In this story we are shown New York “society” as doubtless Winthrop knew it to be.  Yet the book has a curious air of the Old-World; it might be a story of Venice, almost.  It tells us of Old-World vices and crimes, and the fittings and furnishings are of a piece.  The localities, indeed, are sketched so faithfully, that a stranger to the city, coming suddenly, in his wanderings, upon Chrysalis College Buildings, could not fail to recognize them at once,—­as indeed happened to a country friend of mine recently, to his great delight.  But the men are Americans, bred and formed—­and for the most part spoiled—­in Europe; Americans who have gone to Paris before their time, if it be true, what a witty Bostonian said, that good Americans go to Paris when they die.  With all this, the book has a strange charm, so that it takes possession of you in spite of yourself.  It is as though it drew away the curtain, for one slight moment, from the mysteries which “society” decorously hides,—­as though he who drew the curtain stood beside it, pointing with solemn finger and silent indignation to the baseness of which he gives you a glimpse.  Yet even here the good carries the day, and that in no maudlin way, but because the true men are the better men.

These, then, are Winthrop’s writings,—­the literary works of a young man who died at thirty-two, and who had spent a goodly part of his mature life in the saddle and the canoe, exploring his own country, and in foreign travel.  As we look at the volumes, we wonder how he found time for so much; but when we have read, we wonder yet more at the excellence of all he wrote.  In all and through all shines his own noble spirit; and thus these books of his, whose printed pages he never saw, will keep his memory green amongst us; for, through them, all who read may know that there wrote a true gentleman.

Once he wrote,—­

    “Let me not waste in skirmishes my power,
    In petty struggles.  Rather in the hour
    Of deadly conflict may I nobly die,
    In my first battle perish gloriously.”

Even so he fell; but in these written works, as in his gallant death, he left with us lessons which will yet win battles for the good cause of American liberty, which he held dearest in his heart.

* * * * *

HILARY.

Hilary,
Summer calls thee, o’er the sea! 
Like white flowers upon the tide,
In and out the vessels glide;
But no wind on all the main
Sends thy blithe soul home again: 
Every salt breeze moans for thee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
Welcome Summer’s step will be,
Save to those beside whose door
Doleful birds sit evermore
Singing, “Never comes he here
Who made every season’s cheer!”
Dull the June that brings not thee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
What strange world has sheltered thee? 
Here the soil beneath thy feet
Rang with songs, and blossomed sweet;
Blue skies ask thee yet of Earth,
Blind and dumb without thy mirth: 
With thee went her heart of glee,
Hilary!