the Map of London. She is making out her lists of calls, she tells me. These lists are in duplicate. One is for her own guidance, the other for the driver of the Brougham, which is hired for the day's penance. There is a sovereign for that, including the tip to the driver. Of course, she can't be expected to make her calls in a cab. "I once, out of curiosity, accompanied my unhappy wife on one of these penal rounds of hers. I never saw more suffering, of various kinds, condensed into six hours. First, there is the consideration of the route-by what line the greatest number of calls could be got through in the least time, with the greatest economy of ground. This settled with the driver, begins the painful process itself, in Tyburnia -let us say-or Belgravia, or the regions around Bedford Square-if one dare own to acquaintances in that quarter, "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.' “You reach No. 1 on your list: a pull at the check-string: ten to one the driver has overshot the door: he turns round: descends: knocks: the door is opened: 'Mrs. Harris not at home'--of course: your cards are dropped: drive on to No. 2: driver has a difficulty about the street: this you discuss and finally settle with him through the front window: drive a hundred yards: check-string again: knock: door opened: not at home: card dropped as before then on to No. 3: and so the weary routine goes on from one o'clock till six. Of course, there are episodes of peculiar dreariness. Sometimes Mrs. HarIris is at home, and being at home, has neglected to say that she is not. If you have rashly asked the formal question, you must go in, and the pasteboard performance is turned into the real penance of a bona fide call. Or your coachman is stupid, and keeps turning up wrong streets: or cannot read, and invariably stops at the wrong numbers: or is obstinate, and has a theory of his own as to the order in which the houses on your list are to be taken, and so forth. "The worst of all, as I have already said, is when the people called upon happen to be at home. This chance has to be faced at every house, and adds seriously to the day's unhappiness. I shall not soon forget my wife's face of consternation when, on dropping her cards at the address of our dreary old friend, Mrs. Boreham, who is at once deaf, curious, and ill-natured-the servant who took the cards, instead of shutting the door as usual, advanced to the carriage--' Good Gracious!' exclaimed my wife, in a voice of dismay, 'She's at home!' "God bless her!' rapped out my wife. The footman thought the ejaculation one of pious affection. Under this impression he might well look astonished. Had he understood the words in their true senseas an utterance of thankfulness that his mistress was out of the way he would, probably, have said 'Amen,' for Mrs. B.'s hand is heavy on her household. I have never joined my wife in a day of visitingalways paying bills for lots of cards, and penance since that morning. But I am the Brougham forms a serious item in our quarterly accounts. "But after all it is not so much the waste of money and time that irritates one as the hollowness of the business. If these lying pasteboards must be deposited, why not dispatch them by post, like tradesmen's circulars? I hear that some fine ladies do send round their maids on this penance. I applaud them for it. I have serious thoughts of insisting on my wife's employing the crossing-sweeper-who does our confidential errands extraordinary-to deliver her cards. He is a most trustworthy man, and would be thankful for the day's work, for which he might be fitted out respectably in one of my old suits. "This groan, I feel, ought, by rights, to have come not from me, but from my wife. It is the poor women, especially, who have to do this penance. But we men suffer from it in twenty ways, besides the direct ones of money out of pocket, and a wife's time abstracted from home and home duties. The huge lie it embodies works all through society. This pasteboard acquaintance invites and is invited. To it I owe the splendid dullness of many dinners every season-the heat and weariness of many crushes under the name of drums, routs, concerts, and so forth--the necessity of bowing and smiling to, and professing a sort of interest in the concerns of hundreds of people I don't care a rap for. Thanks to it, in short, I perform an uncounted number of journeys in that prison-van I have already alluded to, in whose stifling cells we most of us pass so much of our unhappy lives, on our way, self-condemned that we are, to hard labor on the Social Tread-mill. "When shall we have the courage to put down this instrument of torture, as we have |