three newspapers-in short, has civilization and human progress. There are tolerable schools, and there is a post-office which actually transmits and receives letters by sure hands. For these reasons,

looking both to educational and social advantages for the children, and to means of communicating more rapidly and certainly with the outer world, I am building myself a cottage in a pretty situation close to the town, amongst tall oaks, walnuts, and cedars, and on the banks of a little stream pretty enough, but yet far inferior to our more beautiful Cove. When I have my house built, I feel already that I shan't live long in it. I will make no permanent home in Knoxville, nor perhaps anywhere till I arrive at Nox-ville and Erebus-ville—if even there. Jenny might as well be married to a Tartar of the Oley or to a Bedouin Arab. You are to understand we came to Tennessee for a country and forest life. Now Knoxville is neither town nor country, and I calculate that in about one year and a half, I shall be in one of the large cities again. . . . There are in Knoxville some forty or fifty large and handsome private houses; twenty lawyers, most of the said lawyers being majors and colonels; a judge of the Supreme Court of the State and two judges of the circuit courts. The attorney-general also lives here. He is a great friend of mine, which you may think is somewhat like the lamb (that's me) lying down with the wolf or playing at the cockatrice's den. But never fear. In this country I am not only peaceful and loyal, moral and constitutional, but most strictly conservative. So that I set attorney-generals at defiance.. Besides, this attorney-general is in nowise like Monahan. He is no night-bird, but a tall and handsome soldier, bearded up to the eyes, who has fought in Mexico under General Shields, and has a bullet in his right leg-gentle souvenir of Cerro Gordo. Most of the men here, however, are mere money-making machines, and of society there is very little. The ladies very seldom come out except to church. There is a gloomy clerical incubus weighing them down, and they are benighted Protestants of one sect or other-Presbyterians being most numerous, then Baptists, Methodists, and Episcopalians. Of benighted Catholics there are hardly any, only a few Irish railway labourers. Within the last year they have got a chapel, and their priest is a Belgian. In and around. the town are a good many Germans. But perhaps the most

1856.]

VISIT TO MONTVALE SPRINGS.

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agreeable ingredient of the population consists of some Swiss families from the Canton of Vaud. Some of these people are highly accomplished, and preserve their own customs in a great measure. But I think a copy or two of a Knoxville newspaper, which I will send herewith, may give you some further notion of the place, though, I fear, not a high idea of its literary and intellectual condition.

The attorney-general referred to in the above was the Mr. McAdoo, from whom I have already quoted, a gentleman whose friendship he valued highly. On the 10th of August next following we find him back again at Tucaleechee, and writing to his sister Mary about a visit he had just made to Montvale Springs, where he stayed a fortnight, and drank copiously of the waters. There was something about the society of the South which made it much more. congenial to him than that of the North. He alludes to this more than once in his letters. The following is taken from the letter to his sister Mary above referred to:

I met there many very agreeable southern families, mostly Georgians, very different from any experiences I have had of northern Americans. They were all very polite to me, but you know I am endeared to them by my border-ruffian principles. Montvale is an immense house, standing on the very root of the Chilhowee, and surrounded, of course, by noble woods. There were in the house two hundred and fifty persons, besides a great number in detached cottages. There was a brass band, and dancing every evening. Such gorgeous dressing I have never seen in America or anywhere else. Everybody was pleased, and seemed disposed to make the time pass jovially. Nevertheless, I can't say that I had much pleasure. Next summer, if I can afford it, I will bring all my flock there for two or three weeks. We have had the hottest and driest summer in Tennessee that anybody remembers, and there is almost a total failure in the Indian corn crop, but wheat and oats (if it be any comfort to you) have been abundant and fine. On the whole I will not have lost much by my farming, though I have not amassed a fortune. In

fact, one evening's average lecturing is a more profitable harvest to me than all the cereal grains and live stock I can raise in a year. That field, therefore, I intend to cultivate, at least for this coming winter, and am to commence my tour the first week in October, beginning with Nashville. When I may reach New York I know not yet, nor what I am going to vociferate about.

The move from Tucaleechee to Knoxville did not take place until the end of September, 1856. The farm was sold for something more than was given for it. The moving itself was a somewhat formidable business :—

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Our three horses carried myself and the two boys, while a comfortable arrangement was made in one of the covered waggons for the female part of the family; while a little herd of cattle was If we had been starting brought on after. across the plains' to California, we could not have looked more like an emigrant caravan than we did. The weather was delightful, and the woods were flaming with purple, crimson, and gold. I believe the party, on the whole, enjoyed these two days very much; chiefly, perhaps, because they felt themselves to be escaping from the delightful vale of Tucaleechee. Yet, as I took my last look backward at what had been our home for a year and a half, I knew that I should never again call my own so lovely a spot of earth.

So ended John Mitchel's last attempt at farming. From this time forward, whatever his private opinion may have been, he was content to accept and act upon the judgment of his family and friends-that nature had not intended him for a farmer.

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CHAPTER III.

KNOXVILLE-THE "SOUTHERN CITIZEN."

1856-1858.

THE new house at Knoxville was a commodious and comfortable one-a very decided improvement upon the Tucaleechee abode. The first thing that Mr. and Mrs. Mitchel did, as soon as the last painter was cleared out, was to summon some thirty of their friends—mostly young people—and have a good time. "For," said Mitchel, "until something of this kind has been done, a new house is unwholesome to sleep in."

For the first year after they went to live at Knoxville, Mitchel had no regular occupation. He had a long spell of lecturing during the winter of 1856-57, and he visited quite a number of leading cities in both North and South. But during the greater part of the year he was more or less at leisure. He, of course, regarded this as a state of transition which could not last long. He formed many plans for the future, and, as was usual with him when he had leisure, he wrote often and at length to his relatives and friends. In letters written to his sisters and to friends in Ireland, I find detailed accounts of the lecturing tour just referred to. He travelled first to Nashville-the capital of the state of Tennessee-and thence by steamer on the Ohio and Mississippi to St. Louis. This mode of travelling by river steamboat he much enjoyed; and indeed, as done in the

United States, it is probably the most enjoyable mode of locomotion yet invented. He describes with some minuteness in his letters the scenery of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Mississippi. Speaking of St. Louis and of the impression it made upon him, he says:

The city is very fine. One pleasing feature in these large American cities is the wonderful mixture of races and languages. Here is (besides the old French colony who founded it, and whose representatives now are very wealthy) a matter of twenty-five thousand Irish and forty thousand Germans. The latter belong almost entirely to the last German immigration, that is, since '48, and these fellows are generally socialists and the reddest of republicans—a great scandal to America, and not without reason. For there is here no necessity for these red theories. . . They bring one blessing, however, with them-music. The best bands in every city, and in some cities and towns (as in Knoxville) the only band is German. Thus they harmonize the republic. They are greatly devoted to amusement on proper occasions, that is, on Sunday evenings. . . . I dwell so much on St. Louis because the truth is I was very much tempted to go and settle there instead of in New York. It would have many advantages for me over New York, yet I suppose the latter is to be our home.

From St. Louis he went to Chicago; thence to Detroit, and thence to Cleveland. This last place he describes as "the most beautiful city perhaps in America, seated on the high bank of Lake Erie, with upwards of fifty thousand people, and a great trade on the lakes." At each of these cities he lectured. I cannot find in his journal or letters any statement as to whether or not he was satisfied with the success of his lectures. But I rather infer from some things he says that the lectures were at least fairly successful, and that they realized a considerable sum. In the north-western cities, he was much struck by the energy of the inhabitants. On this subject he observes :

The wealth, the energy, the intense vitality plainly visible in