HORACE GREELEY.*

LAUGHED at by the pomatumed and conceited fops on Broadway; hissed at by the devotees of cotton in Wall-street; hated intensely by all demagogues and workers of iniquity, and disliked by mouldy conservatives, whether in church or state, Horace Greeley is nevertheless one of the greatest men in America. He possesses an intellect acute and powerful; a conscience which is not seared; a great heart, and a generous hand. We know of no living American who can at all compare with him as a writer of vigorous English, in that particular department of literature which he long ago made his own. He has all of Cobbett's graphic power without his brutality-he has all of the earnest sympathy for the unfortunate of every race, clime, and color which characterizes some of the most popular of transatlantic authors, without their sentimentalism. Some of his editorials, dashed off with his heart on fire, will compare favorably with some of the best of the modern thunderer, the London Times. The leaders of the Times are more polished perhaps, are certainly more classi

*We are indebted to Parton's admirable Life of Horace Greeley for many of the facts in this sketch.

cal, but in tremendous power of expression, they cannot surpass some of the best of the editorials of Horace Greeley. With a shrewd, clear intellect, an astonishingly vigorous style, and a heart easily wrought up to that degree of passion necessary to the production of the best kind of writing, he fears not the quill of any man living. Bennett may iterate and reiterate his senseless gibberish in reference to Greeley's "isms," his "shocking bad hat," and the "old gray surtout"-he may affect to laugh at "the philosopher," but he fears and hates him as Milton's devils feared and hated their heavenly combatants. So it is everywhere. The enemies of Horace Greeley— and he has many and bitter ones-know and feel his power, though they often affect the contrary. Let him be careless, or even slovenly in his costume, say that he does ride a vast number of "hobbies," not one of his enemies dare meet him in fair combat in reference to those "hobbies." We by no means swallow everything which is pronounced good by Horace Greeley, but we are at the same time perfectly aware that among that large class of demagogues and unprincipled editors who make it a point to libel and ridicule him upon every possible occasion, there is not a man who could hold an hour's argument with him upon the most untenable of all his "isms," without securing to himself a severe defeat.

Although Mr. Greeley has long had the reputation

of being a shrewd politician, we think that his forte does not lie in that direction. He writes best as a philanthropist and reformer, and it is as such that he will be known hereafter. When pleading the cause of the poor, degraded inebriate, or the chained and scourged bondman, he rises into his true manhood, and becomes most graphic and eloquent in his language. His terse and fiery sentences fall like lightning upon the head of the rumseller or stealer of men, and when picturing the squalor and wretchedness of the drunkard's home, the misery of his wife and little ones, or the agony of the slave-mother from whose arms her child has been torn, he pours forth a genuine pathos which gives to him instantly the hearts of thousands.

We have said that Mr. Greeley has bitter enemies; it is true, but no man has warmer or more devoted friends. There are men who have the blood of ancient and renowned families in their veins, men of immense wealth, men of high station, of great intellect, who count it an honor to be intimate with that

carelessly-attired, bald-headed editor. There are men who pride themselves upon their gentility who would walk down Broadway arm in arm with Greeley, feeling honored and being honored by the temporary intimacy, though his boots were cowhide, and his hat a half-dozen winters old. But the best, the heartiest friends of the great editor are the workers

of this country, the men who have made America what she is. It is the intelligent farmers, the clearheaded mechanics, the teachers, the liberal and earnest clergymen, the reformers everywhere, who love and appreciate him best. To them he is a tower of strength, a city of refuge. Many a reformer, when ready to faint, has been cheered by the thought that the most powerful editor in the country, day after day writes his most vigorous articles for the drunkard and the slave. However much these men may in the past have disliked his political writings, or his political conduct, his philanthropic writings have won their warm esteem for the author.

From these general remarks we turn to trace his early history. It is a remarkable one; for the position which he has reached, as one of the first editors of the country, he has struggled for inch by inch. His birth and parentage gave him none of those advantages for intellectual improvement that are now afforded almost universally to every farmer's boy. The district school, from which he obtained his first knowledge of books, was taught during the three or four winter months by some young person who could barely "pass examination" before the village minister and one or two functionaries, of perhaps much less practical and rudimental education.

Mr. Greeley's maternal ancestors were ScotohIrish, who migrated to this country in 1718, and set

tled in various parts of New England. They were a bold, enthusiastic, hardy set, and in them we find many of those traits of character which, bequeathed to Horace as his only legacy, have made him what he is. From the same source sprang Stark of revolutionary memory, and in the battle of Bennington perished two of Mr. Greeley's great uncles. His paternal ancestors were from Nottingham, England. They were early noted for an obstinacy of purpose, which, as it descended through successive generations to Zaccheus Greeley, the father of Horace, may be said to have softened to a tenacity hard to overcome. This is noticed not only in their will, but in every mental and physical development. Their memory was wonderful; they held on to life itself with a vigor which is surprising. Honest and courageous, though generally poor, they left to posterity better than a prince's patrimony-it was a character, an example worthy of imitation.

Zaccheus Greeley and Mary Woodburn were married in 1807. They lived upon a small farm, the fruits of their own industry, in Amherst, New Hampshire. Under circumstances rather inauspicious, in February, 1811, Horace, the subject of our sketch, was ushered into existence. Of seven children he was the third, and, according to all accounts, he was the most unlikely of the whole; his frame was light, and his constitution fragile; but both were to be