To be President of this African Commonwealth, the mysteriously elected delegates invited J. Davis, who was as ready to say yes as the old maid who had done the courting for a series of years. Of a metaphysical turn of mind,—a turn around which all State rights arguments wind themselves up,—sharp-visaged, lean of muscle, leaner of conscience, and leanest of veracity, he had, after being educated at the government expense at West Point, tracked office with a faultless scent, shown much pluck during the Black Hawk and Mexican wars, gnawed the bone of repudiation in Mississippi, and was now ready to bay at Federal flocks wherever they appeared. Like John Brown, Stonewall Jackson, and those hard Scotch fighters who prayed before the direst slaughters, he was most devout just before writing those calm-looking, philosophy-streaked messages, which massacred truth with a glaived hand, and shamed fiction by the recital of atrocities which had no foundation, except at Andersonville and in the Libby Prison at Richmond. While these active heats were raging on the edges of the government, cold chaos brooded at the centre. Through the rank growth of cotton, threatening to overtop everything national, only fire-flies still. At last the weary days vanished. Fourth of March came, and Mr. B. went away—to his own place. CHAPTER XVIII. OUR NEWER NATIONAL ALBUM. The Second Generation of our Great Men nearer in Time but not in Affection.—Several sufficient Reasons therefor.—Ingenious Biographers confusing our Verdicts over old Offenders.—A Latin Quotation to prove an Original Remark.—Why we should not stick to old Opinions.—Sketches of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster.—Parallels do not always run at equal Distances.—Three Fates.—Original Anecdote of Webster.—Of Lewis Cass and Thomas H. Benton.—Why double-chinned Persons are satisfactory.—The Plutocrats Girard and Astor; how they made Fortunes, and how much.—John Marshall as a Judge, and John Trumbull as a Painter.—Albert Gallatin skims American Cream.—Rembrandt Peale and Washington Allston described.—Why Felix Grundy, S. S. Prentiss, J. J. Crittenden, Samuel Houston, D. D. Tompkins, and Others, were like Shoots grafted upon hardy Native Stocks.—The Senate illuminated by J. M. Berrien, S. L. Southard, W. C. Preston, etc., Legaré, and Butler.—A full-length Portrait of Winfield Scott.—Irving delineated.—Drake, Halleck, and Paulding.—Fenimore Cooper descanted upon.—Science illustrated by Silliman, Hare, and Rush.—Descriptions of Prescott, Mrs. Sedgwick, Greenough, and Hawthorne.—How well the Second Set persuaded the Eighteenth Century over into the Nineteenth.