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Title: The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 4, March, 1836

Author: Various

Release date: July 30, 2022 [eBook #68653]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: T. W. White, Publisher and Proprietor, 1836

Credits: Ron Swanson


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, VOL. II., NO. 4, MARCH, 1836 ***


THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

DEVOTED TO EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.


Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu'au gré des vents.
                                      _Crebillon's Electre_.

As _we_ will, and not as the winds will.


RICHMOND:
T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR.
1835-6.


{213}


SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

VOL. II.  RICHMOND, MARCH, 1836.  NO. IV.

T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR.  FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.




SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TRIPOLI, WITH SOME 
ACCOUNTS OF THE OTHER BARBARY STATES. NO. XI.--(Continued.)


The inertness of the French since their rupture with Algiers, had 
induced Hussein to treat their threats with contempt, and he by no 
means anticipated the extreme measures to which they were about to 
resort. The certainty of their intentions to attack him, however, 
effected no change in his resolve to maintain the position which he 
had assumed; all offers of mediation or intercession were rejected, 
and the approach of the storm only rendered him the more determined 
to brave its violence. He was left to meet it alone. The mission of 
Tahir Pasha was the only effort made by the Sultan in his behalf; 
Great Britain had in vain offered its mediation to both Parties, and 
did not appear disposed to interfere farther between them; the other 
European Powers remained neutral. The Sovereigns of Tripoli and Tunis 
were summoned to aid in defending the common cause of Islamism; but 
the appeal was in both instances vain; Yusuf dreaded the vengeance of 
the French, on account of the support which he had unwillingly 
afforded to the accusations against their Consul, and was by no means 
inclined to give them additional cause for enmity, or to involve 
himself in expenses from which he could anticipate no immediate 
benefit. The Bey of Tunis had long been devoted to the interests of 
France; far from aiding the Dey, he had agreed to furnish his enemies 
with provisions, and even if required to make a diversion in their 
favor, by invading the Algerine Province of Constantina which lay 
contiguous to his own dominions.

Hussein was thus reduced entirely to his own resources; an 
examination of the means at his disposal will show that he was unable 
to make any effectual resistance, and that without the interposition 
of some occurrence beyond the control of man, "_the well defended 
city_" must have fallen into the hands of the French.

The Algerine territory extends in length on the Mediterranean, about 
six hundred miles; its breadth or the distance between that Sea and 
the Desert no where exceeds one hundred miles, and is generally much 
less. Shaler gives sixty as the average breadth, which would make the 
superficial extent of the country about thirty-six thousand square 
miles. A considerable portion of this territory consists of rugged 
and almost inaccessible mountains, many of which are covered with 
eternal snow; there are however vast tracts of the finest land, which 
with proper attention would be rendered very productive, and even the 
rude and careless mode of cultivation pursued by the inhabitants 
enabled them frequently to export great quantities of wheat to 
Europe. One of these tracts in the immediate vicinity of Algiers 
called the plain of Metija is said to be of unparalleled fertility; 
it is not less than a thousand square miles in extent, and is covered 
with springs which by a judicious direction of their waters, might be 
made the sources of health and plenty, instead of producing as they 
now do only useless and insalubrious marshes.

The country was divided into three provinces, separated by lines 
drawn from points on the coast southwardly to the Desert; each of 
these divisions was governed by a Bey who though appointed from 
Algiers, was almost absolute within his own territories. The Eastern 
province bordering on Tunis was the largest and the most populous; it 
took its name from its capital Constantina, the ancient Cirta, a 
strong town situated about sixty miles from the Sea, and said to have 
more inhabitants than Algiers. The principal ports of this district 
are Bugia and Bona; upon its coast near Bona were the _African 
Concessions_ which in part led to the difficulties with France. 
Tittery the middle province is the smallest, its surface not being 
more than sixty miles square; it however contains the capital, and is 
more populous in proportion to its extent, than any other part of the 
Regency. The Western province lying contiguous to Morocco has been 
called Oran, Tlemsen and Mascara, accordingly as its Bey resided in 
either of the principal cities which bear those names. In 1830 the 
seat of government was Oran or more properly Warran, a seaport town 
near the frontiers of Morocco which possesses a fine harbor and may 
be rendered very strong; the other ports of this province Arzew, 
Mostaganem and Shershell though nearly deserted, are well situated 
both for commerce and defence. Indeed the western territories of 
Algiers are considered the most delightful and the richest of 
Northern Africa; in addition to their grain, fruits and mines, they 
are also famous for the beauty and spirit of their horses which are 
sent in great numbers to the East, as well as to Spain and the South 
of France. The population appears likewise to be of a better 
character than that of other parts of the Regency; there are fewer 
Arabs or Kabyles, and a great portion of the inhabitants are the 
descendants of that noble race of Moors, who were expelled from Spain 
in the fifteenth and two succeeding centuries.

It is difficult to form any estimate of the number of inhabitants in 
the Algerine territories. Shaler in 1824 considered it less than a 
million; from the results of the latest inquiries made by the French 
it amounted in 1830 to seven hundred and eighty thousand, who were 
thus classed.

  _Moors_, the industrious and most civilized class,
  inhabiting the cities or engaged in agriculture,           400,000

  _Kabyles_ or _Berbers_ who probably descend from the
  aboriginals of the country; they are still a wild and
  intractable race, living in the mountains and frequently
  plundering or levying contributions on the industrious
  part of the population,                                    200,000

  _Arabs_ who live in tents, on the borders of the Desert
  from the produce of their flocks and herds, or are
  employed in transporting goods through the country,        120,000

  {214} _Turkish Soldiers_, generally from the coasts and
  islands of the Archipelago,                                  8,000

  _Koul-ogleis_ or children of Turks by native women.         32,000
                                                            --------
                                                             780,000

Assuming this estimate as correct, it will be found by comparison 
with the tables of population of other countries, that the Algerine 
Dominions did not probably contain more than a hundred and twenty 
thousand men capable of bearing arms; and when it is considered that 
these are spread over an extensive territory, which is mountainous 
and almost destitute of roads, it would be unreasonable to expect 
that more than half that number could be collected at any one point, 
even supposing the existence of universal patriotism and devotion to 
the Government. Such feelings may have operated on the Moors, but 
they could scarcely have produced much effect on the Kabyles and 
Arabs, who according to the estimate form more than two-fifths of the 
population; and although promises of high pay and the prospect of 
plunder might induce many from each of those classes and from among 
the wanderers of the Great Desert, to aid in the defence of the 
country, yet little dependance could be placed upon these irregular 
bands, when opposed to the disciplined troops of France.

Hussein's experience may probably have led him to some such 
conclusions, but every act of his reign served to shew that they 
would have been ineffectual towards inducing him to make concessions, 
even were it not too late. After the rejection of the overture which 
had been wrung from him by his friend Halil, nothing less than an 
immense pecuniary sacrifice on his part would have contented the 
French; and policy as well as pride forbade this sacrifice, for he 
was well aware that a peace purchased on such terms would have cost 
him his life. Moreover he was evidently a thorough fatalist; two 
expeditions against Algiers had already failed completely, although 
taking into consideration its defences at the several periods, the 
chances of its fall were in both those cases greater than under the 
existing circumstances. "God is great and good, and the Sea is 
uncertain and dangerous," was his observation to the Captain of the 
British frigate Rattlesnake; a storm such as occurs on that coast in 
every month of the year, might in a few hours have dissipated the 
forces of his enemies, or have thrown so large a number of them into 
his hands as prisoners, that their restoration would have been deemed 
an equivalent for peace.

On the 14th of May an incident took place which was calculated to 
confirm the Dey in such expectations. During a violent gale from the 
northeast, the Aventure and the Siléne two brigs which formed part of 
the blockading squadron were on that night driven ashore near Cape 
Bengut, about sixty miles east of Algiers. The officers and crews of 
these vessels in number about two hundred persons, finding escape 
impossible, and conceiving that any attempt at defence would only 
insure their destruction, determined to march along the coast towards 
Algiers, and to surrender themselves as prisoners of war to the first 
party with which they might meet. They were soon observed and 
surrounded by a troop of Kabyles whom they however induced to believe 
that they were English, and that a large sum would be paid for their 
safe delivery at Algiers. Under this persuasion the Barbarians were 
conducting them towards the city, when their course was arrested by 
the sudden rise of a river which it was necessary to cross; during 
the delay thus occasioned, it was discovered that they were French, 
and the greater part of them were immediately sacrificed to the fury 
of the Kabyles. The heads of one hundred and nine of these 
unfortunate persons were brought into Algiers on the 20th of May, 
which having been purchased by the Dey at the regular price, were 
exposed on the walls of the Casauba; they were however afterwards 
surrendered for burial. The survivors, eighty-nine in number, were 
confined in the dungeons of the castle; they were in other respects 
treated by Hussein with as much lenity as the circumstances would 
permit, and they received the kindest attentions from the Consuls of 
Foreign Powers who remained in the place.

Hussein did not however trust entirely to Providence for the safety 
of his capital; on the contrary he made every preparation in his 
power for its defence. In the city and its environs every man was 
enrolled, and the slightest expression indicative of fear or mistrust 
as to the result of the contest, was punished by death. From the 
Provinces, the Beys were ordered to bring to Algiers all whom they 
could enlist or force into the service, and immense sums from the 
public treasury were placed at their disposal for the purpose. By 
these means he speedily assembled a very large force, the exact 
amount of which it is impossible to ascertain; the French historians 
state it to have been seventy-two thousand; other accounts perhaps 
equally worthy of credit make it much less. The number of what may be 
termed regular troops appears to have been precisely twenty-two 
thousand, viz. five thousand Turks or Janissaries, seven thousand 
Koul-ogleis, and ten thousand Moors; to these the French accounts add 
ten thousand Kabyles, and forty thousand others, principally Arab 
horsemen. Major Lee the Consul of the United States, who made very 
particular observations and inquiries on the subject, and whose 
statements appear to be entirely free from prejudice, does not 
consider that the irregular forces exceeded thirty thousand. Whatever 
may have been the fact with regard to the whole number of the 
Algerine troops, it is certain that a large and important portion 
were never brought into action in the open field, having been 
necessarily retained to garrison the city and the fortifications in 
its immediate vicinity.

When the preparations of the French had removed all doubts as to 
their views with regard to Algiers, apprehensions were entertained by 
the Governments of Christian nations for the safety of their Consuls 
and citizens in the country, who, it was feared, might in a moment of 
excitement be sacrificed to the fury of the inhabitants. Ships were 
accordingly sent by several Powers for the purpose of bringing away 
their respective agents and others who might be thus endangered; but 
the commander of the blockading squadron having been strictly ordered 
to allow no communication with Algiers prevented several of these 
vessels from entering the harbor. An Austrian frigate and a Spanish 
brig were thus ordered off, and the latter afterwards shewing some 
disposition to enter was fired on. A Sardinian frigate was permitted 
to send a boat on shore, to bring off the family of the Consul who 
had protected {215} the interests of France during the difficulties 
between the two countries, and several other vessels contrived to 
enter and leave the port unnoticed. Commodore Biddle who commanded 
the squadron of the United States in the Mediterranean, sent the 
sloop of war Ontario to Algiers to bring off the American Consul 
General and his family, in case they should be inclined to go. The 
Ontario appeared at the entrance of the bay on the 4th of April, 
accompanied by the frigate Constellation whose captain it is said was 
ordered to engage any French ship which should attempt to oppose 
their entrance. As no such attempt was made, it is needless to 
inquire whether these instructions were really given, or to examine 
whether they would have been in concordance with the received usages 
of national intercourse. Major Henry Lee the American Consul General, 
with his family and the Vice Consul, determined to remain; the ladies 
of the Neapolitan and Spanish Consuls were however at his request 
received on board the Ontario and carried to Mahon.

Before the departure of the American ships the British frigate 
Rattlesnake arrived, bringing despatches to the Consul Mr. St. John, 
who had been ordered by his Government to remain; on leaving the 
harbor she was spoken by one of the blockading ships and her captain 
was informed that he would not be permitted again to enter. This fact 
having been communicated to the Consul, the Rattlesnake sailed for 
Malta whence she soon returned bearing a letter from Admiral Malcolm 
to the French Commander, in consequence of which she was allowed to 
enter Algiers on condition however that her stay should be limited to 
a week.

The Consuls who remained in Algiers found it necessary to adopt 
measures for their own safety. The representative of Great Britain 
having a large country house at a short distance from the city, out 
of the probable line of operations, determined merely to retire to it 
on the approach of the conflict: those of the United States, Denmark, 
Spain and Naples agreed to establish themselves together at a villa 
situated on a height overlooking the place, and capable of being 
rendered sufficiently strong, to resist such attacks as might have 
been expected. The Dey afforded them every facility in his power, for 
the fortification and defence of their residence; they were allowed 
to enlist some Janissaries, and the other Christians with some Jews 
of the town having joined them, they mustered nearly two hundred men 
who were tolerably well supplied with arms and ammunition. They 
accordingly removed on the 26th of May to the _Castle_ as it was 
termed, on which the flag of the United States was immediately 
hoisted, Major Lee having by unanimous vote, been elected 
Commander-in-Chief.

On the 3d of June a part of the fleet which conveyed the French army 
of invasion was seen off the coast near Algiers. An immediate attack 
was anticipated, and the Dey prepared to resist it, although not more 
than half the troops which he expected had then arrived. The 
fortifications on the bay were well provided and manned, so that the 
place might be considered secure on that side; the batteries of the 
Mole were directed by the younger Ibrahim the Minister of the Marine, 
and the charge of the Emperor's Castle had been committed to the 
Hasnagee or Treasurer in whom Hussein placed the utmost confidence. 
The Dey remained secluded within the walls of the Casauba, from which 
his messengers were seen constantly flying in every direction. As it 
was anticipated that the landing would be attempted on the shore west 
of Algiers, the Aga Ibrahim marched out with a part of his forces and 
encamped on a plain near the sea, distant about ten miles in that 
direction. A violent gale from the eastward however dispersed the 
French ships, and nothing more was seen of them for some days; at 
length information was brought from a certain source that the whole 
fleet had retired to Palma.

On the 9th, Achmet Bey of Constantina who had been anxiously 
expected, made his appearance with his troops principally Arabs and 
Kabyles; the contingents of Oran and Tittery did not however arrive 
until some days afterwards, and the whole force at that time under 
Ibrahim's immediate command probably amounted to twenty thousand, of 
whom at least one half were Arab horsemen.

On the morning of the 13th the sea near Algiers was again covered 
with ships under the white flag of France. The sky was cloudless, a 
fresh breeze from the northeast permitted the vessels to move at 
pleasure along the coast, and as they passed majestically almost 
within gun shot of the batteries, the Algerines felt that the day of 
trial was come.

In order to understand the operations of the French against Algiers, 
some knowledge of the surrounding country and of the relative 
bearings and distances of important points, is necessary. It is 
however difficult to convey such information without the aid of maps; 
our geographical language is limited, and wants precision, and even 
where it may be sufficient for the purpose, few readers are disposed 
to study the details with the care requisite to comprehend them 
fully.

In the account of Lord Exmouth's attack upon Algiers in 1816, the 
city was described as standing on the western shore, and near the 
entrance of a bay about fifteen miles in diameter; it must now be 
considered as situated on the north-eastern side, and near the 
extremity of a tongue of land, which projects from the African 
continent northwardly into the Mediterranean. This tongue is about 
twelve miles in its greatest breadth, where it joins the continent, 
and ten in length from north to south; the surface of its northern 
portion is irregular, and in some places rugged, traversed by ridges 
and ravines, and rising in the centre into a lofty peak, called 
Jibbel Boujereah; southward from this mountain the inequalities 
gradually disappear, and the extensive plain of the Metijah succeeds.

The northernmost point or termination of the tongue is a bold 
promontory called Ras Acconnatter, or Cape Caxine, which is four 
miles west by north of Algiers; following the shore nine miles 
south-west from this cape, we find a small peninsula, rather more 
than a mile in length, and less than a mile in breadth, extending 
westwardly into the sea. This peninsula is high and rocky at its 
extremity, but low and sandy at the neck which unites it to the main 
land; the sea around it affords safe anchorage for vessels, and its 
shores as well as those in its vicinity, present a clear beach, free 
from rocks or other impediments to approach. On its highest point 
stood a small fort, called by the Spanish traders _Torreta Chica_, or 
_the little tower_, on which were mounted or rather placed, four 
light pieces of cannon {216} more curious from their antiquity than 
useful. Against the tower was built a Marabout or chapel, containing 
the tomb of Sidi Ferruch, a saint held in great veneration by the 
Algerines, and from whom the peninsula takes its name. A battery of 
stone with twelve embrasures had been also erected on the shore near 
the end of the peninsula, in order to prevent hostile vessels from 
anchoring, but on the approach of the expedition it was dismantled 
and abandoned.

Eastwardly from Sidi Ferruch the land rises almost imperceptibly for 
three miles, presenting a sandy plain partially covered with aloes, 
cactus, and evergreen shrubs, at the termination of which is an 
irregular plateau called Staweli, where the shepherds of the country 
were in the habit of encamping. Farther on a valley called 
Backshé-dere separated this plateau from the south-western side of 
Jibbel Boujereah, along which a road originally formed by the Romans 
conducted to the walls of the Emperor's castle, within a mile of 
Algiers. The whole distance by this way from Sidi Ferruch to the city 
is twelve miles, over a country "gently undulating and perfectly 
practicable for artillery or any species of carriage," which is also 
abundantly supplied with fresh water from numerous springs.

These and other circumstances had induced Shaler[1] in 1825 to 
recommend Sidi Ferruch as the most advantageous point for the 
disembarkation of a force destined to act against Algiers; and 
although the intentions of the Commander in Chief of the French 
expedition were kept profoundly secret, yet it was generally 
supposed, even before his departure from Toulon, that he would 
attempt a landing there.

[Footnote 1: _Sketches of Algiers, political, historical, and civil, 
&c. by William Shaler, American Consul General at Algiers. Boston: 
1826._

Our country has produced few works displaying greater originality and 
soundness of views than this; its subject has caused it to be 
overlooked in the United States, but in France when circumstances 
gave value to all information relative to Algiers, its merits were 
soon recognized, and it was translated by order of the Government for 
the benefit of the officers engaged in the expedition. His remarks on 
the power, resources, and policy of the Algerine Government, or 
rather upon its weakness, its want of means, and the absurdity of its 
system, were calculated to dispel many of the illusions with regard 
to it which the mutual jealousy of the great European nations had so 
long contributed to maintain; and it is impossible to examine his 
observations as to the proper disposition of a force destined to act 
against the city, in conjunction with the statement of the plans 
pursued by the French, without conceiving that in all probability 
those plans were the result of his suggestions. At page 51 he says:

"The several expeditions against Algiers, in which land forces have 
been employed, have landed in the bay eastward of the city; this is 
evidently an error, and discovers unpardonable ignorance of the coast 
and topography of the country, for all the means of defence are 
concentrated there. But it is obvious that any force whatever might 
be landed in the fine bay of Sidi Ferruch without opposition; thence 
by a single march they might arrive upon the heights commanding the 
Emperor's castle, the walls of which, as nothing could prevent an 
approach to them, might be scaled or breached by a mine in a short 
time. This position being mastered, batteries might be established on 
a height commanding the Casauba, which is indicated by the ruins of 
two wind-mills, and of a fort called the Star, which the jealous 
fears of this Government caused to be destroyed for the reason here 
alleged, that it commanded the citadel and consequently the city. The 
fleet which had landed the troops would by this time appear in the 
bay, to distract the attention of the besieged, when Algiers must 
either surrender at discretion or be taken by storm."

Many other passages might be quoted in illustration of Mr. Shaler's 
sagacity; so many of his speculations respecting the future destinies 
of Barbary have been already confirmed, that we are warranted in 
entertaining hopes of the fulfilment of his prediction, that it will 
again be inhabited by a civilized and industrious race.]

The French ships after their dispersion by the storms of the first 
days of June retreated to Palma where they remained until the 10th. 
On that day the first and second divisions of the fleet again sailed 
for the African coast; the third division composed almost entirely of 
merchant vessels, containing the battering artillery, provisions and 
materials which would not be needed until the disembarkation had been 
effected, was to have sailed on the 12th, but it was detained until 
the 18th by adverse winds.

As the distance between Palma and Algiers is only two hundred miles, 
and the wind was favorable at an early hour on the 13th of June, the 
first divisions of the armament, with all the troops on board, were 
collected in front of the city, and every eye was fixed on the 
Admiral's ship, in anxious expectation of the signal which was to 
indicate the scene of the first operations. The Algerines, although 
they expected that their enemies would land at some point westward 
from the city, yet did not choose to subject themselves to the hazard 
of a surprise, by leaving the place undefended; the batteries which 
lined the bay were therefore all manned, and the greater part of the 
moveable forces were disposed in their vicinity, so as to resist any 
sudden attack. At eight o'clock, the signal was given by the French 
Admiral, and his ships were soon under full sail towards the west; 
they rounded Cape Caxine, and then changing their course to the 
southward, no doubt was left respecting the intention of the 
commander to attempt a landing at Sidi Ferruch.

As the fleet drew near the spot which had been selected for the 
disembarkation of the troops, preparations were made for immediate 
action in case it should be necessary. The heavy armed ships advanced 
in front, slowly and in order of battle, ready to pour a destructive 
fire upon any forces or works of their opponents as soon as 
discovered within its reach. At ten o'clock, they were opposite the 
extremity of the peninsula, and it became evident that no precautions 
had been taken by the Algerines, which were likely to prove effectual 
in preventing the descent. No fortifications had been erected on Sidi 
Ferruch, in addition to the shore battery near the point, and the 
turret on the hill, both of which were deserted; indeed nothing less 
than the strongest works and the most scientific defence could have 
rendered it tenable, when surrounded by such a fleet. On the main 
land, a division of the Algerine army, supposed to consist of twelve 
thousand men, were encamped near a spring of water about two miles 
from the neck of the peninsula; between them and the sea were erected 
two batteries,[2] armed with nine pieces of cannon {217} and two 
howitzers, which had been removed from the fort on Sidi Ferruch. Arab 
horsemen enveloped in their white cloaks were seen collected in 
groups on the beach, or galloping among the bushes on the plain 
between it and the encampment. Nothing however betokened any 
disposition on the part of the Africans, to meet the invaders at the 
water's edge.

[Footnote 2: Any fortification defended by artillery, and even the 
spot occupied by artillery, is called a _battery_. These temporary 
defences are formed by throwing up earth to the height of three or 
four feet, so as to form a wall or _parapet_ for the protection of 
the cannon and men; where this cannot be done, logs, barrels or sacks 
filled with earth, &c. are employed. At New Orleans the American 
lines of batteries were principally formed of bales of cotton.

In order to protect an army from sudden attacks, _entrenchments_ are 
made on the side on which they are apprehended; they consist of 
ditches, the earth from which is thrown up within.

In besieging a fortress, the object is to erect batteries on 
particular points as near as possible to the place, and to render the 
communications to and between them safe. For these purposes, a ditch 
is commenced at a distance from the fortress, and is carried on in a 
slanting direction towards it, the laborers being protected by the 
earth thrown up on the side next the place. When these _approaches_ 
have been carried as near as requisite, another ditch called _a 
parallel_ is dug in front or even around the fortress, batteries 
being constructed on its line where necessary. Sometimes another 
parallel is made within the outer one. Along these ditches the 
cannon, ammunition, troops, &c. are conveyed in comparative safety to 
the different batteries.]

Nevertheless Bourmont displayed here his determination to leave 
nothing to chance, the success of which could be assured by caution 
in the previous arrangements. The largest ships with the first and 
second divisions of troops on board, passed around the extremity of 
the peninsula, and anchored opposite its southwestern side on which 
it had been resolved that the first descent should be made; a steamer 
and some brigs entered the bay east of Sidi Ferruch, and took 
positions so as to command the shore and the neck of the peninsula, 
over which they could pour a raking fire, in case an attack should be 
made by the Algerine forces at the moment of disembarkation. Some 
rounds of grape shot from the steamer dispersed the Arabs who were 
collected on the shore of the bay; the fire was returned from the 
batteries; but it had no other effect than to wound a sailor on board 
the Breslau, and it ceased after a few broadsides from the brigs.

By sunset the vessels were all anchored at their appointed positions, 
and preparations were instantly commenced for the disembarkation. The 
broad flat bottomed boats destined to carry the troops to the shore 
were hoisted out; each was numbered, and to each was assigned a 
particular part of the force, so arranged that the men might on 
landing, instantly assume their relative positions in the order of 
battle.

All things being ready, at three o'clock on the morning of the 14th 
of June, the first brigade of the first division under General 
Berthezéne, consisting of six thousand men, with eight pieces of 
artillery were on their way to the shore, in boats towed by three 
steamers. They were soon perceived by the Algerines, who commenced a 
fire on them from their batteries; it however produced little or no 
effect, and was soon silenced by the heavier shot from the steamers 
and brigs in the eastern bay. At four the whole brigade was safely 
landed, and drawn up on the south side of the peninsula near the 
shore battery, which was instantly seized. In a few minutes more, the 
white flag of France floated over the _Torreta Chica_; a guard was 
however placed at the door of the Marabout, in order to show from the 
commencement, that the religion of the inhabitants would be respected 
by the invaders.

By six o'clock the whole of the first and second divisions were 
landed together with all the field artillery, and the 
Commander-in-chief of the expedition was established in his head 
quarters near the Marabout, from which he could overlook the scene of 
operations. General Valazé had already traced a line of works across 
the neck of the peninsula, and the men were laboring at the 
entrenchments; they were however occasionally annoyed by shots from 
the batteries, and it was determined immediately to commence the 
offensive. General Poret de Morvan accordingly advanced from the 
peninsula at the head of the first brigade, and having without 
difficulty turned the left of the batteries, their defenders were 
driven from them at the point of the bayonet; they were then pursued 
towards the encampment, which was also after a short struggle 
abandoned, the whole African force retreating in disorder towards the 
city.

This success cost the French about sixty men in killed and wounded; 
two or three of their soldiers had been taken prisoners, but they 
were found headless and horribly mutilated near the field of battle. 
The loss of the Algerines is unknown, as those who fell were 
according to the custom of the Arab warfare carried off. Nine pieces 
of artillery and two small howitzers by which the batteries were 
defended, being merely fixed on frames without wheels, remained in 
the hands of the invaders.

While the first brigade was thus employed, the disembarkation of the 
troops was prosecuted with increased activity, and as no farther 
interruption was offered, the whole army and a considerable portion 
of the artillery, ammunition and provisions were conveyed on shore 
before night. It was not however the intention of the commanding 
general immediately to advance upon Algiers; his object was to take 
the city, and he was not disposed to lose the advantage of the 
extraordinary preparations, which had been made in order to insure 
its accomplishment. The third division of the fleet containing the 
horses and heavy artillery had not arrived; unprotected by cavalry 
his men would have been on their march exposed at each moment to the 
sudden and impetuous attacks of the Arabs, and it would have been 
needless to present himself before the fortresses which surround the 
city, while unprovided with the means of reducing them. He therefore 
determined to await the arrival of the vessels from Palma, and in the 
mean time to devote all his efforts to the fortification of the 
peninsula, so that it might serve as the depository of his _materiel_ 
during the advance of the army, and as a place of retreat in case of 
unforeseen disaster. The first and second divisions under Berthezéne 
and Loverdo were accordingly stationed on the heights in front of the 
neck of the peninsula, from which the Algerines had been expelled in 
the morning; in this position they were secured by temporary 
batteries and by _chevaux de frise_ of a peculiar construction, 
capable of being easily transported and speedily arranged for use. 
The third division under the Duke D'Escars remained as a corps of 
reserve at Sidi Ferruch, where the engineers, the general staff and 
the greater part of the non-combatants of the expedition were also 
established. Some difficulties were at first experienced from the 
limited supply of water, but they were soon removed as it was found 
in abundance at the depth of a few feet below the surface.

On the 15th, it was perceived that the Algerines had established 
their camp about three miles in front of the advanced positions of 
the French, at a place designated by the guides of the expedition as 
Sidi Khalef; between {218} the two armies lay an uninhabited tract, 
crossed by small ravines, and overgrown with bushes, under cover of 
which the Africans were enabled to approach the outposts of the 
invaders, and thus to annoy them by desultory attacks. Each Arab 
horseman brought behind him a foot soldier, armed with a long gun, in 
the use of which those troops had been rendered very dexterous by 
constant exercise; when they came near to the French lines, the sharp 
shooter jumped from the horse and stationed himself behind some bush, 
where he quietly awaited the opportunity of exercising his skill upon 
the first unfortunate sentinel or straggler who should appear within 
reach of his shot. In this manner a number of the French were 
wounded, often mortally by their unseen foes; those who left the 
lines in search of water or from other motives were frequently found 
by their companions, without their heads and shockingly mangled. As 
the Arabs were well acquainted with the paths, pursuit would have 
been vain as well as dangerous, and the only effectual means of 
checking their audacity was by a liberal employment of the artillery.

The labors of the French were interrupted on the morning of the 16th, 
by a most violent gale of wind from the northwest, accompanied by 
heavy rain. The waves soon rose to an alarming height, threatening at 
every moment to overwhelm the vessels, which lay wedged together in 
the bays; several of them were also struck by lightning, and had one 
been set on fire nothing could have prevented the destruction of the 
whole fleet. Fortunately at about eleven o'clock, the wind shifted to 
the east and became more moderate; the waves rapidly subsided, and it 
was found that only trifling injuries had been sustained by the 
shipping. Admiral Duperré however did not neglect the warning, and he 
immediately issued orders that each transport vessel should sail for 
France as soon as she had delivered her cargo; the greater part of 
the ships of war, were at the same time commanded to put to sea, and 
to cruise at a safe distance from the coast, leaving only such as 
were required to protect the peninsula.

On the 17th and 18th, some of the vessels arrived from Palma bringing 
a few horses and pieces of heavy artillery, but not enough to warrant 
an advance of the army. On the 18th, four Arab Scheicks appeared at 
the outposts, and having been conducted to the commander of the 
expedition, they informed him that the Algerines had received large 
reinforcements, and were about to attack him on the succeeding day. 
Bourmont however paid no attention to their declarations, and gave no 
orders in consequence of them, although it was evident from the 
increase in the number of their tents that a considerable addition 
had been made to the force of his enemies.

On the day after the French had effected their landing, all the 
Algerine troops except those which were necessary to guard the city 
and the fortifications in its vicinity, were collected under the 
Aga's immediate command, at his camp of Sidi Khalef; on the morning 
of the 18th, the contingent of Oran also arrived, accompanied by a 
number of Arabs who had joined them on the way. Thus strengthened, 
and encouraged by the inactivity of the French, which he attributed 
probably to want of resolution, Ibrahim determined to make a 
desperate attack upon their lines, calculating that if he could 
succeed in throwing them into confusion, it would afterwards be easy 
to destroy them in detail. For this purpose he divided his army into 
two columns, which are supposed to have consisted of about twenty 
thousand men each; the right column under Achmet Bey of Constantina 
was destined to attack Loverdo's division, which occupied the left or 
northern side of the French position; the other column was to be led 
by Ibrahim in person, with Abderrahman Bey of Tittery as his 
lieutenant, against the right division of the invaders, under 
Berthezéne.

At day break on the morning of the 19th, the Algerines appeared 
before the lines of the French, who were however found drawn up, and 
ready to receive them; the attack was commenced by the Arab cavalry 
and Moorish regular troops intermingled, who rushed forward rending 
the air with their cries, and endeavored to throw down the _chevaux 
de frise_. The French reserved their fire, until the assailants were 
near, and then opening their batteries poured forth a shower of grape 
shot, which made great havoc in the ranks of the Algerines. Nothing 
daunted however, the Moors and Arabs continued to pull up, and break 
down the _chevaux de frise_, until they had gained entrances within 
the lines; the action was then continued hand to hand, the keen sabre 
of the African opposed to the rigid bayonet of the European. In this 
situation there was less inequality between the parties engaged, and 
the issue of the combat became doubtful. Berthezéne's division 
however repulsed its assailants, and kept them at bay; that of 
Loverdo was wavering when Bourmont appeared on the ground, followed 
by a part of the reserved corps. He soon restored order in the ranks, 
and having formed Loverdo's division together with the reserve into a 
close column, he ordered them to advance against their opponents. 
Achmet's forces were immediately driven into a ravine where the 
artillery of the French having been brought to bear upon them, they 
were after a few ineffectual attempts to regain the height, thrown 
into disorder. Ibrahim's men seeing this also lost their courage, and 
the route of the Africans became general. The French had on the field 
only seventeen horses which were attached to the artillery; as the 
Algerines could not therefore be pursued very closely they were 
enabled to form again in front of their camp at Sidi Khalef; but they 
were likewise driven from this position, and followed for some 
distance beyond it, where the ground being less favorable for 
cavalry, great numbers of their men fell into the power of the 
invaders. Bourmont had issued orders to spare the prisoners, but his 
troops irritated at the barbarities which had been so frequently 
committed on their companions, disregarded the injunction and put to 
death nearly every Algerine whom they could reach. A few Arabs who 
were made prisoners, on being asked respecting the forces and 
intentions of their General, haughtily bade the French to kill and 
not to question them. The number of French slain in this engagement 
according to the official reports, amounted to fifty-seven, and of 
wounded to four hundred and sixty-three; but little reliance can be 
placed on the exactness of Bourmont's published accounts, and there 
is good reason for supposing that his loss was much more serious. The 
destruction of life among the Algerines was very great; they also 
left their camp of four hundred tents, together {219} with a large 
supply of ammunition, sheep and camels, in the hands of their 
enemies.

The results of this action were highly important to the French, and 
indeed it rendered their success certain. The Arabs began to 
disappear, and the Turkish and Moorish soldiers retreated to the 
city, from which it was not easy to bring them again to the field; 
symptoms of insurrection among the populace also manifested 
themselves. In this situation, it has been considered possible that 
had Bourmont advanced immediately upon Algiers, the Dey would have 
found it necessary to capitulate; there was however no reason to 
believe that the disaffection would extend to the garrisons of the 
fortresses, and the city could not have been reduced while they held 
out.

On the 23d the vessels from Palma began to come in; the horses were 
immediately landed, and two small corps of cavalry were added to the 
troops encamped at Sidi Khalef. The fortifications of the peninsula 
were also by this time completed, a line of works fifteen hundred 
yards in length, having been drawn across the neck, and armed with 
twenty-four pieces of cannon; by this means the whole of the land 
forces were rendered disposable, as two thousand men principally 
taken from the _equipage de ligne_[3] of the fleet, were considered 
sufficient for the security of the place. The provisions, &c. were 
all landed, and placed within the lines, in temporary buildings which 
had been brought in detached pieces from France; comfortable 
hospitals were likewise established there, together with bakeries, 
butcheries, and even a printing office, from which the _Estafette d' 
Alger_, a semi-official newspaper, was regularly issued. The 
communications between Sidi Ferruch and the camp, were facilitated by 
the construction of a military road, defended by redoubts and 
blockhouses placed at short intervals on the way.

[Footnote 3: A certain number of young men are annually chosen by lot 
in France, for the supply of the army and navy, in which they are 
required to serve eight years. Those intended for the navy, are sent 
to the dockyards, where they are drilled as soldiers, and instructed 
in marine exercises for some time before they are sent to sea. The 
crew of each public vessel must contain a certain proportion of those 
soldier sailors, who are termed the _equipage de ligne_.]

The Algerines encouraged by the delay of the French, rallied and made 
another attack upon them at Sidi Khalef early on the morning of the 
24th. On this occasion but few Arabs and Kabyles appeared, and the 
action was sustained on the side of the Algerines, almost entirely by 
the Turks, the Moorish regulars, and the militia of the city, who had 
been at length induced to leave its walls. The assailants were spread 
out on a very extended line, which was immediately broken by the 
advance of the first division of the French army, with a part of the 
second in close column. A few discharges of artillery increased the 
confusion; the Algerines soon began to fly, and were pursued to the 
foot of the last range of hills which separated them from the city. 
On the summit of one of these heights, were the ruins of the Star 
Fort, which had been some years before destroyed, "because it 
commanded the Casauba, and consequently the city;" it was however 
used as a powder magazine, and the Africans on their retreat, fearing 
lest it should fall into the hands of the French, blew it up. The 
loss of men in this affair was trifling on each side. The only French 
officer dangerously wounded was Captain Amédée de Bourmont, the 
second of four sons of the General who accompanied him on the 
expedition; he received a ball in the head, while leading his company 
of Grenadiers to drive a body of Turks from a garden in which they 
had established themselves, and died on the 7th of July.

While this combat was going on, the remainder of the vessels from 
Palma, nearly three hundred in number, entered the bay of Sidi 
Ferruch. Their arrival determined Bourmont not to retire to his camp 
at Sidi Khalef, but to establish his first and second divisions five 
miles in advance of that spot, in the valley of Backshé-dere, so that 
the road might be completed, and the heavy artillery be brought as 
soon as landed to the immediate vicinity of the position on which it 
was to be employed. The third division was distributed between the 
main body and Sidi Ferruch, in order to protect the communications. 
This advantage was however dearly purchased; for during the four days 
passed in this situation, the French suffered greatly from the 
Algerine sharp-shooters, posted above them on the heights, and from 
two batteries which had been established on a point commanding the 
camp. In this way Bourmont acknowledges that seven hundred of his men 
were rendered unfit for duty within that period; he does not say how 
many were killed.

The necessary arrangements having been completed, and several 
battering pieces brought up to the rear of the French camp, Bourmont 
put his forces in motion before day on the 29th of June. Two brigades 
of d'Escar's division which had hitherto been little employed, were 
ordered to advance to the left and turn the positions of the 
Algerines on that side; on the right the same duty was to be 
performed by a part of Berthezéne's division, while Loverdo was to 
attack the enemy in the centre. They proceeded in silence, and having 
gained the summits of the first eminences unperceived, directed a 
terrible fire of artillery upon the Algerines, who having only small 
arms to oppose to it were soon thrown into confusion and put to 
flight. The Moors and Turks took refuge in the city and the 
surrounding fortifications, while the Arabs and Kabyles escaped along 
the seashore on the southeast, towards the interior of the country.

The French had now only to choose their positions from investing 
Algiers, which with all its defences lay before them. Besides the 
Casauba and batteries of the city, they had to encounter four 
fortresses. On the southeastern side near the sea, half a mile from 
the walls was Fort Babazon, westward of which, and one mile southward 
from the Casauba, was the Emperor's castle, presenting the most 
formidable impediment to the approach of the invaders. This castle 
was a mass of irregular brick buildings, disposed nearly in a square, 
the circumference of which was about five hundred yards. From the 
unevenness of the ground on which it was built, its walls were in 
some places sixty feet high, in others not more than twenty; they 
were six feet in thickness, and flanked by towers at the angles, but 
unprotected by a ditch or any outworks, except a few batteries which 
had been hastily thrown up on the side next the enemy. In the centre 
rose a large round tower of great height and strength, forming the 
keep or citadel, under which were the vaults containing the powder. 
On its ramparts were mounted {220} one hundred and twenty large 
cannon, besides mortars and howitzers, and it was defended by fifteen 
hundred Turks well acquainted with the use of artillery, under the 
command of the Hasnagee or Treasurer who had promised to die rather 
than surrender. As it overlooked the Casauba and the whole city, it 
was clear that an enemy in possession of this spot and provided with 
artillery, could soon reduce the place to dust; but it was itself 
commanded in a like manner, by several heights within the distance of 
a thousand yards, which were in the hands of the French. The next 
fortress was the Sittit Akoleit or _Fort of twenty-four hours_, half 
a mile north of the city; and lastly a work called the English fort 
was erected on the seashore near Point Pescada, a headland about 
one-third of the way between Algiers and Cape Caxine. The object of 
the French was to reduce the Emperor's castle as soon as possible, 
and in the mean time to confine the Algerines within their walls as 
well as to prevent them from receiving succors. For the latter 
purposes, it was necessary to extend their lines much more than would 
have been compatible with safety, in presence of a foe well 
acquainted with military science; trusting however to the ignorance 
and fears of his enemies, Bourmont did not hesitate to spread out his 
forces, even at the risk of having one of his wings cut off by a 
sudden sortie. Loverdo in consequence established his division on a 
height within five hundred yards of the Emperor's castle; Berthezéne 
changed his position from the right to the centre, occupying the 
sides of mount Boujereah the heights immediately west of the city; 
while d'Escars on the extreme left, overlooked the Sittit Akoleit, 
and the English fort. These positions were all taken before two 
o'clock in the day.

On the right of Berthezéne's corps, was the country house in which 
the foreign consuls were assembled under the flag of the United 
States. As its situation gave it importance, General Achard who 
commanded the second brigade determined to occupy it, and even to 
erect a battery in front of it. Major Lee the _Commander in Chief_ of 
the consular garrison, formally protested against his doing either, 
maintaining that the flag which waved over the spot rendered it 
neutral ground. The French General did not seem much inclined to 
yield to this reasoning; but when it was also alleged that the 
erection of the battery would draw the fire of the Algerine forts 
upon the house, in which a number of females were collected, as well 
as the representatives of several nations friendly to France, he 
agreed to dispense with the execution of that part of his order, but 
his soldiers were quartered on the premises, and his officers 
received at the table of the consuls. The latter were, as might have 
been expected, polished and gallant men; the soldiers were very 
unruly, and by no means merited the praises which have been bestowed 
on their moderation and good conduct, in the despatches of their 
commander and the accounts of the historians.

The night of the 29th passed without any attack on the lines of the 
French. Before morning the engineers under Valazé had opened a trench 
within five hundred yards of the Emperor's castle, and various 
country houses situated in the vicinity of that fortress, were armed 
with heavy pieces and converted into batteries. As soon as this was 
perceived from the castle, a fire was opened upon the laborers; but 
they were already too well protected by the works which had been 
thrown up, and few of the balls took effect. A sortie was next made 
by the garrison, and for a moment they succeeded in occupying the 
house of the Swedish Consul, in which a French corps had been 
stationed; they were however immediately driven out, and forced to 
retire to their own walls.

In order to divert the attention of the Algerines during the progress 
of the works, false attacks were made on their marine defences by the 
ships of the French squadron. On the 1st of July Admiral Rosamel, 
with a portion of the naval force, passed across the entrance of the 
bay, and opened a fire on the batteries, which after some time was 
returned. Not the slightest damage appears to have been received by 
either party, the French keeping, as the Admiral says, "à grande 
portée de canon," that is to say, _nearly_ out of the reach of the 
fire of the batteries; one bomb is stated to have fallen in the 
vicinity of Rosamel's ship. The effect of this movement not answering 
the expectations of the French, as it did not induce the Algerines to 
suspend their fires on the investing force, it was determined that a 
more formidable display should be made. Accordingly on the 3d, 
Admiral Duperré made his appearance before the place, with seven sail 
of the line, fifteen frigates, six bomb vessels, and two steamers. 
The frigate Belloné which led the way, approached the batteries and 
fired on them, as she passed with much gallantry; the other ships 
kept farther off, and as they came opposite the Mole, retired beyond 
the reach of the guns, where they continued for some hours, during 
which each party poured tons of shot harmless into the sea. As the 
Admiral states in his despatch, "none of his ships suffered any 
apparent damage, or notable less of men," except from the usual 
"bursting of a gun on board the Provence, by which ten were killed 
and fifteen wounded."

The high character for courage and skill which Admiral Duperré has 
acquired by his long and distinguished services, precludes the 
possibility of imagining that there could have been any want of 
either of those qualities on his part in this affair. Indeed he would 
have been most blameable had he exposed his ships and men to the fire 
of the fortresses which extend in front of Algiers, at a period when 
the success of the expedition was certain. The "moral effect" of 
which the Admiral speaks in his despatch, might have been produced to 
an equal or greater extent, by the mere display of the forces in the 
bay; the only physical result of the cannonade, was the abandonment 
of some batteries, on Point Pescada, which were in consequence 
occupied by d'Escar's forces. The whole attack if it may be so 
termed, was probably only intended to repress any feelings of 
jealousy which may have arisen in the minds of the naval officers and 
men, by thus affording them at least an ostensible right to share 
with the army the glory of reducing Algiers.




BAI.


Bai was the Egyptian term for the branch of the Palm-tree. Homer says 
that one of Diomede's horses, Phœnix, was of a palm-color, which is a 
bright red. It is therefore not improbable that our word _bay_ as 
applied to the color of horses, may boast as remote an origin as the 
Egyptian Bai.


{221}


THE CLASSICS.


Amid the signs of the times in the present age--fruitful in change if 
not of improvement,--we have observed with pain not only a growing 
neglect of classical literature, but continued attempts on the part 
of many who hold the public ear to cast contempt on those studies 
which were once considered essential to the scholar and the 
gentleman, which formed such minds as Bacon's and Milton's, and which 
afforded the most delightful of occupations to the leisure of a 
Newton and a Leibnitz. In every age there has been a class of men who 
from a depravity of taste, or else a passion for singularity, have 
maligned all that is ancient or venerable. And sometimes with a 
strange perversity of purpose, we see men wasting their opportunities 
in a mischievous ridicule of useful pursuits which they might have 
advanced and illustrated to the benefit of themselves and mankind. 
Thus the seventeenth century, deeply imbued as it was with the spirit 
of classical inquiry and the love of ancient literature, gave birth 
to a Scarron and a Cotton, of whom the latter particularly was fitted 
for higher pursuits, and the former perhaps worthy of a better fate. 
But if in a spirit of indulgence for misguided genius we pardon the 
offence of their jest for its wit, and feel that in so doing we are 
involuntarily paying that tribute which is due to talent even when 
misapplied, let us beware of extending the same indulgence to those 
who from ignorance undervalue pursuits which they cannot appreciate, 
or to those who contemn like the fox in the fable, objects which they 
have vainly sought to obtain, or worse than all, to those who have no 
better motive for their censure than the wish to pilfer without 
detection, from the rich stores of those whom they have banished from 
the public eye, and driven from their rightful abodes in public 
recollection by a course of systematised slander. It would perhaps be 
unjust to say that the opposers of the ancient and learned 
universities of England, who have chiefly wrought the evil influence 
upon English literature to which we have been alluding, belong all of 
them to one of these three classes, but that many of them may be 
ranked with the last we cannot doubt, when we see what things they 
often send forth to the world as _their own_, and this too with an 
air of the greatest pretension. That some of these persons were 
actuated by better motives we must admit when we trace to its origin 
the history of this partially successful war against classical 
studies. The two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, those ancient 
abodes of learning, to a certain degree undoubtedly deserved the 
reproach of lagging behind the march of mind, in denying to modern 
literature the share of attention to which it was justly entitled. 
Absorbed in explorations of the past, and wedded to the love of 
antiquity in all their associations, they sought literature in her 
earliest haunts, and delighted most in their olden walks, which they 
loved for the very frequency with which they had trodden them. The 
system of study which had trained so many of their sons to eminence, 
seemed to them the best, and they were too slow in moulding its forms 
to the progress of science. It was endeared to them not only from the 
nature of its pursuits, but from past success, and it was no mean 
ambition which stimulated their sons to tread in the paths which a 
Bacon or a Clarendon, a Newton or a Locke, had trodden before them. 
And yet a little reflection should have taught them that if these 
glorious models of human excellence had left science where they found 
it, their reputations had never existed. A fierce opposition at 
length sprung up to a system of study so narrow and exclusive,--the 
growing wants of education demanded a university in London, which 
project was opposed by many of the friends of the old institutions. 
The elements of a party thus formed, were soon combined, and as the 
controversy waxed warmer, they attacked not only the venerable 
temples of learning, but the very study of the ancient languages 
itself, at first, perhaps, because the most celebrated abodes of this 
species of literature were to be found in the universities to which 
they had become inimical. Like every other literary controversy for 
some time past in England, this question connected itself with the 
party politics of the day, and thus many changed sides on the 
literary, that they might be together on the political question. 
Strange as it may seem, it has been for some time a reproach against 
the English that the Tories would not encourage the Whig literature, 
and vice versâ. No reader of the British periodicals for the last 
twenty years can have failed to remark this fact, which serves to 
account for the progress of the literary heresy which has already 
done so much to degrade English literature and to deprave the tastes 
of those who read only the English language. We shall not pause to 
inquire further into the effects produced by this illicit connexion 
between politics and literature in England, although it presents a 
highly interesting subject of inquiry, and one which must deeply 
occupy much of the attention of the historian who may hope hereafter 
to give an accurate account either of the political or literary 
condition of that country for many years past. Neither is it our 
purpose to arraign at the bar of public opinion those who have 
draggled the sacred "_peplon_" itself in the vile mire of party 
politics, although we sincerely believe that they will have a heavy 
account to settle with posterity for this unhallowed connexion. We 
merely allude to it by way of pointing out one of the causes of the 
heresy which we mean to combat, from the belief that it is 
mischievous, and the more especially as it diverts public attention 
from the particular want of American literature. Unhappily our 
reading in this country is chiefly confined to the English novelists 
and the periodicals of the day, from which we derive a contempt for 
the lofty and venerable learning of antiquity, and a belief that 
instead of too little, we bestow too much attention upon classical 
literature in America! That the novelists and trash manufacturers of 
the reviews should foster this opinion is not at all surprising, for 
they find their account in it. And yet it stirs the bile within us 
when we see a paltry novelist who cannot frame his tale without 
borrowing his plot, or conduct his dialogue without theft, affect to 
despise the study of those authors whom he robs without any other 
restraint than the fear of detection; or when we hear them offer to 
substitute their lucubrations for the writings of the great masters 
of antiquity--men who put forth opinions upon the most difficult 
questions in moral or physical science, and support them only by a 
dogmatism which would look down all opposition and frown upon any 
inquiry into the grounds of their doctrines, who, like Falstaff, will 
give no reasons for their moral or political opinions, and yet 
insinuate by their {222} air of pretension that they are "plenty as 
blackberries"--sciolist novelists who doubt what is believed by all 
the most intelligent of their race, and believe what no other persons 
but themselves can be brought to believe--men who insinuate their 
superiority over the great models of the human race by affecting to 
despise whatever they have offered to the public view and modestly 
intimating their reliance upon their own superior resources. Problems 
in morals and politics which have filled with doubts and difficulties 
the minds of Bacon or Locke, of Montesquieu or Grotius, are now 
settled at a stroke of the pen by our novelist philosophers. Nothing 
is more common than to see the solution of some one of them by the 
dandy hero of some fashionable novel, who, sauntering from the dance 
to the coterie of philosophers in blue, solves the difficulty _en 
passant_, and fearing that this trifling occupation of so mighty a 
genius may attract attention, then hastens to divert public 
observation from his sage aphorism and impromptu philosophy by 
flirting with his friend's wife or playing with his poodle. The 
conception of a costume is the only occupation worthy of his fancy, 
and the composition of a dish the only subject which he would have 
the world to think capable of tasking his powers of attention and 
reflection; and yet all the learning of all the schools is shamed by 
the display of this literary _faineant_ who acquired his knowledge 
without study, whilst inspiration only can account for the wisdom 
with which he is instinct. A nation has groaned through long 
centuries of almost hopeless bondage--the clank of a people in chains 
is heard from the Emerald isle--a cry of distress fills the air--a 
mighty orator, an O'Connell, arises before them, filling the public 
mind with agitation and pointing the way to revenge. In the energy of 
despair a portion of the captives have broken their manacles--they 
rush to liberate their fellows--the air is full of their cry for 
revenge--the conclave of Europe's wisest statesmen is at fault--a 
king trembles on his throne--and what, gentle reader, do you suppose 
is to be the result of these mighty throes and convulsions? why, just 
nothing, literally nothing at all. A Countess of Blessington surveys 
the scene from afar; reclining on an Ottoman, beneath a cloud of 
aromatic odors she recollects the subject of conversation at her last 
"soiree;" the idea flits across her brain with a gentle pang as it 
flies, that the energy of O'Connell is becoming exceedingly vulgar, 
and that the convulsions of a revolution so near her would be 
extremely trying to her nerves, not to mention those of Messrs. 
Bulwer and D'Israeli. Her resolution is taken, and at spare intervals 
between morning visits and soirees, she writes the "_Repealers_," 
which is at once to settle the agitations of a kingdom, and 
annihilate O'Connell himself. She has no sooner finished, than 
washing her hands "forty times in soap and forty in alkali," she 
despatches the production to Mr. Bulwer, who looking upon the work 
pronounces it good; and lo! the succeeding number of the New Monthly 
shall teach you the wonderful virtues of the moral medicaments which 
come from the Countess of Blessington's specific against Irish 
agitation. But who is Mr. Bulwer himself? for in this age so 
wonderful for accomplishing great ends by little means, it has become 
necessary to know him. Why a literary magician, a sprite of Endor, 
who by the potency of his charm conjures up the spirits of the mighty 
dead. Evoked by him the departed prophets arise. A Peter the Great, 
and a Bolingbroke, a Pope and a Swift, not to mention others of 
somewhat lesser note, come forth and speak at his command as once 
they spoke. The departed oracles of English literature are no longer 
mute. But the visits of the dead are of necessity short. They have no 
time now for such chit-chat as some may suspect they have hazarded 
whilst living. They come on a mission of importance which they have 
barely time to accomplish. The hidden secrets of policy are to be 
revealed, mightly oracles in philosophy and criticism are to be 
declared. Truths fall like hailstones, and wit descends in showers. 
But lo! what figure is that which stalks across the scene and comes 
to take his part in this play of phantasmagoria with which we have 
just been entertained. Does he belong to the land of shadows or the 
world of reality? "Under which king, Bezonian, speak or die." It is 
an impersonation of the mental and moral qualities of Mr. Edward 
Lytton Bulwer himself, not a prophet--but more than a prophet. The 
"most wonderful wonder of wonders." Pope and Swift are overpowered by 
his wit. The star of Bolingbroke pales before the superior effulgence 
of this luminary, and Peter the Great, mute in astonishment, stands 
"_erectis auribus_" to catch the oracles of government which flow 
from the godlike man. The scene changes--whither doth he go? He 
seizes the reins of government, he retrieves the affairs of a mighty 
empire by way of recreating a mind exhausted with the play of its 
mighty passions, and then wearied with the amusement, he turns in 
quest of other pursuits. The rule of an empire and the affairs of 
this world are objects too petty for the employment of his mind; he 
looks for some higher subject, and finds it in himself--the only 
subject in creation vast enough to fill the capacity of his spirit. 
He communes with the stars--he talks to the "TOEN," and the "TOEN" 
replies to him, and finally, big with his mighty purpose he achieves 
the task of writing "his confessions." And as my lord Peter concocted 
a dish containing the essence of all things good to eat, so this book 
is full of something that is exquisite from every department of 
thought. Such are the books which have displaced the writings of the 
masters of antiquity and the old household books of the English 
tongue. You may not take up a review or periodical now-a-days, but it 
shall teach you the folly of bestowing your time upon the study of 
the ancients, now that their writings afford so much that is more 
worthy of attention. Alas! that such should be the priesthood who 
administer the rites in the temple of English literature--the money 
changer has indeed entered the temple, when those who write for money 
come in to expel all who have written for fame. How often does it 
happen now-a-days that the writer of a bawdy novel, derives 
reputation enough from that circumstance, to assume the chair of 
criticism, and exposing a front of hardened libertinism to the scorn 
of the good and the contempt of the wise, avails himself of his 
situation to frown down every attempt to resuscitate our decaying 
literature, by the introduction of better models, and to restore 
health to the public taste, which this very censor has contributed to 
deprave? There is no more common occupation with such a man than the 
correction of the errors of the most illustrious statesmen and 
philosophers in magazine articles of some six or eight pages; the 
French revolution is the {223} favorite theme of his lofty 
speculations, and Napoleon's the only character which he will exert 
himself to draw. With how much of the lofty contempt of a superior 
spirit does he speak of the labors of a Bentley, a Porson, a Parr, or 
an Elmsley; of a Gessner, a Brunck, a Heyne, a Schweihauser or a 
Wolffe. The anxious labors, for years, of such men as those go for 
nothing with him--they serve only to excite his scorn, or else afford 
him the favorite subjects of his ridicule. With the ingratitude of a 
malignant spirit, or the coarseness of ignorance, he reviles the 
self-denying students who may be truly said to have renounced the 
world in their enthusiastic search after the buried lore of 
antiquity--men who have paled before the midnight lamp in their 
ceaseless efforts to penetrate the obscurity of the past--lonely 
eremites, who feed the lamps that cast their dim light on the votive 
offerings which antiquity has laid upon the altar of knowledge--men 
who have dwelt apart from their race and denied themselves the common 
pleasures of life, that they might without distraction restore the 
decaying temple of ancient literature, and recover for the use of 
their own and future generations, treasures which else had been 
buried and forgotten; who have lived in the past until they have 
imbibed its spirit, and return like travellers full of the wisdom of 
unknown lands, and rich with the accumulated experience of past ages 
to shower their treasures and their blessings upon the ungrateful 
many who despise them for their labors and taunt them for their 
gifts, that they too may learn what a thing it is to cast pearls 
before swine; and who, superior to the unmerited scorn of this world, 
and to all the temptations of its grovelling pleasures, meekly bear 
their ill treatment with no other emotion than the fear that the 
benefits thus painfully acquired and freely bestowed, may turn out to 
be coals of fire which they have been heaping upon unthankful heads. 
And are men who labor for such objects as these to be ridiculed as 
looking to things too small, because they sojourned so long in the 
gloom of past ages, that their optics have been enlarged to discern 
not only the mouldering monument, but the smallest eft that crawls 
upon it? Shall they be taunted because they have learned to live in 
mute companionship with their books, and like the lonely prisoner, 
love objects which to others may seem inconsiderable, but are 
endeared to them by all the force of a long association, whose chain 
is interwoven link by link with the memory of their past? And if, 
like Old Mortality, they love to restore each mouldering monument, 
and retrace every time-worn inscription that may serve to renew their 
silent communion with the hallowed and dreamy past, surely the 
occupation may be pardoned, if not for its uses to others, at least 
for the quiet affection and sweet enthusiasm of the dream which it 
serves to awaken in the mind which is busy in the employment. But the 
utilitarian spirit of the present age is ever ready to measure the 
value of these pursuits by that pecuniary standard which alone it 
uses. What are their fruits? Will they move spinning jennies or 
propel boats? are they known on 'Change? how do they stand in the 
prices current, and in what way will they put money in the purse? 
Strangely as this may sound in the ears of those who love knowledge 
for itself and its spiritual uses, and absurd as these things would 
have appeared to the literary world a century ago, we much fear that 
we must return answers to them satisfactory, in part, at least, 
before we can even obtain an attentive hearing to what we shall say 
of their higher excellences. It is true that classical attainments 
are in few instances the objects of pecuniary speculation, nor is it 
our purpose to hold out temptations to literary simony to those who, 
insensible of the peace which the love of knowledge sheds abroad in 
the human heart, would hope to sell or purchase that precious gift, 
for mere money. If this were the only end which the student had in 
view, we should regret to see him perverting to unworthy purposes the 
sacred means to higher ends. To such a man learning has no 
temptations to offer, for its best rewards he can never obtain 
without a change of heart. We can no more unite the love of knowledge 
and of Mammon than serve the two masters spoken of in Scripture. It 
is the rare excellency of this holy taste that it releases us from 
servitude to the unworthy desires which are too apt to fill the minds 
of those who have never known what it was to thirst after the waters 
of truth. It is indeed the redeeming spirit of the human mind, which 
casts out the evil passions by which it had been possessed and torn. 
But there is a class of students burning for distinction and 
ambitious of eminence rather than wisdom, to whom we would appeal 
under the hope that in the pursuit of their own lesser ends they will 
cultivate tastes which may serve to awaken them to the more precious 
uses of knowledge. If then we can show these that the study of the 
ancient languages affords not only an admirable, but perhaps the best 
exercise for training tender minds into healthful habits of thought 
and reflection, that in looking to an economy of the time which 
measures the little span of human life, it is the pursuit in which 
the youthful mind can do most in acquiring human knowledge, we shall 
at least hold out strong temptations to these studies, even to those 
hasty and incautious inquirers who reject every thing for which they 
have no present use. But if we go farther, and demonstrate that the 
man who would thoroughly understand modern literature, must seek its 
foundations in that of the ancients,--that the poet and philosopher, 
the orator and statesman, who would train his mind to a successful 
pursuit of his favorite object, must look to the great masters of 
antiquity for the best models of his art, surely we shall persuade 
him to apply the means which a knowledge of the dead languages 
affords him, to the study of the literature which they embody. And 
shall he pause here in his career? is it to be supposed that he will 
still look to knowledge only for the earthly honors which it will 
enable him to obtain when he has in view the higher rewards which the 
love of truth has within itself? Will he be content with the narrow 
horizon which first bounded his prospect when he has taken a more 
elevated view of creation? Feeling that every sensible addition which 
his knowledge makes to his wisdom is another link by which he mounts 
in the chain of spiritual existence, he will lose the original ends 
for which he was laboring in the nobler objects which unfold 
themselves to his mind. He learns to disregard what men may say of 
him, sustained by the proud consciousness of what he is. And like the 
mariner who has become weary of coasting adventures, he boldly puts 
forth to sea in quest of that unknown land which his spirit has seen 
in its dreams. These are the higher uses of the pursuit of knowledge, 
and although we are far from asserting that classical {224} studies 
are the only pursuits that are thus rewarded, yet we will hazard the 
assertion, that there are none more eminently fitted for 
strengthening the human mind and elevating its character.

But to return to the first position which we have taken as to the 
peculiar fitness of this pursuit for the early employment of the 
human mind. It is something in its favor, that for centuries past, 
until of late, there has been nearly a common assent amongst literary 
men that the study of the ancient languages affords the best exercise 
for the youthful mind,--an opinion so old and so prevalent, must have 
had at least some foundation in truth. Indeed, when we come to look 
at the nature of the system of training necessary for the youthful 
mind, we cannot long doubt the fitness of these pursuits for that 
end. There is no period, but boyhood, of a man's life at which he 
would submit to the drudgery necessary for training his memory in the 
exercises by which it is most strengthened. It would be difficult to 
induce him to submit to such tasks when he had arrived at a more 
advanced period of life, and taken even a superficial view of the 
more agreeable walks of knowledge. With a boy who stands upon the 
threshold of science, it is far different. Taught that the end in 
view is worthy of all his pains, and that his commencement of the 
pursuit of knowledge must of necessity be difficult, he is as willing 
to seek science through that pass as any other, and the more 
especially as he perceives that the exercises are not beyond his 
strength. In the study of the ancient languages, (the Greek 
especially, because it is more regular than any other) he not only 
finds an improvement in the powers of simple suggestion or mere 
memory, but he is insensibly led to processes of generalization from 
the great saving of labor which he discovers in classification, thus 
burthening his memory with a rule only, instead of the mass of facts 
which the rule serves to recall and connect--an advantage which the 
study of none of the modern languages will afford to the same extent. 
In the difficulties of translation, which occasionally present 
themselves, he is not only forced to reason upon the rules which 
regulated their forms of construction, but often finds it necessary, 
by an examination of the context and subject matter, to ascertain the 
meaning of the author; and thus early learns to consider the logical 
arrangement of propositions and sentences. How often do we find boys 
thus eagerly and earnestly engaged, in inquiring into the customs and 
history of the people whose language they are studying, and reasoning 
upon the motives of action and the characters of men, without being 
conscious of the high nature of their speculations, or that they are 
doing more than translating the meaning of a difficult sentence--thus 
without weariness gradually storing their minds with a knowledge of 
allusions necessary for their future reading, and which in the mass 
would never be acquired by the youthful intellect from the fatiguing 
nature of a study directed to them exclusively. How often do we find 
a lad profitably engaged in metaphysical inquiries and nice 
calculations of human motives at a time when works exclusively 
devoted to these subjects would only serve to weary and disgust him. 
The youthful mind is thus trained to the capacity of undergoing the 
severest processes of thought and reasoning by a system of occasional 
and gentle exercise which amuses without wearying or breaking its 
spirit. There are certain advantages peculiar to the study of that 
most wonderful of all languages, the Greek, in the culture of the 
youthful mind. They are to be found in the regular forms of 
compounding their words, and in the almost invariable applicability 
of rules to its modes of expression. In tracing a compound word to 
its root, the mind is insensibly forced to trace the compound 
emotions of the human mind to their source through the seemingly 
hidden links of the chain of association which are almost pointed out 
one by one in the varying terminations of the radical as it branches 
out into its many different shades of signification. What boy of 
tolerable capacity could turn to a root in Scapula's Lexicon, with a 
view of its various compounds, without tracing (often unconsciously 
it is true) the simple to the compound emotions of the human mind 
through that chain of association which may be deemed necessary and 
invariable, since not only the simple, but also the compound emotions 
and perceptions are to be found in every human mind? How could he 
fail to acquire a knowledge of the cognate ideas of the mind with 
this ocular reference to their connexion before him? He thus learns 
the kindred ideas which the expression of certain given ideas will 
call up, he begins to know how to marshal the host under their 
leader, he perceives the true force of expression which belongs to 
words, and traces much of the progress of human thought by means of 
the land-marks which this regularly formed language indicates to the 
inquirer. He perceives the modes by which the ancient masters of 
style in this language learned to express with precision the most 
abstract of ideas, and as it were, to transfer to paper almost every 
shadow which flits through the human mind. Penetrating to the truth, 
through the metaphysical and logical construction of this language, 
that style consists more in the arrangement of ideas than words, he 
acquires rules which he may transfer to his own language, and thus 
increase its capacities of expression, at the same time that he may 
often improve the beauty of its form without impairing its strength. 
No man ever acquired a thorough knowledge of the Greek without having 
in the course of his progress penetrated often and far into the walks 
of philology and metaphysics. As no philologist has ever arrived at 
eminence without an attentive study of this language, so perhaps it 
will not be going too far to say that without it, none ever will. 
They were thus trained--the great masters of the English language who 
have improved its construction and added so much to its beauty and 
strength. The greatest and most sudden improvement which has ever 
been wrought at any one period in the English language, certainly 
took place in the reign of Elizabeth, and yet every page, nay, almost 
every line of the great authors of that day, betrays a constant and 
studied reference to the models of antiquity. Next to them, and 
pre-eminent as a reformer in our language, stands Milton, who was 
trained in the same studies, and whose marvellous power over language 
has never been sufficiently considered in the attention which is 
bestowed upon his genius. Perhaps no other man ever effected such a 
change in the construction of a language, or did so much to reform 
it. It has been well said that his construction was essentially 
Greek. He only possessed the wonderful power of transferring the 
construction of one language to another, dissimilar in its origin and 
forms, and of transfusing as {225} it were an old spirit into a new 
body. Profoundly versed in written and spoken languages, he was yet 
more a master of the language of thought and feeling, and was thus 
able to improve the arrangement of the groupes and to touch with a 
more natural coloring and living expression the forms by which we had 
sought to embody our ideas. And what was the chosen model of that 
mighty genius, whose language may be said to mirror thought, if that 
of any other English author can be said to paint it? The Greek! the 
immortal Greek! which surviving the institutions and national 
existence of its people, stands forth like the Parthenon itself, and 
defies the genius of all other nations in all succeeding ages to 
produce a structure which shall equal its combinations of strength 
and elegance--a language which even yet justifies the proud boast of 
its creators, that in comparison with them, all other nations are 
barbarous. It is evident from the whole spirit of the writings of 
this immortal man, that he believes in no other Helicon but the 
Greek. If we were called upon to recommend to the reader of English 
literature only the writings which would afford him the best 
substitute for the study of the classics in the improvement of his 
style, we should undoubtedly recommend him to the works of Milton. 
There are several authors since his day, who, trained in the same 
studies, have labored with less effect, it is true, for the same end; 
and indeed it would be difficult to point out a single author who has 
improved the strength and beauty of the English language, without a 
knowledge of the structure and literature of the Greek. There have 
been many who, without this knowledge, have well used the language as 
they found it. But Temple, Tillotson, Addison, Bolingbroke, Warburton 
and Johnson, who have all contributed sensible additions and changes 
to its structure, formed their styles upon ancient models.

We have already adverted to the knowledge of the allusions to the 
ancient mythology acquired by the study of the Greek and Latin 
authors, a knowledge which can only be fully acquired in this mode, 
and which is of inestimable use to the student, not only in 
understanding the writings even of modern times, but in learning to 
write himself. The ardent imagination of the East has produced 
nothing more beautiful than the splendid mythology of the Greeks--a 
mythology which abounds in powerful imagery and poetic conception. 
Perhaps there is nothing so little various as fiction, 
notwithstanding the numerous and repeated efforts at such creations. 
Indeed it would be curious to ascertain how much of the fiction now 
in possession of the human race is of ancient origin, and thus to 
perceive how little would be left if we were to abstract the 
creations of the mythic ages of ancient Greece. Nothing could 
illustrate more strongly the fact that the history of the human heart 
is always the same. We find powerfully portrayed even in the fictions 
of that early day, the intrigues of love and ambition, the vanity of 
earthly hopes, and the warfare of contending passions. There is 
scarcely a feeling which is not pictured in some poetic 
personification which developes its tendencies and nature, and there 
is not a moral of general use in the conduct of life which is not 
illustrated by some well designed and beautiful allegory. It seems to 
have been an early practice with the eastern sages to address the 
reasons of their people through the medium of their ardent and 
susceptible fancies. The Hebrew, the Egyptian and Grecian lawgivers 
and sages, all resorted to it, and truth presented in this attractive 
form has never failed to take a lasting hold upon the public mind. 
Addressing itself in this form most powerfully to the young, because 
their fancies are most susceptible, it cannot fail to make an 
impression at that age when it sinks most deeply in the human mind. 
It is thus that principles of action are instilled into the human 
mind at an age when reason is scarcely yet capable of eliminating the 
true from the false, and the youthful imagination receives an early 
and wholesome excitement from the contemplations of poetic 
conceptions whose simplicity fits them to be received, and whose 
beauty commends them to be loved, by the youthful mind. The most 
powerful, the most beautiful and concise modes of expressing much of 
human feeling and passion, are to be found in the Grecian mythology. 
The true value of an image consists in the conciseness with which it 
expresses the idea that it represents. An image is misplaced and 
useless, no matter how beautiful in itself, if it presents your idea 
in a more tedious and cumbrous form than that in which a few simple 
words would have explained your meaning as well. It is then obviously 
unnecessary, and presents itself to the reader as a mere attempt at 
beauty, which at once recalls him from the subject to the author,--an 
effect which is always unfortunate for the latter. Good imagery, on 
the contrary, offers a glowing picture which at once makes a vivid 
impression upon the mind, accurately representing your meaning, and 
calling up ideas through the force of a necessary and natural 
association, which would not have been otherwise awakened except by 
the use of many more words. Such in an eminent degree is the imagery 
of the mythology of which we have been speaking. Where is the course 
of power without knowledge to guide it, so briefly yet so forcibly 
depicted as in the mad career of Phaeton misguiding the steeds of the 
sun? And what picture so descriptive of the writhings of disappointed 
ambition as that of Prometheus on his rock with the vulture at his 
liver? Tantalus in the stream is an ever living fiction, because it 
borrows the form of Truth when it points to the punishment of him who 
rashly essays to satisfy his thirst for happiness by the 
gratification of unhallowed lusts; and Sisyphus toiling at his stone, 
is the faithful picture of man who vainly confident in his unassisted 
strength seeks to roll the ball of fortune up the slippery eminence. 
What can be more beautiful than that picture of fraternal affection 
which we find in the fable of the sons of Leda--a union of spirit so 
pure that it was typified in the two bright stars which still 
maintain alternate sway in heaven as an everlasting memorial of that 
undying love which married the mortal to the immortal in one common 
destiny. In what other language could Byron have described fallen 
Rome, "the Niobe of nations," than that which he used, the language 
of truth and feeling which is now common to the whole of the 
civilized world, and must be as universally used as known, since it 
embodies the pictured thought and feeling of the human heart. The man 
who neglects this mythic and most beautiful of languages, must be 
content to see himself excelled by those who have studied it, both in 
strength and beauty of expression. Perhaps we do not hazard too much 
in asserting that a knowledge of this mythic language {226} alone (if 
we may call it so,)--a knowledge only to be obtained by reading the 
Greek and Latin authors--would compensate the student for the labor 
bestowed in acquiring those languages. So far we have looked only to 
the advantages to be derived from a mere study of these languages, 
without any reference to the literature which they embody. And if we 
have shown so far that these studies of themselves afford a reward 
for our labors, how much more important will they seem when we 
consider the learning which we shall find in them. But it may be said 
that we promised to show that these studies were not only profitable, 
but the most profitable in which the youthful mind could be engaged; 
and so far we have not redeemed the pledge. To this we reply, that 
the study of natural philosophy by which we comprehend physics and 
morals, and that of languages, afford the only subjects to which the 
mind is directed in books. Now, in relation to the first, we assume 
in common with most of the best thinkers on the subject of education, 
that such studies would serve to weaken the youthful mind by its 
premature exertions under a load as yet beyond its capacity; and with 
regard to the study of other languages than the Greek and Latin, that 
all the advantages to be derived from the mere study of language, 
which the others afford, are also to be had by the classical student, 
whilst the more regular formation and peculiar structure of these two 
ancient languages promise benefits to the youthful mind which are 
peculiar to themselves, or at any rate, much greater in them than in 
any others.

We come now to the second proposition which we laid down, and that 
is, that out of his own language, there are no other two languages 
whose literature holds out as many inducements to the student for 
acquiring them, as that of the Greek and Latin languages, since 
independently of their own worth, these studies are absolutely 
essential to the proper understanding of modern literature as it now 
exists. Surely there could exist no opinion more unfortunate for the 
progress of science, than that which supposes, that a view of science 
as it now exists, is all that is necessary for its thorough 
investigation; indeed, we believe the assertion may be safely 
hazarded, that no one can ever qualify himself for the race of 
discovery who looks alone to what men now think without a reference 
to what they have formerly believed and written upon the subjects of 
his inquiry. Strange as it may seem, the man who would ascertain 
truth, must not confine himself to the simple inquiry of what it is. 
He must also see what men have thought about it. He must look to the 
history of human opinion and the modes of reasoning by which men have 
arrived at their conclusions. He must not only be able to understand 
the results of right reason, but he must learn also to reason for 
himself. It was a perception of this necessity which induced the 
immortal Bacon to turn his attention to the mode of investigating 
truth, rather than to the discovery of truth itself. He perceived 
that it was the most important benefit which could be conferred by 
any man of that day, and the Novum Organon, the most wonderful of 
mere human conceptions, was the result. A view of the different modes 
of reasoning to truth which had been employed before him, a 
comparison of the methods which the most successful philosophers had 
pursued, soon taught him that there was as much in the method used as 
in the genius of the investigator. He who would pursue the path of 
truth, would do well to prepare himself with a guide book made up 
from the experience of former travellers; he will thus learn the 
various roads which intersect his true path, and might be likely to 
put him out, each of which some former pilgrim has taken before him, 
from whose recorded experience he may take warning; or sometimes it 
may happen that whilst the crowd of philosophers have been wandering 
for centuries through a mazy error, the account given by some long 
gone traveller of a partially explored route may lead the happy 
investigator into the true way, and thus forward him on his journey. 
In the progress of truth, which of necessity must be slow and 
cautious, it is important to weigh every step, and every chart should 
be preserved. It was thus that Copernicus, retracing the steps of 
philosophers for two thousand years, discovered in the almost 
forgotten accounts of the writings of Nicetas, Heraclides and 
Ecphontus, traces of a route into which he struck off and was 
conducted to the most brilliant discoveries. It was thus that Galileo 
was conducted to some of his discoveries in hydrostatics by the hints 
of Archimedes. Indeed, how many of the most important discoveries of 
science have thus originated? Had Archimedes and Pappus never 
written, or had they been neglected, the method of tangential lines 
of Fermat and Barrow, approximating so closely as they do to the 
discovery of the differential calculus, had perhaps never existed, 
and to these we must attribute the subsequent important discovery of 
Newton and Leibnitz. Indeed, the whole history of scientific 
discovery is the history of a chain whose links have been forged by 
different men, and fitted at different times. If such be the most 
fortunate mode of scientific discovery, how much do we increase the 
importance of the study of the ancient literature, when we come to 
reflect that the termination of their scientific labors during the 
night of the middle ages, is the point of departure from which all 
modern scientific discovery has emanated. It will at once be 
recollected that at the revival of letters, the only sources of 
information were derived from the study of the ancients revived 
chiefly by Boccacio and the philosophers of the Medici school and 
from the Arabians, whose knowledge was drawn chiefly though at an 
early period from the same source. Notwithstanding the elegant 
rivalry between the Abassides and Ommoiades, which so much fostered 
the spirit of learned inquiry, notwithstanding the resort of the 
Arabian philosophers to the Indian school, and the polite and 
elevated spirit of the Saracen conquerers who offered peace to the 
modern and degenerate Greeks in exchange for their philosophy, it is 
still evident that with the exception of some few discoveries in the 
science of medicine, they were yet far behind the ancients at the 
period of the decay of letters. Ancient science became the text upon 
which modern writings were for ages the commentary, one of its 
languages became the medium of communication between the learned and 
polite of all nations, and no book of science was published for a 
long time except in the Latin. The writings of mathematicians as far 
down as Euler, those in medicine in England as far down as Hunter, 
the writings of Blumenback, of Grotius and Spinoza, the Novum Organon 
of Bacon, and indeed those of nearly all the modern philosophers, 
until the middle of the seventeenth century, {227} were in Latin. In 
Belles Lettres, criticism and rhetoric, in history, physics and 
morals, the models of the moderns were all chosen from antiquity. In 
addition to this too, the progress of Roman arms, and afterwards the 
advance of Roman letters, had incorporated much of the Latin language 
and idiom in all of the polite modern languages except the German. 
The Italian and Spanish in particular have been well called "bastard 
Latin." How then can any student of modern literature only, hope to 
understand the genius of his own language, or even the spirit of that 
literature to which he has devoted himself? What scientific inquirer 
can hope, in any great degree, to forward the march of discovery no 
matter what may be his genius and spirit, if he be without this 
learning? Independently then of the intrinsic value of ancient 
learning, we humbly think that the reasons enumerated by us, suffice 
to prove not only the importance but the absolute necessity of these 
studies to the accomplished scholar and man of science. But we are 
prepared to go further, and maintain that on certain subjects of 
mental inquiry, it still affords the best models extant. In poetry, 
the best models are confessedly ancient. In rhetoric, Aristotle, 
Quinctilian and Horace, have left nothing for modern investigation to 
add upon that subject. But it is in history, oratory, the philosophy 
of government, law and psychology, that the pre-eminence of ancient 
literature is most important to be noticed. We are perfectly aware 
that the history of remote antiquity has for every mind a charm which 
does not belong to the genius or the taste of the historian. Ideas of 
events remote in point of time, whether past or future, always fill 
the mind with a certain degree of awe and uncertainty. A feeling of 
mystery always attends our ideas of what is remote in point of time 
or place. It is on the tale of the traveller from far distant lands 
that we hang with most delight and wonder. Had Columbus discovered 
America within two days voyage of Europe, the tale of his genius had 
been yet untold. So too the mind looks to events long past with an 
awe and wonder akin to those feelings which fill it in its eager gaze 
into futurity. It is this power of association which attaches the 
antiquarian so devotedly to his peculiar study, and so soon converts 
it into a pursuit of feeling rather than of reason. It is the same 
mysterious link which binds the poet to the early customs and history 
of his country, and which lends a charm to the simplest ballad if it 
be ancient, and connects his contemplations with the past. It was the 
same feeling so strong in the human heart which swelled in the breast 
of the indignant old lawgiver when in despite of his formal pursuits 
and fancy-killing studies, he pronounced his rebuke on those who 
ignorantly maligned "that code which has grown grey in the hoar of 
innumerable ages." It is a mighty journey which the human mind takes 
when it is transported from the present to the past. When the mind 
awakes to realize these long-gone scenes, feelings of mingled awe and 
pleasure insensibly possess it. A thousand associations of gloomy 
grandeur attend us as we seem to walk amid the mighty monuments of 
the dead in the silent twilight of past ages. We feel as if we were 
treading the lonely streets of the city of the dead, and lifting the 
pall of ages. We start to find that the mouldering records of man's 
pursuits then told as now, that still eternal tale of empty vanity 
and misbegotten hopes. The ashes of buried cities on which we tread, 
the timeworn records of fallen empires and past greatness, the 
monuments of events yet more remote and faintly discernible in the 
dim distance, seem the too visible memorials of "what shadows we are, 
and what shadows we pursue," and like Crusoe we recoil with wonder 
and fear from _that trace_ of man on the desert shore. The earlier 
the records to which we refer, the more deeply are we struck with the 
wonderful power of our minds which enables us to use the hoarded 
experience of ages and enter into silent communion with the dead, and 
the more sensibly are we impressed by the comparison of the 
imperishable creations of our spiritual nature, with the fading 
glories of our mortal state. We ascend the stream of time as the 
traveller of the Nile in quest of its mysterious sources, and the 
farther we proceed the more wonderful is the view adown that vale of 
ages through which it flows. Behind us, in the dim distance arise the 
dark and impenetrable barriers, whose cloud-capt summits seem to 
point to the heavens as the source of the mysterious river, whilst 
before us flow the dark rolling waves of that wide stream which is to 
bear us too to the mysteries of that land of shadows where we are 
taught to expect an eternal, perhaps an awful home. Fair cities and 
mighty empires arise in momentary show along its shores, and then 
pass away upon its rolling waters. In swift succession the 
generations of man chase each other upon its heaving billows in 
shadowy hosts,--the dim phantasmagoria of our mortal state! And yet 
like shades that wander along the Styx, some memories still live upon 
its silent shore to tell the tale of wrecks and ruins which stud the 
wave-worn banks. Lo! yonder rocky headland around which sweeps the 
swift stream as it stretches into the dark bay where the waters lie 
in momentary repose. How many were the marble palaces, how smiling 
were the gardens which gladdened that once lovely spot. Yon 
mouldering fane that yet clings to the wave-worn rock, was once the 
least amongst ten thousand, and where are they?--Lost in these dark 
waters in whose deep womb are buried the long forgotten glories of 
our mortal race.

From the charm of such associations we do not pretend to be exempt, 
nor do we envy the man who could claim such an exemption. But we are 
free to confess that this circumstance is too apt to disturb the 
judgment in a comparison of the merits of ancient and modern history. 
To a certain extent it may fairly be estimated amongst the advantages 
of the former, for if it gives a greater interest to early history it 
holds out a greater temptation to the ardent prosecution of that 
study. But we do not fear the comparison without such adventitious 
aid, for we maintain that as historians the ancients are still 
unequalled. Of all their histories which have descended to the 
present time, there are none which have not many of the higher 
excellences of historical composition; but it is for Thucydides, 
Tacitus and Plutarchus, the great masters in their respective styles, 
that we challenge modern history to produce the parallels. The 
definition which Diodorus has given of history, "that it is 
philosophy teaching by example," may truly be applied to the writings 
of the two first named historians. Indeed, we have never taken up the 
works of the first without wonder at the rare and philosophical 
temperament which enabled him to conduct his eager search after truth 
without disturbance from those {228} feelings which personal injuries 
and the spirit of party would so naturally have awakened in others 
under the same circumstances. Himself a principal actor in the scenes 
which his page commemorates, his situation and temper alike fitted 
him for conducting his researches in a spirit of truth, a task which 
he accomplished in a manner as yet unrivalled. How deep is the 
devotion to the austere majesty of truth which he displays in his 
masterly preface when he offers up the favorite fictions of his 
nation as a sacrifice upon its altars, and stripping his subject of 
its stolen ornaments, presents it to the world in naked simplicity. 
If historical criticism has become a science in the hands of the 
accomplished Niehbuhr, surely its origin and chief ornament are to be 
found in that noble monument of antiquity. It was no small evidence 
of future greatness which the young Demosthenes gave, in the choice 
of this history as his model. For where could he find the springs of 
government touched with so true a knowledge of their nature, or in 
what book are the actions of man in masses traced to their motives 
and causes with an analysis so searching? If we would trace society 
through the first forms of republican government, and witness its 
agitations under the opposition of those ever living and opposing 
forces the democratic and aristocratic principles, we must look to 
Thucydides. A living witness and a profound observer of the 
unbalanced democracies of ancient Greece, his deep sagacity always 
enabled him to resolve their line of action into the two elementary 
and diverging forces according to their true proportions. As the 
modern astronomer is able to detect even in the course of the most 
erratic comet the resultant of the two opposing forces of the solar 
system, so this profound observer of the human heart was able to 
trace in the madness of revolution, the contests of a more pacific 
policy, and even in the horrors of anarchy, the direction given by 
the two elementary and opposing forces of the social system. Would we 
trace society still further as another combination of these 
elementary forces in different proportions gives its direction in the 
line of despotism, we must turn to the Roman Thucydides--to Tacitus, 
for a true knowledge of the internal machinery which regulates it 
under this form of government. Do we wish to obtain an accurate view 
of the motives which move masses to action? would we investigate man, 
not as an individual, but according to those common qualities of the 
human mind by which we may classify his species and genera, and by 
which only we must consider him if we would rightly estimate the 
effects of circumstances upon masses? Turn to either or to both of 
these historians, whose profound and searching analysis so rarely 
fails of detecting the motives to human action. In both we shall find 
the same deep philosophy, the same careful study of the human heart, 
and the same eagerness to utter truth when clearly conceived, without 
regard to the forms of expression; the great and distinctive 
difference is in the difference of temperament arising perhaps out of 
a difference of situation. The more fiery Roman gives you glowing 
sketches, not pictures--they flow from him with that careless haste 
so indicative of boundless wealth. Each sketch bears within itself 
the evidence of lofty conception, and shows in every line the traces 
of a master's hand whose rapid touch is too busy in embodying the 
forms with which his brain is teeming to waste its energies in those 
minuter cares so necessary for filling out a perfect picture. With 
rapid pencil he leaves perhaps a simple line, but it is the line of 
Apelles--the hand of the master was there. The conceptions of the 
rival Greek, like his, are lofty but more matured, and the same 
careless ease with a somewhat superior elegance, mark his execution. 
His coloring however is milder, and you are never struck with those 
startling contrasts of light and shade so peculiar to the Roman.

The inquirer who would train his mind in those pursuits most 
necessary for the statesman, and, for that reason, seeks an intimate 
knowledge of human nature, would arise from an attentive study of the 
works of these great historians with feelings of pleasure and self 
gratulation. Conscious, that he had acquired much knowledge of man as 
a mere instrument in the hands of the politician, he already begins 
to perceive the rules by which men of sagacity have reckoned with 
much of probability if not of certainty, upon the future actions of 
their fellow beings. But not being yet fully aware of the uses to 
which this knowledge may be applied in directing the affairs of 
society, he is now anxious to inquire into the results of those 
attempts which the great masters of the human race have made, to 
regulate the movements of masses and mould them to their peculiar 
views. He must now turn to Plutarch's superb gallery of portraits of 
the distinguished men of antiquity; he must open that book, which 
oftener than any other, has afforded the favorite subject of the 
early studies of the distinguished statesmen and warriors of all the 
countries to which modern civilization has extended. He will here 
perceive the modes by which his models are trained to greatness, and 
learn to know and estimate the distinctive qualities which have 
elevated their possessors so far above the common mass. His studies 
which heretofore were directed to his fellows will be now turned to 
himself, and a course of self reflection will teach him to exercise 
and improve his strength, and to measure the proportions in which it 
must be applied to the levers which move the ball of public opinion. 
To show that we do not place too high an estimate upon this wonderful 
book, we might simply refer to the internal evidences of its rare 
excellences. But we cannot refrain from offering further proofs, more 
striking at least, if not as strong. It is no small evidence of its 
excellence that it is a book of more general interest than any other 
biography or history extant; that it is amongst the first and the 
last books which we like; its interest taking an early hold upon the 
youthful mind, and continuing through our after life. And the fact is 
not to be forgotten, in choosing the books for such a course of study 
as the one just referred to, that most of the great modern statesmen 
and generals, have bestowed much of their early attention and study 
on this work; for this is some evidence that its pages serve to 
awaken an early love of heroic virtue, and contribute to form the 
habits necessary for its growth and continued existence. In our 
reference to the works of the three authors which we should choose in 
preference to all others of human origin, for the study of human 
nature we have not adverted to the true order in which they should be 
read. The book of biography should precede as well as succeed the 
study of the two historians. We challenge all modern history and 
biography for the production of three parallels to our chosen {229} 
models, whose works can contribute so much to the attainment of this 
particular end. Davila, the favorite of Hampden,--and Guicciardini, 
whom St. John preferred to all modern historians,--have some of the 
excellences of which we have been speaking, but will any one compare 
them to the first? In the English language, Clarendon is the only 
history worthy of the attention of the student in search of an author 
who illustrates the science of human nature by a reference to the 
recorded experience of past generations. The works of Gibbon, Hume 
and Robertson, are admirable for their style and general interest, 
but they take no true views of man (_epistola non erubescit_) as the 
instrument of legislation; they do not present us with that 
impersonation of the common qualities and motives of our nature, 
which alone can be the subject of laws, and whose character only can 
be moulded by the general institutions of society,--in short, with 
that man who is the true subject of the politician's study. Indeed we 
doubt if the historical works of these gentlemen ever were or ever 
will be the favorites of any great and practical statesman,--a test 
which we ask shall be applied to the models which we have chosen. We 
are perfectly aware of what we hazard by such assertions, but safe 
behind our mask, we feel secure from danger.

In the view of the course of study which we have just been surveying, 
we paused at the point where the inquirer having learnt the strength 
and the temper of the various great springs which chiefly influence 
human action, had turned aside to ascertain the best modes of 
handling them by a reference to the experience of those who had 
successfully regulated the machinery of society and effected in its 
movements the particular objects which they had in view. From this 
point, the transition is easy from the history and biography of 
antiquity to its oratory. For where shall we find the springs of 
human action so dexterously handled? It must be remembered that the 
orators of antiquity approached their subjects under circumstances 
very different from those which attend our modern debates. They 
practised upon the societies in which they lived, under the same 
penalties which attend the eastern physician who undertakes the 
Sultan's cure. The gift of this splendid but fatal talisman of the 
heart was always attended with the most unhappy consequences to its 
possessor. Exile and death were the penalties, in case of failure, in 
the measures which they recommended, or even in case of the loss of 
popular affection. And so deep were the distresses of those gifted 
but unhappy children of genius, that one of their most sincere 
admirers was forced to exclaim

                      "Ridenda poemata malo
  Quam te conspicuæ divina Philippica famæ,
  Volveris a prima quæ proxima."

It is not to be supposed, that under such circumstances they would 
ever approach their subject without a most careful consideration of 
its nature and consequences, or that they would fail to study the 
means of recommending themselves and their plans to popular favor. 
Indeed it would naturally be expected that in the effort to persuade 
the will of those upon whom they were operating, into a concurrence 
with their own, they would scarcely place in competition with that 
object the desire to write an oration to be admired by posterity. We 
should look to find then a more attentive observance of the modes of 
influencing the human heart and reason, than amongst the modern 
speakers who were moved by none of their fears. A comparison of the 
ancient with the modern orators would fully prove the fact, but as we 
cannot of course enter into that comparison here, and deserve no 
thanks from the reader for inviting his attention to it, we would 
advert to the fact that these are the only real statesmen whose 
orations have had an interest for a remote posterity. From which the 
conclusion is fair, that of all speeches accessible to the reader, 
these are the most valuable for acquiring the means of influencing 
men, since no other orations of successful orators remain in an 
agreeable form. Who reads the speeches of any of the modern orators 
who have been statesmen at the same time, and who succeeded in 
impressing their views upon the public mind. No one reads the 
speeches of Walpole, Chatham, and Fox, the real orator statesmen of 
England, whilst Burke's orations, which invariably dispersed his 
audience, are familiar to almost every reader of the English 
language. The most distinguished orator and statesman that France has 
produced was Mirabeau; the most successful in America were Henry and 
Randolph. Yet what orations have they left behind them which are 
indicative of the real genius of those master minds? The modern 
speeches which are held up as models, are those which failed to 
effect the end of their delivery, and even if pleasing in point of 
style and composition, they must have been very feeble as orations.

But the admirers of modern oratory, the readers of Sheridan, Curran 
and Philips, will perhaps demand that definition of oratory which 
thus excludes their favorites from all competition with the orators 
of antiquity. We define it to be, the means of attaining, by the 
persuasion either of the feelings or reasons of men, an end which of 
ourselves, we cannot effect. This is the only point of view in which 
a statesman would use rhetoric as an instrument. The display of 
learning and the exhibition of the graces of composition and style, 
he leaves to the author in his closet who has time to bestow upon 
pursuits less exalted than his. The real orator, if he be the subject 
of a despot, will study the character of the man whom he sues, and 
mould his address in the form most persuasive to him who holds the 
power of which he would avail himself. If on the other hand the power 
which he seeks resides with the people, he will appeal to that temper 
and those dispositions which are common to the mass, and having 
selected the arguments and sentiments most persuasive to them, would 
never think of sacrificing one tittle of them to secure the 
reputation of an orator with the future generations who might read 
his effusions. Ridiculous as it may seem to the lovers of the gaudy 
imagery and polished periods of the Irish orators, we maintain that 
the speeches of Cromwell and of Vane, which seem so absurd to us now, 
in effecting their ends, accomplished the true object of rhetoric. 
They suited the temper of the times, they served to mould the 
progress of public opinion, and proved powerful instruments in 
directing the revolution. Profound observers of those times, they 
were too sagacious as statesmen to think of sacrificing the means of 
securing great public ends for the sake of pleasing the taste of 
posterity and acquiring the reputation of turning polished periods--a 
task in which, after all, the wretched Waller had excelled them.

{230} Who believes that such oratory as Sheridan's or Curran's, aye, 
or even as Burke's, would have produced a tithe of the influence upon 
the sturdy old roundheads which the cant of the day exercised over 
them. These effusions would have been treated with scorn, or would 
perhaps have called down punishment upon the heads of their authors 
as holding out temptations to the carnal man. Any attempt, in the 
temper of those times, to deliver orations fitted for the taste of 
posterity, would have been as ridiculous and misplaced as Petit 
Jean's apostrophes to the sun, moon and stars, in his defence of the 
dog. Indeed, it is the prevailing sin of modern taste to suppose that 
the making of a "fine speech," can be a sufficient inducement for 
speaking. Plato has defined rhetoric to be "the art of ruling men's 
minds," and the moment it ceases to look to that end, it is vain and 
ridiculous. This is the besetting sin of American oratory. Adams, 
Everett, or even Webster, will seize any occasion, the death of 
Lafayette, the erection of a monument, or any thing which may serve 
as a text for a speech, to deliver orations which can have no 
possible influence except to convince the few who read them, that 
their authors have not only read, but learned to round a period. 
Polished sentences, brilliant imagery, and even the ancient forms of 
attestation are profusely displayed, and all the orator's most showy 
wares are studiously arrayed, for effect, so as to tempt the public 
to what?--to any useful end which they have in view? No, simply to an 
admiration of their authors. It was the practice of antiquity, it is 
true, to deliver funeral orations--but they are miserably mistaken if 
they expect to shelter themselves under those usages in their 
unmeaning and personal displays. They pursue the form, but neglect 
the substance. Do they suppose that when Pericles delivered his 
funeral oration over his countrymen who had fallen in the expedition 
to Samos, he had no other object than that of making a speech? Do 
they believe for a moment that he whose rhetoric procured him the 
surname of Olympius, that the master orator of antiquity, (if we may 
judge his oratory by its effects,) that he who never addressed an 
assembly without first praying the Gods "that no _word_ might fall 
from him unawares which was _unsuitable to the occasion_," would have 
spoken from such a motive as that only? Could they have supposed that 
such was the motive of Demosthenes in his funeral oration over those 
who fell at Cheronea?

Higher ends were in the view of these orators upon these occasions. 
They were subjects connected with the public policy of the times and 
with measures which they themselves had directed. Upon the success of 
these depended their popularity, and on that hung their fortunes, 
their homes, nay, their lives. They afforded happy occasions for 
defending their policy, for pushing their claims upon public favor, 
and for weaving by a thousand plies the cord which bound them to 
popular sympathy, in those moments of deep feeling when the people 
were too much absorbed in their own emotions, to examine into the 
personal motives of their orators. No such consequences depend upon 
the popularity of our orators. Their popularity can scarcely be 
really affected, by any orations which they could deliver on the 
battle of Lexington, the Bunker Hill monument, or the death of La 
Fayette. The public measures of the present day have but a remote 
connection with them. What worthy motive then could have influenced 
them, we were going to say, in the perpetration of such folly? In 
such men of the closet as the younger Adams and Everett, it is not 
surprising; but in Webster, who is capable of real and effective 
oratory, it can only be viewed as a weak compliance with the morbid 
taste of the clique around him.

Of the importance of the study of the ancient laws, particularly the 
Roman or civil, we shall say but little, as in the first place, a 
view of that subject in all its relations with modern government and 
civilization, would far exceed the limits of this essay; and because, 
secondly, no one can be found who will deny the uses of this pursuit 
to the lawyer. To the general reader we would only remark, that 
instead of abandoning this useful study to the lawyers, as a pursuit 
proper only to that profession, he would do well to remember that the 
revival of letters has always been mainly ascribed to the discovery 
of the pandects at Amalphi; that since that time professorships of 
civil law have been attached to every learned University in Europe, 
and no scholar for many centuries afterwards was reckoned 
accomplished without some knowledge of this subject. He should 
remember too, that since the revival of letters, this law has formed 
an essential, nay, the chief ingredient of the jurisprudence of 
Spain, Holland, France, and all Italy, with the exception of 
Venice;--whilst, notwithstanding all that has been suggested by the 
idle casuistry of national pride, it is the most important portion of 
the law of Germany, Hungary, Poland and Scotland. And much as we 
boast of the common law in England and what was English America, yet 
in both countries, the civil code is the law of courts of admiralty, 
the basis of most of our chancery law, and even on the common law 
side of our judiciary it is freely used on the subject of contracts, 
and has furnished the groundwork, nay, almost the entire system of 
our legal pleadings. Should this reader be a divine, we would beg 
leave to remind him that the canon law itself is so intimately 
associated with the civil code, that no good canonist has yet existed 
who neglected the study of this last. Indeed, the canon law is at 
last but a compound of the christian system of ethics and the civil 
code of municipal law. Need we say more in support of the claims of 
this study upon the attention of the general scholar and reader? Can 
the statesman or scholar expect to understand the history of nations 
and governments without a knowledge of their laws and judicial 
systems, those alimentary canals, which distribute the food that 
supports the moral being of society? As well might the anatomist 
expect to derive a knowledge of his science by a view of the external 
structure of the human frame, whilst the internal organization and 
the whole circulating system were concealed from his observation. And 
quite as absurd are the investigations of the historical inquirer, 
who, content with a knowledge of the form of government, looks no 
farther into the internal structure of a society. We would fain 
pursue the interesting inquiries which this subject suggests, in 
connection with the history of modern governments and the progress of 
civil liberty, did our limits permit. But our purpose is 
accomplished, in having recurred to facts, which of themselves 
demonstrate the necessity of this highly important study.

We come now to the psychological view of ancient {231} literature, 
which subject is so intimately connected with the inquiry into the 
tendencies of this study, towards elevating and extending the 
spiritual capacity of man, that we shall embrace it under that head. 
As no man would engage in any laborious pursuit without having some 
object in view, so perhaps no one would ever enter into the pursuit 
after knowledge if it offered no rewards. It is coveted by many, 
because it sometimes brings to its possessor wealth, and almost 
always secures him reputation, whilst a few only desire it for its 
spiritual uses--and yet these last constitute its highest reward. Let 
the practical man of the world who doubts it, and who would laugh at 
any arguments adapted to his reason upon this subject as a mere idle 
thing, look to the history of literary men. Let him behold such a man 
as Bayle, for example, who having secured in his taste for knowledge 
a consolation and a happiness of which the world could not rob him, 
only thought of his persecutions to laugh at them, and found but 
amusement in what the world deems misfortunes. Poverty, exile, 
disease, all in their turns assailed him, and yet no one who reads 
his history can doubt but that he was the happiest man of his day. 
Resigned to all human events, he found his pleasure in the one noble 
taste which absorbed his mind, and he succeeded in elevating his 
spirit to such a distance above the misfortunes and persecutions of 
this world, that they dwindled into utter insignificance in his 
estimation. A dismission from an office of honor and profit, under 
circumstances which would have excited murmurs and anger in the minds 
of most other men, was scarcely noticed by him, or noticed in a 
spirit of cheerful content. "The sweetness and repose" (said he upon 
this occasion) "I find in the studies in which I have engaged myself 
and which are my delight, will induce me to remain in this city, if I 
am allowed to continue in it, at least until the printing of my 
dictionary is finished; for my presence is absolutely necessary in 
the place where it is printed. I am no lover of money nor of honors, 
and would not accept of any invitation should it be made to me; nor 
am I fond of the disputes and cabals which reign in all academies: 
_Canam mihi et musis_." Car. Lit. vol. i, p. 22. These were not mere 
professions; his life, nay, his very death illustrated their truth 
and sincerity. The very hour of his death was soothed and solaced by 
this taste, which subdued even the sense of the last mortal agony. 
This, and instances similar in nature, if not in degree, which abound 
in the lives of literary men, afford conclusive evidence of the 
rewards which knowledge brings to the human mind itself. What can 
elevate the dignity of our nature more in our view than the 
contemplation of such spectacles as these? What terms expressive 
enough should we find, to convey our sense of gratitude to the genius 
who would offer us a gift that would enable us to defy the 
persecutions of this world and laugh at its misfortunes! a gift, 
which, for our enjoyments, would render us independent of every other 
being in existence, save ourselves and him who created us--a gift 
which would endow us with a taste and the means of gratifying a taste 
which age cannot dull, and gratification cannot satiate. And yet to a 
great degree, the mind which is imbued with the _love_ of knowledge 
enjoys these blessings. When this becomes the absorbing taste of our 
minds, it not only endures--but man cannot take it from us. Whilst 
sensual pleasures die, and the tastes which they gratify decay with 
time, this is the immortal desire of our being which survives when 
all others fade away. It is the charmed gift which we bear within 
ourselves, and whose spells can call up a thousand forms of beauty 
and light even in the depths of the dungeon, and surround the couch 
of disease with bright visions and pleasant hopes. As those who ate 
of the fabled lotus were said to forget their country and kindred in 
their enjoyments, when they had tasted of its flowers, so those who 
have once fed upon the immortal fruit of the tree of knowledge, cease 
to regard those temporal cares and pleasures which bind man to this 
earth, and lead through a maze of uncertainty to disappointment at 
last. They look into nature--and each link which they discover in the 
great chain of truth, seems, in the enthusiasm of the vision, another 
step on that ladder by which man mounts from earth to heaven. Each 
hidden harmony which they discover in nature is another thought of 
the divine mind which they have conceived and understood, and serves 
to bind them still more closely in that communion into which the 
Creator permits them to enter with him. The consideration of man, the 
pleasures merely earthly which he controls and which belong to him, 
always temporal and always alloyed with pain, they can consent to 
relinquish, in the consciousness that they are entering into closer 
communion with him who is pure, perfect, and unchangeable. And their 
pleasures as much exceed those which they renounce, as the Creator is 
superior to the created. They have tasted the living stream of truth, 
whose waters refresh the more, the more they are drunk--they find 
themselves on the borders of that eternal spring whose course is 
infinite in extent. Whilst they follow its trace they secure 
immortality,--for none who drink of its waters shall ever die.

See the student who dwells alone in his hermitage, or who perhaps 
nightly cribs his worn frame in some almost forgotten attic;--he is 
surrounded by circumstances which to the eye of the common observer 
denote the extremity of wretchedness and misery! Those who are more 
elevated by the pride of place and by the possession of those things 
which the world calls good, often look upon him with pity and 
contempt; and yet how rashly do they judge. Do they know whether he 
regards their pleasures or whither his aspirations would lead him. He 
looks out upon the stars, "those isles of light," which repose in the 
liquid blue of the vaulted heavens, and they speak to him of wisdom 
and love, of beauty and peace. He walks abroad amid the works of 
nature, and traces in all her hidden harmonies a beauty and a unity 
of design which speak but of one spirit, and that the infinite and 
eternal spirit of the universe. He begins indeed "to mingle with the 
universe;" and, like the mystic Egeria, a spirit of beauty pure and 
undefiled arises from the silent memorials of creative design, to 
commune with him in his morning walks and evening meditations. He 
compares the soul, which guides and animates the physical universe, 
with the vain and contentious spirit of his fellow man; he compares 
the order and beauty of the physical universe, which submits all its 
motions to the divine will, with the moral government of man,--at 
once the sport and the victim of his own caprices; and learns to 
despise what most men value, and to prize those pleasures {232} which 
they neglect. He has learnt to feel that He who rules all events, has 
considered him also, in his Providence; and willing to put his trust 
in that being, without whose knowledge "not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground," he stands forth the most self-humbled, and yet the most 
elevated of God's creatures.

If knowledge hath these spiritual uses,--and what reflecting man can 
doubt the fact, how mortifying is it to see many wasting their 
strength and throwing away the means by which they could attain these 
ends, for the sake of wealth and earthly honors. As the alchemist 
who, in his eager search after the grand magisterium, neglects many 
discoveries really useful which were within his reach, so these men 
put their frail trust in the world and waste their lives in the vain 
pursuit of its phantoms. But we do not expect these men to take this 
view of the subject unless they have trained their minds to it, 
either through the christian philosophy, or what is second to that 
system only, the school of the Platonist writers. It is for this 
reason chiefly, that we have ventured to recommend the study of the 
writings of the genius so nearly divine, of that author whose 
psychological system presaged the christian revelation, as the 
morning twilight betokens the coming sun. It was his, that beautiful 
conception of the spirit of the universe, at once so poetical and 
sublime;--an idea which Abraham Tucker only of modern English 
writers, seems to have fully comprehended and explained. This sublime 
and philosophical poet perceived that by an attentive study of 
nature, the human mind was capable of entering into communion with 
the divine mind through its works; he felt that he was capable of 
conceiving more and more of the ideas which existed in the creative 
mind, as he understood more of the system of the universe; he 
meditated upon the harmony which extended through the greatest and 
the least of nature's operations; his soul took in forms of beauty 
and filled with lofty conceptions until it became enamored of its 
contemplations, and in the spirit of true poetry he endowed the 
universe with a soul which governed it and with which the mind of man 
may commune. But to return to our original proposition; we asserted 
that the writings of ancient philosophers afforded the best views of 
psychology to which we have access. By psychology, we mean what 
relates to our spiritual being. To maintain this proposition it will 
be necessary to recur, for a moment, to the subject of inquiry which 
engaged their attention, and to the spirit of those times.

The most important and natural inquiry which would present itself to 
a being of limited powers of knowledge and enjoyment, and whose 
existence at most is brief, is as to the best pursuit which can 
engage his time and energies. The vanity of human wishes, the 
transitory nature of earthly enjoyments, must have been as apparent 
to the first man as to us. The necessity of discriminating between 
the various ends of our actions, and objects of our desires, in the 
brief space which is allotted us for action, must have impressed 
itself at an early period upon the human mind. And as happiness is 
the proposed end of all our actions, the most important inquiry which 
can engage the human mind, is as to the best means of attaining it. 
Accordingly, we find the "TO KALON" engaging the attention of all 
ancient philosophers; and however differently they might conduct 
their reasoning, all of them who were respected arrived at the same 
conclusion, viz: that he whose conduct was most strictly regulated by 
the rules of virtue, would enjoy the greatest degree of happiness. It 
was thus, according to Plato, that we were to restore the immaculate 
qualities of the pre-existent soul. The sterner Zeno maintained that 
nothing was pleasant but virtue, and nothing painful but vice; whilst 
the gentle and more persuasive Epicurus, reversing the rule, (and in 
a certain sense the doctrines were identical,) taught that nothing 
was virtuous but what was pleasant, or vicious if it were not 
painful--because virtue is at last but the rule which shall conduct 
us to happiness. At that time the light of Christian revelation had 
not burst upon the world; the flickering and uncertain rays of human 
reason afforded the only light to guide them in the search for the 
path of truth, and "shadows, clouds, and darkness rested on it." The 
bright hopes and the awful fears by which the Christian revelation 
would prompt man to virtue, were then either unknown or but little 
heeded. To tempt his disciples then to a virtuous life, and to 
fortify them against the seductions of vicious temptation, the 
ancient philosopher was forced to hold forth the rewards which virtue 
offers to us in this life. The persuasions of oratory, the 
allurements of poetry, the demonstrations of philosophy, were all 
used to entice the youthful mind to the pursuit of virtue; and more, 
the masters practised their creed in the view of their disciples. But 
so far as external appearances bear testimony on the subject, 
happiness does not always attend the practice of virtue in this 
world. It was necessary, then, to refer the doubtful to some other 
source of enjoyment. The philosopher referred the pupil to a source 
which was within--the pleasant consciousness of well-doing;--the 
enlargement of the spiritual capacity under a virtuous discipline, 
were the exalted and noble inducements which they presented to their 
view. Their theories of the universe, their social customs, their 
daily habits, were all made subsidiary to the end of impressing these 
grand truths upon their disciples. These conceptions stood forth in 
severe and sublime simplicity, as they were formed by the cold and 
cautious inductions of philosophy; but the master mind of antiquity, 
not content with their unspeaking beauty, seized fire from heaven, 
and breathing into them the warm spirit of his eloquence, sent them 
forth to the world radiant and impressive forms, which appealed not 
only to the reason, but to the sensibility of the beholder. Every 
argument was used which could exalt our spiritual being, and every 
illustration which could explain its nature, so far at least as they 
understood it. The pursuit of virtue became a matter of 
feeling--self-denial was an enthusiasm, and the world often beheld 
the disciples of these great masters acting upon the abstract maxims 
of mere human reason, and pursuing virtue with that unfaltering trust 
in the hopes which it excites, which would shame many disciples of a 
more certain faith, and those who have the guidance of a clearer 
light. It is not surprising, then, that the nature of our spiritual 
being, and the invigorating and regenerating influences of the 
pursuit of knowledge and virtue, should be more often the theme of 
ancient than of modern philosophers. And yet the moralist, the 
philosopher and the poet, would each derive both assistance and 
delight from the too much neglected works of these noble old masters. 
We have seen the wonderful {233} revival of letters in Germany in 
modern times ascribed to the study of the Platonists,--with what 
truth our knowledge of German literature will not permit us to say. 
But we do not doubt that the ascribed cause is adequate to that end. 
Certain it is, that Bulwer has derived from these sources much of 
that which is worth any thing in his writings. His views of our 
spiritual being, and of the spiritual uses of knowledge, are 
evidently clothed in light reflected from the Platonists. Indeed, the 
finest portion of all his writings, that in which he describes the 
change wrought on Devereux's mind by a course of solitary meditation, 
or, to use a shorter phrase, the metempsychosis of his hero, is but a 
paraphrase of the finest of all moral fables, the Asinus Aureus of 
Apuleius, and one which at last fails to do justice to the splendid 
original. Should any reader think it worth the time to examine into 
the truth of our remarks upon the spirit of ancient philosophy, we 
would crave his attention to this most beautiful allegory, as 
affording a complete and interesting illustration of their general 
correctness. The fable, founded upon a Milesian story, opens with the 
description of a young man who has debased his soul with debauchery 
until he is transformed to an ass; he falls gradually from one vice 
to another, and under the dominion of all he suffers under the 
degrading and debasing penalties appropriate to each. He was at last 
on the eve of perpetrating a crime so monstrous that nature suddenly 
revolted, and horror-stricken, he broke from his keeper and flies to 
the seashore. With solitude comes reflection, and reflection brings 
remorse. Despair is the natural consequence; and feeling that without 
assistance he is lost, he turns to heaven for succor. The moon is in 
full splendor, just rising from the waves; the awful silence of the 
night deepens his sense of solitude;--"Video præ micantis lunæ 
candore nimis completum orbem, commodum marinis emergentem fluctibus, 
nactusque opacæ noctis silentiosa secreta, certus etiam summatem Deam 
præcipua majestate pollere resque prorsus humanas ipsius regi 
providentia," &c. p. 375. Relief is vouchsafed to him, a change 
passes over his spirit, and nature wears towards him a different 
aspect--her countenance is clothed in smiles, and all things seem to 
rejoice with him. "Tanta hilaritudine præter peculiarem meam, gestire 
mihi cuncta videbantur; ut pecua etiam cujuscamodi et totas domos et 
ipsam diem serena facie gaudire sentirem." The entire conception is 
not only highly poetical, but eminently philosophical; the progress 
of the human mind in its transition through the range of vices, the 
sentiments of remorse and despair, that yearning after better things 
which ever and anon returns like a guardian angel to rescue man from 
his most fallen estate, the change of heart, and the influence of 
nature, are depicted in the spirit of truth and beauty.

But we fear that we are trespassing too far upon the patience of the 
reader, and especially when our subject is not one of general 
interest. And yet we are so deeply impressed with the fact that an 
attention to this study is the great want of American literature, 
that we could not forbear suggesting briefly the various points of 
view from which its importance may be seen--even at the risk of being 
tedious. Under the sanction, then, of past experience, and under the 
higher authority of reason, we would crave the attention of the 
rising generation to these studies, that they may prepare themselves 
to do something worthy of their hopes and useful to their country. 
And of this at least we can safely assure them that the exercises 
which we recommend are those in which were trained all the best 
models in science and general literature, whom they most revere and 
admire.




A LOAN TO THE MESSENGER.

NO. I.

  When I said I would die a bachelor,
  I did not think I should live to be married.--_Benedict_.

The day I was married, my dear Editor, I was greeted by a valued 
crony of mine with the following _Jew desperate_, as Mrs. Malaprop 
might call a _jeu d'esprit_. The occasion which gave this trifle 
birth having now been some years a matter of history, I am disposed 
to lend it to your good readers for a month, and beg them to be very 
careful of it, as it is really one of the neatest things of the kind 
I or they have ever seen. It is by a poet of no low order of genius, 
I can assure you, whose fault alone it is that his name, albeit not 
insignificant, is not yet higher on the rolls of poetic fame. It has 
never been in print.

J. F. O.


LIFE.

A BRIEF HISTORY, IN THREE PARTS, WITH A SEQUEL:

_Dedicated to my friend on his Wedding Day, November 1, 18--_.


Part I.--LOVE.

  A glance,--a thought,--a blow,--
    It stings him to the core.
  A question--will it lay him low?
    Or will time heal it o'er?

  He kindles at the name,--
    He sits, and thinks apart;
  Time blows and blows it to a flame,--
    Burning within his heart.

  He loves it though it burns,
    And nurses it with care:
  He feeds the blissful pain, by turns,
    With hope, and with despair!


Part II.--COURTSHIP.

  Sonnets and serenades,
    Sighs, glances, tears and vows,
  Gifts, tokens, souvenirs, parades,
    And courtesies and bows.

  A purpose, and a prayer:
    The stars are in the sky,--
  He wonders how e'en hope should dare
    To let him aim so high!

  Still hope allures and flatters,
    And doubt just makes him bold:
  And so, with passion all in tatters,
    The trembling tale is told!

  Apologies and blushes,
    Soft looks, averted eyes,
  Each heart into the other rushes,
    Each yields, and wins, a prize.


{234} Part III.--MARRIAGE.

  A gathering of fond friends,--
    Brief, solemn words, and prayer,--
  A trembling to the fingers' ends,
    As hand in hand they swear.

  Sweet cake, sweet wine, sweet kisses,--
    And so the deed is done:
  Now for life's woes and blisses,--
    The wedded two are one.

  And down the shining stream
    They launch their buoyant skiff,
  Bless'd, if they may but trust Hope's dream,--
    But ah! Truth echoes--_If!_


THE SEQUEL.--IF.

  If health be firm,--if friends be true,--
    If self be well controlled,--
  If tastes be pure,--if wants be few,--
    And not too often told,--

  If reason always rule the heart,--
    And passions own its sway,--
  If love for aye to life impart
    The zest it does to day,--

  If Providence with parent care
    Mete out the varying lot,--
  While meek Contentment bows to share
    The palace or the cot,--

  And oh! if Faith, sublime and clear,
    The spirit upward guide,--
  Then bless'd indeed, and bless'd fore'er,
    The Bridegroom, and the Bride!

WILLIAM CUTTER.

_P------d_.




READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.

NO. II.

  Legere sine calamo est dormire.--_Quintilian_.


8. "A drayman is probably born with as good organs as Milton, Locke, 
or Newton: but by culture they are as much above him, almost, as he 
is above his horse."--_Chesterfield_.

Chesterfield, it would seem, was a Phrenologist, in fact.

9. "In matters of consequence, have nothing to do with secondary 
people: deal always with principals."--_Edgeworth_.

Good advice. In matters of state, deal never with a clerk,--he has no 
discretion. In matters of trade deal never with an agent, if you can 
come near the principal, for the same cause,--he lacks the discretion 
that the latter has. But for a different cause than this, in matters 
of love, deal never with parents, but with the child: it is true, she 
has less discretion, but in this matter she is still _the principal_.

10. "Women may have their wills while they live, for they may make 
none when they die."--_Anon._

The author of that, whoever he be, was a kind soul: he found an 
apology for that which husbands, lovers, and fathers are apt to think 
a grievous fault in the sex. But the thought that strikes me most 
forcibly upon reading that passage is, the injustice of the law's 
treatment of women in this regard. Why should a woman's property, 
upon her marriage, become, _ipso facto_, another's? I take it that is 
a question which neither casuists nor gownsmen can answer. I knew an 
old woman who could give the true reply, and it was one that she gave 
as a reason for every query, puzzling or plain,--and that was 
"_'Cause!_"

11. "A soul conversant with virtue resembles a fountain: for it is 
clear, and gentle, and sweet, and communicative, and rich, and 
harmless and innocent."--_Epictetus_.

Beautiful because true. Such a soul is _clear_; one can see deeply 
into its crystal purity: it is _gentle_, and no waves disturb the 
spectator as he gazes: it is _sweet_, and he who drinks of it is 
refreshed and renovated in mental and intellectual health. 
_Communicative_ is it, and throws out its _jets_ in affluent 
profusion, making the atmosphere delicious to those who come within 
its reach. _Rich_, too, abundantly, overflowingly _rich_, full of 
jewels beyond price, ready for those who will gather them up from the 
inexhaustible bed of that fountain: _harmless_, moreover, and 
_innocent_, diffusing influences of a healthful and inspiring force, 
which turns mere sense to soul, mere mortality to immortality!

12. "The suspicion of Dean Swift's irreligion proceeded, in a great 
measure, from his dread of hypocrisy: instead of wishing to seem 
better, he delighted in seeming worse than he was."--_Dr. Johnson_.

That is a queer apology for a great Moralist to make for a Dean of 
the Church! It makes out Swift to be the worst of rascals: for it 
makes him more regardful of other men's opinions than of his own. It 
exhibits him as contravening conscience with _seeming_. Now, to my 
mind, the mere suspicion of hypocrisy is a far less evil than the 
positive conviction of it. He was, according to Johnson, afraid of 
being thought a hypocrite, and so he actually became one!

13. "As much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love 
reading better; and would rather be employed in reading, than in the 
most agreeable company."--_Pope_.

It is but a choice of company after all. For my part I verily believe 
the poet loved both well enough, although the world of books he most 
affected. He never wrote the "Essay on Man" or the "Dunciad" from the 
experience of the study, however: men's hearts were the 'books' he 
read from when he gave those splendid poems birth. The "world of 
books"--reminds me of

14.  "Books are a real world, both pure and good,
      Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
      Our pastime and our happiness may grow."
                                                 _Wordsworth_.

15. "Oh! who shall tell the glory of the good man's course, when, as 
his mortal organs are closing upon the world, he is looking forward 
to the opening brightness of that sun which never sets, shining from 
out the sapphire gates of Heaven! What earthly simile can your poet 
or your rhapsodist furnish, to carry to the spirit so rapturous a 
conception?"--_Chalmers_.

The simplest similes for such purposes are the best. And it is a 
beautiful order of our nature, that it furnishes them abundantly for 
the improvement of the reflective mind. And thus would I assimilate 
an earthly scene to the rapturous conception of the eloquent divine 
whom I have quoted. A most beautiful autumn day, free from 
clouds,--when the varied colored leaves _seem willing to fade_, with 
so bright, so warm, so cheerful a sun upon them,--is to me an emblem 
of the beaming of the sun of {235} righteousness, which, growing 
brighter as their bodies decay, makes the happiest and holiest 
spirits _willing to die_, under an influence so benign.

16. "I walked, I rode, I hunted, I played, I read, I wrote, I did 
every thing but think. I could not, or rather I would not think. 
Thinking kept me too long to one point. I could not bear that turning 
my face to a dead wall. In self defence, to keep me from my thoughts, 
I flitted from one occupation to another in which my mind could not, 
if it would, find the least employment or permanent satisfaction. But 
the world called me a very happy man!"--_Bulwer_, (I believe.)

Every man has those moments, I imagine, of struggling with his own 
mind, endeavoring, yet almost impossibly, to fix it upon a single 
object for any length of time: when it is like a bird in a storm, 
attempting to alight upon a waving, trembling spray.

17. "But Thomas Moore, albeit but an indifferent biographer, is one 
of the greatest masters of versification the world has ever known, 
while in song-writing he is perfectly unrivalled."--_Quarterly 
Review_.

Perhaps in a peculiar, refined style of song-writing he may be: but 
while his are the music of the fancy, _Burns_ speaks the melodies of 
the soul.

18. "The Creator has so constituted the human intellect, that it 
_can_ grow only by its own action, and by its own action it _will_ 
most certainly and necessarily grow. Every man must, therefore, in an 
important sense, educate himself. His books and teachers are but 
aids, _the work_ is his."--_Daniel Webster_.

The great statesman spoke this from the lessons of his own 
experience, and it is true. Yet how many moments there are in a 
scholar's life, when his progress seems so slow that he languishes 
over every task; and, because he cannot attain every thing at once, 
forgets, that every thing worth gaining is obtained after many 
struggles: and, if one foot slips back a little, yet, if he gain _at 
all_ on his way, that it is better to persevere! Besides, it is not 
only _the ends_ of study which are delightful--for so also are its 
_ways_: and, if we are not advancing rapidly, there is yet a pleasure 
in exercise, even when much of it fails.

19. "The preacher, raising his withered hands as if imparting a 
benediction with the words, closed his discourse with the text he had 
been enforcing,--'It is good that a man bear the yoke in his 
youth.'"--_Lights and Shadows_.

I do believe that text most implicitly. I myself feel that it is 
true: for I am one of those who are best when most afflicted. While 
the weight hangs heavily, I keep time and measure, like a clock; but 
remove it, and all the springs and wheels move irregularly, and I am 
but a mere useless thing.

20. "Fair and bright to day, but windy and cold."--_My Old Journal_.

------like a satirical beauty!

J. F. O.




HALLEY'S COMET.


  And who art thou amid the starry host,
    Shedding thy pale and misty light,
    Like some lone pearl, unseen and lost,
  Amid the diamonds of a gala night.

  Thou comest from the measureless abyss,
    Where God hath made his glory known;
    Is it with mystic cord, to this
  To bind some system yet unseen, unknown.

  Art thou the ship of heaven, laden with light,
    From the eternal glory sent,
    To feed the glowing suns, that might
  In ceaseless radiance but for thee be spent?

  Or art thou rolling on thy way, a car,
    Bearing from God some angel band,
    Sent forth from world to world afar,
  To regulate the fabric of his hand?

  Oh! if thou art on some such errand sent,
    Forth from the throne of Him we love,
    May not thy homeward path be bent
  By our poor earth, to bear our souls above?

_Prince Edward_.




EPIMANES.

BY E. A. POE.

  Chacun a ses vertus.--_Crebillon's Xerxes_.


Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the 
prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable 
to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the 
Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious 
embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation 
of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming 
of Christ--his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus--his 
implacable hostility to the Jews--his pollution of the Holy of 
Holies, and his miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of 
eleven years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore 
more generally noticed by the historians of his time than the 
impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which 
make up the sum total of his private life and reputation.

       *       *       *       *       *

Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world 
three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few 
minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, 
the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and 
other countries, sixteen cities of that name besides the one to which 
I more particularly allude. But _ours_ is that which went by the name 
of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its vicinity to the little village 
Daphne, where stood a temple to that divinity. It was built (although 
about this matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the 
first king of the country after Alexander the Great, in memory of his 
father Antiochus, and became immediately the residence of the Syrian 
monarchy. In the flourishing times of the Roman empire, it was the 
ordinary station of the Prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of 
the emperors of the queen city, among whom may be mentioned, most 
especially, Verus and Valens, spent here the greater part of their 
time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself. Let us 
ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes around upon the town and 
neighboring country.

What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way with 
innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally 
through the wilderness of buildings?

That is the Orontes, and the only water in sight, {236} with the 
exception of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad mirror, 
about twelve miles off to the southward. Every one has beheld the 
Mediterranean; but, let me tell you, there are few who have had a 
peep at Antioch. By few, I mean few who, like you and I, have had, at 
the same time, the advantages of a modern education. Therefore cease 
to regard that sea, and give your whole attention to the mass of 
houses that lie beneath us. You will remember that it is now the year 
of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty. Were it 
later--for example, were it unfortunately the year of our Lord 
eighteen hundred and thirty-six, we should be deprived of this 
extraordinary spectacle. In the nineteenth century Antioch is--that 
is, Antioch _will be_ in a lamentable state of decay. It will have 
been, by that time, totally destroyed, at three different periods, by 
three successive earthquakes. Indeed, to say the truth, what little 
of its former self may then remain, will be found in so desolate and 
ruinous a state, that the patriarch will remove his residence to 
Damascus. This is well. I see you profit by my advice, and are making 
the most of your time in inspecting the premises--in

        ------satisfying your eyes
  With the memorials and the things of fame
  That most renown this city.

I beg pardon--I had forgotten that Shakspeare will not flourish for 
nearly seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the 
appearance of Epidaphne justify me in calling it _grotesque_?

It is well fortified--and in this respect is as much indebted to 
nature as to art.

Very true.

There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.

There are.

And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear 
comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.

All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud huts 
and abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance of filth 
in every kennel, and, were it not for the overpowering fumes of 
idolatrous incense, I have no doubt we should find a most intolerable 
stench. Did you ever behold streets so insufferably narrow, or houses 
so miraculously tall? What a gloom their shadows cast upon the 
ground! It is well the swinging lamps in those endless collonades are 
kept burning throughout the day--we should otherwise have the 
darkness of Egypt in the time of her desolation.

It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder 
singular building? See!--it towers above all the others, and lies to 
the eastward of what I take to be the royal palace.

That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under the 
title of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman Emperor will 
institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a cognomen 
Heliogabalus. I dare say you would like a peep at the divinity of the 
temple. You need not look up at the Heavens, his Sunship is not 
there--at least not the Sunship adored by the Syrians. _That_ Deity 
will be found in the interior of yonder building. He is worshipped 
under the figure of a large stone pillar terminating at the summit in 
a cone or _pyramid_, whereby is denoted Fire.

Hark!--behold!--who _can_ those ridiculous beings be--half 
naked--with their faces painted--shouting and gesticulating to the 
rabble?

Some few are mountebanks. Others more particularly belong to the race 
of philosophers. The greatest portion, however--those especially who 
belabor the populace with clubs, are the principal courtiers of the 
palace, executing, as in duty bound, some laudable comicality of the 
king's.

But what have we here? Heavens!--the town is swarming with wild 
beasts! What a terrible spectacle!--what a dangerous peculiarity!

Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous. Each 
animal, if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very 
quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led 
with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the lesser or more 
timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are entirely 
without restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their 
present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the 
capacity of _valets-de-chambre_. It is true, there are occasions when 
Nature asserts her violated dominion--but then the devouring of a 
man-at-arms, or the throtling of a consecrated bull, are 
circumstances of too little moment to be more than hinted at in 
Epidaphne.

But what extraordinary tumult do I hear? Surely this is a loud noise 
even for Antioch! It argues some commotion of unusual interest.

Yes--undoubtedly. The king has ordered some novel spectacle--some 
gladiatorial exhibition at the Hippodrome--or perhaps the massacre of 
the Scythian prisoners--or the conflagration of his new palace--or 
the tearing down of a handsome temple--or, indeed, a bonfire of a few 
Jews. The uproar increases. Shouts of laughter ascend the skies. The 
air becomes dissonant with wind instruments, and horrible with the 
clamor of a million throats. Let us descend, for the love of fun, and 
see what is going on. This way--be careful. Here we are in the 
principal street, which is called the street of Timarchus. The sea of 
people is coming this way, and we shall find a difficulty in stemming 
the tide. They are pouring through the alley of Heraclides, which 
leads directly from the palace--therefore the king is most probably 
among the rioters. Yes--I hear the shouts of the herald proclaiming 
his approach in the pompous phraseology of the East. We shall have a 
glimpse of his person as he passes by the temple of Ashimah. Let us 
ensconce ourselves in the vestibule of the Sanctuary--he will be here 
anon. In the meantime let us survey this image. What is it? Oh, it is 
the God Ashimah in proper person. You perceive, however, that he is 
neither a lamb, nor a goat, nor a Satyr--neither has he much 
resemblance to the Pan of the Arcadians. Yet all these appearances 
have been given--I beg pardon--_will be_ given by the learned of 
future ages to the Ashimah of the Syrians. Put on your spectacles, 
and tell me what it is. What is it?

Bless me, it is an ape!

True--a baboon; but by no means the less a Deity. His name is a 
derivation of the Greek _Simia_--what great fools are antiquarians! 
But see!--see!--yonder scampers a ragged little urchin. Where is he 
going? What is he bawling about? What does he say? Oh!--he says the 
king is coming in triumph--that he is dressed in state--and that he 
has just finished putting {237} to death with his own hand a thousand 
chained Israelitish prisoners. For this exploit the ragamuffin is 
lauding him to the skies. Hark!--here come a troop of a similar 
description. They have made a Latin hymn upon the valor of the king, 
and are singing it as they go.

  Mille, mille, mille,
  Mille, mille, mille,
  Decollavimus, unus homo!
  Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus!
  Mille, mille, mille!
  Vivat qui mille mille occidit!
  Tantum vini habet nemo
  Quantum sanguinis effudit![1]

which may be thus paraphrased.

  A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
  A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
  We, with one warrior, have slain!
  A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
  Sing a thousand over again!
  Soho!--let us sing
  Long life to our king,
  Who knocked over a thousand so fine!
  Soho!--let us roar,
  He has given us more
  Red gallons of gore
  Than all Syria can furnish of wine!

[Footnote 1: Flavius Vopiscus says that the Hymn which is here 
introduced, was sung by the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in 
the Sarmatic war, having slain with his own hand nine hundred and 
fifty of the enemy.]

Do you hear that flourish of trumpets?

Yes--the king is coming! See!--the people are aghast with admiration, 
and lift up their eyes to the heavens in reverence. He comes--he is 
coming--there he is!

Who?--where?--the king?--do not behold him--cannot say that I 
perceive him.

Then you must be blind.

Very possible. Still I see nothing but a tumultuous mob of idiots and 
madmen, who are busy in prostrating themselves before a gigantic 
cameleopard, and endeavoring to obtain a kiss of the animal's hoofs. 
See! the beast has very justly kicked one of the rabble over--and 
another--and another--and another. Indeed, I cannot help admiring the 
animal for the excellent use he is making of his feet.

Rabble, indeed!--why these are the noble and free citizens of 
Epidaphne! Beast, did you say?--take care that you are not overheard. 
Do you not perceive that the animal has the visage of a man? Why, my 
dear sir, that cameleopard is no other than Antiochus Epiphanes, 
Antiochus the Illustrious, King of Syria, and the most potent of the 
Autocrats of the East! It is true that he is entitled, at times, 
Antiochus Epimanes, Antiochus the madman--but that is because all 
people have not the capacity to appreciate his merits. It is also 
certain that he is at present ensconced in the hide of a beast, and 
is doing his best to play the part of a cameleopard--but this is done 
for the better sustaining his dignity as king. Besides, the monarch 
is of a gigantic stature, and the dress is therefore neither 
unbecoming nor over large. We may, however, presume he would not have 
adopted it but for some occasion of especial state. Such you will 
allow is the massacre of a thousand Jews. With what a superior 
dignity the monarch perambulates upon all fours. His tail, you 
perceive, is held aloft by his two principal concubines, Elline and 
Argelais; and his whole appearance would be infinitely prepossessing, 
were it not for the protuberance of his eyes, which will certainly 
start out of his head, and the queer color of his face, which has 
become nondescript from the quantity of wine he has swallowed. Let us 
follow to the Hippodrome, whither he is proceeding, and listen to the 
song of triumph which he is commencing.

  Who is king but Epiphanes?
  Say--do you know?
  Who is king but Epiphanes?
  Bravo--bravo!
  There is none but Epiphanes,
  No--there is none:
  So tear down the temples,
  And put out the sun!
  Who is king but Epiphanes?
  Say--do you know?
  Who is king but Epiphanes?
  Bravo--bravo!

Well and strenuously sung! The populace are hailing him 'Prince of 
Poets,' as well as 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight of the Universe,' 
and 'most remarkable of Cameleopards.' They have _encored_ his 
effusion--and, do you hear?--he is singing it over again. When he 
arrives at the Hippodrome he will be crowned with the Poetic Wreath 
in anticipation of his victory at the approaching Olympics.

But, good Jupiter!--what is the matter in the crowd behind us?

Behind us did you say?--oh!--ah!--I perceive. My friend, it is well 
that you spoke in time. Let us get into a place of safety as soon as 
possible. Here!--let us conceal ourselves in the arch of this 
aqueduct, and I will inform you presently of the origin of this 
commotion. It has turned out as I have been anticipating. The 
singular appearance of the Cameleopard with the head of a man, has, 
it seems, given offence to the notions of propriety entertained in 
general by the wild animals domesticated in the city. A mutiny has 
been the result, and as is usual upon such occasions, all human 
efforts will be of no avail in quelling the mob. Several of the 
Syrians have already been devoured--but the general voice of the 
four-footed patriots seems to be for eating up the Cameleopard. 'The 
Prince of Poets,' therefore, is upon his hinder legs, and running for 
his life. His courtiers have left him in the lurch, and his 
concubines have let fall his tail. 'Delight of the Universe,' thou 
art in a sad predicament! 'Glory of the East,' thou art in danger of 
mastication! Therefore never regard so piteously thy tail--it will 
undoubtedly be draggled in the mud, and for this there is no help. 
Look not behind thee then at its unavoidable degradation--but take 
courage--ply thy legs with vigor--and scud for the Hippodrome! 
Remember that the beasts are at thy heels! Remember that thou art 
Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus, the Illustrious!--also 'Prince of 
Poets,' 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight of the Universe,' and 'most 
remarkable of Cameleopards!' Heavens! what a power of speed thou art 
displaying! What a capacity for leg-bail thou art developing! Run, 
Prince! Bravo, Epiphanes! Well done, Cameleopard! Glorious Antiochus! 
He runs!--he moves!--he flies! Like a shell from a catapult he 
approaches the Hippodrome! He leaps!--he shrieks!--he is there! This 
is {238} well--for hadst thou, 'Glory of the East,' been half a 
second longer in reaching the gates of the Amphitheatre, there is not 
a bear's cub in Epidaphne who would not have had a nibble at thy 
carcase. Let us be off--let us take our departure!--for we shall find 
our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast uproar which is 
about to commence in celebration of the king's escape! Listen! it has 
already commenced. See!--the whole town is topsy-turvy.

Surely this is the most populous city of the East! What a wilderness 
of people! What a jumble of all ranks and ages! What a multiplicity 
of sects and nations! What a variety of costumes! What a Babel of 
languages! What a screaming of beasts! What a tinkling of 
instruments! What a parcel of philosophers!

Come let us be off!

Stay a moment! I see a vast hubbub in the Hippodrome. What is the 
meaning of it I beseech you?

That? Oh nothing! The noble and free citizens of Epidaphne being, as 
they declare, well satisfied of the faith, valor, wisdom, and 
divinity of their king, and having, moreover, been eye witnesses of 
his late superhuman agility, do think it no more than their duty to 
invest his brows (in addition to the Poetic Crown) with the wreath of 
victory in the foot race--a wreath which it is evident he _must_ 
obtain at the celebration of the next Olympiad.




TO HELEN.


  Helen, thy beauty is to me
    Like those Nicean barks of yore,
  That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea,
    The weary wayworn wanderer bore
    To his own native shore.

  On desperate seas long wont to roam,
    Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
  Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
    To the beauty of fair Greece,
  And the grandeur of old Rome.

  Lo! in that little window-niche
    How statue-like I see thee stand!
    The folded scroll within thy hand--
  Ah! Psyche from the regions which
    Are Holy land!

E. A. P.




ON THE POETRY OF BURNS.[1]

BY JAMES F. OTIS.

[Footnote 1: This paper was written at the request of a literary 
society of which the author was a member, and the facts are gathered 
principally from Currie. Some extracts from the poet's own letters, 
and from an eloquent review of Lockhart's Burns, which appeared a few 
years since in the Edinburgh Review, are interwoven, and the whole 
made up as an essay to be "read not printed."]


If we take the different definitions of the term "Poetry," that have 
been given this beautiful and magical art by the various writers upon 
its nature and properties, as _each_ supported by reason and fact, we 
shall hardly arrive at any degree of certainty as to its _real_ 
meaning. It has been called "the art of imitation," or mimickry. 
Aristotle and Plato characterize it as "the expression of thoughts by 
fictions;" and there are innumerable other definitions, none of which 
are more satisfactory to the student than is that of the celebrated 
"Blair." He says, "it is the language of Passion,--or enlivened 
Imagination, formed, most commonly, into regular numbers. The primary 
object of a poet is to _please_, and to _move_; and therefore it is 
to imagination and the passions that he speaks. He may, and he ought 
to have it in his view to _instruct_ and _reform_; but it is 
_indirectly_, and by _pleasing_, and _moving_, that he accomplishes 
this end. His mind is supposed to be animated by some interesting 
object which fires his imagination or engages his passions: and 
which, of course, communicates to his style a peculiar elevation, 
suited to his ideas, very different from that mode of expression 
which is natural to the mind in its calm, ordinary state." And this 
definition will allow of being yet more particularly and minutely 
understood: it is susceptible of being analyzed still farther, and 
described as "a language, in which fiction and imagination may, with 
propriety, be indulged beyond the strict limits of truth and 
reality."

Who is there that has not felt the power of Poetry? For it is not 
essential that it be embodied in regular and finely wrought periods, 
and conveyed to the ear in alternate rhyme, and made to harmonize in 
nicely-toned successions of sounds. Who is there that has not felt 
its power? It originated with the very nature of man; and is confined 
to no nation, age, or situation. This is proved by the well-attested 
fact, that Poetry ever diminishes in strength of thought, boldness of 
conception, and power of embodying striking images, in proportion as 
it becomes polished and cultivated. The uncivilized tenant of our 
forests is, _by nature_, a Poet! Whether he would lead his brethren 
to the field of warfare, or conclude with the white man a treaty of 
peace and future amity, still his style evinces the same grand 
characteristic,--_the spirit of true Poetry_. The barbarous Celt, the 
benighted Icelander, and the earliest and most unenlightened nations 
of the world, as described on the page of history, are proofs of the 
principle we have been considering; and it was not, indeed, until 
society became settled and civilized, that poetical composition 
ceased to embrace _every_ impulse of which the human soul is 
susceptible. It was not till _then_, that, in the language of a 
distinguished writer, "Poetry became a separate art, calculated, 
chiefly, to _please_; and confined, generally, to such subjects as 
related to the imagination and the passions." Then was it that there 
arose, naturally, divisions in the classes or schools of Poetry,--as 
Lyric, Elegiac, Pastoral, Didactic, Descriptive, and Dramatic. A 
consideration of _each_ of these classes might furnish us with 
_materiel_ for an interesting examination of their individual 
peculiarities: but time will not permit so wide a range.

ROBERT BURNS was born on the 25th of January, 1759, in the town of 
Ayr, in Scotland. His pretensions by birth, were a descent from poor 
and humble, but honest and intelligent parents; and a title to 
inherit all their intelligence and virtue, as well as all their 
poverty. Upon the nature of these pretensions, Burns, in a letter to 
a friend, dated many years after, takes occasion to say: "I have not 
the most distant pretensions to assume that character, which the 
pye-coatcd guardians {239} of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at 
Edinborough last winter, I got acquainted in the Herald's Office; and 
looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every 
name in the kingdom: but for _me_,--

                   'My ancient but ignoble blood
  Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.'"

His father was a native of the north of Scotland, but he was driven 
by various misfortunes to Edinborough, and thence still farther south 
to Ayrshire, where he was first employed as a gardener in one of the 
families in that vicinity, and afterwards, being desirous of settling 
in life, took a lease of a little farm of seven acres, on which he 
reared a clay cottage with his own hands, and soon after married a 
wife. The first fruit of this union was our poet, whose birth took 
place two years thereafter. Robert, during his early days, was by no 
means a favorite with any body. He was remarkable, however, for a 
retentive memory, and a thoughtful turn of mind. His ear was dull, 
and his voice harsh and dissonant, and he evinced no musical talent 
or poetical genius until his fifteenth or sixteenth year. It is 
pretended by his biographers, (of whom there have been several, and 
who all agree in this opinion,) that the seeds of Poetry were very 
early implanted in his mind, and that the recitations and fireside 
chaunts of an old crone, who was familiar in his father's family, 
served to cherish their growth, and strengthen their hold upon his 
memory. This "auld gudewife" is said to have had the largest 
collection in the country of tales and songs concerning fairies, 
witches, warlocks, apparitions, giants, dragons, and other agents of 
romantic fiction. Speaking of these tales and songs, he says, in his 
later years, "so strong an effect had they upon my imagination, that 
even to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I am fain to keep a sharp 
look out in suspicious places; and, though nobody can feel more 
sceptical than I have ever done in such matters, yet it often 
requires an effort of Philosophy to shake off these idle terrors."

When Robert was in his seventh year, his father quitted the 
birth-place of the poet, and took a lease of a small farm on the 
estate of Mr. Fergusson, called Mount Oliphant. He had been, for a 
year or two previous to this event, a pupil of Dr. Murdoch, who is 
represented as being a very worthy and acute man, and who took much 
pains with the education of the future poet. In fact, his _father_ 
had previously taught him arithmetic, and whatever of lore could be 
gathered from the "big ha' bible," as they sat by their solitary 
candle; and he had been sent, alternately with his brother, a week at 
a time during a summer's quarter, to a writing master at the parish 
school at Dalrymple. But Dr. Murdoch, his faithful friend in youth 
and age, instructed him in English Grammar, and aided him in the 
acquisition of a little French. After a fortnight's instruction in 
the latter language, he was able to translate it into English prose, 
but, farther than this, his new attainment was never of much 
advantage to him. Indeed, his attempts to speak the language were 
ridiculously futile at times. On one occasion, when he called in 
Edinborough at the house of an accomplished friend, a lady who had 
been educated in France, he found her conversing with a French lady, 
to whom he was introduced. The French woman understood English; but 
Burns must need try his powers. His first sentence was intended to 
compliment the lady on her apparent eloquence in conversation; but by 
mistaking some idiom, he made the lady understand that she was too 
fond of hearing herself speak. The French woman, highly incensed, 
replied, that there were more instances of vain poets than of 
talkative women; and Burns was obliged to use his own language in 
appeasing her. He attempted the Latin, but his success did not 
encourage him to persevere. And, in fine, with the addition of a 
quarter's attendance to Geometry and Surveying, at the age of 
nineteen, and a few lessons at a country dancing school, I have now 
mentioned all his opportunities of acquiring a scholastic education. 
He says of himself, in allusion to his boyish days, "though it cost 
the schoolmaster many _thrashings_, I made an excellent English 
scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a 
critic in substantives, verbs and particles."

As soon as young Burns had strength to work, he was employed as a 
laborer upon his father's farm. At twelve he was a good ploughman; a 
year later he assisted at the threshing-floor; and was his father's 
main dependance at fifteen, there being no hired laborers, male or 
female, in the family at the time. In one of his letters, (and it is 
by extracting copiously from them, that I propose chiefly to narrate 
his history,) he remarks upon this subject--"I saw my father's 
situation entailed on me perpetual labor: the only two openings by 
which I could enter the temple of fortune, were the gate of niggardly 
economy, or the path of little, chicaning bargain-making. The _first_ 
is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze myself into it; 
the _last_ I _always_ hated--there was contamination in the very 
entrance!" And it was this kind of life,--the cheerless gloom of a 
hermit, with the unceasing toil of a galley-slave, that brought him 
to his sixteenth year, at about which period he first perpetrated the 
sin of rhyming. Of this you shall have an account in the author's own 
language.


"You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as 
partners in the labors of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn my partner 
was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of 
English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; 
but you know the Scottish idiom,--_she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie 
lass_. In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me 
in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, 
rigid prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of 
human joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the 
contagion I cannot tell. You medical people--(he was addressing the 
celebrated Dr. Moore) you medical people talk much of infection from 
breathing the same air, the touch, &c.; but I never expressly said I 
loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to 
loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our 
labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like 
an Eolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious 
ratan, when I plucked the cruel nettle-stings and thistles from her 
little white hand. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung 
sweetly; and it was her favorite reel, to which I attempted giving an 
embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine 
that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had 
Greek and Latin: but my girl sung a song, which was said to have been 
composed by a country laird's son upon a neighboring maiden with whom 
he was in love! and I saw; no reason why I might not rhyme as well as 
_he_; for, excepting that he could shear sheep and cast peats, (his 
father living in the moorlands,) he had no more _scholar_ craft than 
myself."


Thus, with Burns, began Love and Poetry. This, his first effort, is 
valuable, more from the promise it {240} gave of his future 
excellence as a poet, than for any intrinsic merit which it possessed 
as a performance of so gifted a genius. I have been the more 
particular in describing the circumstances attending the composition 
of these, his earliest verses, for the proof they afford of the truth 
of the general remark, that of all the poetical compositions of 
Burns, his love-songs, and amatory poetry are far the best. His 
feelings predominated over his fancy, and whenever the latter is 
introduced we are forced to deem it an intrusion for the strong 
contrast it presents with the native and characteristic simplicity of 
his more natural and heartfelt effusions.

Referring to the predilections which I have said gave a character to 
so large a portion of his poetical writings, he says,--"My heart was 
completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or 
other: and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was 
various; sometimes I was received with favor, and sometimes I was 
mortified with a repulse." And in another letter he says farther, 
"Another circumstance in my life which made some alterations in my 
mind and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a 
smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to 
learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c. in which I made a pretty 
good progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of 
mankind. Scenes of riot and roaring dissipation were, till now, new 
to me; but I was no enemy to social life. For all that, I went on 
with a high hand in my geometry till the sun entered _Virgo_, (a 
month, which is always a carnival in my bosom,) when a charming fair 
one, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and 
set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my duties. I, however, 
struggled on with my _sines_ and _co-sines_ for a few days more, but 
stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the sun's 
altitude, there I met my angel,

  'Like Proserpine, gathering flowers,
   Herself, a fairer flower.'

It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The 
remaining weeks I staid I did nothing but craze the faculties of my 
soul about her, or steal out to meet her. And the two last nights of 
my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of 
this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless."

This brings us to a period, which the poet calls an important era in 
his life--his twenty-third year; and he explains this in the 
following näive and characteristic style. "Partly through whim, and 
partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a 
flax-dresser in the neighboring town of Irvine to learn his trade. 
This was an unlucky affair; as we were welcoming in the new year with 
a carousal, our shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left 
like a true poet, not worth a sixpence." About this time the clouds 
of misfortune thickened around his father's head, who, indeed, was 
already far gone in a consumption; and to crown the distresses 
incident to his situation, a girl, to whom he was engaged to be 
married, jilted him with peculiar circumstances of mortification.

During his residence at Irvine, our poet was miserably poor and 
dispirited. His food consisted chiefly of oat meal, and this was sent 
to him from his father's family; and so small was, of necessity, his 
allowance, that he was obliged to borrow often of a neighbor, until 
he should again be supplied. He was very melancholy with the idea, 
that the dreams of future eminence and distinction which his 
imagination had presented to his mind, were _only_ dreams; and to 
dissipate this melancholy his resource was society with its 
enjoyments. The incidents to which I have alluded took place some 
years before the publication of his poems. About this time William 
Burns removed from Mount Oliphant to Lochlea, and later still, to the 
parish of Tarbolton, where, as we are informed by a letter from Dr. 
Murdoch, written in 1799, that "Robert wrote most of his poems." It 
was in Tarbolton that Burns established a debating club, which 
consisted of the poet, his brother Gilbert, and five or six other 
young peasants of the neighborhood--the laws and regulations for 
which were furnished by the former. Among these members was David 
Sillar, to whom the two beautiful poems, entitled "Epistles to Davie, 
a brother poet," were addressed. Some of the rules and regulations of 
this club are so peculiar, and bespeak so forcibly the character of 
their author, that I cannot resist the temptation to transcribe some 
of them. The eighth is in the following words:


"Every member shall attend at the meetings, without he can give a 
proper excuse for not attending. And it is desired, that every one 
who cannot attend will send his excuse with some other member: and he 
who shall be absent three meetings without sending such excuse, shall 
be summoned to the club night, when if he fail to appear, or send an 
excuse, he shall be excluded."


And the tenth and last rule is worthy of particular notice, and a 
part of it of incorporation into the code even of more extensive and 
more pretending societies: it is as follows:


"Every man proper for a member of this club, must have a frank, 
honest, open heart--above any thing low or mean, and must be a 
professed lover of the female sex. No haughty, self-conceited person, 
who looks upon himself as superior to the rest of the club--and 
especially no mean spirited, worldly mortal, whose only will is to 
heap up money, shall, upon any pretence whatever, be admitted. In 
short, the proper person for this society, is a cheerful, 
honest-hearted lad--who, if he has a friend that is true, a mistress 
that is kind, and as much wealth as genteely to make both ends meet, 
is just as happy as this world can make him."


But I must, however reluctantly, omit many interesting particulars in 
the earlier, and more private life of our poet, and hasten to his 
visit to Edinborough in the winter of 1786. The celebrated Dugald 
Stewart, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinborough, in 
a letter to Dr. Currie, alludes to several of Burns's early poems, 
and avers, that it was upon _his_ showing a volume of them to Henry 
McKenzie, (the celebrated author of "The Man of Feeling,") that this 
gentleman introduced the rustic bard to the notice of the public, in 
the xcvii No. of The Lounger, which justly famous periodical paper 
was then in the course of publication, and had long been a favorite 
work with the young poet.

Depressed by poverty, and chagrined with the contrasts which fate 
seemed malignantly bent upon opposing to his ambitious aspirations, 
his only object, at last, had been to accumulate the petty sum of 
nine guineas, (which he did by the publication of a few of his 
poems,) and to take passage in the steerage of a ship bound to the 
West Indies, determined to become a negro driver, or any thing else, 
so that he could escape the fangs of that merciless pack, the 
bailiffs; for, said he,

  "Hungry ruin had me in the wind."

He had taken leave of his friends--had despatched _his_ {241} _single 
chest_ to the vessel--had written his Farewell Song, which he sang to 
the beautiful air of "Roslin Castle," and which closes with,

  "Adieu, my friends!--Adieu, my foes!
   My peace with these, my love with those:
   The bursting tears my heart declare,
   Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr!"

when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, elicited by a perusal of the volume 
to which I have just now alluded, opened for him new prospects to his 
poetic ambition, by inviting him to Edinborough. Thither, then, he 
went--and his reception by all classes, ages and ranks, was as 
flattering as, in his most sanguine aspirations, he could have 
desired. Dr. Robertson, the celebrated historian, Dr. Blair, Dr. 
Gregory, Professor Stewart, Mr. McKenzie, and many more men of 
letters were particularly interested in his reception, and in the 
cultivation of his genius. He became, from his first entrance into 
Edinborough, the object of universal attention, and it seemed as if 
there was no possibility of rewarding his merits too highly. Mr. 
Lockhart, the latest and most eloquent of the numerous biographers of 
Burns, has a note, containing an extract from a letter of Sir Walter 
Scott, and furnished by the latter for his work, which is too 
interesting to be passed over. It relates to a personal interview of 
Sir Walter with our poet, during his first visit to Edinborough.

"As for Burns," writes he, "I may truly say, 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' 
I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinborough, 
but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, 
and would have given the world to know him: but I had very little 
acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry 
of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented." ... "As 
it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor 
Fergusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary 
reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. 
Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked, and listened. The only 
thing I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the 
effect produced upon him by a print, with the ideas suggested to his 
mind upon reading the story whereof, (written under it) he was moved 
even to tears. He asked whose the lines were? and it chanced that 
nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half forgotten poem 
of Langhorne's. I passed this information to Burns by a friend, and I 
was rewarded with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, 
I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure." ... 
"His person," continues Sir Walter, "was strong and robust: his 
manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and 
simplicity. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in 
all his lineaments: the _eye_, alone, I think, indicated the poetical 
character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which 
glowed, (I say literally _glowed_,) when he spoke with feeling or 
interest." ... "I never saw another such eye in a human head, though 
I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation 
expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest 
presumption."

After making a few more observations with relation to the poet's 
conversation and manner, the writer I have been quoting concludes his 
reminiscence as follows:


"This is all I can tell you about Burns. I never saw him again, 
except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not 
expect he should. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded 
with his manner. He was like a farmer, dressed in his _best_, to dine 
with the laird. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address 
to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn to the 
pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I 
do not know that I can add any thing to these recollections of forty 
years since."


These are extracts, that, one day or other, will be looked upon as 
curiosities in literature, and will be inestimably precious: at 
present, I fear me, an apology should follow their introduction, at 
such length: but I shall only say in the language of another, in 
excuse for dwelling so long on this incident in the life of Burns, 
that it forms "the most remarkable phenomenon in the history of 
modern literature."

But if this, his first winter in Edinborough, produced a favorable 
effect upon the future fame of Robert Burns, as a poet, it was also 
the source of vast unhappiness to him, during his after life. Not 
only was he admitted to the company of men of letters and virtue, but 
he was pressed into the society of those, whose social habits, and 
love of the pleasures of life were their chief attractions. When 
among his superiors in rank and intelligence, his carriage was 
decorous and diffident: but among others, his boon companions, he, in 
his turn, was lord of the ascendant: and thus commenced a career, 
which, had its outset been a more prudent one, would probably not 
have closed until a later period, nor without a much greater measure 
of glory and honor to him, who was thus unfortunately misguided.

During the residence of Burns at Edinborough, he published a new and 
enlarged edition of his poems, and was thus enabled to visit other 
parts of his native country, and some parts of England beside. Having 
done this, he returned, and during most of the following winter, we 
find him again in the gay and literary metropolis, much less an 
object of novelty, and, of course, of general attention and interest, 
than before. Unable to find employment or occupation of a literary 
nature, he quitted Edinborough in the spring of 1788, and took the 
farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries: besides advancing 200_l._ for the 
liberation of his brother Gilbert from some difficulties into which 
certain agricultural misfortunes had involved him. He was, soon 
after, united to his "bonnie Jean," the theme of so much of his 
delightful verse, and employed himself in stocking and cultivating 
his farm, and rebuilding the dwelling house upon it. There is an 
anecdote of him in the history furnished by Dr. Currie, the truth of 
which Mr. Lockhart seems disposed to question: his doubts originate 
from a consideration of the absurd costume in which the older 
biographer has seen fit to invest the poet in his narration. As this 
is the only exception taken to it, and as it is certainly 
illustrative of Burns's character and manners in other respects, and 
as it is related, too, upon so good authority, I shall venture to 
introduce it in this, its proper place, in point of time.


"In the summer of 1791, two English gentlemen, who had before met 
Burns at Edinborough, paid a visit to him in Ellisland. On calling at 
his house, they were informed that he had walked out on the banks of 
the river; and, dismounting from their horses, they proceeded in 
search of him. On a rock that projected into the stream, they saw a 
man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. He had a cap, made 
of a fox's skin, on his head, a loose great coat fixed round him by a 
belt, from which {242} depended an enormous Highland broadsword. It 
was Burns. He received them with great cordiality, and asked them to 
share his humble dinner; an invitation which they accepted. On the 
table they found boiled beef with vegetables and barley-broth, after 
the manner of Scotland, of which they partook heartily. After dinner, 
the bard told them ingenuously that he had no wine to offer 
them--nothing better than Highland whiskey, a bottle of which Mrs. 
Burns set on the board. He produced, at the same time, his 
punch-bowl, made of Inverary marble; and mixing the spirit with water 
and sugar, filled their glasses, and invited them to drink. The 
travellers were in haste, and besides, the flavor of the whiskey to 
their _southron_ palates was scarcely tolerable: but the generous 
poet offered them his best, and his ardent hospitality they found it 
impossible to resist. Burns was in his happiest mood, and the charms 
of his conversation were altogether fascinating. He ranged over a 
great variety of topics, illuminating whatever he touched. He related 
the tales of his infancy and his youth; he recited some of the 
gayest, and some of the tenderest of his poems: in the wildest of his 
strains of mirth he threw in some touches of melancholy, and spread 
around him the electric emotions of his powerful mind. The Highland 
whiskey improved in its flavor; the bowl was more than once emptied, 
and as often replenished: the guests of our poet forgat the flight of 
time and the dictates of prudence; at the hour of midnight they lost 
their way in returning to Dumfries, and could scarcely distinguish 
it, when assisted by the morning's dawn."


On his farm at Ellisland, Burns continued some few years; but the 
novelty of his situation soon wore off, and then returned the 
irregularities, to which, from his warm imagination, and his love of 
society, and his independent turn of mind, he was so strongly 
predisposed. Fearing that his farm alone would be insufficient to 
procure for him that independence, which he had hoped one day or 
other to attain, he applied for and obtained the office of exciseman, 
or as it was vulgarly called _guager_, for the district in which he 
lived. About the year 1792, he was solicited to contribute to a 
collection of Scottish songs, to be published by Mr. Thompson, of 
Edinborough. Abandoning his farm, which, from neglect and 
mismanagement was by no means productive, and receiving from the 
Board of Excise an appointment to a new district, with a salary of 
70_l._ per annum, he removed to a small house in Dumfries, and 
commenced the fulfilment of his literary engagement with Mr. 
Thompson. His principal songs were written during this time, and day 
after day was adding heighth and durability to the towering and 
imperishable monument, which will hand down his name and fame to many 
generations.

But now commences his rapid and melancholy decay, the fast withering 
consumption of his mental and physical faculties. His had been a 
short but brilliant course in literature--a short and melancholy one 
indeed, in other respects. Defeated in his hopes, mortified in the 
discovery that of the two classes of friends who offered him their 
society and their example in the outset of his career, he had chosen 
the least improving and efficient as his guides and counsellors--he 
fast declined into that common receptacle of dust which covers alike 
the remains of the gifted and the simple, the prudent and the weak. 
He was worn with toil and poverty, and disappointed hope.

  "Can the laborer rest from his labor too soon?
   He had toiled all the morning, and slumbered at noon."

       *       *       *       *       *

Imprudent in the declaration of his political sentiments, Burns lost 
the path to preferment in the line of his political duties; easily 
enticed beyond the sway of his sober and virtuous resolutions, he 
became broken in health, and destitute of resources; too proud to beg 
and too proud to complain, his temper became irritable and gloomy, 
and at length a fever, attended with delirium and debility, 
terminated his life in the thirty-eighth year of his age. Leaving a 
widow, who is still living in the house where he died,[2] and four 
sons, of whom three are also at present living. Thus died Robert 
Burns, "poor, but not in debt, and bequeathing to posterity a name, 
the fame of which will not soon be eclipsed."

[Footnote 2: Since deceased.]

_Burns_, though he sometimes forgot his homage to the purer and 
brighter and more enduring orbs of heaven, in chasing the ignis 
fatuus lights of earth, must ever interest us as a poet and a man. A 
great many considerations may be properly urged in answer to the too 
common, and far from just charges upon his moral character. I am of 
opinion, that his own declaration, made not many months previous to 
his death, is capable of full and complete support and proof, by a 
reference to all the circumstances of his life. When accused of 
disloyalty to his government, he says, in a letter to a distinguished 
friend--


"In your hands, sir, permit me to lodge my strong disavowal, and 
defiance of such slanderous falsehoods. Be assured--and tell the 
world, that Burns was a poor man from his birth, and an exciseman 
from necessity; but--I _will_ say it! the sterling of his _honesty_, 
poverty _could_ not debase, and his independent British spirit, 
oppression might bend, but could not subdue!"


I have advanced the opinion that the crisis of Burns's fate was his 
visit, his _first_ visit to Edinborough. From that event may be dated 
the complete establishment of his character during his after life; 
and with those who received him there, and undertook the task of 
doing what they, in their wisdom, thought expedient for the 
cultivation of his genius, and for his advancement or settlement in 
life, must, I think, rest the credit or the blame of much--of almost 
_all_ his future excellence or failure. Burns went into the midst of 
that gay and literary circle, ready and liable to receive the most 
striking impressions, as the guides of his opinions and the 
regulators of his actions. It was another world! It had all the 
freshness of a new existence in the eyes, and to the mind of the 
rustic Ayrshire bard. Strong-minded and high-hearted as he was, he 
could not but look up to his new friends and patrons, as exemplars 
for his own imitation: and although he was not _visibly_ perplexed 
with the flashings of these new and unaccustomed lights, yet he was, 
_at heart_, led astray by them. They were like the fabled 
corpse-fires, which danced merrily before the wildered eyes of the 
traveller, luring him onward to his doom--_a grave!_ He had left the 
"bonnie banks of Ayr," _a young plant_, shooting luxuriantly up into 
a tall and rugged, but healthful tree; and it was upon the _new_ 
soil, into which it had been transplanted, that this beautiful exotic 
received an inclination which was destined to be a final one. And yet 
I would not throw upon the fame of such men as Stewart, and Blair, 
and Robertson, and McKenzie, the imputation of design, or even of 
imprudence, in thus being accessory to the melancholy ruin, which 
followed the victim's acceptance of their kind, and really benevolent 
patronage. It is only to be lamented that upon his arrival at 
Edinburgh, he was not introduced _at once, and alone_, into that 
circle, which might reasonably have been designated as the only one, 
in which such a genius and {243} character as Burns's could be duly 
appreciated and cultivated. But the secret is, he was regarded by 
them, _not_ as a being for their _sympathy_, but a thing for the 
indulgence of their _curiosity_. In the language of another, "By the 
great he was treated in the customary fashion; entertained at their 
tables and dismissed: certain modica of pudding and praise are, from 
time to time, gladly exchanged for the fascination of his presence; 
which exchange once effected, the bargain is finished, and each party 
goes his several way."

Instead of treating with him, as a man, whose genius entitled him to 
a stand upon their own proud and distinguished level, all 
uncultivated and unpolished as that genius was--they universally 
spoke _to_ him, and _of_ him, as an object of patronage--as something 
that was to become valuable to the world, only through _their_ 
instrumentality. This feeling, this mode of treatment, are not to be 
objected to, in themselves considered: their existence was natural, 
and, rightly conducted, might have been made productive of much good, 
and lasting happiness to him, who was their subject. But Burns was 
not the man to rest quietly under the most oppressive burthen that a 
proud man can ever feel--_Patronage_. And thus his relative situation 
to his literary friends could not but be viewed by a mind so 
sensitive as his own, in its true character. And we find (as soon as 
the novelty of a "ploughman-poet" had worn off--as every fashionable 
novelty _will_ wear off in time,) that our poet began to remember 
that "a life of pleasure and praise would not support his family," 
and having experienced a portion of these reverses, which they, who 
depend on popular favor and flattery, must ever find inseparable 
therefrom--we see him stocking his little farm, and soon after adding 
the emoluments of the office of exciseman for the district of Ayr, to 
his scanty income. And here he might have been

  "Content to breathe his native air,
   On his own ground,"

but for his kind yet misjudging friends, "the patrons," as they were 
called, "of his genius." Unfortunately for his future peace, each new 
arrival at his little home of Ellisland, of those who had known him 
at Edinborough, furnished proof that his old habits of conviviality 
were only interrupted, but by no means broken: And it was only by the 
frequency of these opportunities of good cheer in the society of the 
gay companions of his city life, that he became inattentive to his 
agricultural concerns, and that he finally lost the composure and 
happiness, which were the attendants of his new situation, and with 
these was lost his inclination to temperate and assiduous exertion.

I would not be understood as denying, in this argument, a previous, 
perhaps a _natural_ tendency in the character of Burns, to undue and 
intemperate excitement: but the impression upon my own mind is 
strong, that this bias might have been checked and regulated, and 
turned to good account by the noble and learned patrons of his 
genius. Tried by the statutes of strict morality, a man like Burns 
has many things to plead in his own defence, which those of less mind 
and dimmer intellect cannot justly claim as their own: and it is in 
the unwillingness to make this distinction, that the world are, too 
often, unfair judges in cases of character. A distinguished writer 
thus elegantly remarks, upon a similar subject.


"The world is habitually unjust in its judgments: It is not the few 
inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so 
_easily_ measured, but the _ratio_ of these to the _whole_ diameter, 
which constitutes the _real_ aberration. With the world, this orbit 
may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system: or 
it may be a city hippodrome, nay, the circle of a mill-course, its 
diameter a score of feet or paces--but the inches of _deflection_, 
_only_, are measured; and it is assumed that the diameter of the 
mill-course, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when 
compared with them. Here, then, lies the root of the blind, cruel 
condemnation of such men as Robert Burns, which one never listens to 
with approval. Granted--the ship comes into harbor with her shrouds 
and tackle damaged, and is the pilot therefore blame-worthy, because 
he has not been _all_-wise and _all_-powerful? For us to know _how_ 
blame-worthy he is, tell us how long and how arduous his voyage has 
been."


But, after all, it is chiefly with Burns as a _poet_ that we have to 
do--it is in _this_ light that _posterity_ will regard him, and it is 
into the hands of this tribunal that he must, finally, be resigned. I 
would that time had allowed me to refer more particularly to the 
works of this delightful bard, than I have been enabled to do on the 
present occasion. They began with his earliest, and were continued 
until his latest years. Scattered along his devious, and often 
_gloomy_ path, they seem like beautiful wild flowers, which he threw 
there to cheer and animate the passer-by, with their undying bloom 
and sweet fragrance. "In the changes of language his songs may, no 
doubt, suffer change--but the associated strain of sentiment and of 
music will perhaps survive, while the clear stream sweeps down the 
Vale of Yarrow, or the yellow broom waves on the Cowdenknowes."

I have had occasion, in the course of this essay, to remark, that the 
_songs_ of Burns are, by far, the most finished productions of his 
muse: and his admirers may safely rest his fame upon them alone, even 
if his longer and more elaborate poems should fail to secure him the 
immortality he deserves. The celebrated Fletcher somewhere says, 
"Give me the making of a people's _songs_, and let who will make 
their laws!" And Burns has, in the composition of _his_ songs, placed 
himself on an equality with the legislators of the _world!_ for 
where, in the cottage or the palace, are they unsung? Whose blood has 
not thrilled, and whose lip has not been compressed, as the noble air 
of "Scots! wha hae wi' Wallace bled!" has swelled upon his ear? Who 
cannot join in the touching and beautiful chorus of his "Auld lang 
syne?" Who has not laughed over his "Willie brewed a peck o' maut," 
nor felt the rising tear of sympathetic sadness whilst listening to 
his "Farewell to Ayr!" and his celebrated "Mary in Heaven?" In all 
these, and many more, which are familiar as _very proverbs_ in our 
mouths, the poet has shown such a versatility, and yet such an 
entireness of talent--such tenderness and delicacy in his sorrow--yet 
withal, so pure and delightful a rapture in his mirth; he weeps with 
so true and feeling a heart, and laughs with such loud, and at the 
same time such unaffected mirth, that he finds sympathy wherever his 
harp is strung. The subjects he chose, and the free, natural style in 
which he treated them, have won him this praise--and it shall endure, 
the constant and lasting tribute of generation after generation.

But it has been beautifully said, (and who will not agree in the 
sentiment?) that "in the hearts of men of right feelings, there 
exists no consciousness of need to plead for Burns. In pitying 
admiration, he lies {244} enshrined in all our hearts, in a far 
nobler mausoleum than one of marble: neither will his works, even as 
they are, pass away from the memory of men. While the Shakspeares and 
Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of thought, 
bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their 
waves, this little Vauclusa Fountain will also arrest the eye: For 
this also is of nature's own and most cunning workmanship, and bursts 
from the depths of the earth with a full, gushing current, into the 
light of day. And often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its 
clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines."

  For Heaven, sweet bard! on thee bestowed
    A boon, beyond all name:
  And, bounteous, lighted up thy soul
    With its own native flame.

  Soft may thy gentle spirit rest,
    Sweet poet of the plain!
  Light lay the green turf on thy breast,
    Till it's illum'd again!




CHANGE.


  If by my childhood's humble home
    I chance to wander now,
  Or through the grove with brambles grown,
    Where cedars used to bow,
  In search of something that I loved--
    Some little trifling thing
  To mind me of my early days,
    When life was in its spring,--
  I find on every thing I see
    A something new and strange;
  Time's iron hand on them and me
    Hath plainly written--_Change_.

  My pulse beats slower than it did
    When childhood's glow was on
  My cheek, and colder, calmer now
    Doth life's red current run.

  The stars I gaz'd with rapture on,
    When youthful hopes were high,
  With sterner years have seem'd to change
    Their places in the sky.

  And moonlit nights are plenty now--
    How few they used to be!
  When, with my little urchin crew,
    I shouted o'er the lea.

  I've sought the places where we play'd
    Our boyish "_hide and call_;"
  Alas! the tyrant Change has made
    A common stock of all--
  And bartered for a place of graves
    That lea and all its bloom:
  O, how upon the walls I wept,
    To think of Change and Doom!

  The lovely lawn where roses grew,
    Is strewn with gravestones o'er;
  And half my little playmate crew
    Have slept to wake no more
  Till Change itself shall cease to be,
    And one successive scene
  Of stedfastness immutable
    Remain where Change hath been.

  It may sometimes make old men glad
    To see the young at play;
  But always doth my soul grow sad
    When thoughts of their decay
  Come rushing with the memories
    Of what my own hopes were--
  When Hudson's waters and my youth
    Did mutual friendship share.




MANUAL LABOR SCHOOLS.

[Their importance as connected with Literary Institutions.(1)]

[Footnote 1: This Address was delivered by the Rev. E. F. Stanton, 
before the "Literary Institute" of Hampden Sidney College, at its 
annual commencement in September last, and is now published, for the 
first time, at the request of the Institute.]


The proper connection of physical, moral, and intellectual culture, 
in a course of education, is a subject which, judging from the 
defective systems that have almost universally prevailed, has 
hitherto been but imperfectly understood, and whose importance has 
been but superficially estimated. Man is a being possessed of a 
compound nature, which consists of body, mind and spirit. In other 
words, he has animal, intellectual, and moral powers. He is destined 
for existence and action in two worlds--in this, and in that _which 
is to come_. He is formed for an earthly, and an immortal state. Any 
system of education, therefore, which restricts attention to either 
of these constituent portions of his nature, is necessarily and 
essentially defective. It is the cultivation which assigns to each 
its appropriate share, that constitutes the perfection of education. 
But few appear to admit, at least _practically_, the importance of 
improving the mind to any great extent by the aids which Literature 
and Science bestow. Fewer still are in favor of making religious 
instruction a distinct and indispensable part of their plan. Yet 
smaller is the number of those who would allow any suitable 
prominence to be given to the cultivation of the physical powers: and 
probably by far the most diminutive of all is the proportion of those 
who would contend for a just and equable combination in the 
improvement of _the whole man_, body, mind, and spirit.

The monitory experience of past ages, which, if duly heeded, might 
prevent a recurrence of serious disasters that have befallen other 
generations, is overlooked or disregarded, as the devotees of a 
worldly pleasure discredit the assurance of the sage, that "all is 
vanity and vexation of spirit," and each in its turn, and for itself, 
must try the experiment which wisdom had beforehand decided to be 
folly. Vanity seeks the preferment arising from novel discoveries; 
and inflated with an apprehension of superior knowledge, disdains to 
receive the instructions of former ages, and in spite of experience, 
gives an unrestrained indulgence to wild and hurtful extravagances. 
Enough has long since been disclosed in the history of mankind, if 
they were sufficiently docile and apt, to have demonstrated, to the 
satisfaction of all, that on the early and assiduous {245} 
inculcation of _religious principle_, depend the temporal, to say 
nothing of the eternal welfare of individuals, and the peace and 
prosperity of nations. The world, by this time, ought to have known, 
even if Revelation had not proclaimed it, that _righteousness_, by 
which I mean _religion_, is the stability and safeguard of 
nations--that it cannot be dispensed with--that no substitute can be 
made for it--and that no government can be prosperous or lasting 
without it. Devoid of religious principle, the educated are but 
madmen; and the more extensive and brilliant their talents, whether 
natural or acquired, the more completely are they accoutred for the 
work of mischief. Within the recollection of the present generation, 
South America, and Greece, and France, where Romish corruptions and 
infidel perfidy have obtained the ascendancy, and rooted out a pure 
Christianity, have alternately struggled for the establishment of 
freedom. Our own nation, so deeply enamored of the "fair goddess," 
have looked on with an intensity of interest that bordered on 
inebriation, and have hailed them as brethren of _the republican 
fraternity_. But how soon have our hopes been disappointed, and our 
exultation proved to be premature. The despotism which has been 
thrown off, has been speedily succeeded by another which was scarcely 
less odious and intolerable. Their temple of freedom was not reared 
on _the rock of religious principle_, but on _the sand_. The tempest 
of ungoverned passions, which righteousness only has the power to 
allay, _beat vehemently upon it, and it fell_; and great has been the 
fall of it. Better that a population deficient in virtue, (the virtue 
which a pure religion only can impart,) be also deficient in 
knowledge. There is no regenerating or transforming influence in 
literature and science. The reverse of this, however, is the 
practical creed of most politicians. Religion with them, if not an 
odious and obsolete affair, is regarded as of secondary or 
inconsiderable importance; and all the attention which, in their 
estimation, it deserves, is to leave it for a spontaneous 
development. But the issue of such an experiment is sure to result in 
an absence of the fear of God, and an exuberant growth of noxious and 
destructive passions. If no plan can be devised, which in its 
operation shall secure an inseparable connection between literature 
and religion in our American academies and colleges, their demolition 
were devoutly to be desired, and our youth might better be reared in 
ignorance and barbarism.

These observations are made in passing, to anticipate an impression 
which might arise in the minds of some who may accompany us in the 
sequel of this discussion, that we are for giving to the _physical_ 
an importance over every other department of education. So far from 
admitting that this is the position which we intend to assume, we 
would here be distinctly understood to allow, if you please, that it 
is the least important of all, and sinks as far in comparison with 
the cultivation of the mind and the heart, as the body is inferior to 
the soul, or as the interests of time are transcended by those of 
eternity. But the body, though comparatively insignificant, is still 
deserving of special regard. The corporeal is a part of the nature 
which the infinite Creator has bestowed on us--a piece of mechanism 
"curiously wrought," and "fearfully and wonderfully made." The body 
is the casement of the mind--the tenement in which the soul 
resides--the "outer" in which dwells the "inner man." With the nature 
of this union we are mostly unacquainted. We know, however, that it 
is close, and that the influences which body and mind exert on each 
other are reciprocal and powerful.

A gentleman of our own country, who has been at great pains to 
investigate this subject himself, and to collect the opinions of 
others on it, has embodied in a pamphlet, which has been published, a 
mass of information of the most valuable kind; but the production to 
which I refer has been only partially circulated in this region, and 
therefore has probably attracted less notice here than almost any 
where else in the Union. And since I have ample evidence to believe 
that his observations, and those of others which accompany them, are 
better suited to subserve the purpose which I have in view, than any 
of my own which I might hope to offer, I shall indulge myself on this 
occasion in the liberty of making somewhat copious extracts from his 
labors.

The individual to whom I allude, was appointed the General Agent of 
"the Society for promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions," 
which was formed in the city of New York in July of 1831, "under the 
conviction," as their committee remark, "that a reform in our 
seminaries of learning was greatly needed, both for the preservation 
of health, and for giving energy to the character by habits of useful 
and vigorous exercise." Shortly after entering upon the prosecution 
of his object, in an extensive tour of observation in the northern 
and western states, the journey of the agent,[2] as his employers 
relate, was interrupted by serious accidents which befel him, one of 
which (and we notice the narrative as an apt and striking 
illustration of the excellency of that system of training to which he 
had been accustomed, and which it was the design of his agency to 
recommend,) was the carrying away of the stage in Alum Creek, near 
Columbus, in the state of Ohio. "The creek," as they inform us, 
"being swollen by the great flood, in crossing, at midnight, the 
swiftness of the current forced the whole down the stream, till the 
stage-wagon came to pieces, and the Agent was thrown directly among 
the horses. After being repeatedly struck down by their struggles, he 
became entangled in the harness, and hurried with them along the 
current. At length, released from this peril, he reached the shore, 
and grasped a root in the bank; but it broke, and again the stream 
bore him on to the middle of the channel. At length he espied a tree 
which had fallen so that its top lay in the water, and by the most 
desperate efforts, all encumbered as he was with his travelling 
garments, he succeeded in reaching a branch; but his benumbed hands 
refused their grasp, and slipped, and then he was swept among some 
bushes in an eddy, where his feet rested on the ground. Here in the 
dead of night, in the forest, ignorant whether there was a house or a 
human being within many miles, bruised and chilled in the wintry 
stream, he seems calmly to have made up his mind to die, sustained by 
the hopes of the religion which he professed. But Providence had 
determined otherwise, and reserved him for farther usefulness. His 
cries were heard by a kind hearted woman on the opposite side of the 
stream, who wakened her husband; and, after a few days detention, he 
{246} proceeded on his journey. From the accounts (the committee 
continue,) which are already before the public, it seems plain that 
_nothing but a constitution invigorated by manual labor_, and a soul 
sustained by the grace of God, could have survived the hardships of 
that night."

[Footnote 2: Mr. Weld.]

There are probably but few who will dissent from this decision; and 
we will add, that in our opinion, a preservation so extraordinary, 
exclusive of a Providential interposition which some will think they 
discern in it, affords an argument for manual labor schools, or 
physical education, more pointed, and perhaps conclusive, than all 
which this indefatigable agent has said himself, or gleaned from the 
testimony of others, although this composes an amount of evidence of 
the most convincing kind.

In the report alluded to, the Agent himself observes that "God has 
revealed his will to man upon the subject of education. It is written 
in the language of nature, and can be understood without a 
commentary. This revelation consists in the universal consciousness 
of those influences which body and mind exert upon each 
other--influences innumerable, incessant, and all-controlling; the 
body continually modifying the state of the mind, and the mind ever 
varying the condition of the body.

"Every man who has marked the reciprocal action of body and mind, 
surely need not be told that mental and physical training should go 
together. Even the slightest change in the condition of the body 
often produces an effect upon the mind so sudden and universal, as to 
seem almost miraculous. The body is the mind's palace; but darken its 
windows, and it is a prison. It is the mind's instrument; sharpened, 
it cuts keenly--blunted, it can only bruise and disfigure. It is the 
mind's reflector; if bright, it flashes day--if dull, it diffuses 
twilight. It is the mind's servant; if robust, it moves with swift 
pace upon its errands--if a cripple, it hobbles on crutches. We 
attach infinite value to the mind, and justly; but in this world, it 
is good for nothing without the body. Can a man think without the 
brain?--can he feel without nerves?--can he move without muscles? The 
ancients were right in the supposition that an unsound body is 
incompatible with a sound mind. [They looked only for the _mens sana 
in corpore sano_.] He who attempts mental effort during a fit of 
indigestion, will cease to wonder that Plato located the soul in the 
stomach. A few drops of water upon the face, or a feather burnt under 
the nostril of one in a swoon, awakens the mind from its deep sleep 
of unconsciousness. A slight impression made upon a nerve often 
breaks the chain of thought, and the mind tosses in tumult. Let a 
peculiar vibration quiver upon the nerve of hearing, and a tide of 
wild emotion rushes over the soul. The man who can think with a gnat 
in his eye, or reason while the nerve of a tooth is twinging, or when 
his stomach is nauseated, or when his lungs are oppressed and 
laboring; he who can give wing to his imagination when shivering with 
cold, or fainting with heat, or worn down with toil, can claim 
exemption from the common lot of humanity.

"In different periods of life, the mind waxes and wanes with the 
body; in youth, cheerful, full of daring, quick to see, and keen to 
feel; in old age, desponding, timid, perception dim, and emotion 
languid. When the blood circulates with unusual energy, the coward 
rises into a hero; when it creeps feebly, the hero sinks into a 
coward. The effects produced by the different states of the mind upon 
the body, are equally sudden and powerful. Plato used to say that all 
the diseases of the body proceed from the soul. [With more of 
propriety, we think, it may be said, that at least three-fourths of 
the diseases that afflict humanity, arise from an injudicious 
treatment of the body. But be this as it may, the fact is too obvious 
to be disputed, that the mind acts powerfully upon the animal frame.] 
The expression of the countenance _is mind visible_. _Bad news_ 
weaken the action of the heart, oppress the lungs, destroy appetite, 
stop digestion, and partially suspend all the functions of the animal 
system. An emotion of shame flushes the face; fear blanches it; joy 
illuminates it; and an instant thrill electrifies a million of 
nerves. Powerful emotion often kills the body at a stroke. Chilo, 
Diagoras, and Sophocles died of joy at the Elean games. The news of a 
defeat killed Philip V. One of the Popes died of an emotion of the 
ludicrous, on seeing his pet monkey robed in pontificals, and 
occupying the chair of state. The door-keeper of Congress expired 
upon hearing of the surrender of Cornwallis. Pinckney, Emmet, and 
Webster are recent instances of individuals who have died either in 
the midst of an impassioned burst of eloquence, or when the deep 
emotion that had produced it had suddenly subsided. Indeed, the 
experience of every day demonstrates that the body and mind are 
endowed with such mutual susceptibilities, that each is alive to the 
slightest influence of the other. What is the common-sense inference 
from this fact? Manifestly this--that the body and the mind _should 
be educated together_.

"The states of the body are infinitely various. All these different 
states differently affect the mind. They are causes, and their 
effects have all the variety which mark the causes that produce them. 
If then different conditions of the body differently affect the mind, 
some electrifying, and others paralyzing its energies, what duty can 
be plainer than _to preserve the body in that condition which will 
most favorably affect the mind_? If the Maker of both was infinitely 
wise, then the highest _permanent_ perfection of the mind can be 
found only in connection with the most healthful state of the body. 
Has infinite wisdom established laws by which the best condition of 
the mind is _permanently_ connected with any other than the best 
condition of the body? When all the bodily functions are perfectly 
performed, the mind must be in a better state than when these 
functions are imperfectly performed. And now I ask, is not that 
system of education fundamentally defective, which makes no provision 
for putting the body in its best condition, and for keeping it in 
that condition? A system which expends its energies upon the mind 
alone, and surrenders the body either to the irregular promptings of 
perverted instinct, or to the hap-hazard impulses of chance or 
necessity? A system which aims solely at the development of mind, and 
yet overlooks those very principles which are indispensable to 
produce that development, and transgresses those very laws which 
constitute the only ground-work of rational education? Such a system 
sunders what God has joined together, and impeaches the wisdom which 
pronounced that union good. It destroys the symmetry of human 
proportion, and makes man a monster. It reverses the {247} order of 
the constitution; commits outrage upon its principles; breaks up its 
reciprocities; makes war alike upon physical health and intellectual 
energy, dividing man against himself; arming body and mind in mutual 
hostility, and prolonging the conflict until each falls a prey to the 
other, and both surrender to ruin.

"The system of education which is generally pursued in the United 
States, is unphilosophical in its elementary principles; ill adapted 
to the condition of man; practically mocks his necessities, and is 
intrinsically absurd. The high excellences of the system in other 
respects are readily admitted and fully appreciated. Modern education 
has indeed achieved wonders. But what has been done meanwhile for the 
body? [Nothing--comparatively nothing.] The prevailing neglect of the 
body in the present system of education, is a defect for which no 
excellence can atone. Nor is this a recent discovery. Two centuries 
ago Milton wrote a pamphlet upon this subject, in which he eloquently 
urged the connection of physical with mental education in literary 
institutions. Locke inveighs against it in no measured terms. Since 
that time, Jahn, Ackerman, Salzman, and Franck, in Germany; Tissot, 
Rousseau, and Londe, in France; and Fellenberg, in Switzerland, have 
all written largely upon the subject."

In addition to what this individual has himself said, he has 
exhibited in the pamphlet referred to, an amount of testimony derived 
from a number of the most distinguished literary men in our country, 
to the imperfections of the existing system of education which is 
truly overwhelming, and enough, we should think, could it be 
universally disseminated, to arouse and restore to reason the whole 
civilized world. Indeed, we indulge the hope that it has planted the 
seeds of a revolution in our literary institutions; and our only 
surprise is, that it should advance with no greater celerity. The 
following important positions, however, in regard to the subject, may 
now be considered as established. Constant habits of exercise are 
indispensable to a healthful state of the body. A healthful state of 
body is essential to a vigorous and active state of mind. The habit 
of exercise should commence with the ability to take it, and should 
be continued with that ability through life. Of the different kinds 
of exercise, as a general rule, agricultural, being the most natural, 
and to which the human constitution is best adapted, is the most 
unobjectionable; _mechanical_ is the next; and walking and riding are 
the employments which follow in the rear. The exercise most 
profitable, for the most part will be that which is most useful. The 
neglect of exercise, with sedentary men, has occasioned fearful havoc 
of health and life; and the wilful neglect of it, with those who have 
had an opportunity to be enlightened with respect to its necessity 
and value, is a species of suicide, and, therefore, _an immorality_. 
The connection of _manual labor establishments with literary 
institutions_, has been found to be greatly conducive to health and 
morals, as also to proficiency in the various departments of human 
learning; and as far as experience has gone, the promise which they 
give of success is all that their most sanguine projectors had 
anticipated.

On the subject of _manual labor schools_, a deep interest has within 
a few years been excited in various parts of the Union. Like all 
other enterprises which aim at the accomplishment of extensive good, 
it has met with opposition and discouragements; but originating in 
the principles of true wisdom, and supported by arguments and facts 
which none can gainsay or resist, its ultimate triumph may safely be 
predicted, and confidently anticipated.

Whether the system of physical education shall receive the 
countenance, or is suited to the peculiar circumstances of the 
southern country, may with some be made a question; but we are ready 
to hazard the assertion, that whatever obstacles of a peculiar nature 
may here lie in the way of reducing it to practice, if properly 
considered, they must be seen to be in truth the most powerful 
inducements that can be urged for its adoption.

The country in which physical education cannot prevail, in the onward 
march of improvements for which the present age is distinguished, 
must necessarily be destined to be outstripped in the pursuit of 
those objects which constitute the felicity and the glory of a 
people. That this country is to fall behind, and to be contented to 
remain there, is to suppose an event too disreputable for tolerance, 
and too much opposed to a laudable spirit of emulation to be 
cheerfully acquiesced in. The south needs men of vigorous 
constitutions for professional avocations and other purposes, as well 
as the rest of the world, and if she has them, must obtain them by 
the same process. Trained on a different plan, her sons, in 
comparison with others, will be effeminate and inefficient. Many of 
them, as has happened with others in past times, would become the 
prey of incurable disease, or fall the victims of an untimely grave. 
According to the most accurate investigations that have been made, at 
least _one-fourth_ of the individuals who, for several years past, 
have been educated in our American colleges, have been completely 
prostrated in their course, or have survived only to drag out an 
existence rendered burdensome to themselves and unprofitable to 
others. The voice of warning on this topic, while mournful and 
alarming, is as "_the voice of many waters_."

Distinguished intellectual excellence depends, we believe, to a 
greater extent than almost any have imagined, on a robust frame of 
the body; and in farther corroboration of the views that have already 
been expressed on this subject, I would request the privilege of 
subjoining a few passages of striking originality, from the pen of 
the powerful and popular author of the essay "On Decision of 
Character."

"As a previous observation," he remarks, "it is beyond all doubt that 
very much of the principles that appear to produce, or to constitute 
this commanding distinction, (of decision of character) depends on 
the constitution of the body. It is for physiologists to explain the 
_manner_ in which corporeal organization affects the mind; I only 
assert the fact, that there is in the material construction of some 
persons, much more than of others, some quality which augments, if it 
does not create, both the stability of their resolution, and the 
energy of their active tendencies. There is something that, like the 
ligatures which one class of Olympic combatants bound on their hands 
and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe it, and compresses the 
powers of the mind, giving them a steady and forcible spring and 
reaction, which they would presently lose, if they could be 
transferred into a constitution of soft, yielding, treacherous 
debility. The action of strong {248} character seems to demand 
something firm in its corporeal basis, as massive engines require for 
their weight and for their working, to be fixed on a solid 
foundation. Accordingly I believe it would be found, that a majority 
of the persons most remarkable for decisive character, have possessed 
great constitutional firmness. I do not mean an exemption from 
disease and pain, nor any certain measure of mechanical strength, but 
a tone of vigor, the opposite to lassitude, and adapted to great 
exertion and endurance. This is clearly evinced in respect to many of 
them, by the prodigious labors and deprivations which they have borne 
in prosecuting their designs. The physical nature has seemed a proud 
ally of the moral one, and with a hardness that would never shrink, 
has sustained the energy that could never remit.

"A view of the disparities between the different races of animals 
inferior to man, will show the effect of organization on disposition. 
Compare, for instance, a lion with the common beasts of our fields, 
many of them composed of a larger bulk of animated substance. What a 
vast superiority of courage, impetuous movement, and determined 
action; and we attribute this difference to some great dissimilarity 
of modification in the composition of the animated material. Now it 
is probable that some difference, partly analogous, subsists between 
human bodies, and that this is no small part of the cause of the 
striking inequalities in respect of decisive character. A very 
decisive man has probably more of the physical quality of a _lion_ in 
his composition than other men.

"It is observable that women in general have less inflexibility of 
character than men; and though many moral influences contribute to 
this difference, the principal cause is, probably, something less 
firm in the corporeal texture. Now, one may have in his constitution 
a firmness of texture, exceeding that of other men, in a much greater 
degree than that by which men in general exceed women.

"If there have been found some resolute spirits powerfully asserting 
themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so much the better; since this 
would authorize a hope, that if all other grand requisites can be 
combined, they may form a strong character, in spite of the 
counteraction of an unadapted constitution. And on the other hand, no 
constitutional hardness will form the true character without those 
grand principles; though it may produce that false and contemptible 
kind of decision which we term _obstinacy_; a mere stubbornness of 
temper, which can assign no reason but its will, for a constancy 
which acts in the nature of dead weight rather than of strength; 
resembling less the reaction of a powerful spring than the 
gravitation of a big stone."

In opposition to the system of education which we would defend, a 
voice of objection has been raised, to which it may not be improper 
to pay a passing regard.

It has been preferred as an objection to manual labor schools, which 
we shall assume, are, on the whole, the most unexceptionably 
expedient that has been proposed for connecting exercise with a 
course of literary training,[3] that _youth who have been 
unaccustomed to manual labor, and who have been permitted to indulge 
in idleness and sportive amusements for the purpose of recreation, 
will feel an insuperable aversion to the toils and restraints which 
such a revolution in their habits, as the one contemplated, will 
impose on them_.

[Footnote 3: Gymnastic exercises are both dangerous and frivolous.]

The process of _taming_, though quite essential to the unruly, to 
"flesh and blood" is never "joyous, but rather grievous." The 
objection started is something like that which the celebrated Rush, 
in some of his original effusions, has observed is met with in the 
case of certain morbid patients, whose _weak stomachs refuse milk as 
a diet_. The food itself, in the judgment of the acute physician, is 
of the most simple, inoffensive, and invigorating character; and _the 
fact that it is rejected is the proof that it is needed_. The 
intemperate can ill brook the privation of _alcohol_; the epicure and 
debauché will not relinquish with good will the gratification of 
inordinate appetites; nor will the _slothful_, who _turns himself in 
his bed as the door on the hinges_, give up with cheerfulness _the 
luxury of laziness_. But the true and proper question for 
determination is, would it not be doing to loungers and profligates 
themselves, as well as to others, a kindness, to put them upon a 
course of _regimen_, (provided it can be done without too great an 
exertion of violence,) which should bring them back to nature, and 
constrain them to a just and proper observance of the salutary laws 
of industry, sobriety, and temperance? With such an authority we 
think that the parents and guardians of youth every where should be 
invested; and those who should manifest a spirit of insubordination 
against its exercise, if that spirit could not be quelled by a 
temperate yet firm resistance, would exhibit the proof of a temper 
that ought to be regarded in a young man _as a positive 
disqualification for receiving an education_.

In our apprehension it is by no means among the most trivial 
considerations that recommend the manual labor feature in a system of 
education, that it furnishes an admirable _test_ by which to try the 
spirit of a pupil, as well as a choice expedient to invigorate his 
health and inure him to habits of diligence and sobriety. A young man 
whose aversion to a manual labor school is so strong that it cannot 
be overcome, when the subject has been fairly presented to his mind, 
it may safely be taken for granted, is not worth educating. The 
community would lose nothing by the operation of a system which 
should exclude him from the ranks of its _literati_. Especially would 
the test in question operate favorably in the education of the 
_beneficiaries_ of the church, whom she is at present somewhat 
extensively engaged in patronizing and preparing for her future 
ministry. Great as we conceive it, and great as the history of past 
ages has proved it to be, is the hazard which the church runs of 
rearing an impure priesthood, by proposing the _gratuitous education_ 
of all the professedly "indigent and pious" who will apply for her 
bounty. The temptation to insincerity which is thus held out is too 
powerful to be resisted by depraved human nature. The church for 
safety in this respect must raise munitions and throw up her 
ramparts, to guard against the admission of unhallowed intruders. And 
what better defence, we would ask, could the ingenuity of man have 
devised for the prevention of the evils adverted to, than that _the 
entire amount of contributions which are made for the education of 
candidates for the ministry, should flow to them exclusively through 
the manual labor channel_? An inspired Apostle has said, that _if any 
man will not work, neither shall he eat_: and in perfect accordance, 
as we think, {249} with the spirit of this declaration, we would 
unhesitatingly affirm, that if any man, who has the ministry in view, 
when the opportunity is fully presented, will not enter a manual 
labor school, _and labor, working with his own hands_, for at least a 
part of his support, _neither should he eat the bread of the church_, 
nor be fostered by her charities to minister at her altars.

To say that students for their recreation need something more amusing 
and sportive than the useful and sober exercises of agricultural and 
mechanical employment, is to say that the propensity of young men to 
levity and frivolity is so powerful that it cannot be, and ought not 
to be, controlled; that to aim to instil into them the habits and 
sentiments of gravity and sobriety is an unnatural and impracticable 
undertaking; and that it is more advisable to treat them as _merry 
Andrews_ than as possessing the dignity of rational, immortal and 
accountable creatures.

Let a system of education make provision for nothing but what is 
elevated and useful, and still space enough will be left for all the 
frivolity and sporting which any can deem to be absolutely essential. 
These things will take care of themselves, and will inevitably come 
in, on any plan that may be adopted, to secure all the advantages 
which they are capable of affording.

Another objection which has been preferred to manual labor schools 
is, _that they contribute but little or nothing to the support of the 
student_.

The truth on this subject, as could be satisfactorily shown is, that, 
as might naturally be expected, manual labor schools, being a novel 
experiment in this country, have had to struggle, as do all similar 
enterprises of benevolence at the outset, with formidable obstacles; 
and in some instances, through injudiciousness in their location, or 
mismanagement in their arrangements, have either been abandoned, or 
have failed to fulfil the expectations of their projectors. 
Mercantile and other adventurers often fail in their plans. At the 
same time it is undeniable, that some institutions of this sort have 
succeeded beyond all previous calculations, and the students that 
composed them have not only enjoyed better health than others, and 
made more rapid advances in knowledge, but a portion of them have, by 
the avails of their labors, defrayed _the whole_ of their expenses; a 
few have done _more_; and a majority have diminished them about 
_one-half_. Manual labor establishments, therefore, will do 
_something_ (we ought not to expect them to do _every thing_,) 
towards _cheapening_ education, even in the infancy of their 
existence; and the thought can hardly fail to be cheering to American 
republicans and patriots, that in the full tide of successful 
operation which we believe will attend their maturer age, "full many 
a flower" which but for them would be "born to bloom and blush 
unseen," will shed its "sweetness on" Columbia's "air."

But admit for a moment that manual labor schools are an utter failure 
as regards _the pecuniary advantages which they afford_. Admit, if 
you please, that the manual labor feature is an expensive part of 
education, and that to comply with it an education will cost more 
than on any other plan. The argument for their utility remains alike 
unanswered and unshaken. Is not the education thus obtained a more 
perfect one? Is it not immensely more valuable? Are health, morals, 
useful habits, vigorous intellects, and life, worth nothing? Is money 
expended for the improvement and preservation of these thrown away?

If manual labor schools increased the expenses of education 
_fourfold_, they would still deserve the warm patronage of the 
public, and all who have the ability should send their sons to them 
to be educated, in preference to any other institutions, even should 
they have as many of them as the Patriarch, or be endowed with the 
riches of Crœsus.

It is an ill-judged economy which saves money at the sacrifice of 
life, health, and morals. Let this subject be _understood_ by an 
intelligent and Christian community, and manual labor schools will 
not be left to languish and die without endowments, while on other 
institutions of less substantial claims, they are lavished with a 
princely munificence.

In this place, it may not be amiss to attend for a short time, to the 
testimony of some of the pupils and superintendants of manual labor 
schools, who have detailed the results of their observation and 
experience, and which is strong and decided in their favor.

In one instance the pupils say, that "believing the results of 
experiment weightier than theory, we beg leave respectfully to 
express those convictions respecting the plan of our institution, 
which have been created solely by our own experience in its details. 
1. We are convinced that the general plan is practicable. 2. That the 
amount of labor required (three hours per day) does not exceed the 
actual demands of the human system. 3. That this amount of labor does 
not retard the progress of the student, but by preserving and 
augmenting his physical energies, does eventually facilitate it. 4. 
That the legitimate effect of such a system upon body and mind, is 
calculated to make men hardy, enterprising and independent; and to 
wake up within them a spirit perseveringly to do, and endure, and 
dare. 5. Though the experiment at every step of its progress has been 
seriously embarrassed with difficulties, neither few in number nor 
inconsiderable in magnitude, as those know full well who have 
experienced them, yet it has held on its way till the entire 
practicability of the plan stands embodied in actual demonstration. 
In conclusion, (they add,) we deem it a privilege, while tendering 
this testimony of our experience, to enter upon the record our 
unwavering conviction, that the principle which has been settled by 
this experiment involves in its practical developments an immense 
amount of good to our world; it is demanded by the exigences of this 
age of action, when ardor is breathing for higher attempt, and energy 
wakes to mightier accomplishment."

On a subsequent occasion another set of pupils belonging to the same 
institution, express their convictions in a similar tone of 
approbation.

"The influence of the system," they say, "on health, is decidedly 
beneficial, as all of us can testify who have pursued it for any 
length of time. We can pursue our studies not only without injury, 
but with essential advantage. Not only is our bodily power increased 
instead of being diminished on this plan, but the powers of the mind 
are augmented, while moral sensibility is not blunted by hours of 
idleness and dissipation. We suffer no loss of time, as no more is 
spent in labor than is usually spent by students in recreation; and 
we are taught to improve every hour. Our opinion is, that 
intellectual progress is accelerated rather than retarded {250} by 
this system. In its success, we are convinced, is deeply involved the 
prosperity of education, and the great work of evangelizing the 
world."

The students of Cumberland College in the State of Kentucky, say, "we 
beg leave to state the results of our own experience. Having been for 
a considerable time, members of a manual labor institution, we have 
had an exhibition of its principles and efficacy continually before 
us; and we are convinced that labor, for two hours or more each day, 
is essential to the health of all close students, and equally 
necessary for the development of the mind."

The young men in the theological institution at Hamilton, in the 
State of New York, say, "we feel the fullest conviction that every 
student who neglects systematic exercise, is effecting the ruin of 
his physical and moral powers. Nor is the influence of this 
unpardonable neglect less perceptible or deleterious, as it regards 
his moral feelings. Without it, however pure his motives, or ardent 
his desire to do good, we have but faint hopes of his success. Such 
habits as he would inevitably form, we believe, would ruin all the 
nobler energies of his nature. We think three hours appropriate 
exercise each day will not eventually retard progress in study. We 
must say, from five or six years experience in the institution, we 
have not learned that any close student has ever completed an entire 
course of study without serious detriment to health. We hope, 
however, our present system of exercise will soon enable us to 
exhibit a different statement. In the preservation and improvement of 
health, we have found an unspeakable benefit arising from systematic 
exercise. Without it, we deem it impossible for the close student to 
preserve his health."

The superintendants of a kindred institution, in a document which 
they have laid before the public, declare, that they "have great 
satisfaction in being able to state that a strong conviction pervades 
the minds of the _young men_ generally, as well as their own, that 
laborious exercise for three hours per day does not occupy more time 
than is necessary for the highest corporeal and mental energy; that 
so far from retarding literary progress, it greatly accelerates it; 
that instead of finding labor to encroach upon their regular hours of 
study, they find themselves able, with a vigorous mind, to devote 
from eight to ten hours per day to intellectual pursuits; that under 
the influence of this system, mental lassitude is seldom if ever 
known; that good health and a good constitution are rarely if ever 
injured; that constitutions rendered delicate, and prostrated by hard 
study without exercise, have been built up and established; that this 
system with temperance is a sovereign antidote against dyspepsia and 
hypochondria, with all their innumerable and indescribable woes; that 
it annihilates the dread of future toil, self-denial, and dependence; 
secures to them the practical knowledge and benefits of agricultural 
and mechanical employments; gives them familiar access to, and 
important influence over that great class of business men, of which 
the world is principally composed; equalizes and extends the 
advantages of education; and lays deep and broad the foundations of 
republicanism; promotes the advancement of consistent piety, by 
connecting _diligence in business_ with _fervency of spirit_, and 
will bless the church with such increasing numbers of ministers of 
such spirit and physical energy, as will fit them to _endure hardness 
as good soldiers of Jesus Christ_."

We are every day more and more impressed with the importance and 
practicability of the manual labor system, as the only one by which 
the increasing hundreds and thousands of the pious and talented sons 
of the church can be raised up with the enterprise, and activity, and 
power of endurance, which are indispensable for the conversion of the 
world to God.

To these statements the individual who has collected them, adds his 
own testimony in the following language: "I have been for three years 
and a half a member of a manual labor school. The whole number of my 
fellow students during that period was about two hundred. I was 
personally acquainted with every individual, and merely 'speak what I 
know,' and 'testify what I have seen,' when I state that every 
_student_ who acquired a reputation for sound scholarship during this 
time, was a _fast friend_ of the manual labor system. The most 
intelligent, without a single exception, were not only thoroughly 
convinced of the importance of the system, but _they loved it with 
all their hearts_. They counted it a privilege and a delight to give 
their testimony in its favor, and they _did it_ in good earnest. 
Their approval of the system rose into an intelligent and abiding 
passion; and it is no marvel that it was so; for they had within them 
a permanent, living consciousness of its benefits and blessings. They 
felt it in their _bodies_, knitting their muscles into firmness, 
compacting their limbs, consolidating their frame work, and thrilling 
with fresh life the very marrow of their bones. They felt it in their 
_minds_, giving tenacity to memory, stability to judgment, acuteness 
to discrimination, multiform analogy to the suggestive faculty, and 
daylight to perception. They felt it in their _hearts_, renovating 
every susceptibility, and swelling the tide of emotion. It is true, 
with a few, a very few of the students, the system was unpopular, and 
so were languages and mathematics, philosophy and rhetoric, and every 
thing else in the daily routine, _save the bed and the dinner table_. 
Such students were snails in the field, drones in the workshop, dumb 
in debate, pigmies in the recitation room, and cyphers at the black 
board.

"In every manual labor school which I visited in my tour," he 
continues, "it was the invariable testimony of trustees and teachers, 
that the talent, the scholarship, the manliness, the high promise of 
all such institutions, were found among the pupils who gave the 
manual labor system their hearty approval; whereas if there were 
among the students brainless coxcombs, sighing sentimentalists, 
languishing effeminates, and other nameless things of equivocal 
gender; to prostitute _their_ delicate persons to the vile outrage of 
manual labor, was indeed a _sore affliction!_"

We shall close these selections by adding to them the testimony of an 
individual[4] of distinguished literary attainments, whose advantages 
for obtaining correct information on this topic, as well as many 
others, have been of the most favorable kind.

[Footnote 4: Professor Stuart.]

"The God of nature," he observes, "has designed the body for action; 
and all efforts to counteract this design, end of course in 
disappointment, sooner or later. The same God has designed that men 
should _cultivate_ {251} _their minds_; and I never can believe that 
this is deleterious in itself; it is so only when we neglect what he 
has bidden us to observe, i.e. daily discipline and effort to 
preserve health.

"Students want vacations, journeys, remission from employment, &c. 
&c. and this at a great expense of time and money. Why? Because they 
will not be faithful, _every day_, to watch over their health, and to 
use all the requisite means for its preservation. Why should the 
farmer, the mechanic, the merchant, the physician, the lawyer, 
support a never ceasing round of employment, and the student not? Is 
there any curse laid by heaven upon study? No; it is 
inaction--laziness--that makes all the mischief, and occasions all 
the expense. This is my full persuasion from thirty years experience, 
and somewhat extensive observation."

To these selections others of similar interest and importance might 
be added from the _Report_ from which they have been derived, 
particularly the numerous and harmonious opinions of literary men, 
_on the necessity and utility of regular systematic exercise to the 
student_; but our time forbids the indulgence, and the maxim of 
_Festina ad finem_ admonishes us to cut short this address.

From the view that has been taken, we perceive then, with a clearness 
which cannot be mistaken, that the manual labor system of education 
is applauded by "a cloud of witnesses," and commended to our 
patronage and attention by arguments and facts innumerable, palpable, 
and unanswerable. Will the inquiry be misplaced, when we ask, Shall 
it _here_, (on this consecrated ground, this literary _high place_, 
which is destined to send forth a mighty stream of influence for good 
or ill, to an extent which no arithmetic can calculate,) shall it 
_here_ receive the countenance and patronage which it so richly 
deserves? Manual labor schools are already in successful operation in 
this southern country, and the prosperity that has attended them has 
been such as to silence the cavils of opposers, and remove the 
apprehensions of the distrustful. With all enlightened and candid 
persons there can be but _one mind_ respecting their practicability 
and their _peculiar_ importance in this southern region. It is the 
very section perhaps, of all others, within the limits of our 
republic, that is best adapted to their growth, both on account of 
its soil and climate, and in which, from its peculiar situation, 
their influence is most imperiously demanded.

Again, then, I ask, will "the ancient and honorable Dominion" consent 
to be outstripped by her neighbors in an enterprise of so much 
grandeur and promise? Will parents, instructors, and pupils, repose 
in inglorious ease, and cry _a little more sleep, a little more 
folding of the hands to sleep_, while others in the race of 
competition press forward and bear off the prize? Will the young men 
of Hampden Sidney and Union Seminary sit still; or will they "awake, 
arise, and put on their strength?" Interests that are dear as honor 
and life, are suspended on the _practical_ reply which this inquiry 
receives.

It is stated, as is probable on good authority, that in years that 
have gone by, "some of the Virginian philanthropists offered to 
educate some of the Indians, and that they received from the shrewd 
savages the following reply." (He that hath ears to hear, let him 
hear what the _savages_ have said to the _civilized_!)

"Brothers of the white skin! You must know that all people do not 
have the same ideas upon the same subjects; and you must not take it 
ill that our manner of thinking in regard to the kind of education 
which you offer us does not agree with yours. We have had in this 
particular some experience. Several of our young men were some time 
since educated at the Northern Colleges, and learned there all the 
sciences. But when they returned to us, we found they were spoiled. 
They were _miserable runners_. They did not know how to live in the 
woods. They could not bear hunger and cold. They could not build a 
cabin, nor kill a deer, nor conquer an enemy. They had even forgotten 
our language; so that not being able to serve us as warriors, or 
hunters, or counsellors, they were absolutely good for nothing."

The calamities which are here set forth in such graphic terms have by 
no means been confined to the fathers and the sons of the forest. The 
_white_ young men of Virginia, in great numbers, have since been 
educated in like manner "at Northern Colleges," or nearer home: and 
when restored to their parents and guardians have been found, for the 
most part, like the sons of the _red men_, to be "_absolutely good 
for nothing_." They have proved to be "miserable runners." Not one in 
twenty of them has risen to eminence in professional life. They could 
"bear neither hunger nor cold." They were practically ignorant of 
mechanical and agricultural employments, and strongly averse to them; 
too high minded and indolent to labor, and too weak and effeminate to 
"serve as warriors, and hunters, and counsellors." Will Virginian 
parents learn a lesson from their own past experience and that of 
their savage predecessors? The corrective which we propose for the 
evil complained of, (and it is too serious for merriment,) is the 
immediate introduction of the manual labor system into all our 
institutions of learning. If this feature is introduced and kept up 
in them, with a prominence proportioned to its importance, our youth, 
who are educated in them, if not fitted for usefulness and 
distinction in the departments of law, medicine and theology, will 
not be utterly "spoiled" as the sons of the _red men_ were; but will 
be good "runners," useful and respectable laborers, mechanics, 
planters, and farmers. This, after all, is the population, of which, 
more than any other, Virginia needs an increase. The low state of 
mechanic arts and of agriculture among us, or rather the prevailing 
vice of _indolence_, is the true source of the present disasters 
which are so often made the theme of popular declamation by stump 
orators and upstart politicians. It is _indolence_, more than any or 
every thing else, that checks the spirit of enterprise; that covers 
this fairest portion of our continent with _sackcloth_, and spreads 
over it the sable shroud of desolation. Let then a revolution be 
effected in our system of education. Let our youth be trained for the 
duties of practical life. Let them be instructed in what is useful, 
as well as ornamental; and let them bring minds stored with the 
riches of learning and science, to bear and act on _the subject of 
most absorbing temporal interest to the American people_, I mean the 
neglected subject of _agriculture_, and all will yet be well. The 
citizens of the South will then be independent indeed, and not in 
boast. Labor, like "marriage," will be "honorable in all." The work 
which misguided abolitionists are laboring, with a zeal that would be 
becoming in a better cause, to perform {252} by a meddlesome and 
violent interference, will be effected by the gradual and voluntary 
agency of her own inhabitants. Her population will multiply. Commerce 
will thrive. Barren fields will be clothed with verdure. The 
productions of the earth will be increased. Crowded cities and 
smiling villages will spring up. The halls of legislation will be 
occupied by the hardy and virtuous cultivators of the soil, the men 
of all others the most safe to be entrusted with the enactment and 
administration of laws. Colleges, academies, and schools, will prove 
the nurseries of enlightened, healthful, industrious, and happy 
freemen; and Christianity, untrammelled by the obstacles that now so 
powerfully impede its progress, with a field wide and waving with a 
luxuriant harvest open and inviting before her, will send abroad her 
genial and regenerating influences, and render this the Paradise of 
lands.

We will conclude this, perhaps too protracted performance, in the 
language of an Indian Cazique.

"Would you know," he asked, "how I would have my children instructed 
in the ways of men? Look at this handful of dust gathered from the 
golden bed of the silver-flowing Aracara. What an infinite number of 
particles--yet how few the grains of ore which we prize; how great 
the toil which is necessary to sift out and separate them from the 
worthless heap in which they are concealed; even so it is with the 
history of the generations of men, from the creation downwards. 
Events have passed which no tongue can number; but the events which 
mark the character of human nature, and which are worthy of being 
treasured up in our memories, are but few, and only by the eye of 
wisdom to be distinguished.

"Let my children then be taught what these few events are; let them 
be spared the life's labor of turning over the mountain of dross 
which time has heaped up, in search of the scattered gems which are 
to lighten their path through the world; conduct them at once into 
the only treasury of true knowledge--that treasury which Philosophy 
has gleaned from the experience of thousands of generations."




SONG OF LEE'S LEGION.


  Our chargers are plunging and pawing the ground,
  And champing and tossing the white foam around--
  So fleet to pursue, and so mighty to crush,
  No foe will remain in the path where they rush.
    Away, then, my heroes--away, then, away!
    Let "Freedom or Death!" be the watchword to-day.

  Remember the burnings we witnessed last night;
  The fair and the feeble we passed in their flight;
  The wail of the wounded, the red blood that flowed,
  Still warm in the path, where by moonlight we rode.
    Away, then, &c.

  The marauder is nigh--he is hurrying back;
  The sand, as we gallop, still falls in his track.
  On! on! then, our swords for the battle are rife,
  And soon they shall drink at the fountain of life.
    Away, then, &c.

_Prince Edward_.




NATURAL BRIDGE OF PANDI, IN COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA.


The Bridge of Pandi is distant two days journey from Bogotá. We made 
it less toilsome by remaining several days at Fusugazugá--an 
intermediate village, which possesses the advantage of a fine climate 
and refreshing verdure, unknown to the plain upon which this city 
stands. The bridge is situated considerably lower--almost in the 
_tierra caliente_ hot country--where the thermometer rose to 86°, but 
still the heat was not very oppressive.

Our first view of the bridge was just at the moment when such a scene 
is most impressive. The sun had sunk behind the mountains. We were 
without a guide, nor did we need one. We had merely to follow the 
high road--a mule path--down into a deep ravine, near the bottom of 
which we heard the sound of rushing waters. On reaching the bridge, 
this sound and the dismal shrieks of numerous birds of night--the 
sole occupants of this gloomy region--called our attention to the 
scene below us. We then first knew we were upon the bridge of Pandi. 
Three hundred and fifty-eight feet beneath, rushes a stream, called 
Suma Paz, which fills the entire chasm--being, if we can trust our 
sight under circumstances so deceptive, about thirty or forty feet 
wide. We could see the deep chasm and the dark waters of the 
stream--but where was the bridge which Nature built? We were standing 
upon a rude structure of logs with railings so frail as almost to 
dismay the most daring; but upon closer examination we discovered 
that it rested upon several huge fragments which had fallen and 
lodged so as to form the bridge for which we were searching. The 
edges of the largest rock rest upon other rocks on one side, and on 
the other upon the sloping face of the severed mountain. Upon this we 
descended, and enjoyed a better view of what the imagination is so 
readily inclined to paint as infernal regions. The cries of the birds 
echo from the depths below, like the shrieks of troubled souls 
destined to the sad fate of never leaving the abodes to which their 
sins had driven them. Night was rapidly approaching; and with the 
feelings which the scene had inspired, we retraced our steps to the 
little village of Pandi or _El Mercadillo_, to which we had to 
clamber nearly half a league. Our hamacs welcomed us to rest, and 
after the fatigues of the day, sleep soon robbed us of our wandering 
thoughts.

On the following morning, we repeated our visit to the bridge, and 
reviewed the whole more leisurely. Although the awe of the preceding 
evening had subsided, our admiration was undiminished. The same Great 
Being which had ruptured the mountain asunder and opened a fearful 
fissure, had thrown down the loose fragments, and so lodged them as 
to contribute to the convenience as well as to arouse the 
astonishment and wonder of all who crossed. The natives of the 
country have destroyed much of the effect by the rude logs which they 
have laid upon the rocks across the chasm. It is also remarkable, 
that this fissure could not be passed elsewhere for many leagues in 
either direction.

How will the Natural Bridge of Pandi compare with that of Rockbridge 
County in Virginia? The beauty of this must sink before the awful and 
grand sublimity of the other. In that you would look in vain for the 
{253} well turned arch of this, while the latter is deficient in the 
almost unfathomable abyss and in the surrounding scenery and in the 
roaring waters of that of Pandi. I should have observed, that no 
means exist of reaching the bottom--nor is it desirable, as the 
bridge in itself, seen from below, cannot be imposing.

The birds which occupy the ledges and caverns formed by the ruptured 
rock, are called "_Pajaros del Puente_"--Birds of the Bridge--and are 
not known elsewhere. They are birds of night, and sally out only 
after it is dark into the neighboring dense forests, in search of the 
fruit with which they maintain themselves. If perchance the light of 
day overtake them before they regain their dark abodes, it is so 
noxious to them that they cannot survive it. Thus say the 
natives--and that this is shown by their being many times found dead 
in the paths of the mountains. They are equal in size to a 
pheasant--their color is a reddish brown, and their beaks square and 
very hard.




LINES

On the Statue of Washington in the Capitol.


    It is our WASHINGTON that you behold,
  Whom Nature fashioned in her grandest mould,
  To be the leader of a noble band,
  The friends of freedom, and their native land:
  A perfect hero, free from all excess;
  Above Napoleon, though he dazzled less:
  Not quite so great for what he did, 'tis true,
  But greater far for what he did not do:
  And, nought he ought not, all he ought, to be,
  He made his country, and he left her, free.




EPIGRAM.


  "A party, you tell me," says Dick, not invited,
  But who would not believe such a beau could be slighted;
  "A party at Modeley's?--can't possibly be;
  For how could he have such a thing _without me_?"




FALL OF TEQUENDÁMA, IN COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA.


The _Salto de Tequendama_, a remarkable cascade, of which we had 
heard much, and which has been described in most glowing language, is 
distant to the southwest of Bogotá about fifteen miles. We had made 
arrangements to visit it a fortnight ago, but the illness of one of 
our party caused us to defer it. We now determined to see the fall, 
and return to the city on the same day. To accomplish our design, we 
set out before day (about 5 o'clock) this morning. A rapid ride of an 
hour and a half brought us to the small village of Suácha, situated 
upon the plain of Bogotá, near its southern border. The last 
earthquake, from which Bogotá suffered so severely, was felt with the 
utmost violence at Suácha, and prostrated entirely the church, which 
is again rising from its ruins. Our route continued a league further 
over the plain, and we crossed the river Funza, whose course has been 
very circuitous through the plain, but is particularly devious where 
we passed over it, upon an uncouth and not very safe bridge, to the 
Hacienda de Canoas. The river winds sluggishly to our left towards 
the fall. Our path led over the high hills which appear to have been 
once the banks of the great lake which must have covered the plain 
which the view from these heights embraces. To eminences which are 
wholly devoid of trees succeed others which are well wooded, where we 
enter a more picturesque region, worthy of the fine scene which we 
were now eager to witness. We were convinced that we were near it, 
and listened for the deafening roar which we expected would betray 
the rush of the waters into the tremendous gulf that receives them. 
The path was steep, and shortly before we arrived at the spot where 
it was necessary to alight from our horses, the sounds of the fall 
reached us; but we were distant from it a few hundred yards only. My 
first sensation was disappointment, when I stood upon the brink of 
the chasm into which a stream whose greatest width is estimated at 
forty feet, is precipitated to a depth which did not seem to exceed 
three hundred feet, but which is estimated to be more than six 
hundred. The river being now uncommonly low, a sheet of water about 
fourteen or fifteen feet in width, is tossed about thirty feet upon a 
ledge of rocks, from which it dashes in foam to the bottom of the 
deep abyss, a large proportion of it dissipating in spray. The foot 
of man has never trodden the bottom of this chasm. Its sides are 
perpendicular to a considerable distance below, and the strata of 
rock are exactly horizontal, so that no means of descending have yet 
been discovered within the curvilinear aperture, where the mountain 
seems to have parted and given passage to the Funza.

Attempts have been made repeatedly to reach the foot of the cataract 
by ascending the bed of the river, into which it is easy to enter at 
some distance below. A fall of about twenty feet had resisted 
heretofore the efforts of every adventurer. A party of Americans 
preceded us to-day, provided with ladders and ropes, with a 
determination to surmount this obstacle. In this they succeeded, but 
another yet more difficult presented itself--this they also 
surmounted with the strengthened hope of having then overcome every 
obstruction which resisted the accomplishment of their wishes. They 
were too sanguine. On ascending further, a fall of about forty feet 
now stared them in the face, and resisted all their efforts. 
Perpendicular rocks enclosed the narrow chasm. The only possible 
ascent was through the dashing torrent--with this they struggled 
nobly, but they had not the means of resisting it. The abode of 
innumerable parrots, whose screams, heard faintly at the height on 
which we stood, warned us of the exertions made to encroach upon 
their domain, that continues unmolested and untrodden by man. We 
spent more than two hours at the fall, hoping to witness the success 
of the enterprising adventurers. Although disappointed in this 
respect, we were amply compensated by the increased admiration with 
which we viewed this beautiful fall, notwithstanding it is seen so 
imperfectly. There are two spots from which good views may be 
obtained. We must leave to the fancy to imagine the grand effect of a 
sight from beneath it. It is to be hoped that ladders will be placed 
or that some means will be discovered to gratify the ardent desire 
one naturally feels of seeing to the best advantage this admirable 
work of nature.

{254} The Fall of Tequendáma has been compared with the cataract of 
Niagara. Such a comparison cannot be instituted fairly. In the one, 
nature has been most lavish with her grandeur and sublimity: the 
other she has endowed liberally with the beautiful and the 
picturesque. The height of Tequendáma may be four times greater than 
that of Niagara; its width not the thirtieth part: and to judge the 
comparative volume of the waters of both, it suffices to reflect, 
that Tequendáma drains the river Funza; Niagara the waters of four 
inland seas, which united, are not exceeded in size by the Gulf of 
Mexico.




LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. IX.

            The proudest land of all,
  That circling seas admire--
  The Land where Power delights to dwell,
  And War his mightiest feats can tell,
  And Poesy to sweetest swell,
    Attunes her voice and lyre.
                                 _Aristophanes_.


The ship in which I had embarked soon fell down the river, and, aided 
by a favorable breeze, we quickly shot by the massy and motionless 
scenery of the majestic Rappahannock. Changing our course we entered 
one of the beautiful and tributary waters of the Chesapeake, and 
dropped anchor directly in front of an antique mansion, the stately 
residence of a proud and well known name. An extensive garden, which 
declared the taste and pedantry of its owner, for its chaste and 
beautiful model was drawn from the pages of the Odyssey, stretched 
its broad walks to the margin of the river. A throng of merry girls 
and romping boys poured down from the porch of the house, welcoming 
with glad voices that, happiest of all Virginian visiters, an 
importing ship. Disguising myself I leaped into the boat which left 
the vessel, and ere its keel had grated on the sand, many negroes had 
rushed into the water, and were dragging it to the shore with songs 
of triumph and congratulation. An elderly gentleman, grave, dignified 
and thoughtful--peace to his fair-top boots and glittering 
buckles!--now appeared and commenced the usual ledger conversation 
with Captain Z. about the quality and price of his tobacco, and in a 
whisper he told him on no account to sacrifice his "new ground sweet 
scented." Holding a paper in his hand he called aloud to his family 
to enter their wishes on that magic tablet, which he was about to 
send _home_. No commercial newspaper ever declared a more incongruous 
catalogue of the comforts of life and the luxuries of opulence: lace 
and iron, silk and spades, wine and jesuit's bark, all figured in the 
same column; and when the negroes were called on to declare what they 
wanted, they filled the mystic page with calico, fiddle strings and 
bottles. Many a bronzed and ebon colored child was led up to old 
massa by its mother, and each lisping petition for a hat or a fishing 
hook, was sacredly entered on the list.

I returned to the ship, and dropping a hasty line to my uncle, 
informing him of the reasons which compelled me to leave Virginia, 
despatched it by the last canoe which quitted our side, and retiring 
to sleep I did not awake until the ship was dancing gaily over the 
broad waters of the Atlantic. I looked on the furrowed track behind 
me--and, far in the amber west, the lessening glory of the Virginian 
coast was sinking in the wilderness of waters. With a fixed and 
quenchless eye I watched its expiring outline, and when it had sunk 
down into a wavy and shadowy mist, I felt as the exile whose 
pulseless heart has heard the requiem of hope and the knell of love. 
Young, inexperienced, and ignorant of the world, I was launched like 
a rotten barque in the tempestuous ocean of man, while home, love, 
hope and all the primal sympathies of the human heart, were to me, 
sealed, buried, and forever annihilated. I had fled!--leaving a name 
associated with the scorn of honor and the vengeance of society. Who 
that heard of me would believe me innocent in the duel with Ludwell, 
or who would believe that self-defence prompted my attack on the life 
of Pilton? God in his goodness gave us tears! I had them not, and 
from a tearless eye I became sullen and satisfied, with no human 
passion but an increased affection for Ellen Pilton, which streamed 
through my heart like phosphoric words on the dark walls of a cavern. 
I was proud to be the victim of wayward and adverse circumstances, 
and yielding to their mystic control, I found that destiny weaves an 
argument which philosophy cannot unravel.

On the second day of our voyage, Scipio presented himself, telling me 
that he was sent from Chalgrave with letters for the ship, that he 
had discovered me through my disguise, that he had secreted himself 
on board of the vessel, and that he was determined to follow me to 
the end of the world. I soon settled the manner and purpose of his 
appearance with the captain, and found in the priceless fidelity of 
my servant, a green spot on which my heart might rest from its storm 
of revenge and misanthropy.

Cheered by the balmy spirit of the western gale our gallant ship sped 
her onward course, and the glad cry of land which echoed through the 
vessel as we approached the beetling coast of England fell on my ear 
like words of mercy to the prisoned captive. Standing on the quarter 
deck, I saw before me the bustle, hurry and turmoil of commerce. The 
surface of the water was chequered with a dense throng of vessels, 
while, broadly floating in the breeze, appeared that proud flag on 
whose glory the sun rises, and over whose empire he sets. As a 
Virginian! as one whom early education and childish associations had 
inspired, I gazed with a hallowed enthusiasm on that rugged land, 
which looked down from its iron-bound eyre, the eagle of the 
deep--that land which my boyish feelings had made the seat of 
intellect and the dwelling place of genius. The early colonists had 
called it by the tender name of Home; and the mellow tales of its 
glory, which had been poured into my infant ear, were now started 
into life and freshness. It was the land of Sir Philip Sydney, 
Hampden and Pope, and on each spot of its classic earth Poetry had 
raised her hallowed memorials, and Patriotism its stirring examples. 
From the frozen sea to the burning tropics her name is respected, her 
influence felt, her example imitated, her kindness cherished, her 
resentment dreaded, while a radiant wake of glory streams behind the 
path of her march. Far in the forests of the western world, the names 
of her gifted sons who have asserted the triumphs of virtue or the 
dignity of man, are heard, and are re-echoed back from the Thames to 
the Ganges, and from the Volga to the Mississippi. In the solitude of 
power she stands alone, {255} a massy trunk, resisting anarchy and 
bending to every storm of revolution, yet rising from each assault in 
more verdant and luxuriant foliage. Philosophy may claim the gigantic 
birth of Printing--Religion the Reformation, and Science the 
discovery of Gunpowder, as the great engines which opened the path of 
civilization. The mind of England seized these mighty levers, her 
hand perfected them, and achieved for herself that towering fame 
which pours its lustre from the table-land of the world. This picture 
was the dream of ignorance. Alas! how soon was its frost-work melted 
before the light of truth! Unconscious of the hideous vice which 
lurked beneath the gorgeous fabric, I saw only its glowing outline--I 
was ignorant of its rapine, fraud and avarice--its selfishness of 
motive and act--its singleness of empire and power, and of that 
universal corruption which yields power to wealth, and honors to 
knavery. The demon of gain is abroad throughout England--a pestilence 
which walketh in the darkness of the human heart, expanding its 
ravenous arms in her cities, or secretly hugging its penny in her 
lowliest cottages. Her metropolis is the shamble of the universe--a 
capacious reservoir, where vice elbows virtue, and where selfishness 
festers itself into the loathsome obesity of the toad. Every thing is 
on sale, and in the "mixed assortment" of her merchandise, even 
learning, genius and wit, succumb to the secret spirit of her ledger.

  "E'en the learned pate
   Ducks to the golden fool."

Without her Christianity, which often blooms in guileless and 
untainted simplicity, her blood-stained empire would tumble to the 
earth. It is the influence of this holy faith which neutralizes the 
excess of profligacy, and stimulates her expanded philanthropy. 
Excited by its spirit, benevolence becomes religion, patriotism 
springs into virtue, and in the remotest corners of the earth we see 
the charity of the Christian opening the purse and heart of the 
Englishman.

I leave the narrative of sights and curiosities to the guide book. 
Born in the wilderness, my mind was as rugged as the grandeur of the 
forest, and like the native Indian I had naught to admire but the 
still and noiseless majesty of my own beautiful land. The stately 
palaces--the lofty towers and all the fantastic pageantry which 
opulence engenders, were but the moral to the fine sarcasm which 
antiquity has fabled in the bridge of Salmoneus. Man's "brief 
authority" decorates folly with a pyramid or a cathedral, and 
succeeding ages call it glory. What son of Virginia would barter her 
broad rivers--her sunny sky--her fertile plains, and her snow-capped 
mountains, for the crumbling monuments of tyranny and superstition, 
or the fœtid marts of gain? Who would exchange the infant purity of 
the western world for the hoary vice and aged rottenness of Europe? 
Uncontaminated by the example of England, we have yet seized from her 
the sacred flame of freedom--her _habeas corpus_ without the act of 
impressment--her _bill of rights_ without a borough representation, 
and the rose of civil liberty transplanted to the west has bloomed 
without a thorn.

I was soon in London, and received many marks of attention and 
kindness from the representatives of an old commercial house, which 
for years had sold every hogshead of tobacco from the Granby 
plantations. My bills were honored, and at the instance of Scipio I 
took a suite of rooms in the most fashionable street of the city. 
Without letters of introduction, and too proud to search for my many 
noble relatives, (my uncle had drugged me with their amors, duels and 
honors!) I succumbed in silence to that cheerless solitude which 
flaps its funeral wing around the indurated selfishness of a crowded 
city. At the Virginia Coffee House, I frequently found many of my own 
countrymen, who were making the tour of Europe only because their 
fathers had done it. An utter contempt of money--a carelessness of 
air and manner--a generous and open hearted confidence in every 
one--a familiarity with the Doncaster and Epsom turf--an anxious zeal 
in attending the courts of Westminster, and the gallery of the House 
of Commons, with a thorough knowledge of the literary history of 
England, and the places hallowed by Shakspeare and the Spectator, 
were their striking and changeless characteristics.

Shortly after my permanent and fixed residence had been made, I was 
lounging, as was my wont, in the crowded walks of the Exchange--the 
only idle being in that heated and feverish walk of gain, when a loud 
cry broke through the multitude and a horse dashed near me, the foot 
of his rider hanging in the stirrup. I instantly sprang forward, 
caught the bridle, leaped on his back, and leaning down I rescued the 
unfortunate rider from his perilous situation. From this event an 
intimacy commenced between Col. R---- and myself. His history was 
brief. High birth and fortune smiled on his cradle. Entering into 
manhood he had purchased a commission in the army, and had lived out 
Swift's spirited description of the man of fashion, "in dancing, 
fighting, gaming, making the circle of Italy, riding the great horse 
and speaking French." Satiated with the world, he had left it without 
being either a churl or a misanthrope. He resided in a costly villa 
near London, which his taste had decorated with elegance and 
refinement. The massy richness of an aged grove, soothed, without 
chilling the fancy, and through its broad vista the glimmering light 
lent itself to diversify uniformity without diminishing grandeur. 
Consistency towered above vanity, for there were no glades rolled 
into gravelled plains, nor trees sheared into fantastic foliage--that 
sickly taste which finds honor in the sacrifice of simplicity, and 
pride in its outrage on nature. The walls of his house were hung with 
rare and deeply mellowed paintings, and his capacious library was 
stocked with the heavy tomes of ancient lore. Gone are those good old 
books!--their spirit has been turned into a tincture!--their life and 
soul have been abridged--the stern Clitus has been disgraced by a 
Persian dress--the march of mind cannot brook a folio! The education 
of Col. R---- was deeply tainted with the forgotten glory of his 
library--a wild flower blooming amid the silence of a neglected ruin. 
He had literature without pedantry, learning without arrogance; and 
being neither author nor compiler, he yet mingled on equal terms of 
compliment and civility with the gifted names of his land. Proud 
pre-eminence of genius! respected even in its slumbers. Though its 
possessor be unknown to print, though his pen sleep in idleness, like 
the prophet, the sacred flame plays around his brow and lightens up 
his onward course.

In his society I drank from a deep stream of {256} intellect pure and 
unalloyed happiness--yet dashed into bitterness by the remembrance 
that under his protection I had first visited a gaming table--though 
he had carried me thither more for the purpose of portraying human 
character than of making me either the proselyte or victim of its 
insidious vice.

Come Lionel! said he, gently touching my shoulder, as I was deeply 
absorbed in the unhallowed rites of the blind goddess--leave this 
dangerous place! Your warm blood and ardent temperament cannot 
withstand its harlotry. Crush in its infancy that juggling fiend, 
which martyrs the pride of mind--the dignities of virtue, the 
immunities of education, and the consolations of religion.

His warning voice fell on a sodden ear. Seated at a long table, in a 
magnificent saloon blazing with lights and ornamented with costly 
curtains of damask, whose billowy drapery dropped over grotesque and 
luxurious furniture, I bowed with prostrate devotion to the idol of 
Chance. I was in the temple of suicide--the hell of earth; and 
inebriated with its deadly vapor, I saw not the thronging crowd, 
whose passion-stricken countenances alternately displayed the rapid 
transitions from joy to sadness, from successful cupidity to luckless 
despair. I went through the usual vicissitudes of the game. I won. 
Success made me bold, failure excited me to more and more dangerous 
enterprise. I had drawn on our tobacco merchant until my bills were 
protested, nor could I ask from Col. R---- the wages of humanity. I 
paid a heavy premium to one of the loungers of the table, to teach me 
a system by which I might always win. Duped by its deceitful 
sophistry, I risked my all--my watch, breast-pin, and all the jewelry 
of my dress were successively staked and lost. My hand was on the 
golden locket consecrated as the gift of Isa Gordon. With a painful 
struggle I preserved it from the gripe of despair, and quitted the 
accursed table a bankrupt and a beggar!

When I reached my lodgings, Scipio met me with his usual kindness, 
which I repelled with a severity and harshness that called a tear to 
his eye. Go! cried I, leave me, I am a broken man and a friendless 
beggar, I give you your freedom. Go! and for God's sake do not longer 
tempt my avarice! An unusual cheerfulness spread itself over his 
countenance--the convincing indication of my fallen fortune. The idea 
was no sooner conceived, than my despair gave it certainty, and 
rising I drove my servant from the room with a blow and a curse.

I sold all the furniture with which I had supplied my rooms, and 
again rushed to the gaming table. The fickle goddess had forever 
deserted me, and, lost to all sense of shame, I hung around the 
table, a silent spectator of the deep, passionate, and thrilling 
drama.

About a week after Scipio's departure, a gentleman accosted me at the 
table, and delivered a letter which he informed me he had brought 
from Liverpool. It was written in the sententious style of a 
merchant, and enclosed a draft in my favor on an eminent banker for 
fifty pounds.

The writer informed me that Scipio had sold himself for this sum to a 
Liverpool trader--that he had requested that the money should be sent 
to me, and that on the day after the purchase he had shipped the 
servant, with his own free consent, to the West Indies.

I waited on the banker, received the sacrifice of my slave's 
short-lived freedom; and as I looked on the tear-stained money, I 
learned from that generous and affectionate fidelity, a lesson which 
made me loathe with horror the moral prostitution of the gaming 
table.




THE PATRIARCH'S INHERITANCE.

The following is an extract from an unfinished MS. and occurs at the 
close of an interview between the Almighty and Abraham, in the course 
of which is introduced the promise thus stated in Genesis: "And the 
Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up 
now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, 
and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which 
thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever," &c.


                    ------This pronounced,
  The Radiant Form withdraws. And now return
  Sunshine and shade, and cool, delicious airs,
  Restoring common joys. The saintly chief,
  Reviving, stands erect; and still his robes,
  With lingering glory, make the moon-beams pale.
  Soon all his senses feel the flowing soul,
  Quick with new life and thrilling power intense.
  His eyes, undazzled, drink the pouring sun,
  And sweep entranced the swelling scene below--
  Mountains, and hills, and plains, and lakes, and streams.

    O, blest, enchanting vision! All around,
  Enrich'd with purest green, and all remote
  Adorn'd with deepest blue; the bending sky
  And farthest summits mingling fainter hues,
  Walling the world with sapphire. All he sees,
  He hails his own; and burns with lordly flame.
  His the down-rushing torrents; his the brooks,
  Flashing from every vale; and his the lakes,
  Wide sparkling bright, as though a shower of gems
  On silver falling scattered countless lights.
  His too the rolling woods, the laughing meads,
  And rocks of waving grapes--his every wind,
  Stirring the world with life and breathing far
  Fragrance and music--his the silent cloud,
  That fleetly glides along the soft mid-air,
  Reflecting, moon-like, from its upper plain
  Of snowy beauty, every ray from heaven;
  And o'er the under landscape leading on
  Its shadowy darkness, running up and down
  The ever-changing mountains. Who may tell
  The many sources of his gushing joy?
  Not only Jordan, and its palmy plains;
  Lot's Citied Garden; and the orient heights
  Of fruitful Gilead, sweeping to the marge
  Of Bashan's mellow pastures: not alone
  The visual charms delight his ardent soul,
  Around, though fair, and fairer still remote;
  But wider regions--lost in distant haze,
  Or shut from sight by intercepting bounds--
  Fairest of all. Far flies his circling thought
  From Edom's southern plains to Hermon's brow,
  Frost-wreath'd, and lowlands steep'd in streaming dew;
  And on to snow-crown'd Lebanon, with slopes
  Of fadeless verdure nursed by living founts,
  And glorious cedars swayed by balmy winds,
  In whose high boughs the eagle builds her nest,
  And on whose roots the fearful lion sleeps;
  And thence to Tabor's central cone, and fields    {257}
  Of Eden, like Esdrelon; and the oaks
  Of flowery Carmel, waving o'er the sea;
  And Sharon's rosy bloom; and Eshcol's vale,
  Purple with vines from Hebron to the coast.
  O'er all the range his ravished mind expands,
  Warm with high hopes of wondrous days to come.
  The promise--like a meteor--how it lights
  The gloom of future ages! Lonely there
  The childless stranger stands--sublime in faith:
  Sure that the ten throned nations reigning round,
  In stately power, with pomp of idol shrines,
  Shall yield to his descendants; shall behold
  His mightier seed--thick as the seashore sands--
  Countless as stars that crowd the clearest sky,--
  Pouring their myriads over hill and dale,
  Casting the champion pride of princes down,
  Dashing the templed monsters in the dust,
  Sounding the trump of triumph through the land,
  Thronging the scene with holier, happier homes,
  And rearing high, to flame with heavenly fire,
  Earth's only altars to the Only God!

T. H. S.

_Washington, March 17, 1836_.




AMERICANISMS.


The _Americanisms_ of our language have been a prolific source of 
ridicule and reproach for the British critics. When a word in an 
American publication has fallen upon the eyes of these literary 
lynxes, which they have thought an innovation, they have fiercely 
denounced it as Yankee slang--as a proof of our uneducated ignorance; 
they have even denied that we understand the English language, or can 
speak or write it intelligibly. In most of the cases it turned out 
and was demonstrated, that the poor words thus assailed were true and 
genuine English, used by their best writers and speakers; found in 
their best dictionaries; but unhappily for the poor things, unknown 
to these erudite and conceited knights of the pen, either too 
careless to turn to their books for information, or having none to 
turn to. In a few instances in which we have taken a little license 
with the language, we have seen that after overloading us with abuse 
for the birth of the child, they have taken it to themselves, and put 
it into the service of writers and orators of the highest rank. Such 
was the fate of our Americanisms--_to advocate_, _influential_, in 
the sense in which we use it, and several others. They found the 
brats really not such deformities as they supposed, and were willing 
to adopt and use them; but this did not abate their contempt of the 
parents. Englishmen residing in England, seem to claim an exclusive 
right in the invention of English words. In Bulwer's character of 
_Rienzi_, this hero is said to have been _avid_ of personal power. 
This is the coinage of the ingenious author; at least I find no 
authority for it even in the latest dictionaries, nor in any other 
writer of reputation. Now I have no objection to the introduction of 
a new word into our language by Mr. Bulwer or any body else, provided 
that it be done with due discretion, and subject to some just 
regulation and principle. In the first place, it should be necessary, 
supplying a want, or at least obviously convenient in the expression 
of some idea with more precision than it can be done by any existing 
word. In the second place, it should be in full consistence and 
harmony with the idiom of the language. Lord Kames, on using a word 
of his own making, gives this note. "This word, hitherto not in use, 
seems to fulfil all that is required by Demetrius Phalereus in 
coining a new word--first, that it be perspicuous; and next, that it 
be in the tone of the language."

I find no fault with Mr. Bulwer for the production of his mint, but I 
will not acknowledge that he, or any other English author, has a 
better right than an American to take this license. We understand the 
language as well as they do; we derive our knowledge from the same 
sources, and we shall use the liberty with as much caution, propriety 
and discrimination. If this monopolizing, exclusive people, could 
have their way, they would not suffer us to spin a pound of cotton, 
or hammer out a bar of iron; and now, forsooth, we must not presume 
to turn a noun into a verb, or add a monosyllable to the stock of 
English words.

H.




TO RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.[1]

[Footnote 1: Written soon after his death.]


  Start not, great spirit of the mighty dead!
  No sneering cynic comes with fiendish tread,
  To mock the laurels of thy honored brow,
  And ask,--where lies thy strength or glory now?

  No snarling critic, jackal-like, to brave
  The fearful lion, nerveless in his grave,
  Whose living look had shrunk his trembling form,
  As craven creatures crouch before the storm:

  No saintly, sinning bigot vents his spite
  For crimes exposed, or horrors brought to light;
  No puppy-patriot, peculator bold,
  Would bark at thee, for sneering at his gold:

  No spaniel dog, to gain a master's smile,
  Would crunch thy bones, thy hallowed grave defile;
  No smiling sycophant, or grovelling hind,
  Whose soul succumbs beneath a mastermind:

  No little gatherer of great men's words,
  No album-filling fool of flowers and birds,
  Or autographic-maniac now weeps
  In sickly sympathy, where Randolph sleeps.

  Bereaved Virginia's voice majestic calls
  In mournful wailings from her fun'ral halls,
  "Whose strength shall terror strike? Whose voice shall charm?
  Who wound, or win, the wretch who wills me harm?

  Since thy great soul hath left its feeble frame,
  My only pride is thy undying name;
  My sun hath set in parting glory bright,
  My Randolph's dead, my shores are wrapt in night.

  Oh choose,--great spirit, from my blood alone,
  Some worthy one, with genius like thine own;
  Lest prophets false, my gallant sons deceive,--
  To him, Elisha-like, thy mantle leave."

HESPERUS.


{258}


ADDRESS

Delivered by the Hon. Henry St. George Tucker, before the Virginia 
Historical and Philosophical Society.[1]

[Footnote 1: The anniversary meeting of this Society was held at the 
Capitol in Richmond, on the second of March, in presence of a 
numerous auditory of both sexes. There was much disappointment at the 
absence of Professor Dew, who was expected to deliver the annual 
Address, but whose attendance was prevented by ill health. The Hon. 
Henry St. Geo. Tucker was unanimously appointed President in the room 
of Chief Justice Marshall, and the address which we now have the 
pleasure of publishing was delivered by the new President upon taking 
the chair. It was listened to with profound attention and pleasure. 
So, also, was a speech to be found on page 260 of Mr. Maxwell on 
presenting a resolution commemorative of the services and virtues of 
the late Chief Justice.

During the meeting, Mr. Winder, the Clerk of Northampton, presented a 
collection of MSS. found in some of the dark corners of the clerk's 
office of that ancient county. These papers, we are informed, are 
highly valuable, and shed new and interesting light upon an early 
period of Virginia History. They were the papers, it appears, of a 
Mr. Godfrey Poole, who early in the eighteenth century, was the clerk 
of Northampton court--was also a lawyer of considerable practice, and 
for many years clerk of the committee of Propositions and Grievances, 
an office, we suppose, of much higher relative grade then than at 
present. The MSS. are various in their character--consisting for the 
most part, of addresses by the then governors Spotswood and Dugsdale 
to the House of Burgesses--answers to those addresses, by the House, 
and copies of various acts of Assembly and Reports of Committees, not 
found in any printed record extant. There is also an undoubted copy 
of the Colonial Charter which received the signet of King Charles, 
and was stopped in the Hamper office upon that monarch's receiving 
intelligence of Bacon's rebellion. This charter, we believe, is not 
to be found in any of the printed collections of State papers or 
Historical Records in this country, having eluded the researches of 
Mr. Burke, and of the indefatigable Mr. Hening, the compiler of the 
Statutes at Large.

It appears also that Mr. Poole contrived to enliven the barren paths 
of Law and Legislation by an occasional intercourse with the Muses. 
We find among his papers two Poems--one is brief, of an amatory 
character, and addressed to Chloe--that much besonnetted name. The 
other, containing about one hundred and ninety lines is thus entitled

          The Expedition oe'r the mountain's:
      Being Mr. Blackmore's Latin Poem, entitled,
               Expeditio Ultra-Montana:
       Rendered into English verse and inscribed
  To the Honourable the Governour. (A. O. Spotswood.)

The "Expedition &c" is remarkable for three things--its antiquity 
(Virginian antiquity)--its mediocrity--and for one or two lines in 
which (singularly enough) direct reference is made to the discovery 
of a gold region in Virginia. The lines run thus--

  Here taught to dig by his auspicious hand,
  They prov'd the growing Pregnance of the land;
  For, being search'd, the fertile earth gave signs
  That her womb teem'd with gold and silver mines.
  This ground, if faithful, may in time outdo
  The soils of Mexico, and of fam'd Peru.]


_Gentlemen_,--In accepting, with the profoundest sense of my own 
unworthiness, the station you have been pleased to confer upon me, my 
mind very naturally reverts to the distinguished individual who has 
heretofore presided over your deliberations, and has added to the 
interest of your proceedings by the lustre of his own reputation, and 
the mild dignity of his exalted character. Since the days of General 
Washington, no man has lived more beloved and respected, or died more 
universally regretted, than the late venerable Chief Justice. 
Throughout this widely extended republic, our fellow citizens have 
vied in the distinguished honors which have been paid to his memory. 
Those honors have not been confined to the state which gave him 
birth, to the city in which he dwelt, to the supreme tribunal of his 
native state, which owes so much of its former reputation to the 
efficient aid he brought to their deliberations in the flower of his 
age. They have not been confined to any political party, or denied by 
those who have honestly and widely differed from him in their views 
of the construction of the great charter of our government. No, 
gentlemen, his character and life have been the themes of universal 
eulogy. The meditations of the wise have dwelt upon his virtues, and 
the lips of the eloquent have poured forth his praises throughout the 
Union. It is right that it should be so. As Chief Justice of the 
United States, his fame was the common property of that Union, which 
he so truly loved, and which he so long and so faithfully has served. 
For five and thirty years he presided over the first judicial 
tribunal of the United States; a tribunal which he elevated by his 
dignity, which he illustrated by his abilities, and instructed by his 
wisdom; a tribunal which was not only enlightened by the splendor of 
his meridian greatness, but was illumined by the last rays of his 
departing genius, and beheld with admiration its broad and spotless 
disc as it descended to the horizon. Even the hand of time seems to 
have dealt gently with his noble mind; and, like Mansfield and 
Pendleton, he too sunk into the grave full indeed of years as well as 
honors, but with unfading powers: thus affording another illustrious 
instance of the preservation of the undying intellect amid the ruins 
of a decaying frame.

  Orbis illabetur ævo, vires hominumque tabescent,
  Mens sola cælestis in œvum intacta manebit.

But, gentlemen, it has been the good fortune of some among us to have 
known our venerated countryman, not only in the elevated station to 
which his abilities had exalted him, but also in the not less 
interesting relations of private life.

  Seen him we have, and in the happier hour,
  Of social ease but ill exchanged for power;

And in that delightful intercourse who has not remarked how 
beautifully the amiable urbanity and simplicity of his manners, 
commingled with the unpretending dignity which was inseparable from 
the elevation of his character and his station? Who has not witnessed 
the purity of his feelings, the warmth of his benevolence, and the 
fervor of his zeal, in lending the support and countenance of his 
great name and influence to every enterprise which was calculated to 
promote the public good; to every scheme which promised to assist the 
march of intellect; to every association which had for its object the 
advancement of his countrymen in wisdom and virtue, and to every plan 
which philanthropy could plausibly suggest, for the amelioration of 
the condition of the humblest of our species? His heart and his hand 
were equally open, and his purse and his services were always freely 
commanded where they were called for by any object of public utility 
or private beneficence. It is not then surprising, gentlemen, that 
such a man should have been found at the head of this Society; that 
you should have selected him to grace your laudable enterprise, or 
that he should have lent his ready aid to an institution, which, 
however humble in its beginnings, gives the promise of important aid 
to the {259} knowledge and literature of our country. But it is a 
matter of the most painful regret, that the light of his countenance 
will shine no more upon us here, and that the influence of his 
counsels and the inspiration of his wisdom are withdrawn from us 
forever. Those cannot be replaced; and we may say of him as was said 
of the great father of his country more than forty years ago,

  Successors we may find, but tell us where,
  Of all thy virtues we shall find the heir.

For myself, gentlemen, I can bring to the discharge of the duties of 
this station nothing but the most earnest wishes for the success of 
your institution; an institution, whose laudable design is to save 
from oblivion whatever is interesting in the natural, civil and 
literary history of our country; to rescue from unmerited obscurity 
the many interesting papers which may throw light upon our annals; 
and to concentrate in its "transactions" the materials now scattered 
through the land, which at some future day may assist the researches 
of the historian or the speculations of the philosopher. It is 
neither my purpose nor my province here to dilate upon the benefits 
of such an institution. That duty was performed on a former occasion, 
by one who is now no more, with distinguished ability. Yet I trust I 
may be excused for a very cursory allusion to this interesting topic. 
It is not required to whet your purpose or to stimulate your 
exertions. But it is not amiss that we should occasionally advert to 
the powerful motives which impel us to sustain this infant 
institution. Do we look to the reputation of our ancient and beloved 
commonwealth; to her progress in the arts and in the cultivation of 
that literature which softens the manners and gives its finest polish 
to society? How then can we hear unmoved the taunts of others at her 
supineness? How can we listen without an ingenuous blush, to the 
reproaches of those who are ever ready to cast into our teeth our 
inglorious neglect of the noble cause of literature? Throughout the 
civilized world, the lovers of learning and of science are on the 
alert. Academies and societies for their promotion are no longer 
confined to Europe. They have long since found their way across the 
Atlantic, and have been growing and extending in our sister states 
for half a century. Some of them have grown to maturity and no longer 
totter in a state of infantile weakness. Those of Pennsylvania and 
Massachusetts particularly rest upon a basis stable and enduring, and 
have attained a noble elevation that does honor to their founders. 
And what has Virginia done? Absolutely nothing, until the spirited 
efforts of a few individuals first gave existence to this 
institution. She has aroused indeed from her slumbers at the voice of 
internal improvements, and has caught the enthusiasm with which they 
seem to have inspired the world. Her canals and her rail roads are 
sustained with all the zeal of patriotic feeling, backed by the less 
meritorious, but more steady influences of pecuniary profit. In every 
direction those arts and enterprises which promise to pour their 
rapid returns of wealth into the lap of the adventurer, are pursued 
with an eye that never winks, and a step that never tires. _Their_ 
progress is as rapid as the speed of a locomotive. But 
literature--neglected literature, still lags at a sightless distance 
behind. While companies spring up in a day for the excavation of a 
canal or the construction of a rail road, for the working of a coal 
mine or the search after gold. Behold what a little band has 
associated here, to redeem our state from the disgrace of a Bœotian 
neglect of literature--and to pluck up drowning honor by the locks, 
without other reward than the participation with our great corrivals 
in all the dignities of science. But let us not despair because we 
are but a handful. Our little society is but the germ of better 
things. This little seedling will, if properly nourished, become like 
a spreading and majestic oak. Then indeed, will it be an enduring 
monument to your memory, and posterity will look upon the noble 
object which has been planted by your hands and watered by your care, 
with respect and veneration for the authors of so great a 
benefaction. But remember it will wither when so young, unless 
sedulously fostered. An annual meeting at the seat of government and 
a discourse from a learned academician once a year, however 
interesting, will effect but little without the zealous and personal 
co-operation of us all. Wherever we go, we may be of use to the 
institution. The sagacious and observing will every where meet with 
interesting matter to be communicated and collected into this common 
reservoir. In the library of almost every man of ordinary diligence 
in the collection of what is curious and interesting, there are 
materials which by themselves are of little worth, but united with 
others here would become valuable and important--like the jewel, 
which shows to little advantage until it is surrounded by other 
brilliants, and is set by the hands of a master workman. So too, in 
our intercourse with society, we daily meet with the men of other 
days--those living depositaries of the transactions of early times; 
of transactions which live only in tradition and must be buried in 
the grave with the venerable patriarch or interesting matron, unless 
rescued from oblivion by the present generation. These evanescing 
fragments of our history should be gathered together with the most 
diligent care, like the flowers of an herbarium or the minerals of a 
geologist, and prepared for the historical department in this cabinet 
of literature. In short, gentlemen, go where we will, the most humble 
among us may still advance the great cause in which we are engaged. 
And while the learning and ability of some may contribute the rich 
treasures of their own minds, and the valuable results of their own 
profound lucubrations, there is not one among us who cannot in some 
way or other add his mite to the general stock. This is indeed no 
small consolation to myself; for I would not be a drone in such a 
hive; and yet my professional pursuits have been too exclusive to 
permit me to hope that I can ever be of other service than as an 
humble gleaner in the great field which lies before us.

It now only remains for me, gentlemen, to offer my most respectful 
acknowledgments for the honor you have conferred upon me, accompanied 
by the assurance that I shall discharge the duties assigned me with 
alacrity, and contribute to the success of your laudable views, as 
far as my humble abilities and my very limited acquirements in these 
walks of literature will permit.




AUTHORS.


Adam Smith has decided that authors are "manufacturers of certain 
wares for a very paltry recompense."


{260}


MR. MAXWELL'S SPEECH,

Before the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society, at its late 
annual meeting, held in the Hall of the House of Delegates, on the 
evening of the 2d March, on moving the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That the Society most truly laments the loss which it has 
sustained in the common calamity, the death of its illustrious 
President, the late John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United 
States, whose name, associated with our Institution in its origin, 
will grace its annals, while his life and character shall adorn the 
history of our State and country to the end of time.


Mr. President,--In the report of the Executive Committee, which has 
just been read, we are officially informed of what we knew but too 
well before, the loss which our Society has sustained in the death of 
our late venerable and illustrious President. Yes, Sir, the man whom 
Virginia--whom his country--whom all his fellows-citizens in all 
parts of the United States, admired, and loved, and delighted to 
honor--the man whom we, Sir, who knew him, fondly and affectionately 
called "THE CHIEF," (as he was indeed in almost every sense of the 
word,) our MARSHALL is no more. We shall see him no more in the midst 
of us--we shall see him no more in this very Hall, where his wisdom 
and eloquence have so often enlightened and convinced the listening 
assemblies of the State--we shall see his face, we shall hear his 
voice no more, forever. But we do not, we cannot forget him; but the 
remembrance of his transcendant abilities, his spotless integrity, 
his pure patriotism, his eminent public services, and his most 
amiable private virtues, is embalmed in all our hearts.

With these sentiments, Sir, which I am persuaded are the sentiments 
of all our members, I have felt it to be a duty which I owe not only 
to the memory of the deceased, but to the honor of our Society, to 
offer the resolution which the announcement suggests. In doing so, 
however, I shall not deem it either necessary or proper to detain you 
with many words, when I feel, most unaffectedly, that any which I 
could use would be entirely inadequate, and almost injurious, to the 
fame of such a man. I will not, therefore, Sir, enlarge upon the 
particulars of his life, which are already familiar to you. I will 
not tell you of the brilliancy of his first entrance upon the stage 
of action, when the voice of our Commonwealth, rising in arms to 
defend her constitutional rights against the tyranny of Britain, 
called him from his native forest, and from the studies in which he 
had just engaged, to join her army hurrying to the rescue of my own 
native town from the grasp of her insolent invader: nor of his 
following campaigns under Washington himself, and his gallant bearing 
on the memorable plains of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth: nor 
of his subsequent stand at the bar of this city, (then, as it is now, 
one of the most distinguished in the country,) where he was _primus 
inter pares_, the first amongst his fellows--the brightest star in 
the constellation which shed its radiance over our state: nor of his 
appearances in the House of Delegates, and in the Convention for the 
ratification of the constitution: nor of his conduct at the court of 
revolutionary France, where (with his worthy associates) he baffled 
all the arts and stratagems of the wily Proteus of Politics himself, 
and maintained the honor of his country to the admiration of all her 
citizens: nor of his reappearance in this place: nor of his 
translation to the floor of the House of Representatives, where he 
stood, spoke, and conquered: nor of his short but substantial service 
as Secretary of State: nor, above all, of his crowning elevation to 
that chair of judicial supremacy for which he seemed to have been 
made; and where he sat for so many years, like incarnate Justice--not 
blind, indeed, like that fabled divinity, but seeing all things with 
that quick, clear, and penetrating eye, which pierced at once through 
all the intricacies and involutions of law and fact, to discover the 
latent truth, or detect the lurking fallacy, as by the glance of 
intuition. No wonder, Sir, that with such admirable faculties, 
combined with such perfect pureness of purpose, such entire 
singleness and simplicity of heart, he shed a lustre around that seat 
which it never had before, and which I greatly fear it will never 
have again. No wonder, Sir, that he appeared to the eyes of many in 
all parts of our land, and even of some who could not exactly agree 
with him in all his views of our federal compact, as the very Atlas 
of the Constitution, supporting the starry firmament of our Union 
upon his single shoulder, which bowed not, bent not beneath its 
weight; and that when he died, there was something like a feeling of 
apprehension (for an instant at least) as if the fabric which he had 
so long sustained must fall along with him to the dust, and become 
the fit monument of the man.

But I will not dwell, nor even touch any longer, Sir, on these 
things, which indeed hardly belong to us, or belong to us only in 
common with all our fellow-citizens. _Vix ea nostra voco._ I can 
hardly call them our own. But I must just glance for a single moment, 
Sir, at the connection of the illustrious deceased with our Society. 
Sir, when we were about to form our institution, conscious as we were 
of the mortifying fact, that from the unfortunate passion of our 
people for politics, so called, (mere party politics) the more calm 
and rational pursuits of science and letters to which we were about 
to invite their attention, could hardly hope to find favor in their 
eyes, we were naturally desirous to call some person to that chair 
whose character, whose very name, might give the public an assurance 
of the utility of our labors; and we turned instinctively to _him_. 
We saw him, Sir, with all the honors of a long, laborious, and useful 
life clustered upon him; enjoying the respect and confidence of 
honorable men of all parties alike; maintaining his official 
neutrality with a meek and modest dignity that nothing could disturb, 
or ruffle for a moment; and soothing his old age with Christian 
philosophy, and polite letters, and the "sweetly-uttered wisdom" of 
poesy, which he had always loved from his youth--and we tendered him 
the office. He accepted it, Sir, at once, with that gracious 
condescension which belonged to him--expressed his cordial 
concurrence in our views--presented us with his own immortal work, 
the Life of the Father of his Country--and stamped our enterprise 
with the seal of his decisive approbation.

After this, Sir, we naturally felt a new interest in him; and you 
remember Sir, I dare say, how our hearts flowed out to him with a 
sort of filial reverence and affection, as he came about amongst us, 
like a father amongst his children, like a patriarch amongst his 
people--like that patriarch whom the sacred Scriptures have canonized 
for our admiration--"when the eye saw him, it blessed him: when the 
ear heard him, it gave witness to him; {261} _and after his words men 
spake not again_." For his words, indeed, even in his most familiar 
conversation, fell upon us with a sort of judicial weight; and from 
his private opinions, as from his public decisions, there was no 
appeal. Happy, thrice happy old man! How we wished and prayed for the 
continuance of his days, and of all the happiness and honor which he 
had so fairly won, and which he seemed to enjoy still more for our 
sakes than for his own! We gazed upon him indeed, Sir, as upon the 
setting sun, whilst, his long circuit of glory almost finished, he 
sank slowly to his rest; admiring the increased grandeur of his orb, 
and the graciousness with which he suffered us to view the softened 
splendors of his face; but with a mournful interest, too, which 
sprang from the reflection that we should soon lose his light. And we 
have lost it indeed. He has left us now--and we mourn for his 
departure. But we are consoled, Sir, by the transporting assurance 
which we feel, that the splendid luminary which the benificent 
Creator had kindled up for the blessing and ornament of our native 
land, and of the world, is not gone out in darkness, but shines still 
with inextinguishable lustre in the firmament of Heaven.




AN ADDRESS,

ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE FEDERATIVE REPUBLICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 
UPON LITERATURE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER.

Prepared to be delivered before the Historical and Philosophical 
Society of Virginia, at their annual meeting in 1836, by THOMAS R. 
DEW, Professor of History, Metaphysics and Political Law, in the 
College of William and Mary. Published by request of the Society,[1] 
March 20, 1836.

[Footnote 1: "It being understood that Professor Dew has been 
prevented by delicate health and the inclemency of the season, from 
attending the present meeting--

"_Resolved_, That he be requested to furnish the Recording Secretary 
of this Society with a copy of his intended address, for insertion in 
the Southern Literary Messenger."

  Extract from the minutes.

    G. A. MYERS, _Recording Secretary
    Of the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society_.]


Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society,

I have consented to appear before you this evening with feelings of 
the deepest solicitude--a solicitude which has been increased by my 
knowledge of the ability and eloquence of the gentleman who was first 
chosen by you to perform this task, and by the fact that this is the 
first time that circumstances have permitted my attendance on your 
sessions, though early admitted by the kindness of your body to the 
honor of membership.

The subject upon which I propose to address you is one which I hope 
will not be considered as inappropriate to the occasion. I shall 
endeavor to present to your view some of the most important effects 
which the Federative Republican System of government is calculated to 
produce on the progress of literature and on the development of 
individual and national character.

When we cast a glance at the nations of the earth and contemplate 
their character, and that of the individuals who compose them, we are 
amazed at the almost endless variety which such a prospect presents 
to our view. We perceive the most marked differences, not only 
between the savage and civilized nations, but between the civilized 
themselves--not only between different races of different physical 
organization, but between the same races--not only between nations 
situated at immense distances from each other, but among those 
enjoying the same climate, and inhabiting the same region. How marked 
the difference, for example, between the nations of India and those 
of Europe--how different the citizen who merely vegetates under the 
still silent crushing despotisms of the East, from that restless, 
bustling, energetic being who lives under the limited monarchies and 
republics of the West! And again, what great differences do we find 
among the latter themselves! What differences do we observe between 
the French and the English, the Germans and the Spaniards, the Swiss 
and the Italians! How often does the whole moral nature of man seem 
to change, by crossing a range of mountains, passing a frontier 
stream, or even an imaginary line! "The Languedocians and Gascons," 
says Hume, "are the gayest people in France; but whenever you pass 
the Pyrenees you are among Spaniards." "Athens and Thebes were but a 
short day's journey from each other; though the Athenians were as 
remarkable for ingenuity, politeness and gaiety, as the Thebans for 
dulness, rusticity, and a phlegmatic temper."

There is no subject more worthy the attention of the philosopher and 
the historian, than a consideration of the causes which thus 
influence the moral destiny, and determine the character of nations 
and individuals. Among the generating causes of national differences, 
none exert so powerful, so irresistible an influence as Religion and 
Government; and of these two potent engines in the formation of 
character, it may be affirmed, that if the former be sometimes, under 
the operation of peculiar circumstances, more powerful and 
overwhelming, directing for a season the spirit of the age and 
overcoming every resistance to its progress, the latter is much more 
constant and universal in its action, and mainly contributes to the 
formation of that permanent national character which lasts through 
ages.

Of all the governments which have ever been established, it may 
perhaps be affirmed, that ours, if the most complicate in structure, 
is certainly the most beautiful in theory, correcting by the 
principle of representation, and a proper system of responsibility, 
the wild extravagances and the capricious levities of the unbalanced 
democracies of antiquity. Ours is surely the system, which, if 
administered in the pure spirit of that patriotism and freedom which 
erected it, holds out to the philanthropists and the friends of 
liberty throughout the world, the fairest promise of a successful 
solution of the great problem of free government. Ours is indeed the 
great experiment of the eighteenth century--to it the eyes of all, 
friends and foes, are now directed, and upon its result depends 
perhaps the cause of liberty throughout the civilized world. In the 
meantime it well behooves us all to hope for the best, and never to 
despair of the republic. Let me then proceed to inquire into some of 
the most marked effects which our peculiar system of government is 
likely to produce, in the progress of time, upon literature and the 
development of character.

Some have maintained the opinion that the {262} monarchical form of 
government is better calculated to foster and encourage every species 
of literature than the republican, and consequently that the 
institutions of the United States would prove unfavorable to the 
growth and progress of literature. This opinion seems to be based 
upon the supposition that a king and aristocracy are necessary for 
the support and patronage of a literary class. I will briefly explain 
my views on this point, and then proceed to the consideration of that 
peculiar influence which our state or federative system of government 
will, in all probability, exert over the character and literature of 
our inhabitants. It is this latter view which I wish mainly to 
present this evening--it is this view which has been neglected or 
misunderstood in almost all the speculations which I have seen upon 
the character and influence of our institutions.

In the first place, it has been affirmed that republics are too 
economical--too niggardly in their expenditures, to afford that 
salutary and efficient patronage necessary to the growth of 
literature. To this I would answer, first, that this argument takes 
for granted that the literature of a nation advances or recedes in 
proportion to the pecuniary wages which it earns. Now, although I do 
not say with Dr. Goldsmith, that the man who draws his pen to take a 
purse, no more deserves to have it, than the man who draws his pistol 
for the same purpose, yet I may safely assert, that of the motives 
which operate on the literary man--the love of fame, the desire to be 
useful, and the love of money--the former, in the great majority of 
cases, exerts an infinitely more powerful influence than the latter. 
And if I shall be able to show, as I hope to do in the sequel, that 
the republican form of government is the one which is best calculated 
to stimulate these great passions of our nature and throw into action 
all the energies of man, then must we acknowledge its superiority, 
even in a literary point of view.

But even supposing that the progress of literature depends directly 
upon the amount of pecuniary patronage which it can command, it by no 
means follows that it will flourish most under a monarchical 
government. For granting that this kind of government may have the 
ability to patronise, it is by no means certain that it will always 
possess the will to do so. Augustus and his Mecænas may lavish to day 
the imperial treasures upon literature, but Tiberius and Sejanus may 
starve and proscribe it to-morrow. That which depends upon the will 
of one man must ever be unsteady and uncertain. It is much easier to 
predict the conduct of a multitude--of a whole nation--than of one 
individual. The support then which monarchs can be expected to yield 
to learning, must necessarily be extremely capricious and 
fluctuating. It is not however by sudden starts and violent impulses, 
that a sound, solid, wholesome literature can be created. Ages must 
conspire to the formation of such a literature. Constantine the 
Great, seated on the throne of the Eastern Empire, with all the 
resources of the Roman world at his command, could not awaken the 
slumbering genius of a degenerate race, nor revive the decaying arts 
of the ancient empire. The literature of his reign, with all the 
patronage he could bestow upon it, did but too nearly resemble those 
gorgeous piles, which his pride and vanity caused to be erected in 
his _own_ imperial city, composed of the ruins of so many of the 
splendid monuments of antiquity.

Not only, however, is the support a capricious and uncertain one 
which a monarchy is calculated to yield to literature, but there are 
only certain departments of learning, and those by no means the most 
important, which such a government can ever be expected cordially to 
foster. Monarchs may patronise the fine arts and light 
literature--they may encourage the mathematical and physical 
sciences, but they can rarely feel a deep interest in the promotion 
of correct and orthodox moral, political and theological knowledge, 
which is, at the same time, much the most important and most 
difficult department of literature. The great law of 
self-preservation prompts us to war on every thing which threatens 
our interest and happiness. Moral and political philosophy has too 
often aimed its logic at the throne, and questioned the title of the 
monarch, ever to be a favorite with rulers. Hence, while even the 
absolute despot may encourage the arts, light literature and the 
physical and mathematical sciences, he dares not unbind the fetters 
of the mind in the region of politics, morals and religion. He can 
but tremble at that bold spirit of inquiry which may be aroused on 
those subjects--which dares to advance to the throne itself and 
loosen even the foundations on which it is erected. Napoleon 
Bonaparte, in the plenitude of his power, could give the utmost 
encouragement to all those departments of learning, whose principles 
could not be arrayed against despotism. In these departments he 
delighted to behold the genius and talent of the country. In the 
provinces and in the capital he called to the physical and 
mathematical chairs of his colleges, his universities and his 
polytechnic schools, some of the most splendid lecturers of the age; 
but selfishness forbade him to tolerate a free and manly spirit of 
inquiry in morals and politics, and he whose armies had deluged 
Europe with blood, whose name was a terror and whose word was a law 
unto nations, could not feel secure upon his throne while such men as 
Cousin were illustrating the nineteenth century by the splendor of 
their professorial eloquence, before the youth of France, or such 
writers as De Stael were making their animated appeals to the nation, 
in behalf of liberty of thought, and freedom of action. It is 
impossible, without full freedom of thought, and a single eye to 
truth and usefulness, that the scientific investigator, no matter how 
great his genius may be, can unravel the difficulties of moral and 
political philosophy. The very patronage of the throne enthrals his 
intellect, and his fears or his avarice tempt him to desert the cause 
of truth and humanity.

  "Thus trammell'd, thus condemn'd to flattery's trebles,
   He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong:
   For fear some noble thoughts like heavenly rebels
   Should rise up in high treason to his brain,
   He sings as the Athenean spoke, with pebbles
   In 's mouth, lest truth should stammer through his strain."

If we look even to those epochs under monarchical governments, which 
have been designated by the high sounding title of the golden ages of 
literature, we shall observe a full exemplification of the remarks 
which I have made on this subject. Let us take the Augustan age 
itself. Under the patronage of the first of the Roman Emperors we 
find, it is true, the arts and light literature rising to a pitch 
which perhaps they had not reached under the republic. After the 
death of Brutus the world of letters experienced a revolution almost 
as {263} great as that of the political world. The literature of the 
Augustan age is distinguished by that tone and spirit which mark the 
downfall of liberty, and the consequent thraldom of the mind. The 
bold and manly voice of eloquence was hushed. The high and lofty 
spirit of the republic was tamed down to a sickly and disgusting 
servility. The age of poetry came when that of eloquence and 
philosophy was past; and Virgil and Horace and Propertius, flattered, 
courted and enriched by an artful prince and an elegant courtier, 
could consent to sing the sycophantic praises of the monarch who had 
signed the proscriptions of the triumvirate, and rivetted a despotism 
on his country.

But the men who most adorned the various departments of learning 
during the long reign of Augustus, were born in the last days of the 
republic. They saw what the glory of the commonwealth had been--they 
beheld with their own eyes the greatness of their country, and they 
had inhaled in their youth the breath of freedom. No Roman writer, 
for example, excels the Lyric Bard in true feeling and sympathy for 
heroic greatness. We ever behold through the medium of his 
writings--even the gayest--a deep rooted sorrow locked up in his 
bosom, for the subversion of the liberties of the commonwealth. "On 
every occasion we can see the inspiring flame of patriotism and 
freedom breaking through that mist of levity in which his poetry is 
involved." "He constrained his inclinations," says Schlegel, "and 
endeavored to write like a royalist, but in spite of himself he is 
still manifestly a republican and a Roman."[2]

[Footnote 2: Horace fought under Brutus and Cassius, on the side of 
the Republic, at the battle of Philippi, and he was after the battle 
saved from the wreck of the republican army, and treated with great 
respect and kindness by Augustus and his minister Mecænas.]

"In the last years of Augustus," says the same writer, "the younger 
generation who were born, or at least grew up to manhood, after the 
commencement of the monarchy, were altogether different. We can 
already perceive the symptoms of declining taste--in Ovid 
particularly, who is overrun with an unhealthy superfluity of fancy, 
and a sentimental effeminacy of expression." Even History itself, in 
which the Romans so far excelled, yielded to the corrupting influence 
of the Cæsars. Tacitus concluded the long series of splendid and 
vigorous writers, and he grew up and was educated under the 
comparatively happy reigns of Vespasian and Titus, and wrote under 
the mild government of Nerva. Unnatural pomp and extravagance of 
expression seem, strange as it may appear, to be the necessary 
results of social and political degradation. And it is curious indeed 
to behold among the writers under the first Cæsars, the extraordinary 
compounds which genius can produce, when impelled on the one hand by 
the all-powerful and stimulating love of liberty, and vivid glimpses 
of the real dignity of human nature, while checked and subdued on the 
other by the fear of arbitrary power. Take Lucan for an example. "In 
him we find the most outrageously republican feelings making their 
chosen abode in the breast of a wealthy and luxurious courtier of 
Nero. It excites surprise and even disgust, to observe how he stoops 
to flatter that disgusting tyrant, in expressions the meanness of 
which amounts to a crime, and then in the next page, exalts Cato 
above the Gods themselves, and speaks of all the enemies of the first 
Cæsar with an admiration that approaches to idolatry."

Let us now look for an exemplification of the same great truths, to 
the reign of Louis the fourteenth, a reign which has been celebrated 
as the zenith of warlike and literary splendor--and here I borrow the 
language of Macintosh. "Talent seemed robbed of the conscious 
elevation, of the erect and manly port, which is its noblest 
associate and its surest indication. The mild purity of Fenelon, the 
lofty spirit of Bossuet, the masculine mind of Boileau, the sublime 
fervor of Corneille, were confounded by the contagion of ignominious 
and indiscriminate servility." Purity, propriety and beauty of style, 
were indeed carried during this reign to a high pitch of perfection. 
The literature of this period was "the highest attainment of the 
imagination." An aristocratic society, such as that which adorned the 
court of Louis XIV, is particularly favorable to the delicacy and 
polish of style, the fascinations of wit and gaiety, and to all the 
decorations of an elegant imagination. No one has ever surpassed 
Racine, Fenelon, and Bossuet, in purity of style and elegance of 
language.

The literature of this age, however, as well asserted by Madame de 
Stael, was not a "philosophic power." "Sometimes indeed, authors were 
seen, like Achilles, to take up warlike weapons in the midst of 
frivolous employments, but, in general, books at that time did not 
treat upon subjects of _real_ importance. Literary men retired to a 
distance from the active interests of life. An analysis of the 
principles of government, an examination into religious opinions, a 
just appreciation of men in power, every thing in short that could 
lead to any applicable result, was strictly forbidden them." Hence, 
however perfect the compositions of this age in mere style and 
ornament, we find them sadly deficient in profundity of reflection 
and utility of purpose. The human mind during this period had not yet 
reached its proper elevation, because it was enthralled by arbitrary 
power. The succeeding, was one of more grandeur of thought, and 
consequently of a more bold, daring, and profound philosophy. In vain 
would we look over the annals of the age of Louis XIV, to find a 
parallel to Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Raynal. And what, let 
me ask, had so soon produced this mighty difference in the philosophy 
of France? It surely could not be the patronage of that base, 
profligate, licentious libertine, who during the period of his 
unfortunate regency, loosened the very foundation of human virtue, 
polluted the morals of his country, and weakened or destroyed those 
dearest of ties which bind together in harmony, in happiness and in 
love, the whole social fabric. It could not surely be the patronage 
of a monarch who had been reared and educated in such a school as 
this. No! it was the new spirit which animated the age--the spirit of 
liberty--the spirit of free inquiry--the spirit of utility. It was 
this spirit which quickened and aroused the stagnant genius of the 
nation, and filled the soul with the "_aliquid immensum 
infinitumque_," which had in the days of antiquity inspired the 
eloquence of a Tully and the sublime vehemence of Demosthenes. It was 
this new spirit, and not the puny patronage of a monarch, that called 
forth {264} those intellectual giants of their age, Voltaire, 
Montesquieu and Rousseau, who have traced out three different periods 
in the progress of reflection--and if I may borrow the language of De 
Stael, like the Gods of Olympus, have gone over the ground in three 
steps. It was this new spirit in fine, which in spite of the 
influence of the monarch and his nobility, sapped the foundation of 
the throne and hastened on the awful crisis of revolution in that 
devoted country.

Thus do we see that it is only the lighter kinds of literature, and 
the physical and mathematical sciences, which the patronage of a 
monarch can be expected to foster. In those nobler and more useful 
branches of knowledge--moral, mental, religious, and political,--the 
patronage of the throne clips the wings of philosophy and arrests the 
growth of science and the progress of truth.[3]

[Footnote 3: In the great Austrian University established at Vienna, 
the Professor of Statistics is strictly forbidden to present to the 
view of his class any other Statistics than those of Austria, lest 
this country should suffer by comparison with others. How limited 
must be the range of intellect on political subjects under such fatal 
restrictions as this, imposed by the narrow jealousy of arbitrary 
power!]

So far from this particular species of literature flourishing most 
under the bounty and patronage of a monarch, we find, in almost every 
monarchy, the party arrayed against the government, at the same time 
the most talented and the most philosophical party. The remark is 
susceptible of still greater generalization. I may, perhaps, with 
truth assert that in every age and in every nation, the men who have 
arrayed themselves against the usurpations of government, whether 
monarchical or republican--the men who have arrayed themselves on the 
side of liberty, who have led on the forlorn hope against the 
aggressions of despotism, have been the men who against the patronage 
of power and wealth, have reared up those systems of philosophy that 
time cannot destroy--they are the men who have performed those noble 
achievements which most illustrate their country, and weave for it 
the chaplet of its glory--these are the men whose eloquence has 
shaken senates and animated nations. These are the men, who, whatever 
may be their destiny whilst they live, will ever be remembered and 
honored by a grateful posterity. Where now are those writings which 
contend for _jure divino_ rights and patriarchal power?--past and 
gone! The Filmers are forgotten, the Hobbes are despised--while the 
writings of Locke will live forever, and the memory of Sidney and 
Russell and Hampden will be cherished through all ages. What were the 
Grenvilles and the Norths in more recent times, when compared with 
Chatham, Burke, Fox and Sheridan, in England, or with the 
Washingtons, Franklins, Henrys, Jeffersons and Adamses of our own 
revolutionary crisis. And thus would a review of the history of the 
world bear me out in the assertion, that in almost every age and 
country since the annals of history have become authentic, the 
opposition literature, in moral, political and religious philosophy 
has been purer, deeper, more vivifying and useful, than that sickly 
literature which has grown up under the shadow of the throne, though 
encouraged and stimulated by the smiles of power, and sustained and 
fostered by the lavish expenditure of exhaustless treasures.

The only additional remark which I shall make upon the general 
question of the relative influences exerted upon the progress of 
literature and the development of character, by the monarchical and 
republican forms of government is, that in the former the aspirants 
to office and honors look upwards to the throne and the nobility, in 
the latter they look downwards to the people. This simple difference 
between the two governments is calculated to produce the most 
extensive and material consequences. In the first place, the kind of 
talent requisite for success under the two governments, is very 
different. Even Mr. Hume himself acknowledges, that, to be successful 
with the people, it is generally necessary for a man to make himself 
_useful_ by his industry, capacity, or knowledge; to be prosperous 
under a monarchy, it is requisite to render himself _agreeable_ by 
his wit, complaisance, or civility. "A strong genius succeeds best in 
republics: a refined taste in monarchies. And consequently the 
sciences are the more natural growth of the one, and the polite arts 
of the other." We are told, that in France under the old monarchy, 
men did not expect to reach the elevated offices of government either 
by hard labor, close study, or real efficiency of character. A _bon 
mot_, some peculiar gracefulness, was frequently the occasion of the 
most rapid promotions; and these frequent examples, we are told, 
inspired a sort of careless philosophy, a confidence in fortune, and 
a contempt for studious exertions, which could only end in a 
sacrifice of utility to mere pleasure and elegance.

The fate of individuals under those circumstances is determined, not 
by their intrinsic worth or real talents, but by their capacity to 
please the monarch and his court. Poor Racine, we are told by St. 
Çimon, was banished forever from the royal sunshine in which he had 
so long basked, because in a moment of that absence of mind for which 
he was remarkable, he made an unlucky observation upon the writings 
of Scarron in presence of the king and Madame de Maintenon, which 
could never be forgotten or forgiven. We all know that the Raleighs, 
Leicesters, Essexes, &c. under the energetic reign of Elizabeth, were 
much more indebted to their personal accomplishments and devoted and 
adulatory gallantries, for their rapid promotions, than to any real 
services which they had rendered, or extraordinary talents which they 
had displayed. And in the time of Queen Anne, it has been said that 
the scale was turned in favor of passive obedience and nonresistance, 
by the Duchess of Marlborough's gloves; and the ill humor of the 
Duchess caused the recall of Marlborough, which alone could have 
saved the kingdom of France from almost certain conquest at that 
eventful crisis.

Another consequence which almost necessarily follows from the 
difference just pointed out between the monarchical and republican 
forms of government, is, that the stimulus furnished by the former, 
both to thought and action, is much less universal in its operation 
than that furnished by the latter. In the republican form of 
government, the sovereignty of the people is the mainspring--the 
moving power of the whole political engine. This sovereignty pervades 
the whole nation, like the very atmosphere we breath--it reaches to 
the farthest, and binds the most distant together. In a well 
administered and well balanced republic, it {265} matters not where 
our lot may be cast, whether in the north or the south, at the centre 
or on the confines, the action of the political machine is still made 
to reach us--to stimulate our energies and waken up our ambition. The 
people under this system become more enlightened and more energetic, 
because the exercise of sovereignty leads to reflection, and creates 
a demand for knowledge. Aspirants to office must study to become 
useful, intelligent and efficient, for by these attributes they will 
be the better enabled to win that popularity which may ensure the 
suffrages of those around them, so necessary to their attainment of 
political elevation--and thus does the republican system operate on 
all, and call into action the latent talent and energy of the 
country, no matter where they may exist.

In the monarchy, on the contrary, the moving spring of the whole 
machinery lies at the centre--the virtual sovereignty of the nation 
reposes in the capital. The want of political rights and powers sinks 
the dignity of the people, stagnates the public mind, and torpifies 
all the energies of man. In such a body politic you may have action 
and life, and even greatness at the centre, whilst you have the 
torpor and lethargy of death itself at the extremities. The man who 
is born at a distance from the capital has no chance for elevation 
there. If he aspires to political distinction he must make a 
pilgrimage to the seat of government. He must travel up to court, 
where alone he can bask in the beams of the royal sunshine. How 
partial is the operation of such a system as this! How many noble 
intellects may pass undiscovered and undeveloped under its sway! How 
many noble achievements may be lost, for the want of a proper 
opportunity to display them! And all this may happen while the 
monarch and his court are disposed to foster literature, to encourage 
talent, and to stimulate into action all the energies of the 
nation.[4]

[Footnote 4: Hence we see at once the error committed by the great 
author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in the assertion, 
that the absolute monarchy would be the most desirable form of 
government in the world, if such men as Nerva, Trajan, and the 
Antonines could always be upon the throne.]

But how debasing does this form of government become, when the 
monarch, either from policy or inclination, shuns the talent and 
virtue of the country, addresses himself to the lowest, the most 
vulgar and most selfish passions of man, and draws around him into 
the high places of the government men taken from the lowest and most 
despised functions of life. "Kings," says Burke, "are naturally 
lovers of low company; they are so elevated above all the rest of 
mankind that they must look upon all their subjects as on a level." 
They are apt, unless they be wise men, to hate the talent and virtue 
of the country, and attach themselves to those vile instruments who 
will consent to flatter their caprices, pander to their low and 
grovelling pleasures, and offer up to them the disgusting incense of 
sycophantic fawning adulation. Every man of talent and virtue is an 
obstacle in the path of such a monarch as this--he holds up to his 
view a most hateful mirror. When such monarchs as these are on the 
throne, the government exercises the most withering influence on the 
intellect and virtue of the country. Science is dishonored and 
persecuted because she is virtuous, because she will consent to 
flatter neither the monarch on his throne nor his sycophantic 
courtier--she will consent to mingle in no degrading strife, nor does 
she bring up any reserve to the dishonest minister, either to swell 
his triumph or to break his fall. When men of rank thus sacrifice all 
ideas of dignity to an ambition without a useful and noble object, 
and work with low instruments and for low ends, the whole composition 
becomes low and base. Whilst Tiberius surrenders himself into the 
keeping of so vile a being as Sejanus--whilst Nero is fiddling and 
dancing, and Commodus in the arena with the gladiators--all that is 
noble and great in the empire must retire into the shade and seek for 
safety in solitude and obscurity.

When Louis XI dismissed from the court those faithful nobles and 
distinguished citizens, who had stood by his father and saved the 
monarch and his throne in the hour of adversity, and filled their 
places with men taken from the lowest and meanest condition of life, 
with no other merit than that possessed by the eunuch guard of the 
Medio-Persian monarch, of adhering to the king, because despised by 
all the world besides, he conquered, for the time at least, the 
virtue, the chivalry, the real greatness of France. Well, then, may 
we say, in the emphatic language of England's most philosophic 
statesman, "Woe to the country which would madly and impiously reject 
the service of the talents and virtues, civil, military or religious, 
that are given to grace and to serve it; and would condemn to 
obscurity every thing formed to diffuse lustre and glory around a 
state. Woe to that country too, that considers a low education, a 
mean contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, as a 
preferable title to command."

But it may be asked, may not some of the effects which I have just 
described as flowing from monarchy, be produced under the republican 
form of government? To this I answer that almost all of them may be 
expected to be the result of one homogeneous republic, stretching 
over a great extent of territory, including a numerous population and 
a great diversity of interest; but, as such a government as this has 
been wisely provided against in our country at least, by a system of 
confederated republics, I will now proceed to the main object of my 
discourse this evening--to point out the peculiar influence which our 
federative system of government is calculated to produce upon 
literature and character.

And in the first place, supposing our system to continue as perfect 
in practice as it undoubtedly is in theory, a mere statistical exposé 
of its future condition in regard to numbers and wealth at no very 
distant period, is of itself sufficient to present to our view 
prospects of the most cheering and animating character. We have a 
territory extending over three millions of square miles, composed of 
soils of every variety and every degree of fertility, stretching 
almost from the tropics to the poles in one direction, and from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific in the other. We have spread sparsely over a 
portion of this immense territorial expanse, a population of fifteen 
millions, principally descended from that nation in Europe, which is 
at the same time the most wealthy, the most powerful, the most 
enterprising, the most free, the most civilized, and perhaps the most 
moral, purely religious and intellectual nation, among all the great 
powers of Europe. This population, which has, so far, {266} shown 
itself worthy of the immortal stock of ancestors from which it is 
descended, is rapidly advancing in numbers and in wealth. Our 
censuses have hitherto shown a duplication of our population, in 
periods of less time than twenty-five years. We will assume, however, 
this period in our calculation, and we shall find this elastic spring 
of population, (if we can only bind down the movements of the 
governments of our system within their prescribed orbits,) of itself, 
like the magic wand of the enchanter, or the marvellous lamp of 
Aladdin, capable of achieving all which may confer glory and power 
and distinction on nations. In a period of seventy-five years, which 
is but a short time in a nation's history, we shall have a population 
of one hundred and twenty millions of souls, and yet not so dense as 
the population of many of the states of Europe. We shall then have an 
empire, formed by mere internal development, as populous as that of 
Rome and much more wealthy, speaking all the same language, and 
living under the same or similar institutions.

Let us then for a moment contemplate the inspiring influence which 
the mere grandeur of such a theatre is calculated to produce on 
literature and character. Whether the author write for wealth or for 
fame, or for usefulness, he will have the most unbounded field open 
to his exertions. The law which secures the property in his 
productions throughout such an immense empire, will ensure the most 
unlimited pecuniary patronage to all that is valuable and great, a 
patronage beyond what kings and princes can furnish. And the most 
powerful stimulus will be applied to every noble and generous 
principle of his nature, by the simple reflection that complete 
success in his literary efforts will introduce him to the knowledge 
of millions, all of whom may be edified by his instruction, or made 
more happy by the enjoyment of that literary repast which he may 
spread before them.

Do we not read of the mighty influence produced upon mind and body in 
ancient Greece, by the assemblages at the Olympic games? It was the 
hope of winning the prizes before these assemblages which called 
forth energy and awakened genius. It was under the thrilling 
applauses of these bodies that Herodotus recited his prose, and 
Pindar his poetry. And what, let me ask, was the great idea which 
animated every Roman writer? It was the idea of _Rome_ herself--of 
Rome so wonderful in her ancient manners and laws--so great even in 
her errors and crimes. It was this idea which was breathed from the 
lips of her orators and embalmed in her literature--it is this idea 
which stamps the character of independent dignity and grandeur on the 
page of her philosophy, her history and her poetry.

But what were the multitudes that could be assembled together in 
Elis, or the heterogeneous half civilized polyglot people of the 
Roman Empire, bound together by the strong arm of power and overawed 
by the presence of the legions, in comparison with the millions that 
will ere long spring up within the limits of our wide spread 
territory,--speaking the same language,--formed under similar 
institutions,--and impelled by the same inspiring spirit of 
independence?

Another advantage which it is proper to present, as growing out of 
that condition of our people, which a mere statistical exposé will 
exhibit, is the security furnished by the magnitude and resources of 
our country, and by the immense distance of all bodies politic of 
great power and ambition, from our borders, against foreign invasion, 
or foreign interference in domestic concerns. I shall not here dwell 
upon the consequent exemption of our country from those mighty 
engines of despotism, overgrown navies and armies, and the 
deleterious influence which these essentially anti-literary 
establishments exercise over the genius and energy of man. I shall 
merely briefly advert to some of the effects which this security of 
individuals and states against foreign aggression is calculated to 
produce on individual enterprise and state exertion.

Since the governments of the world have become more regular and 
stable, and the great expense of war has made even victory and 
conquest ruinous to nations, rulers are beginning to look to the 
development of the internal resources of their countries, more than 
to foreign conquest and national spoliations. The great system of 
internal improvement in all its branches, is without doubt one of the 
most powerfully efficient means which can be devised to hurry forward 
the accumulation of wealth, and speed on the progress of 
civilization. The canal and the rail road, the steam boat and the 
steam car, the water power and steam power, constitute in fact the 
great and characteristic powers of the nineteenth century--they are 
the mighty civilizers of the age in which we live. They bind together 
in harmony and concord the discordant interests of nations, and like 
the vascular system of the human frame, they produce a wholesome 
circulation, and a vivifying and stimulating action throughout the 
whole body politic.

These great improvements in our own country, with but few exceptions, 
and those well defined, ought to be executed solely by states and 
individuals. But neither states nor individuals would execute those 
necessary works, without security from interruption and invasion, and 
consequent security in the enjoyment of the profits which they might 
yield. What wealthy individual in our own state, for example, would 
erect a costly bridge across one of our rivers, or embark his capital 
in the construction of a canal or rail road, if foe or friend might 
blow up his bridge during the next year, or a war might interrupt 
trade, and perhaps a treaty of peace might cede the canal or rail way 
to a different state?

Of all the nations in Europe, England is the one which has been most 
exempt from foreign invasion, and we find in that country that 
individual enterprise has achieved more in the cause of internal 
improvement than in any other nation in Europe; and the prosperity 
and real greatness of England are no doubt due in a great measure to 
the energy and enterprise of her citizens. In the continental nations 
we find this constant liability to invasion every where paralyzing 
the enterprise of both individuals and states. One of the most 
skilful engineers of France tells us that in passing through some of 
the frontier provinces of that country, he every where beheld the 
most mournful evidences of the want of both national and individual 
enterprise, in miserable roads, in decayed or fallen bridges, in the 
absence of canals and turnpikes, of manufactures, commerce, and even 
of agriculture itself, in many almost deserted regions. Paris, the 
second city in Europe in point of numbers and wealth, and the capital 
of the nation hitherto most powerful on the continent, has not {267} 
yet in this age of ardor and enterprise, constructed either a canal 
or rail road to the ocean, or even to any intermediate point. If our 
federative system contained within its borders a city thus wealthy 
and populous, and so well situated, can there be a doubt that it 
would long ere this have sent its rail roads and canals not only to 
the ocean, but in all probability to the Rhine and the Danube, to the 
Rhone, the Garonne, and the Mediterranean.

This spirit of improvement, under the hitherto benign protection of 
our government, is already abroad in the land. New York and 
Pennsylvania have already executed works which rival in splendor and 
grandeur the boasted monuments of Egypt, Rome or China, and far excel 
them in usefulness and profit. The states of the south and west too 
are moving on in the same noble career. And our own Virginia, the 
_Old Dominion_, has at last awakened from her inglorious repose, and 
is pushing forward with vigor her great central improvement, destined 
soon to pass the Blue Ridge and Alleghany ranges of mountains, and 
thus to realize the fable of antiquity, which represented the 
sea-gods as driving their herds to pasture on the mountains.

  "Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos
                   Visere montes."

One certain effect of our great systems of improvement must be the 
rearing up of large towns throughout our country. I know full well 
that great cities are cursed with great vices. The worst specimens of 
the human character, squalid poverty, gorgeous, thoughtless luxury, 
misery and anxiety, are all to be found in them. But we find, at the 
same time, the noblest and most virtuous specimens of our race on the 
same busy, bustling theatre. Mind is here brought into collision with 
mind--intellect whets up intellect--the energy of one stimulates the 
energy of another--and thus we find all the great improvements 
originate here. It is the cities which constitute the great moving 
power of society; the country population is much more tardy in its 
action, and thus becomes the regulator to the machinery. It is the 
cities which have hurried forward the great revolutions of modern 
times, "whether for weal or woe." It is the cities which have made 
the great improvements and inventions in mechanics and the arts. It 
is the great cities which have pushed every department of literature 
to the highest pitch of perfection. It is the great cities alone 
which can build up and sustain hospitals, asylums, 
dispensaries--which can gather together large and splendid libraries, 
form literary and philosophical associations, assemble together bands 
of literati, who stimulate and encourage each other. In fine, it is 
the large cities alone which can rear up and sustain a mere literary 
class. When there shall arise in this country, as there surely will, 
some eight or ten cities of the first magnitude, we shall then find 
the opprobrium which now attaches to us, of having no national 
literature, wiped away; and there are no doubt some branches of 
science which we are destined to carry to a pitch of perfection which 
can be reached no where else. Where, for example, can the great 
moral, political, and economical sciences be studied so successfully 
as here? And this leads me at once to the consideration of the 
operation of the state or federative system of government, which I 
regard as the most beautiful feature in our political system, and 
that which is calculated to produce the most beneficial influence 
both on the progress of science, and on the development of character.

It has been observed, under all great governments acting over wide 
spread empires, that both the arts and literature quickly come to a 
stand, and most generally begin to decline afterwards. In fact, Mr. 
Hume makes the bold assertion in his Essays, "that when the arts and 
sciences come to perfection in any state, from that moment they 
naturally or rather necessarily decline, and seldom or never revive 
in that nation where they formerly flourished." His remark is 
certainly much more applicable to large monarchical governments than 
to such a system as ours. In large countries, with great national 
governments, there will be quickly formed in literature as perfect a 
despotism as exists in politics. Some few great geniuses will arise, 
explore certain departments of literature, earn an imperishable 
reputation, die, and bequeath to posterity in their writings a model 
ever after to be imitated, and for that very reason never to be 
excelled. And thus it is that certain standard authors establish 
their dominion in the world of letters, and impose a binding law on 
their successors, who, it has been well said, do nothing more than 
transpose the incidents, new-name the characters, and paraphrase the 
sentiments of their great prototypes. It is known that under the 
Roman emperors, even as late as the time of Justinian, Virgil was 
called _the poet_, by way of distinction, throughout the western 
empire, while Homer received the same appellation in the eastern 
empire. These two poets were of undisputed authority to all their 
successors in epic poetry.

We are told that in the vast empire of China, speaking but one 
language, governed by one law, and consequently moulded into one dull 
homogeneous character, this literary despotism is still more marked. 
When the authority of a great teacher, like that of Confucius, is 
once established, the doctrine of passive obedience to such authority 
is just as certainly enforced upon succeeding literati as the same 
doctrine towards the monarch is enforced on the subject. Now all this 
has a tendency to cramp genius, and paralyze literary effort.

The developing genius of the modern world was arrested in the career 
of invention at least, and the imagination was tamed down by the 
servile imitation of the ancients immediately after the revival of 
letters. And perhaps one of the greatest benefits conferred on 
learning by the reformation, consisted of the new impulse that was 
suddenly communicated to the human mind--an impulse that at once 
broke asunder the bonds which the literature of the ancient world had 
rivetted--set free the mind after directing it into a new career of 
inquiry and investigation, unshackled even by the Latin language, 
which had so long robbed the vernacular tongues of Europe of the 
honors justly due to them from the literati of the age.[5]

[Footnote 5: I would not by any means be understood as advancing the 
opinion that the language and literature of the ancients have been 
always an impediment to the progress of modern literature. On the 
contrary, at the revival of letters, the moderns were an almost 
immeasurable distance in the rear of the ancients. Ancient literature 
then became a power, by which the moderns were at once elevated to 
the literary level of antiquity; but when once we had reached that 
point, all farther _exclusive_ devotion to the learning and the 
language of antiquity became hurtful to the mind by the trammels 
which it imposed. The study of the classics will forever be useful 
and interesting to him who aspires to be a scholar. But it becomes 
injurious when we make it our exclusive study, and substitute the 
undefined and loose system of morality--the high sounding and empty 
philosophy of the ancients, for the purer morals and deeper learning 
of the moderns.]

{268} But not only do great writers in large nations establish their 
authority over their successors, and thus set bounds to the progress 
of literature, but they repress the genius of the country by 
discouraging those first intellectual efforts of young aspirants for 
fame, which appear insignificant by comparison with established 
models. Now in literature, as well as in the accumulation of wealth, 
the proverb is strictly true, that it is the first step which is the 
most difficult, "_c'est le premier pas qui coute_." The timid and the 
modest, (and real genius is always modest,) are frequently deterred 
from appearing in a particular department of literature, because of 
the great distance at which their first efforts must fall in the rear 
of the standard authors who have preceded them. They are overawed and 
alarmed at the first step which it is necessary to take, and 
frequently recoil from the task, sinking back into the quiet 
obscurity of listlessness and mental inactivity--whereas, if a proper 
encouragement could have been furnished to their incipient labors, it 
would have cheered and animated them in their literary career, and 
finally conducted them to proud and exalted rank in the world of 
letters.

The splendor, profundity, and irresistible fascination of 
Shakspeare's plays, have perhaps deterred many a genius in England 
from writing plays. So Corneille and Racine have no doubt produced 
similar effects in France. Even the great names which I have 
mentioned, would have been overawed, if in the commencement of their 
career, they had been obliged to contend with their own more splendid 
productions. "If Moliere and Corneille," said Hume, "were to bring 
upon the stage at present their early productions which were formerly 
so well received, it would discourage the young poets to see the 
indifference and disdain of the public. The ignorance of the age 
alone could have given admission to the '_Prince of Tyre_;' but it is 
to that we owe '_The Moor_.' Had '_Every Man in his Humor_' been 
rejected, we had never seen '_Volpone_.'"

Now there is no system of government which has ever been devised by 
man, better calculated to remove the withering and blighting 
influence of great names in literature, and at the same time to 
insure the full possession of all the great benefits which their 
labors can confer, than the federal system of republics--a system 
which, at the same time that it binds the states together in peace 
and harmony, leaves each one in the possession of a government of its 
own, with its sovereignty and liberty unimpaired. In such a condition 
as this, there is a wholesome circulation of literature from one 
state to another, without establishing, however, any thing like a 
dictatorship in the republic of letters. A salutary rivalry is 
generated; and a true and genuine patriotism, I must be allowed to 
assert, will always lead us to foster and stimulate genius, wherever 
we may perceive symptoms of its development, throughout the limits of 
that commonwealth to which we are attached. The soldier in the field 
may love the marshal, and feel an attachment to the grand army which 
has been so often led to conquest and glory; but I must confess that 
I admire more that warm, generous, and sympathetic attachment, which 
his heart feels for that small division and its officer with which he 
has been connected--for that little platoon in which his own name has 
been enrolled, and where his own little share of glory has been won.

The history of antiquity, and the history of the modern world, alike 
show that small independent contiguous states, speaking the same 
language, living under similar governments, actuated by similar 
impulses, and bound together by the ties of cordial sympathy and 
mutual welfare, are the most favorable for the promotion of 
literature and science--in fine, for the development of every thing 
that is great, noble, and useful. On such a theatre, the candidate 
for literary honor is not overawed by the fame of those who have won 
trophies in adjoining states. He looks to the commonwealth to which 
he is attached, for support and applause; and when his name begins to 
be known abroad, and his fame to spread, his horizon expands with the 
increasing elevation of his station, until it comprehends the whole 
system of homogeneous republics. In such a system as this, the 
literature of each state will be aided and stimulated by that of all 
the rest--it will draw from all the pure fountains in every quarter 
of the world, without being manacled and stifled by the absolute 
authority of any. In such a system as this, there is no _jure divino_ 
right in science--there is no national prejudice fostered in a 
national literature; respect, and even veneration, will be paid in 
such a system to all true learning, wherever it may be found; but 
there will be no worship, no abject submission to literary dictators. 
And if such a people may fail to form a regular homogeneous national 
literature, they will perhaps for that very reason be enabled to 
carry each art and science, in the end, to a higher pitch of 
perfection than it could reach if trammelled by the binding laws 
imposed by an organized national literature.

Among the nations of the earth which have made any progress in 
civilization, we find from the operation of causes which it would be 
foreign from my object to explain, that Asia most abounds in great 
and populous empires. And it is precisely in this quarter of the 
globe that we find a most irresistible despotism in both government 
and literature. Europe is divided into smaller states, and in them we 
find more popular governments, and more profound literature. Of all 
the portions of Europe, Greece was anciently the most divided; but as 
long as those little states could preserve their freedom, they were 
by far the most successful cultivators, in the ancient world, of 
every art and every science. The literature of the little republics 
of Italy, during the middle ages, illustrates the same great 
principles; and the rapid progress of the little states of Germany, 
since the general pacification of Europe in 1815, in literary and 
philosophical research of every kind, proves likewise the truth of 
the remarks made above.

Germany was accused by Madame de Stael of having no national 
literature: but the German state system of government, though by no 
means equal to ours, bids fair to carry German literature beyond that 
of any other nation in Europe. Although the literati of these small 
states are not trammelled either by their own or foreign literature, 
yet there is no body of learned men {269} in the world who profit 
more by all that is really good and great in the learning of their 
neighbors. Without any narrow prejudices, they go with eagerness in 
search of truth and beauty wherever they are to be found. Every 
literature in the world has been cultivated by the Germans. We are 
told that "Shakspeare and Homer occupy the loftiest station in the 
poetical Olympus, but there is space in it for all true singers out 
of every age and clime. Ferdusi, and the primeval mythologists of 
Hindostan, live in brotherly union with the troubadours and ancient 
story-tellers of the west. The wayward, mystic gloom of Calderon--the 
lurid fire of Dante--the auroral light of Tasso--the clear, icy 
glitter of Racine, all are acknowledged and reverenced."

Of all modern literature, the German has the best, as well as the 
most translations. In 1827, there were three entire versions of 
Shakspeare, all admitted to be good, besides many that were partial, 
or considered inferior. How soon, let me ask, would the literature of 
Germany wane away, if all her little independent states were moulded 
into one consolidated empire, with a great central government in the 
capital?

But the most beneficial influence produced upon literature and 
character under the federative system of government, springs from the 
operation of the state governments themselves. We have seen that the 
monarchical government, in a large state, fails to stimulate learning 
and elicit great activity of character, because its influence does 
not pervade the whole body politic--while the centre may be properly 
acted on, the confines are in a state of inextricable languor. A 
great consolidated republican government, if such an one could exist, 
would be little better than a monarchy. The aspirants for the high 
offices in such a nation, would all look up to the government as the 
centre for promotion, and not to the people. The talent and ambition 
of the country would have to make the same weary pilgrimage here as 
in the monarchies--to travel up to court--to fawn upon and flatter 
the men whom fortune had thrown into the high places of the 
government. The stimulus which such a government could afford, must 
necessarily be of the most partial and capricious character. A system 
of state governments preserves the sovereignty unimpaired in every 
portion of the country; it carries the beneficial stimulus, which 
government itself is capable of applying to literature and character, 
to every division of the people. Under such governments as these, if 
properly regulated, and not overawed or corrupted by central 
power--it matters very little where a man's destiny may place him, 
whether he may be born on the borders of the Lakes, on the banks of 
the Mississippi, or even in future times on the distant shores of the 
Pacific--the sovereignty is with him--the action of the state and 
federal governments reaches him in his distant home as effectually as 
if he had been born in the federal metropolis, or on the banks of the 
Potomac, or the waters of the Chesapeake.

Under such a system as this, there is no one part more favored than 
the rest; but all are subjected to similar governments, and operated 
on by similar stimulants. In all other countries the term province is 
a term of reproach. Niebuhr tells us that in France the best book 
published in Marseilles or Bordeaux is hardly mentioned. _C'est 
publie dans la province_ is enough to consign the book at once to 
oblivion--so complete is the literary dictatorship of Paris over all 
France. In such a system as ours, we have no provinces; if the 
governments shall only move in their prescribed orbits, all will be 
principals, all will be heads--each member of the confederacy will 
stand on the same summit level with every other. While this condition 
of things exists, the institutions of one state will not be 
disparaged or overshadowed by those of another--not even by those of 
the central department. A great and flourishing university for 
example, established in one state, will but encourage the 
establishment of another in an adjoining state. The literary efforts 
of one will not damp or impede those of another, but will stimulate 
it to enter on the same career.

Where, in all Europe for example, can be found so large a number of 
good universities for the same amount of population as in the states 
of Germany. The number, it is said, has reached thirty-six--nineteen 
Protestant, and seventeen Catholic; and nearly all of them, 
particularly the Protestant, are in a flourishing condition. Even as 
early as 1826 there were twenty-two universities in Germany, not one 
of which numbered less than two hundred students. And Villers tells 
us that there is more real knowledge in one single university, as 
that of Gottingen, Halle, or Jena, than in all the eight universities 
of San Jago de Compostella, Alcala, Orihuela, &c. of the consolidated 
monarchy of Spain.[6]

[Footnote 6: The literature of Spain has never revived since the 
consolidation of her government under Charles and Philip. It 
flourished most, strange as it may appear, when the Spanish peninsula 
was divided among several independent governments, and when the 
spirit of independence and individuality was excited to the highest 
pitch by that spirit of honor, love of adventure, and of individual 
notoriety, infused into the nations of Europe by the Institution of 
Chivalry. "The literature of Spain," says Sismondi, (Literature of 
South Europe) "has, strictly speaking, only one period, that of 
Chivalry. Its sole riches consist in its ancient honor and frankness 
of character. The poem of the Cid first presented itself to us among 
the Spanish works, as the Cid himself among the heroes of Spain; and 
after him, we find nothing in any degree equalling either the noble 
simplicity of his real character, or the charm of the brilliant 
fictions of which he is the subject. Nothing that has since appeared 
can justly demand our unqualified admiration. In the midst of the 
most brilliant efforts of Spanish genius, our taste has been 
continually wounded by extravagance and affectation, or our reason 
has been offended by an eccentricity often bordering on folly." Spain 
then furnishes a most convincing illustration of the melancholy 
influence of great consolidated governments on mind and literature. 
The poem of the Cid, so highly eulogized by Sismondi, is supposed to 
have been written about the middle of the twelfth century.]

If we look to that period of greatest glory in the history of modern 
Italy, when her little states with all their bustle and faction were 
still free--still unawed by the great powers of Europe, we shall 
behold in her universities a beautiful exemplification of the truth 
of the same principles. Almost every independent state had its 
university or its college; and no matter how limited its territory, 
or small its population, the spirit of the state system--the spirit 
of liberty itself, breathed into these institutions the breath of 
life, and made them the nurseries of genius and independence, of 
science and literature.

How soon was the whole character of Holland {270} changed by the 
benign operation of the federative system, after she had thrown off 
the odious yoke of the Spanish monarchy! Soon did the spirit of 
freedom give rise to five universities in this small but interesting 
country. "When the city of Leyden, in common with all the lower 
countries, had fought through the bloodiest and perhaps the noblest 
struggle for liberty on record, the great and good William of Orange 
offered her immunities from taxes, that she might recover from her 
bitter sufferings, and be rewarded for the important services which 
she had rendered to the sacred cause. Leyden however declined the 
offer, and asked for nothing but the privilege of erecting a 
university within her walls, as the best reward for more than human 
endurance and perseverance." This simple fact, says the writer from 
whom I have obtained this anecdote, is a precious gem to the student 
of history; for if the protection of the arts and sciences reflects 
great honor upon a monarch, though it be for vanity's sake, the 
fostering care with which communities or republics watch over the 
cultivation of knowledge, and the other ennobling pursuits of man, 
sheds a still greater lustre upon themselves.

In our own country, it is true that we have not yet passed into the 
gristle and bone of literary manhood. But we have already established 
more colleges and universities than exist perhaps in any other 
country on the face of the globe. We have already about seventy-six 
in operation, and some of them even now, whether we consider the 
munificence of their endowments, or the learning which they can boast 
of, would do credit to any age or country. If the time shall ever 
come when our state governments shall be broken down, and the power 
shall be concentrated in one great national system, then will the era 
of state universities be past, and a few bloated, corrupt, _jure 
divino_ establishments will be reared in their stead, more interested 
in the support of absolute power, and the suppression of truth, than 
in the cause of liberty and freedom of investigation.[7]

[Footnote 7: Perhaps in our country we have multiplied colleges to 
too great an extent, and consequently have lessened their usefulness 
by too great a division of the funds destined for their support. The 
spirit of sectarianism co-operating with the system of state 
governments, has produced this result. The college and university 
ought, to some extent, to partake of the nature of a monopoly. There 
should be some concentration of funds, or you will fail to obtain 
adequate talents for your professorships. In our country 
particularly, professors should be paid high, or they cannot be 
induced to relinquish the more brilliant prospects which the learned 
professions hold out to them. But the evil of too great a number of 
colleges and universities, is one which will correct itself in the 
course of time, by the ultimate failure of those not properly 
endowed.]

But it is said by some that the state system tinges all literature 
with a political hue--that under this system politics becomes the 
great, the engrossing study of the mind--that the lighter kinds of 
literature and the fine arts will be neglected--that the mathematical 
and physical sciences will be uncultivated--in fine, that the 
literature of such a people will be purely utilitarian. This 
objection is perhaps, founded principally upon too exclusive a view 
of the past literary history of our own country. Up to this time 
there has, if I may use the phraseology of political economy, been a 
greater demand for political knowledge in this country than for any 
other species of literature. The new political condition into which 
we entered at the revolution--the formation of our state and federal 
governments--the jarring and grating almost necessarily incident to 
new political machinery just started into action--severely tested too 
as ours has been, and is still, by the inharmonious and too often 
selfish action of heterogeneous interests on each other--the 
formation of new states, and the rapid development of new interests 
and unforeseen powers, together with the great sparseness of our 
population, have all contributed to turn the public mind of this 
country principally to the field of politics and morals--and surely 
we have arrived at an eminency on these subjects not surpassed in any 
other country.

One of the most distinguished writers on the continent of Europe, 
even before the close of the eighteenth century, says most justly, 
"the American literature, indeed, is not yet formed, but when their 
magistrates are called upon to address themselves on any subject to 
the public opinion, they are eminently gifted with the power of 
touching all the affections of the heart, by expressing simple truths 
and pure sentiments; and to do this, is already to be acquainted with 
the most useful secret of elegant style." The Declaration of American 
Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the speeches 
delivered on it in the conventions of the states, particularly in 
Virginia--the collection of essays known by the name of The 
Federalist--the resolutions on the Alien and Sedition Laws, and the 
report thereon in the Virginia Legislature of '98 and '99--with the 
messages of our Presidents, documents from the Cabinets, speeches of 
our congressmen,[8] and political {271} expositions of our 
distinguished statesmen, form altogether a mass of political learning 
not to be surpassed in any other country. We are not to wonder then 
that a German writer of much celebrity, and a defender too of the 
Holy Alliance, in full view of the nascent literature of our country, 
should have proclaimed the 4th of July, '76, as the commencement of a 
new era in the history of the world; nor that that eloquent royalist 
of France, the Vicompte de Chateaubriand, should assert that the 
representative republic, which has been first reduced to practice in 
the United States, is the most splendid discovery of modern times.

[Footnote 8: There is no species of talent which republican 
institutions are better calculated to foster and perfect than that of 
public speaking. Wherever the sovereignty resides with the people, 
this talent becomes an engine of real power, and one of the surest 
means of political advancement to the individual who possesses it. 
Mr. Dunlop remarks, in his Roman Literature, that Cicero's treatise 
_De Claris Oratoribus_, makes mention of scarcely one single orator 
of any distinction in the Roman Republic, who did not rise to the 
highest dignities of the state. We may certainly expect then, in the 
progress of time, if our institutions shall endure, that the great 
art of oratory will be carried to perhaps greater perfection here 
than in any other country. Our federal system is particularly 
favorable to the encouragement of this art. Had we but one great 
legislature in this country, very few could ever be expected to 
figure in it, and those would be the more elderly and sober. Under 
these circumstances, the more ardent eloquence of the youthful 
aspirant might fail to be developed, in consequence of the want of a 
proper stimulus. The state governments now supply that stimulus in 
full force, and furnish the first preparatory theatres for oratorical 
display. When in addition to all this, we take into consideration the 
training which our public men receive during the canvass, at the 
elections, in public meetings, and even at the festive board, we must 
acknowledge that our system is admirably calculated for the 
development of the talent for public speaking. Perhaps I would not go 
beyond the truth in making the assertion, that we have now in this 
country more and better trained public speakers than are to be found 
in any other. Judging from our own legislature and congress, I would 
say, without hesitation, that our public men are generally the most 
efficient speakers in the world, in comparison with their general 
ability and the learning which they possess. In the latter, 
unfortunately, they are too often very deficient.

It is very true that our style of speaking is too diffusive. Our 
orators too often seem to be speaking against time, and to be utterly 
incapable of condensation. It has been observed, that it would take 
three or four of the great speeches of Demosthenes to equal in length 
a speech which a second rate member of Congress would deliver _de 
Lana Caprina_. I am well aware that this style is frequently the 
result of confused ideas, and an indistinct conception of the subject 
under discussion. But it arises in part from the nature of our 
republican institutions. Most of the speeches delivered in Congress 
are really intended for the constituency of those who deliver them, 
and not to produce an effect in Washington. They are consequently of 
an elementary character, long and labored too, to suit the pleasure 
and the capacity of the people. From this cause, combined with 
others, it has happened that the division of labor in our 
deliberative bodies has never been so complete as in the British 
Parliament. When particular subjects are brought up in that body, 
particular men are immediately looked to for information, and for the 
discussion of them. Men who are not supposed to be qualified on them, 
are coughed down when they interrupt the body with their crude 
remarks. But in our own country, particular subjects have not been 
thus appropriated to particular individuals; and when a matter of 
importance is brought up for discussion, all are anxious to speak on 
it, and it is not to be wondered at that the clouded intellect of 
some of the speakers, together with the great courtesy of the body, 
should sometimes lead on to long-winded and tiresome effusions.

No body in ancient times displayed so much patience and courtesy 
towards its speakers as the Senate of Rome, and we are told that the 
speeches delivered before the Roman Senate were much longer than 
those delivered before the _Comitia_.--There is no body in modern 
times which displays more impatience than the French Chambers, and 
accordingly you find generally that the speeches delivered before 
them are very short. But whatever may be the cause of this tendency 
to prolixity in many of our speakers, we may console ourselves with 
the reflection that it is not the fault of all--that there are some 
now in the United States who can compare with any in the world--that 
the eloquence of our country is decidedly advancing, and will no 
doubt shed a much brighter lustre over our future history, if we can 
only preserve our federal system in all its original purity and 
perfection.]

May we not then, judging even from the past, form the most brilliant 
conceptions of the future? When our wide spread territory shall be 
filled up with a denser population--when larger cities shall be 
erected within our borders, the necessary nurseries of a literary 
class--when physical and mental labor shall be more subdivided, then 
will the intellectual level of our country begin to rise; the 
increasing competition in every department of industry will call for 
greater labor, greater energy, and more learning on the part of the 
successful candidates for distinction. And then may we expect that 
every branch of literature will be cultivated, and every art be 
practiced by the matured and invigorated genius of the country.

But although in the progress of time we may expect that literature in 
all its forms and varieties will be successfully cultivated here, yet 
we must still acknowledge that the character of our political system 
will give a most decided bias towards moral and political science. 
Under a system of republics like ours, where the sovereignty resides 
_de jure_ and _de facto_ in the people, the business of politics is 
the business of every man. Men in power, in every age and country, 
are disposed to grasp at more than has been confided to them; they 
have always developed wolfish propensities. To guard against these 
dangerous propensities in a republic, it is necessary that the people 
in whom the sovereignty resides, should always be on the watch-tower; 
they should never be caught slumbering at their posts; they should 
take the alarm not only against the palpable and open usurpations of 
power, but against those gradual, secret, imperceptible changes, 
which silently dig away the very foundations of our constitution, and 
create no alarm until they are ready to shake down the whole fabric 
of our liberties. Under these circumstances, it is the business of 
every man--it is more, it is the duty of every man--to think, to 
reflect, to instruct himself, that he may be prepared to perform that 
part at least which must necessarily devolve on each freeman in the 
great political drama of our country. He must recollect that the 
great experiment of a free government depends upon the intelligence 
and the virtue of the people. It is this knowledge and this virtue 
which constitute at once their power and their safety. It is in the 
reliance on this power, resulting from the intelligence and virtue of 
the people alone, that the honest patriot may well exclaim in the 
glowing language of Sheridan on a different subject, "I will give to 
the minister a venal house of peers--I will give him a corrupt and 
servile house of commons--I will give him the full swing of the 
patronage of his office--I will give him all the power that place can 
confer, to overawe resistance and purchase up submission; and yet 
armed, with this mighty power of the people, I will shake down from 
its height corruption, and bury it beneath the ruins of the abuse it 
was meant to shelter."

Surely then it can be no disadvantage to a country to direct the 
virtue and talents of its citizens principally to that science whose 
principles, when well understood and practiced on, will secure the 
liberty and happiness of the people, but when mistaken by ignorance, 
or perverted by corruption, will subvert the one, and dissipate the 
other. Look to the past history of the world, from the days of the 
Patriarchs to the days of our Presidents, and we are at a loss, after 
the review, to determine whether the world has been injured more by 
the unwise and unskilful efforts of statesmen and philanthropists to 
benefit, or by the nefarious attempts of wicked men and tyrants to 
injure it. We shall find from this review, that where a Hampden, a 
Sidney, and a Russell have been crushed by the tyrannous exercise of 
power, and been wept over by posterity after they had fallen, 
thousands have been reduced to misery, or sent untimely out of the 
world, unpitied and unmourned, by the stupid legislation of ignorant 
statesmen. Of such bodies of functionaries, we may well exclaim, in 
the language of England's bard,

  "How much more happy were good Æsop's frogs
   Than we?--for ours are animated logs,
   With ponderous malice swaying to and fro,
   And crushing nations with a stupid blow."

The statistics of the densely populated countries of Europe and Asia 
inform us, that there are large masses of population in those 
countries constantly vacillating, if I may use the expression, 
between life and death; a feather may decide the preponderance of the 
scales, in favor of one or the other. In view of such a pregnant fact 
as this, how awfully responsible becomes the duty {272} of the 
legislator! Suppose, whilst he is endeavoring to organize the labor 
and capital of the country, he should unfortunately tamper with the 
sources of production, and, if I may use the beautiful simile of 
Fenelon, like him who endeavors to enlarge the native springs of the 
rock, should suddenly find that his labors had but served to dry them 
up,--what calamities would not such legislative blunders at once 
inflict upon that lowest and most destitute class, which is already 
holding on upon life, with so frail a tenure! How many would be 
hastened prematurely out of existence! And these are the melancholy 
every-day consequences, too often misunderstood or unnoticed, of 
ignorant legislation. How vastly different is the benign influence of 
that wise legislator, whose laws, in the language of Bacon, "are 
deep, not vulgar; not made on the spur of a particular occasion for 
the present, but out of Providence for the future, to make the estate 
of the people still more and more happy!"

But not only should political science be a prominent study in every 
republic, in consequence of its immense importance and universal 
application, but it demands the most assiduous cultivation, because 
of the intrinsic difficulties which belong to it. There is no science 
in which we are more likely to ascribe effects to wrong causes than 
in politics--there is none which demands a more constant exercise of 
reason and observation, and in which first impressions are so likely 
to be false. The moral and political sciences, particularly the 
latter, are much more difficult than the physical and mathematical. 
There is scarcely any intellect, no matter how common, which may not, 
by severe study and close application, be brought at last to master 
mere physical and mathematical science. Eminence here is rather a 
proof of labor than of genius.[9]

[Footnote 9: A very able reviewer in Blackwood, of Allison's History 
of the French Revolution, says of Napoleon, in attempting to disprove 
his precocious greatness, "even his faculty for mathematics, which 
has been frequently adduced as one of the most sufficient proofs of 
his future fame as a soldier, fails; perhaps no faculty of the human 
mind is less successful in promoting those enlarged views, or that 
rapid and vigorous comprehension of the necessities of the moment, 
which form the essentials of the great statesman or soldier. The 
mathematician is generally the last man equal to the sudden 
difficulties of situation, or even to the ordinary problems of human 
life. Skill in the science of equations might draw up a clear system 
of tactics on paper. But it must be a mental operation, not merely of 
a more active, but of a totally different kind, which constructed the 
recovery of the battle at Marengo, or led the march to Ulm."]

But in matters of morals and politics how many must turn their 
attention to them, and how few become eminent! Suppose that the 
exalted talents which have been turned into a political career in 
this country, had been employed with the same assiduity in physics or 
mathematics--to what perfection might they not have attained in those 
sciences? If the genius and study which have been expended upon one 
great subject in political economy, the Banks for example, could have 
been directed with equal ardor to mathematics and physics, with what 
complete success would they have been crowned? And yet this whole 
subject of Banking is far, very far from being thoroughly 
comprehended by the most expanded intellects of the age. Thus do we 
find the moral and political departments of literature the most 
useful,[10] and at the same time much the most difficult to cultivate 
with success. They require too a concurrence of every other species 
of knowledge to their perfection, and hence the literature of that 
country may always be expected to be most perfect and most useful, in 
which these branches are made the centre, the great nucleus around 
which the others are formed.[11]

[Footnote 10: Dr. Johnson in his Life of Milton, has given us his 
opinion on these subjects, and as it is perfectly coincident with my 
own, I cannot forbear to add it in a note. "The truth is," says the 
Doctor, "that the knowledge of external nature and the sciences which 
that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great nor frequent 
business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or 
conversation--whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first 
requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; 
the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with 
those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events 
the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues and 
excellences of all times and of all places. We are perpetually 
moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse 
with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter 
are voluntary, and at leisure. Physical learning is of such rare 
emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being 
able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his 
moral and prudential character immediately appears. Those authors, 
therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of 
prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for 
conversation."]

[Footnote 11: Although our political institutions have the effect of 
directing the matured minds of the country into the field of politics 
and morals, yet we are not to suppose, on that account, that the 
mathematical and physical sciences will be neglected here. In almost 
all our colleges, particular attention is paid to these latter 
branches. In fact, so far as I have been enabled to examine into the 
condition of our colleges and universities, I would say the moral and 
political sciences are almost always too much neglected. It is easy 
generally to fill the mathematical and physical departments with able 
professors, because those who are well qualified to fill those 
departments, can find no other employments so lucrative and 
honorable. But those who would make eminent moral and political 
lecturers, would be generally well qualified, with but little 
additional study, to enter into the learned professions, or into the 
still more enticing field of politics, with the most unlimited 
prospects before them. Hence, whilst in many of our colleges the 
physical and mathematical chairs are most ably filled, you find the 
moral and political professors but second rate men. Now talent and 
real comprehension of mind are particularly required on the subjects 
of morals and politics. In the mathematics and physics, the merest 
dunce, if he teaches at all, must teach correctly. He may not give 
the most concise, or the most beautiful, or the most recent 
demonstration; but if he gives any demonstration at all, his 
reasoning is irrefutable, and his conclusions undeniably true. How 
vastly different are our speculations in politics and morals! What 
fatal principles may ignorance or dishonesty inculcate here! In our 
colleges, then the fixed sciences do now, and are likely in future to 
receive most attention; and consequently, we need not fear that they 
will be neglected. On the contrary, the danger seems to be, that they 
may be studied too exclusively.

Again, the wide extent of our country, the variety of our soils, our 
immense mineralogical resources, our mountains and rivers, our 
diversified geological phenomena, our canals, our rail roads, our 
immense improvements of all descriptions, open a wide and unlimited 
range for the research and practical skill of the physical and 
mathematical student, which will always stimulate the talent of the 
country sufficiently in this direction. Our past history too, 
confirms my remarks; and the great names in mathematics and physics, 
and the great and useful inventions in the arts, which have already 
shed a halo of glory around our infant institutions, point us to that 
brilliant prospect in the vista of the future, when our mathematical 
and natural philosophers, if not the very first, will certainly rank 
among the greatest of the world.]

But again, the state system of government, in all its details, 
awakens the genius and elicits the energies of the citizens, by the 
high inducement to exertion held out to all,--from the stimulating 
hope of influencing the {273} destinies of others, and becoming 
useful to mankind and an ornament to our country. Under the benign 
operation of the federative system, the hope of rising to some 
distinction in the commonwealth, is breathed into us all. From the 
highest to the lowest, we stand ready and anxious to step forth into 
the service of our country. This universal desire to be useful--this 
constant hope of rising to distinction--this longing after 
immortality, arouses the spirit of emulation, excites all the powers 
of reflection, calls forth all the energies of mind and body, and 
makes man a greater, nobler, and more efficient being, than when he 
moves on sluggishly in the dull routine of life, through the 
unvarying, noiseless calm of despotism. All the rewards, all the 
distinctions of arbitrary power, can never inspire that energy which 
arises from the patriotic hope of being useful, and weaving our name 
with the history of our country.

Philosophy is the most frivolous and shallow of employments in a 
country where it dares not penetrate into the institutions which 
surround it. When reflection durst not attempt to amend or soften the 
lot of mankind, it becomes unmanly and puerile. Look to the 
literature of those deluded beings, who immured within the walls of 
their monasteries, separated themselves from the great society of 
their country, and vainly imagined that they were doing service to 
their God, by running counter to those great laws which he has 
impressed upon his creatures, and by violating those principles which 
he has breathed into us all. What a melancholy picture is presented 
to our view--what waste of time, of intellect, and of labor, on 
subjects which true philosophy is almost ashamed to name! What 
endless discussions, what pointless wit, what inconsequential 
conclusions--in fine, what empty, useless nonsense, do we find in 
that absurd philosophy reared up in seclusion, and entirely 
unconnected with man and the institutions by which he is 
governed![12]

[Footnote 12: As a specimen, let us take the work of the celebrated 
St. Thomas Aquinas, with the lofty title of Summa Totius Theologiæ, 
1250 pages folio. In this work there are 168 articles on Love, 358 on 
Angels, 200 on the Soul, 85 on Demons, 151 on Intellect, 134 on Law, 
3 on the Catamenia, 237 on Sins, and 17 on Virginity. He treats of 
Angels, says D'Israeli, their substances, orders, offices, natures, 
habits, &c. as if he himself had been an old experienced Angel. When 
men are thus cut off from the active pursuits of life, it is curious 
to contemplate the very trifling character of their discussions and 
labors. D'Israeli tells us that the following question was a favorite 
topic for discussion, and thousands of the acutest logicians through 
more than one century, never resolved it. "When a hog is carried to 
market with a rope tied about its neck, which is held at the other 
end by a man, whether is the _hog_ carried to market by the _rope_ or 
the _man_?" The same writer too, tells us of a monk who was 
sedulously employed through a long life, in discovering more than 
30,000 new questions concerning the Virgin Mary, with appropriate 
answers. And it was the same useless industry which induced the monks 
often to employ their time in writing very _minutely_, until they 
brought this worthless art to such perfection, as to write down the 
whole Iliad on parchment that might be enclosed in a nutshell. In the 
Imperial Library of Vienna, there is still preserved an extraordinary 
specimen of chirography by a Jew, who had no doubt imbibed the 
_in_-utilitarian spirit of the monks. On a single page, eight inches 
long by six and a half broad, are written without abbreviations and 
very legible to the naked eye, the Pentateuch and book of Ruth in 
German; Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew; the Canticles in Latin; Esther in 
Syriac; and Deuteronomy in French.]

Nothing so much animates and cheers the literary man in his 
intellectual labors, as the hope of being able to promote the 
happiness of the human race. Hence the custom among the ancients of 
blending together military, legislative, and philosophic pursuits, 
contributed greatly to the progress of mental activity and 
improvement. When thought may be the forerunner of action--when a 
happy reflection may be instantaneously transformed into a beneficent 
institution, then do the contemplations and reflections of a man of 
genius ennoble and exalt philosophy. He no longer fears that the 
torch of his reason will be extinguished without shedding a light 
along the path of active life. He no longer experiences that 
embarrassing timidity, that crushing shame, which genius, condemned 
to mere speculation, must ever feel in the presence of even an 
inferior being, when that being is invested with a power which may 
influence the destiny of those around him--which may enable him to 
render the smallest service to his country, or even to wipe away one 
tear from affliction's cheek.

I am not now dealing in vague conjecture; the history of the past 
will bear me out in the assertions which I have made. In casting a 
glance over the nations of antiquity, our attention is arrested by 
none so forcibly as by the little Democracies of Greece. I will not 
occupy the attention of this society by the details of that history 
which is graven upon the memory of us all. I will not stop here to 
relate the warlike achievements of that extraordinary system of 
governments which, covering an extent of territory not greater than 
that of our own state, even with division among themselves, was yet 
enabled to meet, with their small but devoted bands, the countless 
hosts of Persia, led on by their proud and vain-glorious monarch, and 
to roll back in disgrace and defeat, the mighty tide upon the East. 
Nor will I recount the trophies which they won in philosophy, or 
describe their beautiful and sublime productions in the arts, which 
they at once created and perfected. Nor will I detain you with an 
account of that matchless eloquence displayed in their popular 
assemblies, which the historian tells us drew together eager, gazing, 
listening crowds from all Greece, as if about to behold the most 
splendid spectacle which the imagination of man could conceive, or 
even the universe could present. The history of Greece is too well 
known to us all to require these details. A people with such 
historians as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, acquires a strange 
pre-eminence--a wonderful notoriety among the nations of the earth. 
The extraordinary power of this cluster of little states, the 
superiority of their literature, the resistless energy of the minds 
and bodies of their citizens, whether for weal or woe--in short, 
their real greatness, are acknowledged by all.

What then, we may well be permitted to ask, could have generated so 
much greatness of mind, so much energy and loftiness of character in 
this apparently secluded corner of Europe, scarcely visible on the 
world's map? It was not the superiority of her climate and soil. 
Spain--worn out and degenerate Spain, enjoys the genial climate of 
the Athenian, and possesses a soil more fertile. It was not the 
superior protection which her governments afforded to persons and 
property, which generated this wonderful character. Property was 
almost as unsafe amid the turbulent factions of Greece, as under the 
despotisms of the East; and the stroke of tyranny was as often 
inflicted upon {274} patriots and statesmen, by the ungrateful hand 
of a capricious and unbalanced democracy, as by the great monarchs of 
Persia, or by the barbarian kings of Scythia. No!--it was the system 
of independent state governments, which, badly organized as they 
were, without a proper system of representation and responsibility, 
and often shaken by faction and torn to pieces by discord, 
nevertheless extended their inspiring, animating influence over all, 
and drew forth from the shade of retirement or solitude the talent 
and energy of the people, wherever they existed. It was this system 
of state government which so completely identified each citizen of 
Greece with that little body politic with which his destiny was 
connected--which breathed into his soul that ardent patriotism which 
can sacrifice self upon the altar of our country's happiness, and 
which could make even an Alcibiades, or a Themistocles, whilst 
laboring under the bitter curse of their country, stop short in their 
vindictive career, amid their meditations of mischief and vengeance, 
and cast many a longing, lingering, pitying look back upon the 
distresses of that ungrateful city that had driven them forth from 
its walls.

The great moral which may be drawn from the history of Greece, is one 
which the patriot in no age or clime should ever forget. In looking 
over this little system of states, we find uniformly that each 
displayed genius, energy, and patriotism, while really free and 
independent; but the moment one was overawed and conquered by its 
neighbor, it lost its greatness, its patriotism--even its virtue. And 
when, at last, a great state arose in the north of Greece, and placed 
a monarch upon its throne, who substituted the obedient spirit of the 
mercenary soldier and crouching courtier, for the independent genius 
of liberty and patriotism--who overawed Greece by his armies, and 
silenced the Council of Amphictyon by his presence--then was it found 
that the days of Grecian greatness had been numbered, and that the 
glory of these republics was destroyed forever; then was it seen that 
the Spartan lost his patriotism, and the Athenian that energy of mind 
almost creative, which could lead armies and navies to battle and to 
victory, adorn and enrich the stores of philosophy and literature, 
agitate the public assemblies from the _Bema_, or make the marble and 
the canvass breathe. The battle of Cheronea overthrew at the same 
time the state governments, the liberties, the prosperity, and, worst 
of all, the virtue and the towering intellect of Greece.

With the destruction of the governments of her independent states, 
Greece lost the great animating principle of her system. Forming but 
an insignificant subject province of the great Macedonian kingdom, 
and afterwards of the still greater empire of Rome, her sons 
preserved for a time the books and the mere learning of their 
renowned ancestors; but the spirit, the energy, the principle of 
thought and reflection,--the mind,--were all gone. "For more than ten 
centuries, (says an eloquent historian) the Greeks of Byzantium 
possessed models of every kind, yet they did not suggest to them one 
original idea; they did not give birth to a copy worthy of coming 
after these masterpieces. Thirty millions of Greeks, the surviving 
depositaries of ancient wisdom, made not a single step, during twelve 
centuries, in any one of the social sciences. There was not a citizen 
of free Athens who was not better skilled in the science of politics 
than the most erudite scholar of Byzantium; their morality was far 
inferior to that of Socrates--their philosophy to that of Plato and 
Aristotle, upon whom they were continually commenting. They made not 
a single discovery in any one of the physical sciences, unless we 
except the lucky accident which produced the Greek fire. They loaded 
the ancient poets with annotations, but they were incapable of 
treading in their footsteps; not a comedy or a tragedy was written at 
the foot of the ruins of the theatres of Greece; no epic poem was 
produced by the worshippers of Homer; not an ode by those of Pindar. 
Their highest literary efforts do not go beyond a few epigrams 
collected in the Greek Anthology, and a few romances. Such is the 
unworthy use which the depositaries of every treasure of human wit 
and genius make of their wealth, during an uninterrupted course of 
transmission for more than a thousand years." And such will always be 
the destiny of states as soon as they are moulded into one 
consolidated empire, with a controlling despotism at the centre.

But while the states of Greece were thus sinking into insignificance, 
under the crushing weight of one great consolidated government,--in 
another part of Europe, almost as small and secluded as Greece, 
little confederacies or associations of independent states were 
rapidly developing a literature and a character equal to those of the 
ancient Greek, and affording perhaps a still more striking and 
beautiful illustration of the truth of the principles for which I 
have contended this night. It was Italy that first restored 
intellectual light to Europe, after the long and gloomy night of 
ignorance and barbarism, which the Goth, the Vandal and the Hun had 
shed over the western half of the Roman world. It was Italy which 
recalled youth to the study of laws and philosophy--created the taste 
for poetry and the fine arts--revived the science and literature of 
antiquity, and gave prosperity to commerce, manufactures and 
agriculture. And what was it, let me ask, which made this small 
peninsula the cradle of commerce, of the arts, sciences and 
literature--in one word, of the civilization of modern Europe? It was 
because the whole of this beautiful and interesting country was 
dotted over with little republics or democracies, which, like those 
of Greece, applied their stimulating power to every portion of the 
soil of Italy. These little states, it is true, were factious, 
turbulent and revolutionary, but they awakened the genius and 
stimulated the energies of the whole people.

The exertions of this people were truly wonderful. No nation in any 
age of the world has ever raised up in its cities, and even in its 
villages, so many magnificent temples,--which even now attract the 
stranger from every country and clime to the classic soil of Italy. 
We find throughout this land, whether on the extensive plains of 
Lombardy, or on the fertile hills of Tuscany and Romagna, or on the 
now deserted _campania_ of the Patrimony of St. Peter, towns of the 
most splendid character, reared during the palmy days of modern 
Italy; and in those cities we find long lines of once stately palaces 
now tumbling into ruins. Their gates, their columns, their 
architraves, says the eloquent historian of Italy, remain, but the 
wood is worm-eaten and decayed, the crystal glasses have been broken, 
the lead has been taken from the roofs, and the stranger from one end 
to the {275} other of this _monumental_ land, asks in mournful 
sadness in each town through which he passes,--Where now is the 
population which could have required so many habitations? Where is 
the commerce which could have filled so many magazines? Where are 
those opulent citizens who could have lived in so many palaces? Where 
now are those numerous crowds that bowed in reverential awe and 
devotion before the altars of Christ, of the Virgin and the Saints? 
Where now are the grandeur and magnificence of the living, which 
should have replaced that grandeur and magnificence of the dead, of 
which their monuments so eloquently tell? All are gone. While other 
nations have been growing in importance and multiplying the materials 
of their history as they approach the age in which we live, how 
different has been the mournful destiny of Italy! The present has 
well been called the epoch of death in that lovely land. When we 
observe, says the historian, the whole of Italy, whether we examine 
the physiognomy of the soil, or the works of man, or man himself, we 
always regard ourselves as being in the land of the dead; every where 
we are struck by the feebleness and degeneracy of the race that now 
is, compared with that which has been. The sun of Italy now sheds as 
warm and vivifying rays over the land as before--the earth remains as 
fertile--the Appenines present to our view the same varient smiling 
aspect--the fields are as abundantly watered by the genial showers of 
heaven, and all the lower animals of nature preserve here their 
pristine beauty and habits. Man too, at birth, seems in this 
delightful climate, to be endowed still with the same quick creative 
imagination, with the same susceptibility of deep, passionate 
feeling--with the same wonderful aptitude of mind--and yet man alone 
has changed here! In contrast with his fathers--

                          "As the slime,
  The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
  Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,
  That drives the sailor shipless to his home."

It is the change in government--the fatal change in the political 
destiny of the Italian, which has wrought this melancholy change in 
his whole nature. When this beautiful land was covered with leagues 
of independent states, inspired with the genius of liberty and 
political independence,--the stimulating influence of the government 
was felt every where--it animated and aroused all--it communicated 
the spirit of activity and enterprise, the love of home and the 
ardent love of country to all the citizens alike--from the proud lord 
of Venice, whose stately palace was lashed by the wave of the 
Adriatic, to the poor peasant whose thatched and humble cottage lay 
in some secluded solitary hollow of the Alps or the Appenines. Under 
this system of government there was no favored spot upon which the 
treasures of the nation were expended; there was no Thebes, no 
Babylon, no imperial Rome built up, adorned and beautified by the 
degradation and utter prostration of all the rest. We might almost 
say of Italy what has been affirmed of Omnipotence itself--its centre 
was every where, its circumference no where. Every little independent 
state, no matter how limited its area or small its population, had 
its great men, its thriving cities, its noble monuments. The little 
Florentine democracy with but eighty thousand souls, had more great 
men within its limits than any of the great kingdoms of Europe; and 
all were animated with the spirit of patriotism, of industry,[13] of 
learning.

[Footnote 13: "The habit of industry," says Sismondi, "was the 
distinctive characteristic of the Italians even to the middle of the 
15th century. The first rank at Florence, Venice, and Genoa, was 
occupied by merchants; and the families who possessed the offices of 
the state, of the church or the army, did not for that reason give up 
their business. Philip Strozzi, brother-in-law of Leo X, the father 
of Mareschal Strozzi, and the grandfather of Capua, the friend of 
several sovereigns, and the first citizen of Italy, remained even to 
the end of his life chief of a banking house. He had seven sons, but 
in spite of his immense fortune, he suffered none of them to be 
brought up in idleness."]

No wonder then that the citizens of Italy should have prospered amid 
their domestic broils, their factions, their revolutions--even amid 
the sanguinary conflicts of the Guelph and the Ghibeline. If the 
energy and elasticity of the mind be not destroyed by the pressure of 
despotism, it is curious to contemplate the wonderfully recuperative 
powers of man, and to behold the appalling difficulties which he can 
surmount, undismayed and unscathed. You may prostrate him to day, but 
the energy and vitality that is within him will raise him up on the 
morrow.[14] Of all sorts of destruction, of every kind of death, that 
is the worst, because the most productive of melancholy consequences, 
which reaches the mind itself. That system of government which slays 
the mind, is the system which, at the same time reaches the sanctuary 
of the heart, overthrows the purity of morals, and forges the fetters 
for the slave. And such a government as this have the Spaniard the 
Frenchman and the German rivetted but too fatally upon Italy. The day 
that saw those modern Goths and Vandals pouring their mercenary 
hordes over the Alps to rob and plunder, was a black day for Italy, 
and well might the friend of that lovely land have then exclaimed in 
the language of the poet,

  "Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil of France,
   From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
   Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,
   But Tiber shall become a mournful river."

[Footnote 14: Whilst Italy was free, there was no country which could 
repair its losses with so much despatch; the town that was sacked and 
burnt to-day, would be built up and stored with wealth on the morrow, 
and the losses of one excited the sympathies and support of all those 
engaged in the same cause. When the Emperor Frederic carried fire and 
sword through the Milanese territory, and left the treasury of that 
state completely exhausted, we are told that the rich citizens soon 
replenished it from their private purses, contenting themselves in 
the mean time with coarse bread, and cloaks of black stuff. And at 
the command of their consuls they left Milan to join their fellow 
citizens in rebuilding _with their own hands_ the walls and houses of 
Tortona, Rosata, Tricate, Galiate, and other towns, which had 
suffered in the contest for the common cause.]

The independence of the little states of Italy is now gone, and with 
it all the real greatness of that country. The power that now sways 
the Italian, emanates from a nation situated afar off on the banks of 
the Danube. And can we wonder while the Austrian soldier stands 
sentinel in the Italian cities, that their citizens should

                                           "Creep,
  Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets."

But enough of a spectacle so sad as this![15]

[Footnote 15: Small states, if truly independent, are very favorable 
to the production of great characters, and even great virtues. "The 
regeneration of liberty in Italy," says Sismondi, "was signalized 
still more, if it were possible, by the development of the moral, 
than by that of the intellectual character of the {276} Italians. The 
sympathy existing among fellow-citizens, from the habit of living for 
each other, and by each other--of connecting every thing with the 
good of all, produced in those republics virtues which despotic 
states cannot even imagine." But the moment the independence of the 
small states is destroyed by the overshadowing and overawing 
influence of larger ones, then does the system work the most 
disastrous consequences upon the political, moral, and literary 
character of the citizens. A little state overawed by a large one, 
instantly has recourse to cunning, intrigue, and duplicity, to 
accomplish its ends. Cæsar Borgia in Italy, says Mr. Hume, had 
recourse to more villainy, hypocrisy, and meanness, to get possession 
of a few miles of territory, than was practised by Julius Cæsar, 
Zenghis, or Tamerlane for the conquest of a large portion of the 
world. Hence we are not to wonder that Italy should become the most 
infamous of all schools, in the production of subtile, intriguing, 
hypocritical politicians, and that the literature should soon become 
as corrupt as the political morals of the country. The Marini, the 
Achillini in poetry, and the Bernini in the arts, had a reputation 
similar to that of Concini, Mazarini, Catherine, and Mary di Medici 
in politics.]

Did the limits which I have prescribed to myself in this address 
allow it, I could easily adduce the history of the Swiss Cantons, the 
Netherlands and Holland, the Hanseatic League, the little states 
formerly around the Baltic, and even the Germanic Confederation, as 
confirmation strong of the truth of the positions which I have taken 
in favor of the federative system. Indeed I might go farther than 
this, and show that the feudal aristocracy of the middle ages, 
horrible as was its oppression, calamitous as were its petty wars, 
and feuds, and dissensions, intolerable as was that anarchical 
confusion which it generated in Europe towards the close of the tenth 
century, was nevertheless the instrument which kept alive the mind of 
man in the great nations of Christendom, by splitting up the powers 
of government among the Baronial Lords, and thereby preventing that 
fatal tendency to centralism and consolidation, which would 
inevitably have shrouded the mind of Europe in inextricable darkness. 
Far be from me that vain presumption which would dare to scan the 
mysterious plans of Providence; but I have always thought that the 
regeneration of the mind of Europe required that the barbarian should 
come from the North and the East--that an Alaric, a Genseric and an 
Attila, should pour out the vials of their wrath upon the Roman's 
head--that the monstrous, corrupt and gigantic fabric of his power 
might be broken to pieces by barbarian hordes, who had not the genius 
and political skill requisite to establish another great military 
despotism on its ruins.

After this review I turn with pleasure again to our own system of 
government. We have seen how stimulating were the little republics of 
Greece and of Italy, to the genius of those countries. But their 
systems were not made for peaceable endurance--they were too 
disunited, too turbulent, too prone to civil wars; hence they either 
fell a prey to some ambitious state in their own system, or invited 
by their reckless internal dissensions the foreigner into their land, 
who broke down their institutions, overthrew their liberty, and 
imposed upon their submissive necks the galling yoke of military 
despotism. But those venerated fathers of our republics, who framed 
the federal constitution, came forward to their task in full view of 
the history of the republics of the ancient and modern world, with 
that almost holy spirit of freedom and patriotism which gave them 
that undaunted courage and unremitting perseverance that enabled them 
to wade through the blood and turmoil of the revolution. They 
completed their task, and the wisdom and virtue of our confederacy 
did sanction their work, and long may that work endure if 
administered in that spirit of purity and virtue which inspired those 
who framed it.

Our states are much larger than the little democracies of ancient 
Greece or of modern Italy--the new and improved principle of 
representation, combined with the modern improvements in the whole 
machinery of government, have rendered the republican form much 
better suited to large states than formerly. Some of our states may 
perhaps be too large, and others too small. But our ancestors very 
wisely avoided that geometrical policy, which would have divided our 
country into equal squares, like France in the dark days of her 
revolution. "No man ever was attached," says Burke, "by a sense of 
pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square 
measurement. He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71, 
or to any other badge ticket. We begin our public affections in our 
families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our 
neighborhoods and our habitual provincial connections;" and these 
ties and habits were respected by our forefathers. No sovereign 
state, no matter how small, was disfranchised--the giant and the 
dwarf had their rights and liberties alike respected and secured in 
this new system, and all were bound together by a wise and beneficent 
plan of government, based upon the mutual interests and sympathies of 
all the members of the confederacy--a plan which was wisely framed to 
give lasting peace to our country, and to demonstrate the 
inapplicability to our portion of the western hemisphere at least, of 
the gloomy philosophy of the European statesman, that the natural 
condition of man is war. Thus organized, our system was calculated to 
apply the beneficial stimulus of government to every portion of our 
soil and every division of our population, and at the same time in 
the midst of profound peace and freedom of intercourse, both social 
and commercial, among the states, to secure that enlarged and 
extended theatre for action, which may stimulate and reward the 
exalted genius and talent of the country, and crown the pyramid of 
our greatness.

But I must turn from this view of my subject, which has ever been so 
delightful to my mind, to the contemplation always gloomy, of the 
dangerous evils which may beset us in our progress onwards. It is too 
true that there can be nothing pure in this world; good and evil are 
always intertwined. It has well been said that the wave which wafts 
to our shore the genial seed that may spring up and gladden our land 
with luxuriant vegetation, may unfold the deadly crocodile.

One of the most fatal evils with which the republican system of 
government is liable to be assailed, is the diffusion of a spirit of 
agrarianism among the indigent classes of society. This spirit is now 
abroad in the world--it is fearfully developing itself in the 
insurrectionary heavings and tumults of continental Europe, which, 
however ineffectual now, do nevertheless mark the great internal 
conflagration--"the march of that mighty burning, which however 
intangible by human vigilance, is yet hollowing the ground under 
every community of the civilized world." England's most eloquent and 
learned divine, tells us but too truly that {277} "there now sits an 
unnatural scowl on the aspect of the population, a resolved 
sturdiness in their attitude and gait; and whether we look to the 
profane recklessness of their habits, or to the deep and settled 
hatred which rankles in their hearts, we cannot but read in these 
moral characteristics of this land, the omens of some great and 
impending overthrow."

In our own more happy country, the almost unlimited extension of 
suffrage in the most populous states, the frequent appeals made to 
the indigent and the destitute by demagogues for the purpose of 
inflaming their passions, and of exciting that most blighting and 
deadly hostility of all, the hostility of the poor against the 
rich--the tumults and riots at the elections in our great cities--the 
lawless mobs of the north which have already set the civil authority 
at defiance, and have pulled down and destroyed the property of the 
citizen--all are but premonitory symptoms of the approaching 
calamity--they are but the rumbling sound which precedes the mighty 
shock of the terrible earthquake. If these things happen now, what 
may we not expect hereafter? At present the great territorial 
resources of our country offer the most stimulating reward to labor 
and enterprise. The laborer of to-day looks forward, and hopes, yes, 
knows, that by his industry he is to be the capitalist of to-morrow. 
He feels a prospective interest in the defence of property. The 
little German farmer with a hundred acres of poor land in the Key 
Stone State, clad in the coarsest raiment, contented with the 
simplest food, and saving from his hard earnings the small sum of one 
hundred dollars a year, would not wish the property of the country to 
be thrown in jeopardy--he would shudder at the idea of a general 
scramble, lest he might lose that little patrimony around which the 
very affections of his heart have been twined.

But the time must come when the powerfully elastic spring of our 
rapidly increasing numbers shall fill up our wide spread territory 
with a dense population--when the great safety valve of the west will 
be closed against us--when millions shall be crowded into our 
manufactories and commercial cities--then will come the great and 
fearful pressure upon the engine--then will the line of demarkation 
stand most palpably drawn between the rich and the poor, the 
capitalist and the laborer--then will thousands, yea, millions arise, 
whose hard lot it may be to labor from morn till eve through a long 
life, without the cheering hope of passing from that toilsome 
condition in which the first years of their manhood found them, or 
even of accumulating in advance that small fund which may release the 
old and infirm from labor and toil, and mitigate the sorrows of 
declining years. Many there will be even, who may go to and fro and 
be able to say in the melancholy language of Holy Writ, "the foxes 
have holes, and the birds of the air their nest, but the son of man 
has not where to lay his head." When these things shall come--when 
the millions, who are always under the pressure of poverty, and 
sometimes on the verge of starvation, shall form your numerical 
majority, (as is the case now in the old countries of the world) and 
universal suffrage shall throw the political power into their hands, 
can you expect that they will regard as sacred the tenure by which 
you hold your property? I almost fear the frailties and weakness of 
human nature too much, to anticipate confidently such justice. When 
hunger is in the land, we can scarcely expect, by any species of 
legerdemain, to turn the eyes and thoughts of the sufferers from the 
flesh pots of Egypt. The old Roman populace demanded a regular 
distribution of corn from the public granaries; the Grecian populace 
received bribes, fined and imprisoned their wealthy men, or made them 
build galleys, equip soldiers, give public feasts, and furnish the 
victims for the sacrifices at their own expense.[16] The mode of 
action in modern times may be changed, but the result will be the 
same if the spirit of agrarianism shall once get abroad in our land. 
France has already furnished us with the great moral. First comes 
disorganization and legislative plunder, then the struggle of 
factions and civil war, and lastly a military despotism, into whose 
arms all will be driven by the intolerable evils of anarchy and 
rapine. I fondly hope that the future may bring along with it a 
sovereign remedy for these evils, but what that remedy may be, it is 
past perhaps the sagacity of man now to determine. We can only say in 
the language of Kepler upon a far different subject,--"Hæc et cetera 
hujusmodi latent in pandectis œvi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam 
librum hunc deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus."

[Footnote 16: When an individual was tried before an Athenian 
tribunal, his wealth was generally a serious disadvantage to his 
cause, and there was nothing which the defence labored harder to 
establish than the poverty of the accused. "I know," says the orator 
Lisias, in his defence of Nicophemus, "how difficult it will be 
effectually to refute the report of the great riches of Nicophemus. 
The present scarcity of money in the city, and the wants of the 
treasury which the forfeiture has been calculated upon to supply, 
will operate against me." In the celebrated dialogue of Xenophon, 
called the Banquet, he makes a rich man who has suddenly become poor, 
congratulate himself upon his poverty; "inasmuch," he says, "as 
cheerfulness and confidence are preferable to constant apprehension, 
freedom to slavery, being waited upon, to waiting upon others. When I 
was a rich man in this city, I was under the necessity of courting 
the sycophants, knowing it was in their power to do me mischief which 
I could little return. Nevertheless, I was continually receiving 
orders from the people, to undertake some expenses for the 
commonwealth, and I was not allowed to go any where out of Attica. 
But now I have lost all my foreign property, and nothing accrues from 
my Attic estate, and all my goods are sold, I sleep any where 
fearless; I am considered as faithful to the government; I am never 
threatened with prosecutions, but I have it in my power to make 
others fear; as a freeman I may stay in the country or go out of it 
as I please; the rich rise from their seats for me as I approach, and 
make way for me as I walk; I am now like a tyrant, whereas I was 
before an absolute slave; and whereas before I paid tribute to the 
people, now a tribute from the public maintains me." This picture, 
though perhaps overwrought, marks still but too conclusively the 
agrarian spirit in Greece.]

In the mean time I may boldly assert that the frame work of our 
southern society is better calculated to ward off the evils of this 
agrarian spirit, which is so destructive to morals, to mind and to 
liberty, than any other mentioned in the annals of history. Domestic 
slavery, such as ours, is the only institution which I know of, that 
can secure that spirit of equality among freemen, so necessary to the 
true and genuine feeling of republicanism, without propelling the 
body politic at the same time into the dangerous vices of 
agrarianism, and legislative intermeddling between the laborer and 
the capitalist. The occupations which we follow, necessarily and 
unavoidably create distinctions in society. It is {278} said that all 
occupations are honorable. This is certainly true, if you mean that 
no honest employment is disgraceful. But to say that all confer equal 
honor, if well followed even, is not true. Such an assertion 
militates alike against the whole nature of man and the voice of 
reason. But whatever may be the vain deductions of mere theorists 
upon this subject, one thing is certain--Reason informed me of its 
truth long before experience had shown it to me in actual life--The 
hirelings who perform all the menial offices of life, will not and 
cannot be treated as equals by their employers. And those who stand 
ready to execute all our commands, no matter what they may be, for 
mere pecuniary reward, cannot feel themselves equal to us in reality, 
however much their reason may be bewildered by the voice of 
sophistry.

Now, let us see what is likely to be the effect of universal suffrage 
in a state where there are no slaves. Either the dependant classes, 
the laborers and menial servants, will be driven forward by the 
dictation of their employers and the bribery of the man of property, 
thus giving the government a proclivity towards an aristocracy of 
wealth;[17] or they become discontented with their condition, and ask 
why these differences among beings pronounced equal--they look with 
eyes of cupidity upon the fortunes of the rich. The demagogue 
perceives their ominous sullenness, and marks the hatred which is 
rankling in their hearts--then the parties of the rich and the poor 
are formed--then come the legislative plunder and the dark train of 
evils consequent on the spirit of equality, which is in fact, in such 
a community, the spirit of agrarianism.

[Footnote 17: Men whose impulses are all communicated by the 
expectation of small pecuniary rewards, quickly acquire that 
suppleness of conscience, which renders them peculiarly liable to 
bribery. Take, for example, the waiter in an hotel--it is the hope of 
little gains that moves him in any direction which you may dictate, 
and which makes him a ready tool for the execution of any project 
whatever. His motto is, _I take the money and my employer the 
responsibility_. Bring this man to the polls, and offer him money for 
his vote, and the probability is that he would not refuse that which 
the whole education and training of his life would impel him to 
receive.]

But in our slaveholding country the case is far different. Our 
laboring classes and menials are all slaves of a different color from 
their masters--the source of greatest distinction among the freemen 
is taken away; and the spirit of equality, the true spirit of genuine 
republicanism may exist here,--without leading on to corruption on 
the one side or agrarianism on the other.[18] Political power is thus 
taken from the hands of those who might abuse it, and placed in the 
hands of those who are most interested in its judicious exercise. Our 
law most wisely ordains that the slaves "shall not be sought for in 
public council, nor sit high in the congregation: they shall not sit 
high on the judges' seats nor understand the sentence of judgment; 
they cannot declare justice and judgment; and they shall not be found 
where parables are spoken. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the 
plough, that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen and is occupied 
in their labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" Lycurgus, more than 
two thousand years ago, in his celebrated system of laws, was so well 
aware of the aristocratic feeling generated by diversity of 
occupation, that he decreed in order that a perfect spirit of 
equality might reign among the Spartans, that slaves alone should 
practice the most laborious arts, or fill the menial stations. And in 
this particular he showed perhaps as much sagacity as in any other 
law of the whole system. We want no legislation in the south to 
secure this effect--it flows spontaneously from our social system.

[Footnote 18: I will take leave here to introduce a short extract 
from my Essay on Slavery, in corroboration of the assertions which I 
have made. "The citizen of the north will not shake hands familiarly 
with his servant, and converse, and laugh, and dine with him, no 
matter how honest and respectable he may be. But go to the south, and 
you will find that no white man feels such inferiority of rank as to 
be unworthy of association with those around him. Color alone is here 
the badge of distinction, the true mark of aristocracy; and all who 
are white are equal, in spite of the variety of occupation. The same 
thing is observed in the West Indies. 'Of the character common to the 
white resident of the West Indies,' says B. Edwards, 'it appears to 
me that the leading feature is an independent spirit, and a display 
of _conscious equality_ throughout all ranks and conditions. The 
poorest white person seems to consider himself nearly on a level with 
the condition of the richest; and emboldened by this idea, he 
approaches his employer with extended hand, and a freedom which, in 
the countries of Europe, is seldom displayed by men in the lower 
orders of life towards their superiors.'"]

But whilst the political effects of our social system are so 
peculiarly beneficial, the moral effects are no less striking and 
advantageous. I have no hesitation in affirming that the relation 
between capitalist and laborer in the south is kinder, and more 
productive of genuine attachment, than exists between the same 
classes any where else on the face of the globe. The slave is happy 
and contented with his lot, unless indeed the very demons of 
Pandemonium shall be suffered to come among us and destroy his 
happiness by their calumnious falsehoods and hypocritical promises. 
He compares himself with his own race and his own color alone, and he 
sees that all are alike--he does not covet the wealth of the rich 
man, nor envy that happiness which liberty imparts to the patriot, 
but he identifies all his interests with those of his master--free 
from care--free from that constant feeling of insecurity which 
continually haunts the poor man of other countries, he moves on in 
the round of his existence, cheerful, contented and grateful.[19] We 
have no Manchester and Smithfield riots here--no breaking of 
machinery--no scowl of discontent or sullenness hovering over the 
brow--no midnight murders for the money which we have in our 
houses--no melancholy forebodings of that agrarian spirit which calls 
up the very demon of wrath to apply the torch to the political 
edifice. The statistics of the slaveholding population prove that it 
is the most quiet and secure population in the world--there are fewer 
great crimes and murders among them than in any other form in which 
society can exist. I defy the world too, to produce a parallel to the 
rapid improvement of the slave on our continent since the period of 
his landing from the shores of his forefathers. And when the 
philanthropist tells us to plant our colonies on the coast of that 
benighted region, that the tide of civilization may be rolled back on 
Africa, the very enthusiasm of his {279} language marks the 
inappreciable improvement which slavery has here wrought upon the 
character of the negro. On the other hand the master is attached to 
his slaves by every tie of interest and sympathy, generated by a 
connection that sometimes lasts for life. He does not work them 
to-day for sixteen hours, reducing them to mere bread and water, and 
capriciously discharge them to-morrow from his employment, and turn 
them adrift without money or resource, upon a cold and inhospitable 
world. When their labor will not support themselves, the master is 
bound to consume his capital for their sustenance. There are evils, 
no doubt, incidental to this relation--but where is the relation of 
life exempt from them?[20]

[Footnote 19: Any one who has ever seen the negro at hard labor by 
the side of the white man, or who has noticed him while performing 
menial services along with his white associate, has marked no doubt 
the striking difference. The negro is all gaiety and 
cheerfulness--his occupation seems to ennoble him. His companion, on 
the contrary, whom the world calls a freeman, but really treats as a 
slave, is seen sullen and discontented, and feels himself degraded 
for the very reason that he is called a freeman.]

[Footnote 20: Whatever philanthropists may say upon the subject, I 
believe the history of the world will bear me out in the assertion 
that slavery is certainly the most efficient and perhaps the only 
means by which the contact of the civilized man with the barbarian 
can contribute to the advantage and civilization of the latter. The 
relation of master and slave is the only means which has ever yet 
been devised by the wisdom of man, capable of bringing the element of 
civilization into close union with that of barbarism, without either 
dragging down the civilized man to a level with the barbarian, or 
corrupting and then exterminating the latter in the attempt to 
elevate him. Every one who is acquainted with the condition of 
society in our southern country, will bear witness to the truth of 
the assertion, that whilst slavery by producing the closest and most 
constant intercourse between the whites and blacks, elevates the 
character, purifies the morals, and speeds on the civilization of the 
latter, it has not the slightest tendency to introduce their 
barbarism or their vices among the former. It is for this very 
reason, while virtue and knowledge may travel downwards, and vice and 
barbarism cannot move upwards, that the institution of such slavery 
as ours becomes the greatest security for virtue, and the most 
certain preservative of morals. It is this inestimable feature in 
this most slandered institution, which keeps the upper stratum of the 
social fabric in the healthiest and soundest state, which makes the 
character of the slaveholder so lofty, generous, chivalrous, and 
sternly incorruptible wherever we find him. It is this same feature 
too which contributes most to elevate and adorn the character of the 
mistress of slaves--which enshrines her heart in the very purity and 
constancy of the affections, and makes her the ornament and 
immaculate blessing of that delightful domestic sanctuary, which is 
never to be polluted by the vile and wicked arts of the base 
designing corrupter of the female heart.

What then, in presence of these facts, must we think of the 
slanderous tongues that would dare asperse the character of southern 
females--that would endeavor to blacken that almost spotless purity 
of heart, which I hope will forever remain the proud characteristic 
of southern women? Ignorance does not excuse such calumniators. The 
men who can attack, without having taken even the trouble to 
ascertain the facts, that class whose virtue constitutes their 
greatest ornament, and whom the usages and customs of the world have 
driven from the active bustling arena of life into the shade of 
retirement, there to be loved, honored, and protected by all who are 
noble and generous, show to the world the real hollowness of their 
hearts and the reckless impurity of their intentions. But when they 
cannot even plead such ignorance, their past lives should not be 
suffered to shield them from the imputation of crime, and the mantle 
of that pure and beautiful religion, preached by the meek Saviour of 
mankind, was never designed to cover the canting hypocrisy of the 
insidious calumnious slanderer. It is Sterne who says that the man 
who is capable of doing _one dirty trick_ can do another--he thus at 
once unmasks his real character, and stands forth confessed in all 
his naked deformity before the world. And we may perhaps but too 
truly assert, that those whose minds are incapable of comprehending 
the purity, whilst they maliciously asperse the innocence of female 
character, are the beings who are most apt at last to be displayed as 
the true Tartuffes of the world.]

I would say then, let us cherish this institution which has been 
built up by no sin of ours--let us cleave to it as the ark of our 
safety. Expediency, morality and religion, alike demand its 
continuance; and perhaps I would not hazard too much in the 
prediction, that the day will come when the whole confederacy will 
regard it as the sheet anchor of our country's liberty.

I will now conclude my long address, by a brief notice of two results 
which may happen to our system of government, either of which would 
be fatal to the system--dismemberment on the one side, or 
consolidation, on the other. The evils of dismemberment may be 
quickly told. Separate governments, or confederacies, would of course 
have rivalries and jealousies and wars. Our militia would be found 
inadequate to our defence; standing armies and navies would be 
established: and all history has shown that these will trample upon 
the civil authority. War with their concomitant establishments, 
navies and armies, entail the heaviest expense on nations.[21] These 
expenditures require taxation; and heavy taxation in an extensive 
range of country, whether levied on imports or on native productions, 
would be sure to lead on to partial and vicious legislation, to the 
intolerable oppression of one part for the benefit of another. And 
all the guards and checks which constitutional charters would impose 
on government, could not prevent the rapid concentration of power 
into the hands of the executive, in most of our independent states, 
amid wars, armies, navies, taxation, expenditures and increasing 
patronage of the governments. We should, I fear, exhibit the picture 
of Europe to the world, with governments perhaps less balanced[22] 
and more sanguinary in their wars. It is more than probable, then, 
that if ever disunion shall come, as has been said by a distinguished 
statesman,--we shall close the book of the republics, and open that 
of the kings, not in name perhaps--but in reality.

[Footnote 21: It may perhaps be affirmed with truth, that there is 
scarcely a nation in Europe, with a population equal to that of the 
United States, whose army does not cost more than the whole expenses 
of our federal government. The military statistics of Europe are 
truly formidable. Great Britain keeps at home an army of 100,000 men, 
and 250,000 in India. France has a standing army of 280,000; Austria 
271,000; Prussia 162,000; and Russia 800,000. The United States have 
6,000, with a population more than the half of Austria, and greater 
than that of Prussia. Even the kingdom of Sardinia, with a population 
of a little more than one-fourth of ours, has an army more than seven 
times as great; and Spain, with a population not so great as ours, 
has an army fifteen times as great. Comment is unnecessary.]

[Footnote 22: If a nation must have monarchy, I have no hesitation in 
saying that it should not be isolated. It should be "buttressed by 
establishments." If we must have Kings, it would be better that the 
Lords and Commons should follow. Kings, Lords, and Commons are 
perhaps the nearest approach which the monarchical form of government 
can make towards liberty. When there is no intermediate power between 
the king and the people, every dispute between the parties, for want 
of a conciliatory compromise, brings the nation at once to blows; and 
the immediate issue is necessarily either a despotism established, or 
a dynasty overthrown. The chances against a perfect balance are 
infinite. But in our country we can never have a regular nobility. 
Antiquity is absolutely necessary to such an establishment. Bonaparte 
tried the experiment of a suddenly created nobility, and it entirely 
failed; although his nobles were much more talented and efficient 
than the ancient noblesse. Bonaparte's nobles besides were the most 
unprincipled, and the most remorselessly rapacious of modern Europe; 
and this perhaps is the almost necessary character of an upstart 
nobility.]

This would certainly be the result in the non-slaveholding states, 
where the agrarian spirit, co-operating {280} with executive 
usurpation, would inevitably overthrow the balance of the government, 
and lead on eventually to military despotism. But such is my 
confidence in the influence of slavery on the slaveholder--so certain 
am I, judging from all fair reasoning on the subject, and from the 
past history of the world, that the spirit of liberty and of 
equality, glows with the most unqualified intensity in the bosoms of 
the masters of slaves, that I believe the slaveholding states, with 
all the horrors of disunion against them, would nevertheless, under 
the impulse of this spirit, so ineradicable among _them_, be enabled 
to preserve their liberties, and arrest their governments in their 
dangerous proclivity towards monarchy. It is true, circumstances 
might often even here concentrate too much power in the executive 
department; but the owners of slaves, with a spirit like that of the 
Barons at Runnimede, would embrace the first opportunity to take back 
the power that had slipt from their hands; and the absence of any 
thing like a formidable agrarian party, would deprive the executive 
of that infallible resource to which, under other circumstances, it 
might resort, to obtain the power necessary to break through the 
trammels of constitutions, and finally to entrench itself safely 
behind military power. Where has a greater love for liberty been 
shown, or a more noble struggle made for its preservation than in 
Poland? And in our own country, it is a matter of history, that in no 
portion of it has the spirit of freedom so fervently developed itself 
as in the Southern States, nor has any portion been found more 
constantly and effectually battling against power. Two 
administrations have been overthrown since the constitution went into 
operation, and it has been Southern talent, and Southern energy, 
which have accomplished it. Whenever the South shall present a solid 
unbroken phalanx against usurpation, I hazard little in the 
prediction, that it will generally accomplish its ends.

But disunion, with all its attendant evils, would not so completely 
prostrate the mind, and relax all the energies of man, as the other 
more dangerous result which may happen--I mean consolidation! A 
number of independent governments, no matter how bad, no matter how 
despotic, must to some extent at least, exert a stimulating 
influence, each over a portion of its own territory. The greater the 
number of governments therefore, the greater the number of 
stimulants, as long as each one remains independent. And the 
probability is, that a sort of political equilibrium would be formed 
very soon on our continent, which would, as in Europe, preserve the 
territorial integrity of the smaller states, and prevent the larger 
from a dangerous accumulation of power.[23]

[Footnote 23: It is curious to look now to the condition of Europe, 
and compare it with the same quarter of the world three hundred years 
ago, and to see how small the change in the division of countries 
after all the wars, bloodshed, and expense which have been inflicted 
on it. And some of the greatest gainers too have been the small 
states. The Duke of Savoy, for example, now takes honorable rank 
among the second rate monarchs, under the more imposing title of King 
of Sardinia, and with a territory more than doubled in extent. The 
Marquis of Brandenburg now hails as King of Prussia, and takes his 
station among the great powers in Europe with a greatly augmented 
dominion. It is the system of the political equilibrium in Europe 
which has bridled the great nations, and prevented them from 
swallowing up the smaller. "Consider," says Sir James Macintosh, in 
one of his ablest speeches, "the Republic of Geneva--think of her 
defenceless position, in the very jaws of France; but think also of 
her undisturbed security, of her profound quiet, of the brilliant 
success with which she applied herself to industry and literature, 
while Louis XIV was pouring his myriads into Italy before her gates. 
Call to mind that happy period, when we scarcely dreamed more of the 
subjugation of the feeblest republic of Europe, than of the conquest 
of her mightiest empire--and say, whether any spectacle can be 
imagined more beautiful to the moral eye, or which affords a more 
striking proof of progress in the noblest principles of true 
civilization."]

But if ever our state institutions shall be overthrown, and the 
concentration of all the powers into one great central government 
shall mould this system of republics into one grand consolidated 
empire, then will the last and greatest evil which can befal our 
country have arrived. The wide extent of our territory, and the 
numbers of our population, which under a system of confederated 
republics, would awaken the genius and patriotism of the country, and 
call forth an almost resistless energy and enterprise in our 
citizens, would then be a blighting curse--the bane of our land. All 
eyes would be turned to that great and fearful engine at the centre, 
whose oppressive action would paralyze all the parts, whilst it would 
bind them together in indissoluble union--in the numbness and torpor 
of death itself.

Could it be possible for our government, after such consolidation, to 
retain its democratic form, then would it become the most corrupt, 
the most demoralizing, the most intolerably oppressive government 
which the annals of history could furnish. That diversity of climate, 
of soil, of character, and of interest--that great difference of 
condition springing from the existence or non-existence of slavery, 
all of which, under a mild, federative system, would increase the 
general happiness and add to the blessings of union, by interlocking, 
in the harmony of free trade, all the interests of the parts, would 
then lead on to vicious combinations in our national legislature, for 
the purpose of robbing one portion of the union for the benefit of 
another--then would be formed our fixed and sectional majorities, who 
by their unprincipled and irresponsible legislation, would prostrate 
the rights and suck out the very substance from the minority. The 
history of past ages informs us that physical force has hitherto been 
the great engine which has distributed the wealth and overthrown the 
liberties of nations. But the system would be changed here. 
Governmental action and legislative jugglery would accomplish more 
effectually what the sword has done elsewhere. And to the oppressed 
there would be but one right left--the right that belongs to the worm 
when trodden on--the right of turning upon the oppressor and shaking 
off his iron grasp, if possible. This is the most valuable of all 
rights to the European citizen--because there the few, the units, are 
the oppressors, and the millions are the oppressed; and when tyranny 
has passed beyond the point of endurance, and the people are at last 
roused to a sense of the injustice and wrongs which they are 
suffering, they rise in their might and pull down the pillars of the 
political edifice.

But in our own country, if the state governments shall ever be broken 
down, and state marks obliterated, what will the right of resistance 
be worth to us? When the oppression comes from the greedy many, and 
is exerted over the proscribed few, is it not worse than {281} 
mockery to tell them they may resist in the last resort--that the 
minority, enfeebled and impoverished by legislative plunder, without 
army, navy, or treasury, disorganized, unsteady, and vacillating in 
its plans, may rise against the many who possess the advantages of 
physical force, wealth, organization, together with the whole power 
of an energetic government, which can break the ranks of the 
minority, and sow the seeds of dissension among them, by the 
corrupting influence of its mighty patronage, or attack and conquer 
by its force those who shall first have the temerity to take the 
field against its oppression? Resistance is worth but little, when 
the strong man, armed and resolute, has pushed me, feeble and 
unarmed, to the wall.[24]

[Footnote 24: The principle of the _absolute majority_ claimed by a 
great central government, would make the republican form of 
government more intolerable than any other, for the following 
reasons: 1st. The parties may be permanent, and consequently the 
oppression may be permanent likewise. 2d. An individual with power to 
oppress may or may not do it. Even Nero or Caligula may refrain from 
exactions--but a multitude being _always_ governed by the selfish 
principle, will be _sure_ to oppress if they have the power; the 
operation of the selfish principle on _one_ man is a matter of 
chance,--on a _multitude_, it is a certainty. 3d. In such a 
government, the influence of the public opinion of the oppressed 
produces the _least possible_ influence on the oppressors, first, 
because the majorities and minorities being almost always sectional, 
the opinions of the latter are not likely to be known to the former; 
and secondly, if they were known they would produce little effect, 
because the former have on their side the majority of public opinion, 
and therefore would generally disregard that of the minority. 4th. 
The rapacity of such a government would be increased, from the 
necessity of procuring a large _dividend_ for so great a number of 
_divisors_.]

But let not the many console themselves with the vain belief that 
democracy would long survive the consolidation of our 
government--that very power which they would endeavor so sedulously 
to concentrate in the hands of one great central government, would be 
quickly made to recoil upon their own heads. The executive 
department, which would be built up and established by the dominant 
majority, the better to accomplish its own selfish purposes, would 
quickly become omnipotent; and when once safely entrenched in the 
impregnable bulwarks of its power, like Athens enclosed in the walls 
of Themistocles, it would bid defiance to all assaults, and all would 
then be ground down to the same ignominious common level. The 
Executive, in such a system, would be all--the People, nothing! We 
should then be reduced to the condition of the silent crushing 
despotisms of Asia--with every principle of improvement gone, and the 
whole elasticity of mind destroyed. Soon would we, then, hug the 
chains which bound us; and bend the knee in degrading servility 
before him who had rivetted them on us. Soon would we be ready to use 
the idolatrous language of the Roman bard,

         "Erit ille mihi semper Deus: illius aram
  Sœpe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus."

A great empire speedily assimilates every thing to its own genius. No 
long season is requisite to generate the spirit of submission. The 
monarch that first mounts the throne is often the most worshipped. 
The first emperor of Rome had not descended to his grave before the 
servility of his subjects had become so disgusting as to call forth 
censure from even the monarch himself.[25]

[Footnote 25: Augustus, at the expiration of his third term in the 
imperial office, was accosted by the people at a public entertainment 
with the title of "Lord," or "Master," which so much disgusted him, 
that he published a serious edict on the following day, forbidding 
such a title, and saying,

  "_My name is Cæsar, and not Master._"]

These great despotisms too, when once established, are likely long to 
endure. Great empires have an extraordinary vitality--a wonderful 
tenacity of existence; they but too closely resemble that fabled 
serpent whose parts when forced asunder were quickly drawn together 
again and united into a living body. There has always been something 
painfully revolting to my mind in the contemplation of the history of 
great empires. From our boyhood we contract a horror of eastern 
despotisms, with their great monarchs, their satraps and tyrants; and 
who that has read the _luminous page_ of Gibbon and contemplated the 
imperial despot with his

  Prætors, pro-consuls to their provinces
  Hasting, or on return, in robes of state,
  Lictors and rods the ensigns of their power,
  Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings,

but sickens at the bare contemplation of such despotic machinery. And 
whilst we peruse the eloquent recital of these internal throes and 
convulsions, which to-day would seem to break the empire into 
fragments and scatter them to the very winds of heaven,--but would 
cease on the morrow, by the elevation to the throne of perhaps some 
barbarian military chieftain from the banks of the Rhine or the 
Danube, binding again together in the rude embrace of military power 
the conquered parts of the empire,--we cannot but weep over the 
fearful immortality with which such a nation seems almost to be 
endowed. It reminds us but too strongly of that persecuted being, 
gifted with a cursed immortality, whom the fables of antiquity 
reported to have been bound down upon the mountain, with a vulture 
forever lacerating his liver, which grew as fast as it was destroyed. 
When contemplating the horrors of such a government, we almost hail 
with pleasure the advent of the Goth and the Vandal, whose barbarian 
power alone could break it into fragments. The death of such an 
empire is always hard--painfully, fearfully hard! Unless its 
destruction is prepared from without, there are no elements within 
that can achieve it. The gravity of the parts too towards the centre, 
is so wonderfully great, that disunion can never be effected.

It is mournful to behold how the rights of man, and of nations, may 
be destroyed by the mere magnitude of empire. Humanity now weeps when 
wronged and injured Poland shows symptoms of a revolt,--we know that 
the blood of the patriotic Pole will be shed in vain, and that the 
Russian and the Cossack soldier will soon come to place the galling 
yoke again upon his neck; and yet if Poland were united to a nation 
no larger than herself--Poland would have rights, and what is better 
still, Poland would have the power to defend them. And when she 
should send her petitions to the throne and demand redress, the 
Autocrat would dare not answer her deputies by pointing them to his 
Marshal, and telling them that _he_ had his orders and would execute 
them.

Let us then forever guard against the dangerous evil of 
consolidation. Let us foster and cherish and love our State 
institutions as the palladium of our liberties and the nursery of our 
real greatness. Let the motto {282} inscribed upon the banner of each 
patriot, in regard to his state, be that which was placed upon the 
urn that enclosed the heart of the philosopher of Ferney, "_Mon cœur 
est ici, mon esprit est partout_;" and sure we may be, that this 
elementary training of the affections will not destroy a proper love 
for the whole, but is absolutely necessary, to keep the State and 
Federal governments moving, in those distinct orbits which have been 
prescribed to them by the wisdom of our ancestors.

But, whatever may be the course of other states,--I hope our own 
Virginia,--so rich in soil, but so much richer in her noble sons who 
have grown up on that soil and illustrated her history, will ever 
cherish with becoming affection her own institutions--for certain she 
may be, when a great consolidated central government shall have fixed 
its embrace on the Union--the sun of her glory will have set 
forever--certain she may be, that in the awful silence of central 
despotism, no such statesmen as Washington, Jefferson or Madison, 
will ever again arise upon her soil--no such men as Wythe, Pendleton 
and Roane, will grace her benches--nor will the thrilling eloquence 
of the Henrys, the Masons and the Randolphs, be ever again heard 
within her borders. The power that then reposes at the centre, may, 
after the example of the most wily and politic of Roman emperors, 
suffer the mere state forms to remain, but the spirit, the energetic 
life, the independence that once animated them, will all be gone. 
They will then obey an impulse that comes from without; and like the 
consuls, the senate, and the tribunes of imperial Rome, they will but 
speak the will and execute the commands of the Cæsar upon the throne. 
Then indeed may the passing stranger, when he beholds this capital, 
once the proud theatre for the exhibition of the conflicts of mind 
and talents, exclaim--Poor Virginia! how art thou fallen!

But I sincerely hope, that the patriotism and the intelligence of the 
people of this country, will be sufficient to keep our state and 
federal governments moving on harmoniously in their legitimate 
spheres,--avoiding at the same time dismemberment on the one side, or 
the more dangerous tendency of consolidation on the other. All, 
however, depends on the virtue, the intelligence, and the vigilance 
of the People. Power to be restrained must always be watched with 
Argus eyes--the people must always be on the alert--they must never 
slacken their vigilance. If they have succeeded to-day in stripping 
the usurper of his assumed powers--let them not remit their exertions 
on the morrow, but let them remember that power after "these gentle 
prunings" does sometimes vegetate but the more luxuriantly. If we 
shall wisely avoid the evils with which we are beset in our onward 
progress, then I would boldly assert, that never since the foundation 
of the world has the eye of the philanthropist rested on a country 
which has furnished so grand, so magnificent a theatre for the 
creation and the display of arts, science and literature, and for the 
production of all those virtues and high intellectual energies, which 
so ennoble and adorn the human being and render him the true image of 
his Maker, as our own most beautiful system of Confederated Republics 
will then present.

Mr. President, I have done. The great importance and interest of the 
topic I have so unworthily discussed, must be my apology for having 
detained you so long.




CRITICAL NOTICES.


EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN VIRGINIA.

_Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States of 
America--Virginia. A Narrative of Events connected with the Rise and 
Progress of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia. To which is 
added an Appendix, containing the Journals of the Conventions in 
Virginia, from the Commencement to the Present Time. By the Reverend 
Francis L. Hawks, D.D. Rector of St. Thomas's Church, New York. New 
York: Published by Harper and Brothers._

This is a large and handsome octavo of 620 pages. The very cursory 
examination which we have as yet been able to give it, will not 
warrant us in speaking of the work in other than general terms. A 
word or two, however, we may say in relation to the plan, the object, 
and circumstances of publication, with some few observations upon 
points which have attracted our especial attention.

From the Preface we learn that, more than five years ago, the author, 
in conjunction with the Rev. Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, 
first conceived the idea of gathering together such materials for the 
History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, as 
might still exist either in tradition or in the manuscripts of the 
earlier clergy. That these materials were abundant might rationally 
be supposed--still they were to be collected, if collected at all, at 
the expense of much patience, time, and labor, from a wide diversity 
of sources. Dr. Hawks and his associate, however, were stimulated to 
exertion by many of the bishops and clergy of the church. The plan 
originally proposed was merely, if we understand it, the compilation 
of an annalistic journal--a record of naked facts, to be subsequently 
arranged and shaped into narrative by the pen of the historiographer. 
In the prosecution of the plan thus designed, our author and his 
coadjutor were successful beyond expectation, and a rich variety of 
matter was collected. Death, at this period, deprived Dr. Hawks of 
his friend's assistance, and left him to pursue his labor alone. He 
now, very properly, determined upon attempting, himself, the 
execution of the work for which his Annals were intended as 
_materiel_. He began with Virginia--selecting it as the oldest State. 
The present volume is simply an experiment. Should it succeed, of 
which there can be no doubt whatever, we shall have other volumes in 
turn--and that, we suppose, speedily, for there are already on hand 
sufficient _data_ to furnish a history of "each of the older 
diocesses."

For the design of this work--if even not for the manner of its 
execution--Dr. Hawks is entitled to the thanks of the community at 
large. He has taken nearly the first step (a step, too, of great 
decision, interest and importance) in the field of American 
Ecclesiastical History. To that church, especially, of which he is so 
worthy a member, he has rendered a service not to be lightly 
appreciated in the extraordinary dearth of materials for its story. 
In regard to Protestant Episcopalism in America it may be safely said 
that, prior to this publication of Dr. Hawks, there were no written 
memorials extant, with the exception of the Archives of {283} the 
General and Diocesan Meetings, and the Journal of Bishop White. For 
other religious denominations the _materiel_ of history is more 
abundant, and it would be well, if following the suggestions and 
example of our author, Christians of all sects would exert themselves 
for the collection and preservation of what is so important to the 
cause of our National Ecclesiastical Literature.

The History of any Religion is necessarily a very large portion of 
the History of the people who profess it. And regarded in this point 
of view the "_Narrative_" of Dr. Hawks will prove of inestimable 
value to Virginia. It commences with the first settlement of the 
colony--with the days when the first church was erected in 
Virginia--that very church whose hoary ruins stand so tranquilly 
to-day in the briar-encumbered graveyard at Jamestown--with the 
memorable epoch when Smith, being received into the council, partook, 
with his rival, the President, of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, 
and Virginia "commenced its career of civilization" with the most 
impressive of Christian solemnities. Bringing down the affairs of the 
church to the appointment of the Reverend William Meade, D.D. as 
Assistant Bishop of Virginia, the narration concludes with a highly 
gratifying account of present prosperity. The diocess is said to 
possess more than one hundred churches, "some of them the fruit of 
reviving zeal in parishes which once flourished, but have long been 
almost dead." Above seventy clergymen are in actual service. There is 
a large missionary fund, a part of which lies idle, because 
missionaries are not to be had. Much reliance is placed, however, 
upon the Seminary at Alexandria. This institution has afforded 
instruction, during the last three years, to sixty candidates for 
orders, and has given no less than thirty-six ministers to the 
Episcopalty.

We will mention, briefly, a few of the most striking points of the 
History before us. At page 48, are some remarks in reply to Burk's 
insinuation of a persecuting and intolerant spirit in the early 
colonial religion of the State--an insinuation based on no better 
authority than a statement in "certain ancient records of the 
province" concerning the trial, condemnation, and execution by fire, 
of a woman, for the crime of witchcraft. Dr. Hawks very justly 
observes, that even if the supposed execution did actually take 
place, it cannot sanction the inferences which are deduced from it. 
Evidence is wanting that the judgment was rendered by an 
ecclesiastical power. Witchcraft was an offence cognizable by the 
common courts of law, having been made a felony, without benefit of 
clergy, by the twelfth chapter of the first statute of James I, 
enacted in 1603. So that, allowing the prisoner to have suffered, her 
death, says our author, cannot more properly be charged to the 
ecclesiastical, than to the civil, authority. But in point of fact, 
the trial alluded to by Burk, (see Appendix xxxi,) can be no other 
than that of the once notorious Grace Sherwood. And this trial, we 
are quite certain, took place before a civil tribunal. Besides, (what 
is most especially to the purpose) the accused though found guilty, 
and condemned, was _never executed_.

Some observations of our author upon a circumstance which History has 
connected with the secular feelings of the colony, will be read with 
pleasure by all men of liberal opinions. We allude to the fact that 
when one of the colony's agents in England (George Sandys, we 
believe) took it upon himself to petition Parliament, _in the name of 
his constituents_, for the restoration of the old company, the colony 
formally disavowed the act and begged permission to remain under the 
royal government. Now, Burk insists that this disavowal was induced 
solely by attachment to the Church of England, for whose overthrow 
the Puritans were imagined to be particularly zealous. With Dr. Hawks 
we protest against the decision of the historian. It can be viewed in 
no other light than that of an effort (brought about, perhaps, by 
love of our political institutions, yet still exceedingly 
disingenuous) to _apologise_ for the loyalty of Virginia--to 
apologise for our forefathers having felt what not to have felt would 
have required an apology indeed! By faith, by situation, by habits 
and by education they had been taught to be loyal--and with them, 
consequently, loyalty was a virtue. But if it was indeed a crime--if 
Virginia has committed an inexpiable offence in resisting the 
encroachments of the Dictator, (we shall not say of the Commonwealth) 
let not the Church--in the name of every thing reasonable--let not 
the Church be saddled with her iniquity--let not political 
prejudices, always too readily excited, be now enlisted against the 
religion we cherish, by insinuations artfully introduced, that the 
loyalty of the State was involved in its creed--that through faith 
alone it remained a slave--and that its love of monarchy was a mere 
necessary consequence of its attachment to the Church of England.

While upon this subject we beg leave to refer our readers to some 
remarks, (from the pen of Judge Beverley Tucker) which appeared under 
the Critical head of our Messenger before the writer of this article 
assumed the Editorial duties. The remarks of which we speak, are in 
reply to the aspersions of Mr. George Bancroft, who, in his late 
History of the United States, with every intention of paying Virginia 
a compliment, accuses her of disloyalty, immediately before, and 
during the Protectorate. Of such an accusation, (for Hening's 
suggestions, upon pages 513 and 526, of the Statutes at Large cannot 
be considered as such) we had never seriously dreamed prior to the 
publication of Mr. Bancroft's work, and that Mr. Bancroft himself 
should never have dreamed of it, we were sufficiently convinced by 
the arguments of Judge Tucker. We allude to these arguments now, with 
the view of apprizing such of our readers as may remember them, that 
the author of the History in question, in a late interview with Dr. 
Hawks, has "disclaimed the intention of representing Virginia as 
wanting in loyalty." All parties would have been better pleased with 
Mr. B. had he worded his disclaimer so as merely to assure us that in 
representing Virginia as disloyal he has found himself in error.

We will take the liberty of condensing here such of the leading 
points on both sides of the debated question as may either occur to 
us personally or be suggested by those who have written on the 
subject. In proof of Virginia's _disloyalty_ it is said:

1. There is a deficiency of evidence to establish the fact, (a fact 
much insisted upon) that on the death of the governor, Matthews, in 
the beginning of 1659, a tumultuous assemblage resolved to throw off 
the government of the Protectorate, and repairing to the residence of 
Sir William Berkeley, then living in retirement, {284} requested him 
to resume the direction of the colony. If such had been the fact, 
existing records would have shown it--but they do not. Moreover, 
these records show that Berkeley was elected precisely as the other 
governors had been, in Virginia, during the Protectorate.

2. After the battle of Dunbar, and the fall of Montrose Virginia 
passed an act of surrender--she was therefore in favor of the 
Parliament.

3. The Colonial Legislature claimed the supreme power as residing 
within itself. In this it evinced a wish to copy the Parliament--to 
which it was therefore favorable.

4. Cromwell acted magnanimously towards Virginia. The terms of the 
article in the Treaty of Surrender by which Virginia stipulated for a 
trade free as that of England, were faithfully observed till the 
Restoration. The Protector's Navigation Act was not enforced in 
Virginia. Cromwell being thus lenient, Virginia must have been 
satisfied.

5. Virginia elected her own governors. Bennett, Digges, and Matthews, 
were commonwealth's men. Therefore Virginia was republican.

6. Virginia was infected with republicanism. She wished to set up for 
herself. Thus intent, she demands of Berkeley a distinct 
acknowledgement of her assembly's supremacy. His reply was "I am but 
the servant of the assembly." Berkeley, therefore, was republican, 
and his tumultuous election proves nothing but the republicanism of 
Virginia.

These arguments are answered in order, thus:

1. The fact of the "tumultuous assemblage," &c. might have existed 
without such fact appearing in the records spoken of. For these 
records are manifestly incomplete. Some whole documents are lost, and 
parts of many. Granting that Berkeley was _elected_ precisely in the 
usual way, it does not disprove that a multitude urged him to resume 
his old office. The election is all of which these records would 
speak. But _the call to office_ might have been a popular 
movement--the election quite as usual. This latter was left to go on 
in the old mode, probably because it was well known "that those who 
were to make it were cavaliers."

Moreover--Beverley, Burk, Chalmers and Holmes are all direct 
testimony in favor of the "tumultuous assemblage."

2. The act of surrender was in self-defence, when resistance would 
have availed nothing. Its terms evince no acknowledgment of 
authority, but mere submission to force. They contain _not one word_ 
recognizing the rightful power of Parliament, nor impeaching that of 
the king.

3. The "claiming the supreme power," &c. proves any thing but the 
fealty of the Colonial Legislature to the Commonwealth. According to 
Mr. Bancroft himself, Virginians in 1619 "first set the world the 
example of equal representation." "From that time" (we here quote the 
words of Judge Tucker,) "they held that the supreme power was in the 
hands of the Colonial Parliament, then established, and of the king 
as king of Virginia. Now the authority of the king being at an end, 
and no successor being acknowledged, it followed, as a corollary from 
their principles, that no power remained but that of the 
assembly,"--and this is precisely what they mean by claiming the 
supreme power as residing in the Colonial Legislature.

4. Chalmers, Beverley, Holmes, Marshall and Robertson speak, 
positively, of great discontents occasioned by restrictions and 
oppressions upon Virginian commerce: and a Memorial in behalf of the 
trade of the State presented to the Protector, mentions "_the poor 
planters' general complaints that they are the merchant's slaves_," 
as a consequence of "_that Act of Navigation_."

5. It is probable that Bennett, Digges, and Matthews, (granting 
Bennett to have been disloyal) were forced upon the colony by 
Cromwell, whom Robertson (on the authority of Beverley and Chalmers,) 
asserts to have named the governors during the Protectorate. The 
election was possibly a mere form. The use of the equivocal word 
_named_, is, as Judge Tucker remarks, a proof that the historian was 
not speaking at random. He does not say _appointed_. They were 
_named_--with no possibility of their nomination being rejected--as 
the speaker of the House of Commons was frequently named in England. 
But Bennett was a staunch loyalist--a fact too well known in Virginia 
to need proof.

6. The reasoning here is reasoning in a circle. Virginia is first 
declared republican. From this assumed fact, deductions are made 
which prove Berkeley so--and Berkeley's republicanism, thus proved, 
is made to establish that of Virginia. But Berkeley's answer (from 
which Mr. Bancroft has extracted the words "I am but the servant of 
the Assembly") runs thus.

"You desire me to do that concerning your titles and claims to land 
in this northern part of America, which I am in no capacity to do; 
for I am but the servant of the Assembly: _neither do they arrogate 
to themselves any power farther than the miserable distractions in 
England force them to_. For when God shall be pleased to take away 
and dissipate the unnatural divisions of their native country, _they 
will immediately return to their professed obedience_." Smith's New 
York. It will be seen that Mr. Bancroft has been disingenuous in 
quoting only a portion of this sentence. _The whole_ proves 
incontestibly that neither Berkeley nor the Assembly _arrogated to 
themselves any power beyond what they were forced to assume by 
circumstances_--in a word, it proves their loyalty. But Berkeley was 
loyal beyond dispute. _Norwood_, in his "Journal of a Voyage to 
Virginia," states that "Berkeley showed great respect to all the 
royal party who made that colony their refuge. His house and purse 
were open to all so qualified." The same journalist was "sent over, 
at Berkeley's expense, to find out the King in Holland, and have an 
interview with him."

To these arguments in favor of Virginia's loyalty may be added the 
following.

1. Contemporaries of Cromwell--men who were busy in the great actions 
of the day--have left descendants in Virginia--descendants in whose 
families the loyalty of Virginia is a cherished _tradition_.

2. The question, being one of _fact_, a mistake could hardly have 
been made originally--or, if so made, could not have been 
perpetuated. Now all the early historians call Virginia loyal.

3. The cavaliers in England (as we learn from British authorities) 
looked upon Virginia as a place of refuge.

4. Holmes' Annals make the population of the state, at the 
commencement of the civil wars in England, about 20,000. Of these let 
us suppose only 10,000 loyal. At the Restoration the same Annals make 
the population 30,000. Here is an increase of 10,000, which {285} 
increase consisted altogether, or nearly so, of loyalists, _for few 
others had reason for coming over_. The loyalists are now therefore 
double the republicans, and Virginia must be loyal.

5. Cromwell was always suspicious of Virginia. Of this there are many 
proofs. One of them may be found in the fact that when the state, 
sympathizing with the victims of Claiborne's oppression, (a felon 
employed by Cromwell to "root out popery in Maryland") afforded them 
a refuge, she was sternly reprimanded by the Protector, and 
admonished to keep a guard on her actions.

6. A pamphlet called "Virginia's Cure, an Advisive Narrative 
concerning Virginia," printed in 1661, speaks of the people as "men 
which generally bear a great love to the stated constitutions of the 
Church of England in her government and public worship; which gave us 
the advantage of liberty to use it constantly among them, after the 
naval force had reduced the colony under the power (_but never to the 
obedience_) of the usurpers."

7. John Hammond, in a book entitled "Leah and Rachell, or the two 
fruitful Sisters of Virginia and Maryland," printed in 1656, speaking 
of the State during the Protectorate, has the words "_Virginia being 
whole for monarchy_."

8. Immediately after the fall of Charles I, Virginia passed an Act 
making it _high treason_ to justify his murder, or to acknowledge the 
Parliament. The Act is not so much as the terms of the Act.

Lastly. The distinguishing features of Virginian character at 
present--features of a marked nature--not elsewhere to be met with in 
America--and evidently akin to that chivalry which denoted the 
Cavalier--can be in no manner so well accounted for as by considering 
them the _debris_ of a devoted loyalty.

At page 122 of the work before us, Dr. Hawks has entered into a 
somewhat detailed statement (involving much information to us 
entirely new) concerning the celebrated "Parson's cause"--the 
church's controversy with the laity on the subject of payments in 
money substituted for payments in tobacco. It was this controversy 
which first elicited the oratorical powers of Patrick Henry, and our 
author dwells with much emphasis, and no little candor, upon the 
fascinating abilities which proved so unexpectedly fatal to the 
clerical interest.

On page 160 are some farther highly interesting reminiscences of Mr. 
Henry. The opinion of Wirt is considered unfounded, that the great 
orator was a believer in Christianity without having a preference for 
any of the forms in which it is presented. We are glad to find that 
Mr. Wirt was in error. The Christian religion, it has been justly 
remarked, must assume _a distinct form of profession_--or it is worth 
little. An avowal of a merely general Christianity is little better 
than an avowal of none at all. Patrick Henry, according to Dr. Hawks, 
was of the Episcopalian faith. That at any period of his life he was 
an unbeliever is explicitly denied, on the authority of a MS. letter, 
in possession of our author, containing information of Mr. H. derived 
from his widow and descendants.

It is with no little astonishment that we have seen Dr. Hawks accused 
of illiberality in his few remarks upon "that noble monument of 
liberty," the _Act for the Establishment of Religious Freedom_. If 
there is any thing beyond simple justice in his observations we, for 
our own parts, cannot perceive it. No respect for the civil services, 
or the unquestionable mental powers of Jefferson, shall blind us to 
his iniquities. That our readers may judge for themselves we quote in 
full the sentences which have been considered as objectionable.


"We are informed by him (Jefferson) that an amendment was proposed to 
the Preamble, by the insertion of the name of our Saviour before the 
words 'The Holy Author of our Religion.' This could at most have had 
no other effect upon the enacting clause, but that of granting the 
utmost freedom to all denominations _professing to own and worship 
Christ_, without affording undue preference to any; and against this, 
it would be unreasonable to object. Certain it is, that more than 
this had never been asked by any religious denomination in Virginia, 
in any petition presented against the Church; the public, therefore, 
would have been satisfied with such an amendment. The proposed 
alteration, however, was rejected, and it is made the subject of 
triumph that the law was left, in the words of its author, 'to 
comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the 
Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of 
every denomination.' That these various classes should have been 
protected both in person and property, is obviously the dictate of 
justice, of humanity, and of enlightened policy. But it surely was 
not necessary, in securing to them such protection, to degrade, not 
the establishment, but Christianity itself to a level with the 
voluptuousness of Mahomet, or the worship of Juggernaut; and if it be 
true that there is danger in an established alliance between 
Christianity and the civil power, let it be remembered that there is 
another alliance not less fatal to the happiness and subversive of 
the intellectual freedom of man--it is an alliance between the civil 
authority and infidelity; which, whether formally recognized or not, 
if permitted to exert its influence, direct or indirect, will be 
found to be equally ruinous in its results. On this subject, 
Revolutionary France has once read to the world an impressive lesson, 
which it is to be hoped will not speedily be forgotten."


In Chapter xii, the whole history of the Glebe Law of 1802--a law the 
question of whose constitutionality is still undetermined--is 
detailed with much candor, and in a spirit of calm inquiry. A vivid 
picture is exhibited of some desecrations which have been consequent 
upon the sale.

In Chapter xiii, is an exceedingly well-written memoir of our 
patriarchal bishop the Right Reverend Richard Channing Moore. From 
this memoir we must be permitted to extract a single passage of 
peculiar interest.


"It was at one of his stated lectures in the church, (St. Andrew's in 
Staten Island) that after the usual services had concluded, and the 
benediction been pronounced, he sat down in his pulpit waiting for 
the people to retire. To his great surprise, he soon observed that 
not an individual present seemed disposed to leave the Church; and 
after the interval of a few minutes, during which a perfect silence 
was maintained, one of the members of the congregation arose, and 
respectfully requested him to address those present a second time. 
After singing a hymn, the bishop delivered to them a second 
discourse, and once more dismissed the people with the blessing. But 
the same state of feeling which had before kept them in their seats, 
still existed, and once more did they solicit the preacher to address 
them. Accordingly he delivered to them a third sermon, and at its 
close, exhausted by the labor in which he had been engaged, he 
informed them of the impossibility of continuing the services on his 
part, once more blessed {286} them and affectionately entreated them 
to retire to their homes. It was within the space of six weeks, after 
the scene above described, that more than sixty members of the 
congregation became communicants; and in the course of the year more 
than one hundred knelt around the chancel of St. Andrew's who had 
never knelt there before as partakers of the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper."


The historical portion of the work before us occupies about one half 
of its pages. The other half embraces "Journals of the Conventions of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocess of Virginia--from 1785 
to 1835, inclusive." It is, of course, unnecessary to dwell upon the 
great value to the church of such a compilation. Very few, if any, 
complete sets of diocesan Journals of Conventions are in existence. 
We will conclude our notice, by heartily recommending the entire 
volume, as an important addition to our Civil as well as 
Ecclesiastical History.


PHRENOLOGY.

_Phrenology, and the Moral Influence of Phrenology: Arranged for 
General Study, and the Purposes of Education, from the first 
published works of Gall and Spurzheim, to the latest discoveries of 
the present period. By Mrs. L. Miles. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and 
Blanchard._

Phrenology is no longer to be laughed at. It _is_ no longer laughed 
at by men of common understanding. It has assumed the majesty of a 
science; and, as a science, ranks among the most important which can 
engage the attention of thinking beings--this too, whether we 
consider it merely as an object of speculative inquiry, or as 
involving consequences of the highest practical magnitude. As a study 
it is very extensively accredited in Germany, in France, in Scotland, 
and in both Americas. Some of its earliest and most violent opposers 
have been converted to its doctrines. We may instance George Combe 
who wrote the "Phrenology." Nearly all Edinburgh has been brought 
over to belief--in spite of the Review and its ill sustained 
opinions. Yet these latter were considered of so great weight that 
Dr. Spurzheim was induced to visit Scotland for the purpose of 
refuting them. There, with the Edinburgh Review in one hand, and a 
brain in the other, he delivered a lecture before a numerous 
assembly, among whom was the author of the most virulent attack which 
perhaps the science has ever received. At this single lecture he is 
said to have gained five hundred converts to Phrenology, and the 
Northern Athens is now the strong hold of the faith.

In regard to the _uses_ of Phrenology--its most direct, and, perhaps, 
most salutary, is that of _self-examination and self-knowledge_. It 
is contended that, with proper caution, and well-directed inquiry, 
individuals may obtain, through the science, a perfectly accurate 
estimate of their own moral capabilities--and, thus instructed, will 
be the better fitted for decision in regard to a choice of offices 
and duties in life. But there are other and scarcely less important 
uses too numerous to mention--at least here.

The beautiful little work now before us was originally printed in 
London in a manner sufficiently quaint. The publication consisted of 
forty cards contained in a box resembling a small pocket volume. An 
embossed head accompanied the cards, giving at a glance the relative 
situations and proportions of each organ, and superseding altogether 
the necessity of a bust. This head served as an Index to the 
explanations of the system. The whole formed a lucid, compact, and 
portable compend of Phrenology. The present edition of the work, 
however, is preferable in many respects, and is indeed exceedingly 
neat and convenient--we presume that it pretends to be nothing more.

The Faculties are divided into _Instinctive Propensities and 
Sentiments_ and _Intellectual Faculties_. The Instinctive 
Propensities and Sentiments are subdivided into _Domestic 
Affections_, embracing Amativeness, Philoprogenitiveness, 
Inhabitiveness, and Attachment--_Preservative Faculties_, embracing 
Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Gustativeness--_Prudential 
Sentiments_, embracing Acquisitiveness, Secretiveness, and 
Cautionness--_Regulating Powers_, including Self-Esteem, Love of 
Approbation, Conscientiousness, and Firmness--_Imaginative 
Faculties_, containing Hope, Ideality, and Marvellousness--and _Moral 
Sentiments_, under which head come Benevolence, Veneration, and 
Imitation. The _Intellectual Faculties_ are divided into _Observing 
Faculties_, viz: Individuality, Form, Size, Weight, Color, Order, and 
Number--_Scientific Faculties_, viz: Constructiveness, Locality, 
Time, and Tune--_Reflecting Faculties_, viz: Eventuality, Comparison, 
Casuality and Wit--and lastly, the _Subservient Faculty_, which is 
Language. This classification is arranged with sufficient clearness, 
but it would require no great degree of acumen to show that to mere 
perspicuity points of vital importance to the science have been 
sacrificed.

At page 17 is a brief chapter entitled a _Survey of Contour_, well 
conceived and well adapted to its purpose which is--to convey by a 
casual or superficial view of any head, an idea of what propensities, 
sentiments, or faculties, most distinguish the individual. It is here 
remarked that "any faculty may be possessed in perfection without 
showing itself in a prominence or bump," (a fact not often attended 
to) "it is only where _one_ organ predominates above those nearest to 
it, that it becomes singly perceptible. Where a number of contiguous 
organs are large, there will be a general fulness of that part of the 
head."

Some passages in Mrs. Miles' little book have a very peculiar 
interest. At page 26 we find what follows.


"The cerebral organs are double, and inhabit both sides of the head, 
from the root of the nose to the middle of the neck at the nape. They 
act in unison, and produce a single impression, as from the double 
organs of sight and hearing. The loss of one eye does not destroy 
vision. The deafness of one ear does not wholly deprive us of 
hearing. In the same manner Tiedman reports the case of a madman, 
whose disease was confined to one side of his head, the patient 
having the power to perceive his own malady, with the unimpaired 
faculties of the other side. It is no uncommon thing to find persons 
acute on all subjects save _one_--thus proving the possibility of a 
partial injury of the brain, or the hypothesis of a plurality of 
organs."


In the chapter on _Combativeness_, we meet with the very sensible and 
necessary observation that we must not consider the possession of 
particular and instinctive propensities, as acquitting us of 
responsibility in the indulgence of culpable actions. On the contrary 
it is the perversion of our faculties which causes the greatest 
misery we endure, and for which (having the free exercise of 
_reason_) we are accountable to God.

{287} The following is quoted from _Edinensis, vol. iv._


"All the faculties are considered capable of producing actions which 
are good, and it is not to be admitted that any one of them is 
essentially, and in itself _evil_--but if given way to beyond a 
certain degree, all of them (with the sole exception of 
_Conscientiousness_) may lead to results which are improper, 
injurious, or culpable."


The words annexed occur at page 102.


"Anatomy decides that the brain, notwithstanding the softness of its 
consistence, _gives shape to the cranium_, as the crustaceous 
tenement of the crab is adjusted to the animal that inhabits it. An 
exception is made to this rule when disease or ill-treatment injure 
the skull."


And again at page 159.


"By appealing to Nature herself, it can scarcely be doubted that 
certain forms of the head denote particular talents or dispositions; 
and anatomists find that _the surface of the brain_ presents the same 
appearance in shape which the skull exhibits during life. Idiocy is 
invariably the consequence of the brain being too small, while in 
such heads the animal propensities are generally very full."


To this may be added the opinion of Gall, that a skull which is 
large, which is elevated or high above the ears, and in which the 
head is well developed and thrown forward, so as to be nearly 
perpendicular with its base, may be presumed to lodge a brain of 
greater power (whatever may be its propensities) than a skull 
deficient in such proportion.


MAHMOUD.

_Mahmoud. New-York. Published by Harper and Brothers._

Of this book--its parentage or birth-place--we know nothing beyond 
the scanty and equivocal information derivable from the title-page, 
and from the brief Advertisement prefixed to the narrative itself. 
From the title-page we learn, or rather we do _not_ learn that Harper 
and Brothers are the publishers--for although we are informed, in so 
many direct words that such is the fact, still we are taught by 
experience that, in the bookselling vocabulary of the day, the word 
_published_ has too expansive, too variable, and altogether too 
convenient a meaning to be worthy of very serious attention. The 
volumes before us are, we imagine, (although really without any good 
reason for so imagining,) a reprint from a London publication. It is 
quite possible, however, that the work is by an American writer, and 
now, as it professes to be, for the first time actually published. 
From the Advertisement we understand that the book is a combination 
of _facts_ derived from private sources; or from personal 
observation. We are told that "with the exception of a few of the 
inferior characters, and the trifling accessories necessary to blend 
the materials, and impart a unity to the rather complex web of the 
narrative, the whole may be relied upon as perfectly true."

Be this as it may, we should have read "_Mahmoud_" with far greater 
pleasure had we never seen the Anastasius of Mr. Hope. That most 
excellent and vivid, (although somewhat immoral) series of Turkish 
paintings is still nearly as fresh within our memory as in the days 
of perusal. The work left nothing farther to be expected, or even to 
be desired, in rich, bold, vigorous, and accurate delineation of the 
scenery, characters, manners, and peculiarities of the region to 
which its pages were devoted. Nothing less than the consciousness of 
superior power could have justified any one in treading in the steps 
of Mr. Hope. And, certainly, nothing at all, under any circumstances 
whatsoever, could have justified a direct and palpable copy of 
Anastasius. Yet Mahmoud is no better.


GEORGIA SCENES.

_Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. in the First Half Century 
of the Republic. By a Native Georgian. Augusta, Georgia._

This book has reached us anonymously--not to say anomalously--yet it 
is most heartily welcome. The author, whoever he is, is a clever 
fellow, imbued with a spirit of the truest humor, and endowed, 
moreover, with an exquisitely discriminative and penetrating 
understanding of _character_ in general, and of Southern character in 
particular. And we do not mean to speak of _human_ character 
exclusively. To be sure, our Georgian is _au fait_ here too--he is 
learned in all things appertaining to the biped without feathers. In 
regard, especially, to that class of southwestern mammalia who come 
under the generic appellation of "savagerous wild cats," he is a very 
Theophrastus in duodecimo. But he is not the less at home in other 
matters. Of geese and ganders he is the La Bruyere, and of 
good-for-nothing horses the Rochefoucault.

Seriously--if this book were printed in England it would make the 
fortune of its author. We positively mean what we say--and are quite 
sure of being sustained in our opinion by all proper judges who may 
be so fortunate as to obtain a copy of the "_Georgia Scenes_," and 
who will be at the trouble of sifting their peculiar merits from amid 
the _gaucheries_ of a Southern publication. Seldom--perhaps never in 
our lives--have we laughed as immoderately over any book as over the 
one now before us. If these _scenes_ have produced such effects upon 
_our_ cachinnatory nerves--upon _us_ who are not "of the merry mood," 
and, moreover, have not been unused to the perusal of somewhat 
similar things--we are at no loss to imagine what a hubbub they would 
occasion in the uninitiated regions of Cockaigne. And what would 
Christopher North say to them?--ah, what would Christopher North say? 
that is the question. Certainly not a word. But we can fancy the 
pursing up of his lips, and the long, loud, and jovial resonnation of 
his wicked, and uproarious ha! ha's!

From the Preface to the Sketches before us we learn that although 
they are, generally, nothing more than fanciful combinations of real 
incidents and characters, still, in some instances, the narratives 
are literally true. We are told also that the publication of these 
pieces was commenced, rather more than a year ago, in one of the 
Gazettes of the State, and that they were favorably received. "For 
the last six months," says the author, "I have been importuned by 
persons from all quarters of the State to give them to the public in 
the present form." This speaks well for the Georgian taste. But that 
the publication will _succeed_, in the bookselling sense of the word, 
is problematical. Thanks to the long indulged literary supineness of 
the South, her presses are not as apt in putting forth a _saleable_ 
book as her sons are in concocting a wise one.

{288} From a desire of concealing the author's name, two different 
signatures, Baldwin and Hall, were used in the original _Sketches_, 
and, to save trouble, are preserved in the present volume. With the 
exception, however, of one scene, "The Company Drill," all the book 
is the production of the same pen. The first article in the list is 
"Georgia Theatrics." Our friend _Hall_, in this piece, represents 
himself as ascending, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon of a June 
day, "a long and gentle slope in what was called the Dark Corner of 
Lincoln County, Georgia." Suddenly his ears are assailed by loud, 
profane, and boisterous voices, proceeding, apparently, from a large 
company of raggamuffins, concealed in a thick covert of undergrowth 
about a hundred yards from the road.

"You kin, kin you?

"Yes I kin, and am able to do it! Boo-oo-oo-oo! Oh wake snakes and 
walk your chalks! Brimstone and fire! Dont hold me Nick Stoval! The 
fight's made up, and lets go at it--my soul if I dont jump down his 
throat, and gallop every chitterling out of him before you can say 
'quit!'

"Now Nick, dont hold him! Jist let the wild cat come, and I'll tame 
him. Ned'll see me a fair fight--wont you Ned?

"Oh yes; I'll see you a fair fight, my old shoes if I dont.

"That's sufficient, as Tom Haynes said when he saw the Elephant. Now 
let him come!" &c. &c. &c.

And now the sounds assume all the discordant intonations inseparable 
from a Georgia "rough and tumble" fight. Our traveller listens in 
dismay to the indications of a quick, violent, and deadly struggle. 
With the intention of acting as pacificator, he dismounts in haste, 
and hurries to the scene of action. Presently, through a gap in the 
thicket, he obtains a glimpse of one, at least, of the combatants. 
This one appears to have his antagonist beneath him on the ground, 
and to be dealing on the prostrate wretch the most unmerciful blows. 
Having overcome about half the space which separated him from the 
combatants, our friend Hall is horror-stricken at seeing "the 
uppermost make a heavy plunge with both his thumbs, and hearing, at 
the same instant, a cry in the accent of keenest torture, 'Enough! My 
eye's out!'"

Rushing to the rescue of the mutilated wretch the traveller is 
surprised at finding that all the accomplices in the hellish deed 
have fled at his approach--at least so he supposes, for none of them 
are to be seen.

"At this moment," says the narrator, "the victor saw me for the first 
time. He looked excessively embarrassed, and was moving off, when I 
called to him in a tone emboldened by the sacredness of my office, 
and the iniquity of his crime, 'come back, you brute! and assist me 
in relieving your fellow mortal, whom you have ruined forever!' My 
rudeness subdued his embarrassment in an instant; and with a taunting 
curl of the nose, he replied; you need'nt kick before you're spurred. 
There 'ant nobody there, nor ha'nt been nother. I was jist seein how 
I could 'a' _fout_! So saying, he bounded to his plow, which stood in 
the corner of the fence about fifty yards beyond the battle ground."

All that had been seen or heard was nothing more nor less than a 
Lincoln rehearsal; in which all the parts of all the characters, of a 
Georgian Court-House fight had been sustained by the youth of the 
plough _solus_. The whole anecdote is told with a raciness and vigor 
which would do honor to the pages of Blackwood.

The second Article is "The Dance, a Personal Adventure of the Author" 
in which the oddities of a backwood reel are depicted with inimitable 
force, fidelity and picturesque effect. "The Horse-swap" is a vivid 
narration of an encounter between the wits of two Georgian 
horse-jockies. This is most excellent in every respect--but 
especially so in its delineations of Southern bravado, and the keen 
sense of the ludicrous evinced in the portraiture of the steeds. We 
think the following free and easy sketch of a _hoss_ superior, in 
joint humor and verisimilitude, to any thing of the kind we have ever 
seen.


"During this harangue, little Bullet looked as if he understood it 
all, believed it, and was ready at any moment to verify it. He was a 
horse of goodly countenance, rather expressive of vigilance than 
fire; though an unnatural appearance of fierceness was thrown into 
it, by the loss of his ears, which had been cropped pretty close to 
his head. Nature had done but little for Bullet's head and neck, but 
he managed in a great measure to hide their defects by bowing 
perpetually. He had obviously suffered severely for corn; but if his 
ribs and hip bones had not disclosed the fact he never would have 
done it; for he was in all respects as cheerful and happy as if he 
commanded all the corn cribs and fodder stacks in Georgia. His height 
was about twelve hands; but as his shape partook somewhat of that of 
the giraffe his haunches stood much lower. They were short, straight, 
peaked, and concave. Bullet's tail, however, made amends for all his 
defects. All that the artist could do to beautify it had been done; 
and all that horse could do to compliment the artist, Bullet did. His 
tail was nicked in superior style, and exhibited the line of beauty 
in so many directions, that it could not fail to hit the most 
fastidious taste in some of them. From the root it dropped into a 
graceful festoon; then rose in a handsome curve; then resumed its 
first direction; and then mounted suddenly upwards like a cypress 
knee to a perpendicular of about two and a half inches. The whole had 
a careless and bewitching inclination to the right. Bullet obviously 
knew where his beauty lay, and took all occasions to display it to 
the best advantage. If a stick cracked, or if any one moved suddenly 
about him or coughed, or hawked, or spoke a little louder than 
common, up went Bullet's tail like lightning; and if the _going up_ 
did not please, the _coming down_ must of necessity, for it was as 
different from the other movement as was its direction. The first was 
a bold and rapid flight upwards usually to an angle of forty five 
degrees. In this position he kept his interesting appendage until he 
satisfied himself that nothing in particular was to be done; when he 
commenced dropping it by half inches, in second beats--then in triple 
time--then faster and shorter, and faster and shorter still, until it 
finally died away imperceptibly into its natural position. If I might 
compare sights to sounds, I should say its _settling_ was more like 
the note of a locust than any thing else in nature."


"The character of a Native Georgian" is amusing, but not so good as 
the scenes which precede and succeed it. Moreover the character 
described (a practical humorist) is neither very original, nor 
appertaining exclusively to Georgia.

"The Fight" although involving some horrible and disgusting details 
of southern barbarity is a sketch unsurpassed in dramatic vigor, and 
in the vivid truth to nature of one or two of the personages 
introduced. _Uncle Tommy Loggins_, in particular, an oracle in "rough 
and tumbles," and Ransy Sniffle, a misshapen urchin "who in his 
earlier days had fed copiously upon red clay and blackberries," and 
all the pleasures of whose life concentre in a love of 
fisticuffs--are both forcible, {289} accurate and original generic 
delineations of real existences to be found sparsely in Georgia, 
Mississippi and Louisiana, and very plentifully in our more remote 
settlements and territories. This article would positively make the 
fortune of any British periodical.

"The Song" is a burlesque somewhat overdone, but upon the whole a 
good caricature of Italian bravura singing. The following account of 
Miss Aurelia Emma Theodosia Augusta Crump's execution on the piano is 
inimitable.


"Miss Crump was educated at Philadelphia; she had been taught to sing 
by Madam Piggisqueaki, who was a pupil of Ma'm'selle Crokifroggietta, 
who had sung with Madam Catalani; and she had taken lessons on the 
piano, from Signor Buzzifuzzi, who had played with Paganini.

"She seated herself at the piano, rocked to the right, then to the 
left,--leaned forward, then backward, and began. She placed her right 
hand about midway the keys, and her left about two octaves below it. 
She now put off the right in a brisk canter up the treble notes, and 
the left after it. The left then led the way back, and the right 
pursued it in like manner. The right turned, and repeated its first 
movement; but the left outrun it this time, hopt over it, and flung 
it entirely off the track. It came in again, however, behind the left 
on its return, and passed it in the same style. They now became 
highly incensed at each other, and met furiously on the middle 
ground. Here a most awful conflict ensued, for about the space of ten 
seconds, when the right whipped off, all of a sudden, as I thought, 
fairly vanquished. But I was in the error, against which Jack 
Randolph cautions us--'It had only fallen back to a stronger 
position.' It mounted upon two black keys, and commenced the note of 
a rattle-snake. This had a wonderful effect upon the left, and placed 
the doctrine of snake charming beyond dispute. The left rushed 
furiously towards it repeatedly, but seemed invariably panic struck, 
when it came within six keys of it, and as invariably retired with a 
tremendous roaring down the bass keys. It continued its assaults, 
sometimes by the way of the naturals, sometimes by the way of the 
sharps, and sometimes by a zigzag, through both; but all its attempts 
to dislodge the right from its strong hold proving ineffectual, it 
came close up to its adversary and expired."


The "_Turn Out_" is excellent--a second edition of Miss Edgeworth's 
"Barring Out," and full of fine touches of the truest humor. The 
scene is laid in Georgia, and in the good old days of _fescues_, 
_abbiselfas_, and _anpersants_--terms in very common use, but whose 
derivation we have always been at a loss to understand. Our author 
thus learnedly explains the riddle.


"The _fescue_ was a sharpened wire, or other instrument, used by the 
preceptor, to point out the letters to the children. _Abbiselfa_ is a 
contraction of the words 'a, by itself, a.' It was usual, when either 
of the vowels constituted a syllable of a word, to pronounce it, and 
denote its independent character, by the words just mentioned, thus: 
'a by itself _a_, c-o-r-n corn, _acorn_'--e by itself _e_, v-i-l vil, 
evil. The character which stands for the word '_and_' (&) was 
probably pronounced with the same accompaniment, but in terms 
borrowed from the Latin language, thus: '& _per se_ (by itself) &.' 
'Hence anpersant.'"


This whole story forms an admirable picture of school-boy democracy 
in the woods. The _master_ refuses his pupils an Easter holiday; and 
upon repairing, at the usual hour of the fatal day, to his school 
house, "a log pen about twenty feet square," finds every avenue to 
his ingress fortified and barricadoed. He advances, and is assailed 
by a whole wilderness of sticks from the cracks. Growing desperate, 
he seizes a fence rail, and finally succeeds in effecting an entrance 
by demolishing the door. He is soundly flogged however for his pains, 
and the triumphant urchins suffer him to escape with his life, solely 
upon condition of their being allowed to do what they please as long 
as they shall think proper.

"_The Charming Creature as a Wife_," is a very striking narrative of 
the evils attendant upon an ill-arranged marriage--but as it has 
nothing about it peculiarly Georgian, we pass it over without further 
comment.

"_The Gander Pulling_" is a gem worthy, in every respect, of the 
writer of "The Fight," and "The Horse Swap." What a "_Gander 
Pulling_" is, however, may probably not be known by a great majority 
of our readers. We will therefore tell them. It is a piece of 
unprincipled barbarity not unfrequently practised in the South and 
West. A circular horse path is formed of about forty or fifty yards 
in diameter. Over this path, and between two posts about ten feet 
apart, is extended a rope which, swinging loosely, vibrates in an arc 
of five or six feet. From the middle of this rope, lying directly 
over the middle of the path, a gander, whose neck and head are well 
greased, is suspended by the feet. The distance of the fowl from the 
ground is generally about ten feet--and its neck is consequently just 
within reach of a man on horseback. Matters being thus arranged, and 
the mob of vagabonds assembled, who are desirous of entering the 
chivalrous lists of the "Gander Pulling," a hat is handed round, into 
which a quarter or half dollar, as the case may be, is thrown by each 
competitor. The money thus collected is the prize of the victor in 
the game--and the game is thus conducted. The ragamuffins mounted on 
horseback, gallop round the circle in Indian file. At a word of 
command, given by the proprietor of the gander, the pulling, properly 
so called, commences. Each villain as he passes under the rope, makes 
a grab at the throat of the devoted bird--the end and object of the 
tourney being to pull off his head. This of course is an end not 
easily accomplished. The fowl is obstinately bent upon retaining his 
caput if possible--in which determination he finds a powerful adjunct 
in the grease. The rope, moreover, by the efforts of the human 
devils, is kept in a troublesome and tantalizing state of vibration, 
while two assistants of the proprietor, one at each pole, are 
provided with a tough cowhide, for the purpose of preventing any 
horse from making too long a sojourn beneath the gander. Many hours, 
therefore, not unfrequently elapse before the contest is decided.

"_The Ball_"--a Georgia ball--is done to the life. Some passages, in 
a certain species of sly humor, wherein intense observation of 
character is disguised by simplicity of relation, put us forcibly in 
mind of the Spectator. For example.


"When De Bathle and I reached the ball room, a large number of 
gentlemen had already assembled. They all seemed cheerful and happy. 
Some walked in couples up and down the ball room, and talked with 
great volubility; but none of them understood a word that himself or 
his companion said.

"Ah, sir, how do you know that?

"Because the speakers showed plainly by their looks and actions, that 
their thoughts were running upon their own personal appearance, and 
upon the figure they would cut before the ladies, when they should 
arrive; and not upon the subject of the discourse. And furthermore, 
their conversation was like that of {290} one talking in his 
sleep--without order, sense, or connexion. The hearer always made the 
speaker repeat in sentences and half sentences; often interrupting 
him with 'what?' before he had proceeded three words in a remark; and 
then laughed affectedly, as though he saw in the senseless unfinished 
sentence, a most excellent joke. Then would come his reply, which 
could not be forced into connexion with a word that he had heard; and 
in the course of which he was treated with precisely the civility 
which he had received. And yet they kept up the conversation with 
lively interest as long as I listened to them."


"_The Mother and her Child_," we have seen before--but read it a 
second time with zest. It is a laughable burlesque of the baby 
'gibberish' so frequently made use of by mothers in speaking to their 
children. This sketch evinces, like all the rest of the Georgia 
scenes--a fine dramatic talent.

"_The Debating Society_" is the best thing in the book--and indeed 
one among the best things of the kind we have ever read. It has all 
the force and freedom of some similar articles in the Diary of a 
Physician--without the evident straining for effect which so 
disfigures that otherwise admirable series. We will need no apology 
for copying _The Debating Society_ entire.


About three and twenty years ago, at the celebrated school in 
W------n, was formed a Debating Society, composed of young gentlemen 
between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two. Of the number were two, 
who, rather from an uncommon volubility, than from any superior gifts 
or acquirements, which they possessed over their associates, were by 
common consent, placed at the head of the fraternity.--At least this 
was true of one of them: the other certainly had higher claims to his 
distinction. He was a man of the highest order of intellect, who, 
though he has since been known throughout the Union, as one of the 
ablest speakers in the country, seems to me to have added but little 
to his powers in debate, since he passed his twenty-second year. The 
name of the first, was Longworth; and McDermot was the name of the 
last. They were congenial spirits, warm friends, and classmates, at 
the time of which I am speaking.

It was a rule of the Society, that every member should speak upon the 
subjects chosen for discussion, or pay a fine; and as all the members 
valued the little stock of change, with which they were furnished, 
more than they did their reputation for oratory, not a fine had been 
imposed for a breach of this rule, from the organization of the 
society to this time.

The subjects for discussion were proposed by the members, and 
selected by the President, whose prerogative it was also to arrange 
the speakers on either side, at his pleasure; though in selecting the 
subjects, he was influenced not a little by the members who gave 
their opinions freely of those which were offered.

It was just as the time was approaching, when most of the members 
were to leave the society, some for college, and some for the busy 
scenes of life, that McDermot went to share his classmate's bed for a 
night. In the course of the evening's conversation, the society came 
upon the tapis. "Mac," said Longworth, "would'nt we have rare sport, 
if we could impose a subject upon the society, which has no sense in 
it, and hear the members speak upon it?"

"Zounds," said McDermot, "it would be the finest fun in the world. 
Let's try it at all events--we can lose nothing by the experiment."

A sheet of foolscap was immediately divided between them, and they 
industriously commenced the difficult task of framing sentences, 
which should possess the _form_ of a debateable question, without a 
particle of the _substance_.--After an hour's toil, they at length 
exhibited the fruits of their labor, and after some reflection, and 
much laughing, they selected, from about thirty subjects proposed, 
the following, as most likely to be received by the society:

"_Whether at public elections, should the votes of faction 
predominate by internal suggestions or the bias of jurisprudence?_"

Longworth was to propose it to the society, and McDermot was to 
advocate its adoption.--As they had every reason to suppose, from the 
practice of the past, that they would be placed at the head of the 
list of disputants, and on opposite sides, it was agreed between 
them, in case the experiment should succeed, that they would write 
off, and interchange their speeches, in order that each might quote 
literally from the other, and thus _seem_ at least, to understand 
each other.

The day at length came for the triumph or defeat of the project; and 
several accidental circumstances conspired to crown it with success. 
The society had entirely exhausted their subjects; the discussion of 
the day had been protracted to an unusual length, and the horns of 
the several boarding-houses began to sound, just as it ended. It was 
at this auspicious moment, that Longworth rose, and proposed his 
subject. It was caught at with rapture by McDermot, as being 
decidedly the best that had ever been submitted; and he wondered that 
none of the members had ever thought of it before.

It was no sooner proposed, than several members exclaimed, that they 
did not understand it; and demanded an explanation from the mover. 
Longworth replied, that there was no time then for explanations, but 
that either himself or Mr. McDermot would explain it, at any other 
time.

Upon the credit of the _maker_ and _endorser_, the subject was 
accepted; and under pretence of economising time, (but really to 
avoid a repetition of the question,) Longworth kindly offered to 
record it, for the Secretary. This labor ended, he announced that he 
was prepared for the arrangement of the disputants.

"Put yourself," said the President, "on the affirmative, and Mr. 
McDermot on the negative."

"The subject," said Longworth "cannot well be resolved into an 
affirmative and negative. It consists more properly, of two 
conflicting affirmatives: I have therefore drawn out the heads, under 
which the speakers are to be arranged thus:

  _Internal Suggestions_.      _Bias of Jurisprudence_.

Then put yourself Internal Suggestions--Mr. McDermot the other side, 
Mr. Craig on your side--Mr. Pentigall the other side," and so on.

McDermot and Longworth now determined that they would not be seen by 
any other member of the society during the succeeding week, except at 
times when explanations could not be asked, or when they were too 
busy to give them. Consequently, the week passed away, without any 
explanations; and the members were summoned to dispose of the 
important subject, with no other lights upon it than those which they 
could collect from its terms. When they assembled, there was manifest 
alarm on the countenances of all but two of them.

The Society was opened in due form, and Mr. Longworth was called on 
to open the debate. He rose and proceeded as follows:

"_Mr. President_--The subject selected for this day's discussion, is 
one of vast importance, pervading the profound depths of psychology, 
and embracing within its comprehensive range, all that is interesting 
in morals, government, law and politics. But, sir, I shall not follow 
it through all its interesting and diversified ramifications; but 
endeavor to deduce from it those great and fundamental principles, 
which have direct bearing, upon the antagonist positions of the 
disputants; confining myself more immediately to its psychological 
influence when exerted, especially upon the _votes of faction_: for 
here is the point upon which the question mainly turns. In the next 
place, I shall consider the effects of those 'suggestions' 
emphatically termed '_internal_' when applied to the same subject. 
And in the third place, I shall compare these effects, with 'the bias 
of jurisprudence,' considered as the only resort in times of popular 
excitement--for these are supposed to exist by the very terms of the 
question.

"The first head of this arrangement, and indeed the whole subject of 
dispute, has already been disposed of by this society. We have 
discussed the question, 'are there any innate maxims?' and with that 
subject and this, there is such an intimate affinity, that it is 
impossible to disunite them, without prostrating the vital energies 
of both, and introducing the wildest disorder and confusion, where, 
by the very nature of things, there exist the most harmonious 
coincidences, and the most happy and euphonic congenialities. Here 
then might I rest, Mr. President, upon the decision of this society, 
with perfect confidence. But, sir, I am not forced to rely upon the 
inseparable affinities of the two questions, for success in this 
dispute, obvious as they must be to every reflecting mind. All 
history, ancient and modern, furnish examples corroborative of the 
views which I have taken of this deeply interesting subject. By what 
means did the renowned poets, philosophers, orators and statesmen of 
{291} antiquity, gain their immortality? Whence did Milton, 
Shakspeare, Newton, Locke, Watts, Paley, Burke, Chatham, Pitt, Fox, 
and a host of others whom I might name, pluck their never-fading 
laurels? I answer boldly, and without the fear of contradiction, 
that, though they all reached the temple of fame by different routes, 
they all passed through the broad vista of '_internal suggestions_.' 
The same may be said of Jefferson, Madison, and many other 
distinguished personages of our own country.

"I challenge the gentlemen on the other side to produce examples like 
these in support of their cause."

Mr. Longworth pressed these profound and logical views to a length to 
which our limits will not permit us to follow him, and which the 
reader's patience would hardly bear, if they would. Perhaps, however, 
he will bear with us, while we give the conclusion of Mr. Longworth's 
remarks: as it was here, that he put forth all his strength:

"_Mr. President_,--Let the bias of jurisprudence predominate, and how 
is it possible, (considering it merely as extending to those impulses 
which may with propriety be termed a _bias_,) how is it possible, for 
a government to exist, whose object is the public good? The marble 
hearted marauder might seize the throne of civil authority, and hurl 
into thraldom the votaries of rational liberty. Virtue, justice and 
all the nobler principles of human nature, would wither away under 
the pestilential breath of political faction, and an unnerved 
constitution be left to the sport of demagogue and parasite. Crash 
after crash would be heard in quick succession, as the strong pillars 
of the republic give way, and Despotism would shout in hellish 
triumph amidst the crumbling ruins--Anarchy would wave her bloody 
sceptre over the devoted land, and the blood-hounds of civil war, 
would lap the crimson gore of our most worthy citizens. The shrieks 
of women, and the screams of children, would be drowned amidst the 
clash of swords, and the cannon's peal: and Liberty, mantling her 
face from the horrid scene, would spread her golden-tinted pinions, 
and wing her flight to some far distant land, never again to re-visit 
our peaceful shores. In vain should we then sigh for the beatific 
reign of those 'suggestions' which I am proud to acknowledge as 
peculiarly and exclusively 'internal.'"

Mr. McDermot rose promptly at the call of the President, and 
proceeded as follows:

"_Mr. President_,--If I listened unmoved to the very labored appeal 
to the passions, which has just been made, it was not because I am 
insensible to the powers of eloquence; but because I happen to be 
blessed with the small measure of sense, which is necessary to 
distinguish true eloquence from the wild ravings of an unbridled 
imagination. Grave and solemn appeals, when ill-timed and misplaced, 
are apt to excite ridicule; hence it was, that I detected myself more 
than once, in open laughter, during the most pathetic parts of Mr. 
Longworth's argument, if so it can be called.[1] In the midst of 
'crashing pillars,' 'crumbling ruins,' 'shouting despotism,' 
'screaming women,' and 'flying Liberty,' the question was perpetually 
recurring to me, 'what has all this to do with the subject of 
dispute?' I will not follow the example of that gentleman--It shall 
be my endeavor to clear away the mist which he has thrown around the 
subject, and to place it before the society, in a clear, intelligible 
point of view: for I must say, that though his speech '_bears strong 
marks of the pen_,' (sarcastically,) it has but few marks of sober 
reflection. Some of it, I confess, is very intelligible and very 
plausible; but most of it, I boldly assert, no man living can 
comprehend. I mention this, for the edification of that gentleman, 
(who is usually clear and forcible,) to teach him, that he is most 
successful when he labors least.

[Footnote 1: This was extemporaneous, and well conceived; for Mr. 
McDermot had not played his part with becoming gravity.]

"Mr. President: The gentleman, in opening the debate, stated that the 
question was one of vast importance; pervading the profound depths of 
_psychology_, and embracing, within its ample range, the whole circle 
of arts and sciences. And really, sir, he has verified his statement; 
for he has extended it over the whole moral and physical world. But, 
Mr. President, I take leave to differ from the gentleman, at the very 
threshhold of his remarks. The subject is one which is confined 
within very narrow limits. It extends no further than to the elective 
franchise, and is not even commensurate with this important 
privilege; for it stops short at the _vote of faction_. In this point 
of light, the subject comes within the grasp of the most common 
intellect; it is plain, simple, natural and intelligible. Thus 
viewing it, Mr. President, where does the gentleman find in it, or in 
all nature besides, the original of the dismal picture which he has 
presented to the society? It loses all its interest, and becomes 
supremely ridiculous. Having thus, Mr. President, divested the 
subject of all obscurity--having reduced it to those few elements, 
with which we are all familiar; I proceed to make a few deductions 
from the premises, which seem to me inevitable, and decisive of the 
question. I lay it down as a self-evident proposition, that faction 
in all its forms, is hideous; and I maintain, with equal confidence, 
that it never has been, nor ever will be, restrained by those 
suggestions, which the gentleman '_emphatically terms internal_.' No, 
sir, nothing short of the bias, and the very strong bias too, of 
jurisprudence or the potent energies of the sword, can restrain it. 
But, sir, I shall here, perhaps, be asked, whether there is not a 
very wide difference between a turbulent, lawless faction, and the 
_vote_ of faction? Most unquestionably there is; and to this 
distinction I shall presently advert and demonstrably prove that it 
is a distinction, which makes altogether in our favor."

Thus did Mr. McDermot continue to dissect and expose his adversary's 
argument, in the most clear, conclusive and masterly manner, at 
considerable length. But we cannot deal more favorably by him, than 
we have dealt by Mr. Longworth. We must, therefore, dismiss him, 
after we shall have given the reader his concluding remarks. They 
were as follows:

"Let us now suppose Mr. Longworth's principles brought to the test of 
experiment. Let us suppose his language addressed to all mankind--We 
close the temples of justice as useless; we burn our codes of laws as 
worthless; and we substitute in their places, the more valuable 
restraints of _internal suggestions_. Thieves, invade not your 
neighbor's property: if you do, you will be arraigned before the 
august tribunal of _conscience_. Robbers, stay your lawless hand; or 
you will be visited with the tremendous penalties of _psychology_. 
Murderers, spare the blood of your fellow creatures; you will be 
exposed to the excruciating tortures of _innate maxims_--_when it 
shall be discovered that there are any_. Mr. President, could there 
be a broader license to crime than this? Could a better plan be 
devised for dissolving the bands of civil society? It requires not 
the gift of prophecy, to foresee the consequences of these novel and 
monstrous principles. The strong would tyrannize over the weak; the 
poor would plunder the rich; the servant would rise above the master; 
the drones of society would fatten upon the hard earnings of the 
industrious. Indeed, sir, industry would soon desert the land; for it 
would have neither reward nor encouragement. Commerce would cease; 
the arts and sciences would languish; all the sacred relations would 
be dissolved, and scenes of havoc, dissolution and death ensue, such 
as never before visited the world, and such as never will visit it, 
until mankind learn to repose their destinies upon 'those 
suggestions, _emphatically termed internal_.' From all these evils 
there is a secure retreat behind the brazen wall of the 'bias of 
jurisprudence.'"

The gentleman who was next called on to engage in the debate, was 
John Craig; a gentleman of good hard sense, but who was utterly 
incompetent to say a word upon a subject which he did not understand. 
He proceeded thus:

"_Mr. President_,--When this subject was proposed, I candidly 
confessed I did not understand it, and I was informed by Mr. 
Longworth and Mr. McDermot, that either of them would explain it, at 
any leisure moment. But, sir, they seem to have taken very good care, 
from that time to this, to have no leisure moment. I have inquired of 
both of them, repeatedly for an explanation; but they were always too 
busy to talk about it. Well, sir, as it was proposed by Mr. 
Longworth, I thought he would certainly explain it in his speech; but 
I understood no more of his speech than I did of the subject. Well, 
sir, I thought I should certainly learn something from Mr. McDermot; 
especially as he promised at the commencement of his speech to clear 
away the mist that Mr. Longworth had thrown about the subject, and to 
place it in a clear, intelligible point of light. But, sir, the only 
difference between his speech and Mr. Longworth's is, that it was not 
quite as flighty as Mr. Longworth's. I could n't understand head nor 
tail of it. At one time they seemed to argue the question, as if it 
were this: 'Is it better to have law or no law?' At another, as 
though it was, 'should factions be governed by law, or be left to 
their own consciences?' But most of the time they argued it, as if it 
were just what it seems to be--a sentence without sense or meaning. 
But, sir, I suppose its {292} obscurity is owing to my dullness of 
apprehension, for they appeared to argue it with great earnestness 
and feeling, as if they understood it.

"I shall put my interpretation upon it, Mr. President, and argue it 
accordingly.

"'_Whether at public elections_'--that is, for members of Congress, 
members of the Legislature, &c. '_should the votes of faction_'--I 
don't know what 'faction' has got to do with it; and therefore I 
shall throw it out. '_Should the votes predominate, by internal 
suggestions or the bias_,' I don't know what the _article_ is put in 
here for. It seems to me, it ought to be, _be biased by_ 
'jurisprudence' or law. In short, Mr. President, I understand the 
question to be, should a man vote as he pleases, or should the law 
say how he should vote?"

Here Mr. Longworth rose and observed, that though Mr. Craig was on 
his side, he felt it due to their adversaries, to state, that this 
was not a true exposition of the subject. This exposition settled the 
question at once on his side; for nobody would, for a moment contend, 
that _the law_ should declare how men should vote. Unless it be 
confined to the vote _of faction_ and _the_ bias of jurisprudence, it 
was no subject at all. To all this Mr. McDermot signified his 
unqualified approbation; and seemed pleased with the candor of his 
opponent.

"Well," said Mr. Craig, "I thought it was impossible that any one 
should propose such a question as that to the society; but will Mr. 
Longworth tell us, if it does not mean that, what does it mean? for I 
don't see what great change is made in it by his explanation."

Mr. Longworth replied, that if the remarks which he had just made, 
and his argument, had not fully explained the subject to Mr. Craig, 
he feared it would be out of his power to explain it.

"Then," said Mr. Craig, "I'll pay my fine, for I don't understand a 
word of it."

The next one summoned to the debate was Mr. Pentigall. Mr. Pentigall 
was one of those who would never acknowledge his ignorance of any 
thing, which any person else understood; and that Longworth and 
McDermot were both masters of the subject, was clear, both from their 
fluency and seriousness. He therefore determined to understand it, at 
all hazards. Consequently he rose at the President's command, with 
considerable self-confidence. I regret, however, that it is 
impossible to commit Mr. Pentigall's _manner_ to paper, without 
which, his remarks lose nearly all their interest. He was a tall, 
handsome man; a little theatric in his manner, rapid in his delivery, 
and singular in his pronunciation. He gave to the _e_ and _i_, of our 
language, the sound of _u_--at least his peculiar intonations of 
voice, seemed to give them that sound; and his rapidity of utterance 
seemed to change the termination, "_tion_" into "_ah_." With all his 
peculiarities, however, he was a fine fellow. If he was ambitious, he 
was not invidious, and he possessed an amicable disposition. He 
proceeded as follows:

"_Mr. President_,--This internal suggestion which has been so 
eloquently discussed by Mr. Longworth, and the bias of jurisprudence 
which has been so ably advocated by Mr. McDermot--hem! Mr. President, 
in order to fix the line of demarkation between--ah--the internal 
suggestion and the bias of jurisprudence--Mr. President, I think, 
sir, that--ah--the subject must be confined to the _vote of faction_, 
and _the_ bias of jurisprudence"----

Here Mr. Pentigall clapt his right hand to his forehead, as though he 
had that moment heard some overpowering news; and after maintaining 
this position for about the space of ten seconds, he slowly withdrew 
his hand, gave his head a slight inclination to the right, raised his 
eyes to the President as if just awakening from a trance, and with a 
voice of the most hopeless despair, concluded with "I don't 
understand the subject, Muster Prusidunt."

The rest of the members on both sides submitted to be fined rather 
than attempt the knotty subject; but by common consent, the penal 
rule was dispensed with. Nothing now remained to close the exercises, 
but the decision of the Chair.

The President, John Nuble, was a young man, not unlike Craig in his 
turn of mind; though he possessed an intellect a little more 
sprightly than Craig's. His decision was short.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I do not understand the subject. This," 
continued he, (pulling out his knife, and pointing to the silvered or 
_cross_ side of it,) "is 'Internal Suggestions.' And this" (pointing 
to the other, or _pile_ side,) "is 'Bias of Jurisprudence:'" so 
saying, he threw up his knife, and upon its fall, determined that 
'Internal Suggestions' had got it; and ordered the decision to be 
registered accordingly.

It is worthy of note, that in their zeal to accomplish their purpose, 
Longworth and McDermot forgot to destroy the lists of subjects, from 
which they had selected the one so often mentioned; and one of these 
lists containing the subject discussed, with a number more like it, 
was picked up by Mr. Craig, who made a public exhibition of it, 
threatening to arraign the conspirators before the society, for a 
contempt. But, as the parting hour was at hand, he overlooked it with 
the rest of the brotherhood, and often laughed heartily at the trick.


"_The Militia Company Drill_," is not by the author of the other 
pieces but has a strong family resemblance, and is very well 
executed. Among the innumerable descriptions of Militia musters which 
are so rife in the land, we have met with nothing at all equal to 
this in the matter of broad farce.

"_The Turf_" is also capital, and bears with it a kind of dry and 
sarcastic morality which will recommend it to many readers.

"_An Interesting Interview_" is another specimen of exquisite 
dramatic talent. It consists of nothing more than a fac-simile of the 
speech, actions, and _thoughts_ of two drunken old men--but its air 
of truth is perfectly inimitable.

"_The Fox-Hunt_," "_The Wax Works_," and "_A Sage Conversation_," are 
all good--but neither _as_ good as many other articles in the book.

"_The Shooting Match_," which concludes the volume, may rank with the 
best of the Tales which precede it. As a portraiture of the manners 
of our South-Western peasantry, in especial, it is perhaps better 
than any.

Altogether this very humorous, and very clever book forms an æra in 
our reading. It has reached us per mail, and without a cover. We will 
have it bound forthwith, and give it a niche in our library as a sure 
omen of better days for the literature of the South.


THE TEA PARTY.

_Traits of the Tea Party: Published by Harper & Brothers._

This is a neat little duodecimo of 265 pages, including an Appendix, 
and is full of rich interest over and above what the subject of the 
volume is capable of exciting. In Boston it is very natural that the 
veteran Hewes should be regarded with the highest sentiments of 
veneration and affection. He is too intimately and conspicuously 
connected with that city's chivalric records not to be esteemed a 
hero--and such indeed he is--a veritable hero. Of the Tea Party he is 
the oldest--but _not_ the only survivor. From the book before us we 
learn the names of nine others, still living, who bore a part in the 
drama. They are as follows--Henry Purkitt, Peter Slater, Isaac 
Simpson, Jonathan Hunnewell, John Hooton, William Pierce, ---- 
Mcintosh, Samuel Sprague, and John Prince.

Reminiscences such as the present cannot be too frequently laid 
before the public. _More than any thing else_ do they illustrate that 
which can be properly called the History of our Revolution--and in so 
doing how vastly important do they appear to the entire cause of 
civil liberty? As the worthies of those great days are sinking, one 
by one, from among us, the value of what is known about them, and 
especially of what may be known through their memories, is increasing 
in a rapidly augmenting ratio. Let us treasure up while we may, the 
recollections which are so valuable now, and which will be more than 
invaluable hereafter.




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