D. W.,) 561; Sentiment, 574; To Miss Porter, Hon. Benjamin F., sketch of, 447. R Republic, The, (H. W. Warner,) No. I., 399. 401; fundamental principles unprogressive, No. II.-General Aspect of the Govern- Rhetoric, The Principles of, Hon. B. F. Porter, 597. 1 S. Sartor Resartus, review, (J. H. Barrett,) 121. Shadow, The, verse, (H. W. P.,) 487. 530. Sonnets, 207, 312, 596. Sonnet to a Bas-Bleu, 367. an attitude of hostility towards the North, Southern Caucus, Remarks on the Resolutions T. Three Stages of the French Revolution, (J. 99. Το -, with a Hyacinth, 587. V. W. its control as compared with some other Wanderer, The: A Tale, (G. W. Peck,) 89. forms, 227; wisely committed to the State sovereiguties, 227; the North unjustly charg- ed with despotic encroachments upon the South, ib.; folly of the Caucus in assuming Zephyr's Fancy, 588. Z. AMERICAN No. XIII. REVIEW, FOR JANUARY, 1849. INTRODUCTORY TO THE YEAR 1849. WITH the present number begins the second volume of the Second Series of the Whig Review," as its friends, and the public generally, have been pleased to call it; though, for their part, its conductors prefer to name it "American," as their whole effort has been to make it so; intending that it shall be, if possible, a true and lively representation of the morals, manners, and polity of this new Empire of the West. Casting a rapid glance over the pages of our last two volumes, we find a series of articles, not only touching, but examining and discussing, upon grounds strictly constitutional, almost every leading question in the range of our politics; forming a connected series of political essays, called out, indeed, by the occasion, but composed not without regard to the future. The origin, conduct, and spirit of the war, the Policy of the Administration, the principles and measures of the Whig Opposition, and the reasons which controlled their movements in the Convention and at the late election, have been elaborately argued and set forth; under the guidance of what was once known as a Democratic, but now as a Whig, construction of the Constitution. Accompanying these essays is a series of authentic biographies of living statesmen, which serve to show, that power and honor in this country are attained by genius and native force, and never, directly, through the accidental advantages of wealth and family. These biographies seem also to be a sufficient proof, that the only inheritance of consideration, to which an American statesman can lay claim with credit to himself, is the inheritance of a good name, and of a temper able to contend with, and to overcome, adversity. In these two departments, of political essay and biography, the conductors of the Review have fulfilled their promise to its patrons, as to quantity and variety of matter; with what success, is left to their kind judgments to determine. Upon a very considerable part, they may, perhaps, be allowed to say, the public have passed a favorable and unequivocal judgment. The conduct of the literary department of the Review, presented difficulties not easy to be overcome, and which the conductors do not flatter themselves have been yet overcome, or will be, until a change takes place in public opinion in regard to the comparative merits of foreign and American intellects. A very considerable class of persons in this country seem to labor under a deep conviction of the native inferiority of the American understanding. They have the same opinion of our own, that the German people have of English genius. "The English," said Goethe, the greatest of the Germans, "never think." But if they do not think, they speculate, and their speculations on political economy, and other topics, serve many of ourselves instead of thoughts. Now with all deference to the very respectable and, since their late translations from the Germans, quite learned modern English mind, and with all due respect to their political skill, shown under the trials of a revolutionary and famishing: age, let us for a moment compare, the position of the English thinker, artist, scholar and politician with their brothers on this side the water, and if we find in it any singular facility or advantage, then let us concede it them; but by no means give up the point of native intelligence; for in courage, ardor, endurance and originality of design, we hold our own good minds to be equal to the best of these days. laws of Moses and the Songs of David, to the pictures of Angelo the friend of Savonarola, have been produced under influences conducive to, and establishing, liberty. Great artists, orators and poets, address themselves not to princes and priests, but to the people. Their works have the air not of a eulogy or a dedication, but of a national song of triumph. In comparing our condition with that of England, we seem therefore, by the analogy of history, to discover a difference in favor of our own. That liberty should favor arts and letters, seems to be not wonderful, or accidental, but in the plain course of nature; since the prosecution of a liberal art requires the same steady, and almost scornful, reliance upon native force, and the same familiarity with the first principles and facts of nature, that is seen in the lawgiver and the soldier of freedom. Nor are those imitative and subordinate epochs of art and letters, without a tincture of liberality. German literature drew its inspiration from the freest intelligence of England and Greece. Latin letters, always imitative, grew out of the Republican Greek; Boileau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and their compeers, strove to reproduce the literature of Rome. Look where we may, liberty and art are sisters, and the most perfect liberty has given posterity the most beautiful monuments of its power. As it giving their due honor to the works of former ages, it is almost infinitely difficult for the imagination to separate what is excellent in them, from what is merely antiquated and conventional; and this difficulty increased to a degree that becomes infinite, by the early prejudice and bias of country, which creates in us, towards the religious ceremonies, the laws and the manners of our ancestors, an affectionate and erring veneration, necessary, indeed, but still tinctured with a false enthusiasm; it has happened that great epochs of advancement in the arts, either of language or design, have come about either at the birth of liberty and self-reliance, in a people; when they began to throw off old prejudices, and think less of their past, and give the rein to hope and exultation; or when, turning away from the models of their own history, they fixed a gaze of emulation on the arts and genius of some other race. Arts began to flourish in Athens after the battle of Marathon; the most admirable poems of the Hebrews were composed when they had thrown off the yoke of Egypt, Sidon, and the Empire; eloquence arrived at its height in England after the expulsion of the Stewarts; and in France and America, since the wars of their revolutions. The literature of Germany sprang into sudden and vigorous life during the prevalence of revolutionary principles, from the day of Voltaire to the death of Goethe: with the aristocratic re-action it sunk again and disappeared. Even the greatest epoch of Eng-cerity, can produce. Fearless in spirit, inlish letters, called the Elizabethan, or Shaksperian, epoch, was during the rise of puritanical liberty; and the age succeeding it, that of Milton, Butler, and Cowley, was an age of Republicanism. Universally, the greatest models of human art, from the Standing, therefore, as we do, aloof from the old world, and now, by our example, dictating constitutions to the people of Europe; in eloquence, the greatest of the arts, without a rival; with a government almost planetary in its power and simplicity, controlling an empire as easily as it does a village ;-a government not built on theory, but wrought out of the practical instincts of freedom; it would show but little faith in the laws of nature, and the course of Providence, were we to deny ourselves the hope of a glorious career in art, in science, in letters, and in all that human genius, guided by liberty and sin ventive, and thoughtful, we need only to recognize our powers and to use them. The true thinker, and the artist, have but two patrons, God and the People: their appeal is from the one, and to the other. In answer to the somewhat tedious in |