and the leader of the "press gang" and the columns of The Tribune afford a panoramic view of the American world as it

HORACE GREELEY.

THE subject of this sketch is the prince of paragraphists— the Napoleon of Essayists. For years he has employed his talents in winding and unwinding the "tangled yarn" of human affairs in Church and State-in Philosophy and Politics-in Art and Literature. He is the great recording secretary of this Continent, employed by the masses to take notes and print them. His business is to "hold the mirror up to Nature, and show the very age and body of the time its form and pressure." He has the pluck to say as an editor what he feels as a man-when he forgets that he is a politician. It is then that we find truth without concealment, and genuine open-heartedness without wire-working behind the curtain. It is then he

-"pours out all as plain

As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne."

Notwithstanding his wayward whims-his eccentric manners—his love of the intangible ideal—his faith in Fourierism -his responses to spirit-rappers-his man-worship when Henry Clay was the human god-he is still the model Editor and the leader of the "press gang;" and the columns of The Tribune afford a panoramic view of the American world as it

is. Greeley is a pen pugilist (but never a bully), and woe betide the unlucky wight that begins the assault. Is he a clergyman?-then duodecimos, octavos, and quartos of ecclesiastical history will be hurled at his head, and he cannot dodge them though he makes a coward's castle of the pulpit.

Is he a political man?-then he must be right, or he will be flagellated, if he ventures to measure lances with one who is a walking register, and familiar with every important political event that has transpired for the last twenty years. He has more than a usual knowledge of the past. His writings embrace every variety of style-classic beauty, exquisite poetry, graphic description, vapid commonplace, the full sunblaze of originality, the moon in the mist, and the ignis fatuus light of whimsical nonsense. It is but just, however, to say, that he rarely troubles his readers with verbiage or pedantry. He gives us his immediate impressions of things, and his style depends somewhat upon the state of his health and the leisure at his disposal. He does not stop to tack on syllables to make a sentence even, nor measure periods so that they will be as mathematically correct as the vibrations of a pendulum; but he dashes on, heedless of consequences. widely circulated journal contains good specimens of acute wit, critical reasoning, solid argument, brilliant invective, profound philosophy, beautiful poetry, and moving eloquence, mixed with the opposites of these.

His

Mr. Greeley is entirely free from heartless bigotry or hypoeritical obstinacy. He is benevolent in his disposition, affable and sociable in his manners, often speaks in public, and, owing

to his fame as a writer, attracts considerable attention; but he is pretty sure to disappoint his hearers, for he has not sufficient eloquence as an orator, to buoy up the reputation he has won as a writer. His manner is uncouth, his matter often dry, and his person by no means prepossessing. Here permit me to say, that his careless, slipshod, slovenly way of dressing his person, has rendered him a man of mark and remark. His white hat and white coat have been immortalized, because they are ever worn and everlasting. If this Whig prophet had more dignity and more dandyism, he would be less popular with the masses, but a great favorite with uppercrustdom.

Mr. Greeley is a practical printer, and has risen to his present eminence by his untiring industry, his unconquerable perseverance, and extraordinary talents. No man in this nation controls public opinion more than he. He is a Grand Marshal in the great army of reformers, not afraid or ashamed to speak-to commit himself, save when his party may suffer by the act. He is a patriot Whig, a philanthropic Whig, a temperance Whig, an anti-slavery Whig, a Whig writer, a Whig speaker, the editor of a Whig paper, and that paper one of the very best in the United States.

No wonder Mr. Greeley knows so well how to meet the wants and wishes of his patrons, for he has been in the world ever since he was born, and has been in various situations in life -charcoal burner and member of Congress. Mr. Greeley is about forty years of age, of nervous temperament, has a large head-too large for his vital organs-a pale complexion, small