not what the present-maker's business is he may be a grocer, an expressman, a manufacturer of quack medicines, or a dry goods merchant, it is all the same; he can be, in fact, anything he wishes, from a tax collector up to a cabinet minister or minister plenipotentiary, if he will only evince his appreciation suitably in advance, and be fortunate enough to have no law against him, and no enemy in the United States Senate.

We are aware our readers may tell us that there is nothing new in all this; it is indeed open to the objection of being stale, for the facts have long been notorious. But the public has a bad memory, especially that part of it whose interest it is to remember only what is favorable. Another reason why we beg leave to recall such hackneyed things is, that there are some who think that General Grant is by no means entirely cured yet of the infirmity in question. Others go so far as to maintain that offices can be purchased from the President of the United States to-day in as strict accordance with the laws of commerce as any other commodities can be purchased in our great marts, the chief difference consisting in the fact that owing to the great fuss made by certain newspapers some four or five years ago about the new presidential traffic, the President has been much more prudent since in conducting this particular branch of his operations, so that it is now quite difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain what any particular office costs at the White House. It seems that all a denizen of the outside world may hope to learn at the present day is that the tariff of prices is much higher than it used to be some years ago. The rise in the market must not, however, be attributed to the late panic, nor is it accounted for wholly on the common principle of supply and demand. The demand

has indeed not diminished, but rather the contrary. There are at least as many candidates and bidders as ever. But this has very little if anything to do with the advance in price, which, according to those best informed on the subject, is owing chiefly, perhaps wholly, to the fact that the President being now wealthy, he can afford to reject small bids, sure that he has only to wait a little while to get his full price.

Another hackneyed subject is the nepotism of President Grant. It has been estimated that he has placed more of his relatives in office, or furnished them provender at the public crib, in one way or another, than all his predecessors put together, and we fear that estimate is not at all an exaggerated one. It were less matter if this large horde of relatives were, in general, persons qualified for the positions in which they have been placed, although even then there would be some indelicacy, not to use a harsher term, in giving places to so large a multitude to the exclusion of as many others who were qualified and who had perhaps deserved more from their country than they. But when the President of the United States bestows offices on nonentities merely because they are his relatives, we think he is guilty of conduct but little less reprehensible and less dishonorable than that of accepting presents with the tacit or express understanding that offices will be given in exchange for them.

But let us assume for a moment that General Grant has not been guilty of either bribery or nepotism, but that his accusers, actuated by malice prepense, have grossly libelled him. At worst, let us suppose that he no longer suffers himself to be bribed; that he no longer accepts valuable presents on any conditions whatever; that he no longer shows any favor to his numerous tribe of relatives; that is, let us suppose, in a word, that he is a new man in these respects; that the Hon. Tom Murphy, the Hon. John Hoey, and other worthy friends and associates of his, have reformned him—should he be distinguished above Washington on this account? should he be made President the third time, and consequently for life, as a reward for abstaining from bribery and nepotism? If not, what has he done as President, or what can he be expected to do, to entitle him to that distinction?

Some of the newspapers have called General Grant's hankering for a third term, or a life term, Cæsarism. This is done in general much more by way of flattery or ridicule than by way of reproach or censure. At all events, we know no general of modern times more innocent of the charge of being

like Cæsar than General Grant. If we are wrong in this, will somebody be good enough to inform us in what does the similarity between Grant and Cæsar consist, beyond the bare fact that both have commanded armies and gained victories? But may not the same be said of Alaric and Attila? It may seem unkind to say that Grant is much more like the king of the Visigoths or the king of the Huns than he is like the illustrious founder of the Roman empire, but such is the fact.

We would not, however, designate the conduct of General Grant as either Alaricism or Attilaism. Fortunately, neither would be possible at the present day. But as Alaric was rather a vulgar, coarse person, without much knowledge of any other art or science than that of human butchery, so, we fear it must be admitted, is Grant. Attila, it seems, bestowed no favors but kicks and curses on any but those who purchased his good will "by meal or by malt," or could prove that they were of his own "flesh and blood." In the latter case, we are told, the great Hunnic butcher was quite generous, especially when he had indulged in large potations of a certain liquor which some historians regard as lager bier, while others, who are probably nearer the truth, insist that it was rye whiskey. Moreover, Attila had a mode of "reconstruction" of which he claimed to be the original discoverer or inventor, and which consisted chiefly in fomenting strife between the different races he had conquered by means of emissaries who robbed and plundered whenever they could, allowing their worthy master a certain percentage of their booty. The mental culture of Attila, like that of Alaric, was confessedly very limited. It is still a disputed point among the learned whether either of those chieftains could write his name, but all historians agree in giving each credit for more or less ready wit, and, above all, the faculty of making stirring, effective speeches to friends and foes.

Far be it from us to say, however, that, upon the whole, Grant is like either Alaric or Attila. We perpetrate no such libel. We merely repeat here, in substance, what we said

above on this point, namely, that if Grant is unlike Alaric or Attila, he is a thousand times more unlike Cæsar. If the truth must be told, the freedman who brushed Cæsar's clothes was more like his master than Grant is like Cæsar.

Just let us compare the twain as warriors, and whatever similarity we can discover between them in this character it will be all. That Grant fought well, and did well generally, as a soldier, we have never denied. But success in putting down a rebellion after the rebels have become pretty nearly exhausted, in every sense of the term, is no proof of great generalship. History holds no one to be a great general who has distinguished himself only in a civil war. About one

third part of a nation rebels against the other two-thirds; one-fourth against three-fourths would be nearer the truth; but the former estimate will answer our purpose as well. The two-thirds have both the prestige and the material advantages of an organized, established government. No foreign army interferes in the struggle. Since the two-thirds were quite as brave, as patriotic, and as resolute as the one-third, the war could not have ended otherwise than as it did. Under another general the armies of the United States might not have crushed the rebellion for another year, although it may well be doubted whether there were not other generals in the Union army then who would have subdued the rebels at least as quickly as General Grant did, had they had the chief command. But, be this as it may, General Grant has never encountered a foreign army or an alien nationality.

Cæsar, upon the other hand, invaded foreign countries. and subdued the bravest races and nations, and fought and defeated the greatest captains of the age. He was not alone the conqueror of the Gauls, whom no one else had conquered or could conquer; he distinguished himself in the Mithridatic war, the Alexandrine war, and the Hispanian war. The Helvetians, the Beigians, the Nervians and the Britons, the Gauls and the Germans, were all alike to him. He could as easily restore the beautiful Cleopatra to her throne, as he could punish the fierce and turbulent Ariovistus for imprisoning the Roman ambassadors.

The great captain who disputed the empire of the world with Cæsar was Pompey, but the dispute was most triumphantly decided in favor of the former at Pharsalia, one of the greatest battles ever fought. His victory over Pompey was still more complete than that at Thapsus, in Africa, in which he defeated Scipio and Juba.

In war, as well as in peace, Cæsar evinced, without affectation, his innate greatness of soul. Even in his struggle with Pompey for life or death, when some of his lieutenants deserted him to join the enemy, he sent them their horses, arms and equipage. Suetonius informs us, moreover, that when he captured cities which had made all the resistance in their power, he left them at liberty to take which side they pleased, imposing no other garrison upon them than the remembrance of his generosity and clemency. Finally, when the decisive day came the first general order of Cæsar on the plains of Pharsalia was, that without the utmost necessity no soldier of his should lay a hand upon the citizens of Rome.

So much for Cæsarism in war. It may be very well to call our Southern rebels the Helvetians, the Nervians, the Belgians, the Sequani, etc.; and in turn to call "Stonewall" Jackson, Ariovistus, and General Robert Lee, Pompey; but the comparison would scarcely hold. Not but our brethren in rebellion were as brave as the fiercest and most impetuous of those Gallic and German tribes, but there are other considerations which exhibit the comparison between the two warriors as too much like that between the pigmy and the giant.

We have remarked, in passing, that General Grant has never passed through the the test ordeal of fighting and defeating foreign armies and foreign generals. But other American generals have. Washington fought and defeated, again and again, the best foreign troops in the world, commanded by their bravest and ablest generals. So did General Andrew Jackson. Yet neither Washington nor Jackson had any pretensions to Cæsarism.

But let us see how the presents went in the case of the captain who, we are told, is the prototype of General Grant.