The Essay, after long years of sleep, has sprung up of late to, at least, popularity, and from the pens of the Country Parson and his disciples has sent word-pictures and personal experiences well through the country. Among the most promising of the American members of the 'Parson's' flock is GAIL HAMILTON, a lively, well-writing, intensely-Yankee woman; that is to say, a bird who would fly far and fast indeed were she not well bound down by Puritanical chains, and who, in default of other experience-means of expression, clinks her fetters in measures which are merry enough for the many, albeit somewhat sorrowful at times to those who feel how much more she might have done under more genial influences and in a freer field. We could also wish a little less of the endless I and Me and Mine of the Essays, and wonder if the author will never tire of her intense self-setting forth. But this is the constant fault of the personal essay, let who will write it; and since it has great names to sanction it, we may perhaps let it pass. EDITOR'S TABLE The President's Proclamation is based mainly on the act of Congress to which he refers. That act was passed with great approach to unanimity among unconditional Unionists, and met their approbation throughout the country. That the rebel States, as a military question, must be deprived of the 'sinews of war,' which, with them, are the _sinews of slaves_, is quite certain. They have boasted, as well before as since the rebellion, that their great strength in war consisted in their ability to send all the whites to battle, whilst the slaves were retained at home to cultivate the lands and provide subsistence for armies. Take from the South its slaves, and the necessary supplies must cease for want of laborers in the field, or the whites must be withdrawn from the armies to raise provisions. In either event, the rebellion must terminate in defeat. There are thousands then, who, under ordinary circumstances, would oppose emancipation, yet who will support this measure as a _military necessity_. As regards the Border States, the President still adheres to his original programme: emancipation with their consent, compensation by Congress, and colonization beyond our limits. As regards the seceded States, the proclamation only applies to such of them as shall persist in rebellion after the first of January next, and even in those States compensation for their slaves is to be made to all who are loyal. The friends of Secession in Europe, and especially in France and England, have contended that slavery was not the cause of the rebellion, and it has been suggested that the rebels would themselves adopt a system of gradual emancipation. Even now it is alleged that if MR. LINCOLN had not issued this proclamation, we should have had something very similar from JEFFERSON DAVIS.