should have chosen for creating or retaining power. It is too gross in its sentiments, and too fierce in its passions, and too variable in their degree, to be congenial with elevated or refined feeling. In a free country it is the arena of rival factions, not the council board of the nation. Men go there with their minds already made up, and not open to conviction, or within the reach of reason. Ambition enters there upon its struggles, and all are too strongly excited by their own selfish objects, to be reached by the broader views but less alluring demonstrations of philosophical thought. With the aspiring, the great aim is to touch the chords of national feeling, to respond to its vibrations, to discover and make use of the excitements of the moment, and to be ever in front of the desires and ever ready to express the tendencies of the popular will. Philosophy has no seat assigned to her. She does not meet the fickle feeling of the hour, or endeavour to show a false sympathy with the whims and fancies which rise and sink with the passions and fashions of the moment. To represent her then, as Mr. Burke did, and not the passions or interests of men, and never to be directed by personal ambition, was to remove himself from the means of gaining political authority; and thence all the exhibitions of his genius, put forward with an eloquence altogether unequalled, were regarded with astonishment, but fell on the ears of a cold audience, and echoed from the walls of the house of commons, as the voice rolls through the forsaken chambers of a ruin. If we endeavour to find a cause for this, the only one which seems satisfactory is that he was beyond his audience. It was not that he did not go into detail, that he did not display clearly all the parts and bearings of a subject; for he did this with as much fidelity or ability as any of his contemporaries, but that his sentiments were too refined, his eloquence too elevated, his thoughts too philosophical, to be attained by the grosser perceptions and lower habits of thought that entered into the intellectual formation of his listeners. As a body, the house of commons possesses but little variety of talent. There are generally a few men of great ability, who take the lead, and do all the business; but, beyond these, the undulations of mind seldom vary from mediocrity. There are few badly educated, and few highly cultivated; and, in such a number, the beauties or the grandeur of eloquence could not for an instant be appreciated. The entrance to the heart, or the power which could awaken the souls of such men, must take the direction of self-interest. The noblest evidences of reason, the grandest bursts of passion, the most polished and most dignified declamation, would not awaken an echo of applause; and the appeals of Chatham, Burke, and Fox, before the American war, the ghastly horrors that were pictured of the slave

trade, and all the transactions of barbarity committed in the East Indies through the connivance and under the authority of Englishmen, set before them with a pathos such as no nation ever before witnessed, drew no expression of indignation, nor altered a single vote of a single court minion or hireling of ministerial corruption. How could Burke or any one act on such materials, which no heart could stir, no soul of fire quicken into passion, no appeal, no eloquence, move from the listlessness of their leaden sensibility? It never will be the case that a popular body is the best position for the development of the finest powers of the finest minds. Too much is lost by being carried away by the prevailing interest of the moment; too much by being compelled, for the sake of influence, to adapt themselves to the shifting scenes and incidents that grow from the circumstances of the times, and from the various hopes and designs of men. We mean that a popular body is not the best field for the efforts of extraordinary talent, where the individual is seduced by his ambition to look no farther than that, and to rest upon it all his hopes of fame. Where this is the case, temporary reputation is all that can be looked for. It is, perhaps, to the fact of Burke not gaining or seeking office, and always standing to his principles, and entering into no ambitious struggle for power, that he owes his present eminence, and will owe his future glory. Each day shows the gradually receding fame of his contemporaries, while to his is added greater brilliancy. No one now turns to a speech of Pitt or Fox for specimens of splendid diction, profound reflection, or original thought. They were intended for the day, and are embodied in its history.

With Burke it was far otherwise. He stands forward, beyond all others, not only as the most perfect orator, but as the first mind of his age. His speeches, though produced by the moment, and now no longer interesting, except as great intellectual efforts, and as parts of the history of the man, are remarkable for every thing that can make such efforts efficient or enduring. In extent of information, in knowledge of mankind and the affairs of life, in beauty of language and depth of thought, and in all which can fit man's labours for a lasting fame, they are unrivalled. They will be turned to as models in the same way that we open a page of Cicero, and would have been sufficient to establish and perpetuate his reputation, even if there were no collateral sources of glory. But it is by his literary productions that the world knows him best, and it is these which confer on him the highest title to admiration, as it is in them we see more thoroughly the completeness of his intellect, and the astonishing vigour with which he grasped every subject.

We must here close our remarks, though it was our intention

to bring the subject home to ourselves, and attempt to show what chances we have of being distinguished for oratory, and whether our institutions are favourable or not for that object. We may recur to this on a future occasion.

ART. III.-Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord, par MICHEL CHEVALIER, avec une carte des Etats-Unis d'Amérique.

Paris: 1836.

Letters upon North America, by MICHAEL CHEVALIER, with a map of the United States.

It is worthy of remark that the work of De Tocqueville on the United States has been translated into several languages, and circulated through various nations of Europe, whilst in the country of which it speaks it has not been republished, though the admirable version made in England is ready at hand. What is the inference to be drawn from this? Is it that the work is unworthy of our notice as feeble or erroneous? No; for it is undeniably the ablest, most philosophical, and most correct, that has been written upon the subject? Is it that we are heedless as to what is said about us by foreigners? Let this be answered by the editions of your Halls, your Hamiltons, your Trollopes, your Kembles, multiplied ad infinitum and ad nauseam, and penetrating to every corner of the land. Is it that our reading public is too small to authorize publishers to issue many works? Any one whose pursuits bring him into contact with the press, will be perfectly sure that such is not the case, when, before he has read the title-page of one book, his attention is called to another. What then is the cause of the singular circumstance alluded to? It is unfortunately obvious enough to one who considers the character of the productions which alone find favour with the community. The book is literally too good. "He's not too wicked but too just to live." It is too instructive, too well fitted to make the reader think and learn. Were it only calculated to amuse a leisure hour; were it well spiced with slander and misrepresentation, or sugared all over with blarney; did it not contain a single idea by which a really just and profound appreciation of our institutions was evinced, and a beneficial feeling of pride or regret might be awakened, there is scarce a bookseller's window in the land that would not have its advertisement displayed with VOL. XXI.— -NO. 42.

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all the attractions of variegated type and magnificent puffs. So we go. Now is not this a melancholy truth? And are not melancholy consequences to be apprehended from it for the people? "Drink beer, think beer," said a wise man-read trash, think trash, aye, and act trash, say experience and common sense.

For the same reason that "Democracy in America" found no introduction here, are these "Letters on North America," now before us, likely to be known here only in their foreign dress. We wonder, however, that they have not been translated ere this in England, as, with the exception of De Tocqueville's work, they are beyond question the best effusions concerning our country that have appeared. In some respects, indeed, Mr. Chevalier has the advantage of his compatriot. If not so profound and elaborate, he seems to have studied with equal zeal the nature of our institutions, and to have entered as successfully into their spirit and scope, whilst he writes in a more popular style, and often with a fuller knowledge of details, arising from a longer residence and more varied opportunities. He is also a more decided admirer of them-more disposed, from, we suspect, previous republican hankerings, to look upon them and us with a kindly eye. His friendliness is certainly unquestionable, though it does not in general lead him to extenuate any more than to set down in malice. On the whole, we think he has exhibited as much impartiality, and fallen into as few mistakes, either of fact or opinion, as is possible for a stranger whose sojourn is of limited duration; and no one can read his book without deriving a great deal of entertainment and profit, and forming a high idea of its writer's intelligence, knowledge, and dispositions.

Mr. Chevalier arrived in this country at the period when the war against the bank of the United States was raging in all its violence, and several of his first and best letters are devoted to that subject. They manifest a perfect appreciation of the character of the extraordinary contest, showing him to have studied it with the interest it was so well calculated to awaken, and with an adequate comprehension of our banking system in particular, as well as of the general principles involved in the case. He was infinitely surprised, as well he might be, at the spectacle he beheld; and truly remarks, in more than one place, that had such proceedings been witnessed in a monarchical nation of Europe, those who are eager to establish every where a republican form of government, without regard to the condition of the country, or to the wealth and intelligence, the character and customs, of the people, would have seized upon them as a text against the monarchical system. "Unfolding the picture of an unexampled conimercial prosperity all at once arrested by a caprice of power, they would demonstrate that

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such is one of the inevitable consequences of the opposition of a dynastic interest to that of the nation. They would prove, by geometrical syllogisms, how completely it is the essence of monarchy to place authority in unskilful and imprudent hands, which, in order to gratify a feeling of personal vengeance, would not hesitate to endanger the welfare of millions. They would raise an outcry of a 'camarilla,' which, according to them, is one of the distinctive attributes of royalty. Unhappily for this theory, it is belied by what I have now before my eyes in the most flourishing republic that has ever existed."

Qur author had good reason to be convinced that ignorance or contempt of the true interests of the country is not the exclusive appanage of royalty, and that it is not alone in monarchies that a mountebank may be found in the place where a mathematician is required. "The official papers which have emanated from the executive upon the subject of the bank, are, as far as their exhibition of administrative science and knowledge of the springs of public prosperity is concerned, about upon a par with the acts of the Spanish government." As to the camarilla—“ never have I heard aught of the kind so much spoken of as since my arrival in the United States. It is here called the kitchen, and, admitting only the fourth of what the opposition say about it, it is difficult not to believe that the influence of the kitchen cabinet upon public affairs surpasses that of the council of ministers."

We can imagine the sensations of an accomplished foreigner smitten with the love of republican institutions, and embarking for our shores with his imagination inflamed by all he had heard, and read, and fancied, of our miraculous condition of prosperity, order, and freedom, when, on reaching our land, he finds himself in the midst of universal confusion and distress, and learns that all is owing to the willing submission of the enlightened and virtuous people he had so much admired, to the most extraordinary pranks of ignorance and perverseness united which ever astonished a rational mind, or tortured a helpless slave. He learns that, not very long before his arrival, the country was in the situation in which he had pictured it to himself; that every thing then fully justified the boast that the grand problem of self-government was satisfactorily solved; that each citizen, as he contemplated the results which attended the efforts of his enterprise, his industry, and his skill, had ample reason to congratulate himself upon living in a land where no unnatural obstacles obstructed his onward course-where all inspired the utmost buoyancy of hope, all created the fullest. confidence of merited success, all lent the most efficacious assistance to laudable undertakings-where all, in short, whilst it imparted that aspect of independence and erectness to the