being fought, is Emancipation of the Slaves.
Against abolition, the government, following up
the policy distinctly indicated by its dismissal of
Fremont, rage quite as fiercely as they rage
against the Southern Confederates.

Freedom in almost any form never appeals for
sympathy in vain; and a direct issue in that
form, even with the slenderest hopes of practical
realization, would win back those European
sympathies the denial of which the North so
bitterly complains of. But unfortunately the
Abolitionists add the arming of the slaves to
their programme or "platform." This the
government profess to be too horrible a measure
to be entertained without a shudder. Such a
servile war would indeed, if successfully
instigated, be too dreadful to be deliberately thought
of. It would be an awful risk to try such a
proof of fidelity which the South attributes
to its slaves: if the slaves love and respect their
masters as much as the masters say they do,
arms, if put into their hands, might possibly be
turned against their loved and respected
proprietors, in a way little short of extermination.

A PRODIGY HUNTER.

SOMEWHERE about the beginning of the reign
of George the Second, there dwelt in Port-street,
Soho,—a place you may now look for in
vain,—a humble individual with a remarkable
name, who, amongst other vicissitudes of his
life, had once been in the service of the
celebrated Mr. Samuel Pepys. He was by birth
a Frenchman, a native of that fertile district
called Le Gâtinois,—famous for partridges,
as Pithiviers, its little capital, is for lark-pies
and almond cakes,—and his name was James
Paris Du Plessis; but whether he claimed
consanguinity with the family of which the great
Cardinal de Richelieu was a member, or sank his
ancestral dignity when he put on an English
livery, is more than I can take upon myself to
determine. Being a plain simple-minded man,
he probably cared little about genealogy; but
what he refused to pride of birth he evidently
gave to its accidents, there being nothing
strange or monstrous, coming within his ken,
that he did not make a note of. He was, from
circumstances, more naturally disposed to this
pursuit than most people, a cousin of his own
having been born with two heads, and his
subsequent career placing him in the extraordinary
position of brother-in-law to a lobster! How
these things came about, James Paris Du Plessis
has himself related, in a very singular volume
which forms part of the Sloane collection of
manuscripts in the British Museum (No. 5246),
and bears the following title: "A short
History of Human Prodigious and Monstrous
Births of Dwarfs, Sleepers, Giants, Strong men,
Hermaphrodites, Numerous Births, and
extreme Old Age, &c."

Service, as the proverb tells us, is no
inheritance, and whatever may have been the
gains of James Paris Du Plessis, while in
attendance on Mr. Samuel Pepys and others of
less mark, in England and on the Continent
—for he appears to have been a considerable
traveller—his savings only sufficed to lodge him
in a garret at seventy years of age, after an
unsuccessful attempt to drive a small trade in
certain rare books and odds-and-ends of curiosities
which he had managed, from time to time,
to pick up. In this strait, with failing health,
and duns at his door, he cast about in nis mind
to find some generous patron, whose tastes were
likely to be gratified by such wares as he had to
offer; and, after mature reflection, came to the
conclusion that there was no better man for his
purpose than Sir Hans Sloane, the wealthy and
benevolent physician, who had lately succeeded
Sir Isaac Newton as President of the Royal
Society. To him, therefore, James Paris Du
Plessis addressed the following letter:—

"HONOURED SR. I most humbley Present them
2 Books to your Honour, to peruse and if you like
them, to be so charitable as to give me the most that
you shal thinck them worth. If you dont like them
to bestow some of your charity upon me. It is a
collection I made wilst I was a servant to my most
honorable masters Mr. Samuel Pepys in Yorck
buildings, and Mr. Laud Doyley in the Strand, of
most honorable memory, And in my travels into
several contries of europe with Mr. John Jackson, in
the Jubily year, and several others, being aged of
70 years, I being sickly and not able to serve any
longer and having about a thousand volumes of
Books I had collected in my younger dayes, with a
considerable colection of prints, medals, curiosities,
I took a little shop, and exposed my said goods to
sale, but it not pleasing God not to bless my
undertaking, and spending in it all the money I had, I
have been oblidged to leave off shopkeeping, and
take a garret to lodge myself and goods, and being
quite money less, mi goods being in danger of having
my goods seased for Rent, and having no money to
bear my little nessesary charges I most humbly
crave your charity. Either, to by some of my goods
of me; or to bestow some charity gratuist. and I
shal for ever as long as I live pray God, for your
health and prosperity, and Respectfully acknowlege
your Goodness and chanty to me. Your most
humble and most obedient Petitioner and servant J.
PARIS DU PLESSIS.

I have a catalogue of all my books but it is yet
imparfect and not finished. If your Honour desires
to see it I shall bring it to you. I lodge at the Hat
—a Hatter and miliner port Street, over against
Rider's Court Soho."

The writer's expectation was not disappointed,
the proof of Sir Hans Sloane's compliance with
his request being manifest in the fact that the Du
Plessis MS. is where we now see it. It is,
certainly, a remarkable production. I have only to
regret that these columns cannot be made the
vehicle for exhibiting the skill of James Paris
Du Plessis as an artist; but, as far as my feeble
words can describe what he has painted with so
much care, the effort shall be made. The
medium which he has employed for the purpose is
a substantial body-colour, and he has laid it on
with an earnest desire to heighten the vigour of
his narrative.

The first subject of the illustrated series,
which extends through thirty-six paintings,
represents a naked child with two heads (the cousin