of their Gentile neighbor at at least twice as much liken Utah, with her lofty mountains, rich valleys, as that of their brother in the faith.

and great dead sea, not without reason, to the Thus far this people have succeeded in defying land of Palestine, and give to their own chief city the laws and the Government of the United States. the name of Zion. They greatly prefer the early This is the result, partly of their pernicious jury faith of the Hebrews to the Gospel of Christ, system, partly of the unity and power of the and in their similes, customs, and belief approach Church, in some degree of their plan of intimida nearer to the abominations of the Orient than to tion of the weaker brethren, who incline to the the virtues which should belong to an American right, and especially of the mysterious influence and a Christian people. which they have exerted for years in the depart. A little prompt legislation is required from ments in Washington and in Congress. Bound Congress. Good juries can and should be protogether by oaths terrible to the ignorant mind, cured in Utah the same as elsewhere. A few laws one Mormon will not convict another of a crime, should be modified. The people of this nation except, as in the case of John D. Lee, when in- should see to it that Congress does its whole duty. structed to do so by the highest Church authorities. We advise no special legislation against the Saints; for the promotion of Church measures.

but we do desire such action as will Americanize Such is the sect, the members of which see in Utah, and render her people as amenable to the the act of Guiteau the fulfillment of some of their laws as they are in the other Territories. prophecies, and who congratulate each other that Possessed of an educated, refined, and lawthey have received further evidence of their being abiding people, Utah might well be regarded as finally avenged upon all of their enemies. They an earthly paradise.

FRANCIS BRET HARTE.'

By M. S. V. DE V.

It is constantly said that frontiers have ceased of his contributions, but they only added to his to exist, that oceans are bridged over, that steam popularity by creating around his name that notoand electricity have annihilated distance, and that riety which is like the baptism of fire to the unevery throb of the great human machine reverb- tried soldier. Through the whole of America and erates in both hemispheres. If this is true in Europe his “Tales of the Argonauts," "Eastern matters political, financial, or commercial, how Sketches," "National Poems," "Spanish Idylls," how much more in the domain of imagination, were favorably received and promptly translated. science, and art !—for we hail with fresh interest They brought to the blasé reader a fresh and racy every new effort, triumph, or discovery, irrespect- element, impelling at the same time the conviction ive of the accident of its birth. It is, therefore, that truth lurked under those seemingly fantastic no wonder that we Europeans instantly responded pictures of the Far West; of those Californian to the double attraction exercised by so gifted an shores which have been the dream of so many, author as Mr. Bret Harte, when in his writings he i the goal of a few; the unknown land of golden not only gratified our taste for the beautiful, but hopes, of ardent ambitions, and too often, alas ! likewise that innate craving of every mind for new of deadly disappointment. scenes, new characters, and new emotions.

Bret Harte wrote of things he had seen, of men Quite lately a new and complete edition of his he had known; wrote, as is so rarely done, of works (“The Complete works of Bret Harte. 5 what he had felt or experienced. They cannot be vols. Chatto & Windus”), classified and re- all creatures of his imagination, those lawless vised by himself, has enabled the public to ap- : miners, upscrupulous gamblers, hardy adventurpreciate the fertility of his talent both as an author 'ers, or hungry emigrants, uviting the strongest and a poet, and to judge of his labors as a whole; powers of endurance, the most heroic fortitude, while until now they had only drifted to us in the ' to the degrading passions of the brute and the shape of contributions to magazines or isolated sanguinary vindictiveness of bandits, who acvolumes.

knowledge no master, no law, no God. With a When, about fourteen years ago, the name of keen eye, a searching scrutiny, he seizes and Bret Harte first became known in Europe his repu- retains every feature, every salient tone of the tation was made, and we accepted it without pro- story he relates; he paints the mise en scène in test, although it burst upon us as suddenly as we short but powerful and graphic sketches: a few are told it blossomed full-grown in his native land, words only, and before our mind's eye pass the • the United States. In his literary career he seems desolate Sierra, the rushing torrent, the snowy to have met none of the discouraging rebuffs which peak, the dilapidated shanty, the dark and lonely so often chill the efforts of beginners; he did not road. . . . When the actors appear, they are linger with wavering and timid footsteps on the living men and women, not puppets; their mirth up-hill road where so many slowly and tardily is riotous, their manners are rough, their passions achieve success. The young author grasped his fierce, but the warm blood courses through their pen with no hesitating fingers, and before it was veins, and now and then leaps to their brow. generally known that a new aspirant to literary Whatever their failings, their vices, or their honors had entered the lists, these honors were crimes, they always remain faithful to their nature his, and he was proclaimed a master without ever and individuality, and move in perfect harmony having been a pupil. We do not mean to say with the surroundings in which they are framed. that the critics did not fasten their fangs on some. It has been said that, judging Bret Harte from

| the majority of his writings, it may be gathered 1 This article. by an English contributor, gives the reader that he has on the whole a poor opinion of huan idea of the estimation in which Mr. Harte is held as a manity; that in his genius there is a satirical, not writer by Europeans.-ED.

I to say cynical vein, which leads him ever to select