In times like the present, there is always a tendency to appropriate the popularity of some great and patriotic soldier, and make it available for the promotion of personal or party ends. Success in that sinister policy will no doubt often prove to be only an aggravation of ordinary party strategy, by which the vital questions of capacity and fitness are made subordinate to that of availability. We have in our history too many instances of such intrigues and their dangerous consequences, to admit of their success at the present time, though they come in the seductive form of military glory. The degenerate system of party strategy culminated seven years ago in the election of James Buchanan. In pursuance of the secret and treacherous preparations for the present infamous rebellion, the people were ignorantly and blindly led by cunning intrigue into that fatal mistake; but it was not less the circumstances of the tunes and the sinister combination of parties, than the weakness and wickedness of the man chosen, which gave him the immense power for mischief which he wielded against his country. The complications of the approaching crisis will not be less controlling in their power to bring about the ruin or the restoration of the republic. In the uncertain contingencies and possible combinations of opinion and interest destined to grow out of the immediate future, no man can foresee what dangers and difficulties will arise. The only path of safety lies in the straight line of consistent action; avoiding sinister expedients and untried men; despising the arts of the demagogue, when they present themselves in the most specious of all forms, that of using military success as the pretext for ambitious designs; and doing justice to the great soldier, _as a soldier_, according to the value of his achievements, not forgetting that 'peace hath her victories not less renowned than those of war,' and that the faithful and able statesman cannot be overlooked and set aside amid the glare of arms, without danger to the best interests of the republic. ASPIRO.--A FABLE. Then my life was like a dream in which we guess at God-thoughts. I was so completely absorbed in my love that I marked the lapse of time only by the delicate varyings of my mistress's beauty, or the deepening spell of her royal rule. I was delirious with the delight of her presence, which comprised to me all types of excellence. Within her eyes the sapphire gates of heaven unclosed to me; in the splendor of lustred hair was life-warmth. --And had I forgot?--the red lips I crushed like rose-leaves on my own--the tender eyes that plead 'remember me'--the faded rosemary which we culled together--the vows with which I said that love like ours was never false, nor parting fatal. Had I forgot? Could this _Aspiro_ of my worship quite dispel my youth-dream--had her infatuating presence quite eclipsed my memory of Christine?--