But enough.  The case is clear.  Behold the Rebel States in arms against that paternal government to which, as the supreme condition of their constitutional existence, they owe duty and love; and behold all legitimate powers, executive, legislative, and judicial, in these States, abandoned and vacated. It only remains that Congress should enter and assume the proper jurisdiction. If we are not ready to exclaim with Burke, speaking of Revolutionary France, “It is but an empty space on the political map,” we may at least adopt the response hurled back by Mirabeau, that this empty space is a volcano red with flames and overflowing with lava-floods.  But whether we deal with it as “empty space” or as “volcano,” the jurisdiction, civil and military, centres in Congress, to be employed for the happiness, welfare, and renown of the American people,—­changing Slavery into Freedom, and present chaos into a Cosmos of perpetual beauty and power.

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus. Translated by GEORGE LONG.  London:  Bell & Daldy.

Dulness is usually reckoned the prescriptive right of kings; at least, they are supposed to be officially incapable of literary eminence.  And yet it is a curious fact, that, of those idiomatic works which literature will not “let die,” of those marked productions which survive by their individuality, three, at least, bear the impress of royal names.

Devotion has found, in the contributions of three thousand years, no utterance so fit as the lyrics of a Hebrew king; satiety has breathed no sigh so profound as “The Words of the Preacher, the Son of David, King of Jerusalem"[31]; and the wisdom of the Stoics has no worthier exponent than the meditations of a sovereign who ruled the greatest empire known to history, and glorified it with his own imperial spirit,—­the noblest that ever bore the burden of state.

Our third example, unlike the other two, has not been adopted by ecclesiastical authority, and is not incorporated in any Vulgate of sacred lore; but its place in the canon of philosophy has long been established, and is often confirmed by fresh recognition.  A new translation of this celebrated work, of which several versions already existed, has just been given to the English public by Mr. George Long, a well-known scholar and critic, with the title above named.  We should have preferred the old title, “Meditations,” so long endeared; but we are none the less grateful to Mr. Long for this needful service, for which no ordinary qualifications were required, and which has never before been performed by such competent hands.