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lic opinion than the press, and cannot that be bought by money? Is not public clamor ever ready at the call of those who invite it? When the ghost is thus called up, is it not too often taken for the reality-the voice of the people? The popular leaders of parties, while holding important trust, are thus rendered as irresponsible as their parties themselves. From the tyranny of that power, thus placed in the hands. of powerful party leaders, there is neither escape, redress nor solace. The sufferer is the victim of the people; and when the property of the minority is grudged by the majority, where will it seek protection? In the doctrine of instruction? Intrust the lamb to the keeping of the wolf?

The bank of the United States, said a distinguished candidate for the Presidency, is constitutional, if a majority of the people wishes it. The tariff for protection, says Mr. Webster, is against the spirit of the constitution, unjust and unprofitable to the nation; but, as it is now supposed to be for the interest of Massachusetts, I support it against all comers and goers, for it is the will of my people, and immediately, as quick as one of the metamorphoses of Ovid, he is changed, and his statistics become as loose and as unsafe as his principles. Mr. Everett was one of the most distinguished and active defenders of free trade, and exposed the delusion of the protective system, but, alas! his "regards" were soon "turned to the North, East and West--we must go with the sun," for that changes men as well as days. "Yes, yes," says Mr. Andrew Stewart, of Pennsylvania, "the West is young and growing, the South is declining and stationary; take, pray, take the money for your internal improvements, it will furnish us an apology for a high tariff; taxing is a blessing to the country." Such was Mr. Stewart's language at Washington. Had he been at Harrisburgh and not at Washington, how chary he and all other Pennsylvania politicians, would have felt, at the idea of thus "blessing" the "Key Stone" State, though it had been only to the extent of paying her honest debts! At least, the R. v. Sidney Smith died under that impression. To such men, we confess, we prefer the high character of the genuine representative, as drawn by Mr. Burke. He should not only be the man in whom the public can place their faith, but the man who can place his faith in the public. As Major Dalgetty used to say, at Mareschall College, Aberdeen, fides et fiducia sunt relativa. He should be the leader of opinions and VOL. XII.-No. 24.

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not the follower; the light and not the lantern that carries the light; the object and not the shadow; the voice and not the echo; the man, the freeman, and not the slave; not that dirty fellow who would make Swift's proverb the guide of his life--"the more dirt the less hurt." We would have him, as Judge Brackenridge expresses it [Modern Chivalry,] "We would have him form his heart to a republican government or to that democracy which has its strength in strict integrity; in perfect delicacy, in elevation and dignity of mind. Not that which is rude in manners and coarse in mind. These are characteristics of slaves in a despotism; not of democrats in a republic. Democracy embraces the idea of standing on virtue alone, unaided by wealth or the power of family. The democrat is the true chevalier, who, though he wears not crosses, or the emblazoned arms of heraldry, yet is ready to do right and justice to every one. All others are imposters, and do not belong to the order of democracy. Many are no doubt false brethren; but shall the democrat complain of usurpations; of undue influence or oppression and tyranny from ambitious persons; and not be jealous, at the same time, of democratic tyranny in himself, which is the more pernicious, as it brings a slur upon the purest principles. In the American republics we yet retain a great deal of the spirit of monarchy. The people. are not aware of the phraseology itself, in some instances. When an individual solicits a vote, his language is, that he will serve the people. They take him at his word, and when he is sent to a public body, he is called their servant. He will go farther himself, and will talk of the majesty of the people. No disgrace is supposed to attach itself to the soliciting of votes, any more than petitioning the monarch for a place. This is not in the spirit of a republic. It is contrary to the nature of it; it is subversive of it. But I would begin at the foundation, by inculcating the folly of coveting a public appointment. The private interest of a man is better cultivated by staying at home. The first lesson I would give to a son of mine, would be to have nothing to do with public business, but as a duty he owes to his country. To consider service in civil life, no more to be desired than service in the military. In this last, there is danger of rheumatism and ague; or of a wound, or of death in battle; but in civil trusts, there is danger of obloquy and disrespect. But an individual that accepts a trust is no

servant. He is an agent, a delegate, a commissioner. Nor is a house of representatives the people. Nor can majesty be predicated of them. It is a monarchical phrase, and I would not apply it, even to the people themselves."

These are very different sort of democrats from those who place legislation on bank charters, anti-rentism, and plankroads, on an equal footing with the great principles of human liberty; who elect their highest judges with as little. consideration as their constables, and who would look upon any military chieftain as "the actual representation and embodiment of the spirit of the American nation;" people, such as Justin describes as existing in earlier times; qui nullis legibus tenebantur: arbitria principum pro legibus erant.

On the subject of instructions, we cannot too earnestly recommend Dr. Lieber's work. It has many arguments and illustrations, which our space will not allow us to embrace in this notice, which are well worthy of the attention. of the people as well as the statesman. On this subject, as well as every part of his book which peculiarly relates to our institutions, while the Doctor exhibits the most thorough American feeling, he, at the same time, shows a comprehensiveness and accuracy of detail, and clearness of perception, which is extraordinary in one not a native of the country; and is only to be instanced in the case of Mr. Gallatin. The book in our colleges will lay the foundation, in the minds of our youth, of true and valuable principles, which, if they will only follow in after life, we can assure them they will not fail to be the better men and the more valuable citizens.

We had much more to say on other subjects well handled by the Doctor, and worthy of popular attention, but our limits prohibit it at this time. We allude to his observations on parties, factions, coteries, spoils and plunder parties, log-rolling, caucuses, public meetings, stump-speaking, politicians by trade, the press, hero-worship, &c., &c.

The Doctor's work was published some years before that of Lord Brougham or of Mr. Whewell's Elements of Morality. On the points we have discussed, and most others in general principles, they coincide with Dr. Lieber. We think, in some instances, it would have shown more generosity on the part of Dr. Whewell, if he had cited Dr. Lieber. The Doctor uses, in the consideration of several first principles, the word "jural." We had never seen that word

before, and seeing it used in Dr. Whewell's work, in various places, where similar principles are discussed and expressed, it was evident to us that Dr. Whewell had carefully read and digested our American author, and we think it would have been but decent that he should have mentioned that such an author existed. D. J. M.

ART. VIII.-CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. The Orators of France. By TIMON, (Viscount de Cormenin.) Translated by a Member of the New-York Bar; from the 14th Paris edition, with an Essay on the rise of French revolutionary Eloquence, and the Orators of the Girondists, by J. T. HEADLEY. Edited by G. H. COLTON, with notes and biographical addenda. New-York: Baker & Scribner. 1847.

If one reads the title page of this book by the light of the proverb touching "a multitude of counsellors," he will expect any amount of wisdom; if, on the contrary, he happens to recall the equally respec-table maxim setting forth the peril of too many cooks, he will be apt to suspect they have made a mess of it. Here are, author, translator, editor, prolegomenizer and publisher, called into requisition to get one small book before the public. To be sure it takes more men than that to make a pin,-or did, before an ingenious Yankee contrived a machine to finish them at a wink, and so badly, that only one in two has a head, and not one in ten a point. But the question is not of pins, and the labors of the brain allow no such sub-division as the works of the hand.

Of the publishers of the "Orators of France," there is nothing to be said, either in praise or blame. Of the editor, not much. In two preliminary pages, he bows into public notice the translator, who is anonymous, and the prolegomenizer, Mr. J. T. Headley, who, so far at least as his own consent is concerned, is anything but nameless. Beyond this, by way of tail-piece, the editor has tacked to the vol ume about 50 pages of meagre biographical notices, the purpose of which, if it were not merely to swell the book to a given thickness, no mortal can divine. If the sketches had been confined to living men, whose lives have not yet been written, we could have thanked the editor. But three-fourths of his fifty pages are given to Mira

beau and Danton, of whom history is full, and whose lives, after the copious treatment of Thiers, Walter Scott, Carlyle, and a hundred other eloquent narrators, stood in not the smallest need of the eluci dation of a New York editor. All men, and, to speak in round numbers, all children too, are quite familiar enough with the career of these two great leaders of the French Revolution, to enter fully into the spirit of Timon's vivid sketches, without a dry skeleton of biography hung up before them, and the bones numbered for reference. There is no justification whatever, for any man who writes a life of Mirabeau in 14 pages, unless he is making a biographical dictionary, or first lessons in history for infants. It would appear as if he thought he was writing-to use Mirabeau's language,-for "a set of savages come stark naked from the banks of the Oronoko," who knew not Danton, and had never heard of the "reign of terror;"-to whom every thing must be explained, and who could not be trusted a moment out of sight. And after lumbering the book with crude sketches of men known to all the world, he has passed by nearly all those whose history would have offered the attraction of novelty,-whose public career dates since the fall of Napoleon.

The translator has done his part well. His introductory remarks are judicious and interesting, and his copy has, for the most part, the easy flow, the force and the life of an original. He is a little too fast, however, in saying that he has always, in every instance, written English, and that he has always given perfect expression to the author's thought. But the blemishes are inconsiderable, and his work may without difficulty be praised as one of the few really good and faithful prose translations in the English language. Indeed, Timon himself sometimes says things which can by no ingenuity be translated into sense in any language; as, where, in his sketch of O'Connel, he speaks of " Demosthenes pleading his own cause in the oligarchical forum of Athens." If this was written for any other purpose than to make people stare, it is without doubt one of the absurdest comments on history ever made by an enlightened man. "The oligarchical forum of Athens,"-where every citizen of Attica had the right not only to be present, but to speak, and to vote on the passage of every law, the settlement of every question of state policy, domestic or foreign, and the conduct in office of every important public functionary. Certainly, of all states of which we have any record, both in the fundamental articles of her constitution, and in the position of personal independence and actual power, which the individual citizens, as such, enjoyed, Athens was the purest democracy that ever submitted to the control of laws.

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